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When even Chick-fil-A is angering the right, no company is safe
When even Chick-fil-A is angering the right, no company is safe, LZ Granderson, The Los Angeles Times
That’s right, corporate America: You’re going to have to tell us who you’re loyal to.

That should have been clear after Anita Bryant’s homophobic crusade dragged Florida’s citrus industry through the proverbial mud back in the 1970s. But companies got the wrong idea for a while on LGBTQ+ issues, thinking they could safely monetize queer acceptance while remaining silent during queer oppression. They can’t get away with it anymore.

“Loyalty” is not just about who your customer base is. It’s a question of principle first, and commerce follows. For example, Hobby Lobby is closed on Sunday for religious purposes, forgoing revenue because of principle. The current culture war is testing companies’ loyalty to core principles in ways we have not seen in some time. This is not a war in which corporations can shout “go team” no matter who wins. This war doesn’t allow anyone to be neutral.

So be prepared to fight.

Companies will have to decide if “diversity, equity and inclusion” are principles worth fighting for or popular buzzwords to include in a fiercely written mission statement no one bothers to remember.
What the crisis at CNN means
What the crisis at CNN means, Jenna Moon, Max Tani, and Ben Smith, Semafor
The decline of cable has been predicted since the birth of the internet. Veterans of the industry have developed a weariness about predictions of their doom. “We’re melting — in the shade,” a network president once told me. He wasn’t stressed about it.

But the cable news era is pretty new, and fragile. The format has held a central place in U.S. politics for about 20 years, give or take. CNN is a child of the 1980s, but Fox and MSNBC only launched in 1996, and took some time to find their footing. Tucker Carlson’s famous firing from Crossfire, after Jon Stewart accused the show of “hurting America,” was in 2004, a year when the big political television controversy revolved around Dan Rather’s CBS coverage. A bank of simultaneous cable feeds used to mean you were in some plugged-in news hub like the White House lower press office. Now it usually means you’re at a gym.

Seen through that lens, Jeff Zucker’s tenure at CNN was less a statement about what news ought to be than a heroic feat of television magic. He staved off irrelevance because he saw clearly that there was only one big pool of viewers left for CNN, MSNBC’s alarmed Democratic audience. He competed aggressively and head-to-head for them. He was aided by Donald Trump, whose politics almost required a confrontation with The Establishment, represented by its most famous brands.
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Before you fight over the word 'woke,' learn its history. It will blow you away.
Before you fight over the word 'woke,' learn its history. It will blow you away., Phil Boas, The Arizona Republic
Someday when the cultural moment that many have called “The Great Awokening” is finally, mercifully, over, Americans of all races should fight to give African Americans their word back.

Less than 10 years ago, “woke” was a word so deeply layered with history and meaning it could evoke years of pain suffered by descendants of slaves coming of age in Jim Crow America.

You don’t have to be African American, however, to feel its history. The word woke is seminal to our larger culture in ways most of us have never understood.

It’s one of the great words in American English and it should be preserved in its purest form.
It’s Great to Have a President Who Knows When to Shut Up
It’s Great to Have a President Who Knows When to Shut Up, Matthew Yglesias, The New York Times
While Speaker Kevin McCarthy blitzed Fox News and funneled daily doses of spin through the Capitol Hill tipsheets, the White House was publicly saying and doing very little — so little that it felt like basically nothing. Backbench House Democrats, progressive Twitter and liberal advocacy groups exhorted Mr. Biden to insist on a straightforward debt-ceiling increase by the G.O.P. House, but braced themselves for the worst: A tired, timid, too-moderate, too-ineffectual president with his head stuck in the distant past was about to get fleeced by the rabid right.

Yet what emerged from intense talks at the White House was a deal that turned out to be surprisingly — almost shockingly — favorable to Mr. Biden’s supporters. Somehow, the seemingly floundering White House pulled off a negotiating coup.

This happened, at least in part, because Mr. Biden understands something fundamental about congressional politics that’s frustrating to journalists, activists and political junkies: It’s often better to just shut up.
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Yes, We’re in an L.G.B.T.Q. State of Emergency
Yes, We’re in an L.G.B.T.Q. State of Emergency, Charles M. Blow, The New York Times
The way this kind of terrorism works is that it not only punishes expression, condemns identities and cuts off avenues for receiving care but also creates an aura of hostility and issues grievous threats. It’s like burning a cross on someone’s lawn: It’s an attempt to frighten people into compliance and submission.

The Republican politicians pushing anti-L.G.B.T.Q. laws usually pretend that their principal, if not their sole, motivation is to protect children. But these laws operate in furtherance and protection of the fragile patriarchy, in perpetuation of the twin evils of homophobia and heterosexism and in reinforcement of abusive gender-identity policing. [...]

These politicians have Willie Horton-ized the transgender equality movement and, by extension, the whole movement for L.G.B.T.Q. equality.

And one of the saddest aspects of this episode has been seeing a small but vocal group of people who claim to be liberal — and who one would think would be allies — aid and abet the arguments of transphobes.
Smoke brings a warning: There’s no escaping climate’s threat to health
Smoke brings a warning: There’s no escaping climate’s threat to health, Dan Diamond, Joshua Partlow, Brady Dennis and Emmanuel Felton, The Washington Post
The shroud above the Northeast prompted public health authorities to convene emergency meetings, hospitals to prepare for a possible uptick in patients and lawmakers to again call for legislation to tamp down the risks of a warming world. The acute public health threat posed by the fumes, which carry dangerous gases and fine particles that can embed in people’s lungs and bloodstream, coupled with the transformation of major cities’ skylines punctured many Americans’ sense of invulnerability.

“Climate change is real. It is here. The extreme weather and disasters like these wildfires, thousands of miles away, land right here in our great city and impact our health,” New York City Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan said at a news conference Wednesday morning, urging residents to stay indoors, wear masks if needed outdoors and take other precautions. City officials said the air was the worst in more than 50 years — with an Air Quality Index score Wednesday that at one point reached 484, signifying “hazardous” conditions — and would likely last several days.

Wildfire smoke has posed a growing health risk in the United States for years, with Western states repeatedly reeling from fires and residents attempting to cope by purchasing personal air filters, staying indoors and adopting other ad hoc solutions. In interviews on Wednesday, federal experts touted guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to stay safe. But the smoke enveloping the East Coast arrives at a moment when many Americans have tuned out warnings from public health officials in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Many people in affected areas continued their usual routines despite the intense haze, scratchy throats and other manifestations of the smoky conditions.

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