Memory, Collective and Personal

We memorialize special events by the date on which they occurred and so our major holidays are predictable year after year. In the news business, this helps with something called the editorial calendar.

Editors assign stories based on this calendar, which lists historical events, both good and bad. The anniversary of, say, a war or a riot or a major storm is an opportunity to provide audiences with an update, which is one way we can provide context for the current state of affairs.

Running parallel to this calendar of public matters is our personal and family calendar. Births, graduations, weddings and other events are reasons for celebrations, both large and small.

Of course, there is another item that could be called the heartbreak calendar, which marks personal and family tragedies, including breakups, job losses, diseases and injuries and deaths. These are rarely cause for celebration, but they roll around every year just like the rest.

Take yesterday, for example, January 6th. In the Christian faith, it is celebrated as “Three Kings Day,” marking the arrival of the three Magi (wise men: Melchior, Caspar, Balthazar) to bring gifts (gold, frankincense, myrrh) to baby Jesus.

It also was the fifth anniversary of one of the worst days in the history of American democracy, the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol incited by Donald Trump. There is a concerted effort by Trump and his allies to whitewash this riot while erasing it from our collective memory.

It was also my sweet granddaughter Daisy’s 12th birthday.

As for me, I don’t really celebrate religious holidays, and I’m not going to forget that riot, but when it came to celebrating something, I chose Daisy’s birthday

.HEADLINES:

• Donald Trump Wants You to Forget This Happened (Atlantic)

• Lawmakers battle over how — and whether — Jan. 6 should be remembered (WP)

• January 6, five years on: sustained effort by Trump to rewrite history (Guardian)

• US seizes Russian-flagged tanker in Atlantic as UK confirms it gave support to operation (BBC)

• Miller says no one would stop U.S. from seizing Greenland (Axios)

• After Venezuela raid, Trump team puts a target on Cuba (WP)

• Trump says his Greenland fixation is about national security. Europeans are skeptical. (Politico)

• Trump Seizing Greenland Could Set Off a Chain Reaction (Atlantic)

• Trump’s Foray Into Venezuela Could Embolden Russia’s and China’s Own Aggression (NYT)

• What Americans think about the situation in Venezuela, according to recent polls (AP)

• Trump boasts about abduction of Venezuela’s Maduro amid global outcry (Al Jazeera)

• Supreme Court Increasingly Favors the Rich, Economists Say (NYT)

• 2 GOP senators caution Hegseth on punishing Kelly (The Hill)

• China studying U.S. strike for lessons and opportunities, analysts say (WP)

• ‘Neither Gaza nor Lebanon!’ Iranian unrest is about more than the economy − protesters reject the Islamic Republic’s whole rationale (The Conversation)

• Corporation for Public Broadcasting votes itself out of existence (AP)

• The data center rebellion is here, and it’s reshaping the political landscape (WP)

• The Robot Cars Have Come for the Kids (NYT)

• Chevron CEO Sure In Good Mood This Week (Onion)

Tuesday Mix

HEADLINES:

• European allies back Denmark over Trump’s threat to annex Greenland (BBC)

• 5 years after Jan. 6 attack, Senate Democrats seek to ban taxpayer-funded payouts to Capitol rioters (CBS)

• 5 Years After Jan. 6, Lawlessness Has Triumphed (NYT)

• Trump admin makes deep cuts in child vaccine schedule (Axios)

• How right-wing media inspired Trump’s ‘Donroe Doctrine’ (CNN)

• Maduro says ‘I was kidnapped’ as he pleads not guilty to drug trafficking charges (AP)

• Trump Threatens Venezuela’s New Leader With a Fate Worse Than Maduro’s (Atlantic)

• ‘The power of the law must prevail’ amid Venezuela crisis, says Guterres (UN)

• Trump said Venezuela stole America’s oil. Here’s what really happened (CNN)

• China’s top diplomat accused the US of acting like a “world judge” by arresting Venezuela’s leader. Beijing is set to confront Washington at the United Nations over the move’s legality. (Reuters)

• US intervention in Venezuela could test Trump’s ability to hold GOP together in an election year (AP)

• Pentagon to cut Sen. Mark Kelly’s military retirement pay over ‘seditious’ video: Hegseth (CNBC)

• Sen. Mark Kelly fires back after Hegseth threatens his rank and retirement pay (NPR)

• Military Injustice (Atlantic)

• Jan. 6 plaque made to honor law enforcement nowhere to be found at the Capitol (ABC)

• How Does the American Dream Differ by Generation? (AOL)

• Men’s college basketball Top 25: Michigan’s dominance is breaking Vegas (Athletic)

• Lego announces Smart Brick, the ‘most significant evolution’ in 50 years (Verge)

• The ‘Godfather of SaaS’ says he replaced most of his sales team with AI agents: ‘We’re done with hiring humans’ (Business Insider)

• What’s next for AI in 2026 (Technology Review)

• ‘Intelition’ changes everything: AI is no longer a tool you invoke (VentureBeat)

• Nicolás Maduro Charged With Felony Oil Possession (Onion)

Road Show

So while many of us were still worrying about what authoritarianism would look like domestically, Trump was already turning his eyes abroad.

His undeclared, unauthorized, illegal war against Venezuela is just the start.

Now he is threatening similar action against Colombia and Cuba and once again he is eyeing the seizure of Greenland.

Imperialism abroad is every bit the mark of a dictator as is unilateral rule at home. In this case, an impatient Trmp has hit up against too many roadblocks, primarily in the courts, to fully implement his domestic agenda.

So he is taking his show on the road.

HEADLINES:

• NPR investigation shows how the government tried to erase information about January 6 (NPR)

• After Venezuela, Trump Offers Hints About What Could Be Next — Trump’s comments about Greenland, Colombia and Cuba offered a glimpse of how emboldened he feels after the quick capture of Nicolás Maduro. (NYT)

• How the operation to take out Venezuela’s Maduro unfolded (Axios)

• Trump Plunges the U.S. Into a New Era of Risk in Venezuela (NYT)

• Rubio Suggests U.S. Won’t Run Venezuela’s Government After Capturing Maduro (Forbes)

• Trump’s Attack on Venezuela Could Change the World. Here’s How. (Politico Mag)

• Trump wants Venezuela’s oil. Will his plan work? (BBC)

• Trump’s Audacious Success (Atlantic)

• Rubio takes on most challenging role yet: Viceroy of Venezuela (WP)

• Somebody Needs to Tell Trump Everybody Is Laughing at Him (Bulwark)

• Saudi-backed government forces retake multiple cities in southern Yemen (Al Jazeera)

• What to know about the protests now shaking Iran as tensions remain high over its nuclear program (AP)

• Scientists report surprising results following pesticide ban: 'It's extremely difficult to study this' (CoolDown)

• The Last Days of the Southern Drawl (Atlantic)

• The surprising benefits of a glass of orange juice (BBC)

• AI scientist Ling Haibin, father of world’s first plant ID app, leaves US for China (South China Morning Post)

• Computer scientist Yann LeCun: ‘Intelligence really is about learning’ (Financial Times)

• Recovering from AI delusions means learning to chat to humans again (WP)

 

Warding Off Evil Spirits

TOKYO: You can lay out some salt. Or you could bathe yourself in holy smoke. Or sip the holy water. Also, you can buy an arrow.

In every store window is the comical cat figure, waving one mechanical paw at you, blessing you and bringing good luck your way.



Eating the yummiest sautéed squid at midnight, with sashimi salad, and rice, I watched the New Year arrive on the Japanese public television station, NHK. Unfortunately, I could not understand a word they said, except for arrigato, domo, moshi moshi, go chi so sama, hai, konichiwa. 

Mainly, it was a song and dance extravaganza with many of the country's top performers on hand, and elaborate costumes arrayed in an elaborate choreography. An almost impossibly beautiful actress seemed to be the main host -- tall, slender, long black hair, perfect shaped face with a warm smile and sparkling black eyes.



The longer I am here, the more people I meet and questions I ask, the more concerned I become for the future of the Japanese. Today, Tokyo is Asia's greatest city, and the Japanese economy is humming along all right, though the rapid expansions of Korea and China make Japan look like it is moving in comparative slow motion.

But Japan's tremendous asset, which is the Japanese people themselves, is also its greatest problem. The homogeneity of the people is awe-inspiring. As one Japanese woman told me, "Look at us, we all look more or less the same. Of course some are taller or some are smaller and so on. But basically we all look very much like each other. And we think and act like each other too."

The population of Japan does seem to behave almost like one giant organism. What dissent there may be from social mores seems to rarely be expressed in public. As I've noted, even the notorious gangsters, the Yakuza, are invariably polite and modest toward others.

Everyone bows and thanks each other for almost any interaction that occurs. Just going to the restroom in a restaurant invariably involves the attempt to allow someone else to go in first; or upon exiting, to bow and excuse oneself to another who may have been patiently waiting outside the door.

Because Japanese will not speak to strangers, nor look anyone in the eye, they actually have a hard time meeting one another. There are definitely ways for people to flirt, for example, but it's hard to imagine a culture more distant from the open flirtatiousness of Brazilians, say, than the Japanese.



Only 1.5% of the population is non-Japanese; most of them Chinese or Korean. The Japanese do not always regard these groups favorably. They are included as gaijin (foreigner), along with Europeans, Africans, and Middle Easterners, etc.

Most of the Chinese flocking to Japan are students, and see a potential opportunity to graduate and then create careers here. It is somewhat comical to see how the Chinese and Japanese regard each other. The one is viewed as overly loud, pragmatic, self-assured; while the other in seen as too deferential, modest, and exceedingly quiet. It's not hard to see why they don't get along so well.

Although Americans seem to be the best-liked gaijin here, many Japanese do notice that American tourists tend to be large, loud, somewhat self-absorbed people. However, when interacting with Americans, the Japanese are so warm and polite and accommodating, most of us probably do not intuit any critical feelings whatsoever.

There is a strong undercurrent of discontent with U.S. policies, however. The Bush administration's extremely unpopular wars cause a lot of grumbling, especialy among Japanese men.



One of the main problems for the Japanese is that they are not reproducing themselves at high enough rates to sustain their aging population. Unlike the U.S., Japan has not opened its borders to the waves of immigrants who could revitalize the economy, and provide a domestic workforce to replace the dwindling number of Japanese of working age.

Another issue is how to foster more entrepreneurial activity here. A small but influential group of the country's top entrepreneurs still choose to leave for the friendlier environs of Silicon Valley, where they much more easily can make fortunes and explore promising technologies.

(Interestingly, Japan does not really have much of a "super rich" class like America tolerates. It is not seemly to become grandiose and pretentious. Wealthier Japanese often get involved in socially responsible causes -- much like Americans -- but they do so quietly, not seeking notice or credit for this work.)

Their powerfully ingrained sense of collectivity helps them recognize global warming and other planetary issues without the political noise of a greedy oil and gas industry, or the politicians who suck up to it. They consume far less of everything (except seafood) than Americans; they recycle everything, and they never litter!

Tokyo, though ancient and sprawling, is by far the cleanest city I have ever visited. Dog-owners have long cleaned up after their pets, and they don't need regulations or signs or racks of plastic bags on fences to do so. They carry their empty water bottles until they find the proper dispenser. They clean up their own tables in restaurants. Their large army of janitors incessantly sweep up and discard any small crumbs or pieces of material that escape an ever-vigilant citizenry protecting the commons as if it were their common home, which of course it is.

I could never produce a website like Sidewalk Images here!

To try and be more explicit about my fears for Japan, how will they adapt to a globalized world, one where nationalities are rapidly losing power to the emergence of a new global society. The revolution in communications technology has been partly led by the Japanese. They all have cell phones, and almost everyone seems to be text messaging, photographing, or dialing one another constantly.

But it is essentially a conversation with oneself that Japan is engaged in. They are not talking enough to the rest of us!

Make no mistake about it, I love this country and these people. I think we Americans could learn so many valuable lessons by studying Japanese behavior and comportment. Here more than anywhere else on earth, I feel my strong loyalty to environmentalism, to healthy eating and living, to a quiet spiritualism inside my own soul, interlocking with all others.

To be Japanese is to feel connected to all life. There is no cruelty to animals here. (Many men carry dogs around in cozy little frontpacks, and they very cute together.) There is virtually no waste in this society. On the other hand, there is a terrible rate of alcoholism and cigarette smoking. But drug use is relatively rare, as is the violent crime rate, and disruptions of the orderly business of living quietly on the earth are rare.

I'm not unaware of Japanese history, and how rapidly they can be transformed into the fearsome wave of killers who raped Nanking, and demolished Pearl Harbor. As I have said, the kamikazeswere the first international terrorists. So there are as many bad things to say about the Japanese as good things -- as is the case with every culture on earth.

I just wonder what this country and what these people will be like in 50 years. It seems possible that more tiny attempts here to document my visit may read like ancient history by then of a placid land before the Global Storm.

On behalf of the Japanese, I fear no amount of salt, holy smoke or water, arrows, shrines, or mechanical cats waving one paw can ward off the arrival of an unanticipated future.

2026 POSTSCRIPT: The non-Japanese portion of the country’s population has doubled over the past 19 years, but is still only about 3 percent. Tokyo is still has less litter than any other city on earth.

HEADLINES:

• ‘It sends a horrible signal’: US politicians react to capture of Nicolás Maduro (Guardian)

• Trump says U.S. will ‘run’ Venezuela; won’t rule out U.S. boots on the ground (WP)

• The End of CBS News (Mother Jones)

• Meet the UC Berkeley data team who proved Trump isn’t deporting just ‘worst of the worst’ (Berkeleyside)

• Swiss open criminal case against managers of ski resort bar after deadly fire (BBC)

• Sparklers likely started Swiss fire (Reuters)

• This Is the Nastiest Opinion by a Supreme Court Justice in 2025 (Slate)

• Judge Hannah Dugan resigns from court weeks after federal jury finds her guilty (MJS)

• Unrest flares in Iran (Reuters)

• The Vanishing Local Newsrooms Where Photographers Barely Exist (PetaPixel)

• A black market is providing cats with lifesaving medicine (Reveal)

• The Race for Global Domination in AI (Atlantic)

• If U.S.-China AI Rivalry Were Football, the Score Would Be 24-18 (WSJ)

• As Schools Embrace A.I. Tools, Skeptics Raise Concerns (NYT)

• Duffer Brothers Admit They Haven’t Watched ‘Stranger Things’ In Years (Onion)

Democracy the Myth That Survived

Coming up on the anniversary of the January 6th riot, we may wish to believe that the U.S. is still the place we thought it was, and that the riot was a mere aberration. But I fear it’s time to face the fact that America has changed for the worse in fundamental ways we haven’t yet fully grasped.

Democracy is a myth, albeit one of the most useful myths humans have ever constructed, and I for one believe in it wholeheartedly. But it doesn’t exist independently apart from our shared imaginations. It doesn’t exist in nature — there is no democracy in the web of life. Therefore, for it to work, the great majority of people who live within the myth need to want it to work.

The truth is it has been a very good myth for most of us. It is flawed, deeply flawed, but not as flawed as every other human social order — autocracy for example. And democracy won’t survive if millions of our fellow citizens don’t believe our elections are fair and are willing to instead to try to install someone else by force.

Unfortunately, this week there will be some who celebrate Jan. 6, 2021 as a positive memory and perhaps a few who will even try to replicate some form of the attack on democracy again. Congress continues its exhaustive probe of the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the evidence is horrifying but it will take a great writer to compile a report anyone will read, let alone believe.

And I’m not sure Congress contains any great writers.

What is the story? That the world’s strongest democracy came close to collapse? Even after a year of considering what happened, those words sound unreal, nightmarish. Yet hordes of our fellow citizens, some armed, all angry, rushed the Capitol seeking to disrupt the Electoral College from certifying the election of President Joe Biden.

The man who lost the election, Donald Trump, sat in the White House watching events unfold on TV after inciting the crowd to do exactly what they did. Remember how they chanted “Hang Mike Pence” and “Kill Nancy Pelosi” — were those empty threats?

I don’t think so.

From the Congressional investigation, we know Trump and his co-conspirators were plotting various options to keep him in power and subvert the vote of the people. That they were too ignorant and naive about the electoral process and how to successfully subvert it is what small, small comfort we have now.

Yes, we escaped disaster, barely, but Trump and his ilk know more about how the system works now, and some of the checks and balances that saved our system of government are more vulnerable now than they were a year ago.

Many of the county officials in swing states who refused to falsify returns under the pressure generated by Trump supporters have resigned or have been removed from office. The same with some of the Electors. Those replacing them may not act as ethically or as honestly should another closely contested election come down to the type of contested late counts as it did in 2020.

And given how deeply divided the country appears to be, it’s likely that the 2024 Presidential election will be very close again, even though we don’t yet even know who the candidates will be.

None of this is comforting. All those of us who care about such things can do for now is to remain vigilant and speak out whenever we can, which is what I’m doing today.

Of course, remaining silent is an option. It’s another way of saying you don’t think your opinion matters. Which is equivalent to thinking your vote doesn’t matter.

Which is one step away from ensuring that democracy will die.

HEADLINES:

• Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife were captured by U.S. military forces in an overnight raid that culminated months of threats by President Trump against the Maduro government. (NYT)

• FNI says it foiled a terrorist attack planned in North Carolina on New Year’s Eve (NBC)

• Even James Bond’s spycraft is no match for today’s technology (The Hill)

• US slashes proposed tariffs on Italian pasta imports (BBC)

• Trump Almost Has a Point About the Federal Reserve (Atlantic)

• Trump Throws a Fit After WSJ Publishes Story on His Decrepit Health (TNR)

• How Protesters Became Content for the Cops (Wired)

• Reading Is a Vice (Atlantic)

• A Study Is Retracted, Renewing Concerns About the Weedkiller Roundup (NYT)

• Swiss authorities search for answers after deadly New Year’s fire (WP)

• In China, A.I. Is Finding Deadly Tumors That Doctors Might Miss (NYT)

• Musk’s Grok AI bot says it’s fixing safeguard ‘lapses’ after posting of sexualized images of children (CNBC)

• As Schools Embrace A.I. Tools, Skeptics Raise Concerns (NYT)

• Study Finds 93% Of Murders Solved By Consulting Victim’s Pet Parrot (Onion)

Dawn

Six years ago, as the year 2020 got underway, I wrote a very short entry to my personal blog called “What is January 1st Good For?” 

Here it is:

“I should have guessed this, but the first day of the year is a very good day to work on your memoir. I woke early and almost immediately began writing. It makes sense. You can feel the transition of the years almost physically. That is a good context for this kind of work.”

At the time, I was in a hospital, recovering from a series of maladies. I had as yet no inkling of just how momentous a year 2020 was to be.

First there was Covid-19, the pandemic that virtually shut our world down, setting off a wave of repercussions we are still dealing with today.

Then came the George Floyd killing by Minneapolis police and an unprecedented outpouring of anger on our streets.

Public opinion over both Covid and the nascent Black Lives Matter movement was deeply split — and the significance of that division was magnified because it was an election year.

The incumbent president, Trump, chose to fan the flames of division in his quest for re-election. His opponent, Biden, talked of unity in an almost nostalgic way. Unity seemed as distant a dream in the USA in 2020 as it does today.

After a nasty campaign, Biden won by 7 million popular votes and by an Electoral College total of 306-232. It wasn’t really very close. The better guy won, fair and square.

But we all remember what happened next — the Jan. 6th riot early in 2021 and Trump’s effort to disrupt the official certification of the electoral result.

So once again, I asked myself yesterday, what is January 1st good for? Memoir-writing? Yes, perhaps.

But it’s also a time to recount this painful recent history and to steel ourselves for another rough mid-year election battle this time around. May our better angels once again prevail.

HEADLINES:

• Zohran Mamdani’s New York (New Yorker)

• Two people confirmed dead as Iran protests turn into ‘battlefield’ (Guardian)

• Trump tells WSJ he takes a higher daily dose of aspirin than his doctors advise in lengthy interview on his health (CNN)

• Border Patrol Chief Admits They’re Arresting U.S. Citizens (TNR)

• How the US could lose its Diego Garcia military base to China (The Hill)

• US health insurance costs to rise by 114% for millions as subsidies expire (France24)

• In plan for Ukraine, Trump faces fundamental differences with Russia (WP)

• Chief Justice says Constitution remains ‘firm and unshaken’ with major Supreme Court rulings ahead (AP)

• China Signals It Won’t Give an Inch to the U.S. in Latin America (WSJ)

• In 2025, quitting social media felt easier than ever (Engadget)

• Six Months Off the Street (Atlantic)

• About 40 people dead and 115 injured in fire at Swiss Alpine bar during New Year’s celebration (AP)

• Scientists Found a ‘Yellow Brick Road’ at The Bottom of The Ocean (ScienceAlert)

• DeepSeek kicks off 2026 with paper signalling push to train bigger models for less (South China Morning Post)

• OpenAI bets big on audio as Silicon Valley declares war on screens (TechCrunch)

• Health Speculations Swirl As Trump Seen With Damage Numbers Above Head (Onion)

And So It Begins

As 2025 slipped away and 2026 came into view, I was surrounded by perhaps 50 revelers counting down the last few seconds of the old and cheering the arrival of the new.

Everyone raised their glass to toast one another as fireworks lit up the sky to our west. The explosions reflected the wet vegetation around our neighborhood, as New Year’s Eve was a rainy affair here in Northern California.

Today is rainy as well.

The first thing I want to say in 2026 is thank you to everyone who subscribes to my newsletter. I’ve been doing this for the past six years since I retired from a 54-year career in journalism. A few days from now will mark the 60th anniversary of my first published story, which was in the Michigan Daily.

I remember going to a newsstand on campus that wintry day and seeing people pick up the paper and thinking, “I wonder what they would do if they knew I was the author of one of the stories they’re reading.”

On the other hand, it was unlikely that very many would even notice my story, which was a short item about the wrestling team buried near the back of the sports page. Yes, it was a modest beginning, but also a useful lesson in arrogance and modesty.

Most of the time, readers neither notice nor care who the author is — what they care about is the story. What this newsletter has always been about is the story of the times we are living through together, informed by the stories from the past half-century that provide the context for today’s headlines.

And speaking of headlines, there is one news item that bridged the news cycles overnight on this New Year’s that brought a ray of hope onto the bleak political landscape confronting us.

Quoting the New York Times, “President Trump said Wednesday that he would abandon for now his efforts to deploy the National Guard in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore. The president made his announcement shortly before a federal appellate court ruled that the Trump administration had to return hundreds of California National Guard troops to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s control.”

In the battle to preserve our democracy, chalk one up for the “No Kings” movement. And BTW, my newsletter has its own New Year’s Resolution for 2026: 

No Kings!