Time-Traveling Angels

Part of my travel experience was crossing the International Dateline multiple times, gaining or losing a day in the process, reliving a date on the calendar or missing it altogether. One year, for example, I missed my birthday as I was fast-forwarded from the day before to the day after.

That experience certainly helped me empathize with those born on Leap Day. But it also is the closest to time travel I ever achieved.

Another memory of travel is days and nights spent walking around foreign cities in Europe, Asia and South America, usually with a new acquaintance as my guide. It would not be a far stretch to imagine I could have fallen in love on one of those walks, say in Brussels, Paris, Taipei or Tokyo; in fact, perhaps on occasion that even happened.

But since my memory is fickle and it flickers rather than illuminates, any reality it contains has merged with a healthy sense of imagination. That's why a certain kind of film resonates so deeply with me. A current example is "Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong," featuring lovely performances by Jamie Chung and Bryan Greenberg.

Chung is a San Francisco girl who graduated from Lowell High School in 2001. Her family immigrated from Korea before she was born. Greenberg is a Jewish kid from Omaha.

And, according to Wikipedia, they are now married.

The film is set in Hong Kong, where I have also walked around several times. It depicts how the pair meet as strangers and fall for each other during two random encounters a year apart. It is sweet, sensitive, subtle and hopeful.

And it will remind some of "The Before Trilogy," set in Paris in 1995, 2004 and 2013. In those films, another couple spends the entire film(s) walking around a lovely city, talking and falling for each other in the process.

Both stories are about human connection through conversation in the middle of being lost. Travel is often lonely; international travel especially so. Being alone in an American city is one experience; but being alone overseas is entirely different. You truly can feel lost.

Maybe when we are at our most vulnerable, we succumb to temptation or perhaps we find our true selves. Both could be true, or neither. In the end, sometimes we turn into each other's angels.

***

The battle over unionization at an Amazon plant in Alabama may be the most important class conflict in the country right now. The company has been hiring workers in droves for low-paid work in its giant warehouses that seem to be everywhere, which is how that one-day delivery service is possible.

In the process of establishing its amazingly efficient home delivery system, Amazon has grown way beyond books, which were its first product group, to the point where (guitar please) 'you can get anything you want ... from Amazon's restaurant.'

The problem is this represents monopoly power against which smaller companies cannot compete. I don't know about you, but I've been switching my online shopping to the kinds of companies available through Etsy.

Even if, as I wrote about yesterday, it sometimes takes 69 overnights before the delivery occurs. Just don't order anything perishable.

The news:

* It was 40 years ago on March 6 that news anchor Walter Cronkite signed off “The CBS Evening News” for the final time, stating his tag line, “That’s the way it is.” The phrase was more than just a signature ending of his nightly newscast. It was a statement that his newscast was designed to, as he put it, “hold up the mirror — to tell and show the public what has happened.” Holding up the mirror meant focusing on actual news, steering away from advocacy, and nailing down facts. There was a reason that polls of the era listed Cronkite as the most trusted man in America. He projected a fatherly personality and professional image. He spoke in a slow, deliberate manner. He imposed strict standards for accuracy and objectivity into his broadcasts. Every writer and producer on his team knew the perfectionist’s expectations and knew not to stray into personal bias or activism. (The Hill)

* "The stakes couldn’t be higher for Amazon, which is fighting the biggest labor battle in its history on U.S. soil. Next Monday, the National Labor Relations Board will mail ballots to 5,805 workers at the facility near Birmingham, who will then have seven weeks to decide whether they want the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union to represent them. If they vote yes, they would be the first Amazon warehouse in the United States to unionize." (WP)

* U.S. employers added 379,000 to their payrolls in February, increasing hopes that vaccinations and reopenings are giving the economic recovery a firmer grip. (NYT) 

* Senate passes $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill (CNBC)

* How Tech Will Change Sex and Intimacy, for Better and Worse...(WSJ)

* U.S. agency probes Facebook for 'systemic' racial bias in hiring, promotions (Reuters)

* Millions of employees won’t get a tax break for working from home during pandemic. Companies with empty offices do. (WP)

* Can Biden Keep Coal Country From Becoming a ‘Ghost Town’? (NYT)

* Overrule the parliamentarian. Or end the filibuster. Americans need a $15 minimum wage. By Ro Khanna (Opinion/WP) 

* Covid-19 Pill Shows Promise in Preliminary Testing -- The antiviral reduced infectious virus in Covid-19 patients in a mid-stage study. Larger trials are under way exploring whether it prevents severe illness and death. (WSJ)

* Big Step Forward for $50 Billion Plan to Save Louisiana Coast (NYT)

* Pandemic Inspires More Than 1,200 New German Words -- Germans have a knack for stringing lots of words together to create new words. From Mundschutzmode to Coronamutationsgebiet, the pandemic has spawned a plethora of them. (NPR)

* Sports fans are much healthier and happier than generally imagined, science finds (WP)

* F.B.I. Finds Contact Between Proud Boys Member and Trump Associate Before Riot (NYT)

* A decade after Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan wants to treat tainted water, release it into sea (WP)

* Indian farmers block highway outside Delhi to mark 100th day of protest (Reuters)

* She Was a Star of New Palestinian Music. Then She Played Beside the Mosque. -- Sama’ Abdulhadi helped build the Palestinian electronic music scene. Now she is at the center of a debate about Palestinian cultural identity. (NYT)

* To millions of people around the world, the young poet Amanda Gorman represents hope, change and the promise of a better America. But to a security guard on Friday night, the young African American woman represented a potential threat to public safety. The Harvard-educated Gorman, who won wide acclaim with her inauguration poem urging the nation to confront the injustices of the past and work to create a better future, says she was tailed by a security guard on her walk home. Gorman, who lives in Los Angeles, wrote on Twitter that as she approached her building, the guard demanded to know if she lived there. "You look suspicious," he allegedly said. "I showed my keys & buzzed myself into my building," the 22-year-old Gorman wrote. "He left, no apology. This is the reality of black girls: One day you're called an icon, the next day, a threat. "In a sense, he was right," the former National Youth Poet Laureate added. "I AM A THREAT: a threat to injustice, to inequality, to ignorance. Anyone who speaks the truth and walks with hope is an obvious and fatal danger to the powers that be." (NPR)

* Americans Scrambling For Covid Vaccine After CDC Director Announces Thousands Of Doses Buried Somewhere In California (The Onion)

***

Woke up in the evening
To the sound of screaming
Through the walls it was bleeding
All over me

Untied and weightless
Unconscious as we cross
The international dateline
Let's end it here

-- Daniel Hunt

-30-

Small World Solutions

When it comes to the minimum wage debate, the main opposition argument seems to be the negative impact a $15 federal minimum wage would have on small businesses, especially in poorer areas of the country.

So what if Congress provided tax relief to those small businesses that are required to pay at the new level? Since the average effective tax rate for small businesses is 20 percent, the government would essentially pay $3 of the $15 rate, reducing the actual wage from the employers' perspective to $12/hour.

A government tax relief measure could easily be more generous to employers, of course, but this simple plan would at least help ease the blow, IMHO. The main point is that workers cannot support their families on absurdly low wages and it is time for the government to address this problem. BTW, 29 states have already raised the minimum wage to levels above the federal level, which is a paltry $7.25/hour.

Many large employers are already getting onboard with the $15/hour minimum, but for a deadlocked Congress to act will require hearing from their constituents. This is the kind of issue that could prove to be non-partisan, and help address the serious wealth disparities that plague our society.

If the kind of measure I am advocating for were adopted, it would be a departure from the history of tax policies that benefit the rich. The power to impose taxes is almost god-like in that it has such far-reaching impacts on who succeeds and who fails.

But the rate of income taxes most Americans pay still are low relative to other industrial societies. Raising the required wage level to something approaching a "livable" wage would help so many people, it is difficult to comprehend why some continue to oppose it.

***

You know this pandemic has been around for a quite a while when the Wall Street Journal devotes its resources to exploring whether our collective sense of happiness has been changed by the exigencies of Covid-19.

Remote working and isolation has collapsed most people's social circles down to their immediate family unit. And depending on how family members feel about each other, that may or may not increase the sense of happiness that prevails.

There is some evidence, in fact, that staying home with their children is not necessarily proving to be a negative experience for many working parents. Fully one-third of those with school-aged children report they are considering sticking with remote learning after in-school instruction resumes.

Maybe this is an example of how the definition of happiness is evolving. Would you rather go back to the office where certain colleagues behave as if they were children? Or stay home with the real deal?

The latter group is far more charming.

***

The day after Christmas I ordered a present via Etsy from Russia for my oldest grandson, who turned 14 in early January. It finally arrived yesterday, 69 days after I ordered it.

I realize that the various postal services can be slow but this took as long as letters from the States took to reach us in Afghanistan 50 years ago.

Th world may have grown smaller with advanced technologies and globalization but the distance as measured by time between here and Central Asia remains the same.

Oh, the present is cool. It was worth the wait.

The news:

 * ‘She Is a Hero’: In Myanmar’s Protests, Women Are on the Front Lines -- Despite the danger, women have been at the forefront of the movement, rebuking the generals who ousted a female civilian leader. (NYT)

* The U.S. is quietly mobilizing its economy against China (WP)

* A two-year study, the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, has released preliminary findings. The program gave $500 a month to 125 randomly selected residents for two years, and the preliminary results show a rise in full-time employment, more debt paid off and improvement of mental health. [KTVU]

* California child care sites have reported more than 12,000 cases of Covid-19 and 30 related deaths since the pandemic began. [CalMatters]

* Joe Biden is enjoying an early presidential honeymoon, with 60% of Americans approving of his job performance thus far and even more backing his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (AP)

* Senate action on Biden relief bill stalls amid Democratic disarray on unemployment benefits (WP)

* As the Covid-19 pandemic forces many to reconsider what makes them happy, researchers are embracing a more complex definition of the emotion that focuses less on uninterrupted bliss (WSJ)

* Cuomo and Newsom, once pillars of the Democratic Party, now look for paths to survival (LAT)

* 8.5 percent (1 in 12) Americans have been vaccinated against Covid-19. (CNN)

* Poll: Nearly One-Third Of Parents May Stick With Remote Learning (NPR)

* Irish publishers are to begin negotiations with Google over payment for news articles. The move comes as Google expands the number of countries for its ‘News Showcase’ product, which sees the search giant pay news publishers for the display of their work. (Independent.i.e)

* Humans are likely cause of shift in Atlantic hurricane cycles, climate study suggests (KTVU)

* Federal investigators are examining records of communications between members of Congress and the pro-Trump mob that attacked the US Capitol, as the investigation moves closer to exploring whether lawmakers wittingly or unwittingly helped the insurrectionists, according to a US official briefed on the matter. (CNN)

* Texas Farmers Tally Up the Damage From a Winter Storm ‘Massacre’ -- The state’s agriculture sector has lost an estimated $600 million or more. Crop and livestock damage could mean shortages and higher prices beyond Texas. (NYT)

* More bad news for democracy defenders: A new report confirms worldwide declines in freedom for the 15th year in a row, and the United States isn't helping matters. Freedom House, a nonpartisan research organization, on Wednesday released its annual report, Freedom in the World, detailing how global democracy was further weakened by the Covid-19 pandemic, economic and physical insecurities and violent conflict. While the United States is still considered "free," the country's score has continued to decline over the last decade, dropping 3 points in 2020 alone. (The Fulcrum)

* Study Finds Wildfire Smoke More Harmful To Humans Than Pollution From Cars (NPR)

* Can the market save the planet? FedEx is the latest brand-name firm to say it’s trying (WP)

* Starting on March 12, Universal Studios Hollywood plans to reopen on weekends, for a food and shopping event. Several hundred workers who were previously furloughed will be rehired to staff the event. [LAT]

* Unemployment Claims Rise, Showing Recovery’s Rocky Road (NYT)

* Covering about only six blocks, Nihonmachi in San Francisco is now the country’s oldest and largest Japantown. However, the pandemic and an expiring agreement with the city threaten the survival of this neighborhood. [San Francisco Chronicle]

* Albatross, Now 70, Hatches Yet Another Chick --"Each year that Wisdom returns, we learn more about how long seabirds can live and raise chicks," said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Beth Flint. (NPR)

* Jeff Bezos Assures Amazon Employees That HR Working 100 Hours A Week To Address Their Complaints (The Onion)

***

Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman

Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman

If you drive a car, I'll tax the street
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat
If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet

'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman

-- George Harrison

-30-

Truth Will Find a Way

The news gods don't want us to relax our guard about Covid-19. At least that is one possible interpretation. Another is that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is too damn smart for us at this stage of its (and our) development.

In any event, the alarming news from those most carefully tracking the most virulent variants of the virus Thursday is we may have a bigger problem even after being vaccinated that we'd hoped would be the case.

I mentioned the news gods because it is hard not to take it personally that on the very day I received my second dose of the Moderna vaccine this new information emerged.

That's enough for even an optimist to wonder, "Is this ever going to end?"

Of course, according to the governors of Texas and Mississippi, the pandemic crisis is already over. They've re-opened their states, removing all restrictions. Listening to scientists is in their view not indicated.

They will try to censor science, but science will find a way.

***

Well before I knew her name, Emily Mortimer became a favorite actor of mine for her wildly disparate roles as Inspector Clouseau's assistant in "The Pink Panther," and as the caring sister-in-law in "Lars and the Real Girl." She easily shifted between playing a French woman and an American woman as only the British can do.

But I never knew anything about her as a person until I read an article yesterday in The New York Times Review of Books about her decision to reread Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" as part of her research for her role as the lead in a film called "The Bookshop," in which she plays an Englishwoman, again superbly.

This coincidence brought together several intellectual strands dear to me, because "Speak, Memory," Nabokov's memoir, has always been a favorite of mine when teaching memoir courses at Stanford and U-C Berkeley.

Mortimer has written an essay on why a book as theoretically scandalous as "Lolita" escaped censorship in an age when lesser volumes did not. It is to appear in an upcoming anthology by Vintage that I must remember to obtain. Because once again, thanks to cancel culture, we are mired in an age of censorship, where the self-righteous claim the right to determine what gets censored and why.

It is in the nature of censors to be afraid of ideas and depictions, as it is in the nature of artists to push boundaries and force us to confront our fears and our demons and the darkness of our desires.  

They can try to censor history; history will find a way.

They can try to censor art; art will find a way.

***

The news:

* How a Changing Virus is Reshaping Scientists’ Views on COVID-19 -- A new consensus is emerging among scientists, according to Reuters interviews with 18 specialists who closely track the pandemic or are working to curb its impact. Many described how the breakthrough late last year of two vaccines with around 95% efficacy against COVID-19 had initially sparked hope that the virus could be largely contained, similar to the way measles has been. But, they say, data in recent weeks on new variants from South Africa and Brazil has undercut that optimism. They now believe that SARS-CoV-2 will not only remain with us as an endemic virus, continuing to circulate in communities, but will likely cause a significant burden of illness and death for years to come. (Reuters)

* Brazil’s Covid Crisis Is a Warning to the Whole World, Scientists Say -- Brazil is seeing a record number of deaths, and the spread of a more contagious coronavirus variant that may cause reinfection. (NYT)

* U.S.-China tensions threaten global climate change efforts (AP)

* OSHA Often Fell Short on Worker Safety in Pandemic -- Federal and state agencies conducted fewer inspections than in the past and often handled coronavirus complaints through no more than an exchange of letters, a Wall Street Journal investigation shows. Hundreds of workers’ deaths have gone uninvestigated, sometimes because employers didn’t report them. (WSJ)

* In Trump probe, Manhattan district attorney puts pressure on longtime chief financial officer (WashPo)

* The first lady, Jill Biden, and the education secretary, Miguel Cardona, advocated a return to in-person learning during the first of two visits they made on Wednesday to reopened schools. (NYT)

* The House of Representatives passed a landmark bill on voting rights, elections, campaign finance and ethics reform by a vote of 220-210. The For the People Act, congressional Democrats’ top legislative priority, would counter Republican voter suppression efforts in states. House passage sets up a possible showdown over the filibuster in the Senate. [HuffPost]

* Police request 60-day extension of Guard at U.S. Capitol (AP)

* WHO Investigators to Scrap Plans for Interim Report on Probe of Covid-19 Origins -- A World Health Organization team investigating how the coronavirus first spread is scrapping plans for an interim report on its recent mission to China as tensions mount between Beijing and Washington over the investigation and one international group of scientists appeals for a new probe. (WSJ)

* The Senate Finance Committee deadlocked 14-14 on Wednesday on whether to confirm Xavier Becerra as President Biden’s secretary of health and human services. The nomination of Mr. Becerra, California’s attorney general, now goes to Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, and Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, either of whom can bring the nomination to the Senate floor. [Reuters]

* Biden Secretly Limits Counterterrorism Drone Strikes Away From War Zones (NYT)

* 17% of food production globally wasted, UN report estimates (AP)

* The House passed a bill aimed at helping prevent police misconduct, naming the legislation after a Black man who was killed by Minneapolis police in May in a violent arrest. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act passed 220-212 in the Democratic-controlled House. The legislation bans police from using chokeholds and no-knock warrants, requires data collection on police encounters and ends qualified immunity. [HuffPost]

* California Governor Gavin Newsom said he expected stadiums to be open by the time Major League Baseball begins its season on April 1. “We’re working on the final details,” Mr. Newsom said on Wednesday in Long Beach. [The Los Angeles Times]

* Despite all the talk of Bay Area residents fleeing to places like Texas and Florida, Postal Service data suggests that very few people actually moved out of state last year. Most of the people filing address changes stayed within the Bay Area or moved to another part of the state. [The San Francisco Chronicle]

* Butterflies are vanishing out West. Scientists say climate change is to blame. (WashPo)

* Michigan won the Big Ten basketball championship by defeating arch-rival Michigan State 69-50. (Mgoblog)

* Scientists are trying to build a tiny drone with the agility of a mosquito. These light but strong flying robots could be used in critical situations, such as finding people in a collapsed building. (NPR)

* How ‘Lolita’ Escaped Obscenity Laws and Cancel Culture -- "My father, John Mortimer, brought me up to believe that you can be a good person and kill someone and a perfectly awful person who never gets so much as a parking ticket your whole life. It’s an education I’m proud of. He was an author and a criminal defense barrister ... and his prowess in both professions rode on his ability to see past easy morality and to respect the fact that the truth is never one-sided and therefore art should not be, either." (Emily Mortimer/NYT Books) 

* Covid Announces Plan To Move Operations To Texas Full-Time To Escape Burdensome Regulations (The Onion)

***

It's the heart, afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance
It's the dream, afraid of waking
That never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken
Who cannot seem to give
And the soul, afraid of dying

That never learns to live

Songwriter: Mc Broom Amanda

-30-

Lives Being Lived

According to intelligence assessments, a new right-wing extremist attack on the U.S. Capitol may happen today. Let's hope not.

Today also is dose #2 day for me. But like many in my age group, I feel somewhat guilty getting vaccinated when so many young, healthy people around me face many months before they will be able to receive such protection.

Then again, the vulnerability of older people is obvious, since roughly 80 percent of the Covid-19 deaths are among those aged 65 and older.

Yet we know that in most ways, we've already had our chance to make all of the youthful errors and achieve whatever successes we are likely to achieve, while they have much of that still to look forward to.

I'm not overly given to guilt, so it's more like a tinge of that feeling. And I also have developed a certain reverence for old people lately, which I trust is not naked self-interest. My reverence is based on the assumption that all old people have stories to tell.

Thus I've become something of cheerleader advising many of my younger friends to record their grandparents' stories as soon as they can. One friend's grandfather recently had a stroke. Another's grandmother has shown signs of dementia.

Now the opportunity remains in those two cases for the granddaughters to interview their family members and get those stories down for posterity.

***

Speaking of aging, there is a marvelous profile of the actor Anthony Hopkins in The New Yorker. He's 83 and says that now any role presented to him is easy to assume, because in one way or another it reflects some aspect of the life he's lived.

That, ideally, is true for all of us. If we've lived our lives fully, we've been there and done that. Sometimes many times over. Where we may become valuable at this stage is to share these life experiences with those young enough that their main dilemmas are yet to come.

Knowing what we know now, we might have a word of caution or encouragement when they reach one of those forks in the road that splits, and only one way can be followed.

Or we could just quote Robert Frost, who said it best.

***

The headlines:

* Many of our lives became static during the past year. But some people chose new directions. (WashPo)

* Anthony Hopkins Remembers It All -- At eighty-three, the actor says, performing is easier than it’s ever been. Every role slips into the story of life. (The New Yorker)

* Google to Stop Using Individual Browsing History to Sell Ads (WSJ)

* United Nations human rights officials issued a report condemning environmental racism in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” where the mostly black population breathes air heavily polluted by a corridor of petrochemical plants. Once the site of plantations where enslaved African workers toiled and died, the 85-mile stretch along the lower Mississippi River has for decades served as an industrial hub. [HuffPost]

* An Asian American family in Orange County was being harassed. Now their neighbors stand guard. (LAT)

* The police force that guards the U.S. Capitol said on Wednesday it has obtained intelligence pointing to a possible plot by a militia group to breach the building on Thursday, an alleged plan with echoes of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. (Reuters)

* House scraps plans for Thursday session after security officials warn of possible plot to breach Capitol (WashPo)

* FBI director says domestic terrorism ‘metastasizing’ throughout U.S. (WashPo)

* Request During Capitol Riot, Commander Says -- Maj. Gen. William Walker said the Department of Defense took three hours to approve deploying the National Guard to the Capitol on Jan. 6 after a "frantic" request from Capitol Police. (NPR)

* Reversing Trump, Interior Department Moves Swiftly on Climate Change -- As Deb Haaland, President Biden's choice for Interior secretary, heads toward a showdown vote, the department she would head is moving ahead on environmental policies. (NYT)

* Iowa police find live pipe bomb at polling center: ‘Attempted violence against our democracy’ (WashPo)

* N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo apologized for his actions that three women have described as sexual harassment and said he will not resign. (CNN)

* February is over. And this year, in California, it was disappointingly dry, raising concerns about a severe drought. Already, some water users are being asked to cut back. [The San Francisco Chronicle]

* From the creation of Lake Anza and Treasure Island, to countless murals and schools, it’s almost impossible to summarize the magnitude of the New Deal’s impact on the S.F. Bay Area. [East Bay Yesterday]

* Johnson & Johnson says vaccines for children could be available by September (CNN)

* He Was the Hero of ‘Hotel Rwanda.’ Now He’s Accused of Terrorism. -- Long hailed for his bravery during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Paul Rusesabagina is now charged with being an insurgent leader. Did Rwanda change, or did he? (NYT)

* At least 10 rockets targeted a military base in western Iraq that hosts U.S.-led coalition troops. At least one U.S. contractor died of a heart attack. The rockets struck Ain al-Asad airbase in Anbar province two days before Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Iraq in a much-anticipated trip. [AP]

* Criminal Inquiries Loom Over al-Assad’s Use of Chemical Arms in Syria -- Investigations in France and Germany could lead to prosecutions of President Bashar al-Assad and members of his upper echelon over one of the Syrian war’s signature atrocities. (NYT)

* New Military Diversity Initiative Aims To Make Leadership Look More Like Countries They Invade (The Onion)

***

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

-- Robert Frost

-30-

Kissing Your Story

 

Starting with the good news, a Jacob Lawrence painting has just been found in Manhattan. His work has long inspired me, because he invited us into his imagination, so we could go along for the ride.

In honor of this development, I want to reprint a short excerpt from an essay I first published eleven years ago this month. It went like this:

"It's spring soccer season now; my daughter's first practice was rained out Friday but took place today. As she and her teammates ran about the field at St. Mary's, I happened to be standing on a hill whose name I don't know, several miles to the southwest. Responding to the motion of small figures moving far away, my eyes turned in her direction.

"My mind had been on another matter, a different conversation. But I was aware of the time, which meant that in the back of my mind, she was there. The clocks had turned today; did she remember? Do her cleats still fit? A parent's thoughts drift -- sometimes just outside the range of consciousness -- but they are always there.

"She and her cohorts were far too far away for me to differentiate who was whom, so I just imagined her running and jumping, much as the great Jacob Lawrence once imagined a childish Harriet Tubman. All of those bright sprites, cartwheeling across the green. My imagination suddenly merged with his imagination, as we collaborated on remembering the past and anticipating the future.

"It's spring-time. The impossibly green leaves with their pure white blossoms snake up and down the branches of the plum tree, doing their part to help feed us this coming summer. The earth is fully awake now, so our time has also come."

The person finding the Lawrence painting reportedly didn't know who he was but she took the initiative to get it to someone who would know-- at the Met. 

There is a lesson in this for all of us. When you create something, you never know what kind of journey it may go on. And you can't know how and where it is going to pop up in the future.

For all artists, that is something to consider. So kiss your story before you send it on its way.

***

The news headlines:

And just before them, a few notes about Biden's foreign policy. We all need to keep pressuring for justice in the murder of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden has effectively done nothing. this is unacceptable. 

Biden's bombing of Syria in an undeclared war is unacceptable and represents an interpretation of U.S. national security that is invalid. Doing another country's dirty work is not an enlightened act -- it will only serve to perpetuate inequity and injustice in the Middle East.

* New data about the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. is extremely concerning, the leader of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned. “At this level of cases with variants spreading, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky said, referencing emerging strains of the coronavirus that appear more transmissible, deadlier and more resistant to vaccines. [HuffPost]

* Virus Did Not Bring Financial Rout That Many States Feared (NYT)

* Media advocacy group accuses Saudi crown prince, aides of crimes against humanity in Khashoggi death (WashPo)

* School Counselors On How Covid Will Change Kids -- “Middle, high school definitely and even college-age kids are living through an enormous amount of sudden change and unpredictable change that leaves people just generally anxious. They’re kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop — and I’m nervous that this will affect their ability to just be in the moment and enjoy life as it is and not feel like you have to worry about, you know the power grid going out.” (HuffPost)

* Far-Right Groups Are Splintering in Wake of the Capitol Riot (NYT)

* Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, in his new column for The Washington Post explored Donald Trump’s “poisonous legacies” and argued the GOP is now “just the party of white grievance.” Trump’s presidency, and divisive and violent rhetoric, helped to “expand the boundaries of expressible prejudice,” wrote Gerson. [HuffPost]

* Major Evangelical Adoption Agency Will Now Serve Gay Parents Nationwide (NYT)

* As New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo faces an investigation over his alleged sexual harassment of two former aides, a third woman came forward with an account of his unwanted advances. (HuffPost)

* FBI Director Chris Wray on Tuesday debunked conspiracy theories promoted by right-wing supporters of former President Donald Trump, saying there was no evidence that leftist extremists disguised themselves as Trump supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol. (Reuters)

* Wray condemned the January riot at the U.S. Capitol as “domestic terrorism” as he defended the bureau’s handling of intelligence indicating the prospect for violence. He told lawmakers the information was properly shared with other law enforcement agencies even though it was raw and unverified. (AP)

* FBI director says domestic terrorism cases soared to 2,000 in recent months (WashPo)

* 'More Dangerous And More Widespread': Conspiracy Theories Spread Faster Than Ever (NPR)

* Getting vaccinated is an important step to help protect you from getting COVID-19. Medicare covers the COVID-19 vaccine, so there's no cost to you. Bring your red, white, and blue Medicare card or Medicare Number to your vaccination appointment so your health care provider or pharmacy can bill Medicare. If you can't find it, you can also view your Medicare Number or print your Medicare card from your online Medicare account, or call us at 1-800-MEDICARE. (Medicare)

* The majority of California's 6.1 million public school students could be back in the classroom by April under new legislation announced Monday by Gov. Gavin Newsom (AP)

* Hyatt Hotels Corp. has slammed the “abhorrent” Nazi SS symbol critics spotted on the stage of the Conservative Political Action Conference at a Florida Hyatt over the weekend. The company also sharply criticized “disrespectful” CPAC attendees who rudely refused requests to wear masks, risking the health of workers at the Hyatt Regency Orlando. [HuffPost]

* Six Dr. Seuss books won’t be published for racist images (AP)

* House Lawmakers Launch Fresh Efforts To Overhaul Nation's Gun Laws (NPR)

* Lightning Strikes Twice: Another Lost Jacob Lawrence Surfaces -- Its owner, a nurse living on the Upper West Side, flagged a worker at the Metropolitan Museum’s information desk. “Listen, nobody calls me back. I have this painting. Who do I need to talk to?” (NYT)

* From the Medill School of Journalism/Northwestern University: "Nearly half of local news outlets’ digital subscribers are “zombie” readers who visit the website less than once a month, according to a data analysis in 45 markets by Northwestern University’s Medill Spiegel Research Center. (Medill)

* U.S. Allocates $500 Million For Mohammed Bin Salman To Use On Anger Management Counseling (The Onion)

***

Open Season (High Highs)

Get on your knees
And I thought you can leave it all in your mind in it
All in your mind in it

Crawl in the backseat old friend
It is really all in your mind in it
All in your mind

You look
So tired of living like a kite, kite, kite, kite

Look at all the trees in the light
They are growing all in your mind in it
All in your mind in it

Look at all the leaves in the fire
They are burning all in your mind in it
All in your mind

You look
So tired of living like a kite, kite, kite, kite

Get on your knees
And I thought you can leave it all in your mind in it
All in your mind in it

-- Songwriters: Claridge-chang Oliver / Milas Jackson Mico

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Memories Resumed

California is one state that recently loosened its pandemic rules to allow youth sports to resume outdoors in counties where the Covid-19 infection rate remains low.

That is straight-out good news.

There are reasons to worry about the effects of the pandemic on all age groups, but one particular concern I have had is the ban on kids playing sports. It's been as if one of the main parts of their childhood was just put on hold -- for an entire year.

What they are missing are the memories that never got to form. Both as a father and a coach, the many youth athletic contests I attended are among my fondest memories.

Not because my kids' teams always won -- they probably lost as many games as they won. Nor because my kids were the biggest stars -- sometimes they were and sometimes they weren't.

We have trophies, certificates and news clippings to recall the glory, but I also remember the  injuries and emergency room trips, and the pain of difficult losses. But those moments I spent out on green fields with the breezes coming in from the West were special in ways other events were not. For the kids, they included lessons for a lifetime.

In all of the companies where I worked, teamwork was highly valued. A strong work ethic was critical to success. How an employee recovered from a setback was significant. All of these qualities tend to be present in former athletes, which is why youth sports can be a preparation ground for careers in business.

Some of my grandchildren play sports but during the past year, they haven't had any games at all. That part of their lives -- as well as life's lessons -- have had to be on pause.

Hopefully that is all about to change now.

*** 

The political context for the first two years of the Biden administration were going to be tricky in any event, with a 50-50 Senate and a slim majority in the House. The battle to get a Covid relief measure through is illustrative, as is the difficulty raising the national minimum wage to $15/hour.

The positive impacts of such a raise clearly are beneficial for many working people and families, as are the negative impacts on small, family-owned businesses. 

Perhaps if Congress granted tax relief to small businesses that raise the minimum wage, we could achieve this important goal while increasing the likelihood that more small businesses could survive.

***

The news:

* Iran Rejects Nuclear Deal Talks With U.S. Proposed by Europe -- The rejection came days after President Biden ordered retaliatory strikes against Iranian-backed militias in eastern Syria. (NYT)

* With new mass detentions, every prominent Hong Kong activist is either in jail or exile (WashPo)

* Defending President Joe Biden’s decision not to sanction Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the brutal 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration sees “more effective ways” to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the killing. [HuffPost]

* The Big Antifa Lie --On social media, cable networks and even in the halls of Congress, Trump supporters tried to rewrite history in real time, pushing the fiction that left-wing agitators were to blame for the violence on Jan. 6. (NYT)

* Disinformation Fuels Distrust And Even Violence At All Levels Of Government -- Political scientists say growing acceptance of unfounded conspiracy theories is fueling disengagement and distrust in democratic institutions, an effect that is trickling down to local politics. (NPR)

* Andrew Cuomo’s survival in office looks doubtful (WashPo)

* Biden on Sunday night condemned union-busting by corporations and expressed the U.S. government’s support for collective bargaining by workers. Although he did not mention any particular company by name, the subtext of Biden’s remarks posted on Twitter was the ongoing union election at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama. [HuffPost]

* The Ugly Divorce Between Britain and Brussels (the EU) Is Just Getting Started (NYT)

* Millions of Tenants Fall Further Behind on Rent as Covid Aid Stalls (WSJ)

* How Fast Are Oceans Rising? The Answer May Be In Century-Old Shipping Logs -- A century ago, the shipping industry recorded the daily ebb and flow of tides. Now, those records are becoming crucial for forecasting how fast sea levels are rising in a warming climate. (NPR)

* Before Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, There Was Ahmaud Arbery -- A year after his killing in Georgia, his death has sparked a bipartisan effort to remake the state’s 158-year-old citizen’s arrest law. But a potentially divisive trial awaits. (NYT)

* Jane Fonda received the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2021 Golden Globe Awards on Sunday and powerfully addressed the need for diversity in storytelling in her acceptance speech. The honor celebrated her career, which has spanned five decades, and her activism. “You know, I have seen a lot of diversity in my long life, and at times I have been challenged to understand some of the people I’ve met, but inevitably, if my heart is open and I look beneath the surface, I feel kinship,” she told viewers. (HuffPost)

* The City Where Cars Are Not Welcome -- As automakers promise to get rid of internal combustion engines, Heidelberg is trying to get rid of autos. (NYT)

* 'Run The Oil Industry In Reverse': Fighting Climate Change By Farming Kelp -- A Maine startup is drawing high-profile support for its low-tech plan to soak up carbon emissions. It says its kelp farms will sink to the ocean floor and lock the carbon away for millennia. (NPR)

* High school seniors are facing a range of challenges, like isolation and pandemic exhaustion, and they’re applying for college financial aid at lower rates. [LAist]

* The Jobs the Pandemic May Devastate -- An updated forecast by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has alarming news for people with a high school diploma or less. (NYT)

* Sleeping naked results in a deeper sleep (Journalistic.org)

* Wolf Blitzer Announces Grim Milestone As Number Of Covid-19 Deaths Surpasses Jelly Beans In Jar (The Onion)

***

According to Baseball Almanac, In 1858, the first known baseball song was written, "The Base Ball Polka!" It was not quite as famous as Jack Norworth's 1908 classic, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", which was written on some scrap paper on a train ride to Manhattan, New York. Norworth then provided those paper scrap lyrics to Albert Von Tilzer who composed the music which in turn was published by the York Music Company and before the year was over, a hit song was born.

Jack Norworth was a very successful vaudeville entertainer / songwriter and spent fifteen minutes writing this classic which is sung during the seventh inning stretch at nearly every ball park in the country. In 1927, he changed some lyrics and a second version appeared.

"Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack,
I don't care if I never get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game."

-- Jack Norworth

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A Thinkin' Problem

Climate change is a frustrating issue to write about. We know for certain it is the greatest existential threat to human survival, but we don't know how to explain that to people in terms they can understand.

Bill Gates was interviewed by CNN Sunday and accurately called climate change a polymath problem. That's because one has to have mastered multiple disciplines and to have absorbed a multiple of complex information to make sense of the issue..

But we do not have the simple language that breaks through to people who don't understand multi-variable analysis of data. So we are stuck.

That is why young Greta Thunberg is so important. While Bill Gates, Al Gore, and so many others try but can't get through to any but a. small portion of the population; she speaks directly and bluntly to her generational cohort about what is happening.

Climate change is *not* theoretical. What happened in Texas is climate change. What happened in California and Colorado with the fires is climate change. What happened with the monster hurricanes is climate change. What is happening to the Pacific Islands that are receding back into the sea is climate change.

Our descendants -- yours and mine -- will be dealing with a planet of extreme weather events, shrinking habitable land mass, species extinctions, and probably political extremism as well.

The extremism arises directly out of ignorance. Foolish fantasies like the idea that renewable energy sources caused the problem in Texas or that a giant laser beam from space caused the wildfires are the product of undereducated minds incapable of processing complex information and incapable of drawing accurate conclusions.

In other words, the people spreading such nonsense are idiots.

It's not as if the horrific changes coming could not be mitigated if we as a species got our act together. It's that collectively we are not getting smart enough fast enough to do so.

And that is the tragedy.

***

Nobody knows the limits of non-fiction better than journalists. Because we spend our careers ascertaining the documentable truths. We don't make things up.

But great fiction allows us to explore the unknowable without worrying about accuracy or fact-checking.

So the best novels and short stories can reach the truths that remain beyond our grasp as journalists. Perhaps the best example is love. What is love? How can *that* be fact-checked?

Journalists are no good at answering that question. But maybe the poets know.

***

The news:

* In Statehouses, Stolen-Election Myth Fuels a G.O.P. Drive to Rewrite Rules (NYT)

* FDA authorizes Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot coronavirus vaccine (WashPo)

* Iran Rejects Offer of Direct U.S. Nuclear Talks (WSJ)

* Cuomo Is Accused of Sexual Harassment by a 2nd Former Aide (NYT)

* China created a story of the pandemic. Some people revealed details Beijing left out (CNN)

* Everyone in Sitka, Alaska, who's age 16 or older can get the COVID-19 vaccination. The tribal health service there has been so efficient, they've already vaccinated those at higher risk. (NPR)

* We’ll never reach herd immunity if we don’t vaccinate more non-white people (WashPo)

* Mexico's president expected to ask Biden to share U.S. vaccines, say sources (Reuters)

* Biden team readies wider economic package after virus relief (AP)

* The fatal assault in San Francisco on a defenseless older man was the latest terrifying episode for Asian-Americans, many of whom have endured racist taunts, rants and worse during the pandemic. (NYT)

* Biden administration promises focus on environmental justice (AP)

* San Francisco Parents Work to Recall School Board Members -- Frustrated with the pace of plans to reopen public schools, parents are mobilizing against the city’s elected school board, arguing it has given priority to social justice issues over getting students back in classrooms. (WSJ)

* California’s intensified fires are increasing the threat to Highway 1 (WashPo)

* Trump has no remorse about the deadly violence he incited with his lies about a stolen election in his uprising against the U.S. Congress. This much was clear when the ex-President put the Republican Party on notice on Sunday that he intends to use his hold on its grassroots to try to suppress the vote heading into the presidential election in 2024, in which he hinted he might run. In his first public remarks since leaving the White House, he also dangerously lashed out at Supreme Court justices for failing to intervene to throw him the election he clearly lost to President Joe Biden. (CNN)

* Younger Military Personnel Reject Vaccine, in Warning for Commanders and the Nation -- About one-third of the troops have declined to take the vaccine. Many say they worry the vaccines are unsafe or were developed too quickly. Others want a sense of independence, even in uniform. (NYT)

* Allies of Rep. Adam Kinzinger launch new super PAC to support Republicans who have bucked Trump (WashPo)

* The Toronto Blue Jays spent more on free agents this winter to bolster an exciting young lineup. Their fans love them. The only problem is they still can’t play in Canada. (WSJ)

* Dozens of leading Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners charged with subversion (Reuters)

* A potential U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, coupled with a weak Afghan security force, mean the Taliban will likely continue to capture, condemn and torture thousands. (NYT)

* At least 18 killed in Myanmar on bloodiest day of protests against coup (Reuters)

* Disney Installs Animatronic Christian Missionaries To Convert Natives On Jungle Cruise Ride (The Onion)

***

My Netflix bingeing reached a new level when I somehow ended up watching a Korean serial drama, "Crash Landing on You," that just keeps going and going. It is about a South Korean woman who while hang-gliding is swept by a storm into North Korea, where a soldier discovers and protects her from capture.

Of course they fall in love -- the true definition  of an impossible love.

It's relatively well-done, which is to say it's addictive in a Netflix kind of way...

***

Yes, I admit I've got a thinkin' problem
She's always on my mind
Her memory goes round and round
I've tried to quit a thousand times
Yes, I admit I've got a thinkin' problem
Fill the glass up to the top
I'll start with loving her
But I don't know when to stop
I'll start with lovin' her
But I don't know when to stop

-- David Ball

-30-