As Real As We Need

During the years that my sidelight career was selling original Robert Rauschenberg paintings, I tried to catch up on my limited knowledge of abstract expressionist history.

Inevitably, I was drawn to Rauschenberg's "Erased de Kooning Drawing," an experiment about the limits of art.

At the time the two artists combined on the piece, I was exploring how to erase my own writings and drawings as a first-grader in school. At the time, we were told that we were to erase our "mistakes" as part of the process of learning how to write and draw correctly.

Rauschenberg, of course, had a very different purpose in mind when he asked Willem de Kooning to produce a drawing that he would erase. He sought to discover whether an artwork could be produced entirely through erasure— the removal of what was once there, sort of like creating a ghost.

It would not be a mistake at all, but an act entirely on purpose. And the result would be a work based only on the memory of what used to be. 

This is, after all, very similar to what happens when we lose all of our possessions to fire, theft, loss or a conscious decision to eliminate them from the premises.

It also is what happens when somebody we love dies.

If you prefer an evil twist, it is also what happens when autocrats try to erase history, criminals try to cover up crimes, or genocidal maniacs attempt to remove an entire people from the planet.

In the case of the actual de Kooning drawing, Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns carefully matted and framed the work, with Johns inscribing the following words below the now-obliterated piece:

"ERASED de KOONING DRAWING"
"ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG"
"1953"

The psychologically loaded history of the creation remains otherwise unknowable.

But as long as we remain aware of what happened, what was once drawn, and what was once seen, it is as real as we need it to be.

***

THE HEADLINES:

* A record number of Americans are quitting their jobs. (WP)

* Key to Biden’s Climate Agenda Likely to Be Cut Because of Manchin Opposition -- The West Virginia Democrat told the White House he is firmly against a clean electricity program that is the muscle behind the president’s plan to battle climate change. (NYT)

* Green sky at night over Taiwan’s islands heralds a different kind of squid game (WP)

* Some Sell Children as Afghanistan Sinks Into Destitution (WSJ)

* The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a deadly suicide bombing on a Shiite mosque in southern Afghanistan that killed 47 people and wounded scores more. Relatives laid the bodies of the victims to rest Saturday and called on the Taliban to protect them. (AP)

* Afghan Uyghurs whose families fled China now fear the Taliban could deport them (NPR)

* F.D.A. Panel Unanimously Recommends Johnson & Johnson Booster Shots (NYT)

* The Unvaccinated May Not Be Who You Think -- Science can find a cure for our diseases, but not for our societal ills. (NYT)

* Why the Salesforce CEO wants to redefine capitalism by pushing for social change (NPR)

* An obstacle to large-scale bitcoin mining is finding enough cheap energy to run the huge, power-gobbling computer arrays that create and transact cryptocurrency. One mining operation in central New York came up with a novel solution that has alarmed environmentalists. (AP)

* The great pandemic work-from-home experiment was a remarkable success (WP)

* La Niña is coming. Here's what that means for winter weather in the U.S. (NPR)

* VIDEO: NASA to Launch a Robotic Archaeologist Named Lucy -- The spacecraft is designed to study clusters of asteroids along Jupiter’s orbital path, known as the Trojan swarms, as it seeks to answer questions about the origins of the solar system and how life might have emerged on Earth. (AP)

* This dead star offers a glimpse of our solar system's eventual fate (CNN)

* Darwin family microscope to be sold at auction (Reuters)

* Intergalactic Animal Rights Groups Condemn Use Of Brutal, Unsanitary Planet To Raise Human Meat (The Onion)

Surviving the Big One

The problem with going on a sailing trip, even if only in your memory, is that when you come back to land the same problems remain.

A few scientists starting expressing their concern about planetary climate issues many decades ago and over the subsequent decades a firm consensus has emerged that human activity is the cause, but we seem no closer to solutions than we were back in 1974 when the "hole in the ozone" first emerged.

So that isn't completely true -- we *are* marginally closer to a solution because we are inching  toward a transition to sustainable energy and transportation systems in place of the destructive extraction of fossil fuels. But the progress is agonizingly slow.

It says something that the Queen of England, her son and grandson, the future King, all are speaking out in frustration about this issue. That seems like a pretty good use of their time if you ask me, though I wonder how sustainable their royal lifestyles would be if they dramatically restricted their collective carbon footprint.

Studies indicate that an increasing portion of the world's population is already suffering the effects of warming temperatures, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and permafrost, dying coral reefs, drought, fire and extreme weather events.

It all makes a personal memory of surviving an extreme weather event in a sailboat at sea seem prosaic, but of course that is the point. Our little lives with their dramas and near escapes from disaster may amuse us in the telling, but it appears that the biggest story of all time will have no happy ending.

Because that is one story we cannot write our way out of.

***

THE HEADLINES:

*  ‘Lurching Between Crisis and Complacency’: Was This Our Last Covid Surge? -- Rising immunity and modest changes in behavior may explain why cases are declining, but much remains unknown, scientists say. (NYT)

* VIDEO: Biden Announces Vaccine Donation to the African Union (AP)

* F.D.A. Panel Recommends Booster for Many Moderna Vaccine Recipients -- Those eligible for the extra shot would include adults over 65 and others at high risk — the same groups now eligible for a Pfizer-BioNTech boost. (NYT)

* U.S. to lift curbs from Nov. 8 for vaccinated foreign travelers - White House (Reuters)

* College students struggle with mental health as pandemic drags on (WP)

* If you’re heading to a gym or office in San Francisco or Marin, you no longer need to wear a face covering as long as you’re vaccinated. (SFC)

* A large explosion tore through a Shi'ite mosque in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar during Friday prayers, killing at least seven people and wounding 13, officials and provincial leaders said. (Reuters)

* An orphanage providing food, shelter and education in Afghanistan, which was recently taken over by the Taliban, is running out of funding and its director is desperately trying to regain donations. (Reuters)

* FIFA says it helped evacuate 100 players, family members from Afghanistan (Reuters)

* Biden to Press Climate Agenda on Wall Street (WSJ)

* California highway reopens but fire still a threat to homes (AP)

* A lack of precipitation combined with high temperatures this summer made for the worst drought conditions in California’s history. (CNN)

* The long-term forecast for mid-October shows several days of moderate to heavy rain, which could help to quell existing wildfires and improve drought conditions. (SF Gate)

* The race is on to save California’s rarest butterflies. (BBC)

* A normally quiet street in San Francisco is now plagued with confused self-driving cars. (CBS)

* Bitcoin hit a six-month high, approaching the record hit in April, as traders became increasingly confident that U.S. regulators would approve the launch of an exchange-traded fund based on its futures contracts. (Reuters)

* Texas abortion ban remains in effect after appeals court rules against Justice Dept. -- In a brief 2-1 order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit refused the Justice Department’s request to reinstate an earlier court ruling that had blocked enforcement of the Texas law. (WP)

* The House select committee investigating the Capitol riot will vote next week to recommend a criminal contempt of Congress charge against Stephen K. Bannon after he defied a subpoena. (NYT)

* Former President Bill Clinton has been hospitalized in California for several days with a non-COVID-related infection. “He is on the mend, in good spirits," spokesperson Angel Ureña said. CNN reported that the former president had a blood infection and could be released as early as today. [HuffPost]

* F.B.I. Official Fired Under Trump Wins Back His Pension -- Andrew G. McCabe, the former F.B.I. deputy director, will receive his pension and other benefits after settling his lawsuit with the Justice Department. (NYT)

* A group of anti-Trump Republicans will endorse a slate of Democratic lawmakers facing tough races in next year's midterm elections, in a bid to stop the Republican Party from retaking control of Congress. (Reuters)

* A New York judge has ordered Trump to give a videotaped deposition next week in a lawsuit by a group of protesters who allege that Trump and his security team assaulted them during a 2015 rally against his hateful rhetoric about Mexican immigrants. The former president is expected to record the deposition on Monday in New York’s Trump Tower. [HuffPost]

* The influence of Korean culture has reached the pages of the Oxford English Dictionary: 26 new words related to Korean culture were added and 11 words were revised. (NPR)

* Student loan debt can be paid back in a lump sum, or over the course of several lifetimes (The Onion)

Three Men and the Sea.2

 

(Second of two parts. Part one appeared here yesterday.)

As we sailed through turbulent seas in the Gulf, it was clearly going to be a long night so Graham went to sleep in order to be fresh later on when it came time to relieve Ty at the helm. I couldn’t sleep, so periodically I would open the hatch and call up to Ty. He seemed to be having the time of his life in the rough seas, laughing and whooping. Of course our running lights were on and we occasionally would pass other boats headed into shore.

Normally boats would acknowledge each other bay radio or blinking our lights as we passed,  but as we got further out in the Gulf we started to encounter boats with their lights low and no radio contact. Ty explained these were probably drug runners from Cuba bringing marijuana to Florida and the lucrative U.S. market. We knew the Coast Guard played hide and seek with these carriers of contraband so we just let them be.

As the night went on and on, the storm built toward its peak. We'd all been through many of these storms, but they normally occurred in the afternoon, not the dead of the tropical night.

That made this one disorienting. The boat tossed about on the waves like a bathtub toy, and I was a bit scared but with Ty at the controls I figured we would probably make it okay. 

It's funny but rather confronting our possible mortality I was already imaging what a good story this would be to tell later on. This happened a number of times in my life, like when someone pulled a gun on me in the streets. (That happened three times.) It must be some sort of abnormal personality disorder. Rather than experiencing rational fear, I watched myself sleepwalk through experiences, living to tell the tale later.

In any event, we all wore life vests in case we were to be swept overboard by a surge in waves. Minutes passed like days; hours like weeks. Finally the winds began to subside and the rain let up enough that Graham could take over.  Ty came below to study the maps.

“I’m afraid we were blown well off course by the storm,” he said. “So we are probably way to the south of where we should be.

That was troubling news because it meant we would be close to the territorial waters of Cuba and subject to interdiction by the Cuban authorities who didn’t take kindly to "spies"  approaching their coast. This was not very long after the disastrous U.S. invasion known as the Bay of Pigs, not to mention the Cuban Missile Crisis,  and tensions between the countries were very high.

Ty made a guess at our probable location and took the helm, turning the boat in an elegant if  hazardous maneuver to head in a direction like the long angle of an isosceles triangle that theoretically would get us back on course to Sanibel. 

Running before the wind never felt this fast before -- we were shooting over the surf like a well-crafted arrow in the night. As the hours passed, all other ship traffic seemed to have dropped away. Ty explained that this was a good thing, as we were out of the major shipping lanes and likely headed into friendlier waters.

Finally after what seemed like an interminable period of time we started glimpsing several faint lights on the shoreline. As we gingerly approached land, Ty recognized the location. It was Marco island, not Cuba.

By then the weather was calming and we just had slow steady waves that were easy to navigate. I took a turn at the helm as we hugged the familiar coastline up the shell islands. When we finally got to our destination it was a great relief to sail under the Causeway’s drawbridge and work our way into the marina, tie up the boat, and start the long walk home on the shell roads. 

No one said a word. We just carried our wet gear, enjoying the fresh air under a pre-dawn sky that was studded with stars.

***

THE HEADLINES:

* The Romance of American Activism in “Radical Love” -- William Kirkley’s documentary follows a married couple working on behalf of the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers in the '60s and '70s (New Yorker)

* VIDEO: W.H.O. Announces New Team to Study Covid-19 Origins -- The World Health Organization hopes that the new advisory group, which includes scientists from 26 countries, can revive its study of the pandemic’s origins, after previous efforts became bogged down in a political rivalry between China and the United States. (Reuters)

* Consumer Prices Jump Again, Presenting a Dilemma for Washington -- Consumer Price Index data from the Labor Department showed that prices kept climbing in September, as supply chain snarls and rising rents fueled rapid inflation. (NYT)

* Biden Announces Measures at Major Ports to Battle Supply Chain Woes (NYT)

* U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren called for breaking up Amazon.com and Indian retailers demanded a government probe of the company after a Reuters investigation showed the e-commerce giant had copied products and rigged search results in India. Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers plans to introduce a bill that would bar Big Tech platforms from favoring their products and services. (Reuters)

* Jan. 6 committee subpoenas key witness in Trump’s Justice Department -- The committee said it is seeking records and testimony from Jeffrey Clark, a Trump administration official who sought to deploy resources to support the former president’s false claims of massive voter fraud in the 2020 election. (WP)

* Vaccination rates against COVID-19 in the United States have risen by more than 20 percentage points after multiple institutions adopted vaccine requirements, while case numbers and deaths from the virus are down. White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters that 77% of eligible Americans had received at least one shot of a vaccine. (Reuters)

* Biden Administration Plans Wind Farms Along Nearly the Entire U.S. Coastline (NYT)

* Plug-in cars are the future. The grid isn’t ready. (WP)

* Lake Tahoe’s water levels have hit a four-year low after intense winds exacerbated the impacts of California’s drought. (The Guardian)

* Could ‘near-record’ rain put an end to fire season? -- Weather forecasters estimate two inches of precipitation will come in from a storm hovering in the Pacific Ocean next week, affecting a swath stretching from the Bay Area to Redding. The coming storm could bring near-record rainfall to replenish water resources in the state. (SFC)

* California firefighters took advantage of a break in strong winds to get aircraft aloft and dump retardant on a fast-moving wildfire that was within a half mile of former President Ronald Reagan's ranch. (Reuters)

* Roughly 60,000 workers in the film and television industry will go on strike next week if major Hollywood studios do not offer them a satisfying contract before then, the union said. Workers want to see significant pay increases at the bottom end of the wage scale, better compensation for workers on streaming projects, and stronger guarantees on breaks and time off between shifts. [HuffPost]

* Walgreens is closing five locations in San Francisco and blames an epidemic of “organized” theft. (Cal Today)

* U.S. regulators spelled out long-awaited guidelines aimed at reducing sodium levels in dozens of foods, including condiments, cereals, French fries and potato chips. A majority of the sodium in U.S. diets comes from packaged or restaurant foods — not salt added to meals at home — making it hard for people to make changes on their own. [AP]

* Another Facebook whistleblower will testify, this time before British lawmakers (WP)

* U.S. unemployment claims fall to lowest level since pandemic (AP)

* With hospitals crowded from COVID, 1 in 5 American families delays health care (NPR)

* The Sacramento City Unified School District voted to impose a Covid-19 vaccine mandate for all eligible students and staff members by Nov. 30. (Sacramento Bee)

* It’s a scary time to be growing up. Teens and parents are bonding over that. (WP)

* UK's Prince William says great minds should focus on saving Earth not space travel (Reuters)

* Crucial U.N. climate talks next month are likely to fall short of the global target for cutting coal, gas and oil emissions, Kerry says. (AP)

* ‘Moneyball’ Thinking Killed the Stolen Base—but It’s Making a Comeback (WSJ)

* Company Hosts Fun Night For Employees To Get Drunk And Complain (The Onion)

***

"As Time Goes By"

Written by Herman Hupfeld

You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by

And when two lovers woo
They still say "I love you"
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by

Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate
Woman needs man, and man must have his mate
That no one can deny

It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by

Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate
Woman needs man, and man must have his mate
That no one can deny

It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by

Three Men and the Sea

Many years ago I went with my brother-in-law Ty and an Australian friend named Graham

across Florida to the east coast, where we picked up a yacht to deliver for an elderly man on the west coast at Sanibel Island. 

It started out as an easy trip; the weather was good and the water was pretty calm off the coast — a little too calm.

As we worked our way along the coast in the Atlantic Ocean to the south, we debated whether to sail around Key West at the bottom of the state or cut through a canal to the large Bay of Florida and shave some hours off the route.

The weather forecast dictated our decision. A big storm was coming so we chose the shorter route.

As we made our way through the Bay, our rudder kept snagging on floats that had been placed there by fishermen. We would have to stop, free the rope from around the rudder, release the float and continue on our way. It was laborious work but also it kept interrupting our progress as the storm clouds approached.

We had hoped to make Sanibel before the storm but that was becoming only a remote possibility.

At dinner time, we pulled up one of the traps connected to a float wrapped around the rudder to discover several lobsters! Since I was not very skilled as a sailor my main role was to cook meals below decks. I also didn’t get seasick so it didn’t bother me to sway back and forth during the cooking process like it might some people. We had a delicious dinner of lobsters and beer.

By sunset the water was really getting rough, the winds were high and the sky filled with black and purple clouds. We could see flashes of lightning on the horizon. Soon we reached the coast and sailed out into the Gulf of Mexico.

The other two guys were almost always at the helm, except in the calmest waters but now that the going was getting rough, Ty took over as our captain. 

He is an excellent sailor and knew what he was doing as we raced at high speed way out into the Gulf. Due to the contours of the coastline, we had to go far to the southwest before we would reach reliably deep enough waters to turn and head north to Sanibel Island.

Ty knew the route pretty well but this was his first time sailing it in this boat or under these conditions. We had navigation maps and a radio and we knew that the storm was a pretty big one. As the first waves of rain started to fall in sheets, Graham and I retreated below, leaving Ty alone up top. We were dressed in rain slickers and hoods, but the rain beat against our faces when we were up top.

(To be continued.)

***

THE HEADLINES:

* Facebook to change rules on attacking public figures on its platforms. It will now count activists and journalists as "involuntary" public figures and so increase protections against harassment and bullying targeted at these groups, its global safety chief said in an interview this week. (Reuters) 

* UN Chief: Afghanistan Faces 'Make-or-Break Moment' -- Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also appealed to the Taliban to stop breaking its promises to allow women to work and girls to have access to all levels of education. Eighty percent of Afghanistan’s economy is informal, with women playing an overwhelming role, and “without them there is no way the Afghan economy and society will recover,” he said. (Military.com) 

* While girls across most of Afghanistan remain at home as their brothers go to high school, classes in some northern areas have been open for all students, highlighting regional differences starting to emerge two months after the Taliban seized power. (Reuters) 

* E.U. Pledges $1.15 Billion in Afghan Aid as U.S. Talks to Taliban -- Europe and America are offering stopgap humanitarian aid for a country on the brink of collapse, but larger decisions about the new Taliban government remain on hold. (NYT)

* World’s Growth Cools and the Rich-Poor Divide Widens -- The International Monetary Fund says the persistence of the coronavirus and global supply chain crisis weighs on economies. (NYT)

* U.S. to open Canada, Mexico land border crossings for fully vaccinated travelers (WP) 

* Inflation rises 5.4% from year ago, matching 13-year high (AP)

* U.S. Social Security benefits to rise by 5.9%, the most since early '80s (Reuters)

* The Mysterious Case of the COVID-19 Lab-Leak Theory (New Yorker)

* Far more police officers have died from Covid-19 than from any other work-related cause in 2020 and 2021. Even so, vaccines remain a hard sell. (Cal Today)

* Scientists at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said that Moderna had not met all of the agency's criteria to support use of booster dosesof its COVID-19 vaccine, possibly because the efficacy of the shot's first two doses has remained strong. (Reuters)

* J&J Booster Dose Increases Protection Against Covid-19, FDA Says (WSJ)

* F.D.A. Authorizes E-Cigarettes to Stay on U.S. Market for the First Time -- The agency approved three Vuse vaping products and said their benefits in helping smokers quit outweighed the risks of hooking youths. (NYT)

* More women are tuning out politics — a danger sign for Democrats in Virginia and beyond (WP)

* More than 100 countries pledged to put the protection of habitats at the heart of their government decision-making but they stopped short of committing to specific targets to curb mass extinctions. With plant and animal species loss now at the fastest rate in 10 million years, politicians, scientists and experts have been trying to lay the groundwork for a new pact on saving biodiversity. (Reuters)

* Neo-fascists exploit ‘no-vax’ rage, posing dilemma for Italy (AP)

* A Hong Kong university orders the removal of a memorial to the Tiananmen massacre (NPR)

* California set to become first state to ban sales of gasoline-powered lawn equipment (WP)

* The Alisal fire, which began on Monday near Santa Barbara, had consumed 21 square miles and was 5 percent contained as of Tuesday evening. (Cal Today)

* A new poll found that over half of Bay Area residents plan to permanently leave the area in the next few years. The cost of housing is propelling their departure. (SFC)

* 40 years ago, San Francisco lowriders organized to fight police harassment — and won (NPR)

* European and U.S. cities planning to phase out combustion engines over the next 15 years first need to plug a charging gap for millions of residents who park their cars on the street. For while electric vehicle sales are soaring in Europe and the United States, a lag in installing charging infrastructure is causing a roadblock. (Reuters)

* A ‘hidden epidemic of babies and kids being raised in cars’ -- Most homeless families in Silicon Valley sleep in cars, RVs and motels just blocks from major tech campuses for Google and Apple. With more than 48,000 people in Santa Clara in line for a housing voucher, officials have their hands full trying to find more stable shelter for kids and parents trying to survive. (SFC) * ‘Squid Game’ Is Slammed by Kim Jong Un’s Propagandists

 (WSJ) 

* ‘Squid Game’ strikes nerve in debt-ridden South Korea (AP)

* Man Spends Whole Day Dreading Fun Activity He Signed Up For (The Onion)