Michael Winship, Common Dreams

I had a friend who was a pathological liar. I do not use that term lightly; he really was. We met in college and then through an odd set of circumstances wound up working for the same television station in New York—in fact, our offices were right next door to each other.

As the widowed Caitlin Thomas said of her poet husband Dylan, "He'd lie about what he had for breakfast." My friend was the same way—it didn't matter what. Small example: he'd tell you all the incredible things that he read in a new book and when you read it for yourself, you discovered that he had made everything up. None of it was there.

From time to time, his serial dishonesty caught up with him and there was trouble. And once it even caught up with me—at his funeral. Speaking with his mother—and for the life of me, I don't remember why I said anything but there must have been a reason—I mentioned that he told me he was adopted and that they had been excellent parents. He often spoke of it. She looked at me in horror. It was completely untrue, of course, one last gotcha from the grave.While alive, he usually got away with all of this because he was funny, smart, entertaining, charming, tall, and good-looking. He had the charisma one sometimes experiences with the truly psychotic....

I first met Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, the Israeli peace and anti-apartheid activist, on a sunny spring Sunday in Jerusalem almost exactly seventeen years ago, in 2004. It was at the end of the second Intifada, and a few of us clambered into a van so that she and a colleague could give us a tour of what it was like to be a Palestinian living in the Occupied Territories. It was revelatory. We've remained friends ever since.

Angela's the director of Jahalin Solidarity, a non-profit dedicated to ending the forcible displacement of Palestinians and defending their rights, including self-determination and an end to the Israeli occupation of their land.

She's my basic, go-to person on most matters involving Israel and the occupation, so naturally I got in touch when fighting broke out a week and a half ago between the Israeli military and Hamas forces in Gaza and other parts of Israel and the West Bank, the worst since 2014. Rockets by the hundreds have been launched into Israel, bombs have rained down on Gaza. According to USA Today, 12 Israelis including a 5-year-old boy, a 16-year-old girl and a soldier have been killed. Current Palestinian losses are at 230, including 64 children. More than 1600 have been wounded and 58,000 forced from their homes....

If you've chosen to read this, it's a fair bet you're been aware for quite some time that the Republican Party has gone completely insane—especially if you agree with that classic definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Time and again the GOP and their scarecrow leader Donald Trump have proven the wisdom of that definition. Although all 50 states officially confirmed the results, for more than half a year, Republicans have challenged ad nauseum last November's legitimate election of Joe Biden. Dozens of their frivolous lawsuits have been thrown out of courts. Currently, a ridiculous and baseless recount by QAnon aficionados in Maricopa County, Arizona, goes on and on—their latest ploy examining some 40,000 ballots for traces of bamboo, which would indicate these votes were fakes sent from China (!)

I'm not making this up....

Joe Biden is thinking about the complexities of racial and social justice in America, vaccinating the population against COVID-19, combatting domestic terrorism, rebuilding the country's infrastructure, bringing back jobs and climate change. Donald Trump is thinking about money and revenge—and maybe about why his pal Vladimir Putin has all the luck.

Can you imagine how the Former Guy felt when he heard last week's news that his man-crush, Russian President Putin, just signed a law allowing him to run for two additional terms? Given the largely meaningless nature of elections over there, the legislation could keep Vlad in office until 2036, when he'll be 83.

Boy, Trump may have thought, how come he gets to do that and not me? I constantly have to lie about the election results, keep bellyaching that I won, and foment an attempted coup d'etat at the US Capitol. None of which worked. Let me tell you, it's exhausting! Now watch this putt......

While watching Saturday's events in the U.S. Senate and the gamut of public reaction to them, I thought about the disconnect that takes place between the reality of events and the way they're perceived from the outside looking in, especially by the media.

Back in the fall of 2007, I was elected president of the Writers Guild of America, East, and within days was on a plane to Los Angeles where contract negotiations were ongoing between the Writers Guilds East and West and the studios and networks. The talks broke down. Thrown into the deep end of the pool, I was suddenly one of the leaders of an ultimately successful 100-day strike that made headlines around the world. It ended in February 2008, exactly thirteen years ago this week.

I can tell you from personal experience that being at the center of a major news story can be humbling. There are moments of excitement and drama for sure, but it can be discomforting and disorienting as well, and quite revealing when it comes to human nature and the foibles of journalism. Few really understand what it's like to be in the vortex of a news storm....