letting the past be past

Letting the past be past news:

-- Generally, I skim three news sites early in the day -- MyWayNews (largely AP stuff); the BBC, and Reuters... The New York Times is too proprietary and The Washington Post is a mess, so I generally skip them. Today, not one of them provided a Veterans Day story in its headline offerings. With so much 'we-need-more' war in the present, perhaps it is understandable that recollections of past anguish should be relegated to a back burner.

-- In a sign the U.S. may be rethinking its somewhat arrogant intrusions, the State Department has begun a pullback in covert 'democracy' efforts in hostile countries. It's probably not a bad idea, but it does open the door to more violent initiatives -- the stuff that creates 'hero' veterans -- as I see it.

-- An Associated Press story points out that some have escaped the increasingly painful wealth gap by moving out of the hometowns that nourished them: There are jobs to be had ... but elsewhere. "Home" has always been a tricky business, but there is a nostalgia for the places where people learned to ride bicycles.

-- A review of the handling of allegations of child abuse by prominent figures [including politicians] has found no evidence that records were deliberately removed or destroyed.

Ministers asked the head of the NSPCC to examine how the Home Office dealt with files alleging abuse from 1979-99. (Bracketed info added from elsewhere)

-- This morning, my wife said I had taken to getting up in the middle of the night. In the past, getting up meant staying up somehow. Now, by contrast, I have completely forgotten my middle-of-the-night trips. Completely forgotten ... it's unnerving, not least because I take a pain pill during the foray and I don't like taking pills without attention and recollection.