Broken Things

An essay for your weekend.

Note: The above is from 18 years ago, when I used to try and water paint if I was upset.

***

Yesterday afternoon, I broke something. I knocked it over and it cracked.

That’s the third time in a month that I’ve done something like that, which is extremely unusual for me. It’s disconcerting.

I told my daughter and she said, “That’s the sort of thing you’re supposed to keep track of. You know, being butter-fingered.”

She meant to write it down. She meant the Parkinson’s.

As I looked online for how much replacements for these three items would cost, it occurred to me that maybe I’ll just try to live without replacing them for a while. Maybe until next month at least.

Then I realized that I was much more upset than I should be. Why the deep sense of angst?

It’s not being butter-fingered, whatever that is. It’s not about the Parkinson’s. It’s not really about me at all. You only need to scan the following set of headlines to understand the root of my discontent and why it goes way beyond the things I have broken.

As usual, Bob Dylan said it best.

Broken lines, broken strings
Broken threads, broken springs
Broken idols, broken heads
People sleeping in broken beds
Ain’t no use jiving, ain’t no use joking
Everything is broken.

HEADLINES:

• Why Donald Trump Wants Greenland (and Everything Else) (New Yorker)

• Trumps says US must own Greenland or China or Russia will (BBC)

• More than 1,000 events planned in US after ICE shootings in Minneapolis and Portland (Guardian)

• First the Shooting. Then the Lies. (Atlantic)

• How Renee Good ended up in a fatal encounter with ICE in Minneapolis (WP)

• Agents in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Have Fired at Vehicles at Least 10 Times (NYT)

• Trump administration lashes out at Minn. officials, takes over ICE shooting probe (WP)

• Hennepin County prosecutor calls on the public to share Renee Good shooting evidence with her office (AP)

• Federal Agents Are Violating the Rights of Americans (Atlantic)

• The U.S. Senate advanced a resolution blocking President Donald Trump's ability to use further military force against Venezuela without the approval of Congress, while the GOP-controlled House voted to pass a Democratic bill extending Obamacare subsidies. Both results indicate that President Donald Trump may be losing his mojo on Capitol Hill. [HuffPost]

• Trump Lays Out a Vision of Power Restrained Only by ‘My Own Morality’ (NYT)

• Inside the frantic global race to find an escape route for Maduro (WP)

• US intercepts fifth sanctioned tanker as it exerts control over Venezuelan oil distribution (AP)

• Russia fired a powerful hypersonic missile at Ukraine near the EU border, in what Kyiv called a new threat to European security that demanded a global response. (Reuters)

• House votes to subpoena journalist over report on Delta Force commander (WP)

• In Address, Newsom Lays Out a Vision for California and the Nation (NYT)

• I Tried to Be the Government. It Did Not Go Well. (Atlantic)

• Growing protests sweep Iran as state TV warns of casualties (AP)

• Iran Is Cut Off From Internet as Protests Calling for Regime Change Intensify (NYT)

• As protests surge, the Iranian regime’s options are narrowing (Economist)

• Is Life a Game? (New Yorker)

• The Tastiest Meat Americans Can’t Buy (Atlantic)

• South Carolina measles outbreak surges past 300 cases (NBC)

• Dogs can rival toddlers when it comes to learning words, a new study found. (WP)

• Is Craigslist the Last Real Place on the Internet? (Wired)

• DeepSeek is reportedly close to releasing a flagship AI model that outperforms Claude and ChatGPT in coding. (Verge)

• ‘I rarely get outside’: scientists ditch fieldwork in the age of AI (Nature)

• JD Vance Claims Renée Good Had No Authority To Be Alive In First Place (Onion)