FRED PLOTKIN is one of America’s foremost experts on opera and has distinguished himself in many fields as a writer, speaker, consultant and as a compelling teacher. He is an expert on everything Italian, the person other so-called Italy experts turn to for definitive information.  Fred discovered the concept of "The Renaissance Man" as a small child and has devoted himself to pursuing that ideal as the central role of his life. In a “Public Lives” profile in The New York Times on August 30, 2002, Plotkin was described as "one of those New York word-of-mouth legends, known by the cognoscenti for his renaissance mastery of two seemingly separate disciplines: music and the food of Italy." In the same publication, on May 11, 2006, it was written that "Fred is a New Yorker, but has the soul of an Italian."

By Jessie Seigel / Washington, D.C. Much has been made of Kamala Harris being a first—the first female, the first South Asian American, the first Black American—to hold the office of Vice President. Some have emphasized her importance as a role model, that seeing someone like yourself in such a position is necessary for young girls of whatever background to believe that they can aspire to such a role. Amanda Clayton, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University, has stated, “There’s a lot of empirical evidence that you can’t be what you can’t see.” While that, if true, may be relevant to the study of social psychology, far more important to social policy than being a role model is what one stands for and how a person will use power. It does no good to put a Black man in a position of power if he is a Clarence Thomas rather than a Thurgood Marshall. Electing a woman because “it is time for a woman” could just as easily inflict a Sarah Palin or a Marjorie Taylor Greene on us as give us an Elizabeth Warren or an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Thus, in the case of Harris, more important than her being a first is what she stands for and how she is using the power of her office to further it. As Vice President, Harris broke the 50-50 tie in the Senate to pass the Administration’s Covid-19 relief legislation. Given the Senate’s even division between Democrats and Republicans, and the Republican Party’s determination to obstruct anything proposed by the Democrats, she is likely to be called upon to do so again many times. Harris is also leading the Administration’s diplomatic effort to deal with Mexico and Central American countries on immigration. This is a role Biden had when he was vice president. Within the last month, Harris has taken to the road, educating the public about various aspects of the Administration’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan, officially known as the American Jobs Plan. She recently gave a major speech in North Carolina advocating for this legislation, highlighting its proposed $20 billion investment in converting gasoline- and diesel-powered school buses to electric vehicles. She also spoke about the Administration’s intention to make the largest jobs investment since World War II. In addition, Harris visited a water treatment facility in Oakland, California, to promote the legislation’s proposed $111 billion investment in water infrastructure. But Vice President Harris is not just a spokesperson selling the infrastructure program. Much of that plan’s content is based on bills she developed and/or cosponsored while she was a senator. Harris introduced a 2019 bill to electrify the nation’s school buses, which make up 90 percent of the country’s bus fleet, in order to alleviate diesel fuel pollution that is thought to contribute to child respiratory illnesses. Citing senior Administration officials, the Washington Post wrote that the infrastructure plan’s proposed conversion from diesel to electric “is derived directly from Harris’s original bill.” The infrastructure plan’s proposed replacement of the nation’s lead pipes and service lines to ensure clean drinking water and reduce lead exposure in schools, homes, and child care facilities is similar to Harris’s proposed 2019 Water Justice Act. Portions of the infrastructure plan also parallel a bill Harris cosponsored in the Senate to invest in building high-speed broadband in underserved and unserved communities. In addition, last summer, then-Senator Harris—together with Senator Cory Booker and Representative Karen Bass—introduced the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would lower the criminal intent standard for law enforcement officers, limit qualified immunity, and create a National Police Misconduct Registry. After the conviction of Officer Derek Chauvin for George Floyd’s murder, Harris spoke eloquently, stating that racial injustice “is not just a Black America problem or a people-of-color problem. It is a problem for every American.” She noted that we are all a part of George Floyd’s legacy and that “this bill would hold law enforcement accountable and help build trust between law enforcement and our communities.” The fact that so much of the infrastructure plan incorporated Senate bills Harris was instrumental in developing or sponsoring, as well as her role in authoring and introducing desperately needed legislation to curb police murder, speak not only to Harris’s work as a senator but to the influence she has as vice president, and the partnership she and President Biden have forged in only a few months. On March 24, Biden announced he was tasking Harris with the diplomatic effort to coordinate with Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) for their acceptance of returnees and for enhancement of enforcement at their borders. However, the larger purpose of the diplomatic effort is to address the causes of mass immigration in the countries where they begin so that their citizens will not feel the need to leave in the first place. In discussing her role, Harris emphasized this: “We all know most people like being at home. They like being where they grew up….So we have to ask ‘why do people leave that?’ and usually they leave because there is a lack of opportunity or it is just not safe. And so my area of focus on the Northern Triangle is to deal with some of those issues.” In an effort to discredit Harris, Republicans have begun a campaign to mischaracterize her role as one with responsibility for the entire problem at the border itself and claim, after a mere month, that she is failing at the job. The Republican National Committee’s rapid response director Tommy Piggott wrote, “Kamala Harris is a so-called manager who refuses to actually visit the scene of the crisis.” North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, on returning from his theatrical but meaningless tour of the border area Rio Grande River with Ted Cruz, John Cornyn and other Republican senators, said, “Get down here. Get informed and recognize you’ve got a crisis and it’s on you to fix it.” One must ask, where were all these Republicans during the four years of the Trump Administration’s deliberate neglect and cruel aggravation of border immigration problems? Oh. Right. Their fix was to steal children from their parents and put them in cages. In reality, in accordance with her job description, Harris made contact with the President of Guatemala within a few days of the assignment. She reaffirmed “the Administration’s commitment to working together and expanding partnerships to benefit the people of the region” and discussed “the significant risks to those leaving their homes and making the dangerous journey to the United States, especially during a global pandemic.” Piling on, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), which describes itself as having a “pro-immigrant, low-immigration vision which seeks fewer immigrants but a warmer welcome for those admitted,” complained that Harris failed to extract a commitment to stem the flow of immigrants in that initial conversation with Guatemala’s president. Even if one assumes CIS was reacting in good faith, it apparently has no understanding of how diplomacy works. International diplomacy does not reap results in one day or in one phone call. Some in the media, whether unwittingly or deliberately, are playing into the Republican narrative. When Harris received an extensive briefing by the Senior Coordinator for the Southern Border, the National Security Council Senior Director for the Western Hemisphere and the Special Envoy for the Northern Triangle, CNN stated “While aides work in the background, Harris has been busy getting up to speed on the region’s specifics.” This phrasing seems to suggest that Harris is unprepared and that her aides must do her work while she comes “up to speed.” But Presidents (except perhaps for former president Donald Trump) regularly are briefed by experts on the various issues they must address. Why would a vice president not also be briefed on an issue she was going to deal with? Referring to Harris’s statement about investigating what causes people to leave their home countries, The Hill had the temerity to accuse Harris of lacking a basic knowledge of immigration law, writing: “Asylum isn’t given to migrants who come here because there is a lack of opportunity or it just isn’t safe in their own countries.” It has to be based on “persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution.” Since Harris was not addressing asylum or whether immigrants could enter the U.S., The Hill was demonstrating its own ignorance or deliberately misconstruing her words. Furthermore, as a senator, Harris made it her business to stay extremely well informed on immigration issues. Her very first speech on the Senate floor attacked Trump on immigration. According to Politico, “Harris would head home with huge binders of stats and data on the immigration system, scribble notes in the margins asking for more info and then come back to aides for what has been described as intense preparation sessions that the staff called ‘the hot bench.’” Harris clearly does her homework—something that neither the last administration nor her current Republican detractors ever bother to do. The Republican and right-wing media barrage, whether based on her being Black, South Asian, a woman—or just a Democrat—should fall flat, given Harris’s impressive credentials and performance. And ultimately, Kamala Harris’s vice presidency should be remembered for her diligent, incisive work, not for the novelty of her being the first of any kind. Jessie Seigel is a fiction writer, an associate editor at the Potomac Review, a reviewer for The Washington Independent Review of Books, and a dabbler in political cartoons at Daily Kos. She has twice received an Artist’s Fellowship from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for her work. But, Seigel also had a long career as a government attorney, in which she honed her analytic skills. Of this double career, Seigel would say, “I guess my right and left brains are well balanced.” More on and from Seigel can be found at The Adventurous Writer, https://www.jessieseigel.com.

Move over, Siskel and Ebert! There’s another impressive movie maven in town. Irvirg Slifkin of Cherry Hill, N.J. is the hands-down winner of The Insider’s first annual Oscar competition, taking home a $100 Amazon gift card. Out of ten questions, Irv only got one wrong: Actor in a Leading Role. Irv incorrectly selected Chadwick Boseman, as did almost everyone in the country.. (The actual Oscar winner was Anthony Hopkins.) It’s not an accident that Irv knows so much about film. It’s his calling. Irv has been teaching journalism and film at Temple University and Rowan College for 15 years. He also writes about film: he is the author of the books Groovy Movies: Far-Out Films of the Psychedelic Era and Filmadelphia: A Celebration of a City's Movies. Two years ago, Irv coproduced a three-part documentary called Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All-Time. Not surprisingly, he is currently working on a new documentary. If you live on the East Coast, you have probably sat next to Irv in the theater. He sees some 200 new and old films a year. Before the pandemic, Irv tells he Insider, “I would typically go to a theater two to three times a week.” But like the rest of America, Irv’s moviegoing habits have changed during the pandemic. “I have not been to a theater since last February,” he says. That doesn’t mean no movies, though. Says Irv, “the pandemic has given me an opportunity to watch older films I haven't seen. I have also been reading lots of biographies, so I have been watching movies that pertain to them over the year.” Irv’s favorite film of 2020 was Kajillionaire. If you’re worried that Irv’s vita is too skimpy, fear no more. He typically programs and hosts movie series in the South Jersey area, mostly at libraries. “Because of the pandemic,” says Irv, “I started something called "Zoom Movie Club," which I hold several times a month. We hold free events with specific themes where other movie and TV fans can discuss movies and socialize. “ Whew! Congratulations, Irv, and pass the pandemic popcorn! While we’re sharing breaking news, thought we should also let you know that The Insider has been featured recently in several newspapers. A big thanks to our loyal readers who have made this possible! https://nypost.com/2021/03/18/indie-publishers-buck-virus-with-new-titles-acquisitions/ https://thejewishnews.com/2021/04/05/veteran-journalist-and-oak-park-native-starts-pandemic-publication/ https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/02/19/insider-magazine-covid-19-pandemic/4514181001/

By Naomi Serviss The bloom is off the Zoom. True, virtual reunions are better than none. My husband Lew and I cherish our weekly family gatherings. We have dinners and watch movies together. It’s fun observing daughter Emmy’s felines Pippin and Theo do cat things. Our son Ben and his fiancée Katherine have a pound pooch, Luna, who is a rodeo clown. We stretch our goodbyes like Laffy Taffy. Sadness washes over me. Our thirtysomethings aren’t as emotionally invested. They’re millennials, weaned on indifferent computers. Versed in all the devices. I’m a Boomer with Luddite leanings. Letter writing is more my speed. Seeded in Mrs. Mason’s seventh grade Social Studies class, where Jane and I furtively passed notes. Mrs. Mason was not amused. Sometimes we’d get ratted out. One afternoon, a smarty-pants kid intercepted and read one out loud. He got his comeuppance. Jane plunged a fountain pen nib into his hand. Indelible ink tattooed his nice shirt. Lesson learned. Quarantine’s isolation ignited my cobwebby note-passing passion. I ordered Alexander Calder cards during MoMA’s winter stationery sale. Fineliner pens and multicolored sealing wax sticks and stamps were delivered. I remembered three pen pals. One was a Kyoto schoolboy. His artfully addressed envelopes were rice paper thin. Postage stamps were mini-artworks. A Schenectady friend sent postcards. The third pen-pal was a distant Rhode Island relative. My father. He had been ditched by my mother when I was four. She had hauled four out of five children onto a Greyhound bus bound for Elkins Park, a Philadelphia suburb. I wouldn’t see my father again for years. My mother nixed his pleas for a reunion. No reason given. She held firm to that spiteful decision. Then about-faced when I was ten. The father I didn’t remember wrote me a letter. He asked about school and my Elkins Park life. I filled him in with 10-year-old wit. Tree-climbing, creek-exploring and wandering untethered filled my days. Railroad tracks ran behind the Montgomery Avenue Victorian house we lived in. My six-year-older brother was cruel. He tormented me daily while my mother worked. My mother, brother and I had moved into a one-bedroom attic apartment on the third floor. The Juliet balcony terrified me. A clawfoot bathtub had a cheap rubber hose for a shower. The tiny living room was furnished with two daybeds. Stifling in the summer heat, the apartment in winter was barely heated. I often spent days and nights with my best friend Susie. Her family’s estate-like home was across the tracks. Scout, her golden retriever, loved to cuddle. He favored the carpeted piano room for its streaming sunlight. Stormy was their snaggletoothed cat. He lounged beneath the front bushes. Mary was a full-time housekeeper. Her husband Bill tended the sprawling grounds. If not there, I’d be exploring the creek at the foot of Ogontz Junior High. I’d wade to my ankles, scouting paramecium. The cleansing cool water was restorative. A perfect setting for my fantasies. Flicka, my gentle mare, friendly phantoms and Gertrude, a toothy beaver, fueled my tall tales. My father’s letter contained a dollar bill. A Buck For Luck was inscribed next to it. A new copper penny was taped to the bottom. Our letter-writing continued long after my siblings disappeared. My love for words shaped me. I shared that love with my children. Our Greenlawn kitchen had a designated drawer filled with cards, pens and colored markers. Arching rainbows and eyelashed suns decorated Emmy’s creations. Ben’s notes were droll. Our family Zooms on Sunday. We text, email and tweet daily. Millennials are not into phone calls. Emmy’s cards are dusted with silver stars and purple glitter. Reflected in those stars is a little girl with high hopes. She’s rereading a letter from Rhode Island. Enclosed is a shiny copper penny. And a Buck for Luck. Naomi Serviss is a New York-based award-winning journalist whose work has been published in The New York Times, Newsday, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Highroads (AAA magazine), in-flight publications, spa and travel magazines and websites, including BroadwayWorld.com

By Frieda Hughes / Wales Dear Insiders, Hello there, and I hope this finds you all well! I’ve been rather quiet over here for a while, working on the renovation of my new studios. But I really want to share this with you, although I realise we are on separate landmasses (there is always DHL 😊). I’m trying to let as many people know as possible! My exciting news is that four paintings I sold many years ago are being offered at auction at Woolley and Wallis in Salisbury (UK) on 12th May, together with a child’s chair that my mother, Sylvia Plath, painted for me and my brother. If you know anyone who might be interested, please point them in the right direction! Links below. Thank you so much! I’m also having an exhibition at the Chris Beetles Gallery in London for the week of 26th October. If any of you happen to be in the UK then, and are at a loose end, just let me know and come and join me: friedahughes.art@gmail.com YELLOW SKY 20/9/96 oil on canvas 4ft x 6 ft. (121.5 X 183 cm) Sunset over the West Australian desert with a couple of lovers walking through it, to the bottom left. https://www.woolleyandwallis.co.uk/departments/paintings/pw091220-1/view-lot/601/ SUNSET No 1 Oil on canvas over board 19 x 15 inches (approx.) (49.5 x 39.3 cm) Sunset over scrubland in Western Australia https://www.woolleyandwallis.co.uk/departments/paintings/pw091220-1/view-lot/602/ SUNSET No 3 Oil on canvas over board 19 x 15 inches (approx.) (49.5 x 39.3 cm) Cloud forming over the West Australian bush https://www.woolleyandwallis.co.uk/departments/paintings/pw091220-1/view-lot/603/ SUNSET SERIES No 5 (FIELD OF SHEEP) 9/9/98 40 x 32 inches (approx.) (102.2 x 82.2cm) Oil painting of a moonlit hillside of sheep https://www.woolleyandwallis.co.uk/departments/paintings/pw091220-1/view-lot/604/ The child’s chair that my mother, Sylvia Plath, painted for me when I was a small child 18 ½ x 11 x 11 ½ inches (approx.) (47 x 28 x 29cm) https://www.woolleyandwallis.co.uk/departments/paintings/pw091220-1/view-lot/605/ For current paintings and prices, please visit my website: www.friedahughes.com And if you would like to hear me reading my poems, please visit my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2GuwGZ1xWeWblUT1eNhwDg I think that’s everything! Please let me know if you have any questions. Frieda X Born in London in 1960, Frieda Hughes is a poet and figurative and abstract painter. She was the U.K. Times Poetry columnist from 2006 – 2008, and has also written a number of children’s books, and numerous articles for magazines and newspapers over the years, about poetry, motorbikes and gardening among other things. Her poetry collections to date include Wooroloo, Stonepicker, Waxworks, Forty-Five, The Book of Mirrors, Alternative Values and Out of the Ashes. Alternative Values became her first illustrated collection when Frieda used the subject of her poems to inform the accompanying abstract images. One of Frieda’s recent exhibitions was in Chichester Cathedral, and included paintings from Alternative Values, and a mammoth project, ‘400 DAYS’, an abstract visual diary of 400 consecutive days painted in oils on 400 canvases. The finished work was approximately 13 feet high and 29 feet long, but is now being sold as individual pieces. Frieda’s most recent poetry collection, Out of the Ashes, is a selection from four of her earlier collections, and was published in 2018 by Bloodaxe Books UK. She is currently working on two new collections and an art exhibition that is scheduled (coronavirus permitting) for the week of November 16th this year, at the Chris Beetles Gallery in London.

By Jane Fishman “Alexa, do baby giraffes have spots?’ “Alexa, when will I die?” The pandemic brings out different concerns for different people. The seven-year-old, who loves giraffes, knows where to go for answers. The 77-year-old, who knows there are no answers, is grasping at straws. That’s what a pandemic does. People are dying, lots of people, careful people. Will we be next? In the meantime, we wear our masks, we debate cleaning our groceries, we clean out our pantries. So that’s where all the flaxseed has been hiding. We scrub down the honey-caked shelves, organize the cans. We paw through stacks of spiral notebooks tossed over decades in blue plastic milk cartons. I find a black-and-white composition book of my mother’s. One page per month, written in pencil, her loopy handwriting growing more and more indistinguishable. The highlights. April 1989: Root canal, lunch with Harry and Maggie, Michelle’s bar mitzvah, Lucille Ball died. November 1990: accident Middlebelt and 14 Mile Road, Dorothy tumor on colon. November 1991: Dorothy very sick, Dorothy died. I reread Geraldine Brooks’ novel Year of Wonders about the bubonic plague in 17th century England. In Michael Cunningham’s book, The Hours, I read, “She offers her cheek for a kiss as she goes out to buy flowers for her big party” and I think, “Whoa, you really shouldn’t do that.” We watch the arresting Snowpiercer by the South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho and then four more of his dark, dark movies. It’s a good time for dark movies. The fourth time I watch Hamilton, I hear the lyric, “The world will never be the same.” On the High Holy Days I rethink the meaning of, “May your name be inscribed in the Book of Life.” Death is on my mind. Then oddly enough I get a “shelter-in-place” check from my insurance company for $14.12. The next month I get another one for $13.76. No explanation. I cash them both at a drive-through bank. I miss my in-person bank teller. A neighbor trades some homemade rye bread for a big batch of homegrown collard greens and one big old rutabaga. We sequester at home. To myself (I would never say it out loud), I think, “Life is good.” Until I have to go to Staples for a black-and-white print cartridge. Get me in, get me out, I think. This is the kind of foot soldier I’d be in Vietnam. On edge, tense. I hear Lucinda Williams sing, “You took my joy, I want it back, you took my joy, I want it back” and I listen to it again and again because while not lonely, I’m scared. I request an onion pie for my May birthday. That was last year. Now, doubly vaccinated and still standing, there are lessons from 2020. I recently went to a soft opening of a new restaurant. I was hoping we’d be seated outside. We weren’t. The room was loud, people were table-hopping. There were lots of expensive cocktails being served. I hunched down in the booth and looked around. I saw lots of familiar faces, people I hadn’t seen in at least a year, good people, people I like, people who do good things, work hard, think outside the box. A few have been to my house. But here’s the thing, I don’t think I talked to–or thought of–one of them during the social hiatus known as Covid. No calls, no texts, no emails. In short, there was no one I saw that night I had missed. Things could change, of course, post-Covid. In months I could be chitchatting with any number of people I saw that night, at the weekly farmers’ market debating the merits of different mushrooms, during the crush of an art opening, next to the surf on the beach. That would be fine, but following a year of relative isolation, I feel a little skittish. I know it’s important to branch out and include all kinds of people in our lives. But for now, after carefully distilling who I’m around, I’m not at all sure when that will happen. P.S. Baby giraffes are born with spots. Jane Fishman’s got a great life in Savannah. She gets to grow garlic, write newspaper columns in the Savannah Morning News about any wacko she can find (and get paid for it), publish books (her latest: I’d Rather Be Seen Than Viewed, a collection of her columns; preceded by So What’s the Hurry? Tales From the Train ; I Grew it My Way, How Not to Garden; The Dirt on Jane; and The Woman Who Saved an Island, the Story of Sandy West and Ossabaw Island), listen in on conversations with her two grandchildren, Baker and Benny, while going on morning nature walks as they debate which is better, living in the country or the city (“I like both habitats,” says 7-year-old Benny). Fishman owned a laundromat in Eureka Springs, Ark., cooked in a French restaurant in Key West, won a bunch of journalism awards in Savannah for humorous and serious columns. When she lived in Chicago and worked at WTTW public television, she met Fran of Kukla, Fran and Ollie and watched Abbie Hoffman rant at the trial of the Chicago 7. Fishman grew up in Detroit (Huntington Woods, really), where she never owned a car. She was the sports editor of her high school newspaper (The Acorn) at Royal Oak Dondero. This is her first wedding.

By Matthew Beck I’m now a graduate of the humongous Jacob K. Javits Center vaccine machine! I received my first Covid shot on March 31 and my second one week ago, on Wednesday, April 21. If you’re unfamiliar with the Javits, it’s New York City’s convention center and it’s BIG—1.8 million square feet. I’m by no means familiar with Javits; I’ve lived in Manhattan since 2000, and these were my first and only times ever being inside. My wife took her New York State bar exam there in 2008. But I’ve walked and driven by it countless times and appreciated its dark blue glass exterior and airport terminal-like vastness. Both times, I walked to and from my Upper West Side apartment because I haven’t taken any form of public transportation, including taxis or Ubers, since mid-March 2020. Walking south, I turned off Amsterdam Avenue at 38th Street to head west, and—useless fact alert—I learned from the parked carriages and eau de horse manure that this is where the Central Park carriage stables are. There were no signs on or around the building itself announcing the Javits Center as a vaccination megacenter, except for a small, handwritten note inside the window of the central vehicle entry hut saying “Covid vaccine entrance up the hill”. On arrival at the southeast entrance, through countless double doors that all had signs saying PLEASE DON’T ENTER BEFORE YOUR ASSIGNED VACCINATION TIME WINDOW (which I ignored, having arrived four hours before my appointment), I swapped my jogging mask for my N95 and walked into the airy, tall atria. The Starbucks and the suburban mall standard, Panda Express, undoubtedly bustling during pre-Covid conventions, were closed. A giant screen listed Covid information and safety protocols in many languages. One of the signs said NO PICTURES BEYOND THIS POINT; otherwise, I would have photo-documented the visit. It’s obvious from the moment you walk in that the Javits vaccination site is not a Rite Aid or Walgreens pharmacy-scale operation. I didn’t notice it during my first visit on March 31, though on April 21 there was a sign that read “WE’RE SCHEDULED TO VACCINATE 7,482 PEOPLE TODAY.” That’s scale. I chose one of eight lines, at the end of which sat a uniformed, unarmed National Guardsman. He politely checked my documentation to make sure I was scheduled for the right day and ignored that I was four hours early. He sent me into the main convention hall through a wide hallway next to the Panda Express, which now merged into two lines. On March 31, it was the Pfizer vaccine on the left and J & J on the right. There was just one line (for Pfizer) on April 21, since J & J’s vaccine had been temporarily halted. The lines were roped off in endless switch-backs: back and forth, back and forth, forth and back, and back and forth. I was pleased that everyone was observing good distancing. When the lady in front of me eventually and cleverly tried to go under the ropes to skip a bunch of switch-backs since there weren’t others directly in front of her, a Guardsman immediately scolded her for breaking the rules. There were audible groans from the folks behind me (none from me, uncharacteristically), though everyone complied. At the end of this maze, soldiers directed groups of ten people to five different aisles of registration desks. All had 3-foot Plexiglass partitions with bank teller-like slots at the bottom. Required: confirmation of appointment; proof of pre-appointment online questionnaire completion; driver license; proof of vaccination card (for the booster appointment). For so many people in such a cavernous room, it wasn’t that loud. But my registrar spoke so softly through the Plexiglass and I’m basically deaf amid any ambient noise. He had to repeat all his basic questions over a few times as I tried to fit my ear through the slot at the bottom of the partition. No, I haven’t had a positive Covid-19 test or knowingly been in contact with someone currently confirmed to have Covid in the past ten days; no, I haven’t travelled recently; no, I’m not prone to fainting post-vaccination; no, I’m not anemic and so on. While obviously important, the registrar’s rote delivery of the questions reminded me of airport personnel asking whether you and only you packed your bags. I wouldn’t have minded the next labyrinth of lines had the man in front of me not navigated the entire 1.6 miles (exaggeration) at a snail’s pace. I couldn’t pass him; that wouldn’t have been kosher as it would have brought me way too close to him and I’d risk a feared Guardsman scolding. I did eventually make it to the end and had to choose to get into one of six 50-foot lanes. Mr. Snail’s Pace obviously yet inexplicably chose Line 1, which had ten people ahead of him. I chose Line 6, the furthest, because it was empty. BOOM! A meaningless victory. The next National Guardsman told me to follow the blue tape on the floor to Lane 1 for vaccination. Each lane had two sides with eight double-desk stations staffed with a registrar on one side and a vaccinator on the other, with chairs for two vaccine recipients on the opposite long end of the tables. While the registrar rechecked all my forms and ID, the injector vaccinated the man at the other end of the table and immediately applied a band-aid. The injector dropped the alcohol swab, needle, band-aid wrappings, and latex gloves in the biohazardous waste bin under the table. Once the registrar confirmed my registration was in good order, she asked “which arm, left or right?” I chose right for the prime shot on March 31 –I was suffering from a C5-C6 pinched nerve at the time that resulted in relentless, excruciating pain in my left arm, and even though I’m right-handed, I was afraid of post-vaccination injection site pain on top of the pinch. My epidural had set in by the time of my April 21 booster, and I was pain-free by then, so I chose my left arm that time. The injector told the registrar to note switching arms. I’m not afraid of needles, though I opted not to watch. It was not a gentle jab; it felt more like she took a running start and stabbed the needle into my arm with all her force. At least it was a brief sprint and jab, and then I got my band-aid and was told to follow the yellow tape arrows on the floor to the post-vaccination monitoring area. There must have been 30 rows of chairs spaced precisely 6 feet apart in all directions. I accepted a complimentary mini-bottle of Poland Spring and sat down. (I was bummed there were no peanuts or biscotti--what kind of an airline IS this?!). I checked my email; I read for a few minutes; I noticed Mr. Snail’s Pace shuffle down the line seemingly without a worry in the world. There was a string band playing modern classics such as David Arnold's “Casino Royale” (the James Bond movies theme song) and Frozen’s “Let It Go;.” The musicians wore matching green NYC vaccination T-shirts. The post-vaccination, crowd waiting to be released, clapped quietly as if for a hotel bar pianist after each song. It was a nice touch to the Covid vaccination experience. On March 31, I was in and out of the Javits Center in under 40 minutes, including the post-vaccination waiting period. On April 21, I was in and out in under 25 minutes. So yes, it does show how impatient this New Yorker is when people walk too slowly according to him. The Javits Center mass vaccination effort is brilliantly organized and clearly keeps crowds moving along quickly. I bet it could handle more than 25,000 vaccinations per day (based on nothing other than my best guess). Due to a small smallpox outbreak in New York City in 1947, the City vaccinated 6,350,000 people against smallpox in under one month to halt it in its tracks. This useful fact gives me hope that we, as a civilization, can stamp out SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, even if we can’t vaccinate at the same pace as in 1947. I’ve done my small part. Matthew Beck lives with his wife and three daughters in a New York City apartment that he hasn't left often enough during the pandemic, except for a daily 12-block loop to the fruit stand and book swap at the library.  He and his kids recently sprouted an avocado pit and enjoy watching it grow. Says Matt, “Internet wisdom suggests we'll grow avocados in 11 years...we've got time.”

By Bonnie Fishman An important part of preparing a pandemic pantry is looking ahead to making life easier and to be ready for a satisfying and delicious meal at the drop of a hat. One of my favorite recipes for this is my Spicy Meatballs Marinara over polenta. You may be wondering how this could be a “prepared pantry” item. Easy-peasy. You will always have ground meats on hand. (If not, put them at the top of your grocery list.) Marinara sauce is made with pantry-stocked diced tomatoes and crushed tomatoes in puree. And the polenta is a staple–yellow cornmeal. I know this sounds kind of pedestrian, but my favorite go-to yellow cornmeal is Quaker Oats. It has the perfect consistency for all my needs: polenta, cornbread, and for sprinkling on the pans of my homemade bread or pizza before they go in the oven. It can be found in almost every grocery store in America. . So, now that you have your ingredients, how do we make this into a pantry item? It will, of course, become a freezer pantry item. You will make the meatballs and freeze them in dinner portions; you will make the marinara sauce and freeze it in pint containers. Actually, marinara sauce is always one of my freezer pantry items as it has many applications. For example, you can sauté a bunch of veggies or brown some ground meat in a large skillet to bring out its wonderful flavor. Pour on a splash of wine and reduce it. Add in your defrosted marinara sauce and presto! You can pour it over any kind of pasta. Before cooking the meatballs and marinara from the freezer, defrost them in the fridge overnight. Reheat the meatballs in a covered casserole dish at 350° for 20-25 minutes. Heat the marinara in a sauce pan until it comes to a boil. Assembly: Make the polenta according to the recipe below. Then, put a mound of polenta in the bottom of each pasta bowl. Top with 2 meatballs. Cover with marinara. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan and a sprinkle of chopped parsley. Pass the Parmesan and a black pepper mill. Spicy Meatballs with Marinara Sauce Yield: 8-12 servings (24 meatballs) Meatballs: 1 c. fresh bread crumbs 3/4 c. grated Parmesan 1/2 c. fresh chopped parsley 1/2 c. low-fat milk or rice milk 1/2 c. chicken stock 5 egg whites 2 Tbs. dried oregano 1 Tbs. minced fresh garlic 1 Tbs. coarse salt 2 tsp. dried basil 1 1/2 tsp. black pepper 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes 2 lb. ground veal, ground turkey, ground beef or any combination Marinara Sauce: 3-4 Tbs. olive oil 1 lg. onion, medium dice 3 garlic cloves, minced 2 tsp. dried oregano 2 tsp. dried thyme 2 tsp. dried basil 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes, more if want spicier 1 28 oz. can diced tomato in juice 1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes in puree salt and black pepper 1-2 tsp. sugar to taste Meatballs: In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients except the ground meat. Beat together. Add the meat, working with your hands; combine mixture until just blended. Using a 2 oz. ice cream scoop, measure out the meatballs onto a cookie sheet. Line a jelly roll pan with parchment or foil. Roll the balls briefly and place on the pan. Pour in 1 cup stock. Bake uncovered in oven at 350° for about 25-30 minutes or until cooked throughout. Marinara sauce: In a 4 qt. Dutch oven over medium high heat, sauté the onions and garlic in the olive oil until translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Add the herbs, crushed pepper flakes, canned tomatoes and crushed tomatoes. Bring to a boil; turn down to a simmer. Cook uncovered for at least 1 hour. Remove from heat and puree with an immersion blender. Season with salt, pepper and sugar to taste. The sugar makes for a sweeter sauce if desired. Polenta Yield: 4-6 servings 4 1/2 c. water 1 c. yellow cornmeal 1 1/2 tsp. salt 3 Tbs. butter fresh ground black pepper 1/2 c. grated Parmesan (optional) Polenta: Bring 4 cups water and the salt to a boil in a 3 quart heavy bottom saucepan. In a small bowl, whisk together the cornmeal and 1/2 cup water. Slowly whisk the cornmeal into the boiling water. Turn down to medium high heat. Cook the polenta, whisking often. When it gets too thick for the whisk, switch to a wooden spoon. Turn down to medium heat. Stir often. Cook the polenta for 25 minutes or until the cornmeal is fully cooked and doesn’t feel grainy. Blend in the butter, season with black pepper and add Parmesan if desired. Bonnie Fishman attended the Cordon Bleu Cookery School in London. Later, she owned and operated Bonnie’s Patisserie in Southfield, Mich. and Bonnie’s Kitchen and Catering in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. She has taught cooking for over 35 years and created hundreds of recipes. She is now living in Northern California.

April 27, 2021 Dear Editor, My name is Crow. I live in Cowtown—a nickname for Calgary, the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta. Why it’s not called Cat-Town is a big mystery to me. I am a talker--often--to anyone who will listen and pet me. I run down our long hallway three times a day, trying to dart into any open doorway. Everyone knows me and I enjoy a great deal of attention. I came to my present home at the McKenzie Towne retirement community three years ago from a local pet store, just before the pandemic nearly shut down this country At that time, I was said to be about eight years old, making me eleven years old at the present time. I have a bad habit of swiping at my owner with my claws--which do not get cut often enough. As this is written, I am sitting on the desk next to her computer and meowing steadily. The kitchen staff knows that my friend does not eat bacon, but when it is on the menu, someone wraps some up for me--a nice treat. I often snuggle with my friend on the couch. At night, I sleep at the end of her bed for a while before departing to my own bed in another room. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind a walk now--so goodbye! Meow! Crow/Calgary, Alberta Naomi Cohen, 91, has lived at the McKenzie Towne retirement community in Calgary for nearly five years. Born and raised in Detroit, Naomi has lived in Canada since 1955, but has remained a U.S. citizen.

By Russell Bikoff / Fairfax, Virginia I am an athletic 69-year-old man and two weeks ago, I dodged a heart attack. My weight (168 pounds) and BMI (25.5) are normal and doctor’s notes characteristically refer to me as well- or solidly built. Before the pandemic, when I commuted to my downtown Washington, D.C. office, I ate an apple every day for decades on the drive home, hoping and believing (as my mother and grandmother used to say) that would “keep the doctor away.” When the pandemic began in March 2020, I stopped my weekly one-mile swims at my local indoor pool because of my concerns about pandemic safety. Though I felt safe swimming regularly during the outdoor pool season last summer. I reduced my bicycle rides, normally between 30 and 50 miles every weekend, because I did not want to be near other cyclists on the roads and the trails of suburban Washington D.C. Still, I was sure I was living a healthy lifestyle, because I was eating a balanced diet pretty low in animal fat (except for weekly hotdogs, bacon, or an occasional sausage product) and while working from home, walking nearly every afternoon. These walks would be from two to four miles on most weekdays; on weekends, I joined my wife and sometimes one or more of our visiting sons in hiking or walking briskly, a minimum of four miles and usually more, at nearby parks. I was in fine cardiac shape, and had the heart of Superman, or so I thought. I was controlling my risk factors, which were few, as my statins were keeping my cholesterol numbers low and impressive at under 160 total cholesterol, with high HDL (good) and a fine ratio of LDL to HDL below 3. I was on my third statin over the past 15 years or so, now taking Crestor (rosuvastatin) at the low dose of 10 milligrams a day. But something worrisome started to happen. On my local walks, alone or with my wife, there were gentle uphill sections, some of which extended about half a mile. Why was I now feeling a slight burning in my esophagus, a little nausea, and excessive salivation on these uphill segments? Was it a change in my diet? Maybe switching to Passover foods and eating matzoh? Was it a reaction to the Moderna vaccine? Maybe it was just excess gastric acid I could control by taking an acid blocker after lunch. Thinking that this was unusual, but not a critical threat to my life and health, I decided to put up with the annoyance and hoped that it would go away. I told my wife and my sisters about this, and finally, after three or four weeks when I’d had enough, I contacted Doctor G, my primary care physician. He told me to come in the next day, which I did. With the second Moderna vaccine more than two weeks behind me, I did not hesitate to go into his office though double masked. As the son of a doctor, I thought I could contribute to the diagnostic process, so I told the doctor that the symptoms were probably gastrointestinal. Doctor G told me that I needed to see my cardiologist so both doctors could exclude a heart issue before addressing other possible causes. I had not seen my cardiologist, Dr. K, in three years, so I tried to make an appointment online. I got to the central scheduling number of his multi-office practice, and told the scheduler that I had an order from my internist and was experiencing symptoms, which I specified. She gave me an appointment for mid-September! (I learned later that she placed me in the wrong “basket.”) That was unacceptable to Doctor G, who immediately got me an appointment with another cardiology group. This was on a Friday, April 9. The young cardiology fellow, Doctor E, who met with me scheduled an echocardiogram the following Monday and a “nuclear” stress test (i.e., with isotopes, so a type of scan that collects data from the heart before and after a patient goes on the treadmill) two days later, on Wednesday, April 14. Now I was focused on my heart. I began to think about other people’s hearts from the distant past, as well as more recently. I had just written a condolence card to a good friend of my youngest sister. The friend had lost her husband to a heart attack recently at age 55. And several months ago, a good friend and former neighbor of ours, Michael, had died in his sleep at age 71 from what sounded like a heart attack. My dear friend Tom survived a heart attack several years ago in his early 60’s and ended up with catheterization and a stent.. My late father, whose cardiac issues (another risk factor for me) started with a heart attack at age 82 that he survived, had lost two close friends to heart attacks in the 1970s and ‘80s when he was younger. His friends were in midlife. Dad, a Harvard Medical School-educated and Boston Beth Israel-trained surgeon who practiced general medicine on Eastern Long Island for 40 years, had a triple bypass in 2007 and lived to 2017, to 91 years. I also began some web research about coronary artery disease (CAD). I looked at a report from the National Institute of Health and a series of informational guides from the Cleveland Clinic. Over 16 million Americans suffer from coronary artery disease, with about half a million cardiac events taking place every year. Coronary diseases are still the number one cause of death for Americans. American men have nearly a two out of three chance, and American women a one out of two chance, of developing coronary artery disease after age 40. I also read that most heart attacks end in death, because people are unable to get care from emergency medical services or hospital emergency rooms in time, when every minute is critical. While waiting quietly at home over the weekend to have the echo test on Monday, April 12 and the stress test two days later, I began to feel annoying pressure in my chest. I attributed this to the reading and to the phenomenon of psychosomatic symptoms. It was not. The Monday echocardiogram seemed to go well, but on Wednesday I flunked the nuclear stress test. I experienced chest pressure despite an extra-long 10-minute rest and recovery from the treadmill. While waiting after the tests, I had chest pressure again, this time more intensely, and told the technician about it. That led to a second, unplanned electrocardiogram. When the supervising cardiologist came into the treadmill room, she told me that I would not be going home but would go across the street by EMS ambulance to the emergency department of Fairfax Hospital. Things began to move quickly. I received emergency department care through Wednesday evening, then went up to a room in the cardiac section— private, possibly because of the pandemic. On Thursday, with the chest pressure noticeable and seeming to get worse, I along with my wife Sue and my brother-in-law Steve, a retired pediatric cardiologist, waited in the hospital room until late afternoon. Then a nurse and transport person wheeled me to the hospital’s basement and into the Cath lab for a cardiac catheterization from Doctor H, an expert interventionist with a leading group in Northern Virginia. To my surprise, I was awake for the procedure, with only mild sedation. This procedure is considered nonsurgical and noninvasive, because the doctor and team thread a catheter from the wrist through the blood vessels to the aorta, then explore the cardiac arteries. The doctor found a blockage in my left anterior descending artery (LAD) and was able to clear it with a balloon in a procedure called angioplasty. The blockage was the result of plaque, a combination of calcium, lipids— fatty deposits from the blood— and platelets, with a hard-shell covering. He then placed a stent there. A smaller blockage further along in the LAD was not critical enough to repair this time, because it was not interfering with blood flow. The hospital released me the following day, on Friday morning. A week ago, on April 20, I returned to the cardiology practice and met with my regular cardiologist, Doctor K, an experienced and highly regarded doctor, like his partner who had performed the catheter procedure on me. I learned that my blockage was 95% and it could have been the result of a rapid buildup of a clot stemming from a breakup in the plaque that had been growing in my arterial walls for decades. A 100% blockage would have caused a myocardial infarction, a heart attack. In the LAD, which branches off from the left main artery and brings blood to the left ventricle, a portion of which is known as “the widow maker,” this is not good. So where do I go from here? I am still recovering from the procedure and feeling occasional pressure in my chest, the phenomenon called angina pectoris. I can relieve this with nitroglycerin, but if it gets worse or crushing, I will need to get to the emergency room— fast. I am cleared to resume cycling, swimming, and hiking, the sports I typically do, in two to four weeks, building back slowly and stopping if I have symptoms, including angina. In the meantime, gentle walks of one to two miles are encouraged, as well as joining a cardiac fitness program at a local hospital. I am on new medications, Toprol, a beta blocker to relax the heart, and Effient, a blood thinner to prevent clotting around the new stent, which the body treats as a foreign object for a while. Plus, a new dose of statins (40 milligrams), four times the amount of my previous dose. And back to baby aspirin, 81 milligrams, for the rest of my life to act as a blood thinner. For now, I’m only allowed one alcoholic beverage at a time, infrequently. In six months when I am off two of the meds, I can resume moderate drinking, i.e., two glasses of wine at dinner on occasion. The doctors advised me to reduce red meat consumption, because of its inflammatory effects on the circulatory system. Travel this summer should be fine, since my wife and I are planning a trip to the Southwest that will give opportunities for moderate hiking, but certainly not from the top to the base of the Grand Canyon and back. What did I learn from the doctors, my reading, and this experience? First, good cholesterol numbers are not enough. Low dose statins, which I had been on, were completely misleading and gave me a false sense of confidence. Low doses, recent studies show, do not have the same beneficial effects on the coronary arteries as medium and high doses. I am hoping now that the high doses, as my cardiologist explained, will do the cleanup work of reabsorbing some of the plaque from inside the arteries. Second, I absolutely should not have waited three or four weeks while speculating about the causes of my set of symptoms. I should have gone to my primary doctor immediately. He explained to me that in the 1980s, before cost-saving measures went into effect, my symptoms would have led me straight to the cath lab without pausing for a stress test (presumably for diagnosis and ballooning, since I understand that stents did not appear until the early 1990s). The cost-savings studies changed American medical practice in this regard, and for the worse in Dr. G’s view. He asserted that he knew the issue was cardiac from the start, because my symptoms were all “exertional.” Third, I was the fortunate beneficiary of Doctor G's compulsive approach to medical practice. He made multiple calls to ensure that I saw a cardiologist quickly after he had seen me, that I scheduled the tests, and that I had the catheter procedure without much delay. Fourth, the cardiology fellow helped me by quickly scheduling the two screening tests, putting me on baby aspirin over the intervening weekend, and telling me to take it easy. Fifth, I am indebted to the cardiology practice that quickly got me into the cath lab and was able to successfully clear the blockage with angioplasty and place the stent. Had that procedure failed, the next option would have been coronary bypass surgery with grafts for one or more new arteries. This is major invasive surgery, performed by a thoracic surgeon, not an interventional cardiologist. As I told our three adult sons, I am now living with a new reality of CAD, which I had had without knowing it and now know I will have for the rest of my life. I see in retrospect how lucky I was to have symptoms that led to nothing more than catheterization and a stent. If you have any symptoms, any one or more things that are out of the ordinary, especially if related to exertion or exercise, I urge you to reach out to your primary physician ASAP, and make sure the whole process and the people involved move quickly. As I learned at great risk, the key word is “quickly.” Russell Bikoff has been a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and a federal official in the foreign affairs community and the U.S. Department of Justice. For the past 15 years, he has practiced law in Washington, D.C., focusing on criminal defense, civil litigation, and other civil matters.

By Victoria Rolfe It’s time to get out there! Yay! Another season of playing in the dirt! If you are a new gardener, you will first have to create your garden. For a vegetable plot, your site should get at least six hours (ideally early to mid-afternoon) of sun per day. An ornamental garden may do with less sun, if you don’t have that much in your yard. You can always concentrate on shade-loving plants. The site should be close enough to the house for you to keep an eye on it. It should also be well drained. Do puddles remain in that area for a few days after it rains? If so, it might not be the best area for your garden. If you are planning to start a new garden, now is the time! Well, actually (for future reference) the ideal time would have been in the fall, but you can still start one now. The easiest way to do this (did I mention that in addition to being a frugal gardener, I am also a lazy gardener?), requires no digging. It is a wonderful method called lasagna gardening, known so for its system of layering materials one on top of the other, as you would in constructing that equally wonderful casserole dish. If you use this method, you do not even have to dig up the grass. You simply smother it. You start with a layer of cardboard or thick layers of newspapers. Lay them on the ground in the shape you want your new garden bed to be. (Remember, newbies: start small.) After your newspaper or cardboard layer is in place, wet it down with the garden hose. On top of this, you can add layers of wood chips, shredded leaves, composted manure, compost or garden soil. Especially since you are starting in the spring, just before planting time, your topmost layer should be something very fine, such as garden soil, or very finished, screened compost. That way, you can plant seeds and tender young seedlings into it. An additional benefit of this method of creating a garden plot is that you end up with a lovely raised bed. You can surround this with wooden sides if you want, but there is no need to. Your raised garden be will provide drainage to your garden, and also serve to warm the soil more quickly than if it were level with the ground. So get out there! It’s a great way to get some exercise too! And start dreaming of filling that plot with the richness of what nature has to offer in the coming months. Hopefully, you are well on the way with your little indoor seedlings. Keep caring for them and marveling at their unfolding beauty. Next time we will delve into planting some seeds directly into the ground, and the real fun begins! Victoria Rolfe has had a love of gardening all her life, from the time she was a tiny child coveting the daffodils growing in her neighbor’s yard (and wondering why she couldn’t have them in her own), to her teenage years when she took her pot experimentation in a different direction by growing the seeds she extracted from the bag into a beautiful marijuana plant on her bedroom windowsill. She went on in her adult years to feed her family by growing a huge and bountiful vegetable garden, as well as beautifying her three-acre property with an array of ornamental trees, bushes and flowers in the magnificent Hudson Valley region of New York. Victoria learned a great deal in the process of all this plant experimentation. She then added to that knowledge by taking courses with the Cornell Cooperative Extension to become a Master Gardener Volunteer. In her volunteer capacity, she helps to educate the public on gardening through classes and information booths, most notably at the Dutchess County N.Y. Fair each August. Throughout the summer months, Victoria is most likely to be found among the weeds, either in her own garden or those of others who actually pay her to play in their dirt and do the thing she loves best, delight in the magical world of gardening. Victoria is not only a gardening aficionado; she is also passionate about helping people live a better life on less money. Visit her website and blog at brightfuture2budget4.weebly.com, or email her at brightfuture2budget4@gmail.com.

April 20, 2021 Dear Editor, I had no idea how much I was holding my breath and holding everything in until I heard that the jury in the trial of Police Officer Derek Chauvin had reached a verdict. I furiously began checking news sites, only to find that yes, a verdict had been reached but we still had to wait for the jurors to return to the courtroom. Longest 45 minutes EVER! Pundit after pundit weighing in on what a quick verdict must mean. Clearly a unanimous agreement had been reached, given the short deliberation. It couldn’t possibly be innocent, given all that we’d seen. Or could it? Judge Cahill began to speak. I realized I'm sitting, literally holding my breath, hands to my face. Guilty. Thank God! Second count. Guilty. Oh my God! It’s really happening. Third count. Guilty. I breathe. In approximately 10 hours, 12 jurors have decided that a reasonable person would not hold their knee to another person’s neck as he pleaded for his life. “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. Momma. Momma. I’m going to die…..” George Floyd calling for his mother always got me. I imagined the panic, the knowing, this is it. Much has already been said about today’s guilty verdict. I wouldn’t begin to say I have an idea what this means to people of color. I agree that this isn’t exactly justice, but it is accountability. And that is one giant first step. I am so proud of Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, who did not mince words regarding today’s guilty verdict. This is merely a beginning. There is much work to be done to right systemic wrongs. Walz rightfully called out white privilege. He said we cannot be proud of our white students' advanced standings when our black students come in dead last. He called out power; no one is beneath the law and no one is above the law. Change must be afoot. Today the Minneapolis metro area is breathing a sigh of relief. George Floyd is still dead. Daunte Wright is still dead. But today, there is at least a glimmer of hope for change. With hope, Stephani Tikalsky / Bloomington, MN