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The history of crêpes: A personal and historical exploration of the famous French pancake’s origin

Crêpes are an ultra-thin pancake common in France that can be made sweet or savory, typically rolled or folded with a variety of fillings from jam or Nutella to ham and cheese to seafood. The specialty is served in crêperies, as street food, and even in elegant settings as dessert, such as the most famous presentation, Crêpes Suzette.

Common as they are in France, it never occurred to me while growing up that crêpes were typically not made in other Midwestern households in the 1980s and ’90s. When the occasion presented itself for my dad to make dinner, it usually meant my siblings and I would be having “roll up pancakes” — so named because they were easily rolled into a tube with the tines of one’s fork. They were served — as any other pancake would be — with butter and maple syrup. All I knew is that we sometimes got what amounted to breakfast for dinner, bordering on dessert for dinner, and that these pancakes were so thin that nobody cast a side eye when you went in for a half dozen or more. Ignorance was bliss.

I didn’t make the French connection between crêpes and that which had occasionally graced my dinner table until my early 20’s when I started venturing out of my hometown. Crêperies had barely made their way to American cities at this point, much less to America’s heartland. Furthermore, I’d only ever known them as roll up pancakes, unaware that their pedigree might go beyond standard American breakfast — or dinner — fare. So, how did these exotic specimens end up on my Midwestern dinner table circa 1985? Another clue was in my father’s heritage.

My dad reports that his recipe for crêpes came from none other than the Good Housekeeping Cookbook, the same recipe his mother used. (Why he never used the real name to us is a matter for another day.) Still, why would my grandmother, a Midwesterner for at least several decades, have been seeking out such a recipe, which was otherwise unheard of among our friends and neighbors? Perhaps the fact that her birthplace was Canada was important. Quebec, to be specific, the only spot in North America where the official language is French. One doesn’t need a DNA test, only elementary French vocabulary, to gather that my French surname reveals a distant past in French cattle management.

Nearly every cultural cuisine on earth lays claim to some kind of pancake, made from a liquid batter on a hot, flat surface. Those we know well from hearty American breakfasts have near and distant cousins: Dutch poffertjes, Indian dosas, Russian blini, Japanese hirayachi, Chinese jianbing and French crêpes, among others.

The etymology for most western-style pancakes, both thick and thin, tends to come down through one of two major pipelines. The Greek tiganos, meaning “frying pan,” passes on its DNA through various languages with dishes of this nature that literally translate to “pan cakes,” including American pancakes as well as Norwegian pannekake, Argentinian panqueques and South African pannekoek. The Latin crispa, meaning “creases,” gives parentage primarily to thinner, folded-style pancakes from which French crêpes, along with Mexican crepas and Turkish krep, take their lead.

In French folklore, there is a tale that crêpes were born of a “happy accident,” when a 13th-century housewife in Brittany accidentally spilled some buckwheat porridge from a kettle in the fireplace onto a flat cooking stone, but other sources put crepes much earlier on the timeline. Le Jour des Crêpes (“the day of crêpes”), Feb. 2, is believed to have begun in the year 472 when crêpes were offered to French Catholic pilgrims visiting Rome for Candlemas by Pope Gelasio I. Now, Le Jour des Crêpes and Candlemas are synonymous occasions in France and Belgium, where crêpes take on additional meaning, their circular nature symbolizing either a coin or the sun. As to whether Brittany, the Northwesternmost region of France, lays any actual claim to the origin, some credibility can be concluded from the fact that savory crêpes are still traditionally made with buckwheat flour, a crop that performs well in Brittany’s wet climate, where normal wheat does not.

French crêpe batter typically consists of flour, eggs, and milk or water, with butter, sugar and salt as optional ingredients. Brown butter gives an especially deep flavor, and I swear I recall my dad adding a splash of vanilla extract. No matter the recipe, a brisk whisking for removing any lumps is required, and resting the batter for at least a short while to let air bubbles subside is recommended. Crêpes differ from typical American pancakes in that they don’t contain a leavening agent causing the batter to rise, hence the flat outcome.

Crêperies now can be found all over the U.S. and the world, meaning other kids whose dads are fond of making roll up pancakes might be able to better contextualize them. Crêpes took on further life in the U.S. starting around 2001, when Emy Wada, a Japanese pastry chef who’d studied in France, introduced a mille crepe cake at her New York City bakery, Lady M Boutique. Mille crêpe literally translates to “thousand crêpes” though the cake tops out around 20 crêpes layered with pastry cream.

While we know much about British involvement in North America through the 1700s, France controlled a large swath of land from Northeastern Canada, through the American Midwest, and down to Louisiana, until much of the latter part was ceded to Great Britain in 1763. French influence lingers in American city names such as Detroit and New Orleans, and especially in Quebec, which has remained a new world French mainstay, and through that heritage, crêpes became part of my Midwestern upbringing.

By Pamela Vachon, Institute of Culinary Education alum and writer

Seven tomato paste substitutes for pantry pasta emergencies (and more!)

Tomato paste is having a moment. Made by boiling down tomato juice into smooth, concentrated form, tomato paste is absolutely packed with umami. Just a tablespoon can transform a braise, stew, or soup, imbuing it with an unplaceable but vibrant richness. Knead it into bread dough for a ruby-red pop, or add it to tomato sauce to make it even more tomato-y. The opportunities are endless, but this rich, sweet vermillion substance is just the kind of thing I’m constantly forgetting on my grocery runs. So if you’re staring down a recipe that calls for some paste and need a quick tomato paste substitute, we have your back.

Here are seven tomato paste substitutes you probably have on hand:

DIY Tomato Paste

In essence, tomato paste is just crushed, reduced tomatoes. Though the stuff in a tube (or tiny can) is boiled for many hours from fresh tomatoes, you can achieve a similar result much quicker by starting with a can of crushed canned tomatoes or tomato puree. Measure out five times as much crushed or pureed as the amount of tomato paste you’ll need into a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then turn down to a gentle simmer, stirring frequently, until reduced to a thick paste.

Canned (Or Homemade) Tomato Sauce

Tomato paste adds richness, sweetness, umami, and, of course, tomato flavor to everything it touches. While tomato sauce is much less concentrated than tomato paste, and doesn’t have the same deep flavor profile that come from slow-cooking, it’s in the ballpark. And if you’re making a braise or stew that’s meant to cook down over several hours, the tomato sauce will have a chance to gain some of paste’s depth and richness as it simmers.

Fresh Tomatoes

To turn fresh tomatoes into tomato paste, cook them down, strain out the skins (and/or puree the flesh) and then cook down further until very thick.

Ketchup

A tempting substitute because of its similar color and viscosity, ketchup can work as a substitute in a pinch when replacing small amounts of tomato paste in recipes. Though it’s important to note that ketchup is seasoned with sugar and vinegar, and lacks the savory umami character of tomato paste. If substituting with ketchup, you can remove additional sweeteners like honey or sugar in the rest of the recipe.

Miso

Bear with me here. Miso may be from a different culinary universe than tomato paste, but think of them as long-lost cousins. Where tomato paste derives its rich umami character from tomatoes themselves (which are full of glutamic acid), and from the Maillard reaction, the flavor-chemical cacophony that erupts when amino acids are heated with reducing sugars, miso is umami-loaded by way of fermentation. Both pastes have a rounded sweetness and an earthy undertone. I always add a touch of miso when I make tomato sauce to give it that secret richness, and you should too. Be aware, of course, that miso tastes nothing like tomatoes, and will not lend tomato flavor to dishes.

Oyster Sauce

I’m really going out on a limb now, but seriously, what isn’t improved by a dash of thick, salty-sweet oyster sauce? Though most common in recipes of East and Southeast Asian origin, you can sub an equal amount of oyster sauce in place of tomato paste in braises and stews. But anticipate a darker color and less acidity as a result (and no tomato flavor, of course). As it’s made with oysters, it’s also important to note that this substitute won’t work for vegetarians.

Worcestershire Sauce

This peculiar blend of anchovy, vinegar, tamarind, onions, spices, is beloved around the globe for its sour-savory kick. (Again, vegetarians will want to abstain from this tomato paste alternative.) No one would mistake it for tomato paste, but it does contribute the umami and sour notes your dish may be missing in its absence. Add a few dashes to taste in braises or stews, and consider adding a pinch of sugar to compensate for the acidity.

How to cook black beans for burritos, dips and stews

Everyone, and I mean everyone, should know how to cook black beans. If the idea of beans that don’t come from a can is news to you, I’m not here to judge. We all start somewhere. Even in the U.S., where beans have been cultivated for millenia, there’s been an explosion of heirloom varieties just in the past few years as people move beyond the can. Heirloom bean producers like Rancho Gordo have spread awareness that the variety of delicious dried legumes available is nearly infinite. But when it comes to burritos, I have strong feelings. As much as I love pinto and refried beans, I think a good burrito needs black beans. They’re meaty, and almost mushroomy at the same time, and great on their own. In fact, they’re the beans I cook most often at home. And they’re much, much better when made from scratch. If you’ve always eaten your beans from a can, here’s a simple guide for how to cook black beans.

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Black beans, explained

The common bean — the species that includes black as well as pinto, kidney, and cranberry beans — was first cultivated in southwestern Mexico around 7,000 years ago. The bean itself is a seed, consisting of an embryonic plant (which becomes the sprout), surrounded by two hard, nutrient-rich leaves called cotyledons, which are in turn encased in a hard, water-resistant seed-coat. Beans are full of nutrients, particularly starch and protein (three times as much as in wheat or rice), and also packed with flavor. Like many other seeds, dried beans are tough, and need some coaxing to transform into the tender, creamy morsels I spoon over, well, everything.

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How to cook black beans: slow or fast?

Have you ever noticed how, when boiled in water for just a few minutes, vegetables turn to mush, yet seem to stay crunchy forever when simmered in tomato sauce or a wine-soaked stew? That’s because the acid present in tomatoes and wine inhibits the breakdown of tough cell walls. With black beans (and all other dried beans), the same is true, but where a firm vegetable can be a satisfying contrast to tender braised meat, a tough bean is liable to break a tooth. If you’re adding beans to a braise that’ll cook all day, use acid to your advantage, safe in the knowledge that your beans won’t fall apart before the other ingredients are cooked through. But if you’re strapped for time, there are a few ways to accelerate the process.

Soaking

Rinse any debris from your beans, then transfer them to a bowl and cover with water by about an inch, then transfer them to the fridge and let soak overnight. Soaking beans can cut down cooking time by about a quarter. J. Kenji López-Alt recommends adding one tablespoon of kosher salt per quart of soaking water to cut down cooking time even more, and to season the beans throughout. If you forget, you can soak in warm water for up to four hours, to speed up the process.

Baking soda

The addition of baking soda to soaking water decreases bean-cooking time by about three quarters. Just as acid slows the breakdown of cell walls, bases such as baking soda accelerate it. Just a pinch will do: Too much can spoil the taste of your beans or cause them to go mushy.

Wait! Be careful what you wish for

Though soaking beans in water with salt and baking soda accelerates the cooking process, it has two drawbacks. First, salt and baking soda slow starch-gelation inside the bean, meaning you’re more likely to get a grainy, rather than creamy, result. Second, long-cooking actually helps to break down the indigestible carbohydrates that contribute to gassiness. Quick-cooking beans are convenient, but they might end your dinner in disaster (think: the Hindenburg). Epazote, a pungent herb traditional to several Central American cuisines, not only adds a delicious, earthy flavor to black beans, but also reduces the risk of your party going up in flames. Asafoetida, a spice used in several South Asian cuisines, works too.

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How to cook black beans until perfectly creamy

  • Soak black beans overnight in salted water (with or without a pinch of baking soda) in the fridge.
  • Add to a pot with just enough of the soaking water to barely cover the beans (add more liquid as they cook if necessary to keep them covered).
  • Bring the mixture to a boil, then turn down to a simmer over medium low heat.
  • Add in seasonings like a few garlic cloves, a quartered onion, or a pinch of epazote per pound of beans. But don’t add anything acidic (like tomato paste or wine) unless you have all day.
  • Cook until tender, about 1 to 2 hours, depending on how old your beans are and your stove’s power (start tasting after 45 minutes, and add more salt if the beans taste bland, or more water if they’re too salty). If the liquid drops below the level of the beans, top up with more of the soaking liquid.

“Star Wars” insider Bill Slavicsek on how “The Mandalorian” has redeemed the universe

The Disney+ series “The Mandalorian” has been both a critical triumph and commercial success. In my judgment, it’s the most compelling live-action story in the “Star Wars” universe since 1983’s “Return of The Jedi”.  

To that end, the story in “The Mandalorian’s” first two seasons about a mysterious bounty hunter and “the child” (who is actually more than 50 years old) he’s entrusted with as they navigate their way through a dangerous world — rife with “scum and villainy,” where the remnants of the evil Empire still terrorize the galaxy — has accomplished something difficult in science fiction and other genre entertainment.

Longtime and serious “Star Wars” aficionados are enthusiastic about “The Mandalorian’s” attention to detail and obvious love and respect for George Lucas’s “Star Wars” universe. More casual “Star Wars” fans can enjoy the series for its story of family, friendship and adventure, and of course for “baby Yoda,” aka Grogu, “the Child,” a character described by legendary film director Werner Herzog as “heartbreakingly beautiful.”

“The Mandalorian” also embraces the core aesthetic and storytelling conventions of “Star Wars,” which are drawn from classic American Westerns, Saturday morning serials from the 1940s and 1950s, samurai films (“The Mandalorian” is a clear homage to the cult classic 1970s Japanese “Lone Wolf and Cub” stories), and space operas like “Flash Gordon.”

While respecting the mythic roots of “Star Wars,” the creators of “The Mandalorian” have also done something different: the anthology goes beyond the constraints of the “mono-myth” and archetypal hero’s journey that largely defined George Lucas’ original films, along with their sequels and prequels. The result is a live-action “Star Wars” TV show that is firmly of that world, while free to explore different parts of it.

Where does “The Mandalorian” go next? Why is it such a compelling TV series and story? Is there such a thing as too much “fan service” in a genre film or TV series? Why has “The Mandalorian” been such a success, compared to the most recent “Star Wars” films? Disney and Lucasfilm have recently announced plans for 11 new TV series and at least three more feature films. At what point does “Star Wars” become overexposed and made into something common, a parody of itself?

In an effort to answer these questions I recently spoke with Bill Slavicsek, one of the writers and developers of the much-beloved “Star Wars” roleplaying game from West End Games. He is also the author of the “Star Wars Sourcebook,” “A Guide to the Star Wars Universe,” many guides to RPGs and, more recently, “Defining a Galaxy: 30 Years in a Galaxy Far, Far Away.”

Slaviscek’s work continues to influence the “Star Wars” universe, as seen in films and TV series such as the film “Rogue One” and the TV series “Rebels,” as well as “The Mandalorian.” He was one of the main game designers for the Dungeons and Dragons RPGs and is currently the lead writer for the massively multi-player RPG Elder Scrolls Online.

Fair warning: This conversation contains spoilers for Season Two of “The Mandalorian,” which is now available on the Disney+ streaming service.

How did the first two seasons of “The Mandalorian” make you feel?

I have been really impressed with “The Mandalorian.” It is very good continuation of the work that was done with the animated series “The Clone Wars” and “Rebels.” Part of that success is because of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni. With “The Mandalorian,” Jon Favreau is also part of that success. He is definitely a huge fan of the “Star Wars” universe.  

“The Mandalorian” has many moments where it draws on your work in the original West End “Star Wars” roleplaying game. How does it feel to see those ideas on the screen?

It always humbles and excites me when I see the work we did on the “Star Wars” roleplaying game from all those years ago being utilized in Star Wars films and now TV shows. There were many examples of that, during “Rebels” especially. “Rebels” really felt to me as if the writers were playing their own version of the roleplaying game, but in the form of a television series. I have the same feelings when I watch “The Mandalorian.” For example, in the first episode of Season Two of “The Mandalorian,” we actually get to see Gamorreans fighting — and they are using vibroblades. That was a small detail which half the audience likely would not understand. But for those who do, that is pretty cool.  

“The Mandalorian” is a clear continuation of George Lucas’ original vision of “Star Wars” as an American Western combined with Japanese samurai films in the form of a space opera. Serious “Star Wars” fans have much to love with “The Mandalorian,” while casual fans can enjoy the show too. How is that balance being achieved?

It is a level of attention to detail. The writers of “The Mandalorian” know how to use the tools in the “Star Wars” toolbox, and they are doing it with great skill. It is not unlike the way we created the original West End Games “Star Wars” roleplaying modules. We looked at what was left over from the sketches from the original films — things that were not used on the screen — and asked ourselves, what can we turn that into? “The Mandalorian” is doing the same thing. It makes me want to watch the TV show just to see what is going to happen next.

How is the high quality of storytelling and universe-building on “The Mandalorian” being maintained?

I am not totally on the inside of how the “Star Wars” TV shows and movies are being made right now. But as I can see from the outside looking in, Dave Filoni worked with George Lucas on the “Clone Wars” animated TV show. He was also the principal person behind the “Rebels” animated TV show as well. “The Mandalorian” is the next step for him with live action. They have a great deal of trust in him. They also have a great deal of trust in Jon Favreau, who is writing almost all the episodes himself. I can also see Dave’s hand in each of the episodes as well, and to my eyes they are really a good team.

They are both working with the story group at Lucasfilm to make sure that everything matches with the “Star Wars” continuity, but Filoni and Favreau both know their stuff when it comes to “Star Wars”. In my opinion, both of them are “Star Wars” fans who are getting to play.

What does it mean to “play” in the “Star Wars” universe?

You want to tell a good story — but you want to tell a good “Star Wars” story. “Star Wars” was modeled after the western, as well as Japanese samurai movies. It is also a space opera, which means big dramatic stories. “Star Wars” is also a personal story. The best “Star Wars” stories come from that personal narrative. “The Mandalorian,” for example, has been the personal story of Din Djarin and the Child bonding together and figuring out what to do next.

I was told long ago when I was working on “Star Wars” that we get to play with George Lucas’ toys. We are playing in his driveway, but someday he is going to back his truck up. It is the next “Star Wars” movie, and it is going to run over your toys. But they are great toys. The creators of “The Mandalorian” are now putting those toys on the screen. Now they really exist.

Character development is also why “The Mandalorian” is so compelling.

It is easier to do those kinds of long story arcs in a television series than in movies. Movies have limited time, by their very nature. There is story development throughout the original “Star Wars” trilogy. There was certainly lots of character development in what became known as the Expanded Universe. There is so much character development in “The Mandalorian” because it now, over two seasons, has approximately 16 hours of storytelling. That is more time than the original trilogy.

Why has Grogu “the Child” become such a pop culture phenomenon?

The character works for the same reason that Yoda did. They gave Grogu a great amount of presence. The character is fun and cute to look at, but the show is doing interesting things with him. Grogu using the Force, playing with the little silver ball, eating whatever he can get his hands on, whether it is sentient or not. When Grogu was throwing the Stormtroopers around it made us, the viewers, believe that he was a real person. The actors are helping with that as well. Grogu’s presence is a testament to the current technology, but also to the performances that the writers and directors can get out of a character with it.

“The Mandalorian” is a cohesive story. The last “Star Wars” sequel trilogy was not. It was literally written by different people who were not coordinating with one another on a cohesive story. The last of those films, “The Rise of Skywalker,” was obviously written by committee, in a desperate effort to correct the blowback and negative reaction among so many “Star Wars” fans to “The Last Jedi.” How do you make sense of the cohesiveness of “The Mandalorian,” as compared to the last “Star Wars” trilogy?

The last three “Star Wars” films surprised me, at least from the outside looking in, especially given the Lucasfilm story group. I am not sure how or why they came to the decisions to do the last three “Star Wars” movies the way they did. By comparison, “The Mandalorian” is being done the way “The Clone Wars” and “Rebels” animated shows were. There is a clear vision, a clear arc, and the show is building towards something. As we did with the “Star Wars” roleplaying game, which I believe that Dave and Jon are fans of, that is how you apply the lessons of storytelling. That is not necessarily true of the people who did the last “Star Wars” trilogy.

Given the richness of that universe and all its possibilities, how hard is it to write a good “Star Wars” movie or TV show?

First, it is hard to write a good story. But when you have people working on these films who are actually fans — that’s why the Marvel movies, for the most part, work. They are being truthful to the source material which they grew up with. Whereas comic book movies in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s were people saying, “Oh, I can do a comic book movie! I’m not a fan, but I know I can do it better.” They failed miserably at the task. As far as I understand it, everyone who worked on the three newer “Star Wars” trilogy movies were fans. But sometimes things do not work out. When you try to serve too many masters, you can’t please everybody. That having been said, I like “Rogue One.” I think it is a good “Star Wars” movie. There are elements of the new trilogy that I like and enjoy. I do not agree with everything they did with the new trilogy, but I do not think that the films are as bad as the prequels, in my estimation.

Do you think that there will be a critical reappraisal of the “Star Wars” prequels, given the hostile reaction to the last “Star Wars” trilogy?

No. There are elements of the “Star Wars” prequels that are fantastic. But as a whole I think some of the storytelling that was present in the original three films was lost. I enjoyed the Han Solo movie [“Solo,” released in 2018]. My biggest issue with it was the way they introduced Chewbacca to Han. I didn’t think it was earned. Why did he need Han to tell him how to knock over a pillar? He could have done it anytime he wanted to. But other than that I thought they did a decent job with it. I liked the story, and I thought that Lando Calrissian was done well.

Are there any particular moments when the magic of the “Star Wars” roleplaying game that you helped to write and develop is best crystallized on the screen with “The Mandalorian”?  

In general, the sensibilities of the whole show go in that direction. Watching Boba Fett fight with the gaffi stick for example — we always wanted to see that happen and we got to see it. Having Gamorreans go at each other with vibroblades. The Dark Saber being wielded. We always imagined more than the movies got to show us, for various reasons. We always wanted to see Boba Fett fire his rocket. Now we’ve gotten to see his rocket get fired several times on “The Mandalorian.” I also believe that the creators of “The Mandalorian” are sitting in a room and saying, “What can we fix?” Everyone will tell you, as much as they like Boba Fett, that what happened to him in “Return of the Jedi” was silly. “The Mandalorian’s” writers have gone out of their way in this season to restore the coolness that is Boba Fett.

In terms of “fan service,” how much is enough? When does it become distracting?

If it’s done well and it serves the story, I do not think that there can be too much. It’s like the old Warner Bros. cartoons. They work on different levels, and you want them to work on different levels. You want the kid to be able to watch it, and you want the adult to laugh at the slightly raunchy jokes.

I feel like “The Mandalorian” is doing a great job of that balancing act. There was another little element that just made me go “Oh, they know their stuff,” which was when the Stormtroopers fell off the platform through the magnetic shielding on the cruiser. Those are little touches, but the show is getting them right.

What about the complaints by some that “The Mandalorian,” like the last three “Star Wars” films, is making the universe too small by introducing Luke Skywalker as the Jedi who will train Grogu?

I agree that the “Star Wars” universe needs to get bigger, and I think they’ve been doing a really good job with that on “The Mandalorian” as well. There are going to be multiple shows set in the time period as “The Mandalorian.” If none of them touch on what Luke, Leia and Han are doing, then we are missing a big part of what’s going on in the “Star Wars” universe at the time.

With the announcement of all the new films and TV series, is “Star Wars” in danger of becoming overexposed, where “Star Wars” is no longer something special?

“Star Wars” is a universe just like Marvel is a universe. If the various “Star Wars” projects are all treated with the same level of respect and effort, they will all be fun and worth watching. This is a great time to be a “Star Wars” fan. I have no problem with them trying this. If something’s bad, that will be a shame. All the new “Star Wars” stories are not going to hit, but I would rather them take the shot than put it on a shelf and not play with it.

If you had your way, should the “Star Wars” films go far into the future or far into the past? What time period would you want to explore?

I’m enjoying “The Mandalorian” and the way it’s starting to show us what happened after “Return of the Jedi” and before Episode VII. The whole mention of Grand Admiral Thrawn and going back to the original Timothy Zahn novels is something I appreciate. That character has been brought back even though he is now slightly different than before. It is going to be cool to see Thrawn develop into a live-action villain. I am also looking forward to seeing the High Republic stories and what happens there. That seems like an interesting era to explore in “Star Wars.” Beyond that, for the next set of movies, I think it might be worth going into a new era. “Rogue Squadron” has been announced as the next film, which will still be in the era of the Empire, I would imagine.  

If I had my way, I would want “Star Wars” to go into the future and try to come up with something new. But that does not mean I do not want to see all the other “Star Wars” stories which have been announced.

Given your rich background, if asked by Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau and the other principals involved in creating these new “Star Wars” stories, what advice would you give?

Keep telling good stories. That’s the key. Don’t try to hit everything all at once. There is room in these series, so use it, take your time and build the world up, whichever world or part of the universe you are dealing with at any given time. I would continue, just the way Kevin Feige has taken over and become the person behind the Marvel universe, I would like to see Jon Favreau and David Filoni become the linchpins to the Star Wars universe, because they’re certainly hitting the mark with “The Mandalorian.”

 

Disney, Pixar and Netflix are teaching your children the wrong messages about pain

Mass media exert an enormous influence on children’s development and is very likely how they learn about pain. Understanding the powerful influence that media has on preschoolers and kindergarteners is important because this is a crucial developmental period for socio-emotional development and is precisely the time when fears about pain (especially needles) develop.

Like it or not, pain is an inevitable part of childhood. In Canada, children receive 20 vaccine injections before the age of five. From the time that toddlers begin walking, everyday pains or “boo-boos” — minor injuries that result in bumps and bruises — are extremely common, occurring nearly every two hours.

By the time they reach adolescence, one in five youth will develop chronic pain. This means pain lasting for three months or more, like headaches and stomach aches. Chronic pain is a rising epidemic around the world, especially in girls. If these youth do not receive proper treatment, chronic pain during adolescence can lead to pain and mental health issues (PTSD, anxiety, depression, opioid misuse) into adulthood.

Simply put, pain is a big part of childhood. Yet, as a society we avoid, undertreat and stigmatize pain. Despite decades of research showing how to effectively manage children’s pain (for example, using numbing creams or distraction techniques), studies show that many clinicians still undertreat children’s pain, and neither acute (short-lasting) nor chronic (lasting three months or more) pain is well-managed.

Children who experience chronic pain are also stigmatized and often disbelieved by peers, health-care professionals and teachers. These deeply ingrained societal beliefs about pain likely influence how children learn to experience, respond and empathize with pain.

So where does this social stigma of pain come from? What do Disney, Pixar and Netflix have to do with your child’s pain?

Children’s media exposure

Children are growing up saturated with mass media and rates of screen time are rising. The COVID-19 pandemic has only fuelled this further. While the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that preschool-aged children watch no more than one hour of TV per day, the majority of children far exceed this recommendation.

In our study, we used popular culture lists to capture the most popular movies and TV shows seen by millions of four-to-six-year-old children. The final list included “Despicable Me 2”, “The Secret Life of Pets”, “Toy Story 3” and 4, “Incredibles 2”, “Inside Out”, “Up”, “Zootopia”, “Frozen”, “Finding Dory”, “Sofia the First”, “Shimmer and Shine”, “Paw Patrol”, “Octonauts”, “Peppa Pig” and “Daniel Tiger’s Neighbourhood”.

We watched all 52.38 hours of media and all instances of pain were captured. We used established coding schemes drawn from the procedural and everyday pain literature to code details of the pain experience, including both the sufferers’ and the observers’ responses, the type of pains depicted and the degree to which observers showed empathy to the characters in pain. We examined gender differences in the pain experiences of boy versus girl characters.

The results were shocking. Pain was frequently depicted, approximately nine times per hour. Seventy-nine per cent of pain instances involved characters being seriously injured or experiencing pain due to violent acts. Although everyday pains are the most common pain experiences young children experience in real life, everyday pains comprised only 20 per cent of the pain instances. Medical and procedural pain, like needles, as well as chronic pains were depicted less than one per cent of the time.

When characters experienced pain, they rarely (only 10 percent of the time) asked for help or showed a reaction, perpetuating an unrealistic and distorted perception of pain that shows pain as being quickly swept aside. Although 75 percent of pain instances were witnessed by observers, they rarely responded to characters experiencing pain, and when they did, they showed very low levels of empathy or concern toward the sufferer.

Across the media, boy characters experienced the vast majority of pain, despite girls experiencing higher rates of pain problems in real life. This underrepresentation of pain in girl characters could be teaching young children that girls’ pain is less frequent, real and worthy of attention from others. Indeed, we found that girl characters were less likely to seek help when they experienced pain than boy characters.

Boy characters experienced more severe and distressing pain than girls; however, observers were more concerned about, and likely to help, girl characters. Observers were more likely to show inappropriate responses (laughter) to boy sufferers. Boy observers were more likely to laugh and offer verbal advice to sufferers, whereas girl observers were more empathetic toward sufferers.

Frequent and unrealistic portrayals of pain

These findings reveal that popular media are perpetuating unhelpful gender stereotypes about pain, with girls being depicted as damsels in distress who show more caring and empathy and require more help, and boys being portrayed as stoic and uncaring towards others.

At critical developmental periods when young children are learning about themselves, others and the world, they are seeing pain frequently portrayed in their favourite TV shows and movies. In children’s media, pain is frequently depicted (nine times per hour), it is unrealistically and often violently portrayed, empathy and helping is rarely depicted, and unhelpful gender stereotypes abound.

These messages are potentially harmful as we know that children turn to their favourite characters to understand and make sense of their everyday experiences such as pain and importantly, to learn how to respond to their own pain and pain in others.

These findings highlight a pervasive societal stigma around pain that is being communicated to young children. This highlights the responsibility that we all have in dismantling and changing these societal narratives about pain to ensure that this powerful social learning opportunity is not missed and we are raising more prepared and empathic children for the inevitable pains they will encounter throughout their lives.

This story is part of a series produced by SKIP (Solutions for Kids in Pain), a national knowledge mobilization network whose mission is to improve children’s pain management by mobilizing evidence-based solutions through co-ordination and collaboration.

Melanie Noel, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Calgary and Abbie Jordan, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Bath

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

In fast-moving pandemic, health officials try to change minds at warp speed

Nine months into the pandemic that has killed more than 320,000 people in the U.S., Kim Larson is still trying to convince others in her northern Montana county that COVID-19 is dangerous.

As Hill County Health Department director and county health officer, Larson continues to hear people say the coronavirus is just like a bad case of the flu. Around the time Montana’s governor mandated face coverings in July, her staffers saw notices taped in several businesses’ windows spurning the state’s right to issue such emergency orders.

For a while, the county with a population of 16,000 along the Canadian border didn’t see much evidence of the pandemic. It had only one known COVID case until July. But that changed as the nation moved into its third surge of the virus this fall. By mid-December, Hill County had recorded more than 1,500 cases — the vast majority since Oct. 1 — and 33 people there had died.

When Larson hears people say pandemic safety rules should end, she talks about how contagious the COVID virus is, how some people experience lasting effects and how hospitals are so full that care for any ailment could face delays.

“In public health, we’ve seen the battle before, but you typically have the time to build your evidence, research showing that this really does save lives,” Larson said. “In the middle of a pandemic, you have no time.”

Public health laws typically come long after social norms shift, affirming a widespread acceptance that a change in habits is worth the public good and that it’s time for stragglers to fall in line. But even when decades of evidence show a rule can save lives — such as wearing seat belts or not smoking indoors — the debate continues in some places with the familiar argument that public restraints violate personal freedoms. This fast-moving pandemic, however, doesn’t afford society the luxury of time. State mandates have put local officials in charge of changing behavior while general understanding catches up.

Earlier this month, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams stood next to Montana’s governor in Helena and said he hopes people wear masks because it’s the right thing to do — especially as COVID hospitalizations rise.

“You don’t want to be the reason that a woman in labor can’t get a hospital bed,” Adams said, adding a vaccine is on the way. “It’s just for a little bit longer.”

He spoke days after state lawmakers clashed over masks as a majority of Republican lawmakers arrived for a committee meeting barefaced and at least one touted false information on the dangers of masks. As of Dec. 15, the Republican majority hadn’t required masks for the upcoming legislative session, set to begin Jan. 4.

And now a group opposed to masks from Gallatin and Flathead counties has filed a lawsuit asking a Montana judge to block the state’s pandemic-related safety rules.

Public health laws typically spark political battles. Changing people’s habits is hard, said Lindsay Wiley, director of the health law and policy program at American University in Washington, D.C. Despite the misconception that there was universal buy-in for masks during the 1918 pandemic, Wiley said, some protesters intentionally built rap sheets of arrests for going maskless in the name of liberty.

She said health officials realize any health restrictions amid a pandemic require the public’s trust and cooperation for success.

“We don’t have enough police to walk around and force everyone to wear a mask,” she said. “And I’m not sure we want them to do it.”

Local officials have the best chance to win over that support, Wiley said. And seeing elected leaders such as President Donald Trump rebuff his own federal health guidelines makes that harder. Meanwhile, public shaming like calling unmasked people selfish or stupid can backfire, Wiley said, because if they were to give in to mask-wearing, they would essentially be accepting those labels.

In the history of public health laws, even rules that have had time to build widely accepted evidence weren’t guaranteed support.

It’s illegal in Montana to go without a seat belt in a moving car. But, as in 13 other states, authorities aren’t allowed to pull people over for being unbuckled. Every few years, a Montana lawmaker, backed by a collection of public health and law enforcement organizations, proposes a law to allow seat belt traffic stops, arguing it would save lives. In 2019, that request didn’t even make it out of committee, squelched by the arguments of personal choice and not giving too much power to the government.

Main opposition points against public health laws — whether it’s masks, seat belts, motorcycle helmets or smoking — can sound alike.

When Missoula County became the first place in Montana to ban indoor smoking in public spaces in 1999, opponents said the change would destroy businesses, be impossible to enforce and violate people’s freedom of choice.

“They are the same arguments in a lot of ways,” said Ellen Leahy, director of the Missoula City-County Health Department. “Public health was right at that intersection between what’s good for the whole community and the rights and responsibilities of the individual.”

Montana adopted an indoor smoking ban in 2005, but many bars and taverns were given until 2009 to fall in line. And, in some places, debate and court battles continued for a decade more on how the ban could be enforced.

Amid the COVID pandemic, Missoula County was again ahead of much of the state when it passed its own mask ordinance. The county has two hospitals and a university that swells its population with students and commuters.

“If you have to see it to believe it, you’re going to see the impact of a pandemic first in a city, most likely,” Leahy said.

Compliance hasn’t been perfect and she said the need for strict enforcement has been limited. As of early December, out of the more than 1,500 complaints the Missoula health department followed up on since July, it sent closure notices to four businesses that flouted the rules.

In Hill County, when the health department gets complaints that a business is violating pandemic mandates, two part-time health sanitarians, who perform health inspections of businesses, talk with the owners about why the rules exist and how to live by them. Often it works. Other times the complaints keep coming.

County attorney Karen Alley said the local health officials have reached out to her office with complaints of noncompliance on COVID safety measures, but she has not seen enough evidence to bring a civil case against a business. Unlike other health laws, she said, mask rules have no case studies yet to offer a framework for enforcing them through the Montana courts. (A handful of cases against businesses skirting COVID rules were still playing out as of mid-December.)

“Somebody has to be the test case, but you never want to be the test case,” said Alley, who is part of a team of three. “It’s a lot of resources, a lot of time.”

Larson, with the Hill County Health Department, said her focus is still on winning over the community. And she’s excited about some progress. The town’s annual live Nativity scene, which typically draws crowds with hot cocoa, turned into a drive-by event this year.

She doesn’t expect everyone to follow the rules — that’s never the case in public health. But Larson hopes enough people will to slow down the virus. That could be happening. By mid-December, the county’s tally of daily active cases was declining for the first time since its spike began in October.

“You just try to figure out the best way for your community and to get their input,” Larson said. “Because we need the community’s help to stop it.”

How to make pancakes like a flipping pro

There’s nothing like a tall stack of toasty, hot, fluffy pancakes to bring many mouthfuls of satisfaction to your morning, noon, or even night. Fast, fun and endlessly customizable, pancakes are an essential element of every cook’s repertoire. From batter to belly, we break down the basics of this beloved breakfast classic so you can start flipping flapjacks with one hand tied behind your back.

What is batter?

All pancakes start out as batter, a mixture of flour, protein, fat, and liquid, plus a dash of bubble-creating chemicals in the form of baking powder and/or baking soda. Upon mixing, tons of tiny bubbles form throughout the batter, which, when poured onto a suitably hot surface, solidifies around these microscopic air pockets, resulting in the texture affectionately referred to as “fluffiness.”

Typically, the batter’s flour, protein, fat and liquid take the form of all-purpose wheat flour, egg, oil or melted butter, and milk, but alternative recipes calling for nut and seed flours, plant-based milk like almond or soy, and egg substitutes abound. In addition to the aforementioned baking powder/soda, many recipes for pancake batter also call for a little salt and sugar to round out the flavor. Find a recipe that looks good to you — or start with this one.

How to mix pancake batter

While mixing pancake batter is simple, there are a few important points to bear in mind. The first best practice is to combine all the liquid ingredients together before adding any dry ingredients. Use a whisk to incorporate the eggs, milk, and fat into a homogeneous blend.

Many recipes call for a similar treatment of the dry ingredients, but this isn’t strictly necessary, particularly for smaller batches. To avoid using multiple bowls, it’s perfectly acceptable to mix the liquids together, then add the dry ingredients one by one before combining everything together. If you like to do things by the book, however, whisk the dry ingredients before they meet up with their wet counterparts.

When combining the wet and dry ingredients, keep it short and quick. Pancakes don’t benefit from vigorous mixing. On the contrary, excessive mechanical maneuvers can burst air bubbles and decrease fluffiness via the over-formation of gluten. The moment everything comes together, put down the whisk.

Before moving on to the cooking stage, assess the batter’s consistency. Imagine it flowing across the surface of the pan. The batter’s consistency should be easily spreadable, but not too runny. Even if your recipe is trustworthy, different brands of flour (especially when venturing into gluten-free blends), buttermilk, and so forth can vary substantially. If your batter seems too thin, add an extra spoonful of flour. If it feels too thick or gloppy, add a splash of milk or water. Make small adjustments, and trust your gut.

Finally, let the batter rest for up to thirty minutes before cooking the pancakes. The starches need time to absorb liquid, and the chemicals require a few minutes to fully react and produce those precious bubbles that will fluff up your flapjacks.

How to cook pancakes

To give batter the most lift, pancakes should cook quickly. Make sure the pan is saturated with heat before committing your batter to its surface, best accomplished with a heavy skillet, such as a cast-iron pan or a steel griddle, set over medium-high heat.

To prevent sticking, apply a small amount of grease to your cooking surface. A high-heat oil, like peanut, grape seed, or avocado is best, and a thin coat is all it takes. Use a paper towel to spread the oil around and soak up any excess.

Test the pan with a small spoonful of batter. If it sizzles immediately when it hits the pan, use a ladle, measuring cup, or ice cream scoop to apply batter to the pan. Alternatively, mix the batter in a spouted bowl, and simply pour it straight from bowl to pan. Pancake size is limited only by the pan’s diameter, but pancakes still need to be flipped before they’re fully cooked, so unless you’re a flippin’ wizard, it’s wise to avoid splattered batter by matching the flapjacks to roughly the size of the spatula you’re using.

Flipping and holding

When bubbles form in the center of the pancake, pop, and leave tiny craters, it’s time to flip. Keep in mind that the second side won’t need as much time to cook as the first. Once the underside is golden, the pancake is done.

Unless you’ve got substantial griddle real estate, there may only have space for cooking two or three pancakes at a time. When making pancakes for others, the time between the first batch and the last can quickly multiply. To avoid serving cold pancakes, simply put the finished pancakes in a single layer on a sheet pan in a 200 degree oven until all are ready to serve.

Other tips

  • Use fresh double-acting baking powder. The double-acting stuff makes bubbles when it gets wet and when it gets hot, resulting in extra fluffiness. Freshness is important because time degrades the chemical’s efficacy.
  • For add-ins like blueberries, nuts, or chocolate chips, sprinkle them on after the batter is in the pan. This ensures even distribution, helps cut down on mixing time, and can also prevent burning.

* * *

A Stack Of Pancake Recipes

Lemony Cream Cheese Pancakes with Blueberries

Caramelized Peach Pancakes

Orange Cannoli Pancakes

Lavender-Chocolate Chunk Pancakes with Crème Frâiche

Yogurt Pancakes with Pomegranate

From IQ tests and sperm banks to “The Queen’s Gambit”: a history of gifted children

In Netflix hit “The Queen’s Gambit,” we see young orphan Beth Harmon discover her talent for competitive chess. During a game played in the orphanage basement, Harmon’s chess tutor, the janitor, tells the nine-year-old: “To tell you the truth of it, child, you’re astounding” — contrasting her youth and naivety to her seemingly inherent gift.

The series ends with Harmon as a young woman, competing in chess competitions at the highest level. The executive producer of the series, William Horberg, has said that they’re unlikely to make a second series. “Maybe we can just let the audience imagine what comes next,” he told Town and Country magazine.

My research looks into the question of “what next?” for so-called child geniuses like Beth Harmon, and how the “gifted” label affects their lives.

Growing up gifted

Interest in measuring the intelligence of children grew during the 20th century. The first IQ tests were developed in the early 1900s, looking to identify children in need of educational support. Later evaluations used IQ testing but also hormonal levels, patterns of sleep, metabolism, blood markers or genetics to try to understand and quantify “intelligence”.

All of these tests assume that we should try to assess intelligence at all, and do so in children from as young an age as possible — that we must identify our talented Beth Harmons. But should we really? And what happens to these genius children when they grow up?

Historical archives can help answer this question, because we have been testing gifted children for so long. By the 1990s, in particular, newspapers and voluntary groups were obsessed with tracing and reporting on these children’s lives.

One formerly gifted child told the Daily Mail in 1995 about their experience. At primary school, the child would spend mornings “model[ling] Plasticine like everybody else”, he said. But in the afternoons he would receive special tuition from the headmistress in quadratic equations. For children like this, the “gifted” label was useful, enabling special provision, often informally or from voluntary groups, and new peer networks.

While in “The Queen’s Gambit,” Beth Harmon goes from a chess prodigy to excelling at the highest level as an adult, historically any “typical” path for gifted children is far more mundane.

Testimonies in historical newspapers and the archives of Britain’s National Association for Gifted Children are replete with adults who had this diagnosis as children, used it to access new services, types of education, and leisure activities, and then went on to live ordinary, “normal” lives.

In 1991, one mother wrote to the National Association to emphasise how important this label had been within her family. She was herself a highly intelligent child, “keen to learn but not what they were teaching at school”. She had consequently “slipped through the net” of education. She had failed the 11+ examination, left school with few qualifications, and had a career she found unrewarding.

By contrast, when she noticed that her son was also very able, she had him tested by an educational psychologist. Declared gifted, the family were able to find a public school where he excelled. The child had entered university and was “thoroughly enjoying himself.”

Problematic ideas

Yet at its extreme, the obsession with identifying gifted children has veered into eugenics.

In 1971, Robert Graham founded the Repository of Germinal Choice, informally called the “Nobel Prize sperm bank”. Graham was a eugenicist, who sought to “improve” the human population through breeding. His aim was to provide sperm from “the brightest men” to women for free, as he was concerned that developments in medical science were “keeping more of the defective population alive than ever before.”

Doron Blake was the second child of the 240 born from the repository. Blake’s mother spoke to several journalists throughout his childhood, who duly reported on his extraordinary intellect, mathematical ability, and interest in building complex toys.

When Blake reached 18 in 2001, he began to feature in profiles and documentaries himself. Rather than trumpet his achievements, Blake used the media attention to critique the very idea of the gifted child, arguing that the label distorted public understanding of which human attributes were valuable. Blake emphasised that his IQ did not make him “good”:

The thing I like best about myself is not that I’m smart but that I care about people and try to make other people’s lives better.

Blake argued that the gifted label was no route to life satisfaction — his IQ did not make him happy. These comments were similar to those from other formerly gifted children: one told the Daily Mail in 1981 that “there is more to life than studying” and “being gifted does not make you a person more likely to succeed.”

The social value placed on intelligence has had dangerous effects. Eugenics had a powerful influence in the early twentieth century in particular. In an American ruling of 1927, the US Supreme Court legislated that citizens with intellectual disabilities could face sterilisation.

These ideas continued into the mid-20th century: research has demonstrated that ideas of genius and human value underlay the charismatic leadership, oppression, and mass genocide of Nazi Germany.

Even as recently as the late 20th century, IQ tests have continued to lead to deeply discriminatory and damaging effects. In a US case filed in 1971, courts in California conceded that IQ testing had been biased against black students, leaving them overly represented in special education classes. This was likewise the case in Britain.

These histories are troublingly recent. We know that for many children historically, the label gifted has helped them to access new services and to live happier lives. Yet we also know that intelligence tests are biased towards groups who are already privileged, disproportionately identifying white, middle-class boys as gifted. While all children need specialist support in education, the impulse to glorify the gifted may be best left in the past.

Jennifer Crane, Research Fellow in the History of Medicine, University of Oxford

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

After “outright grift” under Trump, Democratic senators urge Biden to “padlock the revolving door”

In the wake of the Trump administration’s pervasive corruption and flagrant law-breaking, a trio of Democratic lawmakers is urging President-elect Joe Biden to establish new, high standards for federal ethics and transparency by adopting key reforms that would prevent corporate lobbyists from serving in the White House, require the disclosure of lobbying materials privately shared with administration officials, and crack down on financial conflicts of interest.

Encouraged by what they characterized as Biden’s “commitment to restore executive branch ethics through executive action,” Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Ed Markey, D-Mass., on Monday sent a letter (pdf) to the president-elect with specific recommendations for how to “end special interest corruption of our politics and make government work for the people.”

Americans, the lawmakers wrote, “have endured four years of the most corrupt president and administration in modern memory.”

Despite pledging to “drain the swamp,” the Trump administration “has allowed lobbyists and special interest to run federal agencies, even when they have been openly hostile to the agencies’ missions,” the senators continued. “It has allowed senior officials to maintain unacceptable personal and financial conflicts of interest, and allowed foreign governments to try to curry favor, as President Trump and senior White House staff abused the presidency to enrich themselves.”

The Trump administration has also “shunned basic transparency, allowing lobbyists and special interests to subvert government for their financial aims and objections,” they added. “Simply put, President Trump built a government that worked for himself, his friends, and special and corporate interests, rather than for the people, critically eroding Americans’ faith in government.”

To ensure that officials in the Biden administration “will serve all Americans, not just themselves or special interests,” Merkley, Warren, and Markey recommended the following steps:

  • Padlock the revolving door between special interests and government;
  • Reduce the improper influence of lobbyists and special interests;
  • Eliminate personal and financial conflicts of interest; and
  • Institute a new standard of transparency.

According to the lawmakers, “the best way” to improve outcomes for people in the United States “is to stop special interests from profiting off of the public service of government officials and to padlock the revolving door between corporate, special interest and our government.”

To this end, the trio insisted on “enacting a total ban on lobbyists employed by corporations from serving in the administration, especially at executive agencies they lobbied.”

In their letter, the lawmakers repeatedly commended the “ethics pledge” made by the Obama administration — claiming it “took unprecedented steps to close and lock the revolving door between special interests and government” — and encouraged Biden to build on and improve it.

But, as Common Dreams reported last week, rather than close the revolving door between the corporate and civic spheres as promised during his 2008 campaign, former President Barack Obama hired so many Wall Street bankers that progressive critics referred to his team as the “Goldman Sachs administration.” 

With Biden recently adding Goldman Sachs veterans Monica Maher and Eric Goldstein, former McKinsey manager Josh Zoffer, and several Big Tech executives to his transition team, along with nominating military industry-connected officials such as Avril Haines, Antony Blinken, and Lloyd Austin to senior Cabinet positions, there are already worrying signs that the president-elect is hiring “some of the people who are responsible for the mess we are in,” as the Sunrise Movement’s political director Evan Weber put it.

In addition to sealing the revolving door, Merkley, Warren, and Markey pushed for “more extensive public reporting of all lobbying activity aimed at the Biden-Harris administration, including the disclosure of all materials that lobbyists currently provide behind closed doors to Trump administration officials.”

Moreover, the Biden administration “could also consider requiring all executive branch agencies release monthly disclosures regarding all contacts with registered lobbyists, including the date, the name of the official the lobbyist met with, the issue upon which they lobbied, and any documents transmitted to the official during the lobbying contact, with appropriate national security safeguards.”

“The American public,” the lawmakers wrote, “has a right to know when lobbyists meet with executive branch officials and what they share in the course of those meetings,” especially amid the provision of billions of dollars in financial aid to ameliorate the coronavirus crisis.

Calling Trump’s blatantly self-serving actions of the past four years an “outright grift,” Merkley, Warren, and Markey urged Biden to require “all senior administration officials, including agency leadership and White House officials… [to] divest from all individual stock and conflicted financial holdings.”

Instead, the senators added, “officials should place such investments [in] qualified blind trusts, widely held investment funds, and other non-conflicted assets approved by federal ethics officials,” while also abstaining from stock trading “for the duration of their time in public service.”

“In order to rebuild Americans’ trust in government, the Biden-Harris administration will need to embrace an unprecedented level of transparency,” which the lawmakers said should include “disclosing visitor lists to the White House, federal agencies, and regularly traveled places (like Camp David).”

Merkley, Warren, and Markey concluded by expressing their eagerness to work with the Biden administration to “advance legislation in Congress to restore the promise of American democracy by making it easier, not harder, to vote; ending the dominance of big money in politics; and ensuring that public officials work for the public interest.”

Meanwhile, they added, “we also look forward to working with you to do everything you can through executive action, without Congress, to help make the executive branch of our government work for the people.”

Donald Trump’s gift to America: Realizing we’ve never been a liberal democracy

If every cloud has a silver lining, Donald Trump’s destructiveness offers this one: He has forced us to a point of reckoning about America. If we think all this chaos is just about him, we’ve missed the whole point. On that point, there’s wide agreement. Beyond that, however, there’s considerable disagreement, if not confusion. The vast majority of elite discourse sees this in terms of a challenge to liberal democracy — a challenge that’s been unfolding worldwide over the past decade or so, sometimes characterized as a “third wave of autocratization.” 

There’s a large body of knowledge and experience behind this point of view (see groups such as Varieties of Democracy for a global perspective, or Bright Lines Watch in the U.S.). But such an idealized view of American democracy has always been challenged by African Americans, for instance: See Frederick Douglass’ “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” or Langston Hughes’ “Let America Be America Again.“) Trump’s election, in obvious response to Barack Obama’s, has had the effect of pushing the longstanding Black critique of American democracy to the very center of our politics. 

In contrast, University of Wisconsin political scientist Mark Copelovitch has been tweeting his observations of American politics under the rubric of “Today in life under competitive authoritarianism.” The term comes from Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way’s 2010 book, “Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War” (introduced in an earlier paper here.) They cite “four minimum criteria” that modern democratic regimes meet, which these “hybrid regimes” (including most of the nations in the former Soviet Union) fail to meet on a systematic basis, thereby creating an uneven playing field between government and opposition. The first three of these criteria are that executives and legislatures are chosen through elections that are open, free, and fair; that virtually all adults posses the right to vote; and that political rights and civil liberties — including freedom of the press, freedom of association and freedom to criticize the government without reprisal — are broadly protected. 

By systemically violating these criteria, and possibly a fourth — “elected authorities possess real authority to govern, in that they are not subject to the tutelary authority of military or clerical leaders” — competitive authoritarian regimes seek to maintain the general appearance of being democracy-like in order to claim legitimacy, but without practicing actual, substantive democracy. In a late October pair of tweets, Copelovitch summed up his view:

Arguably, the US has basically not fully met the 1st 2 of Levitsky & Way’s democratic criteria since the failure of Reconstruction. Trump-era backsliding is mostly on criterion 3 But the problem now is additive. EC + increases in gerrymandering & malapportionment + Trump.

I actually do think this is what we are starting to realize & why the Court/Senate/statehood reforms have gained traction. The immediate authoritarian threat of Trump since 2017 has shined light on the enduring undemocratic nature of our political institutions.

This framework of “competitive authoritarianism” offers a more realistic description of America’s actually existing political system than calling it a backsliding liberal democracy. Our problem is not primarily a flaw in liberal democracy as such, but in the United States’ consistent failure to actually embody what it pretends to be.

I asked Copelovitch about his “competitive authoritarianism” tweets, and he responded that the “most proximate reason” for writing them was his state of residence: “I have lived since 2006 in Wisconsin, which has been the canary in the coalmine for all of the developments and risks to American democracy that we’ve seen since 2016. … What we’re seeing at the national level under Trump is simply the extension of what’s happened in Wisconsin, under [former governor] Scott Walker and [State Assembly Speaker] Robin Vos, to the U.S. as a whole.” The fullest description of this can be found in Dan Kaufman’s book, “The Fall of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and the Future of American Politics.” 

But there’s also Copelovitch’s own background, as he explained by email. 

I come at all of this as a scholar of international political economy (the politics of international trade, money, and finance). For the last decade, I’ve been studying the causes and consequences of the Great Recession and the Eurozone financial crises and quite a bit of time collaborating with (and reading) comparative politics scholars focused on the rise of far right and populist nationalist parties. I’ve also spent a lot of time studying the politics of the interwar era, especially in the wake of the economic and financial crises in Weimar Germany (see my recent book), and it should come as no surprise that I, like many, see many similarities between that era and ours.

This approach fits well with Levitsky and Way’s concept of “competitive authoritarianism,” which they define in contrast with democracy on the one hand and outright authoritarianism on the other: “In competitive authoritarian regimes, formal democratic institutions are widely viewed as the principal means of obtaining and exercising political authority. Incumbents violate those rules so often and to such an extent, however, that the regime fails to meet conventional minimum standards for democracy.” 

Modern functioning democracies meet the four criteria named above. While there may be violations of any of the four criteria, “such violations are not broad or systematic enough to seriously impede democratic challenges to incumbent Governments,” the authors write. “In other words, they do not fundamentally alter the playing field between government and opposition.” But that’s precisely what those violations are doing in America today — and have been doing since the demise of Reconstruction in the late 19th century, when it comes to free and fair elections with universal suffrage.

Passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 represented a giant step forward, but significant participation gaps have persisted, among minority groups in particular and low-income people in general, as documented in “Why Americans Don’t Vote,” which led to the passage of the 1993 “motor voter” law and “Why Americans Still Don’t Vote,” a sequel of sorts describing the continued obstacles. Since then, moreover, the Republican Party has increasingly shifted from passive obstruction of expanded voting rights to strategies of active voter suppression. 

This fits within the “competitive authoritarian” framework Levitsky and Way describe: 

Rather than openly violating democratic rules (for example, by banning or repressing the opposition and the media), incumbents  are more likely to use bribery, co-optation, and more subtle forms of persecution, such as the use of tax authorities, compliant judiciaries, and other state agencies to “legally” harass, persecute, or extort cooperative behavior from critics.

Both the sweeping gerrymandering described in “Ratf**ked” by former Salon editor David Daley, and the Supreme Court’s refusal to remedy the situation, are crucial examples of how this unfolds in America today. The same could be said of the 2013 Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder, striking down the crucial pre-clearance provision of the Voting Rights Act by invalidating the jurisdictional maps. It also applies to voter-suppression strategies such as voter ID laws, which disproportionately affect Democratic voters.

Race, even more than class, stands at the center of most of these voter suppression and disenfranchisement efforts, which descend from America’s founding as a Herrenvolk democracy or republic (experts have argued for both). Today’s Republicans certainly didn’t originate this practice, but they energetically took it over, as described in “The Long Southern Strategy” (Salon author interview here), for example. Other anti-democratic aspects of our political system have more mixed origins: “Ratf**ked,” for example, shows how the GOP took traditional gerrymandering to a level never imagined before. 

Copelovitch told me he began tweeting about “life under competitive authoritarianism” as a way of “linking these three things together: the anti-democratic institutional biases of U.S. politics, the unprecedented lawless authoritarianism of Trump and the GOP’s active embrace of restricting democracy. I’ve kept it going largely because the developments have continued throughout the last several years, to the point that I believe there are real, serious concerns about the state of American democracy.”

This is an especially important point: Copelovitch sees the awareness of these concerns as a real dividing line “between people arguing that ‘the system has worked’ over the last two months to prevent Trump’s attempts to steal the election, and those of us still warning that the unprecedented authoritarian threat to U.S. democracy persists, despite Biden’s victory.”

Part of what defines that division is a deeper sense of how the system isn’t working. Copelovitch has written earlier tweets referencing Robert Dahl’s 1989 book “Democracy and its Critics“ and noting that the U.S. basically violates the core criteria of democratic process that Dahl defines, especially relating to voter suppression, gerrymandering and the apportionment of U.S. Senate seats. “When you start to compare the U.S. by these criteria, to other countries’ political systems, you quickly notice that we don’t stack up well at all,” he told me. “If you look at, say Germany or New Zealand, which have mixed-member proportional representation systems, you realize that our electoral institutions have institutionalized minority rule and locked in policies at odds with what large majorities of Americans seem to want on almost every issue.” The $2,000 stimulus checks blocked by Mitch McConnell last week are merely the most recent high-profile example. 

“In this sense, U.S. politics isn’t really fully democratic,” Coplevitch continued. “At the moment, every single branch of the government is currently controlled (or partially controlled) by the representatives or appointees of a party representing a minority of Americans and supporting a wide range of policy positions that are deeply unpopular with the median voter.”

It’s not that we don’t know what to do, at least in theory. But the lessons are drenched in historical irony. “I’ve long been of the position that the U.S. got constitutional design mostly right in 1949, when we helped oversee the establishment of Germany’s mixed-member proportional representation system at the founding of the Federal Republic,” Copelovitch said. “New Zealand adopted this system in 1996, and it has been very successful. If one were starting from scratch and looking for the ideal federal system, this is the model we’d look to follow.”

That might be politically impossible in the U.S. anytime soon, he admits. but there are other options. Copelovitch cites Lee Drutman’s book “Breaking the Two Party Doom Loop,” which advocates ranked choice voting, multi-member districts, enlarging the House of Representatives, automatic universal voter registration, statehood for both the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and fixed terms for Supreme Court justices, among other reforms. 

The first bill passed by the Democratic House majority in 2019, H.R. 1, the “For the People Act,” was a direct attempt to address this situation — even if it didn’t go nearly far enough. Mitch McConnell’s response was telling, characterizing the law as “a package of urgent measures to rewrite the rules of American politics for the exclusive benefit of the Democratic Party.” Aside from the obvious projection involved, the Senate majority leader came awfully close to acknowledging the inconvenient truth that elite Republican positions are either profoundly unpopular or profoundly impractical. (This same contradiction, to a large extent, enabled the ascendancy of Donald Trump.) It’s certainly possible that Republicans could find ways to compete on a more level playing field, but only by abandoning the extremist politics they’ve increasingly embraced over the past 40 years.

Recognizing that America is, or is becoming, a competitive authoritarian regime is undoubtedly painful and unsettling. But that’s the critical first step in becoming the liberal democracy this nation has always pretended to be. As with addiction or mental illness, you can’t fix a problem until you finally admit you have one. 

A crush of patients, dwindling supplies and the nurse who lost hope

Nurse Kristen Cline was working a 12-hour shift in October at the Royal C. Johnson Veterans Memorial Hospital in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, when a code blue rang through the halls. A patient in an isolation room was dying of a coronavirus that had raged for eight months across the country before it made the state the brightest red dot in a nation of hot spots.

Cline knew she needed to protect herself before entering the room, where a second COVID-19 patient was trembling under the covers, sobbing. She reached for the crinkled and dirty N95 mask she had reused for days.

In her post-death report, Cline described how the patient fell victim to a hospital in chaos. The crash cart and breathing bag that should have been in the room were missing. The patient wasn’t tethered to monitors that could have alerted nurses sooner. He had cried out for help, but the duty nurse was busy with other patients, packed two to a room meant for one.

“He died scared and alone. It didn’t have to be that way. We failed him — not the staff, we did everything we could,” she said. “The system failed him.”

The system also failed her. Since the pandemic’s early weeks, Cline had complained that the Department of Veterans Affairs, which runs the nation’s largest hospital system, wasn’t doing enough to protect its front-line health care workers. She had filed complaints about inadequate personal protective equipment with the agency’s inspector general and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, but they had done nothing. Many months into a pandemic, they were still having to ration masks and being asked to reuse them for as many as five shifts.

From Cline’s perspective and that of other health care workers I spoke with from the VA hospital in Sioux Falls, the lack of masks was a symptom of larger failures at the agency overseeing the medical care of 9 million veterans. The hospitals lacked staff and scrounged to find gowns, medical supplies, ventilators — everything needed to battle COVID-19.

While every American hospital was stretched by the pandemic, the VA’s lack of an effective system for tracking and delivering supplies made it particularly vulnerable, according to a recent examination by the federal Government Accountability Office. When the pandemic hit, the agency relied on a few big contractors to supply everything from N95 masks to needles to isolation gowns. Those few big contractors fell victim to a global shortage of masks. And the VA had no reliable tracking system to tell officials what hospitals have, what they need or what was expired. At the Sioux Falls facility, things got so desperate, the supply chain for masks relied on a guy named Steve who gave them out one at time from a nearby warehouse, employees said.

As COVID-19 overwhelmed the antiquated system, VA leadership asked employees at more than 170 hospitals to enter inventory by hand into spreadsheets every day and did “not have insight” into how resources were being deployed, the report said. In other words, the local Best Buy or Walgreen’s had more efficient ways of managing inventory to get supplies to the right place.

The resulting scramble, which ProPublica has investigated over the past eight months, was a disorganized, poorly overseen effort to buy masks and other supplies from just about anyone who said they could deliver. Hoping to compensate for a disastrous lack of preparation, the VA awarded more than 100 contracts worth over $120 million to vendors with whom it had never done business.

The COVID-19 pandemic came at a tough moment for the agency, which was more than a year into a massive reorganization by the administration of President Donald Trump that left hundreds of jobs empty and sent the VA scrambling to hire contract positions to help with, among other things, procurement of supplies.

Kevin Lyons, an associate professor and supply chain expert at Rutgers Business School, said nothing the VA did before or during the pandemic showed it had a handle on its own purchase and delivery of supplies, let alone prepare for a global shortage. His research is exploring how the Trumpadministration’s purge of hundreds of VA staff members created a path to disaster.

VA Secretary Robert Wilkie had boasted about across-the-board staff cutbacks in November 2019, just weeks before the first confirmed U.S. COVID-19 case, noting that he had “relieved people as high as network directors to people at the other end of our employee chain.”

Lyons, an Air Force veteran, told me top VA officials have been able to claim all’s well — even as nurses and doctors describe continued shortages and rationing — because bureaucrats who awarded contracts did little or nothing to track how they worked out. He said the rapid-fire approval of contracts gave “the appearance that we’re doing something. But there was no connection between the nurses and the doctors who actually need it.”

“All they really care about is, you know, signing a contract, and then crossing your fingers and hoping that stuff comes,” Lyons said. “And that’s just not the way that supply chain is supposed to happen.”

Wilkie had acknowledged at one point early in the pandemic that COVID-19 had dried up the agency’s supply chain and forced hospitals to ration critical supplies. The agency has acknowledged the need for improvements to its procurement system. But the VA, which has lost more than 90 staff members to COVID-19, denies that it ever left nurses like Cline with inadequate personal protection. “All VA medical centers have adequate capacity, PPE and supplies to meet current demand, and at no point has a VA facility run out of PPE,” said Jamie Maxymuik, a spokeswoman for the VA Sioux Falls health system, in an email.

Yet Cline and other hospital workers had felt increasingly vulnerable as the raging virus revealed the government’s failure to adequately prepare or to fight back. In late April and May, emails that Cline shared show the VA instructing nurses to stitch together their own fabric masks at home to get through the crisis. The message coming from managers, Cline said, was to be patriotic and do more with less.

“My first reaction was, ‘Which desk jockey sitting at home came up with this nonsense?'” Cline remembered. “And then I thought, ‘Well, at least they are openly acknowledging that they aren’t providing enough protection.'”

In May, Cline had reached out to me, describing the plight of hospital staff dealing with unresponsive VA management. “They have been rationing masks for weeks now, but sending emails daily saying we have plenty of PPE and that rumors of a shortage are completely false. We have suspected for a few days now that they are lying about this,” Cline, 38, wrote.

Her outrage intensified when she read a story I wrote about how the VA awarded a $34.5 million contract to a random mask broker, who then rented a private jet to locate N95s that never existed from suppliers he didn’t know with money from investors he’d never met.

It was just a glimpse at the chaos disrupting the crucial supply chain on which Cline’s existence depended.

States, cities, hospitals and various federal agencies competed against one another for increasingly scarce masks, many held up in Chinese factories or customs. Health care workers like Cline were captive to the machinations transpiring overhead, unsure why they didn’t have the protection they needed.

In this frenzy, masks typically went to the highest bidder. And out of the woodwork came opportunists, counterfeiters, fakes and well-intentioned but clueless mask brokers trying to make a quick buck.

“The incompetence was just stunning to me,” Cline remembers thinking. “If they had just told us what was going on I would have felt better. But instead they just kept saying we have enough masks.”

Through the summer and fall, as I followed a bizarre trail of mask profiteers, Cline kept me aware of the consequences of an unregulated mask market, a situation that might have been comical if it weren’t so crucial to fighting the spread of COVID-19. Cline did not end up contracting COVID-19 but said the months of chaos and collective failure had left its mark.

“When this is over,” Cline told me. “Those of us who don’t die are going to quit.”

Anatomy of a Disaster

How does one account for the incompetence and greed, the poor planning, and the judgment failures at the government’s highest levels that led us into the worst public health crisis in at least a century?

Even if the Trump administration had empowered civil servants to wrangle supply chain logistics immediately — it didn’t. Even if his administration had dusted off and heeded a pandemic response playbook left behind by the Obama administration — it didn’t. Even if Trump had invoked the Defense Production Act to boost domestic mask manufacturing at the first sign of the crisis — it didn’t. Even if everything had gone right, we were in deep trouble before the first American travelers brought back a mysterious respiratory virus from Wuhan, China, and Europe.

The nation had spent years building up emergency medical supplies in a Strategic National Stockpile that was supposed to help us weather a national crisis. But after long stretches of inactivity and inadequate funding, it turns out it wasn’t all that strategic. Jared Kushner, the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, made it clear that the federal stockpile was not intended to serve the states, leaving them to fend for themselves in the quest for lifesaving supplies.

Retired Navy Rear Adm. John Polowczyk got plucked from the Defense Department in mid-March to lead the White House’s fledgling Coronavirus Task Force. “I walked in,” he told me, “and the National Stockpile had been given out. I did not have a single — really — I didn’t have a single N95 mask, surgical mask, isolation gown, nitrile glove. It had been issued.”

Polowczyk had spent 30 years mastering the complex logistics of getting supplies from manufacturer to user. But the Trump White House, he said, had “no bench depth” of experts to manage purchasing and distributing vital supplies.

It’s exactly as bad as it sounds, said Robert Handfield, a professor at North Carolina State University who interviewed officials who were working inside the federal effort to supply PPE. He detailed his findings in the Harvard Business Review, but early this month, he boiled it all down for me in a quick summary:

“It was a shit show. They had no idea what was going on.”

The VA embarked on a haphazard buying spree through its procurement system, but by the spring, it had to turn for help from FEMA and draw supplies from the stockpile, a “short-term stop-gap buffer” when critical items are not available, according to the GAO. Along with gloves, gowns, swabs and test kits, the VA received more than 8.2 million respirators, and 2.4 million masks.

Despite dire warnings and lessons learned from the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the H1N1 swine flu in 2009, elected officials and administrations led by both parties simply didn’t prepare for what scientists warned was not just a probability but an eventuality.

A 2010 study commissioned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention following the swine flu outbreak warned that we needed to stock up on masks or face devastating consequences. The study made sweeping observations about existing and potential breakdowns between the local, state and federal governments.

Today, that report reads like prophecy:

“Delays and conflicts in federal guidance on respiratory protection (N95) led to confusion …” scientists wrote more than a decade ago.

“States experienced significant challenges with the N95 supply chain …”

“There should be a central repository of N95s which is replenished for future events. Federal contracts with N95 and PPE manufacturers generally should be strengthened …”

By February 2020, as the first U.S. outbreaks began, the stockpile housed just 12 million N95 masks, a fraction of what was needed. That same month, Dr. Robert Kadlec, the emergency preparedness czar in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told Congress that the country needed 3.5 billion N95 masks, itself probably an underestimate. In other words, the country’s stockpile had less than one half of one percent of the masks we needed.

The stockpile was so depleted, that the moment the spread began, the country needed new production inputs, most of which were in China and would take 60 to 90 days to reach U.S. hospitals by traditional export. If we measure the stockpile in time, the U.S. was several months behind before this even started.

By the time the Trump administration pressured domestic manufacturers to ramp up supply and unleashed $17 billion to source supplies in April, it was far too late.

What that eerily prophetic CDC-commissioned study didn’t predict was the beneficiaries of such chaos, of shortages and desperation, and of exceptionally weak government contracting oversight: mask brokers.

We’re so far into this pandemic now that it’s easy to forget just how absurd the notion of a mask broker truly is. In normal times, masks aren’t all that profitable; an N95 should run about a dollar for anyone working on a dusty home improvement project. They’re a cheap widget in a broad catalog of bigger widgets offered by medical supply giants like 3M, Honeywell and Cardinal Health.

Yet the federal government found itself desperate enough to shell out a fortune to unknown people and companies that hadn’t existed just days before.

The gang brought in to help with PPE and other medical equipment included the inexperienced federal contractor whose private jet ride and failed mask adventure inspired Cline to reach out to me; a former NASCAR driver who allegedly tried to sell a trillion N95 masks that didn’t exist; a wealthy tech investor who used the Task Rabbit contractor-for-hire app to pay people to repackage ineffective Chinese masks so they could pass muster with hospitals.

Just to name a few.

As of December, the federal government spent about $8.5 billion to outfit front-line workers with PPE, medical instruments and various other supplies, according to a ProPublica analysis of spending data. It was not all bad. Some brokers delivered a sorely needed product while making a nice profit. And to be fair to the federal government, many states made the same mistakes.

As brokers made their bets, some making a fortune, some making fools of themselves, others making their criminal defense cases, Cline and millions of other health care workers just prayed there would be enough supplies tomorrow.

“Eye of the Hurricane”

I flew out to meet Cline a few days before Thanksgiving, when South Dakota was reporting the nation’s worst COVID-19 infection numbers and nearing 1 in 700 residents dead. While I had only traveled to the Upper Midwest, it felt as though I’d beamed straight into one of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s nightmares.

“If you want to tell the story of why COVID is so bad in America, I think South Dakota is the perfect microcosm of it all,” Cline told me as we met outdoors for coffee.

Just around the corner from the VA hospital where Cline worked, families huddled maskless and gabbed over heaps of pasta at the local Olive Garden. Gov. Kristi Noem had defied calls from public health experts to issue a state mask mandate, and a local one, recently passed by the Sioux Falls City Council, was, in my observation, scarcely observed.

At my hotel, which was connected by a footbridge to the state’s largest hospital, the nonprofit Sanford Medical Center, young people mingled mask-free in the lobby, shouting gleefully over a case of Bud Lights. Around the corner, the hot tub was bubbling, the first I’d seen since March, and was packed with members of two families. It looked … fun. Like the sort of thing seen in photos coming in lately from Australia, which is averaging zero COVID-19 deaths a day compared with more than 2,000 a day in the U.S.

Cline described a huge disconnect between the devil-may-care attitude of local residents and the reality she was seeing every day. In this alternate universe, she said, there was a “false sense of calm” even as the city moved into the “eye of the hurricane.”

“I had a colleague who went to Sturgis,” Cline said of the August biker rally in South Dakota that may have led to 266,000 new COVID-19 cases. “She said, ‘Well, I drank so much alcohol it probably killed any virus.’ This was a nurse!”

Cline had joined the VA in 2019 after 11 years at Sanford, where her friends kept her posted on their COVID-19 battle. More than 150 COVID-19 patients were filling beds at Sanford, with 27 in the ICU and eight on ventilators, according to state statistics.

Yet the CEO of Sanford, the largest hospital system in the Dakotas, had just days before told thousands of health care workers he’d survived COVID-19 and would not wear a mask because he had “no interest in using masks as a symbolic gesture.” The hospital’s leadership team forced that CEO to retire and sent an email to employees rebutting his comments about masks.

As we sat in the still cold, the city was under silent siege.

Cline and three other VA health care workers I spoke to saw another disconnect between what the VA was saying publicly and conditions on the ground.

“We just had like one surgical face mask for the whole shift,” one VA nurse said, describing a stretch of weeks early in the pandemic when even three-ply blue paper masks were hard to find. “And we were even told to use it for the whole week, which these surgical masks are supposed to just be thrown after single use.”

She said the PPE situation has improved in recent months, but only after the hospital logged 60 COVID-19 deaths. A VA summary of employee deaths shows no medical personnel at the Sioux Falls hospital have died of COVID.

N95 masks, the critical supplies that the CDC recommended for health care workers, were sitting unused in a Sioux Falls warehouse until Cline complained to the VA director. After that, “we magically got fitted for N95s,” this nurse said. “We get it and we stick it in a paper bag, and we use it for five different” shifts.

Such personal accounts were denied by the VA, which signaled to its employees that public comments about hospital conditions would not be tolerated. “In the Spring, Sioux Falls VA Health Care System maintained sufficient PPE for its employees,” the Sioux Falls VA spokeswoman said, noting the agency followed loosened CDC guidelines that allowed for nurses to reuse their masks for several shifts.

The agency was sending mixed messages publicly. Trump had claimed in January that everything was “under control,” but federal contract data showed erratic and desperate purchases with delivery dates for essential hospital purchases that spanned months. Costly supplies sometimes never made it to hospitals, like an order for 5 million masks that in April was diverted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Cline is an outspoken member of the Emergency Nurses Association, an Illinois-based advocacy group, which asked that I point out she’s not speaking on the group’s behalf and offered its own statement:

“When nurses fall ill because of inadequate PPE or other factors in their emergency department, patient care suffers — and that cannot be tolerated. Neither can the ongoing mental stress and burnout … nurses are suffering because of their daily concern for their personal safety,” ENA President Mike Hastings said.

I expressed amazement to Cline that after spending most of a year tracking mask brokers, watching billions in federal dollars spent to get supplies for hospitals like hers, that PPE was still scarce, rationed or nonexistent in many hospital settings. I had traveled into various outbreaks in Chicago, Los Angeles, three cities in Texas, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, New York and New Haven, Connecticut. Yet nearing the end of this most terrible year, the nation was facing its biggest spike in cases and deaths.

Back in Washington the next day, I opened a sobering email from Cline. Her VA shift had stretched to 15 hours so she could watch over a COVID-19 patient in crisis. No one was available to relieve her. He was delirious, so she and another nurse sedated him and tied him down, which kept him alive.

“It’s like this everywhere,” she wrote. “It just got here later. And the shameful thing is we had 8 months to prepare, and we have made a disaster of it.”

“The Bottom Line”

When Cline first said to me, “The bottom line is it was too expensive to protect us,” I thought she was referring specifically to the VA. This didn’t seem right. The VA alone shelled out at least $77.6 million to get PPE, according to our data analysis, so I asked what she meant.

She said she was making a larger point about politics and economics. The depleted stockpile, the brokers and scams, the open bars and sports stadiums, the insistence on ignoring science, the resistance to wearing masks showed the limits of what Americans would sacrifice to protect themselves and each other.

Those of us lucky enough to be spared the sharp hurt of losing a loved one to this virus, or the palpable loss of a job and income, may still be feeling pressed ourselves under the dull weight of this year and what the virus has done to our way of life.

But for Cline, and many health care workers, that nebulous anxiety comes into high definition every time she puts on a used mask to treat someone who got sick because they or someone they cherish didn’t wear theirs.

It was too expensive to beef up the national stockpile. Too expensive to keep mask manufacturing in the U.S. Too expensive to keep bars closed. The personal cost was too high to stay home or sacrifice rugged individualism for an anonymizing face covering.

And yet as Christmas approached, the early results of Sioux Falls’ mask mandate showed that even the simplest effort could pay off. Cases were trending down.

But Cline had been worn out for weeks, and she wanted to spend time with her boyfriend and her daughter. When I relayed that the VA had categorically denied that nurses were being asked to ration PPE, or that there were shortages early on, she said she was done torturing herself.

The day before Christmas Eve, she told her bosses she was quitting and left her keycard with security.

“Being faceless under PPE for nine months,” she said, “has a way of making you feel inconsequential.”

Derek Willis contributed reporting.

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“Cobra Kai,” “Surviving Death” and Nicolas Cage on swearing: Everything coming to Netflix in January

There are some fantastic documentaries and docuseries coming to Netflix in January focused on teaching viewers new skills or information, like “Headspace Guide to Meditation,” “The Minimalists: Less Is Now,” “History of Swear Words” and “Surviving Death.” 

If you’re looking for something a little less grounded in reality, there are a number of fantasy and fiction series coming to the platform this month. 

I’m personally looking forward to the third series of “Disenchantment,” which stars “Broad City” co-creator Abbi Jacobson as the voice of Princess Bean, daughter to King Zøg, Dreamland’s patriarchal ruler (John DiMaggio). “Last Tango in Halifax” is a deeply human and pretty feel-good British import about Alan Buttershaw and Celia Dawson, two 70-something widowed people. In sweet rom-com style the two find each other after their respective grandsons put their profiles online and they reconnect and rekindle the feelings they had for each other decades earlier; the fourth season comes to Netflix this month. 

“Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous” skews a little younger, but it’s a fun animated addition to the Jurassic Park extended universe.  

Oh, and if you’re looking for a little coziness, be sure to bask in the e-warmth of “Fireplace 4K: Classic Crackling Fireplace from Fireplace for Your Home,” “Fireplace 4K: Crackling Birchwood from Fireplace for Your Home,” and “Fireplace for Your Home: Season,” before they leave the platform at the end of the month. 

“Cobra Kai,” Season 3, Jan. 1

The second season of “Cobra Kai,” which takes place 30 years after the events of the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament,  left off on an incredibly dramatic note as the brawl between the high school members of Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence’s (William Zabka) dojos left Miguel (Xolo Maridueña) in critical condition. 

In the wake of the tragedy, Daniel searches for answers in his past while Johnny seeks redemption, and a chance at a better relationship with his son. However, the soul of the Valley hangs in the balance as Kreese (Martin Kove) continues to manipulate his vulnerable students. It remains to be seen which students — and which sensei — will emerge victorious. 

“Headspace Guide to Meditation,” Jan. 1

It’s been a deeply stressful year, but “Headspace Guide to Meditation,” which is hosted by Andy Puddicombe —a former Buddhist monk and co-founder of the globally beloved Headspace meditation app — is here to take viewers through eight different mindfulness techniques. Each 20-minute, animated episode focuses on various subjects, such as stress, sleep and letting go, before ending with a guided meditation. 

“The Minimalists: Less Is Now,” Jan. 1

This hour-long documentary focuses on Joshua Fields Miillburn and Ryan Nicodemus, otherwise known as “The Minimalists.” The pair — who also starred in the 2016 Netflix documentary “Minimalism” — have built a movement out of minimalism, branching into audio, blogging and books. In this film, they share with viewers how “our lives can be better with less.” 

“History of Swear Words,” Jan. 5

“F**k”, “Sh*t”, “B*tch”, “D**k”, “Pu**y”, and “Damn”: These four- and five-letter words are the subjects of this new, unscripted Netflix docuseries, which is hosted by Nicolas Cage. In each episode, Cage — alongside stars like DeRay Davis, Nikki Glaser and Nick Offerman — learns about the history, linguistic development and cultural impact of swearing. 

Experts include: Dr. Benjamin Bergen, a cognitive scientist and author of “What the F”;  Dr. Anne Charity Hudley, linguist; Dr. Mireille Miller-Young, professor of feminist studies; Elvis Mitchell host of “The Treatment” on KCRW; Dr. Melissa Mohr, author of “Holy S**t: A Brief History of Swearing”  and lexicographer Kory Stamper, author of “Word By Word.” 

“Surviving Death,” Jan. 6

This six-episode docuseries deeply considers one big question: “Is there an afterlife?” Director and executive producer Ricki Stern — known for her work on “Reversing Roe,” and “Joan River: A Piece of Work” —  brings to life “Surviving Death,” the best-selling book by journalist Leslie Kean. Weaving together innovative new research with firsthand accounts from those who’ve been close to—and even experienced—death, the series takes viewers on an extraordinary journey into a world beyond human existence as we know it.

“Lupin,” Jan. 8

Omar Sy stars as Assane Diop, a character inspired by the French story of thief Arsène Lupin and determined to do what it takes to find justice for his now-dead father. Other stars include Hervé Pierre, Nicole Garcia, Clotilde Hesme, Ludivine Sagnier, Antoine Gouy, Shirine Boutella and Soufiane Guerrab. 

This 10-episode French series is a collaboration between George Kay and François Uzan.

“Pretend It’s a City,” Jan. 8

Writer and humorist Fran Lebowitz, who is now 70, sits down with Martin Scorsese to offer up her “guide book” to New York City, covering “subjects ranging from tourists, money, subways, and the arts to the not-so-simple act of walking in Times Square.”

“CRACK: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy,” Jan. 11

From award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson, whose past documentaries include “Freedom Riders” and “The Murder of Emmett Till,” “CRACK: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy” traces the ongoing marginalization of people of color trapped by the U.S. prison and healthcare systems back to the 1980s crack epidemic. 

Nelson examines the origin of the drug, the systemic racism tied to the crisis, and the personal devastation caused by cocaine.  

“Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer,” Jan. 13

Beneath the sunlit glamour of 1985 Los Angeles lurks a relentlessly evil serial killer whose highly publicized home invasion crime spree terrorized residents to their cores. In this true-crime documentary, two detectives won’t rest until he’s brought to justice. 

“Outside the Wire,” Jan. 15

“Outside the Wire,” which is directed by Mikael Håfström, centers on Harp (Damson Idris), a futuristic drone pilot who is sent into a deadly militarized zone. He finds himself working for Leo (Anthony Mackie), an android officer, tasked to locate a doomsday device before the insurgents do. 

“Penguin Bloom,” Jan. 27

Penguin Bloom tells the true story of Sam Bloom (Naomi Watts), a young mother whose world is turned upside down after a near-fatal accident leaves her unable to walk. She and her family find hope and solace in caring for an injured magpie chick while struggling to adjust to their new collective reality. 

“The Dig,” Jan. 29

“The Dig” stars Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes and Lily James and is a fictionalized account of the  (pardon the pun) groundbreaking 1939 excavation at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, England, where archaeologists found a completely undisturbed Anglo-Saxon ship that was buried and filled with a wealth of artifacts. 

Here is everything that is coming to Netflix this month: 

Jan. 1
“17 Again”
“30 Minutes or Less”
“Abby Hatcher,” Season 1
“Blue Streak”
“Bonnie and Clyde”
“Can’t Hardly Wait”
“Catch Me If You Can”
“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”
“Cobra Kai,” Season 3
“Cool Hand Luke”
“The Creative Brain”
“The Departed”
“Dream Home Makeover,” Season 2
“Enter the Dragon”
“Gimme Shelter”
“Good Hair”
“Goodfellas”
“Gothika”
“The Haunted Hathaways,” Seasons 1 and 2
“Headspace Guide to Meditation”
“Into the Wild”
“Julie & Julia”
“The Minimalists: Less is Now”
“Monarca,” Season 2
“Mud”
“Mystic Pizza”
“The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!”
“Eddie Murphy: Raw”
“Sex and the City: The Movie”
“Sex and the City 2”
“Sherlock Holmes”
“Striptease”
“Superbad”
“What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”
“What Happened to Mr. Cha?”

Jan. 2
“Asphalt Burning (Børning 3)”
“The Netflix Afterparty”

Jan. 5
“Gabby’s Dollhouse”
“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”
“History of Swear Words”
“LA’s Finest,” Season 1

Jan. 6
“Ratonnes Paranoicos: The Band that Rocked Argentina”
“Surviving Death”
“Tony Parker: The Final Shot”

Jan. 7
“Pieces of a Woman”

Jan. 8
“Charming”
“The Idhun Chronicles,” Part 2
“Lupin”
“Mighty Little Bheem: Kite Festival”
“Pretend It’s a City”
“Stuck Apart (Azizler)”

Jan. 10
“Spring Breakers”

Jan. 11
“CRACK: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy”
“The Untouchables”

Jan. 12
“Last Tango in Halifax,” Season 4

Jan. 13
“An Imperfect Murder”
“Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer”

Jan. 15
“Bing Empire”
“Carmen Sandiego,” Season 4
“Disenchantment,” Part 3
“Double Dad (Pai Em Dobro)”
“Henry Danger,” Seasons 1 through 3
“Hook”
“Kuroko’s Basketball,” Season 1
“The Magicians,” Season 5
“Outside the Wire”
“Penguins of Madagascar: The Movie”
“Pinkfong & Baby Shark’s Space Adventure”
“A Monster Calls”
“Radium Girls”

Jan. 18
“Homefront”

Jan. 19
“Hello Ninja,” Season 4

Jan. 20
“Daughter From Another Mother (Madre solo hay dos)”
“Sightless”
“Spycraft”

Jan. 21
“Call My Agent!” Season 4

Jan. 22
“Blown Away,” Season 2
“Busted!” Season 3
“Fate: The Winx Saga”
“Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous,” Season 2
“So My Grandma’s a Lesbian! (Salir del ropero)”
“The White Tiger”

Jan. 23
“Love (ft. Marriage and Divorce)”

Jan. 26
“Go Dog Go”

Jan. 27
“50M2”
“Accomplice”
“Penguin Bloom”

Jan. 29
“Below Zero (Bajocero)”
“The Dig”
“Finding ‘Ohana”
“We Are: The Brooklyn Saints”

Jan. 31
“Fatima”

 

What is the “Molten Ring” that Hubble saw?

On December 14th, Hubble Space Telescope officials revealed striking images of an astronomical phenomenon called the “Molten Ring.” The object, which appears as a golden arc stretched across a dense cluster of stars, is one of the largest and most complete Einstein rings ever discovered in our universe.

Named for the physicist, an Einstein ring appears when, due to a process called gravitational lensing, light from a galaxy is diverted by a massive object en route to Earth. If the observer, lens, and source are all perfectly aligned, the light is stretched, and appears as a ring. This occurs because gravity bends the path of light; very dense, high-mass objects like black holes often create such distortions. 

In this case, the “Molten Ring” is a nickname for a galaxy officially named GAL-CLUS-022058s, which is located in the southern constellation Fornax.

Saurabh Jha, a professor of physics and astronomy at Rutgers University who is credited for the image, explained to Salon that the much-talked-about image is an incredible example of gravitational lensing.

“Most of the objects you see in the image are galaxies, collections of hundreds of billions of stars each,” Jha said in email. “The yellowish-orange galaxies near the middle of the image are part of a galaxy cluster; Galaxy clusters are among the most massive, gravitationally-bound objects in the Universe.”

This is because most of the mass in a galaxy cluster comes from dark matter, Jha explained.

Jha added that in the image there is one galaxy that looks “stretched and distorted, almost wrapping around the central galaxy of the cluster.” This is a “gravitational mirage,” he said, because in reality the galaxy is behind the central cluster galaxy—as in “billions of light-years further away.”

“The light from the background galaxy has its trajectory bent by the gravity of the massive galaxy cluster so that we see multiple images of the background galaxy,” he said. “You can see one image of this background spiral galaxy to the upper right of the central galaxy: it is mostly red, with a bluish spiral arm.”

On the left side and below, you see more images of that same galaxy, “stretched out, with an almost ‘liquified’ appearance,” he said.

“In this case the ring does not extend all the way around, but almost,” he explained.

Jha added that the image we see is the result of a collaborative effort between multiple observations made with the Hubble Space Telescope, processing by Leo Shatz, and a previous version was made by Judy Schmidt.

Astronomers first discovered the Molten Ring through observations at one of the Magellan telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. But this was a ground-based telescope, limiting the clarity of the image and depth of observations, which is when the Hubble stepped in. Since the Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope, it’s able to take better images of our universe without interference from light pollution and clouds.

“We knew this was going to be an interesting looking system, but we were blown away by the amazing Hubble data,” Jha said.

Jha noted that the galaxy is a spiral galaxy like our own Milky Way galaxy, though billions of light-years away.

“That means we are seeing the image of that galaxy as it was billions of years ago, and so we can study it to see what spiral galaxies were like so long ago,” Jha said. “What’s especially nice about this system is that nature has given us a cosmic ‘magnifying glass’ — the gravitational lens ‘ that lets us study this particular galaxy in much finer detail than we could do otherwise.”

4 signs that food pantries improve the diets of low-income people

The nation has thousands of food pantries, places that give cash-strapped people free food with few questions asked. These organizations can occupy everything from an entire building to a literal pantry – as in a few shelves in a church basement.

Most of the estimated 300 million Americans who relied on food pantries in 2017 experienced food insecurity, meaning that they didn’t have access to enough food. Even before the pandemic hit, up to half of the people who use food pantries live in food insecurity that is so severe that they sometimes skip meals or don’t eat for whole days at a time.

Food insecurity is, by many accounts, an even bigger problem now.

Food pantries get the food they give away from many sources, sometimes making it hard to control nutritional quality as they seek to obtain the right quantity of food. And getting enough healthy food to give away is challenging.

I am a nutrition science researcher who studies what food-insecure Americans eat. My team and I have recently completed several studies on rural food pantries in Midwestern counties. We found four signs that food pantries improve the diets of low-income people.

1. A substantial amount of food

Food pantries are an important source of food.

People typically receive a bag or box containing enough food to serve their family three meals for about three or four days. Most people who use food pantries visit multiple pantries. About half make more than five trips a month to pick up food.

What’s in those boxes and bags accounts for an estimated 36% of what the people who pick them up eat, according to our recent article in the British Journal of Nutrition.

2. A good source of nutrients

Having access to enough food is critical, but the variety, nutrients and quality are also important for long-term health. We asked 613 U.S. Midwestern food pantry clients about the amounts and kinds of food they ate and where that food came from. We found that compared to supermarkets, other stores and restaurants, food pantries provided the most fruit, something that most people in the U.S. at all income levels need to eat more of every day.

Likewise, Americans generally get too little fiber, calcium, vitamin D and potassium, making these nutritional deficits a public health concern – even for people not facing economic hardship. We found that the amounts of these nutrients in the items from food pantries were also highest or tied for the highest compared with all other food sources in the diets of people who visit food pantries.

Even so, Americans who use food pantries don’t get enough of these nutrients. Another concern is that provisions from food pantries tend to contain too much sodium, something most Americans need to curb.

3. More visits = better nutrition

Making more trips to food pantries often means better nutrition.

Going more than once a month, rather than once a month or less, is linked with a higher-quality diet, or doing a better job of meeting the recommendations in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the science-based dietary guidance that the federal government maintains to promote health.

For example, the average American would get a failing grade, with a score of 59% for their consumption of fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy and protein, along with sodium, added sugar and saturated fat. People who rely on food pantries fare even worse.

Those using food pantries once a month or less would score 39%, while those visiting more frequently would score 44%. Higher dietary quality, even just a 5 percentage point gain, may improve someone’s health and help stave off chronic diseases.

4. A wider variety of food, including whole fruits

Eating a wide variety of food helps meet basic nutritional needs. The day after visiting a food pantry, people ate two more kinds of food compared with what they ate the day before.

Specifically, people who visited a food pantry ate more fruit, including whole fruits – such as eating an apple as opposed to drinking a glass of apple juice. Eating more whole fruits is especially helpful because they have a lot of fiber and other nutrients that can help prevent cancer, heart disease and other chronic diseases.

Heather Eicher-Miller, Associate Professor of Nutrition Science, Purdue University

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

Trickle-down economics doesn’t work but build-up does — is Biden listening?

How should the huge financial costs of the pandemic be paid for, as well as the other deferred needs of society after this annus horribilis?

Politicians rarely want to raise taxes on the rich. Joe Biden promised to do so but a closely divided Congress is already balking.

That’s because they’ve bought into one of the most dangerous of all economic ideas: that economic growth requires the rich to become even richer. Rubbish.

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith once dubbed it the “horse and sparrow” theory: “If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.”

We know it as trickle-down economics.

In a new study, David Hope of the London School of Economics and Julian Limberg of King’s College London lay waste to the theory. They reviewed data over the last half-century in advanced economies and found that tax cuts for the rich widened inequality without having any significant effect on jobs or growth. Nothing trickled down.

Meanwhile, the rich have become far richer. Since the start of the pandemic, just 651 American billionaires have gained $1 trillion of wealth. With this windfall they could send a $3,000 check to every person in America and still be as rich as they were before the pandemic. Don’t hold your breath.

Stock markets have been hitting record highs. More initial public stock offerings have been launched this year than in over two decades. A wave of hi-tech IPOs has delivered gushers of money to Silicon Valley investors, founders and employees.

Oh, and tax rates are historically low.

Yet at the same time, more than 20 million Americans are jobless, 8 million have fallen into poverty, 19 million are at risk of eviction and 26 million are going hungry. Mainstream economists are already talking about a “K-shaped” recovery – the better-off reaping most gains while the bottom half continue to slide.

You don’t need a doctorate in ethical philosophy to think that now might be a good time to tax and redistribute some of the top’s riches to the hard-hit below. The UK is already considering an emergency tax on wealth.

Biden has rejected a wealth tax, but maybe he should be even more ambitious and seek to change economic thinking altogether.

The practical alternative to trickle-down economics might be called build-up economics. Not only should the rich pay for today’s devastating crisis but they should also invest in the public’s long-term well-being. The rich themselves would benefit from doing so, as would everyone else.

At one time, America’s major political parties were on the way to embodying these two theories. Speaking to the Democratic National Convention in 1896, populist William Jennings Bryan noted: “There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.”

Build-up economics reached its zenith in the decades after the second world war, when the richest Americans paid a marginal income tax rate of between 70% and 90%. That revenue helped fund massive investment in infrastructure, education, health and basic research – creating the largest and most productive middle class the world had ever seen.

But starting in the 1980s, America retreated from public investment. The result is crumbling infrastructure, inadequate schools, wildly dysfunctional healthcare and public health systems and a shrinking core of basic research. Productivity has plummeted.

Yet we know public investment pays off. Studies show an average return on infrastructure investment of $1.92 for every public dollar invested, and a return on early childhood education of between 10% and 16% – with 80% of the benefits going to the general public.

The COVID vaccine reveals the importance of investments in public health, and the pandemic shows how everyone’s health affects everyone else’s. Yet 37 million Americans still have no health insurance. A study in the Lancet estimates Medicare for All would prevent 68,000 unnecessary deaths each year, while saving money.

If we don’t launch something as bold as a Green New Deal, we’ll spend trillions coping with ever more damaging hurricanes, wildfires, floods and rising sea levels.

The returns from these and other public investments are huge. The costs of not making them are astronomical.

Trickle-down economics is a cruel hoax. The benefits of build-up economics are real. At this juncture, between a global pandemic and the promise of a post-pandemic world, and between the administrations of Trump and Biden, we would be well-served by changing the economic paradigm from trickle down to build up.

Another scandal at West Point: Where secrecy comes before honor

There are two things you can be sure of when you read the words, “West Point honor scandal”: It’s always way bigger than they say, and it’s never as simple as it appears. That’s why the “scandal” announced at the U.S. Military Academy last week, after 73 freshman cadets were apparently caught cheating on a calculus exam in May, is almost certainly not what it seems.

Of the 73 plebes charged, 59 have admitted cheating on the test, four have resigned from the academy, two cases were dropped, and eight cadets have opted to face a formal hearing. West Point announced last week that 55 of the cadets charged in the scandal will be retained at the academy and enrolled in a rehabilitation program called the “willful admission process” whereby they will receive training in honor and be assigned officer-mentors who will monitor their progress.

None of this would be remarkable were it not for the fact that “West Point” and “honor” have been pretty much inseparable since the Academy’s founding in 1802. The words of the cadet honor code, “A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do,” are engraved in a granite tablet cadets walk pass every day on Thayer Road, the main street through the barracks area at West Point. The honor codes at the Air Force and Naval academies are based West Point’s code, and many prominent civilian colleges and universities founded their honor codes in imitation of West Point’s.

So it’s always a big deal when cracks appear in the granite upon which West Point claims to be founded. I say “always” because honor scandals have happened before. The first was in 1951, when more than 100 cadets were charged with cheating on an exam, 30 of them players on the football team. In that scandal, 90 cadets were found guilty and dismissed from West Point.

The next time the public discovered there had been a mass violation of the cadet honor code was in 1976, when about 200 cadets were charged with cheating on an electrical engineering exam taken by more than 800 juniors in the spring. Of that number, 134 cadets were found guilty and resigned from the academy. In a letter to the secretary of the Army, 10 military lawyers representing the accused cadets alleged that more than 300 cadets had cheated on the exam. Inequities and inconsistencies in the way cadets were charged and found guilty had led to the lower number who ended up being dismissed from the academy, the lawyers said. 

But there had been another honor scandal a decade before that the academy successfully covered up and hid from the public. About 30 cadets in the class of 1968 were dismissed from the academy in 1965 for collaborating on an exam. Among them was the son of the chief of staff of the army, Gen. Harold K. Johnson, whom I had known in high school in Leavenworth, Kansas. Prior to going home that year for Christmas leave, cadets were told not to talk about the cheating scandal with their families or anyone else outside the academy. We were warned that if we talked, we faced expulsion from West Point. That’s how West Point successfully covered up the scandal: by telling us, in effect, to lie about it.

I wrote a couple of stories in the Village Voice about how the honor code at West Point had been corrupted and was in danger of falling apart. When the 1976 cheating scandal happened, the secretary of the Army appointed a commission headed up by former astronaut (and West Point graduate) Frank Borman to study the problem. Also on the commission was retired Gen. Harold K. Johnson — the same general mentioned above — and the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., John T. Walker. 

When the commission showed up to study the problem, West Point stonewalled them. Academy officials were uncooperative when asked for access to cadets and staff for interviews and were not forthcoming with providing official documents about the honor code. The commission’s deputy chief of staff had seen my articles and asked me to drive up to West Point to talk to them about what I knew. I was able to point them to a series of reports written by cadet honor committee members during the 1960s that described disillusionment among cadets and a gradual disintegration of the code. The honor committee chairman for my own class, 1969, had reported that “a significant number of cadets are ‘alienated from the Code'” and that “many cadets currently feel that the Honor Code works against them rather than for them.” 

Other honor committee members reported that officers at the academy had been “using cadets’ honor against them,” which sounds like a contradiction in terms but isn’t. What they meant, and what cadets were experiencing, was a situation where officers felt free to lie to cadets while making use of the honor code to enforce rules and regulations. The honor code was also being misused to remove cadets considered “undesirable” from the academy by bringing false charges and manipulating the honor system.

In 1974, the outgoing superintendent of West Point wrote in a report to his successor that “the honor code is in trouble at West Point.” It was, to put it bluntly, an understatement. What had happened over the previous decade was that officers on the faculty at the academy had brought back from their service in Vietnam a culture of lying that had pervaded that war from beginning to end. They had infected the academy with the corruption of that war. Cadets were smart. When they realized that the honor code was being applied to them but not to the officers running the academy, they refused to accept it. By the mid-1970s, large numbers of cadets were secretly in rebellion against a system they saw as unworkable and corrupt. 

By 1976, the problem had become so severe that hundreds of cadets were cheating. One of the lawyers assigned to represent cadets charged in the scandal was a classmate of mine. He told me that his clients had reported to him that as many as 600 out of the 800 cadets who took the test in 1976 had cheated, and that officials at the academy knew it and covered up the real numbers. The fact that only 150 suffered for something nearly everyone had done only added to the disillusionment among cadets. They were aware that the honor code was being applied selectively and unfairly and weren’t happy.

As it happened, 1976 was also the year women were first admitted to all four of the military academies. This is not acknowledged by West Point, but graduates have known for years that the honor code was applied unfairly and inequitably against certain female cadets and used to separate them from the academy. The code was also used as a weapon by racists against Black and other minority cadets. 

The legacy of the honor code at West Point is as flawed as the human beings who comprise its corps of cadets and faculty. The sooner the academy faces up to the imperfect nature of the principle upon which the academy was founded, the better. Yet another honor scandal should be evidence enough that West Point still has a long way to go.  

6 reasons 2020 wasn’t as bad for climate change as you thought

What is there to say about 2020 that hasn’t already been said? It was the longest, the hardest, the darkest — and, on top of everything else, full of bad climate news. The Trump administration continued its steady assault on environmental protections even as the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the country. Despite some late-breaking clean energy funding in the U.S., global stimulus spending devoted far more money to fossil fuels than renewable energy. The dip in emissions brought on by the pandemic was just that — a dip.

But we’re here to tell you that this year wasn’t a total wash. Even during a global pandemic, with powerful forces working against it, momentum toward a less fiery future kept pace. Please, join us in taking a look back at six ways climate action moved forward this year.

* * *

1. Climate change was a major election issue

2020 was the year climate change finally entered the political spotlight. Look no further than the Democratic primaries, where dozens of candidates competed for the title of fiercest climate hawk and tried to one-up each other with progressively more ambitious climate plans. (Senator Elizabeth Warren wowed voters by producing 14 separate documents outlining her climate agenda, but the title of “most ambitious climate plan” still goes to her Senate colleague Bernie Sanders’ $16 trillion “Green New Deal.”)

The one-upmanship continued even after Joe Biden had clinched the Democratic nomination, when Biden unveiled an updated and more aggressive version of his primary climate plan. And he doubled down as the general election drew nearer — Biden released three climate-themed ads in the weeks leading up to November 3 and made history by saying he’d “transition the oil industry” at the final presidential debate in October.

A bar chart showing results of a post-election survey on trust in the respective U.S. presidential candidates. Voters preferred Biden over Trump on climate change by 30 points.

(Clayton Aldern / Grist)

Why did presidential candidates bend over backward to show voters that they’re serious about climate action? Because polls show that climate change matters to Americans. A lot. Ahead of the election, a national survey showed that 58 percent of Americans were either “somewhat concerned” or “very concerned” about their communities being affected by climate change. Exit polls from the League of Conservation Voters showed that, among conflicted voters (those who considered voting for both Trump and Biden), Biden was preferred over Trump on “climate change, clean energy, and the environment” by a 58-point margin.

2. Big institutions pledged to pull their cash out of fossil fuel companies

Fossil fuel companies lost a lot of money this year, and not just because of the drop in demand for oil and gas caused by the pandemic. The divestment movement scored major wins as schools, faith institutions, and cities all over the world made new pledges to pull their investments from companies that extract and sell fossil fuels.

Prestigious schools like Oxford and Cambridge in the U.K., and Georgetown, Brown, American University, and Cornell in the U.S., joined a growing list of colleges and universities planning to divest their endowments from fossil fuel companies. Pressure mounted on two of the wealthiest universities in the country, Harvard and Yale, which have a combined endowment of $72 billion, as divestment activists ran for open seats on the boards that oversee the teams that manage how their endowments are invested. And while neither school committed to divestment, Harvard is dipping its toes in the concept with the announcement of a still-vague plan to bring its endowment to net-zero by 2050, arguing that it will be able to work with fossil fuel companies to achieve it.

Activists weren’t happy about that, but they did celebrate when the $226 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund, the third-largest public pension fund in the U.S., announced it would basically do the same thing by 2040. The main difference was that Tom DiNapoli, the state’s comptroller, laid out a detailed roadmap for how he would achieve net-zero, including a pledge to divest from companies that aren’t preparing for a low-carbon economy. He’s already eliminated 22 coal companies from the fund.

A bar chart showing divestment decisions by level of university endowment (in billions of dollars). Harvard and Yale have the largest endowments of the universities shown — but have not committed to divesting.

(Clayton Aldern / Grist)

Whether divestment promotes the broader changes needed to decarbonize the economy is still debated. But what became more apparent in 2020 is the risk of maintaining investments in companies that aren’t ready for those changes, which are happening regardless. Exxon, which hasn’t made any commitment to reduce its total emissions, did so poorly this year that it got booted from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, an influential benchmark of top stocks. So if you have money in index or mutual funds, there’s a chance that you’ve divested some of your own savings from fossil fuels without even knowing it.

3. Renewables kept growing despite the pandemic

Fossil fuel companies took a catastrophic hit this year when the COVID-19 pandemic ground the economy to a standstill and sent oil prices tumbling. But the renewable energy industry proved to be far more resilient.

Skies clear of smog and other pollutants gave solar panels a boost this year, especially in the U.K., where the uptick in solar power efficiency helped the country run on zero coal-fired power plant generation for more than two months for the first time in over a century. And on this side of the pond, electricity generated by solar, wind, hydro, and other renewables outpaced electricity generated by coal for 40 days straight.

In November, a report from the International Energy Agency projected that renewables will account for 90 percent of the new power capacity added to grids worldwide in 2020. A different report from the global research and consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie, published in December, found that U.S. solar installations are expected to grow 43 percent this year.

Renewables are still getting cheaper, too. A study by clean energy research firm BloombergNEF found that solar and onshore wind power are the most affordable new sources of electricity for two-thirds of the world’s population. The price of electricity from onshore wind farms dropped 9 percent since mid-2019. And falling costs, more efficient technology, and government support in some parts of the world have fostered larger renewable power plants, with the average wind farm now double the capacity it was four years ago.

A bar chart showing new U.S. wind energy capacity (in gigawatts) installed over time. At 23 GW, 2020 saw the highest projected level of installations.

(Clayton Aldern / Grist)

To boot, polling on how Americans think about energy sources like solar and wind remained consistent this year: The vast majority of Americans say developing alternative sources of energy should be prioritized over developing fossil fuels.

4. Pipelines became nearly impossible to build

Pipeline or pipe dream? Pipeline construction companies and the energy companies paying them to create the infrastructure to transport oil and gas across long distances ran into roadblock after roadblock this year. So many roadblocks, in fact, that some energy companies just gave up trying to build them.

That’s what happened to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline over the summer: The U.S. Supreme Court gave the pipeline the green light to cross under the Appalachian Trail, but a few weeks later, Dominion Energy and Duke Energy, the lead developers of the project, decided to take a hike and dump the pipeline altogether.

 

(Grist)

The Dakota Access Pipeline, the approval of which sparked the protests at Standing Rock in 2016, also took a critical hit over the summer when a federal judge said the company behind the project, Energy Transfer, and the Army Corps of Engineers had failed to conduct a sufficient environmental review. The judge ordered the pipeline to shut down while the review was conducted. An appeals court swiftly overturned that order, but the company and the Army Corps still have to conduct the environmental review. When Biden takes office, he could opt to shut down the pipeline entirely.

Speaking of Biden, the president-elect has promised to shut down the Keystone XL pipeline by revoking the presidential permit President Trump granted the project in 2019. TC Energy, the company building the project, has already built some 120 miles of pipeline since last spring, but if Biden makes good on his campaign promises (and green groups expect him to), he could put the kibosh on Keystone XL after he’s inaugurated.

More pipelines were put on the chopping block this year: The Mountain Valley Pipeline is struggling to keep construction going as judges keep tossing out crucial permits, forcing the company to hunt down new ones. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer delivered a serious blow to Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline in November, ordering it shut down. Enbridge filed suit against Whitmer, arguing that only the federal government has the jurisdiction to shut down pipelines, but the incoming Biden administration can reaffirm Whitmer’s authority and take other steps to stymie Enbridge’s plans.

5. Cities put a check on emissions from buildings

A recent United Nations report found that the carbon emissions from heating, cooking, and using electricity in buildings hit an all-time high last year and were responsible for 28 percent of global energy-related CO2 emissions. Fortunately, in 2020, efforts to rein in emissions from buildings took off.

Just a few weeks ago, the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose passed laws limiting the installation of appliances that run on natural gas in new buildings, joining 37 other jurisdictions across California that have already done so. These “gas bans” have been catching on around the country: Seattle’s mayor wants to update the city’s building code to prohibit the use of fossil fuels in new buildings; St. Louis has new building performance standards that will effectively phase out gas appliances in larger buildings; and Brookline, Massachusetts, has petitioned the state to let it ban gas hookups in new buildings after an earlier effort to do so was found to conflict with state laws.

In December, Washington state proposed what could be the nation’s first state-level gas ban, and several new state climate action plans and task forces, including in New Jersey, Michigan, Nevada, and Maryland, explicitly mentioned the need to electrify buildings.

A bubble chart showing U.S. energy-based emissions by end use for 2019 in million metric tons of CO2. Burning natural gas in buildings accounted for 469 million metric tons of CO2 that year.

(Clayton Aldern / Grist)

But as the idea of moving away from gas in buildings gained currency, some states ran in the opposite direction. Under pressure from industry, lawmakers in Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee passed nearly identical bills this year that prohibit their own municipalities from banning gas.

To be clear, decarbonizing buildings is not as simple as banning gas hookups or appliances. As more buildings go fully electric, gas utilities could undergo a slow death spiral, and fewer and fewer customers could end up paying to maintain a vast network of gas pipelines. But states are finally reckoning with these questions — New York, California, Colorado, and Massachusetts all opened new investigations this year into the future of gas distribution to try to answer them.

6. The world agreed on achieving net-zero by mid-century

The idea of “net-zero emissions” has been around for years, but in 2020, it was thrust into the mainstream as an essential tenet of climate policy around the world.

Every week seemed to bring a new announcement of a state, country, bank, utility, tech giant, or even oil company promising to get to net-zero over the next few decades. Generally, that means they’ll get to a place where their net emissions, between the CO2 they release into the atmosphere and the CO2 they suck out of it through natural and technological means, are zero. Microsoft even said it would go beyond that point to “carbon negative” by removing all the carbon it has emitted since its founding in 1975.

In theory, net-zero is a valiant goal — a 2018 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that the world needs to get to net-zero by 2050 in order to avoid the catastrophic effects expected to occur if the globe warms more than 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F).

But that conclusion was based on a crucial premise: First we have to dramatically reduce emissions. The whole “net” part of the deal should really only apply to the parts of the economy that are hardest to decarbonize, like aviation and shipping. But many of the net-zero pledges made this year by companies are nebulous about when they will reduce their emissions, or whether they’ll do so at all. The energy companies with net-zero pledges are still expanding the fossil fuel side of their businesses, and many of the tech companies with net-zero pledges are still helping those energy companies find and extract more fossil fuels.

The most important development in 2020 may not have been the slew of net-zero pledges, but something a little more obscure. Companies finally began publicly accounting for the emissions tied to their supply chains and the products they produce, known as “scope 3” emissions. Transparency around scope 3 puts more pressure on reducing emissions throughout the economy.

Next year, we’ll be looking to see which companies shore up their pledges with near-term targets and which ones show up in Washington to lobby for the policy changes that will help them deliver on net-zero.

Why we can’t just “move on”: We need accountability for Donald Trump’s misdeeds

Barack Obama’s administration made the policy decision to look forward, not back, and to leave the misdeeds of George W. Bush’s administration to history’s judgment. That would be a mistake for the incoming Biden administration. Donald Trump and his henchmen have made a concerted attack on American democracy, and done so much corrupting damage that it would be dereliction to give them a pass.

Three areas in particular need investigation. One is the administration’s denial of climate science, done at the bidding of the fossil fuel industry and its array of front groups. Another is the corruption Trump and his administration fomented within federal agencies. The last is the damage to the Department of Justice, where Trump cronies — to paraphrase the legendary 19th-century Chief Justice John Marshall — from the citadel of the law turned its guns on those whom they were meant to defend.

The climate denial and obstruction campaign has been deliberately obscured by its protagonists, meaning both the dark-money channels through which its funding flows and its confusing array of front groups. The scale and scope of this apparatus is stunning; its effects have been devastating. To expose this scheme will require a robust presidential commission like the one that looked into the 1986 explosion of the Challenger space shuttle. With leading independent citizens guiding it, a large and able staff, robust powers of investigation and public hearing, and the ability to refer cases on for further action, a presidential commission will be equipped to get to the bottom of what may prove to be the most insidious and systematic fraud in American history.

Fortunately, peer-reviewed science and investigative reporting has already looked into the dark-money scheme to attack climate science and to corrupt the political system around climate change. Much of the relevant information is ready to hand. Whistleblowers will no doubt emerge, once they have a trustworthy place to bring their concerns. And the papers and records of participants in this massive scheme will provide rich seams of evidence. This commission can get a fast start.  We must never again allow American democracy to be so disabled by corrupting influence, and a full exposition of what went wrong — and how, and why — will be a powerful investment in the integrity of America’s future governance. 

To address corruption within agencies of government, the oversight powers of Congress are particularly well adapted. A special committee of Congress, with its own staff and robust investigative powers, would be most effective. A government that serves the people must have the strength to resist special interest influence; members of Congress would be particularly adept at restoring the resilience of government against such influence. 

A special committee provides a single repository for evidence and testimony, and could without hindrance investigate schemes that crossed agency and committee jurisdictions. The committee’s findings and recommendations would go to the public, the administration and the regular standing committees of Congress; case referrals could go to inspectors general, licensing bodies or the Department of Justice, as needed. With an investigative committee on the job, regular standing committees would be free to pursue long-overdue legislative efforts without the burden of this urgent but additional work. 

This brings us to the Department of Justice, erstwhile citadel of the law. Because much of the department’s integrity was safeguarded by institutional norms and traditions, and because of the special nature of the department’s responsibilities, respected Justice veterans should guide its restoration. President Biden’s new attorney general should be tasked to form a bipartisan advisory committee, linked to the DOJ’s inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility, but with its own staff. Tasking clean-up recommendations to this group will allow the department’s divisions to move forward with their regular duties. Personnel actions and referrals of cases may be necessary; institutional norms and enforcement must be strengthened; new safeguards will need to be constructed; and changes in administrative structure may be needed. The Office of Legal Counsel, for instance, has run so many political errands and is so discredited that it should perhaps have its work distributed elsewhere within the Justice Department. 

The Obama administration was right that a new American government must move forward. We face big issues — climate change in particular, but many others as well — where the price of failure will be unacceptably high. But failure to look back is not an option this time. 

Whether the goal at the end of the day is truth and reconciliation, procedural and institutional reform, or justice and accountability for misdeeds, investigations will be essential. Separate investigative bodies assigned to these tasks will leave regular agencies and committees free to begin the urgent business of governing, and move us forward. 

2020 was a record year for far right violence in the U.S.

This year was quite active for the far right in the United States, especially after its relative downturn in 2019 as a violent street movement compared to the recent past. Although the far right may not have committed as many high-profile massacres as previous years, 2020 saw more murders and car attacks at demonstrations than any year in recent memory.

While the openly fascist wing of the “alt-right” continued to implode over the past year, some on the far right picked up steam: the Boogaloo movement — a new grouping of younger activists with militia-style politics, but the look and feel of the alt-right; Groypers — white nationalists and their allies who are trying to influence the Trumpist movement from inside; and followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, who believe Trump is always about to arrest a cabal of liberal, deep state, satanic pedophiles. Moreover, aggressive street demonstrations led by the Proud Boys reached a fever pitch, inspired by comments from Donald Trump, and renewed opposition to the revived Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to new ground for the far right. Cities started implementing shutdowns in March, but even beforehand, conspiracy theories circulated that the virus was a hoax, a Chinese bioweapon or a plot to enslave Americans. By April, the “reopen” demonstrations were in full swing. These protests were driven by “alt-lite” members (the more moderate wing of the alt-right, which allows people of color, Jews and gay men to join), militias and Trumpists, but white nationalists also participated. One of the most aggressive actions was on April 30, when armed protesters pushed their way into the Michigan legislature.

This movement was soon overtaken by another starting on May 25, when a Minneapolis cop murdered George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, launching a new wave of the BLM movement. It took on an almost revolutionary furor; a police precinct was burned and militant demonstrations broke out across the country. Eventually, they spread even to small towns, and by July, up to 26 million had joined protests in support of this multiracial movement for Black liberation. The far right responded with increasingly aggressive counter-protests, especially as BLM rallies lost their initial intensity.

These counter-protests were driven in part by Trump’s accusation that anti-fascists (also known as antifa) and anarchists were responsible for the protests’ militancy, a rehash of 1950s accusations that Communists controlled the civil rights movement. These conspiracies reached their height on May 31 when Trump tweeted: “The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization.” (Antifa is neither a single organization, nor does such a designation exist domestically.) When wildfires swept Western states in September, a bizarre rumor, sometimes spread by law enforcement, claimed that members of antifa were intentionally setting them. Armed vigilantes set up roadblocks intended to function as “checkpoints” to identify “antifa arsonists.”

Things turned deadly in the spring. There were a large number of murders and car attacks at BLM demonstrations. The most infamous of these was in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where, during an August 26 demonstration, 17-year-old militia member Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two people.

Days later, far right activist Aaron Danielson was killed after he allegedly attacked random people in the aftermath of a violent far right protest in Portland, Oregon. He was shot by self-identified anti-fascist Michael Forest Reinoehl, who in turn was killed by law enforcement on September 3 — without any warning, witnesses said. Trump even gloated that law enforcement gunned him down because “they didn’t want to arrest him.”In October, far right activist Lee Keltner was killed by a security guard as he threatened a TV crew in Denver.

The killings of Danielson, Reinoehl and Keltner were all connected to very aggressive demonstrations, mostly led by the Proud Boys. These had morphed into joint anti-antifa/anti-BLM- themed events, the two movements now joined in the far right’s feverish imagination. Although found in various cities, until the election they continued to be largely centered in Portland.

The Proud Boys became the undisputed far right street force of the year, and were even mentioned in the presidential debate, with Trump telling them to “stand back and stand by.” In Portland — where BLM demonstrations have gone on for over 200 days — the Proud Boys held a series of violent demonstrations. On August 22, Proud Boy Alan Swinneypointed a handgun in the middle of a melee while police stood by. The next week, a vehicle caravan attacked bystanders with paintballs and mace, and the day ended with Danielson’s death. On September 26, the Proud Boys held an aggressive, drunken demonstration at a North Portland park while the counter-demonstration was held elsewhere. Post-election rallies included the November 14 “Million MAGA March” in Washington, D.C., where — for the first time since Charlottesville — well-known white nationalists openly mixed with other Trumpists. A follow-up December 12 rally was marked by more clashes with anti-fascists and vandalism at two Black churches, plus four stabbings and a shooting. The Proud Boys’ leader called for his members to violently disrupt Joe Biden’s inauguration. And on December 21, members of a protest, which included armed members of groups like the Proud Boys, attempted to break into the statehouse in Salem, Oregon.

However, the decline of U.S. fascists, which began in 2018, continued in 2020. The largest “alt-right” fascist group, Patriot Front, held three pop-up marches, each of which showed a decline in attendance from previous years. The American Identity Movement (formerly Identity Evropa) disbanded, as did the Atomwaffen Division, although some observers say it just rebranded as the National Socialist Order. The fascist National Justice Party also formed this year, and Kyle Chapman (aka “Based Stickman”) left the Proud Boys to form the openly white nationalist and anti-Semitic Proud Goys. But the most important movement that fascists took part in was the Groypers, whose goal is to turn Trump’s base further right by working inside that movement. This strategy is opposed to those explicit white nationalist groups who either work separately from the larger Trumpist movement or, in the case of Patriot Front, reject Trump altogether.

Numerous members of Atomwaffen Division, including former leader John Denton, were arrested on weapons charges, threatening journalists, or “swatting” (attempting to get SWAT teams to raid a residence under false pretenses). Seven members of The Base, a similar fascist group that also promotes terrorism, were arrested for crimes including planning to murder anti-fascists and attack a gun rights rally. The group’s leader, Rinaldo Nazzaro, was revealed to be living in Moscow; his past as a Pentagon contractor led New York Magazine to muse that he could be either an FBI agent creating a neo-Nazi honeypot, or a Russian asset.

Just as the coronavirus situation was escalating in March, NSM (National Socialist Movement) member Timothy Wilson was killed by police as he was heading to bomb a hospital. Jeremy Christian, who murdered two people in Portland in 2017 for intervening against his Islamophobic harassment of two women, was sentenced to life in prison. An army private in the pro-Nazi Satanist group, the Order of Nine Angles, was arrested for plotting to ambush his own unit. And Christopher Cantwell, who in 2017 was slated to speak at the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, was convicted in late September of extortion for making a rape threat.

There were high-profile arrests of other far right militants as well. In October, 13 militia members were busted, including six who were plotting to kidnap the Michigan governor. Numerous Boogaloo movement members were also arrested after they sought to inflame the early George Floyd protests for their own ends: Steven Carrillo was arrested for murdering both a federal security guard during the Oakland protests in May, and in June when he ambushed a police officer outside his home in Ben Lomond, California. An associate was arrested for firing a weapon during the initial Minneapolis protests, while three others received terrorism charges for plotting attacks in Las Vegas.

Social media platforms also cracked down on the far right, although belatedly. Twitter started labeling many of Trump’s posts as “disputed.” Numerous far right accounts were removed from different platforms, though sometimes for coronavirus denial — not fascism or violence. Twitter suspended both former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon (who had been arrested earlier in 2020) and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, who had spent over a decade on the platform. Different platforms suspended conspiracy theorist David Icke, Ammon Bundy and the Oath Keepers, as well as the Proud Boys plus their allies, American Guard. In August, a large Facebook purge was focused on QAnon and militias, but also included some anti-fascists and anarchists. This deplatforming spurred a far right migration to the politically sympathetic platform Parler.

The election brought on more far right action. The right-wing conspiracy theory surrounding QAnon became very influential in the fall, and the president embraced it. Trump also declared that antifa was “virtually part of” Biden’s campaign, who he called a “Servant of the Globalists.” (Accusations of “globalism” are a long-time anti-Semitic dog whistle.) After losing the election, Trump has continuously claimed it was rigged and that he won, fueling aggressive protests by his followers. He even turned on his beloved Fox News, instead promoting the more extreme OANN (One American News Network) and disposing of his sycophant Attorney General William Barr.

Trump brought the far right to a new level of popularity, and it remains to be seen what will happen after his departure. Undoubtedly, some groups will immediately shift to opposing incoming president Joe Biden, and others will continue to maintain that the election was stolen. It’s uncertain if Trump will continue to be involved in stoking this movement, however, or if he’ll retire from politics. It’s possible that after a year or so, without a president to inspire them, the far right will fade to pre-Trump levels (although even those levels were more substantial than many people realize). Some watchers, however, think such a cooling off might take years.

Copyright © Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

New report claims that N.Y. prosecutors only need one “final piece” in Trump investigation

A new report from the Washington Post this week offered a fresh glimpse into the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation of President Trump and the Trump Organization.

Though the headline of the story focused on the finding that the probe is escalating and that D.A. Cy Vance has hired “forensic account experts,” another claim in the report was perhaps more revealing and significant. Reporters Shayna Jacobs and Jonathan O’Connell explained:

Vance is engaged in a long-running legal battle to obtain eight years of Trump’s tax records and other financial information from the president’s accounting firm, Mazars USA. Those records are considered the final piece of what is already a well-developed investigation, according to the person.

While it’s long been public knowledge that Vance, like the Democrats in the House of Representatives, are pursuing Trump’s taxes, it’s been unclear how far along the investigation of Trump and his businesses actually is. The president and his defenders have accused Vance, a Democrat, of essentially conducting a politically motivated fishing expedition to undercut the president. If this were true, Vance may be seeking the tax records without knowing much about what he would find there.

But the Post’s report points to another possibility: Vance has the bulk of the case wrapped up, and he wants the tax records as the last piece of evidence. Trump failed to make the case to the Supreme Court that he had immunity from the New York investigation as president to block Vance from getting his tax returns. But he has returned to the Supreme Court once again to argue that the subpoena for his records is unjust, an appeal most experts believe will fail. If it does fail, Vance will receive the returns.

It should be said, though, that’s it’s not clear how reliable the Post’s source is about the state of the investigation. And even if the source is presenting the information correctly as the D.A. sees it, Vance could be overconfident in the strength of his case. He has been repeatedly slapped down in his effort to bring charges against Trump ally Paul Manafort, as courts rejected his case on the predictable grounds of double jeopardy.

Vance reportedly began the probe to look into allegations surrounding the criminal hush money payments former attorney Michael Cohen made on Trump’s behalf during the 2016 campaign, but the scope of the investigation has since “expanded,” according to the Post.

The Post also notes an intriguing possibility that Trump may escape charges, even if his business does not:

It is possible Vance could find evidence that the Trump Organization as a business entity has broken the law, without attaching personal liability to Trump or other individuals at his company. To bring criminal charges, the district attorney must be able to prove there was an intent to break the law — which probably would require the testimony of an insider witness, experts have said.

It’s unclear whether Vance has secured such testimony, though in recent weeks his team has spoken with employees at Deutsche Bank, a major lender for the Trump Organization, and the insurance brokerage Aon. Those discussion were first reported by the New York Times. Prosecutors have issued new subpoenas and met with witnesses at a steady pace, people familiar with the process have said.

In addition to the Vance case, New York Attorney General Letitia James is known to be working on a civil investigation into the Trump Organization. It may overlap substantially with Vance’s investigation.

Separately, the federal government has likewise reviewed Trump’s conduct. While he has been protected from federal prosecution as long as he remained president, that protection disappears on Jan. 20, 2021. President-elect Joe Biden has indicated he would prefer not to focus on investigations of Trump in his administration, but he said he will permit his attorney general to exercise their independent judgment on these matters.

Nancy Pelosi’s house vandalized with dead pig’s head

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) woke up Friday morning to find her home vandalized by a confused voter angry about not getting a $2,000 stimulus check.

According to the Daily Mail, the incident happened around 3 a.m. when someone spray-painted her garage door saying “2K” an apparent reference to the stimulus funds. Republicans blocked the vote on the $2,000 vote on Christmas Eve. The House eventually passed it but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the bill from a vote in the Senate. He said he wouldn’t be “bullied” into passing the checks.

The text also mentioned “cancel rent” and “we want everything.” Red paint was spilled over the driveway and a severed pig’s head sat atop the fake blood.

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Pelosi has been calling for $2,000 checks from the very beginning.

See the photos of the vandalism below:

An uncertain future for a key missing persons program

Hundreds of thousands of people go missing each year in the United States. And, for more than a decade, law enforcement officers, medical examiners, volunteer sleuths, and families have been able to use the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, to seek answers.

Established in 2007, NamUs offers public databases and free forensic services. Since its inception, according to the program’s website, it has helped resolve more than 2,700 missing persons cases and identify more than 2,000 bodies. Tens of thousands of open cases remain in the system.

“I can’t imagine working without it,” said Bruce Anderson, a forensic anthropologist at the office of the medical examiner in Pima County, Arizona.

So Anderson and others were caught off guard this month when the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification abruptly announced that it was dropping the program. UNTCHI has managed NamUs since 2011 through a cooperative agreement with the National Institute of Justice, part of the U.S. Department of Justice.

“UNTCHI will no longer be able to support NamUs stakeholders with any analytical or case support; victim services; system development; or new forensic services,” the center said in a statement, posted in the first week of December. The sudden move, it explained, was “due to funding limitations and significant program modifications directed by the National Institute of Justice.”

The changes were set to begin on Jan. 1. Then, just days after the statement published, UNT reached an agreement with NIJ to continue hosting the program through at least September 2021. But the sudden turmoil has alarmed many advocates in the missing persons community, and it has set off finger pointing between UNT and NIJ. Meanwhile, according to a statement from NIJ, the program could be facing staffing and service cuts, at least in the short-term — and it remains unclear what exactly the longer-term future of NamUs may be.

* * *

The launch of the NamUs program in 2007 followed calls for a centralized repository for missing persons cases that would be open to the public. Prior to the launch, experts say, there was no public, online government database to collect critical information in one place, and to connect jurisdictions that had found a body with both law enforcement and members of the public who might be looking for someone. (Some existing volunteer-run efforts, such as the Doe Network, attempted to provide these services.)

At the time, according to a 2007 report published in the National Institute of Justice Journal, the scale of that loss was enormous. “On any given day, there are as many as 100,000 active missing persons cases in the United States,” the report said, adding that each year “tens of thousands of people vanish under suspicious circumstances.”

On top of that, the report noted, “more than 40,000 sets of human remains that cannot be identified through conventional means are held in the evidence rooms of medical examiners throughout the country.” It described the situation as “the nation’s silent mass disaster.”

More than a decade later, those numbers remain high. At the end of 2019, the FBI reported that it had records for close to 87,500 open missing persons cases in the U.S. In an interview, Maureen Reintjes, an advocate in Kansas City for families with missing relatives, reflected on the impact of those cases. Each of those missing people, she said, probably has at least five people in their lives, dealing with the loss. “That’s a hell of a lot of hurt out there,” she said.

Some communities have been disproportionately affected. Of the more than 19,800 open missing persons cases registered in NamUs, 16 percent are for Black individuals, despite the fact that they make up only 13.4 percent of the U.S. population. And while Black children go missing more frequently than White kids, their cases receive less media coverage. Similar disparities are seen for American Indians and Alaskan Natives, with many writers and advocacy groups describing a “crisis” and an “epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.”

Anderson works in Pima County, along the U.S.-Mexico border, and his county deals with large numbers of unidentified bodies. Even though NamUs “is a great tool for law enforcement and medical examiners, coroners, the real bang for the buck is that the general public can see,” Anderson said.

Since 2010, Anderson estimates, he and his colleagues have entered around 2,000 cases into NamUs, and resolved around 400.

In an interview, Anderson described one of the first cases he entered into NamUs: that of a young man who had washed up dead in the Colorado River around 2000. His body had been buried for a decade in an anonymous public grave in sparsely populated La Paz County, Arizona. His case file, Anderson said — “probably six or eight sheets of paper” — was buried in a three-ring binder. Anderson put some of that information into the NamUs database, including details of a distinctive tattoo.

Not long after, he recalled, the man’s sister read an article in People Magazine about NamUs and went online to try it out. She searched for the tattoo — and, said Anderson, was able to make the connection. “She sent me a polaroid photograph of him that showed that tattoo on his arm,” Anderson said. A dental exam and fingerprints confirmed the match.

For families of the missing, some advocates said, NamUs can also offer hope — and a way to take a more active role in their own searches.

After Carolyn DeFord’s mother, Leona Kinsey, went missing from a small town in northeastern Oregon in 1999, DeFord expected a public search. “I had so much faith that law enforcement would do all this stuff, that they would make me a poster and that it would be everywhere — like, magically it would be everywhere,” DeFord said. Officers did take the missing person report. But, she recalled in a recent conversation, “I was told, ‘Thank you, give us a call if you hear anything'” — and little more.

Around 2007, DeFord received a call from the detective assigned to her mother’s case. They had not spoken, she said, “in probably three years.” The detective told her about NamUs. Soon, she sent in DNA samples through the program, to potentially help find a match. Her mother has a profile there, too, with key personal information.

“For me that was the first solid step that had ever been taken in my mom’s case,” said DeFord. “And this was a major acknowledgment and hope — it was the first big hope that, gosh, maybe she’s unidentified somewhere.”

Today, DeFord’s mother remains one of the long-term missing. A member of the Puyallup Tribe, DeFord started Missing and Murdered Native Americans, a small group that supports families with missing loved ones, a few years ago.

NamUs, she said, “has been a valuable tool for me as an advocate and as a resource as a family member.”

* * *

In 2011, stewardship of NamUs transitioned from the National Forensic Science Technology Center at Florida International University, which had helped launch the program, to the University of North Texas Health Science Center, in Fort Worth, which already housed a leading forensics lab at UNTCHI. Under the arrangement, NIJ would give an annual grant to UNTCHI. In turn, the Center would use the funds to manage the day-to-operations of NamUs, including offering free forensic services to assist with cases.

Today, in addition to the database and these forensic services, NamUs staff offer trainings to members of the public, law enforcement officers, and medical examiners. Nine regional program specialists, scattered across the country, provide expert input on cases. And a new victim services unit offers support to families.

The arrangement with UNT was renewed for five more years in 2016, though records posted on the NIJ website show funding amounts varied: In fiscal year 2017, NIJ awarded UNT $7.4 million. The next year, funding dropped to $5 million. For 2020, it came to around $4.2 million.

“They’re having a budget crisis,” said Todd Matthews, a longtime NamUs staffer who was let go as the communications director in early 2020. In 1998, Matthews used internet sleuthing to solve the case of an unidentified woman in Kentucky who for decades was known only as “Tent Girl.” He went on to help pioneer online efforts to identify missing and unidentified persons, including as a co-founder of the Doe Network. In interviews and emails, Matthews described growing tensions at the program after the death of the UNTCHI director Art Eisenberg, who retired in 2017 and died the next year. Among other issues, he said, “I think NamUs is growing faster than it needed to,” adding support staff and focusing, in his opinion, too little on long-term sustainability.

In text messages, Alexander Branch, a spokesperson for the UNT Health Science Center, referred all requests for comment to NIJ, citing ongoing talks. Bruce Budowle, the executive director of UNTCHI, did not respond to requests for an interview.

In August, according to Anderson, UNT contacted some partners to alert them of significant funding issues, and to tell them to stop sending samples for DNA analysis. Soon after, he recalled, he heard the problem was resolved.

Still, it seems, issues remained. By early December, some staff were uncertain if they would still have a job on Jan. 1. On Dec. 4, senior staff at UNTCHI sent a letter to partners abruptly cutting off forensic services for all states except Texas. “At this time, NIJ is not able to provide sufficient funding for UNTCHI to continue such services,” the letter explained, adding that the staff was “dismayed about this situation” but unable to find a way to keep the programs running. “We apologize for the abruptness of this notification but we were directed by NIJ not to provide notification to customers at an earlier and more appropriate date,” the letter said.

Around that same time, UNTCHI announced on its website that it was dropping NamUs.

The wording of the statement caused some advocates to fear that the program would disappear completely. Reintjes started a Facebook group, Unite for NamUs, which attracted hundreds of members. In an interview with Undark that week, Jan Burke, an Edgar Award-winning crime novelist and longtime missing persons advocate, acknowledged that the turmoil at NamUs was coming in the midst of national upheaval. “Is this even a blip on the crisis radar?” she wondered. “But for these families, this would be killing off their hope.”

After an outcry from advocates, NIJ issued a statement promising that NamUs would still exist in January, but explaining that UNTCHI had not accepted the funding for fiscal year 2020 of $4.2 million. On Dec. 8, though, the situation changed, according to an NIJ statement sent to Undark by Sheila Jerusalem, a spokesperson.

In the statement, NIJ said that UNT, “without authorization from NIJ,” had used its own website and accounts “to publish communications indicating that NIJ is discontinuing the NamUs program.”

“NIJ has no intention of discontinuing the NamUs program,” the statement added, noting that UNT had ultimately agreed to accept the $4.2 million grant.

* * *

The future of the program, though, still appears to be troubled. On Dec. 9, Branch, the UNT spokesperson, wrote in a text that “talks are continuing,” so he was still unable to provide comment. After the deal between UNT and NIJ, Matthews said that he was still hearing reports of looming service and staff cuts.

Jerusalem, the NIJ spokesperson, did not initially answer repeated questions about whether NamUs services would be reduced in 2021, or whether any staff would lose their jobs. Hours before the publication of this story, NIJ sent a statement to Undark explaining that the agency was now “transforming the NamUs program from a cooperative grant award to a USDOJ contract.” During that process, the statement continued, “some services will be reduced or unavailable,” including free forensic services, trainings, and victim support. The online system, NIJ said, will “continue without interruption.”

According to the statement, UNTCHI “is temporarily ceasing acceptance of all new forensic casework from agencies outside the state of Texas.” NIJ also suggested that staff cuts are imminent. “In the short term,” the statement said in response to a question about future NamUs staffing, “some reduction in staff may be necessary to ensure UNT can address in-house casework.” NIJ added that longer-term staffing levels would “reflect that which is necessary to meet the requirements of the program.”

The situation could create issues for people who rely on NamUs. Anderson and his colleagues in Arizona, for example, have a grant from DOJ to exhume dozens of unidentified bodies from a county cemetery in the hope of cracking cold cases that stretch back to the 1960s. Knowing that UNTCHI, with funding from NamUs, would do DNA testing for free, Anderson said the team did not write the related expenses into their grant. When Anderson spoke with Undark on Thursday, those testing services, he said, still seemed to be suspended.

“Now we have almost all 50 of these skeletal sets of remains out of the ground, we’ve sampled a bunch of them, and right now there’s still a moratorium on sending samples for DNA processing,” Anderson said. The situation, he said, is “problematic.”

The turbulence has also alarmed some advocates. “You don’t want to remove something that’s helpful,” Kenny Jarels, the founder and president of the AWARE Foundation, which helps find missing persons, said last week. “If anything, you want to add more resources, because that’s what we need.”

Speaking last week, DeFord said she still felt upset with UNT, even after learning that the university and NIJ had reached a deal. “That initial statement that they put out really incited a lot of panic and fear amongst the community,” she said. The organization, she said, is working “with a vulnerable population” that “has been deeply, deeply, life-changing-impacted with a missing person.”

“To pull that rug out from under them in that manner was insensitive,” she added.

DeFord, like several other advocates interviewed by Undark, said she hopes that NamUs will receive permanent funding. Despite the renewed partnership with UNT, she’s still worried. “They have the funding, and that’s a relief,” she said. “But I think, for me, it still hangs over my head: What about next year?”

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

What 2020 taught me about New Year’s resolutions

On January 1 of years past, many of us would spend this day reflecting on what we achieved in the previous year and setting goals to accomplish in the next 12 months. But 2020 was a once-in-a-century cataclysmic year. How can routine reflections, let alone looking ahead to what’s next, make sense now?

We have Julius Caesar to thank for making January 1 the beginning of our new year. Caesar supposedly chose Januarius — over March 1, which had previously marked the new year — to honor the month’s namesake Janus, the Roman god of transitions who had the power of looking to the past and the future at the same time. To celebrate the new year, Romans paid tribute to Janus by attending parties, giving gifts to each other, decorating homes with laurel branches, and sometimes making a promise to the god — a Roman variation of the new year’s resolution. Sounds familiar. This is all to say that the idea of a “new beginning” commenced by a new year in America reflects a smorgasbord of ancient Roman traditions and theological narratives throughout history; it’s a social construct.

In recent American culture, the new year is goal-oriented, met by putting an extraordinary amount of pressure on ourselves to fulfill promises of change to ourselves. At least, that’s been my experience in my lifetime. I am the kind of person who journals the first week of January every year and writes a list of goals to accomplish or ways to improve myself. And I actually do this both on the New Year and my birthday. It’s satisfying to look back on your hopes and dreams and feel like you did something to get closer to them. But this year none of it happened. Literally — nothing. I didn’t write a book, explore more of California by car, or join a writing club — ideas that felt like they had legs in January, but vanished by the end of March as the pandemic took hold.

I scroll through old photos on my phone when Instagram fails to satisfy my mind’s hunger for something, anything, to think about other than our current reality. But every time I do, I’m reminded of how much better it is at keeping track of what I did in 2020 than I am.

I didn’t remember the September day a stray pit bull followed me home from a walk around my neighborhood with my own dog, but I took about 20 photos of this dog that I never saw again after she returned to her own home. On one Saturday night in August I poured wine in a to-go cup and took it to the dog park with me. Apparently, such an occasion was worthy of a few selfies. In June, I spent a week relearning how to play the flute by watching YouTube tutorials — a peak quarantine activity. Then there are the photos of the 12 flowers I tried to grow in one small green pot. They started to sprout in May, a couple of days after I planted them. Deprived of any real outside-the-home entertainment, I felt so excited when I saw them emerge from the soil, grabbing for the sky with their delicate green stems. They never grew taller than about two or three inches. Due to conditions that beyond my control, they never reached their full potential.

I think of 2020 as these flowers. It’s a year of my life that started to bloom and abruptly stopped. As I flip through these mundane photos that reflect, in composite, all of 2020, I can’t help but think of everything that didn’t happen — weddings, vacations, birthday parties, date nights, random nights at bars, concerts, summer festivals — the events that shape a year and give us a sense of place, time, and momentum. The outings that usually make up my photo feed. How can we welcome and celebrate a new year when it feels like the old one never really started?

I know what I didn’t do this year is unimportant in comparison to the enormity of the pandemic. I recognize the privilege I have — I can work from home and maintain social distancing. Still the loneliness of the isolation and the grief of our loss of everything has taken its toll on me, like it has on all of us. I don’t feel like I advanced in life this year, or improved in any way. If anything, my overall mental state has regressed. I’m much more irritable and on edge than I was a year ago.

All of this reflection has led me to think about what it means to be a human, and how we occupy our time. I used to think about this a lot right after my stepdad died two and a half years ago. I found it very difficult to feel joy from anything for a very long time, and I had the kind of thoughts that many of us do after we lose a loved one. Why get close to anyone when you know they’ll die one day? Every relationship I have in my life could end in an instant, and I’ll be left miserable. Life is stupid. It took me a while to realize that grieving is an innate part of the human experience. It’s the price we pay for loving humans and being lucky enough to enjoy Earth a little longer than they could. And yet I’ve returned to those what’s-the-point kind of thoughts this year, with premature death surrounding us from all sides. 

Similarly, 2020 has made me appreciate the simple parts of being alive more fully. I’ve learned how to slow down instead of finding more ways to distract myself. I’ve felt more connected to my community in this crisis, and found different ways to have a purpose in it. I’ve appreciated my friendships and family more. Was 2020 really a waste, or did I, through luck, survive a once-in-a-century pandemic, witness our entire world turn upside and still manage to find the strength to adapt?

I would never wish another year like 2020 on anyone, nor would I want to live this one all over again. The change it imposed on us has been unwanted and traumatic, and it has reshaped how I understand a year’s worth. If I measure my years by achievements and positive experiences alone, I’ll discount what it really means to live. Simply surviving the last year — whatever that looked like for each of us lucky enough to do so — is an accomplishment. That understanding is worth carrying into every January to come. 

The savory power of kala namak, aka black salt

In The Kitchen Scientist, The Flavor Equation author Nik Sharma breaks down the science of good food, from rinsing rice to salting coffee. Today, he explores a savory super-ingredient to always keep in the pantry.

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If there was one ingredient that I distinctly enjoyed from my parents’ kitchen growing up, it would be the salt kala namak. Sprinkling it over fresh fruit with red chile flakes or a bowl of yogurt with sweet tamarind chutney was delightful.

Today, we’ll learn the basics of this powerful ingredient — from where to buy to how to use — and clear up some misconceptions along the way.

The real color of black salt

Kala namak (“black salt” in Hindi), also known as Sulemani namak, isn’t actually black in color. If you look closely, you’ll notice it’s a very dark shade of red, and, when ground, the powder takes on a light pink appearance. This color arises due to the presence of iron and sulfur in the form of a substance called greigite, a mineral that is rich in a salt called iron sulfide. (To learn more about the optical and color properties of greigite, head here — you will notice that the amount of red light reflected in the light spectrum is very high.)

What does kala namak smell & taste like?

While the color is special, it’s the unique aroma that sets kala namak apart from other varieties and makes it invaluable in the kitchen. When dry, this salt has a mild eggy, sulfurous aroma. When added to water (say, in fruit chaat or in chana masala), that aroma becomes stronger.

Why does kala namak have a distinct aroma when other salt varieties are odorless? It comes down to what is in it and how it’s produced. Kala namak is prepared by heating halite, a salt obtained from salt mines in parts of northern India and Pakistan. The salt is heated for several hours, which helps develop its characteristic smell, along with amla (Indian gooseberry) and haritaki: two types of fruit-bearing trees called myrobalans. Both the iron salt and the combustion of the plant material help develop the flavor of this salt.

In contrast, when salt water is evaporated using heat from the sun or a fire, the result is a flaky salt such as Maldon (pyramidal crystals). Like kala namak, kosher salt is also obtained from salt mines, but is extremely pure and contains only sodium chloride and nothing else.

If you don’t consume eggs, you can use a pinch of kala namak to re-create the eggy aroma that’s missing in a recipe (say, a tofu scramble), but remember to watch how much you’re adding or the dish could end up too salty. In addition to sodium chloride, kala namak contains other ingredients (technically anything other than sodium chloride is referred to as an “impurity”) such as iron salts; this combination produces a more complex flavor in comparison to the taste of pure salt. Its sulfurous, salty, mineral taste works great in cooking or as a finishing salt. I find that it amplifies sweet, sour, and fiery flavors in recipes.

Where to buy and how to store kala namak

A note on shopping: Do not confuse this salt with kalanamak rice. That is a non-basmati aromatic variety of short-grain to medium-grain rice grown in India that carries a black husk.

I usually buy kala namak in ground form from my local Indian grocery store Kalyustan’s and Oaktown Spice Shop, but if all you find is the rock form of the salt, don’t worry — it’s easy to use. I first break it into smaller pieces with a hammer, then grind it down to a powder with a blender (a coffee or spice grinder also works).

The powdered salt keeps well for up to a year (or even longer). When storing, keep it in an airtight container, as prolonged exposure to humidity will reduce its potency.

How to put kala namak to good use

Kala namak works wonderfully in savory and sweet preparations, especially in dishes where sweet, sour, and heat are present — it tends to heighten them. Do not use it as a substitute in baking or when salt is just needed to balance the taste of a dish. This salt shines when it can stand on its own and its unique aroma and taste can be fully appreciated.

In Indian cooking, kala namak is the star of many street food dishes that fall into the chaat category, like chana masala and shikanji (a spiced limeade). It is also used to add flavor in various types of raitas, chutneys, and other dishes in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Try it . . .

Stirred into sauces: At home, I will often stir some into a simmering pot of barbecue sauce for its earthy tones that tend to accentuate the sweet, sour, and spicy flavors in the sauce. It would also be lovely in fruit chutneys and does really well with the sweet condiments that are often served with roasted turkey and pork, such as cranberry chutney.

As a finishing salt. Think: chickpea stews like chole, salads (even fruit salads), and on roasted vegetables. Truth be told, I even sprinkle it on top of my hard-boiled eggs for breakfast.

Have you used kala namak at home? How do you use it in your cooking?

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