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Plus: The cruelty of 'Operation Clean Sweep'
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WBUR

August 11, 2019


Dear Cog reader,

It was a long week, marked by back-to-back mass shootings and the death of Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. I hope our offerings this week -- on those subjects and others -- help bring clarity and perspective. I also hope, as Anita Diamant suggests in this piece, that you find some time this weekend to unplug. Take care, and be well.  

— Frannie Carr Toth
Co-editor, Cognoscenti
newsletters@wbur.org


The Rundown

We Can't Arrest Our Way Out Of The Opioid Crisis, And It's Cruel To Try
It's not hard to see the parallels between "Operation Clean Sweep" and well-documented human rights abuses happening elsewhere, writes Miles Howard.
 

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How Toni Morrison Might Say Goodbye
Morrison’s various depictions of death had occupied my thoughts even before the news of her departure, writes Jabari Asim.


Does Boston Show The Way Out Of Our Gun Madness?
A data-driven approach to gun violence, targeting crime-fighting tactics rather than weapons, could save lives while doing an end-run around fanatics, writes Rich Barlow.
 
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Another Mass Shooting. What More Is There To Say?
You’ve heard it all. I’ve written it all, says Anita Diamant. So what’s a human to do?

Terror Is Not A Mental Disorder
It’s easy to blame the horrors of a mass shooting on some kind of cognitive aberration, writes Thom Dunn. But racism and terrorism are not predicated on mental illness.


Let's Stop Pretending These Mass Shootings Are A Coincidence
The president didn’t invent racial demagoguery or white supremacy, writes Steve Almond. He has simply triggered the deadly leap from ideation to action.

Bookmarks

“Parenting is an ongoing process of learning to tolerate the idea ‘that you cannot entirely keep your children safe.’ ” ("Managing Fear After Mass Violence," The New York Times)

“When March for Our Lives first arose from Parkland, and there’s a bunch of white kids getting millions of dollars from all these people, I’m like, What about Black Lives Matter? What about my cousin who was shot and killed and there was no justice for him?” ("March For Our Lives Knows They Got One Big Thing Wrong. As They Head Into 2020, They're Fixing It." BuzzFeed News)

“I wanted to feel what my mother felt, to know what made her mouth crack open like that or her eyebrows arch toward her scalp like a stretching cat.” (“Toni Morrison Taught Me How To Think,” The New York Times)

“Here’s news to no one: We are in a crisis of male insecurity in this country, specifically white male insecurity.” ("Why Some White Men Go ‘Bang,’ " The Boston Globe)
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Float on your back and the sky will remind you just how small we all are. Walk the beach and look for a baby just learning to walk; watch how she falls, and laughs, and gets up again. And again. As many times as it takes.

— Anita Diamant, 
"Another Mass Shooting. What More Is There To Say?"


ICYMI

Turn It Up And Be Mad: Why Angry Songs Make Us Feel Good Songs like Lizzo's "Truth Hurts" and Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know" acknowledge that love can be messy, ugly and painful. And naming the pain can feel like liberation, writes Joanna Weiss.

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If you’d like to write for Cognoscenti, send your submission, pasted into your email and not as an attachment, to opinion@wbur.org. Please tell us in one line what the piece is about, and please tell us in one line who you are.
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