"Yeah well, everyone here has got problems. Yours just may work out." -- Rick (Casablanca)
_______
Some don't realize it yet, but this is a moment to savor. There has not been a time quite like this one previously in most of our lifetimes.
I say *most* because I suspect there are a handful of 100-year-olds out there who know what I'm talking about.
The present moment is filled with romantic intrigue. We've all just stepped out of the shadows and are blinking at how bright the sun is. The tension is because we may well be headed back into the shadows all too soon.
So we've got to get it while we can.
Covid was the longest night we've ever been through, with the exception of those who live too near the arctic circle. It also was the most divisive night when it could and should have been the most unifying.
If we hadn't fought over it so pointlessly we would have seen it as a precious chance to grasp that all of us, and I mean all of us, were in a fight for our lives against a common enemy. That the enemy was too small for the naked eye made the fight all the more intense.
The only thing I can compare this with is my imagination of that brief window of time when World War II had started in some places but not in all. Everybody knew what was coming but it wasn't here quite yet so millions of people suddenly had life-or-death decisions to make.
Should I stay or should I go? Huge migrations occurred all over the world. Families were split up, never to reunite. Couples who had reached the tipping point of love had to decide on the spot how they really felt about each other. There might not be another chance.
Of course love is the biggest of risk of all, so the stakes could not have been higher. My own parents married at that very point in history. I never asked them about it.
***
Almost everybody I talk to around here is in transition right now and they feel a measure of urgency that is easy to perceive. It was difficult if not impossible to make big changes in their lives during the pandemic and that makes this time special.
That's good news for me, I suppose, because I've always loved helping people when they are in transition. Not that being settled doesn't have its selling points -- you know which key opens your door, you know how the seatbelt in your car works, you know what's for breakfast and who that person in the bed next to you will be when you wake up tomorrow.
At work, you know who the boss is and who you're the boss of -- as if *that* matters one bit in the great scheme of things.
The point is you know what is known.
But when you strike out for something new, you don't know any of those kind of things. You may go someplace you've never been before, find yourself speaking a new language, eating food you'd swore you'd never try, wear a uniform you didn't know you'd like, hold tight to somebody you barely even knew existed until one special night.
One of my favorite colleagues used to have as his mantra "change is good," and of course he wasn't the first to say it, just as I won't be the last.
Like all such truisms, you can't live by that philosophy in a literal sense because not *all* change is good for all people all of the time. Some changes are downright horrible.
But maintaining the status quo isn't always the greatest thing either.
You just have to figure out when to listen to that little whisper that this is your time to fly, even though you don't know which way the wind will blow.
So call somebody who knows what it's like to be the next feather in the breeze.
***
Recently I started up a new daily regime -- walking to a nearby park. It helps when I am pondering why it gives me pleasure helping other people realize their dreams when I don't have a clue how to reach my own.
What makes it worse is I'm not even sure what my dreams are. So that makes for a pretty melancholy mood.
One day on my way to the park, I passed a house with its garage door opened and a younger man working inside. He raised his hand in greeting.
I smiled and waved back. He walked down the driveway to where I was standing; we've met once or twice before.
I was in no hurry to get anywhere, not even the park, so I lingered. He wanted to strike up a conversation. He asked how I was doing, and as happens occasionally, this triggered one of those monologues where I talked about how one thing is connected to another thing and another thing and so on endlessly-- basically expressing my core belief that all life and ideas and feelings are somehow cosmically interchangeable.
And maybe that in itself means something or maybe it means nothing. I'm just not sure. This really is a rather odd habit of mine and I probably should work on losing it .
But the young man was actually listening intently, nodding and urging me on.
"You're just what I need right now. You're like a wise man," he said. "I'm glad I flagged you down."
"No, please," I said. "I'm more like a crazy person just trying to escape the solitary confinement of his own making."
"Well I'm tracking with you perfectly," he said. "What you said makes perfect sense in every way. Everything *is* connected to everything else."
I looked at him a little more closely. "Are you stoned?"
He smiled. "Yeah man I just smoked some great weed."
Afterward I made my way on to the park. My mind was actually far away, focused on somebody else with beautiful eyes and her transition. Suddenly a song I like in Spanish came into my head. If I could write the final line, I would:
"Por favor llévame contigo..."
***
THE HEADLINES:
* Extreme Weather in the Midwest Leads to Power Outages (NYT)
* Sicily Registers Record-High Temperature as Heat Wave Sweeps Italian Island (NYT)
* Iran’s Health System ‘Beyond Disastrous’ from Covid Surge (NYT)
* Supreme Court won’t block Indiana University’s vaccine mandate (WP)
* VIDEO: Taliban Forces Sweep Across Afghanistan (NYT)
* Afghanistan’s rapid collapse is part of a long, slow U.S. defeat (WP)
* Taliban tighten grip on Afghanistan as all eyes turn to capital Kabul (Reuters)
* Afghanistan Collapse Accelerates as the Taliban Capture 3 Vital Cities -- Kandahar, Lashkar Gah and Herat have now fallen to the insurgents, who are racing to seize control of the entire country. (NYT)
* U.S. Is Sending 3,000 Troops Back to Afghanistan to Begin Evacuations -- With the Taliban sweeping across the country, U.S. officials say Kabul could fall in 30 days. (NYT)
* U.S. Asks Taliban to Spare Its Embassy in Coming Fight for Kabul (NYT)
* California's Asian population grew by 25% in the past decade, making it the fastest growing ethnic group in the nation's most populous state, according to new data from the U.S. (AP)
* The Bay Area outpaced both California and the U.S. in population growth over the past decade, hitting a record high of 7.77 million total people last year. That’s one of the many takeaways for the region from the release of the 2020 decennial census data Thursday. (SF Chronicle)
* On Sept. 14, California voters will decide whether Gov. Gavin Newson (D) should be recalled, and who should replace him. It's a peculiar system that could catapult an unknown Republican into office and President Joe Biden has waded into it. But the outcome could also cost the Democratic caucus its razor-thin Senate majority, explains Jessica Schulberg. [HuffPost]
* With more than 39 percent of state residents identifying as Hispanic or Latino in the 2020 census, California’s Hispanic population is now the largest in the state, outstripping the state’s white population. (U.S. Census Bureau)
* Joel Greenberg, an associate of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), has been providing "thousands of photos and videos" to federal authorities as he cooperates with an investigation into the Florida lawmaker, ABC Newsreported. These materials could potentially implicate Gaetz, who is at the center of an investigation of allegations of child sex trafficking, bribery and obstruction of justice. Gaetz has denied the allegations. [HuffPost]
* A Lawyer’s Deathbed Confession About a Sensational 1975 Kidnapping -- Samuel Bronfman, heir to the Seagram fortune, was abducted by two men who confessed to the crime. But then their story evolved wildly, and the jury believed it. Was it all a lie? (NYT)
* Mammoth tusk holds clues to ice age extinctions (Reuters)
* Study Finds No Greater Sign Of Delusion Than Sending Coworkers Your Personal Email On Last Day (The Onion)
***
“Para dónde vas”
The Iguanas
Written by: JOE CABRAL, RODNEY GILBERT HODGES
Para dónde vas
Para dónde vas
Para dónde vas
Para dónde vas, dónde vas
Para dónde vas, muchacha
Para dónde vas, oye mujer
Para dónde vas, dime
Para dónde vas, dónde vas
Si vas al baile, baila conmigo
Si vas al carnival quiero ir contigo
Si vas a donde quiera
No me quedo atrás
Porque quiero amarte
Más why más
Para dónde vas, muchacha
Para dónde vas, oye mujer
Para dónde vas, Oh yeah
Para dónde vas, dónde vas
Para dónde vas
Para dónde vas
Para dónde vas
Para dónde vas, dónde vas
Si vas al baile, baila conmigo
Si vas al carnival quiero ir contigo
Si vas a dónde quiera
No me quedo atrás
Porque quiero amarte
Más why más vime
Para dónde vas, muchacha
Para dónde vas, un da mujer
Para dónde vas, Oh yeah
Para dónde vas, dónde vas
Para dónde vas, Oh yeah oy
Para dónde vas, La la la la
Para dónde vas, porque quiero ne mese
Para dónde vas, dónde vas
Dónde vas, dónde vas
-30-
Late the other night I was alone in the living room inside my headphones, lost in the blues, so I didn't notice my grandson come out from his bedroom and go into the kitchen.
By the time I was aware of him, he had brewed himself some tea, added sweetener and cream, and placed his mug on a wooden serving tray with handles.
Next, he gathered pistachios, dried cranberries, an apple, some chips, cheese, crackers, and a couple of spicy meat sticks and carried the whole collection out to the living room. There, he set the tray down on the large coffee table between the couch and the chair where I was sitting.
I've known this young fellow his whole life, obviously, and we've lived together for the past year and a half, so we can pretty well sense what is going on with each other with just a glance.
Some nights, I know he doesn't want to talk, he just wants to be over in the living room instead of his bedroom. On those night, he eventually pulls a pillow to the end of the couch, wraps himself in a blanket, and goes to sleep without saying a word.
When that happens, if it is a chilly night, after I'm sure he is deep in sleep, I add another blanket on top of him and turn off the lights before retiring to my bedroom for the night.
But on this particular night he looked over at me and indicated the food tray.
"Want some?"
I removed my headphones, closed my laptop, got up and over to the chair nearer the couch.
As we munched the snacks, he started to tell me things he's been thinking about lately. I'm not going to be able to do our conversation justice here because it went on for a very long time and I only have a short space left to fill.
"I like to think about the big questions, Grandpa, like why the universe keeps expanding," he started. "I don't know what I want to study in college or what I want to be, but it will have to be something that let's me keep doing that."
He was rambling in his charming way, with a serious expression that belies his age, which is 13. He has tousled blond hair, freckles, and blue eyes that are a window to his soul. I listened and nodded, mostly staying silent as I cracked and ate the pistachios.
Finally he asked, "What do you think black holes are?"
I thought for a moment before answering. Physics is not exactly my long suit. Plus when speaking with one's grandchild one doesn't want to get something important wrong, unless you're telling a fish story.
(This wasn't the time for a fish story.)
"Maybe," I started out hesitantly, "black holes are the opposite of the universe's expansion. Maybe they are what happens when pieces of the universe turn around and go backward, like collapsing inward, you know, sucking all the energy back in, undoing what was done by the pushing outward, something like that. Maybe they are about turning inward, bringing everything back into balance."
"Maybe," he said. "Or maybe we can't know what they are, because they are beyond our comprehension. I'm thinking I want to be the type of person who tries to figure out questions like that."
"Well, it sounds like you may be interested in physics, " I ventured. "There are the laws of thermodynamics, there's quantum mechanics..."
(I knew I was reaching the outer limits of my knowledge base.)
"Maybe. But I don't want to be an astronomer or a physicist and it's not like I want to go out there myself, like an astronaut. It's more like I want to be part of the search for answers. There are other questions too, like what time is and how we fit into other forms of life we can't perceive."
As I said, I cannot do real justice to our conversation, which covered many, many other topics and went on until we were both blinking back our tiredness and yawning. By now it was 1 a.m., long beyond either of our bedtimes.
So I told him I really had to finish my essay, and I returned to my normal chair, put back on my headphones, opened up my laptop, and got to work.
He finished his tea, which by now was cold and padded off to his room.
A while later, I punched "publish," closed my laptop, doused the light, rose from the chair and shuffled to my bedroom and lower bunk where I sleep.
And in my dreams, I felt myself floating like a feather in the breeze -- a happy dream.
***
[PHOTO: My present to my grandson on his 13th birthday.]
***
THE HEADLINES:
* Lovely Weather Defined California. What Happens When It’s Gone? -- Summer in California was once heavenly. Now it’s hellish. (NYT)
* California wildfire smoke is moving toward the Bay Area. (SF Chronicle)
* Death Toll Rises in Algerian Wildfires (Reuters)
* The Biden administration asked the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to pump more oil to reduce gas prices in the U.S., which begs the question: Is President Joe Biden denying the reality of the global emissions crisis? The gas price flux shows us about why we should already be weaned off fossil fuels. [HuffPost]
* Dixie Fire Scorches Northern California (NYT)
* Greek Island Is New Epicenter of Europe’s Summer of Calamity -- Evia was ravaged by wildfires this week, adding to the list of places that have fallen victim to extreme weather events made worse by climate change and scorching temperatures (NYT)
* The Latest: San Francisco mandates vaccination if indoors (AP)
* F.D.A. to Authorize Third Vaccine Dose for People With Weak Immune Systems -- The decision to expand the emergency use of both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines is meant to help transplant recipients and others whose immune systems are similarly compromised. (NYT)
* An increasing number of school districts in Texas and Florida are defying their Republican governors' bans on mask mandates. The states are epicenters of the highly transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus, and health officials have been alarmed about a surge in severe infections among children. [HuffPost]
* Texas Hospitals Are Already Overloaded. Doctors Are ‘Frightened by What Is Coming.’ (NYT)
* The federal government has sent hundreds of ventilators and other oxygen devices to the state of Florida following a request from local health officials as coronavirus cases and related hospitalizations continue to rise across the state. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) told reporters he was unaware of health officials’ request and doubted it was true. [HuffPost]
* C.D.C. Recommends Covid Vaccines During Pregnancy -- New research shows the shots do not increase risk of miscarriage, the agency said, but the risks of severe disease from a coronavirus infection while pregnant are serious. (NYT)
* Oregon Reinstates Indoor Mask Mandate to Slow Delta Variant -- Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon said both vaccinated and unvaccinated people must wear masks again indoors starting on Friday. She warned that rising cases driven by the Delta variant could overrun hospitals in weeks. (AP)
* California orders all teachers to be vaccinated or face regular testing. (NYT)
* An improperly functioning Los Angeles sewage treatment plant has been impacting the region’s ability to recycle water for the past month. As a result, millions of gallons of clean drinking water have been diverted amid a worsening drought. (LAT)
* Bangladesh, Citing Economic Pain, Reopens Amid Worst Covid Wave Yet (NYT)
* Biden administration tries to mobilize international diplomatic effort to halt Taliban (WP)
* Could the Taliban Take Over Afghanistan? Here’s What We Know. (NYT)
* The Obama administration declared an end to combat in 2014, but U.S. troops kept fighting and dying, as detailed in this excerpt from Craig Whitlock’s book “The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War.” (WP)
* NSA quietly awards $10 billion cloud contract to Amazon, drawing protest from Microsoft (WP)
* Hochul Vows a Change in Tone as the Cuomo Era Nears an End in Albany -- In her first remarks since Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned, the lieutenant governor, Kathy Hochul, distanced herself from the governor and promised her office would not be “toxic.” (NYT)
* The Kids of Camp I Am, a Decade Later -- Campers from a pioneering retreat for gender-nonconforming children look back on what it taught them — and their journeys to becoming who they are. (Photographs by Lindsay Morris/NYT Mag)
* Because someone, somewhere, out there needs to see this: Please stop putting apple cider vinegar on your penis. It will not make your willy grow, no matter what the porn ads tell you. (HuffPost)
* Basketballs ultimately find their way into the ocean, resulting over the decades in dolphins’ three-point shooting percentage improving almost 27%. (The Onion)
***
"Can't Help Falling in Love"
Sung by Elvis Presley
Songwriters: George David Weiss / Hugo E. Peretti / Luigi Creatore
-30-