To Persistence

 

If you were to ask me the one trait that characterizes the best investigative reporters I’ve worked with, it would be persistence bordering on stubbornness. To get the kinds of stories others miss requires an unwillingness to give up just because the process becomes difficult.

By the same token, muckrakers often encounter resistance inside their own media organizations, because investigative stories take a long time, consume resources, and raise all sorts of internal concerns including legal issues.

So staying the course requires a certain type of individual, one that sadly is becoming more scarce in today’s media environment. There still are great stories being produced here and there but they are rarer now.

But this Thanksgiving I’m grateful for the ones who remain.

***

Like many older people, the pandemic enforced an unwanted disruption of my so-called “golden years.” I couldn’t go anywhere or see anyone and the only color that readily comes to mind for those months is “gray.”

Some of that gloom has lifted now, as in measured steps I am getting out a bit and seeing a few people now and then.

But the world has changed and I am no longer as sure how to navigate it as I was in the past. I no longer live where I lived for 17 years, work where I worked for 7 years, or drive a car.

On Wednesday I decided to walk southeast through the hills to the pharmacy where a prescription was waiting for me. I was uncertain of the route, and Google seemed uncertain as well.

I’d never walked the route before and it was challenging. Google claimed the walk should take me about 18 minutes but in the end with many course corrections it required an hour and a half. Along the way, I got booted out of a construction site I’d inadvertently stumbled onto and barely avoided getting hit by a bicyclist on what I’d presumed was a walking path.

He, at least, was apologetic. And I figure pedestrians must have become scarce commodities during the worst of the pandemic.

***

THURSDAY’S HEADLINES:

• Japanese ambassador meets senior Taliban official (NHK)

• For Afghan Refugees, a Choice Between Community and Opportunity — In resettling thousands of displaced Afghans, the Biden administration must weigh their need for support against the needs of the U.S. labor market. (NYT)

• Shooting of black jogger Arbery - defendants found guilty (BBC)

• Best friends at 9, they were separated when they fled the Nazis. Now, 82 years later, they finally hugged again. (WP)

• Scientists warn of new Covid variant with high number of mutations — The B.1.1.529 variant was first spotted in Botswana and six cases have been found in South Africa (Guardian)

• A Claim of Herd Immunity Reignites Debate Over U.K. Covid Policy — Neil Ferguson, a leading epidemiologist, said the country had almost reached a state of herd immunity as it settled into a new normal of about 40,000 cases a day. Other experts disagreed. (NYT)

• Raging inflation may force Fed’s hand on rates (Politico)

• The Pandemic Is Ending With a Whimper (Atlantic)

• Pentagon will track unexplained airborne objects using new intelligence group (WP)

• At least 31 migrants dead after vessel sinks in English Channel (WP)

• Peng Shuai and the High Stakes of Business in China (New Yorker)

• Rescuing the Afghanistan girls' football team (BBC)

• CIA director warns Russian spies of ‘consequences’ if they are behind ‘Havana Syndrome’ incidents (WP)

• U.S. invites Taiwan to democracy summit (NHK)

• The swine bomb: is 2021 the year wild hogs take over the world? (Guardian)

• Hertfordshire Bronze Age axe hoard found by 13-year-old girl detectorist(BBC)

• The Lab-Leak Theory Meets Its Perfect Match (Atlantic)

• Franklin Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving up a week to goose the economy. Chaos ensued. (WP)

• Climate change causing albatross divorce, says study (BBC)

• Readers review Adele’s 30: ‘so powerful’ or a ‘depressive black hole’? (Guardian)

• Study Finds Average Squirrel Lives Through Human Equivalent Of 7 Action Films Every Day (The Onion)