Tag: family members
The Israel-War Email That College Presidents Should’ve Sent
Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
Two friends, Petra and Rodrigo, are having an argument.
Petra thinks the world is best if people stay in their lane and do their job as best they can, narrowly construed. CEOs should try to maximize profits within the law. Emergency-room doctors should
The Devastating Impact of Elder Financial Abuse
As my father approached his 90s, the daily stack in his mailbox grew—a dozen appeals for donations some days. He was impossibly frugal with himself: frayed canvas shoes and a tattered windbreaker for all seasons. He abhorred wastefulness. He would put down the phone when solicitors called. But the entreaties for money that flooded his mailbox, including many from firefighter, law-enforcement, and veterans’ funds, typically wound up on his desk. Often, generosity eclipsed suspicion, meaning that he sent out a
The Right Response to Threats of Political Violence
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
After the second indictment of Donald Trump, some extremists in the Republican Party have made barely veiled threats of violence against their fellow citizens. People who believe in the American idea should respond with faith in the American constitutional order and open disdain for
The Ripple Effects of Japanese American Reparations
In 1990, the U.S. government began mailing out envelopes, each containing a presidential letter of apology and a $20,000 check from the Treasury, to more than 82,000 Japanese Americans who, during World War II, were robbed of their homes, jobs, and rights, and incarcerated in camps. This effort, which took a decade to complete, remains a rare attempt to make reparations to a group of Americans harmed by force of law. We know how some recipients used their
The U.S. Child-Welfare System Fails Its Children
When I was a teenager in the early 2000s, my parents both died. Like many American children, I had been steeped in stories about orphans for years, but the books I had read and movies I had watched (Jane Eyre, Annie) failed to mirror my experience of parental loss. They also contributed to my mistaken understanding of orphanhood and the makeup of our child-welfare system—misconceptions that many Americans hold today.
For one, I believed that orphanages were
Who Leaves, Who Stays – The Atlantic
When U.S. troops abruptly left Afghanistan after 20 years, the consequences were devastating both for the people who remained and for those who managed to escape. For many women in Afghanistan, their lives changed dramatically in a matter of days. Women and girls who had previously gone to work and to school were suddenly forced entirely out of public life.
Bushra Seddique, a journalist and fellow at The Atlantic, was one of those women. The decision that she, her
The Failed Execution of a Prisoner on Death Row
At Holman Correctional Facility, in Atmore, Alabama, the prisoners have a tradition of beating their doors when guards take a man from the holding area colloquially known as the “death cell” to the execution chamber to be killed. More than 150 men slam their full strength against solid steel, rolling thunder down the halls. It’s a show of solidarity with the condemned man—not because he is presumed innocent or absolved, but because the men of death row are uncommonly aware
Puerto Rico Needs Independence, Not Statehood
In 2017, as summer ends, when news anchors first mention the oncoming Hurricane Irma, the people go to the big-box store or the Econo supermarket just a few minutes from home. They try to stock up, but by the time they arrive, the lines are long and most of the shops are running low. They get what they can: some food, a few gallons of water, a portable gas-powered hot plate in case they lose power. They refill
10 Reader Views on Crime in Their Neighborhoods
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Last week I asked, “How do you perceive crime in your neighborhood? How about homelessness? Disorder? What’s your relationship to these things? How much do you think about them? How, if at all, do they affect where you live or
What Will Happen to Uvalde Now?
Isla Vista, Charleston, San Bernardino, Orlando, Sutherland Springs, Parkland, Thousand Oaks, Virginia Beach, Buffalo: Over the decade since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, scores of American communities have become inextricably linked to mass death. With the killing of 19 children and two of their teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last week, the town of 16,000 near the southern border became yet another of our nation’s landmarks of loss.
History suggests that the attention of