March 30: What Really Happened Last Week

Disasters are not woke, and some good news about oil

Hello friends.

#TeslaTakedown protest, Saturday March 29, Manhattan, Photo by me

It’s my beginning-of-the-week paywalled post! Copy this and send it to a friend who says they are “tuning out the news.” More of you are tuning IN every week!

I’m a journalist with two decades of experience. I’ve covered technology and policy in depth, and I have a special interest in media literacy and mental health—how we experience the news, and what it does to us.

This is my weekly, highly curated list of relevant news, bright spots, and action steps, getting you through the mayhem, and focusing on the topics of this newsletter: caregiving, youth, climate change, human rights, mental health.

Don’t worry and please don‘t hit unsubscribe: my Friday essays will remain free for all. And if you want a paid subscription but can’t afford it, just hit reply and ask! For a limited time, when you upgrade you will also get a paid one-year subscription to The Auntie Bulletin.

My criteria for this news roundup:

• Real events that have real consequences for real people now.

• I’m trying to avoid pseudo-events, purely symbolic gestures and speculation. That means I’m leaving out some stuff you’ve probably seen elsewhere.

• I am presenting impacts alongside responses and solutions.

• I want to model healthy, balanced news consumption. I don’t know that I can become the only news you read, but I can at least point the way to a better news habit. I believe this is going to be crucial to our mental health and our ability to show up for others, including our kids, in this accelerating polycrisis.

In this issue: I’m not getting into Signalgate, the Yemen attack plans shared accidentally with an Atlantic editor. You can read about it in many, many other places. It’s an episode of dangerous incompetence and dishonesty that seems to have garnered broad attention, which is good to the extent it helps build a political narrative that undermines faith in this regime. One element of the story that’s getting overlooked: the US army has killed about 70 people in Yemen with airstrikes this week. Check out this public map, Universal Awareness Map, where you can see the latest attacks all over the world.

This coming Saturday, April 5, find a Hands Off! march/rally near you. I have a feeling this is going to be a big one.

In this issue:

1.Trump’s attack on voting rights

2.Rumesya Ozturk,Yunseo Chung , and the persecution of American students

3.Disaster aid disasters

4.Very good news

5.Wild card

1. Trump’s attack on voting rights

Trump posted an executive order that, if it stands, could disenfranchise millions of voters. It’s also a massive attempt to grab power over elections out of the states and into the hands of the president.

Response/Impact

It will be challenged in court, of course. But while appeals make their way through, states are confused about what rules to set for running elections; that confusion will also infect voters, and that will tend to suppress voter turnout and trust in elections as well. He doesn’t have to win the whole ball game to gain dangerous influence over elections. We need to watch this very closely. And it will take a lot of organizing in the run-up to the midterms to help people register to vote and understand how to make their vote count.