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Tidbits - Apr.23, 2020 - Reader Comments: Reopen or Re-Infect; Black Plague; Voting Imperiled - Today, Remembering the 60s; Coronavirus: The Crisis This Time; Nurses Wearing Garbage Bags; The Killing Floor at Smithfield; Killing the Post Office

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Reader Comments: Reopen or Re-Infect; The Black Plague; Voting Imperiled - Today and Remembering the 60s; Coronavirus - The Crisis This Time; Nurses Wearing Garbage Bags - Really?; The Killing Floor at Smithfield; Killing the Post Office; more...

Odetta, the Shy Folk Singer Who Defied McCarthyism's Fear Tactics

Ian Zack Literary Hub
It wasn't only Odetta's selection of material that set her apart from many other white folk singers in the early 1950s. It was also her extraordinary interpretive ability. Among Her Fans Were Rosa Parks, Bob Dylan, and Martin Luther King.

The Global Struggle to Control the Coronavirus

Amy Davidson Sorkin The New Yorker
Defeating COVID-19 has to be a joint project, as if the whole planet were racing to get to the moon together. Every nation can contribute, including those whose voices are less often heard. And no one can be left behind.

Stacey Abrams On Voting Rights, COVID-19, And Being Vice President

Melissa Harris-Perry Elle
Abrams's impulse to reach for the lessons of history while staying fixed on the necessity of service to the future suggests she may be the singularly remarkable leader America needs in this time of unprecedented economic and social change.

I Want My Death to Make You Angry

Emily Pierskalla, RN Minnesota Nurses Association
Letter from a frontline nurse in Minnesota: "I want you to politicize my death. I want you to use it as fuel to demand change in this industry, to demand protection, living wages, and safe working conditions for nurses and ALL workers."