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<title>01 November, 2023</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 $1.8-Billion Lawsuit Over a Teacher Test</strong> - In the nineties, New York began requiring aspiring educators to take an exam. Thousands of people later claimed that the test was racially biased. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/the-teachers-who-oppose-tests">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What the U.A.W. Won</strong> - In forcing the Big Three automakers to pay higher wages and make other concessions, the union demonstrated the enduring power of organized labor. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-the-uaw-won">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Plight of the Hostages and the Rapidly Escalating Crisis in Gaza</strong> - Never before has Israel sought to rescue so many hostages from a territory where it is also waging an unbridled aerial war. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-plight-of-the-hostages-and-the-rapidly-escalating-crisis-in-gaza">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Smoking Gun for Biden’s Big Climate Decision?</strong> - A new analysis suggests that L.N.G. exports may well be worse for the environment than burning coal. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-smoking-gun-for-bidens-big-climate-decision">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Hamas Propaganda War</strong> - Across the Arab world, the group is successfully selling its narrative of resistance. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-hamas-propaganda-war">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>It takes more than trees to build a livable city</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="A drawing of a person holding a shovel and walking away from a row of recently planted trees." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ybRdrDEssTAsvyp2UWxKAZKUVwI=/0x448:3486x3063/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72816344/GettyImages_wpt014.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Getty Images
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Why green cities might not be the panacea we think they are.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p2FVS5">
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Des Fitzgerald’s new book, <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/des-fitzgerald/the-living-city-fitzgerald/"><em>The Living City: Why Cities Don’t Need to Be Green to Be Great</em></a>, reads like a provocation. The idea of <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-37716-8_1">green cities</a> — urban spaces where trees and plant life are integrated to make the environment more sustainable and livable — is so prevalent that there are very few cities <a href="https://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/reports-greening-americas-communities-projects">in the United States</a> and <a href="https://www.c40.org/">around the world</a> that aren’t pursuing it in <a href="https://thegreencities.eu/">some form</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MZbfWE">
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Fitzgerald, a professor of medical humanities and social sciences at <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/contributor/des-fitzgerald/">University College Cork</a>, Ireland, doesn’t think the explicit goal of adding more trees is bad, exactly. He acknowledges that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/01/planting-trees-cities-cut-deaths-summer-heat-study">planting more trees</a> can have a cooling effect on a warming planet and can benefit people living in cities. But, he writes, he wanted to consider why “so many planners, architects and policymakers [are] so fixated on <em>nature</em> as the solution to all of the city’s problems.” Fitzgerald, who previously co-wrote a book about the intersection of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=vDg1EaIAAAAJ&citation_for_view=vDg1EaIAAAAJ:Tiz5es2fbqcC">mental health and urban living</a>, started noticing in recent years that people talk about trees as a miracle cure for the challenges cities face, especially the psychological well-being of city dwellers. There’s the rise of <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/forest-bathing-nature-walk-health">forest bathing</a>, <a href="https://nationalparkcity.london/">park cities</a>, and <a href="https://www.onetreeperchild.com/">“one tree per child” </a>campaigns. Fitzgerald wants readers to consider some of the less savory historical antecedents of the movement and question the dichotomy between the city and the natural world that he thinks we take for granted.
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</p>
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<aside id="4T2jHQ">
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<div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zJclvB">
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A lot of the ideas in Fitzgerald’s book are counterintuitive. You don’t need to agree with all of them to appreciate his book, which takes many of the shibboleths of modern urban planning and architecture and turns them on their heads.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Od67ct">
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<em>This interview has been edited for length and clarity.</em>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8betG6">
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<strong>You’re interested in what the tree symbolizes, more so than the tree itself. The tree as a moral project or as a political project, right? </strong>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sebsuZ">
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Exactly — what kind of cultural work we’re doing when we get involved with trees. There’s a quote in the book from someone who says trees are a <a href="https://naturalresources.house.gov/legislative-priorities/trillion-trees-act.htm">bipartisan issue</a>, which is sort of true. It’s a stupid thing to say, but it’s an interesting thing to say. There’s no ideology that cannot be advanced by the tree. You have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/02/trillion-trees-republicans-climate/">right-wing ecologism</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/16/liberal-democrats-pledge-to-plant-60m-trees-a-year">left-wing ecologism</a>. Part of what I find tricky about this kind of uncritical tree veneration is that politics gets covered over a bit, and we kind of forget that there’s all sorts of not-good cultural associations being carried along there.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qQCAEb">
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<strong>I can imagine someone reading this and thinking, “What bad cultural associations could people possibly attach to trees?”</strong>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uID7cf">
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On the most basic level, it’s worth reminding ourselves that until very recently in human history, forests were <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23840033/vaster-wilds-review-lauren-groff">places of terror and fear</a> and the unknown. Today, there’s a <a href="https://www.vox.com/23894176/great-outdoors-exclusionary-nature-hiking-equity">certain privilege</a> in being able to enjoy green spaces. You have to have a particular kind of body. In many parts of the world, you have to be racialized in a certain kind of way, to be able to be in the forest in a non-threatening way. All of that gets forgotten.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JligaK">
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But the bigger thing is that the political movements that advanced nature over urban space, that wanted to get people out into nature, and out of cities for their own moral goods — it’s not a good movement. A Jamaican-American historian, <a href="https://environment.yale.edu/profile/taylor">Dorceta Taylor</a>, wrote this really brilliant history of the <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-rise-of-the-american-conservation-movement">environmental movement in the United States</a>, and she convincingly describes what happened in the early days of the environmental movement in the US as basically a response to anxiety about threats to racialized masculinity. You’ve got elite men in urban spaces suddenly feeling anxious and threatened, not least by the arrival of immigrants from places that were then thought to be in some ways less civilizationally developed — Ireland, for example. What’s at stake in the movement into places like Yosemite or the discovery of the West, aside from the erasure of Indigenous communities who were already there, is an attempt to recover a sense of virile white masculinity, as opposed to the threatening masses who are coming into the cities.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9n71SG">
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That is just something we don’t think about, especially at the [urban] planning level.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1lujId">
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<strong>What made you want to write about green city initiatives? </strong>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yoXXPZ">
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When I first started to think about this topic seriously, it was around the time that a campaign was emerging for London to declare itself the world’s <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/futurelondon/cleanair/london-worlds-first-national-park-city-a4195376.html">first National Park City</a>. It was really the <a href="https://www.nationalparkcity.org/">website of that initiative</a> that gave me the sense that there is something interesting happening. It was a very animalistic vision, like what if there were otters in the river? It was this takeover of urban space by wildness, as represented by things like otters and beavers, that just struck me as a very strange vision. Like something was wrong here that needed to be corrected, and there were these wild objects that are going to help us make good on it.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="okpO57">
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The other thing that really struck me is the language of <a href="https://www.vox.com/mental-health">mental health</a>, the sense that what green space is really going to do is have a transformative effect on the mental health of people in urban spaces, a great problem that has been with urban civic leaders since at least the mid-19th century. It was just so obvious to me that if you wanted to take urban mental health seriously, that is not where you would start.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xAPW8P">
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<strong>Where would you start? Why does that seem unserious to you?</strong>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hxzlzl">
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I do think that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/feb/25/city-stress-mental-health-rural-kind">cities have a role</a> in the production of mental distress for some people. The city is a source of stress in a whole bunch of different ways: noise and light, but also inequality and precarity and things like <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/23856608/portland-homeless-tent-encampments-forced-treatment-guardianships">poor housing</a>, [job] insecurity, migration status, dealing with bureaucracy. These are just things that stress people out that conglomerate in urban spaces. So if you are living in a city and you may have some kind of biological predisposition that elevates your risk of developing major psychosis, and that runs into a big stressor — let’s say <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/7/5/23778810/homelessness-california-unsheltered-research">housing precarity</a> — those two things together will significantly increase your likelihood of experiencing a psychotic episode, or whatever it is.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Tqs3ti">
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I find that very convincing, and it’s a story that is really important and that we need to stay with, as researchers. It’s with that complexity in mind that I find the idea that trees are going to intervene, it just seems not serious. If you really want to have a transformation of urban mental health, you could just do what <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/30/housing-crisis-council-homes-are-the-answer">they did in the 1950s</a>: build <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/28/plans-approved-for-britains-first-womens-only-tower-block">massive blocks of housing</a>, which is literally the opposite of the green cities people think you need. It’s modernist housing blocks on the edges of cities. You get people decent, secure places to live, where they have some sense that their kids have a stake in the place.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qaXer9">
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That’s the kind of thing that would have a transformational effect on people’s mental health in urban space. It would take out so many stressors.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y1hsRA">
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<strong>What about the climate element to this? Obviously, there really are benefits to planting more trees as the planet warms, but I wonder if you see it being used as a feel-good workaround for a more difficult problem?</strong>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="muZj76">
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I think undeniably, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/dec/14/mature-trees-are-key-to-liveable-cities-housing-intensification-plans-must-ensure-they-survive">trees have a major effect</a> on making cities more livable as the world gets warmer. They have a cooling effect, they provide shade, they let water run off. I have a maybe inappropriate nervousness about this book being read as anti-environment, so I need to stress that I absolutely do think that one way that cities are going to need to make themselves more sustainable in the future is by having more organic matter in urban space.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6jl445">
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But without being facetious about it, if we are serious about <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate">climate change</a>, and if we are serious about even mitigation, let alone solving the problem, I just can’t believe that this is where we would start. This just feels like, not quite a Band-Aid; it’s almost more like a transference. It’s like we can’t deal with the problem so let’s do this thing that kind of feels like dealing with the problem. It’s nice, anyway, because it’s planting trees. No one’s going to object to that, and that kind of makes us all collectively feel like we’re resolving these issues.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Af4AVm">
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<strong>You survey a lot of the research in your book about the effect that nature and natural environments have on us. The research does seem to support the idea that it has a positive effect, no?</strong>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Iofc8d">
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I feel confident that immersion in nature has some kind of calming effect and that for some people it will be good for their mental health. There’s a lot of really good research in this space and a lot of people are doing important work trying to really get down to the biological specifics of what’s going on. We are very far from making any good sense of it or getting anywhere near a point where we can make policy prescriptions on the basis of it. That’s not because people are doing bad work, it’s just because we’re very early in that process and it’s such a complicated thing.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J87nmO">
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<strong>Washington, DC, and many other American cities are </strong><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/02/23/dc-traffic-deaths-highest-record/"><strong>really </strong></a><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/08/19/dc-homicides-rising-major-cities/"><strong>struggling </strong></a><strong>right now in various ways that, as someone who loves cities, I find hard. Gun violence is </strong><a href="https://www.vox.com/23662072/children-guns-mass-shootings-covenant"><strong>a huge problem in the US</strong></a><strong>, as is </strong><a href="https://www.vox.com/23784549/pedestrian-deaths-traffic-safety-fatalities-governors-association"><strong>traffic violence</strong></a><strong>, the </strong><a href="https://www.vox.com/housing"><strong>housing crisis</strong></a><strong>, and the death of a lot of </strong><a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/23818654/future-cities-experts-offices-urbanism"><strong>downtowns</strong></a><strong> as people work from home. Certain cities just feel ill-equipped right now to deal with these issues. Maybe it’s a failure of leadership, rather than the cities themselves, but it’s hard to take in.</strong>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mAQ1PL">
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A lot of this is familiar. We have a lot of dereliction in Cork. A lot of buildings are basically closed and there’s no one to take them over and that is not because the <a href="https://www.vox.com/economy">economy</a> is bad, it’s just because of completely changing life patterns about where people are shopping, working, all those things. I also think it’s important to think about the city in the absence of this desire for repair. The kind of fantasy we often have about what a good city is — which is that kind of bustling town center, there’s no homelessness — that’s never a good space for everybody.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f99bns">
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It’s not that I’m against urban improvement or anything like that, but I think we need to think really carefully about what I think we’ve collectively decided a good city looks like.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a8hVVs">
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<strong>It’s maybe this notion that to love cities is to love people and to retreat from the city is to retreat from humanity, to retreat from its problems and to try to pretend like they don’t exist. </strong>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fy3e75">
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Yeah, I think we need to stop thinking about the city as a technology that’s gonna fix society. That’s what I mean about trying to get over that horizon of repair, of always fixing things, of wanting someone to take over a derelict store because there’s homeless people sleeping in front of it. That kind of repair is always tricky and ambiguous.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SrygrT">
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For anyone who lives in a city right now, there is this sense of, not quite despair but a sense that the city is not in good shape. I think that’s a common global urban experience right now, at least in Europe and North America. I just wonder about the people who are not participating in the conversations. Is there a sense of what a good city might look like for people who are currently sleeping in front of storefronts? I don’t think we think enough about, for instance, the perspective of kids in urban space. Not to be the classic man who has kids and starts to care about these things, but I am suddenly aware of how hostile to kids urban spaces are. Really, it’s impossible for me to let them run around or let them have any kind of freedom. Is anyone even asking kids about what a good urban space looks like?
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p2cQ7X">
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<strong>One of the things that I enjoyed about the book was that, despite the provocations, you have a lot of nuance. There’s a lot of subtlety. Is there anything else you’d want readers to take away from this conversation? </strong>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yF7ivu">
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One thing I would really like people to take from this book that’s maybe not on the surface is a kind of anti-utopianism. I’m not anti specific utopias, but anti the idea of utopia. I start off the book by writing about a city <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/26/1113670047/saudi-arabia-new-city-the-mirror-line-desert">that’s being built in Saudi Arabia called Neom</a> and a chunk of that city that’s called The Line. To me, it really crystallizes so much of the vacuity and danger of so much utopian urban thinking. They’ve recruited really serious people, like major architects and serious designers, in the service of what is an objectively dreadful project. Dreadful in its own terms, aesthetically, and dreadful for the people who were already in that space before you broke ground on it. And yet it is buoyed along by an uncritical commitment to utopia on the part of some, hopefully, naive people who are driven by a kind of desire for the perfect future urban space. What I’d like the book to do is to really get us to think critically about the fact of having an urban vision in itself, rather than living in, and making sense of, the spaces that are already around us.
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</p></li>
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<li><strong>Lahaina schools are open again. Parents worry they’re ridden with toxic waste.</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vxgp0w_7WlKRcMxxvvzH6ewbolc=/0x0:4800x3600/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72816245/AP23285784125380.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Third grade students read a book during an English language arts class at their temporary school site in early October before campuses in Lāhainā re-opened. | AP/Mengshin Lin
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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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Hawai‘i education officials want to return to normal. But some parents want more time to heal.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SrvxPb">
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On October 15, a day before Lāhainā’s public schools were set to reopen, the families of West Maui — still reeling from the <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/2023/8/9/23826015/maui-fire-2023-lahaina-hawaii-cause">deadliest wildfire in US history</a> — received a grim warning. Hawai‘i public health officials said the ash from the fire in Kula, a mountain town 25 miles east of Lāhainā, contained dangerously high levels of arsenic, 140 times greater than the federal safety limit. The fires burned through all kinds of <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/2023/8/14/23831460/hawaii-fires-maui-wildfires-death-toll-search-rescue-missing">infrastructure and household materials</a>, which can leak harmful chemicals into the air and water, such as arsenic, lead, and asbestos from older buildings.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C41or9">
|
||
The state health department said Lāhainā’s soil, still untested, <a href="https://health.hawaii.gov/news/newsroom/preliminary-kula-ash-samples-show-elevated-levels-of-toxic-substances/">is likely contaminated with the same toxins</a> as those in Kula.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9OjsGh">
|
||
The news was frightening — but unsurprising — for the people of Lāhainā, a historic oceanside town that was incinerated by deadly fires in August. Tamara Paltin, a county council member who represents Lāhainā, spent the past two months bracing for long-term environmental consequences. She and her neighbors knew that the island had not yet metabolized the devastation of the summer firestorm that claimed at least 97 lives and displaced thousands more.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Bd8hOx">
|
||
“You can’t experience something like that and just expect everything to return to normal in a few months,” she said in an interview with Vox.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="98ghgW">
|
||
But Paltin and other West Maui parents were shocked when Keith Hayashi, the superintendent of the Hawai‛i public school system, said students would still be expected to return to class that same week. Lāhainā families first learned about the school reopening plan <a href="https://www.hawaiipublicschools.org/VisionForSuccess/Newsletters/SuperintendentReport/Pages/October-4-2023.aspx">on October 4</a>, when Hayashi announced that he was working alongside the state Department of Health to send students back to the classroom. Together, the state officials — aided by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — determined that it is now safe to return to Lāhainā’s school campuses, which sit on the edge of the burn zone.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5MfC2d">
|
||
Less than two weeks later, and despite reports of toxic ash in Kula, Hayashi said the government’s safety assessment was unchanged.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ciM8c9">
|
||
Local families were wary of the superintendent’s assurances. As of late October, many families across the district are still keeping their kids out of Lāhainā schools.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZuXymV">
|
||
Paltin’s two children, ages 11 and 13, were expected to return to Lāhainā Intermediate School on October 17, just days after the Kula report was released. “I’m not sending my <em>keiki </em>back there,” she said, using the Hawaiian word for “child.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V2OxWh">
|
||
When the Kula report was released on October 15, Superintendent Hayashi held <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f47Px2ycE_k">a virtual press conference </a>alongside Dr. Kenneth Fink, Director of the Hawai‛i Department of Health. Hayashi said the reopening of Lāhainā schools “is critical to the well-being of our students and to the Lāhainā community.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EZHemz">
|
||
One Lāhainā campus, the King Kamehameha III Elementary was destroyed in the fire, so the Department of Education is <a href="https://www.hawaiipublicschools.org/ConnectWithUs/MediaRoom/PressReleases/Pages/Two-schools,-one-community-King-Kamehameha-III-and-Princess-Nahienaena-Elementary-reopen-on-shared-campus.aspx">using tents to expand classroom space</a> at the nearby Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena Elementary. Despite the superintendent’s bid for normalcy, the school reopening plan has sown fear and confusion among parents. Even before the Kula reports were released, parents I spoke with told me they thought the process seemed dangerously rushed, with children expected to return to school before the EPA finished clearing the hazardous waste created by the fires.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<aside id="aOB1Tg">
|
||
<div>
|
||
|
||
</div>
|
||
</aside>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cjcasU">
|
||
The EPA cleanup, called <a href="https://www.epa.gov/maui-wildfires/hazardous-materials-removal-phase-1">“Phase 1”</a> in the twofold recovery process, entails removing household materials that become highly dangerous after a major fire, like damaged propane tanks, batteries, and paints. Phase 1, a critical step for protecting residents from hazardous waste, was just <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-hazardous-materials-removal-first-stage-multi-phase-cleanup-75-complete-maui">75 percent complete</a> on October 18, the same day Lāhainā’s youngest students were scheduled to return to the classroom.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8RdqWa">
|
||
Many teachers at Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena Elementary asked for blackout curtains for the classrooms that overlook the epicenter of the burn zone. They worried that kids would be retraumatized by the sight of the destruction.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UfsFKD">
|
||
Lāhainā’s ash will be tested after Phase 1 is complete, though the state Department of Health said the results will likely be <a href="https://health.hawaii.gov/news/newsroom/preliminary-kula-ash-samples-show-elevated-levels-of-toxic-substances/">similar to Kula</a> because “homes in the impacted area of Lāhainā were constructed during the same time period.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="F0MgIq">
|
||
The decision to move forward with the reopening of Lāhainā public schools leaves several concerned parents at an impasse. They can send children back to school, trusting the state’s assessment of potential health risks, or they can scramble to find an alternative method of education. <a href="https://www.hawaiipublicschools.org/ConnectWithUs/MediaRoom/PressReleases/Pages/maui-schools-progress-updates.aspx">Hundreds of parents</a> opted to keep their children out of Lāhainā classrooms.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Bn076K">
|
||
For a safe reopening, state education and health officials need to ensure that the likely toxic ash near Lāhainā’s schools does not become airborne. In last week’s virtual press conference, Fink said ash in the air “could indicate a potential risk of exposure to the toxic materials.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hAzdbx">
|
||
And this is where Lāhainā’s famous <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/vog-conditions-island-hawaii-vary-depending-wind-direction">Kona winds</a>, which blow in from the southwestern edge of Maui, become a major concern. The winds tend to intensify during the academic year, <a href="https://www.foxweather.com/learn/kona-low-explainer">between October and April</a>. Parents worry that ash from the burn zone, just blocks away from Lāhainā’s schools, will get caught in the Kona winds, contaminating the air that the students are breathing.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yp1Ozv2l21IlsyUvCq9uzkA6-D0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25048490/AP23285785291555.jpg"/> <cite>Mengshin Lin/AP</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
A sign for Lāhainā Intermediate is shown in Lāhainā, Hawai‘i. Lāhainā Intermediate and two other public schools in Lāhainā that survived August’s wildfire are set to reopen in mid-October.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eB3K4b">
|
||
Kalikolehua Storer felt unsafe sending her 8-year-old son back to in-person elementary school classes in Lāhainā. “What’s going to happen on a day like today, when the Kona winds are coming in from the ocean, and everything gets caught in that wind?” Storer told me recently.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="e5i7qw">
|
||
As a precautionary measure, the EPA plans to cover the roughly 10 square miles of Lāhainā in a nontoxic adhesive called Soiltac, which prevents the soil from moving. Soilworks, the company that manufactures Soiltac, said the material is <a href="https://soilworks.com/soiltac/">“completely transparent”</a> after it dries, promising minimal aesthetic changes to Lāhainā’s landscape. The EPA used a different soil stabilizer, also created by Soilworks, to help protect salmon from contaminants produced by the 2020 Oregon wildfires. “EPA used Soiltac in Kula and it demonstrated that this product can be safely applied to burned properties, reducing the potential exposure to ash and debris,” a spokesman for the agency told Vox.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lisyKz">
|
||
Initial application of Soiltac in Lāhainā was “focused on burned properties near schools and near residences that may be occupied,” the EPA spokesman said. The agency warned that it would likely take a month to apply the Soiltac across town — a process they had only just begun by mid-October, just days before students returned to campus.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cL5An2">
|
||
In the meantime, to assuage safety concerns, state health officials installed <a href="https://fire.airnow.gov/">air quality monitors</a> around Lāhainā to detect elevated levels of fine particulate matter, known as PM 2.5 (the 2.5 microns describes its size, <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/particulate-matter-pm-basics">30 times smaller</a> than the width of a human hair). Those tiny particles can <a href="https://www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/what-makes-air-unhealthy/particle-pollution">embed</a> in the lungs and travel in the bloodstream, aggravating <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32870429/">inflammation</a>, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/multimedia/infographics/asthma_air_pollution.html">asthma</a>, <a href="https://www.epa.gov/air-research/air-pollution-and-cardiovascular-disease-basics#:~:text=Fine%20particulate%20matter%20(particulate%20matter,related%20heart%20attacks%20and%20death.">heart disease</a>, and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6447209/">mental health</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3EaxfJ">
|
||
By detecting changes in the amount of particulate matter in the air, state officials say, the schools will be alerted if toxins in the ground become airborne.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kKRoa5">
|
||
“There are three monitors at Lāhaināluna High School, one each at Lāhainā Intermediate and Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena Elementary, and two monitors between the schools and impacted areas,” a spokesman for the Hawai‛i Department of Health told Vox in a statement.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v8kiFs">
|
||
Yet some environmental health experts questioned the state’s reliance on PM 2.5 monitors to assess safety.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jAJHrd">
|
||
<a href="https://publichealth.berkeley.edu/people/john-balmes/">John Balmes</a>, a professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, said the monitors used in Lāhainā can detect changes in the concentration of particulate matter, “but it’s not going to tell you what’s in the particulate matter. Any contamination with metals such as arsenic, cobalt — you can only make assumptions based on testing that’s been done of that dust or ash.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="T01r9v">
|
||
Because the ash near Lāhainā schools has not yet been tested, the information provided by PM 2.5 offers limited insight into the health risks facing students and teachers. “If you tested the ash … and found it to be not too toxic, not with high levels of arsenic, for example, then you could just monitor the particulate levels,” Balmes said. But the air monitors used in Lāhainā schools “don’t tell you anything about the toxicity” of the airborne particles.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tVfnzD">
|
||
When the monitors detect a level of air quality that is dangerous for sensitive groups, teachers are instructed to close all doors and windows and to turn on indoor air filters and cleaners, both of which improve indoor air quality. A spokesman for the Department of Education told Vox that HEPA air filters or portable air cleaners “are available in every classroom and office.” The air cleaners “are not required to be turned on” until the air pollution passes a certain threshold, though the HEPA filters run continually “if desired.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h1XT9V">
|
||
It is a safety protocol that confused <a href="https://profiles.stanford.edu/lisa-patel">Lisa Patel</a>, a Stanford pediatrician whose research focuses on how climate change impacts health.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="I4EVyl">
|
||
“For now, they should just be running those air purifiers continuously, period,” Patel said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ommuGc">
|
||
The pediatrician said the PM 2.5 monitors that surround the school can be “a few hours delayed” in detecting changes in the air. “In the meantime, you expose those kids to the pollution,” she said. By the time the monitors are pinging, those particulates may have already lodged in kids’ lungs.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ElVGKR">
|
||
“We have every reason to be concerned because children breathe faster, so they’re taking in more of that pollution pound for pound,” said Patel. “And especially when they’re young, they’re in a period of rapid development, so the toxins in that wildfire smoke are potentially more harmful to them.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3ehx88SSQDknXcFHTmTG6hnTl3Q=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25048495/AP23285785259690.jpg"/> <cite>Mengshin Lin/AP</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
A sign for Lāhainā Intermediate in Lāhainā, Hawai‘i. Lāhainā Intermediate and two other public schools in Lāhainā that survived August’s wildfire reopened in mid-October.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aZ1QfW">
|
||
Faced with such uncertainties, a growing faction of Lāhainā parents are unwilling to place trust in the assurances offered by state education and health officials.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YIJvNx">
|
||
“Where will these officials be if our kids get sick five, 10, 15 years down the line? I do not want to be part of a class action lawsuit,” Paltin said. “I do not want to see a television commercial saying something like ‘if your kids went to Lāhainā public schools between 2023 and 2025, call this law office.’ I want my kids to be safe.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D0cMZK">
|
||
Hundreds of wealthier families in Lāhainā transferred their children to nearby private and charter schools.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qwVOCc">
|
||
A spokesperson for the Department of Education said parents could send their children to public schools outside of West Maui, some of which are over 20 miles away, but they won’t provide school buses to take them there; the parents would “need to make alternate transportation arrangements” to those faraway campuses.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-float-right">
|
||
<aside id="QyHZMo">
|
||
<q>“I do not want to see a television commercial saying something like ‘if your kids went to Lāhainā public schools between 2023 and 2025, call this law office.’ I want my kids to be safe.” </q>
|
||
</aside>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dnfTlr">
|
||
Even the ability to supervise a child during remote learning is a privilege that most Lāhainā families do not have. Earlier this month, Hawai‘i’s governor Josh Green lifted travel restrictions, welcoming tourists back to West Maui <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/10/6/23898399/maui-reopening-wildfires-hawaii-tourism-displaced-residents">despite objections from many local residents</a>, who worried that outsiders would strain the island’s already limited housing supply. The decision heightened tensions between West Maui residents and the Hawai‛i government, exacerbating the existing housing crisis and creating a more urgent need for working parents to find child care.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZqOCsO">
|
||
“And it’s human nature to just want to get back to the way things were,” Paltin said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bjwdQF">
|
||
Storer, whose house is nestled on the edge of the Lāhainā burn zone, has been living with her son at a hotel three miles north of the town’s only remaining public elementary schools. She is among <a href="https://www.hawaiipublicschools.org/ConnectWithUs/MediaRoom/PressReleases/Pages/maui-schools-progress-updates.aspx">the hundreds of local parents</a> who enrolled their children in the state’s remote learning program.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ypl9Mm">
|
||
“If he has to do distance learning while I work, then that’s just how it’s got to be now,” she said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NBNEaO">
|
||
Storer knows that parents who do not have the option to work from home—especially those who work in tourism—feel pressured to acquiesce to the Department of Education’s new bid for normalcy. As the push to slow the reopening of Lāhainā schools continues, she worries that Lāhainā will feel a rift between the families who sent children back to school and those who didn’t.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BFZnyZ">
|
||
“These conversations are not meant to divide our community,” Storer said. “But because of the situation, and because of the unknown, we wanted to prepare well. Our children have been forced to react to an emergency one too many times.”
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>The Supreme Court seems stumped by two cases about free speech online</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="US Supreme Court Associate Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Elena Kagan attend the Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on November 16, 2018." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/C8M-Mhf3fJ7iMrHvXkjUUp6CDeg=/120x0:2785x1999/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72815055/1063108716.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Three justices attend an event at the Trump White House. | Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The justices appear to have no idea when they should get involved with online disputes between government officials and their constituents.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GqJjBb">
|
||
A pair of Supreme Court cases asking <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/10/27/23929468/supreme-court-social-media-twitter-free-speech-content-moderation">what limits the First Amendment places on government officials</a> who use social media seemed to perplex the justices on Tuesday. The arguments in <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/oconnor-ratcliff-v-garnier/"><em>O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier</em></a> and <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/lindke-v-freed/"><em>Lindke v. Freed</em></a> featured a cacophony of questions about cat pictures, spontaneous grocery store conversations, and a simply dizzying array of proposed legal rules — none of which seemed likely to fully inform public officials what they may and may not do online.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y7MdDc">
|
||
The cases <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/10/27/23929468/supreme-court-social-media-twitter-free-speech-content-moderation">involve similar issues</a>. In <em>O’Connor-Ratcliff</em>, two school board members in California blocked a pair of constituents on Facebook or Twitter, and then were sued for doing so. In <em>Lindke</em>, a city manager in Michigan blocked a member of the public from his Facebook page, and was likewise rewarded for doing so with a lawsuit.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iZ4jk9">
|
||
Ordinarily, of course, a dispute over a social media user’s decision to block someone online would never belong in federal court. But the First Amendment rules governing public officials are very strict, and they almost never permit a government official to engage in “viewpoint discrimination.” So, if such an official blocks someone because they disagree with that person’s opinions or do not want those opinions to appear next to their own social media posts, that potentially raises very serious constitutional problems.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d6Dzz5">
|
||
That said, the specific question presented to the Supreme Court in <em>O’Connor-Ratcliff</em> and <em>Lindke</em> is not whether these officials violated the First Amendment. Instead, the two cases deal with a surprisingly difficult threshold question: whether those officials were acting within the scope of their authority as government officials — or, to use the language of the law, whether they were engaged in “state action” — when they blocked the offended plaintiffs.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y3Uh9X">
|
||
As a general rule, the Constitution only constrains government officials when they are exercising state authority. An off-duty police officer, for example, can tell a friend they meet at a bar to “shut up,” even though the First Amendment would prohibit a cop from policing a law-abiding citizen’s speech while the cop is on duty.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VouZz7">
|
||
But, as the arguments in <em>O’Connor-Ratcliff</em> and <em>Lindke</em> revealed, it is exceedingly difficult to come up with a legal test that can sort through which social media activity by government officials counts as state action and which activity is merely private action that is beyond the reach of the Constitution.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="q29yqG">
|
||
The internet has made a difficult constitutional question nearly impossible
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IYTW29">
|
||
The Supreme Court has long fretted over the fact that it is very difficult, at least in marginal cases, to determine whether a particular act by a government employee should count as state action or private action. As the Court said in <a href="https://casetext.com/case/jackson-v-metropolitan-edison-co"><em>Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison</em></a> (1974) — a case decided long before anyone had even uttered the word “Twitter” — “the question whether particular conduct is ‘private,’ on the one hand, or ‘state action,’ on the other, frequently admits of no easy answer.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KGRVEJ">
|
||
So it’s probably not surprising that the justices spent far more time poking holes in the proposed sorting mechanisms various lawyers proposed to them on Tuesday than they did articulating anything that even vaguely resembled a workable legal test to distinguish between state and private action online.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QZVzKh">
|
||
Both Hashim Mooppan, the lawyer representing the school board members in <em>O’Connor-Ratcliff</em>, and the Biden administration (which filed briefs in both cases arguing for narrow constraints on when government officials can be sued for their social media activity) placed a great deal of weight on the fact that the social media accounts belonged to the defendants themselves and not to the government. As the Justice Department argued in its brief, when past cases have asked whether someone may be excluded “from a forum … the existence of state action generally depends on <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-611/275406/20230815175747110_22-611bsacUnitedStates.pdf">whether the government itself owns or controls the property</a> to which access has been denied.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FDunKs">
|
||
But none of the justices seemed open to extending this rule to online disputes; some of them openly mocked the proposal. As Chief Justice John Roberts quipped, there is no physical component to a Facebook page — it’s just a “gathering of protons” — so it seems quite odd to apply traditional concepts of property to virtual space.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="457NEq">
|
||
Similarly, Justice Clarence Thomas questioned whether someone’s personal Facebook page counts as their private property at all. Facebook, after all, has the final power to delete or block a user. So why shouldn’t all social media accounts be understood as the property of a social media company and not of the individual or government entity whose name is on that account?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YNncyr">
|
||
The lower courts in these two cases <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/10/27/23929468/supreme-court-social-media-twitter-free-speech-content-moderation">split</a> on whether to use a legal test that is comprehensive and predictable, or one that provides more flexibility for judges to make precise decisions in difficult cases. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which heard the <em>O’Connor-Ratcliff</em> case, preferred a more flexible test that, among other things, asks whether a government official appeared to be acting within the scope of their job when they posted online.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3tL5Qa">
|
||
The Sixth Circuit, meanwhile, opted for a more rigid-seeming test that asks whether the government official acted pursuant to an official “duty” or “authority” when they posted something online.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v1RRQB">
|
||
While a majority of the justices appeared to prefer the Sixth Circuit’s approach to the more flexible Ninth Circuit framework, however, it soon became clear that the Sixth Circuit’s framework raises as many questions as it answers. The Sixth Circuit, for example, defined an official’s duties to include only the formal obligations they are required to fulfill under a statute or other official policy. So if there’s no formal rule instructing a public official to post online, that probably means their online activity is not state action.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uaCu4k">
|
||
But this creates problems of its own. One of them, which several justices alluded to during the argument, is how the Court should approach “customary duties.” Elected officials, in particular, spend a tremendous amount of time communicating with constituents online and offline about what the government is doing and how the official is doing their job. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, elected officials tell her all the time that they are “on duty 24 hours a day.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y45peY">
|
||
But most states don’t have laws that explicitly order elected officials to answer a constituent’s questions if they run into that constituent in the grocery store. And most states don’t have official rules requiring officials to maintain social media sites. So how is a court supposed to determine which of these communications are on-the-job communications and which ones aren’t?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E7Qrrg">
|
||
As Justice Samuel Alito suggested, it is difficult to determine the scope of an official’s unwritten, customary duties. A too-expansive definition of those duties could lead to an official being sued because they blow off a constituent who wants to criticize a town mayor’s policies while the mayor is buying ice cream at the corner store.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DtT1Ty">
|
||
And then there’s another problem: What should courts do with a government official who uses the same social media account both to conduct official business and to post personal content?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gRwoDV">
|
||
Suppose, to paraphrase a hypothetical offered by Justice Neil Gorsuch, that an official uses their Facebook account both to post cat pictures and to discuss official business. Now suppose that one of that official’s constituents hates cats, and posts so many nasty responses to the cat-related posts that the official eventually blocks the constituent. Because blocking this constituent will also exclude them from the official’s government-related content, did the government official violate the First Amendment here?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mMxvcP">
|
||
I could go on at some length listing the many difficult questions that various justices raised over the course of the arguments. But the important overarching point here is that these cases are very difficult. And it’s not clear that it is possible to come up with a clear-cut legal test that will easily allow judges to distinguish between state and private action online.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MPtrnp">
|
||
That’s terrible news for public officials, who <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/10/27/23929468/supreme-court-social-media-twitter-free-speech-content-moderation">may be reluctant to use social media</a> if they don’t know what they need to do to avoid being sued. It’s also terrible news for their constituents, who may lose an important channel that allows them to communicate with their government. And it’s terrible news for the courts, which could be bombarded with lawsuits from online trolls if the Court hands down a vague legal test that can easily trigger future lawsuits.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JSuv63">
|
||
But none of these unfortunate realities change the fact that there are no easy answers in <em>O’Connor-Ratcliff</em> and <em>Lindke</em>.
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Women’s Asian Champions Trophy: Consistent India looking to finish league-stage on a high against Korea</strong> - Hockey | It would be ideal for the host to plug the scoring gaps before entering the business end of the competition</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>ICC World Cup 2023: Australia’s Glenn Maxwell falls off golf cart, to miss England clash</strong> - “In transporting back from the clubhouse to the team bus, where Glenn Maxwell come off the back of a cart, and has suffered a small concussion,” said Australia head coach Andrew McDonald</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>Fitness-freak Marcus Stoinis travelling with Indian chef during World Cup</strong> - Mumbai-born Velton Saldanha, a chef trained in French cuisine, travels with Stoinis while he is in India and cooks him meals out of the Australian team’s hotel kitchens</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>No fireworks display in Delhi, Mumbai during World Cup matches due to worsening air pollution</strong> - Delhi has only one match left to host, the Bangladesh-Sri Lanka game on November 6, while Mumbai are scheduled to host two more league games, on November 2 and November 7, and the semifinal on November 15</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>Morning Digest | SC flags possibility of electoral bonds being used to trade favours; suspected extremists kill police officer in Manipur’s Moreh, and more</strong> - Here is a select list of stories to start the day</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>Keraleeyam: customised notebooks by VHSE students at Kanakakkunnu</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>ED attaches assets worth ₹538.05 crore in Jet Airways case</strong> - The ED probe is based on a FIR registered by the CBI following a complaint submitted by Canara Bank.</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>EOW receives 1,554 more complaints against Coimbatore-based Universal Trading Solutions in multi-crore Ponzi scam</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Revanth alleges leakage in Annaram Barrage, terms it a reflection of corruption in KLIP</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rail Nilayam in Secunderabad gets ‘Gold Rating’, again</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Russian attacks force evacuations of children</strong> - Mandatory evacuations from the frontlines are swelling the ranks of Ukraine’s displaced millions.</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>UK weather: Severe warnings issued ahead of Storm Ciarán</strong> - Amber warnings for wind are in place as the storm is expected to move in on Wednesday night.</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>Paris graffiti recall 1930s antisemitism, says mayor</strong> - Some 60 Stars of David were daubed on buildings in the 14th arrondissement of Paris.</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>Alexei Kuzmichev: Sanctioned Russian tycoon detained in France</strong> - Putin-ally Alexei Kuzmichev was held as French police carried out raids on his properties.</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>Princess Leonor, Spain’s future queen, turns 18 and swears oath</strong> - At a formal ceremony, the future queen promises to uphold the constitution.</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>Daily Telescope: A dazzling view of the Milky Way from southern Africa</strong> - “I finally had 30 minutes or so to admire the spectacular view.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1980281">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>After decades of dreams, a commercial spaceplane is almost ready to fly</strong> - “Plunging into the ocean is awful. Landing on a runway is really nice.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1980010">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Two artists suing AI image makers never registered works with Copyright Office</strong> - Artist suing Stability AI pushed to explain how Stable Diffusion actually works. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1980244">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Tesla Autopilot not responsible for 2019 fatal crash, jury says</strong> - It’s Autopilot’s second big jury win in California this year. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1980233">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inserted AI-generated Microsoft poll about woman’s death rankles The Guardian</strong> - Speculative AI news poll presented three choices: murder, accident, or suicide. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1980174">link</a></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>When I was thirteen, I dreamed of having a girlfriend who had huge tits someday.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
When I was thirteen, I dreamed of having a girlfriend who had huge tits someday.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
I had a big-tit girlfriend when I was sixteen, but she lacked passion, so I decided I needed a passionate female who was full of life.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
I dated this really passionate lady in college, but she was too sensitive. She was a drama queen who constantly wept and made suicide threats, so everything was an emergency. I concluded that I needed a girl who was stable.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
At the age of 25, I met a very steady girl, but she was uninteresting. She never got thrilled about anything and was very predictable. I decided I wanted an exciting female because life had become so boring.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
When I was 28, I found an exciting girl, but I couldn’t keep up with her. She rushed from one thing to another, never settling on anything. She did mad impetuous things and made me miserable as often as happy. She was great fun initially and very energetic, but directionless. So I decided to find a girl with some real ambition
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
I married a brilliant, ambitious woman when I was 30 because she had her feet firmly on the ground. Because she was so driven, she got a divorce from me and grabbed everything I had.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
I am older and wiser now, and I am looking for a girl with big tits..
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/PetiteeDanii"> /u/PetiteeDanii </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17l89r2/when_i_was_thirteen_i_dreamed_of_having_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17l89r2/when_i_was_thirteen_i_dreamed_of_having_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I was furious at my English teacher for dropping me down to a B for missing just a single period.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
However, I’m sure he’ll be worried enough to increase it to an A after I inform him that I’ve actually missed three periods.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/EarthMarsUranus"> /u/EarthMarsUranus </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17kyk6k/i_was_furious_at_my_english_teacher_for_dropping/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17kyk6k/i_was_furious_at_my_english_teacher_for_dropping/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A joke about an old Jew.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
For context, the Western Wall, found on the Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Here is the joke:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
An old Jew prays briefly at the Western Wall every morning.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
A reporter says to the old Jew:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“What have you been praying for?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The old Jew says: “I have been praying for peace at this wall ever since I was bar mitzvahed at age 13.<br/> For decades, I have prayed for peace here at this holy shrine, every morning. And then, I go about my day. I have been working with activist groups for years to try to achieve peace.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The reporter asks: “And what has it been like to pray for peace here every day?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
And the old Jew sighs and says:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“It’s been like talking to a wall.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Underworld_Denizen"> /u/Underworld_Denizen </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17l20qk/a_joke_about_an_old_jew/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17l20qk/a_joke_about_an_old_jew/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Bike</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
There was a man whose name was David, his pride and joy was his beautiful and powerful bike. He loved it more than anything in the world. One day, he was cruising on his bike when he had a minor heart attack, and he rolled off the road and into a tree. Luckily, he had just suffered some minor injuries, but the bike was severely damaged…
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
One fine man was traveling along the same road, and he saw this. He helped David and loaded his bike on his truck and took him to a hospital. Later they got talking and he said that he too love bikes and he can fix the bike for him…
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
David was beyond happy to hear it since he thought that his beautiful bike was gone forever… a few days later, the kind man brought his now good as a new bike back, and David was so overwhelmed that he declared that the young man was now like his son… they spent a great deal of time together enjoying their shared love of bikes…
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
A few months later, David had another heart attack and died, and when his will was read, it was discovered that he left his bike to not his own son but to the young man… the son was understandably upset, and his mother argued against giving the young man the very costly bike. The lawyer said that he could not do anything because it’s in the will, and David left his bike to a man he considered as a son…
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The wife was very annoyed and said: “But that’s Hardly David’s son…”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/rambocesar"> /u/rambocesar </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17l5sph/bike/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17l5sph/bike/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Two Southern belles are walking down a country road.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
They are out enjoying a sunset walk and admiring the scenery, when they come across a man taking photographs. The man, being awestruck at the beauty of the two ladies, asks if he can take their picture with the setting sun in the background.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The ladies discuss the idea and eventually agree.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The photographer begins setting up his tripod and adjusting his camera.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
One of the ladies asks, “What is he doing?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The other replies, in a thick Southern drawl, “He’s going to focus.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Then the first says, “Both of us?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Wapiti_whacker82"> /u/Wapiti_whacker82 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17kt6zh/two_southern_belles_are_walking_down_a_country/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/17kt6zh/two_southern_belles_are_walking_down_a_country/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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