Friday, July 11, 2025

Disappearing

According to a new report, the number of journalists per 100,000 residents in the U.S. has declined over the past quarter-century from about 40 to about 8. 

“Stunningly, more than 1,000 counties — one out of three — do not have the equivalent of even one full-time local journalist,” states the report, published Thursday by Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack.

The report documents the rise of “news deserts” across the U.S.

“Thousands of rural, urban and suburban communities are being left without the basic reporting they need to stay informed, connected and civically engaged,” said Steven Waldman, the president of Rebuild Local News, which released the report.

One of the efforts to address the problem of news deserts is the Local NEWS Network, headquartered in Durango, CO. 

Read also: 

  1. Invisible Ink

  2. Friends & Family

  3. We Need Our News

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Thursday, July 10, 2025

Phone Booths and Parking Meters


                                                        "Phone Booth R.I.P." -- Photo by Dan Noyes


Recently, a plastic bag suddenly showed up filled with my possessions from when my car was sold 18 months ago… (This is from 2021.)

When that sale happened, I was in a skilled nursing facility after my stroke, relearning how to walk, not worrying whether I would ever drive a car again.

The bag resembled what they give you after a person has died, i.e., their last possessions.

I didn’t die and neither did my car — but it left me for somebody else, as did my girlfriends, my jobs, and my ideas from 3 a.m. The car was a symbol of the independence I yearned for inside that nursing home when I was strapped down in beds with alarms on each side to guard against yet another fall.

As I sorted through the stuff in the bag, I found a bunch of quarters, maybe $4-5 worth, that I kept in the car for parking meters or phone booths. That's back when you needed cash to park legally and when pay phones were still a thing.

I really needed those quarters when I was fetching my kids at school or dropping them off at soccer practice, or when we were picking up take-out Mexican or Chinese. My youngest daughter, who always had my back, saved quarters for this very purpose, and gave them to me whenever she noticed I was running low.

Along with the coins, there was a faded press pass that gave me access to the gaming company Zynga's headquarters when I was a tech blogger for BNET and 7x7.

But most of what spilled out of the bag were the old CDs that I used to play in the car as I was shuttling my kids here and there. Often our trips were short -- fifteen minutes or so, and I'd try to pick songs that would finish before we reached our destination.

Part of the reason I did that, as any parent knows, is that your kids don’t talk much when they are teenagers and it is a good idea to have some music to fill the void.

So we had Elton John, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles but most memorably Johnny Cash. For some reason his version of "Highway Patrolman," written by Bruce Springsteen, was one of our enduring family favorites. It's a long take (5:20) and more than once, I remember us sitting in the car waiting for it to finish before we got out to proceed on with our business.

Of course we had all heard how the story ends a hundred times before, but we still had a minute or two left before we'd be late for whatever we were going to, so we let it roll.

So you see, everything in that plastic bag had a story, and I’m glad I’m here to tell it to you.

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Wednesday, July 09, 2025

A Future Less Bleak

Starting off the week, I spoke to a group of interns at the earliest stages of their careers in journalism. It is tempting on occasions like that to reminisce. After all, when I was their age, reporters smoked in newsrooms, had green lampshades, and composed their stories on old-fashioned manual typewriters.

But if the interns want to know about that distant past stuff, they can read novels or watch old black-and-white movies. My agenda when spending time with them is strictly about the future.

And in that context there are two items in the news I’d recommend to anyone concerned with the future of work, both in the near-term when nobody drives any longer and robots dominate most workforces, and well beyond that.

The first item, courtesy of my old friend Martin Abraham in Malaysia is an article he spotted in Psychology Today titled “Humans Are Fast Evolving Into an Astonishing Lifeform” by Dr. Eric Haseltine.

The article says:

  • Humans have entered an era of hyper-communication that may be rapidly changing the human species.

  • Evolutionary biology suggests we may be evolving into super-organisms that limit our individual autonomy.

  • Loss of autonomy has lead to recent social unrest from aggregations such as globalization and immigration.

Young Americans aged 18-24 get an average of 109.5 texts per day, send 40-50 themselves, check their phones 46-74 times a day, and if they are teens get an average of 240 notifications a day from apps. Adults get an average of 117 professional emails a day.

All the rest of us average a third of the time we’re awake glued to our electronic communications devices.

What this may be doing to us at home and work is the article’s focus.

***

The second recommendation I have about the future of work comes courtesy of my friend and artificial intelligence researcher John Jameson. It is am excellent half-hour interview by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now with journalist Karen Hao, who has written a new book called “Empire of AI.”

Hao finds examples of people around the world using AI in limited, positive ways and casts doubt on whether AGI (artificial general intelligence) is really imminently within our grasp.

She believes, as do other experts I’ve recommended on the topic, that under proper human control, AI tools will perform tasks in ways that will make the future not an apocalypse but a brighter place.

At least as a speaker (I’ve not yet read her book), Hao has an unusual ability to make AI accessible to the lay person. Plus the interview left me feeling much more hopeful about our future with robots.

We all need to know where our society is going, well beyond when we’re part of it. These articles offer some clues.

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Tuesday, July 08, 2025

Our Oldest Stories

The other day I listened as my former sister-in-law told her younger brother a story from years ago. It happened when they lived in Japan and he was a blond-haired boy. One day as the family picnicked near a river, a crowd gathered to admire and photograph him and exclaim over his beautiful hair color, which is, of course, rare in Japan.

As he posed for their pictures, he slipped and fell into the river and started to be carried away in the current, his blond head bobbing above the surface. Panicking, the sister dove in and saved him, dragged him to shore and stood him up to comfort him.

But rather than crying he broke into a broad grin and laughed. He had loved the experience, at least according to her telling of the tale.

Her story struck me as very similar to one I tell about their nephew, who is my oldest son, when he was a toddler. One rainy winter's day after parking my leaky 1966 Volvo sedan on one of San Francisco's notoriously slanted streets, I got out and went around to open the back door and lift my son out of his carseat.

But the precocious young fellow had already unbuckled his restraint and quick as a flash he simply slipped out of the open door into the space between the car and the curb under a small but raging river of rainwater coursing down the hill.

I freaked but was able to grab him before he was swept away by that filthy water. As I lifted him up, he broke into a hysterical laugh. He had loved every minute of it, at least according to how I tell the story.

As I read through other people's memoirs and teach memoir-writing myself, the nature of these simple family stories is a constant source of amazement to me. When the writers cover a broad swath of their family history, I notice a pattern whereby similar stories tend to repeat themselves generation to generation. It makes me wonder why we select the stories we want to remember from the (literally) millions of choices we have about each other.

Consistent with the two stories cited above, but with an added twist, one of my granddaughters, who is now ten, recently told me her own getting-all-wet story. "It was raining really hard outside one night, Grandpa. So I took off my shoes and ran up and down our block getting completely soaked head to toe. I was screaming with joy because I loved it!"

Clearly, our family lore places some sort of value on our kids rejoicing in getting wet in ways that others might find uncomfortable. Why these stories? I have no idea.

It is my theory that families have passed on oral traditions like these down through the millennia and that the stories they choose emphasize characteristics they wish to propagate among their progeny.

If I am right, maybe my children's great-great-great-grandfather told a similar story about one of his siblings or kids two hundred years before ours. For all we know, these types of tales may date from thousands of years ago.

And now we pass them forward.

(Excepted from a 2021 essay.)

HEADLINES:

  • More than 100 killed in Texas floods, with 11 still missing from Camp Mystic (BBC)

  • Debate erupts over role Trump cuts played in response to deadly Texas floods (AP)

  • Trump and Netanyahu Meet as New Middle East Tests Loom (WSJ)

  • Trump and Netanyahu Expected to Discuss Prospects of Gaza Cease-Fire (NYT)

  • Trump announces tariffs of at least 25 percent on seven countries (WP)

  • BRICS nations push back as Trump warns of tariffs (NPR)

  • No Coherent Policy — Who’s Running American Defense Policy? (Atlantic)

  • How Elon Musk’s Third Party Gamble Could Succeed (Politico Mag)

  • Is the Hispanic Red Wave for Trump Starting to Crash? (New Yorker)

  • US troops on the ground in LA immigration enforcement operation, DOD says (ABC)

  • Justice Department, driven by Trump policy, plans to go after naturalized U.S. citizens (Miami Herald)

  • Are We About to Have Labor Camps in the United States of America? (TNR)

  • Political violence poses an existential threat to our nation and our freedoms—but it’s not too late. (Atlantic)

  • U.S. measles cases reach 33-year record high as outbreaks spread (WP)

  • Docs sue RFK Jr. over COVID vax policy changes (Axios)

  • Humans Are Fast Evolving Into an Astonishing Lifeform (Psychology Today)

  • Which Workers Will A.I. Hurt Most: The Young or the Experienced? (NYT)

  • Journalist Karen Hao on Sam Altman, OpenAI & the "Quasi-Religious" Push for Artificial Intelligence (Democracy Now)

  • She Wanted to Save the World From A.I. Then the Killings Started. (NYT)

  • Allergists Recommend Allergy Sufferers Retreat Underground To Form Pollen-Free, Cave-Dwelling Society (The Onion)

 

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Monday, July 07, 2025

Her Smile

One day recently, a film crew stopped by to interview me about people and events from a time long ago. At one point they wanted to get some B-roll of me sitting at a table writing my daily essay.

They also asked my ten-year-old granddaughter to hover over my shoulder and watch me type.

She is a little shy, but not overly so, so she agreed. As she held the pose, I wrote the first words that popped into my mind. None of it was planned. Those words turned out to be the conversation I would like to have with her about life if we were ever to do that.

Here is what I wrote:

"So the most important thing I could ever say to you while you are still young is don't waste it. Don't waste it because it won't come around again.

"This sounds like a cliche and of course it is. But not all cliches are dumb.

"Double digits (your age) ... they only start once. If you live long enough you may make triple digits. But that is only for the chosen few so my advice is to treasure the two-digit stretch as long as you can, from age ten to ninety nine.

"Pace yourself. Life is way shorter than we'd ultimately like it to be. Most people live at high speed and ignore the stops. But the rest stops are special in their own way. They are when you can breathe, reflect.

"And look up and see where you are going.

"What else? Maybe just this: Each and every one of us is special in our own way...So live your life as if it really matters! Follow your passion. Don't settle for less. Your dreams may or may not come true but they definitely won't come true if you don't try..."

***

At this point the director called "Cut" and it was a wrap. The crew took my granddaughter to another room to sign the standard release form in case they use her image in the upcoming documentary.

She came back and brought the form to me to sign. "Just put down that you are my Grandpa."

"Thanks for helping out with this, sweetie, and welcome to Hollywood," I told her. "What was it like for you?"

"Well I tried to stay still and look serious as long as I could. But I was reading what you wrote and I just had to smile. So I did. And then the man said 'cut'."

Of course she is too young to know it yet but the moment she smiled was the one he was waiting for. And I'm sure if she's in the doc that will make the final cut.

(This one is from 2021. The girl in the story is now 14.)

HEADLINES:

  • ICE Doesn't Need Another $100 Billion — The GOP tax bill gives Trump far too much money — and authority — to rescue his failing immigration crackdown (Bloomberg)

  • At least 80 dead in catastrophic Texas floods as governor warns of more rain to come (CNN)

  • Flood warnings complicate Texas rescue effort as death toll includes 21 children (WP)

  • A girls' summer camp cut short by deadly disaster (BBC)

  • Bessent: Trump tariffs set to ‘boomerang back’ to higher rates if deals not reached (The Hill)

  • Stock Futures Are Falling As Trump Resets Tariffs to Aug. 1 (Barron’s)

  • ICE Raids Derail Los Angeles Economy as Workers Go Into Hiding (Bloomberg)

  • Israeli Prime Minister says he believes Trump can help seal a ceasefire deal (Reuters)

  • Weedkiller ingredient widely used in US can damage organs and gut bacteria, research shows (Guardian)

  • The Coder ‘Village’ at the Heart of China’s A.I. Frenzy (NYT)

  • AI robots fill in for weed killers and farm hands (TechXplore)

  • Meta’s “AI superintelligence” effort sounds just like its failed “metaverse” (ArsTechnica)

  • ICE Has Gall To Leave Raided Restaurant Negative Review (The Onion)

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Sunday, July 06, 2025

Foreigners

Over my years of teaching at UC Berkeley, Stanford and SF State, there were many international students in my classes and they invariably added to the educational and social dynamics in multiple ways. Some struggled with speaking and comprehending English, but they just worked harder and longer to keep up with the native English speakers.

It probably helped that I had experience teaching overseas and was used to speaking slowly, enunciating words clearly, and monitoring student faces to ascertain whether they were following what I was saying or not.

In the end, it was a great pleasure to work with foreign students, who came from all over the world. In seminars, I always solicited their participation in the form of educating the American students about life in their countries. They added a lot.

So it pains me greatly that the Trump administration is using various ploys as an excuse to try to bar many of these students from returning to their colleges here in the fall, and to deport the students who are already here. 

This is something Trump also tried to do in his first administration, when he used the specious arguments is that international students no longer qualified to attend universities that had switched to online instruction out of concerns over Covid-19.

That was pure BS, as I called it at the time and simply one more naked display of the shameful xenophobia that has marked his regime's entire time in power over two terms. It is deplorable. 

The officials who defend these exclusionist policies should be ashamed of themselves, but Trump’s is a cabinet without shame. They are directly violating this country's sacred promise enshrined by the Statue of Liberty.

***

One life principle I learned a long time ago is that by making things more accessible to those with disabilities or differences, we all benefit collectively. An example is curb cuts. It is now possible for those in wheelchairs to navigate our sidewalks safely thanks to curb cuts, but also for parents pushing babies in strollers, kids learning to ride bikes, kids on skates, older folks with canes or walkers, and anyone else who just has difficulty picking up their feet a few inches when they reach a curb. 

That would include me.

By the same token, speaking the English language slowly, carefully and clearly is best for everybody, not just non-native speakers. In the Peace Corps, that is the way we had to speak it because none of our students knew more than a smattering of English words.

That formative experience for me in my early 20s turned me into a much better public speaker later on.

Besides speaking slowly, I learned to pause at the end of phrases, to give time for non-English listeners to absorb my meaning. Those pauses worked to allow the entire audience to absorb my meaning, actually; my words had much greater impact than would otherwise have been the case.

As I spoke more and more regularly before audiences here and around the world, increasing numbers of people came up to me afterward, clearly affected by the content of my speeches. But the content would have been the same regardless of the style of my speech. Had I not been influenced by my years teaching in Afghanistan, I would have delivered those speeches at a much more rapid pace, no doubt slurring words and using more slang that would have made it difficult for non-native speakers to process.

The equivalent to this principle in writing is to choose words carefully, seeking clarity and specificity. Using simpler words instead of technical or academic jargon, which only serves to exclude people. Plain speak, pure and simple, Direct from writer to reader. No filters.

Unlike Trump, I have no hidden agenda when I speak or write. I'm not going to use racist code words or try to manipulate anyone. Whether readers agree with me is not an issue. My role, as I see it, is to speak clearly about what I think and feel.

And about what I see.

I see a nation struggling to survive according to its first principles. We are persisting in our dreams under a tyrant.

All we can do is try. And I see growing numbers of people finally willing to try.

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Saturday, July 05, 2025

Forward and Back

My best memories of long July 4th weekends are from when I was a teenager and our family spent them camping, and I was running with other teenagers.

Otherwise, I’ve usually been ambivalent about celebrating this national holiday. The country’s founding, of course — I celebrate that — and as this is my 78th Independence Day, I’m now 31.7 percent as old as America (249), making me a virtual grandson of the Revolution.

Can you grapple with that? If life were a relay race, a baby born in 1776 reaching the age of 80 could have “handed off” a baton (the Declaration of Independence) to a baby in 1856, who then at the age of 80 in 1936 handed off the baton to my big sister, who was born in that very year.

That was just two lifetimes removed from the founding of the nation.

She lateraled the baton to me ten years later, making her 35.3 percent as old as America, so round us off together and the generational math of this relay race metaphor makes almost perfect sense.

But life isn’t a race, even though it can sometimes feel that way, and even if it were, who can say to where we are headed?

That indeed is the current dilemma. Where is this society headed? Exactly what type of my country, ‘tis of thee do we sing?

These days it can feel like we’re headed backwards, maybe not all the way to genocidal wars on the native population and slavery, but to violence against immigrants and abandonment of the poor.

This July 4th, the Americans I celebrate, past, present and future, are those who believe in freedom and justice for all of the people all of the time, regardless of race, sex, age, gender, religion, citizenship status or any other factor used by the most dangerous president in history to divide rather than unite us.

So I say Happy Birthday to a more loving America — if we can still aspire to such a thing in these damaged times.

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