thenation--2020-09-17--Melania Trump Really Doesn’t Care

Melania Trump Really Doesn’t Care

I used to feel sorry for Melania Trump .
All she wanted , I imagined , was to be one of those rich private-school moms who spend their life getting spa treatments and lunching with their girlfriends at chic little Upper East Side restaurants .
Instead , she ended up trapped with a sociopath in a tower full of gold toilets .
People put too much stock in the concept of agency , I would say .
Sometimes you make a mistake and you can ’ t get out of it .
And because she ’ s a woman , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Marie Antoinette .
These days , Marie gets more grief than her husband , Louis XVI , the actual king of France .
I wasn ’ t the only one who felt this way .
Every time a photo appeared of Melania frowning next to her husband or refusing to take his hand , the “ free Melania ” memes would go up on Twitter .
It was hard to believe that a beautiful young woman would choose , with eyes wide open , a man as nasty , selfish , and crude @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rich men in New York , after all .
Maybe he wasn ’ t so awful when they married , I thought , and now she is paralyzed by shyness and depression .
Not a bit of it , says Stephanie Winston Wolkoff in her tell-not-quite-all , Melania and Me : The Rise and Fall of My Friendship With the First Lady .
As she describes it , the two were close for years , with cozy monthly lunches and an endless stream of texts filled with XOs and emojis .
Wolkoff writes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , trustworthy , and grounded , ” possessed of an “ inexplicable calm.
” “ When Donald gets flustered—you can tell because his face goes from tempered orange to bright red—all he has to do is look at her , and he settles down.
” ( News to me and anyone else with a television . )
Melania was unperturbed by the leak of the Access Hollywood tape in October 2016 .
“ He is who he is , ” Wolkoff writes Melania told her over grilled salmon at the Mark Hotel .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , devotion to her friend led Wolkoff , a former director of special events at Vogue and a key planner of the annual Met Gala , to take on the mammoth task of helping organize the four days of inaugural festivities after the election of Melania ’ s husband .
The tsuris for which his administration has become notorious was already present : Besides Ivanka Trump , constantly angling to push Melania aside , there were incompetent underlings , officious men like Wolkoff ’ s nemesis and onetime Trump campaign aide Rick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , including among the Trumps themselves .
Top names from the worlds of fashion and party planning were mostly Hillary Clinton supporters and wouldn ’ t help ; first-class performers refused their services .
You ’ d think Wolkoff would have run screaming back to New York .
Instead she became the first lady ’ s senior adviser , organizing everything from the design of state-dinner invitations and the new paint for Melania ’ s bedroom to trying , mostly unsuccessfully , to get her to wear American designers instead of the European @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exhausting , frustrating , and demeaning , and eventually Wolkoff ended up in the hospital with serious nerve damage from the undignified schlepping she was forced to do .
The reason she stayed—and I take this with a grain of salt—despite backstabbing by Ivanka and her allies , was “ patriotism , ” Wolkoff writes , plus her conviction that she and Melania could do wonderful things for children with the anti-cyberbullying Be Best initiative .
( “ I warned her that the phrase sounded illiterate , ” Wolkoff mentions . )
One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , was that Donald is the world ’ s biggest cyberbully .
Another was that Melania wasn ’ t very interested in Be Best or , indeed , much of anything besides clothes and facials and expressing , in passive-aggressive ways , her contempt for anyone who criticized her .
In any case , the dream came crashing down , Wolkoff says , when she was made the fall guy for the financial shenanigans of the inaugural and sent packing .
Melania refused to help her and slowly froze her out .
No @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Instead , dear reader , this book—with tapes , Wolkoff claims , to back it up .
Wolkoff presents herself as the most trusting best friend since Banquo , but to do this , she has to leave out a lot .
There is almost nothing in the book about politics ; it ’ s all about her personal commitment to her friend .
But Melania has been a political figure all along .
Remember her public support for Donald ’ s promotion of the false and racist claim that Barack Obama was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the rally she attended where , after a brief introduction by Melania , Donald “ riled up the crowd ” ?
Wolkoff claims she had no interest in politics before casting her first vote in 2016 , for Donald , and we ’ re left to assume she voted merely out of personal loyalty .
But she moved in a world that was strongly Democratic ; The New York Times reported that she donated $ 10,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 2014 .
It is hard to believe she was unaware of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and LGBTQ rights , his vow to build the wall , his claim that global warming was a hoax , his attacks on the media , and his overt appeals to the religious fanaticism , racism , xenophobia , ignorance , and sexism of his base .
Could it be that she was kind of a Trumper herself and her infatuation with Melania is little more than a cover story ?
On the other hand , plenty of vaguely liberal wealthy people supported Donald out of financial self-interest .
Note that her husband @ @ @ @ @ @ @ estate biggie whose family is famous for demolishing the 5Pointz artists ’ building in New York ’ s Long Island City to build high-priced condo towers .
Maybe she is more of a Melania than she wants the reader to think .
Still , we owe Stephanie Winston Wolkoff some gratitude .
Her portrait of Melania as cold , hostile , self-centered and “ not a normal woman ” seems right .
Without Wolkoff , we might not know that the first lady refused to move into the White House until the toilets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been replaced .
And we wouldn ’ t know what Melania said after she visited the detention camps at the border in her infamous “ I really don ’ t care .
Do U ?
” Zara jacket .
According to Wolkoff : “ The patrols told me the kids say , ‘ Wow , I get a bed ?
I will have a cabinet for my clothes ?
’ It ’ s more than they have in their own country where they sleep on the floor .
”

This article appears in the October 5/12, 2020 issue.
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I used to feel sorry for Melania Trump. All she wanted, I imagined, was to be one of those rich private-school moms who spend their life getting spa treatments and lunching with their girlfriends at chic little Upper East Side restaurants. Instead, she ended up trapped with a sociopath in a tower full of gold toilets. People put too much stock in the concept of agency, I would say. Sometimes you make a mistake and you can’t get out of it. And because she’s a woman, she gets double the blame, like Marie Antoinette. These days, Marie gets more grief than her husband, Louis XVI, the actual king of France.
I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. Every time a photo appeared of Melania frowning next to her husband or refusing to take his hand, the “free Melania” memes would go up on Twitter. It was hard to believe that a beautiful young woman would choose, with eyes wide open, a man as nasty, selfish, and crude as Donald Trump. There are other rich men in New York, after all. Maybe he wasn’t so awful when they married, I thought, and now she is paralyzed by shyness and depression.
Not a bit of it, says Stephanie Winston Wolkoff in her tell-not-quite-all, Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship With the First Lady. As she describes it, the two were close for years, with cozy monthly lunches and an endless stream of texts filled with XOs and emojis. Wolkoff writes that Melania was “smart, genuine, trustworthy, and grounded,” possessed of an “inexplicable calm.” “When Donald gets flustered—you can tell because his face goes from tempered orange to bright red—all he has to do is look at her, and he settles down.” (News to me and anyone else with a television.) Melania was unperturbed by the leak of the Access Hollywood tape in October 2016. “He is who he is,” Wolkoff writes Melania told her over grilled salmon at the Mark Hotel.
What went wrong? As she tells it, devotion to her friend led Wolkoff, a former director of special events at Vogue and a key planner of the annual Met Gala, to take on the mammoth task of helping organize the four days of inaugural festivities after the election of Melania’s husband. The tsuris for which his administration has become notorious was already present: Besides Ivanka Trump, constantly angling to push Melania aside, there were incompetent underlings, officious men like Wolkoff’s nemesis and onetime Trump campaign aide Rick Gates, and general wheeling and dealing, including among the Trumps themselves. Top names from the worlds of fashion and party planning were mostly Hillary Clinton supporters and wouldn’t help; first-class performers refused their services. friends & family Donald Trump’s Niece Dishes the Dirt Katha Pollitt
You’d think Wolkoff would have run screaming back to New York. Instead she became the first lady’s senior adviser, organizing everything from the design of state-dinner invitations and the new paint for Melania’s bedroom to trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to get her to wear American designers instead of the European ones she preferred. The work was exhausting, frustrating, and demeaning, and eventually Wolkoff ended up in the hospital with serious nerve damage from the undignified schlepping she was forced to do. The reason she stayed—and I take this with a grain of salt—despite backstabbing by Ivanka and her allies, was “patriotism,” Wolkoff writes, plus her conviction that she and Melania could do wonderful things for children with the anti-cyberbullying Be Best initiative. (“I warned her that the phrase sounded illiterate,” Wolkoff mentions.) One problem with this plan, of course, was that Donald is the world’s biggest cyberbully. Another was that Melania wasn’t very interested in Be Best or, indeed, much of anything besides clothes and facials and expressing, in passive-aggressive ways, her contempt for anyone who criticized her. In any case, the dream came crashing down, Wolkoff says, when she was made the fall guy for the financial shenanigans of the inaugural and sent packing. Melania refused to help her and slowly froze her out. No more lunches. No more emojis. Instead, dear reader, this book—with tapes, Wolkoff claims, to back it up.
Wolkoff presents herself as the most trusting best friend since Banquo, but to do this, she has to leave out a lot. There is almost nothing in the book about politics; it’s all about her personal commitment to her friend. But Melania has been a political figure all along. Remember her public support for Donald’s promotion of the false and racist claim that Barack Obama was Kenyan? What did Wolkoff feel at the rally she attended where, after a brief introduction by Melania, Donald “riled up the crowd”? Wolkoff claims she had no interest in politics before casting her first vote in 2016, for Donald, and we’re left to assume she voted merely out of personal loyalty. But she moved in a world that was strongly Democratic; The New York Times reported that she donated $10,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 2014. It is hard to believe she was unaware of Donald’s opposition to legal abortion and LGBTQ rights, his vow to build the wall, his claim that global warming was a hoax, his attacks on the media, and his overt appeals to the religious fanaticism, racism, xenophobia, ignorance, and sexism of his base. Could it be that she was kind of a Trumper herself and her infatuation with Melania is little more than a cover story?
On the other hand, plenty of vaguely liberal wealthy people supported Donald out of financial self-interest. Note that her husband, David Wolkoff, is a real estate biggie whose family is famous for demolishing the 5Pointz artists’ building in New York’s Long Island City to build high-priced condo towers. Maybe she is more of a Melania than she wants the reader to think.
Still, we owe Stephanie Winston Wolkoff some gratitude. Her portrait of Melania as cold, hostile, self-centered and “not a normal woman” seems right. Without Wolkoff, we might not know that the first lady refused to move into the White House until the toilets and showers used by the Obamas had been replaced. And we wouldn’t know what Melania said after she visited the detention camps at the border in her infamous “I really don’t care. Do U?” Zara jacket.
According to Wolkoff: “The patrols told me the kids say, ‘Wow, I get a bed? I will have a cabinet for my clothes?’ It’s more than they have in their own country where they sleep on the floor.”


thenation--2020-09-17--Cuomo’s Choice: Tax the Rich or Starve the Schools

New York City is facing its most tumultuous school reopening in recent memory .
The city ’ s Department of Education is the only major urban school system that is attempting to start the new school year with in-person learning , and the move will offer either a road map for districts everywhere or serve as a cautionary tale of what a city should not do .
As of now , the DOE plans to reopen in-person instruction in staggered shifts , with the majority starting after September 29 , delaying a start date from September 10 after pressure from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s bumbling mayor , Bill de Blasio , has emerged as the usual villain of the narrative , with parents and teachers alike deeply frustrated over his Department of Education ’ s confusing reopening plan .
And de Blasio ’ s sins are many : expecting schools to implement an elaborate , in-person learning program while slashing more than $ 700 million from the education budget ; sending kids and staff into buildings without adequate ventilation ; failing to test all students and teachers for the coronavirus before the start of school @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plan far too late into the summer ; and dragging his feet on a promise to install a nurse in every school building .
But it is America ’ s most famous governor , Andrew Cuomo , who looms far larger over the future of public education in New York in the age of Covid-19 .
Cuomo , who won undeserved plaudits for his daily Covid-19 press briefings as more than 32,000 New Yorkers died from the virus , holds the financial key to the success or failure of the city ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last few months , he has been using that key to threaten to restrict essential funding to the state ’ s schools .
As governor , Cuomo controls a significant number of purse strings : Of the DOE ’ s $ 34 billion budget , more than a third is provided by New York state .
Since the pandemic began in March , Cuomo has won extraordinary new emergency powers over the state budget , enabling him to make rolling cuts throughout the year as tax revenue dissipates from coronavirus-induced shutdowns .
An @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fill budget deficits , Cuomo has instead insisted on austerity , threatening massive cuts to public schools across the state .
Cuomo has already withheld $ 400 million in state aid from the DOE , a relatively small amount that nevertheless , for many education observers , carries the threat of something much larger in the coming months .
That ’ s because these cuts , which represent the first installment of what Cuomo has described as a temporary 20 percent cut to school aid across the state , could become significantly larger @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opted to postpone the September tranche of cuts yesterday , amid pressure from his fellow lawmakers and a lawsuit by the state teachers ’ union , the threat remains of further cuts come the November election , the governor ’ s new cut-off date .
Should that happen , public schools will be devastated , their ability to teach the state ’ s children crippled by mass layoffs of teachers , nurses , janitors , and other essential staff .
“ It ’ s a big concern , ” said State Senator John @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Senate ’ s Committee on New York City Education .
“ The level of budget cuts that schools are facing go beyond any that might have existed before and get right to the heart of school systems throughout New York State , including New York City ’ s. ” Large funding cuts would not only mean layoffs—including some 9,000 teachers in New York City , according to the city ’ s schools chancellor , Richard Carranza .
They would , if enacted , make it all but impossible to keep the city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And while all school districts would suffer , a troubling new report from the Alliance for Quality Education , a progressive education advocacy group , found that extending the 20 percent cut in state aid would have been most devastating for schools serving the working class and poor—which is a particular concern for New York City schools , which represent the poorest students in the state and serve an overwhelmingly nonwhite population .
AQE found that Cuomo ’ s threatened cuts would mean that high-need school districts , like New York City @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2,616 reduction per student , while wealthier districts would lose $ 873 per student .
As it is , New York City schools are already beginning to feel the pinch .
“ The governor has started to withhold funding aid for localities , and if the state doesn ’ t receive additional federal stimulus , all or a portion of these withholdings will become permanent depending on federal aid , ” said Katie O ’ Hanlon , a DOE spokeswoman .
“ While we do not yet know how this will impact DOE @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dollars from the city ’ s education budget would be devastating.
” To understand how Cuomo came to threaten the schools with such broad , sweeping cuts , it helps to rewind the clock a few months .
New York City ’ s economy has been in free fall since Covid-19 first hit .
The unemployment rate has reached about 20 percent , with reliable industries central to the city ’ s identity , like hospitality and tourism , greatly hobbled .
Meanwhile , the state faces an estimated $ 30 billion budget @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Economists and local leaders agree New York can not return to its pre-pandemic strength until the federal government bails out the state with tens of billions of dollars .
The problem is that Donald Trump and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell have not supported any bailout for localities , including New York , and all signs indicate that no federal aid will come to the rescue before November .
However , Cuomo insists that federal aid is the only way to save the schools , transportation networks , hospitals , and other essential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Cuomo ’ s insistence on relying solely on federal relief has meant that he refuses to entertain one of the only other means of avoiding massive budget cuts : raising taxes .
Since earlier this summer , a corps of activists , policy advocates , and political leaders—including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and leading Democrats in both chambers of the state legislature—has been urging Cuomo to raise taxes on the rich .
Their proposals include a billionaires ’ tax to create a fund for workers excluded from typical government relief ; an ultra-millionaires @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a host of other proposals that advocates say could raise as much as $ 35 billion a year .
How the New York City School System Failed the Test of Covid-19 Cuomo has so far resisted these calls , insisting that any attempt to raise taxes on the rich will only cause them to flee the state : “ I literally talk to people all day long who are in their Hamptons house who also lived here , or in their Hudson Valley house or in their Connecticut weekend house , ” he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ added : “ You know what… they ’ re thinking ?
If I stay there , I pay a lower income tax because they don ’ t pay the New York City surcharge.
” Yet history suggests the governor may not be right .
After September 11 , 2001 , New York ’ s billionaire mayor , Michael Bloomberg , successfully raised property taxes in New York City to fill budget gaps .
David Paterson , one of Cuomo ’ s predecessors , proposed hiking taxes on millionaires statewide after the 2008 economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Democrat , was out-progressive ’ d by at least one prominent Republican : Mike DeWine .
The Ohio governor saved his largest education cuts for Ohio ’ s wealthier suburban school districts .
For public education advocates , the governor ’ s refusal to raise taxes to save the state ’ s schools is alarming but not without precedent .
They have been wary of Cuomo for years .
A longtime supporter of charter schools , the governor has sought , at varying times in his tenure , to reduce spending on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aim at New York City public schools as recently as April , when a recently passed state budget included $ 716.9 million in federal aid , courtesy of the CARES Act Congress approved in March .
Immediately , Cuomo slashed the exact same amount in state aid to the city ’ s school budget .
“ New York City got shafted more than any other school district , ” said Leonie Haimson , executive director of the public education advocacy group Class Size Maters .
Jasmine Gripper , executive director of Alliance for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blunt assessment .
“ Cuomo has failed to protect public schools and public school students , ” she said .
“ He has not prioritized the needs of Black and brown children across New York State for the entire tenure of his governorship .
He has consistently failed to prioritize education and consistently failed to protect our public schools.
” Gripper ’ s outrage stems , in part , from events that go all the way back to Cuomo ’ s earliest months on the job .
When Cuomo took office in 2011 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2006 court ruling that required New York state to provide more funding to public schools to meet state constitutional requirements .
In 2007 , the state Legislature had devised a formula to fund needy schools , known as Foundation Aid , that promised billions in additional cash .
One of Cuomo ’ s predecessors , Eliot Spitzer , was initially committed to increasing Foundation Aid , but his tenure was cut short when a prostitution scandal forced him from office in 2008 .
Cuomo , unlike Spitzer , has disputed the lawsuit ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he owes schools statewide at least $ 4 billion .
A new lawsuit , New Yorkers for Students ’ Educational Rights ( NYSER ) v. State of New York , is underway to force Cuomo to redirect more funding to the state ’ s poorest school districts .
Attorney General Letitia James , a close Cuomo ally , has retained a version of the same Atlanta-based law firm , Eversheds Sutherland , that New York state hired to combat the last lawsuit , when Republican George Pataki was still governor .
School @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chaotic Michael Rebell , the lead attorney for NYSER who also led the previous lawsuit , known as the Campaign for Fiscal Equity , said New York City schools have developed newer and greater needs since 2006 , due , among other things , to the pandemic and a skyrocketing homeless population .
“ There are obviously going to be a lot of costs involved in retrofitting school buildings and training teachers to deal with remote learning .
There ’ s going to be a huge need for remediation , to give kids @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rebell , who is also the director of the Center for Educational Equity at Teachers College , Columbia University .
“ The [ state ] constitution doesn ’ t go on hold because there ’ s a recession or Covid-19 possibility.
” For now , however , and despite postponing major cuts until after the election , Cuomo remains no closer to budging on his no-new-tax pledge than he was in the early summer , when calls first began to build for new revenue streams for New York .
A spokesman for Cuomo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , said in a statement that only federal funding could save local governments from draconian education cuts .
It ’ s the same refrain the governor has been singing all along .
“ In the absence of federal funding to offset revenue losses , we ’ re concerned about funding for schools , hospitals , fire departments , and services supporting our most vulnerable neighbors , and that ’ s why we have been calling on the federal government for five months to act , ” Klopott said .
“ The withholding is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government will ultimately provide , which will determine the level of funding available for all services that support our schools and most vulnerable New Yorkers .
”

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New York City is facing its most tumultuous school reopening in recent memory. The city’s Department of Education is the only major urban school system that is attempting to start the new school year with in-person learning, and the move will offer either a road map for districts everywhere or serve as a cautionary tale of what a city should not do. As of now, the DOE plans to reopen in-person instruction in staggered shifts, with the majority starting after September 29, delaying a start date from September 10 after pressure from concerned teachers and parents.
The city’s bumbling mayor, Bill de Blasio, has emerged as the usual villain of the narrative, with parents and teachers alike deeply frustrated over his Department of Education’s confusing reopening plan. And de Blasio’s sins are many: expecting schools to implement an elaborate, in-person learning program while slashing more than $700 million from the education budget; sending kids and staff into buildings without adequate ventilation; failing to test all students and teachers for the coronavirus before the start of school; rolling out an innovative outdoor learning plan far too late into the summer; and dragging his feet on a promise to install a nurse in every school building.
But it is America’s most famous governor, Andrew Cuomo, who looms far larger over the future of public education in New York in the age of Covid-19. Cuomo, who won undeserved plaudits for his daily Covid-19 press briefings as more than 32,000 New Yorkers died from the virus, holds the financial key to the success or failure of the city’s school reopening experiment. And for the last few months, he has been using that key to threaten to restrict essential funding to the state’s schools.
As governor, Cuomo controls a significant number of purse strings: Of the DOE’s $34 billion budget, more than a third is provided by New York state. Since the pandemic began in March, Cuomo has won extraordinary new emergency powers over the state budget, enabling him to make rolling cuts throughout the year as tax revenue dissipates from coronavirus-induced shutdowns. An ardent opponent of taxing the rich to fill budget deficits, Cuomo has instead insisted on austerity, threatening massive cuts to public schools across the state. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Cuomo has already withheld $400 million in state aid from the DOE, a relatively small amount that nevertheless, for many education observers, carries the threat of something much larger in the coming months. That’s because these cuts, which represent the first installment of what Cuomo has described as a temporary 20 percent cut to school aid across the state, could become significantly larger in the coming months. While Cuomo opted to postpone the September tranche of cuts yesterday, amid pressure from his fellow lawmakers and a lawsuit by the state teachers’ union, the threat remains of further cuts come the November election, the governor’s new cut-off date. Should that happen, public schools will be devastated, their ability to teach the state’s children crippled by mass layoffs of teachers, nurses, janitors, and other essential staff.
“It’s a big concern,” said State Senator John Liu, a Queens Democrat who chairs the Senate’s Committee on New York City Education. “The level of budget cuts that schools are facing go beyond any that might have existed before and get right to the heart of school systems throughout New York State, including New York City’s.”
Large funding cuts would not only mean layoffs—including some 9,000 teachers in New York City, according to the city’s schools chancellor, Richard Carranza. They would, if enacted, make it all but impossible to keep the city’s schools open for in-person learning. Current Issue View our current issue
And while all school districts would suffer, a troubling new report from the Alliance for Quality Education, a progressive education advocacy group, found that extending the 20 percent cut in state aid would have been most devastating for schools serving the working class and poor—which is a particular concern for New York City schools, which represent the poorest students in the state and serve an overwhelmingly nonwhite population. AQE found that Cuomo’s threatened cuts would mean that high-need school districts, like New York City’s, would endure a $2,616 reduction per student, while wealthier districts would lose $873 per student.
As it is, New York City schools are already beginning to feel the pinch.
“The governor has started to withhold funding aid for localities, and if the state doesn’t receive additional federal stimulus, all or a portion of these withholdings will become permanent depending on federal aid,” said Katie O’Hanlon, a DOE spokeswoman. “While we do not yet know how this will impact DOE’s budget, cutting billions of dollars from the city’s education budget would be devastating.”
To understand how Cuomo came to threaten the schools with such broad, sweeping cuts, it helps to rewind the clock a few months. New York City’s economy has been in free fall since Covid-19 first hit. The unemployment rate has reached about 20 percent, with reliable industries central to the city’s identity, like hospitality and tourism, greatly hobbled. Meanwhile, the state faces an estimated $30 billion budget deficit over the next two years. Economists and local leaders agree New York cannot return to its pre-pandemic strength until the federal government bails out the state with tens of billions of dollars.
The problem is that Donald Trump and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell have not supported any bailout for localities, including New York, and all signs indicate that no federal aid will come to the rescue before November. However, Cuomo insists that federal aid is the only way to save the schools, transportation networks, hospitals, and other essential services. While federal aid is crucial, Cuomo’s insistence on relying solely on federal relief has meant that he refuses to entertain one of the only other means of avoiding massive budget cuts: raising taxes.
Since earlier this summer, a corps of activists, policy advocates, and political leaders—including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and leading Democrats in both chambers of the state legislature—has been urging Cuomo to raise taxes on the rich. Their proposals include a billionaires’ tax to create a fund for workers excluded from typical government relief; an ultra-millionaires’ tax for education funding; and a host of other proposals that advocates say could raise as much as $35 billion a year. Before the schools closed How the New York City School System Failed the Test of Covid-19 Sarah Jaffe
Cuomo has so far resisted these calls, insisting that any attempt to raise taxes on the rich will only cause them to flee the state: “I literally talk to people all day long who are in their Hamptons house who also lived here, or in their Hudson Valley house or in their Connecticut weekend house,” he told reporters in August. And he added: “You know what… they’re thinking? If I stay there, I pay a lower income tax because they don’t pay the New York City surcharge.”
Yet history suggests the governor may not be right. After September 11, 2001, New York’s billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, successfully raised property taxes in New York City to fill budget gaps. David Paterson, one of Cuomo’s predecessors, proposed hiking taxes on millionaires statewide after the 2008 economic crash. More recently, Cuomo, a Democrat, was out-progressive’d by at least one prominent Republican: Mike DeWine. The Ohio governor saved his largest education cuts for Ohio’s wealthier suburban school districts.
For public education advocates, the governor’s refusal to raise taxes to save the state’s schools is alarming but not without precedent. They have been wary of Cuomo for years. A longtime supporter of charter schools, the governor has sought, at varying times in his tenure, to reduce spending on public schools. Indeed, Cuomo took aim at New York City public schools as recently as April, when a recently passed state budget included $716.9 million in federal aid, courtesy of the CARES Act Congress approved in March. Immediately, Cuomo slashed the exact same amount in state aid to the city’s school budget.
“New York City got shafted more than any other school district,” said Leonie Haimson, executive director of the public education advocacy group Class Size Maters.
Jasmine Gripper, executive director of Alliance for Quality Education, offered an even more blunt assessment. “Cuomo has failed to protect public schools and public school students,” she said. “He has not prioritized the needs of Black and brown children across New York State for the entire tenure of his governorship. He has consistently failed to prioritize education and consistently failed to protect our public schools.”
Gripper’s outrage stems, in part, from events that go all the way back to Cuomo’s earliest months on the job. When Cuomo took office in 2011, he immediately battled back against a 2006 court ruling that required New York state to provide more funding to public schools to meet state constitutional requirements. In 2007, the state Legislature had devised a formula to fund needy schools, known as Foundation Aid, that promised billions in additional cash. One of Cuomo’s predecessors, Eliot Spitzer, was initially committed to increasing Foundation Aid, but his tenure was cut short when a prostitution scandal forced him from office in 2008.
Cuomo, unlike Spitzer, has disputed the lawsuit’s funding requirements. Advocates have argued that he owes schools statewide at least $4 billion. A new lawsuit, New Yorkers for Students’ Educational Rights (NYSER) v. State of New York, is underway to force Cuomo to redirect more funding to the state’s poorest school districts.
Attorney General Letitia James, a close Cuomo ally, has retained a version of the same Atlanta-based law firm, Eversheds Sutherland, that New York state hired to combat the last lawsuit, when Republican George Pataki was still governor. The Challenge of Reopening School Reopenings Are Only Going to Get More Chaotic Zoë Carpenter
Michael Rebell, the lead attorney for NYSER who also led the previous lawsuit, known as the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, said New York City schools have developed newer and greater needs since 2006, due, among other things, to the pandemic and a skyrocketing homeless population.
“There are obviously going to be a lot of costs involved in retrofitting school buildings and training teachers to deal with remote learning. There’s going to be a huge need for remediation, to give kids a sound basic education,” said Rebell, who is also the director of the Center for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University. “The [state] constitution doesn’t go on hold because there’s a recession or Covid-19 possibility.”
For now, however, and despite postponing major cuts until after the election, Cuomo remains no closer to budging on his no-new-tax pledge than he was in the early summer, when calls first began to build for new revenue streams for New York. A spokesman for Cuomo’s budget division, Freeman Klopott, said in a statement that only federal funding could save local governments from draconian education cuts. It’s the same refrain the governor has been singing all along.
“In the absence of federal funding to offset revenue losses, we’re concerned about funding for schools, hospitals, fire departments, and services supporting our most vulnerable neighbors, and that’s why we have been calling on the federal government for five months to act,” Klopott said. “The withholding is temporary, pending the funding the federal government will ultimately provide, which will determine the level of funding available for all services that support our schools and most vulnerable New Yorkers.”


thenation--2020-09-17--Why Drug Overdoses Have Gone Up During the Pandemic

In our new era of nearly unparalleled upheaval , as a pandemic ravages the bodies of some and the minds of nearly everyone , as the associated economic damage disposes of the livelihoods of many , and as even the promise of democracy fades , the people whose lives were already on a razor ’ s edge—who were vulnerable and isolated before the advent of Covid-19—are in far greater danger than ever before .
Against this backdrop , many of us are scanning the news for any sign of hope , any small flicker of light whose gleam could indicate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be okay .
In fact , there is just such a flicker coming from those who have been through the worst of it and have made it out the other side .
I spoke with Rafael Rodriguez of Holyoke , Mass.
, on a sweltering Thursday afternoon in late July .
He had already spent hours that day on Zoom and , though I could feel his exhaustion through our pixilated connection , he was gracious .
His salt-and-pepper beard neatly trimmed , he nodded gently in answer to my questions .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ more apparent how stigmatizing it is to be less fortunate , ” he said .
As we spoke , the number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits had just ticked up to around 30 million , or about one in every five workers , with nearly 15 million behind on their rent , and 29 million reporting that their households hadn ’ t had enough to eat over the preceding week .
Rodriguez is an expert in what happens after eviction or when emergency aid dries up ( or there ’ s none to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ —what becomes , that is , of those in protracted isolation and despair .
Drug-overdose deaths were up 13 percent in the first seven months of this year compared to 2019 , according to research conducted by The New York Times covering 40 percent of the US population .
More than 60 percent of participating counties nationwide that report to the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program at the University of Baltimore saw a sustained spike in overdoses following March 19th , when many states began issuing social-distancing and stay-at-home orders .
This uptick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fatalities .
Last year , before the pandemic even hit , an estimated 72,000 people in the United States died of an overdose , the equivalent of sustaining a tragedy of 9/11 proportions every two weeks , or about equal to the American Covid-19 death toll during its deadliest stretch so far , from mid-April to mid-May .
What people do in the face of protracted isolation and despair is turn to whatever coping strategy they ’ ve got—including substances so strong they can be deadly .
“ I think of opioids as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you okay with social isolation , ” said Nancy Campbell , head of the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and author of OD : Naloxone and the Politics of Overdose .
Miraculously , an opioid overdose can be reversed with the medicine naloxone , commonly known by the brand name Narcan .
But you can ’ t use naloxone on yourself ; you need someone else to administer it to you .
That ’ s why Campbell calls it a “ technology of solidarity.
” The solidarity of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a necessary ingredient when it comes to preserving the lives of those in the deepest desolation .
Yet not everyone sees why we should save people who knowingly ingest dangerous substances .
“ I come from a small town in northeastern Pennsylvania and I have a large extended family there , ” Campbell told me .
She remembers a family member asking her , “ Why don ’ t we just let them die ?
” Any of us can answer that question by imagining that the person who just overdosed was the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ daughter , your son , your dearest friend , your lover .
Of course you won ’ t let them die ; of course it ’ s imperative that they have another chance at life .
There are people like Rafael Rodriguez who have dedicated themselves to ensuring that their neighbors have access to naloxone and other resources for surviving the absolute worst .
One day , naloxone may indeed save someone you love .
Perhaps it already has .
Another technology of solidarity has recently become commonplace in our lives : the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tells others that you care about their well-being—you care enough to prevent the germs you exhale from becoming the germs they inhale , and then from becoming the germs they exhale in the company of still others .
Face masks save lives .
The face mask is a technology of solidarity .
So is naloxone .
And so is empathy .
“ The Sheer Power of Being With Someone in the Moment ” As Rafael Rodriguez slowly told his astonishing story , I could see on my computer screen a spartan office behind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its stem curled beneath a burst of foliage .
When he was younger , he said , he used food as his coping mechanism for an embattled life , over-eating to the point where doctors worried he would die .
Then , at age 23 , he underwent gastric bypass surgery and lost a dramatic amount of weight .
The doctors were pleased , but now his only means of coping with life ’ s hardships had been taken away .
When three of his dearest family members died in rapid succession , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ something that could help him stay awake to keep drinking , and so he started using cocaine .
Later on , he needed something that could ease him off cocaine in order to sleep .
“ That ’ s where heroin came into my life , ” he told me .
Using that illegal drug left him feeling ashamed , though , and soon he found himself pulling away from his remaining family members , becoming so isolated that , in 2005 , he fell into a long stretch of homelessness .
Only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a residential rehabilitation facility and gotten a job that left him surrounded by supportive colleagues did Rodriguez begin to name the dark things in his past that had driven him to use drugs .
“ No one ever knew that I was sexually assaulted as a child , ” he explained .
After years in recovery , he is now in possession of a commanding insight .
During the most troubled years of his life , he was punishing himself for someone else ’ s grim actions .
Portugal famously decriminalized all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Susana Ferreira has written that its groundbreaking model was built on an understanding that a person ’ s “ unhealthy relationship with drugs often points to frayed relationships with loved ones , with the world around them , and with themselves.
” The root problem , in other words , is seldom substance use .
It ’ s disconnection and heartache .
In 2016 , Rodriguez was hired by the Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community in Holyoke , where heroin use constituted a crisis long before opioid addiction registered as a national epidemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ others in their recovery from the trauma that so often underlies addiction .
And while tight funding and staffing limitations have led many community organizations across the country to reduce services during the pandemic period , the Recovery Learning Community has sought to expand to meet increasing need .
When state restrictions capped the number of people the organization could allow into its indoor spaces , Rodriguez and his team improvised , offering services outside .
They prepared bagged lunches , set up outlets so people could charge their phones , and distributed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they continued to offer compassion and peer support , as they always had , to people wrestling with addiction .
Helping those in the midst of painful circumstances , Rodriguez says , isn ’ t about knowing the right thing to say .
It ’ s about “ the sheer power of just being with someone in the moment… being able to validate and make sure they know they ’ re being heard.
” In many situations , he adds , he has helped people without uttering a word .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in the United States , empathy has not been our go-to answer for addiction .
Our cultural tendency is to regard signs of drugs or the persistent smell of alcohol as marking users as outcasts to be avoided on the street .
But medical science tells us that addiction is actually a chronic relapsing brain disease , one that often takes hold when a genetic predisposition intersects with destabilizing environmental factors such as poverty or trauma .
Regardless of the science , we tend to respond unkindly to folks in the throes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wrecked : Women , Incarceration , and the American Opioid Crisis , Dr. Kimberly Sue describes a complex and corrupt system of prosecutors , forensic drug labs , prisons , and parole and probationary systems in which discipline is meted out primarily to low-income people , disproportionately of color , who use illegal substances .
An attending physician at Rikers Island in New York , Sue is also the medical director of the Harm Reduction Coalition .
The philosophical opposite of criminalization , “ harm reduction ” is an international movement , pioneered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use such drugs , to reduce their negative consequences .
“ Treat people with dignity and respect , respect people ’ s bodily autonomy ” was the way Sue described to me some of harm reduction ’ s core tenets .
In this country , we typically expect folks to cease all substance use in order to be considered “ clean ” human beings .
Harm reduction instead espouses a kind of compassionate incrementalism .
“ Any positive change , ” from the decision to inject yourself with a sterile needle to carrying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward a healthier life .
In tandem with its decision to decriminalize all substance use , Portugal put harm reduction at the heart of its national drug policies .
And as of 2017 ( the most recent year for which data are available ) , nearly two decades after that country ’ s groundbreaking move , the per-capita rate of drug-related fatalities in the United States stood 54 times higher than in Portugal .
Now , the pandemic has made addiction even more dangerous .
In addition to inflicting the sort of widespread @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( or even greater doses of them ) and to take their chances with the potent synthetic opioid fentanyl , Covid-19 has stymied efforts by Dr. Sue and others to provide effective guidance and care .
In normal times , opioid users can at least protect themselves from dying of an overdose by using their drug in the company of others , so that someone can administer naloxone if it becomes necessary .
Now , however , that safety mechanism has been fatally disrupted .
While social distancing saves lives , stark solitude @ @ @ @ @ @ @ using such drugs and because no one will be present with the antidote .
Referring to naloxone as a miracle medicine , Sue said that there is no medical reason why people should die of an opioid overdose .
“ The reason they die is because of isolation.
” Back in March , one of the first recommendations for reducing the transmission of the coronavirus was , of course , to stay home—but not everyone has a home , and when businesses , restaurants , libraries , and other public spaces locked their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a place even to wash their hands .
In Holyoke , Rafael Rodriguez and his colleagues at the Recovery Learning Community , along with staff from several other local organizations , rushed to city officials and asked that a handwashing station and portable toilets be installed for the many local people who live unhoused .
Rodriguez sees such measures not only as fundamental acts of humanity , but also as essential to any viable treatment for addiction .
“ It ’ s really hard to think about recovery , or putting down substances @ @ @ @ @ @ @ needs aren ’ t being met , ” he said .
In the midst of extreme summer heat , he pointed out that there wasn ’ t even a local cooling center for people on the streets and it was clear that , despite everything he had seen in his life , he found this astonishing .
He is now part of a community movement that is petitioning the local city government for an emergency shelter .
“ When you have no idea where you ’ re going to rest your head at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ survival tactic , ” he explained .
“ It ’ s a way to be able to navigate this cruel world.
” Meanwhile , Dr. Sue continues to care for her patients whose maladies are often rooted in systemic injustice and the kind of despair that dates back to their early lives .
Affirming that substance use is indeed linked to frayed relationships , she told me that , in this pandemic moment of isolation , what drug users most often need is a sense of connection with others .
“ How do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked during our phone call .
“ How do I prescribe a friend ?
” Several days later , while writing this article , I left the air-conditioned space in which I was working and walked a couple of blocks to run some errands .
In the stifling midday sun , I saw a woman sitting on the ground .
I realized I ’ d seen her before and guessed that she was homeless .
Her arms and face were inflamed with a rash .
She said something to me as I passed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t catch it .
Her words were garbled and she had to repeat herself several times before I understood .
She was asking for water .
I blinked , nodded , and went into a nearby drug store where I grabbed a water bottle , paid in a few seconds at self-checkout , and gave it to her .
And yet , if I hadn ’ t been working on this article , I might not have done that at all .
I might have passed right by , too absorbed in my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ help .
Amid the sustained isolation of a global pandemic whose end is nowhere in sight , I asked Rafael Rodriguez what lessons could be learned from people who have long experienced isolation in their lives .
“ My hope is that , as a society , we gain some empathy , ” he replied .

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
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In our new era of nearly unparalleled upheaval, as a pandemic ravages the bodies of some and the minds of nearly everyone, as the associated economic damage disposes of the livelihoods of many, and as even the promise of democracy fades, the people whose lives were already on a razor’s edge—who were vulnerable and isolated before the advent of Covid-19—are in far greater danger than ever before.
Against this backdrop, many of us are scanning the news for any sign of hope, any small flicker of light whose gleam could indicate that everything, somehow, is going to be okay. In fact, there is just such a flicker coming from those who have been through the worst of it and have made it out the other side.
I spoke with Rafael Rodriguez of Holyoke, Mass., on a sweltering Thursday afternoon in late July. He had already spent hours that day on Zoom and, though I could feel his exhaustion through our pixilated connection, he was gracious. His salt-and-pepper beard neatly trimmed, he nodded gently in answer to my questions. “Covid-19 has made it more and more apparent how stigmatizing it is to be less fortunate,” he said. As we spoke, the number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits had just ticked up to around 30 million, or about one in every five workers, with nearly 15 million behind on their rent, and 29 million reporting that their households hadn’t had enough to eat over the preceding week. Rodriguez is an expert in what happens after eviction or when emergency aid dries up (or there’s none to be had in the first place)—what becomes, that is, of those in protracted isolation and despair.
Drug-overdose deaths were up 13 percent in the first seven months of this year compared to 2019, according to research conducted by The New York Times covering 40 percent of the US population. More than 60 percent of participating counties nationwide that report to the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program at the University of Baltimore saw a sustained spike in overdoses following March 19th, when many states began issuing social-distancing and stay-at-home orders. This uptick arrived atop a decades-long climb in drug-related fatalities. Last year, before the pandemic even hit, an estimated 72,000 people in the United States died of an overdose, the equivalent of sustaining a tragedy of 9/11 proportions every two weeks, or about equal to the American Covid-19 death toll during its deadliest stretch so far, from mid-April to mid-May. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
What people do in the face of protracted isolation and despair is turn to whatever coping strategy they’ve got—including substances so strong they can be deadly.
“I think of opioids as technologies that are perfectly suited for making you okay with social isolation,” said Nancy Campbell, head of the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and author of OD: Naloxone and the Politics of Overdose. Miraculously, an opioid overdose can be reversed with the medicine naloxone, commonly known by the brand name Narcan. But you can’t use naloxone on yourself; you need someone else to administer it to you. That’s why Campbell calls it a “technology of solidarity.” The solidarity of people looking out for one another is a necessary ingredient when it comes to preserving the lives of those in the deepest desolation.
Yet not everyone sees why we should save people who knowingly ingest dangerous substances. “I come from a small town in northeastern Pennsylvania and I have a large extended family there,” Campbell told me. She remembers a family member asking her, “Why don’t we just let them die?” Current Issue View our current issue
Any of us can answer that question by imagining that the person who just overdosed was the one you love most in the world—your daughter, your son, your dearest friend, your lover. Of course you won’t let them die; of course it’s imperative that they have another chance at life. There are people like Rafael Rodriguez who have dedicated themselves to ensuring that their neighbors have access to naloxone and other resources for surviving the absolute worst. One day, naloxone may indeed save someone you love. Perhaps it already has.
Another technology of solidarity has recently become commonplace in our lives: the face mask. Wearing such a mask tells others that you care about their well-being—you care enough to prevent the germs you exhale from becoming the germs they inhale, and then from becoming the germs they exhale in the company of still others. Face masks save lives. The face mask is a technology of solidarity. So is naloxone. And so is empathy.
“The Sheer Power of Being With Someone in the Moment”
As Rafael Rodriguez slowly told his astonishing story, I could see on my computer screen a spartan office behind him and a single bamboo shoot, its stem curled beneath a burst of foliage. When he was younger, he said, he used food as his coping mechanism for an embattled life, over-eating to the point where doctors worried he would die. Then, at age 23, he underwent gastric bypass surgery and lost a dramatic amount of weight. The doctors were pleased, but now his only means of coping with life’s hardships had been taken away. When three of his dearest family members died in rapid succession, he began drinking. Eventually he sought something that could help him stay awake to keep drinking, and so he started using cocaine. Later on, he needed something that could ease him off cocaine in order to sleep.
“That’s where heroin came into my life,” he told me.
Using that illegal drug left him feeling ashamed, though, and soon he found himself pulling away from his remaining family members, becoming so isolated that, in 2005, he fell into a long stretch of homelessness. Only after he had spent almost a year in a residential rehabilitation facility and gotten a job that left him surrounded by supportive colleagues did Rodriguez begin to name the dark things in his past that had driven him to use drugs.
“No one ever knew that I was sexually assaulted as a child,” he explained. After years in recovery, he is now in possession of a commanding insight. During the most troubled years of his life, he was punishing himself for someone else’s grim actions.
Portugal famously decriminalized all substance use in 2001 and multimedia journalist Susana Ferreira has written that its groundbreaking model was built on an understanding that a person’s “unhealthy relationship with drugs often points to frayed relationships with loved ones, with the world around them, and with themselves.” The root problem, in other words, is seldom substance use. It’s disconnection and heartache.
In 2016, Rodriguez was hired by the Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community in Holyoke, where heroin use constituted a crisis long before opioid addiction registered as a national epidemic. Rodriguez now dedicates himself to supporting others in their recovery from the trauma that so often underlies addiction. And while tight funding and staffing limitations have led many community organizations across the country to reduce services during the pandemic period, the Recovery Learning Community has sought to expand to meet increasing need. When state restrictions capped the number of people the organization could allow into its indoor spaces, Rodriguez and his team improvised, offering services outside. They prepared bagged lunches, set up outlets so people could charge their phones, and distributed hand sanitizer and bottled water. And they continued to offer compassion and peer support, as they always had, to people wrestling with addiction.
Helping those in the midst of painful circumstances, Rodriguez says, isn’t about knowing the right thing to say. It’s about “the sheer power of just being with someone in the moment… being able to validate and make sure they know they’re being heard.”
In many situations, he adds, he has helped people without uttering a word.
Criminalization Versus “Any Positive Change”
It’s something of an understatement to say that, in the United States, empathy has not been our go-to answer for addiction. Our cultural tendency is to regard signs of drugs or the persistent smell of alcohol as marking users as outcasts to be avoided on the street. But medical science tells us that addiction is actually a chronic relapsing brain disease, one that often takes hold when a genetic predisposition intersects with destabilizing environmental factors such as poverty or trauma.
Regardless of the science, we tend to respond unkindly to folks in the throes of addiction. In her book Getting Wrecked: Women, Incarceration, and the American Opioid Crisis, Dr. Kimberly Sue describes a complex and corrupt system of prosecutors, forensic drug labs, prisons, and parole and probationary systems in which discipline is meted out primarily to low-income people, disproportionately of color, who use illegal substances. An attending physician at Rikers Island in New York, Sue is also the medical director of the Harm Reduction Coalition. The philosophical opposite of criminalization, “harm reduction” is an international movement, pioneered by people who have used or still use such drugs, to reduce their negative consequences.
“Treat people with dignity and respect, respect people’s bodily autonomy” was the way Sue described to me some of harm reduction’s core tenets. In this country, we typically expect folks to cease all substance use in order to be considered “clean” human beings. Harm reduction instead espouses a kind of compassionate incrementalism. “Any positive change,” from the decision to inject yourself with a sterile needle to carrying naloxone, is regarded as a stride toward a healthier life.
In tandem with its decision to decriminalize all substance use, Portugal put harm reduction at the heart of its national drug policies. And as of 2017 (the most recent year for which data are available), nearly two decades after that country’s groundbreaking move, the per-capita rate of drug-related fatalities in the United States stood 54 times higher than in Portugal.
Now, the pandemic has made addiction even more dangerous. In addition to inflicting the sort of widespread hardship that can drive people to opioids (or even greater doses of them) and to take their chances with the potent synthetic opioid fentanyl, Covid-19 has stymied efforts by Dr. Sue and others to provide effective guidance and care. In normal times, opioid users can at least protect themselves from dying of an overdose by using their drug in the company of others, so that someone can administer naloxone if it becomes necessary. Now, however, that safety mechanism has been fatally disrupted. While social distancing saves lives, stark solitude can be deadly—both as further reason for using such drugs and because no one will be present with the antidote. Referring to naloxone as a miracle medicine, Sue said that there is no medical reason why people should die of an opioid overdose.
“The reason they die is because of isolation.”
Rx: Friendship
Back in March, one of the first recommendations for reducing the transmission of the coronavirus was, of course, to stay home—but not everyone has a home, and when businesses, restaurants, libraries, and other public spaces locked their doors, some people were left without a place even to wash their hands. In Holyoke, Rafael Rodriguez and his colleagues at the Recovery Learning Community, along with staff from several other local organizations, rushed to city officials and asked that a handwashing station and portable toilets be installed for the many local people who live unhoused. Rodriguez sees such measures not only as fundamental acts of humanity, but also as essential to any viable treatment for addiction.
“It’s really hard to think about recovery, or putting down substances, when [your] basic human needs aren’t being met,” he said. In the midst of extreme summer heat, he pointed out that there wasn’t even a local cooling center for people on the streets and it was clear that, despite everything he had seen in his life, he found this astonishing. He is now part of a community movement that is petitioning the local city government for an emergency shelter.
“When you have no idea where you’re going to rest your head at night, using substances almost becomes a survival tactic,” he explained. “It’s a way to be able to navigate this cruel world.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Sue continues to care for her patients whose maladies are often rooted in systemic injustice and the kind of despair that dates back to their early lives. Affirming that substance use is indeed linked to frayed relationships, she told me that, in this pandemic moment of isolation, what drug users most often need is a sense of connection with others.
“How do I prescribe connection?” she had asked during our phone call. “How do I prescribe a friend?”
Several days later, while writing this article, I left the air-conditioned space in which I was working and walked a couple of blocks to run some errands. In the stifling midday sun, I saw a woman sitting on the ground. I realized I’d seen her before and guessed that she was homeless. Her arms and face were inflamed with a rash. She said something to me as I passed. At first, I didn’t catch it. Her words were garbled and she had to repeat herself several times before I understood.
She was asking for water.
I blinked, nodded, and went into a nearby drug store where I grabbed a water bottle, paid in a few seconds at self-checkout, and gave it to her. And yet, if I hadn’t been working on this article, I might not have done that at all. I might have passed right by, too absorbed in my life to realize she was pleading for help.
Amid the sustained isolation of a global pandemic whose end is nowhere in sight, I asked Rafael Rodriguez what lessons could be learned from people who have long experienced isolation in their lives.
“My hope is that, as a society, we gain some empathy,” he replied.
Then he added, “Now that’s a big ask.”


thenation--2020-09-17--The Political Use and Misuse of ‘Mulan’

The Political Use and Misuse of ‘Mulan’

You might already know the story of Mulan , or at least a version of it : a young woman in ancient China who passed as a man to take her father ’ s place in the army and defend her country .
It has inspired numerous reinventions , most recently by Disney with a live-action movie featuring Chinese actors .
“ There have been many tales of the great warrior Mulan , ” the narrator says at the beginning of the film , which was released this month .
“ This one is mine.
” Despite the enduring popularity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ little is known about its origins .
The first written record of it , a ballad likely composed in the fifth or sixth century , is just over 300 characters long .
In a concise and elegant style , it tells the story of her departure , hardship , battles , and victorious return .
Meager biographical details are revealed : She lived with her parents and a pair of siblings somewhere in today ’ s northern China , not far from the Yellow River .
The large gaps of information gave future @ @ @ @ @ @ @ loyalty , patriotism , martial prowess , and female empowerment were inserted over time .
“ There is so much uncertainty in this story , no matter who you are , what purpose you have , you can reshape the story to express your own vision , ” says Jinghua Wangling , a professor of medieval Chinese poetry at Loyola University .
In a way , it ’ s like a Rorschach test ; each version reflects more of the philosophy and politics of the beholder ’ s era than that of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inspired interpretations unintended by Disney .
Last year , when Liu Yifei , the Chinese American actress who plays Mulan , posted on Weibo in support of the police suppression of anti-government demonstrations in Hong Kong , many people called for boycotting her and the movie .
In July the detention of the prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow triggered the trending of the hashtag # TheRealMulan on social media , and Chow ’ s supporters flooded Disney ’ s paid ads on Twitter with responses condemning Liu ’ s pro-police stance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political conflict was the last thing Disney wanted for its $ 200 million production .
By hiring Chinese actors , many of whom are stars in China but little known in the United States , the studio clearly aimed at the mainland box office .
Given this target audience , one prerequisite for success is creating a story that pleases the Chinese government , fitting Mulan squarely within the official censors ’ boundaries .
In the credits , Disney expresses gratitude to the police and “ publicity ” —otherwise known as propaganda—departments in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ filmed , a region where more than 1 million Uyghurs are in internment camps .
Behind the scenes , Disney consulted Chinese authorities and advisers , receiving guidance that included obscuring historical specificity .
The movie tells a story of bravery and fighting for what ’ s right .
The making of the movie is a story of surrender .
The interpretation of any historical text , be it the Bible or the US Constitution , is , of course , a delicate balancing act .
Too narrow a reading suffocates any contemporary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drowning out the historical context .
In Mulan ’ s case , the legend ’ s long history of being retold and reinvented is testimony to the longing for stories featuring a strong female lead ( in Hollywood jargon ) .
During the Ming and Qing dynasties , a slew of plays and novels fleshed out the texture of Mulan ’ s life story .
She was given the family name of Hua , and in some versions she marries a bright court official named Wang upon her return .
In the modern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dozens of operas , and for a good portion of the 20th century , almost every decade saw a new production in China .
In the early 2000s , a singer named Peng Liyuan—now the first lady of China—played Mulan .
Switching between a white robe and maroon armor , she belted out at a show in Vienna , “ I will send the enemy fleeing and calm the turbulence .
/ Be a woman hero standing tall between heaven and earth.
” Throughout the various remakes , Mulan ’ s priorities and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Many traits now considered essential to the character were hardly a factor earlier on .
A Ming dynasty writer , Xu Wei , explored the gender transformation Mulan undergoes to disguise herself as a soldier .
In a striking scene she releases her “ golden lotus ” —a euphemism for women ’ s painfully bound feet—and changes into men ’ s shoes .
It is tempting to see the gesture as a metaphor for women ’ s liberation .
In the same breath , however , Xu ’ s Mulan worries about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her delicate feet when she returns to womanhood for marriage after the war .
Xu dabbles in the theme of the performance of self without venturing outside the gender norms of his time .
The transgressions of his Mulan “ are not really that transgressive : Mulan uses expedient means to carry out a task and , having succeeded , seems to return to exactly who she was when she began , ” write the authors of Mulan : Five Versions of a Classic Chinese Legend , With Related Texts , which documents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In Disney ’ s versions , Mulan is a warrior who wants to defend her country against menacing barbarian hordes ; the gray-skinned creatures in the 1998 animated film become a northern tribe played by slightly tawnier Asian actors in the new movie .
The original Mulan was perhaps reluctant to embrace the necessity of warfare .
Her memories of the austere frontier accentuate the pointless losses rather than glorify the experience : The enemy and the nature of the conflict were not defined in the ancient ballad and have shifted widely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was sometimes fighting local bandits or a western tribe , and in one she even collaborates with nomads to attack China proper .
By the beginning of the 20th century , as the Qing court was seriously challenged not only by domestic uprisings and calls for reform but also by British and other European colonizers , the theme of fending off foreign invaders took hold .
In a 1903 Peking opera script , Mulan identifies the foes as “ barbarians ” who had long “ troubled China on its borders ” and vows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enemy leader for her emperor .
The ardent patriotism sparked by China ’ s existential crisis continued for decades , part of the country ’ s “ century of humiliation , ” but the subject of this sentiment has changed as new visions for a path forward for the nation emerged .
In 1912 the Nationalists put an end to the dynastic era and established the Republic of China .
That year , Peking opera master Mei Lanfang presented and starred in a production that embodied the nationalist ideal that has defined the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feminism .
It was also the first version to appeal to an international audience .
Two decades later , cosponsored by former first lady Edith Wilson , he toured the United States with the production and was praised by The New York Times .
( The reviewer confessed to having understood little but lauded Mei ’ s performance as “ the ultimate in grace and style , and a token of far-off , ancient , abstractly beautiful things.
” ) By midcentury , the opera actress Chang Xiangyu appropriated Mei ’ s show @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
When a fellow soldier whines about having to risk his life in battle when women can sit around at home , she responds , holding a sword in one hand , “ Women have to work hard day and night , so that soldiers have food to eat and clothes to wear.
” A few men look at their uniforms as if seeing them anew , but Chang ’ s Mulan hasn ’ t finished yet .
“ There have been many female heroes who contributed to the country , ” she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less than men ?
” Those lyrics not only echoed Mao ’ s rhetoric about women holding up half the sky but were also used as propaganda in the Korean War , or the War to Assist Korea in Resisting America , as it is known in China .
Chang performed the show in half a dozen provinces and used the tour ’ s proceeds to donate an aircraft to the war effort .
Her opera became an instant classic in China , not least because it highlighted the Chinese Communist Party ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for her contribution , marking the beginning of Mulan productions made to reflect the government ’ s “ socialist characteristics.
” In Disney ’ s flattened world , the new Mulan belongs to no specific history .
Nor is it rooted in contemporary reality .
Scripted and produced by an almost entirely white crew , the movie perpetuates a make-believe view in which China has a monolithic past , in which foreign invaders are fended off and ancient moral virtues are upheld by all .
“ Whether you are a Disney movie producer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a tendency to want to create a simple , clear vision of Chineseness and then put it up against a clear evil villain , ” says Georgetown history professor James Millward .
In fact , many Chinese dynasties were headed by “ outsiders , ” including the Manchus of the Qing dynasty and the Mongolians of the Yuan .
In Northern Wei , the period in which the legend of Mulan is largely believed to be set , her home region was ruled not by a generic Han Chinese emperor , as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clan of the Xianbei , ancestors to the Turks and Mongols .
The ballad also refers to the imperial ruler as the Son of Heaven and as Khagan—blending the Chinese concept of the emperor as someone who rules everything under the heavens , and the Mongolic and Turkic title for paramount leaders , a clear sign of a multilingual , multiethnic past , not the one proffered by manipulative textbooks and superficial popular entertainment , both hemmed in by censors eager to bolster national unity .
An unpopular but plausible theory holds that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ instead of Han Chinese .
“ Nobody is Chinese in this story in a technical national sense , ” says Millward .
More than three decades ago , Maxine Hong Kingston invented her own Mulan in her debut book , The Woman Warrior .
After training in a dream-sphere of mountains with wild creatures and a saintly old couple , Kingston ’ s Mulan saves her people not by upholding a king but by removing one and installing a peasant , who knows the people ’ s struggles intimately .
“ From the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exactly who the enemies are , ” Kingston writes , reflecting on her life , with her parents ’ roots in China and her struggles in America .
She writes that to avenge her tribe , her heroine would have to take back farms from the land-reforming Communists of China as well as laundry shops from the racist policy-makers of America .
One Mulan ’ s revolution is another Mulan ’ s subversion .
But these are stories too uncomfortable for Disney to explore .

You might already know the story of Mulan, or at least a version of it: a young woman in ancient China who passed as a man to take her father’s place in the army and defend her country. It has inspired numerous reinventions, most recently by Disney with a live-action movie featuring Chinese actors. “There have been many tales of the great warrior Mulan,” the narrator says at the beginning of the film, which was released this month. “This one is mine.”
Despite the enduring popularity of Mulan’s legend, very little is known about its origins. The first written record of it, a ballad likely composed in the fifth or sixth century, is just over 300 characters long. In a concise and elegant style, it tells the story of her departure, hardship, battles, and victorious return. Meager biographical details are revealed: She lived with her parents and a pair of siblings somewhere in today’s northern China, not far from the Yellow River. The large gaps of information gave future generations room for reinterpretations; themes of loyalty, patriotism, martial prowess, and female empowerment were inserted over time. “There is so much uncertainty in this story, no matter who you are, what purpose you have, you can reshape the story to express your own vision,” says Jinghua Wangling, a professor of medieval Chinese poetry at Loyola University. In a way, it’s like a Rorschach test; each version reflects more of the philosophy and politics of the beholder’s era than that of the original Mulan story.
The latest version inspired interpretations unintended by Disney. Last year, when Liu Yifei, the Chinese American actress who plays Mulan, posted on Weibo in support of the police suppression of anti-government demonstrations in Hong Kong, many people called for boycotting her and the movie. In July the detention of the prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow triggered the trending of the hashtag #TheRealMulan on social media, and Chow’s supporters flooded Disney’s paid ads on Twitter with responses condemning Liu’s pro-police stance with the hashtag #BoycottMulan.
A political conflict was the last thing Disney wanted for its $200 million production. By hiring Chinese actors, many of whom are stars in China but little known in the United States, the studio clearly aimed at the mainland box office. Given this target audience, one prerequisite for success is creating a story that pleases the Chinese government, fitting Mulan squarely within the official censors’ boundaries. In the credits, Disney expresses gratitude to the police and “publicity”—otherwise known as propaganda—departments in Xinjiang, where the movie was partly filmed, a region where more than 1 million Uyghurs are in internment camps. Behind the scenes, Disney consulted Chinese authorities and advisers, receiving guidance that included obscuring historical specificity. The movie tells a story of bravery and fighting for what’s right. The making of the movie is a story of surrender. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
The interpretation of any historical text, be it the Bible or the US Constitution, is, of course, a delicate balancing act. Too narrow a reading suffocates any contemporary implications; too broad a reading risks drowning out the historical context. In Mulan’s case, the legend’s long history of being retold and reinvented is testimony to the longing for stories featuring a strong female lead (in Hollywood jargon). During the Ming and Qing dynasties, a slew of plays and novels fleshed out the texture of Mulan’s life story. She was given the family name of Hua, and in some versions she marries a bright court official named Wang upon her return. In the modern era, her story was made into dozens of operas, and for a good portion of the 20th century, almost every decade saw a new production in China. In the early 2000s, a singer named Peng Liyuan—now the first lady of China—played Mulan. Switching between a white robe and maroon armor, she belted out at a show in Vienna, “I will send the enemy fleeing and calm the turbulence. / Be a woman hero standing tall between heaven and earth.”
Throughout the various remakes, Mulan’s priorities and enemies and even her own character evolved. Many traits now considered essential to the character were hardly a factor earlier on. A Ming dynasty writer, Xu Wei, explored the gender transformation Mulan undergoes to disguise herself as a soldier. In a striking scene she releases her “golden lotus”—a euphemism for women’s painfully bound feet—and changes into men’s shoes. It is tempting to see the gesture as a metaphor for women’s liberation. In the same breath, however, Xu’s Mulan worries about whether she will be able to recover her delicate feet when she returns to womanhood for marriage after the war. Xu dabbles in the theme of the performance of self without venturing outside the gender norms of his time. The transgressions of his Mulan “are not really that transgressive: Mulan uses expedient means to carry out a task and, having succeeded, seems to return to exactly who she was when she began,” write the authors of Mulan: Five Versions of a Classic Chinese Legend, With Related Texts, which documents the character’s changes over time.
In Disney’s versions, Mulan is a warrior who wants to defend her country against menacing barbarian hordes; the gray-skinned creatures in the 1998 animated film become a northern tribe played by slightly tawnier Asian actors in the new movie. The original Mulan was perhaps reluctant to embrace the necessity of warfare. Her memories of the austere frontier accentuate the pointless losses rather than glorify the experience:
Northern gusts carry the rattle of army pots.
Chilly light shines on iron armor.
Generals die in a hundred battles.
Stout soldiers return after 10 years.
The enemy and the nature of the conflict were not defined in the ancient ballad and have shifted widely. In the earliest versions, Mulan was sometimes fighting local bandits or a western tribe, and in one she even collaborates with nomads to attack China proper. By the beginning of the 20th century, as the Qing court was seriously challenged not only by domestic uprisings and calls for reform but also by British and other European colonizers, the theme of fending off foreign invaders took hold. In a 1903 Peking opera script, Mulan identifies the foes as “barbarians” who had long “troubled China on its borders” and vows to risk her life to kill the enemy leader for her emperor. The ardent patriotism sparked by China’s existential crisis continued for decades, part of the country’s “century of humiliation,” but the subject of this sentiment has changed as new visions for a path forward for the nation emerged.
In 1912 the Nationalists put an end to the dynastic era and established the Republic of China. That year, Peking opera master Mei Lanfang presented and starred in a production that embodied the nationalist ideal that has defined the story ever since, marrying patriotism and feminism. It was also the first version to appeal to an international audience. Two decades later, cosponsored by former first lady Edith Wilson, he toured the United States with the production and was praised by The New York Times. (The reviewer confessed to having understood little but lauded Mei’s performance as “the ultimate in grace and style, and a token of far-off, ancient, abstractly beautiful things.”)
By midcentury, the opera actress Chang Xiangyu appropriated Mei’s show for Mao’s new revolutionary China. When a fellow soldier whines about having to risk his life in battle when women can sit around at home, she responds, holding a sword in one hand, “Women have to work hard day and night, so that soldiers have food to eat and clothes to wear.” A few men look at their uniforms as if seeing them anew, but Chang’s Mulan hasn’t finished yet. “There have been many female heroes who contributed to the country,” she sings. “Who says women are less than men?” Those lyrics not only echoed Mao’s rhetoric about women holding up half the sky but were also used as propaganda in the Korean War, or the War to Assist Korea in Resisting America, as it is known in China. Chang performed the show in half a dozen provinces and used the tour’s proceeds to donate an aircraft to the war effort. Her opera became an instant classic in China, not least because it highlighted the Chinese Communist Party’s values. Mao personally thanked her for her contribution, marking the beginning of Mulan productions made to reflect the government’s “socialist characteristics.”
In Disney’s flattened world, the new Mulan belongs to no specific history. Nor is it rooted in contemporary reality. Scripted and produced by an almost entirely white crew, the movie perpetuates a make-believe view in which China has a monolithic past, in which foreign invaders are fended off and ancient moral virtues are upheld by all. “Whether you are a Disney movie producer or an authoritarian party, there is a tendency to want to create a simple, clear vision of Chineseness and then put it up against a clear evil villain,” says Georgetown history professor James Millward. In fact, many Chinese dynasties were headed by “outsiders,” including the Manchus of the Qing dynasty and the Mongolians of the Yuan. In Northern Wei, the period in which the legend of Mulan is largely believed to be set, her home region was ruled not by a generic Han Chinese emperor, as the movie shows, but by the Tabghach clan of the Xianbei, ancestors to the Turks and Mongols.
The ballad also refers to the imperial ruler as the Son of Heaven and as Khagan—blending the Chinese concept of the emperor as someone who rules everything under the heavens, and the Mongolic and Turkic title for paramount leaders, a clear sign of a multilingual, multiethnic past, not the one proffered by manipulative textbooks and superficial popular entertainment, both hemmed in by censors eager to bolster national unity. An unpopular but plausible theory holds that the quintessential Chinese heroine may be Xianbei instead of Han Chinese. “Nobody is Chinese in this story in a technical national sense,” says Millward.
More than three decades ago, Maxine Hong Kingston invented her own Mulan in her debut book, The Woman Warrior. After training in a dream-sphere of mountains with wild creatures and a saintly old couple, Kingston’s Mulan saves her people not by upholding a king but by removing one and installing a peasant, who knows the people’s struggles intimately. “From the fairy tales, I’ve learned exactly who the enemies are,” Kingston writes, reflecting on her life, with her parents’ roots in China and her struggles in America. She writes that to avenge her tribe, her heroine would have to take back farms from the land-reforming Communists of China as well as laundry shops from the racist policy-makers of America. One Mulan’s revolution is another Mulan’s subversion. But these are stories too uncomfortable for Disney to explore.