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595 lines
74 KiB
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<title>06 August, 2022</title>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Kyrsten Sinema Watch Party</strong> - With Democrats poised to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, their signature legislation on health care and climate change, all eyes were on the senior senator from Arizona. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/the-kyrsten-sinema-watch-party">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Kansas Abortion Referendum Has a Message for Democrats</strong> - In the run-up to November’s midterm elections, the Party has an opportunity to seize the mantle as the defender of long-established individual rights. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-kansas-abortion-referendum-has-a-message-for-democrats">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Provocative Politics of Nancy Pelosi’s Trip to Taiwan</strong> - What is the House Speaker’s high-profile visit really about? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-provocative-politics-of-nancy-pelosis-trip-to-taiwan">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Trip to the Boundary Waters</strong> - A chronicler of urban Chicago seeks solace in Minnesota. Plus, Susan Orlean on Ivana Trump, and Jane Mayer on Ohio’s lurch to the right. How does a swing state go hard red? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/a-trip-to-the-boundary-waters">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Choco Tacos and Remembrance of Junk Foods Past</strong> - Perhaps, during these feel-bad times, losing a simple delight feels especially unsettling. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/afterword/choco-tacos-and-remembrance-of-junk-foods-past">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>What can a bee feel?</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="A bee hovering above a flower." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uab_pi_FejQThmD2Pyn9Z6DKpfA=/553x0:5000x3335/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71215338/GettyImages_1241865703.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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A bee collects pollen from prickly poppies in California. | David McNew/Getty Images
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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A new study suggests bees can feel pain. It’s a big deal in the quest to determine whether or not insects are sentient.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uHP2z1">
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It turns out that bees may not just be able to dish out pain — they may also be able to take it.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dQNQ2I">
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In a <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2205821119">study</a> published last week in the journal <em>PNAS</em>, researchers in the United Kingdom found that bees trade off exposure to heat in order to access better food. The finding suggests bees aren’t just mindless automata responding to stimuli but rather conscious, feeling creatures that can experience pain and engage in complex decision-making.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nwr3Eh">
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In other words, bees might be sentient, which would mean they have the capacity to feel and have subjective experiences.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UyMfWY">
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For the experiment, behavioral neuroscience<strong> </strong>PhD candidate Matilda Gibbons of Queen Mary University of London, along with four other colleagues, first offered bees the choice to drink from two “high quality” feeders labeled yellow with a 40 percent sucrose (sugar) solution, outfitted with an inactive heating pad. (Bees, not unlike us, <a href="https://www.beeculture.com/sugar-for-bees/">love sugar</a>.) Different groups of bees were also offered two alternative pink-labeled feeders with either a 10, 20, 30, or 40 percent sucrose solution, each paired with a heating pad that was also inactive.
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BxH4rbrzHSZzQ50wSx5odkhtVVU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23925113/highres.jpeg"/> <cite>Pippa Ager/Queen Mary University of London</cite>
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<figcaption>
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A bee drinks sucrose from a feeder in an experiment to test their ability to make motivational trade-offs.
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kaIoiD">
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The bees, of course, preferred the sweetest 40 percent sucrose solution. But researchers then repeated the experiment with a twist: The yellow high-sugar feeders were turned up to 131 F — enough to cause discomfort to the bees, but not injury. The pink feeders, which ranged from 10 to 40 percent sucrose, remained unheated.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aFifBE">
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When the unheated feeder contained just 10 or 20 percent sucrose, bees kept drinking from the high-sugar feeders despite the pain. But when the unheated feeder contained 30 or 40 percent sucrose, many bees migrated over to it, using associative memories to avoid the pain of the heated feeder while still being able to enjoy a high-sugar snack.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6gQREa">
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“Instead of being sort of a robotic reflexive response, which would be them always avoiding the heat in any situation, they’re able to weigh up the different options and then suppress this response,” Gibbons said.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7FYORc">
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“Work like this recent paper that shows motivational trade-offs [and] very strongly suggests pain experience is, in some sense, quite revolutionary,” says Heather Browning, a philosopher and scientist in the Foundations of Animal Sentience project at the London School of Economics, who was not involved in the study.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="79jPD8">
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One of the reasons it’s revolutionary, according to Browning, is because the ability to make motivational trade-offs is an important marker in determining sentience. It’s also been <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159109001038">observed in hermit crabs</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s3QHvk">
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“At least one of the likely roles of sentience for an organism, one of the reasons that [sentience] evolved, is to help an animal make trade-offs like this,” says Browning. “It’s to help them have flexible decision-making when they have these competing motivations.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="07VDrZ">
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However, it’s not formal proof that bees are sentient or that they feel pain, the researchers cautioned, given the inherently subjective nature of pain and consciousness. Even understanding consciousness in humans is still a mystery, something known in philosophy<strong> </strong>as “<a href="https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/">the hard problem</a>.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fGxLT2">
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But the researchers do say the possibility that bees have a capacity for pain and suffering should be taken seriously, and the findings could apply to some other insects as well.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2KGPVl">
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“Can we really say that just because bees are doing this, does that tell us much about other insects? It probably does about the closer related ones, so bees and wasps and ants and maybe flies, but as you get sort of further and further away, probably less,” says Andrew Crump, a postdoctoral biologist at the London School of Economics and a co-author on the study.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Wk9CdZ">
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As revolutionary as the new study may be, it won’t usher in a revolution of insect rights — just look at how we treat many birds and mammals despite general consensus on their sentience.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Chyp1L">
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Researchers are at the beginning of what will likely be a long slog to better understand if, and how, insects are sentient. But<strong> </strong>the findings do serve as one more proof point that the number of species we include as sentient may be undercounted — and grossly so, given that there are an estimated <a href="https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/bugnos#:~:text=At%20any%20time%2C%20it%20is,(10%2C000%2C000%2C000%2C000%2C000%2C000)%20individual%20insects%20alive.">10 quintillion insects</a> alive at any moment (1 quintillion is a million trillion).
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</p>
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<h3 id="1E9fiX">
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The debate over who gets to be in the sentience club
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tJnNqU">
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Despite insects’ extraordinary evolutionary success, animal science researchers have only begun to investigate whether they possess consciousness in the last few years.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gCavqo">
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Up until the late 1970s, researchers in the field focused on animal behavior and didn’t try to determine if their behavior conferred sentience. The animal mind — if such a thing existed — was considered a black box better left unopened.<strong> </strong>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MiKoG1">
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That changed in large part due to the work of <a href="http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/griffin-donald.pdf">Donald Griffin</a>, a Harvard-trained zoologist who began to argue in the late 1970s that animals, not just chimpanzees and mammals, are conscious and their minds should be further studied. His students began conducting animal studies and the field, which he named “cognitive ethology,” grew from there.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p6HYTA">
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The idea was controversial at the time, but today there is <a href="https://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf">consensus</a> among those who study consciousness that birds and mammals can possess sentience. Though there are some outlier skeptics, there’s also consensus that <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22301931/fish-animal-welfare-plant-based">fish feel pain</a>, which could be enough to indicate sentience. The jury is still out on insects, and probably will be for some time, but our understanding of them is changing.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AGaoxg">
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“Social insects are traditionally thought to be wholly governed by instinct: They can build complex nests and efficiently divide up their labor through innate behaviors, but are considered stupid as individuals, with complexity emerging only at the group level,” wrote Lars Chittka, a co-author on the study and author of <em>The Mind of a Bee</em>, in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/07/29/bee-cognition-insect-intelligence-research/">Washington Post</a>. “But there is significant evidence that bees have an inner world of thought — that they are not responding to stimuli only with hard-wired responses.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3Vrvam">
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Much of the debate around sentience has centered around the neocortex, the part of the mammalian brain that processes language, cognition, and more, and that most neuroscientists believe gives rise to consciousness. Crump says birds don’t have a neocortex, but a structure in their brain, the dorsal pallium, is similar and is where scientists believe birds’ consciousness <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.abe0536?download=true">would lie</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OLNDjy">
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Fish don’t have that brain structure either, but over the last two decades, researchers have come to believe that fish likely experience pain in the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325089998_Pain_in_fish_Evidence_from_peripheral_nociceptors_to_pallial_processing_Commentary_on_Sneddon_et_al_on_Sentience_Denial">telencephalon region</a> of the brain, which receives activity from their <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22301931/fish-animal-welfare-plant-based">nociceptors</a> — sensory receptors that identify and react to harmful stimuli. We may come to better understand the lives of insects through similar discoveries, but making the determination as to whether or not particular insect species are sentient, let alone all insects, will be tricky.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7Rp74u">
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Much of insect researchers’ current focus is just figuring out what biological markers of sentience are, though the demonstrated ability to make motivational trade-offs, like Gibbons’s bees did, is one of them.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uw8KBu">
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The study builds upon our understanding of insects’ capacity for pain, but it doesn’t provide definitive proof that bees or other insect species are sentient. However, using the precautionary principle — the idea that we should err on the side of minimizing harm in the face of limited information and uncertainty — let’s suppose that they are. Should that change how we treat them?
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</p>
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<h3 id="Qw5wBz">
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Bees and other insects might feel pain. Now what?
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RS4Kci">
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The debate over whether insects are sentient may seem frivolous, given how distant they feel from mammals, let alone human beings. But every past debate over who deserves moral attention and just how wide our <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/4/18285986/robot-animal-nature-expanding-moral-circle-peter-singer">circle of concern</a> should be has seemed frivolous to some. If just a small fraction of the 10 quintillion insects alive right now can feel pain, some changes may need to be in order.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZIJOFD">
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In light of this study, the most sensible place to start is with beekeeping. According to Jason Schukraft, formerly at the research group Rethink Priorities (he’s now at the grant-making foundation Open Philanthropy), the trillion or so bees managed globally for their honey can suffer from a <a href="https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/managed-honey-bee-welfare-problems-and-potential-interventions">variety of threats</a>: pesticide exposure, poor nutrition, disease, long-distance transport, invasive hive inspections, and honey harvest. Those factors have been linked to <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/buzz-about-colony-collapse-disorder">colony collapse disorder</a>, but they can be ameliorated by better management.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="L0P44p">
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Many cultures around the world have long <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22445822/insect-farming-crickets-mealworm-ethics">eaten insects</a>, but in recent years there’s been a <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/36401/211766ov.pdf?sequence=3">rise in insect factory farming</a> — primarily to supply feed for factory-farmed chicken and fish, rather than for direct human consumption. It’s an emerging trend we might want to think twice about.
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CE6kvXsdRA9uoG7TL7xth_nX0uw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23925120/GettyImages_1219283629.jpg"/> <cite>Cyril Marcilhacy/Bloomberg via Getty Images</cite>
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<figcaption>
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An employee tips larvae into a sorting oven inside the Ynsect insect farm in Dole, France.
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vY12UH">
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If we sourced more protein from insect farms instead of cattle, pig, and chicken farms, it might be a win for <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abf06c">human health</a>. But if commonly farmed insects, like crickets and mealworms, can feel pain, it could be a moral catastrophe orders of magnitude worse than livestock farming, given the astronomical numbers of insects that would need to be raised to replace the 70 billion-plus land animals farmed globally each year.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hea6Dm">
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We can find ways to more humanely coexist with insects, such as reducing insecticide use at home and <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/insect-apocalypse-under-way-toxic-pesticides-agriculture?loggedin=true">on farms</a>. Policymakers might one day consider protecting insects under the law too. Earlier this year, the UK parliament passed the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/22/enacted">Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill</a>, which encompasses all vertebrates; cephalopods, like octopus and squid; and decapods, like lobsters, shrimp, and crawdads. The law isn’t going to, say, outlaw shrimp farming, but it’s a sign that those highest in government are giving the question of animal sentience real consideration.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NpvVSw">
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Crump says their recent study, and future studies, could — when combined — build a clearer picture as to whether bees and other insects are sentient or not.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jgx9QM">
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“It won’t be any one study [that determines insect sentience], and it won’t be any one kind of indicator,” Crump said. Each development may only provide weak evidence for sentience, but if there are enough pieces all pointing to the same conclusion, Crump says, “That’s when we start to get quite a strong case.”
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</p></li>
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<li><strong>Four ways of looking at The Rehearsal</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="A man sits at a bar." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Zc505asGPfkyX2oAYnY9Ub-PuTc=/270x132:1738x1233/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71214804/rehearsal_bar.0.jpeg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Nathan Fielder, the mastermind of <em>The Rehearsal</em>. | HBO
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Nathan Fielder’s wild HBO show is reality TV at its most bizarre. Or is it a documentary? Or memoir? Or something else?
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ib9wbo">
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Imagine a TV show so profoundly strange that the more you thought about it, the less you knew what it … was. The more you dug into the straightforward parts, the less straightforward they got. The further down the rabbit hole you strayed, the more trap doors and dead ends seemed to be scattered along the passageway.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZJXyxX">
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That’s <em>The Rehearsal</em>, from Nathan Fielder, of <em>Nathan For You</em> fame. In his previous show, which ran from 2013 to 2018 on Comedy Central, Nathan “helped” struggling small businesses to “solve” their problems with increasingly byzantine and elaborate and always totally useless schemes. An alcohol store where minors can preorder, for pickup when they reach legal drinking age. A loophole that lets a bar allow customers to smoke inside, provided they are in a theatrical production (to which the resourceful Nathan sells tickets). Throughout, he plays a character that is obviously somewhat related to his “real” self but is, we have to believe, kind of a bit.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7KJLRh">
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<em>Nathan For You</em> could be strange and hilarious; <em>The Rehearsal </em>is in a whole different stratosphere. As the show’s name suggests, it starts out as a kind of social experiment slash therapy innovation: Nathan locates people (on Craigslist, apparently) who need to have difficult conversations or otherwise emotionally fraught scenarios. Then he meticulously recreates the conditions under which they will have this interaction, hires an actor to play other people in the “scene,” and rigorously rehearses the encounter, trying to anticipate possible outcomes and prepare the “real” person for the conversation.
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt="Image of a spoiler warning" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uPQF4l3Wvpgo7pB7TTD6_3CasSQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8565937/spoilers_below.png"/>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EbCIm1">
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<em>Warning: Details from episodes 1-4 of </em>The Rehearsal<em> are discussed below.</em>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wRuWLf">
|
||
In the pilot episode, Nathan helps a man named Kor — a good-natured Brooklyn public school teacher — tell one of his bar trivia teammates that he doesn’t have a master’s degree, though for many years he’s led the team to believe he has. Nathan is ready to help him handle his lie, including building, on a sound stage, a perfect recreation of the bar where Kor’s encounter would occur. (That bar? Brooklyn’s Alligator Lounge, famous among New Yorkers of my vintage for giving out a free pizza with every beer.) It feels like something straight out of Charlie Kaufman’s existentially trippy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche,_New_York"><em>Synecdoche, New York</em></a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4JkzZy">
|
||
This pilot episode generated immediate buzz, for obvious reasons. It is clear almost from the start that what we’re seeing in <em>The Rehearsal</em> is not as straightforward as the comedy of <em>Nathan For You</em>. Two of the major story beats in <em>The Rehearsal</em>’s pilot episode rely on the fact that Nathan has also rehearsed his encounters with Kor, building a replica of Kor’s house, practicing their first encounter, and later revealing a secret of his own to Kor — all of which happens with the aid of an actor (K. Todd Freeman).
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="A bar built on a sound stage, with people streaming into it." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/X0bnII62T3N72gBIsHYwqASbFPQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23922776/rehearsal_alligator.jpg"/> <cite>HBO</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
The fake Alligator Lounge on the sound stage.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pMriLA">
|
||
The longer you watch <em>The Rehearsal</em>, though, the less obvious it is what you’re actually watching.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uziNHp">
|
||
And that’s not a bug — it’s a feature. <em>The Rehearsal</em> is at least in part designed to activate a connection that’s rarely alive in the largely passive medium of TV: the link between audience and creator. (TV tends to make us feel connected to characters, not to the people behind the camera.) To put it another way, if it makes you feel weird, that’s the point.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fq1zxH">
|
||
In general, savvy 21st-century watchers that we are, we expect everything on TV — from scripted dramas to the screamiest reality show — to be, in a sense, fiction. Most of us know by now that what we see on TV is crafted reality, not the real thing.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wlf9So">
|
||
Yet. Yet. <em>The Rehearsal</em> repeatedly defies this. Are people like Kor and Angela (the middle-aged Christian woman with whom Nathan “raises” a “child”) and Robbin (the man she dates, who turns out to be kind of a numerologist) and Patrick (whose brother thinks his girlfriend is a “gold digger”) … “real”? Are they victims? Are they in on it? What about the crew? The actors? Does turning the mechanics of Nathan’s contrived worlds inside out make them more authentic, or are there more layers to uncover?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WZpaAj">
|
||
All of this means that what you see in <em>The Rehearsal</em> — which honestly I cannot believe HBO greenlit, it’s so wild — may not be what your friend sees or someone on Twitter sees. There are a lot of ways of looking at <em>The Rehearsal</em>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EKdyvA">
|
||
Here are a few.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="YTVfB7">
|
||
<strong>I</strong>
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<h3 id="g1NDdZ">
|
||
<em><strong>The Rehearsal</strong></em><strong> is an exploitative reality show</strong>
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<h4 id="zXG8iy">
|
||
<em>And Nathan Fielder is a monster.</em>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="e5MYw5">
|
||
Not every one of the “real” people who come on <em>The Rehearsal</em> is made to look bad. Kor in particular seems great. The participants in the Nathan Fielder Acting Method classes that form the backbone of Episode 4 — who, no matter how deep they’re in on the joke, are definitely actors — seem talented, serious, and hard-working. When the teenage version of Angela and Nathan’s “son,” Adam, breaks character and lets himself be an actor named Joshua, he’s startlingly insightful, and his performance is great.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GfM0cO">
|
||
On the other hand, there’s Robbin, who dates Angela and almost moves into the house. He starts out seeming kind of laid-back and cool and ends looking like someone who needs some help. He starts to say things that <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkgpng/the-most-fascinating-guest-on-the-rehearsal-who-crashed-a-scion-tc-at-100-mph-did-not-enjoy-his-time-on-the-show">he later characterized to Vice</a> (after the second episode aired) as “douchey,” but complained didn’t show the full picture of his personality.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YKy32M">
|
||
Or there’s Patrick, who seems like a pretty ordinary guy, helpful to a man he thinks is his scene partner’s grandpa (he, of course, is also an actor) — except for those glib and shockingly anti-Semitic comments.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vQN19_Tjltxd_j6db-4ETgWUW1E=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23922777/rehearsal_chicken.jpg"/> <cite>HBO</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Nathan watching a rehearsal with Patrick (on the left).
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0z4PEy">
|
||
And of course, there is Angela. Angela! What to say about Angela? On the one hand, she seems exceptionally calm and collected about this whole weird thing, which was admittedly created in part for her benefit but is also just a really odd way to spend a few months of your life. There are moments on the show where you know you’re meant to laugh or at least gawk, when she tells Nathan to “keyword search” Google to find out about Satanic rituals that take place on Halloween, then says that Google is run by Satan. Sometimes she seems like the voice of surprising reason, but often her activities seem harebrained, like your vaguely conspiratorial aunt who posts about essential oil MLMs on Facebook. Nathan even goes so far, at the end of episode 3, to imply that he wishes he could be like her as she “deceives” herself and “gathers only what [she] needs to know and ignores the rest.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="I8wqfP">
|
||
Presumably all of these “real people” knew, on some level, what they were getting into; it’s not like nobody’s heard of TV editing before. But without knowing what their contracts or preparation looked like, or what got left on the cutting room floor, we don’t know how or to what level they are in on the joke or a victim of it — though it seems reasonable to say nobody could have predicted what <em>The Rehearsal</em> would turn out to be. (Maybe not even Nathan Fielder.)
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7RyHzi">
|
||
Of course, this happens all the time. It is quite literally impossible to portray the full essence, in all its complexity, of a human being on a TV show. The ethical wickets here are sticky, and always have been. For some people, the question this raises is whether watching <em>The Rehearsal</em> is somehow different from watching <em>The Bachelor</em> or <em>The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City</em> or <em>Love Island</em>. Or, for that matter, if it’s different from watching a documentary that shows people at protests or a true crime series that allows odd characters to appear as talking heads.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gInxjL">
|
||
If the answer is yes, why? If it’s no, what does that mean about our reactions?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="L8mWkS">
|
||
Is that the point?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="1xG1Q6">
|
||
<strong>II</strong>
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<h3 id="FK5ncA">
|
||
<em><strong>The Rehearsal</strong></em><strong> is an exceptionally weird documentary</strong>
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<h4 id="OMFpMn">
|
||
<em>And Nathan Fielder is an artist.</em>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DoU6KR">
|
||
The filmmaker Robert Greene is fond of saying, <a href="https://twitter.com/prewarcinema/status/1549407165148012546?s=20&t=o0VXC9eLAEG3-wx62p3Kzg">as he recently tweeted</a>, that “pretty much every great documentary is on some level about how it maybe shouldn’t exist.” (He should <a href="https://www.vox.com/22745194/procession-review-netflix">know</a>; he makes <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/25/16912960/bisbee-17-review-robert-greene">them</a>.)
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kZIHWn">
|
||
The difference between documentary (or as I prefer, “nonfiction cinema”) and scripted (or “fiction”) films is that in the first category, you expect that what you’re watching has happened in the real world. In the second, you expect it was staged, on some level, for you to watch, and that you can’t just bump into these actual characters on the street.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wrPmF7">
|
||
That line, though, is far blurrier than awards categories and critics like to make it out to be. When I <a href="https://www.vox.com/22609897/viewing-booth-review-insurrection-interview">wrote about this last summer</a>, I noted some of the reasons why:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<blockquote>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dHDiV4">
|
||
The context in which we encounter videos and images has also shifted, especially in a streaming age. News, entertainment, and verité footage uploaded to the internet by any random person can and often is all accessed through the same screen or device. If you’ve ever watched a TV show where actors play out a scene that looks similar to what you’re seeing in a YouTube clip, and you’re watching both the show and the YouTube clip on similar screens, it’s even more difficult to resist having the fiction frame how you understand the nonfiction.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</blockquote>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pKNVqx">
|
||
<em>The Rehearsal</em> doesn’t just blur the line; it erases it. It tries to make you question not just whether what you’re watching is real, but if anything is real.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="Two men" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/f-mdhBXoHC6fSqxfbDihAEpucMs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23922779/rehearsal_ep1.jpeg"/> <cite>HBO</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
What is real? Can we even know anymore?
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NyiYV0">
|
||
Take the just-aired episode 4, for instance, in which Fielder leaves his “family” behind in Oregon and travels to Los Angeles, where he plans to teach the “Fielder method” to a group of actors. The method: shadow a real person and try to understand them from the inside out — their choices, their occupation, their home, their mannerisms — and then essentially become that person in order to “play” them in one of Fielder’s rehearsals. Then, and only then, can they achieve “the level of realism I needed for this project,” as he puts it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NFoGai">
|
||
But Nathan gets swallowed by that same dang rabbit hole. He’s not sure how the first day actually landed with the actors, who he finds intimidating. (“They have a way of channeling someone else’s emotions that I don’t fully understand,” he remarks. We’ll come back to that.) So he re-stages the first day, this time while “playing” a randomly chosen member of the acting class named Thomas and populating the room with a new set of actors, who wear the clothes and repeat the same lines as the original class a day before. There’s even a fake Nathan up at the front.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KYWMvq">
|
||
This already feels contrived, because it is. But the more I think about it, the weirder it gets because of the mechanics. Were the students in the first class actually students who thought they were learning something in a class? How did what they said get communicated to the second class, who I guess are all actors, in time for them to learn their “lines”? How did they get the same clothes as the first group? How much time elapsed between the first and second days? Did HBO pay various LA-area establishments to allow acting students to work there, or did they pay the açaí bowl place where Thomas and Nathan work, or did they just pay the açaí bowl place enough to shoot a four-minute scene? Did they really rent all these apartments? Does Thomas actually have a giant Pikachu in his bedroom?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DgLRKP">
|
||
(It’s at least a little funny that Thomas has a Hamlet poster on his wall on which the large text, which we see Nathan reading, is “To be or not to be / That is the question.” Or, wait — did HBO put the poster there?!)
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FWn9p8">
|
||
The best documentaries aren’t really about communicating information in a clear fashion (that’s journalism). They’re about making us reevaluate the very act of seeing, the way we encounter and understand the world, the assumptions we make and the ways we mess up. They let us film the world and play it back — which, when I say it that way, sounds a lot like <em>The Rehearsal</em> — and encounter it differently.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G4HXeu">
|
||
And in so doing, encounter ourselves differently.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="OvH53R">
|
||
<strong>III</strong>
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<h3 id="W1JfNd">
|
||
<em><strong>The Rehearsal </strong></em><strong>is a mea culpa memoir</strong>
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<h4 id="K7Sdgi">
|
||
<em>And Nathan Fielder is a wounded man.</em>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cUpaDr">
|
||
It’s not an accident that in what’s supposed to be their most emotionally vulnerable conversation in the show’s pilot, Nathan brings up to Kor that he’s been divorced. (That happened in 2014.) But as Kor starts to share the pain of his own divorce, they’re interrupted by an old man entering the pool. “I didn’t want to go too deep into my private life, so I had pre-planned for an elderly swimming to interrupt us,” Nathan intones in voiceover.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XNxCwD">
|
||
When talking to New York magazine’s Lila Shapiro <a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/nathan-fielder-rehearsal-profile.html">about the divorce</a> in a 2022 profile, Fielder told Shapiro that this scene accurately depicted his own proclivities. “You’re seeing me control and not wanting to share,” he said, adding that he’s “aware I’m like that, and so it’s in the show.” Later, he catches himself wanting to lie to Shapiro about when he sought therapy following the divorce. He told her that he once lost control of his emotions in a meeting, and it was “a very jarring experience.” He says it was physically painful to talk to a therapist about his emotions.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vxdICx">
|
||
All of which is right on the surface of the show and a useful lens to look at what’s going on. The first episode is a peek into Nathan’s need for control, and the second one continues that theme, to the point where he decides to just join Angela’s rehearsal — that is, raise her fake kid with her — rather than cast someone in that role.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7v99K4">
|
||
In the third episode, he finds himself stymied by Patrick’s “strategy” in the rehearsal, by which he means Patrick’s somewhat easy display of emotion when talking about grieving the death of his own grandfather. Later, in voiceover, Nathan says, “I was starting to wonder how I could so easily recreate feelings inside other people’s rehearsals when I couldn’t do it for myself.” By the end of the episode, watching Angela wash vegetables from the “garden,” he’s trying to figure out how to “engineer” emotions.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="Nathan in a rocking chair, sitting on a porch." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZUWplbVeF2OEJKglU65-qG9yaE8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23922780/rehearsal_porch.jpg"/> <cite>HBO</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Nathan contemplates. On the “porch” of his “house.”
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7A3Ne9">
|
||
In the fourth episode, Nathan finds himself acting as one of his own acting students, surrounded by actors who are playing other acting students. It’s so many degrees removed from reality that I confess my brain kind of broke. He is watching the people around him, wondering in essence what they’re all doing there, even though he brought them there.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nQP7Bo">
|
||
On his second go-round playing Thomas on the first day of class (did you get that?), he reflects on the experience:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<blockquote>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="t6bynp">
|
||
I felt a rush of excitement come over me when I remembered there were cameras filming me. HBO cameras. I love being on camera, but I wanted to play it cool, like I didn’t care that much … Wait, what <em>is</em> this show? Is it a show about an acting class? Am I supposed to be acting? Something doesn’t make sense. If you’re training actors for a show, why would you be filming the training? I wanted to ask, but I was worried it would seem rude. I didn’t want to stand out. I wanted to impress “Nathan.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</blockquote>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dLhcPP">
|
||
This whole episode causes him to question — or at least “question,” for the show — his own methods, from his actual teaching strategy to seemingly mundane things like asking actors to sign contracts they couldn’t possibly read carefully before they agree. Thomas, the real acting student he tries to more or less become, tells Nathan that he doesn’t like lying to people; Nathan realizes that he’s never really understood Thomas. That … oh dear … we never really know what’s going on inside people’s heads.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qyXS57">
|
||
So there’s a way of looking at <em>The Rehearsal</em> as Nathan Fielder’s giant and very expensive therapy session for himself, one that implements all kinds of techniques to get around hangups and emotional challenges that he’s always had. That he is still processing the pain that comes with going through a divorce, as well as some of his assumptions about the world and the people he brings into his shows, and he’s doing it on those same HBO cameras because, well, he likes being on camera.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Upv2xJ">
|
||
With most people, this would be interminable, impossible to watch. The genius on display here is that all I want to do is keep watching.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="iS4pXI">
|
||
<strong>IV</strong>
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<h3 id="USWqsF">
|
||
<em><strong>The Rehearsal</strong></em><strong> is … well, we don’t know yet</strong>
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<h4 id="MRe13Z">
|
||
<em>And Nathan Fielder is a trickster.</em>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DRw7n9">
|
||
Actually, this is where I land. HBO gave critics the first five episodes of the show but not the sixth, which suggests some subterfuge. Each episode has a moment (or moments!) where you can feel the rug pulled out from under you, and something you assumed was true suddenly becomes a fabrication. (Next week’s episode has such a moment, and it took my breath away.)
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="38Aztn">
|
||
That’s why I think it’s nearly impossible to say what we’re really watching until it’s over. (I sort of expect it will still be impossible when the first season ends, but I guess we’ll see.) I have deep suspicions about how “real” Angela is, for instance. I was raised among people who share most of her beliefs. I was not allowed to celebrate Halloween for the reasons she raises. I’m familiar with her teaching methods (having been homeschooled myself). And when Nathan and “Adam” watch a show together featuring a talking caterpillar discussing lying (another clue?), I knew it was based <a href="https://maxlucado.com/products/hermie-a-common-caterpillar/">on a book by mega-bestselling evangelical author Max Lucado</a>. But some of what she says — not just the things that could scan as “crazy” — seem a little too coincidental, to me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9pmSte">
|
||
After all, at the start of the third episode, she lectures Nathan (who’s clad in a Batman costume), reminding him that “Not everything is make-believe. Some things are real. You have to open your eyes to reality.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v3dGbp">
|
||
And maybe this is just the plight of the film critic, but I think most good art can’t be evaluated in pieces; you have to see the shape of the whole to know what you’ve just experienced. It’s like chopping a Picasso in half and then thinking you know what the painting is. You sort of get it, but to really see it, you need to have the whole thing in front of you.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="Nathan Fielder watches a screen full of cameras." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xPxg_ci2Um860-AiBkSKfn5FPvc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23922783/rehearsal_tv.jpeg"/> <cite>HBO</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Nathan Fielder, the god of the machinery.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jlozJs">
|
||
That said, one interpretive framework that made me go “huh” comes <a href="https://forward.com/culture/film-tv/512810/nathan-fielder-the-rehearsal-hbo-jewish-kabbalah-reality-cruel/">from PJ Grisar in the Forward</a>, who uses the Kabbalistic concept of tzimtzum<em> </em>to explore Fielder’s methods. It triggered the memory of a Jewish midrash about prior worlds, which I (as a Gentile) encountered first during Darren Aronofsky’s discussions of his films <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/9/16/16316960/mother-noah-movie-of-week-aronofsky-f-cinemascore"><em>Noah</em></a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/9/10/16277234/mother-review-aronofsky-lawrence-bardem-tiff"><em>Mother!</em></a>; in brief, God <a href="http://tif.ssrc.org/2017/10/18/a-thousand-worlds-and-this/">created and destroyed many worlds</a> until he finally got this one right. Which is exactly what Nathan does at the end of this episode: he ditches the teenager and rewinds to age 6, thus creating a new world to get right this time. It’s not the first time he’s done it, and it speaks to the vast impossibility, the grasping despair, of being a mere mortal and not an infinite being or energy that can make and un-make at will.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gQAEEi">
|
||
And there are some other, at minimum, clever Biblically inflected coincidences throughout. That Nathan’s “kid” is named Adam — a name he shares with the first man that God created in the Biblical account of Genesis? That the second episode is about not being able to find a suitable “mate” for Angela? That episode 3 prominently features a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cain_and_Abel">contentious relationship between two brothers</a>? That the doubting Fielder method “disciple” in Nathan’s acting class is named … Thomas? (In case you were wondering, there are only 11 students in the class.)
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WkmL4K">
|
||
On the one hand, I don’t really think Nathan Fielder is invoking ancient scriptures or Midrash Rabbah in making <em>The Rehearsal</em>. On the other hand … maybe? Check back with me when it’s all over.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AvN3iE">
|
||
In any case, speculations about what Fielder is “doing,” in a pedantic way, with <em>The Rehearsal</em> may be less important than what it does to us. If you find yourself wondering what exactly you’re watching, then you’re at least on the right track. “It’s easy to assume that others think the worst of you,” Nathan says at the end of the fourth episode. “But when you assume what others think, maybe all you’re doing is turning them into a character that only exists in your mind.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y8wnRl">
|
||
“The nice thing,” he concludes, “is sometimes all it takes is a change in perspective to make the world feel brand-new.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4XYYwG">
|
||
The Rehearsal <em>airs at 11 pm ET on Fridays and streams on HBO Max.</em>
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>Why the Justice Department made a move in the police killing of Breonna Taylor</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="A framed snapshot of Breonna Taylor, lying beside a red rose." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OT097Z2PA82IiK0bQvvo-LVGoG8=/219x0:3718x2624/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71214458/1411880073.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
A photo of Breonna Taylor at the Defend Black Women March in Black Lives Matter Plaza on July 30, 2022, in Washington, DC. | Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Frontline Action Hub
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
It’s been more than two years since police shot the 26-year-old in her home.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OLn2Ef">
|
||
More than two years after Breonna Taylor’s death, the police officers involved in seeking the warrant that led to her killing have finally been charged — by the federal Justice Department.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cMiM0f">
|
||
In an unexpected <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/current-and-former-louisville-kentucky-police-officers-charged-federal-crimes-related-death">announcement on Thursday</a>, the department charged four current and former Louisville Metro Police Department officers with federal crimes in connection with the police shooting of Breonna Taylor.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ELNkdn">
|
||
Police officers shot and killed the 26-year-old Black woman in her home on March 13, 2020, in Louisville, Kentucky, while executing a search warrant connected to a drug investigation. Taylor was asleep when the officers barged into her apartment that night with a “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/10/29/7083371/swat-no-knock-raids-police-killed-civilians-dangerous-work-drugs">no-knock warrant</a>” and fired <a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/crime/2020/06/16/breonna-taylor-fact-check-7-rumors-wrong/5326938002/">32 shots</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="r3ULRR">
|
||
The police killing incited <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/6/3/21279590/breonna-taylor-david-mcatee-death-police-protests">national protests</a> that <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/3/13/22329288/breonna-taylor-death-anniversary">have continued</a> for more than two years. Kentucky prosecutors <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/9/24/21454089/breonna-taylor-protests-louisville">did not charge</a> any of the police officers with Taylor’s death. One officer was indicted for wanton endangerment for firing into a neighboring apartment, but in March a jury found him <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/03/breonna-taylor-brett-hankinson-jury-not-guilty">not guilty</a>. The city <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/us/breonna-taylor-settlement-louisville.html">settled a $12 million lawsuit</a> with Taylor’s family in 2020, and in 2021, the Justice Department launched an investigation into allegations of systemic misconduct on the part of the Louisville Police Department.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VzPsqI">
|
||
Now the Justice Department alleges that members of the Louisville Metro Police Department Place-Based Investigations Unit, which police say was formed to reduce violence in a high-crime area but has faced scrutiny for being an alleged “<a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/metro-government/2020/07/24/breonna-taylor-shooting-what-know-police-unit-linked-case/5443452002/">rogue police unit</a>,” falsified the affidavit that was used to obtain the search warrant of Taylor’s home. To get the search warrant, the officers made false statements, omitted facts, and relied on stale information, the department argues. Then, prosecutors say, after Taylor was killed, they conspired to cover up their actions.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uxONSJ">
|
||
At a press conference, Attorney General Merrick Garland said that this act violated federal civil rights laws. “Breonna Taylor should be alive today,” Garland said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zTtgfr">
|
||
The <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1524111/download">first indictment</a> charges former detective Joshua Jaynes and current sergeant Kyle Meany with federal civil rights and obstruction offenses for preparing and approving a false search warrant affidavit.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dELhev">
|
||
The <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1524106/download">second indictment</a> charges former detective Brett Hankison with civil rights offenses for firing his service weapon into Taylor’s home through a covered window and covered glass door. The department is also charging current detective <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1524171/download">Kelly Goodlett</a> with conspiring with Jaynes to falsify the search warrant and cover up their actions afterward.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="I1qHC5">
|
||
Social justice activists called the announcement a victory, though many acknowledged the criminal charges would never be able to undo the harm done. Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Cg2nLOFAo11/">wrote</a>, “They said it couldn’t and wouldn’t be done but they didn’t know I could and would stand for 874 days,” noting the number of days that have passed since Taylor’s death.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lDIVAl">
|
||
Since police are <a href="https://www.vox.com/21497089/derek-chauvin-george-floyd-trial-police-prosecutions-black-lives-matter">rarely prosecuted for shooting civilians</a> while on the job, the Justice Department’s decision to charge the officers is uncommon. Here’s what the decision could mean for the fight for justice for Breonna Taylor, and for the four current and former officers.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="AZNDZH">
|
||
What the charges mean
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UWuuqy">
|
||
On March 13, Louisville police had a warrant to enter and search Taylor’s home because they believed a suspect in their drug investigation was receiving packages at Taylor’s home. However, the man they were searching for, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/10/20/breonna-taylor-ex-boyfriend-jamarcus-glover-probation/">Jamarcus Glover</a> — a man Taylor dated years ago but did not maintain a friendship with — did not reside in Taylor’s apartment and <a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/crime/2020/06/16/breonna-taylor-fact-check-7-rumors-wrong/5326938002/">was detained elsewhere</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ujM7sz">
|
||
The Justice Department alleges that the search warrant was invalid. Jaynes and Meany willfully deprived Taylor of her constitutional rights when they drafted and approved a false affidavit to obtain a search warrant for Taylor’s home, according to the department.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sMFO40">
|
||
The indictment alleges that both men knew the affidavit “contained false and misleading statements, omitted material facts, relied on stale information and was not supported by probable cause,” according to <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/current-and-former-louisville-kentucky-police-officers-charged-federal-crimes-related-death">the DOJ’s statement</a>. It also alleges that because Jaynes and Meany knew the search warrant would be carried out by armed officers, they also knew that it could create a deadly situation for the officers and anyone inside Taylor’s home.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LIZDbU">
|
||
On March 12, 2020, officers from the Place-Based Investigations Unit sought five search warrants that they claimed were related to suspected drug trafficking in the West End area of Louisville. Four of the search warrants were for that neighborhood, but the fifth was for Taylor’s home, located 10 miles away from the West End, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1524111/download">according to the Justice Department</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bbELI5">
|
||
The indictment goes on to allege that the affidavit falsely claimed the officers had verified their target in the alleged drug trafficking operation, Glover, had received a package at Taylor’s apartment.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9QV2Ni">
|
||
The first indictment also charges Jaynes with conspiracy to cover up the false warrant affidavit after Taylor’s death and making false statements to investigators. Jaynes allegedly worked with Goodlett to do so, whom the Justice Department has also charged with conspiracy. The department alleges that the two officers met in a garage in May 2020 and agreed to tell investigators a false story.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5XJ6xb">
|
||
And when the warrant was served, the situation turned deadly.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jq7KLG">
|
||
The officers who conducted the search were unaware of the false and misleading statements used to obtain the warrant, according to the Justice Department. When they arrived at Taylor’s apartment that night, they broke down the door. Taylor was at home with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who owned a handgun. Believing<strong> </strong>an intruder was entering the apartment, he fired one shot and struck the first officer at the door. Two officers — <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/22/us/officers-involved-in-breonna-taylor-case/index.html">Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove</a><em> —</em> then immediately fired a total of 22 shots into the apartments, one of which struck Taylor in the chest and killed her.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tr8cP1">
|
||
The Justice Department has brought charges against just one of the officers — Hankison — who fired that night. The two <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1524106/download">civil rights charges against Hankison</a> contained in the second indictment allege that he used “unconstitutionally excessive force” when he fired his weapon into Taylor’s apartment.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2tctVJ">
|
||
He fired 10 more shots after Taylor had already been shot. His bullets traveled through Taylor’s apartment and through the wall to her neighbor’s apartment. Hankison’s actions “involved an attempt to kill,” the department alleges.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="3aDtWS">
|
||
Why all of the officers previously walked free
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dAA8x1">
|
||
<a href="https://www.vox.com/21454477/daniel-cameron-breonna-taylor-mitch-mcconnell-rnc">Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron</a>, the special prosecutor who led the state’s investigation of the police shooting, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/9/23/21436440/breonna-taylor-officer-shooting-grand-jury-charges">only recommended charges of wanton endangerment</a> to the grand jury for Hankison, one of three officers who fired shots into Taylor’s apartment.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kgSr2m">
|
||
As I <a href="https://www.vox.com/21514887/breonna-taylor-daniel-cameron-prosecutor">wrote</a> in 2020, “that single charge was the only one jurors were allowed to consider” and it was about endangering the neighbors, not Taylor or her boyfriend. Jurors weren’t asked to consider whether any of the officers committed murder or manslaughter in regard to Taylor. While the grand jury <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/9/24/21454089/breonna-taylor-protests-louisville">indicted Hankison on the wanton endangerment charges</a> in September 2020, a jury found him <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/03/breonna-taylor-brett-hankinson-jury-not-guilty">not guilty</a> of all three counts.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ogE6xe">
|
||
The Justice Department’s new charges against Hankison alleged excessive use of force with respect to Taylor and her boyfriend, which was not included in Kentucky’s case. The Justice Department has already been leading a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/merrick-garland-breonna-taylor-louisville-police-investigation/2021/04/26/822f756c-a6ab-11eb-8c1a-56f0cb4ff3b5_story.html">civil investigation</a> into the Louisville Metro Government and the Louisville Metro Police Department, which Garland announced in April 2021, to examine allegations of systemic police misconduct.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="21at4P">
|
||
Taylor’s name became, and remains, a rallying cry for racial justice efforts across the world. The killing also renewed focus on <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/5/23/8644441/say-her-name-report-protests">the #SayHerName movement</a>, which seeks to draw attention to the many Black women who are killed at the hands of police but are typically ignored in the fight for justice.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZbA4HE">
|
||
The $12 million settlement between Louisville and Taylor’s family <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/15/us/breonna-taylor-louisville-settlement/index.html">included a set of policing reforms</a>, such as sending social workers to assist police and incentivizing police officers to live in the communities that they patrol. In the wake of the killing, the Louisville Metro Council also unanimously voted to pass “<a href="https://louisvilleky.gov/news/metro-council-passes-breonnas-law-no-knock-warrants-are-banned-lmpd">Breonna’s Law</a>,” which bans the use of no-knock warrants.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p77jPc">
|
||
The civil rights charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison if the violation involves an attempt to kill or results in death. The obstruction counts carry a maximum sentence of 20 years, and the conspiracy counts and false-statements charge carry a maximum sentence of five years.
|
||
</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>Commonwealth Games 2022 | Boxers Nitu, Amit Panghal storm into finals</strong> - Nitu Ghanghas made her maiden appearance in the final</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>Commonwealth Games 2022 | Priyanka Goswami and Avinash Sable clinch silver in Athletics</strong> - Harminder Singh was the first Indian to have won a medal in race walk — bronze — in the 20km event in 2010 CWG in Delhi</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>CWG 2022 | Mandhana blasts 61 as India score 164 for 5 against England</strong> - Both sides fielded an unchanged playing XI from their last match.</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>Arsenal start Premier League campaign with 2-0 win at Crystal Palace</strong> - Left back Oleksandr Zinchenko set up Gabriel Martinelli for the opening goal in the first half, striker Gabriel Jesus created a number of chances, and defender William Saliba put in a near-flawless performance at the back</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>FIFA threatens ban on Indian football body, stripping off right to host women's U-17 World Cup</strong> - FIFA against any third party intervention to the running of its member units</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>Festival to showcase jackfruit diversity evokes warm response</strong> - About 30 varieties of jackfruits displayed</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>Murder of youth: prime suspect in Dubai</strong> - He along with two others to be brought back to State</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>CM Stalin to present ‘Thagaisal Thamizhar’ award to CPI veteran R. Nallakannu</strong> - The award was instituted in 2021 by the State government</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>AIISH annual day on Aug. 9</strong> - On 57th anniversary, institute to come out with manual on early childhood education and therapy resource series</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>Transfers in Animal Husbandry dept. draw flak</strong> - Exercise lacks transparency, spoils the chances of officers who have a claim to the posts, says officers’ forum</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>Croatia bus crash: Twelve Polish pilgrims killed and 32 injured</strong> - All 32 surviving passengers are injured, 19 of them seriously, officials say.</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>Zaporizhzhia: Russian rockets damaged part of nuclear plant, Ukraine says</strong> - Ukraine says Russian rockets hit part of a giant nuclear plant - but Russia blames Ukraine for 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>France drought: Parched towns left short of drinking water</strong> - Trucks are supplying many parched French towns with drinking water after an exceptionally dry July.</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>Brittney Griner: US urges Russia to accept deal to free jailed basketball star</strong> - The US says it has a “serious proposal” for Moscow that would secure the release of the basketball star.</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>French mayor threatens €15,000 deposit to climb Mont Blanc</strong> - The deposit is meant to cover rescue and funeral costs amid increased rockfalls caused by hot weather.</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>Microsoft trackers run afoul of DuckDuckGo, get added to blocklist</strong> - Search privacy company still needs Bing, but won’t allow Microsoft’s trackers. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1871913">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Cyberattack on Albanian government suggests new Iranian aggression</strong> - Tehran-linked hack of a NATO member is a significant escalation. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1871914">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Fecal fountains: CDC warns of diarrheal outbreaks linked to poopy splash pads</strong> - Whatever you do, don’t get the water in your mouth. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1871935">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Formula E’s most successful racer shares his ideas on racing technology</strong> - After 8 years, 100 races, and nearly 1,000 points, Lucas di Grassi knows his stuff. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1871806">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sonic the Hedgehog doesn’t need easily legible legends on his mechanical keyboard</strong> - Retro keyboards commemorate some of Sega’s most memorable brands. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1871810">link</a></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
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<li><strong>Mrs. Johnson was having her second set of twins: a boy and a girl.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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Once again, she fell into a coma before delivery, so it fell to her younger brother to name the newborns. Traditionally, that job would fall to the eldest, but he had lost that privilege after naming her first set of twins Denise and Denephew. When she finally came to, she saw her brother standing by her bedside, holding her children.
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“What did you name the boy?” she asked.
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“Dixon.”
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Finally, she thought, a reasonable name for her son. “And what is the girl’s name?”
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“Dixoff.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/humpty_numptie"> /u/humpty_numptie </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/whh3vh/mrs_johnson_was_having_her_second_set_of_twins_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/whh3vh/mrs_johnson_was_having_her_second_set_of_twins_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>Death: Jack! Your time is up. I’ll take you now.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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Jack: Not today please, I have a lot more to do.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Death: Oh no, you’re the first on the list to die.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Jack: Alright, I’ll finish what I’m doing first. Even better, I’ll make you some coffee while you wait. And after I’m done, we can leave.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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(Jack put sleeping pills in the coffee and when Death fell asleep, Jack erased his name and placed it at the end of the list)
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Death: Woah! My friend, I slept well. You’re a good person Jack, you treated me very well. Because of that, I’ll just start with the last one on the list.
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</p>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/KingOnKeys"> /u/KingOnKeys </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wh1qi9/death_jack_your_time_is_up_ill_take_you_now/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wh1qi9/death_jack_your_time_is_up_ill_take_you_now/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>Santa walks into the North Pole bar, takes a seat, and asks the bartender for his most popular shot</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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Bartender pours out something that looks like candy cane. “It’s called ‘Elf Cum’”.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Santa cringes, but downs it and remarks, “Gee, that’s really good, but why do you call it ‘Elf Cum’?”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Bartender replies, “When I tested it out with Mrs. Claus, she said, ‘That tastes just like Elf cum!”
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</p>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/WeCanDoThisCNJ"> /u/WeCanDoThisCNJ </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wh4h1t/santa_walks_into_the_north_pole_bar_takes_a_seat/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wh4h1t/santa_walks_into_the_north_pole_bar_takes_a_seat/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>What generation does Forest Gump belong to?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Gen A
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</p>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Kidninja016"> /u/Kidninja016 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/whdqw1/what_generation_does_forest_gump_belong_to/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/whdqw1/what_generation_does_forest_gump_belong_to/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>Vladimir Putin visits a school…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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He asks a boy: “Who is your true mother?”. “Mother Russia of course!”, says the boy. Putin then asks a girl: “who is your true father?”. “You, great president!”, replies the girl. Putin then asks the quiet kid sitting at the back: “You there, what do you want to be when you grow up?”. The quiet kid thinks for a moment and says: “An orphan!”.
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</p>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Luch_3"> /u/Luch_3 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/whi9nx/vladimir_putin_visits_a_school/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/whi9nx/vladimir_putin_visits_a_school/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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</ul>
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