version

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism

Don’t Listen To The Sanitized Version Of History – Jackie Robinson Was A Radical

In our new book, “Baseball Rebels: The Players, People, and Social Movements That Shook Up the Game and Changed America,” Rob Elias and I profile the many iconoclasts, dissenters and mavericks who defied baseball’s and society’s establishment. But none took as many risks – and had as big an impact – as Jackie Robinson. Though Robinson was a fierce competitor, an outstanding athlete and a deeply religious man, the aspect of his legacy that often gets glossed over is that he was also a radical. The sanitized version of the Jackie Robinson story goes something like this: He was a remarkable athlete who, with his unusual level of self-control, was the perfect person to break baseball’s color line. In the face of jeers and taunts, he was able to put his head down and let his play do the talki...

Latest Version Of Conservatives’ Longtime Strategy To Rally Their Base: Anti-Transgender Bills

7May

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

LGBTQ

Latest Version Of Conservatives’ Longtime Strategy To Rally Their Base: Anti-Transgender Bills

On April 6, 2021, despite Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto, Arkansas became the first state to prohibit physicians from providing gender-affirming medical care like hormone treatments designed to delay puberty in transgender youth. So-called “puberty blockers” are used to delay the physical changes associated with puberty and provide time for transgender young people to consider their options. Arkansas physicians now face criminal penalties if they prescribe puberty blockers or other forms of cross-gender health care to transgender youth. Twenty other states are considering similar bills. Some would classify puberty blockers and other gender-affirming medical treatments as child abuse or would revoke the medical licenses of physicians prescribing these therapies. These anti-transgen...

Closing polling places is the 21st century’s version of a poll tax

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

Closing polling places is the 21st century’s version of a poll tax

Delays and long lines at polling places during recent presidential primary elections – such as voters in Texas experienced – represent the latest version of decades-long policies that have sought to reduce the political power of African Americans in the U.S. Following the Civil War and the extension of the vote to African Americans, state governments worked to block black people, as well as poor whites, from voting. One way they tried to accomplish this goal was through poll taxes – an amount of money each voter had to pay before being allowed to vote. This practice was abolished by the passage of the 24th Amendment in 1964. Further protections for nonwhite voters came with the Voting Rights Act, which closely followed the Selma to Montgomery civil rights protest marches 55 years ago, in...

Craigslist turns 25 – a reminder that a more democratic version of the internet can still thrive

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

TECHNOLOGY

Craigslist turns 25 – a reminder that a more democratic version of the internet can still thrive

Fake news. Online surveillance. Phishing scams. Biased algorithms. It’s easy to be cynical about the internet, and harder to remember a time when being online felt less commercial and more democratic. But there was a period when websites didn’t rely on user data for profit margins, when people still viewed the internet as a radical laboratory for freedom and liberty. Can those ideas and values from the earliest days of the web be revived? Or is the internet a lost cause? In my new book, “An Internet for the People,” I look at one popular website that has a lot to teach us: Craigslist. Twenty-five years after its launch, Craigslist is a reminder that the earlier, more democratic version of the internet can still thrive. The platform has weathered the internet’s boom-and-bust cycle, wi...