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:
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)
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”
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"
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