September 10, 2021
As the country prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of September 11, David Corn is out with a must-read column on one of the most enduring tragedies of the attacks, one that still haunts US foreign policy and our general engagement with the rest of the world. It's a sobering read, to be sure. But a critical one as the United States considers its role on the international stage, particularly after the "America First" mantra that governed the last White House.
You also don't want to miss Nathalie Baptiste on the strange, almost unbelievable grip that American patriotism had on pop culture in the aftermath of the attacks. (Toby Keith, Lizzy McGuire, 24, yikes!) And be sure to read Tim Murphy's excellent examination of the 2010 ground-zero mosque fight—and how the ugly incident provides essential context for where American politics has landed.
"I’ll always think of the summer of 2010, and the weaponization of a construction project in Manhattan, as a flickering glimpse of things to come—not just the political potency of foaming prejudice against Muslims, but also the readiness with which those pushing the story were accommodated," Murphy writes.
—Inae Oh
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Remember when we were all going to care more about the rest of the world?
BY DAVID CORN
BY DAN SPINELLI
BY DAVID CORN
BY MARÍA PAULA RUBIANO A.
BY LIL KALISH
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Mushroom clouds, duct tape, Judy Miller, Curveball. Recalling how Americans were sold a bogus case for invasion.
BY JONATHAN STEIN AND TIM DICKINSON
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SOME GOOD NEWS, FOR ONCE
It’s Friday. I’m gonna wager that you won’t agree with everything on this list of what’s “gotten better” in the past 20 years. So, go ahead, order a la carte: On today’s menu is a seasonal assortment of purportedly good things crowdsourced by University of Virginia postdoctoral fellow David Walsh, who’d asked casually on Twitter: “What has gotten materially better in America in, say, the last twenty years?”
Answers rang in. So many that Reason magazine editor Elizabeth Nolan Brown compiled top entries, from “HIV care” to “better cannabis quality” to “home entertainment” to “information access.” Also in the winner’s circle: “bicycling infrastructure,” “digital reading experience,” “automobile efficiency and safety,” “acceptance of neurodiversity,” “restaurant food variety and quality [including vegetarian and vegan],” “cameras,” “digital video,” “smoking rates,” “getting dressed,” “hygiene products,” “being a nerd,” and, uh, an inappropriate one.
If you can access each.
As you were.
—Daniel King
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