newyorker--2020-08-11--Trump’s Unprecedented Attacks on Our Public-Health System

How worried should we be that the President of the United States recently described as “ very impressive ” a woman who claims that doctors make medicine using DNA from aliens ?
Or that he shows no sign of recognizing the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic ?
It ’ s simply not possible to worry too much .
“ I thought her voice was an important voice , ” Donald Trump said , after a reporter asked him why he would retweet the claims of Stella Immanuel , a Houston pediatrician with a long history of bizarre statements about medicine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump ’ s unfounded enthusiasm for hydroxychloroquine .
The drug has been repeatedly discredited as a treatment for this disease .
She insists that it is a “ cure.
” It ’ s tempting to write off this episode purely as evidence of Trump ’ s disrespect for science .
But the problem it represents is much bigger ; it is the clearest sign yet that political interests and personal whims have eclipsed the rigor of some of our most important scientific institutions .
Twenty years ago , reporting from South Africa , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ national leader forces his people to subsist on lies and magic .
From 2000 to 2005 , according to a definitive study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health , Thabo Mbeki , then the President of South Africa , let as many as three hundred and thirty thousand of his fellow-citizens die and thirty-five thousand babies be born with H.I.V.
, by refusing to permit the country ’ s health service to treat AIDS with antiretroviral drugs .
Mbeki and his health minister , Manto Tshabalala-Msimang , insisted that antiviral @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Western pharmaceutical companies to kill Africans .
The Harvard study concluded that the drugs were withheld largely because of Mbeki ’ s well-known refusal to initially accept that AIDS is caused by a virus , H.I.V .
No single national leader would have been able to prevent the coronavirus pandemic .
But Trump ’ s denialism and hostility toward public-health officials has greatly increased America ’ s share of suffering and death .
On “ Fox & Friends , ” on Wednesday , he said that the virus is spreading in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country , and that children are virtually immune ; both statements are false .
And , as he has done many times before , he declared at a briefing that the pandemic would just “ go away.
” Trump has had one consistent response to the pandemic : he attacks leading experts when they attempt to tell the truth .
Last week , when Deborah Birx , the coördinator of the White House coronavirus task force , characterized the epidemic as “ extraordinarily widespread , ” Trump tweeted that she was “ pathetic.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fauci , the nation ’ s leading infectious-disease expert , was asked at a briefing to discuss his view on hydroxychloroquine , Trump prevented him from answering .
The President ’ s refusal either to lead or to recognize the leadership of others has made it impossible to develop a national plan to combat this virus .
Without such a plan , the nation has been subjected to a giant game of viral roulette .
With no coherent system of rapid tests , contact tracing is all but useless .
Since we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , tests and tracing offer the only near-term hope of controlling the pandemic .
States have largely been left to fend for themselves .
Last week , seven governors , Republicans and Democrats , formed their own testing coalition .
On Wednesday , Fauci was asked if the United States had the world ’ s worst COVID-19 outbreak .
“ It is quantitatively , if you look at it , ” he said .
“ I mean , the numbers don ’ t lie.
” Trump is asked similar questions nearly every day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not lie , the President does .
As he put it in a recent tweet , “ You will never hear this on the Fake News concerning the China Virus , but by comparison to most other countries , who are suffering greatly , we are doing very well.
” No amount of statistical massaging could make that statement true .
This war on reality has deeply wounded America ’ s public-health system .
In March , under relentless pressure from Trump and his trade adviser , Peter Navarro ( who has no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Drug Administration issued an emergency-use authorization ( E.U.A . )
for hydroxychloroquine .
That allowed doctors to administer the drug to patients who were severely ill , but it was not an approval of the drug for general use .
As Janet Woodcock , who runs the F.D.A.
’ s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research , put it in an interview with Stat , “ We simply said it ’ s possible from the in vitro data this may have a beneficial effect and the benefits may outweigh the risks.
” Few @ @ @ @ @ @ @ goaded on by the President , few listened to those who urged caution .
Trump announced on national television that hydroxychloroquine could be a “ game changer.
” It wasn ’ t .
Former F.D.A .
officials were astonished by the rushed action .
“ I understand the desire to find hope , but we need more evidence than is currently available before we encourage widespread use , ” Margaret A. Hamburg said at the time .
She served as the F.D.A .
commissioner for six years under Barack Obama .
In June @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had become apparent , the F.D.A .
revoked the E.U.A .
It was a remarkable retreat .
While it is reassuring that the agency finally made a decision based on data , the drug should not have been released for this use in the first place .
But , when politics takes precedence , facts no longer matter .
Rick A .
Bright , one of the nation ’ s experts on pandemic preparedness and the chief of BARDA ( the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority ) , had objected to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stop it .
He was fired .
As the Times reported on Monday , Stephen Hahn , the current F.D.A .
commissioner , is not allowed to speak to the press unless Michael Caputo , an assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services , or another official , is also on the line .
Caputo has long been associated with Trump , once serving as his driver .
We have recently witnessed an even more pernicious example of an American scientific colossus bowing to Trump ’ s ignorance .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Prevention issued stringent guidelines to determine when and if schools should reopen this fall .
Trump has insisted , against all scientific advice , that all schools should open .
He tweeted , “ I disagree with the @ CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools .
While they want them open , they are asking schools to do very impractical things .
I will be meeting with them !
!
!
” Robert Redfield , the director of the C.D.C.
, immediately issued an update to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ critically important for our public health to open schools this fall.
” The reversal was stunning ; past C.D.C .
directors were not immune to politics , and they understood that a President might overrule them .
But there has always been an understanding at the agency that all public-health decisions made there would have to be governed by data .
No agency or scientist is infallible .
Early in the pandemic , the C.D.C .
failed to introduce accurate test kits ; many of the kits it distributed were contaminated and useless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ based on PCR technology , which is a kind of molecular copying machine that makes millions ( or billions ) of copies of a DNA sample .
That makes it much easier for clinicians to detect any specific sequence of DNA , including those in the coronavirus .
The technology has been used routinely for more than three decades , but it is sensitive to small errors , and there were several in the C.D.C .
kits .
The misstep delayed accurate data collection throughout the United States at one of the most @ @ @ @ @ @

How worried should we be that the President of the United States recently described as “very impressive” a woman who claims that doctors make medicine using DNA from aliens? Or that he shows no sign of recognizing the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic? It’s simply not possible to worry too much.
“I thought her voice was an important voice,” Donald Trump said, after a reporter asked him why he would retweet the claims of Stella Immanuel, a Houston pediatrician with a long history of bizarre statements about medicine and human sexuality. Immanuel also shares Trump’s unfounded enthusiasm for hydroxychloroquine. The drug has been repeatedly discredited as a treatment for this disease. She insists that it is a “cure.” It’s tempting to write off this episode purely as evidence of Trump’s disrespect for science. But the problem it represents is much bigger; it is the clearest sign yet that political interests and personal whims have eclipsed the rigor of some of our most important scientific institutions.
Twenty years ago, reporting from South Africa, I saw firsthand what happens when a national leader forces his people to subsist on lies and magic. From 2000 to 2005, according to a definitive study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, Thabo Mbeki, then the President of South Africa, let as many as three hundred and thirty thousand of his fellow-citizens die and thirty-five thousand babies be born with H.I.V., by refusing to permit the country’s health service to treat AIDS with antiretroviral drugs. Mbeki and his health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, insisted that antiviral medicine was the product of a plot by Western pharmaceutical companies to kill Africans. The Harvard study concluded that the drugs were withheld largely because of Mbeki’s well-known refusal to initially accept that AIDS is caused by a virus, H.I.V.
No single national leader would have been able to prevent the coronavirus pandemic. But Trump’s denialism and hostility toward public-health officials has greatly increased America’s share of suffering and death. On “Fox & Friends,” on Wednesday, he said that the virus is spreading in a “relatively small portion” of the country, and that children are virtually immune; both statements are false. And, as he has done many times before, he declared at a briefing that the pandemic would just “go away.”
Trump has had one consistent response to the pandemic: he attacks leading experts when they attempt to tell the truth. Last week, when Deborah Birx, the coördinator of the White House coronavirus task force, characterized the epidemic as “extraordinarily widespread,” Trump tweeted that she was “pathetic.” Earlier this year, when Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert, was asked at a briefing to discuss his view on hydroxychloroquine, Trump prevented him from answering. The President’s refusal either to lead or to recognize the leadership of others has made it impossible to develop a national plan to combat this virus.
Without such a plan, the nation has been subjected to a giant game of viral roulette. With no coherent system of rapid tests, contact tracing is all but useless. Since we have neither a vaccine nor any general therapy, tests and tracing offer the only near-term hope of controlling the pandemic. States have largely been left to fend for themselves. Last week, seven governors, Republicans and Democrats, formed their own testing coalition.
On Wednesday, Fauci was asked if the United States had the world’s worst COVID-19 outbreak. “It is quantitatively, if you look at it,” he said. “I mean, the numbers don’t lie.” Trump is asked similar questions nearly every day. And, although the numbers may not lie, the President does. As he put it in a recent tweet, “You will never hear this on the Fake News concerning the China Virus, but by comparison to most other countries, who are suffering greatly, we are doing very well.” No amount of statistical massaging could make that statement true.
This war on reality has deeply wounded America’s public-health system. In March, under relentless pressure from Trump and his trade adviser, Peter Navarro (who has no medical training), the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency-use authorization (E.U.A.) for hydroxychloroquine. That allowed doctors to administer the drug to patients who were severely ill, but it was not an approval of the drug for general use. As Janet Woodcock, who runs the F.D.A.’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, put it in an interview with Stat, “We simply said it’s possible from the in vitro data this may have a beneficial effect and the benefits may outweigh the risks.” Few people understood that distinction, and, goaded on by the President, few listened to those who urged caution.
Trump announced on national television that hydroxychloroquine could be a “game changer.” It wasn’t. Former F.D.A. officials were astonished by the rushed action. “I understand the desire to find hope, but we need more evidence than is currently available before we encourage widespread use,” Margaret A. Hamburg said at the time. She served as the F.D.A. commissioner for six years under Barack Obama.
In June, when the drug’s ineffectiveness had become apparent, the F.D.A. revoked the E.U.A. It was a remarkable retreat. While it is reassuring that the agency finally made a decision based on data, the drug should not have been released for this use in the first place. But, when politics takes precedence, facts no longer matter. Rick A. Bright, one of the nation’s experts on pandemic preparedness and the chief of BARDA (the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority), had objected to the use of the drug and tried to stop it. He was fired. As the Times reported on Monday, Stephen Hahn, the current F.D.A. commissioner, is not allowed to speak to the press unless Michael Caputo, an assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, or another official, is also on the line. Caputo has long been associated with Trump, once serving as his driver.
We have recently witnessed an even more pernicious example of an American scientific colossus bowing to Trump’s ignorance. In May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued stringent guidelines to determine when and if schools should reopen this fall. Trump has insisted, against all scientific advice, that all schools should open. He tweeted, “I disagree with the @CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools. While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!”


newyorker--2020-08-12--Kamala Harris’s Vice-Presidential Nomination Gives New Meaning to the Biden Campaign

The news of Joe Biden ’ s Vice-Presidential pick , when it finally came , arrived by a cheery text sent a little after 4:15 P.M. Tuesday to the campaign ’ s supporters .
“ Joe Biden here .
Big news : I ’ ve chosen Kamala Harris as my running mate .
Together , we ’ ll beat Donald Trump.
” It was big , important , historic news—Harris is the first African-American woman and first person of Asian descent to be nominated to a major-party national ticket—and yet , in the moment , it was dimmed by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ television , ex-senators and columnists squinted and grinned from their home offices and tried to think of something helpful to say .
Next week , instead of appearing at a convention hall in Milwaukee , Biden , Harris , and a long roster of Democratic National Convention speakers will weigh in via online video .
Picking a running mate lost some of its pageantry and corporeality , but not its significance .
Biden , who is seventy-seven , has said throughout this campaign that he is just a “ transitional ” figure—a generational @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more about who may come next .
The year began with the Democrats scattered and a little frantic .
The early primaries revealed a stark generational divide over who would lead the Party and , beneath that , a more profound one over what the Party wanted .
Fourteen months ago , at the first Democratic debate , Harris criticized Biden ’ s efforts to claim credit for working with segregationists , and his history of opposing mandated busing in order to integrate schools .
“ It was actually hurtful to hear you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ senators who built their careers and reputations on the segregation of race in this country , ” Harris said , and then evoked an image of her childhood , as “ a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools.
” As Biden floundered , and as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren ascended , more moderate Democrats cast about for an alternative .
During the winter , there were flurries of enthusiasm for Pete Buttigieg , in Iowa , and Amy Klobuchar , in New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when Biden was losing momentum and Sanders seemed , narrowly , the front-runner , the veteran South Carolina representative James Clyburn gave a crucial endorsement to Biden .
“ We know Joe , ” Clyburn said to Black Democrats in South Carolina .
“ But , more importantly , Joe knows us.
” Clyburn remembered long conversations with Biden not just about Brown v. Board of Education but also about the lawsuits over school segregation that produced it , one originating in Clyburn ’ s South Carolina and another in Biden ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know this man .
I know what ’ s in his heart.
” Biden went on to win forty-eight per cent of the vote in South Carolina and a large majority of Black voters ; no other candidate surpassed twenty per cent .
That was February 29th ; by March 8th , the former candidates Harris and Beto O ’ Rourke had endorsed Biden , and Buttigieg and Klobuchar had dropped out and done the same .
Now Biden ’ s selection of Harris has lent his campaign a thematic clarity that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a year of calamities whose effects have been especially painful in Black communities—the coronavirus pandemic , massive unemployment stemming from enforced shutdowns , and the police killing of George Floyd , in Minneapolis—each of the signal moments of Biden ’ s campaign has concerned the legacy of the civil-rights movement .
Late last month , Barack Obama , who has kept a low profile throughout the campaign , appeared at Martin Luther King ’ s pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church to eulogize the Democratic congressman and civil-rights hero John Lewis , interweaving the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Democratic Party .
Lewis ’ s life , Obama said , had “ vindicated the faith in our founding , redeemed that faith ; that most American of ideas ; that idea that any of us ordinary people without rank or wealth or title or fame can somehow point out the imperfections of this nation , and come together , and challenge the status quo , and decide that it is in our power to remake this country that we love.
” Obama noticed the image of King ’ s movement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the streets .
He also struck some transactional notes , endorsing an electoral-reform package and the abolition of the Senate filibuster if that was preventing its passage , and suggesting that the righteous path included statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico .
The line on Biden has always been that he lacked vision .
Here was the Party ’ s great visionary , lending him one .
Pollsters will tell you that , despite Biden ’ s long career in politics , his candidacy has been undefined .
It lacks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Build Back Better ” isn ’ t winning any propaganda awards .
At his campaign events , back when there were campaign events , his focus often wandered ; at times , he sat down before the end and let a surrogate deliver the closing case for him .
In contrast , Harris came through vividly in her campaign ’ s version of her biography : an early life adjacent to the political militancy of Oakland , with a Jamaican-American father and an Indian-American mother , both academics ; participating in civil-rights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ young woman at Howard ; law school at the University of California and an effort , as San Francisco ’ s District Attorney , to reform the criminal-justice system from the inside ; and , finally , as a politician , the practice of eternal crusade .
Other contenders in the Democratic primaries—Elizabeth Warren , Julian Castro—dove deep into policy , mastering it , but it was often hard to understand just what Harris ’ s plans were .
She went back and forth about whether she supported Sanders ’ s vision of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ argue that she had fought as California ’ s attorney general for ordinary citizens against predatory financial institutions , but that was Warren ’ s turf .
Her effort to position herself as a criminal-justice reformer was undermined by the Party ’ s activist wing , which pointed out her consistent preference for policing and carceral solutions .
In a chaotic race eventually decided by Black voters , Harris drew such little interest and money that she dropped out nearly two months before the first primary .
Political lives , lately , have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seventies , Bernie Sanders was a gadfly .
When he was nearly a senior citizen , Donald Trump was donating to Anthony Weiner , ( as dissident Republican operatives like to point out ) .
Biden himself ran for the presidency in 1988 and then again in 2008 , each time scraping along in the single digits .
Credit to Biden : nearing eighty , having spent decades telling his father ’ s story , about the shame of unemployment , he has realized this year that he has to tell someone else @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Black voters and leaders who have formed his base .
He has pledged to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court .
Now he has picked another , a senator who defined her political career around campaigns for justice , as his running mate .
The Harris choice is not an ideological commitment but a thematic one—to the civil-rights tradition and its politics .
Biden sometimes mentions that his deceased son , Beau , had worked closely with Harris when both were their states ’ attorneys general , but he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new running mate .
Some of Biden ’ s allies , especially the former Connecticut senator Chris Dodd , reportedly spent time in recent weeks pitilessly—and , arguably , misogynistically—criticizing Harris ’ s alleged lack of “ remorse ” after she turned on Biden in that early debate .
But the two running mates aren ’ t so dissimilar .
Each carries some of the shine of the spotlight ; each can be a little hard to pin down .
It makes sense that the news of Harris ’ s nomination arrived by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Harris , like Biden , has carefully stayed at the center of her party .
And , like him , she has understood that definition can wait .

The news of Joe Biden’s Vice-Presidential pick, when it finally came, arrived by a cheery text sent a little after 4:15 P.M. Tuesday to the campaign’s supporters. “Joe Biden here. Big news: I’ve chosen Kamala Harris as my running mate. Together, we’ll beat Donald Trump.” It was big, important, historic news—Harris is the first African-American woman and first person of Asian descent to be nominated to a major-party national ticket—and yet, in the moment, it was dimmed by the enforced anti-spectacle of Zoom. On cable television, ex-senators and columnists squinted and grinned from their home offices and tried to think of something helpful to say. Next week, instead of appearing at a convention hall in Milwaukee, Biden, Harris, and a long roster of Democratic National Convention speakers will weigh in via online video. Picking a running mate lost some of its pageantry and corporeality, but not its significance. Biden, who is seventy-seven, has said throughout this campaign that he is just a “transitional” figure—a generational bridge. Now we know a bit more about who may come next.
The year began with the Democrats scattered and a little frantic. The early primaries revealed a stark generational divide over who would lead the Party and, beneath that, a more profound one over what the Party wanted. Fourteen months ago, at the first Democratic debate, Harris criticized Biden’s efforts to claim credit for working with segregationists, and his history of opposing mandated busing in order to integrate schools. “It was actually hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two U.S. senators who built their careers and reputations on the segregation of race in this country,” Harris said, and then evoked an image of her childhood, as “a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools.”
As Biden floundered, and as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren ascended, more moderate Democrats cast about for an alternative. During the winter, there were flurries of enthusiasm for Pete Buttigieg, in Iowa, and Amy Klobuchar, in New Hampshire. Then, in February, when Biden was losing momentum and Sanders seemed, narrowly, the front-runner, the veteran South Carolina representative James Clyburn gave a crucial endorsement to Biden. “We know Joe,” Clyburn said to Black Democrats in South Carolina. “But, more importantly, Joe knows us.” Clyburn remembered long conversations with Biden not just about Brown v. Board of Education but also about the lawsuits over school segregation that produced it, one originating in Clyburn’s South Carolina and another in Biden’s Delaware. Clyburn said, “I know this man. I know what’s in his heart.” Biden went on to win forty-eight per cent of the vote in South Carolina and a large majority of Black voters; no other candidate surpassed twenty per cent. That was February 29th; by March 8th, the former candidates Harris and Beto O’Rourke had endorsed Biden, and Buttigieg and Klobuchar had dropped out and done the same.
Now Biden’s selection of Harris has lent his campaign a thematic clarity that it didn’t have before. In a year of calamities whose effects have been especially painful in Black communities—the coronavirus pandemic, massive unemployment stemming from enforced shutdowns, and the police killing of George Floyd, in Minneapolis—each of the signal moments of Biden’s campaign has concerned the legacy of the civil-rights movement. Late last month, Barack Obama, who has kept a low profile throughout the campaign, appeared at Martin Luther King’s pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church to eulogize the Democratic congressman and civil-rights hero John Lewis, interweaving the language of the civil-rights movement with that of the Democratic Party. Lewis’s life, Obama said, had “vindicated the faith in our founding, redeemed that faith; that most American of ideas; that idea that any of us ordinary people without rank or wealth or title or fame can somehow point out the imperfections of this nation, and come together, and challenge the status quo, and decide that it is in our power to remake this country that we love.” Obama noticed the image of King’s movement in the Black Lives Matter marches in the streets. He also struck some transactional notes, endorsing an electoral-reform package and the abolition of the Senate filibuster if that was preventing its passage, and suggesting that the righteous path included statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The line on Biden has always been that he lacked vision. Here was the Party’s great visionary, lending him one.
Pollsters will tell you that, despite Biden’s long career in politics, his candidacy has been undefined. It lacks a clear economic message, for starters—“Build Back Better” isn’t winning any propaganda awards. At his campaign events, back when there were campaign events, his focus often wandered; at times, he sat down before the end and let a surrogate deliver the closing case for him. In contrast, Harris came through vividly in her campaign’s version of her biography: an early life adjacent to the political militancy of Oakland, with a Jamaican-American father and an Indian-American mother, both academics; participating in civil-rights marches as a child and as a young woman at Howard; law school at the University of California and an effort, as San Francisco’s District Attorney, to reform the criminal-justice system from the inside; and, finally, as a politician, the practice of eternal crusade. Other contenders in the Democratic primaries—Elizabeth Warren, Julián Castro—dove deep into policy, mastering it, but it was often hard to understand just what Harris’s plans were. She went back and forth about whether she supported Sanders’s vision of Medicare for All. She tried to argue that she had fought as California’s attorney general for ordinary citizens against predatory financial institutions, but that was Warren’s turf. Her effort to position herself as a criminal-justice reformer was undermined by the Party’s activist wing, which pointed out her consistent preference for policing and carceral solutions. In a chaotic race eventually decided by Black voters, Harris drew such little interest and money that she dropped out nearly two months before the first primary.
Political lives, lately, have had unexpected late acts. Until his seventies, Bernie Sanders was a gadfly. When he was nearly a senior citizen, Donald Trump was donating to Anthony Weiner (as dissident Republican operatives like to point out). Biden himself ran for the Presidency in 1988 and then again in 2008, each time scraping along in the single digits. Credit to Biden: nearing eighty, having spent decades telling his father’s story, about the shame of unemployment, he has realized this year that he has to tell someone else’s—about the long fight for equality of the Black voters and leaders who have formed his base. He has pledged to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court. Now he has picked another, a senator who defined her political career around campaigns for justice, as his running mate. The Harris choice is not an ideological commitment but a thematic one—to the civil-rights tradition and its politics.
Biden sometimes mentions that his deceased son, Beau, had worked closely with Harris when both were their states’ attorneys general, but he himself is not obviously close with his new running mate. Some of Biden’s allies, especially the former Connecticut senator Chris Dodd, reportedly spent time in recent weeks pitilessly—and, arguably, misogynistically—criticizing Harris’s alleged lack of “remorse” after she turned on Biden in that early debate. But the two running mates aren’t so dissimilar. Each carries some of the shine of the spotlight; each can be a little hard to pin down. It makes sense that the news of Harris’s nomination arrived by text, with the big pageant delayed. Harris, like Biden, has carefully stayed at the center of her party. And, like him, she has understood that definition can wait.


newyorker--2020-08-11--What to Stream: A Blazing Interview with Orson Welles

In February of 1982 , Orson Welles was sixty-six years old and hadn ’ t completed a dramatic feature since the docu-fiction “ F for Fake , ” from 1973 .
He was in France , to be decorated as a commander of the Légion d ’ Honneur , and while there he paid a visit to the Cinémathèque Française , for a Q .
& A. with film students .
The event was filmed by Pierre-André Boutang and Guy Seligmann ; the film is streaming , for free , on the Cinémathèque ’ s treasure trove of a Web @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a moving portrait of the caged cinematic lion ( who died in 1985 , without making another feature ) and an enduringly insightful set of lessons on the art and the practice of making movies .
Welles declares his desire for the session to be a dialogue ; the students ( who form a standing-room crowd ) prove reticent , however , and he makes strenuously good-humored efforts to get them to engage—and then delivers generous , copious , blazingly uninhibited answers to their brief questions .
The discussion is moderated by Henri @ @ @ @ @ @ @ onstage translator .
The time that it takes Béhar to repeat Welles ’ s remarks in French ( and , at times , to put the students ’ questions into English ) lends the discussion a natural rhythm , within which Welles composes his thoughts with rhetorical flair and invests them with dramatic weight and comedic timing .
Welles , who was one of the greatest and grandest of actors and also of directors , turns the event into a performance—without sacrificing a whit of candor .
He brings a mighty , Shakespearean @ @ @ @ @ @ @ occasion .
Polling the students about their intended careers in film , he ’ s dismayed to learn that almost all of them want to be directors .
He fears for them , he says , adding , “ You are people who have fallen under the spell of the most wicked of all the muses .
.
.
because it ’ s too expensive.
” He mentions trouble getting distribution ; he mentions having had his movies recut against his will ; he mentions being cheated out of money by “ creative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he simply laments the difficulty of getting funding to make films .
When asked about the greatest moment he experienced as a filmmaker , he says , “ The greatest moment is always when you know the money is in the bank .
.
.
.
It ’ s exactly the way you would feel if you were a painter and you had to wait for some fairy to come in the night and give you some paint .
Every morning , you wake up and the box is empty .
Now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those colors in front of you , it ’ s going to be a big moment in your life.
” ( He speaks enviously of painters and their relatively inexpensive supplies , and he also describes his other life , as a celebrity entertainer on U.S. television—if the French had known about this , he jokes , he wouldn ’ t have been decorated . )
Yet his dismay at the near-universal desire of these students to direct also arises from his declared view that the role of the director is overvalued .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ overvalued , for two reasons—first , because movies have no need for scripts ( “ You can make a wonderful film about nothing—look at Fellini ” ) , and , second , because the screenwriter works alone , like a novelist , whereas “ everything about the work of the director consists of working with many people and extracting from all of them the maximum human richesse.
” The people from whom a director must extract richness above all are actors , whom Welles considers the most important element of a movie .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ made the cinema unforgettable , ” Welles says , and a director ’ s job is “ to discover in the actor something more than he knew he had.
” At the same time , Welles is careful to distinguish actors from stars : “ The real star is an animal absolutely separate from actors .
He may be , or she may be , the greatest actor in the world , but he is not like actors .
The vocation of being a star is separate from the vocation of being an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wanting to be President of the United States.
” Good directors , Welles says , are those who see who ( actors ) and what ( locations and décor ) are in front of them and are “ intelligent enough to shoot it.
” He says that “ the job of the director is to choose what he sees and , to an extent , to create , but a great deal of what is applauded as creation is simply there.
” He contrasts the “ intelligent ” director from the “ intellectual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the performing arts ” ) ; he worries that film students watch too many movies and that film professors show them too many movies .
He thinks that inspiration comes from seeing things for oneself , not as other directors see them , and he hates , above all , the “ homage , ” the reference in movies to other movies .
Yet Welles does not demean the art of the director—or his own art .
( He jokingly refers to himself as a “ petit maître of an art form which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be an art form , ” but adds that he considers “ all the other directors petits maîtres—and most of them très petits maîtres.
” ) What he does demean most is the notion of a willed style ; he explains his own widely varied sense of style in purely heuristic , spontaneous terms .
When asked about the use of deep-focus camera work in “ Citizen Kane , ” he says that he likes deep focus—and also its complete antithesis .
He chose that style once because that ’ s how he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and he stopped using it when he found that his eye saw differently .
He anticipates filming , a year from then , his version of “ King Lear ” in a telephoto-based style of extreme shallow focus .
Throughout the talk , Welles looks eagerly to the future , mentioning films that he ’ s planning to make .
Asked about his legacy , he instead looks ahead : “ I feel young and happy and ready to make movies.
” In addition to “ King Lear , ” he intended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and “ The Other Side of the Wind.
” ( He didn ’ t ; both were completed by others after his death . )
He also planned to make a movie adapted from a novel by Isak Dinesen and a story that he wrote about “ American politicians.
” ( Asked whether it might be about Reagan , Welles jibed , “ There ’ s not enough there for a feature movie.
” ) Welles speaks enthusiastically about video and is looking forward to using it “ to start an entirely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I like the look of video very much .
.
.
and I love the control that I have over color and many other things.
” ( He also speaks of the inevitably solitary experience , the “ single ” -ness , of moviegoers , as if anticipating the hunched-over private viewings of the streaming life . )
Welles displays his fervent intention of making movies , and , throughout , displays , too , ferocious insights of scathing intensity .
( Only a few forced belly laughs suggest a shadow of despair @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; when he died , in 1985 , he left many films incomplete .
The result was a grandly ironic paradox : Welles may have rejected the idea of posterity , but his own fragmented and loose-ended œuvre became an industry unto itself , with movies of his completed and released posthumously .
After his death , his work required more than critical attention—it demanded hands-on acolytes ready to put years of labor into shoring up its fragments .
It ’ s a story that he told—perhaps foretold—in “ The Other Side of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who both leaves work unfinished and creates a mighty myth , in death , that exceeded his professional standing in his last days .
The film industry failed Welles with its contemptuous indifference to his ambitions—with its ingratitude for the artistic vistas that he ’ d opened for it .
Perhaps leading lights of New Hollywood recognized that , running freely among them and competing with them on even ground , he ’ d have left them far behind and turned their own work instantly obsolete .
Instead , he was turned into @ @ @ @ @ @ @

In February of 1982, Orson Welles was sixty-six years old and hadn’t completed a dramatic feature since the docu-fiction “F for Fake,” from 1973. He was in France, to be decorated as a commander of the Légion d’Honneur, and while there he paid a visit to the Cinémathèque Française, for a Q. & A. with film students. The event was filmed by Pierre-André Boutang and Guy Seligmann; the film is streaming, for free, on the Cinémathèque’s treasure trove of a Web site, and it’s both a moving portrait of the caged cinematic lion (who died in 1985, without making another feature) and an enduringly insightful set of lessons on the art and the practice of making movies.
Welles declares his desire for the session to be a dialogue; the students (who form a standing-room crowd) prove reticent, however, and he makes strenuously good-humored efforts to get them to engage—and then delivers generous, copious, blazingly uninhibited answers to their brief questions. The discussion is moderated by Henri Béhar, who also serves as the onstage translator. The time that it takes Béhar to repeat Welles’s remarks in French (and, at times, to put the students’ questions into English) lends the discussion a natural rhythm, within which Welles composes his thoughts with rhetorical flair and invests them with dramatic weight and comedic timing. Welles, who was one of the greatest and grandest of actors and also of directors, turns the event into a performance—without sacrificing a whit of candor. He brings a mighty, Shakespearean pathos and comedy to the casually structured occasion.
Polling the students about their intended careers in film, he’s dismayed to learn that almost all of them want to be directors. He fears for them, he says, adding, “You are people who have fallen under the spell of the most wicked of all the muses . . . because it’s too expensive.” He mentions trouble getting distribution; he mentions having had his movies recut against his will; he mentions being cheated out of money by “creative bookkeeping”; but, above all, he simply laments the difficulty of getting funding to make films. When asked about the greatest moment he experienced as a filmmaker, he says, “The greatest moment is always when you know the money is in the bank. . . . It’s exactly the way you would feel if you were a painter and you had to wait for some fairy to come in the night and give you some paint. Every morning, you wake up and the box is empty. Now, naturally, when you see all those colors in front of you, it’s going to be a big moment in your life.” (He speaks enviously of painters and their relatively inexpensive supplies, and he also describes his other life, as a celebrity entertainer on U.S. television—if the French had known about this, he jokes, he wouldn’t have been decorated.)
Yet his dismay at the near-universal desire of these students to direct also arises from his declared view that the role of the director is overvalued. He thinks that screenwriters are even more overvalued, for two reasons—first, because movies have no need for scripts (“You can make a wonderful film about nothing—look at Fellini”), and, second, because the screenwriter works alone, like a novelist, whereas “everything about the work of the director consists of working with many people and extracting from all of them the maximum human richesse.” The people from whom a director must extract richness above all are actors, whom Welles considers the most important element of a movie. “They are the people who have made the cinema unforgettable,” Welles says, and a director’s job is “to discover in the actor something more than he knew he had.” At the same time, Welles is careful to distinguish actors from stars: “The real star is an animal absolutely separate from actors. He may be, or she may be, the greatest actor in the world, but he is not like actors. The vocation of being a star is separate from the vocation of being an actor. It is very close to wanting to be President of the United States.”
Good directors, Welles says, are those who see who (actors) and what (locations and décor) are in front of them and are “intelligent enough to shoot it.” He says that “the job of the director is to choose what he sees and, to an extent, to create, but a great deal of what is applauded as creation is simply there.” He contrasts the “intelligent” director from the “intellectual” (“the enemy of all the performing arts”); he worries that film students watch too many movies and that film professors show them too many movies. He thinks that inspiration comes from seeing things for oneself, not as other directors see them, and he hates, above all, the “homage,” the reference in movies to other movies.
Yet Welles does not demean the art of the director—or his own art. (He jokingly refers to himself as a “petit maître of an art form which has not yet entirely proven itself to be an art form,” but adds that he considers “all the other directors petits maîtres—and most of them très petits maîtres.”) What he does demean most is the notion of a willed style; he explains his own widely varied sense of style in purely heuristic, spontaneous terms. When asked about the use of deep-focus camera work in “Citizen Kane,” he says that he likes deep focus—and also its complete antithesis. He chose that style once because that’s how he thought his eye saw, he says, and he stopped using it when he found that his eye saw differently. He anticipates filming, a year from then, his version of “King Lear” in a telephoto-based style of extreme shallow focus.
Throughout the talk, Welles looks eagerly to the future, mentioning films that he’s planning to make. Asked about his legacy, he instead looks ahead: “I feel young and happy and ready to make movies.” In addition to “King Lear,” he intended to complete his films “Don Quixote” and “The Other Side of the Wind.” (He didn’t; both were completed by others after his death.) He also planned to make a movie adapted from a novel by Isak Dinesen and a story that he wrote about “American politicians.” (Asked whether it might be about Reagan, Welles jibed, “There’s not enough there for a feature movie.”) Welles speaks enthusiastically about video and is looking forward to using it “to start an entirely new form.” He says, “I like the look of video very much . . . and I love the control that I have over color and many other things.” (He also speaks of the inevitably solitary experience, the “single”-ness, of moviegoers, as if anticipating the hunched-over private viewings of the streaming life.)
Welles displays his fervent intention of making movies, and, throughout, displays, too, ferocious insights of scathing intensity. (Only a few forced belly laughs suggest a shadow of despair.) But his energies went untapped; when he died, in 1985, he left many films incomplete. The result was a grandly ironic paradox: Welles may have rejected the idea of posterity, but his own fragmented and loose-ended œuvre became an industry unto itself, with movies of his completed and released posthumously. After his death, his work required more than critical attention—it demanded hands-on acolytes ready to put years of labor into shoring up its fragments. It’s a story that he told—perhaps foretold—in “The Other Side of the Wind,” about a filmmaker who both leaves work unfinished and creates a mighty myth, in death, that exceeded his professional standing in his last days. The film industry failed Welles with its contemptuous indifference to his ambitions—with its ingratitude for the artistic vistas that he’d opened for it. Perhaps leading lights of New Hollywood recognized that, running freely among them and competing with them on even ground, he’d have left them far behind and turned their own work instantly obsolete. Instead, he was turned into the subject of many an homage.


newyorker--2020-08-11--Connecticut Primary Election 2020: Live Results, Maps, and Analysis

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newyorker--2020-08-11--Trump’s Attack on the Postal Service Is a Threat to Democracy—and to Rural America

I ’ ve lived most of my life in small towns in pretty remote rural areas .
Some were in red regions , some were purplish-blue—but every last one of them centered on the local post office .
I remember years of picking up the mail from a little window in the postmaster ’ s living room .
( If you called her the postmistress , she would tartly reply , “ Uncle Sam can ’ t afford mistresses.
” ) Eventually , she needed her parlor back , to have room to work on her genealogy projects , so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Where I live now , the local post office takes up a third of the space in the only business in our town , a country store complete with potbellied stove and rocking chairs .
It ’ s probably why we still have a store : if you ’ re there to pick up mail , you might as well get some eggs , too .
All of which is to say that I really hate what the Republicans are trying to do to the post office .
It ’ s by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is attempting to sabotage mail delivery in order to cast some kind of shadow over the November election .
Donald Trump ’ s newly installed Postmaster General , Louis DeJoy , who earned the position with more than two million dollars in donations to the Trump campaign and other Republican causes since 2016 , has eliminated all overtime ; a memo to employees declares that , as a result , “ if we can not deliver all the mail due to call offs or shortage of people and you have no other help @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Last week , as the Washington Post reports , in what ’ s being called the Friday Night Massacre , DeJoy obliterated decades of institutional knowledge , by reassigning or displacing twenty-three highly ranked officials in the postal service .
Not only that but the Postal Service almost tripled the postage for mailing ballots to voters .
Behind that assault on a right guaranteed in our democracy , however , lurks something less immediate but almost as ugly : the long-standing G.O.P .
effort to gut the postal service and replace it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if it succeeds , will suck out what life remains from too many of the rural communities that many of those Republicans theoretically represent .
It ’ s hard to imagine New York City without a post office ; it would be devastating to lose the postal workers and an utter shame to no longer wait in line in the Art Deco gem at 90 Church Street , among other historic buildings .
But , at least in the wealthy parts of the city , some mix of the Internet and bike messengers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the job done .
For Americans who live in sparsely populated and poorer areas far from big cities , though , postal workers perform an irreplaceable role .
“ Post offices are the center of any rural town , and it connects us to friends and family as well as markets for small businesses , ” Jane Kleeb , who lives in Hastings , Nebraska , told me .
I got to know her because she was , and is , a remarkable leader in the fight against the Keystone XL oil pipeline @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Nebraska ’ s Democratic Party , and—with her recent book “ Harvest the Vote ” —an outspoken advocate for getting progressives to take rural America seriously .
So she understands about the mail .
“ When we go into the post office in our small town , we know the staff behind the counter , and we catch up on each other ’ s lives , ” she said .
“ I can ’ t tell you the number of times also in our post office here in Hastings where a new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and they go into the post office for help on cashier checks for rent , or questions on the census , or how to get the utilities turned on .
The staff always help , even if that is not part of their ‘ job , ’ because they also know post offices are seen as a hub for our government.
” In 2012 , when the Postal Service planned on closing 3,830 branches , an analysis by Reuters showed that eighty per cent of those branches were in rural areas where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
You know who delivers the Amazon package the final mile to rural Americans ?
The U.S.P.S .
You know how people get medicine , when the pharmacy is an hour ’ s drive away ?
In their mailbox .
You know why many people can ’ t pay their bills electronically ?
Because too much of rural America has impossibly slow Internet , or none at all .
These are the places where , during the pandemic , teachers and students all sit in cars in the school parking lot to Zoom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s the only spot with high-speed Wi-Fi .
You want the ultimate example ?
Visit one of the sprawling Native American lands in the West and you ’ ll see how , as a member of the Mandan-Hidatsa tribe in North Dakota told Vox , the postal service helps keep those communities “ connected to the world.
” Should the government destroy the service , she said , “ It would just be kind of a continuation of these structures in the U.S. that already dispossessed people of color , black and indigenous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the poverty line.
” The mail , Kleeb said , “ is a universal service that literally levels the playing field for all Americans .
It is how we order goods , send gifts to our family , and keep small businesses alive .
In the era of the coronavirus , mail is now our lifeline to have our voices heard for our ballots in the election .
In fact , in eleven counties in our state , they have only mail-in ballots , because of how massive the county is land-wise.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Party , which depends on the undue weight given to rural voters for its continued political life , would be particularly solicitous of the post office .
But , at the higher reaches , its ideological preoccupations are stronger : the post office is a government service , and therefore bad ; it should be run instead by people who can make money from it .
The postal service , though , is the most popular government agency in the country , with a ninety-one-per-cent favorability rating , and it ’ s equally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Party has generally had to proceed by stealth .
Most notably , in 2006 , President George W. Bush signed a law that makes the U.S.P.S .
fund the health-care benefits of its retirees seventy-five years into the future .
No one else does that ; it ’ s why , even though the postal service ekes out an operating profit most years , it is saddled with a huge deficit .
But Donald Trump specializes in saying the quiet part out loud .
In April , he told reporters that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and that he ’ d oppose any bailout unless it quadrupled the rate for mailing packages .
( Along with the postal service ’ s role in our democracy , the President seems upset about its contracts with Amazon , because it is owned by the same man who owns the Washington Post , which Trump thinks is mean to him , which is just daily life in a tinpot wannabe-dictatorship . )
“ Trump and the Republican Party use rural communities and give speeches about how connected they are to our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get elected , and then turn around and abandon everything we care about , from our schools , to the post office , to our family farmers , and to our rural hospitals , ” Kleeb told me .

I’ve lived most of my life in small towns in pretty remote rural areas. Some were in red regions, some were purplish-blue—but every last one of them centered on the local post office. I remember years of picking up the mail from a little window in the postmaster’s living room. (If you called her the postmistress, she would tartly reply, “Uncle Sam can’t afford mistresses.”) Eventually, she needed her parlor back, to have room to work on her genealogy projects, so the community built a small freestanding building. Where I live now, the local post office takes up a third of the space in the only business in our town, a country store complete with potbellied stove and rocking chairs. It’s probably why we still have a store: if you’re there to pick up mail, you might as well get some eggs, too.
All of which is to say that I really hate what the Republicans are trying to do to the post office. It’s by now pretty obvious that the Trump Administration is attempting to sabotage mail delivery in order to cast some kind of shadow over the November election. Donald Trump’s newly installed Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, who earned the position with more than two million dollars in donations to the Trump campaign and other Republican causes since 2016, has eliminated all overtime; a memo to employees declares that, as a result, “if we cannot deliver all the mail due to call offs or shortage of people and you have no other help, the mail will not go out.” Last week, as the Washington Post reports, in what’s being called the Friday Night Massacre, DeJoy obliterated decades of institutional knowledge, by reassigning or displacing twenty-three highly ranked officials in the Postal Service. Not only that but the Postal Service almost tripled the postage for mailing ballots to voters.
Behind that assault on a right guaranteed in our democracy, however, lurks something less immediate but almost as ugly: the long-standing G.O.P. effort to gut the Postal Service and replace it with a privatized entity—an effort that, if it succeeds, will suck out what life remains from too many of the rural communities that many of those Republicans theoretically represent. It’s hard to imagine New York City without a post office; it would be devastating to lose the postal workers and an utter shame to no longer wait in line in the Art Deco gem at 90 Church Street, among other historic buildings. But, at least in the wealthy parts of the city, some mix of the Internet and bike messengers and double-parked courier-service trucks could probably get the job done. For Americans who live in sparsely populated and poorer areas far from big cities, though, postal workers perform an irreplaceable role.
“Post offices are the center of any rural town, and it connects us to friends and family as well as markets for small businesses,” Jane Kleeb, who lives in Hastings, Nebraska, told me. I got to know her because she was, and is, a remarkable leader in the fight against the Keystone XL oil pipeline. She’s also the chair of Nebraska’s Democratic Party, and—with her recent book “Harvest the Vote”—an outspoken advocate for getting progressives to take rural America seriously. So she understands about the mail. “When we go into the post office in our small town, we know the staff behind the counter, and we catch up on each other’s lives,” she said. “I can’t tell you the number of times also in our post office here in Hastings where a new immigrant is making our town their home, and they go into the post office for help on cashier checks for rent, or questions on the census, or how to get the utilities turned on. The staff always help, even if that is not part of their ‘job,’ because they also know post offices are seen as a hub for our government.”
In 2012, when the Postal Service planned on closing 3,830 branches, an analysis by Reuters showed that eighty per cent of those branches were in rural areas where the poverty rate topped the national average. You know who delivers the Amazon package the final mile to rural Americans? The U.S.P.S. You know how people get medicine, when the pharmacy is an hour’s drive away? In their mailbox. You know why many people can’t pay their bills electronically? Because too much of rural America has impossibly slow Internet, or none at all. These are the places where, during the pandemic, teachers and students all sit in cars in the school parking lot to Zoom with one another, because that’s the only spot with high-speed Wi-Fi. You want the ultimate example? Visit one of the sprawling Native American lands in the West and you’ll see how, as a member of the Mandan-Hidatsa tribe in North Dakota told Vox, the Postal Service helps keep those communities “connected to the world.” Should the government destroy the service, she said, “It would just be kind of a continuation of these structures in the U.S. that already dispossessed people of color, black and indigenous people of color, and people below the poverty line.” The mail, Kleeb said, “is a universal service that literally levels the playing field for all Americans. It is how we order goods, send gifts to our family, and keep small businesses alive. In the era of the coronavirus, mail is now our lifeline to have our voices heard for our ballots in the election. In fact, in eleven counties in our state, they have only mail-in ballots, because of how massive the county is land-wise.”
You’d think that the Republican Party, which depends on the undue weight given to rural voters for its continued political life, would be particularly solicitous of the post office. But, at the higher reaches, its ideological preoccupations are stronger: the post office is a government service, and therefore bad; it should be run instead by people who can make money from it. The Postal Service, though, is the most popular government agency in the country, with a ninety-one-per-cent favorability rating, and it’s equally popular among Democrats and Republicans. So, the Party has generally had to proceed by stealth. Most notably, in 2006, President George W. Bush signed a law that makes the U.S.P.S. fund the health-care benefits of its retirees seventy-five years into the future. No one else does that; it’s why, even though the Postal Service ekes out an operating profit most years, it is saddled with a huge deficit.
But Donald Trump specializes in saying the quiet part out loud. In April, he told reporters that the post office was “a joke” and that he’d oppose any bailout unless it quadrupled the rate for mailing packages. (Along with the Postal Service’s role in our democracy, the President seems upset about its contracts with Amazon, because it is owned by the same man who owns the Washington Post, which Trump thinks is mean to him, which is just daily life in a tinpot wannabe-dictatorship.) “Trump and the Republican Party use rural communities and give speeches about how connected they are to our rural way of life in order to get elected, and then turn around and abandon everything we care about, from our schools, to the post office, to our family farmers, and to our rural hospitals,” Kleeb told me.
The situation has grown so alarming that even some Republican legislators are objecting: last week, Representative Greg Gianforte and Senator Steve Daines, both of Montana, each sent letters to DeJoy, asking him to get the Postal Service back to work. “Do not continue down this road,” Gianforte wrote. But, for the most part, it’s the usual partisan battle. Last week, eighty-four members of the House signed a letter demanding that the Postal Service do its job; eighty of them were Democrats. “All of the bills Democrats are writing, and the policy papers Joe Biden has focussed on rural communities, are strong,” Kleeb said. But “now we need to see them in our towns. … Showing up is critical to us in order to know you see our faces and you understand the struggles we are facing.” In fact, a visit—even a virtual one—might inspire politicians to see how much could easily be done. Senator Bernie Sanders—the rare progressive who represents a mostly rural constituency—has long advocated offering banking services at post offices, something that’s routine in most of the world, and which would put a crimp in the payday-lending operations that ring the small towns of this country. (Senator Elizabeth Warren supports the idea, too.) It wouldn’t even be without precedent here: in 1910, President William H. Taft inaugurated a postal savings system for immigrants and poor Americans that lasted until 1967. Today, though, the banking lobby firmly opposes the measure.
As the economic damage of the pandemic wears on, city dwellers are coming to terms with loss: favorite restaurants or stores are closing. People in rural America know how this feels—they lived through decade after decade of school consolidation, of dioceses deciding that they can’t support a church in town anymore. The post office was among the first public buildings in most American communities, and now it’s often among the last. A decade ago, the Postal Service tried to close our local branch office. That would have forced everyone to make a twelve-mile round trip to a town at the bottom of the mountain to pick up the mail, so together we fought the service, and it finally relented. Robert Frost once lived in our town, and he maintained that good fences made good neighbors. But he was wrong: it’s the post office that does the trick.


newyorker--2020-08-11--Donald Trump Praises Woodrow Wilson for Opposing Online Learning During 1918 Pandemic

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —In a rare instance of praising one of his White House predecessors , Donald J. Trump on Tuesday hailed Woodrow Wilson for opposing efforts to institute online learning during the 1918 pandemic .
“ There were a lot of crybabies in 1918 saying , ‘ The schools aren ’ t safe—let the kids learn on their computers , ’ ” Trump told reporters at the White House .
“ Woody wouldn ’ t hear of it.
” Instead , Trump said , “ Kids went to school and the influenza just kind of disappeared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Trump added that , during the 1918 pandemic , “ The hallways of schools were jammed with kids .
I wish one of those kids had taken a picture with his phone so we could see it today.
” Wilson ’ s opposition to online learning inspired Trump to demand in-person schooling for all American children , he revealed .
“ It ’ s important for them to be in school so they can be as knowledgeable about history as I am , ” he said .
“ The pandemic of 1918 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the War of 1812 .
”

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a rare instance of praising one of his White House predecessors, Donald J. Trump on Tuesday hailed Woodrow Wilson for opposing efforts to institute online learning during the 1918 pandemic.
“There were a lot of crybabies in 1918 saying, ‘The schools aren’t safe—let the kids learn on their computers,’ ” Trump told reporters at the White House. “Woody wouldn’t hear of it.”
Instead, Trump said, “Kids went to school and the influenza just kind of disappeared eventually. Woody did a fantastic job.”
Trump added that, during the 1918 pandemic, “The hallways of schools were jammed with kids. I wish one of those kids had taken a picture with his phone so we could see it today.”
Wilson’s opposition to online learning inspired Trump to demand in-person schooling for all American children, he revealed.
“It’s important for them to be in school so they can be as knowledgeable about history as I am,” he said. “The pandemic of 1918 was one of the main causes of the War of 1812.”


newyorker--2020-08-11--Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, August 11th

Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, August 11th

“Well, we aren’t particularly excited about him, but rumor has it that he’ll have an exciting, female No. 2.”


newyorker--2020-08-12--My Baby’s Existential Angst

My Baby’s Existential Angst

My baby was born grappling with the heavy questions that most of us don ’ t start to ponder until puberty , midlife , or old age .
But because she can ’ t dye her hair black , buy a sports car , or yell at the self-checkout register in the grocery store , her burdensome thoughts are expressed in decidedly babyish ways .
My motherly intuition senses that my baby is an old soul , recalling many past lives and really feeling them .
According to her doctor , she ’ s teething and has gas .
This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but I am certain that she ’ s also a highly advanced nascent human with acute existential angst .
I ’ ve lived long enough to know flatulence from the unbearable dread of existence .
Here is evidence of her Weltschmerz : The baby screams and farts at the same time , over and over ; is not soothed by cuddles , her pacifier , or her security blanket ; and only calms down when I turn on the Smiths .
The baby lies face down on the floor for five minutes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I try to move her .
While reclined in her stroller , which is being pushed uphill by me , the baby slowly removes her pacifier , holds her arm out nonchalantly , and drops said pacifier onto the sidewalk , all while staring into my soul , or at my sweaty forehead , disapprovingly .
She immediately bemoans her loss .
The baby keeps putting her full hand in her mouth , turning red , choking , and then laughing gleefully at my panic .
Upon meeting my friend ’ s well-behaved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a tantrum that includes a lot of bucking , flailing , and , ultimately , throwing her bottle at poor Ernest ’ s head .
Ernest cries , which overjoys my baby because she now has a partner in angst .
The baby makes a sound that is technically “ baa-baa-baa ” but could also be “ B.A.H.-B.A.H.-B.A.H.
, ” as in , “ Bored as Hell , Bored as Hell , Bored as Hell.
” Surrounded by a blue teddy bear , a strange-looking knitted lamb , and the melted , purple-plastic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s house and adopted , the baby suddenly begins to yell at her beloved toys with the passion of Greta Thunberg scolding the U.N. Then she falls backward and stares at the ceiling for ten minutes .
I pretend to be struck by an arrow and play dead , and this delights my baby so much that she starts clapping .
The baby takes one look at a smiling stranger who resembles Steve Buscemi and sobs inconsolably for an hour .
The baby grimaces while rejecting mashed-up avocado , so I put it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stares at me , frowns , and lets out a velociraptor-esque noise that seems to say , “ It takes eighty-six gallons of water to produce a single avocado , many of which are grown in third-world countries by diverting water from rivers to irrigate crops , with devastating effects on local ecosystems and villages .
Spread that on your toast , mother , you small-minded millennial.
” The baby never rolls , except when I place her on the bed .
Then she barrels toward the edge like a nihilistic gymnast .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the baby suddenly throws her arms up and arches her back , diving head first toward the floor .
She wails when I catch her .
While I rock the baby to sleep , she reaches a chubby finger through the darkness and pokes at my neck flab , reminding me that time is cruel and that I should invest in turtlenecks .
Then she laughs , turns away , and farts forcefully as she stares into the inky abyss of night .

My baby was born grappling with the heavy questions that most of us don’t start to ponder until puberty, midlife, or old age. But because she can’t dye her hair black, buy a sports car, or yell at the self-checkout register in the grocery store, her burdensome thoughts are expressed in decidedly babyish ways.
My motherly intuition senses that my baby is an old soul, recalling many past lives and really feeling them. According to her doctor, she’s teething and has gas. This may be true on a basic level, but I am certain that she’s also a highly advanced nascent human with acute existential angst. I’ve lived long enough to know flatulence from the unbearable dread of existence.
Here is evidence of her Weltschmerz:
The baby screams and farts at the same time, over and over; is not soothed by cuddles, her pacifier, or her security blanket; and only calms down when I turn on the Smiths.
The baby lies face down on the floor for five minutes, arms splayed, and screams when I try to move her.
While reclined in her stroller, which is being pushed uphill by me, the baby slowly removes her pacifier, holds her arm out nonchalantly, and drops said pacifier onto the sidewalk, all while staring into my soul, or at my sweaty forehead, disapprovingly. She immediately bemoans her loss.
The baby keeps putting her full hand in her mouth, turning red, choking, and then laughing gleefully at my panic.
Upon meeting my friend’s well-behaved baby, Ernest, my baby throws a tantrum that includes a lot of bucking, flailing, and, ultimately, throwing her bottle at poor Ernest’s head. Ernest cries, which overjoys my baby because she now has a partner in angst.
The baby makes a sound that is technically “baa-baa-baa” but could also be “B.A.H.-B.A.H.-B.A.H.,” as in, “Bored as Hell, Bored as Hell, Bored as Hell.”
Surrounded by a blue teddy bear, a strange-looking knitted lamb, and the melted, purple-plastic blob she found at her cousin’s house and adopted, the baby suddenly begins to yell at her beloved toys with the passion of Greta Thunberg scolding the U.N. Then she falls backward and stares at the ceiling for ten minutes.
I pretend to be struck by an arrow and play dead, and this delights my baby so much that she starts clapping.
The baby takes one look at a smiling stranger who resembles Steve Buscemi and sobs inconsolably for an hour.
The baby grimaces while rejecting mashed-up avocado, so I put it on toast and eat it. She stares at me, frowns, and lets out a velociraptor-esque noise that seems to say, “It takes eighty-six gallons of water to produce a single avocado, many of which are grown in third-world countries by diverting water from rivers to irrigate crops, with devastating effects on local ecosystems and villages. Spread that on your toast, mother, you small-minded millennial.”
The baby never rolls, except when I place her on the bed. Then she barrels toward the edge like a nihilistic gymnast.
While resting peacefully in my lap, the baby suddenly throws her arms up and arches her back, diving head first toward the floor. She wails when I catch her.
While I rock the baby to sleep, she reaches a chubby finger through the darkness and pokes at my neck flab, reminding me that time is cruel and that I should invest in turtlenecks. Then she laughs, turns away, and farts forcefully as she stares into the inky abyss of night.


newyorker--2020-08-12--Can Charlie Kaufman Get Out of His Head?

“ Do I have an original thought in my head ?
My bald head .
Maybe if I were happier my hair wouldn ’ t be falling out .
.
.
.
I ’ m a walking cliché .
.
.
.
I need to fall in love .
I need a girlfriend .
I need to read more , improve myself .
.
.
.
Just be real , confident .
Isn ’ t that what women are attracted to ?
” This is the voice that greets us at the beginning of “ Adaptation , ” from 2002 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Charlie Kaufman .
As the black screen resolves , we discover that the person who needs to improve himself is a screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman .
Played by a decrepit-looking Nicolas Cage , he skulks around the set of “ Being John Malkovich ” —Kaufman ’ s breakout début , from 1999—and berates himself for failing to make progress on his new project , which involves adapting Susan Orlean ’ s “ The Orchid Thief ” into a screenplay .
Kaufman wants to represent the authentic passion for orchids that Orlean ( Meryl @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a passion that he idealizes without being able to inhabit .
As he struggles to write , he struggles to do many other things , like tell his date that he likes her , or endure a lunch meeting with his producer .
At the last minute , Kaufman realizes that the only way out is through : the script , he sees , can be about the struggle to make the script .
“ Adaptation ” ends when Charlie Kaufman has finished writing the movie we have just finished watching , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ managing , finally , to “ be real ” to his date .
Revisiting “ Adaptation ” for the first time in more than a decade , I was reminded of why I ’ d been so drawn to Kaufman as a teen-ager .
It wasn ’ t just that I identified with his chronically insecure narrators .
Kaufman was , more importantly , one of the most successful ambassadors for what was sometimes known as the “ third way ” in contemporary art .
Like his slightly younger peer David Foster Wallace @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Scylla of postmodern nihilism and the Charybdis of consumerist kitsch .
His films employed postmodern techniques like narrative fragmentation and meta-commentary—e.g.
, making himself a character in his own film—but did not employ them toward conventionally postmodern ends .
Detachment , irony , and “ critique ” were not their goal but their starting place ; their ambition was to work their way , as “ Charlie Kaufman ” does in “ Adaptation , ” to authentic expression .
In their most successful works , artists like Wallace and Kaufman reassured their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even at the end of history .
That these artists used so many postmodern techniques in the first place , however , testified to their sense that sincerity in an age of irony was no simple matter .
In Kaufman ’ s triumvirate of early-career masterpieces— “ Being John Malkovich , ” “ Adaptation , ” and “ Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , ” from 2004—sincerity tended to come only after a harrowing journey into the back channels of the self .
Famously , in “ Being John Malkovich , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) dives into the supernatural “ portal ” that others have been using to tunnel into his brain and finds himself in a restaurant where the waiters , lounge singers , and even his own date all share his face and speak only one word : “ Malkovich.
” The scene is a terrifying depiction of the solipsistic imagination , and the viewer shares Malkovich ’ s relief when he is expelled from it .
Later in the film , in another dazzling sequence , the two female leads , played by Cameron @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other through Malkovich ’ s subconscious , which appears as a parade of shameful childhood memories .
In one , he stands at the foot of his parents ’ bed while they have cartoonishly enthusiastic intercourse ; in another , he is taunted by a bus full of schoolboys as urine dribbles onto his shoes .
This turns out to be a test run for my favorite sequence in any Kaufman film , which comes midway through “ Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , ” when Joel ( Jim Carrey ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” his memory of his ex-girlfriend Clementine ( Kate Winslet ) while he sleeps , changes his mind during the procedure .
Trying to escape the company ’ s technicians , he drags Clementine off the “ map ” of their shared history and back to his childhood , where he hopes the erasers can not follow .
There we see Joel—still played by the adult Carrey—getting his arm twisted behind his back by some bullies in the park , hiding under his kitchen table , and almost being caught masturbating in his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the technicians bring Joel and Clementine back onto the map , the worlds of Joel ’ s childhood collapse like houses of cards , and the couple find themselves on the beach in Montauk , at the barbecue where they first met .
“ What do we do ?
” Clementine asks , knowing that the memory erasers will come for this , too .
“ Enjoy it , ” Joel says .
Among other things , such scenes reveal something about Kaufman ’ s picture of the self .
Inside each one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a reel of images running on loop .
The loop contains our happiest moments and our saddest ones , and some negatives that are so shameful we can hardly bear to look .
Typically , Kaufman ’ s characters are haunted by their most painful memories , which is what causes them to seek an escape from the “ curse ” of consciousness , as the beleaguered puppeteer Craig Schwartz ( John Cusack ) calls it in “ Being John Malkovich.
” But , as Joel and Clementine learn in “ Eternal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what is really accursed about consciousness is that the strip can not be snipped : our painful memories are an indissoluble element in the same film as the happy ones .
In their wiser moments—as at the end of “ Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , ” when Joel and Clementine decide to give their relationship another try , even knowing the disappointments in store—Kaufman ’ s characters come to understand their pain as a condition of self-expression : they emerge from the maze of the inner self intact and , at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ genuine feeling .
But a more unsettling possibility runs in parallel through the films , a band of unease about the porousness of self and other , past and present , real and imaginary .
In “ Being John Malkovich ” and in Kaufman ’ s directorial début , in 2008 , “ Synecdoche , New York ” —which stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a death-obsessed director who embarks on a massive theatre project about his own life—what constitutes the “ real ” world is inflected and sometimes overwhelmed by the protagonist ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ film “ Anomalisa , ” which Kaufman co-directed with Duke Johnson , in 2015 , Michael Stone ( David Thewlis ) , a customer-service guru on a business trip to Cincinnati , suffers from an inability to hear the voices of others as anything but a grating echo of his own .
Briefly released from his condition by a woman he meets in his hotel , then cruelly returned to it , he appears to us as a cautionary tale : not everyone who journeys into the depths of the self is able @ @ @ @ @ @ @ makes sense that Kaufman , one of our deepest and most imaginative thinkers about the self , would want to write a novel , one of our most conspicuous channels for self-investigation .
That novel , “ Antkind , ” has arrived , and , due to its length and slapstick sense of humor , it has already been labelled Pynchonesque .
But the author referred to most often in the book is Samuel Beckett , and this offers a better clue about the tradition Kaufman aspires to belong to .
In contrast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Beckett ’ s work is one of the landmark achievements of literary introspection .
“ Molloy , ” the first book in his mid-century trilogy ( and the one most often alluded to in “ Antkind ” ) , contains no secondary characters and hardly any events .
It is famous partly for showing that great art can emerge solely from a mind wrestling with itself .
Although “ Antkind ” runs to just over seven hundred pages , the major plot points can , “ Molloy ” -like , be summed up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ belongs to B. Rosenberger Rosenberg , a flailing middle-aged film critic on a research trip to St. Augustine , Florida .
Rosenberg ’ s neighbor in his hotel is a reclusive amateur filmmaker named Ingo Cutbirth , an African-American who claims at one point to be a hundred and nineteen years old .
Cutbirth convinces Rosenberg to sit for a viewing of his life ’ s work , a film whose run time is three months .
Rosenberg quickly judges it a masterpiece—the “ last great hope of civilization.
” Ditching his research @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back to New York , sure that in promoting it as a “ holy text ” he will finally find the approval and fame that has eluded him .
( He really means the film is his last great hope . )
Then , less than a third of the way into the showing , Ingo dies .
After arranging a hasty funeral , Rosenberg loads the film stock into the back of a rented truck and begins driving home .
When he stops for fast food , the truck catches fire .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ save the film , Rosenberg wakes up weeks or months later ( it is impossible to know ) in a hospital .
For the rest of “ Antkind , ” Rosenberg attempts to remember what he saw of the film and to re-create what he didn ’ t , often with the aid of a dubiously qualified hypnotist named Barassini .

“Do I have an original thought in my head? My bald head. Maybe if I were happier my hair wouldn’t be falling out. . . . I’m a walking cliché. . . . I need to fall in love. I need a girlfriend. I need to read more, improve myself. . . . Just be real, confident. Isn’t that what women are attracted to?”
This is the voice that greets us at the beginning of “Adaptation,” from 2002, the third major film written by Charlie Kaufman. As the black screen resolves, we discover that the person who needs to improve himself is a screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman. Played by a decrepit-looking Nicolas Cage, he skulks around the set of “Being John Malkovich”—Kaufman’s breakout début, from 1999—and berates himself for failing to make progress on his new project, which involves adapting Susan Orlean’s “The Orchid Thief” into a screenplay. Kaufman wants to represent the authentic passion for orchids that Orlean (Meryl Streep) has captured in her book, a passion that he idealizes without being able to inhabit. As he struggles to write, he struggles to do many other things, like tell his date that he likes her, or endure a lunch meeting with his producer. At the last minute, Kaufman realizes that the only way out is through: the script, he sees, can be about the struggle to make the script. “Adaptation” ends when Charlie Kaufman has finished writing the movie we have just finished watching, the last scene of which shows him managing, finally, to “be real” to his date.
Revisiting “Adaptation” for the first time in more than a decade, I was reminded of why I’d been so drawn to Kaufman as a teen-ager. It wasn’t just that I identified with his chronically insecure narrators. Kaufman was, more importantly, one of the most successful ambassadors for what was sometimes known as the “third way” in contemporary art. Like his slightly younger peer David Foster Wallace, his writing promised a path between the Scylla of postmodern nihilism and the Charybdis of consumerist kitsch. His films employed postmodern techniques like narrative fragmentation and meta-commentary—e.g., making himself a character in his own film—but did not employ them toward conventionally postmodern ends. Detachment, irony, and “critique” were not their goal but their starting place; their ambition was to work their way, as “Charlie Kaufman” does in “Adaptation,” to authentic expression.
In their most successful works, artists like Wallace and Kaufman reassured their audiences that earnest emotion remained possible, even at the end of history. That these artists used so many postmodern techniques in the first place, however, testified to their sense that sincerity in an age of irony was no simple matter. In Kaufman’s triumvirate of early-career masterpieces—“Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation,” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” from 2004—sincerity tended to come only after a harrowing journey into the back channels of the self. Famously, in “Being John Malkovich,” the actor John Malkovich (John Malkovich) dives into the supernatural “portal” that others have been using to tunnel into his brain and finds himself in a restaurant where the waiters, lounge singers, and even his own date all share his face and speak only one word: “Malkovich.” The scene is a terrifying depiction of the solipsistic imagination, and the viewer shares Malkovich’s relief when he is expelled from it. Later in the film, in another dazzling sequence, the two female leads, played by Cameron Diaz and Catherine Keener, chase each other through Malkovich’s subconscious, which appears as a parade of shameful childhood memories. In one, he stands at the foot of his parents’ bed while they have cartoonishly enthusiastic intercourse; in another, he is taunted by a bus full of schoolboys as urine dribbles onto his shoes.
This turns out to be a test run for my favorite sequence in any Kaufman film, which comes midway through “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” when Joel (Jim Carrey), having paid a company to “erase” his memory of his ex-girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) while he sleeps, changes his mind during the procedure. Trying to escape the company’s technicians, he drags Clementine off the “map” of their shared history and back to his childhood, where he hopes the erasers cannot follow. There we see Joel—still played by the adult Carrey—getting his arm twisted behind his back by some bullies in the park, hiding under his kitchen table, and almost being caught masturbating in his room by his mother. Eventually, the technicians bring Joel and Clementine back onto the map, the worlds of Joel’s childhood collapse like houses of cards, and the couple find themselves on the beach in Montauk, at the barbecue where they first met. “What do we do?” Clementine asks, knowing that the memory erasers will come for this, too. “Enjoy it,” Joel says.
Among other things, such scenes reveal something about Kaufman’s picture of the self. Inside each one of us, it seems, there is a reel of images running on loop. The loop contains our happiest moments and our saddest ones, and some negatives that are so shameful we can hardly bear to look. Typically, Kaufman’s characters are haunted by their most painful memories, which is what causes them to seek an escape from the “curse” of consciousness, as the beleaguered puppeteer Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) calls it in “Being John Malkovich.” But, as Joel and Clementine learn in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” what is really accursed about consciousness is that the strip cannot be snipped: our painful memories are an indissoluble element in the same film as the happy ones.
In their wiser moments—as at the end of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” when Joel and Clementine decide to give their relationship another try, even knowing the disappointments in store—Kaufman’s characters come to understand their pain as a condition of self-expression: they emerge from the maze of the inner self intact and, at least for the moment, capable of genuine feeling. But a more unsettling possibility runs in parallel through the films, a band of unease about the porousness of self and other, past and present, real and imaginary. In “Being John Malkovich” and in Kaufman’s directorial début, in 2008, “Synecdoche, New York”—which stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a death-obsessed director who embarks on a massive theatre project about his own life—what constitutes the “real” world is inflected and sometimes overwhelmed by the protagonist’s inner reel. In the animated film “Anomalisa,” which Kaufman co-directed with Duke Johnson, in 2015, Michael Stone (David Thewlis), a customer-service guru on a business trip to Cincinnati, suffers from an inability to hear the voices of others as anything but a grating echo of his own. Briefly released from his condition by a woman he meets in his hotel, then cruelly returned to it, he appears to us as a cautionary tale: not everyone who journeys into the depths of the self is able to find the way back.
It makes sense that Kaufman, one of our deepest and most imaginative thinkers about the self, would want to write a novel, one of our most conspicuous channels for self-investigation. That novel, “Antkind,” has arrived, and, due to its length and slapstick sense of humor, it has already been labelled Pynchonesque. But the author referred to most often in the book is Samuel Beckett, and this offers a better clue about the tradition Kaufman aspires to belong to. In contrast to Pynchon’s political epics, Beckett’s work is one of the landmark achievements of literary introspection. “Molloy,” the first book in his mid-century trilogy (and the one most often alluded to in “Antkind”), contains no secondary characters and hardly any events. It is famous partly for showing that great art can emerge solely from a mind wrestling with itself.
Although “Antkind” runs to just over seven hundred pages, the major plot points can, “Molloy”-like, be summed up quickly. The mind wrestling with itself belongs to B. Rosenberger Rosenberg, a flailing middle-aged film critic on a research trip to St. Augustine, Florida. Rosenberg’s neighbor in his hotel is a reclusive amateur filmmaker named Ingo Cutbirth, an African-American who claims at one point to be a hundred and nineteen years old. Cutbirth convinces Rosenberg to sit for a viewing of his life’s work, a film whose run time is three months. Rosenberg quickly judges it a masterpiece—the “last great hope of civilization.” Ditching his research, he determines to bring the film back to New York, sure that in promoting it as a “holy text” he will finally find the approval and fame that has eluded him. (He really means the film is his last great hope.) Then, less than a third of the way into the showing, Ingo dies. After arranging a hasty funeral, Rosenberg loads the film stock into the back of a rented truck and begins driving home. When he stops for fast food, the truck catches fire. Burning himself in a doomed attempt to save the film, Rosenberg wakes up weeks or months later (it is impossible to know) in a hospital. For the rest of “Antkind,” Rosenberg attempts to remember what he saw of the film and to re-create what he didn’t, often with the aid of a dubiously qualified hypnotist named Barassini.