576 lines
76 KiB
HTML
576 lines
76 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
|
||
<html lang="" xml:lang="" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head>
|
||
<meta charset="utf-8"/>
|
||
<meta content="pandoc" name="generator"/>
|
||
<meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes" name="viewport"/>
|
||
<title>05 July, 2021</title>
|
||
<style type="text/css">
|
||
code{white-space: pre-wrap;}
|
||
span.smallcaps{font-variant: small-caps;}
|
||
span.underline{text-decoration: underline;}
|
||
div.column{display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; width: 50%;}
|
||
</style>
|
||
<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>
|
||
<body>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
|
||
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
|
||
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
|
||
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
|
||
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
|
||
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
|
||
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What We Need to Learn from the Tragedy in Surfside</strong> - It is possible that South Florida, where climate change is a particularly acute problem, is nearing a point at which even the best-constructed buildings are under threat. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/12/what-we-need-to-learn-from-the-tragedy-in-surfside">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Can Infrastructure Spending Save Ogdensburg, New York?</strong> - In much of the country, federal and state funding decide which communities succeed and which ones disappear. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/can-infrastructure-spending-save-ogdensburg-new-york">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Greg Abbott’s Radical Term in Texas</strong> - As part of his quest for reëlection next year, the governor is turning the Lone Star State into a pro-Trump dreamscape. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/greg-abbotts-radical-term-in-texas">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>This July 4th, Can We De-Adapt from the Pandemic and Trump at the Same Time?</strong> - Although 2021 is only half over, it has brought about two major restart moments—one in politics and the other in public health. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/this-july-4th-can-we-de-adapt-from-the-pandemic-and-trump-at-the-same-time">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sifting Silently Through Surfside’s Rubble</strong> - Sinead Imbaro and her Belgian Malinois’s quest for hints of life. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/sifting-silently-through-surfsides-rubble">link</a></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><strong>What a Reagan-era law can teach Democrats about legalizing undocumented immigrants</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="A protester in a crowd on a city street holds up a sign that reads, “No human being is illegal.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kndIbyxSbuur2CwoVJr4l7oHiqY=/0x0:2657x1993/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69539879/1229083359.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Thousands of New Yorkers rally for immigrant rights on December 18, 2016. | Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Congress legalized millions of undocumented immigrants in 1986 — and it could again.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jzaS31">
|
||
Among President Joe Biden’s key campaign promises on immigration was to create an eight-year path to citizenship for the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US as part of a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22289746/biden-immigration-reform-bill-congress">broader reform package</a> that is currently stalled in Congress.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2oSCll">
|
||
Republicans have decried the proposal as a magnet for further unauthorized immigration, but GOP lawmakers supported a similarly sweeping law to legalize the undocumented population in 1986 — the last and only legislation of its kind that Congress has passed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="I7A5e8">
|
||
Nearly four decades later, it’s clear the Republican position isn’t completely correct. Legislation like the 1986 law, known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), could actually reduce unauthorized immigration and give the US economy a boost as it continues to recover from the pandemic.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EiwQdZ">
|
||
The IRCA was one of Ronald Reagan’s key bipartisan achievements at a time when the Senate was also closely divided, with Republicans having a slim majority. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_United_States_Senate_elections"></a> And it can offer a benchmark for Democrats pursuing legalization efforts today.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iXULyN">
|
||
The bill, which passed <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/99th-congress/senate-bill/1200/all-actions?overview=closed&q=%7B%22roll-call-vote%22%3A%22all%22%7D">63-24</a> in the Senate, granted green cards to nearly 2.7 million people — roughly <a href="https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/irca-in-retrospect-guideposts-for-today-s-immigration-reform">three-quarters</a> of the undocumented population at the time — who had been in the country continuously for at least four years, who paid a fine and back taxes, and who demonstrated what was defined as “good moral character.” It also introduced penalties for employers who hire undocumented immigrants and increased border enforcement.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SHAicl">
|
||
In the years after its implementation, it mitigated unauthorized immigration and improved socioeconomic mobility for the immigrants who were legalized and their families, leading to a new surge of Latino political power. But it still didn’t resolve the challenge of unauthorized immigration for good, given that the undocumented population in the US has more than quadrupled in the intervening years.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ubA7dj">
|
||
Though some have argued that a similar bill could never pass in today’s partisan environment — particularly following former President Donald Trump’s efforts to stir up anti-immigrant sentiment — IRCA’s prospects seemed similarly bleak. It was the result of more than 15 years of negotiations, with the anti-immigrant and pro-immigrant camps in Congress drawing strict battle lines. And it was declared “dead” several times before it ultimately passed, earning it a reputation as the “<a href="https://www.persee.fr/doc/remi_0765-0752_1990_num_6_1_1230">corpse that would not die</a>.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sbzoCo">
|
||
That should serve as a lesson to today’s lawmakers, who could be doing more to exhaust the option of bipartisan legislation rather than staking their hopes on managing to keep their caucus unified enough to pass a bill through budget reconciliation without any Republican votes, said Charles Kamasaki, a senior cabinet adviser at the immigrant advocacy group UnidosUS who wrote a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Immigration-Reform-Corpse-That-Will/dp/194213455X">book about IRCA</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RWi9xe">
|
||
“These kinds of bills are really hard to pass. Before they pass, they almost invariably die,” he said. “You have to be in a constant search for where you can get the votes. And that inevitably involves trade offs and compromises that aren’t necessarily fully satisfactory to either side.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RScRdZ">
|
||
<a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0123507">Partisanship has risen sharply</a> since the mid-1980s, but some immigration experts believe that it’s still worth it for Democrats to pursue serious bipartisan negotiations on immigration — if not to actually identify room for compromise and achieve an agreement, then to convince their caucus that budget reconciliation is the only way forward. Failing to act will leave millions continuing to live in the shadows as kind of permanent underclass, vulnerable to exploitation and to removal from a country where many of them have laid roots.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="nAgpFu">
|
||
Legalization limited unauthorized immigration levels
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oLIzDq">
|
||
Anti-immigration hawks often make the argument that enacting another mass legalization program would only set a precedent encouraging more immigrants to cross the border without authorization in the hopes that they, too, might one day achieve legal status. Sen. Thom Tillis, for example, wrote in an April <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-border-crisis-security-migrant-failed-sen-thom-tillis">Fox News op-ed</a> that Biden’s proposal for “mass amnesty” would send a “clear signal that our border is open for anyone and everyone.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uzSDkA">
|
||
But <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12962057/">several</a> <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02343244">studies</a> have found either no significant change, or a modest decline, in unauthorized immigration levels on the US-Mexico border due to IRCA in the years immediately following the law’s implementation. And a <a href="https://www.american.edu/spa/publicpurpose/upload/2011-public-purpose-amnesty-effect.pdf">2011 paper</a> by Joshua Linder, then at American University’s School of Public Affairs, found that there were fewer apprehensions of migrants at the southern border over the long-term period from 1986 to 2000 than there would have been without IRCA. Even though the overall number of unauthorized immigrants living in the US has grown significantly in decades since IRCA, it could have been even larger.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="40b1aW">
|
||
“[A]mnesty programs do not encourage illegal immigration, contrary to the vigorous claims of some critics of amnesty programs,” Linder writes.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yIc0JH">
|
||
He acknowledges that there might be other reasons not to endorse another mass legalization push, such as potential costs and effects on the US economy. But setting a bad precedent for future migrants isn’t one of them.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZbkOcr">
|
||
Rather, what might have actually contributed to the rise in the unauthorized immigrant population was the rapid expansion of immigration enforcement in the years following 1986, which actually caused more migrants to decide to settle in the US permanently, Princeton sociologist Doug Massey and his co-authors found in a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27721512/">2016 paper</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2Cp0q4">
|
||
Before the IRCA, Mexican people had moved back and forth across the border, usually looking for opportunities for temporary work and crossing in El Paso and San Diego. The US’s decision to expand immigration enforcement didn’t really alter their ability to cross the border. They weren’t much more likely to be apprehended when they attempted to cross, and even if they were discovered by US immigration officials and swiftly returned to Mexico, they could still succeed after multiple attempts.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RwlM6n">
|
||
What changed, however, was the costs and risks associated with returning to their home country and then attempting to reenter the US because of greater penalties for being apprehended. Migrants had to start crossing in more dangerous regions of the border, going through the Sonoran Desert and Arizona, and came to rely more heavily on the services of paid smugglers, which became more expensive. Between 1980 and 2010, the probability that a migrant would return to their home countries after their first trip to the US consequently dropped from 48 percent to zero, according to Massey’s paper.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ess50Q">
|
||
What might reverse the trend, the paper argues, is if the US legalizes the population of undocumented immigrants living in the US, or at least broad swaths of it, which might allow more people to return to their home country. They wouldn’t need to pay smugglers in order to eventually come back to the US should they desire, and they wouldn’t face adverse immigration consequences if they were caught trying to cross the border without authorization.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="V7FpgN">
|
||
Newly legalized immigrants and their communities reaped the benefits
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QfY3GF">
|
||
The benefits of the 1986 mass legalization are even clearer several decades later — and not just for the immigrants who were granted legal status.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="spwayx">
|
||
Affected immigrants’ wages grew by as much as <a href="https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/immigrationeconreport3.pdf?_ga=2.84195226.2094148220.1625144271-1977134278.1623345886">15 percent</a> within five years of the bill’s implementation and 20 percent in the long-run while their poverty rates declined. That’s likely because they were accepting low wages in order to mitigate the risk of deportation and were vulnerable to exploitation by employers, but legalization removed barriers to seeking better paying jobs and also incentivized immigrants to improve their educational attainment and English skills in order to earn even more. Those higher wages mean more tax revenue and more consumer purchasing power.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WTqSWe">
|
||
They became more likely to be <a href="https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/working_papers/2010/RAND_WR754.pdf">naturalized citizens</a> — with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/11/26/what-happened-to-the-millions-of-immigrants-granted-legal-status-under-ronald-reagan/">about a third</a> of those legalized becoming citizens by 2001 — and less likely to <a href="https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/working_papers/2010/RAND_WR754.pdf">work in occupations</a> that traditionally hire many unauthorized immigrants. One 20-year study also showed that they laid down more permanent roots and contributed more to their communities as a result of legalization, opening bank accounts, buying homes and starting businesses.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s31MXJ">
|
||
It’s reasonable to expect that their children also fared better as a result, especially given that the children of undocumented immigrants are <a href="http://www.academia.edu/5923999/Child_Well-Being_and_the_Intergenerational_Effects_of_Undocumented_Immigrant_Status">more likely to be poor and have worse health outcomes</a> than children of people with legal status.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1QuaaN">
|
||
Research suggests that national crime rates also declined by a persistent <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.p20151041">3 to 5 percent</a>, or about 120,000 to 180,000 fewer violent and property crimes annually, due to IRCA’s implementation.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="S2J68h">
|
||
“It was a boon for not just those families, but for the their communities as well,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a pro-immigration think tank, who previously lobbied for the bill and was involved in its implementation.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xWpPpg">
|
||
The economic payoffs of mass legalization could be even greater today given the demographic challenges that the US is currently facing, Chishti said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JUtsvB">
|
||
There is a widening gap in the number of working-age adults that are able to support an aging population of baby boomers, as evidenced by <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22411236/immigration-census-population-growth">2020 Census figures</a> that showed the lowest population growth the US has seen since the 1930s. This puts the US both in danger of worker shortages in key industries like home health care, hospitality, transportation, and construction, but also of long-term population declines of the sort <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53424726">Japan and Italy</a> are currently grappling with.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OxWj1a">
|
||
Immigration has historically insulated the US from population decline and represents a kind of tap that the US can turn on and off. Over the next decade, it is set to become the <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2018/cb18-41-population-projections.html">primary driver of population growth</a> for the first time in US history. Legalization could help make it a more effective tool.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="9PMs4p">
|
||
Legalization should be tied to reforms to the legal immigration system
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="giH8c7">
|
||
IRCA’s biggest fault is that it focused exclusively on unauthorized immigration and ignored reforms expanding the legal immigration system, and any attempt to replicate its successes would need to improve upon that legal system.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="njuSzF">
|
||
The US has issued roughly about 1 million green cards annually for most of the 21st century, though those numbers dipped under Trump. Only about <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states-2020">14 percent </a>of those green cards are reserved for people coming to the US for work and their family members. Increasing the current caps on green cards for employment-based immigrants across the skills spectrum would help address labor market need in the US while also creating new legal pathways for people to come to the US rather than trying to cross the border without authorization or pursue an asylum claim.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fQQUqP">
|
||
“The vast majority of immigrants coming to the U.S.-Mexico border clearly want the opportunity to enter a legal process, and many of them are accessing the only legal process available to them: asylum and related procedures,” David Bier, a policy analyst at the right-leaning Cato Institute, <a href="https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/legal-immigration-will-resolve-americas-real-border-problems">writes</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eBjlOe">
|
||
The amount by which employment-based immigration should be increased is <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22411236/immigration-census-population-growth">debated</a>. The Migration Policy Institute has suggested tying it to the number of new unauthorized immigrants who come to the US annually: about 250,000. That number could potentially shift over time as the US’s demand for labor changes.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GzaC2V">
|
||
“If we just increase employment-based immigration by 250,000 a year, we’ll be getting close to letting letting supply meet demand,” Chishti said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QqDPuQ">
|
||
Others have advocated for increases to all forms of legal immigration <a href="https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/legal-immigration-will-resolve-americas-real-border-problems">across the board</a>, not just for those coming to the US to work.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1HTs4d">
|
||
Chishti said that legalization and increases in legal immigration should also be accompanied by a more robust employment eligibility verification system, such as some form of universal, mandatory E-Verify, which is currently optional for most employers. That’s especially important given that the sanctions in IRCA for employers who hired undocumented immigrants didn’t end up <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/01/30/in-1986-congress-tried-to-solve-immigration-why-didnt-it-work/">having much teeth</a>. Some have cautioned that expanding E-Verify on its own would end up hurting small businesses and their workers — but those negative effects might be mitigated if they have access to a <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2011/09/13/10273/the-10-numbers-you-need-to-know-about-e-verify/">new pool of legalized workers</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CwDTxN">
|
||
Still, Chishti questioned the feasibility of pairing new legal paths for immigrants, an employment based increase, and tougher employment eligibility in a comprehensive reform package, a format that has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/01/30/how-immigration-reform-failed-over-and-over/">failed time and time again</a> in Congress over the past two decades.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zDqAzq">
|
||
“The combination of these three things would get us to a better place,” he said. “Unfortunately it doesn’t work politically.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="G5yRqy">
|
||
Getting to 60 votes in the Senate on legalization is a tall order today
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8VvuWG">
|
||
The current conventional wisdom on the left is that, unlike in 1986, bipartisanship on immigration is dead — that there is no point in seeking compromise with Republicans, and that reconciliation, which allows Democrats to pass policy on their own, is the only way to push through the Democratic agenda. The struggle to reach a deal on <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/6/30/22545736/cost-of-bipartisanship-democrats-infrastructure">Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure package</a>, and the uncertainty over whether the <a href="https://www.vox.com/22553888/joe-biden-infrastructure-deal-bipartisanship-democrats-republicans">agreement will pass the Senate</a>, suggests that we shouldn’t expect anything different on immigration — particularly given infrastructure improvements are something most lawmakers of both parties are for, whereas the same can’t be said for immigration reform.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3wgIJF">
|
||
“It took a popular president like Reagan to make [IRCA] happen,” Chishti said. “Reagan is the last president we had who not only could tell his own party what to do, but he could also tell a significant number of Democrats what to do.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4rPlkN">
|
||
But Kamasaki said that the level of bipartisanship over immigration in the Reagan era was “pretty heavily overrated” and that the restrictionist position was generally more dominant. What’s more, polling shows that immigration was <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/06/28/shifting-public-views-on-legal-immigration-into-the-u-s/">much less popular</a> amid the public in those days.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wM8ZGf">
|
||
“While the pro- and anti-immigrant factions in both parties, those lines were pretty clear and they were pretty rigid and frankly, not terribly different from where they are now,” Kamasaki said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XPsJEj">
|
||
What ultimately drew more progressive Democrats to the bill who had initially been hesitant was a provision to extend temporary protections to citizens of countries suffering from natural disasters or armed conflict, he said. That provision was eventually stricken from the bill before its passage, but it helped get more people invested in it. There might be similar bargaining chips that exist today.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DpSNLF">
|
||
“I think there may well be similar kinds of measures that that might be attractive to moderate Democrats and Republicans now,” Kamasaki said. “But it’s going to be hard to unearth those without having substantive discussions.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yitJ1f">
|
||
While passing an immigration reform bill via reconciliation may be ideal for Democrats, it’s also critical that they thoroughly explore bipartisan options, Kamasaki said. There are weaknesses to the reconciliation route: there are limitations on what can be included in a reconciliation bill, and it would be vulnerable to individual senators opting not to cooperate. Seeing the prospect of a bipartisan deal exhausted might also help more Democrats get on board with reconciliation to reach the necessary 50-vote threshold in the Senate.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="o2HVYJ">
|
||
And Republicans concerned about immigration should keep in mind that Democrats might be willing concede certain enforcement measures, even though they aren’t talking about it right now. In 2017, for example, some were willing to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/2/15/17015958/immigration-bill-bipartisan-senate-daca">trade</a> permanent legal protection for more than 700,000 young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children for $25 billion in border wall funding. Expanding E-Verify might also be a potential concession, Kamasaki said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GUEhaw">
|
||
“My critique of the field these days, really on both sides, is that there aren’t a lot of people working at it,” he said. “Unless you actually talk to people and figure out what their limits are, it’s hard to even potentially craft compromise.”
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>What if the truth isn’t out there?</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zHG-tLTGL6I4aPo4npCfV_doaAs=/0x466:1280x1426/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69537989/potw1938a.0.jpeg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
It’s possible humans are the only industrial civilization in the entire galaxy. | <a class="ql-link" href="https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1938a/" target="_blank">ESO/P. Horálek</a>
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The wishful thinking behind the search for alien life.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fSGvj9">
|
||
The US military’s official report on <a href="https://www.vox.com/22463659/ufo-videos-navy-alien-drone">UFOs</a> is here, and its conclusion is scintillating: There’s some stuff in the sky, the government isn’t sure what it is, there’s no evidence that it’s aliens, but also no one’s ruling out aliens. So in conclusion, the UFOs are part of life’s rich pageant and anything is possible.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MHfYT3">
|
||
The nine-page report released by the Director of National Intelligence’s (DNI) office last week, formally titled <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf">“Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,”</a> says a little bit more than “we know nothing.” But that is the main takeaway. “Limited Data Leaves Most UAP Unexplained” reads the report’s first subject heading.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ctMtwD">
|
||
That takeaway comes as something of an anticlimax capping off a period of frenzied speculation over UAPs (the new preferred term for “UFO”). The current mania was kicked off by a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html">2017 New York Times A1 article</a> revealing the existence of a quiet Pentagon program analyzing strange aerial sightings by pilots. Since then, a steady stream of <a href="https://www.vox.com/22463659/ufo-videos-navy-alien-drone">mainstream news coverage and Pentagon disclosures</a> have kept UAPs in the public eye, complete with details about their allegedly fantastical, above-human capabilities.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DzTOw3">
|
||
In the immediate wake of the DNI report, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-unexplained-phenomena-of-the-ufo-report">no minds have been changed</a>. The skeptics are still skeptical. Believers in the “extraterrestrial hypothesis” (ETH) still believe.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wofuHc">
|
||
Which is about right. This report simply doesn’t contain enough new information to move anyone’s assessments much in one direction or another. It was mostly meant to summarize the UFO sightings the Pentagon has looked at, rather than explain those sightings. It was reportedly <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-unexplained-phenomena-of-the-ufo-report">written in half a year by two people working part-time</a>; it is not a large-scale evidence review like the 9/11 Report.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sXq7fTklzaql8WKFJSawJx2up-c=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696272/Screen_Shot_2021_06_16_at_12.44.15_copy.jpg"/> <cite><a class="ql-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rWOtrke0HY" target="_blank">Official UAP Footage from the USG</a></cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
A still from the GOFAST UFO video.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4c83fJ">
|
||
So the UFO-curious public is left more or less where it started before this latest round of UFO stories: not knowing what these objects in the sky are or where they’re from or what if anything they tell us about the universe.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yC7c8o">
|
||
Let me lay my cards on the table here: I’ve long been on the skeptics’ side. I don’t think we have any evidence that these UAPs are a sign of intelligent life on a different planet. But I also know that it’s a question we have to get to the bottom of, and to do that the government needs to allocate a bit more in the way of research funding.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iAdlFh">
|
||
We have to get to the bottom of this question because the truth about UFOs — particularly if the extraterrestrial hypothesis happens to be somehow true — could clarify humans’ role in the universe.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oj8xGm">
|
||
Physicists, astronomers, philosophers, and other smart people have been trying to suss out what the existence or nonexistence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe could mean. It could be we’re all alone in the universe, which leads to certain mind-breaking implications — one of which is perhaps humanity has a moral duty to preserve civilization because it exists nowhere else in the vast expanse of space. Or it could be that we do have cosmic neighbors, but that those neighbors haven’t reached out because they face difficult challenges — challenges that could be waiting for us in our own future and that could inform how we act today.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uQnWpv">
|
||
In other words, the UFO question is a subquestion of a much broader, more profound inquiry into the future of humanity.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="DD2KIB">
|
||
Fermi’s paradox and the puzzle of intelligent life elsewhere
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kR2ug5">
|
||
A finding that UFOs represent an alien civilization visiting Earth would be crucially important, first and foremost because it would answer a question scientists have been asking for at least the last century: Where is everybody?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xQcasm">
|
||
The universe is almost incomprehensibly vast: In the Milky Way galaxy alone, there are <a href="https://www.space.com/25959-how-many-stars-are-in-the-milky-way.html">hundreds of billions of stars</a>, and <a href="https://science.ubc.ca/news/many-six-billion-earth-planets-our-galaxy-according-new-estimates">as many as 6 billion</a> of them could be Sun-like stars with rocky Earth-like planets orbiting them. There are <a href="https://phys.org/news/2017-01-universe-trillion-galaxies.html">hundreds of billions if not trillions of galaxies</a> alongside the Milky Way.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hQwuk_ixC5ToWi_5mMO30aMGC40=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696298/GettyImages_1288680990_copy.jpg"/> <cite>Alan Dyer/VW PICS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
The summer Milky Way from the Howse Pass Viewpoint at Saskatchewan River Crossing in Banff National Park, Alberta.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gnszZL">
|
||
It would be strange for humans to be the only intelligent life (or, at least, the only life of above-chimpanzee intelligence) in all that vastness. And, intuitively, it seems like some of our peers should have surpassed us and developed the ability to send probes thousands of light-years away to observe us.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vVcfCP">
|
||
This puzzle is commonly known as Fermi’s paradox, after its articulation by the 20th-century physicist Enrico Fermi, and it<strong> </strong>has fascinated astronomers, physicists, and science fiction fans for decades. As <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/7/3/17522810/aliens-fermi-paradox-drake-equation">Liv Boeree explained for Vox</a>, much of the literature on the Fermi paradox relies on a model known as the Drake equation, devised by physicist Frank Drake to estimate the number of “active, communicative, extra-terrestrial civilizations” in our galaxy.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fl6x6O">
|
||
The equation includes some variables astronomers are able to estimate (like the rate of star formation in the Milky Way and the fraction of stars with planets) and some inherently speculative ones, like the fraction of planets that develop intelligent life. The Drake equation is thus quite imprecise, and it requires plugging in numbers where researchers have tremendous uncertainty.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pG2eF6">
|
||
In 2017, Anders Sandberg, Eric Drexler, and Toby Ord of the Future of Humanity Institute <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404.pdf">attempted rough estimates</a> of the odds that human civilization is alone in the galaxy and universe by giving uniform odds to a number of different parameters. For instance, they estimated that the share of planets with life that also have <em>intelligent</em> life could be anywhere from 0.1 percent to 100 percent, and gave equal odds to every number in that range.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ofXHbZ">
|
||
They then incorporated the fact that we haven’t observed other intelligent civilizations, which should lower our estimated odds of their existence. The paper concluded that there’s a 53 percent to 99.6 percent chance of humans being the only intelligent civilization in the Milky Way, and a 39 percent to 85 percent chance of being alone in the observable universe.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="6nn5uR">
|
||
The threat of the Great Filter
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KNPAsX">
|
||
The optimistic read, as <a href="https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/anders-sandberg-fermi-paradox/">outlined by Sandberg elsewhere</a>, is that this finding should reduce our fear that humans face a huge extinction event in our future.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0pqzof">
|
||
How does that follow? Well, one common explanation for humans’ apparent loneliness in the universe is that intelligent life is actually incredibly common — but almost always destroys itself at some point. Either a civilization’s own technology grows so advanced and dangerous that it wipes itself out, or natural phenomena like meteors or supervolcanoes strike before the civilization has the chance to send probes to look at us.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dOr1ru">
|
||
This theory is known as the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100507074729/http://hanson.gmu.edu/greatfilter.html">Great Filter</a>, and it has a certain terrifying plausibility to it. Humanity has already developed tools capable of wiping itself out, or else shrinking itself to a size so small that it cannot endure and sustain itself: nuclear weapons, engineered pathogens, possibly greenhouse gas emissions.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
|
||
<aside id="gY2Gz6">
|
||
<q>There is a part of me that wants the objects in the sky to be aliens because the alternative is so dismal.</q>
|
||
</aside>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vV80V3">
|
||
Oxford’s Ord, in last year’s book <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Precipice-Existential-Risk-Future-Humanity/dp/0316484911?sa-no-redirect=1"><em>The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity</em></a>, roughly estimates the odds of a human-caused extinction or extinction-level event in the next century at about one in six.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ND1MaV">
|
||
There’s a <a href="https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Z5KZ2cui8WDjyF6gJ/some-thoughts-on-toby-ord-s-existential-risk-estimates">lot of uncertainty</a> around those estimates. But one in six is a very significant risk. Most election forecasters gave <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jsvine/2016-election-forecast-grades">lower odds to a Donald Trump victory</a> in 2016.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="peaIM9">
|
||
And if our loneliness in the universe is evidence that every other civilization has destroyed itself in a fashion like this, then one in six might be an overly optimistic estimate. If, on the other hand, the difficult-to-pass “filter” is in our past (say, at the stage in which lifeless molecules combined to create viruses and bacteria), as the Sandberg/Drexler/Ord research suggests, then our loneliness need not imply a grave threat in our future.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Eq5L91">
|
||
Researchers interested in the potential risk posed by the Great Filter tend to focus on <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2019.2154">searching for “biosignatures” or “technosignatures”</a>: observable attributes of planets elsewhere in the galaxy that might give evidence of life or human-level technology.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h7O3re">
|
||
Generally, the hope is to not find these signatures. If we see evidence that there are lots of planets with life up to or equal to human levels of sophistication, but not at levels of sophistication that exceed humans, that strengthens the argument that the filter is in the future, that humans will (like all technologically advanced civilizations) find a way to destroy ourselves.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<aside id="gc7Ecp">
|
||
<div>
|
||
|
||
</div>
|
||
</aside>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1MSgZ7">
|
||
“If the search for biosignatures reveals that life is everywhere while technology is not, then our challenge is even greater to secure a sustainable future,” researchers Jacob Haqq-Misra, Ravi Kumar Kopparapu, and Edward Schwieterman recently concluded in an <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2019.2154">article for the journal <em>Astrobiology</em></a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="R1JpLk">
|
||
If (and I must stress that this is a quite unlikely “if”) UFO sightings on earth are actually evidence that an advanced alien civilization has developed a system of long-distance probes that it is using to monitor or contact humanity, then that would be an immensely hopeful sign in Great FIlter terms.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qdT008">
|
||
It would mean that at least one civilization has far surpassed humanity without encountering any insurmountable hurdles preventing its survival. It would also mean Earth need not be the universe’s sole protector of intelligent life and civilization, meaning that if we do destroy ourselves, all is not lost, cosmically speaking.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="xrcQ33">
|
||
What if we’re all alone?
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Iavb0Q">
|
||
Getting to the bottom of the UAPs and investigating whether there’s intelligent life elsewhere is important, and it’s probably worth devoting government resources toward solving the mystery.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GwRP3D">
|
||
But I also worry that belief in the extraterrestrial hypothesis is a kind of wishful thinking. If it’s wrong, and a Great Filter is in our future, that suggests our species is in immense danger. It would mean there are many, perhaps millions or billions, of civilizations like ours around the universe, but that they without fail destroy themselves at some point after they reach a certain level of technological sophistication. If that happened to them, it’ll almost certainly happen to us too.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-wide-block">
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="A person with two cameras on tripods stands on a hilltop at night with the starry sky behind them." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/esVDBP-WAj0w7_egA3b4KgByMf0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696347/GettyImages_1228990258_copy.jpg"/> <cite>Ahmet Okur/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Cihan Onen of Bitlis Eren University takes photos of the Milky Way, in Turkey on September 22, 2020.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HtmIDn">
|
||
If the extraterrestrial hypothesis is wrong simply because we’re the only species that has even gotten this far, that’s alarming for a different reason. It implies that if we screw up, that’s it: The universe would be left as a desolate compilation of stars and planets without any thinking creatures on them. Nothing capable of empathizing or acting morally would exist anymore.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ExoVof">
|
||
Skeptic though I am, there is a part of me that wants the objects in the sky to be aliens because the alternative is so dismal. I want to know what these objects really are because the stakes are high enough that we need to get this right. But in a way, our current state of relative ignorance can be a bit of a silver lining — there’s comfort in the thought that we don’t know the answer yet, and that we can’t quite close the door on the possibility of life beyond Earth.
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>Movies like Summer of Soul can reclaim America’s important buried history</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="B.B. King plays onstage." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HIUwuyeHkDbdWh-rT0E0BcFBAMQ=/0x0:1600x1200/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69537860/summer2.0.jpeg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
B.B. King as captured in <em>Summer of Soul</em>. | Searchlight Pictures
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Lost history comes to vibrant life in Questlove’s new documentary, and it’s a total blast to watch.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sjzPj6">
|
||
Two summers ago, I <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/8/13/20758555/woodstock-50-anniversary-summer-of-love-documentary-generation">wrote about Woodstock</a>. 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the famous (perhaps infamous) music festival, and a ripe time to evaluate its legacy as captured in a landmark concert documentary. After all, it’s iconic; if you mention the place, people think of semi-naked hippies in a field and Jimi Hendrix absolutely shredding “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KWngdU">
|
||
But I was writing about the 50th anniversary of Woodstock before <em>Summer of Soul</em> <em>(… Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) </em>came out. In hindsight, after watching this absolutely spectacular barnburner of a concert documentary, I’m sad we weren’t talking about Harlem ’69 alongside Woodstock ’69.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BMxgRC">
|
||
Sad, but not particularly surprised it wasn’t on our collective radar.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="Five singers on stage, backed by a band." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/QnT-p_u1em5sftWnZhBd4atoEsI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22695661/summer1.jpeg"/> <cite>Searchlight Pictures</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
The 5th Dimension performing at the Harlem Cultural Festival.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AXDvWB">
|
||
Hopefully, you don’t need much convincing to watch <em>Summer of Soul</em> (and you have two options, on Hulu or, better, in a theater). Ahmir Thompson, a.k.a. Questlove, directed the film, which is mostly a concert documentary comprised of astounding, never-before-seen footage.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VBsyre">
|
||
In 1969, following a tumultuous year in America generally and New York City specifically, the city announced a series of concerts to take place over six weekends in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park), nestled into the heart of Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood at the epicenter of Black cultural life. About 300,000 people attended in total (Woodstock, 100 miles to the north, attracted around 400,000). They called the event the Harlem Cultural Festival. The coffee brand<strong> </strong>Maxwell House was the sponsor. Jesse Jackson and Mayor John Lindsay showed up.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fLpvKr">
|
||
The main attraction was the music. And what a lineup! Nina Simone. B.B. King. Gladys Knight and the Pips. Mahalia Jackson. Pops Staples and the Staples Sisters, one of whom was named Mavis. The 5th Dimension. Herbie Mann. The Edwin Hawkins Singers. Mongo Santamaria. Moms Mabley. Max Roach. Stevie Wonder. Sly and the Family Stone, for whose performance the NYPD refused to provide security, so the Black Panthers did instead. There was Motown and gospel, soul and funk. And that’s just scratching the surface.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v77VWH">
|
||
The entire series of concerts was filmed by a crew (just like Woodstock), with director and producer Al Tulchin at the helm. But in <em>Summer of Soul</em>, Tulchin explains that he tried to sell the footage for broadcast afterward, billing it as “Black Woodstock” to explain what the event had been, and found no takers. “Nobody cared about Harlem,” he says.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="liT1pj">
|
||
It’s not as if the concert featured obscure acts that drew no interest outside of Harlem, or even outside Black communities. They were driving American music and topping the charts. That didn’t matter to decision-makers. And so, the footage more or less sat in a can in someone’s basement for 50 years. Then, in recent years, producer Robert Fyvolent found out about it and bought the rights from Tulchin. Now, we have <em>Summer of Soul</em>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B9Xy8g">
|
||
Every moment is a surprise. After a while, you’ll find yourself sitting with mouth agape, waiting to see which incredible cultural icon will walk out onto the stage next. The footage is kinetic and vivid, shot from angles that emphasize how the crowd is responding to each performance, pulling in close to faces dripping with sweat and emotion, and sometimes shooting from the stage,<strong> </strong>through gaps between<strong> </strong>instruments, to reveal faces thrilled with the show.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="957qJS">
|
||
I’ll never recover from watching Mahalia Jackson and Mavis Staples sing “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” on the same mic, so close we can see their individual teeth. It’s a song Jackson had performed alongside Martin Luther King Jr. many times before; King had been murdered a year before the concerts.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="Two women sing into a microphone." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YBaDBKLs7ffaRRh3o0Z_EoiNjns=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22695664/summer5.jpeg"/> <cite>Searchlight Pictures</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Mavis Staples and Mahalia Jackson in <em>Summer of Soul.</em>
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i8y9nP">
|
||
“Gospel was more than religious,” Al Sharpton explains. “Gospel was the therapy for the stress and pressure of being Black in America. We didn’t know anything about therapists, but we knew Mahalia Jackson.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="84iHNu">
|
||
Thompson, realizing that the significance of the event to the Black community of the historical moment could use contemporary reinforcement, brings in commentators — mostly people who were there more than 50 years ago — to talk about what it meant to see a crowd full of Black faces celebrating. Or to have the concerts occur in a moment of revolution, of crystallizing Black identity. “By the fashion in the crowd, you could see the change happening,” one commentator says.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iQx7Vt">
|
||
A generational shift was taking place among Black Americans, and it mattered that the concerts occurred while debates raged within Harlem itself about nonviolence and militance, about expanding consciousness to encompass a whole range of cultures who’d been shut out by mainstream white America.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lAAHRQ">
|
||
In one sequence, Thompson weaves together a poignant exploration of the moon landing, which occurred in the midst of the festival’s run, and what the people gathered in Mount Morris Park were thinking during that “giant leap for mankind.” Archival footage reveals people significantly less convinced that landing on the moon was worth spending money that could have been used to relieve poverty and hunger down here on earth. In a manner that recounts a documentary like 2016’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/6/11/11895826/oj-made-in-america-espn-oj-simpson"><em>O.J.: Made in America</em></a>, <em>Summer of Soul</em> deftly weaves the mood of the time and the long history of Black expression through music into this one moment, and it practically explodes off the screen.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ThVpAp">
|
||
That we’ve been talking about Woodstock and not the Harlem Cultural Festival all this time as if it’s the moment in which a generation emerged is not all that surprising. “The so-called powers that are, or were, didn’t find it significant enough to keep it as a part of history,” one participant in the film notes. It wasn’t like the festival’s essential erasure from cultural memory was an anomaly; Black history gets memory-holed all the time. It doesn’t happen by accident. Powerful people make choices about what they think is worth preserving in the cultural memory, and what’s just fine to forget.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="A woman mugs for the camera, followed by three dancing men." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/SIrZAqyirk3fzUMbiU_ARXTCoXs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22695667/summer4.jpeg"/> <cite>Searchlight Pictures</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Gladys Knight and the Pips in <em>Summer of Soul.</em>
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J1UXts">
|
||
That’s why a movie like <em>Summer of Soul</em> matters. It’s not just a blast to watch — and it truly is a blast. It’s another tiny step in reclaiming the full history of America, expanding the context of our present not just for people who remember the past, but people who never knew about it in the first place. We’re fools if we don’t think burying the era-changing import of<strong> </strong>events like these is as much a part of American history as the events themselves — and movies like <em>Summer of Soul</em> fight back<strong> </strong>bringing the past vibrantly to life.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WEsdr7">
|
||
At the beginning of the film, Musa Jackson, who attended the festival as a kid, sits down to be interviewed about the experience. Off-camera, Thompson tells him that he’s going to start playing footage so Jackson can see it as he answers questions. But as soon as the light of the screen falls on his face, Jackson is transfixed, unable to answer questions, his eyes starting to grow wet. At the end of the film, he says that watching the footage moved something within him that always kind of doubted that his memory of the festival was real. Crying, he says, “I knew I was not crazy. But now I <em>know</em> I’m not. And this is just confirmation.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mivvqv">
|
||
Then he smiles. “And not only that,” Jackson says. “But how beautiful it was.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SwTfsm">
|
||
Summer of Soul (… Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)<em> is playing in theaters and streaming on Hulu.</em>
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Shikhar Dhawan maybe skipper for upcoming series, but needs to secure his T20 World Cup spot, says VVS Laxman</strong> - However, in the same vein, Laxman feels that the southpaw was being rewarded for his consistency.</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>IPL will wear out UAE pitches ahead of T20 World Cup, fears South Africa coach Mark Boucher</strong> - The second leg of the IPL is scheduled to be held from September 19 to October 15, while the T20 World Cup will begin on October 17.</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>Olympics | Shivpal Singh smells a medal</strong> - Dutee, Bhavani take pragmatic approach</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>First-ever podium finish for Team MRF in ERC</strong> - With a second-place finish at the Rally Liepaja, Team MRF Tyres registered its first-ever podium in the European Rally Championship (ERC) on Saturday.</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>Angad, Mairaj complete their vaccination</strong> - The two skeet shooters Angad Vir Singh Bajwa and Mairaj Ahmad Khan completed their vaccination process in Zagreb, Croatia, following a long drive from</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>Cities along rivers urged to include conservation plans</strong> - Guidelines in policy document from National Mission for Clean Ganga</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>Mandya DIET develops ‘SSLC Mitra’ for students</strong> - The District Institute of Education and Training (DIET), Mandya, has developed ‘SSLC Mitra’ for helping SSLC students who had been deprived of regular</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>Arrest to death: Father Stan Swamy timeline</strong> - Tribal rights activist and Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy passed away at a private hospital in Mumbai on July 5, 2021, when his interim bail plea was</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>Calls for accountability over Stan Swamy’s death</strong> - He was was arrested under UAPA last year in connection with Elgar Parishad case</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>Kannada activists taken into custody in Belagavi</strong> - They wanted to replace torn Kannada flag near municipal corporation with new one</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>Russian food firm VkusVill triggers row over lesbian family ad</strong> - There is fury after VkusVill posted an ad showing a lesbian family, then removed it.</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>Deadly Cyprus wildfire under full control, say authorities</strong> - Four missing people are confirmed dead as a huge blaze forces the evacuation of several villages.</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>Azerbaijan mud volcano triggers huge blast in Caspian oil and gas fields</strong> - The explosion sent plumes of black smoke and flames into the sky in an oil and gas field.</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>Pope ‘responds well’ to colon surgery at Rome hospital</strong> - The 84-year-old underwent an operation in Rome to deal with an issue with his colon.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Brexit: Exporting my fish to China is easier than to France</strong> - A Scottish fisherman says post-Brexit rules means three hours worth of paperwork for each EU order.</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>AtGames Legends virtual pinball review: The better pre-built choice… mostly</strong> - Picky pinball pros will prefer AtGames’s product, but it packs its own pesky problems. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1777758">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>America’s “Smart City” didn’t get much smarter</strong> - Technical hurdles, bureaucracy, and the pandemic dashed many of Columbus, Ohio’s tech plans. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1777996">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sizzling science: How to grill a flavorful steak</strong> - Want to learn how cooking transforms beef’s flavor? Meat scientists have the answers. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1778206">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Review: Warmly satirical Werewolves Within is comic horror with a heart</strong> - Josh Ruben’s second film is a worthy successor to <em> An American Werewolf in London</em> - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1778113">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The comics, award-winning sci-fi, and nonfiction we’re reading this summer</strong> - If your local library has reopened, here’s what to sign out immediately. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1776798">link</a></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><strong>A guy walks into a pub and sees a sign hanging over the bar which reads, “Cheese Sandwich: $1.50; Chicken Sandwich: $2.50; Hand Job: $10.00.”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Checking his wallet for the necessary payment, he walks up to the bar and beckons to one of the three exceptionally attractive blondes serving drinks to an eager-looking group of men. “Yes?” she enquires with a knowing smile, “Can I help you?” “I was wondering,” whispers the man, “Are you the one who gives the hand jobs?” “Yes,” she purrs, “I am.” The man replies, “Well, go wash your hands, I want a cheese sandwich!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/bad-dawg4004"> /u/bad-dawg4004 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/odyh5e/a_guy_walks_into_a_pub_and_sees_a_sign_hanging/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/odyh5e/a_guy_walks_into_a_pub_and_sees_a_sign_hanging/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>[NSFW] Hearing that her elderly grandfather had just passed away, Katie went straight to her grandparents’ house to comfort her 95-year old grandmother.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
When she asked how her grandfather had died, her grandmother replied: ”He had a heart attack while we were making love on Sunday morning.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Horrified, Katie told her that two people nearly 100 years old having sex would surely be asking for trouble.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
”Oh no, my dear” replies granny. ”Many years ago, realizing our advanced age, we figured out the best time to do it was when the church bells would start to ring”.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
”It was just the right rythm. Nice and slow and even. Nothing too strenuous, simply in on the Ding and out on the Dong.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
She pauses to wipe away a tear, and continued, ”He’d still be alive if the ice cream truck hadn’t come along.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/notriple"> /u/notriple </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/odk3oz/nsfw_hearing_that_her_elderly_grandfather_had/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/odk3oz/nsfw_hearing_that_her_elderly_grandfather_had/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>Steve Jobs would’ve been a better president than Trump.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
But I guess comparing apples to oranges is unfair.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Genius_Mate"> /u/Genius_Mate </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/odji25/steve_jobs_wouldve_been_a_better_president_than/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/odji25/steve_jobs_wouldve_been_a_better_president_than/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>A married man was having an affair with his secretary. One day, their passions overcame them in the office and they took off for her house.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Exhausted from the afternoon’s activities, they fell asleep and awoke at around 8 p.m. As the man threw on his clothes, he told the woman to take his shoes outside and rub them through the grass and dirt. Confused, she nonetheless complied and he slipped into his shoes and drove home. “Where have you been?” demanded his wife when he entered the house. “Darling,” replied the man, “I can’t lie to you. I’ve been having an affair with my secretary. I fell asleep in her bed and didn’t wake up until eight o’clock.” The wife glanced down at his shoes and said, “You liar! You’ve been playing golf!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/bad-dawg4004"> /u/bad-dawg4004 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/oe5p2s/a_married_man_was_having_an_affair_with_his/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/oe5p2s/a_married_man_was_having_an_affair_with_his/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>A joke my friend sent me</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
It’s my cake day and I wanted to share a joke my friend sent me, and honestly its probably from this sub but here it goes.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
There was once a priest who went to see the world after taking his oath. After many years of wandering, he finally arrived in a small village in the middle of nowhere. The people there believed in the same religion as he did, but they had no church; they had to go to the nearest one which was in a small town 25 km’s from there. The priest took the initiative, asked the Church for support, and with the help of the local men they built their own temple. From there on, he was celebrating the Sunday masses, joining together men and women in Holy Matrimony, and saying prayers at the funerals.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Many years passed by like that.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
At the end of an ordinary mass, in early spring, on a chilly Sunday morning he was just guiding the people out of the church, was about to close the gates when an unknown man stepped into the churchyard.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
With his dirty and torn clothes, he stood before the priest and said:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Priest, please be good and give me half a lemon! - the priest was a good man, and even though he thought the request was a bit strange, he went back to the rectory, took out a lemon, cut it in half, took it back to the man and gave it to him, who looked back to the priest with gratitude. However, the priest was curious. He asked:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Son, why do you need this half of a lemon? - with a fright on his face, and before the priest could have said a thing, he rushed out of the churchyard gate and took off.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
week later, around the same time, when the priest was leaving the church, he found himself in front of the same man in the churchyard. The man said:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Priest, please be good and give me half a lemon! - the priest was surprised by the appearance of the man and his strange request. Of course he was good, went back to the rectory, and brought the half lemon. Placed it in the stranger’s hand and immediately he asked:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Here it is, my dear son, but please tell me why do you need this half a lemon? - the man was obviously frightened and immediately ran away but the priest was not sluggish either and ran after him. He wasn’t in a very good condition, he has never run so much and so fast before so he was out of breath by the end of the village, almost fainted. He thought the strange man might appear again next week, and it would be nice if he could keep up with him, so he spent his week working on his cardio. It turned out to be a good idea, because as he thought, the stranger entered the churchyard on Sunday. The priest didn’t even wait for the request, he was good, and brought the half lemon. He received these words from the man:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Thank you priest for being so good and giving me half a lemon.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Don’t mention it son, -said the priest- but please tell me, what do you need it for?! - by the time he finished his sentence the man was already running, but the priest was close behind. They were running for a while and the priest was starting to feel exhausted when they arrived at a wide and swift river. The stranger without thinking threw himself into the river and swam across the river and disappeared on the other side. The priest didn’t follow because he couldn’t swim. He was annoyed when he got home. He spent the next week learning to swim at the swimming pool in the small town 25 km’s away. He was anxiously waiting for the next Sunday; now he was sure that the weird fellow would visit again. On Sunday, as he was closing the church, the gate creaked, and entered the man:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Priest, please be good and give me half a lemon! - the priest was good, went back, put on his swimming trunks, his running shoes, grabbed half of the lemon and took it to the stranger:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Here it is, my son, but please tell me already, why do you need it? - the guy was terrified, rushed out the gate with the priest following. Reached the river, swam across, the priest right behind him. He kept running on the other side of the river and the priest was still on his tail. They kept running until they got to a tall tree on the verge of a deep ravine. The man climbed the tree with the agility of a cat, the priest not knowing how to climb a tree, stood on the ground. He was cursing everything as he walked back home. The following week the villagers watched as the priest in the garden of the church climbs trees, jumping back and forth, and generally behaving very strangely. The priest didn’t care, he was exercising obsessively, preparing himself for the meeting. On Sunday before the mass, he put on his trunks and running shoes under his cassock. In fact, he was good and put half a lemon in his pocket in advance. The mass finished much earlier than usually, and he emptied the church as soon as possible so he could warm up. In the same exact time the mass should have ended, the strange man entered the churchyard.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Priest, please be good… - the priest was already handing him half of a lemon, and asked:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Son, why do you need it for God’s sake? the man ran away terrified, the priest followed him. They ran to the river, swam across, ran to the tree, climbed up. The priest almost catched the stranger when he grabbed a vine and swung to the other side of the ravine. The priest was about to have a stroke, but then he saw another vine. Whoop, he grabbed it and swung across. There, however, he encountered an unexpected obstacle: it was a plane graveyard and the man closed himself in one of the wreckages. The priest was raging as he walked around the wreckage several times, but he found no entrance except for the sealed door on the side of the plane; he had to open it somehow. He was furious but he went home. He spent every day at the village’s locksmith and learned every possible way of opening a lock. On Sunday he held the mass in his swimming trunks, running shoes, on his back in a waterproof backpack was a crowbar, a cutting torch, a wrench and a drill, then he stood in front of the church and waited for the man. He was there on time.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Priest, please be good and give me half a lemon!
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
There you go, son - handing him the lemon, because he was good, but in the same time he grabbed the stranger’s arm, pulled him close, and with obsession in his eyes, asked:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
But what do you need it for?! - panic came over the man as he made his escape from the priest’s hands and ran away, but the priest was very close behind. Racing to the river they quickly got across, running up the tree almost breaking their necks, one after the other swung across the ravine, the man barely managed to close the door of the wreckege in the priest’s face. Little did he know that the priest would not stop there, because he grabbed his backpack and started working on the lock with his tools. In less than an hour the heavy door creaked open. Inside, the stranger was shivering in horror, he was afraid of the priest’s fierce and triumphant look. The priest slowly strode up to the man, crouched down, and very quietly, with a friendly smile on his face, gently asked:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Son. You have been asking for half a lemon for the last few weeks. I’m very happy to give it to you, even in the future, I am only asking in return that you tell me: why do you need it?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
All right, priest … - came the answer in a trembling tone - I will answer your question, but please, be good, and do not tell anyone.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The priest was good, and never told anyone.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/masterCrank"> /u/masterCrank </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/odxycd/a_joke_my_friend_sent_me/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/odxycd/a_joke_my_friend_sent_me/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<script>AOS.init();</script></body></html> |