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By Stephen Koepp | August 27, 2020 This story first appeared earlier this month on the website of From Day One, a forum on corporate values. Reprinted with permission. Parents of school-age children are sharing uncharacteristic feelings for this time of year: despair, anxiety and anger. In normal times, this would be a season of pleasant anticipation, with kids about to head off to a place of learning and supervision. This year, it’s a full-on social crisis. All the scenarios for going back to school during a pandemic–remote schooling, hybrid schedules, or a return to the classroom–feel risky or nearly impossible to manage. “All the choices stink,” Kate Averett, a University of Albany sociologist who has been interviewing parents, told the New York Times. “Parents tell me about not being able to sleep because they’re so anxious, or tell me they’ve been crying a lot.” Times columnist Michelle Goldberg is one of those perplexed parents: “When I lie in bed struggling to figure out how to balance physical risk, economic sustainability and emotional well-being, I can’t make the equation work. And If I can’t do it, I’m not sure how parents with far fewer resources are doing it either.” Parents say they feel abandoned by government. This presents an urgent question for employers: In the absence of a normal system, what can they do to help the parents who work for them? The issue is not just a humanitarian one, but a practical matter. In a nationwide poll by the Washington Post-Schar School, “50% of working parents said it would be ‘harder’ or ‘impossible’ to do their jobs if their children’s schools provide only online instruction this fall,” a number that rose to 66% among parents of younger children. In another poll of parents, four out of five said they would have no in-person help educating and caring for their children at home. Those are ominous statistics. In fact, solving the parenting crisis looks like a prerequisite for jump-starting as the U.S. economy. To see how businesses are responding, From Day One consulted HR executives and other business leaders who have spoken at our conferences. The overview: Companies are assessing the programs they have and considering what they should add. Among the solutions in play: flex time, additional paid days off, increased back-up child care, tutoring discounts, nanny stipends, help with forming learning pods, and information-sharing forums on how to cope with the situation. Currently, only a tiny fraction of U.S. companies offer subsidized child-care centers or programs, but now many large employers are scrambling to explore their options. Megan Neumann, a consultant at Mercer who focuses on employer health and benefits choices, told the Washington Post she is getting four times as many inquiries from client companies about child-care and educational help as she did before the pandemic began. “Employers really haven’t ever been focused on [the needs of school-aged kids]” she said. “People have depended on the school year to provide for watching children and fostering a learning environment.” In June, the Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bank began offering employees 30 days of subsidized child support this year, either in-home or at a care center, the Chicago Tribune reported. RELX, a global information-analytics company, has increased its offering of backup-care days provided to employees through Bright Horizons, the largest provider employer-sponsored child care, according to Amy Noelle, RELX’s global benefits leader. Working with Bright Horizons, the company also offers “the ability for parents to engage with the Sittercity website to find an instructor to lead a learning pod,” Noelle told From Day One. The reality is that most of the burden of solving this crisis will likely fall on women, which will cause them both immediate stress and potentially a long-term setback. “I have concerns looking at data that showcases how women are more impacted by child-care and elder-care constraints and what it may mean for retaining and attracting female talent long-term if we do not all take a more progressive stance in this space,” Annalisa Esposito Bluhm, head of executive and strategic corporate communications at General Motors, told From Day One. “Here at GM, empathy is everything. It's difficult for so many and we have to provide flexibility for those juggling work with family-care issues,” she added. Bluhm offered a snapshot of the situation in the Detroit metro area and her own coping challenges: “Our district started the school year virtually and will assess at the end of October. We cannot find child care for our kids–all centers are at capacity. Nannies and tutors are in high demand and difficult to come by. Those who are available are commanding a weekly cash price north of $700 per week. There is no reality where I can find support and the only option I will have is to modify my work day to help my kids from 8:30 am to noon and then work from 1 pm to 6 pm and after they go to bed to make up the difference.” What Are the New Boundaries? One of the biggest ways for managers to help their employees, including parents, is to set forth work-from-home guidelines for managers and employees. Adi Ignatius, editor in chief of Harvard Business Review, praised the “work from home pledges” formulated by IBM and said his organization would be adopting them too. The guidelines include pledges to “be family sensitive,” “support ‘not camera ready’ times,” and “to set boundaries and prevent video fatigue.” “This is a time when organizations can truly demonstrate what it means to have an inclusive culture,” Reneé Konzelman, VP of HR at Honeywell UOP, told From Day One. “Employees have to be agile and adapt to the challenges that these stay-at-home orders bring, and managers need to be flexible and understanding that the workday is no longer 9-to-5  given remote schooling obligations during the school day.” Several experts emphasized to From Day One that corporations will need to develop a host of solutions to fit different needs. “This is new territory and there will be no ‘perfect’ answer,” according to Mikeisha Anderson Jones, VP of inclusion & diversity in the Colleague Experience Group at American Express. “Teaching (and remembering) about flexibility, creativity, resiliency, and agility will become even more important.” “There is no magic bullet, rather a range of steps to help employers manage the stressors for employees,” according to Rich Maiore, president of Rocket Social Impact. “This includes flex-time and collective child-care, to mental-health apps and wellness coaching.” His firm has provided each employee with a $250 stipend to create a more functional home office or play space at home. He added: “I myself have turned my office into a panic room designed to keep pesky children out. It won’t win me Father of the Year, but may preserve my sanity.” Appcast, a talent-recruiting platform, established a set of principles focused on fairness,  flexibility and clarity about goals and expectations, Leah Daniels, SVP of strategy, told From Day One. Among the most important: “Clear communication between managers and employees about each employee’s unique situation and how the employee plans to manage through it.” Promod Vohra, chief talent strategy officer at the IT firm ACS, agreed that managers need to listen carefully to employees as they decide on new procedures. “I feel that in addition to developing broad policies, most of the employees may need individual attention, as everyone’s needs are different. We must have patience and time to hear them out. That will solve half of the problem. These are unprecedented and unpredictable times and no standard policy can cover all bases. I hope this will result in better relationships and loyalty,” he told From Day One. Where Do Parents Need Help? When it came to discovering employee needs, Robin Schroyer, health and well-being manager for CommScope, conducted a virtual listening tour. “We have a global employee population, and to understand more of what our employees are facing with their children (focused on 10 and younger), I held a series of focus groups, connecting with people around the world. I am still working to complete my qualitative analysis, but there are a few themes I have identified: vacation time, network connectivity issues in the home, quality of child learning, impact on youth psychological and social growth, health, money (childcare vs private schools), productivity, communication strategies and mental health.” Schroyer is working on solutions to many of the issues. Managers need to make sure that in adjusting schedules and workloads to respond to the needs of some, they don’t let bias creep in. Appcast’s guidelines warn of this kind of thinking: “Don’t assume that primary parents or parents of young children are working less hard or that our employees with older children or no children are picking up the slack.” Daniels mentioned a few other current necessities: “A sense of humor, empathy and recognition that the best-laid plans can go south when there are small children involved.” At a time when uncertainty and ambiguity are rampant, some companies have tried to bridge the information gap by creating a forum for sharing tips, resources and other information. At Zillow Group, where the company has been offering flexible hours to their staff, managers have also “set up parents groups and have brought in speakers to provide guidance on home schooling,” according to Scott Moore, the company’s senior manager of early-talent recruiting. Fortive, an industrial and tech giant, asked parents to share their own tips with each other, curated the information, and circulated a flyer across the organization, according to Shinder Dhillon, the company’s VP of inclusive and diversity. Since the parenting crisis overlaps with a pandemic health crisis, companies have been considering both simultaneously. At Hewlett Packard Enterprise, “We’ve been focused on building our internal communities–parents, caregivers, those living alone,” according to Samanntha DuBridge, the company’s VP of global benefits and culture/engagement. “We are also providing additional days if needed for COVID and in the U.S. expanding our backup childcare. We’ve continued to add to our mental-health offerings and added Headspace,” the meditation app. At Southern California Edison, the company has offered 10 additional paid days off, on top of already existing vacation and sick time, for COVID-related care of the employee or any member of the family. The utility is also offering a stipend of $500 for home-office gear including ergonomic support, according to Liji Thomas, the company’s head of diversity and inclusion. A new corporate charitable program that has been growing in popularity in recent years, the employee relief fund, could be a helpful source of funding to mitigate the child-care crisis. Such funds were inspired mainly by the need to help victims of natural disasters, but they can be used for other kinds of personal emergencies as well. Since March 15, E4E Relief, a nonprofit that administers these programs on behalf of employers, has awarded nearly $70 million in 100,000 grant awards to employees at its partner companies. In a time of COVID, such financial grants have helped families avoid personal crises like missing a rent payment or losing their child care, according to Holly Welch Stubbing, CEO of E4E Relief. While many employers are rushing to address this crisis, only big and prosperous companies are likely to be able to pay for substantial solutions. A more sweeping response would require a philosophical sea change in how the U.S. deals with child care, which is exactly the demand of a new cohort of political activists: the “rage moms” who are sick of being expected to do it all. Senator Elizabeth Warren, wo made child care a priority issue in her Presidential campaign, told the New York Times she has experienced a new surge in support for her position. “Right now, I think women have just had it up to their eyeballs. They no longer feel isolated and one-off in how they couldn’t figure out how to make the system work, and recognize the system is broken, and nobody’s making it work,” she said. “They’re fired up. And I love it.” Steve Koepp is a co-founder of From Day One. Previously, he was editorial director of Time Inc. Books, executive editor of Fortune and deputy managing editor of Time.

By Dr. Shelly Broder My mom, known to Oak Park High School grads as Mrs. Broder, was a beloved art teacher. She was a marvelous teacher and a true artist. She taught art history as though she knew the artist, like a story. She taught all media, but towards her later years at Oak Park High, she taught photography. My mom not only inspired many students who became artists and photographers in their own right, but she also took kids under her wing who might have felt marginalized or were having troubles. I believe now that she knew she was doing more than teaching art. She fundamentally respected kids. Of course, there was more to her life than her students saw in the classroom day-to-day. While a fulltime wife and mother of three (Ron, Shelly and Sid) from the late-1940s, Dorothy taught painting and drawing classes in her suburban home and developed her style of fluid watercolor and charcoal figures. In 1959, Dorothy entered Wayne State University's College of Art. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and teaching certificate in 1966, and her Master of Arts in Education in 1970. Dorothy retired from teaching in 1989, but continued doing her artwork, spent time with her three grandchildren, and took up Tai Chi at age 64. As she aged, it became difficult for her to live alone. In 2014, we moved my mother into a senior apartment and had the task of cleaning out her house of 38 years, and her collection of things dating back 50 years. Over the decades, Dorothy had produced watercolors of landscapes, portraits, still-lifes and abstracts, as well as charcoal figure drawings in her home studio. Among the items I kept were her more than 200 watercolor paintings and charcoal figure drawings. My mom passed away on June 19, 2018. Since her death, I have become even more aware of her influence on a generation of Oak Park students. One such story emerged at her funeral. My older brother, Ron, who lives in California, told a story about someone he’d met on the beach the year before. They’d seen each other at this beach before and began talking. They learned they were both from Oak Park. After discovering that the man went to Oak Park High, my brother asked if he knew Mrs. Broder. The man responded with a wave of his hand, shaking his head, “Mrs. Broder saved my life. They were going to kick me out of school and she went to the principal and told him to put me in her class. They did. I learned photography from her, which is what I do for a living today.” The man’s daughter, who was with him. told my brother that her father talks about Mrs. Broder all the time. This is one of many stories, and those are only the ones we know of. Little by little, I’ve given some of her work to family, close friends and even those she painted or drew whom I recognized. In January, ready to part with my mom’s artwork, I came up with the idea of a swap: Make a donation, pick a piece of art. The donations are to my mom’s beloved Detroit Institute of Arts, as well as the Alzheimer’s Association. For those of you who may be interested in remembering my mom this way, this is the link to the website: https://giveandgetart.wixsite.com/inmemoryofmrsbroder/watercolor-paintings Above all, Dorothy was a devoted and loving mother, friend and teacher. She adored all of her children. Her friends were like family. And she spoke of her years with her students as the best of her life. She is missed now and always, and lives in the hearts of all who knew and loved her. 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.

June 25, 2020 Jeffrey D. Sachs | From Financial Times Robert Armstrong (Opinion, August 24) holds that the dubious appeal of environmental, social and governance investing “is for dupes only”. I would add that belief in the beneficence of shareholder primacy is for dupes only. The problem with US corporations today is that it is too easy for managers to harm others, including through environmental destruction, financial fraud, tax evasion, lobbying for narrow interests, addictive products, and campaign contributions to compliant legislators. In short, it’s all too easy to raise corporate valuations by harming others rather than by producing quality products at competitive prices. ESG is a limited response to these ills. Yet the real action must come through corporate law reform and regulation of companies for the common good. Stakeholder capitalism aims to change corporate law and practice so that company directors and managers desist from imposing harms on others other than through competition on quality and price. Stakeholder capitalism is now commonplace in Europe, but is still debated in the wild west of Wall Street (with its never-ending stream of frauds), US Big Coal and Oil (disdaining climate dangers), US Big Tech (massive misuse of personal data) and the US food industry (built on addictive, obesogenic foods). Mr Armstrong cites a study at Harvard Law School showing that stakeholder capitalism would “increase the insulation of corporate leaders from shareholders, reduce their accountability, and hurt economic performance”. The real problem in the US today is not “corporate slack” in which managers are not accountable to shareholders, the overblown academic concern of the 1970s. The real problem is that corporate managers and boards are not accountable to society for the massive ills they are causing. Mr Armstrong raises the question of whether American corporate law actually requires shareholder primacy, for example in Delaware, where many companies are incorporated. Experts are divided on the point. One approach is for companies to reincorporate as Delaware public benefit corporations wherein the public benefit company “shall be managed in a manner that balances the stockholders’ pecuniary interests, the best interests of those materially affected by the corporation’s conduct, and the public benefit or public benefits identified in its certificate of incorporation”. A stronger step would be to insist that all corporations hereafter operate by the standards of benefit companies. Jeffrey D Sachs Columbia University, New York, NY, US

A Rare Conversation about His More Than Five Decades in Opera 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 inThe New York Timeson August 30, 2002, Plotkin was described as "one of those New York word-of-mouth legends, known by the cognoscenti for his renaissance mastery of two seemingly separate disciplines: music and the food of Italy." In the same publication, on May 11, 2006, it was written that "Fred is a New Yorker, but has the soul of an Italian."

By Andy Borowitz September 2, 2020 PHILADELPHIA (The Borowitz Report)—Donald Trump claimed on Wednesday that Joe Biden is “incredibly sleepy” and has “zero energy,” yet somehow is peppy enough to destroy life in the United States as we know it. Speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News, Trump attempted to explain the apparent contradiction between a person being barely sentient yet capable of singlehandedly dismantling a global superpower. “Sleepy Joe is practically unconscious and almost doesn’t have a pulse,” Trump said. “But that’s because he has put his entire body into hibernation, like a bear.” Trump went on to say that he had seen a documentary about bears on Animal Planet “that was so scary, every voter needs to see it.” “This bear hibernated all winter, but then, when he woke up, he had enough energy to rip a hiker’s face off,” he said. “Just you watch. Joe Biden is conserving his energy right now, but, as sure as you’re sitting there, the minute he takes office he will rip this country’s face off.” Trump said that, in November, the American people face a stark choice. “It’s between me, their favorite President, and an angry bear who hasn’t eaten in months,” 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.

A Tech Whiz Tells All Matt Nadelson has been interested in computers and technology for as long as he can remember. “As a child, I enjoyed playing with electronics kits and would get excited by something as simple as connecting a few wires to a battery to make a motor spin or a light go off. I even had a CB (citizen’s band) radio. It was a useless gadget for a young child but I was mesmerized by it and would turn it on just to listen to the truck drivers talk to each other. I also loved playing video games.” That childhood enthusiasm led Nadelson to become a teenage computer whiz and later the founder and president of Computer Camaraderie Corp. in New York City. The Insider talked with Nadelson, 37, about his life as a computer prodigy and his advice to Insider readers about getting maximum mileage and utility out of their digital devices during the pandemic. The Insider: How did you make the jump from electronic gadgets to computers? Matt Nadelson: When I was 7, my curiosity about electronics spread to the world of computers, and I just knew I had to have one. However, my parents were not doing well financially during my formative years, plus the price of the average computer in the early 90's was over $2,000--more like $4,000 in today's dollars. So instead of purchasing a new system, my parents bought me an old used Commodore 64 from a neighbor in our apartment building. It was about $65. I didn't know it at the time, but starting out with an obsolete machine was one of the best things that ever happened to me. While most of the other nine-year-olds spent their free time playing video games on their computers, I was creating databases and learning how to code in BASIC. It wasn't because I loved to do those things, but because it was all my antique computer could do! Those experiences both stimulated my intellectual curiosity and gave me a better understanding of how computers function. So by the time I got my first state-of-the-art computer at age 14, I already had a great foundation and a problem-solving mindset that still carries over to all of my work today. The Insider: How did you start your computer business?. Matt Nadelson: My computer business began as a happy accident right around when I started high school. My aunt, Judge Eileen Nadelson, who always inspired me, decided that I had a talent that should not be ignored. So she convinced me to come to her office and give her computer lessons on a regular basis. At the time, she was an attorney in private practice in New York City. I would spend an hour or so per week answering all of her computer-related questions and teaching her how to use her software programs more efficiently. These programs included WordPerfect, Microsoft Word, and TimeSlips. I was learning all of them on the fly as I went along, and mainly saw it as a way to spend some quality time with her. I never for a moment thought it was the beginning of a career. However, my aunt insisted on paying me for our sessions. A short time later, she recommended me to her elderly neighbor. The neighbor had been using a computer tutoring service, and offered to pay me the same amount she was paying them for one-on-one training. And just like that, I had my first real client. By the time I went away to college in 2001, I had at least four or five more. I would assist these clients when I came back to the city on weekends. It was rewarding and lucrative as a part-time gig, but I didn’t fully see the potential of the business until the summer after I graduated from college. I was working part-time at the New York County Lawyer’s Association and began getting more and more calls while at work from current and new prospective clients. It became more and more difficult to juggle the two responsibilities. By the end of the summer, NYCLA offered to promote me to a full-time position. The problem was that the full-time position was more of an administrative one and only minimally related to computers. So I realized I had a big decision to make. Do I take the safe entry-level paycheck in an unrelated field, or take a risk to do what I really loved? I was still living with my parents, so I knew that it was probably the best--and potentially last--time I could afford to devote myself fully to an endeavor that might take years to become financially rewarding. Thankfully, I made the right call, and I am thrilled with how it all turned out. Computer Camaraderie Corp. was “officially” born in 2008. The Insider: What sorts of services do you provide at Computer Camaraderie? Matt Nadelson: We specialize in IT support, management, and web design for individuals and small businesses. I like to think of us as all-around technology problem solvers. Some of the more common needs our clients have include setting up new devices, configuring home or office networks, improving Wi-Fi speeds, fixing printer issues, and setting up smart devices such as smart TVs. We also provide security, proactive monitoring, and cloud backup services on a monthly membership basis. The Insider: What percentage of your business was remote before the pandemic? Matt Nadelson: About 5% or less. On-site service has always been our specialty, so we generally did not encourage clients to utilize remote support except when absolutely necessary. Scheduling remote sessions was also logistically more challenging when the entirety of most of our days were spent traveling to different locations. The Insider: What percentage of your business has been remote during the pandemic? Matt Nadelson: From the beginning of the pandemic until mid-June, 100% of it was remote. It was a big adjustment for me. Initially I really missed some of the aspects of my work that I love the most, like the personal interaction and the novelty of working in varied environments. Remote support felt less personal and less engaging. Also, my wife was working from home at the same time. Despite how well we got along and the great perks she spoiled me with, such as homemade lunches, it was still tougher for me to focus when there wasn't a clear separation between work life and home life. But eventually I got used to it and began to appreciate its many advantages. Remote work can be done more efficiently since there is no travel time involved. It also allows me to answer calls and emails comfortably during the course of the workday, which normally would have to be answered while I am on the run. In the end, both our clients and I were pleasantly surprised by just how much could be accomplished during remote sessions. The fact that my physical presence was not an option made many people more willing to go out of their comfort zones to perform troubleshooting steps. That willingness made a huge difference in what was possible -- especially in cases where remote control of the device was not an option. So if there is any silver lining to COVID-19, it is that it has forced everyone to be more adventurous with their technology. The Insider: When did you start making in-person visits again? Matt Nadelson: We started doing in-person visits again in mid-June. We only schedule a few on-site appointments per day so that we can allow extra time for the logistics of moving around the city and for taking all the necessary precautions. For every appointment, I wear both a mask and a face shield. I also carry an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, which I use as soon as I enter a location and as soon as I leave. Most of our clients also wear masks for the duration of the session. Sometimes that part is tricky, because there may be other family members present in an apartment while we are there. But we make an effort to socially distance from anyone we don't absolutely have to be near to accomplish the task at hand. The Insider: For the person now working at home for the first time, what adjustments might they have to make on their computer and other digital devices? Matt Nadelson: The biggest challenge for everyone working from home right now is Internet speed and reliability. As dependent as we all are on the Internet, most people are not accustomed to depending on a home Internet connection to perform work-related functions all day long. Many are discovering for the first time that their connections just aren't good enough. Sometimes that is due to the Wi-Fi signal not being strong enough to adequately cover the entire apartment or house, and other times it is due to the provider being overloaded and/or unable to fix issues in a timely manner. There is an unprecedented amount of Internet usage all over the world right now, and we have seen that many providers have a hard time keeping up. Plus, residential Internet providers do not contractually guarantee uptime the way business internet providers generally do. Uptime is the percentage of time that a provider’s Internet service is operational. Most good business providers will promise at least 99.9%, but residential providers generally do not make any such assurance. The other big challenge now is obtaining the right hardware for video conferencing services like Zoom and Facetime. Most laptops, tablets and smartphones have built in webcams and microphones, but desktop computers do not. Since COVID-19 began, there has been a worldwide shortage of webcams. It is severe, and unlike the toilet paper shortage, it still hasn't ended. This has forced many people to either buy new equipment that has a webcam built in, or pay exorbitant prices for what are usually subpar webcams. The Insider: How can a person learn to use Zoom or FaceTime? Matt Nadelson: The best way to learn Zoom or FaceTime is by doing. Most people just starting out on these conferencing applications only need to learn how to join other people's meetings, rather than hosting their own. So my recommendation is to keep things simple and focus on that first. We find that doing a quick test meeting or two with our clients is enough to bring most people up to speed on the basics. There are of course many more features and functions available in video-conferencing platforms, but most of them are necessary only for the meeting's host. One of those functions is screen sharing, which is usually used to share a PowerPoint presentation during a meeting. There are some helpful demonstration videos available on YouTube as well. The Insider: Any advice about getting free customer service assistance if you need it? Matt Nadelson: Most tech support departments are overloaded these days, so you can expect a long wait whenever you call on the phone. However, many companies offer live chat as an option for tech support and that is often is a faster route. Plus, you can get your work done on the computer while waiting for a representative to get on the chat, as opposed to waiting on hold. The Insider: Is cable TV service affected by the pandemic somehow? It seems as though service is worse. Matt Nadelson: Like Internet service, Cable TV service has also suffered during the pandemic. Most cable TV providers are high-speed internet providers as well, and they use a lot of the same wiring infrastructure to provide both services. The increased demand has spread their resources very thin and led to delays in fixing wiring, signal, and cable box issues. For example, after tropical storm Isaias hit the area, many people still had lingering problems even several weeks later. In addition, more and more cable TV content, such as channel guides and on-demand shows, are now being delivered via the Internet. So the likelihood that an Internet outage will also disrupt the TV in some way has only increased. The Insider: For people sheltering at home, what kind of services can be performed remotely? Matt Nadelson: Remote support is generally best suited for resolving software-related issues on a computer, smartphone, or tablet. Some examples would be cleaning malware infections and other security threats providing training, updating programs, troubleshooting strange messages that pop up on the screen, or even setting up a new device. We use screen-sharing technology which allows us to see or operate these devices as if we were physically there. All that is needed is for them to have a functioning Internet connection. In some cases, we'll also use video-conferencing to be able to "see" a device that cannot be accessed via screen sharing, such as a printer or scanner. The Insider: What kinds of computer service can NOT be performed remotely? Matt Nadelson: Remote support is generally not suitable for resolving hardware issues or Internet issues. Some examples include clearing a paper jam from a printer, installing a memory upgrade or other hardware upgrade on a computer, or replacing a faulty router. All of these issues require an extensive amount of physical manipulation. Even with video direction, a client would have to have a degree of expertise to get on the floor and deal with wires, covers, or the innards of the equipment. The Insider: What is the silliest computer or technology problem you have ever come across? Matt Nadelson: I always say there are no silly questions, but sometimes there are silly answers. Several years back I got a call from a client who reported that her computer was typing on its own as if it were possessed by a ghost. Believe it or not, it was not the first time I had encountered this problem. But I was fully unprepared for what I was about to discover. After spending about 15-20 minutes running all sorts of diagnostic tests -- all which reported nothing unusual -- I started to suspect that there might have been another keyboard connected to it. It was the only remaining plausible explanation. The current keyboard looked perfectly fine, yet the screen kept typing the same letter repeatedly, as if a key were jammed or stuck. I searched and searched in the vicinity of the computer for another keyboard, but one was not present. So I asked my client if she had ever owned another one in the past. She hesitated at first, but then said yes. She walked me over to her closet, opened the door, and pointed towards a shelf on top. Inside was a wireless keyboard, with several books stacked on top of it. As soon as we removed the keyboard from the closet, the “ghost” in her computer was gone. Turns out that when she stored it away, she left it powered on and also left the little wireless dongle in the computer, so it was still able to send keystrokes from afar. We shared a great laugh about it but also a sense of relief that it was not something more serious. Moral of the story – never trust your old wireless gadgets when they say goodbye! Matt Nadelson is the founder and president of Computer Camaraderie Corp., a full-service IT support firm based in New York City that specializes in the unique needs of home and small-business users. 212-734-2225 Email: matthew@ccc4me.com Facebook: @CCC4MENOW Website: http://www.ccc4me.com

By Merrill Lynn Hansen On November 1, 2014, President Barack Obama reached out to shake my hand.  I hadn't reached out to him--he reached out to me.  He didn't reach out to shake everyone's hand; just a few of us. Within a heartbeat, I contacted the immediate world, via Facebook and text messages, and told them that the President of the United States came right up to where I was sitting, and reached out to shake my hand.  Eventually, I had to admit that the only reason the President reached out to me was because I was sitting next to Congressman Gary Peters' family (whom I had just met), and the President wanted to say hello to them, and must have thought I was part of the Peters clan.  Peters' wife, and a friend who was sitting to my right, literally pushed me and yelled "He wants to say hello--SHAKE HIS HAND!" On that day, President Obama, together with Senator Carl Levin, Representative John Dingell, and every other notable Michigan Democrat, came to Wayne State University in Detroit to campaign for Peters, who was  the Democratic candidate to fill Carl Levin's U.S. Senate seat after Levin retired.  (Prior to that, Peters had represented Michigan in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2009.)  When Obama shouted to the 6,000- plus audience, "Give it up for a Wayne State alum, your next senator, Gary Peters!,” it seemed prophetic. Two days later, Peters was elected. Peters is now running for reelection in November, and Michigan is one of the key states that will decide whether the Democrats can regain the Senate majority. In order to do that, the Democrats need to retain their existing senatorial seats (including Peters’), and win three more.  It is not surprising that Republican strategists hope Peters is vulnerable.  By their standards, he is low-key and understated. President Trump recently campaigned in Michigan and referred to Peters as "invisible.” "Nobody knows who he is,” boomed Trump.  In reality, Gary Peters may be understated, but he is loyal to his constituents, and is a workhorse. To his credit, unlike most politicians, he has the ability to walk past a microphone without being compelled to grab it and start promoting himself.   Every summer, Peters rides around the state of Michigan on his Harley motorcycle, with a crew of Harley drivers, meeting with people from all walks of life, talking to them, and listening to their stories.  No one is invisible when they ride around on a Harley, and Peters certainly isn't. Peters is now the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.  Among his achievements, he has sponsored eleven legislative bills that have been enacted, almost an impossibility in Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's Senate, where proposed legislation suffocates under the dust on McConnell’s desk. But, with the 2020 election less than three months away, what's at stake for Michigan and the country is  more compelling than what we were facing in 2014, or at any other time in recent history, because of the pandemic.  There are nothing but unknowns regarding the future of our family's health, our jobs, our children's education, and our economy. Michigan voters are worried.  There is an additional crisis Michigan citizens are facing,  one that is also having an effect on people all over the country. Because of the changes to the U.S. Postal Service implemented by the newly appointed Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, veterans and seniors are not receiving their prescriptions on time; employees are not receiving their paychecks; small businesses are failing because of mail delays; and a myriad of other severe issues are resulting from “improvements” instituted by DeJoy, a major Trump and GOP donor. It hardly seems like a coincidence that at a time when Trump is ranting that mail-in voting will  perpetuate the biggest election fraud in history, his Postmaster General takes actions that will have a direct effect on whether or not voters' mail-in ballots will arrive in time to be counted. Within two weeks of DeJoy's taking office in June as Postmaster General, Peters was inundated with calls from constituents, complaining about mail delays. He immediately began an investigation into the Postal Service and the cause of the problems. As the ranking member, Peters was able to convene an emergency hearing before the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, which has oversight of the U.S. Postal Service.  DeJoy appeared on August 21, and testified under oath.  In his opening statement, DeJoy repeatedly referred to the USPS as an "organization,”and spoke of a "business model" for the post office.  At one point, he said he believed "we can chart a path for our business.”  He never mentioned the people whom the post office serves, and how their lives were impacted by the changes he had implemented. But Peters did. “For more than two centuries, Americans have been able to count on the Postal Service. But in less than two months as Postmaster General – you have undermined one of our nation’s most trusted institutions and wreaked havoc on families, veterans, seniors, rural communities and people across our country,” said Peters in his opening statement. "The country is anxious about whether the damage you have inflicted so far can be quickly reversed, and what other plans you have in store that could further disrupt or damage reliable, timely delivery from the Postal Service.” Peters cited reports of constituents whose health had been impacted by the delays and lost revenue small businesses have suffered.  And, of course, the concern that everyone has regarding the challenges of voting by mail, if the mail delays will prevent their votes from being counted. Peters was neither understated, nor was he invisible. DeJoy dutifully said that he would suspend any service changes that he had made, and that the postal service will deliver ballots on time and securely for the November election. The Michigan Republican Party, and the mega GOP donor DeVos family (as in Education Secretary Betsy Devos), think Republican candidate John James is their best chance to topple Gary Peters.  James is a Black Iraq war veteran who is the CEO of an international logistics company (as was our new Postmaster General), and they constantly refer to him as their "rising star.” James ran against Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow in 2018, and lost 52%-46%, which the Republicans deem a narrow margin. I find that confusing. because in Trump's Tweet World, someone who lost an election is a LOSER. But, the GOP, and the DeVos family, are sticking with James, believing he can appeal to voters a second time around.  He's a wealthy businessman, just like Republicans were sure Trump was, when they voted for him in 2016.  (Has anyone seen Trump’s tax returns yet?) During his last campaign, James referred to Obamacare as "monstrous" and said he would vote to have it repealed, But recently, he indicated that any healthcare plan should cover pre-existing conditions.  James hasn't mentioned that the Trump administration is arguing in a case now before the U.S. Supreme Court that the entire Affordable Care Act should be repealed. During this year’s campaign, James has tried to distance himself from the DeVos family, by telling voters that he has not accepted any donations from Betsy DeVos.  But James, whose wife works for the DeVos family-owned Amway empire, hasn’t distanced himself from the DeVos family, and he certainly hasn't distanced himself from their money.  The DeVos PAC has contributed a million dollars to his campaign, and the DeVos family members have contributed the maximum amount individuals can contribute.  James also hired Betsy DeVos' niece as his campaign's assistant communications director.  Her hiring came after her parents donated $20,000 to James' campaign.  James does not appear to be interested in cleaning the swamp, but instead, he's knee deep in it. This time around, James has been a little queasy about broadcasting his support for Trump.  When he campaigned against Stabenow, he told voters that he backed Trump "2,000%".   But for most of his campaign in 2020, when not courting Trump donors, James has been so subtle about his support for Trump that it seemed as if he barely recalls having met him. When speaking with a group of black leaders in April, James was asked by a pastor why he never confronts Trump about the racist comments he's made.  James defended himself by saying he felt like it was better "to be silent in public to gain access to Trump. Do you think that Esther could have saved her people by spitting in the king's face?  No. She was able to do that, because she was in the king's chambers.”  I couldn't help but note James' reference to the "king's" chambers. I don't know what biblical story inspired James' pre-recorded speech on August 24, the first day of the Republican National Convention, but when he said that "In  2020, we have a choice to use our voices and our votes to defend our republic, or to concede quietly to a leftist  willing to tear it down piece by piece,” he let everyone know that he is now 3,000% behind Donald Trump. John James and Trump might think that Gary Peters is invisible, but I'm hoping that of the three of them, it will be Gary Peters who will be the winner on November 3 (or whenever all the ballots are counted).   I'm planning on asking Peters if I can sit with his family when President-elect Joe Biden stops by to say hello, so that he can reach out and shake my hand. Merrill 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.

Mike Silverman and Dave Greenbaum, who live in Lawrence, Kansas, are nothing if not adventurous. After all, they were the first out-of-state couple to be married in California in June, 2008 when the state began recognizing same-sex marriages. As pioneers, they made the national news. And as tech aficionados—Mike is a software tester and Dave owns a computer repair business--the duo are used to living on the digital cutting edge. But when Mike, 47, decided to go skydiving this month, Dave, 49, was literally not onboard. Did he plan to go on the plane when Mike jumped? ‘Oh, God, no!” Dave says, laughing. “I’m the type who doesn’t like roller coasters; I don’t like horror films; I don’t like putting myself in harm’s way for the thrill. But I know there are people like that. So if they enjoy it, go for it!” For Mike, skydiving was “one of the things that’s always been on my bucket list,’ What’s the appeal? “It has an aura of coolness and danger about it,” he says. “It’s objectively pretty neat—you’re 14,000 feet in the air, the whole countryside is in front of you. It’s like the view you get when you’re in a plane, but you get to jump out and see it in a whole different way.” Mike, who was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and will have surgery in October, felt an additional motivation: “I know I’m not going to die of it or anything like that, but it does focus you on doing things that affirm life.” So when his friend Fonz, who was celebrating his birthday in August, invited a half dozen of his buddies to try skydiving, Mike was game: “I thought, “why not?” So on Saturday, August 22., Mike went on a quick early morning run with Dave, then drove 90 minutes to a small rural airport. “There was just one runway, prop planes, no tower or anything like that,” says Mike. “It’s really an airport in the middle of nowhere.” He met up with his friends, and signed “a bunch of legal forms, showed my driver’s license and paid for it.” The bill was $215. (“It would have been $115 extra if I had wanted them to film me going down,’ he says, “but that was more than half the price of the flight!”) Then Mike suited up. “It’s not a full flight suit,” he explains. ‘It’s like this harness apparatus. It fits all around you, your thighs, your back, your arms, your shoulders. They test it and they cinch it tight, to make sure that everything is in place.” If you were going to get cold feet about jumping, that would have been a good time to start. But, says Mike,, “I’m very into numbers, and I look at the statistics, and you’re more likely to die in a car accident on the way to the airport than actually in skydiving. I intellectually knew I’d be fine.” It did, however, make him reflect upon an earlier thrill-seeking trip he went on in 2016. “When I went to Antarctica, I jumped in the water down there. It was really cold—that ended up freaking me out more than skydiving.” So he and the rest of the birthday revelers piled aboard (the opposite of social distancing, but with everyone wearing a mask) a tiny plane, a Beechcraft, which would seat two or three people if it were a passenger plane. Within 10 minutes, they were at 14,000 feet. The moment had arrived. Craig, a friendly red-headed skydiver in his late 20s, tethered himself to Mike, clipping onto the harness that Mike was wearing. Craig also wore the one parachute intended for the two of them. Then it was showtime. Says Mike, “when you actually get ready to step out of the door, you don’t have time to stand there and admire the view and look around and get scared. It’s pretty much, you get in front of the door and you just jump, because there are people behind you, and Craig was there to give me a friendly nudge if I was scared. So basically, I’m on the airplane. then all of a sudden, boom! You’re in free fall!” There was a lot to take in below him: farm fields extending into the distance, Interstate 70 a tiny ribbon beneath him, the haze of Kansas City within view. But forget of any notion of free fall as gently bouncing from one cloud to the next. Instead, says Mike, “it sounds like you’re in a hurricane. You’re in a 120-mile-an-hour wind stream, and it’s blowing past your ears. It’s incredibly loud. It’s also really cold. It’s a 90-degree day on the ground, but up there, it’s 50 degrees. The air is pretty cold, and it’s hard to breathe for the first 20 seconds or so, both because the air is moving so fast, and because it’s thinner.” If that weren’t enough to think about, he says, “you want to maintain the right form, a C-shape, pointing down, and holding your arms out.” After about 15 seconds of this, Craig gave a reassuring thumbs-up sign, and had Mike do the same thing back. “At that point, I was able to kind of think, I’m doing okay, I can look around a bit. Then I had another 30 seconds to look around at the view, before the parachute deployed.” Mike had four minutes to luxuriate before the two men landed safely on the ground.” Mission accomplished! That night, back at home in Lawrence, Mike reflected on his airborne day: “It was a cool experience. I’m not going to become a professional skydiver, but it’s something I’d definitely do again. Because I’d know what to expect, I’d focus less on the novelty of the experience and more on enjoying the ride. People think I’m some kind of super-adventurous warrior or something, but I’m basically just a middle-aged guy who enjoys a thrill.” But don’t look for Dave on Mike’s next flight either. “Probably if I had been there, and I thought it through, and I had seen him falling through the sky, I’d be a little bit more freaked out. This way, it’s all abstract.” On Dave’s own personal bucket list: training for a marathon. “Ten years ago, I was tipping the scales with an extra 80 lbs. and 10 inches on my waist. I just started running two years ago, so being able to run 26.2 miles sounds pretty crazy to me. The biggest risk there is a little dehydration!”

The Impish YouTube Star Who Thumps Trump Randy Rainbow is my new neighbor on the Upper West Side of Manhattan! Okay, it’s true that the multitalented YouTube phenom didn’t exactly move in next door and stop by to borrow that proverbial cup of sugar. In fact, I don’t even know which street he lives on. But thanks to a nosy New York Times article in July, I now know what his new home looks like.. His corner apartment has a panoramic city view, floor-to-ceiling windows, two columns in the living room, sleekly modern decor, and a special room with a green screen and prop closet for Rainbow to use as his production studio. Wherever in our left-leaning neighborhood he alighted, Rainbow, a fierce satirical critic of the Trump Administration, will easily fit right in. (The neighborhood, which has jokingly been referred as “the United Socialist Republic of the Upper West Side,” is pyrotechnically blue, a lock for Joe Biden. In 2016, candidate Trump got a measly 9.8% of the vote here.) If the neophyte Upper West Sider, who grew up in Plantation, Fla., still had lingering little-town blues, July definitely melted them away. Rainbow won the Manhattan trifecta last month: in addition to the splashy New York Times real-estate story, Rainbow won an Emmy nomination last week (July 28) for “The Randy Rainbow Show,” his wildly popular YouTube Series. It was the second year in a row that the program was nominated.. To top it off, St. Martin’s Press announced the next day that they would be publishing Rainbow’s memoir, Playing With Myself, next year. Rainbow is a man of many roles: comedian, singer, writer, satirist, actor and producer. Best known for his YouTube offerings, which the Washington Post described as “sublimely impish parodies,” Rainbow regularly skewers Trump and his GOP cohorts. His weapon is musical comedy, with sassy political lyrics he writes to well-known show tunes and pop songs. Hence, “Oklahoma” becomes “Omarosa,” “Camelot” morphs into “Kavanaugh,” and “Maria” from The Sound of Music turns into “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea?” Rainbow’s stats are up in the Internet stratosphere and climbing every day. “Randy Rainbow has built a viral-video empire from his New York apartment,” proclaimed NPR. He currently has a contingent of devotees who have viewed him on YouTube 68 million times, and who also comprise a crowd of 1 million Facebook friends. He has many celebs in his fan base, including Hillary Clinton, Steve Martin, Sarah Silverman. John Legend, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ben Stiller, to name just a few. Musical theater icon Stephen Sondheim told the Washington Post Rainbow’s lyrics are “as good as anyone writing today.” Not bad for a star-struck kid who had a mural of the New York City skyline painted on his bedroom wall when he was a teen. To clear up a few matters: yes, Rainbow is Randy’s real name, His father, a musician and talent booker on the bar mitzvah and wedding circuit, changed the family’s Jewish surname, Ribner, to the showbizzy Rainbow. Yes, he is gay, or “super gay,” as he puts it. His mother told the Washington Post, “I knew he was gay by the time he was 3. He was constantly putting on shows and making the girls be the prince. He was always Snow White.” Yes, he’s a registered Democrat. And an emphatic Yes, he really detests Donald Trump, of whom he sings, “Of all the U.S. presidents he is the Mussoliniest.” You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to understand where a chunk of that animus comes from. “My father was Donald Trump in many ways,” Rainbow told the Washington Post. “His narcissism. I grew up with that generation of guys from New York, a generation of New York phony snake-oil salesman. Before he died [in 2017], my father said of Trump, ‘I can’t watch him, because he reminds me of me.’ My father had all that phony BS.” A marriage that his mother described as “a 32-year-nightmare” ended while Rainbow was still at home. The unhappiness took a toll on him. As Rainbow told Fresh Air host Terry Gross, “It made things very uncomfortable in my home and - you know, which is why I was locked in my room, making videos with my Barbie dolls. It was not a pleasant experience. It was not a pleasant environment because it really just - he was the nucleus, and it just revolved around this man who was really sick.” After dabbling in academia at Broward Community College and working on a cruise ship as a singer, Rainbow escaped to New York City in 2003, “I was a very young 22-year-old, so I just kind of started finding my way as a human and was working odd jobs here and there,” he told Billboard.. One of those jobs was as a host at Hooters. (“I can still see the disappointment when the men walked in and saw me,” he shuddered.) A Broadway wannabe, he went through rounds of fruitless auditions. But he became known in the Broadway and gay communities for his wit online, particularly when he began to edit himself into irreverent videos with celebrities, such as viral hits like “Randy Rainbow is Dating Mel Gibson.” Rainbow had found his métier. The rest is YouTube history. So how exactly does Rainbow craft his musical parodies and spoofs? CNN blares on his multiple large screen TVs at home constantly, as he obsessively combs cable news for inspiration. “Well, it happens very quickly, because we are living in the age of social media,” Rainbow told Billboard. “It's gotta be fast, just because of the amount of content being put out, and if you're covering this administration or the news today, the news cycle is completely different by noon the next day. So I am already an anxious person, but this has taken my anxiety to this next level. As rewarding as it has been, I'm more stressed than ever. I constantly have the news on, and I am constantly trying to keep up with things. That’s the current-events part of the process “As far as picking the songs, that's always the easy part for me because I'm very gay -- I think automatically in show tunes, so that always kind of jumps out to me, it's kind of obvious,” Rainbow said. “I also have a nice following now, so people are recommending things that they want to hear, so sometimes I draw from that pool. Then, I try to give myself no longer than 24 to 48 hours to do a video, so I'll write it for about four hours. If it's a song, I'll record for another two or three hours. I'll film for another two or three, and then I'll stay up pretty much all night editing. So it's very fast.” Whatever Rainbow is doing is turning into box-office gold. Before the pandemic, he was playing to sold-out crowds across the country. He’s even a hit in red states, where walkouts are surprisingly rare. This past November, on his new stomping grounds on the Upper West Side, he sold out the prestigious Beacon Theater as a headliner for the New York Comedy Festival. But the pandemic has put the kibosh on touring. Have no fear: the mischievously subversive Rainbow is playing on a computer screen near you. And if you can’t wait for a post-pandemic live performance, on his website you can buy a pair of his signature pink cat’s eye glasses ($20), or a COVFEFE coffee mug ($20). Is Randy Rainbow selling out? Hey, the guy has to pay rent on his swank new Upper West Side digs. To watch six of The Insider’s favorite Randy Rainbow videos, click on this link.

By Madeline Barry "KAMALA!" Randy Rainbow’s new video is dedicated to none other than Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Sung to the upbeat tune of “Camelot,” the sketch begins with a clip of Joe Biden announcing Kamala’s nomination. Rainbow, dressed as a knight and with his back to the camera, watches diligently. He turns to face us, a large smile gracing his rosy-cheeked face and he begins to sing exurberantly. His enthusiasm for Harris’s nomination is evident. It’s clear he feels confident that she has what it takes to “help make Trump’s first term his last hurrah.” Along the way, he pokes fun at current Vice-President Mike Pence, exclaiming “And in his pants Mike Pence just made a pee pee/ he’s scared a her!” and addresses those who “push crazy racist birther theories.” Rainbow praises Harris for going after now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his confirmation hearings and her ability to incite tears among grown men. And just in case you need a reminder on how not to pronounce her name? Rainbow’s got you covered. “And don’t you dare pronounce her name Kah-MAH-Lah!” “A SPOONFUL OF CLOROX” Sung to the tune of “Spoonful of Sugar” from Mary Poppins, this Rainbow short begins with a shot of Rainbow in a plum-colored suit, declaring, “Every product ‘neath your sink might be a medicine to drink,” a obvious dig at Dr. Trump’s suggestion that Americans ingest hydroxychloroquine in order to defeat coronavirus. Rainbow sings his heart out, passionately belting, “Just a spoonful of Clorox makes your temperature go down.” He advises viewers to put “Pledge on your pancakes,” “bleach in your beer,” and “a flashlight up your ass,” among other unique home remedies. At one point, Rainbow dons a Mary Poppins style “Jolly Holiday” hat, complete with a below-the-chin scarf. “Since it’s improbable you’ll win/ with your hydroxychloroquine/ splash some Windex in your wine and you’ll resolve.” At the end of the video, Rainbow pours Tide into a water glass and chugs it. The music speeds up and a disturbing image of feet tagged in a body bag appears on the screen followed by a flashing warning that you should not actually drink cleaning products. Trump’s voice declares, “Maybe ya can, maybe ya can’t, I’m not a doctor,” but Randy has the last word, ending the video with a sarcastic “You’re kidding!”. “COVER YOUR FREAKIN' FACE!” In classic Randy Rainbow fashion, “Cover Your Freakin’ Face!” begins with real footage from a presidential press conference. The hint that you're about to dive into a Randy Rainbow video? The bottom of the screen, which reads: “PRES SLOBBERS THROUGH PRESS CONF WITHOUT MASK.” As Trump drones on, Rainbow appears in his familiar guise as a reporter (once again, classic Randy Rainbow). “GURL!” he shouts at the President. “Mr. President, COVID cases continue to rise around the country. You said in your last stand-up special that you had asked your people to slow down testing in order to make the numbers look better, which by the way is f--king brilliant. You’re also not requiring people to wear masks at your rallies.” Rainbow pauses and thinks for a second before continuing, “which doesn’t matter, nobody goes to those anyway, but don't you think you should be following CDC guidelines and leading by example?” Rainbow proceeds to show Trump a few mask samples, hoping that one might pique the President’s interest. These include the standard pale blue triple-layered disposable mask that is all the rage these days, a pink cartoonish-looking mask, and finally, a giant Hillary Clinton head. Gotcha, Trump. Rainbow is as clever as ever in the video. He compares Trump to the virus, “You’re siding with the virus, cuz you’re a virus too,” and praises the one and only Nancy Pelosi for her stylish face coverings. "DISTRACTION!" Once again, we are at a press conference and Rainbow is playing the role of a comically gifted and concerned reporter. Rainbow wastes no time. He opens with a hilariously snarky statement, “We are back, Mr. President, I want to thank you for respecting recommended CDC guidelines and wearing a mask” (pause). “Oh! That's just your face!” Rainbow sings to the tune of “Tradition” from Fiddler on the Roof and dresses the part, at one point transforming himself into a Hasidic Jew donning payos and a black hat. He calls out Trump on his recent “Twitter tantrums,”which Rainbow believes are meant to distract from the global crisis at hand. “Obamagate” is mentioned a few times, accompanied by snippets of Trump’s interviews in which he slanders his favorite targets, these being the former President and Nancy Pelosi. Rainbow cleverly rhymes ‘distraction’ with synonyms meant to capture the essence of Trump’s interviews and policy. He sings, “Deception, inaction, confusion, digression, delusion, obsession, RECESSION!” "GEE, ANTHONY FAUCI!" An homage to the nation’s top infectious disease expert, this video opens with Rainbow in a Zoom appointment with Dr. Anthony Fauci. Randy worriedly expresses his feelings to the famed specialist: “I know you’re not a shrink, I just didn’t know who else to go to. I mean my country is a mess, I’m not even talking to it right now, I haven’t had a haircut in like 5 months, I mean I know i still look great, thank you, but I just feel there’s no leadership. And ugh.. The president is even attacking you. Can’t you stop him?” Fauci is silent, but stoic. Cue the tune of “Officer Krupke” from West Side Story. Rainbow croons, “Dear darling Dr. Fauci, we know you’re smart as hell, you’re certainly no slouch-i, Ya made it through Cornell, you’ve fought some bad infections, but now you’ve hit a wall, with the worst infection of them all”. Rainbow goes on to call Fauci’s raspy voice “sexy” an acknowledges Fauci’s heroic mission to keep the people of the United States alive amidst chaos. Rainbow then splices himself into an interview with Trump, who accuses Fauci of making mistakes. Rainbow wears a pale pink blazer and his signature pink cat’s eye glasses. He calls Trump “satanic” and declares that Trump only tries to save his “big fat ass.”” Ahh, the refreshing honesty of Rainbow’s humor! Other incidents Rainbow brings up include Goya-gate, as well as Kayleigh McEnany’s press conference regarding reopening schools, in which she announces, “The science should not stand in the way of this.” Rainbow responds by calling her a “dipstick” and asks if she has “been eating lipstick”. Rainbow compares Trump’s team to wind-up toys, and brilliantly coins the name “Cruella” DeVos. "ANDY!" Andrew Cuomo is the object of affection of YouTuber Rainbow in another playful parody video. “ANDY!,” sung to the tune of the Grease song “Sandy,” is a gubernatorial love song. This time, instead of watching John Travolta sulk at the drive-in movie theater, we see Rainbow grace the screen in a variety of fun 1950’s themed costumes. He sings adoringly to Governor Cuomo, “Oh Andy, baby, someday, when COVID’s not a thing/ If we’re on Earth, for what it’s worth, I hope they make you King/ You run my state/ While I gain weight/ With grace and dignity/ Oh please, be my dad/ Oh Andy!, Rainbow teasingly reveals that he is now a “Cuomosexual.” It’s worth mentioning that Andrew isn’t the only Cuomo that Randy appreciates: brother Chris Cuomo, concedes Rainbow, is still his “first love.”: Madeline Barry is a high school English teacher at Northside Charter High School in North Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She teaches three sections of senior English and two introductory Latin classes.  Figuring out virtual learning, listening to music, and writing for The Insider has kept her semi-sane during the quarantine.

One film journalist’s stream-of-consciousness cinematic journey through the pandemic and quarantine, Part 15 By Laurence Lerman An August convergence of Democratic and Republican National Conventions, a determination to deflect some of the unwanted anxiety that may arise from watching them, the wish to embrace something—anything—of equal size and scope, and the arrival of HBO Max and its vast library (2,000-plus titles and counting) yielded a multi-night summer streaming highlight: Sergei Bondarchuk’s War and Peace, the Soviet Union’s 1966-67 epic film version of Leo Tolstoy’s 1869 novel about the French invasion of Russia in the early 19th century. Remastered and reissued in 2005 by Mosfilm, the biggest and oldest studio in the Russian Federation (it dates back to Eisenstein), issued on disc stateside by the esteemed Criterion Collection in 2019, and premiering on HBO Max just a couple of months back, Bondarchuk’s landmark endeavor is a “film series" (as it was initially billed) that I’d long wanted to see, and what better time or way to take it on than as a palate cleanser between the two conventions, happenings of both war and peace in their own right? I’ve never picked up Tolstoy’s 1,200-page novel, nor any of his work for that matter, though I did see the original Off-Broadway production of the musical Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 at Hell’s Kitchen’s Ars Nova back in 2012. Based on a 70-page segment of the novel War and Peace, it was an exquisite and immersive production that snaked through its cabaret-styled theater and its audience, which was happily plied with vodka, perogies and a pleasing performance by a pre-Hamilton Phillipa Soo. One of those movies that rewards a behind-the-scenes look or a quick glance at a Wikipedia write-up (a well-researched one), Mosfilm’s production of War and Peace was prompted as a response to King Vidor’s 1959 American-Italian big-screen adaptation of the imposing literary classic. Starring Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn, it was released around the world as well as the Soviet Union, where it garnered tens of millions of viewers, international acclaim and some boffo box office. Seeing what Hollywood’s Vidor has done with the novel (can you imagine how worked up members of the Politburo must have been!?), the Soviet State, in an action that reflected the time’s “Khrushchev Thaw” of relaxed artistic censorship, set out to make their own bigger and better screen version of the Russian national epic, which Germany’s Der Spiegel trumpeted was a “counterstrike” to the one made by Vidor. Following a lengthy development and pre-production period that contained a documentary’s worth of stories involving the securing of a filmmaker, scripting, casting, costuming and construction, 40-yar-old Sergei Bondarchuk began filming the proposed four-part War and Peace. Five years, eight million rubles, 10,000 costumed extras, 2,000 horses, hundreds of props from Russia museums and two heart attacks later, Bondarchuk completed his project. And the film? Saying that it’s not a chore to sit through all seven-plus hours of it might not sound flattering, but that’s what it’s meant to be. (Think about the 90-minute movies you’ve squirmed through.) Formally constructed with flourishes of a modernist style that had rarely been seen in earlier Soviet-produced social realist cinema, War and Peace makes for a genuinely engaging—and lengthy—large-scale entertainment. And that means everything from the human story of the panoramic tale’s four aristocratic players, led by actress and ballerina Ludmila Savelyeva as Natasha and Bondarchuk himself as Pierre (he went through a number of possible actors before casting himself as the lead) to the awesome battle sequences. It’s those extended scenes where Bondarchuk lets loose all manner of cinematic invention, utilizing the kinds of “tricks” that are reminiscent of those wielded by France’s Abel Gance for his 1927 silent masterwork Napoléon. Among them are a variety of hand-held camera movements, POV shots, multiple exposures, superimposition, crane shots, film tinting, split screens and what looks like shots that were attained by tying a rope to the camera and swinging it through the air. War and Peace’s society ball segments, a pair of them, match the war scenes in scope and grandeur, making for a nice break from the battles. Like its Hollywood predecessor, War and Peace was a critically lauded and respected moneymaker; it won both the Oscar and the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film and was the U.S.S.R.’s top film of the year—even with the critics crying foul at the removal of large swaths of the novel, necessary to allow the film a “realistic” running time of seven hours. But are the naysayers satisfied with Vidor’s version, which clocks in at half that length? Or maybe they would dig a regional production of Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812. Following my very satisfying four-night streaming saga, I decided to go American and fill in a blank in my Seventies portfolio with a Burt Reynolds flick. Yeah, Burt Reynolds. From 1978, Hooper was director Hal Needham and Reynolds’ follow-up to Needham’s wildly popular 1977 directorial debut, the high-octane road comedy Smokey and the Bandit, which quickly became the template for Reynolds’ subsequent work for the next decade. In this one, he’s Sonny Hooper, a veteran stunt coordinator and stuntman whose years of broken bones, back problems, painkillers and booze are beginning to catch up with him as he works on his latest James Bond-ish endeavor, The Spy Who Laughed at Danger—and the stunts grow even bigger and more dangerous. Both Reynolds and Needham worked as stuntmen early in their careers and Hooper pays tribute to them, and specifically to late stuntman Jock Mahoney, whose work dated back to Columbia Pictures’ two-reel comedies of the Forties. Is it a coincidence that Mahoney was stepfather to Hooper co-star Sally Field, who was post-Smokey, pre-Norma Rae, and just at the beginning of her three-year relationship with Reynolds? The film itself is reportedly based on a fictionalized account of veteran stunt coordinator and driver Buddy Joe Hooker. Featuring Jan-Michael Vincent as a rising rival stuntman and Robert Kline as the overbearing director of the film within the film, Hooper hit a line drive up-the-middle of Reynolds’ late Seventies/early Eighties oeuvre—lively, but not as much as Smokey; insouciant, but not nearly as detached as Stroker Ace (1983) or, God forbid, Cannonball Run 2 (1984). You get the picture. At its center is Burt sporting the action-comedy persona that audiences loved at the time—handsome, funny, self-deprecating, affable and able to take a punch and leap a sports car over a gorge. And a helluva gorge it is! Following an hour-and-a-half of spirited barroom brawls, dizzying freefalls, fiery explosions, full-gallop horses, car-flipping hijinks and collapsing buildings, Burt’s Hooper—who, at the climax of The Spy Who Laughed at Danger, who climatically launches his ’78 Pontiac Trans Am off the remains of a flaming bridge and over a ravine in a 325-foot jump that set some kind of official world record for “rocket-assisted stunts.” Incidentally, the incredible car jump was made not by Burt, but driver Buddy Joe Hooker. Hooper’s leading man might be likeable and good-natured, but he ain’t crazy. 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 Colds, flu, stomach viruses, hoof and mouth disease … If there’s an illness known to man or beast, school bus drivers will catch it thanks to our daily contact with runny-nosed, sneezing, wheezing, coughing, chundering urchins. I hadn’t had a cold in years until I started driving my big yellow sickroom in 2018. In an uncertain world, one of the few sure things is that the kid who is a fountain of mucus (or worse) will sit directly behind you and spray germy goodies your way. The first time a student heaves up some grub on your bus is a rite of passage and milestone in this profession. Until you hear the dreaded “Mr. Bus Driver, I think I’m gonna throw up,” you wonder how you’ll respond. (You dread catching the bug.) With sharing a way of life on a school bus, my fellow drivers often develop rather nasty respiratory ailments. Last winter, I had a dry, wracking, whistling cough that tormented my wife for weeks whenever we tried to get some semblance of sleep. And now coronavirus has been added to the menu. While teachers, administrators, staff and parents voice their concerns about opening schools during the pandemic, I’d like to join the chorus on behalf of my brave colleagues, who will play an important role but are often overlooked. Many of us are of ancient vintage (50+) and not in the most robust physical shape, which makes us especially vulnerable to the ravages of COVID-19, though we can’t be so crumbly that we fail our mandatory physical performance tests. I get my aerobic exercise by shrieking at kids. Aggravation elevates the heart rate and driving a school bus allows you to work up a nice sweat at the sight of the hijinks and mayhem going on behind you. There’s a reason why the overhead rearview mirror is called the most dangerous piece of equipment on the bus. The compulsion to gaze into it (while taking your eyes off the road) is always strong. Now it will be almost a requirement. You see, it will be up to us to make sure our precious cargo keeps masks on their sweet little faces while on the bus. Without a monitor — which, like drivers, are in short supply — we will have to figure out how to be in two places at once: at the wheel and among the kids. Our attention really should always be focused on not plowing the bus into something. Along with enforcing the mask rule, we’ll have to keep kids separated by two rows of seats. That’s more doable when you have a dozen rows separated by an aisle and only 18 riders, as I do on my middle school run. It’s a tad more problematic when there are 51 intermediate schoolers and 48 seats, and the luggage compartment and roof are unusable per district policy. (Trust me, I’ve asked about stowing kids there in less trying times.) It’s easier to teach squirrels to ballroom dance than it is to keep young kids from getting in each other’s grill or piling on one another. I’ve (vainly) expended much time and breath explaining to my young riders why it’s in their best interests not to distract me or cavort around the bus while we’re in motion. Last March, when coronavirus became a hot topic, I tried to calm their fears by telling them I would be disinfecting the bus after each trip, making it unlikely that they would get sick. I was tempted to add, “The only sure way to catch coronavirus is by standing up while the bus is moving, or not listening to the driver” but I thought that might be pressing my luck with parents whose little loved ones go home and repeat everything Mr. Driver says. No one seemed to care or even react, anyway. “They’re not listening to you,” I was cheerily informed by a nearby fifth-grader as the usual noisy hijinks continued. “What else is new?” I replied. “I’m a father. I’m used to kids not listening to me.” Don’t get me wrong. I ain’t complaining. I’m willing to have my temperature taken each morning and do what I can to make opening schools a safe endeavor. But the sobering reality is if we pilots of yellow chaos start getting sick in even modest numbers, districts will be hard-pressed to replace us. There’s already a national shortage of drivers and more than a few have retired because of the pandemic. As it is, qualified mechanics and office staff in my district are pressed into service during cold and flu season. More parents will be driving their kids, but that’s going to make for world-class traffic jams around schools when we all converge at pick-up and drop-off times. But if that’s the worst we endure, let us all be thankful. It’s likely that no matter which course we choose — a full return, remote learning, or a hybrid of the two — someone will get the raw and possibly dangerous end of the deal. 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.