newyorker--2020-10-14--Sixty-two Films That Shaped the Art of Documentary Filmmaking

This has been no sharp break but only an intensification of the last few years of my movie-watching , which have offered a plethora of rediscoveries ( thanks to the ardent connoisseurship of repertory programmers ) and have given a new urgency to my viewing of documentaries ( thanks to changes in the field ) .
Nonfiction filmmaking has been undergoing an aesthetic revolution over the past decade or so , one that parallels the major change in fiction filmmaking , namely , a shift toward personalization .
The main expression and key movement in that change is mumblecore , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its luminaries , its aesthetic , and its ideas .
Mumblecore ’ s documentary counterpart is creative nonfiction , an idea that ’ s rooted in the filmmaker ’ s presence , be it physical or virtual , and in the conspicuous display of process .
The artistic preoccupations of the new generation of documentary filmmakers don ’ t break with those of earlier generations ; rather , they have their roots in decades-old films , in which the same ideas and practices sometimes turn up in forms—embodying the filmmakers ’ relationship to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The most artistically advanced documentaries are those in which the participants are engaging conspicuously with the filmmakers ; in their most radical forms , they show the influences , inspirations , or perturbations that the people onscreen experience from the filmmakers ’ presence .
Which is another way of saying that , although documentaries follow real people , their crucial material and subject is nonetheless performance .
Throughout its history , the very idea of documentary filmmaking has shifted according to what was—and was not—possible at any given time , owing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cameras in the silent-film era were cumbersome , it was hard for filmmakers to be present at events as they unfolded , which is why much early documentary filmmaking involves reënactment , or what might now be called docudrama .
Many of the earlier films on my list , such as “ The Forgotten Frontier ” and “ Farrebique , ” fall into this category : they show events replayed by the very people who had experienced them in real life .
The arrival of synch sound did not instantly revolutionize documentaries , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ early sound-recording equipment was extremely difficult to bring on location and because filmmakers were slow to make significant use of it in the studio .
Instead , the first great revolution in documentaries came only in 1960 , after lightweight synch-sound equipment was developed , to go with lightweight cameras .
The result was cinéma vérité , or direct cinema , as exemplified by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin ’ s “ Chronicle of a Summer ” and Robert Drew ’ s “ Primary.
” Yet this revolution quickly led to a paradox @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allowed filmmakers to thrust themselves into the action , evoking a sense of involvement , of being implicated , and fostering a far more intensely personal mode of documentary filmmaking .
On the other hand , the power of lightweight synch-sound equipment and the relative ease of its use fostered a countervailing type of cinema , one that , in ostensibly observing and recording events objectively , rendered filmmakers even less visible and audible than before—the so-called fly-on-the-wall approach to documentary filmmaking .
That soon became the new convention , even the new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revolution in subject matter and perspective—the liberations of the sixties—that had its own dramatic effect on the art form .
The first great period of documentary filmmaking ran from 1960 to about 1980 , when , relying on new equipment , filmmakers responded to—and advanced—social progress by fusing the personal and the political in their art ( as in “ Symbiopsychotaxiplasm ” and “ Joyce at 34 ” ) .
New video technology helped : it enabled filmmakers to record for longer periods without interruption and with even smaller crews .
When lightweight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it sparked the recent and ongoing second revolution in documentary filmmaking , making the camera a virtual extension of the filmmaker ’ s body and integrating filmmaking with daily and private life .
The outpouring of astoundingly creative and personal documentaries in recent years is the result of those technical advances and of a renewed and deepened sense of the inseparability of the political and the personal , the breaking down of the barriers between the public and private realms .
Documentary filmmakers are creating new forms that pursue political progress through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of new media .
Note that this list does not distinguish between short and feature films , either on artistic or practical grounds .
Shorts have been a major source of cinematic ideas outside the mainstream , and they have also been relatively accessible to many great filmmakers—notably , women and Black directors—who , having been kept out of even the art-house mainstream , have struggled to find the resources to make features .
The presence of documentary filmmakers in their films isn ’ t itself an aesthetic idea ; neither is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some famous films that rely on both which I haven ’ t included on this list ; there has also been a trend in recent decades toward personality-based documentaries , which exploit leading aesthetic currents rather than advancing or deepening them . )
There ’ s no empirical criterion to define a movie ’ s artistic dimension , which is , instead , a matter of composition , style , experience , and of imaginative confrontation with the times .
There ’ s no aesthetic pleasure , obviously , in contemplating horrors such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or cruelty , in the private or public sphere .
Beauty is found , rather , in the acts of determination , engagement , and revelation , which , in turn , serve as a mode of transmission .
The forms and styles with which filmmakers embody experience and ideas lock into a viewer ’ s receptors , effecting not merely a transfer of information but an emotional , even an unconscious , transformation of the viewer—and , so , of the future .
It ’ s about the most ordinary of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the very limits of the representable .
The villagers of Svanetia , an isolated mountainous region in then-Soviet Georgia , are dying from lack of salt , and Kalatozov shows their agonies in terrifying detail , before Soviet workers arrive to build the roads that will open the region to shipments ( including of salt ) from other parts of the country .
The film is a work of overt political propaganda , yet Kalatozov gives the impression of filming in a state of horror and shock .
The only film directed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Breckinridge , is an early work of extraordinary documentary portraiture—and adventure .
It consists of a series of dramatic reconstructions , filmed on location in rural Kentucky , involving the Frontier Nursing Service , which was founded by Breckinridge ’ s cousin , also named Mary .
The documentary shows Mary ’ s cousin and other actual nurses as they bring medical care to remote areas of Appalachia .
Along with tense and poignant medical and familial dramas , the director evokes her own self-aware participation in the story by way of her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vertov ’ s first sound film is a story of Soviet industrialization that overcomes the hostility of—or , rather , lays waste to—organized religion .
It ’ s a story of forced enlightenment that takes as its very premise the rise of mass media , by way of radio .
Vertov ’ s use of sound is as ecstatic as his cinematography : contrapuntal , impressionistic ; the film ’ s sense of form is as thrilling and hectic as the revolutionary ardor that motivates it .
A film of advocacy on behalf @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work of the urbanist Catherine Bauer , this documentary expresses philosophy and social analysis with a passion that ’ s embodied in the content and editing of its images and in its ardently declaimed commentary .
Its historical reënactments and newsreel footage give rise to a wall-to-wall monologue that looks ahead to latter-day essay-films .
While working with the U.S. Army Signal Corps during the Second World War , Huston films veterans at a Long Island mental hospital who endured mental trauma as a result of combat in that war .
The inclusion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with patients gives voice to stifled memories of the war ’ s horrors , away from official celebrations of victory .
( In all likelihood , that is why the Army banned the film until 1981 . )
This is a documentary that ’ s centered on the power of language , whether in legal wranglings or in the transmission of family history from grandparents to grandchildren .
Filming at his own family ’ s farm in the South of France , Rouquier recruits his relatives to play roles closely resembling their real @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the course of a year .
A documentary as first-person essay from Hurwitz ( who soon after was blacklisted under McCarthyite inquisitions ) , this film looks closely and furiously at a bitter paradox : Black veterans return from fighting against Nazism in the Second World War only to face Jim Crow laws and unchallenged racism at home .
Made at a mere ten years ’ remove from the Second World War—as official France was ignoring the Holocaust and the deportations of Jews from France—Resnais ’ s short documentary fuses present-tense scenes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and archival images , evoking the Holocaust , and the politics that led to it , in terms of the struggle to recover stifled memories and presenting the clarity of memory as essential to political progress .
The founding work of cinéma vérité ( the term was invented by Morin to describe the film ) , this film is also a crucial work of reflexive cinema , showing the filmmakers preparing to approach people in the streets of Paris and ask them whether they ’ re happy , and proceed to their on-camera @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Algerian War , and the Nazi Occupation—along with their own self-critical depictions of watching , showing , and discussing their work .
Anderson was among the first Black female documentary filmmakers , and here she presents American racial conflicts , in both North and South , with a jolting sense of immediacy , and conveys the newly liberated discourse of civil-rights advocates—along with the performative concern-trolling of white counter-protesters .
Robert Drew , whose film “ Primary , ” from 1960 , launched the documentary form of direct cinema in the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to desegregate public schools in New Orleans , encompassing both the violent opposition of white residents and the experiences of Black families who are the targets of violence .
Lopes ’ s film is a collaborative docu-drama , in which the aging Portuguese boxer Belarmino Fragoso plays himself , as his career is ending .
Belarmino speaks at length in interview scenes that are as revelatory—of himself and his times—as his reënactments of his daily routine , which Lopes films with a keen eye to Belarmino ’ s many modes of self-conscious self-presentation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ films James Baldwin on a tour of San Francisco ’ s predominantly Black neighborhoods that ’ s led by the community activist Orville Luster .
While recording Baldwin ’ s illuminating discussions with Luster , Moore also observes Baldwin as a virtual reporter , interviewing Black residents of the city and eliciting comment from voices rarely heard in American cinema .
Pasolini brings intimate experiences into public light in this documentary , in which Italians talk on-camera about sex , freely , candidly , comedically , confrontationally .
In recording their commentary , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ behind rigid societal exclusions and oppressions .
The New York-based filmmaker William Jersey , who ’ d been raised in a fundamentalist Christian family and was still practicing at the time , was hired by the Evangelical Lutheran Church to make a film about racial tension within their ranks .
The remarkable film he made follows parishioners of an all-white church in Omaha as they come into conflict over their minister ’ s plans for voluntary outreach to Black congregations .
Jersey elicits extraordinary candor from the film ’ s white participants , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Black community who speak openly to him of the deep-rooted bigotry that they endure—and of Jersey ’ s own inevitable participation in it .
Filmed in a single night in Clarke ’ s rooms in the Chelsea Hotel , this film consists entirely of an on-camera interview of her friend Jason Holliday , a gay Black man and a self-described hustler .
Pinpointing the agonizing pressures of history in the self-revealing and self-flaying confessions of a single soul , Clarke , one of America ’ s most original independent filmmakers , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ personal filmmaking—a cinematic address in the second person singular .
The point was simply being there ; the camera rolls and Bruce performs , in what turned out to be his penultimate public appearance , from 1965 .
Amid the hilarity , the profundity , and the audacity , hypocrisies and orthodoxies shatter .
The film ’ s minimal , spartan approach provides a better cinematic showcase for onstage performance than succeeding generations ’ more elaborate presentations have ever done .
More than two decades before “ Paris Is Burning , ” Simon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pageant in New York .
The film features extraordinarily candid and intimate discussions among gay men—at a time when homosexual behavior and drag itself were illegal—along with scenes of drag queens ’ physical transformations that break the boundaries between performance and private life .

William Greaves’s multilayered metafiction—based on a scripted scene of a couple in crisis—is a documentary about the very nature of fictional films, and the authority of a director trying to make them. Greaves films himself, his actors, and his crew at work in Central Park, interacting with one another and with whomever happens to be there, and also includes the crew’s own critique of his methods and even his character.
(1970, D. A. Pennebaker)
In this documentary of the making of a studio recording, Pennebaker captures performances of a historic greatness (especially by Elaine Stritch), filming with a sensitive synergy in long and probing takes that shiver with his own excitement and sense of collaborative energy..
(1971, Jean Eustache)
Eustache’s film consists almost entirely of an extended interview with his grandmother Odette Robert. He elicits her intimate horror stories, which seem to fuse with the modern history of France as well as with the substance of his far more celebrated fiction films (such as “The Mother and the Whore”) and with his own sense of identity.
(1971, Julia Reichert and Jim Klein)
Through a series of interviews with a multigenerational and multiethnic group of women living near her home town, in Ohio, Reichert explores the gender-centered pressures tacit in her environment and reveals the indoctrinations that she and other women experience from media controlled mainly by men. Though the film runs only forty-nine minutes long, it encompasses a vast historical scope.
(1972, Joyce Chopra and Claudia Weill)
Another pioneer of first-person filmmaking, Chopra begins by documenting the birth of her daughter and goes on to examine the connection between her work as a filmmaker and her family life—and also, through interviews with her own mother, a retired schoolteacher, confronts and contextualizes her own efforts at balancing work and home.
(1972, Sarah Kernochan and Howard Smith)
In this film, which won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature before disappearing from circulation (it was restored and reissued in 2005), Marjoe Gortner, who had been a child-star preacher, returns to the pulpit as an adult for a farewell tour, which he uses to repudiate the world of organized religion. His riveting stage persona fills the screen with the ecstasy and the skepticism of the age of rock; he collaborates with the filmmakers to reveal the tricks of his trade and, in on-camera discussions, discloses the painful story of his exploitation.
(1973, Orson Welles)
Taking off from investigations of an art forger and a literary fraudster, Welles’s wide-ranging, richly ironic, and loftily speculative personal-essay film puts the very distinctions between documentary and fiction, and between first-person declaration and journalistic exploration, under kaleidoscopic scrutiny.
(1974, Pere Portabella)
The very existence of this movie—a clandestine gathering of former political prisoners of the Franco regime, filmed while it was still in power—is a miracle, and Portabella, a director of highly stylized dramas, finds simple forms that give physical presence to the reports from the depths of political horror.
(1975, Frederick Wiseman)
Frederick Wiseman, the great documentarian of bureaucracy in action, here also spotlights the contrast between dispassionate functionaries and the anguish of their put-upon and desperate supplicants. It’s a film about the gap between the letter and the spirit of the law—and about the modes of behavior, or performance, that result.
(1976, Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Ellen Hovde, and Muffie Meyer)
The implicit performances of documentary subjects are at the center of all of the Maysles brothers’ major films, but never more emphatically than in this one. Their view of the chaotic decline of the two Edith Beales, mother and daughter—and the desperately antic theatre of shattered dreams that they present—is inseparable from the Maysles’ own tensely compassionate implication in their subjects’ lives.
(1976, Martha Coolidge)
Coolidge’s effort to dramatize her experience of being raped, when she was a teen-ager, is the anguished and profound core of this documentary, in which she collaborates with an actress who was also a victim of rape and considers the implications, even the very possibility, of dramatizing such an experience.
(1975-79, Patricio Guzmán)
Guzman’s documentary in three parts, filmed in 1972 and 1973, anticipated, with a sense of prophetic foreboding, the violent opposition to the government of Chile’s President Salvador Allende. Guzman filmed the end times of the regime, under rightist and American pressure, from within.
(1977, Chris Marker)
This three-hour documentary is a vast intellectual history, putting the momentous events of 1968, in France and elsewhere, under Marker’s political microscope. (Spoiler alert: he instead locates the era’s key political events in 1967.) Aided by furious archival explorations and his expansively trenchant voice-over analysis, Marker filters a period of global upheaval through his editing table.
(1977, Mariposa Film Group)
Considered the first documentary about gay people by openly gay people, this film features twenty-six individuals talking about their lives, at length, in detail, and with a complicit candor. In revealing their lifelong oppressions, they enact a liberation of their own voices and of society over all.
(1977, Alan and Susan Raymond)
Taking advantage of a relatively new technology, portable video equipment, the Raymonds embed with police officers at work in the South Bronx, which at the time had the city’s highest crime rate. They film the officers making rounds—at night—and talk with the visionary borough commander, Tony Bouza, whose progressive philosophy of policing embraces drastic social change.
(1979, Jean-Pierre Gorin)
Learning of a pair of San Diego twin girls who spoke a private language, the French director Jean-Pierre Gorin (who had moved to California) visited them and their family; his explorations of their linguistic issues revealed the family’s distinctive emotional world and cultural dynamic, while also evoking crucial aspects of American life over all—and Gorin’s own place in it.
(1979, Lorraine Gray)
The documentary that should have been made in the nineteen-thirties, about women who played crucial roles in strikes at General Motors factories in 1936-37, was instead made in the nineteen-seventies; as directed by Gray (and produced by Gray, Lyn Goldfarb, and Anne Bohlen), it virtually revives those events by connecting interviews with the women, forty years after the fact, to an astounding selection of archival footage.
(1982, Fronza Woods)
Fronza Woods’s short documentary brings to the screen a figure who was, at the time, virtually invisible in American movies: a sixty-five-year-old Black custodial worker. Blending interviews and observation, and using a soundtrack of Fannie telling her life story, Woods—an overlooked figure in American independent filmmaking, who has never had the opportunity to make a feature film—leaps ahead of documentary conventions, and reveals Fannie’s domestic and professional stories to be tales of epic heroism.
There is a before and an after: the agonizing twelve-year experience that went into the making of the nine-hour film, in which Lanzmann interviews survivors of the Holocaust, former concentration-camp guards, people who lived near the death camps, and historians—is clear onscreen, and the incommensurable events that the film details with an unprecedented, horrific specificity are evoked with a power beyond representation, thanks to Lanzmann’s arduously developed artistry.
(1987, Kazuo Hara)
As a soldier in the Japanese Army during the Second World War, Kenzo Okuzaki survived a virtually suicidal mission. Years later, after years of violent opposition to the regime, he travels throughout Japan to confront his former officers, and Hara collaborates with him to film these furious, even violent confrontations. The result is a clear-eyed record of a country’s ongoing, official indifference.
(1988, Tony Buba)
After making several documentaries about his home town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, Buba filmed his own efforts to make a fictional film there, starring one of his former documentary subjects. What he ended up filming is a multilayered account of his failure to make it, one that unfolds the town’s local and large-scale political conflicts and a grimly comical account of his own life.
(1992, Mark Rappaport)
In one of the most original of all essay-films, Rappaport brilliantly and empathetically connects Rock Hudson’s private life as a gay man and his public one as a movie star. A keen-eyed, clip-centered film, it is as much about the actor’s performances as about the act of movie viewing.
(1991, Jan Oxenberg)
Oxenberg seems to burst beyond the boundaries of the genre in this film about her grandmother, who was terminally ill at the time (and who died in the course of the filming). Using fantasy sequences, dioramas, a faux quiz show, and other imaginative devices, Oxenberg delves deep into family history, and into the cosmic mysteries of death. (The film should have launched her career; instead it was the last feature film she has directed to date.)
“The Devil Never Sleeps”
(1994, Lourdes Portillo)
Portillo revisits her home town of Chihuahua, Mexico, to investigate the unexplained death of her uncle, a local politician. She discovers her family's story to be a lurid melodrama of conflicting interests and political corruption, and she films it—and her childhood memories—with a labyrinthine style to match.
“A Plate of Sardines”
In this short film, Amiralay, a Syrian filmmaker (and one of the main interview subjects in Lawrence Wright’s piece in The New Yorker, from 2006, on Syrian cinema) considers Israel and the Nakba from the perspective of his childhood memories and family lore (including the titular dish), and considers the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights and the destruction of the city of Quneitra from the perspective of moviemaking and moviegoing.
(1988-99, Jean-Luc Godard)
No filmmaker has identified so closely with the history of cinema than Godard, and no filmmaker has looked as deeply into it. This eight-part series, totalling four hours and made in the course of more than a decade, makes use of clips in a manner—involving his own hands-on video effects—no less daring or imaginative or exquisite than his creation of dramatic images. Nearly every other filmmaker’s approach to archival images seems bland and timid by comparison.
(2003, Charles Burnett)
One of the great fiction filmmakers, Burnett here deploys his dramatic artistry along with a historian’s ardor and a journalist’s probing interviews. The film is a work of cinematic historiography, examining how Turner’s life, and the rebellion he led, have been depicted and deformed over time. Burnett dramatizes historical events through a multiplicity of performances, and offers a glimpse at his own effort to film them.
(2007, Wang Bing)
This clandestinely made three-hour film, featuring extended takes running up to an hour, is composed almost entirely of an in-depth interview of a woman who, with her late husband, was a victim of China’s political repression in the nineteen-fifties and sixties. It’s an exemplary work of the embodiment of history in language and the recovery of history in real time.
(2008, Agnès Varda)
This great cinematic autobiography fuses memory and imagination in scenes that expose the artistry and the lifetime of experience that went into making them. Of all of Varda’s freely imaginative documentaries, it’s the one in which she was at her most personal, her most confessional, her most intimate, and her most inventive.
(2010, Cindy Kleine)
A virtual novel of a personal documentary, in which Kleine tells the story of her parents’ apparently happy marriage, and her own discovery of her mother’s extraordinary lifetime of secrets—of which Kleine remains, throughout the film, the uneasy guardian.
(2011, Rithy Panh)
Panh, a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime, relies on small figurines and archival footage, as well as new interviews and his recollections, to evoke its depravities and his own family’s sufferings.
(2011, Jafar Panahi)
Under house arrest, facing imprisonment, and banned from filmmaking, the Iranian director Jafar Panahi nonetheless made a film without, strictly speaking, doing so—using a planted camera and a cell phone to record his own life in isolation and to act out one of his own unfilmed scripts with a vital urgency that surpasses acting.
(2014, Robert Greene)
Greene, the crucial theoretician-in-action of the recent wave of self-implicating and self-questioning documentaries, here films his neighbor—the actress Brandy Burre (best known for her role on “The Wire”)—and finds her private life to be a grand and poignant melodrama.
(2015, Khalik Allah)
Allah, filming and recording sound by himself, brings new energy to the observational documentary in this movie presenting his encounters with people he meets on 125th Street. With stylistic ingenuity and clarity of purpose, he reveals the practical pressures that they confront as well as the monumental intimacy of their lives.
(2015, Chantal Akerman)
The solitude implicit in Akerman’s do-it-yourself filmmaking is also a story of family. Here she turns the camera on her relationship with her aging mother—their emotional closeness and physical distance—her own virtual exile from home as a result of her international career, and her experience of an existential solitude of tragic, horrific power.
“Coma”
(2016, Sara Fattahi)
Living in Damascus with her mother and grandmother when the city was under siege from the Syrian regime, Fattahi reveals family history and political anguish with a cinematographic eye and bold juxtapositions that seem wrenched physically from the catastrophe and subjectively from deep within.
(2016, Theo Anthony)
Starting from his own smartphone video recording of a rat in a garbage pail, the Baltimore-based filmmaker travels through town to probe the city’s ongoing problem of rodent infestation and finds, through passionate research and engaging interviews, long-hidden historical outrages appearing before his eyes.
(2016, Rosine Mbakam)
Mbakam’s film takes a classic premise—the return-home story—and expands it by way of extraordinary compositional skill and a keen sense of the connections between personal and societal events. Born in Cameroon and living in Belgium, she returns to her homeland to visit her mother and other relatives and, during her travels and discussions, discovers the forms of independence that Cameroonian women have asserted in the face of a patriarchal culture.
(2017, Travis Wilkerson)


newyorker--2020-10-14--How the Second Wave of the Pandemic Has Challenged Boris Johnson’s Leadership

On Monday afternoon , Boris Johnson , the British Prime Minister , announced a new approach to help the country withstand a steepening second wave of coronavirus infections .
Coming into force on Wednesday , England ’ s three hundred and forty-three local authorities will be split into three tiers— “ medium , ” “ high , ” or “ very high ” risk—which will carry their own restrictions on household mixing , gyms , pub curfews , and all the rest of it .
The new strategy has been talked about in the media for weeks .
At first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ traffic-light system , ” until people pointed out that there was no green , or low-risk , option .
On Monday night , as the new rules were spelled out , it was clear that there wasn ’ t a red light , either .
Liverpool , which in early October had an infection rate of nine hundred and twenty-eight cases per hundred thousand people , will become England ’ s first “ Tier 3 ” city , but its schools , shops , and restaurants will remain open .
Socializing with people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but pubs that offer a “ substantial meal ” will be able to serve drinks until 10 P.M .
The government ’ s new rules were bruisingly negotiated with mayors and council leaders in recent days , because of the economic damage they will cause , but that didn ’ t stop widespread criticism of the measures when they were announced .
“ I am disappointed that the government has pressed ahead with this , ” Andy Street , the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands , which includes Birmingham and Coventry ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
Street argued that the restrictions on businesses will not affect the local epidemiology of the virus , which is spreading mainly in people ’ s homes , but that they will wreck the region ’ s hospitality sector .
Scientists and public-health experts pointed out that the new system is not stringent enough to slow a national second wave of coronavirus infections and deaths .
Six months into the pandemic , the British government ’ s handling of COVID-19 is not dissimilar to what it was in the spring .
A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
At least fifty-seven thousand three hundred and forty-seven people have died of the disease ; the economy has cratered .
But the over-all strategy for dealing with the virus remains late , oddly complicated , and undermined by a dull , nagging incompetence .
An hour after Johnson finished a televised address alongside Britain ’ s chief medical officer , Chris Whitty , to explain the virtues of the new tiered system , officials quietly released minutes from the country ’ s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies , a panel of independent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ throughout the crisis .
The minutes showed that the critical moment to prevent Britain ’ s second wave has probably already passed .
On September 21st , twenty-seven SAGE experts , along with officials from Downing Street , reported on Zoom that the country ’ s infection rate was probably doubling every seven days and recommended a range of immediate measures to halt the spread .
“ Not acting now to reduce cases will result in a very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences , ” the meeting concluded .
The SAGE experts proposed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a “ circuit breaker , ” to interrupt transmission , along with four other severe steps , including the closure of all bars and restaurants .
Johnson and his ministers chose only one of the proposed measures , advising that people , when possible , should work from home .
In the three weeks between the SAGE meeting and yesterday ’ s announcement , coronavirus cases quadrupled .
Hospitalizations are at a higher level than they were in March .
Temporary “ Nightingale ” hospitals , to cope with an overflow of patients @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Harrogate , and Sunderland .
Whitty , who is diffident and not a good communicator , was asked Monday night whether he thought the Tier 3 restrictions , taken on their own , would be enough to slow the epidemic .
“ I am not confident—and nor is anybody confident , ” he replied .
Adopting a local response to Britain ’ s second wave is smart politics .
Mayors and council leaders will now , in theory , share some of the blame for Draconian decisions that have previously been imposed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reflects reality .
In the United Kingdom , health is a devolved responsibility ; the governments of Wales , Scotland , and Northern Ireland have all been following slightly different policies since the start of the crisis .
Johnson and his ministers have never had total authority over the handling of the epidemic , even if they were capable of exerting it .
One of the reasons for the current political unease is the imbalance between the high infection rates in the towns and cities in the North of England—which have already been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ abeyance of the virus in London and the more prosperous South .
In May , Andy Burnham , the mayor of Manchester , warned that the first national lockdown was being lifted too early for parts of England where infection rates lagged several weeks behind the capital ’ s .
A month later , the R rate in his city rose above one .
The new tier system is intended to give local elected officials a greater say in the rules that will be imposed during the second wave , but it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ practice .
Over the weekend , as newspapers reported the outline of Johnson ’ s new approach , Lisa Nandy , a Labour Member of Parliament for Wigan , which is part of Greater Manchester , told the BBC that her constituents felt both abandoned by the government ’ s neglect during the summer and conspired against by new restrictions going into the winter .
“ I haven ’ t felt anger like this towards the government since I was growing up here in the nineteen-eighties , ” she said .
About a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Johnson as he used his undoubted charisma , and a measure of duplicity , to secure a Brexit deal with the European Union that many people thought was unobtainable .
He changed the political space around him , outmaneuvering right-wing ideologues in his own party , Jeremy Corbyn ’ s lead-footed Labour opposition , and centrists everywhere .
When the pandemic hit , Johnson was arguably at the peak of his powers .
Britain ’ s first case of the coronavirus was confirmed on January 31st , the day the country left the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ merciless in its exposure of Johnson ’ s limits as a politician and of his government as a whole .
Since his own recovery from COVID-19 , in April , the Conservatives have seen a twenty-six-point lead over Labour in the opinion polls disappear .
Public approval of the government ’ s coronavirus strategy has been halved , to thirty-one per cent .
The pandemic is a wicked problem , and Johnson is particularly ill suited to its demands .
He abhors detail and never likes to choose .
He has been unable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ promises that he can not deliver , whether about developing a “ world-class ” test-and-trace program ; or “ Operation Moonshot , ” a plan to test ten million people a day for the virus by next spring ; or much-heralded announcements , like the one about the new tier system , which make a lot of noise without meaning much at all .
“ This is not how we want to live our lives , but this is the narrow path we have to tread , ” Johnson told the House of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his attempt to limit both the human cost of the pandemic and the economic trauma of shutting down businesses and communities .
On Tuesday , the U.K. recorded a hundred and forty-three deaths , its highest daily total since early June .
It is possible that Johnson has found a narrow path that will lead to neither of those things .
More on the Coronavirus • To protect American lives and revive the economy , Donald Trump and Jared Kushner should listen to Anthony Fauci rather than trash him .
• We should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ school-reopening plans .
It is not too late to ask what they really want .
• A pregnant pediatrician on what children need during the crisis .
• Trump is helping tycoons who have donated to his reëlection campaign exploit the pandemic to maximize profits .
• Meet the high-finance mogul in charge of our economic recovery .
• The coronavirus is likely to reshape architecture .
What kinds of space are we willing to live and work in now ?

On Monday afternoon, Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, announced a new approach to help the country withstand a steepening second wave of coronavirus infections. Coming into force on Wednesday, England’s three hundred and forty-three local authorities will be split into three tiers—“medium,” “high,” or “very high” risk—which will carry their own restrictions on household mixing, gyms, pub curfews, and all the rest of it. The new strategy has been talked about in the media for weeks. At first, it was known as a “traffic-light system,” until people pointed out that there was no green, or low-risk, option. On Monday night, as the new rules were spelled out, it was clear that there wasn’t a red light, either.
Liverpool, which in early October had an infection rate of nine hundred and twenty-eight cases per hundred thousand people, will become England’s first “Tier 3” city, but its schools, shops, and restaurants will remain open. Socializing with people from another household will be banned, but pubs that offer a “substantial meal” will be able to serve drinks until 10 P.M. The government’s new rules were bruisingly negotiated with mayors and council leaders in recent days, because of the economic damage they will cause, but that didn’t stop widespread criticism of the measures when they were announced. “I am disappointed that the government has pressed ahead with this,” Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, which includes Birmingham and Coventry (Tier 2 and Tier 1), said. Street argued that the restrictions on businesses will not affect the local epidemiology of the virus, which is spreading mainly in people’s homes, but that they will wreck the region’s hospitality sector. Scientists and public-health experts pointed out that the new system is not stringent enough to slow a national second wave of coronavirus infections and deaths.
Six months into the pandemic, the British government’s handling of COVID-19 is not dissimilar to what it was in the spring. A lot has happened, to be sure. At least fifty-seven thousand three hundred and forty-seven people have died of the disease; the economy has cratered. But the over-all strategy for dealing with the virus remains late, oddly complicated, and undermined by a dull, nagging incompetence. An hour after Johnson finished a televised address alongside Britain’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, to explain the virtues of the new tiered system, officials quietly released minutes from the country’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, a panel of independent scientists that has been guiding the government throughout the crisis. The minutes showed that the critical moment to prevent Britain’s second wave has probably already passed.
On September 21st, twenty-seven SAGE experts, along with officials from Downing Street, reported on Zoom that the country’s infection rate was probably doubling every seven days and recommended a range of immediate measures to halt the spread. “Not acting now to reduce cases will result in a very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences,” the meeting concluded. The SAGE experts proposed a two-week national lockdown, known as a “circuit breaker,” to interrupt transmission, along with four other severe steps, including the closure of all bars and restaurants. Johnson and his ministers chose only one of the proposed measures, advising that people, when possible, should work from home. In the three weeks between the SAGE meeting and yesterday’s announcement, coronavirus cases quadrupled. Hospitalizations are at a higher level than they were in March. Temporary “Nightingale” hospitals, to cope with an overflow of patients, are being prepared in Manchester, Harrogate, and Sunderland. Whitty, who is diffident and not a good communicator, was asked Monday night whether he thought the Tier 3 restrictions, taken on their own, would be enough to slow the epidemic. “I am not confident—and nor is anybody confident,” he replied.
Adopting a local response to Britain’s second wave is smart politics. Mayors and council leaders will now, in theory, share some of the blame for Draconian decisions that have previously been imposed by officials in London. The approach also reflects reality. In the United Kingdom, health is a devolved responsibility; the governments of Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland have all been following slightly different policies since the start of the crisis. Johnson and his ministers have never had total authority over the handling of the epidemic, even if they were capable of exerting it. One of the reasons for the current political unease is the imbalance between the high infection rates in the towns and cities in the North of England—which have already been subject to restrictions for weeks—and the relative abeyance of the virus in London and the more prosperous South. In May, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Manchester, warned that the first national lockdown was being lifted too early for parts of England where infection rates lagged several weeks behind the capital’s. A month later, the R rate in his city rose above one. The new tier system is intended to give local elected officials a greater say in the rules that will be imposed during the second wave, but it is not clear how this will work in practice. Over the weekend, as newspapers reported the outline of Johnson’s new approach, Lisa Nandy, a Labour Member of Parliament for Wigan, which is part of Greater Manchester, told the BBC that her constituents felt both abandoned by the government’s neglect during the summer and conspired against by new restrictions going into the winter. “I haven’t felt anger like this towards the government since I was growing up here in the nineteen-eighties,” she said.
About a year ago, I spent weeks shadowing Johnson as he used his undoubted charisma, and a measure of duplicity, to secure a Brexit deal with the European Union that many people thought was unobtainable. He changed the political space around him, outmaneuvering right-wing ideologues in his own party, Jeremy Corbyn’s lead-footed Labour opposition, and centrists everywhere. When the pandemic hit, Johnson was arguably at the peak of his powers. Britain’s first case of the coronavirus was confirmed on January 31st, the day the country left the E.U. But the virus has been merciless in its exposure of Johnson’s limits as a politician and of his government as a whole. Since his own recovery from COVID-19, in April, the Conservatives have seen a twenty-six-point lead over Labour in the opinion polls disappear. Public approval of the government’s coronavirus strategy has been halved, to thirty-one per cent. The pandemic is a wicked problem, and Johnson is particularly ill suited to its demands. He abhors detail and never likes to choose. He has been unable to counter the crisis without making exorbitant promises that he cannot deliver, whether about developing a “world-class” test-and-trace program; or “Operation Moonshot,” a plan to test ten million people a day for the virus by next spring; or much-heralded announcements, like the one about the new tier system, which make a lot of noise without meaning much at all. “This is not how we want to live our lives, but this is the narrow path we have to tread,” Johnson told the House of Commons on Monday, as he described his attempt to limit both the human cost of the pandemic and the economic trauma of shutting down businesses and communities. On Tuesday, the U.K. recorded a hundred and forty-three deaths, its highest daily total since early June. It is possible that Johnson has found a narrow path that will lead to neither of those things.
More on the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-10-14--The Most Important Global Forecast That You’ve Never Heard Of

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The problem , of course , is that the world it confidently imagines is an impossible one .
If , as the I.E.A.
’ s current “ sustainable development scenario ” predicts , we don ’ t shut off the flow of fossil fuel until 2070 , then the World Habitability Outlook , if there were such a thing , would be grim .
( September , 2020 , was the hottest September ever measured .
That helped set the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forms of damage , the first Greek-letter hurricane ever to hit the United States and devastating wildfires in Paraguay , Argentina , and Bolivia . )
The rational goal of the I.E.A .
( a club of oil-consuming countries , first proposed by Henry Kissinger in the wake of the OPEC embargo of the nineteen-seventies ) should be to model what science says we require to survive and then chart a path toward getting us there .
And , this year , after intense pressure from activists , that began to happen .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ I.E.A .
released a miniature scenario that tries to foresee a world in which we reach net zero by 2050 .
That ’ s still too slow to meet the climate targets set in Paris , in 2015 , but at least it ’ s in the ballpark .
Next year , the activists say , that nearer-term forecast needs to be the central event , not the kiddie table—taken seriously , such a scenario could be a crucial document as the world assembles in Glasgow a year from November for a critical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ An I.E.A .
report that took science as its starting point would not be revolutionary .
In fact , there are signs that important parts of the world ’ s financial system are already beginning to get the message , thanks to unrelenting pressure .
JPMorgan Chase , the world ’ s biggest fossil-fuel investor , this month committed to a “ Paris alignment ” of its lending practices .
( Full disclosure : I was arrested in a Chase branch near the Capitol , in January , to help accelerate this campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this vague target is barely a start .
But the pressure won ’ t be going away : members of the Rockefeller family , whose forebears helped build Chase into the giant it is today , announced that they are rallying wealthy peers to prod the bank into more aggressive action , demanding that it “ embrace innovation and move beyond the profits of fossil fuels to develop banking models that will excel in a zero-carbon world.
” Some of the nations that constitute the I.E.A .
are clearly ready for more : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s government noised around the idea that all of its home electricity could come from offshore wind by 2030 .
( A truly great idea , in part because , at the moment , too much of it is coming from burning wood pellets shipped over from the southeastern United States , which , as a new report makes clear , is a definitional example of environmental racism . )
As with so much else , the outcome of the I.E.A .
saga likely rests on the results of the Presidential election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to mobilize support for genuine climate action , a World Energy Outlook that showed a working future , instead of a nostalgic past , would be a real assist , and Washington doubtless has the clout to move the agency in a new direction .
So vote as if the veracity of statistical forecasts depended on it !
With Bobby Berk , from “ Queer Eye , ” presiding , the National Design Awards last week conferred their inaugural prize for climate design on DLANDstudio , for Sponge Park , a plan to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ runoff into Brooklyn ’ s Gowanus Canal .
The lead designer , Susannah Drake , says that there may be lessons from the project for cities trying to deal with sea-level rise .
New Yorkers know the Gowanus Canal .
What ’ s the problem , and what ’ s the right fix ?
The Gowanus Canal is a former industrial canal that is very polluted .
In fact , it was designated an E.P.A .
Superfund site because of coal-gasification plants , paint factories , and other industrial uses located along its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a combined sewer system : in some areas , even a light rain dumps a noxious combination of sewage and storm water into surrounding waterways .
Back when the Dutch settled the area , they turned what was a swamp into farmland .
With sea-level rise , that wetland is now trying to reëmerge .
The dynamics of historic contamination , ground water , tides , and surface-water runoff make for a hot mess .
The Sponge Park is a nature-based infrastructure solution for cleaning up the area and adding public open space @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we developed a system that could be implemented in the public right of ways of street ends and waterfront setbacks to clean the water and soil and enhance habitat .
Plants were selected for their ability to bioaccumulate and break down toxins , as well as for their resilience to periodic salt-water inundation .
We also tried to use plants that were attractive to pollinators , including monarch butterflies .
If this system was deployed across the whole city , it would absorb and filter almost a billion gallons of excess runoff water @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and healthier .
Is this a template for other work ?
How should we be thinking about public works in an age of climate change ?
The Sponge Park is a replicable system that is now being considered for widespread implementation as a component of the city ’ s long-term control plan for storm-water management .
The systems can be deployed in concert with hard engineering solutions to manage the increased severity of storms brought about by climate change .
We did a plan for the St. Roch neighborhood , in New Orleans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sponge Park .
We designed streetscapes with new absorbent green spaces that could hold water during storm events , to keep pumping stations from getting overloaded .
In coastal zones of Miami Beach , we proposed restoration and development of mangrove swamps to hold soil , protect aquifers , and buffer storm surges .
Adaptation of coastal zones can restore their elasticity .
Wetlands and softer coastal zones can absorb impacts of severe storms better than a hard edge .
They are like a crumple-zone on a car or an expansion joint in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the limits here ?
Can these kinds of schemes keep working if we get sea-level rises of multiple metres , if rainfall totals keep rising ?
Projects like the Sponge Park are an incremental step in the development of waterfronts that manage the creep of sea-level rise .
The Sponge Park landscapes are designed to be flooded .
Eventually , plantings can be transitioned to manage more frequent salt-water inundation , and additional modules can be added upland to absorb and filter storm water .
But there is a limit to what they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sea-level rise , roads and other transportation rights of way may be blocked , making access to many urban waterfronts impossible to sustain .
Ten years ago , when I designed MOMA ’ s “ Rising Currents , a New Urban Ground ” exhibition , I believed that adaptation in place was a viable long-term solution for many cities .
In some places , economics may still warrant elevating ground , redevelopment of sub-grade infrastructure , and making streets porous .
Creating a reciprocal relationship to water , where water can be allowed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the time .
In my most recent work , I have advocated for migration-oriented adaption .
The strategy calls for denser development on existing high-ground transportation corridors .
These areas would encourage use of public transport and make new walkable neighborhoods for people on land that had already been degraded .
Movement of people away from coastal zones enables the restoration of natural ecologies .
Restoring the dynamism of the barrier islands , inland waterways , and coastlines enables the powerful protective forces of nature to protect people and the environment .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jonathan Franzen , Carolyn Kormann , and Elizabeth Kolbert had a great conversation on climate at the New Yorker Festival .
( I joined in , too . )
On-demand viewing has been extended through this Sunday , so you can still stream the video here .
It turns out that leaving natural-gas and oil pipes out in fields unprotected for years while you try to win permits for your pipelines is a bad idea : they corrode and may no longer be safe for use .

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Every year at this time, the International Energy Agency publishes its annual World Energy Outlook, which is the equivalent of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue for oil executives. That is, it incarnates their fantasies, especially the one about how this is an unchanging world, where attitudes and habits need not shift. Each year, the document forecasts a world in which fossil fuel continues to dominate for decades to come, and, because investors and governments often base their actions on those predictions, it’s almost literally the definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The problem, of course, is that the world it confidently imagines is an impossible one. If, as the I.E.A.’s current “sustainable development scenario” predicts, we don’t shut off the flow of fossil fuel until 2070, then the World Habitability Outlook, if there were such a thing, would be grim. (September, 2020, was the hottest September ever measured. That helped set the stage for, among many other novel forms of damage, the first Greek-letter hurricane ever to hit the United States and devastating wildfires in Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia.) The rational goal of the I.E.A. (a club of oil-consuming countries, first proposed by Henry Kissinger in the wake of the OPEC embargo of the nineteen-seventies) should be to model what science says we require to survive and then chart a path toward getting us there. And, this year, after intense pressure from activists, that began to happen. Along with the main report, the I.E.A. released a miniature scenario that tries to foresee a world in which we reach net zero by 2050. That’s still too slow to meet the climate targets set in Paris, in 2015, but at least it’s in the ballpark. Next year, the activists say, that nearer-term forecast needs to be the central event, not the kiddie table—taken seriously, such a scenario could be a crucial document as the world assembles in Glasgow a year from November for a critical round of talks about carbon cuts.
An I.E.A. report that took science as its starting point would not be revolutionary. In fact, there are signs that important parts of the world’s financial system are already beginning to get the message, thanks to unrelenting pressure. JPMorgan Chase, the world’s biggest fossil-fuel investor, this month committed to a “Paris alignment” of its lending practices. (Full disclosure: I was arrested in a Chase branch near the Capitol, in January, to help accelerate this campaign.) As activists point out, this vague target is barely a start. But the pressure won’t be going away: members of the Rockefeller family, whose forebears helped build Chase into the giant it is today, announced that they are rallying wealthy peers to prod the bank into more aggressive action, demanding that it “embrace innovation and move beyond the profits of fossil fuels to develop banking models that will excel in a zero-carbon world.” Some of the nations that constitute the I.E.A. are clearly ready for more: in the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson’s government noised around the idea that all of its home electricity could come from offshore wind by 2030. (A truly great idea, in part because, at the moment, too much of it is coming from burning wood pellets shipped over from the southeastern United States, which, as a new report makes clear, is a definitional example of environmental racism.)
As with so much else, the outcome of the I.E.A. saga likely rests on the results of the Presidential election. If a Biden Administration were trying to mobilize support for genuine climate action, a World Energy Outlook that showed a working future, instead of a nostalgic past, would be a real assist, and Washington doubtless has the clout to move the agency in a new direction. So vote as if the veracity of statistical forecasts depended on it!
Passing the Mic
With Bobby Berk, from “Queer Eye,” presiding, the National Design Awards last week conferred their inaugural prize for climate design on DLANDstudio, for Sponge Park, a plan to help staunch the flow of polluted stormwater runoff into Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal. The lead designer, Susannah Drake, says that there may be lessons from the project for cities trying to deal with sea-level rise.
New Yorkers know the Gowanus Canal. What’s the problem, and what’s the right fix?
The Gowanus Canal is a former industrial canal that is very polluted. In fact, it was designated an E.P.A. Superfund site because of coal-gasification plants, paint factories, and other industrial uses located along its banks. New York City also has a combined sewer system: in some areas, even a light rain dumps a noxious combination of sewage and storm water into surrounding waterways.
Back when the Dutch settled the area, they turned what was a swamp into farmland. With sea-level rise, that wetland is now trying to reëmerge. The dynamics of historic contamination, ground water, tides, and surface-water runoff make for a hot mess.
The Sponge Park is a nature-based infrastructure solution for cleaning up the area and adding public open space. Using early grant-funded pilot projects, we developed a system that could be implemented in the public right of ways of street ends and waterfront setbacks to clean the water and soil and enhance habitat. Plants were selected for their ability to bioaccumulate and break down toxins, as well as for their resilience to periodic salt-water inundation. We also tried to use plants that were attractive to pollinators, including monarch butterflies.
If this system was deployed across the whole city, it would absorb and filter almost a billion gallons of excess runoff water per year, making our waterways cleaner and healthier.
Is this a template for other work? How should we be thinking about public works in an age of climate change?
The Sponge Park is a replicable system that is now being considered for widespread implementation as a component of the city’s long-term control plan for storm-water management. The systems can be deployed in concert with hard engineering solutions to manage the increased severity of storms brought about by climate change.
We did a plan for the St. Roch neighborhood, in New Orleans, that deployed similar methods to the Sponge Park. We designed streetscapes with new absorbent green spaces that could hold water during storm events, to keep pumping stations from getting overloaded. In coastal zones of Miami Beach, we proposed restoration and development of mangrove swamps to hold soil, protect aquifers, and buffer storm surges.
Adaptation of coastal zones can restore their elasticity. Wetlands and softer coastal zones can absorb impacts of severe storms better than a hard edge. They are like a crumple-zone on a car or an expansion joint in pavement or a building.
What are the limits here? Can these kinds of schemes keep working if we get sea-level rises of multiple metres, if rainfall totals keep rising?


newyorker--2020-10-14--The Changing Meaning of the American Flag Under Trump

Carr , who is in his early seventies , had spent hours searching the Internet for a flag photograph with just the right “ flow.
” To the skin he added medallions ( “ VIETNAM VETERAN ” ) and decals ( “ NEVER FORGET ” ) .
Above his “ Purple Heart ” license plate , he attached small replicas of the combat medals he said he received for serving in Vietnam , in 1968 and 1969 , as a member of the 82nd Airborne ; these include the Bronze Star and the Army infantryman medal , which is conferred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enough , as Carr puts it , to “ look him in the eye.
” One recent morning , traffic zoomed along I-70—eastbound to Kansas City , westbound to Denver .
Carr , who has white hair and watery blue eyes , had on jeans and a T-shirt that referenced a benefit for veterans .
Holstered on his left hip was a Colt nine-millimeter handgun—Colorado is an open-carry state .
He raised the rear hatch of the S.U.V .
and removed twenty-nine large flags , each of which was attached to a pole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of these were American flags , but there were also banners honoring prisoners of war and law-enforcement officers .
Carr went up and down the bridge , affixing the flags to either side of the overpass , where they lifted and flapped in the wind .
The array was an arresting sight for such a drab stretch of interstate .
Motorists could see Carr sitting at the tailgate of his S.U.V.
, in a camp chair , waving .
Draped over the back of the chair was his black-leather motorcycle vest , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” “ PTSD , ” “ Patriot.
” He brought out a coffee thermos and a small Igloo cooler , which held his everyday lunch , a ham sandwich .
At his feet sat a storage bin containing some of the Beanie Babies that he once collected by the thousands , as an investment .
He now gives the toys to schoolchildren at Christmas and to families who stop by the bridge .
Carr had been flying his flags for the past forty-eight days , yet he still could not understand why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He owned an enormous “ TRUMP 2020 ” banner but chose not to fly it for fear of appearing “ political ” —the country had become “ so divided , ” he told me , adding , “ America is just so mad.
” The “ Blue Lives Matter ” banner he displayed—a modified American flag with one blue stripe , honoring the police—no doubt angered those who favor “ defunding “ law-enforcement agencies .
The idea of demanding greater police accountability had intensified since the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he had worn into combat was mutually understood as a symbol of national unity .
He said , “ These flags represent freedom.
” After the war , Carr came home “ messed up.
” He told me , “ I couldn ’ t get nothing organized.
” He tried nursing school , but he quit and eventually became a self-employed electrician , preferring the solitary work of fixing other people ’ s homes .
He got married and raised three children .
( “ And none of ’ em ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Carr saw news reports that members of Westboro Baptist Church , a Christian splinter group in Topeka , were demonstrating at military funerals .
The church members equated U.S. casualties in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with divine punishment for America ’ s tolerance of homosexuality .
Their protest signs said , “ GOD SENT THE IEDs ” and “ PRAY FOR MORE DEAD SOLDIERS.
” Outraged veterans started showing up at the funerals en masse , on motorcycles , to provide protection and emotional support to the families of the dead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ choppers and drowned out protestors ’ chants by revving their engines .
These counter-demonstrators became the Patriot Guard Riders , a nonpartisan group with chapters nationwide .
The Riders required only that members demonstrate “ unwavering respect for those who risk their very lives for America ’ s freedom and security.
” An early leader once said , “ We show families in grieving communities that America still cares.
” Carr joined the Riders around 2015 .
Honoring fellow-veterans gave him a sense of purpose and peace .
He attended up to six @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as Oklahoma .
He traded in his motorcycle , a Can-Am Spyder , for the S.U.V.
, and planned to devote his retirement to paying tribute to as many veterans and first responders as possible .
When the coronavirus pandemic— “ this corona crap ” —started , public-safety measures went into effect .
The Guardian Riders “ mandated everything on us : we have to stay six feet apart , you have to wear a mask , you can ’ t talk to the family , ” Carr told me .
“ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ You take your regulations and shove ‘ em up your ass.
’ ” After Carr quit the Riders , he thought , “ Now what the hell am I gon na do ?
” He said that God then told him , “ Find a bridge and set your flags.
” Colorado , with a population of nearly six million , has been called a political microcosm of America : voters almost evenly represent Democrats , Republicans , and Independents .
The state voted Republican in six of the ten past Presidential races @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Boulder pushed the past three elections to the Democrats .
Hillary Clinton narrowly defeated Trump in Colorado , in 2016 .
Polls show Joe Biden with a double-digit lead there .
The former governor , John Hickenlooper , the Democratic challenger to Republican Senator Cory Gardner , who is running for reëlection , stands a strong chance of flipping the seat and , potentially , control of the Senate .
Carr was an ardent Trump voter in Trump country , an hour east of Denver .
But on the bridge he occasionally felt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thing I get is people flipping me off , and not blowing their horn and liking what I ’ m doing , ” he said , on the morning that I met him .
One of his largest signs clearly stated the spirit of his mission : “ SALUTE TO AMERICA.
” Despite his fixed income , Carr had commissioned the message and framed it ( more P.V.C .
pipe ) .
Occasionally , a passerby made a donation that allowed for the upkeep of his solitary operation : a fifty-dollar-bill in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Carr kept the cash in a Ziploc bag in his vehicle , near a roll of duct tape and another handgun .
Whenever he talked about the donations , he got emotional .
He said , “ We have to stand together !
” He seemed to both sense and reject the idea that Trump has made it hard to do that .
More than a hundred thousand dollars in municipal fines accrued .
The press reported that Trump ultimately agreed to shorten the flagpole by ten feet and relocate it to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a hundred thousand dollars to charitable causes , including a veterans ’ organization .
The Washington Post revealed , in 2016 , that he paid these expenses using money from a nonprofit foundation funded with other people ’ s donations .
The arrangement may have violated laws prohibiting “ nonprofit leaders from using charity money to benefit themselves or their businesses , ” the newspaper noted .
In 2016 , the N.F.L .
player Colin Kaepernick declined to stand for the pre-game playing of the national anthem , saying that he could not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a country that oppresses Black people and people of color.
” Trump won praise from his political base by condemning Kaepernick as un-American .
In 2017 , in Charlottesville , Virginia , a white-supremacist rally featured the American flag , but most of the marchers carried Confederate flags and swastika banners .
After one of the white supremacists plowed his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of peaceful protesters , killing one of them , Heather Heyer , the far right appeared to rebrand , according to Bethan Johnson , a University of Cambridge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Analysis of the Radical Right .
Calling the rally “ a catalyst for rapid change within the overall politics of flag-waving in the radical right , ” she noted that some members of the far right were rejecting swastikas in favor of the American flag , perhaps partly so that any attack on them would appear to be an assault on the United States itself .
Johnson wrote , “ Scientists have found that Americans report to feel a sense of pride and reverence towards the American flag and , vicariously perhaps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact , so sanctified is the idea of the flag that the American government has codified regulations regarding the display of national flags , going so far as to state that the American flag not only represents America , but ‘ is itself considered a living thing.
’ ” One white nationalist had said , “ If an American flag can draw more people close enough to hear our message , it is our duty to make use of that tool.
” This past February , Trump , while on stage at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and kissed an American flag while mouthing the words , “ I love you , baby.
” In June , it was reported that his Administration had relocated the P.O.W./M.I.A .
flag from atop the White House to a less prominent position , angering advocates for prisoners of war and military service members missing in action .
The Democratic senator Jack Reed used the opportunity to point out that Trump had no trouble promoting the Confederate flag .
Recently , Trump suggested a mandatory year in jail for anyone who desecrates the flag @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flag is protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution , which Trump had cited in his defense of the flag at Mar-a-Lago . )
In August , Trump held the final night of the Republican National Convention , for the first time American history , at the White House ; aides built a stage on the South Lawn and loaded it with fifty-four American flags .
Throughout the summer , flag-decked Trump flotillas coursed down rivers , and across lakes .
On Etsy , venders sold American flags superimposed with Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such messages as “ Trump 2020 : Fuck Your Feelings ” ( sixteen dollars ) and “ FUCK TRUMP : If you like Trump , well fuck you too ” ( $ 19.99 ) .
At the enormous Sturgis Motorcycle Rally , in Rapid City , South Dakota , in July , one local resident , Joe Lowe , was bothered to see such vulgar manipulation and misappropriation of the nation ’ s symbol .
“ It ’ s just disrespectful , ” he told a news station .
“ My dad died @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the battlefield .
They fought for the county , for the United States of America , not the United States of Trump.
” In 2003 , Woden Teachout , a graduate student at Harvard who was finishing her doctorate in American studies , took an American flag to a protest of the Iraq War , in Montpelier , Vermont .
Teachout , who was with her sisters , Zephyr and Dillon , noticed that the other demonstrators couldn ’ t figure out whether she was “ part of the protest or a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her the flag was “ a symbol of democracy—people in the streets , talking to their government , ” but that others were using it as “ a very strong pro-war symbol.
” Teachout , who now teaches at the Union Institute and University in Cincinnati , wrote a book , “ Capture the Flag : A Political History of American Patriotism , ” exploring how the American flag “ moves from one meaning to another.
” She noted that during the civil-rights movement , Medgar Evers gave American flags to six hundred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he was the state field secretary for the N.A.A.C.P .
Marching through town , the students met a line of police officers , sheriff ’ s deputies , and state troopers , who took the flags .
The sight of American flags ultimately discarded “ in the dust and in the dirt ” became a powerful symbol , Teachout said , of how Black citizens ’ “ American rights had been trampled throughout the segregated South .
”

Most mornings, Jim Carr parks his Ford S.U.V. on a remote interstate overpass in the unincorporated community of Agate, Colorado. The view from the bridge is brown prairie: stacks of spooled hay, an abandoned backhoe. The blades of a sprawling turbine farm turn slowly in the distance. Carr’s vehicle is unmistakable: several years ago, he had the exterior covered in a vinyl “skin” made from a super-enlarged color image of an American flag.
Carr, who is in his early seventies, had spent hours searching the Internet for a flag photograph with just the right “flow.” To the skin he added medallions (“VIETNAM VETERAN”) and decals (“NEVER FORGET”). Above his “Purple Heart” license plate, he attached small replicas of the combat medals he said he received for serving in Vietnam, in 1968 and 1969, as a member of the 82nd Airborne; these include the Bronze Star and the Army infantryman medal, which is conferred on soldiers who fight the enemy closely enough, as Carr puts it, to “look him in the eye.”
One recent morning, traffic zoomed along I-70—eastbound to Kansas City, westbound to Denver. Carr, who has white hair and watery blue eyes, had on jeans and a T-shirt that referenced a benefit for veterans. Holstered on his left hip was a Colt nine-millimeter handgun—Colorado is an open-carry state. He raised the rear hatch of the S.U.V. and removed twenty-nine large flags, each of which was attached to a pole made of P.V.C. pipe. Most of these were American flags, but there were also banners honoring prisoners of war and law-enforcement officers. Carr went up and down the bridge, affixing the flags to either side of the overpass, where they lifted and flapped in the wind.
The array was an arresting sight for such a drab stretch of interstate. Motorists could see Carr sitting at the tailgate of his S.U.V., in a camp chair, waving. Draped over the back of the chair was his black-leather motorcycle vest, which was crowded with patches—“Brothers Forever,” “PTSD,” “Patriot.” He brought out a coffee thermos and a small Igloo cooler, which held his everyday lunch, a ham sandwich. At his feet sat a storage bin containing some of the Beanie Babies that he once collected by the thousands, as an investment. He now gives the toys to schoolchildren at Christmas and to families who stop by the bridge.
Carr had been flying his flags for the past forty-eight days, yet he still could not understand why some passersby gave him the finger. He owned an enormous “TRUMP 2020” banner but chose not to fly it for fear of appearing “political”—the country had become “so divided,” he told me, adding, “America is just so mad.”
The “Blue Lives Matter” banner he displayed—a modified American flag with one blue stripe, honoring the police—no doubt angered those who favor “defunding“ law-enforcement agencies. The idea of demanding greater police accountability had intensified since the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Yet Carr assumed that the flag that he had worn into combat was mutually understood as a symbol of national unity. He said, “These flags represent freedom.”
When Carr was in the eleventh grade, in Georgia, he dropped out of school and ran away: “I didn’t like home life. I had four sisters—I couldn’t get along with anybody.” Enlisting in the Army straightened him out. “If I hadn’t went into the Army I’d probably be in a chain gang somewhere—in prison or something—because I was mean.”
After the war, Carr came home “messed up.” He told me, “I couldn’t get nothing organized.” He tried nursing school, but he quit and eventually became a self-employed electrician, preferring the solitary work of fixing other people’s homes. He got married and raised three children. (“And none of ’em’s in jail.”)
Around 2005, Carr saw news reports that members of Westboro Baptist Church, a Christian splinter group in Topeka, were demonstrating at military funerals. The church members equated U.S. casualties in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with divine punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality. Their protest signs said, “GOD SENT THE IEDs” and “PRAY FOR MORE DEAD SOLDIERS.”
Outraged veterans started showing up at the funerals en masse, on motorcycles, to provide protection and emotional support to the families of the dead. They flew American flags on their choppers and drowned out protestors’ chants by revving their engines. These counter-demonstrators became the Patriot Guard Riders, a nonpartisan group with chapters nationwide. The Riders required only that members demonstrate “unwavering respect for those who risk their very lives for America’s freedom and security.” An early leader once said, “We show families in grieving communities that America still cares.”
Carr joined the Riders around 2015. Honoring fellow-veterans gave him a sense of purpose and peace. He attended up to six funerals per week, driving as far as Oklahoma. He traded in his motorcycle, a Can-Am Spyder, for the S.U.V., and planned to devote his retirement to paying tribute to as many veterans and first responders as possible.
When the coronavirus pandemic—“this corona crap”—started, public-safety measures went into effect. The Guardian Riders “mandated everything on us: we have to stay six feet apart, you have to wear a mask, you can’t talk to the family,” Carr told me. “I said, ‘You know what? You take your regulations and shove ‘em up your ass.’ ” After Carr quit the Riders, he thought, “Now what the hell am I gonna do?” He said that God then told him, “Find a bridge and set your flags.”
Colorado, with a population of nearly six million, has been called a political microcosm of America: voters almost evenly represent Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. The state voted Republican in six of the ten past Presidential races, but urban voters in Denver and Boulder pushed the past three elections to the Democrats. Hillary Clinton narrowly defeated Trump in Colorado, in 2016. Polls show Joe Biden with a double-digit lead there. The former governor, John Hickenlooper, the Democratic challenger to Republican Senator Cory Gardner, who is running for reëlection, stands a strong chance of flipping the seat and, potentially, control of the Senate.
Carr was an ardent Trump voter in Trump country, an hour east of Denver. But on the bridge he occasionally felt lonely and glum. “The first thing I get is people flipping me off, and not blowing their horn and liking what I’m doing,” he said, on the morning that I met him. One of his largest signs clearly stated the spirit of his mission: “SALUTE TO AMERICA.” Despite his fixed income, Carr had commissioned the message and framed it (more P.V.C. pipe). Occasionally, a passerby made a donation that allowed for the upkeep of his solitary operation: a fifty-dollar-bill in a thank-you card, a wadded-up hundred. Carr kept the cash in a Ziploc bag in his vehicle, near a roll of duct tape and another handgun. Whenever he talked about the donations, he got emotional. He said, “We have to stand together!” He seemed to both sense and reject the idea that Trump has made it hard to do that.
The town of Palm Beach, Florida, limits its flagpoles to a height of forty-two feet, and its flags to four-by-six feet. In 2006, Trump, at his private club there, Mar-a-Lago, erected a flagpole that stood eighty feet tall. He raised a flag that measured at least fifteen-by-twenty-five feet—a square footage greater than that of some New York City apartments. Neighbors complained; Trump defied municipal orders to scale back, then sued the town for twenty-five million dollars, claiming infringement of his constitutional and civil rights. He reportedly argued that he needed such a mammoth flag in order to “appropriately express the magnitude” of his “patriotism.”
More than a hundred thousand dollars in municipal fines accrued. The press reported that Trump ultimately agreed to shorten the flagpole by ten feet and relocate it to a less visible spot, and to give a hundred thousand dollars to charitable causes, including a veterans’ organization. The Washington Post revealed, in 2016, that he paid these expenses using money from a nonprofit foundation funded with other people’s donations. The arrangement may have violated laws prohibiting “nonprofit leaders from using charity money to benefit themselves or their businesses,” the newspaper noted.
In 2016, the N.F.L. player Colin Kaepernick declined to stand for the pre-game playing of the national anthem, saying that he could not “show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color.” Trump won praise from his political base by condemning Kaepernick as un-American.
In 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia, a white-supremacist rally featured the American flag, but most of the marchers carried Confederate flags and swastika banners. After one of the white supremacists plowed his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of peaceful protesters, killing one of them, Heather Heyer, the far right appeared to rebrand, according to Bethan Johnson, a University of Cambridge scholar and a fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right. Calling the rally “a catalyst for rapid change within the overall politics of flag-waving in the radical right,” she noted that some members of the far right were rejecting swastikas in favor of the American flag, perhaps partly so that any attack on them would appear to be an assault on the United States itself. Johnson wrote, “Scientists have found that Americans report to feel a sense of pride and reverence towards the American flag and, vicariously perhaps those who walk beneath it. In fact, so sanctified is the idea of the flag that the American government has codified regulations regarding the display of national flags, going so far as to state that the American flag not only represents America, but ‘is itself considered a living thing.’ ” One white nationalist had said, “If an American flag can draw more people close enough to hear our message, it is our duty to make use of that tool.”


newyorker--2020-10-14--Ken Bone and the Legend of the Undecided Voter

In late September , a couple of hours before the first Presidential debate of the 2020 election , I was scrolling Twitter , anxiously waiting for the big show to start , when I was reminded of a character I hadn ’ t thought of in some time .
The recollection arrived in response to a tweet from PJ Vogt , a host of the popular podcast “ Reply All ” : “ Really curious what America ’ s undecided voter will think about the debate tonight , ” Vogt wrote , in what I took to be a tongue-in-cheek @ @ @ @ @ @ @ today ’ s polarized , high-stakes political climate , could still be entering a debate night with no set opinion about which candidate to support .
“ What if they bring out Ken Bone ?
, ” I tweeted back , almost before I could reflect on it .
Remember Ken Bone ?
I didn ’ t think I did ( neither , apparently , did Vogt— “ Oh my god my brain has scrubbed him from memory , ” he responded ) , but there he was , suddenly in my mind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if he ’ d never left : the 2016 debate-watcher in a red sweater , whose image so many of us briefly but intensely engaged with for a few halcyon days that fall .
The American public was introduced to Bone at Washington University in St. Louis , during the second debate of that year ’ s Presidential election .
A power-plant employee from Illinois , Bone was among a group of undecided voters who were selected to ask questions of the candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton , as part of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the moderator Anderson Cooper called on Bone , he stepped forward to inquire about Trump ’ s and Clinton ’ s energy policies .
The question itself was straightforward enough— “ What steps will your energy policy take to meet our energy needs ?
” —but it soon became clear that Bone had struck a chord that had little to do with his actual words .
With his mild , bashful manner and Midwestern-everyman appearance—stout , with a pair of small , rectangular glasses , a trim mustache , and a white button-down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sweater—Bone seemed to be from a different plane than the slugfest taking place on the debate stage , where Trump was largely setting a grandstanding , aggressive tone .
At the event ’ s end , Bone was spotted wandering the stage , taking pictures , endearingly , with a disposable camera .
Even his last name seemed gently humorous .
It was this apparent lack of forcefulness or swagger that turned Bone into an immediate—if counterintuitive—viral sensation .
After trending on Twitter , he was invited on multiple talk and news shows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he came to wear the red sweater after splitting the seat of his suit pants while getting into the car ) .
Memes and emojis were made ; Ken Bone cookies were sold ; jokey “ Sexy Ken Bone ” Halloween costumes were rushed to market .
As Bone says in the documentary above , “ I guess folks decided I was worth looking at for a while.
” And then , after a bit , it was all over .
In the wake of his viral fame , Bone ’ s life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still married to the same woman , lives in southern Illinois , and works at the power plant—but , as I watched the portrait that emerges of him in “ Gone Viral , ” I felt a twinge of guilt .
I was , after all , one of the countless thousands who saw Bone not as a person but as a thing , an online avatar whose only role was to embody a variety of projected ideas and preoccupations .
What came to mind when I thought about Bone ?
A stand-in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump Administration still seemed like a far-fetched option ?
A quaint relic from a period when being an undecided voter seemed baffling to me , but not , like it does now , a matter of life and death ?
An avatar of heartland America , whose purported placidity we on the coasts could learn something from ?
Certainly , these notions had little to do with Bone himself , who is a real , complicated individual , and not a cookie-cutter symbol .
“ Once you realize that your time is over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ head your whole life .
Is this really all there is to life ?
Getting up , going to work , coming home , eating dinner , watching reruns , going to sleep ?
I ’ m going to do that again forever , ” Bone says in the documentary , of adjusting to the comedown after his brief window of celebrity .
He , too , it appears , had to learn a lesson about the chasm lying between the real world and the world of online image-making .

In late September, a couple of hours before the first Presidential debate of the 2020 election, I was scrolling Twitter, anxiously waiting for the big show to start, when I was reminded of a character I hadn’t thought of in some time. The recollection arrived in response to a tweet from PJ Vogt, a host of the popular podcast “Reply All”: “Really curious what America’s undecided voter will think about the debate tonight,” Vogt wrote, in what I took to be a tongue-in-cheek expression of incredulity that anyone, in today’s polarized, high-stakes political climate, could still be entering a debate night with no set opinion about which candidate to support. “What if they bring out Ken Bone?,” I tweeted back, almost before I could reflect on it. Remember Ken Bone? I didn’t think I did (neither, apparently, did Vogt—“Oh my god my brain has scrubbed him from memory,” he responded), but there he was, suddenly in my mind’s eye, as vivid as if he’d never left: the 2016 debate-watcher in a red sweater, whose image so many of us briefly but intensely engaged with for a few halcyon days that fall.
The American public was introduced to Bone at Washington University in St. Louis, during the second debate of that year’s Presidential election. A power-plant employee from Illinois, Bone was among a group of undecided voters who were selected to ask questions of the candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, as part of the event’s town-hall format. When the moderator Anderson Cooper called on Bone, he stepped forward to inquire about Trump’s and Clinton’s energy policies. The question itself was straightforward enough—“What steps will your energy policy take to meet our energy needs?”—but it soon became clear that Bone had struck a chord that had little to do with his actual words. With his mild, bashful manner and Midwestern-everyman appearance—stout, with a pair of small, rectangular glasses, a trim mustache, and a white button-down tucked under a straining, tomato-red cable-knit sweater—Bone seemed to be from a different plane than the slugfest taking place on the debate stage, where Trump was largely setting a grandstanding, aggressive tone. At the event’s end, Bone was spotted wandering the stage, taking pictures, endearingly, with a disposable camera. Even his last name seemed gently humorous.
It was this apparent lack of forcefulness or swagger that turned Bone into an immediate—if counterintuitive—viral sensation. After trending on Twitter, he was invited on multiple talk and news shows (on CNN, he explained that he came to wear the red sweater after splitting the seat of his suit pants while getting into the car). Memes and emojis were made; Ken Bone cookies were sold; jokey “Sexy Ken Bone” Halloween costumes were rushed to market. As Bone says in the documentary above, “I guess folks decided I was worth looking at for a while.” And then, after a bit, it was all over. In the wake of his viral fame, Bone’s life seems not to have changed much—he is still married to the same woman, lives in southern Illinois, and works at the power plant—but, as I watched the portrait that emerges of him in “Gone Viral,” I felt a twinge of guilt. I was, after all, one of the countless thousands who saw Bone not as a person but as a thing, an online avatar whose only role was to embody a variety of projected ideas and preoccupations. What came to mind when I thought about Bone? A stand-in for a simpler time, when a Trump Administration still seemed like a far-fetched option? A quaint relic from a period when being an undecided voter seemed baffling to me, but not, like it does now, a matter of life and death? An avatar of heartland America, whose purported placidity we on the coasts could learn something from? Certainly, these notions had little to do with Bone himself, who is a real, complicated individual, and not a cookie-cutter symbol. “Once you realize that your time is over, you have this thought in your head your whole life. Is this really all there is to life? Getting up, going to work, coming home, eating dinner, watching reruns, going to sleep? I’m going to do that again forever,” Bone says in the documentary, of adjusting to the comedown after his brief window of celebrity. He, too, it appears, had to learn a lesson about the chasm lying between the real world and the world of online image-making.