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By Andy Borowitz May 13, 2020 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Sharing helpful health tips with the American people, Senator Rand Paul said on Wednesday that the secret to social distancing is making everyone despise you. “People get all worried about whether other people are staying six feet away from them,” Paul said. “The trick is, if you act like a total jerkwad, people will stay much farther away from you than that.” Paul also questioned whether wearing a mask protects someone as well as saying incredibly asinine things does. “Airborne droplets can spread by people talking to each other,” Paul said. “If no one ever wants to talk to you, problem solved.” He urged places of business in his home state of Kentucky to reopen as soon as possible, a process that he volunteered to help safely facilitate. “If you reopen your restaurant and it gets too crowded, I will walk through the door and immediately clear it out,” 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.

By D’vorah Kost An urban dweller all my life, I have longed, since childhood, to experience country living. As a child, I was dismayed and often bored by the monotonous manicured suburbia where I grew up. I fantasized about living where I could wander winding dirt roads and forests, find rocks and trees to climb and have adventures! After 68 years, I have joyfully arrived in such a place, thanks to this 2020 pandemic urban lockdown, all Seattle obligations cancelled, and my (previously long-distance) partner residing here. It's quite perfect, because when one tends a lot of land, you don't go out much anyway, and now we don't go out even more. Being here day after day is as awesome as I imagined, nestled in the Chuckanut Mountains, with the expanse of land, lake and endless trees that surround us, with no houses or people in view. Lots of birds, squirrels, snakes in the straw, and an occasional bunny or lizard appear instead. I never knew I would find such comfort in being isolated. When we are told that the most helpful thing we can do for our community is to stay home as much as possible we have complete permission, if not encouragement, to embrace our oft-neglected inner introvert. Insider's Introverts out there, stand up and be counted! Dramatic shifts in the movement of sun and clouds change the lighting of the landscape throughout the day. From morning through evening, looking out our western windows, I unwittingly fall into a reverie, which can easily turn into an almost-trance, and then the pull to tend to a garden bed, or the horse that resides on our pasture. That's the magic of Nature--she is a seductress, offering blue-green serenity and simplicity. A real luxury, I NEVER thought i would feel so at ease with this. Rather, I would expect my long-standing guilt about my privilege to rear its ugly head, declaring "That is not the REAL WORLD. What about the suffering masses, the individual stories, the horrors of the daily news?" But honestly, it is true that Nature is also the real world. What better place for me to be, tending land and birds and horse, in deepest gratitude, and learning to live in intimate partnership, after 25 years of deliberate independence? I sheepishly admit that I could live like this for months, coronavirus or no. That said, I still do mentally wrestle, as did e.e. Cummings, who wrote, “Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. Sometimes, this makes planning the day difficult.” It's not surprising that savoring is far easier for me. As for saving the world, I am reminded, again, of a childhood longing: to end poverty, hunger and injustice. Now, in my "mature wisdom", I just embrace my feelings of overwhelm and helplessness and deep disappointment that human evolution hasn't arrived there YET. For many years now, I have been intermittently nursing a philosophical anticipation that some MAJOR disruption to life-as-we-know-it, is going to occur in my lifetime. Usually this vision would feature either a gradual (obviously begun decades ago) or sudden, cataclysmic catastrophe related to our climate emergency. We in Seattle have been fearing The Big One—an earthquake--which, per geological predictions, is overdue. I didn't foresee a pandemic, but I'm not surprised. Bewildered yes, surprised no. At the same time, all my life, i have been engaging in moments of magical thinking. As a child, i fantasized BEING magic. Since adulthood the vision usually involves a belief that, in my lifetime, Global Transformation shall be upon us, like the arrival of Messiah. (maybe it's too late for me to be discovered as such, but could it be my granddaughter?) Or perhaps the '100th Monkey' phenomenon would occur, in which just one more person learning/doing what is right and good provides the tipping point for real change to happen. Then there is Joanna Macy, environmental activist, teacher, author, scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory and deep ecology. She coined the term THE GREAT TURNING, referring to the belief that we are in the throes of the third revolution, (the first being the era of the agricultural revolution, the second the era of the industrial revolution, and this one being the environmental revolution). She points to the choice facing us: we can participate in actions toward healing and sustainability, or continue to promote the 'industrial growth society' which will likely lead to human demise. I desperately want to believe that the majority of human beings prefer cooperation over competition, kindness over brutality, truth over lies, and is willing to make sacrifices for climate justice. Why wouldn't we want equality, freedom, peace and justice for all instead of the violence, abuse of power, and tragic disparity that exists? Am I fooling myself? Because the world is now being shaken up in a way that we've never seen before, doesn't that suggest big change opportunity? How about an economy not based on money, competition, greed and exploitation, but rather a give and take in which no one is a have-not? How about a bottom line not tied to the "holy dollar" but based on the common good? Can we PLEASE not return to the former normal, a system in which it is acceptable that Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, has a net worth of $36 billion while his workers are being laid off with two week's lousy pay? Don't get me started on listing how much is unacceptable these days, starting with the current White House. Let us not go back to the way things were. Let us find an equitable economic system, one that cares for the sick and the weak and the old, the young, the parents, the workers and the farmers, the indigenous and the immigrant, the artist and the teacher, the scientist and the spiritual guides, the healers, poets, writers, dancers, musicians, gardeners....the entire human family. In this third chapter of my life, I need to be hopeful about the future, which will require moving beyond the habitual, both personally and societally. I believe it's time for those of us privileged folks to make sacrifices. We must think outside the box in order to realize what is possible. It won't be easy, of course. We will need creative, brilliant, kind and ethical leaders in every field of thought and implementation. Otherwise, this pandemic will turn out to be small potatoes as far as chaos and catastrophe.. "Imagine no possessions, it isn't hard to do, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too...You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..." I like to dream how it could be if, when we come out on the other side of this bizarre yet oddly real phenomenon of pandemapocolypse, we will continue to work towards healing the planet and ourselves like never before, thus ever closer to Global Transformation. The artist, Judy Chicago, offers an interpretation of the Jewish Aleynu prayer that expresses dream quite well. I've excerpted a few lines: "And then all that has divided us will merge And then compassion will be wedded to power... ...And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many And then all will share equally in the Earth's abundance..." This is my hope, my wish, my prayer. So may it be. Amen. Ameen. Selah. Ho! Hairy Woodpecker on our birdfeeder, Steller’s Jay waits her turn. "Antibodies don't ensure immunity." Anna's Hummingbird dances by the window. "Unrelenting stress for health care professionals." Cherry blossoms float on wind like snow. "It will take years for the economy to rebound" Now a Flicker is at the feeder Now the darkened clouds reveal some sun, and the lighting changes once again. "A research paper suggests a more contagious strain.....Europe.....experts are skeptical...no scientific consensus." New info, contradictory info, biased info, opportunistic info, fantasy info, fear-mongering info, conspiracy-driven info all occupying, 24/7, the incessant waves of media. Tune in? Or tune out---as i must do regularly, as evidenced above. Just turning my head. Looking out the window. Aaaahhh. But we are all deeply impacted, unless we've been stranded for months on an inaccessible island. Most of us are homebound with an onslaught of news like we've never encountered. This crazy-making info and radical required behavior change may render us all insane before we even get a vaccine, or, God forbid, catch the virus. Some temporary antidotes: step outside, find a tree, flower, rock, anything of the natural world, to deeply appreciate. Breathe deeply, boost your oxygen content, talk to yourself as though you were reassuring a friend who's about to have a meltdown. Find that which makes you laugh, like the cartoons that Andrea publishes here. Or Mel Brooks films. Or or or.... "Change is imminent, and can be a friend" said my hero, Andrew Cuomo, this morning. I've been watching his briefings from the get-go, to confirm Reality, hear a leader I can trust. I'd love to see a write-in campaign, "Cuomo for President, 2020." I know he's declined, but with a little pressure from an adoring public? We are living history in the making during this pandemic of COVID-19, in which a teeny-tiny microscopic organism has forced 21st century human beings to radically change our most basic interactive behaviors, and to suffer the loss of so much that we have been taking for granted. So many lives have been upended through enormous loss, serious and lesser disappointments, unexpected and daunting challenges the world over. Who can fathom these numbers, these personal stories, these life and death and economic repercussions of COViD-19? So much we do not know. It's very humbling. It seems like we are all players in an intriguing and baffling movie, wondering how it will end. What an opportunity to learn the Truth that we are all interconnected.

By Alan Resnick Like millions of Americans, I’m wrestling with the decision of whether or not to return to work as shelter-in-place rules are gradually lifted. Unlike the vast majority of Americans, however, I am remarkably fortunate in that my life situation is such that my calculus does not involve balancing my personal health against the cold realities of paying rent or a mortgage, putting food on the table, maintaining health insurance, or both finding and figuring out how to pay for child care with schools not open. It’s nearly impossible to imagine how excruciating this choice must be for so many people. So I have the luxury of truly being able to choose whether or not to return to work. But the decision is still complex. By way of background, I conduct vocational assessments on a part-time basis for a human services organization. The purpose of these assessments is to identify possible career alternatives for individuals based on their cognitive functioning, occupational interests and aptitudes, and capacity for additional formal education or training. It is the perfect gig at this point in my life (I turn 70 in January). I average about 12 hours a week, so time is also available for volunteering, hobbies, and doing nothing at all. I make my own schedule, come and go as I please, conduct all administrative activities from home, am trusted implicitly by my boss, and attend no meetings. And I enjoy the clients I work with and the intellectual challenge of analyzing interview and test results and converting them into a report that presents a coherent picture of a person. But it’s obvious that the current assessment process is loaded with risks to my personal safety, the safety of co-workers, the safety of clients, and, indirectly, all the people with whom we interact. There are dozens of potential infection risks in our current assessment process that need to be mitigated. Some of these are present for anyone who works outside of the home, such as the need to wear a mask at work. I’m assuming that our organization will mandate that clients wear masks too. And I’m certainly going to be wearing personal protection equipment. But I keep visualizing myself entering our reception area in a mask and gloves and asking: “Mr. Smith?” This seems more like the start of a colonoscopy than a vocational assessment. Our intake process alone, which I barely gave a second thought to in the past, now looks absolutely terrifying. The client enters our facility (!), checks in with the receptionist (!), is handed an intake form (!), completes it, and returns it (!). I then head to the reception area, walk up to the client (!), introduce myself, shake hands (!), and take them back to my office. While walking shoulder to shoulder (!), I engage in some witty and lively verbal banter (“Did you have any trouble finding the facility? How was your weekend?”). We enter my office and sit at a round table that is approximately 42 inches in diameter (!). I explain the assessment process, answer any questions, offer a beverage (!), and then conduct a background interview. This represents just the first 45 minutes of the assessment. If I was in the movie The China Syndrome, I’d already be thrown into a decontamination room and hosed down. Masks, while essential, create a special difficulty. Like any good interviewer, I listen for both what a person says and how they say it, because tone, volume, inflection, gesticulation, and facial expressions are much more reliable indicators of what a person is actually saying than are words. While it’s possible to pick up some cues from looking at the eyes alone, a mask makes it extremely difficult to tell if someone is smiling when sharing something that should make them happy or proud, frowning when disclosing something that should make them sad or angry, or even changing expression at all (and I have assessed people who have sat stone-faced over the course of a four-hour session). Equally important, my wearing a mask limits my ability to communicate nonverbally with my client to establish and maintain rapport. They cannot see me smiling in admiration if they mention a special accomplishment, frowning in sympathy if they reveal a disappointment or personal failing, or grinning in enjoyment of a joke or funny story. (I suppose there is always the appreciative snort.) Work-space risks are the easiest to resolve. A larger office would enable me to maintain appropriate social distance, as would a larger table. But I have no idea how I would administer paper-and-pencil tests when sitting six feet away from a person. Perhaps materials could be put in a Ziploc bag and pushed across the table with a yardstick or broomstick. A return Ziploc bag could be included in the client’s package, like the modern version of enclosing a postage-paid, self-addressed envelope. So, it’s almost a certainty that paper-and-pencil tests will have to be eliminated. But there are certain parts of some tests in the current battery that cannot be completed electronically. This creates problems in both computing scores and interpreting results. And electronic testing, although safer in that it eliminates all face-to-face contact, also eliminates my ability to watch a person’s behavior during test completion, which is another rich source of assessment data. I’ve observed people talking to themselves while completing computerized tests, humming, swearing (either at themselves or at the screen), and displaying anxiety through twirling their hair, repeatedly clicking a ballpoint pen open and closed, cracking their knuckles, or rapidly bouncing a leg up and down. While it’s clear to me that the assessment process can be fine-tuned to avoid health risks, what keeps gnawing at me is the impact of all these necessary modifications. There is very little research on how telepractice affects test scores. Many clients enter the assessment apprehensive about the process and how the results may impact their employment future. Masks, gloves, walking six feet apart from one another and sitting at opposite ends of a large conference room table don’t do much to create a warm and comfortable environment for people. And neither does a teleconference with a bunch of passwords and user names. Clearly, there are employees like barbers and workers in meatpacking plants who face much greater health dangers than I do. But I remain undecided about returning to work and the clock’s ticking. Although I’ve reached the conclusion that I can do my job safely in the new normal, I’m not sure that I want to. Maybe I’m stubborn and resistant to change (I much prefer to think of myself as old school or a traditionalist). Or maybe it’s because the new job doesn’t sound like much fun. Alan Resnick is an industrial psychologist with over 40 years of professional experience. He and his wife are sheltering at home in Farmington Hills, Michigan. He is passing the time by cooking, exercising, catching up on friends’ recommendations of must-see TV and writing.

One film journalist’s stream-of-consciousness cinematic journey through the early days of the pandemic, Part 3 By Laurence Lerman I was looking up something about Atomic Blonde, the 2017 espionage thriller starring the always-game Charlize Theron, and learned along the way that it was primarily shot in Budapest, which stood in for Cold War-era Berlin. Clicking away to see what else had been recently shot in Budapest, I came upon a trailer for that same year’s Budapest Noir, a title that was too juicy—at that moment—to ignore… Written and directed by Hungarian-born Éva Gárdos, Budapest Noir offers all the stylistic flourishes that one expects from a noir—shadowy streets, smoky bars, slick back alleys, suspicious law enforcers and a hard-boiled reporter, here investigating the murder of a prostitute in 1936 Budapest where Fascism is slowly on the rise. The canted angles and evocative lighting are right on, but what’s missing in this one from Hungarian-born writer/director Éva Gárdos (a veteran editor whose directorial debut was 2001’s immigrant drama An American Rhapsody) is the cynical sense of fate that usually whirls around a noir protagonist as he tries to unravel the central mystery—or extricate himself from one. Still, Budapest Noir was a good-looking, engaging-enough “neo” descent into that ripest of cinematic genres. But I was now hungry for the genuine article… Pushover from 1954 was recommended by a friend, who described it as “Double Indemnity Lite, with Fred MacMurray playing the same kind of role and Kim Novak looking like Kim Novak.” He was right. In Pushover, MacMurray’s undercover cop falls for gangster’s moll Kim Novak, who he’s been assigned to shadow to track down a satchel of stolen bank money. Is it any surprise that she quickly convinces him that the two of them should make a grab for the stash? No, it’s not Double Indemnity—not even close—but Pushover is noteworthy for being Novak’s film debut and there’s no denying that she brings an overwhelming Fifties-flavored femininity to her role, an approach that’s less hard-edged than Barbara Stanwyck’s in DI, but no less seductive. Notably, journeyman director Richard Quine (whose wide-ranging filmography includes everything from 1951’s Sunny Side of the Street to 1979’s The Prisoner of Zenda) mounts MacMurray and Novak’s early peeping-tom stakeout scenes with both tension and relish. I ran aground from the flow of the stream when I learned of the sad death of the fine Indian actor Irrfan Khan at the age of 53 from a colon infection. A regular fixture in Hindi cinema (do I have to refer to it as “Bollywood?”) for more than 20 years, Khan became an increasingly visible presence on Hollywood screens over the past decade. I’d seen and admired Khan in Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and Mira Nair’s The Namesake (2006) and, later, in such notably bigger Hollywood movies as The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), Jurassic World (2015) and Inferno (2016), the terribly titled third entry in the Da Vinci Code series. I wasn’t up on any of the dozens of titles in Khan’s Hindi filmography; a little research informed me that 2017’s Hindi Medium would be a good place to start. A comedy-drama written and directed by Saket Chaudhary, Hindi Medium finds Irrfan Khan and rising Pakistani star Saba Qamar as middle-class parents trying to wangle an opportunity for their young daughter to be enrolled at a prestigious English middle school in Delhi. They relocate, they hire consultants, they fiddle with their societal standing—anything to get their little gal into the right school. The movie is a sweet one and Khan and Qamar’s performances are effortlessly charming. Angrezi Medium, a “spiritual sequel” to Hindi and also starring Khan, was released right before Khan passed and may make a future stream. Right around then I decided that the striking 2012 Life of Pi, Ang Lee’s gorgeous and rewarding adventure tale that co-starred Irrfan Khan, deserved a second viewing (particularly as I had first seen it in its 3-D incarnation in the front row of a packed theater, and my senses were still reeling from the technological whirl of sound and vision). I stopped before I started, reconsidered the works of director Lee, and instead opted for his 1997 suburban drama The Ice Storm. Its fantastic depiction of upscale, early Seventies suburbia aside (in this case, 1973 New Canaan, Connecticut), The Ice Storm puts together one of the finest ensemble casts of this decade, from seasoned performers Kevin Kline, Joan Allen and Sigourney Weaver to the fresh faces of Tobey Maguire, David Krumholtz, Elijah Wood, Katie Holmes and “veteran” child actress Christina Ricci. And then there’s the delight of those vintage steel ice cube trays, suburban key parties (my mother denies things like that ever happening in Central Jersey…) and a Richard Nixon latex mask used as a sexual prop. The Ice Storm prompted an even deeper dive into Connecticut suburbia with The Swimmer, the strange 1968 drama based on John Cheever’s short story and starring Burt Lancaster, whose affluent middle-aged man dons a bathing suit and “swims his way home” through a bunch of backyard swimming pools. Directed and written by the husband and wife team of Frank and Eleanor Perry, The Swimmer still clicks—a tale of a man who’s dissatisfied with his life as he steamrolls through middle age abetted by a whole bunch of cocktails, superficiality and self-delusion. Lancaster was in his mid-50s when he made The Swimmer, and if I looked as good as he did in his swimsuit at that age, I can tell you I wouldn’t have been that angst-ridden. But he does have his problems, as we later learn…or maybe they’re all just a dream? Oy. Submerging for a refreshing dip takes a nastier turn in Swimming with Sharks, the 1994 Hollywood take-down starring Kevin Spacey and Frank Whaley concerning a brutal studio producer and his new young assistant. “You are nothing! If you were in my toilet, I wouldn't bother flushing it. My bathmat means more to me than you!” Spacey roars at Whaley at one point, foreshadowing Hollywood’s current feelings about two-time Oscar winner Spacey (he won his second for 1999’s American Beauty, a direct, gay-infused descendant of The Swimmer). Benicio del Toro’s supporting bit as Spacey’s hardened, outgoing assistant in Swimming is funny and memorable, so I don’t know why I keep forgetting he’s in it. Until his breakthrough the following year in The Usual Suspects, Benicio’s distinctive presence has made an impression as Duke the Dog-Faced Boy in Big Top Pee-wee (1988) and, better, as cocaine kingpin Robert Davi’s henchman in 1989’s License to Kill, one of two James Bond movies starring Timothy Dalton. License to Kill is the best Bond film of the Eighties (the decade that gave us the tepid For Your Eyes Only and A View to a Kill), with Dalton’s Bond going rogue and looking for payback from Davi for throwing Bond’s C.I.A. pal Felix Leiter to the sharks after killing his new bride. When Bond has his license revoked by MI6 while in Key West’s Hemingway House and he’s forced to surrender his Walther PPK handgun to the brass, Dalton sires forth all his RADA training to proclaim that “It’s a farewell to arms,” before bopping his way out of the tourist trap to take down the real bad guys. Any post-Connery Bond inevitably sparks an interest to return to the Sixties, when the Cold War was at full chill and the Bond imitators were a dime a dozen. Matt Helm, Derek Flint, Bulldog Drummond, Tony Randall—Tony Randall?!? Yeah, if you can believe it. While I preparing to cue up You Only Live Twice, I bumped into Our Man in Marrakesh, a 1966 British spy caper with a lighter touch starring Randall as an oil exec who gets into a North by Northwest-ish situation while traveling to Morocco, forcing him to James Bond through a handful of car chases, pistols, fist fights and intimate scenes with Euro starlet Senta Berger (who previously fleshed out the 1964 Man from U.N.C.L.E. adventure The Spy with My Face and later shook it up with Matt Helm in 1967’s The Ambushers). Our Man in Marrakesh was produced and co-written by Britain’s Harry Alan Towers, who was prolific force behind a wave of moderately budgeted “exotic” genre flicks in the Sixties and Seventies back in the day. This one didn’t quite click, though the site of Felix Unger getting chased through a Moroccan street market made the stream worth it. It also demanded respect be paid to the indefatigable Felix Unger himself with a couple of episodes from TV’s The Odd Couple, featuring Randall and the great Jack Klugman—which, I swear, gets better with each passing year (unlike the Lemmon/Matthau film, which retains the purity of its simple premise but remains firmly entrenched in 1968). It’s never a chore to return to one of my Seventies television staples—it’s more a question of which of the series’ 114 episodes I should watch. I went to the top this time out: Season Four’s “The Flying Felix” (“I-much-fear-there’s-trouble-in-the-fuselage-Frederick.”) and Season Three’s “Password” (“Aristophanes!”) If you’re baffled by the quotes, well, then I guess you weren’t aware of the known fact that Lincoln loved mayonnaise. Don’t listen to me. Just watch both of them. 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.

But I Am Not Amused By Tobye S. Stein For me, the coronavirus is a constant roller-coaster ride. I should mention that I’m not a fan of roller coasters. I’ve been on enough of them to make an informed decision and I don’t like them. It’s the going up and up and up and not knowing when I will fall. The thrill for me is always getting off the ride. I have my good days and my less good days, and dare I say, a few bad days. I’m sheltering in place with my husband, Neal, and our dog Buddy. We have enough food to eat: although our furnace broke during the last cold spell and we had no heat for two days, we survived. Now we have heat for these remaining cold days, and there is plenty to do around the house. Those things make up good days. We walk Buddy and get to interact with neighbors at a distance on a regular basis. I’m doing my best to do those things the mental health experts keep telling us to do for stress: taking showers, not watching too much news (they never say stop reading the news), getting some exercise, and so on I am introvert, so staying home isn’t an issue for me. As a licensed counselor, I’m certified to give and interpret the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), so I can confirm my status as an extreme introvert. Yes, extreme, the total opposite of the most common type of personality. By the way, there are no good or bad types and one can learn to behave as other types do to make communication more effective with loved ones and co-workers. It’s why I often hear, “No way, you’re not an introvert!” Yes, deep down I am. I like my own company and can be left by myself quietly for hours or days. Unlike most people, these days I’m watching less TV unless music or comedy is involved. I’m not that interested in watching horror series or anything that requires deep thought. I usually enjoy reading, but until this past week, I’ve had trouble picking up a book for more than a few minutes because it’s hard to concentrate. I am reading, but much of it is about the coronavirus and the mishandling of the coronavirus. So, the major downside of the roller coaster is knowing that we never had to be in this predicament. Donald Trump had information about the coronavirus months ago, but decided it didn’t fit his agenda. He’s still fighting and losing a trade war (“they’re so easy to win”) with China. He didn’t want to upset China’s president, so although he’s blaming the virus on China, he’s not blaming its president. It’s Trumpian logic. Trump wanted everyone to believe this “virus thing” was a hoax perpetrated by the Democrats. He’s still saying his impeachment took his attention away from the virus. Moscow Mitch has said this as well. Trump’s impeachment by the House was guaranteed not to get a fair hearing in the Senate so I’m guessing that Trump had a few bad rounds of golf and that diverted his attention from the virus. His updates are aggravating at best and full of lies and intentional misinformation; at worst, he fails to provide helpful scientific evidence about the coronavirus or empathy for those who have lost family members. But enough about the Trumpster. Trust me, I could go on, but I suspect I’m preaching to the choir. The hardest part about the coronavirus era is my lack of sleep, but I know I’m not alone. At times, I go days with no more than three or four hours of sleep. There are a number of things that keep me up at night in addition to Trump’s presidency, and the awful way he ignored and continues to ignore this pandemic and the lives of those lost. Early on, the pandemic itself kept me up, knowing that there was no way to protect oneself. As people were dying in Washington State and New York City, I had a dream that I had the virus. I was in Beaumont Hospital here in Michigan. I was in semi-private room. My bed was close to the door rather than the window. The curtain between the beds was pulled forward so I could not see out of the window. I knew I was going to die but what was going to kill me in addition to the virus was loneliness. Knowing I would never see Neal or Buddy again was what was killing me. One would think that alone would keep me awake for hours. It did. Later that night, I dreamed my mother was dying from coronavirus. Mom’s been dead nearly 35 years, and she died from another epidemic. She became infected with AIDS through a blood transfusion the day of her massive heart attack. She survived the heart attack but was doomed by the epidemic. I guess the epidemic and the pandemic have a lot in common: a lot of people end up dead unnecessarily because those in charge ignore the problem and delay finding solutions. For the next several days sleep was absent. Who wants to sleep with dreams like that? Another thing was keeping me awake: For weeks, I obsessed about food. We have enough, and we do go grocery shopping, but I became worried about what to make next. I’m a decent cook and baker, nothing fancy but well beyond just edible. My concern was that with cooking so many meals at home, I would run out of ideas of what to make so we’d be eating the same things over and over again. It’s something under normal circumstances would never have crossed my mind; I often make dinner on the fly, so why worry? I’m over that now. Neal and I usually get takeout once per week to break up all the cooking, and we’re supporting local mom and pop places. We’ve come to know several of the moms and pops, and we’re hoping they’ll be around when we’re ready to go out to eat. I have no idea when that will be, but I now have one less thing to keep me up at night. I also worry about what would I do if Neal caught the virus and.… He is my husband but also my best friend. To please me, he’s being careful about going out, but he has shpilkes (Yiddish for ants in your pants). Still, we’ve come to an agreement about keeping safe or as safe as possible. But I still worry. When the shelter-in-place order is lifted and restaurants and movie theaters open, we’ll have different points of view. Worry is what therapists call a useless or unnecessary emotion. I learned that when I earned my MA in counseling. I’ve counseled other people about the uselessness of worry. Under normal circumstances, I suggest keeping a pad of paper next to your bed and writing down what’s keeping you up or any great ideas you have about solving the world’s problems. Until recently, I rarely kept a pad of paper on my nightstand, but I have one now. I use it sometimes. In case you’re wondering, I haven’t solved the world’s problems yet. But every once in a while, it helps the roller coaster come to a full and complete stop. It’s the best part of the ride. Tobye S. Stein retired as Chief Human Resources Officer from a California-based financial services organization. She once landed a job by replying to the age old question, “Why should I hire you instead of the other two candidates” by simply stating “I’m funnier than most people.” It worked.

By Tony Spokojny The year: 4 B.C. (Before Children). I was single, a little irresponsible and yet, professionally employed. No, I wasn’t much of a lawbreaker – a healthy disrespect spillover from the anti-war rallies; more of a scofflaw for laws that didn’t make a lot of sense. The law for (or rather, against) the possession of marijuana was one such law. We saw Reefer Madness for what it was, an anti-drug scare flick produced to convince a naïve audience, that smoking weed would turn docile youth into crazed rapists. It became a cult film, its ironic and hysterical lesson more enjoyable to absorb when imbibing the subject of the film. I wasn’t a pothead, but every once in a while I enjoyed the feeling of putting my senses in a different gear. I was traveling back and forth from my office in Detroit to Lansing regularly to meet with a client. I knew every nook and cranny on the Interstate, I-96, that connected the two setting settings. It was a boring, 80-mile straight line dotted with farms, little towns and industrial sites and billboards popping up on the green landscape. On July 3rd, there was work to do until late afternoon. I decided to stay overnight to attend a party with a friend. But I wanted to get back in time for an all Fourth of July party thrown annually by Doug and Kathy, the sister and brother-in-law of a close friend from my first year of college, John. John was a social magnet – people of diverse backgrounds would flock to him. For several years during and after college, there was a biweekly gathering arranged by John at Lum’s, part of a chain of restaurants that served cheap food and $2.50 pitchers of beer. People from all over the city would come to drink beer and scream jokes up and down a long row of tables placed side by side to accommodate us. The party at Doug and Kathy’s was the Lum’s crowd. I say my goodbyes to my friends in Lansing and jump into my little lime-green Mazda for the ride back toward the city. About 20 miles and several farms into my trip my eyes are drawn to my ashtray. A two-thirds consumed joint, a little bigger than a roach, is sitting there carefully balanced as if to say, “you put me here for a reason.” No, it wasn’t talking to me. But, I start to feel the attraction of eliminating boredom from my drive. OK, it’s time to light up to Déjà Vu. I push in the cassette. I sing. And I’m not subtle about it. Someone will pull up to me and stare. I’ll stop. Once, I was driving along the freeway in a traffic jam heading downtown and I’m listening to Three Dog Night on the radio. “One is the loneliest number, one is the loneliest number …” I’m wailing. Right next to me there was a woman singing to the same tune. We looked at each other for a long second and broke out in laughter. So, as I’m driving along, singing, an 18-wheeler pulls up next to me. From his high perch, he’s able to see into the cabin of my car. He stares down at the doob pulling my hand to my lips, stays with me for about 15 seconds or an hour and then suspiciously pulls back. Now he’s riding right behind me, talking away on his CB radio, gesturing energetically. Now he can be talking to someone across the road or across the county. Or he could be talking to the …. Now, the other heightened feeling while under the influence of a buzz creeps in. Paranoia! “Like looking in my mirror and seeing a police car,” Neil Young is singing. I sit up straight so that I can get a better look. Can’t read his lips – and I’m not one to stereotype – he looks like one of the silent majority types; probably listening to “Okie from Muskogee.” My own brain is singing made up words from “Convoy”. “I’m in a little Convoy. He’s talking to the police.” But, I’m aware of overreacting, so I slowly pull over to the right, turn signal flashing, law abiding citizen that I am, to let him pass. And he pulls over to the right and settles in behind me. I can outrun him, “But I’m not giving in an inch to fear,” Neil Young instructs. I can pull over to the shoulder or I can continue on my journey and try to ignore him while staring at my mirrors. Besides, he’s already reported my fluorescent car and its license number. I look around, craning my neck to see behind me, expecting to see flashing red lights approaching me from a distance. A speeding car pulls into side in my rearview mirror. No lights. It finally passes. “Was that a siren?” I turn off the music, hold my breath to listen carefully. No, again. Apart from my heart, now beating loudly in my ears, it’s just my tires whining on the pavement. I change lanes, again, just to see if my new companion mirrors my move. He mimics my maneuver. He even followed me onto Southbound I-275 as I continued toward Doug and Kathy’s home in Dearborn Heights. The inside of my car isn’t the most pristine environment. An extra t-shirt, a couple of old meal wrappers. You know. I was single. Things accumulated. But, I don’t smoke cigarettes and I don’t get high often enough to collect roaches. It should be pretty easy to hunt for visible seeds. Assuring myself that, aside from a stray ash, there are no remnants of my having strayed over the line, I begin to relax as my 18-wheeled companion turned off towards Detroit. Michigan Avenue, my exit. I head south. Oh, shit! I can’t go to the party empty-handed. I need to find a place to buy beer. But, it’s July 4th. Who’s going to be open? I spot a liquor store on a solitary corner. It’s an old, stand-alone store, brown brick with windows on both street sides covered with beer sale posters, a neon Budweiser sign. Miller, Bud, Pabst 6-packs, cases. This place will do nicely. I pull to the right, signal light on, of course. Parking is literally on the wide gravel shoulder of the road. I pull up just past it, just in front of a used car lot sharing the shoulder and start to get out of my car. Suddenly two cop cars come speeding up, lights blaring, no sirens. One screeches to a halt a few car lengths behind my car, one directly in front. The cop behind me quickly exits his vehicle running towards me. “Put your hands in the air!” he yells in a commanding voice. It’s all happening so fast. I have no time to react in any way but to obey. Up go my hands as the cop runs to me, left hand reaching for his holstered pistol. “FOR A JOINT?” my mind is shouting. The cop is two feet away. I’m prepared to be taken down and I defensively brace for impact. He continues past me on my right to the front of my car and quickly turns right and running into the used car lot where the other cop was already standing, gun drawn over an apparent hubcap snatcher. I’m still standing still at the side of my car with my useless arms raised feeling my pulse in my armpits, as gravity slowly causes my arms to float toward the ground. Reality is momentarily suspended as I mindlessly walk into the liquor store to complete my side errand. I don’t remember going in, but I arrive at Doug and Kathy’s with a case of Stroh’s Signature. The party is lively as I walk in the crowded, but tidy back yard. Conversations strain to be heard over “Shake Your Booty”. Doug approaches me, greets me. The frozen look on my face is telling part of the story. Doug is laughing at it, knowing there’s a story behind it. “What happened?" Tony Spokojny has been practicing law in Michigan for over 40 years.

Dear Editor, Yesterday, I experienced my first “Zoom bombing.” For those of you who don’t know, “Zoom bombing” has become an Internet phenomenon since Zoom, the video conference app, has risen to prominence in the age of remote learning. Now don’t get me wrong, Zoom is wonderful in that it provides a vehicle to talk and connect with students. It is the next best alternative to meeting in person. Zooming (yes, that is a new verb) certainly beats communicating via the bland back-and-forth of email exchanges. Nevertheless, the app should come with a USERS BEWARE warning. I was midway through a remote lesson with the seniors in my English class at my public charter school in Brooklyn, NY, when a “Jadon” requested to enter the session. (Zoom comes with a “waiting room” safety feature in which the person who initiated the session must admit those who request entry.) I have two students named Jaden, and so I figured he was probably one of them and he had misspelled his name. Boy was I wrong. The mysterious Jadon was silent for the first few minutes. He did not turn his camera on so he remained anonymous. Then out of nowhere we heard him scream “F*** YOUR MOTHER!” He exited the chat and I, open-mouthed and red-faced, stuttered some sort of apology and attempted to crack a joke about experiencing my first Zoom bomb. As a teacher, I have experienced upset students who have cursed and stormed out of the classroom. But there are established protocols that follow this sort of behavior. I know how to respond. But in a Zoom session? What was to be done? How could I effectively manage the situation? These are questions to which I still don’t have the answers. My students definitely got a kick out of it. And after my brief moment of sheer panic, I resumed the lesson. I am almost positive it was another student of mine playing a prank. I'll probably never know. In the end, humor prevails and it certainly made for a memorable lesson and story. Happy Mother’s Day? I suppose I have officially joined the ranks of other teachers who have been “Zoom bombed.” Ahh, the era of pandemic teaching! Best wishes, Madeline Barry

By Madeline Barry Live music lovers, rejoice! You can still get your groove on via the virtual stage. All you need is an Instagram or Facebook account. Check out the listings below for some streaming recommendations. For those who want to rock and roll: The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York has hosted some of the biggest names in rock and roll (Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, B.B. King, the Roots, Elvis Costello, David Bowie and The Rolling Stones, to name just a few). So it is fitting that the famed venue continues to share music with fans, even though crowds can’t converge to listen as one. Click “like” on the Capitol Theatre’s Facebook page to receive information about all sorts of music streams. Some performances take place in real time, such as a live Q & A on May 6 with the Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh. Other acts are footage from older concerts, for example shows from the annual Lockn’ music festival which takes place in the summer. The Capitol Theatre Facebook page Additionally, in the lobby of the Capitol Theatre is a separate area with a smaller stage and bar. This is Garcia’s (named after the one and only Jerry). The Garcia’s Facebook page is also streaming plenty of live music from all kinds of rock and roll, folk, and reggae musicians. If you want to show the music community some love, drop a few dollars in the “Virtual Tip Jar.” Garcia's Facebook Page Got kids or grandkids who need to boogie? Kid Friendly Alert! Check out The Rock and Roll Playhouse’s “Live From The Playroom” shows. The Rock and Roll Playhouse advertises itself as “a weekly family concert series providing kids and parents a place to inspire creativity through music across the country.” Formerly held at small venues throughout the United States (Garcia’s being one), these days the weekly concerts take place in your home. The interactive concert experiences are twenty-minutes long and daily. They even offer children’s yoga! The Rock and Roll Playhouse Facebook page Neil Young’s third “Fireside Sessions” is available on his website, Neil Young Archives. The sessions (three in total, but only the third is available in the archives for now) are filmed by Young’s wife, Daryl Hannah. In the third 30-minute production, Young and Hannah’s dogs are the real stars of the show. In between Young’s acoustic sets, Hannah films the pups frolicking through the melting snow of the couple’s scenic Telluride, CO. property. The setlist from the third Fireside Session includes: New Mama See the Sky About to Rain I Am a Child Throw Your Hatred Down World On a String Helpless Already One Neil Young Archives On Tuesday nights, jam rockers Phish stream their weekly “Dinner and a Movie” series from their Facebook page. Each installment features a different show from the extensive Phish archives. Feeling charitable? Donate to The WaterWheel Foundation, the charity that Phish founded in 1997 to give back to the communities they visit on their extensive tours. According to Phish’s website, the WaterWheel Foundation “chooses non-profits from a large sphere of needs including social services, primarily those benefitting women and children; environmental, with a focus on clean water and land conservation with public access; as well as food banks, urban gardening and the like.” Phish Facebook page For those who are Broadway bound: On Friday nights, the YouTube page “The Shows Must Go On” streams Andrew Lloyd Webber shows. The YouTube channel features full length performances whose times are posted on the YouTube page, and are available for viewing for the following two days. Shows that have already aired include The Phantom of the Opera, Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Jesus Christ Superstar. Proceeds from these shows have gone to organizations like Broadway Cares and The Actors Fund. Webber has also been very active on his Instagram page. He has shared isolation playlists and hosted singalongs, including a cover of “Hosanna” from Jesus Christ Superstar with a guest appearance by John Legend. The Shows Must Go On For the distaff side of the audience: Singer-songwriter H.E.R, aka Gabriella Wilson, hosts a weekly “Girls With Guitars” live stream on her Instagram page featuring a variety of female musicians. Following the pattern of generosity exhibited by many of these musicians, H.E.R. partners with a different company each week to raise money for specific pandemic-related causes. Lyft partnered with H.E.R.’s April 29 show featuring Sheryl Crow, in order to provide complimentary rides to medical staff. H.E.R.’s May 7 show includes a partnership with Revolve, which will be donating $5,000 worth of masks to hospitals in H.E.R.’s hometown of Vallejo, CA.. H.E.R. Instagram The folk-rock music group Indigo Girls will be live streaming Thursdays in May at 7 PM EST via Instagram Live and Facebook Live. The duo will host both a concert and a Q & A series. Their new album Look Long is going to be released on May 22. Indigo Girls Facebook page Indigo Girls Instagram For all sheltering-in-place music lovers: B.P (Before Pandemic), did you used to frequent a local live music venue or bar that regularly featured live music? See if your favorite spot has a social media account and if they are streaming any local musicians. You might just get lucky! 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 Andy Borowitz May 8, 2020 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Despite an increasingly grim employment picture, an unskilled American man remains gainfully employed, labor experts confirmed. With millions applying for unemployment benefits each week, experts expressed bafflement and outright astonishment that a man with no identifiable skills, talents, or competence appears to be secure in his job. “This unskilled individual’s continued employment defies any kind of economic logic,” Davis Logsdon, who studies employment trends at the University of Minnesota, said. “Of the 33.5 million Americans who have applied for unemployment benefits over the past seven weeks, approximately 33.5 million are more qualified than he is.” Even more perplexing, experts said, is the unskilled man’s persistent employment after failing at a series of other jobs during the past three years. “The only explanation that makes sense, and I’ll admit it’s far-fetched, is that whoever hired him is equally unskilled,” Logsdon said. Despite the man’s puzzlingly long record of employment, Logsdon said that ferocious economic headwinds could bring it to an abrupt halt, as early as November. 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.

By Merrill Hansen The coronavirus and Governor Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at home-order have presented challenges for many of us Michiganders. But computer skills and technological knowledge have made life much simpler during the pandemic for the people who possess them. By shopping online, they can avoid three-hour waits in social-distancing lines, and even buy cars without going to dealerships. Alas, I'm not one of those people. I confess: I am technologically challenged, and barely computer literate. I have a smart (ass) phone that I am so dependent on, it would need to be surgically removed. But, I don't know how to correct the auto-incorrect feature that changed my group text message from "I'm having trouble finding the address with google,” to "I'm having trouble finding the address with gonorrhea.”) Basically, I can navigate online via email, word processing, and a modicum of Internet and text messaging, as long as there are no pop-ups that ask me questions. While I know other people say they, too, are challenged, they are lying, because in the next breath they tell me about a TV and toilet paper they just ordered from Amazon. I haven't the vaguest notion how to buy either one online, and can't imagine that they both could be ordered from the same store. It wasn’t long into the pandemic before I realized I was in trouble. True, the first four days of the governor's stay-at-home order weren't difficult for me. I was able to read online. and use the types of social networking I enjoy, like Facebook and Twitter, which only require basic computer skills. But on Day Five, I woke up with a 101.8° fever. Having been exposed to a friend who had just been diagnosed with coronavirus, I knew instantly what the problem was. I was able to get hold of my doctor's office, and the physician's assistant said the doctor was going to want to see me in about an hour. When I explained that I was too sick to drive to the office, she explained that the appointment would be online. "Online?” I said in a panic. “What does that mean? Can't we talk on the phone?” "No,” said the assistant, as if she were talking to a five-year-old. “The doctor will want to see you. She’ll have a face appointment with you” (or whatever it is that she called it). “Didn't you get the email we sent out to all of the patients?" "I may have,” I replied, “but I didn't read it carefully because I wasn't sick then." Clearly, I was going to die if the only way I could get medical attention involved a computer program. Over an hour later, three phone calls back and forth and searching through a month of emails, I was able to "see" the doctor and schedule another appointment for two days later. Passover presented another challenge. I was invited to a Zoom Seder, and even though I was sick, I wanted very much to share that holiday via social distancing with the friends and family I love. My friend Leah, who together with her husband were hosting the Seder, called to see if I was coming via Zoom. When I told her, “I'd love to, but I don’t know how,” she asked me with a faint hint of disapproval, "Didn't you get my email? There's a link and you just follow the directions." ((Uh-oh... another email link and follow-the-directions challenge.) She added the ever familiar "it's easy," (it never is), and then, the game changer, "We'll all be able to see and hear each other.” "SEE EACH OTHER??? I LOOK LIKE I COULD BE THE ELEVENTH PASSOVER PLAGUE!!!" My friend immediately put me at ease and said I could do it by audio only. It sounded easy, so I followed her instructions. Voila! But when I “arrived,” nobody heard me screaming, “I'm here!" I could hear everybody talking, but nobody could hear me. I waited and waited and listened to everyone talking. Finally, I heard someone say, "Where's Merrill?" I called one of the guests on her cellphone and could hear everyone laughing when she told them I'd been waiting for half an hour. It took the hostess less than a minute to solve the problem. A few days later, when I was still licking my Passover wounds, I received a call from Steve, a friend who didn't know I was sick. During our conversation, he told me about a project he was working on regarding the virus, which he thought I might be interested in. Here we go again! My friend, who knows more about computers, phones, and every possible way to communicate using technology, than anyone I know, immediately wanted me to go to my phone's App Store, find the app he was using, and install it. "Whoa, did you forget you are talking to me, Merrill? I've never installed anything on my phone." Over the next two days, my friend had me try at least three different apps; the last I heard from him, he said with exasperation that there were no problems with the apps and they work fine for everyone else he knows (and he knows the immediate world). I haven’t heard from him since. I’ve decided to conquer my computer phobia head-on, and am going to stop asking my son and daughter to order things for me online. Eventually. In the meantime, I'm typing this on my cell phone. My laptop battery needs to be replaced, and I don't know how to order a new one online. 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.

One film journalist’s stream-of-consciousness cinematic journey through the early days of the pandemic, Part 2 By Laurence Lerman Okay, so my streaming excursions haven’t all been stream-of-consciousness. New York’s COVID-19 quarantine began right around the time HBO premiered The Plot Against America, the cable giant’s ambitious adaptation of Philip Roth’s 2004 novel. In it, Roth proposed an alternate history to the mid-20th century America wherein FDR is defeated in the 1940 presidential election by national hero Charles Lindbergh. The story is seen through the eyes of the middle-class Roth family of Newark (renamed Levin in the HBO incarnation) as the country moves toward a fascist government and engenders a growing persecution of Jewish-American families. With The Plot Against America, creators David Simon and Ed Burns (the televisions mainstays of The Wire and The Deuce fame) mount a startling and increasingly tense period drama played out as a six-part miniseries. The adaptation was aired over a half-dozen consecutive weeks through mid-April, associating it forever with the COVID-19 lockdown and, madly enough, our own current chief executive. Following the first installment of Plot, I changed channels to another cable station and immediately bumped into 1994’s The Getaway, featuring the then-married Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, a remake of Sam Peckinpah’s original 1972 heist flick starring Steve McQueen and his soon-to-be-wife Ali McGraw. I’d seen the original a zillion times (I love when McQueen walks into a Texas sporting goods store and buys a 12-gauge pump shotgun to use on the cops out on the sidewalk!), so I fed my McQueen jones with Bullitt, the classic 1968 policier that I hadn’t seen in a while. The streaming begins… The whole of Bullitt—much wordier and more needlessly complicated than I remembered—doesn’t quite equal the sum of its strongest parts: McQueen, of course, always the coolest; Lalo Schifrin’s sly score; the outstanding use of San Francisco and its landmarks (Grace Cathedral, the Mark Hopkins Hotels, the Coffee Cantata café) and the very streets themselves as featured in the film’s landmark car chase, featuring the star (who did a lot of his own driving) in a ’68 Ford Mustang GT. The story back then was that super-duper star McQueen wanted to hire British filmmaker Peter Yates to helm Bullitt after he saw Yates’ 1967 film Robbery, which featured an extended car chase during its opening heist. McQueen (whose Solar Productions was behind Bullitt) had never heard of Yates, but he obviously liked what he saw in Robbery, a film with which I was not familiar. Hell, if it was good enough to prompt Steverino to give Yates his first Hollywood gig, it would probably be good enough for me… Robbery tells a straightforward crime story of a plot to hit England’s Royal Mail train as its coming South from Glasgow. A bunch of familiar British actors form the gang, including Stanley Baker, James Booth and Barry Foster, who had previously made his mark on me as the necktie strangler in Hitchcock’s 1972 return-to-form thriller Frenzy. A fictionalized version of England’s real-life “Great Train Robbery” of 1963, Robbery’s highlight is the extended robbery sequence itself, not surprisingly, as well as that opening car chase, which is constructed for speed rather than stunts. Robbery isn’t really considered a major entry in the formidable British crime canon like such stalwarts as Brighton Rock (1947), Get Carter (1971) and The Long Good Friday (1980). Another almost-ran I’d heard about was 1960’s Never Let Go, featuring a youngish Peter Sellers in one of his rare dramatic roles as a London garage owner who deals in stolen cars. Sellers’ dealings lead to all manner of nefarious and increasingly ugly goings-on involving his mistress (Carol White), a car thief (Adam Faith) and an increasingly obsessed salesman whose car has been stolen (Richard Todd). Directed by John Guillerman and clocking in at a tight 90 minutes, Never Let Go is a mixed bag, led by Sellers’ uniquely non-comic performance and some good period London location work. But if you’re not a Sellers completist, it’s not a must-stream. British filmmaking veteran Guillerman worked in England for nearly two decades before making it to Hollywood, where he helmed a number of undistinguished action-adventure films, but none bigger than the 1974 smash The Towering Inferno, a production so sprawling it needed two studios to produce it. A bit less rousing than I’d remembered when I first saw it one hot Saturday night with my family while we were visiting my grandparents in Miami way back when, Towering’s inferno of stars remains its strongest element (Oscar-winning pyrotechnics, aside). Paul Newman, McQueen and Faye Dunaway (reuniting for the first time since 1968s’ The Thomas Crown Affair, though only sharing a scene or two), William Holden, Jennifer Jones, Richard Chamberlain, Roberts Vaughn and Wagner, Richard Chamberlain and Fred Astaire are all set to light it up and play the beloved Seventies disaster movie game of “Which Star is Going To Make It?” That Astaire received his sole Academy Award nomination for his supporting turn is as terrible as the titular fire itself. (And frankly, that Astaire wasn’t recognized for 1953’s The Band Wagon is also a crime.) I texted a friend just as Jennifer Jones was plunging to her doom from the dangling scenic elevator, and commented that I wasn’t all that up on Ms. Jones’ filmography save for 1944’s Song of Bernadette (for which she won her Oscar) and the inevitable Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1954) opposite her Towering co-star William Holden. My friend mentioned I should take a look at the Southern-fried 1952 melodrama Ruby Gentry, in which JJ portrays a backwoods temptress who tries to sink her hooks into a former high school flame. “It’s like Tennessee Williams lite and it also stars Charlton Heston, a disaster movie mainstay.” (He starred in 1972’s ridiculous Skyjacked, also directed by Guillerman.) “And that would connect to Towering Inferno for your whole streaming thing,” he reasoned. I decided to pass on Ruby—for now—but I’ve long enjoyed Charlton’s trilogy of end-of-the-world opuses, Planet of the Apes (1968) and Soylent Green (1973) and The Ωmega Man (1971), all of which seemed appropriate right around now. I opted for The Ωmega Man and popped it in (yes, I own it on DVD). Helmed by TV veteran Boris Sagal, Ωmega’s striking images of pandemic survivor Heston gunning down hordes of albino mutants in hooded robes and sunglasses in downtown L.A. and getting down with spunky Seventies mainstay Rosalind Cash went down well. It’s all set to a memorably dramatic, Baroque-styled orchestral score by Ron Grainer. The Ωmega Man is based on the great Richard Matheson’s 1954 sci-fi classic I Am Legend, which also spawned the same-titled Will Smith-starring remake in 2007 and 1964’s The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price. Matheson was all over the place from the late Fifties through the Seventies, penning hundreds of novels, short stories, essays, screenplays and teleplays. Among a slew of noteworthy tales, he wrote one of the greatest Twilight Zone episodes ever (he authored more than a dozen of them): the Season Five entry “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” which is always worth revisiting. Starring William Shatner as a man flying home from a mental ward following a nervous breakdown who’s convinced he sees a furry man-sized gremlin on the plane, “Nightmare” was directed by soon-to-be-big-time movie director Richard Donner (Superman, Lethal Weapon and Scrooged, anyone?) and holds up marvelously well. And for all the guff he receives, Shatner does a bang-up job playing a troubled man in a situation far beyond your normal fear-of-flying scenario. Shatner’s appearances on The Twilight Zone (he also starred in the episode “Nick of Time,” another classic) demand that respect be paid to him on Star Trek, so I went to the top of the list with “The City on the Edge of Forever,” which is generally regarded as the show’s finest hour. Penned by another great sci-fi author with a bulging portfolio, Harlan Ellison, the Season One installment finds Kirk and Spock time-traveling back to Depression era New York City to find a temporally displaced Dr. McCoy. The continuum ripples find Kirk unable to prevent—while being forced to witness—the death of the 20th century woman with whom he’s fallen deeply in love. And she’s portrayed by Joan Collins, who’s as appealing here as she’s ever been—albeit sans an ounce of the risqué attitude and salaciousness that were her trademark. Not long after I first saw her on Trek, I came face-to-face with Ms. Collins’ captivating charms again one afternoon on The 4:30 Movie, a weekday broadcast that aired on ABC-TV in New York in the Seventies and provided many a cinephile with their first-ever encounters with a host of films. Among them were Howard Hawks’ lavish 1955 production Land of the Pharaohs. A sprawling ancient world epic offering a very fictionalized tale of the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza, Pharaohs stars Jack Hawkins as the Pharaoh Khufu, who’s obsessed with making the grandest of tombs for his “second life,” and juicy Joanie as Princess Nellifer, a party girl from Cyprus who becomes the Pharaoh’s second wife and then plots to kill him and the whole mishpachah to seize the throne for herself. Hawks’ sole dip into the era’s popular brand of widescreen historical entertainment, and one of Warner’s biggest-ever productions (one scene includes nearly 10,000 extras) that counts William Faulkner (!) among its three screenwriters, Pharaoh’s spectacle isn’t nearly as memorable as the scheming Joan. Watching it for the first time since I was a young teenager, I now remember why I was uninterested in “ABC Afterschool Special”—not when The 4:30 Movie was serving up such delights as the slinkily clad Joan Collins in orange lipstick. Land of the Pharaohs tanked at the box office, but that wasn’t the biggest news around its opening: Though the majority of the film was shot on location in Egypt, the country banned the film from its shores on the grounds of “distortion of historical facts.” Distorting of the facts, huh? As the politics surrounding the COVID-19 virus continues to swirl, we’re all being reminded that the distortion of the truth isn’t just a Hollywood thing. 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.

Opinion by Jeffrey D. Sachs May 2, 2020   |   CNN.com Editor's Note: Jeffrey Sachs is a professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author; view more opinion articles on CNN. (CNN) The number of Americans who have died from Covid-19 now significantly exceeds the total US troop fatalities during the Vietnam War. While the coronavirus continues to ravage the country, with confirmed cases exceeding 1 million and deaths rising by the day, some states are lifting stay at home orders in hopes of salvaging the economy. With so many lives at stake, it's time the United States looked to those countries in the Asia Pacific region that have successfully controlled the pandemic to figure out how to save ourselves and the economy. Several places in the Asia-Pacific, including Australia, China, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, have suppressed the estimated effective reproduction number -- the average number of people who will catch the disease from a single infected person -- to below 1, without the need for continued, widespread lockdowns. They are now rapidly and successfully suppressing outbreaks of the disease by isolating those who are infected and their contacts who are likely to be infected. It's as if there are two worlds. The United States has had more than 66,000 deaths, or about 20 deaths per 100,000 people. The number of deaths per 100,000 people reported in Western European countries is also very high: Belgium, 67; France, 37; Italy, 47; Germany, 8; Spain, 53; and Sweden, 26. Meanwhile, the reported rates in Asia and Oceania are considerably lower: Australia, 0.4; China, 0.3; New Zealand, 0.4; South Korea, 0.5; Taiwan, 0.03. Despite the stark disparities, America seems blind to the strategies other countries have used to control the virus. How is it that one part of the world is succeeding, while the other part refuses to learn the lessons of success? On Tuesday,The Wall Street Journal extolled the virtues of Germany's efforts in comparison with the United States, France, Italy, and Spain, without even a mention that Germany's mortality rate per million is itself more than 100 times higher than Taiwan and Hong Kong, and more than 10 times higher than in Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. How have these countries succeeded to date? Many have adopted nationwide public-health standards, using mobile technologies, professionalism of government, widespread use of face masks and hand sanitizers, and intensive public health services to isolate infected individuals or those likely to be infected. Testing has played an important role, but has not been the be-all-and-end-all as is sometimes believed in the United States. Vietnam has succeeded, for example, with contact tracing and an aggressive quarantine regime. When one person is confirmed positive, many of his or her close contacts -- even those without symptoms -- are isolated. As a result, Vietnam tested only a moderate number of people as a share of the population because it managed to contain outbreaks so effectively. Vietnam, with about 95 million people, has not reported a single Covid-19 death so far. In New Zealand, the government is starting to ease lockdown restrictions as officials say they are now in a position to test and trace any new clusters of infection. Here are the careful and precise words of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. "There is no widespread undetected community transmission in New Zealand. We have won that battle. But we must remain vigilant if we are to keep it that way." There are similar success stories across much of the region. South Korea, which has dramatically broken the epidemic with aggressive testing, contact tracing and basic public health measures such as thermal monitoring, has also employed digital technology in the fight against Covid-19, according to a new report. South Korea uses a text alert system to keep the public informed, while various apps allow people to track new Covid-19 cases, make doctor's appointments or monitor hotspots to avoid. The government also uses apps to monitor people in quarantine, through self-reported symptoms and location tracking. Despite the fact that these apps may raise privacy issues in the United States, the upshot is an economy that is open, albeit cautiously so, together with a suppression of new infections. The US government has been utterly incapable of learning from these cases of success. President Donald Trump is incompetent and his appointees at Health and Human Services, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Transport Security Administration have failed to provide leadership. America First has put us first in deaths in the world, with tens of thousands of lives squandered as a result. We can save ourselves and our economy, if we look to and learn from the achievements of other nations. And if the federal government continues to fail, as seems likely, our governors and mayors must step forward to do the job.