David M. Dorsen, Opinion contributor Published 5:00 a.m. ET Nov. 1, 2019 | Updated 11:09 a.m. ET Nov. 1, 2019

Impeaching a U.S. president might not be the be-all-end-allfor their career. We explain why this is the case. Just the FAQs, USA TODAY

Don't trivialize the Founders. They didn't want presidents impeached for embezzlement but not for selling us out to foreign powers for personal gain.

When House Republicans voted unanimously against the impeachment resolution setting rules for investigating President Donald Trump, they reflected not just blind partisanship but also a misunderstanding, perhaps willful, of what constitutes grounds for impeachment. And Watergate is partly to blame for that.

The 1970s Watergate investigators weresuccessful in ferreting out wrongdoing, including the massive obstruction of justice that emanated from the highest levels of the executive branch of our government.The news media initially uncovered facts demonstrating that those responsible for the Watergate burglary and its cover-up went far beyond the arrested burglars. The Senate Watergate Committee presented a comprehensive picture to the public that has withstood the test of time. The special prosecutor succeeded in getting the Supreme Court to order President Richard Nixon to produce all his tape recordings (including the Smoking Gun Tape of June 23, 1972). The House JudiciaryCommittee forcedNixon to resign. Andthe special prosecutor convicted Nixons top aides.

So what is Watergates negative legacy?

Because the investigations were so thorough and the wrongdoing, which included bribery as well asobstruction of justice, so severe, some of Trumps supporters are arguing that a crime is essential to an impeachment and conviction, and that abuse of the presidents constitutional powers thatdoes not constitutecrimedoes not rise to the level of an impeachable offense.After all, White House counsel John Dean famously talkedto Nixon about paying $1 million (in 1973 dollars) to continue to buy silence from the Watergate burglars evidence of a crimeright there.

But the premise is false.

Bronze sculptures of the signers of the Constitution at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia in 2003.(Photo: Eileen Blass/USA TODAY)

Asassistant chief counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee, I was part of the investigation. Our success at demonstrating the criminality of Nixons actions created a sense that criminality is required. Yet it is absolutely clear that criminal conduct is not a requirement and that abuse of presidential power is sufficient.

The constitutional standard is high crimes and misdemeanors, which is a term of art that the Founders borrowed from England and is satisfied by proof of a serious abuse of power.Sacrificing the national interest for personal gain or aggrandizement satisfies the constitutional standard, especially when it is accompanied by lies, threatsand other misconduct.The term is archaic, but its meaning is clear.

Originally, the framers inserted into the draft constitution terms like malpractice or neglect of duty.They changed the language to require more serious conduct, but did not change the nature of the impeachable offense. Itwas always connected to the official duties of the president, not to crimes committed by ordinary citizens.The framers wanted a government that would not kowtow to the powerful European powers.The very survival of the republic was at stake.

To restrict the constitutional language to ordinary crimes demeans the work of our Founders, who sought to create a virtuous nation built on democratic principles.By saying that a president can be impeached for a run-of-the-mill embezzlement while going scot-free for selling out the country to a foreign power for personal gain, defenders of Trump are trivializing the founding generation.

David M. Dorsen, formerlyassistant chief counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee and an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, is the author of"The Unexpected Scalia: A Conservative Justices Liberal Opinions" and, most recently, "Moses v. Trump, a contemporary novel." Follow him on Twitter:@DavidDorsen

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Downside of Watergate: We found crimes. Now people think that's what it takes to impeach. - USA TODAY

In the fall of 1984, a few months after arriving at Random House as a senior editor, I was at lunch with the publishing houses proprietor, S. I. (Si) Newhouse (whose family owns Cond Nast, which publishes The New Yorker), and its C.E.O., Robert Bernstein, who had hired me away from the Washington Post. We were in the Bahamas, at a sales conference. Newhouse was ordinarily a quiet, phlegmatic man, I had been told, but on one subject he was very animated: Donald Trump. By then, Trump, who had recently completed the construction of a shimmering tower on Fifth Avenue, had been around for a decade. A profile in the Times, in 1976, had called him New Yorks No. 1 real-estate promoter. He is tall, lean and blond, the story noted, and he looks ever so much like Robert Redford. More recently, at the suggestion of Roy Cohn, the notorious New York lawyer and fixer, who had been Newhouses close friend since their days together at the Horace Mann School, Trump had appeared on the cover of GQ, a Cond Nast magazine. The issue had sold especially well.

This Trump fellow, Newhouse now said, was more than a comer. He had arrived. The word was that Newhouse was hands-off when it came to acquiring books, but on this occasion he emphatically was not. He said, Lets do a book with Trump. I had been brought to Random House to acquire and edit, among other things, high-profile books by public figures. Newhouse said that he would arrange a meeting with Trump, and it was decided that Howard Kaminsky, the new publisher of the Random House trade division, and I would accompany him. Kaminsky was a friend of Newhouse and was clearly his choice as publisher, not Bernsteins.

The day of the meeting arrived, and we were led into Trumps office, on the twenty-sixth floor of Trump Tower, by his personal assistant, an elegant woman named Norma Foerderer. (She would later have an assistant of her own, Rhona Graff, who is still Trumps personal assistant in New York.) The office had a spectacular view of Central Park and the Plaza Hotel, which Trump coveted. The walls were covered with magazine spreads hed appeared in and some plaques. There was a large phone console, but Trump summoned Norma and others with a shout.

Newhouse made the pitch. We had brought along a cover proposalblack background, a photograph of Trump, and his name and the title in gold letters. Trump liked the cover but said his name should be larger. It wasnt clear to me whether he was being serious or engaging in self-parody. In any case, by the end of the meeting, Trump was ready to do the book. We soon learned that a writer named Tony Schwartz, who had worked at Newsweek and the Times, had come to Trump with a concept for a book they could do together, to be called The Art of The Deal. All the pieces were in place. The advance was five hundred thousand dollars, to be split evenly, from the first dollar, with Schwartz as the co-author. I dont remember dealing with either an agent or a lawyer.

It was now 1985 and I was acquiring other books, including the memoirs of House Speaker Tip ONeill, and Rosalynn and Jimmy Carters Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life. I also contracted with Natan Sharansky, a Russian-Jewish dissident I had known while working as a reporter for the Post in Moscow, a decade earlier. We had both been attacked by Soviet authorities: he for supposedly being a spy and I for supposedly being his American handler. Sharansky was tried for treason and went to prison for nine years. When he was released, in 1986, Bernstein, a staunch human-rights activist, flew with me to Israel to meet him and sign him up.

I was still learning how to be a book editor and publisher. With ONeill and the Carters, I was a reporter as well as an editor, asking questions and reviewing interview transcripts. When Sharansky had a draft, I went to Israel again and he read it to me in Russian. The Trump process, however, was quite different. In 2016, Tony Schwartz told Jane Mayer that he now deeply regrets being Trumps writer. But he was not a ghostwriter exactly, certainly not an anonymous one. His name got full billing on the cover. I have no reason to doubt that Schwartz is sincere in his chagrin, but he did do a masterly job on the book. He shadowed Trump, channelled his stories, and made the narrative readable. He presented Trump in the best possible waythe way Trump wanted to be seen. Tony left very little for an editor to do.

Instead, my responsibility became all the publishing elements: how the book looked, how it would be marketed and publicized. I became the Random House sponsor of what we thought would be a significant seller during the holiday buying season of 1987. Kaminsky would normally have been at the helm of our efforts, but in October, 1987, he was fired by Bernstein, who had kept a distinct distance from the project. Kaminskys successor was Joni Evans, who came from Simon & Schuster. While she was getting her bearings at Random House, I was the point person on The Art of the Deal.

I accompanied Trump to meetings with the heads of major book-retail chains, the biggest of which at that time was Waldenbooks, which had more than a thousand stores in malls and storefronts around the country. The C.E.O. was Harry Hoffman, a big man with considerable self-regard, who tended to think that publishers were fusty and backward in their understanding of how books should be sold. Over lunch at some swank French restaurant in midtown Manhattan, I watched Hoffman and Trump bond. They agreed that they could make The Art of the Deal a No. 1 best-seller.

The book party took place in December, 1987, in the atrium of Trump Tower. It was a black-tie affair, with photographers and spotlights everywhere. On the receiving line, standing next to Trump, Newhouse, and Schwartz, I found myself shaking hands with Mike Tyson, Barbara Walters, Barry Diller, and Norman Mailer, who had been, surprisingly, a close friend of Roy Cohn. I gave the celebratory toast. The mood was jubilant. At that very moment, my wife, Susan, was in Moscow with a delegation from Human Rights Watch, where she worked, meeting with prominent dissidents who were under the surveillance of the K.G.B. Susan and I have been a couple since the early seventies. Never in our marriage can it be said that we were farther apart, in terms of both distance and circumstance.

The book went to No. 1 and stayed there. The media interest from the outset was intense. The top shows of the timePhil Donahue in daytime, Larry King at night, and everyone in between, including programs in the United Kingdomwere eager to book New Yorks glamorous young real-estate mogul. Random House had put out about a hundred and twenty-five thousand copies in the first printing. They disappeared very quickly. Reprints were ordered and shipped on an almost daily basis to keep up with demand. Trump was thrilled. Schwartz, on the other hand, was frustrated to learn that some booksellers were out of stock. He had stores on speed dial and would report shortages back to us in furious calls. Ive always believed that of the books two credited authors, Schwartz was the more frenetic. Given the fifty-fifty split in the contract, he was on the way to making a fortune in royalties.

There was a rumor adrift that Trump was buying his own book to boost his sales numbers, which seems unlikely: Trump doesnt spend money when he doesnt have to. He was hardly passive, however. Joni Evans told me that Trump called her at home a few days before Christmas to say that he wanted a thousand copies delivered to Aspen for his upcoming ski vacation.

Donald, its Christmas, she said. All the warehouses are closed.

Figure it out, was his command. He offered the use of his plane.

Evans managed to reach Newhouse. The warehouse was mobilized. The copies reached Aspen and were sold. By mid-1988, The Art of the Deal had sold a million hardcover copies.

Through all this, my relations with Trump were smooth. He was so glad to have been solicited by Newhouse, and he had, in an easy climb, become a national celebrity. The Times review ended with this notable sentence: Mr. Trump makes one believe even for a moment in the American dream. Then there was this ambiguous closing line: Its like a fairy tale.

The following spring, my son, Evan, who was then about twelve years old, expressed a fascination with professional wrestling. There was a World Wrestling Federation extravaganza coming up in Atlantic City. This was a Trump-promoted event. I called Trumps office, spoke to Norma, and was sent three free tickets. On the day of the event, Trump arrived at the arena to wild applause. This was well before his days on The Apprentice, but he was already at least as big a star as Hulk Hogan or whoever was in the ring that day.

As was probably inevitable, either Trump or Newhouse eventually proposed doing a sequel to The Art of the Deal. And so the planning began. Newhouse and I were invited to lunch on Trumps yacht, the Trump Princess, a two-hundred-and-eighty-foot vessel that hed bought from the Sultan of Brunei. The Trump Princess was anchored in the East River. What I most remember was that, by dessert, Newhouse had authorized an advance of two and a half million dollars, five times what we had paid for the first book. Once again, I was to be the editor.

At the time, I sensed that Trumps world was starting to darken. In October, 1989, three of his top casino executives were killed in a helicopter crash. When I expressed my condolences to Trump, he replied, as I recall, You know, I was supposed to be on that chopper. Then word spread that Trump and Ivanas marriage was faltering, despite her executive role in his recent acquisition of the Plaza. There was reportedly a new woman in his life, but her identity had yet to be revealed. Trump was still opening casinos in Atlantic City, most notably the Taj Mahal, but there were rumors that he was becoming overstretched.

By the end of May, 1990, we had a manuscript in draft. (Schwartz was unavailable, so we recruited Charles Leerhsen, a gifted Newsweek writer who had co-authored the memoirs of the pilot Chuck Yeager.) The only time I ever saw Trump lose his temper came when we sent a photographer to do a cover picture in his office at Trump Tower. Arriving early, the photographer attached black garbage bags to the ceiling, in order to reduce glare. When Trump saw the bags, he demanded that they be removed and angrily told the photographer that he would be charged for any damage to the paint job. The photograph that we eventually chose was of Trump tossing an apple into the air. The text on the back of the jacket said, This is Phase Two of my life, in which the going gets a lot tougher and the victories, because they are harder won, seem all the sweeter. I know that whatever happens, Im a survivora survivor of success, which is a very rare thing indeed.

The big annual convention of publishers and booksellers was in Las Vegas that year, in early June. Trump was invited to be a speaker at a breakfast at which about three thousand people would be in attendance. The night before, Random House hosted a reception for about a thousand people at the Mirage hotel, in honor of Trump and of the novelist Jean Auel and her Clan of the Cave Bear series.

I was to be Trumps escort at the event. Our arrangements were elaborate. I went to the airport in a stretch limo, and, when Trump exited his jet and settled into the car, he said that he had a surprise. And there was Marla Maples, his secret paramour. At the Mirage, Trump and Maples checked into an enormous suite, which was equipped with its own swimming pool. At the appointed hour, I went to pick him up for the party. Maples opened the door wearing a bikini.

After the book party, Trump, Newhouse, Alberto Vitale, who was now the C.E.O. of Random House, Joni Evans, and I went to dinner in a private room with a small group of top-tier booksellers, including the owner of Barnes & Noble, Leonard Riggio, and E. Bronson Ingram and his wife, Martha, the owners of the countrys largest book wholesaler. As we were about to start, Maples appeared. Given that she was still supposed to be incognito, her presence caused a stir.

Early the next morning, I picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal, which featured a front-page story about Trumps finances. To summarize, they were a mess. He was billions of dollars in debt. The Journals account was, by any measure, a full takedown. At the bookseller breakfast that morning, Trump gave a spirited talk. My assumption was that the only people in the ballroom who had read the Journal story were those in the Random House contingent. The enthusiastic audience seemed oblivious.

Trump left the stage and we rushed off to his plane to fly to New York. Vitale whispered to me, in effect, Get this book out fast. He is a wasting asset. On the flight, I was watching Trump carefully to see how he was doing. I couldnt spot a trace of anxiety. I dont remember anyone mentioning the story or his finances. After a sumptuous lunch of shrimp, charcuterie, and assorted desserts, Trump took Maples into his private cabin and remerged about ninety minutes later. Considering the Journal story, I would not have been surprised had he opened the jets door and jumped out. And yet he seemed unfazed. We landed in early evening.

Our Random House team scrambled to get the book finished and distributed as quickly as possible. The publication date was moved to mid-August. Around that time, I learned that New York magazine was planning to run a feature on the book and Trumps financial and marital dramas. I was asked to provide a picture of myself to accompany the story. My private dread was that the caption would be something like He edited this dog. I called Ed Kosner, New Yorks editor, whom I knew slightly, and asked him if he would leave me out if I could find a better picture than mine to go with the story. He told me to try.

Along with Carol Schneider, Random Houses publicity director, I studied contact sheets of snapshots taken at the Mirage party. We found one of Trump with Newhouse, Vitale, Evans, and John Updike. That satisfied Kosner, and I was spared, although I was quoted in the piece saying that we had positive expectations for the book, which was to be titled Surviving at the Top.

Random House shipped hundreds of thousands of copies. Reviews this time were sparse and not altogether friendly. In the Times, Michael Lewis wrote that the book was a portrait of an ego gone haywire. Nevertheless, the book spent seven weeks in the top fifteen on the Times best-seller list. Warner Books bought the paperback rights for a million dollars. (They changed the title to The Art of Survival and released it in July, 1991.)

I havent looked at the book since, but I found a copy recently and discovered that it included a paragraph excerpted from a Times editorial that was published shortly after the Journal story about Trumps finances broke. The paragraph closed: Arrogance? For sure, and yet in a world lacking individual heroes, even some of Donalds critics must confess to a sneaking respect for his insistence on being himself, however outrageous, and catch themselves hoping that hell find the strength and luck to escape.

With Surviving now in the past, my regular contacts with Trump came to an end. He continued to flounder in business. In 1990, Trump hired Stephen Bollenbach, who was previously the C.F.O. of the company that owned Holiday Inn, and gave him a mandate to straighten out Trumps debts. It would be hard to penetrate how Bollenbach undertook this task, but a number of Trump assets, including the Trump Shuttle, the Plaza Hotel, and his yacht were off-loaded. At the time, the word was that Bollenbach put Trump on a four-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar monthly allowance. In two years, Trump was apparently out of the worst trouble. When I asked Trump how he had found Bollenbach and persuaded him to salvage his finances and the standing of the Trump Organization, he said he had read about him in Businessweek. Like that.

I am often asked if I regret having been the editor of the book that made Trump a national figure. The answer is no. I was trained in journalism and Trump was a terrific story. I was tasked by Si Newhouse to manage him on that first book. On the second book, I was working with a successful repeat author. A decade or so after the publication of The Art of the Deal, I was asked to edit a third Trump opus. By then, I could sense that my time at Random House was coming to an end. I was eager to start a small publishing company called PublicAffairs. I left Random House a year before The Art of the Comeback was published, in 1997. And that is a fact that I definitely have never regretted, then or any time since.

A previous version of this post misidentified an attendee at the book party.

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Editing Donald Trumps The Art of the Deal - The New Yorker

Healthy food concept.

Rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality. Unlimited possibility and abstract creativity can procure nothing. The limitation, and the basis arising from what is already actual, are both of them necessary and interconnected. Alfred North Whitehead

I have always been a fan of limitations. I know this way of thinking doesnt fit in with todays message of pushing back against self-limiting beliefs and cultivating an abundance mindset. Where many people seek a life where they need nothing and succeed at everything, I believe that abundance and unchallenged success holds us back from being the best we can be. Instead, we must welcome restrictions, economic, temporal and emotional, to create bigger and better things for ourselves and others. When Ive had few resources and have hit bottom, these are the times when my best ideas have sprung to life. Its during these sparse times that Ive found that limitations are crucial to maintaining my creativity.

Limitations Can Work Towards Our Benefit

Limitations can indeed be advantageous, but only if you have the sight to recognize the upside of the meager offerings life is handing you at the moment. How you view these limitations either promotes or shuts down your creativity. Ask yourself this question, When I have been limited on time or resources, have I found creative options?

Imagine youre packing lunches for the kids and you have everything imaginable in the fridge. Having ingredients for any lunch item your kids want would make preparing meals easier, but it also means you wouldnt have to twist and challenge your brain to find something nutritious and delicious to prepare for them. Why is this struggle important? Well, according to researchers, obstacles exercise the brain and are necessary to keep us moving forward. Limitations give us the boost we dont realize we need to create something epic and wholly new.

Innovation Is the Reaction to Limitations

When there is a shortage of something, this gives us the chance to dig into our creative inclinations. In this space of lack, we innovate change and promote advancement. For creative individuals, that innovation is a positive reaction to limitations.

Take, for example, a 2015 study that investigatedhow people think when they experience a lack of something versus how the thinking process changes when they achieve abundance. The study showed a massive difference between the creativity and the innovation of people who had many resources and little challenges compared to those who had greater limitations. Individuals who were living in a state of scarcity, economic, emotional or both, could create more using fewer resources because the limitation motivated them to carve their own way.

I want to take a moment to emphasize that I am not a fan of being on the brink of famine and starving ones creativity to innovate more. Thats not what Im saying at all. The point I want to make is that were not always going to have an abundance of resources at hand when we need to come up with fast solutions. This is true in business and our personal lives. What we do have is control over how we view the situation. Thinking of limitations as blessings instead of burdens lets us grasp onto the limitation and ride with it through all the twists and turns to a place where we find solutions we would never have thought of if we didnt have those challenges.

A couple of years ago, I heard about the Japanese floral art call Ikebana. The method behind the art is to work deliberately to limit itself to create floral art that is sharper and more beautiful using limited resources. The idea intrigued me, and I wanted to try a self-limiting experiment of my own to sharpen my creativity, but Im not a floral artist by any stretch of the imagination. So, I went on a clothing diet. I decided that for 12 months, I would not allow myself to own more than 36 pieces of clothing. It was a relatively harmless and accessible challenge that is easy for most people to try, and it expanded my perception of how much I can do with so little.

Its actually quite beautiful how creativity thrives when its limited. Consider Twitters unique platform, which forces you to communicate ultra-briefly. Although the restriction can seem quite limiting, it forces you to make your communication concise, sharp and witty.

As we move into a new year and a new decade, I challenge anyone reading this to consider embracing your limited resources. Find the space within whatever you lack to create something that is yours and no one else. Time and money never guarantee success or happiness but leaning into our lack is where we can shine the most and find more abundance and joy than we ever imagined. So, limit yourself and discover limitless opportunities!

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Appreciate The Possibilities In Limited Living - Forbes

KEITH Flint's prized possessions including a 20,000 gothic bed and his iconic nose ring are being sold at auction this week.

Around 170 items belonging to the Prodigy legend go under the hammer on Thursday after his death in March.

Other treasured possessions include a gold chest of drawers, an MTV award, an archive of solo music recordings, artworks and his clothes.

Singer Keith, 49, took his own life at his home in Essex in March.

He rose to fame in the 1990s in the Brit Award-winning electronic band, who were known for hits including Firestarter and Breathe.

The sale at Cheffins in Cambridge on Thursday will help settle his estates 7.3m debts.

It reflects the frontman's personal taste in art and fashion, as well as his interests in music and beyond.

Among the items are music awards and presentation discs from around the world, commemorating the global success of The Prodigy.

COLD AS ICE Snow 'to hit Britain this week' in coldest November of the DECADE

CHICKEN LITTLE Mum finds Sainsbury's chicken meant for family of 5 is smaller than a FORK

'I DARE YOU!' Furious mum confronts her son's bully and rages 'I'll rip your face off'

mr luck Man who won 'punching above weight' gong & 1m Lotto spends it on his autistic kids

BONFIRE CHAOS Yobs bombard cops with fireworks & boy, 17, stabbed in Bonfire Night violence

'ULTIMATE SACRIFICE' Last pic of parents who drank poison before mum was accused of murder

Auctioneer Martin Millard said: The items highlight the difference between Keiths stage persona and his private life.

"Valuing items with such provenance is almost impossible, and therefore we will not be publishing any pre-sale estimates, but expect there to be lots to cater to most budgets."

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Keith Flints prized possessions including 20k mythical beast bed and iconic nose ring up for auction after - The Sun

I was 15 when the Berlin Wall came down. Everything changed: the east adopted not just the West German currency, but all its laws and rules and values. Thousands of companies were privatised within four years of the wall falling millions lost their jobs, and millions more migrated to the west in search of better paid work. In 1994, only 18% of East German employees still worked at the same place as they had in 1991, according to the historian Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk.

There were new and often completely disorientating experiences for many: unemployment had not existed in the GDR. No one even knew the meaning of betriebsbedingte kndigung compulsory redundancy or where unemployment benefits came from. In the GDR, work had been so much more than a source of income; life revolved around the workplace. Companies often had their own singing or sports clubs, and their own childcare and health services. My dad, a metal worker, lost his job after the unification. It was a shock he felt guilty and ashamed. But it took him years to find the words to express his feelings. I didnt realise the gravity of the situation, he said to me 20 years later.

The AfD's success in the east has spurred debate: they have freedom yet they're still so angry. What is wrong with them?

Everyday life was dramatically altered after 1989, from the price of rent to the way health insurance was organised. Most people struggled to find a sure footing in the new world. Many were overwhelmed by these events but they were unlikely to speak openly about it.

My father worked again, but on and off; in the 90s and early 00s there remained a lot of economic problems in the east, despite the overall prosperity of Germany. Today, GDP per capita in the east is around 20% lower than in the west; wages and salaries are 15% lower. Not a single major corporation has its headquarters in the east.

I went to a boarding school in Eisenhttenstadt, an industrial town near the Polish border. The town has lost more than half of its population since 1990 several housing districts have been demolished altogether, and a whole generation is missing. Even today, if you are a young person in eastern Germany and want a traditional, well-paid career in a large corporation, you have to leave your hometown and go west.

In the 90s, most people in the east had quite different existential problems. The unification of Germany was not between equals but between a poor, community-orientated, working-class society and a wealthy, middle-class society that prized self-improvement.

In the 00s, the pace of change slowed, but that was also a time when nobody wanted to hear stories from the east. There was no room at all for criticism of the west in public debate. Major media outlets, headquartered in the west, often indulged in cliched portrayals of east Germans, mainly as Stasi officers, neo-Nazis or unemployed. If anyone criticised the hardships of the transformation, they were very quickly discredited as Jammerossi the whining east German.

For a lot of west Germans, nothing changed with the fall of the wall it seemed that the Bundesrepublic just got a bit bigger with unification. The hardest thing most of them had to stomach was the change of the postcodes and, as the joke went, that the chocolate bar Raider was suddenly renamed Twix. It seemed that capitalism and democracy had won, that the world would only become more free, more open.

It is often stunning to see how little west Germans know about history and culture of the GDR. I knew nothing about East Germany, I felt mentally and emotionally much closer to France or England, said a woman who invited me to a talk in Cologne. On a book tour in west Germany a couple of years ago, I often felt that, to those who came along, the east seemed as far away as Beijing.

The official narrative over the past 30 years has been of unification as a great German success story. But in the last few years, the divisions between east and west have grown deeper than ever. The electoral successes of the far-right AfD in eastern federal states such as Saxony and Brandenburg has prompted much media debate about what the matter is with the east. They have freedom and yet they are still so angry. What is wrong with them?

One government survey found 57% of east Germans feel like second-class citizens. But another study by the Pew Research Centre has found that, despite much hardship, life satisfaction has dramatically improved for east Germans since the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1991, only 15% of east Germans felt happy about their personal life; in 2019, it was 59%.

These statistics are not as contradictory as they might first appear. For a long time, east Germans lacked the inner freedom, the time and simply the words to explain how the transformation of their world after 1989/90 affected them. Disappointment may have been brewing for a long time, but it was not openly discussed or heard. But since life satisfaction has improved for east Germans, people have become more capable of expressing what happened to them over the previous 30 years. People needed to find stability in their personal life in order to be able to express their anger and frustrations.

In 2019, the debate in Germany is finally changing: other voices and perspectives have taken the floor. Previously taboo topics are now being talked about, maybe for the first time since 1990: the trauma of the post-unification period; the controversial heritage of the Treuhand the institution which oversaw the privatisation of thousands of state-owned companies; the lack of representation of east Germans in leading positions around the country (Angela Merkels years as chancellor continue to be the high-profile exception to this rule).

Many west Germans might now begin to realise, for the first time since 1989, that the end of communism and the dismantling of a dictatorship wasnt such a clearcut victory. Something was also lost. The end of the GDR opened up many opportunities for the east Germans, but it also made them more sensitive to change. There is a fear of suddenly losing the life satisfaction they have built up in the years since 1989.

A lot of the things that are a source of pain in east Germany rural exodus, ageing populations, lack of infrastructure are problems that permeate everywhere: throughout Germany and in many western societies with growing inequality. Its about time that a proper debate about these issues takes place.

Sabine Rennefanz is a writer for Berliner Zeitung

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I was a teenager in East Germany when the Wall fell. Today we are still divided - The Guardian

Pebble, of course, was eventually acquired by Fitbit, which makes Googles purchase today a kind of wearable turducken, as CNETs Scott Stein put it on Twitter. Jawbone failed, badly. Basis Science sold itself to Intel. Misfit went to Fossil. Lark become a software company focused on chronic conditions. Mio Global was split into two businesses; the software still exists under a different name, while its hardware became a part of Lifesense. Microsoft never bothered to ship another Band.

Fitbit continued to develop new wrist wearables at a steady pace, evolving its product line from clip-on trackers to wristbands to a sport watch to smartwatches and back again to lightweight wristbands. Since its inception, Fitbit has sold nearly 100 million devices.

Fitbit has really been an early success story, says Jitesh Ubrani, research director at IDC. They were early in the space, and they became the de facto standard. Consumers would look at other wearables and still call it a Fitbit.

That wouldnt always be the case, though, and analysts say two major factors contributed to this: The launch of the shiny, covetable Apple Watch in the spring of 2015, and the squeeze from Chinese electronics giants Xiaomi and Huawei. Xiaomis Mi Band, launched in 2014, cost just $15, and could do most of the things a $130 Fitbit could do.

On the day that Fitbit became a publicly-traded company, in June of 2015, Fitbit cofounder and CEO James Park sat for an interview on Marketplace that might be haunting him a bit today.

Lets say, just for arguments sake, Tim Cook comes to you and says, Ill give you, James, $2 billion for your company. What do you say? the reporter asks Park.

Um, Park says, and after a pause continues, Weve never really been focused on exits as a company. Really, the key to our success has been being really heads-down and focused on growing the business over the years.

Well Worn

Now that Google has scooped up Fitbit, the question becomes whether its good for the personal health-tracking market that few wearable startups still exist, and that the power and control over our data lies in the hands of a few giants: Apple, Google, Samsung, and prominent Chinese companies whose internal operations are even more opaque.

Thats what regulators will likely be asking as they examine the deal. In the immediate term, Google says it will never sell personal information to anyone and that Fitbit health and wellness data will not be used for Google ads. Fitbit, likewise, says the company never sells personal information, and that Fitbit health and wellness data wont be used for Google ads. (Both companies declined requests for interviews.)

One of the potential negatives for consumers, says Ubrani, is that even if Google vows not to sell ads against your health data, it could find other creative ways to monetize whatever youre sharing through your wrist.

They have the data, so they can tie software and services together to try to sell more of their other services, he says. Thats both the upside and downside of interoperability, of your software working across your phone, your laptop, your smartwatch, or potentially even your smart glasseswhen it works, it works, but its another access point into your life for one of the tech giants.

Consumers may also be rightfully concerned about privacy and security. Facebooks privacy missteps have been a watershed moment for these issues in the tech sector, Ubrani says, and privacy policies are being scrutinized more.

But ultimately, its these same large tech companies that should, in theory, have the resources to address privacy and security problems as they pertain to consumer health, too. When it comes to my own data, I would trust a much larger company that has checks and balances in place and the resources to secure my data, Ubrani says, because they also have the best talent thats out there.

Read more from the original source:
What Google's Fitbit Buy Means for the Future of Wearables - WIRED

If past experience is anything to go by, Donald Trump will shortly be tweeting from the comfort of his bathroom to the effect that the soon-to-be-former Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky is a stone cold loserthat Trump has never actually met and who, even if he had met him, would not have been impressed. This, of course, despite the fact that Trump himself turned up in Kentucky on the eve of a rally for his Republican colleagueand declared to the audience that seeing Bevin lose to the Democrats sends a really bad message, pleading with his supporters, you cant let that happen to me!

Well, they did.

It was a fairly impressive win for the DemocratsAndy Beshear, who has declared victory though, at the time of writing,his opponent is yet to concede. He's the son of a previous Democrat governor, Steve Beshear, who Bevin beat in the 2015 contest, and although tight 49.2 per cent to 48.8 per cent with a 2 per cent poll for a Libertarian the swing from four years ago was a fairly impressive 4.5 per cent or so.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

The embarrassing thing is obviously the way that a personal appeal by no less a figure than the president himself should have been met with such a loud raspberry from Kentuckians the turnout was a pretty healthy one. If Trump, in other words, was to be on course and likely to win himself a second term in November 2020, then his party really ought to be holding places such as Kentucky, especially after Trump expended so much precious political capital there.

One of the oddities of the Trump phenomenon is that he does have the aura of a winnereven when he is losing. The bitterest example of that was the 2016 election itself when, never let it be neglected, he lost the popular vote whilst winning the Electoral College, and even there not overwhelmingly. No complaints there, because America has a Federal Constitution for a reason. But it serves as an example and emblem of that strange Trumpian quality of self belief a quality that, as we are all aware, can mutate into delusion.

Trump claimed to have fired Bolton, his national security adviser, while Bolton claimed he offered to resign. An anonymous White House source that Bolton's departure came as a result of the national security adviser working too independently of the president

AFP/Getty

Scaramucci lasted only six days in his role as Trump's communications director before being fired by John Kelly, the incoming chief of staff

Getty

Rick Perry announced his resignation just as he became embroiled in the president's impeachment scandal. The White House said Mr Perry was asked by Donald Trump to work with Rudy GIuliani in regards to Ukraine.

AP

Tillerson, Trump's first secretary of state, was fired after a series of clashes with the president over policy

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Mattis served as secretary of defense from the beginning of Trump's administration until retiring on 1 January 2019. However, the president later claimed that he had "essentially fired" Mattis

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Comey was fired as director of the FBI early in Trump's presidency after serving in the role for four years prior. His dismissal is widely thought to have been related to the Russia investigation

Getty

Priebus, Trump's first chief of staff, was forced out after six tumultuous months

AFP/Getty

Veterans affairs secretary Shulkin claims that he was fired, the White House claims that he resigned

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Kelly, Trump's second chief of staff, was forced out after 17 months in office. His departure was a confused affair though it is clear that Trump wanted Kelly out

AFP/Getty

Flynn lasted 24 days as Trump's national security adviser before being fired for lying to the FBI

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Cisna served as director of citizen and immigration services between October 2017 and June 2019 before being asked to resign amid a major personnel change in the department of homeland security

Westerhout served as Trump's personal assistant after leaking private information about his family

AFP/Getty

Ricardel was forced out of her role as Deputy National Security Advisor after first lady Melania Trump publicly called for her to be fired

Trump claimed to have fired Bolton, his national security adviser, while Bolton claimed he offered to resign. An anonymous White House source that Bolton's departure came as a result of the national security adviser working too independently of the president

AFP/Getty

Scaramucci lasted only six days in his role as Trump's communications director before being fired by John Kelly, the incoming chief of staff

Getty

Rick Perry announced his resignation just as he became embroiled in the president's impeachment scandal. The White House said Mr Perry was asked by Donald Trump to work with Rudy GIuliani in regards to Ukraine.

AP

Tillerson, Trump's first secretary of state, was fired after a series of clashes with the president over policy

Getty

Mattis served as secretary of defense from the beginning of Trump's administration until retiring on 1 January 2019. However, the president later claimed that he had "essentially fired" Mattis

Getty

Comey was fired as director of the FBI early in Trump's presidency after serving in the role for four years prior. His dismissal is widely thought to have been related to the Russia investigation

Getty

Priebus, Trump's first chief of staff, was forced out after six tumultuous months

AFP/Getty

Veterans affairs secretary Shulkin claims that he was fired, the White House claims that he resigned

Getty

Kelly, Trump's second chief of staff, was forced out after 17 months in office. His departure was a confused affair though it is clear that Trump wanted Kelly out

AFP/Getty

Flynn lasted 24 days as Trump's national security adviser before being fired for lying to the FBI

Getty

Cisna served as director of citizen and immigration services between October 2017 and June 2019 before being asked to resign amid a major personnel change in the department of homeland security

Westerhout served as Trump's personal assistant after leaking private information about his family

AFP/Getty

Ricardel was forced out of her role as Deputy National Security Advisor after first lady Melania Trump publicly called for her to be fired

So Trump flopping, even by proxy, is seen as thing of a shockwhen it should anything but. He has consistently negative approval ratings, after all, and he lags any of his various Democrat opponents in the opinion polls.

Of course they can all be tuned over, and in the crucible of a real contest, as we witnesses in 2016, Trump is a formidable, no holds barred, uncompromising and brutal sort of political brawler.

There is another irony here, because Trump hasnt been such a failure as president, or at least as bad as his enemies would like to suppose. After all, the US economy is booming. Yet such success as Trump has enjoyed on the economy, on repatriatingjobs to America, on building his Mexican wall, and on bringing the troops home from the Middle East,hasnt been richly rewarded in public sympathy and gratitude.

For a reality TV star who has built much of his business empire on the projection of a certain powerful image, it is that very image aggressive, childish, sexist, racist, the bragging, the fragile ego, the whole House chaos, the sackings, the scandals, the spats with foreign leaders, the Russian stuff, the impeachment crisis, the international scorn that seems to be letting him down. Americans dont seem to be able to link such successes as the administration has had with the president himself. It is as if the policies are succeeding, to the extent that they are, despite Trumps efforts rather than because of them.

A single gubernatorial contest in one relatively small state doesnt mean the end of Trump. It does, however, draw some much-needed attention to the fundamental weakness in Trumps political appeal as an incumbent, as opposed to an insurgent:how little liked and, more crucially, how little respected he is among so many Americans as their head of government and head of state.

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The truth is that, outside the base, they probably never liked Trump much. Theylike himeven less now, and theyre not especially impressed by his time in office, whatever his positive achievements.

So long as the Democrats dont actually scare the voters away, the 2020 presidential contest looks like it is theirs to lose even for sleepy Joe Biden. It is not a good place for a president seeking a second term to find himself a year out from polling day.

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Donald Trump lost Kentucky for the Republicans the 2020 presidential election is now the Democrats' to lose - The Independent

A drag show? Gay rights? Body image issues? Hardly the stuff of Disney animation, but 30 years ago, Disneys The Little Mermaid tackled these topics and made a courageous statement about identity in Reagan-era America. Moreover, the movie not only saved the company from almost certain death, but allowed Disney to become the international corporate juggernaut we know today.

Without the brave storytellers and desperate animators of The Little Mermaid, moviegoers would have missed out on the new classics of Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994). And without the profits from those films, Disney would not have had the capital to build new parks and resorts, invest in new media ventures, or expand its urban planning program, let alone gobble up Pixar, Marvel, Fox, the Star Wars universe, National Geographic, ESPN, A&E and Hulumoves entirely unthinkable back in the 1980s, when the corporation was in its darkest hour.

When Walt Disney died suddenly in 1966, his company was left aimless. The creative atmosphere for which the Company has so long been famous and on which it prides itself has, in my opinion, become stagnant, wrote Walts nephew Roy E. Disney in his 1977 resignation letter from Walt Disney Productions (though he retained his seat on the board). Uncle Walt had personally overseen almost every project, and without his direction, production slowed and revenue declined. The animation studio kept cranking out films, but they were expensive to make, spent years in production, and lacked the inspiration of earlier classics. Features like The Aristocats (1970), Robin Hood (1973) and Petes Dragon (1977) failed at the box office and seemed out of place in a new era of gritty Hollywood film noir. Movies were the lifeblood of Disney, and the company was suffering. To make matters worse, Walt Disney World opened in central Florida in 1971 (followed by EPCOT in 1982), costing a fortune but yielding little profit.

By 1984, stock prices sagged, wages were cut, layoffs ensued, and corporate raiders circled. To prevent a hostile takeover, Disneys Board of Directors, led by Roy E. Disney, brought in a brash young executive from ABC and Paramount: Michael Eisner. Though he had no experience with animation and no personal connection to Disney (according to journalist James Stewarts searing expos Disney War, Eisner had not seen a Disney film until adulthood and had never even visited Disneyland), the new CEO was confident he could save the company by cutting costs, eliminating Walt-era traditions, and focusing on television and live-action films. Eisner was fanatical at keeping costs low to earn a profit, wrote Stewart.

Disney traditionalists were aghast, but the plan seemed to work. With Eisner at the helm, the studio produced inexpensive hits like Three Men and a Baby (1987), as well as several popular tv shows, including The Golden Girls (1985). Eisner also realized the untapped profit potential of the Disney parks, so he authorized new top-tier attractions (like Splash Mountain), created new luxury hotels, and opened Disney-MGM Studios (now Disneys Hollywood Studios) and Typhoon Lagoon in 1989.

The cash flow returned, and the company became financially viable again. Eisners achievement seemed to prove that Disney no longer needed animation. (1989s Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, though featuring classic animated characters, was truly more of a live-action film.) Sure, Disney animators produced a couple of modest successes, such as The Great Mouse Detective (1986) and Oliver & Co (1988), but they were far too expensive for the cost-conscious Eisner. Animation, according to the CEO, simply wasnt worth the money, time, and risk. Thus, he put animation on notice: Find a way to be quick and profitable, or youre dead. To emphasize the point, Stewart reported, Eisner banished animators from their beloved historic Burbank studio (where Walt had once roamed the halls) to a warehouse in Glendale on the other side of Los Angeles. This might be the beginning of the end, lamented animator Andreas Deja in a bonus making of feature on The Little Mermaid DVD. The writing is on the wall, weve got to prove ourselves, added animator Glen Keane.

It was time for a Hail Mary pass. Animators knew they had to do something dramatically different to save Walts studio from the suits, so they turned to Broadways most innovative team: writer-producer Howard Ashman and lyricist Alan Menken. Fresh off the success of their smash hit Little Shop of Horrors (with its satirical songs and gruesome humor), Ashman and Menken were skeptical about working for Disney, which to many young artists was a conservative old company stuck in the 1950s, symbolic of an intolerant past rather than an expansive future. Nevertheless, the duo agreed to sign on as long as they had complete artistic control and the freedom to explore taboo topics.

At the suggestion of director Ron Clements, studio chiefs decided to pursue the Hans Christian Andersen tale The Little Mermaid, except with a happy ending and a central villain. (In the original story, the mermaid does not get the prince. Instead, she faces a variety of antagonists and ends up committing suicide.) Ashman got right to work, transforming the depressing 19th-century yarn into a dynamic Broadway spectacle.

In classic Disney animated features of old, plot was advanced through dialogue, and songs were incidental. For instance, in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the song Whistle While you Work does nothing to move the plot forward. Ashman and Menken approached the films book as they would a Broadway musical, using songs to impart critical plot points and character development. Music tells the audience everything they need to know about Ariel: The song Part of Your World, for instance, is a classic example of the I Want trope of American musical theater. They approached it like a Broadway musical, recalled Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel, in the DVD documentary. It is something totally different. The characters actually run out of words, cant express themselves anymore, and it has to come out in song.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, former chairman of the studio, added, I dont know where the knowledge came from, [and] I dont know how it came to be, but man, [Ashman] just understood it.

Ashman, like young Walt Disney, oversaw every aspect of the creative process. He invented the characters, defined their personalities, and coached the voice actors on their performances. He was brilliant, remembered Pat Carroll (the voice of Ursula), in the documentary, of the time when Ashman enacted Poor Unfortunate Souls. I watched every body move of his, I watched everything, I watched his face, I watched his hands, I ate him up!

A gay man in 1980s America, Ashman had personal experience with the culture wars over family values and gay rights. The Reagan Revolution marked the arrival of the long-brewing marriage of the Republican Party with conservative Christians and included a platform that was unfriendly to gay rights, to say the least. President Reagan ignored the AIDS epidemic that swept the nation (refusing to appropriate any federal funds for research or treatment), and Republicans in general claimed the gay plague was Gods punishment for homosexuality. Ashman saw the film as an opportunity to advance a social message through the medium of family entertainment. The last thing Americans would expect from Disney was a critique of patriarchy, but sure enough, Ashmans The Little Mermaid is a gutsy film about gender and identitya far cry from the staid Disney catalog.

The central story of The Little Mermaid is, of course, 16-year-old Ariels identity crisis. She feels constrained by her patriarchal mer-society and senses she doesnt belong. She yearns for another world, apart from her own, where she can be free from the limits of her rigid culture and conservative family. Her body is under the water, but her heart and mind are on land with people. She leads a double life. She is, essentially, in the closet (as symbolized by her cavernor closetof human artifacts, where the character-building song Part of Your World takes place).

When Ariel ventures to tell her friends and family about her secret identity, they chastise her and tell her she must conform. She must meet her fathers expectations, sing on demand, perform for the public and give up all hopes of a different life. Her father, King Triton, even has her followed by a court official. In her misery, Ariel flees to the sea witch Ursula, the only strong female in the entire film and thus Ariels only female role model. At this point, the movie becomes truly subversive cinema.

Conceived by Ashman, Ursula is based on the famous cross-dressing performer Divine, who was associated with the openly gay filmmaker John Waters. As scholar Laura Sells explained in a 1995 anthology of essays, Ursulas Poor Unfortunate Souls song is essentially a drag show instructing the naive mermaid on how to attract Prince Eric (who is conspicuously uninterested in Ariel and most content at sea with his all-male crew and manservant Grimsby). In Ursulas drag scene, Sells wrote, Ariel learns that gender is performance; Ursula doesnt simply symbolize woman, she performs woman.

While teaching young Ariel how to get your man, Ursula applies makeup, exaggerates her hips and shoulders, and accessorizes (her eel companions, Flotsam and Jetsam, are gender neutral)all standard tropes of drag. And dont underestimate the importance of body language!, sings Ursula with delicious sarcasm. The overall lesson: Being a woman in a mans world is all about putting on a show. You are in control; you control the show. Sells added, Ariel learns gender, not as a natural category, but as a performed construct. Its a powerful message for young girls, one deeply threatening to the King Tritons (and Ronald Reagans) of the world.

In short, Ursula represents feminism, the fluidity of gender, and young Ariels empowerment. Ariel can be anything she wants, yet she chooses the role of young bride and human conformity. To ensure Ariels transition to domesticity, the men of her life murder Ursula with a conveniently phallic symbol, according to Patrick D. Murphy: or, as Sells puts it, the ritual slaughtering of the archetypal evil feminine character. Either way, the movie implicitly offers a dark and disturbing message about the limits of American society in the late 1980s.

Nevertheless, audiences and critics adored the film, and the Hail Mary paid off, grossing a whopping-for-the-time $222 million worldwide won two Academy Awards. Los Angeles Times reviewer Michael Wilmington called The Little Mermaid a big leap over previous animated features, and Janet Maslin of the New York Times hailed it as the best animated Disney film in at least 30 years, destined for immortality. Still, most reviewers failed to observe the films culturally subversive messages, even as they recognized what made Ariel unique. Roger Ebert, to his credit, described Ariel as a a fully realized female character who thinks and acts independently.

One of the films few negative reviewers, Hal Hinson of the Washington Posthe described the movie as only passable and unspectactular at least lauded Disney for delivering a heroine who has some sense of what she wants and the resources to go after it, even if she looks like Barbara Eden on I Dream of Jeannie. (Wilmington, while catching the Divine allusion, couldnt help but objectify Ariels appearance, describing her as a sexy little honey-bunch with a double-scallop-shell bra and a mane of red hair tossed in tumble-out-of-bed Southern California salon style.) A 1989 screening of the film at the University of Southern California likewise yielded questions about feminist interpretations, but nothing about identity, gender, or gay rights.

Nevertheless, Disney animation was saved. Howard Ashman had proven that Disney films could be far more than sleeping princesses and pixies. Eisner grudgingly accepted the victory and green-lit a new project, Beauty and the Beast, which followed the same Broadway formula and was designed by the Mermaid team of Ashman, Menken, and Clements. Tragically, Ashman died of AIDS in March 1991, just months before the films November premiere.

Ashman never saw how his bold creative vision ushered in a new era of Disney prosperity. Profits from The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin permitted energetic expansion of the Disney corporation into almost every facet of American life. Disney leads the world in the production and distribution of popular culture, observed media studies professor Lee Artz in a 2005 essay. None challenge Disney as the primary purveyor of entertainment nor approach its perennial popularity and box-office success in animated feature films. Indeed, animation is central to Disneys economic vitality and cultural influence.

Disney is beyond doubt an exemplary model of the new face of corporate power at the beginning of the twenty-first century, wrote leading Disney critical Henry A. Giroux in 2010. The money from The Lion King alone paved the way for a fourth park in central Florida: Disneys Animal Kingdom. And the revenue from all these new ventures allowed Disney to corner global media and merchandising markets, making the company one of the most powerful megacorporations in the world.

Not too shabby for a courageous Broadway visionary and a team of desperate animators who were willing to push social boundaries, advocating a message of gender fluidity and female empowerment that wouldnt become widely acceptable until much later.

View original post here:
'The Little Mermaid' Was Way More Subversive Than You Realized - Smithsonian.com

Live Free or Die

Four 21st Century Black women, a Doctor, a Lawyer, a CFO, and a Media Executive, discuss Harriet, the controversial movie about the slave who walked, swam,ran and bore arms to free herself and her people.

(WARNING: Contains spoilers!)

Black women were introduced to Harriet as children. When we first learned about the horrors of slavery, and later about its Black heroes like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman== our own Black Moses!We learned that Harriet used her courage, brilliance, and determination to free herself and hundreds of other slaves.

Today our Shero Harriet has a movie! Cynthia Erivo, a beautiful Nigerian British national, plays Harriet. Erivo turned Harriet Tubman into a real person, who experiences both unspeakablele tragedy and great triumph. We understand that Harriets heroism stems entirely from her faith in herself and God almighty. (What else could a Black person in 19th century America rely on?).

4 Black women friends of mine and I watched Harriet this weekend and took in her, now Hollywood story. We had a lot of thoughts.

Marie shows Harriet how to protect herself.

The Lawyer, Angela D: Together We Win

Theres a lot to say about this movie, but Ill focus on one relationship that reminded me of modern times: Harriets relationship with the bourgeois black woman, Marie, played by Janelle Monae. While I admire and want to be as fearless as Harriet Tubman, I identified with Marie, a free and independent Black woman who risked her economic and physical security to help other black people.

In Harriet and Maries first encounter, Marie tells Harriet that she wanted her to clean up because she smelled like a pack animal.Harriet took offense and rightfully threw shade. Responding with something akin to: Pardon my stench mademoiselle; we ordinary Blacks get a little funky running for our lives.This episode reminded me of the tension and the disconnect that sometimes exists,in the U.S., between Black people who are struggling and those who are seemingly better off.

Despite their differences, the ladies had a real relationship. Marie gives Harriet lessons on taking ones place in society, and she becomes Harriets close confidant and champion. They and we re-learn that when it comes to being a Black woman in America, both the formerly enslaved Harriet (the lowest of the low) and the freeborn, bourgeois Marie arent that different from each other. They are sisters in the struggle. Neither woman is safe in 19th century U.S. Society, and they need each other to win This is a good lesson for Black women even today.

The Doctor:Sarah W. :I Saw My Path In Her

Immediately after seeing Harriet, I sat down to write about my experience. Even though I already had a cursory knowledge about Harriet Tubman, I was still drawn into the story. I loved learning about the story of an enslaved woman who could no longer stand to have her freedom withheld.She not only made a great escape to the North, but she returned countless times to bring hundreds of other slaves to freedom. I dont think anyone else did that in U.S. history!

Music is a central part of the movies story.This movie soundtrack has lyrics that resonate; it will become a part of my daily playlist.

STAND UP

I do what I can when I can while I can for my people

While the clouds roll back and the stars fill the night

That's when I'm gonna stand up

Take my people with me

Together we are going

To a brand new home

Far across the river

Can you hear freedom calling?

Calling me to answer

Gonna keep on keepin' on

I can feel it in my bones

Stand Up is Harriets theme song, and it suits her. Harriet stood up and fought against the status quo. She was about freeing slaves in the now. She refused to sit and wait for war to make Blacks free. I do what I can when I can while I can for my people.

I was impressed by Harriets patience and perseverance. There were no shortcuts or easy passages in the Underground Railroad. She had to have the patience and tenacity to see things through.

In my own way, I understand her experience. There were no shortcuts for me through medical school or residency. They were a means to an end, freedom and self-sufficiency. My end is not nearly as iconic as Harriets, but I am (like her) still a unicorn among the 2% of physicians who are African American and female. I stand on the shoulders of Harriet and other extraordinary women. The prominent role that music serves in Harriet reminds me that because of these powerful women, I can.

Freeborn Marie meets Harriet for the first time.

The Financial Executive: Andrea M.:Code Switching, Then and Now

I first heard of Harriet Tubman as a second grader in the Bronx. I had an African-American teacher who taught Black History. Harriet was described as a woman of fortitude who would take on anyone who threatened the success of her mission. She seemed fearless to me.

While Harriet resonated with me, after her speech on how free Blacks had forgotten the hardships of slavery, I recognized my similarities to Marie. Marie was proud to have benefited from the efforts of her ancestors, and of having been born free. She recognized that respecting customs and class-based mannerisms was necessary to maneuver smoothly in the world. She employed the fashion, mannerisms, and diction of her oppressor to facilitate moving through his world with fluidity, and she thrived from doing so.

What Marie could do was, in modern parlance, code switch. Most professional women of color have done this. Whether were choosing earrings, dining with colleagues or drafting an email, we are cognizant of the nuances of these things to expedite our progress...or not.

Instead of portraying Marie and Harriet as potential rivals each with her unique assets used toward the end of her cause, the movie makes them sisters in the struggle. After an initial introduction and a comment about Harriets aroma upon arriving in Philadelphia, each woman recognizes that she has met a woman who will, on her worst day, look out for herself and be her own advocate. Indeed, the strength they recognized in each other would be tested and, Harriets sister in spirit does not disappoint when given a choice to spill secrets or keep them at her own peril. When tested, a sister of spirit could look her oppressor in the face and would sooner spit in his eye than betray her sister-no matter the cost.

Harriet also stands as an exemplar of courage that trait common to many heroes and heroines - not being free of fears, but of taking daring, often dangerous, actions in spite of them. She feared most what would happen to those she left behind in slavery, but she felt compelled to do what she could to free her family and others caught in slaverys terrible web. She confronted her fears through action. This was so powerful for me as Ive learned that there is no better balm for anxiety over what gives me worry than taking some action toward it. Harriet left her family and new husband, lost her sisters, and endured abuse to embark on a dangerous journey that no one thought shed complete. Many Black and brown folks operating in the modern world have also left home to create a personal and professional life for themselves. We may have experienced slights and subtle (or not-so-subtle) racism. We have also felt the distance between ourselves, family and/or close friends created by our different experiences. It was not absence of fear that allowed us to move forward but the knowledge that we could maintain our connection while adding another way of traveling in the world. Having both would not weaken us. We can recognize the fire in the eye of a sister in spirit.

Harriet, alone in her struggle for freedom.

The Media Executive: Michelle W.: The Commitments That Freedom Requires

I made a point of going to see Harriet opening weekend to help bolster the box office numbers of films featuring black artistsas I am personally invested in keeping the funding of these types of films going. So many of my black female friends had planned to go see the film since the first trailer aired over a year ago. Some saw advance screenings starting on Thursday. Some were inspired, others were disappointed, but most intended to see it again because their first session had been so clouded by their own emotional reactions that they didnt really remember what actually happened in the film.

Cynthia Erivos controversial retweets about Ghetto American accents also hovered over my mind as I watched.Was she the right choice? Could she carry an entire film authentically and make me forget?Though she was not helped by a weak script and uninspired directing more often than not Erivo delivered.

The film also too often revisits the stereotypes of the strong, black woman who emasculates her black male thus contributing to her perpetual singleness. Indeed, Harriets husband justifies marrying another free woman in her absence by saying he would have died for her had she let him.Ill simply say here I am sick of hearing this sh//t, but understand why its an easy go to theme.

But watching the Harriet movie as a free black woman in America in 2019, I couldnt help but wonder whether I was doing enough as a free person. I am very accomplished. Ive gone to all the right schools (Harvard College, Columbia Business School), had major accomplishments as a professional producer for major news networks. and now I am a media executive for a Fortune 15 companybut as I watched the films depictions of Harriet challenging the white and black Abolitionist Society in Auburn, NY, and indeed the entire slavocracy, I had to ask myself was I becoming complacent?

Despite its shortcomings, one leaves the film challenged by the concept of what is still required of individuals in defense of humanity. In todays society where we have a President facing impeachment. but still focused on building walls and othering people of different hues, what is the responsibility of we free people?

Overall, the film challenged me as a black woman and as a human being to keep going, to stumble, to fall, to get up, to be alone, to be lonely, to be unreasonable, to be unrelenting, to be accountable in this land of the freeto be free.

Harriet scored $12.6 million at the box office opening weekend. Ranking #4.

See the rest here:
4 Black Women Talk About Harriet And Her Lessons For Today - Forbes

When trying to lose weight, what to eat and what not to eat are two of the biggest questions we are faced with. And, let's get one thing straight right now, starving yourself is never an option. Starving yourself will slow down your body's metabolism, make you moody, cause depression, and can even end up permanently damaging your organs.

Now that we've established that, let's circle back to the first two questions again: what should you eat and what should you stop eating if you want to shed a couple of pounds in a healthy manner? 36-year-old Rahul Mann tells us that in his case (105 kgs to 85 kgs), following a low-cal diet plan and an active gym routine, helped turn the fat into ripped muscles very effectively.

Last year, in December, I was getting ready to go for a wedding, when I suddenly realised that both my shirt and trousers were so tight-fitting that they'd tear any minute now. And, I wasnt the only one who noticed this. My friends noticed it too and started mocking me. I weighed 105 kgs at this point, and decided to lose weight and get fit that instant, he informs.

Consequently, Mann came home and made the below weight loss plan to trim from 105 kgs to 85 kgs in 3 months.

To lose weight and get in an optimal shape, I started jogging and cycling along with weight training at the gym, he says.

But this was phase one of my weight loss plan, for phase two, I switched my regular meals with a low-cal diet comprising limited carbs and fats and a very high protein intake, he adds.

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I divided my diet into five meal plans and indulged in absolutely zero cheat meals while trying to lose weight during those three months.

Early Morning: A glass of warm water with honey and lemon, followed by an apple

Breakfast (Meal 1): 8 boiled egg whites with oatmeal

Mid-day snacks (Meal 2): Fruits and nuts OR sprouts with fat-free yogurt

Lunch (Meal 3): A big bowl of vegetable salad with 8 boiled egg whites and 2 whole eggs

Evening snack (Meal 4): A handful of nuts (pre-soaked almonds and walnuts) + a glass of freshly squeezed juice

Dinner (Meal 5): 150 grams of boiled chicken breast with a bowl of boiled dal, salad and fat-free yogurt

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A dedicated weekly workout routine helped me get ripped in the process as well. I would exercise for around two and a half hours a day, six days a week. This time was split in the following morning and evening breakdown:

Morning:

Evening:

Id begin this routine by sipping on a cup of strong black coffee and 4-5 dates or a banana as pre-workout snacks - 40 minutes prior to going to the gym."

"This is what my weight training schedule looked like:

Monday: Chest and triceps

Tuesday: Back, biceps and abs

Wednesday: Legs and shoulder

Thursday: Chest, triceps and abs

Friday: Back and biceps

Saturday: Functional training and abs

After getting done with this workout, Id take another scoop of protein powder to feed my muscles. I also ensured that I drank 3-4 litres of water, daily to stay hydrated.

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I have been able to maintain my weight and shape by sticking to the same diet regime but now I enjoy a cheat meal once a week. I have also reduced the duration of my cardio workouts now, but maintain the same weight training regime.

My only tip would be: stick on your target. Motivate yourself and work hard!

Disclaimer: The diet and workout routines shared by the respondents may or may not be approved by diet and fitness experts. GQ India doesn't encourage or endorse the weight loss tips & tricks shared by the person in the article. Please consult an authorised medical professional before following any specific diet or workout routine mentioned above.

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How to lose weight in 3 months like this guy who lost 20 kgs & built abs by following a low-cal diet plan - GQ India - What a man's got to do