Musk's X Loses a Million Subscribers Since Election & Trump Picks Fox TV Host as Defense Secretary and Accused Sex Trafficker for Attorney General
What I’m Discussing Today:
Kareem’s Daily Quote: Albert Camus guides us through some dark times.
Bluesky Adds 1 Million New Users Since U.S. Election, as People Seek Alternatives to X: It’s a start. But we can do better.
Trump’s ‘reckless’ attorney general choice sends shockwaves through Washington: Trump picks a fellow alleged sex predator to bring justice to the U.S.
‘Who the f--k is this guy?’: Defense world reacts to Trump’s surprise Pentagon pick: Trump picks a Fox News host with no qualifications to defend the U.S. against its enemies. He does, however, have an accusation of a sex crime. Huh.
Kareem’s Video Break: Ever heard of swamp rabbits? Me neither. But here they are swimming their floppy ears off.
Research shows caterpillar fungus can slow down growth of cancer cells: It’s amazing what we can imagine as medicine—and make it work.
What I’m Reading: Three fun, entertaining books that will keep you from thinking about politics.
Roy Haynes Plays “Blue 'n’ Boogie”: This great jazz drummer died last week at the age of 99. Here, he shows us all why he played with all the greats.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
But hell can endure for only a limited period, and life will begin again one day.
Albert Camus (1913-1960), French philosopher and author, 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature
Half the people in the United States are grieving. They feel not just the grief of their country being taken over by a conman who represents the opposite of what the U.S. Constitution stands for, but the even worse grief of betrayal by those Americans who made his ascension possible. To them, it is the betrayal of coming home and finding your drug-addict son robbing your safe to buy drugs. You still love him, but you grieve over who he has become. The first is the grief of immediate fear, the second is the grief of damaged love.
In Dante’s immortal poem The Divine Comedy, Hell is divided into nine circles, with the ninth circle being reserved for the worst sinners: those who betray, especially a loved one (i.e., Cain and Judas). Their punishment is to be frozen in a lake, removed from human contact and the warmth of God’s love.
For those of us watching Trump slouching toward Washington to be born, hell is the feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. With rational thinking gone, we see ahead only chaos and uncertainty. Congress is under his control. The Supreme Court has taken a knee to him. He’s picked a Fox News host to be the Secretary of Defense. I’m sorry, Dr. King, but to many of us it sure doesn’t look like the arc of the moral universe is bending toward justice. If anything, it’s flexing the other way.
That’s what it feels like today—and maybe even for the next four years. But in my seven and a half decades on Earth, I have learned to embrace the Persian adage: “This too shall pass.” Even the most frightening rollercoaster ride will end and we can walk on firm ground again, even if on wobbly knees and with a churning stomach. Our goal for now is to fasten our seatbelts, fling our arms across the chests of our children to protect them, and hang in there. Americans have corrected course before, so I’m hopeful that as the next four years progress, they will eventually slap their foreheads and cry out, “What was I thinking!?!” And reason and compassion will once again prevail. Or, as Joni Mitchell sings in “Woodstock”: “We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”