Back when FaceBook was a viable medium for honest people, I was the administrator for a group I called Morning Paper. The idea was simply to give people a place to share links to news stories they found interesting and have a chance to discuss them with their friends. I set it up as a “secret group” — that is the FB term for a group that a person enters by invitation. Only members can see the posts and comments. I tended to think of it as private rather than secret, a subtle but meaningful distinction.
Yes, it was an echo chamber to a certain degree but there were occasional disagreements and they were always discussed in a very civil and helpful way. It’s the thing I miss next-to-most about FB, just after the photos of my grandkids.
Today, LJ Citizen will begin posting links (and a few comments maybe) on the things I read in the morning papers. As a rule, I will not show the article but simply direct you to it should you decide to read it. So, let’s get started with the news of the day. I should mention that I subscribe to several publications that may limit your ability to open the stories if you are not a subscriber.
First from the New York Times, usually my first stop in the morning:
Probably the biggest story of the day, the baddest man in the whole universe crumpled under the moral pressure from the better angels in our midst.
And this is a piece by a woman’s experience as a foster parent and the trauma she observed and had to deal with when children were separated from their parents – even the ones who weren’t doing such a fine job of parenting. And then there was the unexpected spillover to the emotions of her own children:
My older daughter began having nightmares that “the people” would take her away from us and give her to another family. She was inconsolable. “If it could happen to them,” she asked with the cleareyed logic of a 7-year-old, “why can’t it happen to us?”
You have to imagine that there will be some of this type of discomfort for the kids who are not directly involved in the current immigration mess but who have could not have avoided the coverage on television, newspapers and social media.
Thomas Friedman always offers informative reading and well-considered opinion. Today he addressed our president’s affinity for dictators and aversion to our longstanding allies.
Next to the Washington Post:
If you watch MSNBC in the evening, you may have seen this very unexpected emotional reaction as Rachel Maddow read the breaking news about the opening of special centers for “tender age” children by the ICE near somewhere on the Texas/Mexico border. The idea of babies being handed over to federal bureacrats while mommy went off with to await a hearing on asylum became more than she bear. It was hard to watch, as has been so much of the coverage she and others provided during this week in hell.
And this Post editorial argues that no one should be tempted to forget the barbarism exhibited by the administration after they reverse the policy under extraorinary public pressure.
And from The Guardian:
When The Guardian’s Steve Bell cartoons about American policics, he can deliver excruciating pain to the subject and boatloads of truth to The Guardian’s readers. He did so today when he lampooned Trump’s flag-hugging episode after his performance for National Federation of Independent Business. See Steve Bell’s cartoon here. Frankly, I think the NFL players kneeling during the national anthem expresses reverence for the ideals our country and flag represent. This amounted to the cheapest form of showmanship and the lowest order of disrespect. I would thank him to keep his hands off our flag.
And then there was this sad news from the Houston Chronicle: the Astros’ twelve game winning streak ended with a home loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. How can you be disappointed with 12 out of 13?
South of Town: Notes and Scenes from Texas' Upper Gulf Coast 