[NOTE: I am switching to a new publication schedule. These essays will now go live around noon on the day they are written, as opposed to the following morning. Since this is the first of its kind, it also is the second post on this particular day.]
***
When I lived in Afghanistan, there were men who wandered into town on foot dressed in ragged clothes. They had long hair, ragged beards, and often were barefoot. Some of them were considered Sufis, or Islamic mystics.
Whether they were wise men or crazy men, I never could quite make out, but some townspeople would invariably offer them food and water and a place to rest before they continued on their way.
It was strictly my imagination, I suppose, but in some of these men I thought I glimpsed the faces of Jesus or Moses or perhaps even Muhammad.
Other wanderers came through town as well -- younger visitors, Westerners, long-haired boys and girls. In the Peace Corps, we had a name for them: "World Travelers," or WT's.
A less charitable name might be hippies.
But that really didn't translate very well into the languages spoken by the Afghans. So they always just called them the "Happys."
***
This morning I awoke to find that the Journal of the Plague Year has reprinted one of my Afghanistan stories. Here is the link:
* "In The Ghosts of Balkh, David Weir shows us history made real. A former Peace Corps volunteer in Afghanistan and longtime journalist and editor for Rolling Stone, Wired, and Salon, Weir has stayed in close contact with the country that changed the way he thought forever. In compelling prose, he links Afghanistan's past and present with our dilemmas here in the U.S." <https://plagueyears.ink/Ghosts>
I'm grateful to the journal and especially editor Susan Zakin for allowing my words to reach a wider audience. The journal emerged right about the time I did, at the beginning of the pandemic, to serve as a voice for what many of us have been going through.
It publishes wonderful pieces by many authors you might enjoy, so check it out, and subscribe if you can.
***
By this point, anyone who's stuck with me during this long run knows I only write what for this age are considered long-form columns, quite out out of favor currently.
At first some readers complained, but that stopped happening a ways back, probably because the complainers dropped away.
And I get it -- people's lives are busy and there is only so much time to reflect on the news or where all of this chaos in the world is leading us.
But I continue to do it because this is the only adequate method I have found for expressing what I need to express.
Over the past few weeks, as the news from Afghanistan has taken over the entire global news cycle, I also know that even my most loyal friends and readers are probably finding this too much to take.
I do.
But I've been finding some relief in conversations with a few friends, old and new, who have answered my call to get involved in some small way, if only to forward my thoughts and feelings to others.
It is so very difficult for anyone to develop a deep affinity for a faraway place they have never visited and never will. In fact, one of the critical roles writers can play is to take us there and help us develop that affinity.
I've never been to Africa, for example, but through many great writers I've developed a sense of what life is like on that incredibly diverse, complex continent. I've never been to South America either; my reporting trips south ended at Central America.
But I've been a lot of other places, especially in Europe and Asia, and each visit to each country has left an indelible mark on my soul.
Of all of those places, no country touched me like Afghanistan.
***
THE HEADLINES:
* The Old Cliché About Afghanistan That Won’t Die -- ‘Graveyard of Empires’ is an old epitaph that doesn’t reflect historical reality — or the real victims of foreign invasions over the centuries. (Politico)
* Hope dwindles among U.S.-based Afghans trying to save family still in Kabul: ‘It’s over’ (WP)
* U.S. warns of more attacks after retaliating for Kabul airport blast (Reuters)
* As U.S. Troops Searched Afghans, a Bomber in the Crowd Moved In -- Officials are still piecing together the chain of events in the attack that killed scores of people, including 13 U.S. service members, outside the Kabul airport. (NYT)
* U.S. launches strike on ISIS-K, as embassy warns Americans to ‘leave immediately’ -- The drone strike on Friday was the first retaliatory action following an attack at Kabul airport that killed 13 American service members and at least 170 other people. (WP)
* After Airport Bombing, an Afghan Family Buries a Father, and Hope -- The former police officer, from the Hazara ethnic minority, had hoped to help his family escape the Taliban. Instead, he is now numbered among the scores killed at the Kabul airport. (NYT)
* What photos, video show about the attack on the Kabul airport (WP)
* After Two Decades of Fighting Taliban, U.S. Is Uneasy Partners With Them -- Americans have described a necessary, if distasteful, working arrangement as they race to evacuate Afghanistan by Aug. 31. (NYT)
* U.S. intelligence community says cannot solve COVID mystery without China (Reuters)
* At a Children’s Hospital, a Wave of Young Patients Struggling to Breathe -- A federal “surge team” is helping exhausted doctors and nurses through one of the most trying periods in the history of Children’s Hospital New Orleans. (NYT)
* Hospitalizations Approach Peak as Variant Spreads --U.S. Covid-19 hospitalizations have again crossed 100,000. Patients are skewing younger than before, and disparities among racial and ethnic groups persist. (WSJ)
* Gulf Coast braces for Sunday arrival of Hurricane Ida, potentially a Category 4 storm (CNN)
* The family on a hike. The runner who never came home. Are their deaths tied to climate change? (SF Chronicle)
* Winds frustrate effort to corral wildfire near Lake Tahoe (AP)
* VIDEO: Caldor Fire Rages Toward Lake Tahoe -- New evacuations were ordered in parts of the Tahoe Basin as the fire burned about a dozen miles to the south, spewing ash and smoke into the air. Nearly 3,000 firefighters have been called in to battle the blaze. (AP, Reuters)
* These Maps Tell the Story of Two Americas: One Parched, One Soaked -- The country, like most of the world, is becoming both drier and wetter in the era of climate change. It depends where you live. (NYT)
* California Redwood Self-Immolates To Protest Climate Change (The Onion)
***
"In My Life"
The Beatles
All my life though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
