Culture

Jennifer Moses is a writer and painter.

Isn't the very point and soul of art to demonstrate the human endeavor in all its multifaceted messiness?

Maybe if I didn’t live so close to New York, or if I weren’t Jewish, or if I didn’t have a son who served in the Israeli Army, or if I myself didn’t travel to Israel regularly, I wouldn’t have even noticed the recent hue-and-cry over the Metropolitan Opera’s production of “The Death of Klinghoffer.”

The opera tells the story of Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish, wheelchair-bound, 69-year-old New Yorker who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the hijacking of the passenger ship Achille Lauro in 1985. First performed in 1991, “The Death of Klinghoffer” has from the beginning drawn its share of objections by those who believe its sentiments are both anti-Semitic and pro-extremist. The current production, at the Met, was met with months of grievances, including threats, culminating in a crowd of protesters—some in wheelchairs, others shouting “Shame” and “Terror is not Art” or holding signs linking Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, with terrorism—at Lincoln Center on opening night Monday.

The storm of protest swirling around “The Death of Klinghoffer” reminds me of the mini-gust that met the opening of the recent (extremely entertaining) movie Gone Girl. In this case, feminist critics were disturbed by the depiction of the movie’s anti-heroine, Amy Dunne, who is a flat-out psychopath. Or maybe she’s a sociopath. In any event, she’s a scheming, manipulative and extremely pretty b**ch, who on top of her many other sins cries rape when no rape has occurred. The anti Gone Girl folks argued that Amy is a big fat present for misogynists who want to turn the clock back on women’s rights. Really? Because I thought she was a made-up character in a slick, sly, slightly jarring celluloid fantasy.

Let the show go on! The players play! The singers sing! Why? Because censorship is not only an anti-democratic value, but an anti-Jewish one as well. It’s not for nothing that Jews are called the “People of the Book,” so given to debate and argument that there is an old joke that spins out all the variations in which two Jews tend to voice at least three opinions. As bad as censorship is for art, it’s even worse for democratic impulses, equality and the free exchange of ideas. And if you don’t believe me, let’s embark on a quickie review.

Long before Hitler and his BFFs came up with the Final Solution, they started burning books, closing nightspots, banning music not deemed sufficiently German and even shut down the premiere of the movie All Quiet on the Western Front, beating up a few movie fans for good measure. Jews were purged from orchestras and the work of Jewish composers such as Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer was banned. In 1960 in the Soviet Union, once the birthplace of world-shattering works of music, art, ballet and literature, the staggeringly brilliant Jewish Ukrainian novelist Vasily Grossman submitted his masterpiece Life and Fate for potential publication, only to be met by a KGB raid and the seizure of his manuscripts, notebooks and even typewriter ribbons. (The book survived because a friend smuggled a surviving copy out of the country.) Under Stalin, the only music that could be produced or performed had to conform to notions of socialist realism that celebrated the proletariat paradise and glorified its Great Leader. And under the Taliban—well, by now pretty much everyone has heard of Malala Yousafzai.

But America isn’t Pakistan, you rightly say. No gulags here. But that only begs the point. Because even (and perhaps especially) in the United States we’ve got cuckoos of all stripes and affiliations who are absolutely certain that their objections to whatever they’re objecting to in art is both noble and just. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye has been banned so often it ought to get a gold medal. Ditto Our Bodies, Ourselves (who knew?), Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and perhaps most famously, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. As recently as 1996, Moby Dick was banned from school reading lists in Texas. And lest you think Moby Dick issues were just so late 20th century, as recently as last year members of the South Carolina House of Representatives voted to cut funding at the College of Charleston if it kept Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home on its summer reading list for incoming freshman

There are two issues of great importance at stake here. The first—the obvious one—is that in a democracy, artists must be at liberty to make art as they see fit (see: the First Amendment). But the second is equally important, and that’s the value of art, and any single work of art, to the society in which it appears, and to humanity in general. Is “The Death of Klinghoffer” a good opera? Does it stir? Is its libretto interesting? Its music riveting? Its musicians equal to the task? More to the point, and to the point of those who seek to see it shuttered, are the “bad” characters, the Palestine Liberation Front hijackers, represented with any human sympathy? If so, I say “good.” Because isn’t the very point and soul of art to demonstrate the human endeavor in all its multifaceted messiness? Its mix of life-affirming and violent impulses? Jews of all people know this to be true. The Hebrew Bible itself is proof of some deep, unvilifiable truth that characters on a page can only truly live if they are depicted in all their human complexity.

Thus the Old Testament is filled with people who, at best, are hugely flawed—off the top of my head, King David (adultery was the least of his sins) springs to mind, as does Abraham himself, the first human to hue to the call of God (he passed his wife off as his sister while they were sojourning in Egypt, whereupon she was taken into Pharaoh’s household). At its best, art pierces the heart, shatters the ego, shakes us to our bones or lifts us out of our seats. At its middling, it entertains. At its worst, it fails—becoming trite, clichéd, hackneyed, uninspired and uninspiring. And beyond that, it isn’t art, or even failed art, at all: it’s propaganda. It’s brainwashing. It’s a sledgehammer wielded in the service of power.

I myself have a secret list of books and movies that I wish would just go away, and at the very top of the list is the anti-Jewish piece of blood-soaked trash that was Mel Gibson as Jesus Christ in the 2004 movie The Passion of the Christ, which, among other historical lies, showed Roman legionnaires as being on the side of loving kindness and Jewish Jerusalemites on the side of murder.

And I argued my head off about it too. But that’s what we get to do in America: argue. Which is why the storm of protest over the current rendition of “The Death of Klinghoffer” is both legal and even, in some ways, utterly American. But you really have to wonder why, in a society that celebrates millions of ways of self-abasement, hyper-sexualization of young people, the debasement of women in order to sell products and all manner of basic greed, in a country where your average citizen has access to more than 1,000 TV channels and endless Internet-based entertainment, where sleaze, violence, and pornography are accepted as part of the price we pay for democracy, we focus on high art as the locus of ill will.

Jennifer Moses is a writer and painter.

I've caught myself apologizing to a table I jammed my toe on. The table and I are still friends

This story originally appeared on xoJane.com.

I’ve always been the one who feels a knee-jerk need to apologize for everything.

Very often I mean it. When you’ve had a bad day, when something sad or terrible happens to you, when I’ve done something stupid and my actions warrant an apology, you can count on me.

When an actual “I’m sorry” is necessary, you’ll never find a person more willing to gnaw on a piece of your frustration, anger, or sorrow with you. These past few years, I’ve been making a concerted effort to divvy out my “I’m sorries” much more judiciously so that they actually MEAN something. Most people deserve something more than a breathless attempt at smoothing things over.

However, when I’m nervous, unsure, or feeling guilty (whether it’s necessary or not), “I’m sorry” can become my version of “Oops” or worse, “Don’t you think you should say the same?” Ugh, passive-aggressive BS.

Lately, through all the struggles and victories of living in Japan, I’ve found “I’m sorry” popping up more and more in my English vocabulary. Some of it is an attempt at cultural acclimation, some of it is just plain old Default Louise trying to absorb some sort of real or perceived faux pas.

I could spend thousands of words talking about how I got this way — upbringing, social anxiety, people pleaser, self preservation, fear of judgement, blah blah blah — but whatever all of that amounts to, and while I begrudgingly accept this part of myself, it’s a part of me that is at times wholly useless.

For crapsake, I’ve caught myself apologizing to a table I jammed my toe on. The table didn’t care, and neither did all the people who weren’t there to witness it. The table and I are still friends.

I’m fully aware that an onslaught of apologies when I have no reason to be sorry is not only annoying but can be vaguely offensive. No Lou, you’re not sorry when the words just tumble out. What I’m actually saying is, “Don’t blame me” or “I feel dumb.”

I really started paying attention to how I handed out apologies when a dear friend and professional mentor finally snapped at me.

“Louise, cut out the ‘I’m sorries.’ You’re better than that. You don’t mean it, and you don’t have to. Don’t waste your words. Mean what you say.”

And all I wanted to do was say, “I’m sorry.”

It’s an ongoing battle. “I’m sorry” is not a prefix, a suffix, a qualifier, or a “Get Out of Jail Free” card for when I’m uncomfortable. But in Japan, I’m having to negotiate the “I’m sorries” in a whole new way.

From what I’ve observed so far, Japan is a culture of apologies. I’m not saying that Japanese people are insincere or pushovers. Far from it. Rush hour in a busy subway station or negotiating with the friendly but unwavering cell phone salesman over the up front, one year service payment due in CASH, will teach a person that right-quick.

What I am saying is that as a culture that is incredibly polite, sensitive, and gracious, apologizing is part of formal interaction. “Apologize first” is just the way things are done here. Often times when I’m out and about with fluent Japanese speakers, I’ll hear the nugget of a request or question imbedded deep within profuse apologies and slight bows. Yet despite the social requirement, people really seem to mean it when they apologize.

“I’m sorry I’m interrupting you…”

“I’m sorry that I don’t speak English/Japanese…”

“Excuse me, I’m sorry that I don’t know what this purple thing on your menu is. I’m sorry. Thank you!”

You’d think my compulsively apologizing little heart would rejoice! Well, it did at first. Every accident, every mistake, could be cleared with a “sumimasen” (I’m sorry). It was expected, it was welcomed, it was glorious.

But you can imagine the slippery slope this started. The apologies started seeping into my non-Japanese interactions.

My husband would step on MY foot and I’d apologize. A friend from America would call me on Skype two hours late, and I’d apologize. An expat friend would show up unannounced at my apartment, catching me in my full “Today Was Not Human Interaction Day” glory, and I’d apologize.

Since I’ve noticed my compulsion rearing its head again, I’ve been sorting through a duality I’ve never encountered before.

No, there isn’t some feral Louise roaming the streets of Yokohama maniacally apologizing to vending machines and gurgling infants, but this is my first experience immersing myself in a foreign culture and finding the balance between Japan Louise and American Louise is something that requires much more self awareness than I thought I was capable of.

I need to play by Japan’s rules to some extent. There is some pleasure in losing myself in the foreignness of it all, and just doing as I’m expected to do. It’s not always easy, but in the middle of it there’s a lesson in unclenching my ego. Japan doesn’t care if I find their customs “unusual” or “compromising” to my “individuality.” Their definitions of such are different, work just fine for most Japanese people, and have been around a lot longer than me.

When I find myself getting my kittens in a twist, I just remind myself that I don’t have to drink the Kool-Aid but I do have to respect it.

Look at me making discoveries all over the place!

But while I’m discovering all this in the context of my Japan life, I’m realizing that this is not an all-or-nothing situation. I can pass a lot of my Japanese cultural experience through my American filter.

I’m learning that ideally, the basic intent is the same anywhere: Be considerate of other people, and if you’re going to say, something say it with conviction. In other words, mean what you say.

When the Japanese people I’ve met here apologize, it appears as if they are genuinely sorry for having bothered me, that they appreciate that my time is valuable. They say it because it’s expected, but the intent is also expected. It’s not just empty words. There’s an unspoken willingness to start from a place of respect and go from there. I’m making a generalization — I’m new here and probably a little naive, but there is still something to be learned in that kind of interaction.

So while I don’t want to adopt the cultural norm of constantly apologizing, my constant apologizing within the context of my western culture can be quelled by taking a few lessons from the intentions of the people here.

I’m still working at it. There are still times I have to clamp my mouth shut to stop myself from apologizing to my American friends for the sound my nose makes when I breathe, but I’m making an honest effort to live by the mantra, “Mean what you say.”

During this time of trying to learn a foreign language, being keenly aware of every word that comes out of my mouth, I find that it’s worth applying that logic to my mother tongue. English may be easy for me, but it does not have to be thoughtless.

Louise Hung is a writer and theater director.

Walter Russell Mead is a professor of foreign policy and humanities at Bard College.

The opera is a morally questionable production.

When they told me last spring that the Met was going to present a controversial, anti-Semitic opera, my first response was to wonder why the Met would be launching a new Ring production so soon after the Giant Popsicle Sticks fiasco of the last one. After all, anti-Semitism is to Wagner, a great composer and deeply flawed human being, what ham is to a ham sandwich. When I found out that the opera in question was John Adam’s “Death of Klinghoffer”, I was a little non-plussed. I’ve listened to Klinghoffer on CD, but had never seen it performed and, politics aside, I thought it was a snoozer. If I’m going to watch evil, Jewish-looking untermenschen scheme against the glory of the gods, at least let me listen to music like the Ride of the Valkyries and Siegfried’s Idyll while the composer inflicts his political idiocy on an unoffending audience.

However, as readers of this site know, I am not of the boycotting persuasion, and when the Monday night opera series I had selected for other reasons included Klinghoffer’s Met premiere, I had no hesitation about going to see for myself. Having seen Merchant of Venice, both Parsifal and the Ring cycle, not to mention having read Mein Kampf, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and a tasteful compilation of editorials from Henry Ford’s newspaper, it seemed a little late in the day to start drawing lines in the sand.

Not everybody in New York shared my opinion; protestors blocked the street in front of Lincoln Center and we had to pass through police lines and barricades to get to the show. The lines at the entrance stretched far out into the plaza as the ushers conducted unusually thorough searches of bags at the door. With protestors shouting “Shame! Shame!” and speakers addressing the crowd in heavily miked voices, it was easily the most dramatic moment I’ve ever seen at a New York arts venue.

The excitement continued inside; some of the people opposed to the performance had tickets, and dozens stood to boo or cry out slogans like “Klinghoffer’s murderers will never be forgiven!” at various points during the performance. For history of opera aficionados, it was like a revival of the nineteenth century drama in European opera houses as rival factions of fans cheered or booed politically or musically controversial works.

For those who haven’t followed the latest tempest in the opera world, “The Death of Klinghoffer” is a 1991 opera with music by John Adams and a libretto by Alice Goodman. It is based, loosely, on the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro, a cruise ship, by a group of Palestinian terrorists. During the hijacking the Palestinians murdered Leon Klinghoffer, a wheelchair bound, 69 year old Jewish American passenger on the ship. A number of Jewish groups have voiced strong objections to the opera over the years on the grounds that it misrepresents the events on the ship and offers undue sympathy to the terrorists. Among those objecting to the opera are Leon Klinghoffer’s daughters Lisa and Ilsa; they issued a statement that the Met placed in the program saying, among other things, that the opera “rationalizes, romanticizes and legitimizes the terrorist murder of our father. Our family was not consulted by the composer and librettist and had no role in the development of the opera.”

From my perspective, I am less than fully persuaded by their first charge; the opera may portray the murderers in a more sympathetic light than many might prefer, but is neither an endorsement of nor an apology for the murder. Terrorists, however reprehensible their actions, are human beings, and it is not beyond the province of art to seek to examine and understand, so far as is possible, their motives.

The real problem, and it is a serious one, involves the decision by John Adams and Alice Goodman to use a family’s tragedy for their art without the permission of the family’s members. Leon Klinghoffer was not a public figure; nothing gave Adams and Goodman a moral right to profit from his death or to use it for political or artistic purposes of their own without the permission of his loved ones. The opera not only shows the death of Lisa’s and Ilsa’s father, putting words in his mouth, it presents a fictionalized portrait of their mother’s shock and reaction on hearing the news.

No family not already in public life deserves to have their most intimate and painful moments taken over and made into a public spectacle against their will. You couldn’t take liberties with Mickey and Minnie Mouse without having Disney lawyers come at you with cease and desist orders; Leon Klinghoffer’s family deserves more consideration than a fictional rodent and without in any way seeking to curtail free speech, one can regret the decision of two famous and well established artists to turn someone else’s private grief into a public entertainment.

If I were Peter Gelb, I would have declined to put the opera on, but not on political grounds. I would not have wanted to associate myself with what amounts to psychological rape, and I would not have staged it against the wishes of the murdered man’s family. Dehumanizing Leon Klinghoffer, turning him from a human being into a symbol in their political theater, is what the terrorists did on the Achille Lauro; John Adams and Alice Goodman echo this violation by trampling on the family’s privacy and wishes, stripping the Klinghoffers of their rights and dignity and using them as props. There were other ways to write an opera about the tragic conflict between the Palestinian and Jewish national movements.

The New York Times reviewed the same performance I saw, and the Times critic slid by the ethical vacuum at the heart of the work:

Yet, in death, Leon Klinghoffer became a public figure, an innocent but defiant hero, lost to what still seems like a never-ending conflict in the Middle East.

That is a bloodless way to put it and overlooks the reality that Adams and Goodman, by treating the Klinghoffers as public property and disregarding their wishes as so much worthless babbling from untermenschen and little people unworthy of consideration by Serious Artists, have not merely dared; they have transgressed.

As to the musical and dramatic qualities of the work, the verdict is mixed. Whatever his moral blind spots may be, John Adams is one of the most talented American composers of our time, and this opera, while not as musically compelling as “Nixon in China,” contains elements and passages that one cannot but admire. While his minimalist approach to music strikes some as repetitive, Adams’ keen ear for the capabilities of different instruments makes for a rich and varied sound that is capable of great lyrical beauty and dramatic intensity. Adams’ style is a romantic minimalism that builds and swells in glorious profusion and while the opera has its longueurs, at its best the music is powerful and appealing.

Adams’ greatest weakness, and it is a serious one for an opera composer, has to do with his difficulty in writing effective music for singers engaged in ordinary speech. Particularly in the recitatives, and there are a lot of long winded recitatives in this opera, the vocal lines can be much less pleasing and inventive than the orchestral music. Words like boring, cliche and predictable came frequently to mind. The libretto adds to his difficulties; a self conscious and not particularly successful effort to achieve a high poetic tone through allusive language and extended soliloquies often comes across as awkward and long. At its worst, the work features singers interminably droning dull lyrics as the audience waits restlessly for a chorus to break the monotony.

As I struggled to understand why Adams and Goodman chose to steal the Klinghoffers’ story rather than to make up a fictional one, or to find a historical tale that could take on the contemporary issues that engaged them, I found myself thinking of the portrayal of Henry Kissinger in “Nixon in China.” In that opera, also with music by John Adams and a libretto by Alice Goodman, most of the characters are treated with imagination and sympathy—even figures like Richard and Pat Nixon. This helps make that opera one of the most successful contemporary works of art, and adds layers of complexity and depth to the work that, combined with some extraordinary music, might put this opera among the classics.

But when it comes to Kissinger, Adams and Goodman turn him into a clownish villain. In part that may be because they felt that sympathetic portraits of the two Nixons and Henry Kissinger would be too much for a liberal, post-Watergate audience to bear. I’ve always felt that this was an opportunity lost; their criticism of Kissinger would have been more effective and the opera as a whole significantly stronger if they had given him his due. One feels that it was a lack of artistic confidence that led them to take the low road in portraying Dr. K; at some level they didn’t quite believe that the music and libretto could succeed unless they threw in some cheap stunts and tricks.

It’s possible that a similar lack of confidence contributed to the decision to take the low road with the Klinghoffers. It is hard, even for a composer as accomplished and admired as Adams, to get operas into regular production in these times. Opera is expensive, and audiences often fight shy of contemporary works. (At the Met’s Klinghoffer premiere, many patrons didn’t return for the second act; half the seats in the rows immediately in front of me were empty after intermission.) Without the frisson that comes from ‘real’ events and the lure of political controversy, would this opera have had the international success it has enjoyed? Did the composer and librettist feel that they needed to trash the Klinghoffer family’s privacy to get their work the attention they wanted for it—or to make it sharp and powerful in a way that they felt that their imaginations and artistic talents couldn’t achieve without sliming the Klinghoffers?

John Adams is a very good composer. If in the future he places more faith in the power of his art, and rejects unworthy compromises and short cuts, his work would be richer and deeper.

At the end of the Met performance, the boos were silent. Michaela Martens as Marilyn Klinghoffer sang a closing aria that united the audience in admiration of her inspired interpretation of Adams’ haunting music. Those who stayed for the full performance gave her and the cast a standing ovation. I applauded too, and I salute Adams’ talent, but Ilsa and Lisa still didn’t deserve what he did to them—and he didn’t have to do it to create something great.

Walter Russell Mead is a professor of foreign policy and humanities at Bard College and the editor at large at the American Interest. A version of this article originally appeared in the American Interest. The views expressed are solely his own.

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a syndicated columnist.

There is clearly something wrong with a justice system in which people who look at images of child rape can be punished more severely than people who rape children

Last week John Grisham, the best-selling author of legal thrillers, triggered a storm of online criticism by arguing in an interview with The Telegraph that criminal penalties for possessing child pornography are unreasonably harsh. Grisham, who has since apologized, spoke rather loosely, overstating the extent to which honest mistakes account for child porn convictions and the extent to which those convictions expand the prison population.

But he was right on two important points: People who download child pornography are not necessarily child molesters, and whatever harm they cause by looking at forbidden pictures does not justify the penalties they often receive.

Under federal law, receiving child pornography, which could mean downloading a single image, triggers a mandatory minimum sentence of five years—the same as the penalty for distributing it. Merely looking at a picture can qualify someone for the same charge, assuming he does so deliberately and is aware that web browsers automatically make copies of visited sites. In practice, since the Internet nowadays is almost always the source of child pornography, this means that viewing and possession can be treated the same as trafficking.

The maximum penalty for receiving or distributing child porn is 20 years, and federal sentencing guidelines recommend stiff enhancements based on very common factors, such as using a computer, possessing more than 600 images (with each video clip counted as 75 images) and exchanging photos for something of value, including other photos. In a 2009 analysis, federal public defender Troy Stabenow showed that a defendant with no prior criminal record and no history of abusing children would qualify for a sentence of 15 to 20 years based on a small collection of child pornography and one photo swap, while a 50-year-old man who encountered a 13-year-old girl online and lured her into a sexual relationship would get no more than 4 years.

Nine out of 10 federal child-porn prosecutions involve “non-production offenses”: downloading or passing along images of sexual abuse, as opposed to perpetrating or recording it. As a result of congressional edicts, the average sentence in such cases rose from 54 months in 2004 to 95 months in 2010, according to a 2012 report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The penalties have become so severe, the commission noted, that judges frequently find ways to dodge them, resulting in wildly inconsistent sentences for people guilty of essentially the same conduct. In a 2010 survey, 71% of federal judges said mandatory minimums for receiving child pornography are too long.

State sentences can be even harsher. Dissenting from a 2006 decision in which the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a 200-year sentence for a former high school teacher caught with child pornography, Vice Chief Justice Rebecca Berch noted that the penalties for such offenses were more severe than the penalties for rape, second-degree murder, and sexual assault of a child younger than 12.

These draconian sentences seem to be driven largely by the assumption that people who look at child pornography are all undiscovered or would-be child molesters. But that is not true.

The sentencing commission found, based on criminal records and additional information in presentencing reports, that one in three federal defendants convicted of non-production offenses in the previous decade had known histories of “criminal sexually dangerous behavior” (including prior child pornography offenses). Tracking 610 defendants sentenced in fiscal years 1999 and 2000 for 8.5 years after they were released, the USSC found that 7% were arrested for a new sexual offense.

Even allowing for the fact that many cases of sexual abuse go unreported (as indicated by victim surveys), it seems clear that some consumers of child pornography never abuse children. “There does exist a distinct group of offenders who are Internet-only and do not present a significant risk for hands-on sex offending,” says Karl Hanson, a senior research officer at Public Safety Canada who has co-authored several recidivism studies.

Another argument for sending people who look at child pornography to prison, emphasized by the Supreme Court in its 1990 decision upholding criminal penalties for mere possession, is that consumers create a demand that encourages production. Yet any given consumer’s contribution to that demand is likely insignificant, and this argument carries much less weight now that people typically obtain child pornography online for free.

Defenders of harsh penalties for looking at child pornography also argue that viewing such images imposes extra suffering on victims of sexual abuse, who must live with the knowledge that strangers around the world can see evidence of the horrifying crimes committed against them. But again, any single defendant’s contribution to that suffering is apt to be very small.

Tellingly, people who possess “sexually obscene images of children,” such as “a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting”—production of which need not entail abuse of any actual children—face the same heavy penalties under federal law as people caught with actual child pornography. That provision, like the reaction to John Grisham’s comments, suggests these policies are driven by outrage and disgust rather than reason. There is clearly something wrong with a justice system in which people who look at images of child rape can be punished more severely than people who rape children.

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a syndicated columnist.

To celebrate their new book on accents, a father-son author team is inviting you to call a spud a spud

You might think you don’t have an accent, but you do. And should you need help coping with this truth, you can consult a growing crowd-sourced map of people uttering one English word from all over the world: potato.

Thanks to the authors of a new book on accents called You Say Potato, you can listen to Christopher from Alabaster, Ala., say “puh-tay-tuh” (and admit that he sometimes says “tater” instead). You can hear actor Stephen Fry lyrically explain from Norfolk, England how he utters “poh-TAY-toh.” Then you can amble over to India and listen to Nitin pronounce “pah-TAT-oh” from Bangalore. You can also add your own potato and location to the map, which already has spud markers from six continents.

The book was written by a father-son team, linguist David Crystal and actor Ben Crystal, who is known for performing Shakespeare in the “original pronunciation.” The book is full of information about the kinds of people voice agents are seeking out to do commercials and how Americans came to use their “r’s” so differently than today’s Londoners. The elder Crystal explains that while it’s hard to say precisely why an accent originates, much variation has come from people imitating dominant members of a group or people that they like.

The treatise also comes with a social-justice message: accents are everywhere, and no one anywhere should be judging people based on how they say potato. “People are very ready to criticize other people’s accents,” Crystal says. “There’s no correlation between accents and intelligence or accents and criminality, but people do make judgments.” The potato map is, on that level, an invitation to listen to how diverse English can be and take a moment to appreciate those differences rather than, say, deciding right off that a person who says dahhhling is in some way better than a person who says darlin’, or vice versa.

“Our accent is the most important index of identity that we’ve got. Everybody wants to say who they are and where they’re from. And the easiest and cheapest and most universal way of doing that is through their accent,” Crystal says. “There is no such thing as an ugly accent, like there’s no such thing as an ugly flower.”

As of Tuesday, more than 640 people had submitted recordings and Crystal says they expect to be past 1,000 soon. Here’s encouraging everyone to add their voices to the mix with pride, especially if anyone has ever told them they talk funny.

"The Death of Klinghoffer'' is about the murder of a disabled Jewish man by Palestinian extremists

The Metropolitan Opera House’s opening night of 1991 opera The Death of Klinghoffer received a standing ovation in New York City Monday. But the noise made by crowds outside of Lincoln Center before the curtain rose may have rivaled the cheers inside the opera house.

Hundreds of protesters, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, railed against the John Adams opera about the 1985 murder of disabled cruise passenger Leon Klinghoffer by four members of the Palestinian Liberation Front, on charges that it is anti-Semitic and glorifies terrorists who shot a 69-year-old Jewish man in his wheelchair and then pushed him overboard.

“If you listen, you will see that the emotional context of the opera truly romanticizes terrorism,” Giuliani told crowds across the street from Lincoln Center. “And romanticizing terrorism has only made it a greater threat.”

The Met disagreed that the opera, which premiered in Brussels more than 20 years ago, glorifies terrorism.

“There’s no doubt for anyone who sees this opera that… it’s not anti-Semitic,” Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, told the BBC. “It does not glorify terrorism in any way. It is a brilliant work of art that must be performed… At the end of the day, anyone with any sense of moral understanding knows this opera is about the murder of an innocent man.”

The AP reports that there were a some orchestrated disruptions, including shouts of, “The murder of Klinghoffer will never be forgotten!” from the balcony, during the show, though the heckling was muffled by cheers when the cast took a bow.

For a generation of stressed-out working women, exercise is as much about emotional release as it is physical training.

“Let it out! Let out the sludge!”

It’s 7am on a Tuesday, at a small dance studio in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood, and Taryn Toomey is stomping her feet into the floor like thunder. “Get rid of the bullsh*t!” she shouts. “Get rid of the drama!”

Two dozen women in yoga pants and sports bras sprint in place behind her, eyes closed, arms flailing. Sweat is flying. The Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” is blaring in the background. There are grunts and screams. “Hell yes!” a woman bellows.

When the song ends, Toomey directs the group into child’s pose, torso folded over the knees, forehead on the floor, arms spread forward. Coldplay comes on, and there is a moment of rest. “Inhale. Exhale. Feel your center,” Toomey says. Heads slowly come up, and suddenly, tears are streaming down the faces of half the room. A woman in front of me is physically trembling. “I just let it all out,” a middle-aged woman in leggings and a tank top whispers.

This is “The Class”—one part yoga, two parts bootcamp, three parts emotional release, packaged into an almost spiritual… no, tribal… 75 minutes. It is the creation of fashion exec turned yoga instructor Toomey, and it is where New York’s high-flying women go for emotional release (if, that is, they can get a spot).

“During my first class I didn’t just cry, I sobbed,” says McKenzie Hayes, a 22-year-old New Yorker who has become a regular in the class. “Whether it’s your job or your relationships, I literally picture my emotional problems being slowly unstuck from my body and moved out.”

Toomey calls that “sludge”: it’s the emotional baggage we carry in our muscles that has nowhere else to go. She’s not a doctor. But week after week, she encourages participants to sweat, scream and cry out those emotions, in the company of a group of mostly women who are doing the same. “I’ve had classes where people are literally on all fours sobbing,” Toomey says. “But it’s not just my class, it’s happening everywhere. Emotional release in public can feel very uncomfortable. But I think there’s a growing movement of people who want to find a space for it.”

Indeed, the message to women has long been to hide your tears lest you look weak. (Among the tactics: jutting out your jaw. Breathing exercises. Chewing gum. Drinking water.) Yet while crying in the office may remain a feminine faux pas, tears at the gym seem to have lost their stigma — to the extent that there are a bevy of fitness courses that even encourage it.

For Asie Mohtarez, a Brooklyn makeup artist, it began in hot yoga. The music was on, the floor was warm, the instructor was standing over her encouraging her to let go. “I was in child’s pose and I just lost it,” she says. Then, two weeks later, it happened again – this time at Physique 57. The Dirty Dancing soundtrack came on and it was waterworks again. “There’s something about these classes that feel safe,” says the 33-year-old. “I can’t cry at work. I’m not emotionally distraught enough to cry in the shower. I can’t just burst into tears in front of my husband. So, what does that leave you with?”

You could go to therapy – or you could hit the gym. Women are getting teary in SoulCycle, and misty-eyed at Pure Barre. They are letting out wails in yoga and rubbing the shoulder of the weepy woman next to them at CrossFit. “I think people have started to notice that their clients are just showing up to class and just unloading, and so they’re tailoring their classes to create space for this,” says Hayes, who is a pilates instructor by day. “When I take private clients I end up feeling like a therapist for them.”

These fitness instructors aren’t trained in that, of course. But they’ve probably been there.

“I usually just go over to the student after class and quietly ask how they’re feeling,” says Kristin Esposito, a yoga instructor in Los Angeles who sees criers often. “My classes are focused on release so it feels pretty natural.”

Physiologically, it is: Exercise releases endorphins, which interact with serotonin and dopamine, the chemicals that impact mood. In yoga, deep hip openers – like the “pigeon pose” – are meant to stir emotions (yogis believe our emotional baggage lives in our hips).

But many of the newer courses are specifically choreographed to release emotion, too – making it all that much more intense. The lights are dim, candles flicker in the background. It’s not an accident that just as you’re starting to relax, coming down from the adrenaline, you’re blasted with a throaty ballad. Those playlists are meticulously constructed. “I’ve been teaching for almost 20 years, so I’ve basically seen it all: crying, laughing, throwing up, overheating,” says Stacey Griffith, a Soul Cycle instructor. “There are moments in the class that are directly programmed for that reason – but it’s not like we’re trying to get people to cry. We’re giving them the space to step outside of themselves.”

And indeed, that may be necessary. We’re busier, more stressed and more connected than we’ve ever been. Simply finding the time to have that “space” can be near impossible, making the release that these courses offer – packaged neatly into an hour – a kind of fix. “The night before, I can’t wait,” says Hayes of Toomey’s class. “I already know what will be the flood that I’m working through. And sometimes conversations with friends just don’t cut it.”

Getting those emotions out is a good thing – at least in moderation. Emotional tears contain manganese, potassium, and a hormone called prolactin, which help lower cholesterol, control high blood and boost the immune system. Crying reduces stress, and, according to one study, from the University of Minnesota, actually improves the mood of nearly 90 percent of people who do it. “You really do feel lighter after,” says Hayes.

“To me, it’s a sign of being present, it’s a sign of feeling your feelings, of being in the moment,” says Toomey, just after “the class” has ended. Plus, shoulder to shoulder in a hot room, there is almost a sense of communal release. Of high-charged emotional camaraderie. “I so needed this,” a woman tells her on the way out, with a hug. And, of course, with that much sweat, the tears are almost hidden anyway.

Read next: I Taught Fitness and Failed a Fat Test

The article raises questions about the potential repercussions on the alleged rapist

The cover of National Review’s Nov. 3 issue quite literally paints Lena Dunham in unflattering terms — the words “cowardice,” “insularity,” “narcissism,” and “sex” are tattooed on her arm in the photo illustration.

This is not the first time those accusations have been leveled at the 28 year-old writer, director and actress. But Kevin Williamson, author of the cover story, “Pathetic Privilege”, takes a new line of attack with his harsh critique of one chapter of Dunham’s new book, Not That Kind of Girl. He turns Lena Dunham’s story about emotional and physical trauma she experienced after realizing a complicated sexual encounter was, in fact, rape into a story about the trauma the publication of Dunham’s story may present for her accused rapist who was identified in the book by a first name only.

Williamson writes that since Dunham was initially confused about the encounter (she was intoxicated at the time), never “felt the need to press charges, file a complaint, or otherwise document the encounter,” and won’t release the “medical records at Oberlin supporting the story,” her accusations are suspect.

He also calls Dunham’s publication of the story “a gutless and passive-aggressive act.” Dunham identified her rapist as a mustachioed Republican named Barry. Williamson writes, “It takes me about two minutes to discover a Republican named Barry whose time at Oberlin coincided with Dunham’s.”

In a web companion piece, Williamson notes that he contacted that Barry who says he never knew Dunham. And while it was one of the “most unfortunate coincidence of [his] life,” Barry doesn’t think Dunham meant to refer to him. (Williamson also suggests that the incident she describes may be completely fictional and thinks using the name Barry was negligent.)

Dunham is presented as the attacker of this anonymous young man’s reputation by accusing him of a crime. The story, which is accompanied by caricatures of a buck-tooth Dunham as well as a photo of her eating cake, is under a paywall. However, the Washington Post does a pretty good roundup of the most important points in the piece — including 10 references it makes about the women in Dunham’s family’s genitals.

Not everyone shares Williamson’s outrage. Others have suggested that complexity and ambiguity of Dunham’s story is why it resonates so strongly with young women for whom these kinds of experiences may be an unfortunate reality. (Since graduating, Dunham has become a fierce advocate for reform of campus sexual assault policies under which few women have reported rapes on campus.)

READ MORE: Lena Dunham’s Story of Rape Is a Must-Read

I feel pity for people who cannot find the grace and class within themselves to acknowledge this young woman

This article originally appeared on Patheos.

It’s a proud moment for Pakistan, but many Pakistanis aren’t embracing it.

Malala Yousafzai — the courageous, 17-year-old young woman who became a global beacon of hope for girls seeking to gain an education — has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Predictably enough though, it hasn’t taken long for the critics to mobilize.

Since Friday morning when the news broke, much of the response on social media has been favorable. But unfortunately, many reactions have been discouraging and antagonistic. One blogger wrote Yusufzai off as a “loser” who doesn’t deserve to be recognized with such a prestigious award. Another called her a “sellout” who sacrificed her country and principles for fame and glory.

One critic harshly described her as a “tool.” Many others complained that she’s only 17 and questioned whether she even qualifies for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Reading these comments was difficult, not just because they force us to confront the unpleasant side to human nature, but also because they exemplify a growing, disturbing trend of armchair critics who consider themselves qualified to belittle the well-deserved accomplishments of others.

The source for some of the bitterness can be understood. After all, nothing makes us as keen of our own shortcomings than seeing others accomplish great things. That they happen to accomplish them at such a young age — well, that’s just salt in the wound.

It’s difficult for some to digest that this young Pakistani girl, with her father’s help, rebelled against and arguably made more progress in dismantling the Taliban’s archaic, un-Islamic traditions than even the world’s most powerful military.

That should be reason to applaud — not begrudge — her.

But rather than chastise the Taliban’s unethical practices that have harmed the perception of Islam and Muslims worldwide, many accuse Yousafzai of being a willing accomplice in justifying what is often perceived to be the West’s war on Islam. They conveniently ignore that she was an innocent schoolgirl who’s passion for learning so threatened adult men that they attempted to murder her on a bus as she traveled to school.

Because she re-located to Great Britain with her family out of concern for her safety, Yousafzai is blamed for turning her back on her country. This, despite frequent affirmations that she refuses to allow threats from the Taliban or any group from dissuading her from one day returning to Pakistan after she completes her education.

Some Pakistanis argue that Yousafzai’s father is using her to advance “his own agendas.” If that agenda includes sending your daughter to school without being killed, well he too should be applauded. Frankly, he is a role model for other men in patriarchal societies that still hold women in low regard.

Others argue that the elder Yousafzai deserves the credit for his daughter’s success. Not she. After all, he manages her engagements and public affairs and ensures she attends United Nations meetings.

Aren’t parents often a major reason for their offsprings’ success? I know mine are. Ideally, all fathers should be so involved and vested in their daughters’ — and sons’ — futures. The fact that he provides guidance and support doesn’t diminish his daughter’s accomplishments; it only magnifies his own esteem.

Yousafzai’s father should be recognized for steadfastly paving the way for her to gain an education despite the challenges that stood in their way. More fathers should follow his example and encourage their daughters to be ambitious, set the bar high and never be afraid to fight for a just cause.

Some complain that because the father/daughter duo allegedly have political aspirations in Pakistan, they must be corrupt. Seeing the deplorable track record of Pakistan’s elected officials, it’s not difficult to see why one might think anyone who aspires to public office in Pakistan must harbor ill intentions.

Who knows if that’s actually what their plans are, but at the very least, if these two come into power, Pakistan’s literacy rate is bound to increase. If they do have political aspirations though, then I hope they will leverage them to establish a legacy in Pakistan that would make its founder Jinnah proud.

Some of the more cringe-inducing conspiracy theorists hypothesize that Yousafzai must be spying for the CIA or Mossad. They clearly fail to see that the determination and confidence Yousafzai projects in striving towards her goals are influenced largely by her Islamic faith, which makes seeking and acquiring knowledge incumbent upon all Muslims — including women.

I don’t envy the Nobel Peace Prize selection committee the onerous task of having to consider and select recipients.

Let’s face it. For all the horrible people who do evil things in the world, there are many more compassionate, selfless and courageous folks who work tirelessly to improve the condition of humanity.

But I do feel pity for people who cannot find the grace and class within themselves to acknowledge that this young woman — who overcame overwhelming obstacles, stirred dormant consciences, launched a global movement, inspired millions worldwide and who through it all continues to smile and joke with self-deprecating humility — is deserving of such an honor.

Congratulations, Malala. Continue championing the cause for girls’ education and making (most of) Pakistan proud. May your conviction, courage, determination and bravery give rise to a thousand more like you.

Zainab Chaudry is the Maryland Outreach Manager of the Council on American Islamic Relations. CAIR is the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.

Read more from Patheos:

• Is There Room for Discourse and Critical Thinking in Islam?
• South Africa’s Open Mosque : Media, Feminist Critiques and “Unopen” Mosques
• Malala Yousafzai, Kailash Satyarthi and the Importance of Religious Reform