Mondays with Mike: Hey, it’s complicated

I’m not quite at full speed, as I have contracted the cold from hell that I’d managed to avoid—until last week. I’ve thought I was over the hump more than once, but the virus just won’t take a hint.

This post links to some very good reading, but if all you need is a laugh, just skip to The Onion.

So, with my thinking and writing faculties compromised, I’ll just share a few pieces by some people doing some heavy lifting when it comes to the thinking and writing.

On the heels of yesterday’s marches, I was reminded of this piece from a few weeks ago. It’s called “White women overwhelmingly supported Roy Moore. We shouldn’t be surprised.” There’s been all this hand-wringing about how on earth white women could vote for Trump. Or for Roy Moore.  Well, probably for many of the same reasons men did. The notion that women would vote as a bloc is kind of simplistic at is face, and bigoted in its own way. But beyond that, there seems to be a belief that white women would lean more left than men, and are somehow intrinsically less racist than men. Anyway, hope you’ll give it a read.

Along those lines, uproar about immigration and hatred for immigrants ain’t nothing new. I think most of us know this at some level, but in this age there’s a tendency to think everything we’re experiencing—good and bad—is unprecedented. This piece in the NY Times traces a long and not particularly shining record of how Americans have behaved through various phases of immigration. The melting in the pot hasn’t ever been a gentle process.

Another piece I bookmarked a few weeks ago looks at how financial aid is increasingly going to students who don’t need it, while the people who could only attend with financial aid are getting less of it. It’s in The Hechinger Report, which routinely does very good work on education, and this is a typically well-reported piece.

And finally, if your head hurts after reading any or all of these, two words:

Perverted lobsters. (Caution: language.)