In recent weeks, I've been reading news story after news story about the struggle of local arts and journalism organizations to survive this pandemic. For that matter, nonprofits of all stripes are clearly in trouble.
At the same time, the accumulation of wealth by the few is accelerating. One appalling story today is how Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg are earning the equivalent of major stimulus packages on their own while Congress struggles to send $600 to people -- a paltry sum that isn't going to provide much relief to anybody for long.
The stock market remains at record heights while so many small businesses are closing up shop we're getting inured to the story. Around here, we are getting fearful of asking about this shop or that one, fearful of the answer. There are too many stories of this kind to tell and with the disappearance of local news outlets in many places there is no one to tell them.
The damage this is doing is going to be difficult, possibly impossible to undo. The interwoven arts and media ecologies are so disrupted at this point, with thousands of local newspapers dead or reduced to broadsheet status that any attempts to right this matter are starting from a point of weakness. But we will try.
Meanwhile, as I've warned repeatedly, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which has shielded free speech on the Internet, has also led us to the verge of a new era of censorship, this time enforced by the very Internet giants that that landmark 1996 legislation enabled to thrive.
The authoritarian president who declared journalists the "enemy of the people" so abused the truth in such egregious ways that he has forced the social media companies into censoring him, or at least trying to.
In the process, they have walked into a trap where his approach to communications -- the Big Lie -- is prevailing over First Amendment to the Constitution. We are all in deep trouble as a result.
People like me are overmatched by those who label what we do as "fake" news. Trump may have lost the election but he didn't lose his war on the press. Although he didn't articulate his hatred of the arts specifically, they are his collateral damage.
Public health experts warn that dark days are ahead in the pandemic.
Dark days are ahead for many other reasons as well.
***
Here's the latest dose of what Trump calls fake news:
* Even as global carbon emissions were expected to decrease by about 7% this year due to coronavirus restrictions on normal activities, this has only “briefly slowed ― but far from eliminated ― the historic and ever-increasing burden of human activity on the Earth’s climate,” United Nations enviromental researchers wrote in a December report. This year has seen record-breaking heat, wildfires and storms. [HuffPost]
* Child labor in palm oil industry tied to Girl Scout Cookies (AP)
* Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg fortunes grow by nearly $1 Trillion during pandemic (USA Today)
* Vaccinations lag as hospitalizations hover near record high (WashPo)
* New York Bans Most Evictions as Tenants Struggle to Pay Rent (NYT)
* The use of Snapchat, Instagram or TikTok can fray or strengthen teenagers’ ties to their friends, depending on whether the pals communicate the same way. (WSJ)
* Kentucky Is Hurting as Its Senators Limit or Oppose Federal Aid -- Urban and rural fortunes diverge in the state, with the pandemic compounding troubles that predated it. (NYT)
* Coronavirus infections have barely touched many of the remote islands of the Pacific, but the pandemic’s fallout has been enormous, disrupting the supply chain that brings crucial food imports and sending prices soaring as tourism wanes. (AP)
* Mexico is home to the world’s most powerful drug cartels, who have terrorized the country for years. Now the country is poised to try something different by legalizing one of their products: marijuana. (WSJ)
* South Africa imposes strict new rules as it surpasses 1 million covid-19 cases (WashPo)
* Drainage works unearth Roman baths in heart of Jordan's capital (Reuters)
* Spotify Celebrates 100th Dollar Given To Artists (The Onion)
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Hurt
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I'm still right here
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
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