Daily Archives: October 11, 2019

Published: 10/7/2019 6:00:56 PM

Ofelia Fernndez bursts into the room with a large smile on her face. She has come for an interview between a million other things.

On Oct. 27, Argentina faces an important election from the presidential to the municipal levels. Ofelia is running to be a legislator for the city of Buenos Aires; if she wins, she will be the youngest person to do so. Ofelia does not want to talk about her age. She wants to talk politics.

Argentina has a vibrant feminist movement, which became a major political force a few years ago with the Ni Una Menos or Not One More Woman movement. Massive demonstrations in her native Buenos Aires drew Ofelia into this orbit. Ni Una Menos, the protestors chanted, and then others answered, viva nos queremos! (we want us alive).

At that time, Ofelia was the president of her high school student union. Her society, she said forthrightly then, is 100% machista, but we are now starting to hear about abortion, about womens trafficking, about femicide. We are starting to speak about gender inequality. Ofelia, then 15, said Being a feminist is about understanding these realities, criticizing them, but mostly it is about doing something to transform them.

Argentina has been in the midst of a terrible economic crisis, exacerbated by its President Mauricio Macri. A visit to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last year put Argentina at the mercy of Washington, D.C. Borrowing came alongside demands by the IMF for austerity inside Argentina. The countrys currency plummeted, its peoples incomes and savings collapsed. Because of the widespread unhappiness with his government, the situation is known as the Macrisis.

There is a sensation of chaos, Ofelia tells me, an uncertainty about the future, a feeling that this government is simply unable to keep up with the problems that it faces.

Ofelia is running as a candidate of the coalition known as Frente de Todos Everybodys Front, which is led by Alberto Fernndez and Christina Fernndez de Kirchner (the former president). Neither Alberto nor Christina are related to Ofelia. The logo of the Front is clever. The second ois replaced by a sun. This removes the masculine sense in the word todos; young Argentinians often use an xor an eas part of their anti-patriarchal culture. The bright sun in the logo also offers a symbol of hope and aspiration.

Feminism is key to Ofelia, but in a broad way. Last year, the feminist journalist Luciana Peker described the new movement for abortion rights as the revolution of the daughters(la revolucin de las hijas). Ofelia was happy to talk about the abortion campaign. If her coalition wins, she said, it will take up the issue vigorously and not allow it to fail as it did last year.

But Ofelia does not want to define her politics narrowly. She wanted to make it clear that feminism must take up all the social issues from a feminist perspective not allow itself to be restricted to womens issues,which are themselves, she pointed out, everyones issues.

In the poorer parts of Argentina, organizations have emerged to fight against the outcome of the crisis. Hunger is a serious issue, with special emphasis on the hunger of children. Most of the leaders of these popular organizations, Ofelia said, are women. Their fight around the economy of care and against austerity must also be seen as a feminist fight. The fight against hunger, Ofelia said, is also feminism.

The political system imagines that women are only interested in womens issues, she said, when women in politics must be interested in power. The entire framework of policymaking what is known as neoliberalism must be challenged. Governments must create policies that lift the capacity of the people, not that only answer to the bond holders and the creditors. This is the kind of politics imagined by Ofelia.

In the election this year, 16- and 17-year-olds will be able to cast their votes for the first time in the national election. There are now 6million people between the ages of 18 and 24. They comprise 22% of the electorate.

The major social campaigns of the past few years particularly the feminist campaign galvanized many young people, including Ofelia, into politics. Polling data shows that these young people define their political landscape around the issues of gender violence, abortionand racism. This suggests that they will vote for the coalition to which Ofelia belongs.

Across Argentina, I run into young people who belong to Ofelias political tendency Frente Patria Grande. This political organization emerged out of the mass demonstrations in 2001-02 around the collapse of Argentinas economy. Large numbers of people blocked streets and banged pots and pans, earning themselves the name the piqueteros (the picketers). Most of those who took to the streets were women, which is why there are so many women in Patria Grande.

Ofelia says that her generation needs a new utopia. They want to believe in anything other than the reality that does not meet their expectations. They want a world of gender equality and without environmental destruction, a world where bankers do not suffocate dreams.

We are impatient, she says. Our impatience is a strength. It must be accompanied by perseverance. We cannot give up.

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Columnist Vijay Prashad: This feminist is the future of Argentina - GazetteNET

When the thriller Parasite premiered at Cannes in May, a hashtag appeared on Twitter: #BongHive. A swarm of devoteesboth those at Cannes and others living vicariously through themwere showing their support for the Korean director Bong Joon-ho, unaware that he was about to make history: His film would go on to win top prize at the festivalthe coveted Palme dOra momentous first for South Korea. So momentous, in fact, that a new term started trending among film fans on the internet: Bong dOr (with merch soon following, naturally).

Bong seems especially tickled by that pun. He exploded with laughter when I mentioned it during our interview on an October afternoon at the Whitby Hotel in midtown Manhattan, though it cant be the first time hes heard it. (He admits hes only vaguely aware of his online hive since he doesnt use social media.) But its impossible to ignore the fact that Parasite is a Big Deal: Not only is it already a global box office hit, but there are also whispers of a possible Best Picture nomination at the Oscars next year. (A lot of pressure rides on the latter, as South Korea has never been nominated, even in the Foreign Film category, though theyve submitted 31 films since 1962; the closest they ever came was last years shortlisting of Lee Chang-dongs Burning.) Hailed as a masterpiece, Parasite is a hilariously twisted, anxiety-riddled film about a poor family that infiltrates a wealthy household. The film, which opens on Friday, hasnt suffered post-festival comedownCannes favorites, especially Palme winners, can often be hit-or-miss, but Parasite lives up to the hype.

When Memories of Murder, Bongs breakout sophomore feature, came out in 2003, he established himself as a leading force in a new wave of Korean cinema, in league with fellow countrymen who were telling serious, gritty stories of ambitious scope. In 2006, Bong made the monster movie The Host, reminding us that a creature feature could be smart, not sillyit was infused with family drama and social commentary while still being a blockbuster hit. His 2009 feature Mother took him back to his crime-realism roots and nabbed him the first Oscar submission from his home country (Parasite is the second). His two films before Parasite were proof that Bong was on the Hollywood radar, with Chris Evans starring in 2013s Snowpiercer (a dystopian rich-versus-poor thriller) and Jake Gyllenhaal in 2017s Okja (an animal-liberation fantasy adventure about a large pig-like creature). Tilda Swintonwhos known for her unusual, daring role choices in working with visionariesappeared in both. (I am entirely devoted to his work as a filmmaker and would be happy to assist in any way to support and help to protect his vision in the future, Swinton told WWD in 2017 about her collaborations with Bong.)

With Parasite (Gisaengchung in Korean), the 50-year-old director is back to working with an all-Korean cast. His muse, Song Kang-ho, who appeared in Memories of Murder, The Host, and Snowpiercer, stars as the patriarch of Parasites poverty-stricken family. As a director, its pretty simple: We love good actors, Bong said about returning to Song time and time again. But, more than that, he acts with insight with every small detail and nuance, and never goes against the big context that surrounds the film. When he plays a scene, I think the audience is more convinced that something like that could happen.

By the time we met, Bong had gained more momentum from the Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival circuits. This may sound a little irresponsible, but to be very honest, regardless of whether its an international or domestic audience, I create films for me, for my own joy, he said. I always pursue things that seem new and fun for me and I try to satisfy myself. Bong had been traveling a lot recentlyfrom Toronto to Seoul to Los Angeles to New York, before heading to Los Angeles again. He was jet-lagged, naturally, and nursing a sty with an iced coffee.Is your eye OK? I asked in Korean. He paused his irritated eye-rubbing and shot his hand out to me. Shall we shake hands? he asked, then guffawed with a hearty belly laugh.

Bong has a sense of humor, but that much is obvious from his movies. I initially watched Parasite in Korea this past summer, and then again in New York in October with a mostly non-Korean-speaking crowd. Subtitled or not, the film elicits laughter in almost exactly the same way: the creative hoaxes, the eccentricities of the wealthy, the foul-mouthed gruffness of the Kims. Bong said hes secretly sat in on the movie in many different cities: They laugh at the same things, are shocked by the same things, he said. But the crowd favoritea beloved laughingstock of sortsseems to be the naive matriarch of the rich family, Mrs. Park (Jo Yeo-jeong), who gullibly falls for one glorious scam after another. Through a chain reaction of forgery and setups, all four members of the barely-making-ends-meet Kim family manipulate the Parks into hiring them: first the son as the tutor (rebranding himself with the English name Kevin), then the daughter as the art teacher-cum-therapist (also rebranded as Jessica), then the father as the driver, and finally, the mother as the maid, pushing out the woman who had lived in the mansion even before the Parks moved in. Mrs. Park is simple, according to a friend of Kevin, and she has a penchant for mixing English phrases into her speecha gauche signifier of sophistication and a reflection of Koreas Americonophilia. She probably takes Pilates lessons, works out diligently, and has a native-speaker conversation teacher who she meets once a week to practice her English, Bong said of the backstory hes imagined for Mrs. Park. But she has no chance to use it, so whenever she gets the opportunity, it just slips out of her. The actor [Jo] was very entertained by it.

Speaking with Bong, I, too, mixed my Korean with Englishotherwise known as Konglishas we contextualized the polar-opposite living situations of the Kims and the Parks. The Kims spend their days climbing on top of their toilet to leech free Wi-Fi from inside their semi-basement, while the Parks live in an architectural utopia. The glass mansion where the Parks residewhich, by the way, was a digitally furnished soundstage setalmost seems like a fantasy. Most well-to-do Koreans live in luxury apartments; to live in a house like that would mean you were at the tippity-top of the food chain. When I expressed my disbelief at that residence, Bong told me to check out Seongbuk-dong, a rich neighborhood in northern Seoul, the next time Im in Korea. The house in the film may be a set, but the exteriors of streets were shot there, and Bong assured me people really do live like that, even in a crammed city like Seoul.

Those even somewhat familiar with Bongs filmography will notice his continued fascination with class differences. In his school days, Bong was embedded in protests, in a country recovering from military dictatorship. His most recent films all have to do with laypeople fighting against authoritarian forces in a capitalist system. The distinction between good versus evil were a bit clearer in Okja and Snowpiercer, but Parasite is more complicated than that, and those nuances make it a richer film. All characters in Parasite are in the gray zone, Bong said. Theyre all nice to some degree and bad to some degree. And I think thats closer to reality. There are twists to the films allianceswhich I wont spoil herebut rooting for one family or another is never very easy.

Bong name-checks Jordan Peele and Ken Loach as filmmakers also concerned with class. But Bongs socioeconomic themesalso present in Lees Burning, another tale of class warfare, as well as the countless Korean shows and films pitting the haves against the have-notscan feel like a specifically Korean cinematic interest. That can be credited to South Koreas uniquely rapid economic boom, which largely happened under the military dictatorship of President Park Chung-hee, who aggressively prioritized economic growth over civil liberties. I turned 50 this year and during the past half-century, I watched Korea develop into a pretty rich nation, Bong said. But, like Germany and first-world nations of Europe, the richer the country gets, the more the relative gap between the rich and the poor becomes wider. And so you get this polarization. And I think Korea is the same.

In Parasite, that gap pervades every aspect of the two families livesin smell (an important part of the film) and in the literal climate. When a torrential storm hits, the Kims abode is almost devastated, while the heavy downpour becomes a fun excuse for the Parks young son to camp out in a tent in the front yard. Its both fascinating and sickening to watch.

Yet for all the sensationalism and even fantastical elements of Parasite, Bong gives his audience a reality check as they exit the theaters. Its something only Korean speakers may catch: The end-credits song, Soju One Glass, composed by Jung Jae Il, is sung by Choi Woo-sik, who plays Ki-woo (a.k.a. Kevin), the Kim family son and a key figure throughout the film. As people were leaving the theater, I wanted them to hear Ki-woos voice at the end, Bong said. So I asked the actor to sing the song and I wrote the lyrics myself. The unsubtitled words to the song document a hard days work thats filled with pollution and calloused hands and ends with drinking soju. Initially Bong wanted something a bit optimisticand the up-strum guitar and Chois boyish voice convey thatbut eventually the lyrics were not so optimistic. I really wanted to relay the sense that he is continuing to just live his life and work and maybe after work he comes home to have a shot of soju, Bong said. Just that very simple sense that hes living on with his life.

Surprisingly, Bong is optimistic about the future despite constant reminders of a turbulent climate ahead. It will get better, he said, speaking of his 23-year-old son and possible future grandchildrens generations. Its heartening to hear that from Bong, and we parted in high spiritswith a handshake. As I left the room, I suddenly remembered that he was rubbing his eye with that hand. Getting infected by the director of Parasite might not be so bad, I thought. But I ran to the bathroom and vigorously washed my hands anyway.

Kristen Yoonsoo Kim is a South Koreaborn, New Yorkbased writer whose work has appeared in GQ, Pitchfork, and elsewhere.

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Bong Joon-ho Talks Parasite and the Wealth Gap in South Korea - The Ringer

In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley writes about labs in which the traits of future infants are selected. Fetuses destined to become simple workers undergo manipulation to lower their IQs. Others are calibrated to develop frigophobia an unnatural fear of cold so that they can work at the equator. In some, the sense of balance is tampered with, enabling them to work more readily in outer space. The basic attributes of each individual are corrected and modified according to a predetermined future.

A fantasy some of us harbor is to engineer our own genius babies with light or dark hair, of basketball-player height to suit our personal taste. In short, designer babies. But at least some of what was once science fiction is today an integral part of artificial insemination.

Some inherited diseases are caused by a disorder in a single gene. Various syndromes are related to the sex of the embryo. Once an initial cell cluster forms, the genes of the embryo can be examined to ascertain its sex, and whether it is carrying a hereditary disease. Thus, only embryos not carrying the flawed gene will be returned to the uterus.

For ethical reasons, most countries in the developed world prohibit additional manipulations. The only modification parents are permitted to make is to reject an embryo in accordance with certain conditions. In China, though, at least one scientist thought the situation was too restricted.

In November 2018, a Chinese biophysicist named He Jiankui announced that he had succeeded in altering the genetic structure of twins with the use of CRISPR technology, which allows change at the level of gene. Jiankuis goal was to render the embryos resistant to the AIDS virus by modifying a particular gene. According to him, the children had been born the preceding month.

Jiankui did not publish an article about the case in any peer-reviewed scientific journal, and his methods were not examined by an external team of scientists. Jiankui forged the documents of the committee that approved the research, and its not even known whether the parents who took part in the project gave their agreement. Moreover, no external verification exists that the effort achieved its goal in other words, that the embryos were genetically modified in the lab and that the modifications were expressed in the newborns.

The most important aspect of this research, however, lies in the discussion it stirred about the possibility of genetic editing of embryos. Existing technology allows gene editing to be carried out by the splicing out of undesirable elements and their replacement with others. In contrast to the process of in vitro fertilization and the subsequent transfer of the resultant healthy embryo into the uterus, gene editing works by modifying the existing genome.

The biological dilemma is relatively straightforward. The human genetic system is complicated and complex; modification in one place could cause unexpected change. Accordingly, its necessary to wait with experiments involving humans until were certain that a particular modification is genuinely site-specific. Were short of information that would enable precise genetic manipulation, and it may take decades before well be capable of repairing embryonic flaws with certainty. Here, too, as is often the case, technology advances faster than ethical discourse.

The ethical issue, however, is far more complicated. Should the modification of the genetics of embryos be allowed? Theres a difference between not using an embryo with a known fatal condition and repairing a genetic flaw.

The World Health Organization has established a panel of experts tasked with setting international criteria for what may and not be done to human embryos. In the meantime, genetic manipulation is prohibited in most of the world, and special authorization is required to perform embryonic genetic modifications.

Even as the various committees meet and discuss the issues, however, a Russian biologist named Denis Rebrikov has announced that he is planning to carry out additional CRISPR experiments on human embryos. He intends to modify the same gene that He Jiankui did, but in a different way, in the hope of achieving better and more precise results.

Risk-free pregnancy?

In the 1999 film The Matrix, the protagonist discovers that he and other humans are hooked up to a sophisticated computer program that simulates a human environment. The machines running the world use human bodies to produce energy, and people are no longer born, but are, rather, bred in vast fields so they can be used in powering the computers. They still think theyre experiencing life, however, because they are connected, through the brain, to machines, and spend their whole life in a liquid-filled bag.

Is this a utopia or a dystopia?

The film maintains that such a future would be blacker than black, and that the purpose of humans is to thrive far from the control of machines, free to do whatever they please, and of course to continue to multiply by means of pregnancy and birth. But imagine a situation in which embryos are bred in bags of liquids that nurture them as they develop and can be harvested when they are ready. Perhaps The Matrix presents a sort of utopia?

Pregnancy is an extreme physiological condition, which has the potential to endanger the life of the mother and the fetus. According to WHO data, 830 women die around the world every day from pregnancy and childbirth complications leading to a total of more than 300,000 deaths, for example, in 2015. And 99 percent of those deaths occur in developing countries, about half of them in sub-Saharan Africa and a third in South Asia. The risk of mortality from complications of pregnancy and delivery is particularly high among girls under 15.

By comparison, in the United States, about 700 women a year die as a result of pregnancy and labor complications, and more than 50,000 women develop various complications during pregnancy and childbirth. What is truly worrisome in this context is that while there is a downward trend in the world, in the United States there was a significant increase in maternal mortality during the past decade.

The main causes of death in pregnancy are bleeding, contamination and preeclampsia. In developed countries, such as those in Europe, efficient, safe treatment exists for these disorders. The primary contributing factors to pregnancy and childbirth complications are poverty, lack of access to health services, and a dearth of information about safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery. Even if the number of cases in developed countries is far lower, the reasons remain identical.

In all countries, premature delivery namely, before the 37th week is a leading cause of child mortality. The earlier a child is born, the less mature his organs will be, something that can lead to systemic failure, infection and death. About a million infants die worldwide every year due to complications arising from premature birth. Around 60 percent of the preemies are born in countries of Africa and East Asia. The causes of premature birth vary, and include multiple pregnancies, infections and a range of chronic diseases.

In developed countries, there are options for assisting women in labor, treatments for preventing premature birth and, of course, access to proper health services. In addition, once they are born, preemies can get far better treatment in developed countries, thus significantly lowering the mortality rate associated with premature birth.

External mothers

The uterus is far more than a bag filled with fluids. Its a combination fetal sleeping bag, restaurant, toilet and oxygen mask. Its mission is to safeguard the developing embryo from slightly after fertilization until the fetus is delivered. Safeguard in all senses: to enable the passage to the fetus of nutritional substances and oxygen, and the evacuation of waste via the placenta, which is connected to the uterus by the umbilical cord, and also to protect the fetus physically in various situations. Because the placenta filters the substances that reach the fetus, only a small number of diseases the mother might contract are transmitted to the embryo. Oxygen passes through the blood directly into the fetal body by means of special blood vessels in the umbilical cord.

Medicine today is able to preserve the infants body temperature, protect it from the environment and supply it with nutrients, but it doesnt know how to introduce oxygen directly into its blood. The only artificial uterus that exists today is the incubator. Its disadvantage is that its capable of helping only infants born from the sixth month on. In other words, an incubator is not capable of assisting an infant born earlier than that, still less could it be the venue for a full pregnancy.

The ideas presented below for technology that could potentially enable out-of-body pregnancies are still in stages of experimentation in animals, and not yet close to being tried in human beings.

Idea No. 1: Biological bag

The first stage in the development of an artificial uterus is to try to advance the period during which the fetus can be born and survive. That is, to develop a sophisticated incubator. Thats exactly what the biological bag (biobag) looks like. Durable and sterile, its made of transparent polyethylene, making it possible to monitor the fetus and to maintain uterine-like pressure and form. Its filled with artificial amniotic fluid, the fetus is placed in it and connected to an exchange system through the blood vessels in its umbilical cord (just like in the womb: oxygen and nutrients pass from mother to fetus; carbon dioxide and waste pass from fetus to mother). The bag is closed and we have an incubator potentially capable of keeping preemies alive already from the fifth month of pregnancy.

The amniotic fluid is replaced frequently in order to preserve a clean environment for the preemies development, the bag itself is placed on a temperature-controlled surface in order to maintain proper body heat, and if an infection is detected, it can be treated with antibiotics. Some medications and other substances can be administered directly via other large blood vessels in the fetal body; this is in fact done with preemies. But the purpose of the bag is to replicate as closely as possible the uterine environment while reducing the need for medical procedures to be carried out on the fetus.

How close are we to using this technology on humans?

Experiments conducted on fetal lambs showed that they developed in the biobag like their fellow animals in the womb. After four weeks in the bag they could be delivered and allowed to breathe normally. In human terms, this would be equivalent to delivery in the fifth month being initially transferred to a biobag and afterward to a regular incubator. Most important, it appears that the brain of the lambs in the biobag developed identically to that of lambs in the womb, with no significant adverse effects. The big advantage of the bag is that it treats the preemie as though it were not yet born, in contrast to a regular incubator, in which the newborn is obligated to breathe on its own and cope with the outside world, to some extent.

Idea No. 2: Artificial placenta

The placenta is the organ that connects mother and fetus. Oxygen arrives at the placenta by way of the mothers blood, by means of which it is passed into the fetus blood; carbon dioxide takes the opposite route and empties into the mothers blood for disposal. One of the placentas functions is to filter the mothers blood before it reaches the fetus. When we speak of substances that infiltrate the placenta, we are referring to those capable of penetrating the wall of the mothers blood vessels and passing through to the blood vessels of the fetus, which can cause damage.

The underlying idea of the artificial placenta sounds similar to the biobag, but in this case the preemie is in a regular incubator, though with two significant differences: for one, its lungs remain filled with liquid; and, the blood vessels in the umbilical cord and the cervical vein are connected to a system that enables oxygenation of the blood and removal from it of carbon dioxide. Unlike the biobag, the uterine environment is not fully replicated here, though there is replication of the basic function of the placenta, in order to allow the lungs to develop to a degree that will make it possible to connect the newborn to a ventilator.

How close are we to using this technology on humans?

Experiments have shown that this method is effective and allows the lungs to develop properly. These experiments, too, are currently being carried out on animals to gauge the effectiveness and safety of this technology.

Barbaric present

The science-fiction genre was launched with a story about parenthood being effected without the need for a womb. Victor Frankenstein, conceived in the imagination of Mary Shelley, found a way to connect organs and create new life in his laboratory, without the aid of any reproductive organ.

The idea of containers for breeding babies is scattered here and there in science fiction, but only a few works in the genre examine the effect an artificial womb would have on the life of the mother and the embryo. One of the most fascinating such accounts can be found in Barrayar, a 1991 novel by Lois McMaster Bujold. Near the beginning of the book it turns out that the protagonist, a decorated officer, is pregnant. She reflects on the world she came from, in which womb replications are standard practice, and about how she never noticed the difference between vitro and vivo babies like her. But at the moment shes in a backward world, where women are expected to bear the whole pregnancy by themselves, without any choice, unlike civilized worlds where an embryo can be planted in a replicator, to wait until its parents obtain a permit to raise it.

Later, it becomes necessary to transfer a fetus from the uterus to an artificial container in order to save its life, and the heroine is delighted to see the civilized replicator, in contrast to the barbaric and primitive style of pregnancy that exists in the world where she is now.

The placenta is transferred to the replicator, and after its accepted the connected fetus is moved to it. The umbilical cord is attached to a monitor that injects oxygen into it, and finally the replicator is filled with amniotic fluid and the container is closed, to allow the fetus to go on developing.

In our reality, an artificial womb that will be inexpensive and accessible, and which can be used in developing countries, would be able to save the lives of both the mother and the infant. The more available and the cheaper the technology is, the greater the number of lives that can be saved. In the end, maybe we, too, will look on a world in which women were compelled to carry the fetus by themselves as a barbaric, primitive place.

Dr. Keren Landsman specializes in epidemiology and public health, and is a founder of Midaat, an organization dedicated to promoting public health in Israel. Special thanks to doctoral student Hadas Sloin, who helped in writing this article.

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We may soon gestate babies in fluid-filled bags and it will save lives - Haaretz

10 October 2019, 16:12

By Nicky Idika

Bella linked up with some good pals, including ex-girlfriend Tana Mongeau, to celebrate her 22nd birthday.

Fans of both Bella Thorne and Tana Mongeau will know that the former couple have always been fairly open about their relationship even after deciding to move on from their romantic coupling earlier this year. Although their post-breakup interactions on social media haven't always been the most cordial, there is definitely no bad blood between them, as evidenced by the revelation that the exes spent time together on Bella's birthday.

READ MORE: Bella Thorne shares topless photo with new girlfriend Alex Martini on Instagram

Tana Mongeau shared a Twitter shout out for Bella's birthday on 9 October. The sweet message for Bella's 22nd highlighted the fact that they've now celebrated three of her birthdays together.

"happy birthday @bellathorne grateful to be spending a third birthday of yours with u. as always, thank u for changing my life u fucking mogul " Tana tweeted.

Bella documented parts of her celebration which included her two ex-girlfriends and two current partners all sitting down for a meal together with a larger group.

"I can't two ex's and my two boos," Bella wrote on Instagram Stories.

Tana also shared her own Instagram Story, documenting the get together.

To be honest with you, we need Bella to drop some pointers on staying friends with our exes because all of this seems like a utopia.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, Bella shared an adorable photo of herself cuddling up with her new girlfriend Alex. It definitely looks like Bella is having one hell of a birthday week.

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Bella Thorne reunited with her ex Tana Mongeau for her 22nd birthday - PopBuzz

[ To me, a proper dictionary is a book of spells, Winterson said in her recent By the Book interview. ]

Ry is also falling for a version of Marys creation: Dr. Victor Stein, a TED-talking tech disrupter with a God complex and a keen fashion sense. Thanks to cryonics, in which Ry once dabbled, the grisly horror of reanimating a body is now entirely feasible, but Stein wants to go further into the realms of transhumanism and beyond: The world I imagine, the world A.I. will make possible, will not be a world of labels and that includes binaries like male and female, black and white, rich and poor. It sounds like a utopia, but anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with Westworld, HAL 9000 and Philip K. Dick will know that this is dangerous territory. Ry has serious concerns about these visionary goals, even while empathizing with them: I am part of a small group of transgender medical professionals. Some of us are transhuman enthusiasts too. That isnt surprising; we feel or have felt that were in the wrong body. We can understand the feeling that anybody is the wrong body.

This understanding aside, at times, its difficult to figure out why self-aware Ry falls so hard for Stein (although, admittedly, they have great sex). For someone whose eventual goal is to be free of the meat that makes up the body, he has an initial, almost prurient fascination with Rys choice to identify as hybrid, and is repeatedly at pains to assure Ry hes not gay (another sly nod to the contemporary discourse around gender and sexual identity). Occasionally, he comes across as little more than a TED Talk himself, spouting chunks of research and philosophical meanderings that, while fascinating, stall the novel. Its as if Winterson is at pains to remind us that issues around gender, notions of the self and fears of automatons supplanting human agency are not new concerns theyre as old as Ovids Metamorphoses. But these forays into didacticism are balanced with gleeful, highly imaginative set pieces rich with black humor: Dr. Steins lab lurks, Young Frankenstein-style, in decommissioned tunnels under Manchester, complete with its own pub. Severed, reanimated hands skitter, Addams Family-like, through the bowels of the lab, where Ron has been invited to create a Christian Companion sex doll for the evangelical market.

[ Peek inside Wintersons writing studio. ]

Weaving through all of this is the heart of the novel the primary love story promised on the cover, an uneasy, love-hate relationship between the author and her creation. As the Inventor of Dreams, Mary Shelley looses her novel into the world and mourns the loss of her lover and her children, were invited to consider what happens when a creation outlives and surpasses its creator (Yet, suppose my story has a life of its own?). The original novel has achieved immortality, and Wintersons Mary can never shake off the specter of her creation and the inventions it inspires. In parallel, and against their better judgment, Ry provides Stein with body parts snaffled from the hospital, laying them at his feet like a cat. They include a cryogenically frozen head in a flask that Polly D. hilariously dubs the iHead and that Stein hopes will be his key to the Singularity the moment A.I. changes the way we live, forever. Rys gifts will possibly give birth to another form of immortality the queasy notion of the consciousness living forever, disembodied, in the cloud and who knows where that will lead the human race?

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A Novel That Riffs on Sex Dolls, Mary Shelley and Brexit - The New York Times

Here are three ideas Ive come across recently. Lets break them down.

1. Should we ban billionaires?

Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders says we should ban billionaires. Its all part of the growing trend in the idea of wealth taxes that have become popular with some Democrats.

It sounds like an OK-ish idea if youre into progressive taxation, but its also an impractical idea that is predicated on misunderstandings. For instance, the majority of extremely wealthy people dont actually have billions of dollars sitting in their bank accounts. They are paper billionaires who mostly own illiquid assets (like corporations or real assets).

If they actually liquidated their assets they might quickly find out that theyre not worth what they think theyre worth.

But its also impractical because theres no reasonable way to value many of those assets. For instance, I might be worth millions of dollars. I have no idea what Orcam Financial Group, my company, is actually worth. But lets be crazy and assume that the IRS says my firm is worth $50 million (which would be a very inaccurate assessment, by the way).

That means I would have to come up with $500,000 to pay Bernies wealth tax. I dont have $500,000 of liquid Orcam Financial Group stock sitting around. So how am I even supposed to pay this tax? Its ridiculous.

The idea is completely impractical. A better idea if youre into this sort of thing is to raise the capital-gains tax since that operates like a wealth tax and is predicated on people actually having liquidated the assets applied to the tax. There are practical ways to deal with this issue, and while wealth taxes are a good campaign slogan, theyre impractical.

Anyhow, Nick Maggiulli had a pretty good assessment of this idea, so take a peak at his post.

2. Does anyone work for a billion dollars?

Heres another Bernie Sanders supporter making an interesting point about the ultra-rich:

Theres so much wrong here I dont even know where to start.

The reason Amazons AMZN, +0.68% Jeff Bezos is ultra-wealthy is because he worked to make capital investments that contributed to the value of other peoples lives and financial assets.

Investment is the element of the economy that makes the entire financial system work. Without people investing and spending for future production, wed all just be borrowing more and more money to consume finite resources and inevitably inflating the value of the money away.

People who spend for future production create value and thereby create demand for money. That demand for money helps maintain the value of money. It creates a virtuous cycle, whereby investment creates demand for money, and demand for more goods and services creates demand for more investment.

If all we had was consumption and people getting paid $5,000 to sit on their rumps, there would be no incentive for investment, and the whole system would inflate away.

If, on the other hand, you took that $5,000 and invested it in something innovative, youd have the opportunity not only to earn that hypothetical $5,000, but your savings would grow thanks to future investment and compounding.

For instance, at just 2% per year, your investment of just one $5,000 investment grows to $170 million over 527 years. Of course, you need investment to generate the real return and, without it, your $5,000 just withers away.

So, no, this socialist utopia where no one invests and the government just hands out thousands of dollars is not a real thing. Its a fiction based on misunderstandings of how the value of money is created.

Now, there are perfectly good arguments for higher taxes on the ultra-wealthy. But this idea that they didnt earn it or didnt work for it is just wrong on its face. The whole reason theyre worth billions of dollars is because they worked to make capital investments that other people then placed a market value on.

And then their capital investment compounded its face off. Its not just earned and worked for, its entirely validated by the way other people vote on the value of the financial assets they created from nothing.

3. Biblically responsible investing. WHAT. IN. THE. HOLY. HELL? I got this email this morning:

And last week there was a new SEC filing for a biblically themed ETF that would cost 1.9% for any investment under $1 million (thanks to Jeff Ptak).

What is this trash? Look, I was raised a good Catholic boy. I went to Jesuit schools. But those Jesuits also stressed the importance of understanding science and being able to decipher the Bible as a library of guiding narratives and not necessarily a book that was to be read literally.

So I get very concerned when I see high-fee funds that sell a deeply emotional narrative that takes advantage of people trying to do good because the empirical evidence clearly shows that paying high fees and doing good does not necessarily lead to a better return on investment.

In fact, we know pretty definitively that higher fees are the dominant determinant of lower performance, and the higher those fees are, the more likely you are to perform worse. And 2% is an egregious fee structure for any investment product, let alone one that claims to be able to predict which firms will perform well based on the subjective idea of how good they are.

Anyhow, Ill step off this soapbox now. But, please, dont buy into this nonsense. Investing is mostly about controlling your emotions, and any strategy predicated on capturing high-fee assets because it sells an emotional narrative is likely to perform worse.

Im not sure what Jesus would think about this, but my guess is that hed want his biblically themed ETF to be free. Just guessing, though.

Cullen Roche is the author of the Pragmatic Capitalism blog, where this column first appeared. Follow him on Twitter @cullenroche.

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Ban billionaires? What progressive Democrats dont understand about the economy - MarketWatch

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The Twitter-sphere erupted in outrage last week, after images of Ellen DeGeneres sitting next to George W. Bush at a Dallas football game circulated the social media platform. Despite the numbers demonstrating that Twitter isnt the premier social media platform and therefore, the collective outrage on Twitter shouldnt be used as a reflection of societal views; Ellen was compelled to give a statement on the matter. After ruminating on the scandalous event over the weekend, she addressed the outrage on her show.

What followed her explanation was a plethora of narrow-minded commentary. And I have to say, I am baffled by the rejection of such remarks. What alternate universe am I now living in that we reject forgiveness and we reject grace within the span of a week, collectively and publicly?

As if anything Mark Ruffalo has to say means anything at all to me, his tweet in response to her and others supporting her, was astounding. Not only that, but Vanity Fairs proclamations that unconditional kindness is a brand that is incompatible with reality reveal a shockingly stark optimism of society, overall. Vanity Fair asks: What are the parameters of such kindness?

From what I have been forced to deduce, based on the general social media consensus, which I guess suggests how society operates; its that Amber Guyger does not deserve forgiveness and now Ellen doesnt deserve the right to see the good in others and offer grace. There is a limit to how much unconditional kindness you can extend, apparently. And social media and the mainstream media are the authoritative messengers that compel us to embrace this new alternate reality of truth.

Vanity Fair claims that Ellens brand of kindness is an imagined utopia that is seemingly out of touch with reality. I now really feel as if I have been transported into an alternate universe. Is kindness an imagined utopia? If that is the case, what is the point of fighting any good fight at all?

Interestingly enough, the party that believes in other imagined utopiassay for instance, socialism as a functional economic system for a country as large as the United States, finds Ellens stance contemptible at best, and elitist, privileged, racist, and homophobic at its worst. Which imagined utopias should we cling to, and which ones shall we disregard?

If we limit or put parameters around unconditional kindness, that means first and foremost that we are complacent with the practice of holding two contradictory ideas in opposition. I mean, I am all for holding the tension of opposites, but prescribing to the idea that unconditional kindness requires parameters is just idiotic. Its u-n-c-o-n-d-i-t-i-o-n-a-l. Which means limitless. Which means you dont put expectations around forgiveness. Similarly, we dont do that with love, either.

Society has been forced to confront reality almost too blatantly. Brandt Jean offered up forgiveness without checking to see if he had permission from the rest of society. Ellen DeGeneres offered grace and kindness before she checked with her PR staff. How dare people act on their own convictions without checking to see if the social media stratosphere would approve of such messaging!

What is evil? Most of us have never experienced actual evil. Evil doesnt exist outside the reality in which we perceive it. We only know what evil is so long as someone defines it for us. And though our minds perceive many things considered evil; evil is, just as morality can be in many cases, relative.

And because morality is relativesometimes; words can be subjectivesometimes, ambiguous even, in other instances. When this happens, confusion can ensue. Confusion leaves us conflicted. We are distracted so much by a new presentation of evil that we dont stop to consider that which we are identifying as evil is actually evil.

Evil once represented an act that was so cruel, so grotesque, so undignified that speaking about it out loud was just too much. Now, well, youre evil if you use a plastic straw. Youre evil if you dont support abortion. Evil can be as simple as an ex showing up with a new flavor at the bar that you frequent. Evil can mean anything. And when it can mean anything, it means absolutely nothing. When evil can be anything to anybody, that means that not all people know how you are defining the word. Context matters, obviously, but how often do we get context in a tweet?

I think that Derrida warned us about this possibility: the potentiality for words to become so subjective and fluid that their definitions could not stand the test of time. More so, words could not hold up against the necessity of iteration, the possibility of repetition. Is a word that is repeatedly used recognized as the same word for everyone, or does it lose its value?

Forgiveness has lost its value. The word has been confounded by societal impressions that aim to diminish symbolism and meaning altogether. What some would consider to be powers and principalities.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12)

Apparently, evil now looks like sitting with a former President of the United States at a football game. Is watching a basketball game with Obama evil as well, or does that just apply to some people? How consistent will we be with these standards we set?

Is George W. Bush evil? I cannot confirm or deny such a charge. I dont know him. I only know what was revealed to me thanks to the media. Thats all I really must go on. And as far as I can tell, there is a lot of reason to disregard much of what media tells me is truth as they report on it.

What I do know is that there is a cautionary verse in the Good Book that warns about making judgments of others without first removing the plank from my own eye. If we are sinners, then none are good?

But then, Isaiah comes to mind when I consider whether I want to judge another, or not:

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. (Isaiah 5:20)

I know that the policies under the Bush administration resulted in the deaths of innocents. But, do I really want to compare the death tolls of the wars our country has participated in, and then order them from greatest to least and point my self-righteous finger at one former President over the other? I mean, we could bring up the concentration camps that the Obama administration employed, but why keep record of wrongs?

What good would that do? Are any of us good?

Why do you call me good? Jesus answered. No one is goodexcept God alone. (Mark 10:18)

So long as words lose their definitive meanings, we will remain a divided society. The reason for this is because words that hold sacred meaning for billions of people are being reduced to defining the antipodes of what it represents.

Have we lost sight of what kind of weight that word carries? Have we forgotten that forgiveness is a demonstration of loving the enemy?

Forgiveness does not mean acceptance. Forgiveness is not an excuse for the transgression. Forgiveness does not mean condonement. Forgiveness does not erase the pain or the past. Forgiveness is a step in the process of healing.

Forgiveness, for Christians especially, is about canceling the debt of the trespass. Social and Main-stream media would have you convinced that forgiveness as we know it comes with a price. Dues must be paid. The debt cannot just be erased, according to the social dogma that pervades Twitter-sphere.

The influence of this new dogmatic approach to forgiveness is obvious. I have been baffled by the amount of self-proclaiming Christians that condemn Ellen for her acts of unconditional kindness.

The dogmatic approach that cancel culture takes is one that resembles that old eye for an eye analogy that I was informed was contrary to the teachings of Christ. We are not under the Law, for the Law has been fulfilled. We are under a new covenant; one that says, love your enemy, and pray for those who persecute you. Praying for those who persecute you, as Marianne Williamson says, its much easier than holding contempt for them. Above all, forgive.

Confusion has been the overreaching influence as to why forgiveness is so hard to embrace. The term forgiveness has been conflated with the term acceptance. But for me, just as I see Gods justice as a different kind of justice than how society defines justice; I tend to consider that Gods forgiveness is much different than what we know it to look like in practice.

Take for instance a husband that forgives his wife after she cheats on him. Yes, he forgives her. He remains married to her. But there are times that he brings up the feelings from that incident. He doesnt forget it just because he forgave the act.

He doesnt hold the infidelity against his wife when he is upset. He doesnt use her past transgressions as a weaponized attack he can launch at her whenever he is having a rough day. But he has the potential to. He can use it to shame her and guilt her into performing menial tasks that he sees as a form of repayment. So long as he still claims to have forgiven her, he can wield power over her and manipulate her to his advantage.

Or, does Gods forgiveness look so radically different, that as soon as you have trespassed, God forgives. Before you sin, God forgives. If forgiveness precedes confession and repentance as Luther and Calvin once declared, then that would mean that forgiveness precedes belief, as William Paul Young was declared. Which would mean, at least from my line of thinking, that if I am called to live a Christ-like life, as I believe I have been, that means that I must freely give forgiveness, without any expectation that my forgiveness will transform another.

Giving forgiveness so freely is meant to transform me, first. It is about disconnecting from the signal of pain, anger, and contempt that a trespass has caused. Those emotional connections to the past transgression have already initiated a metamorphosis. A trespass takes us from a space of trust, certainty, and comfort into a space of anger and discomfort, even uncertainty. Is that not a change from our previous homeostasis?

Which means, the emotional reaction to the situation is meant to be a motivator for changefrom within. It begins the process. That anger is a tool, certainly. But it is not a continuous stream of fuel. Its just a spark. It needs oxygen to grow into something fiercer.

The problem is, we get warm from that first spark and we convince ourselves that the temporary warmth is good enough and requires minimal work. We know we could transform that small spark into a burning fire, but our misperceptions convince us that its too much work. It also requires that we move out from our small, sheltered space of comfort out into the openness of potentiality. That anger needs oxygen, otherwise, it chokes out all possibility for the remainder of the transformation. It leaves us with a deformed, incomplete transformation.

Anger is merely a step of many steps toward such an incredible and magical metamorphosis. We hinder ourselves from growth when we cling to our emotions. Its no wonder giving forgiveness so freely is difficult for us; we struggle to freely give up our anger. We dont want to freely give anything, but we damn well expect others to hand out forgiveness when we mess up.

Ellen DeGeneres cancelled the debt, but social commentary demands Bush #paythedebt.

Theres a paper trail, for Gods sake. Theres a record to be kept. We must keep people accountable for their evil acts. There is blood on Bushs hands. How dare Ellen! She does not hold him individually responsible and condemn him.

Im famous enough to sit with a President and I like it. If youre fed up with whining about Ellen and George bush, its probably because youre white. Privilege is Ellen DeGeneres explaining her friendship with George Bush by saying just because I dont agree with someone on everything doesnt mean Im not gonna be friends with them, as if what they disagree about is who was best dressed at the Emmys #BoycottEllen

And so, the debt must be paid, in full, with interest; including a public apology, following a public humiliation, and after reparations and a bequeathing of dividends for generations to come. An apology wont be good enough. Any form of reparations or repayment would never be enough.

Forgiveness isnt about what society finds agreeable, anyway. Forgiveness is for the individual, not the collective. Its only that the individual is meant to influence the collective by demonstrating acts of unconditional kindness and forgiveness. The individual doesnt owe a reason to Twitter, society, or the world, for why she doesnt hold every sin, every mark, every misguided choice against a person she befriends.

Furthermore, did anyone consider the possibility that Bush, like Obama, changed his stance on gay marriage? Is it not possible that he connected with Ellen, or any other gay person and changed his mind? You know, repentance: to change ones mind. Is it not possible that he had a life-changing interaction that made him realize his stance in the past was wrong? Or have we abandoned the optimism that we once held that change is possible that people can change their minds? Do we no longer believe that people can be transformed?

If that is the case, if we are so quick to abandon hope for change, then protesting is irrelevant, advocating for any cause is meaningless, and the idea that anyone can change their mind is altogether hopeless.

I cannot help but wonder; why does society think so little of humanity? Why do you have such little faith in others?

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Ellen and Unconditional Kindness: Incompatible with Our Society? | Ellen and Unconditional Kindness: Incompatible with Our Society? - Patheos

The Canary is proud to publish this guest post from Internationalist currently volunteering in North East Syria (Rojava).

As of Wednesday 9 October, the fascist Turkish state along with their mercenary Jihadist gangs began their offensive against the free peoples of North East Syria. There have already been civilian casualties, injuries and displacement as a result of these attacks.

As Internationalist volunteers in North East Syria, we came here to be a part of the revolution, to share what we can and to learn everything possible. We came with our own struggles carried like treasures in our pockets. Our backgrounds are in many ways different. Some of us rolled bruised or exhausted out of relentless direct action. Others stood up from behind a desk, or left a comfortable job. Some of us arent even sure what path we were on. But none of that is important. What is important here is what we have in common looking, searching, that certainty that something is wrong. Love, and rage.

We came to learn and weve learnt more than we could have imagined, and never in the ways we expected. And while weve been learning, weve also been living. Weve sat with the people of North and East Syria, many passionate about the movement and others less active, just living their lives. Weve drunk more tea than you might think possible, played volleyball, been ill, been sad, been happy, and danced. Weve danced in groups of three or four, stepping around sleeping babies in small living rooms, and in lines of hundreds of people, hands linked in front of the border wall the Turkish state built to divide Kurdistan.

While Erdoan and the turkish state claim that these attacks are needed in order to establish a safe zone, we are well aware of their true intentions which is nothing more than to displace the Kurdish population through genocidal warfare and further expand their imperialist grasp on the Middle East. We condemn in the strongest way this attempt by the Turkish state to threaten everything that has been accomplished here.

For the last seven years, the people of North East Syria have undertaken a new a struggle in order to achieve a new society based on communalism, secularism and direct democracy with womens liberation at its core. The Turkish State which uses fascism and imperialism as a means to control society sees this revolution as a threat to their power. Although the United States has been providing support to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) since 2015, Donald Trump decided through one of his many unilateral Twitter policy U-turns to pull the military support from the Syria-Turkey border regions. As of now, several cities along the border of Northern Syria from Kobane to Derik have been struck by Turkish air strikes and artillery. There have been skirmishes between our comrades in the SDF and the Turkish armed forces and their Jihadist allies. We have also seen an increase in sleeper cell attacks from the Islamic State, who are using this as an opportunity to assist the Turkish state in their objective to destroy the society here.

We will continue to work alongside our friends and comrades here in North Eastern Syria. We will resist any and all attempts by the fascist Turkish state and their Jihadist allies from destroying everything that has been achieved here through resistance, sacrifice and bravery.

Of course the revolution is a work in progress. Its not a utopia. Its built on the daily sweat and effort of thousands of women and comrades, giving time and energy towards developing a better world, even when its hard, even when its dangerous, even when its boring or uncomfortable or incredibly complicated. The revolution is constant work, and theres enough of that work to do without one of the largest armies in the world trying to annihilate what has been built.

This work of building a better world, slowly but surely, starting from wherever we are, is the work we came to learn about and the work we want to do. But lets be realistic any project that offers a real alternative is threatening to the status quo, and will always risk attack. Self defence has to be a part of what we do. Theres a hundred ways to defend Rojava, both here and from outside.

We will be here, doing whatever we can and whatever we must, and almost definitely still drinking tea and dancing. And because were fighting for the same things, theres no difference being here or being halfway across the world. We hope to see you all in the struggle, side by side, even when were far apart.

Featured image via Rojava Information Center with permission

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Theres a hundred ways to defend Rojava: a statement from Internationalists in North East Syria - The Canary

I had just walked past my first apartment the fourth floor walk-up in the East Village, where I lived with my husband, before I got divorced and came out as gay when I found the book that taught me the true meaning of the word queer. I was in the middle of consoling the ghost of my former self, when I saw it in a store window on St. Marks: a glitter unicorn braying up behind the pink, purple, and blue pastel of a paperback titled Feminism and Queer in Art Education.

I got a copy of the book, even though I didnt totally understand the title. The authors are Finnish academics so I chalked it up to a cultural glitch, and the glitter unicorn compensated for the apparent grammatical error. Except their use of queer as a noun wasnt a mistake. Throughout the text, queer appears as a noun, verb, and adjective. In this text, I use the term queer to refer to LGBT peoples identities that incorporate a dimension of the indescribable, one of the authors explains. In this shape-shifting linguistic form, queer emerges as an exquisitely expansive concept. Functioning as a thing and an action, rather than just a descriptor, it becomes an invitation to a dynamic realm of possibility, beyond the various binaries that imprison our minds, beyond that which is knowable.

This breathless sense of possibility is the biggest way coming out as gay has changed me. I am what once was unknowable. In this transformation, the impossible has been rendered null and void, replaced by the expanse of as-yet unimaginable potential. Or, in less abstract terms, when you used to be a caterpillar, it is endlessly miraculous to have finally gotten through with the business of becoming a butterfly.

See, it just never really occurred to me that I might be gay. I used to think I may be bi, though I didnt feel I had any claim to the label. I made out with a few women in college, but according to punchlines sprinkled throughout various sitcoms, thats just a thing some women do in college. Growing up, I was convinced that being closeted meant hiding in shame, and I had a massive Pride flag hanging in my bedroom during the fight for marriage equality. As it turns out, Roman-Catholic-authorianian programming rendered me hopelessly repressed. I had no idea that I had no idea what love and sex really were.

It was junior year when I met the man who would become my ex-husband. He was handsome and kind. That was part of the problem. By the time I graduated and we moved to the East Village, I was convinced I had assembled my personalized Barbie dream house. I was living in New York City, like Id always hoped, and working as an entertainment reporter at the Huffington Post, so it seemed like the whole writer thing would be more than aspirational. I allegedly had the perfect job, the perfect apartment, and the perfect husband, and I wanted to fucking die.

Whenever I walk through my old apartment in the East Village, Im overwhelmed with compassion for the scared little girl I used to be. Its hard to describe the visceral horror of my former state of being. My blood was made of worms. My brain felt like a garbage disposal. This was especially true when my perfect life was going perfectly.

Anxiety is often worst when the parasite has nothing to attach itself to. Anxiety about anxiety equals black hole, and such were the excruciating physics of the void roaring inside of me. I could quiet it by pouring myself into my work or drinking more than half of a 1.5 liter bottle of red wine. When sleep came, on its own sporadic schedule, it was often wracked with gruesome nightmares. I was alternately sprinting on the hamster wheel of a toxic need to succeed or sedating that drive with merlot and/or Benadryl. The only explanation was that I was rotten.

That thought occurred to me explicitly one fall weekend, when my husband and I drove to upstate New York to visit friends hosting a Shakespeare dinner. Our hosts prepared a traditional Roman meal, served in between acts, as we read the play Coriolanus aloud. I couldnt have asked for a sweeter weekend together, and yet in the car on the way home, I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I started breaking down, unable to shake the feeling that I would never be happy, even in this moment, when reality couldnt have appeared more pleasant. I feel like I have this black hole inside of me, I said to my husband. He turned away from the road, and looked at me, eyes filled with sadness. And then he said, I know.

A lot of life happened after that. My journey of self-exploration began with a political awakening, which was followed by a spiritual awakening, and finally a queer one. It started when I developed a crush on an unavailable woman. She was beautiful and brilliant, and she knew it. I was overwhelmed with what I would later call romantic respect. At the time, all I knew for sure was that I was feeling feelings I had never felt before, and I needed to explore them. I told my husband, and after a few months of discussion, we decided to open up our marriage. I still thought I might be bi, and I dated men and women. The first time I slept with a woman, it was more of a sexy sleepover than anything else. The experimentation turned earth-shattering when I finally fell in love.

Im humbled by the fact that the most magnificent epiphany of my life began with a message on a dating app. She was smart, funny, and willing to be mutually vulnerable in a way I thought must be limited to slumber parties. After a handful of dates, I was telling anyone who would listen that I found my future wife. Im sure shes amazing, one of my friends said, but, um, it kind of sounds like you might just be gay.

I have since been able to find, and lose, that kind of connection several times. Lesbian dating occurs in hyperspeed and often includes emotional telepathy. I will never forget my first experience of that intensity. I found physical and romantic intimacy after my husband and I opened up our marriage, but never both at once. When I seriously dated a woman for the first time, those two experiences merged into something else entirely. My first gay hookup was fun, but my first night with a woman I was in love with was intergalactic. My head exploded into galaxy-brain glory, as I forgot about erotic logistics, and found my body knew exactly what to do, as if it always had always known, as if it had been waiting for the right moment to tell me.

Labels are an exercise in limitation, so I choose to identify as a pothead dyke. I think of myself as gay but will sometimes specify that I am queer and a lesbian, because I date women and nonbinary people. No one is more fascinated than me by the fact that I used to be attracted to cis men. It occurs to me, in the clarity of hindsight, that was I going through stage directions in a play I never thought to direct. Im normatively hot, so it seemed as if there was always a guy in the picture and then you know the rest: fumble around until he finishes and maybe get off being eaten out, if youre lucky. The way I feel about cis men now is the same way I feel about Triscuits. If I was starving on an airplane, I suppose I could eat some Triscuits, but do you have freshly baked bread? Is there butter?

I came out to myself, and later publicly, this past January. I was on a date with a woman who had also been married to a man. Were both pretty femme and immediately bonded over the way our gender performance had been used to discount our sexuality. She suggested I do something about it. I had been keeping my awakening to myself, feeling a sense of imposter syndrome over my lesbianism. She snapped me out of it. I reached for my phone and tweeted to over 400,000 followers, Not that its anyones fucking business, but Im getting divorced and Im queer. Update my Wikipedia. Then I looked up, and said, Oh my God, I just came out. She gave me a hug and ordered us two glasses of champagne. (Lesbian culture is going on a Tinder date and then ending up with a lifelong friend who you text every single day.)

Being a queer baby makes for an endless series of mind-blowing moments, in which I am regularly experiencing that which was once beyond my wildest dreams. New mental pathways spring up all the time. At the Dyke March, the day before Pride in June, I was surrounded by so many thrilling possibilities, I felt like I was rolling. In the sea of meticulous undercuts and ineffably erotic carabiners, I developed countless crushes and aesthetic aspirations, just barely distinguishing between the sort of person I wanted to be and the sort of person I wanted to sleep with. If only our brains could swim in queer energy all of the time.

Thats more than a glimpse of what the American academic Jos Esteban Muoz calls queer futurity. The future is queernesss domain, he writes in Cruising Utopia. Queerness is a structuring and educated mode of desiring that allows us to see and feel beyond the quagmire of the present. We must strive, in the face of the here and nows totalizing rendering of reality, to think and feel a then and there. I believe this is what we must strive for in chartering our mental pathways as a collective: We must trust that we are working toward a future beyond our wildest dreams.

I suppose I should mention that much of my process of self-discovery was the result of writing a book about the future of American politics. When I work on shorter pieces, I am compelled to clean my kitchen and my bathroom before I can start to write. In the case of a years-long project, it became necessary to sort out the various rooms of my soul. These processes are not unrelated. I started researching how the post-Trump political awakening inspires self-determination all while finding my own sense of agency in every sense of the word.

In my book, How to Start a Revolution, I study young people and the future of politics, looking at the way the post-Trump political awakening has moved us from passively navigating a broken system to actively seeking to change it. We are questioning who makes the rules, demanding a seat at the table, and no longer accepting widespread inequality and a lack of policy solutions as just the way things are. This was inspired, in no small way, by the negative inverse of considering what is possible.

All of our political and media gatekeepers told us that Donald Trumps win was not going to happen. This administration was impossible until the moment it wasnt, and worse than we could have ever imagined. In order to break free from the system of oppression this presidency has exposed, we must fight for a future beyond the possibilities we can currently think up. In this caterpillar-to-butterfly transformation, we are in that excruciating part before the then and there. Trapped in the cocoon phase of our shared glow up, we have no choice but to keep pumping the things that will become our wings toward a system that expands beyond what we can even imagine to be possible.

Before I came out, I thought about killing myself all the time because I could not conceive of a future in which things could be different. Now life often feels like pure magic. Im glad I stuck around and survived long enough to get to this place where I'm thrilled to be alive. The concept of the unknowable has shown me that we can shoot for transformative possibility as a collective. We are trapped in the old patterns of the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, and we must insist on writing the script for ourselves. Im not sure what our then and there will look like yet, but I could not be more certain that the future is queer.

RELATED |Both Sides of an Argument Doesnt Include Hate Speech

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The Future Is Queer And So Am I - Out Magazine