Four Critical Reads
These stories should have gotten more time in the news last week.
The voice of Charlie Brown is silenced. For every time Lucy moved the football at the last second, for every moment that someone called him a “blockhead” (his pal Linus excluded), Charlie Brown managed to offer a redeeming lesson: Even when you’re surrounded by a chorus of bratty, me-first people, you can and should be a decent person. With an unwavering sincerity and a naive belief in the goodness of everyone, Charlie Brown let us know important truths: Be true to yourself. Be kind to others, no matter what. Buy that dinky Christmas tree and show it some love.
A real person existed behind the voice of the animated Charlie Brown. His name was Peter Robbins, and last week he died by suicide. “Good grief,” we might collectively sigh, but for those of us in a certain (old) age group, the loss goes a lot deeper. We watched Charlie Brown basically raise himself, take care of his dog by himself and find out both the misery and beauty of the world in 20-minute segments that let us ponder the message quickly while munching on Jiffy Pop. And then we were able to share those lessons in Peanuts specials decades later.
Robbins was 9 years old when he became forever connected to Charlie Brown in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” He reprised the voice in the other popular Peanuts specials of the 1960s, including “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”
Later in life, Robbins struggled with mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. His career faltered. He spent time in prison. “I went on a manic phase where I bought a motor home, a mobile home, two German sports cars and a pit bull named Snoopy,” he said in a 2019 interview. He served time for threatening a number of people, including a police officer and the manager of a mobile home park. He took his life on Jan. 18, 2022. Robbins was 65 years old.
Funky monkey business.
Photo courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Police
On Jan. 21, a truck transporting 100 monkeys from New York’s Kennedy Airport to a CDC-sanctioned quarantine facility in Missouri was involved in a collision off a freeway in Danville, Pennsylvania. Three of the long-tailed macaques escaped and, after an hours-long search, were euthanized.
The monkeys, who had journeyed from Mauritius, an African island nation, were destined for some type of lab experiments, although the CDC did not immediately specify. There was also no immediate reason given why the three escapee monkeys, including the one pictured above, had to be killed.
Animal rights groups such as PETA denounced both the use of animals in lab experiments and the killing of the three monkeys. By the end of the week, Kenya Airways, which flew the macaques from Africa to the United States, said it would no longer transport wild animals.
It’s a complex situation, though, because monkeys are used in many lab testing facilities for a variety of reasons. The macaques are said to be very genetically similar to humans. Recently, they have been used for COVID-19 vaccine and treatment testing. Over the summer, the government announced it would be allotting more money to breed and house monkeys for research. The accident in Pennsylvania unintentionally shed light on the situation, and it’s fairly certain the debate on the use and treatment of macaques has just begun.
10-4, good buddy. The Washington Post called it “the toxic ‘freedom convoy.’” Reuters described it as a “peaceful protest.” Maybe it was a “toxic peaceful convoy protest”?
Canadian truckers upset about vaccine mandates that they say are keeping them from earning a living staged a gathering on Saturday in Ottawa. As of this writing, thousands of trucks and people were still blocking the city streets in a protest that has gone from being just about trucker mandates (even though it’s said that 90% of Canada’s cross-border truckers are vaccinated) to COVID-19 sanctions in general.
The protestors do not have the support of the Canadian Trucking Alliance, but they did pick up a noteworthy endorsement from Tesla’s Elon Musk, who said “Canadian truckers rule.”
Indian family identified.
Photo courtesy of the Canadian Press
Last week, we shared the story of a family of Indian nationals who had frozen to death as they were trying to cross from Canada into the United States. They had gotten separated from a group being illegally smuggled across the border.
The family has been identified as Jagdish Baldevbhai Patel, a 39-year-old man; Vaishaliben Jagdishkumar Patel, a 37-year-old woman; Vihangi Jagdishkumar Patel, an 11-year-old girl; and Dharmik Jagdishkumar Patel, a three-year-old boy. They had left their home village of Dingucha a few weeks earlier with the hopes of seeking more financial stability in the West.
"The couple felt they were struggling to run their home and the kids needed better education.… They decided to leave India because they failed to find a good job here," a relative of the deceased family said in an interview.
Investigations in India and Canada are underway to determine the origins of the human smuggling group and its potential web across Canada and the United States.