March 2021: The year is here! How’s America doing? Read how it’s going so far. Plus, the Best of Winter. And what are we looking forward to for the Spring? Maude reports.
Happy almost spring! It’s been a winter of epic proportions, and that is not just an overused expression. The season was literally played out by a cast of millions. Our new President was finally inaugurated, but of course, not before the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, as Congress attempted to verify the nation’s votes from November. That dominant news almost overshadowed the results of Georgia’s Senate runoff, in which the Democratic Party just barely won the majority of the Senate. Then, in mid-February, the President faced his first natural disaster, when back-to-back winter storms swept over the nation, wreaking havoc especially across the state of Texas, where millions were left without power and water for days of sub-freezing temperatures. I am always happy to welcome the spring, but this winter, following right on the heels of 2020, I think has been a little much for all of us.
In other news, after a full year of the coronavirus pandemic, America is slowly getting closer to “back to normal”. The COVID-19 vaccine is carrying immunity across the nation. Nearly 40 million have already been fully vaccinated as of this week (myself included), and millions more vaccinations are under way. Getting kids and teachers back to school (safely) has become a Presidential priority–just a year after schools first shut down.
At The Mauve Report, I made some improvements to the site, in order to make it easier to use, especially in the area of feedback. You still won’t find the typical comment boxes here, but you can now drop us an easy line from our Write to Us! page, which is also linked at the bottom of many of our articles. (Of course, you can always email me at maude@mauvereport.com.) But the biggest improvement was making The Mauve Report available by subscription! Some of you received the spring Quarterly right in your inbox. If you’d like to subscribe to our posts, you’ll find the form on the right side of your desktop page or the bottom end of your mobile page. It’s easy (and no, we don’t sell email addresses), and that way you won’t miss anything!
But as usual, here’s what you may have missed this quarter.
The Best of Winter
Winter began with a special show, a display of hope for our New Year. In January Martin Luther King Day themes shed light on the Capitol raid, which spoke volumes about anything-but-post-racial America. But then Amanda Gorman gripped us all with her powerful Inauguration Day message, one of encouragement for the present and hope for the future. As President Biden began the earliest days of his administration, I voiced some suggestions the American people could take, in order to be responsible and accountable for our future, no matter what side we’re on. During the second impeachment trial of our 45th President, (literally while proceedings transpired on the Senate floor) Senator Ted Cruz found it necessary to Tweet us all a scary proclamation of an Orwellian future, relating not to the impeachment of a U.S. President, but to a medical community proposal in the U.K. After doing just a little research, I addressed the fear I could already see spreading from his message.
In January, I had a bit of a freak-out moment, when I stepped on a scale and assessed just how much weight the coronavirus pandemic had brought me. It was bad news specifically because I’d lost twice as much before the shutdown (as of a year ago), after I’d been handed a fairly grave health diagnosis. Not wanting to go back to where I started, I decided to hold myself accountable right here at The Mauve Report. So I began our newest series, “The 2020 Twenty.” You can find the latest progress here. (And if you’re looking for a buddy on MyFitnessPal, you can find me here.) As usual, I’d love to hear how the rest of America is handling this, because I know it’s not just me! If you have an experience to share, send it here, or email me at maude@mauvereport.com.
In February, we were graced with our very first American Original art contribution! Submitted by a busy mom in Maryland, it beautifully framed a point to remember about critical thinking. We would love to see more American art and photography originals, as well as original written pieces, supporting the Mauve Mission. Our submission guidelines are here. (But more on that later!)
Last week, we observed the one-year anniversary of the death of Breonna Taylor. Our series on Breonna’s story, “Thirteenth of March“, for now, remains a story in three parts. Part One covers the perspectives of Breonna’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who was with her the night she died, and of her mother, Tamika Palmer, as reported by Ta-Nehisi Coates in Vanity Fair last summer. Part Two covers the perspectives of the three Louisville detectives who fired their weapons into Breonna’s apartment, and the homes of her neighbors. Part Three covers the perspectives of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, the grand jury tasked with the detectives’ charges, and one other player who didn’t get nearly as much attention. In our last Quarterly, we also published a special update page. And just days later, the new chief of the Louisville Metro Police Department took one more action.
As you may know, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is still working on Breonna Taylor’s case. We don’t yet know when their investigation will be completed. Last year, the Department of Justice released the results of their investigation of the death of Tamir Rice–which was in 2014. Our only hope for Breonna is that they’re turning over every single detail. That deserves all the time it takes. When the FBI investigation is completed, “Thirteenth of March” will have a Part Four. Until then, may we all keep Breonna Taylor’s loved ones and Louisville in our thoughts.
The Mauve Report mission for fair and balanced news sourcing marches on! It’s not as easy as it sounds, but we added more than a dozen new sources this quarter, many of them more conservative-leaning, and that’s not even counting individual local or regional sources. My most used news sources this quarter were: USA Today, ABC, CBS, and NBC, Fox News, NPR, and The Hill, Time, the New York Times and the Washington Post, and of course, local sources from across the country. I also used some excellent content from The Dispatch, and the Los Angeles Times. To see where these sources were used, you can search them by category or find them under the American Media menu. But our local star news source this winter was the Washington City Paper, for their coverage on the Prince Jones story, featured in our article on Black police officers.
As ever, I’d love to hear your opinion on how we’re doing, or any suggestions for sources we haven’t used!
This Spring
And again, we’d be ecstatic to hear more American voices, in the way of commentary, art and photography, or original written pieces! You can always view previous reader contributions under Commentary or Art. And if you’d like to add your perspective to our coverage, you can easily write to us here or email me at maude@mauvereport.com. Our only submission requirements are mostly just based on respect for other Americans. You don’t have to be a professional, just an American with a viewpoint!
Looking ahead this spring, here are some topics and issues we’ll be talking about:
Transgender athletes. COVID vaccinations, re-openings, and the return of the American economy. The Derek Chauvin trial. Biden administration diplomacy. And we’ll certainly be following the abhorrent attacks against Asian-Americans that have proliferated since the start of the pandemic.
So don’t forget to subscribe, or follow! If not, there will be another one of these in June!
March 19, 2021