Nobody Knows

(They're still counting ballots in California.)

The older I get, the whole puzzle of life on earth seems like it should be simple. We need to find the right balance that allows us all to exist together. That’s about it, but whether we will ever be able to do that is another question.

There’s a synchronicity to your life and my life and all of our lives — what each of us does affects everyone else. Everybody wants and needs the same basic things.

My Canadian-born grandmother was in a nursing home in her 90s when we went to visit one winter’s day to take her out on a day trip. We went to a nearby hilly area where we parked and watched people with sleds go up and down a gentle incline.

There was fresh snow and my tiny grandmother sat in the front seat watching for a while before pronouncing, “‘Round and ‘round everyone goes, and where they stop nobody knows.”

That was it, just a childhood rhyme. She had nothing else to say.

My grandmother stopped more than half a century now and the world has changed in dramatic ways, yet her truth remains. Everyone is still riding the merry-go-round and where they stop nobody knows.

HEADLINES:

• Trump pans ‘bad Republicans’ who voted to end the Iran war (Politico)

• Iran war powers rebuke shows how Trump is increasingly boxed in (CNN)

• Iran war live: Israel continues deadly attacks after new Lebanon ceasefire (Al Jazeera)

• The Iran Problem Trump Can’t Defer (Atlantic)

• California Had the Most Expensive Governor’s Race in U.S. History. It’s Still Not Over. (NYT)

• Three studies used by RFK Jr and allies to justify controversial vaccine policy changes facing new scrutiny (Guardian)

• Ex-Trump advisor John Bolton agrees to plead guilty to retaining classified information (MS NOW)

• GOP immigration bill runs into turbulence amid backlash to Trump’s $1.8 billion ‘anti-weaponization’ fund (CNN)

• Supreme Court sides with FCC in clash with wireless carriers over fines (CNBC)

• Trump strips job protections from 8,000 senior federal workers (WP)

• The American Military’s Coming Marathon (Foreign Affairs)

• Pride Groups Plan for a Future Without Some of Their Biggest Corporate Sponsors (WSJ)

• Putin faces rival visions of war and peace at Russia's 'Davos'. (Reuters)

• America’s secretary of war pulls his punches on China (Economist)

• ‘You can’t handle the truth!’ Microsoft staff push back on survey results. (BI)

• Donkeys help improve patient wellbeing at psychiatric hospital (AP)

• A handful of American households pay for AI. Is the future free — or a subscription? (NPR)

• Inside the Trump-backed push to bring AI doctors into American medicine (WP)

• Energy, water use and pollution of AI and data centers rival most countries (AP)

• FCC To Investigate TV Shows Where The Mom Has Job (Onion)