If one cares about our world and that which our grandkids will inherit, one has these days a knowledge problem, and it isn’t trivial. The complexity and urgency of what’s occurring on multiplying fronts is immense, the information provided by the government contaminated, and our time and intellects limited. My need-to-know vastly outstrips my ability to comprehend – and I don’t have a day job to attend to. What do I think about the wars in Ukraine and Iran, tariffs, our trashing of science, the proposed White House ballroom and shuttered Kennedy Center, the evisceration of voting rights, China’s designs on Taiwan, Venezuela, Mexico, the E.U., A.I., the weaponization of justice, Epstein… Even typing this sentence makes me pant with panic, and the calamitous catalogue is hardly complete. One is tempted to howl “To hell with it” and slam one’s laptop shut, until we recall that this is the response our misleaders desire. Paralyzed by perplexity, impotent from helplessness, the electorate is expected to flop into a hapless heap of dazed despair, shrugging “What the hell” and pulling the lever for candidates who’ve been made to appear, through ceaseless truthless propaganda, capable.

They’re not good at much, these bozos, but they’re good at this.

How to keep up? Any of these crises might prove Apocalyptic. How know enough to act aright?

As the sick must trust their physicians, I my sentinels, those experts whose judgment I respect and prose I can abide. Thanks to the Internet, observers abound, eager to inform us at a modest cost and (so far) free to ply their trade. How to select? With care.

I made a list of my go-to gurus, whose every dispatch I try to make time for:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedPaul KrugmanHeather Cox RichardsonRobert ReichDean BlundellTimothy SnyderG. Elliott MorrisPhillips O’BrienTaegan GodardThe EconomistThe New York TimesThe Atlantic

I listen to other voices – folks whose perspectives interest me, friends, family, of course – but the list above are my crisis counselors. They know what they’re talking about, their information’s fresh, they write succinctly, and they are not puppets of plutocrats. I evict shills and blatherers even if I share their biases: who has time? Some exclusions hurt my heart: notably, Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and Bezos’ Washington Post. Many fine journalists work there, but their owners can’t be trusted with the truth when the truth gets ugly.

I refrain from forwarding you these worthies’ posts, though frequently I can’t resist. Even dear friends can garrot friendships with garrulity. You already welcome me into your presence seven days a week – how much more can I ask?

A newcomer to my team of counselors is Dean Blundell. This sample will show you why. A one-time Canadian shock-jock, he burst onto Substack a year ago, as if from nowhere. He seems to hear the news – horrifying news especially – before anyone else. His style is sock‘em-rock‘em dazzling; so’s his clarity as an explainer. Somehow he makes hell jolly.

The piece I’ve linked to recounts the blood-curdling career of the Nameless One’s Golden Phone. Compared to his global shenanigans, this one seemed harmless old-fashioned grift, par for the course, a few tens of millions, hardly worth our notice. But wait. The inception, insincerity, cynicism, and fraudulence of this scheme provides a window into the minds and methods of these monsters. How they laughingly use the law to get away with things. How they screw those who trust them – gleefully. How they fail – and celebrate their failures as success.

It would be funny if it weren’t so scary.