By Laurence Lerman / New York City “The girl who plays Hot Lips is that one from Star Trek!” That’s what I burted to my parents when I first saw Sally Kellerman in Robert Altman’s seminal 1970 war satire M*A*S*H upon its network television premiere on the CBS Friday Night Movie back in 1974. I’ll admit that “girl” was a rather cheeky way to refer to the talented Ms. Kellerman, who at that point was well into her 30s with a decade of mostly television work behind her. But as I was only 11 years old and thrilled to see the woman who had been featured in the indispensable 1966 Star Trek episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” I will ask for amnesty on this one. Kellerman died of heart failure on Thursday, February 24, at an assisted-living facility in Los Angeles. She was 84. Kellerman’s turns as a galaxy-hopping Starfleet officer on Trek and as the overwrought but appealing Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in M*A*S*H were early successes in an acting and singing career that spanned six decades. The role earned her a Golden Globe Award and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. The Long Beach, Calif. native went on to appear in a handful of subsequent Altman films, including Brewster McCloud (1971) and The Player (1992), along with dozens of other projects. Lissome, agreeable, intelligent and never shy about turning up the sultriness factor, she enlivened a number of otherwise unremarkable films over the years. Most notable were Alan Rudolph’s romantic tapestry Welcome to L.A. (1975), Adrian Lyne’s troubling tale of San Fernando Valley teens Foxes (1980) and the nearly-forgotten Marin Country lifestyles send-up Serial (1980). It’s in the latter where Ms. Kellerman, as a bride in a hippie-dippy outdoor wedding, coos the vows, “You-ness, me-ness, us-ness, we-ness,” to which Martin Mull groans, “Sickness.” Though her musical work—nightclub appearances and recording—never made it onto my radar, the sound of Ms. Kellerman’s voice sure did. She did frequent commercial voiceover work over the years and her husky but velvety tones were always identifiable. Her spots for Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing actually inspired me to give it a try. And I might have considered buying a Mercedes after hearing her commercials for them, had I been able to afford one. Both the sound and vision of Ms. Kellerman came into play in the 1986 Rodney Dangerfield vehicle Back To School. She plays a college literature professor to Rodney’s wealthy but uneducated father, who drops into college to show solidarity with his discouraged son. The pair “meet cute” when Sally transcendentally recites James Joyce at a seminar in front of an ogling Rodney; he then pursues her romantically in the hope that she might “straighten out my Longfellow.” (His words). Yes, they hook up. And, yes, Sally Kellerman elevates Rodney Dangerfield to viability as a Hollywood leading man. Now that’s an actress! 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 February 25, 2022 TALLAHASSEE (The Borowitz Report)—A proposed law that would ban any positive discussion of Representative Matt Gaetz in Florida’s classrooms is being debated in the Florida House. The bill, which has been dubbed “Don’t Say Gaetz,” has been written to protect Florida’s children, its advocates said. “Our high-school kids are exposed to many dangers on a daily basis,” said Carol Foyler, a Florida mother who supports the bill. “Clearly, though, no danger is greater than Matt Gaetz.” Under the provisions of the bill, Florida high-school students would be required to take a semester-long course “about the warning signs that they are in proximity to Matt Gaetz, and how to prevent that from ever happening,” Foyler said. “The solution to this problem is education,” she said. “You can’t just pray the Gaetz away.”

By Bonnie Fishman / San Francisco Bay Area Oh, boy, does this ever have a double meaning in this day and age! Figuratively speaking, the adage “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” has been my motto for decades. You never know what cards you will be dealt. But many people have found the pandemic an unexpectedly good time to make lemonade. I have heard and read countless stories of folks discovering hidden talents just from being quarantined for a long time. Hobbies abound, such as bread baking, sewing, painting, model building and writing (like me!). People have also learned to slow down, take long walks, enjoy nature, and reconnect with old friends on Zoom. These are all blessings stemming from a worldwide truckload of lemons. If you review your own life, you’ll no doubt think of situations when life handed you lemons. Years ago, my sister Marcia experienced a perfect example when she rescued a deaf and blind miniature dachshund. Rudolph was a true lemon of a canine. Marcia never saw him that way. Rudolph had been re-homed four times before she took on the challenge of raising a disabled pet. Here was a dog who wouldn’t come when you called him, (he couldn’t hear), wouldn’t come when you signaled him (he couldn’t see), and had violent tendencies. Marcia worked with Rudolph for eight months until he came when she called him; taught him to sit and lie down; house trained him and taught him to navigate the house without being on a collision course. Not only did Rudolph became a loving member of the family, he passed the Therapy Dog International test (other than being able to come when called because he was deaf). Marcia, being a wonderful writer, wrote a book about Rudolph and his disabilities, Rudolph’s Nose Knows. She then visited many elementary schools with the book and Rudolph where she taught young children about tolerance and the value of people and animals even if they had disabilities. After the reading, Rudolph would stand patiently while the children petted him and asked Marcia questions. The pair positively affected thousands of young people over eight years of service. During the first year of these classroom presentations and assemblies, Marcia and Rudolph were featured on Brian Williams’ NBC Nightly News as the Friday night “People Making a Difference” segment in 2009. They were also featured in People magazine. I would say this “lemon” really was turned into the best lemonade imaginable. It happens to be lemon season now here in California. When neighbors call you up and ask if you want a bushel of Meyer lemons, they mean it literally. Last weekend, our friend Jenny invited us over to pick some from her tree. It was loaded! Now I’m distributing them to my family and neighbors. After using lemon juice for my immediate needs, I will juice the remaining lemons and either store it in the fridge or freezer. I could also freeze it in an ice cube tray so it is easier to pull out for a quick marinade or salad dressing. Freezing does not degrade the flavor, thank goodness. I don’t know what I would do without this versatile fruit. Lemons provide an acidic or sour punch to so many dishes, from vegetables to entrées to desserts to beverages. As they say on TV cooking shows, lemons give food a “brightness.” I couldn’t agree more. I personally use them daily in my salad dressings, marinades, and with fish, poultry, side dishes, or desserts. It is not just the juice–the zest is also an asset. There is nothing like a lemony fruit dessert after a large meal. It is a refreshing contrast to savory, spicy, or salty flavors. The lemon curd in this recipe has many applications besides the filling in this fruit tart. If you don’t want to fuss with the crust, make berry parfaits. Layer the curd and berries in attractive stemmed glassware about 4-6 ounce size. Lemon curd is great served with scones, English muffins, or thick slices of homemade bread toasted. Another idea is to use it as a filling for strawberry shortcake or sponge cake. The curd will last in the fridge for about 10 days. It does not freeze well so get creative and use it up. Let us know here at The Insider what type of citrus concoctions you come up with! Lemon Curd Tart Yield: 8-12 servings 1 pt. fresh raspberries or blueberries Lemon Curd (recipe below) Crust: 1 c. flour 1 Tbsp. sugar 3 oz. cold butter, cut into bits 1 lg. egg yolk 1-2 Tbsp. ice water Assembly: On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to fit into a 9” or 11” removable bottom tart pan. Prick all over with a fork. Freeze for 30 minutes. Place on a cookie sheet. Line tart with foil, weighed down. Bake at 375° for 10 minutes. Remove foil and bake blind at 350° for another 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool completely before placing on a cake plate. Using an off-set spatula, spread some lemon curd evenly on the bottom of the tart, about 1/3” thick. You will have leftovers. Place raspberries or blueberries close together on top of the curd. The berries should have their bottoms up. Chill until ready to serve. Lemon Curd Yield: 3 cups 4 lg. eggs 1 c. sugar 1 Tbsp. lemon zest 6 oz. melted butter or margarine 1 c. lemon juice In a small stainless bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, and zest. Place over steaming water, being careful not to let the bowl touch the water. Whisk together for a few minutes. Slowly pour in the melted butter. Whisk in the lemon juice. Continue whisking and cooking until the curd has thickened and coats the back of a spoon. Pour into a bowl. Cover with cling film, leaving a small section uncovered until it has cooled. Keep refrigerated. 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 Victoria Rolfe / Red Hook, N.Y. If you are a normal weight like I am, sometimes people will say to you “Oh you are so lucky, you don’t have to worry about your weight at all,” or even more erroneously, “You are so lucky you can eat whatever you want.’ Neither of these statements could be further from the truth. In fact, the only reason that I am normal weight is because I do worry about my weight, every day. And I do watch what I eat, every meal. It is just as much a struggle for me as for them. In fact, maybe even more so, given the fact that I am only 4’10”, making every calorie count! So, what does that have to do with money, you ask? Well, I have also had people say to me “You are so lucky that you got to stay home with your kids and did not have to go out to work.” And once again, luck had very little to do with it. Many of the women who said this to me had husbands who were making more money than mine did. These women also had big new SUV’s or minivans, cable TV, new clothes and shoes, maybe a Coach bag and (back in the day when I had dial-up) high-speed Internet. I would wager a bet they also thought nothing of going out to lunch, buying coffee and drinks out, getting their nails and hair done, and picking up takeout for dinner. And yes, before you start yelling at me, I know there are single moms or other circumstances when women need to work, but my point is that often what people perceive as luck may actually be the result of choices made every day in life. Luck can also be a matter of perception in another way. Let’s say you get into a car accident, and you break your arm. Are you lucky or unlucky? Well, some might say of course you are unlucky! You got into a car accident and broke your arm, for goodness sake! How can that be lucky? But then there is the person who says “I am so lucky that all I got was a broken arm! I am still alive!” Same scenario. Completely different perspective. So, what is luck then? It is a matter of the results of your own actions, and also a matter of perspective. So, the question is can you create your own luck? You absolutely can! Let me create a little story for you to illustrate my point even further: Let’s say Dick and Jane make the exact amount of money. Ok, scratch that, since Dick probably makes more. Let’s say Dixie and Jane make the same salary and through some cosmic fate they have the exact same bills and expenditures every month. Each is able to save up exactly $100 per month after everything is paid, giving them each an extra $1.200 per year. At the end of year one, Dixie takes that money and goes on as much-deserved vacation. Jane puts it in a one-year CD (back when you could get some interest from a CD that is). At the end of year two Dixie needs some new living room furniture, so she spends $1,000 on that plus a hot new outfit with the remaining $200. Jane now has $2,424 (her yearly savings of $1,200, plus $1242 in her CD). She puts $2,200 into another CD and spends $30 on a water filter for her tap so she can stop buying bottle water and spends $70 on an indoor antenna for her TV and cancels her $110 per month cable service. With the remaining $124, she has a great time at the thrift shop buying a new wardrobe for the coming year. Year three. Dixie has her usual $1,200 at the end of the year. She splurges on buying herself the latest iPhone, which is just out, plus a nice case for it. Jane now has $2,244 from her CD, plus $350 saved by not buying bottled water, plus $1320 saved by not buying cable every month, plus her usual $1,200 per year. A total of $5,144. She spends $800 buying a washer and dryer so she can stop going to the laundromat. She also decides to invest the remaining $4,344 into a low-cost index mutual fund. At the end of year four Dixie has her usual $1,200. Jane has her usual $1,200 plus $350 saved on water, plus $1,320 saved on cable, plus $180 saved on laundry. And her mutual fund did pretty well to earn her 8%, so she now has $4,691 in that for a total of $7.741. I could go on and on with this story but I hope you are starting to get the picture. One night, Dixie meets Jane at a party. When the topic turns to finances, Jane happens to mention that she currently has about $3,000 in her savings plus a mutual fund with over $4,500. Dixie is impressed and amazed and comments how “lucky” Jane is to be so far ahead of her, while she, herself still struggles living paycheck to paycheck. Does this sound familiar? Is Jane lucky? So how about turning your own “luck” around? And one day in the future maybe you will chuckle inwardly when someone tells you how lucky you are to have such a nice healthy nest egg for your retirement and a nice bright future to look forward to. Will you change your luck to help find your own pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? 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

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."

One film journalist’s stream-of-consciousness cinematic journey through the pandemic, Part 72 By Laurence Lerman / New York City Hollywood’s sweeping Biblical epics of the ‘50s and ‘60s took up a substantial chunk of realty in my movie-loving mind during my teenage years. Taken from familiar, sincere and straightforward stories that nearly always revolved around clashes between good and evil, these epics were filled with battles and romances and miracles and sword fights and natural disasters and all that delightful stuff. They were populated with sprawling scenery and sets and zillions of costumed extras who all expressed their wonderment over the power of God or other malevolent forces when they weren’t swarming about big Hollywood stars like Charlton Heston. I’m referring to Heston before his image as Hollywood’s leading holy man gave way to his emergence in the last ‘60s as cinema’s Last Man on Earth (as in 1968’s The Planet of the Apes and 1971’s The Ωmega Man) and subsequent shift to right-leaning, NRA-embracing political activism. And those movies looked great! Big and bright and well-appointed and luxurious, the majority of them were shot in the new high-resolution widescreen technologies of the day, developed in part to combat the encroaching allure of television and its hypnotic grip on viewers in their easy chairs. It began with 20th Century Fox’s creation of the widescreen process CinemaScope, which was first utilized in 1953’s The Robe. That marked the beginning of the modern widescreen or anamorphic format, which presented an onscreen image that was nearly twice as wide as previous formats. In other words, you didn’t just see stars Richard Burton, Jean Simmons and Victor Mature cavorting in the middle of the frame, you also got all the palaces, pyramids, landscapes and tunic-clad masses that surrounded them. Within a year of CinemaScope’s rollout, the other studios quickly followed suit and unleashed their own branded widescreen technologies (which they had all been experimenting with for years, like Fox). Soon you had films shot in VistaVision, Techniscope, Panavision, Superscope and other formats that were being developed or swapped around by the major studios, with the smaller guys simply licensing the processes from the big boys. It's ironic, then, that my initial exposure to all the grand, widescreen Biblical epics of that era was actually in severely cropped and edited versions on TV’s The 4:30 Movie, a daily weekday show that ran for 90 minutes (including commercials!) on WABC-TV in the New York City area. Virtually all the popular Old Testament titles from previous decades rolled out regularly on the program— Solomon and Sheba (1959), Esther and the King (1960), David and Goliath (1960) Sodom and Gomorrah (1962), The Bible: In the Beginning… (1966) and all the others, some produced by the less sumptuous but nonetheless popular European filmmaking machine. Vying for equal time and commercial consideration were a handful of New Testament-inspired epics. So along with The Robe, you had Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954), King of Kings (1961), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) and, of course, Ben-Hur (1959), William Wyler’s lauded remake of Fred Niblo’s 1925 silent film of the same name. Because of their imposing run times of nearly three hours or longer, the majority of these epics were stretched out to two- or even three-day broadcasts. Clocking in at just under four hours, Ben-Hur won the prize in terms of airtime, being broadcast over five consecutive weekday afternoons, from Monday to Friday. Joyously, the third afternoon always ended with the famed 15-minute chariot race, and then on the fourth day, the film would pick up right at the beginning of the race, thus affording legions of adventure-loving school children the opportunity to see the race twice! Of course, Ben-Hur’s Heston had previously starred in one of the grandest of Old Testament epics, 1956’s The Ten Commandments, Cecil B. DeMille’s remake of his own 1923 silent production. DeMille’s second go-round at the greatest of Biblical stories never played on The 4:30 Movie as it was an Easter Sunday network staple well into the ’80s. That’s when the video revolution and the rise of the VHS was able to place all of the films into the hands of those who loved them, while simultaneously signaling the slow demise of the historical Biblical epic in movie houses. The large-scale adaptation of Biblical stories to the big screen became more the stuff of the burgeoning TV movie and miniseries arena in the ‘70s, yielding numerous titles. Though handsome enough and earnestly produced, none have really stood the test of time and are rarely part of any discussion of the genre, despite being issued on VHS and DVD and then, in most but not all cases, the streaming marketplace. I was happy to see that two I remembered well, the 1974 TV film The Story of Jacob and Joseph by Greek filmmaker Michael Cacoyannis and the 1973 Italian/British miniseries Moses the Lawgiver starring Burt Lancaster, were available as both DVD and streaming releases. Oh, there was the occasional theatrical feature during the final couple of decades of the 20th century, but nothing glorious or even exceptional save for, arguably, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). And does anyone even remember Richard Gere in Hugh Hudson’s 1985 King David? Neither does he. There’s been no dearth of historical epics in the new millennium—Mel Gibson’s Braveheart (1995) and Ridley Scott’s triple-play of Gladiator (2000), Kingdom of Heaven (2005) and Robin Hood (2010) lead the way on that front. But Biblical epics have virtually dropped off the theatrical cinematic radar in recent years, save for a few notable exceptions, including Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings starring Christian Bale as Moses, Gibson’s violent final days of Jesus drama The Passion of the Christ (2006) and the latest remake of Ben-Hur (2016), helmed by Russian action auteur Timur Bekmambetov. The almighty dollar is always the primary reason that a genre limps off into the sunset or even dies, but there have also been a handful of ongoing controversies stirring in recent years that played a role. The lack of substantial casting of people of color in key roles, rising tempers and heated exchanges over specific interpretations in the transfer of religious texts to film—maybe Hollywood simply didn’t want the risk, grief and stress that goes along with mounting a substantial biblical epic at a time when everyone seems to be taking everything on the screen so seriously. As for me, I miss the pomp and grandeur of those Biblical tales from years past, when I used to ooh and aah at what I saw on the screen and not the proselytizing that may have been lurking behind it. I recently rewatched 2014’s Noah, Darren Aronofsky’s very engaging Biblical drama starring Russell Crowe as the man with the ark. I marveled over the scenes where multitudes of animals great and small filed into Noah’s newly built vessel, a series of remarkable extended sequences that employed a host of state-of-the-art visual effects and computer-generated imagery. No, there were no actual animals used in those scenes, like DeMille had back during the exodus set piece in his second version of The Ten Commandments. But I marveled anyway. 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 Jessie Seigel / Washington, D.C. You have to give Donald Trump credit for one thing—he showed the Republican Party the way. He led them to water, and oh brother, how they drink! With the Senate divided 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, and the Democrats holding the majority only because the Vice President can break ties, the 2022 election will be fiercely fought by both parties. For the Republicans, anything goes. If they think it will gain them control of the Senate, they will back an assortment of madmen, extremists and rogues. Here are three examples of the low caliber of candidates they are offering: In Georgia: The Madman—Herschel Walker Raphael Warnock’s win in a special election, and Jon Ossoff’s win in a run-off election, both held in Georgia on January 5, 2021, provided the Democrats their sliver of a Senate majority. In only a year, Warnock has already shown himself to be an impressive force in the Senate. But because his seat was won in a special election to replace a retiring senator, he must defend his seat this year. Senator Warnock is Black, and it appears that Republicans think all they must do to win is pick a Black candidate to run against him—one who meets with Trump’s approval, of course. So, meet Herschel Walker—Trump’s pick to oppose Warnock. Walker’s paltry (poultry?) qualifications: He was a football hero at the University of Georgia, followed by a career in the NFL. He owns a business whose chicken products are distributed across the country. Walker was a contestant in the second season of Trump’s reality show, The Celebrity Apprentice, was appointed by Trump to the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, and acted as honorary co-chair of the Senate campaign of Kelly Loeffler—the candidate Warnock beat. Walker has parroted Trump’s every party line, spreading the various conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election results, calling for re-votes in seven states, and suggesting that the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol was committed to distract from election fraud. Walker has also, Trump-like, seemingly made huge overstatements about his business record, claiming his company employs hundreds of people and that he has a chicken processing division in Arkansas with $70-80 million in annual gross sales. But Walker reported only eight employees when applying for a federal Paycheck Protection Program loan. Furthermore, his business associates testified in a court case that Walker does not own chicken processing plants but is a licensing partner who lends his name to the enterprise. Sounds like he and Trump are birds of a feather. Walker also inflated his biography, claiming that he graduated from the University of Georgia with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, and he has been introduced as having this degree at various Republican events. After the Atlanta-Journal Constitution exposed this as untrue in December 2021, Walker made a lame excuse: “I was majoring in Criminal Justice at UGA when I left to play in the USFL [a professional football league]. After playing with the New Jersey Generals, I returned to Athens to complete my degree, but life and football got in the way.” That, of course, is no excuse for lying about it, unless you’re a Trump protégée. The icing on the cake: Walker claims to have dissociative identity disorder, a rare condition the National Alliance on Mental Illness describes as: “alternating between multiple identities,”—in popular parlance, multiple personalities. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, this disorder leaves a person with “gaps in memory of everyday events,” and men with the disorder “exhibit more violent behavior rather than amnesia.” Walker has claimed to exhibit both. According to Bethany Brand, a clinical psychologist and professor at Towson University, who helped write guidelines for diagnosing the disorder, the condition requires a very intensive treatment. She told AP, “They are often quite symptomatic and can relapse, even after a successful course of treatment, if they are under enough stress.” In his 2008 book, Breaking Free, Walker wrote that he was dealing with as many as a dozen personalities that he had constructed as a defense against childhood bullying. He said he had been diagnosed in 2001. But the diagnosis was rendered by Jerry Mungadze, a counselor holding only a doctorate of philosophy in counselor education, who offers himself as an expert in treating dissociative identity disorder. According to AP, experts in the field consider Mungadze’s practices outside the mainstream. These practices include concluding, based on the colors patients use to color in a drawing of the brain, whether someone has been “demonized.” In 2002, Walker’s wife of 19 years, divorced him, citing “physically abusive and extremely threatening behavior.” When his book was later released, she told ABC he had pointed a pistol at her head and said, “I’m going to blow your f’ing brains out.” In 2005, he was served with a restraining order when his ex-wife’s sister swore in an affidavit that Walker had told her he was going to shoot his ex-wife and her boyfriend in the head—à la O.J. Simpson. Fortunately, in Walker’s instance, a judge issued a temporary gun-owning ban against him. Walker claimed he has good alternative personalities but also violent ones. He has blamed his brutal behavior towards his wife and others on those violent alternate personalities. Maybe O.J. should have tried that defense. Most people who suffer from mental illness harm no one except, perhaps—depending on the nature of the illness—themselves. The difficulties they struggle with—even multiple personalities—should not be used to prevent them from living their lives and following their dreams. At the same time, even if we take Walker at his word, how would voters know which of the persons who inhabit him they were voting for? Or what that personality stands for? Let alone which of them would turn up in the Senate if he won? Herschel Walker is just the kind of candidate Trump--the man who thinks he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it—would endorse. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator John Thune both also endorsed Walker in October, even after concerns surfaced about his history of domestic violence. One must ask, is there no depth to which the Republican leadership will not sink? No danger to which they will refuse to subject the nation so long as it gains them power? If voter sanity prevails, Senator Warnock should win re-election. But will sanity prevail? At the moment, the two candidates are running neck-and-neck in the polls. In Wisconsin: The Extremist—Ron Johnson “Ron Johnson is what you get when QAnon and the Tea Party have a baby.” That’s the view of Wisconsin Democratic consultant Ben Nuckels as expressed to The Guardian. Johnson arrived in the Senate after defeating Democratic Senator Russ Feingold in 2010. He’s served two terms and is running for a third. Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry, one of the Democrats eyeing a candidacy, told The New Republic that Johnson used to be viewed as a “Chamber of Commerce Republican who was good on the deficit, wanted low taxes—a business guy. But Lasry added: “Trump brought out his true colors.” According to the New York Times, Johnson has acknowledged that he “did kind of spring out of the Tea Party,” though he did not join the Tea Party Caucus. Since the advent of Trump, Johnson has promoted all the usual Trumpisms, including election fraud and rejection of scientific findings on climate change. In 2020, he used his position as chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee to launch investigations of former president Donald Trump’s opponents, including Joe Biden, and he has disseminated disinformation about Covid-19 vaccinations. After the January 6 insurrection, Johnson claimed that Black Lives Matter protesters would have scared him, but Trump’s mob did not. Johnson told a local radio host: “Even though those thousands of people that were marching to the Capitol were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote, I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, and so I wasn’t concerned.” He also suggested that the attack was instigated by “fake Trump protesters,” and questioned whether the FBI withheld information ahead of the attack. And of course, he voted to acquit Trump in the second impeachment trial. These statements and actions place Ron Johnson squarely in favor of the overthrow of democracy and make him fully complicit with the Trumpists’ efforts to rewrite the events of January 6. In the coming election, Johnson has the advantage of being the incumbent senator. On the other hand, it is thought that his current extremism may not be popular in his state. Of four serious contenders for the Democratic nomination, Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, the first Black lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, is the frontrunner. He has collected endorsements from Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, as well as House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn. And according to BuzzFeed, a November poll of Wisconsin’s likely voters conducted by the progressive think tank Data for Progress showed Barnes leading over the closest competitor by 23 points. (Although 29% also said they weren’t sure who they would vote for if the primary were held the next day.) According to BuzzFeed, the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC) has not endorsed any candidate yet but is making Wisconsin part of its “Defend the Majority” program, a $30 million investment targeting nine states and aimed at ground field organizing. And Wisconsin Democratic Chair Ben Wikler told The New Republic, “We’re doing year-round voter protection work, year-round organizing work with the year-round coalitions team.” Based on a Morning Consult poll, Johnson had only a 36 percent approval rating among registered Wisconsin voters at the end of 2021. And with the hateful undemocratic garbage coming out of his mouth, his promotion of reactionary policies—and the Democratic organizing work being done, Wisconsin Democrats should be motivated to turn out to vote. Of course, they will still have to overcome Republican manipulation of election administration in their state. In Pennsylvania: The Rogue—Dr. Mehmet Oz Republican Senator Pat Toomey is retiring, leaving Pennsylvania’s 2022 race for his seat wide open for both right-wing Republicans and progressive Democrats. The candidacy of Donald Trump’s endorsed favorite for Toomey’s seat, Army Ranger Sean Parnell, has imploded. Parnell dropped out of the race in November after losing a combative custody battle that involved serious accusations of domestic abuse. There are 12 hopefuls remaining in the crowded field of possible Republican candidates. Trump has not said whether he will endorse any of them. And according to Reuters, the Pennsylvania Republicans have decided not to endorse a primary candidate for fear of making a choice that would offend Trump. But one of the 12—Dr. Mehmet Oz—has the greatest name recognition. A cardio-thoracic surgeon at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in Manhattan, Oz became a celebrity as a regular contributor and guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show. His appearances there served as a springboard to his own show produced by Winfrey’s Harpo Productions. He used his show not only to give medical advice on various subjects—but also to irresponsibly hawk questionable weight-loss aids and so-called miracle cures. Oprah Winfrey’s reaction to Oz’s candidacy, delivered to New York Magazine. was non-committal: "One of the great things about our democracy is that every citizen can decide to run for public office." Her spokesperson, Nicole Nichols, said, "Mehmet Oz has made that decision. And now it’s up to the residents of Pennsylvania to decide who will represent them." Of course, it’s not even clear whether Oz lives in Pennsylvania and is thus qualified to run for senator there. He has been living in New Jersey and used the address of a home owned by his mother-in-law to become a registered Pennsylvania voter. Does he actually live at that address? Not that the residency question would deter Republicans from nominating him. Sam DeMarco III, the Republican chairman of Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, has weighed in, telling the New York Times, “My most important goal is to keep this seat in Republican hands come 2022, and I believe Dr. Oz’s entry into the race gives us a significant opportunity to do that.” Certainly, Trump should have little reason to fault that choice. After all, Dr. Oz hosted Trump on his TV show in 2016, was later named by Trump to a White House advisory council on sports and nutrition, and has been faithfully promoting much of Trump’s party line. As a doctor with a respected institution like Columbia University, Dr. Oz should feel a duty to speak responsibly on medical issues. Instead, according to the New York Times, in March of 2020, Dr. Oz promoted hydroxychloroquine to fight the coronavirus despite the warnings by researchers at the time that the drug was unproven. And in April 2020, referencing a medical journal, Dr. Oz proclaimed that opening schools “may only cost us 2 to 3 percent in terms of total mortality” and “it might be a tradeoff some folks would consider.” After accusations that he was using his fame to promote misinformation, Oz backtracked, tweeting that he had “misspoke.” Oz announced his candidacy on November 30, 2021, in the ultra-conservative Washington Examiner, writing that the pandemic “became an excuse for the government and elite thinkers...to suspend debate. Dissenting opinions from leading scholars were ridiculed and canceled so their ideas could not be disseminated…And the arrogant, close-minded people in charge closed our parks, shuttered our schools, shut down our businesses, and took away our freedom.” Further displaying his mastery of Republican techniques for projecting their own motives and actions onto their opponents, Oz also wrote: “We must confront those who want to change the very soul of America and reimagine it with their toxic ideology.” The Democrats also have seven hopefuls for the primary but, at the moment, only two serious contenders. Lt. Governor John Fetterman, currently the front runner, bills himself as a progressive whose positions on economic justice will appeal to blue collar workers. U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, perceived as a moderate, promises to fight for increased wages, access to health care, and retirement benefits. Lamb gained national notice for his strongly worded rebuke on the House floor of the Republicans’ lies about the January insurrection and the presidential election. According to Politico, former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell said that both Fetterman and Lamb are strong candidates, and so he does not expect the DSCC to get involved in the primary. Walker, Johnson, and Oz are but three of the extreme candidates the Republicans are fielding nationwide. And though it appears that state Democratic parties are taking this challenge to democracy seriously, a sane outcome is not guaranteed. I live in the District of Columbia where we are not given the opportunity to select a senator, let alone two. So those of you who have that privilege: pay attention. Educate yourselves as to all candidates running—not only for Senate—but for all offices in your state. Get involved if you can. But above all—VOTE! Vote in the primaries. And vote in your election. It may be fun to watch old films of the Three Stooges, but do we really want them running America? 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 Andy Borowitz February 23, 2022 PALM BEACH (The Borowitz Report)—In what appears to be a rift between two long-standing political partners, Donald J. Trump has blasted Vladimir Putin for being “too distracted” by the situation in Ukraine to help him with his 2024 campaign for President. “He gave a long speech the other night, and was going on and on about Ukraine and didn’t mention me once,” Trump said. “This should never be allowed to happen in this country.” Calling Putin “too low-energy” to deal with Ukraine and the 2024 U.S. election at the same time, Trump said that his erstwhile ally had “priorities that are very, very bad.” “He’s spending all his time spreading disinformation about Ukraine when he could be spreading disinformation about Sleepy Joe Biden,” Trump said. “Quite frankly, Vladimir Putin is a disgrace.” Trump revealed that he had called the Russian President several times in recent days but that his calls went straight to voice mail. “When I was President, I could’ve spent all my time invading Canada, but I always took his calls,” Trump said.

By John Rolfe / Red Hook, N.Y. You couldn’t pay me enough to be a public-school teacher these days. I say that as a public-school bus driver who gets $22 an hour to haul squealing, squalling, obstreperous students to and from their places of (theoretical) learning. With the pandemic, mask and vaccine hysteria, political controversy, student misbehavior, parental meddling and the threat of school shootings to handle, it’s no wonder teachers are quitting in droves or not entering the field at all. Then there are the laws being proposed and passed in at least 16 states that prohibit the teaching of subjects in ways that cause students to feel discomfort, guilt, shame or other negative emotions based on their race or gender. Florida is legally limiting discussion of LGBTQ issues. In the interest of avoiding discord and conflict, we now flirt with a time like that of my upbringing in the 1960s. LGBTQ people were closeted then and American history was whitewashed as a purely heroic proposition of Good (Christian European settlers who became Americans and cowboys) vs. Evil (indigenous people otherwise known as “Indians”) that created the richest, most powerful, “greatest” nation on Earth. I grew up in the all-white, upper-middle-class Long Island town of Garden City where Blacks were routinely stopped by police while passing through. There were occasionally one or two Black kids in my school and a few Hispanics or Asians. Slavery and segregation were taught so matter-of-factly that they barely registered with me as horrific wrongs that still affected this country. I just assumed Black and Hispanic people lived in ghettos and rundown neighborhoods because they were lazy and not as smart as whites. I didn’t actually get to know a Black or Hispanic person until I was in my late 20s. It wasn’t until high school that I was given something to read — Richard Wright’s graphic description, in his novella Big Boy Leaves Home, of a fictional but historically accurate lynching, castration and burning alive — that vividly drove home the reality of the darkest chapters of our history. I was sickened, horrified and saddened. I don’t recall the Holocaust being taught and it wasn’t until college that I took a thoroughly haunting course about it. So in this time of roiling racial animosity, it seems to me that the most crucial lesson kids can be taught is why people adopt racist views and treat others who are different in harmful and sometimes unspeakably brutal ways. Many of us, regardless of age, need to learn how racism affects a person’s daily life socially, economically and psychologically. If you want a good idea, read Trevor Noah’s autobiography, Born a Crime. It is set in South Africa during Apartheid, but the dynamics are similar to much of our history. I really don’t believe it’s up to white people to say how good or bad minorities have it in America now. At what age to introduce harsh truths is a question best left to experts in child development and education. But the best way to counteract prejudice and bigotry is by getting to actually know different people and their lived experiences. Leaving it to parents to discuss difficult issues like racism with their kids is likely to perpetuate a family’s own ignorance and prejudices. My parents never talked to me about race. They subtly had reservations about the Civil Rights movement, but they weren’t as bad as my virulently bigoted uncle by marriage who hated just about everyone who wasn’t white. His ugly rants made me sense there was something profoundly unfair about the status quo of my “normal” American world. Ethnic jokes flew like confetti. I was called “N-Word Lips” because my lips were full. I don't know what many of my childhood friends’ views are now. I do know I felt awkward around minorities well into my adulthood. The district I drive my bus for in New York’s Hudson Valley recently reported an uptick in racial incidents in February that has coincided with Black History Month. The superintendent has called for a multi-faceted effort "to curtail future incidents through on-going educational efforts, counseling, and corrective action." But in Nineveh, Indiana, Sprunica Elementary School has offered parents the option to keep their kids home when Black history lessons are being taught. The trends are in the wrong direction and teachers are facing a difficult uphill fight. I don't envy them. Their situation makes my raucous school bus look like a bargain. I asked a former teacher about her thoughts on the new laws that seek to regulate instruction about such subjects. Elisa Barnes (who requested I use a pseudonym) frequently sent me thoughtful, lengthy responses to social-political columns I wrote for the Poughkeepsie Journal. Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, where she was a middle- and high-school teacher before moving to the U.S. 29 years ago (she taught middle school Spanish), she brings a wider perspective to this issue: “I really don't see how you can teach American history without teaching about the ramifications of slavery that are ever present today. It shaped the foundation of this country and its social, judicial and economic systems. “In Tennessee, the legislature would like teachers to focus on the ‘exceptionalism of our nation and how people can live and work together for a greater nation.’ This is indeed a noble proposal but it does not negate the need to share historical truths. Teachers are expected to teach and promote this ideal without reference to the horrific past that has led to divisions and disunity among the populace. “Before you can chart the way forward, you need to examine where you came from, where you are at present, and project where you go from here. Education is supposed to open minds, explore the differences of lives and opinions, and thereby broaden your horizons, and enrich your life. “As a teacher I would seek to guide informed, open discussion on a variety of topics, and be the moderator, ensuring that both sides are heard. I really do not see that teachers can effectively do their job with the shackles that these laws impose. They would inflict harsh penalties if a teacher ‘instructs in a manner that consciously or subconsciously casts others as racist, privileged, sexist or oppressive...’ “This is indeed problematic. How do you determine and evaluate ‘subconscious bias’? Limitation of a teacher's ability to speak freely infringes on the whole concept of the right to free speech that is enshrined in the Constitution. Are speech limitations to be the norm among other professions as well? “The law’s advocates say limits won't apply in responding to a student's questions or while referring to a historical figure or group. Students have been known to guide classroom discussion to where they want it. So there would be no protection for the teacher who is asked a ‘legitimate question’ about a controversial topic and becomes trapped in responding truthfully and offending, or declaring the topic off limits. In doing the latter, the students are deprived of a meaningful education. “The penalties for ‘transgression" (the biblical term used) are meant to deter, almost to avoid committing a sin. The ability of students, staff and parents to report a teacher's so-called transgression would create a climate of mistrust. Students are going to spy on and record teachers they may have a beef with in order to get rid of them. Teachers will definitely leave in droves. “These laws take away the freedom to teach your subject matter. Any reference to race can easily be misconstrued as teaching Critical Race Theory and seen as offensive. Discussions on gender identity, even if they arise from classroom disputes, can be misinterpreted and result in the teacher being censured. “What I learned through the years is that you cannot please everyone, and in the school setting you pick your battles. The vagueness of ‘prohibited concepts' could ensnare educators in a tangled web. Who is to decide what ‘impartial discussion of controversial aspects of history’ is? Historical facts are just that. “Teaching facts is an important part of education. But here you have the law and governmental officials telling you what facts are. Sounds like Orwell’s Animal Farm to me. “Teaching Black History poses a real problem with respect to avoiding feelings of discontent, resentment and being offended in general. Had America’s entire history been put into proper perspective at the start, we would not now be faced with the threat of disruption. “You have to teach truth vs. lies in the historical context. You cannot separate the pleasure from the pain, the joys from the sorrow. Both form part of the lived experiences of all people. Therefore, Black History Month is a farce. Selective history is the focus. Only the good is highlighted, the achievements of a few people are offered for a token acknowledgement. No background information or facts are put into context. I guess, it's a start but it falls short spectacularly. “In teaching the complete American history, people are going to be offended, confused, amazed, angry, you name it. That does not mean students should be shielded from the true history at any level. Of course age appropriate content is crucial to teaching it effectively. But you cannot avoid lessons where ‘an individual may feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual's race or sex.’ “Students will experience a range of emotions and reactions. They will be changed by their new awareness from the education they receive. That's the point of education. Just reading about the graphic reality of the slave experience elicits a range of emotions that are necessary for full comprehension of how America evolved. Armed with this knowledge, students — the hope for tomorrow — can begin to initiate change and make better projections for a more perfect union. “I sincerely hope that these laws do not spread like a disease through all the states. Facing the truth and figuring out ways to impart it would only redound to the betterment of the nation.” 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 Naomi Serviss / New York City I’ve been haunting thrift stores since 10th grade, when hippie-cool plaid flannel shirts, stiff canvas painter’s pants and worn denim overalls were de rigueur. What’s not to love about multi-pocketed overalls for $3.99? Goodwill was a college-years favorite and juiced my wardrobe regularly. Salvation Army was runner-up and Junior League shops are treasure troves. Never been a snob about buying quality recycled duds or cheerful melamine bowls with European landmarks. Have you heard melamine is making a comeback? Besides, one person‘s trash… As the youngest in a family of five, hand-me-downs were the norm. There was no debate. Used clothes, once washed, are newish, inherited or thriftily purchased. Still, I have a love-hate relationship with secondhand stores. The je ne sais quoi in their enclosed spaces can be off-putting. A flippant mix of watered-down prose in mildewed books and Pine-Sol. Faded dreams and washed-out jeans. Disappointed sequined heels with weary insoles. Battered brand-name Top-Siders. All with back stories. My passion for hunting broken-in fashion deflated when Covid crashed the world. Until then I was a frequent flyer to the Upper East Side’s optimistically deigned Unique Boutique. It’s strategically positioned around the corner from my oft-frequented 92nd Street Y’s gym. In the days when I was a regular there.. Après-class visits to the Bagel Shop and la Boutique were my reward for powering through Zumba. A sister location on the Upper West Side provides both stellar and substandard frockery and tchotchkes. The church shop attracts a queue of savvy shoppers who line up a half hour before its 11 a.m. opening Wednesday through Sunday. When the church bell chimes, the door at the bottom of the steps opens cautiously, lest masked, overeager thrifters storm the joint. Cautiously optimistic and masked, I stuck a toe back in the game a few weeks ago, and spotted a coat from Johnny Was (whose Bel Air-y prices soar into the hundreds) for $27! This was a major score, since their apparel (which you either love or loathe) is best described as Hawaiian in spirit, and artsy in fact. Free-spirited and whimsical with heart-stopping sticker shock, Johnny Was signals creative joie de vivre in theory and design. But it’s not really about chi-chi label hunting. The search is the thing, a meditative groove with a purpose. Not just for the thrill of finding boffo threads for less. It’s a meditative respite for my unbridled imagination. It’s about the soothing tonal groove that quashes stress, offering a breather from daily frets. My predilection for quirky threads feeds an artist’s dream, nourished with unexpected bounty. I schooled myself on finding quality toddler duds while living on Long Island, raising two ever-growing young ones with my husband. OshKosh overalls were too adorable to pass up, and a favorite thrift store in Cold Spring Harbor, (a hamlet about which Billy Joel famously has sung) complied. My working theory is that wealthy neighborhoods generate copious, expertly crafted offerings. Full disclosure: brands that telegraph their names are anathema to me. Why advertise someone else’s name? Not my style. If labels are hidden, I’m interested. Otherwise, I’d prefer not to Just Do It! Bargain-hunting for me is neither about flagging L.L. Bean jammies nor nailing a Lenox egg cup. It’s a strategy to offset the economic tsunami and runaway inflation that’s been blindsiding us this past year. Retail price gouging, a roller-coaster stock market and consumer dread has created a nation of nervous Nellies for good reason. I’m a citizen. Which is probably why the buzzy ASMR is making waves. In case you’ve been out of the pop culture loop, The acronym stands for: Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. A fancy way of describing a tingling sensation that trails from the scalp and tickles the back of the neck and upper spine. A combo deep relaxation and sensual frisson generating all the feels. That’s my thrift store jones. Some get the thrill from gambling, before the inevitable crash. Others invested in the paranormal may experience a tingly rush from sharing frequencies with a friendly spirit. Of course, influencers are capitalizing on the fad by recording and sharing quirky sounds or whispering. Followers eat this stuff up. I’d rather land a buttery soft Lou & Grey midi dress with pockets. Better yet is my latest discovery: The Buy Nothing Facebook group! It’s a nationwide, hyper-local neighborhood club whose members offer their unwanted stuff FOR FREE! No strings attached, only a promise to pick up claimed merch. It’s no joke! Enter your zip code in the questionnaire and you’ll likely find a group in your hood! Try it, what have you got to lose? Maybe you can offload that awful oil painting anniversary gift from your in-laws! Win/Win! 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

February 21, 2022 Jeffrey D. Sachs | Financial Times Moscow has steadfastly opposed expansion of the alliance eastward for 30 years If US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin do manage to hold a summit on Ukraine, what should Biden’s approach be? Biden has said repeatedly that the US is open to diplomacy with Russia, but on the issue that Moscow has most emphasised — Nato enlargement — there has been no American diplomacy at all. Putin has repeatedly demanded that the US forswear Nato’s enlargement into Ukraine, while Biden has repeatedly asserted that membership of the alliance is Ukraine’s choice. If a summit does materialise in the days ahead, and in the planned meeting this week between US secretary of state Antony Blinken and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, the US should propose a guarantee that Nato will not enlarge to include Ukraine in return for a full withdrawal of Russian forces from the Donbas region, an end of Russian support for the independence of the two Moscow-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, a demobilisation along the Russia-Ukraine border and an assurance of Ukrainian sovereignty. If the US won’t do this, then France and Germany should step forward instead. This would inevitably lead to cries of appeasement. Many insist that Nato enlargement is not the real issue for Putin and that he wants to recreate the Russian empire, pure and simple. Everything else, including Nato enlargement, they claim, is a mere distraction. This is utterly mistaken. Russia has adamantly opposed Nato expansion towards the east for 30 years, first under Boris Yeltsin and now Putin. Before that, the Soviet Union largely opposed Nato expansion, too. It is easy to understand why. The US would not be very happy were Mexico to join a China-led military alliance, nor was it content when Fidel Castro’s Cuba aligned with the USSR 60 years ago. Neither the US nor Russia wants the other’s military on their doorstep. Pledging no Nato enlargement is not appeasement. It does not cede Ukrainian territory. It does not undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty. It would in fact help to secure it. Ukraine should aspire to resemble the non-Nato members of the EU: Austria, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Malta and Sweden. Americans can learn much from the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. As the historian Martin Sherwin showed in his book Gambling with Armageddon, the crisis was resolved by a deft compromise. The Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba while the US agreed to remove its missiles from Turkey. The American public never appreciated this, alas, because President John F Kennedy insisted on keeping the US removal of missiles from Turkey secret. Kennedy did not want to appear to speak for all of Nato, and sought to protect himself from charges of appeasement from the US right. The public therefore believed that the crisis ended with Soviet capitulation, not compromise. Despite claims to the contrary, the western nations offered informal assurances to the Soviet Union that Nato would not enlarge to the east after German unification. The US and allies acted deceitfully, using sophistical arguments to claim that previous pledges were not binding. It was especially reckless in 2008 for President George W Bush to open the door to Ukraine’s (and Georgia’s) Nato membership. Biden and the US foreign policy establishment has so far refused to reconsider Nato enlargement for three reasons. First, they fear the charge of appeasement. Second, the US wants the prerogative to puts its military in any country that will have it, even if that disregards the legitimate security concerns of neighbouring states. Third, the US foreign policy establishment has long failed to acknowledge valid Russian security concerns that go back to the second world war and even earlier. Russia has long feared invasions from the west, whether by Napoleon, Hitler or latterly Nato. For this reason, cooler and wiser US foreign policy strategists, including Bill Clinton’s defence secretary William Perry, the great statesman and diplomat George Kennan and former ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock, argued that Nato enlargement to the east after the demise of the USSR was unnecessary, reckless and provocative. If war comes, Putin would of course deserve the blame and global opprobrium. Russia’s threats are thuggish and dangerous. Yet as misguided as the Russian actions are, American intransigence regarding Nato enlargement is also utterly misguided and risky. True friends of Ukraine, and of global peace, should be calling for a US and Nato compromise with Russia — one that respects Russia’s legitimate security interests while fully backing Ukraine’s sovereignty. https://on.ft.com/3BLj1hi Jeffrey D. Sachs, University Professor at Columbia University, is Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He has served as adviser to three UN Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General António Guterres. His books include The End of Poverty, Common Wealth, The Age of Sustainable Development, Building the New American Economy, A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism, and, most recently, The Ages of Globalization.

By Alan Resnick / Detroit Mask mandates for us Michiganders ended in June, 2021, along with all Covid-related capacity limits on public gatherings. Nonetheless, I’ve chosen to lay low during the last couple of years as the coronavirus ravaged my state. I couldn’t wait to get vaccinated, was boosted the first day of eligibility, and have been rocking a KN95 mask for the last six months whenever I go out in public. I can count on one hand the number of times my wife and I have eaten inside a restaurant. I can’t tell you what’s playing at our local movie theaters. It doesn’t matter. We don’t plan on going to either place. Now millions of other Americans who have chosen or been required to wear masks in public places will be forced to make similar choices. The New York Times reported on Feb. 11 that a dozen states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Virginia) have eased or eliminated mask requirements in public places this year. Rules vary from state to state. New York, for example, announced on February 10 that its mask-or-vaccine mandate will be rescinded. The mandate required businesses to have their customers show proof of full vaccination or wear masks while indoors. However, there is a separate state requirement that masks be worn in schools. It remains in effect at least until March. California has allowed its universal indoor mask mandate, established in mid-December of 2021, to expire, but it remains in effect for people who have not been vaccinated and in high-risk settings like schools and hospitals. At the same time, however, states are allowing local governments and individual businesses to establish their own policies. New York City, for example, can still choose to require patrons of restaurants, gyms, or movie theaters to present proof of full vaccination. Businesses there can still ask for proof of vaccinations or require masks on from employees and customers. And if the waters were not muddied enough, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) still is recommending that masks be worn in public places. In a published interview with Reuters on Feb. 8, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the CDC, was quoted as saying, “Now is not the moment” to rescind mandates. I greatly respect both Drs. Walensky and Anthony Fauci, but I certainly don’t envy either of them. While they have been extremely transparent about what is known and unknown about Covid, they have labored to communicate effectively. Perhaps it’s because of the complexity of the subject matter or because positions must change as the knowledge base expands, but too many people perceive their statements as contradictory and therefore lacking credibility. There are two dominant schools of thought regarding why so many state governors are loosening or eliminating mask mandates right now. One is that they are simply following the science, current CDC recommendations notwithstanding. While none of those governors have been foolish enough to don a white lab coat and proclaim, “Mission accomplished,” the fact is that Covid cases seem to have peaked. Moreover, the consensus scientific opinion is that the coronavirus will shift from pandemic to endemic. There simply is an increasing recognition that we’re going to be dealing with one strain or another for the indefinite future, just like influenza. The second, more cynical explanation is that easing or eliminating mask restrictions now is a calculated, craven political decision. Of the 12 states mentioned previously, 11 have governors who are up for re-election this fall, and 10 of them are Democrats, even though some incumbents are term-limited. Striving for some return to normalcy just makes good political sense in an election year. My own opinion is that both science and politics are driving these decisions. But all these recent state rollbacks have me ruminating. For one thing, it seems that the people I consider to be the bad guys are now winning the Covid war. Cities and states initially offered all types of incentives to increase vaccination rates, everything from free doughnuts to free lap dances. And then there was the introduction of more punitive approaches, such as mask mandates or proof of vaccination requirements. But jab rates among adults have clearly topped out. Everyone is exhausted from the sacrifices we’ve had to make during the last two years, whether voluntary or government/employer imposed. So I can certainly understand and appreciate the position of people like MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, who argues that we should simply go back to living our lives and say in effect to the unvaccinated: “It’s your choice, you live with the consequences.” Eliminating mask mandates is consistent with this philosophy. But this move also seems to shift more of the risk to those of us who have played by the rules and followed the science. Like the majority of Americans, I did everything in my control to help drive infection rates down. I got jabbed and re-jabbed, wore a mask religiously, kept my social distance, and only congregated with small groups of like-minded family and friends. Allowing the unvaccinated to take off their masks puts me more at risk and increases my perceived need to remain masked. To my way of thinking, I’m having to pay the price for the dopes out there who are taking their medical advice from the Joe Rogans of the world. At the same time, I constantly think about how much longer I want to keep my life on pause. What risks am I willing to assume to live a more normal, fulfilling life given that I’m 71 and in reasonably good health? Some choices are no-brainers for me. I’ve had absolutely no problem going into stores since the pandemic began and will continue to mask up while at Kroger or Costco or the mall. Since fall of 2021, my wife and I have been going to a series of pop concerts by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. But we hedged our bet by strategically deciding to attend Sunday matinees, which are far less crowded than weekend evening performances. Proof of vaccination or of a negative Covid test within 48 hours of the performance is required for admittance. And masks need to be worn throughout the show. We expect that the mandate will be dropped fairly soon and agree that we will still be comfortable attending with masks on, even if others choose not to. Being semiretired, I’m comfortable adopting a similar midweek matinee strategy to get back into the movie theater. But I have no idea if such matinees still exist given the staffing shortages that continue to plague so many dining and entertainment venues. Then there are more complex decisions. Mask mandates are in place for employees and customers at both of the organizations where I work part-time. I’m undecided about what to do if these mandates are eliminated. I would continue to wear a mask, but much of my work involves sitting face-to-face with a client across a desk for hours at a time. Doing it with a person’s uncovered face just a few feet away doesn’t appeal to me. Fortunately, I’m working to stay busy, not to keep a roof over my head, so the consequences of quitting are minimal. But there are many people who have to work and they will be soon be faced with a truly gut-wrenching choice. My wife and I do not have any school-age children, but we do have four granddaughters. One is in pre-school. The three in K-12 have been vaccinated. All four are presently required to wear masks. But that’s changing at the end of this month, as our county is eliminating the requirement in public schools. I have no idea if their parents will require them to continue to wear masks at school, but I’m sure hoping they will for the health of all concerned. I’d be far less comfortable being with my grandchildren knowing that they and their classmates were unmasked in class. And I’m not crazy about the idea of masking up or asking my grandkids to do so as a condition for seeing them. That seems like we are moving backwards to where we were a year ago, rather than forward. Then there is travel. My wife and I have not been on a plane or in a hotel since 2019. There are so many destinations we’d like to visit while we are physically able to do so. I desperately want to personally experience the sights, sounds, and smells of places both new and old, not through videos or photographs. We were scheduled to go on a river cruise to Amsterdam for tulip season in 2021, but it was cancelled. Right now, though, you couldn’t pay us to take a cruise anywhere. Being stuck in a cramped cabin for ten days because of a Covid outbreak is not my definition of a vacation. Similarly, I’d love to go back to Italy, but we’re not comfortable being out of the country in case of illness. So we’re going on a tour of the national parks in the southwest in late summer. It’s the same tour we were supposed to go on in 2020 before it was cancelled. It will force both of us out of our comfort zone, as it requires flying, hotel stays, and traveling on a bus with a small group of strangers. Are there some risks? Absolutely. But do I want to be there in person to photograph a sunrise at Arches National Park or a sunset at Zion National Park? Absolutely. As the old saying goes, no guts, no glory. So that’s my calculus today. It’s constantly being updated. I wish you the best of luck with yours. 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.