This Week

Why We Fought

by The Morning News

Roses via Shutterstock

Every Friday we take a look back at the week’s headlines, centering on a theme we’ve singled out as particularly important. This week fighting raged and little heed was paid to Valentine’s Day. The more everyone fought, the less sense they made, and damn if we couldn’t keep our eyes off them.

Fantastic Economist summary of the Syrian situation:

Many Syrians are convinced that, eventually, Mr. Assad will go. What worries them is how. 

Continue Reading

Portraits by Other Means

Comeback Kings and Queens

by Leah Finnegan Comeback Kings and Queens

Friends! Alas, it has been far too long since we’ve seen each other. One of the things I love about America is how willing the public is to accept someone stepping back into the spotlight (most of the time) (athletes especially). Well, you be the judge.

Continue Reading

Husband, Father, Writer, War

Right Into the Fire

by Nathan Deuel Right Into the Fire

This week we’re debuting a new microfeature series, “Husband, Father, Writer, War,” in which Nathan Deuel recounts what it’s like to be an American citizen, young father, and supportive husband while he and his family settle down in Lebanon.

My daughter is bawling, red faced, legs held ram-rod straight.

Loretta was born in Saudi Arabia, turned two in Turkey, and we’ve just moved to Lebanon. In a stroke of luck, we found a rare flat in a stunning French Mandate house. But until our boxes arrive, the place is empty, echoing. Continue Reading

This Week

Don’t Talk About It, Do It

by The Morning News

Abstract Speed via Shutterstock

Every Friday we take a look back at the week’s headlines, centering on a theme we’ve singled out as particularly important. This week, despite the apathy that greets the idea that meaningful change is possible, protestors continued to make their voices heard. And beyond the streets we were seeing the beginnings of important change—along with the positive and negatives consequences when people start to really do it.

The key question is not whether Vladimir Putin—and Putinism—will survive. They will not:

Russia is facing growing problems of enormous complexity—economic, social, demographic, ethnic—that are impossible to solve within the rigid confines of neo-authoritarian “sovereign democracy.”

Continue Reading

New York's Roadside Attractions

Wyckoff Farmhouse and Queens County Farm Museums

by Erik Bryan Wyckoff Farmhouse and Queens County Farm Museums

I grew up in North Florida. I wouldn’t disagree too strongly with those who consider it South Georgia. After all, Georgia is only a 45-minute drive from my childhood home.

When I was in the fifth grade my class took a trip to a historical farm museum in Tifton, Ga., called Agrirama, a fully functioning re-creation of a Reconstruction-era sugar cane farm. There were historical re-enactors who split the class on gender lines, boys going to work in the barn and fields, girls taken to prepare the meals and take care of the homestead. We were there for a full school day. I shoveled shit (literally), fed a sugar cane press, and was remonstrated for the inexperience I showed in doing both. All of this was historically sound, because any able-bodied boy was expected to contribute in like fashion. It sucked. Continue Reading

From the Editors

The Morning News Seeks an Intern

by The Morning News The Morning News Seeks an Intern

The Morning News seeks an intern for the Spring 2012 semester. You should be an opinionated writer and editor and have a strong interest in social media and learning how a web magazine is produced.

This is an unpaid internship. Geographic location is not important, but please have a sturdy internet connection.

To apply, email a cover letter, including any résumé-like points, clips/experience as well as links to your Twitter, Tumblr, and/or blog to talk@themorningnews.org by Feb. 17, 2012.

End Zone

Super Bowl, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Bill Belichick

by Miranda Popkey Super Bowl, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Bill Belichick

Like a lot of people this Sunday, I’ll be choosing sides in a contest whose outcome is going to be disappointing. The team I’m rooting for (the 2007 Green Bay Packers) can’t win. This is a replay of one of my least favorite Super Bowls in recent memory, one which offended me so thoroughly the first time around, I actually refused to watch it. So to have any fun, I have to pick a side. I have to get emotionally invested. When I watch a football game, I have to mean it.

Continue Reading

TMN vs. Explodingdog

Have Faith in Duck

by Sam Brown Have Faith in Duck

Today is the final installment in our series with Explodingdog. Over two months, Sam published a comic story here each week on TMN based on your suggestions. Today’s is a special double-feature.

Continue Reading

End Zone

Season Retrospective

by Miranda Popkey Season Retrospective

I don’t mean to sound bitter, but I am. Not just because the Packers aren’t going back to the Super Bowl. Not just because I called both Conference Championships wrong last week. No, my bitterness is more complex, and of longer standing. For as we look past the Pro Bowl to the Super Bowl, I see a less-than-thrilling finale to what started out as an odd, exciting season in the NFL.

Continue Reading