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The latest political cartoons

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Provided by Tribune Content Agency Editorial

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If you are parenting your way through the first part of the 21st century in America, you may regularly tap into an always humming and sometimes throbbing collective anxiety. There’s political anxiety about anti-democratic forces, insurrectionists, losing civil rights, and a future of more ugly and divisive politics. There’s economic anxiety about child care, health care, inequality, and the ballooning costs of college and student debt. And there is our anxiety about physical safety — we’re emerging from a public health disaster that’s killed over 1 million Americans and we must face our country’s other ongoing sicknesses, like racism, anti-Semitism, and gun violence.

There’s no country on Earth without its problems, but perhaps what continues to fuel our collective American parental anxiety is a general feeling that nothing is changing — and that our country is not headed in a better direction for our kids’ future. There is a unique horror to how we’ve normalized some of America’s woes. “When you’re reading the news [of the latest mass shooting] and then you have Facebook ads targeted to you for bulletproof backpacks, it is just really too much,” says Dana Publicover, an American mom of two now living in Germany. “You see that this country’s doing absolutely nothing to stop these things. Other countries have tried and succeeded.”

Beyond anecdotal chatter, it appears more and more Americans are ready to make a big change: They are ready to move abroad. InternationalLiving.com, a resource hub for people interested in moving abroad, reports that during the period between June 2020 and May 2021, it experienced a surge in traffic to content relating to leaving the United States — a 158% growth over the previous 12 months. They cite the build-up to the U.S. elections, the Capitol riot, and general unrest as driving factors. After the official Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, traffic ballooned 4,000% over the previous week, with pages about moving and LGBTQ-friendly lists getting the most attention, as people began to question if same-sex marriage would be the next right to go.

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Leaving

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People love to hate on pigeons for the way they foul up parked cars or flock to food scraps on the sidewalk. But with more than 300 species of wild pigeon found on Earth—many of them stunning—it’s past time the lowly pigeon gets its coo.

“Pigeons are biological marvels,” says Rosemary Mosco, author of A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching. 

“They make milk for their young. They can take off almost vertically. They see colors we can’t, hear sounds we can’t, and find their way across hundreds of miles using mechanisms we don’t fully understand,” she says. “They’re the world’s most overlooked birds.”

Interestingly, there’s no scientific difference between pigeons and the much more beloved doves. Both birds are members of the Columbidae family, and while the term ‘pigeon’ tends to be applied to larger species and ‘dove’ to smaller ones, Mosco notes in her illustrated field guide that there is actually no scientific or evolutionary distinction to either group. 

What’s more, the ubiquitous pigeon found in cities worldwide descends from a bird known as the rock dove, which people long ago domesticated. (Read how pigeons first landed in cities.)

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A green imperial pigeon, Ducula aenea, flaps its wings at Kamla Nehru Zoological Garden in ​Ahmedabad, India.

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Exploring the ‘dark side’ may be a psychological need that’s met when the scare is actually over.

Virtually everyone knows what it’s like to feel really scared: A pounding heartbeat. Faster breathing. Nervous perspiration. Butterflies in the stomach.

But whether that fright is caused by watching a nail-biting horror movie, listening to a spine-chilling story, or prowling through a dark-as-night haunted house on Halloween, some people actually revel in feeling frightened. They thrive on the latest Friday the 13th movie or Stephen King novel. They relish roller coasters, perhaps even sky diving. They crave having the bejesus scared right out of them.

Of course, for the mere mortals among us who feel that we’re liable to lose our lunch after just a glimpse of a slasher movie, it may seem unimaginable that others actually enjoy panic-button experiences. But experts believe that it’s not uncommon for individuals to push the envelope, seeing how much fear they can tolerate, and ultimately feeling a sense of satisfaction when they’re able to endure the anxiety.

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Thrills Thrills Thrills

Yea!

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“It’s like having superpowers for a very brief time,” says Margaret King, Ph.D., director of the Center for Cultural Studies & Analysis in Philadelphia.The rush starts in the amygdala, a bundle of neurons at the base of the brain responsible for assessing the unknown. In a thrill-seeking situation—which almost always poses some kind of risk, whether perceived or real—the amygdala registers that risk, then releases a combination of dopamine, adrenaline, endorphins, and other chemicals in order to protect the body against it. How much of each is released depends on the perceived level of risk. At the peak, every bodily function, chemical brain reaction, and sensory input is hyper-focused on the experience.

Every person’s brain assesses unknown situations differently: Those with thinner sections of gray matter, for example, tend to perceive less of a threat and therefore seek greater thrills. No matter what type of thrill a person is seeking, the reaction triggers an increase in testosterone. Vision narrows. Adrenaline shoots into the body, which increases heart rate. With the heart beating faster, we get more oxygen. The body redirects oxygen to the brain as fast as it can. The feeling often lasts less than 60 seconds, and the immediate aftermath is another flood of mood-boosting chemicals. This is what leads thrill-seekers to chase the process again and again.

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It’s cuffing season — that time of year when single people are ready to stop serial swiping and find the one to stick with. Yet finding a new bae can be easier said than done; dating, especially in this uniquely interesting time, can really suck. Of course, people use all kinds of techniques and tactics to find a new boo: apps, going to clubs and bars, matchmakers, asking friends — you name it. Yet there’s another simple but somewhat unorthodox method people use to nab The One: literally thinking them up, or in more formal language, manifesting them.

“Through manifesting and tapping into your own energy, you can find what you want,” says Lisa Stardust, the renowned astrologer who recently released The Love Deck: 70 Cards to Ignite Attraction, Passion, and Romance, a deck of beautifully illustrated cards that guide users through attracting love (and keeping it). “It’s about putting the energy out there.”

The idea of manifesting a partner or romantic relationship merely through the power of one’s own thoughts might sound out there or woo-woo, but manifesting, as a broader concept, is an age-old practice stretching back for generations, if not millennia. It’s the fundamental idea in the best-selling book The Secret, and popular ideas like the “law of attraction” have become so mainstream, they’re understood without much explanation.

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Much like shopping for secondhand clothes, buying old books at stoop sales, online, or at used bookstores brings its own brand of excitement. There’s the thrill of happening upon a book that you’ve been wanting to read or letting spontaneity take over, choosing whatever calls to you. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that it saves money and a perfectly readable tome from ending up in a landfill. The one thing you might have to contend with is removing the dust, dirt, and grime that has built up on the covers and between the pages of an old book. Fortunately, learning how to clean old books is often easier than removing the inscriptions left behind by previous readers.

How to clean old books to get rid of dust, dirt, and grime

“To remove dust, dirt, or grime, my best advice is to use a paper towel,” says James Fraser, manager of The Grolier Poetry Bookshop in Boston. Alternatively, you can opt to use a microfiber cloth to dust off books. This method should work when you want to clean old paperback and hardbound books.

1. Wipe down the whole book, cover to cover, being careful when you clean the book’s pages.

2. If there are stubborn smudges and stains on the cover of the book, wet the paper towel or microfiber cloth with a little water and revisit those bits. Bear in the mind that books—particularly old books—can be fragile. “Any attempt to fix past wrongs may end up damaging the book even more,” says Fraser.

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Photo: Stocksy / Lauren Lee

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