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545 lines
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<meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes" name="viewport"/>
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<title>10 March, 2024</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>Team Trump’s Merger with the R.N.C. Begins in Texas</strong> - At a Houston meeting, the Republican National Committee elected Lara Trump and Michael Whatley to lead the organization into the general election. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/team-trumps-merger-with-the-rnc-begins-in-texas">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Forty-three Mexican Students Went Missing. What Really Happened to Them?</strong> - One night in 2014, a group of young men from a rural teachers’ college vanished. Since then, their families have fought for answers. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/11/what-really-happened-to-the-forty-three">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Lucy Prebble’s Dramas of High Anxiety</strong> - In plays such as “The Effect” and TV shows such as “I Hate Suzie” and “Succession,” the writer has become an expert at getting deep inside worried characters’ heads. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/11/lucy-prebbles-dramas-of-high-anxiety">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Joe Biden’s Last Campaign</strong> - Trailing Trump in polls and facing doubts about his age, the President voices defiant confidence in his prospects for reëlection. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/11/joe-biden-profile-re-election-campaign-donald-trump">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Legacy of RuPaul’s “Drag Race”</strong> - The drag star brought the form mainstream, and made an empire out of queer expression. Now he fears “the absolute worst.” - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/11/rupaul-doesnt-see-how-thats-any-of-your-business">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>Parenting advice you don’t need to stress about</strong> -
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<img alt="A child lies in bed on their back holding a tablet above them." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ovZJqZDm7NZORkaF3g0vvqq1eLk=/292x0:6709x4813/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73195756/GettyImages_1781825605.0.jpg"/>
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Getty Images/fStop
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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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According to experts.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gITjDX">
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Child-rearing can feel like a crowd-sourced endeavor. An entire market of books exists solely for the purpose of instructing parents on best practices for raising their kids. Every well-meaning person in a parent’s life will proffer their unsolicited opinions. And <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23700540/parenting-advice-endless-recycling-dr-spock-gentle-parenting">online, a new trend or term championed by creators</a> somehow renders every other <a href="https://www.vox.com/parenting">parenting</a> style dangerous or outdated.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Pm8beQ">
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What’s worse is this churn of ideals changes with every generation, says family therapist <a href="https://www.legitparenting.com/">Craig Knippenberg</a>, host of the podcast <em>Legit Parenting</em>. “When I was a kid, it was all discipline and responsibility — that was the main thing parents focused on,” he says. “The turn now, which I really do not like much at all, is this whole gentle parenting and we should focus on our child’s feelings and don’t want them ever to feel hurt.” (Labels aside, any approach to parenting that keeps your kids safe and healthy — and works for you — is fine.)
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</p>
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<div id="Xf8P7z">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sWosoG">
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With constantly changing frameworks and a community of people — online and off — who are quick to point out supposed flaws, there are so many standards to live up to. Aside from the thrum of social judgments, accusations of “wrong” parenting can have very real repercussions. Unknowing outsiders may make calls to a child’s school or to child protective services — which most often and <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2106272118">unequally impacts Black and brown families</a>. The pressure to be the “ideal” parent has never been greater. “Parents are always trying to get it right or be perfect,” says licensed clinical social worker <a href="https://shameproofparenting.com/meet-mercedes-parent-coach/">Mercedes Samudio</a>, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071D4YXMT"><em>Shame-Proof Parenting: Find Your Unique Parenting Voice, Feel Empowered, and Raise Whole, Healthy Children</em></a>. The reality is, parents aren’t perfect and neither are their children.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8Whunz">
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But don’t panic: There are plenty of facets of parenting in which people are naturally sufficient. To assuage your anxiety, here are the domains where experts say parents are doing just fine.
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</p>
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<h3 id="Td7QnG">
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Letting kids look at screens
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pGzE3u">
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Throughout her career, Samudio observed as technology’s role grew within families. The shame that some parents might feel for allowing their children to watch TV while they attend to chores is unfounded. “Where do people get the idea that they shouldn’t allow their kids on screen time?” she says. “What measuring stick are you using?”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WTfAsd">
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Instead, pay attention to how your family utilizes technology: Do your kids enjoy watching <a href="https://www.vox.com/tiktok">TikTok</a>? Maybe you allow your younger child to play on an iPad while you help your older kids with homework. Then, set boundaries for when tech and social media are allowed, and when you’ll put it away, Samudio says. “If it is watching fun TikTok videos, maybe you can do it together,” she says.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BHIt3L">
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Barring your child from social media or digital devices altogether may prove futile, Samudio says, as they’ll find ways to access it without your knowledge. Creating a technology roadmap for your family is more sustainable than denying screen time or comparing yourself to another family’s ideals.
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</p>
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<h3 id="stWnNg">
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Allowing children to have time to themselves
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eCrjPo">
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You’re probably spending enough time playing with your kids, says psychologist <a href="https://www.drjulifraga.com/">Juli Fraga</a>. “I hear that an awful lot,” she says. “[Parents] feel like they have to play with their kids every time that kid wants interaction.” Don’t feel guilty if you send your child off to play by themselves or if you leave them with a babysitter on a Friday night.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LnM2UW">
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<a href="https://www.bhavanalearning.com/wp-content/uploads/Milkie_et_al-2015-Journal_of_Marriage_and_Family.pdf">Research</a> shows quality time spent with children is far <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/making-time-for-kids-study-says-quality-trumps-quantity/2015/03/28/10813192-d378-11e4-8fce-3941fc548f1c_story.html">more impactful</a> than the duration of time spent together. When you’re engaging with your kids, eliminate any distractions and tune into them.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CpYQI8">
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Otherwise, let your kids use their imagination to play on their own or with other children. In cultures around the world, children most often learn from their peers and adults through observation and mimicry, says <a href="https://www.dorsaamir.com/">Dorsa Amir</a>, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/psychology">psychology</a> department who studies kids and culture. By just allowing children to play with no agenda, they are in fact learning, Amir says.
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</p>
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<h3 id="xxysEr">
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Not shielding kids from “negative” emotions
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aV65lE">
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Parents are well-intentioned in wanting their children to have a positive childhood. “The problem is,” Amir says, “that that’s not the full spectrum of the human experience.” Emotional pain, social conflict, and boredom are unavoidable in life and can be learning moments for kids. Letting children resolve conflicts on their own or to navigate cooperation among their peers doesn’t mean you aren’t protecting them — you’re just giving them space to process their emotions and to practice social skills, Amir says.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6JXxzx">
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The first step toward promoting <a href="https://www.vox.com/mental-health">mental health</a> for your children is to take care of your own, Fraga says. Kids can pick up on and internalize their parents’ anxiety, sadness, or fear. “If parents aren’t aware of that,” Fraga says, “they might think that their kid totally has anxiety, not recognizing that there’s anxiety within themselves.” By knowing how to identify and regulate your own emotions, you can <a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/parenting/emotion-regulation">teach your children skills</a> like how to name their emotions and talking through different choices they could’ve made in a stressful or emotional situation.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y1s4rw">
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Samudio also suggests keeping an open dialogue with your children, especially as they get older. “We’re not just communicating to manage conflict, but we’re also communicating … to get to know each other,” she says, “so that way we can actually talk to each other and understand how you’re feeling.” Having established an open line of communication, your child may feel more comfortable broaching topics of mental health should they arise.
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</p>
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<h3 id="Y23Fod">
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Setting boundaries
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</h3>
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In modern society, children’s needs and preferences are centered, Amir says, but sometimes at the cost of the parents’ wants and desires. It’s perfectly fine not to cater to your child’s every whim all the time, Amir says. “Your preferences matter, too,” she says. “You have a seat at the table, too.” You won’t be sacrificing your child’s happiness by bringing them along <a href="https://twitter.com/DorsaAmir/status/1615040072012955648">while you run errands</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VY8aLK">
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Similarly, the <a href="https://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/style/what-is-gentle-parenting/">gentle parenting</a> movement, where parent and child collaborate on choices and decisions, may have eroded boundaries. But most kids of all ages need boundaries, Fraga says. Take, for example, a boundary such as “You can’t be late for school.” According to Fraga, parents might be unintentionally signaling to their child that they have a choice when saying something like, “It’s time for school. Why don’t you get your shoes on, okay?” Setting and sticking to boundaries means not giving kids an option to do anything other than the task at hand. A statement like, “Put your shoes on. We’re leaving in five minutes,” helps uphold the boundary. “Kids actually respond better to that type of [communication],” Fraga says. “Little kids don’t want power, even if they think they do. It can make them feel really anxious.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SazyVn">
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Parents should feel empowered to set boundaries around bedtime, mealtimes, and “whatever they need for their home life to run smoothly,” Fraga says. “Just because a kid might feel bad about something doesn’t mean that it’s wrong.”
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</p>
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<h3 id="s3Nk3Y">
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Cutting kids some slack when it comes to schoolwork
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RM3qVm">
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Given parents’ increased access to their kids’ grades online, it’s normal to feel inundated — and stressed — by every incremental change in your children’s academic lives. Try as you might, most parents can’t engineer their child into a top performer and high earner, Knippenberg says. Rather, you can shepherd them through life, protecting them with rules and limits, and supporting them. “You have very little control over who your child’s going to become,” he says. So don’t stress over what elementary school you send them to or if they missed a study session in high school.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HVhsYB">
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Instead of hyper-focusing on every aspect of your kid’s school and extracurricular life, give them <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/23844294/parents-help-kids-school-homework-bullying-mental-health">space to unwind</a>. Knippenberg suggests allowing children 30 minutes of exercise and a snack after school before they start their homework. If they’re toiling away well into the evening, Knippenberg says it’s okay to ditch the academics for the day. “Turn off the homework and watch a TV show together,” he says.
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</p>
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<h3 id="f8R188">
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Just making it through the day
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vgYvRV">
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The greatest parenting achievement, experts agree, is simply keeping your family safe day in and day out. Give yourself some credit for that. Modern parenting in individualistic societies is extremely difficult and parents often have little support. You can cut yourself some slack.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bJUsHP">
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However you get from wakeup to bedtime is sufficient so long as you move through the world with kindness, Knippenberg says. “If you, as a parent, are a kind person to your neighbors, the grocery store workers, the gas station attendant, other parents at the school,” he says, “your kids will become kind and that will last them the rest of their lives.”
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</p></li>
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<li><strong>Do Americans still have a right to privacy?</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="A protester dressed as a pack of birth control pills dances in front of the US Supreme Court, encircled by other protestors holding colorful signs, on March 25 in Washington, DC." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8mHLIDezAmXzc7v-99xKi3wtlUI=/167x0:2834x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73195688/480488317.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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A protester dressed as a pack of birth control pills dances in front of the US Supreme Court. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
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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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With courts coming for abortion and IVF, it’s hard not to wonder what the Supreme Court will go after next.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U71Kzl">
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When the <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus">Supreme Court</a> overruled <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/5/3/23055125/roe-v-wade-abortion-rights-supreme-court-dobbs-v-jackson"><em>Roe v. Wade</em></a>, it swore up and down that its decision didn’t necessarily have any implications for other rights. “‘Abortion is a unique act’ because it terminates ‘life or potential life,’” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for himself and four of his Republican colleagues. He added that “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right</a>” and that “nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern <a href="https://www.vox.com/abortion">abortion</a>.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a29FgU">
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But even as Alito wrote these words, Justice Clarence Thomas drafted a concurring opinion calling upon his Court to eliminate the rights to contraception, <a href="https://www.vox.com/marriage-equality">same-sex marriage</a>, and the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">right “to engage in private, consensual sexual acts</a>.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh, meanwhile, published his own opinion disclaiming any desire to come for anyone’s marriage or birth control.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tu7l7V">
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All Americans now live in a land of uncertainty, somewhere between Thomas and Kavanaugh. In Alabama, the death of <em>Roe</em> meant that in vitro fertilization clinics closed after that state’s justices ruled that, at least under the state law governing wrongful deaths of children, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2024/2/20/24078513/supreme-court-alabama-ivf-roe-wade-dobbs-abortion-child-embryo">a frozen embryo has the exact same rights as a child</a>.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Nped7N">
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The clinics are now reopening after the Alabama state legislature, chastened by a nationwide backlash against the court’s decision, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/alabama-fertility-clinic-says-will-resume-ivf-services-bill-passes-pro-rcna141682">enacted legislation protecting IVF</a>. The state supreme court’s original decision targeting IVF, however, contains some language suggesting they <a href="https://publicportal-api.alappeals.gov/courts/68f021c4-6a44-4735-9a76-5360b2e8af13/cms/case/343d203a-b13d-463a-8176-c46e3ae4f695/docketentrydocuments/e3d95592-3cbe-4384-afa6-063d4595aa1d">might rule that this new state law is unconstitutional</a>. So it is unclear whether we’ve read the last chapter in this dispute over whether women in Alabama may receive IVF care.
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This also isn’t the only way the right to privacy is under threat. Red states enacted several laws <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/7/10/23789633/supreme-court-lgbtq-lw-skrmetti-transgender-health-care-jeffrey-sutton-sixth-circuit">forbidding physicians from providing transgender health care</a> to children experiencing gender dysphoria. Indeed, at this very moment, the Supreme Court is <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/labrador-v-poe/">considering whether to reinstate such a law in Idaho</a> which was blocked by a lower court. (The specific issue in the Idaho case <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23A763/300889/20240220100700247_Poe%20v%20Labrador%20SCOTUS%20Application%20for%20Stay.pdf">turns on a narrow procedural question</a>, but nothing prevents this Court from using that procedural question as an excuse to reinstate the Idaho law.)
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sGYDmw">
|
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|
Not that long ago, it would have been hard to imagine either Alabama’s attack on IVF or the red state laws targeting <a href="https://www.vox.com/lgbtq">trans children</a> surviving federal judicial review.
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="StZeiG">
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The right to an abortion lost in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf"><em>Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</em></a> (2022) was itself part of a broader “right to privacy,” which guaranteed that our most intimate, personal decisions — decisions like <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/388/1">who we marry</a>, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZS.html">who we have sex with</a>, <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/405/438/">whether and when to have children</a>, and, with some exceptions to prevent abuse or neglect, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/262/390">how we raise those children</a> — will be made by us alone and not by the government.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AkSzVP">
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As the Court said in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZO.html"><em>Lawrence v. Texas</em></a> (2003), “In our tradition the State is not omnipresent in the home. And there are other spheres of our lives and existence, outside the home, where the State should not be a dominant presence.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vHG69i">
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|
Now, however, it is far from clear what, if any, of this right to privacy still exists. Justice Thomas proudly calls for it to be burnt to the ground. And even Kavanaugh’s more moderate <em>Dobbs</em> opinion may simply be a call to freeze the right to privacy in place — leaving existing freedoms like the right to same-sex marriage intact, but refusing to extend the right to privacy to previously unlitigated issues like IVF or trans <a href="https://www.vox.com/health-care">health care</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="m177cJ">
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Our most personal and self-defining decisions — the kinds of choices that we make alone, after praying to our own God, speaking to our own family, and consulting our own doctors — may now belong to the government.
|
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</p>
|
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<h3 id="RhVSC5">
|
|||
|
|
No one knows exactly which rights are protected by the Constitution
|
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</h3>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JPjPtW">
|
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|
One reason the modern right to privacy rests on shaky ground is because it is not explicitly laid out in the Constitution. The oldest Supreme Court decision protecting such a right is more than a century old, and the Constitution includes several provisions <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23219138/supreme-court-roe-wade-substantive-due-process-samuel-alito">protecting so-called “unenumerated” rights</a> that are not itemized anywhere in its text.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TFDHRk">
|
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But one searches the Constitution in vain for specific language protecting, say, the right to choose your spouse, or the right to guide your children’s upbringing.
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y3X7Oj">
|
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|
|
The Court’s earliest right to privacy decisions, moreover, are relics of an era when the justices frequently treated <em>enumerated</em> rights — that is, rights that are explicitly laid out in the Constitution — as optional guidelines that could be ignored.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1Xzk8L">
|
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|
In <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/262/390"><em>Meyer v. Nebraska</em></a> (1923), the Court struck down a state law which forbade schoolteachers — including teachers at private schools, who are not state employees — from teaching “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/262/390">any subject to any person in any language [other] than the English language</a>” before the student passed the eighth grade.
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xT3m9g">
|
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You might think this law would be struck down on First Amendment grounds, since it obviously violates the right to free speech.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vfLlLr">
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|
But four years before <em>Meyer</em>, in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/249/211/"><em>Debs v. United States</em></a> (1919), the Court held that a prominent <a href="https://www.vox.com/unions">union</a> leader and political candidate could be sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for giving a speech opposing the draft, and this was just one of an <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/249/47/">orgy of</a> <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/250/616/">World War I-era decisions</a> treating the First Amendment as a virtual nullity. So teachers who wanted to educate their students in a foreign language could not rely on the right to free speech to attack Nebraska’s law.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8TWkMD">
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|
Instead, <em>Meyer</em> featured the Court’s earliest articulation of what became the unenumerated right to privacy. Individuals have a right “to marry, establish a home and bring up children,” the Court said, and this right brings with it a parent’s “natural duty” to “give his children education suitable to their station in life.” To fulfill this duty, parents must also be allowed “to instruct their children” in subjects they wish those children to learn.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ipnkOL">
|
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|
|
For the next four decades, the Court said little more about the right to privacy — although it did hold that parents have a right to send their children to private (and, specifically, Catholic) schools in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/268/510"><em>Pierce v. Society of Sisters</em></a> (1925). Beginning in the 1960s, however, the Court started to flesh out this right, and to include within it the right to make certain medical decisions without government interference.
|
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|
</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fH2Uej">
|
|||
|
|
The first of this second wave of right-to-privacy decisions was <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/381/479/"><em>Griswold v. Connecticut</em></a> (1965), which held that married couples have a constitutional right to use contraception.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hU2l6l">
|
|||
|
|
The idea that anyone had a right to sexual autonomy of any kind — even something as seemingly noncontroversial as a married couple using birth control — was reasonably novel in the 1960s. An 1873 federal law known as the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1461">Comstock Act</a>, a law that is still on the books, bans pretty much any kind of contraception, sex toy, abortifacient, or even art or literature depicting nudity or sex, from being mailed. And similar state laws often targeted this kind of material.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KopSPb">
|
|||
|
|
In some cases, this led to art gallery owners being convicted for selling reproductions of famous works of nude art. In other cases, it led to people arrested for providing contraceptives or other forbidden items dying by suicide after being hounded by law enforcement. Anthony Comstock, the anti-sex crusader after whom the federal law is named, once bragged that <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/23678636/supreme-court-anthony-comstock-abortion-mifepristone-matthew-kacsmaryk">15 people targeted by his investigations took their own lives.</a>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6WQ6pQ">
|
|||
|
|
Read in the light of this history, <em>Griswold</em> is best understood as a repudiation of Comstockery. It is also one of the Court’s first articulations of the idea that some aspects of our lives are walled off from government regulation specifically because they are private — and because there are some places where law enforcement officers simply do not belong.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JLrynf">
|
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|
|
“Would we <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/381/479/">allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms</a> for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives?” the Court asked in <em>Griswold</em>, before answering that “the very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xUjhKq">
|
|||
|
|
One reason to fear that this right to privacy is in danger is that one of the Court’s fullest articulations of the right’s scope came with <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113"><em>Roe v. Wade</em></a> (1973), the decision now held up as an icon of judicial overreach by the Court’s current, GOP-appointed majority. As <em>Roe</em> explained, this right extends to “activities relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, and child rearing and education.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YEqINU">
|
|||
|
|
Specifically, the Court has said that the right to privacy includes the right to marry a person of our own choosing (1967’s <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/388/1"><em>Loving v. Virginia</em></a><em>, </em>2015’s<em> </em><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/14-556#writing-14-556_OPINION_3"><em>Obergefell v. Hodges</em></a>); the right to choose our own sexual partners (<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZS.html"><em>Lawrence v. Texas</em></a> in 2003); the right to have, or not to have, children at a time of our choosing (<em>Griswold</em>, 1972’s <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/405/438/"><em>Eisenstadt v. Baird</em></a>, <em>Roe</em>); and the right to raise those children as their parents deem appropriate, with exceptions prohibiting abuse, truancy, and similar offenses (<em>Meyer</em>, <em>Pierce</em>).
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZokR8X">
|
|||
|
|
Read together, these rights provide a strong basis for protecting women seeking IVF or families with transgender children. The Court has said many times that the government may not interfere in our most intimate decisions involving our families, including medical decisions.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZkyzLu">
|
|||
|
|
Now, however, all of these rights are potentially threatened by a Supreme Court that has already torn away one key component of the broader right to privacy. And it is far from clear which of the remaining components will survive.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="YgOIsu">
|
|||
|
|
Four ways that the Supreme Court could handle the right to privacy moving forward
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WeKOx7">
|
|||
|
|
It’s dangerous to predict how the current Supreme Court will rule on any issue, or, at least, on any issue where the Court’s current members have not yet staked out an explicit view. The Court’s current majority <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/7/8/23784320/supreme-court-2022-term-affirmative-action-religion-voting-rights-abortion">has a weak attachment to “stare decisis</a>,” the doctrine that courts should be reluctant to overrule previous decisions.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jjcMos">
|
|||
|
|
And the Supreme Court has a long history of <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/24086594/donald-trump-supreme-court-trial-immunity-never-going-to-save-us">ignoring constitutional rights</a> even when they are explicitly protected by the Constitution — hence the World War I-era decisions suppressing the First Amendment, or the Jim Crow-era decisions nullifying amendments intended to guarantee equal citizenship to Black people.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kW9XzM">
|
|||
|
|
As of now, we know, based on the concurring opinions in <em>Dobbs</em>, that Justice Thomas would likely abolish the right to privacy in its entirety. And we know that Justice Kavanaugh would leave some existing rights, like the right to marry whomever you choose, intact. We don’t know where the rest of the Court’s Republican majority falls along this spectrum.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ptJdT7">
|
|||
|
|
That said, there are four ways that this Court might approach right to privacy cases moving forward, and at least one of these approaches could end in good outcomes for women seeking IVF treatments, or for families with transgender children.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JG6dfk">
|
|||
|
|
The first possibility is that Thomas finds five votes for his sweeping assault on the right to privacy. This outcome is unlikely at the moment, given Kavanaugh’s declaration that he does not support it. But if <a href="https://www.vox.com/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a> wins the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2024-elections">2024 presidential election</a>, he could potentially replace some of the Court’s relatively moderate members with hardliners similar to Thomas. And that would mean the death of a long list of rights, from the right to same-sex marriage to the right to contraception.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DPObkE">
|
|||
|
|
In the second and third possibilities, Kavanaugh’s approach prevails, and the Court leaves most of the privacy rights protected by existing Supreme Court precedents in place. No married couple is stripped of their marriage license and no one needs to fear a ban on legal birth control.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EKRb2h">
|
|||
|
|
What distinguishes these two possibilities is how the Court reads a line in its <em>Dobbs</em> decision, which says that the justices will determine which unenumerated rights are protected by the Constitution by asking “whether the right at issue … is rooted in our Nation’s history and tradition.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FKwuo5">
|
|||
|
|
Broadly speaking, the idea of a right to privacy and the right to guide your own children’s upbringing first announced in <em>Meyer</em> are firmly rooted in American legal history and tradition. These rights have been around for more than a century, and can certainly be read broadly enough to encompass, say, the right to decide which medical treatments your child should receive if they are diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7SqaAz">
|
|||
|
|
That said, the Supreme Court has not yet read the right announced in <em>Meyer</em> to encompass a right to IVF, or a right to provide a child with gender-affirming health care that the government finds objectionable. So it would not be hard for the current, very conservative Supreme Court majority to rule that novel applications of the right to privacy are not part of America’s “history and tradition.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h1qnSV">
|
|||
|
|
And then there is a fourth possibility. Several conservative organizations, including groups with very close ties to Trump, see the right to privacy as a tool they can use to impose their own values on the nation.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div id="oNxpAm">
|
|||
|
|
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
|
|||
|
|
Before we sacrifice our constitutionally protected right to privacy at the altar of gender identity politics… <a href="https://t.co/wDMwaI94Br">https://t.co/wDMwaI94Br</a>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
— Heritage Foundation (<span class="citation" data-cites="Heritage">@Heritage</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/Heritage/status/748189289876361217?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 29, 2016</a>
|
|||
|
|
</blockquote></div></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lCFy39">
|
|||
|
|
Thus, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian-right law firm that <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/12/3/23472175/supreme-court-303-creative-elenis-first-amendment-lgbtq-religion-website">routinely brings anti-LGBTQ cases to the Supreme Court</a>, has argued that public schools should be forbidden from allowing transgender children to use the bathroom that aligns with their <a href="https://www.vox.com/gender">gender identity</a> because doing so <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2016/05/17/our-constitutional-right-to-privacy-is-missing-from-bathroom-debate/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=thf-tw">violates the privacy rights of cisgender students</a> who do not wish to share a bathroom with their trans classmates.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6bVHga">
|
|||
|
|
The worst possible outcome for transgender youth is that the Supreme Court could transform the right to privacy, long a safeguard of LGBTQ rights, into a sword that can be wielded to force the government to adopt anti-trans <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy">policies</a> — even in jurisdictions where transgender rights enjoy broad local support.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VePjc5">
|
|||
|
|
At least one judge, moreover, has already weaponized the right to privacy to undermine access to birth control. Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump judge with close ties to the religious right, ruled in 2022 that the <em>Meyer</em> right to decide how to raise children allows a father who objects to birth control to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/12/13/23505459/supreme-court-birth-control-contraception-constitution-matthew-kacsmaryk-deanda-becerra">limit his daughters’ access to contraception</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5brFIv">
|
|||
|
|
In any event, the one thing that can be said with certainty about the current Supreme Court is that it is a chaos agent. The justices will do what they want, when they want to do it, regardless of what precedent has to say about the matter.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nX1cAb">
|
|||
|
|
And all the rest of us can do is wait to see the fallout.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>I’m an expert in the end of the world. The Oscar-nominated Oppenheimer made me cry in terror.</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5H7tsY94eVOhO-VEMxUI3E_sltw=/0x40:3504x2668/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73195634/GettyImages_90739961.0.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
The mushroom cloud produced by the first explosion by the Americans of a hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok Atoll in the South Pacific, in 1952. | SSPL via Getty Images
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
As it heads into the Oscars, what <em>Oppenheimer </em>gets right — and wrong — about the threat of nuclear weapons.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h7EUzL">
|
|||
|
|
My wife and I went to see <em>Oppenheimer</em> on opening weekend in July, and I wore my best Los Alamos-themed costume. We opted for the biggest screen we could — and as the Trinity test explosion kept on rising higher and higher endlessly upward, I was glad we had sprung for the more expensive IMAX ticket for the sheer spectacle. I could guess, even then, that this film was destined for this weekend’s Academy Awards, where it will compete for 13 <a href="https://www.vox.com/oscars">Oscars</a>, including Best Picture and Best Director.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dYdBil">
|
|||
|
|
But then the final scene rolled around — showing Los Alamos lab director J. Robert Oppenheimer’s vision of rows and rows of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the rockets zooming upward — and then the Earth from space with mushroom clouds rising above the clouds and fire spreading across the globe
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="luEMTE">
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As the strings rose to their final jarring crescendo,<em> </em>I found myself unexpectedly and uncontrollably bawling my eyes out. I sat in my chair at the London Science Museum cinema, my shoulders shaking, speechless with tears, trying to gasp out to my wife between sobs what on earth was going on with me. “It’s all still real,” I told her. “The weapons are still there. Every 12 minutes they could kill us and everyone we love. The entire Northern Hemisphere would be gone. We’d all starve to death. Five billion people could die.”
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
|
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<img alt="Oppenheimer wearing goggles, his face lit from the blast of the bomb as he watches through a circular window." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/92WYJ8ldgNhB8r6UYduxwIT3Qmc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25325204/Screenshot_2024_03_08_at_11.10.44_AM.png"/> <cite>Courtesy of Universal</cite>
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<figcaption>
|
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|
Still from <em>Oppenheimer.</em>
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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="ke3LU3">
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I’ve worked at the University of Cambridge’s <a href="https://www.cser.ac.uk/">Centre for the Study of Existential Risk</a> for the past seven years, where we study risks that could lead to human extinction or civilizational collapse — and how to prevent them. Most of our conversations at the pub across the road from the office are about <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate">climate change</a>, engineered pandemics, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/4/28/23702644/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-technology">artificial intelligence</a>, and yes, nuclear weapons.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7FSeYy">
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The most common question I get asked is “doesn’t working on this make you all depressed?” I normally answer with a joke, but the truth is that while those conversations are normally academic, abstract, distanced, and intellectual, <em>Oppenheimer</em> was hitting me emotionally.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="m6tHsv">
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The USA and <a href="https://www.vox.com/russia">Russia</a> each have <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat">around 1,500 warheads deployed</a> — ready to launch. Each of these is a hydrogen (or thermonuclear) bomb. Many of these, which are 20 times more destructive than those produced by Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project and which destroyed Hiroshima, sit on the top of ICBMs in land-based silos — in the US in <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2021/02/why-is-america-getting-a-new-100-billion-nuclear-weapon/">Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado</a> — and are ready for a “launch on warning.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ImunuH">
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What this means is that in the event of the detection of a possible incoming nuclear strike, the president — while they are being rushed to the White House bunker — has perhaps 12 minutes to decide whether to launch all of these missiles. Unlike nuclear missiles on submarines, which are designed to evade a first strike, this is a use-it-or-lose-it situation: the silos will get blown up at the end of those 12 minutes. What could happen next is unimaginable — save for the scientists who have imagined it.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cL2KFs">
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You may remember the <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/10/19/17873822/nuclear-war-weapons-bombs-how-kill">theory of “nuclear winter”</a> from the 1980s. <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-carl-sagan-warned-world-about-nuclear-winter-180967198/">Proposed</a> by Carl Sagan and other US and Soviet scientists, it suggested that the smoke from burning cities could rise up into the atmosphere and block out the sun. Scientists <a href="https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-230-burning-hamburg-1943">learned</a> during World War II that if conditions are right, a burning city after a bombing can become a firestorm, a freak weather phenomenon where the heat of the fire sucks in air from surrounding areas in a great wind, fueling the fire like a bellows.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fVvaEp">
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The nuclear winter theory takes this further: Destroying cities with a hydrogen bomb might also lead to firestorms. That great wind could carry millions of metric tons of black carbon soot from these burnt cities far up into the stratosphere. Once up there, up above rainclouds, that soot might stay suspended for up to a decade. If so, it would act like a massive volcanic eruption or asteroid impact, blotting out the sun and reducing crop yields.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VICOIY">
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But scientists have carried out research with today’s much more powerful physics simulations and climate models. Their conclusion?
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8mUAGb">
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In a 2022 <em>Nature Food </em><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00573-0">paper</a>, researchers led by Lili Xia find that a full-scale nuclear war could reduce crop yields between 50 percent and 90 percent and kill 2 to 5 billion people. At the top end, this would mean north of 90 percent of the populations of the US, Europe, Russia, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/china">China</a> starving to death. Because of global climate patterns much of this would be concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere — unfortunately where I and most of my family and friends live.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3eWJhv">
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This is not a closed debate: The Future of Life Institute, which also studies existential risks, <a href="https://futureoflife.org/grant-program/nuclear-war-research/">recently awarded</a> about $4 million to 10 university groups to explore this in more detail. But it is a scenario that has to be taken seriously. And it was this scenario that left me sobbing and gasping at <em>Oppenheimer</em>’s end.
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</p>
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<div id="s9LW9y">
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<div style="width: 100%; height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;">
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</div>
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</div>
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<h3 id="yPEZ7F">
|
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|
<em>Oppenheimer </em>as a warning
|
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</h3>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sL9lF3">
|
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Since <em>Oppenheimer</em>’s release, the film’s director, Christopher Nolan, has actively drawn attention to the continued dangers of nuclear war. Nolan spoke about just this subject at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ annual <a href="https://thebulletin.org/support-the-bulletin/conversations-before-midnight-2023/">Conversations Before Midnight</a> just before the main event of the evening, joint headliner yours truly (my co-recipient of the Rieser Award, Christian Ruhl, had talked me out of making too many jokes about Nolan). In his BAFTA acceptance <a href="https://youtu.be/iYlNtbpn7AQ?si=eBTxYffIbeW7i79Z">speech</a> last month, Nolan thanked his cast (standard), his crew (classy), and his producers (shrewd), but ended by thanking a different group. He said:
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</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bXnbbO">
|
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|
Our film ends on what I think is a dramatically necessary note of despair. But in the real world there are all kinds of individuals and organizations that have fought long and hard to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world. Since its peak in 1967, they’ve done it by almost 90 percent. Of late that’s gone the wrong way. And so in accepting this I want to acknowledge their efforts and point out that they show the necessity and the potential of efforts for peace.
|
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</p>
|
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</blockquote>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OfMZ8P">
|
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|
In 1991, as the Cold War came to a sudden end, the Doomsday Clock, <a href="https://news.uchicago.edu/explainer/what-is-the-doomsday-clock">designed</a> by the Bulletin more than 70 years ago to draw attention to the threat of nuclear holocaust, was set back to 17 minutes to midnight. The plan for nuclear arms negotiators from there on was clear: keep on negotiating bilaterally to get the US and Russian stockpiles from their<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-weapons"> all-time high</a> of over 60,000 combined down to around 200 warheads each, on par with most other nuclear states, then have multilateral negotiations to get the numbers as close to Global Zero as we can while preserving the possibility of deterrence. But as Nolan noted with marvelous English understatement that night at the BAFTAs: “Of late that’s gone the wrong way.”
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="90hmxm">
|
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|
From the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to the Open Skies Treaty, the key Cold War pacts that constrained Russia and the US <a href="https://time.com/6334258/putin-nuclear-arms-control/">have been torn up</a> in the 21st century. The only nuclear treaty left, the New START Treaty, <a href="https://www.state.gov/new-start/#:~:text=Treaty%20Duration%3A%20The%20treaty's%20original,force%20through%20February%204%2C%202026.">expires automatically</a> on February 5, 2026. And last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/21/1158463688/putin-tells-russian-parliament-the-west-is-fighting-to-dismember-russia">withdrew</a> from New START’s inspections regime.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FM6r1O">
|
|||
|
|
Nuclear risk experts <a href="https://armscontrolcenter.org/are-nuclear-armed-nations-entering-a-new-arms-race-in-2024-experts-weigh-in/">warn</a> that we are entering a new arms race. China is building hundreds of new <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2021-09/news/new-chinese-missile-silo-fields-discovered">silos</a> in its northern deserts and could be increasing its number of operational warheads <a href="https://media.defense.gov/2023/Oct/19/2003323409/-1/-1/1/2023-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA.PDF">from around 500</a> to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/19/1207156597/new-pentagon-report-claims-china-now-has-over-500-operational-nuclear-warheads#:~:text=The%20report%20projects%20that%20China,of%20the%20continental%20United%20States.">around 1,000</a>. All nuclear weapon states are in the middle of nuclear “<a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3505989/pentagon-tackling-nuclear-modernization-with-proactive-integrated-approach/">modernization</a>”: replacing old warheads, ICBMs, bombers, and submarines and making tweaks like better <a href="https://publicintegrity.org/national-security/future-of-warfare/nuclear-weapon-arsenal-more-destructive-risky/">fuzes</a> to control blast timing in ways that will make the warheads more damaging. <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/new-study-analyses-impact-of-emerging-technology-on-nuclear-safety">New technologies</a> such as highly maneuverable hypersonic missiles or <a href="https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/report/ai-and-nuclear-command-control-and-communications-p5-perspectives/">integrating AI</a> into nuclear decision-making could threaten strategic stability.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fqi7y2">
|
|||
|
|
Meanwhile, the nuclear risk reduction community is <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/28/nuclear-experts-russia-war-00108438">not doing well</a>. The biggest funder in the field, the MacArthur Foundation, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/19/washington-arms-controllers-nuclear-weapons-500126">pulled out</a> in 2021, declaring that its “Big Bet” had not paid off. MacArthur had provided <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/3/17/22976981/nuclear-war-russia-ukraine-funding-macarthur-existential-risk-effective-altruism-carnegie">around half</a> of all the non-government funding worldwide on nuclear policy. Other funders such as <a href="https://www.longview.org/fund/nuclear-weapons-policy-fund/">Longview</a> have stepped up, but have not been able to plug this gaping hole.
|
|||
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IF3TFL">
|
|||
|
|
One major benefit of Nolan’s work and <em>Oppenheimer</em>, especially if — as it deserves to — it takes home Oscar gold, is that it will continue to draw more attention to the bizarrely neglected area of nuclear risk.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="The silhouette of a man working on the atomic bomb." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/d5TCzYtHsNYOf7phDSWcH0Y3tPQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25325226/Screenshot_2024_03_08_at_11.19.47_AM.png"/> <cite>Courtesy of Universal Pictures</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Still from <em>Oppenheimer</em>
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="LlO3xb">
|
|||
|
|
What <em>Oppenheimer </em>gets wrong about the Manhattan Project
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZrdkwJ">
|
|||
|
|
<em>Oppenheimer</em> is a film that affected me so strongly and has done great good. Will I really be so churlish as to criticize it? Yes, I will. Not for its depiction of Florence Pugh’s <a href="https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a44628614/oppenheimer-florence-pugh-jean-tatlock-real-story/">Jean Tatlock</a>, the choice to not include Japanese <a href="https://ew.com/movies/christopher-nolan-responds-to-criticism-for-not-showing-hiroshima-bombing-in-oppenheimer/">perspectives</a>, or for it being “<a href="https://youtu.be/4jqsVoCS17I?si=SyXr90ryMYqzXIpN">too long</a>,” but about two subjects it didn’t touch on.
|
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</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FyBMOp">
|
|||
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|
First, the true story of the production of the bomb.
|
|||
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="msDN7c">
|
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Like most films and TV shows about the Manhattan Project, <em>Oppenheimer</em> focuses far too much on Oppenheimer and his Los Alamos scientists. The film never shows <a href="https://www.newschannel5.com/news/the-oppenheimer-film-is-now-playing-heres-the-role-tennessee-played-in-this-history">Oak Ridge</a>, Tennessee, or <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/oppenheimer-overlooks-a-critical-place-in-the-dawn-of-the-nuclear-age/">Hanford</a>, Washington. But these production plants for enriched uranium and plutonium respectively were responsible for more than 80 percent of the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/the-costs-of-the-manhattan-project/">budget</a> of the Manhattan Project and most of its staff. It is these locations and people that actually produced the bomb. The Nazis had smart scientists. What they didn’t have was the US’s vast industrial and financial resources. Yet in the film, these remarkable achievements are reduced to marbles that Cillian Murphy’s Oppenheimer places in a bowl to track the production of the nuclear fuel.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LEaNFy">
|
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|
|
It was these industrial workers who built the bomb. But after the war, it was the privileged genius scientists who were <a href="https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19481108,00.html">on the front cover</a> of Time magazine, and it is their stories that shaped how we remember the Manhattan Project.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="quY9TN">
|
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|
This misremembering has important modern implications. It is production that determines “<a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/iranian-nuclear-breakout-what-it-and-how-calculate-it">breakout time</a>” — how long until a state can have enough nuclear material for a bomb. Arms control regimes like the <a href="https://www.vox.com/iran">Iran</a> deal or the Non-Proliferation Treaty focus on monitoring and controlling production facilities, as did the 1981 Israeli air strike on Iraq or the 2010 Stuxnet cyberattack on Iran. It is production that should be our focus.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W5Lh9z">
|
|||
|
|
Second, the film <a href="https://assets.scriptslug.com/live/pdf/scripts/oppenheimer-2023.pdf">presents</a> the US as desperately behind the Nazis who have, according to Oppenheimer, an “18-month head start” in the nuclear arms race, and suggests that<strong> </strong>“in a straight race, the Germans win.” The Nazis only lose in the film because German physicist Werner Heisenberg “took a wrong turn” by choosing heavy water rather than graphite as a moderator, as revealed in the film by Kenneth Branagh’s Niels Bohr in Christmas 1943.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EU6rML">
|
|||
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|
But we’ve <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/german-national-socialism-and-the-quest-for-nuclear-power-193949/389AE0447CBA4D207983B0F98E82E20E">known for decades</a> that none of this was true: Hitler had decided against a serious program <a href="https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/german-nuclear-weapons-program-nazi-atom-bomb/">at a presentation</a> in June 1942.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vhrp6j">
|
|||
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|
The Nazis had indeed explored launching their own Manhattan Project: the “Uranverein” <a href="http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph241/turchetta1/">nuclear weapons program</a> led by Heisenberg. But Heisenberg and Germany’s military planners predicted that it would be a major investment that would only pay off in two to three years. The Nazis could not make such a massive investment of people and raw materials like steel. They had a much <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/53768/the-wages-of-destruction-by-adam-tooze/9780141003481">smaller economy</a>, huge shortages, and a greater need for shells and tanks. And they couldn’t wait for 1944 or ’45 — the Nazis needed a breakthrough in the Eastern Front right then.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i3XeQy">
|
|||
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|
This was not a technical error, but a strategic decision. The US was at no risk of losing the race, as no other great power — the Soviet Union, Imperial Japan, or Nazis — rushed toward the bomb during the war. Moreover in a straight race, there was no possible way for any of them to compete with the vast industrial and financial might of the US.
|
|||
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ylo6gX">
|
|||
|
|
The film could have explored this tragic mistake while keeping its laser focus on Oppenheimer. The official historian of the Manhattan Project stated that at the end of 1943 Oppenheimer was explicitly told by Gen. Leslie Groves, the director of the atom bomb program, that the Nazis had abandoned their early program — and Oppenheimer just shrugged.
|
|||
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</p>
|
|||
|
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<h3 id="N2WRLd">
|
|||
|
|
The Manhattan Project’s lost conscience
|
|||
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</h3>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JSATFN">
|
|||
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|
Most egregiously for me, the film doesn’t show Joseph Rotblat. Rotblat was the only scientist to <a href="https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/voices/oral-histories/joseph-rotblats-interview/#:~:text=Rotblat%20left%20the%20Manhattan%20Project,and%20professional%20relationships%20with%20J.">resign</a> from the project, even though he was a Polish refugee whose wife Tola Gryn was murdered in a Nazi concentration camp. When D-Day made clear that the Nazis would lose, and Groves told him that the focus of the project had always been the Soviets, Rotblat resigned.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="whkqsw">
|
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|
In 1957, he <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1995/pugwash/facts/">organized</a> a conference in the small lobster fishing village of Pugwash in Nova Scotia. The Pugwash Conferences would go on to spread key ideas for arms control agreements on nuclear testing, limiting warheads, and banning biological weapons. Rotblat and Pugwash <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1995/rotblat/facts/">shared</a> the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize — one more Nobel than Oppenheimer ever received.
|
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</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MW2xWr">
|
|||
|
|
Again, this misremembering has important modern implications. The lesson of this tragic mistaken arms race shouldn’t be “never race.” It should be “make sure you know whether or not you’re actually in a race.” This is a lesson we have consistently failed to learn — the US mistakenly thought there was a “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/missile-gap">missile gap</a>” in the late 1950s, and the Soviets mistakenly thought they were in a biological weapons arms race in the early 1970s. In the coming years, states may mistakenly believe they are in a race to develop powerful advanced artificial intelligence systems.
|
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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="VIlFTb">
|
|||
|
|
The “individuals and organizations that have fought long and hard to reduce the number of nuclear weapons” that Nolan paid tribute to — like the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Joseph Rotblat, and the Pugwash Conferences — weren’t really shown in his remarkable, magnificent, affecting film. Indeed, they were never supported by Oppenheimer. We’re in a tough spot, facing the possibility of a new nuclear arms race. We need to learn from these successful arms controllers, rather than from Oppenheimer’s failures.
|
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</p></li>
|
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</ul>
|
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
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<ul>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Test cricket is hard, you are going to need each other to succeed: Dravid to young players</strong> - After losing the opening Test in Hyderabad, the hosts bounced back in stunning fashion to win the next four matches to claim the series.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ind vs Eng Test series | I don’t think Rohit has been superior as captain, his bowlers did the trick, says Graeme Swann</strong> - While Stokes’ leadership style has attracted all the attention prior to and during the series, Rohit’s team emerged 4-1 winners in the end.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Satwik-Chirag duo sails into French Open final</strong> - This is the duo’s third consecutive final of the year and the third time in this tournament. They won 21-13, 21-16 in the men’s doubles semifinal on Saturday</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ace gymnast Dipa finishes fourth in Baku Apparatus World Cup</strong> - Dipa, who finished fourth in the vault event at the 2016 Rio Olympics, scored 13.716 points in the event</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Kush Maini grabs pole position in F2 Saudi Arabian GP</strong> - Kush Maini currently stands at 5th position in the Formula 2 Drivers’ Championship with 27 points; Zane Maloney, winner of the first round, leads the table with 47 points</p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
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<ul>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Supreme Court’s responsibility to protect its dignity: Kapil Sibal on SBI plea on electoral bonds issue</strong> - On March 4, the SBI moved the apex court, seeking an extension of time till June 30 to disclose the details.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Vishwa Hindu Parishad plans to increase its presence from 60,000 villages to one lakh villages</strong> - The right-wing outfit completes 60 years in 2024, and currently has presence in 32 countries</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Theme-based rail coach restaurants set to launch this month in Bengaluru railway stations</strong> - The theme-based rail coach restaurants are coming up at Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna Railway Station in Majestic and Sir M. Visvesvaraya Terminal in Baiyappanahalli.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Art exhibition in the Nilgiris</strong> -</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Girl, 6, raped by underage boys in Uttar Pradesh village</strong> - The minor accused have not been held yet.</p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
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<ul>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Portugal votes as far right seeks kingmaker role</strong> - Neither the governing Socialists nor conservatives may win outright, boosting the populists’ power.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Is Europe doing enough to help Ukraine?</strong> - With US military support stalled in Congress, European leaders are rapidly changing their thinking.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Lufthansa faces new two-day strike in Germany</strong> - Cabin crew will go on strike at Frankfurt and Munich airports on Tuesday and Wednesday.</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Moscow student jailed for pro-Ukraine wi-fi name</strong> - Russia’s ruthless crackdown on dissent has seen thousands of ordinary Russians jailed or fined.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sweden and Canada resume aid to UN Gaza agency</strong> - The decision comes as investigators probe if some UNRWA staff were involved in the 7 October attack.</p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sixty Four is a beautiful system design toy that reveals something rather dark</strong> - Please do not load up this game if you have real tasks to accomplish, I beg you. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2009024">link</a></p></li>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>These scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used</strong> - Telltale fractures and microscopic wear marks should be applicable to real artifacts. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2004311">link</a></p></li>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Florida middle-schoolers charged with making deepfake nudes of classmates</strong> - AI tool was used to create nudes of 12- to 13-year-old classmates. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2008981">link</a></p></li>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A hunk of junk from the International Space Station hurtles back to Earth</strong> - Three tons of trash from the space station fell to Earth in an unguided reentry. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2008934">link</a></p></li>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study finds that we could lose science if publishers go bankrupt</strong> - A scan of archives shows that lots of scientific papers aren’t backed up. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2009083">link</a></p></li>
|
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I told my wife, “I won the Leslie Nielsen prize at the office today.”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
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<div class="md">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Her: What’s that?
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Me: It’s a place where people go to work, but that’s not important right now.
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</p>
|
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</div>
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<!-- 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/porichoygupto"> /u/porichoygupto </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bau0cv/i_told_my_wife_i_won_the_leslie_nielsen_prize_at/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bau0cv/i_told_my_wife_i_won_the_leslie_nielsen_prize_at/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>An older husband and his trophy wife are on a hike when the sun starts to go down.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
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<div class="md">
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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|
An older husband and his trophy wife are on a hike when the sun starts to go down.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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|
Husband: Don’t you think we should turn back?
|
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</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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|
|
Wife: Don’t worry I have a flashlight. Just a little further.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
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|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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|
It starts to get darker as they enter an isolated swampy part of woods with gnarled trees and distant lighting. Then the flashlight goes out.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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|
Husband: Th-th-this is getting creepy.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Wife: You think this is scary? I have to walk out of here alone.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MoronTheBall"> /u/MoronTheBall </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bb4k8z/an_older_husband_and_his_trophy_wife_are_on_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bb4k8z/an_older_husband_and_his_trophy_wife_are_on_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
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|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>An Impressive Beard</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
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|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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|
|
(Based on a true story)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
I walked into a rural pub in outback Australia, somewhere in Far North Queensland, and took my place at the bar next to an old timer who had a truly magnificent beard.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
After a few cold ones, a bit of chat about the local area and the cattle station he worked at, I said to him. " I have to say mate, your beard is really impressive!"
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
He smiles and replies “Thanks Mate…. Would you like to know my secret?”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
I replied emphatically to the affirmative, something along the lines of “Fucken oath I would!”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
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|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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|
|
He leans in and says “The secret is; I mix honey and chicken-shit together in a bowl, and rub it into my beard every day.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
“Oh really! and thats why your beard is so bloody majestic?”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
“Yeah fair dinkum” He continues “The honey makes the beard grow, and the chicken-shit stops me licking the honey out of me beard.”
|
|||
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|
</p>
|
|||
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|
</div>
|
|||
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|
<!-- 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/mundoid"> /u/mundoid </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bb29a7/an_impressive_beard/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bb29a7/an_impressive_beard/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Attractive women are just looking for security.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
I know because I started talking to one and that’s what she yelled.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Gil-Gandel"> /u/Gil-Gandel </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bb5irw/attractive_women_are_just_looking_for_security/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bb5irw/attractive_women_are_just_looking_for_security/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A guy walks into a drug store and tells the pharmacist he needs something to relieve his sore, itchy butt</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The pharmacist says “it sounds like hemmerhoids.” He hands him a box of 6 suppositories and tells him to use one. If it doesn’t help after an hour then use another."
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The guy heads home, opens the box, unwraps the foil and pops it in his mouth. It tastes terrible but figures he can tolerate it to relieve his discomfort. Sure enough, after an hour there’s no relief so he eats another. He does this every hour until all six are gone.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The guy goes back to the pharmacist and says “I need some more of those suppositories.” The shocked pharmacist says “what the hell did you do, eat them?” “No,” the guy remarks sarcastically, “I shoved them up my ass!!”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/AssociationSubject85"> /u/AssociationSubject85 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bavwkf/a_guy_walks_into_a_drug_store_and_tells_the/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1bavwkf/a_guy_walks_into_a_drug_store_and_tells_the/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
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|
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