Whither Truth?

 On the occasion of its 15th anniversary, Politico has published the opinions of various experts on the question, “Is Media Doomed?”

As far as I could tell, none of them came up with a definitive answer but perhaps that’s because they asked the wrong question. For one thing, which forms of media are we talking about anyway?

It’s a fair assumption that human societies will always have some sort of media because we almost certainly have always had them. The original forms probably involved cave drawings and fireside gossip sessions.

The ways news travels in a pre-literate society — by word of mouth — persists even in the most highly techno-societies. Think about it — when you hear some news from a friend it can have more impact than from a venerated news source, right?

And in today’s environment, “media” encompasses a far broader swath of sources than the ones (including Politico) that I aggregate daily, because these are primarily traditional journalism outlets that normally adhere to the professional standards people like me believe in.

Information circulating via Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, SnapChat and other social media reaches at least as many people as these traditional outlets. Disinformation spread by QAnon, Trump and other extremist sources carve out their own sizable audience as well.

Governments, the academy, scientific groups, industry groups, public option pollsters, specialty publications, newsletters and individual authors affect the flow of stories, some reaching far more people than any traditional media could dream of.

Inside this cacophony, what exactly is “media” anymore?

Maybe that is another operative question.

The most common query I get from readers and friends is whether they can trust this or that source of information any longer. Skepticism even with the likes of the New York Times seems to be at an all-time high, and not just on the right.

Maybe it is our ability to trust that we need to be worried about. With so many competing points of view, optimists profess that the truth will win out. But whose truth exactly are we talking about?

Whether a story is strictly true or not is of major interest to us journalists, but I’m not so sure that is the case for our audiences. A good story — as long as it is mostly true — may be more satisfying to many than that which can strictly be proved to be so. Speculative pieces often prove to be exceptionally popular.

Maybe the question Politico should have posed is not so much about media but a much larger matter.

Is truth doomed?

SATURDAY’s HEADLINES:

• 80 Years Ago the Nazis Planned the ‘Final Solution.’ It Took 90 Minutes. (NYT)

• Supreme Court, investigators force Trump and his children on the defensive on multiple fronts (WP)

• Is the Media Doomed? (Politico)

• Unvaccinated seniors nearly 50 times more likely to be hospitalized than boosted peers (WP)

• Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor castigated the state of Texas and her fellow justices after the nation’s high court denied a request from abortion providers to move a case challenging Texas' restrictive abortion law to a district court, calling the decision a “grave disservice to women.” “I will not stand by silently as a state continues to nullify this constitutional guarantee. I dissent," she said. [HuffPost]

• 'Dangerous precedent': Jan. 6 committee trains its sights on false pro-Trump electors — GOP officials in five states illegitimately claimed to be qualified to declare Donald Trump the winner in 2020. And Trump allies were openly involved. (Politico)

• Afghans in Kosovo Risk Being Denied Entry to U.S. for Alleged Terrorist Ties (WSJ)

• As he starts his second term as U.N. secretary-general, Antonio Guterres said Thursday the world is worse in many ways than it was five years ago because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and geopolitical tensions that have sparked conflicts everywhere (AP)

• Beijing Olympics: In parched Beijing, claims of a ‘green’ Olympics may not hold water (WP)

• Amanda Gorman: Why I Almost Didn’t Read My Poem at the Inauguration (NYT)

• Booster shots in U.S. have strongly protected against severe disease from omicron variant, CDC studies show (WP)

• England’s public health body investigates new offshoot of Omicron (Financial Times)

• Will Omicron Leave Most of Us Immune? (Atlantic)

• Australia will remain a divided nation, with the vast mining state of Western Australia canceling plans to reopen its borders on February 5, citing health risks from a surge in the Omicron COVID variant in eastern states. (Reuters)

• The IRS said that it is dealing with staffing shortages and a backlog of over 6 million individual tax returns from last year as of late December, and expects “enormous challenges” during this year’s tax filing season. Here are some tips for getting ahead and ensuring your refund comes as quickly as it can. [HuffPost]

• Facebook's lobbying spending surged to a record in 2021 (Politico)

• Russia's central bank proposed banning the use and mining of cryptocurrencies on Russian territory, citing threats to financial stability, citizens' wellbeing and its monetary policy sovereignty. (Reuters)

• Between October and December, California received more rainfall than it had over the previous 12 months. Atmospheric rivers shattered rainfall records, flooded streets and downed power lines across the state. Before the storms, 88 percent of California was considered in extreme or exceptional drought, the most severe designations. Now, 1 percent of the state falls into those categories, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. That’s a marked improvement, but California still needs a lot more rain to make up for years of water shortfalls. Even after the storms, 99 percent of the state remains in some level of drought. (Cal Today)

• Belarusian officials charged in fake bomb threat orchestrated for dissident arrest (WP)

• Last week's COVID-19 vaccine ruling probably won't be the last time the Supreme Court blocks federal agencies from protecting public health or safety, writes Jonathan Cohn. The boundaries of government power have been the subject of debate for a long time, and Justice Neil Gorsuch's anti-government view may be a lot less rooted in constitutional history than conservatives would have everybody believe. [HuffPost]

• Pandemic market darlings Netflix and Peloton each saw about a fifth of their market value wiped out after both said business was slowing. (Reuters)

• Pete Davidson and Colin Jost buy old Staten Island ferry boat (NY Post)

• Nation Attempts To Fall Asleep By Doing Little Impression Of Sleeping (The Onion)

Memory Hole

 

The Post ran an article suggesting the past two pandemic years amount to a “memory hole” — that everything is blurring together for many of us and the pandemic seems to be “forever ending and always beginning.”

Truly life has felt suspended for many of us, and in many ways it is. We seem stuck on that day in March 2020 when most of the country — and the world — went into lockdown — a status previously reserved for those caught in a mass shooting episode while the gunman was being located by authorities.

But this time the assailant is an elusive virus that cannot ever really be captured or exterminated. It just rolls on and on through the unvaccinated among us, mutating and colonizing inside new bodies before continuing its relentless migration around the globe and back again.

On the other hand, my memory apparently is excellent, according to the judgement of others, but then again just the other day I was convinced it was February. — it took my digital devices to rid me of that notion.

Meanwhile, as we continue to wait for that possibly mythical moment when this pandemic will be behind us, the slow erosion to our political system continues, with new voting restrictions in many states, throwing the integrity of the 2022 and 2024 elections into doubt.

It doesn’t feel like only one year ago Biden that was sworn in, or since Amanda Gorman delivered her awesome poem. Her words still ring out: “But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.”

I’d like to believe in Gorman’s positive vision. But it feels like many years since she said that. 

As for the pandemic, it definitely is still ending and beginning for me. Yesterday there were two more positive tests in my household, which means an extension of the lockdown and deepening of my isolation and depression.

As for that memory hole, you know what you can do with the past two years.

FRIDAY’s HEADLINES:

• Greetings from the pandemic memory hole, where the last two years are one big blur — The pandemic that is forever ending and always beginning. Some people are losing their memories, if not their minds. (WP)

• In Rebuke to Trump, Supreme Court Allows Release of Jan. 6 Files — The House committee investigating the riot received hundreds of pages of documents from the former president’s White House within hours of the ruling. (NYT)

• Oath Keepers Cached Weapons for Capitol Attack, U.S. Says (WSJ)

• Why America is dangerously polarised — and Europe is not (Financial Times)

• Eric Trump and Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg invoked their Fifth Amendment rights more than 500 times when questioned by the New York attorney general’s office for its investigation into the company’s finances, according to a court filing. The office argues that these instances demonstrate that the men were aware of potential criminal liability. [HuffPost]

• Europe considers new COVID-19 strategy: accepting the virus (AP)

• The European Union threatened "massive" economic sanctions if Moscow attacks Ukraine, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rallied allies ahead of last-ditch crisis talks with Russia aimed at preventing war. We explain how Western sanctions might target Russia, and look at how a Russian troop buildup has sparked an unintended NATO renewal. (Reuters)

• Parent-activists, seeking control over education, are taking over school boards (WP)

• The yearlong quest to pass voting rights legislation has ended in the Senate. It was a bitter disappointment for Democrats, who argued its passage was all that stood in the way of a new era of voter suppression laws in Republican-led states. [HuffPost]

• After a day of debate, the voting rights bill is blocked in the Senate. — Without the votes to change Senate rules, Democrats had no avenue for overcoming a Republican filibuster against legislation intended to offset new state voting restrictions. (NYT)

• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) blasted Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) after they sided with Republicans against changing Senate filibuster rules, dooming Democrats’ efforts to pass voting rights legislation. “They have forced us to have five months of discussions that have gone absolutely nowhere. I think it’s up to the people in their own states,” Sanders said, when asked whether he supported efforts to primary the two conservatives. [HuffPost]

• House GOP plots policy agenda for 2022 elections with help from Newt Gingrich, architect of 1994 plan (WP)

• Biden approval hits new low at one-year mark: AP-NORC poll (AP)

• Build Back Smaller: Biden gets real on the economy (Politico)

• In Peru, Courts ‘Used Like Whips’ to Silence Journalists — The author of a book about a powerful politician has been sentenced to two years in prison. Media advocates say the case is part of a trend in which the courts are being used to punish critics. (NYT)

• ‘China will be China’: Why journalists are taking burner phones to the Beijing Olympics (WP)

• NCAA adopts new policy for transgender athletes (AP)

• US Senate committee advances bill to tame Big Tech’s power (Financial Times)

• What the Metaverse Has to Do With Microsoft’s Deal for Activision (WSJ)

• U.S. Federal Reserve officials, having plotted what seemed a clear battle plan against high inflation, must now contend with fresh signs the coronavirus is again slowing the economy as well as markets conspiring to tighten financial conditions faster than Fed policymakers may have hoped. (Reuters)

• CIA finds no ‘worldwide campaign’ by any foreign power behind mysterious Havana syndrome (WP)

• Forty percent of all seaborne imports to the United States come through either the Port of Los Angeles or the Port of Long Beach. And a majority of those goods eventually end up on a train. (Cal Today)

• Twitter is bucking the remote work trend, opting to expand its office space in downtown San Francisco. (SFC)

• Rare, pristine coral reef found off Tahiti coast (AP)

• The museum at the end of the world reopens for business (BBC)

• Computer Not Looking Forward To Having To Replace Man's Repetitive, Mindless Job (The Onion)

Word Games

Helping one of my granddaughters with long division the other day, I compared what we were doing to the physical exercise her brother was pursuing with a passion out front — shooting basketballs.

She looked out at him with a thoughtful gaze.

“Grandpa, I feel like my mind is dribbling around in here until it can find the right answer.”

Good word choice.

Any neurologist will tell you that it’s good to play word and number games, not just for kids but most especially as you age to help fend off premature dementia. I’m not suggesting this is a solution to that complicated problem but medical opinion seems to generally hold that games like Scrabble can help.

Two of my sons have waged a long-term competition via Words with Friends that has lasted years. Slowly the younger is catching up to the older in win percentage.

But the rage with words online at present is Wordle, which a software engineer in Brooklyn named Josh Wardle created last November; by now it has become a daily habit for hundreds of thousands of people, including me.

The game, which occupies all of maybe three minutes a day, invites you to guess a five-letter word. You get six tries. After each guess, you discover which of the letters you’ve chosen are indeed part of the secret word and whether you’ve discovered their position in the word correctly yet.

So far I’ve been able to guess the word correctly the seven times I’ve played, usually by the forth try, though once I lucked out and got it on the third.

My only complaint is that I can only play this game once each day, whereas I can play robots in Scrabble multiple times each day, so for Mr. Wardle, should he read this, I have a request:

Expand the game to multiple words per day. After all, there are by most estimates 5,350-8,996 of those in English.

Or you could add words of various lengths. Then the choices approach the infinite.

THURSDAY’s HEADLINES:

• Has the United States become ungovernable? (BBC)

• The Senate’s Dangerous Inability to Protect Democracy (New Yorker)

• Surprise in $216 Billion Budget Plan: New York Is Awash in Money (NYT)

• House Jan. 6 panel subpoenas Trump-allied attorneys Giuliani, Powell (WP)

• New York Attorney General Letitia James took legal action against former President Donald Trump and his children Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, seeking to compel them to testify in a civil investigation into the Trump Organization’s financial dealings. James said her office has uncovered "significant evidence" suggesting the Trumps misrepresented assets to secure loans or insurance coverage for buildings in New York City, among other holdings. The Trump family has sued the attorney general’s office to block subpoenas and have the suit thrown out. [HuffPost]

• Hurricanes, wildfires and snowstorms are becoming increasingly more common in the Sierra Nevada foothills. (WSJ)

• Inflation in Britain rose faster than expected to a near 30-year high in December, intensifying a squeeze on living standards and putting pressure on the Bank of England to raise interest rates again. (Reuters)

• How to Navigate Rising Food Prices as Inflation Surges (WSJ)

• Microsoft will buy Activision Blizzard, betting $70 billion on the future of games. (NYT)

• Microsoft Megadeal Powers Its Netflix-of-Gaming Aspirations (WSJ)

• Microsoft bought Activision because gaming is the new social media (WP)

• Microsoft’s Activision buy could shake up gaming (AP)

• WHO says ‘no evidence’ healthy children need boosters amid global vaccine inequity (WP)

• VIDEO: Earthquakes in Afghanistan Kill at Least 27, Including Children (AP)

• Taliban victory unleashes hardline forces in Pakistan (Financial Times)

• How the U.S. helps vulnerable Afghans without recognizing the Taliban (WP)

• COVID hospitalizations in Bay Area near all-time high (SFC)

• Two million. That’s the number of unvaccinated people in Los Angeles County — more than three times the population of Wyoming, and a commentary on the sheer scale of the county, the nation’s most populous by far. It’s also an indicator on how vulnerable Los Angeles remains to the coronavirus. (Cal Today)

• Firearms, a drone and 30 days of supplies: New details of Oath Keepers Jan. 6 weapons cache (Politico)

• Jon Stewart to receive the Mark Twain Prize at the Kennedy Center in April (WP)

• Japan welcomed 94% fewer visitors in 2021 (NHK)

• Snow falls in Algeria's Sahara Desert (BBC)

• Australia threw out an invitation to backpackers, seeking reinforcements for a workforce crippled by an Omicron COVID-19 outbreak as the country's health system creaks under the pandemic's strain with more deaths predicted in weeks ahead. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his government was waiving the visa application fee for any backpacker or student who arrives within the next 12 weeks, and encouraged them to seek work as they tour the country. (Reuters)

• University of Michigan agrees to $490 million settlement in sex abuse scandal (WP)

• An Electrifying Adaptation of a Murakami Short Story — In Drive My Car, a vehicle becomes a meditative space for confessions, regrets, and revelations. (Atlantic)

• “Bambi” Is Even Bleaker Than You Thought — The original book is far more grisly than the beloved Disney classic—and has an unsettling message about humanity. (New Yorker)

• Area Dad Sure Knows A Lot About Local Weather Woman (The Onion)

 

Whose Life Exactly?

 

It is probably natural, having worked in the mixed worlds of journalism, movies, academia, non-profit and private sector, “old” media and digital media, that I continue to get a lot of questions about my long strange career.

It is rare that a week goes by that somebody or other doesn’t call to discuss something about the way it was “back then.”

I always try to comply wit their requests, because I was a reporter for a long time and I know how many people resist such calls about what they know or remember.

Usually I’m willing to discuss pretty much anything except the identities of certain confidential sources or relationships that should not disclosed.

That leaves a pretty wide latitude for conversation. Probably the most sought-after information is about my years at Rolling Stone and specifically the Patty Hearst stories.

In 1975-6, Howard Kohn and I had three cover stories on the newspaper heiress’s kidnapping and apparent conversion to the cause of her kidnappers, the domestic terror organization calling itself the SLA.

Even mundane details of our own lives at the time seem to be of some interest and one recent caller asked me, “Do you ever think about how amazing it is that you did all of that? That you lived through it?”

The question took me aback for a moment, but I answered, “Sometimes it feels like it was in fact someone else, not me.”

After we hung up, I stayed with that thought about it feeling like somebody’s else’s life, not mine. I suspect a lot of people feel that way about the distant past and the things that happened back then — things that sound strangely exotic now.

Given that we grow and change substantially throughout our lives it is kinda true, too, that many of us were pretty much someone else when younger. And speaking only for myself, I have no regrets about that.

WEDNESDAY’s HEADLINES:

• China’s Births Hit Historic Low, a Political Problem for Beijing (NYT)

• Public trust in governments running the world's democracies has fallen to new lows over their handling of the pandemic and amid a widespread sense of economic pessimism, a global survey has found. The Edelman Trust Barometer conversely showed rising scores in several autocratic states, notably China. (Reuters)

• Vaccinated parents should not hesitate to vaccinate their kids (Edit Bd/WP)

• Pfizer’s New Covid-19 Pill Works Against Omicron in Lab (WSJ)

• Fauci says COVID-19 won't go away like smallpox, but will more likely become endemic (NPR)

• France reports nearly half a million new cases, a record increase; Italy records 228,179 daily infections (Guardian)

• Don’t count on omicron variant ending the pandemic, Fauci cautions (WP)

• The chief executives of major U.S. passenger and cargo carriers warned of an impending "catastrophic" aviation crisis in less than 36 hours, when AT&T and Verizon are set to deploy new 5G service. The airlines said the service could render a significant number of widebody aircraft unusable on the dispute over 5G and airline safety. (Reuters)

• AT&T says it will delay some 5G after airlines raise alarms (AP)

• T&T, Verizon Will Withhold 5G Signals Near Airports to Prevent Flight Delays (WSJ)

• VIDEO: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Family Tells Senate to Legislate, ‘Not Celebrate’ — Relatives of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched on Washington and urged the Senate to pass voting rights legislation. (Reuters, Pool)

• Martin Luther King III came to Arizona with harsh words for Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), whose refusal, along with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), to change the Senate’s Jim Crow-era filibuster rules makes voting rights legislation unlikely to pass. The plea from the King family brings an especially powerful voice to an increasingly tense campaign to pressure Sinema to change her mind. [AP]

• Workers are calling out sick in droves, leaving employers scrambling (NPR)

• The Persistent Gender Gap at the Supreme Court Lectern — More than 40 years after Ruth Bader Ginsburg last appeared as a lawyer at the Supreme Court, relatively few women argue cases there. (NYT)

• A U.S. appeals court handed a defeat to abortion clinics by delaying a legal challenge to a Texas law banning most abortions in that state. The Republican-backed law bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. (Reuters)

• Detainees Sue Arkansas Jail That Gave Them Ivermectin to Treat Covid — For months, the jail’s doctor has promoted the drug, which health experts say should not be used to treat or prevent Covid-19. (NYT)

• Before pullout, watchdog warned of Afghan air force collapse (AP)

• Afghanistan desperately needs aid. One technocrat from the former government is key to the Taliban’s efforts. (WP)

• ‘Gunmen were looking for my mum’: daughter of Afghan ex-radio boss (Guardian)

• Thick ash on an airport runway was delaying aid deliveries to the Pacific island nation of Tonga, where significant damage was being reported days after a huge undersea volcanic eruption and tsunami. Communications with Tonga have been extremely limited. The explosion of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai volcano was the latest in a series of dramatic eruptions. [AP]

• NASA scientists estimate Tonga blast at 10 megatons (NPR)

• Sweden drones: Sightings reported over nuclear plants and palace (BBC)

• US plans $50B wildfire fight where forests meet suburbia (AP)

• Why teens need more sleep, and how we can help them get it (WP)

• For decades renowned Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez kept the public from knowing about an intimate aspect of his life: He had a daughter with a Mexican writer, with whom he had an extramarital affair in the early 1990s. (AP)

• Man Uses Weekend To Make Totally Different Mistakes Than He Did During Workweek (The Onion)

Wrong Side of History

 

As the voting rights battles continue to spread in states controlled by the Republican Party in 2022, it isn’t lost on those of us who actively participated in the civil rights movement in the 60s that these were some of the same battles Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., waged 60 years ago.

Now, as then, certain conservatives try to restrict minorities and poor people from exercising their right to vote without acknowledging the racism and classism inherent in their efforts.

Instead they make excuses about trying to prevent fraudulent election results, when in fact they are the ones perpetuating fraud by erecting logistical hurdles that making voting difficult for others.

This will stop only if and when a solid majority of conservatives make it stop. Because a society cannot legislate the end of hate. As MLK’s birthday came and went again this year, it was a reminder not only of how far we have come in the U.S. but how far we have to go.

Structural racism is a persistent factor in the current voting rights struggles; otherwise they could be dismissed as simply a competition between two political parties for power. 

Even then, if the only way one party could win was by artificially suppressing the vote by members of the other party, that would be a shallow victory, one that would be on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of the quest for justice.

TUESDAY’s NEWS:

• Supply Chain Woes Could Worsen as China Imposes New Covid Lockdowns (NYT)

• Omicron fallout, tough labor talks likely to rattle supply chains and fuel inflation (WP)

• Influenza has returned to Europe at a faster-than-expected rate this winter after almost disappearing last year, raising concerns about a prolonged 'twindemic' with COVID-19 amid some doubts about the effectiveness of flu vaccines. (Reuters)

• The C.D.C.’s New Challenge? Grappling With Imperfect Science — The Omicron coronavirus variant is moving much faster than researchers can, worsening a longstanding problem: The agency must make tough decisions with scant data. (NYT)

• Moderna aims to launch single Covid and flu booster jab within two years (Guardian)

• Australia and New Zealand sent surveillance flights to assess damage in Tonga, isolated from the rest of the world after the eruption of a volcano that triggered a tsunami and blanketed the Pacific island with ash. Scientists are struggling to monitor the volcano after the explosion destroyed its sea-level crater and drowned its mass, obscuring it from satellites. (Reuters)

• Tonga Shrouded by Ash and Mystery After Powerful Volcano Erupts (NYT)

• Tonga, nearby nations brace for possible acid rain (NHK)

• Tonga eruption: How its impact spread so widely and violently (BBC)

• Rural California Residents Confront Growing Risks From Extreme Weather (WSJ)

• Cold-case investigation names surprise suspect in Anne Frank's betrayal (Reuters)

• Former Google scientist says the computers that run our lives exploit us — and he has a way to stop them (WP)

• Health Experts Recommend Against Getting Zapped By Any Sort Of Futuristic Space Gun (The Onion)

TODAY’S LYRICS:

“Dream Lover”

Bobby Darin

Best Cover: Rick Nelson

Every night I hope and pray
A dream lover will come my way
A girl to hold in my arms
And know the magic of her charms
'Cause I want (yeah-yeah, yeah)
A girl (yeah-yeah, yeah)
To call (yeah-yeah, yeah)
My own (yeah-yeah)
I want a dream lover
So I don't have to dream alone

Dream lover, where are you
With a love, oh, so true
And the hand that I can hold
To feel you near as I grow old
'Cause I want (yeah-yeah, yeah)
A girl (yeah-yeah, yeah)
To call (yeah-yeah, yeah)
My own (yeah-yeah, yeah)
I want a dream lover
So I don't have to dream alone

Someday, I don't know how
I hope she'll hear my plea
Some way, I don't know how
She'll bring her love to me

Dream lover, until then
I'll go to sleep and dream again
That's the only thing to do
Till all my lover's dreams come true
'Cause I want (yeah-yeah, yeah)
A girl (yeah-yeah, yeah)
To call (yeah-yeah, yeah)
My own (yeah-yeah, yeah)
I want a dream lover
So I don't have to dream alone

Dream lover, until then
I'll go to sleep and dream again
That's the only thing to do
Till all my lover's dreams come true
'Cause I want (yeah-yeah, yeah)
A girl (yeah-yeah, yeah)
To call (yeah-yeah, yeah)
My own (yeah-yeah)
I want a dream lover
So I don't have to dream alone

Please don't make me dream alone
I beg you don't make me dream alone
No, I don't wanna dream alone

Friendship Without Borders (Afghan Conversation 23)

[This is the 23rd in a series of conversations I have been having with an Afghan friend about life in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over his country last August. We have both come to the painful conclusion that there is no way he can safely get out of his country at the present time. Thank you to our mutual friends he mentions in this entry. Our conversations will continue, and I am protecting his identity for his safety.]

Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend. – Sarah Dessen, novelist. 

_________________________________

Dear David:

What is friendship?. People have thought about it for a thousand years, but as far as I can tell there is no specific definition. 

Aristotle noted: “Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.” 

When I was a student, most of my classmates told silly jokes, and their points of view disgusted me.  But I did have a few friends who were loyal and we helped each other when we most needed help.

Four years ago, when it looked like I would have to leave the university because of financial problems, one of my  friends said that he would support me until I finished and got my university degree. And that is what happened.

Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, and I started to write to you about the situation here, I have been able to make a few new friends overseas.  Once or twice a week I speak with them, and I  calm down from their words like a child when he hears his mother's voice. On dark days, theseis friendships are everything to me – they bring me hope, courage, and healing,

Of course friendship, like any other form of love, can cause suffering and misery, from endless pain and constant tearing to the deep wounds of betrayal, or the painful torments of unrequited love.

But friendships have many benefits. Friendship kindles love in the heart that gives color and depth to a person's life; It creates loyalty that breaks down the barriers of selfishness; It provides us with safe companionship and a haven when we are in trouble; It is a consolation for our sufferings, the patience stone for our agony, and a motivation for our efforts. 

For now, I feel lucky that I have good friends, though few in number, lovely in nature.

***

MONDAY’s HEADLINES

• Taliban forces pepper-spray women’s rights protesters in Kabul (Guardian)

• ‘We are struggling’: two former officials at Afghan women’s affairs ministry (Guardian)

• A Human Can Befriend an Octopus. Can an Octopus Befriend a Human?

  We still know very little about what goes on inside the mind of one of the ocean’s smartest creatures. (Atlantic)

• Death of a King (New Yorker)

• The story of how Michael King Jr. became Martin Luther King Jr. (WP)

• Halting Progress and Happy Accidents: How mRNA Vaccines Were Made (NYT)

• COVID deaths and cases are rising again at US nursing homes (AP)

• Surgeon general on Omicron: Next few weeks will be tough (Politico)

• Donald Trump falsely declared in a weekend rally that public health authorities are denying the COVID-19 vaccine to white people because of their race. (AP)

• MAGA hats and QAnon: Inside Trump’s first rally of 2022 (Politico)

• Census Memo Cites ‘Unprecedented’ Meddling by Trump Administration (NYT)

• For Oath Keepers and founder, Jan. 6 was weeks in the making (AP)

• DirecTV loss could cripple rightwing One America News (Reuters)

• Trump Rally Underscores G.O.P. Tension Over How to Win in 2022 — Donald Trump’s rally in Arizona on Saturday featured a host of election deniers. His involvement in state races and his inability to let go of his 2020 loss worries many Republicans. (NYT)

• The Justice Dept. alleged Jan. 6 was a seditious conspiracy. Now will it investigate Trump? (WP)

• With Voting Bills Dead, Democrats Face Costly Fight to Overcome G.O.P. Curbs (NYT)

• Texas synagogue hostage crisis ends with gunman dead (Reuters)

• ‘An act of terror’: Biden condemns Texas synagogue siege while FBI names Briton as hostage-taker (Guardian)

• Time is running out to stop Russian aggression in Ukraine (Edit Bd/WP)

• If the West fails to meet its security demands, Moscow could take measures like placing nuclear missiles close to the U.S. coastline, Russian officials have hinted. (NYT)

• After crisis talks with Russia, the threat of war in Ukraine still looms. Here’s why. (WP)

• This Is No Way to Be Human — We now occupy a nearly natureless world. (Atlantic)

• Pacific volcano: Ash-covered Tonga is like a moonscape say residents (BBC)

• Atmospheric pressure changes observed across globe (NHK)

• Venezuela’s environmental crisis: ‘the beginning of a wave of destruction’ (Financial Times)

• FEMA program to place disaster survivors in apartments, not trailer parks. (WP)

• From Bob Dylan to Tina Turner: Why Are Artists Selling Their Music Catalogs? (WSJ)

• ‘The Timeline You’re All Living in Is About to Collapse’ — SNL’s inaugural episode of 2022 turned to dark, and often awkward, absurdity to explain our exasperating moment. (Atlantic)

• Biden Authorizes U.S. Military To Shoot Down Any Harmful Greenhouse Gases That Enter Nation’s Airspace (The Onion)

OtherWise

Locked down due to Covid, confined to the house, drinking multiple cups of coffee, my waking hours are dominated by boredom and inactivity.

Sleeping is another matter. As my physical boundaries have narrowed, my dreams have taken on whole new dimensions. During one extended sequence, I was visiting a watery paradise of islands and beaches and waves, following some time in the mountains, green and endless-seeming.

After the tropics, I was again back in the mountains, only now there was snow everywhere, quite beautiful in appearance.

As I navigated my way through these imaginary environments, there was nothing palpably dangerous or threatening for once — I seemed at ease no matter where I found myself, although I was definitely aware that I was lost and trying to find my way back to basecamp.

Nothing unpleasant, just a contentment with the world around me. But this drifting feeling when asleep is in sharp contrast to my actual physical life, which contains no movement and no change of venue.

As we process the test results as they come in, I have no indication when “real life” will resume. Until then I guess I’m hoping that my dream life at night will continue to compensate for the cabin fever of my days.

TODAY’s NEWS:

• Machine in the Garden — We now occupy a nearly natureless world, and it’s having a profound effect on what it means to be human. (Atlantic)

• U.S. Says Russia Sent Saboteurs Into Ukraine to Create Pretext for Invasion (NYT)

• Why Ukraine’s Turkish-made drone became a flashpoint in tensions with Russia (WP)

• Ukraine cyber attack ‘part of Russian playbook’, says top US diplomat (Financial Times)

• Fear of Russia Brings New Purpose and Unity to NATO, Once Again (NYT)

• Headed to disaster? US, Russia harden stances in talks (AP)

• U.S. Considers Backing an Insurgency if Russia Invades Ukraine (NYT)

• Over 1-meter tsunami observed in Japan (NHK)

• Google mandates weekly COVID-19 tests for people entering U.S. offices (Reuters)

• Walensky faces CDC burnout as pandemic enters third year (Politico)

• From voting rights to vaccines, Biden experiences the limits of his office — and the fragility of his presidency (WP)

• U.S. grocery shortages deepen as pandemic dries supplies (Reuters)

• Covid created 20 new ‘pandemic billionaires’ in Asia, says Oxfam (Guardian)

• Expect more worrisome variants after omicron, scientists say (AP)

• The Pain of Online School Remains, Even When Kids Are in Classrooms (WSJ)

• No Shots, No Day Care: Parents of Kids Under 5 Stuck in Grueling Limbo (NYT)

• Trump officials interfered with the 2020 census beyond cutting it short, email shows (NPR)

• Tech Giants Weave an Undersea Web of Power — Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft increasingly dominate the internet’s critical fiber-optic infrastructure. (WSJ)

• DirecTV says it will sever ties with far-right network One America News (WP)

• DirecTV loss could cripple rightwing One America News (Reuters)

• Scientists in disbelief over discovery of world's largest fish-breeding area

  Researchers estimate 60 million icefish are hanging out in one ocean region of Antarctica. (CNET)

• Koalas are getting harder to find. Scientists are on a quest to uncover a hidden population. (WP)

• There is life after addiction. Most people recover — America is facing a deadly drug epidemic, but there is hope. Research shows 75% of people with addiction survive and go on to live full lives, especially if they get good treatment. (NPR)

• Wings In Basket From 3 Chickens Who Were Friends (The Onion)