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 Victoria Rolfe Now, as fall flavors the air, the days begin to shorten and the weather cools, garden production is winding down. There are still plenty of fresh vegetables to harvest out there, but the frantic pace of August’s veggie madness has tapered off. Some of your plants may have shut down production altogether, either depleting their resources or succumbing to one or another pest or disease. But even in summer’s twilight, there are still some seeds to sow. It is not too late to plant one more round of your quickly maturing cool season succession crops such as lettuce or radishes. You can extend your growing season by continuing to plant right up until fall. And there are some crops you can grow through the winter months. Do not be so quick to pull up the kale. You can harvest the leaves right up to (and sometimes even through) the winter months. Sow some spinach seeds in September and you may be rewarded by a very early crop come next spring. The flower beds are not quite ready to give up the ghost either. There are still plenty of things in bloom out there during summer’s farewell performance. And some flora hold off on their blossoms as if to give us something to look forward to before another growing season winds down to its final conclusion. And some flowers that are now coming into their own just say autumn with their orange and yellow color pallet. I hope you have had a beautiful gardening season and are now relaxing as you reflect on the glory that nature has bequeathed you during the past few months. If you are new to the magic of gardening, it can be especially awe-inspiring. But even we seasoned gardeners never lose our joy and delight in the surprises that await us each and every summer. Bon jardinage! Victoria Rolfe has had a love of gardening all her life, from the time she was a tiny child coveting the daffodils growing in her neighbor’s yard (and wondering why she couldn’t have them in her own), to her teenage years when she took her pot experimentation in a different direction by growing the seeds she extracted from the bag into a beautiful marijuana plant on her bedroom windowsill. She went on in her adult years to feed her family by growing a huge and bountiful vegetable garden, as well as beautifying her three-acre property with an array of ornamental trees, bushes and flowers in the magnificent Hudson Valley region of New York. Victoria learned a great deal in the process of all this plant experimentation. She then added to that knowledge by taking courses with the Cornell Cooperative Extension to become a Master Gardener Volunteer. In her volunteer capacity, she helps to educate the public on gardening through classes and information booths, most notably at the Dutchess County N.Y. Fair each August. Throughout the summer months, Victoria is most likely to be found among the weeds, either in her own garden or those of others who actually pay her to play in their dirt and do the thing she loves best, delight in the magical world of gardening. Victoria is not only a gardening aficionado; she is also passionate about helping people live a better life on less money. Visit her website and blog at brightfuture2budget4.weebly.com, or email her at brightfuture2budget4@gmail.com.

By John Rolfe The few. The proud. The school bus drivers. Apologies for stealing the Marines’ famous recruiting slogan, but it’s apropos when school districts across the land have reached a crisis point with student transportation. School trade associations say a national driver shortage is now the top problem for 65 percent of administrators responsible for getting kids to and from their institutions of learning. In New York State alone, many districts have 15 to 20 percent fewer drivers than they need. There are now daily stories about delays, packed buses or no buses at all in many states. On September 3 in Georgia’s Savannah-Chatham County, 54 drivers refused to report to work and staged a protest to demand fair pay and better safety and communication from school boards. Covid-19 has contributed to some of the disruption. Seventy-three drivers in Chicago resigned in August to protest a vaccine mandate. Others elsewhere have quit rather than risk contracting the virus from their young passengers. (Many drivers are over 50 and more prone to serious illness.) As the pilot of what I fondly call a big yellow madhouse, I can certainly say this is not a gig for the faint of heart, let alone everyone. There is tremendous amount of responsibility and liability in ensuring the safety of other people’s kids, plus the stress of dealing with behavioral issues. The pay is low (around $20 an hour, sometimes much lower), hours are usually under eight per day, and training for a commercial driver’s license with a school bus certification can cost around $1,000. Some districts and private companies will train new hires, but you must still be background-checked, fingerprinted, and pass physical performance and random drug tests. You also need to know how to respond to medical emergencies and administer an epi-pen. My district in Dutchess County in New York’s Hudson Valley is doing its best to keep rolling by combining two runs into one and using qualified mechanics and office staff members as drivers. By increasing pay to $30 an hour, it managed to handle a record number of summer school students. (Their grades had suffered as a result of the online classes that were required during the teeth of the pandemic.) Districts around the country are now considering or implementing raises. Meanwhile, a charter school in Delaware is offering to pay parents $700 to drive their own kids. Ah, parents. I’ve been blessed with caring, supportive and generous ones on my routes during the three years I’ve been at the wheel, but the meddling, obstreperous variety is the bane of a bus driver’s existence. My district is doing its best to return to pre-pandemic normalcy, eliminating remote classes but requiring masks indoors (including on buses), which many parental units won’t like at all. Anti-mask rage and even violence at schools and board of education meetings nationwide has been shocking and depressing. I recently saw a video from my district that contained basically a long parade of parents angrily ranting at board members. It really bothers me that people who are only trying to safeguard everyone’s health and safety are being attacked, often for little more than unnecessary political reasons. My colleagues and I will see if this petulant resistance by parents has contaminated many of their children. So far, it hasn't to a great extent. One mother in my district called masks “an unnecessary hardship” on kids. I thought, “You want to know what real hardship is? Talk to the 15-year-old girl I drove to summer school this year.” Alice (not her real name, as I am legally forbidden to divulge personal details of my passengers) was left brain-damaged and wheelchair-bound due to surgery complications. She still remembers her relatively normal life when she could speak without difficulty and walk, but she isn’t bitter. She surprised me with her sense of humor and wears a mask without complaint. Her parents, who have been through an ordeal that has been made even tougher by insurance payment denials displayed only grace and strength during the weeks I drove Alice to school. More of us surely need to keep things in perspective. In general, the kids whom I and my colleagues are hauling have been behaving better than many adults. We occasionally have to remind students to put a mask on, pull one up, or keep their safe distance from each other, but they comply without making a fuss. What the young buggers won’t like this year are the required assigned seats for contact tracing purposes. (If students move around the bus and any later get sick, all on board will have to go into quarantine for two weeks.) This year I’m slated to have 45 middle schoolers on my bus. I’m interested to see how many parents opt to drive their kids instead. Last school year, I had as few as one to three riders per trip between the delayed start of classes in October and when things returned to a greater degree of normalcy in February, though even then I had only about two-thirds my normal freight of 30 or more kids. It made for an oddly quiet year, but I expect this one to be much more tumultuous, especially if kids take cues from anti-mask parents. There is a public perception that anyone can drive a school bus. Maybe so, but can they drive it safely and handle children calmly and with a clear head? This is a bona fide profession that requires training, self-discipline, attention to detail, the ability to think fast, and a degree of enjoyment in being around kids, even the ones who do their level best to drive you crackers. It’s a shame we aren’t thought of as important pros and paid accordingly. So it’s no wonder we’re few in number, but we do take great pride in our work. I know drivers who go to extraordinary lengths to manage and care for the kids on their buses, often becoming one of the most positive influences in the lives of those children. We drivers are often forgotten or ignored in the ongoing war between parents and schools over how to proceed in the face of Covid, but you will surely miss us when we’re not there. The courageous author at the wheel of his school bus. For all of the gory details, please visit his blog “Hellions, Mayhem & Brake Failure” on Celestialchuckle.com 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.

By Naomi Serviss The horror in Afghanistan parallels Vietnam’s last gasp. Shocking images of desperate allies begging for escape on a copter. Too many friends left in the dust. Again and again, ad nauseum. What will happen to stranded Afghani interpreters, assistants, confidantes and service personnel? The Taliban will flaunt and taunt with barbaric domination over women and any free or educated thinkers. Another war ago in Iraq, the danger was also from within. I thank my lucky stars our Iraqi son is safe. His name is Mudhafer AL-Husseini born and raised in Baghdad. He graduated with a B.A. degree from Baghdad University in the summer of 2007, after majoring in English literature. He was well-versed. In July, 2007, two weeks shy of his 18th birthday, Mudhafer received a life-changing call. The New York Times’ Baghdad Bureau had an opening for a local, English-fluent interpreter. Mudhafer is a gifted linguist and journalist. He covered the unimaginable, alongside Times reporters. Mudhafer worked with U.S. Army troops for nearly three years. “I started going to the city to cover car bombs and suicide bombers,” he said in a recent email. “I witnessed the death of several of my colleagues. “My sister had constant fear whenever her cell phone rang, especially at night. “This was a nightmare,” he wrote in an email. Fortuitously, Mudhafer learned there was a recently vacated position in the New York Times Baghdad Bureau. He landed an interview with the Bureau’s lead reporter. “We met in one of Baghdad’s fancy hotels, which happened to be next to the Times Bureau.” He wowed the interviewer with his easygoing command of English idioms, history and current events. His charisma drew anyone within range into his orbit. Mudhafer impressed with his intelligence and vast knowledge of the many neighborhoods. The second interviewer did not seem as agog. Despite a bad feeling about the outcome, Fortune smiled and Mudhafer got the gig. He was over the moon! Until gravity’s tug yanked him to terra firma. On his first day, he found out why there was an opening. His predecessor had been killed on the way to work. “This didn’t change anything with me,” Mudhafer wrote. “I’ve already gotten used to death, as a linguist for the U.S. Army and living in a city torn by a civil war, ignited by sectarianism,” he said. Mudhafer had many close calls. He was given the nickname Moody, because he always looked serious. And it was easier to say. Mudhafer blogged his grueling stories for the Times. But it became more apparent daily that Americans and their allies were in mortal danger. A resettlement plan was hatched by the U.S. government in coordination with the International Organization of Migration. After months of preparation and bureaucratic red tape, Mudhafer’s lifelong dream of coming to America was about to be realized. He would be settled in Tucson, whose arid climate was similar to Baghdad’s. In 2009 Lew and I lived in Tucson. When we learned of Mudhafer’s resettlement, We leaped at the chance to welcome him. We were grateful to offer our good intentions and friendship. Plus, it was exciting! We’d show him the stark beauty of Southwest. And introduce him to delicious Mexican food. There was much to see through the eyes of a Stranger in a strange land. We had fun! He was easily amused. And laughed at our corny puns and jokes. Our heartfelt conversations brought us closer together. From day one, we became Mudhafer’s surrogate family. Now, he calls us mom and dad. “I didn’t realize the trauma I had. A past filled with horror and death,” Mudhafer continued. “Tucson was similar to Baghdad with its climate and flat setting. All I could think of is, ‘I’m in the U.S. now!’ “I was super excited to be here, but I was worried about my family who were still in Iraq. “They were processing to come. “I needed some peace and tranquility and Tucson was just the place for that.” Slowly the bureaucratic wheels creaked forward. Mudhafer’s family, including his parents, three brothers and a sister, at long last resettled in the States. “One brother now lives in Sweden. The rest are here. My father went back to Baghdad in 2011.” We spent a lot of time with Mudhafer, And helped him with an ornery mess of red tape. He picked up slang and the important curse words. His warm laugh sometimes dissolved into giggles. That happened when he was overwhelmed with joy. He wasn’t thrilled about meeting Maggie, our beautiful brown rescue dog. In Iraq, dogs are considered nuisances, and never allowed inside. Lew and Mudhafer took a road trip to California, And he saw the ocean for the first time. He giggled nonstop when he heard and saw the restless surf for the first time in his life. Lew took him to the movies, another first. They saw Star Trek. He’s met our California relatives. In the summer of 2014, Mudhafer become a U.S. citizen, And he’s proud of his service and his work with the New York Times. “I served this country for years when I wasn’t even a citizen yet.” “I consider myself lucky to be alive right now.” “I can only imagine what those Afghanis who worked with the U.S. feel like now.” 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

One film journalist’s stream-of-consciousness cinematic journey through the pandemic, Part 49 By Laurence Lerman The rock opera, one of the more fragile, difficult-to-define film subgenres in the musical category, looks like it’s on the verge of extinction every decade or so, until a worthy contender plugs in and weaves a tale of triumph and tragedy, set to electric guitars, dynamic voices and a vigorous rhythm section. Essentially a cycle of songs with music and lyrics that relate to a common story and theme—with various characters singing the songs—rock operas, as they came to be known when they first emerged in the late 1960s, began as concept albums by progressive musical artists. They weren’t primarily composed for visualization and acting, which is what distinguishes them from true operas. At first listen, the overall experience and texture would appear to be most accessible via a music video clip or compilation of them. But then there are collaborations between filmmakers and musicians that imagine a bigger picture—a feature-length one, at that. Such is the case with the recently released Annette, a rock opera film in the truest sense from French arthouse filmmakers Leos Carax and writers/composers Ron and Russell Mael, the brothers who comprise the pop-rock synth duo Sparks. Annette made considerable noise at the Cannes Film Festival this May, serving as the fest’s opening film and then picking up the Best Director Award for Carax and the Cannes Soundtrack Award for the Brothers Mael. It also garnered a nomination for the festival’s top prize, the prestigious Palme d’Or. The film received wildly mixed reactions from international audiences upon its subsequent theatrical and streaming rollout late last month. That wasn’t all that surprising, considering it came from a guy whose films and attitude earned him the label of enfant terrible back in the Eighties and Nineties. Carax has been courting controversy for years with his cinéma du look entries such as Bad Blood (1986), The Lovers on the Bridge (1991) and Pola X (1999), all of which divided audiences with their candor and extreme natures. Carax’s latest concerns an acerbic stand-up comic (Adam Driver) and his popular opera singer wife (Marion Cotillard) and how their lives progress after they have their first child, a girl named Annette, who is portrayed in the film by a wooden puppet. That’s right, a puppet. To reveals more specifics is to spoil the story. Carax and the Brothers Mael weave an extravagant and emotional tale of loves won and lost, artistic temperament, exploitation, popularity, identity and, ultimately, mercy and death. Annette might sound broadly operatic, and it is, with more than a dozen songs and reprises stylistically presented by the cast, all of whom do the bulk of their own singing. The film contains substantial, serpentine plot twists and several moments of joyous transcendence as well as genuine operatic tragedy, all of which is fantastically rendered on a deliberately artificial-looking Los Angeles backdrop (complete with references to the Me-Too movement and the California wildfires). Carax’s first film in English—and his first set in America—is a sprawling, effective piece of work, as stirring in its fervor and tragic proportions as it is bizarre in its synth-driven Sparks music and lyrics and manufactured “movie-ishness.” That Carax and Sparks collaborated on a wholly original rock opera without the blueprint of an earlier narrative album as the basis is an accomplishment that shouldn’t be discounted. It's those earlier, narrative-driven rock albums that exemplify the vagueness of the rock opera classification, as if their creators assumed we’d be able to follow their extended musical tales without the aid of some detailed liner notes Consider such landmark albums as The Who’s Quadrophenia (1973), Genesis’s The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974), Frank Zappa’s Joe’s Garage (1979), Pink Floyd: The Wall (1979), Styx’s Paradise Theater (1981) or, hell, even The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), to name only a few. While ongoing narrative and musical themes consistently weave through them all, there remains a confusing looseness and opaqueness to the song-by-song construction of each tale, making them more conceptual and interpretive than operatically story-driven. Indeed, there are probably a number of critics and fans who throw around the term “rock opera” when they themselves can’t always follow the “libretto.” What clearly emerges musically is more of a mood and tone than a clear story, even in the rock operas that were adapted into movies (1979’s Quadrophenia and 1982’s Pink Floyd: The Wall). Both are fine films, but remain fuzzy in their storytelling and, importantly, contain characters that do not perform any onscreen singing, the songs and score generally being played over the action. Beginning in the late 1980s, the popularity of the jukebox musical pushed aside the idea of unifying musical themes in favor of a collection of differently sourced established songs chosen to fit a narrative through line. This movement has yielded such projects as the Broadway musical-turned-film Eighties hair band celebration Rock of Ages from 2012 and, in a reversal, the extravagant 2018 stage show Moulin Rouge! based on Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 film of the same name, which upon its release was proclaimed by the cognoscenti as a “postmodern movie musical.” This breed of postmodernism steps away from the loosely defined idea of what makes a rock opera, or a film of such. I’ll boldly state that, for our purposes, there have really only been a few significant films of rock operas, all of them dating back to the 1970s. And, true to their operatic structure (and aspirations, perhaps), their characters do all the singing on screen, progressing the story with recurring musical themes matching the story’s narrative threads. The rock opera film mini-wave kicked off with Jesus Christ Superstar, Norman Jewison’s flavorful 1973 film adaptation of the 1971 Broadway musical featuring music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. (It’s the film that immediately followed non-Jew Jewison’s 1971 big-screen version of Fiddler on the Roof. Funny, right?) Then there’s Alice Cooper: The Nightmare, an hour-long 1975 television special wherein the rocker is trapped inside of a nightmare that he can’t awake from. Singing his way through his entire 1975 album Welcome to My Nightmare, surrounded backup singers, dancers, changing sets and a murky storyline, Alice and his nightmare won a 1976 Emmy for “Video Tape Editing for a Special.” That said, it’s still more MTV than Metropolitan Opera. Which brings us to The Who’s 1969 album Tommy, the first album by a rock’n’roll band to be referred to as a “rock opera” and without a doubt the finest embodiment of the form. Primarily composed by Who guitarist Pete Townsend, it tells the story of Tommy Walker, a deaf, dumb and blind boy who becomes a pinball champion and then a messiah of sorts, until his faithful reject him and teachings, leaving him to look inward once again. With its rich, episodic story and songs from a wide range of characters, Tommy was ripe for the movies–and British director Ken Russell was the perfect filmmaker to bring it to the big screen. An enfant terrible in his own right, Russell made his bones crafting arts and music documentaries for the BBC before moving on to theatrical films in the late Sixties. By the time the 1975 film version of Tommy rolled around, Russell had already unleashed the colorful, flamboyant style with which he was identified in such musically-themed feature films as The Music Lovers (1971), a biopic of Tchaikovsky starring Richard Chamberlain, and another, Mahler (1974), about Gustav you-know-who. Starring The Who’s titanium-throated vocalist Roger Daltrey as the eponymous pinball wizard, Russell’s Tommy is a razzle-dazzler, a fully-rigged, over-the-top rock opera complete with smashing appearances by some of the era’s biggest musical stars, including Elton John, Eric Clapton and Tina Turner. And “real actors” Oliver Reed and Oscar-nominated Ann-Margret—both of whom do their own singing—ain’t too bad, either. Jack Nicholson even shows up briefly to do some wily warbling. The film was a hit and, alongside the original album, helped to launch Tommy’s extended life as a staged rock opera, an orchestral presentation and a popular Broadway musical. Satisfyingly, all the versions are dedicated to the operatic notion of an all-singing company coming together to present a grand tale of both sublime and tragic proportions. And some 45 years later, Annette does the same thing, with both films unabashedly embracing their rock opera forms. That Annette does it without a roster of bold-faced rock’n’roll guest stars and the imprimatur of a hit album makes it even more intriguing and attractive. Not to undersell the glittery appeal of the beloved Tommy… The pair--Tommy and Annette--would make for a fascinating double date. Make that a fine double feature, if one were looking for a night at the rock opera. 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.

Opinion by Jeffrey D. Sachs | CNN.com September 7, 2021 Editor's Note: Jeffrey Sachs is a professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia Universit and president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. His most recent book is "The Ages of Globalization" (Columbia University Press, 2020). The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author; view more opinion on CNN (CNN) - Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia is likely to be the deciding vote on the $3.5 trillion Senate reconciliation bill to expand spending on social and infrastructure programs. Because of his concerns over rising debt and inflation, Manchin wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he will not support the bill until he gets answers to a basic question: "What should we fund, and what can we simply not afford?" The headline, "Why I won't support spending another $3.5 trillion," gave the op-ed a false spin. That's not what Manchin wrote. He wrote that he won't support spending another $3.5 trillion "without greater clarity about why Congress chooses to ignore the serious effects inflation and debt have on existing government programs." Here is an answer for Manchin. The legislation should certainly not ignore inflation and debt. It should pay for the increased spending with increased taxes, exactly as is proposed in the budget resolution. Sen. Manchin is right to insist that the bill should be properly financed. This leads to the real question: Can the $3.5 trillion be fully funded with new tax revenues paid by corporations and America's rich? Manchin is bedazzled by trillions of dollars. He speaks about spending "trillions upon trillions." The word "trillion" appears in his op-ed repeatedly to convey the supposed immensity of the amounts in the Senate bill. Let me reassure the senator. America can easily raise the needed $3.5 trillion in revenues. That amount is not large relative to the US economy or the immense wealth of America's elite. Yet it is what the citizens of West Virginia and the US need to overcome hunger, poverty, lack of access to higher education and lack of modern infrastructure to protect them from the floods, droughts, forest fires, hurricanes and heatwaves claiming American lives. To put this $3.5 trillion in perspective, consider the following. First, it is an amount to be spent over 10 years, not one year. Many have gotten into the habit of quoting budget numbers without context, and this distorts the public's perceptions about affordability. Second, the US Gross Domestic Product -- the output of goods and services -- will be around $23 trillion in 2021. That will grow in the coming years. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that the GDP from 2022 through 2031 will be $287 trillion. Thus, $3.5 trillion over 10 years is a mere 1.2% of the national output of goods and service over those 10 years. This is not much money, especially since our current federal tax collections in 2021 are only 16.6% of GDP. Think of it this way. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the corporate income tax collected in 2016 was 1.6% of GDP. After 2017's massive corporate tax cut under President Donald Trump, revenues declined to 1.1% of GDP in 2019, and the same is expected this year. Note that corporate income tax revenues as a share of GDP are falling while corporate profits are soaring, and that the corporate tax rate had collected more than 3 % of GDP in the 1960s and more than 2% of GDP in the 1970s. Back in 2017, the Republican corporate tax cut did not pass Manchin's fiscal muster. He voted against the tax cut. Yet so far this year he has opposed raising the corporate tax rate and recouping even some of the lost revenues. Manchin should agree to correct the wrong committed in 2017. Here's another basic point. According to the US Treasury, the federal government lost $600 billion in revenues to tax evasion in 2019, and will lose an estimated $7 trillion over the coming decade. The rich hide the highest share of their incomes on average, and the Treasury is recommending increased audits on high-income earners with the aim of collecting at least $700 billion more in taxes due over the next ten years. Yet the Republicans are resisting even such tax enforcement measures. Here is another way to understand the modest magnitude of $3.5 trillion. As of March, there were 724 billionaires in the US with a collective net worth back of $4.4 trillion. With the soaring stock market, their wealth is even greater today. Those 724 billionaires could each keep $1 billion for themselves and still fund the entire $3.5 trillion for the 1.8 million people of West Virginia and the 330 million people of the United States. Now here's the thing about the mega-billionaires. As their wealth has soared to levels never before reached in human history, many have paid next to nothing on their tens of billions of dollars of capital gains. Capital gains are taxed only when shares are sold. But instead of selling their shares, the mega-billionaires fund their lavish consumption by borrowing against their even more lavish wealth, thereby avoiding capital gains taxes. As Manchin's Democratic colleague Sen. Ron Wyden is proposing, the billionaires' capital gains should be taxed when they occur, not waiting for the shares to be sold. Here is the bottom line. $3.5 trillion is affordable, even modest, compared with the vast income and wealth of the US. Yet the rich and the corporations need to be called to account. Manchin represents a state with one of the highest poverty rates in the nation, and the lowest life expectancy in the whole nation. The choice is really this: the citizens of West Virginia versus rich corporations, mega-billionaires, and tax cheats. https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/04/opinions/joe-manchin-america-can-afford-3-5-trillion-sachs/index.html

By Sienna Beck 1. Nervous 2. Not knowing what to expect 3. Sad 4. Kinda confused 5. Scared 6. Stressed out! I have never switched schools in a major way. And now, I am, from P.S. 84 to P.S. 87, so I’m pretty nervous. I mean, nursery school to pre-K is a small change and, by the way, you are so little then, you don’t know what’s happening. You think it’s not a big deal. And when I switched from pre-K to kindergarten, I actually wasn’t nervous. I made friends with Juniper on the first day, who is still my bestie after four years. And then a couple months later, I made friends with Kennedy. That’s probably why my mom says, “You make friends wherever you are.” I’ve spent 4 years at P.S. 84, my elementary school, and I am not very excited to leave. My Mom has arranged meet-ups (playdates sounds too kid-ish for me now that I am 8) for me to meet some of the friends who have been at P.S.87 since kindergarten or pre-K. I met a girl, Dalia, who is going into fifth grade whereas I am going into fourth. I re-met Ava, a girl from my preschool, who is going to be in my class. But then I met Eleanor, and she is super cool. She and I both want to be president, so we decided we’d take turns (is that allowed?) and I’d be president first and she’d be my VP, and then we’d switch. So everybody I met was nice and said only nice things about the school. I’m not nervous about people, though, more nervous about what the school is like. Also, I have been learning remotely for the past year. This will be my first time going back to school during Covid-19. Because of this, I have been having major headaches and stomachaches, and am nervous about what school will be like now that I’m not remote and am switching. In fewer words, not knowing what to expect. Still, I’m kind of excited, just a little, because there don’t seem to be many boys in my class this year (they annoy me a little), and my mom says after two weeks of P.S.87, I have the option to switch back. But she thinks by two weeks I will be happy where I am.

Blue State - Shira Brewer, High School Teacher The Insider: Hi Shira! What city do you live in? Shira Brewer: Seattle The Insider: And how old are you? Shira Brewer: 42 next week. The Insider: What is your job title? Shira Brewer: High school math teacher The Insider: And what is the name of your school? Shira Brewer: Nathan Hale High School. It is in the Seattle school district The Insider: How many years have you been a teacher, and how many years have you been teaching at this school? Shira Brewer: This is my 7th year at Hale. It’s hard to be precise about how long I’ve been teaching because I took a cumulative few years off to be the full-time caregiver for my children when they were born, and I’ve done different types of teaching. Let’s say 13 years of classic classroom teaching The Insider: Has school started yet? Shira Brewer: Yes. We started with students yesterday The Insider: Which classes are you teaching this semester? Shira Brewer: I teach Algebra 1, which mostly contains freshmen—ninth graders. I teach part-time—60 percent--which gives me a nice work-life balance. That’s why I only teach one math subject. Most teachers teach at least two different levels The Insider: Are you teaching in person this semester? Shira Brewer: Yes! The Insider: How long has it been since you’ve done that? Shira Brewer: We taught some students in person last spring for nine weeks, but that was hybrid and I only saw each student once per week. So it has been since March 2020 that I’ve had full classes like I’m teaching now The Insider: How did it feel yesterday to be back? Shira Brewer: It actually felt really good! It’s always hard to say goodbye to summer but feeling the energy of having kids in person and being able to see them and work with them was really good. if I have to say goodbye to the relaxation of summer, this is how I want to do it. Though I wish we weren’t in a situation where we have to wear masks. It is so frustrating. But of course necessary. I would much prefer to see my students’ faces and to be able to teach without a mask. I do use a small microphone to help me not lose my voice. The Insider: Is it a rule that everyone in the school building wear a mask? Shira Brewer: Yes. The Insider: Was everyone complying yesterday? Shira Brewer: Yes. The Insider: Have there been protests in Seattle about mask mandates in the schools? Shira Brewer: If there have, I haven’t heard about them. There may be some small ones. But most people in this city are extremely compliant and actually go above whatever the guidelines are. If anything, parents are worried there aren’t enough precautions. The Insider: Have you been vaccinated? Shira Brewer: Of course! All school employees in the state are mandated to be vaccinated. The Insider: Is there also a vaccination mandate in your school? All school employees, meaning professional and not professional? Shira Brewer: Yes. Everyone in the building. Custodial, etc. The Insider: Were there employees who were vocally unhappy about that? Shira Brewer: I think so. No one I have talked to. But I think I have heard that on the news. I think some bus drivers have quit, like in other districts around the country. The Insider: How did they establish yesterday that you were vaccinated? Shira Brewer: Oh. The mandate actually says that people must be vaccinated by a specific date in October The Insider: So you are still working with some unvaccinated people? Shira Brewer: Maybe. But I know that almost all staff in my building are vaccinated, if not everyone. People here were very enthusiastic to go out and get the vaccine as soon as they possibly could. Certainly, I don’t know about every single person. But I’m confident that most people work with are vaccinated The Insider: What is the situation with student vaccinations at your school? Shira Brewer: Since I teach high school, all students are eligible to be vaccinated, and many are. Last spring we had some vaccination clinics at our school and they were extremely well attended. I don’t know the percentage of students that is vaccinated. The Insider: Have you heard any students say that they will NOT be vaccinated? Shira Brewer: No but I haven’t asked them. I have only just met my current students. Last year, I had a lot of students who were excited about getting the vaccine. I don’t remember if any said they didn’t plan to. The Insider: You live in a very liberal part of the country. I know that in many other places, there are tensions about this. Shira Brewer: You are absolutely right. Here, most people I know are so done with people who don’t help the common cause by getting vaccinated. We absolutely blame folks who chose not to get vaccinated for our current situation with the spread of Delta and having to go back to wearing masks everywhere. I’m at a loss for words at this point The fact that so many Republican politicians chose to make this a political issue and to spread disinformation about the vaccines is a complete tragedy on so many levels with far-reaching repercussions all over the country and world. The Insider: Will there be intermittent Covid testing as well? Shira Brewer: I’m not sure about the intermittent Covid testing. Testing is available for suspected cases. Oh, and people staying home when they are not feeling well. The Insider: The big question: Are you nervous about Covid now being back in the classroom? Shira Brewer: Certainly, the risk is higher now, and that is a worry but I’m willing to see how this goes because teaching remotely was such a bad option. I hope that with masks and hand hygiene, we can make this work. Time will tell. The Insider: Do you expect to find out that your students have suffered educationally because of last year’s remote teaching? Shira Brewer: Absolutely. There will be a wide range of what students know. There is always a range but now it will be more extreme. We’ll sort it out! If I had been in charge of schools last year, things would’ve been very different. But since I wasn’t and since there were so many different experiences for students, we will teach from where we are at this moment. And there will be lots of differentiation–giving students what they need individually. And we will gauge as we go and slow down as needed The Insider: In what way would you have made things different? Shira Brewer: Camera use would have been the expectation, with exceptions as needed, instead of letting students choose whether or not to turn on their cameras. They would have been much more engaged if we all could have seen each other. The expectations for student work were also drastically lowered, and while it was necessary to have flexibility since not all students have the same resources, we should have still had expectations and then been able to make accommodations as needed. Because the expectations were so low, it allowed students to do very little, and that was detrimental to their learning. The Insider: It’s a cliche that kids don’t want to go back to school in the fall. But I bet the students were thrilled to be back yesterday. True? Shira Brewer: They seemed excited to be there! And today too! They are happy to see people in person and be in school. Of course, it’s just the first week, but I’m gonna be optimistic. Red State - "Mike Peters," High School Teacher The Insider: Hi Mike. You’ve asked that we not use your real name so you can speak more freely. Do you teach in a conservative part of the country? Mike Peters: Yes. The Insider: Red state? Mike Peters: Yes The Insider: Tell me about your job. Mike Peters: I'm a high school teacher The Insider: What subjects do you teach? What grades? Mike Peters: World History for sophomores The Insider: Public school? Mike Peters: Yes The Insider: Urban area? Mike Peters: Yes The Insider: How many years have you been teaching? Mike Peters: Ten years. The Insider: Has school started yet? Mike Peters: Yes. We are four weeks into school. The Insider: Are you 100% back in the classroom now? Were you remote last year? Mike Peters: My district was not remote last year. The Insider: So you’ve been in-person during the whole pandemic? Mike Peters: Kids could choose a remote option, and about 10-12% did so at the beginning of the 2020-21 school year. Any kids who failed two classes or more in the 2020 Fall Semester had to come back to in person, unless they had a doctor's note. The Insider: And now? Mike Peters: This school year, kids choosing remote learning are put together in separate classes. Unlike last year, no classes have to contend with a blend of learners. The Insider: Is the percentage breakdown the same now? About 10 percent remote? Mike Peters: No. Very few are remote kids this year. The Insider: Were there any health problems last year because school was in person? Were there any Covid outbreaks in your district? Mike Peters: No. We had a mask mandate for all students in the district, and the kids did a good job complying all year. The district had no serious outbreaks. We followed CDC guidelines for contract tracing The Insider: Did any of the teachers get Covid? Mike Peters: Yes. We had a couple, but nothing severe. The biggest problem was finding subs to cover when teachers were in quarantine, as per CDC. Most subs are older retired teachers, and this was before vaccination was available. The Insider: What are the vaccination rules now in your school? Do all teachers need to be vaccinated? Mike Peters: Last March, our district and a couple nearby received the first batch of the J&J vax. As per our union, we are well above the 80% threshold for vaxxed teachers on staff. The J&J program was handled by our union, the city, local medical facilities and hospitals.. The state had nothing to do with it. There are no vax requirements in district. The Insider: How about your students? Are most of them vaccinated? Mike Peters: We have no numbers on student vaccinations, and I'm not about to ask them. The Insider: What’s your intuition? Mike Peters: I'm feeling my sophomores are probably about 25-35% vax. A bit higher with older kids, and lower with freshmen. Just a gut feeling. The Insider: Have there been disputes in your area about masks? Mike Peters: Yes. Typical irrational complaints, plus a governor who is against them. No school board civilian antics as of yet. The Insider: Have there been demonstrations? Mike Peters: Small ones in the city, but nothing directly towards our school district. The Insider: Do teachers talk with students about vaccines or masks at all, or is that considered off limits? Mike Peters: Vax, no. Masks have not come up much this year. Vaccines are a sensitive issue, especially with minors. The Insider: Is everyone required to wear a mask in the building at your high school? If so, do they comply? Mike Peters: Masks are not required, only suggested. Few kids and staff members wear one. The staff who do are those with little kids at home, or a few who are grandparents The Insider: When were you vaccinated? Do you wear a mask at school? Mike Peters: March 5. I expect a booster recommendation for the J&J and will happily get it. I don't wear a mask. I have an eight-foot "bubble" from where I teach. My direct contact up close is rare. The Insider: Bottom line: does the mask and vaccination situation in your school worry you? Mike Peters: No. We have a strong union that actively ensures our concerns are addressed, and, so far, a school board that has worked with the union. All classes have hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies. The Insider: Have there been any cases of students with Covid in your school? Do you think your students worry about catching it? Mike Peters: I've had students in my classes get Covid this year, but we have a contact tracer on site who quickly contacts those who need to be monitored. Overall fear is not high. The Insider: You’ll think I’m being a smart aleck, but I mean this seriously. Did Donald Trump win your state in 2020? I’m guessing he did. Mike Peters: Yes, he won the state. The state vax rate about 53%. The Insider: Is the Covid rate high? Mike Peters: The state Covid rate is rising quickly. The Insider: I’m not surprised. Many thanks for talking with us!

By Jeffrey D. Sachs I love The Wall Street Journal editorial board’s missives to America’s billionaires, climate skeptics, and freedom fighters against vaccine mandates. The editorials are among the tenderest love letters of our day. Even better, they are often hilarious. This week’s bouquet to the billionaires, “Bernie Sanders Runs Out of Billionaires,” is perhaps the funniest on record, proving the very opposite of what the editorial board certainly intended. The WSJ editorial board doesn’t like how Bernie Sanders is so nasty to America’s wonderful 724 billionaires, calling on them to pay increased taxes to support the rest of the 330 million Americans. What might actually become of the billionaires if they had to pay some part of their capital gains? We are no doubt speaking of tender and fragile souls, who are doing their best to hold up despite Sanders’ withering assaults. To prove the point, the WSJ editorial writes that Bernie is calling for $4.5 trillion in infrastructure spending over the coming decade, while the 724 billionaires have only $4.4 trillion of wealth. The editorial board acknowledges that the wealth number is an underestimate, as it dates from March while the stock market has soared since then. Still, the editorial board’s point is this: Bernie’s spending would burn through the pockets of the billionaires, leaving them bereft. This is quite a remarkable observation, no doubt vastly more remarkable than The Wall Street Journal intended. First, let’s parse the numbers a bit. Bernie is actually asking for $3.5 trillion in his new budget resolution, not $4.5 trillion. The Journal raises it to $4.5 trillion because it says that Bernie also “has kind words for President Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan.” Yet the editorial board knows that the $1 trillion bipartisan plan (not “Biden’s plan”) does not call for any new taxes. Using the correct number for Sanders’ budget resolution, $3.5 trillion, the billionaires’ wealth could indeed pay for the entire decade-long budget spending, with a lot to spare. Indeed, the 724 billionaires could each keep $1 billion in wealth for themselves (on the theory that $1 billion is sufficient to make ends meet) and still have enough left over, $3.7 trillion, to cover the entire 10-year budget resolution for the whole nation. In fact, we wouldn’t even need all 724 US billionaires to cover the budget cost. According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which updates the wealth of the world’s richest 500 people on a daily basis, there are currently 163 Americans among the world’s richest 500 people, with a combined net worth of $3.5 trillion as of August 30. Their combined wealth has actually risen by $500 billion since the start of the year! Thus, we would need the wealth of just 163 Americans to cover the nation’s new infrastructure and social spending for a full decade, without having to bother the poorer 561 billionaires not among world’s richest 500. Inexplicably, the WSJ editorial board doesn’t see the bigger point, that just a few hundred Americans -- whether it’s 163 or 724, or heaven forefend, a few thousand (adding some Americans with only hundreds of millions of net worth) -- could actually fund a full decade of America’s new infrastructure and social programs. How bizarre, how amazing, and how profoundly helpful this fact can be for a nation with such obvious and massive needs. The billionaires know better than anybody that the U.S. tax code has hardly touched their vast capital gains, thereby enabling them to accumulate vast wealth while paying virtually no taxes. Recognizing that fact, they might also recall the famous words of Andrew Carnegie, who knew a thing or two about sharing his wealth to improve society: "The man who dies rich dies disgraced." Whether through taxes or philanthropy or a combination of the two, these billionaires should step forward now. At the same time, The Wall Street Journal should finally stop depicting $3.5 trillion as some vast unaffordable sum for our country. Just 163 Americans could actually fund it! America as a whole certainly can, as it will be just 1.3 percent of the $272 trillion in U.S. gross domestic output forecast by the CBO for 2021-2030. America urgently needs the infrastructure, and can readily afford it, if the rich and corporations do their part. The editorial board also knows full well that Bernie Sanders is not demanding that the billionaires hand over all their wealth. He is advocating a mix of modestly higher taxes on corporations and high-income Americans, as well as I.R.S. enforcement against tax cheats. Yet for The Wall Street Journal, any tax on their beloved billionaires and mega-millionaires is too much. The rest of us know that the WSJ editorial board’s extreme solicitude for the super-rich is threatening to wreck America, including the tiny class of super-rich that it so deeply adores. Jeffrey D. Sachs is University Professor at Columbia University.

By Jessie Seigel / Washington, D.C. Less than a week ago (though it feels like eons ago), President Biden’s approval ratings were rocked by an event 7,000 miles from the White House. On August 26, Isis-K (the Islamic State Khorasan) terrorists attacked the U.S. Afghan evacuation site in Kabul. An Isis-K suicide bomber detonated an explosive device among crowds at the Abbey Gate entrance to the Kabul Airport, while a second bomb exploded close to the Barron Hotel nearby. Thirteen U.S. servicemen were killed and 18 were wounded. According to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Health, more than 170 people were killed and at least 200 were wounded. Rather than acknowledging the dangerously complex situation the Biden Administration has been facing, we got instant analysis from all quarters. Immediately, everybody and his sister had an opinion. This included know-it-alls on the boob tube, congressional armchair warriors ready to send others back to an eternal war, and those who years ago set the stage for the current dire dilemma concerning the timing and manner of our exit. On the day of the attacks, General H. R. McMaster plastered himself all over Fox News and MSNBC, calling on Biden to scrap his troop withdrawal and renew the Afghanistan war. McMaster called the withdrawal “surrender.” But how dare McMaster even open his mouth when the man he had worked for—DONALD J. TRUMP—brokered that surrender in February, 2020, generating the recent near-impossibly chaotic situation? Since McMaster left the Trump Administration in 2018, he certainly was free to comment on that deal when it was made, so why didn’t he rant on multiple TV networks then? The day after the attack, some 18 Republican senators and representatives had the gall to call for President Biden’s resignation. But where were those hypocrites’ voices when Trump made his deal with the Taliban to leave Afghanistan on May 1, 2021? Where was their outrage when Trump excluded the Afghan government from those negotiations? Or when he reduced our troops to 2,500 vulnerable souls? Where was their concern for our Afghan allies when, according to Afghan war veteran and former CIA analyst Matt Zeller, the Trump Administration deliberately shut down the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program for four years? Given how few SIVs were processed during Biden’s first seven months in office, one must wonder whether there were Trump holdovers at the State Department who continued their sabotage of the SIV program. And if so, whether the Biden Administration’s failure was in not ferreting out those Trump moles, replacing them, and adding personnel to handle SIV applications? Of course, we are still left with the question of whether—after the Trump-created obstacles—even a change of personnel would have been sufficient to permit a more timely exit of eligible Afghans and their families. If I’m going to give consideration to anyone official’s opinion, it won’t be McMaster or right-wing Republicans who never serve anyone but themselves. It will be someone like Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, who served one tour in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. Crow serves on the Armed Services Committee and two of its subcommittees, overseeing military readiness, ongoing military operations, military intelligence, emerging threats, capabilities, special forces operations, and terrorism. You may also remember Crow as the former Ranger who kept his head during the January 6 insurrection, and “got into Ranger mode a little bit,” as he put it, helping other members use emergency masks, moving lawmakers away from House chamber doors, directing them to remove their pins so they weren’t identifiable if the mob broke through, and taking the hand of Rep. Susan Wild to comfort her. Crow was relying on his military training. After the 9/11 attacks, he had served in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, leading a paratrooper platoon and earning a Bronze Star for combat action during the invasion of Iraq. Later, he joined the Army’s 75th Ranger regiment and served two tours in Afghanistan as part of the Joint Special Operations Task Force. Other feathers in Crow’s hat: He refused corporate PAC money during his campaign, was a sponsor of the For the People Act of 2019, and introduced the End Dark Money Act which would close a campaign finance loophole permitting dark money to be funneled into elections. Crow also was one of the managers of former President Trump’s first impeachment. For these reasons, Rep. Crow’s views carry more weight with me than most who are currently shooting off their mouths to further their own agendas or fill air time. From the beginning, Crow parted ways with the official line. In an August 19 New Yorker interview, Crow expressed the view that if evacuations had occurred concurrently and in parallel with military drawdowns starting in April when Biden announced the August 31 deadline, we would have been able to get tens of thousands out, and “would be in a very different situation than we are today.” Crow told the Denver Post, “It could have been done deliberately and methodically. It was a missed opportunity.” During those five months from April through August, could we have evacuated deliberately and methodically as Crow suggested? Would that have prevented the crush to leave that we see now? Or would evacuating people have created the “crisis of confidence” the Afghan government feared, resulting in an earlier collapse with the same scenes of panicked civilians descending on Kabul airport? We’ll never know what this path untaken would have yielded. However, as Crow reasonably stated, “There will be time to debate the failures, missteps, and lost opportunities of the past 20 years, but today our mission is clear: hold the Kabul airport as long as possible and get all U.S. citizens and as many Afghan partners out as possible…That is our only task right now; we will debate the rest later.” Crow sees the Afghans who worked with us “as friends who protected our soldiers and are entitled to the same treatment and protection.” He shared with The New Yorker his strong conviction that President Biden feels the same, but added, “Now, he is Commander-in-Chief, and has a lot of competing interests and things he has to balance. It is a very difficult situation, as it always is for the President. But there is no doubt in my mind that the President is a man of compassion and integrity and will always try to do the right thing.” While recognizing what the President must balance, Crow nevertheless has been consistent in maintaining that the August 31 deadline for ending the evacuation must be extended. Last week, he told Fox News, "We’re in a different world now than we were in when that date was originally set. We have to respond to that different world, and we have to get the mission done." Crow said that the evacuation could be completed in a matter of weeks, by August 31, and, as President Biden said—and the bombing demonstrated—not without risk. The August 26 bombing did not change Crow’s mind. On MSNBC that evening, he told Rachel Maddow that more than 2,400 troops were killed over the last 20 years, but we were on a mission and never once allowed terrorists to stop a mission. Now, our mission is to get out our citizens and Afghan allies. Crow maintained that there still should not be a calendar deadline, that we should hold out until we accomplish that mission. I don’t hold myself out as a military expert when it comes to the strategy and tactics of wars and withdrawals. I cannot begin to feel the weight President Biden must have felt in balancing the increasing dangers to our personnel if we stayed against the humanitarian disaster that would likely befall if we left before finishing our task. But surely, last week’s bombing and the Biden Administration’s swift response to it—hunting and killing one of the planners within a day—should make us all appreciate the gravity of the various scenarios he must consider in making his decisions, many of them not yet known to us. We have now left Afghanistan on President Biden's schedule. Attempting to get remaining Americans and Afghan allies out by diplomatic means is the next uncertain chapter in this saga. But the choice of whether to leave by August 31 or stay longer to accomplish further evacuations was, from the beginning, a choice between a rock and a hard place. As we go forward into this next phase, everyone needs to take a deep breath, and not allow either approbation or condemnation to be driven by transitory reports in any one news cycle. 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 Michael McQuillan / Washington, D.C. “I didn't make the 1963 March on Washington but I did the last one. I vowed to my wife that anytime there is a justice march I'll be here. We need justice beyond just voting rights. We've got a lot of cleaning up to do in this country.” Youthful enthusiasm mixed with sage wisdom in Bernard Johnson’s words. “Talk to the man,” he added, meaning me while poking Ted Smith, his partner. They are 70 years young, at rest on a Lafayette Park bench near the White House in the sweltering summer sun. Their tired feet belie fertile minds. The pair were two of the thousands of people participating on Saturday, August 28, in the March On For Voting Rights, co-sponsored by the Rev. Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, and Martin Luther King III, board chairperson of the Drum Major Institute, a not-for-profit organization that “convenes leaders for peaceful solutions to racism, poverty and violence.” The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the Service Employees International Union and 51 for 51, a group espousing Washington, D.C. statehood, were among 140 partner organizations which participated. Yet Saturday’s turnout estimates tumbled from the “tens of thousands” predicted to the “thousands” that NPR, USA Today and CBS News reported actually turned out. The marchers were calling upon Congress to pass two pieces of important legislation; the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act , which would restore parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that two recent Supreme Court decisions weakened and the For the People Act which would prohibit the partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts. The latter practice frequently dilutes the voting strength of racial and ethnic minorities while protecting incumbent elected officials. In sharp contrast. on the same day, the Southern Christian Leadership Committee, National Urban League, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, National Council of Churches of Christ, the UAW, the Congress of Racial Equality and allied groups were able to mobilize 250,000 people for the seminal August 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legendary “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial concluded. The Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Bayard Rustin coordinated a 200-member organizing staff, The speakers this time lauded Rev. Sharpton’s role. But the anniversary connection he played up in the media before the march day, he downplayed thereafter. The National Mall, not the Lincoln Memorial, was the chosen site this time, Sharpton told Reuters, to focus on the Capitol where “Senators will decide whether to continue the segregationist legislative strategy of filibuster or whether they're going to give the people of this country the right to vote with no prohibition. That building is the target of our social justice movement. Not 58 years ago, but today.” Yet with the stage far from it, halfway down the 1.8 mile National Mall, and Congress itself on recess, the intent and reality had little connection. The crowd, despite torrid heat, took its role seriously before melting away through the hourlong delay in starting the rally. “Even your presence makes a major statement when you come out to voice your opinion,” Ted Smith, the wise septuagenerian told me. “You’ve got to come out for yourself, for dignity.” With 48 states having introduced 389 voter suppression bills since January to ban ballot drop boxes and mail-in voting, restrict early voting and criminalize the act of giving water to persons waiting on long Election Day voter lines, there is ample need to strongly push back against that in public. “We have waited too long and suppressed our own power. The promissory note was not cashed,” Deborah Scott, CEO of Georgia Stand Up, a speaker, cried out on the stage, reviving Dr. King's 1963 speech metaphor before launching a fierce call and response exchange of “Stand up!” and “Vote!” A march would have launched well at that point. But with marching done, that valuable moment passed as Scott stepped from the stage to shake hands with aides. Houston Bishop James Dixon, that city's new NAACP president, roused the shrinking but attentive crowd with a stirring introduction of the Texas state legislators whose monthlong stay on Capitol Hill in support of the voting rights bills put them at risk for arrest for preventing a quorum that would make passing the Lone Star State’s voter suppression measures a foregone conclusion. Most Saturday speakers, though, played more to the battery of television cameras mounted on scaffolds than to the members of the live audience, who were sprawled out in sparse shade along tree groves on the National Mall. “It's uplifting,” I later told my wife and son, who had spent their Saturday afternoon touring Ford’s Theatre. “But I’m sad that it's likely only a one-day story.” There have been so many marches; how can one more have an impact? My day at the march stirred up memories of my involvement in several of those storied marches . My peers and I at Bronx High School of Science chartered a school bus to and from the November 1969 Vietnam Moratorium, I'd also surrounded the Pentagon to oppose President Reagan's Nicaraguan Contra War in the ‘80s, and more recently, marched in Manhattan to protest ICE abuses and advocate citizenship for undocumented immigrants. I joined the New York Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons' Hiroshima Peace Vigil at New York City's Dinkins Municipal Building three weeks ago. It's never enough but we all carry on. “There have been too many times in history when people would not get up and march,” Larry Broun declared from behind a “Workers Circle: Jewish Culture for a Better World” banner that he and five friends held. “We in Jewish tradition are particularly aware of that. To us, freedom is like religion, so here we stand.” “I marched behind you in Howard Beach (after the racial killings there), a turning point in my life,” I told Reverend Sharpton two years ago when he met with my Leaders High School students to discuss “What Makes Protest Effective?” My experience at Saturday’s March On For Voting Rights suggests that's still an open question. Michael McQuillan, former U.S. Senate aide, Peace Corps volunteer and history teacher, chaired the N.Y.P.D. Training Advisory Council’s Race Subcommittee and writes for The Write Launch, History News Network, Harlem World Magazine and his blog (https://mcquillan-unity-forum.squarespace.com)

By Emmy Serviss Falling Back Eighteen months ago, I had a loving boyfriend, a full-time job, two sweet cats, enough money in the bank to allow me to travel, and regular stage time in the Boston comedy scene. Today, I have two sweet cats. I won’t sit here and pretend that my pandemic experience has been the worst imaginable. All things considered, I was lucky. I was able to collect unemployment for a year, I had a roof over my head, I could still pay my bills and (even though they were only accessible over Zoom) I had an incredible support system of friends and family. Most importantly, I didn’t get Covid. But looking back to where I was (and WHO I was) 18 months ago, it’s absolutely ludicrous to think about how much has changed. I don’t even remember the person I was back then. It feels like both only yesterday, and a lifetime ago. Spring 2020 I vaguely remember in March that there was some talk of a new virus going around. It seemed like something maybe to be concerned about, but then my friend invited me to go on an impromptu Disney World trip for her 30th birthday. And since I wasn’t that concerned, I jumped at the opportunity. A couple weeks later, my (now ex) boyfriend and I had plans to spend a long weekend in the Dominican Republic. By this time, we had gone from maybe being concerned to definitely being concerned. But were we concerned enough to cancel the trip? I hemmed and hawed for the better part of a week. My family thought we were being reckless. My ex argued that they were overreacting. Ultimately, we went on the trip. I was extremely skittish while we were traveling, but once we landed I was so happy we decided to go. The resort was amazing, the DR was gorgeous and it was the most romantic vacation I’d ever been on. I’ve never been a big fan of the beach, but the beaches of Punta Cana changed my mind. The sand was soft, the water was crystal blue and I swam next to colorful fish that darted around my legs. Floating on my back where the Caribbean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean, I felt utterly at peace. To this day, I’m thankful that I got to experience that trip before the world shut down. But yes we were definitely reckless and in hindsight, definitely shouldn’t have gone on the trip. We landed back in the U.S. just in time for the country to go into lockdown. After spending a week in separate quarantines, we decided that I would temporarily move in with him so we could spend the rest of the time together. After all, it was only going to be a couple weeks, maybe a month tops, right? (Hahahahahahahahahaha!) A week later, I was laid off. Overnight, I had gone from all of my time being filled up with a full-time day job and nightly comedy rehearsals, to having 24 hours to fill, 7 days a week. I was suddenly faced with time. So much time. You ever say a word repeatedly and then that word loses all meaning? Time. Time. Time. Time. Time. Time. Time. Time. Time. Time. Time. Time. Time. TimeTimeTimeTimeTimeTimeTimeTimeTimeTimeTimeTimeTime. By the end of April, time had lost all meaning to me. It was like being back at the ocean. Stretching as far as the eye could see, with unfathomable depths. Some days I could watch the waves crash peacefully on the shore. Other days I felt like I was drowning. Summer 2020 I tried to find new hobbies to fill my suddenly endless supply of time. First was baking. (and before you ask, no I did not make a sourdough starter) I skipped over the obligatory bread week and went straight for cupcakes and cookies. I spent $40 on fancy sprinkles that were aptly named “Fancy Sprinkles.” I tried new flavor combinations and then tried to sell my cookies to friends and family. (A few of them were kind enough to humor me) Then my ex requested that I stop baking so often, because he was enjoying my new hobby a little too much. He was a little reluctant to gain the Pandemic 15. I was kind enough to gain his 15 along with my own. Next I tried to resurrect the art of letter writing. And by letter writing, I mean scribbling an attempted cheerful greeting on a card and then slapping on a bunch of whimsical stickers. Sometimes I’d throw in a fistful of glitter. I think I helped keep the U. S. Post Office in business for most of 2020, with the number of stamps I bought and packages I sent across the country. Even though most of the people I sent letters and packages to didn’t reciprocate, it didn’t matter. Writing a silly card to a friend in San Antonio bought me a few minutes of peace, creativity and escape. And (hopefully) it brought a smile to their face when they received it. If I got something from them in the mail, that was just a bonus. (It is worth noting, though, my mom always sent me a card in return.) Other hobbies included coloring (crayons, markers, colored pencils all got a turn), painting, starting a Twitch channel, signing up for an online Spanish class (this always got pushed off to ‘tomorrow’) and joining an online game group. That online game group, The Spooky Doines, turned out to be one of the biggest support systems I would have during the next 18 months. Strangers became friends. Casual acquaintances became good friends. Good friends became invaluable. During a time when nothing was guaranteed, I could still rely on my friends to be there on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The world might be on fire, but we were there to distract and support each other as needed. I thought that maybe the worst of the pandemic was over. (HILARIOUS) As we crept towards further into quarantine, that support was going to be needed more than ever. Fall 2020 I’m an affectionate person. I love hugging, holding hands, snuggling, high fiving and being generally goofy. My ex was not affectionate. He wasn’t one to offer hugs unprompted, or snuggle up to me on the couch, or give me a quick kiss on his way to the kitchen. He would hug me if requested. But I didn’t feel it. It wasn’t so much a hug as it was just his arms briefly applying pressure to my shoulders and back. At this point, it had been about six months since I’d had a real proper hug. The kind of hug where you can feel someone’s energy as they squeeze you tight, and you can’t help but smile. I felt as though I was starving for physical affection. I honestly don’t know what is worse: only being able to see friends and family over Zoom or being able to see friends and family in person but not being allowed to touch. I was starting to lose my mind. Winter 2020 I naively thought that the holiday season would magically fix everything. (At least that’s what movies have taught me!) But sadly, reality doesn’t subscribe to the Hallmark Channel. My family is in New York and Mississippi, so we couldn’t travel to see them for Thanksgiving. My ex’s family is in western Massachusetts, but his stepmother is immunocompromised and his grandparents are in their 80s, so we couldn’t see them either. I tried my best to be thankful for our health and was determined to distract myself from the impending pit of despair growing in my stomach. So I cooked a Thanksgiving feast for two from scratch. He barely noticed. I doubled down in December and planned a special Christmas Eve dinner plus a Christmas morning breakfast. He complained that I was making too many heavy meals. It was around this time that I realized I had graduated from ‘eating my feelings’ to ‘cooking my emotions.’ With a severe lack of human connection, I was trying desperately to connect with the one person I had been quarantined with for the last nine months. And somehow, after all this time and all my efforts, he still didn’t see me. You know when little kids start jumping around yelling, “Hey! Look at me! Did you see that?! Watch me! Did you see me?!” Only to get the halfhearted response of, “That’s nice, sweetie.” It felt like that. I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have my friends or family, I didn’t have performing, and now my relationship felt like it was slipping away. I felt like I was slipping away. I had spent the last five years in Boston building a life I was proud of, and then it was gone. I was drowning in the ocean and no one saw me. I was clinging to my relationship like a life preserver, and I didn’t realize that we were leaking air. 2021 We dragged ourselves to the new year, determined that 2021 would be a new start. We went all out for Valentine’s Day, with a fancy takeout dinner and a romantic Paint Nite at home. Everything seemed fine. It wasn’t. The breaking point was appropriately, a fight over a Covid test. My ex had been working from home for the better part of the last year, but he went to the office once a week for a staff meeting. And he had mentioned in passing that his boss wasn’t always great about masking up in the office. So when my ex told me that his boss had tested positive for Covid, I immediately panicked. “Are you going to get a Covid test?” “Nah.” Needless to say, this was not the response I was expecting and we ended up arguing in the car to the point where (for the first and only time in two years) he yelled at me, “EMMY. STOP.” I found his cavalier attitude to be irresponsible. He thought I was overreacting. It was the Dominican Republic all over again. Only now, it was a year later and I wasn’t hemming and hawing anymore. He refused to get a Covid test, so I got one. I tested negative. Naturally, he took this as confirmation that I had been worrying needlessly. For me, it was the eye-opener that I needed. Was I worrying? Yes. Was it needless? Absolutely not. I would rather overreact and have a negative Covid test than play Russian Roulette with my health and the health of those around me. And he couldn’t be bothered to consider my well-being. He couldn’t be bothered to consider me. A week later, I was moving back into my apartment. We didn’t call it a breakup at first. We were “taking some time” apart. That didn’t last long. I changed my Facebook status back to ‘Single’ and ordered a ridiculously large ice cream sundae to be delivered to my doorstep. I let go of the life preserver. And I remembered that I could swim. Looking Forward It was a bumpy start, but I’ve slowly been putting my life back together. I started piecing together some part-time jobs and stopped collecting unemployment. Winter melted away and I invited friends over to sit on my porch for a chat and a homemade cookie. In May I was finally vaccinated. I celebrated with 24 hours of side effects and pastrami from Katz’s Deli. (Thanks, Goldbelly!) Two weeks later, I took a train to NYC to see my parents. I hadn’t seen them in almost two years, and I hadn’t hugged anyone other than my ex in 14 months. Needless to say, there were tears. I met up with some friends for dinner and we were all giddily awkward at how to navigate the new Covid era social cues. “Can I hug you?” “Do you know how to scan this QR code?” “Should I put my mask back on while we order?” I was scared, unsure, a little insecure with my pandemic pounds (damn my baking!) but I felt giddy. I felt like me again. I felt seen. All those months I thought that my ex was the life preserver keeping my head above water. But in retrospect, he was an anchor pulling me down. I was keeping my own head above water. As we begin another fall, the future isn’t clear. Many people are vaccinated, but many still aren’t. Masks are encouraged, but not always mandated. There’s caution, but is it enough? All we can do is channel our inner Dory. Just keep swimming. Emmy Serviss is a Boston-based writer, actor and video editor. Once it is safe to return to live theater, you can find her performing with ComedySportz Boston and the sketch group SUZZY. When not on the stage, Emmy enjoys indulging in her new pandemic hobbies, laughing way too loudly and counting the days until Halloween.