By Stephen Koepp | June 18, 2020 This story first appeared earlier this month on the website of From Day One, a forum on corporate values. Reprinted with permission. The NFL takes a knee. Juneteenth becomes a corporate holiday. NASCAR bans the confederate flag. The stereotypical product mascots Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben and Mrs. Butterworth are suddenly retired. The Oscars promise to be not-so-white anymore. Band-Aid says it will start making bandages in darker shades. A parade of corporate press releases announces that companies will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to fight racial injustice and inequality. At companies with widespread complaints about toxic workplaces for people of color, heads roll. All of these things could have happened over the course of decades, but they unfolded in a matter of days. Suddenly, Corporate America was promising to make the well-being of Black America a top priority. It was not necessarily a matter of courage. After the horrific police killing of George Floyd and the waves of protest that circled the globe, corporations could see which way the wind was blowing. According to many recent polls, a two-thirds majority of Americans support the protests against policy brutality and racial discrimination. Almost overnight, Black Lives Matter has gone from marginal to mainstream, from argument to consensus. The corporate turnabout began earlier this month with a flurry of statements offering contrition about past neglect and support for the BLM movement. Many were filled with promises to “do better” and “do more,” with some offering pledges of money and proposing changes in corporate and public policy. Adidas, under pressure from employees of color and their allies, committed $120 million to programs that support black communities. As the company announced on Twitter, “First, we need to give credit where it’s long overdue: The success of Adidas would be nothing without Black athletes, Black artists, Black employees, and Black customers. Period.” Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky, whose company pledged $10 million to fight racism, wrote in a LinkedIn post: “As the CEO of the world’s largest health-care company, I must state unequivocally that racism in any form is unacceptable, and that black lives matter. And as a white man, I also need to acknowledge the limits of my own life experience and listen to those who have faced systemic injustice since the day they were born.” From IBM came a letter to Congress by CEO Arvind Krishna, who said the company would like to work with lawmakers “in pursuit of justice and racial equity, focused in police reform, responsible use of technology, and broadening skills and educational opportunities.” IBM, as well as Amazon and Microsoft, said they would back away from selling facial-recognition technology, at least for now, bowing to concerns about its misuse or abuse by law-enforcement authorities. While some of the declarations took flak for being disingenuous or too-little-too-late, they were generally welcomed as a potential turning point. “I think the statements and the additional efforts are extremely valuable,” Marion Brooks, VP of diversity and inclusion at Novartis Corp., told From Day One. Yet as dramatic as it all was, skepticism abounded too, given that “many of the same companies expressing solidarity have contributed to systemic inequality, targeted the black community with unhealthy products and services, and failed to hire, promote and fairly compensate black men and women,” wrote David Gelles in the New York Times. “Corporate America has failed Black America,” said Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation and a member of the board of PepsiCo, who is black. “Even after a generation of Ivy League educations and extraordinary talented African-Americans going into corporate America, we seem to have hit a wall.” Indeed, while African-Americans constitute about 13% of the U.S. population, their representation tends to be in the low single digits on corporate boards, at the C-Suite executive level, and in technical roles. Facebook has just a 1.5% black tech force, compared with Apple at 6%. Yet this inequality represents just the top of the income pyramid. Overall, since 2000, the wage gap between blacks and whites has grown significantly. That feeds the huge wealth gap. On average, white households have nearly 6.5 times the wealth of black households, reports Bloomberg. Inequalities in wealth and access to health care have contributed to the vastly disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on people of color. As Corporate America began to reckon with these realities, here’s how the responses unfolded: Statements and Gestures One of the earliest statements, on May 29, came from Nike, which posted on social media a simple black square with a saying in white letters protesting police brutality and racial injustice: “For Once, Don’t Do It.” Alluding to its trademark motto, the statement was in keeping with the company’s voice on social issues, including its ad campaign in support of Colin Kaepernick with the line, “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything.” Before long Nike’s white-on-black design became the default format for corporate statements, as dozens followed the template, diluting the impact. It became an exercise applying corporate branding to popular sentiment. “Unfortunately, the reality of the groupthink, even if backed by the best of intentions, transformed these messages into homogenous–and largely meaningless–wallpaper,” opined Jeff Beers in Fast Company. (Nike, for its part, followed through by committing $40 million to social-justice organizations.) Other companies attempted more original statements. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank, knelt with staffers in a branch office, wearing shorts, sneakers and a mask. Chase says that it’s making multibillion-dollar investments to address racial and economic inequality, “particularly for the Black community.” Even so, advocates of social equity want to see results more than symbols. “There’s a lot of performative allyship going around,” Y-Vonne Hutchinson, CEO and founder of diversity consulting firm ReadySet told the Washington Post. “Nobody’s asking for a CEO to take a knee. You take a knee after you change your policies.” Well then, at historic moments like these, what are the most important words and deeds for companies to get across? Business Insider, with the help of a PR veteran, analyzed 27 memos from business leaders responding to George Floyd’s death. The conclusions: “The strongest memos acknowledged where leaders and their organizations had fallen short. They confronted discomfort head-on, and invited difficult conversations. And they outlined concrete plans for cultivating diversity and inclusion, both in the workplace and in the U.S. more generally.” Many companies hurried to embrace a prospectively more durable gesture by recognizing Juneteenth, the day commemorating the end of slavery in the U.S. Nike, Twitter, Target and Spotify were among the small but growing number of companies designating June 19 as a paid company holiday. Changing Positions and Products The NFL, which has fought with its players for years over their rights to protest police brutality by taking a knee during the national anthem, did a complete 180-degree turn. “We, the NFL, admit we were wrong,” the league tweeted in an official statement. In a video accompanying the tweet, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said, “Without black players, there would be no National Football League. And the protests around the country are emblematic of the centuries of silence, inequality and oppression of black players, coaches, fans and staff.” The turnabout had resonance far beyond sports, given how President Trump had exploited the controversy as a wedge issue, painting Kaepernick and fellow protesters as unpatriotic. Shunned by teams as too controversial, Kaepernick has not played professional football since 2016. Other organizations decided quickly to change policies that seemed discriminatory, culturally unaware, or dismissive of the different needs of diverse customers. Walmart said it would no longer place “multicultural hair and beauty products” in locked cases, which it had been doing in about a dozen stores. “Predominantly African American people are buying those products, so the assumption is we’re thieves,” a customer told NBC News. NASCAR, a bastion of the white working class, said it will no longer allow the Confederate flag to be displayed at events and properties, while driver Bubba Wallace, the first full-time African American NASCAR driver in decades, earlier this month raced in a car with a Black Lives Matter paint scheme. The moment proved a catalyst for change in products that for more than a century had continued to display mascots that seemed to endure from the plantation era, despite complaints over the years. Aunt Jemima, Mrs. Butterworth, Uncle Ben and the Cream of Wheat chef were all retired or placed under review by the companies that produce them. Where did these stereotypical characters come from? “The images of placid, smiling African-Americans on commercial products were often created during times of racial upheaval. Characters like Aunt Jemima, who was first depicted as a mammy, followed Reconstruction when white people were scared of what it meant to live alongside newly freed slaves,” reported the New York Times, citing an interview with Kevin D. Thomas, a professor of multicultural branding in the Race, Ethnic and Indigenous Studies Program at Marquette University. (The Frito Bandito, by the way, made his exit in 1971.) Band-Aids, a Johnson & Johnson product, have been made since 1920 in flesh color, which was fine as long as your color was a kind of soft pink. Earlier this month, the company announced that it will start offering “a range of bandages in light, medium and deep shades of Brown and Black skin tones that embrace the beauty of diverse skin.” Commented Ishena Robinson in The Root: “A whole damn century from the time it was first introduced, Band-Aid brand has finally come to the realization that black people exist, have skin, get boo-boos, and need bandages.” Some companies started out on the wrong foot in their policy declarations. Starbucks, which in 2018 had closed its 8,000 U.S. stores for a day of anti-bias training after the misguided arrest of two black men, responded to the current upsurge in protests by stating in a memo that their baristas and other employees were forbidden to wear shirts or accessories declaring support for Black Lives Matter. When a backlash ensued, the company not only reversed itself, but for good measure said it will produce 250,000 corporate T-shirts promoting Black Lives Matter to be given to employees and sold to customers. That may have been a well-meaning gesture, but this company too was criticized for engaging in performative allyship rather than concrete measures to boost employees and community members. Going Beyond Words Investing large amounts of money to create equity and new opportunity for Black Americans is a welcome measure. Apple pledged $100 million, while companies including Walmart, Target, Home Depot and Levi’s were among the name brands promising financial support. Less recognized were employees taking advantage of already-established corporate matching-fund programs to help maximize their donating power. In the week following George Floyd’s killing, the matching-fund management company Benevity saw more than $100 million donated through such programs to civil-rights and related causes. Even more direct efforts were shown by companies launching programs to train more young people of color for the skilled jobs of the future. Techtonic Group, a Boulder-based software developer, plans to add 100 black and Hispanic apprentices to its Techtonic Academy program, a paid, 14-week course sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Labor, the Denver Business Journal reported. “We came to the conclusion that everybody’s putting up platitudes on social media and that doesn’t really do anything for anybody,” said CEO Heather Terenzio. “So we starting talking about our apprenticeship program and what we could do to help.” What other measures should companies pursue, beyond words of good intent? "Social statements mean nothing without real actions and investments," Elizabeth A. Morrison, VP of diversity & belonging for Live Nation, told From Day One. "I’m speaking specifically of commitments to increasing workforce diversity, tactics to drive equality and inclusion with clients (like diversity riders in contracts and supplier diversity), donations to social-justice organizations, and supporting legislation for equal justice. Ideally companies are doing many of these, and/or taking other action that is equally powerful and sustainable. Long-term commitment and partnerships are needed for this not to become the flavor of the month." Indeed, the Black Lives Matter movement strongly suggests that corporations need to get used to a new dynamic of social activism. Jim VandeHei, co-founder and CEO of the news organization Axios, calls it a "bottom-up revolution" that presents a stark new reality for American CEOs. "Doing good is no longer a niche. It's a necessity," he wrote on Axios. "The judgment CEOs feared most in the past was pesky reporters or regulators. The judgment they should fear the most now is idealistic employees on the inside and the social media warriors on the outside." While this presents a new peril, there is a potential upside to embracing this change: "We have found the new generation will work as hard or harder than we did if we provide this clarity of purpose and rolling, unvarnished dialogue." 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 Claude Grunitzky | claudegrunitzky June 19, 2020 This article originally appeared at https://trueafrica.co/article/why-this-american-economist-believes-africa-can-tame-covid-19/ Over the past 30 years, the Harvard-trained American economist Jeffrey Sachs has become one of the leading voices advocating for development policies that actually help the poor. As the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, he and his team advise governments, corporations and institutions on practices that help translate the Sustainable Development Goals into actionable solutions. We interviewed him on the coronavirus crisis in both Africa and America, as well as on the growing anxieties about Africa’s sovereign debt in these times of recession. There are currently around 276,733 confirmed Covid-19 cases in Africa, with cases increasing throughout the continent. What should African countries be doing now? Fortunately, the rate of infection and death rates in Africa remain far below the rates of the U.S. and Europe, but the battle against the virus must be fought every day. There are four overwhelming steps needed. The first is physical distancing. People should be wearing face masks whenever in public, using hand sanitizers frequently, and keeping a good distance (2 meters or so) from others to avoid infections and avoid giving infections to others. Governments everywhere should be distributing face masks and hand sanitizers for free on a massive scale. When countries need budget support for this, they should receive it immediately and unstintingly from the IMF and the African Development Bank. The second is testing and isolating infectious individuals. Africa’s cadres of community health workers should be deployed, by phone and in person when they are equipped with protective equipment, to identify and test people who are potentially infected with Covid-19. That includes people who are showing Covid-19 symptoms and people who have been in close contact with known infected people. When people test positive, or who are otherwise believed to be infected, they should be helped to isolate – either at home if there is a place for them where they will not infect their family members, or in a public facility that is converted to take care of Covid-19 cases. The third solution is to stop large gatherings of people that could massively spread the virus. Such gatherings include sports events, religious celebrations, entertainment venues such as concerts, large night clubs, and other areas where the infection could spread rapidly and widely. Such events are called “super-spreader” events and they are known to have been responsible for a significant proportion of all cases. The fourth step is to protect places where people live together in large numbers, including retirement home and nursing care centers, prisons, worker hostels, and the like. In such places, the virus can spread wildly and rapidly. Tens of thousands of deaths in the US occurred in care centers because not enough protection was provided to the vulnerable people in those settings. If these four steps are taken, it should be possible to enable other parts of daily life to continue. But going back to the “old normal” is not possible. We all need to be hyper-vigilant to prevent new outbreaks and to isolate infectious individuals as rapidly as possible, before they infect others. You were one of the first people to advocate for debt cancellation for the world’s poorest countries. Many people remember the work you did with Bono, to raise awareness on the issue of debt. Now, African governments owe around $400 billion, and some estimate that 30 or 40% of that money is owed to China. How do you feel about the latest calls, such as the one expressed in Obiageli Ezekwesili’s April 16th Washington Post Op-Ed, for writing off the debt that Africa owes China and other lenders including the World Bank and IMF? All creditor countries, including the Paris Club, China, and other creditor nations, will have to help the indebted poor countries to overcome the pandemic and resume economic development. In most cases, perhaps all, that will entail a stop in debt servicing during the duration of the pandemic. In many cases, it will require a cancellation of part or all of the outstanding debts. This is just a reality. In all cases, fighting Covid-19 and escaping from extreme poverty must take precedence over debt servicing. This should be a basic principle enshrined in global policy. And as a general rule, low-income countries should be helped mainly through ample grants rather than through loans. For many poor countries in need, loans are just a dangerous invitation to future financial crises. You have long argued for greater funding for the most impoverished African nations, saying that much of the money should be used for public health and education. The World Health Organization estimated in April that there were fewer than 5,000 intensive care beds across 43 of Africa’s 55 countries. And UNESCO estimates that over one-fifth of children between the ages of 6 and 11 are out of school. Do you think Africa is just wasting a lot of the money it is being lent or given? The problem is that there is really very, very little global assistance even though there is a lot of talk and debate about aid. It comes to a small fraction of 1 percent of the income of the rich countries, currently around 0.3 percent, and much of that is not directed to low-income countries. We often speak about the “global community,” but there is not much community. There are the rich and then there are the poor, and gap is enormous. Consider the fact that the world’s 2,000 or so billionaires have wealth of around $10 trillion dollars. Consider that Mr. Jeffrey Bezos, the owner-founder of Amazon, has wealth of around $160 billion and has increased his wealth by around $44 billion in 2020. It’s time for him to give a substantial proportion of that wealth for the global good, starting with the urgent needs of poor children. Of course, he is not alone. The billionaires should be taxed on their mega-wealth and should also dramatically step up their philanthropy. There are hundreds of millions of children in desperate need, of schooling, decent nutrition, healthcare, and true opportunities for their future. In your seminal 2005 book The End of Poverty, you famously expressed that extreme poverty could be eliminated globally by the year 2025. In light of the work you did with respect to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, and the latest objectives for the Sustainable Development Goals, how realistic is this 2025 target in a post-Covid economic environment? Every year of neglect pushes back the end of poverty. Already 2025 was not possible as of 2015, when the Millennium Development Goals were followed by the Sustainable Development Goals. I was glad that world leaders did adopt as SDG 1 the goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030. Yet even 2030 looks impossible now because of the Covid-19 epidemic and because of the selfish politics of Donald Trump’s administration, which preaches “America First” rather than “America and the world together,” which would be the humane, decent, and smart approach. Perhaps if there is a new US president committed to global cooperation I will be somewhat more optimistic. Of course, there are also reasons for optimism. The new digital economy is, on the whole, a friend of ending poverty. We can use the digital technologies for e-health, e-education, e-banking, e-governance, and more. In other words, the digital technologies can serve as leapfrog technologies, if they are widely available throughout Africa. I believe that the African Union should team up with China, Japan, Korea, the European Union and others to build out Africa’s digital network and renewable energy resources. Let’s switch to America now. The numbers have shown that Covid-19 is disproportionately killing Hispanics and African Americans in the US, confirming the poor health and precarious living conditions many African Americans find themselves in. You were a vocal supporter of Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary. If Joe Biden were elected president in November, what three things do you think he could do to improve the health and livelihoods of African Americans with a view to future prosperity for black people in America? The explosion of unrest in the Black Lives Matter movement reflects the fact that the precarious living conditions of many African Americans is the result not only of discrimination but of continued brutality by racist individuals and institutions in U.S. society. Trump himself is clearly a racist and a promoter of white supremacy. That is the shocking and awful reality. It’s why voting Trump out of office is so vital for the wellbeing of all Americans, but especially for the wellbeing of people of color, immigrants to the U.S., and people of Islamic faith, all of whom have felt the brunt and the anxieties of the dark forces stirred by Trump. We need, in the U.S., three kinds of reforms: economic, political, and ethical. Economic reforms mean a living wage for all persons; universal access to publicly financed health care; universal access to debt-free and affordable higher education; and decent work conditions including vacation time, paid sick leave, paid family leave, and other basic standards. Political reform means ending the corrupt system of big money buying our politicians. We need tight limits on campaign funding, and ample public funding of campaigns. We also need to make it easy to register to vote and to cast a vote, for example through vote by mail, election days as holidays, early voting, and so forth. Ethical reform means that we put the dignity of every American at the center of our concerns. Politics should be about the common good, not the mere struggle for power. The common good starts with respect for all people, tolerance, and working together for common purposes. This is all possible, even realistic, once we agree that our national recovery depends on a commitment to an America for all its people. The demonstrators on the streets of American cities these recent weeks have already made a great advance.

By Andy Borowitz June 25, 2020 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In an unexpected turn of events for the former New York mayor, a poll of legal experts has determined that Rudolph Giuliani is no longer the worst lawyer in America. According to the law professor who supervised the poll, Davis Logsdon, of the University of Minnesota Law School, Giuliani’s dethronement from the worst-lawyer championship was all the more shocking because his claim to that title had remained unchallenged for so long. “Giuliani had faced worthy competition from the likes of Michael D. Cohen and Michael Avenatti and dispatched them with ease,” Logsdon said. “But this new challenger left Rudy in the dust.” The new titleholder as the nation’s worst lawyer, who won in a nearly unanimous vote, is so egregious that he may cause some legal experts to reassess Giuliani’s career as an attorney. “Compared to our country’s new worst lawyer, Rudy demonstrated the utmost respect for the Constitution and the rule of law,” Logsdon argued. Reached in the makeup room at Fox News, where he was about to make an on-air appearance, Giuliani took the news of his ouster philosophically. “I had a good run,” 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.

The Insider Review By Madeline Barry Bob Dylan, the illustrious singer and songwriter, who is often described as the voice of a generation (“a colossal accolade” that he has said “can get in the way”), just released his 39th studio album, Rough and Rowdy Ways today (June 19). It’s been eight years since Dylan released Tempest, his last album of original songs. Rough and Rowdy Ways comes at a pivotal point in both Dylan’s life and in history. At 79, the poet and Nobel Prize for Literature winner continues to be a font of prophetic knowledge amidst modern day chaos. Within the first two lines of “I Contain Multitudes,” Dylan acknowledges the precious and precarious cycle of life. “Today, tomorrow, and yesterday, too/ The flowers are dyin' like all things do.” The song, like many on the album, continues to follow this Heideggarian train of thought. Time is finite and the knowledge of our inevitable deaths helps us to understand and contemplate our existence. At 79, Dylan acknowledges this inexorable fact. “I Contain Multitudes” feels like a reckoning of sorts. Dylan is comfortable with his contradictions. He croons about losing his mind if a lover does not come with him; claiming that half of his soul belongs to her. Moments later he demands that she “get up off my knee... keep your mouth away from me.” He is a “man of contradictions… a man of many moods” and he does indeed contain multitudes. He compares himself to Edgar Allan Poe, Anne Frank, Indiana Jones, the Rolling Stones, William Blake, Chopin, and Beethoven. In a rare interview a week ago with award-winning historian Douglas Brinkley in The New York Times (June 12), Dylan speaks candidly about his identity: “’I Contain Multitudes’' is more like trance writing. Well, it’s not more like trance writing, it is trance writing. It’s the way I actually feel about things. It is my identity and I’m not going to question it. I am in no position to. Every line has a particular purpose.” “False Prophet” has a bluesier feel than the hypnotic sounding “I Contain Multitudes.” Dylan’s voice takes on a gravelly tone, akin to the style of old blues singers like Bukka White. He sings, “I'm the enemy of the unlived meaningless life/ I ain't no false prophet/ I just know what I know/ I go where only the lonely can go.” The tone of “False Prophet” is unapologetic. Dylan is a rebel, the real deal: “Don't care what I drink/ I don't care what I eat/ I climbed the mountains of swords on my bare feet." Listen to his voice and lyrics and be transported to a dive bar surrounded by outlaws. In the 16-minute 54-second track “Murder Most Foul”, Dylan speaks rhythmically over a heavy string sound. The first song of his to ever reach Number 1 on Billboard’s rock chart, it begins with a reference to the date of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The details of that brutal event are laced throughout the lyrics, serving as a kind of violent motif. In typical Dylan fashion, he expresses his discontent with the United States, “Goodbye, Charlie/ Goodbye, Uncle Sam/ Frankly, my Scarlett, I don't give a damn” “I said the soul of a nation been torn away/ And it's beginning to go into a slow decay.” Perhaps the most haunting and currently relevant line of all is his declaration that “only dead men are free.” Towards the end of “Murder Most Foul,” Dylan invites the listener to play a wide range of artists. from Jelly Roll Morton to Beethoven to Dickey Betts. The allusions to these figures of the past and present, as well as many others sprinkled throughout the song, are not presented in a linear way; rather, Dylan’s timeline blurs the lines between then and now. “Murder Most Foul” forces us to consider the question, how much of history lives only in the past? “My Own Version of You,” is described by Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone as a “Bride of Frankenstein’ fantasy.” As a slide guitar twangs hauntingly in the background, Dylan sings about collecting livers, brain, hearts and “blood from a cactus” to create “my own version of you.” Dylan invokes some of mankind’s injustices, such as the Crusades and the selling of Trojan women and children into slavery. The lyrics are pleasingly eerie and the tune is catchy. There is violence, but there is also an emphasis on human connection. “I can see the history of the whole human race/ It's all right there, it's carved into your face.” “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You,” is slow, steady, and romantic. The lyrics call to mind a poem from the Romance Era. Dylan sings, “I'm sittin' on my terrace, lost in the stars/ Listening to the sounds of the sad guitars/ Been thinking it all over and I've thought it all through/ I've made up my mind to give myself to you.” Who is this lover? Chris Willman of Variety, surmises that “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You” is potentially a love letter to fans. In “Black Rider,” Dylan sings to a mysterious enemy whom Sam Sodomsky of Pitchfork believes could be “death itself.” Dylan exclaims, “The size of your cock will get you nowhere,” and “Don’t hug me, don’t flatter me, don’t turn on the charm / I’ll take a sword and knock off your arm.” “Goodbye Jimmy Reed” has a swinging feel. As the title suggests, the song is an homage to venerated bluesman Jimmy Reed. Dylan regards him as a deity of sorts: “Goodbye Jimmy Reed, godspeed/ Thump on the Bible, proclaim a creed.” The lively tune is fun, danceable, and humorous. The themes of identity and death reappear in “Mother of Muses,” with lyrics like “Forge my identity from the inside out,” and “I’ve already outlived my life by far.” Sheffield describes “Crossing the Rubicon” as a menacing tune. He writes, “In the sinister “Crossing the Rubicon,” he sneers, “I’ll cut you up with a crooked knife, Lord, and I’ll miss you when you’re gone.” When Dylan observes that it’s darkest right before the dawn—not the first time this weatherman has made that point—he follows with a throwaway “oh god” that can really chill your bones.” As for “Key West (Philosopher Pirate)”, Sheffield describes this song as “the highlight from an album full of highlights,” while Willman says, “Dylan stretches to find something interesting to say about the title locale before finally throwing in the towel at the nine-and-a-half-minute point.” And what has Dylan been doing during the pandemic? According to the Brinkley interview, the singer has been sheltering in place in his beachfront Malibu home and passing the time by doing a bit of painting and welding. Even though his spring tour in Japan was cancelled and his upcoming summer tour, which was supposed to start in Nevada, traverse the west and south and end in Bethel Woods, New York, is no longer happening, we can still hear the wise Dylan contemplate life, death, and identity by indulging in Rough and Rowdy Ways. 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.

By John Rolfe The flickering bulb in my skull recently came on with a realization: Life during a pandemic is a lot like living in a power outage. You keep doing things out of habit only to realize — oh, right — most stuff isn’t working. For instance, during a blackout, while you’re grabbing flashlights, lighting candles, and cursing the darkness, you’ll still flip a light switch and say, “oh, right” when it doesn’t come on. Or you’ll turn on the TV or boot up the laptop. Oh, right, the wi-fi is out. Or you’ll try to bathe. Oh, right, the hot water’s out. Or rustle up some vittles … During my time on this whirlin’ blue orb, I’ve blundered through some lovely power outages like the famous one that paralyzed New York from July 13 to 14, 1977. It struck while I was taking a shower, making it a royal challenge to light a candle so I could see my way out of the pitch-black tub. I’m very grateful that I’ve never had to deal with the prolonged aftermath of a hurricane or tornado. The longest power outage I’ve ever endured lasted several days. Caused by a blizzard and ice storm, it brought frugality, austerity and restlessness to Ye Olde Rolfe Ancestral Home. With stores closed or ravaged by frantic shoppers seeking supplies (snowstorm survival is apparently impossible without milk and bread), we kept a close eye on our stock. We tried not to keep the fridge or freezer door open more than a few moments while choosing leftovers lest they eventually try to exit under their own power. With water dwindling and our well pump unable to replenish the supply, unthinkingly flushing the toilet was cause for a Homer Simpson “D’oh!” moment. Fortunately, our pond is a source of buckets of H2O for flushing and a place to bathe if the clouds of flies grow too dense, though the neighbors will likely be alarmed. After roughing it overnight, we resorted to our trusty generator, though it powers only the water pump, furnace, and some lights and outlets, but not the stove, wi-fi, washer or dryer. Think of it as living in a partial re-opening of a city or state with some stores, services and activities available — a half-loaf of life with a semblance of normalcy. With no place to go and card games and puppet shows losing their power to entertain, an anxious brain on autopilot becomes the enemy. We had to be mindful of how long we ran the generator because it uses gasoline. With roads hazardous and local stations possibly powerless, getting more is a tad problematic. It's kind of like what can happen if you get lax with COVID-19 precautions. You’ll find yourself back in full lockdown. Like the blizzard blackout, the COVID-19 lockdown in New York came on suddenly though with some warning. Blessedly, the power has remained on, so being confined to the house has been pleasant (though I’m sick of losing at card games), but three months in we’re still dealing with store limits on foodstuffs such as that staple of existence, ramen noodles. I’m still setting out for places and discovering I’ve forgotten my mask. Or catching myself acting on the impulse to visit my local library, which has not yet been re-opened. Or suggesting we go somewhere on a jaunt only to have my wife remind me it is not the safest notion. Oh, yeah, indeed. Of course, the big, nagging, eternal question at times like this is when the problem will finally be fixed. If you reside in a rural area like I do, it can take a lot longer to have your power restored than if you dwell in a town or city, though we have enjoyed the special aggravation of seeing the electricity come on across the street while our shack remained dark for another day. With the pandemic, rural areas will probably be fully open before urban viral hotspots, but we shall see. No matter how long a pandemic or blackout lasts, one thing is certain: You never get fully used to living in them. 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.

By Doug Dworkin As an unrepentant news junkie, I spend a lot of time watching and listening to interview shows. Yes, they are often repetitive and sometimes downright stupid, especially when the interviewees are adhering to a set of talking points previously agreed upon by whatever faction they represent. Often they just wash over me like a robotic torrent of dreck, as when Mike Pence makes multiple appearances on the Sunday morning shows. Occasionally, a sharp and persistent interviewer can break through the wall of bloviation and make some news, but it rarely happens. There is another phenomenon I have observed on these programs, and I am sure this is not unique to me: the unasked question. Usually I say to myself, “well, the next interviewer will nail that down, it’s so obvious.” But it’s exasperating when something gets through that allows some tidbit of misinformation or distortion to pass as accepted fact. An instance of this occurred this past weekend on Fox News Sunday. Yes, I know it’s Fox, but Chris Wallace is an aggressive interviewer who is usually equally tough on everyone. The panel of commentators at the end of the show was bandying about their views on the current controversy over the proposed renaming of U.S. military bases currently named for Confederate generals. During the discussion, Republican analyst Karl Rove asserted “they were named after these confederate leaders as a means of national reconciliation.” As the discussion continued, moderator Wallace, said, “well, let’s move on to the larger question of racism.” But, for me, an unasked question hung in the air: Isn’t racism, in fact, exactly the reason why these bases have their current names? Such a question could have prompted deeper thought that might lead more people to inquire into the history of the century following the Civil War and Reconstruction. Of course, in the limited time available, a whole history was not possible. (Henry Louis Gates, along with other experts like Eric Foner, took four hours to cover it on PBS). But how about this: “Isn’t it true that bestowing these names was not about reconciliation, but a sop to southern politicians who for a century propped up the discredited ‘Lost Cause’ yarn about the Civil War?” I’m not sayin’—just askin’. Doug Dworkin is a former junior high school teacher, encyclopedia editor, and IT executive at IBM. Now retired, he Is beginning a new career as a professional dabbler and dilettante.

By Andy Borowitz June 16, 2020 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—One day after it issued decisions on L.G.B.T.Q. rights and the Second Amendment that provoked his ire, Donald J. Trump said that he would overrule the Supreme Court by creating a “Supremer Court.” “Right now, if the Supreme Court makes a bad decision, quite frankly, you’re screwed,” he said. “The Supremer Court fixes that.” Trump said that his Supremer Court would be a “beautiful, perfect court” that would make the Supreme Court “look like exactly what it is—a sad bunch of losers.” Trump said that the Supremer Court would be housed in a “giant, gleaming building” overlooking the Supreme Court, enabling the Supremer Court Justices to “look down at those pathetic little Supreme Court jerks and laugh.” As for choosing Justices for the Supremer Court, Trump said that there were no Supreme Court Justices worth promoting, “except maybe Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas.” “Judge Roberts is the beauty who gave us Obamacare, and Gorsuch is a total snake,” Trump said. “At least with Kavanaugh and Thomas you’ve got two terrific people.” 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 letter from Jeffrey Sachs, SDSN President To the Members of the SDSN Community, These are deeply troubling days for the United States, which is a country of deep contradictions. The nation was born in soaring hopes of freedom and the harsh realities of genocide against Native Americans. It champions the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and yet built a society on the basis of mass slavery and mass discrimination. It champions diversity for the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” and yet its officers of the law kill African-Americans at will on our streets and rip children from the arms of mothers desperately seeking refuge in the U.S. Our nation has passed through repeated paroxysms of protest and violence related to the scourge of racism. As a child in the 1960s, my early political awareness was shaped by the murders of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr., the primary-election victory of racist George Wallace in my home state of Michigan in 1972, and the wanton and gratuitous violence of the Vietnam War, itself stoked by ignorance and anti-Asian bigotry. The Detroit area, where I grew up, was wracked by widespread and persistent bigotry and violence against African-Americans. Thanks to brave and remarkable champions of social justice, our nation has made important and crucial advances in human rights, but it has also suffered cruel reversals, including the current disastrous and dangerous presidency of Donald Trump. Our job and responsibility is justice for all, whenever and wherever we can pursue it. The lines of Deuteronomy in my daughter’s Bat-Mitzvah reading summarized it perfectly: “Tzedek, Tzedek, Tirdof,” meaning “Justice, Justice, shall you pursue.” This is our highest calling as individuals and as citizens. We are blessed in our work and in our collegial life to be dedicated to the Sustainable Development Goals (blessed in the original sense of being happy and fulfilled). The SDGs are based on the core injunction of justice: “Leave no one behind.” We therefore act on behalf of a universal agenda grounded in the great moral charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is good to recall the first article of the Declaration: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” Today’s brave fighters against police brutality towards African-Americans speak to the highest calling of equality in dignity and rights. With Trump as President, America is perilously close to despotism in the service of racism and hate. The world is perilously close to a new cold war deliberately stoked by racism and nativism. And yet the very brave protestors throughout the U.S., who have inspired activists for racial justice around the world, are bearing witness to the overwhelming desire of humanity to 2 live in peace, social justice, and sustainability, and give us great hope for progress on these shared aspirations. I thank you, colleagues, for your daily efforts for global justice. This work never stops, and it is obviously more urgent than ever. Let us together do our part to honor the memories of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and all who suffer wantonly and unnecessarily because we have not yet achieved the soaring aspirations of the United States, the Sustainable Development Goals, and Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Your grateful colleague, Jeff Sachs

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