#thewashingtonpost — Public Fediverse posts

https://www.europesays.com/it/673305/ Vaccini o scuola? La Corte Suprema americana sceglie la salute pubblica #CorteSupremaDegliStatiUniti #Health #IT #Italia #Italy #JaneDoe #Legge119/2017 #mcdonald #morbillo #NeilGorsuch #NewYork #Salute #SamuelAlito #TheWashingtonPost

https://www.europesays.com/iran/283764/ Gulf nations build defenses and aim to bypass Hormuz as Iran war drags on #AbuDhabi #Gargash #gulf #Hormuz #Iran #Iran"remains #iranian #miller #PersianGulf #StraitOfHormuz #TheWashingtonPost #trump #USNavy #US #UnitedArabEmirates

Hezbollah Terrorist Who Worked As A Pro-Terror Journalist Eliminated By Israel

While Israel has been working alongside Trump’s America in the military operations against the Islamic terrorist regime of Iran, it also has been fighting the Hezbollah terrorists north of Israel. One of the Hezbollah terrorists that Israel eliminated recently in Lebanon had also worked as an journalist who abused his media resources to expose presence of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) by the Israel-Lebanon border, according to a news report by The Jerusalem Post. Apart from the terrorist-journalist, Israel also eliminated two senior commanders of Hezbollah.

To put things in perspective, posted below is an excerpt from the news report of The Jerusalem Post. Some parts in boldface…

The IDF killed a Hezbollah terrorist who also worked for Lebanese news outlet Al Manar in an airstrike on Saturday morning.

Ali Hassan Shaib, a terrorist in the intelligence unit of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, also worked for Al Manar, where he used his position as a journalist to expose IDF positions in southern Lebanon and along the border.

The IDF asserted that he maintained contact with terrorists within the Radwan Force and across the broader Hezbollah terrorist organization.

Notably, Al Manar is a Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese news outlet and is used by the terror organization to disseminate propaganda.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the incident, claiming that the strike “violates the most basic principles of international law, international humanitarian law, and the laws of war.”

“This is a blatant crime that violates all norms and conventions under which journalists are protected. We call on all international bodies to take action to stop what is happening on our soil,” Aoun added.

IDF kills senior Hezbollah commanders in overnight strikes – Additionally, the IDF carried out overnight strikes in Lebanon that killed two senior Hezbollah commanders and damaged dozens of terror sites across the country.

In a targeted strike in Beirut on Friday, the IDF said it eliminated Ayyoub Hussein Yaacoub, a senior figure in Hezbollah’s communications unit who previously held a key role in the organization’s rocket unit and was involved in directing launches toward Israel.

Yasser Mohammad Mubarak, another senior operative in the group’s communications unit, who also held a position in the rocket unit, was also killed, according to the IDF.

Separately, Israeli forces struck dozens of Hezbollah sites across southern Lebanon throughout the weekend, the military said, targeting weapons depots, launchers, and military infrastructure as part of ongoing efforts to degrade the group’s operational capabilities. The attacks were conducted from both air and sea in support of ground troops operating in the area.

On Saturday afternoon, the IDF issued an evacuation warning to several villages in southern Lebanon and urged residents to relocate north of the Zahrani River. The directive, announced by the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Col. Avichay Adraee, seems to apply to multiple areas, including Rashidieh, al-Bas, and Wadi Jilo.

I am not surprised at all that another Islamic terrorist did additional duty as a so-called journalist. Remember the Palestinian terrorists in Gaza who posed as journalists with those “Press” or “Media” signs on their front? Those guys and the Hezbollah terrorist-journalist are nothing more than Islamic terrorist propagandists pretending to be journalists. In short, they were blatant liars who spread misinformation, fear and genocidal content through traditional media channels and social media. They were trained to lie to the world and manipulate many to hate Israel while supporting Islamic terrorists. The sad fact is that corrupt mainstream news media outlets like CNN, Agence France-Presse (AFP), Reuters, the Associated Press (AP), The Washington Post, The New York Times and many others amplified the lies of the Islamic terrorist propagandists.

For other updates about what has been going lately in the Middle East, watch the YouTube news videos below.

https://youtu.be/YSrk3Zw_Hfo?si=Fd9-iPGav46mw8QU

https://youtu.be/8oB0-lRq0Ns?si=mvEteX1bKn17PeE1

https://youtu.be/hc–wqP_Z1g?si=S4sSGZr6kRKYA9yh

https://www.youtube.com/live/XZhL2hucIVo?si=_YieBF5ZjQj55dSk

Let me end this piece by asking you readers: What is your reaction to this development? Do you think the successful strikes by Israel’s Air Force made the Islamic terrorist regime of Iran less capable of developing nuclear material for its weapons? How long do you think the war against Iran will last? What do you think America and Israel should do to find the launchers of Iran’s heavy missiles?

You may answer in the comments below. If you prefer to answer privately, you may do so by sending me a direct message online.

+++++

Thank you for reading. If you find this article engaging, please click the like button below, share this article to others and also please consider making a donation to support my publishing. If you are looking for a copywriter to create content for your special project or business, check out my services and my portfolio. Feel free to contact me with a private message. Also please feel free to visit my Facebook page Author Carlo Carrasco and follow me on Twitter at  @HavenorFantasy as well as on Tumblr at https://carlocarrasco.tumblr.com/ and on Instagram athttps://www.instagram.com/authorcarlocarrasco

Hezbollah Terrorist Who Worked As A Pro-Terror Journalist Eliminated By Israel

While Israel has been working alongside Trump’s America in the military operations against the Islamic terrorist regime of Iran, it also has been fighting the Hezbollah terrorists north of Israel. One of the Hezbollah terrorists that Israel eliminated recently in Lebanon had also worked as an journalist who abused his media resources to expose presence of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) by the Israel-Lebanon border, according to a news report by The Jerusalem Post. Apart from the terrorist-journalist, Israel also eliminated two senior commanders of Hezbollah.

To put things in perspective, posted below is an excerpt from the news report of The Jerusalem Post. Some parts in boldface…

The IDF killed a Hezbollah terrorist who also worked for Lebanese news outlet Al Manar in an airstrike on Saturday morning.

Ali Hassan Shaib, a terrorist in the intelligence unit of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, also worked for Al Manar, where he used his position as a journalist to expose IDF positions in southern Lebanon and along the border.

The IDF asserted that he maintained contact with terrorists within the Radwan Force and across the broader Hezbollah terrorist organization.

Notably, Al Manar is a Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese news outlet and is used by the terror organization to disseminate propaganda.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the incident, claiming that the strike “violates the most basic principles of international law, international humanitarian law, and the laws of war.”

“This is a blatant crime that violates all norms and conventions under which journalists are protected. We call on all international bodies to take action to stop what is happening on our soil,” Aoun added.

IDF kills senior Hezbollah commanders in overnight strikes – Additionally, the IDF carried out overnight strikes in Lebanon that killed two senior Hezbollah commanders and damaged dozens of terror sites across the country.

In a targeted strike in Beirut on Friday, the IDF said it eliminated Ayyoub Hussein Yaacoub, a senior figure in Hezbollah’s communications unit who previously held a key role in the organization’s rocket unit and was involved in directing launches toward Israel.

Yasser Mohammad Mubarak, another senior operative in the group’s communications unit, who also held a position in the rocket unit, was also killed, according to the IDF.

Separately, Israeli forces struck dozens of Hezbollah sites across southern Lebanon throughout the weekend, the military said, targeting weapons depots, launchers, and military infrastructure as part of ongoing efforts to degrade the group’s operational capabilities. The attacks were conducted from both air and sea in support of ground troops operating in the area.

On Saturday afternoon, the IDF issued an evacuation warning to several villages in southern Lebanon and urged residents to relocate north of the Zahrani River. The directive, announced by the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Col. Avichay Adraee, seems to apply to multiple areas, including Rashidieh, al-Bas, and Wadi Jilo.

I am not surprised at all that another Islamic terrorist did additional duty as a so-called journalist. Remember the Palestinian terrorists in Gaza who posed as journalists with those “Press” or “Media” signs on their front? Those guys and the Hezbollah terrorist-journalist are nothing more than Islamic terrorist propagandists pretending to be journalists. In short, they were blatant liars who spread misinformation, fear and genocidal content through traditional media channels and social media. They were trained to lie to the world and manipulate many to hate Israel while supporting Islamic terrorists. The sad fact is that corrupt mainstream news media outlets like CNN, Agence France-Presse (AFP), Reuters, the Associated Press (AP), The Washington Post, The New York Times and many others amplified the lies of the Islamic terrorist propagandists.

For other updates about what has been going lately in the Middle East, watch the YouTube news videos below.

https://youtu.be/YSrk3Zw_Hfo?si=Fd9-iPGav46mw8QU

https://youtu.be/8oB0-lRq0Ns?si=mvEteX1bKn17PeE1

https://youtu.be/hc–wqP_Z1g?si=S4sSGZr6kRKYA9yh

https://www.youtube.com/live/XZhL2hucIVo?si=_YieBF5ZjQj55dSk

Let me end this piece by asking you readers: What is your reaction to this development? Do you think the successful strikes by Israel’s Air Force made the Islamic terrorist regime of Iran less capable of developing nuclear material for its weapons? How long do you think the war against Iran will last? What do you think America and Israel should do to find the launchers of Iran’s heavy missiles?

You may answer in the comments below. If you prefer to answer privately, you may do so by sending me a direct message online.

+++++

Thank you for reading. If you find this article engaging, please click the like button below, share this article to others and also please consider making a donation to support my publishing. If you are looking for a copywriter to create content for your special project or business, check out my services and my portfolio. Feel free to contact me with a private message. Also please feel free to visit my Facebook page Author Carlo Carrasco and follow me on Twitter at  @HavenorFantasy as well as on Tumblr at https://carlocarrasco.tumblr.com/ and on Instagram athttps://www.instagram.com/authorcarlocarrasco

Hezbollah Terrorist Who Worked As A Pro-Terror Journalist Eliminated By Israel

While Israel has been working alongside Trump’s America in the military operations against the Islamic terrorist regime of Iran, it also has been fighting the Hezbollah terrorists north of Israel. One of the Hezbollah terrorists that Israel eliminated recently in Lebanon had also worked as an journalist who abused his media resources to expose presence of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) by the Israel-Lebanon border, according to a news report by The Jerusalem Post. Apart from the terrorist-journalist, Israel also eliminated two senior commanders of Hezbollah.

To put things in perspective, posted below is an excerpt from the news report of The Jerusalem Post. Some parts in boldface…

The IDF killed a Hezbollah terrorist who also worked for Lebanese news outlet Al Manar in an airstrike on Saturday morning.

Ali Hassan Shaib, a terrorist in the intelligence unit of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, also worked for Al Manar, where he used his position as a journalist to expose IDF positions in southern Lebanon and along the border.

The IDF asserted that he maintained contact with terrorists within the Radwan Force and across the broader Hezbollah terrorist organization.

Notably, Al Manar is a Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese news outlet and is used by the terror organization to disseminate propaganda.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the incident, claiming that the strike “violates the most basic principles of international law, international humanitarian law, and the laws of war.”

“This is a blatant crime that violates all norms and conventions under which journalists are protected. We call on all international bodies to take action to stop what is happening on our soil,” Aoun added.

IDF kills senior Hezbollah commanders in overnight strikes – Additionally, the IDF carried out overnight strikes in Lebanon that killed two senior Hezbollah commanders and damaged dozens of terror sites across the country.

In a targeted strike in Beirut on Friday, the IDF said it eliminated Ayyoub Hussein Yaacoub, a senior figure in Hezbollah’s communications unit who previously held a key role in the organization’s rocket unit and was involved in directing launches toward Israel.

Yasser Mohammad Mubarak, another senior operative in the group’s communications unit, who also held a position in the rocket unit, was also killed, according to the IDF.

Separately, Israeli forces struck dozens of Hezbollah sites across southern Lebanon throughout the weekend, the military said, targeting weapons depots, launchers, and military infrastructure as part of ongoing efforts to degrade the group’s operational capabilities. The attacks were conducted from both air and sea in support of ground troops operating in the area.

On Saturday afternoon, the IDF issued an evacuation warning to several villages in southern Lebanon and urged residents to relocate north of the Zahrani River. The directive, announced by the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Col. Avichay Adraee, seems to apply to multiple areas, including Rashidieh, al-Bas, and Wadi Jilo.

I am not surprised at all that another Islamic terrorist did additional duty as a so-called journalist. Remember the Palestinian terrorists in Gaza who posed as journalists with those “Press” or “Media” signs on their front? Those guys and the Hezbollah terrorist-journalist are nothing more than Islamic terrorist propagandists pretending to be journalists. In short, they were blatant liars who spread misinformation, fear and genocidal content through traditional media channels and social media. They were trained to lie to the world and manipulate many to hate Israel while supporting Islamic terrorists. The sad fact is that corrupt mainstream news media outlets like CNN, Agence France-Presse (AFP), Reuters, the Associated Press (AP), The Washington Post, The New York Times and many others amplified the lies of the Islamic terrorist propagandists.

For other updates about what has been going lately in the Middle East, watch the YouTube news videos below.

https://youtu.be/YSrk3Zw_Hfo?si=Fd9-iPGav46mw8QU

https://youtu.be/8oB0-lRq0Ns?si=mvEteX1bKn17PeE1

https://youtu.be/hc–wqP_Z1g?si=S4sSGZr6kRKYA9yh

https://www.youtube.com/live/XZhL2hucIVo?si=_YieBF5ZjQj55dSk

Let me end this piece by asking you readers: What is your reaction to this development? Do you think the successful strikes by Israel’s Air Force made the Islamic terrorist regime of Iran less capable of developing nuclear material for its weapons? How long do you think the war against Iran will last? What do you think America and Israel should do to find the launchers of Iran’s heavy missiles?

You may answer in the comments below. If you prefer to answer privately, you may do so by sending me a direct message online.

+++++

Thank you for reading. If you find this article engaging, please click the like button below, share this article to others and also please consider making a donation to support my publishing. If you are looking for a copywriter to create content for your special project or business, check out my services and my portfolio. Feel free to contact me with a private message. Also please feel free to visit my Facebook page Author Carlo Carrasco and follow me on Twitter at  @HavenorFantasy as well as on Tumblr at https://carlocarrasco.tumblr.com/ and on Instagram athttps://www.instagram.com/authorcarlocarrasco

Did Israel drag Trump and the US to war with Iran?

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-f-brown/did-israel-drag-trump-and-us-war-iran

A National Newspaper Falls — and Democracy Feels It

Why the Dismantling of The Washington Post Is a National Warning

By DrWeb, assisted by AI. All content, images edited and approved. Some images are also public domain, as noted in the captions.

On February 4, 2026, the American people lost a vital organ of their democracy. It didn’t happen in a courtroom or through a legislative act; it happened on a Zoom call.

When Executive Editor Matt Murray and CEO Will Lewis announced the termination of over 300 journalists—one-third of a newsroom that once stood as the world’s watchdog—they used the bloodless language of corporate “restructuring.” They spoke of search engine algorithms, the rise of Generative AI, and the “disappointing realities” of the media market. But we must see through the fog. This was not a business adjustment; it was a surrender.

The Washington Post has, for over 150 years, been a “living laboratory” of modern journalism. It was the place where the impossible stories were told, where “Darkness” was fought with a relentless, expensive, and often dangerous pursuit of the truth. By gutting the foreign desks and local Metro coverage, leadership has essentially declared that the world—and the citizens of the nation’s capital—no longer deserve to be seen.

II. A Legacy Forged in Fire: Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

To understand the depth of this betrayal, one must remember what the Washington Post used to be. In 1971, the paper faced a choice that would define the First Amendment for a generation. When the Nixon administration secured an injunction against the New York Times to stop the publication of the Pentagon Papers, it was Katherine Graham and Ben Bradlee who stepped into the breach.

They knew that publishing those top-secret documents—which proved the government had systematically lied about the Vietnam War—could lead to criminal charges or the financial ruin of the paper. They did it anyway. They understood that the press’s duty is to the governed, not the governors. That Post saved this country by exposing the “GIGO (Garbage in, Garbage out” of the military-industrial complex. It proved that a newsroom, armed with the truth and the courage to print it, could stop a war machine. Today, that same newsroom is being hollowed out by a billionaire who appears more concerned with federal contracts than with the legacy of Graham.

III. The Specter of Anticipatory Obedience

The layoffs of 2026 are the completion of a bow toward power that began in October 2024. When Jeff Bezos spiked the Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, he was signaling a pivot toward compliance.

As his other companies —Amazon and Blue Origin— depend on massive federal contracts, the Post’s editorial independence has become a “rounding error” on a billionaire’s balance sheet. We are seeing a return to the dark days of “anticipatory obedience,” where the press silences itself to avoid the wrath of a vengeful administration. When the reporter covering Amazon itself is among the first to be fired, the watchdog is no longer guarding the public; it is guarding the owner.

IV. The Human Cost: Fired in a War Zone

The cruelty of these layoffs is exemplified by the case of Lizzie Johnson. A dedicated Ukraine correspondent, Johnson was notified of her layoff while on the ground in a war zone—working without heat or power in sub-zero temperatures to bring the reality of the Russian invasion to American doorsteps. To fire a journalist while they are literally under fire is the ultimate indictment of modern corporate “news.” By erasing the entire Middle East roster, the Post is blinding the American public to global realities at a moment when awareness is a matter of national survival.

V. What Can We Do?

My small site, a small but growing blog, remains (for now) a small, independent voice, but we are not silent, nor will we be. The death of the Post as we knew it means the burden of truth-seeking falls back onto We the People, and other media, and the resources they can use to report news and facts and fact-checking.

• Follow the Outcasts: Support the 300+ journalists who still have the truth but have lost their platform. [See below for the listings we have already of fired staff.]
• Reject the “New” Post: If a “Doorway” to truth is corrupted by billionaire interests, and with a man with real authoritarian impulses on a hair trigger, it is no longer a doorway; it is a wall. For me, the Post now has DO NOT ENTER signs.
• Fund Independent Journalism: Our American Democratic Republic depends on newsrooms that are not beholden to corporate authorities. Find voices that sound the missing pieces again, loud as we can.

Names and Work Areas for the Post Wednesday Massacre

While the Washington Post has not released a formal master list of the 300+ employees affected by the February 4, 2026 layoffs, many journalists and editors have confirmed their departures publicly. Source of this information: Google’s Gemini.

Below is a compiled listing of names and roles identified through newsroom reports and public statements as of today, February 5, 2026.

International & Foreign Desks

The entire Middle East team and several major foreign bureaus were reportedly eliminated.

Technology & Corporate Coverage

These cuts notably included reporters covering Jeff Bezos’s own company, Amazon.

Metro & Local Coverage (D.C., MD, VA)

The Metro desk was reduced from over 40 staffers to approximately 12.

Specialty Desks (Sports, Books, Culture)

The Sports and Books sections were shuttered as standalone departments.

Editor’s Note: Contact me via the About Page to remove your name or information from this listing.

Tactical Notes

• The “AI Strategy”: Executive Editor Matt Murray explicitly cited AI-generated content and declining search traffic as the primary reasons for this “strategic reset.”
• The Sports Desk Legacy: The shuttering of the High School Sports operation ends a department that had run for over 100 years.
• Ideological Critique: Several departing reporters, including Emmanuel Felton, have publicly challenged the “financial” necessity of the move, characterizing it instead as an ideological shift.

Multimedia Evidence

The Defense of Silence: Watch Jeff Bezos’s direct response to the endorsement crisis that served as the harbinger for this dismantling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=007rGogqDNo

[WATCH] Jeff Bezos defends the Washington Post’s decision

The Fourth Estate (Our Media) Responded as well.. they see what is being done to a legacy national newspaper, over politics and money. It did not fail in its mission. It was no longer allowed to be the Post.
Below is a PDF snapshot of Google News coverage (late night, 2/4/26). You can see the headlines and the sources and the reactions. –DrWeb

Bibliography (MLA Style)

• Baron, Martin. 28 Oct. 2024. “Marty Baron, former Washington Post editor, slams paper’s non-endorsement.” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piGipOLJc2g.
• Folkenflik, David. 28 Oct. 2024. “The Washington Post bleeds subscriptions as Bezos responds to endorsement criticism.” NPR, https://www.npr.org/2024/10/28/nx-s1-5168449/washington-post-subscriptions-cancel-jeff-bezos-endorsement.
• Kagan, Robert. 25 Oct. 2024. “Washington Post editor-at-large resigns over Bezos’ decision. He explains why.” CNN, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIYdQS9Plw0.
• Serna, Alene. 26 Oct. 2024. “Washington Post stirs up fury in liberal America over neutral election stance.” The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/oct/26/washington-post-stirs-up-fury-in-liberal-america-over-neutral-election-stance.

SEE ALSO: Additional Deep-Dive Sources

• Columbia Journalism Review. 15 May 2023. “Journalism’s Essential Value: Objectivity and Independence.” CJR, https://www.cjr.org/special_report/ag-sulzberger-new-york-times-journalisms-essential-value-objectivity-independence.php.
• Nieman Journalism Lab. 31 Dec. 2025. “How Jeff Bezos used to talk about The Washington Post, and what’s changed.” Nieman Lab, https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/something-i-will-be-most-proud-of-when-im-90-how-jeff-bezos-used-to-talk-about-the-washington-post-and-whats-changed/.
• Sullivan, Margaret. 4 Sept. 2025. “Times Change, and So Can Ethics.” Columbia Journalism Review, https://www.cjr.org/analysis/times-change-and-so-can-journalism-ethics.php.
• Tani, Max. 28 Oct. 2024. “Four Washington Post opinion staffers have now resigned their roles over the non-endorsement controversy.” Semafor via Nieman Lab, https://www.niemanlab.org/reading/four-washington-post-opinion-staffers-have-now-resigned-their-roles-over-the-non-endorsement-controversy/.

Additional Historical Links

• Post History: Pentagon Papers & Watergate
• Folkenflik: The Metro Desk Bloodbath
• O’Donovan: Covering Amazon vs. Bezos
• Parker: The Murder of the Cairo Bureau
• Post Guild Union Statement
• Johnson: Fired in a War Zone
• Sullivan: Will Bezos Destroy the Post?
• Western Media’s Global Retreat
• Tani: Shuttering the Sports Section
• Historical Timeline of The Post

Comic: Crossing the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2 – The Washington Post

Travel

7 nights at sea aboard the last grand ocean liner

The Queen Mary 2 keeps a romantic age of transatlantic sailing alive.

By Christine Mi, November 3, 2025 at 5:00 a.m. EST, Yesterday at 5:00 a.m. EST, 10 min

Mi wrote and illustrated this comic after spending seven nights aboard the Queen Mary 2.

This summer, I made a voyage from New York to England in the only remaining passenger ship of its kind: the Queen Mary 2.

Cunard’s flagship promises to be exceptional. The luxury cruise line’s website lavishes the vessel with praise: “sumptuous,” “legendary,” “astonishing.” YouTube is full of breathless videos about its glamour and romance, hearkening to the golden days of ocean travel.

It’s technically an ocean liner, not a cruise ship — which is how I rationalized the $2,000 ticket.

For centuries, the transatlantic passage was life-changing for millions of travelers — including the immigrants and enslaved people who made the perilous journey. By the 19th century, it had become fairly reliable thanks to steam engines, which quickly ushered in an era of ocean liners, each grander than the last. But the ocean was still vast and willful, and each crossing felt like a small victory against an ancient, behemoth force.

I found myself seduced by the idea. I was going to sail more than 3,000 miles to a new continent and experience the true immensity of the act. I felt ready — I had already crossed America by train.

This was going to be inspiring, profound. Like the Titanic, I was destined for greatness at sea.

About 30 hours later, stuffed with buffet food, seated heavily in plush velvet chairs and watching lithe dancers performing “Be Our Guest” in tight spandex and even tighter smiles, I already found my spirit flagging.

A luxury liner designed to entertain thousands of passengers is nothing like an intimate train car on an aging rail system. It’s designed to be, well, a cruise — with the peculiar kind of dull, aching restlessness that accompanies a life stripped of all friction and responsibility.

So, for seven days, unmoored in the high seas, I slowly lost my mind.

On a searing July day, I took a car about 10 minutes from my apartment to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. In spectacularly unsexy fashion, I fell victim to an online U.K. visa scam while in line to board, and I missed all the grand welcomes while trying to sort out my hiccup.

By the time I was done dealing with my credit card company, we had started pulling away. I watched the Statue of Liberty disappear into the distance.

The Queen Mary 2 is indeed special: It is the largest ocean liner ever built and the most expensive. It weighs three times what Titanic did and cost nearly $1 billion to build. It has four stabilizers (each weighing 70 tons), four diesel engines and two marine gas turbines, which allow it to cross the Atlantic Ocean about 20 times a year, often through stormy winter swells and rough seas.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Comic: Crossing the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2 – Washington Post

#2025 #Cartoons #Comic #CrossingTheAtlantic #History #Libraries #Library #Narrative #Opinion #QueenMary2 #Technology #TheWashingtonPost #Travel

Opinion – How media lost power in the age of Trump and the internet – The Washington Post

Opinion

By George F. Will

What killed print media — and what died with it

The waning of newsprint is about cultural changes more momentous than digital publishing’s arrival.

October 17, 2025, 4 min

A sound of morning silence is coming to Atlanta. The sound of newspapers landing on sidewalks in residential neighborhoods will vanish when, at year’s end, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, joining a national trend, stops publishing print editions.

Turning trees into paper, marking it with ink, trucking it to people who deliver it to readers — soon this laboriousness might be as forgotten as men with tongs lugging large slabs of ice for home iceboxes. The waning of the 400-year era of newspapers is, however, about cultural changes more momentous than the efficiency and convenience of written words presented digitally.

The Economist reports that the share of American adults who read for pleasure has fallen 40 percent in 20 years, and students’ ability to read in quantity, with comprehension, is in parallel decline. An Oxford professor of English says students “struggle to get through one novel in three weeks.” Students lack, another professor says, “habits of application and concentration.”

The sentences that are being read are shorter and simpler. The Economist says an analysis of hundreds of New York Times bestsellers “found that sentences in popular books have contracted by almost a third since the 1930s.” Readers, if they can be called such, who are mentally wired for driblets of 280 characters cannot cope with Charles Dickens’s “Bleak House” (1.9 million characters). Can people unable to decipher sophisticated prose manage sophisticated political ideas?

But sophistication is not in the repertoire of journalism devoted to what Andrey Mir, a Canadian, calls the retribalizing of society. In his epigrammatic 2020 book “Postjournalism and the death of newspapers,” Mir, a self-described “media ecologist,” says the media lost agenda-setting power when the internet enabled crowdsourced agenda-setting.

As advertising dollars migrated to the internet, newspapers, which hitherto were funded from above by selling readers to advertisers, became funded from below by selling themselves to readers. Newspapers encouraged readers to think of subscriptions as donations to political causes. Subscribers enjoy their “slactivism,” outsourcing their activism through “donscriptions” — subscriptions thought of as donations.

Mir says “the last newspaper generation” was born in the early 1980s. It came of age as the internet did. Soon journalism stopped being about informing people to make them citizens, and began to be about making them agitated.

The new business model depends on polarization, amplifying readers’ irritations and frustrations. “A newspaper,” wrote Vladimir Lenin, “is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organiser.”

“Americans,” Mir says, “consume media 12 hours per day. Counting weekends, this is twice as much as a full-time job.” Because there is insufficient news to fill the time, emphasis has shifted to “expertise, commentaries, and opinions.”

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Opinion | How media lost power in the age of Trump and the internet – The Washington Post

#2025 #AgeOfInternet #America #CNN #DonaldTrump #Education #Film #GeorgeWill #Google #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Media #Opinion #Politics #PrintMedia #Resistance #Science #Technology #Television #TheWashingtonPost #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates #YouTube

Opinion | Rail trails offer space to reconnect with community – The Washington Post

Opinion

Meet us on the rail trail

A place to gather as Americans, not partisans.The Island Line Trail on the Burlington, Vermont, waterfront, which Howard Dean played a role in creating. (Courtesy From Rails to Trails Film, LLC)

By Tommy Thompson and Howard Dean – Tommy Thompson, a Republican, is a former governor of Wisconsin. Howard Dean, a Democrat, is a former governor of Vermont.

September 28, 2025 at 7:00 a.m. EDT, Yesterday at 7:00 a.m. EDT, 3 min

Life in much of America today seems fractured, offering fewer opportunities for people to meet, mingle and feel part of the same community. But there is at least one exception: local rail trails — quiet, leafy greenways that follow the paths trains once traveled.

Over the past six decades, a citizen-led movement has transformed more than 26,000 miles of abandoned rail corridors into thousands of public paths for walking, biking and recreation. Tens of millions of people use these trails each year — in the countryside, in small towns and in big cities. This successful effort to convert rails to trails has never belonged to just one political party.

We know this because we’ve lived it; rail trails have been important to both our lives. One of us (Thompson) grew up along the nation’s first rail trail: the Elroy-Sparta State Trail in Wisconsin, which ran through his family farm. The other (Dean) helped create the Island Line Trail in Vermont, which swings from Burlington out onto a causeway far into Lake Champlain.

It was Thompson’s father who helped bring the Elroy-Sparta trail to life, setting in motion a project that revived local communities and became a model for the nation. And it was Dean whose leadership helped secure a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that validated the concept of saving rail corridors.

These trails do more than repurpose land. They restore communities. They promote health, tourism and local business. They give Americans a place to meet as neighbors, not partisans.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Opinion | Rail trails offer space to reconnect with community – Washington Post

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