The Rabbit Outbreak

Most countries affected by the virus began offering the vaccine , and within a few years the spread appeared to have been tamped down .
But , in 2010 , rabbits in France began dying of what turned out to be a mutated version of the virus .
The vaccine for the original virus was ineffective against the new strain ; this was RHDV2 .
Soon , it was rampant throughout Europe and Australia .
In England , the spread was so vigorous that parents were advised not to let their children bury their dead rabbits in the garden , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” the practice “ may help circulate rabbit virus.
” The mortality rate of the new variant appeared to be slightly lower than that of the original , and at first this seemed like good news .
But , in fact , RHDV2 was even more efficient at spreading , in the sense that more infected rabbits were surviving , and , because they might not show symptoms , they weren ’ t being isolated , and passed along the disease .
Vaccines guarding against RHDV2 were developed .
( In some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the vaccine that prevents RHDV1 . )
By 2016 , they were available across Europe , and vaccinating rabbits became common .
The new variant , like the original , at first seemed to stay away from the United States , except for a few isolated cases .
But , in July , 2019 , a pet Norwegian Dwarf male on Orcas Island , near Seattle , died with a bloody nose .
A veterinarian who saw the rabbit in a clinic was aware of RHD , and knew that bloody noses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Washington State Department of Agriculture to report the death .
Susan Kerr , an education and outreach specialist there , was alarmed , because she knew there was an RHDV2 outbreak in British Columbia , so the clinic sent the rabbit ’ s body to a lab for a necropsy .
While waiting for those results , Kerr ’ s co-workers got calls from a number of people on San Juan Island , about a dozen miles southwest of Orcas Island .
San Juan is famous for its rabbits .
In the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of business , and released three thousand rabbits into the wild .
They multiplied and became a tourist attraction , and rabbit hunting on the island was so celebrated that , in the sixties , Sports Illustrated ran a story about it , titled “ Hippity Hop and Away We Go.
” By 1971 , San Juan Island , which covers just fifty-five square miles , was home to an estimated one million feral domestic rabbits .
Kerr ’ s department also received calls from a few nearby islands reporting rabbit deaths @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Orcas Island rabbit had died of RHDV2 .
Kerr then got news that most of the hundred and forty-five rabbits at a facility on the Olympic Peninsula , across Puget Sound from the islands , had died in a three-week period .
Their symptoms sounded like RHDV2 ; the virus was travelling .
As a precaution , rabbits and rabbit products were banned from the ferry system that services Puget Sound .
A colleague of Kerr ’ s posted about the outbreak on an online animal-health newsletter , and was inundated with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vaccine existed , asking how they could get their rabbits inoculated .
But the vaccine for RHDV2 , like the vaccine for the original virus , was available only overseas .
No companies had a license to distribute it in the United States .
The U.S.D.A .
opposed importing it , except for limited special circumstances .
One problem is that attempts to produce the vaccine on cell lines in a laboratory have failed .
Merck produces a vaccine in cells , but it ’ s a live , genetically modified vaccine , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The other companies that currently manufacture the RHD vaccine produce it by infecting live rabbits with RHD .
When those rabbits die , vaccines are made from their livers .
According to a spokesperson for Filavie , one rabbit yields several thousand vaccine doses .
The U.S.D.A .
also maintained that vaccinating some rabbits would make it difficult to distinguish between sick rabbits and those with antibodies produced by the vaccine , although , since most sick rabbits died , the distinction would actually be very clear .
In the rabbit community @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infuriating .
Some people said that it reflected a bad attitude toward rabbits , seeing them as disposable goods , easily replaced .
Others thought that the department simply didn ’ t want to manage all the paperwork required to bring a vaccine from overseas , or just didn ’ t want to acknowledge that the virus was present .
The U.S.D.A .
finally agreed to consider requests for the emergency importation of limited amounts of the vaccine , but only if veterinarians applied first through their state veterinarians .
Leaving the question @ @ @ @ @ @ @ though , meant that there could be fifty different decisions on it—a patchwork of guidelines for a disease that would travel with no regard to borders .
A number of veterinarians said that they were interested in applying to import the vaccine , but , once they discovered the headaches involved , most of them gave up .
Alicia McLaughlin , one of the medical directors of the Center for Bird and Exotic Animal Medicine , in Bothell , Washington , was the first veterinarian in the country to obtain the vaccine , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , too , had heard about the RHDV2 outbreak in British Columbia , so she started researching how to get the vaccine , and compiled a list of several hundred clients who were requesting it .
“ I knew the virus would get here , ” she said recently .
“ Once it was in British Columbia , it was just a matter of time.
” She applied to the Washington state veterinarian ; was shuttled for a month between the state agriculture department and the U.S.D.A .
; had to manage language @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hire a customs broker to shepherd the vaccines across borders .
Finally , more than four months after she applied , she received five hundred doses of Filavac VHD K C+V , which protects against both RHDV1 and RHDV2 .
By the time McLaughlin was finally able to administer the vaccine to her clients , in April , concerns over COVID-19 had meant that she could offer only curbside service , and had to struggle to find personal protective equipment , which she needed , because she was interacting with patients and handling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Center for Avian and Exotic Medicine , in Manhattan , had been thoroughly sanitized after its RHDV2 outbreak .
To be absolutely sure that it was uncontaminated , Alix Wilson brought two rabbits to live at the clinic as sentinels .
Because the virus is so contagious , the rabbits would almost certainly come down with RHDV2 if it was still in the facility .
“ No one wants to bring animals in to die , ” she said .
“ But it ’ s one sure way in veterinary medicine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The rabbits survived .
Wilson then applied to import the vaccine , and received a letter from the U.S.D.A .
saying that “ without evidence of widespread infection ” the risk was low , especially since , as the department maintained , household rabbits have no contact with others .
Some of the clinic ’ s clients were furious that there had been a few days ’ delay between the first rabbit deaths and when the clinic put the word out about the diagnosis .
According to Wilson , the clinic couldn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , since it had to wait to hear the results of the necropsy .
The fact is that even the mention of RHD panics rabbit owners .
Thousands have joined a Facebook group to exchange knowledge , vent , and worry .
Useful information is interlaced with dread .
A chief concern is whether it ’ s safe to let a veterinarian know if you think that your rabbit might have RHD , since the veterinarian is obliged to report it to the state veterinarian .
The fear—which , according to the New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is mostly justified—is that , if your rabbit does have the virus and you have other rabbits , you will be required to “ depopulate ” ; that is , you will have to euthanize them .
There is also persistent chatter that the vaccine actually caused the disease , as part of a global plot to rid the world of rabbits .
Recently , a member of the Facebook group proposed that rabbit owners sue Australia , perhaps conflating the past use of myxoma virus there with the outbreak of RHD .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ we can not sue Australia.
” As the clinic in New York was reopening , thirty dead rabbits were found near Fort Bliss , Texas .
An unusual number of dead rabbits were also found in Arizona , New Mexico , and Colorado .
Along with pet rabbits and a small rabbit-meat industry , the Southwest has large populations of wild black-tailed jackrabbits and cottontails .
Although they resemble domestic rabbits , these are different species entirely ; they can ’ t interbreed with domestic rabbits , nor are they susceptible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wild rabbits seemed immune to RHDV1 .
But RHDV2 made a cross-species leap and , in March , jackrabbits and cottontails throughout the Southwest began dying in droves .
“ I ’ ve gotten reports that it ’ s in the thousands , ” Zimmerman said recently .
“ I ’ m sure next I ’ ll be hearing that it ’ s in the tens of thousands.
” He has scraped together money from New Mexico ’ s state budget to import five hundred doses of the vaccine , which he will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He assumes that those doses will go to “ high-dollar breeding animals .
”

Most rabbits have, in their skill set, the ability to pretend that they’re healthy even when they’re quite sick. It’s sort of the inverse of playing possum, but done for the same purpose, namely, to deflect attention from predators, who would consider a sick rabbit easy pickings. As a result of this playacting, rabbits often die suddenly—or what appears to be suddenly—when, in fact, they’ve been sick for a while.
This past February, a pet rabbit being boarded overnight at Manhattan’s Center for Avian and Exotic Medicine, the busiest rabbit veterinary practice in New York City, died. The fact that the rabbit had seemed fine and then expired without warning was chalked up to the rabbit habit of feigning good health. Later that evening, another rabbit at the clinic died. The coincidence of the additional death was strange, especially because the first rabbit that died was elderly, and the second was young. A third rabbit that died the same night was middle-aged; even though she was known to have had an abdominal mass that compromised her well-being, there had been no reason to think she was about to perish. Two deaths might have been a fluke; three seemed ominous.
The clinic’s staff wanted to get the remaining fifteen or twenty rabbits out of the building immediately, but many of the owners were away and unable to retrieve them on short notice. This group happened to include Dr. Alix Wilson, the clinic’s medical director, who was on vacation and whose own rabbits, Captain Larry and Dolly, were boarding there. In the meantime, the staff threw out all the clinic’s rabbit food and bedding, in case something in them had poisoned the three rabbits. Within several weeks, eight more rabbits that had been at the clinic in February succumbed. Captain Larry was thriving, but Dolly, a medium-sized Lop that Wilson had just adopted to keep Larry company, died.
One of the lagoviruses of the family Caliciviridae causes a highly contagious illness called rabbit hemorrhagic disease. RHD is vexingly hard to diagnose. An infected rabbit might experience vague lethargy, or a high fever and difficulty breathing, or it might exhibit no symptoms at all. Regardless of the symptoms, though, the mortality rate for RHD can reach a gloomy hundred per cent. There is no treatment for it. The virus’s ability to survive and spread is uncanny. It can persist on dry cloth with no host for more than a hundred days; it can withstand freezing and thawing; it can thrive in a dead rabbit for months, and on rabbit pelts, and in the wool made from Angora-rabbit fur, and in the rare rabbit that gets infected but survives. It can travel on birds’ claws and flies’ feet and coyotes’ fur. Its spread has been so merciless and so devastating that some pet owners have begun referring to it as “rabbit Ebola.”
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, RHD is a “foreign animal disease”: one that is “an important transmissible livestock or poultry disease believed to be absent from the United States and its territories that has the potential to create a significant health or economic impact.” All foreign animal diseases are “reportable.” This means that any incidence needs to be logged with a state animal-health official. In most places, that’s the state veterinarian, who, like a governor, oversees local policy. (Many animal issues are decided at the state level.) It must also be reported to the U.S.D.A. and to the World Organisation for Animal Health, which is headquartered in Paris and tracks the virus globally.
Alix Wilson was familiar with RHD, and she wondered in passing whether it might have been responsible for the deaths at her clinic. “But then I thought, No, impossible,” she said recently. “Rabbit hemorrhagic disease isn’t in the city.” Her staff sent tissue from one of the dead rabbits to a lab at Cornell University, which subsequently transferred it to the federal foreign-animal-disease lab, on Plum Island, in New York. When the diagnosis came back as a variant of the virus, called RHDV2, Wilson was astonished. The clinic immediately stopped taking in any rabbits, and began a deep cleaning, which included replacing ceiling tiles and discarding thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment that couldn’t be sterilized. Todd Johnson, the U.S.D.A.’s emergency coördinator for New York and New Jersey, helped oversee the cleanup, and a veterinary epidemiologist and an intern from the department contacted a hundred and fifty-five owners of rabbits that had been in the clinic during the previous few months, in an effort to identify Rabbit Zero. The bewildering thing was that, as it turned out, rabbits had already been dying of RHDV2 in Washington State, and soon were dying in other states, including Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and Nevada.
“He really misses the city.” Cartoon by Emily Flake Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
The rabbit-hemorrhagic-disease virus was originally identified in 1984, in Jiangsu Province, China. First, it killed Angora rabbits being raised commercially for wool, and then it burned through pet rabbits and rabbits farmed for meat, all of which are members of the same species, Oryctolagus cuniculus, or what is commonly known as the European, or domestic, rabbit. During the initial outbreak in China, some hundred and forty million rabbits were killed by the virus. The disease soon ravaged rabbit populations elsewhere in Asia, and then in Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Middle East.
There were only a handful of cases of the original variant of RHD in this country, and they were quickly contained. Still, the majority of rabbit products—meat, fur, skins, and live rabbits—imported to the United States came from countries where the disease had been widespread. The U.S.D.A. still classified it as a foreign animal disease, but a department report, written in 2002, warned that RHD “has emerged as a growing concern for the rabbit industry following outbreaks in 2000 and 2001.”
In the universe of human-animal relations, rabbits occupy a liminal space. They are the only creatures we regularly keep as pets in our homes that we also, just as regularly, eat or wear. Fitting into both the companion-animal category and the livestock category means that rabbits are not entirely claimed by either. A number of animal statutes—particularly, felony-cruelty provisions—are specific to dogs and cats, but not to rabbits. Laws protecting livestock, such as the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, don’t apply to rabbits, either, even rabbits being raised for meat, because the U.S.D.A. does not officially recognize them as livestock. There is probably no other animal that is viewed as diversely, and valued as differently, by its various partisans. Simply being a rabbit person doesn’t mean that you look at rabbits the same way as another self-identified rabbit person. Any of the almost twenty thousand members of the American Rabbit Breeders Association are just as likely to be raising a prized Jersey Wooly that sleeps in their bed and is primped for rabbit shows as they are to have hundreds of caged rabbits that will end up as stew.
A few years ago, a lawyer named Natalie Reeves, who volunteers at a rabbit shelter and has lectured on rabbit law at the New York City Bar Association, was having trouble untangling the hair of her pet long-haired rabbit, Mopsy McGillicuddy. She found an Internet group for long-haired-rabbit owners, and posted about Mopsy’s hair troubles, expecting tips on conditioners and brushes. On the site, she noticed that a common response to similar problems was to kill the rabbit and start fresh with another.
Rabbits are everywhere among us. They live on every continent except Antarctica, in a wide range of environments. They have been domesticated for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. There have even been noteworthy rabbit booms. During the Victorian era, the most sought-after, bidded-up bunnies were a domestic breed, the Belgian Hare, which was developed to look like a wild rabbit. Belgians had sleek, black-ticked chestnut fur, comically long ears, and long bodies; they were the spitting image, in fact, of Peter Rabbit, who débuted in Beatrix Potter’s “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” in 1902, in the thick of Belgian Hare mania.
A shipment of six thousand Belgian Hares that arrived in the United States from Europe in 1900 attracted interest from tycoons including the Rockefellers, the DuPonts, and J. P. Morgan, who considered them an equity investment. (A male sold for five thousand dollars—the equivalent of more than a hundred and fifty thousand today.) According to the Livestock Conservancy, nearly every large American city soon had a Belgian Hare club. Fans in Los Angeles alone had sixty thousand Belgians. Rabbits being rabbits, the number of Belgian Hares grew exponentially, and the market for them eventually buckled. People moved on to other breeds, and superfluous Belgians began to disappear. By the nineteen-forties, there was a worry that they might become extinct.
Rabbits have an unusual history with viruses. The first virus ever deliberately used to eradicate a wild-animal population was myxoma virus, which causes myxomatosis, a disease fatal to domestic rabbits. It was deployed in 1950, in Australia, where a dozen or so domestic rabbits released on a hunting estate in 1859 had outperformed all mathematical modelling and become many hundreds of millions—the fastest-known spread of any mammal on earth. The rabbits wreaked ecological disaster as they ate their way across the country. Shooting them made only a temporary dent in their numbers. Myxoma virus was introduced in the hope of controlling the population; it soon killed an estimated five hundred million rabbits. (In parts of Australia, it is still illegal to have a pet rabbit.)
Two years later, a French doctor, annoyed by rabbits stealing from his garden, caught two of them and injected them with myxoma. They bolted, surviving long enough to carry the virus to other rabbits. The disease eventually bloomed across Europe and the United Kingdom, killing almost every rabbit in its path. Eventually, a myxomatosis vaccine was developed, and the disease was more or less brought under control.
Myxomatosis did travel to the United States, but for some reason it never got much of a foothold here. Had it established itself, it would have been disastrous, because at that time, in the middle of the last century, rabbits were a significant food source. Most people associate rabbit meat with European diets, but it was once a staple in this country. There were many huge commercial rabbit farms in the United States, and rabbit meat was readily available in supermarkets. The biggest processor was (and still is) Pel-Freez, founded in 1911 by a man who was given a pet rabbit that was pregnant, and, according to Pel-Freez’s corporate history, turned “the dilemma into an opportunity.” Rabbit meat, which could be cooked like chicken, was appealingly high in protein and low in fat. Back then, it was also much cheaper than beef. And raising rabbits is easy. A rabbit can give birth every thirty days; a young rabbit reaches what is known as “fryer age” in just sixty days. But, even during their heyday as a market product, rabbits weren’t treated like other livestock. Because the U.S.D.A. doesn’t classify them as such, it has never required rabbit meat to be inspected or graded.
After the Second World War, the demand for rabbit meat began to decline. The number of cattle being raised domestically nearly doubled, and beef, which had previously been something of a luxury, became affordable. The cattle industry, which brings in some seventy billion dollars a year, began promoting beef as the patriotic mainstay of the American dinner table. In the same years, chicken also became more widely available. Soon, it became the white meat of choice, and rabbit was marginalized as an occasional dish.
Eric Stewart, the executive director of the American Rabbit Breeders Association, also lays the blame for the decline of rabbit meat on Bugs Bunny. Created in 1940, Bugs, a sassy, man-size gray-and-white cartoon rabbit, had a leading role in Warner Bros.’ “Merrie Melodies” and “Looney Tunes”; “The Bugs Bunny Show” began in 1960 and ran on network television for forty years. Stewart believes that the generations that had grown up watching Bugs could not stomach eating rabbit. Then, in 1981, pet-rabbit ownership got a huge boost, with the publication of “Your French Lop: The King of the Fancy, the Clown of Rabbits, the Ideal Pet.” The author, a rabbit owner named Sandy Crook, argued that pet rabbits, which were then typically relegated to a hutch in the back yard, made perfect house pets, just like cats and dogs. Rabbits could be kept inside, because they could be trained to use a litter box. Many people consider the book the foundational text of the house-rabbit movement. Another best-selling manifesto, Marinell Harriman’s “House Rabbit Handbook: How to Live with an Urban Rabbit,” was published four years later.
The number of rabbits kept as house pets has grown ever since. We don’t know exactly how many rabbits there are in the United States, but they are the third most popular pet in the country, behind dogs and cats, and the most popular small pet, beating out hamsters, guinea pigs, and mice. The U.S.D.A. estimates that there are more than 6.7 million pet rabbits, but the total number of domestic rabbits would depend on whether you’re counting only pet rabbits or including rabbits raised for slaughter. Further complicating matters is the category of rabbits raised as, say, a 4-H project, which, once the project is done, might segue from pet to meat.
Rabbit-related activities are also on the bounce. There are about five thousand A.R.B.A.-sanctioned rabbit shows each year; the largest one features more than twenty-five thousand rabbits. There are rabbit fashion shows, which are especially popular in Japan. A show in Yokohama has featured rabbits dressed like Sherlock Holmes, Amelia Earhart, and Santa Claus. In New York City, pet owners organize rabbit playdates in Central Park. Across the country, there are rabbit speed dates, which are opportunities for rabbits to meet and see if they like one another, if an owner is thinking of getting a second, or third, or fourth. The typical American owner has more than one rabbit, so speed dating is important, because rabbits, despite their prodigious ability to multiply, don’t always get along.
Within five years of the emergence of the original form of rabbit hemorrhagic disease in China, a vaccine protecting against RHD had been developed. A number of manufacturers produce vaccines against this strain, including Filavie, in France; HIPRA, in Spain; and Merck, which is headquartered in New Jersey but made the vaccine for the European market. The vaccine was never offered in the United States. There were only a few RHDV1 cases here, including one in Pennsylvania, which was theorized to have come from an Oktoberfest party, where imported rabbit meat was served. If the meat was infected, the virus could have spread to vegetables prepared in the same kitchen; the vegetable scraps were then fed to rabbits.
Most countries affected by the virus began offering the vaccine, and within a few years the spread appeared to have been tamped down. But, in 2010, rabbits in France began dying of what turned out to be a mutated version of the virus. The vaccine for the original virus was ineffective against the new strain; this was RHDV2. Soon, it was rampant throughout Europe and Australia. In England, the spread was so vigorous that parents were advised not to let their children bury their dead rabbits in the garden, because, “while comforting to children,” the practice “may help circulate rabbit virus.” The mortality rate of the new variant appeared to be slightly lower than that of the original, and at first this seemed like good news. But, in fact, RHDV2 was even more efficient at spreading, in the sense that more infected rabbits were surviving, and, because they might not show symptoms, they weren’t being isolated, and passed along the disease. Vaccines guarding against RHDV2 were developed. (In some cases, they were produced in combination with the vaccine that prevents RHDV1.) By 2016, they were available across Europe, and vaccinating rabbits became common.
The new variant, like the original, at first seemed to stay away from the United States, except for a few isolated cases. But, in July, 2019, a pet Norwegian Dwarf male on Orcas Island, near Seattle, died with a bloody nose. A veterinarian who saw the rabbit in a clinic was aware of RHD, and knew that bloody noses are a symptom, so she called the Washington State Department of Agriculture to report the death. Susan Kerr, an education and outreach specialist there, was alarmed, because she knew there was an RHDV2 outbreak in British Columbia, so the clinic sent the rabbit’s body to a lab for a necropsy.
“Welcome to Heaven. Would you like to buy a souvenir photo from your life?” Cartoon by Patrick McKelvie Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
While waiting for those results, Kerr’s co-workers got calls from a number of people on San Juan Island, about a dozen miles southwest of Orcas Island. San Juan is famous for its rabbits. In the nineteen-thirties, a commercial breeder there went out of business, and released three thousand rabbits into the wild. They multiplied and became a tourist attraction, and rabbit hunting on the island was so celebrated that, in the sixties, Sports Illustrated ran a story about it, titled “Hippity Hop and Away We Go.” By 1971, San Juan Island, which covers just fifty-five square miles, was home to an estimated one million feral domestic rabbits.


newyorker--2020-06-29--A Black-Market Fireworks Dealer Explains This Year’s Boom

Last week , in Crown Heights , Brooklyn , a thin man in a white T-shirt and a wide-brimmed Chicago Bulls cap proudly popped the trunk of his Chevy Malibu .
Inside , there were Golden Willows , Chain Reactions , Parachute Battalions , and Mini Artillery Shells—dozens of colorful boxes , one of them labelled “ For Daytime Use !
” This was what remained of the twelve hundred dollars ’ worth of fireworks that the man , who asked not to be named , had purchased during a visit to Keystone Fireworks , in Pennsylvania , and then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ price , around Brooklyn .
( Fireworks are illegal in New York State . )
He takes calls for deliveries from regular customers , or parks on a busy street and does business , out of his car , with whoever stops by .
“ People have always done fireworks , ” he said , “ but they ’ re going harder than ever this year .
They can ’ t wait to come outside.
” A few blocks over , a group of young men , probably in their twenties , launched @ @ @ @ @ @ @ darting from the sidewalk into the street to light streams of Roman candles , which they topped off with five-hundred-gram “ cakes ” : the largest firework that can be legally used without a federal explosives permit .
People watched from their apartment buildings .
One neighbor leaned out his window and begged the group to stop ; the fireworks were scaring his dog .
“ Fuck your dog !
” one of the men yelled back at him .
“ We will shoot these shits at your house !
” Moments later @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the group retreated .
For the past two weeks in Brooklyn , the sight—and deafening sound—of fireworks exploding has become as much a fact of daily life as the Black Lives Matter protests and the 7 P.M. cheer for essential workers .
Big fireworks sellers such as Keystone are seeing increased demand ; Kevin Shaub , the chain ’ s co-owner , said that when his stores , which had been closed since mid-March , finally reopened , a few weeks ago , customers came flooding in .
“ People haven ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time , ” Shaub said .
“ They ’ ve had to delay weddings , graduations , and birthdays.
” A lot of these fireworks have ended up in New York City .
People bought troves from street venders in early June , and then , instead of saving them for the Fourth of July—as they normally would—set them all off on weekends , or on Juneteenth , or on a random Tuesday .
And then they came back to buy more .
“ The money ’ s good , ” the man @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year , he sold in two days what would have normally taken him two weeks .
His fireworks aren ’ t cheap ; the fanciest ones in his trunk go for two hundred bucks .
So most of his customers are adults— “ people with money , ” he said—rather than teen-agers .
Nearly all of them are men .
They tend to be in their late twenties or thirties , and sometimes , if they ’ re buying fireworks before the sun has set , they bring their kids with them .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the neighborhood , which was coming off a four-month lockdown .
“ They ’ re celebrating , ” he said of the people setting off the fireworks .
“ It ’ s definitely about freedom.
” There have been several injuries : a man was hospitalized after lighting a firework that shot out the wrong end , and last week , a three-year-old was burned by one that came through his bedroom window .
Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced a “ huge sting operation to go and get these illegal fireworks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recent calls about illegal fireworks in Flatbush , dozens of N.Y.P.D .
officers showed up in riot gear .
But , hours after the Mayor ’ s announcement , the man was back in Crown Heights , selling his supply .
Later , he stopped by to see his cousin , a middle-aged woman who lives in the area .
She has been setting off fireworks , too , and she had a different theory about why there have been so many lately .
“ I think it ’ s about the killing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the recent death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis cops .
She considers the fireworks to be another form of protest against the police .
“ People are angry.
” On social media , theories of a psyop have circulated : the police are setting off and distributing fireworks , people argue , in order to deprive protesters of sleep , or to stoke tension and make law enforcement seem indispensable .
A video has gone viral of firefighters appearing to set off fireworks in Crown Heights .
( The F.D.N.Y @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was vaguely aware of these theories , but they didn ’ t seem to carry a lot of weight with him .
“ I hope not ” was all he had to say when asked if he thought police were shooting off fireworks .
“ We don ’ t need any more drama around here.
” ♦

Last week, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, a thin man in a white T-shirt and a wide-brimmed Chicago Bulls cap proudly popped the trunk of his Chevy Malibu. Inside, there were Golden Willows, Chain Reactions, Parachute Battalions, and Mini Artillery Shells—dozens of colorful boxes, one of them labelled “For Daytime Use!” This was what remained of the twelve hundred dollars’ worth of fireworks that the man, who asked not to be named, had purchased during a visit to Keystone Fireworks, in Pennsylvania, and then sold, for more than double the price, around Brooklyn. (Fireworks are illegal in New York State.) He takes calls for deliveries from regular customers, or parks on a busy street and does business, out of his car, with whoever stops by. “People have always done fireworks,” he said, “but they’re going harder than ever this year. They can’t wait to come outside.”
A few blocks over, a group of young men, probably in their twenties, launched a several-minutes-long blitz. They took turns darting from the sidewalk into the street to light streams of Roman candles, which they topped off with five-hundred-gram “cakes”: the largest firework that can be legally used without a federal explosives permit. People watched from their apartment buildings. One neighbor leaned out his window and begged the group to stop; the fireworks were scaring his dog. “Fuck your dog!” one of the men yelled back at him. “We will shoot these shits at your house!” Moments later, a cop car rolled up, and the group retreated.
For the past two weeks in Brooklyn, the sight—and deafening sound—of fireworks exploding has become as much a fact of daily life as the Black Lives Matter protests and the 7 P.M. cheer for essential workers. Big fireworks sellers such as Keystone are seeing increased demand; Kevin Shaub, the chain’s co-owner, said that when his stores, which had been closed since mid-March, finally reopened, a few weeks ago, customers came flooding in. “People haven’t had any entertainment for a long time,” Shaub said. “They’ve had to delay weddings, graduations, and birthdays.” A lot of these fireworks have ended up in New York City. People bought troves from street venders in early June, and then, instead of saving them for the Fourth of July—as they normally would—set them all off on weekends, or on Juneteenth, or on a random Tuesday. And then they came back to buy more. “The money’s good,” the man in the Bulls cap said. This year, he sold in two days what would have normally taken him two weeks.
His fireworks aren’t cheap; the fanciest ones in his trunk go for two hundred bucks. So most of his customers are adults—“people with money,” he said—rather than teen-agers. Nearly all of them are men. They tend to be in their late twenties or thirties, and sometimes, if they’re buying fireworks before the sun has set, they bring their kids with them. That night, the man gestured around at the neighborhood, which was coming off a four-month lockdown. “They’re celebrating,” he said of the people setting off the fireworks. “It’s definitely about freedom.”
There have been several injuries: a man was hospitalized after lighting a firework that shot out the wrong end, and last week, a three-year-old was burned by one that came through his bedroom window. Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced a “huge sting operation to go and get these illegal fireworks at the base.” In response to recent calls about illegal fireworks in Flatbush, dozens of N.Y.P.D. officers showed up in riot gear.
But, hours after the Mayor’s announcement, the man was back in Crown Heights, selling his supply. Later, he stopped by to see his cousin, a middle-aged woman who lives in the area. She has been setting off fireworks, too, and she had a different theory about why there have been so many lately. “I think it’s about the killing,” she said, referring to the recent death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis cops. She considers the fireworks to be another form of protest against the police. “People are angry.”
On social media, theories of a psyop have circulated: the police are setting off and distributing fireworks, people argue, in order to deprive protesters of sleep, or to stoke tension and make law enforcement seem indispensable. A video has gone viral of firefighters appearing to set off fireworks in Crown Heights. (The F.D.N.Y. is investigating.) The man was vaguely aware of these theories, but they didn’t seem to carry a lot of weight with him. “I hope not” was all he had to say when asked if he thought police were shooting off fireworks. “We don’t need any more drama around here.” ♦


newyorker--2020-06-29--“Pedestrian Crossing, Charlottesville,” by Rita Dove

A gaggle of girls giggle over the bricks leading off Court Square .
We brake dutifully , and wait ; @ @ @ @ @ least twenty of these knob-kneed creatures , blond and curly , still at an age @ @ @ @ @ .
Look how they dart and dither , changing flanks as they lurch along—golden gobbets @ @ @ @ @ joy , depending on one ’ s disposition .
At the moment mine ’ s @ @ @ @ @ long ; don ’ t they have minders ?
Just behind my shoulder in the @ @ @ @ @ still stands , stonewalling us all .
When I was their age I judged Goldilocks @ @ @ @ @ criminal who flounced into others ’ lives , then assumed their clemency .
Unfair , @ @ @ @ @ lump them into a gaggle ( silly geese ! )
when all they ’ re @ @ @ @ @ .
So far .

Audio: Read by the author.
A gaggle of girls giggle over the bricks
leading off Court Square. We brake
dutifully, and wait; but there’s at least
twenty of these knob-kneed creatures,
blond and curly, still at an age that thinks
impudence is cute. Look how they dart
and dither, changing flanks as they lurch
along—golden gobbets of infuriating foolishness
or pure joy, depending on one’s disposition.
At the moment mine’s sour—this is taking
far too long; don’t they have minders?
Just behind my shoulder in the city park
the Southern general still stands, stonewalling us all.
When I was their age I judged Goldilocks
nothing more than a pint-size criminal
who flounced into others’ lives, then
assumed their clemency. Unfair,
I know, my aggression—to lump them
into a gaggle (silly geese!) when all
they’re guilty of is being young. So far.


newyorker--2020-06-29--Briefly Noted Book Reviews

Briefly Noted Book Reviews

Humankind , by Rutger Bregman , translated from the Dutch by Elizabeth Manton and Erica Moore ( Little , Brown ) .
This lively social history examines pessimistic views of human nature , from Hobbes to “ Lord of the Flies , ” and argues that , in fact , humans are “ pretty decent.
” Bregman cites evolutionary theories on “ survival of the friendliest ” and psychological studies showing that most people embrace evil only when it is “ masquerading as good.
” Such speculations , the book insists , are anything but abstract .
Demonstrating how cynical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inmates treated as irredeemable have much higher recidivism rates than those who aren ’ t—Bregman offers a compelling case for reshaping institutions and policies along genuinely humane lines .
Scandinavian Noir , by Wendy Lesser ( Farrar , Straus & Giroux ) .
Lesser , the editor of The Threepenny Review , reflects on her forty-year obsession with Nordic crime fiction .
Surveying the genre ’ s themes and methods , she argues that its energy comes from the way it reveals a gap between Scandinavian civic ideals and reality .
On trips @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , she finds evidence of social failures that appear in the novels , but also much to praise : police officers who rarely use guns , a more moderate criminal-justice system .
She writes of her “ exuberant relief ” in knowing that , “ somewhere in the world , there ’ s a respite ” from the cruelties that mar life in the U.S. Blue Ticket , by Sophie Mackintosh ( Doubleday ) .
In this dark fable , Mackintosh explores the strictures inhibiting a woman ’ s right to choose .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ society , Calla yearns to have a child .
But she is forbidden from doing so : at a coming-of-age ceremony , she received a “ blue ticket ” and was implanted with an IUD .
( Those given “ white tickets ” are expected to become happy mothers . )
Trying to conceive , and then to escape the country with her unborn child , Calla encounters many who see her as aberrant , but she also finds other pregnant blue-ticket women , one of whom becomes a lover and a protector @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recently self-administered an abortion .
Mackintosh sensitively conveys resonant questions about motherhood , female solidarity , queer love , and bodily autonomy .
Seeing the Body , by Rachel Eliza Griffiths ( Norton ) .
A daughter mourns her mother ’ s death in this collection of poems , excavating her personal loss amid the wider traumas of racism and misogyny .
“ Behind my eyes / a dead woman looks back at me with no trace / of recognition , ” she writes .
Griffiths , who is also a visual artist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ self-portraits , and she is fascinated with the power of images to document and distort .
In her elegiac , enraged poems , the injustices suffered by women and black people find an echo in the cosmic injustice of mortality .
Ultimately , the work draws lyrical intensity from its resistance to oblivion and its insistence , despite despair , on life .

Humankind, by Rutger Bregman, translated from the Dutch by Elizabeth Manton and Erica Moore (Little, Brown). This lively social history examines pessimistic views of human nature, from Hobbes to “Lord of the Flies,” and argues that, in fact, humans are “pretty decent.” Bregman cites evolutionary theories on “survival of the friendliest” and psychological studies showing that most people embrace evil only when it is “masquerading as good.” Such speculations, the book insists, are anything but abstract. Demonstrating how cynical views of human nature are often self-fulfilling—prison inmates treated as irredeemable have much higher recidivism rates than those who aren’t—Bregman offers a compelling case for reshaping institutions and policies along genuinely humane lines.
Scandinavian Noir, by Wendy Lesser (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Lesser, the editor of The Threepenny Review, reflects on her forty-year obsession with Nordic crime fiction. Surveying the genre’s themes and methods, she argues that its energy comes from the way it reveals a gap between Scandinavian civic ideals and reality. On trips to Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, she finds evidence of social failures that appear in the novels, but also much to praise: police officers who rarely use guns, a more moderate criminal-justice system. She writes of her “exuberant relief” in knowing that, “somewhere in the world, there’s a respite” from the cruelties that mar life in the U.S.
Blue Ticket, by Sophie Mackintosh (Doubleday). In this dark fable, Mackintosh explores the strictures inhibiting a woman’s right to choose. Living in a quietly menacing, unnamed society, Calla yearns to have a child. But she is forbidden from doing so: at a coming-of-age ceremony, she received a “blue ticket” and was implanted with an IUD. (Those given “white tickets” are expected to become happy mothers.) Trying to conceive, and then to escape the country with her unborn child, Calla encounters many who see her as aberrant, but she also finds other pregnant blue-ticket women, one of whom becomes a lover and a protector, and a white-ticket woman who has recently self-administered an abortion. Mackintosh sensitively conveys resonant questions about motherhood, female solidarity, queer love, and bodily autonomy.
Seeing the Body, by Rachel Eliza Griffiths (Norton). A daughter mourns her mother’s death in this collection of poems, excavating her personal loss amid the wider traumas of racism and misogyny. “Behind my eyes / a dead woman looks back at me with no trace / of recognition,” she writes. Griffiths, who is also a visual artist, includes a series of anguished photographic self-portraits, and she is fascinated with the power of images to document and distort. In her elegiac, enraged poems, the injustices suffered by women and black people find an echo in the cosmic injustice of mortality. Ultimately, the work draws lyrical intensity from its resistance to oblivion and its insistence, despite despair, on life.


Cartoon Caption Contest

Each week , we provide a cartoon in need of a caption .
You , the reader , submit your @ @ @ @ @ three finalists , and you vote for your favorite .
Anyone age thirteen or older @ @ @ @ @ To read the complete rules , click here .

Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit your caption here, we choose three finalists, and you vote for your favorite. Anyone age thirteen or older can enter or vote. To read the complete rules, click here.
Brooke Bourgeois Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop


newyorker--2020-07-01--Trump May Not Have Read Brief Because He Holds Reading Material Upside Down

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —Donald J. Trump may not have read a Presidential Daily Brief on the Russian bounty scheme because he holds reading material upside down , experts suggested on Wednesday .
After studying photographic evidence of Trump holding a book in that difficult-to-read position , Davis Logsdon , who studies literacy at the University of Minnesota , said that such a practice could have impeded the President ’ s ability to process information on his desk .
“ If Trump is holding all of his Presidential Daily Briefs upside down , what is intended to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to him , appear to be little more than meaningless marks on a piece of paper , ” Logsdon said .
Within minutes of the release of Logsdon ’ s comments , the White House scrambled to institute new procedures to insure that Trump ’ s Presidential Daily Briefs are placed right-side up on his Oval Office desk .
Reportedly , Jared Kushner will be tasked with entering Trump ’ s office first thing every morning and rotating all of the papers on his desk until they are in the optimal position @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , however , expressed skepticism about the new protocol .
“ It relies on Jared knowing when reading material is upside down , ” one source said .

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump may not have read a Presidential Daily Brief on the Russian bounty scheme because he holds reading material upside down, experts suggested on Wednesday.
After studying photographic evidence of Trump holding a book in that difficult-to-read position, Davis Logsdon, who studies literacy at the University of Minnesota, said that such a practice could have impeded the President’s ability to process information on his desk.
“If Trump is holding all of his Presidential Daily Briefs upside down, what is intended to be important intelligence requiring his urgent attention might, to him, appear to be little more than meaningless marks on a piece of paper,” Logsdon said.
Within minutes of the release of Logsdon’s comments, the White House scrambled to institute new procedures to insure that Trump’s Presidential Daily Briefs are placed right-side up on his Oval Office desk.
Reportedly, Jared Kushner will be tasked with entering Trump’s office first thing every morning and rotating all of the papers on his desk until they are in the optimal position for reading.
Some White House sources, however, expressed skepticism about the new protocol. “It relies on Jared knowing when reading material is upside down,” one source said.


newyorker--2020-07-01--Make America Canada Again

Make America Canada Again

Until 1776 , America and Canada were practically the same .
Then America went its own way and chose revolution , independence , and self-reliance .
But Canada kept on its path—a path that has proved nicer , quieter , weirder , and , frankly , better .
But now it ’ s time to reverse America ’ s tragic mistake , and MAKE AMERICA CANADA AGAIN .
Why , you may ask ?
Well .
.
.
Canada has more land than America , but only ten per cent as many people .
For Canada , social distancing isn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way of life !
The beloved Canadian sport of curling is literally just sweeping up !
In many parts of Canada , kids on Halloween don ’ t say , “ Trick or treat , ” with an implied threat of reprisals .
Instead , they chant , “ Halloween apples.
” ( THIS IS TRUE . )
They don ’ t actually want apples—they want candy—but they ’ re way too polite to ask for it !
The one- and two-dollar coins are called “ loonies ” and “ toonies , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lives to the pursuit of the “ Almighty Loonie.
” CANADA : Ten provinces , many with fun names like Manitoba and Saskatchewan , and a flag featuring one ( 1 ! )
maple leaf .
AMERICA : Fifty states , many with ridiculous names like Virginia and West Virginia , and a flag featuring , like , eight thousand stripes and about a million stars .
Sometimes less is more , y ’ know ?
DOMINATED by a Canadian team ( the Toronto Raptors , the defending N.B.A .
champions ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” by the basketball-dunking title character , played by Michael J. Fox—A CANADIAN .
Number of legendary prog-rock bands called Rush that will ROCK YOUR FACE OFF : ADVANTAGE : Probably Canada , but your mileage may vary .
Also , your kilometrage .
Which brings us to .
.
.
Logical , nerdy , and in step with the rest of the world—like Canada itself !
CANADA EVEN HAS BETTER CRIME In 2016 , a group of bandits stole more than three thousand tons of maple syrup from the Canadian strategic syrup @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
The thieves were quickly apprehended and brought to justice .
In 2019 , the U.S. President pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to help him win the upcoming election .
He was not removed from office .
ADVANTAGE : DO WE NEED TO ASK ?

Until 1776, America and Canada were practically the same. Then America went its own way and chose revolution, independence, and self-reliance. But Canada kept on its path—a path that has proved nicer, quieter, weirder, and, frankly, better.
But now it’s time to reverse America’s tragic mistake, and MAKE AMERICA CANADA AGAIN. Why, you may ask? Well . . .
CANADA IS ROOMY
Canada has more land than America, but only ten per cent as many people. For Canada, social distancing isn’t just easy—it’s a way of life!
CANADA IS TIDY
The beloved Canadian sport of curling is literally just sweeping up!
CANADA IS NONCONFRONTATIONAL
In many parts of Canada, kids on Halloween don’t say, “Trick or treat,” with an implied threat of reprisals. Instead, they chant, “Halloween apples.” (THIS IS TRUE.) They don’t actually want apples—they want candy—but they’re way too polite to ask for it!
CANADA HAS BETTER CULTURE
AMERICA: Ernest Hemingway, Elvis Presley, well-done steak.
CANADA: Margaret Atwood, Joni Mitchell, poutine.
ADVANTAGE: CANADA
CANADA IS WHIMSICAL
The one- and two-dollar coins are called “loonies” and “toonies,” respectively. VERY FEW Canadians dedicate their lives to the pursuit of the “Almighty Loonie.”
CANADA KEEPS IT SIMPLE
CANADA: Ten provinces, many with fun names like Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and a flag featuring one (1!) maple leaf.
AMERICA: Fifty states, many with ridiculous names like Virginia and West Virginia, and a flag featuring, like, eight thousand stripes and about a million stars.
Sometimes less is more, y’know?
CANADA IS SPORTY
BASKETBALL was . . .
INVENTED by a Canadian (James Naismith).
DOMINATED by a Canadian team (the Toronto Raptors, the defending N.B.A. champions).
PERFECTED in the movie “Teen Wolf” by the basketball-dunking title character, played by Michael J. Fox—A CANADIAN.
CANADA HAS BETTER CULTURE (PART 2)
Number of legendary prog-rock bands called Rush that will ROCK YOUR FACE OFF:
CANADA: One.
AMERICA: Zero.
CANADA TREATS ITS BEVERAGES BETTER
AMERICANS: Dumped tea into Boston Harbor!
CANADIANS: Drink milk from clean, hygienic plastic bags!
ADVANTAGE: Probably Canada, but your mileage may vary. Also, your kilometrage. Which brings us to . . .
CANADA USES THE METRIC SYSTEM
Logical, nerdy, and in step with the rest of the world—like Canada itself!
CANADA EVEN HAS BETTER CRIME
In 2016, a group of bandits stole more than three thousand tons of maple syrup from the Canadian strategic syrup reserves. (THIS IS ALSO TRUE.) The thieves were quickly apprehended and brought to justice.
In 2019, the U.S. President pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to help him win the upcoming election. He was not removed from office.
ADVANTAGE: DO WE NEED TO ASK?
FINAL SCORE: GAME, SET, AND STANLEY CUP TO CANADA!!!


newyorker--2020-07-01--Europe in 1989, America in 2020, and the Death of the Lost Cause

In November , 1989 , when the Berlin Wall suddenly began to crumble and then fall , much of the world watched in awe .
Could it be true that Communism was about to collapse ?
For seventy years , it had been a system , an ideology , that ordered large swaths of the globe .
Now a whole vision of history—a vision meant to maximize freedom , but which had turned , over time , into tyranny—seemed to be leaving the stage .
Many people still possess , as I do , little pieces of concrete from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feel some awe in seeing , during these past few weeks , Confederate monuments in America likewise reduced to pieces , relics of the collapse , after a hundred and fifty-five years , of the public vestiges of the Lost Cause tradition .
The summer of 2020 , like the autumn of 1989 , could mark the death of a specific vision of history .
If so , it has taken a long , long night—to borrow from Robbie Robertson and the Band—to drive old Dixie down .
We should not celebrate too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blocks are removed .
History did not end when the Soviet Union dissolved , and it will not end now , even if a vibrant movement sweeps a new age of civil rights into America .
Most of all , we must remember what the Lost Cause is and was before we try to call it past .
As so many now understand—whether they have read William Faulkner or Toni Morrison or the thousands of scholars who have reshaped American history in the past three generations—slavery , the Civil War , Reconstruction , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They still haunt the air we breathe , or can not breathe .
They are what W. E. B .
Du Bois once called , in 1901 , our “ present-past.
” They are a history never to be erased , even if and when the bronze Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee can be carried out of the U.S. Capitol and left at the Smithsonian Castle , for a decision on their final resting place .
The Lost Cause is one of the most deeply ingrained mythologies in American history .
Loss @ @ @ @ @ @ @ source of great literature , stories that take us to the dark hearts of the human condition .
But when loss breeds twisted versions of history to salve its pain , when it encourages the revitalization of vast systems of oppression , and when loss is allowed to freely commemorate itself in stone and in sentimentalism across the cultural landscape , it can poison a civil society and transform itself into a ruling regime .
Some myths are benign as cultural markers .
Others are rooted in lies so beguiling , so powerful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that they can fill parade grounds in Nuremberg , or streets in Charlottesville , or rallies across the country .
The Lost Cause ideology emerged first as a mood of traumatized defeat , but grew into an array of arguments , organizations , and rituals in search of a story that could regain power .
After the Civil War , from the late eighteen-sixties to the late eighteen-eighties , diehards , especially though not exclusively in Virginia , and led by former high-ranking Confederate officers , shaped the memory of the war @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turned Robert E. Lee into a godlike Christian leader and a genius tactician , one who could be defeated only by overwhelming odds .
Their revolution , as the story went , was a noble one crushed by industrial might , but emboldened , in the eighteen-seventies , by righteous resistance to radical Reconstruction , to black suffrage , and to the three Constitutional amendments that transformed America .
The Lost Cause argued that the Confederacy never fought to preserve slavery , and that it was never truly defeated on the battlefields of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Confederacy as the real legacy of the American Revolution—a nation that resisted imperial and centralized power , and which could still triumph over rapid urbanization , immigration , and strife between labor and capital .
Above all , the Lost Cause seductively reminded white Americans that the Confederacy had stood for a civilization in which both races thrived in their best , “ natural ” capacities .
The slaughter of the Civil War had destroyed that order , but it could be remade , and the whole nation , defined as white Anglo-Saxon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the eighteen-nineties , the Lost Cause had transformed into a widespread popular movement , led especially by Southern white women in the United Daughters of the Confederacy ( U.D.C . )
, and by an increasingly active United Confederate Veterans association ( U.C.V . )
and its widely popular magazine , The Confederate Veteran .
The first commander-in-chief of the U.C.V .
was General John B. Gordon , a leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia and a former governor and senator for that state .
Gordon became famous for his particular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lectures that humanized soldiers on both sides of the war , and for his tales of the “ kindliest relations ” between masters and slaves in antebellum times .
He is one of the ten former Confederates for whom United States military forts are named across the South .
From the eighteen-nineties through the First World War , as Jim Crow laws and practices spread across Southern states , and as lynching became a ritual of terror and control , it was organizations like the U.D.C .
and U.C.V .
that placed hundreds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all over city squares and town centers .
By 1920 , virtually no one in the South , black or white , could miss seeing a veterans ’ parade , or a statue of a Confederate soldier leaning on his musket with sweet innocence and regional pride .
Schools , streets , and parks were named for Confederates .
And , at one dedication after another , the message sent to black Southerners was that the Lost Cause was no longer lost .
It had , instead , become a victory narrative about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of white supremacy .
The myth had become the ruling regime , which governed by law and by violence , and because it controlled the story .
What ’ s more , the nation largely acquiesced to , and even applauded , this dogged Southern revival .
The language of the Lost Cause , as well as its monumental presence , is now what many of us desire to banish .
But as we do so it is useful to hear its chords , since they still echo today in precincts of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A. Pollard , the former editor of a Richmond newspaper , in his book “ The Lost Cause Regained , ” urged “ reconciliation ” with conservative Northerners , as long as it was on Southern terms .
“ To the extent of securing the supremacy of the white man , ” he wrote , “ and the traditional liberties of the country .
.
.
she [ the South ] really triumphs in the true cause of the war.
” Such an achievement would take years , but it did come .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ T. Morgan , addressed a meeting of the Southern Historical Society , in 1877 , he framed the preceding nine years as the “ war of Reconstruction.
” The South , he maintained , had just won this “ second war , ” and therefore no one “ need inquire who was right or who was wrong ” in the first war .
This was never easy for Union veterans to swallow , but it was how white supremacy became an integral part of the process of national reconciliation .

In November, 1989, when the Berlin Wall suddenly began to crumble and then fall, much of the world watched in awe. Could it be true that Communism was about to collapse? For seventy years, it had been a system, an ideology, that ordered large swaths of the globe. Now a whole vision of history—a vision meant to maximize freedom, but which had turned, over time, into tyranny—seemed to be leaving the stage.
Many people still possess, as I do, little pieces of concrete from the Berlin Wall. And many of us feel some awe in seeing, during these past few weeks, Confederate monuments in America likewise reduced to pieces, relics of the collapse, after a hundred and fifty-five years, of the public vestiges of the Lost Cause tradition. The summer of 2020, like the autumn of 1989, could mark the death of a specific vision of history. If so, it has taken a long, long night—to borrow from Robbie Robertson and the Band—to drive old Dixie down.
We should not celebrate too much as monuments topple and old slave-auction blocks are removed. History did not end when the Soviet Union dissolved, and it will not end now, even if a vibrant movement sweeps a new age of civil rights into America. Most of all, we must remember what the Lost Cause is and was before we try to call it past. As so many now understand—whether they have read William Faulkner or Toni Morrison or the thousands of scholars who have reshaped American history in the past three generations—slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and segregation are never purely historical. They still haunt the air we breathe, or cannot breathe. They are what W. E. B. Du Bois once called, in 1901, our “present-past.” They are a history never to be erased, even if and when the bronze Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee can be carried out of the U.S. Capitol and left at the Smithsonian Castle, for a decision on their final resting place.
The Lost Cause is one of the most deeply ingrained mythologies in American history. Loss on an epic scale is often the source of great literature, stories that take us to the dark hearts of the human condition. But when loss breeds twisted versions of history to salve its pain, when it encourages the revitalization of vast systems of oppression, and when loss is allowed to freely commemorate itself in stone and in sentimentalism across the cultural landscape, it can poison a civil society and transform itself into a ruling regime. Some myths are benign as cultural markers. Others are rooted in lies so beguiling, so powerful as engines of resentment and political mobilization, that they can fill parade grounds in Nuremberg, or streets in Charlottesville, or rallies across the country.
The Lost Cause ideology emerged first as a mood of traumatized defeat, but grew into an array of arguments, organizations, and rituals in search of a story that could regain power. After the Civil War, from the late eighteen-sixties to the late eighteen-eighties, diehards, especially though not exclusively in Virginia, and led by former high-ranking Confederate officers, shaped the memory of the war through regular publications and memoirs. They turned Robert E. Lee into a godlike Christian leader and a genius tactician, one who could be defeated only by overwhelming odds. Their revolution, as the story went, was a noble one crushed by industrial might, but emboldened, in the eighteen-seventies, by righteous resistance to radical Reconstruction, to black suffrage, and to the three Constitutional amendments that transformed America.
The Lost Cause argued that the Confederacy never fought to preserve slavery, and that it was never truly defeated on the battlefields of glory. Lost Cause spokesmen saw the Confederacy as the real legacy of the American Revolution—a nation that resisted imperial and centralized power, and which could still triumph over rapid urbanization, immigration, and strife between labor and capital. Above all, the Lost Cause seductively reminded white Americans that the Confederacy had stood for a civilization in which both races thrived in their best, “natural” capacities. The slaughter of the Civil War had destroyed that order, but it could be remade, and the whole nation, defined as white Anglo-Saxon, could yet be revived.
By the eighteen-nineties, the Lost Cause had transformed into a widespread popular movement, led especially by Southern white women in the United Daughters of the Confederacy (U.D.C.), and by an increasingly active United Confederate Veterans association (U.C.V.) and its widely popular magazine, The Confederate Veteran. The first commander-in-chief of the U.C.V. was General John B. Gordon, a leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia and a former governor and senator for that state. Gordon became famous for his particular brand of reconciliation, which involved popular lectures that humanized soldiers on both sides of the war, and for his tales of the “kindliest relations” between masters and slaves in antebellum times. He is one of the ten former Confederates for whom United States military forts are named across the South.
From the eighteen-nineties through the First World War, as Jim Crow laws and practices spread across Southern states, and as lynching became a ritual of terror and control, it was organizations like the U.D.C. and U.C.V. that placed hundreds of monuments, large and small, all over city squares and town centers. By 1920, virtually no one in the South, black or white, could miss seeing a veterans’ parade, or a statue of a Confederate soldier leaning on his musket with sweet innocence and regional pride. Schools, streets, and parks were named for Confederates. And, at one dedication after another, the message sent to black Southerners was that the Lost Cause was no longer lost. It had, instead, become a victory narrative about the overturning of Reconstruction and the reëstablishment of white supremacy. The myth had become the ruling regime, which governed by law and by violence, and because it controlled the story. What’s more, the nation largely acquiesced to, and even applauded, this dogged Southern revival.
The language of the Lost Cause, as well as its monumental presence, is now what many of us desire to banish. But as we do so it is useful to hear its chords, since they still echo today in precincts of the American right. In 1868, Edward A. Pollard, the former editor of a Richmond newspaper, in his book “The Lost Cause Regained,” urged “reconciliation” with conservative Northerners, as long as it was on Southern terms. “To the extent of securing the supremacy of the white man,” he wrote, “and the traditional liberties of the country . . . she [the South] really triumphs in the true cause of the war.” Such an achievement would take years, but it did come. When a former Confederate officer, John T. Morgan, addressed a meeting of the Southern Historical Society, in 1877, he framed the preceding nine years as the “war of Reconstruction.” The South, he maintained, had just won this “second war,” and therefore no one “need inquire who was right or who was wrong” in the first war. This was never easy for Union veterans to swallow, but it was how white supremacy became an integral part of the process of national reconciliation.
The ultimate sick soul who had to be healed was Jefferson Davis, the former President of the Confederacy, whose large memorial has now been toppled in Richmond. After he was released from prison, in 1867, without ever having been tried for treason, Davis gave a heartbeat to the Lost Cause story. His two-volume, 1,279-page memoir, “The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government” (1881), is the longest and most self-righteous legal brief on behalf of a failed political movement ever produced by an American. Davis laid all responsibility for secession and the war on the “unlimited, despotic power” of the North. To Davis, slavery was in no way the cause of the conflict, and yet, like almost all Lost Causers, he went on at great length to defend the enslavement of blacks. Black people had already been enslaved in Africa, Davis argued. In America, they had been “trained in the gentle arts of peace and order,” and advanced from “unprofitable savages to millions of efficient Christian laborers.” The “magic word of ‘freedom’ ” had ruined this peaceful world like the “tempter . . . the Serpent in Eden.”
Confounding as these arguments may seem to most twenty-first-century minds, Lost Cause spokesmen were deadly serious, and their ideas propped up a story that many Americans still accept. Around Memorial Day in Richmond, 1890, when the spectacular Robert E. Lee equestrian statue was unveiled before a crowd of up to a hundred and fifty thousand people, a Lee cult seemed in total triumph. Confederate flags waved everywhere. A women’s memorial association had managed to wrangle many factions into agreement on a design and artist for the statue, and on elaborate ceremonies to anoint it. Twenty-five years after Appomattox, the general who had led the crusade to divide and destroy American democracy stood high astride his monument, the first in a series of statues that became Monument Avenue. Much of the Northern press called the statue evidence that Lee had become, as the New York Times put it, a “national possession.”
Not everyone was celebrating, of course. Many black men, needing jobs, had worked on the crews that pulled and set the giant granite structure into place. The three black men on the Richmond City Council had voted against an appropriation for the Lee monument. And John Mitchell, the editor of the Richmond Planet, the city’s black newspaper, wrote that those who wore the “clinking chains of slavery” had a perfect right to denounce the spectacle of the unveiling and all that lay behind it. Black men, Mitchell said, helped “put up the Lee Monument, and should the time come will be there to take it down.” The state of Virginia apparently wishes to do just that, in an act that many of us who have studied these matters thought would never occur. When it does, one can hope that a line of black citizens might be given pride of place in holding the ropes.
What comes after this change in commemoration will determine whether we are truly witnessing the death of the Lost Cause. Structural racism remains present in nearly every corner of the United States—in the material worlds of health care, economic inequality, and policing, and in our politics, which are split between a white-people’s party and a party trying in fits and strides to be a voice of pluralism. When the Berlin Wall opened and then fell, and as Eastern European countries began to move from Communism to democracy, we learned that their path was not easy. Some, like Hungary, have collapsed into authoritarianism. Russia itself, now run by a dictator, is a mockery of democracy that tries its best to poison our own.
The term used for the great changes spurred, in 1989, by the reunification of Germany was die Wende, which can be translated as the turning, or the change. When the Cold War came to an end, societies and minds seemed to be opening, and democracy seemed to have new traction. Around that time, in the early nineties, I was a visiting Fulbright professor in Germany. I travelled all over the country and, at one particular stop, in a small provincial town near Dresden, I lectured to a room full of East German high-school teachers, who were just beginning to develop curricula that might include U.S. history. My host was a local school principal named Matthias, who had been born near the end of the Second World War, in Dresden. His family had escaped the city in 1944, just before its near-total destruction. He grew up amid the rubble, and he had spent his entire life under the East German Communist regime and its controls on thought and behavior.
Die Wende was challenging and overwhelming for Matthias. Once, over dinner, he told me that he did not think he and his generation could adapt to what capitalism and democracy would bring. He was more hopeful for his son’s generation: he thought it had a chance to secure not just a future but a new history, a story true to reality. Then he uttered something that I will never forget. He said, “I know your country. I have been to your country with my fingers on a map.” He spoke at length of how he had memorized American states and their capitals. He had never been to the country, but, for him, America was an idea to wrestle with, its political creeds an obsession.
The statues are being toppled, but the story that built them remains. If Matthias could visit America, one hopes that he would see a country trying to transcend that story—trying, like his son, to capture not just a brighter future but a truer sense of the past. If he were here, I would tell him of a history full of suffering, hypocrisy, and tragedy, along with sublime creativity and advancement. I would tell him how Americans have been rewriting this history for a long time, and we could talk to each other about the link between public memory and the grind of progress. It would be the beginning, I think, of a long conversation. But if this is to be our 1989, we must make the most of it. The whole world may be watching.


newyorker--2020-06-30--John Roberts Distances Himself from the Trump-McConnell Legal Project

The Supreme Court often appears to exist in a world of abstractions .
To pick just one example , what does a concept like “ separation of powers ” mean in the lives of most Americans ?
But three times in recent weeks , the Justices have issued concrete directives that have changed the world—and for the better .
They held that it was unlawful to fire people simply because they are L.G.B.T.Q .
; they prevented the Trump Administration from deporting seven hundred thousand young people , known as the Dreamers , who have lived virtually their entire lives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ women in Louisiana will continue to have at least some access to abortion .
And the Chief Justice , John G. Roberts , Jr. , a conservative who was appointed to the Court fifteen years ago , by George W. Bush , voted in the majority in all three cases .
This , simply , is cause for celebration .
But you wouldn ’ t know it from the reaction of many of those who follow the Court closely—and who agree with all three of Roberts ’ s votes .
The headline on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ John Roberts Is No Pro-Choice Hero , ” and the piece intoned that Roberts “ appears to have decided that the circumstances of this case were not ideal for crippling reproductive rights—but he left the door open to doing so in the future.
” My friend Dahlia Lithwick , at Slate , wrote that what Roberts actually did was “ cloak a major blow to the left in what appears to be a small victory for it.
” Rather , she added , “ Roberts is telling states wanting to impose all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t matter if they are utterly without health benefits , so long as the burdens on women are not that bad.
” The idea behind these views appears to be that Roberts ’ s vote to strike down these abortion restrictions was really just a move in a multi-dimensional chess game to allow other restrictions—and , ultimately , to overrule Roe v. Wade .
To which I reply , respectfully , nope .
If the Chief Justice wanted to uphold restrictions on abortion , he would have voted .
.
.
to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the opposite , and struck down a law that would have curtailed access to abortion in Louisiana .
It is true , of course , that Roberts has not suddenly turned into Ruth Bader Ginsburg .
Four years ago , the Chief Justice voted to uphold abortion restrictions in Texas that were virtually identical to the ones that he voted to strike down in Louisiana .
As he noted in his opinion concurring in the judgment this week , he stands by his 2016 vote , where he was on the losing side @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ The legal doctrine of stare decisis requires us , absent special circumstances , to treat like cases alike .
The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law , for the same reasons .
Therefore Louisiana ’ s law can not stand under our precedents.
” Like all the Justices , Roberts respects precedent—except when he doesn ’ t .
He has often voted to overturn prior decisions with which he disagrees .
In his opinion in the Louisiana case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the Court ’ s decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey , from 1992 , which upheld Roe , remains the law of the land .
The Casey ruling allowed some restrictions on abortion , but not others .
That , clearly , will remain Roberts ’ s approach .
But the idea that Roberts is dedicated to overturning Roe seems fanciful in light of this latest vote and opinion .
That can not , of course , be said of Roberts ’ s four conservative colleagues , who voted to uphold the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Texas law that the Court just recently invalidated .
Unlike Roberts , Clarence Thomas , Samuel Alito , Neil Gorsuch , and Brett Kavanaugh demonstrated by their votes that they are dedicated to the grand conservative project of overturning Roe .
( In November , the voters of Maine will have a chance to invite their credulous pro-choice senator , Susan Collins , to reflect on her embrace of Kavanaugh , supposedly because of his great devotion to respecting precedent , from a comfortable retirement in the Pine Tree State . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Mitch McConnell is the Senate Majority Leader , any vacancy on the Court will be filled with a similarly anti-Roe Justice—right up to the day both men leave their posts .
So the peril to Roe , and to abortion rights , remains .
But it now seems clear that despite what I and others thought , this Court—that is , these nine Justices—will not be overturning Roe v. Wade .
( Conservatives , to their chagrin , recognize this . )
As for Roberts ’ s other two votes , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people and the other about the Dreamers , it simply isn ’ t possible to explain them away as preordained by his prior jurisprudence .
The employment case was about a statute , Title VII of the Civil Rights Act , not the Constitution .
But Roberts had never before taken such an expansive view of the protections of the law , nor had he voted in favor of any of the Court ’ s landmark gay-rights rulings , including , of course , the 2015 decision guaranteeing the right to marriage in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vote on the Dreamers , Roberts has a strict view of the need for procedural regularity , and he voted to strike down the Trump Administration ’ s bumbling effort to place a citizenship question on the 2020 census for violating those principles .
Roberts ’ s prior jurisprudence didn ’ t guarantee that result , either .
I don ’ t pretend to know what ’ s in Roberts ’ s heart , but I can see what ’ s clear : that he is dissociating himself from key parts of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have done so much to foster .
Roberts will never be a liberal , but he ’ s no moderate , either .
His 2013 opinion in Shelby County v. Holder , which crippled the Voting Rights Act , will haunt his reputation , and the nation , forever .
He will probably also vote to uphold some abortion restrictions in the future .
This week , too , Roberts wrote a dismal opinion allowing public subsidies for religious schools , further lowering the barriers between church and state .
But the John @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Court is not exactly the same man he once was , and it may be time for his critics to recognize that and take yes for an answer .

The Supreme Court often appears to exist in a world of abstractions. To pick just one example, what does a concept like “separation of powers” mean in the lives of most Americans? But three times in recent weeks, the Justices have issued concrete directives that have changed the world—and for the better. They held that it was unlawful to fire people simply because they are L.G.B.T.Q.; they prevented the Trump Administration from deporting seven hundred thousand young people, known as the Dreamers, who have lived virtually their entire lives as Americans; and they guaranteed that women in Louisiana will continue to have at least some access to abortion. And the Chief Justice, John G. Roberts, Jr., a conservative who was appointed to the Court fifteen years ago, by George W. Bush, voted in the majority in all three cases.
This, simply, is cause for celebration. But you wouldn’t know it from the reaction of many of those who follow the Court closely—and who agree with all three of Roberts’s votes. The headline on the Times’s editorial scolded, “John Roberts Is No Pro-Choice Hero,” and the piece intoned that Roberts “appears to have decided that the circumstances of this case were not ideal for crippling reproductive rights—but he left the door open to doing so in the future.” My friend Dahlia Lithwick, at Slate, wrote that what Roberts actually did was “cloak a major blow to the left in what appears to be a small victory for it.” Rather, she added, “Roberts is telling states wanting to impose all sort of needless regulations that it doesn’t matter if they are utterly without health benefits, so long as the burdens on women are not that bad.” The idea behind these views appears to be that Roberts’s vote to strike down these abortion restrictions was really just a move in a multi-dimensional chess game to allow other restrictions—and, ultimately, to overrule Roe v. Wade.
To which I reply, respectfully, nope. If the Chief Justice wanted to uphold restrictions on abortion, he would have voted . . . to uphold restrictions on abortion. He did the opposite, and struck down a law that would have curtailed access to abortion in Louisiana. It is true, of course, that Roberts has not suddenly turned into Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Four years ago, the Chief Justice voted to uphold abortion restrictions in Texas that were virtually identical to the ones that he voted to strike down in Louisiana. As he noted in his opinion concurring in the judgment this week, he stands by his 2016 vote, where he was on the losing side, 5–3. But, he added, “The legal doctrine of stare decisis requires us, absent special circumstances, to treat like cases alike. The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons. Therefore Louisiana’s law cannot stand under our precedents.”
Like all the Justices, Roberts respects precedent—except when he doesn’t. He has often voted to overturn prior decisions with which he disagrees. In his opinion in the Louisiana case, Roberts said clearly that he believes that the Court’s decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, from 1992, which upheld Roe, remains the law of the land. The Casey ruling allowed some restrictions on abortion, but not others. That, clearly, will remain Roberts’s approach. But the idea that Roberts is dedicated to overturning Roe seems fanciful in light of this latest vote and opinion.
That cannot, of course, be said of Roberts’s four conservative colleagues, who voted to uphold the Louisiana law, despite its similarity to the Texas law that the Court just recently invalidated. Unlike Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh demonstrated by their votes that they are dedicated to the grand conservative project of overturning Roe. (In November, the voters of Maine will have a chance to invite their credulous pro-choice senator, Susan Collins, to reflect on her embrace of Kavanaugh, supposedly because of his great devotion to respecting precedent, from a comfortable retirement in the Pine Tree State.) As long as Donald Trump is President and Mitch McConnell is the Senate Majority Leader, any vacancy on the Court will be filled with a similarly anti-Roe Justice—right up to the day both men leave their posts. So the peril to Roe, and to abortion rights, remains. But it now seems clear that despite what I and others thought, this Court—that is, these nine Justices—will not be overturning Roe v. Wade. (Conservatives, to their chagrin, recognize this.)
As for Roberts’s other two votes, the one on employment discrimination against L.G.B.T.Q. people and the other about the Dreamers, it simply isn’t possible to explain them away as preordained by his prior jurisprudence. The employment case was about a statute, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, not the Constitution. But Roberts had never before taken such an expansive view of the protections of the law, nor had he voted in favor of any of the Court’s landmark gay-rights rulings, including, of course, the 2015 decision guaranteeing the right to marriage in all fifty states. As for his vote on the Dreamers, Roberts has a strict view of the need for procedural regularity, and he voted to strike down the Trump Administration’s bumbling effort to place a citizenship question on the 2020 census for violating those principles. Roberts’s prior jurisprudence didn’t guarantee that result, either. I don’t pretend to know what’s in Roberts’s heart, but I can see what’s clear: that he is dissociating himself from key parts of the conservative legal project that Trump and McConnell have done so much to foster.
Roberts will never be a liberal, but he’s no moderate, either. His 2013 opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, which crippled the Voting Rights Act, will haunt his reputation, and the nation, forever. He will probably also vote to uphold some abortion restrictions in the future. This week, too, Roberts wrote a dismal opinion allowing public subsidies for religious schools, further lowering the barriers between church and state. But the John Roberts who currently presides at the Supreme Court is not exactly the same man he once was, and it may be time for his critics to recognize that and take yes for an answer.