newyorker--2020-08-17--The Overlooked Influence of Creem Magazine

For years , the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame , in Cleveland , devoted an entire wall in a gallery near the peak of its pyramid-shaped building to lauding Rolling Stone , the magazine founded by one of the hall ’ s biggest champions , Jann Wenner .
“ Rolling Stone has always incited its writers to take risks , ” an exhibit placard read , but that was debatable , especially if the latest issue for sale in the gift shop happened to feature Jenny McCarthy or James Corden on the cover .
The other music publications in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ display in the basement , included Crawdaddy !
, which preceded Rolling Stone by more than a year ; Fusion , which was distinguished by its mix of grad-school intellectualism and high-level satire ; and , most unjustly , Creem , whose masthead boasted that it was “ America ’ s only rock ’ n ’ roll magazine.
” Creem ’ s staff members knew that the magazine was never the only one covering rock and roll—they meant that it was the only one that mattered .
Many readers agreed , and efforts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the magazine ’ s place in history—from two short-lived attempts to revive Creem to a glossy coffee-table book , published in 2007 , and the new documentary “ Creem : America ’ s Only Rock ’ n ’ Roll Magazine.
” Creem was the brainchild of an Englishman named Tony Reay , who worked at a combined head shop and record store owned by the combative entrepreneur Barry Kramer .
The first issue was published from a run-down building on Detroit ’ s Cass Corridor in March , 1969 , as a tabloid—which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the time .
Reay named the publication after his favorite band , Cream , but changed the spelling of the virtuoso supergroup and served as the de-facto editor .
( For years , no one on staff had an official job title . )
He left months later , though the original incarnation of Creem continued as a national monthly until 1989 .
The documentary ’ s director , Scott Crawford , who for eight years edited a magazine of his own called Harp , also takes a cue from Cream .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Crawford frames the magazine ’ s history around another trio : Kramer , the publisher ; Dave Marsh , the magazine ’ s second editor ; and Lester Bangs , who became its most celebrated writer after he moved to Detroit , in 1971 .
But Creem was always the product of a larger , continually changing ensemble .
The film , by limiting its focus to three people , slights the magazine ’ s enduring legacies : an egalitarian approach that flowered circa mid-seventies punk rock—as the Creem contributor Patti @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the era where everybody creates ” —and a steadfast rejection of stardom that refused to accept famous musicians as different or more special than their fans .
“ Our bands are people ’ s bands ; similarly , we think of ourselves as a people ’ s magazine , ” the staff of Creem declared in a 1970 mission statement .
“ We are a rock ’ n ’ roll magazine , with all that that implies .
Our culture is a rock ’ n ’ roll culture .
We are rock ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , although the magazine held making music and writing about music to be vitally and even morally important , as the critic Greil Marcus says in the film , it never took either music or writing too seriously , approaching everything with an irreverent sense of humor .
“ Creem is a raspberry in the face of the culture , ” Bangs said , in 1973 , “ and , in a sense , it ’ s a raspberry in the face of itself.
” At a time when the pop charts were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A Horse with No Name ” and “ Joy to the World ” and the playlists of burgeoning FM radio stations were heavy on James Taylor ; Crosby , Stills & Nash ; and the Eagles ; Creem respectfully ceded coverage of those artists to Rolling Stone .
It championed , instead , proto-punk bands such as the Stooges , the MC5 , ?
and the Mysterians , and Count Five ; mavericks such as Lou Reed , Dr. John , Marc Bolan , and George Clinton ; and nascent heavy-metal acts , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Alice Cooper .
“ Unlike Rolling Stone , which is a bastion of San Francisco counter-culture ‘ rock-as-art ’ orthodoxy , Creem is committed to a Pop aesthetic , ” Ellen Willis wrote in The New Yorker .
“ It speaks to fans who consciously value rock as an expression of urban teen-age culture.
” The original staffers—including Marsh , Bangs , Jaan Uhelszki , and Roberta Cruger—saw the magazine as a cross between Mad , the satirical comic book , and Esquire circa the height of New Journalism , which brought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ We were always riffing off each other , like we were doing a comedy routine , ” says Uhelszki , who took a cue from George Plimpton ’ s participatory journalism when she wrote the 1975 piece “ I Dreamed I Was Onstage with KISS in My Maidenform Bra ” and who co-produced the documentary with J. J. Kramer , Barry ’ s son .
“ It was group-think , like a hive mind , so collaborative all the time , ” she says .
“ That ’ s a big point @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as we said in the ad we used to run soliciting contributors , ‘ We ain ’ t got nothing you ain ’ t got , so what do ya got ?
’ Meaning , if we can do it , you can do it.
” Indeed , many of the magazine ’ s regular contributors started as readers who wrote in to the letters column ; Marsh , Bangs , and other editors nurtured these voices .
But the film spends more time highlighting the snarky humor of the magazine ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ focussing on the ambition and ideas of writers such as Nick Tosches , Richard Meltzer , Richard Riegel , Richard C. Walls , Robert Duncan , Bill Holdship , J. Kordosh , and Rick Johnson .
As for the trio at the center of the documentary , Marsh left the magazine in 1973 and became better known for his work at Rolling Stone .
Bangs left Creem in 1976 and moved to New York , where he died six years later , at age thirty-three , reportedly with traces of Valium and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ died in his late thirties , in January , 1981 , in what was ruled an accidental death .
Amplifying Kramer ’ s contributions seems to be a goal shared by Crawford and J.J. , but , although the film praises him for giving his writers the freedom to make a mess on the page , it misses the opportunity to follow his transformation from an idealistic sixties hippie to an eighties capitalist .
In 1973 , Kramer moved Creem ’ s staff from their second home , a Michigan farm commune , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dentist ’ s office and a hair salon in a gentrified suburb of Detroit .
Try as he might , Kramer never succeeded in turning Creem into the sort of cash-cow life-style magazine that Rolling Stone became .
Its steadiest advertisers included A-200 Pyrinate Liquid ( “ one shampoo kills lice and nits ” ) , Boone ’ s Farm wine , and mail-order head shops that hawked pipes , personalized roach clips , and something called the “ grass mask.
” ( “ Shit , what a hit !
” ) He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a syndicated radio show , and a record label—none of which materialized .

For years, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in Cleveland, devoted an entire wall in a gallery near the peak of its pyramid-shaped building to lauding Rolling Stone, the magazine founded by one of the hall’s biggest champions, Jann Wenner. “Rolling Stone has always incited its writers to take risks,” an exhibit placard read, but that was debatable, especially if the latest issue for sale in the gift shop happened to feature Jenny McCarthy or James Corden on the cover. The other music publications in the hall, confined to a small display in the basement, included Crawdaddy!, which preceded Rolling Stone by more than a year; Fusion, which was distinguished by its mix of grad-school intellectualism and high-level satire; and, most unjustly, Creem, whose masthead boasted that it was “America’s only rock ’n’ roll magazine.”
Creem’s staff members knew that the magazine was never the only one covering rock and roll—they meant that it was the only one that mattered. Many readers agreed, and efforts have long been under way to elevate the magazine’s place in history—from two short-lived attempts to revive Creem to a glossy coffee-table book, published in 2007, and the new documentary “Creem: America’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll Magazine.”
Creem was the brainchild of an Englishman named Tony Reay, who worked at a combined head shop and record store owned by the combative entrepreneur Barry Kramer. The first issue was published from a run-down building on Detroit’s Cass Corridor in March, 1969, as a tabloid—which was typical of local underground newspapers at the time. Reay named the publication after his favorite band, Cream, but changed the spelling of the virtuoso supergroup and served as the de-facto editor. (For years, no one on staff had an official job title.) He left months later, though the original incarnation of Creem continued as a national monthly until 1989. The documentary’s director, Scott Crawford, who for eight years edited a magazine of his own called Harp, also takes a cue from Cream. The band was made up of three members, and Crawford frames the magazine’s history around another trio: Kramer, the publisher; Dave Marsh, the magazine’s second editor; and Lester Bangs, who became its most celebrated writer after he moved to Detroit, in 1971. But Creem was always the product of a larger, continually changing ensemble. The film, by limiting its focus to three people, slights the magazine’s enduring legacies: an egalitarian approach that flowered circa mid-seventies punk rock—as the Creem contributor Patti Smith put it, “This is the era where everybody creates”—and a steadfast rejection of stardom that refused to accept famous musicians as different or more special than their fans.
“Our bands are people’s bands; similarly, we think of ourselves as a people’s magazine,” the staff of Creem declared in a 1970 mission statement. “We are a rock ’n’ roll magazine, with all that that implies. Our culture is a rock ’n’ roll culture. We are rock ’n’ roll people.” In practice, although the magazine held making music and writing about music to be vitally and even morally important, as the critic Greil Marcus says in the film, it never took either music or writing too seriously, approaching everything with an irreverent sense of humor. “Creem is a raspberry in the face of the culture,” Bangs said, in 1973, “and, in a sense, it’s a raspberry in the face of itself.”
At a time when the pop charts were dominated by cloying songs such as “A Horse with No Name” and “Joy to the World” and the playlists of burgeoning FM radio stations were heavy on James Taylor; Crosby, Stills & Nash; and the Eagles; Creem respectfully ceded coverage of those artists to Rolling Stone. It championed, instead, proto-punk bands such as the Stooges, the MC5, ? and the Mysterians, and Count Five; mavericks such as Lou Reed, Dr. John, Marc Bolan, and George Clinton; and nascent heavy-metal acts, including Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Alice Cooper. “Unlike Rolling Stone, which is a bastion of San Francisco counter-culture ‘rock-as-art’ orthodoxy, Creem is committed to a Pop aesthetic,” Ellen Willis wrote in The New Yorker. “It speaks to fans who consciously value rock as an expression of urban teen-age culture.”
The original staffers—including Marsh, Bangs, Jaan Uhelszki, and Roberta Cruger—saw the magazine as a cross between Mad, the satirical comic book, and Esquire circa the height of New Journalism, which brought literary techniques to reporting and criticism. “We were always riffing off each other, like we were doing a comedy routine,” says Uhelszki, who took a cue from George Plimpton’s participatory journalism when she wrote the 1975 piece “I Dreamed I Was Onstage with KISS in My Maidenform Bra” and who co-produced the documentary with J. J. Kramer, Barry’s son. “It was group-think, like a hive mind, so collaborative all the time,” she says. “That’s a big point. That and the attitude of, as we said in the ad we used to run soliciting contributors, ‘We ain’t got nothing you ain’t got, so what do ya got?’ Meaning, if we can do it, you can do it.”
Indeed, many of the magazine’s regular contributors started as readers who wrote in to the letters column; Marsh, Bangs, and other editors nurtured these voices. But the film spends more time highlighting the snarky humor of the magazine’s captions, headlines, and photos than focussing on the ambition and ideas of writers such as Nick Tosches, Richard Meltzer, Richard Riegel, Richard C. Walls, Robert Duncan, Bill Holdship, J. Kordosh, and Rick Johnson.
As for the trio at the center of the documentary, Marsh left the magazine in 1973 and became better known for his work at Rolling Stone. Bangs left Creem in 1976 and moved to New York, where he died six years later, at age thirty-three, reportedly with traces of Valium and the painkiller Darvon in his bloodstream. Kramer died in his late thirties, in January, 1981, in what was ruled an accidental death. Amplifying Kramer’s contributions seems to be a goal shared by Crawford and J.J., but, although the film praises him for giving his writers the freedom to make a mess on the page, it misses the opportunity to follow his transformation from an idealistic sixties hippie to an eighties capitalist. In 1973, Kramer moved Creem’s staff from their second home, a Michigan farm commune, into an ornate building that housed a dentist’s office and a hair salon in a gentrified suburb of Detroit.
Try as he might, Kramer never succeeded in turning Creem into the sort of cash-cow life-style magazine that Rolling Stone became. Its steadiest advertisers included A-200 Pyrinate Liquid (“one shampoo kills lice and nits”), Boone’s Farm wine, and mail-order head shops that hawked pipes, personalized roach clips, and something called the “grass mask.” (“Shit, what a hit!”) He once dreamed of starting a British edition, a syndicated radio show, and a record label—none of which materialized.
Two weeks before Bangs’s death, he bitterly recalled his years working with Kramer. “It was basically the kind of setup where it was a little fiefdom,” he told me. “You have a bunch of idealistic young people in the late era of hippiedom, and a guy comes in who sees that he can make a lot of money off of their idealism. . . . The guy got rich. He got his mansion and his country house, he drank V.S.O.P. Courvoisier, and he drove a Lincoln Continental, and when I quit after five years, when I was senior editor—and I had contributed a lot to making the magazine whatever it was—I was still only taking home a hundred and seventy-five dollars a week.”
In the end, what makes Creem worth remembering—and which is hard to capture on film—is the two decades of probing, insightful, and often funny writing delivered by people who were, first and foremost, fans. As Amanda Petrusich wrote of Bangs, he was “someone trying, desperately, to get closer to something he cherishes, to hold it down long enough to marvel at it and love it more deeply.” But Bangs was never unique at Creem, and his brand of passionate eloquence didn’t end with him or the magazine. It inspired the publications of the punk, New Wave, and early hip-hop eras; continued in the D.I.Y. fanzines of the indie-rock eighties and E.D.M. nineties; and lives on in the best music blogs and podcasts today.


newyorker--2020-08-17--Harris Tells Trump She Cannot Send Him Birth Certificate Without Postal Service

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —An apologetic Kamala Harris told Donald J. Trump on Monday that she will be unable to provide him with a certified copy of her birth certificate in the absence of a fully functioning postal service .
“ In order to obtain a copy of my birth certificate , I have to send a letter to the California Department of Public Health , ” she said .
“ That is really tricky to do without a mailbox.
” If the C.D.P.H .
somehow receives her letter , Senator Harris said , “ it will then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to me—again , a difficult task if there is no mail.
” Harris informed Trump that , if by some miracle she were to receive her birth certificate in the mail , “ I would then have to mail it to you .
Again , not easy.
” The senator said that she was “ deeply sorry ” that the United States Postal Service ’ s funding problems would make getting her birth certificate to Trump so challenging .
“ I know that the question of my birth has been a cause of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
“ I would do anything to ease your mind about this issue.
” She concluded her letter by saying that she was unsure whether her letter would ever arrive .

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—An apologetic Kamala Harris told Donald J. Trump on Monday that she will be unable to provide him with a certified copy of her birth certificate in the absence of a fully functioning postal service.
“In order to obtain a copy of my birth certificate, I have to send a letter to the California Department of Public Health,” she said. “That is really tricky to do without a mailbox.”
If the C.D.P.H. somehow receives her letter, Senator Harris said, “it will then have to mail my birth certificate back to me—again, a difficult task if there is no mail.”
Harris informed Trump that, if by some miracle she were to receive her birth certificate in the mail, “I would then have to mail it to you. Again, not easy.”
The senator said that she was “deeply sorry” that the United States Postal Service’s funding problems would make getting her birth certificate to Trump so challenging.
“I know that the question of my birth has been a cause of great distress to you,” she said. “I would do anything to ease your mind about this issue.”
She concluded her letter by saying that she was unsure whether her letter would ever arrive.
Read More Satire from the Borowitz Report


newyorker--2020-08-17--Joe Biden’s Moment at the Democratic National Convention

As the 2020 Democratic National Convention opens on Monday , there are indications that Joe Biden is in a stronger position than any challenger to a sitting President since 1992 , when Bill Clinton defeated George H. W. Bush .
The FiveThirtyEight poll average shows him with an eight-point lead over Donald Trump .
Biden ’ s choice of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate has generated a highly positive reaction among Democrats and pundits .
His opponent has just embroiled himself in yet another avoidable controversy—this one centered on the U.S. Post Office , a venerable institution that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ areas .
For the Biden campaign , the overwhelming priority this week is to maintain its momentum .
Democrats are hopeful .
But , with the agony of 2016 still fresh in their collective memory , many of them are understandably nervous , too .
On Sunday , a new CNN poll showed Biden just four points ahead .
But three other new surveys show him with considerably bigger leads : twelve points in a Washington Post-ABC News survey , ten points in a CBS News/YouGov poll , and nine points in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should also be noted that Biden ’ s advantage over Trump is a long-standing one .
Back in mid-March , shortly after it became clear that he was going to win the nomination , an earlier Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll also found him with a nine-point advantage .
A Convention is an opportunity for a political party to rally behind its candidates and engage the broader electorate .
With the coronavirus pandemic having upended Convention planning , along with much else , the organizers are facing new challenges this year .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the theme “ Uniting America , ” the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee have combined Party elders—the Obamas , the Clintons , John Kerry , Nancy Pelosi—with a bevy of female senators and governors—Amy Klobuchar , Catherine Cortez Masto , Gretchen Whitmer , Elizabeth Warren , Michelle Lujan Grisham , Tammy Baldwin , Tammy Duckworth—and some rising stars , including Andrew Yang and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez .
The planners are obviously held hostage to the technological difficulty of coördinating segments , and speeches , from many different locations .
But they have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , all of which are directly related to the repellent nature of their opponent .
One is Party unity .
On the day before the start of the 2016 Democratic Convention , thousands of supporters of Bernie Sanders marched through Philadelphia , chanting , “ Hell , no , D.N.C.
, we won ’ t vote for Hillary.
” A few days earlier , Wikileaks had released a batch of e-mails hacked from the Democratic National Committee , which showed Party officials trying to undermine the Sanders candidacy .
The fissures in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The situation today is very different .
In running for a second term , Trump has united Democrats like virtually nobody before him .
“ What almost all progressives understand , that in this moment , we have got to do everything we can to come together to defeat Donald Trump , ” Senator Sanders told Chuck Todd , the moderator of “ Meet the Press , ” on Sunday .
On Monday night , Sanders will feature in a slate of speakers that also includes Michelle Obama , the former First Lady @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican governor of Ohio .
When Todd asked Sanders how he felt about sharing the stage with Kasich , he reiterated his point : “ Look , John will do his thing ; I will do my thing , ” he said .
“ I expect they will be different types of speeches , but we are united .
We are united in the understanding that Trump has to be defeated , and Biden has to be elected.
” In addition to unifying Democrats , Trump is helping to keep the focus on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be shifting to the challenger .
On Sunday , the White House sought to dampen the furor over Trump ’ s threats to withhold money from the U.S.P.S .
in order to sabotage mail-in voting .
Amid reports that the agency has already removed hundreds of sorting machines , Mark Meadows , Trump ’ s chief of staff , assured CNN ’ s Jake Tapper that no more of them would be taken offline between now and Election Day .
Evidently , some of Trump ’ s advisers , if not he , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a losing plan , but the Post Office story won ’ t go away .
House Democrats have scheduled a hearing for August 24th , at which Trump ’ s Postmaster General , Louis DeJoy , will be called to testify .
The third service that Trump has afforded Biden is to provide him with a compelling message .
Even some of the Democratic candidate ’ s advisers privately concede that he isn ’ t a politician with strong ideological convictions or a clearly defined policy agenda .
An instinctive centrist , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ party on many issues , addressing climate change , the minimum wage , and taxing the rich , and has held his ground on others , such as Medicare for All and fracking .
In a different cycle , Biden ’ s lack of a distinctive philosophy could be an electoral handicap .
This year , it is arguably a big advantage , because it allows him to portray his campaign as a welcoming vessel that anybody who wants to save the country from Trump can clamber aboard : moderate Democrats , progressive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Republicans who voted for Trump in 2016 but have come to regret it .
From April of last year , when he launched his campaign , Biden made clear that his primary agenda was ridding the United States of a pestilence .
In the video announcement he posted online , he cited the infamous comments that Trump made after the clashes between white supremacists and anti-fascist protesters in Charlottesville , Virginia , in 2017 , and he described the coming election as “ a battle for the soul of this nation.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden has used this same language repeatedly , including last week , when he introduced Harris as his running mate .
It sometimes sounds a bit stilted , but it also has the merit of being frighteningly accurate .
“ I believe history will look back on four years of this President , and all he embraces , as an aberrant moment in time , ” Biden went on to say in his launch video .
“ But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House , he will forever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nation.
” On Thursday night , Biden will deliver this message again , almost certainly combining it with pledges to confront the pandemic on the basis of science and compassion , to build a cleaner and more equitable economy , and to fulfill the civil-rights legacy of John Lewis , the late Democratic congressman , who will be the subject of a video tribute introduced by Keisha Lance Bottoms , the mayor of Atlanta .
Even though there will be no crowds to cheer him in person , and no balloons poised to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have a unique opportunity to reassert the values of decency , truth , and democracy , as well as the virtues of competent Presidential leadership .
Let ’ s hope he rises to the occasion .

As the 2020 Democratic National Convention opens on Monday, there are indications that Joe Biden is in a stronger position than any challenger to a sitting President since 1992, when Bill Clinton defeated George H. W. Bush. The FiveThirtyEight poll average shows him with an eight-point lead over Donald Trump. Biden’s choice of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate has generated a highly positive reaction among Democrats and pundits. His opponent has just embroiled himself in yet another avoidable controversy—this one centered on the U.S. Post Office, a venerable institution that plays a key role in many Trump-supporting areas.
For the Biden campaign, the overwhelming priority this week is to maintain its momentum. Democrats are hopeful. But, with the agony of 2016 still fresh in their collective memory, many of them are understandably nervous, too. On Sunday, a new CNN poll showed Biden just four points ahead. But three other new surveys show him with considerably bigger leads: twelve points in a Washington Post-ABC News survey, ten points in a CBS News/YouGov poll, and nine points in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. It should also be noted that Biden’s advantage over Trump is a long-standing one. Back in mid-March, shortly after it became clear that he was going to win the nomination, an earlier Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll also found him with a nine-point advantage.
A Convention is an opportunity for a political party to rally behind its candidates and engage the broader electorate. With the coronavirus pandemic having upended Convention planning, along with much else, the organizers are facing new challenges this year. In putting together a program of speakers under the theme “Uniting America,” the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee have combined Party elders—the Obamas, the Clintons, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi—with a bevy of female senators and governors—Amy Klobuchar, Catherine Cortez Masto, Gretchen Whitmer, Elizabeth Warren, Michelle Lujan Grisham, Tammy Baldwin, Tammy Duckworth—and some rising stars, including Andrew Yang and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The planners are obviously held hostage to the technological difficulty of coördinating segments, and speeches, from many different locations. But they have at least three things going for them, all of which are directly related to the repellent nature of their opponent.
One is Party unity. On the day before the start of the 2016 Democratic Convention, thousands of supporters of Bernie Sanders marched through Philadelphia, chanting, “Hell, no, D.N.C., we won’t vote for Hillary.” A few days earlier, Wikileaks had released a batch of e-mails hacked from the Democratic National Committee, which showed Party officials trying to undermine the Sanders candidacy. The fissures in the Democratic Party were impossible to ignore.
The situation today is very different. In running for a second term, Trump has united Democrats like virtually nobody before him. “What almost all progressives understand, that in this moment, we have got to do everything we can to come together to defeat Donald Trump,” Senator Sanders told Chuck Todd, the moderator of “Meet the Press,” on Sunday. On Monday night, Sanders will feature in a slate of speakers that also includes Michelle Obama, the former First Lady, and John Kasich, the former Republican governor of Ohio. When Todd asked Sanders how he felt about sharing the stage with Kasich, he reiterated his point: “Look, John will do his thing; I will do my thing,” he said. “I expect they will be different types of speeches, but we are united. We are united in the understanding that Trump has to be defeated, and Biden has to be elected.”
In addition to unifying Democrats, Trump is helping to keep the focus on himself, even as it would normally be shifting to the challenger. On Sunday, the White House sought to dampen the furor over Trump’s threats to withhold money from the U.S.P.S. in order to sabotage mail-in voting. Amid reports that the agency has already removed hundreds of sorting machines, Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, assured CNN’s Jake Tapper that no more of them would be taken offline between now and Election Day. Evidently, some of Trump’s advisers, if not he, have realized that he is on to a losing plan, but the Post Office story won’t go away. House Democrats have scheduled a hearing for August 24th, at which Trump’s Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, will be called to testify.
The third service that Trump has afforded Biden is to provide him with a compelling message. Even some of the Democratic candidate’s advisers privately concede that he isn’t a politician with strong ideological convictions or a clearly defined policy agenda. An instinctive centrist, he has tacked to the left with his party on many issues, addressing climate change, the minimum wage, and taxing the rich, and has held his ground on others, such as Medicare for All and fracking. In a different cycle, Biden’s lack of a distinctive philosophy could be an electoral handicap. This year, it is arguably a big advantage, because it allows him to portray his campaign as a welcoming vessel that anybody who wants to save the country from Trump can clamber aboard: moderate Democrats, progressive Democrats, independents, Never Trump Republicans, and Republicans who voted for Trump in 2016 but have come to regret it. From April of last year, when he launched his campaign, Biden made clear that his primary agenda was ridding the United States of a pestilence. In the video announcement he posted online, he cited the infamous comments that Trump made after the clashes between white supremacists and anti-fascist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, and he described the coming election as “a battle for the soul of this nation.”
During the past sixteen months, Biden has used this same language repeatedly, including last week, when he introduced Harris as his running mate. It sometimes sounds a bit stilted, but it also has the merit of being frighteningly accurate. “I believe history will look back on four years of this President, and all he embraces, as an aberrant moment in time,” Biden went on to say in his launch video. “But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation.”
On Thursday night, Biden will deliver this message again, almost certainly combining it with pledges to confront the pandemic on the basis of science and compassion, to build a cleaner and more equitable economy, and to fulfill the civil-rights legacy of John Lewis, the late Democratic congressman, who will be the subject of a video tribute introduced by Keisha Lance Bottoms, the mayor of Atlanta. Even though there will be no crowds to cheer him in person, and no balloons poised to drop on his head, Biden will have a unique opportunity to reassert the values of decency, truth, and democracy, as well as the virtues of competent Presidential leadership. Let’s hope he rises to the occasion.


newyorker--2020-08-18--Expedite Your Status As a True New Yorker: A Handy Cheat Sheet

There ’ s a never-ending debate among New York City natives and longtime dwellers : depending on whom you ask , people will tell you that the only true New Yorkers are the ones born here ; others place a ten-year minimum of living here to make the cut .
I once read an article that addressed the issue in one , concise sentence : “ Being a New Yorker is an endless process of earning it.
” That sentence was followed by a list of qualities typical of a New Yorker—buying a dollar slice at 4 A.M. , seeing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , walking by a celebrity without batting an eyelash , etc .
Sure , these traits and experiences help substantiate your status as a real New Yorker , but I ’ m about to tell you how to cheat .
I ’ m going to teach you how to expedite the process of earning your New Yorker credibility , so that the next time you find yourself having the age-old argument with a native you can shut down whoever is trying to deny your authenticity .
Go see a psychic adviser while blackout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yorker status by 35 % ) .
Use your yoga mat to stop the subway doors from closing , so that you can get on the train ( 60 % ) .
Put a cigarette out in an intern ’ s Lean Cuisine ( 20 % ) .
Fall into an open manhole while in the middle of signing an e-mail with “ Best ” ( 45 % ) .
Get brunch-drunk and hail a taxi with a baguette ( 55 % ) .
Google the word “ aesthetic ” while sitting in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ walls and furniture that can only be described as “ fun ” ( 60 % ) .
Answer the Craigslist ad of someone looking for a person on whom to practice their knife-throwing act , because you ’ re a hundred dollars short on rent ( 45 % ) .
Arrive at a job interview with the faint remains of a club stamp on your hand ( 25 % ) .
Smuggle granola bars into Soho House when your friend who has a membership invites you , because you know that you can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 15 % ) .
Get drunk at a work function and flirt with your co-worker ( 30 % ) .
Apologize to your co-worker , via e-mail , for “ complicating things ” and live out the rest of your professional life in mild discomfort ( 30 % ) .
Who gives a fuck about your co-worker ?
!
You met someone new and cuter and now you ’ re in a happy and healthy relationship with a person who is completely attracted to you , has no emotional baggage , and remembers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( 0 % ) .
Dip your hair in fake blood and whip your head back and forth on the High Line during peak tourist visiting hours ( 30 % ) .
Agree to pay an extra four dollars for three drops of CBD oil in your latte ( 25 % ) .
Crack your iPhone screen while swiping left on Tinder too fast ( 30 % ) .
From “ Born to Be Public , ” by Greg Mania , to be published by Clash Books .

Photograph from Getty
There’s a never-ending debate among New York City natives and longtime dwellers: depending on whom you ask, people will tell you that the only true New Yorkers are the ones born here; others place a ten-year minimum of living here to make the cut. I once read an article that addressed the issue in one, concise sentence: “Being a New Yorker is an endless process of earning it.” That sentence was followed by a list of qualities typical of a New Yorker—buying a dollar slice at 4 A.M., seeing an outdoor movie screening in Bryant Park, walking by a celebrity without batting an eyelash, etc.
Sure, these traits and experiences help substantiate your status as a real New Yorker, but I’m about to tell you how to cheat. I’m going to teach you how to expedite the process of earning your New Yorker credibility, so that the next time you find yourself having the age-old argument with a native you can shut down whoever is trying to deny your authenticity.
Go see a psychic adviser while blackout drunk and crying (expedites your real-New Yorker status by 35%).
Use your yoga mat to stop the subway doors from closing, so that you can get on the train (60%).
Put a cigarette out in an intern’s Lean Cuisine (20%).
Fall into an open manhole while in the middle of signing an e-mail with “Best” (45%).
Get brunch-drunk and hail a taxi with a baguette (55%).
Google the word “aesthetic” while sitting in a communal dining area that has white walls and furniture that can only be described as “fun” (60%).
Answer the Craigslist ad of someone looking for a person on whom to practice their knife-throwing act, because you’re a hundred dollars short on rent (45%).
Arrive at a job interview with the faint remains of a club stamp on your hand (25%).
Smuggle granola bars into Soho House when your friend who has a membership invites you, because you know that you can’t afford the food there (15%).
Get drunk at a work function and flirt with your co-worker (30%).
Apologize to your co-worker, via e-mail, for “complicating things” and live out the rest of your professional life in mild discomfort (30%).
Who gives a fuck about your co-worker?! You met someone new and cuter and now you’re in a happy and healthy relationship with a person who is completely attracted to you, has no emotional baggage, and remembers things like how you take your coffee (0%).
Start a startup (55%).
Dip your hair in fake blood and whip your head back and forth on the High Line during peak tourist visiting hours (30%).
Agree to pay an extra four dollars for three drops of CBD oil in your latte (25%).
Crack your iPhone screen while swiping left on Tinder too fast (30%).
Move to L.A. (100%).
From “Born to Be Public,” by Greg Mania, to be published by Clash Books.


newyorker--2020-08-18--What Can America Learn from Europe About Regulating Big Tech?

Last October , a couple of days before joining Stanford University as the international policy director at the Cyber Policy Center , Marietje Schaake , a former member of the European Parliament , spoke alongside Eric Schmidt , the ex-C.E.O .
of Google , to a large audience of tech employees and academics .
It was the keynote event at a conference hosted by the newly launched Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence ( H.A.I . )
, at which Schaake would also have a co-appointment .
Beneath the scalloped panels of a blond wood ceiling , people sipped coffee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chairs of a new auditorium at the heart of campus .
Schmidt spoke first , striking expected notes .
He said that artificial intelligence would power “ extraordinary gains ” in the next five years and stressed just how central Google—which had helped fund H.A.I.—would be to those advances .
He acknowledged that China ’ s use of A.I .
for surveillance , especially in the Xinjiang region , was concerning .
But his main focus was the value that smarter A.I .
could bring to climate forecasting , cancer detection , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ science-fictional vision in which users of future technology donned headsets that allowed them to enter a virtual world as their younger selves .
“ It will be populated with the virtual images of your friends , who are also younger and more beautiful , ” he said , of this virtual world .
“ Is that a good thing or a bad thing ?
Do you like that world ?
” He gave a quizzical smile , leaving his own views on this possible future vague .
Schaake ’ s speech was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Schmidt emphasized the future , Schaake stressed the present ; where Schmidt dwelled on the private and the technological , Schaake foregrounded the public and the political .
“ I ’ m going to talk about governance , ” she began , before beginning a forceful critique of Big Tech ’ s extreme aversion to regulation , its unchecked collection of personal data , and its steady erosion of democracy .
She brought up the ethics statements that committees and conferences like the one she was addressing tend to generate .
“ It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” she said , referring to A.I .
ethics .
“ It ’ s also hard to be against ethics .
.
.
.
How do we make sure it ’ s meaningful and enforceable , and not just window dressing ?
” Schaake proceeded to answer her own question with a long wish list .
“ A.I .
development should promote fairness and justice , protect the rights and interests of stakeholders , and promote equality of opportunity , ” she said .
“ A.I .
should promote green development and meet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conservation .
A.I .
systems should continuously improve transparency , explainability , reliability , and controllability , and gradually achieve auditability , supervisability , traceability , and trustworthiness.
” She paused before revealing that she had been reading from “ Principles of A.I .
Government and Responsible A.I.
, ” an ethics statement produced by China ’ s national committee of A.I .
experts the previous June .
Groans and laughter rose from the crowd as they realized what this meant .
If China could issue such a lofty inventory of ideals while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then Silicon Valley could as well .
The Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence was arguably dedicated to producing just these sorts of grandly empty assurances .
If it ’ s hard to be against ethics , it ’ s just as hard to be against “ human-centered ” A.I .
; there are no institutes for “ inhuman ” or “ machine-centered ” artificial intelligence .
Schaake ’ s speech was a pointed message : talk is cheap .
July ’ s congressional hearings , in which the top executives of Amazon , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hours fielding skeptical questioning from a House antitrust panel , may signal a new era of increased regulation for American tech companies .
European lawmakers , however , have long outpaced their American counterparts ; having adopted new privacy regulations in 2018 , they have now begun drafting a series of new laws aimed at limiting the anticompetitive practices of the major tech companies in Europe .
Schaake—with her skepticism of rhetoric , her insistence on the role of government in protecting privacy and challenging monopolies , and her conviction that regulation enables @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quintessentially European approach to tech .
For her , the question is not whether the major tech companies will face democratic accountability but when .
Schaake was first elected to the European Parliament in 2009 , at the age of thirty .
She was one of the body ’ s youngest members .
At cocktail parties and social events , powerful male politicians sometimes assumed that she was a caterer ; at a reception , a man once plucked a glass of champagne from her hands .
She was often mistaken for an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and meetings reserved for elected officials , told to leave .
“ I thought it was very revealing—as soon as they figured out who I was , everything changed , ” she told me recently .
“ They became very polite and accommodating .
It was a powerful reminder that it ’ s important to treat people equally .
I still try to do that.
” Schaake never aspired to political office .
In her early twenties , she worked for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Netherlands Film Festival , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increasingly concerned by the rise of political extremism across Europe , and by the civic apathy of her peers , many of whom didn ’ t vote .
By her late twenties , she had served as a policy fellow in the office of Tom Lantos , a California congressman , and interned at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia .
A close friend and mentor encouraged her to consider running for office .
She didn ’ t think she had any real chance of being elected ; she set a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t forget to register as a candidate .
Shortly after her election , during the Arab Spring uprisings , she noticed a disturbing pattern .
While media attention focussed on the role of social media in touching off the protests , repressive governments were using other technologies developed by European and American companies to track and surveil dissidents in the Middle East .
It seemed to Schaake that the export of such “ dual-use ” technologies—ones with both civilian and military applications—involved an unusually clear trade-off between private-sector profits and human rights .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that used surveillance technology to violate those rights , and she helped draft the European Parliament ’ s position on dual-use export regulations .
Schaake had started paying closer attention to tech and its political effects .
In the years before the election of Donald Trump , she suspected that micro-targeted advertising and disinformation campaigns enabled by mass data collection could dramatically influence politics .
Her fears were fully vindicated by the 2016 American election .
The next year , while serving as a chief election observer for the Kenyan Presidential elections , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the American experience .
In Kenya , violence , claims of hacking , and widespread disinformation on social media hurled an entire political system into chaos .
Afterward , Schaake and her colleagues on the Election Observation Mission issued a scathing report that undermined the legitimacy of the election results ; they ’ d planned to deliver it from Nairobi but did so from Brussels after the newly elected Kenyan government made it clear that they would not be welcome if they returned .
In Kenya and the U.S. , tech platforms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unravelling .
But their size , she came to think , was putting them beyond the reach of regulation , accountability , and competition .
In the United States , the enforcement of antitrust laws has declined sharply since the nineteen-seventies .
The change is often attributed to the influence of the legal scholar Robert Bork , whose book “ The Antitrust Paradox , ” from 1978 , argued that the primary purpose of antitrust law is to promote consumer welfare by keeping prices low ; since consumers pay nothing for many tech @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as Gmail and Facebook with their personal data , which is used to attract advertisers—price is not strictly an issue .
And yet many legal scholars and regulators who focus on tech have begun to consider antitrust more broadly , citing , among other concerns , Facebook ’ s acquisition of smaller , competing companies and Amazon ’ s practice of launching its own brands to compete against other venders in a marketplace that it controls .
According to Transparency International , between 2014 and 2019 , the amount spent on lobbying by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Apple grew by five hundred and ten per cent in the European Union , where regulatory scrutiny has become tighter ; the latter three companies all increased their lobbying spending in America in 2019 , as well , a rise that coincides with increased attention from the Federal Trade Commission , the Justice Department , and state attorneys general .

Last October, a couple of days before joining Stanford University as the international policy director at the Cyber Policy Center, Marietje Schaake, a former member of the European Parliament, spoke alongside Eric Schmidt, the ex-C.E.O. of Google, to a large audience of tech employees and academics. It was the keynote event at a conference hosted by the newly launched Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (H.A.I.), at which Schaake would also have a co-appointment. Beneath the scalloped panels of a blond wood ceiling, people sipped coffee and typed on laptops in the plush chairs of a new auditorium at the heart of campus.
Schmidt spoke first, striking expected notes. He said that artificial intelligence would power “extraordinary gains” in the next five years and stressed just how central Google—which had helped fund H.A.I.—would be to those advances. He acknowledged that China’s use of A.I. for surveillance, especially in the Xinjiang region, was concerning. But his main focus was the value that smarter A.I. could bring to climate forecasting, cancer detection, and drug discovery. He concluded with a science-fictional vision in which users of future technology donned headsets that allowed them to enter a virtual world as their younger selves. “It will be populated with the virtual images of your friends, who are also younger and more beautiful,” he said, of this virtual world. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Do you like that world?” He gave a quizzical smile, leaving his own views on this possible future vague.
Schaake’s speech was a hairpin turn in rhetorical space. Where Schmidt emphasized the future, Schaake stressed the present; where Schmidt dwelled on the private and the technological, Schaake foregrounded the public and the political. “I’m going to talk about governance,” she began, before beginning a forceful critique of Big Tech’s extreme aversion to regulation, its unchecked collection of personal data, and its steady erosion of democracy. She brought up the ethics statements that committees and conferences like the one she was addressing tend to generate. “It’s a very popular topic,” she said, referring to A.I. ethics. “It’s also hard to be against ethics. . . . How do we make sure it’s meaningful and enforceable, and not just window dressing?”
Schaake proceeded to answer her own question with a long wish list. “A.I. development should promote fairness and justice, protect the rights and interests of stakeholders, and promote equality of opportunity,” she said. “A.I. should promote green development and meet the requirements of environmental friendliness and resource conservation. A.I. systems should continuously improve transparency, explainability, reliability, and controllability, and gradually achieve auditability, supervisability, traceability, and trustworthiness.” She paused before revealing that she had been reading from “Principles of A.I. Government and Responsible A.I.,” an ethics statement produced by China’s national committee of A.I. experts the previous June.
Groans and laughter rose from the crowd as they realized what this meant. If China could issue such a lofty inventory of ideals while simultaneously surveilling and suppressing its citizens, then Silicon Valley could as well. The Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence was arguably dedicated to producing just these sorts of grandly empty assurances. If it’s hard to be against ethics, it’s just as hard to be against “human-centered” A.I.; there are no institutes for “inhuman” or “machine-centered” artificial intelligence. Schaake’s speech was a pointed message: talk is cheap.
July’s congressional hearings, in which the top executives of Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple spent hours fielding skeptical questioning from a House antitrust panel, may signal a new era of increased regulation for American tech companies. European lawmakers, however, have long outpaced their American counterparts; having adopted new privacy regulations in 2018, they have now begun drafting a series of new laws aimed at limiting the anticompetitive practices of the major tech companies in Europe. Schaake—with her skepticism of rhetoric, her insistence on the role of government in protecting privacy and challenging monopolies, and her conviction that regulation enables rather than suppresses innovation—epitomizes a pragmatic and quintessentially European approach to tech. For her, the question is not whether the major tech companies will face democratic accountability but when.
Schaake was first elected to the European Parliament in 2009, at the age of thirty. She was one of the body’s youngest members. At cocktail parties and social events, powerful male politicians sometimes assumed that she was a caterer; at a reception, a man once plucked a glass of champagne from her hands. She was often mistaken for an intern or assistant and, in rooms and meetings reserved for elected officials, told to leave. “I thought it was very revealing—as soon as they figured out who I was, everything changed,” she told me recently. “They became very polite and accommodating. It was a powerful reminder that it’s important to treat people equally. I still try to do that.”
Schaake never aspired to political office. In her early twenties, she worked for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Netherlands Film Festival, among other places. But she became increasingly concerned by the rise of political extremism across Europe, and by the civic apathy of her peers, many of whom didn’t vote. By her late twenties, she had served as a policy fellow in the office of Tom Lantos, a California congressman, and interned at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. A close friend and mentor encouraged her to consider running for office. She didn’t think she had any real chance of being elected; she set a phone alarm so that she wouldn’t forget to register as a candidate.
Shortly after her election, during the Arab Spring uprisings, she noticed a disturbing pattern. While media attention focussed on the role of social media in touching off the protests, repressive governments were using other technologies developed by European and American companies to track and surveil dissidents in the Middle East. It seemed to Schaake that the export of such “dual-use” technologies—ones with both civilian and military applications—involved an unusually clear trade-off between private-sector profits and human rights. She began advocating targeted sanctions against countries that used surveillance technology to violate those rights, and she helped draft the European Parliament’s position on dual-use export regulations.
Schaake had started paying closer attention to tech and its political effects. In the years before the election of Donald Trump, she suspected that micro-targeted advertising and disinformation campaigns enabled by mass data collection could dramatically influence politics. Her fears were fully vindicated by the 2016 American election. The next year, while serving as a chief election observer for the Kenyan Presidential elections, she saw a chaotic, metastasized version of the American experience. In Kenya, violence, claims of hacking, and widespread disinformation on social media hurled an entire political system into chaos. Afterward, Schaake and her colleagues on the Election Observation Mission issued a scathing report that undermined the legitimacy of the election results; they’d planned to deliver it from Nairobi but did so from Brussels after the newly elected Kenyan government made it clear that they would not be welcome if they returned.
In Kenya and the U.S., tech platforms had played a pivotal role in civic unravelling. But their size, she came to think, was putting them beyond the reach of regulation, accountability, and competition. In the United States, the enforcement of antitrust laws has declined sharply since the nineteen-seventies. The change is often attributed to the influence of the legal scholar Robert Bork, whose book “The Antitrust Paradox,” from 1978, argued that the primary purpose of antitrust law is to promote consumer welfare by keeping prices low; since consumers pay nothing for many tech products—they “pay” for services such as Gmail and Facebook with their personal data, which is used to attract advertisers—price is not strictly an issue. And yet many legal scholars and regulators who focus on tech have begun to consider antitrust more broadly, citing, among other concerns, Facebook’s acquisition of smaller, competing companies and Amazon’s practice of launching its own brands to compete against other venders in a marketplace that it controls. According to Transparency International, between 2014 and 2019, the amount spent on lobbying by Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple grew by five hundred and ten per cent in the European Union, where regulatory scrutiny has become tighter; the latter three companies all increased their lobbying spending in America in 2019, as well, a rise that coincides with increased attention from the Federal Trade Commission, the Justice Department, and state attorneys general.
As she approached the end of her second term, Schaake was increasingly aware of the backroom realities that shape political life. As the major American tech companies expanded in Europe, lobbyists were exerting increasing pressure on politicians and regulators. She saw colleagues engaged in all sorts of compromises and deceptions; sometimes legislators would paste large chunks of text written by lobbyists into drafts of laws. “There are limits to what you can do if you want to rise,” she said. “It’s a thin line between pragmatism and cynicism.” After deciding not to run for a third term, she was offered lucrative jobs at several major American tech companies, but she felt that it would be inappropriate to accept a position lobbying her former colleagues. A spot in academia was the other logical choice. She had participated in a 2019 Intelligence Squared debate in Philadelphia, arguing in favor of stricter Internet-speech regulation on a team with Nate Persily, a professor at Stanford Law School. Persily happened to play tennis with Rob Reich, a political scientist at Stanford who had recently become an associate director at the new Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. The two began recruiting her. “I think it’s incredibly important for not just Silicon Valley but the United States, in general, to become familiar with the European regulatory perspective,” Persily told me. “In many ways, Europe is the only functioning regulator of Silicon Valley.”


newyorker--2020-08-18--The Race to Investigate a Coronavirus Outbreak at a Georgia Prep School

The Lovett School , a private K-12 institution in Atlanta with an annual tuition approaching thirty thousand dollars , stopped holding in-person classes in March .
From that point until the end of the school year , all meetings happened online .
On May 17th , a hundred and sixty graduating seniors and their families observed the occasion with an automotive parade around the tree-lined , hundred-acre campus , which is situated along a picturesque bend in the Chattahoochee River , a few miles from the governor ’ s mansion , in the city ’ s tony Buckhead district .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ 67 Stingray , among other vehicles , circled for about forty-five minutes .
Graduates yelled out of car windows and from the bed of a pickup truck .
Queen ’ s “ We Are the Champions ” blared from speakers .
Faculty and administrators lined the route , handing out cookies .
About a month later , I spoke to a father who had driven around his son .
“ I haven ’ t left my driveway in twenty-one days , ” he said .
He and his son had both since @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I had a fever for nine days , ” the father told me .
“ I ’ ve been unable to play golf.
” He knew just how they had got it , he insisted .
It wasn ’ t the parade .
“ We got it from one of those parties , ” he told me .
“ We know the kids who got it , ” he added .
After the parade , multiple Lovett families held private parties to celebrate .
One party , at a home , was attended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a back yard , was attended by about fifty .
There were also smaller gatherings .
This seemed fine at the time , the dad said .
“ We don ’ t live in New York , ” he pointed out .
“ Our state was open.
” Georgia , under a directive from Governor Brian Kemp , was the first state to allow businesses to reopen , on April 24th .
This alarmed many observers ; a headline in The Atlantic described Kemp ’ s decision as an “ experiment in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first few weeks , no clear spike in cases was detected .
“ We were no longer in quarantine , ” the dad said .
“ They were telling people to go to restaurants , get their hair cut , get a tattoo , do things .
It ’ s Georgia , for God ’ s sake.
” His family , he went on , was lucky they detected the virus when they did .
“ The only reason we knew he had it was because my son had what he thought was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ began feeling two days after the parade , “ and we were going to the lake the next weekend to see his grandparents from North Carolina .
We said , ‘ Let ’ s drive by Georgia Tech and just get him checked.
’ ” They did that two days after the onset of symptoms , on May 21st , the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend .
The positive COVID-19 test result came back the same day and the family notified Lovett immediately .
“ We probably saved lives , ” the father @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s nurse , Shana Horan , called a COVID-19 hotline operated by the Georgia Department of Public Health to report the school ’ s first positive test .
On Friday , Lovett ’ s head of school , Meredyth Cole , e-mailed the senior class and their families to tell them that a graduating senior—who had stayed in a car during the parade , but “ later had company over for a graduation gathering , and then traveled out of town with friends , ” she noted—had tested positive .
On Saturday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from a reporter with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution , who told them that he ’ d been informed “ by some parents ” about a positive test at the school .
Cole e-mailed the rest of the student body later that day .
By then , she was aware of “ several ” students with positive diagnoses .
It was around this time that a TikTok video featuring two girls from the school , one in a Lovett sweatshirt , began to make the rounds .
“ Hey , yo !
” one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Coronavirus check !
” A split screen appears to juxtapose the girls before and after their test results .
( In the latter footage , they ’ re wearing masks and brandishing sanitizer . )
The loop is overlaid with the text “ We jinxed ourselves , we have corona.
” On Saturday evening , a local TV station , Channel 11 , reported the existence of what would soon be called the Lovett cluster .
The Journal-Constitution story appeared shortly afterward , as did other local stories .
The father who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told me that his son got calls from reporters with the Washington Post and CNN .
Other families did , too .
Some students were contacted by journalists through direct messages on Twitter .
The dad blamed Lovett for the media coverage .
When he called the school nurse , he said , she had asked him for various pieces of information .
“ We thought they were putting together the pieces for health reasons .
But it turned out they were putting together the pieces for the press.
” Cole told me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media was “ the same facts and information that we shared with our families and posted on our Web site.
” The father felt that Lovett kids had been unfairly singled out .
“ I know that there was a Holy Innocents party , too , ” he said , referring to another local private school .
“ A Westminster group had gone down to Pawley ’ s Island , ” a summer-resort destination in South Carolina , “ and decided they ’ d self-quarantine these seniors and let them have fun .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It jumped schools .
It jumped friend groups .
It jumped everything .
And now it ’ s just here.
” Probably most Americans have only learned about contact tracing during the coronavirus pandemic .
Though challenging in practice , it ’ s a simple enough idea : investigators communicate with people known to have an infectious disease , learn who they have been in close contact with while infected , then ask those in this wider group to isolate themselves until the risk of infecting others has passed .
Investigations have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to prevent the spread of the disease .
The night the Channel 11 report aired , Lynn Paxton , the top health official in Fulton County , which includes Atlanta , e-mailed the county ’ s chief epidemiologist , Fazle Khan , and Kathleen Toomey , the commissioner of Georgia ’ s health department .
“ I apologize for disturbing you on the weekend , ” she wrote , “ but wanted to know if you were aware of a cluster of infections among graduating seniors at the Lovett School ?
It is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much detail is not being given in the article.
” Paxton had recently come out of retirement after a long career at the C.D.C.
, where she had worked on H.I.V .
prevention , served as a captain in the U.S. Public Health Service , and been the Zika coördinator for the Center for Global Health .
She took the job in Fulton County to help her home state fight the coronavirus .
Khan told her that he had also just learned about the cluster—an on-call epidemiologist with the county Board of Health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about an hour or so ago , ” he wrote .
“ Had no details .
I have asked her to dig a bit and let me know.
” Smith followed up with her colleagues to say that she would contact Lovett ’ s head nurse .
“ Don ’ t waste your sleep on this , ” Khan answered .
It would be fine to deal with it in the morning .

Several days into the investigation, Fazle Khan, the chief epidemiologist, wrote to his colleagues. “Nobody is to mention the name of the school on their own,” he informed them. He added, “We have been asked to be sensitive about this.” Minutes later, he wrote, “This has suddenly become politically charged. That’s why I was waiting for signal from above.” Paxton told me that she did not know what “signal from above” Khan was referring to; the health department declined to make Khan available for comment.
Despite the change to the script, it soon became clear that phone calls would not be sufficient: the tracers were not making enough progress. “It was almost like the clock was being run out,” Paxton told me. “That’s when we discussed, ‘Do we just send these quarantine orders out to the entire class?’ ” This would have involved hand-delivering letters to the homes of every graduating senior, possibly with the help of the sheriff’s office—“kind of the nuclear option,” Paxton said. A county attorney explained to the team that, while they could ask Lovett for addresses, “the school will probably not divulge that information without an order.” A Lovett official told me, “Their initial request was for phone numbers only, and we complied with that. Several days later, we were asked for addresses for the entire Class of 2020 graduates, which we were advised by counsel to not provide.” Khan e-mailed Paxton that “the Sheriff’s office has a way of finding addresses.” But showing up at the doorsteps of the mansions of Buckhead could easily backfire, and it may have been too late already.
A local TV station aired a segment on the reluctance of Lovett families to coöperate with the health department, noting that the three Buckhead-area Zip Codes around the school had recently reported the three highest-percentage increases in new cases in all of Fulton County. On June 2nd, Sasha Smith, the on-call epidemiologist working with the Board of Health, e-mailed Fazle Khan, asking for “an update on the number of COVID-19 positives that are associated with The Lovett School.” More than two weeks—the time a typical tracing investigation takes to complete, Paxton told me—had now passed. Khan replied to Smith, “There is no straight forward answer to this.”
That same day, Thornton Kennedy, whose son had graduated from Lovett a few weeks before, published a column in the Northside Neighbor, a small paper that serves upscale communities in north Atlanta. Kennedy, who’s in his mid-forties, is a seventh-generation Atlantan, and a Lovett alum. Like many Lovett families, the Kennedys have been well off for a long time: Kennedy’s great-great-great grandfather, George Adair, has been credited with starting the first real-estate firm in the United States, at the end of the Civil War. Adair was also a slaveholder and a friend of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of the Ku Klux Klan. When I first spoke to Kennedy, he had just been texting with city-council members in Sandy Springs, just north of Atlanta, about the possible renaming of a street called Lake Forrest Drive. The origin of the street’s name was not entirely clear, but Kennedy, who called himself “as middle-of-the-road as you can get,” politically, figured it needed to be changed. “We get to fight the good fight,” he told me, referring to old Atlantans hoping to move the city forward from past sins. (My family has also been in Atlanta for seven generations.) Kennedy was the only parent of a graduating senior whom I could find who was willing to talk on the record about the outbreak without remaining anonymous.
In his column, Kennedy took issue with the public narrative of the Lovett cluster. He was mainly bothered, he told me, by the “stigmatization” of the Lovett kids. “There was a negative connotation aimed towards these kids and this school, in particular,” he said. He went on, “The stereotype of these spoiled kids is that the rules don’t apply to them. To me, that’s every teen-ager that’s ever walked the face of the earth.” He offered a personal story to make this point. “When I was in high school, someone told me that if you did a hundred miles per hour through the toll at Georgia 400, they couldn’t read your license plate,” he said. “So every time I went through that toll in my Honda Accord, I was doing a hundred. The car was literally shaking. I could have killed countless people. But every time, as soon as I saw it, I jammed the accelerator and held on for dear life.” He added, “And I never got a ticket.”
If Lovetteers had thrown a few parties to celebrate an important milestone, Kennedy wrote in his column, then big deal. “I imagine it happened at a few schools,” he wrote. “Everything is opening back up, and these teenagers have been sheltering in place along with the rest of us since mid-March.” Although the press had not named any students, Kennedy felt that “the damage” was done. “Summer opportunities have been withdrawn,” he wrote in his column. “Everyone seems to be pointing fingers along predictively political lines. The lives of these graduates, already upended, were in complete chaos.”
Kwonjune Justin Seung, from Partners in Health, told me that, speaking generally, he felt sympathy for the “unfairly demonized” people who make headlines for not coöperating with contact-tracing investigations. In some cases, he said, the same people who hang up on epidemiologists will pick up the phone to call everyone they know who they might have infected, doing some unofficial contact tracing themselves, and showing a concern for their communities. (One father I spoke to described such behavior among Lovett families.) “I mean, why do we know about their outbreaks?” Seung went on. “Often, it’s because they tested themselves. In a place like Georgia, that means spending hours in line and encouraging their friends to get tested.” He continued, “So, on one hand, you get frustrated with them: ‘How come you just don’t give me the list of names?’ But, at the same time, there’s a lot of other gatherings out there where people don’t get themselves tested, so you never know that there was a mini-outbreak.”
I asked Kennedy if he had specifics about the cluster. “I’ve mostly just heard rumors,” he said. “Innuendo, things like that.” His son had attended a graduation party, but he wasn’t clear on the details. The heart of the matter, he remained convinced, was innocent and well-intentioned fun. When we first spoke, in June, he told me that his daughter, who transferred out of Lovett last year, had recently contracted COVID-19 after going to the beach with some friends, which he and his wife had advised that she do “very carefully.” (His daughter has since recovered.)
Paxton told me that a private physician had been working for some of the Lovett parents and not coördinating with the health department, but she couldn’t tell me more about this doctor, and neither would anybody else. “None of the same rules apply to these people,” a friend who lives in the area surrounding Lovett told me, a week or so after I talked to Kennedy. By then, new cases of the coronavirus had begun to really climb in the state—roughly two thousand were being confirmed each day. “We’re talking about kids who drive Range Rovers and Mercedes to school, spreading the virus with abandon and living their best life, having to face zero consequences, not participating in the tracing effort,” the friend added.
Khan sent an update to Meredyth Cole on June 5th. “We are already almost three weeks away from the time of potential exposure in mid-May and might have passed the critical period of transmission of infection,” he wrote. “Yet the possibility of carriage and transmission of infection remains.” The letter noted that there were still seventy-five cases and contacts associated with the Lovett cluster that Khan’s team had been unable to reach. “We would advise that all those that we were not able to reach get tested,” Khan wrote. He shared a draft of a letter that recommended testing and listed nearby testing sites. Cole did not reply. Khan e-mailed again five days later. “We need your assistance in finishing up the work,” he wrote.
I asked Paxton whether she thought that people who are well off are less likely to coöperate, perhaps believing that they can handle everything privately. She replied that there are many reasons that someone might resist coöperating. I also spoke with Michael Reid, a professor of medicine who runs the contact-tracing effort in San Francisco. He mentioned “a kind of graduation party” in that area, after which a kid tested positive—the kid’s father, when contacted, “was very reluctant to give the names of other kids in the graduation party,” he said. Reid, too, was reluctant to draw sweeping conclusions, though he wouldn’t rule out the possibility that there was “more diffidence to engaging with contact tracing” among wealthier people, who, as he put it, “have more agency, compared to communities that are just overwhelmed by this disease and want to do everything they can to stop its spread.”
In the end, a number of Lovett families were never reached. Seung told me that the critical window for an investigation is about five days. After that, he said, “you might catch some of them, but others have already been infected, and you’re really trying to figure out what you can learn from this episode. How big was it? How many people got infected? What really went wrong at this school gathering? Why is it hard to find everybody?”
By early July, there were more than a hundred and fifty thousand reported cases of COVID-19 in Georgia, and the number was increasing by more than three thousand a day. Paxton told me that directors of contact-tracing efforts elsewhere in the state were “encountering the same kinds of things” she faced when attempting to trace the Lovett outbreak. And “Lovett,” she said, had “kind of become a code word.” She explained, “One of the other district directors was reporting a cluster investigation that wasn’t going as smoothly as she wanted, and she characterized it as, ‘Oh, yes, it’s Lovett Part 2.’ So it got into our lexicon.”
“It’s not just Georgia,” Paxton went on. “Everywhere there are difficulties.” A report in the Times noted that “contact tracing, a cornerstone of the public health arsenal to tamp down the coronavirus across the world, has largely failed in the United States.” By July, new hospitalizations in Georgia were surging; some state hospitals began to run out of available I.C.U beds. On July 16th, Governor Kemp announced that he was suing the mayor of Atlanta for issuing a citywide order that mandated the wearing of masks. (A judge sent the suit to mediation; Kemp recently dropped it.) That same day, the Journal-Constitution reported an outbreak among staff at the Ansley Golf Club, an exclusive club in downtown Atlanta, which required masks only upon entry, and which had kept open its restaurant and “men’s grill.” One member of Ansley told me, “It’s safer out on the golf course right now.” Some sixty-seven employees had tested positive, leading the club to close. At least one Lovett family with a 2020 graduate belongs to Ansley; at least three other Lovett alumni are also members there. Paxton told me she had “no indications that the cases are related.”


newyorker--2020-08-18--David Gilbert Reads “Cicadia”

David Gilbert Reads “Cicadia”

David Gilbert reads his story from the August 24 , 2020 , issue of the magazine .
Gilbert is the @ @ @ @ @ “ Remote Feed ” and two novels , “ & Sons ” and “ The @ @ @

Photograph by Tim Knox / eyevine / Redux
David Gilbert reads his story from the August 24, 2020, issue of the magazine. Gilbert is the author of the story collection “Remote Feed” and two novels, “& Sons” and “The Normals.”


newyorker--2020-08-18--“We Were Locked Up in One Country and Released Into Another”: Horror and Hope as Protests in Belarus

“We Were Locked Up in One Country and Released Into Another”: Horror and Hope as Protests in Belarus Continue

On Sunday , hundreds of thousands of Belarusians took to the streets of Minsk and other cities in the largest protest yet against the dictatorship of Alexander Lukashenka , and the largest demonstrations in the history of the country .
Lukashenka ’ s regime cracked down on protesters immediately following a rigged election a week earlier .
The brutality of the state ’ s response not only failed to scare people into staying home but united them in protest .
In the last few days , accounts of people who had been detained and released have been circulating online , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stun grenades , bullets , and batons wielded by Lukashenka ’ s forces .
Some of those who attended Sunday ’ s rally held up gruesome photographs of injuries .
On the eve of Sunday ’ s protest , I spoke to a friend who had been released from prison the previous night .
Svetlana Sugako , who is thirty-five , and her partner , Nadezhda Brodskaya , who is thirty-four , run the day-to-day operations of Belarus Free Theatre .
The troupe , which has won acclaim in the West , performs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s not on tour ; its founders have lived in exile for a decade .
I got to know Svetlana and Nadezhda well when I was writing an essay about their life and work .
We spent time together in Minsk , Melbourne , New York , Toronto , and Tampere , Finland .
Now Svetlana was calling me from a relative ’ s apartment in Minsk .
On the night of the vote , Svetlana and Nadezhda went to a polling place in central Minsk to look at local results @ @ @ @ @ @ @ waiting for the numbers .
The women were sitting on a low wall when a special-forces police van pulled up .
“ The doors opened and people in black gear poured out , ” Svetlana told me .
“ Most people ran away , but Nadia and I just kept sitting on the wall .
They were looking at us like they couldn ’ t figure out why we weren ’ t running away .
Then they said , ‘ What are you doing sitting there ?
Let ’ s go.
’ They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were already two people there , who had been observers at another polling place.
” The van drove around for several hours—they could not know how long , because their captors had taken their phones—and picked up several more people .
They then drove to a jail on Akrescina Street , away from the center of town .
“ There were fifteen or twenty of us by the time we got there , ” Svetlana said .
“ They lined us up against the wall , facing the wall , hands behind your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ screaming and cursing .
One by one , we had to go into a room where you had to strip completely , squat in that way you have to squat to show that you were not smuggling anything in , in front of a woman .
Then there was a nurse who did a cursory checkup and wrote my name down on a register .
I saw that I was around No .
40.
” Once processed , twelve women captives were rushed down a hallway to their cell .
“ They were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ !
Look down at the floor !
Don ’ t you look at me , you bitch , you whore—faster , I said run faster.
’ ” The twelve women were locked in an eight-person cell .
Through the open window , they could hear prisoner transports arriving one after another .
None of them slept that night , Svetlana said , because of the sounds of the jail .
“ The sound of nightsticks against bodies , screaming , the sound of sadists who have gained access to human flesh , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sound of people being made to run up and down the stairs , the slamming of doors , the sound of people being thrown into cells.
” She could hear men being beaten .
Svetlana ’ s cellmates were terrified .
They included a family—a woman in her early fifties and her two daughters , in their mid-twenties—who were arrested , along with the older woman ’ s husband , when they went to check the voting results at their local precinct ; like all Belarusians , they had no internet connection that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the oldest was around seventy .
Except for Svetlana , who had been arrested at a protest before , none had ever seen the inside of a jail .
The following day was marked by absences .
There was no food or water , and no formal charges or grounds for arrest presented to the inmates .
More than twenty-four hours after they were detained , the women were taken out of their cell and told to sign a document that purported to describe the circumstances under which they were detained .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ I was at a polling place , ’ or ‘ I was walking the dog , ’ or ‘ I was with my kids , ’ and immediately the sound of blows , and you could hear that they are using their batons and , from their comments , that they are trying to impress each other with how hard they are hitting.
” Svetlana couldn ’ t read what she was being asked to sign , because an officer covered the top part of the sheet with her hand .
“ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of arrest were false , ” she said .
“ So I wrote , ‘ I do not certify.
’ The woman officer started twisting my arms behind my back and made me kneel .
She had some trouble getting me down to the floor , so she put me in a choke hold .
I said , ‘ You are going to strangle me now and will have to live with it on your conscience , ’ and she loosened her grip .
She then forced me to stand facing the wall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I was put back in a cell.
” Later that day they were moved to a different cell .
Svetlana , Nadezhda , their original cellmates , and twenty-four other women were now placed in a room meant for four people .
It had a single window , which was open just a crack .
There were two bunk beds and two tables , and women sat three to a bunk and six to a table—three on each side , with their backs to one another .
The rest sat on the floor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
One woman , who suffered from claustrophobia , kept battling panic attacks .
Another , who was diabetic , kept asking for her medication , to no avail .
A third fainted and was revived by an injection and a piece of bread .
No one else had eaten .
“ We kept asking the guards to at least open the bean slot , ” Svetlana said .
“ They ’ d open it for a few minutes and then shut it again .
People started throwing up .
After two women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I started screaming into the bean hole , ‘ We are all going to croak here , and all you ’ ll have in the morning is a cell full of dead bodies !
’ In response , they opened the door and threw a bucketful of cold water on us .
This made things worse , because people ’ s clothes were now wet , as was the floor and some of the mattresses.
” By the following morning , the inmates still had not had any food , and the only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the cell ; it smelled foul .
They were once again taken out of their cell and marched up a flight of stairs , to a floor of offices where judges were conducting hasty hearings .
“ They lined us up against the wall again , then led me into an office , ” Svetlana said .
“ The judge asked me , ‘ Are you repentant ?
’ I said , ‘ What am I supposed to repent for ?
I haven ’ t done anything , and I haven ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opened it and read it out loud , but I could tell that this was now a different document .
It said that I ’ d taken part in an illegal mass protest and that I ’ d shouted ‘ Stop the cockroach !
’ and ‘ Long live Belarus !
’ And that I did all of this during the time when in fact I was already in a cell at this jail.
” Svetlana told the judge what had really happened , and the judge appeared to listen sympathetically .
Then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ten days of arrest .

On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of Belarusians took to the streets of Minsk and other cities in the largest protest yet against the dictatorship of Alexander Lukashenka, and the largest demonstrations in the history of the country. Lukashenka’s regime cracked down on protesters immediately following a rigged election a week earlier. The brutality of the state’s response not only failed to scare people into staying home but united them in protest. In the last few days, accounts of people who had been detained and released have been circulating online, as have photographs of people injured by stun grenades, bullets, and batons wielded by Lukashenka’s forces. Some of those who attended Sunday’s rally held up gruesome photographs of injuries.
On the eve of Sunday’s protest, I spoke to a friend who had been released from prison the previous night. Svetlana Sugako, who is thirty-five, and her partner, Nadezhda Brodskaya, who is thirty-four, run the day-to-day operations of Belarus Free Theatre. The troupe, which has won acclaim in the West, performs in a secret location in Minsk when it’s not on tour; its founders have lived in exile for a decade. I got to know Svetlana and Nadezhda well when I was writing an essay about their life and work. We spent time together in Minsk, Melbourne, New York, Toronto, and Tampere, Finland. Now Svetlana was calling me from a relative’s apartment in Minsk.
On the night of the vote, Svetlana and Nadezhda went to a polling place in central Minsk to look at local results. About fifty people were milling around waiting for the numbers. The women were sitting on a low wall when a special-forces police van pulled up. “The doors opened and people in black gear poured out,” Svetlana told me. “Most people ran away, but Nadia and I just kept sitting on the wall. They were looking at us like they couldn’t figure out why we weren’t running away. Then they said, ‘What are you doing sitting there? Let’s go.’ They took us to the van. There were already two people there, who had been observers at another polling place.” The van drove around for several hours—they could not know how long, because their captors had taken their phones—and picked up several more people. They then drove to a jail on Akrescina Street, away from the center of town.
“There were fifteen or twenty of us by the time we got there,” Svetlana said. “They lined us up against the wall, facing the wall, hands behind your back. There was a lot of screaming and cursing. One by one, we had to go into a room where you had to strip completely, squat in that way you have to squat to show that you were not smuggling anything in, in front of a woman. Then there was a nurse who did a cursory checkup and wrote my name down on a register. I saw that I was around No. 40.” Once processed, twelve women captives were rushed down a hallway to their cell. “They were screaming, ‘Hands behind your back! Look down at the floor! Don’t you look at me, you bitch, you whore—faster, I said run faster.’ ” The twelve women were locked in an eight-person cell. Through the open window, they could hear prisoner transports arriving one after another. None of them slept that night, Svetlana said, because of the sounds of the jail. “The sound of nightsticks against bodies, screaming, the sound of sadists who have gained access to human flesh,” Svetlana said. “And then the sound of people being made to run up and down the stairs, the slamming of doors, the sound of people being thrown into cells.” She could hear men being beaten. Svetlana’s cellmates were terrified. They included a family—a woman in her early fifties and her two daughters, in their mid-twenties—who were arrested, along with the older woman’s husband, when they went to check the voting results at their local precinct; like all Belarusians, they had no internet connection that night. Their youngest cellmate was eighteen and the oldest was around seventy. Except for Svetlana, who had been arrested at a protest before, none had ever seen the inside of a jail.
The following day was marked by absences. There was no food or water, and no formal charges or grounds for arrest presented to the inmates. More than twenty-four hours after they were detained, the women were taken out of their cell and told to sign a document that purported to describe the circumstances under which they were detained. “We heard people saying, ‘I was at a polling place,’ or ‘I was walking the dog,’ or ‘I was with my kids,’ and immediately the sound of blows, and you could hear that they are using their batons and, from their comments, that they are trying to impress each other with how hard they are hitting.” Svetlana couldn’t read what she was being asked to sign, because an officer covered the top part of the sheet with her hand. “I could see that the address and time of arrest were false,” she said. “So I wrote, ‘I do not certify.’ The woman officer started twisting my arms behind my back and made me kneel. She had some trouble getting me down to the floor, so she put me in a choke hold. I said, ‘You are going to strangle me now and will have to live with it on your conscience,’ and she loosened her grip. She then forced me to stand facing the wall, legs spread super-far apart. Then I was put back in a cell.”
Later that day they were moved to a different cell. Svetlana, Nadezhda, their original cellmates, and twenty-four other women were now placed in a room meant for four people. It had a single window, which was open just a crack. There were two bunk beds and two tables, and women sat three to a bunk and six to a table—three on each side, with their backs to one another. The rest sat on the floor, some of them under the beds. One woman, who suffered from claustrophobia, kept battling panic attacks. Another, who was diabetic, kept asking for her medication, to no avail. A third fainted and was revived by an injection and a piece of bread. No one else had eaten. “We kept asking the guards to at least open the bean slot,” Svetlana said. “They’d open it for a few minutes and then shut it again. People started throwing up. After two women vomited one right after the other, I started screaming into the bean hole, ‘We are all going to croak here, and all you’ll have in the morning is a cell full of dead bodies!’ In response, they opened the door and threw a bucketful of cold water on us. This made things worse, because people’s clothes were now wet, as was the floor and some of the mattresses.”
By the following morning, the inmates still had not had any food, and the only water available came from the tap in the cell; it smelled foul. They were once again taken out of their cell and marched up a flight of stairs, to a floor of offices where judges were conducting hasty hearings. “They lined us up against the wall again, then led me into an office,” Svetlana said. “The judge asked me, ‘Are you repentant?’ I said, ‘What am I supposed to repent for? I haven’t done anything, and I haven’t even read my booking document.’ She opened it and read it out loud, but I could tell that this was now a different document. It said that I’d taken part in an illegal mass protest and that I’d shouted ‘Stop the cockroach!’ and ‘Long live Belarus!’ And that I did all of this during the time when in fact I was already in a cell at this jail.” Svetlana told the judge what had really happened, and the judge appeared to listen sympathetically. Then she announced Svetlana’s sentence: ten days of arrest.