News Notebook Sunday 1.23.22

Indelible Imprints, Soul of the State and... Wordle?

Sunday morning greetings, and welcome to newShrink! I hope that winter storms Izzy, and now Jasper, have been as unexpectedly gentle in your area as they were here.

Amid all of the week’s many words and stories I keep being drawn back instead to three sets of images.

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All week these have pulled me again and again to feel and reflect on the themes they evoke — themes perhaps worth reading and listening for in the coming news weeks and months.

On the news front bombardment has begun! And the frenzy of winners-&-losers, horserace-variety coverage in the most polarized of midterm election years only intensifies leading up to the President’s March 1 State of the Union address and beyond. Today I’m looking at how best to organize, select and bring the newShrink focus to bear on the volume of topics and examples of soul and psychological dimensions from news and public figures.

mountain of despair… stone of hope

Taking the above images in ascending order, beginning as most of us began the week, with the Martin Luther King holiday tributes to his legacy, the one here is from the MLK Memorial in Washington, DC.

🔷 The line from a King speech is rendered symbolically in stone near his massive statue, with the view through the gap strategically positioned to suggest institutional monuments to freedom as democracy’s “stone of hope.”

🔷 In keeping with newShrink’s depth/soul psychology focus, the image and quote suggest both shadow and light aspects of King’s goals and legacy as a lens through which we can assess progress, or lack of it, via today’s news, public people and events.

🔷 This back and forth between despair and hopes is one way to organize and process news of all kinds. (Of course it must be noted that the mountain seems quite huge, the stones of hope pebble-sized, in the news of this week… this January of a mid-term election year… for this president… in this time of corrosive division that seems widening and endless.)

🔷 And in this polarized, and polarizing, 24-7 news environment that effort to hold both shadow and light, despair and hope in dynamic tension in order to effect change can all too easily instead play-into and reinforce a winners-vs-losers kind of score-keeping. (Which isn’t at all what Jung had in mind… or newShrink, either!)

Musing on this even during the Monday King holiday, I kept thinking again of the quote from Congressman Jamie Raskin’s memoir. I’d found it so powerful that I’d turned it into a visual illustration for the 1.9.22 Shrink-wrap (the one looking at depth/soul-psychology themes of the sacred, trauma and grief both for a beloved and/or for a nation.)

it’s a relationship

🔷 As I considered all of the news this week, not only the original Raskin quote but the additional converse of what he said kept coming to mind and as visual image: “If a person can grow through unthinkable trauma and loss, perhaps a nation may, too”… perhaps in a self-governing democracy the converse is also true: “If a nation can grow through unthinkable trauma and loss, perhaps a person may, too.”

🔷 To me both versions of his statement suggest something more relational at work, and at stake, in a democracy: A conversation not a winners-vs-losers horserace. A talking with — not yelling or lobbing even the most eloquent oration or prose at one another. It’s getting conscious and intentional about the endless idealized heroes or demonized villains we project onto each other.

🔷 Since in a self-governing democracy we are all theoretically both governor and governed, this idea of engaging and having essential ongoing conversation seems so essential we have to keep doing it if there is to be democracy. Even, or especially, times such as now when it feels about as effective as spitting in the wind.

🔷 With the very title of his book about the January 6 insurrection amid his personal tragedy Raskin expresses this. With Unthinkable he’s calling on and modeling for us the necessity to talk about and engage, even with the unthinkable… and to be in conversation not only in spite of, but sometimes because it’s unthinkable.

🔷 So these “Jamie Raskin elements” — engaging and talking-with rather than at or from a detached distance, and willingness or even caring insistence on addressing the unthinkable out loud — can be useful cues as we read, listen and watch for depth and soul dimensions in stories and people in the news.

Which brings me to the third image and theme to read and listen for.

love, fear and leaps of soul

This powerful first-person piece is by young Inaugural Poet Amanda Gorman: “Why I Almost Didn’t Read My Poem at the Inauguration.” (In The New York Times)

“It’s told like this: Amanda Gorman performed at the inauguration, and the rest is history. The truth is I almost declined to be the inaugural poet. Why? I was terrified…

… The night before I was to give the Inaugural Committee my final decision felt like the longest of my life…

… And then it struck me: Maybe being brave enough doesn’t mean lessening my fear, but listening to it. I closed my eyes in bed and let myself utter all the leviathans that scared me, both monstrous and minuscule. What stood out most of all was the worry that I’d spend the rest of my life wondering what this poem could have achieved. There was only one way to find out…

I’m a firm believer that often terror is trying to tell us of a force far greater than despair. In this way, I look at fear not as cowardice but as a call forward, a summons to fight for what we hold dear. And now more than ever, we have every right to be affected, afflicted, affronted. If you’re alive, you’re afraid. If you’re not afraid, then you’re not paying attention. The only thing we have to fear is having no fear itself — having no feeling on behalf of whom and what we’ve lost, whom and what we love…”

These excerpts don’t do it justice and I highly recommend reading the full essay. It may be the most important thing I’ve seen or read in news this week, from both the individual and national soul and the historic perspectives. How unthinkable to imagine her — or the many others such as King — not having done it, the beautiful leap-of-soul taken not despite the fear, but in response to it.

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state of the soul, soul of the state

With these ideas and themes in mind and the State of the Union address looming, it’s a natural time for newShrink to be looking in coming weeks at the state of the soul and soul of the state/the democracy. Below, today’s Notebook presents some categories for this with a sample or two of stories and a few comments here. For space and Substack-technology reasons, the links and more stories, with some guiding notes, are on the website:

The 1.9.22 piece titled The Sacred, The Profane… and Candles in our Windows is on the website under Archives. You can access this and links to all related news and items mentioned here on the website by clicking the couch logo at the top of this email or directly from a browser to newshrink.substack.com. The news-links post is titled News Haul Sunday 1.23.22.

state of equality: voting rights and racial equity

During the week honoring Martin Luther King’s legacy, the large and terribly ironic story has been the Senate’s refusal — and the President’s and fellow Democrats’ failure to overcome it — to pass much-needed and publicly popular voting rights legislation. The political fight was complicated, and smoke-screened, by a battle over changes to the filibuster.

“Republicans block action on voting rights legislation again, setting the stage for a filibuster showdown.” (From the New York Times).

It’s been a week of many and multi-faceted stories along racial-equity themes ranging from diversity in workplaces and prominent federal institutions to coverage both hopeful and discouraging about court rulings on political gerrymandering in Republican-led states. A broad selection of these is browsable on the website.

And my favorite video of the week is in this topic category from CBS News Sunday, Steve Hartman’s On the Road piece:

“An interracial couple was forced to break up. Four decades later, they’ve rekindled their romance.”

Caveat: It’s happy though bittersweet, for the man was physically bedridden, though mentally fine, and in a nursing home by the time she’d found him. They have happily reconnected, moved him to her house and it looks like they’ll marry.

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state of the Presidency, the President, and the Congress

With the Thursday anniversary of the Inauguration this is the category in which all stories are ultimately about Joe Biden’s first year in office. And the thrust of attention and focus is inevitably on politically useful rifts and shortcomings. The Thursday press conference, at nearly two hours reported longest in history, marks the President’s official start of attempted resets of his administration’s course:

“President Biden Holds Rare Formal Press Conference to Mark his 1st Year in Office” (from NPR.)

A wide variety of other stories is browsable on the website. I highlight the one below as the most vivid negative-coverage example… and rather absurd visual treatment.

“Biden Ends First Year as President with ‘Bleak, Discouraging’ Marks from the Public.” (From NBC News Meet the Press.)

Is this from the darkest shadows of news coverage?! The President in unflattering, near-alarming black silhouette profile on white, literally a dark shadow. The entire text background in black with text reversed-out in white? The only things worse than the graphics are the tone, unbalanced choice of headline quotes from openly partisan sources and breathless-horserace quality of this story. Venerable Meet the Press, and NBC News, what are you thinking?

The story’s reporting on Biden’s abysmal approval numbers in key categories ranging from management of COVID, inflation, the economy, voting rights, unifying a divided nation etc. speaks for itself. The hyperbole just weakens the content and, especially, source credibility.

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Among some stones of hope have been victories for accountability in the January 6 Insurrection:

“In Rebuke to Trump, Supreme Court Allows Release of Jan. 6 Files” (NYT) and

“11 Oath Keepers face rare charge of seditious conspiracy.”(From the Associated Press in The Charlotte Observer.)

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state of the press

Not surprisingly this category is an aspect of democracy or soul of the state deeply important to me and to newShrink. And this particularly heartbreaking version of a daily-newspaper trend has even more personal significance for me:

“These mass shooting survivors were called journalism heroes. Then the buyouts came.” (The Washington Post.)                                        

Capital Gazette reporters were once the face of the First Amendment. What happened over the next three years?

🌀I knew journalists at The Capital Gazette in Maryland, where the June 2018 shooting was one of the worst attacks on a newspaper in American history.

🌀That day I happened to be at a week-long, large Jungian psychology conference in Portland, OR, where I was to present to other psychologists my newShrink rationale and approach for examining news and news figures more like journalists, like scholars, and like depth psychologists.

🌀My talk was well-received, and the conference and fellow attendees interesting and enjoyable, though this was not a news-hound or journalist crowd focused on this or other news underway.

🌀From the day of the midweek shooting, at every break I was the attendee walking miles of the downtown Portland streets and weeping at the site of what was that rare American city’s remaining daily newspaper building downtown — a gloriously huge, sparkling white and beautiful presence.

🌀That experience solidified for me much of what newShrink’s direction and scope was and is to be; it intensified my, and thus newShrink’s, deep connection with my original journalist-roots as foundational.

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Encouraging for the state of the press category, columnist David Brooks writes on his thought-provoking, soul-feeding annual Sidney Awards. (NYT)

“At the end of every year, I pause from the rush of events to offer the Sidney Awards, which I created in honor of the late, great philosopher Sidney Hook. The Sidneys go to some of the year’s best long-form journalism — the essays that touch the deeper human realities. During this shapeless year, waiting endlessly for this pandemic to be over, I’ve found myself drawn to stories of fascinating individuals.”

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“Everything is broken (and how to fix it)” Taking off from the title’s daunting beginning, this inspiring piece in Tablet is from Alana Newhouse, one of Brooks’ Sidney Award winners.

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state of the pandemic

This is another category of many, often contradictory, news developments with variations of geography, state vs federal policy and deep political divides adding to the mayhem. A main, fairly clear-cut story this month came from the high court:

“Supreme Court blocks Biden's vaccine-or-test mandate for large private companies” (From NPR’s Nina Totenberg.)

And yet, meanwhile… in many areas COVID cases soar, overwhelming entire hospital systems in multiple states with the unvaccinated seriously ill, again last week requiring deployment of military medical personnel to assist.

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The New York Times may be a bit optimistic as yet for most parts of the country. (And whether it is surging, in retreat, or both it results in plunging approval ratings for the President.)

“Omicron Is in Retreat” (NYT)

“Omicron May Peak Soon in NC, Local Doctors Say” (The Charlotte Observer)

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Unflappable Dr. Fauci’s last remaining nerve finally succumbed to a Kansas Senator and a hot mic:

“You’re so misinformed that it’s extraordinary… (off camera but on mic: What a moron.” (AP)

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state of the judiciary

U.S. Supreme Court — More like the ‘40s “nine scorpions in a bottle” with every session?

The Washington Post, NPR and other outlets also reported on this and the court’s efforts to smooth over the flap over Justice Gorsuch’s noticed appearances as the sole mask-free member of the Court. NPR and Totenberg stand by their reporting on this and I tend to agree. She’s a seasoned veteran not given to hyperbole or to compromising long developed trusted source relationships. Chief Justice Roberts and members have an increasingly shaky reputation to shore up. Maybe it’s not a ‘40’s era “bottle of of scorpions.” Yet. This story has interesting reporting on relational and power dynamics within this Court along with fascinating comparisons to that of the ‘40s.

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"Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court?” (from The New Yorker’s brilliant Jane Mayer.) This one has so many deeply important layers and dimensions it merits a later full segment, or perhaps even Shrink-wrap if Justice Thomas’ #MeToo issues are included.

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state of religion

I recommend the NPR story on “Christian Nationalism” as a chilling and important twist in far-right politics. The reporter goes deeply into both evangelical “nationalist” and inclusive liberal churches probing similarities and contrasts — with the prospects for common ground and even co-existence increasingly challenging to both sides. I did wish the story included a comparable look at more urban, liberal and social-justice Christian churches as also examples of what the story calls “mainstream".

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Now for my choice of photo-irony: This was a guy officially known worldwide as “His ‘Holiness?’

…. rather than this guy?

“Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Master and Political Reformer, Dies at 95” (NYT)

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state of the psyche

Here and more in weeks ahead we’ll look more closely in this category at both individual and collective, and from clinical/mental health to depth psychological dimensions. For now here is:

“The Mental Health Toll of Trump-Era Politics.” (Columnist Michelle Goldberg of The New York Times)

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I will hold another recent (New Yorker) piece relevant to this category for another week or so. It is antithetical to so much I know and deeply believe, particularly regarding universal human suffering, trauma and the archetypal sacred, that it’s still “too hot.” I need more time to separate my need to fume from clearly assessing some very sloppy reporting and poorly argued ideas.

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Finally to a lighter note, I'll leave you with a playful paraphrase of Jung:

“bidden or not, soul comes in” …to Wordle?!

In case you’ve been hibernating or on a media fast, you’re seeing images like this everywhere. Worldle has jumped social media and talk-show level to news:

“This is your brain on Wordle.” (NPR this past Science Friday)

“Wordle is a Love Story.” (The New York Times). This IT tech sort of New York guy just created it for his puzzle-loving girlfriend and keeps it no-frills, -hype or -$.

“What’s behind the Wordle CRAZE?” (NPR)

My Connecticut reader and cousin Karen Davis knew how to hook me a couple of weeks ago by describing it as “kind of a Rorschach” daily snapshot of the psyche. (She’s a seriously educated PhD specializing in uber-linear-logical areas like tax accounting. We greatly enjoy our richly different/complementary minds and conversations.)

🌀 Not wanting another thing involving strategy or logic in my days, from the start I blindly stumbled to the solution: “ABBEY.” Then I headed out for my run… throughout which came the ear-worm song from The Sound of Music, "How do you solve a problem like Maria?” (This prompted funny mental pictures of myself when attempting too-somber or too ivory-tower versions of holiness. It also inspired a short browse of the real historical figure Maria von Trapp whose story and the family’s Nazi-era history are interesting.)

🌀More generally that silly ear-worm illustrated Wordle as excellent, quick and playful tool for forming a habit of inviting-in and paying attention to the unconscious psyche. It could be a fun exploration for those who are curious and don’t have, or have difficulty doing, a dream practice.

🌀So now I begin every Wordle with my favorite personal mantra-prayer-like word (which happens to be 5 letters.) Then I just pay attention and play with the words that come up like images in dreams, song ear-worms or synchronistic experiences. By intention I don’t focus strategically on vowels, consonants etc.

🌀I have since been on a 9 out of 9 streak; so it seems so far my mantra-word is guiding, or I am listening, well! As valuable as solutions are the glimpses each appearing word gives to what is most “up” for me that day and time.

🌀And when you solve, the green tiles do that cool quivery thing. It feels like the sweet spot in a tennis tournament sounds. (I’d have no idea how one of those feels…)

🌀Best of all, it’s 3-5 minutes at only one shot a day and it’s free.

And, that is all I have! Talk to you next week.

🦋💙tish

🌀🔵🔷🦋💙

… it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”

Camellia season!