The Painted Box

Among my possessions is a painted cardboard box. It’s pastel green and dates from the 1960s, when I went away to college. I guess my parents painted the box in an effort to strengthen it.

Inside were many copies of stories I wrote for the Michigan Daily. There also was a copy of Life magazine with a story about student protestors, which included a photo of me being arrested.

It was 1968 and the campuses were erupting with similar protests all over the country. This was one of the times I mixed my new role as a journalist with political activism, and wouldn’t you know, it ended up memorialized by Life magazine.

Of course, at the time, I was proud of what I’d done. The charges of trespassing on public property, to which I pled, carried no actual penalty beyond a day’s labor in a local park.

But I and my fellow convicts refused to cut down the trees as we were instructed to do, as part of an environmental protest. Thinking back on it, we must have been one big royal pain in the ass for the authorities.

They chose to ignore the fact we didn’t serve our sentence, turning instead to more pressing matters, such as the bombing of the local CIA office, which led to the indictment of John Sinclair, and brought John Lennon to Ann Arbor to sing in his support.

One thing led to another for me and within a few years I was somewhat improbably editing pieces Lennon and Yoko Ono produced for SunDance magazine out in San Francisco.

A few more years and I was a reporter at Rolling Stone.

At the bottom of the files in the box was my FBI file, which I obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The Bureau kept track of me starting with that arrest in college and my work for an underground paper in Ann Arbor. It tracked me as I relocated to San Francisco to work at SunDance and throughout the years at Rolling Stone.

Including my stories on the FBI’s COINTELPRO illegalities.

Much of the information in that file is blacked out in the classic way the FBI redacted files prior to releasing them under the FOIA, but there was nothing in there of any consequence.

So that old cardboard box painted pastel green contains a lot of memories, too many, so I closed it back up and put it away for another day.

(I’ve published different versions of this one over the years.)

HEADLINES:

• Trump says Iran attack on ‘hold’ (Al Jazeera)

• Trump’s Approval Sinks Amid Unpopular War, Darkening G.O.P. Prospects (NYT)

• Justice Department announces a $1.7B fund to compensate Trump allies in a deal to drop IRS suit (AP)

• Elon Musk loses court battle against Sam Altman and OpenAI after 3-week trial (CNBC)

• ICE Agent Charged in Shooting of a Venezuelan Immigrant in Minnesota (NYT)

• Iran makes new proposal for deal to end war, regional officials say (Guardian)

• Iran war live: Talks ongoing via Pakistan; Lebanon death toll tops 3,000 (Al Jazeera)

• Sweeping the strait: the companies gearing up to clear the Gulf of mines (FT)

• Three people were killed in the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, and two suspects later killed themselves. (NYT)

• Cuba accuses US of building ‘fraudulent case’ for military action (BBC)

• Global scramble to contain new Ebola outbreak as US moves to limit entry from virus-hit region (CNN)

• Can Hakeem Jeffries Lead a Democratic Takeover of the House? (New Yorker)

• Over 100,000 Family Separations in Deportation Push, Report Estimates (NYT)

• Everything You Do Is Being Recorded (Atlantic)

• Why are most humans right-handed? Scientists may have found the answer (Earth.com)

• Fast-Moving Southern California Fire Forces Immediate Evacuations (NYT)

• AI Has Broken Containment (Atlantic)

• AI won’t replace lawyers. It will create more of them. (WP)

• Trump Requests $1.2 Trillion To Have (Onion)

 

Go For It

I’ve been thinking a lot about careers lately, even though I no longer have one, because many of the people I care about still do. I don’t know that much about other professions, but in my field, it usually goes like this.

First you’re a rookie, maybe doing research or serving as an intern.

Then, at some point, you get to do a story and people discover you can report, you can write.

After you do this for a while, you become a much better reporter, reducing your mistakes and learning to better trust your instincts.

Somewhere along the way, you play a part in breaking a really big story -- the kind that makes the world sit up and pay attention.

Now you have started to make a name for yourself, so you win some awards, get some job offers, and discover that you had many more friends than you previously seemed to have.

If you’re good, you start repeating the whole process, breaking story after story, getting scoops and even occasionally having a notable impact on society. Now you have lots of friends.

Just about when this starts sinking in, you turn some age or another, say 40, and your whole world blows up -- personally and professionally. Maybe your marriage breaks up, maybe you change jobs, probably both, but people start treating you differently. You notice some of your friends have drifted away.

It’s not subtle. Employers are telling you it’s time to transition from worker to management. “Time to grow up, kid.” In journalism you go from reporter to editor, from telling stories to facilitating other people telling stories. Now you may have fewer friends but a new level of respect.

If you’re good at management, that new track of editor carries you higher in your field, you earn more money and they add more titles to your job description -- senior editor of this or that. Now you have a new set of friends (frenemies), and a growing list of outright enemies.

This second stage of your career probably will carry you straight through to retirement unless you mess up big time (which happens) or you’re the type driven to rise higher in management to the point you actually run things somewhere.

God forbid you become the boss, the person everyone talks about behind your back. Lots and lots of enemies and absolutely not a friend in the entire world

At this stage anything might happen, for better or worse. If you’re a good boss, you really impact some group of people somewhere, and they’re truly grateful for that. You may not exactly be able to be friends with your employees, but something pretty close to that comes into play.

Then one way or another, the day approaches when you retire, perhaps voluntarily or when circumstances (other people) make the decision for you.

And then it’s over. Completely. You are officially retired. Nobody controls your time, you no longer have to dance to anybody’s tune. And people start having trouble remembering whether you are alive still or maybe you have passed on. They’re just not sure.

But assuming you survive, you finally may change direction altogether, and try doing something you always wanted to do, but never quite got around to when you were on the clock. And at this stage you discover you really did have a few real friends all the way along, because they are the ones who show up in your new life.

And now younger people ask your advice as they hit the various turning point stages of their careers. “You’ve been there, what do you think I should do next?”

So you hear them out and then answer something like this, “You already know what you want to do, my friend. Otherwise you wouldn’t be asking me.”

“Just go for it.”

(This one is from five years ago.)

HEADLINES:

• Ukraine attack ‘largest in over a year’ on Moscow, Russian state media reports (CNN)

• Russia is starting to lose ground in Ukraine (Economist)

• Trade rep tries to walk back Trump’s remarks on arms for Taiwan (Politico)

• Trump warns ‘clock is ticking’ for Iran as peace progress stalls (BBC)

• Cuba grid collapse: The situation is growing more dire, experts say (ABC)

• Senate parliamentarian nixes Trump’s ballroom fund in budget bill (NBC)

• The Fight for Voting Rights Returns to Selma (NYT)

• Trump administration promotes a program to check voter eligibility. Critics fear a midterm purge (AP)

• To Critics, Trump Remarks Reveal a Billionaire Out of Touch (NYT)

• Sen. Bill Cassidy’s defeat shows the price of dissent in Trump’s Republican Party (NBC)

• WHO declares global health emergency over Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda (WP)

• The First Atomic Bomb Test in 1945 Created an Entirely New Material (Wired)

• An AI hate wave is here (Axios)

• Who Owns the Future of AI? (WSJ)

• AI license plate cameras tore this town apart and led to a state of emergency (WP)

• Study: Most Men Believe They Could Seduce Bear If Life Depended On It (Onion)

Repairing Ourselves

Accurate birth and death records are a relatively recent phenomenon and they still don’t exist in much of the world. But they do in France, where when she died in 1997  Jeanne Louise Calment was 122 years and 164 days old. That makes her the oldest verified person to have ever lived.

Numerous reports suggest that there may be a natural cap on the human lifespan at about 150 years old. One particular phrase in a recent study struck me -- that after that much time, the human body simply is no longer capable of “repairing itself.”

The concept that we repair ourselves appeals to me on many levels. It captures the truth that we stumble and hurt ourselves a lot along the way, not just physically, and we need to be able to pick ourselves up and get going again.

I’m a big fan of organized sports for kids because they learn this lesson well by an early age.

As a society we need to learn this skill as well. For example, how can we possibly recover from the divisive elections in 2016, 2020 and 2024 to come together to forge the kind of national consensus to tackle our true challenges, which have nothing to do with partisan political parties, and everything to do with survival of our species?

One thing is clear. We are not going to accomplish this by furthering the divide between the two political parties. 

Inspirational books by sincere commentators like Dan Rather (What Unites Us) remind us that we are much more powerful when we join together, but no one to my knowledge has been able to articulate a workable plan for how we can currently do that.

Meanwhile, in lieu of collective progress, we can still fall back on our own individual situations. How can we continue repairing ourselves and live on? Mortality is a certainty, but the vast majority of us would prefer that our demise be delayed and our existence extended.

I’m fully cognizant of how hard it is from time to time to endure depression, anxiety, and other mental states, including suicidal thoughts -- especially when things go bad in life.

But the best choice should always be life, with all of its complications, disruptions and disappointments, because you never know what sweet moments you are going to miss otherwise.

HEADLINES:

• Drone Strike Sparks Fire Near U.A.E. Nuclear Plant (WSJ)

• Ukraine drones kill four in Russia, Moscow faces biggest attack in over a year (NBC)

• U.S. Debt Is Now Bigger Than the Economy. That’s Not the Real Problem. (NYT)

• You’re Getting Robbed. By Trump. In Broad Daylight. (Bulwark)

• Cassidy Loses His Primary in Louisiana, as Trump Vanquishes Another G.O.P. Foe (NYT)

• Tech titans should pick up the phone — and so should the rest of us (FT)

• Trump’s unstoppable force meets Iran’s immovable object (Reuters)

• As Hormuz crisis rattles the world, eyes are on another key waterway (NBC)

• Ukraine graft probe widens (Reuters)

• Snorkeling at Pearl Harbor: Kash Patel’s Travels Add to Focus on Ethical Issues (NYT)

• The Refugees Abandoned by America (New Yorker)

• She was deported without her toddler. Then ICE blamed her for his killing. (WP)

• Here’s What Science Tells Us About the Risks of Hantavirus (WSJ)

• U.S. dangles $100 million in aid in front of Cuba (Reuters)

• The Head and the Heart (Journal of the Plague Years)

• AI face is taking over — and driving plastic surgeons crazy (BI)

• What’s the AI Endgame? (Atlantic)

• The Data Center Next Door (Reveal)

• Sam Altman’s on top in Silicon Valley. Former colleagues keep saying that he’s a liar. (WP)

• Commencement Speaker Addresses Impenetrable Cloud Of Vape Smoke (Onion)

Origin Story: Salon

The journalist and author David Talbot is best-known as the founder of Salon, which from a journalistic perspective was one of the more important startups to emerge in the early days of the web.

Talbot had been an editor at Mother Jones and the San Francisco Examiner, where he ran the Sunday magazine, but he had a bigger dream -- to start his own publication.

I’d talked this over with him for some years until finally in 1995 he got his chance. Richard Gingras, then an executive at Apple, staked him with a small pot of money and with that, David gave notice at the Examiner.

There wasn’t very much funding at all but Talbot somehow convinced three colleagues -- editors Gary Kamiya and Andrew Ross and designer Mignon Khargie -- to give up their steady jobs and join him in his quest.

The group was rounded out by publisher David Zweig, bringing the staff to five and they settled pro-bono into an architect’s office down on the waterfront.

At Talbot’s invitation, I joined them too, not on the creative side but on the business side. That made sense because I had just left my job as EVP of KQED, the large public broadcasting company in Northern California, and I knew my way around Bay Area financial circles.

While Salon’s other journalists, none of whom had a clue about business, developed an editorial plan, I helped Zweig establish a business plan, which proved to be a daunting task. First and foremost, the team needed much more money, so I set about meeting with potential investors in San Francisco bars with a Mac laptop furnished by Gingras. It was loaded with a prototype of the magazine.

What made all of this complicated is that Salon would be on the web, at that time a nascent, unstable platform that as yet was devoid of any real journalism.

While I was able to convince a few investors to kick in $25,000 apiece, much more significantly I told an old friend and former writing partner, New York Times tech reporter John Markoff, what Talbot & crew were up to and he saw that this could make a good story.

Meanwhile, we were able to find two major investors -- investment banker Bill Hambrecht and Adobe co-founder John Warnock. They both agreed to get involved, more because they shared the magazine’s progressive political vision than any hope they would recoup their multi-million dollar investments.

But Markoff’s article was the key. When it launched, Salon proved to be an instant sensation, and over the years through many ups and downs it has persisted, though it has never to my knowledge actually turned a profit.

But profits aside, the reason Salon mattered is it was one of the first sites featuring original content, proving that traditional journalism could compete with the free-for-all that characterized the early Web. (Microsoft launched a similar site called Slate the following year.)

After Salon launched, I left to join HotWired and return to my first and true love -- journalism. But then I rejoined Salon a few years later as Investigative Editor/Managing Editor and Washington bureau chief and finally SVP during its heyday of the Clinton impeachment drama, including Talbot’s historic Henry Hyde story.

Over the 30 years since Salon launched, several people have mistakenly referred to me as one of the founders of Salon. I was more like what in basketball is known as the Sixth Man during that launch period in the fall of 1995.

So I played a key role.

A whole slew of other talented people joined Salon’s team early on. But recently as I was cleaning out my possessions I discovered a relic from the earliest days of Salon. It was what must have been one of its first phone directories, a plain piece of paper with the staff’s phone extensions in the architect’s office down by the Bay.

On it were eight names -- one Gary, one Andrew, one Mignon and three Davids -- Talbot, Zweig and Weir. The other two were Laura Miller and Cynthia Joyce.

Oh, and there was also a printer called Gingras, but that burst into flames, a harbinger of what was to come.

HEADLINES:

• Senior IS leader killed in joint operation, US and Nigeria say (BBC)

• Israeli strike kills Hamas’ military wing leader, who Israel says was an architect of Oct 7 attacks (AP)

• Trump departs China touting deals, but little clarity on Iran or Taiwan (Al Jazeera)

• Pentagon halts deployments to Poland and Germany to cut troop numbers in Europe, AP sources say (AP)

• C.I.A. Director Visits Cuba as Tensions Rise and Island Runs Out of Oil (NYT)

• Texas high court rejects removal of Democratic lawmakers who led quorum break over redistricting (AP)

• House Again Blocks War Powers Vote to Halt Iran Conflict (NYT)

• Patel Still Hasn’t Released Alcohol Test After Promising He’d Take One—White House Defends Him (Forbes)

• Trump Administration Weighs $1.7 Billion Fund for Allies Investigated Under Biden (NYT)

• Demonstrations to sweep the South over voting rights and redistricting (Axios)

• Supreme Court Rejects Virginia Democrats’ Effort to Reinstate New Voting Map (NYT)

• China braced for heavy rains (FT)

• What to know about new Ebola outbreak that has killed 65 people in Congo (AP)

• Judge Declares Mistrial in Weinstein Rape Trial (NYT)

• Who are the Japanese? Huge DNA discovery rewrites history (ScienceDaily)

• 2028: Two scenarios for global AI leadership (Anthropic)

• Too Much Is Happening Too Fast (Atlantic)

• In northern Ukraine, it was boy vs. Russian drone. The boy won. (WP)

• Why A.I. Safety Controls Are Not Very Effective (NYT)

• Everyone In Conversation Under Different Impression As To Which Horrific News Being Discussed (Onion)

 

What Does Data Think?

UPDATE: Tomato plant mystery: We are in a holding pattern. One plant remains. No sign of the thief.

In most of the media companies that employed me in the early years of the web, one of my responsibilities was supervising the metrics department.

In case that sounds like a big deal, this was well before the days of data scientists and multi-variable analysis; in most cases the metrics department in those media companies consisted of a lone individual.

And that person often felt like no one was listening to them.

After all, much more significant than the actual numbers he or she gathered was figuring out how to interpret that data. In and of themselves, of course, the numbers were neutral. But the people we worked with had a wide variety of opinions over what those numbers actually meant.

Was our audience growing? Which types of content were most successful? What was success in this type of media environment anyway? Which metric mattered most?

Occasionally, especially in the early years, we would publish a story that “broke the servers,” i.e., generated more traffic than our system could handle. There was little debate on those occasions over whether we had a winner, particularly because additional things tended to happen to support the data.

Things like attention from other media outlets, tons of email from subscribers and a boost to whatever financial metric we were tracking.

But these experiences caused me to eventually draw a few conclusions about people in general:

• Many people are not very good at math.

• Most of us see what we want to see in the numbers and don’t see what we don’t want to see.

• Most of us don’t change our behavior or opinions even when the numbers say we should.

In the end, I wondered, what did the data itself think about all of this human frailty? That is one reason I have long been curious about the coming of generative artificial intelligence — we may find out the answer to that question.

Addendum 2026; I guess we’re finding out now.

(This is originally from 2023.)

HEADLINES:

• Trump and Xi conclude ‘very successful’ talks but no deals confirmed (BBC)

• Trump says Xi offered help on Iran — But how far is Beijing willing to go? (CNBC)

• US-China summit: Trump says Xi pledged not to provide military equipment to Iran (CNN)

• China will work behind the scenes to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Bessent says (CNBC)

• Xi tells Trump U.S. and China could clash over Taiwan (PBS)

• Cuba Says It Has Run Out of Oil (NYT)

• Democrats get a last-minute reprieve on 2026 redistricting (Axios)

• Senators approve withholding their own pay during government shutdowns (AP)

• Abortion Providers Are Racing to Stay Ahead of the Courts (Mother Jones)

• Trump administration officials are scrambling to contain the economic and political fallout of the war with Iran. (Reuters)

• A ship anchored off the east coast of the United Arab Emirates has been seized and is heading toward Iranian territorial waters, the British military said. It happened hours after Israel said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had quietly visited the United Arab Emirates during the Israeli-U.S. war with Iran. However, the UAE swiftly denied that any secret visit had occurred. [AP]

• Cuba says oil and diesel supplies have run dry under U.S. sanctions (CNBC)

• Strategist Tied to Becerra and Newsom Pleads Guilty in Corruption Case (NYT)

• How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Power (Atlantic)

• Warning of record global temperatures as chance of very strong El Niño grows (BBC)

• New Mexico politicians grapple with oil windfall from Iran war (AP)

• You can reverse much of the damage alcohol has done to your body, science says (CNN)

• I Work in Hollywood. Everyone Who Used to Make TV Is Now Secretly Training AI (Wired)

• Anthropic tightens Claude limits and OpenAI courts defectors (Axios)

• Frontier AI models don’t just delete document content — they rewrite it, and the errors are nearly impossible to catch (VentureBeat)

• Silicon Valley’s A.I. Lobbying Reaches a Fever Pitch (NYT)

• Trump Unwittingly Breaks Chinese Taboo Against Napping Facedown In Soup Bowl (Onion)

Managing Your Health

If and when managing your or someone else’s health challenges becomes a major concern, there are tools not previously available that can make the process easier.

Telehealth, electronic health records and email can help.

Millions of people either live too far from their doctor’s clinic, or are too feeble to travel, or both.

Telehealth is a vital tool for these patients. Why it has been politically controversial escapes me, but currently Medicare pays for telehealth appointments, which is a very good thing.

Electronic health records have been around for a while, but now they are ubiquitous and available to patients through online platforms like MyHealth.

There, your doctor or nurse practitioner can share his or her instructions with you in written form, in case you have trouble remembering what they said in your appointment — which is a common concern, especially among elderly patients.

But by far the most useful communication system for managing your health is when it is two-way. Increasingly, health providers are accepting emails from patients, answering them and initiating an open communication channel that makes the patient less dependent on waiting for that next appointment.

These changes are not only good, but long overdue. The results should include better outcomes for everyone involved.

HEADLINES:

• After Xi’s Warning on Taiwan, He and Trump Strike Positive Tone (NYT)

• Trump Arrives in China Against Backdrop of Unresolved Iran War (WSJ)

• Gunfire chaos as Philippine senator resists ICC arrest (BBC)

• Trump faces slew of ‘bad options’ on Iran as diplomacy falters (Al Jazeera)

• Chinese Firms Plot Secret Arms Sales to Iran, U.S. Officials Say (NYT)

• How the world has avoided an oil catastrophe so far (Economist)

• FDA chief’s resignation widens a leadership gap at the nation’s health department (AP)

• Van Hollen posts alcohol use test results after challenging Patel to take survey (The Hill)

• It may be time to worry like it’s 1999 (CNN)

• Republicans won the redistricting war but may still lose the US House (Reuters)

• How voters can fight gerrymandering in an era of remapping wars (The Hill)

• Supreme Court faces new criticism for redistricting decisions so close to the 2026 elections (NBC)

• ProPublica to Launch Investigative Reporting Hub in California (ProPublica)

• Nonprofits say they are in a crisis (Axios)

• Why the U.S. job market is so hard, especially for recent college graduates (WP)

• In San Francisco, the Tents of Homeless People Are Disappearing (NYT)

• Climate Change Is Creating a New Kind of Weather Disaster (Gizmodo)

• Court overturns Alex Murdaugh’s murder convictions and orders new trial (CNN)

• Ask your landlord to lower your rent — now (BI)

• Why A.I. is the Hidden Minefield of Trump’s China Visit (NYT)

• Depraved Inbred Community Distances Itself From Prince Andrew (Onion)

Secrets and Lies

One of the questions journalists frequently get asked is how we get people to tell us things, especially the things it would be in their best interest not to disclose. The answer is: “We ask.”

Most people will want to talk to you when you tell them you are doing a story, even if they shouldn’t. And asking simple, open-ended questions is by far the easiest way to gather information.

Remember this: Most people most of the time don’t want to lie.

But some people do.

So how do you tell when someone is lying? Well, one way is to ask questions about minor details of the person’s life. And if you’ve done your homework you already know the answers to those types of questions.

Add them into the mix, because they should be easy for your subject to answer as long as he or she is being honest. But often people will lie about these little things because they’re trying to cover up bigger things.

One lie leads to another.

All of this requires a certain amount of discipline on the journalist’s part. You also have to avoid falling into the trap of lying yourself. When I conduct journalism ethics seminars, one issue that often comes up is whether it is okay to misrepresent yourself in order to get a story.

In cases where there is no alternative, this is sometimes necessary. Working undercover, some journalists have uncovered huge scandals, though that comes with an ethical cost. 

It’s not like we have to be squeaky-clean in everything do as journalists — far from it — but if your story eventually ends up in court you have to be able to look the judge and jury in the eye and say you believe the information you gathered is accurate and that you can justify the methods you used to produce it.

So as long as you can do that, you should be fine.

HEADLINES:

• Trump and Xi appear intent on keeping deep differences over Iran war from overshadowing China summit (AP)

• Trump heads to China in search of wins. How the Iran war could interfere. (Yahoo)

• What Middle Powers Fear About the Trump-Xi Summit (NYT)

• As Trump goes to China, what do Americans say about tariffs, Iran and world standing? (NPR)

• The Iran war is hitting home as US inflation has its biggest jump in three years (AP)

• With the US-Iran ceasefire on the brink of collapse, Washington hit Tehran with fresh sanctions targeting companies accused of helping ship oil to China (Reuters)

• U.S. Intelligence Shows Iran Retains Substantial Missile Capabilities (NYT)

• US in closely guarded talks to open new bases in Greenland (BBC)

• Most deportees under Trump are men, leaving women to care for families alone (WP)

• FDA chief to depart after Trump signed off on ousting him (CNN)

• As Republicans carve up Black districts, Democrats pivot to a new midterm message (Politico)

• Hegseth’s latest attack on Kelly underlines alarm over US weapons stockpiles (The Hill)

• A California billionaire is testing voters’ aversion to the ultrarich (WP)

• Kennedy Is Driving a Vast Inquiry Into Vaccines, Despite His Public Silence (NYT)

• Ukraine nears deal with Pentagon to test drones in US (FT)

• At a glance: Starmer grapples with leadership crisis (BBC)

• In Elon Musk trial, nobody has more to lose than OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (ABC)

• Sam Altman testimony: Musk wanted ‘total control’ of OpenAI to pass to his children (BI)

• AI-assisted hacking is already here, Google warns (Axios)

• AI coders are carrying half-open laptops through airports, offices, and ice rinks (BI)

• China Seeks A.I. Independence, Weakening Trump’s Leverage (NYT)

• ‘Sidewalk Closed’ Sign Leaves Pedestrians Frightened, Wandering Helplessly (Onion)