Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

The Supreme Court’s decision decimating the Voting Rights Act threatens to return the country to a pre-1965 America, when white supremacy was the law of the land, and Congress contained no Black members from the South. 

“This has sent us back, in my view, over 60 years.”

— Ari Berman & Pema Levy / “Whites Only: The disaster the justices have unleashed has its roots in one of the darkest periods of our history.” / Mother Jones

There’s too much human
in being human, & not enough
being. All I want. I’m that guy
who thinks the Serenity Prayer’s too long.

— Ace Boggess / “Are You Worried About a Breakdown?”

Much of the hope for the nation’s election integrity this cycle rests on local officials, including Republicans, who have stood up to immense pressure from Trump, and even faced death threats from strangers . . . the lieutenant governor of Utah, Deidre Henderson, who is tasked with running the state’s elections, and has fought a lonely, and boldly public, battle for the rule of law. “It sure looks like they’re trying to take over control of elections to make sure only people they want to vote are voting,” Henderson tells Gellman, about the Administration’s actions. “To me, as an American and a Republican, it’s offensive.”

— David Remnick / “[“Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire to assert federal control over elections.”] / The New Yorker Daily

I had refused to see the darkening clouds,
but now that the rain was here, it soaked everything.

— Okwudili Nebeolisa / “Eventually”

More than 50,000 people are estimated to have died across Europe’s cities during the brutal heat waves that roiled the continent this summer — making this year’s heat the region’s deadliest on record, according to a new analysis.

About two-thirds of the deaths, more than 32,600, are directly attributed to climate change, driven by fossil fuel pollution, according to the findings, published in two peer-reviewed papers in the journal Nature Health.

— Laura Paddison / “‘Worst on record’: Brutal summer heat wave killed more than 50,000 in Europe’s cities” / CNN.com

The river is disappearing.
The edges of the bank washed out.
What use is a mouth if not bent to protest?

— Gray Davidson Carroll / “Trans-substantiation”

The 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States is the kind of milestone that forces the nation to look back and ahead—to consider yesterday and tomorrow. In the current environment where America is trying to make itself great again, there is the obvious question: Great for whom? Sadly, this anniversary pits discernment, critique, and learning past lessons against the frothing full-throated mantra of America First—the idea that the nation has only ever been great, regardless of the generations of people that have suffered enslavement, slaughter, and subjugation in its construction. Given that I am of the first free-born generation of Black people, from my point of view, there has never been a time when America was fully great. We’ve only ever been on the steady march to achieve a more perfect union.

— Kamau Bobb / “How AI Changes the Fundamental Structure of the Classroom—Especially the Segregated Ones” / Literary Hub

What I’m Listening To:

Trouble and me we’re old buddies you see
I’ve stuck by him and he’s a stickin’ by me
Well, goodbye honey, be thankful you’re free
And that you’re not stuck with ol’ trouble and me

— Buck Owens & His Buckaroos / “Trouble and Me”