What a year it’s been. I haven’t kept up my blog as well as I meant to; grad school is hard, etc etc etc.

The news I’m linking to on this post are highlights from the past several months that I think are worth checking out and spending some time with. First, though, I just wanted to put out into the world that I am entering 2018 with hope. There are lots of terrible things happening on our national stage that will take a long time to recover from, and some things that we might never get back [like some national monuments, for example]. But there are good things that are happening, too. Just a few examples: the national conversation on sexual assault and harassment, the record number of women running for office (including my aunt!), the teen pregnancy rate dropping to a record low, having decreased 67% since I was born in 1991. In my personal life, I can cite countless examples of people who are working to make their communities better places to live, extending generosity and kindness to their neighbors. And there are reports of what I can only call delight and joy: 115 new species identified and named this year from the Greater Mekong region (the world is always more infinite and varied than we dream); the first gene therapy for inherited blindness was approved by the FDA; some crazy physics done on data gathered from neutron stars.

I was reminded this Advent that we live in expectation and hope — perhaps wandering through the dark, but never alone.

Poppies
Mary Oliver

The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation

of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn’t a place
in this world that doesn’t

sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage

shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,

black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.

But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,

when it’s done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,

touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—

and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?

---

 

End of year highlights (a few have been mentioned on this blog previously):

• Donald Trump’s Worst Deal (The New Yorker)
• 2017 Was The Year That The Internet Destroyed Our Shared Reality (Buzzfeed)
• The Impeachable Offense (Lawfare)
• The Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt (Brain Pickings)
• Putin, Pawns and Propaganda (with Gary Kasparov) (podcast: Stay Tuned)
• Making Sense of Mueller’s Charges (podcast: Stay Tuned)
• How The Russia Inquiry Began: A Campaign Aide, Drinks, and Talks of Political Dirt (NYT)
• America and the Great Abdication (The Atlantic)
• U.S. Lawmakers Are Distributing Money From The Poor To The Rich (Washington Post)
• Doubting the Intelligence, Trump Pursues Putin and Leaves a Russian Threat Unchecked (Washington Post)
• World Inequality Report
• How to be a reporter podcast (Washington Post)
• Last Minute Rush to Prepay Taxes Gives Way To Confusion and Anger (NYT)
• How Citizens United Changed Politics and Shaped the Tax Bill (Brennan Center)
• U.N. Investigator On Extreme Poverty Issues a Grim Report — On the U.S. (NPR)
• Ivanka Trump’s Old Jewelry Business is Now Caught Up in an Alleged Fraud Scheme (GQ)
• On Bullshit and the Oath of Office: the “LOL nothing matters” presidency (Lawfare)
• A President’s Words Matter: Deception of the Public and the Impeachable Offense (Lawfare)
• Calling your reps and planting onions: a plan for faithful resistance (Rachel Held Evans)

 

(source) :: John McLaughlin = former acting director of CIA; Michael Hayden = former director of CIA and NSA.