What Happened Today: May 13, 2022
The farmers’ struggle; China’s travel ban; Passover part two
The Big Story
Food and fuel shortages are poised to become two of this year’s most difficult problems to solve as runaway inflation and supply-chain breakdowns destabilize the production and distribution of diesel and grain worldwide. Yesterday’s U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast on the 2022-2023 crop output estimated that the global wheat stock was at a six-year low. Take China out of the equation, due to its habit of stockpiling wheat, and the situation looks even more severe, with the global stock dropping to its all-time fourth-lowest level. Those estimates could become worse, however, as a historic rise of fertilizer prices and diesel shortages apply intense pressure on farmers trying to keep up with demand. Indeed, many diesel refineries are yet to reopen or resume full production since they shuttered operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, more crude oil is needed for increased air travel, and general fuel availability has tightened because of sanctions against major Russian energy suppliers. The result is that diesel prices have become so volatile that farmers are ordering the fuel they need to run their machines without knowing how much it will cost until it arrives. While the diesel issue will force consumer prices up and continue to stoke inflation, it will also exacerbate the unpredictable production and distribution of wheat and other staple grains used in thousands of food products, which will in turn push up the already-inflated prices for food in Western nations and poorer countries. A recent UN World Food report found that 193 million people faced acute food insecurity in 2021. Food shortages are likely to grow as a number of governments have begun hoarding their food supply, either banning overseas sales outright or implementing severe taxes on staples such as cooking oils and grains, a move that serves domestic demand but boosts global food prices, likely intensifying food insecurity in some parts of the world and catalyzing social unrest, particularly in developing nations.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/world-wheat-squeeze-set-worsen-into-2023-price-risks-remain-braun-2022-05-12/
In The Back Pages: Your Weekend Read
The Rest
→ Tough to say what’s worse about the infant-formula shortage: the U.S. production bottlenecks and poor oversight by the FDA, as The Scroll noted yesterday, or the FDA’s unwillingness to solve the issue by allowing families to buy formula from Europe. Formula in Europe is tightly regulated, made with more organic ingredients and held to even more stringent nutritional requirements than in the United States: Certain kinds of added sugars are banned, and brain-boosting omega-3 fatty acids are required. Yet parents who want to tap into this supply are largely unable to because the FDA requires certain labels and packaging that prevents European makers from exporting their formula to the United States. Parents finding their local shelves bare are now turning to the black market either to buy price-gouged U.S.-made formula or to skirt the FDA rules on labels so they can import the higher-grade European formula themselves.
→ A captured Russian soldier will be the first to face war crimes related to the Russian invasion, as a Ukrainian court has begun the trial for a 21-year-old fighter charged with murdering a 62-year-old Ukrainian civilian. Prosecutors in the Kyiv trial say that the soldier and four other fighters had initially shot at a car of Ukrainian civilians during a skirmish with the Ukrainian military and that while fleeing the encounter, the defendant, Vadim Shysimarin, shot and killed the victim who was nearby talking on the phone. The soldier had been instructed to shoot the victim by his fellow fighters because they feared he would “report them to Ukrainian defenders,” the prosecutors said. It’s likely that two more war-crime cases will come before the Kyiv court, including the absentia trial of Mikhail Romanov, a Russian fighter accused of breaking into a village home near Kyiv, killing a man, raping his wife, and threatening her children with weapons. Fighters for both sides continue to wage a brutal battle for territory in eastern Ukraine, particularly in Donbas, where Russian forces have made a major push for control that has met intense Ukrainian resistance.
→ Chinese officials have announced a ban on most travel outside the country, the most stringent restrictions for travelers in decades, and a part of Beijing’s ongoing effort to enforce its zero-COVID policy amid a severe outbreak of the disease across some of China’s largest cities. The ban on Chinese citizens traveling outside the country for any “non-essential” reason comes after several weeks of strictly enforced rules forbidding some urban residents to leave their home and requiring them to submit to daily tests for the virus, a draconian crackdown regime that led to widespread reports of hunger and neglect among residents in Shanghai who couldn’t go out even to collect food and other essentials. Some have speculated that the travel rule is a response to growing unrest over the increased dysfunction and breakdown of food distribution in the cities under prolonged lockdowns. For now, it remains unclear how exactly the ban will play out, as officials haven’t offered more detail since the Chinese National Immigration Administration said in yesterday’s statement that only those who need to travel for business, scientific research, or medical care would be allowed to leave the country.
→ While China battens down the hatches on international travel, it seems the People’s Liberation Army is honing its capacity to strike docked ships using long-range missiles, according to a new analysis from USNI News. Examining newly acquired satellite photos, the analysis outlines how China has built up an array of large targets in the Taklamakan Desert, several of which appear to mimic the shape and dimensions of naval ships at port. “Eight miles southwest of an elaborate aircraft carrier layout, a site with full-scale piers and a destroyer-sized ship-like target was constructed in December,” the report said, adding that more recent photos indicate a test missile hit a ship replica before the target was subsequently disassembled. The testing could be an effort to train artificial intelligence systems tied to certain missiles that would otherwise have a higher chance of missing targets in port. “If [the missiles] are able to discern a ship from a pier, [they] could inflict a killer opening blow against an enemy navy. The fear is fleets could be decapitated before they can escape to open water or disperse,” said the report.
Read more: https://news.usni.org/2022/05/11/great-wall-of-naval-targets-discovered-in-chinese-desert?mc_cid=b60baf9cca&mc_eid=ad640e23d4
→ In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—the United States’ primary agency for public health research—only “diverted a small fraction of its budget to COVID-19 research” (totaling just 2% of its budget to the effort), according to a recently published study in the peer-reviewed journal BMJ Open. Finding that the small amount of money took an average of five months before awardees had the funds on hand to conduct their research, the report found that future health emergencies “will require research funding to pivot in a timely fashion and funding levels to be proportional to the anticipated burden of disease in the population.” While the report didn’t cover the social costs of its findings, one of its lead authors, Martin Makary, a surgeon at Johns Hopkins University, wrote on Twitter, “NIH’s failure to fund rapid research on the big Covid questions early (Airborne vs surface, cloth vs quality mask, distancing, nat immunity, etc.) resulted in an evidence void. Opinions filled that vacuum, resulting in Covid policy guided by groupthink opinion rather than science.”
→ The State Department’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt, used her first public address yesterday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to highlight the similarities in antisemitic beliefs held by those who perpetrate violent hate crimes both here and abroad, warning that the intensification of worldwide antisemitism was “a threat to the stability of all governments.” Lipstadt similarly warned of the growing “use of Israel as a foil for their antisemitism.” Criticism of Israeli politics is not antisemitic, Lipstadt told the crowd. “But when there is an imbalance in the criticism, a failure to see the wrongs of others and attributing the blame to only one party, and the use of double standards, one is compelled to ask, ‘What’s the basis for this imbalance?’ When Jews are denied rights that are afforded to every other group, one is compelled to ask, ‘Why this imbalance?’ The answer is often self-evident.”
→ Andy Warhol’s painting of Marilyn Monroe sold for $195 million this week, becoming the most expensive piece of 20th-century art ever sold and further cementing the art market’s role as a safe space for mega-wealthy investors to park their money. “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn,” one of dozens of Marilyn Monroe prints that Warhol produced in his “factory” in the 1960s, is an iconic piece of American art—and also a great investment, as returns on blue-chip artworks in the past 20 years have beaten out returns from the S&P 500 by 250%. Those concerned about the financialization of art should remember that “making money is art”—or so thought Warhol, anyway.
→ In the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, a 35-year-old man has been sued by his parents for not fathering a grandchild—an abuse of generosity, the man’s parents say, that amounts to “mental harassment.” After arranging their only son’s marriage in 2016, Sanjeev and Sadhana Prasad complained to the court that they’d spent much of their savings to lavish the newlyweds with gifts, including a plush honeymoon and luxury vehicle, without receiving a grandchild in return. “My son has been married for six years, but they are still not planning a baby,” said Sanjeev Prasad. “At least if we have a grandchild to spend time with, our pain will become bearable.”
The Second Chance at Passover
Just a month ago, Jews gathered around Seder tables with loved ones as we told the story of our people’s history and celebrated our survival. Already, though, the experience has begun to fade into the recesses of our memory—another holiday gone by.
Passover offers a space to be peaceful, joyful, and thoughtful. It offers us lessons of freedom and hope, compassion and sensitivity. Yet the test of any holiday comes after it has ended and we have reimmersed ourselves into the hustle of everyday life. Is it possible, then, to carry Passover’s lessons with us once it has drawn to a close?
Enter Pesach Sheni—quite literally, a Second Passover. On the 14th day of Iyar, which this year falls on this Sunday, May 15th, exactly one month after Passover Pesach Sheni, we have a chance to return to our Passover state of mind.
Though Torah dictates that the Passover sacrifice should take place on the 14th day of Nisan, it also tells us that individuals who had recently come in contact with a dead body were taamei, or “ritually impure,” and not permitted to participate in the sacrifice. In Parshat Behaalotecha, a group of these individuals approached Moshe and Aharon and, distraught, asked, “Why are we prevented from bringing the offering with the rest of Israel, in the proper time?”
Thus, Pesach Sheni was created as a second opportunity to fulfill the mitzvah of bringing the Passover offering. The Torah literally calls it a “make-up festival”; in modern vernacular, it’s what we might refer to as a do-over. It’s an extraordinary concept: a holiday devoted solely to second chances.
The business of ridding your home of chametz was not required in advance of the Second Passover. While the highlight of the second-chance Passover experience was the opportunity to bring a Korban Pesach, the Passover sacrifice, it was to be prepared and eaten in an identical manner, indistinguishable from the practice performed a month prior: roasted over fire and enjoyed with Matzah and marror. The other steps of the Seder were skipped.
These days, in the absence of the Temple, most people’s Pesach Sheni customs (if they have any at all) are limited to finishing off the last of the matzo. But what spiritual and emotional customs might we implement so that we can embrace this do-over and retain the spirit of Passover beyond the holiday itself?
Passover Sheni is the embodiment of the concept of teshuvah, giving us a chance to pause and recognize how we’ve disconnected and where we’ve lost touch with our essential self. In the chasm between who we have been and what we’re becoming, this Second Passover represents the power of tapping into our core potential.
Pesach Sheni’s message is particularly resonant this year, as the COVID-19 pandemic shifts into endemic stage. After two long years of fear, caution, and isolation, we’re finally presented with a chance to start anew. Worldwide, the virus is estimated to have claimed 15 million lives; we have the opportunity to enter into this new world with a new lens on the way we want life to be.
This Pesach Sheni festival, built entirely around the idea of second chances, is a time to pause and think about second chances within the context of our own lives. After two Passovers observed in states of quarantine and lockdown, we should pause in our regained freedom to consider our blessings and take nothing for granted. To let the future reign, we examine the past, accept it for what it was, and move forward toward a greater good. How grateful we are for this moment—and for this sacred chance to try again.
Rabbi Daniel Kraus is a member of the clergy at Manhattan’s Kehilath Jeshurn Synagogue and the associate vice president of partnerships at the Birthright Israel Foundation. He is a proud Aussie implant who has found home on the Upper East Side.
I find it hard to imagine that the NIH diverting more cash to Corona research would have lead to earlier acknowledgement of the effectiveness of acquired immunity, or the ineffectiveness of cloth masks. The lack of funding is indicative of the lack of interest in confronting junk science claims made by politically correct thought leaders and their devotees. It is a symptom, not a cause.
The research money that was spent was mostly burned in studies rigged to reach predefined conclusions. We can all remember a time now when “studies showed” confirmation of some popular claim that would be disproven and abandoned six months later. More money for more studies by ideologically compromised researchers would have produced more of the same.