Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 57

MSNBC host Joy Reid apologizes for old blog posts pushing 9/11 conspiracies

Getty/Dave Kotinsky

Joy Reid, host of AM Joy on MSNBC, issued an apology on Friday regarding controversial statements that resurfaced from blog posts she wrote in the mid-aughts. The remarks ranged from 9/11 conspiracy theories to posting an illustration of Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) head on the body of the Virginia Tech shooter.

"While I published my blog, starting in 2005, I wrote thousands of posts in real time on the issues of the day," Reid said in a statement. "There are things I deeply regret and am embarrassed by, things I would have said differently and issues where my position has changed. Today I'm sincerely apologizing again."

"I'm sorry for the collateral damage and pain this is causing individuals and communities caught in the crossfire," she added.

Reid specifically addressed the blog post regarding Sen. McCain.

"To be clear, I have the highest respect for Sen. McCain as a public servant and patriot and wish him and his family the best. I have reached out to Meghan McCain and will continue to do so," Reid said. "She is a former on-air colleague and I feel deeply for her and her family.

She also clarified that she does not agree with the ideology supported in the 9/11 conspiracy film, "Loose Change”—a film co-produced by Infowars’ Alex Jones—which she reportedly promoted on her now-defunct blog, according to a BuzzFeed report this week.

"I've also spoken openly about my evolution on many issues and know that I'm a better person today than I was over a decade ago," she said. "I am the daughter of immigrants and have worked to be a strong ally of these communities. There is no question in my mind that Al Qaeda perpetrated the 9/11 attacks or about Israel's right to its sovereignty."

"I believe the totality of my work attests to my ideals and I continue to grow every day," Reid added.

MSNBC released its own statement standing by Reid.

"Some of the things written by Joy on her old blog are obviously hateful and hurtful," the network said. "They are not reflective of the colleague and friend we have known at MSNBC for the past seven years. Joy has apologized publicly and privately and said she has grown and evolved in the many years since, and we know this to be true."

What both statements failed to address were the homophobic remarks that surfaced on her now-defunct blog in April — the ones she claimed hackers actually made.

"Many of you have seen these blog posts circulating online and on social media. Many of them are homophobic, discriminatory and outright weird and hateful," she said in April. "I spent a lot of time trying to make sense of these posts. I hired cybersecurity experts to see if somebody had manipulated my words or my former blog, and the reality is they have not been able to prove it."

"I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things because they are completely alien to me,” she added. “But I can definitely understand based on things I have tweeted and have written in the past why some people don't believe me."

 

Bernie Sanders has no patience for Trump: “Worst president in the history of the United States”

Getty/Mandel Ngan/Tasos Katopodis

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., told Jordan Klepper on his Comedy Central show "The Opposition" that Donald Trump is "the worst president in the history of the United States."

The audience roared, but Sanders face remained serious. Klepper, who satirizes an alt-right, conspiracy-driven host, pushed back: "At least admit to him being the best at being the worst," he said.

"All right," Sanders replied. "I’ll grant you that."

Sanders is running for re-election in Vermont this year and emphasized the importance of the upcoming midterms. "It is imperative that we end one-party rule in Washington, where Republicans control the White House, the Senate and the House," he said.

Sanders added that 2018 is not about impeaching the president, but about "paying attention to the needs of working families in this country; stopping an agenda, which wants to throw up to 32 million people off of the health care they have, make massive cuts to medicare, medicaid, social security, disability, education and environmental protection — all the while, giving a billion dollars in tax breaks to the top one percent," he continued. "This election is among other things, stopping that agenda."

As a far-right parody, Klepper wasn't convinced. Why should he care? he asked Sanders.

"I think moving toward an authoritarian form of government, where you have a president who's a pathological liar," Sanders began.

"He's creative," Klepper interjected.

"He is creative in his lies, I do grant you that," Sanders conceded. "But they are lies, nonetheless. I think most significantly, this country has struggled with bigotry for several hundred years now. And we have made some progress in recent times, and to have a president who is trying to divide us up based on the color of our skin, or our gender, or our religion, or the country we came from — that is not what this country is about and we cannot allow that to continue."

The 12-minute conversation between Sanders and Kleeper was wide-reaching. They talked about income inequality and living wages, universal health care, North Korea and 2020.

Sanders did not confirm or deny if he is planning on running for president in 2020. "The focus right now is on 2018, 2020 is a way away and we'll make that decision at the appropriate time," he told Klepper.

Sanders also countered Klepper's claim that his candidacy would divide the Democratic party. "The truth is, there is less division among American people and certainly within the Democratic party than people think," he said. "For example, do people think we should give tax breaks to billionaires: Overwhelming opposition, people are unified in that. Do people believe we should have sensible gun safety legislation? The vast majority of the American people believe in that. Do people believe that women should earn the same amount of money doing the same work as men? Overwhelming support for that."

He continued, "Do people believe that climate change is real? Now, I know, you and the Donald think it's a hoax: emanating from China, I got it," Sanders assured Klepper, who was up in arms by this point. "But there are some of us who disagree with that suggestion."

In the end, Klepper offered his support to Sanders by pitching him some campaign slogans should he decide to run in 2020.

 

 

How to travel the world with 2 little kids: Teach them that every step counts

Raj Gill

Quitting your job and selling your house and all of your possessions to travel the world is something many people find themselves daydreaming about when they feel their lives have fallen into a state of predictable motion. A fair number of rather reasonable arguments typically dissuade most people from pursuing the notion.

But the feeling of being an alien in a foreign land is intoxicating. I often thought of leaving California behind and breaking with my routine to embrace the unknown and in so doing becoming an alien to everything, including myself. The fire continued to rage in my mind, and when I spoke to my partner about it, I learned that the same fire burned inside her as well. Within two months, we sold our house, all of our belongings, quit our jobs and bought four one way tickets to Australia; two adults and two children.

I felt embarrassed telling my friends and family about our decision and worried that it would make me seem irresponsible. The idea of leaving a great job and uprooting our family was met with as much judgmental condemnation as one would get for choosing to drink or gamble with abandon. I avoided speaking of our intentions again until we were just about to board a plane that would take us away from California. I updated my status online that described our exodus, and with 40-liter backpacks strapped on our respective backs, our three-year-old boy gripping tightly to my hand and our five-year-old boy gripping tightly to my partner’s, we boarded the plane and never looked back.

We spent the summer in Australia, surfing Bondi Beach, walking Graffiti Alley in Melbourne and sunbathing along the Sunshine Coast. After three months, we had exhausted the amount of time we were permitted on our Australian visas. With summer transitioning to fall, we set our sights on New Zealand.

Much of our time in our previous life was spent losing ourselves in Yosemite and Lassen National Parks or trail running the Marin Headlands and Point Reyes. We often hiked through the pine forests of Tahoe or the redwood forests nestled behind the Mendocino coastline. We made a pact before the trip that this particular quality of our lives would travel along with us, and we did just what most outdoor adventurers would do upon landing in Nelson airport: salivated at the thought of conquering the great tracks of New Zealand’s South Island.

Our first hike with the boys began with exploring a pocket of nestled beauty called the Abel Tasman, located on the northeast coastline of the South Island. We took a water taxi that dropped us off on a small exposed sandbar in an estuary that existed for only a few hours, expanding as quickly as the tide receded into the Tasman Bay and disappearing upon its return. We ferried the boys across one at a time on our backs, moving slowly through the surprisingly crisp, knee-deep water that bridged the exposed and isolated raft of yellow sand to the thin Tasman coastline.

We approached this tramp with our boys with a sink or swim attitude, wholly accepting our punishment of having to carry them on our backs should they not rise to the challenge. Our parenting style had always differed from those in the community we left a few months prior. We allow them to fall and scrape their knees, to make their own mistakes, to concede defeat in the face of a valiant effort. We pushed them to try before they could accept their own presumed limitations. My partner and I controlled the wind that passed across their boughs in a manner meant to strengthen their branches but not break them. They would, more often than not, surprise themselves upon rising up and working through their own challenges.

We assumed the 22-kilometer hike would be a pretty strong gust, but to our surprise, we found that the adults were trying to keep pace with the boys. We were evidently the weak links in the chain. Was it their center of gravity that made tramping come more easily to them or the efficiencies of their metabolic engine that constantly turns over calories for energy like a Ferrari turns petrol into horsepower? Their enthusiasm and seemingly endless supply of energy that remained, even after concluding the day-long tramp with burgers at The Fat Tui, motivated us to tramp progressively longer and more difficult terrain. Soon we felt confident in our plan of tramping across New Zealand with our sights set on accomplishing an expert-level overnight hike up Mt. Robert to the Angelus Hut in Nelson Lakes National Park.

* * *

I peered across the shifter to my partner and said, “There’s only one direction we can go and that’s forward.” We were all alone on the one-way road that hugged Mount Robert. Just ahead of us, the gravel gave way to mud, stretching a quarter mile ahead of us. I scanned ahead and saw that the first half of the road had a forgiving upward slope, but then a handful of orange traffic cones were scattered in front of a section of road that appeared to go vertical. I slammed the shifter into first gear, revved the engine of the rented Honda Fit and held my breath until we reached the other side. My quads were on fire from riding the clutch while lifting my body above my seat to be able to see the road. When we summited past the cones and fell back onto level and graveled road, I turned to my partner and saw her hands wrapped white knuckled around the “Oh Shit Handle” that had been previously dangling freely just above her head.

“It wasn’t that bad,” I said as her dilated pupils relaxed and her eyes rolled in that special way that lets me know I have no idea what I am talking about.

After we parked, we collected our gear and tried to focus on the moment instead of on what lay ahead of us: 24 kilometers over 36 hours. We moved quickly through the small section of beech forest that separated the car park and the start of the aptly named Pinchgut Track. A thick canopy of beech trees retained the water in the air, humidifying the organic plumes of earthy aromatics emanating from the detritus scattered across the forest floor. Microbeads of water sat atop green carpets of moss blanketing the decaying stumps and fallen branches lining the trail.

Exposed tree roots snagged the boys’ boots more times than I could count. My shoulder ached from having to reach my arm out quickly and grip whatever fabric I could to prevent the boys from falling flat on their faces several times, so I called an impromptu family meeting. My partner and I established a rule that we have repeated on every hike since and have now woven into the philosophy we teach the boys: Every step matters, every step is important, every step counts, and how you take that step directly affects the outcome of how you move forward towards the next one. A rock is a rock, whether it’s in the car park, on the trail, in a river crossing or on top of a mountain, but the consequences of tripping over it can vary depending on the circumstance, from insignificant to deadly.

The mid-morning sun began to penetrate the canopy ahead of us, revealing the exposed path leading us to the start of the serial switchbacks that would carry us up 800 meters over 90 minutes. Under our boots, soft earth turned into coarse and dry gravel. The flora transitioned from green ferns to mountain wildflowers and the clear blue sky stretched out towards infinity overhead. Purple and red foxgloves began to fill the empty spaces along the trail.

As we made our ascent, Lake Rotoiti’s blue expanse beckoned us, offering up its cold and crisp waters to rinse the sweat off our skin and resolve the dryness in our throats. My muscles began to burn again. The day hikers that had passed us expanded their distance, while the ones we had previously passed were reducing it. This expansion and contraction between the groups persisted, and in this way, we all accordioned our way up the mountain.

We reached the start of the Robert Ridge Track with another shift in climate and terrain. The wind gusts were strong atop the ridge, and with our guts pinched from the switchbacks, the cold and crisp alpine air cooled us down while also taking some of the weight off our tired legs as it pushed against our backs. We reached the Relax Shelter and exchanged pleasantries with day hikers taking a break before heading back down Paddy’s Track on the opposite side of the ridge. Children on the ridge, we grew to learn, were an unusual sight, given the reactions we received. Responses were split between admiring the boys’ courage (and our patience) and skeptical optimism.

We split from the group and continued along the ridge, not knowing that that would be the last time we would see another hiker while on the ridge. After a few hours, the trail grew narrow and slowly began to recede into the mountain beneath us. The sky continued to reflect the blue from Lake Rotoiti; however, quickly shifting light grey clouds could be seen swirling further up the ridge, waiting for our arrival. We were approaching the Julius Summit, nearly 1,800 meters above sea level, when a drop in pressure and temperature caused the water in the air to suddenly condense all around us. We stopped and became mesmerized at witnessing the birth of a cloud. A wisp of white candy floss suddenly materialized from nothing, swirling in a funnel created by two disparate pressures colliding in a moment. The nascent tuft of white air released and drifted like a leaf trapped in a whirlpool, fixed in constant motion, until its mass grew large enough to be ejected from the turbulent air.

After stopping for lunch to let rain pass ahead, we pressed on. The clouds gathered and dispersed for several kilometers, occasionally releasing their contents upon us but never enough to hinder our momentum. We summited the mountain and found being positioned above everything around us, including the clouds, allowed the trail markers to be easily visible as we scanned ahead. The ridge began to slope downward and our legs felt the relief of not having to work as hard; however, the recent rains made our descent more difficult than previously presumed.

Over the next kilometer, I realized the risk my partner and I took in bringing the boys on the tramp. I accepted my punishment by moving a few meters ahead, releasing my pack from my back, then returning back to the boys in order to ferry them one at a time across the difficult and dangerous terrain, only to collect my pack and start all over again at the next sign of apparent risk. We moved in this way until we reached an expansive scree field that buried several trail markers in its path. I turned to my partner and we discussed the risks of moving forward or turning back. Having already experienced the difficult terrain as I ferried the boys down the wet cliffside, I was worried how much more difficult it would be to repeat it while working against gravity. On the other hand, the terrain ahead of us was unknown, offering a variety of unknown possibilities. “A rock is a rock,” we reminded ourselves.

This fractured landscape wouldn’t let me move ahead and ferry the boys across it as I had before. We had to move slowly, as a unit, across the scree field, lifting the boys to rocks they couldn’t climb onto and holding their hands as they jumped down from ones they could. To the boys, it was fun to rock climb. But we had not come across another human since we started on the ridge. The boys didn’t realize that if something happened, a response would not be immediate, but we did. To compound our worry, the sun seemed to drop faster across the horizon than our descent on the cliff, and should another scree field lie further ahead on our path, we would have to cross it in the dark.

The mantra that we established at the start of our tramp carried us across without incident. We breathed a sigh of relief and silently hoped that we wouldn’t need to cross another scree field on our path to the hut. The boys, on the other hand, were excited at the prospect of scrambling across another. In the end, we ended up going past several more, and fortunately they were only a few meters across. We didn’t hesitate when we scanned ahead to find boulders had collapsed the trail ahead of us; we were still riding off the adrenaline from having successfully traversed what ended up to be the longest and most difficult scree field on the ridge. We discovered that this irregular trail — solid ground with sections of scree intermixed — carried a rhythm in its terrain. We glided swiftly across the wet rock and loose gravel as our steps harmonized to it, moving back up the ridge and arriving at the top of the valley as twilight fell across our shoulders.

When the boys asked how much further until we arrived to the hut, I lied. “It’s just passed the next trail marker,” I replied, buying us a few hundred meters of silence before they asked again. “I meant to say past the next trail marker . . . or the one after that,” I said, all the while, secretly wishing that my non-answer was true. My stalling wouldn’t last, and their motivation could dissipate when they realized I had no idea how much further until we arrived at the hut.

We tramped with the clouds above our heads and below our feet, and fortunately, everything at eye level was clear, albeit damp. We stopped as a gust of wind pushed us off the trail, and after allowing it to pass, we stepped back onto the ridge and saw that the wind pushed the clouds away from the valley to the east, exposing a series of ponds spread across the mountain. It was getting darker. Although it was becoming more difficult to see the worry on my partner’s face, I could feel it radiate off of her body. What was even more troubling was the sudden awareness of the boys’ silence; there were no more questions about when we would arrive, no brotherly banter, just silence and their pace had slowed.

The boys were tired and needed to take a break. The weight on my shoulders grew heavier. The air was transitioning from dark blue to purple, and I knew that taking a break would all but ensure we would be tramping in the dark. I sprinted into the fog to scout ahead, leaving my pack behind.

I returned in a few short minutes with a smile from ear to ear. I threw my pack over one shoulder and instructed the boys to get up and muster as much courage and energy as they could because the hut was in the valley just below us. A hundred or so meters ahead of us was the trail that led down into the valley. As we sprinted towards the branch, the sky opened up, basking us in a light that had previously fallen beneath the top of the alpine ridge. The air quickly transitioned from purple to blue carried by strands of yellow that shimmered off Lake Angelus and poured over the edges of the hills that bordered the valley. We ran to the edge of the ridge and peered down over the valley below; the momentary silence was broken by laughter coming from the boys.

“Every step counts,” I said, as we broke from the ridge and moved down the loose gravel trail that would lead us to shelter.

Tired, hungry and cold, but filled with relief, we slowed our pace, knowing there was nothing more to worry about beyond securing a bunk space. I looked up and saw the yellow lights growing bigger and brighter the closer we got to the hut. The light began to leak from the windows and illuminate the porch, then the wire boot brush on the ground next to the steps to the deck, then the last few meters of the trail. The dark receded to reveal a dozen smiling faces watching our every step as we drew closer to them. I heard the people clapping as the yellow light illuminated the face of my youngest and then his brother. The boys stopped, unsure of what was happening, and looked back at us with both confusion and surprise in their smiles.

* * *

The next morning, we joined a table of fellow hikers for breakfast. The boys spoke of their courage across the wet scree and informed the table of our mantra, “Every step counts.” Over the course of the next half hour, the hut began to empty. Our brief respite needed to come to an end.

We took the track down the mountainside, winding back and forth across several arteries flowing with water; our socks that had dried overnight were drenched within the first kilometer. We followed the water through mud and marshland, ferrying the boys across rushing streams and carrying them over my head across waist deep rivers until the path brought us to the edge of the beech forest that we started from. The forest canopy brought respite from an unrelenting midday sun but blanketed the remainder of the trail in a persistent twilight.

As we passed another kilometer deeper into the forest, the temperature began to drop and the boys began asking how much longer again. Our youngest was becoming more vocal with his narrative of the status of his body and mind. We encouraged them to keep moving by distracting them with topics in mammalian and plant biology, zoology, philosophy and English. This worked for a spell, until the discussion began to grow exponentially more complex with every “but why?”

I could hear whimpers from our youngest. I stopped to lean down and asked him if he was OK, if he needed to be picked up. He said he did, that his legs hurt, but he thought he would be able to continue on if he only had his “Buggies” — two ladybug snuggle toys he has slept with every night of his life. We carried our sleeping bags, food and water on our backs; “Buggies” had been deemed nonessential and remained behind in the car.

Before starting the hike, my partner and I agreed that if the boys could no longer go on of their own free will, we would accommodate their needs, either by picking them up or ending the tramp and turning back around. We wanted them to hit their wall, feel their boughs creak and bend, and let them decide for themselves. My son brought something different to the table: a quid pro quo. I wondered how far he would be willing to take it. We decided that my eldest and I would sprint ahead until we reach the car, drop our gear off and retrieve the Buggies to motivate him to finish the tramp.

I reminded my eldest son of our mantra: “Every step counts.” We took a deep breath and started sprinting up the trail while my partner kept a walking pace with our youngest. We ran two kilometers up through the forest, jumping over rocks and exposed roots that crossed our path, until reaching the car park and finding leaf litter blanketing our rental car. I threw my pack in the trunk and opened the back door, finding Buggies next to a half-eaten leftover carrot cake in the rear cup holder. I grabbed Buggies, stole a bite of cake and handed the rest to my son. “Don’t tell your brother we ate his cake.”

We ran down the path, two plush ladybugs in hand, and I trusted my eldest to keep his own pace as I began to sprint back to meet the others. Only a kilometer away from the car park, my youngest son dropped my partner’s hand and began screaming and crying with joy while running towards his long lost friends. After he settled down, he kept repeating, “I can do this now, I can do this now.” He squeezed one bug in each hand and picked up his pace as he started to move up the path. The three of us continued, collecting our eldest son along the way. The boys fell silent; they were focused on finishing now. My partner and I were silent too, astonished at the resolve our boys displayed. We reached the car park and turned back towards the forest, sharing a collective sigh of relief and pride. With little fanfare, we returned to the car, dropped it in gear and slowly drove past the head of the trail we had conquered, the momentary silence broken by a voice from the backseat: “Hey, where’s my cake?”

San Francisco’s progressive mayoral candidate Jane Kim has tech millionaires running scared

A good rule of thumb for figuring out who is the most progressive candidate in any race is to see who the rich people are the most afraid of. In San Francisco’s underreported mayoral race, happening next Tuesday, there is a clear frontrunner for the candidate who haunts the ruling class: Supervisor Jane Kim, who currently represents some of the city’s most impoverished districts, including the Tenderloin and South of Market. Multimillionaire tech investor Ron Conway, a widely loathed figure and essentially the local equivalent of the Koch brothers, has been pouring money into the coffers of the neoliberal mayoral frontrunner, London Breed; meanwhile, Conway and his wife have been funding SuperPACs devoted to smearing Kim and her legacy.

That is unsurprising given that Kim champions a particularly effective form of redistributive tax policies that have improved the lives of many San Franciscans. Unlike many Democrats, Kim is deeply skeptical of trickle-down economics or so-called neoliberal reforms; rather, she has had great success with taxing the rich and using the money to pay for things like free city community college, improved bathroom access for the homeless, affordable housing, childcare and guaranteed paid sick leave. “I really think that health care, housing, public transportation and public education are the four things that government should be focused on,” Kim told me.

Likewise, she was skeptical of “market solutions,” à la those championed by Reagan and many neoliberal civic leaders, for said problems. “The market simply will never take care of housing the poor and working class,” she told Salon. “It doesn’t pencil out. Why would you go into a business that’s not profitable?” Accordingly, Senator Bernie Sanders is among her fans; the beloved progressive senator flew to San Francisco to celebrate the free community college program Kim helped create, and Sanders’ progressive political action committee, Our Revolution, has endorsed Kim.

For progressives, Supervisor Kim is a beacon of hope for a beleaguered city plagued by income inequality and the social wrecking ball of a self-serving tech industry. A civil rights lawyer and former community organizer, Kim comes off in person as personable and capable of rattling off facts, figures and statistics with the speed and aplomb of a "Jeopardy" contestant. I sat down with the mayoral candidate to discuss the future of San Francisco, the state of the left and how to solve the housing crisis. This interview has been edited and condensed for print.

Keith A. Spencer: First, let’s talk about the elephant in the city: gentrification and displacement. What policies, in your opinion, actually work to provide affordable housing, or housing for homeless — or even middle-class — people?

Supervisor Jane Kim: The most effective solution is the most expensive: subsidized housing. Demand is so high in these cities that supply alone does not bring down rental prices or home ownership prices. What we’ve seen, or at least what I’ve seen – because 80 percent of development [in San Francisco] is happening in the district that I represent – is that it simply does not pencil out for developers to build housing for the poor and working class, and now the middle class too. I mean, they literally could not get financing if they had to charge less rent, or charge less for home ownership.

I talk about this a lot, but there was a time in our country when HUD [Housing and Urban Development]’s budget was larger than that of the Department of Defense. In the mid-twentieth century between 1940 and 1980, the federal government built close to 6,000 units of subsidized housing in San Francisco, and close to 200,000 in New York City – 176,000 in New York City. In the 1970s, at our peak, we had more public housing than people on the waitlist. And homelessness was not a crisis on our streets. It was really limited – we used to house people very rapidly.

When Reagan decided to start cutting HUD’s funding – along with passing the most sweeping tax cuts on the richest individuals and corporations – and actually look it up online, HUD’s budget going down between 1980 and 2002 [is correlated to] homelessness emerging as a crisis on our streets and in our cities starting in 1980s. So [subsidized] housing is absolutely the solution to homelessness. Because Reagan was all about smaller government, government should do less and the market should do more, but the market simply will never [take] care of housing the poor and working class. It doesn’t pencil out. Why would you go into a business that’s not profitable? So I just think housing is one of those goods that should also be a public asset – both public and private sectors should be building housing.

Have you seen a lot of your constituents or friends or family really affected by displacement?

Absolutely. I mean it is extraordinarily stressful. And I've watched family members age in short periods of time when they are economically insecure.

That's something people don't realize about housing: it's not just a roof over your head. It's actually your health. When people lose their housing — it’s not just having a protection of your physical body. And I think this place that we've gone to in our housing policy, where housing has become a privilege — and we take it for granted actually, we're like, “yeah, of course we should only have housing if you can afford it.” I mean people just have accepted that now. As opposed to understanding that there might be some basic rights that everyone should be afforded, and that the government should fill in for where the market has failed.

We talk a lot about poverty, but 49 percent of Americans are classified as economically insecure, which means they live paycheck to paycheck. So any single thing — a car collision, a major health care expense, a sudden illness — all of those things can put you between being in a home and working, to not working and no longer being housed. And it's far beyond San Francisco, I mean, these stories that you're reading even in rural counties, where eviction rates are incredibly high -- I think that you really have to start thinking about whether the market is appropriate for all types of goods like housing. Or is housing a different type of good that should be heavily regulated and heavily subsidized like health care? I mean I really think that health care, housing, public transportation, and public education are the four things that government should be focused on — if nothing else, we should take care of those four things.

Given that San Francisco is a one-party city, I imagine some outsiders might look at this race and see you and the other two top candidates – Mark Leno and London Breed — as kind of similar. How would you distinguish yourself from them?

Actually, Mark and I are running on a very similar platform. We're both fairly progressive. I do have the most local experience of any of the candidates running despite being the youngest. So I served 12 years here on the Board of Education and Board of Supervisors. I do think that just my experience both in public education and housing is far greater than the two other candidates running. The question I get all the time from journalists from outside of San Francisco is "what differentiates progressives and moderates?" And I always say everyone's progressive until money is involved— meaning everyone is pro-gay marriage and pro-sanctuary cities.

But once you have to start putting your money where your mouth is -- like, how much you want to spend on making San Francisco a sanctuary city? How much do you want to regulate the private sector? How much you believe in progressive taxation versus sales tax or fees to pay for city services? -- I think that is what differentiates progressives and moderates.

And you'll hear my moderate colleagues talk about trickle-down economics — that if we support those at the top, that those dollars are going to trickle down to our dry cleaners and local restaurants and lower-paid workers. And I think that has always been the distinguishing line between those are progressives and those who are not.

Interesting. Because London Breed has the Ron Conway money, Right? And there are a lot of attack ads running against you, Super PACs running ads against you?

Yeah, I think the big question — and [Breed] says it herself, is, “what is their agenda?” Generally what I've seen is that they push for less regulation in the tech and private sector industry -- because they view that as dampening or hampering innovation. But really it's about is the bottom line for these companies, right?

And by the way, I want these businesses to stay in San Francisco, I want them to do business in San Francisco. But I don't want them to run San Francisco. I think that if you're going to be a good neighbor, like everybody else, everyone follows a set of rules. Whether you're AirBnB or Uber, it's great for you to be here. But that doesn't mean there should be some set of rules under which you exist. Just like for every other citizen that's here.

So what do you make of this pattern, particularly in the tech industry of either getting legal exceptions or just blatantly breaking the rules? Recently there was this scooter debacle.

It's no different from any other industry. When the banking industry began in the early 1900s in this country, they also said "don't regulate us," right? I mean this is... I hate to say but it's the norm. Rules hamper bottom lines for companies.

And like I said, we have nothing against our businesses being prosperous, staying in San Francisco or coming to San Francisco. It's just that we believe everyone should abide by a set of rules. It's also that everyone should pay into our local infrastructure whether it's our schools, our roads, our police — by paying their fair share.

You’ve helped draft policies that involve the city buying up land to help provide affordable housing. That seems more unusual today, cities being involved directly in that sort of thing, isn’t it? Do you see that as a good model?

The more site control government has, the more flexibility we have in building what's needed for cities. We can build affordable middle-income housing, we can build spaces for small businesses, manufacturing, grocery stores — that are not as profitable as other real estate uses like offices and luxury housing. But there are two limitations that government has: One is site control, meaning ownership of land or some type of control [over what happens in a space]. The other is funding.

So even when you have site control, [you need] the funding to build housing. So for most of my time on the board [of supervisors], building housing in my district cost about $450,000 a door — whether you're building for the formerly homeless or for luxury market rate households. And so [the city] is paying the same costs as everybody else is.

One of the single largest line items in any development is the cost of land. If the city already owns land, you're taking a huge piece of the cost out. And so something I worked on in 2015 was the surplus property ordinance, [which] expanded what we considered surplus to not just land that had no public use but land that was underutilized. So a Muni [San Francisco’s public transit agency] storage yard where we're storing our buses — can we build on top of that? Can we still use it as a storage yard but build housing or another type of place on top of that?

I wanted to ask you briefly about this current debate among Democrats and progressives. Some people, including professors and policy wonks like Thomas Piketty, believe that when Democrats move left they win. Whereas a lot of the mainstream Democratic Party, on the other hand, thinks that the key to Democrats nationwide winning is for them to move to the center. And so I guess I'm curious, because it seems like you sort of would be more on this "moving to the left" side, no? Whereas your opponent London Breed would be more like moving to the center?

I don't think I can answer the question [as to whether] you're more likely to win if you move to the left or to the center. But I do think that people want to hear a voice for those that are moving to the left. I think that need is suddenly very real. There's a hunger for some real positions.

I think that there is, in general, voter fatigue around trying to please too many people. On both sides — I don't think it's just liberals and Democrats, but I think on the right you're starting to see some voter fatigue with Republicans moving to the center-right. That's the growth of the Tea Party, and perhaps even Trump himself. I mean part of Trump's messaging was actually about the working class. He talked about making America great again and bringing back jobs, blue collar jobs in the country. Whether he did that or not is a big question.

I mean, [Trump] painted Hillary as "Wall Street," and making all these international deals that don't benefit local American workers, and captured that sentiment. So Bernie and Trump offered a similar sentiment.

Now, as to the question of, whose platform do I think would actually benefit low-wage workers? I think Bernie's does. Trump's is more like, “if you take care of the rich the rich will start spending more money, creating more jobs and buying more products" — that's how he wants to help those at the bottom. I think Bernie Sanders is more about progressive taxation, and investing in social infrastructure that supports working- and middle-class people — whether it's universal education, universal single-payer health care. So two different responses to the same problem. I think the problem with centrists on both sides is that they're not actually addressing the fact that people feel left behind.

I know Sanders’ group Our Revolution endorsed you, and has endorsed many progressive candidates. Do you see yourself as part of this larger wave of progressive candidates, perhaps a movement?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean I think for those of us that are running at the local and state level, we understand that most legislation is now being passed right at the state and local level, it's not at the federal level anymore. There's total gridlock in Washington, D.C., but also we have a little bit more flexibility to be laboratories for pilots. So [with] making community college free for all of our residents and hopefully in the next couple of years demonstrating with data what that meant for us, and then hopefully having the state and the country follow.

And that's actually another thing I wanted to ask you about. Do you see San Francisco as now setting an example for the country?

You already see that [happening] with our guaranteed paid sick day legislation, legislation that started in San Francisco. I think it was 2005 when we passed it. And then New York City passed it later.

Also, I think we're the leaders in inclusionary housing requirements, requiring developers to build on-site low-income housing. And you know, actually elected officials from around the country do contact me and ask me questions about legislation that we passed here in San Francisco whether it's Ban the Box, minimum wage...

San Francisco can't take ownership over those concepts, but we have a more liberal voting population that allows us to pass these ordinances, and we're wealthy enough to actually implement them. Like, we made community college free, it was easy for us to do that. Oakland can't afford that.

But if we can demonstrate again what it means to have community college free for residents, maybe the state will follow.

There are so many very wealthy people here in San Francisco. And it's in such contrast to some of the poverty you see. How do you see are ways of actually taxing some of the rich people?

The measures that I passed in 2016 to make community college free, that came from an ultra-luxury real estate transfer tax, on building sales of $5 million and above. It generated $40 million last year; making city college free only cost $5.4 million. So it's a very small investment. We generated $40 million from that revenue measure.

I have a measure right now, Proposition C, which is a tax on office landlords that make a million dollars or more. They currently pay 0.3 percent, one of the lowest tax rates in the country. We're raising them slightly below New York City levels — New York City taxes office landlords 4 to 6 percent. We're raising them to 3.8 percent. We're going to generate $140 million to make early childhood education and child care affordable for every family in San Francisco.

I've been researching and drafting a CEO surcharge — like Portland — on companies where CEOs make maybe 250 or 500 times the median employee salary of a company.

I'm not working on this, but the Coalition on Homelessness is working on a measure that will raise gross receipts taxes of companies that make $50 million or more — it's going to generate $300 million for behavioral health, substance abuse, shelters and supportive housing for the homeless. So there are a lot of ways [to do redistributive tax policies] outside of income tax. [Editor's Note: California state law says that cities cannot have their own income taxes; not all states have this law.]

For me, it's not a penalty on businesses doing business in San Francisco. I always tell them it's to their benefit, and to the benefit of their employees.

Right, they benefit from having well-educated workers and workers who can afford housing.

And to not have their workers have to step over people who are sleeping on the streets. Like, let's address homelessness. I always tell people, this work is not altruistic — I am safer when people can afford college. I'm safer when people aren't living on the streets, right? And you're taking care of folks, and so it is actually to their benefit to support those and lift those at the bottom. I think the difference I see with some of my colleagues is that some people believe that that lifting the top lifts everybody — because [they believe in] trickle-down economics. I really believe that if you lift up the bottom it actually lifts everyone up, because you build a healthier and safer community for everybody.

 

Let’s not normalize the c-word: Why the “worst word” you can call a woman matters

Getty Images

I had been venting over a plate of pancakes to an old friend, telling the elaborate story of how a woman I had once been close to had done something pointedly hurtful to my daughters. He put down his fork, looked me in the eye and said three little words. "What a c**t." It was beautiful. It was just what I needed.

For Americans, there's no word quite like the c-word. Other words, ones that bear the historical weight of prejudice and violence, have in recent years been reclaimed in some communities, while still deeply offensive outside of them. The f-words and s-words, while bleepable in family-friendly entertainment, have evolved into all-purpose declarations with multiple handy uses. And the long list of alternative phrases for male and female genitalia, while most frequently deployed as put-downs, don't carry a whole lot of blunt force. Any middle schooler knows not to be a dick. Or a pussy.

But when Samantha Bee played the c-card earlier this week, she must have suspected it would go off like a bomb. In a barbed takedown on Wednesday's "Full Frontal," she mentioned Ivanka Trump and her notorious "second most oblivious tweet we've seen this week" — an ill-timed image of her with her son, posted in the midst of outcry over the separation of immigrant children from their parents. "You know, Ivanka, that's a beautiful photo of you and your child," Bee said. "But let me just say, one mother to another, do something about immigration practices, you feckless c**t."

For a split second, it was as if a hush fell over social media, just like when Ralphie blurts "Ohhhhhhh fuuuuuuuuuuudge" in "A Christmas Story." She said the word. The big one.

And then the inevitable outrage ensued. Cries of liberal hypocrisy and comparisons to Roseanne Barr's career immolating racist comments of earlier in the week abounded, because social media is a resoundingly nuance-free zone. Most pointedly, White House Press Secretary and occasional human Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued this chilling statement: "Her disgusting comments and show are not fit for broadcast, and executives at Time Warner and TBS must demonstrate that such explicit profanity about female members of this administration will not be condoned on its network."

Whatever you think of Samantha Bee's choice to call Ivanka a feckless version of the word (personally, I have no dog in that c**t), the current selective outrage over it is really something. In Michael Wolff's book "Fire and Fury," Ivanka's father is described as referring to former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates as "such a c**t." In 2016, reporter Jennifer Lin asserted that he used "the worst word in the English language to refer to a woman" to chew her out several years earlier. Of course, the word did not go challenged when it repeatedly appeared on the signs and T-shirts of supporters during Trump's presidential campaign. Typical slogan: "She's A C**t, Vote For Trump." A month before the election and a year before getting an ABC reboot of her sitcom, Roseanne Barr tweeted, "Anyone who thinks Hillary isn't a c__t is a pussy." And Ted Nugent, who has called Hillary a "toxic c**t," has been welcomed at the White House. It seems the administration's comfort level with the word varies widely depending on who it's aimed at.

On Thursday, Bee issued an apology for the whole dustup. "It was inappropriate and inexcusable. I crossed a line, and I deeply regret it." Two of her show's sponsors have bowed out. But others have stood by Bee, pointing out that a vulgarity isn't equivalent to a longstanding pattern of racism. Sarah Silverman noted that the word is "Not quite as offensive as making it policy to separate children from their parents. Which I interpreted as your entire point." Minnie Driver trotted out a famous quip: "That was the wrong word for Samantha Bee to have used. But mostly because (to paraphrase the French) Ivanka has neither the warmth nor the depth." And Sally Field, of all people, declared that "I like Samantha Bee a lot, but she is flat wrong to call Ivanka a c**t. C**ts are powerful, beautiful, nurturing and honest."

For some, appreciation of the word is not a new thing. Anna Faris is a longtime fan, encouraging listeners on her "Unqualified" podcast to "Join the movement to own c**t as the British own it . . .  [to] bring the power back." Six years ago, writer Laurie Penny argued in New Statesman that "It's a perfectly nice little word, a word with 800 years of history; a word used by Chaucer and by Shakespeare. It's the only word we have to describe the female genitalia that is neither mawkish, nor medical, nor a function of pornography." Pussy Riot's merchandise includes a T-shirt with the word in Russian. And there's a whole famous segment of — appropriately — "The Vagina Monologues" that pays homage to it.

Yet for all earnest attempts to rebrand the word as something beautiful, for a great many of us, it's the nuclear option of vocabulary. In everyday conversation, I'm something of a one-woman David Mamet play myself, but there are only two women I've ever referred to by the c-word in my life — and neither to their faces. A friend and I have for several years described a truly devious backstabber in our circle exclusively as "That C**t," like her name is simply Thahkön or something. The other woman who goes by that moniker to me similarly earned it. You have got to be the actual worst, most aggressively and personally destructive woman I know for me use or approve the use of that word to describe you.

Here's a little known fact for you: Feminists can recognize that other members of our gender can be horrible human beings. Unfortunately and unfairly, though, I have nothing that even approaches a masculine equivalent.

The strength of the word no doubt comes from the sheer impact of the sound of it — the Strong Language blog has pointed out that its "phonetic structure, an explosive beginning, short vowel and abrupt ending, make c**t more likely to be offensive than its near synonyms." Sorry, twat.

And last year, a Very Bad Words podcast episode devoted to "The C Word" delved into why c**t has long resisted the kind of reclaiming that say, "queer" has. No wonder a classic episode of "30 Rock" devoted itself to Liz Lemon's rage and horror at being called "that horrible word."

When I want to be shocked, I can easily access a wealth of prompts — a great many emanating directly from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — on any given day. The decimation of our protected lands, the separation of families, the blatant, shameless greed at the expense of the struggling and the sick — that's what's horrific. The relentless attacks from the right on our autonomy over our body parts with taboo nicknames. But perhaps paradoxically, the extreme power of c**t on our sensitive American ears is what makes it somehow precious. I could bellow all the sexual and genital words you can think up from a megaphone in Times Square, and I know I'd get less attention than any random ratty Elmo. The c-word, on the other hand, is the fine wine I lovingly bring up from the cellar, the one I save for only (chef kiss) very, very special occasions. It has mystery and intense power. It scares people and it unsettles them. Just like the vagina itself. And I'm fine keeping it that way.

Why bad words are good
A podcast explores the purpose of vulgarity

The art of war: “Brothers of the Gun” illustrates the Syrian War with dignity and depth

Steve Prue

Award-winning artist and journalist Molly Crabapple is changing how the world views war and resistance movements. Through her ink and splatter style illustrations, Crabapple has covered the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York, the anti-austerity movement in Greece, terrorist hearings on Guantanamo Bay, and worked with Jay-Z for a project on the contradictions of the War on Drugs.

On a recent episode of "Salon Talks," Crabapple shared the inspiration behind her latest assignment, co-writing and illustrating "Brothers of the Gun: A Memoir of the Syrian War" with Syrian journalist Marwan Hisham.

It traces Hisham's story from pre-war Syria, through the early aughts of the people's revolution, which was anchored in demands against poverty and injustice, and how that revolution was co-opted and betrayed, over and over again. The memoir is tangled in universal questions of identity, nationality, blunder, religion and tragically shows how Syrian civilians have become the overwhelming casualties in the process for such answers.

Crabapple and I sat down to talk about her collaboration with Hisham, who co-wrote "Brothers of the Gun" while living in his hometown in ISIS-occupied Raqqa, and why people resisting in any capacity fuels her art.

How did you connect with Marwan? 

I started covering the Syrian war in 2013. My first piece was about refugees in Lebanon, the Beqaa Valley. There is a small group of people that would kind of discuss the war on Twitter. Some of them were Syrians. Some of them were journalists and analysts and Marwan was one of them. At first, I got to know Marwan as a source. He gave me information about life in ISIS-occupied Raqqa, which is his hometown. But then as I started to learn Arabic, we got to be pretty close friends and we did a series of collaborations for Vanity Fair where he would take photos at massive, lunatic personal risk to himself, because he’s just a crazy baller journalist and then he would send them to me and I would draw from them. After the third of those, we decided we wanted to do something better, something bigger or something more cohesive, and we decided to do a book.

Why was illustrations important for this memoir? 

I feel like the Syrian War is perhaps the most photographed, documented war in history, with a possible exemption of course of Palestine. But, I feel that with these photos, sometimes all these photos of broken bodies, of broken cities can commove sort of numbness.

Watch our full conversation with Molly Crabapple
The illustrator talks about "Brothers of the Gun"

One thing that’s really incredible and I think important in the illustrations in this book, is while Marwan talks about absolute devastation and violence and hardship, there's still a dignity to the photos. It's not just the worst experiences on display for the shock factor. Was that conscious for you as you were illustrating?

Very much so. There is of course a reason to show photos of people dead in a gas attack for instance and that's to prove war crimes, but art doesn't — it’s not going to be used at a tribunal. It's not going to be used at the International Criminal Court. Because of that I wanted to do something else. I feel that so many of the portrayals of the Middle East that we see in America, it's just as this like terrible, savage war-torn country that is always fighting each other. I actually feel this narrative is so dangerous and it actually regularizes more attacks and more bombings on the Middle East. We really wanted to show people with dignity, with humanity, with nuance, with depth, with interiority.

Can you talk about your communication process? In the book Marwan talks about being in this internet cafes surrounded by ISIS, holding his phone at a perfect angle so no one could see his screen. Can you talk about how that happened? How that worked? How you guys communicated about writing and illustrations and deadlines and things like that?

I was in Raqqa two different times in the course of writing this book. The first time, the internet was pretty normal. He worked at an internet cafe, he had access to that and we would just communicate on WhatsApp. Then he went to Turkey, in parts so that we could start writing the book together and I flew to Turkey about 12 times in the course of this and basically, I would just sit next to him for 10 hours and type, type, type, edit, edit, edit, type, type, type. But then he went back to Raqqa and that was — I mean, probably the most horrifying point of my life, certainly, and that was something where he would be at an internet cafe and he would send me WhatsApp images of the guy in a suicide belt in front of him. At that time, Marwan was filing for the New York Times and for Foreign Policy from these internet cafes. The daring that he had and the commitment to journalism is something that can’t be overstated.

Can you talk about your illustrative process for the book? 

Well, at first, these ones were all done in a paper with pen and ink and wet acrylic and lots of splatter and stuff. They’re all done by hand. But for my first pieces, Marwan would send me these photos and I would draw quite faithfully to those photos. Of course, I would do things like change people’s faces. But, as the book went on, we started wanting to draw things that there were no photos of, that there couldn’t be photos of, like enslaved Yazidi women that were brought into Marwan’s cafe, or memories of Marwan’s religious school. And for work like this, I would work so closely with Marwan, like I’d interview him and then he would do sketches. Sometimes, he’d even pose for me. I really think of these as our co-creations, these drawings.

Then, for other work like several drawings of protests that there are these huge crowd scenes, what I would do is I would look up citizen videos of those protests and I mean, this video is taken by people who’re running away from tear gas, running away from the government security services, it’s crazy. But if you look at it and you freeze from it over and over again, you can kind of get panoramic shots. I would take maybe a hundred fifty freeze frames. I would print them all out. I would lay them out. I would sometimes repose models because once you freeze frame that stuff, it just looks like blurs, it doesn’t look like people anymore. Then, I would try as closely as possible to get these big panoramic scenes that would make you feel as if you were there.

What developed your interest in the Middle East and Syria?

I think, the reason that I was initially drawn to covering Syria was perhaps the same reason many journalists were, which was that in 2011, I saw Arab Spring as almost a sister movement. . .I felt a great deal of sympathy. Then, in Syria, as the government cracked down, it got worse and it grew bloodier and bloodier and as the protests developed into a civil war, there was a lot of confusion about what was going on and I wanted to go and speak to people myself so that I would learn. I had the intense privilege of meeting many, many people of all walks of life. Both when I was reporting in Lebanon and Iraq. I went to Syria for one day only. Also, I stopped into camps in Greece. I was, I guess, compelled by both the intense courage and commitment I saw by a lot of people and also by the devastation and horror and betrayal of the entire world.

Can you talk about some of the challenges in writing about the Middle East for an American audience?

Well, the first thing is that Americans don’t know anything about the Middle East. I don’t know how a country can spend decades invading a place that they know nothing about it. Before this I was comparing it to someone who sat on someone else’s back and he knows nothing about the man he’s sitting on, but the man he’s sitting on knows every single thing about him.

One of the things Marwan really didn’t want to do is Marwan hates spoon feeding. He hates the idea that he would write a book that is 'Syria is a country in the Middle East. It is predominantly Muslim.' This is demeaning to us all. We really struggled and I think we got a good balance in between making something that’s accessible to Americans, but that’s not babying them. It’s not talking down to them. That’s not writing 'Syria 101' for dummies book.

When we’re doing this, we actually looked at "The Handmaid’s Tale," the book, a lot, because Gilead is a place that doesn’t exist. It’s unfamiliar to Americans. But Margaret Atwood conveys a complete world and she’s able to convey and portray that without everyone saying, 'Handmaidens are the women who wear red dresses and have to bear the commanders children.' She shows.

There’s also so much propaganda that we are fed about the Middle East. One thing that really struck me in the beginning of the book is when Marwan talks about what if felt like for him and his peers when the U.S. invaded Iraq and this fear that Americans were coming to just kill Muslims, that unshakeable fear and that’s something we never hear. I’m wondering if it was also a goal for this text to work as a corrective or a reclaiming of the narrative, in a way?

Oh, God, yeah. I mean, people from the Middle East are so, so dehumanized in American discourse. For the right, 'they’re scary terrorists, must ban.' But, even if there a lot of Liberals, there’s this well meaning but ultimately dehumanizing like, 'Look at these pitiful refugees, they need our help.'

Which is so humiliating. Right? – What we wanted to do with this book is we wanted to show Syrian characters with all of the depth and nuance and all of the interiority and especially all of the complexity that you would give to any other character. We didn’t want to make it something where it’s like everyone is cardboard cut out heroic revolutionary or heroic mom. But we also didn’t want to do the usual cardboard villain, 'Oh, my God! He has a beard. He’s an Islamist. He’s a baddy, baddy, baddy.' We wanted to do something where we showed them as these people really were.

The other part that was really fascinating and important for me as a reader was the way both of you contextualized the betrayal of the revolution. Often in the U.S. we get this narrative that there’s the regime and then there’s the rebels. When in fact, there’s so many rebel groups with different factions and that, well, maybe some people’s ideas changed as those rebel groups have gained power, but there was an earnest revolution that began in 2011.

There are countless, countless, young men or countless men, not just young, that picked up guns and basically joined the equivalent of neighborhood watch groups to protect their area and to fight a regime that they thought of as a fascistic and irreconcilably violent. However, once external backers started to get involved, Qatar and Saudi first, but also the U.S. and Turkey, the dynamics really, really started to shift and also groups like Al Qaeda that later took huge advantage of it.

Marwan talks about these European ISIS fighters coming in as like colonizers.

In this book, there’s literally a guy from Belgium with a college degree, who goes on to sexually enslave Iraqi women. They’re exactly the same as any Belgian who is going into the Congo to murder people and rape people.

I like to say your illustrative beat is people resisting. 

I was always attracted to stories of smart people, who perhaps were being done by very unfairly by the world, but who are also fighting back against that.

Why do you think illustrations are particularly powerful?

I think, because they’re rarer.

Trump just met with the mother of a school shooting victim. She compared him to a “toddler”

AP/Getty/Salon

On Thursday President Donald Trump met with the families of the victims of the Santa Fe school shooting — and the meeting, by the accounts of at least one person who was there, did not go well.

Trump was compared to an obtuse baby by one of the people at the Santa Fe, Texas meeting, according to the Associated Press. Army veteran Rhonda Hard, whose 14-year-old daughter Kimberly Vaughan was killed during the Santa Fe High School shooting, told the Associated Press that Trump repeatedly used the word "wacky" to describe the shooter, 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis. In response to this, Hart claims that she told Trump, "Maybe if everyone had access to mental health care, we wouldn't be in the situation."

On another occasion, Hart suggested that veterans should be employed to guard school. Trump asked if she wanted to arm them and when she replied in the negative, Trump mentioned that schools should arm classroom teachers — a point that he repeatedly returned to during the conversation.

"It was like talking to a toddler," Hart told the Associated Press.

Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley, on the other hand, characterized the meeting as very positive.

"I don’t want to get into the private meeting as it relates to the grieving families that experienced such a horrific tragedy," Gidley told reporters on Thursday. "But it was very impactful. It was a very emotional time. They’ve suffered a great loss and a great tragedy.  And out of respect for them and the grieving process, I’m not going to get into the details of the meeting."

Another person who attended the meeting also had a positive reaction to how Trump handled himself.

Pamela Stanich, mother of a 17-year-old son named Jared Black who was one of the eight students killed, wrote on Facebook after the meeting that Trump "met with us privately and showed sincerity, compassion, and concern on making our schools safer across the nation." She also claimed that "he spent time talking to the survivors and asking on what happened and what would have made a difference. Changes are coming for the good. Thank you Mr. Trump."

The meeting regarding the Santa Fe school shooting has been particularly important for Trump because of his past struggles with conveying empathy. During an event when he was supposed to comfort individuals connected to a school shooting in Parkland, Florida, Trump was photographed holding a piece of paper that included basic questions:

1. What would you most want me to know about your experience?

2. What can we do to help you feel safe?

3. Do you see something effective?

4. Resources? Ideas?

5. I hear you.

Trump also struggled when trying to comfort a Gold Star widow in February. When Trump placed a phone call to the widow in order to express his condolences, both she and a congresswoman who was in the car with her felt that his handling of the situation was very disrespectful. The widow, Myeshia Johnson, later claimed "the president said that he knew what he signed up for, but it hurts anyways... It made me cry because I was very angry at the tone of his voice and how he said it."

Johnson added, "He had my husband's report in front of him, and that's when he actually said La David. I heard him stumbling on trying to remember my husband's name. If my husband is out here fighting for our country and he risks his life for our country, why can't you remember his name?"

On another occasion, Trump received flak for his attitude toward Puerto Ricans suffering from Hurricane Maria. Despite already being criticized for acting too slowly in responding to the situation and devoting more resources to help Hurricane Harvey victims in Texas than Hurricane Maria victims in Puerto Rico, Trump was perceived as lacking empathy when he focused on himself during his visit to Puerto Rico. In one infamous gaffe, he also began casually tossing paper towels to Puerto Ricans who had gathered to discuss their problems, a move that was seen as both minimizing their suffering and also condescending.

Trump even made an insensitive comment before leaving to meet with the Santa Fe shooting group, telling reporters that "we're going to Dallas. We're going to Houston. And we're going to have a little fun today. Thank you very much."

"We are going to Dallas, we are going to Houston. We are going to have a little fun today. Thank you very much," President Trump says as he head to Texas to meet with the families of Santa Fe school shooting victims https://t.co/LJJOcM4YsX pic.twitter.com/2sDFcgdoCX

— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 31, 2018

Since the start of 2018, more people have been killed in school shootings than in combat zones, according to PolitiFact. As of last month, an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll found that 57 percent of Americans thought controlling gun violence is more important than protecting gun rights, with only 38 percent feeling otherwise, according to PollingReport.com. Another poll taken last month, this time by ABC News/Washington Post, found that 71 percent of Americans believe Congress isn't doing enough to stop mass shootings — and that 59 percent of Americans believe Trump himself isn't doing enough to stop mass shootings.

The bottom line is that, while Trump's struggles with exhibiting empathy in social situations is a problem when it involves his need to act like a so-called "comforter in chief" to citizens who are suffering because of gun violence or natural disasters or other reasons, on a deeper level his empathy gap is notable because of the policies he pushes. While Trump has occasionally shown a willingness to buck the pro-gun movement and the NRA in this country, he has always been reined in by advisers who presumably explain to him that taking those stances would be politically disastrous. Whenever he makes that choice, he places his own political career over the lives of people who are being killed by gun violence.

It is an empathy gap that matters much more than saying the right things and being an inspiring leader to those enduring heartbreak and fear, although those responsibilities are also quite important. Unfortunately for America, Trump is hardly alone among politicians who suffer from this particular type of empathy gap. Until our political landscape starts caring about mass shooting victims when it shapes its policies, it is tragically likely that more events like the one Trump attended in Santa Fe will be necessary.

Penn admires Parkland activists
Sean Penn discusses the Parkland shooting survivors and his admiration for them.

The uplifting realness of “Pose”: Ryan Murphy’s revolutionary drag ball drama delivers

JoJo Whilden/FX

“Pose,” Ryan Murphy’s final production for FX before he heads off to Netflix, opens with a sequence that strains credulity, but in all the right ways, for all of the right reasons. Describing it in detail would rob the crowning moment of its power beyond saying it involves a daring move to assure victory in the all important pageant that the House of Abundance must rule, definitively. The climactic triumph is suitably fabulous, but just about everything that happens on the runway leading up to it may make you declare out loud, “There no way that would ever, ever happen.”

But it does because it has to, and in a concrete way it establishes the drama’s spirit. For in those scenes, “Pose” lets the viewer know how much it aspires to achieve in its eight-episode first season, kicking off Sunday at 9 p.m.

Everything revolves around the 1980s drag ball culture in New York City, ruled by competing “houses,” or families of choice formed by LGBTQ youth whose families reject them.

Its excursions into fashion-driven fantasy, realized through the all-important balls in which its transgender and gay characters compete, make it possible to endure a hard and often cruel world that denies acceptance, let alone tolerance, to LGBTQ people. “Realness” is the currency inside these balls, whether realized via body, or face or living up to the illusion specified in a particular category.

And in these scenes, whether the characters are dressing as evening soap opera divas, or royalty, or weather girls, they embody opulence and a dignity denied them in a homophobic world ruled by excess and greed, one in which the specter of AIDS looms frighteningly large.

In standard drama terms, “Pose” is not structurally flawless. The story takes an episode or two to coalesce as the main players carve out their respective territories. Nevertheless, the cast seizes our attention from the start, particularly the determined Mj Rodriguez as Blanca, a rebel who breaks off from House of Abundance to form a new family the House of Evangelista (named for 1980s supermodel Linda Evangelista).

This ignites the ire of Abundance’s house mother Elektra, a towering force played by Dominique Jackson. A sizable slice of the joy derived from “Pose” is in watching Jackson flay her challengers with the crisp delivery and presence perfected by the likes of Grace Jones.

Rodriguez, meanwhile, balances Blanca’s gentler air with a grit that enables her to bear the weight of the ensemble’s core.  She’s ably supported by the extraordinary Billy Porter as Pray Tell, the “grandfather” and emcee of the balls, and the divine Indya Moore as Angel, a prostitute who has her heart set on a fairytale ending.

These names probably aren’t familiar to you — save Porter’s possibly; the Tony Award winner starred in “Kinky Boots” on Broadway and has a much longer resume than Rodriguez, Moore or Ryan Jamaal Swain, who plays Damon, a dancer Blanca welcomes into House of Evangelista after his birth family violently ejects him.

The same can be said of Charlayne Woodard, another Broadway star who recurs as Helena St. Rogers, the dean of the New School for Dance and a dance instructor who gives Damon a shot.

Placing theater legends beside relative unknowns is absolutely intentional on the part of Murphy and co-creators Brad Falchuk and Steven Canals. “Pose” does feature a number of recognizable names, including frequent Murphy production player Evan Peters, Kate Mara and James Van Der Beek, but they are side players to a cast charged with leading viewers into a relatively unknown and under-examined subculture.

That “Pose" exists at all is radical in itself, even in a world that has embraced “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and made its host into a mainstream icon. What that reality show doesn’t do, and should not be expected to, is dig deeply into the social, class and racial politics that align against a marginalized community determined to live and be treated as first-class citizens nevertheless.

Mainly Blanca takes the first steps toward activism, but other characters claim their agency as well with regard to their health and, for better or worse, their bodies. On this front “Pose” is  achieving something extraordinary, depicting the psychological and physical toll presented by transitioning as well as other prices these women are forced to pay. Angel, Elektra and others forge their identity through their bodies — how they look, whether they appeal to men — and in some cases, claiming a sense of agency means relinquishing comforts afforded to them by men demanding control over their anatomy.

Murphy and Falchuk signed on to produce Canals’ script in 2016 after optioning a follow-up to “Paris is Burning,” Jennie Livingston’s seminal 1991 documentary whose inspiration to “Pose” is obvious. Without these producers, “Pose” may have never gotten made or, worse, been contorted into something other than a production fronted by transgender actors of color, part of a crew including more than 100 transgender or queer cast members.

“Pose” producers also made a point to call upon the perspectives and expertise of a number of notable LGBTQ producers and directors, including Janet Mock (who directs an episode) as well as “Transparent” writer Our Lady J and director Silas Howard, who also worked on the Amazon series.

Undertaking this level of effort to make each episode feel authentic and poignant, to connect the audience with the elation and pain of these characters contend with, pays off beautifully when episodes focus on the Evangelista house, whose stories provide the soul of the narrative.

And theirs are not stories commonly featured in entertainment, let alone on basic cable. Series placing LGBTQ characters of color front and center and making their storylines the primary focus, are few and far between. As for series depicting identity struggles and love lives of such characters, the latter witnessed via Damon’s and blossoming chemistry with a streetwise player named Ricky (Dyllón Burnside), there’s pretty much this drama and Showtime’s “Vida.”

Bogging down the narrative’s momentum, at least initially, are the storylines involving Peters’ Stan Bowes, who goes to work for Van Der Beek’s Matt Bromley at the Trump organization (nope, we cannot even escape him here) to improve his family’s lot but finds himself drawn to Angel.

Van Der Beek enjoyably oils up his go-go ‘80s boss, making the most of his scenes without over doing it, while the nature of Mara’s character Patty, Stan’s wife, pretty much assure that her talent is underemployed here. But even this is actually excusable, to a point, because for once, the story isn’t about the forlorn wife ensconced in her fancy Manhattan tower, or her husband, or his jerk of a boss.

It’s about the juxtaposition between the currency that matters in Reagan-era New York City — their whiteness, their wealth and status — and that which is life-affirming, vibrant and miserably devalued. The Bowes’ storyline is a separate piece in this motley wild closet, one that doesn’t quite go with the rest of the ensemble.

Eventually, Stan and Angel’s relationship does begin to lead somewhere, although probably not toward the “happily ever after” Angel craves. Instead it's plain to see that their coming together allows the series to bare the class and racial politics and dividing the country at that time, as well as the normalized homophobia that keep women like Angel in their place. Through her story and others, “Pose” illuminates the difference between between the genuine and illusory, outshining any imperfections that may slow down its initial episodes.  Those are less noticeable than the bright dominating palette of attitude and affection propelling the drama, showing proof that even the grimmest of times contain color, life and the inoculating optimism of “realness.”

A must-read transgender story
Meet Sarah McBride, the first openly trans woman to work at the White House.

Summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is back on, President Trump says

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President Donald Trump ended a week of uncertainty by announcing his previously canceled meeting with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un is back on for June 12 in Singapore following a meeting with Kim Yong Chol, a top deputy to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, for more than an hour in the Oval Office.

"We'll be meeting on June 12 in Singapore," the president told reporters at the White House. Trump also said the June summit could only be the beginning of talks; it may take more than one meeting to strike a deal.

"I don't see that happening," Trump said. "I told him, I think you could have probably [other summits]."

"We'll be meeting on June 12th in Singapore," President Trump says after meeting senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol for more than an hour in the White House. https://t.co/Oj5Kn0cQRF pic.twitter.com/uYRjm6yInJ

— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) June 1, 2018

The top North Korean official met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Wednesday night and Thursday in New York, according to CBS News.

"It will take bold leadership from Chairman Kim Jong Un if we are able to seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course for the world," Pompeo said Thursday. "President Trump and I believe Chairman Kim is the kind of leader who can make those kinds of decisions and, that in the coming weeks and months, we will have the opportunity to test whether or not this is the case."

The news comes one week after the president abruptly called off the much-anticipated encounter.

In a letter to Kim dated May 24, 2018, the president announced that he would not attend the summit, citing the "tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement." Trump was referring to recent comments from a senior North Korean official, who described Vice President Mike Pence as "ignorant and stupid."

"We greatly appreciate your time, patience and effort," Trump wrote in an overly deferential letter, which referred to Kim as "His Excellency" and "Mr. Chairman."

Trump lamented the breakdown in talks, telling Kim, "I felt a wonderful dialogue was building up between you and me." The president concluded: "Some day, I look very much forward to meeting you."

The cancellation of the summit from the White House came hours after North Korea appeared to destroy at least three nuclear tunnels, observation buildings, a metal foundry and living quarters at its Punggye-ri nuclear test site in a process observed by invited international journalists, CNN reports.

North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui blamed Vice President Mike Pence for his "unbridled and impudent remarks that North Korea may end like Libya," where then-leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed by rebels in 2011 after renouncing nuclear weapons eight years prior.

"There was some talk about the Libya model," Pence told Fox News' Martha MacCallum last week. "As the president made clear, this will only end like the Libya model ended if Kim Jong Un doesn't make a deal."

Choe's remarks marked the second time that North Korea has cast doubt on Kim's planned encounter with Trump.

North Korea threatened to postpone the talks earlier last week when Kim Kye Gwan, a vice foreign minister of North Korea, warned that his country could call off the meeting if the U.S. demanded "unilateral nuclear abandonment." The official rejected the Trump administration's demand that it quickly abandon its nuclear program as Libya had done 15 years ago, singling out John R. Bolton, Trump's new national security adviser, for condemnation.

For their part, the South Koreans appeared to have been left in a lurch. South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency quoted a presidential office spokesman as saying they “are trying to figure out what President Trump’s intention is and the exact meaning of it," according to the Associated Press.

Decoding Trump's relationship with North Korea
Former State Department foreign policy expert Laura Rosenberger on the threat of nuclear war.

Could a virus with a sweet tooth become a weapon against cancer?

AP

This article originally appeared on Massive.

Historically, bacteria, parasites, and viruses have been considered dangerous because they spread infectious diseases. But scientists have started to try to harness pathogens for beneficial purposes. Researchers have discovered ways bacteria in our gut help us digest food, and are even trying to develop certain bacteria and parasites as medicines for a range of disorders.

But unlike bacteria and parasites, viruses aren’t actually living cells. They must infect and exploit a living cell to stay alive and reproduce, so it’s hard to imagine how to turn them from foe to friend. But recently, researchers from Umeå University in Sweden identified a virus that is very choosy about what types of cells it invades. As it turns out, it prefers cancer cells.

It’s an adenovirus, which are a common group of viruses composed of a clump of DNA encased in a protein coat. Decorating the coat are fiber proteins that the virus uses to attach to specific molecules on its cellular target. Once attached, the host cell ingests the virus and ruptures its protein coat, expelling the viral DNA inside the cell. The viral DNA then supplants the cell’s previous genetic program, instructing it to manufacture more viruses. Eventually, these cause the bulging infected cell to burst, unleashing freshly-minted adenoviruses that seek out other cells and spread the infection.

Adenoviruses at large

What makes this particular adenovirus, called HAdV-52, special is its two distinct fiber proteins. Most adenoviruses have one type of fiber that recognizes protein receptors found on many cells throughout the body. As a result, they can infect cells relatively indiscriminately. But HAdV-52 also has a second, shorter fiber that doesn’t bind a protein at all. In 2015, the Swedish researchers reported that this second fiber binds to sialic acid, a type of carbohydrate that adorns many cell surface proteins.

Many forms of sialic acid are found throughout our cells, but certain forms are particularly rare. Like other carbohydrates, sialic acid exists in polymer chains of varying length and shape. The shape of these chains is important: Consider starch and cellulose, two common polysaccharides of glucose. Our bodies can easily break down starch into useful glucose units our muscles can use, but cellulose passes through our digestive tracts unaltered. The critical difference between them lies in which linkages are recognized by our proteins.

The researchers wondered if HAdV-52′s short fiber could likewise discriminate between different forms of sialic acid on cell membranes – in their 2018 study, they took the short fiber protein and exposed it to a synthetic array of different forms of sialic acid in order to identify which form it prefers. They found the strongest interaction with a single unique linkage of five or more sugar units called polysialic acid (polySia).

During human brain development, polySia is abundant in neural cells, and after maturation, it’s only found in regions undergoing the formation of new synapses. But it turns out that some lung and brain tumors also express polySia – and its detection is associated with a poor prognosis. To confirm the finding from the array in a cellular context, the researchers exposed the short fiber protein to two different cell lines from a single cancer patient. Both cell lines had sialic acid on their membranes, but only one had polySia. The cells which had polySia bound to the short fiber more than five times more strongly than the cells lacking polySia.

An electrostatic whip

PolySia is like an electrostatic whip that can disrupt nearby membrane proteins, such as those involved with anchoring the cell in place. Cells throw negatively charged polySia on their membranes for a specific reason: to detach from a rigid matrix of cells and migrate somewhere else. This explains polySia’s function in regions of the brain that are rearranging to form new neural architecture, as well as in metastatic cancer cells that are detaching from their primary tissue. Ironically, HAdV-52’s short fiber forms a tight interaction with polySia, a molecule that repulses pretty much everything else.

When the researchers examined how the virus’ short fiber and polySia interacted using a technique called nuclear magnetic resonance, they found the explanation for why HAdV-52 prefers this form of the sugar. Only the last sialic acid unit fits into a binding pocket on the short fiber, while the other units in the chain stick out along a positively-charged surface of the viral protein. Molecular modeling simulations suggest the other sialic acid units form electrostatic interactions with this surface, stabilizing the link.

Virologists appreciate the new atomic-level understanding of HAdV-52’s affinity for polySia, but almost everyone else cares more about its applications: can it be repurposed as a cancer-fighting tool known as an oncolytic virus? A tumor-targeting virus has already been FDA-approved for the treatment of melanoma, but it required genetic manipulation of the virus’s fiber protein to direct it at tumor cells. In contrast, HAdV-52 could potentially be used as is, although further research is needed to prove its safety and efficacy in lab animals before being tested as a human cancer treatment.

Other recent advances in cancer treatment have similarly used technologies that exploit particular features of cancer tissue. For instance, the recently-approved immunotherapy CAR-T is proving to be transformative for patients with aggressive blood cancers. But solid tumors pose larger obstacles for CAR-T, in part because they cloak themselves in sugar molecules that shield them from drugs and immune cells. Therapies based on HAdV-52 could turn those sugars against the cancer – a potential game changer for treating the kinds of cancer with the worst outlooks.

As cancer treatment paradigms evolve from small molecule drugs to more exotic processes, keep an eye out for this kind of cancer-fighting virus.

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