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George R.R. Martin: “The Winds of Winter” may be “the longest book…in the series”

It feels like George R.R. Martin has been taking to his blog an awful lot of late, giving us updates about the numerous books he has in the works as well as the enormous slate of television projects he has a hand in, from HBO’s “Game of Thrones” spinoffs to the Native American detective show “​​​​​​​Dark Winds.” The author’s latest blog post went up over the weekend, and it was no exception. Despite beginning the post by saying he had “no time for a long blog post just now,” Martin went on to give us several pages worth of updates on all these various and sundry projects.

“The Winds of Winter” “could be bigger” than previous “Song of Ice and Fire“ novels

Of course, the thing that most of Martin’s fans are desperate for more news about is “The Winds of Winter,” the long-awaited sixth book in his “Song of Ice and Fire” series. While Martin didn’t give a ton of updates about the book in particular, he did at least mention it, which is more than he’s done in some of his other recent blog posts. Here’s what the author had to say:

“THE WINDS OF WINTER” is going to be a big book. The way it is going, it could be bigger than “A STORM OF SWORDS” or “A DANCE WITH DRAGONS,” the longest books in the series to date. I do usually cut and trim once I finish, but I need to finish first.

No big surprise there. Martin has been working on “The Winds of Winter” for over a decade now, so it’d be shocking if it was anything other than monstrously long. Both “A Storm of Swords” and “A Dance with Dragons” were just over 414,000 words according to Statista, which works out to be well over 1,000 pages in most bindings of those novels.

Aside from just the amount of time that Martin has spent on “The Winds of Winter,” there’s also another very good reason why the book would be that long: after “A Feast for Crows” and “A Dance with Dragons” split the story in half by geography, Winds will, in theory, be bringing all our favorites back together in one book again. Given the sheer size of the cast, of course it’ll be huge.

It’s always nice when Martin chooses to chime in about “The Winds of Winter.” But for now, our watch continues.

How the far right co-opted science — and why scientists need to come out to counter them

Over the course of the pandemic, conservatives and far right representatives have mobilized in a widespread assault on science as an institution. While this was an ongoing phenomenon well before COVID, over the pandemic it has expanded into a variety of issues relevant that concern the LGBTQ+ community — especially in light of recent schools’ decision to remove safe space stickers or anything related to Pride, and the expected overturning of Roe v. Wade.

At the center of the maelstrom are a group of individuals who call themselves the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW)—so named by New York Times reporter Barry Weiss, and a label they have also used to describe themselves. While to most people this conjures up images of websites where people can buy illicit substances, the Intellectual Dark Web is merely a loosely affiliated group of celebrity academics and pseudo-intellectuals. These include people like internet talk show hosts like Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan; but also discredited academics like Jordan Peterson, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, who use their scientific credentials to justify conservative positions on hot button “culture war” topics like the legislation targeting the existence of LGBTQ+ people, prohibitions on critical race theory, and anti-abortion legislation — creating a rift between some individuals aligned with the IDW. Although the Intellectual Dark Web is not a formal organization, their mutual support has allowed their collective impact to be felt far and wide.

While each member of the Intellectual Dark Web concerns themselves with a variety of different issues, the central line trying their work together is the link between biology and human social behavior.

While each member of the Intellectual Dark Web concerns themselves with a variety of different issues, the central line trying their work together is the link between biology and human social behavior. While there are a variety of reputable scholars working in this area, they diverge from the IDW by noting the limitations of their work — and they don’t try to use their work to justify discriminatory policies. Figures in the IDW have even gone so far as to alleging that women, African Americans, and LGBTQ+ people are inferior. The work of the Intellectual Dark Web resembles the kind of armchair theorizing that gave rise to a whole host of discredited scientific endeavors in the 1950s. We know today that such old theoretical stances are deeply rooted in the rampant racism and bigotry that existed in that age — perhaps why many of their fan base comes from far-right circles.

RELATED: How genetics undermines “scientific” arguments for racism

If the Intellectual Dark Web remained contained to academic circles they would probably go unnoticed, and their harm could be contained. However, they have done well at cultivating rich benefactors that have allowed their voices to be amplified across the internet and beyond. So called establishment science operates under a process known as peer review in which other anonymous scholars critique their ideas. While biases of reviewers can sometimes taint this process, such internal debates make up a whole field of study known as the philosophy of science. However, in the case of the IDW the issues rest not in the partisan biases of other scientists, but rather rests squarely on a failure to meet the rigorous methodological standards of scientific investigation. Even mainstream outlets have begun to recognize the IDW’s devolving standards as a result of subverting peer review. One review of Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying’s best selling book was described by The Guardian as a book that “lazily repeat[s] false information from other pop-science books.” 

Yet the Intellectual Dark Web is not entirely to blame for their ability to massively influence the public, the institution of science is also an accomplice to their success. Since the 1950s, there have been calls for scholars to speak to the lived experiences of those they study and to make a greater connection with the public. This call has been answered mostly by scholars hailing from marginalized backgrounds including LGBTQ+ persons, African Americans, and women who have had to fight hard to be recognized within science. Behind every scholar from a minority group is a story of struggle. W.E.B. DuBois, one of the greatest public intellectuals of our time, lacked funding and faced significant opposition to his pioneering scholarship on the study of African American experience.

The voices of those in the Intellectual Dark Web are  amplified over legitimate science, and the public mobilized against the very institutions which might guard against ideas like the consumption of bleach as a cure for COVID.

Contrary to this the members of the Intellectual Dark Web are backed by a range of conservative billionaires. Dave Rubin, for example, is funded by Learn Liberty which is supported by Charles G. Koch — the 20th richest person in the world who has contributed vast sums of money towards conservative and far right political figures, and anti LGBTQ+ legislation. Eric Weinstein (Bret Weinstein’s brother), is perhaps the most vocal person in the Intellectual Dark Web, serves as the director of Thiel Capital founded by Peter Thiel who also owns PayPal. This allows the voices of those in the Intellectual Dark Web to be amplified over legitimate science, and the public mobilized against the very institutions which might guard against ideas like the consumption of bleach as a cure for COVID.

The Intellectual Dark Web has exposed the shortcomings of institutional science, and has illustrated the important commitment that research institutions have to the public. This is due in large part to the lack of an incentive structure for those working in science to engage in this type of work. In fact, young scholars who are often best equipped to engage in public scholarship, risk placing their careers in jeopardy due to the political nature that comes from public scholarship. Tenured faculty, who are protected, lack the skills to reach audiences outside of academia — trapped in the proverbial ivory tower. This includes a multitude of individual scientists and other intellectuals taking to Twitch.TV and Youtube to lead the charge against misinformation. While to outsiders these platforms are more closely associated with gaming and watching than science communication, over the pandemic the two sites have been used in a variety of intellectual ways.

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon’s weekly newsletter The Vulgar Scientist.

An overwhelming majority of science communicators on Twitch.TV have recognized the potential for harm to the LGBTQ+ and other minority communities posted by the Intellectual Dark Web. This is due in part to the platforms large trans and non-binary population, and because many of the leading science communicators on the platform hail from the LGBTQ+ community.

As my own research on LGBTQ+ life has shown, LGBTQ+ persons have always been good at using the internet as a mechanism to organize, find community, and ways to establish community–thus it is no wonder that they have applied these community organizing skills towards public outreach. Such science communicators include those in public health such as Marcus Weinman, Dr Neuroforieur, philosophers such as Dr. Bwinbwin, and independent science commentators such as Echoplex Media, and Gremloe. However, LGBTQ+ allies on Twitch.TV, and other platforms, such as biologist The Peer Review, sociologist Professor EXP, and smaller professional journalists like LVELHEAD also explore these issues in their own outreach efforts–albeit from markedly different perspectives.

Unlike the Intellectual Dark Web, the thing that unites these individuals is their dedication and passion to restoring public trust in science, but more importantly in promoting truth, equality, and understanding. As these figures show us, scientists and professionals of all backgrounds need to come out of the laboratory, as we need them now more than ever. As rights for the minorities and the LGBTQ+ community continue to erode, this Pride may matter more than we all know.

Read more on the Intellectual Dark Web and its constituent figures:

This new take on hummingbird cake captures the nostalgia of a timeless Southern dessert

Though it’s beloved in the South, hummingbird cake wasn’t something I grew up eating. In fact, I never even had a slice until about 10 years ago. This classic dessert is typically baked as an iced layer cake, but I make a bundt version, thanks to Sharon, my friend who introduced me to it at an unforgettable luncheon on the bay.

While Sharon has shared many of her recipes with me over the years, this cake was one of the very first. Food is so much a part of my memories. Smells and tastes instantly take me back in time to specific people, places and moments in my life. This cake transports me back to one of my most perfect memories — the day Sharon hosted a birthday party for our friend, Dawn.

The rainstorm from the wee hours of the morning had cleared the way for what was to be an absolutely idyllic spring afternoon with blue sky and sunshine as far as the eye could see. Sharon had prepared a scrumptious seasonal meal of steamed shrimp, fresh sugar snaps and the thinnest asparagus I’d ever seen. She opened a cold, crisp bottle of white wine — and the aroma of this beautiful cake met us when we walked into her kitchen.  

Sharon lives on Perdido Bay, which isn’t far from my place. It’s quite a lovely spot, and Sharon is lovelier still, both inside and out. She creates a casual elegance and ease of being so effortless — which makes her guests feel right at home, yet utterly spoiled.

RELATED: This sweet and tart lemon cake is the easiest bake you’ll ever make

The quintessential Southern hostess is Sharon, who is truly the last of her kind. Without an air of pretension, her table is set with polished silver. Yes, you read that correctly: polished silver. Everything is homemade, there are always fresh-cut flowers (most of which come from Sharon’s own yard) and her home is immaculate without feeling unlived-in or sterile. 

The loveliness of Sharon’s place begins as soon as you turn off the main road onto the long driveway that winds through to her house. Once there, you’re immediately charmed by the peaceful beauty of the grounds. The house itself has deep, inviting porches, beautiful pine columns and gorgeous brickwork. Lady Banks roses grow up the main staircase and all along the walkway that traverses back to the main entry door. Big, bushy, white George Taber azaleas, as well as old, long-established hydrangea bushes, help create cozy spots for hammocks and chairs. It’s simply enchanting.

Once inside, you have uninterrupted views of the bay from every room in the house. In front, facing the water, the grounds are a bird’s paradise with lots of greenery and flowering plants in tidy beds. Sharon even has a once-injured-but-now-healed great blue heron, who’s practically a pet at this point and shows up every afternoon for the hot dogs she buys just for him.

On this particular day, the three of us friends spent all afternoon laughing, relaxing and sitting outside in the sun. We dragged out our luncheon/birthday party for three as long as we could. Then we decided to end our little celebration by having dessert down on the dock so that we could watch the pelicans dive for fish and listen to the water lap at the shore. The cake was outstanding, superbly moist from the fruit and nicely textured from both the fruit and the chopped pecans. It was perfect for the day and for the season. 

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Every time I eat this cake, I’m reminded of that magical moment that provided such a respite from all of our cares and concerns. Each of us had our own “stressors of the moment,” but our friend, the birthday girl, had truly been through a lot. In the span of a few months, she lost her husband to cancer, as well as nearly lost her son in an accident from which he suffered a traumatic brain injury. I think it was the first day she laughed in a very long time. Food and friendship can certainly help heal the soul.  

Once you try it, I bet this hummingbird cake becomes a part of your seasonal rotation. I make it nearly every spring, always grateful for that beautiful day I tasted it for the first time. I’m left feeling thankful for the friends and family I have with whom I regularly get to share good food and drink. 

Cheers to the season! Cheers to friendship, family and the healing power of laughter.

The ingredients

Bananas and pineapple

You need very ripe to overripe bananas. They should be easy to mash with a fork. 

You’ll probably be disappointed if you decide to use a fresh pineapple and its juice for this cake. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it would be simpler to reach for a can.

Use crushed pineapple, but don’t drain the juice off like I accidentally did the first time I made this recipe — you use the juice in the cake. 

Sugar and flour

It’s common for me to substitute some of the sugar for Swerve, which is the best brand of erythritol sweeter I know and an easy 1:1 substitute for sugar. Swerve also makes a powdered variety that can be used in the glaze, if you choose.

This cake can handle being made gluten-free or with an alternative flour. You must make sure, however, that the flour you choose is blended with what’s required for it be used like all-purpose flour. Any of the gluten-free baking blends work fine; I frequently use King Arthur brand.

Having said that, my mom would tell you to disregard all of the above and use Martha White flour and real sugar. Period.

Cream cheese and milk 

If you struggle with lactose, Green Valley makes a lactose-free cream cheese that I’ve used many times. I’ve also used an alternative dairy cream cheese that works for the glaze. (One problem is the color doesn’t turn out as appealing and light, but you can definitely use it.) The only thing I would caution against is using a fat-free or reduced-fat variety of cream cheese. Other than that, any type of milk or cream, dairy or non-dairy should work just fine.

***

Recipe: Hummingbird Bundt Cake

Yields
16 servings
Prep Time
30 minutes
Cook Time
60-70 minutes

Ingredients

The cake

  • 1 1/2 cups pecans, chopped, toasted and divided
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3 eggs, beaten
  • 1 3/4 to 2 cups mashed banana (2 cups at most, 1 3/4 at least)
  • 1 8 oz. can crushed pineapple, undrained
  • 3/4 vegetable oil
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

The glaze 

  • 4 oz. cream cheese
  • 2 cups sifted powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 tablespoons milk or cream, plus extra (You might need a bit more.)

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

  2. Toast the pecans until fragrant and crispy but not scorched, 5-8 minutes.

  3. Oil and flour a bundt pan, tapping out any extra flour, and set aside.

  4. After the pecans are toasted, sprinkle 2/3 into the prepared bundt pan.

  5. In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, soda, cinnamon and salt.

  6. In a second bowl, combine the eggs, bananas, pineapple and its juice, oil and vanilla.

  7. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until just combined and the dry ingredients are uniformly moist.

  8. Pour or spoon the batter on top of the pecans in the bundt pan. Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  9. Allow the cake to cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then remove it and allow it to completely cool on the rack.

  10. Combine and stir all of the ingredients for the glaze until well blended. Use additional milk or cream if necessary to get the desired consistency. (You should be able to pour it over the cake with the help of a rubber spatula.)

  11. Once the cake is cool, pour the glaze over the cake and top it with the remaining toasted pecans.

Cook’s Notes

I use either cold-pressed, organic sunflower seed oil or avocado oil. They’re both nice and neutral tasting, but any oil of your choosing should work fine for this cake. I wouldn’t recommend olive oil, however, as it would impart additional flavor.

The amount of mashed banana I suggest isn’t exactly exact. I’ve found that if I have a bit of extra banana after reaching the 1 3/4 cup mark, adding the remainder of it works out just fine. No need to waste.

If I have cream on hand and use it for the cream cheese glaze, I often have to add a bit of water in order to get the consistency to something more pourable. What you want is a thick glaze or a thin icing if that makes sense.  

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“Bar Rescue” boss Jon Taffer wants to show you how to argue better

I had a great friend in high school named Jay who could make anybody laugh at anytime –even during a funeral or right before grandma went into surgery, he was sharp and witty enough to conjure up something that would put a smile on your face. My friends and I spent hours upon hours laughing at his jokes and it was always a good time, unless some sort of disagreement happened during one of our adolescent exchanges – because in these moments, he would transform into a completely different guy, a guy that wanted nothing but conflict. 

As years passed, Jay seemed to become addicted to arguing, it didn’t matter if it was 8 a.m. during homeroom, during basketball practice or at someone’s party, he always wanted to fight and was obsessed with being right. These weren’t constructive arguments at all, just violent spats that always ended with him yelling over everyone else in an effort to make his point. When rejected, he would go silent, and be distant, giving all parties involved some space, only to try to make his point again before allowing any of us to move forward. Hanging around Jay had become insufferable, and we found ourselves doing any and everything in our power to avoid conflict, but according to Jon Taffer, we were wrong. 

Taffer – who you may recognize from his Paramount Network TV show “Bar Rescue,” where he intervenes to help failing bar and restaurant owners turn around their businesses – takes a deep dive into confrontation in his new book, “The Power of Conflict: Speak Your Mind and Get the Results You Want.” If you’ve seen the show, you know Taffer surely isn’t afraid to yell and definitely does not avoid conflict. As he told me during our “Salon Talks” episode, he has told network executives to go f**k themselves more than once. But, he told me, “You don’t have to go to the ‘f**k you.’ We can engage in really respectful, meaningful conflict. If we understand how each other feels, the world is a better place for it.”

Taffer, who lives in Las Vegas and has spent over 30 years in the restaurant, bar and nightclub business, has a lot to say about what healthy productive conflict looks like. Taffer believes that conflict is as guaranteed as death and taxes – so it would be in our best interest to make sure we use it as a tool to strengthen our relationships. For my friends and I, avoiding conflict with Jay was a temporary fix that didn’t heal our problems. Instead, it led to us becoming estranged.

Watch my “Salon Talks” episode with Jon Taffer here or read a Q&A of our conversation below to learn more about Taffer’s journey into mastering conflict and some of his favorite explosive moments from “Bar Rescue.” 

The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

At the height of the pandemic, you met with the President to talk about the restaurant industry. Do you feel like things are finally starting to look up for bars and restaurants?

“In Alpharetta, Georgia … you put a mask on your face in that city, and I got to tell you, they’re going to stone you.”

Almost every restaurant is about 20-25% ahead of pre-pandemic levels in revenue. So people came back. Everybody said it was going to take a long time, but obviously, there was a pent-up demand that people were eager. For example, I live here in Las Vegas. The casinos have had the two best quarters in our history. People came back in big numbers. 

The problem is, we can’t get the employees to serve them. Our food prices are higher. When meat prices go up 15% and we got to raise a burger 15% and then another 15%. We can’t sell a hamburger for $30. So at some point it’s starting to impact us. But right now, the revenues are great. We just have to get inflation and our labor problems in control.

When is going out to eat going to feel normal again? I go to these different restaurants and sometimes I see families trying to stuff food under their masks. And then sometimes I see people who look like they never even put a mask on the whole time this was going on. When do you think it’s going to be normal?

What city are you in, may I ask?

I’m in Baltimore.

So it’s interesting. A lot of it is where you are. I own a Taffer’s Tavern restaurant in Alpharetta, Georgia. You put a mask on your face in that city, and I got to tell you, they’re going to stone you. When I put mask restrictions in my restaurant in Georgia, which weren’t state required, but we wanted to do it to be responsible as operators, there was almost protests in front of the restaurant. That’s a state that believes you have your own choices to do what you choose to do. 

You go to California at the same time, this is a year ago, if you weren’t wearing a mask, they would stone you. It’s amazing how regional this was and how different cities and different groups of people treated it in such different ways.

In Georgia, we dropped a mask mandate out of consumer demand. I had my employees masked because as an employer I wanted to be responsible in that way certainly, and we had other sanitation procedures in place. But I must say we had no breakouts in a restaurant. We never had to close. We never had any major issues. I look at some of the other states that were so massively control-oriented, and I wonder, was it really worth it? I was studying the statistics between Florida and California. You want to talk about two states that took opposite views. And it’s interesting. The COVID numbers are about the same between the two. So numbers don’t lie. And I don’t think this should be a political thing. I think it should be a health thing and a statistical thing. We’re all mature enough to make our own decisions.

But isn’t that the problem? It’s like everybody has to make everything political. How fitting, as we’re here to talk about you new book, “The Power of Conflict.” What made you decide to talk about conflict right now?

I had the idea about two years ago, and you look online and people are beating the heck out of –

Absolutely.

Insulting each other, being disrespectful to each other, robbing each other of their dignity. Then candidly, in as much as I like some of his policies, I thought President Trump was one who engaged in what I called meaningless conflict. If you’re going to engage in conflict have it be worth something or don’t do it at all.

I realized how this world of conflict is exploding. I started to pick it apart and really study it. And I found that without conflict, we’d probably be a fascist society today because Adolf Hitler would’ve taken over the world. Conflict is a dirty word in a sense, but it’s not a dirty thing. 

“They edited that cut and they put it online as if it was an endorsement for Trump, which it wasn’t. Man, I got a quarter of a million f**k yous online.”

Let’s say you and I were brothers and it’s Thanksgiving dinner and we have opposing political views. If I engage in what I determine is meaningful, dignified, constructive conflict to talk about issues with you in a positive way, that’s a good thing. We expand each other’s minds. We learn about each other. We understand each other more. The minute it becomes undignified, that’s when all hell breaks loose. That’s when our society falls apart. 

I wanted to write a book that was completely non-political. The book takes no sides. It’s really politically neutral. But the premise of the book is whatever your values are. And we all have opposing and different values, some of us. Whatever your values are, speak up or they’re going to disappear. And that’s where we’re at as a society today. I don’t think society should be silencing us from dignified, meaningful, constructive conflict. The word conflict has gotten too broad.

My generation, the social media generation, I feel like we owe an apology to the Boomers and the Gen Xers, because it seems like we’ve erased nuance. You plant your flag and that’s what it is. We’re not engaging in meaningful conflict. And you got to that in this book when talking about the different types of conflict. Your show “Bar Rescue” is a show that is full of conflict. You’re dealing with people and their businesses. And, of course, they’re bringing you in as the expert. Is that how honed your arguing skills? Or were you already like that? 

I certainly honed them. I’ve done about 240 episodes now over 11 years. So I’d like to think I’m better at it. But “Bar Rescue” taught me the whole premise of meaningful conflict. That I’m not here to fight with this person, I’m here to change them. If engaging in conflict is going to change them, then so be it. I’ll engage in conflict because I’m doing it for the good, not for the bad. And I think that’s the key point is, we should have a good purpose in conflict, not to squish each other. That serves no purpose.

RELATED: “Bar Rescue” in Puerto Rico: Helping a business — and community — rebuild after Hurricane Maria

You open the book with an exchange you had with a producer. I believe you tell him to go f**k himself.

I did.

I was thinking about how empowering that is to be able to have that power. But then it also made me think, well, when you make it in business, you have the luxury of being able to control how you interact with people. But what would you say to a person who couldn’t afford to tell the producer to go f**k himself?

Well, it was easy for me to say that, even though the show was shut down and technically canceled for a couple of hours because of that. And people flew into another city and you read the story in a book and the president of the network, walked me around a block and said, “Look, Jon. We could have creative disagreements, but you can’t tell the vice president of the network to go f**k himself.” Well, I’ve told them all to go f**k themselves more than once after that, walking the block. I was willing to take the risk, but that wasn’t meaningful conflict. See, I was a rookie back then. That was only the fourth episode. 

Today, I would go about it very differently. So telling your boss, your executive, to go f**k himself is probably not the smartest thing to do. But not engaging in meaningful conflict that can be constructive for your relationship or for the company is also not a good idea. So how do you do it right? You don’t have to go to the “F**k you.” We can engage in really respectful, meaningful conflict, and you have something to teach me. And I have something to teach you. And if we understand how each other feels, the world is a better place for it.

A few years ago when Trump was running for president and I went on one of the news shows and they asked me, “Of all the candidates in the Republican Party, who’s best for business?” I said, “Donald Trump,” because I thought he own business. He started a business. He sold a business. The other guys didn’t. They edited that cut and they put it online as if it was an endorsement for Trump, which it wasn’t. Man, I got a quarter of a million f**k yous online. “You’re an a**hole,” blah, blah, blah.

A few weeks later, I’m in New York City and I’m having lunch with a friend of mine, Whoopi Goldberg. Whoopi is my buddy. We post a picture of Whoopi and I online a few weeks later. And now the other side of the world, “F**k you, Taffer. How dare you’d be with Whoopi Goldberg?” But no matter what I did, I got cursed out.

It’s this inability for each side to hear each other. I think you offer some valuable lessons in the book. What I would like you to do is if we can recreate that situation, right? I’m the executive producer, and I’m looking for drama. I’m looking for conflict. I want you to put some fake trash on the floor and some fake rats by the door. And then, instead of you telling me to go f**k myself, what would be the appropriate way to get the messaging across? 

That’s a great question. I would start by saying, “Mr. Producer, you and I have a very common objective here. We want a great TV show. So what does it take to make a great TV show? Well, first of all, the employees have to trust me. They have to think this is real. If they think this is fake, then I can’t make it real anymore, and it’s over for me. You got to keep it real for me. And doing fake things, disempowers me from achieving your objective, which is a great show that’s based in reality.” That’s how I would do it today. I would agree on a common objective that you and I have. You and I have a common objective. We would like harmony in a world, wouldn’t we? We would love it, if people got along better. We would love it, if people communicated better. All these things would be great for us, for our kids, for everybody.

So let’s embrace that common objective together, and say, “OK, how do we live together in a dignified way? How do we keep our ideas alive without insulting each other? We can do this.” 

“‘Bar Rescue’ taught me the whole premise of meaningful conflict.”

We’ve done it at different points in our society where we bind together. Look at Ukraine, almost all of us agree on that. None of us wants to see that go down. There are so many things that we all agree upon that are important to us all. We all share the same purpose, happiness in our lives. I think common objectives need to take the lead, rather than the little details that interfere with those common objectives. Big picture, let’s keep each other happy. Let’s keep each other dignified and let’s respect each other’s views.

When you’re having these exchanges with people, one of the most powerful things you can do is identify what the common denominator is. We both want something, how do we collectively get there?

You bet.

What do you think is the most common thing people get wrong about conflict?

They think conflict is fighting. Conflict is like a dirty word. It’s a nasty word. If you and I engage in conflict talking about, “What is the best hamburger?” “Oh, I like onions.” That’s just fun, but it’s conflict. We’re conflicting. “Oh, you’re crazy. Onions are terrible.” The fact of the matter, it’s not a dirty word. Parents do it with their children all the time. Children test their parents in ways like that. Conflict is constructive. 

If you don’t engage in conflict and you live that submissive life where you keep all your views and stuff to yourself, that’s not healthy. It has bad physiological effects upon you. The fact is, sticking up for yourself is emotionally and physiologically healthy.

In your process in going on this journey, especially with being in television and everything, was there ever a time where one of your clients, or even you, had gotten it so wrong that it just couldn’t be aired?

There’s never been an episode that didn’t air, except for one, which was in Nashville where we rescued a bar, and three weeks later, the owner shot somebody.

Wow.

Was convicted, went to prison. Of course, we had nothing to do with any of it. It happened weeks after we left, but it would’ve been in bad taste to air that episode. So we never did. Other than that, no. Everything has always worked out. If it doesn’t, however, it plays out, it plays out. 

I’ve walked out and not rescued some bars. I’ve told people, “You’re not worth it. I’m not doing it for you.” I’m very fortunate. My network allows me to run my own show. I’m executive producer and host of it. I do what I want to do when I want to do it. I keep it real. I have no network people ever on set at my show. It’s just me and my team. And I’m really lucky to have that freedom from the network that allows me to keep the show real. But I guess I’ve earned it too.

RELATED: Why it’s (almost) impossible to argue with the right

You also talk about purpose-driven conflict. It’s what we’ve been touching on throughout the conversation. What exactly is purpose-driven conflict?

Purpose-driven conflict is understanding I’m going to engage into a conversation with somebody with a very succinct purpose. I want to pull this person to me. I want to have a better relationship with them. I want them to think that we’re not as separated on things as we want to be. That’s a generic purpose. I just want to make us tighter together. Another specific purpose is, I want to change the way you have a view about something. 

So if I want to change your view and that’s my purpose, I better go at it respectfully, which means I better listen to what you have to say. Really listen, really understand. We talk about that a lot in the book, and I need to go at it in a way that is purposeful, which means I stay on point. 

If I’m talking to you about how much your beard and your mustache look good on you, there’s no reason to talk about your glasses, is there? We’re talking about your mustache. So when we get emotional in conflict, that’s when we go crazy. “Oh, your shirt is terrible and you’re this,” no. Stay on purpose. Win that singular purpose. That’s what a great conflict is all about. 

“Someone who opens a bar and runs bars like me, never does it for myself. It’s all about the customer.”

I think if more people did that, then they wouldn’t be scared of expressing their feelings and talking about what they need to talk about. There’s a lot of people who just try to duck and dodge conflict. Isn’t that sad when you think about?

It’s terrible.

In the moment they believe that their views aren’t important enough to stick up for. That to me is incredibly sad and almost speaks to a wasted life. You and I aren’t best friends. We just met each other, right? But if we went out to lunch together, I’m curious to hear your views on things. You’re a good guy. You’re a smart guy. You’re a man worthy of respect. I’d be curious to hear what you have to say. And if you disagree with me about things, I would expect that. We come from different cities with different kinds of people, et cetera. Isn’t that wonderful that we’re different?

The other day on social media, after the “Bar Rescue” episode on Sunday night some guy wrote on social media, “Taff, you rescued a great bar. You’re a great TV host, but I don’t like your politics.” What the hell does that have to do with anything? And the guy’s watching me rescue bars. His purpose was to say, “You put on a great show.” Why bring politics into it? That’s not the purpose that he even had. It’s interesting how people just go crazy and lose sight of what their initial purpose was.

I don’t know if you ever been to Baltimore, but the bar set up in Baltimore is a lot different when it comes to the small neighborhood bars. It’s cut-rate in the front where you can come in and it’s like a bulletproof glass and you buy, you get your carryout. Or you can get buzzed into the back and relax and have a drink in the lounge. Before I got into writing, that was my first business. There was a bar on that corner, and I was right in the middle of the block and I struggled. I struggled. I struggled. I struggled. What got me over the hump was the poker machines. I tried to leave some space for a dance floor and nobody would dance. People didn’t want to dance. People wanted to have a drink and say, f**k their boss or whoever they work for, their family or whoever. When I added those poker machines, I tell you, I couldn’t get into the door in my own place. This is before they legalized casinos in the state of Maryland.  It was a wild business though. It’s great when it’s working and when it’s not working, when people are throwing up in the bathroom, then it goes off a little bit.

I was involved in Baltimore many years ago with Baltimore Live, an original sports bar, in the Inner Harbor there downtown. I know that city well. Every bar is a little different. The music that you play is a little different. Demographically, you have to be sensitive to who’s coming. What do they like to eat? What do they like to listen to? How do they dress?

Absolutely.

All these things matter. Because you go to a bar that fits you, and that’s a very personal thing. Someone who opens a bar and runs bars like me, never does it for myself. It’s all about the customer and finding out what it is. And you found it, which is great.

Your book is full of stories of different disagreements and opportunities for conflict. And something that I found myself thinking about is, how do we start the conversation? How do we begin the conversation of understanding that every situation can be win-win? Is that too sappy?

No, I think that’s right on the money. Let’s say you and I disagree on some important issue. And I don’t want to talk about politics, but let’s say we disagree on immigration, whatever the hell that disagreement would be. And we engage in a conflict, and it’s respectful and it’s dignified. I hear your views. You hear mine. When we’re finished, we hug each other and go have a beer. Isn’t that a positive result? I didn’t change your mind. You didn’t change your mind. But we’re closer together as human beings. We gained some respect for each other’s views. I might not agree with you, but I understand why you feel the way you do. 

If we all understood the way we feel that we do, we would be inclined to be kinder to each other. We would be inclined to be more communicative with each other. That’s the point. I don’t have to make you agree with me. I want you to respect me. I want you to understand why I feel the way that I do. I know you feel the same way. You want me to respect you and understand why you feel the way you do. You don’t want me to say, “He’s a jerk because he feels this way.” No, you’re not a jerk because you feel that way. There’s a million reasons why you feel that way, who you are, how you brought up, where you come from, all these things make a difference.

Absolutely.

That’s positive. Whenever we learn about each other and pull closer together, to me, whether we agree or disagree on the purpose that we’re conflicting about, the two of us are in a better place when we’re done, if we do it right.

Let’s close out with giving some advice for that person who is ducking arguments and hiding in alleys and all that.

You can’t hide for the rest of your life. Your views are important. Don’t diminish yourself. Don’t think your views are unimportant. Don’t think you’re unimportant. Your view is just as important as the other person in the room. Have the confidence to believe in yourself and know that your opinions matter, and then fight for the ones that are most important. I probably shouldn’t use the right, engage on the ones that are most important. And defend the things that are important to you. If you don’t, I think it’s a life wasted in many ways.

Watch more “Salon Talks” episodes with D. Watkins :

Meet Giusti, a 400-year-old balsamic vinegar empire

For years, I swore off balsamic vinegar. I’d intentionally order Caprese salads with just olive oil or request that my mother-in-law cook her favorite shredded Brussels sprouts salad without her go-to balsamic vinegar. This was because what I knew to be balsamic vinegar — a watery, dark caramel-colored liquid with burning acidity — wasn’t actually balsamic vinegar at all. It turns out most things labeled balsamic vinegar in the United States are completely different from the complex, subtly sweet, subtly tangy, intensely flavored condiment that originated in Modena, Italy.

How it’s classified

The difference is this: in order for balsamic vinegar to be designated as “DOP,” aka Denominazione di Origine Protetta, it must be made from cooked grapes and nothing else. The grapes must mature naturally through a long and slow acetification process.

The other certification to look for is “IGP,” which translates to a product with “protected geographical indication,” and means that the vinegar must be produced and bottled in Modena, Italy. The standards for IGP balsamic aren’t as stringent as that for DOP balsamic vinegar, but you’re still going to get a very good product that follows strict quality standards and traditional methods.

The third type of balsamic product, the one that makes me run in the other direction, is “balsamic condimento,” which includes any balsamic product that doesn’t meet DOP or IGP standards. Some might taste delicious, but these are the least regulated forms of balsamic so you won’t know exactly what’s inside the bottle. Many of them have additional flavorings, sweeteners, and additives to mimic the flavor of DOP or IGP balsamic. But once you taste the real stuff, you won’t want to go back.

Meet Giusti

For the good stuff, I turn to Giusti, the oldest-known commercial producer of balsamic vinegar in the world. The family-owned and operated empire has passed through 17 generations, dating back to 1605, when founders Giuseppe and Francesco Mario Giusti registered their business. Over the next 200 years, they continued to perfect the art of balsamic vinegar and in 1863, presented the first document describing how to make the “perfect balsamic vinegar” at the Agricultural Exhibition of Modena. Fortunately, you don’t need to travel back in time — or to Modena, Italy, for that matter — to taste the syrupy, sweet nectar; you can now shop 10 of Giusti’s signature balsamic vinegar products in the Food52 shop.

And while you don’t need to travel back in time . . . it’s certainly fun to do so. Let’s do just that. According to Giuseppe Rimedio, COO of Giusti USA, the first known attempts at making a version of balsamic vinegar dates back nearly 2,000 years ago. During this time, most of the world’s sugar production came from Central America, South America, and Asia, which was generally very expensive and hard to import to other parts of the world, including Europe. As an alternative, sugar was sometimes made with honey, but this was just as expensive. The one sweet product that was readily available for Europeans, especially Italians, was grapes. “If you want to understand balsamic vinegar, you need to know saba,” Rimedio told me in an exclusive interview for Food52. Saba is a Latin word meaning “cooked must of grapes,” which is the highly concentrated, sweet product that comes from grapes.”

For more than a thousand years, balsamic vinegar was produced in very small quantities throughout Italy, mainly as a sugar substitute for the poor. “At some point, someone took the cooked must of grapes and added a very small quantity of red wine vinegar to start the acidification process. After that, it was aged in barrels and balsamic vinegar was created in the way we are familiar with today,” explains Rimedio. “Even now, in Modena, basically every family has some small quantities of barrels because it’s a kind of tradition. But that doesn’t mean that they are “producers” of balsamic vinegar.”

It takes a lot of grapes to produce even a small amount of balsamic vinegar — one liter of balsamic vinegar needs at least 100 kilograms (almost 220 pounds) of grapes — hence why it’s been coined the “black gold of Modena.”

Eventually, Italians realized that in addition to being an inexpensive sugar substitute, balsamic vinegar was also a powerful digestif. Their diet was rich in pork — think: salty salami and shavings of prosciutto — and the acidity of balsamic vinegar cut through all that pork. Rimedio says it became a tradition for Italians to consume one to two teaspoons of balsamic vinegar after dinner for their digestive health. “Grapes have many properties — with each spoonful of balsamic vinegar, you will consume the equivalent of 5 kilos of grapes,” explains Rimedio. Before it was ever sold as a food condiment, Giusti distributed their vinegar to pharmacies throughout Modena for these very health benefits. You can still find the symbol of a red cross on their label today as a nod toward their pharmaceutical past.

Balsamic vinegar eventually became popular throughout Asia, especially in South Korea and Japan for its health benefits; many people, including Rimedio, say that balsamic vinegar is extremely rich in polyphenols, which are believed to help prevent aging in your skin and organs. But the most popular market of all is the United States — he estimates that approximately 33% of the world’s balsamic vinegar supply goes to American tables. Still, what you see at the supermarket wouldn’t pass muster in most of Italy.

The Giusti difference

Many large-scale producers — especially those larger than Giusti — tend to take shortcuts when it comes to producing balsamic vinegar in order to cut costs. While Giusti ages their balsamic vinegar for a minimum of 12 years, Rimedio says that some companies may age them for as little as four weeks, adding caramel color and other additives to create a falsified flavor and viscosity that resembles a much older product. The difference is that the younger vinegar will be less sweet, less smooth, and less complete than something of 12, or even 100 years.

Rimedio says one is not better than the other; it’s just a matter of personal preference. If you’re someone who is enchanted by the idea of drinking balsamic vinegar every day, and have the means to do so, a more concentrated, more expensive version is probably going to be more appealing. As for that 100-year-old product, that will cost a pretty penny; each year, Giusti releases 500 bottles of 100-year-old balsamic that retails for more than $1,000. Of course, you can get delicious balsamic vinegar for less than a paycheck; Giusti’s products range from $21 to $200, with the most expensive product in our shop being a 25-year aged balsamic. But if you use it sparingly for that occasional Caprese sandwich, and don’t care that “cooked grape must” is not the first, second, or even third ingredient on the ingredients list, then you might not make space in your pantry for Giusti. But with a history and product so rich, you probably should.

3 balsamic vinegar recipes

Buttery Balsamic Chicken

Two tablespoons of really good balsamic vinegar (like Giusti 2 Medaglie d’Oro Balsamic Vinegar of Modena) are used to make a marinade for chicken breasts; the meat soaks in a combination of balsamic and salt for about an hour, before they’re pan-seared. Near the end of the cooking process, two more tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and a half stick of butter are added to the pan to create a syrupy glaze for the chicken. The ingredients list is minimal, but the flavor payoff is major.

Salty Balsamic Caramels

Now that you know really good balsamic vinegar leans more sweet than savory, it might be a little easier to imagine using it to make a confection, like these homemade caramels. “The balsamic vinegar adds a pleasant tang that cuts the rich caramel and rounds the whole thing out,” explains Jesse Szewczyk, author of “Cookies: The New Classics.” The recipe calls for a quarter cup of balsamic vinegar — he doesn’t recommend one particular brand, but you know we will (hint: it’s Giusti).

Balsamic Butterscotch Sauce

Another sweet example of using really good quality balsamic vinegar for something sweet — this time, it’s an ice cream sauce, soon to be your new favorite. Don’t take my word for it? Ask our readers for backup; they voted this Food52’s best recipe with vinegar.

The problem with Mike Myers

People stopped looking for Mike Myers some time ago. That’s not unusual for most “Saturday Night Live” alumni, even those who enjoy a measure of notoriety after their tenure at Studio 8H inside 30 Rockefeller Plaza winds down. The David Spades, Dana Carveys and Will Fortes of the world will always be with us, making cameo appearances or popping up in sitcoms.

But Myers ranks among the greats – one of the guys who didn’t simply make movies, but set the bar for a time of what an “SNL” movie should be. “Wayne’s World” and the “Austin Powers” films – “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery,” “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” and “Austin Powers in Goldmember” – made Myers one of the hottest comedy stars of the 1990s.

In the Aughts he insinuated himself into the hearts of Millennials and Gen Z by becoming the voice of Shrek, joined by the all star of “SNL” all stars, Eddie Murphy.

Comedy fans were always wondering what Murphy was up to, mainly since his legacy was kept alive by the inheritors of his mantle – Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle, among others. Myers, on the other hand, may have been a bit easier to forget because he was so very linked to a time on the show when his characters and their catchphrases defined it. He was terrific at losing himself beneath wigs, latex prosthetics and funny voices. As his featherweight Netflix limited series “The Pentaverate” proves, he still is.

RELATED: David Spade: This is why Eddie Murphy hated me

If you’re not bowled over by the eight rubbery faces Myers cycles through its six episodes, maybe it’s because they’re only slightly removed from versions of his characters you’ve laughed with before but whose humor feels crustily outdated in 2022.  

Even the show’s setting, inside of a ’60s-style mod lair that houses the support structure for a secret society of five men that’s been quietly shaping society for the greater good, has a Dr. Evil-adjacency about it. That’s fine for anyone whose love of all things shagadelic hasn’t abated.

Several profiles over the years mention four- or five-year periods during which he lets ideas cook, which sometimes produces charming pieces like his 2013 documentary “Supermench: The Legend of Shep Gordon” and in others results in “The Love Guru,” an abominable heap best left in 2008.

To anyone paying attention to the happenings in the overall “SNL” graduate universe, Myers’ return to the classic comfort of rubber masks and spirit gum feels like less of a matter of “Where has he been?” than “Does he realize what year it is?”

The PentaverateMike Myers as Ken Scarborough, Lydia West as Reilly Clayton and Mike Meyers as Anthony Landsdowne in “The Pentaverate” (Netflix)

Not every “SNL” actor goes on to greatness, but the ones who enjoy some career longevity display a willingness to stretch beyond the physical slapstick that enabled them to seize the spotlight and Lorne Michael’s favor. Some former “SNL” performers have found success by remaining in their wheelhouse, namely Seth Meyers, who transitioned his successful run on “Weekend Update” into making the “Late Night” brand more politically incisive.

Others remain a such outsized presence in popular culture that we don’t need to explain why. We simply have to drop their names: Tina Fey. Amy Poehler. Kristen Wiig. Maya Rudolph.

There’s Will Ferrell and Andy Samberg, guys who can still carry a movie, in Ferrell’s case, or in Samberg’s, a sitcom.

Performers like Bill Hader and Adam Sandler stretched into dramas long before we stopped associating them with their late-night goofiness. Wiig did the same, as did Rudolph and Fey. Their work in indie films enabled us to view their range to inoculate them from being locked into comedies forever, even if comedy is where their hearts may be as performers and producers.

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Hader, in fact, provides the current version of the ideal model of via “Barry,” a black-as-night comedy that also allows him to be grim, vulnerable and absolutely frightening. Even as Stefon, Hader was very much in his own skin.

Murphy has retained his stature, and it gave him a run of successful family movies starting with “The Nutty Professor” remake. Long before that he’d also proven he could star in action movies like “48 Hours.” Afterward he went on earn Oscar-nominated acclaim with his work in “Dreamgirls” and a Golden Globe nod for “Dolemite Is My Name.”

I cite these examples to drive the point home that while these folks established themselves as comedy forces who can act, Myers never fully escaped the prosthetics and parody closet he constructed for himself. Perhaps that’s on purpose.

His major example of playing it straight, “54,” has become a cult classic but bombed when it was first released. That, along with his understated cameo in “Inglourious Basterds,” proves he’s capable of more than cornily crafted dick jokes. (Myers’ other memorable dramatic role was his unscripted appearance during the fundraising telethon for Hurricane Katrina next to Kanye West when the latter said, “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.”)

The PentaverateMike Myers as Ken Scarborough, Richard McCabe as Exalted Pikeman Higgins in “The “Pentaverate” (Zoe Midford/Netflix)

“The Pentaverate” is an extension of a joke Myers drops in his 1993 vehicle “So I Married an Axe Murderer,” one of those flicks that was more appreciated in its video rental afterlife than in theaters. It’s also one of the few times we see Myers’ natural face, playing a regular, likable guy who isn’t obscured by fake jowls, contact lenses and mops of synthetic hair. Of course, he also plays a number of those types too. But it came in the same year as “Wayne’s World 2,” neither of which performed well.

Four years later came the first “Austin Powers” . . . and ever since, the masks have changed but the humor hasn’t.

Admittedly there’s a simple sweetness to “The Pentaverate” that defies criticism, which is probably why Netflix didn’t make it available to critics for review. People who love Myers’ work will certainly adore it, as will those who share his profound fondness for British sketch humor, Monty Python in particular. Roles he wrote for Jennifer Saunders (“Absolutely Fabulous”) and Keegan-Michael Key pay homage to their legacy in ways their fans should appreciate.

Regardless of this, it is a very strange move for an artist who’s been out of the spotlight for so long to return with a throwback engine fueled by a nostalgia for his career’s highlights. His part in David O. Russell’s upcoming period piece may shift his direction yet again, but for now, it’s as if he’s aware that people tend to love a concept of him as opposed to who he is. To his audiences Myers is a jovial fairytale ogre, or a swinging spy or a random Canadian with a Scottish brogue. But it also provides an answer to why we haven’t kept up with Myers all this time. It may be because we’ve never truly seen him before.

“The Pentaverate” is currently streaming on Netflix. Watch a trailer for it below, via YouTube.

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Trolling Is taking a toll on science journalism

For the past several years, we’ve watched with rising concern as journalists in the United States and abroad have been increasingly subjected to online harassment. As journalism professors specializing in science reporting and violence against the press at George Washington University, we have researched, observed, and written about the rising trend in anti-press attacks through email, instant messages, social media, and other digital channels. Sadly, online attacks and threats have become the new normal in many newsrooms, with the result being that journalists are subject to a form of mob censorship.

Late last year, we began conducting a series of in-depth interviews — ten in total — to learn specifically how online harassment is affecting journalists who cover science. We spoke with science journalists and editors, asking them about the types of digital attacks they have received, as well as the content of those attacks, among other questions. Because these interviews were done as part of a research study, we’ve kept the names confidential in accordance with rules governing research with human subjects. In aggregate, the story they told was disheartening: Like journalists who cover politics and other polarizing beats, science journalists say they are being targeted with digital provocations and hate, and report their newsrooms are doing little, if anything, to protect them.

We spoke with reporters who said they repeatedly received harassing phone calls from readers. In some cases, scary, accusatory messages would arrive by the hundreds on Twitter, Instagram, and by email. Women appeared to bear the brunt of these attacks.

What’s especially discouraging is that science journalists can be subjected to messages that show little, if any, regard for facts. Journalists we spoke to said they had been targeted by people who deny the existence of Covid-19 or climate change, or who otherwise uphold anti-science views or believe in conspiracies. One person we spoke with described being messaged in an accusatory tone, “like, I’m just pushing the, the liberal narrative. And that I’m part of the conspiracy about climate change.”

These barrages of digital harassment have toxic consequences. The journalists we’ve talked to say it has made them feel unsafe. For some science journalists, it has contributed to a sense of burnout that may make them consider leaving the profession altogether — or moving to other beats. And for those who stay, it can alter the way they cover the beat.

“To be very honest, the harassment works to a degree,” said one reporter, who added that she has become less inclined to cover topics that she feels are likely to draw the ire of online trolls. “To the degree where it silences me on Twitter and limits the number of stories I want to write on these topics — it works.”

Journalists are particularly exposed on social media, where they may not have the formal backing of their news organization, and could be subjected to pile-on harassment. Social media has become a key way that journalists cultivate their professional credentials and reputation, and that reputation can suffer an undeserved hit if someone hurls baseless accusations, tries to turn scientific consensus into false controversies, or disparages a journalist because of their gender, ethnicity, religion, race, or other aspect of social identity.

What is being done about this disturbing online harassment of science journalists? Not enough.

The reporters we interviewed say that most employers are woefully unprepared. News outlets might respond to harassment with knee-jerk reactions, like disabling comments on stories or taking down the emails of reporters from their website, but overall, their support remains limited, say the journalists we talked with. “I think a lot of journalistic outlets right now don’t know how to handle this sort of level of harassment,” said one person we interviewed.

Some newsrooms offer general digital safety training, but those may address topics — like how to avoid scams and how to protect personal identity — that aren’t directly geared toward confronting online abuses and attacks.

As a result, reporters can be left to wrestle with the consequences of online harassment by themselves. While there are some resources to assist journalists with legal and security issues, they are not enough. This is especially true for freelancers, reporters who work remotely, and journalists who work for organizations with limited resources. Freelancers and journalists who work remotely, in particular, lack physical and institutional spaces like newsrooms where they can discuss and come up with ways to address instances of online harassment. Gig journalism, as it were, has deepened many reporters’ sense of disconnection and aloneness.

Even when these journalists are lucky enough to get limited counsel and support, it can come down to them to make excruciatingly difficult choices about how to respond: Dial back social media presence? Avoid science stories that will be sucked into the vortex of ideological battles? Refrain from quoting scientific institutions and experts at the center of current cultural wars?

It would be misguided to treat these questions as a matter of individual choices made by science reporters. This is a collective problem that requires collective solutions, especially given the current climate of polarization around science issues. As heated debates over masking, vaccines, and lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic have demonstrated, science does not occupy a pristine space above politics; rather, it is often drawn into the mucky battlefields of cultural wars.

It is up to news organizations to own the problem of online harassment in science journalism. For starters, they need to recognize the scope of the problem and its consequences, listen to reporters’ concerns, and document attacks. It will also be important for them to collaborate with social media platforms to discuss ways to protect journalists, and to develop and fund support networks that can assist journalists who are dealing with harassment.

This problem affects all of us. The public’s right to know suffers when reporters avoid covering scientific topics out of fear. And science journalists bear a heavy burden when they are subjected to a barrage of insults and hate simply for doing their job.

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

How a quirk of the brain prevents us from caring about climate change

On April 6th, Dr. Peter Kalmus, NASA climate scientist and author, walked up to the JP Morgan Chase bank building in Los Angeles, pulled a pair of handcuffs out of a cloth bag and chained himself to the front door. With tears in his eyes, he spoke about the climate crisis to a group of supporters.  

“We’ve been trying to warn you guys for so many decades that we’re heading towards a f**king catastrophe,” he says in a video from the protest which has since gone viral on Twitter. “And we end up being ignored. The scientists of the world are being ignored. And it’s got to stop. We’re going to lose everything.”

Like me, Kalmus is a scientist – passionate about uncovering the nature of reality. A reality being threated by rapidly rising global temperatures. Unlike me, Kalmus is actually doing something about it. He is a member of Scientist Rebellion – a group of academics and scientists fighting to draw attention to “the reality and severity of the  climate  and  ecological  emergency  by  engaging  in  non-violent  civil  disobedience.”

Watching Kalmus give his impassioned speech on the steps of the bank, I am both humbled and envious. I wonder why it is that I don’t seem to care about the climate crisis as much as he does. The best explanation from my perspective as a cognitive scientist involves a fundamental flaw in my human psychology: the inability to care all that much about what happens in the distant future. But I wondered how Peter Kalmus might explain the public’s apparent lack of enthusiasm when it comes to fighting the good fight. So I wrote him to ask.

“I think climate denial in the media plays a huge role here,” he wrote back to me. “Bits and pieces of the emergency are reported (and they are scary) but they are not related to the future and how they will impact civilization, i.e., potential collapse of civilization is never mentioned.”

There are solid numbers to back up this claim. “Less than a quarter of the public hear about climate change in the media at least once a month,” wrote Mark Hertsgaard, editor of Columbia Journalism Review, and one of the co-founders of Covering Climate Now, a media collaboration fighting to get more news coverage of the climate crisis.  And when these stories are reported, they rarely talk about the existential threat posed by the climate crisis, but instead present hopeful (and often delusional) solutions.

“The effectively irreversible nature of most climate impacts is never mentioned either,” wrote Kalmus. “Instead, usually tech ‘solutions’ are highlighted, or a sense that we still have ‘budget’ for some heating milestone (e.g., 2°C) which is implied to be ‘safe.’ So there is no urgency in the news media.”

The thing is, I do understand the urgency. And yet, I do almost nothing about it. I spend most of my days reading books, watching Netflix, and planning supper. Like almost everyone on this planet, I am not acting like there is a climate emergency.

The thing is, I do understand the urgency. I have read the findings presented in the third volume of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report published on April 4th. It was a document full of unequivocally dire warnings, and the catalyst for Kalmus’ protest. It warns that we are on course for a rise in global temperature well beyond the 1.5 °C goal set by the Paris Agreement (and possibly headed up toward 3°C) by the end of the century with no functional plan in place to stop it from happening. Just to be clear, that could render most of the planet uninhabitable for our species. I know this. And yet, I do almost nothing about it. I spend most of my days reading books, watching Netflix, and planning supper. Like almost everyone on this planet, I am not acting like there is a climate emergency.

It’s possible that I, like many others, am behaving in a way common to someone processing the threat of impending cultural trauma. This is a term to refer to a horrendous event that irrevocably changes a society’s identity or destroys the social order. A common response to an impending threat of this magnitude is to fight to maintain the status quo. In doing so, a kind of social inertia crops up where people do everything they can to keep living their lives the way they always have, despite the looming implosion of society. Perhaps I, like so many others, am fully aware of the horrific outcomes of climate change, but my mind generates a kind of trauma-avoiding denial that shields me from reality. It helps me tune out the IPCC report and tune in to “Bridgerton” instead.

There is, however, and even older psychological response than denial that could explain why I, like so many others, am not chaining myself to banks in the face of the impending extinction of humanity.

Edward Wasserman is a psychologist studying animal behavior and author of the book “As If By Design“ who offered an elegantly simple explanation as to why humans are so bad at dealing with climate change. It boils down to the way all animals — including humans — have been designed by evolution to deal with common everyday problems like finding food, safety, or sex.

The problem is that humans, like all animals, evolved to solve problems in the here and now. This means that our emotions — the primary driver of behavior — are designed to force us to act based on the potential for an immediate reward.

“Being the first to spot a ripe berry or a deadly predator might give an organism only a short-lived interval of time in which to engage in adaptive action,” Wasserman wrote in his blog for Psychology Today.  “This reality prompts organisms to act impulsively. However, such impulsivity is obviously at odds with appreciating and contending with the slowly rising warning signs for climate change.”

The problem is that humans, like all animals, evolved to solve problems in the here and now. This means that our emotions — the primary driver of behavior — are designed to force us to act based on the potential for an immediate reward.

Humans are unique in that, sometime in the past 250 thousand years, we evolved the ability to think about the distant future. We can contemplate what our lives might be like months or even years down the road — something that no other animal species can do (as far as we know). But this recently evolved cognitive skill functions separately from the ancient emotional system that generates everyday animal behavior.

If you, for example, decide to invest in a retirement savings scheme, it’s because you appealed to a complex intellectual calculation concerning what your life might be like decades in the future. There is nothing immediately satisfying about saving money right now. Retirement schemes are not impulsive acts that generate dopamine rushes, like drinking a daquiri, solving Wordle, or eating a chocolate chip cookie. Far-future planning is a purely intellectual exercise.

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I use the term prognostic myopia to denote this disconnect between the human ability to think about the distant future and our inability to actually feel strongly about that future. Prognostic means one’s ability to predict the future; myopia means nearsightedness. It’s prognostic myopia that explains the inertia that individuals, societies, and governments have when it comes to solving climate change. The IPCC report was clear that fossil fuel extraction needed to cease as soon as possible, lest we set ourselves on a course for extinction. And yet, on April 11th, less than a week after the IPCC report, the Canadian government approved the Bay du Nord offshore oil project, which will extract 300 million barrels of oil off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. On April 15th, the Biden administration announced that The Bureau of Land Management will resume and thus increase oil and gas leasing on public lands (breaking a campaign promise). In both cases, this is exactly the thing the IPCC report said we have to stop doing immediately if we want to prevent human extinction. This is prognostic myopia in action. It feels more important to address the threat of rising oil prices or the stability of the economy in the here and now even if it hastens our extinction in a few decades. It’s both unforgivable and completely understandable within the context of human psychology.

Kalmus, however, is different. He is reacting to future threats as if they are a present danger, seemingly sidestepping the problem of prognostic myopia. His emotional reaction is raw, unyielding, and driving him to act. This is both exceptional as far as the human conditions goes, and admirable. If we heed his warnings and act with the urgency outlined in the IPCC report, there is hope that our species will avoid extinction.

To admit that humans are governed by impulsivity and cowed into nonchalance in the face of cultural trauma by prognostic myopia is not an excuse for inaction. We might not all feel the same way about the future as Peter Kalmus, but we can concede that we should be listening to him. “People should be joining together, putting in significant effort, and taking risks to wake up society,” he wrote me. “Civil disobedience is the most effective thing I’ve found so far for pushing back against the cultural wall of inaction and despair.”

It’s more than likely that I, like most people, will never feel the emotional connection to the problem of climate change that Kalmus does. But knowing that there is a psychological explanation for our lack of emotional investment, we can instead appeal to our intellect to guide our actions. We can decide to listen to those scientists literally yelling at us to do something. Perhaps it’s time that we let those who can feel the future guide us into it.

Read more on climate change and psychology:

So, when was the last time you cleaned your gardening tools?

Maintenance. Not a very glamorous word, is it? But, before you start running away, let me reassure you that this is going to be a totally doable part of your plant-care routine that will become as second nature as “accidentally” buying more plants than you intended to. (This is a safe zone, no judgments. I’m right there with you.)

The spring and summer months are busy ones in the plant world. It’s peak plant-growing (and accumulation, ahem) season after all! So, now is the perfect time to take care of your hardest-working tools before that green leafy distraction hits. This rings true whether you’re planning on harvesting tomatoes or simply pruning your indoor houseplants.

Yes, garden tools are the obvious workhorses in need of tending to as they get vigorous use and more exposure to the elements, but don’t think that taking care of indoor tools is not as important as those being used outside. In fact, I chatted with Danae Horst, author of “House Plants For All” and founder of Folia Collective, to get the nitty-gritty on why keeping your indoor snips in good shape is the key to growing that green thumb:

This is what she had to say: “Though it’s often overlooked, tool maintenance is just as important for indoor plants as it is for outdoor gardening. Infections especially can be spread through dirty cutting tools, so cleaning and sterilizing these tools after every use is a great prevention practice. Dull shears, snips, or other blades will mash stems rather than cut them cleanly, which can keep new growth from sprouting when pruning and can trigger rot in cuttings, making successful propagation difficult.”

Remember, when thoughts of maintenance start sounding like a real drag, the goal here is to set yourself up for success before you even plant that first seed or bring home a new plant baby. By keeping tools and grow pots clean, you’ve already taken the first step towards caring for the healthiest plants possible. Ready to roll up your sleeves? Here are a few quick cleaning tips that I personally practice and that I hope will get you going:

Buff up shears and harvest knives

We’re all guilty of running our tools a little ragged, often stuffing them away after a snip here or there without a proper wipe-down. While this isn’t a huge problem when done once in a blue moon, storing wet or dirty shears and knives over time will start taking its toll…mostly in the name of rust. Arm yourself with a rust eraser pad and a quality Camellia Oil made for cutlery, and together with a little elbow grease, you’ll be bringing your tarnished blades back to life and looking good as new. Trust me, I’ve brought back a harvesting knife that looked like an old corroded car part. Pure magic!

Sanitize pruning tools

We don’t often think about what we can’t see and there are times when pathogens (those nasty bacteria, virus, or other microorganisms that can cause disease) are transferred between plants with a simple shared snip of your shears. It’s important to sterilize your cutting tools when removing deceased leaves and branches. To avoid any accidental contamination, make a habit of cleaning tools when working between plants. I like to put a simple disinfectant into a small amber glass spray bottle that tucks easily into my apron pocket or garden bag so it’s always on hand. Simply spray 70-100% isopropyl alcohol directly onto your shears and wipe clean between cuts to minimize the spread of any bad guys.⁠

Clean seed trays and grow pots

It’s easy to disregard pots once you’re no longer using them, but previously used growing containers can harbor fungal and bacterial diseases that could prevent proper germination; potentially kill new seedlings; and even wreak havoc on transplanted starts or houseplants. Speaking of houseplants, don’t forget to check in on those drip trays which could house more than just fungus. Stagnant water loves you-know-who (I’m looking at you mosquitos), especially in the summertime. To disinfect and deep-clean containers between seed-starting seasons or plant repotting, simply use soap and water to remove dirt, then dip in a solution of one-part non-chlorine bleach to nine-parts water. You can also make a sanitizing solution with equal parts water and white vinegar if you’d like to keep your bleach away from your home-grown edibles. Both work wonders!

Stay on top of it

Scheduling out time or making seasonal notes to take care of your tools might sound like a bore, but it is the easiest way to care of things before they catch up with you. You might not want to do a full buff-up of your shears after every harvest, but you should put in a little TLC after a heavy-lifting period (think: in fall after your busy summer-growing spree). Similarly, making simple weekly habits like wiping down or sanitizing your tools will keep everything cleaner in the long run, and avoiding any heavy scrubbing or additional maintenance later.

I like to keep a simple mental checklist that I can run through each weekend, which keeps me on task and not feeling overwhelmed. Basic weekend actions like winding up the hose, making sure tools are hosed off and stored properly in my garden bag, or cleaning out and stacking grow pots that are no longer in use will become as routine as other weekly chores and keep you growing without setbacks.

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Military was told to purge “extremists” after Jan. 6 — so it went after a Black Muslim officer

We will not tolerate actions that go against the fundamental principles of the oath we share, including actions associated with extremist or dissident ideologies. Service members, DoD civilian employees, and all those who support our mission, deserve an environment free of discrimination, hate, and harassment.
  — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Extremism Stand-Down Memo, Feb  5, 2021

When the new secretary of defense ordered a DOD-wide stand-down to discuss the problem of extremism in the ranks in February 2021, he almost certainly didn’t have U.S. Army First Lt. Khadijah Simmons in mind. She was a 27-year-old officer who identifies as Black and Mexican-American and says she enjoys “museums and travel and history — and if it’s Black history, even better.” She planned on a career as a military dentist, and there are no indications anyone in her unit based at Fort Polk, Louisiana, saw her as a controversial figure in any way.  

What alarmed Austin, of course, was the disproportionate presence of both active-duty service members and military veterans among the extremists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. As you may have guessed, that group did not include Simmons. 

But a few months after the “stand-down,” in July 2021, Khadijah Simmons became Khadijah X, a name change consistent with her conversion to Islam, and things began to change. Some white soldiers  apparently began to feel uncomfortable around her. Some “did their own research” with predictable results, concluding that Lt. X must represent some kind of threat — perhaps she was an Islamic extremist, or a budding terrorist. 

“When you convert to Islam, you change your name to show your devotion to the religion,” she told Salon, explaining her motivation. “It’s a common practice within the faith, as a whole,” especially although not exclusively among African-American converts. She chalks up the reactions she encountered to “lack of knowledge,” and to people associating her name change with Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, the controversial sect led by Louis Farrakhan. 

By her own account, Lt. X had visited a Nation of Islam mosque, but was not associated with the group. Rumors began to fly in her predominantly white unit — about the Nation of Islam, about a Black Panther Party sticker on her laptop, about accusations that she treated Black soldiers more favorably than white ones. None of these rumors had ever circulated when she was Lt. Simmons. 

When Lt. X was eventually investigated by the Army under the informal “fact-gathering” process known as AR 15-6, the nominal issue was her job performance, with vague allegations of extremism serving as a sinister subtext. She now faces “separation from service,” she told Salon. “They found me guilty of dereliction of duty. However, I was going through all of this on top of being expected to do my job. How do you expect me to do my job when my subordinates think I’m a terrorist?”

That was when Mikey Weinstein, an Air Force veteran and former Reagan administration lawyer who is founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, agreed to step in. Weinstein’s nonprofit, by his account, has represented more than 77,000 active-duty military service members — a large majority of them self-identified Christians — in religious-freedom cases.

“Lloyd Austin made it clear that we were going to wipe out extremism in the military after Jan 6,” Weinstein told Salon. “But it wasn’t Muslims who did that. It wasn’t Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, Jews or Native American spiritualists.” None of those groups contribute to what Weinstein calls the environment of “discrimination, hate and harassment” within the military. They are the ones who suffer from it, along with a fair share of non-evangelical Christians, who often feel their faith is being hijacked.  

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Weinstein attributes the problems in military culture to “three dozen fundamentalist Christian nationalist parachurch organizations that are inextricably intertwined into the DNA of the Department of Defense.” Those groups, he says, are responsible for a sizable chunk of the religious-freedom violations MRFF deals with year after year. As this compilation video suggests, at least some such groups see themselves as “government-paid missionaries,” a view at odds with the military’s mission to protect the Constitution, which specifically disavows any state-sponsored religion. 

There are no non-Christian groups within the military engaged in anything remotely similar. Lt. X says she was not proselytized, let alone “radicalized,” by a Muslim chaplain or anyone else. Her process of conversion, she says, was gradual. 

“Both my parents are ‘no preference’ when it comes to religion. I didn’t grow up in a religious household,” she said. “Through the years, and going to college and joining the military, I’ve met people from all around the world. I found that being Islamic aligned with who I am as a person, with my goals in life. I was intrigued by the discipline, the community of the people who practice being Muslim. I just thought it was in tune with my life.” 

She had a spotless disciplinary record, at least until she made her conversion public and changed her name. “I’ve never been in any type of military trouble,” she said. “I’ve never received a letter of reprimand, a letter of concern. I’ve never received an Article 15 [a “non-judicial punishment”], never received any type of military or civilian punishment. I’ve definitely gotten speeding tickets. But I’ve never been in any type of trouble with the law.”

Lt. Khadijah Simmons had a spotless disciplinary record — until she made her conversion public and became Lt. Khadijah X.

After Khadijah Simmons became Khadijah X in July 2021, registering her new name at an Arizona courthouse and with Social Security, she got her military uniforms changed as well. When she returned to work, “Initially there were a few weird looks, which I had expected,” she said. “A few people asked me why I did it. I just said, ‘For personal reasons’ and that I’m a Muslim. Other than that, really nothing to my face.”  

But as summer turned to fall, things changed. Lt. X says that by last November, she became “super uncomfortable,” and finally asked her commanding officer for a transfer to another unit. That request was granted, and she became an assistant to the battalion executive officer, or XO. “It was 10 times better. I didn’t feel like I was walking on eggshells,” she said. “People were just more accepting and welcoming.” 

Somewhat mysteriously, a simultaneous AR 15-6 investigation was launched into Lt. X, alleging “misconduct and substandard performance.” She was appointed a  military defense counsel, who would not comment for this story but referred Salon to Tracy Riley, chair of the Louisiana NAACP’s Legal Redress Committee, who discussed a similar case that emerged last year. (More on that below.) 

Lt. X says that when the investigating officer, Capt. James Twigg, first sat down to interview her, “He started talking about extremism. I was like, ‘Why are you talking about extremism, which is outside the scope of your appointment orders?'” It seems likely that others were asked about extremism as well, giving it even more weight than appears in the final text. 

Without access to all the supporting documents, much less those interviewed, it’s impossible to evaluate Twigg’s report on Lt. X in full. But she and Weinstein point to signs that the process was stacked against her from the beginning. An “officer evaluation report” in which she was graded “capable,” for instance, was reshaped to sound largely negative, when the original version had praised her “ability to think critically” and her “professionalism and bearing.” Although several white soldiers gave statements that she had favored Black subordinates, every Black soldier in her unit denied that. One lieutenant testified that a West Point chaplain had asked Lt. X (then Simmons) to remove the Black Panther sticker from her laptop in 2020, suggesting it had been a problem well before her name change. In fact, the chaplain in question denied any memory of such an incident, praising Simmons/X for her “hard work and dedication.” 

In any event, the report issued in January simply recommended that she be transferred out of her field artillery unit to another military specialty, which had been her intention all along. That should have ended things, but Lt. X was still “flabbergasted,” she said, by the sworn statements of “people saying that they were afraid of me. I’ve never done or said anything to intimidate anybody. I had no idea that people thought that I was extremist.”   

Instead of accepting the recommendation to transfer Lt. X, her commander, Lt. Col. Jonathan Holm, recommended she be separated from service. That’s when she connected with the MRFF and Mikey Weinstein, who says he’s encountered similar situations countless times before.

“In the military, if you try to stand up on your own,” says Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, “you turn yourself into a tarantula on a wedding cake.”

“If you’re being persecuted, you can try going up your chain of command, but often that doesn’t work because they’re the persecutors,” he said. “You can try going to the chaplain, but they’re just staff officers. You can try going to the judge advocate, the military lawyers, but they’re staff officers too. They’re not in the command chain. It takes a lot of guts for her to stand up and go public. In the military, when you try to stand up on your own, you turn yourself into a tarantula on a wedding cake. And your military superiors are not your shift managers at Starbucks. They have complete and total control over you in every possible way.”

*  *  *

Tracy Riley of the Louisiana NAACP, as mentioned above, told Salon about another recent case at Fort Polk involving a Black, non-Christian woman. Private Kryshnh Walker, who is Hindu, became involved in a dispute with a sergeant she accused of sexual harassment. He countered by accusing her of using illegal drugs, then loaded her “with extra duty and continued the harassment” until Walker “reached the point of exhaustion,” according to an email Riley wrote last August seeking redress.

Walker was ordered confined after an Article 15 investigation alleging she was a “threat to public safety” for unspecified reasons. While in custody, she was diagnosed with severe COVID symptoms and sent to a civilian prison, where Riley says she became severely malnourished and was in danger of dying. 

“Please stop what you are doing to deploy every asset available to retrieve PVT Walker from confinement and get her the immediate medical attention possible,” Riley wrote in her email. “No soldier deserves to die of COVID-19 alone in a cell without proper medical attention. It is not lost on the NAACP Louisiana State Conference that PVT Walker is a black female whose every control over her person and well being is under the control of an all white Command. This situation reeks of retaliation for reporting sexual harassment.”

After a general was assigned to investigate, Walker was transferred to a hospital and all charges against her were dropped. But she was also separated from military service, while her alleged harasser was allowed to retire with a clean record. 

“The soldier who hadn’t done anything wrong has paid the cost for raising her hand and having the courage to speak out,” Riley said. “I just think it’s incredibly insensitive and a missed opportunity for the country.” 

*  *  *

Last December, the Defense Department issued its guidance on countering extremist activity, with a clear message that the focus was “on prohibited activity; not on a particular ideology, thought or political orientation.” That seems wildly at odds with how Khadijah X was treated: Even if the wildest rumors and allegations swirling around her had been true (and once again, she says they were not), none of them involved anything close to extremist activity.

The week after the DOD guidance was  released, an AP investigation concluded that decades of efforts had failed to stamp out bias and extremism within the military:

The investigation shows the new guidelines do not address ongoing disparities in military justice under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. … Numerous studies, including a report last year from the Government Accountability Office, show Black and Hispanic service members were disproportionately investigated and court-martialed. A recent Naval Postgraduate School study found that Black Marines were convicted and punished at courts-martial at a rate five times higher than other races across the Marine Corps. 

That’s what Khadijah X and Kryshnh Walker were up against, and their cases must be considered in that context. If the U.S. military wants to get serious about fighting extremism, perhaps it should look at these apparent miscarriages of justice as “teachable moments,” and turn these case studies on how things went wrong into a lesson on how to set things right.

At least for now, Lt. X does not sound optimistic. “The Army in general preaches diversity, inclusion, acceptance,” she said. “But then the minute I present that inclusion and diversity, I’m a terrorist.”

Read more on America’s struggle for religious freedom:

SNL trolls anti-abortion right-wingers in their cold open starring Benedict Cumberbatch

In the cold open of “Saturday Night Live,” hosted by Benedict Cumberbatch, star of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” SNL makes tongue-in-cheek commentary on the furthered push to overturn Roe v. Wade.

In the sketch, Cumberbatch plays a man in the year 1235 who pontificates on the antiquated laws enforced on a woman’s body at that time, many of which are still being referenced today in 2022.

RELATED: This is what it was like trying to get an abortion in the United States before 1973

Setting the scene at the top of the sketch, words scroll across the screen saying:

“In the draft of his majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel Alito explains that no woman has a right to an abortion, and that in fact abortion is a crime. To prove it, he cites a treatise from 13th Century England about the ‘quickening’ of the ‘foetus’ and a second treatise that says if the quick childe ‘dieth in her body’ it would be a great ‘misprision.’ We go now to that profound moment of moral clarity, almost a thousand years ago, which laid such a clear foundation for what our laws should be in 2022.”

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“While I was cleaning the hole at the side of the castle where we poop and then it falls through the sky into a moat full of human feces, I started to think about abortion,”  Cumberbatch’s character says.

The characters then go on to discuss how a law should be made against abortion, similar to the laws they have in place against pointy shoes.

Watch the rest here:

Read more:

Frozen food and feminism: Matt Gaetz’s dog whistle about microwave meals isn’t new

In 1960, three years before the publication of Betty Friedan’s seminal feminist text “The Feminine Mystique,” Peg Bracken published her own book. It began like this: “Some women, it is said, like to cook. This book is not for them.”

The aptly named “I Hate to Cook Book” was built on convenience foods — crushed cornflakes, frozen vegetables, powdered soup mixes and Spam. During an age when the United States’ culinary godfather James Beard was ascending as an evangelist of sorts for “fresh, wholesome, American ingredients,” Bracken’s book was subversive — and it was successful for it. As the New York Times reported in the wake of Bracken’s death in 2007, more than 3 million copies of the “I Hate to Cook Book” had been sold in various editions. 

In the foreword to a re-release of the book, Bracken’s daughter, Johanna, wrote that her mother’s book was “written in a time when women were expected to have full, delicious meals on the table for their families every night” and offered women “who didn’t revel in this obligation an alternative: quick, simple meals that took minimal effort but would still satisfy.” 

Times may have changed since the “I Hate to Cook Book” was first published, but there are still those who would prefer women to be culturally obligated to the kitchen — all while they perpetuate the myth that feminism killed cooking. 

RELATED: Real women are still expected to cook: From sitcoms to the Food Network, the “angel in the kitchen” pressure on women prevails

Only last week, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., tweeted, “How many of the women rallying against overturning Roe are over-educated, under-loved millennials who sadly return from protests to a lonely microwave dinner with their cats, and no bumble matches?” 

It’s not a particularly inventive attempt at slamming women who are concerned about their access to reproductive healthcare being torpedoed. The “cat lady” is a now a standard, if softer, clichéd stand-in for the “bra-burning feminist” who trades in a potential husband and children for feline companionship. And for as long as there have been modern kitchens, there have been men worried women are planning to leave them — ostensibly for acts of civil disobedience and an Amy’s broccoli and cheddar bake. 

It’s a convenient narrative to regurgitate: this notion that feminism is responsible for the perceived downfall of American cooking. Among the alt-right, it’s become standard fodder for memes comparing “The Tradwife” (shorthand for the “traditional wives” alt-right men seek) to “Liberated Feminists.” In one heavily-circulated meme, the “tradwife” is depicted as having a “slim figure from her healthy homemade meals and active lifestyle,” while the feminist is “chubby from her diet of fast food and microwave meals.” 

Even beloved food writer Michael Pollan once wrote for the New York Times Magazine that “The Feminine Mystique” was “the book that taught millions of American women to regard housework, cooking included, as drudgery, indeed as a form of oppression.” 

However, this connection between a perceived rejection of home-cooking and feminism flattens both the history of so-called convenience foods and what “traditional domesticity” actually entailed. 

This connection between a perceived rejection of home-cooking and feminism flattens both the history of so-called convenience foods and what “traditional domesticity” actually entailed.

As Eater reported, the mid-century transition to cooking with frozen ingredients or relying on full frozen meals was actually sparked by war — not “The Feminine Mystique.” During World War II, canned goods “were sent to soldiers overseas and Americans were encouraged to purchase frozen foods. Frozen also used fewer ration points than canned, according to the National Frozen & Refrigerated Foods Association’s (NFRA) website.” 

During this time, women were encouraged to pitch into the war effort and seek employment outside the home. This was even reflected in advertisements for convenience foods. A wartime ad for Shredded Ralston whole wheat cereal, which featured both men and women, emphasized that the meal was “ready-to-eat when I’m ready” and was punctuated with patriotism.

“No wonder Uncle Sam says, ‘Eat foods like this every day,'” it said. 

The production of canned choices and frozen foods only continued to ramp up following the war, which did dovetail with an increased number of women continuing to seek work outside the home. Did convenience foods spark that transition? More accurately, they supported women’s ability to have that choice because, in addition to changing cultural attitudes about gender equality, they didn’t have to spend hours getting dinner on the table. 

If they wanted to, that was their choice — a simple statement that gets glossed over in discussions about “traditional” gender roles. For a very long time, women didn’t have the choice to step away from the stove unless they possessed a certain type of financial or social privilege. When right-wing men bemoan the loss of the traditional mid-century housewife, they ignore the fact that until World War II, middle-class American families typically had one or more servants to help around the house. In 1940, the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 2.6 million domestic servants, or almost one job in 20. 

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Before there was canned soup or bags of frozen peas, there were live-in cooks and servants. The advent of convenience foods simply made the ability to shed that responsibility more accessible. 

So what are Gaetz or men in search of a “tradwife” really saying when they toss out the “microwave meal” dog whistle? They want to return to a time where they personally don’t have to have a stake in domestic labor. Whether it’s actually their wife or a servant doing the work, it doesn’t matter — as long as they aren’t the one having to pick up a whisk.  

Now, as a food writer, I love to cook. It’s both my work and my primary hobby. As such, I recognize that my view of cooking is borne from a certain kind of privilege — one that many, many Americans also possess. Our cultural understanding of what food is has largely shifted from a backbreaking responsibility to an optional form of leisure, fun and entertainment. 

And while Friedan and other feminists of her era didn’t kill home cooking, she certainly would have appreciated the idea that it was optional. After all, Freidan wrote that “a baked potato is not as big as the world.” Who cares if you need to microwave that potato to fully experience the world outside the kitchen? 

Read more commentary on food and gender: 

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed Matt Gaetz’s quote to Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R.-N.C. The story has been corrected. 

Author Laura Trujillo on mourning her mother after her suicide

On an April day ten years ago, Laura Trujillo’s mother took herself to a ledge in the Grand Canyon — and jumped off to her death. She left a note in her Jeep saying, “I know this is not right but it’s all I can do. Please pray for my soul.” Four years later, Trujillo returned to the place, looking if not for answers, some understanding.

As Trujillo, a managing editor for USA Today, writes in her new memoir “Stepping Back from the Ledge: A Daughter’s Search for Truth and Renewal,” “Despite all the research, there still isn’t a proven formula that can predict precisely who is going to kill themselves and who won’t, which interventions work, or work for a while, and which don’t, which words might save someone one day only to have them slip away the next.” Yet the quest to unpack the narrative matters. It matters to loved ones left in the aftermath of suicide, it matters to the millions of people vulnerable to depression and anxiety.

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Trujillo delves into her mother’s life and death, as well as her own struggles and sexual abuse, to explore the difficult legacy of grief and family trauma, and the strength and survival that are possible in their aftermath. Salon talked to her recently about what she learned when she walked in her mother’s footsteps, and how she discovered that “You don’t know people the way you think you know them, especially your mother.”

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Your mom’s suicide had a degree of forethought. What we know to the extent that is possible from people who survive attempts is that most planned it within the hour, within the half hour. That wasn’t the case here.

I miss my mom a lot and I feel really grateful that I had her as long as I did, because when I look back at how much depression she had and mental health struggles, I wonder how many times had she gotten to that edge and stepped back? When my sister and I talk about it, we’re like, Mom had moved the house into a trust at a certain point beforehand. She definitely had all her passwords in one place. She had a notebook for my sister, which was not like my mom. She did not have everything organized.  

When I think it seems so planned for that day, I don’t know if there were times before. Her husband had a lot of firearms, so many that we would have my mom count them before I would let the kids go over there to make sure they were locked up. She had access to what would be one of the more common ways to kill yourself.  

You think, if you can get past that moment to the next moment… I’ve had that. I think a lot of people have that in their life where I’m almost surprised by how down I can feel and how awful, and then two hours later I’m good. She had a lot of time to think driving up to the canyon. I often think about different things like if she had a flat tire on the way, would that have delayed it enough that her brain felt a different way on that day? I don’t know.

RELATED: Writing the family story behind a tragic headline: “What felt so personal to me was already public”

When we talk about prevention, understanding that it can be a very transitory feeling and that it can be something that you can ride is important. There is this myth that everybody leaves a note and everybody plans it meticulously. Instead, that ideation can be something that, if someone can sit with for a little while, can pass, even if it’s not healed or better.

But it gets you to that moment perhaps, where your medicine works better or you have a really good counseling appointment. What we know is from people who maybe were going to kill themselves and didn’t. One guy who’s done a lot of talking, I think it’s Kevin Hines who   jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and survived. He said, if  someone on the bus would’ve said, “How are you doing?”  he might have had that connection. It’s not this inevitable thing they’re getting to. It’s like you get through something. I remind myself of that since I clearly have depression like my mom. Okay, well, you’ve been there and then you got past it.

Depression, I try to say, visits. It doesn’t move in, it visits and then it’s going to leave. Your brain lies to you in many ways. The truth is you’ve felt really crappy before and you’re still here. You know that this helps you.

We talk a lot in our family about what you can put in your toolkit, and how can you build the best possible toolkit, right, for whatever is you’re facing at the moment. As you say in the book, “Therapy, good people, and medicine.” 

And probably luck. I’m not saying a hi and a hello saves the world, but it’s really strange how you’re almost carried at a certain point in your life from one person to the next person, to the next person, and they don’t even know that their interactions helped you. Maybe you didn’t know it at the time.

“When the ranger was telling me, they were like, ‘Your mom was really considerate. She knew where to jump so she wouldn’t land on a trail.'”

I’m not saying that is what prevents it. I think it gets one tiny part. We know how important connection is. That’s where I feel really grateful for people who just ask me to go for a walk or whatever. When I do that, it’s a good thing to do and I want to do it. I’m not doing it as a mental health public service, but I do think it is, especially now since our lives have been difficult. I think it’s been hard on everyone.

You describe in the book how your mom died. When you went back to the spot later, what’s the word that the ranger used to describe her?

“Considerate.” Thoughtful. And that was my mom, I guess. She was a nurse, which I think defined her in many ways. Caretaker. When you say that she was a nurse that helps you understand who she was.

The day that she killed herself, she pinned a note to herself with her husband’s name and phone number, so that when she was found, it would be easy to identify her and let her family know. When the ranger was telling me, they were like, “Your mom was really considerate. She knew where to jump so she wouldn’t land on a trail.” She knew she wasn’t going to harm people where she landed. And she also put a note with the car. She wanted to die, but she didn’t want to cause a lot of trouble in it, which it’s so weird to think of because her brain was going against everything your body wants to do, which is live. If you’re sick or whatever, you want to live. Her brain was taking her the other direction yet she did some not logical things, but helpful things. That is really perplexing to me, but also indicative of who my mom was. 

It also speaks to the paradox that is suicide. She seemed in pretty good spirits, and that is often actually a warning sign. That can be a real red flag that we need to know and identify and recognize particularly in people who we know may be vulnerable.

If everyone who knew my mom had a conversation about my mom together, if everyone would’ve said what was going on, we clearly would’ve been like, she needs help. But each of us knew one little part and my mom kept the rest. I knew one part, that she was having a hard time with coming to terms that I had told her about the sexual abuse from her husband. My sister knew she was having a hard time because her husband and sick and she was taking care of him. Each of us knew one little part of my mom struggling, but we didn’t know the entire thing. I think that’s true all the time. It’s not so simple to be like, “Everyone’s fighting a battle that you don’t know,” but it is true, even with your own mother. 

I like to think that if we all talked, maybe we would have realized that she needed more help than she was getting. I don’t know because, well, you can’t. That was an interesting thing to learn when I started getting some of the pieces together. I was feeling all this guilt and my sister was like, “I lived in the same city with her and I didn’t know these things.” I knew that she was sad, of course. I knew that she was having a hard time, but your brain doesn’t immediately go to, “She’s having a hard time, therefore she’s going to kill herself.” In hindsight, you can back it up and look at that and see maybe there were signs that we all missed or didn’t see to the extent we should have, but you can’t really do that. I tried for ten years.

We can all help each other, but we can’t save each other.

You write about the sexual abuse that you endured for years at the hands of your mother’s husband. You had recently come to a reckoning with your mom, communicating with her about it. How do you look at that experience now that they’re both gone?

I will always carry guilt about my mom’s death because I didn’t know was she not strong enough to know that information at the time. I’ve gone through a lot of therapy in the past ten years, so I know it was not my job to protect her. Had I known that she was in such a fragile state, would I have told her that at that time? I think I wouldn’t, but it’s really hard to say what you would or would not do.

“Everyone does the best they can with what they know at the time. My mom was as good of a mother as she could have been with what she knew at the time.”

Her husband died about three months after she did. My sister will often say, “If mom could’ve just held on, do you think that would’ve been enough? Would that have taken some of that stress off her?” You can “What if?” yourself to feeling really bad. I will say it is important for me to look at, “What’s the story that’s been in my head and what are the actual facts?” 

Everyone does the best they can with what they know at the time. Most humans do, not everyone, but I think most people do the best that they could. My mom was as good of a mother as she could have been with what she knew at the time. And I’m a better mom than I was five years ago or ten years ago, because you just learn things.

Sometimes I feel bad or I’ll apologize to the kids like, “I’m really sorry that after Grandma died that there were times that I wasn’t present.” I was making dinner and going to work so I was like, “I’m a fine mom.” But I wasn’t, and I was just kind of going through the steps. That was the best I could do at that moment. It’s hard to not beat yourself up over that, but to recognize, okay, but you’re not doing that now. You’re acknowledging it and moving forward and trying to talk more about feelings with the kids than my family did, which was none. 

When you talk about everybody doing the best that they can, that never feels more evident than when someone is going through a loss. The grief of that is not necessarily understood or acknowledged, even though we all go through it.

As adults you think, it’s expected at a certain age that you’re going to lose a parent. I’m lucky I still have my dad, but it is such a weird relationship to lose, no matter how old you are. It’s really hard to not have a mom. You know that.

My mom and I were estranged for a long time and she had a lot mental health issues. Whether it’s that or whether it’s because your mom died by suicide or whatever the case may be, the complexities around grief and loss get thrown into the ways in which death can make other people uncomfortable.

I think we always want to protect people when they ask something. For a while, I never even said that my mom died by suicide. I would just say she died. It wasn’t like I was a kid, so people were like, “Okay. You’re old enough to have your mom die.” I didn’t want to talk about it.

“People have two reactions when you say that someone died by suicide. Some just slowly back out of the conversation, like ‘I do not want to even physically be here any more.’ What I’ve actually been really surprised by are the number of people who have had a suicide of someone they love.”

People have two reactions when you say that someone died by suicide. Some just slowly back out of the conversation, like “I do not want to even physically be here any more.” What I’ve actually been really surprised by are the number of people who have had a suicide of someone they love. I guess I have been lucky to not know how prevalent it is. Talking about it gives people a spot to talk about it too. I feel like you should be kind and useful in the world. Even when I was telling my dad, his wife said, “My brother killed himself.” I hope that just talking about it, that for my dad’s wife to be able to talk about her brother a little bit, because I honestly didn’t even know she had a brother, it just opens that space for people.  

People carry things with them and people don’t often talk about suicide. We talk about it more than we ever have, de-stigmatizing mental health and suicide. We still have a ways to go. We’re great at it, but I’m not going to call into work and be like, I just can’t really do life today. I will say, I have a sniffle or I have a bad cough, but until we can actually say that, “I need to take the day and walk and maybe have an extra therapy session,” we haven’t de-stigmatized mental health to that point where it’s just health.

You talk about the role of us in the media. So much has changed just in the decade since your mom died.  We still have so far to go. As you point out, people still say, “Suicide is selfish,” or treat it as this macabre point of interest. As a professional, what do you try to do? How do you try to lead in communicating about this?

When I started in the business, it was like, you don’t write about suicides. At a certain point you realize, okay, well you do do it in certain cases. Someone famous, if traffic is stopped, if it’s in a public place. I do think journalists, and I’m not speaking for everyone, we’re afraid to write about it. We don’t want to make something worse and there’s a hundred stories you could do on any given day. Does it make sense to write about a suicide and make it worse or not be able to explain it or is this going to be more harmful to the family?

I don’t know exactly what the right answer is. I think it’s important to write about, once you give context. I will say that the media now almost always has a trigger warning or “If you need help, call this number.” And that was never thought about years ago.

It’s important to give us the language to discuss it in a way that’s responsible and doesn’t make people feel, not ashamed, but just a feeling of guilt. Did you not do enough or did people not do enough? Or how did you not know that about your kid, or about your mom? You don’t know people the way you think you know them, especially your mother. It is really weird to think of your mom as a person, and not just your mom.

More memoir and family stories: 

“Forever chemicals” in non-stick pans are in your body right now — and may be affecting your liver

There are more than 4,700 types of chemicals in the world known as PFAS. Based solely on their tongue-twister of a name — the full spelling is “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances” — you might think that they are rare. Yet PFAS can be found absolutely everywhere: Your non-stick cookware, your fast food wrappers, your paper packages, your furniture and carpets and rugs. Teflon is perhaps the most famous of the PFAS chemicals, but if it was the only prevalent one out there, the chances are that we would not live in a world where 99 percent of Americans have PFAS in their blood. (This is consistent with studies finding that other industrial chemicals, such as plastics, are also in our bodies.)

If the bad news is that PFAS chemicals are everywhere, the worse news is that scientists have long linked them to health problems. Now a new systematic review lends even further weight to the case that PFAS chemicals are bad news, as it reveals that these chemicals are linked to liver disease, too.

RELATED: “We’re 15 years too late”: Endocrine-disrupting plastic additive BPA is still in everything

“Systematic reviews are designed to look at all the available scientific evidence to see if there is consensus on the relationship between an exposure and an outcome,” corresponding author Liz Costello, MPH and a PhD student at the University of Southern California, told Salon by email. “This is one way to address concerns about limitations or biases that an individual study might have. Someone might dismiss the results of a single study, but when you look at it in the context of all other research on the topic this can be powerful evidence for a real association.”

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In the systematic review published by the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, the researchers concluded that there is “consistent evidence for PFAS hepatotoxicity from rodent studies, supported by associations of PFAS and markers of liver function in observational human studies.” Because scientists are not allowed to directly experiment with PFAS on humans, they do not know for certain that they are linked to liver disease. The existing body of evidence, however, strongly suggests that this is the case.

“When you’re looking at observational studies in humans, you can almost never say with complete certainty that an exposure directly causes a health problem,” Costello explained, adding that it would be unethical to do so. “For humans, we can say that the current body of research supports a relationship between higher exposure to certain PFAS chemicals and higher blood levels of ALT. This is also supported by animal research, where you can do experiments that let you control PFAS exposure and other environmental conditions.”

Although the study looked at a number of liver enzymes, the review specifically zeroed on a liver enzyme known as ALT, or Alanine Aminotransferease, as it is one of the most common biomarkers they could find in the existing literature.

“ALT is a good indicator of liver injury, but it can’t confirm a diagnosis of NAFLD [Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease] or tell us much about the severity of liver disease,” Costello wrote to Salon. “To do that, we need more studies that can look at other measures of liver damage and NAFLD (liver biopsies, MRI scans, etc), and that will follow participants over several years.”

In light of growing concerns about PFAS chemical contamination, a pair of Democratic legislators introduced a bill to regulate PFAS chemical pollution and outright label two of the chemicals, PFOA and PFOS, as “hazardous” so that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can be authorized to clean up contaminated water utilities and wastewater treatment sites all over the country. President Joe Biden’s current EPA administration, Michael Regan, told the Senate during his confirmation hearing that he was going to prioritize regulating PFAS chemicals. Because PFAS chemicals are currently not labeled as “hazardous substances,” the EPA is limited in how aggressively it can pursue the task of cleaning them up.

The very nature of PFAS themselves does not help matters.

“It’s very difficult for individuals to control their PFAS exposure – PFAS are in so many products (and water, or food) and often we don’t even know we are exposed,” Costello explained. “Even when older PFAS are phased out and no longer used, newer PFAS chemicals replace them. You won’t usually see these listed on a product label. At this point, the focus should be on removing PFAS from products and the environment, and on increasing regulatory efforts to make sure replacement chemicals are safe.”

For more Salon articles about pollution:

Mother’s Day is gaslighting

It wasn’t until I became a mother than I realized how true the saying is: Moms make the magic. For holiday joy, I would be responsible, usually alone, for cooking treats, decorating homes inside and out, shopping for and wrapping presents, remembering parties — responsible even for my own holiday: Mother’s Day.

I used to believe my dislike of Mother’s Day stemmed from the fact that I was a single mother, my now ex-husband leaving our family shortly after our child was born. Few people think of single moms on Mother’s Day. It became simply easier to let the day pass unremarked upon, just another day in which I parented alone, like every other day. No need to make extra work for myself. But in the last two years, my longtime partner moved in with my son and me and has become a constant, dependable fixture in my son’s life. I no longer have to buy my own present, to bake any treat I might eat, to clean up a festive house alone.

I still hate Mother’s Day. And many other mothers I know do too, in large part because it feels like slapping a smiley sticker on a gaping wound. There is simply a disconnect between the way we talk about mothers in this country and the way we treat them, a gulf too wide to be remedied by a day. 

RELATED: Is the real monster in “Pieces of Her” the mother-artist?

In 1914, then President Woodrow Wilson made Mother’s Day a national holiday in America, building upon a memorial started by Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia, whose mother had organized women’s groups and other service programs in her home of West Virginia. Jarvis had intended the day to be one of reflection, honor and service, and grew dissatisfied with the increasing emphasis on buying gifts and commercialism, even trying to abolish the holiday toward the end of her life.  

Manufactured holidays love capitalism, though. As historian Katharine Antolini told the BBC “the floral industry, greeting card industry and candy industry deserve some of the credit for the day’s promotion.” The Mother’s Day industrial complex is a big deal, with people predicted to spend $31.7 billion on the holiday in 2022, up 13% from last year, according to a report published by Forbes, dropping money on gift sets, beauty products, mail subscriptions, chocolates, fragrances, home goods and flowers.

“What do mothers really want for Mother’s Day?” is the single most popular PR pitch I’ve received in my email inbox for the past few weeks. Stand down, publicists. I can answer that question myself. What moms really want is much more than a day. And we certainly want more than gaslighting.

Surviving birth — which many people in America, the developed country with the highest maternal mortality rate in the world, do not, especially not Black women — is only the start of the battle.

The toxic, mixed messages around motherhood start early. The elevation of motherhood is perhaps one of America’s greatest tricks. To be a mother — that’s the world’s most important job say the empty platitudes from church groups and politicians. Strange that the world’s most important job doesn’t pay anything. It also comes with extreme risks and diminishing returns. 

New mothers are ostracized, isolated with the encompassing reality of caring for a newborn which some moms, like me, must do totally alone, often not by choice. The food train from the neighbors only lasts for so long, and childless friends are less sympathetic when you’re still dealing with sleep deprivation six months on. “Most new moms experience postpartum “baby blues” after childbirth, which commonly include mood swings, crying spells, anxiety and difficulty sleeping,” writes the Mayo Clinic. But over 30% of moms experience postpartum depression, a figure that some experts believe could actually be double that. Risk factors vary but can include traumatic birth. Researchers have realized that some mothers endure birth experiences so physically and emotionally difficult, it can led to post-traumatic stress disorder, different from postpartum depression.  

But surviving birth — which many people in America, the developed country with the highest maternal mortality rate in the world, do not, especially not Black women — is only the start of the battle. Last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, around 10 million mothers living with children in the U.S. were not actively working jobs, an increase of 1.4  million more than the previous year. 

The pandemic is to blame for the increase, with mothers expected to sacrifice their employment — in many cases, to completely leave the workplace — in order to become ad hoc teachers for their children. COVID set back women’s gains in the workforce to the lowest levels since 1988. While many parents worked from home, 71% of fathers reported a “positive outcome” of remote work while only 41% of mothers did, according to a 2021 study, perhaps because mothers were still expected to do it all while working their jobs from home: to cook, clean and be the one whose meetings are interrupted, the one expected to entertain children or keep them on school task. 

Fatherhood allows many men to get ahead at work, giving them a perceived advantage.

Even before the pandemic, mothers were less likely to be promoted at work. As reported in a UK study, “only 27.8% of women were in full-time or self-employed work three years after childbirth, compared to 90% of new fathers.” Motherhood is seen as interfering with work in a way that fatherhood does not, and mothers are treated differently. According to Psychology Today, “Not only are working mothers often seen as lacking the determination to get ahead, they may also be regarded as violating social norms by failing to be ‘ideal mothers,’ i.e., putting their work ahead of their children.” (Hell, even this “Fox & Friends” host just voiced his opposition to the Department of Homeland Security hiring a pregnant woman.)This attitude of childbirth and childrearing disrupting work does not extend to fathers. On the contrary, fatherhood allows many men to get ahead at work, giving them a perceived advantage: “Men with children typically receive higher starting salaries and are held to lower performance standards than nonparents.”

We know that women, particularly women of color, are paid less than men, but mothers specifically are punished financially more than fathers, which some experts call the “Motherhood Penalty.” Single moms are punished most of all. As reported by the National Women’s Law Center, mothers earn 75 cents for every dollar paid to fathers — which ends up being a loss of $15,300 yearly — and single mothers earn only 54 cents for every dollar paid to married men.

As if the drastic gap in income and lack of promotions weren’t bad enough, mothers also don’t have enough support: in some cases, not enough childcare to even work. Columbia University describes the childcare crisis as “a threat to our nation,” holding not only mothers back from employment, financial gains and advancement, but holding children back from educational and social development. In Denver, Colorado, childcare was described in 2022 as costing as much as a second mortgage. And that’s if you can find a place. The burden of childcare, providing it or finding it, still falls overwhelmingly on mothers.

My country loves mothers, but only as an idea.

My name never budged on the childcare waitlist I put my son on when he was a newborn. When he finally went to all-day, public kindergarten, I sold and published two books within two years of each other, with a third forthcoming. I finally had the time to think, the space to get my work done. Before that, I stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning most nights. I worked in my car, writing against the steering wheel while my child napped in his car seat. I wrote my dissertation one-handed, while he slept in a sling on my chest. That’s no so unusual. That’s what moms do. Because we have to. 

The determination of mothers cannot be overstated, but our reward for getting things done no matter what is fewer jobs and promotions, lower pay and abysmal medical care. The latest attack is the most dire, with the Supreme Court predicted to reverse Roe V. Wade, which has permitted legal abortion for 50 years. Since the pandemic, it’s hard not to feel like we’re sliding swiftly backward when it comes to the advancement of mothers, an advancement that had never budged very far in the first place.

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My country loves mothers, but only as an idea. The concept of motherhood as selfless, all-consuming and noble is outdated, and the notion that we celebrate mothers for one day out of the year while doing everything in our power to keep them down all other days is pathological. Tell me again why a greeting card is enough?

A day can’t fix the way America treats mothers. Keep your day, your carnations and your breakfast in bed. What I want is change.

More stories like this

 

Now that my mother’s dead, we’re closer than we’ve ever been

There will come a time in my life where I’ll stop to think about the fact that I’ve lived longer without my mother than I have with her; and that’s only if I’m lucky enough to live longer than she did.

I just googled to see exactly how long it’s been, but accidentally typed “how long ago was October 31, 2013?” Rather than what I intended to type, which was “how many years ago was October 31, 2013?” The answer revealed two things that I found amusing: 1) Yes, I really am that bad at math; and 2) 3,100 days. The answer to that question I typed into Google is 3,100 days, which looks so much worse than eight years, or even nine, or even ten.

My mother and I were never close. She probably would have told anyone who asked that we were, but that just lends itself to the point that I’ve been trying to make with everything I say, everything I write, and everything I do since well before my dad found her dead on the couch in their living room early one Halloween morning, eyes still open, as though holding on to that last glimpse of the squirrels playing at the base of the tree in their front yard. I have a picture of her that I look at more often than I should. Red pants, weird mom hat, digging into a bag of dried corn to feed those squirrels. A snapshot of a backward view. Me seeing what she saw. Minus her.

Here she is, feeding the squirrels (Robert McClure)

She looked like sunshine itself but could level you with a sentence.

We weren’t close, and that became more and more obvious the longer we had to not get to know each other. She was the head cheerleader in high school and looked like a young Cybil Shepherd during her formative years, a privilege that I couldn’t imagine having the relief of being my own reality even if I sat and focused on it all day, like a meditation. She grew up on a farm in rural Illinois. She was blonde, and bouncy, but also really mean and really funny; a combo that almost everyone who walks this earth can’t help but love. Whereas I, her only child — though she probably assumed I would grow up in her mirror image — am often told by internet trolls that I look like a combo of Richard Ramirez and Cindy Lou Who. She looked like sunshine itself but could level you with a sentence. Whereas I spend a great deal of energy trying to look outwardly intimidating but have, in almost 45 years, not figured out how to keep my eyes from watering or my throat from locking up when I speak to a crowd of more than two.

Related: Tarot helped me take advice from my mother

My mom died when she was 62. We didn’t see it coming, but also we did. The night before my dad called to tell me she sent me a message while I was smoking a cigarette in the kitchen of my studio apartment in Brooklyn. This sounds super woo woo, but I swear it’s the truth: I had my leg bent and rested up on the edge of the kitchen sink I was ashing into when all of a sudden I heard her in my mind saying, “When I was your age you were almost a teenager.” Or something like that. I’m paraphrasing — it’s been a while — but I’m sure that’s close. It didn’t seem strange to me. I took it as a dig just like all the little digs I received from her my whole life. I brushed it off as her finally teaching herself how to mentally transmit them from thousands of miles away without the use of a visit, pen or phone.

But when my dad called me the next morning, ruining my Halloween plans to watch “The Exorcist” and see a band called, in perfect gallows irony, THE BODY, I realized that her message was the last conversation we’d ever have while she was still alive. She still sends me messages sometimes — little motherly prompts and nudges which I am way more receptive to now than I ever would have been before. 

This about sums it up (Robert McClure)

When my mom died, not counting her message to me the night before, we hadn’t spoken in two years. From right around the time I learned to talk, right up to the end, we spent every year finding new and creative ways to do the exact opposite of what we should have been doing all that time as a mother and only child. Rather than make new good memories together, we ruined the memory of any we’d already made. Rather than her teaching me motherly wisdom that I’d absorb like vitamins, “Gilmore Girls”-style, she taught me how to endure mental and physical pain, as they say, “the hard way.” She taught me how to be alone, where it was safe. And instead of “I love you” being the last thing she ever heard me say to her in person, it was “bitch,” which I muttered just loud enough for her to hear before being driven to the airport by my dad after the last Christmas we’d all ever spend together.

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Mothers and daughters have been abusing their time together since the dawn of time itself, and I certainly beat myself up for being a part of that nasty cycle for many years after my mom’s passing. But then something started to shift. There’s a strange gift to death, and that’s the softening of memory. With every year that passed after losing her, the process of grieving my mother brought me closer to her than I’d ever been when she was alive. Before I’d get maybe one good interaction out of every 20. In her absence — made precious because it’s forever — I can make her into anything I want her to be. I can navigate my days carrying her with me, infusing myself with the kind of warm exchanges I always wanted but never got. This all sounds depressing as hell, but it’s been very healing for me.

Mothers and daughters have been abusing their time together since the dawn of time itself.

When I flew from Brooklyn to Illinois to help my dad with my mom’s service I spent some time going through her stuff. She was a hoarder, which will maybe be another whole essay down the line as I don’t want to fully drag this lady through the mud for Mother’s Day. But yeah, let’s just say there was a lot of stuff to go through. In doing so I’d make piles. Piles to throw away. Piles to donate. And a small pile of things to keep, which I wish now had been much bigger.

RELATED: I was a hoarder until I became a parent. Here’s what I’m glad I kept

In many ways going through her things felt like reading a really interesting book for the first time and it was then and there that I began to form a story of her in mind. The story of the mother I always wanted. And now, together, we have all the time in the world. In her death, we’re given a second chance.

My mom told me, many many years ago, when I was still little, of a nightmare she once had. This stuck in my head since the day she told it and I’ve always thought of it as kind of an odd thing to tell a kid, but now it, like her, has taken on a more positive meaning. In her dream, we were flying in the small airplane my papa owned. It wasn’t unusual for farmers to own planes at that time, but we would still feel fancy and special flying in it. In this dream of us in the plane my mom was holding me in the back seat as he flew and we suddenly and violently crashed. My mom said she looked down to check on me in her dream and saw that her arm had broke in the accident and a bone from it had pierced through her skin and into me, killing me. I treated her like a true psycho for telling me that but now I see it differently. She cared about me. She was checking on me. And she never let me go. She loved me with an inconvenient tenderness in her subconscious that she just couldn’t find a way to wring out into the waking hours we shared. I can carry out that dream for her. I can turn it from a nightmare into something re-written as a good relationship. And together, in our losses and vapors of shifting memory, we can make new peace.

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More personal essays about parents and grief

The unexpected way to clean your houseplants

Clean Like You Mean It shows you how to tackle the trickiest spots in your home — whether they’re just plain gross or need some elbow grease. You’ll get the cleaning secrets we’ve learned from grandma, a guide to our handiest tools and helpers, and so much more. Pull on those rubber gloves and queue up the tunes: It’s scour hour!

I consider myself to be a pretty good plant parent. I’ve got about 16 plant kiddos (several of which have names), I don’t overwater them, and I’ve got my pest-control routine down to a science (diatomaceous earth, neem oil, and sticky traps FTW). But one thing I’ve realized that I hardly do? Dust my plants’ leaves.

I recently watched Denver, Colorado-based plant consultant Tyler Cross (and parent to more than 250 plants) wipe down his monstera on Instagram and couldn’t remember the last time I dusted mine. Was it last month, or last year? I wouldn’t be able to tell you, but time also doesn’t make sense right now so, who knows? What I can tell you is that it’s been a while. And even as I write this, I’m trying to avoid looking at my monstera because I know there’s a fine layer of dust on its leaves that’s staring back at me.

“In nature, plants are cleaned by the rain and wind, but our indoor plants don’t get that luxury, so it’s up to us to help them out,” says Cross. While you can and should dust your plants regularly throughout the year to keep their leaves clean, doing so ahead of their growing season in spring and summer is key to happy, healthy plants. “Foliage that is free of dust can take in more light, allowing the plants to go through photosynthesis with ease,” he says.

Bloomscape‘s gardening expert Lindsay Pangborn adds: “It’s also a good way to get up close and personal with your plant and spot early stages of insect infestations or other issues that may be affecting your plant’s overall health.

Pangborn says you can just run a dry microfiber cloth over both sides of the leaves, taking care not to rip or tear any of them, of course. There are also cloths in the form of gloves that are slightly easier to move around in, but I usually use a regular cloth without a problem. Make sure you get both sides of the leaf, as pests like to hang out on the underside where you might not look at as often. Pangborn says this is also a good time to remove any brown or yellowing leaves — another easy way to keep your plants happy and free from pests.

Cross wipes down his plants with large leaves like his monsteras and fiddle leaf figs, but “smaller leaves like pothos get sprayed down and shaken.” You can also dampen the cloth with water if you’ve neglected your plants for years, or try Cross’ routine: mix together neem oil, castile soap, and warm water in a spray bottle and wipe down with microfiber gloves. “Some plants don’t want neem oil on their foliage, and for those, I just use water and microfiber gloves,” he says.

As far as frequency, it’s up to you and your space. Cross dusts his plants at least once a season and says there’s no such thing as dusting too often. For something more involved, Pangborn advises misting your plants regularly to slow the accumulation of dust, or even showering or spraying down your plants when you water them every few weeks with lukewarm water.

Wait, all these benefits and minimal effort on my end? Brb, I have to dust my monstera’s leaves now.

Will pro-choice protesters attack Catholic churches? The right seems to think so

After the Supreme Court draft opinion leak this past week that suggested the imminent reversal of Roe v. Wade, conservatives responded with a variety of attempts to change the narrative. They insisted that the real issue was about who had leaked the document, claimed that the decision wouldn’t really change anything, and derided progressives’ worries about which precedent would fall next as hysterical. But on Thursday, the right was able to shift into a more comfortable gear, by claiming that they’re actually the ones under attack.

The vehicle for this shift came with the news that a relatively unknown pro-choice group, Ruth Sent Us, was not merely  planning “walk-by” protests at the homes of six conservative Supreme Court justices, but also confrontational protests at Roman Catholic and other churches around the country on Sunday. The morning after the leaked opinion was published, the group tweeted, “Whether you’re a ‘Catholic for Choice,’ ex-Catholic, of other or no faith, recognize that six extremist Catholics set out to overturn Roe. Stand at or in a local Catholic Church Sun May 8.” Accompanying the post was a video of several women in “Handmaid’s Tale”-style red cloaks and white bonnets, chanting pro-choice slogans in the aisle of a San Francisco church this February. 

In additional posts on Twitter and TikTok, the group shared footage of other church protests and explained, “We protest at churches, to make sure people understand why Roe is falling — extremist Christians plotted it, and all extremist church-goers are complicit. #MothersDayStrike #InterruptMass.” 

RELATED: Adoption means abortion just isn’t necessary, SCOTUS claims: That’s even worse than it sounds

On Friday, a representative from Ruth Sent Us spoke with Salon on condition of anonymity, saying they had received a death threat the day before. This person described Ruth Sent Us not as a unified organization but a loose coalition of grassroots activists networked across the country, focused on the conviction that the Supreme Court has been corrupted as an institution. While many of their activists participated in “red cloak” protests throughout the Trump years, they adopted their current name after the 2020 death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, when they launched a new series of protests in hopes of preventing the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. 

At its height, the representative said, some 7,000 people organized under its banner, but those numbers dropped sharply in response to intra-feminist debates over the use of “Handmaid’s Tale” imagery. (In particular, the debate focused on whether using symbols from Margaret Atwood’s novel minimized the fact that millions of women have already endured dystopian regimes of forced birth like that depicted in the fictional Republic of Gilead, such as Black women under chattel slavery.) The representative said they couldn’t estimate how many activists are currently involved in the coalition, nor how many actions are likely to happen this weekend. 

“The extremist religious justices rule us. There is no law Congress can make that will not be appealed by a red-state attorney general and gutted in a shadow ruling.”

“Effective protest is the only hope we have of changing the system we’re in right now,” this individual said. Noting that five of the court’s conservative justices were appointed by presidents who had lost the popular vote — two by George W. Bush and three by Donald Trump — they said, “We have a completely unaccountable Supreme Court. The six extremist religious justices rule us, because there is no law that Congress can make that will not immediately be appealed by a red-state attorney general and gutted in a shadow ruling.” In such a situation, they argued, “The church needs to be held accountable for what they want. And what they want is for this corrupt, minority-elected Supreme Court to strip our human rights away.”

“Domestic terror” and “anti-Catholic bigotry”

Starting on Thursday, the prospect of church protests became an increasingly hot topic, not among pro-choice advocates — since no mainstream movement groups appear to have endorsed the Ruth Sent Us actions — but rather on the right. The story sped from one conservative news outlet to another, including the National Review, Breitbart, Newsmax, the Washington Times, the New York Post, and, inevitably, numerous segments on Fox News and its affiliates. 

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These stories were built around common themes. As one Trump appointee, Russ Vought, now president of the right-wing think tank Renewing America, told Fox News, “They’re essentially trying to create violence in the streets so they can change the result of this important decision.” 

Another Trump alumnus, Roger Severino, told the Daily Wire, “It’s despicable anti-Catholic bigotry. … It doesn’t get any more offensive than that, to try to interfere with somebody’s First Amendment freedoms in the name of supporting abortion on demand.” His wife, Carrie Severino, president of the right-wing legal activism group Judicial Crisis Network (and a former clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas), suggested the protesters might be paid affiliates of other conservative bugaboos like the Black Lives Matter movement. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida also entered the fray, tweeting, “Deranged leftists are urging followers to disrupt church services across America this Sunday … I hope President Biden & democratic leaders will condemn this attempt to incite domestic terror.”

Conservative Catholic organizations, unsurprisingly, gave the story heavy coverage. 

CatholicVote, a conservative organization that in 2020 shared staff with the Trump campaign, warned that “Anti-Catholic zealots are plotting to intimidate and harass Catholics across the country, along with justices and their families,” and chastised Biden for failing “to condemn these domestic terrorist threats against his own people.” Some conservative commentators linked the planned protests to incidents of vandalism at Catholic institutions over the last two years, resurrecting a prominent right-wing charge from the racial justice protests in the summer of 2020. 

On Friday the Thomas More Society, a legal organization affiliated with the Christian right, sent an open letter to Ruth Sent Us, writing that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had been tracking “hate crimes committed against Catholic properties” since the start of the Black Lives Matter protests in May 2020, and that it considered their plans a hate crime as well. Even if the protests didn’t legally constitute a hate crime, the letter continued, “they could still subject you to significant legal liability” since both the California and federal versions of the FACE Act prohibit the obstruction, intimidation or interference with people seeking to exercise their right to religious freedom at a house of worship.

“Please be advised that for the past 25 years, we have defended the pro-life cause and represented churches and people of faith across our nation, successfully vindicating the legal rights of pro-life and religious individuals at all court levels,” the letter continued. “We will gladly represent any church or person of faith who seeks legal recourse against you or your protestors for your unlawful disruption of any religious worship services.”

Invoking the FACE Act was an especially ironic theme surfacing in conservative discussions of these possible protests. The federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act was passed in 1994 specifically to address an onslaught of violent attacks on abortion clinics, from clinic blockades and invasions to bombings and assassinations. While the bill was under consideration, Sen. Mitch McConnell later recalled, Sen. Orrin Hatch, the late conserative crusader from Utah, charged that the legislation was discriminatory for only focusing on the activities of anti-abortion advocates, and demanded that it include restrictions on protests against churches and synagogues as well.

The Christian Defense Coalition issued a similar press release on Friday, demanding that Biden and the DOJ enforce FACE Act protections for places of worship, declaring, “Every American should be able to freely worship according to the dictates of their beliefs and conscience free from intimidation or harassment. We need this Administration to speak out in support of religious freedom.”

The right-wing Catholic outlet that recently hosted Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested that Catholic men “need to step up, form a group and take [protesters] out.”

But those institutional expressions of concern paled in comparison to the response from the more extreme corners of Catholicism. Church Militant, the right-wing Catholic news outlet that just last week heavily promoted its interview with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, in which the Georgia congresswoman said that Satan was controlling the Catholic Church, suggested that protesters should be met by loyal Catholic men, who “need to step up, form a group and take them out.”

Similarly, Catholic-right podcaster Taylor Marshall, a member of Trump’s 2020 Catholic advisory board who has repeatedly suggested that Pope Francis is illegitimate, dedicated an entire show to the prospect of church protests, asking his audience to consider, “What would you do if you were in holy Mass on Sunday and a bunch of pro-‘A-word’ people … came in? … Would you defend your church … Would we use violence?” Marshall went on to call for armed church porters and 10-man church “safety teams,” and said lay Catholics should be ready to protect the sanctity of the Mass with their lives. 

On Twitter, the responses were eager and blunt: “Drag these trash loons out by their hair”; “you better keep your baby killing shock troopers away from my parish or they can join RBG in hell”; “Oh, please do this, it will be the last time you will have feeling in your legs.” 

“Firing up the right wing”

It’s hard to see all that without wondering whether church protests would give the right exactly what they want: a chance to cast the reversal of Roe in defensive, rather than offensive terms. As Dave Weigel wrote at the Washington Post this week, “nothing creates content for conservative media, and the Republicans who increasingly speak through it, than furious protesters…all of it sync[s] up with a message Republicans have made since 2017: that the left is sowing violence and chaos.” 

That worry motivated several pro-choice groups to distance themselves from the proposal, while noting that Ruth Sent Us does not seem to be connected to the mainstream reproductive rights or reproductive justice movements. 

“I am personally in support of using many tactics to push back against abortion bans, but I don’t think it’s particularly strategic or wise to interrupt church services,” said Lily Bolourian, the executive director of Pro-Choice Maryland, who said she hadn’t been familiar with Ruth Sent Us until the past week and that she had concerns about other groups operating in its orbit. 

“I don’t see what the end game is there,” she went on. “It risks both alienating pro-abortion people of faith and firing up the right wing. In my view, it would be much better to use that energy to disrupt the lives of anti-abortion lawmakers and key events as opposed to disrupting faith services. It has a high potential of backfiring and serves no real movement-building purpose from where I stand.”

In January, the progressive group Catholics for Choice sparked controversy after projecting pro-choice slogans, including “Pro-choice Catholics you are not alone,” on the facade of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington during an anti-abortion vigil. While both conservative and some moderate Catholics decried the action as “desecration,” CFC countered that they were attempting to “dramatically depict that there is no place inside the walls of the Catholic church — be it in a university or parish or charity — for dialogue about abortion.” In the wake of the protest, they said, “thousands of people have reached out to us saying that they have felt seen as pro-choice Catholics for the first time in their lives.” 

“Catholics for Choice is doing everything we can to make sure legal abortion remains in place. Protesting inside churches and giving the hierarchy a chance to appear as victims is not on our list.”

But disrupting Mass, the group said, was counterproductive. “The majority of Catholics — 68% — support the legal abortion protections in Roe v. Wade. And one in four abortion patients is Catholic. Abortion is a part of the life of the church, and in any Mass it is likely that people who have had abortions are worshipping,” said CFC president Jamie Manson. “Right now, Catholics for Choice is doing everything we can to make sure legal abortion remains in place. Protesting inside churches and giving the hierarchy a chance to appear as victims is not on our list.”

In their conversation with Salon, the anonymous representative from Ruth Sent Us dismissed the threat of alienating believers, and said that some members of the network have privately discussed not just disrupting Mass, but burning the Eucharist — the sacrament that, according to Catholic doctrine, has become the literal body of Christ. To defile it in any way, for Catholic believers, is a grave offense. 

“The thing is, what’s facing us is such a grim reality. It is almost a foregone conclusion,” they said. “If we don’t do anything, if after this ruling was leaked there is no uproar, no protests, what is the Supreme Court going to do? They were testing the waters. This was a trial balloon. If there is no reaction to the trial balloon, just launch it.” 

Should that happen, the spokesperson continued, “In more than half the country, any woman who suffers a miscarriage is going to be at a severe risk of death, because in all those states that have trigger laws, what’s going to happen when a pregnant woman starts bleeding? Her doctor will be afraid to treat her. We know this from every other country in the world where blanket abortion bans have happened.” 

Given that, they said, “Why are we pretending there’s something to be gained or preserved by not facing this clear-eyed and fighting the battle the way it needs to be fought?”

This isn’t the first time such a question has been asked. In 1989, the grassroots activist organization ACT UP staged a massive protest, called “Stop the Church,” at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Some 5,000 activists protested outside the cathedral, then the seat of Cardinal John O’Connor, a staunch opponent of LGBTQ rights as well as safe-sex education. Roughly 100  protesters also went inside the church during Mass, staging a “die-in” during the priest’s homily. Although that protest was originally meant to be silent, one protester began shouting, “You’re killing us,” while another crumbled the Eucharist on the floor.

As Michael O’Loughlin wrote in the Catholic magazine America 30 years after the protest, the plan had been controversial even within ACT UP at the time, as activists debated whether attracting media attention to their cause, as tens of thousands of people were dying of a disease that at that time had no effective treatments, outweighed the prospect of offending believers. 

Three decades later, that legendary protest has largely been vindicated by history, and even some Catholics view it with sympathy in the wake of all the subsequent scandals afflicting the church. But there’s also the threat that church protests could come across more like those of the Westboro Baptist Church, the vitriolic anti-LGBTQ group that, according to its own logic, has protested churches alongside the funerals of hate crime victims and numerous other targets.

How abortion-rights advocates, both inside and outside the Catholic Church, respond to this moment of heightened tension — as the nation awaits the likely reversal of the 1973 Roe decision — is likely to be a question for history as well.

Read more on abortion rights and the likely end of Roe v. Wade:

Sanders speaks out against law-breaking corporations

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday reiterated his call for the Biden administration to prohibit all union-busting corporations from receiving federal contracts, citing the National Labor Relations Board’s fresh complaints against Starbucks and Amazon over their attempts to crush worker organizing.

“This is what oligarchy and corporate greed are all about,” Sanders, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, tweeted Friday. “Two large and profitable corporations, owned by billionaires, spend millions to illegally deny their workers the right to organize. No corporation that breaks the law should get a federal contract.”

In a sweeping complaint filed Friday, the NLRB alleged that Starbucks committed hundreds of labor law violations in its campaign to stop Buffalo-area employees from forming a union.

The NLRB also said Friday that it found merit in charges that Amazon forced Staten Island warehouse workers to attend anti-union “captive audience” meetings ahead of an election that the union ultimately won, a landmark victory for the U.S. labor movement.

As the New York Times reported, such anti-union meetings “are legal under current labor board precedent.”

“But last month, the board’s general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, issued a memo saying that the precedent was at odds with the underlying federal statute, and she indicated that she would seek to challenge it,” the Times noted.

The NLRB on Friday also found merit in union charges that Amazon threatened to deny benefits to employees who voted to unionize and suggested—falsely—that workers could be fired if they failed to pay union dues. The labor board is expected to formally issue a complaint in the coming days detailing the charges and seeking corrective action from Amazon, which spent $4.3 million on anti-union consultants last year alone.

Amazon and Starbucks are both beneficiaries of federal contracts. Last month, the National Security Agency quietly re-awarded Amazon Web Services a 10-year cloud contract worth up to $10 billion, a move that runs afoul of President Joe Biden’s campaign promise to “ensure federal dollars do not flow to employers who engage in union-busting activities, participate in wage theft, or violate labor law.”

As The American Prospect noted, “That contract comes on top of 26 other federal cloud computing contracts with the U.S. Army and Air Force; the Departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and Interior; the U.S. Census Bureau; and numerous other agencies.”

In a letter to Biden last week, Sanders urged the president to sign an executive order barring corporations that violate
labor laws from contracting with the federal government.

During a Senate Budget Committee hearing on Thursday, Sanders observed that “there are hundreds of corporations in America that receive federal contracts, huge subsidies, special tax breaks, and all kinds of corporate welfare despite the fact that these same companies have engaged in widespread illegal behavior—including massive violations of labor laws.”

According to the watchdog Good Jobs First, Amazon has received more than $3.5 billion in state and local taxpayer subsidies since 1996 despite its repeated violations of wage and hour rules, worker safety regulations, and other laws.

“Taxpayer dollars should not go to companies like Amazon who repeatedly break the law,” Sanders said Thursday. “No government—not the federal government, not the state government, and not the city government—should be handing out corporate welfare to union busters and labor law violators.”

Lindsey Graham recorded kissing up to Trump

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is being slammed amid the emergence of new audio that captures him sucking up to former President Donald Trump again. According to HuffPost, the audio was released by The New York Times’ Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns.

On Thursday, May 5, 2022, The Times’ reporters appeared on “The Daily Show” with Trevor Noah where they aired the clip which features the Republican lawmaker doting on Trump during a speakerphone conversation.

Although Graham initially criticized the former president for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, the audio captures him singing a very different tune. The phone conversation was reportedly recorded when Trump took a call from Graham during an interview for the reporters’ book, “This Will Not Pass.”

Per HuffPost: “Trump puts Graham on speakerphone and asks him to tell the journalists if he’s actually any good at golf. Graham proceeds to fawn over Trump’s skills on the course, saying Trump even started to help him with his own game.”

After listing to the conversation, the group offered their reaction to it and Burns offered a stinging rebuke of it saying, “I think just hearing in real-time in front of us, this sort of dancing monkey routine was really an extraordinary moment.”

Burns and Martin’s book, “This Will Not Pass,” was released on Tuesday, May 3, 2022.

A new Office of Environmental Justice is announced

People whose neighborhoods have been plagued by pollution for decades heard welcome news yesterday: the Biden administration announced a new government office just for them.

The Department of Justice, or DOJ, is launching its first-ever Office of Environmental Justice, which will coordinate with other federal agencies to bring cases against polluters, prioritizing the communities most affected by environmental harms.

Attorney General Merrick Garland and Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, Administrator Michael Regan also revealed a new environmental justice strategy and announced that the DOJ will be reinstating an enforcement tool the previous administration had banned.

“Although violations of our environmental laws can happen anywhere, communities of color, Indigenous communities, and low-income communities often bear the brunt of the harm caused by environmental crime, pollution, and climate change,” Garland said at a press conference. 

The new environmental justice strategy commits the DOJ to addressing these problems by “vigorously and transparently working to secure environmental justice with the full set of legal tools at its disposal, in partnership with EPA and other federal agencies, and in communication with the communities most affected by the underlying violations of federal law.”

The Office of Environmental Justice will be led by Cynthia Ferguson, an attorney in the department’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division. Ferguson has worked on cases related to environmental justice for more than two decades, Garland said.

In his remarks, Regan highlighted the return of supplemental environmental projects as an enforcement mechanism. These projects allow polluters to fund local initiatives as part of settlements for breaking environmental laws. For example, as part of a settlement for violations of the Clean Air Act, a company could agree to install air filtration systems in local schools. Regan said they were “a tool to secure tangible public health benefits for communities harmed by environmental violations.”

Environmental justice advocates welcomed the announcements from both the DOJ and EPA. In a statement, Jane English, the NAACP’s environmental and climate justice program manager, wrote: “As climate change worsens, it is imperative that our leaders produce real, tangible solutions to protect Black and frontline communities and correct existing and past harms, all while initiating direct law enforcement corrective responses to egregious harms and environmental injustices.”

The parasites inside my mother were both real and spiritual

I was born five pounds heavy, five weeks ahead of my due date. According to my parents, I was immediately placed in an incubator like a chicken egg. I was continually losing the few pounds of weight that I had, which terrified them. It seemed I hadn’t been quite ready to enter the world. Dad often held me in one hand, my hairless head resting in his roomy palm. Mom had to tape little plastic tubes to her nipples when trying to breastfeed, shrinking herself for my weak lips. 

A couple of weeks after giving birth to me, Dad heard Mom scream from behind the closed bathroom door. She kept screaming. He found her sobbing, pointing at the toilet. I bet he gasped when he saw it and that his reaction made Mom cry harder. Using two big serving spoons, he fished out of the toilet a giant roundworm parasite. It was a few feet long. They put it in a quart-size zip lock bag so they could bring it to the doctor.

Did you hear about the missionary wife with the massive parasite?

The nurses and the doctor made Mom feel like a freakshow. Did you hear about the missionary wife with the massive parasite? They apologized for their unprofessional reactions, but their remorse was immediately negated as they, again, emphasized that this was the largest worm they had ever seen in real life and in textbooks. They informed her that due to its — once again — extremely large size, they could infer two things: it had been growing in her for at least a year and that it could not be the only one. They gave her a medication to kill its brethren that were likely multiplying at that very moment, swimming in her intestine as she sat shamefully in the sterile American office. 

Mom became petrified of using the bathroom, of encountering more roundworms in their porcelain grave as the medication killed them. But she had to do what she had to do. She never saw another parasite. She found out a couple of months later from my uncle who is a doctor that the medication also dissolves the worms. Her doctor had somehow forgotten to mention that; he was likely too distracted, gawking at her ziplocked giant.

RELATED: Holy bodies, holy hungers

Maybe they grew rapidly because her suffering was spiritualized away. 

When Mom was pregnant with me, she was not only eating for two — she was eating for hundreds. I often think about how my embryo-self and the parasites grew in parallel inside of her. Almost like inmates, only a thin wall kept us apart as we fought for space and nutrients. Maybe the giant roundworm who made itself known had left its family to find me. I imagine it said to me in a raspy slithering voice: Hey kid, there’s not room enough for the both of us. I imagine that I agreed. Chucking up deuces to my rowdy neighbors, I fought to get out ahead of schedule. I imagine that when Mom tenderly wrapped her arm around her swelling belly, whispering prayers over my kidney-bean-shaped body, the parasites thought she loved them. Maybe that’s what spurred their impressive size and numbers. Maybe they grew unchecked because we were living in a country that did not sanitize the way Americans are used to. Or maybe they grew rapidly because her suffering was spiritualized away. 

* * *

My parents had been concerned that they wouldn’t make it back to the States in time for Mom to give birth to me. They once again packed up their lives and embarked on the 24+ hour trip from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to Portland, Oregon, USA. With my two older sisters (6 and 4 years old) and many suitcases, my family had conquered the first of many legs: a small plane had flown them to Istanbul, Turkey. But when they checked in for their next flight, the Turkish Airline’s clerk looked with raised eyebrows at Mom’s rotund belly which was emphasized by her petite frame. The clerk shook her head. Dad had already offered the handwritten note from the missionary doctor who had checked Mom’s vitals on the couch in our living room; she had been alarmed to find Mom’s blood pressure extremely high. The doctor said if my family wasn’t already planning to leave in a few days, she would have called the U.S. embassy to get Mom medically evacuated. 

Dad led the way in most situations that took place outside of our home, but not this time. This time Mom stepped in front of him, handing him the water bottle and Winnie the Pooh backpack she was undoubtedly holding. “I am getting on that plane.” Mom’s eyebrows had raised to meet the clerk’s, her voice was steady and low. The clerk suggested they leave the airport and go to the hospital a couple of miles away to get an official note from a Turkish doctor approving her for travel. They only had four hours until their next flight (the 18-hour flight that would bring them back to America). There was no way.

“Let me speak to your manager,” Mom countered, her voice’s volume slowly rising to meet her blood pressure. The clerk shook her head again, eyes darting at the attention their conversation was starting to draw. “I am getting on that plane! Where is your manager!” Mom yelled, slamming her hand on the counter. 

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I wish more than anything I could have seen this next part with my own eyes, but I’m sure I was cheering her on; her cortisol and adrenaline spinning me in circles. She stepped up on the luggage scale with her hands on her hips, the conveyor belt was stationary at the time. She threatened to come behind the counter. Clerks from surrounding kiosks came rushing over, anxiously trying to get her to step off. Did you hear about the pregnant American lady who threatened Turkish Airlines? She refused to budge until the manager arrived. I imagine that Dad had taken a few steps back with my sisters, watching with pride and shock as Mom transcended. The manager came and made her sign six different forms to agree that they would not be liable if anything were to happen to her or the baby’s health while they were flying 40,000 miles above land. Mom stepped down, signing her and my life away. My family finally got on the plane. I was born six weeks after we arrived, and Mom was healthy (aside from the roundworms). 

* * *

On late Saturday mornings during my childhood, I could always find Mom in the back corner of my parents’ room. Sitting in her armchair with her feet tucked under her, she wrote in her journal with a tall mug of steaming coffee beside her. I sat at her feet on the faded carpet, my back against the bed. After interrupting her “quiet time” repeatedly, I waited and watched. I watched Mom’s tilted head sway softly along with her right hand as it moved back and forth, watched the floating specks in the sunlight and imagined them to be fairies dancing just for me, watched her turn filled page after filled page, watched the shadow of grapevine leaves fall through the window to twitch across my folded body and slowly encircle her chair, watched her lips barely move as she re-read what she wrote.

I know now that her many journals were filled with lists and lists of bitter beseeching prayer requests.

If I squeeze that memory tightly with my adult hands, it starts to crumble; fairies twirling in sunlight become illuminated dust. Of course, my parents sheltered my sisters and me from the hardships of growing up in Kyrgyzstan. But I know now that they also hid how her mental illnesses were exacerbated by the environment we lived in and by the pressures of evangelism. I know now that her many journals were filled with lists and lists of bitter beseeching prayer requests, her barely moving lips re-reading angry pleas.

RELATED: It’s my mom’s fault I stole her letters

She had to pray for God to lead us back to America because she could not lead us back herself. Dad would not lead us back unless it was God’s idea first. Or at least that was the message they received from the American church. This message was reinforced when she commiserated with her friends who were also missionary wives. They prayed with heavy bowed heads for their children’s safety and for each other’s sanity since they didn’t want to pray for themselves out loud. She told me recently that Ephesians 6:12 was the backbone of the evangelical pressures she endured (in addition to the salt of the Earth and carry your cross tropes). “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” How could she complain about earthly inconveniences like parasites and high blood pressure when there were demons to be fought and unsaved souls to reclaim? 

My mother lived overseas in a state of high anxiety for 16 years, all while raising four daughters. She dreaded the unexpected health problem that could have been easily treated if only we lived in the country we were from. She worried over her isolation and otherness, surrounded either by seven-foot brick walls and children or by people she could not easily communicate with. It’s one thing for her to acknowledge her privilege as a mostly-white-passing, middle-class, highly educated, American woman. It’s another thing entirely for her to be told that her longing to leave was a discredit to her faith: longing to have consistent access to healthcare and education for her family, longing to live somewhere she belonged. 

As I sift through the remaining sand from the crumbled memory, I see now that there actually was a bigger problem than hundreds of roundworms living inside my pregnant mother. Evangelism, a spiritual leech. Even after we permanently moved back to America, the metaphorical parasite clung on. Our home was an extension of Mom’s womb, a vessel in which she carried and protected her growing children. We swam together in spiritualized gaslighting, grasping for a life that ought to be enough.

More essays on growing up evangelical: 

Inside the untold story of John Lennon’s legal war with a Mafia-connected label owner

With “Lennon, the Mobster, & the Lawyer: The Untold Story,” Jay Bergen has authored a page-turner of a book about, of all things, a lawsuit. You may be drawn to the title as a Beatles fan, but you’ll leave having enjoyed a glimpse into the strategic core of a first-rate legal mind.

It is incredible to contemplate the sheer amount of time that John Lennon spent with various legal cases taking up his headspace, the most prominent of which was surely his longstanding immigration case. Lennon existed in public life for some 17 years, with fully a third of it living in fear of being deported from the United States. He had landed on President Richard M. Nixon’s notorious enemies list, which resulted in years of legal entanglements for the former Beatle as he fought to stay in the country. Fortunately, Lennon prevailed, earning his coveted Green Card in July 1976.

RELATED: In 1969 the fifth Beatle was heroin: John Lennon’s addiction took its toll on the band

But that’s another story. In “Lennon, the Mobster, & the Lawyer,” Bergen focuses on Lennon’s other case, his intellectual property dispute with Morris Levy, the publisher of Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me.” Lennon had lifted a key lyric from the song for Abbey Road’s “Come Together.” As with his one-time songwriting partner Paul McCartney, who described the Beatles as “plagiarists extraordinaires,” Lennon quipped that “the trick is to steal from the best.” When it came to Levy, John was initially forced to settle the lawsuit out of court, promising to record three tunes from Levy’s back catalog as recompense.

Love the Beatles? Listen to Ken’s podcast “Everything Fab Four.”

But it didn’t end there, of course. In the meantime, Lennon set to work on an oldies LP that went under the working title of “Back to Mono.” Eventually released as “Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Lennon’s throwback album became its own saga when Phil Spector absconded with the album’s master tapes. Capitol Records paid some $90,000 in ransom to the eccentric producer for their return.

Meanwhile, impatient with Lennon over the disposition of the out-of-court settlement, Levy marketed a television mail-order version of the album’s rough mix, which the ex-Beatle had inadvisably shared with him, entitled “Roots: John Lennon Sings the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hits” and released on the Adam VIII label.

Here’s the TV commercial for “Roots”:

In fascinating detail, Bergen’s book traces the story of Capitol Records’ subsequent lawsuit against Levy. The behind-the-scenes tale of having a legendary client of Lennon’s ilk makes for a riveting read, to be sure, but Bergen’s narrative hits even higher notes as he paints a picture of music’s ties to the Mafia and the ways in which folks like Levy would exploit the threat of a federal case as a backroom shakedown.

Beatles fans — and Lennon aficionados in particular — will revel in John’s descriptions of the musician’s approach to the recording process, which Bergen skillfully redeployed in his courtroom strategy. The book offers a powerful glimpse into the seamy side of 1970s rock ‘n’ roll, a time capsule-like rendering of a bygone age. Bergen’s “Lennon, the Mobster, & the Lawyer” is not to be missed.

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Read more stories by Beatles scholar Ken Womack about John Lennon: 

The best brunch ever? An easy smashed potato and ramp frittata

When I was growing up, my dad traveled a lot for work. He’d leave on a Monday and sometimes be gone for days. Once a year, his work would take him to the Pacific Northwest. I remember this because he would return from this trip each year with a special piece of cargo: fresh salmon on dry ice.

He’d re-tool his usual travel plan, checking his perfectly overhead bin-sized suitcase so that he could bring the salmon onto the plane as his carry-on. In Kansas, fresh, quality fish (at least fish from the sea) was a serious luxury. So when the salmon arrived home, it was treated like gold: My mom cooked it lovingly and carefully (seared and placed onto a ciabatta bun that had been mayo-ed and topped with lightly dressed arugula and a fat slice of peppered tomato). Dad went through all of this effort (and frankly, expense) for one meal’s worth of payoff, just so my mom and we kids could taste really good, fresh fish. This is one of the perks when you grow up in a house that takes food seriously.

This certainly explains why (many years later), I was standing with three TSA agents in the Newark airport discussing the contents of my carry-on. It was mid-May, I had a ticket for Kansas in my hand, and two parents waiting there who had never tasted ramps (which I’d been cooking up a storm with for the past several weeks). I had been on a mission to get them their first taste, so I had made two pounds of ramp compound butter and a couple jars of pickled ramps to take home with me. My happiness about winning Daughter of the Year was dashed as I realized — the moment I walked through the metal detectors — that the pickles were in brine (liquid!).

I had carefully put tiny bottles of lotion and shampoo into a zip-top bag as directed, but had somehow forgotten that there would be no way my two pints of vinegar and water would emerge through the scanner as easily. I turned red and fearful as the gloved agent removed the jars from my bag. They let me keep the compound butter, which was frozen. I pleaded with the TSA agent, who most certainly thought I was crazy as I described how expensive ramps are, and how short their season is, and how even if I couldn’t take them, he should really take the jars home and enjoy.

“What do they taste like?” the TSA agent asked me.

It felt like an impossible question, because it was the same one I’d been trying to answer for my parents each year when I got so excited for ramp season. They’re technically wild leeks, but they have a sharp flavor too, a little like garlic. The leaves are softer in flavor than the bulbs — but they’re both so delicious.

Unconvinced, the TSA agent asked what he was supposed to do with the pickles. I was halfway through a description of a really lovely cheese plate scenario, when a supervisor strolled through and a single glance landed the jars in the trash.

I haven’t tried to take any ramp items home since, but I continue to cook feverishly with them when the season rolls around. Whether you’ve never tasted ramps, or are a fiend like me, this potato frittata recipe is a perfect display of their wonderfulness. It’s simple to make, and the blander ingredients (potatoes and egg) pick up the flavor of the ramps at every stage of cooking. The potatoes form a crisp crust on the bottom, but stay creamy inside, and the richness of the soft cheese inside plus the sharp cheese on top are the perfect complement.

When you eat something rare, or super-seasonal, each bite is such a gift. It feels just like the salmon that would fly halfway across the country to land on my plate once a year — precious and worth savoring.

Frittata FAQ

What’s the difference between frittatas and quiches?

Look at the two side-by-side and notice that, nine times out of 10, a quiche is made with a pastry crust and a frittata is not. To make an easy frittata, the egg mixture is simply baked directly in the skillet. But when you compare recipes, you’ll notice even more differences. The filling for a quiche is more enriched and custardy, whereas a frittata is closer to an egg scramble.

Do you have to put milk in frittata?

Nope! In fact, you probably shouldn’t. Frittata recipes, including this potato frittata, rarely call for milk or cream. At most, they might contain sour cream or cream cheese (and definitely lots of shredded cheese). Quiches, on the other hand, almost always contain milk, cream, or both.

Does frittata always contain potato?

As much as we love this potato frittata recipe, the spuds don’t always make an appearance in this popular egg bake. One of our other favorite frittatas for spring calls for artichokes, arugula, and baby spinach; when the temperature drops, make this hearty frittata with chickpeas, chorizo, roasted red peppers, and spinach.

How long will frittata last in the fridge?

As a rule of thumb, frittatas are good for about three to four days in the refrigerator. Oh, and good news for anyone looking for a freezer-friendly breakfast: You can freeze frittatas! Slice it into individual portions and wrap each slice tightly in an airtight container. If you do this, the slices will be good for three to four months. To reheat, pop a slice in a 375°F oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

Recipe: Smashed Potato and Ramp Frittata