Hello! Welcome back to the Newsletter Once Known as “Today in Slate.” In its new form, the Angle will share the most interesting ideas about the news each day, highlighting thought-provoking pieces from Slate as well as other fascinating stories from around the Web.
Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, is dead at age 89. Katy Waldman wonders what last year’s publication of Go Set a Watchman has done for her legacy. In the end, the revelation of this less-than-great work at the end of her life was “utterly of a piece with Lee’s philosophy as a writer,” Waldman argues. “Lee believed that people have within them both flaws and veins of brilliance, that time’s tides erode innocence and deposit experience.”
Marco Rubio has an actually-good idea, writes Helaine Olen. Indeed, we should open the federal government’s Thrift Savings Plan to anyone who doesn’t have a retirement scheme to pay into through their workplace. So why hasn’t he talked about it in a while? “We know you like this idea, Marco Rubio,” Olen pleads. “It’s time to say so again.”
A vote for Bernie Sanders is a feminist act, argues Shiva Bayat, a millennial who plans to support the candidate from Vermont. “Feminism is a worldview that understands and critiques power,” Bayat writes. “Female supporters of Hillary should be happy that the women’s movement laid the groundwork for feminists like me to engage critically in power and political life.”
Our call for reader questions for Dear Jurisprudence (aka Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern) yielded many queries, which Mark and Dahlia have gamely entertained. Among other things, you guys are wondering whether President Obama could be president and Supreme Court justice at the same time (no way); whether some good candidates will simply refuse to be nominated, given the dirty year of fighting surely ahead of any nominee (they probably will); and whether Scalia was an order Muppet or a chaos Muppet (guess which).
For fun: Jesse David Fox just happened to be in the room last night when Steve Martin did some stand-up for the first time in 35 years. Apparently, it was awesome.
Joyous Friday night to you,
Rebecca
