2025-11-27 06:30:00
2025年11月26日，华盛顿特区市中心发生枪击事件，两名国民警卫队成员中弹。目前，一名嫌疑人已被拘留，据称也受了伤，但动机尚不清楚，也不确定该事件是否针对国民警卫队或白宫。两名伤者均来自西弗吉尼亚州，其伤情状况尚不明朗。西弗吉尼亚州州长帕特里克·莫里赛在最初称两名伤者因伤去世后，表示其办公室收到“相互矛盾的报告”。
枪击事件发生在白宫附近的商业区，而特朗普目前并不在华盛顿。特朗普在Truth Social上称嫌疑人是“一头野兽”，并表示他将为此付出“沉重代价”。国防部长彼得·海格赛特也表示，特朗普曾要求向该市增派500名国民警卫队。副总统JD·范斯则在肯塔基州的军事基地表示，目前尚不清楚枪击案的动机，并呼吁为受害者祈祷。
自8月份以来，国民警卫队一直在华盛顿特区部署，以防止犯罪。然而，他们主要在高可见度区域巡逻，并参与美化工作，如垃圾清理。多个由共和党领导的州，包括西弗吉尼亚州，也派出了国民警卫队。在最初部署后，人们担心城市内可能发生冲突，但直到周三之前，局势一直平静。此次事件引发了对美国政治暴力的担忧，特别是考虑到保守派活动人士查理·库克此前遭到枪击，这可能成为另一个冲突的导火索。但目前尚无法确定事件的全部细节或未来可能发生的情况。
好了，现在是时候“下线”了。祝大家提前感恩节快乐！本新闻通讯将在周四和周五完全停更。希望你们也休息一下，我们将在周一重新上线，届时将为大家更新最新消息。如果你还没读过我同事克里斯蒂安·帕兹和亚历克斯·阿巴-桑托斯之间的“火鸡大辩论”，我建议你读一读——无论你支持哪一方，这都是一篇值得一看的文章。
最后，我想表达一份感激之情：非常感谢所有阅读和订阅本通讯的读者，尤其是那些给予建设性批评、温馨话语和可爱动物照片的朋友们。谢谢你们成为如此优秀的读者群体，祝你们与家人朋友共度美好时光，享受美食！
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: Two National Guard members were shot in downtown Washington, DC, near the White House on Wednesday afternoon.
What do we know? This is a breaking news story, which means it’s still evolving in real time, and early reports sometimes turn out to be incorrect. With that caveat, here’s what’s been reported so far:
How is the White House responding? In a post to Truth Social, Trump described the shooting suspect as an “animal” who will “pay a very steep price.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also told reporters Trump had requested 500 additional National Guard troops be deployed to the city.
Vice President JD Vance, speaking at a military base in Kentucky, emphasized that the motive in the shooting was still unknown and asked for prayers.
What’s the context? National Guard troops have been deployed in DC since August in what Trump has described as an effort to prevent crime in the city; however, they have largely been focused on patrolling in high-visibility areas of DC and pursuing beautification efforts like trash pickup. Multiple Republican-led states, including West Virginia, deployed troops in addition to DC’s own National Guard.
Concerns about potential clashes in the city were high after the initial deployment, but until Wednesday, it had been peaceful.
After the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, concerns about political violence in the US have also been rising — and, depending on what we learn about the motives of the shooter, this could be another flashpoint. But it’s far too soon to say exactly what happened here or what might happen next.
Happy early Thanksgiving! This newsletter will be fully logged off on Thursday and Friday. We hope you will be too, and we’ll be here to catch you up when we get back on Monday.
If you haven’t read the Great Turkey Debate between my colleagues Christian Paz and Alex Abad-Santos yet, I recommend it — whichever side of the argument you’re on, it’s a good time.
And before we go, I want to end with a quick note of gratitude: I’m very thankful for everyone who reads and subscribes to this newsletter, and especially to everyone who has written in with constructive criticism, kind words, cute animal photos, and more. Thanks for being a great audience, and I hope you have a wonderful day with friends, family, and good food!
2025-11-27 05:15:00
2025年11月19日，俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京参观了莫斯科的一场人工智能展览。| 基斯坦娜·科米尔伊茨纳/法新社/盖蒂图片社
美国的28点和平计划现已缩减为19点。特朗普总统表示，上周向基辅提出的结束俄乌战争的计划，该计划严重偏向俄罗斯的要求，以至于乌克兰总统泽连斯基称其为“我们历史上最困难的时刻之一”，经过美乌谈判代表的讨论后已进行了“微调”。乌克兰方面表示，这份新协议包含了更有力的战后安全保障措施，因此他们认为该协议是可以接受的，泽连斯基正寻求与特朗普会面，讨论乌克兰割让领土给俄罗斯这一棘手问题。那么俄罗斯方面又如何呢？特朗普正派遣他的特使史蒂夫·维特科夫向普京介绍新计划。（维特科夫与俄罗斯同行的对话似乎催生了最初的28点计划。）但目前克里姆林宫对新计划的反应并不积极。外交部长谢尔盖·拉夫罗夫表示，如果新计划与他在8月与特朗普在阿拉斯加达成的协议精神和内容不符，那么“局势将完全不同”。该协议涉及乌克兰向俄罗斯割让东部顿巴斯地区，包括目前未被俄罗斯控制的地区。
特朗普似乎希望复制最近在加沙达成的停火协议，当时美国成功迫使以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡与哈马斯达成一项他并不完全满意的协议。美国对乌克兰的武器和情报支持使其在战争中拥有一定的筹码，这也是为什么泽连斯基尽管面临特朗普频繁改变立场带来的外交压力，仍继续与华盛顿保持接触。然而，目前似乎没有人能对普京施加影响，因此这场战争是否能很快结束，取决于普京认为哪些条件是可接受的。这让人不禁质疑，只要普京还在位，和平是否就不可能实现。
乌克兰方面可能别无选择，只能继续参与由美国主导的和平谈判，但基辅的高级官员显然对这些谈判并不乐观。去年夏天，前外长德米特罗·库列巴在接受ABC采访时表示，如果普京还在世，战争就无法结束。“不，”他回答道，“虽然可能有较低强度的冲突，但我无法想象在普京执政期间，乌克兰和俄罗斯能实现持久和平。”这种观点认为，即使达成暂时停火，也可能只是战争的暂停，之后俄罗斯会继续推进其战略目标。
实际上，就连最初的28点计划是否符合普京的预期也不明确。该计划可能在乌克兰和西方看来更像是克里姆林宫的“愿望清单”。但该计划也允许乌克兰保留60万军队（这将是欧洲仅次于俄罗斯的第二大军队），要求俄罗斯放弃对扎波罗热和赫尔松等争议地区的控制，并迫使俄罗斯仅承认克里米亚等被吞并地区的“事实控制”而非正式主权。而新计划则允许乌克兰保留80万军队，并获得“北约式”的安全保障，这可能更加难以被接受。
即使特朗普能让泽连斯基同意割让顿巴斯地区，战后的乌克兰很可能仍是一个高度军事化、对俄罗斯充满敌意的国家。这显然不是普京四年前发动这场战争时所设想的，他原本希望迅速占领基辅，将泽连斯基政府替换为一个顺从的傀儡政权。
尽管俄罗斯军队仍在乌克兰推进，但进展缓慢，且小型致命无人机的广泛使用进一步拖慢了他们的步伐。2025年，俄罗斯又占领了乌克兰约1%的土地，据估计，为此付出了20万士兵伤亡的代价。根据美国的“战争研究研究所”计算，按照目前的进展速度，俄罗斯最早要到2027年8月才能占领整个顿巴斯地区。然而，普京仍可能认为自己在这场战争中占了上风，而战争的进展速度也足以维持他的这种信念。他认为这场战争对俄罗斯的未来至关重要，因此不会轻易放弃。
目前，华盛顿和莫斯科在时间框架上存在明显分歧。特朗普上任时承诺在一天内结束战争，给普京设定了两周的期限，而几天前他甚至希望能在感恩节前结束战争。然而，普京则认为一个独立的乌克兰是对其的威胁，他的时间规划是以世纪为单位的。在阿拉斯加的会面中，他似乎让特朗普感到沮丧，因为他引用了俄罗斯历史上的重要人物，如诺夫哥罗德的留里克和智者雅罗斯拉夫，来阐述他对乌克兰问题的看法。
或许会有一个转折点。也许当俄罗斯最终占领整个顿巴斯地区，或者泽连斯基因内部政治斗争和丑闻失去权力，普京就会认为自己取得了胜利。然而，随着欧洲现在承担了美国之前提供的大部分经济和军事支持，短期内乌克兰全面崩溃的可能性似乎不大。或者，乌克兰可能能够与俄罗斯僵持不下，使俄罗斯社会承受更大的经济压力，最终迫使普京改变策略。又或者，他可能认为这是一场关乎文明的斗争，无论需要多长时间，或付出多大的代价，都值得继续。
根据现行的俄罗斯法律，普京可以继续执政至2036年。尽管有传言称他身体欠佳，但73岁的他似乎仍保持良好的健康状况，而俄罗斯的权力继承计划仍是个谜。目前，他的统治看起来相当稳固，尽管战争和制裁给俄罗斯社会带来了巨大压力。距离叶夫根尼·普里戈任叛乱的动荡时期已经过去很久，当时政权似乎随时可能崩溃。然而，正如俄罗斯反对派领导人所指出的，这类政权往往在崩溃前显得异常稳固。但对乌克兰及其盟友来说，寄希望于这种局面并不现实。
目前看来，普京似乎愿意将剩余的任期全部投入这场战争，他并不设限于愿意为胜利付出多少俄罗斯的鲜血和财富，甚至特朗普也无法让他感到自己已经取得了成功。
The 28-point peace plan is now a 19-point peace plan.
President Donald Trump says the plan for ending Russia’s war in Ukraine that was presented to Kyiv last week, and was so heavily tilted toward Russia’s demands that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “one of most difficult moments in our history,” has been “fine-tuned” after talks between US and Ukrainian negotiators. The Ukrainians say the deal — which now includes more robust post-war security guarantees for Ukraine — is acceptable for them, and Zelenskyy is seeking a meeting with Trump to discuss the thorny issue of Ukraine ceding territories to Russia.
What about the Russians? Trump is dispatching his envoy Steve Witkoff to present the new plan to President Vladimir Putin. (Witkoff’s conversations with his Russian counterparts appear to have been the source of the original 28-point plan.) But the initial response from the Kremlin is not very positive. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that if the new plan differs from the “spirit and letter” of the deal Putin thought he had reached with Trump in Alaska in August, the “situation will be fundamentally different.” That understanding involved Ukraine ceding the rest of the eastern Donbas region, including areas not currently under Russian control, to Russia.
Trump appears to be hoping for a repeat of the recent Gaza ceasefire, where the US was able to strongarm Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into a deal with Hamas that he wasn’t all that happy with. The importance of American weaponry and intelligence sharing to the Ukrainian war effort gives Trump leverage over Zelenskyy — that’s why the Ukrainian leader continues to engage with Washington despite the diplomatic whiplash of Trump’s frequently changed stances on the war.
But at this point, nobody seems to have leverage over Putin. Which is why the question of whether this war will end soon comes down to what terms Putin finds acceptable. This raises the depressing question of whether peace is possible at all as long as Putin is alive and in power.
The Ukrainians may have little choice but to continue to engage with the US-led peace negotiations, but senior officials in Kyiv are clearly not optimistic about it. In an interview with ABC last summer, former foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba was asked if the war can end while Putin is still alive.
“No,” he replied, adding that while a “lower intensity conflict” was possible, “I cannot imagine eternal peace between Russia and Ukraine achieved during President Putin’s lifetime.” Even a temporary ceasefire, this line of thinking goes, may only be a pause before Russia resumes its efforts.
It’s not even completely clear that the original 28-point plan would have been acceptable to Putin. It may have looked to many in Ukraine and the West like a Kremlin wish list. But it would also have allowed Ukraine to keep a military of 600,000 troops (which would be the largest in Europe after Russia), required Russia to relinquish control of the disputed regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, and forced Russia to settle for “de facto” rather than official recognition of its control over Crimea and other annexed regions.
The new deal reportedly allows Ukraine to keep 800,000 troops along with “NATO-style” security guarantees; it is probably even more of a nonstarter. Even if Trump can push Zelenskyy into parting with the Donbas, post-war Ukraine is likely to be a highly militarized and implacably anti-Russian country on Russia’s borders. That’s not what Putin had in mind when he launched this war nearly four years ago in hopes of quickly taking Kyiv and replacing Zelenskyy’s government with a complacent vassal.
Russia’s forces continue to advance in Ukraine, but their pace has been slow and the widespread use of small deadly drones is making it slower. In 2025, Russia took an additional 1 percent of Ukraine’s land area at an estimated cost of 200,000 troops killed and wounded. The US-based Institute for the Study of War calculates that at its current rate, it will take Russia until August 2027 at the earliest to conquer the rest of the Donbas.
But Putin likely still believes he is winning this war, and the pace of progress is just enough for him to continue with that belief. He considers this war too important for Russia’s future to give up now.
There’s a disconnect in time frames between Washington and Moscow right now. Trump came into office pledging to end the war in a day, has given Putin various two-week deadlines, and just a few days ago appeared to hope this could be wrapped up by Thanksgiving.
Putin, meanwhile, considers the very existence of an independent Ukraine a threat and is thinking in terms of centuries. He apparently exasperated Trump at their meeting in Alaska by launching into one of his trademark historical lectures about figures from Russian history like Rurik of Novgorod and Yaroslav the Wise to explain his position on Ukraine.
It may be that there will come a tipping point. Perhaps if Russia can finally take the rest of the Donbas, or if Zelenskyy’s internal political struggles and scandals remove him from power, it would be enough for Putin to take the win. (With Europe now making up much of the economic and military support the US previously provided, a complete Ukrainian collapse seems unlikely in the short term.) Or perhaps the Ukrainians will be able to fight the Russians to a standstill, and the economic pressure on Russian society will grow to the point that he has to change course. Or perhaps, he views this as a civilizational struggle that’s worth continuing no matter how long it takes, or how massive the human cost.
Under current Russian law, Putin can remain in power until 2036. Despite periodic rumors of illness, he seems to be in fairly good health at 73, and Russia’s succession plan is a complete mystery.
For the moment, his rule looks remarkably stable despite the stresses on Russian society caused by war and sanctions. We’re a long way from the heady days of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny, when it looked like the regime might collapse at any moment.
As Russian opposition leaders point out, regimes like this one often appear totally stable just before they fall — but hoping for that outcome is not exactly a viable strategy for Ukraine or its allies.
But it does appear there’s a chance that Putin is willing to devote the rest of his time in office to victory in Ukraine, that he does not have a limit on the amount of Russian blood and treasure he’s willing to spend to achieve it, and that even Trump is not able to give him what he needs to feel he’s accomplished it.
2025-11-26 20:50:44
在孟加拉国，女性参与劳动力市场的比例较低，仅有7.2%的小企业由女性拥有。长期以来，女孩因性别而受到歧视，常常在完成学业前就被嫁出去，成年之前就成为母亲，并一生依赖丈夫生活。雷斯玛的故事也是如此开始的，但她成功地改变了命运。她决定自己创业，生产苹果醋。随着需求的增长，她寻求支持以扩大业务。通过欧盟资助的培训计划，雷斯玛掌握了创业所需技能，从零开始发展自己的事业。雷斯玛说：“那项培训对我而言就像魔法一样。”她深受启发，开始雇佣本村的女性，如今她不仅在支持自己的家庭，还在为社区中的其他女性创造机会。研究表明，女性将收入的90%再投资于家庭，从而改善教育和医疗条件，提高教育水平，使家庭更加繁荣。在像孟加拉国这样的国家，这种影响具有巨大意义。因此，欧盟正在投资像雷斯玛这样的女性，使她们能够按照自己的方式领导、创业并取得成功。有许多像雷斯玛一样的女性，充满潜力和决心。她们掌握正确的技能后，也在改变自己的生活，支持家庭，并推动社区变革，正如雷斯玛所做的那样。雷斯玛的故事并非独一无二，但它证明了投资女性是明智的经济选择。因为当女性领导时，整个社区都能获得成功。
In Bangladesh, women’s participation in the workforce is low, and only 7.2% of small businesses in the country are owned by women.*
For generations, girls have been discriminated against just because they are girls. Too often, they are married off before finishing school, become mothers before they reach adulthood, and spend their lives being dependent on their husbands.
Reshma’s story began like this. But she managed to change its course. She decided to start her own business by producing apple cider vinegar on her own. As demand grew, she sought support to help expand her business.
Through a training program funded by the European Union, Reshma equipped herself with the entrepreneurship skills she needed to succeed and grow her business from the ground up.
“That training worked in my life like magic,” Reshma says. “I was very inspired.” She began hiring women from her own village and today, she’s not just supporting her family, she’s also helping to create opportunities for other women in her community.
Studies show women reinvest up to 90% of their income into their families **, improving access to education and healthcare, causing education rates to rise, and families to thrive. In a country like Bangladesh, the ripple effects of this can have a huge impact.
That’s why the European Union is investing in women like Reshma so they can lead, create and rise on their own terms. There are many women like her, full of potential and determination. Armed with the right skills, they too are transforming their lives, supporting their families, and driving change in their communities, just as Reshma has done. Reshma’s story is not unique, but it is proof that investing in women is smart economics. Because when women lead, entire communities can succeed.
2025-11-26 20:45:00
What could you do with energy that’s cheap, clean, and near unlimited?
You could live in a home built to your precise needs that stays cozy and cool all year long. You could swim in a heated pool filled with ultra-pure recycled water. You could grill a steak grown in a factory, from cell on up, marbled, textured, and flavored to perfection. You could visit a nature preserve on land reclaimed from mines and farms, teeming with once-endangered animal life. You could get whisked comfortably and quietly anywhere by robots, whether down the street or the other side of the world. You could plan every weekend outing for the next month, counting on reliable, far-reaching weather forecasts. And all of your garbage would break down into its constituent elements, destined to be reassembled into new shoes, cars, and refrigerators.
This is all speculation, but the pace of improvement in clean energy and the scale of its deployment put these ideas within the realm of possibility.
Energy shapes the limits of what a society can build, sustain, and imagine, and the more of it we have at our disposal, the further we can push those boundaries. What we would decide to do with vastly more energy has huge implications for our politics, our economy, our environment, and our prosperity.
This year, the world is poised to spend $2.2 trillion on clean energy — power from the wind, the sun, the water, and splitting atoms. It also includes upgrades to the power grid, new forms of energy storage, and increased efficiency.
This investment has mostly been trumpeted as a way to help limit climate change. Humanity’s collective deployment of clean energy and increasing efficiency so far has already helped take some of the worst-case scenarios off the table.
However, climate change is a low political priority now. A more compelling case for clean energy is that it’s often the best way to get cheap energy, and to get a lot of it. The deployment of wind and solar power around the world continues to defy expectations, while the growth trajectory of energy storage is following close behind. This suite of technologies is taking off around the world — not because of a carbon tax or even environmental concerns, but because clean energy is simply better at meeting the needs of a moment when energy appetites are growing.
Suppose we alter the framing and approach solving climate change not as a task merely of curbing emissions, but of increasing access and lowering costs of better ways to power the world even further. It’s an approach that leads with prosperity and quality of life, while creating a more stable climate in the process.
If we make it a priority to get more clean energy, that raises the interesting — and fun — question of what we should do with it. After all, we’re not collecting energy for the sake of energy but to do stuff.
Cheap, clean, plentiful energy doesn’t just help people save money on their power bills; it unlocks new industries, makes thorny political problems moot, and helps repair the planet. These use cases are important motivations for why the transition to clean energy needs to happen and how it can bring about a better world for all of us. It’s why we’re doing this at all.
We can exchange heat and electrons for just about anything on Earth. How much energy a person uses is an effective proxy for how well off they are — how much food they can eat, how comfortable they are at home, how educated they are. We can see this play out in the cost and quality of lighting, which, in the UK alone, dropped 99.9 percent since 1700, tracing how economies grew as people shifted from campfires, to kerosene lamps, to LED bulbs, and beyond.
The global energy landscape is changing rapidly. Fossil fuels are still the dominant ways we heat, power, and get around the world, but renewable energy capacity is rocketing upward.
“Energy is prosperity,” said Eric Toone, chief technology officer at Breakthrough Energy, a high-tech clean energy funding firm founded by Bill Gates in 2015. “Energy is the capacity to do work. Energy is the capacity to build things, to make things, to move things.”
The potential of near-unlimited energy has been tantalizing researchers for decades, since the last big energy revolution, the dawn of the nuclear age.
“It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter, will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age,” said Lewis Strauss, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, in 1954. “This is the forecast for an age of peace.”
Nuclear power didn’t make this dream come true. It did provide huge amounts of electricity, but its construction and operating costs rose as other energy sources got cheaper. Meanwhile, environmental activists and some policymakers shifted their energy strategy to conservation rather than expanding the pool of power. Yet, the prospect of producing energy in such vast quantities that its cost is a minor concern is still one that lures scientists, engineers, and investors. And the recent technology trends do give some observers hope that this dream is within reach.
“Long-term, I think there’s good reason to think that at least lots of places in the world will have much less expensive and more stable energy, especially once they’ve made the investment in the next generation infrastructure,” said Daniel Vermeer, a researcher at Duke University studying the future of energy. “And I think that’s going to happen in a lot of places.”
How much more energy? “I think we’re looking at double the electricity production,” Vermeer said.
So, in the best tradition of economic thought experiments, let’s assume a can opener. What do we open first?
If we vastly increase our energy supply from current levels, food and water are where we can get the most bang for the British Thermal Unit (BTU). “It’s so fundamental to human prosperity,” Vermeer said. “It’s also where people will see benefits the fastest.”
We already spend a huge amount of our energy to produce food, and agriculture accounts for one-third of humanity’s greenhouse gas output. The fertilizer used to grow crops alone accounts for 5 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than aviation and shipping combined — and most fertilizers rely on natural gas as a feedstock. If we had the power and materials to produce more zero-emissions fertilizer, farmers could extract greater yields from the same amount of land. And decarbonizing the supply chain with electric tractors and trucks to bring food to markets would further increase efficiency. Getting the most out of our existing farms will be essential to feeding the world’s growing population. Otherwise, expanding farms will continue to devour forests and wildlands.
The next generation of farming techniques could create similar yields on even smaller plots of land, allowing food to be produced year round, nearer to major population centers or even within them. One approach is vertical farming, where crops are grown vertically in controlled indoor environments instead of horizontally across fields. Many vertical farming techniques are already being used today. But with more cheap energy to run pumps, lights, and fans, we can scale this up further.
Water is essential to all life as we know it, and we haven’t been doing a great job of judiciously using it. In recent years, some major cities have been teetering on the brink of running out of water. And with average temperatures rising, many regions are poised to see more severe droughts.
However, two-thirds of the world is covered in water, and widespread desalination would allow the world to tap into that vast, currently undrinkable supply. The main techniques for desalination are distillation and reverse osmosis, and right now, both require a lot of energy. But, if there’s a lot of cheap power on tap, then desalination could be a primary source of water for some communities, allowing freshwater rivers and aquifers to recharge. It would also resolve many of the political conflicts around water.
Unlimited energy could allow us to bioengineer our food sources from individual nutrients to maximize nourishment. Precision fermentation, or electro-food, is an emerging technology that uses specially designed microorganisms like yeast or bacteria to make proteins, fats, or nutrients like those found in animal products. Instead of raising cows or chickens, you could “brew” milk, eggs, or meat ingredients in fermentation tanks — just like the process of making beer.
Cheap, clean electricity can power these breweries as they use captured carbon and hydrogen as ingredients. Companies are already selling animal-free dairy and egg proteins made this way. As renewable power becomes abundant, precision fermentation could scale up, feeding growing populations with a fraction of the land, water, and emissions of traditional agriculture
Now, let’s take precision fermentation even further. Cultivating cells into whole steaks is starting to become possible, but it’s an expensive and involved process. If this could truly get off the ground, it would have huge knock-on benefits for the environment. Raising livestock right now draws a huge toll in terms of land use, energy and water consumption, and waste production, not to mention the immense ethical problems embedded in raising and killing animals for food. If we can turn energy into meat that replaces conventional livestock, that would solve so many environmental issues all at once. But, convincing people to eat it remains a barrier. Already, there are seven states that have banned lab-grown meat. “Laboratory agriculture and producing things without animals is possible from a technical perspective, but we have to get a lot more sophisticated about how people make those decisions,” Toone said.
Whether or not you’re bullish on AI, it’s clear that more of our jobs and lives hinge on access to computing power and storage. Right now, data centers are a big part of the story of growing electricity demand, and speculation about their future energy needs is already starting to drive up electricity prices for ordinary people.
But with fewer energy constraints, more computing tools could become available to more people, and these resources can then be used to resolve some of our biggest energy and environmental challenges. It may also be a necessary investment for the US to retain a competitive edge. “I, for one, have become completely convinced that it’s necessary to win at AI for national security,” said Neil Chatterjee, a former commissioner on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. “How do we generate the power to win the AI race while keeping electricity affordable and not backsliding? There’s no simple solution, but I’m confident we can get there.”
How can we mitigate their worst effects?
Utilities can require tech firms to pay a deposit to for their future power needs so they don’t over-inflate their needs. Data centers can also face mandates to bring their own generation and energy storage, which could also support the broader grid.
Operators of these facilities can shift energy-intensive tasks to low-demand periods, though this flexibility may be limited. Their size incentivizes efficient electricity use, and computing will likely grow more energy-efficient over time as the technology improves.
AI can further accelerate the clean-energy transition by streamlining permitting applications for wind and solar projects, improving materials design, enhancing weather forecasting, and strengthening models of energy demand.
With food and water sorted, we can then start to chip away at the root cause of climate change: the rising concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels that are heating up the planet. Halting climate change thus means stopping these emissions entirely. And in the increasingly likely scenario where we overshoot our goal of limiting global average temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, it also means deliberately pulling carbon back out from the environment. It’s not enough to simply produce more energy; the world needs negative greenhouse gas emissions.
Humanity currently spews more than 40 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. So, to move the needle, we need to think about carbon management solutions that can work on this scale.
There are a few ways to do this. One is capturing carbon dioxide at the source. At conventional coal and natural gas-fired power plants, carbon capture systems currently impose a large parasitic load, around a quarter of the generator’s power output. That makes it hard to build a business case for carbon capture at fossil fuel power plants. But other industrial processes, like steel production, also emit carbon dioxide, and point-source capture can decarbonize this and other processes that don’t currently have an easy zero-emissions alternative.
We can also capture carbon dioxide straight from the air. There are already companies developing machines that can filter carbon from the atmosphere. Some businesses are also working on ways to pull carbon dioxide dissolved in seawater. The challenge is that it requires a lot of energy to move the amount of air and water needed to draw out significant amounts of carbon, which in turn raises the cost.
“Two things have to happen: One is that we have to continue to work to bring down the cost of air capture,” Toone said. Currently, it costs around $500 per ton to pull carbon dioxide out of the air. The goal is to get it down to $100 per ton or less. “Then societies have to become affluent enough that they’re willing to do it and recognize the dangers caused by climate change,” Toone added.
Another approach is enhanced weathering, which speeds up natural processes where rocks like limestone react with carbon dioxide in rainwater, forming a chemical bond that permanently locks it away.
If you don’t lock away carbon dioxide, you can put it to work. It’s an important raw ingredient for chemicals and materials. You can use it to make fuels reconstituted from the air, polymers, enzymes, concrete, as well as make your drinks bubbly. This has the potential to become a trillion-dollar industry.
Waste is a mounting problem, and many synthetic materials like plastics have no natural mechanisms that break them down, making them a problem that can last for generations. Recycling plastic materials has largely failed to live up to the promise, and the bulk of plastic waste ends up in landfills. To meaningfully reuse and reconstitute polymers, the process needs to be competitive with producing virgin materials, which means the energy you use for recycling has to be dirt cheap. When we get there, we may be able to close the loop, making, unmaking, and remaking everything we need with minimal extraction from the Earth.
The next place to look is transportation. Cheap fossil fuels have shrunk the world, allowing people to cross continents and oceans in hours rather than months. How we get around is now the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Four-wheeled vehicles already have a glide path to zero emissions with electrification. The tougher challenges are going to be electrifying or decarbonizing bigger vehicles like ships and airplanes.
Container ships are the gargantuan worker ants of the global economy, transporting just about every tangible good around the world. Right now, most container ships burn some of the cheapest and dirtiest fuels imaginable, but with abundant clean energy, they could draw on cleaner sources of power. These ships may be too big to run on batteries, but with much cheaper, clean electricity, shipping companies can generate hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, or synthetic versions of conventional fuels, moving cargo without the carbon footprint.
Climate-friendly flying is still trying to get off the ground. Right now, there aren’t any batteries that come anywhere close to the energy density of fossil fuels. Some airlines are deploying electric aircraft on shorter routes. However, without a breakthrough, long-haul flights will need to run on synthetic zero-emissions fuels, which demand vast quantities of low-cost energy. Or, they’ll need a mechanism like direct air capture to offset their emissions.
With even more energy, we can begin thinking about commercializing promising innovations that exist only in labs or are still on the drawing board. Many of these ideas sound far-fetched, but abundant clean energy moves them into the realm of possibility.
Materials built molecule-first Imagine designing stuff the way you’d build a playlist: starting from tiny pieces and crafting exactly what you need. Shoes that bounce just right. Home insulation that actually understands seasons. Skin grafts that heal without scars. We already 3D print things, but scaling it is pricey and slow. Smarter, custom materials could make industrial printing faster, cleaner, and way less wasteful.
Space that’s closer — and cleaner Getting to orbit still takes a ton of energy, and today’s rocket fuels leave a pretty heavy carbon footprint. Pulling carbon dioxide out of the air could help offset launches, and cleaner electricity can make low-carbon fuels from the start. The result: space access that’s not just cheaper, but easier on the planet.
Solar power that never sleeps Above the atmosphere, sunlight doesn’t quit. Space-based solar collectors could soak up that uninterrupted energy and beam it back to Earth via microwaves. No clouds, no sunsets — just steady power when we need it.
Become a spacefaring civilization And instead of dragging every nut and bolt off Earth, we could mine asteroids for the raw materials already floating out there. That opens the door to building more in space — moon bases, deep-space missions, the whole sci-fi starter kit — without the crushing cost of launching every ounce from Earth.
Even if we could realize all of the exciting potential of this clean energy-powered future, some new problems could emerge if we’re not careful.
First, there will be a big dislocation in the job market. There are almost 2 million people in the US working in coal, oil, and gas sectors — mining, building, transporting, and combusting these fuels. They will need new jobs or a soft landing pad that will help them move or retire. “We’re potentially seeing huge shifts in governance and unionization around the world,” said Adam Cowart, who is on the faculty of foresight at the University of Houston.
Additionally, “abundant” does not necessarily mean “equal” when it comes to energy. In the year 2025, there are still 685 million people in the world who don’t have access to electricity, and there’s no guarantee that increasing the global supply of energy will benefit them without concerted policies to match.
Having more energy could also end up indulging people’s worst impulses. Already, we’ve seen across much of the world that as fuels and electricity get cheaper, people end up driving bigger cars over longer distances, running their thermostats less efficiently, and eating more meat.
Valerie Thomas, professor of industrial engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, noted that our recent history shows that we have not used the energy we already have in a judicious way. “If we look back in history just a little bit, what do we do? We use it up on things maybe we don’t even understand, like bigger houses with more air conditioning, or we would commute even longer distances,” Thomas said. It will take concerted effort to make sure new energy doesn’t just go to frivolous uses.
And in her work looking at some of the poorest populations in the world, Thomas said she found that the key limits to prosperity are often things like local corruption, a lack of prenatal care, not enough vaccines, political instability, and bad economic policies. “What tends to be the barrier to the good life? I don’t think it’s energy,” Thomas said. That said, the world’s poorest stand to gain the most from the transition to clean energy, not just for having more useful power in their lives but breathing in less pollution and having more economic autonomy.
The post-energy abundance world is not one where every problem is solved, but it’s one with greater prosperity, improved human welfare, and generally a more stable climate. It will raise its own challenges, so there’s no scenario where we can take it for granted.
The fossil fuel era, and much of human history, was governed by constraints. The age of clean energy is poised to be one that’s more limited by imagination and choices, and the remaining solutions will be much more fun to implement.
This series was supported by a grant from Arnold Ventures. Vox had full discretion over the content of this reporting.
2025-11-26 20:15:00
美国应该摆脱那种平淡无味的火鸡的束缚。每年感恩节，人们都吃火鸡，这让人感到困惑。感恩节本应是人们感恩生活、享受美食的日子，但火鸡却是一种几乎不值得感谢的禽类。人们能说的最善意的话就是“火鸡不干”，这说明它至少不会像吃沙子一样难吃。当然，除非你用盐水浸泡、涂抹黄油、反复涂抹酱汁，让它变得美味，否则火鸡通常都很干柴。甚至有人为了给火鸡增添风味，选择油炸它，结果却引发了家庭火灾。同样令人沮丧的是，还有许多更美味的肉类可供选择。如果美国人曾经是猎人和渔夫，那么火鸡可能还说得过去。但如今我们已经远离那个时代，拥有丰富的肉类选择，如羊肉、牛排、猪肉，以及海洋中的美味珍馐，如龙虾、扇贝和虾。不过，火鸡的天然平淡也有其积极的一面。因为火鸡本身味道寡淡，美国人不得不创造出各种美味的配菜。就像我妈妈说的，最美丽的人不需要发展出任何技巧，因为他们本身就足够美。如果火鸡本身味道好，那土豆泥和青豆焗盘也不会如此美味。火鸡让我们变得更有创造力。更感恩的方式应该是庆祝一种本身味道就好的主菜。如果人们真的那么喜欢火鸡，为什么只在一年中的一天准备它？难道不会想在一年中多几次品尝这种“美味”吗？然而，出于对感恩节的热爱和对世界的好奇，我想和一个真正喜欢感恩节火鸡的人聊聊。其中一位就是Vox的政治记者兼火鸡爱好者克里斯蒂安·帕兹（Christian Paz）。他向我解释了火鸡的魅力、传统以及如何烹饪它以避免干柴和木质味。也许更重要的是，在这个拥有众多优质肉类的世界里，为什么人们仍然坚持在感恩节吃火鸡？这次采访经过轻微编辑以提高清晰度。克里斯蒂安，请告诉我你为什么喜欢火鸡？我热爱感恩节，感恩节就是关于火鸡的。我是个传统主义者，我支持传统。但另一方面，我也真的喜欢火鸡这种“餐桌上的大鸟”的象征意义，也许部分原因是我被灌输了这种观念。火鸡是传统，传统是好的。但如果我们认真一点，火鸡其实非常百搭！关于火鸡干燥的问题，你认为需要这么多准备，比如腌制、涂抹酱汁、烤制等，才能避免它变得干燥，这种说法是否成立？我有两个回应方式。你可以继续提问。第一种是诚实但略带尖锐：你只是没有正确烹饪火鸡。第二种是承认你说得对，火鸡确实容易变干，而且需要大量的工作、耐心和时间，这对准备多人餐来说确实很困难。大部分烹饪过程都需要慢火细炖，并让火鸡静置一段时间。克里斯蒂安，美国各地的消防部门不得不制作并播放关于油炸火鸡危险的公益广告。人们为了给火鸡增添风味，甚至会点燃自己的房子。这不正说明火鸡是一种低级的肉类吗？这在火鸡身上发生，但不会在火腿上发生。好吧，我不会评论油炸火鸡这件事。说实话，我不太喜欢这种做法。我不太了解美国文化中这种方面。不过，我可以告诉你，我曾经在制作火腿时烧伤过自己。请问你是怎么准备火鸡的？当然可以。你得确保在火鸡的外表和内腔都涂抹上足够的调料。是的，是的，我就是这样做的。不是这样。不过，实际上我尝试过两种被称赞和喜爱的方法。令人惊讶的是，我特别喜欢艾莉森·罗曼（Alison Roman）的食谱。另一种方法则是结合玛莎·斯图尔特（Martha Stewart）和伊娜·加滕（Ina Garten）的食谱，但用了很多黄油。据说玛莎和伊娜彼此并不喜欢对方。这似乎需要做很多工作才能让火鸡变得可口。没有人会把火腿涂上数磅黄油。天哪！最后一个问题：如果感恩节没有火鸡，你希望用什么肉类代替？羊肉？牛排？嗯，我可能更倾向于烤鸡，但搭配艾莉森·罗曼的 stuffing（填料）。我不是特别喜欢牛排，但我喜欢鸡腿、鸡翅，以及多汁的白肉火鸡。抱歉！我是天主教徒！我也是在天主教家庭中长大的。我们应该多吃鱼吗？只在星期五。不过，我确实喜欢三文鱼。对了，三文鱼：海洋中的火鸡。
It’s always been puzzling that on Thanksgiving, a day when Americans are supposed to appreciate all they have in life, we are supposed to eat turkey, a big bird that deserves little to no thanks.
The nicest thing one can say about turkey is that it’s not dry, a compliment that indicates that the bird does not taste like biting into desert sand — how turkey usually is unless it’s brined, basted, buttered to a point, thankfully, beyond resemblance. There are even instances where, in a desperate effort to impart more flavor onto the flavorless bird by deep-frying it, Americans have set their houses ablaze.
Equally frustrating is that there’s a plethora of more delicious meats to choose from. Turkey would make sense if Americans were limited hunters and poor fishermen. But we are far removed from those times and have ample access to lamb, steak, pork, and oceanic jewels like lobster, scallops, and shrimp.
There is, however, a bright side to turkey’s natural blandness. Because turkey lacks so much flavor, Americans have had to create delicious side dishes. It’s not unlike the observation from my mother that the most beautiful people never had to develop resourcefulness, because they are so beautiful. Mashed potatoes and green bean casserole wouldn’t taste as delicious as they do if turkey was decent. Turkeys have made us a resourceful people.
What would be more thankful would be celebrating a main that tastes good on its own. If people loved turkey the way they say they do, why is there only one day a year when people prepare it whole? Wouldn’t you want to eat something allegedly delicious at least a few times a year?
Yet, in the spirit of Thanksgiving and the importance of understanding the world around me, I wanted to speak to someone who allegedly genuinely enjoys a Thanksgiving turkey. One of those people is Vox political reporter and turkey lover Christian Paz. Paz enlightened me about the joy of the bird, the tradition that comes with it and how to make it not taste parched and woody. Perhaps, more importantly, why, in this world full of superior meats, would you still eat turkey on Thanksgiving? This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Christian, please tell me about why you like turkey.
I love Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is about turkey. I am a traditionalist. I stand by tradition.
But, also, I really do love the big ol’ “bird on a table” iconography, so maybe part of it is that I have been brainwashed.
Turkey is trad.
Turkey is trad, and trad is ok. But if we’re being serious, it’s very versatile!
What about the idea that turkey is dry — that it takes so much preparation of brining, basting, roasting, etc. just to make NOT dry?
There are two ways I could rebut this.
Sure, go ahead. Roast me.
One is to be honest but a little harsh: You’re just not cooking turkey the right way.
The other way is to say that, yeah, you might be right. Turkey can come out pretty dry, and it does require quite a bit of work, patience, and time, which can be hard if you’re cooking for a big group. So much of it does involve going low and slow and letting it rest.
Christian, fire departments across this great nation have to film and distribute PSAs to families about the dangers of deep-frying your turkey. People are setting their homes on fire to impart more flavor onto this bird. Isn’t that a sign that turkey is a low-tier meat?
This doesn’t happen with ham.
Well, I won’t comment on deep-fried turkeys. I’m not a fan of that, to be honest. I don’t know about that aspect of our American culture. I will say, I have burned myself making hams.
Can I ask, how do you prepare your turkey?
Yes, of course.
Well, you wanna make sure you just lather that baby up. On the outside. In the cavity. Yes, yes I am here.
Not this.
Okay, but actually, I have done two methods that have been praised and loved. Surprise, I love the Alison Roman recipe. The other one is a combo of a Martha Stewart and an Ina Garten recipe, but it involves lots of butter.
Allegedly, they — Martha Stewart and Ina Garten — do not like each other. Again, this seems like an awful lot of work to make the turkey palatable. No one is dousing a ham in pounds of butter.
Lord.
Last question: If turkey wasn’t available for Thanksgiving, what meat would you want instead? Lamb? Steak?
Oh, probably just a roast chicken, but with Alison Roman’s stuffing. I am not really a steak person, but I love a thigh, I love a wing, and I love juicy, white turkey meat.
Sorry! I’m Catholic!
I grew up Catholic, too. Should we be eating more fish?
Only on Fridays. Though, I do love salmon.
Ah yes, salmon: the turkey of the sea.
2025-11-26 19:45:00
2025年11月24日，两只国家感恩节火鸡“Waddle”和“Gobble”在华盛顿特区的威尔德酒店（Willard InterContinental）的威尔德房间（Willard Room）向媒体展示。这两只火鸡来自北卡罗来纳州，并将参加白宫举行的第78届火鸡赦免仪式。
我们通常在小学时学到的感恩节场景其实并不准确。比如，幼儿园的孩子戴着有问题的纸板头饰，和五年级的学生一起扮演，手拉手感谢丰收和新朋友。但事实上，万帕诺亚格人（Wampanoag）当时可能是在试图建立联盟，而不是仅仅为了友好。
那么，感恩节的餐桌上有没有火鸡呢？根据德克萨斯A&M大学历史学教授、墨尔本玻璃科克人文研究中心主任特洛伊·比克汉姆（Troy Bickham）的说法，答案是否定的。“简短的回答是：没有。”他告诉Vox，“更详细的回答是，我们并不确定。我们只有两个目击者描述感恩节，但他们并没有提到食物。唯一确定的是他们吃的是鹿肉。”
既然早期的感恩节并没有火鸡，那为什么现代感恩节却以火鸡为主呢？比克汉姆在本周的《Explain It to Me》播客中解释了这一点。以下是他们对话的节选，经过删减和整理。你可以通过Apple Podcasts、Spotify或其他播客平台收听完整节目。如果你想提问，可以发送邮件至[email protected]或致电1-800-618-8545。
火鸡何时成为感恩节的象征？为什么我们不都吃鹿肉？主要原因是火鸡价格便宜，而且是大型节日用禽类。它们在野外很常见，因此相对容易获得。火鸡成为节日主食，部分归功于工业化食品生产的发展。随着食品工业的兴起，火鸡的推广迅速展开。
此外，感恩节的配菜在大萧条时期变得流行，因为肉类价格昂贵。于是，人们开始寻找更便宜的食材，比如南瓜派、土豆和各种炖菜。 stuffing（填料）虽然一直存在，但在大萧条时期才真正流行起来，因为面包便宜，人们想尽可能多地利用它。
Libby公司则在20世纪初开始推广南瓜派食谱，并后来收购了南瓜罐头公司，进一步推动了南瓜派的流行。蔓越莓虽然历史悠久，但单独食用并不美味，需要大量糖分来调味，这正是美国式的做法。
而梅西百货（Macy's）则在感恩节期间举办游行，以刺激购物。如今，圣诞节通常在7月就开始宣传，但当时圣诞节的庆祝活动却是在感恩节游行中开始的。
为什么感恩节上那只金黄饱满的火鸡形象能持续这么久？它看起来确实很吸引人。根据美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）和政府统计数据，大约五分之一的火鸡是在感恩节当天被食用的。
虽然我不喜欢火鸡，但不得不承认，当有人端出这只巨大的火鸡时，确实令人印象深刻。感恩节是一个灵活的节日，这正是它能够持续至今的原因。人们聚在一起，分享食物，共度时光，无论是否带有宗教色彩。它本质上是一个人们感恩、团聚、一起吃饭、看球赛（或其他活动）的节日。任何文化都可以在这样的节日里表达对家人、朋友或生活中其他人的感激之情。
Thanksgiving didn’t happen the way a lot of us probably have learned it did back in elementary school. Kindergarteners in problematic construction paper headdresses, playacting with fifth graders in black hats and buckle shoes, holding hands and giving thanks for a plentiful harvest and new friends.
Those pageants we performed in were inaccurate. The Wampanoag people were likely trying to form an alliance, not being friendly just for the sake of it. But what about the food? Was there at least turkey served?
According to Troy Bickham, a history professor and director of the Melbourne Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University, the answer to that…is no.
“That’s the short answer,” he told Vox. “The long answer is we don’t know. We have two eyewitness accounts describing Thanksgiving, and they were not interested in describing the food. The only thing we know for certain that they ate was venison.”
So, if turkey likely didn’t make an appearance all those years ago, why has it become a staple in our modern Thanksgiving? Bickham tells us on this week’s episode of Explain It to Me, Vox’s weekly call in podcast. Below is an excerpt of our conversation with Bickman, edited for length and clarity.
You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you’d like to submit a question, send an email to [email protected] or call 1-800-618-8545.
When did turkey become a staple of Thanksgiving? Why aren’t we all eating venison this time of year?
Turkey is cheap, is the main reason. It’s a big festival bird. They’re in abundance; if you’re in the forests of Maine, you can see them all over the place. It would have been something relatively cheap and easy to put on the table.
Every agricultural society has a harvest festival. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the Inca, the Maya, the ancient Israelites, or whoever. They all have harvest festivals. And a harvest festival does two things: It’s either thanking their gods that there’s going to be enough food, that they’re going to make it through winter, or praying to the gods saying, “Please let this very meager harvest get us through winter.”
That harvest festival sort of percolates in different parts of the country. There are different Thanksgivings on different days as the US expands west. Different states have different days for Thanksgiving, and it doesn’t become a national holiday, really, until about the time of the Civil War, and that’s largely the work of Sarah Hale. She’s primarily known as “Mary had a little lamb.”
Oh! She wrote it?
Yeah, she wrote it. She was a children’s writer, and she was the editor of Godey’s, which was a ladies magazine that was very widely distributed, sort of the Reader’s Digest for women of the day. She and a number of people in the early 19th century were looking for days to celebrate traditional family values. The idea of Thanksgiving being a holiday of unity [came about] because the country was increasingly divided.
She started to lead a writing campaign. Women started writing in to their congressmen to try to make it a national holiday. It doesn’t really get going until the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln signed it into law in 1863, and that’s really when Thanksgiving, the way that we might imagine it today, really starts. It’s not until 1870 that Christmas and the July Fourth became national holidays, too. Thanksgiving is first after the Civil War, obviously a time of needed national unity and healing. Promoting national holidays rather than state holidays becomes an important part of that process.
It times itself really well, because it’s also about the same time that we start seeing the industrialization of food production. And so, once that’s in, it’s kind of over, because the companies take over very quickly the idea of promoting turkeys. And side dishes really took off during the Great Depression, because meat was more expensive. So, what do you do? Well, let’s all have pumpkin pie. Let’s get out potatoes, all the different kinds of casserole. It wasn’t unusual to have stuffing, but it really took off during the Great Depression, because bread’s cheap, and you’re going to want to stretch it out as much as possible.
In comes green bean casserole. Libby’s wanted to sell its evaporated milk, so in the early 20th century, it started promoting pumpkin pie recipes. Then, it bought a pumpkin pie canning company, and then it promoted the pumpkin. Cranberries had been around forever, but I mean, if you ever had just eaten a cranberry, it’s horrible.
You have to do a lot of stuff to make it delicious.
You have to dump a lot of sugar to start, right?
That’s very American. Like, “Okay, let’s make a supply chain to support this holiday.”
Absolutely. And then, Macy’s jumps in with its Thanksgiving Day parade, because it’s trying to kick off shopping. When does Christmas start? Well, now it starts sometime in July, but back then, Christmas was marked by the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and it’s like, “Okay, let’s go and shop.”
Why do you think this glamorized image of a full golden turkey on Thanksgiving has lasted this long?
It looks good. I was looking at some data, and according to the Food and Drug Administration, and the government statistics, about a fifth of our turkeys are eaten on Thanksgiving day.
Wow!
I’m not a fan of turkey, really. Though, I have to admit, when someone pulls out this enormous bird, it’s pretty impressive.
Thanksgiving is an adaptable holiday. I think that’s what makes it work. It’s a bunch of people getting together, and bringing food, and breaking bread with each other once a year. It doesn’t have a religious connotation. They’ve tried; it doesn’t really stick. Any culture can be grateful to eat for family, or friends, or whatever is in your life and then eat together, and fall asleep, and watch football — or whatever it is we do.