Learn About That

 

2021: We know how it starts, stuck in the grasp of its predecessor. The virus is very much still here and Trump is still scheming to disable our democracy. But unless the Covid variant upends the vaccine and/or Trump's sycophants upend the Constitution, this should gradually evolve into a year of healing and recovery.

Whatever else happens in 2021, I hope we can collectively overcome the darkness that enveloped us in 2020. Because there is much work to be done. 

As we gathered around the fire in the backyard here to toast the New Year on its Eve, my son-in-law raised a revealing question: "Was 2020 really the worst year of your life?"

None of us could honestly say that it was. For me, for example, 2019 had been much worse.

His rhetorical question had a point, and that was that there were a lot of good aspects to last year, pandemic and all. Families spent more time together, home cooking and book groups flourished, friendships had to be virtual but somehow felt more intimate and precious. All of us developed a new appreciation for our front-line workers and care-givers.

For each other.

Also, 2020 was a year of near-misses when a direct hit would have been far more damaging. We escaped the efforts of a tyrant to ruin America's democratic experiment. The type of political system developed in this country proved to be fragile enough to be vulnerable to attempts to undermine it, and strong enough to withstand the most serious effort to do so since the early years of the republic.

We also escaped a far worse toll from Covid-19 than would have been the case had our pubic health officials not prepared for years for the unknown to strike. They knew how to counsel us to stay safe; unfortunately too many of us didn't listen, but it could have been much, much worse.

Perhaps when it comes to the largest known threat to our future -- global climate change -- 2020 was just bad enough in fires and superstorms that we will now muster the political will to tackle that issue. I am hopeful that the Biden administration will take the next critical steps needed in that regard.

Meanwhile, there continue to be new discoveries that help us imagine life elsewhere in the universe, and perhaps there will be some news in that category this year.

The report that SETI has discovered another mysterious radio signal from a nearby star may eventually be explained as an inadvertent human echo, as have previous signals, but then again it may prove to be a sign of intelligent life beyond earth.

I'd like to live long enough to learn about that.

Which brings me to a resolution of mine this year. I want to communicate the reasons to "live long enough" to anyone who will listen. Because all of us in our lowest moments need to locate the hope to carry on.

But if you let it, your mind will deliver some as-yet unrealized dreams and aspirations that will inspire you, and perhaps, just perhaps, help you focus on this idea:

"I'm glad I lived long enough to learn about *that*!

***

Hey, if you're reading this, you're still alive, I presumably am, and so is the news...

* Was That a Dropped Call From ET? -- A spooky radio signal showed up after a radio telescope was aimed at the next star over from our sun. (NYT)

* Out with the old, in with the few: The pandemic has changed New Year’s Eve (WashPo)

* Georgia runoff elections that next week will decide which party controls the U.S. Senate, according to a final tally released on Friday. (Reuters)

* Once a model, California now struggles to tame COVID-19 (AP)

* Tech That Will Change Your Life in 2021 -- New ways to work, exercise, see the doctor, watch movies and sanitize every surface in sight will continue to proliferate. So will monthly subscription fees. (WSJ)

* Misinformation Lit The Fire Under A Year Of Political Chaos In Michigan (NPR)

* Trump’s Focus as the Pandemic Raged: What Would It Mean for Him? (NYT)

* Federal judge throws out Gohmert lawsuit asking Pence to interfere in Electoral College count (CNN)

* Senator Mitt Romney on Friday urged the U.S. government to immediately enlist veterinarians, combat medics and others in a sweeping proposal to administer coronavirus vaccinations and slow the rising death toll. (Reuters)

* Biden, Pelosi Aim to Unite Fractious Democrats -- The president-elect and House speaker share the job of steering a divided Democratic coalition amid a pandemic and an economy recovering from a deep slump. (WSJ)

* Men have died of the coronavirus in larger numbers than women, leaving untold thousands of spouses suddenly alone. Some have turned to bereavement groups on Facebook. (NYT)

* The Philippines will ban travelers who were recently in the U.S. starting on Sunday after a third state confirmed a COVID-19 case with the new strain that experts say is more contagious. (The Hill)

* Taliban carrying out campaign of terror in Afghan capital ahead of peace talks next week (WashPo)

* A more infections variant of COVID-19 that has swept through the United Kingdom has been identified in Florida, state health officials said on Thursday, marking the third known U.S. state to identify such a case. (Reuters)

* Department of Defense medical personnel have deployed to hospitals in San Joaquin Valley and Southern California, two of the state’s regions hardest hit by the pandemic. (KQED)

* Donald Trump Jr. Refuses To Step Down From Post Of President’s Oldest Son (The Onion)

***

"This is the New Year"

Say everything you've always wanted,

Be not afraid of who you really are,

Cause in the end we have each other,

And that's at least one thing worth living for,

And I would give the world to you

-- Songwriters: Axel Ian / Vaccarino Chad

-30-

Welcome to Ya', TwentyTwentyOne

 

If you soak yourselves in the news day after day, certain instincts start coming into play. These are partly due to your own inherent pattern-recognition skills (everyone has them) but may also be triggered by the particular story at hand.

So my instincts have been flashing red warning lights ever since the first news of this new variant of Covid-19 appeared. Although much of the coverage so far has been reassuring -- that the vaccines will work against it, that countries are acting aggressively to contain it -- other indications are more unsettling.

What if the virus is just mutating everywhere, essentially spontaneously, and it turns out we are as helpless against it as the original version of this horrible disease? What if it has new, as-yet undiagnosed symptoms and consequences? 

What if everything is about to become very much worse?

Normally, you would assume a person raising such questions is a cynic, a pessimist, a Cassandra. But remember, I'm the optimistic guy.

It's just that everything about this virus has been shocking in unprecedented ways, so I'm trying to prepare myself for the worst. I didn't do that last time and look what happened.

But this time, let's hope my instincts are irrevocably wrong.

***

After sunset Wednesday night, as we were drifting slowly away from San Francisco's ferry landing, with the low roar of the boat's engine and the soft swaying of the sea celebrating our departure, I left my relatively large family group of 11 and chose to sit inside alone.

The rest of them sat up top on the deck in the open air with the better view.

As the boat slowly flanked and vectored toward Oakland under the great and mighty Bay Bridge, a handmade sign flickered from the shore, lit up in one of the buildings.

It read: "Thank you, Dr. Fauci."

Amidst all the bad things that 2020 visited upon us, Fauci is an exception -- one of the very good things. Plus, at age 80, he had been here for a long time; most of us just didn't realize that we had him. Among my New Year's resolutions is a wish -- may he live to 100, at least.

And another hope is that we discover more human treasures among us like Anthony Fauci.

***

Happy New Year! Let the news begin...

* Wall Street soared in 2020 as millions were hungry or out of work -- Despite the ongoing public health and economic crises, the markets’ comeback has further enriched the wealthy, all while a deadly pandemic has claimed the lives of more than 340,000 Americans and left millions jobless and without enough to eat. (WashPo)

* Discovery of Virus Variant in Colorado and California Alarms Scientists -- A more contagious version of the coronavirus may alter the course of the pandemic in the United States, researchers said. (NYT)

* VACCINE ROLLOUT IS WAY BEHIND SCHEDULE Trump administration officials were saying just a few weeks ago that 20 million Americans could be vaccinated against COVID-19 by year’s end. Now here we are, and only 2.1 million people have gotten shots. Meanwhile, elderly Floridians have been camping out overnight in line for the vaccine. [HuffPost]

* Vaccines Are Safe, No Matter What Bobby Kennedy Says (Kerry Kennedy Meltzer/NYT)

* Vaccines issued slowly as federal officials leave final steps to beleaguered states (WashPo)

* Local funding crisis threatens U.S. vaccine rollout (Reuters)

* Schools in India have been closed since March. The costs to children are mounting. (WashPo)

* The Canadian government said passengers must have a negative COVID-19 test taken within three days before they arrive in the country. Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc said the measure will be implemented in the next few days. Canada already requires those entering the country to self-isolate for 14 days, and has banned flights from the United Kingdom because of the new COVID-19 mutation spreading there. [AP]

* U.K. Authorizes Covid-19 Vaccine From Oxford and AstraZeneca -- Health officials hope to soon vaccinate up to two million people per week as the country’s hospitals are overwhelmed by cases of a new, more contagious coronavirus variant. (NYT)

* The leading U.S. infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said on Wednesday he foresees America achieving enough collective COVID-19 immunity through vaccinations to regain "some semblance of normality" by autumn 2021, despite early setbacks in the vaccine rollout. (Reuters)

* Trump is inciting chaos on Jan. 6, both in and outside the Capitol (WashPo)

* Woman Coaches in NBA and Makes History (WSJ)

* New Year’s Eve got off to a rocky start early Thursday as a 3.6 magnitude struck along the San Andreas Fault just south of Muir Beach and was felt widely in San Francisco and Marin County. (CBS)

* The Democrats have opened leads in Georgia; Ossoff by 1% and Warnock by 1.9%. (538)

* The city and county of San Francisco will be extending its stay-at-home order and mandatory 10-day quarantine requirement amid the ongoing coronavirus surge, officials announced in a news release on Thursday. (CNN)

* "One of the stranger aspects of 2020 has been the way the pandemic has made time feel more elastic. Months passed in what felt like days. Days felt like eternities." (Jill Cowan/NYT)

* "We all want 2020 to end." (Gavin Newsom, yesterday / Twitter) Update @ 12:01 a.m. It did. (DW)

* Jubilant Reaction To Trump Defeat Quickly Soured By News Of Biden Win (The Onion)

***

I see trees of green
Red roses too
I see them bloom 
For me and you
And I think to myself 
What a wonderful world

I see skies of blue 
And clouds of white
The bright blessed day
The dark sacred night
And I think to myself 
What a wonderful world

The colors of the rainbow 
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces 
Of people going by
I see friends shaking hands
Saying how do you do
They're really saying
I love you

I hear babies cry
I watch them grow
They'll learn much more 
Than I'll ever know
And I think to myself 
What a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself 
What a wonderful world
Ooh, yes

-- Louis Armstrong (Composers: Bob Thiele / George David Weiss)

-30-

Year's End, Finally

By (nearly empty) ferry across San Francisco Bay to the city we went for the day, navigating The Embarcadero from the Ferry Building to Pier 39, just like the tourists do. Only this year there are no tourists; only local folks walking, jogging, scootering, biking, skating or singing their way along the waterfront.

It was the first time in years that I've been there but most of the old landmarks remain -- Fog City Diner, Pier 23, Coit Tower, the sea lions. San Francisco is the kind of city where even if you live here you don't mind playing tourist.

Otherwise, it was a mellow, melancholy day, a chance to look back over 2020 and wonder at its endless cycles of chaos, collectively and personally. I spent the first nine days of last January in a skilled nursing facility, the next two months in an assisted living community, and the rest of the year living in different households with my children.

We gave away virtually all my possessions before  I gradually started recovering my health, which early on had not been a given. But I also started posting these essays to Facebook, almost by accident, and made lots of new friends.

Although technically I was retired, my workload easily equalled that when I was employed. Several reporters asked me to help them on investigative projects; I did and loved it, as always. It finally occurred to me that in my case, "retired" means the freedom to write, all the time and without any strings attached.

Besides my essays, I started curating the news because people encouraged me to do that. This space on Facebook became my own little daily broadcast. Since it was an election year, there was plenty of political news, but it unfolded like a train crash in slow motion. The emergence of an authoritarian president ended any sense that this could be a normal election cycle. It was impossible to remain neutral, which is my training and my inclination. I had to speak out.

Because it wasn't a normal election -- the choice was democracy or tyranny.

Huge environmental insults, including monstrous wildfires and hurricanes, presaged an early arrival of the long-predicted climate changes that will alter life on the planet. I developed a sense of urgency and mission to somehow contribute to raising consciousness about climate change while there is still time -- if indeed there actually is still time.

***

The election has not even been certified yet, but the signs are already clear that the Democratic Party is splintering ideologically. The left is dissatisfied with Biden's moderate approach and wants a much more radical agenda. Progressives are already blaming the party's center wing for losing seats in the House and Senate they thought should have been won.

The problem with that analysis is "How could they have won? By being more leftist?"

I doubt that.

There are attractive young radical Democrats, led by the charismatic A.O.C., but history warns us that when one of the parties veers too far from the middle, the electorate will turn away. So I'm talking about 2022 and 2024 now and I have two cautionary tales:

Goldwater in 1964 and McGovern in 1972. One too far right, one too far left. Both catastrophic electoral failures.

I've got bad news for my many progressive friends -- Americans are not going to elect a self-professed socialist at this stage in our history. So any attempt to move the Democratic Party that far leftward is doomed to failure. Besides, any political movement that demonizes Republicans generally and excludes small-town, rural Americans is a movement that will almost certainly backfire.

Biden has the right approach for now -- heal the country, beat the virus, bring back the economy, try to serve everybody. Speak particularly to those alienated voters who supported Trump. Trust me, they are not all QAnon fanatics and idiots. And their sense of alienation is real.

Perhaps our best hope as a nation and a people is to rebuild the institutions of democracy, including our local press, and forge a consensus on overcoming the existential threat of global climate change. We need alternative energy systems, sustainable environmental policies, new housing initiatives, wealth equality, and end to racism, equal rights for all, and an equitable distribution of resources.

These are not socialist ideas; these are survivalist ideas. 

***

Every night as I sort through the news, there are odd items that make me stop and wonder what the hell is going on out there beyond my window. This night one such report is that squirrels have been attacking people in Queens. When I mentioned this to my 12-year-old grandson, he had the perfect observation:

"I guess 2020 just had to squeeze one more crappy thing out in its final hours."

***

The news:

* "Our son Christopher Allen was killed in South Sudan. We urge Biden to protect journalists like him." (Joyce Krajian and John Allen / WashPo)

* Significant numbers of coronavirus patients experience long-term symptoms that send them back to the hospital, taxing an already overburdened health system. (NYT)

* As U.K. coronavirus cases hit record high, health-care workers are overwhelmed (WashPo)

* Will Pence Do the Right Thing? -- On Jan. 6, the vice president will preside as Congress counts the Electoral College’s votes. Let’s hope that he doesn’t do the unthinkable — and unconstitutional. (NYT)

* A top federal prosecutor who issued a bizarre statement during the 2020 campaign that helped fuel President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of mass voter fraud has announced his impending resignation. U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania David J. Freed, who was appointed by Trump in 2017, said Tuesday that he will resign his office at midnight on Jan. 1, just 19 days before Joe Biden is sworn into office as the 46th president of the United States. [HuffPost]

* Bracing for a possible Iranian-linked attack, U.S. officials warn ‘the threat streams are very real’ (WashPo)

* Experts say that the worst of climate change’s effectshave arrived more quickly than even many scientists expected. And that has wide-ranging implications about which parts of California are habitable, as well as how many resources must be devoted to managing fires, figuring out where crops will grow and more. (NYT)

* Legal Abortion, Once a Long Shot in Catholic Argentina, Now Within Reach  -- A bill before the Senate would make abortion legal in the predominantly Catholic nation, the homeland of Pope Francis. Its approval likely would have significant effect across Latin America. (NYT)

* Squirrel-Mania! Queens Residents Describe In Graphic Detail Being Attacked By Crazed Rodents (CBS)

***

The Twentieth Century Is Almost Over

Back in 1899, when everyone was singing "Auld Lang Syne" 
A century took a long, long time for every boy and girl. 
Now there's only one thing that I'd like to know 
Where did the 20th century go? 
I'd swear it was here just a minute ago 
All over this world. 

And now the 20th century is almost over, 
Almost over, almost over 
The 20th century is almost over 
All over this world. 
All over this world, all over this world 
The 20th century is almost over, all over this world. 

Does anyone remember the Great Depression? 
I read all about it in True Confession 
I'm sorry I was late for the recording session 
But somebody put me on hold. 
Has anybody seen my linoleum floors 
Petroleum jelly, and two World Wars? 
They got stuck in the revolving doors 
All over this world. 
And now... 

The winter's getting colder, summer's getting hotter 
Wishin' well's wishin' for another drop of water. 
And Mother Earth's blushin'' 'cause somebody caught her 
Makin' love to the Man in the Moon. 
Tell me how you gonna keep 'em down on the farm 
Now that outer space has lost its charm? 
Somebody set off a burglar alarm 
And not a moment too soon. 
Because... 

Old Father Time has got his toes a tappin' 
Standing in the window, grumblin' and a rappin' 
Everybody's waiting for something to happen. 
Tell me if it happens to you! 
The Judgment Day is getting nearer 
There it is in the rear view mirror. 
If you duck down I could see a little clearer 
All over this world! 

 -- © by Steve Goodman, John Prine

P.S. Factcheck: It apparently ended twenty years ago.

-30-

Where It Does Hurt

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)

***

Hurt

 (Best version by Johnny Cash)

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real

The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end

And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair

Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I'm still right here

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end

And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

Songwriter: Michael Trent Reznor

Roots in Love

Like humans, trees live together in families. The parents raise their children, care for them when they are ill, share food and warn each other of impending danger. In "The Hidden Life of Trees," Peter Wohlleben recounts the scientific evidence for all of this, including that trees communicate with each other through their root systems.

Wohlleben says it's hard for us to comprehend the social and emotional life of trees because we live on such radically different time scales. He describes a spruce tree in Sweden that is over 9,500 years old -- 100 times older than a very elderly human being.

I knew a 95-year-old man (not a tree) where I was living earlier this year. He loved to play dominoes with a friend and he welcomed me to watch so I might learn how to play the game.

The two men usually played in the game room at our facility, but it was closed off for repairs one day so we decided to repair to his room. I'd never before visited another resident's quarters.

In his room was a centrally displayed photo of his wife, who had passed away years earlier. Clearly, she had been the love of his life. And when he spoke of her, it was always in the present tense.

When I think about the truest measure of enduring human love, it usually is based in the continued ability to communicate with each other. Call it intuition, empathy, or just an unusually mutual understanding, but loving couples always seem to have achieved this kind of bond.

Besides trees and humans, many other animals and plants communicate and maintain social organizations, of course: Ants, elephants, fungi, monkeys, lions, flowers, bushes, penguins...the list goes on and on, without even mentioning domesticated species like dogs and cats.

By contrast, a broken communication system seems to signal impending death of a relationship in any species. It certainly ends the chance for human couples to stay together, for example.

So I wonder, do trees ever get divorced? Kicked out of their families? Go to couples' counseling? Probably not, I'm guessing, and maybe we could learn something from that.

With so few of the many animal and plant species even catalogued yet, let alone studied and understood, and at the same time so many of them endangered by human domination, I have a pessimistic feeling about our species surviving anything near as long as the time scale of that Swedish spruce.

For that reason, one field we desperately need to encourage our students to pursue is biology with all of its subsets (zoology, microbiology, genetics and evolutionary biology) in order to better enhance our appreciation for and conservation of our fellow living species.

We need to do this as if our lives depended on it.

***

The latest news...

* A divided nation asks: What’s holding our country together? (AP)

* The House of Representatives on Monday voted to override President Donald Trump's veto of the sweeping defense bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act, delivering a bipartisan rebuke to the President. (CNN)

 * The Place Hit Hardest by the Virus -- The coronavirus has disfigured Gallup, a small New Mexico town near Native American reservations, that is now one of the hardest hit places in the country. (NYT)

* After a year of pandemic and protest, and a big election, America is as divided as ever (WashPo)

* The Pandemic Is Imperiling a Working-Class College -- The coronavirus has hurt Indiana University of Pennsylvania, but its financial problems were planted years ago. (NYT)

* When he was 4, Santiago Potes' parents fled Colombia and settled in Miami. Now, at 23, he's a new graduate of Columbia University — and the first Latino DACA recipient to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. (NPR)

* As COVID-19 ravages U.S., shootings, killings are also up (AP)

* The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Monday said it is issuing long-awaited rules to allow for small drones to fly over people and at night, a significant step toward their use for widespread commercial deliveries. (Reuters)

* The high-altitude Whitebark Pine is vital to its ecosystem, but it’s being decimated by a fungus. Its admirers are fusing old and new methods to bring it back. (Wired)

* Biden accuses Trump appointees of obstructing transition on national security (WashPo)

* A former official in the George W. Bush administration blasted Republicans Saturday for continuing to back an “unhinged” and “delusional” Donald Trump and his twisted “fantasy” about a rigged presidential election. Elise Jordan, an MSNBC political analyst who worked as a speechwriter for former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, commented as Trump seems eager to sow chaos to get the GOP to block the results of the 2020 election on Jan. 6. [HuffPost]

* President Trump’s donors — the vast majority of whom are working-class supporters and retirees contributing just a few dollars a month — put $10.5 million into the erstwhile billionaire’s own personal businesses over the course of his presidency, a HuffPost analysis found. Some $8.5 million came from the Trump campaign and related entities that Trump controls directly. [HuffPost]

* The pandemic forced us to live our lives online. (WashPo)

* Hypnosis, now going virtual, is gaining more acceptance from doctors, researchers and entrepreneurs. But potential patients remain skeptical. (WSJ)

* A new species of flowering plant has been found in Hawaii and the details have mystified botanists.“Only one individual of the new species, named Cyanea heluensis, is currently known from a remote location in West Maui,” Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources said. (Sacramento Bee)

* Current polling in Georgia Senate races: Perdue (R) leads Ossoff (D) by 0.1%; Warnock (D) leads Loeffler (R) by 1%. (538)

* In a Village of Widows, the Opium Trade Has Taken a Deadly Toll -- Afghan men in an impoverished border settlement die trying to smuggle opium into Iran, leaving behind loved ones forced to survive on their own. (NYT)

* Heavy snow forecast over wide areas of Japan (NHK)

* China imprisons citizen journalist for Wuhan lockdown reports during height of coronavirus outbreak (WashPo)

* Journalism got more dangerous in 2020 — including in the United States (WashPo)

* How Biden can undo damage to U.S.-backed news outlets that counter authoritarian propaganda (WashPo)

* Minneapolis Announces Plan To Replace Police Officers With Thousands Of Heavily Armed Social Workers (The Onion)

***

"Highway Patrolman"

My name is Joe Roberts I work for the state
I'm a sergeant out of Perrineville barracks number eight
I always done an honest job as honest as I could
I got a brother named Frankie and Frankie ain't no good

Now ever since we was young kids it's been the same come down
I get a call over the radio Frankie's in trouble downtown
Well if it was any other man, I'd put him straight away
But when it's your brother sometimes you look the other way

Yeah me and Frankie laughin' and drinkin'
Nothin' feels better than blood on blood
Takin' turns dancin' with Maria as the band
Played "Night of the Johnstown Flood"

I catch him when he's strayin' like any brother would
Man turns his back on his family well he just ain't no good

Well Frankie went in the army back in 1965
I got a farm deferment, settled down, took Maria for my wife
But them wheat prices kept on droppin' till it was like we were gettin'
Robbed
Frankie came home in '68, and me, I took this job

Yeah we're laughin' and drinkin'
Nothin' feels better than blood on blood
Takin' turns dancin' with Maria as the band
Played "Night of the Johnstown Flood"

I catch him when he's strayin' teach him how to walk that line
Man turns his back on his family he ain't no friend of mine

Well the night was like any other, I got a call 'bout quarter to nine
There was trouble in a roadhouse out on the Michigan line
There was a kid lyin' on the floor lookin' bad bleedin' hard from his head
There was a girl cry'n' at a table and it was Frank, they said

Well I went out and I jumped in my car and I hit the lights
Well I musta done one hundred and ten through Michigan county that night
It was out at the crossroads, down 'round Willow bank
Seen a Buick with Ohio plates. Behind the wheel was Frank

Well I chased him through them county roads
Till a sign said "Canadian border five miles from here"
I pulled over the side of the highway and watched his tail-lights disappear

Me and Frankie laughin' and drinkin'
Nothin' feels better than blood on blood
Takin' turns dancin' with Maria as the band
Played "Night of the Johnstown Flood"

-- Bruce Springsteen (Covered by Johnny Cash)

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