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<title>04 October, 2023</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>The Powerful New York Law That Finally Brought Trump to Book</strong> - In investigating the former President, New York’s attorney general relied on legislation passed at the behest of one of her Republican predecessors, Jacob Javits. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-powerful-new-york-law-that-finally-brought-trump-to-book">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Worrying Democratic Erosions in South Korea</strong> - In recent months, authorities have raided offices of press outlets publishing critical reports on President Yoon Suk-yeol. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-worrying-democratic-erosions-in-south-korea">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Violent End of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Fight for Independence</strong> - In less than a day, indiscriminate shelling in the region killed hundreds, displaced tens of thousands, and wiped out a thirty-five-year battle for political autonomy. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-violent-end-of-nagorno-karabakhs-fight-for-independence">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why Obama’s “Car Czar” Thinks Biden Should Stay Out of the U.A.W. Strike</strong> - Last week, Steve Rattner called the President’s trip to the picket line “outrageous.” Whom did he help—or harm—by going? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-obamas-car-czar-thinks-biden-should-stay-out-of-the-uaw-strike">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Should the West Threaten the Putin Regime Over Ukraine?</strong> - The historian Stephen Kotkin on the state of the war and the dangers of a Russian Tet Offensive. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/should-the-west-threaten-the-putin-regime-over-ukraine">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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<li><strong>David Brooks thinks Americans are getting meaner</strong> -
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<img alt="A kid with a paper bag over their head with a large frowny face on it sits in front of a computer." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bb_x6fjlzmVOnojwRE8RyVkkCBI=/0x13:4415x3324/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72719207/GettyImages_499689350.0.jpg"/>
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Getty Images
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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He blames the collapse of moral education. But what about capitalism?
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UgChCx">
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One of the things you hear often these days is that America is becoming a more polarized country. As far as I can tell, almost no one quibbles with this claim.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GS5GS3">
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A <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/us-culture-moral-education-formation/674765/">recent essay in the Atlantic</a> by columnist and author David Brooks makes a related but slightly different argument, which is that America is also becoming meaner. It’s an interesting assertion, but is it really true? And if it is true, what would the evidence look like?
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vaQPID">
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The story Brooks tells is mostly about the collapse of moral education in America and how that has produced less civil and compassionate citizens. What you don’t find in that story is anything about the evolution of capitalism and its gradual erosion of public life. That seemed like an important oversight.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oi8iIm">
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So I invited Brooks onto <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-gray-area"><em>The Gray Area</em></a> to talk about what I think he gets right and what I thought was missing from his account. Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, so listen and follow <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-gray-area"><em>The Gray Area</em></a> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/search/vox%20conversations">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/vox-conversations">Stitcher</a>, or wherever you find podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="6BN4Us"/>
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<h4 id="OflXU1">
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Sean Illing
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</h4>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WvA16b">
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Before we dive into it, can you lay out the basic argument you wanted to make in this piece?
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</p>
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<h4 id="I2avku">
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David Brooks
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aP1Af8">
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It starts with two questions. The first is, why are we so sad? And everybody knows the statistics on depression and <a href="https://www.vox.com/mental-health">mental health</a> problems and suicide. But there’s a whole range of statistics saying we’re also in the middle of some relational crisis. Fifty-four percent of Americans say, “No one knows me well.” The number of people who say they have no close friends has quadrupled. A third of Americans are not in a romantic relationship. We spend a lot less time with our friends than we used to. If you ask high school seniors, are you persistently hopeless and despondent, 45 percent now say yes. That’s sadness, and all that sadness makes us mean.
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</p>
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My second question is, why are we so mean? I was in a restaurant a couple months ago, and the owner told me that he has to kick somebody out of the restaurant once a week for abusive behavior. That never used to happen. I have a friend who’s a nurse at a hospital, and she says their main task is finding nurses because people want to leave the profession because the patients have become so abusive. In the past, something like two-thirds of Americans gave to charity; now it’s less than half. So there’s sadness and meanness everywhere.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1B1OhW">
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A lot of people have had different stories to tell about how this came to be. One of them is the social media story. It’s driving us all crazy. Another is the sociology story: We’re not involved in civic groups, we’re bowling alone. Another is the inequality story: We’re so economically distant from each other, we are not good at knowing each other. But the story I tell is a moral story. It’s the most direct story. We don’t treat each other well because we haven’t taught young people for several generations how to be considerate to each other in the small circumstances of life, how to sit with somebody who’s suffering from depression, how to disagree well.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rxihlD">
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I focus on moral formation, that we haven’t morally formed each other in ways to make us kind to each other and in ways that make us see each other. When I say moral formation, it sounds super pompous and pretentious, but I mean it in three simple ways. Moral formation is helping us find a way to restrain our natural selfishness. The second thing is moral formation is helping us find a goal in life, an ideal to pursue that gives us meaning and purpose. Then the third part of moral formation is giving us the skills, social skills, to know how to end a conversation with grace, know how to have a hard conversation across difference. So teaching those basic, elemental social skills that help us be decent to one another.
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</p>
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<h4 id="5OxywF">
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Sean Illing
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</h4>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="57OyZt">
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Some of those statistics are pretty startling. I don’t even know how it’s possible to get to a place where half the country says no one knows them well —
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<h4 id="UGPTg4">
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David Brooks
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</h4>
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Yeah, and that includes members of your immediate family. And people who have had divorces know that feeling that the person who should know you best has no clue who you are.
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For my next book, I interviewed a guy named Dan McAdams, who’s a psychologist at Northwestern. He studies how people tell their life stories. He asks people to come into his lab and gives them a research fee for their time. And then he asks them questions about their life stories. What are your high points? What are your low points? What are your turning points? It takes about four hours, and he says half the people cry when talking about some part of their lives.
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</p>
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But then at the end, he gives them the check for their time, and a lot of them want to give the check back. They say, “I don’t want money for this. This has been the best afternoon of my life. No one has ever asked me about my life story before.” I have certainly found that a lot of people just have never been asked.
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I’ll often go to a party and leave and think, “That whole time, nobody asked me a question.” I’ve come to believe that only about 30 percent of humans are questioners. The other people are nice, they tell funny stories, they’re just not curious about other people. I think we’ve drifted into a world where we’re always broadcasting and social media is about how I’m broadcasting, but it’s not about listening, it’s not about taking the time to get to know another human story and making them feel seen, heard, and understood.
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</p>
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Sean Illing
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jtXkMQ">
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Sadness seems easy enough to measure, but meanness seems a little more complicated. How do you measure it? What are the manifestations of meanness?
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</p>
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David Brooks
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Yeah, I try to do that as best I could. You look at murder rates, you look at hate crimes, you look at gun sales. I would say distrust is maybe the closest proxy. To me, the most important statistic we have about the health of our society morally is distrust statistics. Americans lost a sense of trust in their institutions in the ’60s and ’70s — Vietnam, Watergate, inflation. They’ve lost trust in each other, what researchers call interpersonal distrust, mostly in the last 40 years or so.
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Two generations ago, if you asked people, “Do you trust the people around you?” 60 percent said, “Yeah, people around me are trustworthy.” Now that’s down to about 30 percent, and the younger you go, the more distrustful you are. And why are we distrustful? Robert Putnam at Harvard gave the simplest, clearest answers: We’re distrustful because the people around us have been untrustworthy. It’s not about our perception; it’s about reality.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DXuIa8">
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I used to tell this to my students where I used to teach about distrust, and one young woman said to me, “Have you seen our social lives? If you’re getting ghosted all the time or you’re getting mistreated, then you’re going to be pretty distrustful.” That <a href="https://www.vox.com/psychology">psychology</a> of distrust is a very punishing psychology because you armor yourself up; you perceive threat everywhere. You lash out because you think, “If I’m not lashing out, then they’re going to get me.”
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One of the things loneliness does is it distorts the way you see reality. You come to fear the thing you desire most, which is relationships.
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</p>
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Sean Illing
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If I struggled with anything in the piece, it was less about what you say and more about what you don’t talk about. There are two words in particular that don’t appear anywhere in the piece: capitalism and neoliberalism. Was that a deliberate omission on your part? Did you feel like that wasn’t all that relevant to the story you wanted to tell?
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David Brooks
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It was a 10,000-word piece that got chopped down to 4,500 words. So that’s part of it. Even in 10,000 words, I can’t cover everything. I guess my view on capitalism and neoliberalism is that I’m pretty pro-capitalist. I call myself a liberal. But I would not want capitalism and the rules of the market to be determining my human relationships with another person.
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Capitalism has a tendency to make all connections transactional. Capitalism has a tendency to make our view of each other instrumental, so we’re thinking, “How can I use you for my own selfish gain?” I’m glad we’re capitalists, but you have to balance capitalism with an ethos that really cuts against capitalism. For a lot of places, <a href="https://www.vox.com/religion">religion</a> serves as that ethos. For a lot of people, secular humanism serves as that ethos, which is really about valuing the person, seeing them in their full selves.
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But we’ve allowed, maybe over the past few decades, all those other logics to fade away. Religion is a less important part of American life than it used to be. I would say the humanities and humanism is a less important part. People aren’t majoring in English and history and literature the way they did. Everything has become way more instrumental. And the logic of the market has come to dominate.
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Sean Illing
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To my mind, it’s so hard to talk about alienation and meanness and despair in this country without telling a more materialist story about how capitalism, and really the <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/7/18/15992226/neoliberalism-chait-austerity-democratic-party-sanders-clinton">neoliberal strain of capitalism</a>, has transformed our society. So much of public life has been swallowed up, as you were saying, by market logic. The vehicles of social solidarity and democratic engagement, like <a href="https://www.vox.com/unions">unions</a> or other civic associations, those things have been systematically undermined. And communities are as atomized as they’ve ever been. These transformations have so much to do with our happiness and well-being, but it sounds like you think I’m overstating the causal role of capitalism in all this.
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David Brooks
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I’d say a couple things. First, I agree, but if you look around the world, we have a lot of free-market countries that do not suffer the way we suffer from these things.
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The story I would tell is more about individualism. We’ve always been a pretty capitalistic country, but if you go back to a certain period, there was a greater sense of collectivity. I’m thinking now of Robert Putnam’s book called <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Upswing-America-Together-Century-Again/dp/198212914X"><em>The Upswing</em></a>, which is about how a lot of social indicators went in the right direction from about 1890. They improved across a whole range of things: reduced income inequality, less political polarization, more civic engagements, more family formation, more charitable donations. All those things went up together in the first half of the 20th century. And they’ve been going down really since about early 1960s.
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Why have all these different social indicators, which seem unrelated, been following the same bell curve up and then down? Putnam’s argument is a culture of individualism. He calls his curve the Me-We-Me curve. We had a very individualistic culture in the 1890s; we had a more collectivist and cooperative culture because of the world wars, because of the depression. Since then, we’ve had an individualistic culture, and that has taken two forms.
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One is the form you mentioned, which is capitalist Darwinism. But the second is lifestyle individualism: I get to control my own life. I get to do whatever I want. It’s not yours to judge. I’m glad we went through this more individualistic phase, but we’ve overshot the mark, and we’re too cut off one from another. It’s that isolation, which manifests in economic form but also in social form, that reduces the connections between people.
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Sean Illing
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I keep going back to the role that our species of capitalism has played in engineering that culture of individualism. You mention in the piece how, in 1967, something like 85 percent of college students said that they were “strongly motivated to develop a meaningful philosophy of life.” Then, by 2015, roughly 80 percent of students say wealth and money is their primary aim.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WOcAfr">
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|
My response to that it is, “Well, yeah, of course!” If we drop people into a society that demands we optimize our life for success in the market, then it’s hard to turn around and reproach them when they become reflections of the moral nihilism of the market.
|
|||
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</p>
|
|||
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<h4 id="CSgoBr">
|
|||
|
|
David Brooks
|
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</h4>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Rrp3H4">
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|
Yeah, I guess. Although we can all point to people who are plenty embedded in capitalism but have rebelled against it and who we find amazingly admirable people. I saw a study recently where they asked people during the <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22841490/work-remote-wages-labor-force-participation-great-resignation-unions-quits">Great Resignation</a> why they left their firm. First they asked the CEOs, “Why did people quit your firm?” The No. 1 answer they gave was that people left to get more money. Then they asked the people who quit why they left. The No. 1 answer was, “My manager didn’t recognize me.” So they left because they didn’t feel seen.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IPF9UJ">
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Within a capitalist firm, it’s very useful if you can really understand the people around you and treat them with respect and some compassion and care. So I don’t want to paint capitalism as this completely ruthless dog-eat-dog world, because I think good companies can set a certain standard for how to behave.
|
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</p>
|
|||
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<h4 id="rWbiKH">
|
|||
|
|
Sean Illing
|
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</h4>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bvSj69">
|
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|
I really do believe in the benefits of a moral and humanistic education, and I agree that we don’t do a good job at cultivating virtue. What I keep coming back to is that even that vision of moral education, important as it is, requires a community in which to practice it, as you’ve already said, and I think we’ve built a society without much community.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YRc7J9">
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|
So when you write that the most important story about why Americans have become sad and alienated and rude is that “We inhabit a society in which people are no longer trained in how to treat each other with kindness and consideration,” I tend to think that that’s incomplete in an important way. I’m not sure more churches and Boys & Girls Clubs and more humanist curriculums is a sustainable counterweight to all the economic and social forces we’re talking about —
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h4 id="hrF9nQ">
|
|||
|
|
David Brooks
|
|||
|
|
</h4>
|
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|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KZLBhy">
|
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|
|
I don’t think capitalism is so corrosive that we can’t overcome its weaknesses with that kind of community action. And I do think it’s amazingly true that we no longer are in as many groups. If morality happens anywhere, it happens in groups, not in a classroom. We learn morality the way we learn crafts, through practicing them in morally coherent communities.
|
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</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7JEmDu">
|
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|
So if you’re Jewish, when somebody dies, you sit shiva with them: You go to the home of the family and you sit with them. It’s this beautiful tradition of showing compassion for the family, but in a way that sort of keeps them busy. They’ve got to host all these people, and you don’t want to raise the name of the dead, but if they want to talk about it, they’re perfectly free to do so. That little practice of sitting shiva is, to me, a moral education in itself. If we’re not involved in our religions, then we’re not going to learn that tradition.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MXQ3M5">
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Hence, the question for me is, why have we created a society where we don’t join groups? Joining groups is one of the most fun things you can do. It definitely leads to happiness.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CXOYoc">
|
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|
<em>To hear the rest of the conversation, </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/is-america-getting-meaner/id1081584611?i=1000629886049"><em>click here</em></a><em>, and be sure to follow </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/thegrayarea">The Gray Area</a><em> on </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611"><em>Apple Podcasts</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://podcasts.google.com/search/vox%20conversations"><em>Google Podcasts</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP"><em>Spotify</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/vox-conversations"><em>Stitcher</em></a><em>, or wherever you listen to podcasts.</em>
|
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|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>What a striking new study of death in America misses</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A worker wearing a mask, surgical gown, and gloves places a body wrapped in a sheet onto a stretcher inside a morgue." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/RknON5KjFHF8IQ-wpOZwmVYcKl8=/233x0:5097x3648/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72719151/1225640248.0.jpg"/>
|
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|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Maryland Cremation Services transporter Morgan Dean-McMillan gently moves the remains of a Covid victim onto a stretcher in a morgue in May 2020, in Silver Spring, Maryland. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The big divide on premature death isn’t between college grads and non-grads. It’s between high school dropouts and everyone else.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6pH0pa">
|
|||
|
|
For the past decade or so, Princeton economists Angus Deaton and Anne Case have been promoting a particular <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/1/12/16863282/opioid-epidemic-study-deaths-of-despair">story about death in America</a>. Less-educated Americans, particularly those without college degrees, have seen their life expectancy outcomes diverge from those of more-educated Americans. Much of this divide can be explained through a category that Deaton and Case call “deaths of despair”: deaths from suicide, opioid overdoses, and liver cirrhosis and other alcohol-related causes. The deaths are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/04/06/how-dare-you-work-on-whites-professors-under-fire-for-research-on-white-mortality/">concentrated in non-Hispanic whites</a>. This phenomenon indicates something is deeply wrong with the way American society treats its most marginalized citizens, including lower-class whites.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0YYyAd">
|
|||
|
|
The two have been pursuing research into the death divide for the better part of a decade now; their <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691190785/deaths-of-despair-and-the-future-of-capitalism">2020 book</a> on the topic became a bestseller. Events over recent years — including the sharp <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/9/7/23339734/life-expectancy-shorter-united-states-covid">decline in life expectancy</a> in the US as a whole in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid-19, and before that the even more shocking first <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/12/8/13875150/life-expectancy-us-dropped-first-time-decade">overall decline</a> in decades in 2016 — gave the topic added urgency.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OqbLtV">
|
|||
|
|
Now their work is receiving renewed attention (including a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/03/opinion/life-expectancy-college-degree.html">New York Times op-ed</a> from the authors) after they presented <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/accounting-for-the-widening-mortality-gap-between-american-adults-with-and-without-a-ba/">their most recent paper last week at the Brookings Institution</a>, centered around the following striking graphic:
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div id="NweJUQ">
|
|||
|
|
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
|
|||
|
|
Ann Case & Angus Deaton right now at BPEA: <a href="https://t.co/cVCW5tVVVd">pic.twitter.com/cVCW5tVVVd</a>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
— DeLong (<span class="citation" data-cites="delong">@delong</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/delong/status/1707443172845224119?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 28, 2023</a>
|
|||
|
|
</blockquote></div></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AM0WOZ">
|
|||
|
|
So what’s going on here? Is there an American underclass that’s falling behind and dying earlier than the rest of the country? Is the divide between college graduates and non-graduates increasingly central in determining life outcomes for Americans, down to the very number of years we get on this planet?
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DIfLPM">
|
|||
|
|
These are two different questions, and the answers seem to be, respectively, “yes” and “no.” Case and Deaton are highlighting a real problem, confirmed by other researchers: Americans with different levels of education die at different rates, and the least-educated Americans have seen their death rates surge in a way that more-educated Americans have not.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WHHZfz">
|
|||
|
|
But the relevant divide does not seem to be between people who earned a bachelor’s degree — who remain a <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/educational-attainment.html">minority among American adults</a> — and people who didn’t. Other research suggests that the problem is concentrated in specific areas of the US, and between the very least-educated Americans (particularly high school dropouts) and the rest of the country, rather than between college grads and non-grads.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xqkiXv">
|
|||
|
|
Moreover, the cause of the divergence between high school dropouts and the rest of the country does not seem to be caused by “deaths of despair.” There is no doubt that the opioid epidemic in particular has wrought spectacular damage in the US. But some researchers are finding that stagnating progress against cardiovascular disease is an even bigger contributor to US life expectancy stalling out, and to mortality divides between the most- and least-educated Americans.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hsN5hX">
|
|||
|
|
That implies we might want to think more specifically about heart disease, and about the American underclass, and less about the bachelor’s/non-bachelor’s divide that Case and Deaton highlight. That might enable us to produce a more useful policy agenda for tackling the problem.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="dTienI">
|
|||
|
|
Non-college grads in 1992 and non-college grads in 2021 are very different groups of people
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cjOyRY">
|
|||
|
|
The biggest problem to be aware of when evaluating the Case-Deaton results is that the divide they’re describing, between college grads and non-grads, has changed a lot over time. In 1992, the year they begin their analysis, 22 percent of people between the ages of 25 and 84 had a four-year college degree. In 2021, the final year they analyze, the share was 35 percent.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rIthxs">
|
|||
|
|
This rising education level suggests that there’s a large population of people — some 13 percent of adults — who wouldn’t have finished college 30 years ago, but who do now. One might reasonably expect this group to be healthier than people who wouldn’t have finished college in either period — and less healthy than people who would have finished in either period. The people still left out of college in 2021 are probably more socially and economically disadvantaged, and thus less healthy, than people who were able to attend, and people who could afford college in 1992 were relatively more advantaged, and probably healthier, than those who could.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cYMUnd">
|
|||
|
|
So a group of people moving from not finishing college to finishing it should have the effect of making both college grads and non-grads, as groups, less healthy. The non-grads are losing their healthiest compatriots, and the grads are adding a somewhat less healthy group to their mix.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Zusq32">
|
|||
|
|
This means we cannot look at graphs showing a widening mortality gap between college grads and non-grads and conclude, “Something is really going wrong with less-educated Americans.” That may be true, but it may just be a statistical artifact. As Stanford economist Caroline Hoxby noted in <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/1b_Hoxby_comments_on_Case_and_Deaton.pdf">her comments</a> on the latest Case-Deaton paper, it’s “entirely plausible that selection accounts for most or even all of the widening mortality gap.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jb8ib8">
|
|||
|
|
Case and Deaton try to adjust for this problem. They look at how the gaps between grads and non-grads change within specific birth cohorts: among people born in 1940, say, have college grads and non-grads seen their death rates diverge more and more over time? This analysis muddies the picture considerably. For men born in 1940, for instance, the gap between grads and non-grads has shrunk over time. There’s no noticeable increase in the gap for men or women born in 1950 and 1960. Gaps do emerge over time for the cohorts born in 1970, 1980, and 1990.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gf2Nuc">
|
|||
|
|
What’s more, this approach doesn’t really fix the problem. To separate the world into college grads and non-grads, they check to see if people have completed a degree by age 25. But they concede that a growing share of people are getting bachelor’s degrees after 25. That means that these aren’t fixed categories, and the very same selection issues might come into play when looking at cohorts like this.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="vqX5r0">
|
|||
|
|
The problem is with high school dropouts, not all non-college grads
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Oj5oKv">
|
|||
|
|
The good news is that other researchers have attempted more rigorous approaches to get around the selection problem. Economists <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20190297">Paul Novosad, Charlie Rafkin, and Sam Asher</a> analyze mortality from 1992 to 2018 among the least-educated 10 percent of Americans. By definition, this group becomes no larger or smaller as a share of the population over time: it’s always 10 percent. Identifying just who this group is requires some clever statistical work, but yields some very interesting results:
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div id="QeclK1">
|
|||
|
|
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
|
|||
|
|
This is how the trends look once you hold ranks constant. From 1992–2018, most White Americans have been doing fine mortality-wise — but the least educated 10% have faced catastrophic mortality increases. 9/N <a href="https://t.co/3ZpybrYyYj">pic.twitter.com/3ZpybrYyYj</a>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
— Paul Novosad (<span class="citation" data-cites="paulnovosad">@paulnovosad</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/paulnovosad/status/1603834402517155854?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 16, 2022</a>
|
|||
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="shKK9v">
|
|||
|
|
Among both Black and white middle-aged Americans, death rates were falling among the most-educated groups pre-Covid. For those in the middle of the education spectrum, death rates have been falling for Black Americans and stagnant for whites; <a href="https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/death-rate-by-raceethnicity/?dataView=1&currentTimeframe=3&selectedDistributions=white--black&selectedRows=%7B%22wrapups%22:%7B%22united-states%22:%7B%7D%7D%7D&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D">Black death rates still exceed those for whites</a> but the gap is narrowing. For the least-educated, which roughly means high school dropouts, death rates have been rising starkly for white men and women, and rising slightly for Black women, while staying roughly constant for Black men. (Novosad, Rafkin, and Asher also look at death rates in other age ranges, but note that death is rare enough before you get to your 50s that it doesn’t affect life expectancies in the US as much.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GXEJQJ">
|
|||
|
|
Case and Deaton in their latest piece describe this as confirmation that the “qualitative” takeaway from their research is correct. I’m not sure I’d be that generous. “White high school dropouts are dying at higher and higher rates” implies that a small but significant share of the population is experiencing a mortality crisis. “Americans without a college degree are dying at higher and higher rates” implies that the majority of Americans are experiencing a crisis, since a majority of Americans don’t possess a college degree even today. That might be a better narrative for convincing people to care about the most vulnerable, but it doesn’t give us as much information about where the problem is.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="5vX9Aq">
|
|||
|
|
The problem is highly geographically concentrated
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QaVFsi">
|
|||
|
|
At this point you may be wondering: If we’re concerned about how lower-socioeconomic-status Americans are doing in terms of mortality, why are we dividing them by education? Why not compare rich versus poor Americans, normally identified based on income?
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="b9CPA6">
|
|||
|
|
In 2016, economists Raj Chetty and others used US income tax data and death certificates to <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2513561">track how mortality varied based on income</a> and how the relationship changed between 2001 and 2014. That isn’t a terribly long period across which to compare, but Chetty and colleagues confirmed that more income is associated with lower death rates and that the gap got worse over the period studied.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="Four charts showing that richer Americans have seen life expectancy grow faster" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wzV0NxpfUMNVqCRNvI853GFH-oQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24970417/jsc160006f3.png"/> <cite><a class="ql-link" href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2513561?guestAccessKey=4023ce75-d0fb-44de-bb6c-8a10a30a6173" target="_blank">Chetty et al 2016</a></cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Life expectancy has grown faster for richer Americans since 1992.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XAGcKR">
|
|||
|
|
But they also found that the gap varies substantially based on geography. While it’s true that rich people in America live significantly longer than poor people, that’s much less true in New York City. It’s not true in California as a whole. Heavily urban areas with high education levels see a modest relationship between income and death rates. More-rural, less-educated areas, by contrast, see a very strong relationship between the two.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="Two charts showing that in New York and San Francisco, being low-income hurts your life expectancy less than it does in Detroit or Dallas" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/fNsuP3jHCSrg0aZuDIPnsb3DKkg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24970427/jsc160006f4.png"/> <cite><a class="ql-link" href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2513561?guestAccessKey=4023ce75-d0fb-44de-bb6c-8a10a30a6173" target="_blank">Chetty et al 2016</a></cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Different US cities have very different relationships between income and life expectancy.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wlm1Dr">
|
|||
|
|
Areas with smaller mortality gaps tend to be places, the researchers find, with lower rates of smoking and higher rates of exercise, which makes sense when you consider that the variation in death rates between cities is driven not by factors like car crashes or suicide but conditions like heart disease and cancer, which are themselves driven in part by lifestyle conditions. Local unemployment rates and other indicators of the health of the local labor market did not seem to be associated with longevity, nor did income inequality. These aren’t firmly causal findings, to be clear, but they might be suggestive of potential causes to investigate.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sOslnU">
|
|||
|
|
This work doesn’t debunk the Case-Deaton research, but it does highlight ways in which that research is somewhat incomplete. Case and Deaton do not break down their findings by state or city to see if the relationship they find is only showing up in certain places. Together with the Novosad research, this data suggests that if we want to tackle rising mortality among some Americans, we need to be thinking specifically about problems with the very poorest high-school dropouts in certain areas of the country, rather than about some kind of broader — and therefore harder to address — national malaise.
|
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</p>
|
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<h3 id="FSHfgl">
|
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|
What’s causing these early deaths?
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WPYJth">
|
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|
One of the more useful contributions of the latest Case-Deaton paper is its decision to zoom out from focusing on “deaths of despair” to include other contributions to rising mortality in the US, in particular cardiovascular disease.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0GiGdO">
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|
There’s little doubt that the <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/1/12/16863282/opioid-epidemic-study-deaths-of-despair">ongoing opioid crisis</a> has contributed to surging deaths, particularly among more vulnerable Americans, with smaller roles attributable to non-drug suicides and alcohol. One <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0226732">recent paper</a> found that increasing drug use from 1999 to 2016 reduced the life expectancy of American men by 1.4 years, and that of women by 0.7. In West Virginia, the most affected state, the reductions were 3.6 and 1.9 years respectively. In 2020 and 2021, Covid was the dominant force reducing life expectancy, with the effects <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7226a5.htm">very different based on class</a>: People with disproportionately high-paying laptop jobs who were able to work from home were less exposed and so died less.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gMUe3e">
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But the overall life expectancy problem in the US also has far more to do than we often recognize with stagnating progress against cardiovascular disease, which is still the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm">leading cause of death</a> in the US. Researchers Neil Mehta, Leah Abrams, and Mikko Myrskylä <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1920391117">argued in a 2020 paper</a> that the dominant reason life expectancy has stalled in the US is not that drug deaths have grown but that a previously large, robust decline in deaths from cardiovascular disease has stalled out. The death rate fell by half between 1970 and 2002, but given that it’s still common enough to cause <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm">695,000 deaths in 2021</a>, a stalled decline could be a very big deal.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZIDR6e">
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|
Though explanations for this stagnation are still unclear, the authors present a couple of options: <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html">rising levels of obesity</a> (especially at younger ages, compounding negative health effects over more time), or, counterintuitively, the US’s <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/index.htm#:~:text=Current%20smoking%20has%20declined%20from,every%20100%20adults)%20in%202021.">early success at discouraging smoking</a> (which could explain why its cardiovascular death rates aren’t falling as fast as those in Europe, which gave up smoking later on). They find that the stagnation from cardiovascular disease is broad-based geographically in the US, unlike the rising death rates among low-income Americans studied by Chetty et al.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fZigLf">
|
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|
Economists <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20190297">Novosad, Rafkin, and Asher</a> make similar points in their paper on the fate of the least-educated Americans over time. As of their data endpoint in 2018, “deaths of despair” — that is, from drug overdoses, suicides, and alcoholism — “account for a large share of mortality increases for young whites, but a very small share of rising mortality among older whites and very little of the divergent mortality rates of black,” they note. “Further, deaths of despair have increased more uniformly across the education distribution than deaths from other causes.” In other words, while the overall rise in mortality is concentrated among the least-educated, the opioid, suicide, and alcohol-related rise is not.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hhkb0J">
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The middle-aged whites without high school diplomas Novosad and colleagues study have, however, seen their death rates from cancer, heart disease, and respiratory disease increase, while more-educated Americans have seen death rates from these diseases fall. A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/interactive/2023/american-life-expectancy-dropping/">new investigation from the Washington Post</a> similarly concludes that chronic conditions like heart disease and cancer are driving more of the life expectancy divide between rich and poor counties than factors like opioid overdoses or homicides.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TD0xC3">
|
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|
|
All this points to a very specific challenge that policymakers must confront: How to reduce deaths from cardiovascular disease (and also cancer) among the poorest, least-educated Americans. Case and Deaton like to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/03/opinion/life-expectancy-college-degree.html">prescribe</a> various economic measures as ways to combat rising death rates, like eliminating the link between employers and health insurance, expanding affordable housing, strengthening unions, and removing needless requirements that certain workers have bachelor’s degrees.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jUJ4yE">
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I happen to think all those policies are good ideas. But I’m somewhat skeptical they would move the needle on heart disease among high school dropouts, especially compared to more targeted approaches like expanding <a href="https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.122.028205">cholesterol screening</a> or ensuring Medicaid covers medicines like semaglutide that <a href="https://www.vox.com/health/23826023/wegovy-ozempic-heart-disease-attack-stroke-death-lower-risk-diabetes">reduce the risk of heart disease</a>.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZNSRhS">
|
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People dying now cannot wait for the whole US economy to transform to be more worker-friendly, as nice as that might be. They need solutions that are tailored for their specific problems, that can be implemented soon.
|
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</p>
|
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|
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<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Why Kenya is sending police officers into Haiti</strong> -
|
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|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="Police with guns and helmets walk down a street." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/l8aAJ1qsQvrqeSqghtuflbvoo5g=/334x0:5283x3712/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72719050/1252173695.0.jpg"/>
|
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|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
The UN authorized a multilateral intervention in Haiti to help train and support the island nation’s police, pictured here in April, in combatting gang-related violence. | Richard Pierrin/AFP via Getty Images
|
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|
|
</figcaption>
|
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|
|
</figure>
|
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|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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|
|
The world is intervening in Haiti — again.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zSyQIU">
|
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|
Once again, the international community will intervene in Haiti, this time to stabilize the security situation in the capital of Port-au-Prince, where gangs have terrorized civilians for the past two years.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0eWcpW">
|
|||
|
|
The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution Monday authorizing a multinational security mission — led not by UN peacekeepers but by Kenya’s national police force — to tackle gang-related violence. Following the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, several armed groups, mostly under the banners of the gang federations of G9 and G-PEP, effectively took control of the capital — trafficking drugs, extorting and kidnapping ordinary citizens, recruiting children, and raping and murdering both their enemies and innocent civilians alike.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LHxxvz">
|
|||
|
|
A number of stakeholders agree that an intervention is critical to stop the violence, and given that the Haitian National Police force is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/02/haiti-cops-outgunned-gangs#:~:text=Like%20every%20institution%20in%20Haiti,warfare%20on%20behalf%20of%20gangs.">outgunned and underpaid</a>, it has to be an external force of some kind. But given the sometimes-grim <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/world/americas/cholera-haiti-ban-ki-moon-memoir.html">history</a> of international security missions in Haiti (including creating one of the worst cholera outbreaks in modern times), <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/12/opinion/haiti-montana-accords-reparations.html">a longer history of imperial and colonial</a> interference, and a lack of investment in Haiti’s governance structure and economy, there is also real fear about the long-term effects of another such intervention.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="H1jvzJ">
|
|||
|
|
Complicating all of this is Haiti’s political situation. Following Moïse’s assassination, Ariel Henry — a neurosurgeon who was awaiting appointment to the prime ministership — took control of the government. In his capacity as head of state, Henry has presided over a rout of Haiti’s governmental institutions (such as they were). He’s also allowed gang violence to proliferate to the point that it has effectively cut off Port-au-Prince from the rest of the country.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SmgvQh">
|
|||
|
|
“It’s as bad as it’s ever been,” <a href="https://www.usip.org/people/keith-mines">Keith Mines</a>, the director of the Latin America program at the US Institute of Peace, told Vox.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="peBeF1">
|
|||
|
|
Most Haitians outside of the elite and political class do not consider Henry the legitimate leader, experts said. But the United Nations and the international community, including the United States, recognize Henry, prompting <a href="https://thehill.com/latino/4222348-haitian-american-leaders-call-on-biden-to-dump-ariel-henry/">yet another concern about this intervention</a>: that it will ultimately serve Henry — not Haitians.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="xshlDy">
|
|||
|
|
What would this international intervention look like?
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i7bi8j">
|
|||
|
|
Kenya’s national police force has stepped up to lead the current proposed intervention, pledging to send 1,000 officers to assist and train Haiti’s own police force. Several Caribbean countries will also provide officers or potentially troops, and US Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols indicated there were offers of support for the mission from countries in “Asia, Africa, Latin America, [and] the Caribbean” <a href="https://www.state.gov/acting-deputy-secretary-of-state-and-under-secretary-for-political-affairs-victoria-nuland-and-assistant-secretary-for-western-hemisphere-affairs-brian-nichols-after-the-addressing-the-urgent-security/">in a September press conference</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TqErSQ">
|
|||
|
|
The Multinational Security Support mission, or MSS, will be deployed for a year, with a review after nine months, according to the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/haiti-un-kenya-armed-force-resolution-3749ac5db9d6c5903e61dee7b4206e6c">Associated Press</a>. Alfred Mutua, Kenya’s minister of foreign and diaspora affairs, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66946156">told the BBC</a> that he expected to have boots on the ground by the first of the year. He also expects the mission to train Haitian officers, patrol with them, and guard specific sites like ports, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/world/americas/haiti-kenya-un-vote.html">the New York Times reported</a>. Experts have said <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/10/1141757">the focus</a> will have to be on working with the Haitian police to identify gang structures, funding streams, and more to be able to effectively tackle one of the worst gang violence issues the country has faced.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y2FPOo">
|
|||
|
|
Gang violence has long been intimately entwined with Haitian politics, from the Tonton Macoutes under former dictator <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/23/archives/papa-doc-a-ruthless-dictator-kept-the-haitians-in-illiteracy-and.html">François “Papa Doc” Duvalier</a> to <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/3/26/23657163/haitis-gang-violence-crisis-explained">Aristide’s Chimères</a>. But under Henry, the armed groups have taken advantage of a political vacuum and gained brutal power over everyday life in Port-au-Prince.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V2YET1">
|
|||
|
|
In the past, “the gangs had some ties with political movements, not only because they had arrangements for the elections and something like that, but also because of a shared ideology,” explained Diego da Rin, a researcher with the International Crisis Group. They “have acquired a great amount of independence over the last three years. And now they are not talking to members of the elite as sponsors, but rather as partners.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UpNLNn">
|
|||
|
|
Kenya might seem an unlikely country to lead this intervention. <a href="https://twitter.com/DrAlfredMutua/status/1685314557823037440">Mutua</a> has framed it as part of Nairobi’s “commitment to Pan Africanism,” as well as “reclaiming of the Atlantic crossing.” But it’s unlikely this would have happened without other countries’ involvement.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RCPkzP">
|
|||
|
|
Though the US has supported an international intervention since Henry began calling for it last October — and pledged $100 million toward the effort at September’s UN General Assembly — there’s no appetite on the US side to lead such a mission. The US tried to pressure <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/canada-united-states-and-haiti-dilemmas-foreign-policy-and-immigration">Canada’s military into leading a security operation</a> last fall (Canada would have soldiers who spoke French, one of Haiti’s official languages, and had participated in peacekeeping operations there before). But Canada, too, was reluctant to put boots on the ground given its commitments in Ukraine and the challenges of its previous role in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (known by its French acronym MINUSTAH) from 2004 to 2017. Other regional leaders, like Brazil, were also reluctant to take the lead on an intervention.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TlQphK">
|
|||
|
|
Then, this July, Kenya announced it would do so.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div id="2Pe5YV">
|
|||
|
|
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
|
|||
|
|
HAITI<br/>At the request of Friends of Haiti Group of Nations, Kenya has accepted to positively consider leading a Multi-National Force to Haiti. Kenya’s commitment is to deploy a contingent of 1,000 police officers to help train and assist Haitian police restore normalcy in the… <a href="https://t.co/CBwIlAOSyd">pic.twitter.com/CBwIlAOSyd</a>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
— . . (<span class="citation" data-cites="DrAlfredMutua">@DrAlfredMutua</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/DrAlfredMutua/status/1685314557823037440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 29, 2023</a>
|
|||
|
|
</blockquote></div></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
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|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p9Rjr0">
|
|||
|
|
“Kenya has recognized and increasingly sees value in regional security partnerships and regional security engagements more generally,” Joseph Siegle, research director at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, told Vox in an interview. Kenya has been part of an <a href="https://amisom-au.org/kenya-kdf/">African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia</a> since 2011 to help combat the al-Shabaab insurgent group in the country. That effort has <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/6/kenya-delays-reopening-border-with-somalia-all-the-details">yielded mixed results</a>, though, and many news reports have pointed to the Kenyan National Police force’s track record of human rights abuses within Kenya as cause for concern, particularly in a hostile environment like Haiti.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dV5YxE">
|
|||
|
|
Over the past few weeks, Kenya has ramped up its diplomatic efforts with both the US and Haiti; the East African nation signed a defense agreement with the US that will provide resources for Kenya’s fight against al-Shabaab, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/kenya-united-states-haiti-defense-austin-ed1496d72b426011f3e8a36a971ca12d">as the AP reported last week</a>. Kenya and Haiti also <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/haiti-kenya-set-up-diplomatic-ties/7277628.html#:~:text=Haiti%20and%20Kenya%20established%20diplomatic,escalating%20gang%20warfare%20in%20Haiti.">established diplomatic relations in September</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="uzlVI3">
|
|||
|
|
Will this be different from previous international interventions? That’s a good question.
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VISKWY">
|
|||
|
|
Since Haiti’s independence, wealthy nations have meddled in the island country <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/10/05/1042518732/-the-greatest-heist-in-history-how-haiti-was-forced-to-pay-reparations-for-freed">to its detriment</a>. But, as Jake Johnston, a senior research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told Vox, “It’s not always the same, and the interventions we’re talking about now — it’s not the same as the early 20th century US occupation, or France sending gunboats off the shore in the early 19th century.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="j3kYbx">
|
|||
|
|
Still, more recent peacekeeping efforts have a checkered past as well. Though they may have succeeded in stabilizing Haiti in the short term, they have failed to bring lasting stability and peace to the country and in some cases contributed to destabilization.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ij9YLa">
|
|||
|
|
In 1994, a <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1993-2000/haiti">US-led</a> <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/past/unmihbackgr2.html">UN peacekeeping mission deployed</a> to Haiti following a 1991 coup, which overthrew the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Mines, who was part of that mission, argued that “the interventions have been, often, the only thing that resets a government in Haiti so that it could function and people [could] eat again.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hiY3nF">
|
|||
|
|
“It created the foundation for a very, very, very long process of democratic consolidation,” he added. “That is a long process, particularly for a country like Haiti, whose total civil society had been destroyed.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U74KfF">
|
|||
|
|
But whatever democratic consolidation successfully occurred over that mission and the peacekeeping period that followed through 2000 later collapsed, partly due to the economic strain of international sanctions and alleged corruption after Aristide’s return to power. He fled an armed uprising in 2004, and once again UN peacekeeping forces came to calm the violence that broke out between Aristide’s opponents and his supporters.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CzCixI">
|
|||
|
|
Peacekeepers on that mission — which lasted for over a decade — were likely responsible for <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9105971/">a cholera epidemic</a> that began in 2010 after the disastrous earthquake, killing 10,000 Haitians and sickening hundreds of thousands more. That incident, according to a 2016 report from then-Special Rapporteur Philip Alston, provided “highly combustible fuel for those who claim that UN peacekeeping operations trample on the rights of those being protected, and it undermines both the UN’s overall credibility and the integrity of the Office of the Secretary-General,” the<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/world/americas/united-nations-haiti-cholera.html"> New York Times</a> reported.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WZgYAt">
|
|||
|
|
Sexual abuse and exploitation were also an issue during that UN peacekeeping mission, though it’s not unique to Haiti, according to a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/11/un-peacekeeping-has-sexual-abuse-problem">2020 Human Rights Watch report</a>. Sri Lankan peacekeepers have been accused of heinous sexual abuses in Haiti, including hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation of children <s></s>, going back as far as 2007,<a href="https://apnews.com/article/africa-arrests-united-nations-only-on-ap-e6ebc331460345c5abd4f57d77f535c1"> the Associated Press </a>reported in 2017.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hfs7UU">
|
|||
|
|
It’s too early to know what oversight for the present security mission will look like. A State Department spokesperson told Vox via email that “we continue to prioritize the protection of human rights, and the promotion of accountability for MSS personnel, in conversations with international partners on the Multinational Security Support mission.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="9r5nBY">
|
|||
|
|
But the big question is: Will this actually work?
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4vkpB3">
|
|||
|
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Even if this intervention can somehow mitigate gang violence and stabilize Port-au-Prince, it will do nothing to address a parallel crisis: the government’s lack of political legitimacy.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ddjsf9">
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Henry took over as acting prime minister and acting president of Haiti on July 20, 2021, 13 days after Moïse’s assassination. At the time of his death, Moïse had chosen Henry as his next prime minister but Claude Joseph was still technically in the position, creating confusion about who would lead the country. Joseph initially took over leadership of the government, but quickly stepped down in favor of Henry. Over the next half year, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/10/world/americas/haitian-prime-minister-assassination-suspect.html">doubts developed</a> about Henry’s commitment to seeking justice for Moïse’s assassination.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tvpdrk">
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In the two-plus years of Henry’s leadership, not only has the immediate crisis of the gang violence grown worse, but he has also enabled the hollowing out of Haiti’s institutions. The judiciary — though it was <a href="https://apnews.com/article/port-au-prince-prisons-judiciary-latin-america-united-nations-86043172b27e2fa42cd105a097ae3380">dysfunctional before Henry’s leadership</a> — is largely <a href="https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/2023-04/undp-ht-ProgrammeJustice-Factsheet-042023-En.pdf">unable to prosecute gang-related and corruption crimes</a>, and the terms of Haiti’s last remaining senators expired in January, leaving the government with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/10/haiti-no-elected-officials-anarchy-failed-state">no elected officials</a>, as Henry <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/28/haiti-elections-postponed-indefinitely-amid-crisis">indefinitely postponed</a> parliamentary and presidential elections in 2021.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QGyYDQ">
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And right now, that doesn’t look like it’s going to change. There’s no political agreement for Henry to step down or for Haitians to install a transitional government to go along with it.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sKVwOk">
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That’s not to say that a framework doesn’t exist; in fact, there are multiple frameworks. Two hold particular promise: <a href="https://akomontana.ht/en/home/">the Montana Accord</a> and the December 21 Accord, two proposals designed by cross-sections of Haitian society over the last two years.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Tezv33">
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The <a href="https://akomontana.ht/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/English-Anglais-Translation-of-Accord-du-30-aout-dit-Montana-Accord-Version-4-Aug-Citizen-Conference-for-a-Haitian-Solution-to-the-Crisis.pdf">Montana Accord</a> provides a roadmap “to create the conditions for national stability with a view to a return to constitutional normality and the restoration of democratic order” over a period of two years. It proposes a National Transitional Council, composed of members of civil society organizations and political parties, which would choose and oversee transitional leadership. Within a month, the leadership would establish an independent body to hold elections. The framework also addresses the matters of constitutional changes and justice and accountability for the perpetrators of the current crisis. It also provides for needs like education, health care, and public safety. The Montana group <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/haiti-betting-montana-accord">even chose its proposed leadership in 2022</a>, but negotiations between Henry and the group <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/82968/as-haitis-henry-refuses-checks-on-power-the-us-should-aid-efforts-to-build-true-democracy/">stalled in August 2022</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kuqUaL">
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The December 21 Accord, negotiated after the Montana Accord stalled by a group of political leaders, civil society actors, business sector leaders, and Henry, is also a potential transitional framework, as <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/03/have-haitians-finally-found-formula-moving-forward">Mines discussed in a March blog post</a>. Henry, as part of the agreement, was supposed to hold elections this year, for a new government in February 2024, but there’s no indication that he’ll actually do that.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YlC26d">
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Thus far, however, the US and the UN have effectively treated Henry as Haiti’s legitimate government representative, which isn’t a view most Haitians, either in the country or in exile, share. That contributes to the perception <a href="https://thehill.com/latino/4222348-haitian-american-leaders-call-on-biden-to-dump-ariel-henry/">among some constituencies</a> that a security mission will only entrench Henry’s power.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kKkjFG">
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“Henry has been the sole leader, the executive, for over two years,” da Rin said. “He has ruled without any oversight or control from the judiciary or the parliament that ceased completely to exist in January of this year, when the last elected officials’ mandate expired. So it is really necessary to have a more legitimate government, to have a legitimate interlocutor with the international community and for Haitians to not believe that the … security mission won’t be helping only to consolidate his power.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7otlpr">
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But the lack of a political solution shouldn’t preclude an intervention, Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), the <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?525556-11/rep-sheila-cherfilus-mccormick-profile-interview">first Haitian American Democrat elected to Congress</a>, told Vox in an interview. “When you see people who are suffering, living in atrocities and violence like we’ve never seen before in Haiti asking for help, who are we to say, ‘No, we don’t want to help, we’re not going to send peacekeepers to fight the gangs,’” she said. “The more we wait, the more lives we risk.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BNDKmp">
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Cherfilus-McCormick insisted that Henry must step down, though, and that the US has a role to play in that process. “The [Biden] administration does need to go a step further and no longer support [Henry] and support the transition government. There are civil society members who have come together and who have private sector support, who can compose this transition government,” she said. “So why aren’t we supporting them?”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AzWHlv">
|
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A State Department spokesperson told Vox in an email that the security mission “will not support any political leader or party. It will strictly focus on improving security in Haiti, answering the call from across the Haitian government, private sector, and civil society” and that the Department of Defense will assist with “logistics, equipment, billeting, basing, airlift, communications, and medical support.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4cjAGv">
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Details about additional humanitarian support — food and fuel for people in Port-au-Prince, medical care, and other critical aspects of everyday life — remain scarce for now, and it will be months before the multinational force has the necessary training, equipment, and cohesion to start its specific mission in the first place. But even though that aspect of stabilizing the country is just getting underway, it’s unclear how far into the future various stakeholders have thought about their decision.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DHI10F">
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“You can’t send troops in there and combat gangs and think that that’s actually addressing the drivers of instability and insecurity,” Johnston said. “And so what’s your plan? Are you going to occupy Haiti forever with foreign troops to prevent any instability? I don’t think so.”
|
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</p>
|
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
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<ul>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Encantamento and Pure For Sure catch the eye</strong> -</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>Harmilan Bains wins silver in women’s 800m at Asian Games</strong> - Bains had earlier won a silver in the women’s 1500m race in this edition of the Games.</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>Hangzhou Asian Games badminton | Satwiksairaj-Chirag secure quarterfinal berth; Sindhu, Prannoy in last eight; Srikanth out</strong> - Sindhu was excellent in rallies and dictated terms to her opponent from the go, and so was Prannoy.</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>Street Child World Cup 2023: Through the eyes of photographer Vicky Roy</strong> - The Street Child World Cup 2023 in Chennai was home to some fond moments celebrating community. We take a look at the tournament through the eyes of award-winning documentary photographer Vicky Roy</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>World Cup 2023 | Chennai musicians create Carnatic music anthem to celebrate cricket</strong> - P Unnikrishnan, Palghat R Ramprasad and Sikkil Gurucharan have teamed up for ‘Cricket Endraal Bharatham’, a Carnatic cricket anthem</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>Here are the big stories from Karnataka today</strong> - Welcome to the Karnataka Today newsletter, your guide from The Hindu on the major news stories to follow today. Curated by Nalme Nachiyar.</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>Gang of five caught with MDMA in Chandanagar</strong> -</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>Ajit Pawar gets his way again, snags plum Guardian Ministership of Pune district</strong> - The list of 12 Guardian Ministers shows increasing weight of rebel NCP faction within the tripartite ruling alliance; appointments come after Mr. Shinde, Mr. Fadnavis meet BJP national leaders</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>Cabinet approves tenancy regulations for 3 UTs</strong> - Article 240 empowers the president to make regulations for the Union territories.</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>Man arrested for threatening CBI public prosecutor in Soujanya murder case</strong> - The accused alleged that Mr. Perla had taken a huge bribe to derail the Soujanya murder case, and said he would soon come out with documentary evidence</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>Venice tourist bus plunges from bridge, killing 21</strong> - Children are among dead after a bus fell from an overpass and caught fire.</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>Marina Ovsyannikova: Anti-war Russian journalist sentenced in absentia</strong> - Maria Ovsyannikova, who protested live on air against the invasion of Ukraine, gets more than 8 years in jail.</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: Pope Francis warns world ‘may be nearing breaking point’</strong> - Pope Francis criticises attempts to deny or gloss over the issue in a new intervention.</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>Boat carrying 280 migrants lands in Canary Islands</strong> - It is thought to be the largest number of people ever to arrive in the Spanish archipelago in one go.</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>Rules of engagement issued to hacktivists after chaos</strong> - The Red Cross writes rules of engagement for civilian hackers as numbers rise</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>This EV restomod highlights the joys and flaws of the classic MGB</strong> - It’s lighter and more powerful than the original but only by a sensible amount. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1973008">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>It’s crunch time for companies building NASA’s commercial lunar landers</strong> - Big tests loom in the months ahead for NASA’s lander fleet. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1972839">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Dealmaster: Early Amazon Prime Big Deal Days sales heat up, Apple deals, and more</strong> - Get sweet discounts on Apple tech and home gear ahead of Amazon’s Big Deal Days. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1972877">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>They’ve begun: Attacks exploiting vulnerability with maximum 10 severity rating</strong> - Will attacks be as big as those targeting MOVEit? Maybe not, but they still can be plenty bad. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1973010">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Probiotic bacterium kills preterm infant; FDA blasts supplement maker</strong> - Genomic sequencing matched baby’s fatal sepsis case to bacteria in Evivo with MCT Oil. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1972989">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Jim and Edna are both mental patients. One day Jim jumps into the swimming pool but, doesn’t come up for air. Quick as a flash, Edna sees her friend in trouble, so dives in and pulls him out.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
|||
|
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<div class="md">
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Later, the hospital director calls Edna into his office and sayes “Edna, Ive got some good news and some bad news. The good news is, we are releasing you as you are obviously sane ‘saving anothers life’. But unfortunately, the bad news is that Jim hanged himself in the bathroom …” “Oh no’ Edna replies, that’s where I put him to dry !”
|
|||
|
|
</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/16z73o0/jim_and_edna_are_both_mental_patients_one_day_jim/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16z73o0/jim_and_edna_are_both_mental_patients_one_day_jim/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>There’s these three guys, and they’re sitting around a table.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
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<div class="md">
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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The first guy says “You know what, I’m fast. I think I’m so fast, I might be the fastest guy in the world” So his buddies time him, take a picture, and send it to the Guinness book of world records.
|
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</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The second guy says “You know what, I’m tall. I think I’m so tall, I might be the tallest guy in the world” So his buddies measure him, take a picture, and send it to the Guinness book of world records.
|
|||
|
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</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The third guy says “You know what, I got a small penis. I think it’s so small, it might be the smallest in the world” So his buddies get a ruler, measure it, take a picture, and send it to the Guinness book of world records.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
They’re sitting around a few weeks later, and the results come back. The first guy opens his letter and shouts “I DID IT! I’m the fastest guy in the world!” The second guy opens his and shouts “I DID IT! I’m the tallest guy in the world!” The third guy opens his letter and shouts angrily “WHO THE FUCK IS (insert your mates name here)!!!”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Rankler32"> /u/Rankler32 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16zhcme/theres_these_three_guys_and_theyre_sitting_around/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16zhcme/theres_these_three_guys_and_theyre_sitting_around/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Actually happened: I saw a girl at a party who was distraught and crying because she had accidentally swallowed a tongue piercing.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
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<div class="md">
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Her boyfriend put his arm around her and said, “This, too, shall PASS.”
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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If she doesn’t marry him, I will.
|
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</p>
|
|||
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</div>
|
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|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/bennetthaselton"> /u/bennetthaselton </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16z6jxz/actually_happened_i_saw_a_girl_at_a_party_who_was/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16z6jxz/actually_happened_i_saw_a_girl_at_a_party_who_was/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A horse walks into a bar..</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<div class="md">
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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The bartender asks, “Why the long face?”
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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The horse says, “My boss just fired me, my kids won’t talk to me and my wife just filed for divorce. Got anything to help with that?”
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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The bartender looks him up and down, and says “Neigh.”
|
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</p>
|
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</div>
|
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<!-- SC_ON -->
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Vandrew226"> /u/Vandrew226 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16zby79/a_horse_walks_into_a_bar/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16zby79/a_horse_walks_into_a_bar/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A woman comes home early, and finds her husband in bed with a girl.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
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<div class="md">
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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</p><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">She is furious, threatens to kill them both… the husband says:</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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</p><ul>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Believe me, darling, this is just a misunderstanding. I was driving home, and saw this young lady trying to catch a ride. So I decided to give her a lift. I ask her where she needs to go, and she tells me she wants to visit some relatives, but isn’t sure about their address. So, I took her home so she could check our phonebook.
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Once there, I saw her dress is pretty ragged, so I decided to give her your old dress. Nearly two years that it’s been hanging in the closet, and you never wore it.
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Then, I saw her shoes are also about to fall apart, so I gave her your old shoes, which have been doing nothing but collecting dust for three years. Of course, she said thanks, and then asked:
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“Excuse me sir, but is there anything else in this house your wife never uses?”
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submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Omeganian"> /u/Omeganian </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16ymiyu/a_woman_comes_home_early_and_finds_her_husband_in/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16ymiyu/a_woman_comes_home_early_and_finds_her_husband_in/">[comments]</a></span></li>
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