Daily-Dose/archive-daily-dose/13 April, 2024.html

639 lines
77 KiB
HTML
Raw Blame History

This file contains invisible Unicode characters

This file contains invisible Unicode characters that are indistinguishable to humans but may be processed differently by a computer. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.

This file contains Unicode characters that might be confused with other characters. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.

<!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>13 April, 2024</title>
<style>
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%;}
div.hanging-indent{margin-left: 1.5em; text-indent: -1.5em;}
ul.task-list{list-style: none;}
</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>Inside Israels Bombing Campaign in Gaza</strong> - The Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham on his investigations of the I.D.F.s use of A.I.-backed targeting systems and the dire cost to Palestinian civilians. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/inside-israels-bombing-campaign-in-gaza">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Is This Israels Forever War?</strong> - Foreign-policy analysts whose careers were shaped by the war on terror see troubling parallels. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/is-this-israels-forever-war">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Jessica Tisch, the Ex-N.Y.P.D. Official Trying to Tame New Yorks Trash</strong> - The city has lived in filth for decades. Can Jessica Tisch, a scion of one of the countrys richest families, finally clean up the streets? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/15/the-ex-nypd-official-trying-to-tame-new-yorks-trash">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Battling Under a Canopy of Russian and Ukrainian Drones</strong> - The commander of one of Ukraines most skilled units sent his men on a dangerous mission that required them to elude a swarm of aerial threats. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/15/battling-under-a-canopy-of-drones">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Maggie Rogerss Journey from Viral Fame to Religious Studies</strong> - The singer-songwriters sudden celebrity made her a kind of minister without training. So she went and got some. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/15/maggie-rogers-profile">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Life is hard. Can philosophy help?</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="An illustration of a man floating in the air on his back encircled by several floating objects: a chair, a wall clock, a turtleneck sweater, a potted plant, a curtain and rod, a book, and two plates." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/PkLvLHBqZyUr8gdklYGn_ADJFtc=/107x0:1814x1280/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73276138/Crop2_GettyImages_1339615764.0.png"/>
<figcaption>
Jorm Sangsorn for Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
What philosophy has to say about midlife crises.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XzP9CA">
Whats the point of philosophy?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nRXpDS">
Its an old question, maybe one of the oldest in the history of philosophy, and there has never been a consensus answer. Some people think the point of philosophy is to make the world make sense, to show how everything hangs together. For others, philosophy is a practical tool that ought to tell us how to live.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8pGorY">
If youre in the latter camp, then its fair to say that you think of philosophy as a form of self-help. Its a tradition of thought that — in theory, at least — can guide you to a better life, or something like that. And I dont think thats too much to ask of philosophy. What good is all that ruminating if it cant offer you something useful when youre anxious or depressed or mired in one of those dreaded midlife crises?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Mz02oc">
Kieran Setiya is a philosopher at MIT and the author of several books, most recently <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/700441/life-is-hard-by-kieran-setiya/"><em>Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way</em></a><em> </em>and <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691173931/midlife"><em>Midlife: A Philosophical Guid</em>e</a>. Setiyas work is uncommonly accessible and a great example of philosophy that really tries to wrestle with the concrete problems of everyday life.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oUwToQ">
I recently invited Setiya on <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-gray-area"><em>The Gray Area</em></a> to talk about the perils of middle age and how philosophy has helped pull us out of the dark. Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. As always, theres much more in the full podcast, so listen to and follow <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-gray-area"><em>The Gray Area</em></a> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/vox-conversations">Stitcher</a>, or wherever you find podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.
</p>
<div id="eeJhgc">
</div>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="6BN4Us"/>
<h4 id="PIHq4M">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PlKUjs">
You wrote a book called <em>Life Is Hard</em>. Not that your philosophy of life can be summed up in three words, but if you had to sum it up in three words, is that it?
</p>
<h4 id="e5cCXt">
Kieran Setiya
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Yx35FX">
I think it is. Ancient philosophers like Plato and Aristotle thought about the ideal life and they tried to provide a blueprint for — and a map toward — it. And that can be both unrealistic and in a certain way self-punitive. Often the right way to approach the ideal life is to think, “Thats not available. I shouldnt beat myself up about the fact that thats not available.” Really living well, or living as well as you can, is about dealing with the ways in which life is hard.
</p>
<h4 id="GdZxOt">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X3NUTG">
How do you define a midlife crisis?
</p>
<h4 id="4G3NzU">
Kieran Setiya
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Dn7ZLl">
The midlife crisis is one of those funny cultural phenomena that has a particular date of origin. In 1965, this Canadian psychoanalyst Elliott Jaques writes a paper, “<a href="https://pep-web.org/search/document/IJP.046.0502A">Death and the Midlife Crisis</a><em>,</em><em> </em>and thats the origin of the phrase. Jacques was looking at patients and the lives of artists who experienced midlife creative crises. These were mostly people in their 30s and it doesnt really fit the stereotype of the midlife crisis today.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uPBJvd">
Theres been a shift in the way people think about the midlife crisis. The idea now is that peoples life satisfaction <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7529452/">takes the form of a gentle U-shape</a>, that basically, even if its not a crisis, people tend to be at their lowest ebb in their 40s. This is true for men and women, and its true around the world to differing degrees, but its pretty pervasive.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bJvlTG">
So when people like me talk about the midlife crisis, what they really have in mind is more like a midlife malaise. It may not reach the crisis level, but there seems to be something distinctively challenging about finding meaning and orientation in this midlife period.
</p>
<h4 id="l6ppqF">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4KUKUn">
What is it about this period that generates all this anxiety?
</p>
<h4 id="zBMB87">
Kieran Setiya
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x6cHnY">
There are many midlife crises; its not just one thing. I think some of them are looking to the past. Theres regret. Theres the sense that your options have narrowed. Whatever possibilities mightve seemed open to you earlier, whatever choices youve made, youre at a point where there are many kinds of lives that might have been really attractive to you, and now its clear in a vivid, material way that you cant live them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pfN7cX">
Theres also regret that things have gone wrong in your life, youve made mistakes, bad things have happened, and now the project is, “How do I live the rest of my life in this imperfect circumstance?” The dream life is off the table for most of us.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wNUVwR">
People also have a sense that most of life is occupied by this daily grind. Rather than things that make life seem positively valuable, its just one thing after another. And then death starts to look like its at a distance that you can measure in terms you really palpably understand. You have a sense of what a decade is like, and theres only three or four left at best.
</p>
<h4 id="Db2bEn">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kp4f9o">
Im 42 and I can feel all of that. When youre young, the future is pure potential. Ahead is nothing but freedom and choices. But as you get older, life shrinks, responsibilities pile up, and you get trapped in the consequences of the decisions youve made. Thats a hard thing to wrestle with.
</p>
<h4 id="cdnEZm">
Kieran Setiya
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FAB24q">
I think thats exactly right. Part of whats philosophically puzzling about this is that its not news. Whatever your sense of options was when you were 20, you knew you werent going to get to do all of those things. What this suggests is that theres a profound difference between knowing that things might go a certain way, well or badly, and knowing in concrete detail how they went well or badly.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sCzeVZ">
Part of the sense of missing out has to do with what philosophers call “incommensurable values.” The idea that if youre choosing between $50 and $100, you take the $100 and you dont have a moments regret. But if youre choosing between going to a concert or staying home and spending time with your kid, either way youre going to miss out on something that is irreplaceable. One of the things we experience in midlife is all the kinds of lives we dont get to live that are different from our life, and theres no real compensation for that, and that can be very painful.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SsXrT1">
On the other hand, I think its useful to see the flip side. The only way you could avoid that kind of missing out is if the world was suddenly totally impoverished of variety. Or you were so monomaniacal, you just didnt care about anything but money, for instance. And you dont really want that.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W5WHns">
Theres a way in which the sense that theres so much in the world well never be able to experience is a manifestation of something we really shouldnt regret, and in fact should cherish, namely the evaluative richness of the world, the diversity of good things. And theres a consolation in that.
</p>
<h4 id="0uLO4E">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x7buAN">
One of the arguments you make is how easily we can delude ourselves when we start pining for the roads not traveled. “What if I really went for it? What if I tried to become a novelist, or a musician, or what if I joined that commune?” Or whatever life fantasy you had when you were younger.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Yuo7Wd">
But if you take that seriously and consider what it really means, you might not like it, because the things you might value the most in your life now, like your children, they dont exist if you had zigged instead of zagging 15 or 20 years ago. Thats what it means to have lived that alternative life.
</p>
<h4 id="s04FRq">
Kieran Setiya
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gmdwct">
Philosophy can lead us toward this kind of unhelpful abstraction, but it can also tell us whats going wrong with it. The thought, “I could have had a better life, things could have gone better for me”: Its almost always tempting and true, but when you think through what it would mean in concrete terms — what would have happened if your failed marriage had not happened?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D27rwE">
Often the answer is that you would never have had your kid, or wouldnt have met these people. And you might think, “Yeah, but I would have had some other unspecifiable friends who would have been great, and some other unspecifiable kid who would have been great.” But I think we rightly dont evaluate our lives just in terms of those kinds of abstract possibilities, but in terms of attachments to particulars.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="m8LgGc">
So if you just ask yourself, “Could my life have been better?” youre throwing away one of the basic sources of consolation, a rational consolation, which is attachment to the particularity of the good things in your own life, even if you acknowledge that theyre not perfect and that there are other things that could have been better.
</p>
<h4 id="KSlX6n">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oXHWeE">
I will say, though, that when real pain strikes, its not always easy to find relief in abstract arguments. Two of the hardest moments of my adult life were the sudden loss of my mother a few years ago and the unexpected loss of a baby last year.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A6VTpV">
Like a lot of people, I did that thing where I felt victimized, like the worlds conspiring against me. But then you go through the anger of all that and realize that youre not uniquely unlucky, that this happens to people every day. Pain and loss are part of life, as central to life as anything else, and good philosophy, whether its in academic books or novels or films, can help remind us of that, and I guess it helped me in that way.
</p>
<h4 id="Th2VOu">
Kieran Setiya
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3s8i7U">
Im sorry to hear about both of those losses. I think what philosophy has to do is what human beings have to do when faced with those kinds of difficulties, which is not switch too rapidly into what I call assurance advice mode, which is saying, “Its all going to be fine. Or heres what you do.” Those are things we do in personal interaction, but theyre also versions of philosophical approaches to the difficulties of life.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LjPmJy">
Theres the kind of theodicy where philosophers argue that all is for the best. Theyve got some proof that although this seems bad, its going to work out well. Or they have some theory where they say, “My philosophical principle is this, Ill just apply it to your situation.” And those are rarely good philosophical tactics for dealing with the kind of difficulties youre describing, for reasons that are not unrelated to the fact that theyre rarely good interpersonal ways of approaching difficulty.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="misFOq">
The starting point is sitting with difficulty, acknowledging it, trying to take in whats really happening, really describing the particularity of it. Its connected with a kind of philosophical methodology that I have come to embrace. And its a shift from thinking, “Well, philosophy is going to be about coming up with really cool arguments to prove you should think this or that,” to thinking, “Theres a real continuity between the literary and human description of phenomena like grief and philosophical reflection.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jJCHdc">
Because often what philosophical reflection provides is less a proof that you should live this way and more concepts with which to articulate your experience and then structure and guide how you relate to reality. And seen that way, we can understand how philosophy can operate as self-help.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Tfejcd">
<em>To hear the rest of the conversation, </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/life-is-hard-can-philosophy-help/id1081584611?i=1000651758938"><em>click here</em></a><em>, and be sure to follow </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/thegrayarea">The Gray Area</a><em> on </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611"><em>Apple Podcasts</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP"><em>Spotify</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://www.pandora.com/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/PC:30793"><em>Pandora</em></a><em>, or wherever you listen to podcasts. </em>
</p></li>
<li><strong>Dont sneer at white rural voters — or delude yourself about their politics</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Several pro-Trump yard signs are displayed in the grass, printed with slogans like “Gun Owners 4 Trump,” “Defend Our Liberty,” and “Stop Election Fraud.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ckdoP7hkc_57mRXRe1WP4b-Y87M=/167x0:2834x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73276104/1541870515.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Signs supporting former President Donald Trump are displayed at a Second Amendment rally in Ionia, Michigan, on July 19, 2023. | Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
What the debate over “white rural rage”<em> </em>misses.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E3joQR">
White rural Americans <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/-white-rural-rage-looks-at-the-most-likely-group-to-abandon-democratic-norms-204922949864">are</a> a “racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-gay” authoritarian fifth column that poses an existential threat to our republic.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9BHn9Z">
Unless they are actually a downtrodden people who rightly resent the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/white-rural-rage-criticism/677967/">condescension of liberal elites</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/05/white-rural-rage-myth-00150395">wish for little more</a> than “to preserve a sense of agency over their future and a continuity of their communitys values and social structures.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lbLhap">
These are the twin poles of blue Americas current debate over why rural white folks vote the way they do.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1M0SUC">
This argument is as old as the urban-rural divide itself. But the latest round was triggered by <em>White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy</em>, a bestselling book from the political scientist Tom Schaller and journalist Paul Waldman.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mtLC1z">
Schaller and Waldman argue that rural white voters are exceptionally reactionary, racist, and anti-democratic. In their telling, these retrograde impulses turn this group into easy prey for a Republican Party that shutters rural hospitals, denies workers health insurance, erodes labor rights — and then says, in so many words,<em> </em>let them eat hate<em>.</em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xvVWfD">
Many commentators and political scientists have taken exception to this argument. The Atlantics Tyler Austin Harper<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/white-rural-rage-criticism/677967/"> argues</a> that <em>White Rural Rage</em> “illustrates how willing many members of the U.S. media and the public are to believe, and ultimately launder, abusive accusations against an economically disadvantaged group of people that would provoke sympathy if its members had different skin color and voting habits.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nr82TR">
In his account, the real threat to American democracy “is not white rural rage, but white <em>urban and suburban</em> rage” — a fact that would be plain to Waldman and Schaller, Harper says, if theyd only paid more careful attention to the studies their book cites.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p2lVNG">
Colby College political scientist Nicholas Jacobs, meanwhile, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/05/white-rural-rage-myth-00150395">insists</a> that <em>White Rural Rage</em>s “simplistic” and inaccurate thesis amounts to little more than “an outpouring of frustration with rural America that might feel cathartic for liberals, but will only serve to further marginalize and demonize a segment of the American population that already feels forgotten and dismissed by the experts and elites.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gtlxbS">
In my view, this debate has gotten a bit muddled, with each side dancing around inconvenient facts. The argument between <em>White Rural Rages </em>champions and its critics would generate more light (and perhaps less heat) if all involved grappled with five important truths:
</p>
<h3 id="XO4hQy">
<ol type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Rural white people are more supportive of right-wing authoritarianism than are urban or suburban ones
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DrXm02">
Harpers central claim — that rural white people actually pose less of a threat to American democracy than urban and suburban ones — rests on faulty reasoning.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5PJ1U8">
His case can be boiled down into three points:
</p>
<ul>
<li id="PTKRzs">
A 2021 paper in<a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-rise-of-political-violence-in-the-united-states/"> <em>Journal of Democracy</em></a> found that “political violence” in the US “has been greatest in suburbs where Asian American and Hispanic American immigration has been growing fastest.”
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uzQtYO">
Several high-profile right-wing extremists, including the “pizzagate” gunman, came from areas that arent rural, at least by certain definitions of that term.
</li>
<li id="sHbS3k">
The vast majority of Americans who believe that the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election">2020 election</a> was stolen — and that Trump would therefore be justified in reclaiming the presidency by force — <a href="https://d3qi0qp55mx5f5.cloudfront.net/cpost/i/docs/Pape_AmericanInsurrectionistMovement_2022-01-02.pdf?mtime=1641247264">live in urban areas</a>.
</li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SNjf4X">
These facts establish that white rural Americans are not uniquely right-wing or authoritarian; supporters of Trump and the January 6 Capitol riot can be found in nearly every category of municipality. Harper is right to object to the singling out of white rural voters writ large, when the problem is illiberal reactionaries in every part of the country.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="reeem4">
Nonetheless, his evidence doesnt contradict the premise that rural white people are unusually supportive of <a href="https://www.vox.com/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a> and January 6.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1tzBVr">
This is a fatal problem for his argument, since Trump is the fundamental threat to American democracy today. All political violence is lamentable, but individual militants cannot undermine the independence of federal law enforcement, the integrity of the electoral process, or the peaceful transfer of power; an insurrectionary president plausibly can.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UWc4UY">
And there is no question that white voters from low-density areas support Trump by much larger margins than their counterparts in high-density places.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TciEID">
In the 2020 election, rural white voters backed Trump over Biden by 42 points, while suburban white voters favored him by just 7, according to the Democratic data firm <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/ka9n5gzxwotfu1a/wh2020_public_release_crosstabs.xlsx?dl=0">Catalist.</a> Urban white voters, meanwhile, supported Biden over Trump by a 32-point margin.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QgEbmU">
If rural white Americans voted the same way that suburban white Americans do, then Trump would never have been elected president and his brand of authoritarianism would not be competitive in national elections. If all white Americans voted like those who live in cities, meanwhile, then Trumps party would have negligible influence over the federal government.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QNxjLM">
Whats more, Harper acknowledges that rural white Americans are “overrepresented” among those who support restoring Trump to power by force.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uvjuGu">
Given these facts, its silly to argue that urban and suburban white people are doing more to imperil American democracy than their rural counterparts. Harpers only real counter is that more supporters of January 6 live in cities than in rural areas. But this is a trivial point: Roughly 80 percent of Americans live in non-rural areas. Name any ideological group under the sun and youre almost certain to find that a majority of that group lives in high-population municipalities, rather than in places that, by definition, have few people.
</p>
<h3 id="luo75N">
<ol start="2" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Millions of rural white Americans support the Democratic Party
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AJLgUc">
All this said, rural white voters are not a monolith. In fact, such voters were an indispensable part of Bidens 2020 coalition.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C4ZKwV">
Yes, the president won only 28 percent of that voting bloc, but that adds up to more than 9 million votes. In 2020, Biden won nationally by roughly 7 million ballots and took many swing states by tiny margins. Subtract all rural white Democrats from Bidens column and Trump almost certainly would have won reelection.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LPFc9K">
Waldman and Schallers rhetoric does a disservice to this small but significant segment of the public, which has held the line against Trumpism in places where doing so entails significant social penalties and risks.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SFxwEV">
More importantly — as Harper and Jacobs emphasize — demonizing white rural voters is a luxury that urban liberals can scarcely afford. Yes, the median white voter in rural America is never going to support Biden. But rural white swing voters exist. And in a close election, even a small reduction or increase in Bidens share of that bloc could prove decisive.
</p>
<h3 id="I6KmKX">
<ol start="3" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Rural white Republicans are not New Deal Democrats who got confused
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5ADry1">
Liberals and leftists have long debated the root causes of rural Americas support for the Republican Party. Some<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/080507774X"> point</a> to the fact that rural white Americans supported the New Deal and conclude that many in the demographic would back Democrats again today if only the party offered more ambitious economic reforms. Others argue that rural white people are simply too racist to support a minimally progressive political party.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZRsKGu">
By my lights, it is unwise to base your theory of American political behavior in 2024 on voting patterns in 1932. A lot has happened in the last 92 years. When FDR was first elected,
</p>
<ul>
<li id="Hfu046">
<a href="https://www.iowadatacenter.org/datatables/UnitedStates/urusstpop19002000.pdf">43 percent of Americans</a> lived in rural areas
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HK3soa">
the entire South was controlled by a white supremacist faction that was briefly, improbably tethered to a coalition with northern liberals
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7A420m">
the unemployment rate was stuck above 20 percent
</li>
<li id="CqyD8m">
personal income per capita in the US was <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/sep/07/isabel-brown/are-americans-today-making-less-than-at-the-height/">roughly one-seventh</a> as high as it is today
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vCee0N">
the sexual revolution had not yet occurred
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rp7Ig6">
conservative mass media barely existed, and
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mowUmJ">
there was, more or less, no federal welfare state.
</li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OQkbR9">
There is no reason in principle to assume that rural voters political priorities and inclinations have not changed along with their country.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="agERhh">
As Schaller and Waldman demonstrate, the argument that many rural white people are motivated by<a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/04/06/top-democrats-are-wrong-trump-supporters-were-more-motivated-by-racism-than-economic-issues/"> racial resentments</a> is significantly more robust.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3rS31K">
But, as Nicholas Jacobs suggests, it is almost certainly true that not all white rural Republicans are motivated by racism. Yet Jacobss essay for Politico dances around the other primary explanation for rural white support for Trump: They simply have many conservative beliefs and policy preferences.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GXndcD">
After all, rural voters are <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/02/the-urban-rural-culture-war-has-gone-global.html">more conservative than urban ones</a> in virtually every developed country, including those where race plays a smaller role in politics than it does in America.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KEQTZF">
You dont need to be racist to believe a fetus is a person. And rural Americans are <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/what-unites-and-divides-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/">disproportionately supportive</a> of <a href="https://www.vox.com/abortion">abortion</a> restrictions, which likely influences their partisan preferences. Many rural areas also depend<a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/quitting-fossil-fuels-and-reviving-rural-america/"> on extractive, carbon-intensive industries</a> for economic growth. Likely as a result, rural Americans<a href="https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Rural-Attitudes-on-Climate-Change-Midwest_1.pdf"> are less supportive</a> of climate action than urban or suburban ones, even when controlling for partisanship and demographics.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XSMLmw">
Jacobs suggests that rural Americans opposition to liberal immigration policies is rooted less in racism than a desire to preserve their sense of “place.” This premise is debatable, at best. Yet Jacobs doesnt merely wish to argue that rural Americans desire for community preservation has little to do with racism but also that it has little to do with conservatism:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s0rntR">
Taken as a whole, rural voters are not merely reacting against change — be it demographic or economic. They are actively seeking to preserve a sense of agency over their future and a continuity of their communitys values and social structures. Some might call this conservatism, but I think it is the same thing motivating fears of gentrification in urban areas, or the desire to “keep Portland weird.”
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ust20X">
It is true that rural Americans arent the only ones who try to protect their communities from outsiders and cultural change. Urban and suburban liberals do this through housing policies that make their municipalities less affordable for newcomers, while rural conservatives do it by supporting anti-immigration politicians. In both cases, the political impulse driving voter behavior is a conservative one: Prizing stasis over change and insiders over outsiders is, more or less, the antithesis of progressivism, properly understood.
</p>
<h3 id="S6EJsS">
<ol start="4" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">The economic challenges facing many rural areas are inherently difficult to solve.<strong> </strong></li>
</ol></h3></li>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6tbKfB">
Both sides in the <em>White Rural Rage</em> debate agree that Democrats have done more to help rural America materially than Republicans have. In addition to saving many rural hospitals with Medicaid expansion, Democrats have also directed a disproportionate share of<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/23/red-states-are-winning-big-from-dems-climate-law-00078420"> federal job creation dollars</a> toward low-density areas.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lFQO3u">
But Jacobs emphasizes that these are inadequate to address rural areas problems. Such communities often suffer from limited employment opportunities, fiscal shortfalls, and teacher shortages — all of which are partly a function of falling populations.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fGX4f3">
Yet the causes of rural Americas depopulation are structural. High-population areas inherently offer greater opportunities for workers to specialize and complement each others labor. This translates into higher productivity, which generally translates into higher wages. It would take an enormous amount of social engineering to stop ambitious young people born into declining rural areas from migrating to cities and suburbs. Making rural life sufficiently appealing to retain around 20 percent of the US population already requires massive subsidization of inefficient rural infrastructure and health care systems.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZZHKyX">
Given that rural ways of life are also<a href="https://climateadaptationplatform.com/who-has-the-bigger-carbon-footprint-rural-or-urban-dwellers/"> more carbon intensive</a> than high-density living, attempting to engineer an increase in the rural population through <a href="https://www.vox.com/social-policy">social policy</a> seems ill-advised. Meanwhile, many important policy initiatives — such as<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/04/yimbys-housing-crisis-austin-public-developers.html"> increasing housing abundance</a> in thriving metro centers — would likely have the side effect of accelerating rural depopulation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kkLPhK">
One measure that plausibly could<a href="https://www.fwd.us/news/rural-decline/"> arrest the decline</a> of many economically depressed rural communities would be place-based immigration policies, which offer visas to immigrants willing to work in low-density areas. But this is the exact opposite of what rural white voters are demanding from their representatives.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oprXAb">
There is a lot more that Democrats can do to help working-class people writ large. But the party lacks a great, politically viable answer for reviving shrinking rural communities because there isnt one.
</p>
<h3 id="K92zhI">
<ol start="5" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Most people inherit the politics of their families and communities
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WAMaje">
Finally, however one interprets the politics of white rural America, I think its a mistake to treat ordinary Trump voters with contempt or as bad human beings by definition. (I dont think Waldman and Schaller necessarily do this, but some on their side of the argument do.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TC0GsQ">
In <a href="https://www.salon.com/2024/03/05/-the-media-should-stop-treating-rural-people-like-children/">Salon</a>, Amanda Marcotte applauds <em>White Rural Rage</em> for treating its subjects as “functioning adults who have agency” and not “the childlike ciphers of Fox News.” This is an understandable sentiment. Marcotte is herself a product of white rural America who rejected the reactionary politics of her parents. Her impatience with apologias for Trump supporters in “the Heartland” — which often attribute their lamentable voting behavior to everything but their own failures of good citizenship — is well-founded.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Zz8iDE">
At the same time, Marcotte is an exception from the general rule: Most voters inherit the politics of the families and communities they were born into. According to a<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/10/most-us-parents-pass-along-their-religion-and-politics-to-their-children/"> 2023 Pew survey</a>, more than 80 percent of American teens support the same political party as their parents.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VG80MK">
I believe that my politics are more moral than those of a Trump voter, but I dont think that says much about my moral character. I was born to liberal parents in a left-leaning suburb of a blue state. If Id grown up in a rural town where everyone I knew and loved believed that Democrats were the Godless servants of corrupt elites and shiftless poor people, then Id probably have voted for Trump; the data admits no other conclusion.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d0DG5B">
Awareness of how thoroughly accidents of birth and experience shape our selves and life outcomes should make us more supportive of income redistribution and more opposed to<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/09/radically-reform-prisons-and-policing-dont-abolish-them.html"> retributive criminal justice policies.</a> But it should also make us a bit more patient with Trump voters.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Iio7M1">
This does not mean that liberals shouldnt harshly criticize reactionary beliefs or candidates. But we should hate the vote, not the voter. Rage is rarely the most politically productive emotion — whether its of the “white rural” or urban liberal variety.
</p>
<li><strong>You probably shouldnt panic about measles — yet</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A hand wearing a surgical glove holds a vaccine vial that says “Measles Mumps Rubella Vaccine.” A syringe is visible in the background." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ieenMLqNy8vpuyAwtGGHv4C5MgU=/288x0:4640x3264/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73204793/GettyImages_1126559052.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Disease surveillance has so far kept the infection at bay in the US, but the CDC has renewed concerns.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pOwCri">
On April 11, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7314a1.htm?s_cid=mm7314a1_w">report</a> containing new information about this years spate of measles cases. As of April 11, 121 measles cases have been <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html">identified so far</a> in the US this year across 18 jurisdictions.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DwkQF6">
That number should shock you: In a typical year, the US has only around 5 cases in the first quarter. The total for 2024 so far is more than twice the number of cases the country saw in the entirety of 2023, when 58 cases were reported over the full calendar year.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yxCARO">
The authors of the latest report credited the United States effective measles monitoring system as a critical factor in enabling public health officials to catch and contain measles cases when theyve popped up — at least, so far.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VYWMrh">
According to the report, the increase has been so explosive that it threatens to flip the US from being a country where measles is considered eliminated (no longer spread locally) to being one where measles is considered endemic (something that infects people on a regular basis).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4BRBdD">
Its been nearly 25 years since measles was officially eliminated in the US. But the declaration didnt mean measles could never come back: <a href="https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/75/3/416/6443449">Under certain conditions</a> — lots of cases imported from abroad, not enough people vaccinated against the infection, and not enough tools to fight back — measles could re-entrench itself stateside.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="S3yfmf">
Thats why <a href="https://www.vox.com/public-health">public health</a> authorities monitor measles cases and vaccination rates against the infection so closely. And why, when cases rise while vaccination rates drop, they fret.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sDMG2T">
<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/parents-top4.html">Measles</a> is a viral infection that causes fever, rash, and cough, which can be complicated by severe, life-threatening infections of the ears, lungs, and brain. Its particularly likely to cause severe disease in children under 5 years old and in immunocompromised people. To make matters worse, its one of the most contagious diseases out there: Infectious particles can hang out in the air or on surfaces for <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles#:~:text=Transmission,for%20up%20to%20two%20hours.">hours</a>, and, on average, each infected person infects another <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28757186/#:~:text=For%20measles%2C%20R0%20is,determinants%20of%20measles%20R0.">12 to 18 people</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ihltwg">
When measles turns up in the US, its because it was brought to the country from the outside — more often than not, by <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6788396/">US residents</a> returning from travel abroad. Theres a lot of measles in the world; in 2022, the infection caused more than 9 million cases and killed more than <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2813426#:~:text=Yet%2C%20in%202022%2C%20more%20than,World%20Health%20Organization%20(WHO).">136,000 people</a> globally, most of them children. Although countries in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia currently top the list of <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/measles/data/global-measles-outbreaks.html">measles cases globally</a>, there have also been multiple outbreaks in <a href="https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/measles-eu-threat-assessment-brief-february-2024.pdf">Western Europe</a> over the past year.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6l5lCk">
Theres a highly effective vaccine to prevent measles — but to protect the youngest babies and immunocompromised people in any population, everyone around them needs to have been vaccinated. In the US, pockets of low measles vaccination are a serious concern: <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7314a1.htm?s_cid=mm7314a1_w">91 percent</a> of patients infected in the US between 2020 and late March 2024 were unvaccinated or of unknown vaccination status. Key strategies for preventing a measles conflagration here include giving unvaccinated people MMR shots (so called because they protect against measles, mumps, and rubella) before they travel and rapidly investigating suspected measles cases, said the report.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PrQqUT">
For now, people can do something about the current US measles situation if they know how and understand the stakes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QubwpY">
Heres what you need to know.
</p>
<h3 id="b6tLyL">
<ol type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Whos at highest risk from a measles infection, and what does an infection look like?
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Xe3wQU">
Unvaccinated children and immunocompromised people — especially those receiving certain <a href="https://www.astctjournal.org/article/S1083-8791(19)30506-3/pdf">cancer treatments</a> — face the highest risk when measles is in circulation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lpEeGh">
“Even an uncomplicated case of measles is really awful,” said Sarah Lim, an <a href="https://www.vox.com/infectious-disease">infectious disease</a> doctor and medical specialist at the Minnesota Department of Health, during a press conference on March 12. Measles infections are so often severe that about <a href="https://www.nfid.org/infectious-disease/measles/#:~:text=Measles%20can%20be%20serious%3A,children%20with%20measles%20gets%20pneumonia">one in five</a> unvaccinated people who get infected are hospitalized, and between <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/measles/symptoms/complications.html">one and three</a> of every 1,000 measles infections end in death.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wZRWUv">
In its early stages, measles infection can cause a range of symptoms, including high fevers, cough, runny nose, red eyes, and full-body rash. About <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/meas.html#:~:text=Approximately%2030%25%20of%20measles%20cases,subacute%20sclerosing%20panencephalitis%2C%20and%20death.">one-third</a> of infected kids experience complications, which can include severe diarrhea, ear infections, and pneumonia. Brain infection that can lead to brain damage and epilepsy, called encephalitis, occurs in about <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6788396/">one of every 1,000</a> kids who get infected with measles.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="58vr5N">
Measles can also do something else that few other infections are known to do: It can <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/11/1/20943217/measles-outbreak-2019-vaccine">wipe out kids immune memory</a>, leaving them unprotected from other bacterial and viral pathogens. That effect, and the increased susceptibility to other infections that comes with it, can last for years after infection.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8WJY6P">
Travel to parts of the world where measles circulates widely increases the risk of infection. That makes it important to ensure you and your family are protected from measles — in addition to <a href="https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/travel-vaccines">all the other things</a> — prior to travel.
</p>
<h3 id="vSDiSf">
<ol start="2" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">How is this years measles outbreak in the US different from past outbreaks?
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yqoVoo">
The biggest number of measles cases the US has seen over the past 25 years was in <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6817e1.htm">2019</a>, when nearly 1,300 infections were reported over the course of the year. Nine out of every 10 of these cases occurred among unvaccinated people living in close-knit communities. A single outbreak in an Orthodox Jewish community in New York involved <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1912514">649 cases</a>; another outbreak involving 71 cases occurred in a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/3/19/18263688/measles-outbreak-2019-clark-county">Washington state</a> community of recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="afl9Z0">
Whats different so far about this years US measles cases is that theyre occurring in “lots of little sparks across the nation,” as epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina put it in a March edition of her <a href="https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affairs-march-12">newsletter</a>. “The more embers, the more likely it is that they find unvaccinated pockets and spread like wildfire,” she wrote.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pmUrvO">
The CDCs April 11 report noted that over the past four years, the typical US measles case has been younger than in previous years — 3 years old compared to <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6817e1.htm">5 years old</a> in the first four months of 2019, the year of that last big outbreak. The report also noted <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7314a1.htm?s_cid=mm7314a1_w">63 percent</a> of index cases — that is, cases imported from measles-endemic countries — had occurred in US residents returning from travel abroad. Thats fewer than in early 2019, when 77 percent of imported cases were in residents.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iTQ8TH">
This years uptick is<strong> </strong>happening at a time when a relatively large proportion of kids are going unvaccinated against measles. In a November 2023 publication, CDC scientists reported that roughly <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7245a2.htm">7 percent</a> of kindergarteners were vaccinated against measles during the 20222023 school year. At the same time, vaccine exemptions reached an all-time high, exceeding 5 percent of kids in 10 states.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CIV3wb">
To make matters worse, according to recent <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-11/parents-delaying-kids-vaccines-posing-risk-to-toddlers">reporting</a> in the LA Times, a lot of parents are choosing to delay measles vaccination in their infants, which increases vulnerability to the most severe effects of measles in a group thats already at the highest risk of complications.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GflYpX">
The World Health Organization (WHO) <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/23-11-2022-nearly-40-million-children-are-dangerously-susceptible-to-growing-measles-threat">cautions</a> that the risk of a measles outbreak increases dramatically if more than 5 percent of people in a community arent vaccinated, which makes these numbers pretty concerning. Whats even more alarming is that they are averages: In some states, as many as <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/measles-outbreaks-schools-vaccination-rates-decline/">22 percent</a> of people are unvaccinated, and that number is likely much higher in some smaller geographic pockets.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AobEG3">
“Thats where youre really talking about throwing a match [into a pile of kindling] and having a large fire,” said Jane Zucker, an infectious disease doctor and epidemiologist who retired in 2023 after 30 years in public health, including more than 20 with the New York City health departments Bureau of Immunization, when I spoke with her in March. “Thats what youre really most anxious about.”
</p>
<h3 id="WbFxbt">
<ol start="3" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Who should get vaccinated, revaccinated, or tested for immunity?
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="psMnsM">
Theres no medicine to treat measles infection once its taken hold, which makes prevention the main strategy for avoiding the virus worst effects.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4KPCCZ">
The best news about measles — and the reason most of us have no idea what it looks like — is that the MMR vaccine that prevents it is extremely effective and safe.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BhaWaM">
That vaccine is what experts call a “<a href="https://www.hhs.gov/immunization/basics/types/index.html#:~:text=Rabies-,Live%2Dattenuated%20vaccines,and%20long%2Dlasting%20immune%20response.">live-attenuated</a>” vaccine. That means its made using a weakened version of the measles virus that cant actually cause the disease. Because they so closely replicate the actual virus, these kinds of vaccines induce the strongest and longest-lasting response of any type of vaccine — including Covid-19 vaccines. MMR vaccines are <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html">97 percent effective</a> at preventing symptomatic measles infections.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="o1rVuw">
These vaccines can even protect people <em>after </em>theyre exposed to measles if theyre given within 72 hours of exposure, and theyre <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaccines/mmr-vaccine.html">extraordinarily safe</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OOvuNL">
Who should get vaccinated against measles? Babies (lifelong immunity comes after two shots, the first at 12 months old and the second at 4 to 6 years of age) and almost everyone else who doesnt have proof that theyve been vaccinated before should get vaccinated, according to the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html">CDC</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A557PQ">
Thats especially true if those people without vaccination proof work in health care or are about to travel to places where theres lots of measles in circulation — which these days includes Europe, Zucker said. Babies 6 to 12 months should also get an MMR shot if theyre going to be traveling; because their immune systems arent mature enough at that age for the vaccine to “take,” theyll still need another two-shot series after their first birthday.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UT8AX1">
Many adults whove already been vaccinated wont ever need another measles vaccine. Thats because all the versions of measles vaccines in use since 1968 have been strong enough to give lifelong protection against infection. So long as youre certain youve had two vaccines in the years since then — that is, its documented somewhere in your medical record that you got them — you dont need a repeat. The exception is for adults who only got vaccinated between 1963 and 1967: Because the version used during those years was too weak to give lifelong immunity, theyre not considered protected unless theyve gotten at least one dose of a newer version of the vaccine.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zBJyYm">
Another group that doesnt need to worry about vaccination is most adults over 65. Measles was so common before the vaccine was available that experts assume people born in those years were exposed and are immune. So if you were born before 1957, you dont need a vaccine unless youre in a high-risk situation — for example, you work in health care or youre about to travel to a place where theres a lot of measles in circulation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="F95ddU">
There are some people who should wait to get an MMR vaccine if theyre unvaccinated or if their vaccine history isnt clear. Live vaccines like this one are typically not recommended for people with weakened immune systems, which include pregnant folks and some immunocompromised people. Some other conditions make it sensible to hold off on vaccination — have a look at the answers to “Who Should Not Get MMR Vaccine?” <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html">on the CDC website</a> and talk to a health care provider if youre not sure what to do.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pJjycf">
A blood test called a measles serology can measure the level of measles antibodies in a persons blood. If the level is high, its safe to assume that person is immune to measles, as a result of either vaccination or past infection. But low scores on these tests may not be very meaningful, said Zucker: Many people with low levels of measles antibodies actually have measles protection due to prior vaccination, making it a bad test for determining whether immunizations documented a long time ago are still providing protection. For that reason, the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/measles/lab-tools/serology.html#:~:text=Serologic%20testing%20for%20measles%20in%20low%20prevalence%20setting,-Ongoing%20measles%20activity&amp;text=Detection%20of%20specific%20IgM%20antibodies,or%20recent%20measles%20virus%20infection.">CDC says</a> a history of vaccination supersedes a serology result when it comes to determining whether a person is protected from measles.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="urHVFC">
Health experts sometimes administer these tests in outbreak settings and during pregnancy, but the results are typically used in ways specific to those scenarios. So you dont need a serology to prove youre vaccinated if the shots are documented in your medical record — and in any case, its harmless to get a repeat vaccination even if youve been vaccinated before. “If you dont know if youre immune,” said Zucker, “its easier to just get yourself vaccinated.”
</p>
<h3 id="lmyJdG">
<ol start="4" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">How bad is this outbreak likely to get?
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3U9Yz2">
Where US measles cases go is really up to us.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J8YfgI">
Theres hope for controlling measles damage in the US if more parents opt to vaccinate their babies as soon as theyre eligible, if they keep unvaccinated kids home from school, and if they vaccinate their unvaccinated children as soon as they hear about a potential exposure.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Vxmbxf">
Itll also help if public health authorities have adequate support and staffing to educate the public about measles, provide and document vaccination — as with <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/iis/index.html">immunization registries</a> — and intervene when outbreaks happen.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Sv7IDs">
However, last years national debt ceiling deal resulted in <a href="https://www.gpb.org/news/2023/07/06/cdc-reduce-funding-for-states-child-vaccination-programs">cuts to states child vaccination programs</a>. Furthermore, the wild nonsense on vaccines that <a href="https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/vaccine-misinformation-outpaces-efforts-counter-it">pervades social media</a> — and, occasionally, official messaging, as in the case of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/23/well/family/florida-measles-outbreak-joseph-ladapo.html?unlocked_article_code=1.cU0.YcRd.P45F3u6Lg7Fr&amp;smid=url-share">Floridas surgeon general</a> — makes it challenging for many parents to disentangle the common-sense guidance from the crap.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RR67J1">
Joshua Barocas, an infectious disease doctor at the University of Colorado, said during the March 12 press conference that pushing back against measles is a team effort and that removing shame from the equation is key. “Parents are flooded with tons of information, some of that [being] misinformation — and so if you are a parent whos been on the fence, now is the time to catch up on your kids delayed vaccines,” he said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="P0XDXJ">
“I would also encourage health care workers to welcome people with open, nonjudgmental arms,” Barocas said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gP7haL">
<em><strong>Correction, March 15, 11:35 am ET: </strong></em><em>A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the number of years Jane Zucker worked for the New York City health departments Bureau of Immunization. </em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s5iyM5">
<em><strong>Update, April 12, 1:40 pm ET: </strong></em><em>This story was originally published on March 13 and has been updated multiple times, most recently to include information from a new CDC report.</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>IPL-17: MI vs CSK | Dhoni in spotlight as Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians resume rivalry in new era</strong> - Dhoni returns to the hallowed turf of Wankhede for the first time ever as a non-captain of the CSK, potentially in his last IPL season.</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-17: KKR vs LSG | Kolkata Knight Riders seek home comfort against Lucknow Super Giants</strong> - In the points tally, nothing separates the two teams, both of whom have secured three wins each, and lost their respective last-round matches.</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>Watch | All about the Kodava family hockey festival</strong> - The festival in Coorg, now in its 24th edition, has been uniting families in the region</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>Manika Batra-Sathiyan fail to bag Paris Olympics 2024 quota</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A lot of guys with out-and-out raw pace dont have control, Mayank Yadav looks to have both: Tim Southee</strong> - Southee is one of modern crickets most successful seam-and-swing bowlers, with more than 750 international wickets. In this conversation, he talks about Indias latest 150 kmph quick, the state of Test cricket, what leading New Zealand is like, and the best players he has watched and faced</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>Certain about winning 26 of 32 assembly seats: Sikkim CM Tamang</strong> - Mr. Tamang said he made nine promises in the manifesto</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>Lok Sabha polls | Elect Murugan, gain economic progress: Nirmala Sitharaman to Nilgiris electorate</strong> - The Union Finance Minister slammed the DMK for treating women in politics with disdain; she told women SHGs and MGNREGA workers that the BJP government had devised schemes for the comprehensive progress of families</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>Lok Sabha polls | DMK and AIADMK are working together in Theni to defeat T.T.V. Dhinakaran: Annamalai</strong> - The T.N. BJP president, in his campaign, alleged that the DMK would go to any lengths, including the use of crores of rupees, to try and defeat Mr. Dhinakaran; he also slammed the AIADMK, accusing it of having pledged the party to contractors and illegal miners</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>AAP most dishonest party, Congress fighting for abki baar, 40 paar: Anurag Thakur</strong> - Congress leaders are leaving in droves for the BJP due to the spectacular performance of the BJP-led NDA government for the past ten years, he said in Madhya Pradeshs Pandhurna district, part of Chhindwara seat</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>I have not started revengeful politics yet; Revanth says brushing aside his perceived personal rivalry with KCR</strong> - Rahul Gandhi, Kharge and K.C. Venugopal from South can become the PM</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>Ukraine could face defeat in 2024. Heres how that might look</strong> - With ammo critically low and Western aid stalled, what might Russia attempt in Ukraine this year?</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>BBC Russian journalist branded foreign agent</strong> - A leading science journalist - Asya Kazantseva - also gets the label used to silence Kremlin critics.</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>Russia floods leave houses almost submerged</strong> - Water levels in Orenburg are 2m above critical levels, as the mayor urges mass evacuations.</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>Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli dies</strong> - The designer, famed for his animal prints on leather and textiles, died at home in Florence.</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>Russian troops arrive in Niger as agreement begins</strong> - The West African country is increasingly turning to Moscow for support after breaking ties with the West.</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>How new tech is making geothermal energy a more versatile power source</strong> - Geothermal has moved beyond being confined to areas with volcanic activity. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2017050">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>US drug shortages reach record high with 323 meds now in short supply</strong> - The shortages affect everything from generic cancer drugs to ADHD medication. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2017093">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SD cards finally expected to hit 4TB in 2025</strong> - For media pros cameras and laptops. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2016986">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>“Highly capable” hackers root corporate networks by exploiting firewall 0-day</strong> - No patch yet for unauthenticated code-execution bug in Palo Alto Networks firewall. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2017043">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Words are flowing out like endless rain: Recapping a busy week of LLM news</strong> - Gemini 1.5 Pro launch, new version of GPT-4 Turbo, new Mistral model, and more. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2016005">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Wife walks up to her Husband and asks “Do I look Fat in this dress??”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Husband: “Before I say anything,,, you gotta promise, no matter WHAT I say…. You wont get mad..”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Wife: “Ok.. I promise.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Husband: “I fucked your sister.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Justtakeitaway"> /u/Justtakeitaway </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2jpn8/wife_walks_up_to_her_husband_and_asks_do_i_look/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2jpn8/wife_walks_up_to_her_husband_and_asks_do_i_look/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>An army sergeant walks into a drugstore and places a ragged condom on the counter.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“How much to repair this?”, he asks.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The pharmacist looks over the condom, saying “Its ripped in a couple of places, and there are several holes in it, but its repairable. But honestly, Id just replace it with a new one”.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The sergeant said hed have to go away and think it over.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Later that day he returned. “After much discussion”, he said to the pharmacist, “The regiment has decided to invest in a new one!”.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/JaggedLittlePill2022"> /u/JaggedLittlePill2022 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2r707/an_army_sergeant_walks_into_a_drugstore_and/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2r707/an_army_sergeant_walks_into_a_drugstore_and/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A plane is about to plummet due to mechanical failure.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The pilot tells the crew and passengers: “I dont think I can recover the ship, you have a few seconds to talk to your family or make your last wish”, then a woman stands up and shouts “Is there someone man enough to make me feel like a woman one last time?!”, upon hearing that a man jumps out of his seat and like an animal tears off his shirt, then says: “Here, iron this!”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Kanenaz"> /u/Kanenaz </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2ob06/a_plane_is_about_to_plummet_due_to_mechanical/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2ob06/a_plane_is_about_to_plummet_due_to_mechanical/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>My girlfriend made me wear a condom, but then apologized profusely about it later.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
I guess shed rather be safe then sorry.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Silentarian"> /u/Silentarian </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2l4oh/my_girlfriend_made_me_wear_a_condom_but_then/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2l4oh/my_girlfriend_made_me_wear_a_condom_but_then/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A honeymooning couple had purchased a talking parrot and taken it to their room, where much to the grooms annoyance, the bird kept up a running commentary on their love making.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Finally the groom threw a large towel over the cage and threatened to give the parrot to the zoo if he didnt quit it. The next morning, packing to return home, the couple couldnt close a large suitcase. The groom said, “Darling, you get on top and Ill try.” That didnt work. Figuring they needed more weight on the lid, she said, “Sweetheart, you get on top and Ill try.” Still no success. So, he said, “Look. Lets both get on top.” At that point the parrot pulled away the towel with his beak and said: “Zoo or no zoo. I just gotta see this.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/YZXFILE"> /u/YZXFILE </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2y5v9/a_honeymooning_couple_had_purchased_a_talking/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2y5v9/a_honeymooning_couple_had_purchased_a_talking/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
<script>AOS.init();</script></body></html>