There's a simple advantage to immersing yourself in the news on a regular basis as opposed to not paying attention: You begin to see the patterns. And this in turn helps to lift your head above the water and glimpse where you are going.
Because we're all swept along by life's river and we need eddies, shaded spots to rest for a while before the current takes over once again.
In recent days, I've been practicing dividing the news headlines into broad categories, conceptual categories, as the patterns are unavoidable. What initially seems like chaos, making no sense whatsoever begins to make complete sense when I do this.
For instance, I could divide the way the news relates to my life into sixths, as in the following. Roughly one-sixth of the stories concern global climate change, specifically or generally. Floods, fires, superstorms, droughts, rising seas, falling reservoirs -- right now some of this is seasonal.
Climate change has since the early 1990s been especially prominent in the summer months (also increasingly in winter). And the unmistakable pattern is that human-caused climate alterations are threatening our ability to sustain life on this planet.
Another one-sixth of the current news cycle is the pandemic and this of course is very recent, dating back to March of last year, though it feels like forever by now. Like climate change, Covid is a global story, but the main headlines we see are closer to home.
Indoor mask mandates are making a comeback, the delta variant is taking over, unvaccinated people are getting sick, so far the vaccines are holding up and providing protection, but trouble looms just beyond the horizon.
But what is happening in a village in Indonesia, Brazil, India or Zambia matters just as much as what is happening in Little Rock and Mobile. The virus worms its way into areas where there are clusters of unvaccinated people, where it will continue to mutate until we reach herd immunity globally.
As a much wiser man than I remarked recently, "It isn't the delta variant we have to worry about, it's the *next* mutation.
After those two big story clusters -- climate change and Covid -- things get a bit murky. It all depends on your perspective. I'd choose the economy, especially the post-pandemic economic adjustments that appear increasingly to be our new reality.
Working remotely, changing careers, workforce shortages, small business collapses and renewals, stock market variations, regulation of monopolies and more dominate the news as they should -- Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times plus the industry newsletters chronicle a global economy under stress but adapting to the new alignments.
Fourth are the mostly pathetic efforts by governments to remain relevant in our lives, from elections to regulations and diplomatic negotiations, threats, wars, encroachments, border disputes, weapons research and development, dangerous military maneuvers here and there.
The other two sixths of the news pie are even murkier -- take your pick -- but mine are health and love. Health is what you take for granted until you don't have it, which generally equates to your age. But health news, both good and bad, is a steady component of the daily lineup.
Current health headlines inform us that life expectancy is declining due to Covid and poverty, new medicine give hope to defeat ancient maladies, addiction remains a scourge, diet choices affect not only the planet but our own long-term outcomes, exercise matters, recovery from terrible events like strokes is possible, our brains are still mysteries beyond comprehension, only a fraction of our DNA differentiates us from Neanderthals, and on and on.
Love may seem like the softest sixth of this hexagon, and admittedly it's an arbitrary choice, but I like sixths because they are an uneven number and therefore subject to interpretation. You can round up (16.7%), down (16.6%) or choose the infinite (16.666666666666666666~%) but you'll never pin love down.
Like the universe or life's origin or what death means.
But matters of the heart work their way into the news on an every day basis, even though they may present themselves in other guises. Why we fall in love and with whom remains an enduring mystery I hope we never solve, or even think that we solve.
That falling for another is not confined to the human species is touchingly apparent in the recent works on creatures like the octopus, elephant, cuttlefish, bonobo, and many many others. What we don't know about the life forms we so casually cause to go extinct will most definitely hurt us, not just biologically but emotionally.
Unrequited love or requited love -- either is an especially difficult ordeal. But letting somebody in is worth it if you're open when they come knocking. Maybe that's what Bob Dylan meant when he sang about mortality in "knock knock knockin' on heaven's door."
We need to do a lot of work on our love lives and how to learn to truly appreciate what a gift it is to love each other at any age.
And with that, it's best that I close this rambling daily rant on the news that has morphed into something else before I get myself into some serious trouble here.
But wait, I forgot the most important headline of all:
* I love you. (DW)
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Netflix: "The Last Letter From Your Lover" (2021). A journalist, an archivist, letters between two illicit lovers, the hopelessness and the hopefulness of finding love in this life. Watch it.
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THE OTHER HEADLINES:
* Climate Crisis Turns World’s Subways Into Flood Zones -- Swift, deadly flooding in China this week inundated a network that wasn’t even a decade old, highlighting the risks faced by cities globally. (NYT)
* Why Vaccinated People Are Getting ‘Breakthrough’ Infections -- The vaccines are effective at preventing serious illness and death, but they are not a golden shield against the coronavirus. (NYT)
* Chinese Health Officials Shocked by W.H.O. Covid-19 Origin Study -- Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of the Chinese National Health Commission, dismissed the theory that the coronavirus was man-made in a lab after the World Health Organization proposed to further investigate the labs in Wuhan. (AP)
* ‘Not Out of the Woods’: C.D.C. Issues Warning to the Unvaccinated -- The renewed sense of urgency was aimed at millions of people who have not yet been vaccinated and therefore are most likely to be infected. (NYT)
* How to Make Smart Travel Decisions as Delta Cases Rise (WSJ)
* Farmers Have A Big Problem On Their Hands: They Can't Find A Way To Ship Their Stuff (NPR)
* U.S. escalates airstrikes on Taliban, officials say, as Afghan military loses ground (WP)
* Tajikistan says it's ready to take in up to 100,000 Afghan refugees (Reuters)
* Former Air Force intelligence analyst Daniel Hale said his guilt over participating in lethal drone strikes in Afghanistan led him to leak government secrets about the drone program to a reporter. He is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to violating the Espionage Act. [AP]
* The opening ceremony for the Tokyo Games kicked off Friday, convened largely without spectators and opposed by much of the host nation. Can the Olympic flame burn away the fear or provide a measure of catharsis after a year of suffering and uncertainty in Japan and around the world? [AP]
* Mississippi asks Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in upcoming case (WP)
* Man Under Mistaken Impression He His Own Harshest Critic (The Onion)
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Knockin' On Heaven's Door
I can't use it anymore
It's getting dark too dark to see
Feels like I'm knockin' on heaven's door