A.N

Dear Captain Awkward,

I regret getting married. It seemed like a good idea at the time–about two years ago now. My husband (29yo he/him) and I (26yo they/them, but he sees me as a woman) are an opposites-attract type of couple. At first I felt like he was a good influence on me–he’s more outgoing, more spontaneous, more playful, more relaxed. He’s a good catch–hardworking, stably employed, loyal and caring, the works. He continues to be as loving and attached as he’s always been. But in the last six months, our differences in values and interests are getting to be too much for me. I’m not attracted to him any more and I feel like I’m lying when I say “I love you, too.” There was a point at which I wanted to be attracted to him again, and I tried the nurture that. But now I’m at a point where if I ask myself what it would take to make this marriage work, the only things I can come up with are “companionate, non-sexual, open marriage” which is basically just roommates with tax benefits. I fantasize about living alone.

Is this just the beginning of the end? If he were only my boyfriend I’d break up with him, but we own a house and have partly joined finances. Is there a point in going to couples’ counseling? Do I kon-mari this relationship that no longer brings me joy? He knows I’ve been generally unhappy lately, but how do I tell him that I’m this unhappy in our marriage and not just unhappy in general? I can’t imagine waiting this out more than a few more months.

Cheers, and thank you,
P.

Dear P.,

It’s not entirely clear whether your husband knowingly misgenders you or whether you’ve never felt comfortable revealing your actual gender to him, either way, nothing bodes well about this! It sounds like you’re done with being married, so what happens if you assume that it’s not a question of whether you’ll end the marriage, but when?

I recommend that you take at least a few days to yourself to think through the process of ending the marriage, such as:  researching how legal separation and divorce work where you live, consulting an attorney, thinking through how to best disentangle your finances and housing so that everybody is in the most stable possible position, and planning out your own next steps. Part feelings, part logistics, think about questions like: How can you be kind and gentle to your husband and to yourself on your way out of this relationship? How would you want him to treat you if your positions were reversed? You fantasize about living alone, so what are the actual steps for getting there? What kind of support from friends and family would help you land on your feet? Do you know where all your important paperwork lives? In a perfect world, what should happen to all your stuff? Are there safety concerns, where a resource like loveisrespect.org could help you make a safety plan?

If there’s a supportive friend you can stay with or a place you can go to get privacy and space as you think this through, that will help. Having the beginnings of a plan in mind for how to do the thing you need to do is a good way to get your courage up to actually do it.

Then, when it’s time, tell your husband what’s up.There is no good way to tell someone news that they definitely do not want to hear that will magically prevent them from feeling hurt, so I suggest keeping it short and straightforward: “I’m so sorry, but I don’t want to be married anymore and have started investigating the best way to dissolve our partnership.”  

He’s probably going to ask why, which is a fair thing to do, and you may be tempted to start listing reasons he’s not right for you in an attempt to build an airtight case that will make him understand and eventually agree with you. Can I suggest not necessarily doing that? Sometimes the reasons are glaring (“You keep purposely misgendering me even though you know I’m not a woman”) but not necessarily safe to say out loud, and sometimes everyone is doing the best they can and still “wanting to leave is enough.” “I’m so sorry, there’s no one reason or satisfying explanation, I just know that my feelings have changed and I would be happier if we separated.” “I’m so sorry, but you know I’ve been unhappy lately, and I know this isn’t going to work out between us.” “Since we’ve gotten married I am less happy with my life and I don’t think we’re as compatible as I once did.” 

In my opinion, couples’ counseling isn’t a great idea when one partner has already decided to leave the marriage. Why drag everyone through an expensive, wrenching pretense of fixing a relationship that one person already knows is unfixable? Some people who know their relationship is pretty much over try it anyway because they want to know (or demonstrate) that they tried every possible solution before walking away, and some people want a witness/referee for how bad things have gotten, or a divorce doula who can facilitate difficult conversations about parting ways, which, legit! But an individual counselor could help you make good decisions just as well, and one benefit of breaking up with someone is that it frees you from the obligation of “working on” the relationship together.

When the dust settles you’ll be one more human who made a loving, hopeful choice that didn’t work out quite like you planned. Your taxes will be weird next year. Somebody will have to buy someone else out of the house, or you’ll sell it and split the proceeds. Everyone will be sad, mad, or both for a while. There will be a gauntlet of people saying “Holy smokes, really? But you *just* got married!”  that you will both have to navigate, and you’ll have to find a bunch of ways to say “I know, this did not turn out how I planned, either! It’s sad, but I know this is the right choice for me.” These are not pleasant or easy prospects, but nothing here is insurmountable.

Between now and then, there will be many conversations with your now-husband as you hammer out logistics, but the one that communicates “I have decided to leave, plan accordingly” is the most crucial one. What does he need to know right now so that he can make good decisions for himself and so that you can start moving on with your life? Start there.

Like many of us, in a valiant attempt to maintain my mental health, I've spent much of the past year past year-and-a-half-twenty-twenty-garbage in a place of quiet self-reflection and contemplation. When so many things you held to be true and constant are suddenly proven to be false or shifting -- the inerrant goodness of humanity, the forward curve of justice, the strength of the global toilet paper supply chain, etc. -- it's important to try to stay grounded and focused on what hasn't changed, on what you can depend on. 

For me, in particular, it's the enduring and absolute marketing battshittery of the deodorant label. 

I mean, look at this thing. This is no mere tube of armpit goo. This is Degree® MOTIONsense® ULTRACLEAR BLACK + WHITE PURE CLEAN INVISIBLE SOLID antiperspirant.  Or more accurately:

Degree®

MOTIONsense®

ULTRACLEAR
BLACK + WHITE
PURE CLEAN
INVISIBLE SOLID
antiperspirant

This thing has not one, but TWO registered trademarks! It's got the balls to put the three most specifically descriptive words about the product at VERY BOTTOM, in VERY TEENY TINY TYPE! And it STILL needs to spill over to the lid space to assert that it is also ANTI YELLOW STAINS and ANTI WHITE MARKS!

And look! They put the yellow on the white side and the white on the black side of the sticker to masterfully reflect the specific fabric colors most at risk of these particular problems, but maybe -- just maybe -- it's because Degree® MOTIONsense® ULTRACLEAR BLACK + WHITE PURE CLEAN INVISIBLE SOLID antiperspirant is also ANTI RACIST. 

It's not BLACK and WHITE, after all. It's BLACK plus WHITE. It's the math of unity, because we're all in this together as sweaty gross humans. And it doesn't matter what color your skin is -- this shit's invisible anyway!

What always delights me about these labels-- can you imagine how many meetings went into this? How many takes on the sassy dresses and how many discussions re: Dress Boob Size and How Much Invisible Cleavage Should We Suggest some poor graphic designer had to sit through? I bet the ampersand vs. plus sign thing ALONE took three weeks and involved at least one weary lawyer explaining that no, we can register that as a trademark either way, please stop inviting me to these things -- is that I actually can't remember the last time I - the target demographic - personally purchased deodorant. (Sorry, "antiperspirant.") It's always the item I never think about until Jason texts me "hey at Target, anything we need?"

"deodorant," I text back, vaguely remembering that whatever I used that morning was officially running out and scrape-y. 

"ok what kind" Jason USED to text back, but now he finally knows me and my deodorant preferences, which are:

1) Whatever is on sale

2) No pink scents, only blue or green scents

And thus, Degree® MOTIONsense® ULTRACLEAR BLACK + WHITE PURE CLEAN INVISIBLE SOLID antiperspirant was selected because it was, in fact, on sale and its scent was visually expressed in an acceptable shade of blue: PURE CLEAN

(It turns out he's actually bought this exact deodorant for me before, back in 2017. The label was mostly the same except it was excitedly marked as NEW! Damn, I had a first edition and didn't even realize it! Probably because I was okay before, and that's...obviously questionable now.) 

I guess that's still a win for the Deodorant Marketing People: Years and years of color coding mean I (and more importantly, my long-suffering husband) can instinctively recognize that PINK = baby powder, or flowers, or flower-scented baby powder. Meanwhile, we all know that BLUE = scents like Pure Sport Air Clean Spring Water Mountain Fresh and GREEN = something cucumber-y, usually.

Why only the latter two are acceptable to me is probably rooted in adolescent insecurity, discomfort with my developing/changing body, and/or a desperate need to be Not Like Other Girls, I'm a Cool Girl, My Deodorant Suggests I Like Sports And Salads. 

(Zoom therapy sucks, BTW.)

Moving on. Let's see the back!

Aha! MOTIONsense®, explained! THE MORE YOU MOVE THE MORE IT PROTECTS.  I'm a bit disappointed they didn't manage to at least slap a © on this, but maybe they ate up too much production lead time on whether to make ULTRACLEAR one word or two, and Carol was going to shit a brick if she didn't get sign-off in time. This also seems a touch tone deaf, given how we just lived through a GODDAMN PANDEMIC and SOME of us didn't really do very much moving on a day-to-day basis. Here, have a free product pitch:

SENTIENTsense®: THE MORE YOU SIT ON THE COUCH AND CRY THE MORE IT WILL ATTEMPT TO MAKE YOU SMELL LIKE YOU SHOWERED RECENTLY

Active ingredient: literally the same fucking thing as every other tube on the next five or fix shelves, until you get to the small cluster of hippy shit at the end of the aisle

Uses: reduces underarm wetness

And there is it. The truth laid bare. All the extra promises of MOTIONsense® technology and pledges to stand up against the twin scourges of yellow stains and white marks and sassy party dresses suggesting an improved social life -- nay, this is but a humble tube of armpit goo, after all. 

(Just don't ever expect them to use the word "sweat." It's "underarm wetness" and it's different, because we are LADIES.)

Anyway, we are remodeling our bathroom and spent the weekend emptying out the closets and vanities and medicine cabinets. I came across a very old (and very expired) friend:

The Deodorant Wars usually ended with all the other deodorants kicking the shit out of poor Tom's of Maine, for reasons that seemed funny to me at the time. But now, 13 years -- THIRTEEN GODDAMN YEARS -- after my stir-crazy, work-at-home-mom-brain first procrastinated on cleaning a bathroom and decided to instead explore the rich inner lives of a bunch of deodorants, I suppose I've softened. The War is over,  Tom. You were indeed long lasting, even if Jason refused to even try you. Fare thee well.

(P.S. I also disposed of a lot of expired and alarmingly large Mexican ibuprofen from when I broke my elbow in the same trash bag. It's mixed up with some coffee grounds and natural pine kitty litter but maybe you guys could party.)

This post was NOT sponsored by Degree® MOTIONsense® ULTRACLEAR BLACK + WHITE PURE CLEAN INVISIBLE SOLID antiperspirant, which is good because it's actually pretty meh and I should probably tell Jason not to buy it again. It absolutely left yellow pit stains on one my white t-shirts, but I'd already spilled red wine on it so no big loss. 

Nicole Lawson spent the beginning of the pandemic incredibly worried about her daughter, who has asthma. Five-year-old Scarlett’s asthma attacks were already landing her in the ER or urgent care every few months. Now a scary new virus was spreading. Respiratory viruses are known triggers of asthma attacks, and doctors also feared at the time that asthma itself could lead to more severe coronavirus infections. So Lawson’s family in Ohio hunkered down quickly and masked up often to keep Scarlett healthy.

The ensuing months, to everyone’s surprise, turned into “this beautiful year,” Lawson told me. Scarlett hasn’t had a single asthma attack. Not a single visit to the ER. Nothing. She’s breathing so much better, and all it took was a global pandemic that completely upended normal life.

All around the country, doctors have spent the pandemic wondering why their patients with asthma were suddenly doing so well. Asthma attacks have plummeted. Pediatric ICUs have sat strangely empty. “We braced ourselves for significant problems for the millions of people living with asthma,” says David Stukus, Scarlett’s doctor at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. “It was the complete opposite. It’s amazing.” (Fears about people with asthma getting more severe COVID-19 infections haven’t been borne out either.) Studies in other countries, including England, Scotland, and South Korea, also found big drops in hospital and doctor’s-office visits for asthma attacks.

The massive global experiment that is the pandemic is now leading doctors to rethink some long-held assumptions about the disease. Asthma is a chronic condition that occasionally flares up, leading to 3,500 deaths and 1.6 million emergency-room visits a year in the United States. These acute attacks can be triggered by a number of environmental factors: viruses, pollen, mold, dust mites, rodents, cockroaches, pet dander, smoke, air pollution, etc. Doctors have often scrutinized allergens that patients can control at home, such as pests and secondhand smoke. But patients have stayed at home for a year and suffered dramatically fewer asthma attacks—suggesting bigger roles for other triggers, especially routine cold and flu viruses, which nearly vanished this year with social distancing and masks.

With life in the U.S. snapping back to normal, asthma doctors and patients are facing another new reality. Masks are going away; schools will be reopening in the fall. The pandemic unexpectedly reduced asthma attacks, and now doctors and patients have to navigate between what they know is possible in extraordinary conditions and what is practical in more ordinary ones.

The most compelling evidence that asthma attacks truly did go down during the pandemic exists because of a stroke of good luck. Back in 2018, Elliot Israel, a pulmonologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, began asking Black and Hispanic or Latino adults with asthma to track their attacks at home for a study called PREPARE. (These groups have disproportionate rates of severe asthma, compared with white patients.) Israel intended to compare two different ways of using long-term asthma medication, such as inhaled steroids. His team enrolled its last participant—patient No. 1,201—in March 2020. The COVID-19 shutdowns began a week later.

“We were very lucky,” Israel told me. Because of the study’s timing, his team had plenty of data from before the pandemic. And because the participants were filling out monthly questionnaires from home, the shutdowns did not affect the data collection.

Meanwhile, Israel, like his colleagues across the country, was noticing an eerie lack of non-coronavirus patients. Hospital visits for heart attacks and strokes were also dropping during the pandemic. Were asthma patients just avoiding the hospital because they were afraid of catching the virus? “That was the initial thought: What if these people are suffering at home?” says Justin Salciccioli, a pulmonologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a co-author with Israel on the resulting paper about asthma attacks during the pandemic.

The answer became clear as the monthly questionnaires started rolling in. The number of attacks the participants suffered at home really was dropping. It fell by 40 percent after the onset of the pandemic. “We know that this isn’t reluctance to go to the emergency room,” Israel said. “This is a true, real decrease.”

In that case, why? Israel and his team didn’t see a clear pattern connected to changes in air pollution. People who normally worked outside the home, however, had bigger decreases in asthma attacks than those who worked at home (65 percent compared with 23 percent), perhaps because they were no longer being exposed to viruses and irritants at work. And people whose type of asthma is driven by environmental triggers also saw bigger improvements than those whose asthma is driven more by underlying inflammation. All of this suggests that people really were able to avoid triggers during the pandemic.

Ordinary respiratory viruses may play a bigger role in asthma attacks than previously thought, Israel said. People with asthma, like everyone else who masked up and practiced social distancing, were this year exposed to many fewer viruses known to trigger flare-ups. Even asymptomatic infections that normally go unnoticed might cause an asthma attack in someone whose airways are especially sensitive. “That extra irritation, that extra inflammation, pushes them over the edge,” Israel said.

Asthma experts I spoke with all agreed that reduced viral exposure likely played a part in the drop, but the pandemic changed so many things at once that other factors are hard to rule out. Staying at home might have made it easier for people to keep up with their regular long-term asthma medication. They were also no longer exposed to potential triggers at work or school, such as diesel from school buses or chemicals in cleaning products. Asthma can be very individual, with exact triggers varying from person to person. But the overall picture is impossible to ignore: The sweeping changes to our social lives during the pandemic made asthma a lot easier to control.

If viruses indeed play a bigger factor in asthma attacks than initially thought, doctors might have been mistakenly fixating on other factors. “We’ve forever talked about the environmental contribution to asthma. There are pollutants and irritants and allergens inside the home,” says Stukus, who is also a member of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America’s Medical Scientific Council. If these factors really were so important, though, asthma attacks should have gone up, not down, during the pandemic.

It’s long been routine for doctors to question parents of kids with asthma about dust mites or cockroaches or smoking in the home, says Christopher Carroll, a pediatric-critical-care doctor at Connecticut Children’s. He’s asked these questions himself. But, he says, “the unstated implication when you’re asking about triggers like that is that those are causes of your child’s asthma.” This has the effect of blaming patients or parents of patients, when factors outside the home might actually play a bigger role. “We have this paternalistic attitude in medicine,” adds Janine Zee-Cheng, a pediatrician in Indiana. “You’re noncompliant with your medicines. Or you’re not monitoring your kid’s meds. Or you’re smoking indoors.” It’s “doctor knows best”—but the pandemic has exposed how much doctors did not know.

Rethinking the role of viruses in asthma attacks is a bit more complicated in practice. COVID-19 precautions tamped down every other respiratory virus, but those precautions won’t last forever. Cases of respiratory syncytial virus, one cause of the common cold, have already spiked. Carroll expects that he will keep wearing a mask in hospitals, but masks are coming off everywhere else. More and more now, wearing one means sticking out. And unfortunately, the health benefits of a face mask have also been overwhelmed by its potency as a political symbol.

This is what worries Lawson, as Scarlett goes off with her friends and begins pre-K in the fall. She can’t keep Scarlett cocooned forever. Her daughter will be exposed to viruses. “I would be lying if I said it didn’t make me anxious,” Lawson said. Masking up in the winter seems like a no-brainer, but she can already imagine the judgment her family might face. This choice isn’t about politics, though. It’s about Scarlett’s asthma. Lawson remembers the two Thanksgivings in a row when Scarlett got so sick, she had to be hospitalized. It didn’t happen this past Thanksgiving, and she hopes it never happens again.

Note: Spoilers for Mare of Easttown and also The Holiday

Here’s an important and (as far as I can yet tell) unaddressed question for Mare of Easttown criticism: when, exactly, did Mare Sheehan stop dying her hair blond?

This question may seem trivial compared to more pressing Mare of Easttown questions, such as “was that ending good?” and “is this copaganda?” However, don’t worry: all these are the same question. In Mare of Easttown, police try to rescue white women from sexual harm; the show narrates the fantasy, entertained by many, that protecting white women is what the police do (whether it indulges or interrogates that fantasy is precisely the question). So to think about Mare of Easttown means to think about how Mare, a police detective, relates to her own white womanhood, of which blond hair is one of mass culture’s most powerful symbols. I called this essay Mare’s Hair but when a friend suggested I call it “Discipline and Pony Tail,” I felt very seen, and also right.

I have consulted with several friends and we all agree that Mare’s roots index a year or two of neglect, max. What happened? The major trauma we’re given is Kevin’s suicide, but I think, based on the hair-studies evidence of Siobhan’s standard-issue-white-girl-bob in the death-scene flashback, that Kevin’s death predates Mare’s last visit to a salon (it doesn’t take long to physically cut your hair, but moving from bob to lesbian asymmetrical undercut is often a lengthy personal journey). So at some point in her grief, Mare went to a salon, I’m imagining with Lor, to get a touchup. Or maybe she went totally blond then. We just don’t know. It seems, from the photo in the Register (which features Mare’s face, not her famed basketball shot) that Mare was blond in high school (sun in?), so it could be that since then she’s either maintained or recreated that look; she’s pretty blond when Kevin and Carrie corner her in the bathroom. I think of Mare as someone not great about roots at the best of times — defining herself against her mom, who clearly gets her hair “rinsed” on the regular — but that just makes the blond more interesting. We could ask Brianna for her read on Mare’s hair, maybe; since Brianna’s post-crime back-up plan is to go to cosmetology school and do the hair of “rich main line women” and since she is mean, Brianna could likely generate some pointed observations about Mare’s grooming. White women are good at detecting the precise level of white womanhood other white women are achieving. That’s what I’m doing right now.

Based on available evidence, our known facts are only 1: at some point in Mare’s semi-recent past, she believed constructing a little white femininity would be a good idea, either as a balm or basic upkeep, but, 2: by January 10, 2020 (the day the show begins) she has not felt that way for a long time.

This is the narrative stasis in which Mare of Easttown begin: once upon a time there was a sad white lady detective who could neither take care of her own femininity (her roots) nor the town’s femininity (Katie Bailey). By the end of Mare of Easttown’s eight episodes, however, this crisis of identity has been resolved: Mare’s white femininity and her police power have reunited, which is what allows her to solve the crime (Katie Bailey), and also to solve the other crime (Erin McMenamin), and also to deal with her feelings about the death of her son. The opening hair crisis is the visual clue as to what path this story is on.

So here’s the next question: how does Mare get back the power of her white femininity? How does she, as it were, recover her roots? This mystery is easier to solve. Mare’s white femininity reactivates when a white man finds her beautiful. (This is how white women always get their cultural power, by white men validating their exchange-value as objects of white male attention.)

Further, the solution to Mare’s femininity crisis is the same as the answer to another question criticism has raised, which is what is Richard doing here?  I’ve seen some speculation around the internets that Richard must be involved in the murder somehow, because otherwise isn’t it just so convenient that he shows up right around Erin’s murder and leaves right when it’s solved? Yes, he’s involved: he just doesn’t actually murder anyone (yet; in this show, sexual harm remains a constant potential). Instead, Richard’s narrating eye changes the character that Mare plays within the story. No longer a failed detective, mother, and wife, she becomes “a beautiful woman.”

In one of the most resonant recent discussions of beauty, power, and whiteness, Tressie McMillan Cottom describes the functions beauty serves in our political economy. Beauty, she says, “can be political, economic, external, individualized, generalized, exclusionary.” She goes on: “and perhaps best of all a story that can be told.”

Cottom means “story” I think in the sense of “accepted cultural logic.” In Mare of Easttown that logic is literal, because an actual writer enters the plot. In the first episode, Mare, having been publicly shamed for failing to protect a white girl from sexual predators, meets a white male writer who tells her “you’re a very beautiful woman.” He’s not writing about Mare, but he’s story-fying her just the same: when he sees her as beautiful, she acquires beauty’s value as a tool she can use. And Mare’s no fool. So even though she knows about beauty’s dangers (and so do we, because this meeting appears intercut with scenes of Erin getting catfished: beauty, as Cottom says, is “not good capital”) Mare and Richard have sex. Mare styles her hair before their dates so that, in combination with date-night lighting, it signals “blond” rather than “not kept up blond”; she begins to use her attractiveness to sway the police (Colin) to her will; she ultimately she solves the cases. Yay!

Mare of Easttown withholds no evidence as to how white women’s beauty matters to police power. Mare, declared by the police chief to be “worth saving,” loses her badge and gun, but immediately uses her beauty to gain control over another police officer’s badge and gun; the transition is virtually seamless, though even Mare seems to find it a little embarrassing. Who will Mare’s date be with, the writer or the cop? Trick question; it’s because of the writer that she’s discovered her ability to date the cop; fucking one leads directly to her date with the other. The police are completely narratively enmeshed with the story Richard tells about Mare’s beautiful womanhood.

In this regard the answer to the question of “is this copaganda?” is yes, because an idealized symbiosis of white femininity and carceral power is basically the happy ending that American mass culture wants all of us to hope for. (That the chief of police is one of several framing Black characters only adds to the white carceral feminist fantasy, in that the show aggressively separates the police from white masculinity’s dangers.) But that “yes” comes with ambivalence, because this show is inside of white femininity deep enough to recognize white femininity, much like a police station, as a grim and dangerous place. But in a world where whiteness and carcerality have a lock on power — which, just saying, is not the only world we could imagine — that grim danger might feel, to the lucky some, the safest place available.

*

Mare of Easttown’s power as ambivalent copaganda hinges on a key feature of the Mare of Easttown viewing experience: watching Kate Winslet play Mare. Kate Winslet makes the relationship Mare embodies between white femininity and police power seductive, at least to me, in a very particular way.

Kate Winslet is a woman whom American culture has decided is a Beautiful Woman, although probably not as beautiful as other thinner women, like Cameron Diaz (again, here I’m not talking about personal preference, but rather cultural value and narrative power). And the thin point matters, although it’s gross, because there’s been so much policing of Winslet’s weight over the years (using that verb on purpose) that her body has become a location through which mass culture debates whether white women who do not look like Cameron Diaz can still have beauty-power, and to what degree.

I mention Cameron Diaz because the relation between what kind of access Kate and Cameron have to the white beauty story is literally the plot of one of twitter’s favorite movies, The Holiday. In The Holiday, Kate and Cameron swap lives to find love and the spirit of Christmas, experiences from which Cameron had sadly been estranged despite being fantastically beautiful and white. To help Cameron re-recognize the erotic and spiritual pleasures to be found in white beauty, the movie sends her to snowy England where she is costumed in a series of increasingly beautiful white coats (you know this is a gift of narrative because Cameron is from Los Angeles and brings only two suitcases). Kate, meanwhile, goes to Blockbuster with Jack Black to learn, from watching movies, that while she is hot, she is not hot enough to be loved by Rufas Sewall. At the movie’s ending, Kate and Cameron are both happy but the movie is really clear that Cameron’s is the beautiful-er love, which you know because the man who sees her beauty is the uber-white dude, Jude Law, not second-tier white dude Jack Black. All of this is very explicit in the final scene — there’s the thin rich blond couple and the rounder poorer darker couple, all in a conga line that Cameron leads — and thus beauty’s order has been restored. Noteworthy here is that while Kate Winslet is blond, all of The Holiday’s publicity material emphasizes that she is not as blond as Cameron.

It’s worth saying that the difference between Kate and Cameron is definitely a difference of degree rather than kind (here read Cottom pg 45-47), in that even debating the question of their comparative beauty just reinforces  a beauty standard shaped around how racial capitalism values whiteness. Images of “beautiful women” always protect and serve dangerous fantasies.

But even so, if Cameron Diaz (who by all accounts is a really great person, this is just her image) had been cast in the role of Mare Sheehan and gained a bunch of weight to look like she ate Mare’s pizza-and-cheesesteak diet, and also if she had done some complicated dyed-out-blond-hair-thing, this would be a very different show, because the meaning of her weight and her hair would include a particular meta-textual wink to the audience, of the kind I normally hate. When someone’s beauty fuels their rise to prominence, I don’t want to be coerced into any celebration of their oh-so-brave willingness to temporarily suspend the privilege of their physical capital. I would not like it if Cameron Diaz were playing Mare. The effect of watching Cameron-Mare would partly be to tell watching white women that an inner Cameron Diaz waits inside them, if they just got their shit together.

But I’m not 100% sure that’s what’s happening here. On the question of how Mare’s appearance relates to Kate Winslet’s, my group texts are unresolved, and not for lack of considering. Did Kate Winslet gain weight for this role? Does she normally eat pizza? How much? The question we’re asking is: does looking “real,” like a middle-aged white woman who is stretched thin in a way that makes her gain weight, fit within the economy of “beauty,” or is it a sign that beauty has been cast away? When Kate Winslet looks sort of like us (as in, not in her particulars but in the fact that she is inhabiting the femininity available to middle-aged white women who don’t have a lot economic resources to invest in the preservation of their physical capital), does that mean that we could be the ones looked at by the writer in the bar, that we could be seen as beautiful?

What all this has to do with copaganda is that, by casting Kate, Mare of Easttown is making a particular offer to viewers like me: white women who have matured (Kate Winslet is exactly my age) watching Kate Winslet navigate the disciplining power of the American beauty economy. It is a particular offer about our abilities, ourselves, to seize police power to do our bidding. Kate Winslet is not Cameron Diaz, just like I am not. So maybe I could be her, no matter the status of my disciplinary body shit. Maybe I could be beautiful, maybe I could be worth saving. Maybe I could be the special version of copaganda this show offers, which is where the gap in power between police and white women collapses, and one woman, Mare, or me, holds the weapons of both. Maybe, just as Kate is, I could be the one who could keep the other white women safe.

*

To get back to my original question: I think that Mare stopped dying her hair about a year before the show starts, after Katie Bailey disappeared. I think Katie’s disappearance precipitated a break between Mare’s detective self and her white femininity self, a devastating one, one that suspended her ability to believe in the fantasy the show offers its viewers like me — that the police (which Mare is) could protect white women (which she also is) from harm. I’m imagining Mare, increasingly disenchanted, staying late at the office, following leads with Dawn. I’m imagining her delaying, and then finally cancelling, her salon appointments. And I’m imagining, in this show’s aftermath, Mare getting her hair done again. It’s a part of the emotional feminine integration the end of this show represents.

A lot of things happen at the end of Mare of Easttown. Katie Bailey is rescued; she goes home. Ryan is arrested; he goes to juvenile detention. Carrie relapses; she goes to rehab. Siobhan gets out; she goes to Berkeley. And Mare faces what she’d been afraid of. She goes into the attic.

As someone who has read a lot of gothic novels, almost all of which have the goal of getting women (like Katie Bailey) out of the attic, I found the final shots of Mare climbing the attic ladder surprising. Even though I knew Mare was going into the attic to let the ghosts trapped there come home, it was a mixed genre clue, like the show hadn’t quite settled on what counted as escape and what was a trapped place. Is the attic more like Berkeley, or more like rehab, or like jail? What’s the difference between these institutions, or the stories they produce?

I want to juxtapose this mixed-signals moment with another one that’s been troubling me. The last time we see Ryan, he’s in juvenile detention, but he talks with his mother and family in a library. Detention isn’t so bad, Ryan implies. He likes his writing class. And I keep turning over in my mind what it means that, just as the writer Richard leaves, we see another white male writer being trained up. Will this man, too — this sweet boy, this murderer — turn his eye towards narrativizing white feminine beauty? The circuit between Richard and Ryan is offered to us visually, on the cover of Richard’s book.

Mare of Easttown seems, at its end, to be heading into its own attic. Its ambivalent relationship to the story of police and white femininity it tells manifests in how it offers up the future — as a choice between two kinds of storytelling. There’s the male one Ryan will produce, one connected to Richard’s novel, apparently called May’s Landing, which looks to me a lot like the kind of prestige women-suffering fiction that Mare of Easttown also is. Against that, it offers the one Siobhan will produce, somewhere off-stage. When Siobhan drives away, this is one white woman, the show wants us to believe, who has truly been protected by her mother, the police. She’s been guided into a different story, to learn how to tell a different story.

But what I like about the ending is how, probably against the show’s own intentions, Siobhan’s car driving away seems just like her mother’s ladder, another genre trap. Mare of Easttown is copaganda but it’s smart enough to show its careful viewer that white femininity is always a serial story, a repeat offender. No white woman rescued by the police, not even Mare, not even one who cuts her hair, can really get away.

Sarah Mesle: A little judgy.

This comic is about a lot of things, but mostly it is about butts.

If you’re a fan of single serving desserts like I am, I think you’re going to love this cute little Funfetti Mug Cake. In classic mug cake fashion, this perfectly sized dessert takes only a few minutes to mix together and about 60 seconds to cook. It’s the perfect quick fix for those times when you want just a little something sweet. Plus it’s just cute and cute food makes me smile.

What is Funfetti, Anyway?

Funfetti cake is basically just vanilla cake with rainbow sprinkles. The sprinkles kind of look like confetti, and so it is sometimes called “confetti cake,” but somewhere along the line someone coined the term funfetti (fun + confetti) because, let’s just face it, sprinkles are FUN. And I guess that name stuck! Now you can find “funfetti” everything, from frosting to cake mixes, cookies, and more.

Frosting Options

The recipe below is just for the cake part of the funfetti mug cake. There are a lot of options for the topping, so I wanted to leave that part up to you.

Whipped Cream – It’s really difficult to make just a couple of tablespoons of frosting at once, so I found whipped cream to be the most reasonable option for topping this mug cake. You will want to let the cake cool a bit before adding whipped cream, or else the whipped cream will melt.

Buttercream – You can kind of create a make-shift buttercream frosting by mixing 2 Tbsp room temperature butter, ¼ cup powdered sugar, 1 tsp milk, and ⅛ tsp vanilla. You’ll want to use a fork to vigorously “whip” the ingredients together until they get sort of aerated. Since it’s such a small amount, it’s tricky and doesn’t turn out quite as well as a normal-sized batch of frosting where you’d use a mixer to whip air into the frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting – Similar to the buttercream frosting above, you can mix together 1 oz. room temperature cream cheese, 1 Tbsp room temperature butter, 1 tsp milk, ⅓ cup powdered sugar, and ⅛ tsp vanilla. Again, you’ll want to try to “whip” it as best you can with a fork until slightly aerated.

Ice Cream – OR you could just go all out and top your mug cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Honestly, that actually sounds like the best choice. ;)

Can I Make This Funfetti Mug Cake Vegan?

Yes, this mug cake should be pretty easy to make vegan. You can use any type of dairy milk alternative in place of the whole milk listed in the recipe, and simply substitute a store-bought vegan butter in place of the dairy butter. It’s also a good idea to check the ingredients on your sprinkles just to make sure those are vegan as well.

What Size Mug to Use

I’m used a small 8oz. mug for my funfetti mug cake and it completely filled the mug and even domed out over the top. I would suggest using a mug anywhere in the 8-12oz. size range for this mug cake.

Funfetti Mug Cake

This super cute Funfetti Mug Cake is the perfect single-serving dessert for when you need something sweet and fast!

Total Cost $0.41 each

Prep Time 4 minutes

Cook Time 1 minute

Total Time 5 minutes

Servings 1

Calories 313kcal

Author Beth – Budget Bytes

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour $0.03
• 1 Tbsp sugar $0.02
• 1/4 tsp baking powder $0.02
• 1 tsp rainbow sprinkles $0.10
• 3 Tbsp milk $0.08
• 1 Tbsp butter (melted) $0.09
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract $0.07

Instructions

• Add the flour, sugar, baking powder, and sprinkles to a microwave safe mug (8oz. or larger). Stir until everything is well combined.
• Add the milk, melted butter, and vanilla extract to the mug. Stir until a soft batter forms, making sure to scrape all the flour out of the corners of the mug.
• Microwave the mug cake for about 60 seconds, or until it has puffed to about 2-3 times the volume. Cook time will vary with the wattage of your microwave (I used a 1000 watt microwave and 60-70 seconds was perfect).
• Allow the mug cake to cool for a few minutes and then top with your preferred frosting option, or enjoy unfrosted.

Video

Nutrition

Serving: 1mug cake | Calories: 313kcal | Carbohydrates: 43g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 13g | Sodium: 226mg | Fiber: 1g

How to Make A Funfetti Mug Cake – Step by Step Photos

First, combine the dry ingredients. Add ¼ cup all-purpose flour, 1 Tbsp sugar, ½ tsp baking powder, and 1 tsp rainbow sprinkles to a mug (8oz. or larger). Stir until everything is really well combined.

Next, add 3 Tbsp milk, 1 Tbsp melted butter, and ¼ tsp vanilla extract.

Stir everything together until it forms a soft batter. Make sure to scrape all the dry flour out of the bottom corners of the mug.

Microwave the mug cake for about 60 seconds, depending on your microwave wattage (I’m using a 1000 watt microwave). The mug cake should puff up to about 2-3 times the volume of the uncooked batter.

Either eat the mug cake as-is or let it cool a few minutes then top with your favorite icing. Whipped cream is an easy option, but a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top would also be sublime. I’ve also listed a couple of options for making small-batch frosting in the blog post above the recipe.

The post Funfetti Mug Cake appeared first on Budget Bytes.

I might quite possibly Stephen Doyle‘s biggest fan. His paper sculptures make my heart explode.

When typed out in full, the chilling speech that Britney Spears gave to a Los Angeles judge yesterday afternoon comes to more than 4,500 words. Those words are now circulating online as quotations about how Spears lived in “denial” about the legal and medical arrangement that has given other people control over her life for 13 years. She says this “abusive” conservatorship forced her to take debilitating medications, smothered her daily life, and forbade her from marrying and getting pregnant. She now wants freedom.

To really understand what happened yesterday, though, you should watch a few minutes of video footage from outside the courtroom. You’ll see throngs of fans dressed in princess pink, rapt and crying as Spears’s speech crackled through a loudspeaker. You’ll hear a voice familiar to a huge swath of humankind—an upbeat squeak that over decades has been branded as the essence of girlishness, innocence, and even obliviousness. We’re used to that voice, but we’re not used to it doing this: desperately telling a story of survival and captivity, and pleading to be seen as the autonomous human being whom so much of the public has, thanks to the distorting logic of fame, never fully recognized.

Spears does not deny that she needs medical care: In one of the afternoon’s few moments of levity, she laughed as she said, “I actually know I do need a little therapy.” But the conservatorship, she argued, is driven by profit rather than concerns for her safety. Her father kept pushing her to perform when really, she said, “All I want is to own my money, for this to end, and my boyfriend to drive me in his fucking car.” The sad irony is that to try to attain the sort of privacy and quietude that most people take for granted, Spears had to give one of the most vulnerable public performances in celebrity history.

Spears’s predicament began decades ago, when she upended the serene, stage-managed image projected by her 1998 hit “… Baby One More Time.” In the early 2000s, she acted like many other 20-year-olds do: having rocky relationships, partying a lot, ignoring decorum. But she did those things in public and with young children, and the media harassed her relentlessly, further destabilizing her life. In 2008, amid a stressful battle with her ex-husband over custody of her two sons, authorities committed her to a temporary psychiatric hold twice over the course of one month. Her father then petitioned a judge to establish a conservatorship, which confers control of her life and finances to a third party. It still exists today.

[Read: Why were we so cruel to Britney Spears?]

Conservatorships typically help manage the affairs of the severely incapacitated—people with dementia or traumatic brain injuries, for example. Spears’s medical situation is not known, but as she seemed fit to continue performing and recording after 2008, fans wondered what merited her continued lack of autonomy. Any theorizing had to be couched, though, within the context that the conservatorship was “voluntary,” according to Spears’s court-appointed lawyer. Her smiley, kooky Instagram feed seemed curated to radiate a sense of contentment from her California mansion.

Starting in 2019, signs began to emerge—in court and in the media—that Spears was unhappy with the conservatorship and wanted her dad to exit it. But the full scope of her feelings remained mysterious, until this week. On Tuesday, The New York Times published a report saying that Spears had balked at the conservatorship several times over the years but had not been able to secure her legal freedom. The Times also laid out her boggling financial situation. Spears herself had to foot all conservatorship-related legal bills, covering the costs of both her own advocate and the lawyers who argued against her freedom. Her father, Jamie, took in a $16,000 monthly salary for managing her life—plus $2,000 a month for office rent, and royalties from performances he arranged for her. Meanwhile, Spears said her weekly allowance was $2,000.

Yesterday finally dispelled all mystery about how Spears feels about the conservatorship. “The people who did that to me should not be able to walk away so easily,” she said toward the beginning of her remarks. She went on to describe being intimidated into working when she didn’t want to, being put on lithium that she didn’t want to take, and being sent to a rehab facility that she found to be grueling and humiliating. She spared few details about the frequency and context of her visitations with therapists and doctors. Bafflingly (and damningly for her lawyer, Samuel Ingham III), she said she had been unaware that she could petition for the conservatorship to end. Throughout her speech, a clear narrative and message came through: She felt she’d been exploited, and she wanted it to stop.

Spears’s words amounted to confession, condemnation, and testimony—but crucially, they were also a spectacle. Many of Spears’s conservatorship hearings have been sealed from public view, but the star’s lawyer has successfully advocated for the shroud of secrecy to be lifted. It is now clear why: Denied personal autonomy, Spears must have realized that the best leverage she has is her own voice and her own fame. At one point during the hearing, she asked the judge to approve her giving an interview to the media, then she revised the statement and said that she realized her testimony in the hearing would fulfill that purpose. “I have the right to use my voice,” she said. “It’s not fair they’re telling … lies about me openly … My own family doing interviews, and talking about the situation and making me feel so stupid. And I can’t say one thing.”

That silence about her personal situation over the past 13 years seemed to fit with the inscrutably happy persona that Spears’s camp—if not, as is now clear, Spears herself—has long tried to sell. But music history is littered with examples of personas tormenting the people behind them, and Spears has made clear just how concrete a toll such torment can take. “I’ve lied and told the whole world ‘I’m okay, and I’m happy,’” she said. “I thought … maybe if I said that enough, maybe I might become happy, because I’ve been in denial. I’ve been in shock. I am traumatized. You know, fake it ’til you make it. But now I’m telling you the truth, okay? I’m not happy. I can’t sleep. I’m so angry, it’s insane. And I’m depressed. I cry every day.”

After Spears finished her remarks, the lawyer of one of her current co-conservators told the judge that she has a “different perspective” on the issues Spears raised, and also worried about the star’s privacy. Jamie Spears’s lawyer read a statement saying that Britney’s father, who has always maintained that the conservatorship is for her well-being, is “sorry to see his daughter suffering and in so much pain.” Outside the courtroom, fans were bawling and yelling; across the internet, a sense of outrage was welling up. Spears’s medical needs may or may not require constant care, and her family and associates may or may not be guilty of all the things she accused them of. Yet it’s hard to imagine going back to the hush-hush paradigm that Spears has said enabled her subjugation, now that there is no doubt what Spears herself wants. She has long been one of the most watched people on Earth, but it’s different to be heard.

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it…It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.”
– Mary Oliver

The creators of Kevin Can F**k Himself have yet to go on the record about this, but they’re clearly tired of lopsided sitcom marriages. The series, with its pointed title, seems to be a roast of shows starring the comedian Kevin James over the years, such as The King of Queens; notably, his characters’ spouses didn’t have lives of their own outside of doting on him. (One even got unceremoniously written out off-screen between the first and second seasons.) Kevin’s protagonist, Allison (played by Annie Murphy of Schitt’s Creek), takes after those long-suffering wives: She flits along the edges of the frame, ever dutiful and understanding of her husband, Kevin (Eric Petersen), in spite of his childish antics and myriad jokes at her expense.  

Unlike actual sitcoms, however, Kevin explores her inner life—in an inventive way. The show presents any scene involving Kevin as a sitcom, and anything without him as a drama. When Allison’s in the room with him, a laugh track punctuates his every line, and the studio lighting is as blinding as the smile she plasters on her face. When she slips away, the sitcom setup disappears. It’s as if the supposed happiness of her marriage is an illusion.

Kevin, which is airing Sundays on AMC and streaming on AMC+, is the latest in a trio of recent series to center on a character who is aware of their own performance, and whose world toys with familiar pop-culture language as a result. Disney+’s WandaVision, which began airing in January, followed the Marvel superhero Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) as she transformed a small town into an evolving sitcom set. Inspired by her favorite comfort watches from childhood, she plays an unflappable housewife to avoid dealing with her grief. Apple TV+’s Physical, which debuted its first three episodes Friday, follows Sheila (Rose Byrne), a woman whose obsession with aerobics makes her fantasize about becoming an exercise-tape star. In her mind, she leads routines in a satin leotard amid neon lighting. These television shows follow women who are mimicking pop-culture representations of women—and explore how such images can limit their roles in real life.  

[Read: The deep sadness of Marvel’s ‘WandaVision’]

Of these series, Kevin is the most surreal, and therefore the most intriguing. If WandaVision teased from the start that its protagonist’s powers were somehow creating the sitcom pastiche, Kevin refuses to explain its internal logic. Is the sitcom a scenario Allison is envisioning to help her grin and bear her buffoon of a husband? Is it Kevin’s imagination pouring into hers? Is this a Truman Show–like situation, where she is being filmed and televised? The lack of answers contributes a sinister tone: Kevin isn’t a show about the making of a show, à la 30 Rock or BoJack Horseman, but there is enough of a production at work—the laugh track, the camera movement, the lighting—that the characters’ dismissal of this artificial world feels off. The show suggests that this device, this way of thinking and seeing Kevin and Allison’s marriage, has been ongoing for so long that the charade has become second nature for all involved.

Yet more disturbing is how Allison, despite being able to toggle out of sitcom mode when Kevin isn’t there, includes him when she fantasizes about a better life for herself. In early dream sequences—yes, the show also has dream sequences, on top of the sitcom and the real-world scenarios—she pictures herself dolled up like a ’50s housewife, pouring a drink for Kevin in a pristine kitchen. The image comes straight out of Leave It to Beaver, with Allison as a Technicolor version of June Cleaver. Kevin also hints that Allison has absorbed this image from the world around her; she’s never known a different dynamic for a marriage, for a wife—perhaps because she’s never seen any other kind.

At first glance, Physical is nothing like Kevin or WandaVision. The show doesn’t shift genres, nor does it include a laugh track or homages to other shows. It’s also set in the late ’80s. But as Physical unfolds, the shared DNA becomes apparent; Sheila is also a housewife, adept at playing the dutiful spouse to her Kevin, a philandering husband named Danny (Rory Scovel), who launches a local-election campaign. Her fantasy is informed, too, by what she watches—in this case, aerobics. And though the show doesn’t use sitcoms as a device, it does grant Sheila a stage in her mind: While in class, she imagines a spotlight picking her out from the crowd; at home, she practices routines by watching her reflection on her microwave door; and in bed, she has elaborate dreams of leading her own tapes, one of which includes half a dozen Sheilas dancing in unison.

[Read: The fitness craze that changed the way women exercise]

The show also offers a voice-over as intrusive as a laugh track. Like the offscreen audience’s guffaws that underline Kevin’s jokes about Allison, Sheila is constantly putting herself down in her head. The toll of self-judgment is steep, manifesting as an eating disorder; whenever she’s feeling overwhelmed, she binge-eats burgers at a motel, and purges before showering and heading home. Aerobics, with all its choreographed punches and kicks, becomes a cathartic replacement—another way to quell her judgmental inner voice.

But as much as Sheila sees aerobics as a solution, it only furthers her downward spiral. She lies to Danny and pilfers from their savings account. She steals a video camera from a wealthy friend’s home. And the pressure to be fit only makes her more self-destructive; indeed, the show can often be a harsh and unpleasant watch when Sheila’s unable to see past her preoccupation with perfection. As with Allison and Wanda, her everyday life is so stifling that Sheila becomes fixated on a different version of herself, on an image she’d been taught conveys control: a skinny, peppy aerobics star who can gyrate to the beat. But she’s still chasing a version of herself that fails to solve her problems. All of them are.

It’s no coincidence that these three shows—shows about performing roles and riffing on well-known visual languages—are about female characters. Watched back-to-back, they work in conversation with one another, showing how narrow, yet all-consuming, onscreen portraits of femininity have been. These women, all hyperaware of how they’re perceived, play with extreme ideas of themselves that they’ve pieced together from pop culture, whether in the shows they watched growing up, a fad they can’t look away from, or societal norms that dictate the behaviors they emulate. And in their push to experiment with the lives they lead, they share similar journeys—running from one version of themselves to the next, only to become caught in an identity just as limiting as the last. Without her partner in superheroics, Wanda leaves world-saving behind for the confines of the sitcom. Sheila ditches her identity as a devoted political wife to be a chirpy exercise-video star.

And Allison, after yet another betrayal on Kevin’s part, stops picturing herself as June Cleaver, but as an antihero, someone darker and more complicated than that of the sitcom wife. As she researches murder mysteries and digs into her suburban town’s seedier side, the world outside the sitcom, once docile, begins to transform, to become more violent, more bleak. The show implies that, simply by shifting how she thinks about her role in Kevin’s life, Allison’s new reality naturally turns into a rendition of another genre: the crime drama. It’s as if no matter what she does, even if she tries to lose the plot she’s been given, she’ll always be playing a part.

My decision to stop drinking a few months has made me put my feelers out for exciting, tasty non-alcoholic beverages. There’s a lot on the market but unfortunately many of the drinks are super high in sugar. But then I discovered Hoplark’s Hoptea, a super tasty, refreshing, frizzy ice tea. Non-alcoholic. No sugar. No calories. Just tea. I am in love and won’t stop gushing about them. Hopefully I can convince my local deli and grocery stores to carry them, but until then, I order online.

Hi Captain and Fam,

I (30, she/her) am mad. I’m mad because multi-level marketing cults are taking my friends and brainwashing them into trying to commodify my friendship. I have a friend, (32, she/her) who we will call Francesca. Francesca is a very dear, dear friend of mine. We have been friends for years. Recently, Francesca decided to participate in yet another shitty makeup MLM. This is the second or third one. The story is always the same. A friend of hers gets suckered into this cult, Francesca “supports” the friend by going to parties, buying the crap, commenting and sharing on social media all the cult brainwashing posts, and then she buys the “presenter kit” because it has SO MANY THINGS WOW and its CHEAPER than buying it all individually and oh HEY LOOK, its EVEN CHEAPER if I also sucker MY friends into buying this crap, isn’t this great?! What a cool program that lets me get shitty makeup for cheap! Rinse repeat for the third time. (bonus points for MLMs that also convince her that this makeup is made of unicorn blood and snake oil and is in fact the Best Thing Ever (TM))

Meanwhile. I love Francesca dearly. I spend time with her on a near daily basis. When households were “bubbles” in our part of the world in the pandemic, she and her husband and kiddos were my and my husband’s “bubble” household. I was the one doing the grocery pickups for them when they had to isolate due to a Covid-scare. I’m the one she calls crying knowing I’ll drop everything to come help, and I’ve done that numerous times. She does the same for me.

But somehow, some way, this insidious, miserable, parasite of an MLM shitty makeup pyramid scheme has convinced Francesca that I am “not supportive” if I don’t comment on the posts, if I don’t attend her “launch party” zoom thing because she’s “so nervous, and hates presenting, and it would be SO HELPFUL to me if you were there”. I don’t want to be there. I don’t want to be involved. I hate these companies and their brainwashing and their horrible products so much. I would rather snuggle a spider, and I’m the kind of person who makes my husband remove them because they squick me out so much. But somehow I’ve been cast as a “bad friend” who “doesn’t support women in business” by not supporting Francesca and buying into this cult nonsense. I’m mad. I’m hurt. I’m so utterly offended that my friendship has been reduced to performances of support on social media, that these companies prey on female friendships and female solidarity to try and FORCE me to support her (read: support them and end up giving them more money in what has become a very successful business model for them and other MLMs by commodifying female friendships). “You don’t have to buy anything!” she says, but my time is also valuable, and so is my sanity and I hate everything about this.

So, dear Captain, I have a question for you: What the fuck do I do here? I’ve been politely ignoring, changing the subject, not engaging. I’ve unfollowed all the crap on social media without blocking her outright, because I don’t want to do that. But when she turns her big sad eyes on me and is hurt that I’m not supporting this thing she cares about, I feel guilty and it pisses me off. What script is there that communicates “I love you, but I hate this, and I would very much like the MLM to not be a thing in my life anymore but I want YOU to be in my life.” I feel like saying that is going to launch her into another sales pitch about how “This isn’t an MLM! I don’t want you to buy anything!” justifications and I just don’t wanna. Maybe the script I’m asking for is too big, and maybe it’s like asking you to be Friendship Shakespeare and write a whole comedy/tragedy script for me about how this shakes out, but I’m at such a loss and I’m sad.

Please help,

Pockets (My racehorse show name is: Get Your Grubby Hands Out of the Pockets of My Friendship, Women’s Pockets are Too Small As it Is.)

Dear Pockets,

FYI, I have exactly two modes with this kind of thing:

1. Here is $5, good luck with whatever that is!
2. Absolutely fucking not.

Here’s $5: For close friends and family members who are parents of Girl Scouts selling cookies, fellow artists crowdfunding, people raising money for mutual aid or charity, if the ask crosses my feed and I can toss a little bit of money in the hat without missing it and I actively want to, I do it when I can. I figure that pretty much every indie filmmaker in Chicago has been passing the same $20 bill around since Kickstarter launched in 2009, it’s just good karma to toss a little in the jar when you can and ask without apology when you need to. Plus, sometimes the cheapest way to pay is with money.

vs.

Absolutely Not: For most MLM products, I mostly scroll on by like I never saw it. If I don’t want it, there’s no reason to even click. If I’m forced to engage, like, I get added to a secret Facebook group devoted to hawking the product, I leave the group immediately without comment or apology. If the person tries a more personalized pitch, I politely repeat “Oh, thank you, but  it’s really not for me” until I can get out of the conversation. If it’s someone I really really like, I try not to judge them for doing whatever it is and also possibly try to forget all about it so I can keep liking them in an uncomplicated way. If it’s an acquaintance, especially someone who I suspect is talking to me only to try to make a sale, that’s much easier: *block*

I usually don’t provide reasons or argue. I realize that I could try to talk them out of selling whatever it is, but generally meeting attempts to evangelize with reverse attempts to evangelize is likely to make everyone mad, definitely waste a lot of my time, and will become more actively embarrassing for everyone the longer it all continues, so I don’t invest much energy on my way out of the conversation. Nobody likes a “I’m being mean to you because I’m worried about you for your own good” conversation, so I try to assume the person is an adult who is getting something out of doing whatever it is that I can’t see, and if they love the product or really want to do this with their time, so be it, I’m not the boss of them!

To help you with your situation, I want to dig into how this kind of hard-sell manipulation works, because it has the same framework as other kinds of manipulation but it’s so nakedly goal-oriented it might make the all the other kinds easier to see, too.

“I don’t want to spend money  on things I know that I don’t want,” “I don’t want to cringe through social events that are really sales pitches for things I know that I don’t want,” and “I don’t want to lend my personal credibility to a giant scam by sitting politely through sales pitches to other people” are all reasonable, not-embarrassing positions to hold in life.

Same deal with “Friend, I’ve already told you that I don’t want to buy any of that or attend any of these things.”  Even if you were being unreasonable (you aren’t), you don’t want to do it. That’s the best reason in the world to not do it.

In order to manipulate you successfully, your friend has to override your consent and turn your quite reasonable position and obvious disinterest into liabilities for you. She has to make you seem like the weird outlier who is reluctant to say the words “Absolutely not!” because feels riskier somehow than spending money and time on a thing you know you’ll hate. She is willing to piss you off to the point that you’re afraid that revealing how angry you are will piss her off too much and somehow “ruin” the friendship, which is it’s own special kind of audacity.

There are some very specific clauses of the supposed social contract that these predatory peer-to-peer sales schemes depend on for this kind of manipulation. A partial list:

A) Cultural mores and taboos around discussing money explicitly, asking for money, naming amounts of money, admitting you don’t have enough money, or that you do but you don’t want to spend it on this. (A capitalist culture where people are obsessed with money but it’s awkward and possibly rude to talk about money in direct terms is a perfect petrie dish for badness.) 

B) Social ties, mutual expectations, euphemisms, and unspoken understandings as levers for fostering a sense of mutual obligation and discouraging direct communication where “yes” or “no” questions might be asked and answered.

C) Highly selective adherence to supposed rules of “good manners,” for instance, the belief that it’s always wrong to interrupt people, or that it’s always ruder to correct someone’s rude behavior than it is to do the rude behavior. This becomes kryptonite when combined with the target’s friendly human impulse to smooth things over and to save others from embarrassment.

How this combines, in practice:

Have you ever been in a restaurant where a lot of things are labeled “Market Price” on the menu? Market Price is usually code for “expensive,” and if you ask “So, how much will that actually cost?” you reveal yourself as someone who might not be willing or able to pay it. The price of a thing you’re about to buy is an obvious, not-weird thing to ask, and yet whole fields of marketing, sales, fundraising, and advertising are devoted to selling connection, emotion, identity, status, experiences, and narratives by placing incentives and complicated social frictions between you and what they’re trying to sell, in the hopes that some people will fall for the feeling so hard they won’t ask the price and others will feel so weird about asking that they’ll buy whatever at howmuchever. Companies that refuse to publish their salary range and who frown on you for asking directly about it in an interview are using the same tactic to sell you on accepting less. The harder it feels to ask an obvious, simple question, the more likely it is that strong manipulation is in play, and almost nobody is entirely immune. 

This is part of why your “Francesca, I refuse to buy a $37 lip ‘gloss’ that tastes like a cross between diaper rash and chalk dust” refusal isn’t getting through the miasma of “It’s not just a business, it’s also FUN with YOUR FRIENDS” messaging the company is using on her. She told you that you don’t have to spend money, so why are you refusing FUN? With your FRIEND? She’s not SELLING stuff, she’s INVITING people to PARTICIPATE in EXCITING FUN STUFF WITH FRIENDS. Are you really going to put MONEY before FRIENDSHIP? I mean, even if you can’t be bothered to support a friend, she thought you were A Good Feminist who would at least want to show up for WOMEN in BUSINESS.

Manipulators like to complicate simple things. The most important stuff on their menus will always be listed as Market Price, and until you take the dare and ask outright, pretty much assume that you’ll be talking about what the manipulator wants to talk about for as long as they want to talk about it. For instance, by focusing the guilt trip about Francesca’s annoying sales behavior on whether or not you are “being a supportive friend right now,” Francesca glides right over the part where she knows that you don’t want anything to do with any of it. She’s been trained to actively override any and all objections and shoot down any reasons you might have for feeling as you do.

Displaying good manners, upholding principles, and fulfilling the obligations of relationships are only ever expectations that the manipulator has of you, the target, and only when it’s to the manipulator’s advantage. Say Francesca does break you down and you actually agree to go to a horrible Zoom thing and you try to get out of it later, that’s not just cancelling an RSVP, no, that’s Breaking A Promise To A Friend. Uh-oh! As long as the manipulator can redirect your attention away from the record scratch of “I said no, so why is this still a thing?” and into the fascinating self-inventory called “Wait, am I a good friend who keeps her promises?” then there’s still a chance she’ll get her way.

It gets worse. Every time you resist her framing about “what supportive friends do,” possibly by pointing out that a supportive friend wouldn’t try to wheedle you into this shit in the first place and would take “no” for an answer the first time, she’s under pressure to respond with bigger and bigger emotional reactions so that “doing what Francesca wants” and “not making Francesca feel unappreciated” becomes the path of least resistance and the price of your friendship with her. Insisting on directness and explicit communication puts you in the awkward position of being the one to name the secret price out loud: “Francesca, if I say I don’t ever want to come to any of these parties or promote your products, would you really stop being my friend?” 

This is a very awkward. It’s a simple thing that feels incredibly complicated to actually say out loud, with fear of embarrassment attached, and voilà, this how the person who is NOT doing something aggressive or  embarrassing is pressured to agree to unreasonable stuff in order to “save” the manipulator from the prospect of entirely self-created humiliation. People in the grips of simultaneously receiving and delivering a hard sell tend to gain temporary immunity to embarrassment, or they take all the wrong messages from it. “Oh, I’m just so nervous and it would help me so much if you were there.” Yes, Francesca, it would probably be weird and embarrassing if nobody showed up to your sales pitch party or it was not fun to be there so nobody ever came again, that’s the good kind of anxiety, misgivings sent to help you avoid predictable unpleasantness!

The way to counteract this kind of manipulation, generally speaking, is to return the awkwardness to the sender. Reject the manipulator’s framing of the situation, especially framing that tries to make what is patently ridiculous seem reasonable and what is obviously reasonable seem ridiculous or shameful. Redirect lofty appeals to principle into extremely concrete, immediate actions. Translate euphemisms  into plain language. Don’t attempt to argue what’s fair, or what’s owed, resist the impulse to provide reasons to unreasonable people. Instead, embrace your subjective needs and wants as good enough reasons. What is the person actually asking you to do? Are you going to do it? No? Then say it that way.

To apply this, the next time Francesca gives you the sales pitch or invites you to an “exciting,” “fun,” gathering of “Women In Business,” RSVP “no.” Then be boring, direct, and consistent in deflecting all the follow-ups.

Francesca: “But you don’t have to buy anything! Just come support me as a friend!”

You: “I’m just letting you know I won’t be there.”

Francesca: “But why aren’t you supporting me as a friend?”

You: “Uh, just telling you I won’t be there.”

Francesca: “But I get so nervous, it really helps when you’re there.”

You: “Sorry, you’ll have to do it without me.”

Francesca: “You never support my dreams.”

You: “I don’t think that’s true, but nonetheless, count me out for Wednesday!”

Francesca: “Don’t you want to help women in business?”

You: “Not this business, I won’t be there, but good luck!”

Over time, you can nurture the friendship by seeking her out on topics that interest you, and giving her a lot of positive attention when she is the great friend you know she can be, and make all MLM talk extremely repetitive and unproductive. If you answer “why” questions at all, be very direct and don’t explain or sugar-coat it. “Because I don’t want to.”

It’s not easy, because it means accepting some things (like the “unsupportive friend” label, if the alternative is giving in) and letting go of others ( like the unlikely chance of winning the argument that MLMs are bad on the facts, no matter how true). Our friends want us to love them and believe in them wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy more than they want us to be searingly insightful about them, and while Francesca’s full of the sales propaganda brain goo, she’s going to hear all of your logical objections to MLMs as “I think you are being stupid” and the resulting defensiveness will either blow up the friendship then and there or get her to double down on converting you. Disengaging from these conversations quickly and with less guilt and friction is probably both a gentler and more realistic win condition than convincing her to agree with you, and for that “Oh, that’s just really not for me” is a more powerful argument than “MLMs are bad, because ______.”

It’s not easy because it rarely takes just one conversation to get it done. Even if you say something like, “Francesca, I love you so much, but you know I hate this sales stuff. I’m happy to support you with babysitting and hanging out with you,  but please don’t ask me about this again, because the answer is always no'”  reinforcing boundaries usually requires consistent actions over time way more than it does finding just the right words. By actions, I mean, is Francesca going to kidnap you at gunpoint and physically force you go log on to Zoom calls? No? Then you’re not going to any of them, grumble as she might, and as long as you continue not going, your point is made whether or not she ever concedes it.

So, I started by telling you about my personal “Here’s a small, token amount of money” vs. “Nope” approach and I wanted to revisit that.

One strategy for resisting manipulation successfully is to bypass all the “wouldn’t it be easier and more pleasant if you just gave in” pressure and embrace being notoriously difficult about that topic. It’s a matter of principle for you, so own it! Not as a logical arguing position where you try to convince Francesca to agree with you, but as something so carved in stone about you that there’s no point in even bringing it up.

I mentioned my circuit of elderly farming neighbors in a post the other day, and there was absolutely no point in asking Barbara Quandt, maker of homemade donuts and scourge of town council meeting agendas, to buy Girl Scout cookies and band candy fundraiser bars unless I felt like spending an hour, minimum, turning over her compost pile while she delivered a blistering, fully fact-checked lecture on the myriad crimes of the Nestlé corporation. She wasn’t buying it. So I knocked on different doors until I stumbled upon the town weed kingpin who lived down the road, and with his generous support I (unwittingly) provided sweet, sweet customer rewards for his clients and laundered drug money through the Girl Scouts of America and the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District’s music programs for nearly a decade.

Present day, much like the presumably late, indubitably great Barbara Quandt, there are products & causes where, no matter how much I like or love you, I’m just not buying your weight-loss shakes or putting a penny into the collection plate at your homophobic-ass church, and if you fail to heed the one face-saving “oh, that’s just not in my budget right now” I muster up, then I’m probably about to say some things I won’t regret at all, but you might.

On the other hand, there are people in my life, who, if they need a few dollars and I have a few dollars to spare, I don’t actually need to know what the money is for to give it away. That circle is small, and the amount of money I’m able to part with is necessarily low, which has the added benefit that my  level of emotional engagement with what it’s for is also low. I don’t really lend money out (if I can’t give it away, then I can’t afford to lend it, either) and I don’t really believe in Teaching People Close To Me An Important Moral Lesson as a branch of economics. Sometimes it’s incredibly worth making a stand on principle, and sometimes it’s like, I have positive $5.00 and a deep deficit of interest in having a weird argument about this with you today, please go in peace.

I know! I know! This is how they “get” you! This goes against everything you stand for, and you are right to think so and resist the scourge! I strongly recommend Bartleby-level stonewalling about this whole topic for as long as you and Francesca are friends. But sometimes the cheapest way to pay is with money, so if you periodically decide that there is a small “Supportive Friend” tax where, exactly once per year you will choose to buy exactly one extremely inexpensive item from Francesca’s latest scheme, NOT because it’s a good idea or you’ve given up your principles or want to enable predatory capitalism, but because it buys you the ability to say, “I already bought the ‘woodsy’ scented candle that smells like deer piss and bandaids, stop saying I’m not supportive” for another year, while you pray she comes to her senses, then I for one will not judge you, though Barbara Quandt (a legend!) definitely would.

You might have noticed that I wrote through the weekend rather than posting a photo on Saturday, thinking that I was sort of banking time and I would take a break during the week. Well, today was my day. Lots of ongoing stories but nothing big. Went to dinner with my brother and sister-in-law (going to be their 40th this year!) and thought to call it an early night.

You know where this is going, right?

Came home and opened Twitter.

Katie Benner, Nicholas Fandos, Michael S. Schmidt, and Adam Goldman of the New York Times broke a major story tonight:

Under former president Trump, the Department of Justice secretly investigated key Democratic lawmakers.

In February 2018, the House Intelligence Committee was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the president became obsessed with figuring out who was apparently leaking information to the press about contacts between his people and Russia.

Under then–Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Department of Justice subpoenaed from Apple the records of the communications of California Democrats Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, and—we learned at about 11:00 tonight—Eric Swalwell, both of whom were key critics of Trump. The department also investigated members of their families, including one child. The government seized the records of at least a dozen people.

“[G]ood God,” journalist Jennifer Rubin tweeted. “They were running a police state.” For the Department of Justice to subpoena records from congressional lawmakers is extraordinary. For it to investigate their families, as well, is mind boggling.

Department officials did not find anything, and the investigations slowed down.

Remember back in May 2019, when the Senate was interviewing William Barr, who replaced Sessions as attorney general, after his delayed release of the Mueller Report, and then-Senator Kamala Harris asked him if then-president Trump or anyone else in the White House had ever asked him to open an investigation into anyone? Barr danced around the question and then refused to answer it.

It turns out that when Barr became attorney general in February 2019, he revived the languishing investigations, moving personnel around to ramp up the inquiry. Even after the Trump administration itself declassified some of the information that had been leaked, undercutting the argument for continuing an investigation, Barr insisted on keeping it going.

The Justice Department did not find that the Democrats they were investigating were connected with the leaks.

The DOJ also subpoenaed the records of journalists from the Washington Post, the New York Times, and CNN to try to find leakers, a serious threat to freedom of the press.

Meanwhile, of course, as journalist Chris Hayes pointed out on Twitter, at the same time the White House and its operatives at the Department of Justice were secretly subpoenaing the records of members of Congress, they were refusing to answer congressional subpoenas of White House personnel.

In a statement tonight, Schiff said: “The politicization of the department and the attacks on the rule of law are among the most dangerous assaults on our democracy carried out by the former president.” On CNN, he said: “While I can’t go into who received these subpoenas … I can say that this was extraordinarily broad – people having nothing to do with the intelligence matters that are at least being reported on. It just shows what a broad fishing expedition it was.” Schiff has called for the department’s inspector general to “investigate this and other cases that suggest the weaponization of law enforcement by a corrupt president."

Swalwell’s statement was less restrained: “Like many of the world’s most despicable dictators, former President Trump showed an utter disdain for our democracy and the rule of law.”

While there are many layers to this story, it increases the political tension in the country. When Republican leaders tied themselves to Trump after he lost the 2020 election, they tied themselves to whatever came out about his actions. They have tried to explain away the January 6 insurrection and recently refused to investigate what happened on and around that day. Will they now say that it is okay for a president to use the Department of Justice secretly to investigate members of Congress who belong to the opposing party?

—-

Notes:

Manu Raju @mkraju

“While I can’t go into who received these subpoenas … I can say that this was extraordinarily broad – people having nothing to do with the intelligence matters that are at least being reported on. It just shows what a broad fishing expedition it was,” Schiff said on CNN

June 11th 2021

194 Retweets798 Likes

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/10/us/politics/justice-department-leaks-trump-administration.html

Jennifer 'pro-voting' Rubin @JRubinBlogger

@kylegriffin1 good God, they were running a police state. Barr needs to be hauled in and at the very least disbarred.

June 11th 2021

1,001 Retweets4,258 Likes

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/schiff-calls-inquiry-after-report-trump-doj-targeted-democrats-congress-n1270432

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/10/adam-schiff-investigation-trump-doj-493343

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/10/politics/house-intelligence-committee-apple-data-trump-justice-department-doj/index.html

Share

These massive waves of deadwood by Jörg Gläscher have won my heart.

What do you get when a grilled cheese and a pepperoni pizza have a baby? A PIZZA MELT! (Sorry for yelling, I’m excited.) I used to eat these as an after-school snack when I was growing up because they’re super easy and who doesn’t want pizza? But now, decades later, I took this pizza-inspired sandwich to the next level by adding an herby-Parmesan butter to the bread which creates an extra crispy finish. It’s to die for and way better than the pizza melts of my teen years. You’ve got to try it!

What Kind of Bread To Use for Pizza Melts

You definitely want to use some sort of sturdy bread for your pizza melt. If you try to use a soft white sandwich bread it just won’t hold up to the moisture in the pizza sauce. I used a sourdough loaf, which gave my pizza melts even more flavor. Something like a rosemary olive oil bread or some homemade focaccia would also be amazing. Just make sure the bread is strong!

What Else Can You Put on a Pizza Melt?

A pizza melt, even in its most basic form (pizza sauce, cheese, pepperoni), is awesome, but if you happen to have some leftover ingredients on hand and you want to throw them on there, go for it! Here are a few ideas:

• Diced bell pepper
• Olives
• Red onion
• Bacon bits
• Ham
• Spinach
• Mushrooms
• Feta cheese
• Banana peppers
• Sun dried tomatoes

I would caution against using any ingredient that is very wet, like fresh tomatoes or canned artichoke hearts, since this can make the bread soggy.

Use Medium-Low Heat for the Perfect Grilled Cheese

Making a grilled cheese with a perfectly browned exterior and melty-cheesy interior can take a little practice. My trick is to cook over a slightly lower heat. This gives the inside time to warm up before the outside gets too brown or burns. It might take a little more patience, but you’ll get the most perfectly delicious grilled cheese. …or pizza melt. :)

Pizza Melt

Pizza melts are like a cross between your two favorite comfort foods: pizza and grilled cheese. They're fast, easy, and the perfect quick meal!

Total Cost $1.11 each

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 15 minutes

Servings 1

Calories 451kcal

Author Beth – Budget Bytes

Equipment

• Nonstick Fry Pans

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp butter, room temperature $0.11
• 1 Tbsp grated Parmesan $0.11
• 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning $0.05
• 2 slices hearty bread $0.44
• 1/3 cup shredded mozzarella $0.19
• 1 Tbsp pizza sauce $0.06
• 6 slices pepperoni $0.15

Instructions

• Stir together the room temperature butter, grated parmesan, and Italian seasoning in a small bowl until evenly combined. Spread the Parmesan butter over one side of each slice of bread.
• Flip the bread over so the un-buttered side is facing up. Place half of the shredded mozzarella on one slice of bread. Next, add small dollops of the sauce over top of the cheese, followed by the sliced pepperoni. Finally, add the remaining cheese. Place the second slice of bread on top to close the sandwich, butter side facing out.
• Place the sandwich in a skillet and cook over medium-low heat until golden brown on each side and the cheese is melted on the inside. Cut the sandwich in half and serve!

Video

Nutrition

Serving: 1sandwich | Calories: 451kcal | Carbohydrates: 30g | Protein: 19g | Fat: 28g | Sodium: 991mg | Fiber: 3g

How to Make a Pizza Melt – Step by Step Photos

Combine 1 Tbsp room temperature butter with 1 Tbsp grated Parmesan, and ½ tsp Italian seasoning. Mix them together until they form a paste.

Spread the Parmesan butter over one side each slice of bread.

Flip the bread over so the un-buttered side is facing up, then top one slice with ½ of the ⅓ cup shredded mozzarella. Add about 1 Tbsp pizza sauce in small dollops over the cheese (that helps make a barrier so the sauce doesn’t soak into the bread and make it too soggy).

Next add about six slices of pepperoni, and then top with the remaining shredded mozzarella. Place the second slice of bread on top, buttered side facing out.

Cook the pizza melt in a skillet over medium-low heat until it’s golden brown and crispy on both sides and the cheese inside is melted.

Cut the pizza melt in half and enjoy!

The post Pizza Melts appeared first on Budget Bytes.

One evening some years ago, my brother was suffering through a frustrating round of put down the video game controller and do your math homework with his 12-year-old son. “What do I have to do?” he blurted out angrily. “Pay you?”

His son paused the game, looked up at him, and said, “How much?”

Caught off guard, my brother suggested 25 cents a problem. His son ran straight upstairs and came down 20 minutes later with his homework and a verbal invoice for $2. But when he asked for the same deal the next night, my brother refused. “No son of mine is going to have to get paid to do homework,” he later told me. As it turned out, no son of his would ever willingly do his math homework again.

[Read: Don’t help your kids with homework]

I thought of this recently when a stream of grumbling turned up in my Twitter feed over incentives that are being offered to encourage Americans to get a COVID-19 vaccine. These include money, beer, doughnuts, and (in a brief campaign called “Joints for Jabs”) weed. Tweeted one commentator: “A sense of decency and community isn’t enough to make people do what is right to preserve the lives of others. They have to be cajoled and bribed to do it. Sometimes don’t you just hate humans?”

The idea that society is better off when people act on “intrinsic” motivation—that is, because they’re inclined to do the right thing—and not on“extrinsic” motivation, such as receiving a cash payment, is widespread. But is there something inherently wrong with bribing people to do the right thing? And on a practical level, does it work?

They’re not entirely independent questions, because humans are biased. Someone who feels that incentives are unseemly is probably especially open to the idea that they’re ineffective. Researchers are no exception; beginning in the early 1970s, a number of psychologists devoted themselves to pushing back against the theory that human behavior can easily be bent with a yummy treat. The result was the discovery of the “overjustification effect,” the notion that incentives don’t merely fail, but actually sap intrinsic motivation—meaning that people, especially children, who might otherwise be willing to do things become less willing to do them when incentives are placed on the table.

Many of the scientific papers these psychologists produced bore damning titles (such as “Undermining Children’s Interest With Extrinsic Rewards”), but the fine print was a mood killer. Matthew Normand, a psychologist at the University of the Pacific who studies how to change people’s behavior, told me, “There are major problems with that literature.” The overjustification effect was seen only in repetitive tasks, and only in the first few repetitions, after which the effect went away. Plus, it seemed to act only on people who were happy to do the job in the first place. Most studies concluded that there was little or nothing to the effect.

Nonetheless, the idea that incentives backfire was seductive, and proved hard to shake. In 2009, it got a boatload of PR with the appearance of Daniel Pink’s best-selling book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. In the opening pages, Pink, a sort of how-to-succeed-in-business-through-pop-psychology writer, tells the story of an obscure 1940s experiment on monkey bribery. The study found that eight rhesus monkeys happily solved puzzles for fun but did a worse job when they were given raisins as a reward. The only thing that study probably proved was that monkeys sometimes get bored with raisins. The experimenters quietly abandoned the study for more promising research, and the rest of the field ignored it. But when Pink wrote that the findings “should have changed the world,” many readers took him at his word.  

In the real world and in most studies, incentives tend to work just fine. They have been used to help drug users get and stay clean and to encourage people with HIV to take their medications. When the UCLA COVID-19 Health and Politics Project surveyed unvaccinated Americans, it found that roughly a third said they would be more likely to get the shot if they received $100. Incentives are so widely deployed and validated that citing specific research defending them feels almost silly—it’s like having to offer proof that the internal combustion engine makes cars go.

Despite all the evidence in favor of public-health incentives, America has been slow to adopt them, at least until now. (San Francisco and the Department of Veterans Affairs are two notable exceptions.) What’s held us back? Maybe it’s our lack of a strong public-health system, or the sense that the government shouldn’t interfere too much with people’s choices. Or maybe it’s our Puritan ethic that favors morality over transaction.

[Read: No one actually knows if you’re vaccinated]

But these explanations tend to align with conservative values, and much of the griping about vaccine incentives seems to be coming from the left. Some scolds have expressed concerns that bribing people with such tools of the devil as doughnuts, lottery tickets, beer, and hot dogs will make people like these unhealthy indulgences. But that’s confused thinking. Things serve as rewards only for people who already like them. If your boss rewarded you for your good work by dumping her trash can on your desk, would you suddenly be thrilled by trash heaps?

Maybe the progressives I follow on Twitter are still enamored of the Drive myth, with its vaguely anti-capitalist portrayal of people prepared to do the right thing if their innate cooperative impulses aren’t corrupted by rewards. Maybe they’re displaying animosity toward the right and its general noncompliance with COVID-19 measures, given that the vaccine-hesitant are mostly Republicans. Perhaps, least charitably, the early-vaccinated feel a touch of resentment for having missed out on the goodies. (I confess, a free beer would have been nice when I got my vaccine.)

Whatever the origins of the objections, Normand frets that they might feed into a dangerous incentive hesitancy. “Sure, people should do it without needing an incentive,” he said. “But what’s the alternative to not offering them? Not enough people get vaccinated, and we’re stuck with a public-health crisis.”

Some incentives may work better than others. Ayelet Gneezy, a behavioral scientist and the director of the Center for Social Innovation and Impact at the UC San Diego School of Management, is bullish on vaccine incentives, but she thinks non-monetary rewards will work best. Modest payments could backfire by hardening the position of those who have been refusing the vaccine out of principle, she told me, because taking the incentive will feel like selling out. Beer, doughnuts, and hot dogs sound like winners to her.

But the selling-your-soul-for-money effect could be helpful, notes Michael Hallsworth, the managing director of the North American subsidiary of a think tank called the Behavioural Insights Team. He pointed me to a 2014 study that found that people who refused to do something in order to maintain solidarity with their friends’ beliefs actually liked being able to use a bribe as an excuse. “I did it for the money” is apparently easier to sell to your pals than “I disagree.” Hallsworth’s example of a clever incentive: Ohio offered to enter the newly vaccinated in a series of $1 million lotteries.

[Conor Friedersdorf: Put Anthony Fauci in a dunk tank]

If the whole intrinsic-versus-extrinsic-motivation debate seems a little convoluted, that may be because it’s based on a false premise: that they’re not the same thing. “I don’t think there’s any evidence that there’s a qualitative difference between them,” Normand said. “All of our behavior is a product of incentives. Most of the incentives are mediated by the social environment, so they’re not as noticeable, but it’s a mistake to put them in a different category from what we call external incentives.”

Less noticeable incentives to refuse the vaccine could include the approval of friends or of popular anti-vaccination figures, or maybe just the cow-tipping good fun of owning the libs. In that light, tangible incentives to get vaccinated seem less like bribery and more like leveling the playing field.

I asked my brother how he felt about vaccine incentives, and he surprised me by saying he was all for them. In fact, he added, looking back, he wishes he had kept paying his son to do the math, at least long enough to get him into the habit. What changed his mind? “Back then, I thought I’d find a better solution,” he told me. “But I never did.”

If we can’t vaccinate enough people to bring the pandemic to an end, I imagine many of today’s anti-incentivers will have the same regrets.

One of you needs me.

Writing that makes me sound like an egomaniacal douche, but when have I not sounded like an egomaniacal douche? I don’t care. This post must begin with those words because I want that person to know that I have come back to this website to rebuild it for them.

Many of you probably need me for the same reason as the one, but I am purposefully downplaying that number so that you will take this seriously. I do not want you to wave this off as proof that my ego can consume entire cities without even belching or dismiss it as one of my wild exaggerations¹ or tangents². This is too important.

Let me reassure you, though, that you are, indeed, reading the website of that deranged, gormless nutter whose dog once ate an entire corn dog and passed the stick in its entirety out of his dime-sized rectum a month later. Yes, I am the mother who exploited her children for millions and millions of dollars³ only to blow all that filthy lucre on a 12,000 square-foot house plagued with random animals including a cat the previous owner tried to kill by locking it in the attic—that was 11 years ago and at least once a month I google “DIY cat murderer” to see if that person attempted this sort of thing on the regular. I discovered that still-very-much-alive cat by pure accident not even an hour after Chipped-Tooth Baby Bobo got their nickname. The date was July 19th, 2010. It was the day I turned 35 years old.

There are too many stories to recount, but I wonder if you remember when I accosted Peter Frampton on an airplane and asked him if I could take his picture while holding a sign⁴ that said hello to my friend⁵. He could have been a total jerk and told me to sod off, but instead he graciously declined⁶. Two years later he visited Salt Lake City while on tour and invited me and the father of my children to visit him backstage. Five weeks after that I asked for a career-ending divorce and read about it in The NY Times and Huffington Post. We’ve all had the dream where we show up to work or to school and realize we are totally nude, right? What would you do if that dream came true? What if it were to come true in front of hundreds of thousands of people?

I am still very much the same Heather who made Banana Republic a little bit angry⁷ when I wrote a sponsored post containing the words “hairy vagina.” I was describing the pain management techniques I used after an afternoon spent horseback riding, a purposeful reference to the three-part miniseries I wrote about Marlo’s birth in which I magically turned myself into a yard ornament in the shape of a giant ball. I had to go back and read that part of the labor story to remember if I’d used the word yard or garden. Being picky about stupid things like this makes life fun for those around me, no doubt, but it’s this picky thing that led to what happened next. And what happened next is the reason I had to come back to this website. For you.

I posted a picture of myself to accompany that episode of the story, and when I saw the outline of my pregnant belly I had to shut my laptop, run down two flights of stairs to the garage, and climb into the passenger side of my car to hide my body underneath the dashboard. Once I maneuvered the door shut I folded my arms over my head to claw at my back and muffle the sound of unbridled agony. I run to that remote corner of the home because I don’t want anyone to hear me or to find my body in that ridiculous contorted shape. If the kids wonder where Mom is, neither of them is going to say, “I bet she’s underneath the dashboard on the passenger side of her car.”

Not until now. You see, I have asked them to read this. I have purposefully blown my cover.

The sound I make when this happens is involuntary—“when this happens” makes it seem as if this has happened more than once, so for the sake of letting you know how serious I am about the details of this post I’ll admit it has happened nine times in the last six weeks—and it starts as a gulping sob as it makes its way through my chest, as it scrapes several ribs and scars my sternum, jostling loose all the painful memories I have hidden in the tissue surrounding those bones. That sob very quickly explodes into something I have never heard, something I am too embarrassed to let anyone witness. The only thing I can say to help you visualize what it sounds like or feels like for me to confront those memories is to imagine yourself as a ten-year-old standing in the middle of a circle made up of every member of your family and all of your friends. They have gathered to take turns reading off every mistake and bad choice you will make over the next thirty years of your life.

I am forty-five years old, but I have the coping skills of a wounded ten-year-old girl.

When I saw myself 36 weeks pregnant with Marlo a flood of memories and emotions I have associated with those memories rushed straight at the frontal lobe of my brain. If I had spent the last twenty-two years of my life using that part of my brain to develop and practice healthy coping skills, I would have more than likely reacted with a wistful chuckle. How could I ever forget the room of people assembled for that birth and their collective gasp when Marlo came into this world toting a giant dimple in their left cheek as if it were luggage they’d packed for the trip.

Instead, I have spent the last twenty-two years of my life feeding that part of my brain a steady diet of alcohol.

Before you head down a rabbit hole I like to call “The But What About,” let me save you some time. You can throw any “but what about this” or “but what about that” at an alcoholic and we can find the loophole you can’t see.

But what about the months I was pregnant with my children? But, what about the months I spent nursing those children? This is the easiest one because the loophole is the size of the relationship France has with wine.

But what about all of the medicine I took for depression? How could I mix those drugs with alcohol without getting hurt? Wouldn’t combining those substances kill me? This one is almost as easy. First, I didn’t care if I got hurt as long as I didn’t die, so I did the second thing. Second, I figured out the magic ratio. Alcoholics can transform themselves into world-class mathematicians when numbers threaten their access to alcohol. We are also good at bookmarking conversion calculators—e.g., grams to ounces. You’d think this skill would come in handy when assisting my child with their sixth-grade math homework, but you’d be wrong. My expertise is highly specified and narrow in scope—i.e., determining how much of a benzodiazepine I can mix with alcohol.

But what about my professional life? How could I work if I was drinking all day every day? Normally I’d laugh at this and respond with, “Did you know that entire books are written by authors?” That’s funny until you find yourself with brand new insight into the corollary to that question.

How many famous and not-so-famous authors have committed suicide?

This is the most important “but what about” you could ask me because it holds my hand when I have contorted my body underneath the dashboard of my car. In fact, it leads me to that spot exactly like a psychopath lures a child away from the swing set at a park. Both are cunning and calculated. The answer to this is why you need me. It’s why I came back to rebuild this website as quickly as I could. Please understand that I cannot be flippant with my answer and that what follows may be difficult for some of you to read. I have never revealed this part of my addiction to anyone, not even my mother. She knew I was headed straight toward an early grave, but this will be the first time she knows exactly why.

I became very good at hiding both the amount of alcohol I was drinking every day and the actual alcohol itself. I’d wager most functioning alcoholics are just as good if not better at it than I was. I’ve hidden it in water bottles, shampoo bottles, spray bottles, Tupperware containers, and empty peanut butter jars. I hid those containers on every shelf of every closet in every house I have lived in. I hid them behind books and picture frames I’d displayed in rooms that didn’t see much foot traffic. I hid them underneath my bed in shoeboxes stuffed with fabric because fabric doesn’t make noise when you’re frantically trying to reach for that bottle before someone walks in. Fabric also cushions glass bottles, I noted. Remember this detail.

Seven years ago when bourbon started giving me headaches, I switched to clear liquor only to discover that it was far easier to hide. Vodka, you see, looks a hell of a lot like water. A month later I found a reddit thread filled with recipes from people who distill their own vodka at home. Most of them used potatoes, and one of the comments discussed specific brands they were trying to imitate and why. That was the day I bought my first bottle of Monopolowa vodka. Why that brand? It doesn’t smell like alcohol.

Within a week I began hiding it in my bathroom vanity. I took an empty bottle of Kerastase Elixir Ultime Oil, a product I have used to style my hair for over a decade, and washed it out with a long wire brush I’d once used to scrape the film off of the bottom of a baby bottle. I then filled it with as much Monopolowa it could hold. No one could tell the difference if they were looking for nail clippers or bandaids. This is when and how I started drinking first thing in the morning.

I was 39 years old having no idea that the bottle I held in my hand would try to kill me before the age of 46.

Are you still with me? I hope so. Because I need you to stick around. I need you understand that bestselling books and wikipedia pages and three-page spreads in People magazine tell you nothing about who I really am. The photos I’ve taken while exploring the world with organizations and celebrities and various lovers, they don’t tell you that when I traveled by plane I always checked two suitcases filled with liquid and I knew exactly how much I could pack so that those bags didn’t exceed the weight limit.

The significance of the two decades I spent being heralded and acclaimed as Queen of the Mommy Bloggers hangs in the balance as I admit all of this to you. I have everything to lose. Except, it’s already lost. Those decades are now just words on a screen. There is nothing left but a whimper inside the husk of what it was all supposed to mean.

Alcohol enslaved me and made me believe a lie intended to kill me. It made me believe that I would never again enjoy my life if I attempted sobriety. It made me believe that I would crumble underneath the weight of my anxiety without using it as a crutch to hold me upright. It whispered, “You think you are worthless now? Wait until you try life without me. You have no idea the bounds of how worthless you are.”

That whisper is the hand holding mine as it leads me to hide underneath the dashboard of my car. It forces my stunted frontal lobe to examine a slideshow of all the pain I caused while scrambling to reach for the bottle. The pain I caused my children. The pain I caused my parents. The pain I caused my partner for life. The damage I did to the innocent body that carries my soul through this physical world.

Please still be with me because I’m finally going to tell you what you need to hear, okay? Please listen to this and believe every word of what I am about to say:

The scream I emit while my body is contorted in agony is the sound of that demon leaving my body. Literally. That lie is so powerful that it makes a sound unlike anything in the world when confronted with the one thing more powerful than it.

Sobriety.

I am 43 days free of that bottle. I am 43 days free of believing that I was nothing more than a useless drunk. I will never be free of the lie because I am an addict. But now that I know it was a lie, now that I know how joyously and buoyantly powerful sobriety is, I am no longer chained to a demon that delighted in the look on my mother’s face as she tried to grapple with what it would be like to outlive her last-born child.

I am not my disease and neither are you.

Please be here. Please be with me. I need you, too. I need you to help me build something for women⁸ like you and me. That whimper in the husk of what I thought was success is my voice and yours. All these years I was wrong about what that success was supposed to mean.

I had no idea it all happened so that I would end up here in this specific post with you, writing these words and admitting it all to you. Forgive me if I sound like an egomaniacal douche, but you and I are going to change the world.

.
1. Going forward, I am using footnotes as a way to bridle my perverted tendencies (let’s be honest, this is not possible). I don’t want anyone offended by four-letter words or ALL CAPS TANGENTIAL RANTING to leave if they are someone who needs to hear what I have to say. I want to make this space as safe and comfortable as possible for them while also trotting out the obscene dimwit responsible for this website in the first place. In other words, footnotes will serve as the John Bender in all-day detention.

.
2. “Oh god, dooce is using footnotes and she thinks it’s funny, as if walking around with the top of her lace panties showing isn’t delusional enough. Can someone please tell that poor woman that her butt-lifting jeans aren’t doing their job.”

I won’t have to write the footnotes. They will write themselves.

.
3. Can we finally set the record straight? I never made millions and millions of dollars. Some journalists are terrible at their jobs and will fact check a number without using actual facts on purpose. And then that number goes out into the ether and becomes its own entity. I mean, A PRODUCER FOR OPRAH FOR CHRISSAKES found that number published somewhere else and didn’t fact check it with facts. FOR OPRAH!

.
4. “Sign” in this instance means “crumpled cocktail napkin handed to me by a flight attendant.”

.
5. “Hi” in this instance means “I HATE MIKE MONTEIRO.”

.
6. Not only was he super nice when told me he wasn’t interested in holding up a crumpled cocktail napkin declaring that he hated someone he didn’t know, he indulged the father of my children at the baggage carousel when said father of my children turned into a fangirl. An excerpt:

I immediately sprint with the stroller and the baby to a remote hiding place behind a column next to the door, thinking, okay, he’ll never see me here, and Jon! OH MY GOD! JON! MY HUSBAND. FATHER OF MY CHILDREN. HE WALKS UP TO FRAMPTON. And I’m screaming whispers from my hiding place, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! STOP! STOP! And I can’t hear anything from where I’m standing, but dear lord god in heaven, my husband is over there right in front of Frampton playing air guitar, swaying his hips, and pumping his hand in the shape of devil horns above his head.

Please just picture that in your head.

Remember, Jon is six feet three inches tall, weighs sixty pounds when he’s soaking wet, and his hair looks like Kramer’s.

I think I fell over dead, or maybe I just blacked out, but I don’t remember at least five minutes of my life. The sweat on my upper lip was so thick that I could have poured it into a 64-oz Big Gulp and had enough left over to water my yard.

.
7. “A little bit angry” here means “I accidentally changed the entire landscape of sponsored content.” I have never written about this before, so here goes.

Banana Republic demanded that I remove the post from my website and further stipulated that I was not allowed to tell my audience why. HAIRY VAGINA IS WHY. And you want to know why they made that stipulation? Turns out HAIRY VAGINA was the least of their worries. They were far more concerned that their demographic would think they were in the business of censoring authentic content WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE FUCKING DOING.

Guess what. I didn’t fucking erase the fucking post.

Sorry you had to get your sponsored content approved before publishing it! That was my fault!

Want to know another little fact about this incident? I got a phone call from the president of my ad network at the time, and dude. He was super-dee-duperly pissed. After I said hello he launched into a tirade that began with, “I am in London having dinner with the Black Eyed Peas and you go and do this and force me to get up and leave the table?!” I not only refrained from laughing, but I also stopped myself from interrupting him to say, “You’re going to name drop with me? You don’t want to name drop with me.”

Here in the 7th footnote on a post you probably won’t bother to finish reading is where I tell you that I have incriminating photos of a certain celebrity on my phone that I could sell to tabloids for an amount equal to a robust retirement. Photos I took while “having a conversation” on FaceTime Video with said celebrity. “Having a conversation” will not be clarified in a footnote, but I bring this up because DUDE. DON’T NAME DROP WITH ME. Also? These photos? They are facts. You can fact check them PRODUCER ON OPRAH.

.
8. I assure you that what we build will help men, too, DARYL. Don’t get yer britches in a wad.

In A Little Life, a novel by the author Hanya Yanagihara, the tone is exaggerated, almost melodramatic. But the book brings nuance to a key realm—its portrayal of queerness—as its four protagonists each arrive at complex understandings of their sexuality.

Indeed the best works of queer literature create space for this complexity. For example, the critic Andrea Long Chu questions simplistic narratives about trans identity in Females, which itself resists genre characterization. Similarly, in “Bump,” a short story published in The Atlantic, the author Morgan Thomas’s aim was to “expand visions of queer and trans desire.” The Stonewall Reader, a collection featuring works by figures such as the writer Audre Lorde and the activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya, demonstrates this expansiveness in the variety of experiences it chronicles. The book is named for one of history’s most powerful displays of queer protest, but focuses instead on intimate self-reckoning. The pieces in it ponder visibility, self-understanding, and the development of queerness as an identity.

Tillie Walden’s sci-fi graphic novel On a Sunbeam imagines a world in which such identities are the norm. The book’s events are set on a spaceship with no human men (though there is a male cat). In Walden’s imagined world, characters fall in love and grapple with their desires without fear of prejudice.

​Every Friday in the Books Briefing, we thread together Atlantic stories on books that share similar ideas. Know other book lovers who might like this guide? Forward them this email.

When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

What We’re Reading

David K. Wheeler

An ambitious chronicle of queer life in America
“Just as Yanagihara’s characters challenge conventional categories of gay identity, so A Little Life avoids the familiar narratives of gay fiction.”

📚 A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara

---

Chloe Cushman

The variety of transgender experiences
“Opponents of trans acceptance maintain that trans identities are new and trendy, that trans teens today are jumping on a bandwagon. The claim is in one sense obviously false—many cultures, from Samoa to South Asia, have gender-boundary-crossing identities—and in another sense irrelevant: Our right to acceptance shouldn’t depend on how long ago we showed up. We are here now.”

📚 Females, by Andrea Long Chu
📚 A Year Without a Name, by Cyrus Grace Dunham
📚 We Both Laughed in Pleasure, by Lou Sullivan

---

Ezra Carlsen / The Atlantic

The writer Morgan Thomas on desire and risk
“[The protagonist] Louie has several things—a lucrative job, a relatively stable long-term relationship, frank conversations with her grandmother—that I, as a genderqueer and queer person, have only recently dared to dream for myself. The first line opens the door for the story to expand visions of queer and trans desire.”

📚 “Bump,” by Morgan Thomas

---

Lucy Jones

Tracing the internal queer revolution
“Today, as disputes about once-unquestionable definitions of gender and sexuality unfold in mainstream politics, it’s easy to see how gay rights has entailed a ‘consciousness shift’ not only for queer people but also for straight ones. The process for either group has in part been incremental: individual encounters, individual lessons.”

📚 The Stonewall Reader, edited by the New York Public Library

---

Tillie Walden / First Second Books

An intergalactic tale populated by women
“With On a Sunbeam, Walden has created a science-fiction universe that is about women, queer love, old buildings, and big trees.”

📚 On a Sunbeam, by Tillie Walden

---

About us: This week’s newsletter is written by Kate Cray. The book she’s reading next is With Teeth, by Kristen Arnett.

Comments, questions, typos? Reply to this email to reach the Books Briefing team.

Did you get this newsletter from a friend? Sign yourself up.

It’s not just voting rights.

Though this year’s proliferation of bills restricting ballot access in red states has commanded national attention, it represents just one stream in a torrent of conservative legislation poised to remake the country. GOP-controlled states—including Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Iowa, and Montana—have advanced their most conservative agenda in years, and one that reflects Donald Trump’s present stamp on the Republican Party.

Across these states and others, Republican legislators and governors have operated as if they were programming a prime-time lineup at Fox News. They have focused far less on the small-government, limited-spending, and anti-tax policies that once defined the GOP than on an array of hot-button social issues, such as abortion, guns, and limits on public protest, that reflect the cultural and racial priorities of Trump’s base.

In part, this sharp right turn reflects a conscious backlash against unified Democratic control of Congress and the White House. Jessica Anderson, the executive director of Heritage Action for America, one of the country’s foremost grassroots conservative groups, told me that right-leaning voters have shifted more of their effort toward red states because they realize that they currently have no chance of advancing their causes at the national level. But the push, she added, also reflects a determination to elevate social and cultural issues that Trump stressed, after the GOP’s congressional leadership had generally downplayed them in favor of economic priorities such as cutting taxes and regulation. “You can make the argument that the work at the state level is a rebuttal or a critique of too much of the GOP leaving this stuff behind,” she said. “Trump said it matters.”

[Read: Democrats are running out of time]

The lurch right in Republican-controlled states extends to some economic issues: Nearly two dozen states, for instance, have rejected the increased unemployment benefits that congressional Democrats approved earlier this year in President Joe Biden’s stimulus plan. But the social and racially tinged issues that Trump moved to the center of GOP messaging have dominated legislative sessions in state after state. Among the issues advancing most broadly:

• Half a dozen states, including Tennessee, Montana, Iowa, and Texas, have passed legislation allowing gun owners to carry their weapons without a permit.
• Texas, South Carolina, Idaho, and Oklahoma have passed legislation banning abortion when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, after about six weeks of pregnancy (before women typically even know they are pregnant); Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas also passed virtually complete bans on abortion. Arizona approved an extremely restrictive bill that includes barring abortions for certain genetic conditions.
• Ten states have adopted about two dozen laws in total targeting transgender individuals, including legislation in seven states that bars transgender athletes from competing in school sports. In the U.S., “2021 has officially surpassed 2015 as the worst year for anti-LGBTQ legislation in recent history,” the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ-advocacy group, recently concluded. “States have now enacted more anti-LGBTQ laws this year than in the last three years combined.”
• Through mid-May, “14 states have enacted 22 new laws with provisions that make it harder for Americans to vote,” and many other laws are still pending, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. “At this rate,” the organization wrote, “the United States is on track to far exceed its most recent period of intense legislative activity to restrict the vote—2011.” More red states may join this push: After a walkout by state House Democrats blocked a restrictive Texas voting law this week, Governor Greg Abbott announced that he would call a special session to pass the law later this year.
• Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, and about half a dozen other states have passed laws stiffening penalties against demonstrators who block traffic or cause property damage, and several of those states have simultaneously provided civil or criminal protection for drivers who hit protesters, according to a tally by the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law.
• Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Texas have barred public schools from teaching “critical race theory,” which focuses on racism as an endemic feature of American history. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is moving to prohibit it through a ruling by the state board of education.
• Florida, Georgia, and Texas have all passed laws penalizing local governments that cut funding for their police department. One of the measures approved in Texas stipulates that a county looking to cut police funding must first win voter approval through a referendum—but would apply only to counties with a population of 1 million or more, almost all of which lean Democratic.
• Over the past year, several red-state governors have issued executive orders or signed laws barring local governments from mandating the use of face masks or limiting local businesses’ hours of operation; Florida and Tennessee have passed laws barring local governments or businesses from requiring residents to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination. Restrictive voting laws passed in Georgia and proposed in Texas explicitly outlaw measures used to increase voter turnout in the states’ largest cities (Atlanta and Houston, respectively).

This surge of polarizing legislation is being driven largely by a combination of confidence and fear. Many observers believe that Republican legislators feel emboldened after Democrats in the 2020 election failed to record the state legislative gains they expected. In 2018, as part of the recoil from Trump, Democrats made significant gains in state legislatures, winning control of six legislative chambers and netting more than 300 seats nationwide, many in the white-collar suburbs of major metro areas. But despite unprecedented investment in local races, and Biden’s win at the presidential level, the party did not flip any additional chambers last year; Republicans, on net, gained back about half as many seats as they had lost two years earlier and came out of the election with control of both legislative chambers in 30 states, compared with just 18 for Democrats (with one additional state divided and Nebraska officially nonpartisan).

Democrats’ failure at the state level in 2020 has encouraged GOP legislators to pursue a more aggressive agenda, many observers say. The dynamic is perhaps most visible in Texas. After Democrats won several suburban seats and narrowed the GOP advantage in the Texas State House in 2018, the diminished Republican majority largely muted social issues and focused on bread-and-butter concerns, such as education, during the 2019 session. The GOP’s focus shifted back toward cultural issues after Democrats failed to make the further gains both sides anticipated in November. “All the expectations in Texas just didn’t happen, so the Republican Party emerged with a kind of renewed confidence,” says James Henson, who directs the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

Republicans’ confidence, Henson adds, was also “bolstered” by a practical consequence of their 2020 success at holding both of Texas’s legislative chambers: In that state, as in virtually all of the states turning right this year, Republicans will control the decennial redistricting process. The ability to draw districts that favor them next year reduces their concern about a general-election backlash against their moves even in swing suburban areas. Carisa Lopez, the political director of the Texas Freedom Network, which works to organize young people there, told me, “For progressive organizations … [Republicans] have been coming at us from all angles, and it has been exhausting. They have done almost everything they can.”

[David A. Graham: The frightening new Republican consensus]

GOP legislators appear to be operating more out of fear that Trump’s base of non-college-educated, rural, and evangelical white voters will punish them in primaries if they fail to pursue maximum confrontation against Democrats and liberal constituencies, particularly on issues revolving around culture and race. “Very few of the districts are competitive [in a general election], so all they are worried about is being primaried,” says John Geer, a political-science professor at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, one of the states that have advanced the most aggressive conservative agenda this year. Glenn Smith, a longtime Democratic operative in Texas, notes that the state’s militantly conservative Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has pushed legislators toward his priorities this year in part by persuading them that any moderation risks infuriating “an aggrieved Trump base who feels that the election was stolen from them, are fired up, and love the red meat on every issue.”

In earlier generations, when governors of both parties tended to position themselves as less partisan, business-oriented problem-solvers, the GOP chief executives in these states might have restrained their legislators from veering toward the ideological fringe or even forcing votes on polarizing social issues. But today, many governors appear to feel the same pressure of a possible primary challenge—and others, most notably Florida’s DeSantis, seem to be pursuing support from the Trump base for a possible 2024 presidential bid. (As if to spotlight that intention, DeSantis signed the bill barring transgender girls from school sports on June 1, the first day of LGBTQ Pride month, and he did so at a Christian private school.)

Several other factors may be encouraging the red states’ right turn. Anderson, of Heritage Action, noted that state and local governments’ rules and restrictions during COVID-19 shutdowns prompted many conservative activists to conclude “that local and state politics probably impact their day-to-day more than even federal” policy does. Others I spoke with pointed out that conservatives are more confident that aggressive state-level social policies will withstand judicial challenges now that Republicans have solidified their 6–3 Supreme Court majority; the most restrictive abortion bills passed this year, for instance, would require the Court to roll back the nationwide right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade, as conservatives hope it will in a case involving a 15-week ban approved earlier in Mississippi. Groups such as Heritage Action and the American Legislative Exchange Council are also stepping up efforts to encourage Republican-controlled states to pursue a common conservative agenda; Heritage Action, for instance, published principles for election-law changes that Anderson has claimed helped guide the restrictive voter law passed earlier this year in Georgia.

Because it’s so decentralized, state-level policy can become a kind of blur. But in this flurry of red-state action, two patterns are clarifying. One is that even with Trump removed from the White House, his style of belligerent, culturally and racially confrontational politics is affirming its dominance in the GOP. Notably, in several states the restrictions on voting rights and social issues (particularly the bills targeting transgender people) are advancing despite public opposition from the business community that historically constituted the GOP’s base.

“There was a sense that once Trump moves out of town, the Republican Party will return to ‘normal.’ That’s turned out to be a terrible bet,” says Donald Kettl, a public-policy professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a longtime student of federalism and state politics. “All the forces of anger, part economic, part social, that were there to begin with are still alive, still building, and still in the process of trying to transform the Republican Party.”

The other pattern evident in the surge of conservative legislation is the continuing separation of red and blue America. As Biden and the Democrats controlling Congress are advancing an ambitious progressive agenda at the national level, almost all of the red states are responding with what amounts to a collective cry of defiance. On a lengthening list of issues, the rules that govern daily life in red and blue states are diverging—and at an accelerating pace. The chasms are deepening not only between states, but within them, as GOP legislators centered in preponderantly white rural and exurban areas more aggressively annul the policy choices of racially diverse, Democratic-controlled metro centers. Bill by bill, this year’s red-state offensive is measuring the continued unraveling of a country that appears to be unrelentingly pulling apart.

In Rob Reiner’s 1987 cult comedy, The Princess Bride, Fezzik asks the mysterious man in black a question as they scuffle atop the Cliffs of Insanity: “Why do you wear a mask? Were you burned by acid or something like that?” “Oh no,” replies the masked stranger, secretly a humble stable boy. “It’s just that they’re terribly comfortable. I think everyone will be wearing them in the future.”

This quote, from one of the world’s most quotable movies, got passed around a lot last spring, in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. You can even find it printed on a mask. More than a year later, the exchange has taken on added meaning. Why do we continue to wear masks, especially those of us who have been vaccinated (still less than half of the U.S. population)—despite the CDC’s announcement rolling back mask requirements in most public situations? Were we burned by acid or something? Maybe it just feels like we were.

[Zeynep Tufecki: The CDC is still repeating its mistakes]

Let’s not forget that for the first 10-plus months of this pandemic the country was led by a bizarrely compassion-free would-be autocrat seemingly incapable of uttering a sentence that did not contain at least one dangerous lie. Americans were put in the position of making personal decisions that had potential life-and-death consequences for every person we met and countless others we would never even see, based on information that was constantly shifting, typically self-contradictory, and far too often coming from dubious sources. We were told to inject bleach (or, even more confusingly, sunlight) into our bodies, and saw the seriousness of COVID-19 minimized. We watched a badly managed crisis shut down our most cherished public institutions, the places where we gather to learn from one another and share in the joy of living: schools, libraries, theaters, concert halls. Worst of all, we saw more than half a million of our fellow citizens—our mothers, fathers, grandparents, spouses, children, colleagues, and friends—die lonely and, in many cases, preventable deaths in overburdened hospitals staffed by medical workers haggard from exhaustion.

Even those government bodies not staffed by sociopaths—the CDC, the World Health Organization—often gave contradictory advice that left us scrambling for concrete guidance. Did we really spend months spraying our groceries with Fantastik and leaving our mail in a box outside the door for two days in order to let any virus on its surface die off? Well, yes, because the articles we were scouring for advice on how to survive suggested that we do so.

Just over a year ago, the official guidance on masks quietly migrated from “Don’t wear them at all, so that the limited supply can go to health-care workers” to “They are now required in all public places,” without any substantial acknowledgment that the previous advice had been, not to put too fine a point on it, wrong. Suddenly, in place of the listicles about high-touch-area scrubbing, instructions were circulating on how to sew your own mask from an old T-shirt or handkerchief; mask making became a thriving cottage industry on Etsy. But what type of mask was best to protect against the coronavirus? Were the KN95s that popped up for sale at a table in front of the now-closed nail salon really manufactured to medical-grade standards, or were they cheap knockoffs that would do little to filter a virus that might or might not be airborne? No one could say for sure, so we figured it out for ourselves on the fly.

[Derek Thompson: Are outdoor mask mandates still necessary?]

Now that the reins of government have been taken by a president and a party that, whatever you think of their policy positions, at least appear united in their belief that mass death is a bad thing, much of the confusion and day-to-day terror of that first year has subsided. The speed and competency of the vaccine rollout has been nothing short of a miracle, the public-health achievement of the young century; we should all feel infinitely grateful to the research scientists, health-care workers, and public-health officials who have made it feasible to vaccinate millions of people in just a few months.

But excuse me if I, like many of the people I see around me, am not yet quite ready to expose my lower face. Early on in the pandemic, I made a vow with my family that we would set a high standard for COVID-19 avoidance. Not only were we not getting this virus ourselves, if we could help it, but we were taking no chances of inadvertently spreading it to anyone else, even if that did make for a long and lonely year without indoor gatherings and travel to see family and friends. I didn’t want to go to my grave thinking that I was a link in some chain of human interaction leading to someone else’s serious illness or death.

I still don’t. The vaccines are remarkably effective, but not 100 percent. Breakthrough infections among vaccinated people have occurred (witness the cluster of cases among the New York Yankees), and the science about whether and how the virus can be transmitted by the vaccinated to the unvaccinated is not yet certain. Putting aside the hard science for a moment, wearing a mask in public spaces—especially indoors, where transmission is more likely—serves a broader social purpose: It says to those around us that, whatever our vaccine status, we value community safety.

When I walk outside my door into a densely populated neighborhood, I know as little about the life circumstances of the people I encounter as they do about mine. Are they, like me, fully vaccinated? Or are they in between shots, still looking for an appointment, or never planning to get a vaccine at all? Might they be in chemotherapy, or otherwise immunocompromised in some way that would prevent them from either getting a vaccine or experiencing its full benefits? Do they have children at home who can’t be vaccinated yet (as I did until last week, when the Pfizer shot was okayed for my child’s 12-to-15-year-old age group)? Did they lose one or more loved ones to COVID-19, or have a brutal and possibly ongoing bout with the disease themselves? Do they work in retail, health care, early-childhood education, or some other field that requires them to be exposed to the public in a way we lucky work-from-home types aren’t?

Many Americans are still living in a state of vulnerability. If I keep a mask on in all but the safest circumstances (walking outdoors in an uncrowded area, spending time indoors with people who I know have been vaccinated), it’s to protect the emotional as well as physical health of those people—and if we’ve learned one thing during this lonely, anxious, crazy-making year, it’s that those two forms of health are inextricably intertwined.

Decisions about when, where, and whether to wear a mask will all be made by individuals—they already were before the latest CDC revision of mask guidelines. As we have seen in the fierce masking debates of the past year, no guideline or mandate will get through to that core group of people who regard an eight-inch-wide rectangle of fabric as a violation of their constitutional freedoms—a population that may well overlap with the 25 percent or so of Americans who say they will refuse to get a vaccine. Others, fully vaccinated and wanting to breathe in the fresh air of this hopeful spring, will go outside with mask in pocket, to don as needed. But if, like the man in black, some of us simply find comfort in going around with a scrap of cloth on our face, we can be forgiven for choosing to leave it there until the world feels like a safer place for everyone.

I’m not sure whether to hug or curse the person who invented no-bake peanut butter bars. This homemade version of a peanut butter cup is so ridiculously simple that you might never buy a packaged peanut butter cup at the store again. Especially since you can stash these in your freezer and just take one out to nibble on every now and then. IT’S JUST TOO EASY.

No-bake peanut butter bars have been around for eons. Well, decades at least. There are a million versions of this recipe out there, but mine have a slightly more even ratio between the chocolate and peanut butter portions, and I like to nestle a little mini-pretzel in the top for a little added crunch.

Oh, and most no-bake peanut butter bar recipes usually specify not to use natural-style peanut butter, but that’s what I use with mine and it works just fine! :)

What Kind of Nut Butter Can I Use?

I used a natural-style peanut butter made with just peanuts and salt for these peanut butter bars. If you’re allergic to peanuts you can use a different type of nut butter, like almond or cashew (although those will be quite a bit more expensive).

Just make sure you choose a nut butter that is quite firm when refrigerated and soft when room temperature. As long as it firms up when refrigerated, it will work for these bars. Oh, and make sure it has at least a little salt and is very well stirred before adding to the recipe. Too much oil and the bars won’t set.

Choose Your Chocolate

This recipe is also fairly flexible when it comes to the type of chocolate used. I used plain old semi-sweet chocolate chips, but you could have a little fun and use dark chocolate, or a different flavored chocolate chip if you’d like.

How to Store Peanut Butter Bars

You’ll want to keep these peanut butter bars refrigerated so they don’t melt. I suggest keeping them in an air-tight container in the refrigerator no longer than a week, or you can freeze them for longer storage (freezer bag, up to three months or so). To thaw, just let them sit out at room temperature for about 10 minutes.

No Bake Pretzel Peanut Butter Bars

These no-bake pretzel peanut butter bars are a ridiculously simple homemade version of your favorite peanut butter cups!

Total Cost $3.94 recipe / $0.16 per square

Prep Time 15 minutes

Refrigerate Time 2 hours

Total Time 2 hours 15 minutes

Servings 25 1 square

Calories 187.94kcal

Author Beth – Budget Bytes

Equipment

• Food Processor
• Parchment Paper

Ingredients

• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 8 sheets) $0.38
• 1/2 cup butter $0.82
• 1 cup peanut butter (+ 2 Tbsp) $1.38
• 1 cup powdered sugar $0.07
• 1.5 cups chocolate chips $1.19
• 25 mini pretzels $0.10

Instructions

• If your graham crackers aren't already in crumb form, use a food processor to blitz them into a fine crumb.
• Place the butter and 1 cup of peanut butter in a bowl. Microwave and stir in 30-second intervals, just until they're warm enough to melt together. Stir until evenly combined. (Reserve the last 2 Tbsp peanut butter for later.)
• Add the powdered sugar and graham cracker crumbs to the melted peanut butter mixture and stir until evenly combined.
• Line an 8×8-inch baking dish with parchment paper making sure some of the paper overhangs on the sides so you can lift the bars out of the dish later. Press the peanut butter mixture into the bottom in an even layer.
• Add the chocolate chips and the last 2 Tbsp peanut butter to a bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds, then stir. Continue to microwave and stir in 15 second increments until the chocolate is fully melted and smooth.
• Pour the melted chocolate over the peanut butter base in the baking dish and spread it smooth. Add the mini pretzels on top in even rows (I did five rows of five across).
• Refrigerate the peanut butter bars for two hours, or until completely set. Once set, lift the bars out of the dish using the parchment paper. Use a sharp knife to cut them into squares between the pretzels. Enjoy immediately, refrigerate for later, or freeze for long term storage.

Nutrition

Serving: 1square | Calories: 187.94kcal | Carbohydrates: 17.3g | Protein: 3.82g | Fat: 12.94g | Sodium: 108.91mg | Fiber: 1.41g

Love peanut butter and chocolate? Check out my Peanut Butter Fluff Cups or “The One” Chocolate Mug Cake!

How to Make Pretzel Peanut Butter Bars – Step by Step Photos

While you can actually buy graham crackers already in crumb form, it’s going to be less expensive to make crumbs out of whole crackers. You want a very fine and even crumb for this, so a food processor is probably the best option. You need 1 cup of crumbs, which should be about 8 sheets of graham crackers.

Whiz those graham crackers until they’r every fine and even.

Add 1 cup peanut butter and ½ cup butter (I used salted) to a bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds or just long enough that they’ll melt together. Avoid heating it until it’s piping hot. That will make the later steps more difficult. Stir until the mixture is even and smooth.

Add the graham cracker crumbs and 1 cup powdered sugar to the peanut butter mixture.

Stir until it forms an even paste-like mixture.

Line an 8×8-inch baking dish with parchment paper so that some of it sticks up the sides (this will help you remove the bars from the dish later). Spread the peanut butter mixture evenly into the bottom of the dish.

Add 1.5 cups chocolate chips and 2 Tbsp peanut butter to a bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds, then stir will. Continue to microwave and stir in 15 second increments until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Avoid over heating the chocolate or it will begin to get grainy.

Pour the melted chocolate over the peanut butter base and then spread it out until smooth.

Press the mini-pretzels into the melted chocolate in rows. I did five rows of five across. Make sure to leave a little space between each because that is where you’ll cut your bars.

Refrigerate the peanut butter bars for at least two hours, or until they are solid. Lift them out of the dish using the sides of the parchment paper. Use a sharp knife to cut them into squares between each pretzel.

You can keep your peanut butter bars in the refrigerator for about a week, or freeze them for longer! They thaw pretty quickly at room temperature, so you can get that peanut butter chocolate fix whenever you’d like. ;)

The post No Bake Pretzel Peanut Butter Bars appeared first on Budget Bytes.

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo articulated today what many have been reluctant to say: What is at stake in the Big Lie and all the Republican efforts to keep it in play—the shenanigans in the secret Maricopa County, Arizona, recount; the censuring of Republicans who voted to impeach the former president; the expected removal of Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney from a leadership role in the party; and so on—is not the past election of 2020, but the upcoming election of 2024.

The Republican Party has demonstrated that it intends to control the government in the future, no matter what most Americans want. Iowa, Georgia, Montana, and Florida have already passed voter suppression laws, while other states are considering them. (Governor Ron DeSantis signed Florida’s bill yesterday live on the Fox News Channel.)

As Marshall points out, though, making sure that states return only Republicans to Congress is also about controlling the White House. Republican lawmakers are purging from state election machinery members of their own party who refused to change the outcome of the 2020 election and give a victory to Trump. The former president has fed speculation that he still hopes to overturn the 2020 election, but Marshall looks forward: Is it really possible to think that in 2024, members of the new Trump party will protect the sanctity of any election that gives a victory to a Democratic candidate? If Republicans capture the House in 2022, will they agree to certify electoral votes for a Democrat? In 2020, even before the current remaking of the party in Trump’s image, 139 House Republicans contested them.

Trump is systematically going after leading members of the Republican Party, determined to remake it into his own organization. Several former senior White House officials told Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post that “[t]he defeated ex-president is propelled primarily by a thirst for retribution, an insatiable quest for the spotlight and a desire to establish and maintain total dominance and control over the Republican base.” Republican strategist Brendan Buck noted that Trump seems to relish fighting, rather than victory to achieve an end. “Usually,” Buck said, “a fight is the means to an end, but in this case fighting is the end.”

The Republicans are consolidating their control over the machinery of government in a way that indicates they intend to control the country regardless of what Americans actually want, putting Trump and his organization back in charge. Democrats have proposed the For the People Act (H.R. 1 and S. 1), which would start to restore a level playing field between the parties. The For the People Act would sideline the new voter suppression bills and make it easier to vote. It would end partisan gerrymandering and stop the flow of big money into elections permitted after the 2010 Citizens United decision.

But Republicans are determined to stop this measure. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is especially engaged in its obstruction. He has called it a “partisan takeover” that would “give Washington Democrats unprecedented control over 50 states’ election laws.” He recognizes that restoring a level electoral playing field would hamstring the Republicans’ ability to win elections. Defeating the act is McConnell’s top priority.

The story of how Republican leaders embraced voter suppression and gerrymandering starts back in the 1980s, though the mechanics of overturning a presidential election are new to 2020. Still, their undermining of our democratic system begs the question: Why are leading Republicans surrendering their party, and our nation, to a budding autocrat?

Two days ago, when asked if he is concerned about the direction of his party,  McConnell told reporters that he is not paying attention to it because the Democrats are trying “to turn American into a socialist country,” and that “[o]ne-hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration.”

In his April 28 address before a joint session of Congress, President Biden indicated he intended to reverse the course the government has been on since the Reagan years. “My fellow Americans,” Biden said, “trickle-down… economics has never worked, and it's time to grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out.”

Republicans have tied themselves to the idea that, as Reagan said, “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem” (although in 1981 he prefaced that statement with the words: “In this present crisis”). Since the 1990s, they have focused on tax cuts and deregulation as the key to building a strong economy, even though that program has moved wealth dramatically upward.

Today, Republicans interpreted a jobs report that showed job growth slowing in April as a sign that Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which pumped $1.9 trillion into the country to help it heal from the coronavirus recession, has failed. Rather than speeding up growth, they say, it is slowing it down. Biden pointed out that the nation has added 1.5 million jobs since he took office and that the recession will not end overnight, but Republicans insist that the federal $300 weekly unemployment checks included in the law are keeping people from going back to work.

The top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, issued a statement saying: “This is a stunning economic setback, and unequivocal proof that President Biden is sabotaging our jobs recovery with promises of higher taxes and regulation on local businesses that discourage hiring and drive jobs overseas.”

Citing help wanted ads, Republican governors in South Carolina, Montana, and Arkansas are ending the unemployment benefit in their own states to get people back to work. Other Republican-led states are suing the administration to force it to let them use the money provided in the American Rescue Plan not to offer help to workers, but to subsidize tax cuts. Meanwhile, still others at home are touting the benefits of the American Rescue Plan to their constituents without mentioning that they voted against it.

Americans appear to like the new direction of the country. Seventy-seven percent liked the American Rescue Plan and 56% like Biden’s proposed American Jobs Plan for infrastructure, while 65% want to tax people making more than $400,000 a year to pay for it. At the same time, a new Pew poll suggests that the divisiveness of the Trump years is easing and that young people in particular are not interested in the culture wars.

Faced with the prospect of voters rejecting their economic policies, Republican leaders are undermining democracy.

—-

Notes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-republicans-retribution/2021/05/07/daf0cd4e-ae7c-11eb-b476-c3b287e52a01_story.html

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/07/trump-cheney-gop-families-485528

Marc E. Elias @marceelias

These states have passed voter suppression laws. 1. Iowa 2. Georgia 3. Montana 4. Florida We have sued these state's voter suppression laws. 1. Iowa 2. Georgia 3. Montana 4. Florida Goodnight😴

May 8th 2021

2,204 Retweets14,137 Likes

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/04/trump-obstruction-justice-doj-485360

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article251179289.html

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-before-joint-session-the-congress-3

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/reagan1.asp

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-disputed-2024-presidential-election

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2021/politics/congress-electoral-college-count-tracker/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/gop-gov-desantis-signs-restrictive-new-voting-florida-dems-fear-n1266415

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/business/biden-republicans-jobs.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/mcconnell-says-he-s-100-percent-focused-stopping-biden-s-n1266443

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-04-15/a-majority-of-americans-support-bidens-infrastructure-plan

Share

A real scientific advance, like a successful date, needs both preparation and serendipity. As a tired, single medical student, I used to feel lucky when I managed two good dates in a row. But career scientists must continually create this kind of magic. Universities judge their research faculty not so much by the quality of their discoveries as by the number of papers they’ve placed in scholarly journals, and how prestigious those journals happen to be. Scientists joke (and complain) that this relentless pressure to pad their résumés often leads to flawed or unoriginal publications. So when Randall Munroe, the creator of the long-running webcomic XKCD, laid out this problem in a perfect cartoon last week, it captured the attention of scientists—and inspired many to create versions specific to their own disciplines. Together, these became a global, interdisciplinary conversation about the nature of modern research practices.

The cartoon is, like most XKCD comics, a simple back-and-white line drawing with a nerdy punch line. It depicts a taxonomy of the 12 “Types of Scientific Paper,” presented in a grid. “The immune system is at it again,” one paper’s title reads. “My colleague is wrong and I can finally prove it,” declares another. The gag reveals how research literature, when stripped of its jargon, is just as susceptible to repetition, triviality, pandering, and pettiness as other forms of communication. The cartoon’s childlike simplicity, though, seemed to offer cover for scientists to critique and celebrate their work at the same time.

The concept was intuitive—and infinitely remixable. Within a couple of days, the sociologist Kieran Healy had created a version of the grid for his field; its entries included “This seems very weird and bad but it’s perfectly rational when you’re poor,” and “I take a SOCIOLOGICAL approach, unlike SOME people.” Epidemiologists got on board too—“We don’t really have a clue what we’re doing: but here are some models!” Statisticians, perhaps unsurprisingly, also geeked out: “A new robust variance estimator that nobody needs.” (I don’t get it either.) You couldn’t keep the biologists away from the fun (“New microscope!! Yours is now obsolete”), and—in their usual fashion—the science journalists soon followed (“Readers love animals”). A doctoral student cobbled together a website to help users generate their own versions. We reached Peak Meme with the creation of a meta-meme outlining a taxonomy of academic-paper memes. At that point, the writer and internet activist Cory Doctorow lauded the collective project of producing these jokes as “an act of wry, insightful auto-ethnography—self-criticism wrapped in humor that tells a story.”

Put another way: The joke was on target. “The meme hits the right nerve,” says Vinay Prasad, an associate epidemiology professor and a prominent critic of medical research. “Many papers serve no purpose, advance no agenda, may not be correct, make no sense, and are poorly read. But they are required for promotion.” The scholarly literature in many fields is riddled with extraneous work; indeed, I’ve always been intrigued by the idea that this sorry outcome was more or less inevitable, given the incentives at play. Take a bunch of clever, ambitious people and tell them to get as many papers published as possible while still technically passing muster through peer review … and what do you think is going to happen? Of course the system gets gamed: The results from one experiment get sliced up into a dozen papers, statistics are massaged to produce more interesting results, and conclusions become exaggerated. The most prolific authors have found a way to publish more than one scientific paper a week. Those who can’t keep up might hire a paper mill to do (or fake) the work on their behalf.

In medicine, at least, the urgency of COVID-19 only made it easier to publish a lot of articles very quickly. The most prestigious journals—The New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Lancet—have traditionally reserved their limited space for large, expensive clinical trials. During the pandemic, though, they started rapidly accepting reports that described just a handful of patients. More than a few CVs were beefed up along the way. Scientists desperate to stay relevant began to shoehorn COVID-19 into otherwise unrelated research, says Saurabh Jha, an associate radiology professor and a deputy editor of the journal Academic Radiology.

A staggering 200,000 COVID-19 papers have already been published, of which just a tiny proportion will ever be read or put into practice. To be fair, it’s hard to know in advance which data will prove most useful during an unprecedented health crisis. But pandemic publishing has only served to exacerbate some well-established bad habits, Michael Johansen, a family-medicine physician and researcher who has criticized many studies as being of minimal value, told me. “COVID publications appear to be representative of the literature at large: a few really important papers and a whole bunch of stuff that isn’t or shouldn’t be read,” he said. Peer-reviewed results confirming that our vaccines really work, for example, could lead to millions of lives being saved. Data coming out of the United Kingdom’s nationwide RECOVERY trial have provided strong evidence for now-standard treatments such as dexamethasone. But that weird case report? Another modeling study trying to predict the unpredictable? They’re good for a news cycle, maybe, but not for real medical care. And some lousy studies have even undermined the treatment of COVID-19 patients (hydroxychloroquine has entered the chat).

I should pause here to acknowledge that I’m a hypocrite. “Some thoughts on how everyone else is bad at research” is listed as one of the facetious article types in the original XKCD comic, yet here I am rehashing the same idea, with an internet-culture angle. Unfortunately, because The Atlantic isn’t included in scientific databases, publishing this piece will do nothing to advance my academic career. “Everyone recognizes it’s a hamster-in-a-wheel situation, and we are all hamsters,” says Anirban Maitra, a physician and scientific director at MD Anderson Cancer Center. (He created a version of the “12 Types” meme for my own beloved field: “A random pathology paper with the phrase ‘artificial intelligence’ in the title.”) Maitra has built a successful career by running in the publication wheel—his own bibliography now includes more than 300 publications—but he says he has no idea how to fix the system’s flaws. In fact, none of the scientists I talked with could think of a realistic solution. If science has become a punch line, then we haven’t yet figured out how to get rid of the setup.

While the XKCD comic can be read as critical of the scientific enterprise, part of its viral appeal is that it also conveys the joy that scientists feel in nerding out about their favorite topics. (“Hey, I found a trove of old records! They don’t turn out to be particularly useful, but still, cool!”) Publication metrics have become a sad stand-in for quality in academia, but maybe there’s a lesson in the fact that even a webcomic can arouse so much passion and collaboration across the scientific community. Surely there’s a better way to cultivate knowledge than today’s endless grid of black-and-white papers.  

Loving this collection of photographs and words celebrating the complexities of motherhood, curated by The Luupe.

Photo by Brittany Marcoux

Photo by Jass Durhal

Photo by Loulou d’Aki

Photo by Sinead Patching

At the LGBTQ senior community where John James lives in Philadelphia, residents keep busy with trips to the garden or—before the pandemic—screenings of Strangers on a Train in the rec room. James does not care for any of that right now. Each morning, he combs through medical-research databases and downloads every paper he can find on COVID-19 treatments, scribbling notes about the parts that stand out. Most days, he reads papers at his desk until 1 a.m. Besides research, “there’s not much else I do in the day,” he told me. “I’m 79. I’m retired. I want to do things that are serious.”

All of his work is in service of a website he recently launched, called COVIDSalon: Treatment Options. He updates it nearly every day, tracking the highest-profile and most promising COVID-19 drugs. It’s an old-school, text-heavy site, with reporting about drug trials, links to outside resources, and overviews of medications in the news all stacked onto a single page.

Few people understand the value of tracking treatments better than James. In 1986, when gay men across the country were dying from AIDS and were desperate for guidance, James began publishing updates on experimental-drug trials in a newsletter he called AIDS Treatment News, or ATN. James is not a doctor, and he is not HIV-positive, but during his time working as a computer programmer at the National Institutes of Health in the early 1960s, he learned to read medical research and interpret statistics. Despite operating on a tiny budget, ATN became one of the primary news sources for the queer community. In 1991, The New York Times noted that ATN was the newsletter “most frequently cited” by doctors and people with AIDS alike as their main source for drug news. Congress even referenced the newsletter in a report on AIDS therapies.

With the coronavirus pandemic, James sees treatments slipping under the radar once again. While the federal government poured $18.5 billion into vaccine research, only about $8.2 billion went to treatments. One drug that has gotten a lot of attention, hydroxychloroquine, has largely proved to be a dud. Even though half of all American adults have received at least one vaccine dose, research on COVID-19 treatments remains vital; tens of thousands of Americans are still hospitalized with the coronavirus, and better treatments might help them. Meanwhile, for COVID-19 long-haulers dealing with lingering effects of the virus, treatments may offer the best hope of a return to normalcy. With COVIDSalon, James is leaning into a notion that he and other veterans of the AIDS epidemic helped trailblaze in the ’80s: Patients can become experts on their own disease, and that starts with supplying them with the right information.

When James launched ATN, the situation was dire. In 1985, 8,406 Americans died of AIDS, nearly doubling the number of deaths from the year before. But few drug trials for AIDS were under way, and those that were rarely received mainstream coverage. Because doctors didn’t know how to treat the new disease, people with AIDS needed to research their own symptoms and, sometimes, plot their own course of care. Activist groups such as ACT UP “really promoted the idea of Let’s get this [treatment] information out there,” says Patricia Siplon, an AIDS activist and a political-science professor at Saint Michael’s College, but few people had the time or the ability, before the internet, to do the research. With the queer community left in the dark about how to address the epidemic, James started accessing a dial-up computer database that hosted new treatment research as well as reports from the FDA and drug companies. Every two weeks, he would condense his findings into a two-page newsletter.

After his newsletter started getting traction, James turned his San Francisco apartment into a makeshift newsroom. He and an assistant made copies a few blocks away, and mailed them out to subscribers one by one. Volunteers edited, fact-checked, and produced the newsletter at all hours. “When I needed to get to sleep at night, if they were still working, I would put a piece of cardboard over my face to block the light,” James said. He broke major news stories, including one about a steroid hormone, and directed people with AIDS to research trials, in which they could enroll and access experimental drugs.

ATN became the go-to source for lots of people looking for treatment news: By the early 1990s, the newsletter had amassed more than 7,500 subscribers, including both people with AIDS and medical professionals, powered by a staff of five plus James. Even after the highly effective “AIDS cocktail” arrived in 1996, James turned his focus to the steep cost of the available drugs before finally shutting down the newsletter in the summer of 2007 to work on other research.

Compared with treatment research at the height of the AIDS crisis, the state of COVID-19 treatment research looks very different. “It’s like comparing a drought to an avalanche,” James said. Much of the medical community has swerved to battle the pandemic, and doctors are testing more drugs on a faster timeline than ever before, says David Fajgenbaum, a doctor at the University of Pennsylvania who runs the CORONA Project, a database that catalogs COVID-19 drug trials. He told me that more than 400 different drugs have been given to patients, but only a small number of treatments, such as dexamethasone, have shown consistent signs of effectiveness against COVID-19. Most of the other treatments haven’t had the funds for extensive trials, and without proper research, some drugs run the risk of getting overhyped based on limited information. “The early bets financially were made on investing in vaccine trials and investing in monoclonal antibodies,” Fajgenbaum said. “What received relatively less funding and attention were drugs that were already FDA-approved that could be repurposed for COVID.”

With so few treatments available to patients, James felt an obligation to explain where the research on those hundreds of other drugs stands. Just like ATN, COVIDSalon is focused on explaining treatment news for a general audience and helping sick people enroll in research trials if they want to. But it’s not quite a redux of ATN. People no longer have to wait for James’s twice-monthly newsletter to arrive in their mailbox to find out what trials are under way; they can just Google them. Instead, his goal with COVIDSalon is to provide a dedicated hub of treatment information so people don’t have to sift through a barrage of old articles.

At the top of the site, James rounds up news stories about the state of treatments and peppers them with his own annotations. Below that, he gets into the repurposed drugs currently generating the most attention in medical journals. The obsessive-compulsive-disorder drug fluvoxamine “needs urgent attention from experts and the public,” James wrote in one update. One small trial in February found that 65 COVID-19 patients who took fluvoxamine did not experience any symptoms two weeks later. He has also mentioned inhaled budesonide, an asthma treatment, as another drug with early evidence of success against COVID-19. Many of the drugs that he has made a centerpiece of his site already have the attention of doctors such as Fajgenbaum, who said that both fluvoxamine and inhaled budesonide “look highly promising,” specifically for newly diagnosed patients.

A large segment of COVIDSalon aims to help COVID long-haulers. At the moment, only a small number of trials are focusing on long-haulers, Fajgenbaum told me. James also highlights drugs like fluvoxamine that have alleviated long-term symptoms in a test of COVID-19 patients, plus others such as the nutritional supplement GlyNAC, which he suggests is worth watching but is still in very early-stage trials. The way that long-haulers have organized throughout the pandemic—discussing their symptoms in Facebook and Slack groups, and pushing medical professionals to pay attention to their ailments—echoes the patient advocacy that James helped popularize during the AIDS epidemic. Through publications such as ATN, many people with AIDS knew as much about the latest niche medical findings as licensed doctors did. “I think that’s the same with the long-haulers,” Siplon says, although she notes that the barriers they face are not entirely the same as the ones that people with AIDS dealt with in the ’80s. “Everyone is learning about the long-term consequences of this in real time.”

COVID long-haulers are not waiting for scientists to come to them; they’re starting their own research groups, such as the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, which crowdsources people’s symptoms and experiences. James no longer has the influence that he once did; indeed, many long-haulers likely haven’t heard of ATN or even COVIDSalon. But the idea that people can become experts on their own disease runs deep in the work of long-haulers. The need for COVID-19 patient advocacy might become even more important as Americans get vaccinated and look to put the pandemic behind them. So, even when much of the country gets its first glimpses at normalcy, James said he’ll keep to his schedule of reading up on the latest treatment research. Though once it’s safe to, he’ll take just a few breaks to watch Strangers on a Train when it’s playing in the rec room.

Editor’s Note: Every Tuesday, Abby Freireich and Brian Platzer take questions from readers about their kids’ education. Have one? Email them at homeroom@theatlantic.com.

Dear Abby and Brian,

My daughter is in ninth grade and is really struggling with essay writing. English, history, the subject doesn’t matter—she has a meltdown every time. She just stares at the screen and doesn’t know where to start.

I try to remember what I learned in high school about the Roman empire or Robert Frost to get her going. I’ve tried to leave her alone, or to sit there doing the work along with her. None of it ever seems to help. I find myself dreading her getting an essay assignment, because whenever she does, the night before it’s due nearly always ends with her in tears or yelling at me.

What can I do?

Julia
Virginia

Dear Julia,

Seeing your daughter so upset when confronted with writing assignments can be painful. We appreciate your instinct to help, but neither leaving your daughter alone nor sitting there doing the work along with her is the right approach. What will help is taking an assignment that overwhelms her and breaking it down into a series of small, manageable steps that she can do on her own. The goal is not to get an essay written no matter what, but to set her up for being an independent, confident student who doesn’t rely on you at every turn.

You’ll want to sit down with her and say something like “I know essay writing has been really hard, but it will help if you can think about it as a set of smaller steps and budget enough time for each.” Then go through these steps with her:

1. Read the material, highlighting important points and taking notes.

This is the starting point for any good essay writing. Suggest that even before she is assigned a writing prompt, she begins taking notes on the material as she reads it. Annotation should serve as a conversation with the text: She should mark significant or reaction-provoking passages and jot down a few words about why they are noteworthy.

1. Review the notes, looking for one thread that ties everything together.

This is how she will begin building her thesis. Teachers sometimes disagree over whether students should start with a working thesis and then find evidence to build their case, or start with examples and see where they lead. We believe that the thesis and examples should be developed together; as your daughter narrows down evidence, her thesis can evolve.

1. Write topic sentences for each of the body paragraphs, and then match topic sentences with examples and analysis to build an outline.

Your daughter should think about defending her thesis with a series of sub-arguments, each expressed as a topic sentence for her body paragraphs. Many students have difficulty connecting their arguments to evidence, because they are inclined to summarize the material rather than critically evaluate it. Your daughter can ask herself what her examples reveal about her topic sentences and then delve into the importance of word choice and literary devices as is relevant.

1. Write introduction and conclusion paragraphs.

With topic sentences, examples, and analysis for each body paragraph together in outline form, your daughter can move on to her introduction and conclusion. The focus of her introduction should be general background information leading up to the thesis, and the conclusion should offer new insight into the significance of the topic and a parting thought for the reader to ponder.

1. Use the outline, introductory paragraph, and conclusion to write a first draft.

Once she has completed an outline, she’ll have a straightforward road map for writing a draft with more thoroughly developed ideas.

1. Look over the draft twice: once to ensure that the argument flows logically and a second time to eliminate errors in grammar and syntax, as well as to sharpen word choice.

We recommend that all editing be done while reading the work aloud from a printed draft, pencil in hand. Once these revisions are implemented, she’ll have a final draft ready to go.

If a single major assignment becomes six minor ones, your daughter is far less likely to feel overwhelmed. This process, from start to finish, will take about a week, so she should plan accordingly. With a calendar in front of her, she should look at what assignments she has coming up for the rest of the semester and mark deadlines for each of these steps so that she won’t have to rush at the end. Remember that writing always takes longer than it seems it should. Helping your daughter plan well in advance should allow her to approach writing with less trepidation and instead see it as a process composed of clear, manageable steps.

As she does this more and more, she’ll find that her belief in herself will grow—and you won’t cringe when you hear about the English essay due next week.

By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let The Atlantic use it—in part or in full—and we may edit it for length and/or clarity.