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744 lines
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HTML
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<title>07 December, 2021</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 Mississippi Abortion Case and the Fragile Legitimacy of the Supreme Court</strong> - Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is an open challenge to the Court’s authority, and perhaps broadly reflects a spirit of legal self-help that is running through the land. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/13/the-mississippi-abortion-case-and-the-fragile-legitimacy-of-the-%20supreme-court">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Will the Omicron Travel Restrictions Work?</strong> - Attempts to slow the pandemic by screening international arrivals have a mixed record of success. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/will-the-omicron-travel-restrictions-work">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Ultra-Nationalist Éric Zemmour Makes a Bizarre Bid for the French Presidency</strong> - The far-right leader’s campaign carries alarming echoes of Vichy France. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-ultra-nationalist-eric-zemmour-makes-a-bizarre-bid-for-the-%20french-presidency">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>As Omicron Spreads, Jerome Powell Is in the Hot Seat</strong> - With inflation and the new coronavirus variant buffeting the economy, the Federal Reserve chair is attempting a feat that Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke failed spectacularly to pull off. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/as-omicron-spreads-jerome-powell-is-in-the-hot-seat">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Chris Cuomo’s Personal Journey</strong> - The self-evaluation will be televised. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/blitts-kvetchbook/chris-cuomos-personal-journey">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>One Good Thing: The Mole is a relic of early reality TV that still holds up</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="A young Anderson Cooper sits at a computer" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/epH0k5nEP-
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GJljUk_om--5yF-To=/160x0:1120x720/1310x983/cdn.vox-
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cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70238760/jDu7KduSyKogHgAFYARXe8.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Young Anderson Cooper hosts The Mole, with a moody wardrobe to match the show’s impeccable vibes. | ABC/Eagle Rock Entertainment
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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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Now streaming on Netflix, the spy-themed competition show lets viewers play along with the contestants.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NvHgwK">
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<em>The Mole</em> is a gem of reality TV past, with an essence that other series have never quite been able to recapture. Airing for four consecutive seasons on ABC from 2001 to 2004 (with a fifth and final season in 2008), the mystery competition show worked to create a spirit of spy-like thrill and adventure. Even better, it’s one of the few reality shows that let the viewer feel like they’re playing along with it. It’s now <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81453160">streaming on Netflix</a>, ready for an entirely new audience to discover it.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EPo39A">
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Each episode begins with an explanation of the game’s rules. As host, a young Anderson Cooper (decked out in moody, all-black “espionage” attire) explains that players will compete in a series of challenges to add money to a growing pot of up to $1 million. But, he notes, there’s a traitor among them who must be found out: One of the players has been selected as the titular “Mole” and must work as “a double agent,” deceiving the other players, disrupting their efforts, and moving in secret. Thus, every contestant is a suspect, and each week the contestants must take a quiz with questions about the identity of the Mole. The player who performs worst on the quiz is eliminated. At the game’s end, one player will be named the show’s winner — and one will be revealed as the Mole. It’s very dramatic and a bit complex, but it’s precisely this committed mood and spirit that makes the show fun to watch.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Wpy90s">
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Adapted from the still-running Belgian series <em>De Mol,</em> each season of <em>The Mole</em> sends American contestants globe-trotting as they compete. In its first season, 10 contestants travel through France, Monaco, and Spain. (Future seasons go on to Italy and Switzerland, Hawaii, the Yucatan peninsula, and Chile and Argentina.) Each episode features daily challenges in a formula that would become familiar on other shows such as <em>The Amazing Race</em> or <em>Survivor</em>. Each of <em>The Mole</em>’s “tests’’ varies in scale, whether it’s going skydiving, figuring out how to reach a new destination, or doing their teammates’ laundry in a town where they don’t know the language. Often, there are variations on familiar games and activities like laser tag, brain teasers, and capture the flag, where opportunities for teamwork and betrayal abound. Watching now, there’s a peculiarity to the challenges — which are pre-smartphone, pre-fancy GPS, and often lo-fi and low-tech — but it makes the moments when they still manage to be thrilling all the more exciting. (A standout ambitious <a href="https://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/2021/07/mole-season-1-episode-8-recap/">challenge</a> in a late episode of season 1 might have invented escape rooms?!)
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</p>
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<div id="ieoaBS">
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<div style="width: 100%; height: 0; padding-bottom:
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75%;">
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZBMbqY">
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Each episode’s final test is its most important. The quiz’s 20-plus multiple-choice questions range from<em> </em>“Is the Mole male or female?”<em> </em>to<em> </em>“What did the Mole have for breakfast?” Players answer these questions on a timed computer quiz, based off their own weekly suspicions. The players’ actual quiz scores are never revealed to them, making it near impossible to know how on or off track they might be. Because a player’s fate is based on how well they do on the quiz in relation to others, it’s in their better interest that another contestant performs worse. This leads to players trying to confuse their teammates, sometimes even drawing attention to themselves or implicating someone else. As Cooper narrates, “How do you work together when you can’t trust <em>any</em>one?”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rYcFel">
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It’s all very intense framing for what is truly a fun mystery game. But <em>The Mole</em> commits to the vibe on all fronts, from the <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/6Ud3ujMotyOk9GgSGBjof0?si=8ogB-QQ5R9iEn8gtA_8sew">soundtrack</a> to the players’ buy-in to its language: Each episode culminates in what the show calls an “execution,” which is just a classic competition-show elimination ceremony. This suspenseful event sees Cooper type in the names of the remaining players into a computer, one by one. If they’ve performed well enough to be spared, the screen turns a bright green. If they did the worst on the quiz (and are thus the least knowledgeable about the Mole’s identity) they’re “executed”: The screen turns a vivid red, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZviFpfmVgRY">music</a> plunges, and they’re sent packing.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="poEtwA">
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<em>The Mole</em> arrived at an interesting time in reality TV history: at the onset of American reality staples that still run today. Its first season aired only about five months after <em>Survivor’s </em>first season ended, and it predated <em>The Amazing Race</em> by eight months. There’s an apparent normalness to its cast and contestants that feels almost strange by today’s standards. There are no indications of desired social media fame (a la <a href="https://www.vox.com/reset/2020/2/24/21145335/the-bachelor-instagram-social-media-influencers-
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money"><em>Bachelor in Paradise</em></a>), and it feels less about having a big personality and more about the actual game. Jim, the light-grunge, out-as-gay “helicopter pilot” is a standout of the first season, often showcasing admiration for the game in all its fun and difficulty. (In what seems ahead of its time, <em>The Mole</em>’s first season featured not one but two openly gay contestants.) And the final three have a dynamic chemistry that feels singular and too good to spoil. It all makes for a stakes-filled final stretch that’s one of the most satisfying viewing experiences I’ve ever had.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B4yTis">
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If there is any flaw to the series, it’s in what we don’t see. To maintain the suspense of the Mole’s identity, the viewer can’t be privy to all contestant strategizing and theorizing. We learn some of these details by a season’s end and in each finale, but you get the feeling there’s so much we’re not shown due to time and editorial constraints. There’s a <a href="https://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/2021/05/mole-
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insider-casting-filming-australia/">rumored</a> potential new iteration in the works under a different <a href="https://theinsider.castingcrane.com/age-gate">title</a>, though it’s difficult to imagine a reboot could maintain the same magic as the original in a new technological and social media age.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1orJiU">
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What remains the smartest part of the show’s mechanics is how the identity of the Mole is withheld from viewers, too. It allows the audience to play along and guess who the Mole might be from episode to episode. In middle school, my friends and I would share weekly theories of the Mole’s identity, writing the names of suspects on the chalkboard between classes, or even playing our own versions in backyards before the sun went down — a friend’s older brother played host, we neighborhood kids using pencil and paper to take the quizzes.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UUHZYo">
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<em>The Mole</em> often felt like a secret relic only my friends and I knew. I’ve remembered it fondly over the years but haven’t found many others who watched it. Now that it’s streaming, a wider audience can escape into its thrilling adventure at any time. When it dropped on Netflix, I sat down to rewatch its second season for the first time since it aired. I swore I remembered who the Mole was and felt upset by how obvious it seemed now. I worried: Had the show lost its luster in retrospect? But when the Mole was revealed in the season two finale, I was shocked to find out that I’d misremembered. My suspicions and mountains of evidence against this player were misplaced. I had been duped once more. It made me feel like a kid again, completely full of wonder and awe.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VXWoaa">
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<em>The first two seasons of </em>The Mole<em> are </em><a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81453160"><em>streaming on Netflix</em></a><em>. Seasons one and three are </em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mole-Complete-First-Season/dp/B0007GAEXK/"><em>available on DVD</em></a><em>. For more recommendations from the world of culture, check out the </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/one-good-thing"><em>One Good Thing archives</em></a><em>.</em>
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</p></li>
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<li><strong>The ocean’s rarest mammal has a few final lessons to teach us</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-
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cdn.com/thumbor/njPzRLan9VOpUwTINWwhzdtgC9w=/668x0:3616x2211/1310x983/cdn.vox-
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cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70238673/VaquitaMarina_LuisAntonioRojas__43__a_.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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A vaquita skeleton is exhibited at the temporary show “Oceans” in the Universum museum in Mexico City. The vaquita is a critically endangered species of porpoise endemic to the northern end of the Gulf of California in Baja California, Mexico. | Luis Antonio Rojas for Vox
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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 tiny porpoise called the vaquita has polarized a Mexican fishing town. The species is fighting for its life.
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</p>
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<p class="p--has- dropcap p-large-text" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mvIEAG">
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</p>
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<p class="p--has- dropcap p-large-text" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Wo3Egd">
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The most endangered marine mammal on Earth, a small porpoise called the vaquita, lives just off the coast of San Felipe, a small Mexican fishing town in Baja California. Thousands of these animals, which have distinctive black markings around their lips and eyes, once lived in the warm Gulf of California. But by the summer of 2018, scientists estimated that fewer than 19 remained in the entire world, according to the <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.190598">most recent published estimates</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="q9esYO">
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One morning in November, I set out to sea in a small boat near San Felipe with three members of a community that conservationists have accused of killing vaquitas: shrimp fishermen. Dressed in white rubber boots and colorful waders, the men had agreed to show me what it’s like to fish using gillnets, a kind of net that often unintentionally catches marine animals other than shrimp.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c5uMij">
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The captain, a short man in his 60s with a thick gray mustache, motored us out as the sun was rising. Big-bellied pelicans cruised beside us. I spent the next 10 hours watching the crew fish with long walls of net that hang from buoys<strong> </strong>like sheets in the ocean. Gillnets are designed to trap marine creatures that swim or drift into them, especially if their bodies are roughly the same width as the openings in the net — in this case, about the size of a credit card.
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</p>
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<div class="c-wide-block">
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
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cdn.com/thumbor/RFAuZMyPPLZZGYc0BQA0MjOxlC4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
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cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23056489/VaquitaMarina_LuisAntonioRojas__22___.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Fishermen pull a gillnet with a crab stuck in it from the water near San Felipe.
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zwbggQ">
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That morning, the fishermen told me that in their experience, shrimp gillnets don’t ensnare vaquitas. The nets break easily, one of them said, while ripping through the thin strands of green nylon with his hand. If a vaquita gets stuck, it can tear its way out, he added. (The man asked me not to share his name so he could speak freely without fear of reprisal from other fishers or conservationists.)
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="siSiqs">
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But some <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1523-1739.2000.98191.x">research</a>, carried out by US and Mexican institutions, shows that shrimp gillnets are among the kinds of gillnets that imperil vaquitas. The porpoises, which are about half the size of a bottlenose dolphin, get tangled in the mesh and eventually drown — a cruel irony for an animal that lives underwater.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2bIJ7z">
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The fishermen’s nets didn’t snag any vaquitas, though they did bring in plenty of other species they didn’t mean to catch: small guitarfish, scorpionfish, dozens of crabs, and a stingray the size of a pillow. The ray was alive when the men tossed it back to sea, though it had several cuts on the tips of its fins. The fishermen caught hundreds of shrimp, too, some of which we ate after boiling them in seawater using a small propane stove they brought on board. (They were delicious.)
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</p>
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<div class="c-wide-block">
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<div class="c-image-grid">
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<div class="c-image-grid__item">
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZMIMtPWpzRXxzFQascKmWWO0U9g=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
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cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23058879/VaquitaMarina_LuisAntonioRojas__17___.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Five species of shrimp caught using a gillnet on a local shrimping boat in San Felipe.
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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</div>
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<div class="c-image-grid__item">
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
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cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23058888/VaquitaMarina_LuisAntonioRojas__21___.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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The captain of the boat holds an injured stingray that was accidentally caught by their gillnet.
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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</div></div></div></li>
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</ul>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YTc8Yz">
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To conservationists, the way to save the vaquitas is simple: eliminate the use of gillnets like these. But if there’s one lesson that vaquitas can teach us, it’s that transforming a way of life of even a small community isn’t simple at all.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lkqXw6">
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Scientists, environmentalists, and government officials eager to save the vaquita have tried many times to rid the Upper Gulf of gillnets, and have even banned them outright in some areas. Not only have those efforts failed, they’ve also angered local fishers, who make up a large portion of San Felipe’s 17,000 or so residents. Tensions rose to a boiling point early this year after a ship operated by the environmental organization Sea Shepherd Conservation Society tried to remove a fishing boat’s gillnet, provoking a conflict. The Sea Shepherd ship and a fishing boat collided, <a href="https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/border-baja-
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california/story/2021-01-05/baja-fisherman-dies-vaquita-conservationists">resulting in the death of a fisherman</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jmtefq">
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The tension was still palpable in November when another skiff approached our boat. One of the fishermen looked at me and photographer Luis Antonio Rojas and yelled from the other boat: “Throw them overboard. They want to stop us from fishing.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g3TGZB">
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I was clearly an outsider — was it the blotches of sunscreen? — and local fishers often say that outsiders want to interfere with a whole community’s livelihood to try to save the few vaquitas that are left. Their frustration probably isn’t helped by the fact that the vaquita may be too far gone to come back from the brink of extinction now.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xV5Jjp">
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“We fishermen are also going extinct,” said Mario Humberto Izquierdo Hernandez, a fisherman in his late 60s whom I met at the port in San Felipe. He’s been fishing his whole life and has never seen a vaquita.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="scFaQQ">
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Talking to the fishermen, I couldn’t help but feel that no one wins in this conflict between fishing and conservation: It pits two groups who both love the ocean against each other. And how is anyone supposed to save a local species without the support of the local community?
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="134V2R">
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But there’s something that could be more devastating than the extinction of the vaquita: the risk that thousands of other threatened species worldwide that share habitat with people will die off in the midst of these same kinds of conflicts. Ultimately, that’s what brought me here, to figure out what we can learn — and what we can even gain — when we lose the vaquita.
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</p>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="lnkEmj"/>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1yk95u">
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In mid-October, a team of scientists from Mexico and the US piled onto two large ships off the coast of Baja California, near San Felipe, and motored out to sea. Their goal was to survey the last remaining vaquitas. The boats weaved through a constellation of fishing skiffs to a nearby patch of ocean not far from land.
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</p>
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Each ship carried<strong> </strong>a handful of skilled wildlife spotters, who would take one-hour turns scanning the water. From<strong> </strong>sunrise to sunset, pairs of spotters peered out to sea with plus-size mounted binoculars called “big eyes.” A recorder would stand right behind them, ready to carefully jot down any sightings of the porpoise.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2maDFm">
|
||
Even with the right equipment, these animals are hard to spot. Vaquitas are tiny — about five feet long — and shy compared to other marine animals. They don’t like ships, and tend to pop up once and then disappear. Making it harder, the Upper Gulf can be choppy and murky, not a clear Caribbean blue. Their small fins blend in and you often can’t see more than a few feet or so below the surface.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-wide-block">
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/thumbor/1L0mkmM2_K2CGEeIBXcLPe2gwfw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23061142/Olson101808_189.2.jpg"/> <cite>Paula Olson</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
A pair of vaquitas swim off the coast of San Felipe in October 2008.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mjC0Ke">
|
||
Most challenging of all is that vaquitas are so incredibly rare. Their numbers have declined by 99 percent in the past decade, research shows. During the last major survey, in 2019, researchers saw an estimated 10 animals (though that number doesn’t represent the entire population, because the scientists searched a limited area). That may be why half a dozen or so older fishermen told me that they have never once seen a vaquita, even though they’ve spent most of their lives on the water in the porpoise’s habitat.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NQ9YWQ">
|
||
Fishing is the main reason for this sharp decline. But there’s one catch in particular that’s especially problematic: the totoaba, a greenish-gray drum fish.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4UHsnU">
|
||
Like the vaquita, the fish is endemic to the gulf and threatened with extinction. One of its organs known as the swim bladder — part of the body that helps it control buoyancy — is valuable on the black market. Poachers catch the fish in gillnets and remove their swim bladders, which <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/07/investigation-
|
||
reveals-illegal-trade-cartels-decimating-vaquita-porpoises/">Mexican cartels</a> smuggle into China. Some people consider totoaba swim bladder a delicacy with medicinal properties, and just a gram of it can go for up to $46 US, according to a <a href="https://earthleagueinternational.org/operation-fake-gold/">2018 report</a>. (For reference, the price of gold is currently around $57 per gram.)
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-wide-block">
|
||
<div class="c-image-grid">
|
||
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/thumbor/wyH4Z0Fs4tfqWv2miBZ2yJ3Y-ag=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23056164/VaquitaMarina_LuisAntonioRojas__33___.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
A worker from Acuario Oceánico, a private totoaba farm, holds a 3 kilogram specimen caught for a local restaurant.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/thumbor/zuWmcMF3srNe_Roa5c7ReMph9Bs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23056191/VaquitaMarina_LuisAntonioRojas__34___.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Dried totoaba swim bladders, considered a delicacy in China, rest inside a cardboard box at Acuario Oceánico.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/thumbor/8n1lfSUMOEOznsej-XyBZY3JnjU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059413/VaquitaMarina_LuisAntonioRojas__37___.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
A fisherman displays an illegal gillnet used to catch totoaba for a photograph.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mFt3ED">
|
||
Why does this matter for vaquitas? Fishers catch totoaba using gillnets made with thick nylon strands that have particularly large openings (the fish can grow to more than six feet long). When vaquitas get stuck, it’s hard for them to escape. Though most kinds of gillnets can ensnare vaquitas, totoaba nets pose the greatest threat to the porpoise, scientists say.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2JrhCJ">
|
||
Just after the vaquita survey concluded, I drove to a port on the southern edge of San Felipe to meet a scientist who helped lead it, Barbara Taylor. I walked down a long, narrow ramp onto a dock where the air smelled especially fishy. Before me was one of the survey ships, the Narval<em>, </em>a large gray vessel with a vaquita model on its deck.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nIjfsP">
|
||
Taylor, a marine scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), met me on the ship’s upper deck, wearing a vaquita bracelet, vaquita earrings, and a shirt that said: “May the vaquita always swim here!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1mJYqB">
|
||
Over the shrill calls of seagulls, I asked Taylor the big question: Had they found any?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-float-left c-float-hang">
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/i1KUxLtU6t0shBnstWqFvOMLNaE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23056243/VaquitaMarina_LuisAntonioRojas__6___.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Barbara Taylor, a senior scientist at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has been studying vaquitas since the 1990s.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="srHRzO">
|
||
“It’s lonely out there,” said Taylor, 67, who’s been studying vaquitas since the ’90s and has participated in seven other similar surveys. “It’s one of those things that those of us who work on the vaquita lose sleep about,” she added. “Are we going to come out here and see none?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q45lFs">
|
||
Thankfully, not this time. There were eight vaquita sightings across the two ships, and each sighting typically includes one to three animals, according to Jonathan White, an author who was on the ship and helped fund the expedition. Those sightings also included calves, said White, who reviewed unpublished findings of the survey. White stressed that survey estimates don’t represent the total number of vaquitas in the Gulf, and are only an estimate of how many individuals the scientists saw during the survey.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7Ek9L8">
|
||
The first sighting on the Narval was close to sunset on the first day of the trip, said Ernesto Vázquez Morquecho, one of the official spotters. He saw the animal’s fin and back breach the surface — “just enough to describe it as a vaquita,” he told me that morning. “It was really, really hopeful.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wIBjhMNuKtgjRJZgwRpJ2Wq8tFE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23056253/VaquitaMarina_LuisAntonioRojas__14___.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Ernesto Vázquez Morquecho was one of the official vaquita spotters on board the Narval<em> </em>ship.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2u8rWe">
|
||
It’s hard to imagine that spotting perhaps a dozen individuals of any species is hopeful. In fact, many scientists would likely consider a population of that size “functionally extinct,” meaning the animal is no longer fulfilling a function in the ecosystem — in this case, controlling the populations of small fish and other critters vaquitas prey on. But for Morquecho, Taylor, and the other scientists, it’s still a good sign — and useful for conservation.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nT5KQB">
|
||
“It’s important to know that the vaquitas are still out there and that it is worth trying to give those last individuals a break,” Taylor said. The other good news, she added, is that vaquitas appear to be reproducing as fast as they can. “You shouldn’t write them off,” she said. Sometimes, against the odds, nature can recover<strong> </strong>when it’s given a chance.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="aF7smG"/>
|
||
<div class="c-wide-block">
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/thumbor/YXUpbjx6Au77wjPwPG3H6z2z-L4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23056408/VaquitaMarina_LuisAntonioRojas__3___.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Pickup trucks carry fishing boats on the beach in San Felipe early in the morning of November 4.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="puL9IU">
|
||
San Felipe is a desert town about two and a half hours south of the US border, located on a stretch of the Baja coast where dust devils rise from miles of silty sand. Many cultures mesh and collide here: You can see retirees from Ohio eating dinner next to marine biologists not far from a strip club, while a few hundred feet away, fishermen haul up their catch from the beach. At least on the surface, San Felipe is not a wealthy town; I saw no mansions or flashy cars.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NA2CKe">
|
||
A loose coalition of scientists, local and global conservation groups, Mexican officials, and even <a href="https://people.com/human-interest/leonardo-dicaprio-nat-geo-thriller-cartel-cocaine-
|
||
killing-rare-vaquita/">a celebrity</a> or two has been trying to give vaquitas a chance for decades now. The Mexican government has enacted various bans on gillnet fishing in large parts of the Upper Gulf. It also established a handful of protected areas, including the Zero Tolerance Area, an 87-square-mile zone about 30 minutes off the coast of San Felipe where fishing is technically prohibited altogether.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/S2bQK0_4r94o2AM2YgVE_3I1sC0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059423/GULF_OF_CALIFORNIA_1.jpg"/> <cite>Christina Animashaun/Vox</cite></p>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="meVw3c">
|
||
But this name is a misnomer since local fishers don’t usually follow these rules — in part because of a lack of enforcement. While only some fishers catch totoaba, nearly all of them use gillnets and fish in the Zero Tolerance Area. During the surveys in 2019 and this year, Taylor saw “no evidence of enforcement,” she told me. In fact, she said, the survey team had trouble even looking for vaquitas in the Zero Tolerance Area because there were so many fishing skiffs. (Mexican government officials did not respond to a request for comment.)
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TG75xX">
|
||
Most scientists and fishers I spoke to, and even some of the very people tasked with enforcing the law, agreed that there’s barely any enforcement. Several marines stationed aboard a naval ship near the Narval<em> </em>told me they patrol the Zero Tolerance Area every day, but it’s hard to control fishing because there are so many boats coming in and out. (The officers spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the press.) They also acknowledged that fishers face pressure to earn money for their families.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-wide-block">
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/thumbor/lyEnDxDEgrsoCFabuLVjCoShLH4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23057037/VaquitaMarina_LuisAntonioRojas__16___.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
The captain of a local shrimp fishing boat sails out of San Felipe early in the morning of November 5.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IT9tCa">
|
||
American conservation groups, working alongside the Mexican government, have tried more drastic measures to save vaquitas. In the fall of 2017, a program called VaquitaCPR, largely staffed by US scientists, captured two vaquitas that they had planned to take into human care until gillnets could be removed from their habitat. The first animal, a young female, showed <a href="https://www.int-res.com/articles/esr2019/38/n038p011.pdf">signs of extreme stress</a> after it was captured. Fearing the worst, the scientists released it back into the ocean. It disappeared. The second, an adult female, was similarly distressed and had a heart attack when the team released it into the water. It died shortly after. Unlike some other rare species like the tiger or red panda, vaquitas have not survived in captivity.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CUiedk">
|
||
Meanwhile, Sea Shepherd — which was involved in the survey — began sending out a ship to cut and remove fishers’ illegal gillnets, also with the support of the Mexican government. In 2019, a National Geographic documentary produced in part by Leonardo DiCaprio, <em>Sea of Shadows</em>, featured the organization. Following the deadly collision this year, Sea Shepherd <a href="https://seashepherd.org/2021/01/01/collision-at-sea-as-
|
||
sea-shepherd-vessels-attacked-in-mexicos-vaquita-refuge/">claimed</a> that fishers attacked its ship before ramming into it. The family of the deceased fisherman claimed that Sea Shepherd ran into his skiff, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55540506">according to BBC News</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kdybAL">
|
||
Captain Peter Hammarstedt, Sea Shepherd’s director of campaigns, told Vox that the organization has for years “supported local fishing communities and the Mexican government to remove illegal fishing gear” from a protected area called the Vaquita Refuge. “Without these net removal operations, the vaquita would likely already be extinct,” Hammarstedt said. National Geographic did not respond to a request for comment.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Uugb2y">
|
||
An us-versus-them mentality now hangs over the two camps, said Valeria Towns, a former government official in Mexico’s environmental ministry and the program coordinator at Museo de la Ballena, a Mexican environmental organization. (The organization owns the Narval<em> </em>ship<em>, </em>which also removes illegal gillnets in vaquita habitat, she said.) Documentaries like <em>Sea of Shadows </em>can<em> </em>make things worse, Towns said, because they make fishermen look like villains. “It polarized the complex social issue in the area,” she said of the documentary. The problem is that now fishers in San Felipe, she added, “feel like the vaquita is their worst enemy.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/DLptY9QvUX5JzuhfhSjjcbT2fPI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23059050/GettyImages_516748246.jpg"/> <cite>Hector Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
The Farley Mowat, a Sea Shepherd boat, on the Cortes Sea in San Felipe in 2016.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IxRuDh">
|
||
After meeting Taylor on the Narval, I drove south down the coast to a beach about 45 minutes from San Felipe. I was there to witness a different approach to vaquita conservation — fishing with a sustainable net that catches shrimp without killing porpoises.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Czf69d">
|
||
Under an awning a few hundred feet from the ocean, I met a fisherman who builds eco-friendly nets. He’s a member of a local coalition of sustainable fishers, called Pesca ABC, but he fishes outside of town because he’s concerned about conflicts with other San Felipe fishers. He also asked me not to share his name.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jB9JBo">
|
||
“Ninety-eight percent of fishermen don’t know how to use these different nets,” the fisherman, a middle-aged man wearing a loose polo shirt, told me. If you don’t have the proper training to use them, they capture less, he adds. “That’s why they don’t like them,” he said. “That’s why they think the other nets are better.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jAbTLZ">
|
||
We sat on stools near the beach as the light faded, and he used his hands to demonstrate how the net works. Unlike gillnets, which hang in the water largely unattended, this net drags behind a boat, said the man, who’s been fishing for almost 40 years. The eco-friendly part is a metal grate inside the net, called an excluder. When large animals enter, they run into the grate and exit through a hole nearby, whereas the shrimp pass through and get caught. “There’s no bycatch,” he said, meaning that fishers using these nets rarely catch other species by mistake. (Some fishers who use gillnets dispute that claim.)
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zjoq6b">
|
||
The problem is that the fishing community, on the whole, believes these nets capture less, according to Daniel Arellano Millán, Pesca ABC’s field coordinator in San Felipe, who joined us on the beach. Pesca ABC is trying to collect data that shows eco- friendly nets can be profitable, Arellano Millán said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NAEqkV">
|
||
As we were finishing up our conversation, another fisherman approached in the darkness, barefoot, carrying a white bucket splashed with brown mud. He sat beside me and shined a flashlight inside. A large triggerfish lay on a pile of squirming tentacles. Octopuses. “Should I put one on your back?” the man said, laughing, as he pulled them out of the bucket to count.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kmoAen">
|
||
The ocean here is full of life, from sea turtles to dolphins to these octopuses. That’s what draws fishers here in the first place, and it’s what conservationists want to protect. Both of these communities care about this stretch of coastline because of its staggering abundance — but they have very different visions for what should be done with it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="OSYWkg"/>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nugctp">
|
||
Fishers have more interest than anyone in saving the vaquita, according to Lorenzo García Carrillo, who heads up the largest federation of fishers in San Felipe. I met García Carrillo, 48, at his office, a bright yellow building near the main beach in town. “We live from the resources in the sea,” he said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/thumbor/7RrNkhY_G81joHXhhmEA8NkFtuQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23056999/VaquitaMarina_LuisAntonioRojas__39___.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Lorenzo García Carrillo, who leads a local group representing fishers, speaks on his cellphone in his San Felipe office on November 6.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5aX5hd">
|
||
While scientists come to San Felipe with a salary from organizations and governments, he said, fishers here get their salary from selling seafood. He estimates they make anywhere from $23,000 to $47,000 a year, on average. “This is a fisherman’s town,” and there aren’t many other industries, added Izquierdo Hernandez, the fisherman I met at the port. A healthy sea is good for vaquitas, but it’s also good for those whose livelihoods depend on it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dod6a4">
|
||
Fishers have another reason to care: “If the vaquita goes extinct, there’s going to be punishment,” said García Carrillo, who worries that the government or conservation organizations may take action against fishers. “It would be catastrophic.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="P6WRio">
|
||
So why do fishers continue to use gillnets? García Carrillo claims that sustainable nets like the one we saw capture far fewer shrimp — not even enough to recoup the cost of gasoline. Like the shrimp fishermen who took me out to sea, he also doesn’t believe that gillnets actually kill vaquitas. Scientists strongly disagree with that claim. “The claim that vaquitas don’t die in those nets is known to be false,” Taylor, the NOAA scientist, said of shrimp gillnets.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="r3YRA2">
|
||
A number of<strong> </strong>existing solutions might help vaquitas, from sustainable nets to steering fishing boats clear of the Zero Tolerance Area. The challenge is that when scientists push for these changes, they don’t get through to most fishers. Part of the barrier is surely cost — gillnets require less gasoline to operate than sustainable nets and they can capture hundreds of pounds of shrimp per day. But it’s clear that politics and culture play a role, too.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SaMLBx">
|
||
The scientists I spoke to acknowledged that gillnetting is a way of life for much of San Felipe’s fishing community. There’s a culture of competition that rewards catching more fish, and even fishing the endangered totoaba — becoming what’s known locally as a totoabero — looks appealing if it comes with a hefty paycheck, Towns, the former government official, said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div id="3zkjky">
|
||
<div class="volume-video" id="volume-placement-191">
|
||
|
||
</div>
|
||
<div class="caption">
|
||
Two shrimp fishermen remove shrimp, crabs, and other bycatch from a gillnet off the coast of San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico. | Benji Jones/Vox
|
||
</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CEdtuP">
|
||
There’s also not much of an incentive to catch fish sustainably. I noticed that there’s no market for vaquita-friendly shrimp, for example, and there’s no effective regulation of gillnets. So fishers are actually making “the economically sane choice” by continuing to use them, Taylor said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WjGeG3">
|
||
“As long as I’ve been here, there really has never been any rewards for the people who do it right and lots of rewards for people who do it wrong,” Taylor continued. “I don’t blame them for not having faith that that’s going to change.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="1LhUv3"/>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ol4S1X">
|
||
On my last day in San Felipe, I hired a fisherman to take me out to the Zero Tolerance Area. I wanted to test my luck with vaquita spotting. Have you ever looked for a critically endangered species? It’s not easy or particularly fun. Staring out at the sea, I saw about 10 fishing boats, plenty of pelicans, and an empty Doritos bag. No porpoises.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2itWNX">
|
||
I felt a sense of loss as my mind wandered. We’re watching an extinction happen in slow motion, and time, money, laws, and research haven’t been enough to stop it. Across the spectrum of opinion — which includes the conservationists, the fishers, and those in both camps — most people are unhappy with the process.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YM1SZE">
|
||
While some fishers, especially those that regularly catch totoaba, have profited handsomely, the majority of people here fish to get by. They say that all the efforts to save the vaquita have only made their lives harder — the San Felipe fishing community left as the bycatch of the net of restrictions conservationists have advocated for.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-wide-block">
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WlyhfC-C6EeTkDJaYmibOGprggY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23057171/VaquitaMarina_LuisAntonioRojas__30___.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Reporter Benji Jones looks for vaquitas inside the Zero Tolerance Area.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sDT7ZJ">
|
||
Conservationists around the world can learn lessons from efforts to save vaquitas, Towns told me. If the vaquita goes extinct, she said, “we should write a book about all the things you shouldn’t do if you want to preserve a species.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KUXqgg">
|
||
Over the past three decades, much of the money spent on vaquita conservation — tens of millions of dollars — has gone toward valuable science-based efforts like surveys. But ultimately, the vaquita faces a problem rooted in complex social<em> </em>dynamics. “Too many scientists are influencing the policies,” Towns said. To solve the problem from the root, she said, local people must be involved in managing their own resources.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="woaq3A">
|
||
Taylor, for her part, wishes there was more of an effort, early on, to develop an “ethic for sustainability” among the fishing community. “I think that the conservation world right now is really seeing how important it is to get the communities involved at a very early stage,” she said. If she could turn back the clock, she would have also encouraged scientists to capture vaquitas when there were more of them — and thus more room for error. Captive vaquitas could have preserved a reservoir of healthy animals that could have been reintroduced later on.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FsQ7ar">
|
||
“You have to fight for the best and prepare for the worst,” she said. “We did not prepare for the worst.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="c-end-para" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ldlvMU">
|
||
On the day that the shrimp fishermen took me out on the ocean, I saw a lot of life and death. A dolphin surfaced about 100 feet from the boat, and pelicans fought with each other over bycatch. The fishermen removed dying fish and shrimp from the net; crabs wielded their pincers in self-defense as they tried to scurry away. I felt amazement and sadness at the same time. I understood that I could mourn the same creatures that inspire joy and wonder and keep a community alive. It’s that joy that reminds us of what’s worth saving.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zhABOe">
|
||
<em>This story is part of </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth"><em>Down to Earth</em></a><em>, a Vox reporting project on the science, politics, and economics of the biodiversity crisis. </em>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="l8Ehqn">
|
||
<em>Luis Antonio Rojas contributed reporting.</em>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><strong>Elon Musk’s imaginary world</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="Elon Musk’s profile in silhouette." src="https://cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/thumbor/Q91whWeV0OihL4DLuxZf1ZLK0ic=/640x0:5760x3840/1310x983/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70235167/GettyImages_974773044.7.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Elon Musk listens as Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel talks about constructing a high speed transit tunnel to O’Hare during a news conference in 2018 in Chicago, Illinois. | Joshua Lott/Getty Images
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Historian Jill Lepore on the strange but familiar appeal of “Muskism.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2psbyK">
|
||
Who is Elon Musk, really?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VMe2su">
|
||
I don’t have a good answer to that question. I’m not sure anyone does. Half the time I’m in awe of Musk and the other half I’m baffled by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2021/12/01/elon-musk-shares-bizarre-stalin-meme-commemorating-
|
||
twitter-ceo-change/?sh=15cf610b5294">his Twitter antics</a>. But as a cultural figure, Musk really occupies his own space.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TA5Dih">
|
||
He’s now <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/26/elon-musk-is-poised-to-become-the-first-
|
||
person-worth-300-billion-dollars.html">the richest person</a> on the planet (or the second richest person, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/billionaire-timeline/#352470167955">depending on the day</a>) and as his fame has grown, the line between the man and the myth has blurred. Some of that has to do with Musk’s gift for self-mythology, and some of it has to do with his very real achievements.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G3sOQs">
|
||
Whatever you think of Musk, there’s no denying his impact. I mean, this is a guy who <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/how-tweets-by-teslas-elon-musk-have-
|
||
moved-markets-2021-11-08/">moves markets with a single tweet</a>. So what are we to make of that? And what are we to make of him?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5YzOjy">
|
||
A new podcast series by the Harvard historian Jill Lepore, called <a href="https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/the-evening-rocket-dimension-x/"><em>The Evening Rocket</em></a>, tries to untangle all of this in a way only a historian could. It’s a deep dive into Musk, the guy, but it’s also an exploration of a much larger phenomenon that Musk personifies. For Lepore, Musk is the face of extreme capitalism, a capitalism rooted in science fiction stories and animated by fanciful plans to conquer space and save humanity. She calls this phenomenon “Muskism” and argues that it’s a recycled brand of techno-utopianism that’s fascinating, dangerous, and profoundly revealing.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B2CXjg">
|
||
I reached out to Lepore for the latest episode of <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vox-conversations/id1081584611"><em>Vox Conversations</em></a>. We talk about the peculiar appeal of Musk, why the style of capitalism he represents has become so intoxicating, and how all of this fits into the broader history of technology and capitalism.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Dq1Zc9">
|
||
Below is an excerpt from our conversation, edited for length and clarity. As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, so subscribe to <em>Vox Conversations</em> on <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vox-conversations/id1215557536">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/search/vox%20conversations">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/vox-
|
||
conversations">Stitcher</a>, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div id="hRXax5">
|
||
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C0uHeG">
|
||
</p>
|
||
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="mSoTOi"/>
|
||
<h4 id="RsNY9X">
|
||
Sean Illing
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gSrJhw">
|
||
You’re not profiling a famous person just because they’re famous. In a way, your podcast isn’t even about Musk, the guy. You see him as the face of something happening in our society that’s important and probably not well understood. So what is that thing and why is Musk the vehicle for it?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="Wr1XQM">
|
||
Jill Lepore
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4GSgeB">
|
||
Oh, that’s fascinating. So, I’m a political historian. I’m not a biographer of the great and the famous and the rich. I really am fantastically uninterested in the history of celebrity or the presidency, honestly. And I wasn’t really much of a Musk follower. I was asked to do this project by the BBC.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xfMuMU">
|
||
And then I had to think about a way to say something that I thought could be useful about Elon Musk, but that really wasn’t a great-man biography or an anti-great biography. It’s not a takedown or anything, either. As a political historian, I’m interested in what Musk represents in our culture and political arrangements more broadly.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hcqpq5">
|
||
And I think we would do well to talk about “Muskism” as a kind of political economy, and we don’t, for some reason. There’s a lot of scrambling around to think about a way to talk about the latest incarnation of capitalism, right? Are we in late capitalism? Are we in advanced capitalism? Are we in post- industrial capitalism? Are we in surveillance capitalism? Is this platform capitalism? There’s something different, right? This is weird stuff.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ErdurO">
|
||
So I think we should just think about it as extreme capitalism. And another way to think about extreme capitalism is Muskism, or I might describe it as being more speculative than industrial. The products are often not actually widgets, but theoretical items. Now this is often less so with Musk’s own companies, because he does actually build things. But it’s most of all influenced by visions of the future that derive from science fiction. In fact, from very old science fiction. So Muskism is really antiquarianism disguised as futurism.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="xoWWqF">
|
||
Sean Illing
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a7KXDK">
|
||
We’ll come back to the science fiction stuff later, but it’s interesting that you use the phrase “extreme capitalism.” Do you see Muskism as just another iteration of capitalism or as something even more fundamental?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="icjkGW">
|
||
Jill Lepore
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rzlcWQ">
|
||
I think it is an extreme form of capitalism in the sense that it’s plutocratic. It’s something old again. There’s a lot of feudalism in Muskism. It’s like there are these lords and the rest of us are the peasantry and our fates are in their hands because they know best. So I don’t think it’s a new economic vision. I actually think the idea that there’s something deeply new and profoundly, disruptively innovative about Muskism is part of the self-mystification of that worldview, right?
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h4 id="nq15cx">
|
||
Sean Illing
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f27KMw">
|
||
What does that mean?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="Ht0r0u">
|
||
Jill Lepore
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sq8SA4">
|
||
It’s important to these people to think that they are doing something wholly new and bigger and better and more extreme. My whole first episode of <em>The Evening Rocket</em> is about the letter X. They love the letter X, right? It’s the science fiction go-to fan letter. So everything is X to them. It’s extreme, it’s extraterrestrial, it’s extraordinary, it’s extravagant, it’s existential. Everything’s always existential, but it’s actually not. These are mere mortals like the rest of us. They put their pants on one leg at a time and then they go out and they try to gain power and subvert ordinary people’s ability to control their own lives. That is a lot of what capitalism is.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="0OTWQM">
|
||
Sean Illing
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VaScBI">
|
||
Then why is it so important to identify and critique Muskism as a distinct thing?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="ro57MQ">
|
||
Jill Lepore
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7OMXn0">
|
||
I think people are fascinated by Musk. People who love Musk and hate Musk are all fascinated by Musk. And it’s hard to hold your attention on what might be going on structurally there because Musk is so flashy.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kAbXRQ">
|
||
I think he wasn’t always so flashy. One of the arguments I make in <em>The Evening Rocket</em> is that he himself was quite transformed by his infatuation, the mutual infatuation between Musk and Hollywood when he sort of became Iron Man in the press, right? There were all these glossy magazine covers of sexy, handsome, young Elon Musk. He’s the new Iron Man, the real-life Iron Man, the real-life Tony Stark. So there was a glitterati moment for Musk in which he became kind of the Kim Kardashian of CEOs, and everything he said was fleeting and meaningless, but extremely influential in the stock market.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PkyeAj">
|
||
In other words, he’s a figure that’s hard to pay attention to in a sustained or structural way because of the nature of his public presence, which is very Twitter-driven, a very flashy, staged, PR-event-driven presence. So the next launch of the next SpaceX rocket, we get a glimpse of Elon Musk. He makes all the headlines in every paper. And there’s two things to be said about him and then he disappears again.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nkjPAX">
|
||
So how do you hold on to that, right? It’s like trying to hold on when someone pours a glass of water in your hands and it’s just pouring through your fingers. There was a volume of water in the glass and now it’s evaporated. How are we supposed to find meaning in that?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B5Miv2">
|
||
I thought it would be useful to sort of pull back again, as a political historian who thinks a lot about the relationship between politics and technology, and try to think systematically about where Musk’s ideas come from. The self-mystification of him is that every idea just pops out of his head. He’s a visionary. And I don’t mean to say that he isn’t a fascinating person with lots of ideas, but I am saying that most of his ideas are recycled.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="0elzxa">
|
||
Sean Illing
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KKoaJP">
|
||
Before getting into the origins of some of those ideas, I want to linger on Musk’s fame a little longer. Why do you think he’s become such a transcendent cultural figure? It could’ve gone another way. Is it about him and how he’s packaged and sold himself, or is there something about us, something on the demand side, that made him the perfect face of all this?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="lccEHC">
|
||
Jill Lepore
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0ZoErx">
|
||
I think it’s both. I do think it was a public relations strategy of Tesla early on. When Musk assumed leadership of the company, they decided that instead of advertising, which Tesla really does not do, they would promote the product by promoting the idea of Elon Musk. And then the idea of Elon Musk has to be a very particular life story, not unlike the campaign biographies of political figures, right? Andrew Jackson ushers in the age of the common man; he rose from poverty to the White House. James Garfield, from the log cabin to the White House. Bill Clinton, the boy from Hope, right? So it really relies on a familiar political packaging.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GTHIIV">
|
||
The packaging of Elon Musk was that he was a boy wonder. He had a vision to change the world as a child, that this was influenced by reading <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-hitchhiker-s-
|
||
guide-to-the-galaxy-9780345391803/9780345391803"><em>The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy</em></a> when he was a young teen.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UMRYt6">
|
||
It’s a political biography in that sense, but it’s something more than that, because it has real cult-y quality to it. He’s a messiah figure, and that’s really how Tesla presents him. And he embraces that role. I’ve never met Elon Musk. I can’t speak about him personally, but I think he enjoys the public battlefield. He enjoys mocking people online. He can be very funny. People love his humor. He has a kind of laddishness.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JhAWlx">
|
||
I mean, the guy runs through marriages and women and has children with a lot of different people, and that’s appealing. He has a massive social media presence and I think there’s a hunger for following someone who’s irreverent and funny and powerful. I think his followership really exploded when Trump was banned from Twitter. He’s not Trump. I mean, it’s a totally false comparison to make, but I think he appeals to people online in a similar way, right?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="PVsom3">
|
||
Sean Illing
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8pSiBO">
|
||
Yeah, they’re obviously very different, but one connective thread, and this is something you kind of argue in the podcast, is that the popularity of Elon’s ideas, whether we’re talking about colonizing space or cryptocurrency or whatever, is a symptom of a damaged society, a society that’s lost faith in its institutions.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="HXVDfO">
|
||
Jill Lepore
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rOVTbl">
|
||
I’m not sure I ever put it that way in the podcast, but let me take the question at its face. Musk is a very accomplished engineer. He is not a straw man figure. He is a real person with real ideas who leads two major companies that have both undertaken extraordinary engineering feats. Tesla really does get a huge amount of credit for the revival of the electric vehicle, a nearly destroyed industry, right? SpaceX is doing extraordinary things. And if it weren’t for my sense of the sort of malign understory there, I’d be super thrilled and excited about it. It’s quite extraordinary.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JLj542">
|
||
But is the appeal a function of a damaged society? Well, I guess the example that I would give is: whether or not human beings on this planet should build colonies on Mars or on the moon is actually a question that we all have a stake in. And the presumption that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, the two wealthiest people in the world, get to decide the extraterrestrial fate of humankind is a bizarrely regressive notion.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1eiyYI">
|
||
You may or may not have approved of the Apollo mission to go to the moon in the 1960s, but you had a say in that. It was a government program where people engaged in political protest over it. A lot of people objected to the Apollo program, on the grounds that it was a misuse of public funds at a time when those funds could be better deployed implementing the Civil Rights Act and the equality requirements of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I mean, the day before the launch in 1969 of the Apollo 13, civil rights activists were at the Space Center protesting.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fVltUd">
|
||
There’s a whole long tradition of democratic deliberation over our missions in space, but we’ve forgotten that tradition. Even the press will cover <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/10/13/1045377132/william-shatner-star-trek-captain-kirk-blue-origin-space-flight">William Shatner going to space</a> in a Blue Origin rocket and talk about Jeff Bezos’s childhood dreams coming true and it’s like, isn’t that groovy?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PRjXC1">
|
||
And then maybe there’s a goofy satirical version of that where there’s a joke about it on Saturday Night Live or something, but there’s no sustained examination. I mean, to be fair, there’s plenty of quarters of the internet where surely there is sustained examination, but on the whole, are we having a big public debate about whether a private citizen should build a base on the moon just because he has the money to do it? We haven’t had that conversation.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="EUBHTt"/>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VR7RjK">
|
||
<em>To hear the rest of the conversation, </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/71nhf1gOoyrPiFur6XMyIJ?si=80W5v1InQiWeDkMnmL-Ykw"><em>click here</em></a><em>, and be sure to subscribe to </em>Vox Conversations<em> on </em><a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vox-conversations/id1215557536"><em>Apple Podcasts</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://podcasts.google.com/search/vox%20conversations"><em>Google Podcasts</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP"><em>Spotify</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/vox-conversations"><em>Stitcher</em></a><em>, or wherever you listen to podcasts.</em>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<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>The Ashes preview | Series could revolve around contest between Cummins and Root</strong> - England has lost nine of the 10 Tests it has played in Australia; the Australians haven’t played a Test since the 2-1 series loss to India in January</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>South Africa vs India | Magala, Rickelton the new faces in South Africa Test squad</strong> - Glenton Stuurman and Prenelan Subrayen have also made their way back into the team</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>2019 US Open champ Bianca Andreescu takes time off for sake of her mental health</strong> - The Canadian said she was affected mentally and physically by “multiple weeks in isolation quarantining” and by her grandmother’s battle with COVID in hospital</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>James Anderson to miss Ashes opening Test in Brisbane</strong> - With five Tests in six weeks the plan was to get him ready for the second Test in Adelaide</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>U.S. plans diplomatic boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics</strong> - Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said such a move would be an “outright political provocation,” but gave no details on how China might retaliate.</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>Gujarat court awards death sentence to man for rape, murder of toddler</strong> - Special POCSO court judge observed that the case was the “rarest of rare”</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>Annual painting event goes online</strong> - After holding its first 12 seasons offline, Colorathon, which seeks to rekindle the joy of painting among the youngsters, has shifted online, inviting</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>MLC election: ‘We want to defeat Congress candidate in Belagavi…what is wrong with that?’</strong> - Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai refutes talk of confusion in BJP</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>Rahul Gandhi demands compensation, jobs for kin of farmers killed during farm laws stir</strong> - Congress members demanded a statement from the government on the issue and walked out of the House along with NCP and DMK members while raising slogans against the 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>65 cases of Norovirus reported till October 31 in India, Government tells Rajya Sabha</strong> - Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar said that 54 cases were from Wayanad and 11 from Alappuzha of Kerala</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>Western leaders urge Russia to lower Ukraine tensions</strong> - The US and its European allies urge Russia to de-escalate, amid fears it could invade Ukraine.</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>Amalia: Heir to the Dutch throne keeps it normal at 18</strong> - Princess Amalia had an ordinary childhood and wants her life to continue that way.</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>Nearly 70 Spanish medics Covid positive after Christmas party</strong> - The outbreak among ICU staff in Málaga is believed to have started at a Christmas party last week.</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>Eric Zemmour: Far-right French presidential candidate grabbed at rally</strong> - A man grabs Eric Zemmour by the neck at the far-right presidential candidate’s first rally.</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 climber handed Mont Blanc gems after 2013 find</strong> - The stones are believed to be from an Air India plane which crashed into the mountain in 1966.</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 seizes domains used by “highly sophisticated” hackers in China</strong> - Move allows Microsoft to intercept traffic infected devices send to hacker’s servers. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1818425">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>OneDrive joins Dropbox in committing to native M1 Mac support</strong> - Native apps are rolling out all the time, but utilities are sometimes outliers. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1818402">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>COVID outbreak on cruise ship in New Orleans may be due to omicron</strong> - Some disembarked passengers said they were never told about the outbreak. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1818380">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>T-Mobile “inexplicably” rejected iPhone 13 rebates worth hundreds of dollars</strong> - T-Mobile says bug led iPhone rebate requests to be rejected as “ineligible.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1818359">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Neo discovers he still knows kung fu in latest Matrix Resurrections trailer</strong> - “We can’t see it, but we’re all trapped inside these strange repeating loops.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1818330">link</a></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><strong>If I could have sex with any person on the planet</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
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||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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||
I would
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
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||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Cunt_Bucket_"> /u/Cunt_Bucket_ </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/rauu6e/if_i_could_have_sex_with_any_person_on_the_planet/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/rauu6e/if_i_could_have_sex_with_any_person_on_the_planet/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>Why do the Norwegians put barcodes on their battleships?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
So they can Scandinavian
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/CasuallyLuke"> /u/CasuallyLuke </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/rar5s7/why_do_the_norwegians_put_barcodes_on_their/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/rar5s7/why_do_the_norwegians_put_barcodes_on_their/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>A woman joins a country club, and when she hears some guys talking about their golf round, she says, “I played on my college’s golf team. I was pretty good. Mind if I join you next week?” No one wants to say ‘yes’, but they’re on the spot…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Finally, one man says, “Okay, but we start at 6:30 a.m.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
He figures the early tee-time will discourage her. The woman says this may be a problem and asks if she can be up to 15 minutes late.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
They roll their eyes, but say, “Okay.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
She’s there at 6:30 am. sharp and beats all of them with an eye-opening 2-under par round. She’s fun and pleasant and the guys are impressed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
They congratulate her and invite her back the next week. She smiles, and says, “I’ll be there at 6:30, or 6:45.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The next week she again shows up at 6:30 sharp. Only this time, she plays left-handed. The three guys are incredulous as she still beats them with an even par round, despite playing with her off-hand.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
They’re totally amazed … They can’t figure her out. She’s very pleasant and a gracious winner. They invite her back again, but each man harbors a burning desire to beat her.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The third week, she’s 15 minutes late, which irritates the guys.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
This week she plays right-handed and narrowly beats all three of them. The men grumble that her late arrival is petty gamesmanship on her part. However, she’s so charming and complimentary of their strong play, they can’t hold a grudge.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
This woman is a riddle no one can figure out.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
They have a couple of beers in the Clubhouse and finally, one of the men asks her, “How do you decide if you’re going to golf right-handed or left-handed?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The lady blushes, and grins. “When my dad taught me to play golf, I learned that I was ambidextrous.” she replies. “I like to switch back and forth.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“When I got married after college, I discovered my husband always sleeps in the nude. From then on, I developed a silly habit. Right before I leave in the morning for golf practice, I pull the covers off him. If his ‘willie’ points to the right, I golf right-handed; if it points to the left, I golf left-handed.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The guys think this is hysterical.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Astonished at this bizarre information, one of the guys says, “What if it’s pointing straight up?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
She says, “Then, I’m fifteen minutes late.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Waitsfornoone"> /u/Waitsfornoone </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/racd2a/a_woman_joins_a_country_club_and_when_she_hears/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/racd2a/a_woman_joins_a_country_club_and_when_she_hears/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>My wife phoned me, panting and breathless.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“Where are you?” she moaned.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“I’m at the pub,” I replied.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
She said, “I think the baby’s coming!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
I said, “Well, he won’t get in. He’s underage.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/incredibleinkpen"> /u/incredibleinkpen </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/rakxr1/my_wife_phoned_me_panting_and_breathless/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/rakxr1/my_wife_phoned_me_panting_and_breathless/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>My wife asked me, “Why don’t you treat me like you did when we were first dating!?” So I took her to dinner and a movie…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Then dropped her off at her parents’ house.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/808gecko808"> /u/808gecko808 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ravykq/my_wife_asked_me_why_dont_you_treat_me_like_you/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ravykq/my_wife_asked_me_why_dont_you_treat_me_like_you/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
|
||
|
||
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