By Alan Resnick / Detroit For me, there were two wonderful outcomes of the pandemic. First, all my loved ones are still here. Second, it provided me the opportunity to fulfill a 60-year dream of writing something creative that got published. So The Insider has been a godsend for me. I’ve written a thesis and a dissertation, and also co-authored a couple of psychological journal articles. But that was never the type of writing I intended to do back when I was young. My interest in writing was sparked when I first picked up a copy of Mad magazine. I was probably 12 or 13. It was the greatest thing I had ever read: sophomoric, sly and sarcastic. People could make a career out of writing like this? Like many of the contributors to The Insider, I was educated in the Oak Park, Mich. school system. And I was blessed with terrific English teachers – Sheila Horowitz, Shirley Citron, and Thelma Rosenbaum to name just a few. But my favorite teachers in any classes I had at any level were Barbara Goldsmith and Mel Merzon, who co-taught Creative Writing in high school. Each week, we received a new writing form to explore, anything from a short story to a limerick. And our graded papers were handed back with both written comments and audio comments on a cassette tape. I’d rush home from school, go to my room, read their comments and listen to their audio comments. And then I’d replay the tape. And then I’d replay it again. And I’d listen to it again the next day. Their feedback left me wanting to pursue writing as a career. So I started college at Wayne State University in Detroit in the fall of 1969, intending to major in English. While I was completing prerequisite courses in preparation for electives, the Mary Tyler Moore Show debuted in 1970. I absolutely adored it. And I couldn’t stop thinking about how much fun it must be to be in the writers’ room and create scripts like those. Regrettably, my college English courses were nowhere near the quality of those in high school. Ironically, the course that led me to change majors was a Creative Writing elective. Mrs. Goldsmith and Mr. Merzon set a very high bar, so in hindsight I probably entered the class with unrealistic expectations. But I was totally unprepared for the three minutes I attended this course. The professor had not yet arrived when I got there, so I grabbed a seat in my preferred location, the back row. A few minutes later, a guy who looked like he had just rolled out of bed entered the room. He sat on the edge of the instructor’s desk facing us. He had a beard, a tie-dyed T-shirt, and was wearing sandals. As his feet dangled, he pulled out a joint from his pant pocket and lit it. After taking a long toke, he looked slowly around the room, exhaled and announced: “This semester we’re going to read and write poetry.” And I still remember saying to myself: “Oh no we’re not.” I got up, walked out of the classroom, went to the registrar’s office, and dropped the class, all in time to get to my class that started the next hour. So I became a psych major and took an elective course in Experimental Psychology. In addition to learning how to design, conduct, and statistically analyze experiments, we learned how to write up experimental results in compliance with the standards of the American Psychological Association (APA). The APA format is highly structured, detached and bone dry, designed for academics, not the casual reader. But I enjoyed the challenge of it. And it gave me the chance to toss around fancy words and terms like “orthogonal” and “vis-à-vis.” I became very proficient at this more technical, drier style of writing, and it served me well both in graduate school and in my professional career as an industrial psychologist. I’ve written presentations, training programs, user manuals, test questions and literally hundreds of psychological assessment reports. And while it was satisfying, I still had that decades-old itch sparked by Alfred E. Neuman. Social media actually provided me the first real outlet for writing more creatively in 2009. I’d comment on Facebook about friends’ posts, remark about things I had read or seen on TV and share what I hoped were humorous anecdotes about things that happened while at work. Merrill Lynn Katz Hansen, an Oak Park classmate, Facebook friend, and early contributor to The Insider, messaged me and told me about the fledging publication. She knew that I liked to write and encouraged me to submit something. I had an abundance of free time on my hands since my office was closed because of Covid. So I sent Andrea Sachs, the editor and publisher, an introductory email along with an idea for a story about not missing sports after the pandemic shut things down. That first story ended up being the cover article. And so it began. Contributing to The Insider over the past three years has truly fulfilled my boyhood dream. It's proved to be exhilarating, creative, challenging, but also relaxing. Time seems to fly by when I sit down and begin to put a story together. And it’s given me the chance to collaborate, albeit remotely, with some wonderful writers I owe an immense amount of gratitude to Andrea. She has been a superb teacher and mentor. Andrea has made me a better and more confident writer. She kept me from being lazy with language, pushing me to think of fresher, more interesting ways to say things. And she provided me license to write about whatever I wanted to, be it snarky or serious, be it about sports, politics, the world of work during Covid, or even losing my cell phone at Costco. I also want to acknowledge the wisdom of and feedback from John Rolfe, who served as an editor for many of my earlier pieces. Much like Mrs. Goldsmith and Mr. Merzon, I always looked forward to John’s emails and our phone conversations. His comments and edits were both supportive and insightful. And John provided criticism with a very gentle touch. Finally, thank you to Insider readers if you invested the time to read this or any of my pieces over the last three years. And I’m beyond grateful if you left a comment on a story. They’ve meant the world to me. 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.

By Victoria Rolfe / Red Hook, N.Y. Before I begin my final article for The Insider, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to our intrepid Editor-in-Chief Andrea Sachs for giving me this wonderful opportunity to write for such a fine publication. She took a chance on a (formally untrained) writer to allow me to express my feelings and hopefully impart some of my humble wisdom to her dear readers, and for this I am eternally grateful. When I came aboard this publication three years ago, we were in the throes of the pandemic. It was a strange new world and people were hurting and scared. Some were sick; others were tending to loved ones who were. Some could not see their ailing family members. Some had lost their jobs (at least temporarily) and were scrambling to get by on reduced or no income. Everyone was stuck quarantining at home. Many found this to be stifling and oppressive. Being a homebody myself, I did not suffer from being stuck at home. In fact, being as introverted as I am, I actually welcomed the forced opportunity to (at least for the short term) give up all my work and volunteer-related activities outside the home. And being a frugal person, I was not affected by any loss of income this caused me. Like the little ant, I had been saving all my life, so we could easily get by on less income for as long as necessary. But I saw that many people were not faring as well through this difficult time. They were at a loss about how to live on such reduced paychecks. They were panicking and frightened. I fielded many questions on Quora.com as to how to get by. How to live on less. How to stretch suddenly limited incomes. Since I had always lived this simple and frugal lifestyle, I was prepared. If anything, this world event confirmed for me that I was on the right track. And, though I have always been environmentally conscious, it reinforced how important it is for not only me but as many people as possible to be frugal with our Earth’s resources, and to do whatever we can to protect our own health and that of our mother planet. The crushing home, life and job losses, as well as the food shortages, had many people re-examining their priorities and lifestyles. I was delighted to see people taking up gardening and other domestic endeavors. I was more than happy to encourage these new hobbies and do what I could to teach these skills to those who desired to learn them. It is my hope, now that we are moving on (back to “normal”?) and leaving that bizarre pandemic world behind us, that at least a few people have been permanently changed by it. That some have adopted a more frugal and simple way of life. A quieter way to occupy this world, leaving less impact on the environment. And that some of those who took up gardening as a hobby or a source of food during the quarantine have now discovered a lifelong passion for the joy of growing their own healthy and delicious nourishment. Some may view my life as a hard one, involving a lot a work, and sacrifice, and deprivation. They look at my gardens and just see the toil that goes into them. But I see it being outside in the fresh air surrounded by lush beauty and a ripe bounty of goodness. I would much rather be outdoors weeding and trimming than sitting playing games on my phone or watching TV or trying to find something else to entertain myself. I would much rather be in my kitchen cooking up a fresh, delicious meal with ingredients grown just a few feet away than dining at some expensive fancy restaurant. And to me the rewards of living this way are truly rich and plentiful. Others can have all their “stuff.” I have no need for that. This is the wealth that fulfills me. It is my hope that in writing about the joys of this simple homesteading lifestyle, I have convinced at least a few people to adopt some of my frugal living principles. I am certain that will not only help their own wallets but collectively will help to make this a better, healthier place to live for us all. I thank Insider readers so much for reading my humble and sincere words, and invite anyone who would like to continue to follow my journey to check out my blog page at Brightfuture2budget4.weebly.com Here’s wishing us all a happy, healthy life on a vigorous and flourishing planet, and a very bright future for ourselves and our progeny. Thank you one and all! A long, long time ago, after the birth of her third child, Victoria made the life-changing decision to leave the work world behind and devote herself to being a full-time mom and homemaker. Along with her new title of Domestic Engineer, she took on the role of the Chief Home Economist for the family. At first, it was scary to try to live on less than half their income, but Victoria found that she not only rose to the challenge but thrived in the enjoyment of learning to live their best life with limited resources. She embraced this new frugal lifestyle of the at-home-mom and went on to add a fourth child to the mix. And their family was complete. Along the way she acquired a great deal of wisdom in how to not only avoid debt, but pay off mortgages early, buy cars for cash, travel on a shoe-string budget, and send kids to college with no student loans, all while also saving a tidy nest egg for retirement. She currently educates others in these skills through her business Bright Future. Now living the life of a modern homesteader in the Hudson Valley, New York, Victoria has added gardening to her list of skill sets as she grows many of her own vegetables to supplement her family’s primarily vegan diet. And she has come to realize that this waste-not, want-not, carbon-friendly, sustainable life she is living is not only benefiting her own family but also our Mother Earth, and that each of us has the obligation to live a responsibly sustainable life not only for ourselves, but for the greater good of our community, and our planet. We can all do this one household and backyard at a time. We are the world! And it all begins right at home. Victoria can be reached at brightfuture2budget4@gmail.com

By John Rolfe / Red Hook, N.Y. No doubt the Covid saga is one of society disrupted and people isolated in loneliness, fear and illness. So I am very thankful indeed that my family and I got off easy during the pandemic. Our bouts with the virus were mild and, while our daily life was grinding to a halt in the summer of 2020, I was blessed by the fruits of bonds forged during my lifetime. Having been “downsized” in 2016 after 28 years as a reporter/writer/editor and website producer at Sports Illustrated for Kids and Sports Illustrated, I was driving a school bus, laying down the fat beets at a weekend farmers’ market, and scribbling a Sunday political opinion column (not the most comfortable endeavor) for my local paper (the Poughkeepsie Journal). On the lookout for other places to serve up my word salads, I saw on Facebook that Amy Lennard Goehner, a former SI For Kids colleague, had written a piece for a website called The Insider. Her referral brought me here. I was surprised to discover that this site was the creation and labor of love of Andrea Sachs, a former classmate of mine at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Though our paths first crossed in 1982 and we both toiled for decades at different magazines published by Time Inc., I didn’t get to know her until the pandemic brought us together in this undertaking. I’d just like to thank her for the opportunity to write each week about everything from Covid, hauling urchins in my big yellow madhouse, and raising chickens, to sports, music and, of course, politics. The past three years have been a slow, turbulent return to at least some semblance of normalcy in this country. Chronicling and commenting on current events here has been a balm for my mental health. I’ve been able to vent a lot of disappointment, frustration, and anger that otherwise might have left me cackling uncontrollably and pulling the wings off flies. Best of all, while writing for The Insider, I felt like I was part of a family (a feeling reinforced when my wife Victoria joined our ranks). It has been a great pleasure to collaborate with other talented, insightful people from around the country. And I always had Andrea’s enthusiastic support and encouragement, something writers don’t always get from their editors. So, I’m sorry to see the curtain come down on a lot of excellent work by everyone involved. In a way, it feels right with the pandemic officially over. Then again, there’s a renewed sense of ominous uncertainty. Covid may have receded into the fabric of life, but climate change in all its catastrophic consequences has come roaring in to stay for the foreseeable future. America’s political scene is fraught with danger. Artificial Intelligence is raising its steely, unpredictable head. Looking back, I’ll always treasure getting through an extraordinary time with a group of extraordinary people. Many thanks to them and all who took the time to roll their eyeballs over my contributions to The Insider. 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 Jeff Sachs / Beijing Boccaccio’s storytellers sheltered in place in Fiesole during their pandemic. Andi’s storytellers sheltered online during ours. It was great to be an Insider, swapping stories and thoughts as we endured and braved the dreaded virus. Kudos to Andi and to all her contributors and readers! Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He has served as Special Adviser to three UN Secretaries-General. His books include The End of Poverty, Common Wealth, The Age of Sustainable Development, Building the New American Economy, and most recently, A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism.

By Naomi Serviss / New York City There’s no easy way to say goodbye. Especially if you’re a Serviss family member trying to peel off from a heralded reunion. Ten will get you 20 that 30 minutes after the first air kiss, aunts and brothers will still be hugging it out, chanting “so long!” ad nauseam. Tradition! There was so much borderline-hostility-soap- opera-ish drama during a recent Serviss hootenanny, I expected brusque, brush off “see ya’s.” Who wouldn’t be eager to hightail it away from relative overload when tempers fry? But no! Let’s schmooze-delay some more! It’s the Serviss Way! Your hand may be turning the proverbial doorknob, but hold your horses, people. Allan has another recipe to share. It’s always a good one, by the way. The above is obviously a metaphor. It’s hard to write an “Adieu” column. And hard to give up the gift of a steady outlet, even when the time is ripe. Even when you’re hitting your stride covering Broadway and divulging Insider theater tips. C’est la vie! Contributing to this gutsy website these past few years has been a joyous roller-coaster thrill. Founder and Editor Andrea Sachs manifested her dream vision and in press agent parlance, Andrea (with tech whiz Matt!) “Made Stuff Happen!” And I’m grateful to have been a part of Andrea’s ambitious labor of love. The Insider’s aim was to engage community despite living through a literal pandemic! Contributors tried to make sense out of a refracted-prism normal that seemed anything but. Readers were hopefully intrigued, informed and entertained. All while guessing how much disinfectant we needed to decontaminate our mail. Would it be greedy to buy one more pack of toilet paper (if available)? Is that all there is, Miss Peggy Lee? What’s it all about, Alfie? Haven’t we all been suffering from collective, existential dread (that sounds ominous and doom-y)? Can’t we just call it High Anxiety? All in the nomenclature. The Insider’s hook was not just woeful Covid tales and pandemic panic. This lofty endeavor offered readers human connection through myriad writers with varied points of view and expertise. And they were always entertaining! Some writers shared rusty secrets (me!) and explored unearthed memories. To have had this joyous opportunity to vent and kvetch and horse around was a welcome one. To have been given support and encouragement meant the world. Andrea Sachs, I’m looking at you! I unabashedly got a kick out of following and writing about Royal machinations, because it was so removed from my normal! And we need more fun in our covid-scarred lives. Even if the monarchy is just a tad out of touch with plain folk reality, and forever stained by colonialism. Still, those color-coordinated pros know how to play dress-up with all the finery and jewels from their conquered worlds. It was the stuff of which kids’ dreams are made! This kid, at least. Romance! Castles in the sky! Well-loved and cared-for horses! World travel on the commoner’s quid! What’s not to love? Admittedly my rose-colored glasses faded with each trouble-in-paradise revelation. How quickly tides turn. I was once sympathetic to Harry’s plight and sad sack stories (being the youngest, traumatized in childhood, you know the drill). Maybe he and Meghan were trying to break free from a lifetime of being called upon to rep the monarchy. Simply unfurling their wings! Trying to have their (wedding) cake and eat it, too! I gave them the benefit of the doubt. For a bit, at least. But ever since the couple sat down and spilled the private beans in that cringe-y Oprah interview, they were anathema to me. I quit the Harry team. After reading his memoir, Spare, I realized how naïve and ill-informed the ginger prince is. Meghan, a (meh) paid television actor, hit the jackpot marrying into royalty. Literally. Or did she? More importantly, who really cares? Still, it was amusing covering the colorful pomp and hoopla over the Queen’s send-off. Kate and William’s activities and public appearances are always pitch-perfect and photogenic. I’ve grown to appreciate this dynamic duo’s repping the progeny during the King’s senior years. If someone has to do it, might as well be Kate and Wills. But this is a happy farewell column! No more chatter about pillaging native lands in the name of the Queen! The pandemic and forced isolation cracked my world, as no doubt it cracked yours. It was a time for hunkering down and looking for a silver lining. Without a playbook. In the beginning weeks, artistic rumblings lured me to buy (online, natch) construction paper and pastel-colored scissors in order to channel Matisse in his dimming years. My paltry collages were short-lived, as was a vision board, which felt too crunchy granola with its celestial anagrams. Then I practiced penmanship and sent handwritten (!) cards to friends with sealing wax stamps for decoration. A college hobby, revitalized while quarantined! Then came the throwing stuff out stage, which is ongoing still. I joined my local Buy Nothing Group and recycled unwanted clothes and whatnot. Plenty of whatnot. Broadway and the theater arts have always been my passion, even in my childhood dreams. I was weaned on vinyl musicals both awful (Wildcat with Lucille Ball) and hilarious (Little Me with Sid Caesar). Covering Broadway has been a challenge in the time of Covid. Would theater going ever return to pre-pandemic numbers? Admittedly, it was often nerve-racking to sit in a theater with rows of masked fans trying to breathe without coughing. Easier read than done. I hope I imparted some joy to readers looking for a show inspiration. Granted there are many mediocre shows on the boards, but tourists flock regardless. Readers are now informed of the Theatre Development Fund’s (TDF) half-price offerings: day-of show tickets at the TKTS booth at 47th & Broadway and one in Lincoln Center (less crowded). Join! Spend even less! tdf.org. But my passion extends beyond reporting on theater. It’s grown exponentially with each dire heat warning. Two words: Climate Change. It’s here, people. Early whistleblowers were drowned out by big oil profits worldwide. If corrupt polluters aren’t brought to account for criminal acts beyond the pale, we’re in Trouble with a capital T. If we don’t get this one right, we’re doomed. It’s not a political issue, it’s a humankind one. With Phoenix, Ariz. clocking in upwards of 110 degrees Fahrenheit for 18 consecutive days, doesn’t it feel like hell on earth, wherever you live in these United States? The current heat wave has gripped three continents, across North America, Europe and Asia. Forest fires (Canadian and European) impact all of us, as air grows thicker and breathing becomes challenging. But I digress. I’m still taking my leave…. I’ll miss posting Central Park Dog photos, which has become quite the passion project. Perhaps I’ll grace this piece with some newfound four-legged friends. If you can’t leave ‘em smiling and laughing, just leave! But one more thing: I have a terrific recipe from Allan… Naomi Serviss is a New York-based award-winning journalist whose work has been published in The New York Times, Newsday, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Highroads (AAA magazine), in-flight publications, spa and travel magazines and websites, including BroadwayWorld.com

By Jessie Seigel / Washington, D.C. This is the last issue of The Insider—a time to celebrate what the publication has accomplished, even as we close up shop. And for me, it is a good moment to review my years writing for this online pub, as well as to consider how my work can best be carried forward. My journey into journalism began by chance in the early fall of 2020. At that time, I wrote a Facebook post highly critical of Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward because he had—as early as the spring of 2020—amassed evidence that then President Donald Trump knew about the dangers of Covid-19, but had lied about it and chosen to withhold that critical evidence from the public for months. Woodward waited to reveal that critical fact until he was promoting his book Rage, not published until September of that year. Our soon-to-be erstwhile editor, Andi Sachs, asked me to turn my Facebook post into an article for The Insider—which I did. The next week, Andi asked if I would write something on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had just died. Again, I obliged. Then I was off and running—coaxed into writing a political opinion column for The Insider on a regular basis. Over the last three years, my column, Washington Whispers, has given me the opportunity to address some of the most important public crises of our times. There were the politics of the Covid pandemic: the Trump-promoted disinformation concerning the virus and the Covid vaccine; the initial difficulty of getting vaccinated; the anti-vaccine propaganda; the virulence of anti-maskers; and the vilification of Dr. Anthony Fauci. These were very important matters during the pandemic. But the issues closest to my heart were and remain the rising dangers to our nation’s democracy and the need to defend against them. As far back as that article on Justice Ginsburg, I expressed concern that we were living at the center of a maelstrom that could portend the end of democracy. The chaos and the peril have only become more intense since then. Thus, I’ve had the sad privilege of addressing the January 6, 2021 insurrection, Donald Trump’s nearly week-long second impeachment trial, the anti-democratic schemes of Republican politicians, and the corruption of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority. Along the way, I have also addressed the reactionary efforts to re-legalize discrimination, silence speech and erase history by banning books, as well as the ongoing machinations to deprive citizens of the right to vote, to privacy, and to make one’s own health-care decisions. What a full three years! It has been wonderful to have this forum—my “soapbox,” as I call it. And I couldn’t have asked for a better editor than Andi. The collaboration—our give-and-take in the editing process—has been one of my greatest pleasures. Among other things, Andi is brilliant when it comes to headlines and the occasional bon mot! From her, I’ve also learned a bit about beginning with hooks and ending with kickers. What Next? Although The Insider is coming to an end, the nation’s ceaseless political mayhem is not. The various Trump investigations and indictments appear to be moving--but very slowly, like tortoises crawling along in a race against the fast-coming 2024 election. Candidate Trump is using every political maneuver he can muster to delay a legal reckoning. If he manages to again seize power, he will surely use the presidency to kill all investigation of his actions. More than that, just this last week, Trump threatened that, if he becomes president in 2024, he will purge the federal government of anyone who opposes him. And he will most assuredly use the Department of Justice to persecute those who are attempting to hold him to account. I hope my Washington Whispers columns have, at a minimum, given readers information and analysis that they may be too busy to research for themselves—and so armed them with facts and arguments with which to persuade others. And given the nation’s continuing political upheaval, I think it would be useful to continue this work. I am currently in the process of determining the best way forward. One strong possibility is to continue Washington Whispers as an independent blog of my own, perhaps following in the grand tradition of the old I. F. Stone political weekly. If you are interested in receiving information about my future writing, please send your email address to me now at jaseigel3@gmail.com. In the meantime, political junkies, this is not goodbye, but au revoir. Political columnist Jessie Seigel had a long career as a government attorney in which she honed her analytic skills. She has also twice received an Artist’s Fellowship from the Washington, D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities for her fiction, and has been a finalist for a number of literary awards. In addition, Seigel is an associate editor at the Potomac Review, a reviewer for The Washington Independent Review of Books, and a dabbler in political cartoons at Daily Kos. Of this balance in her work between the analytic and the imaginative, Seigel jokes, “I guess my right and left brains are well-balanced.” More on and from Seigel can be found at The Adventurous Writer, https://www.jessieseigel.com.

By Lydia Hope Wilen / New York City “Oh no…here comes the noodge!” (The OED defines “noodge” as a person who persistently nudges.) That was Andrea Sachs whenever we saw each other, which was often, since we live in the same building and take the same bank of elevators. She was relentlessly after me to write something for The Insider. I hadn’t written anything since my sister/my collaborator, passed away in 2018. If you’ve read my bio at the end of my Insider articles, you know that Joany and I had a very colorful, fun and successful collaborative career together. The thought of writing without Joany was not appealing to me…not until I had a visitor come in through my bedroom window. A BAT! To help me recover from PTFBS (Post-Traumatic Flying Bat Syndrome) I wrote a horrifying and humorous story about it. Andrea published it and made me realize how much I enjoyed writing and how lucky I was to be able to write for The Insider. Thanks to Andrea, it has been a wonderful experience. Over the years, I’ve had many editors – the good, the bad and the very bad, who would make changes just to justify their jobs. When Andrea suggests an edit, it’s ALWAYS to make the story better. I’ve learned so much working with Andrea…things I didn’t think I needed to learn—tense, plurals, punctuation and, most important, clarity (adding a word or two to emphasize a point). I actually looked forward to those editing sessions with Andrea and the tech-savvy special specialist, Matt Nadelson. Please know that this would be nothing if it weren’t for YOU, the readers. Your responses in the comment box and directly to me through my email address and by phone, were more appreciated than you can know. I’m so very grateful for your thoughtful support. “Thank you” doesn’t begin to say it. What has been especially rewarding, in terms of the readers’ reactions to my work, specifically the “What Are the Chances…?” series, is that it seems to have awakened and heightened awareness in people. I keep hearing about the awareness of incredible happenings where the odds can’t be calculated. You know, “What are the chances…?” Since I have all kinds of notes with ideas for articles that I won’t be writing, I’d like to share some of the article ideas followed by fascinating facts that I think you’ll find entertaining and enlightening. Facts to Make You Say “Hey, Yeah!”: Zero is the only number that cannot be represented by Roman numerals. “Hey, yeah!” No Can Do: In the early 1800s, Peter Durand of England patented a can for food, made of wrought iron. The can had to be opened with a chisel and hammer. Finally, 50 years later, a practical can opener was invented by Ezra Warner and thinner steel started being used for cans. Take My Word for It: That picturesque swirl of toothpaste seen on toothpaste packaging and in ads is known as a “nurdle.” Ask any toothpaste manufacturer and they’ll confirm it. Turning Things Around: Milton Bradley was a lithographer, creating custom lithographs in Springfield, Mass. His best seller was a lithograph of a clean-shaven Abraham Lincoln. The story goes that an 11-year-old girl wrote Lincoln a letter, telling him to let his whiskers grow. Among other reasons, she wrote, “You would look a great deal better, for your face is so thin.” And so, Abraham Lincoln was the first president to have a beard. Because that beard was the downfall of Milton Bradley’s lithography business, he needed to find other uses for his specialized equipment. Being a creative thinker, he invented The Checkered Game of Life and successfully transitioned into a major board game manufacturer. I bet you have at least one Milton Bradley board game in your home. Article Ideas That Won’t Work: Sue Grafton was a popular novelist. She came up with a clever series of mysteries, using the alphabet. Her first thriller was A is for Alibi and she followed that with B is for Burglar. I got the idea to do a Jewish version of that, starting with A is for Aggravation. (Remember, I called this “Article Ideas That Won’t Work.’) Tennis Anyone?: Wimbledon is the only court where the players have to wear white from head to toe and everything in between. The reason is that white doesn’t show sweat like a color does. Applying for a Job: Leonardo da Vinci is credited with writing the first résumé, thought to be in the form of a letter to the ruthless Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza. The letter/résumé listed da Vinci’s extensive engineering skills and numerous inventions. Historic reports say that the potential employer was only interested in what weapons this creative genius could design. And yes, Sforza hired da Vinci. I Got Your Number: If you’re thinking about blinking, you might like to know that the average person blinks about 7.8 million times per year. In a different vein with an astounding number, according to the British Heart Foundation, the veins in an adult human would stretch 60,000 miles…further than it takes to circumnavigate the globe twice. How it Came to Be: Thomas Williams saw his older sister Mabel putting a mixture of petroleum jelly and coal dust on her eyelashes for a darker, fuller, more attractive look. Williams adapted it with a chemistry set and started selling the product locally. The product sold! Williams knew he had a winner. Eventually, in honor of his sister Mabel, he named the eye beautifier Maybelline. Yes, Maybelline. No maybe about the kid brother becoming the founder of a global cosmetic brand. The One and Only: The one and only letter that isn’t in the name of any of our 50 states is “q.” The one and only bird that can fly backwards and upside down is the magnificent hummingbird. The one and only reason to be sorry the pandemic has ended is that this is the final edition of The Insider. Lydia Hope Wilen had a successful collaboration with her late sister Joany as nonfiction bestselling authors (18 books), journalists, TV personalities, writers and talent coordinators on a Nickelodeon series hosted by Leonard Nimoy, Reading Rainbow episodes, skit writers for Dr. Ruth's TV show, Diet America Challenge on CBS, and writers of screenplays (optioned but not produced yet). Lydia is writing on her own now and has just completed an extraordinary book for young people and their parents. It will have them laughing and learning...once she gets an agent and it gets published.

By John Woodford / Ann Arbor, Mich. Like many an opinionated ink-stained scribbler, I wondered if I’d enjoy having a column through which I could vent my views, whether fair, fierce or foul. Maybe that yen was on my subconscious bucket list. If so, it was a mighty shallow bucket and, thanks to Andrea Sachs, I was able to fill it with a few thimblefuls of columns for The Insider. So, for my short-lived Game On! column, it’s game called on account of darkness. Despite The Insider’s demise, Andrea’s founding in March, 2020 of the first publication born out of the Covid pandemic will be added to her other achievements recorded in the annals of journalism. I first noticed her when I was executive editor of an alumni publication for her alma mater, the University of Michigan, since part of my job was to be on the lookout for outstanding graduates. Andrea had segued from being a government attorney to becoming Time magazine’s reporter on the publishing beat in 1995, after having joined that publication in 1984. Time Inc. has always valued the craft, or art, of wordsmithing very highly, and Andrea was recognized as an especially gifted practitioner. Andrea is exceptionally resourceful, quick-witted and observant — and more than a little bit persistent, qualities that have served her well as a writer and editor. There was the time she had to interview the hyper-prolific author Joyce Carol Oates with less than a day’s notice, about an Oates novel that had clearly been inspired by the Jon Benét Ramsey case involving the disappearance of a child whose parents had made her a prepubescent sex object. When Andrea linked Oates’s plot to the Ramsey case, Oates became indignant, maintaining that her forthcoming novel was not about that case at all. “Haven’t you read the book?” Oates challenged. Somehow Andrea mollified Oates and completed her assignment. But she remembers her mortification at the time and how she’d come back at Oates in her own mind: “No, I can’t read a 600-page book in one night. You’re the only one who can do that, Joyce!” She could not, of course, have replied thusly out loud or she would not have racked up yet another scintillating interview of the sort she's known for. Andrea was in attendance when an octogenarian Philip Roth received the Legion of Honor from a French diplomat in New York City. What could have been a ho-hum news item became a Woody Allen-style vignette in her report. As the Frenchman, approaching Roth from behind, attempted to fasten the medal around Roth’s neck, it slipped from his hands and fell to the floor. “So quickly?” quipped Roth, suggesting the impermanence of fame. And moments later the ceremony was again interrupted by three tolls of a cellphone. Andrea notices everything, and as the saying goes, everything is in the details, especially the juicy ones that make stories delicious. That’s why I’m hoping for another Andrea Sachs journalistic reincarnation in the near future (which is the only future in the offing for me). But, as Andrea has informed her Insider readers, it’s very hard these days to finance any enterprise that requires its target audience to read thoughtful, civil prose at any length beyond a paragraph. And few nonideological, nonpolitical publications these days have published arguments that challenge the government line on the Russo-Ukrainian war. But The Insider has exercised our freedoms of speech and of the press by publishing incisive pieces on that subject by Andrea’s brother, the economist Jeffrey Sachs. So, in view of economic realities and iconoclastic independence, it was remarkable that Andrea could sustain a publication like The Insider, which fits no known genre and fills no identifiable niche, as long as she did: three-and-a-half years! And the wonderful illustrations that she and tech manager Matt Nadelson expended considerable effort to find, acquire, adjust and place in just the right spot always embellished contributors’ stories. And as for writing errors of all imaginable sorts: Andrea is a clean-up, paint-up, fix-up miracle worker. Embarrassment is never cute, but it can be acute, and, believe me, Andrea saved me from that woeful feeling every time I contributed. Perhaps the most noteworthy attribute of The Insider, however, was its serving as a sort of journalistic omnium-gatherum of articles and columns by an array of writers plus an interviewer who presented recorded conversations with experts on classical music and opera. Movies, cooking, Detroit history, college life, book and movie reviews — the variety of the content Andrea offered to her readers was usually surprising, always informative and regularly included humor. So I’ll take my final bow by stealing this nugget from The Insider’s Lydia Hope Wilen: An elderly couple is sitting on their patio. While sipping her glass of wine, the wife says, “I love you so much, I don’t know how I could ever live without you.” Her husband hears that and asks, “Was that you or the wine talking?” She answers, “It’s me, talking to the wine.” Bada-boom! Thanks, Andrea! John Woodford lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he retired after two decades as the executive editor of Michigan Today, a University of Michigan alumni/ae publication. His career in journalism includes editing and/or reporting duties for Ebony magazine, Muhammad Speaks newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times, the New Haven Register, the New York Times and Ford Motor company publications.

By Bonnie Fishman / San Francisco Bay Area I was born in West Branch, a small community in northern Michigan and raised on Peach Lake (of all things!) every summer of my life until I turned 20. My family owned a summer camp nearby and we lived an idyllic, carefree life on the lake. Did my love for peaches occur naturally, being the name of my birth place? Hard to say. Oddly enough, the lake wasn’t shaped like a peach or bordered by peach orchards. If it’s summer, it must be peach season. Stone fruits abound all across the country, appearing first in warmer climes, such as the South, Southwest, and California. Eventually, they start appearing at farm stands in the Midwest and Northeast. When I lived in Michigan, I sought out those high-quality Georgia peaches for my own personal use and to share with friends. The Peach Truck, www.thepeachtruck.com is a business in Nashville that packs up the most perfect peaches in 10 lb boxes each summer, loads them onto a refrigerated truck, and travels north, stopping in locations in various states to bring their prized produce to us Northerners. One bite of this tasty fruit will explain why Georgia is known as The Peach State In the summer of 2019, while I still lived in my home state, I caught wind that the Peach Truck was coming to a business near my home. My friend Lynn and I lined up with another 80 or so people in order to get our allotment. You paid while in line, and when you got up to the truck, they handed you as many boxes as you had ordered, and you were on your way. Very efficient. Those peaches were the real deal: sweet and juicy. If you bit into one, you better be standing over a sink to catch the juice! I always thought Georgia was the largest peach producing state. But it turns out that Georgia’s reputation as the Peach State comes from quality rather than quantity. For example, in 2021, Georgia yielded 35 tons of peaches; South Carolina yielded 72 tons and California harvested more than 130 tons of peaches. But don’t get too excited about buying Georgia peaches this year. “Georgia lost over 90 percent of its peach crops due to the record-setting warm weather in traditionally colder months, leaving the crops to suffer,” according to CNN. South Carolina suffered damaging weather, too, which caused them to lose 70 percent of their crop. We will have to turn to California peaches this summer. In fall of 2021, the Fishman Compound here in California decided to establish a fruit orchard on our property. Everyone had an opinion about what to plant (of course we did! ). Our orchard contains many different varieties of fruit to satisfy everyone’s wishes. If you know anything about planting infant fruit trees, they don’t bear much fruit the first couple of years. For example, last year, we had one cherry. This year there were 10. If we lived on the prairie like author Laura Ingalls Wilder, we’d starve to death! We have managed to grow several of these luscious peaches. Unfortunately, small critters come out at night and have discovered them. I love it: we plant trees to feed the rodents! Peaches are one of those fruits that I’m particular about. I, like many people, don’t care for peaches that have an excessive amount of that textural “fuzz.” The fuzz is actually a protective coating to keep the fruit safe from insects and other pests. That’s why I usually prefer nectarines, which are part of the peach family, but have a smooth skin. The peaches that lure me are large, naturally ripened ones. When you bite into them, the juices run down your arms. You are a sticky mess, but who cares? The flavor is worth it! I also prefer freestone peaches, as they’re easier to eat and certainly easier to bake with. Last month, I hosted a cooking class party for 16 students. I foolishly offered Grilled Peach Melba before the freestone fruits were in season. I wrestled the pits out of those babies for more time than I wanted to spend. It was especially difficult because I needed the peaches to be in tidy halves, not mauled! There are many uses for peaches besides eating them plain. They are a delightful addition to any fruit salad or a tossed green salad. I usually put in nuts, and feta or goat cheese, when making a tossed salad, as the flavors and texture are a nice pairing with soft, sweet peaches. Peach devotees also make jams, chutneys, salsas, or BBQ sauce for grilled meats and chicken. If you are inundated with peaches, you can always freeze them. I cut them half, remove the stone, and freeze them in a single layer on a cookie sheet. When frozen, I gather them up into a Ziploc freezer bag. When you defrost the peaches this way, you have options as to what to do with them. I had a difficult time deciding which peach recipe I was going to offer this week, because I use this fruit in pies, flans, galettes, crisps, and cobblers. I’m going with the iconic Peach Cobbler, made with a quick buttermilk biscuit topping. The recipe is easy, so give it a try! When you bite into that perfectly sweet, ripe peach this summer, tell us here at The Insider what you plan to do with your own stockpile of peaches! Peach Cobbler Yield: 6 servings Filling: 6 c. fresh sliced peaches, peeled (see directions below) 1/2 c. sugar 3 Tbsp. flour 1 tsp. cinnamon Topping: 2/3 c. flour 1/4 c. sugar 1/2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. baking soda 2 Tbsp. cold butter or margarine, cut into 1/4” bits 1/2 c. warm buttermilk Bring a pot of water to a boil. Boil half of the peaches for 30-60 seconds or until the skins peel off easily. The riper the fruit, the less time it needs to be boiled. Pit and cut peaches into 1/4” slices. Prepare the pans: Spray six 8 oz. ramekins or one 8” round shallow casserole with pan release. Preheat oven to 350°. Make filling: Toss the peaches, sugar, flour, and cinnamon together in a large mixing bowl. Divide among the ramekins or put in the casserole. Make topping: Combine the flour, sugar, powder and soda in a mixing bowl. “Cut” the butter into the dry ingredients using your fingertips until it resembles coarse meal. Stir in the warm buttermilk until JUST blended. Assembly: Using a large spoon, pour the topping over the peaches, smoothing with the back of the spoon. Bake until golden brown and the fruit is bubbly, about 35 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Vanilla ice cream or whipped cream is a nice accompaniment. Bonnie Fishman attended the Cordon Bleu Cookery School in London. Later, she owned and operated Bonnie’s Patisserie in Southfield, Mich. and Bonnie’s Kitchen and Catering in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. She has taught cooking for over 35 years and created hundreds of recipes. She is now living in Northern California.

Jeffrey D. Sachs | July 17, 2023 | Special to the Kennedy Beacon The American people urgently need to know the true history of the war in Ukraine and its current prospects. Unfortunately, the mainstream media ––The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, MSNBC, and CNN –– have become mere mouthpieces of the government, repeating US President Joe Biden’s lies and hiding history from the public. Biden is again denigrating Russian President Vladimir Putin, this time accusing Putin of a “craven lust for land and power,” after declaring last year that “For God’s sake, that man [Putin] cannot stay in power.” Yet Biden is the one who is trapping Ukraine in an open-ended war by continuing to push NATO enlargement to Ukraine. He is afraid to tell the truth to the American and Ukrainian people, rejecting diplomacy, and opting instead for perpetual war. Expanding NATO to Ukraine, which Biden has long promoted, is a U.S. gambit that has failed. The neocons, including Biden, thought from the late 1990s onward that the US could expand NATO to Ukraine (and Georgia) despite Russia’s vociferous and long-standing opposition. They didn’t believe that Putin would actually go to war over NATO expansion. Yet for Russia, NATO enlargement to Ukraine (and Georgia) is viewed as an existential threat to Russia’s national security, notably given Russia’s 2,000-km border with Ukraine, and Georgia’s strategic position on the eastern edge of the Black Sea. U.S. diplomats have explained this basic reality to U.S. politicians and generals for decades, but the politicians and generals have arrogantly and crudely persisted in pushing NATO enlargement nonetheless. At this point, Biden knows full well that NATO enlargement to Ukraine would trigger World War III. That’s why behind the scenes Biden put NATO enlargement into low gear at the Vilnius NATO Summit. Yet rather than admit the truth – that Ukraine will not be part of NATO – Biden prevaricates, promising Ukraine’s eventual membership. In reality, he is committing Ukraine to ongoing bloodletting for no reason other than U.S. domestic politics, specifically Biden’s fear of looking weak to his political foes. (A half-century ago, Presidents Johnson and Nixon sustained the Vietnam War for essentially the same pathetic reason, and with the same lying, as the late Daniel Ellsberg brilliantly explained.) Ukraine can’t win. Russia is more likely than not to prevail on the battlefield, as it seems now to be doing. Yet even if Ukraine were to break through with conventional forces and NATO weaponry, Russia would escalate to nuclear war if necessary to prevent NATO in Ukraine. Throughout his entire career, Biden has served the military-industrial complex. He has relentlessly promoted NATO enlargement and supported America’s deeply destabilizing wars of choice in Afghanistan, Serbia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now Ukraine. He defers to generals who want more war and more “surges,” and who predict imminent victory just ahead to keep the gullible public onside. Moreover, Biden and his team (Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Victoria Nuland) seem to have believed their own propaganda that Western sanctions would strangle the Russian economy, while miracle weapons such as HIMARS would defeat Russia. And all the while, they have been telling Americans to pay no attention to Russia’s 6,000 nuclear weapons. Ukrainian leaders have gone along with the US deception for reasons that are hard to fathom. Perhaps they believe the US, or are afraid of the US, or fear their own extremists, or simply are extremists, ready to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to death and injury in the naïve belief that Ukraine can defeat a nuclear superpower that regards the war as existential. Or possibly some of the Ukrainian leaders are making fortunes by skimming from the tens of billions of dollars of Western aid and arms. The only way to save Ukraine is a negotiated peace. In a negotiated settlement, the US would agree that NATO will not enlarge to Ukraine while Russia would agree to withdraw its troops. Remaining issues – Crimea, the Donbas, US and European sanctions, the future of European security arrangements – would be handled politically, not by endless war. Russia has repeatedly tried negotiations: to try to forestall the eastward enlargement of NATO; to try to find suitable security arrangements with the US and Europe; to try to settle inter-ethnic issues in Ukraine after 2014 (the Minsk I and Minsk II agreements); to try to sustain limits on anti-ballistic missiles; and to try to end the Ukraine war in 2022 via direct negotiations with Ukraine. In all cases, the US government disdained, ignored, or blocked these attempts, often putting forward the big lie that Russia rather than the US rejects negotiations. JFK said it exactly right in 1961: “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.” If only Biden would heed JFK’s enduring wisdom. To help the public move beyond the simplistic narrative of Biden and the mainstream media, I offer a brief chronology of some key events leading to the ongoing war. January 31, 1990. German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich-Genscher pledges to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that in the context of German reunification and disbanding of the Soviet Warsaw Pact military alliance, NATO will rule out an “expansion of its territory to the East, i.e., moving it closer to the Soviet borders.” February 9, 1990. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III agrees with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that “NATO expansion is unacceptable.” June 29 – July 2, 1990. NATO Secretary-General Manfred Woerner tells a high-level Russian delegation that “the NATO Council and he [Woerner] are against the expansion of NATO.” July 1, 1990. Ukrainian Rada (parliament) adopts the Declaration of State Sovereignty, in which “The Ukrainian SSR solemnly declares its intention of becoming a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs and adheres to three nuclear free principles: to accept, to produce and to purchase no nuclear weapons.” August 24, 1991. Ukraine declares independence on the basis of the 1990 Declaration of State Sovereignty, which includes the pledge of neutrality. Mid-1992. Bush Administration policymakers reach a secret internal consensus to expand NATO, contrary to commitments recently made to the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation. July 8, 1997. At the Madrid NATO Summit, Poland, Hungary, and Czech Republic are invited to begin NATO accession talks. September-October, 1997. In Foreign Affairs (Sept/Oct, 1997) former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski details the timeline for NATO enlargement, with Ukraine’s negotiations provisionally to begin during 2005-2010. March 24 – June 10, 1999. NATO bombs Serbia. Russia terms the NATO bombing “a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter." March 2000. Ukrainian President Kuchma declares that "there is no question of Ukraine joining NATO today since this issue is extremely complex and has many angles to it.” June 13, 2002. The US unilaterally withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Weapons Treaty, an action which the Vice-Chair of the Russian Duma Defense Committee characterizes as an “extremely negative event of historical scale.” November-December 2004. The “Orange Revolution” occurs in Ukraine, events that the West characterizes as a democratic revolution and the Russian government characterizes as a Western-manufactured grab for power with overt and covert US support. February 10, 2007. Putin strongly criticizes the U.S. attempt to create a unipolar world, backed by NATO enlargement, in a speech to the Munich Security Conference, declaring: “I think it is obvious that NATO expansion … represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact?” February 1, 2008. US Ambassador to Russia William Burns sends a confidential cable to U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, entitled “Nyet means Nyet: Russia’s NATO Enlargement Redlines,” emphasizing that “Ukraine and Georgia's NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability in the region.” February 18, 2008. The US recognizes Kosovo independence over heated Russian objections. The Russian Government declares that Kosovo independence violates “the sovereignty of the Republic of Serbia, the Charter of the United Nations, UNSCR 1244, the principles of the Helsinki Final Act, Kosovo’s Constitutional Framework and the high-level Contact Group accords." April 3, 2008. NATO declares that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members of NATO.” Russia declares that “Georgia’s and Ukraine’s membership in the alliance is a huge strategic mistake which would have most serious consequences for pan-European security.” August 20, 2008. The US announces that it will deploy ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems in Poland, to be followed later by Romania. Russia expresses strenuous opposition to the BMD systems. January 28, 2014. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt plot regime change in Ukraine in a call that is intercepted and posted on YouTube on February 7, in which Nuland notes that “[Vice President] Biden’s willing” to help close the deal. February 21, 2014. Governments of Ukraine, Poland, France, and Germany reach an Agreement on settlement of political crisis in Ukraine, calling for new elections later in the year. The far-right Right Sector and other armed groups instead demand Yanukovych’s immediate resignation, and take over government buildings. Yanukovych flees. The Parliament immediately strips the President of his powers without an impeachment process. February 22, 2014. The US immediately endorses the regime change. March 16, 2014. Russia holds a referendum in Crimea that according to the Russian Government results in a large majority vote for Russian rule. On March 21, the Russian Duma votes to admit Crimea to the Russian Federation. The Russian Government draws the analogy to the Kosovo referendum. The US rejects the Crimea referendum as illegitimate. March 18, 2014. President Putin characterizes the regime change as a coup, stating: “those who stood behind the latest events in Ukraine had a different agenda: they were preparing yet another government takeover; they wanted to seize power and would stop short of nothing. They resorted to terror, murder and riots.” March 25, 2014. President Barack Obama mocks Russia “as a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors — not out of strength but out of weakness,” February 12, 2015. Signing of Minsk II agreement. The agreement is unanimously backed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2202 on February 17, 2015. Former Chancellor Angela Merkel later acknowledges that the Minsk II agreement was designed to give time for Ukraine to strengthen its military. It was not implemented by Ukraine, and President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that he had no intention to implement the agreement. February 1, 2019. The U.S. unilaterally withdraws from the Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty. Russia harshly criticizes the INF withdrawal as a “destructive” act that stoked security risks. June 14, 2021. At the 2021 NATO Summit in Brussels, NATO reconfirms NATO’s intention to enlarge and include Ukraine: “We reiterate the decision made at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance.” September 1, 2021. The US reiterates support for Ukraine’s NATO aspirations in the “Joint Statement on the U.S.-Ukraine Strategic Partnership.” December 17, 2021. Putin puts forward a draft “Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Security Guarantees,” based on non-enlargement of NATO and limitations on the deployment of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles. January 26, 2022. The U.S. formally replies to Russia that the US and NATO will not negotiate with Russia over issues of NATO enlargement, slamming the door on a negotiated path to avoid an expansion of the war in Ukraine. The U.S. invokes NATO policy that “Any decision to invite a country to join the Alliance is taken by the North Atlantic Council on the basis of consensus among all Allies. No third country has a say in such deliberations.” In short, the US asserts that NATO enlargement to Ukraine is none of Russia’s business. February 21, 2022. At a meeting of the Russian Security Council, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov details the U.S. refusal to negotiate: “We received their response in late January. The assessment of this response shows that our Western colleagues are not prepared to take up our major proposals, primarily those on NATO’s eastward non-expansion. This demand was rejected with reference to the bloc’s so-called open-door policy and the freedom of each state to choose its own way of ensuring security. Neither the United States, nor the North Atlantic Alliance proposed an alternative to this key provision.” The United States is doing everything it can to avoid the principle of indivisibility of security that we consider of fundamental importance and to which we have made many references. Deriving from it the only element that suits them – the freedom to choose alliances – they completely ignore everything else, including the key condition that reads that nobody – either in choosing alliances or regardless of them – is allowed to enhance their security at the expense of the security of others.” February 24, 2022. In an address to the nation, President Putin declares: “It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is approaching our very border.” March 16, 2022. Russia and Ukraine announce significant progress towards a peace agreement mediated by Turkey and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. As reported in the press, the basis of the agreement includes: “a ceasefire and Russian withdrawal if Kyiv declares neutrality and accepts limits on its armed forces.” March 28, 2022. President Zelensky publicly declares that Ukraine is ready for neutrality combined with security guarantees as part of a peace agreement with Russia. “Security guarantees and neutrality, the non-nuclear status of our state — we’re ready to do that. That’s the most important point ... they started the war because of it.” April 7, 2022. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov accuses the West of trying to derail the peace talks, claiming that Ukraine had gone back on previously agreed proposals. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett later states (on February 5, 2023) that the U.S. had blocked the pending Russia-Ukraine peace agreement. When asked if the Western powers blocked the agreement, Bennett answered: “Basically, yes. They blocked it, and I thought they were wrong.” At some point, says Bennett, the West decided “to crush Putin rather than to negotiate.” June 4, 2023. Ukraine launches a major counter-offensive, without achieving any major success as of mid-July 2023. July 7, 2023. Biden acknowledges that Ukraine is “running out” of 155mm artillery shells, and that the US is “running low.” July 11, 2023. At the NATO Summit in Vilnius, the final communique reaffirms Ukraine’s future in NATO: “We fully support Ukraine’s right to choose its own security arrangements. Ukraine’s future is in NATO … Ukraine has become increasingly interoperable and politically integrated with the Alliance, and has made substantial progress on its reform path.” July 13, 2023. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reiterates that Ukraine will “no doubt” join NATO when the war ends. July 13, 2023. Putin reiterates that “As for Ukraine’s NATO membership, as we have said many times, this obviously creates a threat to Russia’s security. In fact, the threat of Ukraine’s accession to NATO is the reason, or rather one of the reasons for the special military operation. I am certain that this would not enhance Ukraine’s security in any way either. In general, it will make the world much more vulnerable and lead to more tensions in the international arena. So, I don’t see anything good in this. Our position is well known and has long been formulated.” https://thekennedybeacon.substack.com/p/the-real-history-of-the-war-in-ukraine Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He has served as Special Adviser to three UN Secretaries-General. His books include The End of Poverty, Common Wealth, The Age of Sustainable Development, Building the New American Economy, and most recently, A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism.

By Emmy Serviss / Boston In 2021, I went on a two-week tour of Texas to play with my ComedySportz friends, and I accidentally ate my weight in BBQ. In 2022, I traveled to the Pacific Northwest to play with my ComedySportz friends, and I accidentally got Covid. In 2023, I helped plan a three-day event in Boston to play with my ComedySportz friends and it was accidentally purposely a huge success! Before I describe the event, I should explain what the big deal is with this ComedySportz thing. ComedySportz is a fun, fast-paced improv show that’s played as a sport. If you’ve ever seen “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”, the games played are very similar to the ones on the show, except that there’s a Red Team, a Blue Team and a Referee. There are almost 30 ComedySportz cities across the United States, plus one in Manchester, England! Since we play improv as a “sport,” we have a yearly event (a comedy Championship) in a different city every year. It’s normally a massive event with hundreds of players traveling to a particular city for almost a week of workshops, team-building, performances and very silly camaraderie. However, since Covid reared its ugly head in 2020, our Championship event has looked very different. For two years (2020 and 2021), we held an online Championship with varying degrees of success. In 2022, we returned to an in-person Championship in Seattle, which was mostly successful, with the exception of Omicron running rampant during the back half of the event. While it was great to be back in-person for a ComedySportz Championship that year, it was NOT great to catch Covid during the event. There was a collective understanding that while ComedySportz players want to be back in-person for these events, it’s a much different undertaking now than it was in the past. This year, ComedySportz Worldwide opted for smaller regional events, as opposed to one giant championship event. There was the Southern Regional in Houston back in February, the Western Regional in San Jose back in April and Boston hosted the Eastern Regional at the end of June. (There’s also the European Regional that’s part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August.) Members of the ComedySportz Boston team and I started planning in March of 2023 – securing a hotel and performance venue, ordering merch for visitors and audience members, and creating countless spreadsheets to track all the data amongst us. The months ticked down, and players kept registering. We originally expected a dozen or so players at the event, but we ended up having nearly 50 players here in Boston! Despite our event being just one of four Regional events, due to the overwhelming number of registered players, our event was lovingly nicknamed “Baby Champs” and then “Bhamps” for short. We realized that we were accidentally (and unofficially) hosting Championship. It was super exciting and absolutely terrifying. Players from various Blue Teams across three matches (photo credit: Sophia Koevary) While there were some “hilarious” hiccups in the planning process, such as the hotel that we originally secured a deal with changing owners and causing some headaches for our visitors or receiving two boxes full of broken mugs before finally getting an unbroken shipment, the majority of the event went off without a hitch. Thursday night we held a welcome party for our visitors including a very special performance from the Boston team, followed by snacks and karaoke. On Friday we held two amazing workshops led by improv experts, and while our out-of-towners explored the city, Boston players prepared for the matches. Players from various Red Teams across three matches (photo credit: Brainne Edge) Our regular performing space, The Rozzie Square Theater, seats 40 comfortably, which wouldn’t even hold all our visiting players, let alone an audience. So we partnered with The Substation down the street in Roslindale, and all visiting ComedySportz players, plus Boston players PLUS 50+ audience members each night were able to enjoy three fantastic matches. While I can’t pick just ONE favorite moment from the weekend, I will definitely say that on more than one occasion, I’d look around and see my Boston teammates mingling with players from other cities, and it just made me smile. It made me so happy to see so many amazing performers (who are also my friends!) chatting with Boston players who have just finished their first year as a ComedySportz player. It made me so happy to see Worldwide players walking along the streets of Roslindale, spending time in our theater and visiting the businesses that we’ve neighbored for the last five years. It made me so happy to hear from player after player that they were having a great time in Boston, and we put on a fantastic event. We spent almost four months planning this event, but then it felt like I blinked and it was over. It was exhausting and wonderful. I was sad to see my friends all head back to their respective cities, but I was also relieved that it was over and I could rest. I would do it again in a heartbeat. And I’m also very glad next year’s Championship will be in Milwaukee. Emmy Serviss is a Boston-based writer, actor and video editor. Once it is safe to return to live theater, you can find her performing with ComedySportz Boston and the sketch group SUZZY. When not on the stage, Emmy enjoys indulging in her new pandemic hobbies, laughing way too loudly and counting the days until Halloween.

By Lydia Hope Wilen / New York City When was the last time you said that because you were about to tell someone a joke? Can’t remember? It’s been that long since you’ve told someone a joke? Time was when you’d hear a good joke and couldn’t wait to tell it to someone else…usually the next person you spoke to. Now, thanks to the Internet, funny stuff–cartoons, an occasional joke and endless lists of paraprosdokians (figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence is unexpected), riddles, puns and one-liners, mostly for and about the senior population and/or the quality of life because of technology—all come to us via email or texts. Wouldn’t you like to experience the joy of making someone laugh in person and hearing that laughter? This is your chance with one or more of the following jokes that you find funny and are willing to share with friends or family, on the phone or in person. The perfect opening for this joke is when you’re in a conversation about something seen on YouTube. Slip this in and listen for the laughter: Rumor has it that YouTube, Twitter and Facebook will merge and be called YouTwitFace! Not your cup of tee-hee? Try this one when you’re on the subject of imbibing: An elderly couple is sitting on their patio. While sipping her glass of wine, the wife says, “I love you so much, I don’t know how I could ever live without you.” Her husband hears that and asks, “Was that you or the wine talking?” She answers, “It’s me, talking to the wine.” If you’re good at remembering details, and want to make a point about…well, you’ll decide about the point it makes: Adam is hanging around the Garden of Eden, feeling very lonely. So God asks him, “What’s wrong?” When Adam says he doesn’t have anyone to talk to, God tells him He is going to make Adam a companion and that it will be a woman. God adds; “This beautiful woman will gather and prepare food for you and when you discover clothing, she will do your laundry and she will keep your living quarters clean. She will always agree with every decision you make and she will not nag you. If you have a disagreement, she will always be the first to admit she was wrong. She will praise you! She will bear your children and will not ask you to get up in the middle of the night to take care of them. She will NEVER have a headache and will freely give you passion whenever you need or want it. Adam is awed by this and asks, “God, what will a woman like this cost?” Without hesitation, God replies, “An arm and a leg.” Adam thinks about the exorbitant, debilitating cost…“An arm and a leg?” After giving it much thought, Adam asks God, “What can I get for a rib?” Of course, the rest is history! If you’re speaking to a woman who is doing what was once considered a man’s job, this a-little-off-color joke may be appropriate and appreciated: The airplane takes off and the flight attendant does her routine about seat belts and emergency exits. She finishes her shpiel with, “Now sit back and enjoy your trip while your captain, Alyssa Bivens, and the crew take you safely to your destination.” After hearing that, a nearby male passenger gets the attention of the attendant. and asks, “Did I hear you right? Is the captain a woman?” She smiles and says, “Yes. In fact, the entire crew is female.” The passenger becomes outraged. “My God, I would have had two double scotch-and-sodas had I known there were only women in the cockpit.” “That’s another thing, sir, we no longer call it the cockpit. Now it’s the box office!” Next time you talk to a pet lover, let them in on this encounter: A friend takes her sick poodle to the vet. They are both taken to the examining room. Soon a Labrador comes in, sniffs the poodle for 10 minutes and leaves. Then an Abyssinian comes in, purrs and stares at the poodle for 10 minutes and leaves. Finally, the vet comes in, prescribes some medicine and hands my friend a bill for $250. She gasps. “Doctor, we’ve been here for 20 minutes and you give me a bill for $250? There must be some kind of mistake.” “No mistake,” the doctor says, “$50 for the medicine, $100 for the Lab Test, and $100 for the Cat Scan.” If you’re having a controversial conversation with someone and simple logic is the key to unraveling the controversy in question, you may want to ask: “Why do scuba divers jump backwards out of the boat?” The answer: “Because if they jumped forward, they’d still be in the boat.” Ever talk to someone and have a misunderstanding? Smooth things over by telling them about this father and son: An elderly man backs into an expensive sports car. Enraged, the guy gets out of his car and confronts the old man. “Look what you did to my car” he yells. “You’re gonna give me $10,000 right now or I’m gonna beat you to a bloody pulp!” The old man says, “I don’t have that kind of money. Let me call my son. He trains dolphins and he’ll know what to do.” “Dolphins”, the guy repeats, rolling his eyes. The old man takes out his phone, calls his son and just as the son answers, the irate guy snatches the phone away from the old man. “So, you’re a dolphin trainer, huh? Well your old man here just dented my car and I need ten grand right now or I’m gonna beat you AND your old man to a bloody pulp.” “I’ll be there in a few minutes” says the son, calmly on the other end of the phone. Sure enough, a few minutes later, a jeep pulls up and a man hops out and proceeds to pulverize the bully, leaving him in a bloody heap by his car. After making sure his father is fine, he says to him, “For the last time Dad, I train SEALS…NAVY SEALS…not dolphins.” Another clearing up of a misunderstanding: Ron decides to marry his longtime girlfriend. One evening, after the honeymoon, he is organizing his golfing equipment. His wife is standing nearby watching him. After a long period of silence, she finally says, “Ron, I’ve been thinking, now that we’re married, maybe it’s time you quit golfing. You spend so much time on the course. You could probably get a good price for your clubs.” Ron gets this horrified look on his face. She says, “Darling, what’s wrong?” He says, “For a minute there you were beginning to sound like my ex-wife.” “Ex-wife?” she screams. “I didn’t know you were married before!” “I wasn’t,” he replies. A high school boy asks a girl to be his date for the prom and she says yes. In order to get her a corsage, he waits an hour on line at the florist. In order to get himself a tuxedo, he has to wait another hour on line at the tuxedo rental shop. Finally, he and his date get to the prom. The girl asks the boy to get her a glass of fruit punch and so he goes to get it. Much to his surprise, there was no punch line. Am I hearing groans? If any of your jokes evoke groans, just know that it’s another form of laughter. However, it is best to tell jokes with a punchline and join in the listener’s laughter. It makes it a real win-win. If you have a favorite joke, call and tell me. I’m only kidding. Share it in the comment box below, letting readers laugh and then call someone else to tell it to. Lydia Hope Wilen had a successful collaboration with her late sister Joany as nonfiction bestselling authors (18 books), journalists, TV personalities, writers and talent coordinators on a Nickelodeon series hosted by Leonard Nimoy, Reading Rainbow episodes, skit writers for Dr. Ruth's TV show, Diet America Challenge on CBS, and writers of screenplays (optioned but not produced yet). Lydia is writing on her own now and has just completed an extraordinary book for young people and their parents. It will have them laughing and learning...once she gets an agent and it gets published.