Old tests, bad masks: Why won't Mass. apologize to teachers?

Also: The fascists among us [View in browser](    [❤️]( January 9, 2022 Dear Cog reader, “Do you remember where you were on Jan. 6, 2021?” So begins Yordanos Eyoel’s essay, marking last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol. I do remember. I was sitting at my desk, half-watching the livestream of the PBS Newshour’s coverage, when the [tone of Lisa Desjardin’s voice changed](. She was describing insurrectionists shattering the glass of the Capitol doors and it grabbed my attention. Her voice was calm, but she seemed terrified.  Like many news organizations this week, we thought it important to mark the day. Eyoel’s commentary is a reminder “[no place is immune from authoritarianism]( even the oldest and most developed democracy of them all.” Steve Almond wrote for us about [Trumpism](. “The GOP no longer functions in any traditional political sense,” he argues. “There is no platform, no policy agenda. It’s sole purpose is to seize power by subverting our free and fair elections.” And Rich Barlow wrote about what he calls the “[fascist assault]( on democracy.” He warns that every other issue in 2022 ought to take a back seat to the Trumpist efforts to undermine free and fair elections. Finally, we’ve got a piece by Boston teacher Neema Avashia on the [chaos wrought by the omicron variant in schools]( this week. Teachers in Massachusetts received rapid COVID tests and masks courtesy of the state, a gesture she says was important. But some districts received expired tests and many teachers were given [masks not sufficiently protective]( against the virus. Instead of apologizing for the mistakes, state and district officials seemed to place blame on schools. “[S]tate leaders chose to exacerbate, rather than mitigate, the stress of this moment. This is not OK,” she writes. Stay warm; stay safe, Cloe Axelson Editor, Cognoscenti [Follow]( Support the news   Must Reads [It's been a long, arduous week for Mass. teachers. Why won't our state leaders apologize?]( As a teacher, I'm clinging to the hope that adults will model the same behaviors we seek to cultivate in our young people, writes Neema Avashia. It’s an optimism that’s been seriously dampened during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it hasn't died yet. [Read more.]( [It's been a long, arduous week for Mass. teachers. Why won't our state leaders apologize?]( As a teacher, I'm clinging to the hope that adults will model the same behaviors we seek to cultivate in our young people, writes Neema Avashia. It’s an optimism that’s been seriously dampened during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it hasn't died yet. [Read more.]( [Jan. 6 was supposed to be the end of Trumpism. But what if it was just the beginning?]( I hoped the 2020 election would spell an end to the exhausting psychodrama of Trumpism, writes Steve Almond in this commentary. Instead, his pathologies have gone viral. [Read more.]( [Jan. 6 was supposed to be the end of Trumpism. But what if it was just the beginning?]( I hoped the 2020 election would spell an end to the exhausting psychodrama of Trumpism, writes Steve Almond in this commentary. Instead, his pathologies have gone viral. [Read more.]( [Extremism is our new normal]( For those of us who immigrated to the U.S. after surviving war, violent coups and state-sponsored political violence, the insurgency was a vicious reminder that no place is immune from authoritarianism, even the oldest and most developed democracy of them all, writes Yordanos Eyoel. [Read more.]( [Extremism is our new normal]( For those of us who immigrated to the U.S. after surviving war, violent coups and state-sponsored political violence, the insurgency was a vicious reminder that no place is immune from authoritarianism, even the oldest and most developed democracy of them all, writes Yordanos Eyoel. [Read more.]( [The fascists among us]( Whatever public concern galvanizes you — climate change, the pandemic, poverty — it should take a back seat to thwarting the fascist assault on our democracy, writes Rich Barlow. [Read more.]( [The fascists among us]( Whatever public concern galvanizes you — climate change, the pandemic, poverty — it should take a back seat to thwarting the fascist assault on our democracy, writes Rich Barlow. [Read more.]( [Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty. But did survivors get justice?]( The trial provided yet another space to humiliate and re-traumatize victims, asoften occurs in sex-crime prosecutions, write Julie Dahlstrom and Rachel Wechsler. [Read more.]( [Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty. But did survivors get justice?]( The trial provided yet another space to humiliate and re-traumatize victims, asoften occurs in sex-crime prosecutions, write Julie Dahlstrom and Rachel Wechsler. [Read more.]( [Here’s how we should commemorate E.O. Wilson]( Writer William Sargent considers Wilson's radical idea to set aside half the Earth for nature. [Read more.]( [Here’s how we should commemorate E.O. Wilson]( Writer William Sargent considers Wilson's radical idea to set aside half the Earth for nature. [Read more.]( What We're Reading "I wrote to him because I was angry at fate and afraid of the wheel of the past and the way it rolls forward, forward, no matter what power we think we have to stop it. To have a child, I staked everything on the hope that the wheel can be stopped." "[Under the wheel]( The Boston Globe. "Far from being condemned, in the intervening year that sort of violence has been increasingly glorified by the mainstream conservative movement." "[The risk of a coup in the next US election is greater now than it ever was under Trump]( The Guardian. "At a time when Omicron cases are already shattering records nationwide, the costs of muddled messaging are extraordinarily high." "[America’s COVID Rules Are a Dumpster Fire]( The Atlantic." "Unless we mobilize and turn out in overwhelming numbers, the 2020 election may be the last free and fair election of our lifetimes." — Steve Almond, "[Jan. 6 was supposed to be the end of Trumpism. But what if it was just the beginning?]( ICYMI [My time with Joan Didion]( As a young reporter in Miami, Madeleine Blais was a tour guide, of sorts, to Joan Didion. The author was so much lighter in person than she was on the page, Blais writes. [Read more.]( [My time with Joan Didion]( As a young reporter in Miami, Madeleine Blais was a tour guide, of sorts, to Joan Didion. The author was so much lighter in person than she was on the page, Blais writes. [Read more.]( 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. 😎 Forward to a friend. They can sign up [here](. 📣 Give us your feedback: newsletters@wbur.org 📧 Get more WBUR stories sent to your inbox. [Check out all of our newsletter offerings.]( Support the news     Want to change how you receive these emails? Stop getting this newsletter by [updating your preferences.](  I don't want to hear from WBUR anymore. 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