Martial arts for family dinners, progressive sheriffs, learning to oppose: Weekend reads for December 28, 2024

What we're reading this week

Happy last Saturday of 2024, readers!

As we do each weekend for our supporting subscribers, we’ve collected the most interesting articles we’ve come across during the week to share with you. For this final roundup of the year, we’ve brought you the story of an unlikely collaboration between a sheriff and a prosecutor to achieve progressive goals in southern Michigan, we’ve found a piece on how martial arts training might provide clues for how to negotiate political disputes at family gatherings, several perspectives on what’s normal about America now, and more. Thanks so much for reading with us, and we hope you’ll continue to do so next year and beyond.

But first, we encourage you to read our powerful interview from earlier this week with Syrian activist and photojournalist Loubna Mrie, who talked to us about what the fall of Bashar al-Assad means for her and for Syrians at home and in exile, what she needs to hear from the rebels, and her hopes for a democratic country.

What’s important now for Syrians home and abroad to do, what’s important to do right now — for me, at least — is just to process. I think most Syrians in exile are experiencing something similar to what I’m going through. I worked so hard to accept that my country was no longer an option, that I had to move forward and be fully present here. I spent the last ten years in the United States trying to build a life for myself, trying to let go of Syria, to let go of the idea of home, and to find other ways to feel rooted. And then, suddenly, I have a country again. It’s as disorienting as it is beautiful and hopeful. It’s impossible to put into words.

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We hope The Ink will be essential to the thinking and reimagining and reckoning and doing that all lie ahead. We want to thank you for being a part of what we are and what we do, and we promise you that this community is going to find every way possible to be there for you in the times that lie ahead and be there for this country and for what it can be still.

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Readings

Building a better approach to justice in Michigan

Now with Dyer as the county’s top cop and Savit as its lead prosecutor, they hope to move these reforms forward by working collaboratively on policies that were previously siloed in different parts of the justice system.

“What you see in Washtenaw is a lot of different partners in conjunction with the community are largely working towards the same goals and from the same playbook,” Savit said. “It reflects our community values. Ultimately, what people in Washtenaw want is for us to work together to get people on the right track, rather than cycling them through the justice system over and over again in an ineffective fashion.” [Bolts]