“I'm supposed to be the grown up and that's kind of hard for me, I like being the kid,” —Althea Sherwood, a Ben & Jerry’s employee, on trying to relate to younger employees.

“The Brexit vote has shown not only that the people of Texas should become an independent nation, but that it is 100 percent possible,” —Daniel Miller, who wants Texas to secede from the United States.

“The thing is, the media still talks about us like we lost that war! I like to think my dead friends accomplished something,” —a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War.

A reader recommends a smooth, psychedelic song by Tommy James and the Shondells (whose music video is worth watching as well):

Okay, [like Miami Vice and Southland,] this isn’t a movie, but Breaking Bad is arguably the most cinematic TV show ever, and it’s almost like the whole plot was written around this montage being the musical punchline of the entire series—or is it just me? It’s just me, isn’t it? Oh well, really great sequence anyway.

An even more brilliant use of a song in Breaking Bad was the very last one, in the very last scene, starting with the opening lyric, “Guess I got what I deserved”:

(Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here. Submit via hello@.)

A transgender reader, Diane, has a simple and persuasive reply to the “woman who was exposed to a male using the wrong swimming pool changing room”:

I’m a male-to-female transsexual, post-op for 20+ years. I used women’s facilities during my pre-op days, but I worked hard to hide male genitalia. The goal for most of us is to live and be socially recognized as a member of the opposite sex. To that end, we go to great, very expensive lengths to fit in with social expectations of masculinity or femininity, as appropriate. Exposing our non-blendy selves is not what we intend.

For the record, I’d find a male exposing himself within “women's space,” whether intentional or not, to be worthy of whatever social stigmatization he gets.

Diane quickly follows up:

Dang! My bad for writing before I saw the Germaine Greer video you posted [in which Greer respectfully asserts that transgender women are “not women”]. First off, Germaine Greer rocks! She’s entitled to her opinion and should receive the honorary doctorate she so richly deserves.

I knew by the age of 3 that I’d rather be female. I didn’t understand the desire, and my mother made it very clear that I was a boy, that I’d never be a girl. In the late 1940s and 1950s, my survival depended on accepting the privileges of male childhood that were never extended to my female siblings. So from that perspective I was socialized as male, which means I’m not really the woman Ms. Greer expects. I accept that fact. But at the age of 70, I’m not going to march down Main Street wearing a sandwich board, declaring my trans-status.

Within the transgender community, my experience is similar to the norm. The LGB community needed people who were willing to push the boundaries that started the social conversation about homosexuality that resulted in mostly legal equality (discrimination exists despite SCOTUS rulings), making them mainstream. Transpeople will achieve social equality because of those willing to be public about their identity. [On Thursday] DoD removed the restrictions on military service. The more we’re in the public eye, the closer we get to acceptance.

Chris, thanks for the series on the debate. The anti-science absolutists will be on the wrong side of history.

This next reader, Frank (from the comments section on the DoD post I linked to above), is also on the wrong side of history—when it comes to trans servicemembers:

My recent piece for The Atlantic on tokophobia received a lot of email from readers discussing their own personal fears of pregnancy and labor. Here’s Kelly in Los Angeles:

Incredible and timely piece, thank you so much. I actually am writing to ask a question. The article says over and over to get some help if you believe you have this phobia and want to have a baby. That's me, and I want to know how to get help. What are the concrete suggestions from Brian Salmon [a doula and lactation consultant] and his colleagues with regards to getting over this?

My story: I’m a 40-year-old woman, and I’ve only just come to decide that it’s time to be a mom. I don’t have the money to adopt, but I absolutely would if I could. I’m disgusted by being pregnant and terrified of giving birth. I’ve been pregnant before, more than once, and it felt like being invaded by a destructive alien force.

I would say that my phobia comes from the following experiences:

1. I’m a control freak. I’m a lawyer, alpha, eldest child, feminist, political activist, and conservator over my only sibling, who has DD. I fill with anxiety over mere annuals because I cannot STAND the idea of a stranger in my vagina unwantingly, without my guidance and oversight. I avoid them like the plague.

2. Those pregnancies and the subsequent abortions, ONLY with regards to the physical pain, and again, having all these people prod my privates.

3. My parents were open lefties who perhaps shared too much, including horrifying birthing stories that my mother identified (my birth especially) as “the most traumatic experience of her life.” She also showed me videos and books too early, like Our Bodies Ourselves, which depict women screaming in agony with their vaginas gaping in a room full of old white men.

To be fair, my mother’s OB/GYN was an Indian woman, and I have a dear friend who grew up on The Farm with the doulas and midwives who wrote the manuals. And I saw The Business of Being Born, so I know that, rationally, I have options outside the nasty hospitals and their profit-driven approach. And I know that there are oils and exercises to avoid tearing. But this fear isn’t rational, right?

So here I am, ready to do this, and paralyzed with fear. And your article just gave it a name, and the hope of fixing it. Please point me in some direction for fixing it.

When speaking with sources for my piece, I learned a lot about the options available to women who have tokophobia yet wish to have children someday (me being one of them). They recommend finding both a therapist and a midwife, both of whom specialize in tokophobia or have at least worked with it previously. They can not only help you discover the root cause of your phobia but also break it down into smaller related fears and work through each one specifically. They can educate you on the birthing process and your options for it—hospital vs. home, for example, or Cesarean vs. natural—and then advocate for you.

I followed up with Kirsten Brunner, MA, LPC to find out if there are any specific questions or concerns you should broach in therapy.

“Voicing your fears and reaching out for help is half the battle in overcoming tokophobia,” notes Brunner. “So many women sit in silence and shame with their fears, and that only causes the anxiety to grow.”

For Independence Day, a collage of photos from three readers on the flight path leaving Reagan National:

Bill Ruch sent the lower-right photo, adding: “There’s a reason why I go out of my way to book a seat on the right side of the plane when flying out of DC.” Jim Ciszewski sent the sunny one. Jada Chin sent the upper-right one:

Weary from waking up for my early flight to Boston, I peaked outside my window view to see the sun rising as the plane took off from DC. The city from above looked so small, and I could see the array of lights from each building shine next to the Washington Monument. This was no ordinary sunrise. It was a perfect view of the city that I call home.

(America by Air archive here. Photo submission guidelines here.)

A reader in NYC, David Leitner, has the perfect cover for the day:

Marvin Gaye’s “Star Spangled Banner” is the ultimate song transformation. What only he could sing, solo with a beat box …

If you have any Star-Spangled suggestions of your own, let us know and we’ll update.

(Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here.)

This one has been well-publicized even at the start of a long holiday weekend. Thus I just note its existence, for the long-term record. Here’s the sequence:

1. On the early morning of July 2, Donald Trump put out the image you see above in his own personal Twitter feed. It showed Hillary Clinton against a background of dollars, with the phrase “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” on a red-colored six-pointed star, or badge.
                                                                                                        
2. A basic principle of political life, and life in general, is that more things happen via incompetence or screw-up than happen according to devious plan. So the forgiving initial reaction to this Tweet could have been: can you believe how sloppy these Trump people are? Didn’t they stop to think about the way a six-sided star, on a field of cash, could so easily be read as a Star of David, and thus play into a classic anti-Semitic stereotype? [Not to mention: why the hell is a presumptive major-party nominee spending his time on this kind of idiocy?]
                                                                                                        
3. This “didn’t they stop to think??” reaction depends upon the possibility that the star could have been intended to be read as a badge, from a sheriff or marshal, rather than as a Mogen David. For instance, the LA County Sheriff’s office uses just such a badge, as shown below. So does the U.S. Marshal’s service. So conceivably this could have been just another in a series of bone-headed moves rather than anything else.

   [Update: Keith Olbermann observes via Twitter that the law-enforcement badges have globes at the six points, while a Star of David, and the image in Trump’s Tweet, do not.]
   
   But then ...

4. Today, July 3, various reports emerged (starting with News.mic) that Trump’s original “Most Corrupt” Tweet had been lifted from an outright racist site, and that the use of the Star of David was about as accidental as the placement of gorilla imagery or a watermelon in a comparable attack-Tweet about Barack Obama.

So you can take your pick: negligence, or malice. Either a presumptive major-party nominee is spending his time, as he “pivots” toward the general election that happens just four months from now, sending out personally insulting tweets without having anyone check their provenance and implications; or someone in the campaign is doing this on purpose, dog-whistle style. I think the former is more likely, but either one is bad.

***

Many generations have gone by since the world-riveting exploits of Charles Lindbergh, since the tragic mystery of Amelia Earhart, since the still underappreciated achievement of Jerrie Mock (the self-described flying housewife from Columbus, Ohio, who in 1964 became the first woman to fly solo around the world). But attempts at record-setting aviation feats continue.

The most notable of the past year has no doubt been the global flight of Solar Impulse, which has been crossing oceans, deserts, and mountain ranges powered by nothing but the sun. Here is a different kind of round-the-world event, coming up from Australia:

Lachlan “Lachie” Smart is an 18-year-old from Queensland who plans to set off on July 4 for a solo trip around the world. The planned route list is here, and a live-tracker for the flight will be here. A blog about his training flights and general preparation is here.

I’ll be following the updates. Safe flying and tailwinds to young Mr. Smart.

Update: As of mid-afternoon July 3 U.S.-Eastern time, the first leg of the flight is underway, and is trackable here on FlightAware.

In response to my inquiry for the most genre-bending Beatles cover, Jay in Cincinnati remembers a truly unique, a cappella version of “Helter Skelter”:

Somewhere in the mid-1980s, I was working late ... really really late, after 3 A.M. late. Finally driving home, my brain competed with only two thoughts: staying conscious enough to survive the trip, and how good it would feel when I finally could collapse into bed.

The radio was on—nice and loud, to help me avoid nodding off, tuned to a small non-commercial station that played non-mainstream music. When this song came on, it must have been close to 30 seconds before I even realized it was a song I knew. It was so different—not just different from the original song, but from almost any kind of music I’d ever heard—that for my own safety I pulled off the road so I could listen. Nobody identified what I’d heard; they just kept playing more music. Sometimes on this station it could be 40 minutes before anyone came on to list what had been played.

There were no cell phones, there was no internet. When I got home, I did not go to bed. I had to get a phone book, look up the station’s number and call. I had to know. Unlike today, when hardly any radio station in America has a live person on the air overnight, someone answered.

I’ve since seen this group [The Bobs] in concert maybe ten times, occasionally planning family/friend visits to other cities based on when they would be performing there. They’ve done covers of other famous songs, sometimes as radically different as this, but also in versions more recognizable. Mostly they sing their own songs, which range from hilarious to weird to touching. Every time I see them do this song, it brings back that night.

Update from a reader in Bend, Oregon:

I nominate Tiny Tim’s cover of the Beatles song “Girl.” Tiny was generally not taken seriously, but he was very serious about music:

On Wednesday, the Mirror posted the clickbaity listicle “Are Travellers Safe? From Istanbul to Glasgow and Brussels – 10 airport attacks that shook the world.” The subhead reads: “After 41 killed in Turkish airport attack it’s clear airport terminals are now the place for terrorists targeting the innocent.”

That attack in Istanbul was atrocious, and it stung especially on the heels of the awful Brussels bombings in March. But the Mirror’s notion that airports have only “now” become targets is just plain wrong.

Since their inception, airports have been “the place” for spectacles of violence. It’s not always terrorism, though. Sometimes it’s a daredevil stunt gone awry, other times it’s a terrible crash or near disaster. Occasionally it has to do with the military occupation of these otherwise civilian spaces. Throughout the twentieth century and up to now, airports have been stages for displays of excessive power, and their corollary dangers.

What makes airports popular targets for violent spectacles?

“Like math and reading, like science, social studies, and the arts, diversity is no longer a luxury,” —John King, the U.S. education secretary.

“There’s a very narrow doorway through which big ideas get to audiences,” —Chris Jackson, editor-in-chief of Random House’s One World imprint.

“People are on their best behavior when they think this relationship will be a happy one in the future,” —Edward Lemay, a professor of psychology.

(Previous quotes from our sources here)

From reader Keith Wells:

One cover I still love to hear after 30-odd years is Jeff Beck’s cover of The Beatles’ “She’s A Woman.” It manages to be faithful to the original and, yet, so very different with a talk-box vocal—an early use of the effect—and a laid back, reggae-jazz vibe with amazing, complicated musicianship. (I still find it a bit hard to believe the drummer was 19-years-old at the time.) Widely considered one of the greatest rock guitarists, at the time Beck had tired of backing up singers like Rod Stewart, even though his albums were released as The Jeff Beck Group.  Instead of another rock album, however, he came out of left field with an instrumental jazz-fusion effort produced by George Martin, The Beatles’ producer, which became a huge hit.

Here’s a thought: What’s the best, most genre-bending Beatles cover you know of? Drop us a note with your pick and why you love it.

(Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here.)