Words and Numbers

 In a coffee shop with an old friend on Friday, we found ourselves speculating about the intersection between math and language. It is the peculiar place on the left-right brain spectrum where my mind often settles, for some reason.

When it comes to math, I like the logic and the specificity, and the certainty that there will be an answer, once enough patience kicks in.

When it comes to language, I like the cadence and trajectory, but also the Old Germanic specificity of English. Well, actually, I also like the layers of meaning and adaptability of English, thanks to the Norman invasion and other historical events that altered the course of the Anglo-Saxon dialect with French diversions.

Maybe, when it comes to it, what I really like most about English is using it to achieve ambiguity, which is quite unlike math. Whenever I can convey multiple meanings with my words, that suits me just fine.

There is a very specific, math-like reason for this. As a journalist, I prefer to avoid being placed in a position where I’m expected to tell people what they should think. That is simply not my job.

My preference is to present the facts as we’ve discovered them to be and let my readers draw their own conclusions.

That’s what I aspire to. Let the math of language meeting the language of math. Where certainty meets its polar opposite. Of course I fail as often as I succeed. It’s the law of averages.

NEWSLINKS:

• Trump, Reacting to Pending Jan. 6 Subpoena, Repeats Election Lies in Letter (NYT)

• Donald Trump, January 6th, and the Elusive Search for Accountability (New Yorker)

• Footage shows congressional leadership at Fort McNair on January 6, scrambling to save the US Capitol (CNN)

• VIDEO: Jan. 6 Panel Shows Documentary Footage of Roger Stone as Evidence (AP)

• Texts Show Oath Keepers Coordinated With Other Far-Right Groups (NYT)

• Secret Service knew of Capitol threat more than a week before attack (WP)

• Jan. 6 Panel Proves Again Trump Must Be Held Accountable (Bloomberg)

• Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has vowed to fight a nearly $1 billion defamation verdict against him, but experts say neither bankruptcy nor an appeal of a Connecticut jury’s findings are likely to salvage his personal fortune and media empire. (Reuters)

• Inflation Is Unrelenting, Bad News for the Fed and White House (NYT)

• British PM Liz Truss fires finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng (CNN)

• Britain’s finance minister fired after his policies shocked the economy (WP)

• 15-year-old suspect killed 5 in Raleigh, North Carolina, mass shooting, police say (CBS)

• Death Toll Rises as Russia Bombards Ukraine’s Cities for a Fourth Day (NYT)

• EU official: Russian army will be ‘annihilated’ if Putin uses nuclear weapons (CNN)

• Afghanistan’s money and economy are crumbling (LAT)

• Investors with classic "60/40" portfolios are facing the worst returns this year for a century, BofA Global Research said, noting that bond markets continue to see huge outflows. (Reuters)

• Five years on, here’s what #MeToo has changed (Politico)

• Protesters Arrested for Throwing Soup on Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ Painting in Gallery (WSJ)

• Florida agriculture has been slammed by Hurricane Ian (NPR)

• Thousands of people across Australia's southeast were asked to evacuate their homes, including some in a western suburb of Melbourne, after two days of incessant rains triggered flash flooding and fast-moving waters burst river banks. (Reuters)

• Record numbers of people risking lives to cross Darién Gap to US (Guardian)

• TikTok isn’t a silly dance app. It has won the internet, and it knows us eerily well. (WP)

• Robbie Coltrane, Hagrid in ‘Harry Potter’ films, dead at 72 (CNN)

• British Government In Shambles After Liz Truss Fires Minister Of Sausages (The Onion)

The Coward

It’s simple. Every American should have watched yesterday’s final hearing of the Jan. 6th committee, but if they missed it, thank god for CSPAN. The committee saved the best for last of its nine hearings.

At the end of the hearing, committee members unanimously issued a bipartisan subpoena to Donald Trump to explain his role in the violent riot at Congress on January 6, 2021.

He’ll never comply, of course, because he lacks the courage to take responsibility for the events that occurred that day and because he would have to commit perjury to deny his guilt.

It’s hard to believe we are already 21 months out from the events of that terrible day and there is so little hope of justice in this case.

The man guilty of planning the riot and inciting the rioters sits in his mansion in Florida, hiding behind lawyers and guards, while a few of his hapless followers get convicted and sent to prison.

But that is no surprise. It’s simple. Trump is not only is a criminal, he is a coward.

I would normally leave it at that but there was bigger news yesterday. The Supreme Court told Trump to shove it.

NEWSLINKS:

• Jan. 6 committee votes to subpoena Trump’s testimony (WP)

• Trump Aide Was Seen on Security Footage Moving Boxes at Mar-a-Lago (NYT)

• Trump worker told FBI about moving Mar-a-Lago boxes on ex-president’s orders (WP)

• New York attorney general asks court to block Trump Organization from moving assets (CNN)

• Supreme Court rejects Trump request on Mar-a-Lago documents (WP)

• The Trump Subpoena Will Be the Headline, But the Real Washington News Was Elsewhere (Politico)

• Kamikaze drones and missiles hit north and south Ukraine; Kremlin denies Putin discussed war ‘settlement’ (CNBC)

• Nury Martinez resigns her seat on Los Angeles City Council following release of racist comments (Yahoo)

• The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly condemnedRussia's "attempted illegal annexation" of four partially occupied regions in Ukraine and called on all countries not to recognize the move, strengthening a diplomatic international isolation of Moscow. (Reuters)

• As Putin escalates war, some in Russia’s business elite despair (WP)

• Russian missiles pounded more than 40 Ukrainian cities and towns, officials said, as NATO allies meeting in Brussels unveiled plans to beef up Europe's air defenses after committing more military aid to Kyiv. (Reuters)

• Saudi Arabia claims US requested one-month delay to oil production cut (Guardian)

• Protests in Iran Spread, Including to Oil Sector, Despite Violent Crackdown (NYT)

• Afghanistan Is En Route to a Catastrophic Civil War (GT)

• In Afghanistan, Resistance Means Women (HRW)

• ‘We Told the Truth’: Sandy Hook Families Win $1 Billion From Alex Jones (NYT)

• Biden has uncorked a series of wins on major liberal policy goals, including fighting climate change, marijuana reform and student loan forgiveness, in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections with little pushback from Republicans. The silence from the GOP shows how the American public has moved to the left on key issues since the last time Democrats controlled the presidency and both chambers of Congress, HuffPost's Kevin Robillard explains. [HuffPost]

• Biden global strategy tackles China, Russia, domestic needs (AP)

• As the U.S. enters the final stretch to November’s midterm elections, Reuters has documented multiple incidents of intimidation involving an expanding army of election observers, many of them recruited by prominent Republican Party figures and activists echoing Trump's false theories about election fraud. (Reuters)

• US stocks stage big reversal to jump 2% after September inflation hits highest level since 1982 (MarketsInsider)

• U.S. Core Inflation Hit New Four-Decade High Last Month (WSJ)

• Yen slumps to 32-year low against dollar (NHK)

• Parkland school shooter to get life sentence for killing 17 (Politico)

• Abortion Is Motivating Voters, but Republicans Would Rather Change the Subject (NYT)

• Dems chances of holding the Senate have fallen to 66% (538)

• Rare protest against China’s Xi Jinping days before Communist Party congress (CNN)

• First Martian life likely broke the planet with climate change, made themselves extinct (LiveScience)

• Black holes wobbling three times a second have proved Einstein right (NewScientist)

• Global wildlife populations have sunk 69% since 1970 (Reuters)

• Social Security benefits to rise by 8.7 percent in 2023 (WP)

• Positive Pregnancy Test Immediately Sprouts Robotic Legs, Scans Woman’s Face With Laser (The Onion)

"My Father's War" (Afghan Conversation 44)

This is the latest in a series of conversations I have been having with an Afghan friend about life under the rule of the Taliban.

Dear David:

When my parents were young, in the 1980s, Afghanistan was immersed in a ruinous civil war. The Communist party was in power in Kabul. Before that war, the political and social situations had been relatively favorable for ethnic and religious minorities such as Hazara. So when all ethnic groups rebelled against the central government, Hazaras were among the leaders of the rebel groups. Some political analysts and historians believe that their rebellion against the central government was a big mistake. 

My father says that when he was young, far fewer people were attending school. No girls’ schools even existed in our village. Clergymen told the villagers that schools were against Islam and said they should be avoided. 

When my father was in school in Bamian, the rebels burned the school down. My father returned to his hometown. Then he joined the Islamist rebel groups himself and fought for several years against the central government. The Soviet Union sent troops to defend the communist government, which had the effect of unifying the ethnic groups against the foreign army.

During the years that followed. the Mujahaddin emerged, partly funded by the Americans, and they eventually spawned Al Qaeda and the Taliban. We all know the rest of the story – 9/11, the American response, 20 years of war, and the American withdrawal last year.

In many ways Afghanistan has never recovered from the events of my father’s youth. One way or another, we have been at war ever since.

NEWSLINKS:

• Biden believes Putin won't use nuclear weapons on Ukraine (ABC)

• Pressure Grows on the West to Speed Air-Defense Systems to Ukraine (NYT)

• Kyiv braces for prolonged hardship as Russia threatens more strikes (WP)

• Biden says Putin "miscalculated" with invasion of Ukraine (CBS)

• The Hunt to Arm Ukraine Leads to Difficult Choices (NYT)

• Russian military ‘exhausted,’ Putin’s judgment ‘flawed,’ U.K. spy chief says (WP)

• Russian nuclear strike would almost certainly draw "physical response" - NATO official (Reuters)

• Huge Russian Assault Fails as Ukraine Repels Seven Attacks in One Day: Kyiv (Newsweek)

• Nearly 20 cities have been hit since Monday — retaliation for an attack on a strategic Russian bridge this weekend. (WP)

• How Ukrainian Strategy Is Running Circles Around Russia’s Lumbering Military (WSJ)

• Russia's Federal Security Service said it had detained five Russians and three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia over the explosion that damaged the Crimea Bridge last Saturday. The FSB said the blast was organized by Ukrainian military intelligence and its director, Kyrylo Budanov. (Reuters)

• Biden threatens ‘consequences’ for Saudi Arabia after OPEC cut, but his options are limited (CNBC)

• Taiwan is bolstering its defenses and steeling itself for the possibility of war with China as leader Xi Jinping readies to assume a third term in power. (Reuters)

• The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to steer clear of a legal fight over top-secret records seized during an FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. The court is weighing an emergency appeal from Trump asking it to permit a special master to review the documents, which would stall the criminal probe into the ex-president's hoarding. [AP]

• New evidence to show Trump was warned of violence on Jan. 6 (WP)

• January 6 committee to argue in upcoming hearing Trump remains a ‘clear and present danger’ (CNN)

• Oath Keeper describes group’s large weapons cache ahead of Jan. 6 (Politico)

• Judge: Trump must sit for deposition in defamation lawsuit (AP)

• Alex Jones ordered to pay nearly $1 billion to Sandy Hook families (WP)

• US midterm elections: Why are they so important? (BBC)

• How Far Would a Republican Majority Go? Not just democracy is at stake this fall. (Atlantic)

• The coming fight over the gig economy, explained (Vox)

• As the war in Ukraine spurs historic energy shortages across Europe, Greta Thunberg said it’s better to keep nuclear reactors going rather than turn to coal-fired power plants. Germany began rapidly shutting down its nuclear fleet after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan, and the country became heavily dependent on natural gas from Russia to provide heat and backup electricity when solar and wind power underperformed. [HuffPost]

• Climate change is causing heavier rains in almost every part of the country.

  Warmer air can hold more water, so rising temperatures are leading to more intense rainfall in most regions of the U.S., according to a study released Tuesday. (WP)

• Smashing success: NASA asteroid strike results in big nudge (AP)

• Warriors' Draymond Green fined, not suspended, will play Friday (ESPN)

• Hawaii Gov. David Ige (D) signed an executive order to prevent other states from punishing their residents who get an abortion in the islands and stop other states from sanctioning local health practicioners who provide such care. [AP]

• Transplant of human brain tissue into rats could help study autism, other disorders (WP)

• Lab-grown brain cells play video game Pong (BBC)

• My friend was killed deep in the Amazon forest. I went to investigate. (WP)

• World’s 1st space tourist signs up for flight around moon (AP)

• Black hole discovered firing jets at neighboring galaxy (Phys.org)

• Lake Mead water crisis is exposing volcanic rock from eruptions 12 million years ago (CNN)

• 477 whales die in ‘heartbreaking’ New Zealand strandings (AP)

• Self-imposed climate change may have killed Martian life (Register)

• 'Very eerie' mating call helps American elks find love (BBC)

• ACT test scores drop to lowest in 30 years in pandemic slide (AP)

• Many coronavirus patients haven’t recovered months after being infected. Data from nearly 100,000 people who participated in a Scottish study of long covid indicate that 1 in 20 people had not recovered between six and 18 months after getting sick, and 42% reported feeling only somewhat better. (WP)

• Social Security payments set for big increase. What to know. (AP)

• Leaked Documents Reveal CIA Secretly Flooded White Communities With Vegetables (The Onion)

 

Freelance Writer

I first published this essay in 2007.

***
The year 1975 was going to be, to my way of thinking, a make-it or break-it kind of year. I was determined to try and succeed as a freelance journalist by selling my research, reporting, writing or photographs. Or anything else people would buy.

I was living communally in a purple Victorian in the Haight, six adults and my neice, then around seven years old. So living costs were very low, and our old white van had been replaced by a 1966 red Volvo 122-S sedan with a B-18 engine, and supposedly the easiest car to repair then on the road.

Sadly, my skills at repairing cars were limited to changing the windshield blades, and even then, I tended to buy the wrong size, or install them backwards.

This was still no small matter of low self-esteem for me, only a few years out of Michigan where everyone knew how to repair cars. Not only that, they all seemed to know how to build houses, raise crops, fly airplanes, and shoot game.

By contrast, I couldn't do any of those things reliably; rather, it seemed to me there must be a type of magic that if you only could tap into it, would help you make mechanical things get right again.

It would be decades before I learned that logical thinking and patience were all that were required.

Sadly, I possessed neither.

So not to digress further, the year 1975 dawned with me determined to make something of myself. As I look at photos from that era, I see a striking young man, tall, slender but athletic, with dark hair to his shoulders, intense blue eyes, and an easy smile. 

This was post-Sixties San Francisco. I would have been embarrassed to admit that unlike virtually everyone I knew, I had never tried LSD, cocaine, or mushrooms. I had smoked dope, of course -- everyone did that -- it was like drinking a latte today.

But, in retrospect, even good old marijuana yielded bad trips for me. The first time I smoked it, in college, a girl convinced me to go to a party and do it. I was game, but I quickly became so paranoid I felt certain she, and everybody else there, was trying to get me. (For what, I wasn't sure.)

I remember stumbling home that night in Ann Arbor, seeing this girl and others behind every tree.

Now, I wonder: What was that all about? I came to be able to smoke it casually, as everyone did, soon after. But neither drugs nor alcohol held much appeal; I could easily alter my state, if I wanted to, by simply revisiting my childhood battle with rheumatic fever, or my much more recent week of delirium under the cloud of typhoid/salmonella in India in early 1971.

In fact, my unpublished novel from that era contains weird scenes about elephants trampling me and faces peering down at me in the night, under mosquito nets, seeing whether I was regaining consciousness or not.

Most of time, in reality, I was not. But the weird thing was, even when I was unconscious, I think I could hear some of what was going on around me, like the snatches of conversation that sweep back to you from the people ahead, walking into the wind out on the Berkeley Pier in the Bay.

***

Whenever I move a piece of furniture around here, we encounter some forgotten bag or box of stuff. Most of it belongs to my kids, big and small. Some of it is leftover from girlfriends or wives. This week, my ten-year-old recovered a file I had long since misplaced. It was hiding behind the couch, nestled among what I gather is a major cache of his favorite, long-missing "Star Wars Miniatures."

So, he got his and I got mine.

Here is what mine says:

I was a spectacularly unsuccessful freelancer through August of 1975. My total gross earnings were $945.50 from nine sales. I earned $145.50 for four articles for Pacific News Service, all of which were syndicated widely to newspapers around the country. New Times magazine in New York paid me $275 for three different types of work -- a research job, one article, and one photo.

(My notes indicate that my wife actually took the photo but that I was given the credit, and I don't want to even speculate why that was the case. Also, I recorded that the payment was three months late. In 1975, the $75 photo fee represented substantial income and was badly needed.)

I got two other checks during this eight-month period. Rolling Stone paid me $75 for a photo, and then (jackpot!) $450 for an article.

The topics behind all this effort?

* Chemical threats.
* Search for Patty Hearst.
* The Klamath Indians in Oregon.
* The LA skid row Slasher.
* Timothy Leary as a snitch.

***

Why, dear reader, would I bother you with this odd set of detail? Because, as it turned out, this was the last stretch of time before I became what Americans consider to be a "success."

The very next month, after these records stopped telling their story, I and my partner, Howard Kohn, broke the biggest story of that year, and the biggest story in Rolling Stone's history.

Our boss, Jann Wenner, was immensely generous. I remember the job offer (which I accepted) and a huge bonus ($5,000, I believe). He also bought me my first suit, at Wilkes Bashford.

The rest of 1975 is unwritten in this old, yellowed, hand-written spreadsheet. But the rest of that year is well documented for history, in the form of thousands of newspaper articles and tapes of all three major U.S. network TV broadcasts. We scored what in media terms was a major homerun.

So this old, yellowed paper is from the precious months before "success." I never had an inkling about what it would feel like to suddenly be thrust into the public eye. To have reporters following your every move; to have prosecutors issuing subpoenas to try and force you to reveal confidential sources; to have radicals issuing you death threats; to have groupies begging you to meet them after work.

I was so naive and so unprepared for all of this, back in 1975.

I did my best, which is to say I muddled through. But I also managed to escape the limelight and melt back into a different corridor, one that felt like the right fit. Still within Jann's organization there on Third Street, I coordinated an investigative unit that did stories about all sorts of important issues. A brief golden age of original investigative reporting on political and economic and environmental issues ensued at the magazine.

The results over the rest of 1975, 1976 and early 1977 are a legacy I am proud of. I introduced Lowell Bergman to Jann, and Lowell was hired. Together, we did some great stories.

When it all came crashing down, half a year after my first daughter was born, just before Christmas 1976, the dye had been cast. Lowell and I and a gentleman named Dan Noyes would go on to create the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Jann would go on to become a billionaire. Many of his other writers Like Hunter Thompson as well as photographer Annie Leibowitz would become legends.

Tonight, as I look at those hand-written entries from so long ago, I am reminded that for any young freelancers out there, your success may be waiting just around the next corner, so persist.

Just keep writing.

NEWSLINKS:

• Sirens sound across Ukraine as Russia strikes cities again; Kyiv asks allies for air defense weapons (CNBC)

• Putin Unleashes Barrage of Missiles on Ukrainian Civilian Areas (NYT)

• Kremlin: U.S. air defence supplies will extend conflict, inflict pain for Ukraine (Reuters)

• Ukraine war at a turning point with rapid escalation of conflict (WP)

• Ukraine-Russia war: G7 countries will back Kyiv 'for as long as it takes' (BBC)

• Pro-Russian hackers claim responsibility for knocking U.S. airport websites offline (NPR)

• Lavrov says Russia open to talks with West, awaiting serious proposal (Reuters)

• Baltimore prosecutors drop all charges against ‘Serial’ podcast subject Adnan Syed (CNN)

• Poll: Most Americans back Biden's marijuana moves (Politico)

• Dems now have a 67% chance of winning the Senate, down a bit. (538)

• The end of the republic? Experts paint grim scenarios if Trump becomes president again. (WP)

• An ex-federal prosecutor said Trump's remarks in Arizona, accusing former President George H.W. Bush of taking millions of documents to a former “bowling alley/Chinese restaurant,” were telling of his state of mind. [HuffPost]

• ‘Our Bubble Has Been Burst’: Older Storm Victims Face an Uncertain Future (NYT)

• Florida shrimpers race to get battered fleet back to sea (AP)

• A movie has inspired extremist groups across the country to hold stakeouts at drop boxes and to mobilize again around Trump’s election lies. Already, the film "2000 Mules" may be encouraging plots against the administration of the midterm elections. Sheriffs in key states, activated by seeing the film, are now claiming to be watching aggressively for supposed voter fraud. [HuffPost]

• Conservative PACs inject millions into local school races (AP)

• Iran is rapidly expanding its ability to enrich uranium with advanced centrifuges at its underground plant at Natanz and now intends to go further than previously planned, a confidential U.N. nuclear watchdog report showed. (Reuters)

• Iran’s crackdown on protests intensifies in Kurdish region (AP)

• The Hidden Power of Coincidences (WSJ)

• Ancient Mars May Have Been Teeming With Life, Until It Drove Climate Change That Caused Its Demise (SciTechDaily)

• Extreme heat could make parts of Asia, Africa uninhabitable in decades (WP)

• Black Holes May Hide a Mind-Bending Secret About Our Universe (NYT)

• Yes, your dog really can sniff that you’re upset (WP)

• After Careful Deliberation, Baby Goes With Homosexuality (The Onion)

Remembering Molly Ivins

(NOTE: It’s been 15 years since I wrote this. Molly had just passed.)

It's time to say goodbye to a great journalist, gone too soon. Today, it was Molly Ivins, dead of breast cancer at 62. She will get many well-deserved eulogies. I can only add my few personal memories. 

She was in town on the speaking circuit one night in the early '90s when Doug Foster, our mutual friend, invited us to hang out at a downtown bar for a late-night drinking session. We were both at our best, which is to say our worst, so the jokes were flying back and forth as waiters shuttled bottles of her favorite spirits. Night turned into the next day.

She was most definitely a woman who could drink me under the table. 

Molly's caustic humor not only was contagious, she could be inspirational to progressive audiences. Her story telling was legendary. She gave no ground to those politicians who asserted claim over her Texas. If Bush thought he represented the true Texan, Molly begged to disagree.

She dismissed him as "Shrub."

Molly was the keynote speaker at the 25th anniversary of the Center for Investigative Reporting, in 2002. She personally introduced the three of us who had co-founded CIR back in 1977. Her speech was an old-time, shit-kicking, raucously profane political screed.

Tonight as I watched a fuzzy video of that event, I was struck by Molly's deeply personal identification with what we at CIR had always tried to do.

"Progressives are thought of as terminally earnest...(but) if we couldn't laugh, we'd go insane." Molly joked her way through the event that night, some lines delivered so fast in her droll Texas drawl that the audience had trouble keeping up with her.

Laughter erupted again and again. She was skewering the mainstream press, politicians, and anyone else within range.

But she also was cognizant that young journalists were present, idealistic and fresh-faced. For them, she was momentarily earnest: "Yes, you can make a difference." But, then, she added, "The best way you can learn [to become a good reporter] is to listen to older journalists sitting around in bars..." 

Finally, she turned on herself: "You know, I've spent my whole life being obnoxiously cheerful." An unabashed optimist. That's who Molly Ivins really was. 

We need more like her. Let's hope some of the journalists from the next generation were listening.

***
I remember one other, quite different time.

Molly was promoting another book in 1998 and was on her book tour. By now, she was extremely well known, and audiences everywhere looked forward to her visits.

But on this particular day, she was sitting in the waiting room of a web-based magazine, waiting for an editor to get out of a meeting and see her. The receptionist was young and didn't know who she was. The staff milling around also was clueless. As I saw her across the lobby, Molly seemed very alone, awkwardly thumbing through a magazine, probably wondering why she was even there that day.

I went over and renewed our acquaintance. I sat with her until her appointment. She seemed grateful for the connection.

I know I was. 

Good-bye, Molly. The next world just became a much funnier, more irreverent place. Even as ours became one giant heartbeat less so.

NEWSLINKS:

• Russia blasts Kyiv, other Ukrainian cities in deadly strikes (AP)

• Putin Says ‘Mass Strike’ on Ukraine Is Revenge for Bridge Attack (NYT)

• Belarus's Lukashenko warns Ukraine, deploys troops with Russia (Reuters)

• VIDEO: Russian Missile Strikes Hit Residential Areas in Zaporizhzhia (AP)

• Russian strikes raise pressure on allies to send advanced air defense (WP)

• Why Little-Noticed State Legislative Races Could Be Hugely Consequential (NYT)

• Spread of Catholic hospitals limits reproductive care across the U.S. (WP)

• Following the Supreme Court's reversal of its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, doctors have emerged as some of the loudest voices for protecting abortion rights, particularly in swing states where November’s vote will determine the landscape for reproductive health care in the years to come. HuffPost's Liz Skalka interviewed more than a dozen doctors who expressed worries about the current political climate, which potentially impacts everything from contraception access to the skills that medical schools can teach students. [HuffPost]

• Gavin Newsom makes another unorthodox play on abortion (Politico)

• Kevin McCarthy claimed Trump had no idea his supporters carried out Capitol attack (Guardian)

• Shaped by gun violence and climate change, Gen Z weighs whether to vote (WP)

• Scientists Can No Longer Ignore Ancient Flooding Tales — Indigenous stories from the end of the last Ice Age could be more than myth. (Atlantic)

• Under the Taliban, Afghanistan’s Madrassas Increase and Harbor Terrorists (FO)

• The Afghanistan Debacle Summed Up: We Suck at Nation Building (DB)

• What Afghans Want the Rest of the World to Know — The country is, once again, the worst place in the world to be a woman. (Atlantic)

• More than 180 dead as protests grip Iran (Reuters)

• A lack of rain and snow in central California and restricted water supplies from the Colorado River in the southernmost part of the state have withered summer crops like tomatoes and onions and threatened leafy greens grown in the winter. That has added pressure to grocery prices, putting a squeeze on wallets with no end in sight. (Reuters)

• United Methodists are breaking up in a slow-motion schism (AP)

• Artificial intelligence could soon diagnose illness based on the sound of your voice (NPR)

• How climate change is driving monkeys and lemurs from trees to the ground (WP)

• Ancient DNA From 1 Million Years Ago Discovered in Antarctica (ScienceAlert)

• We’ve never seen Warriors’ Draymond Green this humbled and contrite. Will it matter? (SFC)

• How to know if it’s depression or just ‘normal’ sadness (WP)

• As suicides rise, US military seeks to address mental health (AP)

• Nation’s Indigenous People Confirm They Don’t Need Special Holiday, Just Large Swaths Of Land Returned Immediately (The Onion)

 

Paying Attention

So there are only four weeks left until the midterm elections. This applies to every citizen in the U.S. The main things at stake are certain seats in the U.S. Senate, all the seats in the U.S. House and various state and local races.

Nationally, here is the main issue. A majority of Republican candidates for the Senate and House have chosen to adhere to Donald Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Trump is lying. The 2020 election was not stolen.

No doubt the overwhelming majority of GOP candidates running as so-called election deniers realize that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, but are adhering to Trump’s line because they think it will help get them elected.

They are counting on the possibility that most Republicans voters are not paying attention and will just vote for the party candidate regardless of the consequences of their vote.

But this time, those consequences include serious, perhaps fatal damage to our republic. That is not hyperbole. The patriotic thing for Republicans to do is to reject the election deniers’ bid for office.

They should vote for the Democratic candidate or just sit this one out.

Our democracy depends on it.

NEWS LINKS:

• Russians respond to bridge attack with airstrike, killing 13 (Yahoo)

• Blast on Crimean Bridge Deals Blow to Russian War Effort in Ukraine (NYT)

• Deadly Strikes Hit Key Southern City as Russia Restores Some Traffic on Damaged Bridge (NYT)

• Zelensky: Russian officials starting to ‘prepare their society’ for use of nuclear weapons (The Hill)

• ‘War crime:’ Industrial-scale destruction of Ukraine culture (AP)

• A Distracted Russia Is Losing Its Grip on Its Old Soviet Sphere (NYT)

• Hurricane Ian highlighted the vulnerabilities of older mobile homes (NPR)

• Election workers fear trouble, boost security as vengeful threats persist after Trump loss (USA Today)

• Election officials worry about potential poll worker interference this November (NPR)

• 4 Weeks Out, Senate Control Hangs in the Balance in Tumultuous Midterms(NYT)

• Right-wing militia leaders, on trial for sedition, continue to threaten democracy (LAT)

• New Florida records raise more questions about DeSantis’s migrant flights (WP)

• US officials meet with Taliban in person for first time since drone strike killed Al Qaeda chief in Kabul (Fox)

• VIDEO: Inside the Final Days of the Doctor China Tried to Silence (NYT)

• Pandemic exodus left Bay Area with largest drop in household income in U.S.(WP)

• Rare dark-streaked meteorites may come from a 'potentially hazardous' asteroid (Space.com)

• Protests grip Iran as rights group says 19 children killed (Reuters)

• ‘A time bomb’: Anger rising in a hot spot of Iran protests (AP)

• Anonymous artist dyes Tehran fountains blood-red during protests (WP)

• Litany for Dictatorships — Published in The Atlantic in 1935 (Atlantic)

• In California, Where Trees Are King, One Hardy Pine Has Survived for 4,800 Years (NYT)

• These scientists are testing an unhackable quantum internet in their basement closet (WP)

• More Businesses Want to Hire People With Criminal Records Amid Tight Job Market (WSJ)

• What links David O Russell’s crime romp Amsterdam to Gloria Steinem and Bob Dylan? (Guardian)

• Laptop Camera Wishes It Could Tell Woman How Good She Looks When She Doesn’t Know She’s Being Watched (The Onion)

 

Mediating Conflicts

Watching the Golden State Warriors and their coach Steve Kerr trying to manage the situation over Draymond Green striking a fellow player, Jordan Poole, during a practice session, makes me glad I’m retired.

Having to deal with two employees who are in conflict with each other was one of the worst aspects of the jobs I held, and it happened more often than anyone wanted to admit.

Competition among teammates is natural. After all, they’re usually not related or even friends before getting hired. Most often they didn’t even know each other until recently. And if you are a good manager, you try to bring together diverse teams of people who represent all the different communities in our society, which increases the risk of conflicts.

Journalism may not be as fiercely competitive as pro basketball, but it has its moments. Some of the hardest cases I faced involved people who not only didn’t like each other, they fundamentally disagreed with each other — politically, philosophically, or over tactics or who should get credit for what.

All of that stuff is thorny to manage but at least none of my employees ever came to blows, so far as I know.

I’ll say this: If there is one coach who can handle this it is Kerr. He’s demonstrated time and again not only that he is a winner but that he is a man of principle who speaks his conscience and doesn’t avoid difficult situations.

And this is a difficult situation. Both Green and Poole are stars — Green is the bigger star, older and larger physically, which only make what he did all the more unforgivable.

Kerr hasn’t really shown his cards yet. Green is spending time “away” from the team, which may indicate he’s been suspended and he also sounds contrite in his public comments, which may be too little too late in this case. There is some effort by the Warriors to trace who leaked the security video that caught the punch, but that is a diversion and very much beside the point.

The fight happened and there have to be consequences. It can’t be hushed up because the public knows about it. Green already had a tarnished reputation in many fans’ eyes.

No, I do not envy Kerr in this one. Then again, I’m glad I’m retired.

NEWS LINKS:

• Blast Damages Crimea Bridge, Dealing Blow to Russian War Effort (NYT)

• Blast hits Crimea bridge crucial to Russia's war (Reuters)

• Putin faces more grim choices after blast hits his prized Crimea bridge (CNN)

• How Ukrainians, targeting by drone, attacked Russian artillery in Kherson (WP)

• UN: Ukraine nuclear power plant loses external power link (AP)

• U.S. Navy jet flew across Baltic hours after Nord Stream burst (Reuters)

• Nobel Peace Prize Winners Share a Past Shadowed by Russian Abuses (NYT)

• VIDEO: ‘We Will Not Stop,’ Ukrainian Rights Group Reacts to Nobel Peace Prize (Reuters)

• How Hitler’s Enablers Undid Democracy in Germany — The way the Nazis used “the politics of legality” to gain absolute power after a failed coup is an ominous lesson about the fragility of a republic. (Atlantic)

• As Ian's death toll rises, questions swirl on why more Floridians didn't evacuate (NPR)

• Many of Hurricane Ian’s Victims Were Older Adults Who Drowned (NYT)

• Disasters like Ian pose extra risk for fragile older people (AP)

• Atlanta DA seeks testimony from Michael Flynn, Newt Gingrich in election interference case (WP)

• The shoes keep dropping in Georgia (Politico)

• Gov. Newsom takes action as frustration over rising gas prices continues to climb (CBS)

• New York Faces Record Homelessness as Mayor Declares Migrant Emergency (NYT)

• What’s Behind ISIS Khorasan’s Relentless Attacks on Mosques in Afghanistan? (HS)

• Ex-Oath Keeper: Group leader claimed Secret Service contact (AP)

• 'Malicious and targeted' sabotage halts rail traffic in northern Germany (Reuters)

• The latest challenge for Iran’s government? School girls joining protests (NBC)

• A rally in the U.S. dollar is expected to hit corporate financial results, potentially presenting another obstacle to stocks in a year that has experienced a painful market decline. (Reuters)

• Anti-abortion activists are falsely claiming that hormonal contraception can cause abortions. (Reveal)

• Arizona court halts enforcement of near-total abortion ban (WP)

• Michigan assistant Mike Hart carted off field after reported seizure (Yahoo)

• Draymond Green taking time away from Warriors after punch (ESPN)

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

• North Korea fires suspected ballistic missile, Japan says (CNN)

• Pakistan’s Unseen Climate-Change Survivors (New Yorker)

• A Lost Manuscript Shows the Fire Barack Obama Couldn’t Reveal on the Campaign Trail (NYT)

• Lawyer: DA Jenkins is stalling 5-year-old homicide case against SFPD officer (Mission Local)

• Man Not Accepting Any More Television Recommendations At This Time (The Onion)