A 95-year-old resident of Tennessee who was a guard at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II was deported back to his home country of Germany Saturday. Friedrich Karl Berger, a German citizen, was sent to Germany because of his role as an armed guard at the Neuengamme concentration camp system near Hamburg, the Department of Justice said. A U.S: immigration judge ordered Berger removed from the United States in February of last year due to his “willing service as an armed guard of prisoners at a concentration camp where persecution took place,” DOJ said. Berger was ordered to be removed from the United States under a 1978 law known as the Holtzman Amendment that forbids anyone who participated in Nazi persecution from living in the United States.
After a two-day trial in February of last year, the judge ruled that prisoners at the camp where Berger worked were held in “atrocious” conditions and were forced to work “to the point of exhaustion and death.” Berger admitted he worked as a guard and prevented prisoners from escaping. He also acknowledged he never requested a transfer and was still receiving a pension from Germany. At the time, Berger was incredulous at what was happening to him in a country that he had called home since 1959. “After 75 years, this is ridiculous. I cannot believe it,” he told the Washington Post. “I cannot understand how this can happen in a country like this. You’re forcing me out of my home.”
Friedrich Karl Berger is seen in a 1959 photograph released by the Department of Justice. Department of Justice
It’s unclear whether Germany will take steps against Berger. German prosecutors said he would be questioned for accessory to murder but he was not taken into custody after arriving on a medical transport plane at Frankfurt Airport on Saturday, according to Germany’s Deutsche Welle. Prosecutors had previously suspended an investigation into Berger due to a “lack of sufficient suspicion.” At the time, the prosecutors said that admitting to being a guard was not the same as admitting to killing prisoners and they had not been able to link him “to a concrete act of killing.”
The Department of Justice said Berger was the 70th Nazi persecutor deported from the United States. “Berger’s removal demonstrates the Department of Justice’s and its law enforcement partners’ commitment to ensuring that the United States is not a safe haven for those who have participated in Nazi crimes against humanity and other human rights abuses,” said Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson. Acting ICE Director Tae Johnson added that “we are committed to ensuring the United States will not serve as a safe haven for human rights violators and war criminals.”
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My daughter, Olivia, is 16 and has a cousin, Lila, also 16, with whom she’s always been close despite living in different states. Lila was able to take a lot of extra classes while distance- learning and is graduating from high school this June; she is moving this summer to New York for college. Olivia hasn’t been doing well at all with distance learning, even though I hired an in-person tutor for her—she failed three classes last semester and might not graduate on time next year.
Olivia has now decided, since she thinks she’s a failure at school, that she should quit school and move to New York with Lila. Lila thinks this is a great idea because she doesn’t want to live “by herself” (her college doesn’t have dorms, so she’ll be in an apartment with cohort roommates, with one room to herself). Olivia claims that a part-time job will be enough for her share of food and rent since she’ll be sharing Lila’s room.
I don’t want to send my 16-year-old across the country to live when she hasn’t even graduated from high school! Honestly, I’m not in favor of Lila going to New York at 16 either, but I understand that she is in a very different place, scholastically and mentally, than Olivia is. I’ve suggested to Olivia that she work harder at school and plan to join Lila next year, but both girls think this is a terrible idea. I’ve suggested that Olivia visit Lila once a month during the school year, since Olivia’s school has a lot of three-day weekends, and Olivia said if she went to visit once, she just wouldn’t come home! I’ve suggested that both girls talk to a school counselor or a therapist but both have refused. Anything I say to Olivia is repeated immediately to Lila, and the two of them are forever hatching plans, determined to get around me. I think I need to talk with Lila and/or her parents, although I’m not particularly close to my brother or sister-in-law. I don’t want to rain on Lila’s parade, but she needs to stop encouraging Olivia to join her next year! Can you offer any advice?
—Cousin Conundrum
Dear CC,
Sometimes you just have to say no and take theheat.
I certainly can. Tell Olivia she cannot go to New York to live with her cousin. Stop offering conciliations—stop suggesting things. Of course you don’t want to “send” her across the country. So don’t.
And don’t expect Lila to stop asking her. (For that matter, don’t tell Lila what she can or can’t do—that’s not your job.) And leave Lila’s parents out of this! Their daughter is nervous about being in New York on her own, and she’s probably nervous about starting college at 16, even if she’s “ready” (I did, and I was, and I was still nervous about it—and I didn’t travel across the country to do it). Lila will have to work that out, with or without the help of her parents. Both girls will be angry with you for not letting them have their way (a prospect that I imagine makes you miserable, which I understand is why you’re not just putting your foot down)—you will have to work that out, all by yourself. I hated that part of motherhood too, so I’m sympathetic. (I really do know how hard it is to say no to a determined teenager, especially if she’s a good kid who desperately wants to do something she is certain is a good idea, that you know is absolutely not. The handful of times I had to do it were painful.) But sometimes you just have to say no and take the heat. Olivia will get over it, I promise, just like my daughter did.
• If you missed Friday’s Care and Feeding column,read it here.
I grew up in the Deep South. I don’t know if it’s because I did a lot of theater as a teenager or just watched too much TV, but somehow I dodged the strong Southern accent everyone else in my family has.
After living overseas and in the Midwest for most of my adult life, my husband and I decided to move back to the area where I grew up so our children could be raised near my family. My oldest child is in kindergarten and has a fabulous teacher. There’s just one problem: She has a pronounced Southern drawl … and my son, who admires and loves his teacher and spends hours listening to her every day, has started speaking with one as well. I feel torn about this. Part of me thinks it’s adorable (and I also want to preserve his family heritage!), and part of me is concerned about the assumptions people make based on hearing a Southern accent. I’ve had highly intelligent friends who were seen as stupid by people in other parts of the country because of the way they spoke—and I have been told more times than I can count that I “lost” my accent because I am “educated.”
Should I correct him when he says ain’t or turns a one-syllable word into at least three syllables? Or do I let it go because there are much bigger things to worry about in life right now?
—Dialect Angst
Dear DA,
As a longtime fan of a Southern drawl (I swear, there was at least one boy I fell in love with in my 20s strictly because he had one) who married into a Deep South family—though my husband, like you, is the outlier in his family—and as a writer and English professor, I have strong opinions on this subject. Me, I wouldn’t correct his use of ain’t—a word with a secure place in spoken English—but I’d model usage of are not or aren’t, etc., so that he’s aware of the other possibilities for expressing what he means and is as comfortable with standard English as with dialect. For example:
Adorable Child: I ain’t hungry. Gentle Mother: You aren’t? Why not? Adorable Child: He ain’t sharing and he ain’t going to. Gentle Mother: He isn’t sharing? What makes you think he isn’t going to if you ask him nicely?
And I would leave the accent entirely alone. Not because there are bigger things to worry about in life right now (there are always bigger things to worry about, but that doesn’t and shouldn’t stop us from the important work of raising our children), but because regional accents are a beautiful thing—something to treasure, not to stamp out. And because the way to combat the ignorance of people assuming that someone who speaks with a Southern drawl is “stupid” is not to eliminate the drawl but to prove those ignorant folks wrong. (And to my dear readers who are poised to howl, “Shame on you! Defending ain’t? And you call yourself an English professor?!”: Allow me to refer you to my favorite grammar expert, who is wise on this usage, as on all matters related to grammar.)
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Dear Care and Feeding,
I have four adult children between 20 and 30. Three of them are very similar (house, spouse, kids, money, politics) and one of them, “Raj,” is not. His politics, profession of choice, sexuality, and pretty much everything else about him is different from the others. And although I tried to teach the importance of inclusion to my children when they were young, clearly it didn’t stick. The three like-minded siblings are close to one another but not to Raj. They take family vacations together, have play dates with all three sets of their kids, take Christmas photos together, and engage in other exclusionary activities. Some of this is to be expected (Raj doesn’t have kids and doesn’t enjoy spending time with kids), but the three-against-one dynamic seems extreme to me. It makes Raj sad, too—he has confessed as much to me. I’ve tried to bring it up with the other three, but they brush me off or ask me not to get involved.
I’ve watched this unfold for years now and I’m at my wits’ end. I don’t want to be in the business of regulating my adult children’s relationships, but I worry what will happen as they age and Raj, unlike the others, doesn’t have a family to take care of him. Should I just butt out and hope it resolves itself? Try Zoom family counseling with a therapist? Speak to Raj about it, or to the other three? I’m heartbroken and don’t know what else to do.
—Four’s a Crowd?
Dear FaC,
There is nothing you can do. It’s a pity all four of your adult children aren’t close, but the exclusionary threesome is right: You shouldn’t get involved. If it makes Raj sad, it’s up to him to broach the subject with his siblings (or to talk to a therapist with whom he makes an appointment on his own). And plenty of people don’t have a family to take care of them as they age—they have friends instead. (For that matter, plenty of people with a family have no one to take care of them as they age.) You’re going to have to find a way to let this go—not just by butting out, but also by accepting that it may never “resolve itself.” I know this will be difficult for you (it makes me sad for both you and Raj), but once our children our grown, we must let them live their lives as they see fit.
Dear Care and Feeding,
I’ve never been a morning person. But when my wife and I had our son four years ago, I had to become one, of course, for his sake. My wife and I have been taking turns getting up with him on weekend mornings. For the last few months, I am happy to report, he’s been getting better at entertaining himself when he wakes up: He’ll stay in his room and look at books or play with the few toys we have in there, instead of immediately coming to wake us up. My wife, unlike me, gets up as soon as she hears him wake up. That’s her choice, obviously. But recently she made a pointed comment about how I “never get up with him.” I told her that as long as he seems content—that until he makes it clear that he’s hungry/done playing in his room—there was no reason for me to drag myself out of bed on the mornings when it’s my turn to start the day with him. She got further irritated and told me she’s always the one to “handle things.” Which is somewhat true, but also, often enough, unnecessary. For instance, if our son is running and he falls, she immediately goes to him, whereas I give him a moment to see if he actually needs help (and usually he’s fine; he might whimper for a second, if at all, then gets up and goes on about his business). Essentially, she’s always “there,” whereas I tend to let him figure things out for himself, only stepping in if he needs something.
I don’t criticize her for the way she responds to him. If that’s how she wants to handle things, fine. But I’m not going to handle things the way she does and I resent her criticizing what I do (or don’t do). I should mention that we’re on the same page about the big things—discipline, bedtime routines, potty training when we went through that—so it’s not like we’re constantly sending our son mixed messages. She says it’s not the “mixed messages” that bother her; it’s that she feels unappreciated. And I just can’t wrap my head around this. Of course I appreciate her! I’ve told her so. But what am I supposed to do, thank her for getting up with our son, when she’s the one who takes it upon herself to do it unnecessarily? I’m at a loss here. How should I approach this?
—Am I Wrong?
Dear AIW,
I’m glad you don’t criticize your wife (out loud) for the way she responds to your son, but you are critical of it, it’s clear (and maybe you’re “right”—maybe she is too quick to swoop in—but that’s not the point in question). She knows you don’t approve. How could she not know? And she doesn’t approve of what you’re doing, either. I don’t see that it matters much which of you comes out and says this. To my mind, it is perfectly OK for the two of you to handle these day-to-day matters in your own way—you are two different people with two different parenting styles and two different personal styles—but you are going to have stop judging each other. That’s part one of my advice: accept that you aren’t exactly the same sort of parents, and be glad that your child gets to reap the benefits of two different sets of instincts.
Part two is another thing altogether. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that your wife is exhausted, stretched too thin, and (because she is a different sort of person than you are, who experiences things differently) deeply stressed. She may be feeling insecure; certainly she’s anxious. Telling her you appreciate her is easy (and words of affirmation may just not be her “love language”). Being appreciative, and showing it, in whatever ways are meaningful to her (stop and think about this: she’s your partner, you know her—what would make her feel properly appreciated?), is another. If the person you love tells you she feels unappreciated, don’t complain about it. Do something about it.
—Michelle
More Advice From Slate
I’m guessing our 5-year-old is celebrating Black History Month at school because the other day in the bathtub he blurted out “Who is Barack Obama? Tell me about him.” It was cute. But I’m struggling with how to explain Obama’s historical significance in an age-appropriate way. My son has no racial consciousness. He’s biracial himself and we live in a very mixed neighborhood where whites are the minority. What should I say?
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Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years. Each Sunday, we will be diving into the Dear Prudie archives and sharing a selection of classic letters with our readers.
Dear Prudence,
More than 13 years ago, I got pregnant. At the time, I was finishing school and just beginning my career. My boyfriend “Ben” and I had been dating seriously for a few years. We had talked about marriage and children but hadn’t decided on when that would be. Ben assumed the pregnancy was a birth control failure. I told other people that it was an “unplanned but welcome surprise.” I never told another person this, but my pregnancy wasn’t an accident at all. I stopped taking birth control pills because I wanted to have a child. After I stopped I didn’t get pregnant for almost a year and got lulled into a false sense that it was never going to happen. From the moment I saw the positive pregnancy test, I knew what I had done was a horrible, dishonest, unethical thing and felt terrible guilt and shame. I seriously considered giving our baby up for adoption, but finally decided to raise her. Ben and I split up when our daughter “Holly” was 3 years old. He and I live in different states and aren’t friends, but he is involved in Holly’s life and they have a good relationship. I eventually married and so did he. I now have a younger child with my husband. Like everyone else, my husband thinks my getting pregnant with Holly was an accident. I have spent the last 13 years feeling that maybe I was some kind of pathological monster. But I’m mentally stable, and I have a pretty unremarkable suburban life. I had decided that I would go to my grave never telling anyone what I had done. Recently, a friend became pregnant after a one-night stand. Everyone assumes that was an accident, but she confided in me that she had been seeking out sex with the purpose of getting pregnant. I was so relieved to meet someone else who planned an “accidental” pregnancy that it made me wonder if I should open up about my secret. But I’m afraid if I told Ben it might change the way he interacted with Holly. My questions are: Am I some kind of monster for getting pregnant on the sly? And should I come clean, and if so, who should know?
Tossing away your birth control pills—while pretending to dutifully swallow them—has obviously had far-reaching consequences for everyone involved. It forced a man to become a father before he was ready and with a woman to whom he ultimately didn’t want to commit. It made you confront a dark part of your psyche and turned your cootchie-coo fantasy into hard reality. And, depending on how your daughter understands her story, she may think that her parents never intended to have her. But your act doesn’t make you a monster, nor do I think there’s any benefit to enlightening everyone now. Both you and Ben rose to the occasion and neither of you would express regret that you’re parents to Holly. Ben has been Holly’s father for 13 years; even were he to find out about your trickery I can’t imagine he would now look upon his daughter as the demon seed. It would just be one more confirmation that you and he never belonged together. At this late date, however, your coming clean would only cast a shadow over your character. You are deeply remorseful for what sounds like a singular act of substantial deceit. There’s nothing to be gained by telling your husband and making him uneasy about your essential honesty. Were you to spill, the person who would perhaps benefit the most psychologically would be Holly. She wasn’t an “oops,” after all! But thinking she was unplanned only makes her like vast swaths of people on the planet. My parents had four oopses—I was the first—and all my siblings would agree that’s a trivial fact about us. You and your friend are also hardly the only women to deliberately get pregnant without letting the man in on your plan, as objectionable as that behavior is. As for your friend, since there are other, straightforward ways to find a sperm donor, how sad that she preferred to make an unwitting stranger the father of her child.—Emily Yoffe
My mother-in-law hates me and makes no bones about it when she and I are alone. My husband doesn’t believe me, and she even gloats about that. We have to attend family functions at her home about once a month. (It used to be more frequent, but after I put my foot down, my husband agreed that monthly would be sufficient.) The problem is that after each visit, I wind up with a bad case of diarrhea; my husband does not. I don’t know if the other in-laws are affected, because if I asked, it would get back to her. I suspect that my mother-in-law is putting something in my food or drink. Last time, I barely made it home before being struck down. Now I am considering getting some “adult undergarments” to make sure I don’t ruin the car’s upholstery on the ride home from her place. Do you have any other advice?
In the great old Cary Grant movie Suspicion, director Alfred Hitchcock has a scene in which possible murderer Grant is bringing a glass of milk to his wife, played by Joan Fontaine, and no beverage has ever looked so malign. Just as Fontaine wasn’t sure if she was being poisoned, you aren’t either. It’s possible you’ve entered a Pavlovian cycle in which when you eat your mother-in-law’s food your digestive tract automatically goes into overdrive, or that there is some ingredient she regularly uses which just doesn’t agree with you. It’s also possible she’s trying to harm you. I’ve been reading a fascinating book, The Poisoner’s Handbook, about poisoners in the early 20th century—it was a popular way to off someone—and the new forensic scientists who exposed them. Peek at your mother-in-law’s Kindle to see if she’s downloaded this. The next time you go for dinner at her house, after the food is served but before you begin eating, you and your husband should agree to swap plates and cups. If you mother-in-law screams to her son, “Don’t eat that!” case closed, Sherlock. Of course, this would require your husband to take your concerns seriously. It’s alarming to think your mother-in-law might be deliberately sickening you. Equally distressing is the fact that your husband does not believe you when you describe her malicious behavior. You need to tell your husband that after becoming repeatedly ill at your in-law’s house, you have become afraid for your health. Tell him you are also afraid for your marriage because he apparently believes you are a liar—which you are not—when it comes to his mother. Say that he needs to take seriously the fact that she says ugly things when you and she are alone, and you are not going to stand for it anymore. If that doesn’t result in his attention and concern, then you may need to move to your mother’s.—EY
I’m a personal assistant to a highly accomplished woman a few years older than me whom I admire and respect a great deal. I’ve worked with her for five years, and we have a close professional relationship. This weekend, we were together late one night when she confided in me how lonely she was; the long hours we work make it difficult for her to maintain a relationship, and she has few friends nearby. Then she told me how good it was to have someone she could confide in and how grateful she was that she could speak to me in confidence. She gave me a look that under any other circumstance I would have taken as an invitation to kiss her, but she’s my superior, so I didn’t. Now I’m not sure what to do. I think I’ve developed feelings for my boss and I don’t know how to proceed. I’d appreciate your input, even if it’s just to tell me I’m being ridiculous and let it go.
I don’t think you’re being ridiculous, but I wish very much I had an idea of what the look she gave you was. It is possible to mistake a “Thank God I’ve got a friend like you” face for a “Kiss me, dammit!” face. One can’t expect every manager to act like a complete automaton with her long-term employees, but she did put an arguably inappropriate amount of emotional pressure on you by sharing her loneliness in such detail. What you do next will depend on the strength of your feelings. (It should go without saying that you should not kiss your boss as long as she remains your boss, no matter what.) If you think in good time your feelings will fade—based on what you’ve told me, she clearly considers you a friend but I’m not at all sure she was making a pass—then let yourself go a bit swoony and wait for it to lift, privately. If you think you’re in danger of falling in deep, you owe it to yourself to find a new job. The degradation of fetching coffee and updating the schedule for someone you’re in silent, agonizing love with is good material for a period drama, but a bridge entirely too far for mere mortals.—Danny M. Lavery
I’m a 32-year-old straight man and I’ve never been in a relationship with a woman. I can count on one hand the number of dates I’ve been on. I’ve had many female friends and am perfectly comfortable around women in that context, but as soon as it’s a “date” my anxiety takes over and ruins everything. Although a professional has never formally diagnosed me, I’m pretty sure I have avoidant personality disorder (I have all the symptoms listed on various psychology websites). I’m afraid of going to therapy or taking medication. I’m sure you would advise me to try either of those things. What bothers me is that even if I went to therapy and was able to manage my anxiety, I worry about reactions to my lack of romantic experience. Do I try to hide it for as long as possible or be totally up front about it? I feel like I’m past the point of no return, and it’s just too weird to date now.
It’s a bit difficult for me when a letter writer both predicts what I’m going to say and forestalls me by saying they’re not going to do what it is they think I’m going to say to them. But I’ll give you my best shot. If your goal is to become more comfortable socializing with women, I’d advise you to spend more time with friends in a less-intimidating setting than first dates. If your goal is to find a romantic relationship, I’d advise you to be very upfront with women before you go out about your social anxiety, as naming certain fears and dynamics often (but not always) removes some of the power from them. Consider dating women who also experience social anxiety, or who at least have some familiarity with conditions like yours and who are not put off by it. I’d also encourage you to pursue therapy, despite your fears. You mention being afraid to see a therapist in-person but seem comfortable searching for your symptoms online; there are numerous online-only treatments for anxiety that you may find helpful. I can’t vouch for any of them individually, but certainly some treatment is better than none. I also want to give a plug for seeing if marijuana alleviates any of your symptoms, if you’re comfortable trying it and don’t fear using it compulsively. That doesn’t mean you should get majorly high for the first time right before a date, but it’s worth considering what small doses might do for your anxiety. It’s not a magical cure-all, and it might not be right for you, but it merits a mention, all the same.
I don’t want to rush to reassure you; I have no idea if you’ll ever have a romantic relationship. But I do think that it would be worth finding avenues to manage your anxiety even if it never results in your having sex or finding a girlfriend. Improved stability, calm, and a sense of mental well-being would be good goals in and of themselves, even if your romantic life never improved as a result.—DL
My husband and I have always been fairly fashionable and work in fields that reflect that. (I am an interior decorator; he has spent 20 years in the skate/surf fashion industry.) Our children, however, are drawn toward the most heinous clothing: socks pulled up to their knees, glittery bedazzled appliqué shirts, patterns on patterns on patterns.
Where do you draw the line between self-expression and bad taste? I feel like they know that we’re bummed about their clothes selections and I’m afraid we’re going to give them a complex. But I also don’t want my 6-year-old daughter to look like she dressed herself by running through a Salvation Army. Should we draw the line somewhere?
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The man on the other end of the phone line was named Isaiah and lived in Arlington, Texas, a massive suburb between Dallas and Fort Worth. Isaiah had a thick Caribbean accent and a spotty phone connection, which made it difficult for me to understand his answers to my questions about how he was doing. At the end of our conversation, after we sorted out whether he had power (yes) and water (no), I finally heard Isaiah loud and clear: “Please, yes, I need help. I’m doing really bad.”
I had called Isaiah on Thursday as part of phone banking sessions to check on and get help for elderly Texans, spearheaded by Beto O’Rourke, whose loss to Ted Cruz in 2018 was the closest any Democratic candidate had come to winning a U.S. Senate seat in Texas in 30 years. On the day Cruz sheepishly returned to Texas from his escape to Cancun, the man he defeated had rallied thousands to do constituent outreach befitting a sitting senator. It was a small glimpse at what a better, more humane emergency response might look like, in a crisis that never should have happened.
When I hung up with Isaiah, I collected my notes, copy and pasting his name, phone number, and address into a chat room where hundreds of other volunteers were sharing similarly heartrending stories. Someone in Hereford hadn’t eaten in a couple days. A man in Houston didn’t know how to get to a warming shelter. With millions of Texans still under a boil order, dozens more needed bottles of water to get through the next few days.
My wife and I had joined the volunteer effort because our “how y’all holding up?” texts and phone check-ins to family members and friends back home in Houston felt insufficient, if not trite. My mother had sent our 94-year-old grandmother to an uncle’s house when the power went out at home. My father was bathing himself with water from a stack of water bottles in a storage closet. One of my aunts spent almost an entire afternoon idling her car in a Walmart parking lot just to feel some heat and get some Wifi. And they were all so much more fortunate than millions of other Texans trying to hold on through the storm, not to mention the dozens who have died so far.
“Make sure to smile while you’re making these calls,” an organizer reminded us at the end of the short orientation, an odd instruction for the phone but one that I understood once I heard the voices on the other end of the line. “You will be helped in the process,” O’Rourke told us. “You will feel really good.” And one more piece of advice: Just say you’re a volunteer, O’Rourke said. Avoid mentioning his name.
“I’m a little concerned that if I say Beto O’Rourke,” he said, “they’ll hang up the phone right away.”
My first call was to a woman named Olive in the Dallas suburb of Duncanville. Olive and her husband had just returned home a few minutes earlier after spending the night at a friend’s house. She was in a good mood — the power was on again. “Thanks for checking on me, baby,” she said.
Next I was talking with Harold from Kingsbury. I stumbled through the checklist, trying to click through the online prompts while paying just enough attention to what he was saying. Do you have power? Yes. Water? Of course not. Do you need any other help? I’m doing fine. He had apparently stocked up on crates of bottled water over the years. Living in Texas had taught him that he’d better be ready for disaster.
Others were similarly doing fine, though I couldn’t tell if they would tell me if they weren’t.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Jerry of Missouri City told me, hanging up before I could even sneak in that I grew up there.
“What can I do for you?” Lamar in Fort Worth asked, throwing me off just a little. He had power, water, and was caring for family members who sought shelter at his home. “I got everything I need, bro.”
Of those who stayed on the line long enough to ask for help, their frustration was palpable.
“I always brag on Texas,” a woman in Spring, a suburb about 20 miles north of Houston, said. “But I’m embarrassed now.”
She told me that her elderly uncle—a disabled Vietnam veteran—had been released from the hospital only a week earlier, having been there almost two months while battling a nasty case of COVID-19. He’d been sent home with a portable oxygen tank. But within days, the power went out at his home and he had no way to keep the tank going. He was forced to go to a warming shelter. “Can you imagine?” she said. “He just had COVID, now he’s around all these other people at the shelter. But what can he do? Everyone don’t get to go to Cancun.”
My wife Jenee, who was making calls in another room of our apartment, reached a woman in Houston who was out of water and worried about her 103-year-old mother, who lived with her. Jenee entered their information into the chat room, but couldn’t shake the feeling that they needed more immediate help. She reached out to a friend in town, who offered to brave the icy streets and drove over a couple of 24-packs of bottled water.
My last call was to a woman in Odessa who didn’t need help but wanted me to call a relative who did. I entered the relative’s information into the chat room, and wondered if Isaiah was going to get the help he needed.
“You are a cause for hope,” O’Rourke told us at the end of the night. We’d only spent a couple of hours on the phone from the comfort of our warm homes, but it was a seductive line, a kind of practiced political enthusiasm that once convinced millions of Texans that he might topple Cruz.
Of course, he didn’t. And despite his prediction, I didn’t “feel really good” after making the calls, knowing that the state’s mostly Republican political leadership had misled the public about the cause of the power outages, completely dropped the ball on crumbling infrastructure and left millions of Texans in need of our phone calls from a different state. I guess hope is no substitute for good government.
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Bridgerton star Regé-Jean Page hosted Saturday Night Live this week, and if you’re one of the millions of Americans who have fallen for Netflix’s steamy period romance and the sexy, mysterious duke he plays on the show, you know that means one thing and one thing only: Saxophones, and plenty of them! To evoke the spirit of Regency England, SNL’s music department had to find the perfect “Careless Whisper” soundalike, something that clearly evoked the smooth saxophone sound of Wham! without violating any copyrights. As you can tell from the female cast member’s reactions during Page’s opening monologue, they delivered:
Wow! The way the opening notes of the saxophone solo make you think you’re hearing “Careless Whisper,” before they diverge in an uncanny fashion—it’s no wonder Bridgerton is such a hit! In order to scientifically measure how much of the opening monologue’s sex appeal is due to Regé Jean-Page and how much is due to a song that is almost “Careless Whisper” but not quite “Careless Whisper,” here is a different “Careless Whisper” soundalike, “Careless Slow Jam,” by the Jive Ass Sleepers. This video does not feature Regé Jean-Page, so by watching it, measuring its sex appeal, subtracting that value from the sex appeal of the Saturday Night Live monologue, and correcting for the presence of “Unchained Melody,” we can calculate the approximate amount of sex appeal generated by Regé Jean-Page on his own, even in the absence of sultry saxophone solos. My hypothesis is that the saxophones are doing most of the work here.
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Well, part of being a scientist is accepting the bitter truth that not all of your hypotheses are going to be correct. “Careless Slow Jam” was way less sexy than Regé-Jean Page’s SNL monologue, despite featuring a lot of saxophone. Looks like it’s back to the lab for me, where I’ll be starting my research over from scratch. At this rate, I’m never gonna dance again.
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Dr. Vivek Murthy, who was surgeon general under former President Barack Obama, famously advised President Joe Biden on the coronavirus pandemic during the presidential campaign. And during that time, he also ran a very lucrative business as a COVID-19 consultant for the private sector, reveals the Washington Post. Murthy, who has been nominated to take on the role as surgeon general again, made millions consulting for the likes of Carnival cruise lines, Airbnb, and others. He also made hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees, according to ethics documents he filed last month. Murthy’s Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for Thursday.
Murthy’s ethics documents raised more than a few eyebrows with some experts saying that he “has the most financial entanglements of any surgeon general pick in recent history,” notes the Post. Some are questioning whether he could really be trusted as a spokesperson on how the country should respond to the pandemic and as an adviser to the president considering his financial interests. “We didn’t have a full window into how enmeshed he was in the selling-advice process,” Jeff Hauser, who leads the Revolving Door Project at the progressive think tank the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told the Post. One question that Murthy’s past work raises, for example, is whether he could really give impartial advice on the safety of going on a cruise during a pandemic.
Murthy is expected to win confirmation by a narrow margin but any questions about potential conflicts of interest could derail an already tight vote. Conservatives are largely opposed to Murthy because of his insistence that gun violence should be treated as a public health issue. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin still hasn’t said how he will vote on Murthy’s confirmation, although he voted against him after his 2014 confirmation hearing.
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Newsmax, the far-right cable news channel that former President Donald Trump loves, dedicated part of a segment on Friday evening to attack President Joe Biden’s 12-year-old German Shepherd, Champ. Host Greg Kelly claimed he is a dog lover, but he all but called Champ ugly in a bizarre segment that seemed designed to criticize what he had decided was the lack of care the aging dog was receiving at the White House. “Did you see the dog?” Kelly asked about Champ. “Doesn’t he look a little, uh, a little rough? I love dogs, but this dog needs a bath and a comb and all kinds of love and care. I’ve never seen a dog in the White House like this.”
Kelly seems to believe that Champ doesn’t measure up to Buddy, former President Bill Clinton’s dog or Millie, former President George H.W. Bush’s dog. He never mentioned former President Barack Obama’s dogs nor opine on what he thought of Biden’s other dog, Major, who is the first rescue dog to live in the White House. “I remember Buddy. I remember Millie. I remember lots of dogs but not a dog who seems—I don’t know. I don’t know how much love and care he is getting,” Kelly said. “This dog looks like, I’m sorry, from the junkyard.”
As if Kelly badmouthing a perfect dog (redundant, of course, because all dogs are perfect) wasn’t weird enough, he somehow managed to get two guests to join him although only one badmouthed the dog. Craig Shirley, a presidential historian, said Champ “looks very dirty and disheveled, very unlike a presidential dog.”
As could be expected, the segment garnered lots of backlash on social media and Brian Williams even brought it up on his MSNBC show. “Think of it this way: If Champ were to meet Greg Kelly, he would probably love Greg Kelly unconditionally,” Williams said. “That’s what dogs do. It’s probably also why there are no dogs anchoring Newsmax.”
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At least two anti-coup protesters were killed by riot police in Myanmar in what was the bloodiest day since the military Feb. 1 military takeover of the government. Dozens of people were injured in the demonstration in Myanmar’s second city of Mandalay as security forces used live rounds and tear gas to disperse protesters.
“Twenty people were injured and two are dead,” Ko Aung, a leader of the Parahita Darhi volunteer emergency service, tells Reuters. Another volunteer tells AFP that 30 people were injured and “half of the injured were shot with live rounds.” One of the dead was shot in the head and died at the scene while another, identified as a 36-year-old carpenter, was shot in the chest and died on the way to the hospital.
Protesters hold out bullet cartridges and ammunition for slingshots after security forces fired on demonstrators at a rally against the military coup in Mandalay on February 20, 2021.STR/Getty Images
The shootings took place near Mandalay’s Yadanabon dock, where police had used tear gas and rubber bullets earlier in the day to disperse protesters. Around 500 police officers and soldiers took part in efforts to disperse striking dock workers who had joined a national disobedience movement that aims to stop work until the military junta that took power restores the democratically elected government.
The killings Saturday came a day after a young woman who was shot in the head during protests last week died. Mya Thwet Thwet Khine, 20, was the first confirmed death in the protests that were spurred by the military coup that included the arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi and others. The use of live rounds in Mandalay illustrates how security forces have been “relatively restrained” in the capital of Yangong but “appeared to be toughening their stance in areas where there is less media presence,” reports the Associated Press.
The U.S. Embassy in Myanmar condemned the fatal shootings. “No one should be harmed for exercising the right to dissent,” the embassy said on Twitter. British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab also condemned the shootings, calling htem “beyond the pale.” Raab added that “We will consider further action, with our international partners, against those crushing democracy & choking dissent.”
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President Joe Biden has declared a major disaster in Texas as millions of residents continue to struggle to get access to food and safe cleaning water amid severe winter storms. Biden had already declared states of emergency in Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas due to the storms. The declaration opens the door for more federal aid to flow to the state that has suffered widespread blackouts and water shortages amid frigid temperatures. “Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster,” the White House said Saturday in announcing the declaration. Biden has said he will travel to Texas once his presence doesn’t take resources away from relief efforts. “If, in fact, it’s concluded that I can do it without creating a burden for the folks on the ground while they are dealing with this crisis, I plan on going,” Biden said.
Although most in Texas have been getting their power back in recent days, many have effectively traded one crisis for another as millions of people in the state do not have easy access to safe, drinkable water. While some 80,000 customers remained without power Saturday morning amid below-freezing temperatures, more than 14 million people were experiencing disruptions in their water service. Around a quarter of people in Texas, amounting to some 7 million people, were under orders to boil tap water due to low water pressure that could have allowed for bacteria to build up. The water woes extend beyond Texas. In Tennessee some 260,000 homes and business were under orders to boil water and water pressure woes forced the Memphis International Airport to cancel all flights Friday. In Jackson, Mississippi, some 160,000 people were without running water.
In Texas, hospitals have been overwhelmed in a way that doctors say rivals what they’ve seen throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The lack of water is particularly problematic for hospitals as they can’t run dialysis machines nor sterilize equipment for surgery. In many rural areas, hospitals turned into de facto shelters where people went to get warm.
As recovery continues, many are starting to take a look at why the disaster occurred in the first place and whether it could have been avoided. Congress is likely to launch an investigation next week and the state legislature is likely to launch its own investigation, reports the Washington Post.
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A Pennsylvania police officer was charged Friday for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Joseph Fischer, a patrolman at the North Cornwall Township Police Department, has been charged with four federal crimes: obstruction of law enforcement, knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, and obstruction of Congress.
The charges came after Fischer posted a video of himself on Facebook running at a police line outside the capital while yelling, “Charge!” He also could be heard yelling, “Hold the line” and “Motherfuckers,” according to a criminal complaint. “Made it inside,” Fischer wrote in a message accompanying the video. “Received pepper balls and pepper sprayed.” Fischer had “a physical encounter with at least one police officer,” notes the document. Fischer posted the video on an account under the name “SV Spindrift.” Law enforcement requested information on the account from Facebook and was able to conclude it belonged to Fischer.
A day after the Capirol riot, Fischer exchanged messages with another user on Facebook in which he recognized that his participation in the insurrection could cost him his job. In the message, Fischer said he “may need a job” because “word got out that I was at the rally…lol.” He added “the FBI may arrest me…lol.” Fischer goes on to say he was confronted by his superior about his participation. “I told him if that is the price I have to pay to voice my freedom and liberties which I was born with and thusly taken away then then must be the price,” he allegedly wrote. “I told him I have no regrets and give zero shits.”
In a statement to local NBC affiliate WGAL, North Cornwall Township Police Department said that “no township official had any knowledge of this individual’s actions prior to his arrest.” Fischer “was immediately suspended without pay pending the disposition of these charges.” At least 230 people have been charged for their involvement in the Jan. 6 riot.
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On Saturday, the long-running Cartoon Network show Teen Titans Go! added three new characters to its ranks: Posdnous, Trugoy/Dave, and Maseo, better known as the members of the influential rap group De La Soul. The show has a long history of celebrity guest stars—Lil Yachty voiced Green Lantern in the show’s spinoff movie, and LeBron James played himself in one episode—but this week’s instance is unique. Not only is the entire episode full of references to De La Soul’s classic songs, right down to the day and date this show is airing, but the plot revolves around a fraught real-life issue: the ownership and availability of the group’s back catalog.
It’s clearly a moment of high importance not only for the rappers, who’ve been promoting the episode on their Instagram accounts, but for those who’ve been following their legal battles against their former label Tommy Boy for literal decades now. If you’re new to Teen Titans Go!, De La Soul, the group’s music-ownership issues, or the particular significance of this episode, we’re here to break it down for you.
Why is De La Soul here in the first place?
Sure, let’s start with the basics. De La Soul, whose career started in the late 1980s and continues to the current day, is one of the most acclaimed rap posses of all time. Their albums 3 Feet High and Rising and Buhloone Mindstate, among many others, are cited time and again as classics of the genre.
Oh, tight! I’ll take a listen.
Hold up! That’s the thing: As yours truly chronicled just a couple years ago, the group’s best work has long been unavailable for streaming or digital purchase, thanks to squabbles with its original label, the historic Tommy Boy Records. To give a brief summary of a complex and messy issue: Vague legal language in the trio’s early contracts with Tommy Boy made it difficult to release their sample-heavy songs through any digital platforms, not to mention streaming services. Time and again the remnants of the now-defunct Tommy Boy have tried to make these early albums more freely available for purchase and streaming, but De La’s members wanted to ensure the terms of release were fair, considering the lack of clarity over what they were rightly owed for the use and distribution of their music. Yet they kept having to fight with the label, which tried again and again to platform the music over the group’s objections.
That sounds awful.
You’re right it is! There are a couple post–Tommy Boy albums available for streaming—The Grind Date and … And the Anonymous Nobody—but that’s about it.
What does that have to do with Teen Titans Go!?
I’m getting there. De La’s loyal fan base, ranging from casual fans to heavyweights like Jay-Z, has supported the rappers throughout the years in their struggles against Tommy Boy. With the help of social media, De La has been able to gin up enough popular outrage and pressure to get Tommy Boy to the bargaining table, but repeated negotiations with the label have failed to yield anything the group considers suitable.
So, appearing on a high-profile TV show like Teen Titans Go! makes sense for a few reasons: 1) The rap golden age–era group can make itself known to younger audiences who may not have heard of them; 2) hip-hop, comics, and cartoons have a long, intertwining history; 3) a major network show tailored for kids can get away with including more didactic lessons and explanations than perhaps countless documentaries and online entreaties read by their fans would.
Nice. So how deeply were the members involved with this episode?
Very deeply, it seems. Let’s take you through the myriad references and plot devices at hand here—there’s a lot of them, and I think it’s fair to say the titans did them justice.
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Tell me more!
The episode is appropriately titled “Don’t Press Play.” After the theme song (which, incidentally, is remixed by Mix Master Mike, known for his work with the Beastie Boys, among De La’s most recognized contemporaries), we open on a shot of the Teen Titans’ T-shaped tower, along with a smug-looking turtle resting on a nearby rock. This is likely a reference to the rock band the Turtles, who sued De La in 1989 after the group sampled one of their songs on a 3 Feet interlude—a suit that paved the way for further litigation against rap artists, and ultimately chilling the sample-heavy hip-hop of which De La and Prince Paul were early masters.
The superheroes are seen watching a rap video on TV before they receive a crime alert from Amityville, Long Island—the hometown of De La Soul. When they realize it’s that very rap trio that’s in trouble, most of the titans burst in excitement; Raven excitedly whips out her LPs, CDs, and tapes, which include covers resembling those of De La Soul Is Dead, The Grind Date, and 3 Feet High and Rising. When Starfire doesn’t recognize the group, her teammates fill her in on De La’s importance, hyping them all up for the mission.
Cartoon Network
Wait, but what’s the crime?
Getting there! We later see an octopuslike alien damaging a building named “DLS Recording Studio” and sucking up a stream of music notation from the remains as De La’s members watch angrily. “Yo, we can’t let them take our music!” yells Pos. Wonder if that’s an allusion to anything!
The titans appear on the scene as the rappers fight off the alien, and they immediate fan out, introducing each individual member by going through their real names as well as their multiple stage names (Plug 1, Plug 2, and Plug 3). The titans get easily beaten by the alien, who yells, “Your music is mine now,” before disappearing into the cosmos. Trugoy laments that “our fans won’t be able to listen to any of it, ever again,” spurring the young heroes to offer to save the day. “Don’t you worry, De La Soul,” team leader Robin says, “we’ll help you get your music back.”
Are you implying that the alien represents Tommy Boy?
Hey, I didn’t write this episode. I’m just reporting what I see.
Cartoon Network
Interesting.
I agree. Anyway, the titans track the alien to Mars, where it’s broadcasting a steady stream of their music— “Transmitting Live From Mars” being the De La song that incorporated the Turtles sample and led to the litigation. Posdnuos notes that the alien “must be after our sweet music royalties,” which leads to a brief yet in-depth lesson on artist royalties and intellectual property from the titans. (The group has repeatedly alleged that Tommy Boy’s previous attempts to their music for streaming would have led to the group losing out on royalties.) Still, in the episode, Pos clarifies that “we want to get our music back for our fans,” something he’s said over and over again in interviews.
The two groups head to Mars together in the T tower that also happens to be a rocket. While on board, Cyborg serves a couple cups of yogurt, which Trugoy snaps up (try reading that nickname backward). When they finally get to Mars, Robin finds a crater with a boombox that has a note taped to it reading “De La Soul’s Music.” As he runs to the radio, the others realize it’s probably a trap—the rappers desperately yell, “Don’t press play!”—and indeed it is. Metal bars trap them inside the crater while water starts filling in.
That seems … dark.
You’re telling me. And it’s worth noting that this may likely, again, be a reference to Tommy Boy’s attempts to put up the group’s catalog on streaming without consulting with the rappers first, which caused the rappers to reach out to their fans and tell them not to, you know, press play on those songs.
That goes deep.
It’s deeper than that, my friend. As they’re about to be drowned, they all toss out references to various De La albums under the Tommy Boy belt, with huge winks added on. The funniest and most layered of these references comes when the rappers get into a “Buhloone Mindstate,” wherein they blow up their heads like balloons and manage to break everybody out of the cage. As my colleague Derreck Johnson, also a huge fan of the group, noted on Twitter, the form they assume upon ballooning bears a striking resemblance to an iconic piece of art from the back cover of, what else, the album Buhloone Mindstate.
Wow!
I know, right?
After the escape, the heroes and musicians find the alien and the device in which he is keeping the music and racking up royalties while he’s at it. Maseo asks the alien to “give us back our music,” a request the alien again refuses. Posdnuos counters: “Listen, man, we’re willing to negotiate. Give us back our music and we can split the royalties.” But the alien only splats them away. Dave laments, “There’s no getting through to this dude.”
OK, so this is definitely about Tommy Boy.
Yup! The royalties split makes it very clear, considering that when Tommy Boy tried to upload the catalog to streaming services in 2019, De La was only going to get 10 percent of those royalties.
That sucks.
I mean, why do you think De La’s taken the measures it has?
But then how does this end?
While battling the alien, the titans burst the machine holding De La’s music, which then goes back to the creators and gives them special powers, while the song “Pain” from … And the Anonymous Nobody plays. The three reference another of their missing albums, AOI: Bionix, before vanquishing the monster. The group thanks the Teen Titans for saving their music, to which Robin replies, “Just doing our duty as De La fans!”
I meant, how does the real-life fiasco with Tommy Boy end?
Oh. Not so happily, yet. But maybe Teen Titans Go! can help turn the tide.
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To get advice from Prudie,submit your questions anonymously here. (Questions may be lightly edited for publication.) Join the live chat every Monday at noon (and submit your comments)here, or call the Dear Prudence podcast voicemail at 401-371-3327 to hear your question answered on a future episode of the show.
Dear Prudence,
I am partially deaf due to a childhood accident. My parents were devastated. I have painful memories of trying to comfort my weeping mother as an 8-year-old, telling her that it wasn’t so bad and I could hear fine really. My dad made a lot of comments about how painful it was for any parent to have a disabled child, which seriously discouraged me from identifying as disabled for years. I kept it a secret when I utilized some disability support services at college. I’ve never told them that every job I’ve ever had has made accommodations for my disability. My life has actually been so much better since learning sign language and being open about my disability. I have a wonderful boyfriend who learned to sign for me and could not be more supportive.
The problem now is that I moved back in with my parents during the pandemic, mainly so I could look after my dad, who is in poor health. I had actually forgotten how bad it is to live with people who do not want to acknowledge my deafness. I’m so used to people being OK with me needing things like subtitles on TV and clear speaking habits so that it really upsets me when these things anger my parents now. My boyfriend is here too. He recently got into a huge argument with my dad when my dad yelled at me for “not listening” to him and called me “insufferable” for wanting subtitles on. My boyfriend cooled down when I asked him to, but my parents are both still furious and say they don’t want him in the house anymore if he can’t respect them. I’ve said if he leaves, I’ll go too. I can’t stand the thought of being alone with just my parents.
Now my mom is guilting me for considering leaving her to look after my dad, as he is in a long process of recovering from surgery right now. I don’t know what to do. On the one hand, I desperately want to go back to my peaceful home with my boyfriend, where no one screams at me and I don’t have to pretend not to be deaf. On the other, I am my parents’ only child, and it will be difficult for my mom to care for Dad alone right now. What should I do, and is there a compromise I’m not seeing?
—Not Just “Not Listening”
There’s certainly no reasonable compromise that you’re missing, although your parents seem to be missing several. I hesitate, however, to call “acknowledging your deafness” a compromise. (I’m following your lead in not capitalizing the word deaf when you describe yourself.) Your parents are asking you to pretend not to be hard of hearing and to pretend not to need reasonable accommodations that harm no one because of the shame they feel about being the parents of someone with a disability—all while demanding you provide your father with ongoing care due to his short-term disability as he recovers from surgery. This is cruel, dehumanizing, and unreasonable. I don’t wonder that your life has improved immensely since you left your parents’ home, where you were forced as a young child to prioritize their manipulative demands over your own basic physical and emotional needs, and have been able to acknowledge your deafness as a basic component of your identity that informs your everyday life and merits accommodations without accompanying guilt trips or attempts at denial.
It’s clear that your parents have gone out of their way to play upon your sense of obligation as their only child to put up with whatever demands they wish to make of you, no matter how unreasonable or damaging those demands are to your well-being. If your mother believes she cannot take care of your father without demanding her fellow caretaker pretends not to be deaf, then she does not have a reasonable, safe, or healthy definition of caretaking, and you would be well within your rights to move out. Indeed, I think it is necessary to your own health and safety that you and your boyfriend move out together, and soon. If your mother needs additional help, you can encourage her to contact her husband’s medical team, canvass your other relatives, or even offer to help defray the cost of a professional in-home caretaker. But do not continue to put yourself in harm’s way simply because your parents have always expected you to.
Help! My Developmentally Delayed Teen Is Suddenly Really Interested in Sex.
Danny M. Lavery is joined by Alexis Coe on this week’s episode of the Dear Prudence podcast.
I got married young. By the time I turned 30, I already had two marriages and divorces under my belt. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my part in those relationships’ ends, what I overlooked at the time, and what I want (or don’t want!) for myself and my child now. I’ve been with my current boyfriend for two years. We both said early on we could be together, but we would never marry. Now, we’ve started to talk about marriage, and it freaks me out. It’s not that I don’t love him, but what if it doesn’t work out? I took big financial and personal hits in my divorces. I’m just feeling like I’m in a good place. I know the statistical likelihood of a third marriage working out, and it terrifies me. At the same time, I feel like there is a certain seriousness afforded wedded couples that I miss having. Should I even consider marriage, or should I stick to my original inclination to be happily together but not married?
—Happily Unmarried
I’m curious about the gap in your letter between “we would never marry” and “we’ve started to talk about marriage.” What changed, aside from the passage of time? Going from “never” to “maybe” is a big shift, and while you’re both entitled to change your minds, I wish I knew more about what prompted this new conversation. If the only reason you’ve started talking about it together now is because you’ve been together for two years and have a vague sense that married couples are afforded “a certain seriousness,” I think the best thing to do is revisit your founding principles as a couple and see if you can’t reaffirm them. Your reasons to postpone or avoid marriage altogether are reasonable, specific, and grounded in practical experience; they have to do with self-sufficiency, debt, not wanting to get tied up in court again, and prioritizing the stability of the home you share with your child. Your reasons for considering marriage are largely unclear, but what you have said about them suggests they have more to do with a fear of how others might perceive you than anything that’s directly relevant to your relationship. Stick to your original inclination, at least for now.
If in another year you both find your thoughts turning more and more often to marriage, you can always revisit the subject. But don’t rush this! Give yourself time to enjoy being in a good place after years of turmoil. If getting married really is a good idea, it’ll still be a good idea a year from now.
Dear Prudence,
Last year, my sister and I were on a weekend getaway. Our father was turning 88 the following month, and I asked if we should do something and whether she knew what she was getting him. She was evasive. After his birthday, I had to stop at my dad’s, and he mentioned that he and his wife had gone out for dinner with his wife’s daughter and her husband—but that my sister and her husband had also been there! It was clear in talking to my dad that my sister knew about all of this while she and I were on our getaway. I was (and still am) very hurt that my sister didn’t mention the dinner and excluded me. I had the opportunity to bring it up with her and asked how she would have felt if I had excluded her. Her response was, “I’ll do better next time.” I’m trying to make peace with all of this but am having a hard time. Where do I go from here?
—Sibling Exclusion
Keep trying to make peace with this! You don’t mention whether you and your sister always celebrate your father’s birthday together or with a joint gift, but it’s not at all unusual to send an adult parent an individual gift, and I don’t think you should take it as an automatic slight if your sister declines to go in on a birthday present together. You asked her if she wanted to do something together, and she didn’t commit to anything; later you found out she’d made her own arrangements. That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to be hurt—you’re entitled to feel whatever you like, and you particularly hoped to do something together with your sister—but you should try to keep those feelings in perspective by reminding yourself that she didn’t lie to you or make promises she didn’t intend to keep. You and your sister got to take a lovely weekend getaway last year that didn’t include some of your other relatives. Later that year she celebrated your father’s birthday with some of his in-laws at a dinner that didn’t include you. Unless there’s a family pattern of excluding you from holidays and birthdays you haven’t mentioned but want to address with your sister, I think you should take her promise to include you in the future to heart and move on.
Now available in your podcast player: the audiobook edition of Danny M. Lavery’s latest book, Something That May Shock and Discredit You. Get it from Slate.
More Advice From How to Do It
I’m a straight woman who has a reoccurring problem with new sex partners. I insist on condoms for penetrative sex unless a relationship becomes exclusive, but I’ll engage in oral and light non-penetrative genital-to-genital contact without them. I’m well-aware those activities are not risk-free, but that’s my comfort zone. My partners are generally on board with wrapping it up at the beginning of the act, but sometimes they’ll take the condom off midway through because it diminishes their sensitivity. No one has ever slipped his penis back in pretending it’s still wrapped. The good eggs have accepted stopping for the moment, or engaged in petting or oral instead. But too often my partner has agreed not to enter me unwrapped, but will then rub his penis against me in a way that feels great and is essentially like knocking at the door begging to be let in. I’ve sometimes relented against my better judgment because I’m overcome by desire and I don’t love the feel of condoms either. One guy suggested we just do hand stuff instead, but then once I was really lost in the moment, he slipped his penis in without a word. I went stiff, and stopped it immediately, and never saw him again.
The culminated effect of these encounters has been to drastically damper my pleasure once the condom comes off. I feel hyper-vigilant about protecting my reasonable boundary, preventing me from letting go. I also feel resentful that it falls to me alone to keep the safe sex practice we originally agreed on, guilty and ashamed that I’m not getting him (and often myself) off, and sexually frustrated because I prefer condom-free sex too and it’s literally being dangled onto me. How do I reinforce this boundary without killing the mood with accusatory forewarnings or by creating an air barrier between our bodies?
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Office of Management and Budget director nominee Neera Tanden appreciated senators’ concerns about her tweets. She regretted calling Mitch McConnell “Voldemort,” and Susan Collins “the worst,” or tweeting that “vampires have more heart than Ted Cruz.” She regretted tweets insinuating that Russians hacked actual voting machines, to Donald Trump’s benefit, in the 2016 election. On the other side, she regretted fighting with profane Bernie Sanders–loving Marxist egg accounts about the prudence of pursuing single-payer health care legislation. She performed this apology tour before two Senate committees last week.
Despite the effort, she may be President Biden’s first Cabinet pick to go down. Joe Manchin, the most centrist member of Senate Democrats’ threadbare 50-seat majority, announced Friday afternoon that he opposed her nomination.
“I have carefully reviewed Neera Tanden’s public statements and tweets that were personally directed towards my colleagues on both sides of the aisle from Senator Sanders to Senator McConnell and others,” Manchin said in a statement. “I believe her overtly partisan statements will have a toxic and detrimental impact on the important working relationship between members of Congress and the next director of the Office of Management and Budget. For this reason, I cannot support her nomination.”
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that all other Democrats would support Tanden, Democrats would need one Republican to join them in order to confirm her. President Biden Friday evening said that he would not pull her nomination, and that “I think we’re going to find the votes to get her confirmed.”
Hmm. I’ve reached out to the usual suspects (Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski) to see if there’s a swing vote for the taking but have yet to hear back. There are several reasons to doubt that any Republicans would be willing to offer Biden such a favor, though. They can roll the dice and hope for a new nominee who’s less progressive than Tanden. (Though a lot of leftists despise Tanden for her past belittlement of Sanders’ campaign, she was fully in line with the project of funding a robust agenda through deficit spending.) They sorely need a “win,” and they have the opportunity to get one by rejecting a solid C-list villain from the Fox News Cinematic Universe. Both Collins and Murkowski just voted to convict a Republican president on impeachment charges and could use a make-up call—or, at least, the absence of another apostasy. And, of course, Collins has been the target of Tanden’s posting, and Murkowski is Collins’ very good friend. There is no straightforward reason for any Republican to support her. They don’t need it, but they have bipartisan cover from Manchin to boot.
Manchin is going to do things like this from time to time. He will make little sacrifices to the gods of bipartisanship to maintain a semblance of centrist credibility. And if that kind of tinkering on the margin frees him to vote for a $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, his Senate Democratic colleagues won’t complain too much.
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To get a sense of what the situation looked like on the ground, Slate spoke with Kyle Ray, the lead pastor of Sent Church, which opened a warming station in Plano, Texas. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Slate: What happened when the storm started?
Kyle Ray: A lot of people’s power went out early Monday morning, around 2 a.m. Here in Plano, it got to be 10, 15, 48 hours with no heat. People’s houses are getting down in the low 40s and the upper 30s. And some people didn’t have water either, because their pipes froze.
We didn’t open the church building on Monday, because we felt like opening the building would have been more of a drain on the grid. And how can we provide shelter if we didn’t know if the power would be on consistently? As the sun went down, my 8-year-old daughter and I were in front of our fireplace, staying warm by the fire. I got this email from somebody in the community that said, “It’s a little disconcerting to look over at your building to see your sidewalks illuminated.” I didn’t even know the sidewalks lit up. And I’m not about to go out like that—that will not be our reputation.
I went to bed that night, and I woke up freezing. Tuesday morning, I was at the building by 7:30. We think that the building didn’t lose power because we have an assisted living facility on our property. I think the power companies had some control over where they shut power down. By 10 a.m., we had communicated with the city of Plano and become an official warming station. We talked to Walmart, and they donated snacks. We talked to Starbucks, and they donated some food. We talked to a local restaurant that brought meals over just in case we needed meals. They didn’t have electricity, but they had gas, so they did lasagna and spaghetti. A husband-and-wife couple made a handmade banner to go out on the street. And then people started rolling in.
What were you hearing from the people who did come in?
When stuff like this happens, nobody comes in talking about how frustrated they are with the power company or with the government. In general, the people that came were just grateful, grateful to have a warm place to be.
How did you handle COVID?
We contacted the city of Plano, and they asked some questions before we opened our warming center. Anybody who came here had to follow COVID guidelines. We took temps. We asked the screening questions, loosely. All our volunteers had masks, and we had masks available. At the church in general—because of Texas—we have strongly encouraged masks, but we haven’t required masks. So we just tried to be cautious. We set up chairs physically distanced and tried not to have people clustered together.
How long did you keep the church open?
We kept it open from Tuesday morning through Thursday afternoon. A lot of people right around us got power back Wednesday morning. So then come Thursday morning when we opened at 8 a.m., we didn’t have anybody come through, and that was the cue to me that people had power back and were trying to figure out things at home.
In total, we had maybe 30 people at our site. What that showed to me was that people really wanted to try and stay with their homes. They would prefer to just wait things out with a bunch of covers and sleeping bags. Or they had the means to just leave. In my subdivision, the HOA people who ride around and check on the neighborhood found like 70 homes with water gushing out, and many of them couldn’t get ahold of the homeowners because people left. People were saying hotels were full. Some people said they knew people who had gone to hotels, but those hotels had pipes burst, and they had to evacuate.
What are things like there now?
The streets are covered with snow and ice, so roads are still bad. Temperatures are going to warm up [Friday]. I’ve heard that Home Depot and Lowe’s, all their plumbing supplies have been sold out. Plumbers are two and three weeks backed up. I would say in about six hours people will discover if their pipes actually split and burst when they froze or if they’ll be flowing with water.
What are you going to do next?
There are some people who’ve lost all the food in their refrigerator and freezer. I would imagine we might get some calls for grocery assistance. We might get some benevolence requests for the cost of plumbing repairs: If you don’t have a financial margin, people may not be able to afford that. I would imagine there’s some people who will file insurance claims, but they may not have the money for the deductible that they need to come out of pocket. We’re anticipating more of those kinds of calls over the next few weeks.
Do you think this has affected any Texans in a long-term way?
Some people who have the financial resources are thinking about switching to solar power. They want to be off the [electrical] grid. And obviously, this whole thing has sparked the finger-pointing. Who’s really responsible? I don’t claim to be an expert on that. And I think in general, people’s mindset is “I better be more prepared in the winter.” I think I think you won’t find people caught flat-footed without firewood.
Speaking of blame, were people talking at all aboutTed Cruz?
In my own social media circles, the biggest critics of Ted Cruz are the people who don’t live here. And I’m not saying that it’s not offensive to people in Texas. I think when you’re in the midst of dealing with burst pipes and trying to find plumbers and squeegee and water, you don’t have a lot of time to be critiquing what people are doing. So I know that there are some people who live here that have already decided which party’s fault it is. But by and large, people are just trying to make it through.
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This article contains spoilers forWandaVision’s first seven episodes.
The seventh episode of WandaVision contains one of the series’ biggest twists: Agnes, Wanda’s nosy neighbor, reveals herself to be not only in on the show’s masquerade but majorly responsible for it. Up to this point, it’s seemed as though Wanda has been in control, creating a TV-land reality to live in as an alternative to facing the harsh truths of her real life. But as the seams have become increasingly impossible to ignore—this episode sees objects in Wanda’s home transforming into outdated versions of themselves on their own—it’s become clear that somebody else’s influence is at work. That this late-in-the-game twist (there are only two episodes left in the season) works as well as it does is due to the show’s ace in the hole, perennial scene-stealer Kathryn Hahn. Hahn is an actress who has never given a bad performance, even in bad movies, and as WandaVision shows its cards, it’s only become more clear that this is some of her best work yet.
As Agnes, Hahn is not only playing two roles—“Agnes,” and the actual witch behind her, Agatha Harkness—but balancing two diametrically opposite character types. Agnes is the comic sidekick—she arrives to deliver a punchline or two, and to be the hammy foil to Wanda’s straight man—but Agatha appears to be the villain (or at least a villain), complete with a song in which she begins to reveal her evil plan. (Hahn herself sings the refrain, “It’s been Agatha all along.”) This is perfectly matched to Hahn’s sharp comic energy, which, while always fun, is also all the more captivating for always feeling a little dangerous. For most of the show, that edge manifests in the hints here and there that life in Westview is not all that it seems, such as Agnes’ break in behavior in the fifth episode when she asks Wanda if she should try acting out a scene again or when, in the third episode, she and another neighbor, Herb, seem to be hiding broader knowledge of what’s going on and, more to point, afraid of the consequences of breaking the illusion.
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WandaVision’s overall unsettling tone has everything to do with these scenes, as the realization that Wanda’s grief is causing such ripples goes hand-in-hand with realizing that all of Westview’s residents are all being mind-controlled to maintain this small-screen façade. From the few breaks that Vision encounters, it seems to be a genuinely terrifying, painful experience, and one that these normal people are incapable of escaping for themselves. Hahn’s performance is perfectly keyed into this. Watching Agnes’ mask come on and slip off depending on the scene, and the eerily resigned and dutiful attitude that suddenly replaces her initial bubbliness, is a show highlight, as Agnes’ proximity to the spotlight as Wanda’s kooky friend makes her a bright, flashing sign that something is seriously wrong.
But that shift is also, on its own, a thrilling spectacle to watch, especially as the more sitcom-y scenes she’s given allow her to flex her comedic muscles. Her physicality as Agnes is incredibly bold, not only in terms of the way her whole body seems to swing as she walks—just watch the scene in the first episode when she interrupts a dinner party and Wanda struggles to get her out of the house—but in her exaggerated facial expressions. It’s an over-the-top-ness that feels entirely convincing in its context—who else could make the line, “Actually, I did bite a kid once,” sing with such seeming effortlessness? And it’s her commitment to this everything-in-quotation-marks performance that makes it all the more disquieting when the cracks start to show. (Elizabeth Olsen, as Wanda, is tasked with the same kind of playacting through most of the episodes, and though she does an admirable job, can’t always muster quite the same level of vim.)
And then even when Agatha is revealed, a slice of this hamminess remains. The true Agatha exists halfway between the Truman Show-style charade she carries on and the more disquieting reality it’s concealing. Her energy during her song is more roguish than the former, but more playful than the latter, making Agatha a compelling “new” character already despite the fact that she’s only really been herself for a minute or two. When she sneers at the camera and crows about how no one’s noticed her pulling the strings, the negging almost works, because her pleasure is infectious: The new cool girl is in town, and it’s impossible not to want to be friends with her.
As Slate has noted as far back as 2012, Hahn is a fearlessimproviser with seemingly bottomless charisma, not to mention her status as “the patron saint of sexed-up middle-aged women,” all of which makes her perfectly cast as Agnes. If WandaVision has excelled largely because of the way it’s shaken up the Marvel formula, Episode 7 might force us to wonder how much of that has been Kathryn Hahn all along.
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The junior senator from America’s least populous state has its most dangerous retinas. On Friday, Wyoming’s Cynthia Lummis added laser eyes to her Twitter profile picture, confounding the political press and delighting cryptocurrency investors on the platform. Photoshopping laser eyes onto profiles pictures has become a calling card among Bitcoin adherents who are trying to rally the cryptocurrency to reach a price of $100,000. On Twitter, the movement has taken on the hashtag #LaserRayUntil100K, which refers to a pledge among users to keep the laser rays until Bitcoin hits that golden number.
A Twitter user with the handle AMERICAN HODL asked Lummis to don the laser eyes in a post on Thursday that read, “@SenLummis we’re all going with laser eyes until 100k #bitcoin and it would be a privilege to have you join in on the fun. No pressure! But it would be awesome if you did senator.” The tweet received about 400 likes. Lummis’ office sent a statement to The Hill about her profile picture reading, “Sen. Lummis is a big supporter of digital assets and financial innovation, and the laser eyes are showing that support.”
Also donning laser eyes on Twitter was Anthony Scaramucci, the Trump White House’s extremely short-tenured former communications director and founder of SkyBridge Capital, an investment firm that’s recently launched a Bitcoin fund. Major players in the cryptocurrency space have also taken part in the meme, such as MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, whose company has been increasing its convertible debt offering in order to buy more bitcoin.
The cryptocurrency has been reaching record highs over the past month and attained a trillion-dollar market value on Friday. The cost of a single Bitcoin is about $55,600 as of Friday afternoon; its price has surged more than 80 percent this year. Bitcoin’s most recent whirlwind rise seems to have been sparked by Tesla purchasing about $1.5 billion in Bitcoin in early February, which fueled speculation that other major corporate institutions would be buying in as well. BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, said on Wednesday that the company is also looking into investing in Bitcoin.
Lummis, who won Wyoming’s open Senate seat in 2020, said helping her colleagues understand Bitcoin was one of her priorities. (Until she added laser eyes, she was probably best known as one of the senators who objected to certifying Pennsylvania’s election results in January.)“So my first couple of years probably will just be talking to people about it, explaining what it is, how it works, what it does, what it can do, what it doesn’t do and why I think it should be part of a diversified asset allocation,” Lummis told Bitcoin Magazine, adding that she believes states should be the ones to come up with their own cryptocurrency regulations, rather the federal government.
The senator first purchased Bitcoin around 2013, encountering it when she served as Wyoming’s state treasurer and was looking at investment strategies for the Permanent Wyoming Mineral Trust Fund. Lummis has recently been trying to convince Elon Musk to move to Wyoming, pitching the state as having the “best laws” for cryptocurrency. She’s reportedly reached out but hasn’t received a response.
