12 NEWS Best columns: The U.S.
ScreenshotQResidents of a suburban
Virginia town awoke to find
old-fashioned television
sets mysteriously deposited
on their porches overnight.
The 52 cathode ray–tube
televisions, dating to at least
20 years ago, were apparent-
ly dropped off by two people
wearing boxes on their heads
fashioned to look like TVs.
One local said it felt like “the
Twilight Zone,” but police
assured residents there’s no
“reason for the community
to be alarmed.” Said resident
Adrian Garner, “At first I was
like, ‘Did we order this?’ It’s
just kind of strange.”
QA British “YouTube family”
that makes money by market-
ing itself online
is now selling a
“realistically ador-
able” doll version
of their fourth
child, whose
birth had been
livestreamed. The
doll Jace retails
for about $340 and comes
with a onesie designed by
Jace’s sister Esmé, as well
as an invitation to meet the
whole Ingham clan. For
another $79, fans can buy
branded diapers, a pacifier,
and a birth certificate “hand-
signed” by the family. The
naked commercialization
drew swift rebukes. “Imag-
ine finding out your parents
once sold realistic dolls of the
newborn you online,” one
YouTuber wrote.
QA man who was caught
dumping an old refrigerator
off a cliff in Spain was forced
by authorities to haul it back
up the hill and pay a $50,
fine. In a now-viral video,
the scofflaw dumper can be
heard saying, “Let’s see how
many flips it can do,” while
the fridge rolls down a ravine.
After police shared a video of
him dragging it back up the
hill, the man complained that
the mockery had “aggravated
the problems I have with
anxiety” and made him a
pariah. “I don’t want people
to have this image of me as
though I were a murderer.”It must be true...
I read it in the tabloids“Global warming is already here,” said The Washington Post, and it’s
disrupting life in the U.S. That’s the conclusion of an exhaustive Post
investigation in which our reporters crunched temperature records
throughout the country. We found that more than 10 percent of Ameri-
cans, or 34 million people, live in regions that already have heated up
by 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit—the mark that a United
Nations scientific panel has warned will usher in severe and perhaps ir-
reversible effects. Among the areas heating up faster than average are
Southern California, much of the Northeast, Phoenix, portions of the
Rocky Mountains, and Alaska. The impacts are not subtle: Toxic algae
blooms are ruining lakes that no longer freeze solid in winter. The lob-
ster catch off Rhode Island has plunged 75 percent because of warmer
waters. Pine beetles are invading and decimating northern forests. The
number of 100-degree days is growing. As our tailpipes and smokestacks
belch vast amounts of carbon dioxide, “the warming will continue,” and
the consequences will grow more severe. Yet “President Trump continues
to deny and ignore reality,” and his administration’s policy is to encour-
age more emissions. “It is beyond unforgivable.”The Trump administration is deporting thousands of legal immigrants
back to countries “they barely know,” said Chris Gelardi. Jimmy
Aldaoud, a 41-year-old Michigan man, recently died from untreated
diabetes just months after he was deported to Iraq, where he “had no
language skills, no luggage from home, no place to live, and no family
connections.” Aldaoud, who was severely mentally ill, had never even
been to Iraq. He was born in Greece to Iraqi Christian refugees, who
brought him to the U.S. as a baby. His mental illness led to homeless-
ness and multiple arrests, giving the Trump administration an excuse
to ship him overseas. Such heartlessness is now official U.S. policy.
ICE considers about 120,000 immigrants who came here as refugees
“deportable” if they have any crime on their record, including selling
marijuana and drunk driving. Deportations to Somalia, Cambodia, and
Eritrea are soaring, as people who’ve spent decades in the U.S. are sent
to countries where crime and political repression are rife. In March, a
30-year-old deportee died in a restaurant bombing in Mogadishu. An
Eritrean deportee was so distraught he killed himself en route to his na-
tive country. There will be many more Jimmy Aldaouds.The U.S. paid a heavy price for abandoning Iraq, said David Petraeus and
Vance Serchuk, and shouldn’t “repeat history in Afghanistan.” The U.S.
is reportedly close to agreeing to a peace deal with the Taliban in which
we’ll withdraw most or all of our troops in return for a promise that the
Taliban will cooperate against international terrorist organizations and
enter direct talks with the elected Afghan government. After 18 years
of war, “any possibility of settling this conflict is cause for hope,” but
the Trump administration should not make the same mistake President
Obama made in 2011, when he pulled all troops from Iraq. That with-
drawal led to Iraq’s unraveling and the catastrophic rise of ISIS. If Presi-
dent Trump pulls all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, as he has said he
wants to do, the Taliban will seek to “overthrow the Afghan government
and reimpose medieval rule.” The country will again become “a terrorist
sanctuary” where al Qaida, ISIS, and other groups can train their fight-
ers and plan attacks on the West. Keeping at least a few thousand troops
in Afghanistan will carry a cost. But it will “pale in comparison with the
price the nation will pay” if terrorists rebuild a safe haven there.Climate
change has
arrived
The Washington Post
Editorial
Don’t trust
the Taliban’s
promises
David Petraeus and
Vance Serchuk
The Wall Street Journal
Deportation
as a death
sentence
Chris Gelardi
Slate.com
“Slavery was undeniably a font of phenomenal wealth. By the eve of the Civil
War, the Mississippi Valley was home to more millionaires per capita than
anywhere else in the United States. Cotton grown and picked by enslaved workers was the nation’s
most valuable export. What made the cotton economy boom in the United States, and not in all
the other far-flung parts of the world with climates and soil suitable to the crop, was our nation’s
unflinching willingness to use violence on nonwhite people and to exert its will on seemingly end-
less supplies of land and labor.”
Matthew Desmond in The New York TimesViewpoint