Thursday, October 01, 2026

Working Class Hero


 (The following is an excerpt from an essay I wrote in 2009 after Michael Moore released his documentary titled “Capitalism: A Love Story.”)

***
It’s a pretty big stretch to try and take on capitalism in an era when the alternative methods of organizing an economy have been so thoroughly discredited. But Michael Moore has never been one to avoid stretch goals ever since I first got to know him as an underground newspaper editor in our mutual homeland of Flint, Michigan.

Okay, so Flint wasn’t exactly my homeland, though my parents did live and work there after I left home, plus I grew up, first down the road a ways, and then, up the road a ways, in very similar environments to Flint’s all during my formative years.

My family included autoworkers just as his did. Only difference: Mine were first-gen immigrants.

I liked Michael from the first because of his spirit. I’d already heard of the controversy he’d been causing back home, and it resonated with me due to my own past efforts trying to forge coalitions in the 1960s between antiwar and civil rights activists on campus with striking autoworkers in and around Detroit.

Later, during a more problematic period for Michael, when he was trying to live and work out here in San Francisco, I tried to help him manage the cultural transition from the Midwest to the Left Coast. 

That one didn’t work out so well. And, in my view, he drew all of the wrong conclusions as a result.

Then, as a fellow journalist, I also couldn’t help but notice certain methodological flaws in his work. Over the years, as his career as the most successful documentary film maker in history has progressed, I sometimes took issue with his work.

He cut corners I wouldn’t cut, edited in ways I’m not sure were ethical, and fell back on more of a propaganda-type style than I could ever feel comfortable with, among other things.

But that’s the micro-version of how I view his work. On the macro-level, I respect him deeply. We share a lot of common values, and his last two documentaries, “Sicko” and this new one, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” have re-opened my eyes to the true brilliance of the man. His art of connecting with working people is truly inspiring.

This new film has an additional component: It is moving. What has happened to ordinary people in our time is criminal. There have not been many willing to stand up for the common person, but Michael Moore is one of them.

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Wednesday, September 30, 2026

The Road Splits

Today, as an experiment, I am separating the news headlines into two batches — general news and news about AI. This reflects the growing significance of AI in our lives. 

The idea is that on any given day I may include links to an expanded cross-section of news and views of this revolutionary technology. Why? Because we literally cannot go on living without understanding AI.

I know that some of my long-time readers don’t like AI and have been resisting getting to become familiar with it as a result. So I’m making it easy — just read through the headlines each day, perhaps click on one story that intrigues you, and Presto! In a month you’ll know more about AI than 90 percent of the politicians we need to persuade to do something about it.

We’ll see if this works. AI has the potential to solve many of our problems, such as a cure for cancers of all kinds, but it needs strict regulation as fiercely as nuclear weapons.

To get from here to there, we have to educate our elected officials. And to do that, we first have to educate ourselves.

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Tuesday, September 29, 2026

Old Books

There is a relatively obscure book I like to reread at times like these called Berlin Diary by William L. Shirer, who is much better known for The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

He published Diary in 1941 just as the cataclysm known as World War II was getting under way, and two decades before his other, larger work became a best-seller.

The reason I originally was attracted to earlier book, and still am, is that as an American journalist stationed in Europe, Shirer was able to capture the intrigue of a moment when everyone knew they were on the verge of something immense but none among them could possibly know the scale of what was about to happen, how bad it might get, or how it would all turn out in the end.

It is in these moments that we can hope for the best and prepare for the worst but we can’t possibly know. The relationships with family and friends that we cultivate, solidify or reignite at these times have the potential to help sustain us through the difficult weeks, months and years to come.

The movie Casablanca provides those same kinds of insights into the emotional intensity of such moments, and not surprisingly in retrospect, was released at roughly the same time as Berlin Diary.

Now it feels as if we may be at another one of those tipping points of history. Hopefully, this one will be less cataclysmic than global war, but the parallels between Trump and Hitler’s rise are too great to ignore. Trump is reshaping our lives and relationships as if we are collectively frozen in time watching a massive train wreck occur in slow motion.

The midterm elections (so banal-sounding!) are the moment for the impending crash.

In addition, unfortunately, we are facing an existential threat with AI.

It may prove to be at some future point that we were powerless to prevent the worst outcomes in the election — that like Shirer and Edward R. Murrow we are merely eyewitnesses to the history unfolding before us. Alternatively, it may be that by speaking out, standing up, and reaching out that we can as yet still avert the disaster that would be the collapse of our democracy under Trump, not to mention the collapse of humanity from AI.

But whatever may be about to happen — or more hopefully, not happen — we still have each other, and this is a good time to acknowledge that these connections matter.

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Monday, September 28, 2026

Paperboy

The other day I was telling a friend’s nine-year-old daughter that I was a paperboy when I was a kid.

When she raised her eyebrows and looked confused, I realized that maybe she didn’t know what a paperboy was.

So I explained, “I was the guy who delivered your newspaper in the morning.”

It was at that point that I realized she probably didn’t know what a newspaper was either.

***

Since 2005, the number of newspapers published in the United States has dropped from 7,325 in 2005 to 4,490, according to the latest report from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

An estimated 365,460 people worked at newspapers in 2005, and now that number is down to 91,550, the report said.

As reported by the AP: “While there has been an increase in new digital sites, the vast majority have been in urban or suburban areas, deepening the news crisis in rural areas. An estimated 50 million Americans live in counties with either no local news source or just one, the report said.”

These trends are creating “news deserts” across the U.S., which is allowing conspiracy theory peddlers and disinformation purveyors to fill the vacuum.

This is one of the reasons I work with the Local NEWS Network, headquartered in Durango, CO. LNN provides original local video news reports directly into local community gathering places like gas stations and hardware stores.

It’s one of a number of efforts to revive local news, which in turn can help revive local communities.

***

That conversation with my friend’s daughter brought back memories of a simpler world 65 years ago. I would ride my bicycle to the drop-off point early each morning and load the newspapers into the twin baskets on my bike.

Then I would ride through my neighborhood, which was a subdivision at the edge of town, throwing the newspapers onto the porches of those who subscribed, which was pretty much everybody.

If I missed a porch with an errant throw, I would hop off my Schwinn, walk up to the house and placed the newspaper on the doorstep. Twice while doing this, I got bitten by dogs.

At the end of each week, I would ride around the neighborhood once again, collecting the subscription money to turn into the newspaper company.

For this work, I earned a tiny fee, supplanted by tips from customers, mostly small coins.

Everybody in the area knew me, if not by name at least by sight, and I knew all of them. Over time, I learned many of their stories.

That’s really how I became part of that community. By being a paperboy. Even today, by bringing you the daily headlines below, maybe I still am just an old paperboy.

HEADLINES:

  • Donald Trump vs. the Press (New Yorker)

  • A 7-Day Standoff That Said So Much About Trump and the Media. (NYT)

  • Bomb squad searching vans near U.S. air base in Britain as five men arrested on terror charge (NBC)

  • Iran’s foreign minister says Tehran ready for ‘doomsday’ war with U.S., but leaves diplomacy on the table (CNBC)

  • Iran Still Awaits ‘Official’ U.S. Response Despite Trump’s Rebuff of Cease-Fire Offer (NYT)

  • The intelligence war is turning against the Houthis (Al Jazeera)

  • What Israel Knew Before October 7 (Atlantic)

  • Trump’s Forever War Is Sucking the Life Out of Him (Bulwark)

  • Trump allies could use midterms ‘counting window’ to disrupt results, experts warn (Guardian)

  • Trump wants to remove a question about race in the census. We look back at the history (NPR)

  • Supreme Court lets Trump administration use revamped federal voter eligibility database for now (AP)

  • She helped lead a far-right internet movement. Then it turned on her. (WP)

  • Alternatives to GPS are around the corner (Economist)

  • Welcome to the blackboard jungle (BI)

  • Deadly nor’easter floods coast, knocks out power to more than 100,000 as storm lingers into Monday (Yahoo)

  • Rise in young Catholic converts points to spiritual longing in U.S. and Europe (WP)

  • Anthropic and OpenAI sound the alarm on AI safety — and seek to shape how it's controlled (AP)

  • Chinese AI models surge in global popularity — and Washington is worried (CNBC)

  • ‘Godfather of AI’ explains how humanity could end: Even without a bad actor, AI ‘may derive subgoals that cause it to want to get rid of people’ (Fortune)

  • OpenAI says its models engaged with US government websites in new model misbehavior disclosure (AP)

  • Last Peach Of Summer Quietly Molds Over On Counter (Onion)

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Sunday, September 27, 2026

Sunday Mix

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Saturday, September 26, 2026

Storytellers

As journalists, we are trained in how to tell stories. Other people’s stories.

At the midpoint of my journalism career, I started experimenting with how we could tell our own stories.

It started when Ted Glasser, then head of Stanford’s journalism program, suggested that I create a course called “Journalism as Memoir.” Our students were bright young people from all over the place, including China, Mexico and South Korea, and they would bring different story-telling traditions into the mix.

You’d have to ask the students how successful that course was, but I certainly learned a lot, mainly about the value of diversity.

People do tell stories somewhat differently based on their race, ethnicity, and other demographic factors, but there is at least one common element that strikes across all boundaries.

And that is a good story evokes an emotional response in the listener (or viewer or reader).

After teaching that course for several years at Stanford, I took it with me to the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) program run by Susan Hoffman. There my students were senior citizens who wanted to learn how to write their one memoirs.

Now, many years later, I’m aware of the irony of being the caretaker of many other people’s stories when I can’t really tell my own.

HEADLINES:

  • White House Blocks CNN From Air Force One (NYT)

  • Trump rejects Iran’s conditional ceasefire proposal, WSJ reports, as Saudi coalition intercepts projectiles (CNBC)

  • Roads flood in New Jersey, inundate some homes, as major signs of nor’easter take shape (AP)

  • Supreme Court allows Trump administration to use expanded database for potential voter purges (NBC)

  • Trump-Xi visit wraps up with few achievements announced (CBS)

  • Trump Kowtows to China (Bulwark)

  • In Trump’s White House, China’s Dictator Is Welcome. American Media, Less So. (NYT)

  • Iran proposes a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in 7 days if the US meets its conditions (AP)

  • Oil prices fall after Iran asks U.S. to return to failed memorandum of understanding from June (CNBC)

  • Donald Trump’s US no longer a reliable ally, warns Belgium in leaked document (FT)

  • From Gaza to Sudan to Nepal, more than 500 million children are in desperate need of education (AP)

  • U.S. military lays groundwork for potential action around Cuba (CBS)

  • A Quiet ICE Surge That Unfolded ‘Everywhere All at Once’ This Summer (NYT)

  • Removal of 760,000 people from ACA marketplace could undermine US health system (Guardian)

  • White House says new pro-Trump ad funded by the ‘U.S. government’ is a ‘public service announcement’ (NBC)

  • New Senate Bill Seeks Major US Green Card Shake-Up (Newsweek)

  • Rare September Nor’Easter Prompts Airline Travel Advisories (Forbes)

  • New study suggests the aging brain is adapting, not declining (WP)

  • AI Agents Teamed Up to Cheat at Blackjack. Their Collusion Is Getting Harder to Spot (Wired)

  • Let’s Get Specific About These Doomsday Scenarios (Atlantic)

  • Are you an AI idealist, alarmist, or skeptic? (Harvard Law)

  • The head of one of the largest US endowments says OpenAI and Anthropic are in big trouble (BI)

  • Xi acknowledges risks of AI even as Trump dismisses them (WP)

  • Massachusetts Is Investigating Gambling Companies’ Use of A.I. (NYT)

  • AI governance is coming, with or without Trump (Transformer)

  • Kash Patel Phished By Scammer Posing As Kash Patel (Onion)

 

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Friday, September 25, 2026

The Night Nurse

One hot, humid night in southern India many years ago, a night nurse lifted the mosquito netting around my bed and stepped inside, letting the net fall back into place behind her. She whispered, “Are you awake?”

I said yes. Her dark brown face was inches from mine. At first, all I could see were the whites of her eyes and teeth. I felt her breath falling softly against my skin, which was feverish and wet. She felt like a fresh breeze in the heavy tropical night.

As my eyes adjusted to the faint light in the room, I gradually became aware that she was patiently and systematically capturing the mosquitos flying around inside my netting one by one. This was a laborious process; often she would miss the insect on her first try but would persist until she succeeded. Whenever she caught one, she would carefully lift the net and allow it to fly off into the night.

I thought I might be dreaming or hallucinating — both of which occurred at that time in that place — but this was real. She kept at it until every last insect had been freed from threatening me, a pale six-foot-tall young man whose weight had plummeted down to 97 pounds as I was battling a combination of typhoid fever and salmonella.

During the weeks of our nightly meetings under the mosquito netting, I would look forward to her visits. And as I slowly recovered my strength, I got to know many of the day nurses who had brought me back from the near-dead. From them, I discovered the reason why the night nurse only worked at night.

She had suffered from a disfiguring case of smallpox as a child, resulting in a bad scarring of her face. 

By my last night in the hospital, I was no longer sweating my fluids away, so when she came to check on me her breath felt warm. “You will be going,” she whispered. “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” I whispered back. “I think you are the most beautiful nurse of all.”

HEADLINES:

  • CNN, MS NOW and Politico allowed back into the White House after judge orders Trump admin to restore access (CNN)

  • JD Vance Planted the Story That Sparked White House Media Ban (TNR)

  • The Deferential President (Atlantic)

  • GOP senators dismayed by Trump embrace of Xi after China helped Iran target US troops (The Hill)

  • Trump hosting China’s Xi at White House as they navigate AI, trade tensions and Taiwan (CBS)

  • The greatest advance in consulting since the quadrant (Economist)

  • Republican Sheriff Illegally Seized California Ballots, Court Rules (NYT)

  • Pete Buttigieg barnstorms for Democrats in midterms as he weighs 2028 run (WP)

  • The blue wave is mostly in red states. That’s a little weird. (Silver Bulletin)

  • Collins: White House backing down from NIH grant order (The Hill)

  • Mortgage Rates Hit 7% as Iran War Fallout Crushes a Weak Housing Market (NYT)

  • What’s Really Behind the Baby Bust? (New Yorker)

  • Trump’s push to acquire Greenland almost broke NATO. The winner of it all may be ... Greenland (AP)

  • Carney Lays Out His Vision for Breaking Canada’s Reliance on U.S. (NYT)

  • ParaBros Merger Settlement Sign-Off Delayed As Deal Foes Granted Hail Mary Move By Judge (Deadline)

  • L.A. Comes to Grips With a Studio Merger Many Didn’t Want (WSJ)

  • A judge dismissed Trump's lawsuit accusing The Des Moines Register and its former pollster J. Ann Selzer of misrepresenting the state of the 2024 presidential race, rejecting the president's claim that the newspaper's poll coverage violated Iowa's consumer fraud law. [AP]

  • I was in the room when Zuckerberg took an AI victory lap (BI)

  • In A.I. Race, U.S. Models Have the Edge, but China Has Other Advantages (NYT)

  • How an OpenAI ‘agent’ hacked Australia’s Medicare and what that means (Al Jazeera)

  • Amazon to Expand Robot-Making Capacity With New, $100-Million Indiana Hub (WSJ)

  • Why can’t we just keep rogue AIs off the internet? (Verge)

  • I Built AI Clones of My Coworkers. Things Got Weird (Wired)

  • Google Takes the A.I. Data Center Race to Outer Space (NYT)

  • “I think the answer is we have to shut the labs down” - Jensen Huang (Marcus)

  • Artificial-intelligence buildout is on track to require a larger share of US output than the rollout of electricity, railroads, interstate highways or the internet, a researcher said. The increasingly complicated financial structure to handle this comes with systemic risks. (Reuters)

  • The personal AI agent horror stories are rolling in (BI)

  • Dog Can’t Believe Guy She Hooked Up With 10 Years Ago Now Head Of FBI (Onion)

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