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24
Dec
2022
Sunday November 27, 2022
Occasionally, The Guardian lets its hair down and writes about itself.
Recently, Sophie Zeldin-O'Neill, The Guardian’s deputy membership editor, wrote in an e-newsletter that Donald Trump's announcement of running for the presidency in 2024 “renewed a debate about how to responsibly cover him without unwittingly providing the coverage he so expertly manipulates.”
She likened it to “walking a tightrope.”
“We will have no hesitation to call a lie a lie, or indeed a liar a liar, even if they are a former US president," said Paul Harris, head of news for The Guardian US.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: Trump, lies, truth, Guardian
25
Nov
Thursday November 24, 2022
A porcupine waddled across the road in front of me the other day. It’s an ungainly creature. Little short legs paddle along underneath a jiggling haystack of quills, with its lethal tail flopping along the pavement behind it.
Clearly, it sensed that it was in no danger. As long as it stayed right side up, that is. A predator can kill a porcupine only by flipping it over to get at its undefended underbelly.
When I got home, my cat ran to greet me. It arched its back, rubbed against my pantlegs. And then lay on its back, all four legs akimbo, to have its belly rubbed.
Whether we’re porcupines, cats, or humans, exposing our most vulnerable parts is a profound act of trust in another.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: vulnerable, love, porcupine, underbelly
Sunday November 20, 2022
Two news stories juxtaposed themselves this past week.
In the first story, the eight-billionth human was born somewhere on Wednesday, according to an estimate by the United Nations.
Maybe not precisely on Wednesday. It might have happened on Tuesday. Or Thursday. But one of the 385,000 babies born during those three days was the eight-billionth member of the human race.
Just 12 years ago, there were only seven billion of us. A century ago, only two billion.
We have, in other words, grown like mould.
That famous “hockey stick” graph of greenhouse gases is duplicated, almost exactly, by the growth of human populations.
Yet we get all upset about one statistic and avoid the other.
Tags: population, 8 billion, sperm counts, fertility
Thursday November 17, 2022
IMy email friend and fellow blogger Jim Henderschedt listed a number of things going wrong: “The seemingly daily news of war, lies, assault weapons, muck raking, genocide, racial enmity, mass shootings, homelessness -- the list goes on and on...”
What do you do when your world seems to be coming apart at the seams? When your dreams turn into nightmares? When old friends topple like bowling pins, and your investments sink like autumn leaves?
It’s tempting to go back to bed and pull the covers up over your head. Or perhaps to curl up on the floor in a fetal position.
Tags: prayer, News, helplessness, thief
Sunday November 13, 2022
Final results in the U.S. mid-term elections may not be in for some weeks. But the political pundits are having a field day finding things to analyse.
I dare suggest that some of them have read the election wrong. This election was not about abortion rights. Or about immigration, racial discrimination, or inflation.
It was not even – despite Joe Biden’s and Barrack Obama’s impassioned last-minute pleas – about the survival of democracy.
It was about one thing -- Donald Trump.
Tags: Trump, Elections, mid-term, conservative values