By Jessie Seigel / Washington, D.C. As always, the Supreme Court’s new term began on the first Monday in October, which fell on October 3 this year. And this Court, controlled by a super-majority of six radical right-wing justices, has chosen to accept cases revisiting long-established precedents concerning affirmative action, separation of church and state, gay rights, and most important of all—voting rights. While the Court has the power to decide which cases it will hear, in the past it has largely taken cases to resolve inconsistencies between the decisions of lower courts. In this term, however, the Court has chosen to hear cases that present no such conflicts, but merely present issues the Court wants to address: presumably, precedents the Court’s majority wants to undo. This threat of large-scale reversals of legal precedent comes at a time when trust in the Court is at an all-time low. According to a September 29 Gallup poll, trust in the Supreme Court has dropped 20 points in the past two years. A September 22 Marquette Law School poll found it has dropped even more during that period—by 26 points. The transparently political opinions delivered by the Court’s conservative majority last summer—eviscerating abortion rights and backing the carrying of concealed weapons without a license—has led many to question whether the Court’s actions are undermining its legitimacy as an institution. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. has tried to dismiss the legitimacy question and justify the court’s unpopular rulings by arguing that law is not decided through a popularity contest. Speaking at a judicial conference on September 9, Roberts said: “The Court has always decided controversial cases, and decisions always have been subject to intense criticism and that is entirely appropriate.” He continued, stating that he does not understand the connection between opinions people disagree with and the legitimacy of the Court. Roberts declared: “It is the job of the Court to say what the law is, and that role doesn't change simply because people disagree with this opinion or that opinion." He added, "You don't want the political branches telling you what the law is, and you don't want public opinion to be the guide of what the appropriate decision is." Roberts’ stance is, of course, disingenuous. Objections to the Court’s recent opinions are not based only on a dislike of the result but on the manner in which the Court’s reasoning turned law and logic inside out in order to reach the reactionary result desired. The pretense that the Court’s decisions were not transparently political has added insult to injury. In addition, at least one Supreme Court Justice—Clarence Thomas—makes no effort to even disguise his political agenda. Despite the fact his wife, Ginni Thomas, was involved in promoting the overthrow of the 2020 election, Justice Thomas has declined to recuse himself from Trump-related January 6 insurrection cases that come before the court. In at least one, his was the sole dissent in an otherwise unanimous decision against Trump’s position. Despite the Justice flaunting his lack of integrity, the appeal of the 11th Circuit’s determinations related to the F.B.I.’s seizure of classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort may be decided by Thomas alone. (The request went to Thomas because he handles emergency appeals from the 11th Circuit. According to Scotus Blog, Thomas could, as is “common in high-profile appeals, refer the request to the full Court.” But given Justice Thomas’s past behavior, I wouldn’t count on it.) The most important cases before the Court this term will determine whether we continue to have a democracy. In 2013, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority drove a stake through the heart of the Voting Rights Act by striking down Section 5’s requirement that certain states obtain U.S. Department of Justice approval for all changes to their voting laws and practices. The Court’s majority based its so-called justification on the premise that the Section 5 requirement was no longer needed to protect against voter suppression—a pretense that anyone could see through. In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg equated the elimination of the requirement to “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” The majority’s overturning of Section 5 gave Republican controlled legislatures around the country the freedom to pass laws suppressing the vote of those who might oppose them. Already this term, the even more right-wing majority has chosen to take up the decision Merrill v. Milligan, which held that Alabama’s redistricting plan limits the voting power of Black voters in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. (Though a quarter of the population of Alabama’s population is Black, for voting purposes they were rammed into one district, making 6 out of 7 voting districts majority white.) In this case, the Court is giving itself the opportunity to hammer a final nail into the coffin of the Voting Rights Act—thus, permitting white supremacists an open field to apply voter suppression throughout the nation. As if that were not bad enough, the court’s supermajority has also chosen to consider a case in which the North Carolina Supreme Court determined that the state’s redistricting plan violates North Carolina’s constitution. The Supreme Court may use a fabricated theory called the independent state legislature doctrine to support an opinion that a state supreme court cannot overrule a state legislature’s redistricting plans—the state legislature’s version of election rules—even if those rules violate the state constitution. If the Supreme Court does so, it will be legalizing the illegal election schemes Trump and his allies in Republican-controlled state legislatures tried in 2020. Without recourse to the courts, voters will have no way to counter the resulting Republican legislative dictatorship. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has speculated that if trust in the court keeps dropping, you would think the justices would worry that Americans won’t respect them enough to follow the Court’s rulings any longer. Maddow opined that this loss of perceived legitimacy would be a disaster—the end of the rule of law. Though I have great respect for Rachel Maddow, in my view, legitimacy is beside the point. Ultimately, the Court’s power does not reside in perceptions of legitimacy but in whether those holding physical power will enforce its opinions. That’s what’s happening with abortion suppression now. If the Court’s decisions in this term aid anti-democratic forces to take over the country, public perception of the Court won’t matter. The Court will merely serve as a tool lending the facade of legality to the those who have rigged the electoral system in order to obtain and hold power. The Court’s majority is clearly poised to act as an adjunct of those anti-democratic forces. Time to save the nation’s democracy is running short. The vote, to the degree we can overcome the current gerrymandering and legislative skullduggery, is our most powerful remaining weapon. If we all vote in November, democracy may not yet be lost. 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.

A game at Wahconah Park stirs dreams of local baseball's past and future By Michael McQuillan / New York City Reprinted with permission of The Berkshire Eagle (August 27, 2022) I cross the threshold for memory’s reward. Despite rain-sloshed shirt and sneakers, the worn field’s sight brings smiles. As was true when at 12 on summer’s muggy Sundays I saw the Pittsfield Berkshire Red Sox play, Wahconah Park hosts baseball. At 69, I own more past than future, but here timeless scenes stir souls: pitchers’ arms uncoil, hitters survey infield’s open zones. A college freshman come September scrawls his name along milky leather on a regulation baseball. On hallowed ground, third-base slugger George “Boomer” Scott and fleet left fielder Reggie Smith paused to sign my scorecard two years before their 1967 World Series roles with Boston. The storied sun glare irked leadoff batter Chris Coletta, adamant against slashing at fastballs he could not yet safely see. Mark Belanger — Elmira Pioneer shortstop, future Baltimore Oriole hall-of-famer, a Lanesborough local hero — sold my mother the gift of my first uniform in his role at England Brothers on Pittsfield’s North Street. At the park, he signed my first glove’s tawny leather, cherished till diving in dirt as an intramural softball shortstop erased his sainted name. The Pittsfield Berkshire Red Sox won the Eastern League pennant that magic season when Scott also won the triple crown of best batting average and most RBIs and home runs. Meticulously listed statistics from 12 witnessed games plus 15-cent programs from tilts with Springfield Giants, Williamsport Mets, Reading Indians, York White Roses and Elmira lie with scotch-taped team rosters, ticket stubs and Eagle clips in a 57-year-old pine green scrapbook. Ace Pete Magrini threw 13 full nine-inning games with 18 wins; 7,000 saw his win on Pony Night. Bill MacLeod, his partner, won 18 straight. When The New York Times asked “Could Mets Scherzer and DeGrom Be History’s Greatest Pitching Pair?” I knew clearly: no. Wahconah Park shows age. Pastel paints would burnish walls. Reinforcement would preserve the horseshoe grandstand structure. Local bands’ live music and local schools’ cheerleaders, not cliched “everybody clap your hands” commands, would draw crowds. The Labrador retriever that accompanied its owner’s trumpet anthem to a nearby drummer’s cowbell clangs at this season’s “Bark in the Park” promotion charmed my beloved and me. A lightning lad’s dash from third to first base bleachers earns his foul ball prize. In the 1960s, business manager Pat McKernan took fouls for Sox stars’ broken bats, which were for us the more prestigious relics. Billy Conigliaro and Tony Torchia models were mine. McKernan once set storm-drenched infield fires as if a Viking rite to salvage a sold-out doubleheader. An Eagle headline calls the ballpark’s present status “shocking,” but Pittsfield’s civic sector was aware. Outside investors sought to replace it. Yankees ace Jim Bouton tried to save it from its potholed parking lot, weakened stands and crabgrass field of dreams. As Pittsfield rebounds from when the Berkshire Mall once sucked the marrow out of North Street, a Restoration Committee commits itself to the stadium’s salvation. Will parties follow through for the landmark site where Williams and Amherst in 1859 battled in the first collegiate game? Wahconah’s cozy confines offer historical content with a communal intimacy rare in today’s gleaming but pricey and remote baseball temples. (I laughed aloud at Wahconah’s dollar-off senior discount, sheepishly accepting.) When Suns first baseman Derek Paris signs balls at the Futures League finale, I am forward-thinking, not nostalgic. Will the pictured boy receiving the signed ball track Derek’s in-game exploits? Will the ball become a lifelong keepsake? Might both return when he is as old as I am? Wahconah, my refuge from an abusive childhood household, showcased athleticism and diversity, team play and kindness, approachable role models. I tracked their careers until with a 1973 Busch Stadium field press pass at batting practice I again met St. Louis Cardinal Reggie Smith and Chicago Cub Carmen Fanzone (“a fine pen,” he’d enthused in 1967 about my then new-fangled Flair). Wahconah Park is still “Where Stars of Tomorrow Play Today.” May those who can renew the thriving life of grandstand, bleachers and concourse. Shine the diamond! A robust youth’s emergence from a taxi’s screeching stop prompted this long-ago exchange: “Are you a pitcher? We face six doubleheaders due to rainouts,” Sox owner Joe Buzas inquired. “I’m a catcher,” replied future Boston Hall of Famer and 1975 World Series hero Carlton Fisk while hefting duffel bags and bats. “Well, that will help, and welcome.” What Wahconah dreams can you inspire? https://www.berkshireeagle.com/opinion/columnists/michael-mcquillan-wahconah-park/article_a2161df6-24a2-11ed-ad0a-bfb6b107e9dd.html Michael McQuillan, former U.S. Senate aide, Peace Corps volunteer and history teacher, chaired the N.Y.P.D. Training Advisory Council’s Race Subcommittee and writes for The Write Launch, History News Network, Harlem World Magazine and his blog. His work is also featured in the Covid Rebels 21 Poets anthology.

Fred Plotkin, a pleasure activist and passionate Italy and culinary expert, speaks each Friday with leading people in the arts FRED PLOTKIN is one of America’s foremost experts on opera and has distinguished himself in many fields as a writer, speaker, consultant and as a compelling teacher. He is an expert on everything Italian, the person other so-called Italy experts turn to for definitive information.  Fred discovered the concept of "The Renaissance Man" as a small child and has devoted himself to pursuing that ideal as the central role of his life. In a “Public Lives” profile in The New York Times on August 30, 2002, Plotkin was described as "one of those New York word-of-mouth legends, known by the cognoscenti for his renaissance mastery of two seemingly separate disciplines: music and the food of Italy." In the same publication, on May 11, 2006, it was written that "Fred is a New Yorker, but has the soul of an Italian."

By Alan Resnick / Detroit Trump acolyte Tudor Dixon is badly trailing her opponent If next month’s Michigan gubernatorial election were a prize fight, the referee would have already stopped it. One of the two combatants, Republican Tudor Dixon, is on the ropes, getting pummeled, and appears to have been KO’d. Her more talented opponent is incumbent Gretchen Whitmer (D), aka “that woman from Michigan,” a title bestowed on her by Donald Trump because of her response to the COVID outbreak in 2020. Whitmer incurred Trump’s wrath because she took very strict pandemic mitigation measures, including a temporary lockdown of the state. “That women from Michigan” was the most civil of Trump’s comments and tweets about Whitmer during the summer and fall of 2020. His continued boorish and childish outbursts (e.g., “Half Whitmer’) likely served to energize many of the far-right groups in our state who viewed Whitmer’s prioritization of public safety as an attack against their personal freedom and liberty. It all culminated in a foiled kidnap attempt on Whitmer organized by 14 men, six of whom were affiliated with a paramilitary group known as the Wolverine Watchmen. To date, two of the six men charged with federal crimes have been convicted. Dixon is a political newcomer. Prior to entering the political arena, Ms. Dixon spent 17 years in the steel industry in various sales roles. She then helped create Lumen Student News, a company that produces conservative TV news and history lessons for middle- and high-school students. Dixon went on to host a show on Real America’s Voice. She also briefly dabbled 10 years ago as an actress. Perhaps you remember seeing her in the low-budget horror movie Buddy BeBop vs. The Living Dead, in which she was eaten alive by zombies. She also played the role of Claire in the sci-fi TV series Transitions: The Series, in which the lead character was killed and brought back to life as a vampire. Dixon attempted to differentiate herself from a field of equally dubious primary rivals by focusing on the role parents should play in their children’s education. She suggested that public schools had become a hotbed of government-sponsored perversion, and called for school administrators to be prosecuted if they allowed children access to sexually explicit books. Dixon didn’t pull ahead of opponents until less than one week before the August 2 Republican primary, when she received the endorsement of the twice-impeached, disgraced former president. Donald Trump labeled her “a conservative warrior” while describing his longtime foe Whitmer as “one of the worst governors in the nation.” Dixon also received the endorsement of Betsy Devos, former Trump Administration Secretary of Education and matriarch of one of Michigan’s wealthiest and most powerful Republican families. It’s been all been a train wreck for Dixon since her primary victory. You really have to wonder if anyone is actually managing her campaign or if this is a DIY project. The New York Times nicely summarized her problem: “Democrats rushed to define Ms. Dixon before she had a chance to define herself. Dixon’s attempt to turn the election into a cultural battle has not worked out very well, to put it mildly. This is particularly true with respect to her stance on abortion, one of the top issues in the governor’s race in wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. While Michigan is not one of the states with an anti-abortion “trigger law” that went into effect after the Supreme Court’s ruling, we do have a law enacted in 1931 that prohibits abortion in nearly all instances. And our Republican-led legislature has refused to change that law. So Whitmer and pro-choice groups sued to block that law. And a Democratic-backed referendum (Proposition 3) that would amend Michigan’s constitution to guarantee abortion rights is on November’s ballot. Dixon is against all abortions except when the life of the mother is in danger. When one reporter posed a specific question about whether a 14-year-old rape victim should be allowed to have an abortion, Dixon responded “That is the perfect example. . . A life is a life for me.” Dixon later doubled down by saying, “There’s healing through having the baby.” Democratic-advertisements on TV continually pound Dixon’s position on abortion. These 30-second ads are absolute gut punches. There is an unseen reporter asking a question about whether Dixon supports any exceptions for abortion, a photo of Dixon, and her voice repeatedly saying “No exceptions.” There are also ads with doctors describing how Dixon’s position would make their attempts to provide medical services criminal activities. One ends with the doctor saying, “Tudor Dixon is too dangerous to be governor.” Given this constant hammering, it’s not surprising mlive.com reported that on October 1, Dixon “implored supporters to separate the issue of abortion access from her gubernatorial campaign.” Her unpopular stance on abortion (an August 29 survey found that 60 percent of respondents supported pro-choice Proposition 3) has led Dixon to turn to what she hopes are other galvanizing cultural battles. Earlier this month, she proposed a policy similar to the controversial "Don't Say Gay" law that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed earlier this year. The next day, Dixon unveiled a proposal for a “Women’s Sports Fairness Act,” which would ban transgender girls from competing in sports with the gender they identify with. Dixon accused Whitmer of “embracing the trans-supremacist ideology, which dictates that individuals who are born as men can be allowed to compete against our daughters.” And of course, given her endorsement by Trump, Dixon’s woeful campaign would not be complete without mocking the thwarted kidnapping attempt on her Democratic opponent. At a recent rally ,Dixon declared, “The sad thing is Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to your head and ask if you’re ready to talk. For someone so worried about being kidnapped, Gretchen Whitmer sure is good at taking business hostage and holding it for ransom.” The comment drew big yuks and applause from Dixon’s supporters in the audience, while drawing outrage from others. The next day, after Whitmer appeared with President Biden at an auto show in Detroit Dixon said, "The look on her face was like, 'Oh, my gosh, this is happening. I'd rather be kidnapped by the FBI,'" Until Saturday (Oct. 8), I can honestly say that I didn’t remember seeing one television commercial for Dixon since she won the Republican primary. I guessed that it was because Oakland Country, where I live, became solidly Democratic as of the 2020 election, and was viewed as a lost cause by her campaign. But AdImpact, an advertising tracking company, then reported that since August 2, the date of Dixon’s primary victory, Democrats have spent $17.6 million on ads in the governor’s race, while Republicans have spent only $1.1 million. Dixon’s campaign has literally been off the air here for months, and her latest commercial demonstrates why. It focuses on transgender rights and her aforementioned Women’s Sports Fairness Act. But transgender rights is not even on the radar screen for an overwhelming majority of voters here. Predictably, Education, taxes, crime, abortion, and inflation rank as the top five issues going into the upcoming election. Given Dixon’s paltry advertising budget, some local groups have produced their own TV spots to support her. One such ad paid for by the Gratiot County Republican Party, stars seven geriatric members of an unnamed biker group trashing Whitmer’s positions. The chairman of this political group confirmed that the video was professionally shot and cost $1,400. Having watched this 60-second gem, I’d say he overpaid by about $1,200. Larry Sabato, noted political scientist and political analyst, tweeted this about the ad: “My nominee for the Worst TV Ad of the 2022 Campaign (even given loads of competition)” Jeff Timmer, former head of the Michigan Republican Party who is now a senior advisor to the Lincoln project and a co-founder of Republicans and Independents for Biden tweeted: “Tudor Dixon is not a serious person and calling her campaign shitty and amateurish is an insult to shitty amateur campaigns.” Here’s the link if you want to check it out. Pour yourself your favorite libation, sit back, click, and enjoy: In contrast, Whitmer’s advertising campaign has been masterful. Her pro-abortion rights ads that pound Dixon don’t contain Whitmer. And when Whitmer does appear in an ad, she never even bothers to mention Dixon by name. Former President Trump brought his circus act to the Detroit area on October 1 in an attempt to energize true believers and the undecided about Dixon’s flagging campaign. Between lying about the 2020 election and airing of his usual grievances and slights, Trump managed to say this about Dixon: “a national leader in the battle to protect our children by getting race and gender ideology out of the classroom.” And what would a visit to Michigan be without another attack on Whitmer, whom he called “one of the most radical, most sinister governors in America”? Donald Trump Jr., Kellyanne Conway, and Majorie Taylor Greene also visited Michigan this month to try to prop up Dixon’s campaign. What’s that old saying about “with friends like these . . .?” As of October 3, Whitmer was leading Dixon by 17 percent in a Detroit News poll. With one month to go before the election, it’s impossible to envision Dixon somehow pulling off a victory, given how badly she trails Whitmer in fund raising and advertising. Richard Czuba, an independent pollster from Lansing, Mich., summed up Dixon’s dilemma: “It is great to run as an outsider, especially when you run against an incumbent. But there are two sides of that outsider coin. On the one hand, you can run as the outsider against the establishment. On the flip side, you don’t know how to do this — and that is what is showing.” 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 Andy Borowitz October 6, 2022 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In the latest bombshell to threaten his beleaguered candidacy for the United States Senate, Herschel Walker is facing allegations that he aborted thousands of potentially complete sentences. The charges came from Carol Foyler, one of the nation’s most militant opponents of verbal abortions. “We in the pro-coherence movement believe that sentences begin at conception in the human brain,” Foyler said. “Herschel Walker has repeatedly aborted sentences before they had a chance to develop a subject and a predicate.” In a particularly blistering indictment, she added, “The most dangerous place for a complete sentence is inside Herschel Walker’s mouth.” Unlike Walker’s Democratic opponent, Senator Raphael Warnock, Foyler hailed the former N.F.L. running back’s decision not to appear in a televised debate. “Such a debate would be offensive to anyone who believes in the sanctity of human speech,” she said. Just hours after Foyler levelled her charges, Walker denied “in strongest possible terms” that he had ever aborted a complete sentence. “The thing is, and what they’re saying is, it’s completely, and no, I didn’t,” 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 Bonnie Fishman / San Francisco Bay Area The last week in August, I took an overnight trip to celebrate my 70th birthday (will the celebrations ever end?!) with my sisters, my cousin Carol, and my good friend Liss. I certainly don’t need more “stuff” as presents, just experiences. This one was really special. We went canoeing on the Russian River in the heart of Sonoma County, Calif. My sister, Nancy, arranged for the canoe rentals on a beautiful, picture-perfect summer day. We had two canoes: Nancy and Carol in one and Liss and me in the other. My sister, Marcia, sat out the canoeing and instead spent time browsing in shops and bookstores in Healdsburg, where we stayed for the night. Calling the Russian River at this time of year “lazy” is an understatement. Water levels are so low due to the ongoing drought that the lack of current and depth was startling. “Up a Lazy River,” a popular song written in 1930 by Hoagy Carmichael and covered by over 60 singers, accurately describes our experience. Portage anyone?! Well, not exactly. We did have to get out and drag the canoe a few times because we got stuck on the bottom. What was most special about this little river jaunt was the four of us being together in canoes, once again, after a more than 50-year hiatus. We had all learned to canoe as soon as we were big enough to hold paddles, probably at age 8, at our summer camp. Carol’s dad and our dad, who were brothers, built Michigama, a sports camp, in 1946 in West Branch, Mich. We learned how to do most sports at camp in our formative years, and navigating on the lake and rivers was one of them. It was like riding a bike; you just don’t forget how to paddle, rudder, avoid overhanging trees (we did manage to tangle ourselves up in those!), and steer through some mild rapids. When we all were campers at Camp Michigama back in the ’50s and’60s, we would go on overnight canoe trips, a common summer camp activity for many. As kids, our counselors collected our provisions, packed the gear, schlepped the canoes, and stuffed all of us in an old school bus, where we headed for either the Rifle River or the Au Sable. It was a blast, except for the hand-to-hand combat with the mosquitos. For some reason, we slept in sleeping bags in the open air without tents. Sounds romantic with all the stars out? Not so much when it poured all night. Recounting canoe war stories was part of our excursions. If you haven’t gone canoeing in a while, I highly recommend it. It was so peaceful, quiet, and beautiful on the water this time. We saw a doe and her fawn, Kingfishers darting around, Common Mergansers (a type of duck, for city folks), and some river trout. Our trip was about three hours of paddling. For a younger person, that would be a snap. I personally held up okay, but my trapezius muscles were screaming. These are my main muscles for my daily swimming routine so they get a frequent workout. Everyone else seemed to feel fine afterwards. We stopped at a halfway point to have snacks on a small gravelly beach. Peanut butter and jelly, carrots, cucumbers, chips. Not very exciting. After returning home, I realized that canoe and boating trips, picnics, and hiking all need an overhaul for the hungry adventure seekers. We went to great lengths to relax, take in nature, experience a new environment. I would have preferred looking forward to a more inspiring nosh. Today, let’s change it up. Try packing these deliciously filling Banana-Peanut Butter Trail Bars. They last for over a week in the fridge and freeze beautifully. I recommend freezing them, individually wrapped, and taking them on your trip right from the freezer. Add some grapes or clementines and a few raw veggies–no muss, no fuss. Here at The Insider, we hope you take some time out to plan a peaceful, calming trip up a lazy river. Tell us what you packed for your snacks and don’t forget to try my gluten-free, sugar-free vegan trail bars! Banana-Peanut Butter Trail Bars Yield: 12-16 bars 3 very ripe bananas, mashed 1 c. crunchy peanut butter 1/2 c. chopped dates 1/4 c. raw pumpkin seeds (pepitas) 2 Tbsp. honey 1 tsp. cinnamon 1 tsp. vanilla 3/4 tsp. salt 2 c. old-fashioned rolled oats 1/2 c. slivered almonds slices 1/2 c. mini chocolate chips Preheat oven to 350°. Spray an 8”-9” square baking pan. Line with parchment paper. Spray the paper. Reserve. In the bowl of a stand mixer, put the mashed bananas, peanut butter, dates, pumpkin seeds, honey, cinnamon, vanilla, and salt. Beat together using the paddle on medium. Blend in the oats, almonds, and chocolate chips. Spread batter (it will be thick) evenly into the prepared pan.  Smooth out with a rubber or offset spatula. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Blend bananas, peanut butter, dates, pumpkin seeds, honey, cinnamon, vanilla, and salt. 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.

By John Rolfe / Red Hook, N.Y. For years I’ve heard conservative commentators and politicians decrying the loss of “our American way of life.” Curious as to exactly what that is, I’ve done a little reading and thinking. The basic consensus is that the term, popularized in the 1930s, is the American nationalist ethos that embraces the principle of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as an integral part of our personal and national identities. I agree with Lawrence R. Samuel, author of The American Way of Life: A Cultural History, who pointed out in Psychology Today in 2020 that the concept is open to interpretation, means many things to many people, and is constantly mutating: “It has also functioned as a useful and powerful device for anyone wishing to promote a particular agenda that serves his or her interests. A consumerist lifestyle supported by a system based in free enterprise has been the ideological backbone of the American Way of Life, but the term has been attached to everything from farming to baseball to barbecue. There really is no single, identifiable American Way of Life and there never has been, making it a kind of Zelig of belief systems and a highly contested site (much like its ideological kin, the American Dream).” I was raised by my parents and teachers in the 1960s and ’70s to believe the American way of life meant the freedom to pursue your dreams and ambitions, achieve them via hard, honest work, earn some dough (or make a whole heck of a lot of it by starting a business or investing in the stock market), buy and own a house, drive a nice car or two, raise 2.33 children (or whatever the national average happened to be) and worship (or not) as you wished. I also couldn’t help but notice that many people embraced the belief that wealth and fame were considered the true measures of success and personal worth. All of those things are certainly still achievable if somewhat more challenging than they once were for most Americans, and that’s due to a host of factors. Liberals point the finger at capitalist exploitation of workers, which has led to an ever-widening chasm between the megarich (aka the one percent) and the middle and lower classes. They also cite right-wing efforts to limit or exclude particular minorities (people of color, LGBTQ) from the main paths to prosperity and security. Conservatives tend to blame the current difficulties in achieving the American dream on government over-regulation of free enterprise and taxation for the sake of social spending. (In their eyes, an unfettered free market cures all ills.) They also see American culture as an integral part of that dream and say it’s being destroyed by liberal demands for enforced racial diversity and inclusion, an abandonment of established moral norms regarding sexuality, abortion, drug use, and adherence to organized religion (mainly Christianity), as well as restrictions of constitutional rights such as gun ownership. During my lifetime (nearly 65 years), the biggest factor I’ve seen in all the unsettling change in our lives, how we live, and the world as a whole, is the impact of technology and social media on community bonds, culture and the economy. It seems to me that many people across the political spectrum aren’t doing what they need to do in order to succeed in complex, ever-changing and challenging conditions. They could still achieve financial and emotional security by adopting a live-and-let-live attitude and making sacrifices to stay out of debt and gain more freedom of mobility and protection from costly setbacks such as job loss and illness. Instead, they devote more time and effort trying to return to an idealized era when life was supposedly simpler, easier and more homogenized. How to achieve the American Dream is at the heart of our most heated political conflicts, and has been since the 1936 battle for the presidency between Republican Alf Landon and Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. Each party has since claimed to be the champion of the true “American Way.” Generally speaking, Republicans/conservatives see it as something that has been lost while Democrats/liberals see it as a goal. Given that our society is now extremely polarized, I roll my eyes whenever I hear politicians and pundits make blanket statements about what “the American people” want. We want different things, often vehemently so. Polls that claim most Americans feel the country is on the wrong track are essentially meaningless because there is no universal agreement on what the right track is. Thomas D. Klingenstein, writing for the conservative think-tank Claremont Institute’s The American Mind stated in May 2020 that the American way should be a strategy for creating conditions that are conducive to the American Dream. “President Trump gets this,” Klingenstein wrote. “He has a mission: ‘Make America Great Again.’ That’s his mountain top. He keeps his eye on it, and he recognizes that the new circumstances of the moment require a route which does not conform to traditional Republican norms.” In one of his more revealing but chilling (in light of Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election) passages, Klingenstein insists that “freedom” and “limited government” are not enough. “Often, Republicans describe their mission as ‘freedom,’” he wrote. “But the word ‘freedom’ (used in its everyday sense) does not give us any guidance as to when freedom must be restricted, as it often must.” So Republicans complain that their freedoms (unlimited speech and gun ownership; the right to discriminate on religious grounds) are being restricted while they seek to restrict the freedoms of others via bans on abortion, books and speech (particularly in classrooms) that explicitly examine America’s racial, sexual and gender issues, and the rights of the LGBTQ community to marry or receive certain kinds of medical care. One can easily see why authoritarianism has become so attractive to conservatives, not only here in the U.S. but in all countries seeking to maintain a monochromatic culture and way of life. It is the simplest way of imposing their vision on others. Democracy does not ensure that kind of absolutism. For that reason, I am not comforted or inspired by the American flags I now see everywhere. I feel threatened because I don’t know what vision of America they are representing. The nation that is inclusive, welcoming, compassionate, generous and innovative? Or the vision of the so-called “patriots” who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, one where my views are going to get me a bullet in the head, as a right-wing co-worker informed me two years ago? If a kind of red-white-and-blue cookie cutter society is the goal, it’s no wonder that immigration (legal and otherwise) and the liberal/progressive vision of America are considered existential threats. One left- wing essay I came upon while trawling the Net noted that the American way is “an idealized way of life based on the attractiveness of the United States, the capacity for progress and the exceptional qualities of its population” as well as the belief that the future will provide better conditions as long as we work for them. I can’t help shaking the notion that the initial attractiveness of America was that it was (and to a large extent still is) seen by many as a place where life could be lived with maximum freedom, especially to accumulate wealth with little or no concern for the larger community. The wish of many seems to be every man for himself, and if making billions of dollars while others suffer from your efforts makes you happy, well, then, their suffering is not your problem. It is theirs to solve by themselves. The cultural norms were established by those who first built this wonderland and profited most from it (predominantly white Christians) and the challenges to those norms are still being bitterly contested. The American way of life is not only a matter of competing interpretations, it is the battleground of past vs. future. That is what the upcoming elections in a month and in 2024 are really all about: the soul of the nation and what kind of place it will be for those of us who live here. 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.

One film journalist’s stream-of-consciousness cinematic journey through the pandemic, Part 103 By Laurence Lerman / New York City Last month, the great Walter Hill was presented with the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award at the Venice Film Festival, a lifetime achievement honor for an outstanding American filmmaker who, in my opinion, has never received the kind of attention he so richly deserves from the critical and artistic establishment. Hill is a genre veteran whose work over the past 50 years includes 23 thrillers, Westerns, comedies, horror, detective, and crime movies. He is a seasoned pro whose particular brand of lean and masculine cinema is too often lumped into the general category of action movies; they are frequently noted by the critical community for their style and narrative tautness, but purely as factors in what they regard as simply entertainment. And while there’s no denying that such definitive Hill movies as the crime thriller The Driver (1975), the fight-filled gang thriller The Warriors (1975), the rousing cop and convict buddy action-comedy 48 Hrs. (1982) and the neo-noir Johnny Handsome (1989) are wildly enjoyable, there’s more to them than that. The fact is that Hill brings a carefully crafted artistry to his films—an aesthetic point of view that works in combination with the often morally questionable universes he explores. Yes, they are often defined by their action and thriller elements, but if you put them all together, his overall body of work is that of an auteur. Hill’s latest film, the Western Dead for a Dollar, which stars Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe, Benjamin Bratt and Rachel Brosnahan (that’s right—Mrs. Maisel saddles up!), was also on display at the Venice fest. Arriving in theaters and on demand on September 30, the critical community largely applauded its “B” movie stylings and climactic showdown’s slick amusement value, even though the film subtly explored such modern themes as race and proto-feminism. Dead for a Dollar is tight, mean, strong, handsomely cinematic and thematically intriguing—like so many of Hill’s movies. There are so many reasons to admire and respect Walter Hill and the films he makes. Here are five things I particularly dig: Walter Hill has had a long, storied career in Hollywood Following a higher education that found him studying art at the Universidad de las Américas in Mexico City and earning a degree in history at Michigan State University, Hill entered into the training program of the Directors Guild of America in the early Sixties. That enabled him to work in television as an apprentice on such staples as Gunsmoke, Wild Wild West and Bonanza, which was a definite harbinger of things to come. This was followed by Hill sharpening his teeth as a second assistant director on three big movies: the 1968 Steve McQueen starrers The Thomas Crown Affair and Bullitt and the 1969 Woody Allen comedy Take the Money and Run. (It’s actually kind of wild to imagine Woody and Walter hanging out and working together!) Then, in the early Seventies, Hill entered a screenwriting phase, with brawny credits that include Sam Peckinpah’s great The Getaway (1972), John Huston’s The MacKintosh Man (1973) and, for yuks, Bud Yorkin’s The Thief Who Came To Dinner (1973). These early screenplays for other directors were valuable experiences that informed the many scripts Hill later wrote for his own films. Walter Hill is tops in action, chases and shoot-outs Like a professional tennis player who looks across the court and knows exactly where he wants to land the ball, at what speed and where to place the return shot, Hill has an outstanding sense of camera placement, editing rhythm and choreographed action. The opening L.A. getaway in The Driver, the hotel shoot-out in 48 Hrs., the Baseball Furies chase and beatdown in The Warriors, the fog-shrouded knife fight in Southern Comfort (1981), the dual ax showdown between Sylvester Stallone and Jason Momoa in Bullet to the Head (2012)—to watch these sequences is to marvel at their precision, elegance and power. Walter Hill is still all about the Western Hill, a diehard fan of Westerns and their “elegant simplicity” since he was a child growing up in Long Beach, Calif., did apprentice work on three of TV’s most popular representations of the genre. That laid the groundwork for the Westerns he would later make. The Long Riders (1980), Hill’s colorful look at the exploits of the James-Younger gang, which starred four sets of acting brothers in the roles of the sibling outlaws, came first. A decade later, he made Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), a stately but stirring historical piece on the Apache Wars, followed immediately by Wild Bill (1995), which examined the last days of legendary lawman Wild Bill Hickock, portrayed by a game Jeff Bridges. Now there's the just-released Dead for a Dollar, which is dedicated to Hill’s late filmmaking friend and mentor Budd Boetticher, whose low-frills Westerns clearly prefigured this one. And don’t forget that for television, Hill also directed the pilot episode of David Milch’s transcendent HBO series Deadwood (2004) and the miniseries Broken Trail (2006). Walter Hill has worked with numerous actors on multiple occasions Though they really can’t be considered part of a Hill stock company, the fact that many actors who’ve worked with the filmmaker more than once (some, many times more) signals that they like what Hill brings to his productions. Both established stars and character actors have made the scene—and then returned again. Most notable among those who have come back for repeat performances are Willem Dafoe (1984’s Streets of Fire, Dead for a Dollar), Nick Nolte (48 Hrs., 1990’s Another 48 Hrs., 1987’s Extreme Prejudice) and Keith Carradine (The Long Riders, Southern Comfort, Wild Bill, Deadwood). Then there are bad boys James Remar (The Warriors, The Long Riders, 48 Hrs.), David Patrick Kelly (The Warriors, 48 Hrs. 1996’s Last Man Standing) and Brion James (Southern Comfort, 48 Hrs., Another 48 Hrs., Red Heat). And let's not forget a tough-as-nails Ellen Barkin (1989’s Johnny Handsome, Wild Bill), who can more than hold her own when compared to the men on this list. And it’s not only actors who have returned. Ry Cooder and his awesome orchestrations and slide guitar have been heard on some dozen Hill productions. Walter Hill is one of the creators of the Alien franchise Something I tend to forget is that Hill is one of the creators, producers and occasional writers of the venerable Alien franchise, dating back to the first entry in the series in 1979. He co-produced and worked on the script for that one with his producing partner David Giler. Together, they brought director Ridley Scott on board, and insisted on having a female lead in the form of a young Sigourney Weaver. More than 40 years, 7 films, and a slew of comic books, toys, novels and videogames later, the Alien franchise is still going strong. And so is Walter Hill. Laurence Lerman is a film journalist, former editor of Video Business--Variety's DVD trade publication--and husband to The Insider's own Gwen Cooper. Over the course of his career he has conducted one-on-one interviews with just about every major director working today, including Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Kathryn Bigelow, Ridley Scott, Walter Hill, Spike Lee, and Werner Herzog, among numerous others. Once James Cameron specifically requested an interview with Laurence by name, which his wife still likes to brag about. Most recently, he is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the online review site DiscDish.com.

By Andy Borowitz October 6, 2022 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—President Biden announced that he was pardoning all people convicted under federal law of marijuana possession in order to make prison cells available for members of the Trump Administration. Announcing the decision from the Oval Office, Biden said, “At present, thousands of Americans are in prison for the possession of marijuana. Those thousands of prison cells are badly needed to accommodate the influx of Trump aides, associates, and family members.” Biden said that vacating the existing prison cells would save the American taxpayer billions “since the only alternative was to construct approximately forty thousand new cells that the incoming Trump prisoners would require.” Calling the decision to pardon the marijuana users “one of the easiest [he’s] ever made,” Biden said, “What’s worse, lighting up a spliff or stealing the nuclear codes? Come on, man.” Just minutes after Biden’s announcement, the former Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani held a press conference at the Four Seasons Head Shop in Bethesda, Maryland. “I am holding in my hand a sworn affidavit from Donald J. Trump, indicating that, throughout the entire time he was President, he was high,” Giuliani 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 Laurence Lerman / New York City My history of country music legend Loretta Lynn is fair to Midland at best, but it is one that definitely made a respectful impression. Perhaps it was the unique way I was introduced to her singing and songwriting that made a dent in my psyche. Or maybe it was just a natural curiosity of what I sensed as a wildly potent and engaging talent. Ultimately, it took an outlier like myself decades to truly appreciate her, while generations of music lovers embraced her with a genuine and affectionate feeling from the beginning of her 60-year career. Lynn died on Tuesday, October 5, at her home in Hurricane Mills, Tenn. She was 90. According to a statement from her family, she died in her sleep. My first impression of Loretta Lynn came in the summer of 1975, when 12-year-old me was spending a month at a mostly Jewish sleepaway camp in the wilds of Northern New Jersey. It was a pretty major summer—my first time away from home for a significant amount of time sans parents, first time riding a horse, first time dancing with a girl (at a sock hop-styled “social” featuring contemporary Top 40 music) where I even received a little smooch for my efforts (a tiny one). And the first time I heard a Loretta Lynn song. Not sung by Lynn, mind you, but rather a pretty, distinctly non-Jewish girl named Lisa—nickname: Lee-Lee—a Georgia native with an adorably peachy voice whose family had recently moved to Jersey. Lee-Lee was always humming or sing-songing tunes that I recognized as country ditties, though at that time I don’t think I was even able to identify a single country song by name. She used to tell me that she thought songs on the Top 40 pop charts were silly—I can’t argue with her when I think of such popular tunes of that moment as Frankie Valli’s “Swearing to God” or Pilot’s “Magic”—and then she’d warble the lyric that led her country repertoire: “It’ll be over my dead body, so get out while you can, 'Cause you ain’t woman enough to take my man.” “It’s mama’s favorite song—she’s been singing it to me since I was a little girl,” Lee-Lee told me. “It’s by Loretta!” The song was 1966’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” written and performed by Loretta—or Loretta Lynn, for Jersey boys like me who weren’t yet on a first-name basis with her. I never saw Lee-Lee again after the summer of ‘75—I returned to camp for a couple of more years but she did not—so I was left with a nice memory of her, and of that earworm of a song that she sang. I actually scanned a couple of country radio stations over the next year and heard the original version as sung by its writer (this being a time that there were country radio stations being broadcast in the New York area). Though the lovely and plucky “You Ain’t Woman Enough” remained my gateway to Ms. Lynn—and probably my favorite of her songs—I became familiar with many more of her most popular numbers over the subsequent decades. “Don’t Come Home Drinkin’ (with Lovin’ on Your Mind),” “One’s on the Way,” “The First is Gone,” “Love is the Foundation,” and “Out of My Head and Back in My Bed” immediately come to mind, but there were other ways that her presence—her Kentucky-accented spirit—penetrated my consciousness. Ms. Lynn appeared seasonally on all the big talk shows from the Seventies onward, from Griffin and Carson to Letterman and Fallon. All those TV variety shows and celebrity specials that defined the landscape in the Seventies and Eighties regularly featured her doing a song or two, and she always popped up on country music documentaries and awards shows. Hell, I must have bumped into her on Hee Haw at least a dozen times over the years. (Yes, I watched it every now and then and yes, she was pretty funny when she appeared.) I learned about Loretta Lynn’s personal and professional history and details of her songwriting and performing genius the same way a lot of non-country music folk were informed—through Michael Apted’s 1981 bio-pic Coal Miner’s Daughter, based on Lynn’s 1976 autobiography and starring an Oscar-winning Sissy Spacek. I wasn’t transformed into an ardent fan, mind you, not by a longshot, but I came to admire her prolific output and longevity, and her prodigious talent in crafting deceptively sweet-sounding songs that spoke of heartache, infidelity, anger, revenge and resentment. Much of it was prompted by her husband Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn, to whom she was married for 48 years until he died in 1996. In a career spanning some six decades, Loretta Lynn received virtually every honor that can be bestowed upon an American artist who happens to be a country music star (Grammy and CMA Awards, multiple Halls of Fame admissions, tribute albums and so on). And I saw a clip of her receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in 2013. Loretta Lynn did what she loved until close to the end. She held her last full concert in 2017 and though she spent most of the show sitting, guitar in hand, she was reportedly in fine voice. Her 46th and final solo studio album was released in March, 2021. The album’s name: Still Woman Enough. Which reminds me of a question I’ve had for decades: How did Lee-Lee end up at a Jewish summer camp? Laurence Lerman is a film journalist, former editor of Video Business--Variety's DVD trade publication--and husband to The Insider's own Gwen Cooper. Over the course of his career he has conducted one-on-one interviews with just about every major director working today, including Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Kathryn Bigelow, Ridley Scott, Walter Hill, Spike Lee, and Werner Herzog, among numerous others. Once James Cameron specifically requested an interview with Laurence by name, which his wife still likes to brag about. Most recently, he is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the online review site DiscDish.com.

By Andy Borowitz September 30, 2022 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Carrying out a mission fraught with danger, a woman named Ketanji Brown Jackson has bravely infiltrated a shadowy alt-right group with a menacing agenda. Although there reportedly are two other like-minded moles already embedded in the organization, Jackson will find herself surrounded by extremists bent on destroying many of the tentpoles of American society. The group, garbed in black robes, meets in secret behind closed doors in the nation’s capital, experts believe. Having already plotted to destroy women’s bodily autonomy, the group is currently scheming to eliminate voting rights and marriage equality, as well as to hasten the spread of military-style assault weapons across the country. Harland Dorrinson, a former Navy SEAL, hailed Jackson’s courage. “I was behind enemy lines in Afghanistan and Iraq, but I am in awe of what she’s trying to do here,” he said.

Fred Plotkin, a pleasure activist and passionate Italy and culinary expert, speaks each Friday with leading people in the arts FRED PLOTKIN is one of America’s foremost experts on opera and has distinguished himself in many fields as a writer, speaker, consultant and as a compelling teacher. He is an expert on everything Italian, the person other so-called Italy experts turn to for definitive information.  Fred discovered the concept of "The Renaissance Man" as a small child and has devoted himself to pursuing that ideal as the central role of his life. In a “Public Lives” profile in The New York Times on August 30, 2002, Plotkin was described as "one of those New York word-of-mouth legends, known by the cognoscenti for his renaissance mastery of two seemingly separate disciplines: music and the food of Italy." In the same publication, on May 11, 2006, it was written that "Fred is a New Yorker, but has the soul of an Italian."