We need referees for the internet age

Long, long ago, in the 1990s, we spoke of the Information Highway

Many of us weren’t sure what that meant exactly, but it was going to make life bigger, better, and ever so much more exciting. Unlimited access to information, from everywhere, for everyone! The world at our fingertips! Knowledge, wisdom, and truth would expand our opportunities, our perspectives, our minds. Totalitarian governments wouldn’t stand a chance.

In 1995, William Gibson breathlessly compared the advent of the Internet to the birth of cities:

“It’s really something new; it’s a new kind of civilization. …

Facing 2021 takes courage

Christmas 2020 is in the rearview

Despite the harsh contrasts between this Christmas and its predecessors, and despite its restrictions and isolation, the day at least offered a pause. With churches, restaurants, and even movie theaters closed down, many of us had the opportunity to pull in our energy, to grow quiet, to detach from the outside world. Maybe we Zoomed or FaceTimed with family. Maybe we streamed Wonder Woman 1984. Or maybe we simply cocooned, ignoring this Christmas to the best of our ability.

However we got through Christmas, it’s been gotten through. Next on the horizon is New Year’s Eve, another occasion that must be muted. No traditional bacchanal this year; no crowds standing elbow-to-elbow in Times Square, no champagne-and-caviar late-night soirees (at least, I hope not). …

Their chairman suggested secession

The Supreme Court has turned out to be a big disappointment

At least, for Donald Trump and his fervid, alternate-reality-embracing minions. Despite having a hand-picked, conservative majority on the bench — most notably Amy Barrett, whose appointment was ramrodded through so fast she’s probably still trying to catch her breath — the most recent and perhaps the most bizarre effort at overturning the election got shot down in record time.

In case you had other things to pay attention to this week, the Lone Star state’s attorney general (a Republican, natch), in a display of breathtaking hypocrisy for a polity that takes pride in its “don’t mess with Texas” stance, asked the Supremes to throw out the results in four battleground states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Biden won 306 Electoral College votes: those four states accounted for a total of 62. …

A found poem considering the ghosts of Christmases past

In time gone, when the big house filled
With children and food and the breath of relatives
Marking together the sparkling zenith of
Days and weeks set apart

All for the purpose of coiling a sense
Of urgency, of expectation,
Limned with brightness glowing or garish,
The annual yearning toward magic

And belief that it could be. So much to
Be done, I would start months ahead
Hoping to manage the spiraling build
Toward that one day

Gifts purchased and hidden, cards
Addressed and stamped, dates held
In reserve for parties and visits, school programs,
The ritual drive to witness the…

How a family heals from infidelity

I’m only human

More to the point, I’m a female human of a certain age, long schooled in the importance of niceness. Niceness and emotional honesty only go hand-in-hand when life’s waters are calm and shallow. So when, ten years ago, it developed that my brother-in-law had been cheating on my sister for about a dozen years, I was cast among storm-tossed waves, far past the breakers of niceness and hopelessly over my head.

Let me be clear about the cheating: I’m not talking about an affair here and there. I’m talking full-tilt, sex-addict-level, hound-dog-lust fests with a web of anonymous women. Some of them were professionals, which explains why my sister drove around with the bumper of her minivan secured to the chassis with electrical tape despite her husband’s thriving business and her own teaching career. …

The hidden gifts in this year’s constrained celebrations

Nobody wanted the 2020 holiday season to be like this

I mean, really. It’s the biggest Bah Humbug in living memory. Even confirmed Scrooges are waxing nostalgic about Christmas Past, or whatever winter holiday has been their cherished tradition in which they like to play the curmudgeon role.

At some point during the pandemic, months back, we were hearing half-apologetic confessions from the devoted introverts among us who avowed that they rather preferred lockdown. We’re not hearing that so much anymore.

Everyone is bone-weary of the distancing and the separation and the list of things we can’t do, from traveling to visit distant loved ones to exposing our naked faces in public. The other day I was listening to a radio advertisement for a luxury resort featuring “exclusive, private suites,” yada ,yada, yada . . . they lost me at “exclusive” and “private.” Right now, neither of those are a draw. Give me happy crowds! Bustling shopping malls! Times Square stuffed with cheerful drunks! …

If you thought the U.S. election spawned craziness, just wait

The end may be in sight — if you’re farsighted

As Americans hunker down for what we’re warned will be a dark winter, a prediction that’s already coming true with a horrifying spike in both COVID cases and the concurrent death toll — we do what we can to preserve a kernel of holiday cheer. Meanwhile, we peer into the dim tunnel of the near future, looking for light at its end.

After nine months of slogging through a pandemic featuring whipsawing lockdowns and reopenings, ever-changing guidelines and, absent any coherent top-down coordination, a scattershot of localized responses based largely on the political convictions of governors and county officials, our tolerance for frustration is at its lowest ebb. Even if we or our loved ones have so far escaped COVID infection, we’ve about had it. …