2026-03-21 20:30:00
1970年2月9日，约翰尼·卡森（Johnny Carson）在深夜节目中为斯坦福大学的一位教授提供了整整一小时的访谈时间，这在今天的电视节目中是难以想象的。这位教授保罗·埃里希（Paul Ehrlich）与他的妻子安妮合著了畅销书《人口炸弹》（The Population Bomb），他极具魅力、适合电视表现，同时也令人感到恐惧。他向卡森庞大的观众群警告说，数百亿人即将因饥饿而死亡，而且无法阻止。埃里希首次出现在《今夜秀》（The Tonight Show）上，展示了当时流行电视节目如何变化，也体现了他当时巨大的影响力。他后来多次登上该节目，而《人口炸弹》售出了超过200万册，成为20世纪最畅销的科学书籍之一。他的观点影响了全球的政策制定者，包括印度和中国等国实施的强制性计划生育政策。
然而，埃里希最终被证明是错误的，而且他的错误对人类产生了重大影响。他预测了美国在1980年代会有6500万人因饥荒而死亡，还曾断言到2000年英国将成为由7亿饥饿人口居住的贫困岛屿。他甚至认为印度无法养活新增的2亿人口，美国的预期寿命会降至42岁，海洋中的重要动物将在10年内灭绝。但现实却与他预测的完全相反：美国的肥胖问题成为真正的健康危机，而不是饥饿；英国依然存在；印度不仅避免了饥荒，还成为主要的粮食出口国；海洋生物虽然受到压力，但并未灭绝。全球粮食生产在历史上实现了前所未有的增长，目前的谷物产量是1970年的三倍，人均热量供应也持续上升。
埃里希的错误在于他忽视了人口增长趋势的转变。尽管1960年代全球人口增长迅速，但世界已经开始进入人口增长放缓的阶段。欧洲、日本和北美等地区随着城市化、女性教育水平提高和儿童死亡率下降，生育率逐渐下降。这些趋势在1968年已经存在，而埃里希却错误地认为这些趋势不会在发展中国家出现。事实上，随着社会和经济的发展，这些国家的生育率也逐渐下降，从1970年的每名女性约5个孩子，下降到现在的2.3个，接近人口更替率。
更大的错误在于埃里希未能考虑到像诺曼·博劳格（Norman Borlaug）这样的科学家。博劳格是来自爱荷华州农村的农业专家，他与洛克菲勒基金会合作，开发了高产矮秆小麦品种，从而改变了墨西哥、印度和巴基斯坦等国的农业状况。印度不仅避免了饥荒，还实现了粮食自给自足。埃里希将人口增长视为“癌症”，认为必须将其切除，而他却将人们视为仅仅是需要喂养的“嘴巴”。相反，博劳格和绿色革命的研究者则认为人们是解决问题的智慧力量，能够扩大资源的“蛋糕”。
埃里希的错误观点导致了实际的政策后果。他支持停止对被认为“无望”的国家（如印度和埃及）的粮食援助。他所推动的“人口恐慌”运动还影响了印度的强制绝育政策、中国的独生子女政策以及发展中国家的其他类似政策。
那么，为什么世界曾经如此相信埃里希的预言？部分原因在于人类天生更容易接受负面信息。正如本通讯的读者所知，人类在进化过程中更倾向于关注威胁而非希望。此外，菲利普·泰特洛克（Philip Tetlock）的研究表明，“刺猬型”思想家（即像埃里希那样，只用一个核心观点看待一切的人）往往是糟糕的预测者，但却更容易获得媒体关注。他们更自信、更有说服力、更戏剧化。
还有一个结构性的激励问题：预测一切都会好，你错了，会被认为不负责任；预测灾难，你对了，就会被视为天才；即使预测灾难错了，人们也往往认为你只是“早了一点”。这正是埃里希的讣告标题所暗示的——他的预测“并非错误，而是过早”。
这并不意味着我们应该忽视环境问题。气候变化确实存在，而埃里希在早期就提出了警告。生物多样性丧失也确实令人担忧，尤其是他原本研究昆虫学的领域。但我们也不能重复埃里希的错误，即在相反的方向上过度乐观。仅仅因为事情变得更好，并不意味着这种趋势会永远持续，特别是如果我们做出错误和自毁的政策选择。
埃里希一生的真正教训是：假设灾难会降临，会导致比假设人类能主动解决问题更糟糕的政策。将一个国家视为无望，就可能为削减其粮食援助提供借口；将人们视为问题，就可能导致强制绝育。而朱利安·西蒙（Julian Simon）则持相反观点，他认为“人类是最重要的资源——有技能、有精神、有希望的人，他们将为自身和他人的福祉发挥意志和想象力”。虽然这可能不太适合《今夜秀》的风格，但它才是通往更美好世界的关键。
On February 9, 1970, Johnny Carson did something that would be unthinkable for a late night host today, or really anyone on TV: He gave a full hour of The Tonight Show to a Stanford professor.
But Paul Ehrlich, the author along with his wife Anne of the blockbuster book The Population Bomb, was charismatic, telegenic, and absolutely terrifying. He told Carson’s massive audience that hundreds of millions of people were about to starve to death. Nothing could stop it.
Ehrlich’s first appearance on The Tonight Show demonstrates a lot of things, not least how much popular TV has changed. (I’m struggling to imagine Carson’s eventual successor Jimmy Fallon giving an hour to, say, CRISPR inventor Jennifer Doudna — and without even doing a lip sync battle.) But it also shows just how influential Ehrlich was.
He would go on The Tonight Show more than 20 times. The Population Bomb sold over 2 million copies and became one of the most popular science books of the 20th century. His work helped popularize a broader population-panic worldview that influenced policymakers in the US and abroad, including coercive family-planning policies in countries such as India and China. Ehrlich and his book fundamentally changed the world we live in today.
And yet Ehrlich, who died last week at 93, turned out to be spectacularly wrong, wrong in ways that had major consequences for humanity. But precisely because he was wrong and yet so influential, understanding why his views were so popular is necessary for understanding why doomsaying remains so seductive — and so dangerous.
The Population Bomb, I suspect, was one of those of-the-moment books that was more owned than read. But you didn’t need to get far into it to grasp Ehrlich’s alarmist message. You just needed to read the opening lines: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”
And the book was just part of his lifelong campaign. Ehrlich predicted that 65 million Americans would die of famine between 1980 and 1989. He told a British audience that by the year 2000, the United Kingdom would be “a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people.” He said India — which was home to nearly 600 million people in 1970 — could never feed 200 million more people. He said US life expectancy would drop to 42 by 1980. On Earth Day 1970, he declared that “in 10 years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct.”
Every one of these predictions was almost 180 degrees in the wrong direction. In America, as in much of the world, obesity became the true metabolic health crisis, not starvation. The UK — at least the last time I checked — still exists. India is now a major agricultural exporter, and its population has nearly tripled while hunger has fallen. Marine life is stressed but very much not extinct.
The bottom line is that instead of mass starvation, the world experienced the greatest expansion of food production in human history. Global cereal production today exceeds 3 billion tonnes, a roughly threefold increase from 1970. Per capita calorie supply has risen consistently since 1961. Since The Population Bomb was published, rates of hunger have dropped precipitously.
What did Ehrlich miss? For one thing, he made a common mistake: He assumed “line go up.”
The years leading up to The Population Bomb’s publication in 1968 featured the steepest population increases in global history. The trends were so on the nose for his thesis that you could almost forgive Ehrlich for assuming they would inevitably continue.
But a closer look at the data would have revealed that even in the high-growth 1960s, the world was already beginning a demographic transition that would lead us to our comparatively low-fertility present. Europe, Japan, and North America were all seeing their fertility rates fall as societies urbanized, women were educated, and child mortality dropped. The theories explaining that demographic transition were already decades old by 1968, which was also eight years after the birth control pill was introduced.
Ehrlich — and many others of his time, to be fair — appeared to assume that these patterns wouldn’t apply as the countries of the Global South developed. But they did. As these social and economic trends spread around the world, fertility kept falling, from around five children per woman globally when The Population Bomb was published to 2.3 today, which is barely above the population replacement rate of 2.1.
But the bigger mistake wasn’t misreading demographics. It was failing to account for people like Norman Borlaug.
Borlaug was an agronomist from rural Iowa who, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, developed high-yielding dwarf wheat varieties that transformed agriculture in countries like Mexico, India, and Pakistan. India, which Ehrlich had written off in racially tinged ways, didn’t just avoid famine; it became self-sufficient in food production.
The Population Bomb was explicit about Ehrlich’s worldview: Population growth was “the cancer” that “must be cut out.” He saw people — or at least, people in the Global South — as little more than mouths to feed, each fighting for shares of a static pie. Borlaug and the Green Revolution researchers, by contrast, saw them as minds to solve problems, including figuring out ways to make the pie bigger. Ehrlich’s fundamentally zero-sum worldview may have gotten him global recognition — and sadly, remains far too prevalent — but it blinded him to the future.
And that’s why he ended up on the losing end of one of the most famous wagers in academic history.
Julian Simon, an economist at the University of Maryland, believed the opposite of everything Ehrlich believed. Simon’s argument was simple: People are the world’s most valuable resource. Human ingenuity responds to scarcity by finding new supplies, substitutes, and efficiencies. And that meant that commodity prices, adjusted for inflation, would fall over time — not rise.
In 1980, Simon challenged Ehrlich to a bet: Pick any raw materials, any time period longer than a year, and wager on whether prices would go up or down. Ehrlich and two colleagues chose five metals — chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten — and bought $1,000 worth on paper. The bet would be settled in 1990. During those 10 years, the world’s population grew by more than 800 million — the largest one-decade increase in human history.
Ehrlich was wrong. (Again.) All five metals fell in inflation-adjusted price. In October 1990, Ehrlich acknowledged Simon’s win with a check for $576.07.
What Ehrlich didn’t do was revise his views to reflect the facts, which is what makes him more than a cautionary tale about bad predictions. In 2009 he told an interviewer that The Population Bomb was “way too optimistic.” In 2015 he said his language “would be even more apocalyptic today.” On 60 Minutes in 2023, at age 90, he told Scott Pelley that “the next few decades will be the end of the kind of civilization we’re used to.”
It didn’t matter that the world had spent 55 years proving him wrong. Ehrlich didn’t blink.
And Ehrlich’s wrongness had real consequences. He endorsed cutting off food aid to countries he considered hopeless, including India and Egypt. The broader population-panic movement Ehrlich helped create influenced coercive real-world policies: India’s forced sterilization campaigns during the 1970s, China’s one-child policy, and sterilization programs across the developing world.
So why did the world listen for so long? Partly because we’re wired to. As readers of this newsletter know, humans process negative information more readily than positive, an evolutionary hangover that makes doomsayers inherently more compelling than optimists. And Philip Tetlock’s research on expert prediction found that “hedgehog” thinkers — people who, like Ehrlich, see everything through the lens of one big idea, and fight like hell to hold onto it — are simultaneously the worst forecasters but get the most media attention. They’re more confident, more quotable, more dramatic. The hedgehog gets Carson. The fox gets ignored.
There’s also a structural incentive problem. Predict things will be fine and you’re wrong? You’re irresponsible. Predict disaster and you’re right? You’re a genius. Predict disaster and you’re wrong? People forget — or just assume you were a little early. (It was notable to me that the subheadline of the New York Times obituary of Ehrlich called his predictions not wrong, but “premature.”)
None of this means we should ignore environmental problems. Climate change is real, and Ehrlich was relatively early in flagging it. Biodiversity loss — closer to his actual academic expertise in entomology — remains genuinely alarming. And we shouldn’t repeat Ehrlich’s mistakes in the opposite direction. Just because things have been getting better does not automatically mean that trend will continue, especially if we make perverse and self-defeating policy choices.
But the real lesson of Ehrlich’s life is that assuming doom leads to worse policy than assuming agency. Write off a country as hopeless, and you justify cutting its food aid. Assume people are the problem, and you end up sterilizing them against their will.
Julian Simon died in 1998, never approaching Ehrlich’s level of public fame. His signature line: “The ultimate resource is people — skilled, spirited, and hopeful people who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefit as well as in a spirit of faith and social concern.”
That might not have played as well on The Tonight Show. But it’s the formula for a much better world.
2026-03-21 19:00:00
2026年3月3日，众议员南希·佩洛西（D-CA）在华盛顿特区的国会山向媒体发表讲话。| Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images
佩洛西在国会的30多年职业生涯中，留下了不可否认的影响力。她经常被提及为她这一代最有效的立法者之一，曾推动《平价医疗法案》的通过，两次担任众议院议长，并建立了重塑其政党竞选方式的筹款体系。上周，在德克萨斯州奥斯汀举行的SXSW大会上，我与佩洛西就她的政绩、对美国选民的坚定信念以及对11月中期选举的看法进行了交谈。在Vox媒体播客舞台上，面对一群充满创新精神的观众，我询问了她职业生涯中的关键时刻、她对美国选民的坚定信心，以及她对中期选举前景的看法。
佩洛西将在本届任期结束后离开国会，而此时民主党正处于前所未有的不确定之中。共和党控制白宫，民主党对选民的受欢迎程度降至历史低点，曾经稳固的自由派多数似乎正在因年龄、种族和阶级等因素而逐渐瓦解。关于问题出在哪里或谁将接任，目前尚无共识。然而，佩洛西表示她对民主党今年重新夺回众议院充满绝对信心。很难反驳这位传奇计票员的判断。以下是我们的对话摘录，已进行删减和润色。完整版可在Today, Explained播客中收听，包括Apple Podcasts、Pandora和Spotify等平台。
你被称作历史上最有效的议长，我想知道，你认为是什么技能或特质让你如此有效？
当你是立法者时，你有一个动态因素在起作用。你有听证会、公众意见等，因此你有时间做决定。但当你成为议长、州长、市长或其他行政职位时，你必须采取行动。你之所以必须行动，是因为如果你不立即行动，人们会想：“她会考虑一下的。而在她考虑期间，我们可能会失去这个选项或那个选项。” 你必须迅速行动。然后你就会获得“这会奏效”的声誉。此外，当你做这些事情时，确保人们信任你的判断非常重要，即你了解情况，知道如何推动事情进展。我必须承认，那些敢于采取强硬投票的成员非常勇敢，无论他们做什么，另一方都会曲解他们的意图。另一个关键点是，除非有外部动员，否则任何好事都不会发生。内部操作和外部动员相结合，正如林肯所说：“公众舆论是万能的。有了它，你可以几乎做任何事；没有它，几乎什么都做不到。” 但为了让公众舆论占据主导，人们必须知道，你必须走出去，与公众舆论互动。你的故事建立在对美国人民的信仰之上，而这种信仰似乎是你核心的一部分。我想确认一下，这种信仰是否真的如此坚定？
你原本计划在2016年和2024年退休，但美国选民却选出了一个让你和许多人感到意外的总统，迫使你重新进入国会。你经历过一些艰难的时刻，比如2022年你丈夫遭受的可怕袭击，或者2021年1月6日骚乱事件中你在国会大厦的情况。你如何保持对美国选民的乐观，尤其是在他们似乎并未回馈你这种信任的时候？
我想问一下你对美国选民的信任。我们的建国者真是天才，他们建立了一个比任何人想象中都更伟大的国家。他们相信美国人民的善良，这正是我乐观的原因。我相信美国人民本质上是善良的。如果他们知道这些政策对他们意味着什么，他们就会做出正确的判断。目前，人们对唐纳德·特朗普的反弹确实很大，但这并不一定意味着他们更倾向于民主党作为替代选项。你为何如此确定民主党将在11月重新夺回众议院，甚至可能赢得参议院？
我们不仅会赢，而且会赢得很多。赢得选举需要动员选民，必须掌握主动权，因为我们知道：美国人民是善良的。我们知道我们想要做的事情符合他们的利益。他们知道自己的利益所在。我们尊重这一点。顺便说一句，我们的整个民主制度都处于危险之中。自由和公正的选举、独立的司法、正当程序、法治、权力分立。我们不是君主制，而是民主制度。但我们在厨房桌面上捍卫民主。因此，我们谈论的降低成本、提高可负担性，用人们的话来说，就是降低医疗、食品杂货和教育等生活必需品的成本，这正是他们告诉我们他们最关心的议题。
目前，人们对制度和当选官员的信任存在很大问题。考虑到国会似乎已经退缩了其自身的权力，你认为中期选举的重要性是什么？如果有人持怀疑态度，说：“好吧，民主党赢得了众议院，但唐纳德·特朗普会做他想做的事。” 你认为议长佩洛西会如何回应？
首先，我想说，国会并没有退缩。是共和党在国会中放弃了权力，他们实际上废除了众议院。他们给了总统极大的自由。参议院也有些类似，但他们的规则有所不同。根据宪法，众议院拥有非常大的权力。国会是宪法的第一部分，但即使在其中，众议院也拥有拨款权、宣战权等，这些是宪法的基本内容。他们已经放弃了这些权力。如果民主党在今年11月重新夺回众议院，那么在唐纳德·特朗普总统任期内，我们曾两次弹劾他。你认为如果民主党在今年夺回众议院，我们是否应该期待类似的情况？
唯一对唐纳德·特朗普两次弹劾负责的人就是他自己。他让我们别无选择。因此，我不认为我们会说：“我们要弹劾他。” 赢得选举是关于人民的，而不是关于他。是关于人民，满足他们的厨房桌上的需求，让他们对我们有信心。我们必须恢复这种信心。而最好的方法就是倾听人民的声音。
你曾称唐纳德·特朗普为“卑鄙的家伙”，但你表示这是你真正想表达的委婉说法。这是南加州的南点西城（South by Southwest）活动，我想让你以这个话题结束。你愿意告诉我们你真实的想法吗？
如果你是美国总统，你就必须承担起责任，尊重并实现建国者的愿景。宪法的美妙之处在于权力分立。他们不想建立一个君主制，而是通过宪法确保我们不会拥有一个。因此，他破坏了这一切。就我进入国会时的一个主要议题——拯救地球而言，这已经不重要了。他与化石燃料行业勾结，我们正在远离清洁空气和清洁水源。要感激那些为我们的自由和其他自由在世界各地战斗的军人，不要称他们为失败者。当你在一位阵亡士兵的墓地时，要尊重他们。当然，还有我们孩子的期望。他对此毫不在意。但我不想在这里谈论他。他就是他。我们将在11月赢得选举，你将会看到权力分立机制发生巨大变化。这关乎尊重建国者的愿景，关乎结束政府中的腐败。这就是我对他的看法。
Nancy Pelosi’s record of impact is undeniable. Over more than three decades in Congress, the San Francisco juggernaut is frequently cited among the effective legislative operators of her generation — the person who held together the votes for the Affordable Care Act, who twice ascended to the House speaker’s chair, and who built a fundraising machine that reshaped how her party competes.
Last week, at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, I spoke with Pelosi about that record. In front of a packed crowd of innovators at the Vox Media Podcast Stage, I asked Pelosi about key moments in her career, her unshakable faith in the American electorate, and the outlook for November’s midterm elections.
Pelosi is preparing to leave Congress at the end of this term, and it comes at a time of profound uncertainty for the Democratic Party. Republicans control the White House. Her party’s polling favorability has reached historic lows, and a once solid liberal majority seems to be fraying on lines of age, race, and class. There’s no consensus about what went wrong or who should lead next.
Regardless, Pelosi told me she has absolute confidence that Democrats will take back the House this year. And it’s hard to argue with such a legendary vote counter. Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full episode, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
You’ve been called the most effective speaker in history. I wanted to know, what is the skill or trait that you think made you so effective?
The thing about it is that when you’re a legislator, you have one, shall we say, dynamic at work. You have hearings, you have public comment, you do all those things, and so you have time to make a decision. When you become the speaker or the governor or the mayor or whatever — the executive position — you then have to act.
The reason you have to act is because if you don’t act immediately, people think, “Oh, she’s gonna think about it. And while she does, we’ll take this option away or that option away.” You just have to act. Then you get the reputation that it will work, and that’s that.
It is [also] really important when you go out to do these things to just make sure people trust your judgment — that you know what you’re talking about, you know how to get something done. And I have to give credit to the members who are so courageous to take strong votes, which will be mischaracterized by the other side no matter what you do.
The other thing is nothing really good happens unless you have outside mobilization. Inside maneuver, outside mobilization. And that is like President Lincoln said, “Public sentiment is everything. With it you can accomplish almost anything, without it practically nothing.” But for public sentiment to prevail, people have to know, you have to get out there and engage public sentiment.
Your story is built on faith in the American people and it seems as if that is kind of core. I wanted to kind of gut-check that. You’ve been set to retire in 2016 and 2024, and Americans elected a president that surprised you and many others and kind of forced you back into office.
There’s been some tough moments. I’m thinking about the horrible attack on your husband in 2022 or things like the January 6 riots where you were in the building. How are you retaining this kind of optimism in the American electorate when it doesn’t always seem as if that has been returned to you? I wanna ask about your trust in Americans.
Our founders were such geniuses. They were so remarkable in what they put together, a country that was more remarkable than anything that anybody had ever seen. They believed in the goodness of the American people. And that’s what gives me optimism. I do believe in the inherent goodness of the American people. If they know, in a public sense, if they know what all this means to them, they will make the right judgments.
There’s a lot of evidence of a backlash to Donald Trump as we speak, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that people would prefer Democrats as the other option. How are you so sure that Democrats take back the House and possibly win the Senate in November?
Not only are we gonna win, we’re gonna win substantially.
To win an election, you have to mobilize. You have to own the ground because we know: American people are good. We know that what we want to do is in their interest. They know what their interests are. We respect that.
And by the way, our whole democracy is at stake. Free and fair elections, independent judiciary, due process, rule of law, separation of power. We’re not a monarchy, we’re a democracy. But we save the democracy at the kitchen table. So what we’re talking about in terms of lowering costs, affordability of course, but in people’s terms, lowering cost of health care and groceries and education and whatever it is, it’s what they are telling us they are most voting on. [We need] message, mobilization, and money to get it done.
I think right now there’s a big question about trust in institutions, trust in elected officials. Considering just how much Congress has seemed to step back from its own authority, what do you think is the importance of these midterms? If you’re someone who’s kind of skeptical and says, “Okay, Democrats win the House, but Donald Trump’s gonna do whatever he wants to do.” What is Speaker Pelosi’s response to that?
Well, let me just say, first of all, that Congress hasn’t stepped back. The Republicans in Congress have abdicated — they have abolished the House of Representatives. They have just given the president free rein.
The Senate somewhat too, but they have a little different rules. In the Constitution, the House of Representatives is given very big power. Congress is Article One of the Constitution, but even within that, the House has the power of the purse, to declare war, issues like that that are fundamental to the Constitution. They’ve abdicated.
If Democrats take back the House, last time that you all had the House under a Donald Trump presidency, there were those two impeachments. Is that something you think, if Democrats take back the house this November, we should expect?
The only person responsible for the impeachment of Donald Trump — not once but twice — is Donald Trump. He gave us no choice. So I don’t think you go out and start with saying, “We’re gonna impeach.” Winning is about the people. It’s not about him. It’s about the people, meeting their kitchen-table needs so that they have confidence. And we have to restore that. And the best way to do that is to listen to the people.
You’ve said that Donald Trump is a “vile creature,” but you said that was a euphemism for what you really wanted to say. This is South by Southwest, I was gonna let you end on this note. Do you wanna tell us how you really feel?
If you’re president of the United States, you have a certain responsibility to live up to honoring the vision of our founders. The beauty of the Constitution, the exquisite beauty of the Constitution, is the separation of power. They didn’t want a monarch; they did everything in the Constitution to make sure we didn’t have one. So he’s smashed all of that.
In terms of one of my big issues coming to Congress — saving the planet — forget about that. [He has] his hand in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry. And so we’re taking so many steps away from clean air, clean water.
Be grateful for the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform who have fought for our freedom and other freedom in the world and not call them losers. When you’re at a cemetery for a deceased soldier, honor that.
And then, of course, the aspirations of our children. Forget about that, as far as he’s concerned.
But I didn’t come here to talk about him. He is what he is. We’re gonna win in November. You’re going to see a big change in how the separation of powers works. It’s about honoring the vision of our founders. It’s about ending corruption in this government, and that’s what I think of him.
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2026-03-21 07:13:39
从左至右，马克·格罗斯曼、塞萨尔·切瓦尔、安娜·穆尔吉亚以及切瓦尔的女儿伊丽莎白·切瓦尔在1975年夏天一起参加了联合农场工人组织的1000英里游行。| Cathy Murphy/Getty Images
在美国，无数街道、公园和学校都以塞萨尔·切瓦尔的名字命名，他是联合农场工人组织的工会组织者，也是1960年代拉丁裔活动和劳工运动的象征人物。此外，还有一个纪念他生平与遗产的节日——3月31日的切瓦尔日，正式由四个西部州庆祝，其他许多州和城市也以非正式方式庆祝。然而，本周四，加州（切瓦尔的故乡）的立法者宣布将把这一节日更名为“农场工人日”，其他州和城市很可能也会效仿。这是因为《纽约时报》周三发表了一篇爆炸性的报道，详细披露了切瓦尔对两名年轻女孩——德布拉·罗哈斯和安娜·穆尔吉亚的性侵行为。罗哈斯当时只有12岁，穆尔吉亚则是13岁。在同一篇报道中，多洛雷斯·赫尔塔——切瓦尔的亲密工会盟友，也是自身历史人物和劳工英雄——讲述了切瓦尔在1960年曾对她施加压力并诱使她发生关系，1966年当她36岁时，切瓦尔又对她实施了强奸。这两次遭遇都导致了怀孕，赫尔塔生下了切瓦尔的两个女儿，并安排她们由其他家庭抚养长大。（赫尔塔还提到，她后来重新与女儿们建立了联系，她们也变得亲密起来。）
这些揭露对那些多年来将切瓦尔视为英雄的人而言是一个巨大的冲击。他被描绘在壁画和雕像中，为提升他的工友和拉丁裔美国人而不懈奋斗。但现在我们清楚地看到，他其实只是一个普通人，犯下了一系列令人发指的罪行。为了更好地理解如何面对切瓦尔的遗产，我采访了达特茅斯大学的历史学教授兼拉丁裔、拉美裔和加勒比研究专家马特·加西亚，他撰写了2012年的切瓦尔传记《从胜利的 jaws 中崛起：切瓦尔与农场工人运动的辉煌与悲剧》。在加西亚看来，切瓦尔的这些行为不仅仅是他个人的罪行，更反映出整个运动及其相关组织容易产生情感胁迫、内部清洗和对英雄的崇拜，这使得受害者难以站出来发声。
我们为期两天的讨论涉及了这些事件对活动人士和普通美国人意味着什么，以及它如何影响切瓦尔和赫尔塔的遗产，还有在切瓦尔去世于1993年后，如何追究这些罪行的责任。以下是我们对话的摘录，已进行编辑和删减以提高清晰度。
你什么时候第一次听说这些指控？
我在2012年出版了一本书，书中披露了切瓦尔的一些婚外情。当时我并不知道，这些指控来自一位年轻女性，她写信给切瓦尔的妻子海伦，导致她暂时离开他。后来这些信息才被公开，经过几年才逐渐平息。之后，在一个封闭的Facebook邮件组中，一些受害者开始发声。这些活动人士知道我是一个批判性的声音，因此请求我协助他们联系新闻机构。我与《纽约时报》有深厚的联系，因此在2021年协助了这些举报人。2021年6月7日，我联系了曼努埃尔·费尔南德斯，他现在是这篇《纽约时报》报道的作者之一。我从一开始就参与其中，甚至更早。
在你撰写这本书时，有没有任何迹象或暗示表明切瓦尔曾对未成年女孩进行性侵犯，或者他对未成年人有不当的吸引力？
没有，不是以性侵的形式。我在书中确实记录了切瓦尔对志愿者和一些居住在联合农场工人组织总部拉帕兹的人进行清洗的行为。他表现出对那些他认为背叛了运动和自己的人进行攻击的行为。
你目前是否与任何现任的联合农场工人组织成员或拉丁裔劳工活动人士有联系，特别是加州的？
大多数这些人其实已经知道这些指控。他们觉得现在让女性发声是时候了。因此，他们感到一些解脱，但也觉得这迟到了。同时，他们也认为社区内部和那些在70年代和80年代负有责任的领导者需要更多的问责。
你认为这种问责应该以什么形式出现？
我认为首先，切瓦尔基金会和联合农场工人组织从切瓦尔的遗产中获利颇丰，而我们现在知道这个遗产是虚假的。考虑到性侵和法律后果自[哈维]韦斯坦因事件以来发生了变化，我很好奇这些受害者是否还有追诉权。我支持这一点，就像一些韦斯坦因的受害者所做的那样，也像[杰弗里]爱泼斯坦的受害者一样。因此，我认为我们应该提出这些问题，并思考未来，而不仅仅是回顾过去。
这些组织是否已经开始重新塑造切瓦尔在他们叙事中的核心地位？
有一个组织采取了正确的行动，这是一个以切瓦尔命名的基金会，即“切萨尔·E·切瓦尔遗产与教育基金会”，位于圣安东尼奥。他们刚刚解散了，直接宣布“我们结束了”。我非常不同意这一点——有些人认为这是美德，但我认为这是缺点。切瓦尔基金会设立了一个保密渠道或热线，供其他可能的受害者报告。我认为现在应该由加州政府甚至联邦政府设立这些热线并管理信息收集。在加州乃至全国，到处都有切瓦尔的雕像和壁画，还有以他名字命名的街道、公园和学校。他的运动长期以来一直是劳工组织者和各种左翼抗议者的榜样和灵感。我很好奇你对这些纪念物和活动人士，以及参与这些运动的人的看法。面对这些揭露，他们应该如何处理？你认为这些荣誉是否应该全部撤除？
我认为有些事情是不能做的。比如，弗雷斯诺州立大学把切瓦尔的雕像用黑布遮盖，这可能不会长久。而那些精心绘制的切瓦尔壁画，很难被抹去。它们是美国各地珍贵的社区象征。但我也认为，这种“我们必须保留他”的想法，正是让这些女性长期受苦的原因，也是让我们一直认为切瓦尔是工会的开明领袖。事实上，我的观点是，工会在集体行动时取得的成就最大，有时甚至违背了切瓦尔的领导。因此，我认为我们需要民主化对这场运动的纪念方式。我希望看到各个社区根据自己的方式，将以切瓦尔命名的建筑、雕像和荣誉符号替换掉。在像华盛顿州贝尔林厄姆和俄勒冈州伍德伯恩这样的地方，以及全国各地大小城镇，都有切瓦尔的影响。但这些地方的运动是由当地社区领导的。因此，我认为将农场工人运动视为一个集体，而不是一个单一的英雄，会更合适。让艺术和荣誉符号反映出这种集体性。
不过，目前似乎没有人考虑这一点。大多数人——我在社交媒体上看到，有人提议用多洛雷斯·赫尔塔来取代切瓦尔。我认为这很成问题。多洛雷斯·赫尔塔本身就是一个历史人物。现在她透露，切瓦尔曾强奸她，并与她生了两个孩子，然后将他们送养。她说她一直保持沉默，是因为担心这会伤害运动，也担心没有人会相信她。她已经96岁了，是这个运动的活生生的象征。这个故事如何影响我们对她在运动中的角色的理解？
我认为这很复杂。它应该如此。有些人急于下结论，说她是单纯的幸存者。她确实是，但我也认为需要将其置于1970年代中期的更广泛背景下来看待。当时她也参与了对一些被贴上“混蛋”标签的志愿者的清洗，而切瓦尔所说的“混蛋”是指那些背叛了运动的人。此外，还有心理上的虐待，比如“游戏”（The Game）这一活动，它在社区中至关重要，人们被鼓励互相辱骂、叫对方绰号，并捏造虚假指控，指责对方在运动中犯下不道德行为，甚至整体上对运动有害的行为，特别是在拉帕兹。
[编辑注：赫尔塔并未向加西亚提供关于这一时期的直接信息，但他的叙述得到了当时录音带、目击者以及其他学术研究的证实。赫尔塔在2006年接受《洛杉矶时报》采访时，曾谈到这一内部清洗的氛围部分源于对切瓦尔的死亡威胁。]
我认为你所描绘的更广泛图景是，一个充满猜疑和偏执的群体，总是寻找邻近的叛徒，寻找内部的叛徒，试图指责任何可能在内部针对他们的人。这种氛围可能导致如果有人知道切瓦尔的性侵行为，他们可能会犹豫是否公开或揭露，更不用说他们自己是受害者了，因为他们担心告诉的人可能会利用这些信息来惩罚他们或背后捅刀。
是的，我认为我们现在必须考虑这一点：切瓦尔知道他有一个秘密，他知道如果这个秘密被揭露，他将不得不为自己的不当行为负责，同时也可能失去对运动主要目标——实现农场工人正义——的专注。因此，他知道自己更容易受到指责。
那么，对于那些只了解或记得运动基本内容的普通美国人来说，他们应该如何全面理解切瓦尔的遗产？
这属于我们近年来正在努力面对的美国历史的一部分。首先是从“Me Too”运动开始，然后是韦斯坦因的揭露，最近则是爱泼斯坦的文件曝光。我们看到的是，无论我们的种族或民族背景如何，我们都参与了某种病态的父权制，或者允许其发展。我们需要对此进行反思。无论你是否了解切瓦尔代表了什么，或者他通过这个社会运动取得了什么成就，这都不是重点。重点是，他又是另一个不受约束的人，滥用权力。因为社会一直对这种行为视而不见，甚至默许和助长了它。因此，我认为这更大的教训是，我们要将这些事件联系起来，因为它们都为我们提供了学习的机会。
Countless streets, parks, and schools across America are named for Cesar Chavez, the United Farm Workers union organizer and 1960s icon of Latino activism and the labor movement. There is even a holiday commemorating his life and legacy, on March 31, that is formally observed by four Western states (and less formally by many others): Cesar Chavez Day. But on Thursday, lawmakers in one of those states — Chavez’s native California — announced that they will change the holiday’s name to Farmworkers Day. Other states and municipalities are likely to follow suit.
That’s because on Wednesday, the New York Times published an explosive, harrowing report detailing Chavez’s sexual abuse of two young girls, Debra Rojas and Ana Murguia, who spoke publicly about their experiences for the first time with the Times. Rojas was only 12 years old when the abuse began; Murguia was just 13.
In the same story, Dolores Huerta — Chavez’s close union ally and a historic figure and labor hero in her own right — recounted that in 1960, he had pressured and manipulated her into sex, and that in 1966, when she was 36, Chavez raped her. Both encounters resulted in pregnancies; Huerta gave birth to two of Chavez’s daughters, and arranged for them to be raised by other families. (Huerta further says that she has long since reconnected with the daughters and that they have become close.)
The revelations are a shock to anyone who has spent decades understanding Chavez as a hero — an icon honored in murals and statues for fighting tirelessly and courageously to uplift his fellow workers and Latino Americans. It’s now clear that he was, as another survivor put it in the Times story, “just a man” — one who committed a series of horrendous acts.
To better understand the needed reckoning with Chavez’s memory, I spoke with Matt Garcia, a professor of history and Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean studies at Dartmouth, and the author of the 2012 Chavez biography From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement.
In Garcia’s eyes, the Chavez revelations aren’t just the story of one man’s crimes, but of a larger movement and its affiliated organizations that were prone to emotional coercion, internal purges, and hero worship — all of which made it harder for victims to come forward.
Our discussion, carried out over two days, touched on what activists and ordinary Americans should take away from this story, how it affects both Chavez and Huerta’s legacies, and what accountability for these crimes — given that Chavez died in 1993 — might look like. An excerpt of our conversations is transcribed below; it has been edited and condensed for clarity.
When did you first hear about these allegations?
So I published a book in 2012, and I disclosed some extramarital affairs that Cesar had in that book. I didn’t know at the time, though, that it was a young woman who wrote to his wife Helen and precipitated her leaving him for a time. That came to light afterwards, and then it took some years for that to settle. And then in a closed email Facebook group amongst the veterans of the movement, some of the victims started to speak.
The veterans knew that I was a critical voice, and they asked me to facilitate contact with a news outlet that could pursue this. I had deep ties to the New York Times, and so I facilitated the whistleblowers in 2021. It was June 7, 2021, that I contacted Manny Fernandez, who is now the author of this [New York Times story] with Sarah Hurtes. I’ve been involved from the beginning and before actually.
Were there any other hints or implications in the research of your book that this kind of abuse of underage girls — or an inappropriate attraction to minors — was something to look into? Did that come up at all while you were researching the book?
Not in a sexual nature. I do document Cesar’s purges of volunteers and people, the residents of [UFW headquarters] La Paz. There was aggressive behavior against people he perceived as betrayers of the movement and of him.
Are you in touch with any current UFW members or Latino labor activists, particularly in California? And if so, how are they reacting to all this?
Most of those people actually knew of these allegations. They’re the people that felt like it was long overdue that the women have their say. So there’s a bit of relief, but there’s also a sense that it’s overdue. And there’s also a feeling that there needs to be more accountability within the community and with the remaining leaders that were culpable in the 1970s and ’80s.
What do you think that accountability should look like?
I think for one, the Cesar Chavez Foundation and the UFW profited handsomely from the legacy of Chavez that we now know was fraudulent, and given how sexual assault and the legal consequences have changed since [Harvey] Weinstein, I wonder whether these victims have recourse.
I would be all for that, just as some of the victims of [Jeffrey] Epstein have done the same, and as well as [those of] Weinstein. So I think these are questions that we should be asking. We should be thinking in the future, not only in the past.
Are any of these organizations already discussing remaking Chavez’s central role in their narratives now?
There’s a great example of an organization that I think took the right course of action. This is the San Antonio chapter of the Cesar Chavez…I don’t know the full title, but a foundation that has Cesar Chavez as its namesake [Editor’s note: The César E. Chávez Legacy & Educational Foundation]. And they just disbanded. They literally called it off and said, we’re done.
One thing I really disagree with — and some people think this is a virtue; I think it’s a vice. [The Cesar Chavez Foundation] set up a confidential channel or hotline for possible other victims of Chavez and [is] asking them to report to them. I think this is at a stage where I think, certainly, the California state government or maybe even the federal government should set up those hotlines and manage intake at this point.
There are murals of Chavez all over California and far beyond. There’s all these streets and parks and schools that are named for him all over the country. His movement has been this model and inspiration for labor organizers and protesters of all kinds on the left for decades. I’m wondering what you think about those memorials and activists, and about people who are involved in these movements. What should they do with these revelations? Do you think these honorifics should all come down?
I think that there are certain things you can’t do. I suppose that you could be like Fresno State; they threw a black curtain over their Cesar Chavez statue that can’t last forever. Walls that have been beautifully rendered in terms of murals of Chavez — it’s hard to whitewash them. They are actually keepsakes and valuable community symbols across the country.
But I also want to just say that this kind of thinking, that we’ve got to hold onto him, is what allowed these women to suffer for so long, and for us to hold onto the notion that Cesar was an enlightened leader for the union. In fact, my argument is that the union succeeded most when it acted collectively, and in some cases defied Cesar Chavez.
So my feeling is that we need to kind of democratize the honoring of the movement. I would like to see individual communities with Cesar Chavez buildings and statues and honorific symbols replace them in the ways that they think are appropriate.
There were leaders, there were community activists — there were movements in places like Bellingham, Washington, and Woodburn, Oregon, and places all over the country, big and small that were touched by Chavez. But the movements there were led by their own community. And so I think that would be really fitting for us to remember the farm workers movement as that collectivity that had its various colors and permutations in these specific places. And to have the art and the honorific symbols reflect that.
I don’t think anybody’s thinking about that right now, though. Most people — I mean, I’ve seen on social media, people are saying: Well, let’s just replace Chavez with [Dolores Huerta]. And I think that’s highly problematic.
Dolores Huerta is a historic figure in her own right. Now she has revealed that Cesar Chavez raped her, and fathered two children with her whom she placed in other homes. She says she stayed silent until now out of fear that it would hurt the movement, and because she worried that no one in the union would believe her. It’s a lot. She’s almost 96 years old, and she is this living icon and symbol of the movement.
How does this story affect our understanding of her role in this movement?
I think it’s very fluid. It should be. I think there are people rushing to judgement, saying that she is simply straightforwardly a survivor. She is that, but I think it needs to be seen in the wider context of what was happening in the mid-’70s, and how she also participated in the purges of innocent volunteers sometimes.
To be clear, you’re not talking about sexual abuse, right?
No. Not sexual abuse, no. But that [other] abuse is talked about, explained in great detail in my book.
She was someone that participated in the purges of people that were labeled, as Chavez said, “assholes.” And what he meant by that is people that betrayed the movement.
There was also psychological abuse in the context of “The Game,” which was a critical part of the community where people were encouraged to yell at one another, to call one another names, and to make false accusations of misdeeds and just overall kind of counterproductive behavior in the movement, and specifically at La Paz.
[Editor’s note: Huerta did not talk to Garcia for his book, but his account is corroborated by tapes from the period, eyewitnesses who spoke to him, and other scholarship. She was asked about this period of internal purges by the Los Angeles Times in 2006 and said some of the paranoid atmosphere had been caused by death threats against Chavez.]
I think the broader picture that you’re painting here is a group that is full of people who are paranoid, in the sense of looking for the traitors next door, the traitor inside, trying to point their finger at whoever might be out to get them within their own movement.
And that might lead to the kind of atmosphere where if somebody did know about Chavez’s sexual abuse, they might be hesitant to share that or reveal that, let alone if they were the victims themselves, because the person they tell — in their minds — might be looking to use that information to punish them or stab them in the back.
Yeah, I think that’s definitely now something that we have to consider: that Cesar had a secret to keep, and he knew that that secret, if it was revealed, would hold him accountable for not only criminal behavior, but for losing focus on the [movement’s] primary goal — which was achieving farm worker justice. So yes, he knew he was more vulnerable.
What about ordinary Americans and people who might only know or remember the basics of the movement, but are still shocked to hear this? How should the rest of us understand the legacy of Cesar Chavez in its totality now?
It’s part of the American history that we’ve been coming to terms with for several years now. First in Me Too, in the Weinstein revelations, and then more recently in the Epstein file revelations.
What we’re seeing here is that we have all, regardless of our ethnicity and race, participated in a kind of pathological patriarchy, or allowed it to flourish, and we need to question it.
So whether you know what Cesar Chavez represented and what he achieved with that social movement that I’ve just described is really not the point. The point is that he’s yet another unchecked man who abused his power, because we in society turned a blind eye to it, and we allow it, and we actually frankly enable it. So I think that’s the larger lesson, and I really want people to make the connections across time and space, because they’re all there for us to learn from.
2026-03-21 05:25:00
2026年3月18日，特朗普总统在华盛顿白宫南草坪上走动，准备搭乘海军陆战队一号直升机。| Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images
这则新闻出现在《Logoff》每日通讯中，该通讯旨在帮助您了解特朗普政府的新闻，而不会让政治新闻占据您的生活。欢迎阅读《Logoff》：特朗普或许正实现他的愿望——推出一枚带有他头像的巨型金质纪念币。
发生了什么？周四，美国美术委员会批准了一项新设计，该设计是为纪念美国建国250周年而推出的24K金纪念币。纪念币上将印有特朗普皱眉坐在办公桌前的形象。纪念币的尺寸尚未确定，但根据特朗普一贯的风格，他可能会选择最大的尺寸——直径三英寸（约为普通硬币的三倍多）。他能否这么做？很可能。正如美联社所指出的，有一项法律禁止在货币上印有现任总统的形象。此外，还有一个专门负责纪念币的委员会，该委员会曾拒绝考虑特朗普的纪念币提案。但美国铸币局隶属于财政部，而财政部部长斯科特·贝森特很可能可以授权发行这枚纪念币。批准该设计的美术委员会也倾向于特朗普（其中一位最近任命的成员哈里斯是特朗普白宫的助理）。上个月，该委员会还批准了特朗普提出的将东翼改造成其设想的舞厅的设计方案。
背景是什么？这正是特朗普最喜欢的两个事物——黄金和他自己——的自然交汇。椭圆形办公室中堆满了各种黄金摆件、相框、装饰品和奖杯，自特朗普去年重返白宫以来，这些物品的数量急剧增加。此外，特朗普还（非法地）将自己的名字印在了肯尼迪中心、美国和平研究所以及一批新型战列舰上。
大局是什么？正如我前同事阿卜杜勒拉赫曼·法亚德去年所写，特朗普对品牌重塑的痴迷远不止于某一栋建筑或一枚纪念币。他试图用自己独特的风格覆盖传统的美国美学，并让自己成为——也许是最具代表性的——美国象征。
好了，现在是时候“下线”了……各位读者，大家春分快乐！（春分是在今天上午11点前刚刚过去。）我读到了一篇来自《纽约时报》的有趣报道（这是赠阅链接），讲述了纽约市民如何为今天庆祝斋月结束的开斋节做准备。对于正在庆祝的人们，祝你们开斋节快乐！祝大家周末愉快，我们周一再见。
This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.
Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump may be getting his wish: a super-sized gold coin with his face on it.
What’s happening? On Thursday, the US Commission of Fine Arts signed off on a proposed design for a new 24-karat gold commemorative coin to mark America’s 250th anniversary this summer. On the coin: Trump, scowling, as he leans on his desk.
The coin’s size is still to be determined, but characteristically, Trump may be going for the biggest possible option — a coin three inches in diameter (just over three times the size of a quarter).
Can he do that? Probably. As the AP points out, there’s a law that says living presidents cannot appear on currency. There’s also another committee specifically for coins that should get a say; it has refused to consider a Trump coin.
But the US Mint is part of the Treasury Department, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent can likely authorize the new coin regardless.
The Commission of Fine Arts, which approved the design, is also stacked in Trump’s favor (one recently appointed member, Chamberlain Harris, is a Trump White House aide). Last month, the commission also okayed Trump’s proposed ballroom design to replace the East Wing.
What’s the context? This is the unsurprising convergence of two of Trump’s very favorite things: gold and himself.
The Oval Office is overflowing with gold knick-knacks, picture frames, appliques, and trophies, which have multiplied since Trump returned to office last year. Trump has also (unlawfully) stamped his name on the Kennedy Center, as well as the US Institute of Peace and a class of new battleships.
What’s the big picture? As my former colleague Abdallah Fayyad wrote last year, Trump’s (re)branding obsession is bigger than any one building or coin. Instead, it’s an attempt to overwrite traditional American aesthetics with his own and cement himself as an — perhaps the — enduring symbol of the US.
Hi readers, happy spring equinox! (It was this morning, a little bit before 11 am Eastern.)
I enjoyed this story from the New York Times (it’s a gift link) about how New Yorkers spent the week preparing for the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan, which is today. For those celebrating, Eid Mubarak! Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday.
2026-03-21 04:30:00
2016年8月23日，伊朗波斯湾沿岸的阿萨洛伊赫（Assalooyeh）地区的南帕尔斯气田发生了废气燃烧事件。| Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images 特朗普政府在谈论伊朗战争时，常用“致命性”和“毁灭性”等词汇，因此当总统在周三谈及以色列对伊朗南帕尔斯气田的袭击时，显得几乎有些抱歉。这次袭击引发了伊朗对卡塔尔天然气设施的报复，导致全球能源价格飙升。特朗普在Truth Social上写道：“美国对这次袭击一无所知，卡塔尔在任何方面都没有参与，也完全不知道会发生这样的事。”（以色列官员称美国事先已被告知。）他补充说，除非伊朗对卡塔尔发动更多攻击，否则“以色列不会对南帕尔斯气田进行更多攻击”。特朗普不愿卷入与伊朗的能源对抗，这是有道理的：这种对等报复的升级局面注定会增加战争对全球经济的代价。为了维持全球石油流动，美国政府已经采取了一些相当激进的措施。上周，美国政府暂时取消了原本旨在阻止像印度这样的国家从俄罗斯购买石油的制裁，这打乱了美国试图迫使克里姆林宫在乌克兰问题上达成和平协议的策略。现在，美国正在考虑是否对已经在海上运输的伊朗石油取消制裁，正如财政部长斯科特·贝森特在与福克斯商业频道的采访中所说：“我们实际上会利用伊朗的石油桶来对抗伊朗，以在接下来的10到14天内压低油价，同时继续推进我们的行动。”从纸面上看，美国采取措施让正在与之交战的伊朗更容易出口石油似乎很奇怪，特别是因为伊朗最大的石油买家是中国，也是美国的另一个对手。但这反映了现代战争中石油所扮演的奇怪角色，有时国家反而希望对手继续销售能源。
有人可能会认为，当与一个依赖能源出口作为经济命脉和武装部队主要资金来源的对手（如伊朗）作战时，这些资源会是首要攻击目标。然而实际上，经济稳定以及避免电力中断和选民反弹的考量，往往比军事行动更为重要。中东战争以及伊朗有效封锁霍尔木兹海峡，显然扰乱了全球能源市场，此前也曾发生过对石油设施的袭击。但直到现在，似乎还存在一种不成文的协议，即避免对伊朗或海湾国家的能源基础设施发动重大袭击。“当战争发生时，通常会有不同阶段的升级，某些目标一开始就被视为禁区，”国防优先组织的分析师罗丝玛丽·凯拉尼克（Rosemary Kelanic）说道。她说，直到现在，“这种平衡还是不错的。我们没有攻击伊朗的能源设施，而他们也没有攻击海湾国家的更多能源设施。”然而，最近几天这种停火协议似乎已经破裂。伊朗对卡塔尔的袭击摧毁了该酋长国17%的天然气生产能力，导致约200亿美元的收入损失，并扰乱了欧洲和亚洲的能源供应。全球天然气开采点比石油少，且技术过程更为复杂，因此袭击天然气设施的成本可能比袭击石油设施更高。周五，伊朗又对科威特的一家炼油厂发动了袭击。如果这种停火协议破裂，对特朗普政府来说在政治上将是一个坏消息，因为该政府已经担心油价和天然气价格上涨的影响。但这并不是美国第一次面临这种困境。
特朗普政府希望在这场战争中避免攻击石油目标，这一点在某种程度上与拜登政府在乌克兰战争中的做法相似。2024年，据《金融时报》报道，白宫曾敦促乌克兰不要对俄罗斯的能源基础设施进行远程打击，担心这会推高全球能源价格并引发俄罗斯的能源报复。战争爆发时，美国曾考虑对俄罗斯的海上石油出口实施制裁，但后来因估计这可能导致油价飙升至每桶200美元以上而有所犹豫。取而代之的是，美国和欧洲官员设计了一个复杂的“油价上限”机制，迫使俄罗斯以折扣价出售石油。正如一位财政部官员所说，这将“限制克里姆林宫的利润，同时维持能源市场的稳定”。最极端的例子可能是乌克兰在战争期间仍继续维护和修复用于将俄罗斯石油和天然气输往欧洲的管道网络。担心完全切断这些供应会疏远乌克兰依赖以获得经济和军事支持的欧洲盟友，并阻碍其加入欧盟的希望。天然气出口最终在2025年初被关闭，但目前欧洲国家正施压乌克兰修复一条用于输送俄罗斯石油的管道。尽管有证据表明一个亲乌克兰组织在波罗的海海底摧毁了有争议的北溪天然气管道，但乌克兰政府一直否认参与，也许是因为这一目标在盟友中非常敏感。
特朗普不愿摧毁伊朗的石油产业，可能还有一个原因：他更倾向于接管它。自1980年代初考虑竞选总统以来，特朗普就一直在谈论夺取伊朗的油田。在这场冲突中，他表示目前还不能谈论接管伊朗的石油产业，但并未排除这一可能性，并将此行动与最近美国在委内瑞拉的干预联系起来，当时委内瑞拉的领导人更愿意让美国公司参与该国挣扎的石油产业。特朗普希望保持伊朗石油产业的完整，无论是为了未来管理它，还是为了避免进一步推高油价，这可能会与以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡（Benjamin Netanyahu）产生矛盾。一位美国官员本周告诉《华盛顿邮报》：“内塔尼亚胡希望摧毁伊朗的经济并摧毁其能源基础设施，而特朗普则希望保持其完整。”但看来，特朗普很难在一场战争中维持对海湾双方能源目标的克制。
The Trump administration’s rhetoric on the war in Iran tends to be heavy on words like “lethality” and “obliteration,” so it was notable that the president seemed almost apologetic on Wednesday, when discussing an Israeli strike on Iran’s South Pars gas field, which prompted Iranian retaliation against natural gas facilities in Qatar and sent global energy prices skyrocketing.
“The United States knew nothing about this particular attack, and the country of Qatar was in no way, shape, or form, involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social. (Israeli officials say the US was informed ahead of time.) He added that “NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field” unless Iran launched more attacks against Qatar.
Trump’s reluctance to get drawn into a tit-for-tat energy war with Iran makes sense: it’s an escalation scenario guaranteed to drive up the global economic costs of this war.
The imperative of keeping global oil flows moving has already led to some fairly drastic steps. Last week, the administration temporarily lifted the sanctions meant to prevent countries like India from buying oil from Russia, upending the US strategy to pressure the Kremlin into a peace deal in Ukraine.
Now, the US is considering unsanctioning Iranian oil that’s already on the water, or as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent put it in an interview with Fox Business, “In essence, we will be using the Iranian barrels against the Iranians to keep the price down for the next 10 or 14 days, as we continue this campaign.”
On paper, it seems very strange for the US to take steps to make it easier for the country it’s currently at war with to export oil, particularly as the biggest customer for Iran’s oil is China, another US rival. But it speaks to the strange role oil plays in modern warfare, one in which countries sometimes paradoxically want their adversaries to keep selling energy.
One might think that when fighting an adversary, such as Iran, that relies on energy exports as the lifeblood of its economy and the primary funding source for its armed forces, that those resources would be the first thing attacked. In practice, economic stability and the desire to keep the lights on and avoid voter backlash often take precedence over military expediency.
The war in the Middle East, and Iran’s effective shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, have obviously roiled global energy markets, and there have been some previous strikes against oil facilities. But until now there appeared to be an unspoken agreement against major attacks on energy infrastructure in either Iran or the Gulf.
“It’s common, when warfare is happening, to have different stages of escalation, with certain things that start out as off-limits,” said Rosemary Kelanic, an analyst at Defense Priorities and expert on the geopolitics of oil. Until now, Kelanic says, “it was a good balance. We didn’t hit these Iranian energy sites, and then they didn’t hit the many more energy sites in the Gulf states.”
In recent days, however, that truce appears to have broken down. The Iranian attacks on Qatar knocked out 17 percent of the emirate’s natural gas production capacity, causing an estimated $20 billion in lost revenue and disrupting supplies to Europe and Asia. Natural gas is extracted from fewer sites globally than oil and the technical process is more complex, meaning the costs are likely to be higher than attacks on oil facilities. On Friday, Iran followed up with an attack on an oil refinery in Kuwait.
If the truce has broken down, that’s bad news politically for a US administration already concerned about the impact of rising oil and gas prices. But it’s not the first war in which they’ve faced this dilemma.
The Trump administration’s desire to keep oil off-limits in this war in some ways mirrors the Biden’s administration’s approach to Ukraine. In 2024, the Financial Times reported that the White House had urged Ukraine to refrain from long-range strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure out of concern that it would drive up global energy prices and provoke energy retaliation by Russia.
When the war broke out, the US had considered sanctions to disrupt Russia’s seaborne oil exports, but held back after estimates suggested this could drive oil prices to over $200 a barrel. Instead, US and European officials devised a complex “price cap” to force Russia to sell its oil at a discount. This would, as one Treasury official put it, “limit Kremlin profits while maintaining stable energy markets.”
The most extreme example of keeping oil off-limits may be that Ukraine continued to maintain and repair the network of pipelines on its soil used to export Russian oil and natural gas to Europe, even as the war raged. The concern was that cutting off these supplies entirely would alienate the European allies Ukraine relied on for economic and military support and doom the country’s aspirations for EU membership. The gas exports were finally shut down at the beginning of 2025, but Ukraine is currently under pressure from European countries to repair a pipeline used to carry Russian oil.
While there is evidence that a pro-Ukraine group destroyed the controversial Nord Stream pipeline carrying Russian gas to Europe under the Baltic Sea, the Ukrainian government has consistently denied involvement, perhaps due to the sensitivity of the target among its allies.
There may be another reason why Trump is reluctant to destroy Iran’s oil industry: he’d rather take it over. The president has been talking about grabbing Iran’s oil fields since first considering a run for office in the 1980s. During this conflict, he has said it’s too soon to talk about seizing Iran’s oil industry but hasn’t ruled it out, and has linked the operation to the recent US intervention in Venezuela, where a more pliant leader is now willing to give US firms a role in the country’s struggling oil industry.
Trump’s desire to keep Iran’s oil industry intact, whether to play a future role in managing it or just to avoid driving prices up any further, could put him at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Bibi wants to wreck Iran’s economy and decimate its energy infrastructure. Trump wants to keep it intact.” one US official told the Washington Post this week.
But it seems increasingly unlikely that Trump will be able to fight a war in which energy targets on both sides of the Gulf are kept out of bounds.
2026-03-21 02:30:00
“奶奶篮球联赛”不仅仅是一项退休人员的运动。2005年，巴布·特拉默尔（Barb Trammell）邀请了一些朋友，在爱荷华州兰辛市举办了一场慈善篮球赛，为一座历史悠久的建筑筹集资金。她遵循自己家乡在20世纪20年代制定的女子6对6比赛规则，并穿着经典的“布卢默”式服装，这场“奶奶篮球”表演赛在当地大受欢迎。20多年后，奶奶篮球联赛已经扩展到全国，拥有超过50支队伍，分布于11个州，甚至还有一个在加拿大。这些队伍每年都会齐聚一堂参加锦标赛。虽然联赛为球员和观众提供了激烈的竞争和乐趣，但也重新定义了退休人员寻找人生意义的方式。研究表明，这项运动甚至可能帮助他们延长寿命。在球场上的快速移动和决策促进了大脑与身体之间的联系。在晚年加入球队有助于对抗社交孤立，这是美国日益严重的问题，尤其是对老年人而言。随着年龄增长，我们的生活方式会发生变化，但我们始终在寻找连接、更好的健康和前进的动力。加入运动队正好满足了这些需求。对奶奶篮球联赛的女士们来说，这是一次点燃新热情、建立社区联系、保持头脑和身体敏捷的机会。了解更多关于奶奶篮球联赛和团队运动的健康益处：访问奶奶篮球联赛官方网站 阅读美国卫生与公众服务部总医师2023年的关于社交联系和社区治愈作用的建议 查看国家卫生研究院关于老年人为何参与运动的回顾 阅读《华盛顿邮报》关于为何在60岁以后继续运动的专栏文章 本视频由T-Mobile宽带提供支持：T-Mobile宽带不会影响我们的编辑决策，但正是他们让这样的视频成为可能。
In 2005, Barb Trammell gathered some friends for a charity basketball game to raise money for an old historic building in Lansing, Iowa. Abiding by the 1920s women’s 6-on-6 game rules created in her home state and donning the classic “bloomer” uniforms, the exhibition game of “Granny basketball” was a hit with locals.
More than 20 years later, the Granny Basketball League has gone national, with over 50 teams spread out across 11 states and even one in Canada, many of which come together for an annual tournament.
While the league provides fierce competition and fun for players and fans, it’s also redefining how retirees find purpose. Research shows it might even be helping them live longer. Quick movements and decisions on the court spark a link between the brain and the body. Being on a team later in life combats social isolation, a growing problem in the US, especially for older adults.
Our lifestyles evolve as we get older, but we’re always seeking connection, better health, and forward momentum. Being on a sports team checks all of these boxes. For the ladies of the Granny Basketball League, it’s an opportunity to ignite a new passion, build community, and keep their minds and bodies sharp.
Read more about the Granny Basketball League and the health benefits of team sports:
Visit the official Granny Basketball League website
Read the US surgeon general’s 2023 Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community
An NIH review of why older adults play sports
A Washington Post guest column on why it’s smart to play sports in your 60s and beyond
This video is presented by T-Mobile: Broadband. T-Mobile: Broadband doesn’t have a say in our editorial decisions, but they make videos like this one possible.