A new civil war? Maybe so — but it won’t look anything like the first one

Almost every day offers more evidence of how American fascism is becoming a reality. We now know for certain that Donald Trump and his coup cabal attempted to overthrow American democracy on Jan. 6, 2021. The coup continues as Republicans and their agents are attacking America’s multiracial democracy in dozens of states, seeking to make it impossible for Black and brown Americans and other Democratic Party constituents to have their votes counted fairly.

Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, a former Trump ally, said last week that, well after the events of Jan. 6, 2021, Trump continued his seditious attempts to pressure members of Congress to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump himself, along with acolytes such as Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon, continue to threaten and incite political violence against those deemed to be the enemy. At a rally last Saturday in Georgia, for instance, Trump continued to threaten violence against members of the media, calling them “animals.”

As Salon’s Igor Derysh reported last week, Trump’s followers have been allegedly been going door-to-door in Black and brown communities in Colorado, engaging in acts of voter intimidation and harassment that echo the Jim Crow era of white supremacist terror and violence.

As shown by the vile attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the antisemitic QAnon conspiracy theory has made major inroads into the so-called mainstream of the Republican Party. Federal and local law enforcement agencies continue to disrupt right-wing terror plots across the United States.

The rising neofascist tide is global: Some white supremacists and other right-wing extremists see the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to gain combat experience they can later use in their battle against multiracial democracy and pluralistic society in the U.S. and other Western nations. Experts on political violence, fascism and other forms of political extremism continue to sound the alarm about the perilous moment now facing the United States, where democracy is teetering on the edge of collapse. Their warnings have been largely ignored by the country’s political elites and the public more generally.

Barbara Walter is a professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, and one of the world’s leading experts on civil wars, political violence and terrorism. She is also a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has consulted for the State Department, the Department of Defense, the UN and the World Bank. Her essays and other commentaries have been featured at CNN, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. Walter’s new book is “How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them.”

In this conversation, Walter warns that the American people and their leaders have been blinded by a type of “status quo bias” that prevents them from responding properly to the democracy crisis and the danger of widespread political violence. She argues that privilege and a lack of historical experience with oppression have combined to create a state of willful myopia and denial for most white Americans about the existential peril the country now faces.

Walter draws upon some of the darkest moments in human history, such as the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust, to explain why so many (white) Americans will likely remain in denial about the country’s descent into civil war and other massive violence, even as the carnage is imminent or already happening around them. She warns that many people will comply, or perhaps collaborate, with the right-wing extremists who are committing worsening acts of terror and political violence.

Walter does hold out some hope, however, and offers potential solutions to help mitigate this crisis, including new restrictions on the way social media platforms circulate and amplify politically extreme content.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Donald Trump continues to threaten political violence against his “enemies” if he is punished for his crimes. Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon and other right-wing propagandists are also threatening political violence on a near-daily basis across the right-wing media echo chamber. The FBI and law enforcement continue to uncover potential right-wing terrorist plots. Why are so few people taking these dangers of right-wing violence seriously?

I believe it is human nature for people to not want to believe that they and their fellow citizens are capable of such things. Many people want to live in a world of wishful thinking where life is going to continue to go on in the same way that it always has.

If it is sunny today and you go to work and afterwards you have drinks with friends and then there is the weekend when you get to watch football and it’s like that today, your bias is that it’s always going to be that way.

People are status-quo biased. They truly believe that the way things are today is the way that things are going to be forever. As a result, many people do not see the warning signs. What is so amazing is that throughout history, violent extremists are often very public about their intentions, what their goals are and what strategy they’re going to pursue to achieve those goals. Hitler is perhaps the best example. He wrote and published “Mein Kampf,” laying out exactly what he intended to do. If you look at neo-Nazis and other white supremacists here in the United States and elsewhere, they have a book called “The Siege” which details exactly what their plans and intentions are.

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The bible of the alt-right is a book called “The Turner Diaries.” It lays out exactly how they intend to start a second civil war in the United States. “The Turner Diaries” includes an attack on the U.S. Capitol, and in that book a working gallows is erected outside the Capitol where they’re going to bring “traitors” out for trial and then kill them. They’re not hiding what they intend to do, and yet throughout history, the people who are at risk have not taken those messages, warnings and manifestos seriously.

In societies at risk for widespread political violence, is it common for the public and its leaders to be in a state of denial? For people to just ignore the obvious threats or say it is all just hyperbole?

As a social scientist, the example I would start with would be the Jews across Europe prior to the Holocaust because there is a very interesting variation in how Jews responded by country. There is also a noteworthy variation in terms of how Jews responded to the perceived threat of persecution and how communists and socialists responded.

In terms of the Jews in Europe, it was German Jews who had their heads in the sand the most and refused to see the disaster that was about to hit them. They actually could read “Mein Kampf.” Many Polish Jews and Romanian Jews saw what was coming and tried to take action by fleeing Europe. The German Jews, less so. Why was this?

The German Jews were highly educated. They were cosmopolitan, they were the most assimilated. They were the most vested in the status quo. They were not living in ghettos, and they had not experienced pogroms until more recently. Therefore, many German Jews believed that they were going to be relatively untouched or that they had a vested interest in the society.

The German Jews were more likely to be caught by surprise, whereas if you are a Jewish person living in Poland, you’ve been ghettoized your whole existence, you’ve been the target of violence, you already know what the state is capable of. You know what your fellow citizens are capable of. You’ve seen the evidence of that. Such violence does not take you by surprise.

I think a similar dynamic is happening here in the United States. The American people as a whole have not witnessed the horrible things that human beings can do to each other because they have not been the target of such violence — except, of course, for African-Americans and other people of color who do see the approaching violence and disaster. Many white Americans do not want to see it. They do not want to hear the metaphorical train that is coming at them because they have not been targets of such violence as a group.

White Americans as a group tend not to believe the warnings by Black and brown people and others who see what is happening. Because they haven’t had the direct experience, the hard evidence, of such things being true. I also believe that’s because white Americans have a vested interest in the system. They really want to believe that the system is OK, and if they just keep their heads down and just weather this storm, everything’s going to be OK.

How do people reconcile their wishes and dreams, or their delusions, with the obvious facts?

Trump and Flynn are preaching violence. You can quote them on it. If you read what they are saying, it is shocking. Yet few people seem to know about it. If I were to show what Trump and Flynn are saying, their actual words, to the average American, they would say, “You’re making that up, it can’t be true.” Thus we have a situation where these things are happening, but the information is not being shared with the general public, or if they are hearing what is happening then it is being distorted or not fully represented in a way that leaves most Americans ignorant of what is really going on.

Historically, the side that wants to do these horrible things and put themselves in a position of power, to lead a dictatorship or start a “race war” or commit acts of genocide — for example, to kill all the Jews in Europe — will spend a lot of time investing in propaganda because they understand that if they can control the narrative they can control the average citizen. That is exactly what is happening now in the United States. Experts and other people like us see the warning signs because we’re paying attention and we’re reading widely. Most Americans are not.

At one of Trump’s recent rallies, he told his followers to be ready to die to defeat “critical race theory.” Michael Flynn recently told his audience he wanted them to “charge machine gun nests” in service to their cause. How do you fit these examples within your model of a second civil war or other massive violence in the United States?

One of the challenges that violent extremists have is how to expand their base of support. If they don’t expand their support base, they just remain fringe movements forever. One way is to provoke a harsh government response. Let’s say that there are peaceful protests, but then there are provocateurs there who try to get the police to open fire or to bash a few heads. Violence entrepreneurs will use those actions as evidence that the police or the government or the opposition are evil and intent on crushing them.

That tactic is often successful in radicalizing at least some portion of average citizens. It pushes them towards the extremists. Donald Trump is what I would describe as an “ethnic entrepreneur.” He and his loyalists want to regain power. He is an autocrat. Trump has no interest in ruling democratically. But Trump is not going to get that power back without the support of the average white American. This means that Donald Trump has to convince them somehow that his is a worthy cause to defend.

How many people, in terms of a whole population, does such a movement need to take over society and impose its will on the public?

There is not much data on that question. Research suggests that perhaps 3% of the population is necessary to challenge whatever leader or group is in power. That is a quite small percentage, but if there is 3% of the American population out in the streets in a sustained way, it is actually enormous. You do not need a lot of people to start a civil war that’s going to be incredibly costly to the country as a whole. All they would need are a few militia groups who are effective at targeting infrastructure and shutting down the economy.

What has the response been to your book and its warnings about a second civil war or right-wing insurgency in America?

To my great surprise, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. People are reading the book. I didn’t think that was going to happen. I didn’t think Americans would want to read about the possibility of a civil war or read a book that is terrifying. And they did, in large numbers. But the second response has really been that 90% of the emails I get are people thanking me. They’re grateful. They have been worried about what they’re seeing and feeling in the country. The most grateful emails I get are from people who live in rural areas, who thank me for shedding light on this problem.

There are people who say I am being an alarmist and that somehow I am making a second American civil war more likely by talking about it. The reality is that we know that violent extremists on the far right have been growing significantly, especially since 2008. You can read what their plans are. You can see that many of them are stockpiling weapons and going through maneuvers and training for war. These right-wing groups were sending some of their members to Ukraine, prior to the Russian invasion, to gain combat experience. We know that these right-wing extremists are actively recruiting from former members of the military because they want individuals with combat experience.

What these right-wing extremists want more than anything else is for the rest of the American people to ignore them, because that way they can grow their numbers, get more training, and when they’re ready to act they’ll have the element of surprise on their side. These right-wing extremists are a relatively small, weak group. Any militias in the United States are going to be small relative to the U.S. military. They need the element of surprise. I wish that it were true that if we did not talk about this threat, it would go away. That is simply not the case.

I see a situation where the right wing is already engaging in acts of lethal violence and is mobilizing for widespread violence. It is a one-way battle at this point. Liberals, progressives and other pro-democracy Americans are doing little, if anything, to defend their country against the threat. I fear that once they realize what the neofascists and right-wing extremists are preparing to do, it will be too late.

In the CIA’s manual on insurgencies there are three stages. The United States is in the second stage. The CIA calls it the “incipient conflict stage,” and it is marked by discrete acts of violence. Timothy McVeigh’s attack in Oklahoma City was probably the very earliest instance. Here is what the CIA manual says, almost verbatim: “The insurgents’ goal is to broadcast their mission to the world, build support and provoke a government overreaction to their violence so that more moderate citizens become radicalized and join the movement.”

The second stage is when the government becomes aware of the groups behind these attacks, but according to the CIA, the violence is often dismissed as the work of bandits, criminals or terrorists. What is so dangerous about the second stage is that citizens, politicians and law enforcement usually miss it. They don’t connect the dots, they don’t see that the movement is growing and that this is a precursor to open insurgency. Instead, these attacks are dismissed as idiosyncratic or the result of crazy people who have no connection to a larger movement. That’s exactly where we are today.

When you and other experts use the term “civil war,” how is it defined?

Experts use it as a type of umbrella term. Underneath that umbrella are all sorts of different forms of violence that can happen within a country. Civil wars mean violence that’s fought by a domestic group within a country that targets the government for political purposes. It becomes a civil war or a major civil war if it kills a thousand people during the course of the war.

Civil war can take different forms. There are social revolutions, such as the Russian Revolution or Mao’s revolution in China. Social revolution is the most destructive type of civil war. It’s a civil war where the rebels want complete political, economic and social change. There can also be a violent coup that kills a thousand people and is contained to a capital city. There is everything in between.

What we tend to see frequently in countries with powerful militaries are insurgencies. These tend to be more decentralized and usually fought by multiple militias and paramilitary groups. These militias have political goals, but their methods are very different. They don’t want to engage the military directly for the most part, don’t want to target soldiers, because if they engage the U.S. military, for example, they’re going to lose. They instead use unconventional methods, like guerrilla warfare, hit-and-run attacks, domestic terrorism, where they’re targeting the soft underbelly of a society, such as civilian infrastructure. In the United States we are not going to see a civil war like we saw in the 1860s.

What do we know about the public mood and emotion in a society that is about to experience a civil war or other mass violence?

The groups that tend to start these civil wars and insurgencies are driven by resentment. As such, the groups who decide that violence is a justifiable means to try to create political and social change are those that are losing status and have a deep sense of resentment towards other groups who are perceived as rising or doing better. These are the “sons of the soil” groups.

It is that resentment that motivates their leaders. Average citizens are motivated by a different emotion to follow such leaders. That emotion is fear, which is an incredible motivator for average citizens to pick up a gun and start fighting. Ethnic entrepreneurs, violence entrepreneurs — those individuals who want to start a civil war to catapult themselves to power — understand the power of fear. What they do is create propaganda and circulate it among average citizens. They tell them that their lives are under threat.

In a given society, and most certainly here in the United States, most members of the general public, white Americans and privileged people in particular, are fence-sitters. They may know that something is deeply wrong in the country, but they will do nothing about it. What does that oft-discussed “silent majority” actually do when a society starts to fall apart and people are killing each other?

Such people are going to hold on to hope as long as they can. They’re going to plug their ears and cover their eyes and engage in wishful thinking as long as they can. And then, when something happens and they’re forced to choose sides, their base instinct is to survive and to do whatever they need to do to survive.

If there is a paramilitary group that is putting up roadblocks on their street, if there’s a group of people wearing all black with no insignias controlling a roadblock in a neighborhood with machine guns, the average person is going to do whatever those people want them to do. Survival drives behavior. Those fence-sitters are going to hope they’re not going to become the targets of the violence.

Not all the far-right groups are white supremacists, but many of them are. What they want is for the United States to become a white “ethnostate,” or at the very least for certain states like Michigan to become white ethnostates. These white supremacists understand that if they don’t shoot at white people, then many white people are probably just going to keep their heads down and not do anything. It’s exactly what happened in places like Germany, where if you see that the Germans are targeting Jews, you do everything possible to make sure that you aren’t identified as a Jew. I believe that the average human who is trying to survive will do a whole lot of ugly things to keep themselves alive.

How do we prepare the American people for this civil war or insurgency or other such right-wing violence? Will it be a series of escalating events? Isolated acts of violence? Something spectacular, like 9/11?

Their ideal scenario is to coordinate, so that on a given day there would be multiple attacks. As I see it, it would almost feel like 9/11, where you wake up in the morning and you’re watching TV and you know that something has happened and everything seems chaotic. You’re not really sure who’s in charge or what type of threat this is and what you should do about it.

I see a scenario where there are bombings in multiple state capitals, or a series of assassinations, or maybe both at the same time. Suddenly the federal government is facing a leaderless resistance. The country’s leaders are trying to figure out how to respond. In the meantime, the American people are watching this all happen and wondering: What the hell’s going on, who’s in charge, and what should we do?

Some of these right-wing militias are going to want to capture territory in certain parts of the country and hold it. Some of them are going to pursue their own agendas. For example, I could imagine militias in Michigan saying, “We’re never going to gain control of the federal government, but Michigan could be a white state — we just have to convince all the nonwhites to leave. We do that by bombing their churches and targeting their stores with attacks. Eventually, the nonwhites will be forced to move south and we’ll ultimately get what we want.”

If the right-wing extremists are not able to coordinate their attacks, then we are just going to see a series of consistent attacks every few weeks. There will be a feeling that the country is under siege. Northern Ireland is a great example of this. The British military, as strong as it was, could not get rid of the IRA. The IRA continued to operate until the British government eventually negotiated with them.

If you had 15 minutes to brief President Biden or Attorney General Garland, what would you highlight as the first steps they should take to contain this threat?

Regulate social media. It’s the easiest thing that the U.S. government can do. The five biggest tech companies are all American companies. Don’t engage in censorship. Let people put whatever they want on social media, but regulate what tech companies are allowed to do in terms of their recommendation engines. Don’t allow them to take the most incendiary material and push it out to the widest possible audience, because that is causing a range of really negative societal effects. These include helping to accelerate the decline of democracy, helping to grow the rise of ethnic nationalism and hate crimes and helping to make it easier to organize militias. Regulating social media would be the quickest and easiest way to reverse these negative effects.

Nine words that shook the world: What was Joe Biden thinking?

Ever since Joe Biden ended his speech in Poland on Saturday night by making one of the most dangerous statements ever uttered by a U.S. president in the nuclear age, efforts to clean up after him have been profuse. Administration officials scurried to assert that Biden didn’t mean what he said. Yet no amount of trying to “walk back” his unhinged comment at the end of his speech in front of Warsaw’s Royal Castle can change the fact that Biden had called for regime change in Russia.

They were nine words about Russian President Vladimir Putin that shook the world: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

With a reckless genie out of the bottle, no amount of damage control from the president’s top underlings could stuff it back in. “We do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia, or anywhere else, for that matter,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Sunday. Such words might plausibly have less than full weight; Blinken was chief of staff at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when, in mid-2002, then-Sen. Biden wielded the gavel at crucial hearings that stacked the deck in support of the subsequent U.S. invasion of Iraq, with the explicit goal of regime change.

The U.S. commander in chief, brandishing the power to launch one of the world’s two biggest nuclear arsenals, would be out of his mind to consciously announce a goal of dethroning the leader of the world’s other nuclear superpower. A worst-case scenario might be that Biden was blurting out his government’s actual secret goal, which would not speak well of impulse control.

But it’s not much more reassuring to think that the president simply got carried away with his emotions. The day after, that was part of the messaging from Biden’s cleanup detail. “Administration officials and Democratic lawmakers said Sunday the off-the-cuff remark was an emotional response to the president’s interactions in Warsaw with [Ukrainian] refugees,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

Before the cosmetic repairs began to cover Biden’s unscripted statement, however, the New York Times provided a quick news analysis under the headline “Biden’s Barbed Remark About Putin: A Slip or a Veiled Threat?” The piece, by seasoned establishment reporters David Sanger and Michael Shear, noted that Biden’s off-script closing to his speech came with “his cadence slowing for emphasis.” And they added: “On its face, he appeared to be calling for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to be ousted for his brutal invasion of Ukraine.”

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Mainstream journalists have avoided putting a fine point on the likelihood that World War III just got closer thanks to Biden’s words, whether or not they were a “slip” or a “veiled threat.” In fact, it might never be possible to know which it was. That ambiguity only underscores that the president’s slip and/or threat was massively irresponsible, endangering the survival of humanity on this planet.

Outrage is the appropriate response. And a special onus is on Democrats in Congress, who should be willing to put humanity above party and condemn Biden’s extreme irresponsibility. Prospects for any such condemnation look bleak.

Biden’s impromptu nine words underscore that we must not take anything for granted about his rationality. Russia’s murderous war in Ukraine does not give Biden any valid excuse to make a horrendous situation worse. On the contrary, the U.S. government should be determined to promote and pursue negotiations that could end the killing and find long-term compromise solutions. Biden has now made it even more difficult to pursue diplomacy with Putin.

Activists have a special role to play — by insisting that members of Congress and the Biden administration focus on finding solutions that will save Ukrainian lives as well as put a stop to the slide toward military escalation and global nuclear annihilation.

To even hint that the U.S. is seeking regime change in Russia — and to leave the world wondering whether the president is slipping or issuing threats — is a form of imperial insanity in the nuclear era that we must not tolerate.

“I’m addressing the people in the United States,” former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said during an interview on Democracy Now just a day before Biden’s speech in Poland. “How many times have an attempt by the American government to effect regime change anywhere in the world worked out well? Ask the women of Afghanistan. Ask the people of Iraq. How did that liberal imperialism work out for them? Not very well. Do they really propose to try this out with a nuclear power?”

Overall, in recent weeks, President Biden has jettisoned all but the flimsiest pretenses of seeking a diplomatic solution to end the horrors of the war in Ukraine. Instead, his administration keeps ratcheting up the self-righteous rhetoric while moving the world closer to ultimate catastrophe.

Read more on Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine:

Uninsured Americans will now be charged for PCR Covid-19 tests

A major testing company in the United States announced this week that it will now charge people without Medicare, private coverage, or other insurance a $125 out-of-pocket charge to receive a Covid-19 PCR test—a fresh example of how the U.S. remains an outlier among wealthy nations for refusing to provide universal healthcare for its people.

According to ABC News, Quest Diagnostics, one of the largest testing companies in the country, has decided that those “who are not on Medicare, Medicaid or a private health plan will now be charged $125 dollars ($119 and a $6 physician fee) when using one of its QuestDirect PCR tests either by ordering a kit online or visiting one of the 1,500 Quest or major retail locations that administer the tests, such as Walmart or Giant Eagle.”

The outlet reports the company has already “begun notifying its clients and partners they can no longer expect to be reimbursed for uninsured claims” unless new government funding is approved by Congress.

As Common Dreams reported at the time, critics slammed lawmakers earlier this month for making a “choice to extend the pandemic” by dropping over $15 billion in Covid-19 relief from a must-pass omnibus spending bill after Republicans wanted the funds to be redirected from already approved aid directed toward states.

Citing research published last month in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, physician and Medicare for All advocate Dr. Adam Gaffney on Saturday posted a twitter thread detailing how the study showed that uninsured people in the U.S. were more likely to be infected with Covid-19, a statistic he believes is likely still true, but much less likely to get tested.

“Even with the federal coverage,” Gaffney said, the study he co-authored on the subject “found uninsured were less likely to be tested, despite having a higher rate of test positivity. But this latest shift will only exacerbate such disparities.”

And while the researchers concluded their study by calling for expanded and more robust insurance coverage and access to Covid care for Americans, Gaffney bemoaned Saturday that now policymakers are “going in reverse.”

Responding to ABC News reporting on Saturday, Oni Blackstock, a medical doctor and founder of the group Health Justice, suggested Quest’s shift on how it will charge for their testing was an ominous sign:

Eric Reinhart, an athropology researcher and a resident physician at Northwestern University, also condemned the development.

“Charging individuals for Covid testing—a basic public health tool,” said Reinhart, “is just willful stupidity.”

The news also comes as progressives in the U.S. House on Thursday announced the first hearings since the pandemic began on Medicare for All.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who along with Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) will lead the hearing in the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday, said this week that “Americans deserve a healthcare system that guarantees health and medical services to all. Congress must implement a system that prioritizes people over profits, humanity over greed, and compassion over exploitation.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene tells Pete Buttigieg and husband to “stay out of girls’ bathrooms”

Republican U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene on Saturday warned Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, to not bring his bicycle or electric vehicles into public facilities designated for female children.

“And you know what?” Greene screamed to the crowd. “Pete Buttigieg can take his electric vehicles and his bicycle, and he and his husband can stay out of our girls’ bathrooms.”

Rep. Greene made her announcement at a rally in Georgia held by Donald Trump, the failed and disgraced former president.

Greene’s warning apparently was a failed yet reprehensible attempt to equate LGBTQ people with pedophiles, one of the Republican Party’s false but increased lines of attack against Democrats.

Watch Congresswoman Greene:

Marjorie Taylor Greene goes on a strange rant about Pete Buttigieg and says he “can stay out of our girls bathroom” pic.twitter.com/mflOliqc5R

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 26, 2022

How prosthetic penises in shows like HBO’s “Minx” reinforce existing stereotypes and taboos

Entertainment Weekly recently published an interview with actor Taylor Zakhar Perez, teasing the piece with a headline about Perez “baring it all” as a nude model for a 1970s magazine centerfold in the first episode in HBO Max’s “scandalous” new show, “Minx.”

The real scandal, in my view, is not the promised nudity but the way it’s misrepresented. Perez never actually appears fully nude in that episode. He wears a prosthetic penis.

As prosthetic penises have become more common in film and on TV, I’ve watched publications eagerly document the trend with cheeky headlines: “The power of the dong: The year the penis was unleashed in Hollywood,” “How the Sausage Gets Made: Inside Hollywood’s Prosthetic Penis Craze” and “Welcome to the year of the cock.”

But to me, their growing use, and the way in which actors wielding them are deceptively described as partaking in “full frontal nudity,” often reinforces existing taboos under a guise of progressivism and gender equality.

What’s wrong with just showing the real thing?

No more than a costume

I’ve been researching representations of penises and the way they’re connected to masculinity since the 1993 publication of my book “Running Scared: Masculinity and the Representation of the Male Body.”

The media, it seems, has become fascinated with prosthetic penises while skirting the issue of why filmmakers and actors are avoiding actually baring it all.

“Minx” is set in the 1970s and tells the story of an activist who becomes the editor of an erotic feminist magazine that includes nude male centerfolds. Her partner in the enterprise is a successful pornographer.

The premise seems ripe for actors to appear in the flesh. And sure enough, early coverage of the show plays up this element. “Minx,” according to a review in Deadline, uses nudity “to defang the insidious shame associated with sexuality in all forms. . . . [In the show] a penis is just a penis and a breast a mere breast.” But a prosthetic penis is not just a penis; it is not even a penis.

The “Minx” pilot does include a minutelong scene in which about 18 bottomless men audition to appear in the centerfold, and flashes of their purportedly real penises are shown.

Although The New York Times praised the montage for its “unusual degree of realism,” I think it highlights how the show carefully regulates the representation of penises.

None of the men in this brief scene are major characters. It turns out some actually wore prosthetic penises. And the one who’s ultimately chosen, played by Perez, wears a prosthesis, which simply amounts to a costume.

Titillating PR

Furthermore, the phony phalli on screen often reflect cultural stereotypes.

In the 2015 film “The Overnight,” a character with a small prosthetic penis is comically obsessed about its size and his sexual performance. As one prosthetic artist explained to Fast Company, “Filmmakers will always give a bigger penis to more manly, virile characters and smaller penises are usually just about the gag factor.”

He added that he’d welcome diverse, real penises because they’d make people “a little bit more comfortable with sexuality” and combat the “taboo” of showing the penis.

Culture writer Christina Izzo derides the popularity of prosthetics as a “cock-out cop-out.”

But Izzo is a lonely voice. Most coverage of prosthetic penises tends to portray them as progressive for purportedly providing a visual balance to female nudity and feminist for making actresses more comfortable on set.

I believe the issues should be separated. When intimacy consultants require the use of prosthetic penises in intimate sexual scenes with bodily contact for the comfort of actresses, they perform a profoundly important role. However, many of the instances of frontal male nudity I’ve analyzed involve no intimate sexual contact.

Eric Dane and Jacob Elordi are two of many actors in “Euphoria” who purportedly wore prosthetic penises even as they implied that they’ve broken the taboo of showing penises.

It is impossible to verify most claims about the extent of the use of prosthetic penises on any show, and some actors refuse to answer the question. An “is it real or not” tease encourages speculation and has become its own form of publicity for shows and actors.

Sculpting meaning into something trivial

My research on sexuality and the male body shows that representations of the penis in the media influence cultural notions of sexuality and gender. Since the penis is a potent cultural symbol, people are bombarded with conflicting messages attempting to control its meaning.

For example, medicine reassures men that nearly all of them are average. Pornography shows extremely large penises. Men with small penises are the butt of size jokes. Racist stereotypes suggest men of some races have large penises and are hypersexual, while others are undersexed with small ones.

Prosthetic penises are just another way to attach significance to the organ.

Of course, the truth is that penises have no fixed meanings. The first issue of Playgirl magazine, which featured real frontal male nudity, was published in 1973; it makes the use of prostheses in 2022 seem overly prude. Mature representations of real, diverse penises, without shame or special significance, would be far more worthy of media attention than prostheses.

That, to me, would be truly revolutionary.

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Peter Lehman, Emeritus Professor, Film and Media Studies in English, Arizona State University

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

Ewan McGregor breaks down Obi-Wan Kenobi’s many haircuts

Obi-Wan Kenobi was first introduced way back in 1977, when he was played by Alec Guinness in “Star Wars.” But at this point, Ewan McGregor has spent a lot more time playing Kenobi than Guinness ever did. He played him in all three prequel films and will soon be returning to the role in his own show, “Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

McGregor has played Kenobi at a lot of different points in his life, starting back when he was a Padawan apprentice in 1999’s “The Phantom Menace.” He’s also gone through a wide variety of hairstyles. McGregor broke all of them down with Entertainment Weekly, starting with Kenobi’s youthful cut, seen here in wax simulacrum:

Episode I: The Phantom Rat Tail

“I remember the idea of it being short,” McGregor said. “I think they were looking for something in a military sense or in the world of monks that there’s some sort of hairstyle sacrifice in order to be a Jedi. I guess to become a Jedi you have to give up the idea of being married or there’s some sort of monk-like qualities that are similar.”

What I didn’t like very much was when we came back, there was always a period of time after the main shoot where we came back to do some reshoots. And for episode 1, it was six, seven, eight months after the principal photography, we had to come back and I was doing something else and I couldn’t cut my hair. And so they made a wig that was a short hair wig, which is the worst kind of wig. If you’ve got a wig and it’s long hair, you can disguise the fact that it’s a wig, but when it’s a short hair wig, it’s a nightmare. I’ve seen some clips of both episode 1 and the reshoots from episode 2 where you’re like, ‘Are you kidding me?’

And then for episode 1, not only did I have to wear it for the reshoots, and it’s usually just a little shot here or there for reshoots. And most people don’t really notice it. But some bright spark decided to put me on a poster in the wig! They picked an image of me from the reshoots and I saw myself in this huge poster in the wig. And I’m like, ‘Are you kidding? You couldn’t find a still of me when from the real shoot?’ Unbelievable. I don’t know who that was, but I’d love to meet them one day and just say, ‘Are you f—ing kidding me about that?’

And we’d like to see it happen.

I do feel like McGregor is ignoring the elephant in the room here, though: Obi-Wan’s super-long rat tail. That haircut is really all about the rat tail. Why is no one talking about the rat tail?

Episode 2: Attack of the Mullet

Several years of Obi-Wan’s life have passed by the time we caught up with him in 2002’s “Attack of the Clones,” and he was clearly making up for lost time, follicle wise. His hair was short in “The Phantom Menace,” but in “Attack of the Clones” he’s wearing something of a modified mullet, with a dinner party in the front and a real rager in the back.

“We called it the sort of Jedi mullet,” McGregor said. “It could be in some second-degree way a little cool, but not really. It was very mullet-y and sort of quite inspired pretty much by the Bee Gees, I think really. Jedi Bee Gees. So yeah, I didn’t like it very much, but I guess there’s some sort of progression.”

And as everyone knows, nothing packs in young “Star Wars” fans like a good Bee Gees reference.

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sensible Bangs

Obi-Wan’s coif in 2005’s “Revenge of the Sith” is a little less ostentatious. It’s just sort of a normal white bread haircut, but it was still done with intension, as McGregor revealed:

Ultimately in episode 3, we get onto a haircut, which is heading more towards Alec Guinness in episode 4. We were looking at pictures of Alec Guinness in episode 4 and we were definitely trying to bridge that gap. We thought, this is the last we’re going to see of Obi-Wan Kenobi before he’s Alec Guinness. And so we’re sort of moving in that direction. We put some graying in here. We grayed up the beard a little bit. And it was a much shorter haircut. I think the episode 2 haircut was meant to be like warrior, and the episode 3 haircut was meant to be more master, teacher. So I think my idea was definitely to try and get closer to Alec Guinness. It was to try and show that that’s where I was headed.

But of course, it wouldn’t be the last time we saw Obi-Wan Kenobi before he was Alec Guinness, as McGregor will return to the role in the new show. And that means a new look:

Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi (has let himself go)

In the new show, Obi-Wan has reverted a bit back to his “Attack of the Clones” hair, although this time it’s on account of laziness. “I think it’s a man who’s been not looking after himself so much, and I wanted a much more sort of unkempt look where Obi-Wan starts at the beginning of that story, he’s pretty hopeless,” McGregor said. “He’s without hope, he’s without faith and he wanted this sort of hair and beard to represent that. So it’s much more less groomed and longer.”

Hayden Christensen will also be returning in the new show, once again playing Darth Vader. The hair game is simpler there, though; there’s only so many ways you can style “singed almost completely off.”

“Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi” premieres on Disney+ on May 25.

The unremarkable, unceremonious end of this pandemic should frighten us

Nearly two years ago to the day, our doctor called urging that I be induced immediately because a sudden nationwide lockdown was to be announced in a matter of days. I nervously ran a hand over my nine-months-pregnant belly as he talked. “If you want your husband in the delivery room, you need to be admitted tomorrow. They are halting delivery room visitations,” he issued. It was all happening too fast.

Now, after 460 million COVID-19 cases and 6 million fatalities worldwide, we are quietly transitioning to living with a virus that upended so many lives. Yet this transition from pandemic to endemic is unpunctuated. Seemingly we have little to celebrate.

Months before my due date, my gut foretold that the corona epidemic would eventually catch fire. Fifteen years working in the international development sector trained me to know the warning signs of health crises.

I had worked as a frontline Ebola responder in Liberia during 2014-15, visiting Ebola treatment units, helping manage various programs supporting women and children affected by the disease, including Ebola survivors. I learned to identify people who were outbreaking. In fact, I had been quarantined for possible Ebola infections twice. I knew the intimate face of a deadly pandemic. So, when media channels started chattering about this new virus spreading around Asia and parts of Europe, my PTSD kicked in.

Earlier in February, I had preventively warned loved ones to buy masks, gloves, and antibacterial products. My warnings were laughed off, dismissed as regnancy hormones. Even my physician said it wasn’t something to worry about yet.

In early March, I defended my PhD dissertation to a crowd of professors, and, days later, we hosted a baby shower in our cramped duplex apartment. We felt safe enough to do in-person events, but we asked people who had any symptoms, like a cough or fever, not to come; you know, pre-Covid standard social protocol for any expecting parents. Looking back on it, I could laugh.

I gave birth to our daughter on the first day of the national lockdown. The maternity hospital was turned upside down by the shutdown. Professionals were anxious, asking me for outbreak policy advice after learning about my Ebola response experience. I was trying to explain sanitation stations and proper PPE gear while getting an epidural. It was like giving birth through the looking glass.

Our daughter has only known a world turned upside-down by the COVID-19 pandemic. She grew up thinking masks are for peek-a-boo and dress up. Going out in public is a treat. Crowds are dangerous. During her short life, the world has undeniably changed.

Working as an assistant professor of global health policy at the University of Texas–Dallas, my colleagues and I know recorded Covid rates are inaccurate and at best only capture just a small proportion of the true numbers — with reported active cases estimated to be up to ten times higher.

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The toll of Covid is particularly shocking in low-income regions that still face untold losses from the pandemic, often linked to unequitable gaps in COVID-19 vaccination rates. Despite international efforts, only one in ten Africans are vaccinated. For me, these numbers have faces and names.

In February 2022, Daniel, a Liberian colleague, called me sobbing. Weeks earlier he drove hospital to hospital trying to find a bed for his father suffering from Covid. It was hopeless. Daniel and his father both survived tragic civil wars, economic crises, and Ebola. Yet, his father suffocated to death in the backseat of a car as his son desperately tried to find medical help.

The human costs are great. More Americans have died in the last two years from Covid than the total number of military fatalities from WWI (1917-18), WWII (1941-45), Vietnam (1965-73), Korea (1950-53), the Gulf War (1990-91), and the War on Terror (2001-2021), all combined. This is the legacy of my daughter’s generation, being born during the worst moment in American if not global history.

Now, here we are, the pandemic drawing to a close, the CDC and WHO more-or-less officially transitioning SARS-CoV-2 to an endemic virus like influenza. After Covid was labeled a pandemic, in the first weeks of spring 2020, the world stayed home, citizens banged on pots to celebrate the medical professionals and responders bravely walking to work, and most people didn’t question the importance of social distancing and mask mandates (at least for a time). We collectively anticipated getting control of the virus, and made tentative summer plans to mark the end of the emergency together. Yet, it was an unrealized fantasy.

I am frustrated at the lack of public acknowledgement of what we have suffered. I am saddened that President Biden’s State of the Union did not adequately mark this transition. After the speech, the President meandered and laughed with unmasked politicians in a crowded state room, and I wanted to break the TV. Our leaders have given us no closure. I worry this social trauma will only continue to fester.

This crisis robbed us of loved ones, made images of dying patients on ventilators and mass graves common, spread social terror, and ruined entire economies. How are we just letting this singular harrowing event die off silently? It is the unremarkable and unceremonious end of this pandemic that should frighten us the most. We must ask how much we have been changed that we stopped raging against the dying of the light.

Living through Ebola and giving birth during the shutdown have sadly taught me that life will never be what it was before 2020. Our normal is forever changed, no matter how much we don’t want to acknowledge it.

I urge us to not go on as if nothing happened. Instead, we should remember together what we have been through as a people. We must weep at our losses, present awards to our medical heroes, and erect monuments so that future generations will never forget our struggle. We should also count the ironic blessings that the Covid pandemic gave us. These include lessons that reminded us not taking for granted what we have, to focus more on our family and friends, and to find parts of ourself often obscured by our busy pre-pandemic commitments, before working at home in our pajamas became normalized.

There may be a new variant or spike in Covid rates in the near future, but the world will likely never respond as it once did, not unless it is a completely new virus never before experienced at pandemic level. And so, in its second year, we bury the memories of our collective struggles. It is a funeral that no one wanted to attend.

Read more on the future of COVID-19:

Butter, garlic and lots of wine make this 10-minute pasta dinner simply irresistible

One of my favorite cinematic food scenes is a scene from the movie “Bugsy.” The glamorous Virginia Hill (played by the glamorous Annette Bening) sits down to eat with her mobster lover. Before digging in to dinner, she tells him, “I hope you like scampi, served on a bed of soft brown rice, rimmed by carrots and peas.” Bening makes every word of that sentence sound like the sexiest thing in the entire world.

I used to think “scampi” was the sauce that was served with the shrimp. I recently learned, however, that scampi is a crustacean. This means that when you’re serving “shrimp scampi,” you’re basically serving crustacean crustacean. As someone who’s allergic to shrimp, crustacean crustacean is definitely a no no.

So, what if I made scampi without the scampi? What if I kept that incredible buttery, garlicky, winey sauce — and put it on something that wouldn’t induce anaphylaxis? And what if I amped it up by browning the butter? Shrimp? Never heard of it.

Scampi is such a beautifully retro dish, so it feels only right to put it on angel hair pasta. A super thin pasta provides the bonus of helping dinner come together in almost no time. Served with an iceberg wedge and a bottle of Chianti, it’s a meal that oozes glamour but can thrown together in 10 minutes for pennies on the dollar.

***

Recipe: Angel Hair Scampi
Inspired by Natasha’s Kitchen

Yields

4 servings

Prep Time

10 minutes

Cook Time

10 minutes

Ingredients

12 ounces angel hair pasta (or your favorite pasta shape)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
6 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup dry white wine
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons chicken broth
3 tablespoons parsley or cilantro, chopped
1/2 lemon
Sea salt and black pepper, to taste

Directions

Put a large pot of salted water on to boil.
Meanwhile, in a large skillet over a medium flame, heat the butter until until it foams and starts to turn brown. Add the olive oil and salt and pepper.
Add the garlic and sauté until it begins to soften and smell good, stirring constantly, about 1 minute.
Add the pasta to the water and cook for 4 minutes, or per package instructions.
Meanwhile, add the broth and wine to the pan and cook for another minute or so.
With tongs, add the pasta to the pan to absorb all of the sauce. Stir well. (You can, of course, drain the pasta and add it to the pan. Just reserve a few tablespoons of the cooking water to add, as well.)
Spoon the pasta on to a big platter. Top with your greens and a big squeeze of lemon. Enjoy immediately.

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How to get your soil ready for gardening season

I recently started thinking about what I’m going to plant in my garden this spring — it’s a nice mental escape from the current dreary New England weather — and as I’ve been researching different flowers and vegetables, I keep seeing references to “ideal soil quality.” For example, the growing guides in Almanac always say things like, “Dahlias thrive in rich, well-drained soil. The pH level of your soil should be 6.5-7.0, slightly acidic.”

It makes sense that soil has a pH, but it’s never been something I took into consideration as I planted my garden. I’ve always considered soil quality to be “advanced gardener stuff” — after all, my plants grow just fine — but seeing repeated mentions of it has piqued my curiosity. As a result, I started reading about soil quality, plant pH, and soil testing, and eventually, even reached out to Vanessa Dawson, a gardening expert and CEO of Arber, an organic, non-toxic plant wellness company, for expert insights on soil quality and why it matters. Here’s what I learned.

Does soil quality really matter?

Have you ever seen pictures of big, beautiful, flourishing plants and thought to yourself, “Why don’t mine look like that?” If so, there’s a good chance soil quality has something to do with it. Dawson explains that healthy soil yields healthy plants, and even if your plants are doing OK, chances are they could be better if you improved the soil.

“Soil provides a massive diversity of microbes, nutrients, and bacteria that plants are dependent on,” explains Dawson. “When plants send out roots, they expect to find this complex microbiology that they can work with interdependently, both feeding the soil sugars and attracting then absorbing the necessary compounds they need through their roots.” If they don’t find the nutrients they need, plants won’t grow as large and likely won’t put out as many flowers or vegetables as they could.

What does “bad” soil quality look like?

Naturally, my next question was, “So how do I know if my soil is bad?!” Dawson explained that there are several factors to look at, including the appearance of the soil, how it absorbs water, and whether there are insects present.

“Soil that is light brown versus dark and black is often void of microbial diversity,” she explains. “There should be a variety of different microorganisms in your soil. If you dig up a scoop, you should see worms and bugs and beetles — all beneficial insects helping to aerate and feed the soil keeping its microbiome thriving.” She also noted that soil should absorb and hold water easily and that plants should be deep in color with long, spread-out root systems.

If you still aren’t sure your soil is healthy, there are testing services that will give you a more concrete answer. “You can always send a sample of your soil to be tested,” says Dawson. “Most state universities provide excellent and affordable soil testing services through a cooperative extension service.”

What’s the deal with soil PH?

There’s also the matter of soil pH, a measure of how acidic or alkaline it is. “Soil pH runs on a scale from 0 to 14, with 7 being a neutral pH — over 7 is alkaline and under 7 is acidic,” says Dawson. “Most plants and beneficial microorganisms prefer a pH between 6 and 7.5.” The pH of soil affects how well plants can absorb nutrients, and while your plants won’t die if the soil pH is a little off, they again might not get as big or put out as many blooms. Soil testing services will tell you the pH of your soil, but there are also soil pH test kits and soil pH meters that you can use at home.

If you discover that your soil pH is outside the optimal range, there are various additives you can use to get it back on track, but be warned: it’s not a one-and-done task. “If you want to adjust pH organically, it needs to be done over time — it won’t be an overnight fix,” says Dawson. “Mulch, coffee grounds, and compost are all great ways to make your soil more acidic over time. Adding a dilution of baking soda and or crushed eggshells are two natural and gentle ways to make soil more alkaline over time.” There are also commercial additives that will adjust the pH of soil — garden lime will increase the pH, making it more alkaline, while a soil acidifier will decrease the pH.

How to improve the quality of soil in your garden

If you’ve determined that your soil could use a little love, organic matter — aka some kind of decomposing plant and/or animal matter — is going to be your best friend. The OSU Extension Service explains that organic matter will help improve soil structure, water retention and pore space, all while adding key nutrients that plants need to thrive. The most common types of organic matter used in gardening are compost, animal manure, and mulch, but you can also use things like leaves and grass clippings from your yard.

To incorporate organic matter into your garden beds, you’ll want to start by digging into the soil with a shovel or cultivator, turning the dirt over and breaking up large clumps to relieve any compaction. You can then add one or two inches of organic matter, whether it’s aged manure or compost, and mix it into the top layer of the soil using your garden tool. Ideally, this should be done on a yearly basis, typically in the fall, as this will give the organic matter time to break down in the off-season. However, you can also do it in the spring a few weeks before you plant — bagged compost is best for this application, as it’s already broken down. For more detail on this process, OSU has a comprehensive guide on improving garden soil with organic matter.

If it’s going to be overly expensive or labor-intensive to modify your existing soil, another option is to build raised beds, which you can then fill with better growing material. “If you want to purchase additional soil, focus on organic products,” says Dawson. “Look for products oriented towards professional growers, as the quality will be higher, and always look for a soil that contains a mixture of compost.”

The best budget buys from ALDI, according to Reddit

ALDI, for the uninitiated, is an international grocery chain known for quirky shortcuts that provide some pretty unmatched savings. This can include inserting a quarter into your shopping cart to incentivize putting it back in its proper location, bagging your own groceries with your own bags at the end of your transaction and more industrial-feeling, warehouse-style stores. Bringing all of these factors into consideration, the store which could be considered a distant cousin of Trader Joe’s (familial ties back in the motherland!) offers some great values on everyday goods. Here’s what the folks on Reddit say are the absolute best buys if you’d like to check out the German retailer yourself.

Prices are reflective of the cost of groceries in Brooklyn, New York, and prices available online via Instacart.

Milk and (non-) dairy products

One commonly mentioned product within the Reddit threads included any type of dairy product or non-dairy product. For starters, a gallon of whole milk at ALDI goes for $3.89, while a gallon from Key Foods goes for $4.99. This price difference also extends to various goods like cheese, yogurt and even almond milk. ALDI carries a half gallon of unsweetened Friendly Farms Almond milk for $2.59, while Key Foods carries the same product by Almond Breeze for $4.89.

Pantry staples

When it comes to ALDI, less is more, and many commenters mentioned getting your essentials for an unbeatable price. A 5-pound bag of all purpose flour is priced at $2.05, coming in at 41 cents a pound. Key Foods’ store brand, Urban Meadow has a 2-pound bag for $1.69, which comes out to be about 85 cents a pound. A 16-ounce container of baking soda at ALDI goes for 69 cents, while the Arm & Hammer version available at Key Foods is priced at $1.29.

Flavored nuts

In a nod to their estranged cousin, ALDI also provides some pretty great deals on their packaged nuts with seasonings added, with the chili lime variety also receiving some rave reviews. A 10-ounce bag of chili lime cashews from ALDI goes for $6.59. An 8-ounce container of Urban Meadow cashew halves and pieces typically goes for $6.39, although they are currently on sale for $5.99. Even then, the ALDI option is a more flavorful option.

Frozen fruit

If you’re trying to dip your toe into the glorious world of homemade smoothie making, but don’t want to make major changes to your grocery budget, ALDI is a good place to start. A 32-ounce bag of mixed berries is priced at $6.75. Key Foods has a 12-ounce Dole bag of mixed berries for $5.69, making it a more expensive and significantly smaller portion size.

Chocolate

This is a contender for the most recommended item on all the Reddit posts we saw. Moser Roth was the brand favored by commenters, revered for its quality, ingredient sourcing and price. They have a variety of flavors, like dark chocolate, toffee crunch, and more, running at $2.55 for a 4.4 ounce bar. Key Foods carries a 3.5 ounce Cadbury Royal Dark chocolate bar for $2.99.

Winking Owl wine

Although it is a polarizing choice among wine snobs, ALDI’s winking owl wine is beloved by many online for its price and flavor. For around $3 you can choose from a variety, like Shiraz, Pinot Grigio, and White Zinfandel. Does Two Buck Chuck finally have a worthy opponent?

Now take those budget-friendly basics and use them in one of our simple weeknight meals:

Has Ben Affleck’s”Deep Water” left you asking why? Look back at “Gigli”

Being alive in America through the late 20th and early 21st centuries means that at some point, you may have questioned at least one of Ben Affleck‘s decisions.

Typically this takes the form of the one word query at the center of life, the universe and everything: “Why?” You may have screamed “WHY?!” at the clouds upon first hearing he’d taken over the role of Batman from Christian Bale.

“Why did anyone think Ben Affleck was the right choice to star in an erotic thriller?”

Maybe you cackled it in response to his ridiculous back tattoo’s beach side premiere. Surviving “Deep Water,” his latest film, doesn’t happen without invoking the adverb at some point, either as a lone term or to open any number of inquiries. “Why am I watching this?” “Why did this movie get made?” And the fairest question of all: “Why did anyone think Ben Affleck was the right choice to star in an erotic thriller?”

Ben Affleck is about as panty-wetting as a dehydrated gelatin cube, but for some reason the producers of “Deep Water” cast him opposite ex-girlfriend Ana de Armas as married couple Vic and Melinda Van Allen. Vic is a wealthy man who likes riding his bike while looking sad-mad. Melinda loves getting drunk and making out with snackable himbos in front of all their friends.

But whatever steam their story generates is rising from de Armas’ side of the sensual see-saw; she may be holding up her end of the “erotic thriller” bargain, but Affleck mainly looks like a man in need of some Metamucil and a long afternoon nap.

We are not here to beat up on ol’ Bat-fleck although in the larger scheme of things, that would be a victimless crime, relatively speaking. Regardless of how poorly Affleck’s performances register with critics, or feebly his films perform, or whatever new ways his ignorance makes itself known, the man won’t ever lack for work.

However, he has also arrived at a point in his career, and life, when some people learn to recognize their strengths and limitations. At 49, Affleck is (hopefully) self-aware enough to look back over his life and career, ascertain what works and what doesn’t, and select projects accordingly. And Affleck has learned some hard lessons very publicly, one of the toughest resulting from starring in “Gigli.”

Yes, we’re going there. Why? Because that 2003 disaster is when Jenny from the Block and everyone’s seventh favorite cousin from Boston also met for the first time. More to the point, it’s the border between the Ben Affleck that was and the one that is, and a code-breaking cypher for why “Deep Water” is so uncomfortably, stupidly dreadful.

Affleck first met Lopez on the “Gigli” set, igniting an affection real and potent enough to rekindle after 17 years apart. But that heat translated to the big screen . . . not at all.

Affleck and de Armas also met and began dating during this film’s production – just like O.G. Bennifer! – but as was the case there, no amount of the stars’ off-screen boning conjured even a twang of aphrodisiacal tension within “Deep Water.” The gastropods in this flick give off more chemistry than its humans.

If you’ve never seen “Gigli,” and I recommend continuing that lifelong winning streak, it may seem more natural to liken Vic and Melinda to the agonized dance he and Rosamund Pike perform in 2014’s “Gone Girl.”

But there was nothing sexy in that film’s sales pitch. Affleck and Pike play a married couple whose ardor for one another has withered; Affleck’s Nick is depressed and desperate for his wife to forgive him for cheating, while Pike’s resentful Amy, a woman defined by her brilliance and psychopathy, would rather destroy him. By the time the audience enters the story, smashing has been off the menu for some time.

Whereas “Deep Water” never establishes what Vic is to Melinda, or how Melinda truly feels about Vic. Privately, they sleep in separate beds. In public, and in front of Vic, Melinda is explicitly amorous with an assortment of younger men she introduces as “friends.”

Ana de Armas in “Deep Water” (20th Century Studios/Hulu)

“Can somebody please explain Vic’s enthusiasm for snails?”

Who can say whether Vic is turned on by her cuckolding. When he inevitably takes his anger too far, is Melinda is aroused by that? Why did these fools get together in the first place? Can somebody please explain Vic’s enthusiasm for snails?

You did not misread that – while Melinda’s prowling for younger peen, Vic broods in his shed, where he marvels at his mucus-gushing friends’ ability to follow their mates up 12-foot walls, guided by their scent. Everybody needs a hobby, but this one is decidedly . . . not hot.

Nineteen years ago, “Gigli” gave us Affleck as Larry Gigli, a mobster who teams up with Jennifer Lopez’s Convenient Lesbian Ricki to kidnap a developmentally disabled man named Brian (played by the neurotypical and, I’m sure, very regretful Justin Bartha) whose brother is a federal prosecutor pursuing charges against a mob boss played by Al Pacino. (Why, Al?)

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Most of the film involves Lopez’s Ricki spurning the advances of Affleck’s goon, whose idea of sweet talk involves lines like this: “In every relationship, there’s a bull and a cow. It just so happens that in this relationship we’re in right here, with me and you, I’m the bull. You’re the cow!” and “There’s your bull! There’s the horn!”

Eventually she’s so moved by his sexual frustration and prose that she rides poor Larry in a scene that’s mainly gross, not merely on principle but, and crucially, because of Larry Gigli’s oily foulness.

Before “Gigli,” People named Affleck 2002’s Sexiest Man Alive. Post-“G,” he was lucky to settle down with Jennifer Garner for a more than a decade of marriage, fatherhood and comfortable coffee runs to the local Dunkin’ Donuts.

What he couldn’t do was re-launch himself as a Hollywood zaddy, because the onscreen relationship between Affleck’s dollar-bin gangster and Lopez’s Ricki puts off such a stink that it asphyxiated the actor’s erotogenic charisma.

Despite this, and since the furor died down, Affleck proven his talent and appeal in other roles, especially that of director.

Following a string of after-“Gigli” flops, he returned with 2007s “Gone Baby Gone” which, along 2010’s “The Town,” deserve the acclaim they received. His 2012 opus “Argo,” which he directed, produced and starred in, won three Oscars, including Best Picture. Even “The Last Duel,” that medieval odd duck Affleck co-wrote with his best bro Matt Damon, works because they enlisted Nicole Holofcener to assist with the script and outsourced directing responsibilities to Ridley Scott.

When he has a direct personal investment in his projects, he generally hits it out of the park.

It’s when he trusts his career to the reputations of others that he wanders into . . . let’s call it difficulty. Not necessarily failure, understand; his starring role in 2021’s “The Tender Bar,” directed by George Clooney, is solidly adequate. Apparently he was even better in “The Way Back,” a 2020 sports drama about a working-class guy who claws his way to redemption by coaching high school basketball.

None of these roles are remotely sensual. But they are in Affleck’s wheelhouse, even “Last Duel,” in which he slips on a part that plays into how people perceive him at his very worst.

Ben Affleck in “Deep Water” (20th Century Studios/Hulu)And one understands the draw “Deep Water” might have had for him. The script was co-written by Sam Levinson (“Euphoria”) and it’s the first movie “Fatal Attraction” and “Flashdance” director Adrian Lyne has helmed since “Unfaithful,” another erotic thriller.

In that 2002 movie, Richard Gere is the cheated-upon husband, and Diane Lane plays the wife who steps out on him. By then Gere’s image had shifted from his early days as a sex symbol to that of a silver fox and devoted human rights activist; even so, he met Lane’s subterranean well of hot passion with his own spice, in the way a vintage hunk would play a man in a moribund marriage.

But Affleck never had a chance to sell us that side of him and has probably missed his opportunity to claim an era-appropriate version of such a fantasy. That’s probably just well, since his restart with Lopez appears to be holding up and, this time, is more of a curious fascination than chum for the paparazzi frenzy in the way it was two decades ago. Romantics wouldn’t be misguided to root for these crazy kids.

But romantic movie fans would be nuts to wager their time on any movie casting him as an object of desire. That gondola sunk nearly 20 years ago, destroyed by a film whose title rhymes with the next best declaration of disbelief after the word “why”: “Really?”

“Deep Water” is currently streaming on Hulu. Watch the trailer below, via YouTube.

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Trump may need to look up the definition of “smart”

During a rally held in Georgia on Saturday, former president Donald Trump referred to Vladimir Putin as “smart” for the second time in the past month.

The rally where the comment was made is part of Trump’s “Save America” roll-out which is rather ironic, given some of the topics discussed during it.

“They asked me if Putin is smart. Yes, Putin was smart,” Trump said to the mid-sized crowd on Saturday, according to The Guardian. “That’s a hell of a way to negotiate, put 200,000 troops on the border…That was a big mistake, but it looked like a great negotiation. That didn’t work out too well for him,” Trump added.

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In addition to publicly expressing praise for Putin, Trump also had kind words to say about China’s president Xi Jinping and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. “The smartest one gets to the top,” Trump said in regards to leaders of their ilk.

He “runs 1.5 billion people with an iron fist,” Trump said about Xi, doubling up by referring to Kim as “tough”.

Despite the passion put behind Saturday’s rally, the temperature in terms of Trump supporters in attendance is said to have been tepid, compared to other Trump events.

“I’ve covered more than two dozen Trump rallies around the nation. This is the smallest crowd I’ve seen at a rally of his in Georgia since he won the 2016 election,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution political reporter Greg Bluestein said.

Supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump wait for a rally at the Banks County Dragway on March 26, 2022 in Commerce, Georgia. This event is a part of Trump’s “Save America Rally” around the United States where several current Republican candidates or politicians have been announced to speak at the event. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)“No President has ever suffered like I’ve suffered at the hands of these animals,” Trump said to the crowd in Georgia during the rally. “People say to me, ‘how the hell did you do it’ and I can’t even give them an answer. I don’t know. I think I did it because I love you and because we have a job to do!”

Supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump wait for him to arrive during a rally at the Banks County Dragway on March 26, 2022 in Commerce, Georgia. This event is a part of Trump’s Save America Tour around the United States. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)Read more:

Every single country is failing the WHO’s new air quality standards

No country in the world met the new air quality standards established in September by the World Health Organization, or WHO, according to a new survey that analyzed 117 countries’ air last year.

Even within those countries, almost every city failed to meet the standards. The study, which looked at the real-time air quality of 6,475 cities, found that just 222 of them — less than 3.5 percent — had an average air quality reading that met the WHO’s standard. Nearly 100 cities experienced pollution levels that were ten times higher than the recommended level, according to IQAir, the Swiss pollution technology company that conducted the survey.

It’s the first global air quality report based on the WHO’s new pollution guidelines, which suggest that average annual readings of hazardous fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5, not exceed 5 micrograms per cubic meter.

Using tens of thousands of ground-level air monitoring stations, both public and private, the study aggregated air quality readings to provide both real-time and historic PM 2.5 data for the year. The prevalence of PM 2.5 — a small, hazardous airborne particle that is most commonly emitted by motor vehicles, coal and natural gas-fired power plants, and fire — has attracted public concern during the COVID-19 pandemic because it has been linked to increasing both the risk of contracting the disease and the severity of infection. In its own right, air pollution leads to 7 million deaths per year.

The study found that countries in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia, which are in the midst of “industrialization and urbanization,” suffered from the highest annual average PM 2.5 concentrations. Central and South Asia in particular were home to 46 of the world’s 50 most polluted cities. Bangladesh was the most polluted country, while New Delhi, India, was the world’s most polluted capital.

While the report does not specifically detail potential solutions to the air pollution crisis, it does call on “policymakers around the world” to craft “air quality legislation and emissions standards to levels that meaningfully reduce the public health risks posed by air pollution.”

It also illuminates a major hole in the way pollution is tracked, which omits key air quality information for countries home to millions of people. Just 13 of the 54 countries on the African continent had a functioning network of air monitoring systems, with gaps also found in South America, Central Asia, and the Caribbean.

“This report underscores the need for governments around the world to help reduce global air pollution,” Glory Dolphin Hammes, CEO of IQAir North America, told CNN. “Governments need to set more stringent air quality national standards and explore better foreign policies that promote better air quality.”

In the United States, where PM 2.5 is estimated to contribute to more than 200,000 premature deaths annually, 80 percent of residents live in areas where pollution levels were above standards, according to the study. The West Coast had the country’s highest PM 2.5 concentrations.

“The country’s reliance on fossil fuels, increasing severity of wildfires as well as varying enforcement of the Clean Air Act from administration to administration have all added to U.S. air pollution,” the report states.

Plastic pollution could make much of humanity infertile, experts fear

Since the start of the 2020s, humanity has faced worldwide calamity after worldwide calamity, all of them raising questions about our survival as a species. The COVID-19 pandemic has already claimed millions of lives and not yet finished its rampage. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised the specter of nuclear holocaust, which many assumed had subsided with the end of the Cold War. Even as these problems worsen, climate change continues to quietly creep along in the background, overheating the planet for future generations.

Yet what if, on top of all these things, there is an even more dystopian crisis in the offing — one in which humans are no longer able to reproduce without artificial help because we have filled the environment with chemicals that have altered our bodies?

Scientists believe this is not only possible, it is likely to happen within our lifetimes.

Understanding why involves three statistics: First, that a human male who has fewer than 15 million sperm per milliliter is considered infertile; second, that in the 1970s sperm counts in Western countries (where there is available data) showed an average of 99 million sperm per milliliter; and third, that this number had dropped to 47 million sperm per milliliter by 2011. Scientists agree that plastic pollution is a likely culprit.

The trailblazer here has been Dr. Shanna Swan, a professor of environmental medicine and public health at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, whose most famous book has a conveniently self-explanatory title: “Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race.”

The main culprit is believed to be chemicals within everyday plastics known as endocrine disruptors. These chemicals, including a range of phthalates and bisphenols, are literally inescapable. They can be found in the dishware, food cans and containers from which you eat your food, and in the water bottles and other plastic receptacles from which you drink. They are in virtually all of your commonly used household electronics, your eyeglass lenses, your furniture and even on any commercial receipts that come from a thermal printer. Because endocrine disruptors are in pesticides, they have also entered the foods that we eat thanks to the agriculture industry. Even without pesticides, though, we would still wind up eating these endocrine disruptors. Microplastics — that is, plastic particles which are five millimeters or less across or in length — have entirely covered the planet. Animals accidentally eat microplastics all the time and plants regularly absorb them through their roots. Humans themselves ingest the rough equivalent of a credit card’s worth of plastic each week.

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“First society needs to identify and agree we have a very serious problem; this takes time like climate change,” Bjorn Beeler, general manager and international coordinator at IPEN — International Pollutants Elimination Network, told Salon by email. “Scientists knew in the 1970s/80s climate change was coming due to [greenhouse gas] emissions, and now we are discussing adaptation and [the] climate crisis 40+ years later (late). So to curb the threat, we need to define the problem, then turn off the toxic chemical tap.”

Even if that happens, however, there is so much plastic everywhere that humanity simply cannot escape at least some of the consequences from this constant exposure. Swan told Salon by email that federally funded assisted reproduction technology — something currently provided in only one country, Israel — will help in making sure that people impacted by this pollution can still have children.

“Disadvantaged communities are more highly exposed to risky chemicals and they are more affected (on average) by the same level of exposure,” Swan wrote to Salon. “So, it’s a ‘triple whammy’ for these communities.”

John Hocevar, the Oceans Campaign Director for Greenpeace USA, explained to Salon by email that “reduced sperm counts and other reproductive ailments disproportionately impact low income communities and people of color. Poor communities are more likely to be located closest to incinerators and landfills, as well as refineries. Access to expensive treatments to compensate for reproductive health issues are not equitable today, and even with an optimistic view of the US political landscape it is clear that this problem is not going to go away any time soon.”

Not surprisingly, the plastic industry and others that rely on these chemicals dispute that the endocrine disruptors are responsible for the drop in sperm counts. As Beeler pointed out, they will provide alternate data just like industries do when they dispute the validity of climate science. Hocevar added that plastic companies also have an advantage because plastics are so pervasive that “it is difficult to design controls where plastic can be excluded as a factor. The plastic industry uses this terrible situation to try to claim that we don’t have enough evidence to be sure that these chemicals are dangerous.”

And, to be clear, there are other factors that no doubt contribute to fertility issues for both men and women: Obesity, smoking, binge drinking, stress. Still, the science about endocrine disruptors is clear.

“Chemicals in plastic (phthalates, bisphenols and others) as well as pesticides, lead and other environmental exposures are linked to impaired reproduction including sperm count and quality,” Swan told Salon. “Some, like phthalates and BPA, have a short half-life in the body (4-6 hours), so it is possible to reduce the body’s exposure if we can stop using products containing these.” At the same time, society will have to exercise collective will and make sure that the most vulnerable among us are not left behind.

“Low-income communities can’t afford to ‘buy their way out’ of the problem by purchasing organic, unprocessed foods, safer cosmetics etc. (which are more expensive),” Swan explained. “But the ‘mass infertility scenario’ is a threat to everyone (not just the disadvantaged).”

Read more on plastic pollution:

The best houseplants are hiding at Trader Joe’s

While we’re (of course) big fans of all the frozen and dry treats Trader Joe’s has to offer, one of the best parts about the cult-favorite grocery store is their plant and flower section. Their seasonal flowers are notably at least half the price of stems you’d find anywhere else, and with just a little finesse, you can create a totally custom arrangement for any occasion. Beyond the florals though? The. Plants.

You simply can’t go wrong with Trader Joe’s varied and affordable plant selection. From houseplants and herbs to seasonal flowers and container gardens, they really do have something for everyone. While their selection may vary depending on the location and season (think: succulents in the summer, mini pine trees in the winter), their prices alone make it worth a trip to your local store to check it out. If you’re looking for something particular, it’s worth following one or two Instagram accounts that report on all the new plant stock (yes, they exist), like this one or this one.

Here are some of the best plants that we’ve found at Trader Joe’s.

1. Tropical houseplants

https://www.instagram.com/p/CKb3TL2goeJ/

Lush monstera deliciosas, trendy fiddle leaf figs, hardy rubber trees, trailing pothos — need we say more? This selection alone makes up a good chunk of the most popular house plants, and oh yeah, and their prices are second to none. Not only do they have a great selection of common houseplants, but some locations get some pretty rare plants as well, such as Alocasia frydek, Philodendron selloum, and Monstera adansonii.

2. Succulents and cacti

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Perfect for gifting or for that sunny window in your home that needs a little something Trader Joe’s has a great selection of succulents, cacti, and premade succulent gardens — often priced as low as $2.99. If you’re running to the store to grab some last-minute dips and spreads before attending a party, adding a wee succulent to the roster of “thanks-for-hosting” supplies never hurts. One bit of caution: Succulents and cacti need lots of sunlight in order to survive indoors, so if your home is lacking in the natural light department, spare yourself the heartbreak and skip these little desert plants.

3. Herbs

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

There’s nothing quite like cooking with fresh herbs picked from your own herb garden (farmer, much?) and Trader Joe’s has you covered with a great selection of potted herb plants, like basil, parsley, and rosemary. Just be sure to provide your herb plants with plenty of sunlight (a bright windowsill is great!) and water to keep them thriving indoors.

4. Potted flowers

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Fresh cut flowers are great, but potted flowers are the best option when it comes to longevity. Trader Joe’s stocks a great selection of potted flowers that change depending on the season — from tulips and daffodils in the spring, to mums in the fall. This selection of potted flowers can be fleetingly enjoyed indoors or planted in your garden to enjoy them for months to come.

5. Holiday plants and containers

https://www.instagram.com/p/CXZkh75vv6E/

Possibly the best thing about Trader Joe’s is all their seasonal items — spiced apple ciders, pumpkin breads, peppermint hot chocolate — and their holiday plant selection doesn’t disappoint, either, with a festive selection of holiday plants and containers. We particularly love their Christmas selection where they usually have poinsettia, amaryllis, centerpieces, wreaths, DIY decorate-your-own mini tree kits, garland, and more! They also carry products for other holidays such as Thanksgiving, Lunar New Year, Valentine’s Day, and Easter.

6. DIY grow kits

https://www.instagram.com/p/CK5G0qYgEEv/

Buying fully grown plants is fun, but there’s a certain satisfaction that comes with growing your own plants from seed. Over the past year, many Trader Joe’s locations have started carrying DIY grow kits for plants like poppies and dahlias so you can grow your own flowers on your porch or balcony in just a few easy steps. Plus, they’re priced as low as $6.99 each.

Some evangelicals claim Ukraine war means the end times — as usual, they’re wrong

I remember a time when Barack Obama was seen as a possible Antichrist. Before that, it was Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the ’80s. For those just catching up, the Antichrist is a diabolical figure who will unite the world against Christians and rule for a time. Don’t worry, the story has a happy ending: Christ eventually returns and kicks the Antichrist’s ass, like in a theological action movie. Either way, many Christians long for the return of Christ, along with the Rapture of the faithful and — perhaps most important — the suffering of those who have rejected Christ.

Right now, many evangelicals are ramping up their teachings about the end of the world. They can barely contain their excitement: Soon the people who have mocked their faith, changed the definition of marriage, given women the right to choose and supported feminism will finally be punished by God. The current war in Ukraine, for some of these supposedly devout Christians, yet another Biblical prophecy realized.

I have a family member who is part of an end-of-the-world Christian cult. They have lots of guns and own a lot of land, and they believe they can survive there for as long as the apocalypse lasts. I am pretty sure some of the older leaders in that group have even taken on a few concubines to “preserve the church.”

For every fringe group like the one found in my family, there are the evangelical ministers who have broader appeal that have inspired the lunatics. Recently I communicated with historian and author Martyn Whittock about his latest book, “The End Times, Again? 2000 Years of Use & Misuse of Biblical Prophecy.” Throughout his book, he argues with great clarity that these misguided discussions around Biblical prophecy are nothing new, but remain deeply dangerous, especially when mixed with the current political discourse. He makes the fascinating point that end-times beliefs used to be associated with radical politics, but more recently have become a tool of the far right:

End-times reflections have increasingly become associated with the outlook of the evangelical right in the USA; and this has influenced the political flavor of such views when adopted by those globally, who are influenced by US evangelical culture. This rightward political shift is highly significant and in direct contrast with the way that eschatological beliefs in periods of the past have been associated with political radicalism.

This apocalyptic pull has allowed the evangelical leadership to dominate the religious political landscape, far out of proportion to the actual number of evangelical believers. This has driven too many of their followers down a path that relinquishes any sense of responsibility to the current generation. Healing the sick, welcoming the foreigner and serving the poor are set aside, in favor of a so-called religious war for the soul of God’s creation.

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This movement toward the end of days isn’t limited to American culture and politics. As Whittock suggests, it is prominent in the U.K. as well:

From the US nationalism that has characterized the evangelical right in alliance with Donald Trump, to the UK Christian Brexit-nationalists denouncing the EU, eschatology has become the preserve of many who wish to promote nationalism and conservatism, oppose international commitments and supranational organizations, and resist aspects of modernity as varied as credit cards, vaccination, gun control legislation, and action on climate change. It has become, for many, a component part of a besieged outlook that pits them against disconcerting aspects of the modern world and expects justification in the form of future catastrophe — from which they will be rescued, while those left behind will suffer tribulation.

The Biblical perspective on all this has also been misunderstood. The people who followed Jesus Christ in his own time believed he would destroy the temple, become some kind of political leader and start a revolution against Roman rule. That was why he was charged with sedition and crucified. Jesus was none of those things, however, as his teachings clearly reflect.

The faithful misunderstood Jesus during his lifetime; they misunderstand him now. Some theologians believe that the Book of Revelation — from which most doctrines about the Antichrist are drawn — was actually written in code as a set of warnings to Christians about the Roman Emperor Nero. He was hunting Christians down at the time the letter was written, and John’s imagery was attempting a form of clandestine communication. Discussions about the Antichrist have also been interpreted as words of caution about a certain dangerous type of all-too-human leader, not about some mythological figure with supernatural powers taking over the world. After all, human history has seen many such leaders who come into power and then use that power to kill and destroy, and even more specifically to wage some form of genocidal murder.

A few years ago, the leading evangelical pastor Robert Jeffress made this comment about then-President Obama while promoting another one of his highly profitable books: “What I am saying is this: the course [Obama] is choosing to lead our nation is paving the way for the future reign of the Antichrist.” You must understand that Obama, for many evangelicals, was an ideal fit for the role of Antichrist. In their minds, he was not a real Christian, he endorsed gay marriage, he pushed forward government health insurance — which for some reason is evil — he defended Islam (even setting aside those Christians who believed Obama actually was a Muslim) and he was a leader who inspired great unity. It is of course pure lunacy to see those things as profoundly evil, but there we are.

My bold prediction is that this moment, although certainly a dangerous time in human history, is not the end of the world either. Every single minister who has predicted the return of Jesus has been wrong for 2,000 years, and this generation is no different. I believe we should all stop looking to supernatural forces for answers and start looking within. If I had any significant influence among Christians, I would argue that this a time to put aside concerns about the end of the world and visions of the hereafter, and get back to loving your neighbor.

Read more from Nathaniel Manderson on evangelicals and modern society:

The “race-obsessed liberal” nightmare: “We have to fight for a country that doesn’t love us back”

“Go back to your country,” yelled a stubby, beet-red-faced Sox fan at a bar, located across from the Orioles stadium, at Camden Yards in downtown Baltimore. It was days after Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old unarmed Black man, was killed in police custody. As a result of the tragedy, a group of community members in combination with a few local activists, had organized a march to plea for justice and the arrests of Gray’s uniformed killers.

I participated in that march, as an angry citizen, but more as a reporter. Things were 100% peaceful, until we intersected with the baseball crowd –– where, “Go back to your country,” easily rolled off of the stubby guys tongue, as if he was more than sure we didn’t belong in America, without question. As if we all weren’t from east or west Baltimore. Needless to say, massive fights broke out shortly after the bigot’s chant, and the rest is history.

“Go back to your country,” is something that almost every person with Black or Brown skin living in America will hear at some point in their life. White people with heavy accents could yell, “I’m from Sweden, f**k America!” and still would probably never be told to go home. It’s actually pretty funny, because the U.S. is always sold as this big ol’ melting pot, until a POC pisses off the owners of that said pot – and then it’s no longer about “we” but more of an “us versus them” kind of thing.

Award-winning playwright Wajahat Ail brilliantly captures the “us versus them” feeling in his new memoir, “Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American.”

Ali, who is known for his New York Times op-eds, Daily Beast column and CNN political commentary, takes us to his early days of the deplorable nation where he emerged, the United States of America – the suburbs of Fremont, California to be exact. There he learned the poison that race is in America at an early age, from how he was treated in school to his parents’ unfair incarnation. Ali maintains humor and optimism while showing readers how the Liberals aren’t even Liberal, and how nothing has changed, not even in the post-Obama era. Ali details why it’s so necessary to find humor in the midst of the chaos that is politics, on a recent episode of “Salon Talks.”

Watch my “Salon Talks” episode with Ali here or read a Q&A of our conversation below to learn more about how his family survived the rise of Islamophobia post 9/11, his non-traditional journey into becoming a writer and the hilarious way he demolishes trolls.

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

During the pandemic you got a chance to spend extra time at home with your kids. Are you still a child creation advocate?

My child, Nusayba, as you’ll find out in the book is five years old. She’s a cancer survivor and she’s an immunosuppressed. And as we are recording this to my left she’s doing her gym virtually, and my son who’s seven is also in the other room doing virtual school. And then I got a baby running around and this wildling might crash through the door.

I hope we’re over that pandemic, but 60,000 people died in January. An average of 1,700 deaths a day, just last week. And so, it’s one of those situations where I would love for my kids to go to school. Trust me, I got two kids in virtual school. I got three kids running around. I’m exhausted. But at the same time, it’s like, whatever keeps them healthy and whatever keeps people healthy. And the second thing I’ll say is, I was just thinking about this right before we start recording is I’m like, “Man, I’m so tired. I’m so exhausted.” But maybe if I look back on this moment I’m like, “I got to spend time with my kids at this really precious age. Who gets that?”

One of the things about your book “Go Back To Where You Came From” is you cover some very deep topics. Topics that can go dark pretty quickly, but it still has you maintain humor throughout the whole book. Is humor your main coping mechanism?

That’s a good question. Is it coping or is it just how I process the world? Maybe it might be both because they often say if you’re not laughing, you’re crying and I’m not one to cry. My wife thinks I’m a cyborg. She goes, “I’ve never seen you cry before. What’s wrong with you?” For those listening, it’s okay to cry, cry. It’s good. It’s healthy, it’s therapeutic. But I have like this, I’m this old antiquated Spartan male from this older generation. We just suffer quietly and suffer well – even though I’m completely opposed to it – that’s how I’m built.

I think laughter and humor allows you catharsis, which is release. It allows you to kind of enjoy an absurdist view of the darkness that oftentimes accompanies life, the challenges, and the pain, and the sadness. And then also sometimes it’s a good way just to feel better. I think in a way in conveying these stories and specifically some of the interesting challenges that my family and I went through, yeah, I could have cried about it, but I think processing it through humor gives me a vantage point and a perspective in a way that I could also communicate the story to the audience in an accessible way that allows you I hope to take it very seriously because it’s serious stuff, but also find some of the absurd humor in this thing called life.

You’re like Generation X, Millennial cusp.

That’s right. That’s exactly right.

Me too, and I feel like our generation wasn’t really allowed to cry. Millennials have it good. They cry, they get awards and plaques and people giving them gifts, but we cry we kind of get ran out of society.

It’s like because they got Brene Brown. So, you can Brene Brown your life if you’re a Gen Z or a Millennial, like vulnerable. We didn’t have these words. Vulnerable is the buzzword right now. Trauma is another buzzword. If you were a dude crying in front of your other boys, let’s just be honest, they’re like, “Yo, man up. What’s wrong with you? You seem like a B.” And then now it’s like, “It’s OK to get in touch with your feelings.” We didn’t even have the word self-care. That’s something beautiful with Gen Z. Ours was suffer well, brush yourself off, man up, work hard, and then die at the age of 65.

Now self-care is get a massage and buy yourself something nice. And I think when we were kids self-care was like the crack era.

You got dudes our age getting pedicures. Get some bath salt and no one blinks, which is good. Look, I’m saying, this is good. You got to take care of yourself because oftentimes the Gen X and Millennial cusp that you and I are, we inherited some of the baggage, the trauma, and the bad behaviors of our elders who weren’t given this language, right?

Absolutely.

What they were taught was man up, suffer well, suffer quietly, never talk about your emotions. Even if you got problems, mental health issues, financial issues, you just man up. Man up and stay quiet and grit it with your teeth. And if you’re a model minority, smile your white teeth because you are so happy. You’re the token, and what will people say? So just smile.

We’re at that certain age where you get older and you listen to the older generation, right? The older men and women, they kind of open up to you, and you realized, “Oh, wow. That uncle suffered from depression. That person has anxiety. That person went to jail. That person has been sad for 20 years.” All of a sudden you’re like, “Oh, I understand this person,” but they never had the ability or the permission to share the type of story that I was able to share in this book.

My experience is different from yours, which gave me the space to learn so much to feel more connected to your journey, to that immigrant experience, to the Muslim experience. I’ve learned so much and it got me thinking about audience because I felt like I’m definitely the audience, but then a part of it also frustrated me because I know that Brock Strong Balls is probably not going to pick up the book. Strong Balls is probably going to look at a tweet or look at a meme, even though that person or that prototype could learn so much and be able to connect with you.

In the opening of the book is I decided to experiment with how a memoir can be written. And so, instead of starting it with “once upon a time,” I started with emails that I get. Lovely emails, emails that give me very unsolicited, helpful advice, such as, “Go back to where you came from,” and “Go f**k a goat.”

A lot of goat f**king.

Why are they so obsessed with goats and camels? These are actual emails that I got, so I just copy-pasted them. And then there’s my response. With a book like this, or even most memoirs it’s like walk a mile in my shoes type of book, right? So, I’m like, okay, let’s just hit it right out of the gate. Let me punch you in the gut. If you were to walk a mile in my shoes and you open up your inbox, this is how you would be greeted by your many fans.

I didn’t write the book for Brock Strong Balls. “Brock Strong Balls” is one of my haters who’s a hateful missive I wrote in the book, but you’d be surprised because I got surprised that the stuff that you and I have to deal with on a daily basis, Black and brown folks, Muslim folks, women I would even see on the internet just in life, the macroaggressions. Many folks, especially white folks – and these aren’t the Brock Strong Balls – we’ll just say liberal center left, center right, they’re like, “Wow, you have to deal with this every day? We had no idea.” And so, the stuff that’s common to you and me sometimes is like completely revelatory to other folks. They’re like, and then they feel bad. Like, “We had no idea you had to go through this.” And you’re like, “Yeah, no s**t.”

I’m not trying to get your sympathy, but I’m like, “All right, you want to walk a mile in my shoes? Here we go.” Go f**k a goat. Go back to where you came from. Even though you’re born and raised in the Bay Area, California. Do you want me to go back to the Bay Area? Okay, subsidize my rent because I can’t afford it. You want me to go back to my mom’s womb. Let’s go Freud. Let’s all go back to the womb.

When I think about those comments, the first thing that comes that I always think about is a Trump rally. When Trump was having those rallies it was like the comment section coming to life.

The comment section for my articles throughout my career, oftentimes, were filled with so much hate and anti-Muslim bigotry that the editor just shut down the comment section. And I went to a Trump rally a couple of weeks before the election. And it was every type of white you could meet under the sun. It was old whites, young whites, red-haired whites, brunette whites, blonde whites, biker whites, senior whites, all the whites. This was right after the Access Hollywood tape came out and he bragged about grabbing women by the p**sy. I even asked white women. I’m like, “Aren’t you offended by this?” They’re like, “Eh, locker room talk.”

And then I said, “What about all the horrible vile things he’s saying about every group?” And his voters loved it. What they said was, “This is why we like him. He’s politically incorrect. He shoots from the hip. He takes on everyone. He doesn’t care.” The more vulgar he was, the more his base ate it up. It’s the comment section come to life. And the comment section back in the day was filled with deplorables. Clinton was actually right in that categorization of the Trump voters, but because we infantilize and romanticize and cover up whiteness and white anxiety and white rage, it wasn’t racism. No, no, it was economic anxiety, which is BS and disproven study after study.

It’s sick. I have a friend who’s from China. And he actually said that in his culture, “artist,” where he’s from, it means homeless. When did you first realize as a husky young man that writing was going to be your thing (as long as you’re still going to be a doctor)? Can you take us to that moment?

In Pakistani culture, artist means dumb and poor. The kids who weren’t smart enough to do engineering or business or law then became artists. I joke in the book that for many immigrant communities, there’s a trinity of occupations: It’s doctor, engineer, wealthy businessman and failure. So, you and me are basically failures. I always wanted to be storyteller. I always enjoyed making people laugh. But the back of my head I’m like, “How am I going to pull this all off when there’s no models of success?” And you get handed down this checklist of immigrant success, kind of not actually handed out, but you hear the conversation you see what’s valued. No one ever said writer.

And so, you’re a brown kid, a Muslim kid growing up in the bay area. There was no Hasan Minhaj at that time. There was no Rizwan Ahmed. There was no Fareed Zakaria. There was no Mindy Kaling. And so, you’re like, all right, I have this dream, but whatever. Maybe I’ll just go do something else. And I remember the power of a mentor or a teacher just taking a shot at you, just believing in you. Ms. Peterson in fifth grade told us all to write a one-page short story. I wrote a 10-page short story on Robin Hood. And she gave me an A+++, and then she said, “Get up in front of the homeroom and recite the story.” I’m like, “Ms. Peterson, please, I can’t do it.” She goes, “Shut up, fatty, get up.” Maybe she didn’t say that, but that’s my recollection.

Shout out, Ms. Peterson.

I recited the story and the same kids in my fifth grade homeroom who used to bully me, for the first time ever they just sat there rapt with attention and they laughed at all the right parts. That’s when I realized I might have something. A reason why I mention that is oftentimes when folks see this video, or they read this interview, and they see people like you and me they’re like, “Who am I? I’m nobody. I can’t do this.” And I say, “Some of my favorite people are nobody. I’m also nobody.” Great things have small beginnings. It’s like planting a seed.

You get to the point [in the book] in college and 9/11 happens. A couple of weeks after 9/11, my teacher at that time, Ishmael Reed who’s a MacArthur Genius winner, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, African American literary giant, he says: My people, Black people have been fighting back for 400 years. They’ve been trying to erase us and suppress us. The way we fought back is through art and culture and storytelling. We need your story out there. Writing is fighting. You have to write a story about an American family that happens to be Pakistani and Muslim. Write a play. Dialogue and characters are your strengths. I’m like, “What are you talking about?” This is a short story writing class. He goes, “No, no, no, just do a play, and I’ll see you in two months. All right. Bye.”

Sometimes just having a writer, a mentor, a teacher, a family member, a friend say you got something, and to encourage that seed. Without that, that’s a sliding door moment, man. Maybe I wouldn’t be here. Maybe I’d be a miserable attorney right now taking Xanax, marrying the wrong woman.

It becomes real when somebody who has that success and they push you, then it goes beyond just a hobby and it becomes a real thing.

Then when someone pays you. When someone gives you a check and you cash the check and they gave you the check because you wrote something you’re like, “What? Is this real?” And then when people start inviting you as a writer, this is the whole process. It took me a long time to really own the fact that I’m a writer.

How much was your first check the first time you cashed a check off writing, you remember? I know mine was $25.

That’s not bad at all. Mine was $50. My director, Carla Blank told me, “You’re a writer.” I’m like, “I’m not a writer.” She goes, “You wrote something. You gave it to an editor. They gave you a check. You cashed the check. You’re a writer.”

White privilege is also a recurring theme in the book, and my question for you is how can I actually get my hands on some of that?

You have to be an average American who’s from the Rust Belt who drunk the real coffee, who has economic anxiety, who lives on Main Street, who’s part of the mainstream. And then you too, sir, you can have white privilege.

You want to be blunt? Be a white European refugee. Don’t be Haitian or Yemeni or Syrian. And by the way, when I say that comment, we have to help and we should help the one million Ukrainians who are fleeing, but I got this article coming out today with the title, “It’s Good To Be a White Refugee” because there a whole bunch of other refugees, there are a whole bunch of other refugees right now who are suffering and the borders got closed and there were barriers and walls, but now blue-eyed, blonde-haired, Ukrainian refugees, and we’ve got many of our colleagues in the media saying, “They look just like us. We have to help them.” That’s white privilege also.

One of the things that you do in a brilliant way is point out how hypocritical this country is, and people who disagree it seems like they have a problem with understanding that, pointing out the flaws in the country, and then working towards fixing them actually makes the country into what you are trying to push it off as anyway. How do we get past that?

I get called this now. “You are a race-obsessed liberal because you talk about racism.” Other stuff you get called is you’re a race hustler. You are just sucking at the teat of white guilt and making white people feel bad and trading in that white guilt to create a career. And I’m like, I do suck at the teat of white guilt. It’s delicious. Salty, but delicious. It’s one of those situations that if you really think about the beating dark heart of America is white supremacy. It’s part and parcel of the American nightmare, and oftentimes we never talk about it. We like to promote the fiction of the American dream. And unless you acknowledge it and diagnosis it and take a scalpel and remove it, it will poison everything.

The paradigm, the structures, the education, the housing, the lending, everything. It’s like poison. And so, what happens in America instead is we don’t want to acknowledge. It’s like Voldemort. And if you acknowledge it, it makes people lose their effing mind. I’ll give you one quick example. 1619 Project, just look at the freak out over the 1619 Project. How dare you challenge our notion of this myth of America where the white man came here and birthed this nation from nothing? That’s the quote from Rick Santorum. Sure, there were some Indigenous folks, but we came here. We were good. Slaves were treated well. I mean, the slaves got . . . I’m not making that up. That’s what Bill O’Reilly said, remember? The slaves were treated not too bad. And then, OK, fine. Nobody’s perfect. But then we gave you Martin Luther King and Beyonce and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Look, it’s the American dream. And why can’t you poor refugees and poor Blacks and poor browns be like the good model minorities who grit their teeth and have resilience and pull their selves up from the bootstraps and work hard and stop complaining. We gave you Obama. We live in a post-racial society. Get over it, darky. Don’t mention it. Don’t acknowledge it. And if you do mention it, you’re extremist. You’re hysterical. You’re uppity. You’re race-obsessed. You’re divisive. These are the tricks that white privilege, the mental gymnastics, the type of defensive mechanisms to avoid talking about race because if you avoid talking about race, you don’t have to confront racism and you don’t have to confront and acknowledge your role in either being against it or perpetuating it. So, instead, keep that privilege because the system helps you, and instead blame the darkies for bringing it up.

Being a race hustler sounds like a pretty good profession. If I could sign up . . . I would rather be a race hustler than a cop.

You want some white privilege? You want some white guilt? I got everything. How much guilt you want today? I got you.

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We spoke earlier about how even though you didn’t write the book with the intentions of certain demographics trying to learn and connect, but you also didn’t write 10 chapters saying my parents did everything perfect. You mentioned the good, the bad, and the ugly because that is how we heal.

The book has a plot twist in the middle where you’re living this model minority myth – a suburban kid, 20 years old going to UC Berkeley. My parents, Pakistani Muslim immigrants, like many immigrant parents, worked hard. Middle class, upper-middle class. Mervyn’s not Bloomingdales, sometimes Macy’s. That’s how I describe them. That was my parents. Immigrant parents who looked out for a good deal, but when they had the savings or the money, they spent it, and we went on vacation, but we didn’t have F-U money. I was the only kid and I lived a comfortable suburban life. You kind of achieved the American dream, upper-middle class, maybe, that’s about it, and my parents were happy.

We had two crisis points in my senior year of college. Number one, 9/11. Overnight everything changed in the perpetual war on terror. And then overnight, you’re a model minority. You’re now the enemy. You’re now them. You’re now a suspect. You are now a dirty Muslim. I went from Gandhi, which was what I was called when I was a kid, to Osama overnight. And not just me, but all my people. And then a few months after that in the aftermath of 9/11 when this country went insane, they banned, they canceled Susan Sontag. They banned “Imagine” by John Lennon and the Rage Against the Machine catalog. People forget that. They banned French fries. They banned Dixie Chicks. Dixie Chicks were the whitest women on earth. They canceled the Dixie Chicks for the most benign comment. Muslims were hazed, surveillance, FBI just showing up at your home.

A couple months later, my parents were arrested in part of this operation Cyber Storm where Microsoft and the FBI teamed up and Robert Mueller then the head of the FBI comes to San Jose and says this the biggest piracy crackdown and two dozen people have been arrested. And my parents’ luck was they worked in the same office complex as these other folks. They didn’t have a single piracy complaint, but Microsoft got them on a licensing charge from a business they did two years ago. So, it doesn’t matter a headline as you know flattens everything, and who’s on the front page of the FBI? My parents. And what happens overnight is then I experience the American nightmare as experienced by so many communities. You lose the house, you lose the credit, you lose the community, you get hazed, you need money to take care of your family.

Now I leave school and I got both parents in prison, and now you experience the criminal justice system, which like I mentioned in the book and my experience flattens not only the individual who is incarcerated, but people sometimes forget it flattens the families and the communities. It flattens generations. I tried my best to really articulate that to an audience that otherwise was not expecting that story, and also to an audience that oftentimes sees prison and Black, prison and poor. And I’m like, no, no, no. Our prison system incarcerates two million people more than any other country on earth. We talk about rehabilitation in this country and redemption and everyone has a shot, but what about people who went to prison? What about people who just happen to be poor and Black and were using drugs? How come they don’t get a slap on the wrist? So, I think this story and that chapter, I hope illuminates also.

I really wish as a collective we would rally around these different narratives and stories so that we can move forward.

A part of me says, “White people, you figure this out. We’ve had to survive on our own, we’ll survive, maybe. Many of us won’t, but guys figure this out. You’re having a moment.” And so, I’m going to live in a bluish state and I’m going to make my money and I’m going to have my community, inshallah, I’ll just try to protect myself.” That’s one instinct.

Another instinct says we have to do everything within our power as usual to save this country from itself. And oftentimes we’ve been Black folks leading the way, but more and more, there’s a multiracial coalition that gets it, and enough whites. This is the key thing. You’re not going to get the majority of whites. You’re just not. But if we can get enough whites to realize that we have to fight for a multiracial democracy, maybe we have a shot. Maybe we have a shot. Some people say it has to get worse before it gets better. But what I say is sometimes when it gets worse, it just gets worse. And so, we got to do what we always have to do, man. We have to fight for a country that doesn’t love us back.

Absolutely.

We have to do our best to protect our communities. And unfortunately through our pain and suffering, this country eventually learns of this thing called white supremacy and the American nightmare. And maybe enough people wake up and realize maybe we can work together to create the American dream for everyone.

Watch more memoir interviews with D. Watkins:

The masculine ideal of suppressing one’s feelings has all kinds of awful repercussions

It might surprise you to know that boys are more emotionally expressive than girls before age two. That difference does not last very long, as many boys are made to feel ashamed of themselves for violating masculine norms by expressing their feelings. And this prohibition against being sad, fearful, disappointed, lonely, or any emotion other than anger follows many into a stoic manhood.

Why is this a problem? As we see it, there are several serious consequences to this limited emotional expression among many men. The most important of these is the propensity for violence, which men engage in nine times more often than women. A direct result of the ability to shut down vulnerable emotions is the inability to empathize with others. And violence is, first and foremost, a failure of empathy. If you have a compassionate understanding of how your actions can hurt another person, you would be very unlikely to cause intentional harm. Men who embrace this aspect of cultural masculinity cannot empathize with another person’s emotional experience because they have no point of reference in their own minds with which to understand it.

We have seen this problem play out in the geopolitical context within the past few weeks. Russian President Vladimir Putin is conducting an increasingly brutal invasion of Ukraine. As a result, there have been and will be many more preventable deaths. Putin’s actions have already resulted in 3.2 million refugees as well as the internal displacement of 6.5 million Ukrainians, with many families being separated. Moreover, Putin is causing great hardship for his own people, as the Russian economy has taken a huge beating because of the sanctions placed on Russia by many nations. And to make the matters exponentially worse, Putin has intimated nuclear war, which could kill millions. Nobody with a shred of empathy would do any of these things. He appears solely focused on expanding his dominance and seems not to care in the least about the harm he is inflicting.

The second consequence is a quality-of-life issue for emotionally inexpressive men and anyone who has to deal with them, as illustrated by this actual exchange between co-workers. A woman mentions to her male colleague: “I feel really sad today and I don’t know why.” His response? “Well…stop it.”

So many boys and men learn and practice “stop it.” And research indicates that negative and positive emotions are something of a package deal. When a person learns to squelch negative emotions, over time they lose their ability to experience positive ones. Men who become adept at “stop it” when they get an inkling of sadness, anxiety, fear, or disappointment will, over time, lose the ability to feel joy, satisfaction, or gratitude. It is a Faustian pact with the devil that turns men at the extremes into unfeeling robots, a condition known as alexithymia (“no words for feelings”).

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Alexithymia has significant implications for stress management. It blocks men from utilizing one of life’s effective means known for dealing with stress, ranging from minor hassles to major traumas. We are referring of course to the process of identifying, thinking about, and discussing one’s emotional response to stressor, such as a hurtful remark or action, with the person who delivered it, or with a trusted third party. Having an emotionally honest conversation about a stressful situation with another person can provide empathy and emotional support and allow the person to put the incident into perspective, and perhaps figure out a way to handle it. It can also provide an opportunity for emotional relief though crying, which is — in and of itself — another one of life’s effective means for reducing stress. In this light, punishing boys for crying and instilling in them a deep sense of shame for even wanting to cry must be seen as an incredibly cruel act. After all, we all have tear ducts, irrespective of our gender. Why would males have them if it were unnatural for boys and men to cry?

As a consequence of blocking these avenues, alexithymia predisposes men to deal with stress in less constructive ways, which may involve externalizing their stress, as in irritable, aggressive and even violent behavior. Other possible harmful responses include substance use (to numb out painful emotions), porn addiction, gambling addiction, stress-related illnesses, and early death.

It is very difficult to resist a pressure that one cannot name. We need to help boys and men to understand the social pressure of cultural masculinity and learn to resist it. We need to stop telling our boys and men to be unfeeling machines and instead convey how to be a man with complexity and compassion.

Read more on masculinity:

Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene get more applause than Trump at Georgia rally

Donald Trump traveled to Commerce, Georgia on Saturday to rally his MAGA base against the top incumbent Republican in the Peach State.

“I’ve covered more than two dozen Trump rallies around the nation. This is the smallest crowd I’ve seen at a rally of his in Georgia since he won the 2016 election — significantly smaller than the crowd in Perry in September,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution political reporter Greg Bluestein noted.

Trump is backing former Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) in his campaign against GOP Gov. Brian Kemp and Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) in his campaign against Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

“This crowd is hardly applauding. Not the same sort of enthusiasm I’ve seen at other Trump rallies,” Bluestein reported.

And Perdue’s campaign has been struggling.

“Early polls have steadily shown Mr. Perdue, a former senator, trailing Mr. Kemp by about 10 percentage points. The governor has the backing of many of the state’s big donors and remains far ahead of Mr. Perdue in fund-raising,” The New York Times reported Saturday. “Mr. Perdue’s sputtering start may hint at a deeper flaw in Mr. Trump’s plan to punish the governor for refusing to work to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results: Mr. Trump’s grievances may now largely be his alone. While polls show many G.O.P. voters believe lies about fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election, there is little evidence that Republicans remain as fixated on the election as Mr. Trump.”

During his speech, Trump regurgitated the list of grievances he airs at all of his rallies, repeating his “big lie” of election fraud and complaining about Joe Biden.

And, as usual, the former leader of the free world threw a pity party over how mean people were to him.

"No President has ever suffered like I've suffered at the hands of these animals. People say to me, 'how the hell did you do it' and I can't even give them an answer. I don't know. I think I did it because I love you and because we have a job to do!" pic.twitter.com/dRkrgpqPMY

— RSBN 🇺🇸 (@RSBNetwork) March 27, 2022

While the biggest news of the evening was Trump threatening a MAGA boycott of the 2020 midterm elections, far-right members of Congress made headlines of their own at his rally.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who threw a tantrum about the Constitution’s prohibition on insurrectionists running for Congress, suggested Republicans blow up Stacey Abrams like the Death Star in the fictional Star Wars universe.

And Greene went “full QAnon” when discussing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

At the Trump rally today, Marge Greene goes full QAnon, saying that the World Economic Forum and Klaus Schwab are behind the war in Ukraine, as part of their globalist agenda. pic.twitter.com/w3AdNtUISV

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) March 27, 2022

Greene’s antics appeared to earn her a kiss from the former reality TV star.

Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene at a rally in Commerce, GA pic.twitter.com/NHzJdj1vQR

— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) March 27, 2022

But it was Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) who excited the crowd with his call for Donald Trump to be Speaker of the House of Representatives if Republicans win control in the 2022 midterm elections.

Gaetz praised Greene and said Republicans’ goal was to impeach President Joe Biden.

.@MattGaetz: "Give us the ability to fire Nancy Pelosi, take back the majority, impeach Joe Biden, and I'm going to nominate Donald Trump for Speaker of the United States House of Representatives!" pic.twitter.com/H94mmt36mA

— RSBN 🇺🇸 (@RSBNetwork) March 27, 2022

Will money flowing into addiction technology curb overdose deaths?

David Sarabia had already sold two startups by age 26 and was sitting on enough money to never have to work another day in his life. He moved from Southern California to New York City and began to indulge in all the luxuries his newly minted millionaire status conveyed. Then it all went sideways, and his life quickly unraveled.

“I became a massive cocaine addict,” Sarabia said. “It started off just casual partying, but that escalated to pretty much anything I could get my hands on.”

At one particularly low point, Sarabia was homeless for three months, sleeping on public transportation to stay warm. Even with plenty of money in the bank, Sarabia said, he’d lost the will to live. “I’d given up,” he said.

He got back on his feet, sort of, and for the next three years lived as a “functional cocaine addict” until his best friend, Jay Greenwald, died after a night of partying. Finally, Sarabia checked himself into a rehab in Southern California — ostensibly a luxurious one, although Sarabia didn’t find it to be so.

Still, the place saved his life. The clinicians really cared, he recalled, although their efforts were hampered by clunky technology and poor management. He had the feeling that the owners were more interested in profits than in helping people recover.

Just days off cocaine, the tech entrepreneur was scribbling designs for his next startup idea: a digital platform that would make clinician paperwork easier, combined with a mobile app to guide patients through recovery. After he left treatment in 2017, Sarabia tapped his remaining wealth — about $400,000 — to fund an addiction tech company he named inRecovery.

With the nation’s opioid overdose epidemic hitting a record high of more than 100,000 deaths in 2021, effective ways to fight addiction and expand treatment access are desperately needed. Sarabia and other entrepreneurs in the realm they call addiction tech see a $42 billion U.S. market for their products and an addiction treatment field that is, in techspeak, ripe for disruption.

It has long been torn by opposing ideologies and approaches: medication-assisted treatment versus cold-turkey detox; residential treatment versus outpatient; abstinence versus harm reduction; peer support versus professional help. And most people who report struggling with substance use never manage to access treatment at all.

Tech is already offering help to some. Those who can pay out-of-pocket, or have treatment covered by an employer or insurer, can access one of a dozen addiction telemedicine startups that allow them to consult with a physician and have a medication like buprenorphine mailed directly to their home. Some of the virtual rehabs provide digital cognitive behavior treatment, with connected devices and even mail-in urine tests to monitor compliance with sobriety.

Plentiful apps offer peer support and coaching, and entrepreneurs are developing software for treatment centers that handle patient records, personalize the client’s time in rehab, and connect them to a network of peers.

But while the founders of for-profit companies may want to end suffering, said Fred Muench, clinical psychologist and president of the nonprofit Partnership to End Addiction, it all comes down to revenue.

Startup experts and clinicians working on the front lines of the drug and overdose epidemic doubt the flashy Silicon Valley technology will ever reach people in the throes of addiction who are unstably housed, financially challenged, and on the wrong side of the digital divide.

“The people who are really struggling, who really need access to substance use treatment, don’t have 5G and a smartphone,” said Dr. Aimee Moulin, a professor and behavioral health director for the Emergency Medicine Department at UC Davis Health. “I just worry that as we start to rely on these tech-heavy therapy options, we’re just creating a structure where we really leave behind the people who actually need the most help.”

The investors willing to feed millions of dollars on startups generally aren’t investing in efforts to expand treatment to the less privileged, Moulin said.

Besides, making money in the addiction tech business is tough, because addiction is a stubborn beast.

Conducting clinical trials to validate digital treatments is challenging because of users’ frequent lapses in medication adherence and follow-up, said Richard Hanbury, founder and CEO of Sana Health, a startup that uses audiovisual stimulation to relax the mind as an alternative to opioids.

There are thousands of private, nonprofit, and government-run programs and drug rehabilitation centers across the country. With so many bit players and disparate programs, startups face an uphill battle to land enough customers to generate significant revenue, he added.

After conducting a small study to ease anxiety for people detoxing off opioids, Hanbury postponed the next step, a larger study. To sell his product to the country’s sprawling array of addiction treatment providers, Hanbury decided, he would need to hire a much larger sales team than his budding company could afford.

Still, the immense need is feeding enthusiasm for addiction tech.

In San Francisco alone, more than twice as many people died from drug overdoses as from covi d over the past two years. Employers, insurers, providers, families, and those suffering addiction themselves are all demanding better and affordable access to treatment, said Unity Stoakes, president and managing partner of StartUp Health.

The investment firm has launched a portfolio of seed-stage startups that aim to use technology to end addiction and the opioid epidemic. Stoakes hopes the wave of new treatment options will reduce the stigma of addiction and increase awareness and education. The emerging tools aren’t trying to remove human care for addiction, but rather “supercharge the doctor or the clinician,” he said.

While acknowledging that underserved populations are hard to reach, Stoakes said tech can expand access and enhance targeted efforts to help them. With enough startups experimenting with different types of treatment and delivery methods, hopefully one or more will succeed, he said.

Addiction telehealth startups have gained the most traction. Quit Genius, a virtual addiction treatment provider for alcohol, opioid, and nicotine dependence, raised $64 million from investors last summer, and in October, $118 million went to Workit Health, a virtual prescriber of medication-assisted treatment. Several other startups — Boulder Care, Groups Recover Together, Ophelia, Bicycle Health, and Wayspring, most of which have nearly identical telehealth and prescribing models — have landed sizable funding since the pandemic started.

Some of the startups already sell to self-insured employers, providers, and payers. Some market directly to consumers, while others are conducting clinical trials to get FDA approval they hope to parlay into steadier reimbursement. But that route involves a lot of competition, regulatory hurdles, and the need to convince payers that adding another treatment will drive down costs.

Sarabia’s inRecovery plans to use its software to help treatment centers run more efficiently and improve their patient outcomes. The startup is piloting an aftercare program, aimed at keeping patients connected to prevent relapse after treatment, with Caron Treatment Centers, a high-end nonprofit treatment provider based in Pennsylvania.

His long-term goal is to drive down costs enough to offer his service to county-run treatment centers in hopes of expanding care to the neediest. But for now, implementing the tech doesn’t come cheap, with treatment providers paying anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 a year to license the software.

“Bottom line, for the treatment centers that don’t have consistent revenue, those on the lower end, they will probably not be able to afford something like this,” he said.

Is “CODA” the “Green Book” of films about deaf people?

Maybe we’ve been looking at “CODA” all wrong.

Before we begin: I am half deaf, born this way, raised by a hearing family. I have never fit into the hearing world, unable to follow spoken conversations, an isolation that has only gotten worse since the pandemic.

I put off watching “CODA” because I had been told such things about it. Finally, a movie about deaf people with actually deaf actors! Conversely: This is “The Green Book” for deaf people!

That last comment refers to the 2018 Oscar-winning film about a white man who drives a Black musician on tour in the 1960s American south. Written and directed entirely by white people, its “inspirational” themes fall flat and its message, that of white saviorism, has since been disavowed.

“CODA” is an acronym for “child of a deaf adult.” The Apple+ film tells the story of a teenage girl, Ruby (Emilia Jones) who is a CODA: the only hearing one in her family, which includes her devoted parents (Troy Kotsur and Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin) and an older brother (Daniel Durant). All are deaf except her – and wouldn’t you know it, Ruby is a latent, fantastic singer. She decides her dream is music, something her deaf family — according to the film — could never understand.

“CODA” has been nominated for Oscars. In fact, it’s one of the leading contenders for Best Picture, along with Jane Campion’s critically acclaimed “Power of the Dog.” But despite phenomenal performances by all the actors, “CODA” isn’t the movie deaf and Hard of Hearing people have been waiting for. (Update: “Coda” did win the Academy Award for best picture on Sunday.)

It’s not about us. And it’s not for us.

“CODA” does have things in common with “The Green Book,” the movie about racism written, directed and produced by white people. None of the creative team in charge of “CODA” identify as deaf, including its writer/director Sian Heder. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, when Heder was asked about writing and directing a movie about deaf people when she herself is not deaf, she said: “As a filmmaker, I see myself as a conduit.” Viewing oneself as a voice for the voiceless could be seen as treading dangerously close to abled saviorism.

The film was directly based on “La Famille Bélier,” a 2014 French comedy that not only featured zero deaf actors in the deaf roles, but used deafness as the punch lines for many of its jokes.

The premise of “CODA” is troubling on paper: A deaf family whose hearing kid sings (cue the rimshot)! Many critics, deaf and hearing, have spoken to the implausibility of Ruby’s family not understanding the appeal of music. Deaf people often love music, particularly loud music, which radiates with vibrations. “CODA” gets this right in one scene, where Ruby’s dad Frank blasts hip-hop in their truck, and one of the most moving scenes in the film is where Frank feels Ruby’s throat to sense her singing, Kotsur’s face a tapestry of incredible emotion.

But Ruby’s mom Jackie thinks $2 Goodwill speakers are a “waste of money.” Ruby’s hearing friend asks if her parents “even know what music is.” Alongside that, many parents support their kids’ dreams, especially parents who are loving and encouraging in every other way, as Ruby’s are. You support your child even if you don’t understand them (this is why I, the writer, am constantly at rock and mineral shows for my geology-loving kid). The continued resistance of Ruby’s parents, especially Jackie, to Ruby’s love of music seems forced.

“CODA” also makes some weird missteps in the hypersexualization of Ruby’s parents and her brother. Her parents have to see a doctor for a sex-related fungal infection, and the whole family obsesses over brother Leo’s Tinder at dinner. It’s great that we have disabled characters talking about and obviously having sex. Disabled people have sex too! But Frank and Jackie only have sex for long stretches of the movie, including in the middle of the day when Ruby has a friend over, and then they talk incessantly about it. Having not seen the original French film, I wonder if this is a holdover from the farce? It borders on fetishization.

The film does get some big things right about experiences of deafness. Ruby’s family is LOUD. Like some deaf people, I have no idea how much noise I might make sometimes. I can’t really hear my voice and can’t regulate it (Ruby says deaf people talking is “ugly” in the film).

Ruby’s family is also poor. This could be attributed to their work as family fishermen in Gloucester, Massachusetts. But the fact is, disabled people are much more likely to live in poverty than non-disabled people for a combination of reasons: We’re passed over for jobs. We’re still legally paid less than abled people. Fewer than 40% of deaf and Hard of Hearing people have been able to find fulltime work.

Frank, Jackie and brother Leo also lack community. They see deaf friends, according to Ruby “once a month” (honestly, in pandemic times, this seems aspirational), but have never really belonged in the community of Gloucester, despite living there for at least two generations. I wish the film made more of this total lack of belonging, since it is often so much a part of experiences of deafness and of disability. When no one bothers to learn your language (or to find other ways to communicate with you) it’s hard not to feel alone.

The best thing “CODA” does right is casting Matlin, Kotsur and Durant. All are extraordinary. Matlin conveys so much about motherhood, struggle and longing with a look. Durant’s tearful speech on the beach, telling his sister to go, is beyond moving. Screen Actors Guild Award winner Kotsur is rightfully nominated for an Oscar — and if he wins, which he should, he will make history (he already has, as the first deaf actor to be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar; Matlin was the first deaf performer to win an Oscar for Best Actress).

But appropriate casting is also the very least the filmmakers could have done, and other films about marginalized people should have been doing for years.

So much of “CODA” is the experience of an abled person who resents her disabled family for needing her to interpret for them (where are the professional sign language interpreters in this world?). CODAs do sometimes have to interpret for their parents, an unfair position especially for a child (as Frank says about Ruby: “She was never a baby.”). That’s fine to place that agenda on the story — but it’s an experience and POV that still preferences non-disabled people. That’s the lens that we observe deafness through in “CODA”: an abled lens. Heder said that “‘CODA’ became an incredibly personal movie for me, even though it’s not my culture,” saying that she related to Ruby, who is not deaf.

But this movie is touted and celebrated as a “deaf” movie. It’s not.

We don’t have one.

The percentage of working TV and film writers who are disabled is .07% according to 2020 data from the Writers Guild of America West. This is the smallest percentage of any marginalized group in Hollywood. As disabled people make up 28% of the population, this disparity “suggests severe employment discrimination.”

That’s less than 1% of disabled writers working in film and TV. Many disabled writers are likely not even creating their own shows or writing on them, but serving as consultants, advising abled people on stories written about disabled people but not by them.

There are several issues here. Consulting is low-paying work. It does not give membership into a writing guild (a guild can provide health insurance) and it diminishes the importance of disabled writers’ own projects. There is only one incentive to support disabled writers in Hollywood that I know about: Inevitable Foundation. It’s new and does not have the same support of fellowships and programs for other marginalized creators in Hollywood.

There aren’t even any statistics available for disabled directors.

When I finally watched “CODA,” alone in my room, I cried at the end. Because the music is emotional (Jones’ voice stuns). Because the trio of deaf actors deserve so many deeper and better roles. Because of the fantasy — and it is a fantasy — of townspeople suddenly learning sign language and welcoming the family they had previously ostracized.

And I cried because as long as films like this are celebrated as a portrait of deafness, there is no place for a storyteller who is actually deaf in Hollywood.

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“CODA” is many things. It’s a teen girl’s awakening. It’s a sweet comedy. But it isn’t about deaf people. It’s about a hearing woman. She’s compelling, her story is interesting, if not the most unique. We have so few mainstream stories, it’s hard not to cling to this glimmer of hope. But “CODA” is not a movie by deaf people, and I would argue it’s not for those of us who are deaf, either.

The song that Ruby sings so masterfully? It’s “Both Sides, Now” by Joni Mitchell, its “both sides” lyrics meant to inspire the audience, I guess, that she lives in both worlds, the hearing and the abled. But she’s abled. She’s bilingual, not oppressed. Those of us who live on both sides — or, it often feels like, no sides — are disabled, trying to navigate a world that doesn’t care to let us speak for ourselves.

“CODA” is, in some ways, a good film. It’s sweet. It’s well-shot. All the actors shine, as does the setting. But it’s not a revelation. What will be a revelation is when an actor like Kotsur is cast in any role, not “simply” a deaf one. What will be a revelation is when a deaf writer and director is offered the financing and platform to tell a story — about our lives, sure, but also, about anything.

“CODA” is available to stream on Apple TV+. Watch a trailer for it below, via YouTube.

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When a leading Republican called for world government — and Einstein and Gandhi backed him

Amid the turmoil of World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted a respected American to travel the globe boosting morale among the Allies. The itinerary had 13 countries on five continents, including China, the Soviet Union and the nations of the Middle East. FDR’s choice of emissary might have seemed strange from this distance: He picked Wendell Willkie, the Republican he had defeated in the 1940 election.

Everything had changed after the Pearl Harbor attack on Dec. 7, 1941, and Willkie gladly undertook this mission on behalf of a Democratic president. When he returned from his trip, Willkie enthusiastically shared his advice with both Roosevelt and the rest of America: Humanity needed a one-world government to avoid a future filled with unimaginable horrors. The onetime GOP presidential nominee wasn’t the first or last person to reach that conclusion, but his story is both striking and strange.

Willkie’s book, “One World,” broke sales records when it was published in 1943, and holds up remarkably well today. (If you obtain an original edition, you’ll notice it was made with cheap and lightweight materials, thanks to War Production Board regulations.) Willkie openly cribbed ideas from the Atlantic Charter, a 1941 statement by Roosevelt and Winston Churchill that articulated Anglo-American war objectives, but challenged them as too Eurocentric and not bold enough. His book helped inspire the World Federalist movement, which drew from Willkie’s conclusions to argue that only supranational democratic institutions could protect humanity in an era of global threats. The general idea was for an organization much stronger than the League of Nations, which had been founded in the wake of World War I, although the specific proposals varied widely. Generally speaking, though, these groups shared the goals articulated in Willkie’s book: International governing bodies that would prohibit colonialism and imperialism, whether economic or military; a ban on racial discrimination; a plan to reduce global income inequality; and a gradual worldwide transition to democracy, according to each nation’s particular culture.

Roosevelt’s choice of global emissary might seem unusual from this distance: The Republican who had run against him in 1940.

Some of the most famous people on the planet supported the One World movement, or its various incarnations thereof: Physicists Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, philosopher Bertrand Russell, anti-colonial heroes Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann. “One World” dominated the New York Times bestseller list for months, and all its proceeds went to war relief efforts in Britain, China and the Soviet Union. After the U.S. used nuclear bombs in Japan and ushered in the Cold War, the One Worlders’ clamor for international government grew even stronger. For decades, the term “One Worlder” was used as an epithet by conservatives who saw this vision of left-liberal internationalism as Communism in a thin disguise.

“One World” reads less like a manifesto than a novel, at least for the most part. It’s entertaining and vivid, driven by an array of fascinating characters, ranging from Joseph Stalin (!) to Charles de Gaulle to Chinese leader Zhou Enlai, along with many ordinary soldiers and civilians. He quotes at length, for example, both Chinese and Russian citizens who defend Communism, although Willkie makes it clear he disagrees. In one chapter, he marvels at the way the United States is almost universally liked (it’s almost melancholy to read that now), but expresses concern that American politicians may squander that goodwill by seeking to build an empire — the very reason the Germans and Japanese were so despised.

Willkie was also far ahead of his time in deploring nationalism, even among oppressed peoples, arguing that because all humanity lives on a shrinking planet thanks to the wonders and horrors of technology, our fates are inextricably linked. He insists that racial and cultural diversity — concepts that were not widely discussed at the time — should be celebrated, and that humanity’s common interests in peace, prosperity, justice and scientific progress should supersede the narrow allure of nationalism. He puts it this way in his introduction:

There are no distant points in the world any longer. I learned by this trip that the myriad millions of human beings of the Far East are as close to us as Los Angeles is to New York by the fastest trains. I cannot escape the conviction that in the future what concerns them must concern us, almost as much as the problems of the people of California concern the people of New York. Our thinking in the future must be world-wide.

Many of the anecdotes Willkie shares are heartbreaking. On his visit to the Soviet Union he sees Russian farm workers walking toward the combat front lines because they need to plow the fields. At a pit stop in Siberia for what he expects will only be a couple of hours, Willkie learns that a snowstorm is coming and he’ll have to stay overnight: If a distinguished guest were to die in a plane crash, Stalin would have the responsible official “liquidated.” Further east in what was then British-run Palestine, Willkie wonders whether the British Empire is inflaming grudges between the Arab and Jewish communities for its own purposes, and quickly deduces that the matter will not be easily resolved. In the Chinese provincial city of Chengtu, Willkie speaks with scholars who had fled from areas conquered by Japan; they’re using the facilities of the two local universities in shifts, where “the buildings and the libraries and the laboratories [are] occupied almost twenty-four hours a day.”

At a pit stop in Siberia for what he expects will only be a couple of hours, Willkie learns that a snowstorm is coming and he’ll have to stay overnight: If a distinguished guest were to die in a plane crash, Stalin would have the responsible official “liquidated.”

What in the world drove Wendell Willkie to this quixotic, utopian globetrotting adventure? I think we can say he wasn’t much like 21st-century Republicans. Born in rural Indiana in 1892 to a family of abolitionist lawyers (his mother was one of the first women admitted to the Indiana bar), Willkie was inspired by Woodrow Wilson’s internationalist vision and read Karl Marx in college. He graduated from Indiana Law School with high honors, but nearly lost his degree after delivering a commencement speech criticizing the school’s leadership.

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After a few years practicing law in Indiana, Willkie began working in New York as counsel for the Commonwealth & Southern Corporation, and entered into the inner circle of America’s intellectual, social and economic elite. Although he retained many liberal or even leftist views (particularly on civil rights), he turned against Roosevelt when the new president created the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally-owned electric utility intended to create jobs and provide affordable power to much of the impoverished South — and also a direct threat to many C&S subsidiaries. Willkie not only fought FDR in court but also took his case to the press, utilizing his eloquence and charisma to great effect in newspaper columns and press conferences. Willkie lost the battle to stop the TVA, but his crusade hurt Roosevelt politically and made Willkie into a celebrity — and a Republican.

In the 1940 election, the party was most concerned with stopping Roosevelt from winning a third term, something no president had ever done. (Ulysses S. Grant had run for a third term in 1880, after four years out of office, but didn’t even win the Republican nomination.) But to oppose FDR, Republicans had a weak bench: The main contenders were Manhattan District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey, a 38-year-old “gangbuster” with no national political experience; Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, a staunch right-winger with a stoical personality; and Sen. Arthur Vandenburg of Michigan, who had little popular support.

Through a coordinated grassroots “movement,” a group of liberal Republican leaders overwhelmed the party’s national convention that year and won the nomination for Willkie. He campaigned as something of an ideological eccentric: He was to the left of Roosevelt on civil rights, and frequently spoke out against segregation and antisemitism, but also opposed FDR’s economic policies as “socialism.” That wasn’t his only contradiction: Willkie privately recognized that America wouldn’t be able to stay out of the world war against imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, but ran as a pacifist.

There was some good news for Willkie on Election Day: He outperformed the previous two Republicans who had run against Roosevelt, winning more than 22 million votes. (Alf Landon had only gotten about 17 million in 1936, and Herbert Hoover got fewer than 16 million in 1932.) But he still lost by a decisive margin, losing the Electoral College 449-82 and getting only 45% of the popular vote. That said, Willkie still came out of that election with his reputation enhanced. His stature had been elevated, although he hadn’t even come close to winning. (Another example of how different things were in that political era.)

“He supposedly had an affair with Soong Mei-ling, better known as the wife of Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek.”

Rather than continuing partisan attacks on Roosevelt in hopes of a 1944 rematch, Willkie went to work for FDR in support of the war effort. When Roosevelt and Churchill announced (in the aforementioned Atlantic Charter) that they would not use the war for imperial aggrandizement, Willkie made it clear that he would support the president’s foreign policy agenda. Indeed, the two men formed a friendship, and Roosevelt decided it would be ingenious to send his former opponent around the world as an emissary for the effectiveness and flexibility of American democracy. Willkie understood this, and used it to his advantage. In his book he recalls causing a media furor in Turkey:

When the Axis radio during my visit complained of my presence in Turkey, I told the newspapermen that the answer was simple: “Invite Hitler to send to Turkey, as a representative of Germany, his opposition candidate.” The remark, I found afterward, caused much quiet amusement among Turkish government officials.

There were rumors of quite a different kind around Willkie’s 1942 visit to China, where he supposedly had an affair with Soong Mei-ling, better known as the wife of Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. In this case, Willkie’s foresight failed him: He assumed Chiang would be a world leader, not a renegade who would be forced to flee to Taiwan and form a fake Chinese government there after Mao Zedong and the Communists had taken power on the mainland. Soong had already emerged as her husband’s most influential adviser, in no small part because of her superior command of the English language. As she later confided to one of Willkie’s friends, she believed that the two had chemistry so powerful that after the war ended, they could form an alliance that would control the planet: Willkie commanding the West after defeating Roosevelt in the 1944 election, and Soong ruling the East through her manipulation of Chiang.

That was a far-fetched vision on any number of levels, among them that Willkie had pretty much blown any chance of winning the Republican nomination again by allying with FDR. But his liaison with Soong adds an unintentionally humorous subtext to “One World,” as in his descriptions of her as resembling a Vogue cover model or his accounts of lengthy private conversations between them, held in dark rooms after they sneak away from dinner parties. Perhaps most notable is his glowing description of Soong while discussing his proposal that she should do a goodwill tour of the United States (as she eventually did):

Her great ability — and I know she will excuse me for speaking so personally — her great devotion to China, are well known in the United States. She would find herself not only beloved, but immensely effective. We would listen to her as to no one else. With wit and charm, a generous and understanding heart, a gracious and beautiful manner and appearance, and a burning conviction, she is just what we need as a visitor.

Tragically, at least from a narrative perspective, Willkie’s fascinating saga ends in a disappointing anticlimax. He lost the Republican nomination to Thomas Dewey in 1944, and then died unexpectedly of a heart attack. He was just 52. Roosevelt was elected to a fourth term but never got a chance to explore any of Willkie’s ideas, dying himself early in 1945. (That period led to a constitutional amendment limiting presidents to two full terms.) Other world leaders would support piecemeal versions of the transnational institutions envisioned by Willkie, including the UN, NATO and the European Union. As recent events like the 2021 coup attempt in the U.S. and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have reminded us, those entities lack any meaningful moral authority, in the sense envisioned by Willkie, Einstein and Gandhi.

But who knows? Perhaps the real climax of Wendell Willkie’s unlikely story has not yet arrived. The climate crisis, massive inequality, the rising specter of fascism and the threat of nuclear war continue to demand global solutions. Willkie’s analysis in “One World,” though specific to the context of World War II, will remain applicable as long as human society endures. It is tempting to speculate about how the next act of Willkie’s career might have unfolded, but we’ll never know. Perhaps it’s enough to reckon with the remarkable fact that, 80 years ago, a Democratic president and the Republican he had defeated tried to work together for world peace.

Fox News guest says it’s unnecessary for Ukrainian refugees to come to America

As Russia continues its militant invasion in Ukraine and news outlets offer coverage of the devastation Ukrainians are facing, one Fox News guest is arguing there is no reason for refugees to flee to the United States.

On Friday, March 25, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham and her guest, Todd Bensman openly criticized President Joe Biden’s commitment to granting 100,000 refugees access into the United States as the Russian invasion continues. Bensman, who works as a senior national security fellow at the far-right anti-immigration think tank, Center for Immigration Studies, quickly fired back opposing Biden’s initiative.

“Obviously, our hearts break for the people in Ukraine. It is absolutely horrific what has happened to them,” said Ingraham, before asking Bensman: “But is bringing them all the way to the United States in their best interest? And what about the U.S. taxpayers?”

According to Bensman, refugees would far better off staying in Europe where many are being offered housing incentives. “So there’s really no reason whatsoever for Ukrainians to be coming to our border or for us to be bringing in huge swells, numbers of Ukrainians here,” he argued. “They’re doing great for a group of war refugees.”

“The issue is that they are not asylum-seekers,” Bensman added. “They have asylum, right in their own neighborhood, so it’s a little bit disingenuous.”

“Then that makes more sense. OK,” Ingraham agreed.

Bensman’s remarks were quickly met with backlash on Twitter as users pointed out the glaring hypocrisy in his and Ingraham’s arguments. “Bensman so WTF are you still here?” one Twitter user asked. “Your family were immigrants & they were allowed to come here. Laura this also applies to you l. Your family immigrated to the US just like millions of us. WTF is wrong with you people? Millions have immigrated to the USA.”

Bensman so WTF are you still here? Your family were immigrants & they were allowed to come here. Laura this also applies to you l. Your family immigrated to the US just like millions of us. WTF is wrong with you people? Millions have immigrated to the USA. https://t.co/jp9CFLTRim

— Ty Johnson (@DijohltTy) March 26, 2022

“They’re doing great for a group of war refugees," a guest told Fox News' Laura Ingraham. https://t.co/guc4k7yBYo via @HuffPost
Not sure where the Bensman KKKlan slithered into the U.S. from. That name doesn't look Native American so why don't YOU go back to where you came from!

— Amy G Dala (@AmyGDal08328672) March 26, 2022

I'm just spitballing here, but I'm willing to bet that Bensman is "Pro-Life".

Ingraham Guest Says ‘No Reason Whatsoever’ For Ukrainian Refugees To Come To U.S. https://t.co/mwVKyZjYuS

— MommaMimi (@kimberlyanne68) March 26, 2022

Ingraham and Bensman’s remarks come as more than 3.5 million Ukrainians have fled their native country in wake of the Russian invasion. On Thursday, March 24, the Biden White House announced its initiative.

“While we expect many Ukrainians will choose to remain in Europe close to family and their homes in Ukraine, today, the United States is announcing plans to welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainians and others fleeing Russia’s aggression through the full range of legal pathways, including the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program,” the fact sheet said. “In particular, we are working to expand and develop new programs with a focus on welcoming Ukrainians who have family members in the United States.”

It added, “The United States and the European Union are also coordinating closely to ensure that these efforts, and other forms of humanitarian admission or transfers, are complementary and provide much-needed support to Ukraine’s neighbors.”

First responders lacking mental health support turn to their peers

When Randy Jones got his start as an emergency medical technician in the 1970s, he wore a smock and a clip-on tie that reduced the chances a patient would grab hold and strangle him. With few job prospects in the tiny Kansas town where he grew up, the rush of running to emergencies in an ambulance felt like God’s work. Jones remembers wearing blood on his shirt like a badge of pride.

Then, in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1979, he plowed through a snowstorm to a call he can’t forget. Jones says he heard screaming a block away. A young couple had returned home after a night out and found their child unresponsive. A fireman passed the baby to Jones. He did mouth to mouth. The parents’ wailing continued, but there would be no resuscitation, no reviving, no heroic lifesaving. That night, he replayed the call, trying to figure out where he might have gone wrong. Later, after seeing other infants die with seemingly no explanation, Jones began having nightmares about running code blues on his own children.

So much of Jones’ life was inextricably wrapped up in his career, but he no longer trusted he could do what he’d felt called to do. For a time, he says he contemplated suicide. Death seemed preferable to calling for help, he says, and having his colleagues know he had broken. “There’s so much shame involved in it — to admit you can’t take it,” he says, adding that “co-workers lose faith in your ability to handle emergencies, and their lives depend on you.”

Today, there is also the threat of losing one’s livelihood. Many physicians fear that state boards could suspend their license or revoke its renewal if they seek mental health care. The threat of formal sanctions can reinforce a workplace culture that stigmatizes mental health. Seeking treatment may be seen as a career-ending decision — that a person is unfit for duty, both in the eyes of their colleagues and their profession.

By March of 2020, Jones had switched careers. At the time, he worked as a chaplain at a hospital in Greeley, Colorado. When the first reports of what would become the Covid-19 pandemic began filtering in, he was reminded of the old emotions he felt as an EMT. The virus seemed poised to exacerbate an invisible epidemic — the emotional repercussions of witnessing trauma, as well as the moral distress of being unable to do what’s best for every patient. Worse: Some physicians seemed to think they could handle anything. “That’s where doctors crack,” Jones says. “You look at the world in black and white and, you know, how much of human tragedy can you take?”

In the months that followed, Jones says he and ICU staff would wear the same masks, 12-plus hours a day. He consoled colleagues with sweat-slicked hair. Jones watched nurses cry. Patients died without having their loved ones at their bedside. One day, he says, a man with Covid-19 requested to see him. He borrowed a pair of goggles and ventured into the patient’s room — a forbidden zone. The man was about to be intubated, Jones says, and didn’t know whether he would wake up again. He wanted to make a confession. Jones is not a Catholic priest, but he agreed to hear what seemed like they might be the patient’s last words. He would later be reprimanded, he says, and had to promise never to do it again. But he wished he could put his palm into patients’ hands as they passed over. And Jones could sense that he wasn’t alone in feeling like he was unable to do his job.

Then, in March 2021, Jones quit. He joined First Responder Trauma Counselors, an organization in Colorado launched by Ed and Joanne Rupert, a husband-and-wife team. The Ruperts see themselves as providing a 911 for 911 workers’ wellbeing. FRTC offers counseling and mental health services for workers in the emergency response system: dispatchers, police officers, EMTs and paramedics, and nurses. In addition to offering 24-hour support, the Ruperts have a decked-out black Sprinter van that serves as a mobile response unit.

The Colorado group aims to address a crisis that predated the pandemic: In failing to care for caretakers, some say, the emergency response system in the U.S. has, in effect, created an exploited workforce, where those on the front lines confront daily the gap between demand on the ground and what they can feasibly provide. FRTC’s approach also reflects a growing interest in what is broadly known as peer support — help from people who share a similar lived experience. (All of FRTC’s clinical staff members, for instance, have professional experience working as first responders or in the military.) Keely Phillips, who manages peer support programs at a branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association, writes in a book chapter that peers are uniquely positioned, using their experience “like a lantern on a dark path. The lantern is loaded with strategies, new perspectives, and hope for the person who is struggling.”

The concept has resonated with administrators and staff alike. But sources say that, in part because it is predicated on patients’ trust, and in part because of its ambiguous definition, peer support lags in one key respect: Research on its effectiveness is limited. Proponents also caution that these programs cannot necessarily replace reform that addresses systemic problems plaguing the workforce.

Peer supporters are nonetheless forging ahead. In recent years, the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration has invested millions in peer support programs. Leading medical organizations and practicing physicians have called for implementation in health care settings, where a staggering number of workers have quit since the pandemic began. All in all, experts are suggesting: Who better to care for caretakers than one of their own?

In the early 1970s, psychiatric clinicians borrowed hippie-era drug slang to describe the physical and mental burnout associated with “helping” professions, such as social work and teaching. The term eventually evolved, becoming a vague catchall for exhaustion. Another related, but more narrowly defined, concept emerged in the 1990s: Providers who found themselves running low on empathy were experiencing a symptom of “compassion fatigue.” By 2013, with the release of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the American Psychiatric Association recognized that “experiencing repeated or extreme exposure to aversive details” of a traumatic event could qualify someone for a post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis, provided they experienced other distressing symptoms as well — as can be the case with first responders, where vicarious trauma is a routine part of the work.

One concept that has gained considerable ground in recent years is called moral injury. In the 1990s, Jonathan Shay, a clinical psychiatrist, described moral injury in the context of war: Post-traumatic stress not only stemmed from what someone had done on the battlefield, but also what they had failed to do. Wendy Dean, a psychiatrist, applied the concept to health care in a 2018 essay she co-authored in STAT. First responders witness trauma, and these events can have a stacking effect. But Dean’s critique had a more systematic bent: The U.S. health care system forces workers to carry out orders that transgress deeply held moral beliefs. “What health care workers have said on a regular basis,” she told Undark, “is that, even before the pandemic: ‘I can’t get what I need to do my job. And I can’t get patients what they need.'”

The Covid-19 pandemic intensified these issues. The virus has, so far, killed nearly 1 million Americans. For some health care workers, the politicized resistance to public health interventions, along with other on-the-job pressures, also seemed to be killing their sense of purpose. By some estimates, nearly one out of five health care workers quit their jobs.

While there is no clear way to measure mental, emotional, or moral injuries, data nonetheless suggests that leaving these issues unaddressed can have serious and widespread consequences. One 2015 survey of more than 4,000 EMS providers found that 37 percent had contemplated suicide. Suicides appear to be significantly higher than the general population for law enforcement officers, nurses, and physicians. Last month, the U.S. Senate passed the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act, which is named for a New York City physician who died by suicide during the Covid-19 pandemic. The legislation, which went to President Biden’s desk on March 11, would establish grants for more programing to promote mental health. But the law would do little to reform professional licensing boards, which can effectively end a career. (Breen’s family has said these fears were among the reasons she felt she could not get help.)

Without top-down reform to respond to the ongoing psychological crises, several initiatives sprang up in recent years, particularly as Covid-19 swamped health care facilities. Many turned to the same form of expertise: Peers, the people who lived through it.

At age 26, Joanne Rupert, who grew up in England and South Africa, responded to a newspaper ad for a volunteer firefighter. Rupert worked for Head, a sports equipment company, in Boulder, and took flying lessons on the side. Improbably, the first 911 call she ever went on with the fire department was to the scene of a plane crash. Joanne instantly recognized the plane: It was her instructor’s. Drawing closer, she could see that he had a terrible head injury. But she had no medical training, and just had to stand there and watch. “At that point,” she says, “I said, ‘Wow, I never want to feel this way.’ That I can’t help, and I really wanted to help.”

Joanne went on to become an EMT and eventually took a job as a victim advocate for a local sheriff’s office, assisting those affected by crime or abuse. While working there, she learned about an accident involving a rock crusher at a quarry, and went to check in on the firefighters who had taken the call. They showed her graphic photos of the scene, Joanne says, “as if it was another day of the week.” But not long after, she got a call at four in the morning from one of the firefighters. He was not OK, she says, and he asked her: “Can you come out?” It felt a bit like encountering the plane crash all over again. Joanne wasn’t a licensed counselor at the time, and her job with the sheriff’s office didn’t involve assisting first responders. She couldn’t help him — no matter how much she wanted to. “I can’t just self deploy and be a vigilante and take care of everyone,” she says. The incident was a catalyst for going back to school for clinical psychology and eventually starting the organization that is now First Responder Trauma Counselors.

FRTC offers cognitive behavioral therapy, a type of talk therapy commonly used for PTSD, as well as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, a technique where patients recall traumatic experiences while following sensory cues, such as tracking a therapist’s finger back and forth. (The exact mechanism by which EMDR works has been the subject of some controversy, though the American Psychological Association conditionally recommends it as a treatment for PTSD.) The Ruperts also offer alternative therapies with less robust evidence, including hypnosis, brainspotting (an offshoot of EMDR), and vibroacoustic resonance therapy that involves audible sound vibrations. But the core of their practice is predicated on having culturally competent clinicians — that is, their staff has worked as first responders. “Unless you’ve been at the dirty end of an arterial bleed, a weapon, or a hose line, you really don’t get what the feeling attached with the circumstance you’re in” is, Ed says, “and the hypervigilance that it creates over time.” Joanne says she emphasizes a pragmatic no-bullshit approach. “I’m not a touchy-feely therapist,” she says. “When people come in to see me, they don’t need me just to shake my head and go, ‘Uh-huh, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.’ That’s not going to work for a first responder. So I’m very much knees in the dirt, blood on the shirt as a therapist.”

One evening about a year ago, the Ruperts received a call. Joanne shared a summary of the conversation with Undark. “Everything was going fine on the phone. And then the person,” Joanne pauses. “I was in the middle of a sentence, and the person hung up on me.” She’d never met the caller, and so she looked at Ed, and said, “Uh-oh.” The couple picked up a paramedic and drove to the caller’s house at 11 p.m. Joanne says, “They were just like, ‘I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe you’re fucking here.'” The caller, who was intoxicated, had plans to die by suicide. The Ruperts say they stayed until the person sobered up and went to bed. (Data suggest that people who attempt suicide usually consider it for less than 24 hours before acting.)

According to some regional EMS administrators, the Ruperts and their counselors provide something that is sorely needed. “They just stand there with you,” says Kevin Waters, an EMS battalion chief. “Not just with us individually, but just with us collectively. And they stand in that space with you. And they say, ‘Yeah, we’re here. We’re here with you.'” Another former administrator in Fort Collins says a colleague of his had gone to group therapy, a counseling session geared towards laypeople, but he was told that they couldn’t help him after he shared details of an especially traumatic EMS call. He had experienced something most people could not imagine and most certainly did not want to hear about. If it weren’t for peer support, these testimonials suggest, there might be no one. Ed explains that the options available to civilians didn’t always seem like viable options to those in uniform. “The shame of calling 911 when they have a mental health crisis is overwhelming,” he says. “Everybody knows now. The toothpaste is out of the tube. You can’t unring the bell.”

On a night in November 2021, Ed says they have not had a day off since the first waves of Covid-19 arrived in Colorado. Listening to the scanner that night, it seemed clear that their work would never end. As winds, unusually dry for late fall, howled, dispatchers reported a three-car crash. Around 9 p.m., emergency responders reached a plane that crashed while fighting a wildfire, killing the pilot.

One of the driving forces behind peer support in the U.S. initially came from a movement led by people who had been diagnosed with mental illnesses or used drugs, who demanded alternatives to institutional approaches. Advocates wanted to reposition people in control of their own care. More recent efforts have focused on professionalizing these peers. Certified specialists are now recognized nearly every state and, since 2007, they are reimbursed through Medicaid, the single largest payer of mental health services in the U.S. As of 2016, 25,317 peer specialists were certified nationwide.

Despite the growing popularity of peer support, better empirical research, and data, is needed to single out or measure outcomes that are specifically attributable to the approach. For instance, in 2014, Sharon Reif, a health services researcher at Brandeis University, reviewed 11 previously published papers, only two of which were randomized controlled trials — the gold standard for health research. Subsequent reviews, including one by the Research Recovery Institute, a nonprofit affiliated with Harvard Medical School, have found some positive effects — for instance, reduced relapse and improved recovery. But in asking people what they need, and then getting it to them, the interventions vary. “Giving support is nebulous,” Reif says, “by definition.”

As such, Reif cautions against evaluations that compare peer practitioners against traditionally trained clinicians, which she says could create a false dichotomy that does not necessarily reflect the reality: Many people are simply not getting any support. Instead, she says, future studies might look a specific intervention, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, and evaluate one group receiving CBT without a peer compared to a group seeing a therapist in addition to a peer. (As Reif put it, “Do peers, plus whatever else you’re doing, make a difference?”)

For instance, one randomized controlled trial recruited 330 military veterans who were already receiving treatment for depression, such as medication or psychotherapy. The control group continued their usual care: Medication or psychotherapy from a traditionally trained therapist. The experimental group received their usual care along with computer-based cognitive behavioral therapy, but they also met with a fellow veteran who had personally experienced depression. Peer-supported therapy helped improve “depression symptoms, quality of life, and mental health recovery,” the authors wrote.

Something may certainly be better than nothing, but no evidence suggests peer support can be rolled out in lieu of addressing a root problem: The number of people who need mental health care exceeds those who get it.

Similarly, the pandemic spurred interest in applying the model in professional settings, particularly support by and for health care workers. Practitioners can face cultural and structural barriers to receiving the support they need. The American Medical Association, the largest professional group of medical doctors in the U.S., has promoted peer support training for health care workers providing formal and informal guidance to colleagues. In a June 2020 newsletter, the Joint Commission, a national accrediting body for health care organizations, encouraged the use of peer support during crisis, and pointed to a successful program developed at Johns Hopkins Hospital known as the Resilience in Stressful Events, or RISE, program.

Although research on the efficacy of peer support is limited, Cheryl Connors, a nurse and the director of RISE, says the best evidence is utilization — how often people call the support hotlines for help. When she spoke to Undark back in September, she said RISE went from about 12 calls a month to as many as 40 per day during the pandemic. Connors, who holds a doctorate in nursing, admits she would like better evidence, such as how often callers go on to seek further resources after talking with a peer. “We want to study this. We want to know direct impact,” she says, “but we also feel like it’s wrong.” Asking distressed workers for feedback on confidential support sessions, she explains, could feel intrusive.

Moreover, as Jo Shapiro, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and the founder of the Center for Professionalism and Peer Support at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, points out, there are many factors shaping the outcomes researchers would like to study, which can make it difficult to attribute any effect (or lack of effect) to peer support. “We’d like to see, ‘Did we prevent suicide?” she says. “Did we decrease burnout? Did we increase morale, productivity, retention, whatever? These are really important outcome measures.” But those factors are difficult to study in a limited size program. Suicide, for example, “occurs way more than it should,” Shapiro says, but not frequently enough to know whether a peer support program actually helped prevent suicides.

The concept of peer support has face validity, Shapiro says. It appears to work, and there is little evidence of risk. “This seems like a really reasonable thing to do. The chance of harm is just minuscule, right? The chance of harm of not doing it is huge.” She cites the high rates of suicidal ideation. The demand is there too: She pointed to a 2012 study in which she and colleagues surveyed more than 100 medical doctors, and found that 88 percent wanted some form of peer support.

According to Leslie Hammer, a professor of psychology at Portland State University, occupational psychologists’ recommendations for reducing on-the-job stress and trauma usually fall into several broad categories, including reducing demand and giving workers more autonomy. But neither option is especially viable in crisis situations. Instead, peer support appears to offer a third option: enhanced social support. Shapiro says she has worked with more than 100 health care institutions to set up programs. The concept continues winning over administrators and federal agencies. In recent years, the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration has increased funding for programs that involve peer support. On March 1, President Biden announced a plan to “build a national certification program for peer specialists,” as part of a broader initiative to address the country’s ongoing mental health crisis.

Shapiro says that peer support for professionals can reframe the emotional fallout of stressful events as an occupational hazard rather than a personal failing. In doing so, it can reduce stigma and normalize seeking help. “What we don’t have is proof that this is the way to do it,” Shapiro says. “But we’ll get there.”

By late 2021, the number of patients needing intensive care in Colorado threatened to surpass the number of available beds. Hospitals faced staffing shortages. Nurses were quitting in droves. Randy Jones has kept in touch with several from the hospital where he worked as a chaplain. He says that one of them quit the ICU and started baking cakes out of her home, picking up hospice work on the side. Another called him after taking some time off because of a suspected Covid-19 exposure. She wasn’t sure if she still had it in her to go back to critical care. Jones sympathized, and says the nurses were right to wonder: “Is my chosen profession the right thing for me? Or is it going to kill me?”

One day at his office, he sat with an ICU nurse of 14 years, who asked not to be named because she did not have permission from hospital administration to speak with media. She says she felt her colleagues sometimes took better care of patients when they learned their story. Covid made that harder, with so many patients on ventilators. Families only appeared over video-conferencing. Many ICU patients lay facedown, in a prone position, for 18 hours or more — a tactic, the ICU nurse says, used to help improve lung oxygenation. “How, in good faith, do I keep taking care of these people day after day,” she says, “knowing that I’m not doing the absolute best that I can do?”

One patient in particular had stayed with her. The woman ate breakfast, and then decided to go off oxygen. She died soon after, alone, holding the nurse’s hand. It wasn’t so much the death; it was that the woman’s rapid decline — without that being part of her plan. “And, so for me, it was, ‘How do I go to my next day?'” the nurse says. “‘How do I take this situation that is very different for me, grow from it, share it with my co-workers, but not let it weigh heavy on my heart and not take it home to my family?'”

Jones helped her realize a simple mantra: Control what you can and manage what you can’t. The nurse says she cares the same for each patient, including the estimated 80 percent of hospitalized Covid-19 patients in Colorado who had not been vaccinated as of last November. She met them where they were at regardless of their life choices. Still, the work left her with feelings her family might never understand, burdens she didn’t want to place on her colleagues. If it sometimes seemed like society couldn’t comprehend her experience in the ICU, at least she could count on support from one of her own. She didn’t seem to feel the need to go into detail, and with Jones, she didn’t need to. He’d been there. He got it.