Far too subtle for an intellectual giant like Vance, but a nice touch nevertheless.
Pope Francis, Italy’s Number One Car Fan, Squeezed In One Last Popemobile Ride Before Death At 88
Surprisingly good obit.
ETA
Fred Clark at Slacktivist brought back an old post of his from 2015:
Here is the part of this story I mean, from Genesis 47, describing how Pharaoh – with Joseph’s vital help – exploits a massive famine to turn his people into landless serfs and debt-slaves:
Now there was no food in all the land, for the famine was very severe. The land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine. Joseph collected all the money to be found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, in exchange for the grain that they bought; and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house.
When the money from the land of Egypt and from the land of Canaan was spent, all the Egyptians came to Joseph, and said, “Give us food! Why should we die before your eyes? For our money is gone.”
And Joseph answered, “Give me your livestock, and I will give you food in exchange for your livestock, if your money is gone.” So they brought their livestock to Joseph; and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the herds, and the donkeys. That year he supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock.
When that year was ended, they came to him the following year, and said to him, “We cannot hide from my lord that our money is all spent; and the herds of cattle are my lord’s. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our lands. Shall we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land in exchange for food. We with our land will become slaves to Pharaoh; just give us seed, so that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become desolate.”
So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. All the Egyptians sold their fields, because the famine was severe upon them; and the land became Pharaoh’s. As for the people, he made slaves of them from one end of Egypt to the other. … So Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt, and it stands to this day.
That’s a tale of reprehensible exploitation, oppression and enslavement. It betrays that “something in the soul that cries out for freedom” of which Martin Luther King Jr. spoke, echoing the prophets of the same scriptures that tell us the story of Joseph.
He ends his current post with a link to the above historical post, with this final send-off:
The weird thing about that story from the book of Genesis is that it’s always presented as a kind of Aesop’s fable about thinking ahead and being prepared. But that’s not what the story is about. It’s about an authoritarian ruler who uses his insider information to create a monopoly on basic needs that he uses to extort everyone else out of their land, livelihood, and liberty.
That aspect of the story may be more pertinent just now than the whole “Stock-up ahead of time” emphasis.
Some current folks might take that story as a how-to
