By Andy Borowitz October 1, 2020 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a rule change announced on Thursday, the Commission on Presidential Debates said that Donald J. Trump will not be permitted to attend the second debate. “We took a look at the first debate and decided that we needed to tweak the format a bit,” Harland Dorrinson, a spokesperson for the commission, said. “We think this rule change fixes everything.” Anticipating criticism that a debate must have at least two participants, the spokesperson said, “There will be, if you count the moderator.” To enforce the rule change, the commission will post a photo of Trump at security, but Dorrinson said that he hoped that such a measure would not be necessary. “If President Trump is listening, we are asking him to stand back, but don’t stand by,” 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.

One film journalist’s stream-of-consciousness cinematic journey through the pandemic, Part 18 By Laurence Lerman This week, I was prompted—I’ll even go so far as to say inspired—to break my tradition of clickbaitingly compiling film surveys and/or Top Ten lists and pay respectful homage to the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her passing at the age of 87 on September 18 and its aftermath have generated more than enough material for one to read on countless other pages, so my attempt to modestly contribute to that canon will come in the form of an abbreviated look at the Supreme Court as recently presented in contemporary American cinema. The lady herself can be best seen in the 2018 CNN-produced documentary RBG. Directed by Julie Cohen and Betsy West, it was a surprise hit, ringing up some $14 million at the domestic box office, followed by a high-profile rollout on television several months later—nearly two years before Justice Ginsburg’s passing. The well-researched chronicle of her exceptional life, career and legacy was followed several months later by the 2018 Hollywood bio-pic On the Basis of Sex, directed by Mimi Leder and starring Felicity Jones. Tracing the future-Justice Ginsburg’s life from her early experiences at Harvard Law School, through raising a family with her lawyer husband Martin Ginsburg (Armie Hammer) and taking on cases at the beginning of her historic career, the film is relatively conventional as it tells her remarkable story. And while the capable Ms. Jones has some fine moments, her attempts at tackling the judge's notorious Jewish Brooklynite accent are only serviceable, at best. The most memorable part of On the Basis of Sex—and the only one to include the Supreme Court—might be the final scene, where the real-life Justice Ginsburg is seen ascending the building’s imposing marble steps. While no narrative films focusing solely on the Supreme Court come to mind, there are a number of features that offer fictionalized depictions of real-life cases that made it there. Milos Forman’s The People vs. Larry Flynt (1997), covering Hustler Magazine v. Jerry Falwell in the Seventies; Jeff Nichols’ Loving (2016) on the 1967 Loving v. Virginia interracial marriage case; and two Steven Spielberg films—the 2015 Cold War espionage drama Bridge of Spies on Abel v. United States and 1997’s Amistad, set in 1841, wherein the Court upheld the liberation of kidnapped native Africans brought to the U.S. after slave importation had been prohibited—are the finest of these. Amistad’s extended final sequence plays out in a handsome recreation of the Old Supreme Court Chamber, the large room on the ground floor of the North Wing of the United States Capital that served as the courtroom for the Supreme Court until it was provided with its own building in 1935, the 146th year of its existence. A couple of fictionalized genre pics—Alan Pakula’s 1993 John Grisham adaptation The Pelican Brief starring Julia Roberts and the awful 2002 Steven Seagal vehicle Half Past Dead—revolve around the assassination and kidnapping of Supreme Court justices, while Ronald Neame’s 1981’s First Monday in October offers a lighter and less dangerous take on a justice’s day-to-day life. Based on Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s 1978 Broadway play about the first woman appointed on the Supreme Court, Jill Clayburgh takes on the leading-lady duties opposite Walter Matthau in this middling comedy-drama, which was released six weeks after Sandra Day O’Connor’s Supreme Court confirmation. That’s definitely a healthier example of life imitating art than the 1979 China Syndrome/Three Mile Island confluence. And then there’s Mike Judge’s 2006 dystopian satire Idiocracy, where the Supreme Court of the future has been replaced with the Extreme Court, and judges sentence the convicted to “rehabilitation” death matches. By far the most positive take on the Supreme Court and the one that relates closest to the nation’s current situation—the opening up of a seat following the death of a justice—can be found in a 2004 episode of TV’s serial-styled political drama The West Wing. Created by Aaron Sorkin, it chronicles the workings of a fantastically Democratic federal government, the kind he was feverishly wishing for at the dawn of the new century. In the Season Five installment “The Supremes,” Martin Sheen’s President Jed Bartlet must replace a recently deceased conservative justice, realizing that an attempt to install a liberal one will probably hit a stone wall with the Republican Senate. His team then devises a slick, potentially winning maneuver involving convincing the aging liberal chief justice to retire and then replacing two justices with both a renowned liberal judge (Glenn Close) and a bright conservative judge (William Fichtner), thus keeping the court in balance. The key here is that the two potential nominees have a mutual respect for each other and for their country’s judicial process. Written by Deborah Cahn the year after Aaron Sorkin left the show, “The Supremes” offers an unabashedly Utopian Sorkinian view that intellectual and philosophical reasoning by both sides can make for deeper connection and that their challenging of each other will yield a stronger return for all. Therein lies the importance of controlled, honorable, give-and-take debate, with the conservative judge at one point offering that ‘the court was at its best when [the justices] were fighting.” Any similarities to the strong friendship between Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia is probably only a coincidence... Again, The West Wing postulates a Democratic president with a Republican Senate, which isn’t the case right now. But that could change very, very soon. Aaron Sorkin, meanwhile, is heading back to court with the release of The Trial of the Chicago 7 in a couple of weeks. Sorkin’s long-in-the-works second feature as a writer/director following 2017’s Molly’s Game is about the months-long proceedings in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois regarding seven defendants charged with raising a ruckus at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The movie has received great buzz as we move closer to its release date—and Election Day, which promises to raise a whole new kind of ruckus. That’s the thing about ruckuses—sometimes they just have to be raised. Don’t they? Laurence Lerman is a film journalist, former editor of Video Business--Variety's DVD trade publication--and husband to The Insider's own Gwen Cooper. Over the course of his career he has conducted one-on-one interviews with just about every major director working today, including Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Kathryn Bigelow, Ridley Scott, Walter Hill, Spike Lee, and Werner Herzog, among numerous others. Once James Cameron specifically requested an interview with Laurence by name, which his wife still likes to brag about. Most recently, he is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the online review site DiscDish.com.

By John Rolfe Last time out in this space, I recounted my brush with COVID-19. I got off lucky, suffering nothing worse than a 102+ degree fever, chills and sweats, lethargy, loss of appetite, and a violent episode of blowing grits. The fever broke after eight days. The symptoms vanished after 13. I’m now pleased to report that I’m fresh, fit … and dangerous in people’s minds. The follow-up COVID-19 test I took came back negative. While at the clinic, I asked a doctor how long the virus remains in a person’s system. “There are no right or wrong answers,” she replied. “Everyone is different. We’re in totally uncharted waters.” Thanks to political pressure from the White House and subsequent waffling at the Centers for Disease Control, I trust pronouncements by government officials (Dr. Anthony Fauci excepted) about as far as I can heave President Trump. But it seems plausible that some immunity, likely temporary, results from having COVID-19. I hope so, as I will soon return to driving a big yellow sickroom (aka school bus). It’s also worth noting that Dr. Fauci has said that some people (quite possibly my wife) have a natural resistance to COVID-19 and won’t catch it even when in close contact with someone who is sick. I’ve also seen reports suggesting if you get the virus a second time, it won’t be as bad as your first go-round. Who really knows? We’re in uncharted waters and supposedly heading for another whitewater ride during the fall and winter. The only lingering effect of COVID-19 I’ve noticed is the sudden reluctance of people to go near me even when I assure them I’m well. Apparently, actually knowing someone who actually had the virus drives home the reality that it actually exists and may not be a politically motivated exaggeration or hoax. A friend of ours, a Trump supporter who believes the President has done everything possible to contain the virus, balked at coming to our home even though I and my son, Jesse, had tested negative several days earlier and my wife is fine. A neighbor, also a Trump supporter, has now declined to take her daily walks with my wife even though they’d be outdoors and could stay well apart. One can’t help wondering if our friends would be as reluctant to attend a Trump rally where masks are scorned, but what are we gonna do? “We have COVID cooties,” my wife sighed. “No one wants to be around us.” Not even our daughter Amber. She refused to come in our house during a visit because my wife hasn’t been tested and the virus is said to linger on metal and plastic surfaces for up to three days. “When are you ever going to come in?” my wife asked. “Jesse’s birthday party is next week.” “I don’t know,” our daughter replied. “When Dad goes back to driving the bus he could catch it again.” The ultimate indignity was when my wife, who has remained unscathed despite living in close quarters with me while I was ill, refused water from my glass in order to take a pill. “Eww,” she said with some revulsion. “I don’t want your COVID cooties!” So here I stand, a man shunned by family and community even though I’m as safe to be around as I’ll ever be. I’ve heard about those who are shamed for not wearing a mask, social distancing or washing their hands, but I’ve tried to lead a pious life, dammit! OK, I confess that I and my coworkers got lax during the summer. It was hard to maintain distance when two or three of us had to move heavy furniture together. We were working in a building with poor ventilation and little air conditioning. Our masks became very uncomfortable on 90-degree days, so we agreed to lower them at times. None of us knew anyone who was sick and the infection rate in New York State was low. We were fine for two months until a coworker and I finally got sick. Bitter lesson learned: Never take COVID-19 lightly. Now I have no idea when I’ll be fully accepted back into society. Though I’m armed with printouts of my negative test results, I'm still treated like a skunk at life’s lawn party. For now, I’ll just have to content myself with feeling better. John Rolfe is a former senior editor for Sports Illustrated for Kids, a longtime columnist for the Poughkeepsie Journal/USA Today Network, and author of The Goose in the Bathroom: Stirring Tales of Family Life. His school bus drivin’ blog “Hellions, Mayhem and Brake Failure” is parked on his website Celestialchuckle.com (https://celestialchuckle.com) with the meter running.

Exclusive Never Before Published Photos from 1968 By Joel Dzodin Perhaps because I continue to shelter-in-place at home in Israel during the ongoing pandemic, amid the turmoil of the election campaign, it's understandable that I try to make sense of our current political and cultural maelstrom by recalling the tumultuous happenings of the late 1960s, another period when the United States was rocked by civil strife and unrest. The protests that have roiled American cities in 2020 had their antecedents in the 1960s, although the political and economic landscapes have greatly changed since then. This year, an intense national soul-searching has spurred unprecedented numbers of white supporters to join the swelling protests against systemic racism and police brutality, its conjoined twin. Thinking back to the 1968 Poor Peoples’ Campaign, I ask myself what we’ve lost and gained as Americans in the half century since the Washington campaign. Fifty-two years have flashed by since Martin Luther King Jr. announced the Poor People’s Campaign in November, 1967. In King’s words, he was seeking a “middle ground between riots on the one hand and timid supplications for justice on the other.” But tragically, King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, before his vision was realized. The organizers of the Poor People's Campaign redoubled their determination to go forward with their plans for the nation's poor to converge on Washington DC as a memorial and act of love and devotion to King . His murder was palpable in the smoke-filled air during the spring and summer of 1968, and when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) launched the initial phase of the campaign, I was determined to participate. Like many families, mine had been hard hit by the Detroit riots the preceding year, when my father's small grocery store had gone up in flames, and he had lost his livelihood. . One of his black customers had called him at home in tears, crying "Louie, your store is burning." Afterwards, the sight of my father weeping in his gutted shop was part of what compelled me to join the Washington campaign for economic and racial justice. It's a testament to my parents that despite the trauma of losing the store, they never tried to dissuade me from taking part in Dr. King's campaign. My father was able to separate his anger and pain from what his starry-eyed son felt he had to do. As a 17-year-old, swept up in the events of that time, my photography was an important part of my identity. I tried my best, using humble equipment, to visually capture some essence of the moment and its participants, knowing that we were engaged in something historic and larger than ourselves. And so, despite their technical faults, the photographs which I've curated for half a century in various El Producto cigar boxes have become very meaningful to me. They are both a tangible connection to and an extension of the complex experiences that continue to play a role in how I try to understand our world today. In both abstract and concrete ways, these images help me to frame our present predicaments: our torn-asunder society in the age of MAGA, fake news, and Black Lives Matter. All of this and more. The negatives have been improperly stored in glassine envelopes in a way that would make any decent photographic archivist's hair turn gray. But they've survived in reasonably good condition. They've accompanied me, intact, through five decades of migration and change. But as physical and artistic "property", they remain among my most treasured possessions. With the benefit of a modern high-megapixel camera, coupled with a vintage 1970s close-up Nikon lens and a jerry-rigged light table, it's been very satisfying being able to "scan" these old negatives. All black and white images were shot with a Yashica-D 120 Twin-lens Reflex camera and processed in Kodak D-76 developer in my basement darkroom. This technology has allowed me to transport myself back to the time when a naive 17-year-old was given a permission note by his mother to be excused from high school classes in Oak Park, Michigan to travel to Washington D.C., to be part of the Resurrection City encampment. And it underscores my terrible capacity for procrastination because many of these images have literally waited 50-plus years to be "printed", a possible record for lengthy post-processing. So here are scenes from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Poor People's Campaign, which passed through Detroit, Michigan and made its way to Resurrection City, an encampment of hope, that existed briefly in West Potomac Park, Washington, D.C, from May to June,1968. By and large, these photos have never been seen by a general audience, and the Poor People’s Campaign itself has largely faded from memory. In presenting them here, I hope there is some value in visually revisiting that hopeful moment when people of all races and backgrounds came together to peacefully demand social change and racial, political and economic justice. Perhaps there is merit in visually contrasting what we did then to what many of us are trying to achieve now in 2020. Martin's Dream: “I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.” --Martin Luther King, Jr. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) contingent passes through Detroit en route to Washington for the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, one of the last major social action protests put in motion by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was slain just a few weeks earlier. This included a large march down Woodward Avenue and unfortunate altercations one evening with the Detroit police. Detroit, 1968 Oak Park High School (Michigan) strike in support of Black students' demands for creating an Afro-American studies curriculum. Spring, 1969 Tension in the air. The national atmosphere in the months following the Poor People's Campaign: in the darkness unleashed by the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. George Wallace spoke in Detroit on the evening of October 29, 1968 in Cobo Hall. Things heated up, as angry Wallace supporters cussed-out those who came to demonstrate against their favorite son, chanting: "FU*K YOU HIPPIES!" Violence ensued and the police entered the fray. That was the night when Wallace implored his supporters to "Let the police handle it, ladies and gentlemen. Let the police handle it!,”, as chairs were being flung as weapons. Poor People's Campaign participants and supporters march down Woodward Avenue and adjacent side streets on May 13, 1968. Only half a century later did I discover a young woman eying me with curiosity at the center left of the frame. Poor People's Campaign participants and supporters march down Woodward Avenue and adjacent side streets on May 13, 1968. The pain of Dr. King's death a month earlier was still raw and "The Dream" took on added urgency. "Barracuda," one of the parade marshals, coordinating the orderly movement of Poor People’s Campaign participants and supporters on adjacent side streets near Woodward Avenue on May 13, 1968. Parade marshals seem concerned during the Poor People's Campaign visit to Detroit on May 13, 1968. I've long wondered about the story of this man carrying a young child. It wasn't a posed shot, but their stance seemed like a rebuke of the racial divisions of the time. May 13, 1968 This photo was taken the night that contingents of the SCLC's Poor People’s Campaign reached Detroit from other cities, on their way to protest at Resurrection City in Washington, D.C. The head of the young man standing immediately to the left of Father James Groppi (1930-1985) is bandaged following an injury at the hands of the Detroit police. After assembling in Detroit's Cobo Hall, Father Groppi angrily condemned the actions of the police even as he called on the crowd to remain peaceful but vigilant. I remember the anger in his voice. May 13, 1968 A contemplative moment at sunset in Resurrection City. It rained frequently throughout the campaign in Washington D.C. and here we can see that the mud in the walkways between "streets" had already destroyed the grass. It got much worse as time went on. The ad hoc solution to the problem was to "pave" a series of wooden pallets that helped reduce the soiling of shoes and clothes, but the mud grew fetid in the hot, humid, rainy weather. The muddy "streets" of Resurrection City. What a typical Resurrection City A-Frame dwelling looked like, constructed from very basic plywood sheeting and some plastic tarp material. Although the exact chronology of my stay is forgotten, I seem to remember it was around the time of Passover, 1968, which extended from April 12 through April 20. Perhaps that why I'm cradling a bottle of Manischewitz Beet Borscht in my hands. Jewish soul food. A flyer announcing an upcoming musical evening with "Tent City residents, Indians, Spanish-Americans, Bernice Reagon, Pete Seeger, and the Sea Island Singers.” During the campaign, such music events were occasionally held in the afternoon and evening. I was lucky to have been part of that, even once sharing a paper Dixie cup of hot coffee with Pete after one such get-together. A sing-along with Bernice Reagon, Pete Seeger, and F. D. Kirkpatrick. At one point, my incessant camera work irked Ms. Reagon, who interrupted her singing for a moment to chastise me that I ought to be singing instead of snapping photos. Silhouette of a white trumpet player from Pittsburgh. Taken during a cultural/musical evening in a darkish tent. In an era where normal film speed maxed out at 400 ASA (~ 400 ISO), interior evening shots without flash were difficult. Fifty years later, I struggled with a very underexposed negative to try and coax out the bit of detail seen here. One of my favorite portraits from my time in D.C.; a young musician, who along with two other players using a snare drum and a large oil drum, produced some impressive percussive music, including something that sounded like the long riff in Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.” Two Resurrection City residents preparing coffee-can bread loaves at the Bread Tent, operated by Walt Reynolds and his wife Ruth Reynolds, also known as the "God's Eye" bakery. Mr. Reynolds was a computer engineer who had previously set up free bread operations in California. Their efforts at Resurrection City were supported by volunteers, like these two, producing hundreds of loaves of whole wheat bread that were give away to the encampment's residents. I spent some time there as well. It was tasty stuff. Other residents join in the preparation of loaves at the "God's Eye" bakery and the finished product is seen on the table. The man's button reads "I have a dream.” Some quality time for quiet artistic expression away from the hubbub of the demonstrations and political activity. The human face of peaceful social action. A family pauses in front of their tent; a mother with Bible in hand. Another underexposed and difficult negative. A young girl in Resurrection City. I remember passing by, as her mom got her dressed and ready for a new day. This likely would have been towards the end of my time there, seeing how her boots are covered by the fetid mud that plagued the campaign. A difficult image due to its blown-out highlights (seen in the A-frame's vinyl flaps). Almost a group portrait, reflecting diverse origins, ages and backgrounds. Another poorly exposed negative that I've played with, trying to squeeze out some extra detail. "Pops" Donaldson (the gentleman with the cane) had one of the most photogenic faces I've ever seen. Like Moses, sitting with his people. I remember it was said that he'd traveled north to Resurrection City by mule and wagon. And for 50-plus years, I've thought the man sitting next to him bears an uncanny resemblance to Dr. King, murdered just one month before. "Pops" Donaldson and others discussing the news of the day. Another group of residents assembled at the Resurrection City Pavilion. A gathering at the Pavilion. Hosea Williams, one of Dr. King's lieutenants, engages with an HEW (Department of Health, Education, and Welfare) official who was sent to speak with the march participants. April 30th, 1968 Poor People’s Campaign demonstrators fill the HEW (Department of Health, Education, and Welfare) auditorium on April 30th, 1968. Some moments later, as the demands to speak directly with Secretary Wilbur J. Cohen grew louder in the HEW auditorium. The man wearing the beaded necklace in the front looks a bit like Stokely Carmichael. Secretary Wilbur J. Cohen appears and faces the protesters. I remember the raucous cacophony that grew even louder when he entered the room. I've always respected his decision to meet with us; for me, this image reflects his grace under fire. Washington D.C. street scene during a day of demonstrations. This image melds perfectly with a song on YouTube entitled ""We're Gonna Walk the Streets of Washington" by Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, who shared his message and music with the residents of Resurrection City:: "We're gonna walk the streets of Washington We're gonna walk the streets of Washington One of these days -- Hallelujah We're gonna walk the streets of Washington One of these days.” -We're gonna ask for jobs or income {chorus) -We're gonna petition Lyndon Johnson {chorus) -We're gonna stop police brutality {chorus) -Stop -- the rats from eatin' our babies (chorus) -Stop -- that workin' in the white folks kitchen (chorus) -Stop -- that bowin' and scrapin' and scratchin· (chorus) © Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, 1968 I think of this image as "Martin’s Dreamtime" because although my memories have in some ways remained sharp and vivid despite the passage of time, they've also taken on a feeling of mythical softness and distance. The End of Resurrection City, July 1968. At that part of my young life, I visited Washington D.C. often, and so it was that I returned to the site of the Poor People's Campaign encampment, in time to see its final vestiges being plowed under by National Park Service employees. A Final View of Resurrection City, July 1968. I lingered there for a while, full of thoughts that remain with me now, 52 years on. Joel Dzodin is a former Detroiter now living in Israel. At different points in his life he has worked as an archaeologist, an IT Help Desk guy, and an online English teacher to adults around the world. Photography has long been a major passion and theme in his life, since taking his first photos at the age of 6, using a Kodak box camera. A lot of Joel’s photographs focus on the small unexamined details of everyday life, such as the beauty of minute water condensation that forms on cold bottles in the hot Israeli weather. During Joel’s time in Israel, he has been fortunate to photograph the activities of the NGO PeacePlayers International, Middle East, witnessing firsthand how authentic friendships can be forged between Jews and Arabs despite long-standing and severe religious, cultural and ideological barriers. He is an inveterate hoarder of technological antiques, so that his young children once referred to his home office as "The NASA Control Room." One of Joel’s major pleasures during normal times is to wander the fields and trails of Israel, stumbling over prehistoric and historic evidence of previous human settlement. During the pandemic, he has had to occupy himself at home by shooting portraits of ants and spiders also sheltering in place, using a mid-1970s Nikon close-up lens adapted for today's digital cameras. Today, Joel lives near Tel Aviv with his wife Susanne, whom he met on a kibbutz in 1975. They have two adult children, one living in the U.S. and the other in Israel. During the current (second) lockdown, he has to practice social distancing outside with his three grandchildren, two of whom are already speaking English.

By Andy Borowitz September 25, 2020 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—As Donald J. Trump refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power in January, former President Barack Obama suggested that cancelling the White House’s cable-TV account could induce the President to leave. “This is a man who enjoys watching television,” Obama told reporters. “What if, on Inauguration Day, he picks up the remote and nothing comes on?” “This seems like the most peaceful way to get him to go,” Obama said. Obama also said that, in order to avoid a constitutional crisis, the White House’s supply of Diet Coke could also be cut off, but added, “I don’t think it will come to that.” “Once it dawns on him that there’s no cable, his days will stretch out before him in a vista of emptiness,” Obama said. “No ‘Fox & Friends.’ No Tucker Carlson. And no Shark Week.” “He’ll be on the next helicopter out,” Obama predicted. 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.

A Poem by Dr. Barry Lubetkin he, who turned my golden years to lead he, who stole from me countless hours of truth with his lies he, whose allies and aides search blindly for a grain of empathy he, whose insecurity blocks any admission of fault or error he, who acts as a demon monarch who mocks democracy he, who has collected syncophants like loose change he, who has wrecked my belief in checks and balances he, who threatens my daughter’s safety from a future lech he, whose very image and voice are chalk on the blackboard of my brain he, whose snake oil is an injectable disinfectant he, whose ignorance of empirical truth shames the scientist within me he, whose hostility towards the world causes foreign friends to shun me he, whose need for adoration challenges the DSM’s understanding of narcissism he, who shamelessly compares himself to Lincoln and Salk he, who invites the storms and heat with his negligence he, who yearns to be known as HE. 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.

An Insider Exclusive By Jeffrey D. Sachs Jeffrey Sachs is a University Professor at Columbia University With forest fires raging on the Pacific Coast; the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Coast being hammered by hurricanes and flooding; and 2020 among the warmest years on record, it’s hard to be upbeat about our climate prospects.  Utterly reckless politicians like Donald “It will start getting cooler” Trump seem intent on doing us in, both by COVID-19 and climate change. Yet this week brought some very good news on climate change that could make a big difference. Tuesday marked the start of the UN General Assembly. For the first time in history, the meeting was online, as no leaders came to UN Headquarters in New York City. Trump used his UN video appearance to parade his trademark petulance and ignorance by lashing out at China. His speech, in fact, was aimed not at China or other UN nations, but at his right-wing base. China’s President Xi Jinping spoke soon thereafter, and pointedly made clear that China has no interest in matching the U.S. in petulance. Wisely, Xi rose to the occasion by emphasizing China’s commitment to the UN system and to global cooperation on climate change. Xi in fact offered an important climate breakthrough, promising that China will reach “carbon neutrality” by 2060. This means that China will phase out its use of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) and shift to zero-carbon energy (such as wind, solar and hydro) by 2060. Any remaining use of fossil fuels, according to carbon neutrality, would require capturing the CO2 (carbon dioxide) from the fossil fuels, or by some other way to offset the emissions of CO2. China’s new commitment is a big deal. China currently emits around 7 tons of CO2 per person each year, or around 10 billion tons each year, almost a third of the global total. The U.S. by contrast emits around 15 tons per person each year, far more than China. Yet because the U.S. population is so much smaller than China’s, the U.S. total is around 5 billion tons, roughly half of China’s total emissions. China’s new commitment to phase out these emissions was prompted in no small part by the European Union (EU), which earlier this year valiantly adopted its own “European Green Deal” that commits the EU to phase out fossil fuels by 2050, 10 years ahead of China’s new commitment. In a leadership summit between the EU and China just a few days before the UN General Assembly, the EU leaders urged China to step forward with its own comparable commitment, and President Xi quickly obliged. Thus, we witnessed a double triumph, of diplomacy and climate sanity. Of course, we have not yet reached safe harbor by any means. China’s new 2060 commitment should be moved forward to 2050, as with the EU. The climate science tells us that the entire world must phase out fossil fuels by 2050 in order for us to have a reasonable chance to keep global warming less than 1.5-degrees Celsius, the upper limit of prudence that the world’s governments agreed to in 2015 in the Paris Climate Agreement. That naturally brings us to the bigger problem: the United States. President Xi has deftly exposed the oft-repeated lie of the Republican Party that climate diplomacy with China is impossible. Now the U.S. must be the next to move, to make our own national commitment alongside the EU and China. Fortunately, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has made crystal clear that his administration would usher in a new green energy economy, with the U.S. also reaching carbon neutrality by mid-century. We are thus one vote away from the long-awaited global breakthrough on climate change. Americans by a big majority understand that human-made climate change is real, dangerous and solvable. Americans by a big margin support the shift from fossil fuels to green energy. Now let’s vote by a similarly large margin to oust Trump and his cronies, and thereby restore global cooperation for climate safety and a science-based recovery from COVID-19.

By Jessie Seigel With the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an event feared by her liberal allies for years, we are living in the center of a maelstrom that may portend the death of democracy. The Republicans are using immense power to purge voter rolls. President Donald Trump is deliberately slowing down the mail to hamper absentee voting necessary because of COVID-19, and claiming that absentee ballots will be fraudulent. Worse yet, Trump is claiming that any election result that does not keep him in office is illegitimate—this, even before the election has taken place. And he is refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses. Trump’s handpicked henchman, Attorney General William Barr, has called protests against the police murders of black citizens “domestic terrorism.” Meanwhile, Trump encourages armed right-wingers to intimidate state legislators and governors, makes excuses for violent actions by hate groups, and defends those who have killed protesters. Trump attacks cities and states not run by Republicans, while Barr, following in step, is designating some Democratic cities as “anarchist jurisdictions,” because they have refused to let federal law enforcement enter to “counter criminal activites.” In addition, Barr has the Justice Department investigating the investigators of the president’s many alleged crimes. These are the moves a would-be dictator makes when attempting a coup. Now that Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died, Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are rushing to replace her within spitting distance of the 2020 election. With Ginsburg not even yet in her grave, Trump has selected ultra-conservative Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee. McConnell is that same character who hypocritically refused to give Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee, even a hearing. McConnell’s contrived excuse? That it was the beginning of an election year, and the next president should make the choice. Under these circumstances, it is not at all fanciful to speculate that Trump and his minions are rushing to put someone on the Court who will make sure any legal contest Trump manufactures concerning the election will be decided in his favor. With the presidency, the Senate, and the head of the Justice Department thus corrupted, it is a very inconvenient time to have lost this champion for honesty and justice. I think Ginsberg must have felt this herself; thus, her “most fervent wish” that she would not be replaced until a new president is installed. Ultimately, we have no control over how long we live or when we die. But Justice Ginsburg stayed with us, working away, with her quiet brilliance, for as long as she could. In doing so despite serious illness, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was valiant to her last breath. Justice Ginsburg has been eulogized all week as the champion of women’s rights, and rightly so. But she was the champion of so much more. Of her sense of purpose in the world, Ginsburg said, “To make life a little better for people less fortunate than you, that’s what I think a meaningful life is. One lives not just for oneself but for one’s community.” That sense of purpose permeated her work on the Supreme Court. She was nothing if not forthright: whether in the majority or in dissent, Ginsburg addressed the law in relation to humanity and human needs, as well as, when necessary, adroitly pointing out the illogic of her colleagues’ positions. Ginsburg’s views stood in the majority in some cases, such as United States v. Virginia (where she wrote the majority opinion holding a military institute’s male only policy to be in violation of the Constitution’s equal protection clause); Olmstead v. L.C. (protecting disability rights of the mentally ill and mentally challenged); Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (affirming the standing of residents to sue industrial polluters); and Safford Unified School District v. Redding (applying the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure to school children). But Ginsburg’s dissents when she was in the minority were equally, if not more, important. In Bush v Gore, the Court’s majority refused to permit the Florida Supreme Court to require a manual ballot recount in the 2000 presidential election. Amongst the paper-thin reasons given, the majority opined that a constitutionally adequate recount would be impractical. By its action, the Court—rather than the people—chose George W. Bush to be President of the United States. Ginsburg’s dissent emphatically stated the “conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is a prophecy the Court’s own judgment will not allow to be tested. Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States.” In Shelby County v. Holder, the majority struck down a Voting Rights Act requirement that certain states obtain U.S. Department of Justice approval for all changes to their voting laws and practices. This was based on the states’ records of voter discrimination. To justify striking down the requirement, the majority opinion held that it was no longer needed. Ginsburg dissented, writing acerbically that throwing out these requirements, which were working, was “like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” The extreme voter suppression we have been experiencing since the Shelby County decision has proved Ginsburg correct. In Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, the majority of the Court held that Lilly Ledbetter could not sue her employer for its discriminatory pay practices (paying her less than her male colleagues) because her claim was raised after she retired and outside the 180-day deadline for filing. In her dissent, Ginsburg noted that comparative pay information is often hidden from employees, and pointed out the Catch-22 of requiring someone to file a claim before they’ve discovered that the discriminatory practice occurred. Ginsburg’s dissent called upon Congress to change the law, which it did in The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. Although this particular case addressed pay discrimination against a woman, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act strengthened such protections for all workers. In this instance, Ginsburg lost the battle but won the war. Justice Ginsburg perceptively said, “Dissents speak of a future age…the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today, but for tomorrow.” In thinking of Justice Ginsburg’s view of dissents, I am reminded of Clarence Darrow—my personal inspiration for becoming a lawyer. The two were very different in style and temperament, and I am certain that Ginsburg’s analytic ability was much greater. But Darrow, who lost many of his most notable cases, used all of his cases to educate the public. He did this concerning unionism (defense of labor leader Eugene Debs); science and freedom of ideas (defense of teaching Darwinism in the Scopes trial); the wrongness of capital punishment (the Leopold and Loeb sentencing trial), and racism (the Dr. Sweet trial), among others. Ginsburg and Darrow both had the long battle in mind—the battle for humanity and progress that is not won in a day, but can take decades, a lifetime, or even many lifetimes. With Ginsburg gone, we must pick up her mantle and carry that fight, each in our own way. 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.

The Supreme Court Swindle of 2020 By Alan Resnick This week’s Republican duplicity completed my evolution from wide-eyed idealist to hard-boiled cynic. My loss of innocence began about 50 years ago, when I was 18. I’m not referring to my carnal innocence, but rather the unraveling of the myth that the truth mattered, that hard work done well would be recognized and rewarded, that fair play counted, and that one should live within one’s means and take responsibility for one’s debts. The unraveling has occurred slowly but surely over the years The first time I remember feeling that these were not generally held beliefs was when I worked part-time in a grocery store. My dad was an executive for a local Michigan grocery chain and he secured me a job as a bagger at a nearby store. He told me that the managers had been advised to give me no special treatment just because I was a vice president’s son. And he warned me to not try to not take advantage of my privilege as well. On my second day on the job, I was asked to collect the shopping carts from the parking lot and bring them back into the store. It was a rather mundane, basic task, and my philosophy was to accomplish it as quickly as possible. When I came back in after rounding up the last batch of carts, one of my coworkers came up to me, introduced himself, and told me: “You’re in the union. Working harder or faster won’t get you anything. It’s all about seniority.” This bit of advice put me into a somewhat uncomfortable position. I did not want to alienate my coworkers, but neither did I want to disappoint my father or incur his wrath. I opted for working hard, even though it would have absolutely no impact on my wages or promotability. It didn’t make me terribly popular with some of my coworkers, but the managers loved me, so much so that they encouraged me to enter the election for union steward for the store. My innocence took a second hit when I went to work in human resources for what is now a Fortune 250 manufacturer and distributor of medical and hospital supplies. College and graduate school provided me a strong education and reinforced the idea of a meritocracy. Regrettably, it did not provide me an education in organizational politics. And, coming from a family of introverts, I did not take to schmoozing, glad-handing, and obsequiousness like a duck to water. It became eminently clear that there was a hidden category on the organization’s annual performance appraisal form – “playing the game.” It might have been labeled as “getting along with others” or “interpersonal skills,” but it was definitely a factor in one’s overall evaluation, and seemed to carry as much if not more weight than technical competence, organizational skills, or project management. I lasted about 15 years in the corporate world, and I look back and consider my career there successful. But I certainly did not advance as rapidly as some of my peers who played the game well. And there were other peers who tried to play, lost, and were terminated. My personality, education, and upbringing enabled me to understand the rules of the game and the important players enough to navigate through the system, but not enough to truly compete within it. A third significant blow to my innocence occurred one day when my wife, who runs her own window treatments business, came home and described a networking meeting she had attended earlier that morning. Her group had accepted a new member, a bankruptcy attorney. The attorney was given some time to introduce himself to the group and share the details of his practice. He essentially told the group that he used the bankruptcy laws to help get folks out from under consumer debt, and shared some stories of clients he had helped get out of massive financial obligations while still keeping their purchases. According to my wife, he made it sound that it people who overextended themselves financially were foolish to try to pay down what they owed. I remember thinking to myself, “So, he’s basically saying that people who pay their bills and take their financial obligations seriously are just suckers and chumps.” It was always a source of personal pride that I only bought what I could afford and paid my bills on time, but this presentation left me feeling that mine was the minority viewpoint. My innocence further eroded during the time that President Obama was selling the Affordable Care Act (or ACA) to the American public. He kept stating that: “If you like your current plan, you can keep it.’’ That sounded fine by me, as my wife and I had selected a plan that gave us a lower annual premium in exchange for a higher deductible. We were both in good health and made a conscious choice to accept this trade-off. It turned out that there was only one small problem – our plan was cancelled, and we went from paying about $3,500 in annual premiums to over $12,000 per year. I voted for Obama twice and probably respect him even more since he left office. But to this day I feel that what he said about the ACA was an outright lie. And had it been possible for him to seek a third term, I would not have voted for him again. And the myths of my youth have been completely shattered by the way many Republican senators have responded to the vacancy created by the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It is in stark contrast to their reaction when Justice Antonin Scalia died. Justice Scalia passed away on February 16, 2016, or 268 days before the upcoming presidential election. On March 16, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to succeed Scalia. Four days later, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell told ABC News, “The American people are in the middle of choosing who the next president is going to be. That next president ought to have this appointment.” McConnell blocked Merrick Garland from having a hearing before the Senate, and Obama was not allowed to fill the vacancy. A Mother Jones article published on September 18 contains quotes from 17 Republican senators still in office who supported McConnell’s position back in 2016. One of them is Lindsey Graham, the current chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who will oversee confirmation hearings of the next Supreme Court justice. Back in 2016, Graham was quoted as saying: I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination." Graham doubled down on this stance in an October 8, 2018 interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine: “Now, I’ll tell you this. This may make you feel better, but I really don’t care. If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term and the primary process has started, we’ll wait till the next election. And I’ve got a pretty good chance of being the judiciary.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg died merely 45 days before this November’s presidential election, so one would think that the same logic should surely apply about waiting to filling her seat until after the election. One would be very wrong. Within hours of her death on September 18, Senator McConnell pronounced that whoever Trump nominates will be given a Senate confirmation hearing. He attempted to justify his change of heart based on the fact that President Obama was a lame duck and that we now have a Republican President and a Republican-controlled Senate. And, on August 2 of this year, Sahil Kapur of NBC News quoted Graham as saying: "Yeah. We'll cross that bridge. After [Brett] Kavanaugh, the rules have changed as far as I'm concerned. "We'll see what the market will bear if that ever happens." But Graham never mentioned the Brett Kavanaugh hearings back on October 8,, 2019 when talking with Goldberg, an interview that occurred after the Senate hearings had taken place. (Justice Kavanaugh had been confirmed by the Senate on October 6.) In fact, earlier in this interview, Senator Graham talks about how he felt that Justice Kavanaugh had been mistreated in the hearings. I was sure that many of the 15 other Republican Senators who spoke out against nominating a Justice in the midst of a presidential election would renounce the blatant hypocrisy of McConnell and Graham. Nope. Not one mumbled a word. Only two Republican Senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, stated that they are against nominating a new Justice during the upcoming election. And they were not among those who went public with their views in 2016. Many held out hope that Mitt Romney of Utah would be of a similar mindset to Collins and Murkoski, as he was the only Republican Senator who voted against Trump’s impeachment. But Romney announced this week that he was comfortable going ahead with the nomination, so it certainly looks like the Republicans have enough votes to confirm a new Justice. The question of whether the nomination would occur before or after the Presidential election was answered on Friday, when it was reported that Trump intends to nominate deeply conservative Judge Amy Coney Barrett, an opponent of abortion and a favorite of the religious Right. His haste to fill the seat was no secret: Trump has stated that he wants a ninth justice because he is planning to contest the validity of mail-in ballots should he lose. While totally despicable and morally bankrupt, give him props for having the decency to tell us he’s going to cheat. McConnell, Graham and their lackeys blatantly lied to the American public back in 2016. I’m not so naïve as to assume that politicians don’t shade the truth to suit their needs and those of their audience. But I do believe that there is a significant difference between shading the truth and claiming that black is white, up is down, and Monday is Thursday. That’s not to say that I won’t vote in the upcoming election. I absolutely will. But it won’t be with the expectation that things will improve, but rather in the hope that things will not get even worse. Alan Resnick is an industrial psychologist with over 40 years of professional experience. He and his wife are sheltering at home in Farmington Hills, Michigan. He is passing the time by cooking, exercising, catching up on friends’ recommendations of must-see TV and writing.

How One Determined Brooklyn Girl Has Successfully Ridden Out the Pandemic Although she was born in Guyana, a small country on the northern coast of South America, Shelley D’Aquino identifies herself as a “Brooklyn girl,’ an homage to the borough where she immigrated with her family when she was 11 years old. It’s easy to understand why. D’Aquino is a quintessentially scrappy New Yorker who never gives up. That indomitable quality has carried her through some difficult times since March, But as D’Aquino told the Insider, she has “pushed through” to find some silver pandemic linings. A major one arrived today: after almost losing her business, Le Parlour NYC Laser Spa in Manhattan, as a result of the COVID-19 shutdown, D’Aquino is triumphantly reopening. She shares her tumultuous pandemic story- protests, politics and the inner workings of a small business--with Insider readers: The Insider: You’re a longtime New Yorker, right? D’Aquino: I’m originally from Georgetown, Guyana. I migrated to the U.S. in 1977, and grew up in Brooklyn. Then I met my husband James in 1988 and we moved to Manhattan. And that’s where I’ve been ever since. We have two children, Eboni, who is 33 and Tyler, who is 24. Jim and I have been together for 33 years. The Insider: What kind of work does he do? D’Aquino: Jim is in finance. He went on to open his own recruiting firm. So that’s basically what he’s been doing for many years now, but we lived abroad for quite some time. The Insider: Where did you live abroad? . D’Aquino: For one year, we lived in Amsterdam. We lived in Paris for one year as well. We also lived in Brussels. The very last stop of the travels was Australia. The Insider: How many years altogether did you live abroad? D’Aquino; I’d say that was probably three, four years abroad, moving around from place to place. Once you get started with that, it’s like a bug and you just want to like keep going. It’s like the ex-pat life. You meet so many people that are in the same genre of living and you became friends and everybody’s moving: “Where are you moving to next?” It was an exciting life, so, but then there are drawbacks to everything. You miss your family, you miss your friends. The Insider: How long have you been off the road now? D’Aquino: It’s been a while. Four years ago now since we left. The Insider: What was your life like just before the pandemic? D’Aquino: Three years prior to the pandemic I opened Le Parlour NYC Laser Spa. After traveling for awhile with my husband. I decided, okay, I’m back home, my kids are grown, what am I gonna do? I’ve always wanted to open my own business ever since. my family would say, pretty much ever since you were like ten-years-old. I have a fashion degree. So I come from a fashion background. The Insider: Where is your degree from? D'Aquino: My degree is from the Tobe-Coburn School of Fashion. It was the equivalent back then to FIT. So it was always my dream to own my own boutique. I really loved fashion so at that stage of my life, I was doing a lot of editorial fashion shoots and I was on set a lot. But my life took on a whole different career. Then I went to corporate America, that’s where I met my husband. And, of course, we got married, had kids, and all of that. And I was a stay-home mom in New York City for a very many years. Then after that, we traveled about, as I said. And we came back and then I started to get a bit antsy--what am I going to do with my life? Well, it’s my time, I want to do something for me now. The kids are grown, so my husband’s like, I’ll support you whatever it is you’re interested in doing. So I went to my hairstylist Megan one day. And she said to me, I’m moving, I’m going to be in this really cool setting, this really nice little environment. It’s a brand-new situation where you can rent out a suite and you can conduct your own business out of this suite. Right away I was like, where is that? I want to see it, this could be something for me. I had no idea what I wanted to do or what I was going to do. But I had such a burning desire to do something! She said, here’s the number, go over and have a look. And maybe some ideas will come to you. So I went over to the space and it was still under construction. So I just stood there and it just felt right. I’m like, I don't know what I’m going to do here but I’m going to do something. So I started contacting people I knew in business and things like that. So the idea came that there was a woman that did my waxing. So I went to see her and she said to me you’d be an amazing business owner. She’s like, why don’t you and I do something together? She’s like why don’t I come over and I’ll bring my clients and we can partner and we can get started. And I was like, wonderful. So every Monday we would meet and we’d talked about the business. We’d go over the plan. To make a long story short, when the time came, she bailed on me. So here I was in this room with all my dreams crushed.. And some would say I was crazy but I decided you know what? I’m gonna push through, I’m gonna figure this out and I’m gonna push. So I started hiring people and you know how that goes. You hire people, they don’t do the work, the job the way you would prefer. Getting good help is a very difficult thing. Hiring good staff can be very challenging. So then, a lot of different ideas came. Why don’t you do nails, there’s no one here doing nails. Do this, do that, do massages. So I did that for a while, I did nails and I did massages for a while and I did waxing as well. But we’re in New York City, right, and the rents are really, really high. How many massages and nails and waxing can you do to be able to pay that rent and then turn a profit? You’ve got to do a hell of a lot and when you're a brand-new business in New York, it’s extremely challenging. So it came to me one day as I was in service it’s like, okay, so you’re getting some people who are walking through the door. But you're not able to meet your expenses, turn a profit, forget about turning a profit, that’s not working out. So your problem is not necessarily the clients, your problem is you need to service something at a higher cost. So that you can meet your expenses and, hopefully, one day have a profit, So I started thinking about those types of services. And then it just came to me--laser treatments. So I did a little bit of a research on laser and I found that people really loved laser because people were looking for a more permanent solution to skincare. And laser sort of provides that. So I was like, okay, this could be a really great thing. Skincare, I’m surrounded by hairdressers, skincare, people love to do skin as well. So it was kind of like a one-stop shop. You came there, you booked out several appointments, you got your services done, and you’re gone. So I loved the concept, I thought that could be something that could really catch on. So I started doing every night all my research, talking to people, lots of reading. And I found what the best machines were, because if I was going to do this, I was going to do it and do it well. Of course, like everything else in New York City, there are tons of them everything. So what was going to make me different? So I decided I was going to offer a one-on-one service in treatment, very personal, very private space, the service where I myself would be looking for. So that’s what I decided to do. I hired someone who was the best, one of the best in the industry. And so we just set up our laser spa and we have had such great success with it. I can’t I’ve made great profits because like any other business it takes a good three to five years to be ablet o do that. I wasn’t expecting to be rolling in money in three years. But I did expect that within five years, I’d be able to reap the benefits of all the hard work that I was putting in. So during – so right before Covid, we were doing well and by January we had really started to pick up quite a bit. I thought, okay, this is going to be a great year. This is going to be fantastic, this is the year that things turn around for Le Parlour NYC. And then came March, COVID happened and we shut down. It was a week prior to the official mandatory closing for all spas. Every conversation by everyone who came in was about the virus. It was already circulating and people were already getting very nervous and very frightened. And people just started to cancel their appointments and I started to become myself very nervous about this. One day, Maya came in and we had two people on the books and they both canceled. And I said to Maya, you know what? I think today should be our last day for now. This virus seems to be getting very dangerous and nobody seems to know anything about it. I think it would be wise for us just to close our doors for a while. And just listen to the CDC and the news and figure out what’s really going on before we endanger ourselves and endanger our clients as well. So Maya said to me, Maya’s the lovely woman that works for me. Maya said to me you know what, Shelley, I think you’re absolutely right. This seems to be something not going to go away right away as we would hope. So we closed on that day. It was March 13th that we shut down. And so like everyone else we closed our doors and we came – I came home and we’ve just literally came home. I made sure lights were off, everything was turned off, and came home. A week went by, this virus is getting worse, more and more people are getting infected. It was not fading. The first week went by, and people were starting to get really ill, came late March and early April. The Insider: How was your own health? D’Aquino: I myself started to not feel very well in early April. I was doing a lot of cooking like everybody else in this shutdown. So one day my son says, Mom, can you make me a breakfast of bacon and eggs and so I’m like, sure. So I got up and I’m making him the bacon and I’m like I can’t smell this bacon. And I’m like, can you guys smell this bacon? Why is it I can’t smell this bacon? This is very odd. This is bacon, bacon lights up the entire house when you’re making bacon. I’m like, okay, I think I’ve lost my sense of smell. A day later I can’t taste. I’m like, oh my God, I think I have COVID! So my husband and my son are like, are you serious, you can’t smell, you can’t taste? They’re getting freaked out . At this point, I’m like, yeah, I can’t, I really can’t. I can’t smell, I can’t taste. But even then I wasn’t panicked. I’m a very spiritual person. And when COVID happened, it was a time for me to go within, I was doing a lot of meditation and a lot of naam-ing. I belonged to something called Naam Yoga which is a lot of chanting and a lot of positivity. And so I’m like, this is an opportunity for me to dive into my naam spiritual teaching now. So I dived into that. I spent literally hours every morning chanting and Naam-ing and praying and so I felt grounded. I felt like I needed this. I didn’t do the chants that in my head I knew I should do. I did what felt good, I did what felt nourishing to the body and the soul. So my son would come in and he’d be like, what is going on in there? You’re there for hours (laughs)--what are you saying, what are you doing? We’d laugh about it. And so at this point in time, everybody was sort of panicked and nervous. I did start to feel some feelings in my chest, it was never a tightening of the chest, it was more of a feeling like my chest was feeling fatigued. And I felt this just this feeling of fatigue in my body and my chest and I started thinking to myself, do I? Because I was in denial too. Even though I knew I had lost my sense of taste and smell, I kept up, no, I don’t have this. This is not my story, this is not me. This is not for me. I’m a child of God, I’m only sending myself positive energy and I would pray and I would – so I didn’t tell my husband to be honest, about all the other feelings I was having. Because I knew he’d say, let’s go to the hospital now and that was the last place I wanted to be. So I did what moms and wives do, I hunkered down, more cooking, lots of baking. I felt like I wanted to get in touch with my ancestors a bit and so I started baking this traditional bread from my country, from Guyana. So I was just baking lots of bread (laughs), lots of bread like everyone else. I was actually starting to feel better. I was doing some home remedies. There was something going around that the community was sharing about immune system builders– lots of lemons, sliced lemons with sliced oranges, and lots of ginger in a pot of boiling water. I would just drink cups and cups of that every day. And I started to feel better so I was obviously boosting my immune system so it was able to fight it off. So I was doing lots of those types of things and I had my family doing it as well. Because at this point, I’m thinking if I could have been infected, they’re probably infected as well. They were all drinking all of these types of things and decided we’re all going to just start exercising. So we were all going out. We live on a park so we’re going out for walks for an hour every day. And so I started to feel better, I started to just feel better and pushing through. So that passed. I was never nervous about the business coming back. I always just figured, you go back, I open my doors and resume business as usual. All my friends at this point were calling clients, calling people, were freaking out in New York State about their businesses. But for some reason, I don't know, I was either naïve or I kept thinking, well, how hard could it be to just go back, your clients come back, and you open your doors and you resume, right? Seems like a reasonable thing to feel. But then I realized, wait a minute, this is just going on and on and on and there’s no end to it. And all of a sudden it hit me that my business is not opening. The longer this goes on, the more the possibility exists that I may not be able to afford to open my doors ever again. The Insider: So you’re paying what, rent and expenses this whole time? D’Aquino: This whole time, we weren’t paying rent. The guy who the owner of the space had put a freeze on our rents. So which was good, as anybody who owns a small business knows, small businesses never have any reserve. You’re literally going from month to month. And hoping and praying that your clients show up and they will walk through the door. It’s your clients that keep you afloat– that money is already allocated for – before you’ve even made it, right. So that’s basically how small business runs. And so I had a little bit of money but it was nothing that I could say start from scratch again with. So I was hopeful that this shutdown was not going to last as long as it did. So then all of a sudden, I realized, this business is going to be challenging to get back up and running. People are starting to lose their jobs, the uncertainty, the economy is failing, the uncertainty of everything is now starting to kick in. So now we’re probably somewhere in May, between mid-May and the end of May. Just no one’s spending money, everybody’s losing their jobs. We would just get on Zoom calls, the beauty industry We did our little Zooms to touch base. We were all just mortified. Keeping each other abreast with what’s going on, did you hear, watching Cuomo’s briefings every day. I wouldn’t miss a briefing which was amazing and kept us very, very well informed. And so at this point, I’m like, okay, I need to figure out what I’m going to do. I can’t just be home doing nothing. My girlfriend who owns restaurants in the West Village, a small little African restaurant that’s called Berber Street Food, she’s been up and running the whole time. They were feeding doctors and nurses. She rallied all of her friends and said, “I need you guys. How can you help me, I don’t have staff but I need your help so I need money, I need donations. I need help in the kitchen,” so I was like, okay, let’s do this. Let’s feed the front-line workers. So I got involved in that and donating with her and helping with her. So it felt good to be able to give back in that way. I also reached out to a couple of food banks in New York City that were asking for donations. So my husband and I, we’re like, let’s donate. This is getting really bad. People are on lines, people don’t know how they’re going to feed their kids. I’m like, thank God we’re still able to be able to do that in our household. And we have savings and things like that. So we were okay. But the situation was getting very bleak and very dire, everyone you spoke with was just devastated in one way or another. It really started to take a toll on you mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. That’s all you had as you were trying to just gather and make sure your family was safe. And my husband decided he was going to do all the food shopping so he would go out and do that and cleaning every day. I’m doing the cooking. My son was helping out wehre he could. He had just finished his last semester of college. He goes to college in Brooklyn. So my daughter, she’s still living with her roommates. So she, yes, she was there and she was with them. And they were good. And I was in touch a lot, that was the hardest part not being able to see her because she’s already hunkered down with them. And you don’t really know what their lifestyles are – what’s really happening. And so I couldn’t see her, I couldn’t touch her, and it was really difficult for me. At this point in time, you're checking family, you're checking on in-laws. so we’re checking on the older people in the family, making sure they have what they need and things like that. So you’re checking on your siblings, everyone. And then I have a few friends who I needed to keep a close eye on who I know are struggling with depression. And so you're like calling them out to make sure they come out and meet you and go for walks and keeping them, trying to keep them feeling like these aren’t the last days. Because that’s pretty much what everyone was feeling like. Then, that passed. People were dying and that was horrific in itself. The Insider: Did you know people who got sick? D'Aquino: I knew a lot of people who were getting sick, not directly. But very close family members of mine and very close friends of friends that not only gotten sick but passed away. My sister belongs to a church in the West Indian community and tons of people died from this virus. So that was really sad, the minister actually passed away, and I knew her. My children were baptized in that church so that was really heartbreaking. And a very good friend of mine lost cousins, people would just called me--every day, it was another call. “And my cousin died in his sleep last night,” and I would just be freaked out by hearing these stories. It was just like, when is this going to end? Is there no end in sight to this? What is going on, what is this thing? So all of that heartbreak was happening. Meanwhile, as much as I loved my business I was just happy to be healthy and staying alive and all of my family and loved ones to be healthy. The Insider: Have you gotten involved in any of the political things that have gone on during this time? D’Aquino: Yes. All of a sudden as we all know, George Floyd got murdered, God rest his soul. And the day that that happened it was like a whole new world. It was like a whole new world, so we were all devastated. I mean, look--every black person in America knows what it’s like, we’ve all dealt with racism on some level, on some scale, so we’re not surprised about racism in America. What we were surprised about is that it has gotten to a point where you were able to murder a black man in broad daylight and act like you were just going for a walk in the park. And that was something, thank God, America was not willing to live with. And so we got really riled up, my husband, my kids, we got really riled up. The Insider: Did you go out to protest? D’Aquino: Yes. We started seeing the protests happening and being adults of a certain age in the midst of a pandemic, a virus. we’re like, okay, this is not very safe for us to go out and protest. But every day, I got more and more emotional. It was very interesting because all of my interactions with biases over the years with my own personal experiences started to come – rise up in me out of nowhere. I didn’t even realize I would start to feel this. But at the thought of that, crying and a lot of emotions and a lot of discussions with my family. And so we went through that period and then we all decided, okay, what are we going to do about this? In the age of Trump, people decided that they wanted a president like this who is in my views, in my opinion, a racist himself. I understand not everyone that is a Trump supporter is a racist per se, but Trump being a racist was not a deal breaker for them to vote for him. So that in itself is an issue. My husband’s brother and his wife lives in Connecticut and they have two young daughters and my own daughter who lives in Brooklyn with her roommates at this point in time, were full on---full immersed in this movement. The girls and the guys are every day they’re protesting. So I have two young nieces. They’re 16 and 18. And they really wanted to stand up and get involved. They decided, like most young people, that they’re not going to tolerate that. That’s not the world they want to grow up in and this is not for their generation, this is unacceptable, completely unacceptable behavior. Thank God for the young people, right? So she was coming down to New York and they reached out and I said, well, my niece is coming to New York, I have to go out, I have to make sure she’s safe. We have to protect her. So that was a really good excuse for me to forget about how old I was and that COVID was existing. So we all went out and we protested as a family and it felt amazing to be able to go out and for this amazing, amazing cause and this movement. And the energy! I have to say, I’ve never done a protest before, it felt like it was a dawning of a new day in America. It felt like this country will never be the same. And it was so moving. And it was beautiful, it was really, really beautiful. It was peaceful, it – people were just all there with one accord, one purpose, one vision. And it was just beautiful. So we did that, we protested and then I got online and I started signing petitions and posting and so we did as much of that, donating, whatever we could. Yeah, so we were very much a big part of that. The Insider: What do you think about Kamala Harris being chosen as the vice-presidential candidat? Was that meaningful to you or not particularly? D’Aquino: Absolutely, it's extremely meaningful to me. it’s meaningful on many levels: the fact that she’s a woman, the fact that she’s a woman of color. I think that this country has far, by far taken the African-American woman’s vote for granted. And I think they make up a huge part of the voting criteria in America. And I think our cabinets need to start reflecting first of all what we look like as a nation. This country is not made up of a bunch of old white men in suits (laughs). That’s not what America looks like. And so how can you have women’s issues at the table, black women’s issues at the table if we’re not represented? We’re asking a bunch of men, first of all, to make decisions about women’s lives. And then we’re asking a bunch of men to make decisions about black women’s lives. In the black community, black women are in most cases, in most times, holding the household down. And we need to be able to see how we can support them and support that. And so these are issues that I think that are very, very important. And I think Kamala when she was running for president, I thought I like her. There’s a lot of things about her that I really like and I can get on board with. she’s very, very qualified and she’s a smart woman. And she shares a lot of the same values as most of –I had two choices, Rice was one of them and it was her. Kamala was my second choice. But I realized in the later days, I said she is going to be a better match for him that Rice. She has the personality that he needs. Biden needs someone to be able to be strong and stand up to Trump. Absolutely. And Kamala is not going to take his bullying. After all, she is a Caribbean woman like myself. We’ve been raised with that vigor to stand up for ourselves no matter what. We’re known as the strong Caribbean woman. That’s how they categorize us. And we all come from really strong mothers and so, yes, it was very exciting to see her on the ticket. And I’m really, really looking forward to this election and all I want to say to people is get out and vote! You can go to a restaurant and take your mask off and eat, you can get on a line and stand for three hours if you have to, vote, get out and do it. Get out and just stand on a line as though your life depended on it because it does. Like Michelle said. Totally, as though your life depended on it because honestly, I’m frightened if Trump should win again. I’m not even just saying this-- I have anxiety about him winning again. This country, this great, great country-- it was always a great country. He didn’t have to make it great again. It was great and it will continue to be great,

Preventing Peaceful Change, Though, Will Keep Us in Crisis By Michael McQuillan Even as much of the nation is grieving for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and girding for the Senate fight on her Supreme Court successor, that has not pushed social protest and policing reform off the nation's front pages. They remain urgent ongoing concerns. So, as we salute RBG’s legacy and decry Mitch McConnell's hypocrisy on how soon the Senate should fill her seat, the judicial system thrusts other issues at us. Current events and rhetorical thunder will continue to motivate the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as its adversaries, as each proceeding's conclusion becomes breaking news. On Wednesday, a Louisville, KY grand jury indicted one police detective on three counts of wanton endangerment for his wild gunfire into other apartments, but charged no one for killing Breonna Taylor, an African-American woman shot six times in her bed in March. A grand jury in Rochester, NY is weighing criminal charges for Daniel Prude's death; Prude, a Black man suffering from mental illness, suffocated on March 23 when police officers placed a bag over his head. The Eric Garner case, in which a police officer used a banned chokehold on Garner, an African-American man, to subdue and kill him in 2014 for selling loose cigarettes in New York City, has reopened with his family's lawsuit for a judicial inquiry into the actions of the police. America has learned little since the 1968 Kerner Commission found police misconduct in minority communities the causal thread in urban uprisings. Bromides like "the vast majority are good cops but a few bad apples cause problems," trotted out during crises, make us complacent until the next crisis occurs. Would a yearly roll call for the unarmed victims of police violence, as for our 9/11 dead, wake us from slumber? Put your heart into saying their names: Amadou Diallo, Abner Louima, Sean Bell, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Ramarley Graham, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Alton Sterling, Philando Castille, Akai Gurley, Sandra Bland, Stephon Clark, Eric Garner, Rayshard Brooks, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Daniel Prude, Jason Blake, ….. Blood seeps through a "blue wall" police culture that without remorse treats each racial misconduct case as unique. That establishment lied about the 2014-2018 illegal arrest quotas targeting innocent youth in New York's Black and Latino neighborhoods, as Steven Maing's "Crime and Punishment" documentary on the New York Police Department 12 exposed. The NYPD reluctantly formed a Training Advisory Council in 2015 to improve its race relations after Garner died. I was one of seven professionals recruited, appointed and deterred by opponents whose toolkit comprised deflection, distraction, delay. When Michael Julian, the Deputy Commissioner for Training, declared at the outset that "we deliberately avoid talking about race because it's so volatile," it signaled what was in store. I thought we'd work through his reserve in good faith, but found him a foot soldier in the psychological cold war that in three years forced our group to dissolve from frustration. Surveying police departments in twelve other cities for race-related police academy and in-service programs, we endorsed what the Seattle Police Department had done as "highly developed" and worth replicating. All SPD executive, patrol and support personnel had mandatory full-day sessions on institutional and implicit bias; no other urban police department had both. Authentic role-play scenarios of traffic stops and other encounters in mock settings at a complex outside Seattle challenged police officials to master their training before field work resumed. SPD's documentaries on the history of police-community relations dating back to slave patrols sparked essential discussions. NYPD sent two of us with a staff team to observe in Seattle. We were excited when a state-of-the-art police academy in Queens opened, with Seattle-like role playing replacing the old site's PowerPoint lectures. But in the end, what our group had done was resented. "The protocol is that people come here to learn what we do," academy officials said as bureaucratic inertia took hold. NYPD delayed formal meetings at One Police Plaza for months at a time. We worked on our own during these intervals with no authority to advance our proposals. Its paid training consultants spurned contact, and we couldn't reach Commissioner O'Neill even though before him Bill Bratton had said "the race factor is undeniable in the police-community divide, and unless we can solve the race issue, we can't solve other issues." The NYPD staff tabled crucial agenda items or interrupted the process, asserting that the First Deputy Commissioner had other groups waiting, hustling him from the conference room. We couldn't leverage outside support since the press office wouldn't announce we existed. Police command calls civilians outsiders, critics enemies. Fear "they won't come when I need them and crime will increase" mutes elected officials' and the public's dissent; police culture, systemically racist, puts neighbors at risk when they leave home each morning. "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violence inevitable," President John F. Kennedy said. Will you say or do something to help before the next crisis occurs? What does your conscience tell you? Michael McQuillan, who was Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden's Adviser for Racial and Ethnic Affairs from 1988 to 2000, coordinated the Crown Heights Coalition, and later chaired the NYPD Training Advisory Council’s Race Subcommittee. His website: mcquillan-unity-forum.squarespace.com