14!

 

Bounty Hunters

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom seems to be playing a high-stakes game of Texas Hold’Em with the conservative Supreme Court and red-state America as a whole.

The confrontation started in Texas, when that state’s Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a measure that allows private citizens to go after abortion providers more or less like old-fashioned bounty hunters.

In response, Newson signed into California law a measure allowing that state’s citizens to sue anyone who distributes banned assault weapons or ghost guns. This is directly modeled on the Texas law, which the Supreme Court so far has let stand.

So Newsom is essentially saying, “If your folks can arrest people for abortion there, our folks can arrest you for guns here.

Critics of both measures, including the ACLU, worry that this strategy risks establishing a whole bunch of bad law, but of course that is exactly what Newsom is highlighting by his action. If Texas and Florida and all of the anti-abortion red states want a fight, California as the leader of the blue states is saying “Bring it on!”

Unfortunately, the odds are that whichever side the Supreme Court favors will win the duel. And we all know which side that is. 

But it is hard to resist Old West analogies here and I suspect the U.S. looks like it is playing out an old western movie, at least to European observers. There is something comical here, and also very, very sad.

The climax of “High Noon” aside, I’m afraid our nation is breaking up.

LATEST LINKS:

• California invites court fight with gun law that mimics Texas on abortion — Gov. Gavin Newsom modeled the bill on a red-state tactic involving private lawsuits. (Politico)

• Newsom signs California gun bill modeled after Texas abortion law (CNN)

• South Carolina bill outlaws websites that tell how to get an abortion (WP)

• Jan. 6 probes: What’s next for Congress, criminal cases (AP)

• The real story of January 6 isn’t what Trump did – it’s what he didn’t (Guardian)

• Republican views on Trump have darkened somewhat, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed. Some 40% percent of Republicans now believe Trump is at least partly to blame for the Capitol riot, up from 33% in a poll conducted six weeks ago. (Reuters)

• We Are Retired Generals and Admirals. Trump’s Actions on Jan. 6 Were a Dereliction of Duty. (Guest Essay/NYT)

• Members of former Vice President Mike Pence’s security detail were so afraid for their lives during the riot that they made calls over radio to say goodbye to their family members, according to testimony the Jan. 6 panel presented. The rioters came within 40 feet of Pence before he was evacuated. [HuffPost]

• Jan. 6 takeaways: White House in chaos, unmovable Trump (AP)

• Convinced that Donald Trump was cheated in the 2020 election, Vermont barn restorer Harry Anzbock left a series of terrifying anonymous voice messages for election workers. Last fall, Anzbock began threatening two Reuters reporters after they tracked him down. Read our special report on how a former left-winger fell into the pro-Trump conspiracy rabbit hole. (Reuters)

• Trump’s radical second-term dream (Politico)

• Pence seeks distance from Trump as he considers 2024 presidential run (WP)

• Steve Bannon guilty of criminal contempt of Congress (CBS)

• Kyiv and Moscow agree deal to resume Ukraine grain exports from Black Sea ports, UN chief says (CNN)

• British spy chief predicts Russian forces will soon "run out of steam" in Ukraine (CBS)

• Japan to shorten isolation period for people exposed to coronavirus. (NHK)

• Hyundai subsidiary has used child labor at Alabama factory (Reuters)

• America’s Self-Obsession Is Killing Its Democracy (Atlantic)

• A Painful Deadline Nears as Colorado River Reservoirs Run Critically Low (NYT)

• FEMA report: Flood insurance hikes will drive 1M from market (AP)

• Record-Breaking Heat Wave Continues Across America (WSJ)

• How people, pets and infrastructure can respond to extreme heat (NPR)

• China will suffer the return of more heatwaves over the next 10 daysfrom east to west, with some coastal cities already on their highest alert level and inland regions warning of dam failure risks because of melting glaciers. The vast heatwave covering swaths of Europe moved steadily eastwards, forcing countries including Italy, Poland and Slovenia to issue their highest alerts as firefighters battled wildfires across the continent. (Reuters)

• The inner solar system spins much more slowly than it should. Now, scientists may know why. (Space.com)

• MLB struggling to get attendance back to pre-pandemic levels (AP)

• The Power of Our New Pop Myths (WSJ)

• New Report Confirms You Are Most Interesting, Most Important Individual On Earth (The Onion)

 

Visitor

 To Grandpa's room with Giants game on in b.g.

Drip by Drip: Trump's Reputation Is Melting

 The highlight of last night’s Congressional Jan.6th committee hearing on CSPAN was the juxtaposition of Sen Josh Hawley, Republican of Nebraska, inciting rioters with a raised fist before they breached the Capitol, and later fleeing in fear for his life from the same crowd.

Those images symbolized the hypocrisy and the cowardice of the Trump-led GOP that brought this country to the brink of destruction.

The main point of the hearing was to focus on Trump’s role as he sat in his dining room and watched the riot on TV for three hours and seven minutes, doing nothing to stop it, despite multiple pleas from his staff to do so.

There were no new startling revelations, just a confirmation of what we already knew. Trump was never truly Commander-in-Chief, but rather a demagogue who exploited the alienation of millions of people to rise to power. Once he got there, he did little of substance, like most Presidents, but uniquely in our history, when it came time to leave he refused to.

I don’t think the hearings are changing many people’s minds about these things, but what everyone who still cares about this country and its viability as a democracy has to hope is that support for Trump is slowly eroding among the GOP base to the point he never will be able to hold public office again.

Meanwhile, it truly is encouraging that a bipartisan group of Senators are trying to reform and tighten up the electoral vote counting process to avoid the gray areas that Trump tried to exploit in 2020.

We came way too close to disaster. Even some Republican leaders realize that now.

LATEST LINKS:

• Bipartisan Senate Group Strikes Deal to Rewrite Electoral Count Act (NYT)

• A bill to prevent Trump’s attempted coup is finally ready — and must pass (Edit Bd/WP)

• Trump instigated his supporters’ attack on Congress and threats against Pence, Jan. 6 committee says (CNBC)

• Josh Hawley seen fleeing pro-Trump mob he ‘riled up’ with fist salute in newly released Jan. 6 footage (NBC)

• The U.S. congressional probe of the January 6 attack on the Capitol by Donald Trump supporters wrapped up its summer hearings with a prime-time presentation focused on the three hours of rage following the former president's raucous speech that day. (Reuters)

• Jan. 6 panel probes Trump’s 187 minutes as Capitol attacked (AP)

• Trump had 'extreme difficulty' with his speech on the day after January 6 (CNN)

• Even a day after Jan. 6, Trump balked at condemning the violence (WP)

• Liz Cheney, Front and Center in the Jan. 6 Hearings, Pursues a Mission (NYT)

• A judge in New York has ordered Rudy Giuliani to appear next month before a special grand jury in Atlanta that’s investigating whether former President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to interfere in the 2020 general election in Georgia. [AP]

• Nord Stream 1: Russia restarts gas supplies to Europe through biggest pipeline (BBC)

• With Russian Cutoff Feared, Europeans Are Told to Curb Natural Gas Use (NYT)

• How prosecuting war crimes in Ukraine compares to hunting Nazis (NPR)

• A Village Retaken, and a Confidence Boost for Ukraine’s Troops (NYT)

• CIA chief says 15,000 Russians killed in war, dismisses Putin health rumors (WP)

• Extreme heat warnings in effect in 28 states across US (Guardian)

• Hot weather prompts alerts in 28 states as Texas, Oklahoma hit 115 degrees (WP)

• California’s fire season has been relatively tame, despite fears that this year could be one of the state’s worst. (San Francisco Chronicle)

• Brutal heat from Phoenix to Boston triggers alerts for 100 million (WP)

• VIDEO: Biden Announces Steps to Deal With Climate Change (NYT)

• Vaccine-Induced Immune Response to Omicron Wanes Substantially Over Time (NIH)

• Biden tests positive for COVID-19, has ‘very mild symptoms’ (AP)

• Australia reported one of its highest daily death tolls from COVID while hospital admissions hovered near record levels, as authorities struggle to get ahead of highly contagious Omicron variants. The BA.4/5 variants are good at evading immune protection from vaccination or prior infection and have been driving a surge of new infections globally. (Reuters)

• Catching Covid raises diabetes diagnosis risk for weeks, study finds (Guardian)

• Endemic Covid-19 Looks Pretty Brutal (NYT)

• The University of California, Irvine, and the San Diego Unified School District reinstated indoor mask requirements on Monday, the same day that Bay Area Rapid Transit lifted its mandate. Health officers across the country seem reluctant to hand down any new orders, but officials in Los Angeles County, home to about a quarter of Californians, are planning for an indoor mask mandate to take effect later this month. (Cal Today)

• America Was in an Early-Death Crisis Long Before COVID (Atlantic)

• The Bank of Japan projected inflation to exceed its target this year in fresh forecasts, but maintained ultra-low interest rates and signaled its resolve to remain an outlier in a wave of global central bank policy tightening. (Reuters)

• Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi handed in his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella after his unity government fell apart, plunging the country into political turmoil. We look at how the man dubbed 'Super Mario' was undone by political infighting. (Reuters)

• Police in San Bernardino, California, released body camera footage showing officers fatally shooting a Black man in the back. The footage offers new details on Saturday’s police killing of 23-year-old Robert Adams, who family says may have been unaware of law enforcement’s presence until they exited an unmarked car with guns drawn. [HuffPost]

• Poll: Majority in US want legal abortion nationally (AP)

• A federal appeals court overturned a lower court ruling and said Georgia’s restrictive 2019 abortion law banning most abortions once a “detectable human heartbeat” is present could take effect immediately. Meanwhile, Republicans in Indiana proposed banning abortion with limited exceptions, amid a political firestorm over a 10-year-old rape victim who came to the state from neighboring Ohio to end her pregnancy. [AP]

• The vulnerability of new motherhood, heightened by a pandemic (WP Mag)

• Same-Sex Marriage Bill, Considered Dead on Arrival, Gains New Life (NYT)

• House-passed legislation codifying protections for same-sex marriage is dividing Republican lawmakers in Congress after support for marriage equality hit a record high last month. Pressure is now building on the Senate to take up the bill, which has garnered the support of a handful of GOP senators. [HuffPost]

• Miami-Dade rejects sex ed textbooks over concerns it violates ‘Don’t Say Gay’ (Politico)

• Amazon to Buy One Medical for $3.9 Billion (WSJ)

• How a 23-year-old phenom named Kingfish became the future of the blues (WP Mag)

• JWST has found the oldest galaxy we have ever seen in the universe (New Scientist)

• The Webb Telescope Shows We Don’t Need Astronauts to Explore the Cosmos (WSJ)

• The new science coming from the James Webb telescope has astronomers giddy (NPR)

• Quidditch leagues are rebranding themselves. — The sport is changing its name to quadball, it said this week. It’s trying to distance the game from author J. K. Rowling, who has sparked controversy for her views on transgender issues. (WP)

• Beloved monarch butterflies now listed as endangered (AP)

• Alarming Study Finds Only 20% Of Unwanted Babies Adopted By Wild Animals (The Onion) 

The Champ!

All Star Oliver Tiglao in 9 games batted .652 with four doubles and 15 RBI, an on-base percentage of .680 and a slugging percentage of .826. He also was a defensive standout with several great plays in the outfield, including an assist on a dramatic throw from left field to nail a runner at second base for an inning-ending double play.

 

Love & Other Pastimes

“I believe there is nobody for anyone.” — Frank in ‘Destination Wedding’

Being a man of few possessions, especially clothes, I struggled to find T-shirts that were not in the opposing team’s colors during my frequent visits to the sidelines for my grandson Oliver’s baseball games this summer.

I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was rooting for the other side.

But Wednesday I found the perfect option — a white T-shirt that proclaimed the wearer to be “The World’s GREATEST Grandpa.”

Modest soul that I am, I’ve rarely ever worn this particular shirt and certainly not out in public. But I thought this might just be the right time to do that.

Oliver’s all-star team was down to their last chance to win the sectional title and move on to the state championship tournament. Their opponent was worthy; in two previous meetings the teams had traded wins by a one-run margin each time.

If you’d asked, say, the world’s greatest Grandpa, what he thought, he would have said that that made all the kids on both teams champions. In the end, Oliver’s team came up short this third time around so now the other team moves on and his season is over. Somebody had to win and somebody else had to lose — that’s how the game is played.

In our culture, we have cliches to cover these types of situations. The most pertinent one is “It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.”

It was a game well-played. And that’s the end of the story.

Until next year.

***

Netflix occasionally delivers a romantic/comedic option to me and that happened recently with “Destination Wedding,” a 2018 film starring Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves as two miserable and unpleasant wedding guests who develop a mutual affection despite themselves.

The script is remarkable in that Lindsay and Frank are the only characters who speak during the entire film. There are some off-screen sounds from a TV, but otherwise it’s just the two of them, alone and miserable in this cold, cold world. Make that, this hot, hot world.

One particularly sweet exchange:

Lindsay: I’m not wearing anything under my pajamas.

Frank: Why would you? … Superman couldn’t see through those pajamas.

Lindsay: So you tried.

There are a lot of good lines and what’s supposed to be funny actually is funny in this film. 

When it comes to real love in the real world, we have many, many cliches in our culture to help people cope. “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” — for some reason, that one comes to mind.

Same with fiction. Better to have seen this film than to not have — I said that.

LATEST LINKS:

• Judge orders Rudy Giuliani to testify before grand jury in Trump election probe (NBC)

• Georgia prosecutors say all 16 fake Trump electors are targets in criminal probe (CNN)

• Trump’s choices set nation on path to Jan. 6 violence, committee shows (WP)

• Senatorlize bipartisan proposal designed to prevent another Jan. 6 (Politico)

• Europe’s Heat Wave Shatters British Records and Drives Wildfires (NYT)

• The northern hemisphere is baking as fires rip through Europe, while US and China temperatures soar (CNN)

• UK weather turmoil spurs calls to adapt to climate change (AP)

• Brutal heat dome moves east, with Central Europe set to sizzle (WP)

• Biden to announce new steps to tackle climate crisis amid ferocious US heatwave (Guardian)

• Scenes of Devastation Emerge From a Fire-Ravaged Southwestern France (NYT)

• Grim warnings issued as oppressive US heat wave spreads (CNN)

• War and Warming Upend Global Energy Supplies and Amplify Suffering (NYT)

• How COVID-19 symptoms are changing: A sore throat and hoarse voice became top symptoms with newer variant (CBS)

• House Moves to Protect Same-Sex Marriage From Supreme Court Reversal (NYT)

• Lawmakers on Tuesday pushed a bill through the House of Representatives to protect same-sex marriage amid worries gay marriage may be in danger after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The vote was 267 to 157, with every Democrat voting in favor. House GOP members opposing the bill included Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who called the vote "a political game by Democrats." [HuffPost]

• Trump, Pence rivalry intensifies as they consider 2024 runs (AP)

• Russian forces shelled eastern and southern Ukraine after Washington said it saw signs Moscow was preparing to formally annex territory it has seized during nearly five months of war. (Reuters)

• Putin’s Gas Game: Toy With Europe’s Supply and Make Its Leaders Squirm (WSJ)

• Ukraine war: Russia's Lavrov says ready to expand war aims (BBC)

• There are too many wild cards to forecast the Ukraine war (WP)

• EU tells members to cut gas usage amid new Putin warning (Reuters)

• Putin Finds a New Ally in Iran, a Fellow Outcast (NYT)

• Ukraine graft concerns resurface as Russia war goes on (AP)

• China is asking the United Nations human rights chief to bury a highly-anticipated report on human rights violations in Xinjiang, according to a Chinese letter seen by Reuters and confirmed by diplomats from three countries who received it. (Reuters)

• Meteoroid hit has caused 'significant uncorrectable' damage to James Webb Space Telescope (Sky)

• More than a dozen Democratic lawmakers were arrested during an abortion rights protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court. Those taken into custody include Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.). The arrests were for crowding or obstructing traffic and came after three warnings, authorities said. [HuffPost]

• Dan Cox, an election denier, wins the Maryland Republican primary for governor (NPR)

• Save local news. Our democracy depends on it. (WP)

• A coalition of rightwing “constitutional sheriffs,” who claim legal power in their jurisdictions that exceeds federal and state authorities, has a new calling: investigating conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was rigged. The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association has teamed with True the Vote, a Texas nonprofit and purveyor of debunked voter-fraud claims, to recruit like-minded sheriffs nationwide. (Reuters)

• UN report: Taliban violating human rights (NHK)

• SIS Fighters’ Children Are Growing Up in a Desert Camp. What Will They Become? (NYT)

• Police may have cracked a 1975 killing — by digging through trash (WP)

• A discarded coffee cup may have just helped crack this decades-old murder case (NPR)

• The University of California is aiming to add more than 20,000 students by 2030 by expanding online and summer programs. (EdSource)

• Officials: Starvation threat not over for Florida manatees (AP)

• Poll: Majority Of Democrats Prefer Someone Else Inhabit Joe Biden’s Body In 2024 (The Onion)

 

One Hot Story

The main news story around the world this summer is climate change, which of course is not new at all. Scientists have been warning us about it since at least since 1974, when the “hole in the ozone” theory was announced and 1985, when it was confirmed.

But many writers foresaw the problem in non-fiction and science fiction as early as the 1950s and no doubt even earlier than that. The role played by human beings in provoking it is no longer politically controversial, though it is past the time when we might have done something to avoid the worst consequences.

This particular summer, 2022, will be remembered as the one that hit Europe so forcefully that the issue could no longer be avoided. That may be a good thing.

There are still climate deniers of course. There are also people who think the world is flat, that Elvis is alive and that Trump won the 2020 election. Go figure.

What’s left to those of us not in psychotic denial is mitigation, our best hope until the time comes for forced migration. Much of the land currently populated will apparently no longer be habitable. So humans will have to move to higher ground, as nomadic groups already do in desert lands like Afghanistan.

That will without doubt produce new wars, again much like has occurred in the hills and valleys of Afghanistan. I fear we can glimpse our common future there, not in the wealthy suburbs of America, where all still seems well, at least until the next mass shooter shows up. But in a very real sense, the way forward may be backward for everyone on this planet as it melts beneath us.

But I, naively perhaps, think we still have time to prepare for all of this.

One story. One world. Whether you think our species will get through this is the ultimate test of whether you’re an optimist or pessimist. Despite all I have read and written, I think we will. This isn’t a matter of logic for me but of hope.

But it will take an effort that would make Hercules proud.

***

Update: Grandson Oliver’s little leagues team lost in extra innings, 3-2, last night, ending a six-game win streak. But their season is not over yet, as it is double elimination at this level, so the two teams will play a rematch tonight. The winner of that game moves on to the state tournament.

Stay tuned…

LATEST LINKS:

• France battles massive wildfires, Britain records highest ever temperature (Reuters)

• Heatwave: Wildfires spread across Europe as countries break record temperatures (BBC)

• Extreme Heat Puts Life on Hold in Britain, a Land Not Built for It (NYT)

• Fire engulfs homes near London as temperatures hit record 40C (Reuters)

• VIDEO: London Endures Sweltering Heatwave (Reuters, Associated Press)

• Ferocious European heat heads north (BBC)

• With Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and all Senate Republicans torpedoing hopes of more spending aimed at climate change, Democrats are urging President Joe Biden to take a more aggressive approach. “This unchains the president from waiting to act. This frees up the president to use the full powers of the executive branch, and those full powers certainly include a climate emergency,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said. Here are some of Biden's options. [HuffPost]

• A 1792 case reveals that key Founders saw abortion as a private matter (WP)

• Former Trump National Security Council official will testify at Thursday's January 6 hearing (CNN)

• House Republican who voted against certifying 2020 election results now says Trump 'lost his mind' and that it 'would be best for the party' if someone else led it in 2024 (Business Insider)

• Jury nearly set in Jan. 6 contempt trial of Trump adviser Stephen Bannon (WP)

• Russian forces kept up their bombardment of cities across Ukraine, with intense shelling of Sumy in the north, cluster bombs targeting Mykolaiv and a missile strike in Odesa in the south, authorities said. (Reuters)

• Putin in Tehran for talks with leaders of Iran, Turkey (AP)

• Zelensky Takes Aim at Hidden Enemy: Ukrainians Aiding Russia (NYT)

• Ukraine’s farms have become Russia’s latest targets. Missile attacks are hitting and burning fields of grain. Ukraine’s wheat is key to feeding much of the rest of the world. (WP)

• Enormous Structure on Surface of Sun Appears to Be Coming Apart (Newsweek)

• Decades of 'good fires' save Yosemite's iconic grove of ancient sequoia trees (NPR)

• Put Your Face in Airplane Mode — Masking only at the start and end of every flight will do a lot to keep you safe. (Atlantic)

• New internal documents could bolster antitrust case against Google, Amazon (Politico)

• Hunt for wild monkey in Japan after 10 attacks in a fortnight (Guardian)

• Dairy Queen Fires Employee Who Discovered Blizzard Machine Gained Sentience (The Onion)

 

Dance of the Narratives

In the old days, writers worked with photographers at newspapers and magazines to produce stories. Some editors seemed to expect the photographers to simply illustrate the stories told by the writers. But the better ones saw a different process with a richer outcome.

They saw that the visual and editorial narratives worked together more like interlocking vines, snaking in and out into a product much greater than the sum of the parts.

When we got the mixture right, there was an interactive chain that moved, much like how musical notes fit with the words in a song.

Think about this. Can you hear a song by looking at the lyrics alone? Can you read the sound of the music?

Artists can.

And that goes for great story-telling in any form. 

This process becomes slightly more complex when you move from the world of print story-telling into multimedia — radio, TV, and the movies. Now, the actual or mediated voices and images of people, their faces, their gestures all enter the media space between you and your audience.

It’s easy to overdue it. The story becomes preachy, a lecture or melodramatic like in a soap opera. So in serious media, this is where editors come in. We know that in most cases, less is more. Just let the sounds and the pictures tell the story. Silences become magnified, which is useful on many levels.

In a great story, what the teller leaves out, the listener fills in.

The reason I’ve gone so deeply into this is that today, in our world, every individual can be his or her own story-teller, simply by virtue of the powerful computer in our pockets we still call a “cellphone,” though it is so very much more than that. All of the world’s knowledge throughout the whole of human history is accessible via that tiny device.

You can research, you can write, you can shoot photos or “videos” and you can record sound, and even animate the product any way you wish. And fact-check it. One simple conversation can become a work of art, perhaps a highly valued NFT, catalogued and authenticated by the blockchain, exchanged via crypto, and enshrined digitally somewhere for what we might currently believe to be eternity.

Or not. And that’s only one of your infinite choices…

LATEST LINKS:

• US faces extreme heat as Biden’s climate crisis plan stalls (Guardian)

• Britain Girds for Scorching Heat That Could Break Records (NYT)

• U.K. braces for record temperatures as ‘heat apocalypse’ hits Europe (WP)

• Europe broils in heat wave that fuels fires in France, Spain (AP)

• As the Planet Cooks, Climate Stalls as a Political Issue (NYT)

• Summer of hell (Politico)

• Jury selection began in the criminal trial of Steve Bannon, a former presidential aide to Donald Trump, who faces charges that he defied a congressional subpoena from the committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump's supporters.

• Steve Bannon Entering 'Long Guilty Plea' by Going to Trial: Legal Expert (Newsweek)

• Nearly 400 law enforcement officials rushed to a mass shooting at Uvalde's Robb Elementary School, but “egregiously poor decision-making” resulted in more than an hour of chaos before the gunman who killed 19 students and two teachers was finally confronted and killed, according to a damning investigative report. [AP]

• After New Abortion Laws, Some Patients Have Trouble Obtaining Miscarriage Treatment (NYT)

• Trump’s fundraising has drastically slowed in recent months, according to a report Friday from WinRed, the Republican donation processing portal. The first half of 2022 was the first time since he left office that Trump’s fundraising in a six-month period failed to exceed $50 million. [HuffPost]

• Russia's Gazprom tells Europe gas halt beyond its control (Reuters)

• Economics of war: Pain for Europe now, later for Russia (AP)

• Zelensky removes security head and top prosecutor in high-level shake-up (WP)

• On Donetsk’s Front Line, Small Gains and Losses Impose a Heavy Toll (NYT)

• Maternity Care, Once a Sign of Hope in Afghanistan, Is Faltering Under the Taliban — Decades of progress are eroding amid hunger, fleeing hospital staff and curbs on women’s freedom (WSJ)

• Send us a man to do your job so we can sack you, Taliban tell female officials (Guardian)

• At least 6 killed, including students, in Kabul explosion (PBS)

• Report on Pentagon Role in Afghanistan Is Under Review — A highly classified assessment of the military’s role in the Afghan conflict was submitted to Pentagon officials earlier this month, but so far an unclassified version of report hasn’t been released, preventing a public accounting of the administration’s decision-making and execution. (WSJ)

• 4 Killed in Indiana Mall Shooting (NYT)

• Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), the Republican nominee in New York’s gubernatorial race, is facing claims that he submitted fake signatures to get an additional spot on the ballot in the November election. Zeldin was among the Republicans in Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. [HuffPost]

• The artist Bob Dylan wanted to tour with forever (Far Out)

• Chemists change the bonds between atoms in a single molecule for the first time (Phys.org)

• Do Animals Dream? (Atlantic)

• Michael Pollan on How Psychedelics Will Play a Bigger Role in American Life (WSJ)

• The Case for Dating a Friend (Atlantic)

• Newsom’s D.C. tryout (Politico)

• How media coverage drove Biden’s political plunge (WP)

• Study Shows Men Prefer Dating Profiles With Poor Grammar (The Onion)

 

The Old Man

 My lifestyle the past few years has meant that I am almost constantly surrounded by kids, aged one to fifteen. Primarily they are the five boys and three girls who are my grandchildren but they have friends so I often find myself interacting with multiple toddlers, pre-teens and teens at any one time.

Covid has intensified the whole experience, because they either are all being artificially restrained from doing what they want to do — or suddenly free to do so once again. We’ve kept lurching around, courtesy of a virus that knows it’s a battle of wills that will ultimately decide the issue.

When they are free, and these youngsters race around unrestrained in the environments we share, one consequence is that I much more acutely feel my age. I can’t move about anywhere as fluidly as they do, which is seemingly without any effort whatsoever.

Not so me. 

Their world is fast; mine is slow. But as a result, and in somewhat of a contradiction, I often find myself seeing the world through their eyes more than through my own.

Children, especially younger ones, regularly fly from one emotional extreme to another within the space of seconds. They laugh and cry, shout and whisper, embrace and withdraw much more frequently than I would ever allow myself to do.

Life must feel out of control to them, whereas my life follows mostly predictable rhythms with few surprises or unpredictable events. I’m not sure that I even like surprises any longer, or that I ever did.

They have frequent conflicts — over toys, space, rules or simply what to do with each other. There are also frequent bursts of pure joy. Extended periods of steadiness, of stability don’t really seem all that natural to most of them.

Meanwhile, somewhat depleted just by witnessing their displays, I often retreat to my room, where all is quiet, reserved, steady and predictable. Occasionally, one of the miniature folks around me will visit, temporarily bringing a bit of their delightful chaos into my den of solitude. For this I am grateful.

But mostly it’s just me, alone with my keyboard, the window with a hummingbird outside, the vast silence and a world of thoughts struggling to take shape into somethings I can share.

LATEST LINKS:

• Heatwave: More evacuations as Mediterranean wildfires spread (BBC)

• Deadly Heatwave, Wildfires Raging Across Europe (NBC)

• 'Climate change affects everyone' (Reuters)

• The World Economy Is Imperiled by a Force Hiding in Plain Sight — Well more than two years into the worst pandemic in a century, the accompanying economic shock continues to assault global fortunes. (NYT)

• ‘They are preparing for war’: An expert on civil wars discusses where political extremists are taking this country — Author Barbara F. Walter sees echoes of Nazi Germany in polarized America. (WP)

• Steve Bannon heads to contempt trial for defying Jan. 6 committee. Here's a breakdown of his case. (USA Today)

• Jan. 6 Panel Issues Subpoena to Secret Service in Hunt for Text Messages (NYT)

• The January 6th Hearings (New Yorker)

• No major problems with ballot drop boxes in 2020 (AP)

• Many young Democrats are furious at Democrats. But they’re pushing through. (WP)

• Joe Manchin is 'intentionally sabotaging the president's agenda': Bernie Sanders (ABC)

• Russia strikes south Ukraine city, presses attacks in the east (CNBC)

• Missiles hit Mykolaiv as Russia prepares to renew ground assault (WP)

• Putin Aims to Shape a New Generation of Supporters, Through Schools (NYT)

• Biden disputes Saudi account of Khashoggi murder discussion (Reuters)

• Afghan Economy Crumbles Since Taliban Takeover — Businesses are struggling to import supplies or find customers who can pay amid crushing inflation and banking dysfunction, as the isolated government has driven away both foreign aid and investors (WSJ)

• In Kabul, a new ritual: Hungry women wait for bread outside bakeries (NPR)

• Drought in northern Mexico threatening livelihoods (AP)

• Native Americans fight for items looted from bodies at Wounded Knee (WP)

• Restaurants are short-staffed, and that’s taking a big toll on customers and workers alike (CNBC)

• With Few Able and Fewer Willing, U.S. Military Can’t Find Recruits (NYT)

• Area Man Accepts Burden Of Being Only Person On Earth Who Understands How World Actually Works (The Onion)

TODAY’s LYRICS:

“What You Give Away”

Song by Vince Gill

Songwriters: Alan Gordon Anderson / Vince Gill

You read the business page, see how you did today
Life's just spent some by
You live up on the hill, you've got a view that kills
And never wonder why

After you've counted everything you've saved
Do you ever hit your knees and pray?
You know there's gonna be a judgment day
So what will you say?

No matter what you make
All that you can take
Is what you give away
What you give away

There's people on the street, ain't got enough to eat
And you just shake your head
The measure of a man is one who lends a hand
That's what my father said

After you've counted everything you've saved
Do you ever hit your knees and pray?
You know there's gonna be a judgment day
So what will you say?

No matter what you make
All that you can take
Is what you give away
It's what you give away

After you've counted everything you've saved
Do you ever hit your knees and pray?
You know there's gonna be a judgment day
So what will you say?

No matter what you make
All that you can take
Is what you give away
You know it's not too late
It's all for Heaven's sake
What you give away