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From CNBC August 10, 2020 Economist and bestselling author Jeffrey Sachs says a geopolitical cold war with China would be a “dreadful mistake.” He explains how globalization will persist as societies and workplaces move online, and urges policymakers to come together to tackle issues like climate change. Sachs says the U.S. economy won’t have a “v-shaped” recovery because of the country’s failure to contain the pandemic.

The best laid pandemic plans of mice and men often go awry. That goes for the plans of rising first graders too. Manhattanite Willa Beck, age 5.75 years old (Willa’s grandfather is an economist, so she already thinks in decimals), has been looking forward to her recital ever since she started taking piano lessons in September. The weekly lessons, with her piano teacher Loy, lasted 30 minutes; in addition, Willa practiced an hour or so (in energetic ten-minute spurts) every week on her own. But in March, Willa’s in-person lessons, along with kindergarten, came to a grinding halt. With the onset of the pandemic, relatives and schoolmates were suddenly off-limits. What was a budding musician to do? Thanks to Loy’s ingenuity, Willa and her two sisters, Sienna, 7.75 years old and Olive. 4.0 years old, were able to take individual FaceTime piano lessons. With an iPad set up on a chair near the piano, Loy could guide the girls virtually while they played. Like musicians five (ten, fifteen!) times her age, Willa was determined to master her musical pieces before her upcoming recital. So each week, she regaled the family with “Little Indian Brave” and “Electric Bass.” Finally, on August 14, the big day. Willa and her sisters dressed up for their recital, but because it is 2020, no guests arrived in person. Instead, Willa’s parents, Lisa Sachs and Matt Beck, gathered the audience virtually for the gala. Soon, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins excitedly filled the screen. How did it go? Pandemic practice makes perfect! To memorialize the occasion, Willa has written the following exclusive essay for The Insider. What’s on the horizon for her this fall? Attending remote elementary school and taking more FaceTime piano lessons. To which we say, Brava!

By Andy Borowitz August 20, 2020 PHILADELPHIA (The Borowitz Report)—Former President Barack Obama announced on Wednesday night that he had renewed his lease inside Donald Trump’s head. Obama, who took up residence in Trump’s head during the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, said that his new lease will run until November 3rd of this year. “I’ve enjoyed living there for the past nine years,” Obama said. “It’s really the only Trump property I’d ever consider staying in.” He confirmed reports that, as of Monday night, his wife, Michelle Obama, had also taken up residence in Trump’s head. “Fortunately, there’s plenty of room for both of us,” he said. Andy Borowitz is a Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes The Borowitz Report, a satirical column on the news.

FRED PLOTKIN is one of America’s foremost experts on opera and has distinguished himself in many fields as a writer, speaker, consultant and as a compelling teacher. He is an expert on everything Italian, the person other so-called Italy experts turn to for definitive information.  Fred discovered the concept of "The Renaissance Man" as a small child and has devoted himself to pursuing that ideal as the central role of his life. In a “Public Lives” profile 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 Victoria Rolfe As a family budget adviser, I have been blogging, giving presentations and meeting with people one-on-one for a number of years now to promote the joys and peaceful serenity that come from stepping down from the frenzied spending that is the American way of life in order to live a simpler, more frugal existence and save money. It’s sometimes a struggle to get this message across and accepted. Many Americans are entrenched in the spending/debt cycle and honestly believe it is just normal. And then came COVID-19. My husband, John Rolfe (who writes The Insider’s Aggravation is a Full-Time Job column) and I have weathered the emergency effortlessly. We had already been living a modest lifestyle and had plenty of money put aside after 34 years of doing so together. Nothing really changed for us. But COVID-19 stopped a lot of people in their tracks and made them take notice of their finances, lifestyles and, unfortunately, their lack of savings. What seems to be a hardship, and indeed is for many, also holds a silver lining for them and for me as a teacher. Maybe now they will be ready to accept that there is an alternative to the frantic American way of spending, and it is actually a better way of life. America began this quarantine journey during the raw March winds when we too were raw and reeling from the shock of what was happening. Many of us experienced a job loss or a reduction in pay. We could barely wrap our brains around what was happening. All we could do was retreat to our homes, as we were told to do, and try to make sense of it all. We remained hunkered down through the rains of April, for the most part unable to even get outside much in the soggy world. As temperatures plummeted, so did our investments, and often our spirits. Things looked pretty bleak. All we could do was keep abreast of where we were financially and in every other way. For those of us who still had jobs it was just a matter of staying afloat and ignoring the stock market plunge (as we are always told to do), and stay the course. For those struggling with income loss, it was a matter of prioritizing and taking care of their most pressing needs (shelter and food). The rest would have to be figured out eventually. “But Victoria,” I can hear you saying now, “I thought this was going to be a silver linings message.” Okay, we are still home, but the initial shock has worn off a little. Those who have lost all income have hopefully figured out a way to get their most important needs met. Maybe they are getting unemployment, SNAP benefits, food from a food bank, a stimulus check, or help from other sources. The rest of us are learning to live at home, creating new routines, keeping ourselves busy and occupied. But the real, lasting positive effects are going to be what we take away from having gone through all this. For many, this time has given them somewhat of a wake-up call. They were hurrying along through life without even thinking about where all their money and time were going. This has given us all time to pause, and reflect, and live a different way, whether we wanted to or not. Many are surprised to see how little they are spending now that they are forced to stay home, unable to go to restaurants, coffee shops, stores, bars, movies or concerts. Some never paid attention to how much all of that was really costing them. And some are finding that they actually can lead a pretty good life without all that spending. Perhaps they will continue when life returns to normal. So that’s a silver lining. Forced savings help you discover a different way. The silver linings go beyond all that, though. As usual, when we go through tough times it brings out the goodness in people. Acts of kindness and generosity abound. It is heartwarming to hear the stories of people going above and beyond for their neighbors, friends and people they don’t even know. And staying at home has given us a chance to live at a different pace, to stop all the rushing about and really spend time with each other in ways we rarely do when life is going full tilt. We have been playing board games, making meals and baking together, even just talking and going for long walks together. Some people have reconnected with old hobbies that they never had time for when life was in full swing: knitting, gardening, painting, playing an instrument. All of that is the best silver lining of all as far as I am concerned. If you know me at all, in person or from my writing, you know that I have long championed the slower, simpler, frugal lifestyle that has now become a forced reality for many. As for John and me, we are spending this quiet summer happily tending to our capacious vegetable garden, for once having the time to keep on top of the weeds, critters and bugs, and enjoying cooking up some delectably fresh healthy meals with our garden’s bounty. I hope, you too, have discovered some silver linings in this anomalous time we find ourselves in. Perhaps some good will come of this adversity after all. A rainbow created by the storm. Wishing you all good health, happiness and peace. ☮️ Victoria Rolfe is a family budget coach who has had a lifetime of experience in the art and joy of frugal living and its resulting financial freedom. She spent many years as a stay-at-home mom and home economist and rose successfully to the challenge of raising a family of four kids on a modest income without incurring debt. She did crazy things like paying for all their cars with cash, paying off their mortgage in ten years, buying their next house for cash, and sending all her kids to college with no student loans, while building a comfortable retirement nest egg for their own bright future. She is now passionate about helping others to enter this beautiful world of peaceful and simple frugality and to achieve their own financial goals with the knowledge and personal finance skills that she has acquired. She writes a monthly blog, teaches via a series of light-hearted group presentations that she created, and sees clients in one-on-one personal meetings. Visit her website and blog at brightfuture2budget4.weebly.com, or email her at brightfuture2budget4@gmail.com.

A Poem by Estha Weiner In Judaism, mourners are considered to be escorting the dead Hebrew for ‘funeral,’ for ‘funeral,’ for ‘accompany,’ accompany him or her to the grave. No rabbi, no cemetery worker buries the dead. I do, you do, we do, he does, she does, they do, those in sorrow, those surrounding the sorrow honor their bond with the beloved, gone. Return the beloved quickly to the earth, to its able arms. The earth will escort now: the dead will not be alone. We will. Estha Weiner's newest poetry collection is at the last minute (Salmon Poetry, 2019). She is also author of In the Weather of the World (Salmon Poetry), Transfiguration Begins at Home (Tiger Bark Press), The Mistress Manuscript (Asheville Book Works), and co-editor/contributor to Blues For Bill: A Tribute to William Matthews (University of Akron Press). Her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines, including The New Republic and Barrow Street. Winner of a Paterson Poetry Prize and Visiting Scholar to the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford, England, Estha is the founding director of Sarah Lawrence N.Y. Alumni Writers Nights, and serves on the Advisory Committee of Slapering Hol Press, Hudson Valley Writers Center. She is a professor in the English Department of City College of N.Y, CUNY, and Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute.

Confessions of a Skeptical Mom By Laura Berman COVID-19 was on the uptick last month, with Florida, Texas, Arizona, California and other southern states drenched in hot red on all the coronavirus maps. My 19-year-old daughter was enrolled in physics and biology classes – what else was there for her to do? – and her university president, an infectious disease specialist, was rolling out the plan for fall: A cheery, upbeat propaganda effort dubbed Together We Will. The idea? Everyone on campus would be expected to marshal untapped reservoirs of carefulness and responsibility as a pathway to still experience the personal growth and connections afforded by a university campus. Dorm bed locations were being reconfigured to be six-feet apart. Plenty of “deep-cleaning” was underway. A university official, on video, promised that the watchwords would be “socially engaged but physically distanced.” Together We Will. “This is ridiculous,” I snorted. “It will never happen.” But Michigan State University has since only partially backed off. Newly released online videos portray administrators in green and white masks – school colors -- issuing enthusiastic welcomes to this bizarre new campus concept. The football season is cancelled. The president, under further consideration, suggests students heading for the residential halls would be better off studying from home, and agrees to promptly refund dorm costs if asked. But he isn’t closing the dorms or the campus. Many other colleges are shutting down. The publication Inside Higher Ed reports that hundreds of colleges and universities have changed their plans, going online, and in many cases, closing campuses or dorms since June. Within the last few weeks, Georgetown, George Washington University, and American University, all in Washington, D.C., have gone all-remote. Smith College announced it would be online and closed its undergraduate campus in early August, as did Princeton. In all, Inside Higher Ed reported, more than 40 colleges have changed their plans in the last couple of weeks. And that was before the University of Pennsylvania opted for “remote learning” on August 10. My daughter Lina, a sorority-bound sophomore, is eager to resume “real” life, among her peers, exploring the world outside her parents’ home. After spending spring and summer semesters watching mind-numbing Zoom lectures and doing physics problems in our living room, she’s ready for a change of scene, happy to forego at-home laundry and dinners served on ceramic plates for a house packed with 25 young women wearing face masks. I am certain, if I were her, that I would do the same. But the reality of the new COVID-19 campus – what Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber describes as “diminished benefits and increased risks”—which is likely to result in a “confining and unpleasant” campus experience – hasn’t fully dawned on most college students. If they can go, they will. For parents, the situation unfolds as a maze of contradictory and confusing choices, for which there is no easy roadmap. “Don’t you want me to grow up, Mom?” my daughter asks, reasonably, knowing that I do. But the eerie, mask-wearing, grab-n-go food campus, where wastewater will be analyzed for COVID-19 traces, is an unsettling way to let your kid try out adulthood. You can attempt to measure the risks, but the lack of any solid statistical guidepost is as obvious as the 50-yard-line in an empty football stadium. Lots of finger-crossing and wishing for the best isn’t exactly a template for good decision-making. And yet, that’s exactly what we parents are doing. It’s also what college administrators are doing, as they weigh the extraordinary dollar losses against the risks of pandemic infection. When the New York Times surveyed epidemiologists in June about sending their own kids back to school, few gave clear responses. “Epidemiologists’ informal motto is ‘It depends,’” reporters Claire Cain Miller and Margot Sanger-Katz concurred. So I am punting. In two weeks, Lina will head back to the Michigan State University campus, where the residents will be sharing bathrooms and eating “grab and go” food, mostly in their rooms. Masks are required in all public spaces, indoors and out. All her classes – including a biology lab – are online. Air purifiers are being encouraged. There’s no mandatory testing requirement at the university and, thus, parents were told, no testing will be required at the sorority. “Good luck at the House of Doom,” Lina’s uncle, a pessimistic fellow, tells her. I repeat the campus mantra -- Together We Will -- and hope for the best. Laura Berman is a journalist with a lifetime of professional writing experience and a passion for seeing what’s next. As a three-times-a-week columnist for the Detroit News, she earned a reputation for insightful commentary that earned her the National Headliners Award for column-writing and a Society of Professional Journalists lifetime achievement award. Her full-length pieces have appeared in many national magazines, including Newsweek, Time, and Fortune. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Laura is now a freelance writer, editor, and professional writing coach.

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 August 13, 2020 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a blistering takedown of Joe Biden’s running mate, Donald Trump on Thursday accused Senator Kamala Harris of maliciously speaking in complete sentences. Blasting her penchant for hewing to the rules of grammar, Trump said, “A lot of people are saying, mean, nasty, disrespectful. To a new level, like you wouldn’t believe.” “Sad,” he said. “Sick and sad.” Trump also was contemptuous of Biden, noting, “Sleepy Joe—something’s going on.” “Quite frankly,” he added. In his most withering criticism, Trump suggested that Harris’s stubborn insistence on making subjects agree with verbs was an insult to every American voter. “Woman bad,” 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 and quarantine, Part 13 By Laurence Lerman I was saddened to hear of the passing of filmmaker Alan Parker, who died at the age of 76 on Friday, July 31, at his home in London following a long illness. One of the most successful directors to emerge from Britain in the 1970s, Parker transported his estimable talents across the pond, where he helmed such popular films as Midnight Express (1978), Fame (1980), Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982), Mississippi Burning (1988), Come See the Paradise (1990), The Commitments (1991), Evita (1996) and Angela’s Ashes (1999). Arriving in Hollywood with an immaculately stylized visual sense that he honed as one of Britain’s busiest TV-commercial directors in the late Sixties and early Seventies (alongside fellow Englishmen Adrian Lyne and Ridley Scott), Parker’s skills as a cinematic storyteller only grew stronger and more clearly defined as the years passed, beginning with his first Hollywood venture, 1976’s Bugsy Malone, up through his final feature, 2003’s The Life of David Gale. Upon hearing of Parker’s death, I altered my streaming schedule to include the two features of his sixteen that I had never seen—David Gale and 1994’s The Road to Wellville—as well as his breakthrough 1975 BBC TV drama The Evacuees. I’m glad that I watched them all, particularly The Evacuees, a BAFTA and Emmy winner written by Jack Rosenthal centering on the lives of two Jewish boys who are evacuated from Manchester to Blackpool during the blitz. Essentially a filmed play, it’s quite fine, and along with the two films—which are lesser entries in his genre-spanning filmography, to be sure—showcases Parker’s consistently good work with actors and his splendid sense on how to arrange what goes into his frame (mise en scène, as the French film dork in me feels obligated to offer). David Gale, which Parker directed and produced, is the more disposable of the two—a dramatic crime thriller starring Kevin Spacey as a college professor and longtime advocate for the abolition of capital punishment who is sentenced to death for raping and murdering a fellow activist friend. Laura Linney is the ill-fated activist and Kate Winslet the journalist Spacey contacts while on death row to tell his story—the real story—as the clock ticks down to his execution. The film’s in-your-face agenda, hard-to-swallow denouement and overly martyred performance by Spacey (who was apparently in his Kevin-Does-Good mode at the time, having just starred in 2000’s Pay It Forward and 2001’s K-Pax) derailed this one for me, though La Linney and Lady Kate acquit themselves well. And, as it’s Parker, the film and its Texas settings look great. The Road to Wellville went down a little better for me, ironic as its comedy is of a distinctly scatological bent. Based on the 1993 novel by T.C. Boyle, the film looks at the life of doctor, nutritionist and corn flakes inventor John Harvey Kellogg and the unusual turn-of-the-century methods he employed at his health resort, Battle Creek Sanitarium. It’s a highly fictional historical fiction that Parker anoints with a colorful commitment to its eccentricities, which include all manner of scatological situations and humor. (I never read Boyle’s book, but I’m assuming Wellville’s happy embrace of flatulence, enemas, diarrhea, stool samples and constipation play a major role in it.) Wellville tanked in theaters, enthusiastic performances by Anthony Hopkins, Matthew Broderick, Bridget Fonda and John Cusack, notwithstanding. But Parker’s energetic engagement with the material can be clearly seen (and nearly smelled). Several years back, I had the opportunity to speak on the phone with Mr. Parker on the occasion of a DVD reissue of Midnight Express. We talked British filmmakers taking on American subjects, DVD and supplement materials and memorable prison films. It was a brief chat, but I was thrilled to be able to tell him how much I dug his work, particularly 1982’s Shoot the Moon, the finest marital discord drama I’ve ever seen, and the deliciously devious 1987 noir Angel Heart. Rereading that interview re-energized my appreciation of Parker and his impeccable body of work. He will be missed. Here are a few excerpts: LAURENCE LERMAN: You’re an England-born filmmaker who’s well-known for taking on films with distinctly American stories and themes. How do your English filmmaking talents, styles and perceptions lend themselves to creating such “American” movies? ALAN PARKER: Well, I grew up on a diet of American movies and so graduated quite naturally to American subjects. The American film industry has always embraced filmmakers from abroad ever since the early days of Hollywood, so I was not alone. There is the theory that if you’re one step outside of a society, perhaps you can look at the world with some clarity and objectivity. Also, I have always been comfortable with the American vernacular. I always think I write better in “American English” than “English English.” LL: Midnight Express is considered to be one of the cinema’s great prison films. What are your favorite prison films? AP: I think Cool Hand Luke and The Shawshank Redemption probably are my favorites. Yes, those two. LL: Looking back on Midnight Express, which you directed nearly thirty years ago, what about it, if anything, would you change in it now? Any regrets? AP: Well, it was made when I was quite young. It was my second film. Also, it was Oliver Stone’s first credited screenplay and no doubt wisdom comes from a certain maturity. We were young filmmakers hell-bent on telling a good story about what we saw as an injustice of a disparate legal and prison system, and in our zeal to make our point, maybe a little light and shade got lost. The “good guy” Turks got left out. But the raw energy and uncompromising visceral power of the film still remains fresh and modern, which also came from the same youthful enthusiasm, single-mindedness and naiveté. 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.