I've been wondering whether the widespread practice of wealthier residents fleeing cities like New York and San Francisco for second homes during the pandemic is an indication of what will happen if extreme weather events become more common due to climate change.
It probably is.
San Francisco is normally a beautiful place to live but it not so much so during the height of a pandemic or the wildfire season last year when smoke blanketed the region and the sky turned bright orange. Many wonder whether last year was an aberration or a harbinger.
As spring arrives, it's too early yet for wildfires, hopefully, and we still are getting occasional rains. But all over California. the dry season is coming...
***
What many probably would consider an obscure news item about the Hazaras, probably the most oppressed group in Afghanistan, caught my eye today. Students studying for college entrance exams have to gather in bombed-out facilities under the threat of suicide attacks and other violence.
All over the world, young people continue to pursue higher education opportunities regardless of the risks, which of course vary widely depending where they live.
Here, middle-class families have to weigh the financial burdens few have prepared for once their kids approach college age. I've heard some version of "just let them go into debt" for so many years now that I scarcely take the time to answer why that is a horrible idea.
Saddling a young promising life with monstrous educational debt strikes me as the equivalent of child abuse. Our country is rich enough by orders of magnitude to offer a free education to all, but the ruthless capitalistic values of competition and scarcity continue to ruin many young lives.
Six times I helped my kids prepare for, apply to, and weigh offers from colleges -- public and private, large and small all over the U.S. While it's true there is plenty of choice, the specter of debt causes many to pick the most affordable option and, too often, the most practical career track as well.
Picking a career at 14, 16 or 18 is a lot like investing blindly in the stock market. If you've heard some company is a good investment, you probably have already missed the moment when it was in fact a good investment.
Same with careers.
Oh, there are some professions (law, medicine, banking) that are traditionally lucrative, and in recent decades, engineering, specifically coding, has provided a path to wealth for many. But the economy is always shifting and evolving so what was hot yesterday will likely be stone cold by tomorrow.
What to do about it? My advice has always been to young people to follow their dreams and their passions. If that sounds like a cliche, try this: Do what you love to do. Study what you want to study. But, please, even if you think you hate them, don't neglect science and math.
Then again, in the privileged world, students might think about those Hazara kids in Afghanistan who don't know whether they will even survive the process of taking an entrance exam. Nobody here need feel guilty about that, just aware that whatever you do in this world, there are others whose lives could be much better than they are, if only our common resources, freedoms and opportunities were more equitably distributed.
Maybe this would never have been so evident to me had I not been a Peace Corps Volunteer in Afghanistan who taught teenaged students, some of whom were from the lowest social rung of one of the world's poorest countries.
If I learned anything, it is that intelligence and potential are not determined by ethnicity, class or wealth. But those factors pretty reliably predict who succeeds in life.
***
The news:
* In City After City, Police Mishandled Black Lives Matter Protests (NYT)
* Drug companies defend vaccine monopolies in face of global outcry (WaPo)
* Myanmar Protesters Answer Military’s Bullets With an Economic Shutdown -- From hospitals, railways and dockyards to schools, shops and trading houses, the country is at a standstill. Strikers hope their actions will force the army to return power after its coup on Feb. 1 (NYT)
* Oil giant Saudi Aramco sees 2020 profits drop by 44% to $49 billion (AP, NPR)
* Trump plans social media return with his own platform (Fox)
* India, the world’s largest democracy, is now powered by a cult of personality (WaPo)
* Iran threatens US Army base and top general (AP)
* Vaccinated mothers pass covid antibodies to babies in utero and through breast milk, early studies sho (WaPo)
* Clubhouse, Other Chat Apps Fill a Covid-Era Void in Our Social Lives—for Now -- During a year without coffee dates, live concerts and water-cooler chats, some of the most popular new tools in tech have been apps that try to recreate those spontaneous and fleeting interactions. (WSJ)
* DHS chief says Southern border is closed (CNN)
* Amid A Wave Of Targeted Killings In Afghanistan, She's No. 11 On A Murder List -- Journalist Fatima Roshanian has faced threats before, but she and many other Afghans say the risk to their lives is more serious than ever. "People are being killed everyday, everywhere," she says. (WSJ)
* Risking Death, Hazara Students Pursue Education at Bombed Academies -- A group of young Afghans studying for college entrance exams must risk suicide attacks by the Islamic State and the looming threat of a Taliban return. (NYT)
* U.S. defense chief arrives in Kabul on 1st trip to Afghanistan (AP)
* Fencing around Capitol comes down more than 2 months after insurrection (CNN)
* ‘ I Just Don’t Feel Comfortable Giving It to You’: TD Bank Teller Refuses to Give Connecticut Black Woman Money from Her Own Account (Atlanta Black Star)
* Letters found in an attic reveal eerie similarities between Adolf Hitler and his father (WaPo)
* ‘No Way To Prevent This’ (Mass Shootings), Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens (The Onion)
***
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about a science book
Don't know much about the French I took
And I know that if you love me, too
What a wonderful world this would be
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