(Not Really) Retired

My career in journalism coincided almost perfectly with the rise and fall of the profession during the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Thus any narrative of those years could serve as a personal version of the historical record. The first half had lots of highlights, Rolling Stone, the Patty Hearst stories, the Center for Investigative Reporting, “Circle of Poison,” Salon, Wired News, book deals, Hollywood, and awards.

The second half was a constant dance from job to job as media institutions lost out to Internet-based companies including social media.

During the dozen years before my first retirement, I held jobs at startups MyWire, Predictify and GreatNonProfits; consulted for clients including Wikimedia Foundation, which publishes Wikipedia, and the California Academy of Sciences; worked with a wonderful French software company called Smub, and took on part-time gigs as a media analyst/blogger for BNET and 7X7.

In the last two positions, I met and interviewed founders of Twitter, Lyft, Airbnb, Uber, Nextdoor, Getaround and dozens of other companies as the age of social media came into being.

Occasionally, I put my investigator hat back on; for example, I wrote a report that of the 44 board members of the largest social media companies early on, none were women.

As I reached the age of 65, further employment opportunities seemed to be limited, so I decided to retire. This was early in 2013.

But retirement bored me and within months I had rejoined a former employer, KQED, as a part-time blogger. The public media company had a large radio and TV footprint, but only a minor web presence.

Next, as senior editor for digital news at KQED, I assembled a team of writers and producers that built a large digital audience to complement the legacy broadcast services.

We also started an ad hoc investigative team at KQED that produced award-winning reports on police violence, sexual abuse, and official corruption.

Finally, in late 2019, health issues forced me to retire again, 53 years after I had started at the age of 18.

Once again “retire” was probably not the right term because that was seven years ago now and marked the start of my daily newsletter, several thousand of which have appeared to date.

HEADLINES:

• Iran’s foreign minister in Islamabad as US team prepares to travel (CNN)

• Hegseth calls war in Iran a ‘gift to the world’ (USA Today)

• Hezbollah defiant in face of Israel-Lebanon ceasefire extension (WP)

• Iran's use of a swarm of small, fast boats to seize two container ships near the Strait of Hormuz could undermine suggestions US forces have disabled its naval threat. (Reuters)

• US justice department drops probe into Fed chairman Jerome Powell (BBC)

• Kash Patel’s Atlantic Lawsuit Is Already Backfiring (TNR)

• Trump embraced the gambling industry for decades. Now he’s hedging his bet on prediction markets. (NBC)

• Kevin Warsh’s Fed Confirmation Hearing Just Killed Rate Cuts for 2026. Here’s What It Means for Your Portfolio (Yahoo)

• Congress keeps holding all-nighters, creating dysfunction after dark (AP)

• Rove warns of proposed Florida Republican gerrymander ‘risk’ (The Hill)

• Meta employees react to pending job cuts: ‘28 days of hell’ (BI)

• Gen Z wants to turn back the clock as more of the young generation yearn for the days of no social media (Independent)

• The Billionaire Trying to Build the ‘Next Great Washington Newsroom’ (WSJ)

• People will be ‘living and working’ on the moon in the 2030s, says space tech CEO (CNBC)

• Eric Swalwell paid $40K in campaign funds to lawyer defending him against assault claims (SFC)

• Pope Leo firmly condemned the killing of protesters in Iran, after Trump criticized the U.S. pontiff last week for not doing so while denouncing the Middle East conflict. [Reuters]

• Elon Musk’s near-daily online posts about race are turning off some fans (WP)

• 5 AI Models Tried to Scam Me. Some of Them Were Scary Good (Wired)

• Anthropic says engineering missteps were behind Claude Code’s month-long decline after weeks of user backlash (Fortune)

• The week that Meta employees became training data (Platformer)

• A secretive AI hacking system has sparked a global scramble (WP)

• Sam Altman’s Next High-Wire Act: Getting OpenAI to Make More Money (NYT)

• Bottle Girl Nods As Kash Patel Screams State Secrets In Ear (Onion)

 

Family Treasures

When my first marriage broke up, I moved my stuff to a friend’s house across town. In the process, everything got jumbled together in boxes, so it was hard to sort out. Slowly, as I settled in, I unpacked the boxes that held old letters and books, some reaching back to my childhood. 

My eight-year-old son had just recently become a big baseball fan, rooting for the Giants, playing on a little league team, and collecting baseball cards. I told him about my own collection back in the 1950s, when I was around his age.

He came over to spend the night one Saturday and I dug through my boxes to see whether any baseball-related stuff had survived the many moves I’d made since childhood. Out tumbled an old scrapbook, circa 1958, with prime baseball cards of legendary stars including Willy Mays, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams, among others, glued inside.

Peter gasped. From his perspective as an eight-year-old, some of these old cards could be worth a fortune! 

This was long before the likes of eBay, so I checked directly with baseball card collectors, who explained that the cards might indeed be valuable assuming they could be removed from the scrapbook without damaging them.

Alas, upon further investigation it turned out that removing them would destroy them. So we just left them in the place where had I pasted them all those decades ago. 

In any event, the real value those cards held was helping create a memory of a father-son moment. And I could take that to the bank.

(These events happened in 1989.)

HEADLINES:

• Trump threatens to shoot boats laying mines as tension escalates in Strait of Hormuz (CNN)

• Iran tightens control of Hormuz after the US calls off renewed attacks (Reuters)

• Pentagon dismisses report it could take 6 months to reopen Strait of Hormuz (The Hill)

• Nato says ‘no provision’ to expel members after report US could seek to suspend Spain (BBC)

• Senate Republicans approve budget measure, teeing up bill to fund ICE and Border Patrol (NBC)

• Kash Patel, who is suing over unflattering article, says he and Trump are ‘as tough as they come’ (Independent)

• Justice Dept. Targets Hundreds of Citizens in New Push for Denaturalization (NYT)

• Lebanese journalist killed in Israeli attack had spoken of death threat (Guardian)

• Warner Bros. Investors Approve Deal With Paramount (NYT)

• An immigration slowdown led to widespread declines in population growth in America’s major metro areas (Brookings)

• Trump Is Said to Be in Talks to Send Afghans Who Aided U.S. Forces to Congo (NYT)

• It’s suddenly much easier for Americans to get Canadian citizenship (AP)

• Justice Dept. Loosens Medical Marijuana Restrictions (NYT)

• The world teeters and wobbles. Bob Dylan keeps playing his songs. (WP)

• Soldier Used Classified Information to Bet on Maduro’s Ouster, U.S. Says (NYT)

• Meta will now allow parents to see the topics their child discussed with Meta AI (TechCrunch)

• Can We Get A.I. Out of Schools? (New Yorker)

• Meta to Cut 10 Percent of Work Force in A.I. Push (NYT)

• Can ‘token exports’ give China an edge in the AI era? (SCMP)

• Anthropic has surged to a trillion-dollar valuation on secondary markets (BI)

• Mars or the Moon or A.I.? Elon Musk’s Changing Goals for SpaceX. (NYT)

• Trump Conducts Marathon Reading Of Arby’s Menu In Appeal To Meat Lovers (Onion)

Iran, Fact or Fiction?

The trouble with watching a dramatic series that tracks too closely with the news is that you might get confused over what is real or made up.

Such is the risk of watching the Israeli spy thriller “Tehran” on Apple TV (2020-22-24).

An additional problem with this one is that the tension is almost constant, making me wonder if it’s really such a good idea for one with blood pressure issues.

But the series, which features  Niv Sultan playing Tamar Rabinyan, a young Jewish woman born in Iran but raised in Israel, is a compelling look at some of the issues behind the current war, so I recently decided to watch it again this week.

If you’re wondering why Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon has inspired such an overwhelming military response from both Israel and the U.S., this series may be of some help.

As for me, I’m taking frequent breaks, staying hydrated, and keeping to a strict schedule of taking my BP pills.

And when it comes to the actual war, can someone tell me what is actually going on? I think I prefer the fictional version.

(Thanks to Mary for getting me back into this one.)

HEADLINES:

• Strait of Hormuz remains basically closed as Iran seizes ships after Trump ceasefire extension (CNBC)

• To Iran, Trump Blinked First by Extending the Cease-Fire (NYT)

• A Pentagon intelligence agency assessment says Iran still has significant military capabilities (NBC)

• U.S. operations against Iran expand to Indian Ocean with tanker capture (WP)

• Hormuz is just a ‘dry run’ if China and U.S. go to war in the Pacific, Singapore foreign minister warns (CNBC)

• Trump blasted Obama’s Iran deal. Now he faces similar tradeoffs. (WP)

• Navy Secretary Is Out, Pentagon Says (NYT)

• Federal appeals court blocks California law requiring federal agents to wear identification (AP)

• F.B.I. Said to Have Investigated Times Reporter After Article on Patel’s Girlfriend (NYT)

• Russia has repeatedly launched drones and missiles on a flight path near the disused Chornobyl nuclear plant during attacks on Ukraine, elevating the risk of a major accident (Reuters)

• Trump’s approval on economy falls, latest AP-NORC polling shows (AP)

• Trump’s Enormous Gerrymandering Blunder (Atlantic)

• Jeffries warns Florida GOP that new map will backfire: ‘F around and find out’ (The Hill)

• After securing a majority government in Canada last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney faces his biggest challenge: redefining trade with the US under Trump. (Reuters)

• Kash Patel sued a news pundit for saying he spent more time in nightclubs than at the office. The lawsuit got thrown out. (Independent)

• What a 5,000-mile-long marine heat wave means for summer in the U.S. (WP)

• America isn’t prepared for what comes after the measles crisis (Salon)

• CDC Report on COVID Vaccine Blocked From Publication (USNWR)

• Tucker Carlson’s viral apology has received mixed reactions on social media. Experts in psychology and body language shared their thoughts with us. [HuffPost]

• Beijing tightens its grip on AI firms that try to shed their Chinese ties (WP)

• Inside the AI startup Elon Musk is betting $60 billion on (BI)

• Job Cuts Driven by A.I. Are Rising on Wall Street (NYT)

• ChatGPT advised FSU shooter when and where to strike, Florida alleges as it opens probe (WP)

• A.I. ‘Hallucinations’ Created Errors in Court Filing, Top Law Firm Says (NYT)

• Trump Posts Late-Night Truth Social Rant Claiming Circuses Not Violent Enough (Onion)

 

Keeping It Local

Recently, I knocked my iPhone off of a chair onto the rug below. It wasn’t a great distance but it hit the floor with enough force that when I picked it up, it started making an odd squeaking sound whenever I pressed the home button.

Alarmed (but not panicked), I Googled why an iPhone8 would make such a sound and quickly learned from a YouTube video that it was because one or more of the device’s internal screws were loose.

“Well,” I thought to myself, ”better that the phone has screw loose than I do.”

According to YouTube, the problem was easily fixed by opening up the phone and tightening the screws.

When we tried this at home, however, we couldn’t do it because we didn’t have the proper equipment in the form of very small screwdrivers.

One option was to go to an Apple Store, but my daughter had a better idea — find a local repair shop.

Her reasoning was based on an incident several years ago when she dropped her iPhone in the water. Conventional wisdom at the time was to wrap the device in a bag of rice, which would soak up the water and save the phone.

She did this but one grain of rice got sucked up into the phone’s port and it stopped working altogether.

She went to an Apple Store, where she was told that her best option was to buy a new phone.

Reluctant to do that, she stumbled upon a local repair shop in a mall, where a repairman removed the grain of rice and Presto! Her phone was as good as new.

So this was the context in which my daughter and I ventured out during a break in the rainstorms yesterday to a tiny hole-in-the-wall repair shop nestled into a nook next to a bright Mexican restaurant.

It really was just a window in a closet-sized space with an “Open” sign hung outside.

The young man at the window took my phone, opened it, tightened the screws, closed it back up and handed it back to me.

“No charge,” he said.

HEADLINES:

• A deal to end the Iran war seemed close. Then Trump started posting on social media (CNN)

• Trump Extends Cease-Fire With Iran (NYT)

• Trump’s statements on Iran increasingly contradict each other (WP)

• What was the Iran nuclear deal Trump dumped in search of ‘better’ terms? (Al Jazeera)

• What are the chances for peace between Israel and Lebanon? (NPR)

• Virginia Passes Gerrymandered House Map, Lifting Democrats’ Midterm Chances (NYT)

• Trump’s approval rating held at the lowest of his term in recent days as many Americans questioned his temperament, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found. (Reuters)

• Trump and other top Republicans will read passages in a marathon Bible event (AP)

• Justice Dept. Charges Prominent Civil Rights Group With Financial Crimes (NYT)

• Kevin Warsh says he will not be Trump’s ‘sock puppet’ if confirmed as Fed chairman (BBC)

• Flu vaccine no longer mandatory for soldiers, says US military chief (Al Jazeera)

• The Pentagon could be about to make a $55 billion mistake (The Hill)

• White House ‘discussing’ FBI chief Patel’s future after bombshell report (Independent)

• A New Supreme Court Leak Shows John Roberts at His Worst (Slate)

• How the California Governor’s Race Is Changing Post-Swalwell (NYT)

• China’s vast nuclear power sector now able to build 50 reactors at a time (SCMP)

• Fired former UK official says he felt political pressure to approve Mandelson as US ambassador (AP)

• Two CIA officers die in Mexico accident after counternarcotics operation (WP)

• Canadian killed, six Americans among injured as gunman shoots tourists at Mexico’s Teotihuacan pyramids (CNN)

• Japan to Sell More Weapons Abroad, Breaking With Postwar Pacifism (NYT)

• Trump has renamed federal buildings and the Gulf of Mexico. Here’s how the old names can be restored when he’s out of office. [HuffPost]

• The Onion launches new bid to take over Alex Jones’ Infowars and turn it into a parody platform (AP)

• A new fault line has emerged inside Google: The Claude haves and have-nots (BI)

• What Happens When A.I. Runs a Store in San Francisco? (NYT)

• CISA lacks access to Anthropic’s Mythos (Axios)

• Uber Driver Casually Mentions This His First Time Driving (Onion)

Need Help Writing?

According to numerous new reports, (several are listed below), using AI to help you write will cause long-term cognitive decline, which was also the topic of the essay, “Don’t Stop Writing” last week.

Now, I want to go into much more detail. Author Nicolas Hulscher gives us the specifics.

“A new MIT study titled, Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task, has found that using ChatGPT to help write essays leads to long-term cognitive harm—measurable through EEG brain scans. Students who repeatedly relied on ChatGPT showed weakened neural connectivity, impaired memory recall, and diminished sense of ownership over their own writing. While the AI-generated content often scored well, the brains behind it were shutting down.”

The findings indicate that although Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Grok may help students write, they also train the brain to disengage. Here’s what the researchers found:

* Brain Connectivity Declines with AI Use

* LLM Users Forget What They Just Wrote

* AI Use Disrupts Memory and Learning Pathways

* LLM Users Felt Detached From Their Work

* Switching from LLM to Brain Use Doesn’t Fully Restore Function

* Search Engine Users Showed Healthier Brain Engagement

* AI Dependency Leads to “Cognitive Offloading”

* Short-Term Gains, Long-Term Cognitive Debt

Over time, the test group showed a consistent decline in engagement, performance, and self-reported satisfaction.

Read the entire article here. I think this study is significant enough that teachers and parents should explain the risks of using AI in writing to their children.

Here are more reports: 

• Effects of generative artificial intelligence on cognitive effort and task performance: study protocol for a randomized controlled experiment among college students (NIH)

• Does Using AI Affect Your Brain Performance? (Healthline)

• Experts warn AI is making your brain work less (BBC)

• Is AI dulling our minds? (Harvard Gazette)

• Over-Reliance on AI May Harm Your Cognitive Ability, Experts Warn (ScienceAlert)

• Is Generative AI Rewiring Our Brains? Here’s How It Happens (Psychology Today)

• AI use causing ‘boiling frog’ effect on human brain, study warns (Independent)

(Thanks to Leslie.)

DAILY NEWS HEADLINES:

• Oil and Gas Rise As Hormuz Tensions Flare Ahead of Iran Deadline (Bloomberg)

• Trump threatens Iran again as ceasefire deadline looms, U.S. gears up for peace talks (CNBC)

• Concerns have grown that the ceasefire between the US and Iran might not hold after the US said it had seized an Iranian cargo ship that tried to ‌run its blockade and Iran vowed to retaliate. (Reuters)

• Trump tells PBS News that ‘lots of bombs start going off’ if Iran ceasefire expires (PBS)

• The Forces of Scarcity Hitting Asia May Soon Spread Across the World (NYT)

• Trump’s Spider-Ridden Brain Is Cracking Under the Pressures of War (Esquire)

• Palantir Wants to Bring Back the Draft (Mother Jones)

• Labor Secretary Steps Down Amid Misconduct Investigation (NYT)

• Kash Patel files defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic (Politico)

• Businesses race to apply for tariff refunds (NPR)

• Kenyan women defy fishing taboos as climate change threatens Lake Victoria (Al Jazeera)

• Justices to Hear Case on Catholic Preschools That Reject Children of Gay Parents (NYT)

• Dad brains: How fatherhood rewires the male mind (BBC)

• Tim Cook Will Step Down as Apple C.E.O. (NYT)

• Weapons-grade chemical carfentanil surges as dangerous substitute for fentanyl (AP)

• MIT Study Finds Artificial Intelligence Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline (Science, Public Health Policy & the Law)

• The Killer Robots Are Coming. The Battlefield Will Never Look the Same. (NYT)

• Chinese tech workers are starting to train their AI doubles–and pushing back (TR)

• Man Finally Good Enough At New Hobby To Understand How Bad He Is At It (Onion)

Monday Mix

HEADLINES:

• US seizure of Iranian ship near Strait of Hormuz casts doubt on fresh ceasefire talks (AP)

• Iran says no talks with US for now, casting doubt over Pakistan efforts (Al Jazeera)

• Uncertainty Hangs Over U.S.-Iran Talks in Wake of Ship Seizure (WSJ)

• Poll: Trump’s approval rating hits second-term low as Americans sour on the economy and Iran war (NBC)

• Trump kept out of the room during operation to find downed pilots in Iran after ‘screaming’ at aides for hours, report says (Independent)

• Behind Trump’s Public Bravado on the War, He Grapples With His Own Fears (WSJ)

• For Iran, Flexing Control Over Waterway Is New Deterrent (NYT)

• Resignations and firings have depleted the FBI and Justice Department. They’re scrambling to rebuild (AP)

• For U.S. medical researchers, shrinking labs and bare budgets are the new reality (WP)

• 8 children killed in Louisiana mass shooting (NBC)

• Google in Talks With Marvell to Build New AI Chips for Inference (The Information)

• The therapist in your pocket: Chatty, leaky — and AI-powered (WP)

• Coachella Cancels Weekend 2 After Drugs Found On Festival Grounds (Onion)

The Wee Ones

I've long been curious about the beliefs that there are beings among us too small, fast or otherwise elusive to qualify as real. 

Recently, exploring a collection of ancient English folktales, I happened upon an extensive list of supernatural beings that have come down to us through the centuries:

Boggles, bloddy-bones, ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, shelycoats, scrags, breaknecks, fantasms, boggy-boes, dobbies, hobthrusts, fetches, kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars, mum-pokers, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, and on and on, ten times as many names as these.

People have often claimed that these tiny creatures explain the odd twists of fate that otherwise defy explanation.

Many modern classics, including Tolkien's "Hobbit" and J.K. Rowling’s "Harry Potter," have tapped into the ancient British superstitions to create new fictional worlds.

When it comes to journalists, all we have are mysterious shadows and unanswered questions. But somewhere deep in our soul, we may hope that magic exists, and that angels watch over us as we fall, urging us to rise again, and tell our stories in a more hopeful vein, one that just might inspire yet another generation to find its own magical voice.

HEADLINES:

• Iran exposes Donald Trump’s pressure point (Reuters)

• Iran, US still ‘far’ from breakthrough amid Strait of Hormuz impasse (Al Jazeera)

• Trump accuses Iran of violating ceasefire with Strait of Hormuz ship attacks (NBC)

• Iran closes Strait of Hormuz again over US blockade and fires on ships (AP)

• Lebanon president says country is no longer a pawn amid Israel ceasefire (Al Jazeera)

• The FBI Director Is MIA (Atlantic)

• The birth of the Supreme Court’s shadow docket has long been a mystery. (NYT)

• Exposing a Global Surveillance Empire (Reveal)

• Meta plans to lay off 10% of its workforce in May, according to report (NBC)

• Ukraine Has Finally Given Up on Trump (Atlantic)

• Food crisis worsens as Sudan war drags on (Reuters)

• ‘We should absolutely be concerned about non-college-educated men today’: higher rents, living at home, falling out of the labor market (Fortune)

• Saving a Lost Generation of Young Men—with Chop Saws (New Yorker)

• Stanford scientists discover “natural Ozempic” without side effects (ScienceAlert)

• Make America Sober Again (BI)

• The AI Doomers Who Are Playing With Fire (Gizmodo)

• Language models transmit behavioural traits through hidden signals in data (Nature)

• There’s an ‘art’ to writing AI prompts for personal finance, MIT professor says (CNBC)

• Inside a growing movement warning AI could turn on humanity (WP)

• Amazon uses AI to aid early-stage drug discovery (Reuters)

• How Do You Measure an A.I. Boom? (NYT)

• Sabrina Carpenter Turns Body Fully Inside Out In Horrific New ‘Juno’ Position (Onion)