By Tobye S. Stein I’ve never been envious of my friends for what they have nor am I impressed by status symbols that other people acquire. In the 1980s, the Honda Prelude with the removable top was the must-have vehicle among some of my colleagues. Later, that gave way to Mont Blanc pens and Rolex watches, then to BMWs in the early 2000s. I had two colleagues, women, who almost got into a physical fight over whose BMW was better. The cars were equal although one was a year newer. And one friend insisted for her 50th birthday that she needed the newest Mercedes convertible sports car. She hated it and turned it in as soon as the lease was up and opted for a Lincoln Navigator. This month, as Covid-19 vaccines became available, several people I knew got their first doses. I was glad that my friends in healthcare were finally getting the protection they needed. I was also happy for the first few friends and relatives who were getting “shot up.” But as more and more people in my universe received their first doses of the vaccine, I became increasingly agitated. Even though I was on five different waiting lists, my vaccine envy and my desire to be vaccinated grew exponentially. Fortunately, a friend and fellow high school classmate posted on Facebook that she had found the yellow brick road to Oz (my words, not hers). I immediately asked how she was able to schedule an appointment. She said that she called a number for Beaumont Hospital, which has several locations in the greater Detroit area. I asked if she’d share the phone number, and she did, thankfully. I called the number and spent nearly 90 minutes on hold. Of course when a woman came on the phone, I was speeding on the freeway to my appointment with my ophthalmologist. I was expecting the Beaumont woman to say I could have an appointment in February, late February if I was lucky. Amazingly, the delightful woman on the phone said she had availability two days later, and would I like a morning or afternoon appointment? When I asked to schedule an appointment for my husband Neal, she said yes and checked to see if we could come at the same time. Yes, come together! Now in order to schedule an appointment with Beaumont, we each needed to have a “myBeaumontchart.” It’s a means for logging into their patient system. We each have one because of prior appointments. The requirement is that you have to be a current Beaumont patient. While waiting for the ophthalmologist to enter, I called Neal to give him the good news. He informed me that he had received a confirmation email, and that his appointment showed up in his chart. He was wondering how that happened. I told him I had finally talked to a real person. I felt as lucky as if I had won the lottery, and Neal was calling me his hero. As my eyes were dilating, I checked my email but there was nothing from Beaumont. When I arrived home with eyes fully dilated and while wearing sunglasses, I attempted to sign into email, and there was gornicht --Yiddish for nothing-- from Beaumont. I checked my Beaumont chart and again zilch. And I was furious, upset, and getting even angrier. I told Neal that from now on, I would only schedule my own appointment. Of course this isn’t true, but things are often said in the heat of anger. I was apoplectic that he had his appointment, and I had none! Several hours later, when I called Beaumont again and was on hold for an hour, I checked my chart for the 50th time (okay, not 50 but quite often), and there was my appointment in my chart. At that point, I hung up the phone. The mysterious email confirming my appointment came in at 3:32 a.m. As my blood pressure went down, I began to realize how fortunate I was, and how ridiculous it was to be so upset. The vaccine may lead to a return to normalcy. Of course, all of my trepidation wasn’t immediately alleviated even with appointments schedule. I requested early appointments because, yes, I was concerned that they might run out of vaccines on any given day. I’ve heard repeatedly on the news that even people with appointments were turned away because their sites were out of vaccines. We arrived at Beaumont as requested at 9:25 for our 9:40 appointments. We walked and walked until we found the end of the line. It took 15 minutes or so before we entered vaccine heaven. We filled out a short form with the routine questions about having Covid, being exposed to Covid, and reactions to other vaccines. We also filled out a HIPPA form. We then proceeded to the next line for our injections. They were going to send us to separate desks, but I explained that I was going to write an article for a newsmagazine, and I knew my editor wanted photos. No problem. Just before we were sent forward, one employee said she was out of the vaccine. This of course made me very nervous, but I calmed down quickly when I realized there were so many vaccination stations. And then, we were given the Pfizer vaccine. The injection itself was less painful than a flu shot, a shingles vaccine, or a pneumonia injection. Neal concurred: the vaccination was painless. After the injections, we were directed to a person who made our next appointment for February 11, same time, same station. We then waited the required 15 minutes in an area where the seats were socially distant and wiped off between patients. We were also given the choice whether to have the CDC follow up on us for our reactions, and we agreed. Since then, we’ve heard from them daily. All of the Beaumont people were more than praiseworthy. We were thanked repeatedly for coming while in the first line, at the registration table, in the post-injection area, and on the way out of vaccine heaven. All of the employees knew what they were doing. I’m just hopeful that when we return on February 11, there will be second doses available. Afterwards, I shared that magic phone number with everyone who asked and all have scheduled appointments. My envy of others is once again in check. I honestly never thought that a vaccine injection would turn me into a green-eyed monster! Tobye S. Stein retired as Chief Human Resources Officer from a California-based financial services organization. She once landed a job by replying to the age old question, “Why should I hire you instead of the other two candidates” by simply stating “I’m funnier than most people.” It worked.

January 29, 2021 Dear Editor, I haven’t yet been “shot,” but I’m so very happy that you have had your first dose! My husband and I are in the “neverland zone” with respect to qualifying for the vaccine--maybe by the end of this summer. My mom, who is 91 and lives in a senior residence, received her first dose of the vaccine last week. Steve and I have been at home for a year, avoiding friends, masking up for a once a week dash to the grocery store, and otherwise waiting….just waiting… waiting to hear that our two daughters are still fine, waiting to Skype with friends, waiting with just a little bit of fear, for any news that might list someone we know who has been devastated with a positive Covid-19 test result. Our eldest daughter Bobbie and her husband Brock are both nurses, so they have already received their first vaccines. This Mama is trying very hard to be calm about my daughter’s possible exposure to the virus, but Bobbie dons PPE daily at the hospital, changes her clothes after her shift and showers when she gets home, all as part of her ‘normal’ day. We cannot visit our children, so Skype is our saving grace. Unfortunately, our granddaughter just looks at the computer screen and runs away, when her mama tells her to wave to Nana and Papa! But she is not quite two years old, and we are not yet in her circle of friends. We are missing so much, but we’re NOT complaining--we are blessed that everyone is safe and healthy! Okay--so I am complaining just a bit! I want a vaccination, I want to see my kids, I want to walk the dog without jumping up into someone driveway every few minutes, as another human being is walking towards us, possibly in a cloud of Covid, OMG! We are diligent about Canada’s six-feet-apart rule, and we are, knock on wood, healthy, but I anxiously await the time when we can hug people again! Only once has Covid come close enough to us to really shake our lives. A 39-year-old friend of ours caught the virus after attending a church picnic last summer. He was hospitalized for several weeks, lost 20 pounds, couldn’t work, and remained in his basement, ‘recovering’ the entire summer. Here in Canada, our population doesn’t compare with the number of people who live in the States, but behaviorally, some Canadians have been just as blind, or stupid, or uncaring as anyone else in the world. The message to “flatten the curve” just doesn’t seem to sink in with everyone! Trump’s gatherings used to terrify us, as we watched masses of people, unmasked and standing close together. And then, our friend went to a church social and nearly died as a result. What is wrong with this picture? Dr. Fauci says “wear a mask”; Dr. Fauci says “socially distance.” Good advice, yes? YES! And yet, people are still sick, still hospitalized, still dying, still denying that this is real and horrible. I lost my job due to Covid; I cannot visit my mother or my children; a road trip is going to the grocery store at 7 am. (7-8 am is “Old Folks’ Hour” and I’ve never been happier to be a senior citizen!). But on the plus side, I am healthy, and safe; I can call my mom every day and can email or Skype with my daughters. We even have friends who “invite us to dinner” on Zoom, while we make the same food and pretend we’re in the same kitchen! Thank goodness, 2020 was also a year of uplifting, supportive, and hilarious emails. Without face-to-face contact, it has been a highlight in my day to have correspondence and jokes and support sent to me over the Internet. Randy Rainbow is my hero--his YouTube songs and parodies have kept me running to my Inbox for much needed laughter. I think that the most important thing I’ve been able to do during the pandemic, is to find silly ways to keep my mom involved in life, even during the difficult periods of lockdown that have been enforced at the seniors residence. Loneliness is a terrible consequence of Covid in such facilities: activities are pared down to a minimum, and residents are eating alone in their rooms. Last year, I broke the administrator’s rules for six weeks, before I got caught. I’m such a rebel--I made dinner once a week for Mom and five of her neighbours! The staff was fabulous: they set up tables and chairs (socially distant) down the hallway for Mom’s “group”, and they ‘plated’ my dinners for those sweet people. My cooking is not extraordinary, but it was such a treat for Mom and her friends to have something ‘different’ to change up their week--a clandestine meal in the hallway. (I wasn’t allowed into the building, but I heard rumors that they supplied their own wine!) The change of scenery encouraged more conversation and laughter. I didn’t find out until I was forced to “follow the rules” and only provide food for my own mother, that those Sunday dinners were a highlight of their week. Now, with vaccines coming, it’s an exciting “countdown to freedom”. Until the dining room is open again in the senior residence, I try to treat Mom to dinners that I can deliver to her building. She’s very easy to please --tonight she wants Kraft Dinner! But I’ll do anything she likes, if it keeps her focused on staying healthy and getting her second vaccine. I’m jealous, Editor, of your vaccination--I’d willingly take mine in the Detergent Aisle! But I’m SO relieved that Mom and her friends will be safe again, when the second dose is administered next month. Offering my best wishes to all – be smart, stay safe, and get “shot!" Debra Perron/Alberta, Canada Debra was a paralegal for 40 years, until Covid gifted her an unplanned retirement this year. She is now looking forward to much anticipated vaccinations, after which she and her husband can start their road tripping adventures across Canada and the United States.

By Andy Borowitz January 28, 2021 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The emergence of Marjorie Taylor Greene is making Americans nostalgic for the wisdom and erudition of Sarah Palin, new polling shows. In focus groups conducted by the University of Minnesota’s Opinion Research Institute, participants revealed that they were suddenly revising their earlier negative opinions of the former Alaska governor, and were now grateful for her incisive commentary and geopolitical acumen. In light of recent developments, Palin’s inability to name a Supreme Court decision she disagreed with or a periodical she read, along with her controversial claims about the visibility of Russia, seem like “no big deal,” one member of the focus group said. “At the time, I thought she bombed her interview with Katie Couric,” he said. “Looking back on it now, I think she kind of nailed it.” Another focus-group participant said that, while Palin was unable to define what the Bush doctrine was, “at least she wasn’t obsessed with baby-eating cannibals controlled by George Soros.” “I miss her,” he said. Andy Borowitz is a Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes The Borowitz Report, a satirical column on the news.

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."

Opinion by Jeffrey D. Sachs | CNN.com Updated 2:30 PM ET, Thu January 28, 2021 Editor's Note: Jeffrey Sachs is a professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. His most recent book is "The Ages of Globalization" (Columbia University Press, 2020). The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author; view more opinion on CNN The Path to Recovery, a new CNN Opinion series by Jeffrey Sachs, aims to help readers understand the nation's economic crisis that has been building for decades and the role that the federal government should play in solving it. (CNN) - The US federal government should spend more money, and fast, to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, rescue hard-hit families and help states, cities and small businesses. But it should also strive for a relief package built on some degree of bipartisan consensus. The first step to this package? Acknowledging that in this emergency there is nothing wrong with borrowing the funds to help Americans in need. Interest rates are low, and borrowing conditions are easy. Tax increases to help fund the government in the longer term will be important down the road, but they are not the priority at the moment. President Joe Biden has announced a first step in addressing the crisis, unveiling an immediate rescue plan for an additional $1.9 trillion in federal spending, to be followed in the coming weeks by a recovery plan for the long-term structural challenges of jobs, health care, energy, education and infrastructure. There are three main categories of spending in the Biden rescue package. The first is funding to fight the pandemic: to pay for vaccines, supplies, federal health workers, workplace and school safety, paid sick leave and other essential public health needs. This funding, proposed at around $400 billion, should be a no-brainer. The federal government should be spending this sum to bring Covid-19 under control, not only to stop the deaths but to revive the economy, where losses will be in the trillions of dollars if the epidemic is not brought under control. In round numbers, the US GDP is around $20 trillion, so each 1% loss of GDP amounts to around $200 billion. The economy shrank by more than 3% in 2020, instead of growing by more than 2%, as the Congressional Budget Office had expected before the pandemic. Therefore, the shortfall of GDP relative to pre-pandemic expectation was more than 5%, or more than $1 trillion, not counting the painful costs in deaths and disease. The second category of spending is direct relief of about $1 trillion aimed at working-class families that have borne the brunt of the crisis, such as the millions of workers who lost jobs in restaurants, stores, offices and day care centers. The Biden plan offers several urgent support measures, including expanded unemployment benefits, rental assistance for families facing eviction, $13 billion to expand nutrition programs and financial support for child care for working families. All of these are obvious priorities in a national emergency. The third category of spending is $440 billion directed mainly towards state, local and territorial governments, and funding for low-interest loans to small businesses. While the federal government can borrow trillions of dollars, most state and city governments are generally bound to balance their budgets or borrow only very small amounts. The crisis has hit state and local government tax revenues very hard, while simultaneously increasing the critical needs for first responders such as police and firefighters, and other essential workers, including teachers, school nurses and staff for public health services. Former President Donald Trump largely opposed help for the states and cities, but this urgent funding is needed everywhere -- red and blue states alike. It is again a no-brainer for the federal government to use its borrowing power to support state and local governments that lack a similar power, so that they can meet payroll. The most debated part of the package will likely be the up to $1,400 stimulus checks being discussed for individuals earning below an certain threshold. While the Biden rescue plan has not yet put a price tag to this part of the proposal, we can estimate the cost to be around $400 billion, since the $600 check in December cost the US Treasury around $170 billion. There are two main arguments offered for this spending. One is that the households need it, but the proposed spending could be better targeted to those in need. The current proposal could actually send checks to households with incomes well above $150,000 per year (joint filers with dependents) and irrespective of whether or not the household has lost income in the pandemic. A second argument is that the economy needs it -- as a "stimulus" to consumer demand. This would be the case if households in the aggregate were cutting back spending because they lack enough purchasing power. However, when we look at the details in the changes in monthly merchandise sales, we find that the largest category of decline is for the category "food services and drinking places." The rest of merchandise sales, taken together, is up year over year. This suggests that merchandise sales are weak mainly because consumers are not going to restaurants and related venues (bars, sports events, theaters, concerts, and so forth) due to the pandemic -- not because of a shortfall in purchasing power. If this is true, the most important consumer stimulus is to end the pandemic. Another piece of evidence supporting this view is that households in the aggregate have been building up their savings, as shown by the high personal saving rate in 2020. Instead of spending their stimulus checks, households as a group saved much of them, presumably waiting for the day they can resume going to restaurants, sports events and other public venues. Of course there are millions of households in real need, and they should be targeted for urgent assistance as I've argued earlier. But there is no reason to spend more than is needed, especially because we face urgent needs in many other areas where we will want to spend funds (e.g. for health care, education, infrastructure and building the green economy in the recovery phase of the Biden plan). There is one more important consideration. Let's work hard to make this a bipartisan rescue deal. Every state, regardless of its politics, needs federal assistance. The incidence of Covid-19 is high in both red and blue states. And unemployment remains high throughout much of the country, especially severe (9% or more) in three blue Western states, Hawaii, California, and Colorado, but also high (6% or more) in many red states, including Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. Controlling the epidemic is everybody's business. If the Republicans call for changes in Biden's rescue plan and want a trimmed package that still meets the urgent needs of Americans, the Democrats should accept the opportunity to work together. If overall consumer demand were to flag down the road, both parties should then agree to boost through more stimulus. A party-line victory is possible through budget reconciliation -- and would prove to be the right option if the Republicans are purely obstructionist -- but it will be vastly better to collaborate and compromise, if possible. Why? Put simply, our country will work much better if we are not at each other's throats politically, but are at the negotiating table working out a path forward together. We have many national budget decisions ahead -- from how to bolster jobs, to how to modernize infrastructure, to how to build an internationally competitive economy. We will have to negotiate creatively to reduce the budget deficits ahead, including raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, who have experienced a massive windfall of wealth during the pandemic. Let's strive to build a broad consensus on the way ahead. Next: How to pay for the rescue and recovery of the US economy https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/28/opinions/biden-most-important-stimulus-measure-sachs/index.html

January 20, 2021 Jeffrey D. Sachs | Project Syndicate Throughout America’s history, the bigotry that fueled Donald Trump’s rise to power has never been far from the surface. Trump’s departure is an opportunity for a new beginning, not only in the deeply-wounded United States, but in multiethnic societies everywhere. NEW YORK – In celebrating the liberation from Donald Trump’s misrule, we must not forget that Trump’s presidency embodied the raw politics of US white supremacy. He often spoke like a segregationist Southern governor of the 1960s, and, after losing the 2020 election, like a secessionist senator on the eve of the Civil War. To sustain the victory over Trump’s destructive politics, we must overcome the racism that brought him to power. That urgent challenge faces not only the United States, but many multiethnic societies around the world. Trump sold a segment of American society – white, older, less educated, Southern and Western, suburban and rural, evangelical Christian – on the idea that they could reclaim America’s racist past. That group of voters, some 20-25% of American adults, became Trump’s ardent base in the 2016 election. That base was large enough for Trump to capture the Republican Party and then to squeak to victory in the Electoral College, despite losing the popular vote by three million. Other quirks of American politics enabled Trump’s 2016 win. If a high proportion of Americans voted, as in countries where registration is automatic and voting is encouraged or even mandatory, Trump would not have come close to victory in 2016. But impediments to voting that burden African-Americans, the poor, and the young are a long-standing part of American politics, their purpose being to maintain the political and economic supremacy of wealthy white people. In short, their purpose is to enable the election of the likes of Trump. Trump’s vulgar politics demonstrated the persistence of his racist appeal to older white evangelicals, and to some younger voters as well, such as those who stormed the Capitol on January 6 and threatened to lynch Vice President Mike Pence for not blocking the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College. Too few pundits emphasized the continuity of Trump’s racist nostalgia with the similar politics of Ronald Reagan, who used the nearly identical slogan – “Let’s Make America Great Again” – for the very same purpose. Yet racist politics is not only an American problem, though America has been exceptionally affected by it since originating as a slaveholding society. Trump’s political style finds counterparts in other multiethnic countries where racism similarly shapes the structures of power. Consider Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, another corrupt and manipulative politician. Netanyahu has held on to power by denigrating Israeli Arabs and denying the most basic justice to the Palestinian people. American white evangelicals have held a deep kinship with the Israeli right, and Trump and Netanyahu have shared the same exclusionary politics. Or consider Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, widely known as the “Trump of the Tropics.” Here, too, the connection with Trump is more than just style and temperament. US white evangelical groups saw in Bolsonaro one of their own and worked assiduously to help him win. Bolsonaro now governs by attacking Afro-Brazilian culture and Brazil’s indigenous populations. Or consider Trump’s close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Some claim that Putin has kompromat (compromising material) on Trump. Others see shared financial interests. But another part of the story is obvious political affinity. A major ingredient of Putin’s success has been to remind ethnic Russians that they are the true leaders of Russia’s multiethnic society. Putin’s political embrace of Russian Orthodoxy mirrors Trump’s political embrace of white evangelicalism. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been another fulsome admirer of Trump, and the two lavished praise on each other during Trump’s visit to India in 2020. Modi’s base includes far-right Hindu nationalists who preach hate against India’s Muslim-minority population. The Modi government’s military occupation of Muslim-majority Kashmir in 2019 generated little international concern, but offers a stark example of violent ethnic repression for domestic political gain. Alas, ethnic chauvinism can be found in almost every multiethnic society. It is no accident that Trump actually praised China’s repression of the mainly Muslim Uighur population in Xinjiang province. Likewise, Myanmar’s violent expulsion of the Muslim Rohingya population elicited mainly silence from the Trump administration. If there is one constant in racist politics around the world, it is this near-universal persecution of indigenous populations. Around the world, indigenous peoples have been robbed of their lands, forced into servitude, brutally killed, and pushed into poverty by late-arriving settlers. Yet this dispossession was never enough for the conquerors. In addition to the infliction of harm, and even genocide, the conquerors also blamed the indigenous peoples for their woes, maligning them as lazy, untrustworthy, and dangerous as their lands were being stolen. Yet there is also good news. Trump’s defeat, and the overwhelming US public opprobrium that met the Capitol insurrectionists, holds the lesson that we can move beyond our worst instincts, fears, and biases. White racists in America are losing their grip on power, and they know it. The times really are changing. The American people voted Trump out of power. The day before the insurrection, Georgia’s voters elected an African-American and a Jew as US senators – both firsts for the state that came at the expense of two pro-Trump incumbents. Trump’s departure is therefore an opportunity for a new beginning, not only in the deeply wounded US society, but in multiethnic divided societies everywhere. There is no excuse anywhere to govern by racial hatred and ethnic chauvinism. In the post-Trump era, governments everywhere should expel the hatemongers. The world should also look back in history to help us move forward. In 1948, in the shadow of the atrocities of World War II, all member states of the new United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This magnificent declaration is based on the principle of universal human dignity, “without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status. The Universal Declaration must be our lodestar. Its 75th anniversary in 2023 is approaching, and we have the means to say no to the haters, the demagogues, and the dividers. Trump left America in a shambles, with 400,000 dead from COVID-19, asking his followers to dispense with face masks. Now that we have instead dispensed with Trump, we can get on with the task of ending the pandemic and healing our deeply divided societies. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/eu-china-investment-agreement-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2020-12

By Dr. Shelly Broder It seems to me that, as a nation, we are experiencing a contentious divorce. There has been daily upheaval over Twitter and increased division among family and friends who cannot understand each other’s point of view. It’s a fractured home with an unstable parent who deals in fear and anger. Just as children need stability, security, protection and love, so does our democracy and its citizens. My experience of the past four years makes me imagine a child living in a home with chronic tension, awaiting the next bitter argument between his or her parents. The child’s needs are inevitably overshadowed. During this frightening and tumultuous time in our country’s history, I’m reminded of a longitudinal study I read while I was studying for my master’s degree in psychology, about the effects of divorce on children by psychologist Judith Wallerstein. It was a 25-year study following 60 some children. What remained with me were the five years during and just post the parents’ divorce. When a divorce was amicable, and when children had involved parenting from both parents in the first three years of life, generally children fared better in many areas: developmentally, socially, academically and emotionally. However, contentious divorces, and the longer the contentiousness lasted, had long-term detrimental effects on children. At the time of such a divorce, boys exhibited acute problems in their functioning. Girls, who appeared to adjust better at the time of the divorce, eventually had difficulty establishing a long-term committed relationship starting in their early 20s. Children from contentious divorces also faced emotional developmental arrests (think of Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development, such as overcoming feelings of inferiority in order to be productive or developing a sense of self and identity). They had ongoing problems throughout life. This is not to say that children from amicable divorces were unaffected. They were hurt, hypervigilant of each parent and had to go through grieving, whether with help or on their own. Once they began to establish their own connections in adulthood, however, they were better able to cope and to understand the divorce and their parents from a distance. They still had long-term worries about getting divorced themselves. The fantasy that their parents would reunite was found to be common among children of divorce, no matter the reality or life stage. I compare this to the desire to return to the former stability, rather than the current tenuousness, of our democracy. My elation that Joe Biden, and then the Georgia Democratic senatorial candidates, won, is juxtaposed with my awareness of an ongoing sense of relief since social media dropped Trump. I don’t have to listen to his latest bloviating. My daily life feels calmer without the “yelling” tweets nearly every day, like the child’s relief when the arguing has finally stopped. But the storming of the Capitol, the fracture in our democracy, is an enormous national trauma, similar to the way divorce rocks a child’s world. I am hopeful that in the next four years and beyond, with the organized, laser-focused and calming effect of the Biden Administration, our nation will move towards a more stable and predictable daily life. Like other psychoanalysts, I believe that people who individually did not have stable early years and are unable to face, or get help facing, their own unresolved hurt and anger, will not adjust very well. But for everyone, the trauma from the national fracture will remain. Rochelle M. Broder, Ph.D., a native Detroiter, is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Royal Oak, Michigan. She is a high school friend of the editor, Andrea Sachs.

A Poem by Dr. Barry Lubetkin "Mmm, a flood is threatening My very life today Gimme, gimme shelter Or I'm gonna fade away War, children It's just a shot away It's just a shot away" —“Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones I’m haunted by images of people riven by pain and sadness Exhausted migrants pleading For asylum at chained borders. Terrified Jews in Berlin Clutching tattered papers To trade for Swedish visas For escape and life. Black Americans queuing to vote, angry but doubtful, That their ID is enough, And they won’t be turned away And now My neighbors, my friends All those whom I love, Driven in a frantic frenzy To find a place, any place, Where an angel Can jab their arm with liquid future. An internet of chaos, “No Appointments” it screams, You are eligible if 1A,1B,1C “No Appointments” it screams Be 75, be 65, be essential, “No Appointments” it screams, Be high risk, be frightened, Be poor, be rich, be raging, “No goddamn appointments.” Covid anxiety paralyzes us. “Who is cutting the line?” “Can I buy it privately?” “Can I trade places with you?” “Will one dose be enough?” “A tip where to find it. Please” “I must find it. I don’t want to die” Why did they lie to us? Why did they refuse to reorder? Why did our scientists stall? Why did they wait so long? Why did the monster promise us a “miracle” and leave us hollowed out with fear? But we will live to tell the story. We will mask. We will distance. We will wash. We will struggle to be patient. We will believe kindness, knowledge and action will once again inhabit the White House. But behind our masks we will weep for the 400,000 we leave behind. Barry Lubetkin, Ph.D. is the co-director and co-founder of the Institute for Behavior Therapy in New York City. He is the author of numerous academic and popular articles, as well as two popular self-help books, Bailing Out and Why Do I Need You to Love Me in Order to Like Myself. The Institute for Behavior Therapy is the oldest private cognitive behavior center in the United States.

By Merrill Lynn Hansen I have never been suspicious that Covid-19 vaccines are a cover for a plan by Bill Gates to plant trackable microchips.  As soon as I heard Dr. Fauci talk about the promising Covid vaccines, I knew I was going to make an appointment when the vaccine became available in Michigan.  I want to be protected from the virus, and from the idiots who think it's a hoax. I know it’s real; I had Covid in March and April, and I could certainly get it again. Unfortunately, I am starting to think I might be the last person in Michigan who will be given the vaccine, due to the failure of Donald Trump (the guy who just lost a fair and democratic election to Joe Biden) to come up with a national plan for the distribution of vaccines to the states.  He has always turned a deaf ear to requests by our Governor,  Gretchen ("That Woman  from Michigan") Whitmer for a way to fight this deadly virus. I am disturbed about this, because I thought one of the benefits of my being a senior (age 69). is that I would be eligible to be vaccinated after healthcare providers, essential workers, and residents of nursing homes were vaccinated.  Since I no longer go to restaurants or the movies because of Covid,  I don't get the benefit of senior discounts, so I was thinking of the vaccination as a senior perk.  But making an appointment to be vaccinated has been more difficult than I anticipated it would be. I was able to register to make an appointment with a large drugstore chain. However, upon completion of the registration form,  I received a message confirming their receipt of my information,  but advising me that they are not scheduling any appointments. They promised to send me a text message when they are.   I have since learned that might not be for several months, because they don't have the vaccine at any of their locations. Now that they have my address, the least they could do is send me discount coupons for other items until they get the vaccine. (“Buy one Tylenol Arthritis, get one free.”) My friend Lynne gave me the phone number of a hospital that was scheduling appointments.  She told me that she called the phone number, held on the line for two hours, and was able to schedule an appointment for herself and her husband to be vaccinated on the following day.   She advised me that under no circumstances should I hang up if I were put on hold.  I immediately phoned the number she gave me, and I was greeted with a recorded message that said no appointments were available, and callers should not leave messages.  I continued to call for three days, and was prepared to be put on hold for at least two hours, but I kept getting the same damn recording. Another friend, Maxine, sent me a link to a website that had the locations of hospitals to register with online,  which would then contact me to make an appointment.  Each time I tried to register,  though, I was booted off the registration website,  and informed by email that said the information I was giving was incorrect.  I have no idea why I kept getting that message, since the only information I'd given was my legal name, my age, my zip code and the fact that I have never had an allergic reaction to a vaccine.  It is distressing to have a computer tell you that it doesn't believe that you are who you are, or that you don't live where you live. It may be possible  that my mother told her  mahjong group in 1956  that I had a bad reaction to my measles vaccination ("Marilynn had the worst reaction the doctors have ever seen."), but  there is nothing I’m aware of in my medical records that would dispute what I typed during the registration process.  Eventually,  I was able to complete the registration form, only to find that the hospitals  to which I was referred were not making appointments.  I couldn’t help but wonder if I’m being blacklisted, because someone, somewhere, has read all of my nasty Facebook posts about Donald Trump. A few friends have told me that they've received notifications from their healthcare providers, advising them that they will be contacted when appointments are available.  But to my consternation, I have not received an email or letter from my healthcare providers notifying me that they will contact me some day in the future, to tell me when they are going to send me  an email or letter, advising me that they are planning to schedule appointments eventually. I have signed up to receive several COVID-19  "updates" in the tri-county area. Every update is at least four pages long and has an  "Answers to Commonly Asked Questions" section.  Apparently, "When can I schedule an appointment?"  is not a commonly asked question, because I can't find a definitive answer anywhere. While it is reassuring to know that I am in the approved category to receive a vaccine,  I'm starting to feel the way I felt when I realized that I had not actually won  Publishers Clearing House's grand prize of $5 000 per week for the rest of my life, but was one of millions of people who could be chosen to win. I've noticed that some of my Facebook friends have posted about having received their first shots of the vaccine in the past week, and I've graciously congratulated them, rather than asking how the hell they were able to get an appointment.  But there are definitely some people whom I will "unfriend"  if they get an appointment before I do. What I find most frustrating, though,  is that I now immediately have to answer every single phone call I receive from a phone number I don't recognize,  in case someone is responding to my "Save Your  Place In Line" registrations.   If I miss my chance to schedule an appointment when they call, I'm afraid I'll get sent to the end of the line. In the meantime, I'm going to slug every person who gets within six feet of me and isn't wearing a mask. Merrill Lynn Hansen is a legal assistant, living in West Bloomfield, Michigan. She describes herself as a frustrated writer, who wishes she could be Nora Ephron (when she was alive), if only for a day. She is a news-, political- and FB-junkie, a combination that requires a constant reminder that she needs to take deep cleansing breaths when responding to people who don't agree with her.

By Jessie Seigel / Washington, D.C. In D.C., where I live, COVID-19 vaccines are given by appointment. You sign up through the D.C. Health Department either on its website or by phone. Starting a week ago (January 11) , D.C. Health opened vaccination appointments to citizens 65 years old and older. But many citizens have been extremely frustrated in their attempts to sign up. One of my neighbors complained that she couldn’t get into the website for over an hour and then the site refused to accept her address. So she called the phone number provided, but they never called her back. After all that, she learned that during the time period she was trying to get an appointment, Ward 3, our ward (the District has eight wards), was not even eligible to try to make an appointment. This longtime resident was so frustrated that she said she is seriously considering moving elsewhere. I can understand my neighbor’s frustration. I find myself swearing at the top of my lungs on a regular basis at automated hold lines on phones, and obstructive websites of all sorts. (Some day I’m going to give myself a stroke!) But the problem is not entirely the District’s fault. Although the D.C. Health Department opened up nearly 6,000 first-dose vaccine appointments for seniors over 65 the next weekend (January 16-17) and when those appointments were filled, added some 1,000-plus appointments the next day (January 18), D.C. has 86,000 seniors over 65 years old and must distribute this first dose among all of the District’s eight wards. In Ward 8, which has had 20 percent of the District’s COVID deaths, only 94 senior residents were able to get an appointment the first week. That amounted to about one percent of all appointments available. In contrast, Ward 3 residents accounted for about 40 percent of the appointments, which were available to all residents citywide. Ward 3 is predominantly white and affluent, while nearly half of the District is African-American, so there were charges that the vaccine system as operated discriminated against D.C.’s black residents. Accordingly, on the weekend of January 16-17, the District adjusted its approach by limiting those who could sign up over the weekend to wards that had fewer successful sign-ups during the week, including Ward 8. All eight wards were again permitted to try to sign up for appointments on Monday, January 18. In an email that Councilmember-at-Large Elissa Silverman sent to constituents, she explained that, in limiting the wards that could sign up, the District Council decided that a “first come, first served” approach didn’t take into account inequities in the community or ensure that those residents most at risk have equal access to the vaccine, and tried to correct for it. I think the effort at equity makes sense. But, at the same time, Ward 3’s larger number of sign-ups may have been because it has a larger number of seniors, also an at-risk group. The real solution, of course, is to have more vaccines, and thus more vaccine appointments available. This is a concern not only in D.C. but all across the country that we can only hope the start of President-elect Biden’s Administration will cure. But now, even if one signs up for District phone or email alerts letting you know when new batches of vaccination appointments will be available, the process—as Councilmember-at-Large Silverman put it—is like “trying to buy tickets to Hamilton.” As for myself, I am not rushing to try to sign up. I do want to be vaccinated. But because I frequently develop allergies to various vaccines and medicines, I am trying to research which locations would best be able to deal with an anaphylactic reaction if I should have one. My allergic reactions thus far have never been that bad, but having heard reports about the nurse in Alaska who had to be hospitalized over her anaphylactic reaction to the vaccine, I want to be prepared for any possibility of a first time. 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.

Opinion by Jeffrey D. Sachs | CNN.com Updated 7:30 AM ET, Tue January 19, 2021 Editor's Note: Jeffrey D. Sachs is a professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author; view more opinion on CNN. The Path to Recovery, a new CNN Opinion series by Jeffrey Sachs, aims to help readers understand the nation's economic crisis that has been building for decades and the role that the federal government should play in solving it. (CNN) President-elect Joe Biden is inheriting a national crisis that has built up over 40 years. On January 20, 1981, former President Ronald Reagan took the US on a radical course when he declared in his inaugural address, "In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." He set out to weaken the federal government by slashing taxes on the rich, dismantling regulations, cutting back on public programs and turning many of the nation's problems back to the states. President Donald Trump continued this approach -- passing massive tax cuts in 2017, and then when calamity hit with Covid-19 in 2020, placing the burden of response on the states. It is Biden's historic task to reverse Reagan's -- and Trump's -- reckless radicalism. Reagan won the presidency in 1980, in part, because of two actions by Democratic presidents that had brought an end to the national consensus in favor of activist government that began with Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s and lasted through the 1960s. The first action that ended the consensus was profoundly moral. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson both backed the Civil Rights Movement's call to dismantle America's racist policies, including the segregation of housing, schools and places of public accommodation, and the systemic denial of voting rights to African Americans, which had prevailed since the end of Reconstruction. They did so in the face of intense opposition by segregationist Southern Democrats -- and knowing that their actions could split their own party. The result was a furious backlash of White working-class voters that swept Richard Nixon into office in 1968 with the help of the "Southern Strategy," a new Republican strategy to court disgruntled Southern White voters. These White voters thereafter strongly supported politicians like Nixon and Reagan who promised to cutback the enforcement powers of the federal government and stop federal programs on jobs, housing and community development that would undermine continued segregation at the local level. The second action was profoundly immoral. Johnson escalated the Vietnam War even though he knew the war was conducted on the basis of lies and deception. Johnson's decision was also politically disastrous because the war spending ramped up inflation and bitterly divided the nation. During his first term, Nixon further escalated the war and the inflation and unleashed years of monetary instability that lasted through the presidency of Jimmy Carter. When inflation reach 13.5% in 1980, Carter was defeated by Reagan in November that year. Reagan claimed that he wanted to stop deficit spending, but his 1981 tax cuts increased the deficits (from 2.5% of GDP in 1981 to 5.9% of GDP in 1983), as did the 2001 tax cut under former President George W. Bush and the 2017 tax cut under Trump. Over time, the various tax cuts were not matched by offsetting spending cuts, since broad areas of federal spending were -- and continue to be -- very strongly backed by the public. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, in 2019, there were strong majorities supporting increased government spending on many domestic priorities, including education, infrastructure and the environment. The result has been a massive buildup of federal government debt, which was also stoked by the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. The federal debt owed to the public was 25% of GDP when Reagan took office. It was around 98% of GDP at the end of 2020, and will likely soar further because of further urgent spending related to Covid-19. The bottom line is that the US has very low taxation as a share of GDP (in fact, the lowest among all high-income countries in the OECD except Ireland), insufficient public services, decrepit infrastructure, and massive debts and deficits -- all at the same time! The states are not able to step in by providing more local services and infrastructure neglected by the federal government. States compete with each other by slashing taxes to attract investments away from other states. Only the federal government has the power to raise adequate tax revenues to meet the public's needs for healthcare, education, job training, research and development, infrastructure and other needs. As the federal debt has grown -- and many states have struggled -- one part of American society has laughed all the way to the bank. The wealthy funders of both parties -- Wall Street financiers, big oilmen, Silicon Valley gurus, real estate developers, private-prison owners, etc. -- couldn't believe their good fortunes in receiving repeated tax breaks and even the deregulation of their polluting activities. The rich got richer year after year, while working class Whites and African Americans, social conservatives and social liberals, evangelicals and atheists, waged the pitched battle for the nation's soul. Reagan's failed radicalism has now run its course, and the United States, while culturally as divided as ever, is at an economic and environmental precipice. Real hourly wages for the median male worker (at the 50th percentile of the earnings distribution) fell 3% between 1979 and 2019. Student debts are $1.68 trillion, owed by an astounding 44.7 million borrowers. And climate change has plunged the nation into crises of mega-forest fires, coastal flooding, extreme storms, droughts and heatwaves. The year 2020 tied for the world's warmest on record, an astounding 1.25° Celsius above the pre-industrial temperature -- with worse to come. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, the rich have gotten much richer. Over 150 of the richest Americans, who number among the world's richest 500 people, now have a combined wealth of $3 trillion, which is up by over $600 billion from the start of 2020. With Covid-19, the very richest Americans hit the jackpot, with their wealth soaring as the result of Federal Reserve liquidity, huge budget outlays and their ownership of the digital platform monopolies on which much of the economy now operates. The Biden administration must now find a recovery path out of the wreckage of four decades of Reagan radicalism and the politics it created. Reagan got us stuck on the ideas that "government is the problem," cuts in federal tax cuts are necessary, environmental regulations are problematic and major national problems can be left to the states and cities. These ideas, alas, are wrong, even though they are widely believed and were politically convenient for those who disliked the federal government's policies to end racial segregation. Americans have learned, the painful way, that we need an effective federal government. Just as states and cities could not contain Covid-19 when the federal government shirked its duties, we will also continue to fail to create enough decent jobs, educate our children, ensure safe water for our farms and cities, protect the health of Americans, face the climate emergency and modernize our infrastructure, until we mobilize the federal government to act on behalf of all Americans and all parts of our nation. Next in the series: What Biden's economic rescue plan needs to do https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/opinions/joe-biden-ronald-reagan-problem-sachs/index.html

By Andy Borowitz January 19, 2021 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—A Millions of liberals were traumatized on Tuesday when they found themselves in agreement with Mitch McConnell, liberals are reporting. From Santa Monica, California, to the Upper West Side of Manhattan, liberals sought emergency counselling, complaining of a range of symptoms after realizing that they were on the same side as the senator from Kentucky. Carol Foyler, a liberal from Austin, Texas, said that she experienced lightheadedness and nausea after liking a Facebook post that detailed McConnell’s remarks in the Senate. “The room started spinning,” she said. Dr. Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota Medical School said that liberals who are traumatized by agreeing with McConnell should “not be concerned” and should recognize that it is a temporary condition. “They’re not going to wake up tomorrow and start agreeing with Devin Nunes,” he said. Andy Borowitz is a Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes The Borowitz Report, a satirical column on the news.