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Alec Baldwin Reveals How 'Sopranos' Ending Could've Been Very Different

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

The film and TV star pitched a role for himself in a potential series finale.

Actor Alec Baldwin says he once tried to get in on “The Sopranos” and even had an idea for a final episode.

Baldwin said he pitched himself to the show’s producers in a key role involving James Gandolfini, who played mob boss Tony Soprano, and Edie Falco, who played his wife, Carmela Soprano.

“I said, ‘There’s there’s only one man in this business who should come in, whack Jimmy and ride off with Edie,’” Baldwin recalled telling the producers early in the show’s run. “And I am that man. I am that man.”

Baldwin recently made the comments to “Sopranos” stars Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa on their “Talking Sopranos” podcast. He didn’t get the response he was hoping for.

“And they were like, ’Uh-huh. Sure. Great,” he said. ”‘We’ll add your name to the list of all the Irish actors who think that they should be on ‘The Sopranos.’”

Watch the full conversation, which includes a really awkward encounter with series creator David Chase, below:

I've Kept My Binge Eating Secret For My Entire Life. Here's Why I'm Speaking Out Now.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

"I finally told my husband what was going on. He was shocked ― he had no idea about the severity of my eating issues."

Note: This essay describes some of the symptoms and effects of eating disorders and may be triggering for some readers.

I remember first binge eating when I was 6 or 7. It was a Saturday morning, and I snuck an unopened package of Chips Ahoy into my bedroom. I ate the entire box while my parents slept in the room next to mine.

I don’t remember being upset or worried about anything, but afterward, I shoved the crumpled box under my bed, behind a folded quilt. I curled up in pain and willed myself not to throw up. I cried with my face in a pillow for what felt like hours, wondering why I’d done that and what my parents would say if they ever found out.

After that, bingeing became something I did regularly, pushing the boundaries of “full” further and further.

I wasn’t an overweight kid, but I also wasn’t thin, and I was acutely aware of that. I didn’t have great modeling when it came to appropriate boundaries related to food, though I also never witnessed anyone binge eating or responding to stressful events by eating. Most of the people I knew and loved who were overweight or obese were highly successful in their jobs, ate joyfully and shared large family meals. Even when they dieted, often regaining the weight later, I never saw or learned about eating in a way that appeared to be obsessive or compulsive. It seemed clear that something was very different about me, even as I exercised and concentrated on fitness: I always wanted to eat more. Even when my stomach hurt from overeating, after a huge dinner, in the middle of the night — I wanted more.

I didn’t think anyone else could possibly understand how horrible and disgusting I must be because of my eating. I had to keep this a secret.

I became fixated on my weight at a very young age. My memories of kindergarten, and even earlier, are saturated with the belief that I was fatter than all of my friends. My elementary school PE teacher once poked my waist and made a joke about “pinching an inch,” and it became a recurring anxiety dream. My sense of identity was intimately intertwined with my hunger. The self-loathing of longing to be thin like my friends supercharged my desire to eat until I felt nothing but full, sick, outside my body.

As a child and a teen, I saw therapists for issues unrelated to my eating. When I spoke about feeling ugly or overweight, they both assured me that I was neither of those things. They talked about my friendships and my popularity. Later, a psychiatrist even told me: “You have so many boys who want to date you. You’re a beautiful girl!”

As problematic as that statement clearly was, I clung to it at the time ― and yet it had no effect on my binge eating. So I participated in team sports, like swim team and track, that kept me in the “normal” (if not thin) weight range.

I tried many times to purge, to force myself to vomit after eating an entire loaf of bread or five candy bars, but I couldn’t do it. It never worked, and I felt like a failure even at that. What kind of person eats like this and doesn’t at least throw up afterward? I asked myself. My self-worth plummeted further. I admired the bulimic girls at my high school. They were thin. They could eat as much as they wanted. Why couldn’t I be like that?

Once I hit college, my weight began to fluctuate more and more dramatically. Exercise alone couldn’t keep my weight steady. I’d gain and lose 10 or 15 pounds over a period of months, sometimes not binge eating at all and then taking refuge in painful, dysregulated eating whenever a large stressor hit.

One bad breakup, for example, led to me not eating for weeks. I ended up with three ulcers, chronic diarrhea and a medical leave of absence for a semester. Everyone told me how amazing I looked as I packed my car to drive home. Once I was back at school the next year ― my friends now graduated and off living their lives ― I gained 30 pounds in three months after trying to quell my loneliness with food.

After that, the roller coaster grew more extreme with its highs and lows. I’d gain and lose 30 to 50 pounds over a year or two, over and over. I hid my binge eating from my romantic partners and friends, eventually marrying an extremely fit man who, early on, grew frustrated with my weight gain.

“It’s not that hard. Just be mindful about what you eat,” he insisted, a lesson he’d learned from his therapist mother, who was also extremely fit.

“It’s not that easy,” I told him, but I never opened up about what was really happening. And truthfully, I didn’t know what was really happening. I’d never heard of the phrase “binge eating” without it being tethered to bulimia. I thought that either you binged and purged, or you gained weight because you had no self-control, and so I gained weight and hated myself.

I didn’t know to look underneath my behavior ― to wonder why I was hurting myself this way. I couldn’t see how the “just be mindful” blame mentality that my husband and so much of the rest of world employed was actively working against me. I didn’t recognize how powerful and violent shame can be.

I didn’t know to look underneath my behavior ― to wonder why I was hurting myself this way.

After our second daughter was born, I gained a greater amount of weight than I ever had before. I was now obese, binge eating many times a week, feeling isolated and sad at home with two young children. I joined Weight Watchers, hoping for a healthy kick in the pants.

Here’s what happened: I lost the weight I gained. Everyone was amazed. Everyone thought I was a new woman.

But here’s how it happened: I kept binge eating, only this time I ate bags of carrots and cherries, containers of strawberries, 20 celery sticks at a time. I kept binge eating those “healthy” foods in secret, always eating as fast as I could, hiding it from my family, especially my kids.

I had another baby, did not gain much weight, and took up running. I trained for marathons and started gaining weight. I couldn’t obsessively focus on vegetables when I needed energy for long runs, so I started eating rice and bread again. I let myself “cheat” on long run days.

As I grew fitter and stronger, I gained more weight. Then even more.

When my oldest child experienced a medical crisis at age 8, I lost all control of my eating in my panic. From that point on, with his continued need for care, my fear and anxiety ruled my life more than ever. I ate and ate, bingeing almost every day.

I recognized the danger in this and went to a therapist who, once again, talked about mindfulness and asked me to keep a food journal. The shame of having to write down what I was doing kept me from bingeing for a few weeks, but then one night I snapped. Without any other tools to handle the huge feelings inside me, I ate a box of saltines and an entire bag of Halloween candy. I emailed the therapist to cancel my next appointment and never went back.

This pattern continued until this year, when I finally told my husband what was going on. He was shocked ― he had no idea about the severity of my eating issues. Over the years, he’d let go of his established ideas about weight and diets. Going through difficult family challenges had connected us in new, strong ways, and he did a lot of soul-searching.

I knew he accepted and loved me for who I was. But even that acceptance hadn’t persuaded me to share what I was going through. The shame was so deeply rooted that I never told anyone.

What helped me to change this was, in part, watching a friend going through recovery for alcoholism. Food addiction, like a drug or alcohol addiction, involves a combination of brain chemistry and patterns of behavior. As I talked with her, listened to her explain her sense of helplessness and guilt, heard her describe the feelings I’d felt myself for so long, I finally realized I wasn’t some lazy, atypical mess who just needed to control herself. Like so many others, I was a person who struggled with anxiety and a lack of self-worth. Like so many others, I had developed seriously flawed coping skills. All of us were and are humans, and so often, this is part of the deal ― figuring out what’s going on, learning, failing spectacularly and trying again.

Awareness was the first step for me. Forgiving myself was the next.

Months into this new view of myself and life, I haven’t stopped binge eating. But I do it much less now ― and when I do, I tell my husband, I write about it, I talk about it with friends and family. I own it, reflect on it without shame, forgive myself and move on.

I try new coping mechanisms to divert myself from eating as a source of comfort or numbing. I take a walk with my husband, read a book, watch terrible reality TV or even play Minecraft with my son. Sometimes one of these works! When it doesn’t, I force myself to shrug and accept a hug from the people I love.

And the biggest change of all: Finally, over four decades into this life, I can see my body in a different way. This isn’t about weight, and it never was. My body is a gift at any size, and in my struggles with anxiety and depression, I latched on to it as a target, rather than looking more closely at what I was experiencing.

Now, as an adult, I can do that. The cognitive behavioral therapy techniques I learned to help support my child have also been life-changing for me. I use these every day, from substituting in different behaviors when I panic to simply giving myself permission to eat those fries — because fries are delicious and I’m allowed to enjoy food! Eating doesn’t have to be a punishment or a secret.

“Why write this?” my husband asks as I talk through this piece with him, sharing my worries about the potential response of internet trolls who love to attack women from anonymous accounts.

I try to explain how important it is for others to see experiences like their own, especially ones that are usually hidden ― and especially about weight, which is often discussed in the guise of “health concerns” but is so commonly used to shame and bully people, whether in the media, the doctor’s office or our own homes.

I might never be “cured” of the compulsion to binge eat. But I’m not alone with this, and I will continue to grow and evolve as a person, grateful for the body I inhabit.

Hannah Grieco is a writer in Washington, D.C. Her book “So You Don’t Hear Me” will be released in 2021 by Summer Camp Publishing. Find her online at www.hgrieco.com and on Twitter at @writesloud.

Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch!

If you’re struggling with an eating disorder, call the National Eating Disorder Association hotline at 1-800-931-2237.

FBI Agent Charged With Attempted Murder In Off-Duty Subway Shooting

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

Agent Eduardo Valdivi fired multiple shots after a man approached him on a train last December and the pair exchanged words, authorities said.

ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) — An FBI agent has been charged with attempted murder in the off-duty shooting of another man on a Metro subway train last year in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C., according to court records unsealed Tuesday.

The agent, Eduardo Valdivia, was scheduled to make his initial court appearance Tuesday afternoon in Montgomery County Circuit Court on charges including attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault and reckless endangerment.

Valdivia, 37, turned himself in to local authorities at a county jail Tuesday morning, according to Chief Deputy Maxwell Uy of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office.

The charges stem from a Dec. 15 shooting on a train near Medical Center Station in Bethesda. Police for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority said in a Dec. 18 statement that the agent fired multiple shots after the man had approached him that morning and they exchanged words.

Valdivia, who has been charged with attempted murder in the off-duty shooting of another man last year, is pictured.

The statement said the wounded man was in stable condition less than a week after the shooting. It didn’t elaborate on the nature of the “verbal exchange” between him and the agent just before the shooting.

Robert Bonsib, a lawyer for Valdivia, said in a lengthy statement that his client “has had an impeccable personal and professional background.” He joined the bureau in 2011, and at the time of the shooting, was providing “operational guidance and programmatic oversight” of FBI investigations targeting racially motivated and anti-government extremists.

Valdivia was on his way to work on the morning of the shooting when he was confronted by a man who Bonsib said “engaged in threatening and aggressive behavior” at close range.

“One does not wait to be physically attacked — one does not wait until the threat has ’hands on you — before one is authorized to defend oneself,” Bonsib wrote. “Neither does one need to retreat — when retreat is not possible — as was not possible here when Eddie Valdivia was seated at the end of the Metro car” with his back against the wall and “no clear exit path.”

Bonsib also signaled his plans to invoke in his client’s defense the background of the man who was shot in asserting that the shooting was justified. He attached documents showing a lengthy criminal history that he said matched the identity of the shooting victim, including arrests for prior sexual misconduct — such as exposing himself — as well as unprovoked physical attacks. Bonsib said court records indicate the wounded man has a history of unpredictable and violent behavior, including a 2019 incident in which the man allegedly attacked and threatened to kill somebody at a Metro station.

The indictment names the man who was shot and also a second man, who it identifies as the victim of the reckless endangerment charge.

In a statement Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Baltimore field office said the bureau was aware of the charges and is fully cooperating with the investigation.

“As is customary following a shooting incident, this matter will be subject to internal review,” spokeswoman Joy Jiras said.

The Metro Transit Police Department said in December that it had reviewed video footage and taken statements from Metro employees, passengers and others.

In a 911 call released in January, a witness said the agent had warned the man to back away, but the man ignored the command and instead prepared to fight him, the Washington Post reported.

“The FBI agent said: ‘Move away. I’m an FBI agent. Back away,’ ” the 911 caller said. “The other gentleman didn’t, dropped his bag, approached him to fight him.”

The caller said the FBI agent was “attacked” by the other passenger but did not describe how.

The Medical Center station serves the National Institutes of Health and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

While the World Begins To Move On, My Country Is In A State Of Pandemic Emergency

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

I was so hopeful and so happy. I should’ve known it was too soon. I should’ve known it wouldn’t last.

I’m scared. No, I’m terrified.

News keeps filtering through the bubble I’ve set up for myself — I cannot help it; I check social media anyway. I see that a father and son have died from COVID-19, just hours apart. I pause a Zoom writing conference because a message has come through on my phone: The prime minister has declared a state of emergency.

Later that evening, I hear the news from some friends. Someone we know just died. I smile at the conference’s eager attendees, even though my hands are shaking.

I live in Trinidad and Tobago, a Caribbean nation whose money comes from reserves of oil and gas. My home is on an even smaller island, estimated by one guide to be about 300 acres, off the coast of Trinidad.

I’ve been extremely privileged. I’ve only had to leave the island for groceries. I work from home as a freelancer and moved here when the lease was up on my studio apartment on the mainland, coincidentally just before quarantine.

Before I moved back to Trinidad and Tobago, my home country, I lived in Los Angeles. Now I live with my mother and my stepfather in a little community of about 50 people or so, in a country-ish fashion that involves waking up to my mother arguing with a rogue band of chickens.

I keep in touch with my L.A. friends through Instagram and FaceTime. At the beginning of the year, the Los Angeles Times called L.A. County “a national epicenter of COVID.” On Jan. 5, it reported an average of 183 COVID-19 deaths each day — “one every eight minutes.”

COVID-19 cases in California have since sharply declined. On a recent day, the numbers had dropped to only four cases per 100,000 people.

I’ve been watching as my friends wander through the lush gardens of the Huntington in Pasadena, or tell me that they’re enjoying a drink at a beer garden. There are other friends too, elsewhere in the U.S., fully vaccinated and free, the sun out and shining through their sparkling mimosas.

Something about this feels like a reckoning, but not one that Trinidad and Tobago deserves — not completely. Early on in the pandemic, we were a model of public health. Last May, we were ranked by researchers at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government as the country best suited to roll back lockdown measures.

Our government was swift and decisive in its anti-coronavirus actions. More than a year ago, it implemented an international border closure that still has not been lifted. It was revealed that a parallel health care system had been established so that COVID-positive patients would not affect other sick people.

Mask-wearing was made mandatory, even in private vehicles occupied by more than one person. At first these measures felt unnecessarily strict, but then they became habitual. My father kept extra masks in the car sealed in a plastic bag.

At the beginning, I felt safer that the borders were closed, even though Trinidad remained open for Venezuelan refugees. l wondered what it meant, that we could be kept safe while others were still trying to get in — nationals and non-nationals alike.

But the proof of the effectiveness of these measures was in the numbers, which rose in the months leading up to the holidays but generally remained low. I remember going to a small outdoor jazz concert last July during a brief period when restrictions were lifted, sitting while socially distanced, thinking that each of the singer’s blue notes offered both a connection to the past and to the future.

I didn’t want to post a video of the show to Instagram, wine in my hand, while I knew that my friends overseas were inside, their own countries barely dealing with a deluge of suffering. But I was so hopeful and so happy. I should’ve known it was too soon. I should’ve known it wouldn’t last.

This month, Trinidad’s numbers jumped so significantly that our prime minister implemented a state of emergency last weekend. We are not allowed on the streets from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Our gathering is restricted. Nonessential businesses are closed.

Our cases had jumped from five cases a day on March 1 to 442 cases a day as of May 17. It didn’t come as a surprise, not really. When numbers were low, folks were lax. I was, too.

I’d sometimes forget to wear my mask when I’d speak to neighbors. Sometimes, in that orderly, Trinidadian way, it would feel shameful to put one on, as though you assumed that they were dirty.

I’d go to family gatherings and feel uncomfortable with the number of people who were there. I’d drive down the Avenue, Port-of-Spain’s main entertainment stretch, and see people in bars drinking, even though it wasn’t allowed. I’d see my friends on Facebook pointing digital fingers, blaming these people for the mess we were in.

But I was always conflicted. We had been so good for so very, very long. There were no mass protests, like in the U.S., claiming that mask-wearing was infringing upon our rights. We had contributed to those low numbers, we and our government, which had acted so swiftly — our Black leadership even lobbied the World Health Organization for vaccine equity, against wealthier countries hoarding the shots.

But now, dozens of people are dying every day. Families are losing loved ones in pairs. Our health care system has been so critically challenged that the U.S. had to donate field hospitals (tents, essentially) to house the sick — just as we saw a year ago in other countries, when we were fine and the world was not.

On national television, our minister of health claimed to have cried when he witnessed folks still congregating, despite the warnings and the regulations. We have gone back in time. What have we done?

People (including myself) have attributed the spike to ordinary citizens congregating over the Easter weekend; the lack of a government-led communications campaign; lax rules in business places; police not enforcing regulations; and letting our guard down, even as in other countries were experiencing a second (or third) wave. We have among the highest rates of case increases month-over-month, keeping company with places like India and Suriname.

I can’t help but wonder about this irony, that our early action may have caused this insatiable need to touch, to congregate, to feel.

In a way I was proud of us, even though I despised that our border closure had been at the real expense of others. That we, our small, majority Black and brown nation, had been forefront at something wealthier countries were still figuring out. But now we are back to square one, and with issues of negotiating with wealthier countries for vaccines to boot.

I cry for my friends who have been out of work for more than a year now due to our entertainment industry’s shutdown; for the people playing music to living rooms of no one; for the people who cannot maintain stable jobs at restaurants that continuously face closure; for the refugees in Trinidad who can be easily fired, easily replaced. I am tired of it all.

I have been trying to help people with groceries that can be delivered. I have been sitting and staring into space. I have considered reaching out to friends, and then I have decided not to reach out to friends.

I have considered trying to wake up early, like my mother, to argue with the chickens. Maybe they will have something to say that will make it all make sense.

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Miami Beach Police Questioning Rapper DaBaby About Shooting

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

The Grammy-nominated rapper is one of many being questioned about the shooting that wounded two people on Memorial Day.

MIAMI (AP) — Grammy-nominated rapper DaBaby is being questioned by Miami Beach police regarding a shooting that wounded two people, officials said Tuesday.

Jonathan Kirk, DaBaby’s legal name, was one of many people being questioned by officials on Tuesday, Miami Beach police spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez said in a news release. No arrests have been made but Rodriguez said earlier that “several possible suspects” had been detained. The shooting wrapped up a violent Memorial Day weekend in the Miami area.

Police received multiple 911 calls reporting the shooting just after 11:30 p.m. Monday. Officers found one person struck in the shoulder and another in the leg. Both were taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital. Police have not released the identities of those wounded. One was treated at a hospital and released, while the second remains in the hospital in critical condition.

The shooting took place on Ocean Drive, a popular strip of restaurants and hotels in South Beach. During the investigation, the heavily traveled MacArthur Causeway nearby was shut down in both directions.

DaBaby, 29, was arrested earlier this year in Los Angeles. Beverly Hills police said he took a loaded gun into an upscale store on Rodeo Drive.

The North Carolina rapper’s song “Rockstar” was one of the biggest hits of 2020, and was nominated for a Grammy Award for record of the year. No one responded immediately to an email sent to DaBaby’s representatives seeking comment. A man who answered the phone at the label company representing him said, “No comment.”

In other violence over the weekend, a mass shooting outside a banquet hall early Sunday left two dead and 21 wounded, including three who were hospitalized in critical condition. Police did not release the victims’ names, citing privacy laws.

A manhunt continued Tuesday for three masked suspects who opened fire outside El Mula Banquet Hall in northwest Miami-Dade County, near Hialeah. On Monday, police released a surveillance camera video that showed a white SUV driving into an alley at a strip mall housing the hall. The SUV was found Monday submerged in a canal about 8 miles (13 kilometers) east of the shooting scene. Police said it had been reported stolen two weeks ago.

The video shows three people getting out of the vehicle, one gripping a handgun while the other two brandish what police described as “assault-style rifles.” Authorities said the suspects began spraying bullets indiscriminately into the crowd, but had specific targets in mind.

Officials also are still investigating a drive-by shooting Friday night that killed a person and injured six others outside a venue in the the Wynwood area. Some witnesses likened the scene to a “war zone” after a barrage of dozens of bullets sent people scurrying for cover.

There is no indication the shootings were related to each other.

“This is a weekend when we should be out remembering, enjoying time with loved ones, and instead we’re here mourning,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said during a Monday news conference. ____

Associated Press journalist Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report.

Biden Administration To Suspend Trump-Era Oil Leases In Arctic Refuge

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

Biden had vowed during the campaign to “reverse the Trump administration’s assaults on America’s natural treasures," including the Alaska refuge.

The Biden administration on Tuesday suspended all Trump-era oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge pending its own review of how fossil fuel drilling would impact the remote landscape.

The move, which Politico first reported, is a first step toward fulfilling the president’s campaign promise to “reverse the Trump administration’s assaults on America’s natural treasures, including by reversing Trump’s attacks on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.”

The announcement comes days after Biden administration drew outrage from climate and environmental groups after throwing its support behind the so-called Willow Project, a massive, 30-year oil and gas project in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve. Many view that project as wildly out of sync with Biden’s pledge to transition the country away from planet-warming fossil fuels.

Former President Donald Trump and his team made greenlighting oil development in the Arctic refuge a top priority, and in its final two weeks in office followed through on selling off drilling rights. The lease sale was a major flop, with just three entities — two small oil companies and an Alaska state-owned economic development corporation ― bidding on roughly half of the 1.09 million acres up for grabs. The sale brought in just $14.4 million, less than 1% of the administration’s estimate that oil and gas development in the refuge would generate $1.8 billion in federal revenue over a decade.

The Biden review will determine whether approved leases “should be reaffirmed, voided, or subject to additional mitigation measures,” the Interior Department said in its announcement.

The refuge, often described as “America’s Serengeti,” covers more than 19 million acres. It is home to polar bears, caribou, moose and hundreds of species of migratory birds and is sacred to the Gwich’in people, an Indigenous tribe of northern Alaska and Canada.

Republicans and energy companies have tried for decades to gain access to the oil reserves beneath the refuge’s coastal plain, known as the “1002 Area.” The GOP tax law that Congress passed in late 2017 included a provision, introduced by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), requiring the Interior Department to approve at least two lease sales for drilling — each covering no less than 400,000 acres.

Indigenous and conservation groups applauded Tuesday’s news as a step in the right direction, but urged Biden to make it permanent.

“The Gwich’in Nation is grateful and heartened by the news that the Biden administration has acted again on its commitment to protecting sacred lands and the Gwich’in way of life,” Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, said in a statement. “After fighting so hard to protect these lands and the Porcupine caribou herd, trusting the guidance of our ancestors and elders, and the allyship of people around the world, we can now look for further action by the administration and to Congress to repeal the leasing program.”

The White House declined to comment Tuesday.

Here's What I Want You To Know About Having Diarrhea While Out In Public

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

"There was no time to assess if anyone might see me from the windows of a nearby building. I dove behind a bush and did my business."

I had two minutes to find a bathroom. I didn’t have a find-a-potty app on my phone because I couldn’t preplan these events, and preparing for them ― even thinking about them ― sometimes made me need to go. In these moments, I also didn’t have time for apps, and in this situation, here in Millbrae, California, I already knew where the closest restroom was: in the nearby Trader Joe’s.

Sitting in my car, I feared I didn’t have time to walk across the parking lot and down a hundred feet to the market’s front door. I couldn’t see the storefront from my car. Had a line formed? I’d often seen one outside the store during the pandemic. And I’d misplaced my “I can’t wait” card to show people in a queue or place of business. Why had I not replaced it?

I’d never been inside that Trader Joe’s. If the bathroom’s location was not immediately obvious, I might need to accost a roaming employee to ask where it was and whether a key was required. Or I’d proceed to the customer service desk, where I might need to clear my throat repeatedly or blurt out “Excuse me, where is the bathroom?” to command attention. Or, most precariously, if I found myself fifth in line at said desk, I might have to strain to contain my diarrhea by taking deep, allegedly calming breaths and visualizing it retreating up into my colon, all while pretending that nothing was amiss inside my body.

I ditched the Trader Joe’s option.

There are times when life asks us to think on our feet. This was such a time. I scanned my surroundings and noted the bushes bordering the parking lot. There was no time to assess if anyone might see me from the windows of a nearby building. I dove behind a bush and did my business.

Bathroom access is a challenge in America, particularly during COVID-19. Restroom apps are “hit or miss,” according to Tim Pyle, executive director of the American Restroom Association. The ARA website lists more than a dozen categories of people affected by “restroom duress.” In The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof recently noted that people experiencing homelessness have to confront that problem 24/7, while taxi drivers, tourists, delivery people and others out for the day also have to stay on the lookout. Likewise parents on outings with small children. “And what about people with medical conditions that require more frequent urination or defecation?” Kristof asked.

What about those people?

In addition to the millions of Americans who experience medically caused urinary incontinence, 25 to 50 million people deal with celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease and/or irritable bowel syndrome, all of which can cause diarrhea — as can other chronic medical disorders, prescription and nonprescription meds, and intestinal infections, as well as immunotherapy treatments for cancer. The list goes on and on. And if you take into account caffeine overloads and foods that simply don’t agree with people, this much is clear: Pandemic or not, there is a whole lot of diarrhea going on in public at any given time. Yet people often avoid the topic, myself included.

The author, age 26, in the hospital for issues related to her Crohn's disease. "At least the bathroom was accessible," she jokes.

I’ve been having the runs on and off since the Nixon administration, and I have rarely mentioned my situation to anyone, including those closest to me. Only my doctors really knew about my episodes, and sometimes I’d spared even them the details. For decades.

Crohn’s disease barged into my life on an end-of-summer family vacation before I started high school. I threw up on my oldest brother’s lap in the back seat of our car. We thought I was just carsick. Then I vomited some more, often at night in the trash can that my brother set up between our motel-room beds.

That’s how I was first separated out from the healthy. Who knew barfing on your brother could mark the line in one’s sand?

Crohn’s, a type of IBD now on the rise, caused me to have anemia, bowel obstructions, fatigue, fevers, fistulas, infections, pain, vomiting and weight loss, as well as loose stools. Multiple bowel resections also resulted in my ingested food moving more quickly down my personal pike. And no, per my doctors, I couldn’t take Imodium for years on end to treat my noninfectious, incurable and often debilitating illness.

At 14, I quickly learned that the people around me really didn’t want to discuss a “bathroom disease.” So I didn’t talk about it. During first-period Introductory Physical Science, I constantly raised my hand to ask to be excused. I made my way down that long high school corridor to the restroom on a razor’s edge, petrified I’d get sick in front of my peers.

I didn’t talk about it in college. One night on campus, with no loo in close range, I had no option but to sit cross-legged between a sidewalk and a patch of ivy, cover my midsection with my backpack, and empty my bowels in the briar. I exchanged pleasantries with fellow students as they ambled by. Out of necessity, I later told my roommate what had happened, then swore her to secrecy.

I didn’t talk about it during my heavy-lifting mom years. More than once, I peeled off Highway 101, screeched into a McDonald’s parking lot and got three kids out of the car with strollers and diaper bags and toddler meltdowns in the mix, shouting “I have to get to the bathroom,” and the four of us somehow miraculously landing there.

A Northern California beach. Cornfields in Nebraska. Bergdorf Goodman. From sea to shining sea, plus a whole lot in between. Sometimes I didn’t make it, and those were the most humiliating times of all. Like when I walked with my husband in our neighborhood during shelter-in-place last year. Or when I found myself in that parking lot next to that unfamiliar Trader Joe’s. Then there were the times I didn’t even make it to a bush. When that happened, all I could hope was that I wasn’t too far from home, or that I had a change of clothes with me.

Along the way, I encountered the kindness of strangers. Or maybe those strangers had experienced similar bowel issues, at least occasionally. On average, U.S. adults experience acute diarrhea about once a year.

By calling 1-888-694-8872, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's patients can request this card for free from the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation. For a list of restroom advocacy groups, check here under "American Public Health Advocacy Organizations."

I used to ask “Might I use your restroom?” while hoping my desperate look accurately conveyed my urgency. Eventually, I began to add “I have an intestinal disease” to my bathroom requests. The more specific the words I used, the more people seemed to understand.

One June day a few years ago, I had just arrived in New York City via train from Washington, D.C., feeling a bit rough around the edges after attending a wedding reception the night before. As I stood outside Penn Station and got my bearings, the clarion call sounded. I hauled into the nearest Duane Reade, latched on to a kind-looking employee who seemed to have time to spare, and spilled my updated elevator pitch.

There wasn’t a bathroom I could use in the store, but she offered to watch my suitcase. The two of us hoisted it up and jammed it behind the counter, a twosome bound by one mission. “Now run across the street and into that McDonald’s,” she said, pointing and explaining exactly where I would find the restroom. Her quick thinking saved me that day, and I was beyond grateful for it ― and for her kindness.

Earlier this year, I took another step on the road to having open, honest, and very real encounters. I actually named my disability — and even talked details.

One evening, not far from my home in Northern California, I stepped into a Walgreens. While chasing surplus COVID vaccines there the week before, I’d asked to use the restroom, only to be told it was closed. So, with my investigative-journalism hat on, I returned for a bathroom-access update.

I asked for the store manager, curious what the person in charge might say.

“Yes, the bathrooms are still closed,” she informed me.

“I was in here last week,” I explained. “I have Crohn’s disease. The bathrooms were closed then, too, and sometimes I just can’t hold it.”

She could have responded TMI or Ew, gross!, crossing her arms over her eyes to shield herself. Instead, from above her mask, her unshielded eyes met mine with grace and compassion.

“You could have asked for me and explained you have a medical condition,” she said. “I get it. I’m going through chemo, and sometimes I just can’t hold it either.”

“I’m so sorry,” I replied, wanting to acknowledge the weight of her revelation. Then, for a snatch of minutes, we just talked. It felt so restorative standing there together, masks on, pretenses off.

Trust me, writing this piece and having it published on an international website isn’t my idea of a good time. Yet I’ve learned that when put right, words defrock shaming.

Post-Walgreens, I recalled all the times I hadn’t spoken up, the times I’d yearned for words that I couldn’t form. All that silence — it had veiled, rejected and invalidated my experiences.

It’s not easy talking, or writing, about diarrhea, especially when it’s your own. There is a lot of shame tied up in having a bathroom condition we rarely talk about openly. Trust me, writing this piece and having it published on an international website isn’t my idea of a good time.

Yet I’ve learned that when put right, words defrock shaming. They are silence’s comeuppance. And I’ve had decades’ worth of words saved up, a stockpile that wouldn’t stop clamoring to be written.

The more we talk about all this, the less embarrassing or “disgusting” or scary it’ll be. If we remember we’re all human beings, we can reach across aisles, whether in Walgreens or in Washington. That’s when real change can happen — offering more assistance and understanding to one another, integrating better restroom planning into architectural design, and providing the funding for plenty of clean, available and accessible public restrooms.

Having diarrhea is difficult. Having diarrhea and having no place to go is even worse. So let’s talk about it, destigmatize it and treat people with more kindness. Let’s make going to the bathroom — and finding bathrooms — easier and better for everyone.

Alison Carpenter Davis, a former managing editor at Outside magazine, has written for the Chicago Tribune, The Independent (U.K.), the International Herald Tribune and Stanford Magazine, among others. She co-founded the Disability at Stanford Oral History Project , and is working on a memoir, “Gutsy.” For more from her, head to LinkedIn and her Twitter page.

Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch!

Editor Of Top Medical Journal Resigns Over 'Structural Racism' Remarks

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

Howard Bauchner is stepping down as editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The editor-in-chief of the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association will step down after the publication received backlash over controversial comments made by another editor on a podcast.

Dr. Howard Bauchner, who has held the top position at JAMA since 2011 and whose resignation will take effect on June 30, announced his decision in a statement on Tuesday. He has been on administrative leave since March while the American Medical Association reviewed the matter.

Bauchner said he remained “profoundly disappointed in myself for the lapses” that led to the JAMA Network putting out a podcast episode and tweet featuring comments that dismissed the existence of structural racism within the health care system.

“Although I did not write or even see the tweet, or create the podcast, as editor in chief, I am ultimately responsible for them,” Bauchner said in his statement.

“I share and have always supported the AMA’s commitment to dismantling structural racism in the institutions of American medicine, as evident by numerous publications in JAMA on this issue and related subjects, and look forward to personally contributing to that work going forward,” he added.

During the podcast episode that aired Feb. 24, deputy editor Ed Livingston said structural racism no longer existed in the United States.

“‘Structural racism’ is an unfortunate term,” Livingston said. “Personally, I think taking racism out of the conversation will help. Many people like myself are offended by the implication that we are somehow racist.”

JAMA sent a tweet to promote the episode that stated, “No physician is racist, so how can there be structural racism in health care?” The tweet was later deleted. Livingston resigned in March.

Dr. Stella Safo, a Black primary care physician at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, and her colleagues then started a petition calling for a formal review of Bauchner’s leadership. The petition, which had been signed by more than 9,000 people as of Tuesday, also demanded JAMA “schedule a series of town hall conversations with Black, Indigenous and People of Color patients, health care staff and allies to ensure restorative justice.”

“This is a real moment for JAMA and the AMA to recreate themselves from a founding history that was based in segregation and racism to one that is now based on racial equity,” Safo told The New York Times.

Dr. James Madara, the AMA’s CEO and executive vice president, said last month that the organization would implement a three-year plan to focused on “dismantling of structural racism” in health care.

Madara expressed regret over the podcast and tweet that “minimized the effects of systemic racism in health care and questioned its profound impact on millions of people across our country.”

“To be clear, structural racism exists in the U.S. and in medicine, genuinely affecting the health of all people, especially people of color and others historically marginalized in society,” Madara wrote in his statement. “This is not opinion or conjecture, it is proven in numerous studies, through the science and in the evidence.”

Phil Fontanarosa, the journal’s executive editor, will serve as the interim editor-in-chief during the AMA’s search for Bauchner’s replacement.

'Mare Of Easttown' Brings Up Conflicting Feelings About Cop Shows

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

The HBO series, which aired its final episode Sunday, does a lot to elevate and complicate the standard cop show — but ultimately it's still a cop show.

This story contains spoilers for the plot of HBO’s “Mare of Easttown,” but does not reveal in detail the events of Sunday night’s finale.

For nearly 30 minutes on Sunday night, HBO Max crashed, frustrating the legions of viewers who had logged on at 10 p.m. to watch the final episode of “Mare of Easttown” and find out who murdered Erin McMenamin. At first, I thought it was a minor glitch and kept refreshing my screen. It was only when I opened Twitter to complain about it (as one does) that I realized it was affecting many viewers, all of us tweeting memes and jokes about it.

The kerfuffle speaks to HBO’s still unparalleled position as one of the few networks that consistently produces appointment television and creates communal viewing experiences (to the extent that those even exist in this day and age) with its coveted Sunday evening slot.

I’ve eagerly awaited each installment of the seven-part limited series starring Kate Winslet as the titular small-town police detective investigating the aforementioned murder and two missing persons cases involving young women. But I’ve lingered on some conflicting thoughts, which really crystallized while watching Sunday night’s stunning conclusion. In a time when both TV creators and viewers have been more closely interrogating the often harmful conventions of police procedurals and crime dramas, I can’t help but feel torn about being riveted by a show that does a lot to not be a standard cop show — but ultimately is still a cop show.

For decades, many TV police procedurals and crime dramas valorized and glorified police officers and the system of policing, which has come under renewed scrutiny since last summer’s racial uprisings. To be clear, “Mare of Easttown” is not a show that falls under “copaganda.” It pulls off the trick of being both a whodunnit crime drama and something else entirely.

Much of the show isn’t about the police or the crimes at the center of the show’s twisty plot. It’s about its tremendous performances, especially from Winslet as Mare, Julianne Nicholson as Mare’s best friend Lori and the indefatigable Jean Smart as Mare’s acerbic mother Helen. It’s about grief, trauma, parenting and female friendship. It’s about what happens when being an authority figure in a close-knit community, where you know everybody and everybody knows you, can be complicated and agonizing. A lot of Mare’s work as a detective involves investigating cases in which her decisions could ruin the lives of her family, friends and neighbors.

Kate Winslet as small town police detective Mare Sheehan in the final episode of HBO's limited series "Mare of Easttown," which aired Sunday night.

Most standard cop shows historically have not questioned the flaws in the system they portray. Some are now trying to, in fits and starts. At times, “Mare of Easttown” does gesture at those flaws. Mare makes some pretty questionable choices that the show does not cast in a positive or generous light, and there are no easy answers or solutions to anything, especially in the way she handles the events of the final episode.

At the same time, the show doesn’t interrogate that broken system enough. For instance, Mare is briefly suspended from her job after she steals drugs from the police department’s evidence room and plants them on Carrie, the mother of her grandson, in order to jeopardize Carrie’s chances at gaining custody. But before long, Mare is back on the case and given a pass when, in reality, so many people (particularly if they are not white) would not be allowed another chance.

And at the end of the day, the cops — even though they are complicated and not unequivocally good characters — get to be the heroes. They find the answers and crack the case, and we root for them along the way. Every time Mare achieved a major breakthrough in one of the investigations, part of me couldn’t help but notice how badass she looked.

In Episode 5, when she and her fellow detective Colin Zabel (Evan Peters) finally track down the man who kidnapped and abused two missing young women, Zabel is killed in the ensuing shootout. Understandably, viewers were crestfallen. But also, we had previously found out that he wasn’t exactly a great cop.

Many viewers have rightly praised the artistic choices and elements in “Mare of Easttown” that made the show much less about policing and crime than a standard police procedural. At the same time, it’s telling that for many of us, the desire to find out if Mare would solve the murder was what kept us watching until the very end (and crashed an entire streaming service). It’s human to want clarity and closure, and it makes for satisfying television. We come to shows like “Mare of Easttown” for twists and turns, but we also want to know how they get resolved.

Just like the conversation around how to change policing and the systems themselves, this is an ongoing conversation that isn’t about one single show or entity. Not every piece of pop culture necessarily has to directly confront the larger systems undergirding its plot and characters. It can really depend on the show. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense, and sometimes it doesn’t work, like when TV shows address social issues by being too deliberate, obvious and heavy-handed about them. And it’s not one show’s responsibility to change or dismantle everything.

But it does need to raise questions. “Mare of Easttown” raises some by complicating existing narratives and conventions of police procedurals and crime dramas, but perhaps not enough. And as viewers, we’re also implicated, especially in cases like this, when these shows give us so much to like and chew on.

I Thought IVF Was My Biggest Parenting Hurdle — Then I Had The Baby

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

"The very last thing that occurred to me was that our child, so long-awaited and wished-for, could tip me into an emotional free fall."

For Mother’s Day this year, I received, among other things, a handmade card from my 8-year-old. The front is an embarrassment of pink and red hearts. Inside, across from an illustration of the two of us hugging, is his message: “I love and appreciate you so much, Amma. Thank you for helping me fight through disastrous chaos every day of my life.”

His words reflect my firstborn exactly ― earnest, funny, sensitive, dramatic. The card is now pinned above my desk. Every glance at it makes my heart twang erratically.

The first year of my son’s life was in fact one form or other of disastrous chaos. I think he was 9 or 10 months old before I looked at him and experienced one of those “this is real love” moments.

I’m not ashamed to admit this now. I don’t believe it makes me any less of a good mother. But my road to acceptance was pockmarked and convoluted and began long before he was born.

Like most people who imagine their future selves as parents, I didn’t spare much thought for actually getting pregnant. I married my high school best friend at 22. Ignoring the gentle nudging questions about kids for the first five years was easy. We were busy making friends, trying the buzziest new restaurants, planning impromptu cross-country road trips.

I figured once we were ready, we’d knock a couple of kids out, no problem. In my mind, I’d be done by 30. One each: a boy and a girl. The perfect combo of rowdy and radiant. I could picture their mischievous dimpled smiles already.

What I hadn’t pictured was sitting in a paper gown at the fertility clinic at 32. Again. Suddenly, those years in our 20s when we’d blithely chosen not to think about children felt like idiocy.

Whenever I heard someone say, “We’re waiting a bit before doing the baby thing,” I wanted to shake them and scream, “Don’t repeat my mistakes!” The picture-perfect family I’d envisioned was becoming blurrier by the minute.

By the time our first child ultimately emerged, I was down two miscarriages, one dilation and curettage, one polyp removal surgery, six bottles of sugary homeopathic pills, two attempts at intrauterine insemination, two cycles of in vitro fertilization, five months of hormone injections, and countless rounds of mind-fuckery.

My body had been poked, prodded, tweaked and coaxed until it no longer felt like anything that belonged to me. My ovarian follicles had been primed and stimulated until my brain became numb.

Numbness was also how I recall receiving the news that our most recent round of IVF had been successful. Sure, I’d taken the blood tests, and OK, I could sort of make out a peanut-shaped blob on the ultrasound, but the possibility of another miscarriage loomed large. I wasn’t ready to celebrate yet.

Let’s take it one day at a time, I told my husband. Anything could happen. Ever-present at the back of my mind was also the hefty price tag attached to my pregnancy. We had sunk so much money into making this happen. What were the repercussions if it didn’t work ― again?

I floated through the next eight months in a permanent state of semi-denial. I resisted the urge to buy any tiny “awww”-inducing outfits. A baby shower sounded lovely, but maybe we could keep things muted? Who knew what disasters might still be right around the corner. No need to make a fuss.

Even when I was wheeled into the hospital maternity wing at 39 weeks, the doubts persisted. Things could still go wrong, right? I’d read the delivery room horror stories. Better not to get too attached.

But then, right after my husband triumphantly snipped the umbilical cord (looking exactly like he was the first to cross a marathon finish line), the doctor placed our softly mewling baby on my chest, and I finally, finally, exhaled. He was here. He was real. The ordeal was over.

The part that still stings, though, is that the emotion I most felt in that moment was nothing like love. It was a simple, overwhelming relief.

***

Early motherhood is a crazy ride, regardless of how you arrive. So maybe I can chalk up some of my naive ideas about it to plain ignorance. I’d done my best to prepare ― we’d read the parenting books and taken the doll-swaddling classes. A talented friend had created a mural of birch trees on one wall of the nursery. I’d spent days hand-painting a special rug for the room, contorting my bulging body into awkward positions as I taped off sections in a chevron pattern. The room we had created for our new baby was a comfortable, beautiful, cheerful space.

The infant we brought home to this nursery, on the other hand, confounded me. He cried endlessly. He was always hungry. He just wouldn’t sleep. He was like a pudgy, bleary-eyed, angry-at-the-world but somehow still incredibly attractive gremlin.

I wanted desperately to feel close to him; instead, I felt more exhausted and resentful by the day. Being around other mothers and their content newborns only made me feel like more of a failure in comparison.

People find it easy to accept that infertility, especially failed fertility treatment cycles, can cause depression in women. But the very last thing that occurred to me was that our child, so long-awaited and wished-for, could tip me into an emotional free fall.

I knew about postpartum depression, but in my mind, that wasn’t for people who had been through hell and back like I had. I decided to will the monsters away. After enduring the trials of IVF and miscarriage, pushing down yet another swirl of negativity felt like second nature. I’d sacrificed so much in pursuit of this baby. Caring for myself was no longer on the agenda. I’d left it behind somewhere between all those Follistim injections.

Responding to the pediatrician’s wellness questionnaire ― “Does mother feel sadness or have any negative thoughts?” ― was laughable. Of course I was depleted. Who wouldn’t be?

I can’t say for sure if what I experienced was postpartum depression. I certainly wasn’t the only one taken aback by the fact that our son had absolutely zero chill.

My mother, convinced his grumpiness was related to my milk supply, busied herself with concocting remedies to boost my production. But she couldn’t explain why he didn’t stop crying even as I pumped more milk, even as we supplemented with formula, even once we added solid foods to his diet.

He had no digestive issues we could discern. Our pediatrician made soothing sympathetic noises as our baby screamed at his 2-, 4-, 6-, and 9-month well visits. He put his hand on my knee, gave me the name of a sleep consultant, and suggested hiring help for at least a few hours each day.

All the advice was making my head swim, but by this point, I didn’t believe myself capable of independent thought as it related to babies or their making. I had spent the last several years nodding along as experts told me what was wrong with my reproductive system (which by the way, was nothing; our infertility had no explanation), asked me to lie back while they took a look or suggested yet another test, constantly teetering between patience and helplessness. My experience with motherhood so far felt like the latest in a long line of what I had come to expect.

And deep down, it was also what I had come to believe I deserved. My self-esteem had become so enmeshed with my uterine performance over the past decade that I had made our child an extension of my trauma.

I wish I could say I woke up one morning and found my way out, but there were no handy exit signs here. My son and I both had stuff to work through. He was figuring out how to exist in the world, and I needed to quiet the monsters in my head long enough to help us navigate the messy human experience together. Talking about our journey openly was the first step.

There are so many layers of guilt and shame that go with acknowledging infertility. Part of it was my Indian upbringing, which emphasized modesty and keeping your private life under wraps.

But I’d also lived in California long enough to realize I wasn’t hearing the women around me share their reproductive struggles either. Studies and statistics bear out that the majority of women with infertility suffer in silence. As long as I kept our family’s IVF experience locked away, it was going to take over and swallow me whole.

Speaking the words “Both our boys are IVF babies” out loud for the first time, my throat felt scratchy. I braced myself for judgment, or worse yet, sympathy. What I received were kind eyes, tender questions, and more often than I thought possible, community.

There they were ― my friends, family, neighbors and colleagues ― so many with stories like my own, just waiting for someone else to begin the conversation. Waiting for permission to stop holding their breaths, too.

***

The experience of infertility is painful and can feel interminably lonely. Getting a healthy baby at the end of it is nowhere close to a sure thing. I remind myself that we were lucky two times over, but it’s just as important to remember that the aftershocks of IVF don’t end in the delivery room.

For a long time, I took my child’s difficult infancy as a personal affront. Now I recognize he was struggling just like me.

When my son is older, we’ll talk about how we came to conceive him. I’m saving his Mother’s Day card for that day, so I can thank him for being born, for sticking with us, and for helping me fight disastrous chaos every day of my life.

Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch!

‘Daily Show’ Breaks Down How Badly Donald Trump Is Handling Retirement

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

From the ex-president’s ban from social media to his break-up with Fox News.

A 16-minute montage released by “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” on Monday shows how well Donald Trump is handling his post-presidency life.

“Not well,” reads the caption of the lengthy supercut.

The video features segments from the show in which host Noah dissects some of Trump’s wildest antics since voters booted him from office in the 2020 election.

Topics include Trump’s desperate attempt to circumvent his social media bans and his breakup with his former favorite cable network Fox News.

Watch the video here:

Joe Biden Becomes First U.S. President To Commemorate Tulsa Race Massacre

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

"My fellow Americans, this was not a riot; this was a massacre," Biden said on the centennial of the attack on “Black Wall Street."

President Joe Biden delivered remarks from Tulsa, Oklahoma, on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre on Tuesday, making him the first U.S. president to participate in the remembrance of one of the darkest days in America’s racist history.

“For much too long, the history of what took place here was told in silence, cloaked in darkness,” Biden said, speaking from Tulsa’s Greenwood Cultural Center. “But just because history is silent, it doesn’t mean that it did not take place. And while darkness can hide much, it erases nothing.”

“My fellow Americans, this was not a riot; this was a massacre,” he added, rejecting the “race riot” narrative long used to describe the events.

The 1921 massacre involved a violent white supremacist mob descending on Tulsa’s thriving Black neighborhood of Greenwood, known as Black Wall Street because of its self-sufficient economy, to destroy homes and businesses and kill hundreds of Black people. Accounts of the attack are brutal: churches bombed, pregnant women brutalized, children murdered and at least 35 square city blocks razed.

Biden recounted the horrors in detail.

“In less than 24 hours, 1,100 Black homes and businesses were lost, and insurance companies rejected claims of damage,” Biden said. That financial impact, descendants of the victims say, has been felt for generations.

“Imagine all of those hotels and diners and mom-and-pop shops that could have been passed down this past 100 years,” Biden reflected.

What happened in the aftermath has caused even more pain. Officials brushed the massacre off as a “race riot” and declined to prosecute a single person, letting one of the country’s most horrific acts of white violence became a mere footnote in U.S. history lessons.

“The events we speak of today took place 100 years ago. And yet, I’m the first president in 100 years ever to come to Tulsa,” Biden said.

“We do ourselves no favors by pretending none of this ever happened or it doesn’t impact us today, because it does still impact us today,” he continued.

It wasn’t until 2016 that the city formed the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission in preparation for the 100th anniversary, upping the pressure on elected officials and other public figures to address what transpired that day. Now, Black Wall Street is hosting events with celebrities and politicians like Biden to commemorate the event, and millions of dollars are going toward tourism initiatives, including a $30 million museum about the massacre.

But the surviving victims of the attack and their descendants say they haven’t had any say in the commemorations, and they’re fighting for reparations. There are three known survivors of the 1921 massacre who are still living: Viola Fletcher, 107; Lessie Benningfield Randle, 106; and Hughes Van Ellis, 100, each of whom were at Biden’s speech Tuesday. All of them traveled to Washington, D.C., last month to testify about their experiences before a House subcommittee on civil rights and civil liberties.

“We lost everything that day,” Fletcher said before lawmakers. “Our homes, churches, our newspapers, our theaters, our lives. Greenwood represented the best of what was possible for Black people in America and for all the people. No one cared about us for 100 years. We and our history have been forgotten, washed away.”

Biden noted that white hate continues to plague communities of color like Greenwood. “Terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today,” he said. “Not ISIS, not al Qaeda. White supremacy.”

He also announced during his speech that his administration is launching new efforts toward black wealth creation, including a plan to crack down on racial discrimination in housing and increasing federal spending on assisting small, disadvantaged business, particularly those in Black communities.

Finally, he addressed some of the voter suppression bills that have moved through state legislatures in recent years, including a highly restrictive one being considered in Texas, which have a disproportionate effect on Black communities. Those efforts are “un-American,” Biden charged.

Blair Underwood, Desiree DaCosta Split After 27 Years Of Marriage

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

In a joint statement, the couple called their marriage “a beautiful journey” and praised their three children, ages 24, 22 and 19.

Actor Blair Underwood and his wife, Desiree DaCosta, have announced they’re ending their marriage after 27 years.

In a joint statement posted to Instagram, the couple called their marriage “a beautiful journey” and praised their three children, ages 24, 22 and 19.

“After a tremendous amount of thought, prayer & work on ourselves individually & collectively, we have come to the conclusion to end our marriage that began 27 years ago,” the statement said.

It continued: “Our proudest achievements are our three incredible children. Three souls to which God entrusted us. We continue to be awed & humbled by the blessings of parenting. We have always put their best interests first & will continue to do so. We will continue to be the best of friends and co-parents and have the utmost respect for one another as we embark upon this new chapter of our lives, separately.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Blair Underwood (@blairunderwood_official)

Underwood, 56, first gained fame in the late ’80s on the NBC drama “L.A. Law.”

He has received two Golden Globe nominations, for “L.A. Law” and “In Treatment,” and shared a Grammy for best spoken word album for “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Not Everyone Is Happy Hugs Are Back. Here's Why.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

"While millions of people have lamented the lack of hugs and physical contact since March last year, for me and people like me, social distancing brought freedom from unwanted touch."

I remember many of my pre-pandemic hugs. A goodbye to my uncle after a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Disneyland in August 1994. My first full body contact hug with the professor whom I subsequently fell in love with, and who broke my heart two months later, in April 2012. The last one I had with a close relative, in January 2011, before I got on an airport train to live abroad.

They’re imprinted on my brain not because I’ve missed hugging, but because I remember them with an involuntary shudder. Hugging people usually makes my insides shrivel up as if trying to get away from the contact happening at skin level. It’s full body contact I hate most, but I also dislike the single crooked-arm demi-hug and the leaned-in cheek kiss.

I received each of the hugs described above with my body stiff, wanting it to be over. Yes, I know it’s odd. No, I don’t need therapy. I’ve just always been this way, since I was a very young child asking my mother if we could dispense with kisses at the school gate.

Once I’ve mentally recategorized someone I’m attracted to ― like that professor ― I’m warm and affectionate and even a little limpet-like. I am enthusiastically all over people I like touching, which is a category populated only by my children and any current romantic interest(s).

The COVID-19 pandemic and the sudden implosion of social norms has saved me from unwanted hugs for over a year and I’m nervous about what comes next as restrictions ease in the coming weeks and months.

It’s not just actual hugs that are coming back into my life. It’s also the anxiety and elaborate planning before social activities where personal space is dictated by how much people allow you and not by how much you’d like to have.

I would always think strategically about where and how to stand. A physical barrier of some kind was effective: a table I could be on the other side of, a bulky rucksack I could swing off my shoulders as if opening it, a pile of folders I “couldn’t” put down.

The best was a baby or small child in my arms. They were not only a physical buffer but who’d want to touch me when there was a much cuter alternative?

I’d make sure to arrive for meals out late enough that everyone was seated and then wave away anyone from getting up. If the waitstaff was taking their order, even better. Or I’d arrive early and be the first one sitting and just not get up. It was more rude but offered some protection and, at worst, a crooked-arm partial hug that avoided body contact.

My close friends have grown used to me, even viewing my quirk with some at-a-distance affection. Most have also barreled in occasionally with an “I know you don’t like hugging but I haven’t seen you for ages.”

Even with them, it’s not always easy to spurn the contact even though I’m sure no one who understood how their hug was received would want to inflict it. Rejecting strangers takes a huge transgression of social niceties, especially as I have to do it within seconds of meeting someone for the first time. People don’t tend to form a great first impression when they’re rejected and left awkwardly leaning toward me.

Even managing to head them off before they make their move isn’t necessarily tidy. Most people don’t know how to act if you say you’d rather just wave from a meter away, like when you arrive at a British person’s house and decline an offer of tea.

One of my friends always greets me with: “I would hug you but I know you don’t like it.” Maybe she does it to fill the awkward gap where the embrace would normally take place ― awkward for her, not me ― or in case bystanders think she’s snubbing me.

But I appreciate it because it shows that my comfort is important to her. Just like I appreciated it when my ex-mother-in-law would tell family visitors ahead of time that I didn’t like touching and removed the dread by letting me know she’d told them.

For me, it’s a constant balance between the social cost of being “rude” or accepting skin-crawling embraces and setting a precedent that’s harder to object to later.

But that was before COVID. While millions of people have lamented the lack of hugs and physical contact since March last year, for me and people like me, social distancing brought freedom from unwanted touch. As lockdowns have come and gone, flexing strictness over the kinds of places people can meet in, I’ve stuck to outdoor meetups only.

I live in Spain where a kiss on two cheeks is ― or was ― customary. I’ve enjoyed not worrying about that first minute where I have to run the hug-and-kiss gantlet. To my and, I assume, everyone’s relief, the elbow bump didn’t catch on and I’ve been able to meet new people and old friends alike without planning evasion tactics or bracing myself to be rude.

I’m glad for the natural huggers that they get to experience the level of affection they crave but I want that same freedom for myself. Other people’s freedom to do something shouldn’t eclipse mine not to have it done to me. And all that requires is a simple thing that will allow me to opt out.

It’s just as easy to greet people with “Are you a hugger?” as it is to ask someone if they take their tea with milk and sugar instead of just piling in there with the low-fat and two lumps.

No one expects you to remember their preferences, nor feels they have to drink milky, over-sugared tea just to save you asking what they like. But for those of us for whom the end of social distancing means a return to more social anxiety, that small piece of consideration is a “new normal” we’ll welcome.

Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch!

Biden Taps Kamala Harris To Lead Push On Voting Rights

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

In a speech in Tulsa, the president gently called out two Democratic senators who have opposed eliminating the filibuster.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday placed Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of his administration’s efforts to pass voting rights legislation and promised to battle an “unprecedented assault on our democracy” from Republican-controlled state legislatures.

“We’re going to be ramping up our efforts to overcome again,” Biden said in a speech in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the massacre of Black residents there. “I’m going to fight like heck with every tool at my disposal.”

Biden’s comments ― and his decision to hand Harris the high-profile task ― are likely to soothe but not totally satisfy voting rights activists, who have fretted about the administration’s dedication to passing H.R. 1, an omnibus law aimed at reforming American democracy, and the more narrowly targeted John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which aims to block state-level voter suppression efforts.

Republicans across the country, embracing former President Donald Trump’s escalation of long-standing GOP myths about voter fraud following the 2020 election, have introduced more than 300 bills aiming to restrict the right to vote. Democrats have argued that passage of H.R. 1 and the Voting Rights Act is essential to protecting the right to vote, but the legislation’s path forward in Congress remains murky at best.

In a statement released after Biden’s speech, Harris promised to work with “voting rights organizations, community organizations, and the private sector to help strengthen and uplift efforts on voting rights nationwide,” and to work with Congress “to help advance these bills.”

“Our Administration will not stand by when confronted with any effort that keeps Americans from voting,” Harris said.

In his speech, Biden directly noted the difficulty of passing such laws.

“I hear all the folks on TV, ‘Why doesn’t Biden get this done?’” he said. “Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate, with two members of the Senate who vote more with our Republican friends.”

Biden’s comments were likely referencing Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who have both declared staunch opposition to weakening or eliminating the Senate’s 60-vote requirement to pass most legislation. Sinema supports H.R. 1, while Manchin does not.

Though the two are considered the most centrist Democrats in the Senate, both typically vote with their party.

Voting rights advocates, speaking on a conference call scheduled to discuss a Texas GOP proposal to limit voting access there, praised Biden’s selection of Harris as the point person on the issue but said the administration and congressional leaders needed to do more to pressure reluctant Democratic senators.

“It’s a step forward,” said Cliff Albright, a co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund. “Any time you actually designate somebody in your administration to be the liaison, the czar, or whatever you want to call it, that’s a step in the right direction, because it is adding a level of responsibility and accountability, and elevating the importance.”

Another Democratic strategist closely involved in the effort to pass H.R. 1 hoped it was a sign of the White House “beginning to flex their muscle a bit more” and prioritizing voting rights legislation amid a crowded agenda.

“If this is kicking off more activity from the White House, it’s really good news,” said the strategist, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about the White House’s approach.

Ultimately, however, advocates know Biden and congressional leaders will need to bring reluctant Democrats into line.

“At the end of the day, Joe Biden needs to have his Lyndon B. Johnson moment,” Albright said. “You can’t have 47 years of experience in the Senate and not know how to wrangle two votes within your own caucus. You’ve got to be able to figure that out. [Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer has got to be able to figure that out. And now, apparently, Kamala Harris has got to be able to figure that out.”

Travis Waldron contributed reporting.

Biden Administration Formally Ends Trump's 'Remain In Mexico' Program

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

The Trump-era policy, paused for review earlier this year, kept tens of thousands of asylum seekers in Mexico, often in dangerous conditions.

The Biden administration formally ended the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” program, which had forced tens of thousands of Central American asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico in often dangerous conditions for their claims to be processed.

In a memo Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas terminated the program, also known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), after the Biden administration paused it earlier this year for a review.

In January, the Biden administration suspended any new enrollments of asylum-seekers into the program and since February has processed over 11,000 people previously enrolled into the U.S., according to Mayorkas’ memo.

Since the Trump administration issued the policy in January 2019, about 68,000 asylum-seekers were forced to wait in Mexico for their U.S. court cases, many in dangerous situations where they faced violence, sexual assault, kidnapping and more.

“This is a huge victory. The forced return policy was cruel, depraved, and illegal, and we are glad that it has finally been rescinded,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Judy Rabinovitz said in a statement.

Rabinovitz, who led the ACLU team that previously sued the Trump administration over the policy, urged the Biden administration to ensure “everyone who has been subjected to this policy can now pursue their asylum cases in the United States, in safety and without additional trauma or delay.”

DHS Secretary Mayorkas formally ends the Trump-era Remain-in-Mexico policy.

Among other reasons, Mayorkas cites concerns about whether "lack of stable access to housing, income, and safety" forced asylum-seekers in Mexico to abandon "potentially meritorious protection claims." pic.twitter.com/Jrwzc4srfk
— Camilo Montoya-Galvez (@camiloreports) June 1, 2021

In the DHS memo, Mayorkas wrote that after Biden directed him to review the program in February, he’d considered whether it processed asylum-seekers “ in a safe and orderly manner consistent with the Nation’s highest values.” The DHS secretary noted that some of those forced to remain in Mexico faced a “lack of stable access to housing, income, and safety.”

A 2019 report from Doctors Without Borders condemned the Trump-era policy for leaving people to stay “in violent areas of Mexico and [putting] them in extreme danger.” Of the nearly 400 patients the group treated in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo in the first five months of that year, more than 45% had endured at least one episode of violence as they waited to cross into the U.S., including about 12% who had been kidnapped.

A separate report from Human Rights Watch detailed how in Ciudad Juárez, Central American migrants reported facing sexual assault, homelessness, kidnapping and other violence after being sent to the Mexican city under the policy.

“We applaud the Biden Administration’s decision to formally end the abhorrent ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy,” said Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, and Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif.), chair of the subcommittee on border security, in a statement calling the policy “a stain on our nation’s history.”

I Never Met My Boyfriend In Person. When He Suddenly Died, I Had No Idea What To Do.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

"I questioned if our relationship was even real. Maybe I was being dramatic and selfish? Had this all been in my head?"

When Gabriel, my boyfriend of nearly three years died, the first thing I did was Google “What do you do when your boyfriend dies?”

I couldn’t find the answer I was looking for, so I went to the county library, and through boogers and tears, told the librarian what had happened and asked her for a book on grief.

The librarian gave me a list and I checked out every book on it. When I got home and began paging through them, I realized none of them were going to help me. All of them assumed my boyfriend and I had a physical connection, and we didn’t. We had never even met in person.

I didn’t have life insurance to deal with, or a death certificate to retrieve, or a casket to pick out. I didn’t have a toothbrush to throw out, or laundry to pick through or belongings to donate. There was no hospital bill I was responsible for. I wouldn’t even be attending his funeral.

Instead, I had a long string of Skype messages, some mementos I received in the mail, a few thousand digital photos and a set of emails and passwords.

I met Gabe through Reddit in 2016. We clicked right away over our mutual love for blue frozen drinks and indie rock music. He immediately disclosed he was disabled, in a wheelchair, and likely to never walk, move or even breathe on his own due to a muscular disease called Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

This wasn’t a problem for me. I was looking for company online while I transitioned to college as a shy student who had trouble making friends. All that mattered was that he could type a message and make me laugh. He was in Texas, I was in New Jersey.

I was a dedicated friend-turned-lover, and I was completely smitten. I woke up early to send him good morning messages before classes, recorded air kisses, and fell asleep talking to him on Skype. I took photos and videos of everyday things Gabe wouldn’t be able to experience because he was bed-bound and I shared them with him.

I encouraged him to paint, make music and move while he could, and he encouraged me to study hard, finish my degree and challenge myself professionally. I bought tickets and went to an Arcade Fire concert, where I then video-chatted him the entire show since he couldn’t attend live. He was the first person to send me flowers on my birthday and encouraged me to break out of my shell and stand up to my parents. Our relationship taught me love isn’t about physical proximity, but the things you do and feel for one another.

Through 2017 and 2018, our bond grew while his health declined. I put off meeting him because my parents disapproved of me being in a long-distance relationship. We would talk from sun-up to sundown, chatting about the day we would finally meet. We decided to meet as soon as I was financially independent from my parents ― hopefully by 2020 when I’d be out of school.

But before 2019 had even arrived, Gabe died suddenly from congestive heart failure. When traditional support systems failed to console me, I turned to the very place I’d met him: the internet.

I knew how to find dates online. It wasn’t difficult: Make a post and wait for the responses to flood in. But finding a way to deal with grief ― specifically the grief that comes with losing a person you’ve never met? I soon discovered that wasn’t so easy.

Gabe with his new computer (August 2018).

I began by posting on long-distance relationship (LDR) forums and was greeted with empathy and sorrow but no real understanding of how Gabe’s death was affecting me. My posts were flooded with comments like “I’m so sorry! I can’t imagine this happening!” and “I don’t know what I would do if I were you.” I appreciated the responses and the well-wishes, but no one really seemed to understand the gravity of my loss.

I posted on Facebook groups for widows, and the responses were less empathetic. Messages like, “I think you’re overreacting. You’re not a widow,” and “You don’t know how we feel. I was married for 10 years ― your grief doesn’t compare,” echoed in my head for days. I felt like I was taking up a space I hadn’t “earned” and didn’t deserve.

No, Gabe and I weren’t married. We didn’t have children. We didn’t live together. I had never even touched him. Of course our relationship was different than a 40-something widow who had lost her husband of 20 years. But what did that really mean?

I struggled with this. I questioned if our relationship was even real. Maybe I was being dramatic and selfish? Had this all been in my head?

No. Of course not. I was grief-stricken, just like those other widows. I couldn’t eat, drink or go on living my life, just like them. I spent my days and nights hugging the keepsakes I had received from him, crying and wishing for Gabe to be back with me. The fact that our relationship wasn’t a physical one didn’t change any of that.

I realized I had to come to terms with the fact that my grief is not the same as anyone else’s. My loss is still a loss ― a deep, radically transformative one ― and nothing can change that. Not a widow on Facebook telling me my relationship wasn’t real because we didn’t touch, not my mother telling me we weren’t even really together, and not me trying to convince myself I shouldn’t feel the way I feel.

Our relationship taught me love isn’t about physical proximity, but the things you do and feel for one another.

I posted excerpts from my journal online in hopes that it would let me compare my experiences with individuals who were dealing with the loss of a physical relationship. I reasoned I was never going to heal if I didn’t allow myself into healing spaces and I wanted to share what I had been through in case others might be going through something similar.

December 14, 2018: My boyfriend passed away. Not sure what to do next.

My boyfriend and I were together for 2.5 years and he passed away this morning.

He was ill the entire time we were together. He went to the hospital Wednesday and was supposed to come home Saturday. We did not expect him to pass so suddenly.

I never got the chance to meet him or say goodbye properly. I am not really sure where to go and what to do. We planned to get married after I graduated from college. I have lost my best friend and my future. The only person I would go to for comfort in a situation like this is gone.

December 18, 2018: Everything hurts.

Last Tuesday was the last real time I got to talk to Gabe without anything being “wrong.” I only got to be on the phone with him for a short while when he got to the hospital.

My heart hurts. My tummy hurts. My head hurts. Even my bones hurt.

I can’t listen to music. I can’t draw. I can’t read. I can’t do anything because everything reminds me of him and what we did together.

February 20, 2019: Faking it ’til you make it (crying in the shower and other bad ideas).

Somewhere in the back of my head, I knew that our relationship could end at any moment if something happened to Gabe. I just wish I had done more to prepare myself for it. We never actually talked about how he would die before me. We just pretended it wouldn’t happen.

A selfie the author took while video chatting with Gabe in October 2017.

May 21, 2019: It’s been almost six months.

I haven’t posted here in a while. I think I’ve been coping well. So much has changed. Sometimes I even feel happy. When I do, I feel so guilty for it and for moving forward with my life. Then I think it shouldn’t be like this ― he shouldn’t have died. He should still be with me.

October 19, 2019: Grief has changed me into a completely different person.

I’d do anything to go back in time but I also know that Gabe was so sick and in so much pain all of the time and, in some ways, his passing was a blessing because he no longer was in misery.

I am still insecure and unmotivated and miserable much of the time. I stew and I grump and I cry. There are times when nothing and no one can make me feel better. But if Gabe were to magically come back, I would also be upset because I know how badly he was hurting and I wouldn’t want him to feel that pain ever again.

January 14, 2020: I still have to be reminded it gets easier.

Over a year later, I’m still not very far out in the grand scheme of things. But life is easier now than it was the first week, the first month, or even the first six months. The first everything is the hardest.

My love for him mattered even if we never were in the same room together ― it mattered just much as the love that other people share ― and my grief matters just as much, too.

Grief can take a lot of different forms. It can affect us mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually ― virtually any way you can imagine. But grief is not a contest. It’s not a see-who-has-it-the-worst type of thing. I took me a long time to understand and believe that my loss is real ― it exists ― and, what’s more, it’s valid.

As with so many other people’s losses, it took a lot for me to accept that there was nothing I could have done to prevent Gabe’s death. His disease was cruel, and he would have died whether or not I had met him and we had been a part of each other’s lives. It took a lot for me to accept that my love for him mattered even if we never were in the same room together ― it mattered just much as the love that other people share ― and my grief matters just as much, too.

After a while, my grief was accompanied by guilt. My guilt made my grief even harder to deal with. I felt guilty for not meeting Gabe when he was still here, for not doing more for him, for trying to join ― and daring to take up space in ― a community of people that were dealing with losses different from mine.

Then I felt guilty for trying to move forward with my life ― even though moving forward was the best thing I could have done for myself. I felt especially guilty for wanting to meet new people. It felt like the ultimate betrayal of everything I told myself while I was grieving, namely that Gabe was the love of my life and the only one for me. I was afraid that if I met someone new, Gabe would disappear from this planet without a trace.

Little by little, I began to move forward. It took time: time to learn and believe that there was nothing to be gained by staying frozen in place. Time to learn and believe that my loneliness wasn’t doing me or Gabe any good. And time to trust myself and what I felt: that if the situation were reversed, I would want Gabe to love again. I would.

Gabe wearing some of the Christmas presents the author sent him (January 2017).

Gabe showed me love isn’t just about physical displays of affection. It’s about the time you spend together and the effort you put into getting to know someone. I felt more vulnerable with this person I had never met than with people I saw every day. He loved me in ways that were deeper and more intimate than anyone else I’ve known.

From the outside looking in, our relationship might have seemed unorthodox. But I lost the person who knew me best. I lost the person I loved the most. And I lost the future I had so desperately been wanting and planning for.

I don’t think anyone goes into a long-distance relationship planning to never meet their partner. I certainly didn’t. I never thought any of this would happen. But because it did, I want to talk about it in hopes that it might mean something to someone else. Maybe if and when they’re going through this, they’ll find this piece and they’ll feel less alone than I did when I did that Google search two and a half years ago. And, on a larger scale, I hope that we all might consider the need to reexamine our understanding and expectations of grief and love and how they relate to one another.

It’s also important to acknowledge that there are lots of different reasons that people grieve ― from the loss of a loved one to the ending of your favorite TV show. Grief can be a constant, heavy, unbearable weight on your shoulders, but it can also be a small ache in your heart or a fleeting thought that reminds you something or someone isn’t with you anymore. Whether that’s a person you met or not, that grief is legitimate, and you don’t need to justify that to anyone ― not even yourself.

Every day, I get farther and farther away from where I thought I would be in December of 2018. I have a new job. I’m in a new city. There’s a new man in my life. But Gabe is still very much a part of everything I do. Photos of him hang next to photos of my new love. His camera sits on display in my home. The music he loved still fills my rooms. I talk about him freely and often. He changed my life. He’s a part of who I am ― and he always will be ― and no matter what anyone thinks about our love.

Meghan Schiereck is an award-winning photojournalist, retired prom queen and proud New Jerseyean living in New York City. She is a graduate of Shippensburg University. You can find her picking up rocks on the side of the road, crying to old music or sometimes writing. You can also find her on Twitter @rhursday.

Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch!

Chuck Woolery Gets Mocked For Bizarre Hitler Tweet On Memorial Day

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

The right-wing former "Love Connection" host got no love from his critics.

Former game show host Chuck Woolery won scorn for a Memorial Day tweet about Adolf Hitler and critical race theory.

Woolery is the self-described “Hollywood conservative” who once wrote that “racism has nothing to do with race” and accused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of lying about COVID-19 to defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 election. (He later acknowledged the virus “is real” after his son got sick.)

So it was no surprise that Woolery, who once hooked up couples on the dating show “Love Connection,” got jilted for his latest right-wing missive. It’s a lot to unpack, and it has an annoying misspelling.

“Critical Race theory is based on Critical theory, given to the world by Marxists from the Frankfort School in Germany,” he wrote. “When Hitler cracked down on them they moved. Yes they moved to Columbia University in NYC and they remain there to this day.”

Critical Race theory is based on Critical theory, given to the world by Marxists from the Frankfort School in Germany. When Hitler cracked down on them they moved. Yes they moved to Columbia University in NYC and they remain there to this day.
— Chuck Woolery (@chuckwoolery) May 31, 2021

As the tweet trended, Woolery griped “it’s like every liberal Marxist comes out of the woodwork to take their shot.”

We don’t know about that, but people on Twitter did leave the former “Wheel of Fortune” host with some brutal parting gifts.

Welp, just putting the neonazism right out in the open today aren’t we?
— Jaycub On The Moon🏳️‍🌈🚀🌖 (@JSchagene) June 1, 2021

Is there any particular reason you're siding with the actions of Adolf Fucking Hitler, Chuck?
— KayDubs (@KayDubsNXL) June 1, 2021

That Hitler hated them proves they were on the right track

That you're giving Hitler props for doing so shows exactly who you are
— jimmy craig (@threepeaks74) June 1, 2021

Hitler nostalgia. Only you Chuck.
— Allison Bethea 💎🙌🏽 (@FireHorsePhotos) June 1, 2021

pic.twitter.com/OMARD3dSK1
— Kerri Bailey (@herbelements) June 1, 2021

Wow Chuckie. Too much Botox?
— Robert Heierman (@HeiermanRobert) June 1, 2021

I think I can solve the puzzle: Hitler is Chuck Woolery’s hero.
— Ernesto Chávez (@ernstchavez) June 1, 2021

Happy Memorial Day (Hitler?)
— Alfa 177 canine (@Alfa177canine) June 1, 2021

I think I can solve the puzzle: Hitler is Chuck Woolery’s hero.
— Ernesto Chávez (@ernstchavez) June 1, 2021

Amy Schumer Reads Message On Her 40th Birthday Cake -- And It's A Hoot

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

The comedian got a darkly funny surprise from husband Chris Fischer.

Amy Schumer, who turns 40 on Tuesday, celebrated a day early by blowing out the candles on a birthday cake bearing a cheeky message.

The comedian posted video of husband, chef Chris Fischer, presenting the cake as the “Trainwreck” star held their 2-year-old son Gene in her lap.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @amyschumer

“I’m leaving you,” the note on the frosting says. “This was the only way I could think to do it.”

That cake better be delicious.

The clip ends with a serious look from Schumer as she eyes the dessert, and it’s perfect.

Schumer said turning 38th was the “best birthday ever!” But for laughs, it looks like 40 ranks up there.

When I Apologized To One Of My Students, She Was Stunned. That's A Big Problem.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

"It would take at least another dozen apologies to other students before I’d be able to decipher the reaction [my student] gave me that day."

I was in the middle of my third year as a teacher of teens when I began to decipher the meanings of their curious behaviors. When 27 youth run out of your class like caged lions finally let loose into the wild and a lone lioness lingers behind, you figure out: She has something she wants to say to you.

Though it was years ago, the conversation I had with a lingering student after the last bell rang still sits with me. When I walked up to her and asked if she had questions about the lesson I’d just taught, I was surprised when she said she understood everything, but, ”Miss, you said something and I didn’t like it. ... I don’t want to be disrespectful...”

Not sure of what would follow, I hesitated but assured her that I’d appreciate hearing what I’d said that had offended her. I read her lowered eyes and the speeding up of her packing up her book bag for what it was: I don’t trust that you’ll let me say what’s really on my mind.

“Sweetie, please tell me. It’s OK,” I said. “Tell me what I did that made you angry.”

The student explained that when she was asking questions about how I planned on grading their big writing assignment, I joked that she was worrying about her grade for no reason. That she was getting anxious when she’d probably end up with another 95 or maybe even a 100.

“Miss, I know you were just playing, but...” she said, again lowering her eyes. “I mean, I’m not that good in English and I need to do lots of stuff in this class to get good grades, so I just didn’t like when you said that. It made me feel ... I don’t know ... I just didn’t like it.”

When I said I was sorry for being so dismissive of her valid questions about the assignment, she offered another curious behavior. It would take at least another dozen apologies to other students before I’d be able to decipher the reaction she gave me that day. She just stood still, looking stunned. She had no response to my “I’m so sorry I made you feel that way. I promise to be more aware of how my jokes could impact students.”

Her stunned silence would replicate itself over the years in other students. It was the same disbelief I’d get each time I’d apologize for speaking too harshly to a student or treating them like they were inferior to me simply because they were a child and I was an adult. I’d eventually recognize it as the awkward feeling of a student knowing they were right: The teacher shouldn’t have treated them this way, but they were confused that this adult in a position of authority was admitting it was her mistake and not theirs.

'Had a teacher apologized to me ― just once ― it would have changed my entire school trajectory,' Lizette Morehead, a social worker and lifelong New Yorker, told me.

Over the years, I’ve had students simply shrug off my apology with “It’s OK.” I’ve sometimes countered with, “No, it’s not. It was unnecessary and rude.” I didn’t allow them to dismiss my harsh and sometimes unjust treatment as “no big deal.” And I’ve always been unsettled by how surprised they were.

“Had a teacher apologized to me ― just once ― it would have changed my entire school trajectory,” Lizette Morehead, a social worker and lifelong New Yorker, told me. Growing up in the South Bronx in the 1980s, Lizette recalls few teachers were trained in identifying learning disabilities. So, they were ill-equipped to help students like her who struggled in school because of undiagnosed dyslexia. In elementary school, she didn’t understand lessons and though none of her teachers had strategies to address her difficulties with reading, they didn’t outright make her feel stupid. Except for her sixth grade teacher.

“She started off trying to help me, but then just ended up ignoring me after a while.” Lizette would rely on the other kids in her class to help her take notes and re-explain concepts that just didn’t stick after the teacher’s instruction. “One of the reasons she used to justify failing me was because I was talkative and disruptive in class. Most of the time when I was talking, it was because I was getting help from a classmate,” she said.

As someone who now has an advanced degree and a flourishing career, Lizette can understand what led her teacher to decide not to deal with her. “She didn’t know how to teach me,” she said. “If I could get an apology from her now, I would want her to just say that. Just admit that she was scared and didn’t know how to do her job when she had a kid like me in her class.”

When her teacher had been given the chance to own up to her inadequacies, she had taken the road with which far too many teachers are familiar: opting out of an apology and even an explanation. “When my mother went down to school to get clarification about why she hadn’t been informed of my struggles before they failed me, my teacher left the building through the back door,” she remembered. “The principal tried his best to calm my mother down because she was so angry.”

I know teaching is difficult. The longer I’ve been in the profession, the more I’ve come to see the role of not only an educator but specifically an educator of children as an impossible job. Teaching and learning are not neat. Both are messy and non-linear. Both are influenced by countless realities we and our students cannot and will never be able to control.

Aside from misguided policies and sometimes downright demonic legislation, there are the more mundane, everyday hurdles to doing this job well, including distracted students, periodic boredom with the job itself, varying personalities that must be “managed” throughout the school day and academic year. To facilitate learning and encourage excellence amid these realities is a task that can fuel anxiety in even the most eager and dedicated educator.

We fail our students often. Even when we give them their well-earned A’s and Exceeding Standards, we can still fail them.

Why not own up to it when we do? Why not give them the response a person who has been wronged deserves? Why not offer a sincere “I’m sorry”?

“An apology is hard. It requires vulnerability. That can be especially difficult given the teacher-student dynamic,” a high school principal, who prefers to remain anonymous, told me, adding that many cultures train students to think of the teacher as always correct. To challenge a teacher ― especially a teacher’s authority ― is seen as disrespectful. In this dynamic, a teacher apologizing to a student is to admit wrongdoing. This principal has led her school for five years and she has seen how that level of vulnerability can make both the student and the teacher uncomfortable.

Lizette, however, believes a lot of teachers simply don’t see it as important to apologize. Regardless of whether they’re aware of it, many teachers take the stance that students are the ones who always and only need to receive knowledge from them. Because of this, teachers may not feel the need to fight against ego the way others do in order to admit wrongdoing to one of their subordinates.

Lizette’s reaction to my story about apologizing to the student who felt embarrassed by my joke in class was to comb through her memory for times when any teacher said they were sorry. Of course, she never got apologies for their inability to teach a child with special needs. Even when not factoring in that specific disregard, she came to realize that most often when a teacher was in the wrong, the language they used to correct it was weak and non-committal. “I remember stuff like ‘Let’s see what we can do to fix this,’ but I never got an apology like you gave that girl. From any teacher ... period.” No matter their level of wrongdoing, Lizette never heard a teacher say, “I’m sorry.”

This explains why so many students have been rendered silent when I’ve said those words to them. It also explains the responses I’ve gotten from students in parts of the world that take the “teacher is always correct” mentality to extremes.

Regardless of whether they’re aware of it, many teachers take the stance that students are the ones who always and only need to receive knowledge from them. Because of this, teachers may not feel the need to fight against ego the way others do in order to admit wrongdoing to one of their subordinates.

When I taught in East Africa, I lashed out at a 12-year-old for not turning in an assignment. The seventh grader had apologized for not meeting the first deadline and then proceeded to do what adolescents all around the world do: miss the next one.

Yes, he deserved to be held accountable. What he didn’t deserve was my berating him for five excruciating minutes in front of his peers. It was his fault that he was more excited about soccer practice than schoolwork. It wasn’t his fault that I was homesick, uncertain if I’d made the right decision by moving to his country and was growing frustrated with the school’s approach to teaching and learning. When I kept chastising him and “holding him accountable,” it was only about him for the first minute. The other four minutes were about me.

The next day, he waved at me as he’d always done. I’d thought about what happened in my classroom several times the night before and when I saw this child smile sweetly at me and say, “Good morning, Ms. Kendrick,” like nothing unusual had occurred, I knew I had to say something more than my usual, “Hey, Sweetie. How are you?”

I pulled him aside and apologized for what had happened the day before in class. He looked like he had seen a ghost when I said, “I shouldn’t have taken it that far. That wasn’t even about you. I’m sorry for speaking to you like that.” His discomfort with my apology was so evident, I released him from the awkward interaction by quickly following up with, “Now, you have a good day, OK?” He walked off slowly and, even by lunchtime, was still staring at me in disbelief.

Sadly, we live in a world where children are all too often victims of experiences that horrify us such as physical and sexual abuse, trafficking, and cheap labor. But children can also be adults’ go-to depositories for cruelty in ways we find comforting. A teacher is one of those roles where an adult has been given “authority” over an underage human being. While this authority by itself isn’t a corruptive force, a culture of deference to adults with no reciprocity for children creates a landscape that can be unsafe for underage students. This can be a situation where a student is honest about her feelings and fully expects those feelings to be disregarded. It can be a student thinking it might be “disrespectful” to inform her teacher she’d caused harm.

When I think about the many times students have been uncomfortable with me saying, “I shouldn’t have treated you the way I wouldn’t want you to treat me,” I’m left wondering if children are obedient to teachers out of respect, or is it simply because they’ve come to accept that their own feelings of disrespect will always be placed lower on the hierarchy than those of the adults who are in charge of them? It’s time to figure it out and, if it’s the latter, figure out how we can change that. I believe it could start by offering a heartfelt “I’m sorry” when necessary and appropriate.

Keturah Kendrick is a writer, educator, traveler and the author of “No Thanks: Black, Female, and Living in the Martyr-Free Zone” who resides in New York City. For more from her, follow her on Instagram at @keturahkendrick, on Facebook at @keturahkendrick and on Twitter at @HappySingleGal. Her website is keturahkendrick.com.

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Biden Calls Out 2 Democratic Lawmakers For Blocking Agenda

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

The president lamented that Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona "voted more with my Republican friends” than their own party.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden called out two fellow Democrats on Tuesday in explaining why he hasn’t enacted some of the most ambitious elements of his agenda, noting that slim majorities in the House and evenly divided Senate have hamstrung legislative negotiations around key issues like voting rights.

Biden, speaking during an event marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, responded to critics who question why he hasn’t been able to get a wide-reaching voting rights bill passed.

“Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House, and a tie in the Senate — with two members of the Senate who voted more with my Republican friends,” he lamented.

It appeared to be a veiled reference to Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both of whom have frustrated Democrats with their defense of the filibuster — the rule requiring most legislation to win 60 votes to pass, making many of Democrats’ biggest priorities like voting rights and gun control bills dead on arrival in the 50-50 Senate. While Sinema is a sponsor of the voting rights bill that passed the House, known as the For the People Act, Manchin has refused to sign on, calling the measure “too broad.”

Despite the logjam in Congress, Biden promised further action to address what he described as “a tireless assault on the right to vote,” comments that came in response to the latest effort by a state legislature to pass a law restricting voting access, this time in Texas. He said he would “fight like heck, with every tool at my disposal” to ensure the passage of the For the People Act when the Senate takes it up this month. He tasked Vice President Kamala Harris with leading the administration’s efforts to defend voting rights.

Biden also called on voting rights groups to “redouble” their efforts to register and educate voters and said June should be a “month of action” on Capitol Hill.

I Won't Be Taking My Mask Off — But Not For Any Of The Reasons You've Probably Heard

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

"I yearn to chat over dinner with my best friend or to get on the treadmill at the gym. But I can’t. Not yet."

I’ve been telling a lot of my friends no these days. No to celebrations that signal an end to COVID-19 restrictions. No to lunch at a restaurant. No to meeting for a beer. No to dinner parties. No to hugs.

It’s been a lonely pandemic for me, and I would love to accept all their offers. But because I have sarcoidosis, a chronic inflammatory disease, and because I take powerful immunosuppressants to treat it, I’m considered high risk for the coronavirus. After the virus hit, I reluctantly followed my doctor’s advice and moved out of my family’s home and lived alone for eight long months. I just couldn’t keep my 17-year-old son permanently locked in his bedroom, but I also couldn’t risk him giving me COVID-19. Thankfully, I’m back home now. Still, I’m running on a deficit of hugs, parties and drinks.

My friends assure me they understand my strict boundaries, but they still give me the look. It’s similar to the look I get in the grocery store when I come in wearing an N95, and all the maskless shoppers cast a sideways glance at me. “Oh, she’s one of those,” I can almost hear them thinking.

It’s been less than two weeks since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that vaccinated people can basically return to normal, putting the 50% of Americans who aren’t fully vaccinated on an honor system about wearing masks. Since then, there have been a flurry of articles speculating about why some vaccinated people aren’t ready to unmask in stores, hop on airplanes or snag the next reservation for dinner indoors at a restaurant.

Why do some keep wearing masks or following social distancing guidelines? One theory I’ve read is that we maskers actually like all the COVID-19 restrictions, that we’re introverts and we’d rather keep following safety protocols simply to avoid unwanted social interactions. Or perhaps we’re traumatized by the pandemic. Maybe we lost a loved one, or we’re health care workers recovering from the tide of death, or someone we know got long COVID-19. Or maybe we’re just anxious. Why won’t we nervous Nellies get with the program, accept the positive preliminary data on all three FDA-approved vaccines and unmask? We’re harshing America’s mellow, serving as visual reminders of times best left behind.

I keep wearing masks inside public places and I won’t go to parties, restaurants, bars or the gym, but it’s not because I want to be a downer. I’d love to return to my pre-pandemic life. But I am one of the more than 10 million Americans who are immunocompromised. Some of us have wonky immune systems, others take medications that suppress our immune function. Prednisone, a drug prescribed for a range of health conditions, is just one in a long list of medications that undermine immunity.

The CDC was clear when it changed its mask recommendations that those of us who live with compromised immune systems should “talk to our doctors” before tearing off our face masks and giving hugs. But this awareness that immunocompromised people might have to follow different rules doesn’t seem to have filtered down into the general consciousness. Maybe that’s because this caveat was buried about seven paragraphs into the CDC’s statement.

I’ve talked with my doctor many times. I have a few issues that concern him. First is the sarcoidosis I’ve had for 17 years. Next is my body’s inexplicably feeble immune system, which slacks when it comes to producing infection-fighting antibodies. Finally, I take two hefty immunosuppressants to treat my underlying disease. Like a lot of Americans, I stay functional by taking medications that weaken my immune system.

I have no detectable antibodies for COVID-19 even though I’m fully vaccinated. Whether this means I have zero protection from my Moderna shots is also a question mark. Immune function is complex and involves more than antibody production. But my doctor sure didn’t seem thrilled with my antibody test results.

Nobody yet knows whether or not COVID-19 vaccines are effective — fully or partially — for those who are immunocompromised. Not my doctor, not the CDC, not any of the experts I’ve consulted. I have no detectable antibodies for COVID-19 even though I’m fully vaccinated. Whether this means I have zero protection from my Moderna shots is also a question mark. Immune function is complex and involves more than antibody production. But my doctor sure didn’t seem thrilled with my antibody test results.

In terms of vaccine effectiveness for those who are immunocompromised, it would help if someone were out there collecting comprehensive data on this issue that affects about 3% of all Americans. But there isn’t. Not the drug companies that produced the three FDA-approved vaccines. Not the CDC, the National Institutes of Health or anyone else in the federal alphabet soup. Academic medical institutions are trying to piece together data on a patient-by-patient basis. But that’s both idiosyncratic and challenging. Patients at a transplant clinic in New York have different medical issues and take different medications than those at a cancer center in California or a sarcoidosis center in Colorado. Some of these data sets produce contradictory results. It’s like comparing very small sample sizes of apples and oranges.

My doctor isn’t telling me to push the panic button. I don’t need to hide under my bed for the foreseeable future or cut myself off from all human contact. But he said I should be cautious. This means that I shouldn’t be indoors with unmasked people, particularly in larger groups like you find in restaurants, bars and parties. Fewer than half of the people in Montana have been fully vaccinated, so my odds are pretty good that at least a few of the bare and smiling faces I see are cheating on the honor system. This means they could give me the coronavirus, even if they don’t yet know they’re sick. I’m lucky that my immediate family is fully vaccinated. Hopefully, their vaccines will protect me at home from whatever exposures they have out in the world.

“Hopefully” is a word I’m used to living with. I’ve gotten a lot nebulous medical advice over the years. Having multiple unknowns is a normal part of living with a rare form of a rare disease. But I’m not used to having my personal medical judgment calls second-guessed and my motivations psychoanalyzed. When I underwent chemotherapy for a decade, I regularly wore masks in public to avoid opportunistic infections. It never felt like a moral issue until now.

Why are we wasting time and energy questioning the reasons some of us feel safer in masks, safer avoiding restaurants, safer not celebrating normal? I have medical reasons for keeping my distance. So what if others just feel more comfortable and, yes, less anxious in masks? Since day one of this pandemic, we’ve been too often left to our own individual assessments of best judgment and common sense to survive this. Why stop now? Why point fingers at those following their inner compass or doctor’s orders?

Like everyone else, I’ve gone through a lot since March 2020. I yearn to chat over dinner with my best friend or to get on the treadmill at the gym. But I can’t. Not yet. I’ve made sacrifices all along to keep myself safe. My family has, too. So even if my masked face ruins someone’s effort to manifest that life has magically returned to pre-pandemic normal, I plan to keep following my doctor’s recommendations. I plan to wear a mask. Call me anxious or introverted, but I want to stay healthy. And alive.

Rebecca Stanfel is a freelance writer and patient advocate for the Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research who lives in Helena, Montana.

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In Interview, Obama Shows Dimmed Hope For Persuasion Amid Rising Extremism

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

The former president spoke with The New York Times about dissuading Republicans from the GOP's right-wing, anti-democratic efforts across the U.S.

In an interview with The New York Times published Tuesday, former President Barack Obama shared his thoughts on whether persuasion is still possible in politics.

Obama, whose political philosophy rests on his belief that opponents can be brought to compromise, has become more vocal over the past two years as the conservative movement and Republican Party leaders have responded to electoral losses with extreme, often violent stances against democratic norms.

The first Black president’s comments follow Republican senators voting against a commission to investigate the deadly right-wing insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, and coincide with the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa massacre, in which white rioters murdered Black people by the hundreds and destroyed a community known as “Black Wall Street.”

Speaking with columnist Ezra Klein, Obama balanced his typical optimism with frank realism and, occasionally, sharp critique. He said he thinks it is still possible for Democrats to win over low-income whites without a college degree, as he did in 2012, but admitted that President Joe Biden’s “biography” and age give him an advantage that a younger, more diverse crop of up-and-coming Democrats will not have. White people without a college degree swung in Donald Trump’s favor in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

“I think Joe, by virtue of biography and generationally, I think he can still reach some of those folks,” Obama said. “But it starts getting harder, particularly for newcomers who are coming up.”

The interview largely echoes sentiments Obama shared in his latest memoir, “A Promised Land,” in which he blames right-wing media for siloing conservative Americans and legislators from outside opinions and making them immune to compromise. Because he was relatively unknown in 2007, Obama said, “I could go to the fish fry, or the V.F.W. hall, or all these other venues, and just talk to people. And they didn’t have any preconceptions about what I believed. They could just take me at face value.”

If I went into those same places now — or if any Democrat who’s campaigning goes in those places now — almost all news is from either Fox News, Sinclair news stations, talk radio, or some Facebook page,” he added. “And trying to penetrate that is really difficult.”

“There is a psychic cost to not always just telling the truth,” former President Barack Obama told The New York Times. He said he asked himself: "Is it more important for me to tell a basic, historical truth, let’s say about racism in America right now? Or is it more important for me to get a bill passed?"

Persuading political opponents requires being able to reach them, and Obama used the racist “birther” conspiracy spread by right-wing outlets as an example of conservative media trying to build an alternate reality.

“It was convenient for them to do, because it was a lot easier to book Donald Trump to let him claim that I wasn’t born in this country than it was to actually create an interesting story that people will want to watch about income inequality,” he said. “That’s a harder thing to come up with.”

In another part of the interview, Obama addressed criticism from progressives that he tried too hard to persuade Republicans who swore to oppose him. He told the Times, “there is a psychic cost to not always just telling the truth” and explained his diplomatic temperament.

“I think every president has to deal with this. It may have been more noticeable with me — in part because, as the first African American president, there was a presumption, not incorrect, that there were times where I was biting my tongue,” Obama said.

“A lot of times, one of the ways I would measure it would be: Is it more important for me to tell a basic, historical truth, let’s say about racism in America right now? Or is it more important for me to get a bill passed that provides a lot of people with health care that didn’t have it before?”

The former president said he once believed he could use the bully pulpit to persuade political opponents, but his advisers convinced him that securing Democratic legislative wins would better serve him in persuading some opponents than speeches. He advised the Biden administration to take that advice.

“Does it override that sort of identity politics that has come to dominate Twitter, and the media, and that has seeped into how people think about politics? Probably not completely,” Obama said. “But at the margins, if you’re changing 5 percent of the electorate, that makes a difference.”

Petra Kvitova Says She Hurt Ankle At 'Press Requirement,' Withdraws From French Open

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

"I will stay strong," the world No. 12 said after following Naomi Osaka out of the Grand Slam event prematurely.

Petra Kvitova became the second tennis star to announce her withdrawal from the French Open this week, saying she fell and hurt her ankle during “press requirements” after her first-round victory on Sunday.

“Unfortunately, after an MRI and much discussion with my team, I have made the tough decision that it would be unwise to play on it,” the WTA’s 12th-ranked player wrote on Twitter Tuesday. “It’s incredibly bad luck but I will stay strong and do my best to recover in time for the grass-court season.”

😔 pic.twitter.com/Oj8P1lmCjT
— Petra Kvitova (@Petra_Kvitova) June 1, 2021

The exit of Kvitova, a two-time Wimbledon champ who made the French Open semifinals in 2020, follows the sudden departure of WTA No. 2 Naomi Osaka, who withdrew Monday citing mental health reasons after she declined to appear at press events at the Grand Slam competition in Paris.

Celebrities, politicians, fellow athletes and Nike, which has a sponsorship deal with Osaka, supported her decision.

Kvitova had to save a match point in defeating qualifier Greet Minnen in three sets during the first round and was set to play Elena Vesnina on Wednesday, ESPN noted.

Petra Kvitova during her first round victory at the French Open on Sunday.

'Friends' Reunion Director Slams 'Unkind' Remarks About Matthew Perry

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:48:00 +0000

Many fans have been commenting on how the actor who plays Chandler Bing in the iconic series looked and sounded during the HBO Max special.

The “Friends” reunion brought on some not-so-nice chatter about Matthew Perry, and director Ben Winston has zero time for it.

Winston, who pitched the idea for the “Friends” reunion that ultimately premiered on HBO Max last week, spoke candidly with The Hollywood Reporter’s podcast “TV’s Top 5” on Friday about the response to Perry’s appearance on the special.

While the actor who played Chandler Bing has long been open about his struggles with substance abuse and forays into rehab facilities over the years, many questioned whether Perry was “okay” after the reunion as he rarely spoke during it.

I really hope Matthew Perry is doing okay 💛 #FriendsReunion pic.twitter.com/OYWDihokHW
— 𝑺𝒉𝒓𝒂𝒗𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒊 ☁️ (@ShravaniiJ) May 28, 2021

One thing that made me sad watching the Friends Reunion was seeing how unhappy Matthew Perry looked. Chandler is my all time favourite TV show character and to see the man who played the character like that really breaks my heart. I hope he's okay.
— vikarworld (@vikarworld) May 28, 2021

I wish people would leave Matthew Perry alone and stop talking shit about his appearance. The dude has been through so much and struggled with addiction, especially when filming Friends so him even doing that reunion was obviously hard for him. Have some compassion.
— Damon Fizzy␌ (@deefizzy) May 28, 2021

When asked about Perry’s health and whether he’s OK, Winston assured The Hollywood Reporter that Perry was “great.”

“People can sometimes just be unkind. I wish they weren’t. I loved working with him. He’s a brilliantly funny man and I thought he had some great one-liners in the show,” he explained. “I felt just happy and lucky to be in his presence and directing him on something like this.”

Echoing those sentiments, “Friends” producer Kevin Bright told The Hollywood Reporter in a separate interview that it “was great seeing” Perry and “what people say is what people say.”

“I think he’s OK. He seems stronger and better since the last time I saw him, and excited about going forward,” he shared.

Representatives for Perry did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

Need help with substance use disorder or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline.

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