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.”

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

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.

Every Friday we take a look back at the week’s headlines, centering on a theme we’ve singled out as particularly important. While “interesting” is diluted and obscured to the point of redundancy, “epic” continues to diminish in stature. Meanwhile, “unexpected” lurks in quiet inescapability. Amid all the hyperbole, it was the unexpected that caused us to pause for thought this week.

Liberals are able to force certain issues into the national debate. What the left gets right, according to conservatives:

Liberals recognize the real problems facing the poor, the hardships resulting from economic globalization and the socially destructive force of increasing inequality.

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 all that Wikipedia has achieved, quantity and brute force wasn’t fairing well, with soft power and quality winning the long war.

China loves soccer, but its complete lack of ability has a root cause: the system:

In a country so proud of its global stature, football is a painful national joke. Perhaps because Chinese fans love the sport madly and want desperately for their nation to succeed at it, football is the common reference point by which people understand and measure failure.