Our Worst Enemy

So Friday brought another attack on the U.S. Capitol, killing yet another member of the Capitol Police force in the process. The specifics of this incident don't really matter as much as the symbolism. This was a reminder that those responsible for the Jan. 6th riot are still being investigated and charged, among the many ongoing investigations of recent events that have left most of us in state of shock.

Making any coherent sense of what is going on here is one of the most difficult things for an analyst or commentator to do in real time. Not to mention three more mass shootings in the past few weeks -- in Georgia, Colorado and California. And gun purchases nationwide are at record levels.

What sort of nation is this, actually? Roughly half the population, mainly white, rural, and undereducated appears to be seething with resentment toward the more diverse, wealthier, better educated populations clustered in giant cities. Too many other people just seem randomly crazy, like Friday's assailant.

This all feels way too similar to the historical conditions in which other empires fell. So is the American empire in decline?

Every time I run the numbers on the size of the U.S. economy and military relative to any other country, it is difficult to comprehend why this country would feel threatened in any concrete sense. But the perception that many people elsewhere in the world hate the U.S. now has had to be broadened to include many of its own citizens.

The official story told by the government is that this is a great country, a shining beacon of democracy, hope and opportunity. Again, in relative terms, the story makes sense. But there are limits to logic.

Then again, the disparities in wealth, land ownership, racial justice, political power and every other measure of actual equality follows a very different narrative. Is this how empires end? Imploding on themselves?

At this moment, we would appear to be our own worst enemy. I believe there may be a psychological diagnosis for that condition.

***

As more and more of us get vaccinated, life is returning to pre-Covid around here, at least for the present. Friday night I traveled into San Francisco for a birthday celebration for my youngest son at a Korean BBQ place in the Inner Sunset.

The city was cool and overcast but crowded with people, mostly young, on the streets and at the restaurants. It looked more like a normal Friday night than I've seen in quite a while. Of course this is a holiday weekend -- Easter, when we all celebrate that great spiritual figure, the Easter Bunny.

He's always been one cool dude in my book, not so much for the colored eggs, but the candy. For some of us, it's as good at 70 as it was at 7.

Where exactly is the Bunny Trail?

The news:

* The U.S. Capitol was on lockdown Friday afternoon after an assailant drove his car into two police officers, killing one. The assailant was shot dead by other officers. (CNN)

* Virus Surge in Michigan Is a ‘Gut Punch’ to Hopes of Pandemic’s End (NYT)

* Vaccines are quickly rolling out to every American who wants them, but an explosion of COVID-19 cases in places like Michigan and Maryland means overcoming the pandemic will come down to whether herd immunity and common sense can outrun virulent coronavirus variations and a spring fever-fueled urge to cut loose. [HuffPost]

* Biden would use $80 billion to boost rail. It could transform passenger travel. (WaPo)

* Trump's Odds Of Avoiding Prison Are Rapidly Dwindling (Vanity Fair)

* Texas-based American Airlines said it "strongly opposed" legislation sailing toward the governor's desk that would curb voting options and poll hours. The company added its voice to Georgia-based titans Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola, which blasted their state's new voter suppression law. Dozens of other Republican-led states are moving to throttle voting by people of color in response to GOP losses in the 2020 elections. [AP]

* Gun buyers are stocking up after mass shooters killed 22 people in three assaults on innocent civilians in recent weeks. Many Americans appear to be using coronavirus stimulus checks for weaponry. Meanwhile, the Southern California killer of four people, including a 9-year-old boy, appears to have targeted his victims. [CNN]

* Biden U.S. infrastructure ideas popular, but support for plan is partisan (Reuters)

* U.S., Iran say they’ll begin indirect talks on nuclear program (AP)

* Meet the economist who saw ‘working remotely’ coming in 1979 (WaPo)

* California is plugging giant batteries into its power grid to try to avoid blackouts this summer. [Bloomberg]

* Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft are each a tech behemoth in their own right, and the ways the five rely on one another as partners while also competing as rivals help shape Big Tech’s clout. (WSJ)

* Majority in U.S. back easier voter registration (AP)

* Many media outlets feel they need to be on Facebook to reach people. So why did New Zealand's biggest news publisher decide to go it alone? (NPR)

* The tech elite and Silicon Valley investors want to recall San Francisco’s district attorney, Chesa Boudin. They claim his progressive politics, like ending cash bail, has led to a surge in violent crime. [Mother Jones]

* MLB will move its All-Star Game out of Atlanta as backlash to Georgia voting law continues (WaPo)

* The water content of California’s Sierra Nevada snowpack is well below normal as the wet season comes to an end, and the state’s reservoirs are only about half full. (AP)

* Women Are Calling Out ‘Rape Culture’ in U.K. Schools (NYT)

* Oath Keepers founder, associates exchanged 19 calls from start of Jan. 6 riot through breach, prosecutors allege (WaPo)

* A Man Found 15,000 Bees in His Car After Grocery Shopping (NYT)

* The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs created the Amazon rain forest (Scientific American)

* Chauvin Defense Team Praises Officer’s Restraint In Not Killing Bystanders (The Onion)

***

I remember when
I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that place
Even your emotions have an echo in so much space
And when you're out there without care
Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much

Does that make me crazy
Does that make me crazy
Does that make me crazy
Possibly

-- Songwriters: Reverberi Gianfranco / Callaway Thomas Decarlo / Burton Brian Joseph / Reverberi Gian Piero

-30-

The Many Sides of Justice

It's hard not to feel a sense of satisfaction that the defamation suits against Fox brought by Dominion Voting Systems are making the likes of Sydney Powell and other Trump enablers squirm.  But there is an aspect to this that concerns some of us in the media business.

Historically, slander, defamation and libel suits have been used to suppress critics and damage the news organizations that quote them. Although many of these legal actions are eventually overturned or dismissed, by the time that happens the legal costs can set back a news organization by millions of dollars.

For smaller outfits, like local newspapers, this can spell bankruptcy.

Ultimately, the threat of libel acts to discourage media executives from supporting the type of investigative reporting I've devoted my life to and am constantly celebrating. One of most revealing things you need to know about my role inside media companies is that I often have become close with the in-house lawyers and outside counsels.

This comes to mind because one of today's news headlines is that a federal judge has thrown out a massive libel suit against my former colleagues at the Center for Investigative Reporting. CIR is a non-profit with a modest budget, not a profitable company with deep pockets like Fox News, and the burden imposed by defending such a lawsuit is therefore formidable.

As is often the case with virtually all issues these days, the liberal side of the political world is happy about the Dominion lawsuits against Fox, Powell and others. I get that. But beware that what cheers you today may darken your horizon tomorrow.

***

The access to vaccines is varying so widely now in California that it can make your head spin. Just across the bridge in Marin, you have to be aged 50 and above to get poked, but here in Contra Costa County, anyone 16 and over can get vaccinated.

In addition, according to news reports, there is an excess of vaccine capacity up and down the Central Valley of the state, which has far more anti-vaxxers than we do here on the coast.

Unfortunately the virus doesn't care what your political orientation is; it is a non-partisan killer. And as it continues to mutate, it seems almost certain to outpace our ability to reach herd immunity any time soon.

***

As the Derek Chauvin trial proceeds, one senses that this country is sitting on a time bomb awaiting the outcome of this trial. Should Chauvin be acquitted after the evidence we are seeing, last summer's riots will no doubt look like child's play.

***

The news:

* In California a federal court issued a 44-page order throwing out a libel lawsuit filed in 2016 against Reveal, a non-profit newsroom run by The Center for Investigative Reporting, by Planet Aid, an international charity that received U.S. government funds for aid programs. Planet Aid filed its lawsuit in August 2016 after Reveal published several stories based on almost two years of reporting which tied the charity to an alleged cult and raised questions about the charity’s spending. While the judge’s decision is an unequivocal legal win for Reveal, it took more than four-and-a-half years and millions of dollars to get there. (Columbia Journalism Review)

* Biden’s Big Bet: Tackling Climate Change Will Create Jobs, Not Kill Them (NYT)

* Biden's American Jobs Plan represents more than five times the climate spending the Obama administration secured in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. But it's still about five times too small to bring the U.S. economy's planet-heating emissions down to zero. [HuffPost]

* Biden’s infrastructure plan is a big bet on big government (WaPo)

* Thursday’s opening day baseball game between the New York Mets and Washington Nationals has been postponed due to Covid-19 issues. (CNN)

* Hospital workers despair as France’s virus strategy flails (AP)

* As Cuomo Sought $4 Million Book Deal, Aides Hid Damaging Death Toll (NYT)

* A dead gray whale was found Wednesday in the San Francisco Bay. Officials will conduct a necropsy to determine a potential cause of death. [S.F. Gate]

* Theory That COVID Came From A Chinese Lab Takes On New Life In Wake Of WHO Report (NPR)

* Grizzly bears are slowly expanding the turf where they roam in parts of the northern Rocky Mountains but need continued protections, according to government scientists who concluded that no other areas of the country would be suitable for reintroducing the fearsome predators. (AP)

* S&P 500 hits 4,000 on tech power, recovery optimism (Reuters)

* Pentagon Issues New Rules Overturning Trump’s Ban on Transgender Troops (NYT)

* Ancient coins may solve mystery of murderous 1600s pirate (AP)

* Rogers Hornsby’s Unbreakable Record -- For a five-year period in the 1920s, he hit better than .400. That won’t happen again. (WSJ)

* Area man: "Look, maybe one day King Kong and Godzilla could end up being friends, but right now, they seem to have some really bad blood." (The Onion)

***

[NOTE: Thanks to my friend, the great journalist Robert J. Rosenthal, whose Facebook post pointed me to the CJR article about libel suits.]

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you

May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung

And may you stay
Forever young

-- Bob Dylan

-30-

Echo From the Benthos

Lost among the current news cycle (except here) is a brief report from Reuters about corporate opposition to the mining of the deep sea for valuable minerals. This is a topic that has long been dear to me. I published an investigative report in the May 1978 issue of Mother Jones, "Waste Deep in the BIG Muddy," no doubt one of my least-remembered stories.
The roots of my interest in this kind of issue dated back to 1968 when I almost switched my major at the University of Michigan to natural resources from journalism, and to my work for Pacific Basin Reports in 1973 on the global mining and minerals trade.
Deep sea mining remains an obscure issue, but it apparently is getting a bit of renewed attention now more scientists are speaking out about the pollution of the oceans and the man-made disruption of our key ecosystems.
The extraction of minerals occurs in the benthos -- so deep under water that no light penetrates there and the relatively few creatures adapted to that environment get around by other means than seeing. When a dead whale, for example, falls to the deep ocean floor, creatures from miles around rush to the scene to clean up the mess.
It's a magical, mysterious world only recently accessible to humans via underwater vehicles. Thinking back to my piece in Mother Jones, it is remarkable that the editors working there at that time -- Richard Parker and Adam Hochschild -- were willing to publish such an arcane report when so many sexier topics dominated the news cycles of the day.
Clearly, we were ahead of our time by roughly a half century, plus or minus.
***
Relatively quietly, Google is leading the way in the long-overdue trend to begin paying journalism companies for the news content that drives Google's search results, and much of Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple and Yahoo's content. (Add in every other major online information service here.)
This is a major development in restoring the balance between those who dig out stories and those who profit from them. Young reporters tend to believe they work in the news business, but there is no "news business;" it is an advertising and subscription model that fuels the news-gathering process.
The Internet broke down the traditional "church-state line" separating reporters from the advertisers who paid their salaries, and ever since this became apparent in 1994, I and others have called for journalists to have a seat at the management table when media companies negotiate their deals with major advertising clients.
It is much like the situation between the actual church and the actual state. As boundaries blur, great harm will inevitably occur unless the sunshine of journalism and the accountability achieved by investigative reporters gains its rightful role in our media institutions.
***
The origin of Covid-19 remains a mystery. It started in China and almost certainly from a virus previously found only in bats -- we know that much. But whether the coronavirus leapt from bats to other animals to humans or resulted from a lab leak investigating the nature of the bat virus in Wuhan simply is unknown at this time -- at least to the rest of us outside a tiny circle of scientists and government officials in China.
Having trained a number of investigative reporters currently working inside China, it would bring me great pleasure if one of them or their colleagues would make a break in this, one of the biggest stories of our time.
But what makes headlines in real time is always relative. Like that deep-sea mining story long ago, what appears to be obscure today will eventually prove critical tomorrow. It just would be nice to speed up the process of getting from here to there.
***
The news (adjusted for importance):
* Google, BMW, AB Volvo, Samsung back environmental call for pause on deep-sea mining (Reuters)
* White House Calls for ‘Transparency’ on Pandemic’s Origin -- The White House called for more answers into the origins of the coronavirus, stating the report released by the World Health Organization lacked crucial data. (AP)
* While the W.H.O. report produced by an investigative team in China left many unanswered question, it did suggest that the coronavirus probably emerged in bats. (AP)

* WHO report leaves unsettled the ‘lab-leak’ theory on the coronavirus pandemic’s origins (WaPo)

* Scientists are putting new effort into understanding the troubling symptoms of long Covid. (WSJ)

* Google says 'not up to us' to dictate how 600 news companies (so far) spend its $1 billion (Reuters)

* Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged fellow Republican men to get vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible. Recent polls show that Republican men are passing up the shots. "There's no good argument not to get the vaccination," he said. [HuffPost]
* Two Capitol police officers sue Trump for ‘physical and emotional injuries’ suffered in riots (WaPo)

* Journalists were allowed into a border detention facility in Donna, Texas, for the first time and it was a grim picture. More than 500 migrant children were packed into plastic-walled rooms built for 32 people at the largest U.S. Customs and Border Protection holding facility for unaccompanied children. The average stay at the facility was 133 hours. [AP]

* People on Social Security who don't file tax returns will begin receiving their $1,400 stimulus payments this weekend, the Internal Revenue Service said. The payments had been delayed by a holdup at the Social Security Administration. [HuffPost]

* COVID-19 third leading cause of U.S. deaths in 2020 after heart disease, cancer -U.S. report (Reuters)

* Auto negotiations pose early test for Biden’s vow to create a climate-friendly future (WaPo)

* The San Francisco school board has infuriated parents and the mayor. Now it has descended into chaos over accusations of racism. (NYT)

* Microsoft wins $21 billion Army contract for augmented reality headsets (WaPo)

* Facebook denies fueling polarization, launches tools to control feed (Reuters)

* On Wednesday, Cesar Chavez Day, the first lady, Jill Biden, visited the Forty Acres, a historic site in Delano that became the headquarters of the United Farm Workers of America. Gov. Gavin Newsom was there too.  [The Bakersfield Californian, KQED]

* A new poll has found that a majority of Californians would vote against recalling Gavin Newsom as governor if the recall election were held today, and only 40% — mostly Republican voters — would vote to remove him. (SFist)

* Global forest losses accelerated despite the pandemic, threatening world’s climate goals (WaPo)

* An unlikely alliance of ranchers, Indigenous communities and environmentalists is trying to save the Owyhee Canyonlands of southeastern Oregon, a sagebrush-dominated ecosystem. [HuffPost]

* Undercover operative convicted in Watergate scandal dies at 90 -- G. Gordon Liddy | 1930-2021 (WaPo)

* California’s senators and around two dozen representatives asked the federal government to make wildland firefighting a year-round job, arguing that wildfires are no longer limited to the traditional fire season. [AP]

* Brazil is rocked by political turmoil as pandemic outlook darkens (WaPo)

* Omaha Steaks Announces Plan To Give 18 Weeks Of Maternity Leave To Cows (The Onion)

***

Somewhere in time
We met on timeless hills
And in the evening mist we kissed
And time stood still
Before the dawn, we found forever
Moments are timeless when I feel your caress

You'll always be inside of me
And I know when love is true
It's always with you

Somewhere in time
I came to realize
Love never goes

Love never goes
Once it has touched your heart
Just like the strength of wine that's left
As two lips part
A taste of love will linger after
I know the meaning of all that I see

-- John Barry

-30-

Against the Odds

One of my many short-term jobs in the second half of my career was editor of an online prediction site, where users submitted their best guesses of what stock prices, sports scores or political polls would indicate at some fixed date in the future, usually days or weeks away.

I curated the submitted questions, wrote others, and reported the results. It was a fascinating experience in coordinating the "wisdom of the crowds," backed by venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road.

Among our partners were media companies, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. They saw the service as a novel way to gauge reader interest in various topics. 

I didn't think much about it at the time, but what we were doing was part of a larger attempt by media outlets to shape their content to appeal to more people -- a kind of popularity contest for what used to be decided independently of any user feedback.

Since my earliest days as an online editor/producer, I'd used a similar technique -- opinion polls -- to survey our users on provocative questions. At the Netizen/HotWired in 1996, we staged regular polls about the presidential candidates that election cycle, for example.

But by far our most popular poll was when we asked "Do you prefer a Mac or a PC?"

The results were trending PC early on until a prominent Mac enthusiast got involved, which dramatically altered the results. This was an early opportunity for me to witness the power of online "influencers." 

As part of rallying his troops, the Mac enthusiast attacked me as the editor of the Netizen, assuming for some reason that I was a PC-sympathizer, without verifying whether his assumption was true.

In fact I preferred Macs -- the only computers I had ever owned were Macs. (They still are.)

But the online environment made it easy to attack me or anyone else via email, or on bulletin boards and the like, without giving them a chance to respond. That of course was the opposite of the journalistic process I was accustomed to.

I didn't take the attack personally -- it was the first of many -- because it was clear to me that in the new age when everyone had an equal voice, this was how the game would be played. The problem of course was how would this affect journalism, which I felt was fundamentally about the search for truth. 

For me the question became how to defend our journalistic standards from becoming just another endangered species.

A huge part of my mission from those days until now has been to try and counteract the excesses of online media by working to preserve and protect traditional journalists and our methodology. To me that's a vital step if we are to preserve the democratization process that has been going on in this country for 250 years.

Can one person make any discernible difference in something like this? IDK, but I'll probably die trying.

***

The news:

* $2.25 trillion plan expected to include $650 billion for roads, bridges, more -- The White House is expected to unveil a jobs and infrastructure plan that could form a cornerstone of the president’s agenda, two people said, describing hundreds of billions in spending on transportation, care for the elderly and disabled, the electric grid and other investments. (WaPo)

* Virus Origins Remain Unclear in W.H.O.-China Inquiry -- Far more work is needed to understand how the pandemic began, the report says, but it is not clear that Beijing will cooperate. “We may never find the true origins,” an expert said.  (NYT)

* Biden’s first slate of judicial nominees aims to quickly boost diversity in federal courts (WaPo)

* The Arkansas legislature became the latest state to pass anti-transgender legislation, supporting a new bill that would prohibit doctors from providing minors with treatments, including puberty blockers, hormone therapies or any transition procedures. It's unclear whether Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) plans to sign it into law. The American Civil Liberties Union has vowed to take the issue to court if the governor signs. [HuffPost]

* California awarded over $221 million in no-bid contracts this year to UnitedHealth, a major contributor to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s re-election campaign. [CapRadio]

* Georgia sued for third time over voting restrictions as Delta, Coke face boycott calls (Reuters)

* School shooting plotters often are bullied, suffer from depression (AP)

* In bid to avoid jail, Proud Boys leader claims he was in contact with FBI years before Capitol riot (CNN)

* A single stuck ship stymied global trade for nearly a week. That raises fundamental questions about risks in the supply chain industry (NYT)

* Canada struggles to deport its last known Nazi suspect (WaPo)

* New York resident Sherry Vill said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) kissed her on both cheeks "in a highly sexual manner" without her consent during a tour of her flood-damaged neighborhood. Vill is the ninth person to publicly accuse the governor of sexual misconduct. Several Democrats have called on Cuomo to resign and he has refused. [HuffPost]

*

‘Lighting a fuse’: Amazon vote may spark more union pushes (AP)

* Our video streaming habits impact the planet. Here's how -- Watching Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube have exploded during the pandemic. But streaming video has a growing and significant environmental impact that goes far beyond your tv or phone. (CNN)

* Everyone should have the retirement plan federal employees enjoy (NYT)

* The Supreme Court’s long-awaited case examining NCAA limits on compensating college athletes has clear implications for the sports world, but could also test U.S. antitrust law at a time of national debate about whether courts and lawmakers should do more to protect competition. (WSJ)

* ‘No Excuse Not to Be Vaccinated’ in Texas, Which Expands Eligibility to All Adults (NYT)

* Church membership in the U.S. has fallen below the majority for the first time in nearly a century (WaPo)

* More than a dozen states to open vaccines to all adults (AP)

* Many people returning to offices in the coming months face an end to one of the secret perks of working from home: the daily nap (WSJ)

* An environmental medicine professor is sounding the alarm on humanity’s rapidly declining fertility rates — and she says chemicals in plastics are largely to blame. Shanna Swan, professor of environmental medicine and public health at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine in New York City, helped complete a major study in 2017 that discovered sperm count amongst men in Western countries has dropped by more than 50 percent over the past four decades, according to The Guardian. Last month, she released her book Count Down that dives into how and why humans are losing their ability to procreate. (Neoscope)

* Ravens stealing food from Anchorage Costco shoppers (BoingBoing/Twitter)

* Finance Whiz Predicts The Dow Will Open At 9:30 A.M. Tomorrow (The Onion)

***

[NOTE: The company referenced in this essay was called Predictify.com. It was the only time I was hired after answering a help wanted ad, in this case, on Craigslist.]

"Killin' Time"

I don't know nothin' 'bout tomorrow
I've been lost in yesterday
I've spent all my life just dying
For a love that passed away
There's an end to all my sorrow
This is the only price I'll pay
I'll be a happy man when I go
And I can't wait another day

-- Songwriters: Clint Patrick Black / James Hayden Nicholas

-30-

As Truth Mutates, So Does the Future

Being a prominent politician carries hazards that are specific to the profession; basically one mistake can alter the course of their careers. Not that I have any particular sympathy for them, I don't. But Ted Cruz fleeing Texas for Cancun during a weather emergency certainly branded him in ways he'll find difficult to overcome if he is to ever achieve his ambitions to reach the White House.

And Gavin Newsom attending a posh party unmasked during the pandemic seems to be as much the reason as any that he faces the prospect of being the first California governor recalled since Grey Davis. The smart money is that the recall will fail, partly because there is no superhero like Arnold Schwarzenegger to beat him at the polls, plus Newsom remains popular with most Californians.

Indeed, most of the time, even the stupidest of acts have little consequence. Lindsey Graham's been making headlines for vowing to kill any gangs that come after him with an AR-15. The last I checked, there aren't any gangs headed his way; in fact the only gang going after politicians was Trump's Capitol riot mob and it's unclear what they would have done to Graham had they encountered him on Jan. 6th.

Andrew Cuomo is a different matter. Now there's a politician in major trouble, IMHO, with so many accusers of sexual harassment and a couple other scandals, including jumping the line to get his family vaccinated against Covid-19 early. There's an obvious double standard when it comes to powerful men accused of sexual misbehavior -- Democrats freely criticized Trump but some of them continue to defend Cuomo.

Of course, Republicans impeached Clinton but stood by Trump. Maybe the larger problem is that the parties are so polarized, everything logical gets tainted in the process. One of today's headlines reports that the killing of bears and wolves in Montana has become politicized, much as mask-wearing and vaccines have been all over the red states and red parts of blue states.

Here in California, for example, a thirty-something friend of mine from the Central Valley says she is already vaccinated because so many Trump sympathizers in her area refuse to do so. Thus the age restrictions are being ignored by health providers who don't want their vaccine doses to go to waste.

The ultimate political irony will be if those who bought Trump's lies about Covid-19 and election fraud don't get the vaccine, and their numbers dwindle due to the pandemic, making future elections even more difficult for them to win. I'll resist the temptation to say they'll be getting what they deserve, since this disease is far more pernicious than that.

As dangerous mutations proliferate, the lack of herd immunity due to anti-vaxxers may well expose us all to new threats of illness and death even if we have taken the vaccine. There will always be a lag time before the vaccines are adjusted to account for a new variant; in that period more will sicken and die needlessly thanks largely to the politicization of mask-wearing.

So much of all this comes down to "fake news" and the conspiracy theories that the Trump era has ushered in. As much as honest journalists and political leaders try to reverse the damage, we are fighting a tsunami of lies. For the moment it's a standoff, but there's no guarantee in the long run that the liars won't win the day.

***

Here's some non-fake news:

* New York City, long buoyed by the flow of commuters into its towering office buildings, faces a cataclysmic challenge, even when the pandemic ends. (NYT)

* The high-profile trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd's neck as he lay dying in May 2020, began Monday. Chauvin, 45, is charged with second- and third-degree murder as well as manslaughter in Floyd's death. He has pleaded not guilty to all counts. [HuffPost]

* “She’s free”: Traffic in Suez Canal resumes after stranded ship refloated (Reuters)

* Ship Happens: Coffee, Cars, IKEA Furniture Among The Objects Stuck At The Suez (NPR)

* 15.5% of U.S. Population Is Vaccinated (CNN)

* Biden urges states to reimplement mask mandates after CDC director said she’s ‘scared’ about rising cases (WaPo)

* Biden’s Chance to Save the Everglades (NYT)

* WHO Report Into Covid-19 Origins Leaves Key Questions Unanswered (WSJ)

* Bills to ban transgender kids from sports try to solve a problem that doesn’t exist (WaPo)

* Water Restrictions Coming in California. (California Today)

* The Creek Fire was the largest single wildfire in California’s history. Now, it’s factoring into new national forest management plans. [The Fresno Bee]

* Historic Amazon Union Vote Count Begins This Week For Alabama Warehouse (NPR)

* Biden targets big offshore wind energy expansion to fight climate change (Reuters)

* A Brazilian pilot working for wildcat miners escaped death when his plane went down in a remote area. He walked through the jungle for 36 days before being rescued. (NYT)

* Three groundbreaking journalists saw the Vietnam War differently. It’s no coincidence they were women. (WaPo)

* NCAA Faces Showdown Over Player Compensation—and Future of College Sports (WSJ)

* Each May in the small Greek village of Lagadas, a group of celebrants upholds a three-day tradition that incorporates a range of age-old fire-walking rites. (NYT)

* Search for Alien Life Moves Well Beyond Mars (WSJ)

* In Montana, Bears and Wolves Become Part of the Culture Wars (NYT)

* Bottles Of Wine Return To Earth After Year In Space (The Onion)

***

This is a must read: Bob Dylan at 80 <https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/28/and-the-brand-played-on-bob-dylan-at-80> in The Guardian.

(Thanks to my old friend Martin Abraham.)

-30-

Strange Occurrences

[NOTE: Any resemblance to actual characters, locations, or events are intentional.]

Something's in the air around here, that's the only explanation.

Crazy things just keep happening. There are two dogs in the extended family, Jack and Betsy. Betsy's main habit is she chews on stones and loves to chase them if you will throw them for her. She is not exactly subtle about her desire; if you are sitting outside, she will keep bringing you stones and nudging you until you agree to throw them for her to retrieve.

If you tire of this game, she becomes more aggressive, standing on her hind legs and depositing a stone in your lap.

Jack has a different habit. He eats dirty socks. Normally this would not be much of an issue, because my son and daughter-in-law never leave their socks lying around their house, but these days their two-year-old daughter, Bettina, does so on a regular basis.

So this week, Jack ended up in the emergency room after eating seven socks.

It was one of those kinds of weeks. Another member of the tribe has recently taken to foraging in local parks, seeking edible plants. Why? It must be one of those pandemic things. Anyway this week she mistakenly ate what she assumed was a wild carrot.

In fact it was hemlock, the poison made famous at Socrates' trial. Once she discovered her error she called Poison Control; they said to get herself to the E.R.

Apparently the problem with hemlock is it can take hours to have its way with you, so it's best to make sure you really ingested the stuff, from a time-management perspective. So my son-in-law gallantly went to the park where she had procured the hemlock in order to gather some specimens for the E.R. doctors.

He communicated with the E.R. via Zoom on his cellphone, and his first attempt at a specimen yielded a poison but not the right one. This was poison oak.

Eventually, however, he found a large cluster of hemlock, cut it and put it in a plastic bag he had brought along for that very purpose.

As he exited the park, he passed two park workers who didn't say anything, but when he reached his car, he decided to go back and ask them if what he'd picked was indeed hemlock.

They confirmed that it was and added, "We wondered what you were doing with a bag of poison." Apparently their curiosity wasn't great enough to require any action.

A bit flustered, he said: "My relative eats this stuff," as if that were an adequate explanation. (English is his second language; he's fluent but sometimes he'll make a tiny error in tense or pronunciation.)

The park workers seemed satisfied and he went on his merry way.

The good news is that after 24 hours or so of observation, the hemlock-eater seemed pretty much the same as ever, so everyone could relax and go back to the general state of chaos prevailing around here.

Meanwhile, a 7-year-old boy in the neighborhood expressed his opinion on the affair. "Yesterday, she tried to convince me to eat some wild radishes at the park. I knew then she'd probably end up poisoned."

That would normally be the last word on the matter but I must note that near the end of his life the great I.F. Stone chose to re-investigate the trial of Socrates and the whole hemlock business.

Meanwhiale, an unexploded cannon ball from the Civil War was located in Maryland and scientists believe the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden may have been a melon, not an apple.

If true, the reputation of apples has been slandered since time immemorial. 

The rest of the news, alas, is far more boring:

* White House, private firms developing plans for ‘vaccine passports’ -- The effort has gained momentum with a growing number of companies saying they will require proof of vaccination before opening again. (WaPo)

* Covid-19 Shots for Children Hold Key to Herd Immunity -- Health experts warn that vaccinations probably won’t be ready for use in younger children until early 2022. (WSJ)

* Draft of WHO-China report obtained by AP says the coronavirus likely spread from animals to humans, lab leak unlikely. (AP)

* Under Biden, Democrats Are Poised to Raise Taxes on Business and the Rich (NYT)

* What Fauci, Walensky and other experts can’t wait to do: Go out to eat, visit the dentist, host big family holidays (WaPo)

* The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation has incorporated a for-profit subsidiary, Wikimedia LLC  in order to make money from Big Tech. (Wikipedia)

* Ship blocking Suez Canal moves slightly, unclear when it will refloat (Reuters)

* Giant vessel now afloat (Bloomberg/Twitter)

* Shipping experts warned a resumption of traffic through the Suez Canal could still be days, if not weeks, away (WSJ)

* China, With $400 Billion Iran Deal, Could Deepen Influence in Mideast (NYT)

* Biden to unveil major new spending plans as Democrats eye bigger role for government (WaPo)

* Paris doctors warn of catastrophic overload of virus cases (AP)

* With More Women In State Office, Family Leave Policies Have Not Caught Up (WKAR/NPR) 

* Israel and Iran have fought a clandestine war across the Middle East for years, mainly by land and air. Now ships are under attack in the Mediterranean and Red Seas. (NYT)

* Did COVID-19 stress, uncertainty stall anti-smoking push? (AP)

* We can’t prevent tomorrow’s catastrophes unless we imagine them today (WaPo)

* Libraries Are Key Tools For People Getting Out Of Prison, Even During A Pandemic (NPR)

* Under Biden, Diplomacy Is an Attractive Career Again (NYT)

* Bomb squad technicians have safely disposed of a Civil War-era ordnance found in Frederick County, Maryland. (CNN)

* How Native Americans were vaccinated against smallpox, then pushed off their land (WaPo)

* Top-seeded Michigan (23-4) is in the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament after beating Florida State, 76-58. (CBS)

* Was the 'forbidden fruit' in the Garden of Eden really an apple? (LiveScience)

* Dog Feels Like He Always Has To Be ‘On’ Around Family (The Onion)

***

The trial of Socrates (399 BC)^[1] was held to determine the philosopher’s guilt of two charges: asebeia (impiety) against the pantheon of Athens, and corruption of the youth of the city-state; the accusers cited two impious acts by Socrates: "failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges" and "introducing new deities".

The death sentence of Socrates was the legal consequence of asking politico-philosophic questions of his students, which resulted in the two accusations of moral corruption and impiety. At trial, the majority of the dikasts(male-citizen jurors chosen by lot) voted to convict him of the two charges; then, consistent with common legal practice voted to determine his punishment and agreed to a sentence of death to be executed by Socrates’s drinking a poisonous beverage of hemlock. -- Wikipedia

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