”There are many here among us who feel life is but a joke.” — Bob Dylan
It's not easy to be a plastic bag here in San Francisco. Due to local regulations, you no longer are welcome at local supermarkets; thus, the local population is in steep decline. You may not be on the endangered species list quite yet, but that's only a matter of time.
The few who persist on our mean streets get whipped around mercilessly by our biting winds. Today, I watched one such victim rise and fall in a wind tunnel next to the brick edifice of a warehouse-turned-loft apartment building.
The winds were having their way with this bag. It was flipped wide open, upside down, handles flapping uselessly in the cyclone's grasp. The bag had no hope of flying away gracefully like an escaped balloon. Its only option was to put up with the abuse, while waiting to find out its fate. Would its next resting place be high (tangled in a tree or in the wires), or low, (squashed and dirty in the gutter.)
***
Somewhat more gracefully, one hopes, I too rode the winds into town today, flying home from a trip to New York looking for work. I’m not exactly certain how welcome old journalists are around here either any more, given the hopeless job market, but in our neighborhood the air felt especially fresh as my two youngest kids greeted me with hugs.
(This is from from 2008.)
HEADLINES:
Bernie Sanders is drawing record crowds as he pushes Democrats to 'fight oligarchy' (NPR)
FBI scales back staffing, tracking of domestic terrorism probes, sources say (Reuters)
White House buoyed up by submission of major law firm attacked by Trump (Guardian)
Columbia Agrees to Trump’s Demands After Federal Funds Are Stripped (NYT)
Ukraine's retreat from Kursk deepens public divide on incursion benefits (Reuters)
Israel strikes Lebanon after first rocket attack since ceasefire (BBC)
UK, France, Germany urge Gaza ceasefire, ask Israel to restore humanitarian access (Reuters)
Trump and DOGE Propel V.A. Mental Health System into Turmoil (NYT)
Trump and Roberts battle (Reuters)
Acting Social Security head backs off threat to close agency after judge rejects argument (WP)
Why baby boomers may hold the cards to any Trump plan to rescue stocks from the selloff (MarketWatch)
Trump pulls security clearances for Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton (Reuters)
Why Did Elon Musk Go After Bunkers Full of Seeds? (NYT)
The Careless People Won (Atlantic)
Trump revoking protections for 530,000 Cubans, Haitians and other migrants (BBC)
At Least 3 Dead and 14 Injured in Shooting at New Mexico Park, Officials Say (NYT)
What the JFK File Dump Actually Revealed (Atlantic)
Meta scrambled to silence a tell-all book. Now it’s a bestseller. (WP)
The iPhone Needs to Go Back to Its Roots to Salvage AI (Bloomberg)
OpenAI’s Deep Research Agent Is Coming for White-Collar Work (Wired)
DOJ Designates Posting Photos Of Balding Elon Musk As Domestic Terrorism (The Onion)
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