Your microbes live on after you die. A microbiologist explains how

Each human body contains a complex community of trillions of microorganisms that are important for your health while you’re alive. These microbial symbionts help you digest food, produce essential vitamins, protect you from infection and serve many other critical functions. In turn, the microbes, which are mostly concentrated in your gut, get to live in a relatively stable, warm environment with a steady supply of food.

But what happens to these symbiotic allies after you die?

As an environmental microbiologist who studies the necrobiome – the microbes that live in, on and around a decomposing body – I’ve been curious about our postmortem microbial legacy. You might assume that your microbes die with you – once your body breaks down and your microbes are flushed into the environment, they won’t survive out in the real world.

In our recently published study, my research team and I share evidence that not only do your microbes continue to live on after you die, they actually play an important role in recycling your body so that new life can flourish.

These brain scans of dying patients may reveal what happens when you die

Your microbes accompany you from cradle to grave.

Microbial life after death

When you die, your heart stops circulating the blood that has carried oxygen throughout your body. Cells deprived of oxygen start digesting themselves in a process called autolysis. Enzymes in those cells – which normally digest carbohydrates, proteins and fats for energy or growth in a controlled way – start to work on the membranes, proteins, DNA and other components that make up the cells.

The products of this cellular breakdown make excellent food for your symbiotic bacteria, and without your immune system to keep them in check and a steady supply of food from your digestive system, they turn to this new source of nutrition.

From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes sense that your microbes would have evolved ways to adapt to a dying body.

Gut bacteria, especially a class of microbes called Clostridia, spread through your organs and digest you from the inside out in a process called putrefaction. Without oxygen inside the body, your anaerobic bacteria rely on energy-producing processes that don’t require oxygen, such as fermentation. These create the distinctly odorous-gases signature to decomposition.

From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes sense that your microbes would have evolved ways to adapt to a dying body. Like rats on a sinking ship, your bacteria will soon have to abandon their host and survive out in the world long enough to find a new host to colonize. Taking advantage of the carbon and nutrients of your body allows them to increase their numbers. A bigger population means a higher probability that at least a few will survive out in the harsher environment and successfully find a new body.

A microbial invasion

If you’re buried in the ground, your microbes are flushed into the soil along with a soup of decomposition fluids as your body breaks down. They’re entering an entirely new environment and encountering a whole new microbial community in the soil.

The mixing or coalescence of two distinct microbial communities happens frequently in nature. Coalescence happens when the roots of two plants grow together, when wastewater is emptied into a river or even when two people kiss.

The outcome of mixing – which community dominates and which microbes are active – depends on several factors, such as how much environmental change the microbes experience and who was there first. Your microbes are adapted to the stable, warm environment inside your body where they receive a steady supply of food. In contrast, soil is a particularly harsh place to live – it’s a highly variable environment with steep chemical and physical gradients and big swings in temperature, moisture and nutrients. Furthermore, soil already hosts an exceptionally diverse microbial community full of decomposers that are well adapted to that environment and would presumably outcompete any newcomers.

Clostridium septicum is one species of bacteria involved in putrefaction. Joseph E. Rubin/Flickr, CC BY-NC

It’s easy to assume that your microbes will die off once they are outside your body. However, my research team’s previous studies have shown that the DNA signatures of host-associated microbes can be detected in the soil below a decomposing body, on the soil surface and in graves for months or years after the soft tissues of the body have decomposed. This raised the question of whether these microbes are still alive and active or if they are merely in a dormant state waiting for the next host.

Our newest study suggests that your microbes are not only living in the soil but also cooperating with native soil microbes to help decompose your body. In the lab, we showed that mixing soil and decomposition fluids filled with host-associated microbes increased decomposition rates beyond that of the soil communities alone.

We also found that host-associated microbes enhanced nitrogen cycling. Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for life, but most of the nitrogen on Earth is tied up as atmospheric gas that organisms can’t use. Decomposers play a critical role recycling organic forms of nitrogen such as proteins into inorganic forms such as ammonium and nitrate that microbes and plants can use.

Zombies abound in nature: Viruses and parasites can cause real-world zombification

Our new findings suggest that our microbes are likely playing a part in this recycling process by converting large nitrogen-containing molecules like proteins and nucleic acids into ammonium. Nitrifying microbes in the soil can then convert the ammonium into nitrate.

Next generation of life

The recycling of nutrients from detritus, or nonliving organic matter, is a core process in all ecosystems. In terrestrial ecosystems, decomposition of dead animals, or carrion, fuels biodiversity and is an important link in food webs.

Living animals are a bottleneck for the carbon and nutrient cycles of an ecosystem. They slowly accumulate nutrients and carbon from large areas of the landscape throughout their lives then deposit it all at once in a small, localized spot when they die. One dead animal can support a whole pop-up food web of microbes, soil fauna and arthropods that make their living off carcasses.

Insect and animal scavengers help further redistribute nutrients in the ecosystem. Decomposer microbes convert the concentrated pools of nutrient-rich organic molecules from our bodies into smaller, more bioavailable forms that other organisms can use to support new life. It’s not uncommon to see plant life flourishing near a decomposing animal, visible evidence that nutrients in bodies are being recycled back into the ecosystem.

That our own microbes play an important role in this cycle is one microscopic way we live on after death.

about microbes

“Highly connected”: How the right’s political violence relates to a rise in criminal violence

Donald Trump is a very violent man. He is the leader of an increasingly violent political movement.

Last week, Trump threatened Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley with death. Trump’s death threat is part of a much larger pattern where he has made similar threats, directly or implied, against President Biden, Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Special Counsel Jack Smith, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and his other “enemies.”

Trump’s MAGA cultists have been radicalized by him. Several MAGA people have gone so far as to have attempted or publicly threatened to assassinate President Obama and President Biden, respectively. And of course, Trump’s followers launched a lethal attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 as part of the ex-president and dictator in waiting’s coup attempt.

Trump and his allies and other spokespeople and influentials in the Republican fascist party and larger neofascist movement and white right are at the epicenter of a social environment in America were hate crimes and other political violence against Black and brown people, the LGBTQI community, Muslims, Jews, and other targeted groups is at historic levels.

New research by Rachel Kleinfeld, who is Senior Fellow, Democracy, Conflict and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, provides much-needed insight(s) into the growing danger(s) that political violence and polarization poses to American democracy and the future of the country. In this conversation, Kleinfeld provides context for the relationship between extremism, polarization and violence in America. She also explains why right-wing political violence is a much greater threat to the country than political violence by “the left”. Kleinfeld highlights the news media’s continued failure(s) to understand the realities of the country’s democracy crisis in the Age of Trump.

At the end of this conversation, Kleinfeld warns that whatever the outcome of the 2024 Election, that America’s democracy crisis is likely to get worse not better.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

How are you feeling given the state of American politics and society and the country’s democracy crisis and other great troubles?

I’m feeling sad. I want to give my daughters – and other kids – a better country than the one I grew up in. I don’t feel like we are doing that, and I want all of us adults to start acting like adults and to do better.

What are you “seeing” as you survey American politics and society right now? What gives you the most concern?

Americans remain rhetorically attached to democracy, but when you ask them what they mean, large majorities are quick to give up basic rights, oversight, and even non-violence when their side holds power. And the idea of a loyal opposition is disintegrating. I’m deeply concerned by that impulse towards unchecked majoritarianism, and also worried about hypocritical alterations of those feelings when the other side is in power.

What are some of the blind spots, misconceptions, and outright ignorance that the mainstream media, the political class, and everyday Americans have about the realities of political violence in this country?

People seem to underestimate how much political violence has risen, and how lopsided it is. There are vastly more incidents on the right, and they are targeting people. That is the major political violence problem faced by the country. That said, on the left, too many partisans are loathe to acknowledge that their side’s violence, though largely against property, has also doubled since 2016. It has just grown from a much lower point.

I get constant calls from reporters asking if Donald Trump is going to start another January 6 style riot – and when I speak about political violence, my mail fills with people asking why I don’t speak more about the overwhelmingly (but not entirely) peaceful Black Lives Matter protests.

But Trump is not currently able to draw out large crowds – his followers are afraid of the FBI and believe people who goad them to violence on list serves are false flag operations. Instead, we are seeing people kill neighbors over politics or murder business owners who display a pride flag. In other countries, when someone runs a car into a peaceful crowd, it’s almost always a rare international terrorist event. In America, that has happened over 150 times since Heather Heyer was killed at the Unite the Right rally. Political violence and credible threats have become small scale, hyperlocal, across the nation, and extremely frequent

Premeditated political violence against people has skyrocketed on the right, and premeditated political violence on the left has also grown – though from a much lower point, and more often targeting property. Hate crimes are at their highest point in the 21st century, even higher than the spike after 9/11. Local officials who were barely targeted before are now receiving significant numbers of threats – in San Diego, 75% of county officials report threats or harassment, for instance. Threats against Members of Congress rose tenfold from 2016 to 2021, though they fell slightly last year. In the 1960s and 1970s we faced high levels of political violence, but it was largely against property, or involved foreign terrorists. We haven’t seen Americans targeting other Americans politically like this since Confederates reversed Reconstruction and used violence and threats to return to power after the Civil War.

The news media and the political class tend to have a crisis frame that is very immediate and focused on the now. What would the news media – and by extension the political class and public — better understand and see in terms of political polarization and violence if they had a longer view and more time to digest what is happening or not?

America has faced political violence at many points in its history. It is usually used as a method alongside elections to try to win power by intimidating people. That is how it was used by the Know Nothing Party in the early 1800s, by Confederates after Reconstruction, and by Southern Democrats under Jim Crow to maintain single party dominance in eleven Southern States.

Right now, the threat of violence is being used to destroy pro-democracy Republicans and allow a non-majority faction to take over the Republican Party. While there are more threats overall against Democratic constituencies, women, and minorities, those threats are a spill-over from attempts to build Republican base intensity through highlighting a white Christian male dominant identity. The targeted threats are occurring largely to win power and are often targeted very intentionally – against certain election officials who will matter in swing states, or against the judges and DAs involved in cases against former President Trump.

The spike in violence is helping an anti-democratic faction of the Republican Party overcome a pro-democratic faction. The media framing violence as largely about Republicans versus Democrats misses that crucial part of the story.

What does the actual data tell us about political violence and extremism in the Age of Trump and where we are potentially going as a country?

Political violence and criminal violence are highly connected.

The best study of murder in America back to our Revolution found that the strongest variables predicting a rise in the murder rate was trust in fellow Americans and trust in government – especially among young men (the demographic that commits most violence everywhere). In the 1960s when political violence rose, America also saw a doubling of the murder rate, and homicide kept rising until the 1990s. When people normalize violence and lesser forms of anti-social behavior, such as Lauren Boebert’s obnoxious vaping and groping at a theater, oafishness on airplanes, or “rolling coal” – blowing car exhaust in the faces of bicyclists – it reduces the sense of social propriety and impulse control. Society and civilization are actually very fragile things – as anti-social behavior gets normalized and people “let it all hang out”, as it were, all forms of violence tend to rise. We are probably on the verge of that again, and this MAGA political faction and left-wing illiberalism pushing people towards it will be to blame for the deaths and dystopian cities we are going to have for the next few decades.

When I write articles or interview experts who are trying to sound the alarm about right-wing political violence by Trump followers and other such malign actors, one of the common responses in emails and comments is that this is all so much hysterics. The MAGA movement threat is exaggerated. These right-wing extremists and others who are violent are being put in jail. The danger is also so much talk as there won’t be a second civil war, etc. How would you intervene and push back?

I just provide the numbers. It’s not that these levels of political violence are unprecedented – America is an unusually violent democracy compared to countries with similar levels of wealth and democratic history. The United States has seen violence at these levels before. But New York in the 1970s, or the post-Reconstruction South which had a lynching every 36 hours at its height, would not be the periods of our past I most want our country to revisit.

Is the American public “polarized” or are they “sorted”? That distinction is very important.

American politicians are highly ideologically polarized – members of Congress now hold virtually no policy beliefs in common across the aisle. Regular Americans, on the other hand, are not very ideologically polarized – they hold a lot of policy beliefs in common, although Republicans and Democrats care more intensely about different issues. But regular Americans do really dislike partisans from the other party – which is known as affective, or emotional, polarization. That level of affective polarization is likely to be caused, at least partially, because we are highly sorted as a country. When multiple identity characteristics, such as religiosity, geography, gender, and race, are the same for members of the same party, it is easier to feel that any of one’s many identities are threatened by members of the other party, and when people are geographically separated so that they don’t socialize, those misunderstandings get even larger. However, sorting alone just sets the kindling – politicians are lighting the flames by using that latent affective polarization to further inflame sentiment, in order to use that voter intensity to win power. So, it is unlikely to be possible to reduce Americans’ polarization until we change the incentives that are allowing politicians to win seats by furthering polarization.

Most journalists and reporters assume that the public follows politics closely, is ideological, and has a real understanding of the details and facts. Decades of political science research shows that mostly to not be true. Unfortunately, the mainstream media, for a variety of reasons including intellectual laziness and careerism, is clinging desperately onto those fictions of folk democracy even when the evidence is abundant and obvious to the contrary. This translates into a news media that still does not fully appreciate — and is in willful denial about — the realities and the depths of the country’s democracy crisis in this moment of ascendant neofascism and illiberalism.

Americans share a large number of policy beliefs in common. But they also, by and large, really, really don’t care about politics. They don’t want to think about politics, they don’t want to talk about politics, they want it all to go away. That means that Americans also hold a very tenuous understanding of the basics of what it takes to maintain a democracy – such as the importance of a free press, or the role of a civil service. In America, as in many countries where democracy has slipped away in recent years, we see significant pluralities willing to support anti-democratic behavior when their party is in power. Fear of the other side doing just that is one of the main forces that empowers a party to act first to undermine democracy in order to, in their minds, prevent the other side from doing it first.

Is “consensus” and “bipartisanship” across lines of political difference just a type of fetish for the political class and news media? The public generally does not care.

I have my own strong policy beliefs – but I understand that as a country, we have about half the voting population who are conservative, and about half who are more liberal. Both sides need politicians who can represent them in a pro-democratic way, where we disagree on policy, not on whether we will allow the system of peacefully settling our disputes to disintegrate. Liberals need to give some support to pro-democracy Republicans or both will be overrun by the anti-democracy faction that is gaining control over that party. Liberals should also pay more attention to how their own illiberal wing in cultural and academic institutions is driving more conservatives, independents, and minorities to support their own anti-democratic faction. The problem in the political realm is clearly a faction of the Republican Party – but it has not grown on its own, there is a call and response with cultural forces on the left.

What are some interventions that can be made to make the country’s political institutions and culture more durable and healthier in the face of the type of extreme polarization – which is asymmetrical and more on the right— that we are now seeing in the Age of Trump and the decades that got us to this crisis?

America should give serious thought to voting reforms that would allow the anti-democratic faction to have representation without letting them take over one of our two major parties. Proportional representation is the best way to achieve that, though ranked choice voting and primary reform might be less radical and cause fewer governing headaches. Both would likely allow MAGA Republicans to have control in some states and localities (which, of course, they do now), while still allowing the majority of Republicans to support a pro-democracy party. Campaign finance reforms that empower small dollar donors also empower extremists, who are better at raising anger that gets those small dollar donations flowing. Big money in politics is also problematic, of course, but the problem of small dollar donors pushing our politics towards extremes has not been recognized or discussed. Finally, we need better anti-trust enforcement to break business monopolies. Part of the distrust in America since 2008 has as much to do with the way elites keep making money, and is economic as much as political in origin. There is a reason Aristotle and Jefferson both recognized the dangers to democracy of large concentrations of wealth.

As Trump’s criminal trials and the 2024 Election approach, how do you think that will impact the dynamics of violence and polarization?

There is no good way out of the 2024 Election. No matter how the election turns out, it will harm faith in democracy – but the worst future damage is likely to be inflicted if Trump wins and takes power, given the signals he has already given about how he will misuse his department of justice against his enemies, attack the civil service, and otherwise damage the institutions that keep our democracy tethered to the rule of law.

about the right

GOP dudes are big mad at Taylor Swift for reminding them that the ladies don’t like them

Taylor Swift has a new boyfriend, and boy do people have opinions about it. In truth, most people who care are pleased with the pop star’s latest choice of a boy toy, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. He seems like a nice guy, and it’s charming that he’s a risk-taker in the fashion department. Also, he has a Super Bowl ring, which puts him closer to multiple Grammy-winning Swift in the awards-collecting category. Most normal human beings wished the cute couple well for the short time they last, before Swift moves on to her next male muse.

There was one group of people, however, that displayed alarmingly over-the-top anger at this low-stakes celebrity hookup: Right wing dudes on the internet. They’re so mad you’d think their own wives left them for Kelce, and not some singer-songwriter they’ve never met.

Things only grew worse for them Sunday night, when Swift went to the Chiefs vs. New York Jets game with her Hollywood friends, drawing even more camera attention. There were even ads for the documentary of her “Eras” tour this summer, rubbing girl cooties all over the NFL, at least in right wing eyes.

someone on the chiefs scores a touch down.
show the players on tv: ❌
show taylor swift: ✅ pic.twitter.com/UdCKRw22gy

— sam ⸆⸉ (@toleratesam2) October 2, 2023

“Taylor Swift’s Popularity Is A Sign Of Societal Decline,” reads an overheated headline at the Federalist. In the article, Mark Hemingway complains Swift is training young women to expect too much from men they date, and that unmarried 29-year-olds are fooling themselves about when they say they’re happy.

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Media Matters documented dozens of examples of right wing pundits attacking the couple, often under the pretext that Kelce is allegedly evil for promoting the COVID-19 vaccine, since even good health is now demonized on the right. In the process, there was a lot of insulting of Kelce’s manhood, as the soft-tummied commentators called Kelce names like “beta” or mocked how Swift would “break his heart.” One Fox commentator demanded the couple break up. Stew Peters, a host on the popular Rumble network, took it a step further and called for both Kelce and Swift to be executed.

What was most hilariously telling, however, were the conservative men trying to front like they think Swift isn’t that hot. Jamie Frevele at Mediaite collected some examples, including these:

Also, she is homely. https://t.co/FIiTK9N7cB

— Roger Kimball (@rogerkimball) September 25, 2023

Taylor Swift is mid.

— Nick Adams (@NickAdamsinUSA) September 26, 2023

As Shakespeare — or was it Aaron Sorkin? — once wisely said, “He whosoeth labels himself ‘alpha’ most certainly is not.” This protest-too-much reaction on the right is about a lot of things. As my colleague Olivia Luppino points out, “The NFL is historically a conservative organization with an even more conservative fan base,” making it politically profitable for Republicans to pose like they’re protecting it from Swift’s feminist cooties. It’s also generally strategic for conservative talking heads to cling like barnacles to whatever topic is getting a lot of pop culture chatter, hoping to leech some attention off for themselves.

The right is coming for Taylor Swift. They don’t stand a chance

But it also, crucially, is about the growing tendency on the right to stoke resentments in the MAGA audiences, regardingly their increasingly barren dating opportunities. GOP propagandists have learned that a great way to get their mostly male audiences fired up is to indulge their grievances about women these days. Modern chicks, the gripe goes, have been spoiled by feminism, and that’s why it’s so damn hard for a Trump voter to get a date.

If you’re having trouble with the ladies, going MAGA only makes it worse.

The right has long had a youth-recruitment problem, and this is the solution they’ve landed on: Appealing to incels and incel-adjacent young men, by blaming their romantic woes on liberalism, instead their own flaws and/or bad luck. There’s a highbrow version of this argument that’s been playing out in the recent, tedious spate of articles scolding women for not being eager enough for marriage, all of which ignore the substantive reasons people of all genders have for waiting for the right person/time to get hitched. But unloading on Swift and Kelce is a lower-brow version of the same impulse on the right, to lash out at women — especially cute young women — who won’t give MAGA dudes the time of day.

(This is also why someone like Sean Hannity, whose audience is more “aging Boomers who just want grandkids already” and not the Proud Boys crowd, seems baffled by all the Taylor hate. His viewers relate more to Kelce’s mom, who just seems happy her boy has met such a nice and pretty girl.)

I certainly got a taste of how pissed-off some people are over the “undateable MAGA” problem, when I wrote about a 2021 survey showing young Democrats do not want to date Republicans. My social media feeds were awash with outraged conservatives, insisting that women had a duty to give Trump voters a chance. Never mind that this isn’t some petty disagreement, not when Trump ended abortion rights and bragged about sexually assaulting women. Never mind that no one owes anyone romantic interest, or an explanation for why they’re not interested. Never mind that the attitude of entitlement is part of what turns women off.

And never mind that being MAGA is entirely voluntary. No one is forcing young men to don the red hat that notoriously shrinks the available dating pool.

Indeed, the irony of all this is that, in appealing to young men through grievance, the right is only making men’s problems worse. If you’re having trouble with the ladies, going MAGA intensifies your unlikeability. But isn’t that what cults always do? Sell their members “solutions” that actually compound their existing problems.

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Most of the hand-wringing articles about the decline of marriage put the blame on nameless, faceless antagonists: The masses of single women who are allegedly “too picky.” Swift, however, provides a famous face for conservatives to project their rage at. Not just because she’s a successful businesswoman who seems perfectly happy stacking up more bodies in the ex-boyfriend vault. It’s because the kind of women being called out for being “too picky” — middle class, self-sufficient, young, educated — are the same women lining up to buy her records or selling out her concerts. When conservatives imagine the woman who is somehow failing them by not marrying the first guy who will have her, they are imagining someone who likely has already preordered “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” on vinyl.

The “undateable MAGA” is no myth. In the 2022 midterms, the gender gap in voting was bigger than it’s every been, as Jill Filipovic wrote in her newsletter: “In the midterms, an astounding 72% of women under 30 voted for Democrats. Among men the same age, it was 54%. These gaps persist with age: Among women 30-44, 57% voted for Dems, while just 43% of men did.” The result, as Andi Zeisler at NBC News documented, an increasingly shrill right wing media accusing liberal women of “progressive authoritarianism” because they swipe left on Trump voters.

Swift scares conservatives because she lives her life on her own terms, including her dating life.

No wonder so many right wing dudes are triggered — or are hoping to trigger their audiences — into fury at seeing Swift date Kelce. Even though Kelce hasn’t made his political views known, Republicans think they have him pegged as progressive, because he promoted the vaccine. Swift herself has been more politically outspoken in recent years, though in ways so pedestrian that only out-of-touch right wingers can imagine she’s being provocative. She supports LGBTQ people. She occasionally endorses mainstream Democrats. She’s pro-choice and anti-racism. She wants her fans to vote, which really sent Republicans around bend.

For decades, conservatives have tried to bully women out of both their ambitions and progressive opinions, by warning both are a surefire way to end up sad and lonely. But, as the increasingly shrill discourse about “male loneliness” suggests, the right has long quietly feared the opposite is true: That it’s men who are in real danger of being adrift without women as their anchors. Swift scares conservatives because she lives her life on her own terms, including her dating life. But their real fear is those legions of fans who feel the same way, a generation of young women who believe, correctly, it’s better to be at home with friends and cats than married to someone who doesn’t respect you. And who knows, maybe you’ll get to bang a hot football player or two in the process.

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Shelf awareness: Experts explain why you should be inspecting your poop

I don’t recall exactly when I first discovered the poop shelf. My temporary quarters in the Netherlands are relatively modern, down to the high/low flush option on it toilet, so I didn’t catch on right away. But at some point in the journey, I came to realize that elsewhere in the country — as well as parts of Belgium, Germany and Austria —there is a ledge in the back of the bowl. A ledge specifically designed for your business to land before flushing it down. Obviously, I had questions.

“I hate them, they’re disgusting, and no one has given me a valid reason why they’re good,” is how TikToker caseycwolf summed up the situation from Vienna not long ago. But I might never have given much thought for or animosity toward the poop shelf — also known as the inspection shelf — had it not ranked so highly in a recent Reddit thread asking, “Americans, what is something that Europeans have/do that makes no sense to you?” As one European Redditor explained, “It’s a diagnostic device. (You can check your product saying goodbye) But I despise it.”

This is why your stomach hurts

Though the poop shelf is less common today, Europeans can definitely still opt for a “flat flush toilet,” or vlakspoelcloset, in their own plumbing. “The feces falls onto the flat toilet platform and only ends up in the water when flushing,” one German lifestyle brand explains. “This intermediate phase virtually eliminates the risk of splashing,” they explain, adding, “Stool samples can be taken more easily here — which is why this model is mainly used in doctors’ practices, nursing homes and hospitals.”

“You should absolutely be looking at your stool on a regular basis.”

Perhaps the “platform” serves a primary purpose of avoiding Poseidon’s kiss. But the sample taking, or at the very least, inspection aspect of the process has raised some intriguing questions across social media and frankly, my own heart. How much “inspection” is one supposed to be doing in one’s average toileting? And what are we supposed to be looking for here, exactly? I just assume I’m dying every time I eat beets and that seems sufficient.

There is a theory that the original poop shelf was to help poopers determine the presence of worms. On one ex-pat’s blog about her family’s experiences with Germany — and its baffling “lay and display” toilets — a commenter explained that “The shelf toilet was designed at a time (late 1800’s and early 1900’s) when intestinal worms such as roundworms, tapeworms and especially the highly contagious whip worms, were a common and repeating affliction and so they wanted to be able to inspect the feces for the presence of the vermin so they could take the appropriate vermicide.”

The risk persisted well into the 20th century — a 1999 report from the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment noted an uptick in “mild to fatal zoonosis resulting from a foodborne infection with intestinal round-worms.”

But given that trichinosis isn’t as pervasive any more — and a rarity in the U.S. — do we still need to be looking behind us before we flush? “You should absolutely be looking at your stool on a regular basis,” says Dr. Bryan Curtin, a gastroenterologist at The Institute for Digestive Health and Liver Disease at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore.

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“The number one thing to look for is blood in the stool,” he says. “It’s not uncommon to have a little bleeding after passing a particularly large or hard stool or see blood on the toilet paper when you wipe, but if the bleeding is painless and especially if it happens on a regular basis this is something that could be a sign of cancer or other significant problem like Crohn’s disease. Therefore, you should see your doctor as soon as possible for evaluation.”

“Check your poo – it could just save your life.”

It’s a crucial habit to get into. When British journalist and podcaster Dame Deborah James was diagnosed with bowel cancer, she made it her mission to destigmatize the disease and raise awareness of its symptoms. In her final message to her fans before she died last year at the age of 40, she urged them once again to “Check your poo – it could just save your life.”

But there are other things to be looking — and, I’m sorry, sniffing — for as well when you answer nature’s call. “Another sign of illness is if the stool appears pitch black and has an odd smell,” Dr. Curtin says. “This is referred to as melena, and generally means that you are bleeding from somewhat in the upper GI tract.” (Another advantage of the poop shelf: the pungency factor.)

Curtin also suggests paying attention to any “abrupt change in stool caliber or bowel habit, ” including “chronic diarrhea without a known trigger” or “if your stools gradually get much thinner.” You should consult your doctor if you have any of these symptoms, as they can also be earning warning signs of cancer.

But it’s not just about serious illness — your poop can tell you a lot about your day-to-day health. We spend a lot of time thinking about what we put into our bodies; it’s just good sense to pay attention to how it comes out.

Taylor Knese, a family nurse practitioner and owner of Mod Health Co., explains, “I frequently educate my clients on checking their stool after each and every bowel movement. Our stool can tell us so much about the health of our gut!” She explains, “Bowel movements are the body’s natural way of eliminating waste and toxins. The color, consistency, frequency and other characteristics can offer valuable insight about your overall health. Hard, cracked, lumpy stool which could indicate dehydration. Unformed, loose or watery stool or undigested food could signal a deeper issue that your body is not properly breaking down and absorbing nutrients from your food. Similarly, clay-colored stool could indicate a lack of bile which our body needs to process food and break down toxins, giving it the characteristic brown color.” She suggests, “One useful resource that we use in medicine that can be used at home is the Bristol Stool Chart. You can review the chart to evaluate how your bowels are doing.”

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Dr. Supriya Rao, a physician in internal medicine, gastroenterology, obesity medicine, and lifestyle medicine and a managing partner at Gutsy Girl MD, also recommends the Bristol Stool Chart, which as she puts it, “rates your feces.” Rao advises, “A ‘normal’ poop generally resembles sausage links. Your diet can alter this, so pay attention to what you consume and adjust as needed.”

You don’t need a European style toilet to get in the habit of paying attention to your body’s cues, and I remain satisfied with modern toilets and their big, watery, shelf-free bowls. But my exposure to the poop shelf has made me more aware of — and more comfortable with — the life cycle of my own digestion.

Dr. Deepak Vadada, a gastroenterologist with Pinewood Family Care Co. of New York and New Jersey, puts it this way, “Just as we might monitor our skin for changes or keep track of our weight, paying attention to our digestive habits and waste can serve as a proactive approach to health.” And Michael Green, an OB/GYN and co-founder at the women’s wellness center Winona, says that the experience can even be “educational and empowering.” He adds, “While it may not be a pleasant practice, when viewed as for our well-being, checking before you flush can help you better care for your body.”

about digestive health

Turns out Alison Hammond is the zesty ingredient “The Great British Baking Show” has been missing

Success on "The Great British Baking Show" relies on achieving the right balance of flavors, textures, sweetness and style. Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith demand contestants unify all these ingredients perfectly while also accounting for each of their tastes. In Season 11's opening episode, "Cake Week," Hollywood advises one contender not to be afraid to "kick us in the teeth" with her citrus notes, and praises another for incorporating enough coffee flavored oomph to wake them up. Smart bakers who make it to the tent also know that booze is the way to Leith's heart – but not too much.

Competitors are constantly figuring out perfect ratios for their bakes. So have the producers, who had a much easier time replacing Mary Berry with Leith than finding the right partner for host Noel Fielding. Introducing him beside the extremely mid Sandi Toksvig enabled the audience to appreciate the gentle good humor the rock-and-sweet roll performer brought to the tent.

Toksvig's exit led to the audience having to stomach "Little Britain" star Matt Lucas for three seasons. (Yes, only three, although much in the way a thudding headache makes time slow to a crawl, his grating onscreen presence making Lucas' tenure feel longer.) But in late 2022 Lucas delivered sweet relief to millions when he officially tossed in his tea towel, leading producers to hire U.K. TV personality Alison Hammond.

Matt Lucas announces he will be "passing the baguette" to a new "Bake Off" host

Most Americans probably aren't familiar with Hammond, whose first broadcast exposure came by way of the British edition of "Big Brother" back in 2002, after which she landed a presenter job at ITV's "This Morning." She since become a friendly fixture in U.K. TV, appearing in an assortment of reality shows and co-hosting the 2023 "The British Academy Film Awards." All of these gigs established Hammond as an ebullient, easygoing host who emphasizes fun over showstopping jokiness, precisely the leavening "GBBO" (the colloquial acronym based on its U.K. title "Great British Bake Off") has lacked all this time.

With the funny handled, Hammond only needs to bring the fun, which she does.

Experienced bakers will attest that finding the right substitution for ingredients that are no longer available is a matter of trial, error and patience. Eleven seasons into the Netflix version of "GBBO" – our British cousins count the seasons that aren't on the service, meaning they're on Season, er, Series 14 – we've coasted beyond wishing the producers could replicate the foundational equilibrium of Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc. Life goes on, and they've long since moved on.

Fielding has long served as the stronger partner in his co-hosting duos. Lucas' attempts to match Fielding's low-key levity shoved an eccentric twinge to each of their interactions, making his interplay with Fielding and the bakers both superfluous and weird. Whereas Hammond understands the assignment, bringing an easy, complementary pep that lifts Fielding's gentleness. She comprehends the win-win dynamic of a dual hosting model, especially when the other host is a professional comic. With the funny handled, Hammond only needs to bring the fun, which she does.

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From the moment she's introduced to the excited, anxious bakers, Hammond's smile and bright Birmingham lilt invite them to if not relax, at least remind them to have a good time. "GBBO" relies on the bakers' personalities to make each season rise, but if you've found yourself thinking recent seasons could use a little something, the new co-host reveals what's been missing: genuine zest.

She also reminds us why this show still needs co-hosts 13 years after its debut. Think about it – Leith and Hollywood have distinct personalities and enough experience to both host and judge these episodes and challenges. Doing both jobs would remove the mystique Hollywood has constructed among the "GBBO" bakers and future contestants. His inscrutable glares and theatrical pauses are the intangibles that make this show unique.

When he takes a bite of cake this week and, with his eyes downcast says, "I don't like that," there's no way of knowing for sure that he isn't serious. He follows this by turning his gaze to the sweet's creator and adding, "I love it," which is both a relief and makes one feel silly for being taken in thusly after all these years.

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So — could "GBBO" operate without hosts? Sure. But think of Hammond and Fielding as the vanilla extract in the production mix. Leaving them out would result in a functionally sound cake that isn't quite where it needs to be. They boost the kindly spirits wafting around each triumph and defeat while allowing Hollywood and Leith to say less and still surprise us.

Think of Hammond and Fielding as the vanilla extract in the production mix. Leaving them out would result in a functionally sound cake that isn't quite where it needs to be.

Such an energy refreshment is especially welcome at this stage in the "GBBO" lifespan, when it seems like the pros are running out of challenges that can stump the bakers, many of whose skills might offer the pros some competition. This is one of the few reality TV shows whose positive influence is noticeable; the challenges have gotten more difficult and obscure over the years, mostly to meet the skill level and creativity of the chosen bakers' skills.

Within the latest batch of bakers is a woman who forages for her ingredients, a man who brews his own beer and brings homegrown rhubarb into the tent with him, and a woman whose showstopper set up Leith to walk into a beaver joke that temporarily incapacitates everyone. Hammond picks it up later when the judges and hosts are behind closed doors and, importantly, knows when to let the gag go.

The return of "The Great British Baking Show" is a wonderful fall ritual even in "off" seasons. Hammond's addition, we're happy to say, might be the cherry that restores its showstopper status.

New episodes of "The Great British Baking Show" stream Fridays on Netflix.

about "The Great British Baking Show"

“Blue zones” have captivated health and longevity experts. But are they real or statistical grift?

Despite significant advances in medicine, living conditions and social safety nets over time, Americans continue to lag behind in terms of health and happiness. This comes in great contrast to certain regions of the world, where modern advances have largely been thwarted by enduring native practices – practices that may, in fact, lend insights toward living not only longer, but healthier and more fulfilling lives. Perhaps, therefore, it's time to reconsider the American approach to health and wellbeing by examining places known as blue zones.

Blue zones are pockets of the world where an unusually high number of people are reported to reach the age of 100 and beyond. These centenarians don't follow fad diets, take expensive supplements or keep up with the latest health trends — they stick to what's tried and true, largely living in the same manner (and often manor) as their ancestors centuries ago.

These so-called blue zones are scattered across the globe, spanning different cultures, environments and histories – likely ruling out the source of this phenomenon being a sole line of exceptional genetics. The five recognized blue zones of the world are Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California.

Live long and flounder: An aging expert on the looming crisis of our longer lifespans

While there's ongoing debate over what factors allow inhabitants of blue zones to live longer, numerous investigations by researchers, demographers and medical experts have revealed common threads that provide a better understanding of aging and longevity. We can start by looking at some current pitfalls in America.

The five recognized blue zones of the world are Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, as the world was forced to grapple with the ramifications of a global health crisis, a peculiar paradox revealed itself: The modern-day lifestyle of America, with all its comforts, securities and conveniences, has left us incredibly vulnerable and perhaps even less protected than in the past when it comes to public health emergencies.

Owing to our diet and sedentary ways, the U.S. was already suffering from an epidemic of obesity when the pandemic hit. According to a National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, more than 2 in 5 adults (and nearly 1 in 5 children) are obese. Those with comorbidities, such as obesity, fared far worse during the pandemic.

What's more, just as an official end to the COVID pandemic was being declared, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released an advisory warning of yet another public health crisis – an epidemic of loneliness, isolation and lack of connection in the country. This is a trend that, although is an expected consequence of certain American customs, was surely exacerbated by the pandemic.

Blue zones may offer an alternative approach to living that Americans can adopt. The concept comes from the work done by Gianni Mario Pes and Michel Poulain while they were studying longevity in Sardinia. The nomenclature is in reference to blue marks they drew on a map around villages home to high concentrations of centenarians and low instances of chronic diseases. Their 2004 paper identified "a geographic area characterized by extreme longevity." The proportion of centenarians in this region is roughly three times greater than the rest of Sardinia and Italy, according to their research.

Their plant-based diet, integrated with an adequate supply of animal proteins, may be the key to maintaining optimal health and high-quality of life throughout the aging process.

I had the privilege of visiting this unique area this summer while traveling through Sardinia. It's a region called Ogliastra in the central-eastern part of the island, which encompasses six municipalities, one of which is Baunei – a small medieval commune built into the mountainside, where I stayed for two nights. I asked my local hotel clerk Franca how the old population of about 3,500 inhabitants handled COVID.

She told me that almost everyone in the village of Baunei caught COVID at some point. Mind you, this is anecdotal and unverified – but Franca said that, to the best of her knowledge, only one centenarian died from COVID in Baunei. I then asked what the village's secret was for staying so healthy and her response was simple but nonetheless reflective of a certain kind of lifestyle: "A glass of wine everyday from our very good grapes probably helps."

According to a 2020 study on the Ogliastra region of Sardinia, "behavioral and socio-cultural factors, such as nutrition, physical activity and family support" are likely more important than purely genetic factors in terms of explaining longevity in a blue zone. Mainly engaged in agricultural activities, locals lead relatively traditional lives, with the study finding that their plant-based diet, integrated with an adequate supply of animal proteins, may be the key to maintaining optimal health and high-quality of life throughout the aging process.

Future diets will be short of micronutrients like iron — it's time to consider how we feed people

Sardinia has restaurants all over the island referred to as "agriturismo," which is where local farms offer up a dining experience typically entailing a set menu consisting of only ingredients from the property. I stopped at several, and it became clear that the quality of the ingredients, without the inclusion of additives and chemicals, exceeded that of standard American cuisine.

Talking to my bike tour operator, a Venetian who lived a majority of his life in Sardinia, I received a different opinion. He reasoned that, though diet and lifestyle play a part, longevity in Sardinia is mostly thanks to genetics: "This is a resilient and tough people, especially the current generation of centenarians, who lived through hard times."

Some scientists refer to this "toughness" as epigenetics – which is to say that behaviors and environmental factors can cause changes that affect the way our genes work.

However, some scientists refer to this "toughness" as epigenetics – which is to say that behaviors and environmental factors can cause changes that affect the way our genes work. According to Blue Zones, an organization that trademarked the name and is dedicated to promoting healthy living, Sardinia was not devastated by the pandemic like the rest of Italy: "Some of the reasons [blue zone] Sardinians are able to live vitally into their 80s, 90s, and 100s may be helping them stave off COVID-19 – and sustaining them during their country's lockdown."

Older residents of blue zones rarely live alone in nursing homes, which proved to be virus hotspots in the U.S. and elsewhere. In Sardinia, multi-generational families often live under the same roof and within walking distance of each other, and the children take care of their aging parents. Research is finding that strong family and community support networks and staying active into old age while remaining a valuable member of society might alter the expression of our genes, thereby extending longevity.

Many communities within the Ogliastra region had no measurable increase in mortality during COVID in 2020 despite its high-risk elderly population. Other blue zone populations like Okinawa, Japan, and Ikaria, Greece, were also relatively unaffected by the pandemic. It should be noted, however, that all of these blue zones are on islands, providing a degree of geographical isolation against the virus; in 2021, Sardinia did get hit by a delayed wave of COVID.

The only inland blue zone is Loma Linda, California – one of the world's largest populations of Seventh-Day Adventists. While many there claim that it's their faith that promotes healthy living, studies show that they have similar plant-based diets and outdoor- and community-focused lifestyle regiments, possibly explaining their longevity and comparatively low death rates from COVID, despite being only 60 miles east of Los Angeles.

While life expectancy has been steadily climbing in the U.S. and around the world for centuries, our healthspan hasn't been keeping up.

By intertwining the principles of blue zones with the lessons learned from the pandemic, a novel perspective emerges that could reshape American lifestyles and health for the better. Dr. Peter Attia, author of Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, has championed a distinction between "healthspan" and lifespan.

While life expectancy has been steadily climbing in the U.S. and around the world for centuries, our healthspan hasn't been keeping up. For some perspective: in 1900, life expectancy in America was age 47, whereas today it hovers between 77 and 80 (depending on different sources). However, U.S. life expectancy dropped for two years in a row from 2019 to 2021, according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). With nearly three years shaved off of average life expectancy over this period, it was the steepest two-year decline of the century, which brought U.S. life expectancy back down to its 1996 level.

Based on the NCHS's most recent data, this dramatic fall in life expectancy was primarily due to COVID-19 and drug overdoses. While other countries also saw a dip or stagnation in life expectancy during the pandemic years, it appears the U.S. took an exceptionally hard hit. Perhaps this should come as no surprise, given that the U.S. ranks only 47th in the world in life expectancy, behind places like Italy and Japan.

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Our lifespans are contingent on our healthspans – not the other way around, according to Attia. Obesity and loneliness will likely kill us faster than advances in medicine will help us. We shouldn't seek to just live longer; we should strive to live healthier – longevity will follow from there. But American elders don't go outside or stay active throughout their life and into old age like the centenarians of blue zones. We don't have a society that fosters a feeling of purpose within the elderly population. And many Americans don't grow old because they're in poor health from an early age.

The COVID-19 pandemic should be a wake-up call. High levels of stress, sedentary behavior and poor dietary habits – staples of the modern U.S. lifestyle, whether by choice or otherwise – have likely hindered our ability to fight infections and prevent severe illnesses. Thus, the ways of old could be the best bet for growing old.

However, some researchers disagree. Dr. Saul Newman of Australian National University and now Oxford University told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2021 that blue zones were "rife with fraud, error and logical inconsistency." He pointed to areas like Okinawa, which has higher levels of clinical depression, obesity and alcohol consumption than the rest of the country, according to Statistics Japan.

Newman claims on his Oxford staff profile that blue zones can be "predicted by an absence of birth and death certificates, higher old-age poverty rates, and (remarkably) a lower probability of reaching old age."

Secrets to longevity can be taught, and "conservative cities have been better" at adopting them

I reached out to Newman for more details on the five blue zones, asking whether he thinks there's any truth to the theory that the epigenetics (diet, culture, etc.) of these regions affect longevity. His response came in five parts in support of his opinion: "The 'Blue Zones' are a feel-good grift that cherry-picks other cultures to sell books. They have no empirical support and no basis in fact."

Regarding California's blue zone, he stated, "Loma Linda has an estimated life expectancy of only 77.6 years — lower than the life expectancy of around fifty countries, and lower than the California average." His statistics come from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

On Greece, referencing a 2012 Reuters article, Dr. Newman said, "Some 200,000 Greek pensions were fake, including at least 72% of centenarians that disappeared between the 2012 census and the 2013 investigations of pension fraud." It should be noted, however, this information is not specific to the blue zone region in question, Ikaria.

"in the 2000 censuses, 42% of 99+ year olds were discovered to be faking their ages.""

Turning to Nicoya, Costa Rica, Dr. Newman continued, "The Costa Rican blue zone is a non-standard statistical region with scant information available (and is therefore probably the most defensible, as there is not enough data to puncture the nonsense). But in the 1984 census, 50% of 80+ year olds had faked their age and in the 2000 censuses, 42% of 99+ year olds were discovered to be faking their ages." This information came from this 2019 study in the journal Demographic Research covering age exaggeration.

As for Sardinia, he indicated that "Eurostat, the statistical branch of the EU, ranks the Italian blue zone as only the 12th-longest-lived region of Italy … The official data from the EU offers absolutely no support for extreme longevity."

The region of greatest controversy seems to be Okinawa, Japan. According to Newman, "Seven years after Okinawa was designated a blue zone, 230,000 (82%) of the centenarians in the country were revealed to be undetected fakes. They were missing or dead." Again, it should be noted that these statistics pertain to Japan as a whole and not a specific region.

Based on Japanese Government data, which tabulates one of the largest nutritional surveys in the world, he went on to say, "Okinawa consistently has the least vegetarian and least healthy diet of any province … and that it also has the highest female BMI and second-highest male BMI in Japan.

Moreover, Dr. Newman pointed to the World Happiness Report, which placed Japan at 47th in the world for happiness, and rates of depression in old people in Okinawa. "They have about-average-happiness in a moderately unhappy country."

Blue Zones (the organization) refuted this data. Its founder Dan Buettner now has a new Netflix series out that highlights the benefits of blue zone practices. I caught up with Buettner, who's a National Geographic Fellow and bestselling author, while he was on assignment in Japan. I asked him to respond to Dr. Newman's criticisms.

For Okinawa, Buettner directed me to Dr. Craig and Bradley Willcox and Professor Makato Suzuki of the Okinawa Research Center for Longevity Science, as they provided the demographic work and did the record verification there. Buettner told me, "I just saw data from the Japanese government and in the age group of people over 90, Okinawa is still number one."

"The number one reason Okinawa's longevity is decreasing is because of the lack of education, which cannot win against heavy Western influence."

However, Buettner did agree that Okinawa should no longer be considered a blue zone, "But where [Dr. Newman] is wrong: In 1999, when I started there, Okinawa was producing the longest living humans in the history of the world. Since then, the influence of the U.S. naval base and the forest of fast food restaurants and the highways that now criss-cross Okinawa have brought the American way of living and with it comes chronic disease, and they're the least healthy prefecture in Japan right now."

I asked a spokesperson for the Okinawa Research Center for Longevity Science to comment on this and was told: "The number one reason Okinawa's longevity is decreasing is because of the lack of education, which cannot win against heavy Western influence … The older grandmothers and grandfathers are not teaching their children or grandchildren how to make traditional food recipes, what to eat, why they should eat it … The longevity lifestyle is still alive and well among older Okinawans — it is just not being promoted."

Buettner has written and spoken publicly about Okinawa's tragic decline, explaining, "Mortality is still really low among people over 90 in Okinawa because they don't change their habits, but middle-aged people are the worst. Okinawans are the unhealthiest people in all of Japan, and when they move through the next decades, you're going to see they're the ones that are dying the quickest, but that's because things have changed."

Buettner went on, "Saul has never been to a Blue Zone. He's never gone into a municipal hall to look at the birth records. Not only in Okinawa, but in the other blue zones, [Gianni Pes and I] also went to the churches and looked at the birth and baptismal certificates … Pes has published papers on the painstaking work they did to verify ages in Sardinia."

The outlook for blue zones around the world is not promising, Buettner told me. "They're all eroding. I think they'll all be gone in a generation, quite honestly. As soon as the standard American diet comes in the front door, longevity goes out the back door … As soon as the cars come and the chips and the sodas and processed food replace the beans and tortillas in Nicoya or the tofu and the sweet potatoes in Okinawa or minestrone in Sardinia – and young people aren't eating that way for the most part – they'll end up looking like the rest of their country, longevity-wise."

The outlook for blue zones around the world is not promising: "They're all eroding."

I asked Buettner if he thought implementing blue zone practices in America would be feasible, which took the conversation in a more positive direction. "Singapore is the 2.0. I didn't rely on the old demographic work. I partnered with the IHME [Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation] at the University of Washington, which is a consortium of about 1000 scientists worldwide. And they told me that Singapore produces the longest health adjusted life expectancy in the world. And this is a really interesting metric because it measures not only years of life but expected years of life in full health … Singapore has seen life expectancy go up by about 20 years in one lifetime. These other blue zones took centuries or millennia to evolve. But here's one lifetime and it's very clear that the reason they're living a long time is because Lee Kuan Yew and his government realized that their number one resource was human beings and they went about passing policies that favor the health and wellbeing of humans."

Buettner elaborated on how Singapore places a massive tax on cars, thus incentivizing a highly efficient public transit system. "Nobody's more than 300 meters away from a subway … and people are getting 7,000 or 8,000 steps a day without thinking about it. So it's no coincidence that their rate of obesity is 6%. They've had the courage to tax sugar, which America doesn't have, even though almost 75% of us are overweight."

"Singapore, it's a 2.0 that we ought to be paying attention to," he continued, "that's where the excitement is … The Saul Newmans of the world can find ways to poke holes, but it's not where I want to spend my time."

Just as Singapore is a diverse city, Buettner explained how American cities could follow suit. "If we shifted our focus to setting up an environment where people don't get sick in the first place, it would have good impacts on America … My day job for the past dozen years has been working with cities and helping them lower their obesity rate, thereby their chronic disease."

Regarding policies, he said, "We have to look at it through the lens of prevention. It can't be the lens of behavioral change. I know of no place in the world where you can get an entire population to change its behavior."

Buettner suggested that we need policies like those in Singapore "that create an environment where it's easy, cheaper and more delicious to eat that way [healthy]. And people will unconsciously do it. That's the big idea. The same goes for walkability."

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If we had cities where walking was easier and more commonplace, then Americans would get their steps in without thinking about it, he concluded. "Only about 24% of Americans get the minimum amount of physical activity, which is 20 minutes a day. It's ridiculous. So that means over 75% don't even get 20 minutes a day. What we're doing is not working."

While the blue zone debate remains open-ended, using a blueprint based on blue zone best practices when designing cities and environments could promote active lifestyles, such as walkable neighborhoods, green spaces and communal areas – with certainly little downside to this. And by improving our diet, building a stronger sense of community and seamlessly exercising during daily routines, we would almost certainly advance physical and mental health in America.

A shift toward preventive health care, rather than the drug-fueled reactive healthcare system we currently have in the U.S., is imperative if we are to improve health and longevity – regardless of blue zone legitimacy. To fully realize this vision, policy changes and educational campaigns need to emphasize and incentivize nutrition and exercise. This blue zone paradigm, as it were, would likely mitigate the impact of future and ongoing health crises.

about health and aging

NASA found materials on an asteroid like those that may have “triggered the origin of life” on Earth

When on Tuesday scientists lifted the lid off of OSIRIS-REx — a spacecraft that recently visited Bennu, an asteroid which might collide with Earth in the year 2182 — the researchers found something so overwhelming, they literally “gasped” at the “scientific treasure box” just discovered inside.

The “treasure trove” they found inside could provide scientists with volumes of material.

Those quotes were taken from a post on X (formerly Twitter) by NASA’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) division, which is located at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The scientists were awed by the contents of OSIRIS-REx because the spacecraft had just finished a yearlong journey to a space rock known as Bennu.

The carbon-rich asteroid is on a trajectory that puts it near Earth’s orbit, and indeed there is a 0.037 percent chance that it will hit Earth in 2182. (The odds that Bennu hits Earth go up to 1 in 1,750 for 2300.) That provides scientists with good reason to learn more about Bennu’s composition, in case it becomes necessary to protect Earth from the Empire State Building-sized chunk of rock. If Bennu collides with Earth, it will release 1,200 megatons of energy, or 24 times as much as the most powerful nuclear weapon built so far.

NASA mission to return from asteroid as big as the Empire State Building that may one day hit Earth

Yet there is an additional reason for scientists to pay attention to Bennu — namely, that carbon-rich asteroids like Bennu may have played a role in triggering life on this planet.

“We think objects like Bennu may have made Earth habitable,” Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx’s principal investigator and a professor of planetary science and cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona, told The Wall Street Journal. “They might have delivered the ocean water, the molecules that are in our atmosphere, and maybe even the organic materials that triggered the origin of life on our planet.”

This helps explain why the scientists gasped when the lid for OSIRIS-REx was opened. When they did so, the “treasure trove” they found inside could provide scientists with volumes of material in researching crucial questions about the origins of life on Earth. The treasure trove included “dark powder and sand-sized particles on the inside of the lid and base,” all of which had previously rested on Bennu’s rocky surface. Figuratively, these samples are merely the tip of the iceberg; it will take weeks to carefully disassemble OSIRIS-REx so that scientists can get to the larger chunks of rock taken directly from the asteroid by their spacecraft. That sample will be revealed to the world in a special broadcast on Oct. 11th.

“There is a very high level of focus from the team — the sample will be revealed with an amazing amount of precision to accommodate delicate hardware removal so as not to come into contact with the sample inside,” Johnson Space Center officials explained in a statement.

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The treasure trove included “dark powder and sand-sized particles on the inside of the lid and base,” all of which had previously rested on Bennu’s rocky surface.

“Johnson houses the world’s largest collection of astromaterials, and curation experts there will perform the intricate disassembly of the Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) to get down to the bulk sample within,” the statement also elaborates. “These operations are happening in a new laboratory designed specifically for the OSIRIS-REx mission.”

While scientists have not had a chance to study the surface of Bennu with Earth-bound equipment, the OSIRIS-REx journey to Bennu was eventful enough that they know to expect surprises. Although the researchers had believed that Bennu had a smooth surface, they were shocked when upon arriving in 2018 they instead discovered a “bouldery hellscape.” As Lauretta later told Space.com, “When we designed the spacecraft, we had a design targeting accuracy [for the landing] of about 50 meters [164 feet]. The thermal properties, also the radar properties [of Bennu], really looked like a smooth surface. So when I first saw that [the surface was completely different], I really thought we might be in trouble there.”

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Fortunately help came from Brian May, the Queen guitarist who also has a PhD in astronomy and specializes in stereoscopic imaging, which replicates how human eyes perceive surrounding space in three dimensions. Although OSIRIS-REx did not have a stereo camera, May used images of various spots from Bennu’s surface that had been taken at different angles and processed them for 3D viewing. This made it possible for OSIRIS-REx’s team to land their vehicle in a crater that was adequately smooth.

“Once you have a stereo image of that particular potential landing site, you can really make that instinctive judgment as to whether things are going to work out,” May told Space.com in an earlier interview. “You see that there is this boulder, how much slope there is, how dangerous it is to get on and to get off.”

about astronomy

Nancy Pelosi accompanies Dianne Feinstein’s remains to San Francisco

Rep. Nancy Pelosi sat on board a plane from the president’s military fleet on Saturday as it transported the remains of Sen. Dianne Feinstein to San Francisco, in preparation for her upcoming funeral service.

Feinstein — who passed away in her Washington, D.C. home on Thursday after attending to a series of votes on Capitol Hill — shared a long friendship with Pelosi, who has spoken emotionally on her passing since the event took place.

“With Dianne, it’s obviously official, it’s political, and it’s very personal,” Pelosi said on Sunday, in a quote obtained from CNN. “She was my neighbor, my friend. My family loved her personally, politically, in every way. We used to always say, if Dianne and I ran against each other, my daughter Nancy would probably vote for Dianne. That was the love that existed,” she further commented to Jake Tapper during an appearance on “State of the Union.

Thanking Biden for seeing to it that Feinstein received a proper send-off, with her casket draped in the American flag, Pelosi went on to say, “She loved people. She loved California. She loved America.”

The senator’s daughter, Katherine Feinstein, and chief of staff James Sauls made the trip along with Pelosi. The exact details of Feinstein’s memorial and funeral have not yet been announced.

The remains of Sen. Dianne Feinstein arrived at SFO Saturday evening. Service members carried her casket as they transported her remains to a San Francisco funeral home. https://t.co/S027XfvMsa pic.twitter.com/leJvosV6qp

— NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) October 1, 2023

Why there’s no better comfort food than bread and butter

We’d awakened early, before the clamor of the city’s weekend had begun in earnest. Rose and I had met in high school French class, and now, decades later, she lives the dream as an ex-pat in Paris. At her neighborhood bakery, we purchased crusty baguettes still warm from the oven. Back at her apartment, her husband, whose family is from Brittany, laid out the table with the butter that is the pride of his birthplace. Then, while French pigeons cooed outside and strong coffee brewed on the Moka pot, we sat down and ate. And I don’t know if anything else I’ve consumed in recent memory was as perfect and beautiful as that simple breakfast of fresh bread and creamy, salty butter.

What is it about bread and butter that hits the spot like nothing else in the world? Why is that specific combination just so damn good? To the western palate, few things are so ordinary and yet so evocative.

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Maybe it’s the bread. While no one’s saying the road to happiness is paved exclusively with pasta and potatoes, they sure do affect our mood. Nearly twenty years ago, MIT researcher Judith Wurtman observed that “Carbohydrates raise serotonin levels naturally and act like a natural tranquilizer.” But it’s not just the carbs in bread that make it so glorious.

“A perfectly baked bread, with its aromatic allure, has a unique texture,” says Andrew Carter, founder of Leon Bistro and a Culinary Institute of America alumnus, “crusty on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside. This interplay of textural contrasts is a sensory delight. And, its comforting flavors come from the Maillard reaction during baking, resulting in the sweet, toasty flavor undertones.”

The best garlic bread has a secret ingredient and takes 10 minutes

Or maybe it’s the butter. Echoing Anthony Bourdain’s famed insight that a generous amount of butter is your favorite restaurant’s secret ingredient in everything, Dan Gallagher, an ISSA Certified Nutritionist with Aegle Nutrition, states simply, “The secret to bread and butter is in the butter.” As Gallagher explains, “Fat is a great way to increase flavor and butter is almost exclusively fat. Adding butter to your bread makes your bread taste so much better, which is why it’s such a classic, albeit simple staple for many people.” Fat is also necessary for brain function and mood, and studies including a 2018 paper published in the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology show a link between low fat diets and depression.

“The secret to bread and butter is in the butter.”

Or maybe it’s just the power couple effect. Bread and butter is “the quintessential comfort food combo,” according to Rosie Elliott, owner of the recipe and advice site Kitchen Appliance Answer. “As a chef,” she says, “I completely understand the enduring appeal.” For Elliott, the pleasure begins even before the first bite. “It truly satisfies on every level. The feel of a fresh loaf, still warm from the oven, crunching slightly as you slice it open — pure tactile joy. That first inhale of the yeasty aroma as it hits your senses? Heavenly. In a health-conscious world of low-carb and gluten-free,” she says, “the simple pleasure of buttered bread endures. That perfect bite will always reign supreme in my book.”

“In a health-conscious world of low-carb and gluten-free, the simple pleasure of buttered bread endures.”

Elliott’s awareness of bread and butter’s place in our world of dietary taboos rings true. So I wonder if some of the thrill of bread and butter might come in the pure indulgence of it all.

Like plenty of Americans, I have lived a life steeped in diet culture, where burgers were ordered without buns and the fridge always contained a tub of Shedd’s Spread. There is a primal place in my psyche that can’t forget the sight of my mother nervously pushing away any restaurant bread basket as if it were a bowl of snakes. And so while I regularly get my carbs and fats from more conventionally approved sources like sweet potatoes and avocados, I’m also happy to embrace the utter frivolousness of bread and butter. After surviving the eras of South Beach, Atkins, keto, paleo, Whole 30 and all their ilk, it feels amazing to silence the inner critic that says that you could just avoid them altogether, the warnings that they’ll spoil your waistline or at least your appetite.

Fortunately, time has eroded some of bread and butter’s bad reputation.

Writing in the New York Times in 2014, Mark Bittman pointed out that “The real villains in our diet — sugar and ultra-processed foods — are becoming increasingly apparent,” and recommended, “You can go back to eating butter, if you haven’t already.” The wisdom of Bittman’s advice to “abandon fake food for real food” also explains why that Paris breakfast was so wonderful. It was just good, real food. It was fresh, well made bread made from good flour that came from good wheat. It was golden butter made from high quality cream from very special cows.

You don’t have to go to France to experience the beauty of bread and butter (but I’m down if you want to go). It’s just about giving yourself permission to enjoy the real thing with real gusto. Rarely in life do we give ourselves that kind of permission, to eat with gratitude instead of apology. I think that’s at least part of why that French breakfast was so transformative.

To my mind, the ne plus ultra is a warm baguette (freshly baked or gently heated up in the oven) with a swoosh of high butterfat, salted butter, applied generously enough to leave bite marks when you nibble on it. But I’d be hard pressed to turn down any variation. Toasted brioche with butter and jam is not just delicious but possibly the best smelling thing in the world. The European custom of adding some ribbony ham or a line of anchovies on top of a buttered slice of bread is a classic for a reason. But there is something startlingly elemental about sticking with those two humble ingredients. They’re comforting, they’re nostalgic, they’re perfect.

In the weeks since that memorable recent morning in Paris, I’ve found myself returning again and again to that unbeatable combination, keeping a block of salted butter on the counter and picking up small, crunchy rolls for myself in the morning. It’s bliss. I still love olive oil and I still eat fruits and vegetables. But these days, I am trying hard to put into practice that life is about balance, and remember that we do not live by plant-based poke bowls alone. “It’s about connecting to something basic yet profound,” says Andrew Carter, “connecting to the earth, the simplicity of life, and the comfort of home. That’s a universal appeal, transcending cultures, cuisines, trends, and dietary preferences. In a world increasingly moving towards the complex and the elaborate, the bread and butter duo is a reminder that sometimes, the most straightforward things can bring us the most pleasure.”

about the comfort foods we crave

What an orphan owl taught an ecologist about bird intelligence

Owls are associated with intelligence, which isn’t surprising, because these birds have incredible smarts and even distinct personalities, as ecologist Carl Safina learned firsthand. After he and his wife Patricia rescued a baby screech owl that couldn’t be returned to the wild, they learned a lot about what owls are really like, as it grew up and raised its own baby owls.

In one example, Alfie, the name they settled on for the bird, sat on her eggs for a week longer than she needed to. They were never going to hatch; indeed, they hadn’t even been fertilized. No one can know for sure what was going on in Alfie’s mind, but there is a plausible clue: Her lifelong mate had disappeared, and she had been screeching persistently ever since.

Apparently, instead of finding an alternative mate, Alfie waited and waited and waited — until she finally laid a clutch of unfertilized eggs.

“She is very much an individual and a character.”

Does this mean that Alfie sat on those eggs for longer than necessary for emotional reasons? It’s hard to say for sure, but it seems like a plausible hypothesis after reading “Alfie & Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe.” Written by

Safina, an endowed professor for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, “Alfie & Me” is the story of how Safina and his wife rescued a baby owl and became entangled in its life. Although they had initially planned on only keeping Alfie for a short period, a chain of random events — most notable among them the COVID-19 pandemic — conspired to keep humans and owls constant in each other’s orbit.

A philosopher of science explains how birds perceive time and space differently than humans

The result is a story that challenges human assumptions about owls. On a cultural level, people revere owls, associating them with intelligence. In Greek mythology, owls were associated with wisdom and the goddess Athena. We also fear owls: The medieval Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch painted owls as ominous, a motif that appears in art throughout history. Owls can also be linked with death, such as how Hawaiian mythology holds that pueos lead the recently deceased to the afterlife. Finally, there are the people who take a dimmer view of owlkind and dismiss them as little more than dumb birds.

It’s understandable why owls have captivated humans across different cultures. It is impossible to read this book without concluding that owls are the very least have distinct personalities — which by extension means they possess some level of intelligence. On occasions the owls seem relatable on almost a human level: Alfie struggles with separating from her parent figures, warding off bullies and finding a mate, just as humans do. For all the world, Alfie seems to react to situations with sincere emotional responses. She is not just a random animal found in someone’s backyard; if souls are indeed a thing that exists, Alfie — and, again by extension, all screech owls — have one.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

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“With very young animals, when something is wrong and they have no reason to understand what it should be like, you usually don’t see them reacting the way that an adult might if an adult had a capacity that they lost.”

What are your main observations about owl sentience based on your experiences raising Alfie? Do you believe owls possess the same gamut of emotions as humans?

No, not the same, but overlapping. We have the vertebrate nervous system in common. We have a lot of the exact same hormones that create mood and motivation. And because things that make sense to me make sense to her in the same way, you can see that there are overlapping emotions. For instance, she likes some physical affection. She likes to get her head scratched. She likes a little bit of preening around the face, and she obviously knows and recognizes what food is.

We share a couple of those things. She shares a maternal drive, that is an instinctual urge to take care of her offspring. So not the same, but not completely different.

I’m thinking of the anecdote in your book where Alfie was seemingly unaware of her own deformity while flapping around with her partially formed feathers. How did you know what she was emotionally experiencing at that time? How were you aware of her own sense of self?

Oh, I’m not sure I know what she was emotionally experiencing when she was a very young chick. Her feathers did not come in, but she was ready to fly. She was trying to fly, but her body wouldn’t cooperate with her. Since she had no experience of flying, it’s not something that she could have quite missed. I guess it’s reasonable to infer that she had some slight inkling that something was wrong. With very young animals, when something is wrong and they have no reason to understand what it should be like, you usually don’t see them reacting the way that an adult might if an adult had a capacity that they lost.

That makes sense. In another part of the book, the first time you tried to let Alfie wander on her own in their backyard, she and a group of blue jays started screeching at each other. Did you ever wonder during that exchange, or during other exchanges between Alfie and those blue jays, what they were saying to each other? If this was a movie and you could put on subtitles, what would those subtitles have said?

I think that the blue jays are clearly trying to drive a threat away from them and out of their territory. I think that Alfie felt threatened, which she was, because the blue jays are about the same size as a screech owl. Screeches are small owls. She was being confronted by a mobbing group of other birds that were almost her size who were threatening her, trying to hit her. They would’ve been very happy to knock her out of the tree. They were mostly trying to get her to fly out of their territory. And I think she quite reasonably recognized them as a threat. She was threatening back as best she could, but I think that with no prior experience, she was a little bit bewildered in the moment and felt like, “This is a threat to me.” And she was trying to defend herself vocally. So I think they were saying, “Get out of here!” And she was saying, “Stay away from me!”

“Their experiences might not be as intricate as some of the ways we think about things, but I think that their view of the details of life around them is very clear and very vivid to them.”

I want to imagine that animals have complex thoughts and therefore complex exchanges with each other. Perhaps I’m anthropomorphizing them a bit, but when I was reading this book, Alfie didn’t seem like some ticking machine with pre-programmed instructions, simply running through a cycle. She seemed like a character, like an individual.

She is very much an individual and a character. The individuality of her species is something that I saw when her first mate that she had for two years. And this is now after where the book ends off, after her first breeding season, but that mate, who I called Plus One, came back the next year and did not return the third year.

You wrote that you believed he might have been injured during a hurricane?

Yeah, but then he returned and then the following year he did not come back, which indicates that for some reason he died the year after he did not come back. She got a new mate, and that new mate’s personality was very, very different from the first one. So [owls] are individuals.

How are their personalities different?

The first one was taking his cues from her about whether he needed to be concerned about our presence or us being in fairly close proximity, like 30 feet away or so, while they were at their nest and mating and doing all their normal owl stuff. The second mate — and I saw that first mate essentially every single day, often multiple times — the second mate, I saw him once before the eggs hatched, whereas the first one I saw probably 40 times before the eggs hatched.

The second mate was much more elusive and he was much more aggressive toward me. He didn’t like me anywhere near the nest or the young ones. He would often try to drive me away, come strafing and threatening, and an alarming thing about that is their flight is completely silent. So if they’re coming out of your field of vision, which they usually do because they know what they’re doing, you don’t have any idea. Until they’re right on top of you. In his case, he would usually scream at me, but once he just smacked me on the side of the head after the young ones were out of the nest and I was trying to locate them in the woods.

He just had a very different personality and a much dimmer view of me than the first one. And I think that the reality of the situation is somewhere in between them having very complex thoughts and them being ticking machinery. I think they have thoughts. I think they have very short planning horizons like “I’m going to go here now” or “I’m going to look for my mate” or “I’m going to go hunting now” or “I’m gonna bring this food back to the nest.” And I think that they have very vivid experiences. Their experiences might not be as intricate as some of the ways we think about things, but I think that their view of the details of life around them is very clear and very vivid to them.

“I think owls are creatures. I don’t think they are here to represent anything.”

How do you know that Plus One didn’t simply break up with Alfie? You assume that Plus One is dead, but is it possible that Plus One and Alfie merely had an owl equivalent of divorce?

That is almost impossible because many studies have shown that with most birds, if they’re successful in breeding, they almost never break up. If things are going well between them, and well between them usually means that they are able to raise young ones, which they did two years in a row, then he should come back. But they don’t live forever and things happen. And I think something happened to him. I don’t know how old he was. He may have just died of old age. He may have been hit by a car. He may have hit a window. He might been killed by a hawk — or another owl. We have horned owls here that would happily eat a screech owl if they could. So I think he died and I think that’s why he didn’t come back.

I’m sorry to hear that.

Well, thank you! She was certainly looking for him. As the breeding season approached, she did a lot of really loud calling. It was actually quite sad to see. Her hormones all worked according to the season as they normally would. And she laid a clutch of eggs, but without a mate, none of them were fertile. None of them hatched. She incubated them about a week longer than she would’ve needed to if they hatched. So she was keeping the faith and the world had failed her that year.

It was very distressing for me and really sad to see. I was really very, very elated and delighted and excited when I did see that second mate. I think the second mate was quite young because their first attempts at actual physical mating copulation, he looked like he didn’t quite know what he was doing and it was pretty awkward, which is something I would’ve said about her the first year with her first mate. I was watching her sort of develop that skill for physical mating. It was so interesting watching all of these things develop.

In your book, you repeatedly describe different ways in which owls have been represented in culture: From Hieronymus Bosch and Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. What cultural depictions of owls do you believe are most accurate?

I think owls are creatures. I don’t think they are here to represent anything. We attribute and apply our own concepts and our fears and our hopes to them. I think we mostly do that because they’re rather unusual birds. They have faces that look very relatable to us, and they move around in the dark, which for most of human history was a very scary time. So people have come up with their own and totally different views of what characteristics they want to attribute onto owls, but to me, owls are birds. They’re creatures with an evolutionary history and behavioral and emotional capabilities.

And I just find them delightful in many ways. They have very interesting little personalities because they operate sort of at a humanly relatable scale of time. In other words, they’re not very jittery, like little songbirds are. And they like to preen one another. So if you happen to raise an orphan like we did with Alfie, that desire to be preened is very relatable. Because we like to pet things. They like to get petted.

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What broader lessons do you think humans should learn about owls based on what you describe in your book about your relationship with Alfie?

All of these creatures are around us at, even when we don’t notice them and don’t realize they are. I know from talking to some of my neighbors, some of them are aware of some of the animals that live in our neighborhood and some of them have no idea about some of the things that are quite commonly carrying on with their own lives here. That many of the wild animals are actually individuals with individual personalities. They all are always trying to stay alive. They don’t seem to get depressed or want to commit suicide. They want to be alive and they want to raise their babies. And in that way, the broad strokes of their lives are very, very similar to our own, because we really are all members of one great enterprise of life on Earth.

about birds

Your weekend brunch needs 3-ingredient spicy bacon cinnamon rolls

Spicy bacon cinnamon rolls are so good that they should be illegal. Fair warning: eating these more than once a month could lead to sore knees, a bum ticker and other problems. Another fair warning: these babies are worth the pain and more.

This two-ingredient combination finally got me excited for “clean eating”

Here’s a healthy update — the economy sucks, the Supreme Court (mainly Clarence Thomas) is for sale, Trump will be running the first presidential campaign from jail and we have no idea who our country’s next president will be, so we deserve a the biggest cheat day anyone can imagine.

Now, I’m no expert on dieting. However, I believe that chasing cheat days could lead to failure, mainly because those weekly cravings turn into daily desires, ultimately defeating the purpose. So, what does work? Monthly or bi-monthly cheat days. Again, I’m no diet expert, but this method has worked for me, a guy down a modest six pounds. And to celebrate my weight loss and distract myself from the pain that is America — I offer my own spicy bacon cinnamon rolls. I know it sounds wild, but sweet, spicy, and savory go together like our government and letdowns, the same letdowns forcing this cheat day.

The origin of the spicy bacon cinnamon rolls is not that complex and I am embarrassed that I didn’t figure this out long ago. I was at a brunch buffet with one of the most beautiful spreads anyone has ever seen: pancakes, French toast, pickled eggs, three types of bacon, smoked salmon filets, fried lobster, fried cat fish, an omelet station, grits and big, beautiful, sticky cinnamon rolls.

I was on a mission to try a little of everything, failing because it was all so good. My last plate had catfish, turkey bacon, and eggs; I needed a biscuit. The biscuits were gone, and the wait was 10 to 15 minutes. I didn’t want to wait, so I grabbed a cinnamon roll. Someone once said God doesn’t make mistakes and it’s very accurate because a splash of hot sauce meant for my catfish hit my cinnamon roll, and I loved it. I then put a little egg on the roll, which I didn’t care for. Finally, I forked hunk of cinnamon roll, bacon, and hot sauce; it was heaven. After eating, I felt that this Godly mistake needed to be intentional.

The following Sunday, I made a can of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls instead of waffles or pancakes and served them with bacon—the same result. So I decided to Google cinnamon rolls and bacon recipes, which landed me on a collection of gems to perfect this experimental dish.

What most of the recipes did, that I never would have thought of, is frying the bacon partially, rolling it into the dough used to make the cinnamon rolls, and then baking it–– perfection.

Cook’s Notes

There are plenty of recipes for homemade cinnamon rolls, however, I’ve been using the store-bought brand, like a pedestrian, and it has not let me down. Also, I don’t eat pork, even though most recipes recommend pork bacon.

Spicy bacon cinnamon rolls

Yields

5 servings

Prep Time

10 minutes

Cook Time

13-17 minutes

Ingredients

1 can of Pillsbury Grands cinnamon rolls

5 strips of bacon, turkey or pork

Your favorite hot sauce (I like Red Rooster)

Directions

Fry the bacon until it’s almost crispy. Remove from the pan.
Pop open the Grands cinnamon rolls and separate the dough into five long strips. Place a slice of bacon on top of each of the long strips, and roll them together as usual.
Bake the rolls per the instructions on the container and watch the bacon rise in between the different layers. Apply the icing that comes with the rolls.
Dip in your favorite hot sauce and be in heaven.

about this topic

AOC calls Kevin McCarthy “weak,” siding with Gaetz’s move to get him out of there

On Sunday, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., announced his plan to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his position and in a rare opportunity for agreement, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is backing that call.

In an appearance on “State of the Union” this weekend, AOC was asked to chime in on the speaker’s performance as of late, and she gave a less than glowing review.

“It’s not up to Democrats to save Republicans. From themselves, especially,” she said, offering that McCarthy never had her vote in the first place.

When asked specifically if she would vote to vacate, she was quick to answer, “Absolutely,” adding that she thinks McCarthy is a “very weak speaker.”

“He clearly has lost control of his caucus,” she furthered, driving her point home.

In his own interview on Sunday, McCarthy appeared on “Face the Nation,” seeming to shrug this all off. “I’ll survive,” he said, calling the challenge from Gaetz “personal.”

“He’s more interested in securing TV interviews,” he added. “Let’s get over with it. Let’s start governing. If he’s upset because he tried to push us into a shutdown and I made sure government didn’t shut down, then let’s have that talk.”

Calm down, everybody: An ugly election is coming — but younger voters will save us

Remember those yard signs and bumper stickers during the 2020 presidential campaign that said “Any Functioning Adult”?

Well, here we find ourselves again, having been let down by the corporate media’s less-than-robust concept of news, wading thigh-deep through the Trumpian “flood the zone with s**t” strategy all over again, this time not to the ironic soundtrack of the Village People’s “YMCA” but Lauren Boebert’s version of “Beetlejuice.”

There’s plenty of good news about Joe Biden’s accomplishments and his standing as president to be heard from thoughtful citizens and U.S. allies around the globe, but you won’t hear much of that from corporate media, ever-focused on the horse-race angle and not on the plain reality that we have a solid and even strong president running against a criminal sociopath who is seeking the office to stay out of prison and become a quasi-dictator to take revenge on his enemies and destroy democracy.

No, the coverage has been largely about Biden’s “negatives” — his age and supposed unpopularity — not about the other candidate, who is also old and obviously unhealthy, as well as being a sociopath and would-be despot.

All the media noise could make reasonable people anxious enough to need some counseling.

Can’t we all get along? Actually, no — not when the other side behaves like that

In a recent Rumble podcast, filmmaker Michael Moore provides that help, inviting a well-known psychologist he introduced as “Dr. Mike” to help us avoid unreasonable fear about recent polls that show Biden doing poorly in a matchup against the twice-impeached, multiply indicted guy.

That episode, “Self-Help for Frightened Liberals,” is well worth your time. (Moore has been prescient about elections before, including the 2016 catastrophe and the 2022 midterms.) One of his most salient arguments about why you shouldn’t worry is the simple fact that the younger voting population is getting larger every year. Those voters want action on climate change, LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, voting rights and the right for all of us to be safe from people who write manifestos and fetishize guns. They are motivated.

Questionable polling aside — in a recent CNN poll that showed 61% of voters disapproving of Biden’s job as president, 60% of those polled identified as Republican — Moore (er, that is, Dr. Mike) had this to say about the Republican Party’s appeal:

The American people left the Republican Party a long time ago, even before Trump…. The vast majority of Americans disagree with virtually everything the Republicans stand for. And in the 30 years since Daddy Bush was elected — that’s 1988 — there have been eight presidential elections, and only once in 35 years have the American people given the popular vote to the Republican. That one election, in 2004, the Republican candidate for president won by only 100,000 votes. That’s it. So, in these 35 years, over and over and over again, the American people, your neighbors, have said they want the Republicans out of office, to go away.

In an appearance on the “PBS NewsHour” last week, League of Women Voters president Deborah Turner spoke about trying to appeal to younger voters: “Lining them up with the reasons to vote and how voting affects their lives is how we get them to the polls.” When asked by anchor Geoff Bennett about the perception on the right that higher voter turnout works best for Democrats and hurts Republicans, Turner had a simple answer:

It depends on where you are. But the key is that, when everybody is registered and everybody votes, the results will end up to be what the people want. And that has nothing to do with whether you are a Democrat or a Republican. So, when we register voters, we don’t even ask what their party is. We simply say, “We want you to vote, we want you to be registered, and we want you to go to the polls and express your feelings, so that your representatives can represent you, your ideas, and your community.”

It’s not her organization’s problem, in other words, that Republicans have long since stopped trying to compete for the hearts and minds of the majority of voters through policy ideas and good governance, and turned instead to cynical, undemocratic and profoundly divisive rhetoric, along with gerrymandering and voter suppression to help them retain minority control as long as possible.

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In the same PBS segment, Bennett played Turner a clip of an interview with Nora Vinas, deputy executive director at Engage Miami, a nonprofit working to engage young people in elections. She was asked why young people are getting more motivated to vote:

I think when you affect anyone in their day-to-day — what they can read, where they can go, who they can love — all of that makes people feel a certain rage and confusion about why it is happening. So, unfortunately, I think we have culture wars. And these assaults on books. And I also think it’s a big motivator for young people to pay attention, and to care.

I would add that most Americans I’ve talked to personally want actual adults in positions of government power (hence, those 2020 yard signs). They are embarrassed and exhausted by the Donald Trump’s endless nihilistic antics and those of his slavish cult members — Jim Jordan, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene; it’s exhausting even to list them. Those are all people who could not possibly have success in any industry outside the craven world of MAGA politics, where nothing matters but loyalty to the Hamberder King (which he will assuredly not reciprocate).

Retiring Republican Sen. Mitt Romney was correct when he told compulsive fabricator Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., “You don’t belong here.” But that wasn’t nearly enough: He should have said that about a slew of so-called conservatives, especially members of the House Freedom Caucus and the Senate’s “sedition caucus.”

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Let’s get back to the soothing message from Dr. Mike, shall we? He urged us to stop paying attention to polls and the media noise and absorb some salient facts:

How about this fact? In the eight years and three months since Trump came down the golden escalator in Trump Tower to announce he was running for president, in that time, over 32 million 17-year-olds turned 18. Thirty-two million young Americans became eligible to vote…. And I don’t think you need me to tell you: They. Don’t. Like. Trump. They hate him.

Younger people (members of Gen Z, millennials and even most Gen X voters) would probably prefer a new generation of leaders. Yes, some are probably unhappy about facing a choice between a 77-year-old and an 80-year-old. But they want actual adults in charge, not angry toddlers or wannabe fascists. There’s more than enough chaos in the world; we don’t need more of it in government.

Any reasonable person, of any age, who listens to the media incessantly drone on about Joe Biden’s age and perceived mental acuity might scratch their head and wonder why Donald Trump’s stupendously confused and incoherent utterances are hardly ever mentioned.

Younger people are probably unhappy about facing a choice between a 77-year-old and an 80-year-old. But they also want actual adults in charge, not angry toddlers or wannabe fascists.

The mainstream media may not want to come right out and identify Trump as a doddering, dangerous fool, but most younger people know one when they see one. They can also recognize lies and tell them apart from facts — and they can also recognize incompetence and even outright evil when they encounter it. Younger people know that far-right religious zealots want to take us back to the Middle Ages (when America was, uh, great?) and that a system where people are rewarded for loyalty to a wannabe dictator, not on talent or merit, threatens to undo many decades of social progress.

The fundamental questions before voters are simple enough: Who will tell us the truth, and who will do the hard work of governing? Who will stand up for our democratic system and try to bolster and improve it, rather than lie about it and tear it down? Who will stand up for working people and the poor? Who will address the world’s most pressing concerns, like climate change and the rise of disinformation and agents of hate?

Is it the clear-minded, empathetic grandfatherly man with a long record of service as a senator, vice president and president or is it the vulgar, corrupt serial fraudster who after four years in the White House still lacks any understanding of government, who has been indicted on dozens of felony counts in four different jurisdictions, has been found liable for sexual assault, tells lies every time he opens his mouth and relies on incoherent fragments of word salad and meaningless catchphrases?

Is it the pro-union president, or is it the faux-“pro-worker” faux billionaire?

Like the vast majority of us, but unlike the short-attention-span managers of mainstream media, young voters understand how best to answer those questions.

from Kirk Swearingen

“You cannot convince someone to be with you”: How to survive—and thrive—in “The Heartbreak Years”

Minda Honey opens her memoir, “The Heartbreak Years,” by taking us back to 2008, “a time before Tinder, before Uber, before Amazon same-day delivery.” She was 23 and living in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she had just been sabotaged out of her first post-college corporate job by a racist boss, when she drove both the car and the boyfriend she’d had since high school across the country to Orange County, California, to house-sit for his grandparents. Her boyfriend had a dream to pursue there and, as she writes, she “was just content to flee the cold.”

The relationship didn’t last, but Honey stayed in California for several years, with a detour in Denver, before returning home to Louisville, Kentucky, where she lives today. In this sparkling debut, Honey — editor of Black Joy at Reckon News, erstwhile advice columnist and media entrepreneur, and former director of the BFA in Creative Writing program at Spalding University, where I also teach — chronicles with generous humor and self-awareness the highs and lows of partying, hooking up, dating and breaking up with a series of memorable young men in Obama-era Southern California, while also trying on a series of professional identities before she committed to her writing career.

Honey writes about her younger self with clarity and empathy, as a Black millennial woman whose pursuit of a relationship was, in her 20s, equally informed by the romance stories she grew up with and the wider media and cultural messages that warned her, “Single women aren’t taken seriously. Men are allowed to live their fullest lives before settling down, but a woman’s life doesn’t begin until she settles down.”

I sat down with Honey recently at Trouble Bar in Louisville, where she has a cocktail named after her (order the Storyteller with or without the booze), to talk about memoir writing, her best advice for young single people, and what people — especially people in blue states — get wrong about the South.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

I was always taught to “write for your best reader,” and you were probably taught this too. Who is that for you? Who did you write this memoir for?

I’m writing it for my present-day self, and women like me whose lives have not followed the traditional path, because it can feel very lonely. You know, we’re in the South, we’re in the Bible Belt. So sometimes I feel like I’m literally the only person who’s not married with children. So I want people to know they’re not alone in this. And then I’m also writing it for those folks who are in their early and mid-20s, and they’re feeling kind of lost, and things are very uncertain. You can do this; you’re going to come out on the other side of this just fine.

A few years ago, I remember I was on the phone with a friend who’s [about] eight years younger than me, and she had moved to a new city to be with a boyfriend who then broke up with her and told her she had to go back home. And I said, no, no, he can break up with you if he wants to. But you can decide if you go back. And then I [thought], why am I so passionate about this? Oh, wait, I learned this. I did this. And I have a friend right now who’s going through something kind of similar. It can be scary.

I think this book is for those folks. If you’ve endured a heartbreak, and you’ve had to decide whether or not you’re going to go back home on your own terms; if you’ve ever had a rocky workplace situation — because that was also a subtle thread through the book.

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I really appreciated that as well. The book opens with this great line. “2008: Great year for Obama, trash year for Minda.” You’re 23, you moved cross country with your high school sweetheart to Southern California. Can you walk us through — for anybody who wasn’t dating in the mid-Aughts — how different it was then?

I guess that’s a little hard to say. Southern California’s culture is so different from the South. And so in some ways, even though it’s the same timeline — we were all living in 2008 — to go from the South to Southern California was almost like time traveling because there was this drastically different dating culture.

In Louisville, I knew plenty of people who were with their high school sweethearts, or their college sweethearts, who were very young and in these long-term relationships, or living with partners very early on and having every intent of marrying this person, having children, settling down. That was the vision. So when I moved to California, suddenly all my new friends were becoming single right around the same time that all of my Kentucky friends were getting married and having babies and buying houses. It was this totally different world. I felt like I [had been] dropped down in the middle of the movie. Everyone else had already been dabbling in online dating and engaging in hookup culture and doing all these things. And I was like, Oh, I’m late to the party here. I gotta play catch up.

The book scenes take place mostly in Southern California, a stint in Denver. Your story isn’t the typical, “moved to LA to make it in the industry” narrative. But it’s also not a “dark side of the City of Angels” gritty tale of how people come to California to chase their dreams and then they die. Those are two types of Southern California books I’ve read versions of. What kind of California story were you interested in telling in this book?

For me, California was just someplace I ended up. I moved to Orange County because that’s where my ex’s grandparents’ house was. I talk about this in the book — he was following his dance dreams, and I was just trying to figure out what to do next after quitting my job. So I didn’t ever really have any ambitions of “making it big in the big city.” At some point, after I’d been in Orange County for a few years, I took a job that moved me up to LA. I would say probably for almost the first week that I was in my LA apartment, I was so overwhelmed — by the city, the traffic, all the people. I felt like I’d done so much more than move an hour north. It was pretty overwhelming. So because of that I was just doing pretty typical, standard 20-something things, like making friends, going on dates, going out to parties, and LA just happened to be the backdrop for that.

“Women have been taught to be more invested in a man’s potential than their own.”

I do think that it makes a difference — this book wasn’t taking place in Chicago or New York — because we’re contending with all of the stereotypes about LA. You know, all the beauty and the vanity and the [assumption that] nobody wants to settle down until they’re 45. All of those things are at play too.

And like you said, because I wasn’t — I mean, per my Amazon reviewers, I did a lot of drinking, I had a lot of sex. [Laughs.] But I wasn’t doing drugs. Like you said, I wasn’t part of the gritty dark scene of the city. I wasn’t trying to become an actress. I was a mop bucket salesman in LA. So in these different ways, I was also undermining the stereotype of what it is to be in LA.

Speaking of stereotypes, we’re sitting in what a lot of people would consider flyover country, in one of the liberal-ish bubbles of the Bible Belt. What was that like for you, as somebody who grew up here in Louisville, to move away and then come back in your 30s?

Growing up, I would always meet adults who had left Louisville and moved someplace like LA or New York and then moved back, and I was so baffled. I was like, Why would you come back? But I don’t know what it is — it’s like you’re a wind-up doll, and at some point, the switch flips: It’s time to go back, I gotta go back to Louisville. And even when I was out West, I came home at least once a year, maybe twice a year. And there was something revitalizing about being back in Louisville, feeling like I wasn’t so out of context. All my family’s here. My high school friends are here. My college friends are here. It was just something that felt familiar. But to come back in my 30s, you know, that was different because a lot of people had gotten married and had kids, so they were in a very different place in their life than I was when I came back. It also meant that the dating pool was very limited, because everybody was off the market. And now I’m dealing with the divorcees. Maybe that’ll be the second book.

The aftermarket.

It’s not promising, Erin, it’s not promising.

A thing that happens in places where people get married in their early 20s is that a lot of them get divorced in their 30s and 40s. [Disclosure: I did!]

I have no judgment! I have cheered on all of my friends. But the problem dating those men who are newly back on the market is that it’s a very short trajectory from you feeling sympathetic for him about, you know, the “awful ex-wife” he had to endure, and all of a sudden being Team Her: You know what? I see what she saw.

To go back to the question about stereotypes, are there misconceptions that you’ve encountered that people outside of Kentucky or the South have about this region? And does that come up in your writing?

Particularly in this era that I’m covering in the book, there were a lot of political stereotypes that came to mind. You know, we see it all the time. I wrote a piece for Salon about Charles Booker, Mitch McConnell and Daniel Cameron. We get a lot of flak about Mitch McConnell in Kentucky being in power. But y’all — that doesn’t happen on just the backs of Kentuckians. Who lines Mitch McConnell’s pockets? Kentucky is a very poor state. That man built up that money from donors like you, donors from your state, you know. So all of it is interconnected. And I don’t think that in other parts of the country, they realize how much the South undergirds so much of what happens in this country: the relevance, the importance of the South, all of the Civil Rights movements and activists who are coming out of the South who are fighting that fight day in, day out.

And I think they also have this idea that where they live is a utopia. No. I was in California when Prop 8 [banning same-sex marriage in 2008] passed. I experienced racism in California. When you think about George Floyd, that [happened] in a Northern city. Racism is happening everywhere. In the South, it’s just a little bit more visible. Somebody’s got their Confederate flag waving and it’s a lot more evident for me. Maybe I’m not going to go to that convenience store. Whereas in other parts of the country, it can be a lot more about subtext — a lot more reading between the lines, and a lot less surface level with the racism and the violence that you’re going to experience.

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There is also a thread of workplace and class and economics that is woven through your book that feels just as strong of a throughline to me as the search for a romantic partner, especially coming of age career-wise during the Great Recession. Can you talk about how that thread factored into the story you wanted to tell?

“You only have control over yourself in a relationship. There’s always going to be this other variable.”

I’m someone who’s worked a lot of jobs. I’ve probably worked over 30 jobs in my life. By the time I was 18, my dad refused to do my taxes anymore, because I would have like seven W-2s a year. I was a big job hopper. I just like knowing how places work. And that means I’ve experienced a lot of workplace cultures, and interacted with a lot of different kinds of people. And because I graduated in 2007— so, during the Great Recession — there were no jobs. I had a job, and it was a very competitive position. And for this program, I was the only Black person, I was the only person that had not been recruited from a top university. So, as competitive as that was, you don’t just stumble into that opportunity, you don’t luck into that opportunity, when you’re someone who came from a state school in Kentucky, right? I had to have had the credentials, had the skill set necessary to succeed in that role, which is why it was so upsetting to encounter the workplace racism and the kind of manager that I encountered who made me feel like I didn’t have what it took.

But I could see that a lot of the people who ended up in these positions were people who came from wealth, who had access in certain ways. And I’ve started to think about that more and more as I’ve gotten older. I’ve been a freelancer, I’ve been an entrepreneur, I’ve been a writer. So you can see the way that privilege weaves its way through all of that.

And it also gave me an opportunity to explore my own class privilege. I don’t have a family that could subsidize my writing career, but I was definitely able to stay at my mom’s house for a year while I hatched my freelance writing career. I was very comfortable — I had a very cozy bed, clean house, full fridge, and not everyone has access to things like that. I also had to think about a lot of the things that I had been taught to prioritize in my career, the ways in which all of those things were classist or xenophobic, and try to step away from that and be less invested in these ideas of success that had been drilled into kids in school during the ’90s.

We send these mixed messages, to girls especially. You have to be everything now. You’re going to be a straight A-student and gorgeous, and you’re going to get that romantic partner — check. Home — check. Family, if you want it — check. But at the same time, I do think that there are a lot of subtle pressures that tell women that you can’t be too invested in your career.

Yeah. You’ve got to be willing to shift your career into second gear to support your partner’s career. You have to be willing to move. You have to be willing to prioritize the opportunities that come their way. You have to be willing to take on all the additional household duties with a smile on your face. You have to be willing to have their child at the expense of your career. I touched on this in the book too.

Women have been taught to be more invested in a man’s potential than their own. And some of that is because you feel like if I help this person succeed, then I’m going to be in a relationship and have this financially stable life. Because guess what? You make 40 more cents on the dollar than I do. But you’re not owed anything.

[In the book] I mentioned “Waiting to Exhale,” where a woman puts a man through medical school or raises his kids and then gets left. There isn’t that stability there. But if you’re a woman who’s like, Well, I’m gonna do it for myself, I’m gonna go out on my own, if you fail at that, or you fail to find love, then you get blamed too. That’s your fault as well. So yeah, there’s no winning.

Minda Honey (Photo courtesy of Minda Honey)

It makes me think of the rom-com trope of the career gal who’s not taking off work for Christmas, and then she gets dragged back to her hometown and it turns out that happiness was right there living next door to her parents all along! We are in this rom-com boom age right now. People are seeking that out as a sort of comfort food. I am curious about the romance narratives that defined your adolescence and how they shaped or didn’t shape your approach to real-life romance — or at least, how you envisioned your future.

I read so many Harlequin romance novels as a kid. I love them. They were formulaic, they were predictable, but that brought me comfort. And I thought about the things that create stability, or that give you the impression of stability, like a happily married couple — if they have this love, then that’s going to emanate outwards to their children, and there’s going to be this stability. You’re just buckled in, you’re safe, like being wrapped in bubble wrap is to be in love. And so I went through my youth wanting to have this thing that I hadn’t seen at home. So [I thought], I’m going to succeed at this. I’m going to create this and then that’s what’s going to give me the stability and insulate me from all of the unpredictability of volatile relationships.

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Unfortunately, you only have control over yourself in a relationship. There’s always going to be this other variable. And also, unfortunately, you don’t come into the world as a fully emotionally mature adult. And — equally unfortunately — you don’t realize that you lack emotional maturity until much, much too late in life. So it wasn’t something I was able to achieve. But I think I also learned in the process that it was not a silver bullet, either.

The men in this book were so vividly written. I want to talk about Henry. A lot of men in this book, you know those types. But Henry was a fresh kind of guy for me to read about. At the same time, I feel like the Henry relationship is possibly more common than most people let on. Can you tell us a little bit about his importance to the book?

Chevy and Henry were always going to anchor this book because they anchored my romantic life in my 20s. They were very much two sides of the same coin: Men I could not have a long-term relationship with. It wasn’t even a coin, it was like a multi-sided die. I could have played Magic the Gathering, played tabletop role-playing games, with the multi-sided die of my dating life.

Henry, he’s such a complex person. And it was such a complicated, complex relationship. It was something that I was able to see differently once I got older, and once our culture shifted a little bit more. In the moment, it was very frustrating to be in a relationship with somebody who was so romantic, and in a lot of ways giving me all the things that I wanted, and did not want to be in a relationship, and did not want to be physical in any type of way. Didn’t want to kiss, didn’t want to sleep together. And this went on for years, this open-endedness. As I got older, I realized some of what was going on: We just didn’t have the language for what Henry and I were in. We were in a romantic platonic relationship.

We weren’t talking about asexuality back then, you know. I think people were having a lot of really flat conversations — like accusing men of being gay — but that wouldn’t have made our relationship make any more sense. It would still have been equally baffling.

“We have these desires that we’re developing as young people and there’s not really a lot of safe spaces to explore those.”

Even though that situation was very frustrating for me, it also brought me a lot of healing. Because there was a romantic component to this friendship. We cuddled, we held hands. I could lean on him. He takes me out on that really sweet date after that man tried to take me to a motel in the middle of the day against my will. And that allowed me to feel safe, you know, to feel like I could express this light physical intimacy with a man and know that he’s not going to try to push the boundary — nothing that I don’t want to happen will happen. I’m completely safe with this person.

[With Henry] I had almost a sandbox to explore romance in a safe way that I really wish a lot of young people had access to. At one point, I say that wanting is a welcome mat for danger. We have these desires that we’re developing as young people and there’s not really a lot of safe spaces to explore those. And in a lot of ways, Henry was able to give me that in my 20s. It was really important to include him in the book. One of the notes my editor wrote: I could just read an entire book about you and Henry.

And the cultural trope — again, going back to the rom-com — that we’ve been taught to expect is eventually the happily ever after should come with the Henry character, right? Here’s “a good guy,” who’s courtly even. In the bad, late-’90s cable version of this story, Minda’s sowing her wild oats but eventually realizes he’s the one, and then they get married and have babies and whatever. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Henry in this book could help give us a wider vocabulary for talking about what a happy ending really is for Minda, and Henry, separately.

It doesn’t have to be a forever story to be a good story. But the other thing that’s complicated about Henry was that even though he was very charming and very sweet and romantic, he was just as evasive and dishonest and unwilling to be transparent and vulnerable with me as Chevy, as any of the other men. And that, in its own way, was also very challenging and difficult to deal with. Maybe even more so because it came in such a beautiful package with this big, bright red bow on top. Whereas with some of the other men, it was a lot easier to realize this guy is no good. We can see it from a mile away.

And men, as we’re told, are lonely. There’s an epidemic of male loneliness, the headlines tell us, and the pundits are saying, essentially, that maybe this is a problem for women to solve. Even if they’re not outright saying that, it’s between the lines, because the assumption goes also that women have caused the problem because we don’t need to marry them in our teens and 20s anymore. I’m curious about what it’s like right now to be talking about reflecting on writing about dating in your 20s with men who were emotionally not able to connect intimately with you or anybody else, in the midst of the “men are lonely and here’s what we should we all be doing about it” discourse?

You really only have control over yourself, what you bring to a relationship, and what you’re willing to accept in a relationship. That’s all you can control. I [wrote] about how I was treating Chevy like a Rubik’s Cube — he was this puzzle that I could figure out and if I just did this or I did that, then he would love me or he would, you know, want to be with me. You cannot convince someone to be with you. You cannot convince someone to be vulnerable with you. You cannot convince someone to do right by you. You can be vulnerable, you can do right by them. And then you can hope that they’re going to do the same thing. And if they aren’t, you should probably go. You can decide to stay but what I have learned from personal experiences is you should probably go. You should go right now, you should go very quickly.

We can’t change the men. The men have to change themselves. And that’s just the reality of it. So I hope that they love themselves and they love the company of us enough to want to do that emotional work, and I guess I will be waiting over here on the sidelines for them to do so.

At one point in the book, there’s a scene in a gay club, and this is one of those lines I highlighted: “I wondered why there were no overtly sexual places for straight women calibrated for our comfort.” If we could dream for a minute, what would that look like?

What would that look like? I immediately thought of really puffy, plush-like couches. And cutesy clothes — you should be able to show up in your regular everyday clothes and then a fantasy wardrobe you get to change into [appears], and you get to lounge on these puffy couches. There are going to be potential partners that you’re interested in, and you should be able to flirt with them, and there should be this general consensus that no one’s going to try to take advantage of the fact that you might be interested in them. You should be able to express interest and that does not open you up to danger.

“You cannot convince someone to be vulnerable with you. You cannot convince someone to do right by you.”

What it would look like is basically the reality that we fake we have when we go to clubs, and we get cute, and we flirt, and we are just putting out of our minds that this is a dangerous situation for us. It would actually be a safe situation. There would be no false illusions of safety. It would just be real.

Aside from the magic of how your dream wardrobe choices appear in front of you — and the dry cleaning issue of the fluffy couches and the drinks — I’m struck by how reasonable and attainable this should be: How about we dream of being able to flirt with people in public and feel safe that no one’s going to try to assault us?

And then I can walk home in the dark by myself and think about what a lovely evening I had. And not have to try to be hyper-aware or scared every single moment of it.

This is what women want. Put it in your podcasts, men. You wrote an advice column for several years here in our local alt-weekly, LEO. Do you have a favorite piece of advice that you return to?

Yes. I’m not going to be able to remember it verbatim, but the question was something like, What do you do when you just feel like you’re not going to find your forever person? You’re tired of looking, you don’t think anyone’s ever going to want you and you’re just sad about it. I told the person, you know, at some point, you just have to face that fear. And you have to ask yourself: OK, so what if I just decide, fine, I’m not going to meet this person? I’m not going to let society bully me into keeping hope alive. I’m just going to call it now: I’m not meeting the person. What life is it that, that you would be living? What choices would you make? What are the things you would spend your time doing instead?

And then guess what? You go and you do all these fulfilling, wonderful things. And if the person does happen to come along, even better. But if they don’t, then you’re not spending all this time swiping through dating apps endlessly and being in this woe-is-me space. If you just start living as if this is going to be your reality — because the other thing about being in that place and feeling those feelings is that they come in waves, and they recede. So you’re not always going to feel like you’ve lost hope or like you’re unwanted. But sometimes you are going to feel that way. And that’s OK, too. But the lifeline, the anchor that you can hold on to until those feelings recede, is that I am creating and living a life that I want to create and live.

The Heartbreak Years: A Memoir by Minda Honey (Photo courtesy of Little A Publishing)

I’ve been thinking a lot about Maggie Smith’s memoir, “You Could Make This Place Beautiful,” lately. That recurring chapter title that she has: A friend says every book begins with an unanswerable question. Did yours?

I think my book started with a few unanswerable questions: Is it me? Will I find him? And what does it say about me if I don’t? And I think those questions are unanswerable because the answers to them aren’t that important. Oh, can I not find love because I am flawed in some way? You don’t need an answer to that question to go off and make yourself a better person. You don’t have to think about it in the context of dating and romance to [realize] there’s this thing about myself that I’m not comfortable with [so] let me go see a therapist, let me go pick up a hobby. You can do all of those things outside of the context of that question. Same thing with, Will I ever find him? I don’t know; life’s not a Magic 8 Ball. This book does not end with me finding him. You can’t answer that question until the moment it does or doesn’t happen.

I read Maggie Smith’s memoir, too. And what I really appreciated about it was that she allowed herself to really experience the full range of emotions. And having just written my own memoir, I know how hard that can be, because you don’t want to tip over too far in any one direction. You want to give other people grace [and] you want to give yourself grace. You also don’t want to water it down too much, either, and be like, Oh, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Because it kind of was. You wrote a whole chapter in a book about it. It matters.

That brings me to my final question. Who are you reading these days? What are you excited about?

Oh my gosh, I’m reading so many things right now. Right now I’m so in love with Destiny Hemphill’s “Motherworld.” It’s a poetry collection. The turns of phrase that Destiny is using, the chanting, the themes of mother and nature and our dystopian future that we’re heading into, are really incredible. I got an ARC of Ross Gay’s new “Book of More Delights,” so I’m excited to drop into that. But I also know that I’m going to be going in expecting the light and that he’s gonna hit me with the grief. He always does this to us.

Also Airea D. Matthews, I just picked up her book “Bread and Circus.” I’ve been working my way through that. Saidiya Hartman’s “Lose Your Mother” — it’s about her going to Ghana to try to trace her lineage, and there’s this disconnect between, when you’re Black in America, all the different things that Africa can represent for you. I went to Senegal last winter, and I’m heading to the Philippines — my mom’s Filipino — this winter. So I think my mind is in that space a lot. What is my lineage? How do I create it? Is it possible to follow it? What does it mean? If it isn’t, what is it to create your own history out of thin air? I don’t know. It’s a third book. It’s not the next book, but it could be a third book.

I want to be in your book club now.

personal stories about dating and relationships

The West can’t keep up with the East in telling mainstream queer love stories in TV and movies

Joyful, queer-centered love stories have been basking in the glow of both critical and popular acclaim lately, and rightfully so.

With new seasons of Netflix's "Sex Education" and the sweet-natured "Heartstopper," Prime Video's international romance "Red, White & Royal Blue" and R-rated teen sex comedy "Bottoms," it appears that the media finally understood audiences would show up for fun romances featuring LGBTQ+ characters. This is mainstream, escapist fare, as opposed to the tragic or messy narratives that have been more prevalent in queer arthouse films or cable dramas. Not only are these stories broadly appealing, but it turns out they're also profitable.

It's about time. But also . . . what took so long?

Not to downplay these successes, but it feels like we've been in a "Groundhog Day" time loop doomed to repeat the same teasing cycle: celebrate onscreen wins in queer-centered romance that a broad audience embraces . . . and then wait another year until it happens again. Remember the hoopla around "Alex Strangelove," "Booksmart," "Love, Simon," "Love, Victor," "The Half of It," "Fire Island" and "Bros"? None of these exactly ushered in the Golden Age of queer love stories.

"Heartstopper" illuminates that being a trans youth is joyful, everyday and larger than politics

And make no mistake, they're needed. Increases in anti-LGBTQ bills and political rhetoric, not to mention violence against trans individuals and the banning of books with queer content demonstrate the urgency for a counternarrative to this demonization. And what's more humanizing than making a deep emotional connection with another person? If Hallmark can claim two whole channels for its year-round heteronormative love stories, LGBTQ+ people should be able to naturally seek out similar content.

In fact, the hunger for these stories isn't just in the U.S. but worldwide, sending viewers to the one place that's been meeting those needs consistently: Asia.

The global love for Boys Love

"Kiseki: Dear to Me" from Taiwan (Rakuten Viki)Countries like Thailand, Japan and Taiwan have been producing popular queer love stories in volume for quite a while now. Starting out as a type of manga known as yaoi in the 1970s, the genre evolved into what's known as Boys Love or BL. Transitioning into web comics, anime and then eventually live action, these wildly popular TV shows and movies are embraced by audiences around the world, similar to how Korean dramas have been.

It's odd to have to define BL, which is neither new nor particularly hidden. But with the exception of Teen Vogue and Vice, few Western media outlets have acknowledged the genre's presence, much less its legitimacy. But that doesn't lessen its importance to queer communities who haven't been finding what they need in the West.

"There are exceptions, but a happy ending is kind of one of the staples of a BL show."

Salon spoke to a few BL fans, all of whom identify as LGBTQ+, about the appeal of BL. Three identify as either trans queer or nonbinary, two identify as bisexual, and one as asexual. Four are people of color from America, and two of the women interviewed live in Norway and Australia, respectively.

"I've always realized that as a queer person, there has to be other representations," says Petruce Jean-Charles, 26, an audience engagement editor specialist. "Even if it's a different culture there has to be. So I got into Korean BL. And then from there, I got into Thai BL and then Japanese, Taiwanese and so forth. I wanted to see how they portray relationships issues, things that I wouldn't know in America or from my background."

"I think for a long time, a lot of Western queer media – I think a lot of BL fans will say, 'This is very one-note, it's very white-centric,'" says Alexa, 29, one of the four hosts of "Lovecast, the BL Podcast." "And a lot of it was very sad. You get these very depressing movies, not very many happy endings. Those stories of course, have their place, and a lot of the times, they're true to the queer experience that a lot of people have had.

"But it's that thing of when you're living that every day in real life, when you're watching TV, sometimes you want something that's a bit more of a fantasy," she continues. "And I think that's where BL comes in. There are exceptions, but a happy ending is kind of one of the staples of a BL show. So you get that guaranteed positivity that you didn't always get from Western media."

The effusive reception to Prime Video's international romance "Red, White & Royal Blue" proves what Asian BL producers already knew: a global audience craves these stories. A week after its Aug. 11 premiere, Amazon Studios released information about the movie's success, revealing that "fans all around the world" watched, making it the No. 1 movie worldwide on Prime Video, and that the title "trended on Twitter in 32 markets globally."

The studio also noted that "a huge surge of new Prime membership sign-ups directly correlated to the film's release."

Sure, some of the success could be attributed to fans of Casey McQuiston's original novel on which the movie is based. But it wouldn't be wrong to also acknowledge the collective worldwide power of BL fans, especially for live-action BL. Monthly online lists alert BL watchers of upcoming titles and which countries are producing them. For the most part, Asian countries led by Thailand are featured. But this summer, the lists for August included two Western titles: "Heartstopper" and "Red, White & Royal Blue."

BL fan origin stories

"My Personal Weatherman" from Japan (Rakuten Viki)It's to be expected that many consumers of Asian media – whether it's K-dramas, manga or anime – would be more open to also watching Asian BL series. That's how "Lovecast" co-host Heather, 31, became a fan.

"I was about 16, 17 when I discovered K-dramas and then I went down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to consume as much Asian media as possible," she says. "I remember stumbling upon on YouTube 'Seven Days,' the Japanese BL and 'Takumi-kun' and just binge-watching those shows and being like, 'Holy crap! What is this?'"

Co-host Kayla, 27, adds, "I discovered the Thai BL series 'Love By Chance' on Tumblr one day and ended up falling headfirst into the genre after that."

Tumblr appears to be a hotbed of BL activity. Not only did "Lovecast's" Alexa also become introduced to BL there (with the controversial "Grey Rainbow"), but Snopes fact checker Izz LaMagdeleine, 24, did too. (Snopes and Salon are both under the same ownership.)

"I saw 'Semantic Error' the Korean BL on my Tumblr. I saw it was on Viki, and it's only like eight episodes, 30 minutes max [each]. I was like, 'Oh, that's doable,'" they say. "And so I watched that in one night – had not done that in a while. I found it really fun. I found it really charming."

South Korea only entered the BL game as recently as 2020, and "Semantic Error" is one of the country's most acclaimed and beloved titles so far. Based on the web novel of the same name and starring two K-pop idols (Park Seo-ham formerly of KNK and DKZ's Park Jae-chan), "Semantic Error" was named one of Teen Vogue's best BL dramas for 2022. In the cheeky but heartfelt comedy series, two rival college students find themselves collaborating on a video game and becoming more than friends.

Adds LaMagdeleine, "I still think about that first episode scene where one of the characters is trying to find the other [computer science major], and he's like, 'He's always wearing a flannel. I can find him. It'll be fine.' And then everyone [in that class] they're all in flannel. That scene is so funny to me."

Finding BL through K-pop is another common story. "Lovecast" co-host Pixie, 34, had already been familiar with BL's print origins but it was the fierce K-pop stans that brought her to the TV series.

"I discovered BL when I was only 14, mostly Japanese manga," she says. "A couple of years ago though I discovered 'TharnType' through K-pop twitter. It was my first Thai live-action show. And I was hooked."

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K-pop idols starring in BL are a natural fit, although the connection may not be obvious from the outside. Not only does casting idols lure in K-pop fans, which are legion worldwide, but they also share traits with BL fans. Besides predominantly featuring attractive young men, both K-pop and BLs foster a close parasocial relationship between its fans and stars – and shipping is an integral part of the culture. It's not unusual to find K-pop fans not only have a bias (favorite member), but to also have a couple to "ship" among their favorite groups – whether those band members are actually together or not.

Jean-Charles points out how the shipping culture has also led to speculation about how much of idol behavior is true or perhaps exaggerated as part of fan service.

"There have been conversations about whether K-pop artists, male artists are profiting off of being very lovey-dovey with their other teammates in terms of in a BL sense," they say. "So there's that discourse where I see it sometimes. I'm like, 'OK, you guys are really close. And I love that it's not a weird thing for you. But I also wonder how much is it is natural and how much of it is for show for your fans that love that.'"

Hollywood, please stop adapting K-dramas. It's not just unnecessary, it's racist

While queer representation is a factor for why and how viewers worldwide seek out Eastern media, BLs – like K-dramas – also offer a different perspective by featuring Asians whose love interests are other Asians. While not everyone watching shares those specific racial identities, it's nevertheless inspiring for Western viewers to witness romances featuring people of color who are in the majority.

"Even though I'm not Asian, watching media that was centered around people who were not white, and was also queer media was a huge draw for me," says Alexa. "There was not a lot of Black people in Western queer media. Usually, if there is they're paired with a white person. So going someplace where you're seeing shows that are basically almost all people of color, some mixed people in there as well – was really refreshing."

K-Ci Williams, who's been spearheading Teen Vogue's BL interviews and think pieces, recently wrote, "I'll always champion BL dramas, because they have made me feel seen as a queer person of color, more than anything created in the West ever has."

The pandemic BL boom

"2Gether: The Series" from Thailand (Rakuten Viki)Pandemic lockdowns beginning in early 2020 prompted the discovery of Asian media for those staying at home and seeking additional entertainment. Not only did this mean that even more people made their way to K-dramas, but BLs also enjoyed a boost. One series in particular made one of the biggest impressions, forever changing the BL game.

There's no need to wait another year or even another month for a queer love story when it comes to BL.

In February 2020, Thai TV rom-com series "2Gether: The Series" premiered and caused a sensation on social media with each episode's weekly rollout, while viewership surpassed expectations. That year, it had become one of the "Top 10 Most Viewed Television Series" on LINE TV and YouTube, and later inspired a sequel series and movie. It also rocketed its two leads, Bright and Win, into international superstardom, bringing them to 18.5 and 14.5 million Instagram followers, respectively.

In a sort of reversal from Korean artists, Bright Vachirawit Chivaaree's breakout in acting preceded his musical fame. Now, the 25-year-old is the most followed artist in Thailand, and he's also a global ambassador for Burberry as well as Calvin Klein, sharing the latter role with the likes of BTS' Jungkook, Blackpink's Jenny, South Korean footballer Son Heung-min and rapper Kid Cudi, among others.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cvs_ObVpGzi/

Some people credit "2Gether" with the increase in BL production across Asia, even inspiring the Philippines to break into the genre with the first Pinoy BL "Gameboys" during lockdown. The genre is so popular and plentiful that at any time, BL fans are watching multiple series weekly. Jean-Charles estimated they were currently watching seven series, while LaMagdeleine counted up to 10. World of BL – a site that facilitates BL viewing by providing up-to-date release schedules and how to watch – lists 17 currently airing series as of Oct. 1.

There's no need to wait another year or even another month for a queer love story when it comes to BL. The biggest problem is fitting them into your life. As many K-drama fans have already found, watching current TV shows as well as catching up on the dramas that have come before could be a job in and of itself.

Even though live-action BL may have begun as a Japanese media product, it's Thailand that has become the leader in producing TV series and movies ever since 2014's "Lovesick: The Series" gained popularity. Standing out among the multiple producers of Thai BL is GMMTV, a combo talent agency and production company that makes TV shows, songs and music videos. As such, it has been able to create the BL star-to-musical artist pipeline that we saw with "2Gether" star Bright. (He has since left GMMTV when his contract expired and struck out on his own.)

While under contract to GMMTV, BL stars are cast in multiple projects, overlapping with past co-stars and creating new "couples" until the right onscreen chemistry is found. It's not uncommon to spot GMMTV favorites in multiple shows a year, sometimes making cheeky references to their previous roles or even their own lives in a meta wink to fans. This overlap continues with actors who sing on the OSTs, appear in music videos or even perform viral TikTok dances of their fellow stars' songs.

It's a cross between the old Hollywood studio system and the Marvel Cinematic Universe . . . but with queer love as superpowers.

For Western audiences, many of these BL producers – such as Thailand's GMMTV, Dee Hup House, Mandee and Studio Wabi Sabi – have provided their series for free on YouTube with English subtitles. (Expect episodes split in four parts and numerous ads including outrageously conspicuous in-show product placement.) This not only invites easy discovery of titles, but also natural cross-pollination to other titles in the network.

"That's one of the things that for me really stands out with BL. The actors, especially if it is GMMTV, they'll be in the same BLs and so it just feels very connected," says LaMagdeleine. "In 'My School President' for instance they are explicitly talking about 'Bad Buddy.' There are so many Easter eggs. It's really easy to get hooked."

There's one hitch for Western viewers ready to delve into the world of GMMTV BLs though. Some of its most popular titles – including "2Gether," "My School President" and "1000 Stars" – are no longer on YouTube in certain locations. Instead, streaming service Rakuten Viki, which has been providing Asian media content since 2010, has acquired those GMMTV titles, with more on the way.

While the more mainstream platforms like Netflix and Hulu have slept on BLs, (a search on U.S. Netflix brings up two Asian BLs . . . and "Heartstopper") Rakuten Viki hasn't. Billed as "The Heart of Asian entertainment," Viki has been providing the West a consistent centralized source for a wide range of Asian media, including the ubiquitous K-dramas, variety shows, awards shows and of course BLs.

According to Karen Paek, Rakuten Viki's VP of Marketing, the streamer boasts 75 million registered users worldwide, with most subscribers based in the U.S. Audiences in Latin America and Europe are also growing. She notes that BL is "one of the most watched categories" along with romantic comedy, fantasy, horror, thrillers and action. Since the pandemic lockdown, Viki's average monthly watch time has increased 18% year-over-year.

The West historically has often shown initial resistance when it comes to acknowledging Asian excellence.

"We're introducing new Boy Love shows and movies almost every month to keep our platform filled with exciting and relevant content," she says. "Our audience has always been interested in a wide array of content, including BL, and we continue to invest in this type of diverse entertainment. Some of the most popular BL titles on Viki right now are 'Love in the Air,' 'Be Mine Superstar,' 'Jun & Jun,' 'Stay with Me,' 'Semantic Error,' 'My Personal Weatherman' and 'TharnType.'"

In the meantime, plenty of other networks and studios – like the Korean company Strongberry – are still providing their BLs on YouTube, awaiting discovery.

The BL support network

"My School President" from Thailand (Rakuten Viki)With so many countries – Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines and even China and Vietnam to an extent – producing so many BL series, they offer a wide array of actors, styles, tones, themes and target demographics. It's just a matter of determining your particular flavor.

For example, those seeking a more chaste yet still charming BL could try high school series such as Japan's "Kieta Hatsukoi (My Love Mix-Up)," South Korea's "Light on Me" or Thailand's "My School President." That last title, about a school president with a crush on the lead of a rock band, would also appeal to those who enjoy the "High School Musical" franchise.

"LoveCast" host Kayla enjoys the "soulmates" subgenre and cites "Until We Meet Again" as one of their favorites. "The story is the perfect amalgam of beautiful and tragic, similar to the archetype of Romeo and Juliet while still maintaining those elements that make BL so fun," says Kayla.

In the series, star-crossed lovers tied together with the red thread of fate are reincarnated for a second chance. Other soulmate-type of BLs include the more fantastical "Color Rush" and "La Pluie."

"In 'La Pluie' this guy's parents divorce and they're soulmates," explains LaMagdeleine. "So that kind of traumatizes him, and he's very bitter about it and doesn't want a soulmate. But every time it rains you lose your hearing, and your soulmate is the only person who can hear you or talk to you magically from whatever distance. And so he one night talks to his soulmate. And he also meets this veterinarian that turns out to be his soulmate. So it's basically about the choice of love and how important that is and how you really have to work at it."

Jean-Charles adds, "We can have conversations or discourse about do soulmates actually exist? Should you wait for your soulmate? Should you make your own path?"

In contrast, Pixie prefers the less romanticized enemies to lovers BLs.

"'Semantic Error,' a Korean BL, just really had all the things I love with a BL. The leads have great chemistry, the story is original, great production quality. The enemies to lovers is done in a believable way. I've rewatched it so many times!"

In addition to those mentioned above other BL subgenres include rom-coms, crime dramas, sci-fi, office romance and even horror. A BL watcher is spoiled for choice, which leads to another problem: Which BL series are worthy of watching? This dilemma has led to the need for a global BL community that helps others navigate the world of BL in addition to providing spaces for conversation.

"It's a very saturated market," observes Heather. "There's so many things to choose from now, and half the time you don't know where to start. I feel you need to find a friend who can give you one or two recommendations, so you can jump in and start there."

That need for community led Alexa and Pixie to a Discord server about BL. Together, they took inspiration from their server conversations and launched "LoveCast: The BL Podcast" along with a third person Coco, who has since stepped down from hosting. Kayla already had a thriving YouTube channel "Moonconsort" discussing BL, and after a few guest stints joined as a third host. Heather had been listening to the podcast on her commute in Australia, which became moot during lockdown. Answering an ad from the "LoveCast" Twitter account led to joining as a podcast assistant and eventually fourth host. After three years of conversations and interviews with BL creators and stars, the foursome recently made a trip to Thailand to shoot multiple in-person interviews with BL stars.

"I've met so many amazing people through the podcast and talking about BL," says Pixie. "I never expected the effortless friendship I have with Kayla, Alexa and Heather. And now I've traveled to the U.S. to meet them, and we've gone together to Thailand to make content for the podcast. I never expected to be here three years ago. It's surreal."

Kayla adds, "Meeting [Thai actor] Fluke Natouch was too surreal. I've admired his acting since 'Until We Meet Again,' so knowing we have that connection with him makes me proud of everything we've accomplished."

"I think the podcast and its growth aligning (on a much, much smaller scale) with the growth of the BL fandom definitely offers us a unique perspective for reflection," says Alexa. "One of the things that always reminds me of how the BL fandom is continually growing and expanding is when we have listeners tell us just how new they are to BL and how our show gave them perspective on certain shows or actors or aspects of fandom that can be hard to figure out on your own when you're new to any fandom.

"If it wasn't for BL and the podcast I would have never realized what a beautiful and vibrant country Thailand is. I think one moment that really brought it full circle for all of us was interviewing [actor Talay Sanguandikul]. When we were chatting, we mentioned our interview with Perth, and I think coming back almost three years later and having the chance to interview Talay (who acted as King opposite Perth in 'My Engineer') was something that was really special for us. 'My Engineer' and our love for the RamKing pairing was one of the things we all realized we had in common early on in the pod days. . . . After talking to [Talay] in Thailand, we had some genuinely emotional reactions to the realization that it had happened. It was truly an incredible moment."

The soft power of BL

"Stay With Me" from China (Rakuten Viki)In 2016, the Chinese BL series "Addicted" achieved overnight popularity. The show about two high school rivals who were soon to be stepbrothers (and perhaps more) drew 10 million views in the first 24 hours after its initial online release, setting the Chinese streaming record. Its stars Huang Jingyu and Xu Weizhou also achieved overnight stardom with fans shipping the actors. Conversations about the series dominated social media. But all that came to a sudden end when the series was pulled abruptly from air and banned by Chinese authorities for its "gay and explicit content." The series, albeit incomplete, now has a cult following.

Since then China's most popular BL series have been more circumspect about the relationship between its male lead characters, veering more into intense bromance. Chinese media YouTuber Avenue X explains on an episode of "LoveCast" the ins and outs of Chinese TV standards and how elliptical romance is acceptable but anything explicitly gay would meet with resistance.

However, the sensation that is "Addicted" has not abated. In August a Chinese adaptation of the series, named "Stay With Me" was released; however, to circumvent restrictions it was not broadcast in China but was made available everywhere else that wanted it, such as on Rakuten Viki. Each week, viewers tuned in, afraid that somehow this reimagining also would be yanked away prematurely. While this first season ended on a cliffhanger, a writer on the series claims a second season has been contracted. Fans remain dubious having swallowed the bitter pill of disappointment once before.

The hunger for and drive to produce BL meant that this Chinese production was willing to risk possible censorship and heartache to honor a queer love story. To quote "Jurassic Park" scientist Ian Malcolm out of context, "Life finds a way."

In the face of such enthusiasm for BL, it's discouraging to see that the West has remained either ignorant of or possibly resistant to producing its own BL. That is not to say that Western media hasn't created meaningful LGBTQ+-friendly content with a more diverse spectrum of queer characters. More lesbian, transgender, nonbinary and asexual people can be found here than in Asian BLs (Thailand is starting to include nonbinary actors and trans characters), not to mention more people of color and disabled people who are queer. Very few, however, center queer leads.

The West has often shown initial resistance when it comes to acknowledging Asian excellence. The U.S. once discounted Japan and China for the quality of their products. Korean dramas have been around for decades, but only in the past few years have big-name streamers deigned to acquire them. Now they're producing their own. Even K-pop is still written off as lesser-than or a frivolous interest for Gen Z and Millennial women. Guess what? Those generations are increasingly identifying as queer (19.7% for Gen Z and 11.2% for Millennials), and they're just getting older and more powerful.

That said, LGBTQ+ folks have a number of rights and protections in the U.S. that those in the East don't, but considering the overwhelming division in this country and anti-queer rhetoric, many fear that these will be rolled back. Optimistic and crowd-pleasing queer content could go a long way to fostering tolerance and empathy.

In the meantime, queer Asian content still needs to evolve as well. In the celebration of all things BL, the absence of a significant GL (Girls Love) presence has been conspicuous. In this, Japan has produced the most content, but it's still an incredibly sparse field. Searching Rakuten Viki for GL yields two results, as opposed to the streamer's numerous and growing number of BL titles. Taiwan also has the very short "Dear Uranus" series on YouTube by Rabbit and Wolf.

Thailand is naturally trying to replicate its BL success with GL and dipped its toe in with "Gap: The Series," an incredibly popular queer rom-com released in 2022. And this year, the highly anticipated "23.5" series starring two popular GMMTV actresses will be released.

The origins of BL has also created some narrative problems that Thailand is attempting to rectify. Straight women were historically the ones producing BL stories for other straight women. That has created troublesome dynamics in the stories that lead to non-consent. Or, the way two male leads are written had often adhered to stereotypically heteronormative romantic relationships (one partner is considered the "wifey" and is to be protected, etc.).

Increasingly, queer men are taking the lead either in directing or writing Thai BL series, which has led to shows correcting such misconceptions and taking a political stand on issues. In 2022's "Bad Buddy," about two college students from warring families, the series dispenses with the idea that one partner has to be "cute" and the other one more masculine. It also addresses environmentalism, autonomy and activism.

"'Bad Buddy' is a show where at the end of it, where they're talking about how you maybe can't change the world, but the world can't change you either," says LaMagdeleine. "That was something that was really poignant to me."

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Despite that philosophical outlook, it does seem that Thailand is trying to wield BLs as one of the country's five soft power pillars, modeling itself after South Korea and its Hallyu. Despite the Eastern love for BLs though, Taiwan remains the only Asian country to have adopted marriage equality. Thailand is hoping to be next.

In numerous recent BL series, characters raise the question of marriage equality. In "A Boss and a Babe," an intern with a video game company challenges the women in the office to sign their support for gay marriage, considering their love of watching BLs. Thoughout the series "Cutie Pie," the main couple has been engaged for most of their lives and pledge themselves to each other but acknowledge that the world still won't recognize their union. The finale ends with an extended voiceover about marriage equality. In this year's spinoff series "Naughty Babe," numerous references are made that Thailand has achieved marriage equality by 2026, when part of the story is set.

In the meantime, Thailand continues to court its international BL fans, sending its stars over borders for in-person fan meetings. Some are as close as Vietnam and Malaysia, while some go overseas to South Korea, Japan and Indonesia. (Not to be outdone, the Korean company Strongberry is sending its "Choco Milk Shake" stars to a fan meeting tour in . . . Brazil.)

These BL stars have become emissaries for their countries and the push for global connection. In a recent post on X (formerly Twitter), Thai actor Bright shared a photo of himself posing with "Red, White & Royal Blue" star Taylor Zachar Perez with the caption: "Alex x Sarawat," referring to their BL character names.

This encapsulation of East meets West couldn't have found a better soft power ambassador of shipping.

Alex x Sarawat pic.twitter.com/jeoN3N8i9z

— bright (@bbrightvc) September 19, 2023

about this topic

Magic mushroom retreat centers can offer healing — but their lack of regulation can carry risks

Navy veteran Justin’s third and final dose of psilocybin, the psychedelic drug found in “magic’ mushrooms, at a retreat center in Jamaica took him back to his time in Iraq. Although his body was physically sitting in a group therapy circle, in his mind he was standing between the enemy and his crew of 460 sailors. It was his duty to protect them, and he felt his body begin to physically absorb the sailors’ fear. It was heavy, all of that fear, so much so that at one point he said he nearly started hyperventilating.

But then, after decades of holding onto this baggage from the war that was causing his body to be in a constant state of fight or flight — he released it.

“What that made me realize was that I never put that pack down, and once I came to terms with the fact that they’re safe, and I don’t have to protect them anymore, I literally felt like there was a pack that came off my shoulders,” Justin told Salon in a phone interview. (Justin asked to be identified only by his first name.)

A church claims to have created a drug that combines ‘shrooms and toad venom. Experts are skeptical

“There was a therapist there that had her hand on my shoulder, and she said, ‘I felt like something was coming off your shoulder,'” he said.

“I wanted to really heal and not just cover up the symptoms.”

During and after 20 years in the Navy and a ground tour in Iraq, Justin started getting set off by triggering things that would cause him to get rapidly anxious and upset. He has been dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms for more than a decade and started taking antidepressants in 2018. After he was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in 2021, he went through a “merry-go-round” of antidepressants to find one that was compatible with his new cancer therapies, but he still felt like all of these different medications weren’t doing enough to address the underlying reasons he was feeling this way, he said.

“I wanted to get off the medication,” he said. “I wanted to really heal and not just cover up the symptoms.”

In his search for alternative treatments, Justin came across MycoMeditations, a retreat center in Jamaica that, according to its website, offers “psilocybin-assisted retreats for people who have tried it all and are ready to heal.” It’s one of hundreds of psychedelic retreat centers that have popped up around the world in what, along with a new wave of research testing how these substances can be used to treat mental health conditions, some are calling the “psychedelic renaissance.”

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“We are anticipating quite a revolutionary change in how mental health is treated,” said MycoMeditations CEO Justin Townsend. “Psychedelics for mental health are going to make a substantial change over the next few years.”

More than half of participants in a 2008 study said a single dose of psilocybin was in the top five most personally and spiritually meaningful experiences of their lives.

About 8% of the U.S. population has depression and 30% has anxiety, and those numbers are on the rise. Yet mental health treatments have notoriously lagged behind need, with few new options in the pipeline since selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) were introduced in the ’80s. In 2019, the Johns Hopkins Psychedelic Research Unit was created to conduct pivotal research testing in the field, revitalizing a body of research stretching back to the 1950s showing psychedelics can improve depression, PTSD and heavy drinking. Earlier this month, the largest study on naturalistic psilocybin use to date showed participants had significantly improved anxiety, depression and spiritual well-being.

(Photo courtesy of MycoMeditations)

Psilocybin changes the pathways that regions of the brain use to communicate, and it can cause mystical experiences that are deeply moving. In one 2008 study of people who had never tried psilocybin before, more than half of the participants said a single dose was in the top five most personally and spiritually meaningful experiences of their lives.

Psychedelics permanently alter your understanding of what has “consciousness,” study says

Although the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) could approve psilocybin and other psychedelics in the near future, it is still a controlled substance in most U.S. states. Oregon, for example, began rolling out psilocybin therapy services this year, though some have criticized these clinics for being extremely expensive, with some sessions costing as much as $2,800. Because of this, many are traveling to psychedelic retreat centers in countries like Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica where psilocybin, but also substances like LSD, MDMA, ibogaine and ayahuasca are allowed.

“In the early days of the retreat business, it really was more like the wild, wild west.”

Using psilocybin isn’t without risks. Psychedelics are not recommended for people with certain cardiac or psychiatric conditions, and they can trigger psychosis in people who have predispositions for mental illness. The American Psychiatric Association doesn’t recommend them outside of investigational studies. Anecdotally, there have been reports of violence and sexual assault during or following psychedelic retreats, where participants are often in vulnerable states when under the influence of psychedelics. The original founder of MycoMeditations stepped down due to allegations of insufficient safety protocols, and Townsend stepped up as CEO in 2019.

Since then, they have changed their model to more of a Western approach drawing from John Hopkins’ protocol, he said. Guests must pass a screening before being accepted and the center is staffed with therapists and various doses throughout the week are broken up with integration days, during which the prior trips can be processed. There are one-on-one and group therapy sessions, and retreats last a week.

(Photo courtesy of MycoMeditations)

“What we have today is a very different model,” he said. “Back then there weren’t therapists. There weren’t really protocols. In the early days of the retreat business, it really was more like the wild, wild west.”

While many retreat centers base their protocols on what’s done at Johns Hopkins or the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), they vary highly in their approaches. Some may be founded on shamanic practices or wellness ideals rather than Westernized medicine. It’s basically up to consumers to research these places and ensure they’re getting something legit and that suits their personal preference, said Matthew Johnson, Ph.D., a Johns Hopkins Medicine psychiatry professor studying psychedelics.

“Because it is in this world where there’s minimal or no regulations, people are sort of on their own to figure that out.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me that there are retreat centers that are doing things very much like the research that I and others have conducted in the field where there are appropriate safety checks, screening, monitoring and keeping that strong rapport with good professional boundaries,” Johnson told Salon in a phone call. “But because it is in this world where there’s minimal or no regulations, people are sort of on their own to figure that out.”

Some raise additional concerns that profits made in this industry are exploiting Indigenous cultures, who have been using these substances for medicinal purposes and cultural celebrations for 3,000 years. The Oregon Psilocybin Advisory Board’s evidence review, for example, acknowledged that it excluded the “meaningful experiences, knowledge, and wisdom from Indigenous peoples.”

In San Jose del Pacifico in Oaxaca, Mexico, some locals say they now struggle to find specific mushroom species because there has been such a spike in psychedelic tourism, said Osiris Sinuhé González Romero, Ph.D., an archaeologist who studies psychedelics, the history of medicine and Indigenous knowledge at the University of Saskatchewan. Some centers, including MycoMeditations, grow their own supply.

“The ethics are very important and sometimes overlooked in the psychedelic renaissance,” Romero told Salon in a phone interview. “It’s necessary to be very careful, and hopefully, in the future, people interested in developing these retreat centers take into account Indigenous knowledge and the different cultural uses to achieve better quality services.”

Nevertheless, it seems like there is a growing demand for people who want to try psychedelics even if they have not been officially FDA-approved. One report projected the psychedelic therapeutic industry to be worth $8.3 billion by 2028. And, as one study in a harm reduction journal put it: “Therapists therefore have an ethical duty to meet this need by providing support for clients using psychedelics.”

Science and corporadelics in Colorado: Can mushroom-capitalism save us from an existential crisis?

Gwen Ingram-Jones, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based in Seattle, said she’s worked with 270 people at MycoMeditations over the past few years. Although the degree of transformation varies from person to person, transformative experiences occur more often than not, Ingram-Jones said. For example, one guest who had lost a child experienced the sensation of walking through Hell after taking psilocybin. Ultimately, he got the chance to meet the daughter he had lost and take her home. Then, he felt her make a home within him, bouncing around all of the different corners of his body to turn on the lights.

“I would say that is not an out-of-the-ordinary experience,” Ingram-Jones said. “His personal story is unique to him, but people find transformation like that on a really regular basis.”

In an in-house survey MycoMeditations conducted that was not published in a scientific journal, some guests reported improved symptoms with PTSD. On their website, they also report improvements in depression, a sense of connectedness and well-being among guests after attending the retreat.

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For Justin, the veteran, each dose of psilocybin at the retreat helped him peel away a layer that was standing in the way of healing. The first dose helped him process childhood experiences that prevented him from being conscious of and processing his emotions. The next one helped him understand that his anxiety was stemming from PTSD and be more mindful when those feelings came up, he said.

“Sometimes, I catch myself tensing up,” Justin said. “I never noticed that before, but now I notice that and I tell myself to relax.”

“I’m safe,” he said. “I can relax.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported Townsend was hired at MycoMeditations in 2019 after the founder stepped down due to misconduct allegations. The story has been updated to clarify the nature of the allegations and reflect that Townsend was already employed at MycoMeditations before the founder left in 2020.

about psychedelics

“True equality is embracing mediocrity”: Aparna Nancherla on imposter syndrome and fear of failure

Aparna Nancherla is different from what you expect from most comedians. You might expect them to be the loudest person in the room, someone who is always looking for laughs but instead, Nancherla is soft-spoken, insightful and most of all very centered but also funny in ways that catch you off guard. Not at all the imposter she labels herself in her new memoir “Unreliable Narrator.”

However, the “Bojack Horseman” actress’ experiences as a female comedian of color with anxiety and depression are heavily present throughout the entire memoir. Nancherla explained in a recent “Salon Talks” that when she realized her predominately white upbringing in Virginia was harmful to her mental health she found comedy to be an outlet. She began to use her struggles and all her experience in her comedy writing and stand-up: “When I found comedy and when I got more creative, really leading with maybe all the things I had struggled with actually felt like kind of a relief.”

As one of the few mainstream female comics of color, Nancherla’s journey into the deepest fears, failures and successes in her life and her brain make for insight into what it is like to grind for success and achieve it in a predominately white field while continuing to feel like an imposter or a fraud. A fate that most non-white people feel and struggle to articulate in the workforce but Nancherla does it beautifully and humorously, of course — she is a comedy writer after all. Most of all, she soothes us and herself in this memoir, telling us that “we’re often stuck in the middles or the between [of life]” and even in the height of our successes, we can falter. Nancherla wants us to know that we will be OK as long as we go through it with a sense of humor and self — just like she did.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What does imposter syndrome mean to you?

When I was writing the book, I looked it up like a responsible writer, and to me what imposter syndrome means, and I think it kind of matches what the definition was, is just feeling kind of a persistent sense of self-doubt and fraudulence about any of your accomplishments or any skills attributed to you. I think it’s just feeling like what other people expect of you versus what you actually feel capable of never quite match up. Any opportunities I’ve gotten, I just feel like I think there’s been a horrible mistake. I shouldn’t be here.

The book was just my attempt to dig into that and be like, “Where did this come from? Why has it only maybe gotten worse over my career?” It almost feels like the more success I’ve gotten, the worse that sense of self has gotten. I wanted to kind of dig into that.

Why do you think it is very popular in the zeitgeist right now? It’s a word that’s very buzzy, very trendy.

“If I’m going to go forward in my career, I really have to address this head on.”

I don’t want to brag, but I feel like it’s something I’ve had for a long time before it was popular to talk about. I think maybe just with social media, a lot of things have become more in the conversation, whether that’s conversations about mental health; specifically there’s a lot around anxiety and depression, or just burnout I feel like comes up a lot these days, and then self-care, putting yourself first.

I think imposter syndrome kind of falls into those messier human feelings that we don’t always have forward-facing. They’re kind of going on in the background, and no one’s really aware of how it’s going on behind the scenes versus how you’re presenting. So, I think social media has kind of really put the insides on the outside, for lack of a better way of saying it.

When you look inward, when you really start to deconstruct what imposter syndrome is, where do you even start?

I started quite literally with my childhood and growing up as a kid of immigrants — my parents were both doctors who immigrated from India — and just growing up in an upper middle class, middle class predominantly white suburb, just feeling like an outsider in a kind of literal way of not looking like my peers, but then also feeling out of step culturally of maybe not knowing the trends or not knowing the cool way to dress. I think [I was] always approaching things with kind of an outsider mentality. Then on top of that, being a pretty shy, introverted, anxious kid just added another layer of maybe feeling constantly like a fish out of water, whether that be among my South Asian community or my more white mixed community.

I would have to say the same as someone who grew up in a predominantly white space. It can be incredibly difficult as a woman of color to navigate those spaces. Could you just speak more to how that made you feel and how that made you feel like a fish out of water?

My parents were immigrants, and as a first-gen kid, there was very much a mentality of when I was growing up in the ’80s and early ’90s of just assimilation and wanting to blend in, not wanting to make waves, having your identity, but not putting it too forward. Kind of being, for as damaging as it is, the model minority stereotype of being like, “I’m going to do all the right things. I’m going to have a great resume, get into a good school.” I think I was always just working so hard to fit into this mold that I really wasn’t listening to what was going on inside, or in a way I was suppressing it. It was like when I found comedy and when I got more creative, really leading with maybe all the things I had struggled with actually felt like kind of a relief, just to put it all out there and be like, “This is what’s going on inside.”

I know sometimes people are like, “Oh, is it scary to talk about?” But honestly, it felt scarier to me in the beginning of my life not talking about it and just keeping everything inside and then having to put on this sort of false front. It kind of feels easier to be like, “No matter what you think of me now, you also know what’s going on inside.” That feels more honest.

You really do get to that place of a very personal story about your anxiety and depression. What makes you want to have that be the focus of a book like this or your stand-up?

“I think we have to remember posting an anxiety meme is not the same as going to therapy.”

Both with talking about anxiety and depression in my stand-up and with writing this book, they both came out of struggling with those things very acutely in my real life. When I start talking about my stand-up, I was struggling a lot with performance anxiety and getting on stage, and then there would be a depression as a result of not being able to perform as easily as I would like.

Then, the same thing with this book. I had gotten some success professionally, and I feel like the self-doubt only got worse, and it was kind of that thing of like, “Oh, when I get to this point in my career or when I achieve this goal, I’ll have figured it all out and it will all have been worth it, the grind.” But if anything, I felt more confused and more in my head. Really the book was kind of my attempt to dive into that and be like, “Why is this happening?” If I’m going to go forward in my career, I really have to address this head on.

Absolutely, and I feel like some of what you’ve mentioned is because of late-stage capitalism, which is what you talk about in your book. Do you find it makes it increasingly difficult to talk about mental health?

I think it just creates a lot more messiness around being authentic because it’s like once authenticity becomes a buzzword or a brand, then what is real authenticity versus authenticity performing on your social media? I think that gets really messy, and for me, I’ve had to draw a line between talking about mental health or more messy things like body image or self-doubt in my act as a creative and as a writer versus my experience of them in my real life, which is a very different thing. Not that they’re not interconnected, obviously I’m writing about what I experience, but I might do a joke about anxiety on stage, but that’s not me doing that polished performance of it isn’t necessarily how it’s showing up in my real life and I might still be struggling with it in a very real way, even right before I get on stage. I just have to keep them separate. I think we have to remember posting an anxiety meme is not the same as going to therapy.

Is that how you feel like you can get to the nuances of the larger conversations surrounding mental health?

Yeah. I think that was also partly why I wrote a book, just because with stand-up, you only have so much real estate to make your point. You have to be punchy about it, and you have to be kind of clever and a little removed. I felt like with a book, I could get messier and kind of go into the nuances and maybe not always have that clean resolution.

You have this chapter specifically about your “failure resume.” You also talk about how failure is inherently anti-capitalist and anti-American. Why do you feel that way?

I just feel like there’s so much messaging around winning, and always any struggle is kind of framed as a, “This is what happened before, and now I figured it out,” or like, “Now look at me. I’m so successful.” There’s never any discussion around, “I did all the right things and I’m still having a hard time,” or, “I’m still stuck and I don’t know what to do.” I just feel like that’s more the truth of what it is to live a human life. We’re often stuck in the middles or the betweens, or even like for me, when I was successful, that was the time I was struggling the most mentally. It’s important to be more open about the fact that it’s very complex to have a human brain and we’re not always winning and succeeding, we’re always on that path to winning and succeeding.

Right. Like sometimes it’s OK to be the loser that fails.

Yeah and I also feel like as a woman of color, there’s so much placed on exceptionalism.

Right.

Where it’s like you have to stand out to be noticed to get those opportunities, and I’m just like, I feel like true equality is embracing mediocrity.

It’s exhausting having to be perfect and to have it all together all the time. It feels like a performance. Would you say that?

Yeah, yeah. I think it’s exhausting, and I think it kind of fractures your sense of self into what other people are seeing versus what is actually your life and you as a person, and I think it’s important to be able to have somewhat of a coherent sense of self, especially in a world that is so confusing and problematic in a lot of ways.

Of course, yeah. And what would you say is your favorite failure from the list?

My favorite failure? I cannot pick a favorite. I think early on, one of my first attempted jobs was to try to sell knives door to door, and it wasn’t my path. It wasn’t my path. The fact that there was a point in my life where I was like, “This is going to be my calling, just selling cutlery door to door.”

I did laugh when I read that someone had cut their finger, was it?

Yeah. It was so sad. You’re supposed to try to sell a complete set, and I could only sell, I’d sold two single knives and both to my dad’s coworkers, and one of them cut their hand really badly on one of them, and they’re a surgeon, so it was not good.

One of my other favorite essays in this book is when you talk about beauty and the beauty politics surrounding your identity and just all of the different phases of seeing yourself throughout your childhood. Do you feel that women of color have had to conform to this beauty standard and idealism, to really just be that person and to be someone that everyone sees as this perfect person?

Yeah. I really think it is, in that sense, representation or what you’re surrounded by really informs your sense of what’s beautiful and what the standards are around you. Because again, I was sort of in a predominantly white cultural space growing up, and I think I really internalized those beauty standards.

“Any opportunities I’ve gotten, I just feel like I think there’s been a horrible mistake.”

I remember I went to a pretty white college, and it was in New England, and I remember one of my dormmates freshman year, she had moved here from New York City, which is pretty diverse, pretty big melting pot. I remember she was saying, “This is the first time I’ve felt ugly in my life, walking around this campus.” So, that just kind of shifted like, “Oh, not everyone felt that way growing up.” It kind of is very much what is reflected around you. So, I’m hoping now, it does seem like there’s more of a wave of body positivity with younger generations. I mean I know Instagram can be just as toxic for messaging about bodies, but I’m hoping just representation-wise overall there’s healthier, more balanced messaging around body image.

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like capitalism has a way of shaping the way that we see ourselves because we’re being sold an idea. Would you say that’s an unattainable idea?

Yeah. I mean, I think for you to continue buying into products and the market, it is like always you’ll never quite get there. If there’s ever a product invented where it’s like, “And this is it, you don’t have to do anything after this,” I feel like capitalism will have failed. I think part of it is the climbing the ladder.

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Yeah, absolutely. As you talk further about mental health in this book, you label yourself as a high-functioning depressed person. What coping mechanisms have you found?

I have a lot of privilege as a self-employed creative. I feel like I can take a lot of time and space for myself that not everyone has the ability to do, whether because of their job requirements or money reasons. I would advise [people] to just try to find a way to make that space for yourself in whatever way you can, whether that’s taking a break or taking a walk when you need to. I think just basic things like fresh air and drinking enough water sound just like very pat answers, but they really do make a big difference. I feel like they can sometimes be the first things to go when you’re stressed and you’re just like, “Water’s not going to help me. Everything’s on fire.” But then you have some water and you’re like, “Okay, I feel a little better about everything being on fire.”

Would you say that going towards comedy has helped alleviate that kind of sense of depression and anxiety, or is it something that sometimes amplifies it?

“Comedy for me is a way to kind of translate my brain to the rest of the world.”

I think it can go both ways. I think the good thing about comedy for me is I live very much inside my head and I can get caught up in my own negative messaging, but comedy for me is a way to kind of translate my brain to the rest of the world. In that way, when I see other people connecting to it, that gets me out of my own head, and I’m like, “Oh, wait, other people are having this exact same experience, and I just forgot because I was so lost in my own thoughts.” So, that’s the good side.

Then the bad side is sometimes with stand-up, it’s like you’re sort of on trial at all times in terms of the crowd’s opinion of you or how you’re being perceived at any given moment. You don’t always have control over that. It is you are kind of setting yourself up for scrutiny at all times more so than maybe another line of work.

You’ve written for stand-up and now you’ve written a book. How are the experiences different?

That was a struggle in writing the book, because I think with stand-up you get that immediate feedback. I was big on Twitter for a bunch of years, and there you get even more immediate feedback. Writing the book was definitely exercising a new muscle of just being by myself a lot more and just sitting with things and being like, “Is this good? I don’t know. I sort of need someone else’s opinion.” So, I think it was a new feat for me. We’ll see how I did. It was my first book, so we’ll see.

After this book, what do you have coming up? What do you feel like is the next step for you after writing this great memoir?

I am doing some stand-up tour dates around promoting the book. With the writers and actors strikes, who knows what’s next around the corner? For me, building a stand-up hour, now that I’ve spent all this time in a cave writing a book, I’m sort of ready to emerge and do my writing in front of people again for a while.

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The moment football died for me — in an ordinary NFL game, 34 years ago

In his song “American Pie,” Don McLean pinpoints “the day the music died”: Feb. 3, 1959, when four early rock and roll luminaries went down together in a plane crash. In my own low-profile journey writing about football, it became no longer possible to consume the sport without a core cringe subsequent to Oct. 22, 1989. That was the day I attended a game between the San Francisco 49ers and the New England Patriots at Stanford Stadium outside Palo Alto, California.

The backstory involves what I was doing there and why the game wasn’t being played, per normal scheduling, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. I was following Joe Montana, the 49ers’ quarterback, for a cover story for the New York Times Magazine. And the Loma Prieta earthquake, five days earlier, had forced Candlestick to be closed for repairs and the game to be relocated 30 miles south of its original planned site.

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Though eventful for my career, the game itself was a trivial checked box on the football calendar. Under first-year head coach George Seifert, the juggernaut 49ers were en route to their second consecutive Super Bowl championship and fourth in nine years. Montana was in the midst of arguably the finest season of his Hall of Fame career. In the second quarter, he injured a knee on a hit in the pocket and was carted off. Backup Steve Young replaced him for the remainder of the game. (My main concern at the time was whether Montana had suffered a serious injury that would put him out of action for a lengthy period, jeopardizing my Times Magazine article. Turned out he was OK.) The 49ers pulled away in the second half, winning by a final score of 37-20.

I was unnerved by two sights.

The first was a play early in the game when a 49ers’ safety, a hard-hitting Texan named Jeff Fuller, took down Patriots’ running back John Stephens. Fuller either used poor tackling technique by leading with his head instead of his shoulder — or, as participants and observers have come to articulate to a fare-thee-well, the speed and territorial demands of this sport simply don’t allow the time for textbook form on every play, at least not if you want to succeed. In any event, the two players’ helmets collided head-on. In the kind of aftermath serially captured in the 1975 dystopian movie “Rollerball,” Fuller was the one who didn’t get up.

Bill Walsh, the 49ers’ recently retired legendary coach, was doing commentary that day on the game’s NBC broadcast. After viewing the replay, Walsh assessed the Fuller injury for the audience: “He’s concussed.”

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Fuller was not concussed; he was partially paralyzed. Eventually most of the feeling in his body was restored, but he’d never play another down of football, nor ever again have full civilian use of his right arm. In the Stanford Stadium press box, I was sitting next to Dave Anderson, the Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. Anderson borrowed my media guide so he could crib information about Fuller for a short side news article about football’s latest casualty, to supplement his regular column sizing up the 49ers’ steamroller progression to another championship.

The second disturbing sight related to the game’s changed venue. On the fly, the 49ers’ media relations staff had needed to redesign procedures, since the Stanford accommodations were different than those of Candlestick, and in particular the distance between the press box and the locker rooms was considerably greater. They decided to herd all the print media writers down from the press box and deposit them along the 49ers sideline with about five minutes left in the fourth quarter. This set us up for a quicker hop to the locker rooms for timely postgame interviews.

I’d seen NFL practices from sideline proximity on many occasions. But seeing the robotic pornography of the violence up close was unsettling in a way that, as a fan or journalist, I’d never before processed quite so intimately.

Had this been a basketball game, we would have labeled what I proceeded to witness at close range “garbage time” in a blowout. The outcome hadn’t been in doubt for some time. In football, however, there’s no such thing as garbage time; there’s no playing at half-speed, even after the rout is on, since almost every block and tackle, by definition, has a baseline of violent contact, often from a peculiar angle. Moreover, regardless of the score, the first-string players almost always remain on the field. From the standpoint of those manning the offensive side’s “skill positions” in particular — quarterback, running backs, pass receivers — their counting stats of yards gained on the ground or through the air still matter, and the ratios of targets, completions and interceptions could still impact all-star team selections and the next contract negotiations. There’s no incentive to hold back, regardless of the score. Indeed, according to the creed of these athletes, easing up can be the most dangerous formula of all for injury as well — relaxing best practices might confuse muscle memory and leave you more vulnerable rather than less.

I’d seen NFL practices from sideline proximity on many occasions. I also had viewed football game action from this perspective, not merely through an antiseptic television lens or a remote seat, though at no higher than the high school level. This time, for some reason, watching the inexorable, primitive cycle of the gridiron play out in the meaningless last minutes of a one-sided game — snap the ball; the equivalent of half a dozen car crashes in a few seconds; huddle up and do it again — bothered me. The capper came when the 49ers’ running back Roger Craig swept around left end and into the usual chaotic pile out of bounds. This scrap heap of hulking male humanity landed perhaps seven feet away from me, and I wasn’t in danger of being plowed over myself, as sideline photographers sometimes are. Still, the robotic pornography of the violence was unsettling in a way that, as a fan or journalist, I’d never before processed quite so intimately.

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When the game ended, I did the sportswriter thing, meandering through the 49ers locker room, chatting with various players, looking for Joe Montana. (He was not around, having been carted off hours earlier for X-rays to confirm that no knee ligament was unduly stretched, no cartilage too severely torn, no meniscus irreversibly mangled.)

A tap on my shoulder and there was Mike Holmgren (later the Super Bowl-winning head coach for Brett Favre’s Green Bay Packers) saying hello. My Montana story for the Times Magazine would be a breakdown of the craft of the quarterback position, not a conventional profile, and Holmgren, the 49ers’ offensive coordinator, had given me more than an hour of his time a week earlier, on a morning before the start of practice in Santa Clara, to explain in detail just what it was about Montana’s footwork, mechanics and other attributes that stamped him as state of the art.

Shaking my head, I said to Holmgren, “That Jeff Fuller play — that was scary.”

Holmgren replied, “They’re all scary.”

More than three decades later, that day continues to inform my views of where football is headed, whether quickly or slowly.

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With buttercream, bits and beavers, “The Great British Bake Off” is finally back to prime saucy form

I suspected that “The Great British Bake Off” was finally back to prime saucy form when a series of events led judge Prue Leith to have to diplomatically invite a contestant to describe their creation by saying, “So, Nicky, tell us about your beaver” as the tent erupted into tittering laughter. My suspicions were confirmed when, just a few minutes later, the delightful new host Allison Hammond cooly remarked that while Nicky’s creation may have looked amazing, unfortunately “no one likes a dry beaver.”

It’s been a rocky few seasons for the series that was once known as, essentially, televised comfort food, a reputation that was well-earned because it was so distinct from so much contemporary food competition programming; while “Food Network” chefs were being asked to wander around kitchens blindfolded or whip up a multi-course meal with no utensils, over on “Bake Off” — stylized on Netflix for American viewers as “The Great British Baking Show” —things were always a little different.

“The Great British Bake Off” doesn’t want to learn from its mistakes

The pace was a little slower. Contestants had the opportunity to practice their bakes beforehand and came in relatively prepared. More importantly, however, was the tone of the show. No one was screaming or back-biting or calling someone an “idiot sandwich.”

“Bake Off,” as a rule, was pretty much a jerk-free zone, which was one of the reasons it was disappointing to so many fans that, through a series of host shake-ups and controversies, the show seemed to lose its focus, a point of view that was really crystalized amid the outcry over the series’ poorly executed and xenophobic internationally-themed weeks.

At its best, “Bake Off” is a show about good people in good knitwear getting together to bake, do bits and, when the occasion calls for it, trade in some light baking-themed banter and sexual innuendo. With the return of the show’s 14th season (“Collection 11” on Netflix), we’re back to the basics and it feels so good. (A note: stop reading here if you aren’t looking for spoilers.)

The premiere episode opens on a quick sketch called “The Breadfather.” Judge Paul Hollywood sits behind a massive desk — cheeks packed with dough balls — doing his best Don Corleone as series co-host Noel Fielding, dressed in his best Spirit Halloween gangster costume, announces they have a new member to “welcome to the family.” This is our very brief introduction to Hammond, a British presenter and reality television veteran who got her start back in the early 2000s on “Big Brother” and went on to host everything from the BAFTAs to ITV’s “This Morning.”

We don’t get to see a ton of her in this episode, which is a shame, but her palpable charisma and general ease around the contestants is a joy to watch, especially as they embark on their first challenge of the season: a vertical layer cake made by stacking layers of perfectly moist, yet rollable sponge cakes.

Remember the Swiss roll challenge in the very first episode of the very first season of “Bake Off”? It’s like that — just standing up.

While this recipe doesn’t necessarily require a degree in pastry to make, it’s technically challenging enough that it quickly enables viewers to start identifying some of the real early contenders. Namely, there’s Rowan, a college student who is cake-obsessed enough that he had an elaborate wedding cake to celebrate his 21st birthday, and then there’s Dan, an avid gardener and beer brewer who brought rhubarb he had grown to serve as the basis for his classic rhubarb and custard cake.

Towards the bottom of the pack were Tasha, whose lopsided Genoise sponge prompted Paul to ask if she’d used it as a seat, and Matty, a fast-talking boxer with benevolent Jamie Tartt energy and a particularly stubborn batch of buttercream.

The technical challenge was also a nice nod to “Bake Off’s” origins as contestants were asked to make the chocolate cake covered in ganache and raspberries that is featured in the series title sequence. Much like the vertical layer cake, this is a challenge that is really based on timing and temperature control. If the cake is too warm, the ganache will melt upon touching it. However, if contestants attempt to refrigerate the cake and ganache due to being short on time, the texture of the chocolate will likely become chalky and the ganache will take on a dull, matte appearance.

All the contestants put on a pretty good show, but once again, gardener Dan comes out on top.

Next came the signature challenge, in which contestants were asked to create a cake that looked like an animal. “This is going to be an absolute horror show,” my partner, who was watching with me, said delightedly. And I’ll be honest: As someone who has watched (and rewatched) the now-infamous cursed celebrity bust episode of “Bake Off,” I really thought they would be, too.

“This is going to be an absolute horror show,” my partner, who was watching with me, said delightedly.

But, there must have been a little extra magic floating around The Tents that day because, while there were a couple of small disasters, the overall resulting menagerie was pretty solid. There was an especially cute lamb made by Abbi, a forager who, like Dan, brought her own ingredients to the challenge, and a very sleek cartoon-style Highland cow by baker Josh.

This, of course, is when Nicky — a Scottish 52-year-old dressed in a chunky striped knit and ruffled collar — announces to judges that she’ll be making a beaver, whom she has already dubbed “The Lovely Norman.”

While Norman comes out just fine (“lovely” may be a stretch), other bakers don’t fare quite as well. For instance, upon surveying his lopsided and incomplete killer whale cake, deli manager Amos declared it a “piece of poo.” As such, it’s not a huge surprise his name is called when the time comes for one contestant to pack their fondant and go.

One of the things the producers of “Bake Off” promised when teasing out this season is that it would be a return to the classics in many ways, from the technical challenges to the showstoppers. More importantly, however — with the addition of Allison and her easy chemistry with the contestants — it seems like they’ve returned to what made the show so great to begin with tone-wise and managed a very sweet premiere. Let’s see what the next challenge brings.

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Government shutdown held at bay after House passes 45-day funding bill

After a tense holding pattern of watching the clock click towards a looming government shutdown, a crisis has been temporarily averted after the House passed a bill on Saturday afternoon, infusing funds for the next 45 days.

This is a change from Friday when, as Salon reported, GOP infighting in the House killed a Republican bill aimed at avoiding the shutdown, with the list of the bill’s far-right opponents included Reps. Dan Bishop, N.C., Lauren Boebert, Colo., Ken Buck, Colo., Tim Burchett, Tenn., Matt Gaetz, Fla., and Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ga.

As CBS News highlights in their coverage of the new bill that did make the vote, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was “forced to rely on Democrats for passage because the speaker’s hard-right flank said it would oppose any short-term measure. The speaker set up a process for voting requiring a two-thirds supermajority, about 290 votes in the 435-member House for passage. Republicans hold a 221-212 majority, with two vacancies.”

“The House is going to act so government will not shut down,” McCarthy said in the hours prior to the vote. “We will put a clean funding, stopgap on the floor to keep government open for 45 days for the House and Senate to get their work done.”

Evolving “Hair Love” into “Young Love”: Matthew A. Cherry’s “live action-feeling” animated comedy

It’s Wednesday, the first day that Writers Guild of America’s film and TV scribes officially returned to work, and “Young Love” creator Matthew A. Cherry is in New York for a family-friendly celebration of his Max animated series in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene park. He explains that there will be a DJ station where kids can create their own beat, just like his show’s father Stephen (voiced by Kid Cudi) does in the series. There’s also a reading corner, a nod to Cherry’s New York Times bestselling children’s book inspired by “Hair Love,” the Oscar-winning animated short that launched this journey. It probably goes without saying that there’s also a hair braiding station.

This is all part of promoting the latest adventures of up-and-coming producer Stephen Love and his daughter Zuri, introduced in a heartwarming 2019 short in which neither had any dialogue. Hearing them talk wasn’t necessary at the time, since Stephen’s actions conveyed everything we needed to know about this devoted dad. With his partner and Zuri’s mother Angela Young (Issa Rae) treating her cancer in the hospital, it fell to him to style his daughter’s natural hair, a task he assumes with tenderness following a bit of coaxing and coaching via Angela’s hairstyle vlog.

Continuing the family’s story feels natural too, along with giving Zuri a sparky demeanor provided by newcomer Brooke Monroe Conaway. Together this twentysomething Black family makes it a joy to spend time with them as they live, work, go to school and nurture the love for each other. Every aspect of “Young Love” is thoughtfully rendered, from its setting in Chicago, Cherry’s hometown, to its depiction of what life is like for a struggling artist and a hair stylist doing everything they can to make ends meet while being present for their little girl.

Modern city living does not make that easy. Although they live in a building owned by Angela’s parents Gigi (Loretta Devine) and Russell (Harry Lennix), Stephen and Angela struggle. While he battles to get a foot in the door of Chicago’s music scene, which means dealing with egomaniacs like the rapper Lil Ankh (Idriys Jones). Angela simply wants to resume checking off her list of live goal now that her cancer is in remission.

As each ponder where they’re going, they and Zuri contend with pressures to keep up with materialistic peers, appropriation, the slow vanishing of their local culture due to gentrification and more mundane challenges like keeping their junker of a car running.

“Obviously the big theme for us was one step forward, two steps back,” Cherry told Salon in a Zoom interview, “Because that’s really like what it’s like in your 20s. You feel like you’re making all these moves, you’re hustling, you’re thinking you’re moving yourself forward, but then . . . now my car broke down. The money I finally got from that ‘net-30’ job finally came in, and I gotta use that money for this.”

The result, he says, is “something that I haven’t really seen done a ton in animation before, which is this kind of grounded, live-action feeling kind of family situational comedy.”

“Young Love” does feel rare in that way, much like his premise for “Hair Love” was when he proposed the concept in Kickstarter campaign launched in 2017. Some may be tempted to compare it to “The Proud Family” or even aspects of “The Boondocks” — which isn’t off base, since Cherry’s co-showrunner is “Boondocks” producer Carl Jones. But this show eschews the heightened humor and slapstick of those other shows to lean emphatically into situational realism.

Prior to his Fort Greene event, Cherry connected with me over Zoom to discuss the philosophy guiding that approach and the challenge of creating an animated series that appeals to all ages and feels like a situational comedy.

The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

In Max’s hilarious and heartfelt “Young Love,” I saw my own life

This is the first day that the writers’ strike is officially over. How are you doing?

Feeling anxious, like everybody, you know? I think we all wanted it to be over sooner, but also thought we’d probably have some more time. I’m sure the email is about to be inundated with different things that were started before the strike, and now have to be finished up. So yes, it’s definitely happy because, oh my god, it seems like the writers got pretty much everything they were fighting for. So that’s really incredible. But it’s also a weird time. I mean, these people were telling people, they wanted them to lose their houses. So how do you go back and work for these people with that same level of joy and passion? It’ll all get worked out.

“Obviously the big theme for us was one step forward, two steps back.”

Related to that, so many shows launched during the strike, yours being one of them. This was obviously a labor of love, and animation takes a long time to complete from idea to fruition. So what’s that been like for you?

Definitely it has been a long journey, you know. It took us three years, basically, from pitch to the premiere. So it’s definitely been a minute. Thankfully I’m able to handle a lot of the press responsibilities . . . But it’s bittersweet, too, because somebody like Brooke Conway, this is her big break. So hopefully people are still able to discover her. I feel like if they actually saw her talk and do interviews, they would probably book her three or four times over. So I think the word overall for all this stuff is “bittersweet.”

Young Love (Max)I hear you. OK, let’s get into “Young Love”: One thing that struck me while watching it is that only in the last decade or so, maybe a little bit more, has there been this very open proliferation of animation marketed toward for all ages. But there’s still a delineation between family and children’s animation versus animation geared toward adults. “Young Love” really seems to bridge that divide. Was it a challenge to pull that off?

It was definitely different, you know. I think the good thing though, was that we had “Hair Love,” which was our testing ground in a way. “Hair Love” is very kid-friendly and kind of visual appeal, but also it deals with real issues, and real health issues. . . . A lot of stuff that I think people were really relating to was right there in the pitch. Like, we knew we wanted it to be co-viewing we knew we wanted it to be something that the entire family could watch. We knew we wanted it to be grounded, we knew that we wanted to feel like a live-action sitcom.

Typically, when you think of a sitcom or a live-action comedy, and especially when you think of a family, you never really see [an age] gap as wide as we have. Even most family sitcoms, if they have a kid, that kid is 13, because the 13-year-old’s experiences in high school are very similar to what adults deal with. But you never really see a six-year-old in first grade and the gap between them and being an adult. So that was really hard, to be honest. It was definitely not easy. There was definitely some wanting to treat Zuri as more of a side character. But it was always just like, “Look, Zuri is the reason why we’re here.” You know what I mean? Zuri is a character that is beloved. The book shipped three million copies, like I mentioned, and we’ve been viewed X amount of times. We can’t just ignore her.

And I think [Sony Pictures Animation executive] Karen Tolliver had this really amazing suggestion when it came to Zuri, which helped everybody in the room get on board with really treating her as a main character. And it was this idea of, we take Zuri’s issues and the kinds of things that she’s dealing with this season, and we make her issues allegories of what adults deal with.

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For example, in Episode 5, there’s this funny storyline where she’s trying to join the Girl Scouts. And she does a hard day’s work, kind of excels. And she’s expecting to get paid at the end of the day. Then she realizes that just to get a pat on the head, and “This is for the experience. It’s not actually for money.” We all can relate to being told we’re going to be paid in experience, or eventually, one day, it’ll translate into money. So treating Zuri and her friends’ experiences kind of like allegories of different adult situations allowed us to raise her relatability factor.

. . . When we’re in the adult world — like when we’re with Steven and Lil Ankh and Star, let’s be in that world. When we’re with Angela and her friends at the salon, let’s be in that world. And then when we are able to bring it all together by the end of the episode, we’ll see what lessons we’ve learned.

And this may be one of the first co-viewing animated series that deals honestly with money that I’ve seen in a long time. I imagine there must have been a lot a discussion related to that, because especially during the first half of the season, it really comes up a lot – and actually, it plays throughout the season before coming around to dealing with the topic of debt to near the end.

You know, I felt like we were getting really inundated with a lot of projects – I’m not going to name any specifically – but that were just about seeing how the other side lives: everybody has the big houses, big cars. They were just getting to a point where it was so disconnected from reality.

Every day you’re seeing on the news how the cost of living is going up, and the wages aren’t meeting that. So it just felt like, especially if we’re going to set it in Chicago, when you think of Chicago you think of hard-working people. And I think especially if you’re in your 20s, or if you’re an artist, you’re not going to necessarily have it all figured out. Unless you’re just like this one in a million prodigy.

“Insecure” was actually a really good comedic reference for us in how they were more situational. There are moments in the show that aren’t necessarily there to make you have a belly laugh, but they make you smile. So it was just this really interesting, delicate balance that we really tried to figure out.

Young Love (Max)And I wanted to make sure that I asked about the animation with regard to their characters’ hair, as that relates back to “Hair Love.” Even if I’d never seen “Hair Love,” I’d have noticed the intricate textures and all the detail that you don’t see in other animated shows where, especially for Black hair, they depict it as, like, a blob with swirls. Obviously that was important part of this show’s animation.

“If you’re in your 20s, or if you’re an artist, you’re not going to necessarily have it all figured out.”

We were really trying to make sure that the hair felt like hair. Zuri has like four or five different hairstyles she rocks throughout the season. Stephen with his locks; Angela, kind of with her shorter afro. And just all the diversity just everywhere — like you see bald heads, you see weaves, you see, you know, big afros, you see everything, you know, even Gigi’s Sisterlocks. So we just really wanted it to be as diverse as the city is. That was really important.

And obviously, this is coming off a short film called “Hair Love.” We knew that the hair was definitely going to have to hit. But we also spent a lot of time with the skin tones. So if you see the entire family together, you’ll see Gigi’s got a little bit of reddish undertones. Angela looks a little bit more similar in skin tone to her father. We really tried to showcase the whole gamut. Even Angela being a dark-skinned love interest compared to Stephen was important to us, because you don’t typically see that when it comes to love interests. And then having Issa Rae play the character, obviously we want to represent her too. I think we have like over 150 different hairstyles that are featured in the show, from primary characters to background characters, which is kind of unique, too. We just wanted to look and feel like Chicago.

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When people watch this, what are you hoping that they will take away from the experience?

I want them to feel good. You know, there are certain topics that we tackle that, obviously, I think we could have went a little harder on and kind of impacted a little deeper. But also, for us just knowing it was more of a family show — like just knowing where we wanted to sit within the library of different content that’s out there — we just really wanted to people come off of watching the show feeling good, you know, feeling like these people feel like real people that they know, feel like themselves, feels relatable. And I think the biggest lesson is that with family, you can overcome anything. That’s really the main goal that we try to get across.

Can I just say about the issues that you tackled this season that I think that there’s a fine line between taking on those issues and taking people out of the story. So I hope you’ll give yourself a little bit more credit.

No, no, for sure. I mean, I think for us the thing that was cool with “Hair Love” is that we always had this North star. Like we knew that there are . . . parents reading this to their four- and five-year-olds, right? And maybe sometimes even toddlers and newborns. So we want to introduce these topics and obviously be kind of true to dealing with real issues. But also at the end of the day, we still want it to be an enjoyable experience, right? We’re not trying to hit people over the head.

So there’s a definitely a thin line. But I think, what we were going for, I think we really hit the mark. And hopefully the audience thinks so too.

Eight episodes of “Young Love” are streaming on Max. The final four episodes debut on Thursday, Oct. 5.

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What are the biomarkers of Alzheimer’s really telling us?

From pandemics to wildfires, the past few years have given us all too much to think about. Add doom-scrolling and automatic refreshing and flicking between screens – no wonder many of us are distracted, or even forgetful. What’s the difference between this, and mild cognitive impairment presaging the ultimately fatal cognitive decline of Alzheimer’s disease?

Until recently, there was no way to say for sure if you were on the way to AD until someone had a peek at your cold, dead brain.

And until 2011, if you weren’t dead yet, Alzheimer’s was diagnosed suggestively, by accumulating cognitive tests; brain imaging, urine, cerebrospinal fluid and blood tests; asking the patient and family their perceptions of decline; clinician observation and excluding other possibilities.

Navigating new Alzheimer’s drugs can be confusing and expensive. So do they really help patients?

But over the years, scientists have learned more about what physical markers – “biomarkers” – are associated with (though not yet proven causal of) Alzheimer’s. For example, people who go on to develop it have been found to have clumps of a protein called beta-amyloid in their brains. Such signs, it turns out, may precede by years – even decades – symptoms of major cognitive decline. Others may have such amyloid plaques but never end up suffering advanced Alzheimer’s. For years scientists have studied this association, hoping that by clearing these amyloid plaques from the brain, we might ultimately prevent the disease.

Although the precise role of amyloid in the process leading to Alzheimer’s dementia is still unknown, amyloid is thus one of the signs now being used.

A new study published in Vascular Pharmacology in August looks at the relationship between beta-amyloid and age-related diseases beyond just Alzheimer’s. Dysfunction in amyloid, it seems, is linked to impaired action of blood vessels and their linings, to inflammation and to oxidative stress. While something is clearly going awry in the Alzheimer’s brain and with these other conditions, the peptide is involved in many beneficial roles in the body through our lives: regulating synaptic function, contributing to protection against infection and recovery from injury and fixing leaks in the blood-brain barrier.

Although the precise role of amyloid in the process leading to Alzheimer’s dementia is still unknown, amyloid is thus one of the signs now being used since 2011, to divide the disease into three stages.

Only the third of these stages is what most of us think of as Alzheimer’s; the other two phases, pre-clinical and mild cognitive impairment, don’t necessarily lead to the third, dementia, but are nevertheless characterized by the presence of that amyloid buildup and other brain changes seen to a more significant degree in Alzheimer’s dementia.

The Alzheimer’s Association hopes to see this finding sharpened into a new definition for AD in which you can be diagnosed as having the disease years before you show its classic symptoms.

So in a 2018 research framework developed by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), authored with the Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer’s was re-conceptualized from a collection of symptoms (a syndrome) to an underlying pathological process that can be diagnosed in living people by the presence of one of three types of biomarkers such as amyloid plaques – no symptoms required. But this framework only applied in the context of research.

The Alzheimer’s Association hopes to see this finding sharpened into a new definition for AD in which you can be diagnosed as having the disease years before you show its classic symptoms.

“In 2011 and in 2018, we tried to really say, hey, we’ve come a long way, we can now measure biological changes because a disease that we are now currently calling only the symptomatic manifestation is actually starting decades before,” Dr. Maria Carrillo, chief science officer of the association, explained to Salon in a video interview.

“Dementia brings up everything”: Two new books offer emotional (and practical) advice for caregivers

Carrillo compared the change in understanding needed for Alzheimer’s to that which has occurred with cancer, where we can now find precancerous cells and effect cures well before symptoms of cancers previously diagnosed only at, for example, stage four. As cancer has become less of a death sentence in some cases, perhaps AD might also one day be a treatable chronic illness – rather than a sentence of senescence and death.

Perhaps Alzheimer’s might also one day be a treatable chronic illness – rather than a sentence of senescence and death.

However, we’re not quite there yet. Indeed, the NIA continues to warn that the amyloid levels blood test, like testing cerebrospinal fluid, should not be used on its own to diagnose dementia or Alzheimer’s. Biomarkers, the NIA states, are not yet a validated clinical concept and should only be used diagnostically in research settings, although they may contribute to the clinical picture used for diagnosis.

Even among those who develop plaques, some show cognitive resilience – ability to function normally despite such pathologies of the Alzheimer brain, probably thanks to complex brain connections as a result of a mentally active lifestyle, social connections and education. This could be the case with other biomarkers as well.

The authors of the 2018 research framework even wrote: “We appreciate the concern that this biomarker-based research framework has the potential to be misused.”

Jolien Schaeverbeke, a senior scientist and postdoctoral research fellow at the Laboratory for Cognitive Neurology & Laboratory of Neuropathology in Belgium, told Salon in a video interview that even though the process leading to Alzheimer’s dementia may start decades before its perceptible signs, there’s no guarantee you won’t die of something else before showing them. Or of getting them at all.

“We are not sure that a person [with amyloid plaques or other biomarkers] will have clinical symptoms,” says Dr. Schaeverbeke. Even into old age.

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There are thus ethical implications in revealing to patients whether they have AD biomarkers before we are sure they represent an inevitable future case of the advanced disease. And these relate not just to physical outcomes – the risks inherent in aggressively attacking a protein that is in fact necessary to some extent – but psychological ones, too.

“We appreciate the concern that this biomarker-based research framework has the potential to be misused.”

Take medical assistance in dying, as modern forms of euthanasia are called in Canada, where existing rules are shortly to be extended to include mental health conditions as a reason for granting access to doctor-assisted death. While a person who finds out they have AD biomarkers might live deeply and fully in response, another individual might become depressed and seek early medical assistance in dying, when in fact they might otherwise have lived a long and happy life, dying of another condition before any serious cognitive decline could strike.

On the other hand, a 2021 review on the bioethics of disclosing pre-clinical biomarkers or genetic risk did find that while short-term worsened cognitive function can result from sudden awareness of risk, in general, more knowledge does not seem to negatively affect those with early Alzheimer’s pathology or gene variants linked to greater risk.

Dogs can get a canine form of dementia — and it is very similar to the human version

Who else gets to know about biomarkers is perhaps a more worrisome concern. In Belgium, where Dr. Schaeverbeke’s study population lives, she says there’s no risk of being denied health insurance because of a diagnosis of early stage AD. That’s not the case in the United States, where employer-paid or private life, health, or long-term disability insurance could be at risk as a result of early identification of biomarkers.

In some situations, the benefits might outweigh the risks: in a 2017 study on the bioethics of telling research subjects they show biomarkers for AD, Dr. Schaeverbeke and her colleagues found that 100 percent of nearly forty people who contacted a memory clinic wanted to be told their amyloid scan results when given the choice.

Since they were already concerned about their cognitive function, learning the cause of what they already knew was going awry was more a comfort than an additional stress for this group. They believed knowing the results of their scan would also help them make good decisions about, for example, drawing up end-of-life plans, early retirement, or moving to a smaller house.

“Some people, they just said, ‘Okay, we’re going to enjoy life,'” Schaeverbeke said, recalling her interviews with patients. And with about 25 percent of patients with amyloid plaques seen on a PET scan going on to develop Alzheimer’s dementia over the next five years, that may be wise.

But with genetic and environmental influences both at play in ways we don’t yet adequately understand, the risks of going too fast and furious with biomarkers and genetic testing alike are real. What is actually going to happen to you over the coming years, and the extent to which lifestyle changes a worrying biomarker test might spur could protect against eventual clinical symptoms, is still impossible to say.

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Dr. Schaeverbeke points out that while one well-known genetic variant, APOE4, is known to increase amyloid deposits and your risk of Alzheimer’s Disease, there is actually another allele that is protective against it.

“Imagine,” she posits, “that your dad gives you APOE4 and your mom gives you E2”.

What if insurers only check for the better-known, risk-increasing allele – or for amyloid plaques, without considering cognitive resilience – and then deny coverage? That’s just one example of why bioethicists – and the public at large – must think carefully about who gets access to information about what might be going on, quietly, inside.

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DeSantis talks “s**t show” debates and cowboy boots on “Real Time with Bill Maher”

During the first episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher” post-WGA strike, Florida Governor and “job candidate” for Republican president in 2024, Ron DeSantis, sat for a back and forth in which he touched upon the upcoming election and the debates leading up to it.

Exchanging toothy smiles with Maher — who immediately asked him for feedback on his opening monologue — DeSantis threw him a bone saying it had him laughing, and then went into a completely unrelated plug on the state of Florida, making mention of its lax COVID-19 vaccination mandates.

“But people do wear cowboy boots with a suit,” Maher joked, in reference to his guest’s signature footwear — missing the bigger opportunity for a joke there, which would have been to point out the heels on said boots.

After some awkward banter about cattle ranches, Maher made a tight turn to bring up this week’s GOP presidential candidate debate, which he referred to as a “s**t show.”

“I heard you won,” Maher said. “What did you win? Honestly, with Trump not in the race, what did you win?”

Quoting himself in the old, “Trump’s missing in action” thing he said during the debate, DeSantis takes the ball he’s handed there and spikes it into the dirt, saying, “I was the one guy that people said was actually acting like a president.”

To summarize the rest, DeSantis thinks he’s got a real shot here. To that, Maher highlighted that if the campaign was going as well as he thinks, they wouldn’t have been able to get him for the show.

Watch below:

Cozy, filling Italian wedding soup just might be the perfect option for a chilly autumn weekend

Italian Wedding Soup truly is one of the most quintessential and elite autumn or winter dinners. It truly hits every marker that a good (non-creamy) soup should hit

Interestingly enough, I’ve never once had it while out to eat, via takeout or delivery, nor while actually attending a wedding. I’ve only ever eaten my own iteration of it at home.

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Comprised of meatballs, greens, a super flavorful broth and a generous shower of finely grated parm, Italian Wedding Soup always hits the spot, to use one of my dad’s favorite terms. Dubbed Minestra Maritata in Italian, its name is not invoked by where it’s served, actually, but actually by the “marriage” of ingredients in the dish. It’s also a great option for either a frenzied weeknight or a slow, languorous Sunday.

The soup is also simultaneously filling and comforting, yet very, very light. It’s also a perfect choice for a sugar-free, carb-free, keto or Paleo situation . . . and you can obviously use whatever protein you’d like for the meatballs, as well as cook them any way you like and mix-and-match the greens, too. It’s one of the most infinitely customizable soups.

It’s also a one-pot situation, if you’re into those which ultimately becomes kind of a perfect meal all in one bowl.

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A quick breakdown of the components:

I like a minimalist variation for this soup: just broth, meatballs, greens, chives, finishing oil and a shower of parm, but if you need carrots, onions, celery, a grain or carb of some sort, don’t hesitate to throw them in.
The soup is traditionally made with escarole, which I love, but if you can’t find it or you have some spinach or kale on hand, feel free to swap those in. I also like it a lot with any type of chard.
I opt for ground chicken here, but if you’d rather turkey, beef, pork, veal, lamb, sausage or a plant-based ground protein, go wild! Or use a mix of a few different proteins for a more complex flavor profile.
I like using tinier meatballs here, just because it’s never especially enjoyable to bite into enormous meatballs and get lots of soup dribble on your chin. Same goes for slicing or cutting the greens as thinly as possible, so they wilt up well and you don’t get a huge mouthfeel or greens or an especially large leaf that is drenched in broth. For the most pristine, clean, couch-eating-in-a-cozy-sweater comfort food experience, small meatballs and super-thinly sliced greens are paramount. If you’re not looking to do either of those, then just be sure to have a whole stack of napkins at the ready!
I like to essentially make a Parm broth fortified with mirepoix, but you can totally opt for Better than Bouillon, bouillon cubes, store-bought stock or broth or whatever you have on hand.

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I’m a texture guy who likes a crispy meatball and the notion of dropping raw meatballs into a sauce or broth and just letting them cook has never once been appetizing to me, so — just like I do with large meatballs served with sauce and pasta or in a uber-saucy and cheesy meatball sub — I always sear them (quite aggressively) before saucing them. Conversely, you can also roast them, which some tend to prefer — just shape them, drizzle them with oil and throw them in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes or so. You can also cook them on an oven rack placed above a rimmed sheet tray, which will allow any extra fat from the protein drip off the meatballs as they cook. If you’re opting for chicken or turkey here, though, I’d skip that step because the poultry is already quite lean.

Italian Wedding Soup

Yields

08 servings

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

45 minutes

Ingredients

3 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped

4 celery ribs, roughly chopped

2 large onions, peeled and quartered

2 to 3 bay leaves

Water

Better than Bouillon, optional

Parmigiano Reggiano rinds, if you have any on hand

Kosher salt

Olive oil

1 1/2 pound ground chicken (or protein of your choosing)

2 shallots, peeled and minced

4 garlic cloves, grated on a microplane

1 teaspoon dried chives

1/2 cup bread crumbs

2 to 3 tablespoons ricotta

1/2 cup grated parmigiano reggiano, plus more for grating

Garlic powder, optional

Onion powder, optional

Handful of freshly chopped parsley

1 to 2 large bunches of escarole, chard, kale or spinach, cut into thin ribbons

Orzo, Israeli couscous, pastina or fregula, cooked, optional

1 lemon, juiced

Fresh chives, parsley or dill, finely chopped, for garnish

Directions

In a large, heavy bottomed pot over medium heat, add carrots, celery, onions, bay leaves, water, salt and, if using, Better than Bouillon and Parm. rinds.
Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and let cook for at least 20 minutes. Skim, drain, discard or compost your cooked vegetables and clean the pot.
Add reserved broth back to pot. Taste for seasoning.
In a medium skillet over medium-low heat, cook shallots and garlic in olive oil until translucent and slightly browned. Transfer to a dish, wipe out pan and let cool.
In a large bowl, mix chicken, shallot-garlic mixture, chives, bread crumbs, ricotta, Parm, garlic and onion powders (if using), salt and parsley. Mix well and form into very small meatballs.
In same pan in which you cooked the shallots and garlic, add fresh olive oil and fill with meatballs, but do not overcrowd. Cook in batches until fragrant and well crisped, tossing or stirring occasionally so they evenly cook and brown on all sides. Remove to a paper-towel lined sheet tray and season salt. Repeat until all meatballs have been cooked.
Add greens to your broth. Cook until wilted, about 8 minutes.
In a large bowl, add 4 to 5 meatballs. Using a ladle, add broth and greens. Top with lemon juice, a drizzle of olive oil and a shower of freshly grated Parm.

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