Lviv

Good morning from sweltering New York, where the air in pea soupy and where ten minutes ago I told author extraordinaire Kerry Howley, “I’m not sure you and my hair can be friends,” after she tweeted she is loving the Brooklyn humidity.

“The lack of humidity in LA is devastating,” she wrote back. Weirdo! I am in the middle of reading Kerry’s Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State, and if you have not read her piece of two weeks about about the marriage of Clarence and Ginni Thomas, “Ginni and Clarence: A Love Story,” stop what you are doing and read that.

A few of you may have been wondering, what up with those Smoke ‘Em girls? We have been writing! I turned in a project on Monday, and La Hep is in the home stretch of hers. She will be back next week! Until then, you gots me.

Our pal Matt Welch went on CNN last night, as part of a panel that, among other topics, discussed the court decision that says the government should not be in the business of telling social media companies who to ban. I thought Matt was magnificent on this; you can forward to about 1:30.

Some of the panelists disagreed. I thought John Avlon’s “Reality Check” was ridiculous. No one had ever heard of that fake Twitter account before the minor kerfuffle two weeks ago, but now we are going to make sweeping national laws using it as an example? Yawn. It also occurs to me that people who want the government to have more control over our lives fundamentally do not trust people to make decisions. Yes, they will sometimes make bad decisions, and they will be cruel. But you can walk away from individual people, or help them to make better decisions, or simply be curious and let the world roll on as it will. You cannot do any of these when you hand the government power over what you can and cannot say. Also, trusting people is way more fun!

And has everything to do with the story I tell you here, about getting to Lviv last year and the people I met there. Here is the scene yesterday.

Here are beautiful Oksana, Diana, 15, and Viktoria, 7, when they visited me last summer.

“Are those the helicopters protecting us from Putin?” asked sweet Viktoria, of the workaday sounds of New York City.

I just texted Oksana, telling her I wished I were with her and her family. “Thank you my dear. We are alright. I guess, you have already seen pictures and movies,” Oksana texted back. “If you mention this brutal attacks, just let your society know.”

Some stories after the break. And more to come.