Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 176

Game of Thrones’s Epidemic of Kid-Killing

Warning: Season 6 spoilers abound.

It was the most shocking scene in an episode that otherwise played out precisely as expected. Walda Frey, the wife of Roose Bolton, gave birth to a son. (This was not the surprising part: The existence of another Bolton heir had been heavily hinted at last season.) The birth of a healthy baby—a boy, no less—was good news to everyone save for Ramsay Bolton, who “would prefer to be an only child.” So Ramsay, having murdered his father to ensure his accession to the throne, called for Walda and his new baby brother. He met the child, a cooing infant, and led them, casually, to a dog kennel. The dogs howled and growled and clawed at their cages. Walda realized, slowly, why she and her son had been taken there. She clutched the baby, a preemptive Pietà. She begged Ramsay to spare them. She reminded him that the infant in her arms was his half-brother. Ramsay, unmoved, uncaged the dogs. He gave them the order.

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Game of Thrones: What Is Dead May Never Die

Mother and son, soft and unarmed and helpless, were mauled to death. We know this not because we saw it, but because we heard the human wails drowned, quickly but not quickly enough, by vicious growls.

It was the most horrifying Game of Thrones moment since, well, the show’s previous depiction of a child’s violent murder. But it was not at all unusual: The Bolton infant joins the increasingly populous parade of children who have met their deaths in the series’s eponymous game. Lommy. Joffrey. Zalla. Mycah. Shireen. Etc. Kid-killing, indeed, is so common on Game of Thrones that Vulture recently took it upon itself to rank the child deaths the show has thus far portrayed, according to their respective sadness. Last night’s death, however—its manner, particularly violent; its victim, particularly young—is the culmination of another kind of violence the show has leveled against children: violence not just against young characters, but against youth itself.

Game of Thrones is populated by young people who are not, in any meaningful way, children.

Game of Thrones has long had an extremely tense relationship with childhood as a stage of life. The show is populated by young people who are not, in any meaningful way, children. There are the kids—Joffrey, Ramsay, and their like—who, contra quaint cultural assumptions about youthful innocence, are as cruel and sadistic as any adult could ever be. There are also the kids whom the show’s plot has systematically robbed of whatever youthful innocence they may have began with. Bran Stark, all gawky limbs and buoyant energy, is quickly defenestrated by one of the adults charged with keeping him safe. Arya undergoes a figurative version of the same treatment, the traumas she endures plunging her into a very mature kind of violence. Sansa’s initial innocence is converted, through a similar alchemy, into a cold impulse toward self-preservation. The surviving Starks are still young; they long ago stopped, however, being youthful.

They are not alone in that deprivation. Game of Thrones may be indiscriminate when it comes to the victims of its violence; childhood, however, is one of its most consistent casualties. Myrcella, quiet and soft and innocent, is murdered, tellingly, right before she is able to cross that traditional threshold of adulthood: marriage. Shireen, perhaps the most traditionally childlike of all the show’s young people, meets a similar fate—and due to the machinations of a woman who uses magic to cheat the typical trajectories of aging. The youngest victim of the show’s most infamous instance of mass violence, the Red Wedding, is the unborn child of Talisa—a character stabbed in utero, effectively punished for the crime of being young.

In all this, Game of Thrones’s universe calls to mind the harshly Darwinian logic of the savannah, or the jungle: It operates according to a value system in which strength—survival—matters above all else. Kids are often the victims of violence, the show suggests, because childhood itself is a form of existential weakness. Youth demands that parents and protectors act selflessly to preserve its innocence; sometimes the show’s flawed parents—Stannis and Selyse Baratheon, and many others—suggest that kind of altruism is too much to ask of adults who are themselves beset by weakness. Childhood, according to this logic, is a form of social sacrifice, and in that of personal indulgence: It is a luxury unfit for a time in which, yes, winter is coming.

Childhood, in the show, is a form of social sacrifice, and indeed of personal indulgence: a luxury unfit for a time in which winter is coming.

It’s a sad suggestion, but a resonant one for a show that is operating in a culture that finds itself asking similar—if, thankfully, much less violent—questions about childhood and adulthood and the line between the two. Helicopter parenting, emerging adulthood, boomerang kids, sexting, playgrounds designed to be safe and dangerous at the same time—these are all components of a broad cultural conversation that redounds to a basic question: What is childhood, at this particular juncture? How sacred should childhood be?

Game of Thrones’s showrunner, Dan Weiss, has previously justified the show’s excessive violence by explaining that it has a moral purpose: that the show’s many murders and other killings are meant to complicate viewers’ sense of empathy. Shireen’s death, Weiss told Entertainment Weekly, was intended to repulse viewers—but then, also, to make them question the nature of that revulsion. Why, in a show so full of violence (against other children, too), was her death so much worse than the others? Why are we unfazed by the murder of adults, but disgusted by that of a person who is, in the end, only a few years their junior?

On the one hand, Game of Thrones’s latest murder is simply more evidence of a show that is struggling to keep shocking its viewers. When your characters have engaged in incest and mass-murder and coming back from the dead—when your many plot twists have casually blended opera and soap opera—there aren’t too many taboos left to break. An infant, rosy-cheeked and mauled by dogs, is one of those taboos. But if Weiss is to be taken at his word, then Game of Thrones’s latest infanticide is making a point not just about its victim, whose death is horrifying for all the obvious reasons, but also about the people who are experiencing the horror. Childhood is, the series has suggested, a collective endeavor: a construct that is molded and shaped and encouraged and discouraged by all of us, collectively. Youth itself, as a phase of life and a state of mind, demands protection. It is, like Ramsay’s baby brother, new and soft and—for better and for worse—very, very fragile.

'How Dumb is Dumb?': The Resignation of a Top L.A. County Sheriff's Official

A high-ranking Los Angeles County Sheriff’s official resigned after emails were discovered in which he made racist and crude comments about Muslims, blacks, Latinos, and women.

As chief of staff, Tom Angel was one of the top aides to Sheriff Jim McDonnell, who had at first said he wouldn’t punish Angel. The Los Angeles Times published the emails late last week, and only after wide criticism did Angel finally resign. The emails were sent while Angel held a previous post with the Burbank Police Department. The Times reported he sent them:

...  in 2012 and 2013 when he was the No. 2 police official in Burbank. There, too, he had been brought in to reform an agency reeling from misconduct in its ranks, including allegations of brutality, racism and sexual harassment.

“I took my Biology exam last Friday,” said one of the emails, which The Times obtained from the city of Burbank under the state’s public records law. “I was asked to name two things commonly found in cells. Apparently ‘Blacks’ and ‘Mexicans’ were NOT the correct answers.”

Another email ridiculed concerns about the racial profiling of Muslims as terrorism suspects. A third included the subject line “How dumb is dumb?” and listed 20 reasons “Muslim Terrorists are so quick to commit suicide,” including “Towels for hats,” “Constant wailing from some idiot in a tower” and “You can't wash off the smell of donkey.”

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office has 18,000 employees, and is the largest sheriff’s department in the world. Angel’s boss, McDonnell, won election in November 2014, and has tried to move the department past recent scandals, which include racism, and inmates who’ve accused deputies of beating them.

McDonnell told the Times he plans to turn the experience into a “learning opportunity.” He said he’d randomly audit employees’ emails, that the department would look at its current cultural-sensitivity training programs, and that he’d meet with community groups. Angel hasn’t spoken publicly since he resigned, but the Times did talk with him beforehand. The paper wrote that Angel said he’d not meant “to embarrass or demean anyone,” and that “it was unfortunate that his work emails could be obtained by the public under the state’s records laws.”

The Battle Between Reporters and Tax Officials in Finland

Finland’s tax authorities have demanded a national broadcaster hand over information related to the Panama Paper leaks or be subject to search warrants for its newsroom and its journalists’ homes, the broadcaster, Yle, said.

Yle said the Finnish Tax Administration set an April 29 deadline to receive information, but the broadcaster has refused to share anything, citing journalist ethics and the need to protect source confidentiality. Yle, which is mostly state owned, will appeal to the nation’s judiciary, its lawyer said Monday.

Yle journalists were among the 400 reporters in 80 countries who spent a year combing through the 11 million documents first obtained by Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. In an op-ed last week, Marit af Björkesten, the director of Yle’s Swedish division, and Ville Vilén, Yle’s creative director, explained why Yle would fight the tax agency’s request:

If out of a network of 400 journalists participating in the project, Finnish journalists alone were to hand over any information to a third party, Yle’s access to the material would presumably be immediately be revoked. We could no doubt live with this.

What would be more serious is that Yle’s actions would jeopardise the chances of Finnish journalists participating in international investigative networks. Who would involve a journalist from a country where there is a risk that officials can demand – and receive – confidential information? How reliable would others consider an organisation that officials could barge into to confiscate files? Could Finns themselves ever rely on journalists to protect their sources?

The Panama Papers leak revealed last month the secret offshore companies of dozens of wealthy individuals in more than 50 countries. In Finland, hundreds of people, ranging from entrepreneurs and athletes to convicted felons, were named in the documents, pulled from Mossack Fonseca, a law firm in Panama. The financial activities are not necessarily illegal, but offshore companies can be exploited to allow their owners to conceal their assets from their native government’s tax authorities.

When the first news reports on the leak emerged, Finland’s finance minister, Alexander Stubb, said, “Now it is up to the police and other authorities to evaluate whether illegalities have taken place involving Finns.” Last week, Stubb said “there’s nothing” his office could do about the tug-of-war over the information, calling it “an issue between Yle and the tax authorities.”

The Lawsuit to Keep Virginia's Felons From Voting

Updated on May 2 at 4:15 p.m. EST

Republican lawmakers in Virginia said Monday they plan to file a lawsuit to stop Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe’s decision to let felons vote in the upcoming election.

McAuliffe had campaigned to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 felons in Virginia when he was elected, and last week he signed an order that’d do so.

The Associated Press reported:

GOP lawmakers argue the governor has overstepped his constitutional authority with a clear political ploy designed to help his friend and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton get votes in the important swing state of Virginia this fall.

"Gov. McAuliffe's flagrant disregard for the Constitution of Virginia and the rule of must not go unchecked," Senate Republican Leader Thomas Norment said in a statement. He said McAuliffe's predecessors and previous attorneys general examined this issue and concluded Virginia's governor does not have the power to issue blanket restorations.

Laws that prohibit felons from voting for life––as Virginia’s does––have been called discriminatory vestiges of racist Jim Crow laws. Virginia’s law, passed in 1906, was meant to weaken black voting strength. More than half of felons in the state are black, and are largely believed to vote Democratic. Virginia is an important swing state in November’s U.S. presidential elections, but felons there could have a limited impact. Former felons tend to be young and less educated, two categories most unlikely to vote. In fact, in states where they’re allowed a vote, 22 percent of men with felonies showed up to the polls in 2008.

Unlike Virginia, in most states (38 and Washington, D.C.) the right to vote is automatically restored after felons complete their sentence. And the trend––even among conservative states––has been toward expanding and restoring voting rights. In an email, McAuliffe’s office wrote that Republicans have no grounds for a suit, and the state’s constitution gives him the right to grant clemency, and to grant “reprieves and pardons after conviction.” His office wrote:

The Governor is disappointed that Republicans would go to such lengths to continue locking people who have served their time out of their democracy … These Virginians are qualified to vote and they deserve a voice, not more partisan schemes to disenfranchise them.

McAuliffe’s Republican predecessor, Bob McDonnell, signed an order in 2013 to restore the vote to 10,000 nonviolent ex-felons. But McAuliffe’s order goes further: It would not only allow felons who have served their time and finished probation by April 22 the right to vote, it also allows them to run for election, become notaries public, or serve on juries.

Will Evangelical Voters Seal Ted Cruz's Doom?

Assuming Indiana voters don’t shock the pollsters tomorrow, Donald Trump will win the Hoosier State, and with that win all-but-clinch the Republican nomination for president.

How did things get here? Cruz was always a long shot for the nomination, but as the field cleared and it became clear that the Texan was the only viable alternative to Trump, states like Indiana were expected to be a firewall, preventing Trump from reaching the majority of delegates required to capture the nomination on the Republican National Convention’s first ballot. Instead, Cruz goes into Tuesday’s primary a deep underdog. The last poll, from NBC, The Wall Street Journal, and Marist, even had Trump up 15 points, though most show a slightly closer race.

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, and Trump’s riding the wave of his huge wins in the Northeast a week ago. Maybe the visceral loathing of Cruz from his fellow Republicans finally caught up with him. Maybe that “basketball ring” gaffe was lethal. But Indiana is supposed to be the sort of state where Cruz would shine.

The state is heavily white. It’s just about average in terms of conservatism overall, but the state has recently tended to elect, and the Republican Party to nominate, leaders who are Tea Party oriented and deeply socially conservative, from Governor Mike Pence to unsuccessful 2012 Senate nominee Richard Mourdock. More than a quarter (26 percent) of Indianans identified as white evangelical protestants, according to the Public Religion Research Institute’s American Values Atlas. That’s the ninth-highest concentration of evangelicals nationwide, and almost nine points higher than the national average of 17.3 percent. In the 2012 election, exit polls recorded that fully 35 percent of Indiana voters identified as white, born-again Christians.

One story of the Cruz campaign is the senator’s failure to win states just like this. Once upon a time, such states were going to secure the nomination for Cruz—the slate of conservative, religious Southern states voting in the March 1 “SEC Primary” was going to stop Donald Trump and vault Cruz ahead. Instead, Cruz won his home state of Texas, along with Oklahoma and Alaska, but lost to Trump in Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. In those states, the twice-divorced New York billionaire won a plurality of evangelicals, beating Cruz among the very voters expected to make up his base.

The polling in Indiana isn’t the only warning sign for Cruz. Over the weekend, the Tampa Bay Times noted comments by Senator Marco Rubio that suggest he might be “warming up to Donald Trump.” The New York Times and National Review both published stories on Sunday about how some of the delegates whom Cruz had so effectively managed to place on slates around the country—with the intention of capturing them on a second ballot at the convention—were starting to waver as Trump’s lead grew, and opening up to the idea of voting for Trump.

But if Cruz loses Indiana, it will show how the delegate-selection circus really was a sideshow. Cruz has been hobbled all along by his failure to win evangelical-rich states, so it would be fitting if Trump manages to deal his campaign a mortal blow by beating him in just such a state on Tuesday.

The Recovery of Two Bodies, Lost 16 Years Ago in Tibet

The bodies of two climbers who died in an avalanche on the world’s 14th tallest mountain in 1999 have been found frozen beneath thawing ice. Swiss and German alpinists preparing for a climb up Tibet’s Shishapangma found the bodies of Alex Lowe and David Bridges last week, and it was confirmed this weekend by Lowe’s family, and reported by Outside magazine.

Lowe and Bridges set out October 5, 1999, along with seven others, to climb, then ski down, the Shishapangma mountain peak. They would have been the first Americans to do from such a height, more than 26,000 feet. Conrad Anker is a friend of Lowe’s who was with him the day he died (and who’s now married to Lowe’s former wife). He was in Nepal when he got a call from the two alpinists trying to identify Lowe’s body.

In a statement released on the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation site, Conrad said he took the call around noon:

It was David Goettler and Ueli Steck who were acclimatizing for an ascent on the south face of Shishapangma. They had come across the remains of two climbers still encased in blue ice but beginning to emerge from the glacier. Goettler described the clothing and packs of the climbers to Conrad who concluded that the two were undoubtedly David Bridges and Alex Lowe ...

Conrad said he knew it must be Lowe and Bridges because he remembered they wore blue-and-red North Face backpacks, and yellow Koflach boots, just as the two alpinists had described. Bridges was 29 at the time he died, and Lowe was 40. Both were recognized as great mountaineers. Outside magazine had profiled Lowe and called him “arguably the best climber on the planet.”

Of the world’s highest mountains, Shishapangma is thought to be one of the easier ascents, but it’s known among climbers for its dangerous avalanches. Lowe’s family now lives in Bozeman, Montana, and told Outside they’d travel to recover the bodies, then hold a funeral ceremony in a nearby Tibetan town.

Game of Thrones: What Is Dead May Never Die

Every week, for the sixth season of Game of Thrones, Christopher Orr, Spencer Kornhaber, and Lenika Cruz will be discussing new episodes of the HBO drama. Because no screeners are being made available to critics in advance this year, we’ll be posting our thoughts in installments.

Orr: And thus ends the most emphatic, if never particularly persuasive, effort to deny a widely foreseen plot development in television history. Forgive me if I sound judgmental, but I find the never-ending denials by the Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss that Jon Snow would be restored to life—and their clear mandate that everyone else involved comply with said denials—more than a touch obnoxious now that said development has in fact occurred.

There’s maintaining appropriate suspense, and then there’s flat-out dishonesty, and I think that this fell on the wrong side of that line. Maybe there’s some as-yet-unknown narrative trapdoor—he’s not really Jon Snow, but a reincarnation of Ned Stark!—but even if so, it will likely be a depends on what the meaning of is is level distinction.

In my preview of the season, I expressed concern that Benioff and Weiss might struggle now that they’ve (mostly) passed George R. R. Martin’s novels and are thus working without a narrative safety net. And while I don’t want to read too much into just two episodes, the evidence to date has not reassured me.

Begin with Jon’s resurrection. All signs pointed to its failure: Melisandre had never performed this magic before; her faith is at an all-time low ebb; last episode’s Big Reveal suggested her hard-earned frailty and exhaustion. Perhaps this effort might fail but a future one would succeed? (A rebirth by fire, maybe?) Instead we got the annoying bait and switch of oh, no it didn’t work followed by gasping life-breaths. I got enough of that for the year in Batman v Superman.

Not that we didn’t have yet more reason to assume that Jon would be coming back. The episode opened with a squawk, followed by Bran Stark dreaming in tree roots with the Three-Eyed Raven, now played by the always magnificent Max von Sydow. Bran sees his father Ned as a child, practice-fighting in Winterfell with his younger brother Benjen (whatever became of him?). And then he sees his long-dead, ever-enigmatic aunt, Lyanna. (The “scenes from next week” suggest we’ll see more of Ned and Lyanna both.) Suffice to say that it would be a little silly to resolve the mystery of Jon’s parentage if he were going to remain a corpse. Moreover, now we get the mini-mystery of how Hodor—a.k.a., “Wyllis”—lost the ability to speak anything other than his own name.

Moving somewhat south, we pick up where we left off at Castle Black, with Ser Alliser and his fellow Night’s Watch rebels about to break down the door to claim Jon Snow’s body. (Of course, they could have had it all along if they hadn’t abandoned it to freeze in the courtyard.) Ser Davos’s “I’ve never been much of a fighter”—you’ll recall, he’s a smuggler by inclination—“apologies for what you’re about to see” is among the most endearing lines yet uttered by one of the show’s most endearing characters.

As last week, however (see: Brienne & Sansa), we have an extremely well-timed intervention by Edd and the wildlings. It’s not a bad development by any means, but the transition from a Night’s Watch run by Ser Alliser and, um, the rest of the Night’s Watch, to one run by Davos and the wildlings is a touch abrupt.

Then we’re down to King’s Landing, where Ser Robert Strong is wasting time crushing a drunken idiot who flashed Cersei during her Walk of Shame. The capital is always home to many of the show’s best plots, and we’re beginning to get a sense of the direction for the season: Cersei and Jaime are aligned against the High Sparrow, and their son, young King Tommen, is seeking amends for not standing up to the latter earlier. (Only time will tell where Margaery and the Tyrells wind up.)

It would be a little silly to resolve the mystery of Jon’s parentage if he were going to remain a corpse.

The source of power of the High Sparrow and his Faith Militant continues to be a bit vague, thanks in part to their ridiculously hurried introduction last season. The Lannisters do, after all, have tens of thousands of armed and armored soldiers at their command, right? Oh well. The High Sparrow’s line “Everyone of us is poor and powerless, and yet together we can overthrow an empire” sounds a tad less absurd in a campaign season that’s seen the political establishment upended by Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

My two favorite scenes tonight were one-offs. (I don’t know what you guys thought, but this episode seemed to me more choppy than usual.) Tyrion going deep down in the crypt with the dragons offered a wonderful opportunity for Peter Dinklage to play a note other than the typical one (“I drink, and I know things”) that he played instants before. And the dragons themselves have never been so evocative. The moment in which the second dragon—I lost track whether it was Viserion or Rhaegal—turned its head to be unshackled was, well, modestly magical. I was, however, a tad disappointed by Tyrion’s closing line to Varys (wisely waiting at the top of the stairs): “Next time I have an idea like that, punch me in the face.” I suspect George R. R. Martin winced at that one.

I also really liked the (brief) scene with Brienne and Sansa, too, talking about Arya. The Stark children have been scattered so far for so long that it’s nice to be reminded that most of them are, against all odds, still alive. I’m not so sure about Theon’s decision to head “home,” however, which was the most explicit use of this episode’s title. Events in the Iron Isles had moved forward more quickly in the books, and tonight’s catching up seemed a little awkward. To cite just one example, in Martin’s telling, Balon Greyjoy (Theon and Yara’s dad) fell off a bridge in a storm long ago, as an apparent consequence of Melisandre’s penile-blood leech barbecue. (Remember that?) Introducing an unnamed brother-murderer tonight (Euron?), plus another presumed brother (Aeron?), who is not even described as such at the watery funeral, smacks of some narrative confusion.

Which brings me, at last, to Ramsay. Regular readers will know that I think he has been from the start, and continues to be, the single biggest failure of Benioff and Weiss’s adaptation. Always in the background in the books—and vastly more subtle—he’s taken center stage on the show, to the extent that he’s occasioned the invention of implausible new characters: his lackey, Locke; his lover, Myranda.

I had a very brief moment of hope tonight when his father, the only moderately psychotic Roose, told him “If you acquire a reputation as a mad dog, you’ll be treated as a mad dog.” Yes! Finally, a rational take on the character. And then Ramsay, in front of witnesses that we’ve been given no reason to believe have particular loyalty to him—a Karstark heir, a maester—stabs the lord of the castle.

It seems to be a trend. Last week, the concubine of a prince of Dorne murdered its ruler with the help of her illegitimate children. Tonight the Bolton bastard kills his father and feeds his mother- and brother-in-law to the hounds. Is it just me, or has the show entered a world in which the whole concept of noble/royal succession—or, to borrow a phrase, the game of thrones—has been forgotten?

We will be updating this post with entries from Lenika Cruz and Spencer Kornhaber.

The First U.S. Cruise Bound for Cuba in 50 Years

The first American cruise ship headed for Cuba in more than 50 years has set sail from Florida.

Carnival Cruise Line’s Adonia departed Miami Sunday afternoon, carrying 700 passengers to the island nation for a seven-night trip. Its passage marks the latest milestone in the renewed relationship between the United States and Cuba, which in late 2014 agreed to restore diplomatic ties after five decades. The Cuban government approved Carnival operations to the country in March 2015, and the U.S. government granted the company permission to travel there in July 2015.

Mike Clary, a Sun Sentinel reporter who is aboard the Adonia and liveblogging the trip, provided some of the first details of the experience Sunday:

In the rooms, travelers were given a gift bag that contains a photobook of Cuba called “Unseen Cuba” and a Moleskine journal, and a keychain made in Cuba by a startup called Clandestina.

The cabin seems comparable to a New York City hotel room, but with a balcony and a better view.

People were waiting for departure by eating and having a drink. There is food everywhere.

Carnival has billed the cruise as a “cultural exchange” to “the real Cuba, up close and personal.” Tickets started at $2,662 per person. Passengers will make stops in Havana, Santiago de Cuba, and Cienfuegos. The cruise’s frequently asked questions webpage includes inquiries like “do travelers need to be physically fit?” (no), “what is it like in Cuba?” (really different), and “can travelers purchase Cuban cigars?” (yes). Tourism for U.S. citizens is still technically prohibited, but the U.S. government now allows “people-to-people educational travel,” which, as the Associated Press put it earlier this spring, “is so broad it can include virtually any activity that isn’t lying on a beach drinking mojitos.”

Last month, two Florida residents sued Carnival for discrimination because the company barred Cuban-born Americans from purchasing tickets for the Adonia cruise. Carnival said it was complying with a Cuban law that bans Cuban-born people from arriving to the country by sea. The cruise company eventually reversed its policy after the Cuban government eased its regulations.

American businesses have been eager to enter the Cuban market since the two countries restored relations. During his historic visit to Cuba in March, President Obama brought with him CEOs from 11 U.S. companies, including Airbnb and Paypal, to meet with Cuban entrepreneurs.

Ringling's Last Elephants

Elephants will perform for the last time at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus on Sunday, marking the end of a 200-year tradition for the entertainers.

Six Asian elephants in Providence, Rhode Island, and five Asian elephants in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, will take the stage for their last shows. The animals will then head to an elephant-conservation center in Florida owned by Feld Entertainment, the parent company of Ringling, according to the AP. The 200-acre facility currently houses 40 Asian elephants that have been involved in the circus company, and constitutes the largest concentration of the species in North America.

For years, animal-rights activists have described Ringling’s use of elephants in shows as animal abuse. They pointed to elephant handlers’ use of bullhooks—long, hooked poles—to train the animals to perform tricks and dance routines. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Agriculture fined Feld Entertainment $270,000 for allegedly violating federal animal-welfare laws. In 2014, several animal-rights groups, including the Humane Society of the United States, paid Feld $15.6 million over a lawsuit filed in 2000 that accused Ringling of mistreating elephants after a former Ringling employee was found to have been paid by the groups to support their charges.

In his announcement of the elephants’ retirement last March, Kenneth Feld, the president of Feld Entertainment, said the “biggest issue” was “a lot of legislation in different cities and different municipalities” regulating the treatment of animals that made it difficult for Ringling to schedule shows. But he also acknowledged a change in public opinion toward the use of animals for entertainment purposes.

“There’s been, on the part of our consumers, a mood shift where they may not want to see elephants transported from city to city,” Feld said.

Ringling, which visits more than 100 cities every year, will continue to use lions, tigers, horses and other animals in its shows.

Rebuilding Nepal by Hand

The photographer Renaud Philippe returned to the epicenter of last year’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake to document what progress has been made in some of the hardest-to-reach villages. Before April 25, 2015,  Barpak was a picturesque Nepali village nestled some 6,000 feet above sea level. After, less than 20 of the 1,400 houses remained. “Many things changed since last year, but there is so much to do,” Philippe said. Because it is so difficult to reach, people in Barpak and nearby Laprak have no machinery and limited electricity to help rebuild their homes; all construction must be done by hand. “Everyone is hopeless about getting any government help,” Philippe said. “They can only count on themselves.” Philippe has shared a selection of his images from both 2015 and 2016 with The Atlantic. The first 15 images below are from the first few weeks after the quake and the second 15 were taken in April of this year.