Week of Sept. 4, 2025

From the editor’s desk

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced a Senate committee hearing this morning that CNN called “contentious,” the BBC called “feiry,” and The Associated Press deemed “raucous.”

Here’s part of the AP’s summary:

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., facing pointed bipartisan questioning at a rancorous three-hour Senate committee hearing on Thursday, tried to defend his efforts to pull back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and explain the turmoil he has created at federal health agencies.

Kennedy said the fired CDC director was untrustworthy, stood by his past anti-vaccine rhetoric, and disputed reports of people saying they have had difficulty getting COVID-19 shots. …

Medical groups and several Democrats in Congress have called for Kennedy to be fired, and his exchanges with Democratic senators on the panel repeatedly devolved into shouting, from both sides.

In related news—although it won’t sound very related at first—I’ve been back from Burning Man for two days now. I have dozens of stories about people I met, fun chats around campfires, and of course the hundreds of art installations—many of them blinking, flaming or climbable; fanciful, escapist or indulgent. 

I enjoy all of these types of playa expressions, but the reason I bring them up in a discussion about the RFK Jr. hearing is because, in addition to all of the opulence and silliness that artists bring to the event, you can also usually count on an art team or two to reflect whatever may be simmering in the real world—in the form of laser-sharp satire.

Readers, I present you with a prime example—“Polio Rodeo” by Elizabeth Lieb, Urbano Maher and Graham Clarke of New Jersey. It’s a realistic, life-size statue of RFK riding an iron lung as if it were a downward-hurdling rocket and a mechanical bull at the same time. The worm popping up from his brain is Lowly, the critter from the Richard Scarry Busytown books. A carnivalesque wooden sign reads, “Polio Rodeo, coming to a school near you.” 

Bravo, team! This is the artwork the world needs right now. And it is the satire that I need to get me through this day of reading up more on the unbelievably disheartening and destructive actions our nation’s health advisor is perpetrating.

Take care,

—Kris Vagner, managing editor

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