Goodbye, Hello

The most dramatic news story of the year for me was not Covid but the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, following the U.S. withdrawal, and the subsequent emergence of a young friend in Helmand Province as an eloquent witness to the consequences of those changes.

My friend is trapped, literally and figuratively. As an educated, thoughtful member of Afghan society, working for a government agency, supporting his family members, trying to aid the poorest people in his region, he is by any measure an upstanding human being.

He also is an emerging writer, increasingly able to articulate in English for the larger world what he sees happening day to day in his devastated country.

Western powers, led by the U.S., have dominated Afghanistan for decades, most recently since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. There was some good and a lot of bad about the U.S. presence.

The war waged by the U.S. military killed and injured thousands of people. But foreign aid also led to the education of millions of young Afghans, including my friend. Girls received advanced educations when they almost never had previously.

But now the educated urban population of Afghanistan suffers under the domination of the illiterate, xenophobic, ignorant, violent, religious extremists whose only claim to power is the successful guerrilla warfare they waged from the mountains against the foreign invaders.

They are not suitable leaders and have little idea how to run the country.

A new year begins tomorrow but there is not any real sense of hope at present that the situation in Afghanistan will improve during 2022.

But my friend and I will continue to publish our “conversations” in the hope that enough people will listen to eventually turn the tide and bring relief and freedom to the millions of trapped Afghan people.

In that regard, the top news story today (below) is terribly discouraging. The AP reports that the U.S. is denying humanitarian entry to hundreds of Afghans who wish to come here.

That needs to change. And that is my wish for the new year.

***

Since this is my last essay of the year, it would be nice if it were a good one, memorable even. But the truth is the end of December just slithered into sight at the last moment in silence; I somehow didn’t see it coming.

So here it is. And there it goes.

The truth is that overall 2021 was an extremely disappointing year on a personal level. While I’m grateful for my good health, which is never a given, and the love of my family, I can’t say I’m all that happy with myself.

Since it was my second full year of “retirement,” I’d hoped to discover a better work/life rhythm and have more positive impacts from my writing, especially about Afghanistan. That did not occur. I had other disappointments in my personal life as well. I’ll grade myself as a C- for the year.

That means there is plenty of room for improvement.

***

p.s. I am deeply grateful to the small group of people who have been trying to find ways of helping my friend in Afghanistan. He is too.

TODAY:

• Hundreds of Afghans denied humanitarian entry into US (AP)

• Final weeks of fighting among deadliest for Afghan security forces, former official says: 4,000 dead and 1,000 missing (WP)

• Ashraf Ghani blames international allies over Afghanistan’s fall to Taliban (Guardian)

• Taliban cracks down on more rights while demanding Western aid (WP)

• Beleaguered by Omicron, New York Operates at Half Speed (NYT)

• A booster dose of Johnson & Johnson's single-dose COVID-19 vaccine was 84% effective at preventing hospitalization in South African healthcare workers who became infected as the Omicron variant spread, researchers said. (Reuters)

• Risk calculations get harder amid altered guidance, new research on rapid tests — The changed guidance on isolation, ambiguous research findings and continuing unknowns about omicron — and the desire to return to normal life — have left people again making risk calculations that may not be much better than wild guesses. (WP)

• Within weeks, the Omicron variant has fueled thousands of new COVID-19 hospitalizations among U.S. children, raising new concerns about how the many unvaccinated Americans under the age of 18 will fare in the new surge. (Reuters)

• 2 Georgia Republicans Rack Up Fines for Defying House’s Mask Mandate — Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Andrew Clyde have incurred more than $100,000 combined in penalties for dozens of violations. (NYT)

• Anatomy of a death threat — Trump supporters have waged a campaign of intimidation against the state and local officials who administer U.S. elections. (Reuters)

• More than a year after the vaccine was rolled out, new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. have soared to their highest level on record at over 265,000 per day on average, a surge driven largely by the highly contagious omicron variant. COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have climbed over the past two weeks from an average of 1,200 per day to around 1,500. [AP] 

• Vaccinating young children: Omicron raises pressure on policymakers (Financial Times)

• British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty on five counts in her trial for luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by the American millionaire Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell faces years in prison — an outcome long sought by women who spent years fighting in civil courts to hold her accountable for her role in recruiting and grooming Epstein's victims. [AP]

• Germany to pull the plug on three of its last six nuclear plants (Reuters)

• Ungerrymandered: Michigan’s Maps, Independently Drawn, Set Up Fair Fight — A citizen ballot initiative took redistricting out of the hands of partisan legislators. The result: competitive political districts — and an example of how to push back against hyperpartisanship. (NYT)

• ‘Slow-motion insurrection’: How GOP seizes election power (AP)

• One tree has stood here for 500 years. Will it be sold for $17,500? — Old-growth trees in Tongass National Forest, which holds nearly twice as much carbon dioxide as the United States releases each year by burning fossil fuels, are embroiled in the politics of timber and climate change. (WP)

• In a Wild Year for Markets, Stocks Pull Off Big Gains (WSJ)

• Bitcoin close to $70,000, ‘memecoins’ worth billions of dollars, a blockbuster Wall Street listing and a sweeping Chinese crackdown: 2021 was the wildest yet for cryptocurrencies, even by the sector's volatile standards. We take a look at some of the major trends that dominated cryptocurrencies this year. (Reuters)

• More than a million Americans have died from overdoses during the opioid epidemic (NPR)

• Betty Reid Soskin — the woman synonymous with the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, once described as “sort of like Bette Davis, Angela Davis and Yoda all rolled into one” — turned 100. (Cal Today)

• Dinosaur footprints in Penarth date back 200 million years (BBC)

• Report: Majority Of Americans Would Support A New War If There Were Elephants Involved (The Onion)

LYRICS:

“Hello, Goodbye”

The Beatles

You say, "Yes", I say, "No"
You say, "Stop" and I say, "Go, go, go"
Oh no

You say, "Goodbye" and I say, "Hello, hello, hello"
I don't know why you say, "Goodbye", I say, "Hello, hello, hello"
I don't know why you say, "Goodbye", I say, "Hello"

I say, "High", you say, "Low"
You say, "Why?" And I say, "I don't know"
Oh no

You say, "Goodbye" and I say, "Hello, hello, hello"
I don't know why you say, "Goodbye", I say, "Hello, hello, hello"
I don't know why you say, "Goodbye", I say, "Hello"

Why, why, why, why, why, why, do you
Say, "Goodbye, goodbye, bye, bye"?
Oh no

You say, "Goodbye" and I say, "Hello, hello, hello"
I don't know why you say, "Goodbye", I say, "Hello, hello, hello"
I don't know why you say, "Goodbye", I say, "Hello"

Funny About That

Since I’ve been posting clips about the mental health impacts of Covid, and how we are all probably traumatized, it’s only fair that I also mention those entertainment options that might make us feel happier, at least for a while.

For example, “Emily in Paris” is fun. Lily Collins, the incredibly cute British actress with a size XS waist, is dressed like a model in every scene, and is the perfect example of why marketing campaigns work when they do.

This show’s many episodes are upbeat and made me smile.

But a few days later my bingeing hit bottom when I found myself watching “The Last Samurai” in Spanish with “live closed captioning” that read, and I quote: “Just buttons is perfect… so yeah…Toggle militar laser not DNA…there the location…I don’t want that Avistas Muchas.”

That’s one of those real-time technologies that still has a ways to go, but it did make me smile.

And I’ve spent just enough time working on films in Hollywood and as a guest on TV shows to know that it’s hard to be funny intentionally. By contrast, it’s incredibly easy to make mistakes, and they’re almost always funny.

In fact, our lives are filled with bloopers, and some of the best occur when we’re trying our hardest to appear serious and significant. 

Some 40 years ago, after the publication of our book, Circle of Poison, which was as serious and significant as anything I’ve done, my co-author Mark Schapiro and I were waiting to go on the NBC’s “Today” set at Rockefeller Center with Tom Brokaw and Jane Pauley.

Mark and I were very nervous. We were told that Brokaw was supposed to interview us alone, so Pauley got up to exit the set. But as she did so, she tripped over some wires and fell directly across my lap.

The director was already counting down to the moment we would be live, “five-four-three…” when she barely scrambled up off my lap and out of the camera’s view.

Seconds later we were “live” from New York for all the world to see. I’ve never viewed that clip myself and have always wondered just which facial expression I wore as I tried not to watch Pauley out of the corner of my eye. I’m sure my smile was frozen, as I tried to concentrate on Brokaw’s first question.

Frankly, I’m surprised I didn’t break into hysterical heaving right there on national TV. But before I knew it, the whole thing was over, and Schapiro and I retired to a nearby Irish bar.

That’s when we both started laughing.

TODAY:

• The U.S. record for daily coronavirus cases is broken as the Omicron and Delta variants disrupt the end of 2021.(NYT)

• Almost two years after China first reported a cluster of "viral pneumonia" cases in the city of Wuhan, the regularly mutating coronavirus is wreaking havoc in many parts of the world, forcing governments to rethink quarantine and test rules. (Reuters)

• CDC sharply drops estimate of Omicron prevalence in U.S. (Politico)

• France, Britain, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Malta all registered a record number of new cases this week. (Reuters)

• Worries that omicron surge could impede essential services spurred new CDC isolation rules — Those who are vaccinated are likely to have mild or asymptomatic infections, early research shows — a finding that helped drive the recommendation to shorten to five days isolation for people with asymptomatic infections. (WP)

• Omicron Is Not More Severe for Children, Despite Rising Hospitalizations (NYT)

• The nation's capital has the highest COVID risk level in the country (NPR)

• More than half of U.S. states will raise their minimum wage in 2022, but employers are hiking pay faster (CNBC)

• Last year's flu season in the U.S. was the lowest on record, likely because COVID-19 measures prevented its spread. But this year's flu season has arrived on schedule, with flu hospitalizations rising and two child deaths reported. [AP]

• Hong Kong media outlet to close as police step up crackdown on free press (WP)

• Speed of Stand News shutdown sends chilling signal to Hong Kong’s media (Guardian)

• China will take "drastic measures" if Taiwan makes moves towards independence, a Beijing official warned, adding that Taiwan's provocations and outside meddling could intensify next year. (Reuters)

• How democracy was dismantled in Hong Kong in 2021 (AP)

• Chile Rewrites Its Constitution, Confronting Climate Change Head On — Chile has lots of lithium, which is essential to the world’s transition to green energy. But anger over powerful mining interests, a water crisis and inequality has driven Chile to rethink how it defines itself. (NYT)

• The Metaverse Isn’t Ready for You, but Your Investment Is Welcome (WSJ)

• Alaska 'Icemageddon' warning follows heat record (BBC)

• Over the past year, we’ve seen the hottest July ever recorded on the planet (again), the largest ever single wildfire in California history (again), and deadly hurricanes and flooding along the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coasts (again). Here's a look at some of the year's worst disasters and what they mean for the future. [HuffPost]

• Biodiversity: The tale of the 'un-extinct' fish (BBC)

• Paul Simon Said His 1976 Collaboration With George Harrison on ‘Saturday Night Live’ Was ‘Effortless’ (ShowBizCheatSheet)

• Emily in Paris Is the Last Guilty Pleasure (Atlantic)

• Night-Shift Janitor Leaves Behind Brilliant Solution To Israeli–Palestinian Conflict On U.N. Chalkboard (The Onion)

 

Money

“If all the economists were laid end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion.” --George Bernard Shaw

______________

The end of each year is traditionally a time for “taking stock,” which is a curious phrase if you think about it. It must have originated around the 1500s, when the most moveable property in an agricultural society was its livestock.

That was then. 

In the next few days, when I hope to reclaim my many decades of old hand-written paper journals from storage, I know I’ll discover that I wrote to myself copious notes each year’s end taking stock — which in my case did not involve cows or sheep but how much money I’d earned that year as opposed how much I’d spent.

I always tried to keep track. The difference in revenue vs. expense, of course, was my annual loss or gain. Since I did not live a stable, predictable existence for most of those years, my financial outcomes varied tremendously from very very good to very very bad.

Net net I was quite good at saving money, and I never coveted stuff very much so I didn’t end up bankrupt like some of my colleagues. But I didn’t end up rich either. Few journalists do.

That brings me to what I think of the current craze for crypto-currency.

But even before that, we must deal with the subject of non-crypto cash. 

Good old cold cash almost seems like a relic in the digital age. You can’t pay for your online purchases with cash and pretty much every transaction in the physical world also seems to require one kind of plastic card or another.

As an investment, in recent years cash has been considered a hedge against downturns in a volatile market, but now inflation has returned, at least in the short term, that is no longer the case.

Holding cash reserves is a sure way to lose money right now. So to speak.

Of course, the whole idea of money is one of those human fictions that makes our civilization function as well as it does. At the same time, money or the lack of it causes unending misery as well.

It’s one big messy conundrum and crypto only makes it messier.

So what about bitcoin and the other crypto-currencies as investments? In case you’ve ignored it until now, bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency, without a central bank or single administrator. It can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer network without the need for intermediaries like banks. Some investors will be getting rich as it gains acceptance.

But not you or me. I’d have to be roughly half of my current age to make investing in bitcoin a potentially wise move. And if you’re within shouting distance of my stage of life, I’d advise letting that train leave the station without you as well. The risk is too high.

Anyway, if you didn’t make money on the original web or Web 2.0, you won’t be making money on web.3 either.

Still, it’s too bad the Beatles are not still recording songs. Then they could release a crypto-version of “Money” sometime early in 2022 that would sound great.

C’mon. Doesn’t “bit-coin (that’s what I want)” have a certain fresh-fishy ring to it?

TODAY:

• Healthy, boosted people unlikely to develop severe omicron infections, but jury’s out on older, at-risk populations(WP)

• Lake Tahoe shatters 50-year December snowfall record with more than 16 feet of snow (USA Today)

• Afghanistan’s Former Female Troops, Once Hailed by the West, Fear for Their Lives (The Wall Street Journal)

• NASA-Russia Alliance in Space Is Shaken by Events on Planet Earth (NYT)

• A South African high court blocked Shell from conducting seismic testing off South Africa's pristine Wild Coast. (Reuters)

• China-Taiwan geopolitical rivalry fuels tensions in Pacific Islands (Financial Times)

• Indian authorities to block foreign funding for Mother Teresa’s charity (WP)

• The Cost of Engaging With the Miserable — Were we always this lonely and embittered? (Atlantic)

• US home prices surge 18.4% in October (AP)

• U.S. hospitals brace for continuing surge in covid cases fueled by the omicron variant (WP)

• Apple closed its 12 New York City stores to indoor shopping because of the Omicron spread. (Reuters)

• As Omicron Surges, Officials Shorten Isolation Times for Many Americans (NYT)

• 'Harry Potter' cast recalls first kisses, horrible haircuts (Reuters)

• Netflix's 'Emily in Paris' Is the Last Guilty Pleasure (The Atlantic)

• NFL Hall of Fame coach, broadcasting icon John Madden dies at 85 (ESPN)

• New Study Finds Only Way To Reverse Climate Change If Every Person On Earth Shares Single Chevy Volt (The Onion)

LYRICS:

“Money (That's What I Want)”

Song by the Beatles

Songwriters: Berry Gordy Jr / William Robinson Jr.

The best things in life are free
But you can keep them for the birds and bees
Now give me money, (That's what I want)
That's what I want
(That's what I want)
That's what I want, (That's what I want), yeah
(That's what I want)
You're lovin' gives me a thrill
But you're lovin' don't pay my bills

Now give me money, (That's what I want)
That's what I want
(That's what I want)
That's what I want, (That's what I want), oh, yeah
(That's what I want)
Money don't get everything, it's true
What it don't get, I can't use
Now give me money, (That's what I want)
That's what I want

That's what I want, (That's what I want), yeah
(That's what I want)
Waaa

Money don't get everything, it's true
What it don't get, I can't use
Now give me money, (That's what I want)
That's what I want

That's what I want, (That's what I want), yeah
(That's what I want)
Well now give me money
(That's what I want)
A whole lotta money
(That's what I want), whoa yeah, I wanna be free
(That's what I want)

Oh, a lotta money, (That's what I want) 

Happy Endings, or Not

As the year winds down, it’s probably a good time to catch up on the entertainment options, but I wouldn’t know about that. Whenever I find myself lurching from Netflix to Amazon Prime and YouTube TV, I’m usually looking for something elusive — something to deflect the loneliness and despair, the unwanted solitude.

So when I spotted a new disaster film the other night, it seemed like a good bet. 

“Don’t Look Up” with Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep and friends is a Netflix film about the end of the world, in this case from a collision with a meteor. 

Such stories follow one of two tracks — either disaster is averted, presumably by a hero, or not. Often, impending disaster arrives from space, as opposed to bat viruses. In the space kind of world-ending scenarios, only so many options exist and “Star Trek” explored most of them decades ago. 

Thus, there is one scene in “Don’t Look Up” reminiscent of another of Lawrence’s films, “Passengers,” where space travelers from Earth wake up in space pods traveling to a distant world; otherwise the two films share little in common.

That life as we know it can end due to a meteor is, of course, a relatively recent realization for most of humanity, but astronomers have known this for ages. Plus, in 2013 NASA told Congress it would need at least five years to prepare for such an event by developing the capacity to blow the offending boulder off-track with nukes.

But in this movie, by the time the post-doc student Jennifer detects the asteroid, NASA has just six months to defend civilization from total and complete destruction.

Actually, this cinematic tale is not about the asteroid so much as about how badly distracted our society has become, starting at the top with President Streep. People are focused on any number of other matters, such as celebrity breakups, rather than the asteroid.

Then again, the brilliant Yuval Noah Harani in his book“Sapiens” contends that the ability to gossip about each other is one of the key factors that set us apart from and above the the other creatures on our planet.

Back to the movie. Television talkshow culture is roundly satirized, but we’ve been watching versions of that almost as long as there have been talkshows, so nothing new there.

DiCaprio plays a rumpled professor from Lansing and is believable in the role. Honestly, thanks to him and Lawrence, the film is rather entertaining at times.

It definitely is diverting. I forgot my own misery for a minute as I contemplated what I would do if one of the stories I collated tomorrow was that the next comet was going to hit Chicago.

IDK that I can really recommend “Don’t Look Up” unconditionally, despite the stellar cast, but it’s certainly worth viewing once, I suppose. By contrast, “Passengers” (2016) is a film you can watch several times, partially because Michael Sheen is so memorable as a robot working on the spaceship as a bartender.

And I imagine more than one bartender out there knows something about what it’s like to act like a robot. Certainly his or her customers do.

But before I forget, both of these Jennifer Lawrence movies feature a getaway attempt, in the new film led by some sort of a sick billionaire with all of the charm of a Zuckerberg, or a Musk or a Bezos, which is to say none.

And in the end, humanity somehow or another, does find a way to escape reality once again.

HEADLINES:

• 2020 was awful. 2021 wasn't much better. What's lurking around the corner in 2022? (USA Today)

• Conservatives and Liberals Are Wrong About Each Other —New research shows that Americans on both sides of the political spectrum overestimate how radical the other side is. (Atlantic)

• Omicron drives new cases to record levels around the world (WP)

• Pfizer antiviral pills may be risky with other medications — One of the two drugs in the antiviral cocktail could cause serious interactions with widely used prescriptions, including statins, blood thinners and some antidepressants. (NBC)

• Report: Richest 1% owns nearly 40% of world wealth (NHK)

• How Paid Experts Help Exonerate Police After Deaths in Custody (NYT)

• Road rage in space: Chinese citizens lashed out online against Elon Musk after China complained that its space station was forced to take evasive action to avoid collision with satellites launched by Musk's Starlink program. (Reuters)

• Elon Musk’s Banner Year: Milestones on Earth and in Space (WSJ)

• Record Beef Prices, but Ranchers Aren’t Cashing In — “You’re feeding America and going broke doing it”: After years of consolidation, four companies dominate the meatpacking industry, while many ranchers are barely hanging on. (NYT)

• Omicron Variant is Expected to Dent Global Economy in Early 2022 (WSJ)

• Greta Thunberg on the state of the climate movement and the roots of her power as an activist (WP)

• After Chaotic Evacuation, Afghans in the Netherlands Struggle to Find Stability (NYT)

• Afghanistan's Taliban ban long-distance road trips for solo women (BBC)

• For many Afghans who escaped the Taliban, the journey has only begun (WP)

• Edward O. Wilson, the naturalist dubbed the "modern-day Darwin" died on Sunday at the age of 92 in Massachusetts. Alongside British naturalist David Attenborough, Wilson was considered one of the world's leading authorities on natural history and conservation. (Reuters)

• Outlets hurt by dwindling public interest in news in 2021 (AP)

• Largest collection of free-floating planets found in the Milky Way (Phys.org)

• 2021 was a huge year for space exploration. 2022 could be even bigger. (WP)

• 'We just do not have enough players': More bowl games canceled as COVID cases surge (NPR)

• Facebook: Why we are moving towards a ‘metaverse’ (BBC)

• NASA Says New Moon Mission Unlikely Since Neil Armstrong Only Person Who Knew How To Get There (The Onion)

 

Seasonal Reflections

The top story today is one we’ve touched on before — evidence that we have been collectively traumatized by the pandemic that has been dominating our lives for most of the past two years. If traumatized is too strong a word, we at least have been affected in ways we may not yet fully appreciate.

Speaking for myself, I know that Covid has had an enormous impact on my overall outlook on life as well as the specific conditions of my living situation and mobility.

The beginning of the lockdown in March 2020 coincided not only with my recovery from a series of grave illnesses but my forced retirement from a 50-year career. Suddenly I found myself with nothing to do and nowhere to go. I couldn’t see friends or even visit the cafes where I had been a regular for many years.

My life as a journalist seemed over.

Because I had retired sooner than I’d intended, I was neither in as strong a financial position as I’d hoped to be, nor prepared for a life of “leisure.”

Essentially, I was at loose ends.

So, I suppose I did what any poorly adjusted retiree would do under such circumstances. I just kept working, but now without pay or anyone making any demands of my time or story choices.

Thus, these daily news summaries and my commentaries have been appearing for something like 700 days now. I’m not really certain how useful they are to anybody but I keep doing them in the hope some good comes of it all.

And I hope that this is more than a case of one traumatized person speaking to a bunch of traumatized others. Because I truly believe that through communicating and connecting with each other, we can search for answers to the problems that dominate the news and our daily lives.

For me, that is what this continues to be all about.

***

The stream of news stories is steady but lighter over Christmas weekend than at other times of the year, of course, not because there is less happening, but because fewer reporters are at work.

At least a few are taking a break.

If tradition holds, the volume of stories will remain relatively low over the coming week as well. Then, with the arrival of the new year, major media outlets will prioritize a flood of stories looking back over the past year and forward to the next.

In this way, much of the current media coverage is predictable, seasonal and redundant. That makes this a good time to reflect on our news consumption habits generally.

One of the reasons I try to write daily commentaries on the news is to be proactive as opposed to reactive. The coverage itself is by necessity reactive. Events occur, those of us who are editors assign reporters to cover them, and as quickly as possible, we publish their stories.

The main purpose we believe we are serving is to inform our audiences. But simply consuming the daily news is like a steady diet of junk food — it’s not all that good for your long-term health.

So my goal is to mix in any good analytical pieces I can find, plus add in my own thinking, to contextualize the headlines that follow below.

***

TODAY’S NEWS:

• The pandemic has caused collective trauma. Many people are near a breaking point. (WP)

• As Omicron Spreads and Cases Soar, the Unvaccinated Remain Defiant (NYT)

• COVID variant disrupts holiday travel but not shopping (AP)

• Despite supply issues and Omicron, holiday sales rise 8.5% (Politico)

• Another Christmas of Death and Distress in America’s I.C.U.s — The toll on health care workers, many of whom are giving up their holiday to treat dangerously ill Covid patients, is severe. (NYT)

• Surgeon general offers hopeful note on pandemic — “We have saved more than a million lives because of vaccination efforts this past year alone,” Vivek Murthy said. (Politico)

• The Next Disaster Coming to the Great Plains — Acute scarcity drives the search for water underground. But the West’s major aquifers are in trouble, too. (Atlantic)

• NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope begins journey to study distant worlds (WP)

• Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Who Helped End Apartheid, Dies at 90 (WSJ)

• Major storm dumps snow, closes mountain routes in California (AP)

• Microsoft joins Google, Amazon, others in canceling in-person presence at CES (Reuters)

• Miami wants to become crypto's financial capital. New York's response? Bring it on (NPR)

• Here’s what forgiving student loans really means: A lifeline out of poverty (WP)

• Taliban-run government dissolves Afghan election commissions (AP)

• The College Football Playoff’s Extra Variable: Omicron — The four playoff teams—Alabama, Cincinnati, Georgia and Michigan—must first defeat the virus before they play each other. (WSJ)

• 25 years after JonBenet Ramsey killing, investigators have tested almost 1,000 DNA samples (CNN)

• Relatives Gather From Across The Country To Stare Into Screens Together )The Onion)

 

Afghan Conversation 21: Chaos in the Courtyard

"No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. You only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well" – Warsan Shire (British writer)

____________________

[NOTE: The following is the latest in a series of exchanges I’ve been having with a young Afghan friend since the Taliban took over his country. I’m withholding his identity out of concern for his safety.]

Dear David:

It's 4 PM, and about 500 tired, desperate, and angry people are waiting to submit their applications to get passports at the government office in the city of Helmand. The temperature is below zero, and all of us have been waiting since 3 am. Four or five Taliban guards are standing at the entrance with guns and hoses in their hands. If any males try to enter the courtyard of the passport office, they beat them and prevent them from entering. 

But they do  allow the women to enter the yard because they want to separate them from men. I asked one woman to please take me with her into the yard as her son; otherwise I cannot enter. The yard is full of forlorn people running from one station to another. There is no one who can process their applications or tell them what to do. Only the  Taliban guards with weapons and they know nothing. 

One applicant named Khalid says that he’s been coming every day for a week without results. Working under the rules of the Taliban is a silly thing, he says, because they are all illiterate. It's Insulting to educated people to have a group of fighters that has come from the mountains saying what we must do. 

While waiting to deliver my application I speak with another man who is 40, a teacher and father of four children. He complains that the Taliban have not paid his salary for five months now, and he has to struggle to feed his family. He is also concerned about the worsening security situation as it's predicted that ISIS is growing. He says he doesn't have any alternative but to leave Afghanistan. 

No one at all can get a passport in the provinces but here in the cities and in Kabul there are a lucky few who can get their applications processed by bribing the Taliban passport officers. Every day, there is a huge group of people arguing with the Taliban guards in front of the passport office. We  are told we should apply for passports online, but that site is so crowded that no one can get in.

There is a Facebook group with 55,000 Afghan members who  share information about passport issues. One applicant posted "Please sleep tonight, the site will not open." Another said that the site opened briefly for 20 minutes. Another said he stood in line for four days and four nights and finally got in.

This is the scene for those of us who wish to leave Afghanistan legally. The only word for it is chaos.

***

[Postscript: My friend has received his passport.]

THE NEWS:

• What It Means to See Jesus — A new book, at once skeptical and devotional, considers visions of Christ from the early days of Christianity to the present. (New Yorker)

• This Christmas, hope may feel elusive. But despair is not the answer. (WP)

• Inflation Is High and Uncertainty Rampant as Economy Heads Into 2022 (NYT)

• Omicron is latest blow to pandemic-weary front-line workers (AP)

• Most Asian share markets edged higher and the safe-haven dollar was on the back foot, on signs the Omicron variant would not significantly derail global economic growth. (Reuters)

• With omicron, it may be harder to tell if you have covid, a cold or the flu (WP)

• UK: Omicron hospitalization risk up to 70% lower (NHK)

• US to lift omicron-linked travel ban on southern Africa (AP)

• As Variant Bears Down, Schools Seek Ways to Stay Open (WSJ)

• The Students Returned, but the Fallout From a Long Disruption Remained — “They’re like, ‘The world’s out of control, why should I be in control?’” the principal of Liberty High School in Bethlehem, Pa., said of some of his struggling students. (NYT)

• Worn down by pandemic, many clergy have quit (WP)

• VIDEO: New Yorkers Wait in Long Line for Covid Tests as Cases Surge (NYT)

• COVID-19 spike worsens Africa’s severe poverty, hunger woes (AP)

• Tesla disables gaming while driving feature (BBC)

• Rudy Giuliani and One America News sued by Georgia poll workers falsely accused of electoral fraud (WP)

• Will Donald Trump Get Away With Inciting an Insurrection? (NYT)

• Climate change: Small army of volunteers keeping deniers off Wikipedia (BBC)

• How the Taliban Outwitted and Outwaited the U.S. (WSJ)

• Afghans spending their first Christmas in America seek the miracle of kindness (WP)

• Rare pink handfish spotted in Australia for first time in decades (BBC)

• The Mournful Heart of It’s a Wonderful Life (Atlantic)

• ‘Can You Check The Back For 500 Million More Of These Covid Test Kits,’ Says Biden Picking Up Few Things From CVS (The Onion)

 

Dual Warnings

When the founder of the world’s largest hedge fund and the director of the NNACP Legal Defense Fund issue identical warnings, I tend to take notice.

And that is what has happened this week when both Ray Dalio and Sherrilyn Ifill said that our democracy is at risk.

Over the past few months, other experts have raised similar fears, but most of them are political scientists and historians, who are more easily dismissed by those who wish to dismiss such talk.

Our big problem is that historically when the economic and political circumstances that favor the rise of extremism converge, the danger increases, and that is what all of these experts are noting about our present situation.

“The internal conflict between left and right, rich and poor, Democrats and Republicans, (is) producing a level of conflict in the U.S. that is the highest since 1900,” notes Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates. “‘If the causes people are behind are more important to them than the system, the system is in jeopardy.”

In a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg News, Dalio also considers global factors like inflation, debt, currency instability and the increasing likelihood of conflict with China.

In a podcast with the Times, Ifill discusses the implications of Kyle Rittenhouse being acquitted of shooting people at a Black Lives Matter event. Rittenhouse went to the event armed and ready to kill, but he was exonerated by a jury on the grounds that he acted in self-defense.

This, of course, just deepens the internal discord in the U.S. over the ingrained racism that is one of the ugliest and intractable of all of our domestic issues. That Rittenhouse is emerging as a hero to right-wing extremists is an ominous sign for the future.

He should be the object of our collective disgust.

Part of me honestly hates to bring up these warnings at Christmas, a time of year many of us seek peace and comfort and joy with our families, but a more significant part of me knows that we ignore these warnings at our grave peril.

And the first test of how serious that peril is will come as soon as next year’s elections.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Jack Dorsey’s hot Web3 takes are apparently too much for Marc Andreessen to handle — The venture capitalist blocked the former Twitter CEO, and Dorsey said he’s now ‘banned from Web3’ (The Verge)

• Ray Dalio warns Fed’s hands are tied and higher U.S. inflation is sticking around. Democracy, maybe not.(MarketWatch)

• Sherrilyn Ifill: ‘There Is No Guarantee We Make It Out of This Period as a Democracy’ — After almost a decade at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Ifill explains why advocacy is an essential part of her legal work. (NYT)

• Multiple studies suggest lower risk of hospitalization with Omicron variant of COVID-19 (CBS)

• U.S. cases surpass summer peak of delta variant (WP)

• FDA authorizes second antiviral pill to treat Covid-19 (CNN)

• 'Enormous spread of omicron' may bring 140M new COVID infections to US in the next two months, model predicts (USA Today)

• The Supreme Court will hold a special session in just over two weeks — an extraordinarily fast timeline — to weigh challenges to two Biden administration policies covering vaccine requirements for workers. The cases cover large employers and health care workers. [AP]

• WHO says vaccine booster programs will prolong Covid crisis: ‘No country can boost its way out of the pandemic’(CNBC)

• Rising COVID-19 infections in China's city of Xian have spurred a lockdown of its 13 million residents, with stretches of highway eerily bare, as many people queued in the cold to get their noses swabbed at testing sites. (Reuters)

• Another Surge in the Virus Has Colleges Fearing a Mental Health Crisis (NYT)

• Some good pandemic news to end a bad pandemic year — A new Covid treatment and more promising signs on Omicron's severity. (Politico)

• US Army claims it is close to developing vaccine against all Covid variants and coronaviruses (Independent)

• Omicron Starts to Slow Some U.S. Economic Activity (WSJ)

• What ‘Squid Game’ tells us about the changing face of globalisation — A new type of connectivity is emerging, and it’s no longer dominated by America (Financial Times)

• The F.B.I. Deployed Surveillance Teams Inside Portland Protests (NYT)

• Payments on federal student loans will remain paused through May 1, interest rates will remain at 0% during that period, and debt collection efforts will be suspended, in an extension of a pandemic policy. President Joe Biden said financial recovery from the pandemic will take longer than job recovery, especially for those with student loans. [AP]

• Pillar of Shame: Hong Kong's Tiananmen Square statue removed (BBC)

• As Humanitarian Disaster Looms, U.S. Opens Door for More Afghanistan Aid (NYT)

• UN exempts humanitarian aid to Afghans from ban (NHK)

• U.N. Plans $8 Billion Fund to Restart Afghanistan’s Economy (WSJ)

• Changing climate parches Afghanistan, exacerbating poverty (AP)

• Israeli archaeologists find hundreds of precious antiquities in shipwrecks (WP)

• Writer Joan Didion, chronicler of contemporary American society, dies at 87 (Reuters)

• Food To Leave Out For God On Christmas Eve (The Onion)

 

Award

Career Achievement, SPJ. Awards ceremony cancelled due to Covid. Award arrived 21 months later.
 

Thursday's Headlines

(No essay today. Wrapping presents)

TODAY’s HEADLINES:

• Jack Dorsey says VCs really own Web3 (and Web3 boosters are pretty mad about it) (The Verge)

• Jack Dorsey Ignites Battle Over Competing Visions for ‘Web3’ (WSJ)

• Omicron Has 80% Lower Risk of Hospitalization, New Study Shows (Bloomberg)

• Two Studies Show Much Lower Risk of Hospitalization With Omicron (WSJ)

• Pfizer pill becomes 1st US-authorized home COVID treatment (AP)

• While omicron explodes around the world, covid cases in Japan keep plummeting and no one knows exactly why(WP)

• Biden Bolsters Virus Fight, Offering Aid to Hospitals and Free Tests — The president also sought to address the nation’s battered psyche, telling anxious Americans that “we should all be concerned about Omicron, but not panicked.” (NYT)

• As COVID fueled the drug crisis, Native Americans hit worst (AP)

• U.S. life expectancy, population growth drop as pandemic heads into third year (WP)

• British Columbia orders closures due to COVID (AP)

• Finding a Covid-19 test is a struggle right now in the US as Omicron and holiday plans collide (CNN)

• South Africa’s huge omicron wave appears to be subsiding just as quickly as it grew (WP)

• Omicron Is Just Beginning and Americans Are Already Tired (NYT)

• Omicron Is the Beginning of the End — No matter the severity of the variant, the appetite for shutdowns or other large-scale social interventions simply isn’t there. (Atlantic)

• Case drop may show South Africa’s omicron peak has passed (AP)

• Are Schools Ready for the Next Big Surge? — Districts say they don’t want to close classrooms again. But the latest wave in Covid-19 cases could challenge the rickety infrastructure that has kept schools running this year. (NYT)

• The United Nations is proposing to pay nearly $6 million for protection in Afghanistan to Taliban-run Interior Ministry personnel, whose chief is under U.N. and U.S. sanctions and wanted by the FBI, according to a U.N. document and a source familiar with the matter. (Reuters)

• At an Abandoned American Base, a Notorious Prison Lies Empty — Taliban fighters now guard the prison at Bagram Air Base, which once held thousands of Taliban and Al Qaeda members who were set free in August. (NYT)

• Rep. Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican who helped ex-President Donald Trump plot the rejection of electoral votes prior to the Capitol riot, rebuffed an interview request from the House select committee investigating the insurrection. Perry, the first sitting member of Congress summoned by the panel, said the inquiry is "illegitimate." Meanwhile, Trump pawn Michael Flynn sued to block the committee from obtaining his phone records. [HuffPost]

• Proud Boys member pleads guilty for role in Capitol riot (NPR)

• Americans widely distrust Facebook, TikTok and Instagram with their data, poll finds (WP) 

• The United States has enough reserves of lithium, copper and other metals to build millions of its own electric vehicles (EVs), but rising opposition to new mines may force the country to rely on imports and delay efforts to electrify the nation's automobiles. (Reuters)

• Roman-era 'Good Shepherd' ring found off Israel in ancient shipwreck (BBC)

• A wave of Silicon Valley executives and engineers are leaving jobs at large tech companies to chase cryptocurrency. (Cal Today)

• ‘JFK’ at 30: Oliver Stone and the lasting impact of America’s most dangerous movie (WP)s

• Research: Wreck of last US slave ship mostly intact on coast (AP)

• New Study Finds Humans May Have Some Capacity For Compassion (The Onion)

TODAY’s LYRICS

“Wrong’s What I Do Best”

George Jones

Some men look for diamonds
Some men look for gold
I'm just trying to find myself 
Before I get too old
Different people have their ways 
Of measuring success
Maybe it's not the right way but wrong's what I do best

Songwriters: Dickey Lee / Freddy Weller / Michael Alan Campbell 

Xmas '21

 My eight grandchildren!

The Variant That Stole Christmas

 Maybe the key story this week is Dhruv Khullar’s short essay in The New Yorker summarizing what we know and don’t know about Omicron.

This variant appears to be much more transmissible than Delta, which of course was more transmissible than the original variant.

Omicron also may cause more people to get ill but with milder symptoms and fewer deaths. This would be a good thing, presumably, although it’s too early to draw conclusions. It would be ideal if the disease has mutated to the extent that its impacts would be more like the flu — seasonal and largely preventable by shots — but we don’t know that yet.

In fact we don’t know much — which is the point of Khullat’s essay — and that it a bummer given the imminent holiday gatherings we’re looking forward to. Because we aren’t going to know what we are dealing with Omicron until Christmas has passed.

For now the best policy is to get vaccinated — only 60 percent of Americans have done that to date — as well as to get the booster, which only a quarter of adults have done. We still have so many unvaccinated people in the U.S. and overseas that the virus can and will continue generating new variants and therefore dominate our lives as it has over the past two years.

In this context, the ongoing politicization of the vaccines is a pity and contributes to the overall sense of confusion about what we are facing and what we can do about it. That most certainly is something to not celebrate the holiday season.

Rather it is something to regret. How great our collective regret become may not be known until this Christmas is a distant memory. 

***

In better news, 48 Hills is reporting that the judge whose remarks had been taken out of context to smear San Francisco D. A. Chest Boudin in his recall fight, more recently has praised Boudin for his transparency and his ethics.

The reform-minded D.A., who is committed to attacking the root causes of crime and reforming the criminal justice system, has been targeted by right-wing extremists nationally and faces a tough recall election as a result.

Street crime in the city and elsewhere may be up or it may be down — the statistics are confusing, but to hold a D.A. responsible for short-term variations in street crime is absurd. Those trends have more to do with economic conditions, drugs and poverty than long-term initiatives to reduce cash bail, increase restorative justice and reform the overall system.

In any event, the judge’ comments are reprinted in the 48 Hills piece, which is a refreshing update to Boudin’s record.

TODAY’s HEADLINES:

• The U.S. Faces Another Covid Christmas as Omicron Fuels a Rise in Cases (NYT)

• How to Think About the Risks of Omicron (New Yorker)

• Omicron could bring a massive wave of infections as early as January, CDC warns (WP)

• Biden to expand access to free home tests, send resources to aid hospitals in need (WP)

• The Omicron variant of the coronavirus is spreading faster than the Delta variant and is causing infections in people already vaccinated or who have recovered from the COVID-19 disease, the head of the World Health Organization said. (Reuters)

• Omicron accounted for 73% of new infections last week, a nearly sixfold increase in only seven days. Los Angeles called off its New Year's Eve celebration, the NHL paused the hockey season, and the world's super rich will not be mingling in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. [AP]

• With omicron now dominant, depleted U.S. hospitals struggle to prepare for the worst (NPR)

• Education Department considers extending student loan relief amid Omicron surge (Politico)

• WHO warns of coming Covid storm in Europe (BBC)

• Portugal to close bars and nightclubs; hospital bosses in England brace for ‘dangerous situation’ (Guardian)

• We Learned Our Lesson Last Year: Do Not Close Schools — The Omicron surge is scary. But schools must stay open. (NYT)

• School threats and social media hoaxes are forcing closures, time-consuming investigations (WP)

• Feeling powerless, families bring elderly home in pandemic (AP)

• Countries across Europe were considering new curbs on movement as the fast-moving Omicron variant swept the world days before Christmas, throwing travel plans into chaos and unnerving financial markets. (Reuters)

• Omicron casts a new shadow over economy’s pandemic recovery (AP)

• NHL is first U.S. sport to halt schedule amid coronavirus surge, with stoppage starting Wednesday (WP)

• US population growth at lowest rate in pandemic’s 1st year — U.S. population growth dipped to its lowest rate since the nation’s founding during the first year of the pandemic as the coronavirus curtailed immigration, delayed pregnancies and killed hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents, according to figures released Tuesday. (AP)

• American Workers Are Burned Out, and Bosses Are Struggling to Respond (WSJ)

• EPA Tightens Fuel Economy Standards — The new rule will require automakers to achieve an average of at least 55 miles per gallon fleetwide by 2026, a sizable increase over the standard of 40.4 mpg set during Donald Trump’s presidency. [HuffPost]

• California lawmakers are preparing countermeasures to expand access to abortion, focusing first on resurrecting a bill that would eliminate costly co-pays. (Los Angeles Times)

• Democrats not yet ready to trim climate ambitions despite Manchin blow (Politico)

• A Plan Forms in Mexico: Help Americans Get Abortions — Mexican activists plan to provide women in Texas and other U.S. states with information, support — and abortion-inducing pills. (NYT)

• No pay for staff. No patient supplies. No heat. This is health care in Afghanistan (NPR)

• Japan to offer $100 mil. aid to Afghanistan (NHK)

• When’s the Last Time You Felt Truly Happy? (Atlantic)

• Dozens of states are restricting Americans' right to protest, some with laws so extreme that they protect motorists who run over demonstrators and kill them. [HuffPost]

• NASA’s Webb Telescope to See to the Edge of the Universe (WSJ)

• A refinery rained oil on thousands of St. Croix homes. Now it could reopen. (WP)

• Pentagon Updates Its Rules on Extremism in the Military (NYT)

• Largest-ever millipede fossil found on Northumberland beach (BBC)

• A lost eagle from Asia has been traveling around North America for more than a year (NPR)

• Well-Preserved Embryo Found in Fossilized Dinosaur Egg (WSJ)

• High praise for Boudin from judge whose words have been used to attack him (48 Hills) 

• Robotic Fish Frighten Aquatic Pests To Death (The Onion)

LYRICS

“I'm Over You”

Keith Whitley

Songwriters: Tim Nichols / Zack Turner

Where there's a cloud, don't mean there's rain
Tears in my eyes, don't mean there's pain
Don't flatter yourself
I'm over you

Things aren't always what they seem
You can't believe everything you read
On my face
I'm over you