How Mask Mandates Were Beaten Down in Rural Oklahoma

Plus: Putin’s “vertical of power”; Masha Gessen on pandemic culture wars; and an interview with Jonathan Van Ness. View in browser | Update your preferences Dispatch How Mask Mandates Were Beaten Down in Rural Oklahoma In Oklahoma, where the state government is currently implementing one of the country’s fastest reopening plans, local leaders have found themselves caught between state politics, economic imperatives, and a clear scientific consensus. By Victor Luckerson Medical Dispatch The Risks of Normalizing the Coronavirus To cope with the unimaginable, doctors, like everyone else, are learning to become numbingly familiar with ongoing mass death. By Clayton Dalton Dispatch The Pandemic and the Hollowness of Putin’s “Vertical of Power” The pandemic has shown that the Russian leader’s system is better at fostering a kind of psychic or virtual power than wielding real power in a time of crisis. By Joshua Yaffa Our Columnists Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Spitting on Other People The culture wars around the coronavirus pandemic center on conflicting ideas of freedom, revealing an utter lack of national common cause. By Masha Gessen Our Local Correspondents The Bushwick House Share Was a Haven—Then COVID-19 Struck In a collective, you’re only as safe as your least-careful roommate. By Michael Schulman Culture and More On and Off the Avenue Jonathan Van Ness Thinks You Should Let Your Quarantine Hair Grow The hair stylist and “Queer Eye” star offers wisdom on grooming, sweatpants, and more. By Rachel Syme Books Wartime for Wodehouse The writer paid dearly for his indomitable high spirits in internment camps, though not in the way one might have expected. By Rivka Galchen Humor from The New Yorker Daily Shouts Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Streaming Wars Already we have given so much of our lives to these services, and yet they only ask more of our bodies, our souls, our minds, and, of course, our money. By Lana Schwartz Daily Cartoon Wednesday, May 27th By Drew Dernavich This e-mail was sent to you by The New Yorker. To ensure delivery, we recommend adding newyorker@newsletters.newyorker.com, to your contacts, while noting that it is a no-reply address. Please send all newsletter feedback to tnyinbox@newyorker.com. For more from The New Yorker, sign up for our newsletters, shop the store, and sign in to newyorker.com, where subscribers always have unlimited access. Contact us with questions. View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2020. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.