Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 53

Not just a place to live: From homelessness to citizenship

AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Twenty years ago, Jim lived under a highway bridge in New Haven, Connecticut. He was in his 50s and had once been in the Army.

After an honorable discharge, he bounced from one job to another, drank too much, became estranged from his family and finally ended up homeless. A New Haven mental health outreach team found him one morning sleeping under the bridge. His neon yellow sneakers stuck out from underneath his blankets.

The team tried for months to get Jim to accept psychiatric services. Finally, one day, he relented. The outreach workers quickly helped him get disability benefits, connected him to a psychiatrist and got him a decent apartment.

But two weeks later, safe in the apartment, Jim said he wanted to go live under the bridge again. He was more comfortable there, where he knew people and felt like he belonged, he said. In his apartment he was cut off from everything.

As researchers in mental health and criminal justice at Wesleyan and Yale universities, we have been studying homeless populations in New Haven for the past 20 years. In that moment, when Jim said he wanted to leave what we considered the safety of an apartment, the outreach team, which co-author Michael Rowe ran, realized that, while we were capable of physically ending a person’s homelessness, assisting that person in finding a true home was a more complicated challenge.

Helping the most marginalized people in society feel comfortable in a new and alien environment, where they were isolated from their peers, required a different approach that went beyond finding them a place to live.

The people we worked with needed to see themselves – and be seen as – full members of their neighborhoods and communities. They needed, in other words, to be citizens.

Record number of homeless deaths

Fueled by the opioid crisis, high housing costs and extreme weather, homelessness and its fatal costs are on the rise.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates an increase in the homeless population in 2017 for the first time in seven years, with more than half a million Americans lacking permanent shelter.

In addition, in cities across the country, there has been a surge in deaths of homeless individuals. Last year, New Orleans saw a record 60 homeless deaths, a 25 percent rise over two years. Denver saw an estimated increase of 35 percent over 2016, while Rapid City, South Dakota, with a population of only 75,000, saw five deaths of homeless individuals just since December.

Complicating matters, about 25 percent of the homeless population is severely mentally ill. Many are deeply distrustful of shelters and the service system, sometimes refusing to engage in services even when their lives are at stake.

We believe our research might provide a hopeful answer for the increasing number of homeless Americans whose lives are in jeopardy on the streets of our cities.

From outcasts to insiders

Jim’s story, and other similar ones, led us on a 20-year quest to create a formal mechanism to enhance a sense of belonging and citizenship among society’s outsiders.

Aristotle said that to be a citizen is to participate in the political life of a city. Much later, Alexis de Tocqueville linked citizenship to civic participation.

We defined citizenship as the strength of a person’s connection to the “Five Rs” – the rights, responsibilities, roles and resources that society confers on people through its institutions, as well as one’s relationships to and with friends, neighbors and social networks.

Fifteen years ago, we got a small grant and created the Citizens Project in New Haven for people with mental illness and criminal histories, including major felonies. Often, they had histories of homelessness. The six-month program meets twice a week at a soup kitchen.

There are four months of classes on the Five Rs of citizenship, covering pragmatic topics such as the capacity to effectively advocate for oneself, public speaking and conflict resolution. A community advocate and peer mentors – people with mental illnesses who are now doing well– teach, support and counsel participants, or “students,” as well as provide them with living, breathing proof that people can indeed change.

Then students undertake a meaningful project in the community, such as training police cadets how to approach people living on the streets in a nonthreatening manner. Graduations are held at City Hall, with family, friends and public officials cheering on.

The results?

There were statistically significant reductions – 55 percent – in alcohol and drug use among citizenship program participants (as compared to 20 percent reduction in the control group). Additionally, participants’ self-reported indicators of quality of life – such as satisfaction with daily activities and with their employment for those who secured jobs – were significantly higher in the citizenship group than the control groups. We have published the results in peer-reviewed articles and a book, Citizenship and Mental Health.

Criminal charges decreased, as they did in the control group, which received “usual” mental health care. Perhaps most important, each class of students became a supportive community in itself. Participants have taken seriously their new role as students, one that many had not embraced before.

Over the period in which we have conducted the citizenship project, homelessness overall in New Haven has decreased, likely through many factors, including perhaps our own work.

Citizenship approach spreading

Interestingly, however, anxiety and depression increased at various points among our participants. Perhaps the challenge of the intervention had an impact on students. Perhaps also the courage to change brought with it a vulnerability to difficult thoughts and feelings: grief over lost opportunities, lost friends, or lost dreams, even while their quality of life increased.

The project has run for years now, graduating hundreds. We’ve received funding from federal and state government. A state-wide social service agency is making their primary focus the enhanced citizenship of its 6,000 clients. Citizenship projects, based on our our model, have been launched at a state forensic hospital in Connecticut and internationally in mental health programs in Quebec, Scotland, and soon, Spain and New Zealand.

It seems our citizenship program born 20 years ago is now coming of age. The intervention is inexpensive and follows a straightforward manual. The costs of doing nothing are certainly higher.

And Jim? He did pretty well for a while, then one day ranted enough about a public official that it had to be reported as a threat. Though completely exonerated, he fired his treatment team and refused all help once again. The Citizens Project had apparently arrived too late to help him.

The stakes of full membership in society are indeed high as we undertake this work for people on the margins. But our graduates – as they are recognized at City Hall by the mayor, as they train the police, as they serve on boards of homeless shelters where they once lived – say that seeing themselves as citizens helps.

And when we see the smiles on our graduates’ faces, or when they talk about their new employment, or when they talk about their joy in getting away from drugs and alcohol, we know that their new-found citizenship helps others, too.

Michael Rowe, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Yale University and Charles Barber, Visiting Writer, Wesleyan University

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Is it OK for me to read my kids’ text messages on their phones?

Getty/dolgachov

This post originally appeared on Common Sense Media.

Parents: there's no absolute right answer as to whether it's OK to read your kid's text messages. It depends on your kid's age, personality, and behavior. The most important thing is that you discuss responsible texting behavior. Remind them that any text can be forwarded to an unintended audience — and texts that involve drugs, sexting, or other illegal things can get kids into real trouble.

The ideal time to establish rules around how the phone will be monitored is at the very beginning, when you give it to your kid. It's easier to relax your rules as you go along, rather than suddenly introduce new ones.

You can always simply ask to see their messages. If your kids recoil in horror, ask why they don't want you to see them — it's very likely that there's nothing bad.

If you have reason to suspect that your kid is going through something dodgy that he or she won't discuss — and you notice changes in his or her behavior, appearance, and actions — then you might have probable cause. You also can consider purchasing a text-monitoring service through your wireless carrier.

Bottom line? Discuss appropriate cell phone behavior, set consequences for infractions, and monitor your kid's behavior. Every parent faces this dilemma at one time or another, whether it's regarding text messages or Facebook posts. If you do decide to sneak a peek, be prepared to see things you won't like — and to have to choose whether or not to confront your child about what you've discovered.

Do you read your kid's text messages?

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Saturday’s asteroid impact raises the question: Why is asteroid detection so underfunded?

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Picture this: You're sleeping under the Southern African stars when suddenly an asteroid paints the sky with a bright light, then crashes into the wild vastness on the horizon. For a select few in Botswana, this was their Saturday evening on June 2. Tossing romanticism aside: A small asteroid crashed into Earth over the weekend, and you likely did not hear about it.

Said asteroid is officially known as 2018 LA, and was only spotted eight hours before it crashed into Earth, according to the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS), which is a NASA funded initiative created to meet the congressional mandate to document at least 90 percent of the estimated population of Near Earth Object (NEOs).

According to CSS, it was spotted on Saturday morning by Catalina Sky Survey observer Richard Kowalski:

Early Saturday morning June 2, 2018, Catalina Sky Survey observer Richard Kowalski routinely submitted measurements for a suspected new near-Earth asteroid candidate to the Minor Planet Center at Harvard University. He observed the object using a 60-inch reflecting telescope located atop Mt Lemmon in the Santa Catalina mountains outside Tucson, Arizona.

It crashed into Earth eight hours later, largely disintegrating in the atmosphere in a ball of fire.

CSS explains this is the third time that an asteroid likely to impact Earth has been discovered by scientists. Each time, Kowalski has been behind the discoveries. In 2008, he discovered 2008 TC3, the first asteroid in history to be discovered just before impacting Earth. Twenty hours later, it disintegrated above Sudan.

In 2014, Kowalski discovered asteroid 2014 A, prior to it colliding into the Atlantic Ocean.

Fortunately, all of these asteroids were quite small, and none hit populous regions. Still, one must wonder what would happen if they were predicted to hit a major city.

Danica Remy, President of B612 Foundation, a nonprofit with a mission to protect Earth from dangerous asteroids, told Salon that the short notice was due to a combination of the asteroid’s size and the ground the telescope could cover.

“Space is big and it is dark,” she told Salon, adding that the telescopes used right now do not cover the entire sky. “Better and earlier notice is what [I'd] advocate for here, but in this case it was a small asteroid that most telescopes won’t see.”

Hence, the 8-hour notice. Remy said it was actually a win for the asteroid research community, as it was a good example of how researchers and technology worked together and leveraged what resources were available.

Remy added that a lack of funding has traditionally prevented organizations like B612 Foundation from having access to more advanced telescopes.

“We have the technology to find these asteroid but we have not funded the solutions,” Remy said.

Keeping funding and asteroid size in mind, Remy said it is important to be on the lookout for the objects, especially ones that are bigger than 30 meters. If such an asteroid were to hit a major city, it would likely cause catastrophic damage.

“We always like to say remember the Earth is largely covered by water and it is largely unpopulated and so the probability of getting hit or your area is low," Remy told Salon. "But the fact is we now as human beings have the capability to find them — the question is whether or not we have the will to fund the discovery work."

 

David Koch to retire from billion dollar empire due to failing health

AP/Phelan M. Ebenhack

Conservative mega-donor and billionaire industrialist David Koch, executive vice president at Koch Industries, will retire from his position at the company and other Koch-affiliated groups due to health reasons, CNBC reports.

In the memo to Koch Industries employees, Charles Koch, David's elder brother, said his brother's health has continued to decline.

"David has always been a fighter and is dealing with this challenge in the same way,” the elder Koch brother wrote. "His guidance and loyalty, especially in our most troubled times, has been unwavering."

David Koch has received well wishes from a senior executive in the mogul brothers' political network. "Due to health reasons, David Koch will be resigning from the board of Americans for Prosperity Foundation," said Mark Holden, co-chairman of the Koch-backed Seminar Network, according to CNBC. "We greatly appreciate his vital role on the board and all that he has done to help us build a strong foundation for our future success. We wish him and his family well."

The company said no decision had been made on David Kochs' replacement. David will also step down from his position as chairman for Americans for Prosperity, a grassroots conservative founded by the billionaire brothers, the memo said. He will become director emeritus at Koch Industries.

Koch was diagnosed with prostate cancer more than 20 years ago. Since then, he and his family foundation, along with other beneficiaries of the Koch network, have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to fighting cancer. He is also a board member of the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

The news comes one day after the Koch-backed political network revealed a multimillion-campaign against tariffs President Donald Trump has imposed on countries like China, Canada, Mexico, and the European Union. The new "pro-free trade" campaign "will include media buys, activist education, grass-roots mobilization, lobbying and policy analysis," according to CNBC.

"Trade barriers make Americas as a whole poorer and they especially harm those already disadvantaged," James Davis, a spokesman for the Koch network, said in a statement to CNBC. "Trade wars hurt everyone. They trigger retaliatory tariffs from our trade partners and that raises prices on American families who need affordable access to household goods. We urge the Trump administration to abandon these tariffs."

The network has also recently moved away from focusing its efforts on championing conservative candidates and causes to advance legislation. Last week, the organization launched a seven-figure ad in an attempt to provide a permanent solution for the undocumented immigrants benefitting from the Deferred Action Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

The Koch network has recently made headlines for praising a Democratic senator, who is up for re-election in a red state. Last week, Americans for Prosperity released a digital ad thanking Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-ND, for co-sponsoring the Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act, a financial deregulation bill that will ease regulations on local and regional banks, which President Trump signed into law last month.

"This was a bipartisan effort made possible by lawmakers like Heidi Heitkamp who put politics aside to work together," said AFP President Tim Phillips in a statement. "While we don't agree with Sen. Heitkamp on everything, particularly her vote against tax relief, we commend her for taking a stand against the leaders of her party to do the right thing."

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Apple’s “Memoji” speak to the psychology of why humans love our digital avatars

AP/Marcio Jose Sanchez

Yesterday Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage in San Jose, California, to show off the company's latest work at Apple's annual World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC). Per usual protocol, Cook and underlings discussed the next iteration of Apple's iPhone and iPad operating system, iOS 12. As there are an estimated 1.3 billion Apple devices in use around the world, any updates to Apple's iOS will affect the consumption habits, desires and communication style of hundreds of millions of users. This year, the operating system updates constituted largely superficial bells and whistles, ranging from a phone tool to combat tech addition and the curious addition of an emoji feature called "Memoji."

Memoji, as you may have surmised from the “emoji” suffix, constitute Apple's attempt to design a more personalized version of emoji, unique to the user. Those familiar with Bitmoji (a Snapchat-owned product) or Apple's previous "Animoji" (a mashup of "animated emoji") feature will recognize this as a synthesis of the two: Memoji allow users to create customized emojis of themselves, like Bitmoji, but with faces animated in real-time akin to its Animoji.

Memoji, like Animoji, can respond to facial expressions via the camera, and will allow you to essentially create an animated cartoon of yourself — a caricatured, personalized avatar that smiles, blinks, and talks in sync with your own movement. Apple's facial recognition software recognizes the user's facial features and animates the Memoji in real-time; the company highlighted that its Animoji and Memoji can now tell when the user sticks out their tongue.

"We wanted to take Animoji even further," said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "You can now create your very own, personalized Animoji."

"We're all going to be sticking out our tongues to our phones in the near future," Federighi added.

Despite the potential for the tongue-detection feature to be used for obscenities — as tech blog Mashable explicitly pointed out (cough cough, sexting) — the starring role of the Memoji announcement during the renowned conference suggests that the craze over personalized avatars — a trend inaugurated by Bitmoji —  is not some throwaway digital-vogue fad.

Rather, Apple's announcement that they are going all in on Memoji suggests that they will be part of our future for years to come: we will identify with these digital caricatures of ourselves and our friends for years, perhaps decades, as they inch towards being an ineradicable part of our culture. As this becomes our reality, it is worth contemplating: why is our society so obsessed with these cartoonish images of ourselves? And what do they say about our culture?

Linda Kaye, a cyber-psychologist at Edge Hill University who has studied the psychology behind emojis extensively, said Apple’s investment in the Memoji feature makes sense from a business perspective.

“Because emoji are still immensely popular, it makes sense to capitalise on this by creating something more personalized and exciting to users,” Kaye wrote in an email.

Some thought 2015 was the year that emojis peaked. Indeed, Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year in 2015 was not actually a word, but the "Face with Tears of Joy” emoji. A 2015 report found that 92 percent of online consumers use emojis. While some experts speculated that the rise in popularity of emojis suggests humans are becoming less intelligent, or lazy (to use their words), Kaye has debunked this. In a separate interview with Vice, Kaye suggested that our enthusiasm for emojis could be seen as a creative outlet.

Kaye said similar to emoji, Apple’s new Memoji is a form of “self-presentational behaviour.”

“Memoji can be considered a form of self-presentational behaviour, in a similar way to using photos, emoji, etc.,” she wrote to Salon. “This allows us to put across our ‘best self’ to others.”

Self-presentational behavior is a social psychological term used to describe how people want to control or shape how an audience views them. The idea behind self-presentational behavior is that it enables humans to better hide their flaws.

Kaye added that Memoji could be  an opportunity for people to create “a personalized expression of themselves and therefore can be used really well as a form of self-presentational expression.”

Understandably, some may see communicating through a screen with a digital mask as faintly dystopian. After all, the popular dystopian sci-fi series "Black Mirror" featured a season two episode, "The Waldo Moment," explicitly about a comparable digital avatar controlled by a human's face that morphed into an authoritarian political figurehead. In David Foster Wallace's novel "Infinite Jest", Wallace envisions a world in which video conferencing becomes the norm, and where the obsession over self-presentation leads consumers to spend vast sums on real-time facial and body editing to make them look unblemished.

Fortunately, Kaye says it is unlikely Memoji will take over all forms of digital communication.

“I wouldn’t anticipate that Memoji will take over Facetiming or all online communication in the same way that emoji haven’t fully replaced language,” she said. “Yes there are times when these symbols can be used to replace certain words, but in the main part, they provide a supplementary and enriching element to communication.”

Yet there is a dark side to the increasing idolization and trendiness of the emoji and their subsidiary by-products. Emoji have sparked an unofficial culture war over the politics of the limited number of chosen symbols and figures, which are selected by largely opaque committees whose members are plucked mostly from corporations and universities in the Western World.

Memoji also raises questions about the psychology behind digital expression. According to a 2015 survey by Bangor University, 72 percent of participants between 18 to 25 said they felt more comfortable expressing themselves using emoji than words. If this is the case, one wonders how our new communication regime might hinder face-to-face communication. When speaking face-to-face, humans can pick up on non-verbal cues.

In 2012, Stanford University researchers found strong correlations between time spent in front of screens and poor emotional and social health. They surveyed 3,461 girls from the ages of 8 to 12.

Perhaps that is why Apple simultaneously premiered its new iOS “tech addiction tool” during the same conference.

There may be a “Roseanne” spinoff in the works – and an official announcement could arrive this week

ABC

There may be a "Roseanne" spinoff in the works – and an official announcement could arrive this week. According to the Hollywood Reporter, ABC is "knee-deep in conversation with executive producers" for an off-shoot of the series. The news comes less than a week after the network cancelled the '90s revival in the wake of star Roseanne Barr's racist Twitter tirade.

Veteran executive producer Tom Werner, who was behind the original series and the reboot is reportedly "highly engaged in finding a way to continue the franchise with stars Sara Gilbert (who plays Darlene), John Goodman (Dan) and Laurie Metcalf (Jackie)," THR writes. "Sources note that it's likely the entire cast — sans star Roseanne Barr — and creative team, including showrunner Bruce Helford, and the same writing staff and crew would return for whatever the new incarnation is. Multiple ideas are being discussed, including one focused on Darlene, as Gilbert was the driving force behind the ABC revival."

"Roseanne" returned to TV in March after two decades of being off the air. The show enjoyed a wide viewership, praise from President Donald Trump and tons of buzz — both positive and negative — for depicting a working-class family, including a character who, just as in real life, is a Trump supporter.

Hours after Roseanne Barr tweeted that Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama was the combination of "muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes," ABC announced the show's cancellation. Barr deleted the tweet and even went so far as to blame her racist comments on the sleep medication Ambien. In a statement, ABC’s entertainment president, Channing Dungey, said, "Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values."

Barr's ex-husband, Tom Arnold agreed with the network. He said that the star is "obviously" a racist during an interview with "Good Morning Britain" Monday, adding that Barr needs to "get off Twitter."

EXCLUSIVE: Tom Arnold, Roseanne Barr’s ex-husband, says the US star is a racist and needs to ‘get off Twitter' pic.twitter.com/GrcO6caSsn

— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) June 4, 2018

"I have to say, I saw it coming. I warned everybody," Arnold said, who was married to Barr for four turbulent years. Arnold was a writer and actor on the original "Roseanne," but was fired by Barr in 1994 – the same year the couple divorced.

Other cast members have been speaking out in the past week as well, clearly stunned by the news, even though Barr's tweet was not unprecedented. "A lot of people have been hurt by this," co-star Sara Gilbert said on "The Talk" Monday. "I will say I’m proud of the show we made. This show has always been about diversity, love and inclusion. And it’s sad to see it end in this way. I’m sad for the people who lost their jobs in the process. However, I do stand behind the decision ABC made."

Viacom also pulled reruns of "Roseanne" from three of its channels; so did Hulu and Laff digital. ICM Partners, Barr's talent agency, dropped her as a client.

The Season 10 comeback was complete before the controversy, but the show was expected to return in the fall for 13 more episodes. But now, "ABC scheduled a meeting with producers to discuss potential ways to continue the show," according to THR. "Those talks are said to have heated up over the weekend, with Werner highly engaged in finding a way to keep the series going."

ABC reportedly wants to expunge Barr and her financial involvement from any new incarnation from the show, but "The series was created by Matt Williams and is based upon a character created by Barr," THR reports. "That could make an offshoot a thorny debate as it's unclear if just the character of Roseanne Conner falls under Barr's oversight."

Compensation for the other actors on the show, as well as the showrunners and other staff members is up in the air for the now-scraped upcoming season. And it seems ABC is both concerned with the now-unemployed staff and with their fall lineup, which is missing "Roseanne" and will also not have a new season of "Grey's Anatomy."

"Much has been said and written about yesterday’s decision to cancel the Roseanne show," Ben Sherwood, Disney-ABC TV Group chief, wrote in an email to the show's staff at the time. "Not enough, however, has been said about the many men and women who poured their hearts and lives into the show and were just getting started on next season."

Miss America’s #MeToo reboot: Can a former beauty pageant really evolve?

AP Photo

Calm down, everybody; Miss America isn't turning into Lilith Fair.

On Tuesday morning, the 97-year-old institution announced it was making some big updates, including — as every single major news outlet then led with — eliminating the swimsuit portion of the show. The news came first on "Good Morning America," which pointedly described the organization as "changing in the wake of the #MeToo movement."

Miss America 1989 — and new chair of the organization's board of directors — Gretchen Carlson was also on board to talk to "GMA" about the shift. "We are no longer a pageant, we are a competition," she said, before dropping the big one. "We will no longer judge our candidates on their outward physical appearance. That's huge. That means we will no longer have a swimsuit competition. We will also be revamping our evening gown competition phase as well." A Miss America that's not a beauty pageant? What would that look like?

The quaint tradition of parading young women around in bathing suits and gowns and then ranking them for it has seemed out of sync with the times for decades now. The protest that famously sparked the association of feminism with bra burning was FIFTY years ago, when hundreds of women converged outside the Atlantic City Convention Center to call attention to the "ludicrous 'beauty' standards we ourselves are conditioned to take seriously." A few years later, the incident inspired a TV movie called "The Great American Beauty Contest," in which a feminist infiltrates a beauty pageant, wins and promptly realizes how much she really just wants to be a beauty queen.

Through decades of social change and occasional progress, the institution just kept chugging along, clinging to its uniquely american ideal of old-fashioned, toothpaste commercial wholesomeness with straight up ogling. The Venn diagram really came together in 1984, when nude photographs of the pageant's first African-American winner, Vanessa Williams, emerged and were published in Penthouse without her consent. The issue sold six million copies and made publisher Bob Guccione a reported $14 million. Williams, meanwhile, was forced to resign in disgrace. But times change. It only took the organization 32 years to invite her back to the pageant and to apologize.

For decades, the institution of Miss America has served as one of our frankest reflections of the nation's deepest biases. Aside from the whole high heels and bikinis thing, there's the racism exposed when when the pageant crowned Nina Davuluri its first Indian American queen in 2013. She was promptly greeted with a torrent of online abuse — plenty of which depicted her as a "terrorist." And although lesbians have been with us always, the pageant didn't feature an openly gay contestant until Erin O’Flaherty donned the sash as Miss Missouri two years ago. Two years ago. Yet while the pageant has been slow to grow, beauty queens have been making their own strides. They've used their moment in the spotlight on the show to speak out about sexual abuse and illness. Last year's contestants included food insecurity, addiction and mental health awareness in their platforms.

But it wasn't until the #MeToo movement that the institution was forced to confront head on that maybe there really was some toxic thinking about women baked into the recipe all along. In December, chief executive Sam Haskell, board chairman Lynn Weidner, pageant president Josh Randle and board member Tammy Haddad all stepped down after HuffPo revealed internal correspondence about previous winners that "maligned, fat-shamed and slut-shamed" the women. Included among those singled out for scorn was Gretchen Carlson, for her "push to modernize the organization and her refusal to attack former Miss Americas." Just a few days later, she was tapped to head the organization.

It must have been quite a day for Carlson when the story broke. Carlson has been up and down Gross Behavior Street plenty of times in her thirty year career, and was an early adopter for the #MeToo movement. In 2016, she left her position at Fox News and filed a sexual harassment suit against its chairman Roger Ailes. After more women at the network came forward with their own tales of harassment, Ailes stepped down mere weeks later. Carlson soon settled with the network for $20 million and a public apology stating that "Gretchen was not treated with the respect and dignity that she and all of our colleagues deserve." Carlson told NPR last year that what happened to her was a common situation, one in which "The powerful man has all the power. And the women who are trying to become employed or stay employed have none."

So who better than she, the Miss America who helped take down Roger Ailes, to speak to the changes she and her colleagues have been working on over the last few months? As she unveiled the very iPhone-like banner of "Miss America 2.0" to Miss Georgia runner-up Amy Robach on Tuesday, Carlson seemed genuinely enthusiastic about recruiting a new generation of Misses. "We want to be open, transparent, inclusive to women who may not have felt comfortable participating in our program before," she said. "We're interested in what makes you you. At the end of the day, we hand out scholarships to these women. We want more women to know they are welcome in this organization."

And she added, "This is a new beginning, and change can sometimes be difficult. I know a lot about change, my life has worked in mysterious ways. I could never have expected what would happen when I sued my former employer at Fox News for sexual harassment 22 months ago. But look what has happened."

What has happened so far is a deluge of headlines focusing exclusively on the end of the swimsuit competition. It's understandable that the removal of one of the defining aspects of the event would be newsworthy. The pageant began, after all, as an Atlantic City "bathing beauty revue." The swimsuit was the point. And yet the exaggerated attention on the swimsuits suggests perhaps we have not yet achieved full wokeness. The Men of Twitter have, meanwhile, not been this upset since the last time a woman was cast in an action role. A sports journalist, for instance, boggled that "They are eliminating swimsuit and evening gown competitions in favor of judging women based on their confidence & self-esteem. I swear to God. This is a real story." He then of course naturally mused, "Shouldn't contestants all appear in burkas?"

But it hasn't just been men who've struggled to get their heads around this brave new world. On "GMA," Robach responded to the news by marveling that Miss America will now feature "women of all shapes and sizes, because typically we see swimsuit-ready bodies up on that stage." Yeah, I get it but here are the things humans need for a swimsuit-ready body: Swimsuit. Body.

In making the pitch for a new kind of DEFINITELY NOT A PAGEANT, Carlson hearkened to Miss America's eternal argument for it existence — the scholarships. There's no doubt that the organization has given money to promising young women that helped them in their academic careers, as well as providing a platform for future journalists and entrepreneurs. But in 2014, John Oliver challenged the organization's claim that it was "the world's largest provider of scholarships to women" and found that its total 2012 scholarships amounted to $482,000 — substantial but somewhat short of its claims of $45 million "made available" to contestants. After an internal investigation, Miss America promised "full transparency" and changed the wording in its materials.

"Who doesn't want to be empowered, learn leadership skills, and pay for college — and show the world who you are as a person from the inside of your soul?" Carlson asked on Tuesday. Empowerment! Now with optional bikini waxing!

I am all for handing money to smart, talented young women — including women whose waist-to hip-ratio is outside the 0.67 to 0.8 range. As a fan of both "Miss Congeniality" and "Pitch Perfect," I'm also frankly excited at the prospect of a diverse field of ladies having adventures in a previously restricted realm.

The pageant — I'm sorry, competition — had to change if it was to survive at all. Mired in scandal and its own outdatedness, a bold revamp was the only chance it had to endure. But Miss America now also runs a high risk of fake positivity, the kind of tut tutting that makes conventional looking people and their admirers feel benevolent. The close cousin of true diversity is always tokenism, and it'll be interesting to see the women who now come forward to compete, and how the judges assess them. Just a reminder that it's not brave for women to exist in public while being short or nearsighted or a size 12, nor is it an act of charity to applaud them for it. And lest there be any fears of the whole thing finally becoming a parade of bra burning, rest assured it's still at its heart what it's always been. Women competing against each other, and being judged by strangers.

The perks of beauty

A Fox News personality says appearance matters

Robert F. Kennedy and Mr. Rogers: Two icons of masculine empathy sorely missed today

Gett/Family Communications Inc./Harry Benson

 

“The travail of freedom and justice is not easy, but nothing serious and important in life is easy. The history of humanity has been a continuing struggle against temptation and tyranny—and very little worthwhile has ever been achieved without pain.” — Robert Francis Kennedy

“There is no normal life that is free of pain. It's the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth.” — Fred McFeely Rogers

June 6, 1968: Robert F. Kennedy is shot to the ground in Los Angeles’s Ambassador Hotel, triggering one of the most dramatic waves of collective mourning the nation has ever seen. “I left the next morning, and I cried all the way from LA to Atlanta,” recounts Congressman John Lewis, starting to choke on his words during interview. “I kept saying to myself, ‘What is happening in America?’ To lose Martin Luther King, Jr., and two months later, to lose . . .”

Witnessing the former freedom fighter and current septuagenarian break down before the camera delivers a shock to the system. Could the assassination of any white man today spur this type of sorrow?

February 16, 1968: Another unlikely icon makes his national debut with an educational kid’s show that will eventually break the record for longest-running children's television series. A man who was once tagged “Fat Freddy” by his peers will stand before the next generation with a lesson of tolerance and forgiveness, inviting all to “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

Aside from a rather anagrammatic aspect to their full names, the two men couldn’t seem more different: one a life-long Republican and ordained Presbyterian minister, the other a Catholic lawyer and Democratic royalty; one six feet tall, the other the “runt” of the family; one naturally athletic, and the other so gangly that his 1985 breakdancing is painful to watch to this day. But two new documentaries, released within months of each other, reveal just how much Kennedy and Rogers share in common: Dawn Porter’s “Bobby Kennedy for President”, on Netflix since April, and Morgan Neville’s “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”, in theatres June, two days after the fiftieth anniversary of RFK’s assassination.

Porter’s four-part series follows Bobby’s transformation from hotheaded Attorney General to civil rights activist and presidential contender, and Neville (who nabbed an Oscar for “Twenty Feet from Stardom”) chronicles Rogers’s influence on both public television and the ethos of children’s entertainment. Born three years apart — and both into affluence, though of varying degrees —the two men were rife in contradiction, yet consistently on the side of the disenfranchised. Just as it’s hard to imagine that the “most trusted white man in Black America” would have holidayed regularly in Europe as a child, it is equally difficult to imagine any wealthy white guy, let alone a conservative minister, devoting his life to making children’s television a radically progressive space.

What both docs continually demonstrate is how Kennedy and Rogers exploited their white male privilege before the phrase even existed, publicly bringing those without such power into the folds of mainstream America. Watch Bobby break bread with a hunger-striking Cesar Chavez and march with Dolores Huerta for farmworkers rights; see Fred cool his feet in a kiddie pool with his Black neighbor, Officer Clemmons, at a time when Jim Crow still poisoned parts of the South. On some level it may seem glib to compare these actions, so different are they in scale, but on a base symbolic level, they were saying the same thing: “I’m no better than the brown or black man, and neither are any of you who look like me.”

Surprisingly, it is Kennedy, not Rogers, whose charisma grew more slowly. Porter’s opening credits present Bobby in cool “Mad Men”-esque silhouette — the opposite, perhaps, of his initial public persona, as we come to learn from his Constituent Case Aid William Arnone, a frequent talking head on the film.

“He was small, he was gray-skinned, his handshake was limp,” Arnone says of meeting the politician when he was running for Senate. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, he’s nothing like his brother….”

Bobby’s oratory skills were also, apparently, underwhelming. “He was terrible — he was high-pitched, he was stuttering. I thought, ‘He will never amount to anything, ever ever ever.” So too one may have thought of a preacher with a penchant for puppets.

When others would — and have — rested on their laurels, Fred and Bobby nudged the barometer toward the cause of the underdog, whether that be the quadriplegic boy in a wheelchair singing “It’s You I Like” on Mister Rogers’ porch, or the babies with bloated bellies whom Kennedy visited during his 1967 tour of the Mississippi Delta.

“Considering we have a gross national product of some 700 billion dollars, and we spend 75 billion dollars on armaments, you’d think we would be doing more for our poor,” Kennedy reflected at the end of his trip, “particularly for our children, who had nothing to do with being born into this world.”

With today’s GNP over 14 trillion, and extreme poverty worsening under our current administration, one has to wonder what would have happened had Kennedy survived. Would “bleeding heart” epithets ever gain traction if it remained manly to have a heart in the first place? Rogers and Kennedy made empathy central to their credos, yet as both documentaries make perfectly clear, there was nothing wishy-washy about them.

“Land of Make Believe” or not, Rogers was a realist who made the exigencies of his day the bedrock of his series. Kennedy’s death itself a catalyst for the show.

“What does assassination mean?” asks Daniel Tiger within days of the event.

“Well, it means someone getting killed in a sort of surprise way,” answers Betty slowly.

“That’s what happened, you know!” says the puppet. “That man killed that other man!”

No matter how hokey or naïve Rogers may come across onscreen, the man was intensely invested in how the harshness of life affected children. Similarly, Kennedy— father to eleven (!) of his own— was arguably at his best in their presence.

“He was very curious, he didn’t talk a whole lot,” says Marian Wright Edelman, Director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund at the time of the Mississippi visit, “but he would ask a lot of questions. I was very moved by how he related to children, the ways in which he could express emotions through touch.”

In other circumstances, watching barefoot children swarm the politician could feel like yet another white-man-savior ploy for a vapid photo opp. Instead, Kennedy looks quietly shaken, doesn’t smile the camera—doesn’t smile broadly at anyone.

Also an avid listener, Rogers’ lingering pauses with his guests could leave them a bit confused, as cellist Yo-Yo Ma reminisces in the film. And, like Kennedy — whom Arnone described as having “the saddest face I’d ever seen in my life,” the television host grappled with depression and loneliness — growing up a sickly only child until the age of twelve, and privately questioning his impact as an adult in time of media cynicism.

Neither doc is flawless — both tend to gloss over the less savory aspects of their late heroes, like Kennedy’s initial enthusiasm for the McCarthy hearings or Rogers’s obsession with weighing 143 pounds (which, even today, is used as fundraising fodder when it verges close to eating disorder terrain). Still, by the end of the films the humanity and complexity of each man is thrown into stark relief. Several have claimed that Rogers “was too good for us,” and perhaps the same could be said of Kennedy. But that kind of thinking lets us all off the hook.

“Every generation inherits a world it never made,” said Bobby, “and, as it does so, it automatically becomes the trustee of that world for those who come after. In due course, each generation makes its own accounting to its children.”

Painful and impossible as it may seem, it is time to do just that.

Bobby Kennedy's Hope for America
An interview with the director of "Bobby Kennedy for President"

From “Star Wars” to our wars: What the Force has in common with “Thank you for your service”

Lucasfilm

George Lucas's "Star Wars" film universe and the associated toys, comic books, TV shows, video games and other ancillary products have earned billions of dollars since his original film debuted in 1977. But "Star Wars" is more than a commercial juggernaut which helped to create the very idea of the "Summer blockbuster." For many people around the world it is generation-defining film that influenced their lives in ways both small and large.

"Star Wars" is also an example of what literary scholars, anthropologists and others have described as the "monomyth" (or "the hero's journey"), a set of omnipresent storytelling conventions and archetypes in (Western) storytelling. In many ways, the monomyth is an extension of the collective subconscious and how human beings try to make sense of the world around them and the particular challenges that come with being sentient and aware of their own mortality.

But "Star Wars" is also much more than the monomyth. It is also a deeply political text. To explore that aspect of "Star Wars" I recently spoke with Max Brooks who is the author of the bestselling zombie epic "World War Z" and also the new book "Strategy Strikes Back: How Star Wars Explains Modern Military Conflict."

In this conversation Brooks shares some of the lessons that "Star Wars" can teach about democracy and government in this moment when right-wing forces are ascendant, the role of the military in society, diplomacy and statecraft, military strategy, as well as the relationship between the common good, freedom, and security.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Is the United States the Galactic Empire or the Rebel Alliance?

Neither. We’re the Republic. We have been far too complacent for far too long. We are accidentally sowing the seeds of our own demise.

We saw this during the Prequels, the anger at a senatorial system and the parliamentary process, how is that any different than what we see all around the world? Where we see generation and generation of people who have grown up with democracy and take it for granted? Obama said after Brexit that “We’ve got generations who've grown up and never known democracy under threat. They take their civil liberties for granted.”

By the way, we all love to hate on Jar Jar. But Jar Jar represents the well-meaning public that accidentally votes for a dictator. Everything that’s happening today, and not just in America, but you see democracy under threat in so many different ways.

What can the rise and fall of the Jedi in "Star Wars" teach us about this current social and political moment in America?

Primarily that the idea that you are born with the Force--or not--gets to the notion of birthright.

The problem with birthright is that it lets the rest of us off the hook. You see that in the volunteer army with blow-off platitudes such as, “Thank you for your service,” which could be translated as “Better you than me,” “You chose this, go away,” There’s a million reasons for it, but "thank you for your service,” is the worst thing that’s ever happened to our national defense.  It used to be we were all in. I don’t mean the draft, I mean war bonds, rationing, war taxes,  the notion that we’re all in this together. But now there is a specialized volunteer force that goes and does the dirty work while the rest of us catch up on Netflix.

That attitude in one form or another is how the whole country feels, maybe not to that level of hostility, but there is this notion of, “Hey, you chose this task. I don’t have to feel bad for you. You’re not a draftee. You weren’t ripped out of your parent’s arms.” Trump basically said that about the green beret who was killed in Niger. Trump didn’t mean it in a bad way. He just meant is just a statement of fact. Hey, he knew what he’s getting into.   

Mercenaries and the privatization of war are now a firm feature of how America and other countries--and huge corporations--wage war and use violence to advance their goals. The outsourcing of war is also present in "Star Wars". 

You see it in “Empire Strikes Back.” Because the regular military is very suspicious of private contractors and there is literally a line in "Empire Strikes Back" when Admiral Piett says, “Bounty Hunters, we don’t need that scum".

But bounty hunters could go places other people could not. They also could do things others wouldn't or couldn't, the rules didn't apply. Even the Empire had a way of fighting that bounty hunters do not.

With your new book "Strategy Strikes Back: How Star Wars Explains Modern Military Conflict," how did you balance getting the amazingly rich and fictional universe of "Star Wars" correct while also teaching lessons about government and the military in the "real world"?  

We tried to strike a balance between civilian and military writers. It was a very ambitious project. First we were trying to teach people in the military about strategy because the cadets at West Point, The Army War College, Annapolis, Naval War College, Air Force Academy, and the like are very busy.

“Star Wars” is a great way to touch on a range of issues and a higher level of strategic thinking. There was a military element, but then there’s also a civilian element. We also wanted the book to be accessible to the general public. These are insulated voters who will then vote for people who don’t know anything about military strategy, who will then in turn make decisions that are horrific and get a lot of people killed. Educating people about strategy isn’t just an intellectual pursuit. In a democracy it is a civic duty.

If you were going to crystallize the lessons that "Star Wars" teaches about politics and government down to three or four points what would they be?

“Star Wars” --particularly the prequels--teaches us that that democracy is not a spectator sport. Democracy--especially a republic--may be inefficient and frustrating but it is specifically designed that way as a means of stopping dictators. Better to have a squabbling Imperial or Republican Senate than an emperor who dissolves the Imperial Senate.

I think that’s one thing. Another is while dictatorship might seem efficient on the outside, they’re also infinitely vulnerable.  Because by nature, when you have a dictatorship, you have singularity of thought. You literally have Vader choking someone at the staff meeting who disagrees with him. That means you can get a lot of stuff done a lot quicker than in a republic. But that one guy who might have raised his hand during a staff meeting and said, “Hey. There’s a hole in the Death Star,” he’s never going to speak up.

Democracies are infinitely more resilient because you can’t kill an idea. Once Palpatine was killed that was the end of the Galactic Empire. He was the Empire because everybody was serving Palpatine. Everybody was fighting for Palpatine. Everybody was afraid of Palpatine. The moment he’s gone, there’s nothing left. It all crumbles, as opposed to a republic which is based on a set of principles that we all choose to live under.

You have also had great success working on comic books and graphic novels and of course the novel "World War Z" which was loosely adapted into a profitable film starring Brad Pitt. How did this all happen? Random accident? Strategic planning?

I keep going and I’m always trying to be conscious of the creative minefield. You don’t want to ever start trying to anticipate what the audience will want. I mean other people can do that and good for them. But for me that would be the death of me if I ever started to think, “Well, I was successful with this book, so I should write a sequel because that’s what people want.”

Literally, the only time I’ve ever even considered it is with my  "Minecraft" book. That’s only because I have little kids, eight-year-olds and nine-year-old saying, “I’ve never read a book before and this is my first book.” Yes, that is cool. Then parents, because I’m a parent. I really had a rough time in school. To have parents come up to me and say, “This is the first time my kid has voluntarily picked up a book,” or “This is the first time my child has chosen a book over a videogame.” That’s pretty damn hard to walk away from.

What was the pressure like to do a sequel to the "World War Z" novel?

My agent Victor, god bless his soul, recently passed away. To his dying day, he thought I was insane. He would say, “It’s right there. You’ve hit. You can hit again. Why aren’t you doing this?” I can only speak honestly. If I suddenly wake up tomorrow and I think, “Oh, my God, I have it!" I’ll totally write another one. But I’ll say, honestly, I think I’m probably the world’s worst businessman.

Why do you think “World War Z” was so successful? I remember buying it a Borders bookstore and reading it over a weekend without stopping. Then I had to go buy both versions of the amazing audio book.

I don’t know. And I don’t even want to know because I write from a very personal place. I write for me. Every time I try to not write for me, every time I tried to write for an audience or think about what’s popular, it never works out for me.

If I was that guy who could anticipate trends and excitement in the public, I’d be a screenwriter not a novelist. I’m still that weird 12-year-old kid in the back of the room thinking about stuff that the other kids weren’t thinking about. It took me a while to get there, but that’s all I can be. That’s all I’m good at. Why waste anybody else’s time not being myself?

Some people can fake it for decades and keep cashing those checks and making uninspired stuff because the people love it.

I say "good for them." I’m in no position to judge anybody. I also write for me because that’s the only way I know to prevent failure because I’m as sensitive as any other writer. It kills me to have to put stuff out there and have somebody not like it. The only way I know to not see my work as a failure is to know that I like it first. That’s it. I mean that’s the only way because if I don’t like it, but I think the public is going to like it and the public doesn’t like it, that means nobody likes it, that means I failed. The only way to put something out there and know in my heart, “OK, if they don’t like it, at least I do.”

How did you manage how so very different the "World War Z" movie was from your original material? As an almost lifelong fan of Romero's genius zombie films and what you accomplished with "World War Z," your book was so much better than the movie. 

I had to make my peace with it because I also lost my way a little bit, especially when I saw the trailer and it wasn’t me. The guy who got me back on track was [writer] Frank Darabont because you need those people in your life who can give you perspective.

My wife also gave me perspective. She said, “You need to call Frank because nobody has been screwed over more than him with what happened with the 'The Walking Dead' TV show".

Frank took this obscure comic book that we as nerds liked, but the general public had no idea existed. He had to fight tooth and nail to get this show made, because as we know now, AMC did not want it. Finally when it got out there they rewarded Frank by firing him.

I e-mailed Frank about the movie and said, “You know, Frank, with all this going on people say that it’s going to ruin my book". He is like, "How can it ruin your book? Your book is written. What are they going to do, go back and edit your book? You have your side of the story. Why are you worried about what’s going to be on the screen? You don’t have anything to do with that. You worry about your book.”

Then god bless him, he passed my e-mail along to a friend of his, who then wrote me and said, “Frank, listen, tell your friend, I like 'World War Z'. It’s a good book, but also tell him that it doesn’t matter what happens in the movie, because the whole reason I’m assuming that he sold the movie rights in the first place was to promote the book. That’s why any writer does that. As a result of this movie, no matter what’s on the screen, more people are going to read his book. Isn’t that the whole point? Signed, All the best, Stephen King."

That got me back to who I was at the beginning of the whole film process. I have to say I feel like I got very lucky that the movie completely ignored my book because I didn’t have to watch my characters being manipulated. I never watched my story get eviscerated. I literally didn’t have to watch any of my book on the screen doing what it wasn’t supposed to do.

It wasn’t my story. It wasn’t my character. I didn’t invent Gerry Lane as far as I’m concerned. He can do whatever he wants.  Ultimately, once I got passed the opening credits, I watched a movie that had nothing to do with my book other than the title and it was a tremendous relief.

Coming full circle, why do we love “Star Wars” so much?

We love “Star Wars” because it touches all the basic tenets of what it means to be a human being. It really is universal. It is good versus evil. It is a coming of age story. It is morality. It is love. It is hate. It is everything that we see in ourselves and that’s why George Lucas could tell his story in such a fantastical setting.

Salon Talks: Screenwriter Tony Gilroy
An interview with the "Rogue One" screenwriter

Bubble Pop? Brownie Batter? Flavored vapes add to the e-cig debate

AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli

This article originally appeared on Kaiser Health News.

A heated debate is redrawing alliances in the tobacco control movement as federal officials wrestle with how to regulate the growing e-cigarette market.

The players include researchers, smoking-cessation advocates and “vaping” connoisseurs.

“It’s become very divisive in a community that was largely united against Big Tobacco,” said Samir Soneji, an associate professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, who researches tobacco control policy.

The Food and Drug Administration took a preliminary step in March, seeking public input on what flavors could be added to battery-powered nicotine devices, which can taste like cinnamon rolls or strawberry milkshakes. E-cigs do not contain tobacco.

The comment period, which so far has generated more than 16,000 statements, will close on June 19. But many bureaucratic hurdles remain before a final rule will be issued.

One school of thought argues that e-cigarettes — specifically ones that taste good — help people quit tobacco.

But opponents maintain there is little evidence — especially from studies done on large groups of people — to support this idea.

Critics emphasize the risks to adolescents, who for years have heard anti-tobacco messages highlighting cigarettes’ unappealing taste and smell. Sugary vaping flavors bypass this argument and lead some parents to worry these products are a gateway to tobacco use — even though selling to minors is illegal.

The limited data make regulation tricky, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told Kaiser Health News. The agency may end up commissioning new research before developing policy.

“There’s a lot of interest in this subject,” he said. “The question is how much of that will be scientific, that can inform our rule-making.”

Further complicating the picture, skeptics argue, is Big Tobacco’s looming presence.

Though the market’s biggest player, Juul Labs, is an independent company, tobacco companies also are betting big on e-cigarettes to boost their long-term financial picture.

Industry analysts project this market could be worth almost $50 billion worldwide by 2023.

Already, companies such as Altria, Reynolds American and Japan Tobacco International (JTI) are marketing e-cig products and flexing their political muscle.

A Reynolds subsidiary is bankrolling a movement to block a San Francisco ban on flavored smoking products, which would affect e-cigs and menthol cigarettes. Altria and Reynolds together have spent tens of millions lobbying Congress about e-cigarette regulation.

“They have a lot of influence. They can use what they’ve learned over decades of successful marketing,” Soneji said.

When contacted, JTI and Altria opted not to comment on e-cig regulations until their complete responses were filed with the FDA.

Michele Maron, a JTI spokeswoman, said the company supports “responsible use of flavors” and will “continue to defend the rights of informed adults to choose legal tobacco products” but opposes sales to minors.

An Altria spokesman suggested consulting the company’s online policy statement, which emphasizes support for responsible packaging, labeling and marketing of products

Reynolds declined to comment.

Meanwhile, Tony Abboud, executive director of the Vapor Technology Association (VTA), a trade organization, said the landscape has changed.

Tobacco companies are “now examining how to develop products that will make their own cigarettes obsolete,” he said. “One could argue that is a huge net benefit.”

The debate

E-cigarettes are electronic, handheld devices that deliver a vapor made of nicotine and other chemicals.

Since entering the U.S. market in 2007, they have amassed a substantial following.

About 3.2 percent of adults used e-cigarettes in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That same year, more than 2 million American middle- and high-school students used an e-cigarette within 30 days of being surveyed, according to the CDC.

Even though vapes don’t burn tobacco, they, along with other “electronic nicotine delivery systems,” are regulated by the FDA as tobacco products because of a federal rule finalized in 2016.

The CDC and the American Cancer Society say the cancer risk is lower than that of cigarettes, but vaping has been linked to other ailments, such as emphysema and heart conditions.

Nicotine’s long-term effects aren’t well-known, but it can impair brain development in adolescents. New research suggests that flavoring chemicals may also be harmful.

Mark Anton, executive director of the Smoke-Free Alternatives Trade Association, another industry group, dismissed these concerns.

“The evidence [of harm to teens] . . . is highly anecdotal,” he said.

And, at least in testimonials, there’s increasing traction for vapes’ smoking-cessation potential.

“If it were not for the flavors in e-liquids, I would still be smoking a pack a day of cigarettes,” read one comment submitted to the FDA.

Another, from someone claiming to have smoked for 15 years, said, “flavors were instrumental in converting [me] into a nonsmoker.”

The tobacco industry has a history of leveraging customer loyalty, mobilizing a vocal support base, said Pamela Ling, a professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, who studies tobacco and its marketing.

“I’m not saying everyone who makes a comment is funded by the tobacco industry,” she said. “But they are a very well-funded interest who know how this process works, and know how to affect it.”

Negotiating trade-offs

Testimonials aside, it’s unclear whether e-cigarettes are more effective tools to quit smoking than the nicotine patch or drugs like Wellbutrin. It’s also unclear whether flavors help.

“The evidence is really limited,” Ling said.

Many adults smokers don’t actually quit tobacco but use vapes in places where cigarettes are banned, said John Pierce, a professor for cancer research at the University of California-San Diego.

In fact, e-cigarettes are not an FDA-certified smoking cessation therapy. The industry has not sought this label, and the VTA doesn’t intend to change that, Abboud said. Certification requires rigorously demonstrating e-cigs’ effectiveness — and showing that the benefits outweigh risks.

Meanwhile, vaping’s popularity among teens is ballooning.

“It’s a double-edged sword in some ways,” Gottlieb said. “Flavors in this context could do both harm and good.”

For example, e-cigarette marketing, which isn’t regulated as strictly as conventional cigarette marketing, may work especially well on young adults.

Some research suggests that sweeter flavors — think peanut butter cup or gummy bear — disproportionately attract young people. (The vaping industry disputes those findings. Abboud said his organization supports stricter marketing standards.)

That underscores this debate’s central question: Are potential benefits for adults worth the risks for children?

Tobacco researchers such as Stanton Glantz, at the University of California-San Francisco, say the risks — and limited favorable evidence — support keeping flavored vapes off the market until science clearly supports their use for smoking cessation.

But analysts such as Kenneth Warner, a public health professor and economist at the University of Michigan, focus on how vaping could lower adult tobacco use.

“The FDA is … asking for a level of proof about its public health effects that’s probably unattainable,” he added. “I’m sympathetic about worrying about the impact on kids. I just don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.”

The ideal standard, Gottlieb said, would ban flavors that appeal to kids, while permitting adult-friendly ones. That’s easier said than done.

Meanwhile, the current American consensus — articulated in January by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine — included both of these ideas and called for more research.

That last point is essential, Gottlieb suggested.

“That rule-making we do needs to be informed by data,” he said. “We’re a science-based organization. We want to get it right.”

KHN’s coverage of children’s health care issues is supported in part by the Heising-Simons Foundation.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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