The Aftermath of China’s Comedy Crackdown - Standup flourished during the pandemic. Now performers fear the state—and audience members. - link
What Have Fourteen Years of Conservative Rule Done to Britain? - Living standards have fallen. The country is exhausted by constant drama. But the U.K. can’t move on from the Tories without facing up to the damage that has occurred. - link
Lila Neugebauer Interrogates the Ghosts of “Uncle Vanya” - A director of the modern uncanny steers the first Broadway production of Chekhov’s masterpiece in twenty years. - link
Bryan Stevenson Reclaims the Monument, in the Heart of the Deep South - The civil-rights attorney has created a museum, a memorial, and, now, a sculpture park, indicting the city of Montgomery—a former capital of the domestic slave trade and the cradle of the Confederacy. - link
A Dutch Architect’s Vision of Cities That Float on Water - What if building on the water could be safer and sturdier than building on flood-prone land? - link
From Vox
Baltimore’s bridge collapse is global shipping’s smallest problem -
The cargo ship Dali sits in the water after running into and collapsing the Francis Scott Key Bridge. | Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
From drought in the Panama Canal to the Houthis in the Suez to pirates off Somalia, we’re all paying the price.
Baltimore woke up yesterday to horrific images of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsing into the harbor after the cargo ship Dali lost power and collided with a support column.
It’s a horrible tragedy — six construction workers who were on the bridge at the time are missing and presumed dead — and one that will likely take at least several billion dollars to repair.
And as awful as this Baltimore incident was, it was, by all accounts, a rogue accident. The root causes of these other disruptions, though? They’re not quite as easily fixed.
This degree of interconnectedness — and how fragile it all is — probably feels familiar by now. Remember thewideswath of consumergoods that were subjected to back orders and shortages in 2021 as the global supply chain fell victim to a series of interconnected problems, including (but definitely not limited to) issues with container ships and ports?
This year is shaping up to be another difficult one for global shipping.
Low water levels in Panama — the result of a prolonged drought that began in early 2023 — forced canal officials late last year to cut the number of ships that pass through each day from the normal 38 to just 24. That’s left some ships stranded for more than two weeks, and others taking costly roundabout routes; major shipping companies are even switching some freight to railroad “land bridges” across parts of the country.
Walter Hurtado/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Low water levels outside the Miraflores locks of the Panama Canal near Panama City, Panama, last November.
Can’t we fix this?
It would be tempting to look at both of these issues and think, “Things will get better soon.”
And in some ways, they will. “The industry is going to find medium- to short-term solutions against these particular obstacles,” Nikos Nomikos, a professor of shipping finance and risk management at Bayes Business School in London, told me.
Take the Panama Canal problem: The cuts are, canal officials repeatedly say, a responsible adaptation to a particularly bad year. Droughts have happened before, and the weather phenomenon El Niño is exacerbating droughts throughout the Americas, with devastating consequences.
But this isn’t just a bad year. There are systemic issues at play with no quick answers. Climate change is worsening extreme weather events around the world, including droughts.
And that’s running up against another competing need. As Dulcidio De La Guardia, a director at the Morgan & Morgan Group in Panama, told the Latin American Advisor in February, “The lakes that provide water to the Canal are the same ones used to supply drinking water to the major cities of the country.”
“And water consumption has increased more rapidly than forecasted due to population growth, and poor management, waste, inefficiencies and corruption at the state-owned water company,” he said. There are potential solutions, but no easy or immediate ones.
And then in the Red Sea: While the Houthis might temporarily halt or reduce their attacks if a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas comes through, there’s no guarantee that they’ll stop altogether.
That’s because, as one Yemeni analyst told my colleague Josh Keating, the attacks serve a lot of the group’s other aims, allowing them to “disrupt economic activity, extract political concessions, and bolster their standing.” Having achieved that, they show no signs of backing down, even in the face of Western military strikes.
Moreover, this is part of a broader trend of increased geopolitical instability, all of which can impact — and increasingly is impacting — global shipping. See also: Russia blocking Ukrainian grain from transiting the Black Sea at times during that war, fears about how a war over Taiwan will affect the global economy, and more.
What’s happening in the Red Sea, in other words, is symptomatic of something fundamental.
Any disruption’s net result “will be an increase in the freight cost, either because you have more fuel consumption and longer transit times, or because you require a premium to compensate you for the risks that you face,” Nomikos said.
The Baltimore bridge collapse and its potential consequences, explained -
Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
From search efforts to how a ship can knock down a bridge, here’s what you need to know.
The shocking collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge after it was hit by a cargo ship early Tuesday morning has the region reeling as authorities continue to search for survivors who may have fallen into the Patapsco River.
Thus far, two people who were working on the bridge have been rescued and six are presumed dead by their employer, Brawner Builders, given the temperature of the water and the time that has passed since the accident, the Associated Press reported Tuesday evening.Sonar, robots, and human divers were among the resources being deployed in the search, which was continuing in the late afternoon.
The collapse of the bridge will also affect transportation in the region — and potentially global trade.
Used by 31,000 vehicles each day, the Key Bridge is a central conduit for traffic in the area. The incident also comes as the global shipping industry is facing several other challenges, including a record-breaking drought in Panama and Houthi strikes on ships in the Red Sea. Due to closures at the Port of Baltimore — one of the busiest in the country, especially for foreign cargo — logistics and shipping companies will likely need to reroute more key deliveries.
Authorities have acknowledged these concerns — and the challenges they pose — but emphasized that they’re secondary to the urgent search effort that’s still underway.
Why did the Baltimore bridge collapse? What happened with the ship?
The incident took place around 1:30 am ET Tuesday when a large cargo ship called the Dali abruptly lost power and collided with a support column on the Key Bridge, a 1.6-mile structure that stretches across the Patapsco River.
After the ship — which holds a volume of 95,000 gross tons — hit the column, video shows parts of the four-lane bridge crumbling rapidly and collapsing into the water.
BREAKING: Ship collides with Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, causing it to collapse pic.twitter.com/OcOrSjOCRn
Shortly before the collision, the crew of the ship, which is owned by a Singaporean company called Grace Ocean, reported that they had lost control of the vessel and issued a “mayday” call. Dali was originally headed from Baltimore to Colombo, Sri Lanka, on behalf of Maersk, the major Danish shipping and logistics company.
As experts told USA Today, the bridge failure was so catastrophic because the ship took out a support column — a key component that kept it structurally sound — while going at a high speed. “Any bridge would have been in serious danger from a collision like this,” Nii Attoh-Okine, the chair of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maryland, said.
For now, it’s not clear what caused the ship to lose power, though the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is conducting an investigation. Authorities have also concluded that there’s no evidence this was an intentional incident or terrorist attack. “Everything so far indicates that this was a terrible accident. At this time we have no other indication,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday afternoon in a press conference.
What do we know about casualties from the Francis Key Bridge collapse?
When the collapse happened, a group of eight construction workers were filling in potholes on the bridge. Two of those workers have been rescued, including one who was in stable condition and one who was hospitalized. The remains of the six other workers have not yet been found.
The tragedy could have been far worse: thousands of vehicles cross the bridge each day on average. But immediately after the ship’s “mayday” call — and before it collided with the bridge — government officials were able to shut down additional vehicle traffic, preventing cars and passengers from being harmed. (Vehicles can be seen falling into the river in videos, but authorities said these were the parked cars of construction workers.)
“These people are heroes. They saved lives last night,” Maryland Gov. WesMoore said at a press conference about the ship’s crew.
There’s tremendous urgency behind a sweeping search-and-rescue effort that’s continuing to take place — at this point, for the six workers’ presumed remains. Workers who fell into the water, which was an estimated 48°F on Tuesday, were stuck in frigid temperatures that are difficult to survive in, experts say.
Are bridges safe? Has a cargo ship crashed into a bridge before?
Yes, bridges are safe — but not as safe as they could be.
In the 1970s, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) adopted the National Bridge Inspection Standards regulations, after a horrible 1967 accident in West Virginia where the Silver Bridge collapsed and killed 46 people. The accident ushered in a new era of bridge safety at the national level. In 2022, the FHWA updated its standards to incorporate recent technological advancements.
But not all bridges are created equally. One in three bridges in the US are in need of repair or replacement, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. Maintenance helps bridges be able to withstand stressors such as natural disasters, for instance. The FHWA classifies bridges into three ratings: good, fair, and poor. Those with poor ratings are prioritized for repairs first.
Nonetheless, the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency responsible for investigating transportation accidents, will be looking deeper into the safety of the bridge.
“Part of our investigation will be how this bridge was constructed,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy during a press briefing Tuesday. She stressed it will take time, referencing the investigation for the 2022 Fern Hollow Bridge collapse in Pennsylvania, which took two years to fully complete.
When it comes to the cargo ships: It is not uncommon for a ship to lose power as the Dali did Tuesday, according to attorney Matt Shaffer, who handles maritime law cases, and without power, a ship of that size can cause extensive damage.
How important is the Francis Scott Key Bridge, and what’s next for it?
The Francis Scott Key Bridge — named after the poet who wrote the lyrics to what became the national anthem — not only connects commuters from one part of the harbor to another, it plays an important industrial role. It’s one of three major crossways for the Baltimore Harbor.
In 2023, more than 12.4 million passenger and commercial vehicles crossed the bridge, according to the Maryland Transportation Authority. Bloomberg News reported that it transports $28 billion in goods annually — with nearly 4,900 trucks crossing daily. The bridge and its almost nine miles worth of approaches serve as a final link in I-695. From there, the interstate connects the city’s port to I-95, the major highway along the East Coast.
Construction of the bridge started in 1972 and was completed March 1977. It cost $60.3 million at the time to build. The bridge is mostly made of lightweight concrete, according to a November 2021 report by the US Federal Highway Administration. Lightweight concrete, the report notes, isn’t typically used for bridge construction, but it “can be used as a durable and cost-effective material for bridges.”
Bridges are a feat of engineering — and are rightfully expensive. A $60 million project in the 1970s would cost far more to execute today, especially given increased scrutiny for speed and safety (and inflation). Rebuilding the bridge will likely cost “several billion dollars,” Yonah Freemark, a researcher at the Urban Institute, told Bloomberg.
Biden, during the press conference Tuesday afternoon, said that it is his “intention” that the federal government will pay for reconstructing the bridge. “And I expect Congress to support my effort,” he added.
Even with federal money, it could take months, if not years, to rebuild, disrupting both commercial and commuter traffic in the region.
What does this mean for the shipping industry?
The search and rescue operations have shut down the port of Baltimore, which has become an increasingly important shipping hub for the eastern US.
The port is the 17th largest in the nation based on the amount of cargo that goes through the port, and it handles the largest amount of transportation cargo — cars and trucks, but also farm equipment and construction machinery, the New York Times reported. Kevin Doell, Maersk’s North American media representative, told Vox that the Dali was carrying a “wide variety of cargo” from a number of different customers, but did not elaborate.
Maersk, the company that owns the Dali, said in January that it would no longer send its vessels through the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb strait near Yemen, where Houthi forces have targeted ships since November in response to the Israeli war in Gaza. Because of the risk of damage, injury, and kidnapping, some global shipping companies have opted to take the longer shipping route around the Horn of Africa, which can add as much as two weeks to a voyage and comes with attendant fuel and salary costs for the companies.
The Panama Canal, another global commercial transit hub, is also causing issues for the industry. A massive drought in Panama has severely limited the number of ships that can use the canal, slowing transit times and increasing costs.
Though the Baltimore port has played an increasing role in trade, it’s too soon to see what the commercial fallout will be. But companies have the option to send their cargo to ports throughout the East Coast, including in New York and Virginia, industry executives told the Times.
General Motors and Ford were already re-routing their vehicles and auto parts to Brunswick, Georgia, as of Tuesday; that could mean some supply chain delays, but any disruptions are expected to be minimal, according to a statement from GM.
Some companies may opt to send their goods to West Coast ports and then ship them east, rather than risk bottlenecks as eastern ports reorient their operations, Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen told Bloomberg. That was already going on prior to the accident, as 45,000 dockworkers with the International Longshoremen’s Association on the East and Gulf Coasts were threatening to strike should the union not reach a fair contract with ports and shipping companies by October 1.
Update, March 26, 7 pm ET: This story, originally published March 26, has been updated with further developments.
Should we care about RFK Jr. and his new running mate? -
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hosts a fireside chat with rapper and producer Eric B. at The Gentleman’s Factory on February 18, 2024, in New York City. | John Nacion/Getty Images
The Kennedy conspiracy theorist, his VP pick Nicole Shanahan, and their potential to upend the 2024 presidential election, explained.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has named Nicole Shanahan, a Silicon Valley lawyer and ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, as his running mate in his 2024 independent presidential bid.
Shanahan does not have political experience, but she has previously donated to Democrats, including President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, and paid for the Kennedy campaign’s Super Bowl ad earlier this year. She foundedClearAccessIP, a company that uses AI to manage patent portfolios. Kennedy made the announcement at a campaign event in Oakland, California, on Tuesday.
“Technology has been a lifelong passion for my future vice president,” he said in an address. “This is important because I also wanted a vice president who shares my indignation about the participation of Big Tech as a partner in the censorship, and the surveillance and the information warfare that our government is currently waging against the American people.”
Naming a running mate doesn’t make Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with several controversialviews and a storied last name, any less of a longshot candidate. Just like every third-party candidate before him, he’s unlikely to come anywhere near winning the White House.
But he does have the potential to tip the election, though it’s not yet clear in which direction.
Kennedy is currently averaging about 12 percent in the polls, according to RealClearPolling. Celinda Lake, a pollster for President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign who continues to work with the Democratic National Committee, said that’s a worrying signal for Biden, based on polling and focus groups her firm has been conducting that suggest Kennedy will pull voters from Biden. Clifford Young, who leads Ipsos’s global election and political polling risk practice, said it’s too early to be certain whether Biden or Trump stands to lose the most from Kennedy’s rise, but if he actually received such a large share of the vote, he has real potential to be a spoiler.
Kennedy’s ability to seriously cut into either Biden’s or Trump’s chances of winning, however, is limited by his ability to get on the ballot in all 50 states, which will require amassing a lot of signatures in an effort that would cost millions of dollars before fast-approaching deadlines. His campaign says he has qualified in four states so far, including two key battlegrounds: Nevada and Arizona.
The more states where he can get on the ballot, the more potential for chaos his presence in the race creates. Democrats are beginning to take that threat more seriously.
“This election is going to be extremely close just like the last election, so every vote that does not go to Joe Biden is going to hurt Joe Biden, whether it goes to Donald Trump or to RFK. It’s all the same, and with the race this close, we can’t afford to lose any votes,” said Chuck Rocha, a senior adviser on Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) 2020 presidential campaign.
Who is RFK Jr.?
It’s still very early in the election cycle, and many voters may not know much about Kennedy beyond his name — and they may not have heard what he believes. Some analysts think his support in the current polling represents more symbolic discontent from voters who dislike both Biden and Trump than a real commitment to supporting him as an individual candidate.
“People are not paying attention,” Young said. “He’s filling a vacuum. And that vacuum is this disaffected voter vacuum. I think he’s a placeholder more than anything else.” Kennedy, who announced his candidacy in April, is the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy and son of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. For much of his life, he has been a scion for one of the most storied families in Democratic Party politics and backed Democrats.
But his relationship with the Democratic political establishment has frayed.
His campaign is predicated on ending what he calls the “corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism in our country,” he said in his announcement speech.
He can sound more like a MAGA Republican than a Democrat. Kennedy himself has acknowledged that he holds controversial views.
“I am not an ideal presidential candidate,” he said in his 2023 campaign announcement. “I’m not one of these people who said I have to be careful because one day I’m going to be in the White House.”
Biden wouldn’t debate Kennedy or any other of his Democratic challengers, as is typical in a primary where an incumbent is running for reelection. But if he did, a debate would have revealed stark differences between them.
Kennedy has become one of the leading voices of the anti-vaccine movement. He has pushed disinformation about vaccines since 2005, when he falsely claimed that some childhood vaccines had dangerous levels of mercury that could cause autism, despite the fact scientists had already proven that mercury levels in those vaccines were not harmful and did not lead to autism. Some of his family members spoke out against his anti-vaccine rhetoric: “He has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines,” two of his siblings and his niece wrote in a 2019 Politico op-ed.
But Kennedy’s profile nevertheless took off during the pandemic. He likened vaccine passports to the Holocaust in remarks at a January 2022 rally in Washington that he later apologized for, and that were even condemned by his wife, Curb Your Enthusiasm actress Cheryl Hines.
In a bestselling 2021 book, he accused Anthony Fauci, former chief medical adviser to Biden and a member of Trump’s White House coronavirus task force, of using the pandemic to organize a “coup against Western democracy.”
He also founded the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, which has become one of America’s most influential anti-vaccine advocacy groups. Facebook and Instagram took down the group’s accounts but have since reinstated Kennedy’s personal account now that he’s running for president.
But despite Kennedy’s polarizing record, Democratic strategists are worried that some voters might be more inclined to support him simply because he’s a Kennedy.
“Sure, he’s a crazy anti-vaxxer, conspiracy theorist, [rumored] steroid enthusiast, and tough communicator, but at the end of the day, his last name is still Kennedy, and I believe that will allow him to gain way more Democratic votes than Republican, so I think he hurts Joe Biden more than Donald Trump,” Rocha said.
Why Kennedy could be a spoiler candidate
Third-party candidates tend to poll much better than they actually perform on Election Day, when their supporters are confronted with the reality that their preferred candidate won’t win.
What’s unusual this year is the sheer number of disaffected voters who don’t like either Biden or Trump and just want someone — anyone — as an alternative. Young said that, when Ipsos polls a theoretical no-name candidate as an alternative to Biden and Trump, that person gets about 10 percent. (That share is not far from Kennedy’s current level of support.)
“We haven’t had a situation where we have had so many viable third-party candidates, and so many people who don’t like either [major party] candidate,” Lake said.
In addition to Kennedy, the group “No Labels” headed by former Senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman as well as the Green Party and the Libertarian Party have promised to name presidential tickets of their own. Cornel West, the progressive political commentator, is also running as an independent.
Kennedy’s supporters span the race, age, and income spectrums, according to Ipsos’s polling. They are slightly more likely to be women and to identify as independents, leaning a bit more right than left and embracing more conservative economic policies but centrist stances on social issues, Young said.
Lake said that in her polling and focus groups, about half of Kennedy’s supporters back him because they associate him with his father. Other Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, particularly young voters, embrace his credentials as an activist environmental lawyer.
Young said it’s difficult to tell at this point whether that suggests that Biden or Trump is more likely to benefit from his presence in the race.
“It’s going to confuse things. Things are going to get cloudy. I don’t think it’s so easy to say that he’s gonna hurt one or the other,” he said, citing Ipsos polling showing how his supporters aren’t strong partisans and how their views on particular issues are scattered.
But Lake said that “it would take a real jiujitsu of people’s thinking” for Kennedy to hurt Trump.
Accordingly, Democrats have sought to hamper Kennedy’s independent bid. The party recently established a team of lawyers dedicated to ensuring that he won’t make it on more state ballotsif he violates complicated ballot access rules.
But Democrats may also have to work to better define him as a candidate. Democratic primary voters’ initially net-positive impression of him became net-negative once they learned more about his positions through the primary process, and that could serve as a model, Lake said.
“There would need to be a serious effort to define or reveal who he is,” she added.
Update, March 26, 4 pm ET: This story has been updated with additional information from Kennedy’s announcement that he has picked Shanahan as his running mate.
From The Hindu: Sports
Time And Tide and Dufy impress -
Massimo Costantini’s return as foreign coach of Indian TT team appears bright -
Aca Sports Counselling in Hyderabad integrates sports and academics, providing personalised guidance to athletes - Padmavathi Devarakonda’s Aca Sports Counselling in Hyderabad blends the spirit of sports with academic guidance to help aspiring athletes achieve their dreams
Bopanna-Ebden reach Miami Open semifinals - The duo won the Australian Open earlier this year
Euro 2024 | Ukraine, Georgia and Poland qualify after late drama in playoffs - Poland became the last team to book its ticket to Germany, beating Wales 5-4 in a penalty shootout
From The Hindu: National News
ED attaches assets worth ₹82.12 crore in Parabolic Drugs Limited case - According to the ED, from 2009 to 2014, the company, its directors, unknown public servants, and private persons, caused a wrongful loss of about ₹1,626.70 crore to the Central Bank of India, and other banks and financial institutions
Left has been at forefront of setting agenda to take on BJP, will improve tally in 2024 polls: Yechury - Sitaram Yechury said his party will improve its position in the upcoming polls.
SCR Vijayawada division achieves record freight revenue of ₹3,975 crore - It is the best performance since the division’s entry in the freight revenue segment, says DRM Narendra A. Patil
ED issues fresh summons to Thomas Isaac -
Nitin Gadkari files nomination for Nagpur Lok Sabha seat, calls for strong support for NDA - The Union Minister has won the Nagpur seat for two consecutive terms; Nagpur goes to the polls in the first phase of voting on April 19
From BBC: Europe
Five dead in FlixBus crash on German motorway - The coach veered to the right on the busy A9 autobahn before falling on to its side.
After Moscow attack, migrants from Central Asia are on alert - Migrants in Russia reported an uptick in xenophobia after Moscow said Tajiks were behind last week’s attacks.
Russia blames West and Kyiv for Moscow jihadist attack - Ukraine accuses the Kremlin of lies, after it alleges Kyiv and the West were involved in the atrocity.
Holidaymakers caught out by 10-year-passport rule - UK passports can have up to 10 years and nine months on them but EU countries won’t accept them.
Georgia create history by reaching Euro 2024 - Georgia create history by reaching their first major tournament with a penalty shootout win over Greece in their Euro 2024 play-off.
From Ars Technica
The Ars Technica guide to keyboards: Mechanical, membrane, and buckling springs - Explaining the mushy and the magnificent. - link
Cows in Texas and Kansas test positive for highly pathogenic bird flu - The risk to the public is low, and the milk supply is safe. - link
Taylor Swift fans dancing and jumping created last year’s “Swift quakes” - “Shake It Off” produced tremors equivalent to a local magnitude earthquake of 0.851. - link
SCOTUS mifepristone case: Justices focus on anti-abortion groups’ legal standing - The case has big implications for women’s health and the authority of the FDA. - link
Thousands of phones and routers swept into proxy service, unbeknownst to users - Two new reports show criminals may be using your device to cover their online tracks. - link
From Jokes Subreddit
took my wife to a swingers club. ( copied from r/maariage) -
I took my wife to a swingers club, I hope this wasn’t a huge mistake.
So after talking it over for the past few months my wife finally agreed to go with me to a swingers club. She wore a really cute skirt, so I knew she was more excited than she let on.
Anyway, we got there and the hostess greeted us and instantly could tell she was nervous so she offered us the use of a more private area so we could watch some of the other people a bit discreetly while we got comfortable with what happens there.
We ordered a couple of drinks and then got settled in and my wife began to relax bit and I could tell she was enjoying it more and more as time went on.
After a while another couple came over to our area and offered to join us and my wife enthusiastically said yes. Well, a couple drinks later and I’ll tell you my wife was relaxed enough that most of her shots were getting right on target and she was hitting her driver a solid 175 yards.
Anyway we’ll be going back to top golf next week and now I’m afraid she’s really getting interested in the lifestyle. A big thanks to the staff at Top Golf for turning the Mrs into a swinger. Now she’s shopping for a whole new wardrobe.
My dad just sent me this one, as the squirrels continue to run amok at his non-denominational church. -
There was once a small town experiencing an overpopulation of squirrels.
The Presbyterian church called a meeting to decide what to do about their squirrel infestation. After much prayer and consideration, they concluded that the squirrels were predestined to be there, and they should not interfere with God’s divine will.
At the Baptist church, the squirrels had taken an interest in the baptistry. The deacons met and decided to put a water-slide on the baptistry and let the squirrels drown themselves. The squirrels liked the slide and, unfortunately, knew instinctively how to swim, so twice as many squirrels showed up the following week.
The Lutheran church decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God’s creatures. So, they humanely trapped their squirrels and set them free near the Baptist church. Two weeks later, the squirrels were back when the Baptists took down the water-slide.
The Episcopalians tried a much more unique path by setting out pans of whiskey around their church in an effort to kill the squirrels with alcohol poisoning. They sadly learned how much damage a band of drunk squirrels can do.
But the Catholic church came up with a more creative strategy! They actually baptized all the squirrels and made them members of the church. Now they only see them at Christmas and Easter.
Not much was heard from the Jewish synagogue. They took the first squirrel and circumcised him. They haven’t seen a squirrel since.
((As a total sidenote, the picture attachment he sent me with this was absolutely giving the most early 2000s punk-metal amateur album cover vibe I’ve ever felt. The Squirrely Bois, self titled album.))
I tell them, every morning i make a list of all the things i will let myself get angry about. Only the important things in life get to be on the list. This morning, i could not find a pen. I was going to get mad about it, but it wasn’t on the list.
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Walter Hurtado/Bloomberg via Getty Images
