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Accessibility to new technology for people with disabilities benefits everyone

Unless you’re blind or know someone who is, you might not know that blind people use the same smartphones as sighted people. In fact, many blind people use touch-screen smartphones every day. The secret is that smartphones have a screen reader, a tool that allows blind people to use a mix of gestures and taps, along with vibrations or audio feedback, to use their apps.

Screen readers work on desktop computers as well as mobile devices. You can usually find the screen reader in settings under accessibility. On iPhones the screen reader is VoiceOver. It provides a verbal description of what’s on the screen, including buttons to click and other actions available to the user. A well-designed website or app user interface makes the information on the website or app accessible to the screen reader, which makes it accessible to blind users. However, a badly designed website or application will be rendered invisible to a screen reader.

We are researchers who focus on technology design that is usable for people with all kinds of disabilities. We’ve found that more needs to be done to make technology accessible and inclusive, such as improving design tools so they are accessible to screen reader users.

It’s not just a matter of fairness and inclusion. Accessible technology is generally better for everyone. An app or website that causes problems for a screen reader is likely to be more difficult than an accessible app or website for anyone to use because it will take more time or effort.

Observing people is good; their participation is better

At first, user interface designers found that the best way to create accessible technology was to study how people with different disabilities used touch screens. For example, early researchers reported that blind users sometimes found locating small icons and specific numbers on the on-screen keypad difficult and time-consuming.

To solve this, accessibility researchers used the whole touch screen as an input and navigation control, similar to a game console controller. Instead of having to touch a particular part of the screen, users can tap anywhere in response to audio prompts. These insights would have been impossible to come by without including blind people in the evaluation and design of touch screens.

User interface design best practices have long included users in the design process. Including users with disabilities results in more accessible technology. Yet many technologies are still not accessible out of the box to users with disabilities.

One way to make apps and websites more accessible is to have people with disabilities designing the technologies. But the design process itself is not very accessible to those very people. Few tools in the user interface designer toolbox are themselves accessible. It’s a Catch-22.

Accessible tech requires accessible design tools

Little research has been conducted about how accessible the user interface design process is, including for blind people. Our recent research evaluated the accessibility of prototyping software, which allows user interface designers to create temporary mock-ups of user interface designs to show clients or to test with users. This software is instrumental to the field. Examples include Balsamiq, Adobe XD and UXPin.

Low- to high-fidelity mock-ups of user interfaces allow designers to play around with layouts before committing to a final design.

We found that most popular prototyping software is not compatible with screen readers. Therefore, the prototyping software is not accessible to blind designers who use screen readers.

We tested two common screen readers, VoiceOver on MacOS and Narrator on Windows, with popular prototyping software and documented when and where they provided access to the different buttons and features in the prototyping software.

Although we found some compatibility, such as screen readers identifying a button and indicating that the button could be selected, other aspects were less clear for screen reader users. For example, the prototyping software might not present information that the screen reader could pass on to the user to indicate what a given button does, like change the font size of text. Or it might not clearly allow the screen reader to focus on the button to select it, which is necessary for the user to be able to “click” the button.

A screen shot of a prototyping tool’s four major components: the canvas workspace, navigating layers of content, the individual elements that make up the design and the element parameters. VoiceOver is enabled and its visual caption panel floats on top of the canvas workspace, indicating that a button is selected.

Ultimately, the limited access uncovered in our research is severe enough to conclude that a blind designer would not be able to use the software to create mock-ups of their own.

A better future is accessible

Accessibility is an issue that touches everyone. Providing access to technology is legally required in most cases. In the past, organizations that failed to provide adequate access have faced lawsuits.

But accessibility is also a hallmark of good technology. Many technologies that people take for granted today came about when innovators designed for users with disabilities, including optical character recognition, which allows computers to read printed text.

Building accessibility into the design process is crucial. And while it is useful for designers to be aware of how users with disabilities interact with technologies, the most powerful insights may come from those with disabilities themselves. No matter how much empathy designers glean from researching user behavior and preferences, it can’t replace the benefits of having a piece of technology built by people who actually use it.

Kristen Shinohara, Assistant Professor of Computing and Information Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology and Garreth Tigwell, Assistant Professor of Computing and Information Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Why Jack the Ripper and other serial killer narratives endure

The message finally landed with my husband how much of a serial killer buff he had married after 12 years as we were watching “Mindhunter,” the Netflix drama series based on the book by the same name about the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit. I was able to call out the serial killers before they were named on screen, then give a summary of their crimes; the types of victims they pursued, where and when they operated. I can’t be sure if he was impressed or petrified. Perhaps both.

I’m certainly not alone in harboring a fascination with murder. Over 70 million people downloaded the 2014 podcast “Serial,” about the 1999 murder of 17-year-old Hae Min Lee. And true crime has been a thriving economy for years:  books, documentaries, tours — not to mention the crime-inspired TV dramas, movies, novels and more. Harold Schechter, an American true crime writer, referred to the specific fascination with serial killers as “cultural hysteria,” and it doesn’t look to be fading anytime soon. 

I can remember the exact moment my obsession began. I was around six or seven years old and at home with my mother. She specifically told me that I was under no circumstances to open a book she had brought home from the library, which she then left on the floor by her handbag. Of course, as soon as I had an opportunity I reached for the book, looked along the edge of the pages where it was darker which told me where the pictures were, and flicked open to see what it was I should never see. I opened the book on the mortuary photographs of Catherine Eddowes, the fourth canonical victim of Jack the Ripper. The grainy black and white photographs of a wretched woman with her nose cut off and her stomach sagging like a burst balloon from where she had been mutilated. A nightmarish picture was scarred on the back of my eyelids forever.

Jack was my “gateway drug” into serial killers. He hardly needs an introduction, but he committed the mutilation murders of five women assumed to be sex workers in and around Whitechapel, London, from August to November in 1888, at which point the murders stopped. By then he had, quite literally, etched his way into the zeitgeist. His name conjures up images of dark and misty alleyways and blood curdling screams, and is synonymous with the poverty of Victorian England — much to the embarrassment of the British Empire.

But what is it about Jack that has such enduring appeal? It wasn’t as if violence in 1888 was rare. The life expectancy for a man from the East End of London was 26 years old, kept low by the diminished life expectancy of casual laborers, who took on unsecure and often deadly work. Infant mortality rates were high as well, and childhood diseases were rife. Simply being alive was risky enough, not taking murders — most of which were of the domestic violence variety or gang related — into account. It doesn’t explain why this one murderer has lingered on. Personally, I think Jack endured because of a perfect storm of events — a combination of technology, social and political unrest, wealth inequality and public anger.

Today we are used to news traveling the world in a matter of seconds. There’s an insatiable thirst for content and we expect it for free. Traditionally printed newspaper sales may have declined, but in 1888 the newspaper was king and the only source of information. Looking back is like looking at a dress rehearsal of how we are learning to cope with social media — drowning in notifications, clickbait and 24-hour news coverage, bewildered by the effects this technology is having on our world.

I propose that it’s fair to compare the two eras. The telegraph was invented in the early 1800s. By the mid-1800s the laying of telegraph cables underground and across the seabed started, and this connected continents and led to the creation of news agencies. Before the telegraph, messages had to be sent the same way people and goods traveled — by road or water — but by 1888 news could be sent from nearly anywhere in the world and be printed in The Times the next day. Not only did the murders shock the people of London, they shocked the world. And as circulation increased, so did the appetite for more news — and this encouraged an increase in sensationalist reporting.

Victorian culture was notoriously class-ridden, and tensions were already high on Sunday, November 13, 1887, when Sir Charles Warren, Commissioner of Police, banned all meetings in Trafalgar Square. Demonstrations by the unemployed had been taking place every day since the summer and homeless people slept in the square and washed in the fountain. The police were under pressure to end such an embarrassing situation. The resulting event, which became known as Bloody Sunday, saw around 150 people treated at local hospitals. Up to 300 rioters were arrested.

A common feature of the press coverage of these class tensions was the dramatization of Whitechapel itself — the cliché of the slum ghetto, a trap of misery and hunger. The truth, as it always is, was more nuanced. But that’s not what people saw in the daily newspaper. It is worth mentioning that London was the richest city in the world at the time. Jack the Ripper, simply put, was an embarrassment. Jack unwittingly shone a light on a system rigged towards the upper classes and a government policy of conscious neglect. Jack brought age-old arguments to the surface. But this time, the world watched.

His ongoing anonymity remains a key part of his appeal. The monster in any horror movie is always scarier before you see it. Once his or her identity is revealed, the fear disappears. As with most serial killers, they’re likely to be ordinary and underwhelming on the surface. It’s almost disappointing, so perhaps it has a lot to do with the faceless figure in the dark who can exist as a bespoke monster. A shared concept, but entirely different in each person’s imagination.

It’s true that the murders didn’t evoke much sympathy for victims. They were referred to in newspapers as “unfortunates,” code for prostitute. But when Catherine Eddowes was murdered beyond Aldgate and within the boundary of the City it whipped up more hysteria. Jack was commuting, and that meant women of a higher class — respectable, less disposable — might become victims. If people gawked before, now they were frightened … and it was a thrill.

Put in simple terms, the brain doesn’t differentiate much between fear or excitement, so anyone who has experienced terror at the thought of public speaking and been on any presentation course or sought therapy for social anxiety will have encountered the theory of reframing fear as nervous anticipation. We know the hysteria and news was lapped up by the general population, but especially young middle-class women. Imagine you were a cosseted Victorian woman stuck indoors with little or no mental stimulation or likelihood of any adventure. The fear the Ripper produced was as close to a thrill you were likely to get. And Jack was also making people angry — at the women, at the poor, at the police, at the government. Anger hits the amygdala and pumps chemicals around the brain. We can get hooked on these chemicals, with the brain looking for the next anger-stoking piece of news to get that luscious hit again. 

Speaking for myself, it’s clear the obsession started with my mother’s questionable ’80s parenting and seeing those autopsy photographs. I remember being shocked and unable to look away, like rubbernecking at a car accident. When I was older, I learned about the Moors Murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, who buried their child victims on the Yorkshire moors. My mother came from Yorkshire, although we lived in London, and I’d overheard her tell people that her sister had worked as a cleaner in the coroners’ office and somehow seen photographs of the children she never recovered from. The mugshots of their defiant faces eyeballing the camera still haunts most of the UK.

The same with the Yorkshire Ripper, who targeted women walking alone after dark. Again, the connection with Yorkshire and my mother’s origins made it relatable. As in the case of the Ripper murders, the police conducted the investigation with a huge complimentary dose of sexism and ego, enabling Peter Sutcliffe to evade capture and go onto murder at least 13 women.

In 1994 came Fred and Rose West, the horror couple who abducted vulnerable girls, torturing them in their own private dungeon as their children played. They lived in Gloucester, which was miles away, but Fred West had worked on an industrial estate near where we lived. The police even searched the site looking for other victims. I was 16 at the time, a similar age to some of the victims, and we all talked about the murders. It spread fear through us — or was it a thrill? These were high-profile cases with a slither of intimacy that could penetrate my bubble and feed my fascination and intrigue.

This is why Jack the Ripper endures — he’s the embodiment of anonymity, fear, anger and media hype. He’s less of a person and more part of our culture. When I set out to write a story during the Whitechapel murders it was because I wanted to explore the hysteria of the time. What was it like to live during such uncertainty with an unseen monster holding everyone to ransom? I didn’t expect to find myself living through something not altogether dissimilar with COVID-19.

The privileged of us will likely survive the pandemic. But we have still fed off the fear and devoured the sensationalized news. We’ve needed the emails, calls, notifications, podcasts, movies, Netflix, Facebook, trolls, Twitter, binary tribal choices about masks and vaccines. Humans can reduce complex fears to a single shot to the amygdala, and feed it daily. Be angry and be afraid: It’s an economy and we are all at its mercy. A bit like a serial killer, waiting for the next strike so we can all get our fix.

Grab a jar of Nutella and store-bought puff pastry and you’re 15 minutes from dessert decadence

The first time I had Nutella was at one of those off-brand combo pizzeria-arcades that exist in the shadow of Chuck E. Cheese. Despite the questionable surroundings — animatronic animals that occasionally blipped to life, flickering lights, everything smelling vaguely of singed plastic — the chocolate hazelnut spread, which was used to coat a sweetened pizza crust and then covered with fresh-ish fruit, was a revelation. 

I’ve been chasing that high ever since. 

As evidenced by its frequent use on items like dessert pizza, Nutella is a shortcut to low-effort yet playful desserts. For something so simple, it has a lot of nuanced flavor packed in that jar; there’s the slight bitterness of the chocolate and the inherent saltiness and nuttiness of the hazelnuts, all bolstered by a rich, sugary sweetness. 

Recently, I used it as a building block to combine two of my favorite desserts, a simple chocolate tart and coconut dream bars, into a stellar summer pastry that comes together in less than 15 minutes. 

Coconut dream bars — which are also called seven-layer bars and, occasionally, Hello Dollies — are packed with chocolate, nuts, shredded coconut and graham cracker crumbs. Nutella takes care of the chocolate portion and, after spreading it over a layer of buttery puff pastry, I used the other key bar ingredients as toppings, alongside a generous sprinkle of flaky sea salt. 

The Nutella and puff pastry combination works well as a base to riff on other desserts as well. For a play on tiramisu, swirl the Nutella with mascarpone and top with crushed chocolate-covered espresso beans. To mimic a chocolate and fruit tart, cover the pastry with the chocolate spread and then top it with tidy, alternating rows of fresh raspberries and whipped cream. 

* * *

Recipe: Coconut-Nutella Dream Pastry
Serves 6

Ingredients

  • 1 sheet of store-bought puff pastry
  • 1 egg, cracked and whisked with 2 tablespoons of whole milk or cream
  • 5 tablespoons of Nutella 
  • 3 graham crackers, crushed
  • 4 tablespoons of crushed hazelnuts or pecans 
  • 4 tablespoons of shredded coconut
  • 1 tablespoon of flaky sea salt 

Directions

1. Roll the puff pastry into a thin rectangle, then crimp the exterior edges inward to create a half-inch border. Brush the pastry with the egg wash and bake according to the package instructions. 

2. Meanwhile, combine the crushed graham crackers, nuts, shredded coconut and salt in a small bowl. Set aside. 

3. Remove the pastry from the oven. Once it is cool enough to handle, spread the Nutella over the pastry, stopping at the border. Generously coat with the prepared topping and enjoy.

GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn continues long-running Taylor Swift feud with bizarre “Marxism” rant

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has started another fire taking aim, yet again, at pop singer Taylor Swift. Speaking to the right-wing media outlet Breitbart, the Republican lawmaker “criticized the left for making country music “woke,” according to Insider.

Blackburn also insisted entertainers like the “Shake it Off” singer would suffer in a Marxist, socialist-driven society. “If we have a socialistic government, if we have Marxism, you are going to be the first ones who will be cut off because the state would have to approve your music,” she said.

“When you look at Marxist socialistic societies, they do not allow women to dress or sing or be on stage or to entertain or the type of music she would have,” Blackburn said. “They don’t allow protection of private intellectual property rights.”

She added, “Taylor Swift came after me in my 2018 campaign, but Taylor Swift would be the first victim.”

Blackburn’s latest remarks follow Swift’s criticism of the lawmaker. In an Instagram post shared in 2018, Swift noted Blackburn’s voting record as she explained why she would not support her.

“As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn,” Swift wrote at the time.

“Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values.”

Back in 2020, Swift also took a subliminal jab at Blackburn during her Netflix documentary “Miss Americana.” Sharing her reaction to Blackburn’s Senate victory, Swift said, “She gets to be the first female senator in Tennessee, and she’s Trump in a wig.”

Whip up this orange-jicama salad with peppers to add some sweetness and spice to summer cookouts

If you’re not a fan of cilantro, you can substitute fresh parsley. Toast the cumin in a dry skillet over medium heat until fragrant (about 30 seconds) and then remove the pan from the heat so the cumin won’t scorch.

***

Recipe: Orange-Jícama Salad with Sweet and Spicy Peppers
Serves 8
 

Ingredients

  • 6 oranges
  • 6 tablespoons lime juice (3 limes)
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin, toasted
  • ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
  • Salt
  • ½ cup vegetable oil
  • 2 pounds jícama, peeled and cut into 2-inch-long matchsticks
  • 2 red bell peppers, stemmed, seeded, and cut into ⅛-inch-wide strips
  • 4 jalapeño chiles, stemmed, seeded, quartered lengthwise, and quarters cut crosswise into ⅛-inch-thick slices
  • 1 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
  • 6 scallions, green parts only, sliced thin on bias

Directions

1. Cut away peel and pith from oranges. Halve oranges from end to end. Cut each half lengthwise into 3 wedges, then cut crosswise into ¼-inch pieces. Place orange pieces in fine-mesh strainer set over bowl; let drain to remove excess juice.

2. Whisk lime juice, cumin, mustard, and ½ teaspoon salt together in large bowl. Whisking constantly, gradually add oil.

3. Toss jícama and bell peppers with ¼ teaspoon salt in large bowl until combined. Add jícama mixture, jalapeños, cilantro, scallions, and oranges to bowl with dressing and toss well to combine. Divide salad among individual plates, drizzle with any remaining dressing in bowl, and serve immediately.

If you like this recipe as much as we do, check out “The Complete Salad Cookbook” by America’s Test Kitchen.

 



 

The British condiment you’ll wish you’d met sooner

My childhood had plenty of very English foods—crumpets, cucumber sandwiches, and beans on toast—but sandwich pickle slipped by me. It took me dating an Englishman while in college in India to be formally introduced.

This man had but one culinary skill (I wasn’t far ahead, either, at the time)—turning out the perfect cheese and pickle sandwich. He had a precise, if painfully slow, manner about his efforts: a uniform amount of butter spread evenly on every slice, each cut of double Gloucester of ideal thickness, and finally, a perfectly apportioned dollop of Branston Pickle.

I had never tasted a sandwich quite like it. The sticky, acidic sauce and sweet, savory crunch set against a sharp, fatty cheese…. it was love at first bite. And, just like that, the cheese and pickle sandwich (to which I’d sometimes add a couple slices of tomato) became my no-cook lunch of choice. For years after, no trip to England was complete without bringing back a couple bottles of Branston, lovingly encased in sweatshirts and jeans.

Much like, say, HP Sauce or Marmite, Branston Pickle is a very common condiment in a British pantry, and is often served as part of that British pub standard, the “ploughman’s lunch” (a picnic-style cold meal of bread, cheese, and assorted accompaniments including cold cuts, fruit, and pickle). With a history that dates back to 1922—and a recipe that has stayed the same since—Branston has very little competition in the space it occupies, selling over 17 million bottles a year.

To me, its devastating charm lies in a complex flavor profile of aged umaminess, which comes from the combination of sugar, date paste, applesauce, barley malt vinegar, and various spices. The rest of what goes into it reads much like a roasted veg dinner: carrots, rutabaga, onion, and cauliflower.

Those vegetables are what form the lumpy bits in the pickle that somehow always, as a friend once said, accumulate in the center of your sandwich. Unless you’re eating the smooth version, which is perfect if you love the taste but “aren’t keen on the lumps.” There’s also a small-chunk version, which comes with the bite but is more spreadable. Your pick of the three depends on what you use it for—and there are uses well beyond a sandwich.

I enjoy it with Triscuits and a sharp cheddar as much as I do plopped on an open-faced melted cheese toast. I’ve used it as a relish in deviled eggs, and even been known to spread it on a dosa—here’s where the smooth version comes in handy. If you’re inclined, remember, a little goes a long way. A few years ago, Branston started making chutneys, including a rather good caramelized onion chutney (alongside a bold Stilton, mmmm), but it could never take the place of sandwich pickle in my pantry.

When I moved to the U.S. seven years ago, I took a break from Branston for the first time since being introduced, unsure of where to find it. However, it was never far from my thoughts, even as I tried to replace it in my cheese sandwiches with date relish or meethi-nimbu (sweet lime) chutney.

Then one day, quite randomly, I stumbled upon a tiny slice of Britain in Brooklyn—a cozy store on the edge of Brooklyn Heights called Two for the Pot. There, amid a diverse inventory of coffees and loose-leaf teas, spices, jams, and biscuits sat several jars of Branston Pickle. I walked out with three, along with one pack of Hobnobs, two bags of Walkers crisps, and a spring in my step.

Although you can now buy it online pretty easily (except for the no-chunk), finding that local supply of Branston—four quick subway stops away—was a game-changer for me. So far, I’ve stopped short of eating it straight out of the jar. Or stirring it into pasta (yep—it’s a thing). But a cheese and pickle sandwich? I’ll take that any time, any day. I’d be happy to make you one, too.

This post contains products independently chosen (and loved) by Food52 editors and writers. As an Amazon Associate and Skimlinks affiliate, Food52 earns an affiliate commission on qualifying purchases of the products we link to.

“Black Widow” is a triumph for Marvel fans, yet that’s what makes it so infuriating

Disney+ subscribers who used the service in the days leading up to the release of “Black Widow” were greeted with The Black Widow Collection. This hero banner slideshow featured Scarlett Johansson’s super-duper spy Avenger in all her guises and from every Marvel Cinematic Universe film in which she appears prior to the character’s first solo outing. The wigs alone tell individual style stories, not all of them great, dating all the way back to her first appearance in 2010’s “Iron Man 2.”

From there Black Widow leapt into “The Avengers” before co-starring in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” which came before “Avengers: The Age of Ultron” and “Captain America: Civil War” and, of course, “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Endgame.”

Hopefully by this point you’ve noticed the problem with grouping these films under a collection named for the superhero team’s top-ranking woman – her name isn’t in any of these titles. (She’s an Avenger, but so are a lot of other folks.) Three place her in at least a secondary position to two of the franchise’s top male superheroes. In “Iron Man 2” she’s more accurately described as tertiary, not to mention some version of a honey trap.

Disparaging Natasha Romanoff is not my intent, by the way. I come to praise this unsung heroine, not bury her. Marvel already did that.

It took 24 MCU films for Black Widow to get a standalone feature while the lives of nearly all of the other core Avengers, save Hawkeye, are explored through multiple titles. That number doesn’t include the pre-Phase One Hulk flicks but for the sake of this argument I’m counting them. Bicker about that all you want, but my larger point stands: Bruce Banner and the Incredible Hulk received title placement in multiple films and starred in a classic TV show. Natasha Romanoff hasn’t gotten any kind of unaccompanied spotlight until this weekend.

Taking all of this into consideration, perhaps you get why some may emerge from watching “Black Widow” enveloped in a thunderstorm of mixed emotions.

In all the ways that matter to an MCU fan, “Black Widow” the film meets or exceeds all expectations. It is a killer action flick, and a unique viewing experience . . . in that I loved it, and the fact that I loved it also makes me livid.

Neither the movie nor the director and writer are to blame for this. “Black Widow” satisfies in every way that matters. Astounding action sequences and gripping character development confidently carry the plot. Smart humor, much of it courtesy of Florence Pugh’s resolute delivery and playful sangfroid, combines with the rest to elevate Johansson’s hero to the place of honor she deserves in this universe.

Indeed, “Black Widow” showcases Pugh’s incredible range and muscular charisma over ScarJo’s magnetic appeal. Perhaps that’s unintentional, and Johansson’s fine, but if Marvel planned for Pugh to clear a runway for Yelena, she fulfills that mission with a performance that sucker punches the heavens.

Similarly director Cate Shortland expands “Black Widow” beyond its expected role as a narrative patch. She and screenwriter Eric Pearson take swipes at the action genre’s silly indulgences while telling an admirably spun story about women taking a fist to the face of patriarchy. Take Yelena’s shade throwing at Natasha’s superhero landing addiction, one of those comic book movie tropes that, as another masked vigilante points out in a different film, is totally impractical. 

Nothing about Natasha or Yelena caters to the stereotypical horny male comic book reader – they are capable, confident women who address and treat one another like capable, confident women who somehow survive multiple assassination attempts by men who resent their agency. What’s not to love?

This story’s sinister overlord isn’t members of the American government, Hydra agents masquerading as such, but a patronizing despot in post-Soviet Russia, where Natasha Romanoff and her adoptive sister Yelena Belova (Pugh) were trained to be assassins.

“Avengers” lore has it that Natasha escaped with the help of American operative Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). Yelena did not, resulting in a contentious reunion between the two and the “parents” who raised them: Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour), Russia’s gone-to-seed imitation of Captain America, and Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), a former Black Widow reassigned to other duties.

Pearson strikes a balance between treating Natasha’s backstory with the same solemnity given to every other key Avenger and with comedic gusto, all while drawing inspiration and connections to other TV shows and action movies. There’s a vibe reminiscent of “The Americans” as it begins, before it segues into a storyline that moves, leaps and sharp-shoots a lot like a Jason Bourne yarn.

Comparisons between “Black Widow” and Matt Damon’s multi-film action epic work in Marvel’s favor, actually. They underscore the ways that both are patriarchal domination parables. Each is a saga about controlling ordinary people forced into a system that molds them into extraordinary specimens to be deployed by powerful men who decide how they live, who they kill and whether and when they’ll die.

Natasha and Yelena’s bloody quest to take down Dreykov (Ray Winstone), the general who ruined their lives, serves that purpose in a more obvious respect because they and their Widow sisters are women.

Be that as it may, Johansson, Pugh and their sister Widows have nothing to prove to the audience that knows Natasha Romanoff. To stubborn industry executives still doubting that a big budget action flicks starring a woman and about women can draw an audience, though, setting this example – again – still  matters.

It bears repeating that it took two dozen movies before “Black Widow” hatched, four years after the original “Wonder Woman” became the most successful movie in DC’s “Justice League” series, and a year and a half after “Birds of Prey,” 2020’s 10th-highest grossing film worldwide, attracted an audience evenly split between men and women.

“Black Widow” is leagues better than that movie. That doesn’t lessen my anger at Marvel, because the triumph of “Black Widow” is blunted by the immutable fact of the title character’s permanent death in “Avengers: Endgame.” The sorrow of that isn’t the thorny point, it’s the insult.

Natasha Romanoff is one of two major, central women in the MCU, the other being Gamora from “Guardians of the Galaxy,” whose backstories are established over multiple films.

Each is formidable, resourceful and capable in her own right; Black Widow is even more impressive because she’s expertly trained as opposed to technologically augmented.  

And each gets tossed over the same cliff to their deaths, sacrificed to serve missions carried out by men.

In the same ways Leia is a fictional role model for girls and women who love “Star Wars,” Natasha Romanoff and Gamora surely served that purpose for “Avengers” fans. Framed thusly, you might then understand why watching those women reduced to a spot on the cosmos’ pavement creates a sore spot that hasn’t entirely healed.

It’s helpful to know that we’ll learn more about Okoye and Shuri from “Black Panther.” Wanda Maximoff’s psyche was the focus of an entire series, “WandaVision,” which is nice. Marvel’s also bringing us the further exploits of Captain Marvel (another super-woman introduced late in the game) and Ms. Marvel in an upcoming series.

Gamora, at least, receives a second chance through a version from an alternate timeline – but it’s not the one with whom fans were encouraged to make a substantial connection. None of that changes the fact in the same movie that gives a loving goodbye to Tony Stark and Iron Man, Black Widow doesn’t even get a funeral that we see on screen. Can we be surprised that the brazenly pandering all-female battle scene in “Endgame” came off as silly and hollow?

After all that, and in the wake of it, the continuing adventures of Black Widow are therefore impossible, which makes the satisfaction and emotional victory that is “Black Widow” still feel like a loss.

Nevertheless, there’s a good chance we’ll see more of the character’s backstory. Early reports indicate opening day box office returns for “Black Widow” are healthy. It might even set a few box office records. If the longer term result is that we get more of Yelena in Phase Four, fantastic (assuming you’ve seen the mid-credits sequence). What would be even more gratifying is the MCU treats her and other next generation heroines as well as their male counterparts, and better than the sister who fought and flew ahead of them.

“Black Widow” is now playing in theaters and available via Premier Access to Disney+ subscribers. 

12 surprising facts about Mel Brooks on his 95th birthday

Mel Brooks, who was born in Brooklyn, New York on June 28, 1926, has been cracking people up since he was a teenager. Brooks is a 10,000-trick pony who has made us laugh as a performer, writer, musician, and, of course, a director. Through it all, the Oscar winner has found humor in places where most people wouldn’t dare to look for it. We dug up a few things that you might not have known about one of the greatest comedic minds of our time.

1. Mel Brooks changed his last name because of a famous trumpeter.

Mel Brooks’s given name is actually Melvin James Kaminsky. The son of Jewish immigrants, he grew up in Brooklyn, New York, along with three older brothers. At age 9, Brooks’s uncle took him to see his very first Broadway musical: Cole Porter’s Anything Goes. He was mesmerized. “I fell in love forever with Broadway,” Brooks told The New York Times of the experience. Determined to make it in show business, the youngster started taking drum lessons from a neighbor. From there, Brooks’s career really took off.

By his the time he turned 14 years old, Brooks was already earning money as a percussionist. Soon, his talents took him to the Catskills, where the teenager played for various clubs in the Borscht Belt. Back in the 1930s and ’40s, this area was also the home turf of Max Kaminsky — an acclaimed trumpet player. To avoid confusion, the drummer started calling himself Mel Brooks, a nod to his mother’s maiden name, Brookman.

2. Mel Brooks’s knack for breaking the fourth wall is deeply rooted.

Igor literally winks at the audience in “Young Frankenstein“; Darth Helmet fast-forwards through his own movie in “Spaceballs“; the camera shatters a windowpane in “High Anxiety.” Just about every Mel Brooks picture is chock full of gags like these. The man’s undying love for fourth wall jokes began in the Catskills. One of his first jobs there was doing maintenance work at the Butler Lodge, an Ellenville resort that put on the occasional play. Brooks got a big break (of sorts) when their production of the melodrama “Uncle Harry” ran into trouble.

Midway through the run, a supporting actor fell ill. Brooks agreed to take his place, but ended up flubbing his first scene. On stage, he was supposed to offer Harry a glass of water. But as Brooks poured, the cup slipped through his fingers and shattered into pieces. There was an awkward silence. Not knowing what to do, Brooks wandered down to the end of the stage, took off his character’s wig, and shouted “I’m 14. I’ve never done this before!” The crowd howled with laughter. From that moment on, Brooks said, he knew he’d be a comic for the rest of his life — even though the director threatened to kill him.

3. Mel Brooks served in World War II.

The year 1944 was a pivotal one for Brooks. Upon graduating from high school, the future Oscar nominee (who still officially went by Melvin Kaminsky) joined the U.S. Army. After getting some training in Virginia and Oklahoma, he was sent off to Europe. As a member of the 1104th Engineer Combat Group, the Brooklynite saw action in the Battle of the Bulge. However, Brooks’s unit spent most of its time away from the battlefield. Instead, a normal day’s work for Brooks and his unit involved building bridges or poking around for buried landmines with their bayonets.

4. Mel Brooks’s 2000-year-old man character was inspired by a recurring new program.

After the war, Brooks was hired as a writer for Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows” (1950-1954). He immediately hit it off with a co-worker named Carl Reiner, who would become a longtime friend and partner. One night, Reiner happened to catch a news show entitled “We The People Speak,” a weekly program that dramatized current events with a team of actors and was hosted by Dan Seymour. Reiner thought this premise would make for a great skit on “Your Show of Shows,” but Caesar vetoed the idea. Nevertheless, some good still came of it.

During a lull in the writer’s room, Reiner put on his best Seymour impression, turned to Brooks and said “Here’s a man who was actually seen at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ 2000 years ago.” With a thick Yiddish accent, Brooks replied “Oooh, boy.” Staying in character, Brooks went on to add, “Thin lad, wore sandals, long hair, walked around with 11 other guys.” Thus, the 2000 Year Old Man was born.

Reiner and Brooks put together several popular albums’ worth of interviews with this character, who supposedly danced with Marie Antoinette and fathered over 42,000 children (“Not one comes to visit me,” he lamented). In 1998, the duo’s fifth album, “The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000,” earned a Grammy.

5. ABC rejected Mel Brooks’s “Get Smart” TV series because it seemed “un-American.”

The hit series “Get Smart,” which was co-created by Brooks and Buck Henry, ran from 1965 to 1970. A spoof of the James Bond franchise, it starred Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, a U.S. secret agent whose enthusiasm didn’t always match his competence. Before NBC picked it up, the show was pitched to ABC — whose executives wrote it off as “distasteful and un-American.” Note, however, that it has since developed quite a following around the CIA.

6. “The Producers” wasn’t Mel Brooks’s first Broadway musical.

In 1957, Brooks teamed up with celebrated lyricist Joe Darion to write the book for “Shinbone Alley.” A twisted tale about a dead poet who has been reanimated as a cockroach, the musical flopped and only ran for 59 performances—although an animated movie version came out 14 years later (which you can watch part of above). Brooks took another stab at the Great White Way in 1962, when he scripted “All American.” Though it garnered mixed reviews, it was modestly more successful and even earned two Tony nominations. By comparison, “The Producers” won 12 Tonys, setting a record that has yet to be broken (though “Hamilton” came close with its 11 wins).

7. Alfred Hitchcock helped Mel Brooks with “High Anxiety.”

By the late 1970s, Brooks had established himself as one of the top comedy directors in Hollywood, with genre parodies as his bread and butter. After lampooning westerns in “Blazing Saddles,” horror movies in “Young Frankenstein,” and Buster Keaton-esque cinema in “Silent Movie, “he chose the great Alfred Hitchcock as his next target.

Out of respect for the Master of Suspense, Brooks mailed him a rough story outline in advance with a note that read, “If any of this offends you, I won’t do [the movie].” In response, Hitchcock invited Brooks to his office, where the two would meet on a regular basis to develop what became 1977’s “High Anxiety.” “Every Friday, I’d come over,” Brooks said. “He was the most lovely, charming guy that ever lived.” The day after Hitchcock saw the final cut, he congratulated Brooks with a case of choice wine. “I’ve still got three [bottles] left,” the funnyman said in 2013.

8. Mel brooks has produced some well-regarded non-comedies.

In 1980, Anne Bancroft — Brooks’s late wife — directed a dramedy called “Fatso.” Her husband wanted to produce the picture, but knew that if his name showed up on the promotional materials, people would assume it was some kind of zany farce. So he created Brooksfilms, a company that would later produce such movies as David Lynch’s “The Elephant Man” and David Cronenberg’s “The Fly.”

9. Mel Brooks writes a lot of the original songs that appear in his movies.

In the original, 1968 version of “The Producers,” we get two musical numbers: “Prisoners of Love” and “Springtime for Hitler.” Brooks came up with the melody and lyrics for both, though he had to ask a musicologist friend to convert these into actual sheet music. The director’s other songwriting credits include the titular track of “Blazing Saddles” and “Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst” from his second movie, “The Twelve Chairs.”

10. For “To Be or Not To Be,” Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft worked with a Polish language tutor.

Although he didn’t direct it, Brooks regards “To Be or Not To Be” (1983) as his favorite of all the pictures he’s ever done. A remake of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 masterpiece of the same name, it stars Brooks and Bancroft as the Bronskis — a married couple who head a theater company in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Early on, they take the stage for a Polish-language cover of the hit jazz song “Sweet Georgia Brown.” To pull this off, the pair recruited a language tutor. “There’s no greater joy than singing . . . with my wife in Polish,” Brooks once declared. In a 2013 interview with SirusXM, Brooks reminisced about the film — and Bancroft. “She was fun,” he says. “I liked her so much, I couldn’t get enough of her.”

11. Mel Brooks’s left handprint on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has an extra digit.

On September 8, 2014, Brooks cemented his place in movie history — literally. As Hollywood looked on, the director left his foot and handprints on a new block of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In typical Mel Brooks fashion, he did so with a prosthetic eleventh finger.

12. Mel Brooks is an EGOT.

In showbiz, those that can pull off winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony are known as “EGOTs.” So far, only 16 individuals have earned the title. Brooks’s journey toward becoming the eighth EGOT in world history began in 1967, when his work with Sid Caesar netted him an Outstanding Writing Emmy. Two years later, Brooks accepted a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for “The Producers.” He then won three more Emmys en route to landing a Grammy with Carl Reiner for their aforementioned “2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000” album in 1999. Finally, Brooks personally took home a trio of Tonys after “The Producers” musical was released.

As if all this weren’t enough, he’s also been a Kennedy Center honoree and, in 2010, Brooks received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. When he was given the latter, President Barack Obama delivered a memorable speech, noting: “By illuminating uncomfortable truths about racism and sexism and anti-Semitism, he’s been called our jester, asking us to see ourselves as we really are, determined that we laugh ourselves sane.”

Richard Marx on the Beatles song that changed his life, “angel” Lionel Richie and his friend Ringo

Pop music superstar, songwriter and producer Richard Marx joined host Kenneth Womack to talk about his decades-long career, Beatles influences, his new memoir “Stories To Tell,” and much more on “Everything Fab Four,” a podcast co-produced by me and Womack (a music scholar who also writes about pop music for Salon) and distributed by Salon.

Chicago-born Marx, who released his self-titled debut album in 1987, went on to have a string of 14 top 20 hits in the late ’80s and early ’90s, including “Don’t Mean Nothing,” “Hold On to the Nights” and “Right Here Waiting.” As he tells Womack, he started out singing in commercials for his jazz-pianist-turned-ad-man father’s jingle company at the age of five. “I grew up in the recording studio as much as I did the classroom.”

Subscribe today through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, RadioPublic, Breaker, Player.FM, Pocket Casts or wherever you get your podcasts.

At that time, Marx was “more of a Monkees fan,” and even went through a strong country music phase, before the Beatles’ “Got to Get You Into My Life” was re-released as a single in 1976. After hearing it on the radio, the band was on his radar, sending him on a search that he likened to “discovering a TV show and finding out multiple seasons already existed” and the excitement of “being able to binge.”

After combing through the Beatles’ “Red” and “Blue” compilations, he couldn’t wait to find the original albums and hear the other songs he’d been missing (such as “For No One” on what he now considers his favorite album, “Revolver.”) “To think about what they did in the short period of time they did it,” says Marx, “My brain explodes.”

When it comes to making his own music and songwriting, he lists several artists as influences including Sam Cooke, Paul Simon and Lionel Richie (who actually helped Marx get his start in L.A.). As far as the Beatles go, Marx calls himself “a huge Lennon fan” but says it’s the melodies that Paul McCartney (and even George Harrison) wrote that had the most impact on him.

And as for that fourth Beatle, Ringo Starr? Marx has not only had the pleasure of touring with the All-Starr Band and even recording songs with “incredible musician” Ringo, but he also counts him as a friend. “He’s generous, fun and funny — he’s truly everything you’d want Ringo to be.”

And for all of Marx’s experiences and achievements, he still says that “the Beatles, to this day, simply continue to amaze me.”

Listen to the entire conversation with Richard Marx on “Everything Fab Four,” and subscribe via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.

“Everything Fab Four” is distributed by Salon. Host Kenneth Womack is the author of a two-volume biography on Beatles producer George Martin, the bestselling book “Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles,” and most recently “John Lennon, 1980: The Last Days in the Life.”

Is a hot dog a sandwich? Food pros weigh in

“Are hot dogs sandwiches?”

It’s the kind of question that can make your blood boil, raise your voice a few octaves higher than you knew possible, and summon strong opinions from even the shyest snacker in your friend group. Ahead of the July 4th weekend and the infamous Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest held each year on New York’s Coney Island (I’m rooting for you, as always, Joey Chestnut), outdoor furniture retailer RTAOutdoorLiving.com surveyed 1,000 individuals in an attempt to settle the debate with no end. Reader: the results may be disturbing, so proceed at your own risk.

As it turns out, 56.8 percent of those surveyed believe that hot dogs are, in fact, sandwiches. Take a breath, maybe grab a drink of water (or something stronger), and continue on.

Leading the way were the baby boomers, 63.5 percent of whom thought that a hot dog met the criteria for being considered a sandwich, compared to 60 percent of all male participants and 50 percent of Gen Zers. To make matters juicier, 75.2 percent of all participants also agreed that a hamburger is a sandwich. But we’re not even going to get into that.

Those who voted for a hot dog being a sandwich are not without support. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) describes a sandwich as “a meat or poultry filling between two slices of bread, a bun, or a biscuit.” By that definition, sure, a hot dog is a sandwich.

But it’s not.

When I presented the debate results to the Food52 editorial team, our team Slack channel went off. Team members were quick to weigh in with opinions—and the battle lines were drawn. “I feel like there needs to be two separate pieces of bread to qualify,” said Food52 Assigning Editor Rebecca Firkser. Others disagreed. Caroline Mullen, Home52’s Assistant Editor, thickened the plot by asking: “what about a sausage sandwich?” Some were against the idea of a hot dog being considered a sandwich, but agreed that it is, in fact, a piece of meat stuffed between a piece of bread. “Technically speaking, I suppose a hot dog is a sandwich,” said Food52 Columnist Ella Quittner. “But emotionally speaking, it’s something else entirely. If I were jonesing for an enormous sandwich and someone gave me a hot dog, I would be furious.”

In 2015, The National Hot Dog And Sausage Council (yes this is a real organization and I would love to know how I can become a member immediately) released a statement saying that hot dogs are notsandwiches. “A hot dog is an exclamation of joy, a food, a verb describing one ‘showing off,’ and even an emoji. It is truly a category unto its own. Limiting the hot dog’s significance by saying it’s ‘just a sandwich’ is like calling the Dalai Lama ‘just a guy.’ Perhaps at one time its importance could be limited by forcing it into a larger sandwich category (no disrespect to Reubens and others), but that time has passed,” said NHDSC President and ‘Queen of Wien’ Janet Riley.

If you need more evidence that a hot dog is not a sandwich, leave it to Joey Chestnut. In 2017, Chestnut, a nine-time champion of the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, tweeted that hot dogs are not sandwiches. “It’s #NationalHotDogDay and as President, I want it to be known that the Hot Dog stands free and independent from the tyranny of the sandwich,” Chestnut wrote. This declaration was yet another victory for the man who holds the world record for eating the most hot dogs ever in 10 minutes (a total of 74).

The F52 team is by no means the first to have this debate. I recently RSVP’d to the wedding of two close friends and on their online form, guests were asked to fill out pretty standard information: their names, their choice of entrée, dietary restrictions, and… whether or not they thought that hot dogs were sandwiches. It seems that it’s just one of those questions that will never be put to rest. With the 4th of July just around the corner, the debate is only gonna heat up.

When evangelical snowflakes censor the Bible: The English Standard Version goes PC

Long before Donald Trump made attacks against “political correctness” a key theme of his 2016 election campaign, evangelical leaders like Wayne Grudem, author of “Systematic Theology“, have railed against it, particularly when they see it invading their turf — with gender-neutral language in Bible translations, for instance. But a new study by Samuel Perry, co-author of “Taking America Back for God” (I’ve previously interviewed his co-author, sociologist Andrew Whitehead), finds Grudem himself involved in much the same thing. 

“Whitewashing Evangelical Scripture: The Case of Slavery and Antisemitism in the English Standard Version,” looks at how successive translations have changed in the English Standard Version of the Bible, for which Grudem serves on the oversight committee. 

In revisions from 2001 through 2016, Perry shows, the word “slave” first gains a footnote, then moves to the footnote and then disappears entirely — in some contexts, like Colossians 3:22, though not others — to be replaced by the word “bondservant,” which could be described as a politically correct euphemism. A similar strategy is used to handle antisemitic language as well, Perry shows. 

It’s one thing for politicians to hypocritically switch positions mid-air, or hold contradictory positions simultaneously, but it’s quite another thing for theologians — or at least it’s supposed to be. Evangelical Christians in particular are supposed to revere the literal truth of the Bible, not fiddle around with it to make it sound better to contemporary audiences. So Perry’s findings deserve much wider attention, which is why Salon reached out to discuss what he discovered and what to make of it. The interview has been edited, as usual, for clarity and length.

Your paper examines how a recent Bible translation was successively revised to tone down and ultimately erase language supporting slavery and antisemitism — in effect, to make the Bible more “politically correct,” more in tune with contemporary moral sensibilities, although those doing so would surely object to that characterization. How would you characterize their work?

It’s a fascinating story. All Bible translations have to navigate these waters, so the English Standard Version is really just an example of it, and they’re kind of a fascinating example because they have marketed themselves as an essentially literal translation that resists the PC push. The general editor, Wayne Grudem, had for years denounced contemporary Bible translations, like the New International Version, for doing those kinds of things: becoming PC, changing the language to conform to modern sensibilities, that kind of thing, especially with regard to gender. 

So for years they have said, “Hey, we’re not going to translate certain things in a gender-neutral fashion, because we want to be as literal as possible, and if you like that it’s capitulating to the feminist PC culture.” So ESV has marketed themselves as a very popular evangelical translation that is used most faithfully by complementarian Protestant Christians for that reason: because it’s conservative and because it’s supposed to be literal. 

But at the same time, the fact that that the “slave” language in the New Testament is so obvious creates a real apologetics problem, because of all this talk about “slaves obeying your masters,” and how slaves should subject themselves not only to good masters but bad masters, and how slaves should stay in the station of life where they were called. It creates this really ugly impression of the New Testament, and especially Paul advocating for slavery. 

So what you can see in the English Standard Version is that with each successive wave, from the 2001 revision of the Revised Standard Version to the 2011 revision and then finally in 2016, our most recent revision, was that they started by introducing a footnote in 2001 to the “slave” word, and then in 2011 they replace the slave word and put it in a footnote, and then they said, “We’re going to call this a bondservant. So it’s different from a slave.” 

By 2016 they didn’t use slave language at all. If you read that translation you would have no idea that the original translation — and I think the most appropriate translation — would be “slave.” All you see is this kind of Christian-used churchy word “bondservant,” which you never hear outside of a biblical reference. Nobody knows what that means, but it’s a way that the English Standard Version and other Bibles like it can kind of say, “Hey, these are slaves, but they’re not real, real slaves. They’re not really bad slaves like we think of in the antebellum South, like chattel slavery. It’s something different.”

So they’re changing the text on one hand, while pretending to be more faithful on the other?

Yes. What I write about this in this article is an example of the way evangelical Bibles try to do both things. On the one hand they’re trying to appeal to people within their community, and to say, “Hey, we interpret the Bible faithfully and consistently,” but at the same time, they’re also trying to translate such that they can avoid charges that the Bible is socially regressive and condones oppressive relationships and is socially or culturally backward. So this is kind of an example of that. 

In previous studies, I showed how the English Standard Version, in particular, had actually taken the Revised Standard Version of 1971 and made the gender language more conservative. So what they did with the slave language, they did the opposite with the gender language. They actually made gender language more complementarian, more about men’s and women’s roles, and that kind of thing. 

So ultimately this is a broader project of mine on demonstrating how really Bibles are constructed by individual choices by groups who have incentives. I don’t mean incentives monetarily, though sometimes money is involved, like the consumer market. All these Bibles have to sell. But oftentimes there are culture-war issues going on. They want to be able to demonstrate, “Hey, the Bible is not culturally regressive. Look, there’s no slave language at all!” Or they want to be able to say that the Bible endorses women submitting to their husbands: “Look how clear it is right here!” 

So what you can do is just adjust the language here and there in the translation and make it back your own theological preference, or the preference of the people you’re trying to market that Bible to. And this is fascinating thing. It’s so interesting when you think about how fluid the language can be, based on whatever purposes you need, whoever you’re marketing that Bible to.

But that’s part of a much broader phenomenon, isn’t it? I mean, you specifically say that it’s not unique. 

Let me give you another example. This is one I don’t talk about in the article. The English Standard Version has been adopted recently by the Gideons — you know, the people who put Bibles in hotel rooms. So for years, the King James Version was the Gideon Bible. They later moved to the New King James, but since 2012 the Gideons weren’t going to use the King James anymore, they were going to use the ESV. 

They worked out a deal with Crossway, the makers of the ESV, to adjust some of the language in the ESV to conform to the preferences that the Gideons wanted, because they had always had the King James Version and they liked that. So certain verses and texts in the ESV were modified to conform to the preferences of the Gideons, who were going to buy massive amounts of Bibles and wanted to bring it into greater conformity with the KJV. They’re not drastic changes, yet the ESV folks were willing to compromise on the language. It was like, “Hey, if this is what your group needs, sure. We’ll move some stuff to footnotes, we’ll change stuff around here and there.”  

There’s all kinds of things that go on like that, but in the example I’m talking about here it’s about how this particular Bible which has a reputation for being anti-PC is pretty clearly moving toward greater political correctness, so that they can avoid the charges of promoting slavery. 

What about the issue of antisemitism? That was handled differently but along similar lines, was it not?

Again, Wayne Grudem is a culture warrior. Within the last five years he became kind of a shill for Donald Trump. He went on record several times to talk about why Christians should vote for Trump, and wrote a shocking, breathtaking article where he argued that he didn’t think Trump had ever intentionally lied. He said, like, Trump may bend the truth or may not know all the facts, but he never intentionally lied, which makes my head explode.  

So Wayne Grudem is a culture warrior, politically active, a very conservative anti-PC guy. He had for years argued against any change. Especially in the Gospel of John, there’s lots of instances where John talks about this group that literally is translated as “the Jews.” That’s exactly what he’s saying, he’s saying “the Jews.” But if you actually read the things that he’s saying about this group called “the Jews,” it’s really ugly. They are chasing the apostles around, they’re persecuting Jesus, they’re scheming, they’re looking for an opportunity to kill him. They just look like murderous, scheming people. Paul does this several times as well. So most modern New Testament translations have modified that language. They don’t translate that word as “the Jews” anymore because it sounds blatantly antisemitic. What they do is they translate it, like, “Jewish leaders” or “religious leaders” or something like that, so they specify, these are the bad ones, these aren’t all the Jews. 

But the ESV and Wayne Grudem have for years said, “Oh, you guys are PC wimps for doing that.” But the editorial committee of the ESV has realized over time that it looks really, really ugly. So what they’ve had to do is to introduce footnotes over time, where they can qualify when they use that word “the Jews.” They do it strategically, because it’s not every time you see the word “the Jews.” But every time you see the words “the Jews” and the context is “Hey, this is a really bad group of people,” they put an asterisk there, and a footnote that says, “Hey, no, John is not referring to all the Jews. This is probably just a group of religious leaders who are persecuting Jesus and his followers.” 

These are just examples of how Bibles get modified and adjusted in order to make them more palatable and attractive, and by extension make Christianity more palatable and attractive. That’s the end goal, and part of it is about making that Bible more usable and user-friendly. In a broader scheme, these people are Christians and they want people to find Christianity attractive too. They want to be able to guard against accusations that Christianity is OK with slavery and antisemitism. So you’ve got  to head that accusation off by helping your people out a little bit, putting a footnote in there, changing the language. 

You begin your article by saying, “Religious communities in pluralistic societies often hold in tension the task of reinforcing core identities and ideals within the community while negotiating public relations among those outside the community.” You add, “Christian communities have sought to accomplish both projects materially through Bible modification.” The first task is accomplished via what scholars have called “transitivity.” What does that mean? 

Transitivity is not my word. That was come up with by a scholar named Brian Malley, who is a cognitive anthropologist. About 20 years ago he wrote a great and, I think, very underrated book called “How the Bible Works.” One of the things he writes about is how evangelical Bible study isn’t really an attempt to get meaning out of the text, as if people were coming to it like blank slates. What happens within a group context is that groups come to the Bible with theological presuppositions. They already have an idea what the Bible is. What they do together is they basically try to explain how the text that they are reading affirms what they already believe. 

So they’ll come to the text and they’ll find a verse and they’ll try to fit that verse within their broader scheme. “OK, this is what we think God is all about, this is what we know he likes and prefers, this is what we believe.” This is why you end up with so drastically different readings of the Bible. This is why when Democrats come to the Bible, Jesus ends up looking like a Democrat and when Republicans come to the Bible, he sure does look like a Republican. We oftentimes just bring our own biases and lenses and interpret a passage of scripture with that. So transitivity, and how Bible translations really reinforce this transitivity project, is because they can adjust the content of the Bible to support what the community already believes. 

This is a more general process, right? It’s not just the ESV?

This isn’t just the English Standard Version, this is all of these translations. Really blatant examples would be things like the 1995 project called “The New Testament and Psalms, An Inclusive Version.” This translation team took the New Revised Standard Version and said, “You know what, we don’t believe that God would want to translate anything that would support racism, antisemitism, ableism or any kind of gender identity at all.” So they went through that Bible and they removed all traces of gendered language — God is no longer “father,” he is “a parent” or “father/ mother,” Jesus is not “the son,” he’s “the child.” So they made the Bible conform to their own beliefs of what they felt God would like and God would want. That was an example of a transitivity project. They were making the Bible conform to their own views, and ESV has also done that with respect to gender. They made the gendered language of the RSV more conservative, so that it would back up their own theological and cultural preference.

You have coined a new term, “intransitivity.” What does that mean, and what’s a good example? 

The gendered language of the ESV is a transitivity move, making the text conform to your own tribal or cultural positions. “Intransitivity” refers to the idea that you’re trying to eliminate the possibility of a negative evaluation of your own group or the Bible by translating a passage in a more culturally acceptable way. Establishing intransitivity means you’re trying to cut off the possibility of a negative social interpretation. 

So retranslating those passages about “the Jews” to be about “religious leaders” or “the Jewish leaders” or that kind of thing is an intransitivity project. It is a move to be able to cut off outsiders who say, “Hey Christianity is antisemitic and the Bible is antisemitic.” They can say, “No, that’s not how the verses read.” The same with the slavery example. You cut off the negative social interpretations by saying “No, these are ‘bondsmen,’ not slaves.” 

You go on to say that this study examines the ways evangelical translation teams seek to accomplish both agendas simultaneously — the transitivity and intransitivity agendas — creating a “materialized instantiation of engaged orthodoxy.” What does that mean? 

“Engaged orthodoxy” is the sociologist Christian Smith’s term. A little over 20 years ago he talked about evangelicals as this unique group, in that they hold two ideas in tension. One is that they want to be different from the culture and they want to have distinct theological identities, so they value theological conservatism. It’s self-policing. You can see this now, it’s the most obvious thing in the world. All the debates are about, you know, are we leaving our orthodox theological roots by coming to be more culturally adaptive or “woke” or whatever?

So evangelicals want to be orthodox, and they desire that aggressively. And yet a part of evangelical identity is also that we are not retreating from the world, we are engaging the culture. You can call it culture warfare, and that’s part of it, but there’s a mandate to transform the culture with the gospel. So engaged orthodoxy is this idea that we are fighting for cultural distinctiveness and orthodox theology, yet at the same time we are engaged in the fight, we are trying to influence people who are outsiders with the gospel, with the Bible and with our culture. 

So when I say a “materialized instantiation of engaged orthodoxy,” what I mean is that through both of these moves with the Bible — they’re trying to modify the Bible to make it conform to their own theologically conservative faith, while at the same time modifying other parts of the Bible to avoid negative characterizations of the Bible and their faith — they’re engaging in this process of engaged orthodoxy. They’re trying to be orthodox and conservative, while at the same time not trying to put up unnecessary barriers to people finding the faith attractive. So they want to be conservative, but they don’t want to be blatantly racist or blatantly oppressive, that’s just too far, that’s too much. 

Yes. That sounds tricky!

They really find themselves in a pickle sometimes because of examples like Wayne Grudem, who trashes PC Bible modification, and says, “Hey, we need to be conservative and literal,” yet at the same time they don’t want to translate things too literally, because it ends up looking pretty negative if you’re talking about slave language or antisemitism. So they have to be subtle, which is one of the reasons why they don’t necessarily announce all the changes that they make. They just change stuff sometimes. Sometimes they announce it, sometimes they explain it. Other times they just kind of do it. They make changes and don’t really broadcast that, because they want to make people feel like “Hey, this the Bible, not something that is our little project that we keep on modifying.” 

You draw attention to the fact that changes were made to the ESV in 2001 without being talked about, but then in 2011 they actually announced it in the preface. What did they say in that preface, and what did that accomplish?

In the preface they started to telegraph that they’re going to change some of the slave language and gave a little bit of the reasoning. But the reasoning they provide is intended to support the change that they wanted to make for, I think, more politically correct kinds of reasons. So they’re trying to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to be characterized as a literal translation that is faithful and they don’t want to come across as capitulating to the culture or being politically correct, Grudem really backs them into a corner that way. 

They don’t sell to their target audience of conservative evangelicals on the basis of being politically correct; they sell because they’re literal or because they’re faithful. So what they were trying to do in that preface was explain that these words for slave in the Old Testament and New Testament—in the Old Testament it’s ebed, and in Greek, in the New Testament, it’s doulos. So what they’re arguing in the preface is that, hey, in the Old Testament and the New Testament, sometimes that slave language, those words, could be used to define a broad spectrum of relationships. Sometimes it describes people who are legitimately like slaves, and other times it describes something more like a servant or a bondservant, somebody who’s not necessarily volunteering for it, but who could benefit from the relationship and earn money, and even get their freedom someday. 

So they’re trying to set the reader up to say, “We sometimes translate these words differently depending on the context,” because sometimes what they feel the authors have in view is not “slave” like we talk about in the South, where you are a slave on the basis of race, you are a slave for life and so are your children.

So that’s their theory. How good a theory is it?

The only problem with that is that most scholars that I’ve read and respect on these issues would argue that what both the Old and New Testament authors have in mind really is a slave. It’s not like this weird, churchy word “bondservant,” which is intended, I think, to create some rhetorical difference between what a slave really was and this kind of nice version of slavery that Christians would like to pretend the Bible talks about. 

But it doesn’t really exist. It was still dehumanizing. It was still somebody who, like your children, was property. You were still owned by people and you couldn’t just leave if you wanted to. That wasn’t the deal. So it kind of attempts, on the part of evangelicals, to introduce an idea that, like, slavery wasn’t so bad sometimes, rather than just saying, “Hey, it’s a slave.”

What happened in the preface in 2011 was that the ESV said, “We need to change these words so that we can make these relationships a little bit less offensive.” Ultimately they’re saying, “We don’t want you to think, every time you hear the word ‘slave’ in the New Testament or the Old Testament, about Southern Dixie slavery, because that’s really ugly. That sounds really bad.” If the New Testament is saying “slave, obey your master,” that sounds really horrible, and it is really horrible. That creates a problem that they try to solve with this translation.

You’re focused on the key process of biblical revision. But there’s a larger cultural process and historical record to consider. Historically, biblical references to slavery played a central role in justifying it, especially as abolitionist sentiment increased from 1830 onward. All the distancing in the world can’t change that history. More recently, anti-abortion evangelicals have tried to claim the abolitionist mantel for themselves, likening Roe v. Wade to the Dred Scott decision, while also ignoring their own historical indifference, if not acceptance, to Roe when it was decided, given the Bible’s silence about abortion. How do you think your analysis should be seen in terms of this broader framework of claiming spiritual, moral and political authority?

I think the strategy of Bible modification is actually a way to solve some of that historical, reputational problem. As you say, there is a record of evangelical Christians using the Bible to condone and defend slavery as an institution, because it is obviously there and it’s easy to do, given that the New Testament authors didn’t condemn it in any way, and in many ways enabled and justified it as an institution,. That was readily used by pro-slavery advocates in the antebellum South, and under Jim Crow for issues like segregation. Even up to the late 1990s, Bob Jones University was citing biblical references for segregation or prohibiting interracial dating on campus. 

Bible modification is a way that you can clean that up by saying, “You know what? These people were obviously misinterpreting scripture, because it’s right there. Look, it doesn’t say ‘slave,’ it says, ‘bondservant’!” You can point back at this group of conservative Christians in the past as people who misunderstood the Bible, rather than reading it in the plain language like we have it now. That is very important in this evangelical culture of biblicism: They want to interpret the Bible in plain language, and to be able to do that you have to adjust the language, to make it conform to exactly what you want to say. 

What about the anti-abortion side of this?

I haven’t detected any instances of Bible modification that are “pro-life” angles, though I think you see gestures toward that. For example, Andy Schlafly, the founder of Conservapedia, said in 2009 that he was going to start something called the Conservative Bible Project, where they say explicitly, “We’re going to going to retranslate the Bible to conform to conservative political leanings. We’re going to fight the liberalism that has crept into Bible translations.” They said on the front end that they were going to translate the Bible such as to highlight the pro-life implications of certain texts. They’re transparently saying that they want to elevate this kind of cultural interpretation, this political interpretation, that is more squarely biblical. They’re reverse-engineering it. 

I was just looking at the phenomenon of proof-texting pro-life verses this morning. I was reading over Focus on the Family verses that they have put together to argue for pro-life positions. It is interesting how selective those texts end up being — texts about how “God does not punish the children for the sins of the parents.” Using that as a response to, “Well, what about abortion in the case of rape or incest” by pointing to those verses is a pretty selective reading, given that God explicitly commands the wiping out the Canaanites, including children, including women who were with child, including children who in the womb. 

So there are obviously instances in the Old Testament where you can argue that Yahweh formally commands [abortion], and you get this obviously selective reading of key texts. From there, I think it’s a pretty small step to, “OK, how do we how we get rid of these problematic verses? How do we make these verses conform?”

If I were to pay attention to where I think those changes might pop up, it would be passages where God in the Old Testament formally commands the wiping out of Canaanites, the putting to death of women with children or of young children. Those are particularly problematic, given the pro-life leanings of evangelicals. 

What’s the most important question I didn’t ask, and what’s the answer?

I would like to underscore that this isn’t just a problem with the English Standard Version. The ESV is a really explicit example because they’re relatively young and you can see how they’re revised the text over time pretty clearly. So they end up being a really fascinating example of this. 

But I think you can also see examples of the New International Version cleaning up its translation over time to become, in some ways, more politically correct. It’s a fascinating story in itself, because in the mid 2000s you have all this controversy about gendered language, and the NIV feels pressured to say, “OK, we won’t do this, we won’t make the language inclusive,” because all these evangelicals spoke out against it.  

Well, eventually they did it anyway, in the form of what’s called Today’s New International Version in 2005. Well, that gets panned by evangelicals, nobody buys it, it’s a sales failure. So they pull Today’s New International Version off the shelves, and they no longer sell it. But then they did a revision of the NIV where they basically just snuck in all the translations they did in 2005, except now it’s called the “New International Version, 2011 edition.” 

So that’s an example of how the NIV translation team, the Committee on Bible Translation at Zondervan, wanted to appeal to evangelicals because that’s their primary consumer market, while at the same time adjusting the text to be more user-friendly for those outside conservative evangelicalism. That’s another example of this tendency toward Bible modification in the direction of both trying to appeal to one subculture while also trying to appeal to those outside the culture. 

Why do Wimbledon players wear all white?

Wimbledon’s dress code is one of the most famous in sports. The rules, which specify that players must dress “almost entirely in white,” are so strict that the referee can force players to change under threat of disqualification. In the past, many of the sport’s top players have found themselves on the wrong end of this rule — but where did it come from?

It’s believed that the rule stems from the 1800s, when tennis was a genteel sport played primarily at social gatherings, particularly by women. The sight of sweaty patches on colored clothing was considered to be inappropriate, so the practice of wearing predominantly white clothing — aka tennis whites — was adopted to avoid embarrassment. The All England Club, which hosts Wimbledon, was founded in 1868 (initially as the All England Croquet Club) and introduced Lawn Tennis in 1875.

Quite simply, the club is just a stickler for tradition. Recently issued guidelines for clothing include statements such as “White does not include off-white or cream,” that colored trim can be “no wider than one centimeter,” and that “undergarments that either are or can be visible during play (including due to perspiration)” are not allowed. That’s right: even players’ underwear has to be white.

The rules have rubbed many famous tennis players the wrong way. In 2013, former Wimbledon champion Roger Federer was told not to wear his orange-soled trainers after they were judged to have broken The All England Club’s dress code. In 2002, Anna Kournikova was forced to replace her black shorts with a pair of white ones borrowed from her coach. And Andre Agassi refused to play at Wimbledon in the earlier years of his career because his signature denim shorts and garish tops were banned.

The all-white clothing rule isn’t the only piece of baggage that accompanies Wimbledon’s long history. It’s the only Grand Slam tournament that’s still played on a grass court, and the only one that schedules a day off on the middle Sunday of the tournament.

However, the club is not immune to change. In 2003 a long-standing tradition of requiring players to bow or curtsey to the Royal Box on the Centre Court was discontinued by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent (who also happens to be The All England Club’s president, while Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, serves as the club’s patron) who deemed it anachronistic—though the requirement does stand if the Queen or Prince of Wales is in attendance—and in 2007 the prizes for the men’s and women’s tournaments were made equal (thanks in part to some powerful statements on the matter from Venus Williams). The all-white clothing rule may be annoying for players, but at least the club has shown it can change with the times in the areas where it really matters.

Biden fires Trump-appointed Social Security head — but he plans to keep working anyways

President Joe Biden fired Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul Friday evening — though the longtime GOP donor and Trump appointee told the Washington Post that he plans to be at work on Monday as if nothing had happened.

Saul, whose staunchly anti-union stances and repeated attempts to stymie the distribution of benefits to millions of Americans drew the ire of Democrats within the new administration, is currently in the middle of a six-year term that was supposed to last until January 2025. He told the Post he plans to challenge the legality of his ouster, and called his firing a “Friday Night Massacre,” a reference to the Nixon Administration’s infamous Watergate-related firings.

But despite his controversial record as head of Social Security and clashes with the Biden administration, Saul also said the news came as a surprise.

“This was the first I or my deputy knew this was coming,” Saul said of his firing. “It was a bolt of lightning no one expected. And right now it’s left the agency in complete turmoil.”

The White House, for its part, said it has the authority to remove political appointees, citing a recent Supreme Court ruling that held then-President Donald Trump had near unfettered power to fire administration officials, as well as a Justice Department memo released Thursday affirming the move. 

Biden named Kilolo Kijakazi, the agency’s current deputy commissioner for retirement and disability policy, as acting commissioner to replace Saul until a permanent replacement can be found.

In a written statement announcing Saul’s firing, the White House blasted his tenure, saying he had “politicized Social Security disability benefits.”

“Since taking office, Commissioner Saul has undermined and politicized Social Security disability benefits, terminated the agency’s telework policy that was utilized by up to 25 percent of the agency’s workforce, not repaired SSA’s relationships with relevant Federal employee unions including in the context of COVID-19 workplace safety planning, reduced due process protections for benefits appeals hearings, and taken other actions that run contrary to the mission of the agency and the President’s policy agenda,” the White House wrote.

Congressional Republicans responded by claiming the firing itself was politicizing the agency.

“This removal would be an unprecedented and dangerous politicization of the Social Security Administration,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., tweeted.

But Democrats, including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who will be in charge of vetting Saul’s replacement, said it was vital for Biden to staff his administration with officials who are dedicated to carrying out his agenda.

“Every president should chose the personnel that will best carry out their vision for the country,” Wyden said in a statement.

Saul — who reportedly attended the University of Pennsylvania at the same time as Trump — had long called for cuts to Social Security benefits before being appointed in 2019, and proposed a host of changes as agency head that would have made it harder for recipients to qualify for benefits, block access for non-English speakers and substantially increase the number of medical reviews required to qualify for disability benefits, a proposal President Biden ultimately blocked. 

Though the White House likely cannot stop Saul from showing up on Monday, federal personnel experts told the Post that they can cut off his access to the agency’s computer network and refuse to issue his paychecks. 

“Beauty and the Beat” at 40: The Go-Go’s landmark debut ushered in a musical new wave

On July 8, 1981, the Go-Go’s released their debut album, “Beauty and the Beat.” To call the LP a watershed musical moment release would be underselling the album’s influence. 

Musically, the quintet’s mix of nervy pop, gritty punk, rock, and girl-group harmonic gleam was a revelation. The five members — vocalist Belinda Carlisle, guitarists Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin, bassist Kathy Valentine, and drummer Gina Schock — were cool and confident onstage. These were talented women making music their way, following their own unique path — and showing legions of fans that they too could carve out space for themselves anywhere. 

Thematically, the band softened punk’s defiant stance with lyrics relatable to everyday life. Like the Go-Go’s themselves, the characters of “Beauty and the Beat” were savvy and smart. Even if things didn’t go quite according to plan — for example, “You Can’t Walk in Your Sleep” uses the extended metaphor of insomnia and sleep disturbances (relatable!) to convey frustration over life’s status quo — there was never a sense of feeling bleak or trapped.

For example, the more personal, inward-looking songs offer complexity, and the knowledge that the gap between what you want — and what you get — can be vast. “How Much More” smolders with longing, as well as a bit of jealousy and light self-loathing (“She’s looking good/Just like I would/If it could be me”) while the iconic “Lust to Love” speaks of the universal experience of falling for someone (and losing “control of the game”) that was only supposed to be a no-emotions-attached fling.

Yet the characters of “Beauty and the Beat” have agency, and aren’t passive participants in any life experience. The romantic co-conspirators of “Our Lips Are Sealed” use (what else?) the silent treatment to combat any rumors or jealousy. And the main character of “Fading Fast” is trying to convince herself an ex is a distant stranger (“Are you just another boy / That I met long ago?”) because they’re a jerk: “You had me all to yourself/I thought that you were such a prize/I finally came to my senses/When I heard just one too many lies.” 

“Beauty and the Beat” also updates common lyrical imagery for the modern age. This collision of the classic and contemporary sounds fresh: “We Got the Beat” mentions dance moves such as the Watusi and the Pony as inspirations for the youth of today, while “Skidmarks on My Heart” uses a car metaphor to speak to a faltering relationship torpedoed by personality differences with a soon-to-be-ex: “I buy you cologne/You want axle grease/You say get a mechanic/I say get a shrink.” And “This Town” plays up the grit and glamour of their L.A. hometown, with piercing observations and incisive commentary.

Despite a high profile on the L.A. club circuit, the Go-Go’s initially had trouble landing a record deal. “We were told, ‘We love you. We can see that everybody loves you, but there’s never been an all-female band that has been big. I mean, you’ve had cult-level successes, like the Runaways and Fanny, but as far as having a big chance of success note, because you’re all women, there’s never been anything before, you know, like you, so I’m sorry, we’ll pass,'” Carlisle told Yahoo Entertainment in 2020.

There are many layers to the sexism permeating that quote. A past lack of (perceived) success shouldn’t be any indication of future musical fortunes. Blaming a lack of precedent for passing on something that sounds new or different is why music often sounds so homogenous — and why many non-cis-men have to work twice as hard to achieve success.

More than that, the idea that only one woman (or group of women) can be successful at a time is an unfortunately common (and pernicious) sentiment. It leads to artists being positioned against each other — Madonna vs. Cyndi Lauper, Britney Spears vs. Christina Aguilera, Taylor Swift vs. Katy Perry — and quashes opportunities for other acts. Plus, it’s absurd, insulting and condescending to view women as some kind of monolith. As has been said many times before, in so many words, “female-fronted” or “women rocker” isn’t a genre.

And so that the Go-Go’s transcended that stone-age mindset was impressive enough. But that the Go-Go’s toed the line between pop, rock and punk so adeptly also made them singular. Today, countless bands mix these influences together; however, at the time, this merger of sounds and scenes gave them a distinct edge.

“To me, it’s still what our band is: we have those pop melodies, but we have that punk drive, the undercurrent of being a punk band,” drummer Gina Schock told NPR Music in 2020. “I feel like our music is always that way, but that first album is pretty pop-sounding.”

For the latter, band members have credited “Beauty and the Beat” co-producer Richard Gottehrer, who co-wrote indelible ’60s hits “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “I Want Candy” and also produced Blondie’s first two albums. (His co-producer was Rob Freeman, who is also credited on the LP as engineer and mixer.) At first, Gottehrer’s approach to the album — the songs were slower and more polished than the Go-Go’s were used to — was difficult for the band to take.

“We were crying, and cursing him, and it didn’t even sound like us, because it didn’t sound like us live,” Charlotte Caffey told NPR Music in 2020. “A few months later, when we finally got ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’ on the radio, then I understood, in that moment, what he was trying to achieve: People would listen to us.”

It’s difficult to believe now, but that wasn’t necessarily a given. To illustrate how novel the Go-Go’s were in 1981, it’s instructive to look at the rock charts from back then. For example, the band’s first single, “Our Lips Are Sealed,” peaked at No. 15 on Billboard’s Rock Top Tracks chart for the week of December 5, 1981. 

That week, the Go-Go’s were the highest-ranking women-driven act on the chart; every single song ahead of them was by a male solo artist or all-male band. Overall, just nine songs out of 60 (or 15%) featured female vocalists. The only other prominent women to appear in the entire top 60 were Stevie Nicks (who had three songs, all from her smash debut “Bella Donna”), Pat Benatar, Quarterflash’s Rindy Ross, and The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde. 

There were small signs things were changing: That same week, both the Plasmatics and Joan Jett were new adds on the chart. However, when the band’s second single, “We Got the Beat,” reached a high of No. 7 on the rock singles chart on April 17, 1982, things were still male-dominated. Joan Jett had two songs in the top 20, while a live Stevie Nicks song, Human League’s co-ed “Don’t You Want Me” and a song each from Bonnie Raitt and Quarterflash were it. This time, just 11.7 % of the rock chart had a female vocal presence.

There’s never been any doubt that “Beauty and the Beat” has a permanent place in music history. In March 1982, the album reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 (then known as the Top LPs & Tape chart), where it remained for six consecutive weeks. It was the first album released by an all-female band who played their own instruments and wrote their own songs to top the Billboard album chart. However, 40 years later, the Go-Go’s are still the only all-female band to achieve this feat — which is a clear indictment of how far music still has to go. 

Still, the band’s punk verve helped nudge rock and pop music out of the staid 1970s and into the more colorful, danceable ’80s. The Go-Go’s preceded the rise of British Invasion bands such as Duran Duran and Culture Club, pop greats Madonna and Michael Jackson, and a whole wave of unabashedly new wave acts. That the Go-Go’s are finally being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year is an important step forward to acknowledging not just their cultural influence — but their enduring status as musical trailblazers.

No, you can’t identify as “transracial.” But you can affirm your gender

Earlier this week, online influencer Oli London responded to criticism after saying they identify as Korean. Having undergone surgeries to change their appearance, they equated being “transracial” with the experiences of transgender people who affirm their gender. 

The same reasoning behind London’s Korean identity (they have asked to be called Jimin after a K-Pop star) can be compared to that of Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who identifies as Black and made headlines in 2015. Debates about “transracialism” followed. Unfortunately, it seems we haven’t learned much in this space. 

At their core, London’s words and actions are a prime example of racism, cultural appropriation, and transphobia, enacted from a perspective of considerable privilege. Trans and gender diverse experiences don’t equate with someone deciding to change their appearance to be part of a group whose experiences, community and struggles they can’t fully understand. 

Race and gender are not built the same

Gender is our internal sense of self, whether that be man, woman, neither or both. 

Most people have an idea about their gender at two to three years old — this may not align with the sex assigned to them at birth. 

Unlike gender, race presents as categorized (often physical) traits that are socially constructed and understood. You can’t inherit your gender, this is internal and something individual to you — but you do inherit the social construct of race. There is also much more to one’s racial identity than physical appearance — it’s also about culture, community, connection and even trauma.

While multicultural communities and LGBTQ+ experiences of discrimination are sometimes compared, it is important to understand these experiences are different and complex. This is particularly the case, for example, in considering trans people of color and their experiences of both racism and transphobia. 

People who face discrimination based on their race or cultural background can usually go home to members of their family who understand them. This is often not the case for trans and gender diverse people. 

Race and gender have very different histories, understandings, experiences, and implications in the face of discrimination. The very idea of being able to transition to a difference race discredits trans and gender diverse people’s experiences of gender affirmation. It also undermines the importance of cultural connections for many communities. 

Picking and choosing

London, who is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, has actively chosen a “transracial” identity. But trans and gender diverse people’s decision to transition (whether that be social, medical and/or legal) is almost always involuntary and out of necessity to live their lives authentically. 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CPvbOPnA2Ro/

Almost 50% of trans young people in Australia have attempted suicide at least once in their lives. Trans and gender diverse young people experience higher levels of psychological distress than their cisgender peers. 

This is not because there is anything inherently wrong with trans people, but because of how trans people are treated by others. Conflating racial identity with gender identity implies that being trans is a choice, and therefore so is race. The reality is that transitioning as a trans person is a difficult and taxing process, one that can be dangerous but also lifesaving and celebrated. 

It is racist to think someone can pick and choose parts of a race or culture they like, then distance themselves from that culture when it suits them. They avoid the burden of discrimination while reaping the rewards of white privilege, taking the necessary resources and voices from the communities who need it. 

There is a difference between affirming your gender as a trans person, which doesn’t harm anyone else, and choosing to live and appropriate another culture.

What’s more, the word “transracial” is already in use, usually referring to adoption practices in which white parents adopt children of color. So it’s misleading when used to talk about someone changing their appearance. 

Gender understandings can also be different based on their cultural context. 

The gender binary we’ve come to think of as usual — male and female — has previously been enforced upon people, cultures and countries through colonization. Rigid understandings of gender are imposed upon cultures where gender fluidity was previously more accepted. 

Trans and gender diverse experiences have existed in many Indigenous cultures around the world for thousands of years, including in Australia.

Amplifying diversity

It’s important for us to acknowledge that talking about “transracial” identities as something you can be for or against only further marginalizes and harms people of color and trans and gender diverse people. This marginalization is compounded for trans people of color. 

Instead of the pursuit of fame and followers, we need to prioritize amplifying the experiences of diverse peoples in ways that not only focus on discrimination and abuse, but also celebrate people being their authentic selves.

Braden Hill, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Edith Cowan University and Stevie Lane, Equity Projects Officer, Edith Cowan University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Why is colon cancer on the rise in young people?

When actor Chadwick Boseman died last year at the age of 43, it was shocking for many reasons. Young people aren’t supposed to die, period, but they’re definitely not supposed to die of a condition traditionally associated with the elderly and infirm. But the untimely loss of Boseman to colon cancer was not as unique as you might assume. YouTuber John Peter Bain, aka TotalBiscuit, died of it in 2018. He was 33. And in 2020, both 37-year-old artist Jason Polan, known for his Uniqlo collaborations and his mission to draw “Every Person in New York,” and 53-year-old television actress Natalie Desselle-Reid died of it as well. Last year, more than 53,200 Americans died of colorectal cancers — and a concerning number of them were young. The Mayo Clinic estimates that half of early onset colon cancer patients now are under 40.

The shift in colon cancer demographics has been raising alarm bells in the oncology community for some time now. In 2015, the Journal of the American Medical Association warned, “At the present rate, the incidence rate for young patients with newly diagnosed colon or rectal cancer will nearly double by 2030, while it will similarly decline by more than one-third among patients older than the screening age of 50 years. Stated another way, more than 1 in 10 colon cancers and nearly 1 in 4 rectal cancers will be diagnosed in people younger than the traditional screening age.”

This isn’t just about diagnoses, though. It’s about fatalities. As the American Cancer Society reports, “Although the overall death rate has continued to drop, deaths from colorectal cancer among people younger than 55 have increased 1% per year from 2008 to 2017.” And for people of color, the news is even bleaker. The ACS reports that “African Americans are about 20% more likely to get colorectal cancer and about 40% more likely to die from it than most other groups.”

So what’s going on here? In short, “We don’t know,” says Dr. Jeffery Nelson, surgical director for the Center for Inflammatory Bowel and Colorectal Diseases at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore. But, he says, “It is almost certainly multifactorial.”

“The overall incidence of colon cancer has been dropping steadily over the last 30 years or so. In the younger age group it has been steadily rising since the mid-1990s,” Nelson says. “The Western diet and lifestyle are chief culprits.”

Dr. Rebecca Brown, assistant professor of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, has a similar perspective. “The exact factor driving this progressive rise in aggressive colorectal cancers in young patients remains unclear,” Brown admits. “While some of this may be attributable to increased access to care and improved compliance with colorectal cancer screening, there is likely a yet to be identified environmental or genetic factor — or a combination of these — that is leading to this uptick.”

“Some studies have suggested that unhealthy diets high in processed foods and low in fresh fruit and vegetables, changes in the bacteria living in the intestinal tract (the microbiome), obesity, and chronic inflammation can contribute to early onset colorectal cancer, but none have been pinpointed as the cause of this recent trend,” Brown says.

To make matters even more complicated, the COVID-19 pandemic has created an expected — if stunning — plummet in screenings over the past year. Colonoscopies were down a full 90% in 2020. To that end, organizations like Stand Up to Cancer have this year made a priority of early detection awareness, as well as encouraging a lowering of the recommended age for a first screening from 50 to 45.

It’s easy to be blindsided by the ominous rise in colon cancer — in no small part because we are not great at talking about our very private and humbling colorectal health issues. Adding to the discomfort level is the fact that some colorectal cancers can lead to side effects like sexual dysfunction. More than two decades ago, after Katie Couric lost her husband to colon cancer, she famously underwent a colonoscopy on the “Today” show to increase awareness and encourage early screening. The event became an easy punchline, and, as the Washington Post reported at the time, a test of “viewers’ intestinal fortitude.” Times haven’t changed all that much since then. More recently, Jim Gaffigan did an entire routine about the emotional roller coaster of “getting a camera shoved up your butt.” 

I get it. Anything that at best involves just “a camera shoved up your butt” is inherently awkward. When I had my first colonoscopy two years ago, I didn’t eagerly rush to share the details with my entire social circle. (Lesson learned: Unless you love diarrhea, it’s the preparation for it that’s the real bummer.) But no one should die of embarrassment.

Until there are clearer answers to why these cancers are on the rise, all of us can do ourselves and our loved ones a a favor by recognizing the signs, and taking them seriously. “The main symptoms to look out for,” says Nelson, “are rectal bleeding, any change in bowel habit, abdominal pain, and unexplained weight loss.”

But these “are typically late symptoms,” Nelson warns, “thus the push to get people screened. The trick is to find colon cancers before they are symptomatic, or preferably when they are just benign polyps.”

As difficult and uncomfortable as it may be to talk openly and assertively to doctors, it’s urgent that we do. The Colorectal Cancer Alliance reports that among patients under the age of 50, “75% of patients and survivors reported they saw at least two different physicians, and 36% were seen by three or more physicians, before receiving a correct diagnosis.”

Despite the grim signposts, there is some encouraging news as well. Let’s start with this: Early detection works. Localized colon cancer has a 91% survival rate. If that’s not an incentive to keep nagging your doctor if something doesn’t feel right, I don’t know what is. Just because a cancer is targeting younger and younger patients, that doesn’t mean that with good science and good communication, you can’t still live to a ripe old age.

Democrats, heed the warnings: 18 months to a Republican Congress — unless you fight

Since the Civil War, midterm elections have enabled the president’s party to gain ground in the House of Representatives only three times, and those gains were in single digits. The last few midterms have been typical: In 2006, with Republican George W. Bush in the White House, his party lost 31 House seats. Under Democrat Barack Obama, his party lost 63 seats in 2010 and then 13 in 2014. Under Donald Trump, in 2018, Republicans lost 41 seats. Overall, since World War II, losses by the president’s party have averaged 27 seats in the House.

Next year, if Republicans gain just five House seats, Rep. Kevin McCarthy or some other right-wing ideologue will become speaker of the House, giving the GOP control over all committees and legislation. In the Senate, where the historic midterm pattern has been similar, a Republican gain of just one seat will reinstall Mitch McConnell as Senate majority leader.

To prevent such disastrous results, Democrats would need to replicate what happened the last time the president’s party didn’t lose House or Senate seats in a midterm election — two years after Bush entered the White House. The odds are steeply against it, as elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich points out: “Bush was very popular in 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11. According to a retrospective FiveThirtyEight average of polls at the time, he had a 62 percent approval rating and 29 percent disapproval rating on Election Day 2002. And in this era of polarization — where presidential approval ratings are stuck in a very narrow band — it’s hard to imagine [President] Biden ever reaching that level of popularity.”

It’s not just history that foreshadows a return to Capitol power for the likes of McCarthy and McConnell. All year, Republican officeholders have been methodically doing all they can to asphyxiate democracy. And they can do a lot more.

With new census data, the once-in-a-decade chance to redistrict means that Republican-dominated state legislatures can do maximal gerrymandering. “Because Democrats fell short of their 2020 expectations in state legislative races,” FiveThirtyEight politics reporter Alex Samuels says, “Republicans have the opportunity to redraw congressional maps that are much more clearly in their favor.” All this year, awaiting census figures to manipulate, Republican legislatures have been enacting outrageous new voter-suppression laws, many of the sort recently greenlit by the Supreme Court and calculated to destroy voting rights.

In the face of impending election disasters in 2022 and beyond, denial might be a natural coping mechanism, but it only makes matters worse. Reality should now spur a sustained all-out effort — in courts, stated legislatures, Congress and public venues — to safeguard as many democratic processes as possible for next year’s elections, while organizing against the dozens of major voter-suppression tactics of recent years.

At the same time, truly bold political actions — culminating in landmark legislation to improve the economic and social well-being of vast numbers of Americans — will be essential to improve the slim chances that Biden’s presidency won’t lead to a Republican takeover of Congress midway through his term. Though largely drowned out by the din of mainstream punditry urging “bipartisan” approaches, many astute voices are urgently calling for measures that could transform political dynamics before the 2022 general elections.

  • “We’ve got to go big, and take it to another level,” first-term Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., said in an email to supporters this week. “We’ve got to deliver and get this done for our communities. So why on earth are we wasting time trying to compromise with Republicans?” Bowman added: “If we do not fight for our communities and put them in the center of the work we do — if we continue to prioritize the myth of ‘bipartisanship’ over the people we were elected to fight for and represent in Washington — we will lose elections. If we want to maintain control and the opportunity to do great work beyond 2022, Democrats need to deliver in this very moment.”
  • Nina Turner, who’s likely to become a member of Congress in November after a special election for a vacant seat in northeast Ohio, said recently: “When are we going to learn? Republicans plan for the long term. What can we do right now before the next election cycle and get it done and go big? Because power is fleeting. You’ve got to use it while you’ve got it.”
  •  Days ago, in a Washington Post column, The Nation’s editorial director Katrina vanden Heuvel posed “the critical question” as Congress reconvened after a holiday break: “Are Democrats ready to act?” She wrote: “While President Biden is selling the bipartisan infrastructure deal as a ‘generational investment,’ the real effort will come from using the budget reconciliation process to pass vitally needed public investments with Democratic votes only. For all the focus on Biden’s ability to work across the aisle, the true challenge is whether he and the congressional leadership can work with all Democrats. That test will do much to determine whether the party can retain or increase its majorities in the next election — and whether the country will begin to address the cascading crises that it faces.”

What remains to be determined is whether such warnings will end up being the tragically prophetic voices of Cassandras — or clarion calls to action, heeded in time to prevent an unhinged Republican Party from taking control of Congress when 2023 begins.

How to sabotage climate legislation? An Exxon lobbyist explains

All the billions ExxonMobil spent on PR went up in flames this week after a sting operation by Greenpeace recorded one of the oil giant’s lobbyists talking about what goes on behind the scenes — sabotaging climate legislation, secretly manufacturing cancer-causing chemicals, and using trade groups as “whipping boys” to evade public scrutiny.

“It’s pretty damning stuff,” said Geoffrey Supran, a Harvard researcher who investigates fossil fuel propaganda. 

The lobbyist, Keith McCoy, has been representing Exxon on Capitol Hill for eight years, chatting with senators as a senior director of the company’s federal affairs team. Earlier this year, an undercover reporter with Unearthed, an investigative site run by Greenpeace, posed as a recruiter and got in touch with McCoy.

In the resulting Zoom job interview in May — segments of which first aired on the British network Channel 4 on Wednesday June 30 — McCoy outlines the ways that Exxon is actively sabotaging climate legislation and trying to avoid public scrutiny. A second installment of the interview aired on Thursday revealed that Exxon manufacturers and uses so-called “forever chemicals”linked to cancer, hormone disruption, and more — and used the American Petroleum Institute, a trade organization, to lobby against legislation that would regulate the chemicals.

The oil giant has a well-established history of sowing public doubt about the science of climate change despite knowing its catastrophic potential. But in recent years, Exxon has taken some climate-friendly stances, backing a carbon tax, supporting the Paris Agreement, and committing to help the Biden administration and Congress pass new laws to take on climate change. McCoy’s comments, however, suggest that was all for show.

In the video recording, McCoy admits that Exxon fought to undermine climate science and legislation. “Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes,” he tells the undercover reporter. “Did we hide our science? Absolutely not. Did we join some of these ‘shadow groups’ to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that’s true. But there’s nothing illegal about that. You know, we were looking out for our investments, we were looking out for our shareholders.”

McCoy talks about his cozy relationships with members of Congress. He apparently has weekly chats with Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia who has received tens of thousands of dollars from Exxon and its trade associations, and names 10 other senators he calls “crucial” to Exxon’s business. McCoy explains how Exxon’s lobbying helped remove the “negative stuff” — in other words, the landmark climate change measures — from President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill currently in Congress.

During an interview on Channel 4 Thursday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, remarked how rare it was to hear about Exxon’s intervention in climate policy as it was happening, as opposed to finding out about it from investigations years later. “There is an understanding that there’s a dark underbelly of Washington that works this way,” she said. “Rarely do we see it exposed in real-time of real legislation right before us in Congress.”

McCoy also says in the recording that the company’s support for a carbon tax is simply a “talking point” to avoid public pressure. Given the lack of appetite for this kind of tax, he says, it’ll never happen: “The bottom line is it’s going to take political courage, political will in order to get something done. And that just doesn’t exist in politics. It just doesn’t.”

The secret tapes “prove straight from the horse’s mouth, straight from an Exxon insider, what our and others’ research has indicated for so long,” Supran said. “Although Exxon and the fossil fuel industry’s tactics have evolved, the end goal remains the same, and that is to stop action on climate change.”

In a response to the debacle, Exxon’s CEO condemned and apologized for McCoy’s comments. Darren Woods said that the statements “in no way represent the company’s position on a variety of issues, including climate policy, and our firm commitment that carbon pricing is important to addressing climate change,” adding that McCoy’s remarks were “entirely inconsistent with the way we expect our people to conduct themselves.” On LinkedIn, McCoy wrote that he was “deeply embarrassed” by what he had said on camera.

Supran suggested that Exxon’s apology was more of a “sorry we got caught” sentiment. “This guy’s paid to further the position of the company on Capitol Hill, and the idea that he’s so out of the loop that he’s misrepresenting the company seems quite far-fetched,” he said.

Ohio’s GOP Senate contenders desperately try to out-Trump each other — it could hurt them

Days after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, announced he would retire rather than seek a third term, despite winning his previous race by 20 points and being credited with helping former President Donald Trump secure a victory in the state. Portman, who backed Trump’s policies but was not an entirely avid supporter, blamed “partisan gridlock” for his decision. But amid a slew of retirements by other moderate Republicans, it certainly appears Portman saw the writing on the wall as his party went all-in on Trump.

“He would have had a problem,” Gary Abernathy, a longtime Ohio journalist who previously worked for Portman, said in an interview with Salon, describing the “tightrope” Portman walked for years to keep Trump’s people happy while “being true to himself.” Although Portman won his last Republican primary with more than 80% of the vote, many of the state’s Republican voters “don’t feel like he had Trump’s back as much as he could have,” Abernathy said, “even though when it came down to it … he pretty much always voted with Trump.”

Ohio strongly backed Trump in both 2016 and 2020, although Barack Obama had won the state twice before that. As the Buckeye State seemingly skews to the right, the increasingly old and white Ohio GOP appears to have adopted a litmus test for candidates — one that Portman might not have passed.

“They want someone who’s out there giving a full-throated defense of Donald Trump all the time,” Abernathy said.

That’s exactly what the Ohio Republican Senate primary campaign has to offer so far, for better or worse. The race quickly devolved into intra-party attacks as candidates snipe at each other over who stans Trump the hardest and which opponent committed the unforgivable sin of once not supporting the former president enough. Former state party chair Jane Timken, a major Trump donor, recently circulated a “scorecard” touting her record of backing Trump as the best in the field. Former state treasurer and perennial also-ran Josh Mandel has tried to adopt Trump’s abrasive style and racist tweets, to an almost comical degree. Both Mandel and Timken, along with Mike Gibbons and Bernie Moreno, the other big Trump donors in the race, flew down to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in March to try to earn the ex-president’s backing in what  the Associated Press described as a “bizarre scene reminiscent of Trump’s reality TV show, ‘The Apprentice.'”

The 2022 GOP Senate campaign is already unlike any recent Ohio primary, said Doug Preisse, chair emeritus of the Franklin County Republican Party, who previously worked for Mandel as a strategist.

“The fact that everybody’s falling over themselves and rushing to kiss the ring of a former president when it appears to most of the public that they’re kissing another part of his anatomy, that’s a more intense kind of approach,” Preisse told Salon. All the candidates have been “afraid of their own shadow that they might do or say something” that will anger Trump and “drive him to endorse one of the others,” he added.

Perhaps no one has a steeper hill to climb in winning over Trump’s base than J.D. Vance, the venture capitalist and best-selling author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” who recently made a separate trip to Mar-a-Lago with billionaire Trump donor Peter Thiel to meet with the former president and, presumably, seek to make amends for his extensive past criticism.

According to Preisse, Vance originally indicated he planned to stay out of the Ohio Senate race. “The last time I talked to J.D. was at a cocktail party in Aspen a couple years ago,” Preisse recalled. “He said he couldn’t run in this kind of atmosphere because of Trump. It was a toxic atmosphere and he could never do that and wouldn’t do it.” 

Vance wrote a New York Times op-ed in 2016 calling Trump “unfit” to be president. Elsewhere he described the appeal of Trump as “cultural heroin” and warned that his policy proposals “range from immoral to absurd.”

“I can’t stomach Trump,” he told NPR in 2016 before announcing his support for independent never-Trump conservative Evan McMullin in the general election. “I think that he’s noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place.”

But Vance, who has built his image on his rural Appalachian roots while making a fortune investing in the same tech companies he now decries, changed his tune after getting more than $10 million in financial backing from Thiel and Trump mega-donors Robert and Rebekah Mercer to fund his Senate bid.

The Yale Law School grad, who has now joined the Republican chorus in criticizing “elites,” scrubbed his old tweets calling Trump “reprehensible” and touting his McMullin support before appearing on Fox News to apologize.

“Like a lot of people, I criticized Trump back in 2016,” Vance said. “And I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy. I think he was a good president, I think he made a lot of good decisions for people, and I think he took a lot of flak.”

Vance appears to hope his open contrition can convince Ohio voters that he genuinely supports Trump. “I’m not just a flip-flopper, I’m a flip-flop-flipper on Trump,” he insisted to Time’s Molly Ball, describing Trump as “the leader of this movement.”

“If I actually care about these people and the things I say I care about, I need to just suck it up and support him,” he said.

That admission did little to support the image that Vance’s allies have tried to portray in countless articles presenting him the “authentic” Ohio candidate in the race.

“If they see you as a flip-flopper or a political opportunist” who says “whatever you got to say to get to where you want to go, they can smell that,” Preisse said.

“That really kind of rips a hole in the ‘I’m the authentic candidate’ narrative,” Abernathy said. “You’re saying that out loud, right? People are reading that.”

Abernathy, who supported Trump until after the election, said it was “disappointing” to see Vance “blatantly change that position and pander to the Trump people and to Trump himself.” He predicted that Vance’s GOP opponents would seize on those comments in attack ads.

Indeed, it didn’t take long. “Not only do we welcome to the race, we welcome him to the Republican Party,” the Gibbons campaign said in a statement after Vance announced his bid.

“He claims to be a Trump Republican, but in the short time Mr. Vance has been active in politics he’s spent the bulk of it tearing down President Trump and mocking Trump voters,” said David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth,  which has endorsed Mandel.

Vance has tried to overcome his past Trump criticism by adopting Trump’s style and talking points. In recent months, he has railed on Twitter about Big Tech, the media and the supposed cancellation of Dr. Seuss, and has promoted a QAnon-inspired conspiracy theory suggesting that unrelated sexual misconduct cases were evidence of a powerful cabal of “predators targeting children.” He has frequently appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show and has echoed, in slightly milder form, Carlson’s racist “great replacement” theory by raising concerns about white and nonwhite birthrates. In a recent interview, Vance appeared to nod to Trump’s bogus election fraud narrative, saying that Vice President Kamala Harris had been “elected or whatever.”

Vance’s allies also believe that he is a “household name and a well-known brand,” Preisse said. “I don’t think that is the case. Books and movies made Stephen King a household name,” he said, suggesting that Vance is nowhere near that category. 

On the other hand, it’s likely that the Thiel and Mercer millions can go a long way in helping Vance make up ground on Timken and Mandel. “That’s why you raise money — so you can run a real campaign and do messaging,” Preisse said. “Sometimes you gotta try to put the shit back in the horse, which is what he’s probably going to have to spend some money doing.”

Vance’s allies have pointed out that Timken and Mandel may be big Trump fans now, but both of them supported other Republicans in the 2016 presidential primary first. Trump appears to have forgiven Timken and had to be talked out of giving her an early endorsment, according to Axios, while Mandel was kicked out of a recent Republican National Committee retreat in Florida that featured Trump.

No one has tried harder to embrace Trumpism than Mandel, who is running for Senate for the third time in the last decade. Mandel’s Twitter bio claims that he was the “1st Statewide Official in Ohio to support President Trump” and he announced his campaign earlier this year by declaring that he was “going to Washington to fight for President Trump’s America First Agenda.”

Mandel’s Twitter feed resembles a Trump fan page, replete with tweets decrying “science” and “experts” while trying (arguably a little too hard) to own the “libs.” He’s pinned a tweet to the top of his feed that features a video of himself burning a mask with the caption “FREEDOM.” In true Trump fashion, he was temporarily suspended by Twitter after posting a poll asking which types of “illegals” would commit more crimes, “Muslim Terrorists” or “Mexican Gangbangers.”

After his account access was restored, Mandel proudly declared, “Just like President Trump, I was canceled by @twitter @jack yesterday,” adding that he wears “this as a badge of honor as Big Tech thugs & elites target those who they are most afraid of.”

Mandel “has left a lot of his old friends and supporters scratching their heads,” Preisse said, “and just wondering what the next thing he’s gonna do or say that seems to be out of character of the fella we thought we knew for many years.”

“I’ve known Josh since he was in college and I don’t even know who the hell that guy is anymore,” said another veteran Republican strategist, who spoke to Salon on the condition of anonymity.

It isn’t just Mandel’s embrace of Trump. The Cleveland-area native also appears to have bizarrely adopted a Southern drawl as he attempts to win over rural voters in southern Ohio, although to be fair, he came under fire for the same fake accent in his first Senate bid in 2012.

Mandel’s previous failed campaigns have left him with strong name recognition in the state and millions in leftover campaign cash, but his “incessant campaigning over the past decade has worn some donors out,” according to The Atlantic’s Clare Malone, and his top fundraisers quit last month, reportedly over a “toxic work environment” created by Rachel Wilson, his campaign finance director and girlfriend.

At times, both Mandel and Timken’s camps have tried to make it seem as if they’ve already landed the coveted Trump endorsement. The USA Freedom Fund, a dark money group backing Mandel, used footage of Trump “even though Mandel was nowhere in sight” while attacking Vance for his past criticism, according to the AP.

Timken recently said in a radio ad that she was “very proud to be endorsed by President Trump to lead our party,” which was a reference to her campaign for state party chair four years ago. She recently deleted a photo of hersel and Trump from her website’s endorsement page after angering his allies with the insinuation that he is supporting her. Timken rented a plane to fly a pro-Trump banner bearing her website before his Ohio rally last month and deployed volunteers to hand out fliers touting her as “the only true pro-Trump America First candidate” in the race. “Certainly the Timken campaign was working very hard to make it seem like she was also endorsed at this rally,” a source told NBC News.

While other candidates are still vying for Trump’s endorsement, Timken was widely expected to have it by now. She has bragged that she turned the Ohio Republican Party into a “well-oiled, pro-Trump machine,” and she and her husband, steel company CEO Tim Timken, have donated millions to Republican causes. She has already garnered endorsements from dozens of county GOP chairmen and elected officials.

So the fact that no endorsement has happened is unquestionably a blow to Timken’s chances, Preisse said. “We all expected her to get an early Trump endorsement and when she didn’t, it was almost one step forward, two steps back,” he said. “She is suffering more from a lack of endorsement than the others, because it was assumed she’d get it.”

Timken has also come under attack from her opponents, not for failing to be supportive enough of the former president but for failing to be tough enough on his perceived enemies. Trump used much of his rally to attack Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, an Ohio Republican who voted to impeach him after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The state’s Republicans piled on, with Mandel calling Gonzalez a “traitor” who should be “eradicated from the Republican Party.” The state GOP officially censured Gonzalez in May, calling for him to resign.

Timken also called for Gonzalez to resign from Congress over his disloyalty, but only after she first defended him as a “very effective legislator” and a “very good person” in February after his impeachment vote.

“Question: Why did Jane Timken refuse to censure Gonzalez when she was Chairman? She clearly had time to do so,” Mandel questioned in May. “So what’s the real reason?”

At Trump’s Ohio rally, the ex-president endorsed Max Miller, a 32-year-old former White House aide with multiple criminal charges on his record, in next year’s primary against Gonzalez. But he didn’t pick a horse in the Senate race, instead staging an impromptu poll of the audience on who they thought he should back.

Though all the candidates have tripped over themselves to ingratiate themselves with the former president, Vance told NBC News he believes that Trump “gets a certain kick out of people kissing his ass” and views them as “weak.”

“He actually wants to see the race play out a little bit and see who among us is the strongest of the candidates,” he said, while trying to spin his past criticism of Trump as an asset rather than a weakness.

Abernathy suggested that it was more likely that Trump doesn’t want to endorse “somebody who ends up losing” because that would make him “look not particularly powerful.”

Furthermore, Abernathy said that even though Trump is still the “800-pound gorilla in the room,” his support in the state is “slowly eroding.” All these candidates’ full-throated embrace of Trumpism could come back to bite them in the general election, he said, where “they’re going to want to walk that back quite a bit and it’s gonna be hard.”

Rep. Tim Ryan, who briefly ran for president in 2020 — and before that opposed Nancy Pelosi for the speakership — is the only Democrat to jump into the race so far. But the party claims to believe the Trumpist scrum on the other side will only serve to alienate voters.

“While the GOP’s pack of elitist millionaires stumble all over themselves in a desperate attempt to get the attention of a failed Florida blogger, Democrats in Ohio are laser focused on getting the endorsement of Ohio voters — the endorsement that matters most,” Matt Keyes, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party, said in a statement to Salon. “While Republicans want to look backward to the divisions of the past, Ohio Democrats are looking ahead to building a better future for working Ohioans.”

There’s also no guarantee that whoever does the most to win over Trump’s base will win the Republican primary as all the candidates vying for the “Trump lane” cannibalize each other’s support.

The anonymous Republican strategist, who has worked for numerous prominent state and federal lawmakers, said he was in contact with some of the campaigns but chose to sit out the race “because I have to look at myself in the mirror in the morning.”

Abernathy and Preisse, unprompted, separately brought up Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, a potential Senate candidate who represents the Dayton area, as a less Trumpy Republican who could turn the race on its head if he joins the fray, especially since most of the other candidates have little experience with legislation.

“He’s been kind of an independent-minded person when it comes to Trump, but when the chips are down he’s usually been there for Trump,” Abernathy said. “He’s a very smart person, very well-spoken, I think a good debater, a former mayor of Dayton who has managed to appeal to the Democrats, which is helpful in the general.”

Preisse also mentioned state Sen. Matt Dolan, the state budget committee chairman, whose family owns the Cleveland Indians, describing him as a “center-right conservative … who knows how to get things done.”

“If Turner or Dolan gets in, there will be a lot of people who breathe a sigh of relief that there’s an adult in the race who isn’t rushing to kiss Donald Trump’s ring,” Preisse said, before repeating, “or some other part of his anatomy.” 

Trump is furious with Don Jr’s “annoying” girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle: report

According to a report from Politico’s Playbook, Donald Trump is furious with Kimberly Guilfoyle — the girlfriend of oldest son Don Jr. — and has reportedly told close aides he finds her “annoying.”

Guilfoyle — the former Fox News personality who was fired over sexual harassment claims — had raised eyebrows during the 2020 presidential campaign for bragging that she would give lap dances to big money donors. She recently latched on as a campaign aide to controversial Missouri Republican Eric Greitens who is seeking the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Roy Blunt (R).

Republicans, in general, are not pleased by Greiten’s run since he was forced out as Missouri governor in 2018 over sexual abuse and blackmail allegations involving his then-mistress, and Trump views the former Navy SEAL’s run for office as a problem for the Republican Party seeking to reclaim the U.S. Senate.

According to Politico Playbook, Trump takes a dim view of both Greitens and Guilfoyle.

“It’s Donald Trump’s most frequent complaint: people profiting off his name. The latest offender? His son’s girlfriend, MAGA’s own Eva Perón, Kimberly Guilfoyle,” the report states before adding that aides claim “Trump has been openly griping that Guilfoyle joined Eric Greitens’ campaign for Senate in Missouri as national campaign chair, and he’s becoming increasingly short with Guilfoyle.”

According to one Trump insider, “Trump thinks Greitens is problematic, and that Kim is annoying, ” adding, “He [Trump] said, ‘Why the f*ck is she working for him?'”

The report goes on to add that Trump — at the moment — has no intention of endorsing the scandal-plagued Republican and he views Guilfoyle’s employment by him as an opportunity for Greitens to trade on the Trump name without his approval.

You can read more here.

DOJ sounds alarm over Trump’s insinuations that he’ll be “reinstalled” in August

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is raising concerns about the possible violence that could erupt as a result of the dangerous falsehoods currently being perpetuated about former President Donald Trump and his allies.

According to CNN, Trump and a number of his allies are spreading a conspiracy theory about the possibility of him being reinstated next month. Since there is no constitutional mechanism that would allow for such action to be taken, the claim is nothing more than a misguided falsehood. The DOJ believes it will only lead to an angry, violent response from Trump’s loyal base.

During a court hearing, Marine Corps veteran Alex Harkrider, who is facing charges for his alleged participation in the Capitol riots requested that the judge allow for his ankle monitor to be removed. The DOJ expressed concern about doing so amid possible backlash from Trump’s base in the wake of the latest claims.

“Former President Trump continues to make false claims about the election, insinuate that he may be reinstalled in the near future as President without another election, and minimize the violent attack on the Capitol,” prosecutors wrote in the filing. “Television networks continue to carry and report on those claims, with some actually giving credence to the false reporting.”

Prosecutors fired back with arguments linking Trump’s rhetoric to Harkrider’s case. “The defendant, in this case, is not a good candidate to be out in the community without electronic monitoring to ensure the safety of the community and the safety of democracy in the current environment.”

The latest DOJ concerns follow the warning issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as they also expressed concern about Trump’s “‘reinstatement’ fantasies could lead to more violence this summer from right-wing extremists. Like the DOJ, they also warned of a possible uptick in violence.

Legal scholar Lawrence Tribe argued that these warnings emphasize the need to investigate Trump in particular for his role in the insurrection:

10 July 2021 movies not to miss (and where to watch them)

Movie fans always look forward to summertime! It’s when made-for-the-big-screen movie features premiere. Due to the pandemic, July 2021 is even more exciting as July 2020 looked very different. Now that more and more movies are releasing, there’s so much to look forward to! Here, we share 10 July 2021 movies not to miss and where you can watch them.

This time last year, we were all likely at home feeling disappointed about another premiere date delay due to the pandemic. While it was all for the best, we couldn’t help but feel down about it. Now, movies are finally out of the gate and we are set for a very fun summer!

Which movie are you looking forward to the most? July 2021 is kicking it off with some fun features, but it has plenty more to come.

Below, we list our top 10 picks (and some honorable mentions) of movies to watch this month. We also share where to see these movies, whether they are exclusively in theaters or streaming online. We tried to include a little bit of everything, so be sure to let us know if we missed any you are looking forward to watching!

Best July 2021 movies

“The Boss Baby 2: Family Business” — July 2, 2021

The movie opens in theaters and will be available to stream on Peacock (with subscription) on July 2, 2021. “Boss Baby 2” follows brothers Ted and Tim as adults. The two have grown apart, but must work together to stop an evil Boss Baby.

“The Forever Purge” — July 2, 2021

We all know the point of a Purge night is to let out all your hate and break the law for one night a year, but what if there was no end? “The Forever Purge” explores this idea in a movie that’s now playing in theaters. Unfortunately, there’s no streaming release date yet, theater exclusive.

“Black Widow” — July 9, 2021

“Black Widow” is one of the most anticipated movies of the year after many delays due to the pandemic. Finally, the movie arrives to theaters on July 9, 2021, and it will also be available to stream on Disney+ for the additional Premier Access fee of $29.99.

“Escape Room: Tournament of Champions” — July 16, 2021

A sequel to “Escape Room” and inspired by “Saw,” the movie “Escape Room: Tournament of Champions” will definitely entertain fans of the genre. You can watch this one on July 16, 2021, only in theaters. No streaming plans have been announced just yet.

“Space Jam: A New Legacy” — July 16, 2021

The Tune Squad is back! This time, it’s LeBron James who could use their help (or is it the other way around?). The movie will be released in theaters as well as HBO Max, which will stream free with your subscription.

“Old” — July 23, 2021

From M. Night Shyamalan, “Old” follows a family who quickly learn that the island they are on is causing them to age rapidly. It’s an interesting concept and I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds. “Old” will only be playing in theaters.

“Snake Eyes”– July 23, 2021

“Snake Eyes” is another movie many have been waiting for. The movie stars Henry Golding and Samara Weaving and is another one that will only be released in theaters.

“The Green Knight” — July 30, 2021

The medical fantasy adventure stars Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, and others. It’s set for an exclusive theater release. We’ll keep you posted if anything changes for those waiting for streaming releases!

“Jungle Cruise” — July 30, 2021

Need another family movie? “Jungle Cruise” is perfect! Best of all, you’ll be able to stream this one from home! The movie will release on Disney+ via Premier Access for $29.99, but will also play in theaters if you prefer that option.

“Stillwater” — July 30, 2021

Finishing up our July 2021 movies list is “Stillwater”. It feels like it’s been forever since Matt Damon appeared on the big screen! Miss him no more and watch “Stillwater” on July 30, 2021. The movie will only be playing in theaters.

More movies to stream in July 2021

Some honorable mentions include “No Sudden Move,” now streaming on HBO Max at no extra cost as part of your regular subscription, and “Fear Street “on Netflix (with two new “Fear Street“ movies coming July 9 and July 16).

What will you be watching this month? Are there any July 2021 movies you’re looking forward to that we failed to mention? Let us know! 

Stewart Rhodes, founder of right-wing Oath Keepers militia, spotted at CPAC

DALLAS — Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of right-wing militia group the Oath Keepers, was spotted by a Salon reporter Friday evening strolling the halls of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas.

Multiple federal agencies are currently investigating the Oath Keepers for their alleged role in the planning and execution of the Jan. 6 insurrection — and though Rhodes did not himself enter the U.S. Capitol building that day, several members of his group did, according to news reports. As of this week, 16 Oath Keepers have been charged for their involvement in the storming of the Capitol building. 

In the months since Jan. 6, Rhodes has voluntarily turned himself over for questioning by federal agents — against the advice of his attorneys, according to the New York Times. He reportedly told authorities that the only reason Oath Keeper members entered the Capitol that day was to provide aid after hearing someone inside had been shot, though the Times notes that an extensive investigation of visual evidence conducted by reporters was not able to verify the claims.

When asked why he was in attendance at the conservative conference, Rhodes quickly became enraged and yelled, “f**k off.” A female associate, identified as Marcia Strickler on her CPAC pass, also came within inches of this reporter, yelling various obscenities. 

Rhodes and Marcia Strickler at CPAC. (Zachary Petrizzo/Salon)

CPAC security also approved Rhodes for an official pass, which was photographed by Salon Friday before the encounter.

Yet according to a high-ranking CPAC official that spoke with Salon exclusively on Friday evening, conference leaders have been in touch with federal law enforcement authorities to seek guidance as to whether Rhodes is considered a threat to attendees’ safety and well-being. 

Right-wing anti-vaccine hysteria hits fever pitch as Nazi comparisons grow

Right-wing scaremongering about the COVID-19 vaccine hit a fever pitch this week, from Fox News to some of the conservative movement’s more fringe characters, with pundits placing particular emphasis on the apparent connection between President Biden’s vaccine rollout and Nazi Germany. 

The hysteria appears to have its roots in a Tuesday speech the president gave in which he encouraged volunteers to knock on doors.

“We need to go [sic] to community-by-community, neighborhood-by-neighborhood and, oftentimes, door-to-door, literally knocking on doors to get help to the remaining people protected from the virus,” Biden said.

The White House later clarified the president’s remarks, stating that only community volunteers would be leading the door-knocking effort to encourage vaccination — but that didn’t stop right-wing pundits and politicians from pouncing on what they said was America’s slide toward authoritarianism.  

Fox News in particular dedicated hours of programming to its crusade against the administration’s push to vaccinate the country against a virus that has already killed 600,000 Americans — with Tucker Carlson equating workplace vaccine requirements to forced sterilization, guest and right-wing activist Charlie Kirk using his appearance to compare vaccination to South African apartheid, and a rash of other hosts decrying the Biden administration’s emphasis on vaccination. 

“The focus of this administration on vaccination is mind-boggling,” Fox host Brian Kilmeade said on Fox & Friends Thursday. “They’re going to knock on your door, they’re going to demand that you take it, and they’re going to give you a third shot,” he added during a bizarre rant the next day, giving no indication of what the third shot is or why it would be required.

Longtime Fox host Laura Ingraham also added to the fear mongering with a chyron that read “THE LEFT’S CONSTANT COVID POWER GRAB”

The message filtered down to the Republican party’s Congressional members, who hammered home the idea that Biden was sending people door-to-door to force vaccines on people who did not want them — which is, of course, not true.

“The Biden Administration wants to knock on your door to see if you’re vaccinated,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, tweeted. “What’s next? Knocking on your door to see if you own a gun?”

“How about don’t knock on my door,” echoed Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas. “You’re not my parents. You’re the government. Make the vaccine available, and let people be free to choose. Why is that concept so hard for the left?”

Missouri GOP Gov. Mike Parson – whose state saw the highest COVID-related deaths and hospitalizations in the last week, baselessly warned Biden “that sending government employees or agents door-to-door to compel vaccination would NOT be an effective OR a welcome strategy in Missouri!”

Other Republicans were more bombastic in their reaction to Biden’s speech, not only bandying misinformation but painting an explicitly totalitarian picture of the president’s vaccine rollout, often explicitly using the Nazi regime and the Third Reich as a comparison point.

“Biden has deployed his Needle Nazis to Mesa County,” Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., tweeted on Thursday. “The people of my district are more than smart enough to make their own decisions about the experimental vaccine and don’t need coercion by federal agents. Did I wake up in Communist China?”

Freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., called the officials handling Biden’s vaccine push “medical brown shirts.” Historically, brown shirts refers to the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, called the SA, which carried out much of Adolf Hitler’s bidding. Green’s comments came on the heels of her last Nazi-related comparison, in which she said that mandatory mask-wearing was similar to the Nazi-era requirement that Jewish people wear identifying Stars of David on their clothing.

Conservative pundit Tomi Lahren also joined the chorus on Thursday, tarring flight attendants who enforce COVID health precautions as “Nazis of the air.” Last year, as the Daily Beast noted, Lahren made headlines when she said that those who comply with social distancing rules are engaging in a form of “willful slavery.”

Meanwhile, Charlie Kirk, the founder of conservative youth advocacy group Turning Point USA, eschewed a Nazi-era comparison, instead calling Biden’s vaccination push an “apartheid-style, open-air hostage situation.” He claimed that the administration would only let you “have your freedom back if you get the jab.” 

Conservative vaccine hesitancy, fueled by this militant anti-vaccine messaging, remains strong — despite pleas from numerous Republican governors to get vaccinated. Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., admitted on Thursday that he’s “perplexed” as to why so many Americans are refusing to get vaccinated.

Some on the left have speculated that it’s the administration’s very encouragement of vaccination – rather than the safety of the vaccine itself – that is largely contributing to right-wing resistance. 

“The only solution may be reverse psychology,” as Salon’s Amanda Marcotte wrote last month. “People who want the pandemic to end need to, paradoxically, release the desire to see conservatives get vaccinated. The more zen that liberals (or people perceived to be liberals) are about vaccination rates, the less fun it is to try to piss liberals off by refusing to get the shot.”