The Offline Report

California life chronicler John Steinbeck wrote diary entries each day before and after writing chapters of his best known book, "Grapes of Wrath", his eighth novel which won the Pulitzer Prize. The diary which begins February 1938 before he writes the first page, continues through Oct. 25, 1938 when he finishes the last page, and ends with a January 30 1941 entry, eleven months before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The diary was published after his death, at his request . A reader's hindsight knowledge throws Steinbecks' sporadic observations of current events into relief. The first mention of brewing European and Pacific conflicts appears in his June 16th, 1938 entry. Steinbeck orients himself to where in the pre-planned story he is, what he needs to write next. He purges to the page mind clutter from the night before, describes a dream he had, and describes an impression of distant, bombastic global leaders (March 12, 1938, Hitler had annexed Austria into Germany, 1

I snail-mailed a holiday letter to friends with article links that I believe prepare us for the turbulence ahead. I was careful not to preach. I see some problems developing, that I've watched develop over the last decade. I see a few solutions. I sometimes am struck with a panic - if we solve all three problem areas, will life be suddenly boring and adventureless? There must be a German word for such a fear. Like "scheudenfraude" but a word that means "the fear of civility-induced boredom that only arises in the space of continually escalating mayhem." Of course life will still be bearable with civility-induced ennui. I mean to say: of course life will be bearable should civility break out. In the wake of solved problems, there will be a vacuum, which will be excruciating and make us want to revert to the excitement of apocalyptic weather, violence, tragedy and news headlines that make us feel so alive. Honestly, how would you sell civility to people addicted

Wednesday, Jan 8, 2020 How Rupert Murdoch Is Influencing Australia’s Bushfire Debate Critics see a concerted effort to shift blame, protect conservative leaders and divert attention from climate change:     nytimes.com This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License .