646 lines
78 KiB
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646 lines
78 KiB
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<meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes" name="viewport"/>
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<title>25 October, 2021</title>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<body>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Colin Powell’s Fateful Moment</strong> - Though Powell created a doctrine of avoiding war unless absolutely necessary, he will be remembered for making the faulty case for invading Iraq. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/colin-powells-fateful-moment">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>America’s Workers Are Fighting Back: Can They Win?</strong> - For decades, the leverage has been on the side of management, but the pandemic has changed that. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/americas-workers-are-fighting-back-can-they-win">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Chicago High School Reopens, with Fears of Gun Violence</strong> - Students at Michele Clark High were relieved to return to classes, but shootings on the West Side mean that their problems are far from over. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/a-chicago-high-school-reopens">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Donald Trump’s Outrageous Reading of Executive Privilege Can’t Save Steve Bannon</strong> - If the planning of events that led to the January 6th assault on the Capitol is an activity of the executive branch, it’s certainly not a legitimate one. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/donald-trumps-outrageous-reading-of-executive-privilege-cant-%20save-steve-bannon">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Stanford Sailing Coach’s Defense in the Varsity Blues Case</strong> - In a new book, John Vandemoer, who pleaded guilty to racketeering charges, claims that he was among its victims. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/the-stanford-sailing-coachs-defense">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 data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The horror century</strong> -
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<img alt="An original take on the poster for the Bride of Frankenstein movie. " src="https://cdn.vox-
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cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70015202/Bride.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Carlos Basabe for Vox
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</figcaption></figure></li>
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</ul>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The scariest movies have always been a dark mirror on Americans’ deepest fears and anxieties.
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</p>
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
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cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png"/>
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</figure>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nSe1Yz">
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Part of the <a href="https://voxmedia.stories.usechorus.com/compose/b6e917df-b398-4887-b6c5-47969793d4f8">Horror Issue </a>of <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight">The Highlight</a>, our home for ambitious stories that explain our world.
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</p>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="q7kGY6"/>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3rnmuL">
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A girl <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg-HlHMhthY">goes for a twilight swim</a> just off a secluded beach. We see her from underneath the water, silhouetted between the sun and the sea. From this angle, she’s the picture of a tranquil bathing beauty enjoying a peaceful dip in the sparkling ocean just before sunset. Then we hear it: a sinister <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV8i-pSVMaQ">two-note bass theme</a> as the camera approaches her from below.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A9HzO7">
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She feels something, a tug on her leg that tells her something is very wrong.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UWmzlO">
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Her face crumples into worry, then horror when it happens again, pulling her briefly under water. She screams, but her boyfriend is passed out on the beach, unable to hear her from just feet away; she tries to swim to safety but has no idea which direction to swim in. For a few terrifying moments, she’s flung about in the water, dragged under again and again by something unseen, something awful. Finally, with one last, dreadful scream, she vanishes below the surface.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5ul15d">
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The whole ordeal happens in just 40 seconds, but once those 40 seconds in <em>Jaws</em> (1975) are up, the audience’s illusion of the beach as just another vacation destination has been shattered — and, along with it, the idea that civilization itself can ever truly protect us. Amity Island, the quaint Atlantic tourist spot where <em>Jaws</em> takes place, represents the promise and prosperity of the American dream. But if one shark can chomp its way to chaos and carnage there, then perhaps, <em>Jaws</em> suggests, the American dream itself isn’t all that robust.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5lx5LE">
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Jaws is famous for both <a href="https://cinephiliabeyond.org/jaws-groundbreaking-summer-blockbuster-changed-hollywood-summer-vacations-
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forever/">singlehandedly creating</a> the <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/8/28/21317675/hollywood-blockbuster-
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canceled-covid-wagner-jaws">“summer blockbuster”</a> mode of moviemaking and <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/sharks-
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before-and-after-jaws/">forever changing</a> people’s perception of sharks, but its truest legacy is the metaphor of the shark itself: the omnipresent darkness lurking at the heart of Americana, reminding us that we are never truly safe.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FGNq4f">
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Beginning with 1920’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmlaUHqQNao"><em>The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari</em></a> — widely <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-cabinet-of-dr-
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caligari-1920">considered</a> to be the first horror film — the best horror films have functioned as a dark mirror, reflecting our own fears back to us through the lens of storytelling. They use allegory and symbolism to stand in for a whole host of social phobias, structural repression, and shared anxieties. Just as our readings of such stories can change over time, our relationship to horror films can shift. The scary figure in the woods can represent something very different depending on who’s looking at it, and when.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8qKpX5">
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That’s why horror cinema through the ages can serve as a diary, a documenting of civilization confronting its fears of monsters both human and supernatural — fears of war, fears of nature, fears of extinction, and much more. “We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones,” Stephen King writes in <em>Danse Macabre</em>, his 1981 nonfiction book on the genre. “With the endless inventiveness of humankind, we grasp the very elements which are so divisive and destructive and try to turn them into tools—to dismantle themselves.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Wgj1Cp">
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If horror helps us speak our fears aloud, a look back at a hundred years of seminal horror films reveals a civilization trying to come to terms with itself — for better and worse.
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</p>
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<h3 id="wHwibn">
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Prewar: Monsters and the monsters within us
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="deciYz">
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Although horror has always been a prominent theme in folklore, fairy tales, and urban legends, horror as a genre arguably kicked off in 1764 with the publication of Horace Walpole’s <em>The Castle of Otranto</em>, the very first gothic horror novel. The story teemed with homoerotic symbolism and strange, otherworldly acts, and today is often read as <a href="http://english429wilcox.blogspot.com/2011/10/kirsten-mendoza-queer-theory-in-horace.html">an externalization of the author’s grappling with sexuality</a>. From the time of its publication through today, horror has contained an element of internalized fears and phobias, shames and anxieties, made external and visualized. Sometimes we’re able to overcome them; sometimes they overcome us. And often, the “monsters” turn out to be regular people like Horace Walpole, grappling with his queer identity in a homophobic society.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x1JJQ5">
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The slippery concept of what makes a person “monstrous” has long been a central theme in horror, and it’s something that preoccupied horror creators during the first decades of moviemaking. Throughout prewar Hollywood, it was the subject of an onslaught of beloved horror films, many produced by Universal Studios and played by celebrity character actors such as Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Lon Chaney Sr. and Lon Chaney Jr.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HoKxWA">
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“This was an oblique reaction to the bleak horrors of the trenches and the death tolls in the First World War,” horror expert and Southern Methodist University film professor <a href="https://www.smu.edu/Meadows/AreasOfStudy/FilmMediaArts/Faculty/WorlandRick">Rick Worland</a> points out. The experiences of many scarred, disfigured, and traumatized veterans, Worland says, were transmuted into monster films — the Phantom in Chaney Sr.’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUamUHcxMVY"><em>Phantom of The Opera</em></a><em> </em>(1925), for instance.
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</p>
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<div class="c-float-left c-float-hang">
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<aside id="H5cIGh">
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<q>Horror has contained an element of internalized fears and phobias, shames and anxieties, made external and visualized. Sometimes we’re able to overcome them; sometimes they overcome us.</q>
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</aside>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bLG0Bs">
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Perhaps no film more fully communicates this anxiety than Tod Browning’s <a href="https://horrorfilmhistory.com/wp/freaks-1932/"><em>Freaks</em></a> (1932), about a community of sideshow performers who fall prey to a glamorous but villainous woman who exploits them. <em>Freaks</em> was an early example of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/5/3/18514408/what-is-camp-explained-met-gala-
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susan-sontag">aesthetic of camp</a> on film, as well as two prevalent cornerstones of horror: its entanglement as a genre with themes of queerness and social ostracism, and the embedded expectation that audiences will feel more empathy for the film’s ostensible freaks and misfits than they will for anyone else onscreen.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Vj8BSO">
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39Bnk6VU53Y"></a>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fKkJnG">
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The emphasis on the monstrous was partly a reaction to the sheer monstrosity of the war itself. “[There was also] a kind of skepticism about science and technology, because World War I was a modern, 20th-century war,” Worland says. “This was the first war where the submarine, the machine gun, and the tank were all used extensively.” James Whale’s adaptation of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Frankenstein-film-by-Whale"><em>Frankenstein</em></a> (1931), with its morality tale about a science experiment gone horribly wrong, arguably embodies the era’s unease about technology — a theme that would become even more prominent in horror after World War II.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Nl7xfm">
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Along with skepticism over technology, Americans grappled with a new age of industrial advancement and the shock of adjusting to life in the 20th century. In a turn away from modernity itself, many of the most popular films blended a mix of old-world and historical elements. The title characters in <em>The Mummy</em> (1932), <em>Dracula</em> (1931), and <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-cat-people-1942">Jacques Tourneur’s <em>Cat People</em></a> (1942), for example, all are modern transplants who come from “old” worlds. <em>Cat People</em>, in particular — a shadowy noir horror with suspenseful scenes that <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Cat_People/mTn8DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=prawer&pg=PA31&printsec=frontcover">influenced</a> Hitchcock, as well as many other filmmakers — has a highly atypical “monster”<strong> </strong>for its era: a gorgeous young blond named Irena<strong> </strong>who’s terrified of her own reflection. A Serbian seamstress fleeing her own fate with vague stories of witches and cat people, Irena thinks she’s outrun the curse when she settles in New York and finds love.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RAXZ5R">
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“You’re in America now,” her fiancé tells her at one point. “You’re so normal.” But “normal” in America, or at least in an American horror story, is always one wrong street away from nightmarish. The nightmare in <em>Cat People</em> goes even deeper than typical modern anxiety; in the landscape of Tourneur’s New York, even your own shadow could turn against you.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RJTINS">
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In other words, by the end of the era, it wasn’t enough to simply recognize and sympathize with the humanity of the monster. Viewers had<strong> </strong>to accept that the monster might be <em>them</em>.
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</p>
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<h3 id="eeAY1P">
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The postwar Atomic Age: Environmental, technological, and alien monstrosities
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<img alt="An original take on the
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poster for Godzilla. " src="https://cdn.vox-
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="T8cYUQ">
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The atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,<strong> </strong>acts of real-world horror at the close of World War II, left psychic scars on the landscape of Japan<strong> </strong>and the landscape of horror cinema. The entire genre evolved, immediately and irrevocably, in response. If prewar scary movies had consisted primarily of stories of regular people battling internal monsters, postwar horror was consumed with community, with concern for society in the wake of new technological threats.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hIPKnq">
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As the world settled into the Cold War, hundreds of sci-fi and horror films questioned humans’ ability to care for the planet, ward off environmental and nuclear disaster, prevent invasions, and generally stop themselves before going too far. New monsters, ranging from alien to subterranean, haunted movie houses. Legions of oversized killer rodents, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25473065">insects</a>, cryptids, and toxic- waste monsters emerged from the fictional depths and ran rampant. Nearly all the films arrived with the same basic premise: Overzealous humans created or accidentally unearthed these abominations and must figure out how to destroy them without causing future planetary harm.
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One of the first hit creature features of the 1950s, 1954’s <em>Creature from the Black Lagoon,</em> is arguably the last of the lineage of great Universal movie monsters. It serves as a transitional narrative, with a plot that feels like a throwback to the Amazonian adventure fantasies of the ’20s and ’30s but still delivers a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlR_nCUX5-c">cautionary tale</a> about environmental overreach.
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The same year the Creature wowed audiences with its underwater skills, Japan processed unfathomable cataclysmic tragedy through the creation of a new monster: <em>Gojira</em> (1954), a.k.a. <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/5/12/5707934/the-amateurs-guide-to-godzilla">Godzilla</a>. Godzilla directly manifested Japan’s nuclear anxieties: He arose from the deep to prowl the earth only after being disturbed by hydrogen bomb tests. Now he possesses strange atomic powers, including the ability to exhale enormous amounts of radiation — a post-nuclear dragon.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q8kfxj">
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Godzilla was an odd horror villain because he wasn’t always a villain. He both embodies the horror of nuclear war as experienced by the country that survived it, and the hope that humanity can overcome and build something better out of that atrocity.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HTyQnY">
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If Japan was creating hope from nuclear monsters, Hollywood was busy creating dread from alien invasions and technological monstrosities. While most of those atomic-age monsters weren’t human, increasingly, fears of modernization and disturbing scenes of suburbia — of idyllic towns and beatific children who are just a little too idyllic and beatific — crept into many films.
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The 1956 melodrama <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048977"><em>The Bad Seed</em></a>, about a cherubic girl on a deadly suburban murder spree, spawned decades of child serial killers in cinema. Meanwhile, 1960’s <em>Village of the Damned</em> dared to imagine an entire <em>town</em> full of child serial killers, creating what would become the time-honored tradition of terrifying kid-run hamlets, from <a href="https://screenrant.com/stephen-king-children-corn-movie-adaptation-failure-
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explained/"><em>Children of the Corn</em></a> to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_the_Children_Shall_Lead">that one creepy <em>Star Trek</em> episode</a>. These films synthesized a decade of sci-fi obsession with nuclear catastrophes and alien invasions with other, broader types of <a href="https://archive.curbed.com/2016/5/25/11746862/cold-war-suburbs-1950s-health">postwar unease</a>: discomfort with modern women and their new sense of liberation, with a new age of unbridled sexuality, and with the whole concept of suburbia itself. These were all themes that only sharpened in the decades to come.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
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|
<h3 id="PpxsUA">
|
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|
Countercultural meltdown: Psychosexuality and the occult
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
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|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="F8sNQI">
|
|||
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|
If horror cinema of the ’50s was preoccupied with fixing society after the war, a single 1960 film would, arguably, dramatically point its attention in a different direction. In Hitchcock’s <em>Psycho</em>, a mild-mannered embezzler who thinks she’s winning a heist film stumbles into a true nightmare when she stops at a vacant roadside motel and falls victim to one of the most famous fictional serial killers in cinematic history.
|
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</p>
|
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|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lbNEE6">
|
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|
Anthony Perkins’s Norman Bates, deceptively soft- spoken and gentle, looms large in the American psyche, in part because he was based on real-life serial killers and in part because he made an indelible impression on audiences that had yet to realize that serial killers even existed in the real world. Add in his particular version of an Oedipus complex, and he gave rise to an ongoing cultural fascination with serial killers and sexual deviants. The character ushered in an era where the monstrous had nothing to do with supernatural elements or technological disasters, but sprang instead from some internal corruption.
|
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</p>
|
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<div class="p-fullbleed-block">
|
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<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
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|
<img alt="An original take on the poster for the Psycho
|
|||
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|
movie." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mczbXpUbtQq_F7Qt3NJN_2SYZzA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
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|
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22921877/Psycho.jpg"/>
|
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</figure>
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</div>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mAmVTW">
|
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|
The overt deviance of <em>Psycho</em> seemed to crack open the dirty psychology of America itself, shifting the scares away from stodgy haunted houses to decrepit roadside mausoleums and the secrets they hid, and ushering in an era of psychosexual horror. Often, as in masterpiece novella adaptations like <em>The Haunting</em> (1963) and <em>The Innocents</em> (1960)<em>, </em>the terror the protagonist experiences might well be all in her mind. Whether the occult exists or is imagined makes no difference:<strong> </strong>The ensuing calamity is all too real.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fz3Pk2">
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The year 1968 saw the end of the<strong> </strong>restrictive <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93301189">Hollywood Hays Code</a>, which had heavily censored what films portrayed onscreen. Immediately, horror movies got a lot bloodier. If semi-mortal,<strong> </strong>prewar monsters were metaphors for psychological and societal ailments, the human<strong> </strong>monsters of the ’60s and ’70s embraced explicit depravity<strong> </strong>and violence. Deranged killers such as Michael Myers (<em>Halloween</em>, 1978) and Leatherface (<em>The Texas Chain Saw Massacre</em>, 1974)<strong> </strong>were still metaphors, standing<strong> </strong>in for everything from <a href="https://www.larsenonfilm.com/halloween">sexual liberation</a> to <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/68defbc42de0437184087a4afd070ae3">Vietnam-era anxiety</a>, but they did it while causing bloodbaths.<strong> </strong>A broad range of Italian psychosexual thrillers known as <a href="https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/where-begin-giallo">“giallo” films</a><strong> </strong>drove this trend, paving the way for the slasher subgenre, which kicked off with 1974’s fiercely feminist <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/22/13872376/skip-die-hard-watch-black-christmas"><em>Black Christmas</em></a> and went mainstream with 1978’s famously puritan <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/19/17973678/halloween-movies-
|
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|
|
guide-michael-myers-explained"><em>Halloween</em></a>.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CbfKpZ">
|
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|
|
As psychosis<strong> </strong>increasingly fueled horror, so did a renewed fear of the ultimate supernatural evil: the devil. Buoyed by the countercultural shifts throughout the ’60s and ’70s, particularly after <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/8/7/20695284/charles-manson-family-
|
|||
|
|
what-is-helter-skelter-explained">the 1969 Manson murders</a>, horror <a href="https://crookedmarquee.com/1970s-made-
|
|||
|
|
for-tv-movies-occult-witches/">turned to explorations of the occult</a>. <em>Rosemary’s Baby</em> (1968) and <em>The Exorcist</em> (1973) landed a one-two punch for Satan in terms of cultural impact, priming audiences to believe in the demonic and paving the way for the <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22358153/satanic-panic-ritual-abuse-history-
|
|||
|
|
conspiracy-theories-explained">Satanic Panic</a> of<strong> </strong>the ’80s. These films are<strong> </strong>also portraits of psyches fracturing in response to modernity — a natural evolution of the questions that ’50s horror asked of suburbia, and one that would only deepen in the coming years.
|
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|
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</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
|
|||
|
|
<aside id="fsKnSP">
|
|||
|
|
<q>The overt deviance of <em>Psycho</em> seemed to crack open the dirty psychology of America itself, shifting the scares away from stodgy haunted houses to decrepit roadside mausoleums, ushering in an era of psychosexual horror</q>
|
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|
|
</aside>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
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|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="K1vC5v">
|
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|
|
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctrJ0-TLUHQ"></a>
|
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|
|
</p>
|
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|
|
<h3 id="eWxGuj">
|
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|
|
Pre-9/11: Civilization can’t protect you
|
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|
|
</h3>
|
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|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LIYsLy">
|
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|
|
By the mid-1970s, horror had plumbed the depths of the monstrous Other, the potential of global apocalypse and atomic terror, and the outer edges of supernatural entities preying on our souls and minds. Through each era, there was one sociological horror source that kept evolving: American modernity, and the clueless white people who inhabited it. Films like <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2017/07/the-defining-feature-of-george-romeros-movies-wasnt-their-zombies-it-was-their-
|
|||
|
|
brains.html">George Romero’s zombie trilogy</a> (1968–1985) and John Carpenter’s <em>The Thing</em> (1982)<strong> </strong>hinted at the flimsy illusion of protection offered by the concept of civilization. Many of these films spoke to economic anxiety: If capitalism peaked in the ’80s and ’90s, so did stories about the inability of capitalism to protect us.
|
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|
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</p>
|
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|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wWLpmz">
|
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|
|
One of the best things about <em>Jaws</em> (1975) is how clearly it reflects this theme: The plot is, basically, one shark versus an entire island’s tourist economy. And in the end, the score is capitalism: 0, shark: 1.<strong> </strong>Once the illusion of a benevolent natural world existing in harmony with an equally benign form of civilization has vanished, nothing can bring it back, and nothing can protect you.
|
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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="Pf9yL9">
|
|||
|
|
The economic anxiety of <em>Jaws</em> gets even starker with the quintessential morality tale of the era: the second film in Romero’s zombie trilogy, 1978’s <em>Dawn of the Dead</em>, which famously sees its survivors fleeing the zombie apocalypse by taking refuge in a mall, a symbol of capitalist excess rendered shallow and ridiculous by real trauma. By the time the ’80s and ’90s rolled around, this theme was commonplace. Even 1984’s <em>Gremlins</em>, the fun horror- comedy about a race of terrifying goblin-like creatures wreaking havoc on a small town, aimed its supernatural beings directly at social infrastructure, destroying everything from traffic lights to department stores.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="p-fullbleed-block">
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="An original take on the poster for Gremlins. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mdcKaSNPQaQm04DZmIGesSjWmSU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
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|
|
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22921883/Gremlins.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
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|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cvfVLE">
|
|||
|
|
In addition to pitting the natural and supernatural world against the trappings of society, films of this era suggested that cataclysmic horror could strike anywhere and at any time, from the dream invasions of Freddy Krueger in <em>Nightmare on Elm Street</em> (1984) to the nihilistic bloodbaths of the two savage teens in <em>Funny Games</em> (1997). “It’s very hard to get lost in America these days,” Heather, one of the three doomed students of 1999’s <em>The Blair Witch Project</em>, remarks as the group makes its way into the North Carolina forest. But despite their camper full of supplies; their cosseted, modern upbringings; and their ostensible proximity to middle America, nothing can prepare them for the woods. They’re unprotected, helpless, and, soon, quite literally mapless — utterly lost in every sense.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7NgU53">
|
|||
|
|
Today, <em>The Blair Witch Project</em> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/movies/blair-witch-project-1999.html">is seen as the progenitor</a> of a zillion terrible “found footage” films. That alone would make it a crucial industry milestone, but its other contribution to horror cinema was the indelible impression it left of a trio of millennials, armed with every safety net and connection to civilization the ’90s could offer, rapidly realizing that no amount of modern comforts could save them from the horror ahead.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0FZBro">
|
|||
|
|
Speaking to Vox in 2017, <em>The Faculty of Horror</em> podcast co-host Alex West described <em>Blair Witch</em> as “a huge gap-filler on the way to the new millennium.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="e97KOI">
|
|||
|
|
“It dealt with the outskirts of America, our relationship with technology and media, and the threat of the Old World infiltrating ours,” West said. “<em>The Blair Witch Project</em> dealt with the notion that for all our modernity, individuals and groups could still be inexplicably lost and never found again — something the modern world was supposed to protect us from.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JwXJGO">
|
|||
|
|
It all feels, in retrospect, like an unfortunate thematic lead-up to societal breakdown. Which is, of course, exactly where we were headed.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="z6gEJ0">
|
|||
|
|
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuyeQYQqnhk"></a>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="R0xjt9">
|
|||
|
|
Post-9/11: Cataclysmic destruction and what we become in response
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="87Hgoj">
|
|||
|
|
Horror as a genre fractured along with the rest of the world after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Once again, the narratives grappled with scenarios of apocalypse and nihilistic upheaval. If the existential threat of a pre-9/11 horror film like <em>Blair Witch</em> was that one could wander off the map and into danger, the existential threat of post-9/11 horror was that there is no map — that there never was a map. Today, horror is characterized by an overall tonal shift toward chaotic nihilism, realism, loss of innocence, and stories that explore social themes. Many of the resulting films have been notably experimental and boundary-pushing, ultimately leading to a new “golden age” of excellence for the genre as a whole.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1OVbiH">
|
|||
|
|
While the mainstream awareness of horror throughout the first decade of the 21st century rested mostly on found footage, the aughts were, in fact, full of eye-opening reinterpretations of traditional horror formulas. Increasingly, horror chose to engage less with supernatural fantasy and more with the real world and real-life issues.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-float-right">
|
|||
|
|
<aside id="tKcMAz">
|
|||
|
|
<q>The Blair Witch Project showed that for all our modernity, individuals and groups could still be inexplicably lost and never found again. — Alexandra West, film critic</q>
|
|||
|
|
</aside>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MBTZC2">
|
|||
|
|
Even in movies with monsters (2002’s <em>28 Days Later, </em>2006’s <em>Pan’s Labyrinth</em>), the real-world horror was still at the center. The badly mislabeled “torture porn” subgenre, as well as the French horror subgenre dubbed “French new extremism” or “the new extremity,” <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/978-1-78769-897-020191002/full/html?skipTracking=true">used explorations of trauma</a> to fuel deeply experimental, brutal, and challenging horror that frequently deconstructed violence against women. Films as variant as Lars von Trier’s experimental <em>Antichrist</em> (2009) and as darkly comedic as Diablo Cody’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/10/31/18037996/jennifers-body-flop-cult-classic-
|
|||
|
|
feminist-horror"><em>Jennifer’s Body</em></a> (2009) shared a commonality in that each explored horror’s role in the real world, including its connection to mourning, loss, and violence.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="p-fullbleed-block">
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="An original take on the poster for 28 Days Later. " src="https://cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/thumbor/uk0-_UON3VmWfGUHE2jQcNnGFM4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22921914/28Days.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LoM25b">
|
|||
|
|
Perhaps one of the starkest examples of this is the extremely violent<strong> </strong>2008 French film <em>Martyrs</em> — a movie you endure rather than watch. <em>Martyrs</em> requires you to not only accept scenes of horrific violence but also recognize them as a disjointed narrative of trauma survival that’s sometimes incoherent by necessity. The film understands both how<strong> </strong>violence permanently scars its victims<strong> </strong>and how systems of abuse and violence are cyclical. The result is a deeply difficult but profoundly moving film that’s become one of the more <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/3/23/18277186/us-horror-movie-references-list-jordan-peele-influences">influential</a> horror flicks of the 21st century.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="muxkbe">
|
|||
|
|
It’s easy to read modern horror as fixated on the feeling that we’re at the end of everything. Many of the best 21st-century horror films drop characters into scenarios where everything seems to be disintegrating — all sense of civilization and social order, family and communal structure, even reason and the logic of reality itself.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5sd0sG">
|
|||
|
|
At the center of this existentialism is the question of what we become when society and civilization fail us. Films like <em>Attack the Block</em> (2011) and <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/6/8/15739132/it-comes-at-night-review-dystopia-politics"><em>It Comes At Night</em></a> (2017)<strong> </strong>explicitly deconstruct the classic horror theme of the Other by challenging the traditional narrative of the Other and examining what happens when narrative shifts reframe the story.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lyZ9ME">
|
|||
|
|
These ideas are most explicit in Jordan Peele’s 2017 hit <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/2/24/14698632/get-out-review-jordan-peele"><em>Get Out</em></a>, which <a href="https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/get-out-inspired-movies/">draws on suburban horror films</a> and dystopias and uses comedy to disarm the audience while it lures them deeper and deeper into well-educated, upper-class New England — a landscape that’s typically “safe” for the average horror protagonist. But the average horror protagonist isn’t Black. And when our hero Chris finds himself fleeing from a horrific eugenics conspiracy, the trauma isn’t just situational; it’s an allegory for the collective generational trauma of <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/7/14759756/get-
|
|||
|
|
out-benevolent-racism-white-feminism">a civilization grappling with an origin story of systemic racism</a>.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NYCsOo">
|
|||
|
|
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKWtVjBq0YM"></a>
|
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|
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</p>
|
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|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sLQOGX">
|
|||
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Like <em>Get Out</em>, a host of modern films have woven elements of classic horror themes into other genre narratives, from 2017’s eco-terrorist drama <a href="https://www.vox.com/summer-movies/2018/5/25/17384654/first-reformed-review-paul-schrader-ethan-hawke-
|
|||
|
|
christian-movie"><em>First Reformed</em></a> to 2020’s Me Too vengeance film <a href="https://www.vox.com/22205072/promising-young-woman-review-carey-mulligan"><em>Promising Young Woman</em></a>. Such films reflect horror’s growing role in articulating the concerns of mainstream society. If horror was ever a fully self-contained genre, it has broken its boundaries and moved into other areas of storytelling, becoming even more fluid. “Horror fans have more fun during a pandemic,” the science outlet Nautilus <a href="https://nautil.us/issue/87/risk/horror-fans-have-more-fun-during-a-pandemic">proclaimed</a> in July of 2020, a nod to not only <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2020/04/best-pandemic-movies-on-netflix-hulu-prime-and-more.html">the litany of pandemic horror films</a> that already exist, but also to the way horror allows fans to externalize their fears onscreen.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WxOjlP">
|
|||
|
|
In fact, horror seems well positioned to become the primary artistic genre of the pandemic era — the way we speak uncomfortable truths to ourselves in an age of apocalypse.
|
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|
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</p>
|
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|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mumE1I">
|
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/authors/aja-romano"><em>Aja Romano</em></a><em> is a staff writer for Vox reporting on culture.</em>
|
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|
|
</p>
|
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<div>
|
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<div id="lc5Mqc">
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<div>
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</div>
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</div>
|
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</div>
|
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<ul>
|
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|
|
<li><strong>What will the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races mean for Biden?</strong> -
|
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<figure>
|
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-
|
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cdn.com/thumbor/VdArrlNrRI0JGnFTPl28Dt_6T04=/907x0:8192x5464/1310x983/cdn.vox-
|
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cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70041251/GettyImages_1347750169.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
|
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|
Democratic gubernatorial candidate and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe greets supporters in Charlottesville in October. The Virginia governor election, pitting McAuliffe against Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin, is November 2. | Win McNamee/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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These elections often — but don’t always — go against the president’s party. Democrats hope to defy the trend.
|
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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="1SyvpC">
|
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|
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For election commentators, the year following a presidential contest is typically one of slim pickings. There’s a governor’s election in Virginia and one in New Jersey, and that’s about it, as far as high-profile races go (though this year there was <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/9/15/22662487/newsom-wins-california-recall-elder">a bonus California election</a>).
|
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</p></li>
|
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|
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</ul>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jeNoFg">
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|
|
That hasn’t traditionally stopped pundits from drawing big, broad lessons about what election results in Virginia or New Jersey might mean for national politics. The 2005 Democratic wins sent “a powerful message that President Bush’s political standing has fallen,” wrote <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/09/us/democrat-wins-
|
|||
|
|
race-for-governor-in-virginia.html">the New York Times</a>. The 2009 races were a “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/07/us/politics/07govs.html">test</a>” for Obama and the Democratic candidates’ defeats were “humiliating” and “an unmistakable rebuke,” <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2009/11/dems-
|
|||
|
|
incumbents-get-wake-up-call-029116">per Politico</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a0t2w3">
|
|||
|
|
In both years, these outcomes were indeed followed by a rough midterm performance for the president’s party. Yet relatively few people in these states tended to say they’re voting to rebuke the president. For instance, in 2009, exit polls showed voters in Virginia and New Jersey continued to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/nyregion/04elect.html">strongly support President Obama</a>, even though they voted for Republicans for governor. And the candidates themselves generally don’t shape their messaging around the incumbent president.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jgVVbu">
|
|||
|
|
The overall pattern, though, is tough to miss: The incumbent president’s party has, in recent decades, almost always lost these Virginia and New Jersey races.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ojwHP0">
|
|||
|
|
Of the 16 governor’s elections in these two states from 1989 until now, the incumbent president’s party has lost 15. (The sole exception was Virginia’s 2013 governor’s election, which current Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe won during Barack Obama’s second term.) That fits with the general trend in which the president’s party does poorly in midterms.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iTDB4d">
|
|||
|
|
Still, within the overall trend of backlash, there’s a fair amount of variation in just how badly they perform and how these individual races turn out. And it’s always possible that this time will be different. This time around, Democrats hope to defy the trend, and polls show they might.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TxKamX">
|
|||
|
|
But we shouldn’t necessarily get carried away with what that outcome might mean. It’s not that the Virginia and New Jersey races are irrelevant to how next year will go. It’s that each is just one part of a larger picture — with a year remaining in which the political situation could change.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="aJBEp5">
|
|||
|
|
Polls show a tight race in Virginia and a bigger Democratic lead in New Jersey
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/thumbor/Fo8W7XinlG98wkqM1TK-VkqBvXw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22948356/GettyImages_1347542093.jpg"/> <cite>Win McNamee/Getty Images</cite></p>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin speaks during an early-voting rally on October 19 in Stafford, Virginia.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Momiod">
|
|||
|
|
The Virginia contest is the closer one in the polls. The state’s former governor, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a longtime close ally of the Clinton family, is running for another term in the office against Republican Glenn Youngkin, a wealthy former private equity executive. (Because Virginia governors can’t serve consecutive terms, the current governor, Democrat Ralph Northam, can’t run again.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1pAQxX">
|
|||
|
|
Virginia has a history of close governor’s races, but the state has gotten increasingly blue on the presidential level, with Biden beating Trump there by 10 percentage points. <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/governor/virginia/">Polls show a tight race</a>, with a slight edge for McAuliffe on average.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="M9tvnR">
|
|||
|
|
In New Jersey, incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy (D) is running for a second term against former state assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R). Nationally, New Jersey has been a safe state for Democrats since the 1990s, but Republican Chris Christie recently managed to win two terms before being dragged down by scandal. On average, polls have shown Murphy with a bigger lead, but there have been <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/governor/new-jersey/">a few suggesting a close contest</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/thumbor/lh-_74-z2f2oiK1iIYgBGf3tDZ0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22948369/AP21294700879760.jpg"/> <cite>Frank Franklin II/AP Photo</cite></p>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy, right, speaks during a gubernatorial debate with Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, on October 12.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="82PT0i">
|
|||
|
|
On the surface, governor’s races tend to be about how things are going in the state. But they can be affected by broader national trends — pandemic policies and the economy are looming large in both of these races. They can also play into national media narratives — Youngkin <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/critical-race-
|
|||
|
|
theory-virginia-governor-youngkin/2021/10/01/17ad45f0-1cc8-11ec-8380-5fbadbc43ef8_story.html">is attacking the purported use</a> of “critical race theory” in schools. Meanwhile, McAuliffe is trying to tie Youngkin <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-business-elections-pandemics-health-e7f4281c5a19e70e4420e9fa623d16cc">to Donald Trump</a>, and Murphy is <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/new-jersey-governor-phil-murphy-jack-ciattarelli-
|
|||
|
|
debate-election-20211013.html">trying to do the same</a> to Ciattarelli.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="l2vAvC">
|
|||
|
|
Are Virginia and New Jersey bellwethers?
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pSZV1x">
|
|||
|
|
Though Virginia and New Jersey have tended to swing back and forth between the parties for governor, they’ve done much less of that on the presidential level. Virginia was a solidly Republican state in presidential contests from 1968 to 2004 but has gotten bluer ever since. New Jersey, meanwhile, has voted for every Democratic presidential candidate from 1992 onward.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="F4adov">
|
|||
|
|
Still, the results do fit the general pattern of midterm backlash that’s long been common in US politics. The president’s party <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
|
|||
|
|
content/uploads/2017/01/vitalstats_ch2_tbl4.pdf">almost always loses seats</a> in the House of Representatives (they did so in 17 of the 19 midterms since World War II). And that party tends to suffer in governor’s races too — they lost governor’s seats on net in 16 of 19 midterms in that same span. For whatever reason, when a president’s party is in office, voters seem more likely to give the other party’s candidates a shot in the midterms.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZtHvEo">
|
|||
|
|
In that sense, the Virginia and New Jersey results seem to qualify as “early midterms.” But that doesn’t mean they will predict the midterm results the following year. One or two contests don’t have such totemic power. The two most unusual recent midterms — 1998 and 2002 — were essentially draws for the president’s party, which qualifies as an unusually good result for them. They weren’t really predicted by the Virginia and New Jersey races one year prior, which followed the typical pattern.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PuIcTC">
|
|||
|
|
But sometimes commentators’ takes do happen to be right. After Tim Kaine kept the Virginia governor’s office in Democrats’ hands in 2005, Democrats really did continue to gain in the state — they won Virginia Senate races there in 2006 and 2008, and Obama became the first Democratic presidential-candidate to win there since LBJ. Republican Bob McDonnell’s win in the 2009 governor’s race, though, did not presage a durable return of the state to the Republican fold, since Democrats have won every statewide contest there since.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="loOM19">
|
|||
|
|
Another complication is that voter behavior in state races has <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Increasingly-United-States-
|
|||
|
|
Political-Nationalized/dp/022653037X">become increasingly nationalized</a>, with ticket-splitting on the decline and national-level partisanship becoming more determinative of who voters support on down-ballot races. This trend is clearest in federal politics: In 2000, there were 30 senators representing states the other party’s presidential candidate won, and <a href="https://cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/thumbor/3gceNoYlKVZTaq8wakQlR3l-SME=/0x0:1860x1560/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1860x1560):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22470706/j3Sky_joe_manchin_represents_a_state_that_voted_overwhelmingly_for_donald_trump__1_.png">now there are six</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jft0z0">
|
|||
|
|
Governor’s races have not become quite as nationalized as that, but they have become more likely to match the presidential result. After the 2002 elections, there were 20 governors representing states the opposing party’s presidential candidate won. Now, there are 10. (Four are Democrats, and six are Republicans.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yuMscZ">
|
|||
|
|
Currently, Virginia and New Jersey are considered solidly Democratic states on the presidential level. Both were willing to elect Republicans as governor not too long ago. But if more voters are sticking with their presidential party no matter what, Republicans will have a far tougher time winning statewide — which means any limited usefulness these two states might have had as bellwethers may have declined.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XmFOC9">
|
|||
|
|
That’s not to say this November’s results will tell us nothing about the national political situation. It’s fair to say that, if Republican wins materialize in these increasingly blue states, that’s not a great sign for Democrats. A close outcome will be tougher to interpret. If Terry McAuliffe wins by 2 percentage points in Virginia, is that bad for Democrats considering it’s now a blue state? Or is it what we’d expect, since that’s about how much McAuliffe won by the last time he ran, in 2013?
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CcggdJ">
|
|||
|
|
When trying to discern what will happen next year, it’s important to look at the whole picture rather than over-extrapolating about one or two races. For instance, there was, unusually, another high- profile governor’s race this year already: California’s recall election. There, Gov. Gavin Newsom got the exact same share of the vote that he did in 2018. Since 2018 was a strong year for Democrats, California was a good result for the party. There are also more ominous signs for Democrats, though, such as President Biden’s <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/">declining approval rating</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jO6xLq">
|
|||
|
|
The news in the following year could get better for them (if the pandemic and economic situations improve) — or worse. Virginia and New Jersey will be interesting data points, but the full story hasn’t been told yet.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Succession turns a box of doughnuts into a stealthy statement about abuse</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="Kendall leans against a table and looks at his phone." src="https://cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/thumbor/adMhPzjV2c3kwGIavZfat2s1g8k=/213x0:1920x1280/1310x983/cdn.vox-
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70040331/jeremy_strong_0.0.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Kendall Roy spends a stressful moment as we all must: staring at his phone. | HBO
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The Roy siblings are deeply haunted by their upbringing. Succession keeps finding ways to show that.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0B5JVp">
|
|||
|
|
In <a href="https://www.bartleby.com/200/sw9.html">a famous 1919 essay on <em>Hamlet</em></a>, T.S. Eliot reintroduced the “objective correlative,” a previously obscure literary concept, to the world of criticism, causing it to rocket to critical omnipresence across the first half of the 20th century.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KidTnp">
|
|||
|
|
Broadly speaking, the objective correlative is when an artist uses a symbol or image or object — or a string of them all together — to create a strong sense of feeling and emotion. Eliot said he thought Shakespeare failed to use the objective correlative in <em>Hamlet</em> because the play is so full of the title character angsting all over the place about how he feels. By contrast, Eliot wrote, Lady Macbeth is a good example of using the objective correlative — that “damn spot” she can’t get out instantly gives us a sense of her deep, unresolvable guilt.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xzo7bO">
|
|||
|
|
I think the idea of the objective correlative relies a little too heavily on every single audience member reading every single symbol in the same way, when we all bring our own emotions and thoughts to whatever piece of art we’re taking in. Yet it’s hard to deny that sometimes, a single image or object can carry far more emotional weight than any number of long, emotional speeches.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cW773a">
|
|||
|
|
A well-chosen image — even the most over-obvious one you can possibly think of — can slyly push us into a kind of dreamlike state, slipping past our conscious mind and burrowing down to our subconscious. A speech will always engage the conscious mind and run a greater risk of ringing false.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ENRljd">
|
|||
|
|
If you want to see a great example of the objective correlative hard at work, just check out “Mass in Time of War,” the second episode of <em>Succession</em>’s third season, which features a box of doughnuts, soaked in dread.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="m3DXUh">
|
|||
|
|
So much depends upon a box of doughnuts, glazed with sweet frosting, sitting on a white table
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<pre><code> <img alt="Connor and Shiv lay on Kendall’s daughter’s bed, as he makes his pitch." src="https://cdn.vox-</code></pre>
|
|||
|
|
cdn.com/thumbor/FGiAZzu1Ob6cihkvAxB_iGpu42s=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox- cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22948318/alan_ruck_sarah_snook.jpg" /> <cite>HBO</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
That bed doesn’t look all that comfortable for an adult to recline on, but what do I know?
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oWZ1e6">
|
|||
|
|
The scene: Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong), who decisively broke with his father, Logan (Brian Cox), at a press conference in the final moments of last season, has spent the hours immediately following that break shoring up his momentum. He’s hiring people to handle his publicity and legal matters. He’s trying to find allies within Waystar-Royco, the family business.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ENjJE6">
|
|||
|
|
What he needs more than anything, however, is for at least one of his three siblings — and ideally all three — to step out with him in front of the press and make a joint statement: Logan Roy is no longer fit to serve in any capacity and should be replaced.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eyke9t">
|
|||
|
|
Kendall is probably right. Beset by scandal and reeling from multiple crises at once, Logan would likely be felled as the head of Waystar-Royco if all four of his children were to say he’s incompetent.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<aside id="7y63IK">
|
|||
|
|
<div>
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
</aside>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NhVPz8">
|
|||
|
|
So, one by one, Kendall invites his siblings to gather at his ex-wife’s apartment. First Shiv (Sarah Snook), then Roman (Kieran Culkin), then Connor (Alan Ruck) drop by, ready to just feel Kendall out. They won’t acknowledge that they’re listening to what he has to say. “Officially,” they’ve all shown up as neutral parties or even as allies of Logan, ready to spy. (Roman comes right out and says his aim is to snoop.) But all the same, the more Kendall talks, the more you can see the three of them considering his pitch.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vNnP6y">
|
|||
|
|
The episode never once has any of the characters so much as suggest they think Kendall has a point. But we in the audience might find ourselves speculating as to whether any of the characters are quietly siding with Kendall. As I watched, I thought it was clear Connor was starting to see things his brother’s way, and then I thought perhaps Shiv was as well.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XjG38y">
|
|||
|
|
Not that it matters, because Logan shows up to ruin the party.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3ZvVUg">
|
|||
|
|
The siblings start squabbling over the most obvious question of all: If Logan isn’t head of the company, which one of the Roy children should be? Kendall, who took this enormous, potentially stupid leap of faith, is pretty sure he’s the best choice. But Shiv thinks it should be her, and maybe she’s right. She is the one who’s least tainted by the various scandals dragging down the Roy family name.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IqZszk">
|
|||
|
|
They leave Kendall’s daughter’s bedroom (where they’ve been having their confab), only to find a box of doughnuts sitting on a table — sent over courtesy of their dad. Instantly, the tenor of the scene changes. Whatever momentum Kendall had completely dissipates, and all of a sudden, Logan is very much present in the room with his kids, even though he’s not physically there. The doughnuts are just doughnuts. Hopefully, they’re sweet and delicious. But to the Roy children, they’re also a subtle reminder from their dad: “Ah, ah, ah!” a spectral Logan seems to say, wagging his finger. “I’m always watching you.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PZ9Dxc">
|
|||
|
|
The other Roy siblings abandon Kendall in that moment, opting to side with their dad. Desperate, Kendall launches into a tirade that only makes the situation worse, and implies that Shiv has only gotten as far as she has because she’s a woman and because she’s been given power out of pity. (Like most things Kendall says in this episode, it’s not wrong, but it’s also a) not very nice and b) not 100 percent right either.)
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LlqtEg">
|
|||
|
|
Then everybody but Kendall is gone, and he has no idea why a box of doughnuts seems to have completely foiled his plans.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="H6cqVj">
|
|||
|
|
How the Roy siblings exemplify different experiences of parental abuse survivors when they’re suddenly confronted with a reminder of that abuse (a.k.a. doughnuts)
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<pre><code> <img alt="Shiv listens as Roman and Kendall talk about their dad." src="https://cdn.vox-</code></pre>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">cdn.com/thumbor/dAITlqL8p17XHZkyEIj740IR9ak=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox- cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22948331/kieran_culkin_sarah_snook_jeremy_strong.jpg" /> <cite>HBO</cite></p>
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<figcaption>
|
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Roman remains pretty unconvinced by the whole deal.
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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="InJreZ">
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|
Across the first two episodes of season three, Kendall has been acting in an atypically manic fashion. The first two seasons of <em>Succession</em> featured, respectively, a Kendall who tried to get his way through brute force and a Kendall who had been ground into the dirt beneath his father’s heel. In season three, he’s racing around, spouting social justice language, and declaring that his dad is just <em>the worst</em>.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g6ingU">
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|
He has the zeal of a religious convert because, in a way, he is a religious convert. He has reevaluated the falsities he was raised with and come to discover a core tenet of the universe: His dad is just the worst. This newfound realization has made him pretty insufferable. Kendall, having seen the truth about one specific aspect of his life, now thinks he sees the truth about everything, and, well, there’s the religious convert aspect for you.
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JRQxjc">
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I use the words “religious convert,” but Kendall’s behavior is also typical of people who’ve left fundamentalist religious movements or people who’ve recently come out as some flavor of queer or people whose political beliefs fall outside of the traditional conservative/liberal dyad. Any time you feel like you alone have grasped some fundamental principle about the way the world works, even if you’re 100 percent correct, you run the risk of convincing yourself that you can see the truth about everything, and becoming just a little bit insufferable to those around you.
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wGMHse">
|
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|
Reporting I’ve done for other, as yet unpublished, articles also informed how I thought about Kendall in this episode because <a href="https://ncadv.org/dynamics-of-abuse">this dynamic</a> also often plays out in families where one or both parents were abusive. One of the children has a moment, usually in adulthood but sometimes earlier, when the glass shatters, and they suddenly realize the way they were raised was not okay. They often cut off their parents. But when they try to tell their siblings, their siblings haven’t had a similar epiphany.
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VrqK4f">
|
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|
Often, the child who has become estranged from their parents will have some measure of independence from their parents. Their siblings might be more dependent financially or emotionally on their parents. That disparity can open up a rift among the siblings, one that can start to seem like a fight about who’s right about the true nature of their parents. The child who knows<em> </em>they’re right about the abuse (and often is right about it) will push and push and push, but the other kids just aren’t ready to go there. Hurtful things might be said, and relationships are badly damaged.
|
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</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qqE3ow">
|
|||
|
|
<em>Succession</em> is exploring <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22691830/succession-season-3-hbo-
|
|||
|
|
review-roy-logan-kendall-shiv-roman">this exact scenario in season three</a>. Kendall is absolutely right that his dad is a terrible person, but the ways in which he’s expressing that idea are an active turnoff to his siblings, who are still deeply ensnared in their father’s web. He keeps pushing them just a little too hard and a little too far, and they always snap back.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fs3A6y">
|
|||
|
|
But we don’t need to have any of the characters say this because the doughnuts, a stark symbol of Logan Roy’s omnipresent terror, efficiently and elegantly express the fear that Logan instills in his children. The instant they notice the box of doughnuts in the room, only Kendall (who, remember, has seen through his father’s bullying) is able to identify them as the intimidation tactic they are. They’re just doughnuts! They’re not the literal, physical presence of Logan Roy! They’re a symbol, an image, an object! The objective correlative is never the actual thing it points to, but it makes you feel that thing (in this case dread) deeply.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vTr3Ay">
|
|||
|
|
So the other kids immediately begin to shrink away from the conflict they were thinking about entering. They’re out of the apartment. They’re back to Logan. Kendall understands what’s driving this response, asking them incredulously if they’re going to let themselves be rattled by a box of doughnuts. But, yeah. They are.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
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|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dWdrBD">
|
|||
|
|
One of <em>Succession</em>’s smartest moves is the way it flips a common characteristic of the antihero drama — the main character is always six steps ahead — to reveal how “mastermind” status can mask toxic and abusive tendencies. If this story were told more uncritically from Logan’s perspective, the box of doughnuts would be presented as a brilliant masterstroke, a way of intimidating his children into doing what he wants without setting foot in the room.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
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|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c4VD6t">
|
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|
|
<a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/10/16/20915933/succession-season-2-finale-twist-logan-kendall-
|
|||
|
|
this-is-not-for-tears">Logan isn’t a mastermind, though</a>. He’s just a bully, and in the absence of his love, his children have been warped by fear. Kendall clearly thinks he’s broken free of that fear, but it seems much more likely that he’s just running scared. It would be so easy to let fear overcome him all over again, so he has to keep going and going and going. Shiv, Roman, Connor — they’re all still in its grip, and once Logan makes his presence known, they recommit to it.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aeBkVj">
|
|||
|
|
As <em>Succession</em> season three continues to unfold, pay attention to how often the show’s directors include many of the actors from the show’s considerable ensemble cast lurking in the same shot. These shots are peppered throughout “Mass in Time of War,” and they’re often used to contrast how the different Roy siblings react when Logan is either mentioned or makes his presence known via pastry. Some of them recoil, some of them sit up a little more sharply, some of them just look away. But they’re all reacting, often in very different ways.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AQGVbU">
|
|||
|
|
<em>Succession</em> is a show about all of the ways that abuse warps entire generations of families. If that wasn’t clear before “Mass in Time of War,” it should be now. Logan Roy doesn’t have to be present to get his children to do his bidding. All he has to do is send a single object, a symbol of his eternal, deeply angry affection. So when that box of doughnuts shows up, it’s like he’s sitting right there.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<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>Marvellous, Ciplad and Ahead Of My Time excel</strong> - Marvellous, Ciplad and Ahead Of My Time excelled when the horses were exercised here on Monday (Oct. 25) morning.Sand track:800m: Enlightened (P. Shin</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Succession and Leopard Rock please</strong> - Succession and Leopard Rock pleased when the horses were exercised here on Monday (Oct. 25).Outer sand: 600m: Otus (Rajendra Singh) 45.5. Easy. Celer</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>T20 World Cup | After historic high against India, Pakistan takes on New Zealand</strong> - Babar’s team would be eyeing another big scalp in New Zealand, the team which recently withdrew from a scheduled series against Pakistan after landing there, citing a security threat which, according to the host country, did not exist</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Good batting display high on agenda as West Indies set to take on South Africa on October 26</strong> - It will be imperative that both sides improve upon their batting as they seek to register their first points in the group.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ben Stokes added to England’s Ashes squad</strong> - ‘I am looking forward to seeing my mates and being on the field with them. I’m ready for Australia’</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>No shortage of electricity in the country, says Power Minister R.K. Singh</strong> - The statement assumes significance in view of coal shortage faced by thermal power plants across the country.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Overwhelming response to bonds issued by Canara Bank</strong> - Bank raises ₹1,500 crore from investors</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>ED attaches assets of ex-ADM in disproportionate assets case</strong> - Case was registered under Prevention of Money Laundering Act</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>DGCA initiates probe into aircraft landing on wrong runway</strong> - The incident took place on October 24 in Belagavi</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Explained | What are India’s expectations from COP26?</strong> - “Huge expectations” include arriving at a consensus on unresolved issues of the Paris Agreement Rule Book, long-term climate finance and market-based mechanisms</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>German IS woman jailed for Yazidi girl’s death in Iraq</strong> - A Munich court jails a jihadi bride for 10 years for the agonising death of a Yazidi girl in 2015.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Climate change: Greenhouse gas build-up reached new high in 2020</strong> - Despite the pandemic, atmospheric levels of CO2 and methane once more broke records last year.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Durham University study finds migrating birds spending longer in Europe</strong> - Scientists are studying if birds that usually migrate to Africa are staying in Europe during winter.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>German far-right group attempt to block migrants</strong> - Police have stopped vigilantes armed with batons, pepper spray and a machete at the Polish border.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Brexit: Welsh ports increasingly bypassed by Irish ferries</strong> - More ferry routes avoiding Welsh ports have been set up due to Brexit, Irish minister says.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>When it comes to solar farms, sheep are great groundskeepers</strong> - USDA funds project to build new group in support of solar grazing. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1806928">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Plastic industry pollution to overtake coal in US by 2030, report says</strong> - Supply chain for plastic production is rife with carbon emissions. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1806938">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A look inside Apple’s silicon playbook</strong> - Apple execs talk on the record about the new Apple silicon. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1806933">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>300-year-old tree rings confirm recent uptick in hurricane-driven rainfall</strong> - There’s been nothing like these cyclone seasons for at least several centuries. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1806901">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Microplastics may be cooling—and heating—Earth’s climate</strong> - Tiny bits of plastic swirling in the sky could be subtly affecting the climate. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1806939">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Call me a racist if you want, but south of the border is a sea of violence, corruption and stupidity I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Thank god I live in Canada
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/YZXFILE"> /u/YZXFILE </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qf4j12/call_me_a_racist_if_you_want_but_south_of_the/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qf4j12/call_me_a_racist_if_you_want_but_south_of_the/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>A boob, vagina and asshole are debating who is the greatest of the three.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Boob: I produce milk for babies and I am attractive to the opposite sex.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
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|
Vagina: That’s nothing, I give birth to babies and can accommodate the opposite sex.
|
|||
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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. .
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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.
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</p>
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.
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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Why are you still scrolling down? It’s your turn to speak.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
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|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Buddy2269"> /u/Buddy2269 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qezu2n/a_boob_vagina_and_asshole_are_debating_who_is_the/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qezu2n/a_boob_vagina_and_asshole_are_debating_who_is_the/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>An atheist and a vegan walk into a bar…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
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|
I only know because they won’t shut up about it.
|
|||
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</p>
|
|||
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|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Crapital_Prunishment"> /u/Crapital_Prunishment </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qf4g9q/an_atheist_and_a_vegan_walk_into_a_bar/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qf4g9q/an_atheist_and_a_vegan_walk_into_a_bar/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Alec Baldwin has confirmed he will no longer be playing the role of Donald Trump on SNL</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
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|
From now on he will play the role of Dick Cheney.
|
|||
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|
</p>
|
|||
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|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/PrinceOfLeon"> /u/PrinceOfLeon </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qf9fc3/alec_baldwin_has_confirmed_he_will_no_longer_be/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qf9fc3/alec_baldwin_has_confirmed_he_will_no_longer_be/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>When I lost my rifle, the Army charged me $85.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
That’s why in the Navy, the captain goes down with the ship.
|
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|
</p>
|
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|
|
</div>
|
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|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MudakMudakov"> /u/MudakMudakov </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qerprc/when_i_lost_my_rifle_the_army_charged_me_85/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qerprc/when_i_lost_my_rifle_the_army_charged_me_85/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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