No Place To Hide

Soft rains settled in over the Bay Area on Christmas Day, making staying inside much more attractive. It was my first non-news day in a long, long time but I didn't miss knowing what was happening in the external world at all. Instead, from morning to night, enveloped by my complicated nuclear families, it was the internal world that filled up the vacuum.  Having two distinct generations of kids -- three 40-somethings and three 20-somethings, allows me to notice a few contrasts. With the older set, they are all parents themselves now and my identity is Grandpa. They've survived their youths and now are raising kids who only know me as an old man. With the younger set, I am strictly and exclusively still just Dad. Their grandfathers are dead and the stage when they settle down and perhaps start their only families seems still some years away. Suspended by Covid-19 and a "no-jobs" economy, my younger children feel like they can't really finish the growing up stage yet. They can articulate that so openly that it breaks my heart to see them at once so immature and also much more mature that they ought to be. By contrast, my older children are directly capable of criticizing me and condescending to me when appropriate in ways that cut me to the bone. Their immaturities have been drummed out of them by the daily reminders that they (not me) are the adults in their worlds now. I love all six, each individually and specifically. It is also painfully clear to me that while I am the lone hinge that joins the two clusters of three (their mothers are not friends and don't talk) they grew up with the same Dad but at two distinct phases in his own life. The first three arrived in the world when I was 29-34.  The second three when I was 47-51. In between the world had its way with me and some part of me tore myself away from my youthful idealism and settled into a more determined realism, maybe with a touch of cynicism. The first three had a boy-Dad; the second three had a man-Dad. What was continuous, however, was my tendency to build a wall around my vulnerability and never let anybody -- not even them -- inside my emotional headquarters. You know, that place where the little guy behind the curtain works until Toto pulled the curtain back on him. Inevitably, as only one's children can do, they've all made their way inside my control room one by one. They see me not as I would choose them to see me but as they choose to see me. There is no place to hide in that kind of light. Besides, everything recently has changed yet again as I made it to the gates of Hell and back in the year of our lord 2019. When people ask me whether I am religious or believe in God, all I can do is find another way to convey the ineffable. It's easier just to chuckle at Clarence in Frank Capra's story, hoping to get his wings. In the movie when the characters hear bells ring it means another angel gets his wings. In my life it means one of my younger kids' cats is nearby. They wear bells in an effort by the kids to protect any nearby birds from their beloved, efficient predator pets. They try to protect the birds because they love their cats. So when we hear those bells ringing it means another angel gets to keep his wings. I guess all birds and humans need to develop some sort of self-protective system plus every living creature needs a little help along the way. When in the past my children sensed they were meeting a would-be girlfriend of mine, I could tell they had mixed feelings about whether they should help my (very faint) bells ring or let another visitor into the control booth. Who knew who was protecting whose wings anyway? As the character named Mark in "Love Actually" is unmasked by Juliet (Keira Knightly) and she realizes he has a major crush on her, he finally reaches his moment of truth. "It's a ... self-preservation thing," he mumbles. *** I feel like I have made it to a slight rise in life's desert and looking back can see my children all repeating those uncertain steps that got me here. The father/protector inside me wishes I had cleared a broader path and marked the turning points better, but it's too late to worry about that now. They'll get to where they're going no matter what I say or do.  Maybe the only useful advice I can offer is "You're perfect the way you are. just keep growing."  Then again, every generation needs to act like they are the first in the sweep of time and and then -- much later -- as if they are the last.  Of course we are always and eternally wrong on both counts. *** Sorry, no news headlines today. I might get used to this concept of being retired and not doing anything, but more probably my news curating team will be back on the job tomorrow. And fully dressed once again. -30-

Merry Christmas!

(With apologies to Clement Clarke Moore)

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

I am up and about on this very cold night 

Absorbing the news, without even a fight

While under the tree many packages stay

Patiently waiting for the coming of day

The dawn will bring music, chaos and joys

Especially for the children, both the girls and the boys

But for now it’s just me sitting here in the dark

Next to the tree, with nary a spark

This is the hour when I have to decide

Which words to employ, no one’s by my side

When the morning comes. these words will strike true

Or not, I don’t know, as that’s up to you

But deep in my struggle to make any sense

Out of Covid-19, vaccinations and silly old Pence

There’s still one feeling that really comes through

And that's Merry Christmas from me on to you!

***

According to legend, Clement Clarke Moore wrote The Night Before Christmas, for his family on Christmas Eve 1822. He never intended that it be published, but a family friend, Miss Harriet Butler, learned of the poem sometime later from Moore's children.

***

* A President Unhappy, Unleashed and Unpredictable -- President Trump remains the most powerful man in the world, but powerless to achieve what he most wants: to avoid leaving office as a loser. (NYT)

* Hours before President Donald Trump retweeted a message for his vice president to "act" in stopping the ratification of the Electoral College, he met for more than an hour in the Oval Office with Mike Pence, whom he has complained recently isn't doing enough to support his bid to overturn the election. (CNN)

* Vaccine opponents outline online campaigns designed to sow distrust in coronavirus shots (WashPo)

* GOP voters remain far likelier to align themselves with Trump than they are to side with other Republicans, a new HuffPost/YouGov survey shows. In the case of a disagreement between Trump and Republicans in Congress, 52% of Republican and Republican-leaning independent voters say they’d be more likely to support Trump. Only 15% say they would side with the GOP legislators. [HuffPost]

* Feminism Has Failed Women -- If the pandemic undid three decades of progress on gender equality, one has to wonder: How real was that progress in the first place? (NYT)

* Trump’s last-minute outburst throws pandemic relief effort into chaos (WashPo)

* Trump has arrived at his Palm Beach, Florida, resort for the 31st golf vacation there of his presidency, raising the taxpayer-funded travel and security total for his leisure to $151.5 million, according to a HuffPost analysis. Trump has played golf on his own properties 289 times since taking office in January 2017, although he claimed during his 2016 campaign that he would not have time for a vacation at all. [HuffPost]

* Isolation Helps Homeless Population Escape Worst of Virus -- Despite outbreaks in shelters and the prospect of more, the rates of infection among homeless populations are lower than feared (NYT)

* Could Trump declare martial law to try to steal the election? (WashPo)

* Boats, planes, helicopters: Canada gears up to vaccinate remote indigenous communities (Reuters)

* Trump vowed to drain the swamp. Then he granted clemency to three former congressmen convicted of federal crimes. (WashPo)

* A provision tucked into the pandemic relief package that Congress passed could go a long way toward ending one of the most notorious and exploitative practices of American health care. The provision would create a new law designed to stop “surprise bills” -- the charges people with health insurance get because, unknowingly, they received medical services from a provider who isn’t part of their insurance networks. [HuffPost]

* Scarred by 2020, Gen Z looks to a COVID-free future (Reuters)

* Trump administration pushes forward on $500 million weapons deal with Saudi Arabia (WashPo)

* Ninety percent of New Yorkers favor increasing taxes on millionaires and billionaires. (The Nation)

* Sonoma County ranks worst among Bay Area counties in Covid-19 prevalence. But officials there have taken no enforcement action against at least 15 large wedding gatherings. [The San Francisco Chronicle]

* Vaccines will work against virus variants spreading through U.K. and South Africa, experts believe (WashPo)

* When it comes to weird stories that keep getting weirder, the elusive "Jet Pack Guy" of Los Angeles pretty much takes the cake. After multiple reported sightings from airline pilots on more than one occasion of a guy in a jet pack flying around at thousands of feet near Los Angeles International Airport—some of the most congested airspace on earth—as well as ongoing FAA and FBI investigations into the matter, we now have credible video of what seems to be the flying object in question.The footage doesn't come to us from some random Reddit board or YouTube channel, either. It was taken during an instructional flight from Sling Pilot Academy in the training area off Palos Verdes. (The Drive)

* The movie "Love Actually" is trending on Twitter (Disney)

***

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed, A frosty, fiery sleepy-head; Blinks but an hour or two; and then, A blood-red orange, sets again. Before the stars have left the skies, At morning in the dark I rise; And shivering in my nakedness, By the cold candle, bathe and dress. Close by the jolly fire I sit To warm my frozen bones a bit; Or with a reindeer-sled, explore The colder countries round the door. When to go out, my nurse doth wrap Me in my comforter and cap; The cold wind burns my face, and blows Its frosty pepper up my nose. Black are my steps on silver sod; Thick blows my frosty breath abroad; And tree and house, and hill and lake, Are frosted like a wedding cake. -- Robert Louis Stevenson -30-

What Makes Wonderful?

 

Yep, I watched "It's a Wonderful Life" again this year. But until I read Zachary D. Carter's wonderful essay in The Huffington Post (2018), there were many things I didn't know about the film or the Sicilian immigrant behind it.

Hoping to revive a career that had been disrupted by the war, Frank Capra produced the film in 1946, but it bombed, losing a half million dollars at the box office. Critics panned it and he lost the rights and the negatives as his personal fortunes nose-dived, which was accelerated by the anti-Communist furor of the 1950s. (His crime was that he had briefly flirted with Marxism when he was younger.) 

He gradually reached such a hopeless state that he attempted suicide on a number of occasions.

When he looked back on making the film that ruined his career, he said: “I can’t begin to describe my sense of loneliness in making (it), a loneliness that was laced by the fear of failure. I had no one to talk to, or argue with.” 

The negatives lay unvisited for almost three decades, by which time the film, considered worthless, slipped into the public domain and was free for the taking. In the mid-1970s, PBS reclaimed it and aired it first. The commercial networks soon followed.

"By the mid-1980s, courtesy of the cold-eyed calculation of a new generation of television executives, “It’s A Wonderful Life” was reborn as a piece of spiritual Americana, spoofed by Saturday Night Live, colorized and submitted to other indignities of American commerce," explains Carter.

Capra lived long enough to see his prized work become a beloved classic before he died in 1991 at the age of 94. He always maintained that "It's a Wonderful Life" was the greatest film he ever made.

For me the core message of the film -- that you have to imagine the world without you if you are ever to grasp your impact -- provides a central truth we should all cherish.

In other words, never underestimate how your words and your actions -- your very presence as a living being -- can affect those around you, for better and for worse. That's what life has taught me, and what the film celebrates.

Once you fully accept that your words and actions have hurt the people you love, yet also have helped the people that you love, there is not really all that much you can do about any of that. Some people believe in a system of trying to make amends, but even that may fall short of actually making things feel right.

Ultimately, all that is left to us is the future, based on what we say and do now. And even at times when it seems most improbable, life can indeed still turn out to be wonderful.

But you are the only one who can make it that way -- well, maybe with a little help from your friends.

***

The news:

* Trump vetoes defense bill, teeing up holiday override votes in Congress (WashPo)

* How Cities Lost Control of Police Discipline -- In the chaos of 1960s Detroit, a fledgling police union laid the groundwork for a system that, to this day, constrains discipline for officers accused of misconduct. (NYT)

* Trump Pardons Manafort, Stone, Kushner's Father and Other Cronies (CNN)

* In tent cities, a grim future grows darker (Reuters)

* The Coronavirus Is Mutating, and America’s Leaders Are Flying Blind -- Travel restrictions might make sense, but what this country really needs is better disease surveillance. (NYT)

*

A season of fear, not cheer, as virus changes Christmas (AP)

* Republicans plunge into open battle over attempts to overturn Trump’s loss (WashPo)

* Head of election monitoring group gunned down in Afghan capital (Reuters)

* For Europe, It’s Wave After Wave -- In a roller coaster year of pandemic, the one constant has been the strain on frontline workers, who are already girding themselves for the next surge. (NYT)

* Echo of Coronavirus Didn’t Keep Beer Drinkers From Corona (WSJ)

* With hospitals nearly overwhelmed, officials say California ‘cannot afford’ another holiday surge (WashPo)

* Public Schools Face Funding ‘Death Spiral’ as Enrollment Drops -- Congress is sending more relief money to schools, but coronavirus-related costs and declining state funding tied to student enrollment are driving districts toward a financial crisis. (NYT)

* It’s time for Mike Pence to choose: Trump, or the truth (WashPo)

* South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, has taken a notably relaxed approach to the pandemic. This fall, nursing homes there saw a larger share of their residents die than in any other state. At Jenkins Living Center in Watertown, 24 residents have died from COVID-19 since the last week of October -- about a fifth of the residents there. Thirteen patients at Weskota Manor in Wessington Springs, over a third of its patients, died from COVID-19 this autumn, most of them in one week. [HuffPost]

* Google hired Timnit Gebru to be an outspoken critic of unethical AI. Then she was fired for it. (WashPo)

* State Investigates Second Outage-Caused Bay Area Sewage Spill in Months < https://www.kqed.org/news/11852567/state-investigates-second-outage-caused-ebmud-sewage-spill-in-months > (KQED)

* It's A Wonderful Life: The miraculous origins of a Christmas classic.(HuffPost)

***

Imagine a world where no music was playing
And think of a church with nobody praying
Have you ever looked up at a sky with no blue
Then you've seen a picture of me without you

Have you walked in a garden where nothing was growing
Or stood by a river where nothing was flowing
If you've seen a red rose unkissed by the dew
Then you've seen a picture of me without you

Can you picture Heaven with no angels singing
Or a quiet Sunday morning with no church bells ringing
If you've watched as the heart of a child breaks in two
Then you've seen a picture of me without you

Can you picture Heaven with no angels singing
Or a quiet Sunday morning with no church bells ringing
If you've watched as the heart of a child breaks in two
Then you've seen a picture of me without you

-- Songwriters: George Richey / Norris D Wilson

-30-

"I Recommend Old Age"

The very last news summary in my curated list today comes not from The Onion but from an interview with the poet Nikki Giovanni, who is 77, in The New York Times Book Review. That's her quote as my headline.

Too often, I think, we all express ambiguous feelings toward the elderly. That they are the object of jokes is so ingrained in our sense of humor that most of the time we don't even know we are doing it.

Dementia is the particular condition that feeds this line of humor, perhaps because it scares us all so profoundly. We've all made fun of the absent-minded oldster, but witnessing somebody you love slip away mentally is actually one of the most deeply painful experiences we will ever go through.

This year, 2020, is a year when the elderly have been dying at elevated rates, since the Covid-19 virus discriminates against those older than 60 like a predator stalking a fleeing herd of antelope. The old ones, weak and frail, are the first to be picked off.

But the herd loses more than its weakest link as the old perish; it loses its collective memory, its hard-earned wisdom, its ultimate compassion for our overall condition.

When you are sad or lonely or doubting of yourself, that might be a time to turn to an aged member of your community. Thankfully, there are many of us still around, and we tend to have more time on our hands than you might expect.

Think we take those naps every day because we need to? Think again -- we are just bored. But when a younger person -- of any age -- asks us a question, most of us will light up, because we might just have an opinion on that subject and we are pleased be asked.

What we say might sometimes surprise you. 

The other night, one of my youngest grandchildren was  discussing how much she believes in Santa Claus.

"I believe in Santa Claus a lot and I'm pretty sure Oliver (9) does too. I know Sophia (9) does for sure," said Daisy (6). 

Overhearing this, their grandfather (~11) piped up: "Well, I believe in Santa Claus too." 

"You see," added Daisy. "Grandpa believes in him too. That does it."

***

Crossing a certain age threshold varies person to person, but most of us eventually reach an age when we know, viscerally, that it is time to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

Over my lifetime, I've used words at times to tell stories, good and bad. As a journalist, I've used words to rip into powerful people and organizations, slicing them like an onion into bits so small that they cry. And sometimes I cry too.

It's a vicious art, muckraking. Once you've documented your case, you smell blood as you close in on your query, much like a tiger chasing a wounded antelope. You know you shouldn't feel a thrill at this moment, but you do.

If you become a serial investigative reporter, you have chosen a path not unlike that of a serial killer, but luckily there is the First Amendment to the Constitution to reassure you that you have the right, and perhaps even the duty, to take this action. And the ones you take down are not old or weak but the bad ones at the top of their power over the herd. The ones leading the herd in the wrong direction.

But after many "kills" over many decades, as B.B. King would say in another context, you do reach the point where "the thrill is gone." It's time for someone else to take over.

I've loved B.B. King for a long time and I love that song. I also love Nikki Giovanni and her poems. A particularly timely one for all of us who are following what is happening in Georgia is reprinted at the end of this essay.

***

The news:

* Trump on Tuesday said he is asking for changes to the coronavirus relief bill passed by Congress, leaving the future of the $900 billion stimulus in doubt. Trump's position could threaten to torpedo the carefully drafted bill and lead to a government shutdown and send the economy into a tailspin if he carried through with a veto. He wants the $600 payment per person increased to $2000. (CNN)

* Alex Padilla will be the next Senator from California. (Gov. Gavin Newsom)

* Trump on Tuesday announced a wave of lame duck pardons, including two for men who pleaded guilty in Robert Mueller's investigation, as well as ones for Republican allies who once served in Congress and military contractors involved in a deadly shooting of Iraqi civilians. (CNN)

* Biden to push for more coronavirus relief, setting up a clash with GOP (WashPo)

* Virus Hits Federal Death Row, Prompting Calls for Delays in Executions (NYT)

* Google, Facebook Agreed to Team Up Against Possible Antitrust Action, Draft Lawsuit Says (WSJ)

* Televangelist Pat Robertson says it’s time for Trump to accept Biden’s win and ‘move on’ (WashPo)

* Trump soon will be unable to hide from the women accusing him of sexual assault (MoJo)

* The sparse gatherings around the iconic Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree mark the latest New York City tradition upended by the pandemic (WSJ)

* Navalny Says Russian Agent Confessed to Plot to Poison Him (NYT)

* The Israeli government collapsed on Tuesday at midnight (17.00 EST) local time after the country's parliament failed to meet a deadline for passage of the 2020 and 2021 budgets. Israel will now head to its fourth elections in two years, probably on March 23 next year. (CNN)

*Several sources inside and outside the Senate say that 87-year-old Dianne Feinstein’s cognitive ability is in steep decline. “There’s definitely been deterioration in the last year,” one aide to a Democratic senator said. (The New Yorker)

* In confronting climate change, Biden won’t have a day to waste (WashPo)

* Coronavirus reaches end of earth as first outbreak hits Antarctica (Reuters)

* Mexico Misled Citizens About the Severity of Coronavirus in its Capital (NYT)

* More Americans are traveling to Mexico’s Riviera Maya than ever before. The parties have led to more coronavirus cases. (WashPo)

* The private bankers responsible for lending to President Donald Trump and Jared Kushner have resigned from Deutsche Bank, the bank said. (CNN) 

* Putin signs bill granting lifetime immunity to former Russian presidents -- Legislation will give former leaders and their families protection from prosecution (The Guardian)

* A Brazen Police Shooting Caught on Video Sparks Anger in the Philippines (NYT)

* The Village Voice, which closed in 2018 after more than half a century of chronicling New York City’s cultural life, will return early next year (WSJ)

* So long, 2020. We won’t miss you. (Eugene Robinson, WashPo)

* California’s overwhelmed hospitals are setting up makeshift extra beds for coronavirus patients, and a handful of facilities in hard-hit Los Angeles County are drawing up emergency plans in case they have to limit how many people receive lifesaving care.The number of people hospitalized across California with confirmed COVID-19 infections is more than double the state’s July peak, and a state model forecasts the total could hit 75,000 patients by mid-January. [AP]

‌* This is the deadliest year in U.S. history, with deaths expected to top 3 million for the first time — due mainly to the coronavirus pandemic. The United States looks on track to see more than 3.2 million deaths this year, at least 400,000 more than in 2019. U.S. deaths increase most years, so some annual rise in fatalities is expected. But the 2020 numbers amount to a jump of about 15%, and could go higher once all the deaths from this month are counted. [AP]

* Newsmax, a far-right news network that routinely peddles baseless conspiracy theories that favor Trump, began airing a clarification of its bogus coverage of voter fraud in the presidential election. In a nearly two-minute statement that followed lawsuit threats, the channel is walking back its own groundless claims that electronic voting system companies Smartmatic and Dominion were involved in an attempt to steal the election. Fox News has also been reading statements debunking its baseless election fraud coverage.[HuffPost]

* A man dressed as Santa was rescued after he got stuck in some power lines while flying a powered parachute. He was reportedly on his way to deliver candy canes to neighborhood children. He was OK. [KCRA]

* The poet Nikki Giovanni was part of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s and part of a Biden campaign ad in 2020. During all those years, she has never stopped writing. “I recommend old age,” she tells us. “There’s just nothing as wonderful as knowing you have done your job.” (NYT)

***

VOTE

It’s not a hug
Nor mistletoe at Christmas

It’s not a colored egg
At Easter
Nor a bunny hopping
Across the meadow

It’s a Vote

Saying you are
A citizen

Though it sometimes
Is chocolate
Or sometimes vanilla
It can be a female
Or a male
It is right
Or left
I can agree
Or disagree but
And this is an important but
I am a citizen

I should be able
To vote from prison
I should be able
To vote from the battlefield
I should be able  
To vote when I get a driver’s license
I should be able
To vote when I can purchase a gun
I must be able
To vote
If I’m in the hospital
If I’m in the old folks’ home
If I’m needing a ride
To the Polling Place

I am a citizen

I must be able to vote

Folks were lynched
Folks were shot
Folks’ communities were gerrymandered
Folks who believed
In the Constitution were lied to
Burned out
Bought and sold
Because they agreed
All Men Were Created Equal

Folks vote to make us free

-- Nikki Giovanni

-30-