Here are some of the topics that have caught my attention as I’ve been browsing the internet: 

In honor of Black History Month, Teri Kanfield shares some of what she learned while researching her biography of Thurgood Marshall. 

In addition to going into his background, Kanfield explains in detail the long-term strategy Marshall championed to end segregation in the United States. Case by case, Marshall and his team built the foundation that would ultimately lead to their win with Brown v. Board of Education. 

Houston and Marshall refined Margold’s ideas into what they called their “equalization strategy.” They would file lawsuits demanding that communities either provide equal facilities for African Americans or admit them to white institutions. They would start with public schools because the Fourteenth Amendment specifically applied to states, and public schools were run by local governments. At the same time, they would lay the groundwork for the next step—an actual challenge to Plessy v. Fergusson.

Marshall thought it was best to begin with professional schools. Providing separate but equal elementary school classrooms was much easier than providing separate but equal medical schools or law schools. A state couldn’t possibly duplicate the facilities, libraries, laboratories, and faculty of a medical or law school. If only one African American student applied, it would be absurd to build a separate but equal school, so the student would have to be admitted to the all-white school. This would break the barrier in a way least alarming to the white population. Marshall understood that whites were more likely to respond with fury to mixing younger children. Moreover, law schools and professional schools at the time were almost entirely male. Demanding that a fully qualified Black man be admitted to an all-male law school or medical school was less likely to create an uproar than mixing both race and gender. The goal was to educate judges and get the public accustomed to the idea of integration and raise awareness that segregation was based on hatred and racism.

Through her study of history and Marshall’s life, Kanfield describes how she changed her understanding about how we achieve progress—it is not a linear progression. 

Now I understand that each bit of progress brings an angry backlash. The Civil War Amendments pushed us forward. Racial segregation pushed us back—but not all the way back. Brown v. Board of Education pushed us forward. The backlash that has been gaining momentum ever since is pushing us back—but not all the way back.

The problem with viewing history as an upward slope is that each time there is a setback, there is a tendency to feel helpless and panic instead of saying, “We have to work to do.”

That’s a great reminder—and a reason to keep working to improve things even when we face dispiriting setbacks. 

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Jessa Duggar Seewald’s Heartbreaking Abortion Story

Jessa Duggar Seewald, one of the stars of the reality show 19 Kids and Counting, shared a heartbreaking video over the weekend describing how she lost a wanted pregnancy because of a potentially life-threatening medical situation. 

Jezebel’s Caitlin Cruz describes what Duggar Seewald shared in her video blog: 

“They scheduled an ultrasound for the next day. Once at the appointment, after taking the images, someone told them the amniotic “sac looks good, the baby does not.” Her child, with husband Ben Seewald, would not survive.

“Nothing could have prepared me for the weight of those words in that moment. I had really allowed myself to become so hopeful in that moment because the spotting had stopped. At that moment I was just in complete shock,” she said. “I didn’t even have words. I just immediately started crying.”

Duggar Seewald would need an abortion.

Except, she doesn’t call it that in the video; instead, the mother of four would possibly “take something” or “pass the baby at home.” But because of her history of hemorrhaging, the doctor was concerned about self-managing the abortion at home. (And because abortion is banned in Arkansas, where she lives, except to save the pregnant person’s life.)

“We decided to go the hospital, get checked in there and go through the process of a D&C,” she said, better known as dilation and curettage. “It was a difficult experience.”

People magazine and other outlets accepted Duggar’s framing of the experience as a “miscarriage”—which would be fine, except that an anti-abortion celebrity literally having an abortion is probably something that’s worth discussing honestly. It’s commendable that Duggar Seewald is sharing her experience of a procedural abortion. She rose to fame—along with her family—on the backs of reality shows promoting evangelical Christianity and its politics. Duggar Seewald’s story is proof that abortion treatment is needed and wanted by even the most anti-abortion among us.”

Abortion, Every Day’s Jessica Valenti reminds us why it is vital to push back against attempts to define some medical procedures as “good” or “bad”:

‘Abortion’ is not something that has a flexible definition: It’s a medical intervention to end a pregnancy, that’s it. But conservatives have been trying to rebrand abortions for a while now: Both because it ensures those on the Right can get the care they need without seeming like absolute hypocrites (which they are), and because it allows them to classify women as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ by redefining abortion as an intention. From a column I wrote back in July:

“‘Intent’ is also telling, because it reveals how conservatives split women into two groups: Those who are deserving of care, and those who aren’t. Women who otherwise wanted to be pregnant, adhering to traditional gender roles, deserve an abortion. Those who didn’t want to be pregnant, shunning their proper ‘place’, are just murderers. (It’s the same reason that we don’t see the same outcry over IVF: ‘Good’ women who want to be moms get a pass.)”

At the beginning of Valenti’s Abortion, Every Day post from which I quote above is a story of a Tennessee woman who has shared on TikTok a series of videos about being denied an abortion despite her fetus having a fatal abnormality. They are heartbreaking posts, and some commenters on her videos are cruel. 

I’m glad Duggar Seewald could get this vital reproductive health care. She shouldn’t have to worry about potential complications like hemorrhaging or sepsis. But right now, there are people who can become pregnant who are living in states that ban these procedures. Lives are at risk right now. They also deserve access to proper medical care. 

This Is How to Fight

It is terrible what is happening in red states to trans people, women and those who can become pregnant, and people of color. The overwhelming majorities Republicans have gained thanks to gerrymandering and culture war lies seem insurmountable. 

But that doesn’t mean Democrats shouldn’t continue to fight. Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce celebrates the efforts of Nebraska lawmaker Machaela Cavanaugh, who has vowed to filibuster every piece of legislation that comes to the floor in that state’s unicameral legislature until Republicans withdraw an anti-trans bill. Pierce writes: 

“Facing this stampede of Fox News hobby-horses, Sen. Cavanaugh rose during the debate over a property-tax bill and explained to the unicameral that she intended to do everything she could to monkey-wrench the whole process. And she did so with refreshing frankness. Unless the heartbeat and anti-trans bills are withdrawn, she intends to filibuster, well, everything.

“If this legislature collectively decides that legislating hate against children is our priority, then I am going to make it painful; painful for everyone. Because if you want to inflict pain upon our children, I am going to inflict pain upon this body. I have nothing, nothing but time. And I am going to use all of it. You cannot stop me. I will not be stopped. If LB574 gets an early floor debate and moves forward, it will be very painful for this body. And if people are like, ‘Is she threatening us?’ Let me be clear: Yes, I am threatening you.”

This is one way to do it, especially when one apparently has no other way. You make these people own their actions. You draw attention to the true nature of what’s being done to constituents in ways that they and their donors find inconvenient. You slow down the process so that everybody gets a really good look at it. And with any luck at all (and we haven’t had much of that these days), they hate what they see.” 

Republicans hope they can pass their extreme agenda in the darkness. Democrats and activists should always try to find ways to force the people and voters to see what these legislators are doing and how it often differs from what they claimed were their priorities during campaigns. 

I hope more legislators will follow Cavanaugh’s example, especially given how horrifying the rhetoric and legislation concerning trans people have been in many legislatures this year.  

Freed After 21 Years

Jeff Titus was wrongfully convicted of a double murder 21 years ago. He finally walked out of prison as a free man thanks to the efforts of an investigative report by Grand Rapids, Michigan’s WOOD-TV 8 news, the podcast Undisclosed, and the legal work of the Michigan Innocence Clinic to highlight the police misconduct that contributed to his wrongful conviction. 

WOOD-TV’s Rachel Van Gilder and Ken Kolker explain what happened:

Then 50, Titus was convicted in 2002 of killing hunters Doug Estes and Jim Bennett in the Fulton State Game Area in November 1990.

“I didn’t do ’em (the murders),” Titus said. “When the Integrity Unit contacted me on an interview, I offered to take truth serum, I offered to take hypnosis, I offered to take an extensive polygraph to show that I was innocent because I am. I did not do it.”

The original detectives on the case decided he could not have done it because he was hunting himself more than 25 miles away. Cold case detectives who took up the case in 2000 rejected that conclusion.

“The system failed when you had a new team 10 years later coming on board and trying to fit a square peg in a round hole,” Moran, the Michigan Innocence Clinic attorney, said.

The Michigan Attorney General’s Conviction Integrity Unit, working with the Innocence Clinic, confirmed that the jury in Titus’ trial was never told about an alternate suspect, a serial killer named Thomas Dillon, who was convicted of hunting down and killing hunters during that time in Ohio. Evidence pointed to his involvement. Attorney General Dana Nessel said the prosecutors and cold case detectives didn’t have the 30 pages of information about Dillon, either.

Regardless, failure to send that information to the defense attorney violated federal law that requires police to turn over any possible exculpatory evidence.

It is just the latest example showing how police or prosecutor misconduct has stolen the lies of innocent people. It should not take a lucky break to find a file or have a prosecutor willing to follow the rules to see justice done.  

Thank you for reading Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Quick Pitches

California

Caltrans will study whether the predominantly Black neighborhoods in West Oakland could be re-connected to each other and downtown by replacing the short Interstate 980 with a less-invasive city street. I drive on I-980 five days a week, but I hope planners take this idea seriously and make it happen. (Shomik Mukherjee, East Bay Times)

California lawmakers will have another chance to put a Constitutional Amendment on the ballot to eliminate the exception that allows involuntary servitude for criminal punishment. We should not ask inmates to fight fires—or do any work—for less than $1 an hour. As Assembly Member Lori Wilson (D-Suisun), the author of ACA 8, told the Los Angeles Times, “There is no room for slavery in our Constitution,” Wilson said. “It is not consistent with our values, nor our humanity.” (Hannah Wiley, The Los Angeles Times)

A developer has filed plans with Oakland to build that city’s tallest skyscraper, featuring nearly 600 homes. (Garrett Leahy, The San Francisco Standard)

Yikes. This is quite a sound. 

A giant section of rock broke off El Capitan in Yosemite today. As fall as I know, no one was hurt.

— James Piper (@JAMESPIPERPHOTO) 5:16 AM ∙ Feb 21, 2023

Politics

Kat Abughazaleh monitors Tucker Carlson each night for her job as a senior video producer at Media Matters for America. I am thankful for her efforts because I follow Tucker’s awfulness through the short and entertaining videos she shares on Twitter and YouTube. “I watch Tucker Carlson so you don’t have to,” the bio spaces of her social-media accounts read. Abughazaleh has been professionally watching Carlson, who has around three million viewers a night, for nearly two years. “You don’t know Fox News until you are watching it for a job,” she said. “You see all these patterns emerge.” The Fox universe is a place with a different “news” sense than most of the country, she said—narratives about I.R.S. armies, food shortages, race wars, and predatory trans activists—but its niche story lines are likely predictive of what we’ll be talking about over the next two long campaign years. Though, in Abughazaleh’s view, Carlson has floundered a bit since the midterms. “I think he’s still kind of lost right now,” she said. “He’s not really sure what direction to take it.” (Clare Malone, The New Yorker)

Governments must step in and stop allowing migrant children to be employed in violation of child labor laws and human decency. This New York Times investigation is chilling. (Hannah Drier, New York Times)

“Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit asking the courts claiming that the $1.7 trillion spending law that keeps most of the federal government — including the US military — operating through September of 2023 is unconstitutional. Paxton’s claims in Texas v. Garland, which turn on the fact that many of the lawmakers who voted for the bill voted by proxy, should fail. They are at odds with the Constitution’s explicit text. And a bipartisan panel of a powerful federal appeals court in Washington, DC, already rejected a similar lawsuit in 2021.” But can we really be sure a Trump-appointed judge and this Supreme Court won’t make up some new legal theory to create this kind of chaos anyway? (Ian Millheiser, Vox)

Continuing Florida’s descent into authoritarianism, a new bill seeks to effectively eliminate academic freedom and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at the state’s public universities. (PEN America Press Release)

Science

Seismologists have found a fifth layer of our planet: a 400-mile-thick solid metallic ball at the center of the inner core. “The new layer consists of an iron-nickel alloy, like other parts of the core. But it has a different crystal structure that causes shock waves from earthquakes to reverberate through the layer at different speeds than the surrounding core, the study found.” (Kasha Patel, The Washington Post)

The James Webb Space Telescope continues to provide fantastic science. “Six massive galaxies discovered in the early universe are upending what scientists previously understood about the origins of galaxies in the universe.” (SciTech Daily)

This tweet thread explores the limitations of randomized control trials. 

In 2018, “Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial” was published in the British Medical Journal.

It sought to determine if wearing a parachute when jumping from a plane had any impact on survivability.

It did not.

— c0nc0rdance (@c0nc0rdance) 6:29 PM ∙ Feb 23, 2023

Technology

Sports stadiums demonstrate the dystopian future awaiting us if we don’t regulate surveillance technology. (Arthur Holland Michel, The Atlantic)

Bing’s AI can produce an impressive—but frightening—second draft. 

Wow.

— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) 5:00 AM ∙ Feb 16, 2023

Society

“The Pacific nation of Tuvalu is replicating itself in the metaverse in an innovative bid to safeguard its culture and sovereignty in the event of territory loss and displacement due to climate change. The low-lying islands could become uninhabitable by 02100 due to rising sea levels, according to a study cited by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. By migrating governance and administrative systems to the metaverse, Tuvalu hopes to continue functioning as a state, regardless of where its government or people are located in the world. This works alongside Tuvalu’s current efforts to legislate permanent statehood and maritime boundaries, which climate change threatens under current international law.” (Lilian Bernhardt, Long Now Newsletter)

On January 1, 2012, Jeff Reitz visited Disneyland with friends. He would continue visiting the park daily until the COVID pandemic stopped the streak on March 14, 2020. The Guinness Book of World Records has certified that 2,995-day streak as the World Record. (Alexis Jones, People)

Some of these photos are breathtaking. “On a frozen lake in the Notsuke Peninsula, a tendril of land that juts out from Hokkaido’s east coast, acclaimed floral artist Azuma Makoto (previously) has constructed the third botanical sculpture in an ongoing series called Frozen Flowers. The first edition was composed in this same location in 2019 and again in 2021, and every year, the conditions have been a little bit different. The artist is interested in how variables like temperature, wind, or snowfall can alter the surrounding environment and make every version unique.” (Kate Mothes, Colossal)

Camilla won’t just be Queen Consort in the end. She’ll be the Queen after King Charles III’s Coronation in May. (The Royalist, The Daily Beast)

Sports

Effa Manley, the trailblazing co-owner of the Negro Leagues’ Newark Eagles and a civil rights pioneer, became the only woman inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame on February 28, 2006. Hopefully, we can soon write that she was the first woman—not the only one. (Amy Essington, Society for American Baseball Research Bio Project)

In a previous edition of this newsletter, I shared speculation about what the New York Mets may be practicing that required secrecy. People thought it concerned the new rules about pickoff moves and the pitch clock. We saw an example of this work in action during early Spring Training games. (Noah Woodward, The Advance Scout)

The Astros’ Justin Verlander and the Mets’ Max Scherzer have not wasted any time demonstrating the advantages pitchers can have under the new pitch clock rules. (Will Sammon, The Athletic)

The Closer

The Cranberries released their debut album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? 30 years ago today.

Sigh, it’s hard to believe it’s been five years since Dolores O’Riordan passed away.

Thank you for reading my newsletter. Let me know what you think about what you’ve read. You can email me at craigcheslog@substack.com. 

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Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.