newyorker--2020-08-07--The Season of Cricket Returns to the U.K.

Under normal circumstances , the first morning of a Test match—the most celebrated form of cricket , contested between international teams , wearing traditional white uniforms , for a maximum of five days—feels like a holiday .
The game always begins on a weekday , and many spectators take time off work to watch it .
On the opening morning of a Test in Manchester , the streets near the stadium at Old Trafford are thronged with cricket lovers carrying bags filled with sandwiches , newspapers , binoculars , and rain jackets .
Groups of fans wear costumes : a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ red letterboxes ; a Tour de France peloton .
Scalpers ask , sotto voce , to buy or sell .
The noise of expectant chatter rises as the crowds thicken .
The bars around the stadium do brisk business .
A recent three-match Test series between England and the West Indies was not played under normal circumstances .
On the first morning of the deciding Test of an intriguing series tied at 1–1 , I walked twenty-five minutes from my house along near-empty streets to the entrance gate at Old Trafford , alone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Covid-19 , naturally .
In March , when the novel coronavirus began upending life and ending lives , it also appeared to have destroyed the chance of professional or recreational cricket being played in England in the spring and summer of 2020 .
Scratching a cricket season was a minor consideration in the context of a global pandemic , but it was a cause of real sadness to fans and players of the game .
Neville Cardus , the Mancunian grandfather of cricket writing , wrote , “ There can be no summer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ early days of the pandemic , the England and Wales Cricket Board , like other sporting bodies , looked for a way to salvage something—not least television revenue—from the spoiled calendar .
In early May , the E.C.B .
proposed an idea : biosecure cricket .
The proposal was similar to the “ bubbles ” currently in use by the N.B.A .
and professional soccer leagues , but cricket ’ s bubble would be complicated by the duration of a series , and by the need for international travel .
A team would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ themselves , stay in hotels that adjoined cricket stadiums , and be subjected to regular medical tests .
The England team would be similarly confined .
On the field , players could no longer polish the ball using saliva , in their customary way ; they were obligated to use only their own sweat .
( In June , when Prime Minister Boris Johnson was asked why nonprofessional cricket remained banned , he said that a cricket ball was a “ natural vector of disease.
” Recreational cricket resumed in July , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sanitizer . )
Around a hundred and twenty television and radio broadcasters would follow the series , but the majority would not return home between games .
Selected print journalists would gain access to matches in tiny groups , but would not mingle with anybody else .
There would be no paying spectators .
The West Indies team—made up of players from English-speaking Caribbean nations—agreed to play England in a three-match series : one in Southampton and two in Manchester .
Pakistan and Australia arranged to play England under similar conditions later in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against Pakistan began this week . )
International cricket played in England without crowds was a sterile prospect , in more than one sense , but it was still cricket .
A summer was possible .
Cricket is a mystery to most Americans .
I won ’ t explain all of its finicky laws , but the essentials are easy enough to understand .
Two teams take turns to bat .
The batters try to score runs ; the bowlers try to get them “ out.
” You are out if the ball @ @ @ @ @ @ @ catches a ball you have hit , or in exactly eight other ways .
A team is “ all out ” when ten batsmen have been dismissed .
In newer formats of the game , which limit a match by the number of balls each side can face , whichever team scores the most runs wins .
In more traditional forms , which are limited by time , there can be a draw ( but not a tie , which means something different in cricket ) if the team batting last is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the game are reflected in their aesthetics .
In short forms , players wear garish uniforms and use a white ball .
In traditional cricket , they play in white and use a red ball .
A Test match is considered by aficionados the sport ’ s best expression .
As its name suggests , it tests the players ’ skill , endurance , imagination , and concentration over long periods .
Both teams must bat twice .
Momentum can swing wildly within an hour of play .
Torpor gives way to drama @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Test match for England , in Leeds , against Australia , with a batting performance of scarcely believable skill and composure .
The final hour of that match was the best sport , of any kind , I had ever seen .
Gideon Haigh , one of cricket ’ s most reflective writers , explained to me recently that the five-day format is particularly beloved by journalists .
“ Test matches are long , complex , dense , evolving , confounding , ” he said .
“ It ’ s like having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This year , the E.C.B .
was due to begin a new , extremely short , and nearly incomprehensible format called the Hundred , the first season of which has now been postponed to 2021 , owing to the pandemic .
Its arrival is not a direct threat to Test matches , and I am eager to see how the Hundred will work .
But its announcement , in 2019 , occasioned many wistful and conservative laments for traditional cricket and its values—notably Michael Henderson ’ s “ That Will Be England Gone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ One Long and Beautiful Summer.
” Both books teem with evocative descriptions of a vanishing England of local cricket grounds surrounded by somnolent spectators in deck chairs .
The authors ’ conclusions strike me as too pessimistic , but whatever your view on the transformation of cricket , it seems likely that traditional versions of the game will become less significant .
It seems even possible , if unlikely , that they may eventually disappear altogether .
Traditional formats are already losing popularity , especially outside England and Australia .
Watching a Test @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see a mountain gorilla—an opportunity not to be spurned .
Two days before I arrived at Old Trafford , I was tested for Covid-19 at home by a nurse .
( Result : negative . )
At the gate , a security guard checked my credentials , and then I was accompanied to a tent where remote sensors measured my temperature .
If I had recorded anything higher than a hundred degrees Fahrenheit , I would have been ushered to an “ isolation room.
” I wore a mask as I walked to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a block normally reserved for corporate guests .
The only other person in my section was a genial , cricket-loving doctor , who was employed by the E.C.B .
Nobody in the bubble tested positive on any day of the series ; the doctor happily watched cricket and read his novel in the sunshine .
Phil Davies , the E.C.B.
’ s head of security , explained to me the measures put in place for the series .
Among other precautions , which included locating coronavirus-secure emergency dentists in each city where matches @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bought , for this summer alone , a hundred thousand surgical gloves , two hundred and fifty thousand face masks , and fifteen thousand litres of hand sanitizer .
Davies joked that Old Trafford was at that moment the safest place in England—unless you were a batter facing Jofra Archer , England ’ s deadly-fast bowler .

Under normal circumstances, the first morning of a Test match—the most celebrated form of cricket, contested between international teams, wearing traditional white uniforms, for a maximum of five days—feels like a holiday. The game always begins on a weekday, and many spectators take time off work to watch it. On the opening morning of a Test in Manchester, the streets near the stadium at Old Trafford are thronged with cricket lovers carrying bags filled with sandwiches, newspapers, binoculars, and rain jackets. Groups of fans wear costumes: a dozen Fred Flintstones; a gang of red letterboxes; a Tour de France peloton. Scalpers ask, sotto voce, to buy or sell. The noise of expectant chatter rises as the crowds thicken. The bars around the stadium do brisk business.
A recent three-match Test series between England and the West Indies was not played under normal circumstances. On the first morning of the deciding Test of an intriguing series tied at 1–1, I walked twenty-five minutes from my house along near-empty streets to the entrance gate at Old Trafford, alone. The reason for my solitude was Covid-19, naturally. In March, when the novel coronavirus began upending life and ending lives, it also appeared to have destroyed the chance of professional or recreational cricket being played in England in the spring and summer of 2020. Scratching a cricket season was a minor consideration in the context of a global pandemic, but it was a cause of real sadness to fans and players of the game.
Neville Cardus, the Mancunian grandfather of cricket writing, wrote, “There can be no summer in England without cricket.” In the early days of the pandemic, the England and Wales Cricket Board, like other sporting bodies, looked for a way to salvage something—not least television revenue—from the spoiled calendar. In early May, the E.C.B. proposed an idea: biosecure cricket. The proposal was similar to the “bubbles” currently in use by the N.B.A. and professional soccer leagues, but cricket’s bubble would be complicated by the duration of a series, and by the need for international travel. A team would arrive from overseas, meet nobody but themselves, stay in hotels that adjoined cricket stadiums, and be subjected to regular medical tests. The England team would be similarly confined. On the field, players could no longer polish the ball using saliva, in their customary way; they were obligated to use only their own sweat. (In June, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson was asked why nonprofessional cricket remained banned, he said that a cricket ball was a “natural vector of disease.” Recreational cricket resumed in July, with less spit than usual, and more sanitizer.) Around a hundred and twenty television and radio broadcasters would follow the series, but the majority would not return home between games. Selected print journalists would gain access to matches in tiny groups, but would not mingle with anybody else. There would be no paying spectators.
The West Indies team—made up of players from English-speaking Caribbean nations—agreed to play England in a three-match series: one in Southampton and two in Manchester. Pakistan and Australia arranged to play England under similar conditions later in the season. (The first Test against Pakistan began this week.) International cricket played in England without crowds was a sterile prospect, in more than one sense, but it was still cricket. A summer was possible.
Cricket is a mystery to most Americans. I won’t explain all of its finicky laws, but the essentials are easy enough to understand. Two teams take turns to bat. The batters try to score runs; the bowlers try to get them “out.” You are out if the ball hits your stumps, or a fielder catches a ball you have hit, or in exactly eight other ways. A team is “all out” when ten batsmen have been dismissed. In newer formats of the game, which limit a match by the number of balls each side can face, whichever team scores the most runs wins. In more traditional forms, which are limited by time, there can be a draw (but not a tie, which means something different in cricket) if the team batting last is not all out. The different versions of the game are reflected in their aesthetics. In short forms, players wear garish uniforms and use a white ball. In traditional cricket, they play in white and use a red ball.
A Test match is considered by aficionados the sport’s best expression. As its name suggests, it tests the players’ skill, endurance, imagination, and concentration over long periods. Both teams must bat twice. Momentum can swing wildly within an hour of play. Torpor gives way to drama. Last August, Ben Stokes won a Test match for England, in Leeds, against Australia, with a batting performance of scarcely believable skill and composure. The final hour of that match was the best sport, of any kind, I had ever seen. Gideon Haigh, one of cricket’s most reflective writers, explained to me recently that the five-day format is particularly beloved by journalists. “Test matches are long, complex, dense, evolving, confounding,” he said. “It’s like having the full palette to work with.”
This year, the E.C.B. was due to begin a new, extremely short, and nearly incomprehensible format called the Hundred, the first season of which has now been postponed to 2021, owing to the pandemic. Its arrival is not a direct threat to Test matches, and I am eager to see how the Hundred will work. But its announcement, in 2019, occasioned many wistful and conservative laments for traditional cricket and its values—notably Michael Henderson’s “That Will Be England Gone” and Duncan Hamilton’s “One Long and Beautiful Summer.” Both books teem with evocative descriptions of a vanishing England of local cricket grounds surrounded by somnolent spectators in deck chairs. The authors’ conclusions strike me as too pessimistic, but whatever your view on the transformation of cricket, it seems likely that traditional versions of the game will become less significant. It seems even possible, if unlikely, that they may eventually disappear altogether. Traditional formats are already losing popularity, especially outside England and Australia. Watching a Test, then, is like trekking to see a mountain gorilla—an opportunity not to be spurned.
Two days before I arrived at Old Trafford, I was tested for Covid-19 at home by a nurse. (Result: negative.) At the gate, a security guard checked my credentials, and then I was accompanied to a tent where remote sensors measured my temperature. If I had recorded anything higher than a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, I would have been ushered to an “isolation room.” I wore a mask as I walked to my position for the day, in a block normally reserved for corporate guests. The only other person in my section was a genial, cricket-loving doctor, who was employed by the E.C.B. Nobody in the bubble tested positive on any day of the series; the doctor happily watched cricket and read his novel in the sunshine.
Phil Davies, the E.C.B.’s head of security, explained to me the measures put in place for the series. Among other precautions, which included locating coronavirus-secure emergency dentists in each city where matches were played, the E.C.B. had bought, for this summer alone, a hundred thousand surgical gloves, two hundred and fifty thousand face masks, and fifteen thousand litres of hand sanitizer. Davies joked that Old Trafford was at that moment the safest place in England—unless you were a batter facing Jofra Archer, England’s deadly-fast bowler.
Archer, in fact, had encountered some trouble himself. Before the series’ second match, which was also at Old Trafford, he had breached team rules by briefly returning to his home on the southern coast of England. When the unauthorized journey came to light, Archer was cut for the second match and asked to isolate in his hotel room, which looked directly onto the pitch at Old Trafford. He wrote an extensive mea culpa, which included a novel apology to “everyone in the bio-secure bubble.” Nevertheless, Archer—who was born in Barbados, has a British passport, and qualified to play for England after having been a resident for three years—received online abuse, including racist slurs. Archer later wrote in an op-ed that he became so despondent by the reaction to his mistake that he considered leaving the England squad altogether.
Eventually, Archer was persuaded to ignore his detractors, and was reinstated to England’s team for the third and final match. But the incident was charged. The series was played in the aftermath of Black Lives Matter protests across England: both teams took a knee before the cricket began each morning. On the first day of the first match, an impassioned monologue about systemic racism from Michael Holding—a former Jamaican fast-bowler nicknamed Whispering Death during his career, who is now a cricket commentator for Sky Sports—went viral, in the happier sense of the word. Holding discussed his own experiences of prejudice on the cricket field, and about how people of all backgrounds needed to be better educated on the historic roots of racism. “The dehumanization of the Black race is where it started,” Holding said. “You don’t get over things like that. And society has not gotten over something like that.”
Test-match cricket was first played at Old Trafford in 1884. In his “Autobiography,” from 1947, Cardus wrote that its oval contained “the greenest grass in England.” He would hardly recognize the stadium now. The stately pavilion remains, and the grass is still the color of Cardus’s memory, but all around it are modern blocks colored a lurid red. The pitch itself was rotated ninety degrees a few years ago, accommodating a new glass-and-steel media complex. In winter, my cricket-mad seven-year-old son, Rory, practices at Old Trafford’s indoor facility on Saturday mornings. He often spends a few moments gazing at the greenest-green oval before his session begins. In the hour before the third Test began, at 11 a.m., I did the same.
The players from both teams were loosening up, wearing colorful tracksuits. It was unusual to be able to hear them at work; normally, the chatter of spectators muffles the noise from the pitch. “Lovely, lovely, Jase,” one called out to Jason Holder, a lanky Barbadian who captains the West Indies, as he bull’s-eyed a stump. On the other side of the oval, someone threw a few fast balls at Jos Buttler, an inconsistent but abundantly gifted English batsman. He struck each with a whip-crack, as if the ball itself had deliberately wronged him. Rahkeem Cornwall, the West Indies’ six-foot-six, three-hundred-pound spin-bowler, walked to his catching position with incongruously soft and tiny steps, like a tired old man in slippers.
Before a coin toss to decide which team would bat first, both captains changed into their white uniforms, national blazers, and caps. Holder won the toss and decided to bowl. A robotic camera, operated remotely, whizzed across to where he was standing, like Wall-E. There was then an odd spectacle of watching Holder give an interview to an unmanned camera, which was relaying questions from a broadcaster seated in the media box—a Covid-era innovation.
Unable to watch Holder’s interview in real time, I could not recognize which presenter was asking the questions through the camera, so I e-mailed Mike Atherton—a former England captain who is now a writer and television commentator—and he replied with the information, from his seat in the media box, about a hundred yards away from mine. It was an odd but typical experience inside cricket’s partitioned bubble. There were much stranger tales. Hattie Jackson works for Sky Sports as a production manager; her husband, Danny Reuben, is the head of team communications for the E.C.B. Both were at Old Trafford and both were staying in the same hotel at the stadium. Neither was allowed to see the other, because they were from different organizations and thus in separate quarantine pods. At night, Jackson and Reuben stepped onto their balconies—on the second and the fifth floor, respectively—and waved to each other.
The cameras around the ground now followed Kemar Roach, as he sprinted to bowl his first ball for the West Indies. I considered how Old Trafford had been transformed into a giant television studio. If you were watching the match at home, the play was accompanied by an artificial crowd noise. But, in the stadium, there was only a hyper-real hollowness. When a new player walked in to bat, there was no applause. Even stranger, when a player was out, you could hear the celebrations on the pitch, rather than the roar or curses of the crowd. Players who were not involved in the on-field action were obliged to give interviews in a “diary room”—a temporary structure behind their locker rooms—such as you would find on a reality show.
Maybe these were natural developments for the sport. Television revenue, particularly from Sky Sports, dominates English cricket. The last free-to-view Test match in England was played in 2005, during a thrilling Ashes victory for the England team. Since then, many people have bemoaned Sky’s sequestering of English cricket, not least those who remember days filled with Test and other professional cricket on free television. But Sky’s cricket coverage is lively and popular. England eventually beat the West Indies, 2–1, winning the final match by two hundred and sixty-nine runs. The series attracted more daily viewers than any other in the broadcaster’s history—perhaps unsurprisingly, given how many people were stuck at home because of the pandemic. Meanwhile, international matches are still broadcast for free on Test Match Special—a beloved radio show in England—and there are free highlights every night on television. Moreover, some of Sky’s money has been reinvested by the E.C.B. in grassroots programs that aim to introduce children from diverse backgrounds to the sport.


newyorker--2020-08-07--How the French Make Rice

How the French Make Rice

The starches that you might find on a plate of food in France are many and varied , and include potatoes ( there are a hundred ways of preparing them ) , turnips ( an ancient accompaniment to duck ) , and beans ( essential to wintry dishes like a cassoulet ) .
But you rarely see rice .
France grows it ( in the Camargue , in the south ) , and has done so since the sixteenth century .
But today almost every country in Europe eats not only more rice than the French but much more .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ baffling exception .
There , rice—imported rice—is at the heart of many of the city ’ s otherwise very local dishes .
Why Lyon ?
Rice—a grain indigenous to China , and among humankind ’ s first domesticated crops—reached different parts of Europe at different moments .
It came to Spain around the tenth century ( brought by the Moors ) , and by the fourteenth century it had turned up in Italy , where an early published rice recipe appears in the anonymous Venetian cookbook “ Libro per Cuoco.
” Subsequently , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s international trade fairs , which in Lyon were called the foires .
These started in the fifteenth century , and became the portals through which the world ’ s silk , spices , food , and so on were brought to the Gauls .
Many foods were introduced through the foires .
Rice happened to be the one that the Lyonnais decided to make their own .
Their preparation is often called a “ pilaf , ” and is made with onions , butter , and chicken stock .
Many cultures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whose name is derived from a Persian word describing the grain cooked in broth ) .
In Lyon , it is something like a version of Italian risotto , except that it involves a long-grain rice ( basmati or jasmine , for example ) , instead of sticky , short-grain arborio .
Also , unlike risotto , a pilaf is neither stirred nor simmered on the stove top ; it is cooked in the oven , covered by a circle of parchment paper , and achieves a surprisingly delicate puffy texture , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ roasted .
“ It is perfect with a sauce , ” the chef Daniel Boulud told me recently .
“ Lyonnais dishes always have a sauce.
” Like potatoes and gravy , I thought .
Long rice is good with sauces because of its texture .
The grains are firm and have body , and a sauce seems to cling to them more effectively than it does to , say , a risotto preparation , which can easily tend toward mush .
In Lyon , the most iconic local dish is chicken , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ town of Bresse , and , however it might be made ( and the Lyonnais have many preparations ) , it is always served with some kind of sauce .
I lived in Lyon for five years and never once saw a plate of chicken that was just , well , chicken .
Boulud was born just outside the city .
“ There were many Italian foods in Lyon , ” he told me .
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries , Italians were so numerous there that Florence declared them to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the laws of the northern-Italian city .
The Lyonnais even briefly fell in love with Parmigiano—they called it “ fromage de Milan ” —as if the approximately two thousand cheeses made in France were insufficient .
But fromage de Milan would turn out to be a sixteenth-century fad .
Not so for rice .
Boulud recalled cooking a meal recently for the chef Jacques Pépin , another native of Lyon .
“ I wanted to make something that said ‘ home , ’ ” Boulud said .
“ So I made a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vinegar sauce , a bouchon and bistro favorite— “ with plenty of rice .
It took us both right back to our childhoods.
” Boulud ’ s pilaf is , I was pleased to discover , a little different from the orthodox preparation .
When asked , he admitted that he uses shallots , not onions .
“ So do I !
” I declared .
Shallots , to my mind , seem more French than Italian , and they have a bright , sharp complexity that you don ’ t get from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ almost to the point of seeming fruity .
Boulud also admitted ( whispering , as if someone nearby might overhear ) to adding a glass of white wine .
“ So do I !
” I said , feeling delightfully conspiratorial .
( French cooking can be so rule-governed .
There is one way , and no other , and you learn it , and you don ’ t deviate from it . )
Sometimes , I volunteered , I also add a splash of vinegar !
“ No , no , of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I made the rice the other night , and my son George , ever the table ’ s food critic , observed that it was “ different.
” He then made a face .
“ Vinegar , probably , ” I offered .
“ Yes , that ’ s it .
I don ’ t like it , ” he said .
But , for me , the dish ’ s abundant fat—some Americans call it “ stick-of-butter rice ” —seems to call out for some biting acidity .
The rice is initially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but when it goes into the oven the lid is replaced by the circular piece of parchment paper .
This floats floppily on the brothy rice as it cooks , and is essential to achieving that wonderful puffiness .
If you keep the lid on , it creates a mini oven inside the pot and dries out the rice , whereas the paper condenses the evaporating liquid and has the effect of rehydrating the dehydrating grain .
The rice then swells with the flavors of the cooking liquid .
Boulud revealed a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he pokes a small hole in the paper .
( “ It releases some of the steam.
” ) Second , he butters the parchment ’ s underside .
The butter then slowly melts during the cooking .
The rice is not just rehydrated ; it is enriched unctuously .
“ Genius , ” I said .
Who else butters their paper ?
When the preparation is almost ready , you remove the parchment , fluff the kernels gently with a fork ( you want to separate , not break , them ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which not only melts instantly in the still-hot rice but also seems to diffuse throughout it .
You don ’ t need to stir .
• 1 ½ cups long-grain rice , such as basmati or jasmine • 2–4 Tbsp .
white-wine vinegar ( optional , and according to taste )

The starches that you might find on a plate of food in France are many and varied, and include potatoes (there are a hundred ways of preparing them), turnips (an ancient accompaniment to duck), and beans (essential to wintry dishes like a cassoulet). But you rarely see rice. France grows it (in the Camargue, in the south), and has done so since the sixteenth century. But today almost every country in Europe eats not only more rice than the French but much more. Lyon, however, is a curiously baffling exception. There, rice—imported rice—is at the heart of many of the city’s otherwise very local dishes.
Why Lyon? Rice—a grain indigenous to China, and among humankind’s first domesticated crops—reached different parts of Europe at different moments. It came to Spain around the tenth century (brought by the Moors), and by the fourteenth century it had turned up in Italy, where an early published rice recipe appears in the anonymous Venetian cookbook “Libro per Cuoco.” Subsequently, rice arrived in France via the country’s international trade fairs, which in Lyon were called the foires. These started in the fifteenth century, and became the portals through which the world’s silk, spices, food, and so on were brought to the Gauls. Many foods were introduced through the foires. Rice happened to be the one that the Lyonnais decided to make their own.
Their preparation is often called a “pilaf,” and is made with onions, butter, and chicken stock. Many cultures have their own variations on pilaf (whose name is derived from a Persian word describing the grain cooked in broth). In Lyon, it is something like a version of Italian risotto, except that it involves a long-grain rice (basmati or jasmine, for example), instead of sticky, short-grain arborio. Also, unlike risotto, a pilaf is neither stirred nor simmered on the stove top; it is cooked in the oven, covered by a circle of parchment paper, and achieves a surprisingly delicate puffy texture, as if it has been gently but moistly roasted.
Bill Buford makes French rice pilaf.
“It is perfect with a sauce,” the chef Daniel Boulud told me recently. “Lyonnais dishes always have a sauce.”
Like potatoes and gravy, I thought. Long rice is good with sauces because of its texture. The grains are firm and have body, and a sauce seems to cling to them more effectively than it does to, say, a risotto preparation, which can easily tend toward mush. In Lyon, the most iconic local dish is chicken, especially the famous breed from the nearby town of Bresse, and, however it might be made (and the Lyonnais have many preparations), it is always served with some kind of sauce. I lived in Lyon for five years and never once saw a plate of chicken that was just, well, chicken.
Boulud was born just outside the city. “There were many Italian foods in Lyon,” he told me. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Italians were so numerous there that Florence declared them to be members of an official colony, governed by the laws of the northern-Italian city. The Lyonnais even briefly fell in love with Parmigiano—they called it “fromage de Milan”—as if the approximately two thousand cheeses made in France were insufficient. But fromage de Milan would turn out to be a sixteenth-century fad. Not so for rice. Boulud recalled cooking a meal recently for the chef Jacques Pépin, another native of Lyon. “I wanted to make something that said ‘home,’ ” Boulud said. “So I made a poulet au vinaigre”—chicken with a vinegar sauce, a bouchon and bistro favorite—“with plenty of rice. It took us both right back to our childhoods.”
Boulud’s pilaf is, I was pleased to discover, a little different from the orthodox preparation. When asked, he admitted that he uses shallots, not onions. “So do I!” I declared. Shallots, to my mind, seem more French than Italian, and they have a bright, sharp complexity that you don’t get from an onion, which can be sweet almost to the point of seeming fruity. Boulud also admitted (whispering, as if someone nearby might overhear) to adding a glass of white wine.
“So do I!” I said, feeling delightfully conspiratorial. (French cooking can be so rule-governed. There is one way, and no other, and you learn it, and you don’t deviate from it.) Sometimes, I volunteered, I also add a splash of vinegar!
“Really?” Boulud asked.
“Is that bad?” I said.
“No, no, of course not.”
But was it? I made the rice the other night, and my son George, ever the table’s food critic, observed that it was “different.” He then made a face. “Vinegar, probably,” I offered. “Yes, that’s it. I don’t like it,” he said. But, for me, the dish’s abundant fat—some Americans call it “stick-of-butter rice”—seems to call out for some biting acidity.
The rice is initially prepared in a pot with a lid, but when it goes into the oven the lid is replaced by the circular piece of parchment paper. This floats floppily on the brothy rice as it cooks, and is essential to achieving that wonderful puffiness. If you keep the lid on, it creates a mini oven inside the pot and dries out the rice, whereas the paper condenses the evaporating liquid and has the effect of rehydrating the dehydrating grain. The rice then swells with the flavors of the cooking liquid.
Boulud revealed a couple of his tricks. First, he pokes a small hole in the paper. (“It releases some of the steam.”) Second, he butters the parchment’s underside. The butter then slowly melts during the cooking. The rice is not just rehydrated; it is enriched unctuously.
“Genius,” I said. Who else butters their paper?
When the preparation is almost ready, you remove the parchment, fluff the kernels gently with a fork (you want to separate, not break, them), and add a little more butter, which not only melts instantly in the still-hot rice but also seems to diffuse throughout it. You don’t need to stir.
Lyonnais Rice Pilaf
Serves 4–6
Ingredients
1 ½ cups long-grain rice, such as basmati or jasmine
3 cups chicken stock
2 shallots, or 1 medium onion finely diced
2–4 Tbsp. white-wine vinegar (optional, and according to taste)
3–4 oz. white wine
3 oz. butter
Salt
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.


newyorker--2020-08-07--Daily Cartoon: Friday, August 7th

Daily Cartoon: Friday, August 7th

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“Can I just say I love that your restaurant hasn’t taken the necessary steps to keep this place safe and sanitary.”


newyorker--2020-08-08--The Paradoxical Role of Social Capital in the Coronavirus Pandemic

Words made minutely different can mean wildly different things .
A beautiful instance of this truth occurs in the Nativity narrative of the Gospel of Luke .
In the King James Version ( known to us all from “ A Charlie Brown Christmas ” ) the angels proclaim , “ On earth peace , goodwill toward men.
” Other translations , in more militant Bibles , render the Greek phrase as “ Peace on earth to men of goodwill.
” Very much like the question about whether Edwin Stanton sent Lincoln , on his deathbed , upward to the angels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might be the subject for a book—the small difference in the Biblical words implies a large difference in our vision .
Is the happy news that of Heaven ’ s dispensation of ever-increasing trust toward all people ?
Or is it a special favor restricted to those already possessed of good will toward us ?
This Christmas conundrum comes unseasonably to mind as we contemplate the state of the world in this unimaginable year of 2020 .
Thinking about the pandemic that has swept the world in so many scarring ways , one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about it is the relation between good will and good health—that is , the relationship between the perniciousness of the plague and the presence or the absence of social capital in the places that suffer it .
Are places that have high levels of social trust and strong institutions of civil society doing any better than those that don ’ t ?
Does good will toward men help fight the virus , or does it make no difference what the angels sing ?
By social capital , academics generally mean all the parts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political , foster links and bridges of common sympathy and trust .
Created as much by volunteer fire departments and by amateur opera societies as by government—by block parties more than by political parties—social capital in this sense is essentially what Frederick Law Olmsted , in building Central Park , called “ commonplace civilization.
” ( He included in that category “ game clubs , boat clubs , ball clubs and all sorts of clubs.
” ) The seemingly political , cosmopolitan coffeehouse became the nineteenth-century citadel of social trust .
Social capital @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an idea of citizenship , instead of clannishness , so that , in things small and large , we have our neighbor ’ s back and our neighbor has ours rather than being forever at one another ’ s throats .
It ’ s a complicated , multifarious , and at times chimeric concept .
It was early on articulated by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu , who meant by capital really what a Marxist means by capital : something that the people who have it won ’ t share .
But , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expanded and almost inverted in meaning , so that for the American scholar Robert Putnam it has a wholly positive sense : “ the specific benefits that flow from the trust , reciprocity , information , and cooperation associated with social networks.
” Meanwhile , the question of how much religious groups foster social trust by being inclusive—or decrease it by becoming exclusive—is a hot one , as the quarrel over the angels suggests .
We are all inclined to gauge social capital by our own measure .
Mike Lee , the conservative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years ago sponsored a Senate study of social capital among the states that found , perhaps not surprisingly , that religious Utah ranked very high , while skeptical New York ranked very low .
But the concept is , historically , as observational as it is statistical : we know that coffeehouses increase social capital by reading the memoirs written in them more than by studying civic statistics from Warsaw and Berlin .
The Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has probably offered the most clarifying contemporary sense of the idea : his so-called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civic goods that social capital creates .
There ’ s no point having a lot of social capital in the bank if you can ’ t write a check on it yourself ; no advantage in living among the linking and bridging networks that the Putnamians celebrate if you are left out of them .
But the positive good of social capital for Sen is just as real as it is for Putnam .
Successful developing economies , Sen writes , “ went comparatively early for massive expansion of education .
.
.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ constraints of general poverty.
” He continues , “ our conceptualization of economic needs depends crucially on open public debates and discussions , the guaranteeing of which requires insistence on basic political liberty and civil rights.
” A common passion for public health , an alertness to threats against it , above all , an investment in education : these are not for Sen the windshield ornaments on the engine of human development ; they are the engine itself .
Now , all general truths about the pandemic are premature .
But the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to suggest an intriguing paradox : that places with a great deal of social capital got hit worst by the virus , and then recovered fastest .
This is reportedly the case with the secular , social-democratic countries of the European Union , none of them particularly religious , but many of them rich in shared networks of trust .
It ’ s a paradox of place : people who were not socially distanced at the start of the plague had an easier time learning to social-distance by its end .
A striking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ found that places with high existing “ civic capital ” tended to “ display greater mobility ” —that is , people travelled around more—than places without it .
But , “ as soon as the threat of the virus became real , communities with high civic capital started to self-restrain and to internalize the risk of propagating the infection through social contacts.
” Translated from the academese , people who are used to going out a lot stopped when people they trusted told them that doing so was a good way to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ familiar to New Yorkers .
Cursed by our density and our place as a cosmopolitan crossroads to suffer worst from the plague , our capacity for self-regulation under rational government direction has moved us dramatically forward , or , rather , downward .
We had , through nearly all of April , above a twenty-per-cent positive-testing rate ; now , by living behind our masks and ( mostly ) staying out of bars , we have driven the number below one per cent .
What is true of cities and regions is true @ @ @ @ @ @ @ call Canada home have witnessed , secondhand , the difference between a nation that , however many social frictions it may have , still retains high levels of social capital—maintained by universal health care , a strong family-allowance program , and a still animated tradition of genuinely cross-partisan citizenship—and a nation like the United States , which does not .
Canada got COVID-19 early , and badly—especially in Montreal—but since then the country has largely recovered and reopened .
Toronto , which was early afflicted , has reported minimal new cases and several @ @ @ @ @ @ @ success is , of course , limited and partial ; new hotspots keep springing up , and have to be tamped down , and stamped out . )
Canada is renowned as a civil society in every sense : the most famous Canadian joke asks how you get twenty Canadians out of a pool ; the answer is that you ask them to please get out of the pool .
But that element of Canadian-ness is not some genetic trait .
It is a social condition earned and banked over hundreds of years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ centuries of negotiations , some explicit and some empirical , among conflicting linguistic and national groups .
Politics in Canada still largely function as a way of smoothing out , not aggravating , group conflict .
It is just not possible to make mask-wearing a party issue in Canada ; Conservatives and Liberals alike see the sense , and just put the damn things on .
And Canadians trust the expertise of experts , perhaps because they can partake of a strong , affordable , state-subsidized university system .
( My fellow-expatriate David @ @ @ @ @ @ @ invested Ontario ’ s civil servants are in the business of enforcing a quarantine of new arrivals from the States . )

Words made minutely different can mean wildly different things. A beautiful instance of this truth occurs in the Nativity narrative of the Gospel of Luke. In the King James Version (known to us all from “A Charlie Brown Christmas”) the angels proclaim, “On earth peace, goodwill toward men.” Other translations, in more militant Bibles, render the Greek phrase as “Peace on earth to men of goodwill.” Very much like the question about whether Edwin Stanton sent Lincoln, on his deathbed, upward to the angels or outward to the ages—a thing that might be the subject for a book—the small difference in the Biblical words implies a large difference in our vision. Is the happy news that of Heaven’s dispensation of ever-increasing trust toward all people? Or is it a special favor restricted to those already possessed of good will toward us?
This Christmas conundrum comes unseasonably to mind as we contemplate the state of the world in this unimaginable year of 2020. Thinking about the pandemic that has swept the world in so many scarring ways, one of the most vexed and significant questions about it is the relation between good will and good health—that is, the relationship between the perniciousness of the plague and the presence or the absence of social capital in the places that suffer it. Are places that have high levels of social trust and strong institutions of civil society doing any better than those that don’t? Does good will toward men help fight the virus, or does it make no difference what the angels sing?
By social capital, academics generally mean all the parts of society that, without being explicitly political, foster links and bridges of common sympathy and trust. Created as much by volunteer fire departments and by amateur opera societies as by government—by block parties more than by political parties—social capital in this sense is essentially what Frederick Law Olmsted, in building Central Park, called “commonplace civilization.” (He included in that category “game clubs, boat clubs, ball clubs and all sorts of clubs.”) The seemingly political, cosmopolitan coffeehouse became the nineteenth-century citadel of social trust. Social capital is what enables us to act with an idea of citizenship, instead of clannishness, so that, in things small and large, we have our neighbor’s back and our neighbor has ours rather than being forever at one another’s throats.
It’s a complicated, multifarious, and at times chimeric concept. It was early on articulated by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who meant by capital really what a Marxist means by capital: something that the people who have it won’t share. But, as time went on, the concept expanded and almost inverted in meaning, so that for the American scholar Robert Putnam it has a wholly positive sense: “the specific benefits that flow from the trust, reciprocity, information, and cooperation associated with social networks.” Meanwhile, the question of how much religious groups foster social trust by being inclusive—or decrease it by becoming exclusive—is a hot one, as the quarrel over the angels suggests.
We are all inclined to gauge social capital by our own measure. Mike Lee, the conservative Republican senator from Utah, only three years ago sponsored a Senate study of social capital among the states that found, perhaps not surprisingly, that religious Utah ranked very high, while skeptical New York ranked very low. But the concept is, historically, as observational as it is statistical: we know that coffeehouses increase social capital by reading the memoirs written in them more than by studying civic statistics from Warsaw and Berlin.
The Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has probably offered the most clarifying contemporary sense of the idea: his so-called capability approach emphasizes our access to the civic goods that social capital creates. There’s no point having a lot of social capital in the bank if you can’t write a check on it yourself; no advantage in living among the linking and bridging networks that the Putnamians celebrate if you are left out of them. But the positive good of social capital for Sen is just as real as it is for Putnam. Successful developing economies, Sen writes, “went comparatively early for massive expansion of education . . . in many cases before they broke the constraints of general poverty.” He continues, “our conceptualization of economic needs depends crucially on open public debates and discussions, the guaranteeing of which requires insistence on basic political liberty and civil rights.” A common passion for public health, an alertness to threats against it, above all, an investment in education: these are not for Sen the windshield ornaments on the engine of human development; they are the engine itself.
Now, all general truths about the pandemic are premature. But the empirical results so far seem at least to suggest an intriguing paradox: that places with a great deal of social capital got hit worst by the virus, and then recovered fastest. This is reportedly the case with the secular, social-democratic countries of the European Union, none of them particularly religious, but many of them rich in shared networks of trust.
It’s a paradox of place: people who were not socially distanced at the start of the plague had an easier time learning to social-distance by its end. A striking study in Italy, for instance, found that places with high existing “civic capital” tended to “display greater mobility”—that is, people travelled around more—than places without it. But, “as soon as the threat of the virus became real, communities with high civic capital started to self-restrain and to internalize the risk of propagating the infection through social contacts.” Translated from the academese, people who are used to going out a lot stopped when people they trusted told them that doing so was a good way to get sick. That’s a process familiar to New Yorkers. Cursed by our density and our place as a cosmopolitan crossroads to suffer worst from the plague, our capacity for self-regulation under rational government direction has moved us dramatically forward, or, rather, downward. We had, through nearly all of April, above a twenty-per-cent positive-testing rate; now, by living behind our masks and (mostly) staying out of bars, we have driven the number below one per cent.
What is true of cities and regions is true of countries. Those of us who call Canada home have witnessed, secondhand, the difference between a nation that, however many social frictions it may have, still retains high levels of social capital—maintained by universal health care, a strong family-allowance program, and a still animated tradition of genuinely cross-partisan citizenship—and a nation like the United States, which does not. Canada got COVID-19 early, and badly—especially in Montreal—but since then the country has largely recovered and reopened. Toronto, which was early afflicted, has reported minimal new cases and several days of zero deaths. (The success is, of course, limited and partial; new hotspots keep springing up, and have to be tamped down, and stamped out.)
Canada is renowned as a civil society in every sense: the most famous Canadian joke asks how you get twenty Canadians out of a pool; the answer is that you ask them to please get out of the pool. But that element of Canadian-ness is not some genetic trait. It is a social condition earned and banked over hundreds of years of hard-earned social trust, carpentered over centuries of negotiations, some explicit and some empirical, among conflicting linguistic and national groups. Politics in Canada still largely function as a way of smoothing out, not aggravating, group conflict. It is just not possible to make mask-wearing a party issue in Canada; Conservatives and Liberals alike see the sense, and just put the damn things on. And Canadians trust the expertise of experts, perhaps because they can partake of a strong, affordable, state-subsidized university system. (My fellow-expatriate David Frum has written entertainingly about just how invested Ontario’s civil servants are in the business of enforcing a quarantine of new arrivals from the States.)


newyorker--2020-08-08--The Trump Campaign Tries to Change the Subject

With less than three months to go until Election Day , Donald Trump ’ s campaign this week tried again to hit the reset button .
“ We ’ re going to run like we ’ re the underdog , ” Trump ’ s new campaign manager , Bill Stepien , told Fox News on Monday .
Before Stepien spoke , the Trump team released two new television ads targeting Joe Biden , who , thus far , has proved an elusive foe .
One features a montage of Biden with Senator Bernie Sanders and Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has embraced the policies of the radical left.
” The other shows a woman of color silently holding up printed cards , the last two of which say “ I ’ M AFRAID TO SAY THIS OUT LOUD… I WON ’ T RISK MY CHILDREN ’ S FUTURE WITH BIDEN.
” These ads seem to have come from the same playbook that Trump has been relying on for months now , with little success if you believe the polls .
To get a better idea of how the campaign is trying to motivate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reach out to less committed ones , I downloaded the campaign ’ s official app , which promised to supply me with “ exclusive content and campaign updates.
” For a couple of days , I dived into the online Trump world , which turned out to be an immersive experience .
After registering , I was immediately invited to sign up and watch some of the app ’ s proprietorial video content , including “ Triggered , ” a show that features the President ’ s son Donald Trump , Jr. , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” As I waited for these examples of must-see viewing to begin , I watched another show , which had been recorded a few days previously .
“ The Right View ” is the Trump campaign ’ s version of “ The View , ” the popular daily talk show that airs on ABC .
The four hosts were Lara Trump , the President ’ s daughter-in-law ; Kimberly Guilfoyle , a former prosecutor and Fox News host who is dating Donald Trump , Jr. ; Katrina Pierson , a Tea Party activist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s 2016 campaign ; and Mercedes Schlapp , a Republican communications operative who served in the Trump White House from 2017 to 2019 .
What the hosts lacked in objectivity , they more than made up for in vitriol toward Biden and the Democrats .
“ It ’ s really horrifying to see what these people are doing , ” Lara Trump said , in reference to Democratic efforts to expand mail-in voting in Nevada and other states .
After conducting an interview with Kaya Jones , a conservative pop singer , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s two new ads , while carefully omitting how misleading they are .
( One of the ads claims that Biden supports defunding the police and raising taxes on the middle class .
He backs neither . )
The hosts repeatedly tore into the Democratic candidate .
“ They will go to any lengths possible to try and prop up Joe Biden , like a ‘ Weekend at Bernie ’ s ’ skit , ” Lara Trump said .
“ They can ’ t be real thinking this guy can be President , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t find his own way out of his home.
” The “ socialists ” who controlled Biden were hoping to use him “ as a tool to advance their radical agenda and tear this country apart , ” she went on .
Things continued in this vein for close to fifty minutes , interspersed by pop-up ads offering Trump merchandise , such as a “ MAGA Mama ” T-shirt .
The show was slickly produced , and it captured the essence of the Trump campaign , which has come down to employing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racially coded ; claiming Biden is mentally impaired ; and trying to suppress the Democratic vote by challenging mail-in voting and other efforts to insure that an election during a pandemic can be held safely and fairly .
Notably absent from the episode of “ The Right View ” that I watched was any serious discussion of the coronavirus , which has claimed more than a hundred and sixty thousand American lives , or any real defense of Trump ’ s record .
Evidently , the Trump campaign doesn ’ t like its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ referendum on its candidate ’ s performance in office .
So it ’ s doing all it can to change the subject .
That approach is also clear in the campaign ’ s Facebook ads , which are just as voluminous as they were in 2016 .
“ Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups are running through our streets and causing absolute mayhem , ” one says .
“ Joe Biden has ABSOLUTELY lost his mind , ” another proclaims .
Between early May and August 6th , the Trump campaign spent $ 60.2 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign spent just $ 29.5 million , according to Facebook ’ s own records .
Some of this difference was offset by spending by Democratic groups that are not directly under the control of the Biden campaign , such as the Priorities USA super PAC .
But just as it did in 2016 , the Trump campaign is placing a great deal of emphasis on Facebook for fund-raising and reaching persuadable voters .
That doesn ’ t mean it ’ s neglecting more traditional campaigning methods , such as canvassing and conducting voter-registration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden campaign has largely abandoned physical efforts to contact voters because of the pandemic , relying instead on phone calls , texts , and digital outreach , the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have recruited mask-wearing canvassers , who they claim are knocking on more than a million doors a week .
“ From now to Election Day , voters may only see one campaign at their doors , ” Elliott Echols , the R.N.C.
’ s national field director , told Politico .
“ We can do this safely for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ballot.
” Republicans have also made extensive efforts to register new G.O.P .
voters , particularly in some key battleground states .
In Pennsylvania , for example , “ Republicans have added about 165,000 net voters , while Democrats added only about 30,000 , ” since 2016 , the Philadelphia Inquirer reported last week .
“ Democrats still maintain an 800,000-voter edge over Republicans .
But that ’ s down from 936,000 in 2016 , when Trump still won the state by less than 1 % .
” Despite all these efforts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as they have all year .
In FiveThirtyEight ’ s poll average , the margin between the two candidates on Saturday morning was 7.8 percentage points .
That ’ s down a bit from the nine-point advantage that Biden held a couple of weeks ago , but it still represents a substantial gap .
Trump is also trailing Biden in most of the battleground states , including Michigan , Pennsylvania , and Wisconsin , which he won narrowly in 2016 to put together a majority in the Electoral College .
During his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to downplay the public polls , pointing out that most of them had Trump behind in 2016 , as well .
He also claimed that the campaign ’ s internal polls show a “ strong standing ” for the President .
Some of the campaign ’ s recent actions suggest otherwise , though .
After putting television ads on hold last month , when Stepien replaced Brad Parscale as campaign manager , this week it resumed advertising in Arizona , Florida , Georgia , and North Carolina—all states that Trump won in 2016 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trailing or in very tight races with Biden .
The latest ad buy is just the beginning .
Both campaigns have raised obscene amounts of money—earlier this week , the Trump campaign announced it had more than three hundred million dollars in the bank , and Biden ’ s said it has nearly two hundred and fifty million .
Between now and November 3rd , anybody who lives in a battleground state is going to be blitzed by political ads from both parties , on all of their devices .
With so many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cancel each other out , at least to some extent .
Trump may well need something more seismic to shift things in his favor .

With less than three months to go until Election Day, Donald Trump’s campaign this week tried again to hit the reset button. “We’re going to run like we’re the underdog,” Trump’s new campaign manager, Bill Stepien, told Fox News on Monday. Before Stepien spoke, the Trump team released two new television ads targeting Joe Biden, who, thus far, has proved an elusive foe. One features a montage of Biden with Senator Bernie Sanders and Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, and claims that Biden “has embraced the policies of the radical left.” The other shows a woman of color silently holding up printed cards, the last two of which say “I’M AFRAID TO SAY THIS OUT LOUD… I WON’T RISK MY CHILDREN’S FUTURE WITH BIDEN.”
These ads seem to have come from the same playbook that Trump has been relying on for months now, with little success if you believe the polls. To get a better idea of how the campaign is trying to motivate the President’s loyal supporters and reach out to less committed ones, I downloaded the campaign’s official app, which promised to supply me with “exclusive content and campaign updates.” For a couple of days, I dived into the online Trump world, which turned out to be an immersive experience.
After registering, I was immediately invited to sign up and watch some of the app’s proprietorial video content, including “Triggered,” a show that features the President’s son Donald Trump, Jr., and “Theology Thursday with Speaker Gingrich.” As I waited for these examples of must-see viewing to begin, I watched another show, which had been recorded a few days previously. “The Right View” is the Trump campaign’s version of “The View,” the popular daily talk show that airs on ABC. The four hosts were Lara Trump, the President’s daughter-in-law; Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former prosecutor and Fox News host who is dating Donald Trump, Jr.; Katrina Pierson, a Tea Party activist who was a spokesperson for Trump’s 2016 campaign; and Mercedes Schlapp, a Republican communications operative who served in the Trump White House from 2017 to 2019.
What the hosts lacked in objectivity, they more than made up for in vitriol toward Biden and the Democrats. “It’s really horrifying to see what these people are doing,” Lara Trump said, in reference to Democratic efforts to expand mail-in voting in Nevada and other states. After conducting an interview with Kaya Jones, a conservative pop singer, the hosts then discussed the Trump campaign’s two new ads, while carefully omitting how misleading they are. (One of the ads claims that Biden supports defunding the police and raising taxes on the middle class. He backs neither.) The hosts repeatedly tore into the Democratic candidate. “They will go to any lengths possible to try and prop up Joe Biden, like a ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ skit,” Lara Trump said. “They can’t be real thinking this guy can be President,” Guilfoyle said. “He can’t find his own way out of his home.” The “socialists” who controlled Biden were hoping to use him “as a tool to advance their radical agenda and tear this country apart,” she went on.
Things continued in this vein for close to fifty minutes, interspersed by pop-up ads offering Trump merchandise, such as a “MAGA Mama” T-shirt. The show was slickly produced, and it captured the essence of the Trump campaign, which has come down to employing scare tactics, many of which are racially coded; claiming Biden is mentally impaired; and trying to suppress the Democratic vote by challenging mail-in voting and other efforts to insure that an election during a pandemic can be held safely and fairly. Notably absent from the episode of “The Right View” that I watched was any serious discussion of the coronavirus, which has claimed more than a hundred and sixty thousand American lives, or any real defense of Trump’s record. Evidently, the Trump campaign doesn’t like its chances if the election turns into a referendum on its candidate’s performance in office. So it’s doing all it can to change the subject.
That approach is also clear in the campaign’s Facebook ads, which are just as voluminous as they were in 2016. “Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups are running through our streets and causing absolute mayhem,” one says. “Joe Biden has ABSOLUTELY lost his mind,” another proclaims. Between early May and August 6th, the Trump campaign spent $60.2 million on Facebook, while the Biden campaign spent just $29.5 million, according to Facebook’s own records. Some of this difference was offset by spending by Democratic groups that are not directly under the control of the Biden campaign, such as the Priorities USA super PAC. But just as it did in 2016, the Trump campaign is placing a great deal of emphasis on Facebook for fund-raising and reaching persuadable voters.
That doesn’t mean it’s neglecting more traditional campaigning methods, such as canvassing and conducting voter-registration drives. At a moment when the Biden campaign has largely abandoned physical efforts to contact voters because of the pandemic, relying instead on phone calls, texts, and digital outreach, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have recruited mask-wearing canvassers, who they claim are knocking on more than a million doors a week. “From now to Election Day, voters may only see one campaign at their doors,” Elliott Echols, the R.N.C.’s national field director, told Politico. “We can do this safely for President Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot.”
Republicans have also made extensive efforts to register new G.O.P. voters, particularly in some key battleground states. In Pennsylvania, for example, “Republicans have added about 165,000 net voters, while Democrats added only about 30,000,” since 2016, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported last week. “Democrats still maintain an 800,000-voter edge over Republicans. But that’s down from 936,000 in 2016, when Trump still won the state by less than 1%.”
Despite all these efforts, the polls show Trump trailing Biden, as they have all year. In FiveThirtyEight’s poll average, the margin between the two candidates on Saturday morning was 7.8 percentage points. That’s down a bit from the nine-point advantage that Biden held a couple of weeks ago, but it still represents a substantial gap. Trump is also trailing Biden in most of the battleground states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which he won narrowly in 2016 to put together a majority in the Electoral College.
During his interview with Fox News, Stepien sought to downplay the public polls, pointing out that most of them had Trump behind in 2016, as well. He also claimed that the campaign’s internal polls show a “strong standing” for the President. Some of the campaign’s recent actions suggest otherwise, though. After putting television ads on hold last month, when Stepien replaced Brad Parscale as campaign manager, this week it resumed advertising in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina—all states that Trump won in 2016, but where polls currently show him trailing or in very tight races with Biden.
The latest ad buy is just the beginning. Both campaigns have raised obscene amounts of money—earlier this week, the Trump campaign announced it had more than three hundred million dollars in the bank, and Biden’s said it has nearly two hundred and fifty million. Between now and November 3rd, anybody who lives in a battleground state is going to be blitzed by political ads from both parties, on all of their devices. With so many ads running, they are likely to cancel each other out, at least to some extent. Trump may well need something more seismic to shift things in his favor.
Friday’s employment report for July, which came in a bit better than expected but also showed job growth slowing, didn’t qualify as earthshaking. The report will have given a bit of encouragement to the Trump camp, nonetheless, as will the fact that, over the past couple of weeks, the number of new coronavirus cases nationwide has trended down a bit. To be sure, the new-case count remains at an alarmingly high level: according to the Times, the seven-day average is still above fifty thousand, and on Friday the daily figure was almost sixty-one thousand. But Trump and his allies will seize on virtually anything to try to downplay the pandemic. Earlier this week, Facebook and Twitter took down a video in which Trump made the false claim that children are “almost immune” to the coronavirus.


newyorker--2020-08-08--Americans Oppose More Payments to Man Who Is Not Working

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —Americans are vehemently opposed to issuing more government payments to a Kentucky man who @ @ @ @ @ the coronavirus crisis .
According to reports , the man has been receiving a weekly @ @ @ @ @ thousand dollars for doing nothing , all at taxpayers ’ expense .
Harland Dorrinson , @ @ @ @ @ watchdog group called Americans Against Waste and Abuse , called the payments to this non-working @ @ @ @ @ scandalous.
” “ If you do the math , he is receiving checks that add @ @ @ @ @ year , ” Dorrinson said .
“ Under those circumstances , what is his incentive @ @ @ @ @ said that the payments the man has been receiving should be cut off “ immediately @ @ @ @ @ who is providing essential services during the pandemic , like a health-care worker or first @ @ @ @ @ Kentucky man , Dorrinson said , “ It ’ s time for him to stop @ @ @ @ @ show some personal responsibility .
”

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Americans are vehemently opposed to issuing more government payments to a Kentucky man who has not been working during the coronavirus crisis.
According to reports, the man has been receiving a weekly check amounting to over three thousand dollars for doing nothing, all at taxpayers’ expense.
Harland Dorrinson, the executive director of a watchdog group called Americans Against Waste and Abuse, called the payments to this non-working individual “nothing short of scandalous.”
“If you do the math, he is receiving checks that add up to $174,000 a year,” Dorrinson said. “Under those circumstances, what is his incentive to work?”
Dorrinson said that the payments the man has been receiving should be cut off “immediately” and sent to someone who is providing essential services during the pandemic, like a health-care worker or first responder.
As for the Kentucky man, Dorrinson said, “It’s time for him to stop living off the government and show some personal responsibility.”


newyorker--2020-08-08--Introducing New York City’s Only Boyfriend-Walking Service

Hey , Amanda !
Thanks so much for signing up for Male Collectors , New York City ’ s only boyfriend-walking service , where our motto is “ Because sometimes when you ’ re quarantining , you just need to be left alone.
” I ’ m Jasmine , your designated Man-Care Specialist , and I ’ m super excited to meet Bob tomorrow .
Could you reply to this e-mail and let me know if he has any beer allergies , and also provide me with a list of his favorite aisles at Home Depot ?
Jasmine here with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ today .
As you know , he was a little reluctant at first .
That was a genius idea you had , asking the doorman to lock the door immediately after you shoved Bob outside .
Anyway , Bob got a crazy amount of exercise .
After eleven blocks , I finally caught up to him .
I was thinking that it might be helpful in the future if you could turn on the tracker app on Bob ’ s phone .
Bob was waiting in the lobby when I showed up .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the smell of the cabbage stuffed with Limburger cheese that you were cooking .
( Smart move ! )
He wanted a treat right away , so we social-distanced on the sidewalk while he vaped .
Oops !
He told me not to tell you .
Before you get annoyed , though , you should know that ’ s not how his mask got singed .
That happened in the moped skirmish .
Oops .
He said to tell you we were riding CitiBikes and wearing helmets .
For the record , we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the mask you made for Bob !
Hope you don ’ t mind that we had to take it off .
The duct tape over his mouth was making it hard for him to breathe , LOL .
Did you know he has asthma ?
Other than that , we had an awesome day at the ESPN Reruns Stadium & Tequila Bar .
You mentioned that Bob could stay out all night , and I noticed you put a toothbrush in his suitcase .
I needed to bring him back , though , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the groomer at five .
Also , Male Collectors doesn ’ t offer a boarding service .
Have you tried the Him Inn ?
They have short stays and a new Lock ‘ Em & Leave ‘ Em option .
If you can ’ t drop off Bob yourself , Man 2 Go and 1-800-U-GOT-JUNK both do partner pickups .
P.S .
I called Bob ’ s mother , as you suggested .
She said that Bob can ’ t stay with her , because she ’ s thawing lamb chops .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ your awful news .
I didn ’ t know you could even get COVID-19 for a third time .
Bob said you are making him sleep in the pantry to protect him from getting sick .
The funny thing is that today we ran into some friends of Bob ’ s—a long-haired shedder who leaves socks in every room , a frisky yapper who breathes too loudly , and a retriever who clutters the apartment with stuff from Amazon—and guess what ?
Their girlfriends have all had COVID-19 tons of times , too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bob had a tummy ache .
He thinks maybe the milk you left out for his coffee this morning wasn ’ t lactose-free .
When we got back to your apartment , Bob ’ s key didn ’ t work .
The doorman ’ s key didn ’ t work , either .
We knocked and knocked , but Bob said that you said that the COVID-19 had made you lose your sense of hearing him .
I couldn ’ t stay because I had to pick up a rescue boyfriend in Tribeca @ @ @ @ @ @ @ needs a boyfriend ?
Or even someone who could take in a foster boyfriend for a few weeks ? )
I hope Bob got back inside the apartment before his stomach started cramping again .
Is everything O.K.
?
Bob wasn ’ t waiting for me when I came by this morning .
Anyway , I have some good news .
Male Collectors has merged with Pub Crawl and is now accepting husbands .
So if you and Bob decide to get married , he can still be my client .

DAY ONE
Hey, Amanda! Thanks so much for signing up for Male Collectors, New York City’s only boyfriend-walking service, where our motto is “Because sometimes when you’re quarantining, you just need to be left alone.” I’m Jasmine, your designated Man-Care Specialist, and I’m super excited to meet Bob tomorrow. Could you reply to this e-mail and let me know if he has any beer allergies, and also provide me with a list of his favorite aisles at Home Depot?
DAY TWO
Jasmine here with an update about my adventure with Bob today. As you know, he was a little reluctant at first. That was a genius idea you had, asking the doorman to lock the door immediately after you shoved Bob outside. Anyway, Bob got a crazy amount of exercise. After eleven blocks, I finally caught up to him. I was thinking that it might be helpful in the future if you could turn on the tracker app on Bob’s phone.
DAY THREE
Bob was waiting in the lobby when I showed up. He said he couldn’t take the smell of the cabbage stuffed with Limburger cheese that you were cooking. (Smart move!) He wanted a treat right away, so we social-distanced on the sidewalk while he vaped. Oops! He told me not to tell you. Before you get annoyed, though, you should know that’s not how his mask got singed. That happened in the moped skirmish. Oops. He said to tell you we were riding CitiBikes and wearing helmets. For the record, we weren’t with Eliza.
DAY FOUR
Loved the mask you made for Bob! Hope you don’t mind that we had to take it off. The duct tape over his mouth was making it hard for him to breathe, LOL. Did you know he has asthma? Other than that, we had an awesome day at the ESPN Reruns Stadium & Tequila Bar. You mentioned that Bob could stay out all night, and I noticed you put a toothbrush in his suitcase. I needed to bring him back, though, because I had to take a client to the groomer at five. Also, Male Collectors doesn’t offer a boarding service. Have you tried the Him Inn? They have short stays and a new Lock ‘Em & Leave ‘Em option. If you can’t drop off Bob yourself, Man 2 Go and 1-800-U-GOT-JUNK both do partner pickups.
P.S. I called Bob’s mother, as you suggested. She said that Bob can’t stay with her, because she’s thawing lamb chops.
DAY FIVE
OMG, Amanda. Bob told me your awful news. I didn’t know you could even get COVID-19 for a third time. Bob said you are making him sleep in the pantry to protect him from getting sick. The funny thing is that today we ran into some friends of Bob’s—a long-haired shedder who leaves socks in every room, a frisky yapper who breathes too loudly, and a retriever who clutters the apartment with stuff from Amazon—and guess what? Their girlfriends have all had COVID-19 tons of times, too. The record was eighteen bouts.
DAY SIX
Bob had a tummy ache. He thinks maybe the milk you left out for his coffee this morning wasn’t lactose-free. When we got back to your apartment, Bob’s key didn’t work. The doorman’s key didn’t work, either. We knocked and knocked, but Bob said that you said that the COVID-19 had made you lose your sense of hearing him. I couldn’t stay because I had to pick up a rescue boyfriend in Tribeca. (Do you know anyone who needs a boyfriend? Or even someone who could take in a foster boyfriend for a few weeks?) I hope Bob got back inside the apartment before his stomach started cramping again.
DAY SEVEN
Is everything O.K.? Bob wasn’t waiting for me when I came by this morning. Anyway, I have some good news. Male Collectors has merged with Pub Crawl and is now accepting husbands. So if you and Bob decide to get married, he can still be my client.


newyorker--2020-08-08--Dread and Longing at a Nineteen-Seventies Sleepaway Camp

When I was a kid growing up in Israel , in the nineteen-eighties , my father ’ s job as a research scientist sometimes took us to the United States for the summer months .
It was there that I first encountered the alien , forbidding rites and rituals of sleepaway camp , though not through personal experience .
I was a reticent and bookish child , easily spooked and prone to homesickness , and the idea of leaving the familiar and comforting world of my family to jostle among a bunch of tough-skinned strangers filled me with dread .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ignored , or laughed at ?
In the country where I came from , you stuck close to home until you were made to leave it , at eighteen , for the Army , and , even then , Israel ’ s almost comical smallness made it impossible to stay away for too long , even if you wanted to .
As far as I was concerned , even day camp , the relatively tame waters of which I dipped my toe into for a couple summers , felt like a social and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shows and Madonna-look-alike contests , its aggressively noisy bus trips and brash talk of lip-gloss brands and crushes and training bras .
I preferred to experience shiny , scary , titillating American culture from the safe distance of the living-room couch , watching “ General Hospital ” and “ Family Feud ” and eating Lays potato chips .
I might have been bored , but at least I was unscathed .

When I was a kid growing up in Israel, in the nineteen-eighties, my father’s job as a research scientist sometimes took us to the United States for the summer months. It was there that I first encountered the alien, forbidding rites and rituals of sleepaway camp, though not through personal experience. I was a reticent and bookish child, easily spooked and prone to homesickness, and the idea of leaving the familiar and comforting world of my family to jostle among a bunch of tough-skinned strangers filled me with dread. What if I were excluded, or ignored, or laughed at? In the country where I came from, you stuck close to home until you were made to leave it, at eighteen, for the Army, and, even then, Israel’s almost comical smallness made it impossible to stay away for too long, even if you wanted to. As far as I was concerned, even day camp, the relatively tame waters of which I dipped my toe into for a couple summers, felt like a social and psychological stretch, with its lip-synching talent shows and Madonna-look-alike contests, its aggressively noisy bus trips and brash talk of lip-gloss brands and crushes and training bras. I preferred to experience shiny, scary, titillating American culture from the safe distance of the living-room couch, watching “General Hospital” and “Family Feud” and eating Lays potato chips. I might have been bored, but at least I was unscathed.