*
SURPRISED BY MY OWN BREASTS
Suicide fantasies — last night I had them
like a meteor shower. Too late, I thought:
I should have done it
the time I stood with a Polish artist
on the roof of an abandoned factory.
I saw the leap, I saw
my body falling — falling —
onto the grimy street below,
a wino sleeping under cardboard,
the desolation of America
pulling me down like gravity.
He called me by my childhood
name, its three clear vowels
a Baltic seagull against
the polluted Los Angeles sky. Why
couldn’t I respond? Was it the year
I threw myself at an alcoholic
Vietnam veteran? I already was
a fallen woman, might as well
sleep with artists. Eros has
a twin brother, the one lover
who will never leave you —
one who kisses like the wind,
one who whispers: Die. Leap
into the night and shatter
in a million stars.
*
But in the morning when I woke up
I was surprised by my own breasts —
as if I saw them for the first time,
soft and female and defenseless,
the nipples like wild strawberries.
Why have we been of little use,
they seemed to ask, aren’t we sweet?
Warm from sleep, laced with the tendrils
of morning light, my body
waited. I’ll keep you,
I nodded to my breasts.
~ Oriana
Before I realized it was too late in life to be depressed, I reached the same conclusion about suicide — past a certain age, you might as well live and experience the journey to the very end. Just the surprises — nothing ever turned out exactly as I expected — make it interesting.
The morning when I woke up and felt for the first time an unexpected tenderness toward my breasts was a mild turning point toward a more loving attitude toward myself.
(A shameless digression: in retrospect I regret not having gotten involved with that Polish painter. For one thing, I was starved to hear the Polish endearments, much more musical and meaningful to me than those in any other language. But in my masochistic-suicidal mode, I let the moment pass. Here is another example that later we regret not what we did, but what we didn’t do.)
*
“I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.” ~ Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell
*
THE POSTHUMOUS LIVES OF ETHEL ROSENBERG
~ “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they executed the Rosenbergs . . .” So begins one of the great works of American 20th-century feminist literature. The Bell Jar was published just ten years after the execution of the Rosenbergs by a woman who called herself Victoria Lucas because she did not think highly enough of her novel’s literary merit. Sylvia Plath, relatively unknown at the time, had in fact written a novel powerfully recreating an era: a period of time that sentenced the Rosenbergs, when women were subjugated to a life of domesticity and not expected to stray into male spheres.
Above all, The Bell Jar symbolized a feeling of imprisonment, of being confined to a place in life from which there is no hope of escape. It was a semi-autobiographical rather than a political novel, for Plath had suffered her own mental breakdown that she was retelling through her heroine Esther Greenwood’s account of a year within the “Bell Jar.” Esther, whose very name is a variation of Esther Ethel Greenglass, feels the Bell Jar has at this moment lifted for her and she is returning to a healthy life after undergoing electroshock therapy at a mental asylum.
Nonetheless, she fears the return of her symptoms so that “wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.”
Ostensibly, The Bell Jar was not a book about Ethel Rosenberg, or at least it was not marketed as such when first published. But Sylvia Plath had spent the summer of 1953 in New York City, having won a writing competition that gave her a chance to sample an editorship at Mademoiselle magazine. The one event she remembered clearly that month was the electrocution of the Rosenbergs.
After Plath’s compelling opening, Ethel appears only once again in the narrative as an explicit presence. This is when Esther’s friend Hilda reacts to Esther’s constant ruminations about the horror of Ethel’s impending execution that night: “‘Yes!’ Hilda said, and at last I felt I had touched a human string in the cat’s cradle of her heart. It was only as the two of us waited for the others in the tomb-like morning gloom of the conference room that Hilda amplified that ‘Yes’ of hers. ‘It’s awful such people should be alive.’”
The Bell Jar illustrates the degree to which Ethel’s fate continued to grip the American imagination in the long aftermath of her execution, even when she hovered offstage. It was as if different visions of Ethel, and more broadly the whole Rosenberg case, could be invested with a wider meaning to sum up an era defined by political paranoia and repression.
Indirectly in The Bell Jar, Ethel’s imagined spirit infuses every fiber of what Esther Greenwood is suffering—not simply her imprisonment, but the madness of an America that incarcerated so many women in different ways during the early 1950s. In this patriarchal society any clever woman was bound to feel repressed or a failure unless she aspired to the traditional ideals of being a homemaker and mother, and nothing more. Seen in this context, it is easy to imagine why Sylvia Plath, via her semi-autobiographical heroine Esther, could fixate on the brutal electrocution of Ethel and the ill-fitting pads attached to her head, having had her own dose of ECT a month after Ethel’s killing. In 1953 this was still a relatively new treatment with a horrifically similar procedure, involving electrodes placed on her head and chest and a small amount of electric current passed through her brain intended to relieve her depression.
“It had nothing to do with me,” comments Esther in the novel, talking about the Rosenberg story, “but I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves.”
More than three decades after The Bell Jar was published, the Irish American writer Mary Cantwell borrowed its evocative first words for the start of her 1995 memoir, Manhattan, When I Was Young: “because that’s the way I remember my first summer in New York too.” In those hot, overbearing months, Cantwell recalled in particular a newsstand near her subway stop, “and every day the headlines screamed the Rosenbergs’ impending death. The headlines terrified me because my boyfriend [later her husband] was Jewish.”
Cantwell described how, when her mother was introduced to him, she asked his religion and he replied “atheist.” “She paused and said in her nicest voice, ‘Does that mean you’re a Communist?’” Cantwell’s boyfriend said no, but she knew that his aunt and uncle had been Communists: “the weekend we spent at their cabin in the Catskills, smearing cream cheese on toast, was torture because they reminded me of the Rosenbergs and I thought we would all be arrested and I, too, would die in the chair.”
Cantwell’s story distills the way many Americans in the 1950s reflexively assumed that Jews were Communists. “There was an evident quota of anti-Semitism in the McCarthy wave of hysteria. Jews in that period were automatically suspect. Our evaluation of the general mood was that the people felt if you scratch a Jew you can find a Communist,” recalled Arnold Forster of the American Jewish Committee, a strongly antiCommunist organization. In reality the Rosenberg case split the Jewish community during the Truman and Eisenhower years as profoundly as it divided the entire country, right up to the Supreme Court.
After all, 1953 was only eight or so years after the revelation of the Holocaust, “the discovery of the mounds of dead in Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz and other marks of Cain on the forehead of our century,” wrote Arthur Miller. “They could not merely be two spies being executed but two Jews. It was not possible to avoid this in the second half of the 20th century; not even with the best will in the world could the prejudicial stain be totally avoided—no, not even if it were undeserved. Such were the times.”
Miriam Moskowitz, Ethel’s Jewish friend in the Women’s House of Detention whom I met one snowy December morning in December 2017 at her home in New Jersey, believed that anti-Semitism “hovered over the trial . . . with an unmistakable presence.”
Judge Jerome Frank, and other Jewish justices on the Appeals Court who considered the Rosenberg case, had been “inundated” with anti-Semitic hate mail threatening any “Jew judge” who might let the “Jew-Commie Rosenbergs” off. Yet even anti-Semitic hate mail was not the real reason why the Supreme Court justices repeatedly refused to reexamine the Rosenberg case. Only in their final hours did the court hold a hastily scheduled oral argument on their statutory claim, which was rejected.
*
In 1971, when Edgar Lawrence Doctorow published The Book of Daniel, the prevailing view among American left-wingers was that Ethel and Julius were innocent Communists who had been framed. Doctorow—like Ethel, of Russian Jewish ancestry—was too good a writer to fall into this trap. In what he described as an “explicitly political novel,” Doctorow imagined the impact on Ethel and Julius’s sons of their parents’ execution, while leaving open the question of the Rosenbergs’ guilt or innocence. Doctorow said his main interest in using the Rosenbergs (renamed as Paul and Rochelle Isaacson) was “in terms of what happens when all the antagonistic force of a society is brought to bear and focused on one or possibly two individuals. What kind of anthropological ritual is that?”
According to Doctorow, he did not know at first how he was going to tell this story. Once he found the narrator’s voice, through the Isaacsons’ son Daniel, “I sat down and put a piece of paper in the typewriter and started to write with a certain freedom and irresponsibility, and it turned out Daniel was talking, and he was sitting in the library at Columbia [University], and I had my book.” Daniel, the classic unreliable narrator, is telling a story that at one level is predicated on his parents’ appalling death. However, the catalyst for the story is not their electrocution but the attempted suicide of his younger sister, Susan. It is a complicated tale in which violence is never far from the surface. Yet, for all its brilliance, The Book of Daniel shines less light on Ethel than on her persecutors.
Six years after The Book of Daniel the American novelist Robert Coover published The Public Burning, an exuberant, brutal fantasy woven around the last three days of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. In this satire in extremis, Coover captured the lurid razzmatazz of the 1951 trial: the theatrical production of the Jell-O box, cut to order, with the flavors and packaging questioned; the console table that had to be identified from store catalogues; the polished lens mold diagram re-created years after the alleged original had been drawn by Ethel’s brother David. In Coover’s fantasy trial, everybody was playing a part, including Ethel. Coover noted on the first page that Ethel had once hoped to be an actress and had even played the role of the sister of a condemned man.
The Public Burning was in grotesquely bad taste, at its most nauseating when the dominant narrator, Eisenhower’s vice president, Richard Nixon, is aroused by the idea of having sex with Ethel. Yet Coover’s obscenely disturbing narrative succeeds in showing how everyone in Cold War America was implicated directly or indirectly in the ruthless public burning of the Rosenbergs, especially the dark and complex Nixon. Had Nixon, then a very junior member of the House Un-American Activities Committee who was being fed information by the FBI, not doggedly insisted on continuing to pursue Alger Hiss when the case looked as if it might otherwise wither, a whole chain of events culminating in the Rosenberg execution might not have unfolded in the way they did.
Coover’s satire culminates in a carnivalesque auto-da-fé in Manhattan’s Times Square, recalling the ritual festivals of penance and public execution held by the sixteenth-century Spanish Inquisition. References to burning—what Coover calls a “lot of goddam fire in this case”—are inescapable throughout the story: Ruth’s burning night dress, newspaper headlines referring to Ethel and Julius as “flaming Reds,” and constant references to the “infernal conspiracy.” Hovering over the action is the recent memory of the incineration of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust and the fear of a future atomic war that will reduce the planet to ashes.
For the American playwright Tony Kushner, the full horror embedded in the Rosenberg story extended beyond the gruesome electrocution and the fact that Ethel and Julius had been found guilty of betraying their country. Far more shocking for Kushner was the notion that a brother, David Greenglass, could betray his own sister and send her to the electric chair. In Angels in America, a two-part “gay fantasia on national themes” that premiered in 1991 and 1992, Kushner sees David as the embodiment of “Reaganist tribalism:” the idea that if you take care of your own first the rest will be fine.
In 2004 Ethel’s granddaughter Ivy Meeropol interviewed Kushner for her documentary film Heir to an Execution. She asked him: “What does this case teach us about how to live our lives as political people?” According to Kushner, the Rosenberg case is an intensely Jewish story that requires careful handling. “Just as the rabbis approached complicated stories with humility, not arrogance and proprietorial attitudes, you spend time interpreting the Talmud [the holy books] by careful textual study, or Midrash [commentary upon these] as if you are approaching something sacred . . . because it is written in blood.”
Kushner suggested that through studying the Rosenbergs’ story, “we will come to understand a lot about what our next move ought to be, a lot about how to conduct ourselves and what kind of sacrifice political work requires and the dangers of falling in love with the notion of sacrifice.” With this in mind, Kushner’s Ethel, or to be accurate, her ghost, appears to forgive Roy Cohn, the lawyer who ensured her death by persuading David to commit perjury. Standing over Cohn’s graveside, she even intones the Kaddish. But she also calls him a “son of a bitch.” “I would have pulled the switch if they let me,” Cohn snarls. “Why? Because I hate traitors. I HATE Communists. Was it legal? FUCK legal. Not nice? Fuck nice. The nation says I’m not nice? FUCK THE NATION. Do you wanna be NICE? Or you wanna be EFFECTIVE?”
As Robert Meeropol commented, “My mother utters no lines in Angels in America that indicate her desire to forgive Roy Cohn. I see my mother’s [words] as Tony Kushner’s final tribute to Ethel Rosenberg. It is his statement that she was a better person than her tormentors.”
Kushner’s play, like the novels of Coover, Doctorow, and Plath, were all factually untrue to a greater or lesser extent in their representations of Ethel. Yet although the story of the Rosenbergs’ trial and execution has proved fertile ground for many other artists, composers, and playwrights, it is the conflicting images of Ethel herself that have made her so irresistible as a tragic figure. The way she continues to defy labeling as mother, wife, sister, daughter, Communist, or would-be opera singer has penetrated the American consciousness deeply. It is this complexity that has encouraged audiences to project her, more often than the dramatically less interesting, more predictable Julius, into works of fiction, even where she was originally absent from the script.
On January 22, 1953, Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, about the witchcraft trials in 1692–3 in the town of Salem, Massachusetts, opened at the Martin Beck Theater on Broadway. Miller recalled in his 1987 autobiography Timebends how he had made his initial research visit to the Salem Historical Society in April 1952, almost two years after the Rosenbergs’ arrest and a year after their trial. Yet Miller insisted in 1988 that the play was not specifically about the Rosenbergs, and indeed that he had written it “two and half years before their names were even in the papers.” From Miller’s perspective, the play was written as a more general response to “the Red scare” that had “paralyzed a whole generation and in a short time dried up the habits of trust and toleration.”
New York’s theatergoing public made the direct parallel with Ethel and Julius anyway. On June 19, the night of their execution, the audience stood up and observed a minute’s silence at the end of the play. The Crucible, with its witch hunts, lethal repetition of wild rumors, and barbaric executions, has since become the quintessential Rosenberg drama. Only for Ethel and Julius it was not a drama. It was true. ~
https://lithub.com/the-many-fictional-afterlives-of-ethel-rosenberg/?fbclid=IwAR0ZvMwIVp9E0UnC7g-NECY22EkCIqyiCyhKsL7SJFmvOik3h5Yi8G4ojco
Oriana:
I was very disappointed with the American anti-Communists I happened to meet. These were not brave dissidents as in Eastern Europe, definitely not the best and brightest. On the contrary, they struck me as closed-minded reactionaries who believed any exaggerated nonsense about the daily life behind the Iron curtain. Trying to correct them (e.g. by saying that lots of people go to church, without fear) only made them suspect that I was a Communist myself, and probably a Soviet spy. They had no interest in the truth, only in finding support for their blindness — for instance, they’d say with huge pride that America was a classless society — exactly the Soviet propaganda about the Soviet Union.
The relentless advertising and consumerism helped me understand why some American intellectuals were drawn to Communism. Communism was charismatic because it offered an ideal vision of society (however misguided). In a consumerist culture, intellectuals are starved for idealism.
Another point: It was rather late that I learned that Ethel was likely innocent. Her younger brother, David Greenglass, testified that she typed up the notes passed to her by Julius. In fact he'd never seen her do that; if anything, it was his own wife who did the typing. The first time David Greenglass testified he explicitly excluded Ethel's involvement; he changed his story as part of an immunity deal. A segment of "60 Minutes" was devoted to an interview with Ethel's brother. He reveals his contempt for her: "Why didn't she say something to defend herself? She was so stupid." (Apparently Ethel and Julius had a pact of silence.)
from the Guardian: THE SONS’ CAMPAIGN TO EXONERATE ETHEL
~ During their trial, Ethel in particular was vilified for prioritizing communism over her children, and the prosecution insisted she had been the dominant half of the couple, purely because she was three years older. “She was the mastermind of this whole conspiracy,” assistant prosecutor Roy Cohn told the judge. But questions about whether she was guilty at all have been growing louder in recent years, and a new biography presents her in a different light. “Ethel was killed for being a wife. She was guilty of supporting her husband,” Anne Sebba, author of Ethel Rosenberg: A Cold War Tragedy, tells me. And for that, the 37-year-old mother of two young children had five massive jolts of electricity pumped through her body. Her death was so brutal that eyewitnesses reported that smoke rose out of her head.
The killing of the Rosenbergs was so shocking at the time and is so resonant of a specific period in American history that it has become part of popular culture. In Tony Kushner’s play Angels In America, Ethel haunts Cohn. In Woody Allen’s Crimes And Misdemeanours, Clifford (played by Allen) says sarcastically that he loves another character “like a brother – David Greenglass”, referencing Ethel’s brother, who testified against her and Julius to save himself and his wife. The most moving cultural response to the Rosenbergs’ deaths was EL Doctorow’s 1971 novel, The Book Of Daniel, which imagines the painful life afterwards of the Rosenbergs’ oldest child, whom he renames Daniel. In reality, the older Rosenberg child is called Michael, and his younger brother is Robert.
David (Ethel’s brother) briefly worked as a machinist at an atomic power laboratory called Los Alamos Laboratory. He was arrested when he was identified as part of a chain that passed on secrets about the technology to the Soviets. David quickly admitted his guilt, and his lawyer advised him that the best thing he could do for himself, and to give his wife immunity, would be to turn in someone else. Then the Rosenbergs were arrested. The FBI believed that Julius was a kingpin who recruited Americans to spy against their own country, and that he had used David to pass on secrets of the atomic bomb to the Russians. The initial allegations against Ethel were that she “had a discussion with Julius Rosenberg and others in November 1944”, and “had a discussion with Julius Rosenberg, David Greenglass and others in January 1945” – in other words, that she talked to her husband and brother. It was feeble stuff, as the FBI knew, yet Myles Lane, the chief assistant attorney for the Southern District of New York, told the press: “If the crime with which she, Ethel, is charged had not occurred perhaps we would not have the present situation in Korea.”
Initially, David testified that his sister had not been involved in any espionage. However, his wife, Ruth, said that Ethel had typed up the information David had given Julius to pass on to the Soviets. David quickly changed his story the week before the trial to corroborate his wife’s version, probably under pressure from Roy Cohn, the ambitious chief assistant prosecutor. This was the key evidence against Ethel, and the chief prosecutor, Irving Saypol, conjured up an image for the jury of Ethel at the typewriter, pounding the keys, striking “blow by blow, against her own country in the interest of the Soviets”.
But even with that, Myles Lane, who had publicly laid the blame for the Korean war at Ethel’s feet, admitted privately in a closed-door meeting of the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy: “The case is not strong against Mrs Rosenberg. But for the purpose of acting as a deterrent, I think it is very important that she be convicted, too, and given a stiff sentence.” FBI director J Edgar Hoover agreed, writing “proceeding against the wife will serve as a lever” to make her husband talk.
At the trial, under Cohn’s questioning, David testified that in September 1945 he gave Julius a sketch and description of the atomic bomb, and that Ethel was deeply involved in the discussions between them. Because he had given names, David was sentenced to 15 years in prison, and ended up serving nine. Ruth was free to stay home and look after their children. The Rosenbergs, who insisted they were innocent, were found guilty. Judge Irving Kaufman carefully considered their sentence. Hoover, aware of the tenuousness of the case against Ethel, and how it would look if America executed a young mother, urged against the death sentence for her, but Cohn argued for it and won.
Ethel has long been portrayed as a cold woman, one who, as Kaufman said in his sentencing, loved communism more than her children. In reality, as Sebba reveals in her book, she was a particularly devoted mother, with a progressive interest in child psychology. Before her arrest, she regularly saw a child therapist, Elizabeth Phillips, for help with Michael and to learn how to be a better mother. During her three years in prison, she faithfully kept up her subscription to Parents magazine.
But when she was arrested, all the aspirations she had harbored for giving her boys the kind of happy childhood that had been denied to her imploded spectacularly. At first the boys lived with her mother, Tessie, who made no secret of her resentment of the situation. Things got even worse when they were put in a children’s home. Eventually, Julius’s mother, Sophie, took them in, but two little boys were too much for their frail grandmother to handle. None of their many aunts or uncles would take them, either because they sided with David and Ruth, or they were scared. So they were shipped around to various families. All Ethel could do was write letters to her lawyer, Manny Bloch, desperately laying out her parenting theories in the hope they would somehow be followed (“One cannot behave inconsistently with children… ”) For the sake of the boys, she always maintained a happy front when they visited.
“We always had a good time on the prison visits: singing, talking, enjoying ourselves,” says Michael. He even used to play hangman with his father, although he didn’t realise the irony until he was an adult.
The US government said that if Julius gave them names of other spies, and he and Ethel admitted their guilt, their lives would be spared. The Rosenbergs issued a public statement: “By asking us to repudiate the truth of our innocence, the government admits its own doubts concerning our guilt… we will not be coerced, even under pain of death, to bear false witness.” On 16 June 1953, the children were brought to Sing Sing prison in New York State to say goodbye to their parents. Ethel kept up her usual brave appearance, but on this occasion Michael – who was 10 and understood what was happening – was upset by her outward calm.
Afterwards, Ethel wrote a letter to her children: “Maybe you thought that I didn’t feel like crying when we were hugging and kissing goodbye huh… Darlings, that would have been so easy, far too easy on myself… because I love you more than I love myself and because I knew you needed that love far more than I needed the relief of crying.” On 19 June, Ethel and Julius wrote their last letter to their children: “We wish we might have had the tremendous joy and gratification of living our lives out with you… Always remember that we were innocent and could not wrong our conscience. We press you close and kiss you with all our strength. Lovingly, Daddy and Mommy.” Just after 8pm that day, the Rosenbergs were executed. They were buried on Long Island, in one of the few Jewish cemeteries that would accept their bodies.
With their extended family still unwilling to look after them (“People later said to me, ‘A Jewish family and no family members took in the kids?!’” says Michael wryly), the boys were eventually adopted by Abel and Anne Meeropol, an older leftwing couple. They could finally grow up in anonymity among loving people who told them their parents had been brave and admirable. Abel Meeropol was a songwriter whose biggest hit was Strange Fruit, so the boys were raised on the royalties from the most famous song of the civil rights era. “I never thought about our aunts and uncles not taking us in, because living with Abel and Anne, it felt like we won the lottery,” says Michael. But memories of their parents were always there. Robert developed a strong physical resemblance to Ethel. “It made me want to hug and kiss him all the time,” says Michael.
In 1995, the Venona papers were declassified. These were messages sent between Soviet intelligence agencies that had been intercepted and decrypted by US counterintelligence from 1943 to 1980. The Rosenbergs were named in them. Julius, it was now clear, had definitely been spying for the Soviets, so much so that he was given the codename “Antenna” and later “Liberal”. David and Ruth Greenglass were also sufficiently productive as spies to be given codenames – “Calibre” and “Wasp”. But there was little about Ethel. She didn’t have a codename. She was, one cable noted, “a devoted person” – ie a communist – but, the cables also stressed, “[she] does not work”, ie she was not a spy. But when describing the recruitment of Ruth, the cable said, “Liberal and his wife recommend her as an intelligent and clever girl.”
“At first, I hated that transcript, because it made Julius look guilty of something,” says Robert. “But then I realized this was as close to a smoking gun we would ever get, because it said that Julius and Ethel didn’t do the thing they were killed for. Ethel didn’t work and Julius wasn’t an atomic spy, he was a military-industrial spy,” he says, meaning that although Julius passed on details of weapons, he wasn’t passing on details about the atomic bomb.
Michael was more sceptical of the Venona papers and wondered if they were “CIA disinformation”. But in 2008 he finally accepted them when Morton Sobell – who had been convicted for espionage along with the Rosenbergs and served 18 years in Alcatraz – gave an interview to the New York Times. He said that he and Julius had been spies together, and confirmed that Julius had not helped the Russians build the bomb. “What he gave them was junk,” Sobell said of Julius, probably because he didn’t know anything about the bomb. Of Ethel, Sobell said, “She knew what he was doing, but what was she guilty of? Of being Julius’s wife.” This corroborated what Aleksandr Feklisov, a retired KGB agent, said in 1997 when he admitted that he had been Julius’s handler. Feklisov agreed that Julius had passed on military secrets but, “he didn’t understand anything about the atomic bomb, and he couldn’t help us”. Ethel, he said, “had nothing to do with this, she was completely innocent. I think she knew [what her husband was doing], but for that you don’t kill people.”
David’s claim that he gave Julius atomic information in September 1945 is extremely dubious. Recent research corroborates their argument: Soviet sources state that Julius stopped working for them in February 1945. “[The government] took a small-fry spy and framed him to be an atomic spy,” is Michael’s take on his father. Ethel, however, was a very different story.
In 1996, David Greenglass gave an interview in which he finally admitted he lied about his sister: “I told them the story and left her out of it, right? But my wife put her in it. So what am I gonna do, call my wife a liar? My wife is my wife. I mean, I don’t sleep with my sister, you know.” He added, “I frankly think my wife did the typing, but I don’t remember.” It is possible that Ethel helped to recruit Ruth and David, but they needed little encouragement. Many Jews of their milieu were communists and the Greenglasses’ letters show they were even more enthusiastic about communism than the Rosenbergs. Ruth died in 2008, David in 2014.
Ethel’s innocence raises more questions than it settles. First, given that she was a true believer in communism, why didn’t she join her husband, brother and sister-in-law in spying?
“Robby and I think that when our father got involved in helping the Soviets, our mother stayed out of it so that if he got arrested, she could take care of us,” says Michael.
This sounds to me like a son hoping that their parents at least tried to protect their sons. But Julius and Ethel seemed to have little understanding of the danger they were putting the family in. After all, Greenglass was arrested a month before Julius, so they had plenty of time to flee the country, but didn’t. Sebba’s theory strikes me as more likely: “I think she just had other concerns: she was looking after her children and trying to be present for them. She gave up activism when her children were born. Her main identity was as a wife and a mother, and that’s what mattered to her,” she says.
Then there’s the question that baffled officials at the time, and has become the defining mystery about her: why did Ethel choose to stay silent and die with Julius, over staying with her children? We know she was deeply in love with her husband, and her letters to him during their imprisonment are filled with her longing to “lift my willing lips to yours”. But they are also full of her anxiety about the boys. Yet she said nothing.
“Ethel absolutely did not want to be separated from Julius, and her letters show that she thought she was the one who had done him wrong by introducing him to her ghastly family,” says Sebba. “I believe that Ethel thought her life without Julius would have been valueless because her sons would never have respected her, because she would have had to make some kind of confession and name names.”
The campaign to exonerate Ethel is starting again, and the Meeropols are “optimistic” that President Biden will look at it favorably. They know their argument defies the confines of bite-size headlines, and so is a difficult one to sell to the public: Julius was guilty, although the extent of his guilt was exaggerated in an attempt to scare him into naming names; Ethel was possibly complicit, but not culpable. “There’s a very binary idea of the political world, in which people are guilty or innocent, right or wrong. But understanding nuance is essential to understanding how politics work and how society works,” says Robert.
The biggest question about Ethel for me relates to her sons. After our initial interview, I end up speaking to them, together and separately, several times over the course of a month, mainly because I have so many questions, but also because they are so delightful to talk to: wildly intelligent, always interesting, completely admirable. How on earth did they triumph over such a traumatic childhood? Sebba tells me that she asked the same thing of Elizabeth Phillips, the child therapist Ethel used to consult, whom she interviewed before her death.
“She told me it was down to three things,” Sebba says. “She said, ‘One, they have an extraordinarily high level of intelligence. Second, they had amazing adoptive parents. But we now know how important those early years of life are, and Ethel must have given those two boys so much in those years that it lasted all their lives. Ethel must have been an extremely good mother.’” ~
Oriana:
I am glad that at least the sons are at peace, having arrived at the most likely version of what they parents did and didn't do. I hope Ethel gets exonerated. She may perhaps be accused of excessive loyalty and devotion to her husband. But indeed, we don't kill people for that.
Mary: LOOKING FOR SCAPEGOATS
Ethel Rosenberg's story feels so strange and sad, from this point in time. Definitely a scapegoat/sacrifice to the fears of a post WWII population facing a newly powerful enemy in a world where newly powerful weapons could threaten annihilation from anyone who possessed them. It is supremely ironic that the Rosenbergs were executed for the crime of sharing secrets of the atomic bomb with the Russians, when they actually knew nothing about that. Especially Ethel, who was falsely charged by her own brother, and had actually no part in her husband’s spying. She became a perfect sacrificial figure, accused of being a woman who covered her traitorous activity with the iconic pose of loving wife and mother...cast this way, she became the perfect monster, deserving execution. Her elimination would be both revenge and reassurance to the general population. "Such people," such enemies, would be found, stopped, and executed, warning others not to attempt any action to undermine the state.
Ethel was victim of fear, prejudice, hate, and propaganda — the engines we still see at work, still are fighting today. But just as we see the same evils, we also see indicators of hope in the changes, both fought for and hard won, in laws and courts and elections, and more general and widespread, in the way people live, love and interact. Change is a constant. Some changes are surprising, welcome, and overdue.
Oriana:
I can understand the anti-Communist paranoia of that era. What shakes me up is the brother's betrayal: to think that it was OK to send his sister to the electric chair in order to spare his wife and get a nice deal for himself too! What a monstrous brother and uncle to have . . .
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“Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.” ~ Jean-Paul Sartre
“People speak sometimes about the ‘bestial’ cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts. No animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.” ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
THE STORM OF PROGRESS
“A Klee drawing named “Angelus Novus” shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe that keeps piling ruin upon ruin and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.
~ Walter Benjamin, Ninth Thesis on the Philosophy of History
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Below: A Himalayan Griffon Vulture, the second largest of the Old World Vultures, showing off its fake eyes.
*
"Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to was never there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place... Nothing outside you can give you any place... In yourself right now is all the place you've got.” ~ Flannery O’Connor
*
“Who knows but that on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?” ~ Ralph Ellison
*
THE COMING POPULATION DECREASE
~ Recently, politicians and commentators were disturbed to learn that the “synthetic index of fertility” (that is, the number of children per woman) has fallen in France to 1.8.
Such a figure would be a dream come true for the countries of Southern Europe: for Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece, where the rate is 1.3. It is worse still in Asia, in parts of the world that are as technologically advanced as they are far away but generally admired. The rate in Singapore and Taiwan is 1.2.
South Korea is only 1.1. This country risks losing a tenth of its population by 2050; if that continues it will only have one chance of survival: to annex North Korea, which is at 1.9. I’m joking, but only just.
The United States and Russia are both at 1.8* (no longer current; see note); China is at 1.7.
In 2050, the most populated country in the world should be, by a wide margin, India.
With a rate of 1.4, the Japanese are almost muddling through, which is surprising, since the most amusing news on declining birth-rates typically comes from Japan. These news items are so crazy that I hesitate to repeat them (but the improbable is sometimes true):
"Old men are apparently so numerous in Japan that they can no longer be housed, so they have to find a way of breaking the law to find lodgings in prison."
"The Japanese government is reported to have to broadcast pornographic videos in primetime on public television, in order to stimulate the sexual appetites of Japanese couples. After all, sex does end up producing a few children."
In France, it is clear that we have not quite sunk to his level, at least not entirely. The truth is that French obsession with the idea of decline is far from new. Jean-Jacques Rousseau asserts somewhere (or is it Voltaire? I’m too lazy to check; these authors are tedious to read. Anyway, it is one of the two), that sooner or later — “the thing is certain”: we will be enslaved by the Chinese.
France sometimes reminds me of one of those hypochondriac old men who never stops complaining about their health; the kind who are constantly saying that this time they really do have one foot in the grave. People usually respond sarcastically: “You watch, he’ll end up burying all of us.”
By refusing all forms of immigration, Asian countries have opted for a simple suicide, without complications or disturbances. The countries of Southern Europe are in the same situation, although one wonders if they have consciously chosen it. Migrants do land in Italy, in Spain and in Greece — but they only pass through, without helping to sort out the demographic balance, although the women of these countries are often highly desirable. No, the migrants are drawn irresistibly to the biggest and fattest cheeses, the countries of Northern Europe. ~ Michel Houellebecq, translated by Louis Betty.
https://unherd.com/2021/06/the-narcissistic-fall-of-france/?fbclid=IwAR3-kposZ40YGdgPIgnDmD2eta2lV-UCTK8SQJoBTsf-WXB1Rp0G5qPRAlw
* The most recent (2020) figure for the US is 1.64 https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-low-can-americas-birth-rate-go-before-its-a-problem/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
The global fertility rate is 2.448, still above replacement.
The result has been the slowest growth of the American population since the 1930s, and a profound change in American motherhood. Women under 30 have become much less likely to have children. Since 2007, the birthrate for women in their 20s has fallen by 28 percent, and the biggest recent declines have been among unmarried women. The only age groups in which birthrates rose over that period were women in their 30s and 40s — but even those began to decline over the past three years.*
WHY AMERICAN WOMEN ARE DELAYING CHILD-BEARING
~ For decades, delaying parenthood was the domain of upper-middle-class Americans, especially in big, coastal cities. Highly educated women put off having a baby until their careers were on track, often until their early 30s. But over the past decade, as more women of all social classes have prioritized education and career, delaying childbearing has become a broad pattern among American women almost everywhere.
“The story here is about young women, whose births are plummeting,” said Caitlin Myers, an economist at Middlebury College who analyzed county-level birth records for The New York Times. “All of a sudden, in the last 10 years, there’s this tremendous transformation.”
A geographic analysis of Professor Myers’s data offers a clue: The birthrate is falling fastest in places with the greatest job growth — where women have more incentive to wait.
In more than two dozen interviews with young women in Phoenix and Denver, some said they felt they could not afford a baby. They cited the costs of child care and housing, and sometimes student debt. Many also said they wanted to get their careers set first and expressed satisfaction that they were exerting control over their fertility — and their lives — in a way their mothers had not.
“I can not have a kid and not have to feel bad about it,” said Eboni McFadden, 28, who grew up in rural Missouri and is now two weeks from graduating as a medical technician in Phoenix. “I feel powerful that I can make that decision with my own body. I don’t have to have a kid to be successful or to be a woman.”
The annual fertility rate may be dropping — births have fallen for six straight years and declined precipitously during the pandemic — but the share of women who have children by the end of their reproductive years has been climbing. Still, in the past decade, births to women over 30 have not offset the decline for women in their 20s, driving down overall births and leaving an open question: Are young women delaying childbirth or forgoing it altogether?
CHILD CARE COSTS AND OPPORTUNITY COSTS
The declines in childbearing over the past decade have varied by region, according to the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Census Bureau. They were greater on the West Coast and in the Mountain West than in the South or Northeast. The large urban counties that have gained the most jobs and population since the recession have seen birthrates fall twice as fast as smaller, rural counties that have not recovered as strongly. The birthrate fell 38 percent in Denver County and 33 percent in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix.
In economically stagnant places, fertility tends to be higher, and having a child is seen as a primary route to fulfillment.
Hispanic women, who once had by far the highest fertility of any major racial or ethnic group, have had the single largest drop in fertility of any group, more than a third since 2007. In Arizona, Hispanic women made up approximately 60 percent of the total decline in births in the state since 2007, according to a University of Arizona analysis.
Some women said they wanted to build a career as a way to avoid repeating difficult childhoods. Jakeisha Ezuma grew up on the South Side of Chicago, one of 10 children. Her older sisters, she said, had several children, and for a while in her teens, she wanted nothing more than to become pregnant, too. But she did not. Now 26 and living in Denver, she wants to wait. She is earning her dental hygienist degree, which comes with more money and a more flexible schedule than her current job as a dental assistant.
“I’m trying to go higher,” she said. “I grew up around dysfunctional things. I feel like if I succeed, my children won’t have to. I’ll be breaking the generational cycle.”
FEWER UNINTENDED PREGNANCIES
The largest declines in births have been in unintended pregnancies and those to single mothers, Professor Myers found. The birthrate for unmarried women dropped 18 percent, compared with 11 percent for married women.
A major reason women are able to be more intentional about when to have children is better access to birth control. Long-acting reversible contraception, such as arm implants and IUDs, have given women new options, and the Affordable Care Act made many of them free.
The lower rate of unplanned pregnancy is a signal that the decline in births — despite the hand-wringing about what it portends for the nation’s work force and social safety net — could be good news for individual women.
“One of the big shifts has been fewer people having kids before they wanted to,” said Amanda Jean Stevenson, a demographer at the University of Colorado. “Maybe there are fewer babies right now, but people are able to live the lives they want to, and that’s a profound thing.”
DEMANDING JOBS, AND DEMANDING CHILDREN
Researchers cannot say for sure if education is a cause of the fertility decline, but there appears to be some connection. What is clear is that women are far more educated than they were in past generations, even since the Great Recession in 2008.
Women’s graduation rates are now rising faster than men’s. One-third of women in their 20s had a college degree in 2019, up from one-quarter in 2007.
Their place in the labor force has changed, too. Forty-four percent of female workers are in professional or management occupations, compared with 38 percent before 2008. The number of women doing jobs that do not require as much education, like office assistant, has dropped.
The emphasis on career has spread beyond women with bachelor’s degrees — as has a recognition of how children can derail it.
“The perceived price of having children has really increased since I first talked to women in the mid-1990s,” said Kathryn Edin, a sociologist at Princeton University who has spent years writing about low-income families. “Even among the poorest women, there’s a recognition that a career is part of a life course.”
At the same time, there was more of a glorification of work in American culture, and workplaces began expecting employees to be available around the clock. Yet there is little in the way of policies to help parents combine work and family.
Parenting, too, became more stressful. American parents spend more money and time on their children than any previous generation, and many feel immense pressure to be constantly teaching their children, enrolling them in enrichment classes and giving them their undivided attention. This is known as intensive parenting, and while it used to be an upper-middle-class phenomenon, it is now rising fast across all social classes.
It is uncertain whether young women will end up having the children that — at least so far — they are putting off. In surveys, they say they still want them, though the number of children they intend to have has fallen. It is possible that the drop over the past decade is a new normal for fertility in America, one that looks more like what has happened in Europe and some Asian nations. ~
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/us/declining-birthrate-motherhood.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab
from Readers’ Comments:
Can we also talk about the totally unmentioned factor here, which is the lack of quality partners for all these young women? Women are going to college at higher rates, earning more than they ever have in the past, doing everything they can to secure their future, and men (broadly speaking) are standing still. I would have loved to have children sooner, but I wasn't going to do it with some useless man-baby who would be another person for me to take care of. The minute women were presented with a better option than marrying their hometown idiot, they took it, and who can blame them?
Reply:
Why do women get to toss out terms like "man-baby" when a man publicly saying something like this about women will get him drawn-and-quartered?
A more sedate comment on “quality partners”:
Hats off to these women. The other big factor is the lack of quality partners. While they've gotten educated and started careers, men have gotten good at video games, become door dash drivers and developed prescription drug habits. The men who have become productive have no desire to settle as the pool of quality women is so deep. I'm older and dating, and the pool of divorced men with children who are underemployed or struggling with addiction or financial issues is deep. I feel for their exes who work and provide childcare except for one or two weekends a month.
Another comment:
No one should have children, anywhere, anymore. We will be extinct by 2100, as the biosphere finds a new equilibrium that does not include large mammalian life.
Oriana:
The only thing that seems certain is that we’re in for a bumpy ride. My great regret about mortality is (and has always been) not being around to see the unpredictable future. Whatever we can imagine won’t happen the way we imagine it. That’s one of the insights I’ve learned about life: it’s pointless to guess about the future. It’s bound to be different than the present, or than anything we can “rationally” predict. Life isn’t rational, no matter how desperate we are to find a narrative that makes sense.
During a recent trip to Costco, I witnessed a not-so-young mother trying to cope with her little boy’s temper tantrum. Young women passing by were no doubt relieved that this was not their problem. It certainly wasn’t the first such incident I witnessed — the child lying on the floor, howling with rage. Perhaps people see too much parental stress and not enough parental joy to be motivated to undertake parenthood. This is where affordable quality childcare could certainly have an impact.
And the environmental argument has its merit too. And the cost-of-living argument, and on and on. Parenthood may certainly seem to be a heroic enterprise — or a mistake.
Joe:
By delaying childbirth, women demonstrate intelligence and planning for their own and their children’s advantage. Of course, there are other contributing factors, but education leads to economic improvement and is a valid reason for delaying marriage and family. Limiting family is not only beneficial for women but the health of the planet.
Science informs us that when a species reaches a point of overpopulation, its birth rate declines. For decades, people have overpopulated the planet. Therefore, it’s not surprising that humans behave like other species. Studies show that the sperm count is dropping worldwide. We override nature’s way of controlling the population with fertility drugs.
Malthus’s theory states the population growth is exponential while food supply growth is linear. Eventually, this condition reduces living standards, triggering a population decline. The economist Simon Alder writes that economies need an exponential increase in new ideas to grow. In general, this rule requires population growth to achieve the desired results.
Simon agrees with most corporations that increased profit depends on population growth. The ultra-rich men propagate the idea that a lower birthrate hurts the economy. It seems they are saying is that lower birth rates negatively affect the bottom line. Their concern over the declining population is the fear of stable profits replacing escalating profits.
Furthermore, Alder agrees with other economists that a smaller population improves the economic prospects for middle and lower-class families. It seems practical for women to want fewer children, and I applaud women not blame them for their intelligent approach to providing for their children.
Oriana:
A great point about nature’s way of correcting population explosion. It reminds me of my first (and best) biology professor who warned that we if we don’t control population growth, then nature will institute her own controls — and those are “very unpleasant,” he said: disease, famine, possibly wars over dwindling resources, stress-related pathologies.
Obviously we’re already seeing this.
Earth population should probably be no more than 3 billion.
The fear is, however, that women simply aren’t that much interested in marriage and motherhood. But if so, the question is whether those institutions need to change so they are more rewarding and less burdensome.
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GENTLE PARENTING: NO PUNISHMENTS, NO REWARDS
~ In a piece in The Conversation, Bernadette Saunders described positive discipline. Parents who practise positive discipline or gentle parenting use neither rewards nor punishments to encourage their children to behave.
By “no rewards” I mean they don’t use charts or “bribes” such as lollies or toys. Many don’t even say “good girl/boy” or “good job”.
And by “no punishments” I mean they don’t use time-outs, smacking, shaming or yelling. Forget the naughty step, forget the sticker chart, let’s take a journey into the world of gentle or positive discipline, which aims to teach children empathy, self-control and calmness.
WHAT IS DISCIPLINE
Discipline has come to mean many things in our culture. When we are discussing child rearing, we understand it to mean reprimanding a child for “bad behavior”. The word discipline comes from the word disciple and means to teach.
The discipline advocated by gentle parenting families is internalized. They argue that to offer rewards and punishments overrides a child’s natural inclination to try. It teaches them to behave in certain ways for a reward, or to avoid punishment.
Advocates of gentle parenting say that rewards and punishments do not encourage children to internalize good behavior for its own sake.
There are many websites and groups that can help you to practice this parenting approach. Here are a few steps that parents take to encourage a partnership with their children:
They start from a place of connection and believe that all behavior stems from how connected the child is with their caregivers.
They give choices not commands (“would you like to brush your teeth before or after you put on your pyjamas?”).
They take a playful approach. They might use playfulness to clean up (“let’s make a game of packing up these toys”) or to diffuse tension (having a playful pillow fight).
They allow feelings to run their course. Rather than saying “shoosh”, or yelling “stop!”, parents actively listen to crying. They may say, “you have a lot of/strong feelings about [situation]”.
They describe the behavior, not the child. So, rather than labeling a child as naughty or nice, they will explain the way actions make them feel. For example, “I get so frustrated cleaning crumbs off the couch.”
They negotiate limits where possible. If it’s time to leave the park, they might ask, “How many more minutes/swings before we leave?” However, they can be flexible and reserve “no” for situations that can hurt the child (such as running on the road or touching the hot plate) or others (including pets). They might say: “Hitting me/your sister/pulling the dog’s tail hurts, I won’t let you do that.”
They treat their children as partners in the family. A partnership means that the child is invited to help make decisions and to be included in the household tasks. Parents apologise when they get it wrong.
They will not do forced affection. When Uncle Ray wants to hug your child and s/he says no, then the child gets to say what happens to their body. They also don’t force please or thank you.
They trust their children. What you might think of as “bad” behavior is seen as the sign of an unmet need.
They take parental time-outs when needed. Before they crack, they step away, take a breath and regain their composure.
BENEFITS OF GENTLE PARENTING
There are many sites that claim benefits to this approach. For example, Attachment Parenting International argues that the child is more sensitive to others’ needs because they have learnt to expect that their needs will be met, they will be treated with respect and they are equal partners in the family.
Others argue that it may take more effort, but is more effective, because punishment and rewards are only short-term solutions. As Alfie Kohn argues, using rewards and punishments is about doing things to, not with children. Taking a gentle parenting or positive discipline approach invites children to partner with their parents to learn how to live in the community as productive members.
PROBLEMS WITH THIS APPROACH
The problems people may see with this style of parenting generally stem from a problem of definition. Gentle parenting is not permissive parenting. Permissive parenting means never saying no, not provoking tantrums or crying and always wanting to please the child. This style of parenting is the antithesis of gentle parenting.
Sometimes parents who practice gentle parenting are described as sanctimommies. The term is meant to imply they are sanctimonious. However, the issue is generally with that individual parent, not their parenting style.
Gentle parenting also requires parental self-control, because you have to take a step back, think and ask, “What is my child’s behavior communicating in this moment?” and, “What can I do differently to prevent this behavior next time?”
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LANGUAGE AND TREES
~ Our deep relationship with the forest is echoed in language. The word “book” reveals an early connection. If you trace its origin, you come to the Brothers Grimm of fairy tale fame. In a dictionary of the German language that they published in 1860, they mention that old German characters were scratched onto wooden boards. And because these boards often came from beech trees (Buche in German, which is pronounced “boo-huh” in English), the name for such writing tablets was transferred from the tree to the functional object—Buch, the book.
But the term could possibly have arisen much earlier, when runes were carved into wooden sticks made of beech. In German, where letters are Buchstaben (Buch = beech and Stab = stick), this gets us one level deeper, for with Buchstaben, it is much easier to see the origin of the word. Although neither this nor the assertion made by the Brothers Grimm has been proven with absolute certainty, I like the idea that every book has us looking back to the forest.
Whereas the word “book” is pronounced in almost the same way as the German word for “beech tree” (and in German differs from the word for the tree by only one letter), the origin of other words is more difficult to track down. Take the word “true.” It, too, has to do with trees, specifically the oak. The wood of oak trees is hard and resistant to weathering, just as human relationships should be, figuratively speaking. The original word in Indo-European is dru, which means “oak.” In English it turns up as “true,” and in words such as “trunk,” a wooden chest in which important things are kept safe.
References to the forest can be found in idioms, as well, even if some have now fallen out of fashion. “She’s shaking like a leaf,” for instance. Leaves, particularly the leaves of quaking aspen, tremble when the wind blows through them. Aspen leaves have stalks that allow them to twist in the lightest breeze. This might allow them to gather more light so they can produce more sugar. Whatever the reason, no other tree has this striking response to wind. But who today still encounters quaking aspen? A long time ago, the rustle of aspen leaves must have been so common that everyone had a good idea how much a person had to tremble to resemble the tree.
Old place names also reveal our deep forest roots—although it’s probably more accurate to say that old place names reveal how we have uprooted the forest. In the dim and distant past, the residents of settlements chopped their way through forests to make space for buildings and agricultural fields. In the middle of the 8th century, Central Europe was still 90 percent forested and all the forest was primeval. There was no form of forestry at that time because it was not necessary. Population density was low and forests seemed practically endless.
Areas for agriculture, in contrast, were in short supply, and it took a great deal of effort to wrest them from the clutches of nature. Not only were the trees in the way, so were their roots. Each and every one had to be dug out and dragged away by teams of oxen. Without this preparation, plows would have gotten stuck every few yards. It’s little wonder our ancestors decided to use place names to memorialize their laborious clearing of the land.
Some of the place names even reflected the clearing method used. In the German-speaking Alps, if trees were simply felled and burned, leaving the roots, schwenden (which means “slash and burn”) might be part of the name. This quicker method was not suitable if you wanted to plant crops, but it was fine if you were not going to plow the land and all you needed was a pasture for livestock. Schwenden (the past participle of which is schwand) appears either as a place name in its own right (as it does in Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, both of which have towns called Schwenden) or as part of the name (as it does in settlements such as Herrenschwand or Untergschwandt).
Other variations can be found in city names such as Bayreuth. Reuth is another term for Rodung, and Bayreuth means a clearing in Bavaria or a clearing made by Bavarian people. Then there is Stockum, where the name tips its hat to the tree stumps (Stock) that remain after the trees have been felled. In the British Isles, names ending in –lea, –ley, –leigh, or –leah indicate forest clearings, and –thwaite indicates a forest cleared for tilling, often with a dwelling on it.
The influence of conservative science is clear in the latest terms used to describe nature. Emotions are out; long live technical descriptions. Thus, the workings of the wonderful network of life are dubbed “ecosystem services.” That sounds less like paradise and more like a heading from a contractor’s catalog. And that connects neatly with the discussion I had with Emanuele Coccia—all creatures are servants of humankind. They have services to offer and must accept their assigned place in the rankings. They earn our protection based on their contributions to our well-being. Even if we are not aware of it, we find it almost impossible to avoid subconscious emotional responses to words.
The journalist George Monbiot described this very well in an article he wrote. If Moses had promised the Israelites a land not where milk and honey but the secretions of mammals and the vomit of insects flowed, Monbiot asked, would they have followed him? He argues for a different way of speaking and a new terminology that touches our hearts so issues around environmental protection finally gain traction. A case in point are phrases that are constantly misused by lobbyists in current debates around protected areas. Thus, in Germany, forests that are being designated as national parks are “decommissioned,” to use the official term. What does “decommissioned” conjure up in our heads? It brings to mind something we don’t need anymore. A fleet of vehicles that has become obsolete, for example. Things that are decommissioned are things that we no longer use and, above all, they are things.
A forest, in contrast, is a living organism and, as such, cannot be decommissioned and certainly not by us. Intellectually, we grasp what is meant by this term: no more trees can be cut down. In reality, it is only the heavy tree-harvesting machines and chain saws that have been decommissioned, while people are expressly invited to enjoy an area that is now free to return to nature. Mammals, birds, and insects arrive in far greater numbers than when the area was a dreary working forest, and none of them are obsolete. In contrast to a fleet of vehicles, a national park after the forest has been decommissioned is far more active than it was before.
The word “forest” carries an aura of wildness with it. Other words are studiously avoided. Fellow foresters are outraged when I compare foresters with butchers in my presentations. But what is felling a tree if not slaughter? The only difference is that a tree is killed, not an animal. If we know from the latest research that beeches and oaks are also capable of feeling pain, then it makes sense to use the same terms we use for animals.
What we need, therefore, are not new words but simply more honesty. And if people still want to go out into their nearest forest, the real forest, but find only mechanically exploited plantations, then perhaps they would advocate more strongly for more protected areas so that they could find nature on their doorstep. That is something we can all hope for. ~
https://lithub.com/how-the-language-of-trees-is-everywhere-around-us/?fbclid=IwAR1opm8oqf8-SyhnZO4IPTDxUpkbmRD9ZS2lY1tK8Q0a5vGhCFpjmWAMGAo
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SHAKESPEARE FOR BUSINESS
How poor are they that have not stock options! What wound did ever heal but by vesting?
I maximized my time, and now doth my time maximize me.
The course of true disruption never did run smooth.
My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my Series A funding as deep; the more I pitch to thee, the more I have, for VC is infinite.
All the team’s a family, and all the team members merely emotionally bound never to request more financial compensation, because come on, there are free snacks here! And one man in his time has many balls in the air.
Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the infinite hustle.
There is nothing either good or bad, but the market makes it so.
All’s well that aligns well with the core values of our company.
Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast. But the hard deadline for this is Thursday.
https://lithub.com/shakespeare-quotes-rewritten-for-business-class/?fbclid=IwAR0SpQ1i1AOCdeJBD5RJfqr2Cg5132U64JskYSSaMycyIrTRdcjmtP-HKSY
*
THE MYTH OF MAJORITY-MINORITY AMERICA
~ In recent years, demographers and pundits have latched on to the idea that, within a generation, the United States will inevitably become a majority-minority nation, with nonwhite people outnumbering white people. In the minds of many Americans, this ethno-racial transition betokens political, cultural, and social upheaval, because a white majority has dominated the nation since its founding. But our research on immigration, public opinion, and racial demography reveals something quite different: By softening and blurring racial and ethnic lines, diversity is bringing Americans together more than it is tearing the country apart.
The majority-minority narrative contributes to our national polarization. Its depiction of a society fractured in two, with one side rising while the other subsides, is inherently divisive because it implies winners and losers. It has bolstered white anxiety and resentment of supposedly ascendant minority groups, and has turned people against democratic institutions that many conservative white Americans and politicians consider complicit in illegitimate minority empowerment. At the extreme, it nurtures conspiratorial beliefs in a racist “replacement” theory, which holds that elites are working to replace white people with minority immigrants in a “stolen America.”
The narrative is also false. By rigidly splitting Americans into two groups, white versus nonwhite, it reinvents the discredited 19th-century “one-drop rule” and applies it to a 21st-century society in which the color line is more fluid than it has ever been.
In reality, racial diversity is increasing not only at a nationwide level but also within American families—indeed within individual Americans. Nearly three in 10 Asian, one in four Latino, and one in five Black newlyweds are married to a member of a different ethnic or racial group. More than three-quarters of these unions are with a white partner. For more and more Americans, racial integration is embedded in their closest relationships.
Multiracial identities are gaining public recognition and approval. Numerous young Americans consider themselves both white and members of a minority racial or ethnic group. One in every nine babies born in the U.S. today will be raised in a mixed minority-and-white family, and this group is steadily growing. These children have kin networks—including grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins—that include both white people and minorities. Among Latinos, identifying as white or as simply “American” is common, and belies the notion that Latinos should be classified monolithically as nonwhite.
Furthermore, most Americans of both white and minority descent are not positioned as minorities in American society. For example, people who identify as Hispanic and white, or Asian and white, tend to start life in more economically favorable situations than most minority groups, are typically raised in largely white communities, have above-average educational outcomes and adulthood incomes, and frequently marry white people. They have fluid identities that are influenced by both minority and white ancestries. Children with Black and white parents face greater social exclusion and more formidable obstacles to upward mobility. But their social experiences are more integrated than those of Black Americans who identify as monoracial.
These trends expose the flaw lurking behind the headline-grabbing claim that America will soon be a majority-minority society. That narrative depends on the misleading practice of classifying individuals of mixed backgrounds as exclusively nonwhite. The Census Bureau population projections that relied on this practice first predicted the majority-minority future in 2008. The idea quickly took on a life of its own. Some Americans now instinctively think of rising diversity as a catalyst of white decline and nonwhite numerical dominance. But as more recent news releases from the bureau have begun to acknowledge, what the data in fact show is that Americans with mixed racial backgrounds are the most rapidly growing racial group in the country.
As much as they are competing for economic resources and political power, America’s racial groups are blending now more than ever. According to the most detailed of the Census Bureau’s projections, 52 percent of individuals included in the nonwhite majority of 2060 will also identify as white. By the same token, the white group will become much more diverse, because 40 percent of Americans who say they are white also will claim a minority racial or ethnic identity. Speculating about whether America will have a white majority by the mid-21st century makes little sense, because the social meanings of white and nonwhite are rapidly shifting. The sharp distinction between these categories will apply to many fewer Americans.
The public deserves to hear an accurate narrative about rising racial diversity that highlights the likelihood that society’s mainstream will continue to expand to include people of varied backgrounds. Our recent research demonstrates that most white people are not only receptive to such an inclusive narrative but can be powerfully influenced by it. In multiple survey experiments, we asked white Americans to read a news story describing the rise of mixed-race marriages and the growth of a multiracial population. They expressed less anxiety and anger, anticipated less discrimination against white people, and evinced more willingness to invest in public goods, such as education, than others who read a news story predicated on the false narrative of white decline in a majority-minority society by the mid-2040s.
Notably, the narrative of racial blending was especially reassuring to white Republicans, who felt most threatened by the conventional majority-minority account. In our most recent study, 67 percent of white Republican participants expressed anxiety or anger after reading a news story modeled on the majority-minority narrative, compared with 29 percent of white Democratic participants. Among those who instead read a story of rising multiracialism and blending, anxiety and anger were much lower, reported by 26 percent of white Republicans and 13 percent of white Democrats.
Moreover, Latino, Black, and Asian participants in these studies expressed overwhelmingly positive reactions to the story of racial blending. Anticipation of equal treatment in the future was as high among minority respondents who read the blending story as among those who read the majority-minority account. Minority Americans were most optimistic and least fearful after reading about the rise of multiracial families. Eighty-five percent of Black, Asian, and Latino respondents expressed hopefulness or enthusiasm after reading this account—more than the approximately two-thirds of minority respondents who expressed these positive emotions in response to the majority-minority story.
For all the talk about racial polarization in America, the broad consensus is that an expanding and more diverse mainstream portends a better future. Journalists, subject-matter experts, and political leaders have an obligation to tell Americans the full story about rising diversity and racial blending. At the same time, discussions of demographic change must not fuel complacency about the unequal opportunities that minority groups, especially Black Americans, continue to face. Narratives are aspirational as well as informational. One that highlights our growing connections and interdependence should more effectively call attention to our collective obligation to break racial barriers and overcome bigotry than to retain historical zero-sum thinking about racial division.
Americans need to remember that they have been here before. A century ago, the eugenicist Madison Grant asserted that Nordic Americans were committing “race suicide” by letting in millions of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe who would out-breed them and destroy their nation’s identity. Swayed by this narrative, the United States Congress enacted drastic, racist restrictions on immigration that lasted for 40 years.
But during the “melting pot” era of the 1950s and ’60s, the descendants of the very immigrants Grant had maligned emphatically refuted his ideas. Many white Americans had come to recognize that their ethnic differences were eroding rather than solidifying. Parents of that time weren’t so surprised when an adult child brought home a possible partner from a different ethnic or religious background, though the color line remained painfully formidable. Interethnic and interreligious marriages among white Americans soared. By the ’90s, only 20 percent of white Americans had chosen partners from the same ethnic background.
While the rising number of multiracial Americans today does not exactly mirror the dynamics of the ’50s and ’60s, the dangers of ignoring ethno-racial blending are the same. The myth of an imminent majority-minority society revives the misconception that American ethnic and racial groups are fixed, bounded, and separate. It breathes new life into old fears that rising diversity must entail white decline. Our ailing democracy needs a narrative now that recognizes how changing demography can unite us rather than divide us. Or, as the slogan goes, “E pluribus unum.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/myth-majority-minority-america/619190/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Mary: RACE IS FLUID, NOT FIXED
In the long view we are all a mix and have been almost from the beginnings of what we know, with the exception, maybe, of the San people [indigenous tribes in southern Africa]. It seems our most basic tendencies are movement and mixing, traveling not in one great migration out of Africa, as was once thought, but in several waves, and also in waves that returned, and sometimes moved out yet again. Humanity never moved in one direction only, like a river, but more like the restless waves of the sea, ebbing and flowing, constantly in motion. And wherever and whenever we went, we connected — mating with strangers, with cousins, with other branches of the great human tree, even ones that were fated to disappear in the future, leaving with us memories coded in fragments of our DNA.
As is pointed out in the discussion of minority majorities, the mistake is in assuming race is an absolute and not a fluid and relative thing. There are no purebreds, only different kinds of mongrels, and that's from before the beginnings of historic time. The categorization of people by race is an idea that has long outlived its usefulness in terms of social reality, and the growth of social networks beyond those divisions is a wonderful step toward a better world.
Think of the kind of divisions found only a generation or two ago, where the taboo of crossing religious or ethnic lines was strong and prohibitive. Dating or marrying outside your group has become progressively more common until it is almost inconsequential. This is probably due to many factors, among them the waning interest in identifying with any particular religion, and the increased mobility of many people, who not only move from a particular neighborhood but from cities and states, living in lots of different places in the course of their lives. The culture has become more inclusive, we see and hear from many people who are different from us, and yet find them just like us, familiar in their humanity.
I can remember an issue arising over 50 years ago, with my first serious boyfriend in college. He was worried about taking me to meet his mother, because he had always dated tall blond "germanic" girls, and I was short, dark, and Polish. I thought that was hilariously ridiculous, and he was a weird jerk. We lived in an immigrant working class industrial northern city, where neighborhoods, churches and schools were still ethnic conclaves: the Italian neighborhood, the Polish neighborhood, the Jewish neighborhood, the Black neighborhood.These still exist, but are no longer exclusive with defined borders, are much more places to enjoy and explore different cuisines and traditional entertainments.
I think this is an ongoing process, where differences and borders become increasingly permeable and not prohibitive or exclusionary. And the longer this continues, the more familiar it becomes, the more insignificant those divisions become.When the Other is part of friend and family groups, it is no longer Other, but Us.
Oriana:
It would be lovely to see the day when almost all of us refused to check the white, black, Hispanic, etc box on various questionnaires, and instead proudly check OTHER (which could also be renamed MIXED). Because we all really are mixed, and it's high time to recognize that there is no "racial purity." We reject that Nazi concept.
JESUS NEVER SAID SOULS GO TO HEAVEN OR HELL AFTER WE DIE; HOW CHRISTIANS SWITCHED TO PLATO
“Neither Jesus nor any writer of the bible says anything about the soul going anywhere when they describe death. Nor do they identify the soul with the mind, or with the whole human being, as Christians began doing when in the fourth century. Jesus certainly taught that there will be life after death — the resurrection — but he didn’t teach that there will be life right after death, which is what most Christians now believe.
Jesus talked about souls, but he didn’t think of them in the way that most Christians do. Like the other first-century Jews, he thought of a person’s soul as what made him or her be alive [“the animating principle” — oddly enough, that’s how the Catholic Encyclopedia defines the soul]. Common words for soul were nefesh and ruach in Hebrew, and spiré and pneuma in Greek. Like the words for soul in most languages these came from words for breath, wind, and what’s moving. The reason words meaning air that’s moving were used for what makes us alive is probably that people noticed that as long as we are alive, we breathe, when when we “breathe our last breath,” we die. So they thought that our breath is what keeps us alive.
Nothing was thought of as immortal here, as the soul is immortal in Greek dualism. The soul was understood to be mortal just like the rest of the person, and at death, both were destroyed.
If Jesus thought of the soul as what makes a person alive, and not as the person’s nonphysical, immortal mind, where did the now popular idea that the soul is the nonphysical, immortal mind come from? That idea came not from the bible but from Greek philosophy. Greek-influenced Christians tended to be dualists, thinking of each person as two things: a mortal body being controlled by an immortal soul.
The most influential of those dualists was Augustine, who defined a human being as “a rational soul using a mortal and earthly body.” That definition would have puzzled Jesus because he thought of a human being as one thing — a living body, not two things — a soul, plus a body that it “uses.”
In switching to Platonic ideas about death liberating the immortal soul, Christian thinkers quietly put aside Jesus’ ideas, which he shared with the writers of the bible, that death destroys us. What Jesus added was that the destruction of death is not permanent because at the end of the world God will intervene in the natural order and resurrect everyone [in flesh], judge them, and reward or punish them.
In Jesus’ day, this idea of the resurrection was less than two centuries old and was not accepted by all Jews. The Sadducees rejected it because it was not well-grounded in the scriptures. If you read through the whole Old Testament — over one thousand pages — God says nothing at all about anyone living after they die. And just before he drives Adam and Eve out of the garden, he scolds Adam, saying, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
There are just two sketchy prophetic passages in the OT that suggest a future resurrection, and it is not a resurrection of the human race. These passages were written at a time when Jews were being persecuted, and in both of them only Jews — maybe only some Jews — will be resurrected.
Any Jew who believed in the resurrection of the dead at the time of Jesus, then, had very little to base it on. Jesus is vague about what it will involve, except to suggest that everyone, not just some Jews, will be resurrected, and there will judgment after resurrection, followed by happiness for the good people and suffering for the bad. But whatever he said about the resurrection of the dead, it is clear that he did not say that people’s souls go to heaven or hell when they die.” ~ John Morreall, “Questions for Christians,” 2014. (John Morreall is professor and chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the College of William and Mary.)
(by that logic there are no human souls in heaven or hell right now, as the author explains in the chapter that follows; heaven or hell were to follow the bodily resurrection of the whole person)
Devil carrying his soul basket
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How happy can you be when you think every action and thought is being monitored by a judgmental ghost? ~ Dan Barker, “Losing Faith in Faith”
Oriana:
That was my problem exactly — the emphasis on sin and being watched 24/7, even your thoughts and dreams monitored — yes, even dreams could be sinful — made me more and more convinced that I was doomed to burn in hell — but this conviction was a sin also, the “sin against the Holy Ghost which shall not be forgiven.” It was insane.
In the US I found people generally had a different idea of god: some invisible sweetheart of a being who created pleasant landscapes and cute animals. You go to heaven no matter how you live: it's simply automatic because you're a Presbyterian (or whatever). Only once I met a woman who said that to her god was an eye in the sky, spying on her sins. I didn't even get the chance to ask if she was a former Catholic, but I suspect so.
Only later, on Facebook, people came out with stories of toxic theology that matched mine. Remember, growing up I had zero contact with Protestants (who were all going to hell, the nuns assured Catholic children).
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COMMENTS ON THE STORY OF ABRAHAM AND ISAAC CONTINUE . . .
Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No, " Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but"
"The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61"
~ Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited, first stanza
A haunting story. Isaac carried the wood meant for his own holocaust. We know that Abraham used a knife (according to Hebrew sources), but St. Jerome in the Vulgate changed it to “sword."
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IMMUNITY TO CORONAVIRUS MAY BE LONG-LASTING, EVEN LIFE-LONG
“The studies found memory B cells produced in response to Covid infection and enhanced with a vaccine were so potent that they thwart even variants of the virus, negating a need for boosters.”
~ Immunity to the coronavirus lasts at least a year, possibly a lifetime, improving over time especially after vaccination, according to two new studies. The findings may help put to rest lingering fears that protection against the virus will be short-lived.
Together, the studies suggest that most people who have recovered from Covid-19 and who were later immunized will not need boosters. Vaccinated people who were never infected most likely will need the shots, however, as will a minority who were infected but did not produce a robust immune response.
Both reports looked at people who had been exposed to the coronavirus about a year earlier. Cells that retain a memory of the virus persist in the bone marrow and may churn out antibodies whenever needed, according to one of the studies, published on Monday in the journal Nature.
The other study, posted online at BioRxiv, a site for biology research, found that these so-called memory B cells continue to mature and strengthen for at least 12 months after the initial infection.
“The papers are consistent with the growing body of literature that suggests that immunity elicited by infection and vaccination for SARS-CoV-2 appears to be long-lived,” said Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved in the research.
The studies may soothe fears that immunity to the virus is transient, as is the case with coronaviruses that cause common colds. But those viruses change significantly every few years, Dr. Hensley said. “The reason we get infected with common coronaviruses repetitively throughout life might have much more to do with variation of these viruses rather than immunity,” he said.
In fact, memory B cells produced in response to infection with SARS-CoV-2 and enhanced with vaccination are so potent that they thwart even variants of the virus, negating the need for boosters, according to Michel Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University in New York who led the study on memory maturation.
“People who were infected and get vaccinated really have a terrific response, a terrific set of antibodies, because they continue to evolve their antibodies,” Dr. Nussenzweig said. “I expect that they will last for a long time.”
The result may not apply to protection derived from vaccines alone, because immune memory is likely to be organized differently after immunization, compared with that following natural infection.
That means people who have not had Covid-19 and have been immunized may eventually need a booster shot, Dr. Nussenzweig said. “That’s the kind of thing that we will know very, very soon,” he said.
Upon first encountering a virus, B cells rapidly proliferate and produce antibodies in large amounts. Once the acute infection is resolved, a small number of the cells take up residence in the bone marrow, steadily pumping out modest levels of antibodies.
To look at memory B cells specific to the new coronavirus, researchers led by Ali Ellebedy of Washington University in St. Louis analyzed blood from 77 people at three-month intervals, starting about a month after their infection with the coronavirus. Only six of the 77 had been hospitalized for Covid-19; the rest had mild symptoms.
Antibody levels in these individuals dropped rapidly four months after infection and continued to decline slowly for months afterward — results that are in line with those from other studies.
Some scientists have interpreted this decrease as a sign of waning immunity, but it is exactly what’s expected, other experts said. If blood contained high quantities of antibodies to every pathogen the body had ever encountered, it would quickly transform into a thick sludge.
Instead, blood levels of antibodies fall sharply following acute infection, while memory B cells remain quiescent in the bone marrow, ready to take action when needed.
Dr. Ellebedy’s team obtained bone marrow samples from 19 people roughly seven months after they had been infected. Fifteen had detectable memory B cells, but four did not, suggesting that some people might carry very few of the cells or none at all.
“It tells me that even if you got infected, it doesn’t mean that you have a super immune response,” Dr. Ellebedy said. The findings reinforce the idea that people who have recovered from Covid-19 should be vaccinated, he said.
Five of the participants in Dr. Ellebedy’s study donated bone marrow samples seven or eight months after they were initially infected and again four months later. He and his colleagues found that the number of memory B cells remained stable over that time.
The results are particularly noteworthy because it is difficult to get bone marrow samples, said Jennifer Gommerman, an immunologist at the University of Toronto who was not involved in the work.
A landmark study in 2007 showed that antibodies in theory could survive decades, perhaps even well beyond the average life span, hinting at the long-term presence of memory B cells. But the new study offered a rare proof of their existence, Dr. Gommerman said.
Dr. Nussenzweig’s team looked at how memory B cells mature over time. The researchers analyzed blood from 63 people who had recovered from Covid-19 about a year earlier. The vast majority of the participants had mild symptoms, and 26 had also received at least one dose of either the Moderna or the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
So-called neutralizing antibodies, needed to prevent reinfection with the virus, remained unchanged between six and 12 months, while related but less important antibodies slowly disappeared, the team found.
As memory B cells continued to evolve, the antibodies they produced developed the ability to neutralize an even broader group of variants. This ongoing maturation may result from a small piece of the virus that is sequestered by the immune system — for target practice, so to speak.
A year after infection, neutralizing activity in the participants who had not been vaccinated was lower against all forms of the virus, with the greatest loss seen against the variant first identified in South Africa.
Vaccination significantly amplified antibody levels, confirming results from other studies; the shots also ramped up the body’s neutralizing ability by about 50-fold.
Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said on Sunday that he would not get a coronavirus vaccine because he had been infected in March of last year and was therefore immune.
But there is no guarantee that such immunity will be powerful enough to protect him for years, particularly given the emergence of variants of the coronavirus that can partially sidestep the body’s defenses.
The results of Dr. Nussenzweig’s study suggest that people who have recovered from Covid-19 and who have later been vaccinated will continue to have extremely high levels of protection against emerging variants, even without receiving a vaccine booster down the line.
“It kind of looks exactly like what we would hope a good memory B cell response would look like,” said Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle who was not involved in the new research.
The experts all agreed that immunity is likely to play out very differently in people who have never had Covid-19. Fighting a live virus is different from responding to a single viral protein introduced by a vaccine. And in those who had Covid-19, the initial immune response had time to mature over six to 12 months before being challenged by the vaccine.
“Those kinetics are different than someone who got immunized and then gets immunized again three weeks later,” Dr. Pepper said. “That’s not to say that they might not have as broad a response, but it could be very different.” ~
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/health/coronavirus-immunity-vaccines.html
Oriana:
Another study showed that those who recovered from a Covid infection may need only one vaccine dose.
THE MANY BENEFITS OF N-ACETYL-CYSTEINE (NAC)
~ What exactly is NAC? This nutraceutical compound derives from cysteine. That’s an amino acid found in protein-rich foods, such as eggs, lentils, meat, and pumpkin seeds.
Besides NAC’s impressive ability to protect your liver, NAC can also work throughout your body. That includes supporting the health of your brain, gut, and lungs.
Here’s a closer look at the top 12 potential health benefits and uses of NAC.
ANTIOXIDANT
NAC can work directly as an antioxidant to squelch free radicals. That can help reduce inflammation and preserve normal cell function. Second, the cysteine that NAC supplies is a key building block of glutathione. That’s a potent antioxidant your body makes to guard your cells against free radicals.
If you’ve heard of glutathione supplements, you may wonder why not take those rather than NAC? In other words, why not bypass “the middleman”?
Most glutathione supplements are quickly broken down in your gut or liver before they have a chance to work. Liposomal glutathione may work better, but those supplements are typically pricey. NAC is relatively inexpensive.) Additionally, pushing glutathione directly too early can throw people into detox symptoms, whereas NAC is a precursor and supports your body in creating its own glutathione instead.
BIOFILM REDUCTION
Biofilm is like a “protective blanket” that bacteria and other microbes produce. It helps shield them from your immune system and treatment strategies.
To beat complex chronic illnesses, such as Lyme disease, it’s important to tackle biofilm. NAC may help with this. Though NAC hasn’t been tested against Borrelia (Lyme) biofilm, it has been tested against other resistant bacteria.
In a series of experiments, researchers tested NAC against seven types of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. That included MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). Compared to a control group, NAC significantly reduced the thickness of biofilm made by all bacteria tested.
In addition, all the bacteria tested died within 30 minutes of treatment with NAC. Plus, NAC inhibited the growth of Candida albicans.
Another lab study suggests NAC inhibits biofilm production in a dose-dependent manner. In other words, the effectiveness increases as the dose increases.
BRAIN FUNCTION
Your brain has a big workload but relatively low antioxidant defenses, so it’s vulnerable to damage. Plus, as you age, oxidative stress increases while glutathione levels gradually decrease. This means your brain has even less protection.
You’d probably prefer not to think about your risk of a brain injury or losing good cognitive function. Yet, it’s a possibility we all face.
Brain dysfunction and memory loss can happen as a result of brain injuries, such as a stroke, as well as in Alzheimer’s disease. Oxidative stress could play a significant role in this, as it promotes inflammation and dysfunction of brain cells.
Research suggests NAC may help combat cognitive dysfunction in conditions including:
Alzheimer’s disease: Scientists have tested NAC for people with declining brain function, including early Alzheimer’s disease. When combined with certain vitamins and amino acids, NAC has helped improve people’s executive function. That’s the ability to carry out tasks requiring mental skills.
Parkinson’s disease: NAC may help your brain use dopamine, a nerve messenger that declines in Parkinson’s. When people with Parkinson’s disease took NAC via a combo of an oral supplement and intravenous therapy, dopamine activity increased by 3–8%. (13)
Stroke: During a stroke, your brain produces a toxin called acrolein. Animal research suggests NAC may help detoxify this harmful compound. NAC helps increase glutathione levels in your brain, which can play a role in combating acrolein.
Traumatic brain injury: NAC may help reduce symptoms of brain injury incurred during military service. When soldiers took NAC within 24 hours of a mild brain injury, they had an 86% chance of full recovery within 7 days compared to taking a placebo.
GUT HEALTH
Modern science confirms you need a healthy gut and microbiome for optimum wellness. NAC may be a powerful tool for helping you maintain intestinal health, including the function of your gut wall.
Your gut lining is like a security system. It releases valuable nutrients into your bloodstream while minimizing the passage of harmful elements. That’s good for the rest of your body but leaves your gut vulnerable to toxins and increases your risk of developing a leaky gut.
When researchers fed animals NAC for three weeks, it reduced leaky gut. Plus, it decreased intestinal inflammation caused by toxins. NAC may also provide these gut protective effects in ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease.
NAC may promote a healthy gut microbiome as well. In a five-month mouse study, NAC stimulated the growth of beneficial gut bacteria. At the same time, it decreased the abundance of bacteria that promote disease, including type 2 diabetes. NAC might also reduce the amount of toxins that harmful gut bacteria produce.
LIVER HEALTH
Your liver processes toxins—including drugs like acetaminophen—so you can eliminate them.
Unfortunately, intermediate compounds produced in liver detox can be more damaging than the starting substances. Some of these intermediates can bind to your DNA, possibly acting as carcinogens. And some may bind to proteins, potentially triggering unwanted immune responses.
NAC could help protect your liver during its detox work. In today’s toxic world, everyone’s liver could likely use a little help.
Remember, NAC promotes glutathione production, particularly in the liver. This is especially helpful during detox when oxidative stress increases in liver cells.
Another challenge that’s on the rise is nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). That refers to unhealthy fat buildup in the liver that’s not due to alcohol intake. NAFLD is often related to obesity and type 2 diabetes.
A study of people with NAFLD suggests NAC can help to reduce liver enzymes. That's a sign it helps to lower inflammation. As a result, NAC may help improve liver function in people with NAFLD.
So NAC is pretty impressive by itself. It also teams up well with TUDCA (tauroursodeoxycholic acid). That’s a water-soluble bile acid and liver helper.
Animal research suggests that when you combine NAC and TUDCA, they fight free radicals in your liver better than when taken alone.
LUNG FUNCTION
NAC is recognized for its respiratory benefits. The antioxidant properties of NAC could help protect your lungs. On top of that, NAC is a mucolytic. This means it helps thin and reduce mucus.
NAC may be beneficial for people with several lung conditions, including:
Chronic bronchitis: In this condition, the airways of your lungs swell and produce mucus, leading to coughing. A review of human studies found that taking NAC was 68% more likely to improve bronchitis symptoms compared to taking a placebo.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD): This lung disease involves high free radical levels, which deplete your glutathione. NAC may help reduce lung inflammation while increasing glutathione levels.
Cystic fibrosis (CF): This genetic disease involves excess mucus production, which promotes bacterial growth in the lungs. When people with CF took NAC for six months, they maintained or even improved their lung function. In contrast, lung function declined in the placebo group.
Mold-infected lungs: In a small study, people with an Aspergillus (mold) lung infection nebulized a special preparation of NAC. About 33% of them experienced reduced lung symptoms and increased mucus removal.
MENTAL HEALTH
NAC can cross your blood-brain barrier. So the compound may act in a few different ways to combat mental health conditions.
In your brain, NAC supplies cysteine to make glutathione. This may help combat the oxidative stress common in many psychiatric disorders. These include depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia.
Also, NAC supports key neurotransmitter (nerve messenger) systems, including glutamate. Several mental health challenges—including addiction and schizophrenia—involve dysfunction of the glutamate system.
On top of that, NAC may help calm inflammation commonly found in people with depression and other mental health disorders. That might help balance neurotransmitter levels and restore their normal function.
Several human studies support the mental health benefits of NAC. For example, in a three-month study, people with depression who took NAC alongside their regular treatment had a significant reduction in depression symptoms, compared with regular treatment alone.
PARASITES
Parasites are messy “houseguests,” generating free radicals and toxins. NAC may help bolster your defenses against parasitic invaders.
NAC helps fight Plasmodium, a parasite that infects the blood and causes malaria. Could it also combat Babesia? That’s another parasite that can infect your blood. You may know Babesia better as a Lyme coinfection.
To combat Babesia, your body generates free radicals. But those can also damage your cells and tissues. A lab study suggests NAC could help prevent oxidative damage to the host while inhibiting Babesia growth.
NAC may also be effective against some parasitic worms, including Schistosoma mansoni. When mice with the parasite took NAC, it increased glutathione levels and counteracted the oxidative stress caused by the worm.
PCOS
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is a condition that affects up to 10% of women in their reproductive years. It’s characterized by an imbalance in reproductive hormones.
PCOS can lead to infertility. Common symptoms include acne, increased facial hair, menstrual irregularity, thinning of scalp hair, and weight gain.
It’s not completely clear why PCOS occurs. Genetics may play a role. An inability to use insulin properly is often a factor too.
Research suggests NAC may offer several benefits to women with PCOS. In one study, women with PCOS took NAC for six months. Their fasting blood sugar, fasting insulin level, and weight improved more than a comparison group taking metformin. That’s a standard diabetes drug.
NAC may help with fertility in PCOS as well, according to a review of eight clinical studies. Women with PCOS who took NAC were more likely to get pregnant than women taking a placebo.
PESTICIDES
Researchers have tested NAC against some toxic pesticides. This includes organophosphate pesticides, which are often used to kill insects.
A top example of an organophosphate pesticide is chlorpyrifos. This insecticide is used to help grow some fruits, nuts, and vegetables. But it can harm your brain and nervous system. Environmental health advocates have been calling for a complete ban of this insecticide for years.
In a study of people with organophosphate pesticide poisoning, NAC enabled people to take smaller doses of a drug typically used to treat the poisoning.
NAC may also combat the harmful effects of paraquat. This weed killer is used to grow crops across the globe. In a lab study, NAC neutralized free radicals triggered by paraquat exposure.
Last but not least, NAC may help counteract harmful effects of glyphosate. In one study, NAC helped protect rats against oxidative stress and tissue damage caused by a glyphosate weed killer.
TOXIC HEAVY METALS
Along with testing NAC against toxic pesticides, it’s also been tested against toxic heavy metals.
You can take steps to reduce your exposure to harmful heavy metals, like mercury in seafood, but you can’t completely avoid them. This is why you need ways to bind and remove toxic heavy metals.
A potent tool to bind and eliminate harmful heavy metals is BioActive Carbon. But NAC may help in this area too.
Due to its chemical structure, NAC can bind heavy metals like cadmium, lead, and mercury. That enables you to excrete them, including via your urine.
In one case study, a man given high doses of NAC for 10 days had an 86% drop in blood levels of the heavy metal cobalt. He had elevated cobalt levels due to a deteriorating metal hip replacement. Six months after his NAC treatment, his cobalt levels remained low.
In addition, the antioxidant properties of NAC may help combat the damaging effects of heavy metals. Remember, NAC can act as an antioxidant directly. It also supports the production of glutathione in your cells.
VIRUSES
If you have a weakened immune system or a tendency to catch viruses, you may want to consider NAC.
Lab studies suggest NAC inhibits the replication of some seasonal influenza A viruses. It may also reduce inflammation triggered by the flu virus. That said, NAC’s effectiveness appears to vary with the strain of the flu virus.
Still, even if NAC doesn’t completely prevent a flu virus infection, it may reduce the symptoms. Further research is needed to confirm which flu strains NAC combats best.
One virus you’d likely prefer to bypass is the common rotavirus. It can cause diarrhea and vomiting, especially in children. But it can also infect adults.
When researchers tested NAC against rotavirus in the lab, it inhibited rotavirus activity by 93%. In contrast, some drugs tested in the study only inhibited the virus by 35–53%. In addition, in one small study, children who took NAC at the start of a rotavirus infection had significantly reduced episodes of diarrhea. ~
And the good news is that NAC is widely available and affordable.
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ending on beauty:
They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders
Wept with love on seeing Ithaca
Humble and green. Art is that Ithaca
A green eternity, not wonders
Art is endless like a river flowing
It passes, yet remains, a mirror to the same
Inconstant Heraclitus, the same
And another, like the river flowing
~ Jorge Luis Borges, Ars Poetica
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