692 lines
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HTML
692 lines
86 KiB
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<meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes" name="viewport"/>
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<title>10 August, 2021</title>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<body>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Diving Into the Subconscious of the “Cuomosexual”</strong> - How could we have witnessed the Governor’s narcissism, bullying, and hackneyed paternalism, and found these qualities attractive? A psychoanalyst gives her take. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/diving-into-the-subconscious-of-the-cuomosexual">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Tokyo Olympics’ Indelible Moments of Loss and Solidarity</strong> - From Simone Biles to Raven Saunders, athletes modelled a more vulnerable approach to individual struggle. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/sports/sporting-scene/the-tokyo-olympics-indelible-moments-of-loss-and-solidarity">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Three Big Takeaways from a Strong July Jobs Report</strong> - The Biden economy is growing, but there’s a great need, and a great potential, for further job growth. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/three-big-takeaways-from-a-strong-july-jobs-report">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Andrew Cuomo’s War Against a Federal Prosecutor</strong> - A call to the Obama White House that some legal experts say is impeachable fits a pattern of the Governor smearing those who scrutinize him. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/andrew-cuomos-war-against-a-federal-prosecutor">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Daily Cartoon: Monday, August 9th</strong> - Relax while keeping the mosquitoes away. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/daily-cartoon-monday-august-9th">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>The power and peril of documentaries in a skeptical culture</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-
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cdn.com/thumbor/gQtxhor5Ms2XSKXB8z-vc4cRMKM=/321x0:1280x719/1310x983/cdn.vox-
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cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69703443/viewingbooth.0.jpeg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Maia Levy in <em>The Viewing Booth.</em> | Atzmor Productions
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The new documentary <em>The Viewing Booth</em> asks if images are losing their power.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Qh754R">
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On January 6, watching the footage of the US Capitol, I wondered what I would have seen if I were still 15 years old.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gwRGoZ">
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Back in the mid-’90s, I was a homeschooled high schooler in a profoundly conservative homeschooling community. My friends and I spent our Friday nights in small group “worldview” studies. Evangelical leaders on VHS tapes taught us that the US Constitution was divinely inspired, that America’s founders were all devoted Christians, trickle-down Reaganomics and male-led churches and governments were God’s plan for the world, and that you could understand people by slotting everyone into “competing worldviews,” for which we had <a href="https://understandingthetimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/UTT-Worldview-Chart.pdf">a handy chart</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uaY3E4">
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The chart was a decoder ring, letting us see through “media bias” and “liberal lies” to arrive at an objective view on the truth. That was the basis of the whole project, we were told: to learn to think critically about what we saw or heard or read. Thus educated, we would be impervious to bias. We would be the ones who saw the world the right way.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X4FA2K">
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On January 6, I imagined being my 10th-grade self, watching the events that I now consider to have been an insurrection unfold on the nightly news — all we had back then — against the backdrop of my worldview grid. I would have noticed that some people were flying <a href="https://religionunplugged.com/news/2021/1/6/some-history-behind-the-christian-flags-at-the-pro-trump-capitol-
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coup">Christian flags</a>, or repeating talking points<strong> </strong>I’d heard before about liberty and freedom. I would, I think, have seen <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/police-officer-says-jan-6-insurrectionists-
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perceived-themselves-to-be-christians/2021/07/27/79f14c6a-ef1f-11eb-81b2-9b7061a582d8_story.html">Christian heroes</a>, standing up for liberty and against oppression.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UKe3FO">
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Would I have found the violence disturbing, I wondered? Would I have found the footage shocking?
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cSgeLu">
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Probably. But thanks to that worldview grid, I would also have defense mechanisms to help me push back against my discomfort. I would have found a way to justify what I was seeing. It’s what our textbooks often did when confronted with many violent historical facts — the entire history of race in America, or the uneasy truth about what our fledgling nation did to its indigenous population in the course of westward expansion.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rwFRKQ">
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As a teen, I learned that Bill Clinton was unfit to be president because of his sexual conduct, but that Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich — despite <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/2016-newt-gingrich-scandals-accomplishments-veepstakes-running-
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mate-trump-gop-republican-214050/">his own scandals</a> — was just fine. I heard you could be “pro-life” and still excuse those who advocated for torture and war. I could believe that slavery, as abstractly as I understood it, was fundamentally bad, and simultaneously accept the suggestion of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Gallant-Christian-
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Soldier-
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Sowers/dp/0915134403/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=robert+e+lee+biography+christian&qid=1628104670&s=books&sr=1-2">a “Christian hero” biography</a> checked out of my church library in upstate New York that Robert E. Lee was someone to admire and emulate.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oNA88A">
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As a community, we found a way to show that what seemed wrong was right, actually, in this case.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="P6jBUs">
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Eager to please the adults, with almost no exposure to anyone who thought differently, I assumed the grown-ups were right. So when those folks stormed the Capitol, what 15-year-old me would have seen were patriots revolting against an unjust power grab, fulfilling the founders’ wishes and, by extension, God’s.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zAPKmW">
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I’m pretty sure being confronted with facts that challenged my beliefs, and then finding a way around them, would only have made me feel more confident that I was right.
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</p>
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<h3 id="tHIWn6">
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How we look at images determines what we see
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="I4Y0bJ">
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I was startled to hear that same analysis — that knowing how to circumvent challenges to my worldview would only strengthen it — from the lips of the subject of a new documentary, <em>The Viewing Booth.</em>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iw6mHz">
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I first saw the film at the True/False Film Festival in March 2020, long before the Capitol insurrection, a week before most Americans realized this pandemic was going to be a thing. It stuck in my mind all year. I thought about it when I watched video footage of George Floyd’s murder. I thought about it as I heard people declare that protests against police brutality and unrest across the country were staged or “false flag” operations. I thought about it while watching videos of my co-religionists (albeit in a branch I’ve left behind) protesting common- sense public health measures <a href="https://www.kgw.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/portland-waterfront-gathering-
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no-masks-sean-feucht/283-7e9e0a3c-2c5e-4788-86c4-52d05022fe71">by gathering in public squares to sing songs I know</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cYclmA">
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<em>The Viewing Booth</em> isn’t about any of those things — though, in a real sense, it’s about all of them. Israeli documentarian Ra’anan Alexandrowicz has long been an activist opposed to the occupation of Palestine, and has made films that try to show what’s going on in the hope of shifting his audience’s opinion.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vpwV9j">
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That process has made him think deeply about the ethics of documentary; for instance, after making his 2001 film <em>The Inner Tour,</em> he realized that as an Israeli, he could no longer in good conscience <a href="https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/interview-raanan-alexandrowicz/">point his camera at Palestinians in occupied territories</a>. He remained committed to the work of being an activist-documentarian, but started thinking about how we watch as much as what we see.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Xd3kVF">
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Alexandrowicz shot <em>The Viewing Booth</em> at Temple University, where he is a researcher. He asked American students who said they were interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to enter a constructed viewing booth, where they watched videos related to the occupation uploaded to the internet by both activists and pro-Israeli outlets, and to verbalize their thoughts.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Gaux6R">
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He ended up centering the film on the reactions of one young woman, Maia Levy, an American of Israeli descent whose stance on videos originating in the West Bank city of Hebron is in opposition to Alexandrowicz’s. Levy enters the viewing booth twice; first to watch several videos, and then again six months later to comment on the footage of her original session.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QU9Shz">
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In her first visit to the booth, Levy is presented with a menu of videos, from which she chooses several to watch. Some of them have been shared online by <a href="https://www.btselem.org/">human rights activist group B’Tselem</a> and others have been shared by pro-occupation groups.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IKsCI7">
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One depicts a group of Israeli soldiers raiding a home in the middle of the night, terrifying the children there and providing little explanation. In another, a soldier in an occupied zone brusquely grabs a child who happens by. A third shows soldiers giving gifts to smiling Palestinian children. Levy tells Alexandrowicz that her parents, both Israeli, have dismissed footage from B’Tselem as manipulative and manipulated garbage, and that she’s also recently traveled to the region seen in the videos.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Tun9vW">
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She is inclined to believe the videos from pro-Israeli sources, and to find ways to dismiss the pro-Palestinian ones. Levy narrates her reactions to Alexandrowicz as she watches, remarking upon the moments when she is skeptical of what she is seeing.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QXUgHq">
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Levy doesn’t think the videos are faked, exactly. But she wonders what key information might have been left out to cast them in a new light. Did the soldiers receive a tip that a bomb was planted in the home? Did they pay those children to be filmed receiving gifts? Why is a camera present in the first place? She pauses the videos and explains what she’s thinking, answering questions Alexandrowicz poses to unpack her reactions even more.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CmzRY8">
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The point of <em>The Viewing Booth</em> isn’t to hear what someone like Levy thinks about the occupation and the conflict. Nor is it to demonstrate that Levy’s pre-existing beliefs affect how she interprets what she sees; that’s obvious. Instead, Alexandrowicz wants to hear her vocalize her thoughts as she watches, and to think about what they demonstrate about how we view images today.
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</p>
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<h3 id="O1GY7i">
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Can “critical thinking” about media have unintended consequences?
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PGPEyS">
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I talked to Alexandrowicz in July 2021, nearly 18 months after I first saw <em>The Viewing Booth</em> and on the verge of its public premiere. What he noted during our conversation was that making the film taught him a lot about the defense mechanisms we tend to bring to images that challenge our beliefs — something we all do, no matter how objective we believe we are.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hoAu6I">
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Alexandrowicz largely leaves his personal opinion out of the film, instead interrogating Levy’s framework for viewing the videos on offer. His most basic aim was to gain insight into the challenges of using images and video to change people’s minds on issues that populate today’s specific media landscape. He was coming at this subject from a very particular vantage point: as a documentarian working in these still-early days of the 21st century.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d7X9yY">
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Watching video in the present context is different than it was in the 1990s, or in the 1960s, or in the 1920s, or at the dawn of moving images. One obvious reason is that the world we live in now is saturated by images and videos, which can have a numbing effect. We’re privy to intimate images of so much more of the world’s suffering today than previous generations ever were.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tc3bSC">
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On top of that, most everyone who watches videos today has also made videos of their own — probably on the smartphone in their pocket — which means even as audience members, we’re more aware of how we choose what goes in the frame and what stays out of it, and how those choices can manipulate the viewer. We already bring some knowledge of the filmmaking process to the screen.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VzWB6L">
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Another factor, Alexandrowicz says, might be even more impactful. When I talked to him about <em>The Viewing Booth</em>, he noted that education often involves learning how to think critically of the media we consume, which is vital and yet can have unintended consequences. “Critiquing, reframing, all the tools that come from critical theory and critical viewing are sort of very accessible now to audiences, which is great,” he said. “But at the same time, when people are viewing images that are difficult for them ideologically, these critical tools become a defense mechanism.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TKJNte">
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Learning to carefully consider the images we see in media is good, because it hopefully means we don’t just swallow what we see on screen without thinking about it. Simultaneously, we come away with tools we can use to reject images that conflict with our views. “It creates a situation in which criticizing media is a way to <em>not</em> see what it is,” he says.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="07IIk0">
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“Thinking critically” is vital to living wisely today. But that doesn’t mean the same approach can’t be deployed to rewrite reality.
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</p>
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<h3 id="yKZSvz">
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When do we turn reality into fiction to avoid the truth?
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FTC3eb">
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The context in which we encounter videos and images has also shifted, especially in a streaming age. News, entertainment, and verité footage uploaded to the internet by any random person can and often is all accessed through the same screen or device. If you’ve ever watched a TV show where actors play out a scene that looks similar to what you’re seeing in a YouTube clip, and you’re watching both the show and the YouTube clip on similar screens, it’s even more difficult to resist having the fiction frame how you understand the nonfiction.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iLiHJb">
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In <em>The Viewing Booth</em>, Levy accepts that the video in which soldiers break into a home where children are sleeping shows something that actually happened — that the raid wasn’t, itself, fiction. But she floats the possibility that the soldiers might have heard there was a bomb in the house, and when Alexandrowicz asks where that thought came from, she realizes it’s from the Israeli Netflix drama <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80113612"><em>Fauda</em></a>. Whether or not a bomb is present, the images of crying, traumatized children are powerful. Still, the possibility of the bomb as an excuse changes things for Levy.
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</p></li>
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</ul>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HnbY6J">
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For Alexandrowicz, Levy’s thought process illustrates another defense mechanism, which has to do with the way we watch fiction and the way we watch nonfiction. The difference between the two can be surprisingly hard to parse, but Alexandrowicz thinks of it as the difference between two forms of consciousness. There’s the “nonfiction consciousness,” which he defines as “the knowledge or belief that what we are looking at has a direct relation to reality, to the real world.” It’s the state of mind in which we watch documentaries; it’s why we get angry when we find out that something in a documentary is faked but not disclosed — say, <a href="https://www.vox.com/22573903/roadrunner-
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anthony-bourdain-review">the voice of a human, using an AI</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="763sdx">
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In contrast, when we watch with our “fiction consciousness,” we expect a level of mediation. “Someone wanted to portray reality, and then they created a production and they cast people to be in that situation,” he says. That mediation gives us a layer of remove. Someone who gets killed onscreen in a film, we assume, didn’t really die. A crying person is acting. It’s emotionally easier to bear.
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</p>
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Because we have these two consciousnesses at our disposal, Alexandrowicz hypothesizes that another defense mechanism develops when we “fictionalize” the nonfiction, by finding a way to insert a layer between ourselves and the image. In other words, we try to find a way to cast the nonfiction as fiction. “If [Levy] could see the same image, but experience it in a more fiction-consciousness way, that would take away some of the weight of images threatening her,” Alexandrowicz suggested.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EpD6K4">
|
|||
|
|
In a way, I think that’s what many people found themselves doing on January 6. Media coverage and politicians’ speeches seemed more devoted to<a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22218583/trump-movie-hollywood-capitol-insurrection-biden-hawley"> bending the insurrection into the form of a Hollywood blockbuster</a> than grappling with the deep rot it unveiled. A similar response seems to pop up whenever a huge, traumatic event is unfolding. Thinking of the news as another episode of TV or an action thriller, however unconsciously, helps us believe that we fully understand what we are watching. Rarely is that the case.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="nKQ8vu">
|
|||
|
|
Is there any way forward?
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZkfBVf">
|
|||
|
|
Becoming more critical of images and videos thanks to our collective status as both viewers and creators,<strong> </strong>and our understanding of the way videos and images can manipulate the truth, has contributed to an overall sense among contemporary audiences that what we see cannot be trusted and requires further interrogation. On balance, Alexandrowicz agrees, that’s good.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Bj2vrB">
|
|||
|
|
However, if that baseline of increased suspicion makes it harder for any of us to maintain a “nonfiction consciousness” — to believe that images can teach us true things about the world — what happens to documentary? To the news? To activists who make videos? If the trend toward skepticism and mistrust<strong> </strong>continues — or even worsens, with the mounting certainty of high-quality deepfakes just over the horizon — what happens next?
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ByCsSR">
|
|||
|
|
After watching <em>The Viewing Booth</em>, I wondered whether, had I been my 15-year-old self during the Capitol insurrection, I would have been convinced at all by the images I was seeing that something was wrong. I thought about people who saw videos of George Floyd, or of an angry mob forcibly entering the halls of Congress, and were able to deploy defense mechanisms that strengthened their existing views. I wondered when I’ve done it myself.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="isd1Vw">
|
|||
|
|
There is no simple solution, no good way to easily navigate inherent disbelief.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fqRdRD">
|
|||
|
|
One thing <em>The Viewing Booth</em> made me think about, however, is the difference between objectivity and reflexivity, and how all of us could stand to more frequently reflect on the act of viewing. (Interestingly, the Hebrew title of the film is <em>Mirror</em>.) “I think the only thing I come out of the film with, something that allows me to move forward, is this idea that everything is so polarized, but maybe one thing that could still be unpolarized is reflecting on how the process of subjectivity works,” Alexandrowicz said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="biE2vU">
|
|||
|
|
Looking for, confronting, and scrutinizing the reasons we interpret a video or image a particular way can help us come to terms with the whys of it — and combat the tendency to believe that we are “objective” viewers. You probably unconsciously know that your own beliefs factor into how much you trust the image in front of you. But directly acknowledging as much can have a powerful effect. “What it taught me is that when I’m thinking of how to maybe try to convince people of things — not that [Levy] was convinced in the film, but there was a process there — is that maybe a question mark is more effective than an exclamation mark,” Alexandrowicz explained.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PO0Z8s">
|
|||
|
|
For him, that lesson will affect the way he approaches his future work, and how he thinks about media literacy: “Usually, we refer to media literacy as educating people on how to better read media and understand it. But I think what this film suggests is that there is another part of media literacy, and that is understanding ourselves as viewers.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rCXsHP">
|
|||
|
|
For me, it shifts how I view myself. I suspect that I sometimes assume I am more of an “objective” viewer than a subjective one because I’m critical of what I watch, as a good 21st century viewer with a camera in my pocket. But does that actually make me more objective? Or am I falling into the same trap I would have when I was 15, by separating myself from what upsets me and finding ways to sidestep what bothers me? How would I know?
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uG0Jlb">
|
|||
|
|
That awareness gives me a new set of questions to interrogate myself with. When am I using my critical eye as a way to reinforce my own biases, or to avoid being threatened by the weight of what I am seeing? Can I reflect on those responses, rather than attributing them only to the footage I’ve just watched?
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oc8tmR">
|
|||
|
|
It’s hard work, but work worth doing. There is no going back. We are all living in our own little viewing booths — and if we want to know the world as it is, and even love it, and maybe change it, we’ve got to make sure we are looking at it straight on.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UtburE">
|
|||
|
|
The Viewing Booth<em> is playing in limited theaters and is available to digitally rent for a limited time through the </em><a href="http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2021/08/06/detail/the-viewing-booth"><em>Museum of the Moving Image’s virtual cinema platform</em></a><em>.</em>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>The fight over cage-free eggs and bacon in California, explained</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/thumbor/0FfFHHmN7V5UckWQ28TjAXTQyKk=/197x0:2864x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69703380/GettyImages_968585770.0.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
A pig at Duncan Farms near Polo, Illinois. | Scott Olson/Getty Images
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
An impending California law will get farm animals out of cages. Big Meat is pushing back hard.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X9vv34">
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CCx64V">
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="I6xh4m">
|
|||
|
|
In 2018, California voters passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_12,_Farm_Animal_Confinement_Initiative_(2018)">Prop 12</a>, a ballot initiative that is the nation’s — and some say the world’s — strongest law to improve living conditions for farmed animals.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="b5gJmH">
|
|||
|
|
It seems modest on its face: Some of the animals raised for consumption in California must be given additional space. But once fully implemented on January 1, 2022, it will affect nearly a million pigs<strong> </strong>and 40<strong> </strong>million<strong> </strong>egg-laying hens<strong> </strong>each year.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rnR7wt">
|
|||
|
|
Currently in the US, most female breeding pigs — or sows — are<strong> </strong>confined in <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/8/17318936/smithfield-foods-pork-pig-humane-animal-abuse-animal-
|
|||
|
|
welfare">gestation crates,</a> metal enclosures so small the pigs can’t turn around for virtually their entire lives, while most egg-laying hens are crammed into <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/5/10/18564455/washington-
|
|||
|
|
jay-inslee-hens-animal-cruelty">battery cages</a> that restrict them from even fully opening their wings for 18 months. Under Prop 12, these practices will be illegal. (A part of Prop 12 that covers veal went into effect at the start of 2020.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mBU3X6">
|
|||
|
|
But the impact of Prop 12 won’t be restricted to the Golden State.<strong> </strong>It<strong> </strong>will also be felt by pork and egg producers across the country who will have to retrofit existing barns and/or build new ones to comply — a costly and complex transition — if they want to continue to sell to California,<strong> </strong>which<strong> </strong>consumes about 15 percent of the nation’s pork and 12 percent of the nation’s eggs and veal.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-float-right">
|
|||
|
|
<div id="l8Xghi">
|
|||
|
|
<div>
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bLg47z">
|
|||
|
|
That’s why the law has been under attack from various meat industry trade groups, which have filed three separate lawsuits to overturn it.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wjEXKV">
|
|||
|
|
For years, legal challenges loomed as an existential threat to animal protection, with advocates fearing that California’s<strong> </strong>landmark law was in jeopardy. But in late July, the US<strong> </strong>Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.nationalhogfarmer.com/farm-policy/nppc-
|
|||
|
|
afbf-challenge-californias-prop-12-fails">ruled against a challenge</a> to<strong> </strong>Prop 12 from the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Yrh0oX">
|
|||
|
|
“It’s a resounding win against the pork industry, which is employing desperate tactics to try to reverse the most critical farm animal law passed in US history,” says Josh Balk, vice president of farm animal protection at the Humane Society of the United States, which led the effort to pass Prop 12. (Disclosure: I worked on cage-free advocacy in my previous career, including at the Humane Society.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JnaRNN">
|
|||
|
|
That decision came just weeks after the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/legislative/agriculture-loses-us-supreme-court">declined</a> to take up another one of the lawsuits, from the North American Meat Institute.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1guyLa">
|
|||
|
|
The industry’s <a href="http://nppc.org/wp-
|
|||
|
|
content/uploads/2020/10/20191205-NPPC-AFBF-Prop-12-Complaint.pdf">core argument</a> is that Prop 12 violates the “Dormant Commerce Clause,” a legal doctrine meant to prevent protectionism, or states giving their own businesses preferential treatment over businesses in other states. Industry groups argue that because most US pork is produced outside California, the financial and logistical burden of complying with Prop 12 falls mostly on out-of-state producers, and that those burdens outweigh any of the law’s supposed benefits.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XzYY6S">
|
|||
|
|
But the courts aren’t buying it. In <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca9-20-55631/pdf/USCOURTS-ca9-20-55631-0.pdf">the Ninth Circuit’s decision</a> last month, Judge Sandra S. Ikuta said that even if the industry claims about the burdens of Prop 12 compliance are true, that doesn’t mean it violates the Constitution.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lVKfuN">
|
|||
|
|
“Even though the Council has plausibly alleged that Proposition 12 will have dramatic upstream effects and require pervasive changes to the pork production industry nationwide, it has not stated a violation of the dormant Commerce Clause under our existing precedent,” Judge Ikuta wrote in the decision.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xURJjC">
|
|||
|
|
“The court doesn’t care whether it’s going to be a difficult or costly transition — it cares whether or not Prop 12 is protectionist, and it decided it’s not,” Kelsey Eberly, a staff attorney with the Animal Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit that submitted written and oral arguments in defense of Prop 12 on two of the lawsuits.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="F3sNFA">
|
|||
|
|
The National Pork Producers Council disagrees. “We are disappointed in the court’s decision and maintain our position on Prop 12: It is a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause,” Jim Monroe, the organization’s vice president of communications, said in an emailed statement. “We are evaluating the decision and our next steps.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wWKscy">
|
|||
|
|
Meat industry trade groups still have some paths forward, but their options are limited. And the consistent dismissal of their lawsuits not only means that it’s likely Prop 12 will go into effect in January,<strong> </strong>it also bodes well for<strong> </strong>similar laws<strong> </strong>in other states.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VWNW62">
|
|||
|
|
To be sure, Prop 12 will not turn industrial farming into a paradise on earth for animals, who will still stuffer all of the inhumane trappings of factory farming, just with some space to move about. Among other torturous practices, hens will still have their beaks seared off without anesthesia; sows will still be confined in farrowing crates — which are similarly restrictive as gestation crates — for a few weeks after each birth as they nurse their piglets. The progress brought about by Prop 12 speaks more to just how terrible conditions have been than how good they might be under new laws.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="n8rdDL">
|
|||
|
|
And progress doesn’t come without a cost. Improving the quality of life of animals in industrial farms will mean changes to the way they’re raised — changes that will invariably involve costs that will be passed down to consumers. The price of bacon and other pork products in California will <a href="https://www.porkbusiness.com/news/ag-policy/economist-predicts-pork-shortage-hit-california-
|
|||
|
|
january-1">probably increase</a> on January 1, and there may even be temporary shortages until the industry stabilizes. (Bacon, however, won’t “disappear,” as one <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-31/bacon-may-
|
|||
|
|
disappear-in-california-as-pig-rules-take-effect?srnd=premium&sref=C3P1bRLC">recent Associated Press headline</a> warned it might.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ATnzsy">
|
|||
|
|
If there is a shortage, much of it will be the pork industry’s making. Compare the pork industry’s response to Prop 12 with another industry’s: Egg producers are largely expected to comply just fine (though some in the industry think the <a href="https://www.wattagnet.com/blogs/14-food-safety-and-processing-
|
|||
|
|
perspective/post/41950-how-chaotic-will-the-california-egg-market-be-in-2022">price of eggs</a> could rise too). United Egg Producers, an industry trade association whose members produce nearly all eggs consumed in the US, said in an emailed statement, “UEP’s farmer-members support all types of hen housing and will comply with California’s new law, when implemented.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WFx15g">
|
|||
|
|
Meanwhile, instead of getting to work to comply with the law,<strong> </strong>the pork<strong> </strong>industry has spent the past three years suing to overturn it. Now, with two failed court cases and five months until implementation, it’s warning its customers that there isn’t enough time to abide by Prop 12’s requirement.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Tjxxkp">
|
|||
|
|
Whatever happens to the availability and price of pork and eggs on January 1, 2022, the implementation of Prop 12 will be a pivotal moment in the effort to end some of the meat and egg industry’s cruelest practices — one that could shape how farmed animals are raised for decades to come.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="5Esu3z">
|
|||
|
|
Prop 12, explained
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Zc4k6d">
|
|||
|
|
Beginning in the early 2000s, the Humane Society of the United States and a handful of other animal welfare groups set their sights on ridding the food system of cages, a nearly universal practice at the time that condemned hundreds of millions of egg-laying hens, millions of breeding pigs, and hundreds of thousands of veal calves to extreme confinement.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tFuFmM">
|
|||
|
|
An early victory came in 2008, when<strong> </strong>California voters supported <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_2,_Farm_Animal_Confinement_Initiative_(2008)">Prop 2</a>, a ballot proposition that imposed a<strong> </strong>“production” ban on cages, meaning in-state producers had to ensure pigs, hens, and calves could lie down, turn around, and extend their limbs or wings without hitting the side of an enclosure<strong>. </strong>This language resulted in some egg farms going cage-free, while some continued to use cages but just put fewer hens in each cage or used larger cages (a loophole that frustrated animal welfare activists).
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wcLrUh">
|
|||
|
|
Then in 2010, the California legislature passed AB 1437, a law that upped the ante. It required all eggs sold in the state meet those standards (known as a “sales” ban), and it went into effect in 2015.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nWjclg">
|
|||
|
|
These and <a href="https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/default/files/docs/State-Farm-Animal-Protection-
|
|||
|
|
Laws_June2021.pdf">other<strong> </strong>measures</a> have been yielding results.<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22331708/eggs-cages-chickens-hens-meat-poultry">Just six years ago, six percent of hens were cage-free</a>. Now, over 30 percent are, and that figure is expected to continually rise every year as Prop 12 and other state laws come into effect, and food companies increase their purchasing of cage-free eggs.
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/thumbor/yEw8J52C_pMAE-l7wgQ4uYlWzbY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22748762/Vbkxl_the_growing_share_of_cage_free_us_hens_nbsp_.png"/>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FGyuYB">
|
|||
|
|
Critically, Prop 12,<strong> </strong>passed by California voters via ballot measure in 2018, closes some of the remaining gaps in these laws.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rluJM6">
|
|||
|
|
It explicitly requires “cage-free” conditions for hens, and<strong> </strong>also expands how many hens are covered: About two-thirds of all eggs are sold as “shell eggs,” the kind you buy in a carton at the grocery store; the rest are sold as “liquid eggs” for restaurants, cafeterias, and food manufacturers. California’s older animal welfare law only covered shell eggs, but Prop 12<strong> </strong>extends the cage-free ban to cover hens produced for liquid eggs as well.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CCVxx6">
|
|||
|
|
The law should have an even bigger relative impact on the pork industry, which has been more stubborn in eliminating confinement systems.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="L1lJ5f">
|
|||
|
|
There are <a href="http://nppc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/20191205-NPPC-AFBF-Prop-12-Complaint.pdf">125 million pigs</a> raised for food in the US each year, a little over six million of them are sows used for breeding, and just one million of those sows are raised for the California marketplace. But for those one million sows, the difference between life in a gestation and crate and life outside of one will be stark. The crates are barely larger than the sows’ bodies —<strong> </strong>so small that the animals<strong> </strong>can’t turn around for the duration of their numerous four-month pregnancies.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/thumbor/_1Rr9uEA875in02DpR5BWv4bGzk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
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|
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22764978/GettyImages_1315780786.jpg"/> <cite>MediaNews Group via Getty Images / Harold Hoch</cite>
|
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<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Sows in gestation crates at a pig breeding farm.
|
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|
</figcaption>
|
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</figure>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="q6IVHF">
|
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|
The crates take a physical toll — sows can develop sores as well as foot and leg injuries from having to lay on concrete all day, and the immobility reduces their bone strength. The crates take a mental toll, too. Pigs are highly social, curious animals who, in natural settings, are usually quite active. But in intensive confinement systems, they might bite the bars of their crates or repeatedly move their head side to side — signs of distress, boredom, and frustration.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZaOz8s">
|
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To date, <a href="https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/default/files/docs/State-Farm-
|
|||
|
|
Animal-Protection-Laws_June2021.pdf">10 states have banned gestation crates</a>, and around 55 food companies have pledged to eliminate them from their supply chain. But compared to the progress for hens, the results have been mixed.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wDH0ko">
|
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|
|
Some companies, like Chipotle and Whole Foods, have made good on their promises to ban gestation crates from their supply chain. But most have not, according to a<strong> </strong>report by <a href="https://www.worldanimalprotection.us/news/quit-stalling-new-report-shows-companies-may-be-misleading-customers-
|
|||
|
|
false-promises-pig">World Animal Protection</a>, a UK-based international animal welfare organization. And most states that have banned gestation crates don’t raise a lot of pigs<strong> </strong>to begin with.
|
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</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WYAFrk">
|
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|
Some major pork producers have begun to phase out gestation crates in their supply chain, moving sows to “group housing” pens. These industry shifts have brought the share of crate-free sows from just <a href="https://www.fmi.org/docs/animal-welfare/avma-task-force-report.pdf?sfvrsn=a8618021_4">10 percent in 2011</a> to about <a href="http://nppc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Opening-Brief-As-filed.pdf">28 percent</a>, but with a big catch — most pork producers that<strong> </strong>use group housing pens still use gestation crates for the <a href="http://nppc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Opening-Brief-As-filed.pdf">30 to 40 days</a> between the time they finish weaning their piglets and when they’re reimpregnated, what some call “early stage confinement.” This is another critical animal welfare gap that Prop 12 will close.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ySSxfw">
|
|||
|
|
Prop 12’s space requirements are also stricter<strong> </strong>than any other law, giving sows 24 square feet apiece,<strong> </strong>well over the industry’s typical crate-free space allotment of 16 to 18 square feet. This means most pork producers probably aren’t prepared to supply California with compliant pork come January, leading some industry analysts to predict bacon shortages in the New Year.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="cy0kXH">
|
|||
|
|
A looming bacon shortage in California?
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ksre9m">
|
|||
|
|
In the North American Meat Institute lawsuit against California<strong> </strong>filed in 2019, employees from the country’s biggest pork companies declared under penalty of perjury that their companies likely wouldn’t be able to meet California’s demand for pork <s></s><s></s>under the new strictures.
|
|||
|
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</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZoZ37t">
|
|||
|
|
A spokesperson for Smithfield, which raises about 15 percent of all US sows, said in a declaration in the lawsuit<s></s>, “There will be an inadequate supply of Proposition 12-compliant hogs to meet existing demand for fresh whole pork meat in California.” The spokesperson added, “It is no exaggeration to state that the expense and complications of complying with Proposition 12 may cause Smithfield to conclude it is no longer viable to do business in California.” Similar comments were made by representatives from Hormel, JBS, Tyson Foods, and Clemens Food Group in the lawsuit.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3P0NmP">
|
|||
|
|
Over a year later, according to industry insiders, not much had changed. In March 2021, Christine McCracken, executive director of the animal protein division at agribusiness financial services company Rabobank, published a <a href="https://agnetwest.com/rabobank-
|
|||
|
|
report-pork-supply-chain-faces-challenges-with-prop-12/">report</a> in which she predicted a Prop 12 pork shortage. Per the report, California eats about 15 percent of the nation’s pork, but only 4 percent of sows were raised in housing<strong> </strong>compliant with Prop 12. The National Pork Producers Council says <a href="https://nppc.org/prop12/">less than 1 percent</a> of US pork meet’s Prop 12 standards.
|
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|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nRYY6N">
|
|||
|
|
In a <a href="https://www.porkbusiness.com/news/ag-policy/demand-webinar-proposition-12-where-do-we-go-here">webinar</a> for pork producers about Prop 12 compliance recorded in April 2021, McCracken put it bluntly: “We’re looking at a shortage. If implemented as set, we’re not going to have enough pork to meet the needs of California. The pork that is compliant is clearly going to be priced at a premium.”
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8hH0kt">
|
|||
|
|
McCracken declined to be interviewed for this story, but she’s probably right about a looming shortage. What she didn’t say in that presentation is that this entire scenario was avoidable.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Bba9sI">
|
|||
|
|
By the time Prop 12 goes into effect, the pork<strong> </strong>industry will have had more than three years to change housing systems for about a million of its 125 million pigs. Instead, it will have spent much of<strong> </strong>its time and resources unsuccessfully suing California.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y08Tu4">
|
|||
|
|
Meanwhile, egg producers — including <a href="https://www.wattagnet.com/articles/42448-cal-maine-foods-on-cage-free-conversion-
|
|||
|
|
pasture-raised-hens">the largest one</a> in the US, which raises about 12 percent of the nation’s hens — have been rapidly <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22331708/eggs-cages-chickens-hens-meat-poultry">converting cage operations to cage-free</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nv3wKs">
|
|||
|
|
Compliance will be a lot of work, both the initial project of converting operations, and continually providing compliance documentation. But as the egg producers have shown, compliance is squarely in the realm of the doable.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NtjttP">
|
|||
|
|
And these pork producers are some of the largest, most lucrative food businesses to ever exist, some<strong> </strong>of which enjoyed <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2021/03/25/with-a-banner-2020-behind-it-meat-giant-jbs-sets-sights-on-
|
|||
|
|
us-ipo/?sh=365487fc69d8">enormous</a> windfalls in 2020 as <a href="https://www.supermarketnews.com/meat/consumer-
|
|||
|
|
buying-habits-meat-shift-during-pandemic-sales-increase-34">consumers panic-bought meat</a> and other groceries. (And some of the meat companies that are warning that letting pigs turn around will result in pricier pork are the same ones accused of conspiring since 2009 to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pork-lawsuit-idUSKBN1JO3AG">limit pork supply to inflate its price</a>.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gEoltk">
|
|||
|
|
Despite the public warnings of a coming shortage,<strong> </strong>some in the industry have been working behind the scenes to comply. Hyatt Frobose of Jyga Technologies, a company that produces feeding equipment for pork production and is helping pork companies reconfigure barns to be crate- free, told me via email that he’s “worked with most of the<strong> </strong>larger meat packer groups<strong> </strong>to at least draw up plans for Prop 12 compliance and many of them have moved some of their production in the direction of Prop 12 compliance.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2wrO9R">
|
|||
|
|
After the Humane Society of the United States filed a <a href="https://www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/cf-noaction/14a-8/2020/humanehormel100920-14a8.pdf">shareholder proposal</a> calling on Hormel to disclose that it’d have trouble complying with Prop 12 — a major financial risk — the company had an about face.<strong> </strong>Hormel now<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.hormelfoods.com/newsroom/in-the-
|
|||
|
|
news/hormel-foods-company-information-about-california-proposition-12/">says it will comply with Prop 12</a>, but it’s actually a relatively small operation, tied for<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.agriculture.com/pdf/pork-
|
|||
|
|
powerhouses-2020">36th place in US pork production</a>. Clemens Foods Group, ranked 11th, <a href="https://civileats.com/2020/10/26/could-crate-free-pork-become-the-new-industry-standard/">told Civil Eats last year</a> that it’s converting some of its operations.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hGFZ0h">
|
|||
|
|
Niman Ranch and Coleman Natural Foods, smaller producers owned by poultry giant Perdue Farms, will both comply. Niman’s standards have always been higher than Prop 12’s, while <a href="https://civileats.com/2020/10/26/could-crate-free-pork-become-the-new-industry-standard/">Coleman has been working</a> with some of its contract farmers to meet Prop 12 requirements. Chris Oliviero, general manager of Niman Ranch, told me that combined, the two companies own about 38,500 sows, which would put Perdue Farms at #26.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c3S0Te">
|
|||
|
|
Oliviero thinks that ultimately, the bigger producers will fall in line with the law, even if they’re still trying to overturn it. “There still seems to be this belief by some if they push back hard enough that it won’t happen,” he told me. “But I think at a certain point when we reach a place where it’s going to proceed, the energy, time and money will be focused on making it happen as opposed to fighting it.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4Byrc5">
|
|||
|
|
One can<strong> </strong>see how the law’s formal implementation<strong> </strong>could play out. California pork prices will probably rise in January, with some in the meat industry claiming animal advocates campaigned for and passed a law that’s just too difficult and too expensive to comply with (reminder that<strong> </strong><em>voters</em> overwhelmingly supported the measure). The same thing<strong> </strong>happened in early 2015 when the predecessor to Prop 12 went into effect for eggs. But the egg industry adapted and egg prices stabilized.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="I11jhp">
|
|||
|
|
More than anything, the fight over Prop 12 shows just how awful farm animal welfare standards are in the US — simply allowing less than<strong> </strong>1 percent of US pigs to be able to turn around has become a multi-lawsuit fight waged for years. Such treatment of a dog or cat would be criminal, yet it’s just how business gets done in the pork industry.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HI9UR6">
|
|||
|
|
The extreme confinement of farmed animals on a mass scale began in post-World War II America, making meat cheaper and more accessible than ever before in human history. But in recent decades, consumers have increasingly<strong> </strong>come to understand that the cheap meat we expect comes with a steep cost to animals. Prop 12 is a major part of the effort to confront this cost, and marks a step forward in the <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-
|
|||
|
|
perfect/2019/4/4/18285986/robot-animal-nature-expanding-moral-circle-peter-singer">expansion of our moral circle</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7fMmAy">
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QZnCL0">
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="79WvVM">
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PvVvDv">
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V7KiUa">
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Raphael Warnock’s plan to neutralize a GOP takeover of Georgia elections, explained</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/thumbor/cfdtmNPPAwuqgJrr8BdXTSQjGEE=/399x0:3600x2401/1310x983/cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69703245/1233339866.0.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) heads to a vote on the Senate floor on June 8, 2021 in Washington, DC. | Samuel Corum/Getty Images
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption></figure></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Warnock’s political career — and democracy in Georgia — could hinge on the most dangerous provision of the state’s new voter suppression law.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QQlK0e">
|
|||
|
|
Late last month, Georgia Republicans began a process that could end with them <a href="https://www.vox.com/22607616/georgia-republicans-fulton-county-atlanta-voter-suppression-
|
|||
|
|
sb202-jim-crow">seizing control of election administration in Fulton County</a> — a Democratic stronghold that encompasses most of Atlanta.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="naxmTq">
|
|||
|
|
Under Georgia’s new election law, SB 202, the GOP-controlled state elections board may remove a county’s top election officials and replace them with a temporary superintendent (although this process will likely take months as the board has to jump through a few procedural hoops first). Once such a superintendent is in place, they can <a href="https://www.vox.com/22607616/georgia-republicans-fulton-county-atlanta-
|
|||
|
|
voter-suppression-sb202-jim-crow">disqualify voters, move polling places</a>, and even potentially refuse to certify election results.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UUO73s">
|
|||
|
|
Voter suppression laws are nothing new, even in the post-Jim Crow era. And Georgia’s SB 202, is hardly the first effort by Republican state lawmakers to skew elections by <a href="https://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/7-29-16%204th%20Circuit%20NAACP%20v%20NC.pdf">making it harder for Democratic constituencies to cast a ballot</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NhxBs3">
|
|||
|
|
But prior efforts to restrict the franchise frequently placed unnecessary hurdles in the way of voters, such as by requiring them to show certain forms of ID or by limiting where and when voters can cast their ballot. These sorts of laws are troubling, but they <a href="https://www.vox.com/22463490/voting-rights-democracy-texas-georgia-suppression-jim-crow-supreme-court-sb7">can be overcome by determined voters</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PBNXyo">
|
|||
|
|
SB 202, by contrast, is part of a new generation of election laws that target the nuts and bolts of election administration, potentially allowing voters to be disenfranchised <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/opinion/republicans-voting-us-elections.html">even if they follow the rules</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XU2d8T">
|
|||
|
|
Because state voter suppression laws targeting the counting of ballots and certifications of elections are relatively new, Democrats did not come into 2021 with a legislative proposal to address these laws. Democratic leaders’ primary voting rights bill, the For the People Act, includes a <a href="https://www.vox.com/22346812/voting-rights-bill-hr1-for-the-people-act">grab bag of provisions</a> intended to neutralize state laws making it harder to vote. But the For the People Act’s drafters did not anticipate something like SB 202’s provisions allowing the Republican Party to take control of election administration in Democratic counties.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0fOE8Y">
|
|||
|
|
Which brings us to the <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/s2155/text">Preventing Election Subversion Act of 2021</a>, a bill introduced by Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) that seeks to fill that gap.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rggaEG">
|
|||
|
|
It doesn’t prevent Georgia’s elections board from removing a local election official, but it does impose some procedural safeguards intended to prevent local officials from being removed for partisan reasons. Among other things, it allows such officials to sue for reinstatement in federal court.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wfq1vy">
|
|||
|
|
Additionally, the bill would make it a felony to harass or intimidate election workers in order to interfere with their official duties. GOP lawmakers in some states, including Texas, are pushing legislation making it harder for election workers to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/7/13/22573680/democrats-texas-flee-greg-abbott-voting-election-special-session-
|
|||
|
|
quorum">remove partisan observers who disrupt an election</a>. Warnock’s bill would subject the worst-behaved election observers to criminal charges.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2r5Dkq">
|
|||
|
|
Realistically, Warnock’s bill has a long way to go before it becomes law. Warnock is reportedly in negotiations with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-craft-revised-voting-rights-bill-seeking-to-keep-hopes-alive-in-
|
|||
|
|
the-senate/2021/07/28/855b93fc-efc5-11eb-81d2-ffae0f931b8f_story.html">include safeguards against “election subversion”</a> in a package of voting rights reforms that <a href="https://www.vox.com/22537146/joe-manchin-voting-
|
|||
|
|
rights-for-the-people-john-lewis-act-gerrymandering-voter-id-democrats">enjoys Manchin’s blessing</a>. As the most conservative Democratic senator in an evenly divided Senate, Manchin is key to advancing any meaningful voting rights legislation.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yIlkbS">
|
|||
|
|
And, even if Manchin signs on to the Preventing Election Subversion Act, that support is <a href="https://www.vox.com/22319564/filibuster-reform-manchin-democrats-nuclear-option">unlikely to amount to much</a> unless Democratic senators unanimously agree to eliminate the GOP’s power to filibuster voting rights bills. Plus, there’s always a risk that an increasingly conservative judiciary will <a href="https://www.vox.com/22575435/voting-rights-supreme-court-john-roberts-shelby-county-constitution-brnovich-elena-
|
|||
|
|
kagan">refuse to enforce new voting rights legislation</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LzkRvf">
|
|||
|
|
But, at the very least, this bill is a sign that Democrats understand that the GOP recently escalated its tactics in the voting rights war, and that Democrats — and democracy — need an adequate countermeasure.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="1GnBhj">
|
|||
|
|
What exactly could the Preventing Election Subversion Act do in Georgia?
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="b0pjnb">
|
|||
|
|
SB 202 presents a devilish problem for federal policymakers.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="usA7J6">
|
|||
|
|
On its face, SB 202 <a href="https://www.vox.com/22607616/georgia-republicans-fulton-county-atlanta-voter-
|
|||
|
|
suppression-sb202-jim-crow">creates a process</a> that can be used to remove local elections officials who violate the law, or who demonstrate “nonfeasance, malfeasance, or gross negligence in the administration of the elections.” Few people would argue that election officials who repeatedly break the law, or who prove incapable of doing their jobs well, should remain in office. It’s entirely reasonable for a state to create nonpartisan process to remove officials who are bad at their jobs.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="n8LaTr">
|
|||
|
|
The problem with SB 202, however, is that it de facto<strong> </strong>creates a partisan process to remove local elections officials. The bill ensures that Republicans will <a href="https://www.vox.com/22607616/georgia-republicans-fulton-county-atlanta-voter-suppression-sb202-jim-crow">control four of the five seats on the state elections board</a> for as long as the GOP controls both chambers of the state legislature. (As they have <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Party_control_of_Georgia_state_government">since 2005</a>.) And it removes Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who rebuffed former President Donald Trump’s attempts to toss out Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia’s 2020 election, as chair of the state board.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XU0jYo">
|
|||
|
|
The Preventing Election Subversion Act includes several provisions that would diminish the GOP’s ability to take over local election administration in Georgia — and in other states that enact SB 202-style laws. One of its central provisions states that statewide officials may only remove a local elections official “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gl33Gu">
|
|||
|
|
Of course, SB 202, at least on its face, also gives similar protections to local elections officials. But SB 202 allows the GOP-controlled State Elections Board to determine if an official committed malfeasance. Warnock’s bill would allow a local elections official targeted by SB 202 to sue in federal court for reinstatement.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LhuKB0">
|
|||
|
|
Thus, the ultimate determination of whether a local official performed their job so poorly that removal is warranted would be made by federal judges who, at least in theory, are less likely to be motivated by partisanship than a state board dominated by Republicans.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FtBmef">
|
|||
|
|
Warnock’s bill also includes provisions to ensure that such a federal lawsuit is vigorously litigated by a well-financed team of lawyers. Among other things, it provides that a local election administrator who is wrongfully relieved of duty, may receive “reasonable attorney’s fees” if they file a successful lawsuit.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ni4urT">
|
|||
|
|
Additionally, when a state begins proceedings to remove a local official, it must inform the US Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division that it has done so, and the Justice Department may also challenge the state’s effort to remove such an official in federal court.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="opEQlc">
|
|||
|
|
The Preventing Election Subversion Act only works if federal judges are committed to the rule of law
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1c3vQd">
|
|||
|
|
The basic theory underlying the Preventing Election Subversion Act is that federal courts can be trusted to stop partisan efforts to seize control of local election administration. But it’s far from clear that this theory is correct.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HI8YEn">
|
|||
|
|
The Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, has generally been hostile towards voting rights statutes. In <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=4053797526279899410&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr"><em>Shelby County v. Holder</em></a> (2013) the Court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act — the primary federal safeguard against racist voter suppression — based on an entirely novel reading of the Constitution that is <a href="https://www.vox.com/22575435/voting-rights-supreme-court-john-roberts-shelby-county-constitution-brnovich-elena-
|
|||
|
|
kagan">at odds with the Constitution’s text</a>. Similarly, in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf"><em>Brnovich v. DNC</em></a> (2021), the Court imposed new limits on the Voting Rights Act that have no basis in that law’s text.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mDUDFM">
|
|||
|
|
Congress, in other words, could pass a law that effectively neutralizes the most virulent provisions of SB 202, but there’s no guarantee that the Supreme Court will follow that law.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oFRLv4">
|
|||
|
|
Another danger is that, should the Preventing Election Subversion Act become law, individual federal judges may apply that law in bad faith.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GR7GMg">
|
|||
|
|
Imagine, for example, that Georgia Republicans uncover a few instances where Fulton County’s election board made suboptimal management calls — the sort of minor errors that are inevitable in any operation tasked with <a href="https://www.vox.com/22607616/georgia-republicans-fulton-county-atlanta-voter-suppression-sb202-jim-crow">counting hundreds of thousands of ballots</a>. Because Warnock’s bill allows local officials to be removed for “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” a partisan federal judge might claim that these minor missteps justify removal.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c7RV9F">
|
|||
|
|
And then there’s the risk that the Supreme Court — perhaps by engaging in the same sort of <a href="https://www.vox.com/22607616/georgia-republicans-fulton-county-atlanta-voter-suppression-sb202-jim-
|
|||
|
|
crow">textually challenged legal interpretation</a> that it performed in <em>Shelby County</em> and <em>Brnovich</em> — could strike down a federal law governing who may administer elections.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="R8KQ7S">
|
|||
|
|
As a general rule, federal courts are <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=4317471858404712116&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr">reluctant to hear lawsuits</a> challenging how a state allocates power among its “political subdivisions.” Though there are some exceptions to this general rule, typically, if Georgia decided to take over Atlanta’s police force, or its schools, or some other government agency that is typically led by local Atlanta officials, federal courts would not intervene.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eBHErv">
|
|||
|
|
The Supreme Court has also held that the federal government <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10894716839911389166&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr">may not “commandeer” state officials</a> and demand that they perform their jobs in certain ways. A conservative Supreme Court could potentially extend this doctrine to prevent the federal government from shaping who will administer elections in Fulton County.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pQstzy">
|
|||
|
|
But the Constitution also gives Congress an unusually broad power to regulate congressional elections. Although the Constitution permits states to determine “the times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives,” it also permits Congress to “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei">at any time by law make or alter such regulations</a>, except as to the places of choosing Senators.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yZEaFW">
|
|||
|
|
Thus, as the Supreme Court held in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/285/355"><em>Smiley v. Holm</em></a> (1932), federal law may “provide a complete code for congressional elections,” regulating such granular matters as “notices, registration, supervision of voting, protection of voters, prevention of fraud and corrupt practices, counting of votes, duties of inspectors and canvassers, and making and publication of election returns.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hiuwh5">
|
|||
|
|
A Supreme Court that believes it is bound by the text of the Constitution, in other words, should uphold Congress’s ability to prevent Georgia Republicans from taking over the administration of congressional elections in Fulton County. But, of course, America is ruled by the same Supreme Court that gave us <em>Shelby County</em> and <em>Brnovich</em>, so there is no guarantee Warnock’s bill would be upheld.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>PM Modi’s pep talk after semifinal loss gave a positive energy ahead of bronze medal tie: Manpreet</strong> - The skipper said the COVID-19 pandemic has been a blessing in disguise for the Indian hockey teams as they spent the entire lockdown together at the national camp</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Lionel Messi reaches agreement on move to PSG: report</strong> - Sports paper L’Equipe said on its website that he was due to arrive in Paris in the coming hours</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>AFI to celebrate August 7, Neeraj’s Olympic gold winning day, as National Javelin Day</strong> - The 23-year-old Chopra became only the second Indian to win an individual Olympic gold in Tokyo on Saturday, August 7, when he clinched the yellow metal in javelin throw with a best effort of 87.58m.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>BCCI invites applications for Head Cricket at NCA</strong> - The position is currently held by Rahul Dravid.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Chennaiyin FC sign Polish midfielder Ariel Borysiuk</strong> - Chennaiyin FC (CFC) has signed former Bundesliga midfielder Ariel Borysiuk on one-year deal ahead of 2021-22 Indian Super League (ISL) season, the Cl</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Government asks Chirag Paswan to vacate bungalow allotted to father Ram Vilas Paswan</strong> - The bungalow has been the official address of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) which was regularly holding its organisational meetings and other related events there.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Nearly 1.5 crore families in Uttar Pradesh benefitted from first Ujjawla Yojana’s first phase: CM Yogi Adityanath</strong> - He was addressing the gathering at the launch of the Ujjwala 2.0 (PMUY, 2021) scheme at Mahoba district.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Reception accorded to freedom fighter</strong> - Ouseph George led students and started agitations as part of the Quit India movement</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Parliament proceedings | Govt. says 19 States, UTs have adopted model groundwater law so far</strong> - The scheme is applicable only in areas having a stage of ground water development of less than 60% average rainfall of more than 750 mm and with shallow ground water levels</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>CM for strict action against drugs</strong> - Wants police force to be people-friendly and to bring crime rate under control</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Greece fires: PM apologises as blazes rage on Evia island</strong> - Kyriakos Mitsotakis says Greece is facing an unprecedented natural disaster, as public anger grows.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Lionel Messi agrees Paris St-Germain deal after Barcelona exit - Guillem Balague</strong> - Lionel Messi agrees a two-year deal with Paris St-Germain to join the French club, says BBC Sport columnist Guillem Balague.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Princess Latifa: Campaign to free Dubai ruler’s daughter disbanded</strong> - The Dubai ruler’s daughter Dubai was pictured in Iceland months after accusing her father of keeping her captive.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Shishov case: Belarus leader Lukashenko denies link to dissident’s death</strong> - Alexander Lukashenko insists he had nothing to do with a suspicious hanging in Ukraine last week.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Suspect in Nantes cathedral fire held over French priest’s killing</strong> - French police also suspect the Rwandan man of starting a fire that ravaged Nantes cathedral in 2020.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>4th person in US mysteriously stricken with deadly bacteria from South Asia</strong> - Cases have been identified in Kansas, Texas, Minnesota, and Georgia. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1785938">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>US settles with Trump admin whistleblower who exposed botched COVID response</strong> - Rick Bright warned US wasn’t ready for COVID. He was demoted and Trump called him a “creep.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1785916">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Buckle up as Doom Patrol S3 teaser promises another wild and crazy ride</strong> - “Why does this crap keep happening to us?” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1785838">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A number of Apple devices are on sale today, including new iPads and AirPods</strong> - Dealmaster also has Kindles, Switch and PS5 games, video doorbells, and more. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1785725">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Uber asked contractor to allow video surveillance in employee homes, bedrooms</strong> - Employee contract lets company install video cameras in personal spaces. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1785847">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Irish daughter had not been home for over five years.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Upon her return her Father cursed her heavily.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
“Where have ye been all this time, child? Why did ye not write to us, not even a line? Why didn’t ye call? Can ye not understand what ye put yer old Mother through?”<br/> <br/> The girl, crying, replied, “Dad... I became a prostitute.”<br/> <br/> “Ye what!? Get out a here, ye shameless harlot! Sinner! You’re a disgrace to this Catholic family.”<br/> <br/> “OK, Dad... as ye wish. I only came back to give mum this luxurious fur coat, title deed to a ten bedroom mansion, plus a 5 million savings certificate. For me little brother, this gold Rolex. And for ye Daddy, the sparkling new Mercedes limited edition convertible that’s parked outside plus a membership to the country club ... (takes a breath) ... and an invitation for ye all to spend New Year’s Eve on board my new yacht in the Riviera.”<br/> <br/> “What was it ye said ye had become?”, says Dad.<br/> <br/> Girl, crying again, “A prostitute, Daddy!”<br/> <br/> “Oh! My Goodness! Ye scared me half to death, girl! I thought ye said a Protestant! Come here and give yer old Dad a hug!”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/ironwill69"> /u/ironwill69 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/p1h7je/irish_daughter_had_not_been_home_for_over_five/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/p1h7je/irish_daughter_had_not_been_home_for_over_five/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
He said, “Yes.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
He said, “A Christian.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
He said, “Protestant.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
I said, “Me, too! What franchise?”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
He said, “Baptist.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
He said, “Northern Baptist.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/littleboy_xxxx"> /u/littleboy_xxxx </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/p1g588/once_i_saw_this_guy_on_a_bridge_about_to_jump_i/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/p1g588/once_i_saw_this_guy_on_a_bridge_about_to_jump_i/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton, and Blaise Pascal are playing hide and seek</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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Einstein is it, so he closes his eyes and starts to count. Pascal runs off to hide, but Newton doesn’t budge. Right in front of Einstein he bends down and scratches a box in the dirt, one meter on a side. The he just stands there, right in the middle of the box.
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Einstein opens his eyes and says “Newton! I found you! You’re it!”
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“No,” says Newton. “You found a Newton in one square meter. You found Pascal!”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/goatharper"> /u/goatharper </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/p1dz9n/albert_einstein_sir_isaac_newton_and_blaise/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/p1dz9n/albert_einstein_sir_isaac_newton_and_blaise/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>A horny gorilla sees a lion bent over a small stream, taking a drink.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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The gorilla runs up behind the lion, grabs on, and has his way with him. The gorilla then takes off running, with the very angry lion on his heels. As they run through the jungle, the gorilla gets a bit of a lead, and sees a British safari camp ahead.
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The gorilla enters the camp, grabs some khakis that are hung out to dry, and puts on pants, a shirt, and a hat. He sits on a chair by the campfire and grabs a copy of the local paper, pretending to read, to hide his face.
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The lion enters the campsite and lets out a huge roar. He yells, “did anyone see a gorilla run through here?”
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The gorilla, in full disguise, calls out, “you mean the one that fucked the lion up the ass?”
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The lion exclaims, “oh my god! It’s in the paper already?”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/InevitablePomelo8609"> /u/InevitablePomelo8609 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/p16eax/a_horny_gorilla_sees_a_lion_bent_over_a_small/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/p16eax/a_horny_gorilla_sees_a_lion_bent_over_a_small/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>A cop stopped a guy for speeding…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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Cop said: “Do you know how fast you were going?”
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The guy replied: “I was trying to keep up with traffic”
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</p>
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The cop said: “But there is no traffic”
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And the guy answered: “That’s how far behind I am”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/v31462"> /u/v31462 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/p1kn66/a_cop_stopped_a_guy_for_speeding/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/p1kn66/a_cop_stopped_a_guy_for_speeding/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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</ul>
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