Saturday, August 21, 2021

The Heart of a Hunter


As you read these words, there are hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan who need the U.S. government to step up and guarantee them safe passage out of the country and away from the clutches of the Taliban.

This is a moral imperative and time is of the essence.

If it does not happen, many lives may be lost, so those who realize what is at stake should create pressure on the Biden administration and Congress to act swiftly and decisively.

Prof. Amanda C. Demmer has brilliantly outlined the nature of this crisis in a Washington Post piece. As she notes, somewhere around 300,000 Afghan citizens helped the U.S. during its 20-year war in various roles, including interpreters, drivers, construction workers, scouts and many others. 

Now the U.S. has lost the war and abandoned the country, almost all of them have been left behind, where they face the mortal danger of being identified as enemies of the new regime, traitors for whom there will be little mercy.

The historical precedent that comes to mind is the migration of roughly 1.5 million Southeast Asians, mostly Vietnamese, who came to the U.S. after the loss of the Vietnam War in the '70s.

Without those who stood by and fought alongside the U.S. in both wars, many more American soldiers would have died and foreign policy objectives, like eliminating the Al-Qaeda leadership, would have been difficult if not impossible to achieve. 

Now those Afghan collaborators are at risk for helping America. That is the urgency of this moment.

***

It was in 1940 that Carson McCullers published her first book, an elegiac novel called "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter." She was 23 and her book captured the spiritual loneliness and isolation felt by misfits and outcasts in a small Southern town.

I've read so many novels in my lifetime that many of the plots and characters and dilemmas merge in my memory to the point where it is only the rhythm of certain titles that endure. Hers is one such title. 

I never met her. She passed away much too soon at the age of 50. But I've always loved the wisdom inherent in the name of that novel. The human heart truly is a lonely hunter when love is the prey.

McCullers' novel came to mind during the pandemic, because Covid enforced a new isolation on almost all of us in a manner unprecedented in most of our lifetimes. Even those of us with large family groups to sustain us through the pandemic suffered some of the effects of not being able to go out in public and greet one another, to renew acquaintances with old friends and continue the process of making new friends.

In this way we all sort of became misfits and outcasts in a manner of speaking.

Virtual media provided an alternative outlet for us to pursue the essential human need for socialization -- from Zoom calls to Facebook to Instagram and TikTok and so many more.

But this is where the meaning of the word "virtual" becomes essential to understand the effect that turning to that option may have had on many of us. I'll use the computer science meaning because computers are the devices we use to pursue relating each other in the virtual realm:

[vir·tu·al = not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to do so.]

Until recently, I was an extreme example of a person who had turned to virtual reality as the prime alternative to explore the thoughts and feelings and  experiences of my life as a substitute for the real thing.

And sometimes, as a writer I experienced strong reactions from people I had never met physically when they responded to my words emotionally.

I deeply appreciated those interactions and I still do. They helped sustain me through the pandemic, and I hope my writing helped them in return.

But occasionally the reactions of some readers overwhelmed me because I sensed that I had unleashed feelings toward me that I cannot do anything about and that was not an entirely comfortable experience.

Normally, any of us can show our appreciation for a writer we like by buying his or her book or even attending a reading or finding some way to interact in the physical world. The transactional relationships are satisfying mutually. 

But the actual interactions, in my experience, are not always as satisfying because after all the real world is a messy place, our lives are messy and people we only know through their writing may or may not be as we supposed them to be in our imagination.

I have met enough well-known authors in my life, and spent enough time getting to know them to generalize a bit here: Writers are rarely the same in person as their voice is on the page.

Most writers turn out to be quite different than their writings would lead you to believe. They are smaller or quieter or older or more awkward than you expected when their writing was so elegant and sophisticated.

But the real person is often quite another matter. Many of the writers I've known are quite shy and not necessarily comfortable in a crowd. Many do better one-on-one than in groups.

A large number, frankly, drink to excess or otherwise lead semi-self-destructive lives. I will probably offend some people here, but I am simply reflecting my experiences in the literary and journalism worlds when it comes to the most creative members of those communities.

Social skills are often in short supply.

But to return to the present tense, as the isolation from Covid has lifted around here, I have been venturing out again to live my actual life in the real world apart from my work as a writer. And it is fabulous!

In my best relationships there is absolutely nothing virtual involved.

One day recently I was sitting at a table outside a cafe across from a friend. She was talking when suddenly in a moment I noticed how her hair was lifted by the breeze and that it was the color of the sunlight peeking through the clouds and her eyes were the color of a deep blue pool at the end of a long hike on a summer's day.

I snapped back to attention to her words and tried to concentrate on the rest of what she was saying.

So now it is no longer only imaginary moments but also real ones that grace my life. And if that means I am a little less of a writer in the virtual world but a little more of the man I want to be in the real world, that is just fine with me.

***

Thanks to Jay Hirschman for an early tip on the Afghan refugee piece. 

And a big thank you to editor Susan Zakin for reprinting "Memories of a Visit -- خاطره یک دیدار" in the Journal of the Plague Year. Check out the Journal's terrific coverage of the unfolding disaster in Kabul.


THE HEADLINES:

* With Afghanistan’s fall, the U.S. confronts a moral necessity it faced before -- Will we work to resettle our Afghan allies as we did after Vietnam? (WP)

*Biden Defends Afghanistan Evacuation as Thousands Besiege Kabul Airport -- The president cited “significant progress’’ in getting Americans out of Afghanistan. But Afghans linked to U.S. troops and other Western groups fear being left behind. (NYT)


* As Kabul turmoil mounts, Taliban's PR offensive falters (Reuters)


* VIDEO: ‘My Dreams Died’: On Kabul’s Streets With a Woman Protest Leader -- In Afghanistan, raising the national flag has become an act of resistance. We filmed a woman risking her safety to protest the Taliban. (NYT)


* In Afghanistan, China Is Ready to Step Into the Void -- The U.S. is gone, the Taliban are back, and China is ready at the door. (NYT)








* Louisiana Governor sees 'astronomical' number of new Covid-19 cases (CNN)






* San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott and District Attorney Chesa Boudin presented a united front in addressing perceptions of high crime and lowered public safety in San Francisco. (Mission Local)


* Owl Can’t Remember Which Direction To Rotate Head Back (The Onion)

***

"Free Bird"
Song by Lynyrd Skynyrd
Songwriters: Allen Collins / Ronnie Van Zant

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be traveling on now
'Cause there's too many places I've got to see
But if I stay here with you, girl
Things just couldn't be the same
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now
And this bird you cannot change
Oh, oh, oh, oh
And the bird you cannot change
And this bird, you cannot change
Lord knows, I can't change
Bye-bye, baby, it's been sweet love, yeah, yeah
Though this feelin' I can't change
Please don't take it so badly
'Cause Lord knows, I'm to blame
If I stay here with you, girl
Things just couldn't be the same
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now
And this bird you cannot change
Oh, oh, oh, oh
And the bird you cannot change
And this bird, you cannot change
Lord knows, I can't change
Lord help me, I can't change
Lord, I can't change
Won't you fly high, free bird, yeah
-30-
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Friday, August 20, 2021

The Ghosts Of Balkh




This week for me and many others who love Afghanistan has been a struggle. It's difficult to express our feelings about the situation in English; it would be much easier in Dari. That language encourages the intimacy of connection and the pain of loss in ways it is awkward to do in English, as wonderful as our language is in other ways.

English is a language of the brain; Dari is a language of the heart.

When you encounter a friend in a village in Afghanistan, you both stop where you were headed to embrace, hold hands and inquire about each other's heart, body, mind, family, and onward. It can be a long list and if you've not met recently, these greetings may take a while. 

But when you really stop and  think about it, what is it that matters more in life than how we feel about each other?

Money? Fame? Power? Possessions? Accomplishments? Awards?

I don't think so.

In Dari you are able to say "my heart loves your heart" in a way that does not necessarily imply romantic love but does connote how much you truly care for each other. It doesn't sound odd at all.

Meanwhile, in America all too often such an encounter starts with "How are you?" And ends with "Fine."

It's sort of flat, unsatisfying.

In fact it is so unsatisfying to me that I try, and I know this is weird, to adapt something of  Dari greeting rituals into talking with my friends. Each person is made of such specific qualities I value that, for me at least, there have to be specific words I use only for them.

But even more than that I always try to say what I mean and to mean what I say. So if I say "I love you" what I mean is that I love you.

***

As a commentator on the news, my goal is always to locate what is hopeful about otherwise crushing developments if I can, but in the case of Afghanistan right now this is difficult because it is so personal.

Some news correspondents report that the Taliban has fundamentally changed, but I doubt that. They say they will extend amnesty to government workers, respect the rights of women, and preside over a peaceful transition of power, but those are empty promises unless and until we see the proof.

Meanwhile, there is plenty of historical precedent for what usually happens when military forces assume power, and that record is soaked with the blood of innocents.

Sadly, Afghanistan has been criss-crossed by conquerers throughout its recorded history. Just to mention a few of them and the empires that resulted: Alexander the Great and his Macedonians, the Greco-Bactrians, Kushans, Indo-Sassanids, Kabul Shahi, Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Kartids, Timurids, Hotakis and Durranis.

In their oral histories, Afghans most often bring up the Mongol invaders, starting with Genghis Khan in 1221. And they talk about him and others as if they are still around the next curve of the road.

For example, just north of the town of Taloqan is a magnificent mountain known as کوه بز سیاه, which translates as Black Goat Mountain.

When riding in the back of a truck packed with people, goats and chickens one time, I spoke with a man who recounted stories of the Mongols that have been passed from father to son over the past thousand years or so.

"When they rode in last time, they cut off the heads of a million people," he said, repeating a version that I had heard many times. 

"And they will be back. Just on the other side of Black Goat Mountain there are hundreds of thousands of Mongols waiting to strike."

He was referring to the Uzbek population of Takhar Province in what has long been a largely peaceful agricultural area.

A few hundred miles to the west of Takhar, during a visit to Mazar-e-Sharif, I heard similar tales about the Hazara population living in a nearby isolated valley. "They will ride in here soon so watch out."

Nearby are the ruins of Balkh, a legendary city in the pre-Mongol era, with some of the most ghostly remains I have ever visited. Somewhere in my boxes in storage may still be the shards of pottery I collected at the site, which appeared to be many centuries old.

Balkh is where historians confirm that Mongol hordes did in fact decapitate many residents when they struck, and if the eerie winds whistling through the area are not the voices of those long dead, my ears must have betrayed me.

Among Afghanistan's intractable problems is the stark reality that it less an actual country than the cobbled together homeland for at least seven major tribal groups. Besides the Uzbeks and the Hazara, there are the Tajiks, Pashtus, Turkomans, Baluchis, and Nuristanis.

Plus four or five smaller groups, most notably the nomadic Kochi.

The name of the country means "Land of the Afghans," which is what the largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns, call themselves. That name leaves every other group out, which complicates matters politically.

My point here is that Afghanistan has plenty of internal problems without outsiders like the British, Russians and Americans getting involved. No foreign occupier ever stays for long anyway, because the local people simply won't tolerate that.

And once the foreigners leave, the Afghans get back to normal. What this means as of August 2021 is that they have to sort out their internal differences now they are not under the thumb of any foreign power. 

After decades of operating mainly as a guerrilla army, the Taliban have to figure out how to somehow govern what many believe to be an ungovernable land. Not only are the traditional tribal loyalties an issue, the big cities, especially Kabul, have modernized over the past 20 years and millions of women are now educated.

Will the Taliban throw all of that progress away and chop off the heads of the modernizing society they've inherited? Or will they grow into the moment and embrace the future? 

The ghosts of Balkh have been waiting a thousand years for answers to those questions.

***

Luckily for me on Friday, my despair over Afghanistan was countered by an outing to a favorite nearby town with a special friend. It was a slightly smokey day in the Bay Area from the distant wildfires but the smoke stayed high while we stayed low. 

We stopped at a coffee house for a spell and then she drove us through an ancient tunnel to the edge of the sea where you can smell the salt in the air. I loved being at this place and I loved the company I was keeping. 

All of this reminded me how important it is to celebrate beauty and hope and the love of friends even as we mourn the horror and sadness of the world around us. Everything is inter-related, and all I know at this point is to try and stay centered and balanced in order to avoid letting the dark obscure the light in my own life.

At the end of the day, as the sun shrank as an orange disc in the western sky, the smoke chose to stay high, but down at the surface where good friends dwell the air smelled sweet, very sweet.

***

THE HEADLINES:

* With Afghanistan’s fall, the U.S. confronts a moral necessity it faced before -- Will we work to resettle our Afghan allies as we did after Vietnam? (WP)

* Taliban Quash Protests and Seize Enemies, Tightening Grip on Afghanistan -- The Taliban’s actions and history of brutality cast doubt on their promises of amnesty, and many Afghans are afraid to venture out of their homes. (NYT)

* Chaos persists at Kabul airport, imperiling evacuation effort (WP)

* David Patraeus On American Mistakes in Afghanistan (New Yorker)

*Demonstrations Against the Taliban Spread Throughout Kabul -- Protesters took to the streets of Afghanistan’s capital on the nation’s annual Independence Day, waving flags in defiance of the Taliban’s rule. (NYT)

* European forces cross Taliban lines for Kabul rescue, pressuring Biden to expand evacuation (WP)

* Facing backlash over chaos, foreign powers try to speed Afghanistan exodus (Reuters)

* Hunted by the Taliban, U.S.-Allied Afghan Forces Are in Hiding -- The Afghan forces disintegrated ahead of the Taliban’s rapid advance. Now, the militants are searching for thousands of Afghan soldiers and security officials. (NYT)

* Many of the loudest voices in the Republican Party say the U.S. shouldn’t open its arms to Afghans who helped U.S. troops in the bloody 20-year war in Afghanistan. The rhetoric from the Donald Trump wing of the party is threatening to drown out those on the establishment side who say the U.S. has a moral responsibility to help out. [HuffPost]

* U.S. to add bases for Afghan evacuations as Biden vows to help all U.S. citizens leave (WP)

* With Afghan Collapse, Moscow Takes Charge in Central Asia -- Along with Pakistan and China, Russia has gained broad influence in security matters at the expense of the United States and India. (NYT)

* Blindsided Abroad: Vaccinated but Testing Positive on a Trip to Europe -- The prevalence of the Delta variant means many travelers, including those who are vaccinated, are facing sickness, quarantines and delayed returns. (NYT)

* COVID anxiety rising amid delta surge, AP-NORC poll finds (AP)

* U.S. is studying whether Moderna vaccine may carry higher risk of rare heart condition (WP)

* W.H.O. Official Criticizes Covid Booster Shots in Wealthy Nations -- The World Health Organization’s Africa director said the introduction of booster shots in some wealthy nations threatened vaccination efforts on the continent, where only 2 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. (AP)

* Alabama has no more I.C.U. beds available, the state authorities said. -- The situation there may be a sign of what’s to come for other places with low vaccination rates. (NYT)

* Oil heads for 7% weekly drop as Delta variant spreads (Reuters)


* With the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus spreading across the U.S., children are filling hospital intensive care beds instead of classrooms in record numbers, more even than at the height of the pandemic. Many are too young to get the vaccine, available only to those 12 and over. With millions of children returning to classrooms this month, experts say the stakes are unquestionably high. [AP]

* U.S. extends travel curbs at Canada and Mexico land borders (Reuters)


* BTS And Garth Brooks Among Latest To Cancel Tour Dates Due To COVID (NPR)

* Government forecasters said Thursday that the severe drought that has gripped much of the western half of the country, including California, is likely to continue at least into late fall. (California Today)

* Rain Fell On The Greenland Ice Sheet For The First Time In Recorded History (NPR)

* Drought a 'Wake-Up Call' as Bee Colonies Shrink (Reuters)

* Caldor Fire Continues to Burn Northern California -- The Caldor Fire is threatening thousands of homes in Northern California as its destructive path spreads. Thousands of people remain under evacuation orders. (Reuters) 

* At 60, Peace Corps plots return to world after virus hiatus (AP)

* Members of Congress introduced the Native American Voting Rights Act last week amid an ongoing wave of voter suppression bills in Republican-run states that make it harder for Native people to vote. The Senate is gearing up for a September session focused on voting rights. [HuffPost]

* Soaring Uber, Lyft Prices Send Passengers to Taxis, but Drivers Still Struggle (SF Public Press)

* Musk says Tesla likely to launch humanoid robot prototype next year (Reuters)

* Roommates Still Don’t Know Each Other Well Enough To Not Speak (The Onion)

***

Today's song is by Prince (lyrics below), which is right in tune with the rhythm of today's essay, courtesy of a friend who understands these things and many more.

"Colonized Mind"
Song by Prince

Wanna talk about it, colonized mind
Upload the evolution principle
You see a rock on the shore and say
It's always been there
Download no responsibility
Do what you want, nobody cares
Upload, the master race idea
Genetically disposed to rule the world
Download a future full of isolated
Full of isolated, boys and girls
Upload the 2 party system
The lesser of 2 dangers, illusion of choice
Download their form of fascism
Nothing really ever changes
You never had a voice
Listen to me one time
If you look, you're sure gonna find
Throughout mankind's history
A colonized mind
The one in power makes law
Under which the colonized fall
Without God, it's just the blind leading the blind
Upload, a joint venture record deal
It's just another way another man can still sleep
While he's sticking you with the bill
Download, a temporary acquisition
Of fleeting fame and fortune
Nothing to leave in your will, hey, hey, hey, hey
Upload a child with no father
Download no respect for authority
Upload a child with no mother
Download a hard time showing love
If you look, you're sure gonna find
Throughout mankind's history
A colonized mind
The one in power makes law
Under which the colonized fall
Without God it's just the blind leading the blind

-30-


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Thursday, August 19, 2021

A Story Without An Ending



“I guess when you’re young you just believe there will be many people you’ll connect with. Later in life you realize it only happens a few times. — Celine (Before Sunset)


______

My first girlfriend was named Susie. And although we were both rather shy, she was less so. 

For example, when a teacher said, "Raise your hand if you know the answer," I would never raise my hand, though I almost always knew the answer. 

So Susie would volunteer me: "Davy knows. Call on him." 

At nap time she would lay her blanket next to mine and we would face each other and whisper.

One of the reasons I was so quiet in class was that I knew I mispronounced the letter "r". It sounded funny, more like a "w". So when I tried to say "right" it came out as "wight," and this was deeply embarrassing to me.

The school assigned me to a speech therapist who taught me to make growling sounds until I could more or less grunt out "r"s in an approximation of the correct sound.

As we progressed through first and second grades, I did start talking in class more, thanks to the speech lady and my best friend, to the point that now I got in trouble with the teacher at times, who said, "David stop flirting with Susie."

That's when I first figured out what flirting was.

We had a lot of adventures together but the only time I remember my mother getting really mad at us was once in the basement when we were playing "doctor." My Mom surprised us by coming down the stairs and I ran to hide in a closet, leaving Susie out there alone and literally exposed. 

"It was all Susie's idea," I blurted out.

I think that was one of the worst things I ever did as a child, abandoning my best friend in a crisis and blaming her for something that we had totally cooked up together.

A few years later, when I was ten, our family moved away from the neighborhood. But by then, I wasn't having much to do with Susie or any girls anymore.

The anti-girl phase didn't last very long, however; it went on for like four years. Then I started noticing girls in a new way. That's when I figured out what a "crush" was, because when I got one on somebody I couldn't breathe in her presence, let alone speak.

For the most part, the pattern for my life was set. I would always fall for the quiet girls, the smart ones, the ones who didn't really seem to know how pretty they were.

And though they tended to be reticent about most things, they always seemed to know how to draw me out of my shell, the eternal trap I otherwise would retreat into.

As it turned out, the world has very limited tolerance for extreme shyness. I was coerced out of my self-isolation by circumstances. When every reporter from every press outlet who could get there surrounded the Rolling Stone office after we broke our Patty Hearst story in 1975, I had to learn under fire how to speak in public. (I wish I had a tape of that press conference.)

Starting then, at the age of 28, it was no longer possible for me to be shy; I had to be the opposite of shy. So I forced myself to become a public speaker, ultimately a really good one. I gave speeches all over the world, testified before Congress, the UN, parliamentary committees in Canada and Australia, lecture halls at Harvard, Yale, and colleges in Italy, Spain and Britain, conferences in Europe, Asia and Central America, and more venues that I can possibly remember now.

On some occasions I got standing ovations from hundreds of people, including once after a particularly emotional performance before 1,000 RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) in Eugene, Oregon.

For some 35 years I gave speeches pretty much whenever I was asked, including hundreds of lectures at UC Berkeley, Stanford and SF State. But always there was someone at home urging me on.

I doubt anyone ever thought of me as shy.

But somewhere along the way my life broke apart and I started to withdraw again, refusing all invitations to give lectures, attend conferences or do much that required going out in public. I didn't become a total recluse; I did take a job, but around the office I was known as one of the quieter persons in the room until I retired in 2019. 

Then in early 2020 I was told I'd won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. The citation stated, in part: "Weir is not a boisterous advocate, but rather a soft-spoken editor who leads by example." 

The award was a distinct professional honor, of course, and I knew I should appear in public and give a speech to accept it. But by then that was a very uncomfortable prospect. I hadn't given a speech in years.

I started trying to compose some thoughts, but I couldn't think of anything meaningful to say. Yes I was proud of my life's work as a journalist, teacher and writer, but I never felt that that was about me, it was  about "us" -- the teams I worked with.

As the date for the acceptance speech approached, my family and former colleagues got excited. Since this was also the time I was recovering from some life-threatening health problems, I guess they saw it as an occasion to get me out of the house and they wanted to be on-hand to support me.

The problem was we couldn't really afford enough tickets for everyone, but then my former employer, KQED, offered to pay for an entire table for my family, with another table for friends who worked inside that company.

I kept trying to write the speech but everything was falling flat. Finally I decided that I really could not do this; I was still too ill and someone would have to help me up the stairs to the podium, which would be embarrassing. I didn't want anyone's pity.

So I asked my youngest daughter if she would read my speech for me, but she said no, she wasn't comfortable doing that. Then I asked my oldest daughter, who said "Let's wait and see how you feel on that night, Dad. You can decide then."

All six of my children said they would attend the ceremony, which was a surprise, since I'd always kept my professional life pretty much compartmentalized from them. Some of them would bring partners to the event so our family table was almost full. 

There was one empty seat left -- for my date. But I had lived alone for so many years that there was nobody to ask to go with me.

In the end that really didn't matter because the award ceremony was cancelled due to Covid. 

Which is why this story doesn't have an ending.

***

THE HEADLINES:

* First Resistance to Taliban Rule Tests Afghanistan’s Uncertain Future -- While the militants appear firmly in control, some prominent figures vowed to continue resistance as protests erupted in two cities and millions of Afghans parsed clues about the Taliban’s intentions. (NYT)

* U.S. fighter jets flying over Kabul to ensure evacuation security-Pentagon (Reuters)

* Taliban shifts focus to governing, but protests, empty coffers and isolation pose challenges (WP)

* Planes, guns, night-vision goggles: The Taliban's new U.S.-made war chest (Reuters)

* In California, where many Afghans resettled after the American invasion, those who worked with the United States fear for relatives left behind. (California Today)

* Biden Ramps Up Virus Strategy for Nursing Homes and Schools, and Urges Booster Shots (NYT)

* How Chinese pressure on coronavirus origins probe shocked the WHO — and led its director to push back (WP)

* White House Outlines Plan for Coronavirus Booster Shots -- Vivek Murthy, the U.S. surgeon general, said on Wednesday that the White House coronavirus response team planned to begin offering booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines in September, pending F.D.A. approval. (AP)

* Colleges Grapple With Costs for Covid-19 Tests, Unvaccinated Students (WSJ)

* Israel, Once the Model for Beating Covid, Faces New Surge of Infections -- One of the most vaccinated societies, Israel now has one of the highest infection rates in the world, raising questions about the vaccine’s efficacy. (NYT)

* The president said he directed the education secretary to support local school districts and administrations wanting to implement mask mandates and other public safety measures in the classroom. “Like I’ve said before, if you’re not going to fight COVID-19, at least get out of the way,” Biden said. [HuffPost]

* Pandemic has never been worse in Mississippi, top doctor says as 20,000 students are quarantined (WP)

* Vaccine Effectiveness Against Infection May Wane, C.D.C. Studies Find (NYT)

* How wildfires have clouded summer for American kids (WP)

* Fires harming California’s efforts to curb climate change (AP)

* An incendiary mix of strong, shifting winds and drought-parched vegetation stoked two of California's largest wildfires on Wednesday, with thousands of residents chased from their foothill and mountain homes in the Sierra Nevada range. (Reuters)

* ‘Unprecedented fire behavior’ in Northern California (SF Chronicle)

* Dozens of homes burn as California wildfire siege continues (AP)


* ‘Active bomb threat’ near U.S. Capitol; Cannon, Madison and Jefferson office buildings evacuated (WP)


* U.S. weekly jobless claims hit 17-month low; unemployment rolls shrink (Reuters)

* San Francisco’s district attorney, Chesa Boudin, is suing three companies for selling parts and accessories to assemble “ghosts guns,” untraceable firearms that can be made from do-it-yourself kits. (California Today)

* Amazon plans to open large physical retail stores in U.S. (WSJ)

* The School Culture Wars: ‘You Have Brought Division to Us’ -- From mask mandates to critical race theory and gender identity, educators are besieged. (NYT)

* Biden’s approval rating is slipping fast. Democrats should be nervous. (WP)

* The Biden administration will ban the use of chlorpyrifos on all food crops, citing potential risks to human health. The common insecticide has been applied to a variety of crops since the 1960s, including broccoli and cranberries, and has been linked to learning disabilities in children. The Trump administration allowed the chemical to remain in use. [HuffPost]

* FTC refiles antitrust case against Facebook, argues no social network comes close to its scale (WP)

* Hong Kong Police Arrest Students Over ‘Advocating Terrorism’ -- Four student union leaders at the University of Hong Kong were arrested on Wednesday after they had held a moment of silence for a man who stabbed a police officer and then killed himself. (AP)

* Disappointed Taliban Realizes Taking Over Afghanistan More Fun Than Running It (The Onion)

***  

"Same Mistakes"

The Echo Friendly

Songwriters: Jake Rabinbach / Shannon Esper 

I make the same mistakes

Feels like I never learn

Always give away too much

For little in return


I haven't changed a bit
I'm still not over it
I make the same mistakes
I make the same mistakes
I...
I never did grow up
Feels like I never will
My friends are all adults
I'm still a teenage girl
I haven't changed a bit
I'm still not over it
I make the same mistakes
I make the same mistakes
I...
My friends are all a drag
They think I'm such a flake
They want to go to bed
I want to stay up late
Walking the streets alone
Thinking of you till dawn
I make the same mistakes
I make the same mistakes
I...
I never did grow up (I make the same mistakes)
Feels like I never will (Feels like I never learn)
My friends are all adults (Always give way too much)
I'm still a teenage girl (For little in return)
I haven't changed a bit (I haven't changed a bit)
I'm still not over it (I'm still not over it)
I make the same mistakes
I make the same mistakes
I...
I make the same mistakes (My friends are all a drag)
Feels like I never learn (They think I'm such a flake)
Always give way too much (They want to go to bed)
For little in return (I want to stay up late)
I haven't change a bit (Walking the streets alone)
I'm still not over it (Thinking of you...)
I make the same mistakes
I make the same mistakes
I...


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