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 Marieke Slovin Lewis / Prescott, Ariz. Talk about a shock to the system! I moved to Arizona on June 26, 2021, after I spent the past five years living in a small suburb of Brussels in Belgium and a farming community in France near the Belgian border. When I returned to the United States, it felt less like moving from one country to another as it was stepping through a portal into a different world. The world I left was in the midst of a serious pandemic. People were lining up at vaccination centers at the end of the day, hoping for an extra dose. Staff members were stationed at the entrance to small shops to ensure customers were wearing masks and got a squirt of hand sanitizer as they came through the door. Suffice it to say that anyone not wearing a mask stood out like a sore thumb. To be sure, I forgot my mask at times and had to return to the house before running an errand, and I saw people dashing back to their cars in the grocery store parking lot to do the same. But overall, there was a general sense of solidarity. The signs I saw that read in Dutch and French, “Together against Covid,” were there more as gentle reminders that we were all in this together than as desperate attempts to urge people to get vaccinated. During my time in Europe, I lived through three separate lockdowns and several month-long 6 p.m. curfews. Restaurants were closed nearly the entire time my husband Richard and I were living in France (the horror!?). My sanity and my marriage were on the brink by the time I was packing to return to the states. I first flew to Seattle and then drove two and a half days to Arizona in a little Toyota with my three cats and big, white husky. There were large lit signs floating above every large highway that seemed to be pleading with people to get vaccinated, for the love of everything. I spent a night in Idaho and was shocked by the both the state of the motel room (not cleaned at all and with an empty carton of Chinese takeout on the bathroom sink) and the complete lack of masks at the restaurant where I ordered takeout. Driving across one state to the next, I felt a bit like an alien from another planet, watching a foreign scene unfolding before me and taking notes to report back to the mother ship. Had no one on the west coast gotten the memo about Covid? What was going on? Arriving in Arizona, it was like the pandemic was over. In some ways, it seemed like it never even happened. A friend told me that the lockdown in Prescott at the start of the pandemic in 2020 only lasted about two weeks. While some people worked from home, it seemed like many went back to business as usual. As I went to various shops to stock my refrigerator with grocers and get the basic necessities for my house, I immediately felt distinctly out of place with my mask and container of hand wipes at the ready. I noticed that while there were signs that read “mask recommended for those who are not vaccinated,” these seemed to be merely suggestions and ones that were not adhered to by customers or staff. The staff were either not wearing masks or had them tucked down beneath their noses. I wondered if this was because they wished to protect customers from their exhalation but didn’t care about protecting themselves on the inhale. Having lived in Arizona for a couple of years before moving to Europe, I knew it was a bit of a wild place. Arizona seemed like a region where people often refused to follow any rules or regulations, particularly if they came from the government. Now back there, I wondered if people were worried about protecting themselves, let alone other people. I also had a sneaking suspicion that they might not believe there even was a pandemic with mutating viruses sweeping across the globe. At one point, I drove by a group of protesters holding signs with photos of Bill Gates. The thought occurred to me that there was some irony in being convinced that vaccines were a way to implant tracking devices while voluntarily uploading tracking information on the Internet by posting selfies on social media. I felt very self-conscious with my mask on, and also worried that people might treat me differently because I was one of the vaccinated. To mitigate this fear of judgment, I tended to overcompensate with my behavior. At the small post office in a gas station by our house, I was overly friendly with the irascible staff person. I made sure to bring my dog because people tended to be friendlier when he was around. No one can resist a big, white husky with eyes as clear as the sky. I even took to not wearing a mask in some shops in the hopes of receiving better customer service (don’t worry Mom and Dad, this was an infrequent occurrence). I pored over articles to find out if I was protected wearing my hardy KN95 mask and if I should avoid going into stores altogether. The consensus seemed to be that I was fairly safe wearing my mask, so I carried on adhering to recommendations by the CDC. A couple months after landing in Planet Arizona, my mother-in-law in Seattle had a bad fall that required multiple surgeries. My husband and I began making trips back and forth to Washington State. I flew with the husky because all of the doggie daycare places in town were booked.. What had happened to our sleepy town? Was this a sign that there were some people who believed in the pandemic, who were working from home and had the time to adopt and look after a dog? The consensus among people I talked with was that the influx of people from California were to “blame” more than any repercussions from the supposed pandemic. (Why people from an already drought-ridden part of the country would move to another way a very serious water shortage is perplexing to me, but that is a subject for another day.) Flying to Seattle, it was clear that there were other regions in the country where people were taking the pandemic seriously. Masks were required, and people followed the rules. It was not until returning to Phoenix that I saw my first unmasked person, a large man with a mask bedecked in an American flag pattern pulled down beneath his chin while he waited at the baggage carousel. I was back in the Wild West, where rules were meant to be broken if they existed at all. The rule was there were no rules. To be fair, there are places where people seem to be taking the pandemic to heart. I went for an exam at a local OB/GYN center, and both staff and patients were required to wear masks. Most of our friends have been vaccinated and wear masks. Many avoid going to indoor public spaces. The main issue I have found since my return is the inconsistency with regard to the pandemic. At the dentist, the hygienist and dentists wear masks, but the secretaries do not. The pharmacy staff at CVS and Walgreens wear masks, but the other staff members in the main storefront do not. I overheard one staff person complaining to another that they could not be forced to wear masks. This person had one on but pulled down beneath her nose. Even shops like Trader Joe’s and Natural Grocers do not have any kind of clearly consistent policy among customers or staff. Some staff members wear masks. Others do not or do the “half-mask” beneath the nose. This latter bit reminds me of the introduction of bicycle helmets during my childhood. We hated wearing them, but our parents made us. As a kind of act of childish rebellion, we would put them on without attaching the straps beneath our chin. This essentially rendered them useless, but what can I say? We were kids. I can understand a child not wanting to wear a mask, but these are adults. To me, wearing a mask is like recycling. It can’t make things worse, and it is essentially the bare minimum I can do to help other people and the planet. I know that the 50 states of America have not been United in a very long time, but I guess I would have hoped that a pandemic might garner some solidarity and care for fellow compatriots. I wish I could say this was true out west. So far, however, the theme continues to be: Pandemic? What pandemic? Marieke Slovin Lewis is a writer, musician, singer-songwriter, yoga teacher, and editor. She holds a Ph.D. in Sustainability Education and writes music from people's life stories, using a method called Story-to-Song that she developed with a fellow doctoral student. She was recently recognized as a finalist for the 2021 Amateo Award for arts participation projects in Europe for her project, "On the Move: Poems and Songs of Migration," for which she wrote songs with refugees and asylum seekers in Brussels, Belgium about their migration experiences. Marieke is a wandering soul and has lived all over the world. She is currently living with her husband, three cats, and a big white husky in Prescott, Arizona.

By Naomi Serviss / New York City As we commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. my emotions are all over the place. Grateful his iconic legacy abides. Ashamed I live in a country STILL DEBATING voting rights. Angered by hypocritical politicians (are there any other kind?) purporting to love America while gerrymandering voting districts and undermining democracy. What’s wrong with these people? Have they no shame? Rhetorical questions. Imagine Jerry Seinfeld asking in abject desperation: “Who among us, in their right mind, would be against voting rights?” I can hear a relative defending it. “It’s complicated,” she’d say. It’s not complicated. When the Voting Rights of 1965 passed, Dr. King described it as a second and final Emancipation Proclamation. Would that it were! D.C’s Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom on May 17, 1957 drew between 15,000 and 30,000 people to hear the civil rights leader deliver his first national address on voting rights. He urged America to “give us the ballot” six decades ago. The more things change… In 1969, I was a 10th grade social studies student in Roy Buri's class at Cheltenham High School in Elkins Park, Pa. A byproduct of his teachings was critical thinking. Buri encouraged challenging authority. Especially during the Vietnam War and civil rights years. He provided us daily with the New York Times and kicked off serious debates about social injustice. We talked about civil and voting rights. A never-ending conversation in any decade. Our spirited discussions centered on Martin Luther King' Jr.'s nonviolent civil and voting rights leadership and LBJ's compromised voting rights legislation. Buri encouraged us to question authority and actively support social justice reforms, à la King Jr. He sat on an empty desk in the front row and talked to us like we were people. Some teachers thought he was too chummy. He wasn't. That was another teacher. He didn't try to be our friend. He wanted us to think. Ironic that Dr. King is honored with a federal holiday as Congress disembowels the civil rights laws. His son, Martin Luther King III, was aghast after Arizona Senator Krysten Sinema, a Democrat, defied common sense in her Senate speech refusing to adjust the antiquated filibuster rule. He accused her of “siding with the legacy” of white supremacy. “History will remember Sen. Sinema unkindly,” MLK’s son said. Sinema’s speech all but decapitated Democrats’ attempts to pass election reform and these two voting rights reform packages: The Freedom to Vote Act and The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act There’s no happy ending. Not yet. But every third Monday in January, we pause to reflect on the man whose selfless passion for justice ignited a movement that is evolving still. Naomi Serviss is a New York-based award-winning journalist whose work has been published in The New York Times, Newsday, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Highroads (AAA magazine), in-flight publications, spa and travel magazines and websites, including BroadwayWorld.com

By Andy Borowitz January 13, 2022 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—After abruptly hanging up on one of its hosts, Donald J. Trump called NPR “the worst TV network in America.” Trump said that the host, Steve Inskeep, was “a loser like you wouldn’t believe who never should have been given a television show. He’s one of the reasons nobody watches NPR.” “I’ve worked with some of the greats,” Trump said. “Sean Hannity. Laura Ingraham. Tucker Carlson. This Inskeep joker doesn’t belong on TV.” Trump claimed that “NPR’s TV ratings are horrible. They’re losing incredible amounts of money, O.K.? It wouldn’t surprise me if they started begging for donations.” 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 I would be remiss if I let the winter months slip away without writing a column about soup. And sacré bleu! January is National Soup Month! It is the quintessential cold weather food. When you come home after being outside in bitter temperatures and slogging through piles of snow and ice, that first slurp of soup sinks all the way down to your frozen toes with warm nourishment. Your face may still be like an ice block but your innards are beginning to heat up. Soup is one of the oldest known dishes. Archeologists have discovered clay pots with charred exteriors that date as far back as 20,000 BC.,indicating that our ancestors were cooking water, meat, and gathered plants to make the first soups. The first evidence of soup becoming a dish was in 6,000 BC with hippopotamus soup, believe it or not. I don’t recommend digging up that recipe! Let’s stick to beef, pork, lamb, or chicken, eh? Soup can be one of the most comforting foods. It has so many variations that I almost think it should be divided into “classes”, such as thick or thin. Hot or cold. First course or main course. Every culture around the world has its own spin on soup preparation. As Molière said “I live on good soup, not on fine words.” Here in the United States, you could break down styles of soup by regions, such has New England Clam Chowder, New Orleans Gumbo, Italian Minestrone as found in most major cities or Tex-Mex Tortilla Soup. This country is such a melting pot that a “pot” of soup is THE melting pot. One of my first professional cooking jobs was when I was a sophomore at University of Michigan in 1971. I was hired by a New Yorker who opened a deli on campus. Boy, was it an illegal operation! He let me cook the soup at home and schlep it across town in a 5-gallon pot, hoping that when I took a sharp left, the soup didn’t make a sharp right! I made both chicken noodle and mushroom barley, a deli staple. Oddly enough, the deli owner didn’t want chicken in the soup.I had a pile of cooked chicken meat in my fridge and each week, fellow students would come by our house. They would say the magic word “chicken” and would get a cellophane package of the tasteless stuff. But, hey, when you’re on a student budget, people will eat anything! I had a brief chat recently with Eric Ersher, the co-founder and CEO of Zoup!, a national chain soup outlet. Eric and I go way back, to 1997 in fact, when his first store was a neighbor of my patisserie in Southfield, Mich. Eric still owns that store; additionally, there are now 80 franchised Zoup! shops scattered throughout the Midwest, Upper Midwest, the Northeast and pressing South. Obviously Eric was and has been onto something since the popularity of soup has continued to grow through the years. He also confirms that Chicken Noodle is their bestseller at his store in Southfield as it is at their shops all across the country. Zoup! rotates their 12-soup daily selection often. Whenever Lobster Bisque appears on the menu, they sell out. When selecting which soup to make, you should consider what the purpose is for that soup. Is it before a main course or Is it the main course? I think lighter, broth and cream soups are well suited for a pre-dinner dish. It would be silly to serve a hearty-cut-with-a-knife soup before a full-on dinner. If you serve a minestrone, say, maybe a lighter meal to follow would be in order. When I serve soup as my main course, I almost always serve it with an unlimited supply of crusty bread. What I love about making soup is its versatility. With a slight variation of seasoning or the addition of different vegetables, meats, or legumes you can have a totally different outcome. When I’m using bacon, sausage, beef, or pork, I always brown the meat first in the pot to impart a wonderful flavor and color to the soup. I will also brown the vegetables after the meat to add to that flavor. Can you just heave in all the ingredients together and get a good result? In some cases, yes. I will be doing that in my recipe for today. What I like about this soup is that it is vegan and very nutritious. I am combining three kinds of dried beans along with barley to create a nicely balanced, grainy bean soup. Hope you’ll be warm and cozy at home, Insiders, as you enjoy your special meal from soup to nuts! Bean Barley Soup Yield: 12 servings 1/4 lb. dried black beans 1/4 lb. dried kidney beans 1/4 lb. dried great northern or navy beans 1 lg. onion, chopped small 2 lg. carrots, chopped small 2 celery stalks, chopped small 3 garlic cloves, minced 1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes in juice 3 qt. water 2 bay leaves 1 1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves 1/4 lb. pearl barley 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes 1 Tbs. salt 1/2 c. chopped parsley Put the beans in a large bowl. Cover with 2 inches of cold water. Soak overnight.  Drain the next day. An alternate “quick soak” would be to put the beans in a pot; cover with 2 inches of water.  Bring to a boil. Turn off heat and allow to sit for 1 hour. Drain. Put the beans in a large soup pot with the chopped vegetables, tomatoes and their juice, water, bay leaves, and thyme.  Bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer. Simmer uncovered, until the beans are tender, about 1 1/4 hours. Scoop out about 1 quart of the solids and reserve. Using an immersion blender, puree the soup.  Add the barley, salt, crushed red pepper flakes, and reserved solids.  Bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer. Simmer until the barley is tender, about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally as barley can stick.  If the soup is too thick, add more water.  Blend in the parsley. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. 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 Laurence Lerman / New York City If you caught any French films in arthouse movie theaters during the heady foreign import days of the 1980s, there’s a good chance you saw one by France’s Jean-Jacques Beiniex, who died on Thursday, January 14, following a long illness. The aesthetically-driven director of the foreign-films-of-the-moment Diva (1981) and Betty Blue (1986) was 75. Following an apprenticeship with such French masters as Jean Becker and Claude Berri, Beineix burst onto the international scene in 1981 with Diva. Beineix’s debut feature was referred to at the time as the first entry in France’s post-New Wave cinéma du look movement, a cycle of films that briefly flourished in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. A dozen or so of the strain's exemplary films by enfants terribles Beineix, Luc Besson and Leox Carax all shared a slick, luxurious visual style and a loose focus on alienated, often-rebellious younger characters. Diva indeed fits the bill with its very cool tale of a young opera-loving courier (Frédéric Andréi) and his encounters with a popular soprano (Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez), a hooker with a heart of gold (Thuy An Luu), cops, killers, and a philosophical bohemian (Richard Bohringer) with an antique Citroën. Featuring a go-for-broke chase through the Paris Métro and a heady soundtrack of opera and new-wave rhythms, Diva was not initially well-received in its native France. But its audiences grew following its release in the U.S., smashing house records at Manhattan's famed Paris Theatre, where it played for more than a year. Five years later came 1986’s Betty Blue, a tale of l’amour fou starring Beatrice Dalle and Jean-Hugues Anglade as a couple whose love and lust for each other helps one of them to strive for great achievements—as it wholly consumes the other. Sexy and dramatic and funny and tragic, it’s an oh-so-French story of compulsive and dangerous love. And it looks stunning to boot. Like Diva, Betty Blue (an adaptation of Philippe Djian’s novel 37°2 le matin) was a huge success in the U.S. and around the world. Garnering excellent reviews and a strong ancillary life on video and cable TV, it prompted the release of Beineix’s original three-hour cut of the film, which was later issued on Blu-ray and DVD by the prestigious Criterion Collection in 2019. Between Diva and Betty came Moon in the Gutter, a vividly stylized romance starring Gerard Depardieu and Nastassja Kinski that struck out with critics and at the box office both here and abroad. The same held true for a pair of subsequent narrative films, 1989’s Roselyne et les lions and 2001’s Mortel transfert, which barely made it out of France, let alone onto the radar of Beineix’s earlier fans. The rest of Beineix’s filmography consists of four documentaries from the ‘90s that didn’t receive distribution in the U.S. until hungry L.A.-based arthouse supplier Cinema Libre released them on DVD more than a decade later. But Beineix’s docs barely raised an eyebrow compared to his ‘80s triumphs. “Betty Blue and Diva were huge successes, and distributors should figure out that audiences may be interested in watching the other films,” Beineix told me in an interview I conducted with him back in 2009, the year his documentaries were issued by Cinema Libre. “If I understood it, I would give you an explanation about the dysfunction in this business. But the price of talking too much is very high. In the background, they stab you for being an outlaw.” 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.

One film journalist’s stream-of-consciousness cinematic journey through the pandemic, Part 67 By Laurence Lerman / New York City The mighty Alfred Hitchcock was just coming out of his most brilliantly fertile period when he was interviewed in 1963 by film historian and soon-to-be-filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich for a highly regarded monograph he created for the Museum of Modern Art. Hitchcock had just directed Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and The Birds consecutively over the previous half-decade—a “Big Four” that remains one of the greatest back-to-back achievements in film history. Rather than fawning over the legendary filmmaker in his interview (one of many he conducted in the early ‘60s with great filmmakers of Hollywood’s Golden Age), Bogdanovich came forth with sober, concise questions and commentary. During the extended sit-down’s latter half, he listed each of Hitchcock’s films for the famed director to respond to. Reading a transcription of it following Bogdanovich’s death on January 6, I was particularly intrigued by what Hitchcock had to say regarding his uncharacteristic 1948 drawing-room melodrama Under Capricorn, starring Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Cotton. “This picture was not a success, but why do you think many French critics consider it one of your finest films?” queried Bogdanovich. “Because they looked at it for what it was and not what people expected,” answered Hitchcock. I love that. We’re in an era where the idea of “what people expect” from their movies is carefully stoked and manipulated via prerelease marketing campaigns, social media outreach and systematically rolled-out teasers and trailers (sometimes as many as a dozen of them in the year proceeding a picture’s release!). So, it’s refreshing to hear one of the lions of the filmmaking industry state--60 years ago!--that one shouldn’t have any expectations when they walk into a movie. It’s just that simple, isn’t it? Add in that Hitchcock, then in his early 60s, said this to a young film journalist who would rise to prominence in under a decade as a director whose output and style was directly inspired by the Golden Age greats like Hitchcock! It’s also tickling to note that the same years Bogdanovich had one of his biggest hits with 1972’s What’s Up, Doc?, followed up by an early, prophetic stumble with 1976’s Nickelodeon, Hitchcock was releasing what were to be his final two films: the darkly comic serial killer thriller Frenzy (1972) and the comedy-inflected crime drama Family Plot (1976). Looking back, it’s fair to say nobody expected two such acclaimed works from the aging Master of Suspense at that point in his career. Hitchcock, who died in 1980, was 73 and 77 years old, respectively, when Frenzy and Family Plot were released, but neither of them are considered to be “old man’s movies.” That’s the kind of tossed-off expression often used to describe end-of-career summation works by filmmakers who are at an age when anything they do receives elegiac consideration based on their longevity and the respect they’ve garnered in their field. (Think Akira Kurosawa’s 1985 Ran, released when he was 75, or John Huston’s The Dead, completed when he was 81.) No, Hitchcock’s final two films as a “senior” in the Seventies were fresh, effective and unexpected offerings. Frenzy, which marked Hitchcock’s return to England for the first time in more than 20 years, disturbingly puts us into the mind of a serial strangler stalking the women of London. Simultaneously, he presents us with bizarrely humorous situations endured by the investigating detective and the man falsely accused of the crimes (who happens to be the killer’s best friend!). Family Plot, meanwhile, is an almost genteel piece, an offbeat story of two unrelated criminal couples—one a team of high-stakes jewelry thieves, the other a pair of low-end con artists who run phony spiritualist scams—and how their paths intertwine though a series of strange incidents and circumstances. Yes, both could clearly be identified as Hitchcock movies, but they didn’t smack of being capstones to his filmography of more than 50 features. Rather, they were the works of a still-vital artist striving to deliver something fresh and lively to his audience. Indeed, it was Hitch’s previous two films—the poorly received political thrillers Torn Curtain (1966) and Topaz (1969)—which gave off the stale taste of works by a filmmaker attempting to be fashionable and jumping onto the era’s Cold War-themed bandwagon. (By that time, the subgenre had already yielded such heavily plotted efforts as Fail Safe (1964), Seven Days in May (1964), The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1965) and The Double Man (1967), not to mention the James Bond series and its endless knockoffs.) Unless Hitchcock was mixing frothy espionage cocktails like North by Northwest and The Man Who Knew Too Much, he was at his most comfortable and commanding when he helmed tales of your average, everyday murderers and thieves. Hitchcock, of course, was the all-knowing arbiter who would decide what fate and other forces had in store for his players. We, as viewers, weren’t supposed to know what to expect. And as his penultimate and final movies proved, we didn’t. Frenzy and Family Plot are available to stream on iTunes. 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 Naomi Serviss / New York City Great news for the intrepid New York City fan who’s Covid-conscious but not too paranoid. Broadway has two-for-one tickets and eateries are plugging Restaurant Week! It’s a good deal, even if The Music Man isn’t included. Museums, attractions and other venues are also dangling bargain rates. I know what friends are thinking: “Are you nuts? Covid is everywhere, 

my grandkids have it! And no way would I eat inside!” “How could you even consider doing that after you had Covid?” I would do that only if I’m feeling 100 percent and have tested negative. Virtual streaming is wonderful. It’s just not the same as being there. See the accompanying story, Broadway, We Hardly Knew Ye Naomi Serviss is a New York-based award-winning journalist whose work has been published in The New York Times, Newsday, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Highroads (AAA magazine), in-flight publications, spa and travel magazines and websites, including BroadwayWorld.com

By Carly Mitchell, Teacher / New York City (The author is using a pseudonym for professional reasons) Let me start by saying that I have never once heard a teacher (and I know many teachers) say the words “I prefer remote teaching to in-person teaching.” Never. In my experience, it is the general consensus among educators that remote learning is detrimental to student learning and a whole lot of work for us teachers. We teach because we love interacting with our students. For many of us, teaching is more than a job–it is a calling. And when we are remote, we miss out on the best parts of the profession, like being able to see our students experience those “aha moments.” As I’ve mentioned in my earlier columns, I teach seventh grade at a Title 1 public school in Brooklyn. The week before our holiday break, I received a number of emails from my administration informing staff members that they had been exposed to Covid. Unfortunately at the start of the week-long vacation, I contracted the damn virus. Fortunately, thanks to Moderna (I am triple vaxxed), I was not terribly ill. Nevertheless, I was frustrated, as were my colleagues who also became sick. It felt like this could have been prevented had the schools shut down a few days prior to the start of the break. But a small group of politicians who do not seem to understand how schools run–including our new mayor, Eric Adams and Kathy Hochul, the new governor of New York–refused (and still do) to admit that schools are Covid hotspots. During Mayor Bill de Blasio’s final days in office, he made it very clear that New York City schools would remain open. At a press conference in late December where de Blasio announced his “Stay Safe and Stay Open” plan, he dishonestly said, “We start with a reminder that our schools have been extraordinarily safe—bluntly, the safest places to be in New York City, very low levels of Covid.” Mayor Adams, who took office January 1, echoed this sentiment on MSNBC on January 3, “I’ve been very clear on this: my children are going to be in school. I am keeping my schools open, and we want to make sure they are going to be in a safe place.” He doubled down, saying “We cannot feed into the hysteria.” The data tell a different story. Pix 11 News reports that “about 14,000 students and teachers have tested positive for Covid since the start of winter break,” And according to the New York Daily News, this past week, January 3-7, “citywide attendance, which averaged close to 90% for much of the fall, dropped to 69%.” I can personally vouch for this. In my school, attendance has been dismal. This past week, I have had roughly half of my students in each class come to school. A few parents reached out to me to let me know that their child was sick and would not be coming in. Other parents let me know that they felt uncomfortable sending their child to school and possibly risking an exposure. Teachers were also absent. Because of the nationwide substitute shortage, those who were in the school building had to cover these teachers’ classes, too. This means you lose a precious “prep” period, which is time allotted to teachers to catch up on grading and to plan lessons. Covering classes for another teacher can be stressful, especially when you are already bombarded with your own deadlines and to-dos. Before we came back to school after the holidays, Michael Mulgrew, our union President, assured school employees that he was fighting for us and would make sure that we had KN95 masks and home testing kits readily available. But on the first day back, teachers and school employees were told that we would be given one KN95 mask and one at-home test kit a week. In an email from the United Federation of Teachers sent out on Monday, January 3, we were informed that “Our union industrial hygienist has advised us that the same KN95 mask may be reused for up to five days.” If we wanted more KN95 masks, we would have to purchase them ourselves. I was flabbergasted at this response. I have paid for plenty of my own classroom materials, and now I would need to provide my own PPE? Mulgrew, like Adams and De Blasio, is a controversial figure. On Wednesday, January 5, some 60 educators assembled outside of the Barclays Center in Manhattan and made it clear that they were not happy with the way things are being handled. Teachers came to the protest with a number of demands, such as weekly Covid testing for employees and students and an upgrade of school ventilation systems. They chanted “Hey-ho, hey-ho, Michael Mulgrew’s got to go.” Put simply, this is a giant mess. As I write this article, I am sitting in my classroom during the first real snowfall of the year. Mayor Adams has declared that we must be here because “We don’t have any more days to waste and the long-term impact of leaving our children home is going to impact us for years to come. I’m not going to contribute to that.” Out of the 55 students that I teach, about 25 came to school. There are 10 teachers out with Covid, and our administration was forced to combine classes so that no student was left unchaperoned. I cannot teach anything new because I will just have to reteach it on Monday, when hopefully, more students can make it to school. There is nothing I can do but continue to show up for my students and work with what I’ve got. I find myself quoting Vonnegut’s famous saying more and more these days… “And so it goes.”

By Jessie Seigel / Washington, D.C. Republican Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming is proving to be a stalwart champion for democratic ideals, battling Trumpism and the autocratic forces in her party. Cheney has even—like some of her Democratic colleagues—received numerous death threats, requiring a security detail. But although Cheney deserves the nation’s wholehearted appreciation for acting on principle concerning the January 6, 2021 coup attempt, she is no Joan of Arc. Her past actions helped to advance Trumpism, warranting a nuanced assessment of Cheney and her career during the former president’s administration. Cheney Takes a Stand On the anniversary of the January 6, 2021 insurrection, Liz Cheney said on The Today Show “If you look at what’s happening today in my party, the Republican Party, rather than reject what happened on [January] 6th, reject the lies about the election and make clear that a president who engaged in those activities can never be president again, unfortunately too many in my own party are embracing that former president, are looking the other way, are minimizing the danger. That’s how democracies die, and we simply cannot let that happen.” As vice chair of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 uprising, Liz Cheney has been front and center in the news for her sharply incisive, no-quarter-given questioning of witnesses and no-nonsense public statements concerning the investigation. On December 13, after former President Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows refused to obey its subpoena to testify, the Committee referred contempt charges against him to the Department of Justice. It was Cheney who took point, setting out the bases for the contempt referral, reading aloud extensively from samples of the dozens of text messages—including those from Fox News hosts like Laura Ingraham, Brian Kilmeade, and Sean Hannity; from Trump Administration officials; and even, repeatedly, from Trump’s son, Donald Trump, Jr.—all urging Meadows to persuade the former president to take action to halt the assault on the Capitol. Cheney then posed the question: “Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress’ official proceeding to count electoral votes? Mark Meadow’s testimony is necessary to inform our legislative judgment. Yet he has refused to give any testimony at all. Even regarding non-privileged topics. He is in contempt of Congress.” Cheney also set out Meadows’ participation in a phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump infamously asked the official to “find 11,780 votes” to change the result of the presidential election in Georgia. Cheney pointed out that there is no conceivable privilege basis to refuse to testify on that topic. Based on Cheney’s suggestions that Trump’s refusal to stop the insurrectionists may have been part of a deliberate effort to obstruct the counting of electors, the Washington Post has speculated: “The committee is reportedly looking at whether to make that the basis for recommending criminal prosecution [of Trump]. The grounds would be that it violated federal law barring obstruction of an ‘official proceeding.’” Cheney ended her December 13 recitation by stating quite firmly: “Our Constitution, the structure of our institutions and the Rule of Law, which are at the heart of what makes America great, are at stake. We cannot be satisfied with incomplete answers or half-truths. And we cannot surrender to President Trump’s efforts to hide what happened. We will be persistent, professional and nonpartisan and we will get to the objective truth to be sure January 6 never happens again.” Given the prominence of the Cheney family in traditional conservative Republican politics, as well as Liz Cheney’s own talents, keeping her front and center as a spokesperson for the Committee was a strategically wise and important move by the Committee. Cheney’s standing up so boldly aids the cause of democracy more than the Democrats on the committee could do—even if they made the same statements—because she is a Republican. Since Cheney’s actions are unexpected and extraordinary, the media covers her statements in a way they would not cover Democratic voices. That is part of what makes Cheney an invaluable asset to the investigation of the insurrection and the broader coup conspiracy. Though it may possibly have been a deliberate Committee stratagem to place a prominent Republican as its public spokesperson, the decision takes nothing away from Cheney’s general suitability for that role. One cannot but acknowledge and give her credit for her tenacity, prosecutorial acumen, and fearless disregard of how other Republicans may treat her or the effect on her political career. The Political Price She’s Paid Liz Cheney was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the January 6 insurrection. As then-House Republican Conference Chair, she was the highest-ranking Republican in the House to do so. In reaction, members of the House Republican Conference twice attempted to oust her from her leadership position. Cheney fended off the first challenge conducted in February, keeping her position by a vote of 145 to 61. But in May, she was successfully removed. Ostensibly, the second attempt was successful because Cheney persisted in challenging Trump’s lie that the presidential election was stolen. Cheney did not appear to bat an eye over this. After the vote, she defiantly told reporters from the Casper Star Tribune: “I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office. We have seen the danger that he continues to provoke with his language, we’ve seen his lack of commitment and dedication to the Constitution.” Cheney was also censured by the Wyoming Republican Party in February 2021 for voting to impeach Trump for his role in the January 6 assault. And in November, the Wyoming Republican party’s central committee voted it would no longer recognize Liz Cheney as a member of the GOP—also because of her vote to impeach Trump. According to The Guardian, the state party central committee’s action followed similar votes by local GOP officials in about one-third of Wyoming’s 23 counties. That Cheney withstands all of this and continues to stand firm is a sign of an individual having a strong sense of self and purpose who is not to be intimidated by what the world thinks or throws at you. She stands tall, if alone, like Gary Cooper in High Noon, while every one of her Republican House colleagues (with the notable exception of Adam Kinzinger of Illinois)—having neither the conscience nor guts to stand up for what is right—has either joined the villains or is running and hiding like a yellow dog. At best, they have spines of jelly, while Cheney’s spine is made of steel. Whether Liz Cheney wins or loses her next Wyoming election, she will have valiantly earned her place in history. Kinzinger also voted for impeachment after the coup attempt and joined the House Select Committee. But he is less publicly outspoken and has given up on running for another term. On the Other Hand… Until her post-insurrection impeachment vote, and ousting as a leader of the Republican conference, Cheney’s opposition to Trumpism in defense of democracy was inconsistent at best. Cheney voted against Trump’s first impeachment in 2019—the one involving his campaign’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election by trying to strong-arm Ukraine into announcing an investigation into his opponent, Joe Biden, and also contriving and promoting a preposterous conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia was behind interference in the 2016 presidential election. Despite the evidence of Trump’s abuse of power and obstruction of justice produced by that first impeachment, Cheney nevertheless stated that she voted for Trump in the 2020 election. According to Mother Jones, when Biden won the election, Cheney—then still third-ranking House Republican—“spent weeks declining to directly acknowledge that Joe Biden won.” And whatever her position may be now, in a spring 2021 appearance on Axios on HBO, Cheney refused to acknowledge or draw any connection between the Trump Administration’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election and the many subsequent Republican bills making it more difficult for people to vote in states all across the country. On a spring 2021 episode of the Axe Files podcast with former Obama senior advisor-turned-CNN senior political commentator David Axelrod, former Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, one of the only Republicans to break with Trump during his term, argued that turning Cheney into a hero is “a bit misguided.” Amash, who left the Republican party to become an Independent and then a Libertarian, pointed out: “We had four years where she could have stood up and said, ‘There’s a problem here. What Donald Trump is doing is wrong.'” According to the Business Insider, Amash said, “For a long time, I was warning that the president’s approach could lead to things like violence…and all sorts of things that would be harmful to our country. She didn’t stand up for that view.” Amash also told the publication, ‘I say that not as someone who’s saying you can never change, you can never grow, you can never learn, but I’d like to see some real development when people learn…Like, what is it that changed your mind? Liz Cheney, what is it that you saw that made it so different for you versus how Trump was behaving, say, before January 6th?’” Perhaps the attack on the Capitol was the last straw for her. The Bottom Line I believe that Cheney means what she says about the danger to democracy posed by those who have taken over the Republican Party. It is not mere lip service. But there may be other motivations traveling alongside that, including a shrewd political gamble. The common wisdom, adopted even by the left-of-center Mother Jones, is that Liz Cheney’s stand against the Trump corruption will probably end her time in Congress. But I see her future and her possible calculation concerning it a little differently. I think that Cheney may be playing a long game. Fortune favors the bold. And brazenly basing her political future on an opposition to Trumpism and a professed faithfulness to the Constitution and the Rule of Law makes Liz Cheney the most likely Republican leader who can take down Trumpism and restore her father’s party to what it was. Dick Cheney’s party was none too democratic or concerned with the Rule of Law—but definitely not in coups-ville. Certainly, if and when Trumpism burns itself out, Liz Cheney will be a strong contender for the Republican presidential nomination–assuming we still have elections. Though I do not completely trust what Rep. Cheney’s ultimate definition of democracy might be, I am very glad she has, in this instance, joined the fight and taken up a prominent position on the noble side of history. Threats to democracy certainly do make interesting bedfellows. 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 January 11, 2022 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—After being heard on a hot mike calling a Republican senator a moron, Dr. Anthony Fauci defended his decision by saying that he was “just following the science.” The esteemed virologist said that, in calling Senator Roger Marshall, of Kansas, a moron, “I didn’t mean to offend. I was just trying to be accurate from a scientific standpoint.” “As a scientist, I believe it’s important to use the correct nomenclature,” Fauci said. “You need to call a virus a virus, and a bacterium a bacterium. In this same way, I am confident that I was correct in calling Senator Marshall a moron.” Fauci said that he does not use the word “moron” capriciously, but only after extensive scientific experimentation proves that it applies. “Take Rand Paul, for example,” Fauci said. “I didn’t determine that he was a moron until after forty-five seconds of hearing him speak.” Andy Borowitz is a Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes The Borowitz Report, a satirical column on the news.

The Insider: Hi David! David Su: Hello. The Insider: Thanks for agreeing to talk with The Insider. David Su: Thank you for inviting me. The Insider: I have a feeling that the last year has been intense for you at your pharmacy! David Su: It has. The Insider: I’m going to ask you a little bit about your background, then I’m eager to hear about your pandemic experience, Where did you study to become a pharmacist? David Su: St. John’s University in Queens. The Insider: How many years of school? David Su: It’s a six-year program. You apply directly from high school. The Insider: Where did you go from there? David Su: I interned at Joseph Pharmacy in Manhattan while in school Then towards the end of graduation, I joined Rite Aid. I went from a grad intern, and worked up to pharmacy manager The Insider: How long have you been at Wellness Pharmacy in Manhattan? David Su: Since we opened in 2019. The Insider: What is your title at Wellness? David Su: Supervising Pharmacist and Pharmacy manager. The Insider: So you’re in charge? David Su: Yes. The Insider: So you’ve seen the whole pandemic unfold there! David Su: (Laughs.) Yes. The Insider: When did you first realize that the pandemic was going to affect your work? David Su: When Broadway shut down, that was around that time when it really hit. I know that we were afraid of it coming into the country at first, but I didn’t need to reevaluate workflow until Broadway shut down. The Insider: What happened then? Did people come into the pharmacy or call and ask you what medicine they could take to stay safe? David Su: They did The Insider: What did you tell them? David Su: The basics for cold prevention and viral replication. The Insider: I’m guessing you got a lot of panicked calls! David Su: I did. Back then, colds and flu were more common than they are now. Tests were harder to come by The Insider: More common because now people are wearing masks and getting flu shots? David Su: Yes. We were worried that flu season was going to be horrible with Covid, and the exact opposite happened because people took steps to prevent respiratory disease. The Insider: What happened when President Trump made his suggestion about injecting a disinfectant like Lysol? David Su: I don’t think anyone in New York City took him seriously. No one asked me questions about it. Everyone knew not to do it. The Insider: What about hydroxychloroquine, which the president also recommended? Did people ask for that? David Su: There were people who were looking for that medication, actually. The Insider: And what did you tell them? David Su: We had it. At first it was no big deal, but then we started to notice more requests for it, and then realized people were looking for it for Covid-19. They wanted to combine it with Azithromycin, which is not recommended. And then the national hydroxychloroquine shortage started affecting people who needed it originally. The Insider: What is its real purpose? David Su: Rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. And malaria, but no one was traveling. Many people knew that it would be a bad drug. But with any treatment, everyone is supposed to wait for more data to come out. Then Andrew Cuomo put out an executive order stipulating when hydroxychloroquine can be prescribed in the regular pharmacy setting. This made it so that people with rheumatoid arthritis could continue to receive it in the community setting. And people who were hospitalized for Covid could receive it in the hospital setting only The Insider: Did you decide early at your pharmacy that if there were a vaccine developed, you would offer it? David Su: Yes. We were extremely excited. The Insider: When did you start vaccinating people at Wellness? David Su: Late January 2020. The Insider: And were you personally doing shots? David Su: Yes. When we got our first shipment in and the day we started, I had to be there to ensure things went perfectly. The Insider: Is that because the vaccines had to be frozen? David Su: Not just that. The vaccines had to be frozen, and when they were thawed, they had to be timed. So we had to coordinate it so that we didn’t waste any shots. On top of that, the government had reporting requirements, aka paperwork, which was also timed. And the entire thing was new to everyone The Insider: What was it like for you personally to give that first vaccine shot? David Su: There was pressure. Pressure to be perfect, which always is the case at my workplace. However, the pressure is greater when it’s the first time we’re doing something. The Insider: When you started giving shots, you must have been worried for your own health. Did you wear special protective clothing or equipment to stay safe? David Su: A mask and gloves. But I wasn’t gowned up or anything. Everyone was masked The Insider: Do you know approximately how many vaccines you’ve done since? David Su: A lot! The Insider: Your guess? David Su: A couple thousand. Before Covid, doing 300-400 shots a year would be pretty normal. But when we started the program in January, and we were worried about vaccine distribution, we would do 200 shots per day. The Insider: What was that like for you? David Su: Pretty intense. The Insider: I’m sure you’ve seen some very interesting behavior over the year. Are most people eager to get a shot, or very worried, or a bit of everything? David Su: It depends what part of the year. In the beginning stages of the rollout, the people who came were eager. Later, you had the ones who were worried and wanted to talk about it. And then afterwards, you had those who were getting vaccinated because of a mandate. The Insider: Are they angry? David Su: By the time they get to the pharmacy, no. The Insider: But do they ever say, I don’t believe this works? David Su: Some do. The Insider: What do you tell them? David Su: It depends on where they are in the coping process. The Insider: In what way? David Su: If they’ve already signed all the paperwork, and I have the needle in hand and they’re willing to take the vaccine, even if they express reluctance, there’s no need for me to have a conversation with them. Because at the end of the day, they’re getting it. If someone goes out of the way to say ‘wait, I have questions,” then we do question and answer. Because they need to make an informed decision. The Insider: Has anyone changed his or her mind and walked out without getting the vaccine? David Su: Yes. We just cancel their paperwork. With boosters, they’ll also change which shot they want while they’re sitting in the shot seat. The Insider: You must be annoyed by all of the misinformation floating around about vaccines. David Su: Misinformation gets annoying. The Insider: Have you ever met an anti-vaxxer? David Su: Yes. Mostly before Covid. During Covid, in the city, people have seen cause and effect though, so the anti-vaxxers are not as prominent. The Insider: What about at-home tests? David Su: We’re selling a lot of at-home Covid tests. These are antigen tests, which are dependent of whether or not you have enough detectable antigens in your nose for the test to detect it. If it comes out negative, there’s a 15% chance it’s false negative, which is why it’s good to do a second test at least three days after your first if you really want to be safe. The Insider: The obvious question is whether you’ve been exposed to Covid or had it yourself. David Su: I’ve never had it because I’ve taken extreme measures since the beginning. Working in a pharmacy, I’ve definitely come close to it, though. The Insider: Do you get tested regularly? David Su: In the beginning I did, when there were no vaccines. After I completed my shot series, I only tested when I would see people. The Insider: Not sure what you mean. David Su: “See people” as in take my mask off. Activities involving eating food together. Even when I’m not at work, I do everything outside of home with a mask on. The Insider: A lot of people are wondering now if the vaccines will work against Omicron. We’re all hearing stories of people who are triple vaccinated and still getting Covid. David Su: Yes. The Insider: What is your answer when someone points to breakthrough cases and says, the vaccines don’t work? David Su: The vaccines that are currently out were designed against the original Covid-19 that we were dealing with in the beginning. As time passes and more uncontrolled infections occur, mutations happen that will make it so that current vaccines are not as effective. The key metric for these vaccines was that it decreased hospitalization and death rate. In the case of Omicron, it holds true for those boosted. So when someone points to breakthrough infections, I’m not bothered by it, because the true value of our vaccines is decrease in hospitalization rate The Insider: You’ve undoubtedly saved many lives by giving people those vaccines! I am grateful for your time with us. Many thanks! David Su: Thank you for having me!