Many years ago, I went swimming at a beach off of one of the Carolina coasts, North or South. It was a very warm, foggy day, and I couldn't see anyone else as I entered the water.
Once out there bodysurfing on the waves, however, other swimmers came into sight momentarily, only to vanish like ghosts a few seconds later. This went on for an hour, as each of us swam cloaked in an invisibility shield, alone and together.
It was magical.
Then the sun broke through, burned away the fog, and revealed that there were many more of us there than I'd imagined.
Years later, I took my kids to Chrissy Field on San Francisco's northern perimeter, to celebrate a Fourth of July. A heavy fog had settled in over the area, so that other revelers appeared and disappeared as bombs went off overhead and tattered flags blew in the wind.
Melting into this half-light, I felt as if I were present at the violent birth of the Republic, surrounded by my fellow rebels against the distant King and his outmanned forces. As we left the scene, there were many more cars than when we'd arrived, but we never saw most of the people who belonged to them.
The past year's pandemic has recreated those two odd and memorable moments for me as if they never ended. The illusion has returned that I again am alone even though other people are there, just out of reach. If only I could break through and get to them.
Of course, in a way millions of us have been trying to do just that via social media, Zoom and the like.
It's as if there we are each other's lover just out of reach, swaying in and out of view, never close enough to kiss.
A sweet anticipation lingers, then dissolves into an old familiar despair. Only the loneliness remains.
***
As I awoke on this, the third day of the new year, a brutal truth hung over the coming week. Multiple elected officials are going to formally protest the election results, provoking a ridiculous political spectacle that will cast an entirely unnecessary pall over incoming administration.
As Trump's frightened little sycophants carry out his wish to pretend that the election was fraudulent, the Democratic victors will quickly lose their patience. Revenge will sour an already polarized atmosphere.
Any hope of mending the rifts that divide the parties will evaporate this coming week. The rest of the world will pity us, the republic that once was a beacon of hope, now a mere cautionary tale of what might have been.
Such is the legacy of a corrupt con-man, a small-scale crook, a sociopath incapable of feeling anything but his own inadequacy swathed in the illusion of absolute power.
The Great Dictator. A loser.
Charlie Chaplin got that one right.
The Republicans will indeed fail this week. Trump's plunge into insanity will be complete. A nation tired of being in a perpetual state of shock will awake, ever more cynical and jaded than before.
This is the end of innocence for America. I prefer the fog.
***
Nothing innocent in the news.
* In a Widening News Desert on the Border, a Tabloid Start-Up Defies the Odds -- People in Del Rio, Texas, complain that nothing ever happens there. Those are fighting words for the publisher of The 830 Times, though he admits that keeping his paper afloat might be the biggest news of all. (NYT)
* Native Americans are losing their elders to Covid-19. As death tolls continue to climb, tribes are struggling to protect some of their last remaining knowledge and language keepers. "Every time one of those elders leaves this world, it's like a whole library, a whole beautiful chapter of our history, of our ceremonies -- all that knowledge, gone," Clayson Benally, a member of Navajo Nation, said. "It's not written, it's not dictated, you're not going to find it on the internet." (CNN)
* Pelosi’s likely final term as speaker is set to begin with a scramble for votes (WashPo)
* Eleven current and incoming Republican senators said they would vote to reject the Electoral College votes of some states as not lawfully certified unless Congress appoints a commission to conduct an emergency audit of the election results. (WSJ)
* New COVID-19 Variant Spreads To Dozens Of Countries (NPR)
* Before Embracing America-First Agenda, David Perdue Was an Outsourcing Expert -- Mr. Perdue, who faces one of two runoff elections in Georgia that will determine control of the Senate, built a business record that shifted manufacturing and jobs overseas. (NYT)
*
China senior diplomat says U.S. relations at 'new crossroads'
(Reuters)
* Ahead of runoffs, civic groups in Georgia mount ambitious campaign to mobilize Black voters (WashPo)
* Autonomous delivery robots hit Japanese streets (NHK)
* In Abrupt Reversal of Iran Strategy, Pentagon Orders Aircraft Carrier Home -- After weeks of escalation and threatening language, the Defense Department is sending mixed messages as the anniversary of the death of an Iranian general nears. (NYT)
* Facebook's advertising integrity chief leaves company (Reuters)
* China drives a wedge between Europe and the United States (WashPo)
* States Are Shutting Down Prisons as Guards are Crippled By Covid-19 -- States and counties are finding it hard to keep jails and prisons open as the virus ravages both prisoners and staff members. But transferring inmates can spur new outbreaks. (NYT)
* "Happy New Year. May the force be with you in 2021! Stay safe." (Harrison Ford, Twitter)
* Computer Company Started In Garage 30 Years Ago Now In Smaller Garage (The Onion)
***
But it's over now
Lay a whisper
On my pillow
Leave the winter
On the ground
I wake up lonely
There's air of silence
In the bedroom
And all around
Touch me now
I close my eyes
And dream away
But it's over now
It must have been good
But I lost it somehow
But it's over now
From the moment we touched
Till the time had run out
It's where the wind blows
It must have been love
But it's over now
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