Male Culture

 When I turned the key in the ignition Friday morning, along with the sound of the car’s engine came two other sounds — the air conditioner, which I turned off, and the radio, which I turned down but left on.

My grandson as with me and we both listened avidly.

It was the local sports radio channel, with a popular call-in show featuring the usual suspects — hosts who babble on in a half-witted manner punctuated by calls from audience members who often sound like they must have dropped out of school somewhere around the 8th grade.

Normally I avoid this type of thing like the plague, probably because it makes me feel embarrassed to be a man, especially a man who likes sports. Why do so many have to sound so dumb when we discuss this area of great passion to us? 

But I kept listening because the topic was simply too salacious to ignore.

Draymond Green, one of the stars of the local NBA team, the Golden State Warriors, had been caught on video slugging a teammate during practice. The reason for this attack was unknown at the time of the radio program. And Green and the Warriors are not just any basketball team, they are the reigning NBA champions, four times over, arguably one of the greatest pro streaks for any franchise of any time.

Green is the enforcer on the team, the bad guy who gets under his opponents’ skin. He gets lots of technical fouls and occasionally is ejected from games. He is perhaps the most hated player in the NBA, outside of the Bay Area of course. He is also a very talented basketball player and a key to the team’s winning streak.

At the time I’m publishing this, there’s no word yet on how the Warriors are going to handle this situation.

Not as a comment on Green specifically, but in life generally, I’ve always been the type of person who believes in second chances. But I also have learned that once you give certain personalities a second chance, they may require a third, a fourth, and so on. At some point, you realize all you are doing is enabling a repeat offender.

I don’t know if this is one of those situations for Green and the Warriors but it may be. There are certain lines you don’t cross in male culture. This is one of them.

CURATED LINKS:

• The most terrifying case of all is about to be heard by the US supreme court — If the court upholds the rogue ‘Independent State Legislature’ theory, it would put the US squarely on the path to authoritarianism (Guardian)

• Putin confronted by inner circle member over Ukraine war, U.S. intelligence finds (WP)

• Biden says risk of "Armageddon" highest since Cuban Missile Crisis as tensions rise with Russia (CBS)

• World must act now to stop Russia nuclear threat - Zelensky (BBC)

• VIDEO: U.N. Nuclear Watchdog Rejects Russia’s Claim to Zaporizhzhia Plant

  (Reuters)

• Blunt Criticism of Russian Army Signals New Challenge for Putin (NYT)

• A Russian-installed official in Ukraine suggested Putin's defense minister should consider killing himself due to the shame of the defeats in the Ukraine war, an astonishing public insult to Russia's top brass. (Reuters)

• Putin’s path: from pledges of stability to nuclear threats (AP)

• Russian troops are releasing video on social media that reveal what's really going on behind the lines (CNN)

• 'Woman, life, liberty': Iranians on why they'll risk beatings and death for change. (USA Today)

• In echo of Cold War, Nobel Peace Prize goes to Ukraine, Russia, Belarus rights campaigners (Reuters)

• Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian winners of Nobel Peace Prize 2022 (BBC)

• Justice Dept. Is Said to Believe Trump Has More Documents (NYT)

• GOP steps up crime message in midterm’s final stretch (AP)

• Global economy sailing into a 'perfect long storm' (Politico)

• A Moon of Saturn May Be More Habitable Than Expected (Smithsonian)

• Early signs a new U.S. COVID surge could be on its way (NPR)

• A new COVID wave appears to be brewing in Europe as cooler weather arrives, with public health experts warning that vaccine fatigue and confusion over types of available vaccines will likely limit booster uptake. (Reuters)

• Residents of Florida who had to evacuate their homes due to Hurricane Ian are returning to assess the damage to their properties, despite limited access to some areas. The number of storm-related deaths continue to rise, more than a week after the storm made landfall in southwest Florida. [AP]

• Easter Island statues damaged by fire (BBC)

• Amazon loses London-sized area of rainforest in a month with Bolsonaro’s reign under threat (Guardian)

• Ninety Years Ago, This Book Tried to Warn Us — A 1933 novel on the Nazi rise to power is still relevant today. (NYT)

• A Las Vegas newsroom set out to investigate a colleague’s killing. Now a suspect is behind bars. (WP)

• For Draymond Green, the video changes everything (The Athletic)

• A LOT of repercussions will come out of the Draymond Green-Jordan Poole altercation (ESPN)

• Can Of Soda In Freezer Realizing Owner Never Coming Back For It (The Onion)

Dress Rehearsal

There is pretty much of a consensus now that the war in Ukraine has reached a tipping point and that the prospects are not good for Russia or Putin. As an autocrat backed into a corner tends to do, Putin is lashing out with threats, especially of the nuclear variety, perhaps hoping the specter of another Chernobyl will somehow salvage his war effort.

Despite censorship, it is clear the Russian population is now deeply split over the war. Drafts have a way of doing that to nations; Americans recall how the last draft here ended with defeat in Vietnam and domestic chaos as well.

The winner in all this appears to be Zelensky of Ukraine. U.S. officials believe that his regime was behind the recent assassination in Russia — perhaps one indication of what he is capable of doing with his new-found power. Beware the consequences of backing a victor.

Meanwhile, the danger of a more authoritarian future in the U.S. continues to mount, as the majority of Republican candidates for office this election year are election deniers. Those who have vowed to not accept the results of voting they don’t agree with are enemies of democracy, yet many of them are expected to win in November.

This represents a huge risk for the future of our democratic government.

But perhaps the two biggest developments of this decade — the Covid-19 pandemic and the emergence of super storms like Hurricane Ian — are unfortunately merely harbingers of what’s to come.

Scientists understand that Covid was not an isolated event, nor the last pandemic the world will suffer, but rather the first in a new wave of public health crises, perhaps aided and abetted by the great causative factor behind both pandemics and super storms — climate change.

Hurricane Ian is a warning sign that life as we’ve known it in low-lying costal areas is finished. Oh, some will rebuild this time around and then lose everything again in a future storm, when the sea surge will be even greater than it was this time. That’s because sea levels are rising, so the impact on land structures will only get worse over the years to come.

I fear that our children and grandchildren are getting an unfortunate lesson in what’s in store for them with climate change — wave after wave of environmentally destructive weather, from fires to floods to drought to super storms, potentially releasing bacteria and viruses throughout the ecosystem leading to more epidemics and suffering.

I wish the news was better and I’m trying hard to find a silver lining here. Maybe with enough information about the future, the generation now in the early stages of their time on earth will forge a consensus to become better custodians of our common home than we have been.

If there are concrete signs of hope, they include the emergence of young people like Greta Thunberg with the determination to tackle climate change directly, rather in the tentative, one-step-forward, one-step-back approach of older leaders.

And then more generally, there is the art and music and story-telling of those among us who try to tell the truth at any cost. There are the letter-writers, the activists, the rabble-rousers.

And it may sound naive but there’s love. In a world where hate, violence, racism, and authoritarian impulses sometimes seems to rule our fate, there still is the simple impulse to love one another.

That’s our hope.

LINKS:

• Pouring scorn on ‘annexations,’ Ukraine reclaims more territory in the south and east; ‘You’ve already lost,’ Kyiv tells Moscow (CNBC)

• In Rebuke to West, OPEC and Russia Aim to Raise Oil Prices With Big Supply Cut (NYT)

• ‘We’ll see if our house is still there’: civilians follow Ukrainian forces south (Guardian)

• U.N. Nuclear Agency Pushes for Safety Zone Around Ukraine’s Largest Nuclear Plant (WSJ)

• Ukraine leader says Putin wouldn't survive nuclear attack (ABC)

• U.S. Believes Ukrainians Were Behind an Assassination in Russia (NYT)

• Two Russians flee to Alaska by small boat and ask for asylum (NBC)

• IS Ramps Up Attacks in Afghanistan, Taliban Claim Key Arrest (VOA)

• Life in Afghanistan has reached new lows. There’s a growing economic and hunger crisis, with half of young children facing malnutrition, according to a new U.N. report. (WP)

• Children among at least 36 people killed in child care center massacre in Thailand (CNN)

• Myanmar sentences Japanese journalist to prison on 2 charges (AP)

• Michael Cohen says the Supreme Court would reveal its corruption if it agrees to intervene in Trump's dispute with the FBI over the seized Mar-a-Lago files (Insider)

• After Mar-a-Lago Search, Talk of ‘Civil War’ Is Flaring Online (NYT)

• Canada’s main covid legacy? Right-wing populism. (WP)

• Amid end to COVID help, homelessness surging in many cities (AP)

• U.S. appeals court sends DACA case back to lower court to consider new rule (Reuters)

• A majority of Republican nominees deny the 2020 election results. A new Post analysis of GOP candidates up for election next month for the House, Senate and statewide offices. There are 299 election-denying candidates, and most are likely to win. (WP)

• Falsehoods, harassment stress local election offices in US (AP)

• Sanibel residents return to an unrecognizable island a week after Hurricane Ian’s devastation (CNN)

• It's been just over 100 days since the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade, and a new study shows the devastating consequences of the decision. Almost one-third of the entire U.S. population of women of childbearing age are now facing bans or severe restrictions on abortion. [HuffPost]

• Republican support from this key voting group is in jeopardy. Abortion is to blame. (Politico)

• Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney said the election-denying Republican candidates for Arizona governor and secretary of state pose a huge risk for democracy because both say they will refuse to certify the election if they don't favor its outcome. Cheney encouraged those who care about democracy to not "give people power who have told us that they will not honor elections.” [AP]

• Ratings agency Fitch lowered the outlook for its credit rating for British government debt to 'negative' from 'stable', days after a similar move from rival Standard & Poor's. Britain's battered pound will be around 3.6% stronger in a year, according to a Reuters poll in which analysts were divided, however, on whether the currency would reach parity with the U.S. dollar by year-end. (Reuters)

• IMF warns of higher recession risk and darker global outlook (AP)

• Musk’s Twitter Deal Could Saddle Banks With Big Losses (WSJ)

• Biden to pardon all federal offenses of simple marijuana possession (WP)

• Human-caused global warming has made severe droughts like the ones this summer in Europe, North America and China at least 20 times as likely as they would have been more than a century ago, scientists said Wednesday. (Cal Today)

• Farmers in Imperial County currently draw more water from the Colorado River than all of Arizona and Nevada combined. (NPR)

• Video captured orcas hunting and killing great white sharks. The footage showed a more than hour-long pursuit off the coast of South Africa. At least two great whites, the stuff of “Jaws” legend, were killed. (WP)

• I Was Allergic to Cats. Until Suddenly, I Wasn’t. No one quite knows why some allergies disappear and others don’t. (Atlantic)

• Are You the Same Person You Used to Be? (New Yorker)

• Nation’s Overthinkers Convene To Determine What That’s Supposed To Mean (The Onion)

Life Stories

Recently, going through my old boxes of files, I came across a blue folder with 32 pages of a single-spaced typewritten manuscript. The author was my mother.

***

(I first published a version of this piece in 2006.)

Four years ago, my mother was offered the chance to take a class in "life stories," i.e., how to write a memoir or autobiography. She had asked me whether I thought this was a good thing for her to do and my answer was an emphatic "Yes." 

Over the next few months she produced a short manuscript that covered most of her life. My three sisters and I knew many of the incidents she wrote about, but we gained new insights into how she experienced them. For instance, she disclosed new details about how she met our father.

A few months later, my mother became seriously ill, and a week later, she died. She was 87.

Partly as a result of that experience, I began teaching memoir-writing, first to my students at Stanford, and more recently to seniors through San Francisco State University's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

In theses classes, I’ve learned to recommend that the students should focus at first on the most emotionally loaded moments from their past. I suggest that they just try to write one scene that captures what it was like to live through one of those moments.

Then, the next day, to jump to another emotionally compelling incident and try to write about that. Do this every day for a week.

The moments do not need to connect together, at first. For now, they can be random scenes from a life.

After a week, this exercise should trigger other memories. These may involve more complexities than the first set of memories. The writer may also start dreaming memories, or find they arrive when they're doing something else.

They should pay close attention to these randomly accessed memories, these discoveries of what the brain has been storing away for years or decades.

I’ve developed this methodology after reading many memoirs as well as whatever material I could find about how they were produced.

It turns out that many writers who follow this method end up discarding their initial wave of memories -- the stories they had thought they wanted to tell, in favor of the more complex stories, based on less-resolved material that floods into the vacuum once they've swept the initial layer of memory away.

***

I’ve just reread my mother’s story. On the final page in the very last line, she writes, “I am content.” A few months later, with us by her side, she passed away.

LINKS:

• Kremlin says annexation and retreat are not a contradiction amid Ukrainian successes (Reuters)

• Russian State TV Gives Dire Assessment of Ukraine War as Invasion Falters (Newsweek)

• Putin faces limits of his military power as Ukraine recaptures land (WP)

• Ukraine Expels Some Russian Troops in South, Expanding Campaign (NYT)

• Russian diplomats warn of a direct clash with the West over the US's latest weapons for Ukraine (Insider)

• Despite humanitarian aid, life in Afghanistan is reaching a new low (WP)

• ‘Where Am I Going to Go?’ Floridians Hit by a Hurricane and a Housing Crunch. (NYT)

• Florida scrambling to restore bridges to cut-off communities (Politico)

• On devastated Pine Island after Ian, everyone should probably leave. They aren’t. (USA Today)

• Ian deals blow to Florida’s teetering insurance sector (AP)

• Ian ravaged much of Sanibel Island but what's left is of historical significance (NPR)

• The Spy Who Escaped the Eye of the Storm (NYT)

• Trump’s Threats of Violence Are too Dangerous to Disregard (New Yorker)

• Trump asks supreme court to intervene in Mar-a-Lago dispute (Guardian)

• Trump personally packed a stash of documents returned from Mar-a-Lago, report says. He kept hundreds more until the FBI seized them. (Insider)

• Evidence presented at the sedition trial of Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes showed Rhodes telling members of his group that invoking the Insurrection Act would give them “legal cover” to bring high-powered guns into Washington. [HuffPost]

• Police have linked several shootings to a possible serial killer in Stockton, Calif. (NPR)

• Asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs also triggered a global tsunami (CNN)

• Elon Musk is abandoning his legal battle to back out of buying Twitter, offering to go through with his original $44 billion bid for the social media platform. The offer comes just two weeks before Twitter’s lawsuit seeking to force Musk to go through with the deal goes to trial in Delaware Chancery Court. [AP]

• Why Musk gave up: He’s almost certain to lose Twitter case, law professor says (Ars Technica)

• Tactics of repression: How Iran is trying to stop Mahsa Amini protests (WP)

• South Korea and the U.S. military conducted rare missile drills and an American supercarrier repositioned east of North Korea after Pyongyang flew a missile over Japan, one of the allies' sharpest responses since 2017 to a North Korean weapon test. But the South Korean display of military force went wrong in a blaze of burning rocket fuel, alarming residents of a seaside town. (Reuters)

• Ambush killing of journalist underscores threat to Philippines press freedoms (WP)

• Dolly Parton leads tributes to Loretta Lynn (BBC, Twitter)

• 1 In 5 Pitchers Are Frequently Violating MLB’s Future Pitch Clock (538)

• I tried McDonald’s Happy Meal for adults, and it didn’t make me happy (WP)

• Asteroid struck by Nasa probe leaves 10,000km trail (BBC)

• Kevin McCarthy Claims Lack Of Mental Health Services In Schools Got Him Where He Is Today (The Onion)

 

Mirrors

 I first published an earlier version of this essay in 2006.

So, there are always a couple ways to read any article, and far be it for me to simplify that challenge for any readers who may choose to grace my site with a visit tonight or tomorrow. 

Maybe this is about aging. Or maybe about our views of ourselves as compared what others see in us, or don't. Or maybe it is about our emotional age, quite a different issue from our biological age.

Anyway, I notice every morning when I look in my bathroom mirror that, perhaps due to the lighting or the angle or the color scheme in that small room or some other factor that I seem to look pretty good. It's usually, "Dude, you're okay, no wonder a few ladies still find you attractive."

That's nice enough, but later when I return to my bedroom, a much larger room with different lighting, a different mirror and a different color scheme, I seem suddenly to look perfectly awful.

So who is that man and how did he age so rapidly walking from one end of his flat to the other?

Something similar happens at work between the elevator mirror and the one in the men's room. I'm not sure what I am looking for when I look in mirrors, but is most definitively is not to find out I have aged myself out of contention.

My older sister said the wisest thing I’ve ever heard about mirrors: “If you don’t like what you see, stop looking!”

Meanwhile, there is the matter of the human mirrors we provide for each other. You don't have to have studied Jung to be aware that our Western concept of romantic love includes a strong element of falling in love with how another person sees us. What (s)he reflects back to you is intoxicating in a way no drug could ever be. Once somebody sees your inner beauty in a new way, that helps you feel valued and loved, it is like no other experience, and you may be hooked to his/her attention going forward.

”Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is the most beautiful of all?” 

Easy answer. It’s the one who thinks you are. That is the essence of love. Turn away from him or her if you choose, but you may not easily find that kind of love again.

Or, maybe that is my mirror image talking. Nothing is simple, let alone the image that surprises us in the mirrors surrounding us. Especially the human mirrors. Each new one sees a new you.

Because we keep looking.

***

Baseball fans appreciated the moment Tuesday evening when Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees hit his 62nd home run of the season, a new American League record. His feat came exactly 61 years after Roger Maris of the Yankees hit 61, breaking Babe Ruth’s record of 60 set in 1927. Ruth did it while he was a Yankee too.

LINKS:

• Ukrainian troops overrun Russian forces, break through lines in recently annexed Kherson (USA Today)

• Ukraine offensive advances in south of country (BBC)

• Refuting annexation, Ukrainian forces push on from Lyman toward Luhansk (WP)

• In Retreat on Ukrainian Fronts, Russia Shows Signs of Disarray (NYT)

• Will Russia use nuclear weapons? Here are President Vladimir Putin's warnings explained. (Reuters)

• Russia’s Nuclear Bluster Is a Sign of Panic (Atlantic)

• Retreating Russians leave their comrades’ bodies behind (AP)

• As Ukrainian Forces Advance, West Plays Down Threat From Russian Nuclear Weapons (WSJ)

• Herschel Walker’s son calls candidate a liar and hypocrite over abortion denial (Guardian)

• Trump’s lawyer refused his request in February to say all documents returned (WP)

• President Joe Biden reportedly told the Rev. Al Sharpton he is going to run for reelection in 2024. Biden apparently made the remark while posing for a photograph last month at the White House with Sharpton, according to a National Action Network official. [HuffPost]

• Hurricane Ian’s death toll rises as crews in Florida go door to door in search for survivors in decimated neighborhoods (CNN)

• In Trump White House, classified records routinely mishandled, aides say (WP)

• Knocking on Every Door, Rescuers Search Fort Myers Beach After Ian (NYT)

• Democracy, poisoned: America’s elections are being attacked at every level (Guardian)

• The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in a major legal battle that threatens to further undermine a landmark federal voting rights law as the state of Alabama defends a Republican-drawn electoral map faulted by judges for diluting the clout of Black voters. (Reuters)

• The landmark Voting Rights Act faces further dismantling at the Supreme Court (NPR)

• Election officials confront a new problem: Whether they can trust their own poll workers (Politico)

• The Supreme Court said it will hear Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh, two cases concerning whether tech companies could be held legally liable for what users post on their platforms, as well as for content that users see because of the platform’s algorithm. [HuffPost]

• Dow rallies more than 1,500 points in two days as fear begins to fade (CNN)

• North Korea Fires Missile Over Japan in Major Escalation (NYT)

• 'Pale blue dot' planets like Earth may make up only 1% of potentially habitable worlds (Space.com)

• Loretta Lynn, coal miner’s daughter and country queen, dies (AP)

• The Onion files Supreme Court amicus brief defending the right to parody (WP)

• Report: System Update Means Computer Going To Have To Go Away For Little While (The Onion)

Showing Up

 This post is dedicated to the people down on the coast helping Hurricane Ian survivors. I first published another version of this essay back in 2006. 

Tonight, I am thinking about the people who drop what they are doing to help others who are badly in need of help. The thousands of people who have poured down to the Gulf Coast in the wake of the devastation rendered by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita share something special. They all cared enough to show up. 

One of the leaders of an especially effective grassroots group down there told me in January that was his definition of being qualified to help in a disaster -- "showing up."

These volunteers have various motivations. Some may be religious. Some may have much-needed skills. Some may be running away from life up here, as opposed to running toward embracing life down there. 

None of that really matters. They showed up.

Some may be fragile in ways no one down there could know. They may have come from somewhere else to the scene of disaster to help, discovering in the process something essential about what is going on in their own lives so that they might go forward with a better defined sense of purpose.

These are among the heroes I celebrate tonight.

My article about volunteers — “Everything’s Broken” in Salon helped inspire the founding of Great NonProfits.

LINKS:

• Since the Taliban takeover, Afghans hoping to leave Afghanistan have few ways out (NPR)

• How Western Errors Let the Taliban Win in Afghanistan (FP)

• Ukrainian forces achieved their biggest breakthrough in the south of the country since the war began, bursting through the front and advancing rapidly along the Dnipro River, threatening to encircle thousands of Russian troops. (Reuters)

• Putin should be worried about Ukraine capturing one of Russia's new T-90M tanks (Insider)

• Zelensky hails advances as open recriminations intensify in Russian media (WP)

• Russia smuggling Ukrainian grain to help pay for Putin’s war (AP)

• UK government drops plans for tax cut on wealthy that prompted turmoil on financial markets (Fox)

• British Prime Minister Liz Truss was forced into a humiliating U-turn after less than a month in power, reversing a cut to the highest rate of income tax that helped spark turmoil in financial markets and a rebellion in her party. Here's how the Bank of England threw markets a lifeline last week. (Reuters)

• Five cases to watch as a conservative Supreme Court begins its new term (The Hill)

• Donald Trump plans to ‘take revenge’ on Ron DeSantis if reelected, niece Mary Trump says (Independent)

• Oath Keepers trial: ‘Armed rebellion’ plan, prosecutor says (AP)

• Right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro and leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva appear headed for a second-round runoff contest to settle Brazil’s presidential election, after neither candidate scored an outright victory. Bolsonaro has signalled he does not intend to accept the results of a defeat, sparking fears that he will attempt to provoke something akin to a Brazilian version of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection if he loses. [HuffPost]

• America Has a Ginni Thomas Problem Clarence and Ginni Thomas are Mr. and Mrs. Mutiny. (NYT)

• Dems have a 68% chance of winning Senate; GOP 68% chance of winning House (538)

• Once Known for Vaccine Skeptics, Marin Now Tells Them ‘You’re Not Welcome’ (NYT)

• The Milky Way is Surrounded by a Vast Graveyard of Dead Stars (UT)

• LA restricts water flow to wasteful celebrity mansions: ‘No matter how rich, we’ll treat you the same’ (Guardian)

• On Sanibel Island, a Search for Stranded Residents Slogs On (NYT)

• Florida’s death toll from Hurricane Ian tops 100 as the search for survivors continues (CNN)

• The storm coming for Florida’s insurance market (Politico)

• Google shuts down Translate service in China (CNBC)

• New dinosaur tracks were discovered this summer in Alaska. A powerful earthquake last year may have uncovered more than 30 of them from three different species, scientists think. (WP)

• Murakami hits season's 56th homer in Japan baseball, topping legend Oh (NHK)

• Experts Advise Against Throwing Laptop Across Office Even Though It Will Feel Incredible (The Onion)

News Traumas

On a lovely Sunday afternoon with friends in an East Bay cafe, for a few hours the news of the world seemed far away. Children and dogs ran about, groups chatted happily the way friends do, waiters carried plates of sandwiches and chicken wings to tables, while the three of us caught up and talked about our future plans.

One of my friends used a phrase — “traumatized by the news” — that I think characterizes the past week for me pretty succinctly.

Hurricane Ian appears to have utterly destroyed a place that I love — Sanibel Island — bringing the abstract notion of climate change home in a deeply personal way. I’ve been writing stories about global environmental decline for nearly 60 years, hoping that might have an impact.

In point of fact, those stories have indeed led to some reforms, policy changes and certainly greater awareness.

But ultimately I am powerless in the face of a super storm.

Friday’s massacre in Kabul, only the latest in a long series at girls’ schools attended by Hazaras, had a similar traumatizing effect on both my Afghan friend and me. In the 43 conversations between us we have published, we have tried to detail the roots of slowly unfolding genocide against the Hazara people conducted by the Taliban.

Is anyone listening? Does anyone care? These are legitimate questions for us to raise.

We can write about these things the best that we can in the hope that the worst outcomes will be avoided. But when these outrageous killings continue to occur in plain view, all that is left is to grieve.

And, of course, to keep trying to write.

LINKS:

• Death toll rises to 67 in Florida after Hurricane Ian left some communities ‘unrecognizable’ (CNN)

• VIDEO: Hurricane Ian Leaves Boats Wedged Between Buildings (Reuters)

• Pine Island residents recount horror, fear as Ian bore down (AP)

• How Afghan women took on the Taliban, as told through their text messages (WP)

• US supreme court to decide cases with ‘monumental’ impact on democracy (Guardian)

• A shaken Supreme Court returns to chambers (Politico)

• Defying pre-election polls, a divided Brazil heads to a presidential runoff (NPR)

• National Archives still missing some Trump administration records (ABC)

• Ukraine claims full control of key logistics hub, eyes further gains (Reuters)

• Americans captured by Russia detail months of beatings, interrogation (WP)

• Ukraine Forces Retake Lyman, a Strategic City, as Russians Retreat (NYT)

• As Russian Troops Flee Lyman, Ukrainians Rejoice—and Help Themselves to Russian Supplies (WSJ)

• Putin has his back to the wall with the clock ticking ever louder (CNN)

• In Washington, Putin’s Nuclear Threats Stir Growing Alarm (NYT)

• A Whole Generation Revolts Against the Iranian Regime (Atlantic)

• Once sprawling, congressional battle maps are shrinking to key races (WP)

• The hidden faces of hunger in America (NPR)

• Morbidly Obese Pumpkin Wins Contest (The Onion)

 

A World's Neglect

This photo shows a young Afghan boy mourning his sister, her backpack by his side, after she was killed in the horrific attack on an educational center in Kabul on Friday.

Somewhere around three dozens young Afghans, mostly girls and women, died in the suicide blast, which is the latest in a long series of attacks on Hazaras and their schools — in the Taliban era.

David Weir’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The Hazaras have long been badly discriminated against in Afghanistan, but the violence has escalated since the Taliban came in power in August 2021. As a group, Hazaras value the education of their daughters and sons equally, which enrages the fundamentalist Taliban.

My young Hazara friend and correspondent documented these attacks in yesterdays post, “Tears in the Wind.” It is the 43rd time he and I have combined to publish descriptions of what clearly is a genocidal pattern under Taliban rule largely outside of the view of the international community.

There are few Western reporters in Afghanistan to document what is going on, which is one reason we are doing what we can to shine a light on this tragic situation. We will continue. Whether our reports will ever have any impact, however, is another question.

LINKS:

• Kabul attack: Death toll rises to 35 mostly ‘girls, young women’ (Al Jazeera)

• Kabul blast a setback for Afghan women seeking education against the odds (Reuters)

• Yet Another Attack On The Hazara In Afghanistan (Forbes)

• Ian arrives in North Carolina after bringing flooding, damage to South Carolina; death toll rises in Florida (CBS)

• On Florida’s Islands, Scenes of Paradise Lost, Maybe for Good (NYT)

• Before, after images show Hurricane Ian storm surge completely destroyed some Sanibel Island, Florida hotels (CNN)

• Ian shows the risks and costs of living on barrier islands (AP)

• More Americans are moving into hurricane zones even as climate risks mount(WP)

• VIDEO: Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Deploys Crews to the Barrier Islands (NYT)

• Hundreds of pounds of TNT were used to damage the Nord Stream pipelines, Sweden and Denmark tell the UN (Business Insider)

• Vladimir Putin’s latest frightening gambit lies at the bottom of the ocean (Guardian)

• With Bluster and Threats, Putin Casts the West as the Enemy (NYT)

• Russian forces retreat from strategic Donetsk city a day after Moscow’s annexation of the region (CNN)

• As war fails, Russia’s authoritarian grandmaster backs himself into a corner (WP)

• How China Targets the Global Fish Supply (NYT)

• Protesters rally across Iran in third week of unrest over Amini's death (Reuters)

• Burkina Faso coup: Gunshots in capital and roads blocked (BBC)

• Brazil's election could determine the fate of the Amazon after record deforestation(NPR)

• Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago Inquiries Converge in Fights Over Executive Privilege(NYT)

• Supreme Court poised to keep marching to right in new term (AP)

• Wall St. posts 3rd straight quarterly loss as recession fears loom (Reuters)

• How a Chinese fossil discovery rewrites the history of life on Earth (Salon)

• Miraculously preserved 1-million-year-old human skull discovered in China (CNN)

• Wild Birds in North America Are Dying Like Never Before (Atlantic)

• Storks and stranded cats: Wild and captive creatures have shown up in unexpected places (WP)

• Empty Wall Behind Couch Falls Into Girlfriend’s Crosshairs (The Onion)