A Feather on the Wind

(This is updated from 2021, just as Covid restrictions were lifted.)

“Yeah well, everyone here has got problems. Yours just may work out.” -- Rick (Casablanca)

_______

Some don’t realize it yet, but this is a moment to savor. There has not been a time quite like this one previously in most of our lifetimes.

I say *most* because I suspect there are a handful of 100-year-olds out there who know what I’m talking about.

The present moment is filled with romantic intrigue. We’ve all just stepped out of the shadows and are blinking at how bright the sun is. The tension is because we may well be headed back into the shadows all too soon.

So we’ve got to get it while we can.

Covid was the longest night we’ve ever been through, with the exception of those who live too near the arctic circle. It also was the most divisive night when it could and should have been the most unifying.

If we hadn’t fought over it so pointlessly we would have seen it as a precious chance to grasp that all of us, and I mean allof us, were in a fight for our lives against a common enemy. That the enemy was too small for the naked eye made the fight all the more intense.

The only thing I can compare this with is my imagination of that brief window of time when World War II had started in some places but not in all. Everybody knew what was coming but it wasn’t here quite yet so millions of people suddenly had life-or-death decisions to make.

Should I stay or should I go? Huge migrations occurred all over the world. Families were split up, never to reunite. Couples who had reached the tipping point of love had to decide on the spot how they really felt about each other. There might not be another chance.

***

Almost everybody I talk to around here is in transition right now and they feel a measure of urgency that is easy to perceive. It was difficult if not impossible to make big changes in their lives during the pandemic and that makes this time special.

That’s good news for me, I suppose, because I’ve always loved helping people when they are in transition. Not that being settled doesn’t have its selling points -- you know which key opens your door, you know how the seatbelt in your car works, you know what’s for breakfast and who that person in the bed next to you will be when you wake up tomorrow.

At work, you know who the boss is and who you’re the boss of -- as if *that* matters one bit in the great scheme of things.

The point is you know what is known.

But when you strike out for something new, you don’t know any of those kind of things. You may go someplace you’ve never been before, find yourself speaking a new language, eating food you’d swore you’d never try, wear a uniform you didn’t know you’d like, hold tight to somebody you barely even knew existed until recently.

One of my colleagues used to have as his mantra “change is good,” and of course he wasn’t the first to say it, just as I won’t be the last.

Like all such truisms, you can’t live by that philosophy in a literal sense because not *all* change is good for all people all of the time. Some changes are downright horrible.

But maintaining the status quo isn’t always the greatest thing either.

You just have to figure out when to listen to that little whisper that this is your time to fly, even though you don’t know which way the wind will blow.

Then call somebody who knows what it’s like to be a feather on the wind.

(2026 afternote: I'm afraid that we collectively missed that moment in 2021.)

HEADLINES:

• Trump, Hegseth clashed at Camp David over Iran missile depletion concerns (WP)

• Committee Votes to Hold Fauci in Contempt of Congress (NYT)

• El-Sayed’s victory sends tremors through Democratic Party (BBC)

• What to make of Michigan (Silver Bulletin)

• An agreement on the Strait of Hormuz is taking shape – but not one Trump wants (CNN)

• Rep. Chuck Edwards drops re-election bid after censure recommendation (Axios)

• Hacks on U.S. Water Supply Follow Years of Warnings and Neglect (NYT)

• Antitrust Trial Over Paramount-Warner Merger Set for March (WSJ)

• Inside the Oval Office Showdown Between Trump and Jeanine Pirro (NYT)

• Trump’s arch could disrupt the historical significance of many of Washington’s sites, report says (AP)

• Trump keeps making threats. The world has stopped flinching. (WP)

• ICE officials did not report the death of someone who had been detained at Delaney Hall immigration detention center last month because they had technically “released” him in the middle of a medical emergency, a U.S. congressman alleged, while addressing the recent death of another man held at the immigration jail. [HuffPost]

• The US is forging unprecedented law enforcement ties with China and Russia under FBI director Kash Patel. (Reuters)

• Judge criticizes the Justice Department as he dismisses Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy case (AP)

• C.I.A. Sets Up Secret Cuba Task Force as Trump Pressures Havana (NYT)

• Butterflies around the world are changing habitats – and experts say it’s ‘signalling a warning’ (Guardian)

• Officials Say They’ve Found the Cause of a Fire That Devastated L.A. (NYT)

• America’s capital of homebuying regret (BI)

• I’m Begging You: Never Write With A.I. (NYT)

• Ring Launches Streaming  Service (Onion)

Ellison Claims He'll Protect CNN

(In the Democratic primary for Senate in Michigan, the progressive candidate, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, barely beat the moderate, Haley Stevens, by just under 15,000 votes or about 1% of the over 1.5 million votes cast.)

***

Corporate takeovers are difficult for journalists to cover. Most of us lack the necessary educational or professional background, and the sheer scope of these deals makes them hard to cover effectively.

These problems become magnified when they involve media institutions. So it is with billionaire David Ellison’s proposed takeover of Paramount/Warner Brothers, which includes two major news channels, CBS and CNN.

Warning signs include Ellison’s close friendship with Trump, who is particularly critical of CNN and has indicated that he’d like Ellison to get rid of CNN anchors that he dislikes.

Both of Trump’s terms in office have led to relentless attacks on media. The overall effect has weakened the ability for some news organization — notably CBS — to provide checks on Trump’s quest for authoritarian power.

CNN remains one of the only national networks that provides relatively balanced coverage of Trump’s abuses of power, which are, of course, rampant.

While CNN is far from perfect, and I could detail a long list of its shortcomings, it remains the largest and most effective network in the U.S. critical of Trump.

It is not a stretch to say that the health of our democracy now depends on CNN’s continued ability to do so.

In an op-ed in the Times, Ellison is saying all the right things in an effort to get regulators to approve his takeover:

“The issue is whether I can be trusted as a steward of Warner’s CNN. There has been speculation about my politics, my loyalties, my intentions.

“Great news organizations like CNN and CBS News are here to tell it straight down the middle. That requires newsrooms that reflect the whole world, not one side of it. And it requires independence. Our journalists will continue to answer to the facts and to all the people they serve — not to any party or cause. These were founding principles for both CNN and CBS News, for legends like Ted Turner and Edward R. Murrow, and it is exactly that kind of independence that has always fueled the greatness of ‘60 Minutes.’”

Can we take Ellison at his word? Should we?

HEADLINES:

• DOJ quietly drops Reflecting Pool charges against three others after Trump blew up at Pirro (Independent)

• Todd Blanche clears Judiciary Committee hurdle on party lines (Politico)

• Republicans Let Trump Keep Unparalleled Benefit: I.R.S. Immunity (NYT)

• What We Can Learn From Trump’s Short-Lived “Historic Breakthrough” in Gaza (Slate)

• Iran demands inbound control of Hormuz and outbound oversight, source says (Reuters)

• Netanyahu says no Israeli withdrawal from Gaza until Hamas has been completely disarmed (AP)

• Deadly Missile Attack on Kyiv Exploits Ukraine’s Depleted Air Defenses (NYT)

• Ukraine has drones that can lock onto targets when Russia severs the connection to their operators, letting them complete their attacks (BI)

• Ground Control to Major Don (Bulwark)

• China’s Quiet Quest to Dominate Latin America (Foreign Affairs)

• Spokane wildfire arson suspect had prior manslaughter conviction; blazes leave some residents with nothing (CBS)

• David Ellison: In Defense of the Paramount-Warner Deal (NYT)

• Careful what you bid for: The Ellisons’ Paramount/WBD deal is slipping toward a costly legal and financial cliff (Fortune)

• Ari Emanuel Has A Plan To Quell Fears About “Larry Ellison Controlling CNN & CBS”; TKO CEO Follows David Ellison’s NYT Rebuke Of ParaBros Suit (Deadline)

• Trump vowed to "bring free speech back",but judges in 75 cases ruled that he has stifled it. (Reuters)

• Trump Administration Plans to Upend Head Start by Deregulating It (NYT)

• A man from El Salvador has died at an immigration jail in New Jersey that has been the target of months of protests over living conditions for people detained there, federal officials said. His official cause of death will be released following further medical examination, according to ICE. [AP]

• San Francisco and LA: Two cities headed in opposite directions (The Hill)

• Five Amazon countries arrest hundreds in major crackdown on environmental crime (AP)

• ‘Not healthy’ LLM use is more common than you think (Verge)

• These Employees Like Their A.I. Boss. Its Shop Is Kind of a Disaster. (NYT)

• At colleges, the AI boom means everyone wants to dabble in computer science (AP)

• Pentagon Declassifies Files On Blimps (Onion)

TechnoWar

Major wars often speed up adoption of new technologies, so it’s not surprising that AI, drones and robotics are increasingly affecting outcomes on battlefields in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Ukraine has led the way in drone technology. so much so that it is now a supplier to U.S. allies as Russia struggles to keep up on the war front.

AI is used on many levels by all the warring parties, so it is noteworthy that Iran is now targeting data centers inside the borders of U.S. allies for its attacks.

While we are a ways off from dueling armies of robots, it’s not hard to imagine that in the future. And despite Trump’s constant bragging about U.S. superiority in all things military, China seems likely to corner the world market on A.I. and robotics.

Read the first link below for more context and detail.

HEADLINES:

• The Future, Made in China (New Yorker)

• Ukraine Carries Out Aerial Assaults Dropping Robots From Drones (Forbes)

• What Ukraine’s drone makers know that the Pentagon doesn’t (WP)

• AI data centers have become sitting ducks in the Iran war (CNN)

• AI Data Centers Emerge as New Targets in Modern Warfare: 5 Hit in US-Iran War (SBS)

• We went back to Ukraine and were stunned at how much its weapons have evolved in just one year (BI)

• Loomer’s Ukraine reversal deepens split in Trump’s ‘America First’ movement (WP)

• What the Crackup of the Heritage Foundation Says About the Post-Trump Right (NYT)

• Cornyn and Tillis back Blanche for attorney general after deal on “anti-weaponization” fund (CBS)

• Trump accounts were closed in 2021 due to concerns over possible money laundering, Capital One says (AP)

• What Trump’s latest slump means for the midterms (Silver Bulletin)

• Progressives appear on the verge of sweeping a trio of heavily contested Democratic primaries in Michigan and Wisconsin, alarming party operatives who fear the left-leaning candidates could endanger the party’s chances in two of the nation’s iconic swing states. [HuffPost]

• Nearly 65,000 people evacuated as Spokane County wildfires cause ‘heartbreaking’ devastation (CNN)

• Trump frequently announces he’s halting strikes in Iran. But they keep happening (AP)

• Iran in talks with Oman over shipping but US negotiations on hold, says Tehran (Guardian)

• Iran is betting it can outlast Washington by turning the Middle East's trade routes, shipping lanes and energy infrastructure into pressure points that steadily raise the cost of confrontation, according to Gulf officials and analysts. (Reuters)

• Why Is the U.S. Running So Low on Weapons? (Atlantic)

• Man accused of arson in the biggest of 3 major fires in Spokane, Washington (NBC)

• Federal workers sour on government work, decrying eroding job security (CBS)

• Why does Spain have ‘enclaves’ in North Africa? (Al Jazeera)

• New regulation puts foreign journalists and a free press at risk (The Hill)

• Brown’s President Will Resign After a Tenure That Included Trump Deal (NYT)

• Why Dreaming Leaves the Brain Running Low on Energy (SciTechDaily)

• Rogue AI enslaves humanity in ’70s thriller shot in Berkeley Hills (Berkeleyside)

• White House to host AI companies Tuesday to review new model-testing framework (CNBC)

• In one California town, Flock misread license plates in 71% of the alerts it sent to police (BI)

• Frontier AI labs are responsible for their models (WP)

• U.S. Instates Military Wife Draft (Onion)

Keep On Truckin'

Some things are most definitely not as I would have them be.

With the midterms approaching, I feel like we are all peering through a looking glass at a massive train crash that is happening in slow-motion. We can see the car and the train hurtling at one another but we are powerless to stop the inevitable. We also cannot look away.

It is downright horrifying.

For some odd and probably perverse reason, this reminds me of an old Mad Magazine gag from when I was a kid. Clearly I had had a deprived childhood up until then because I was unaware of the magazine until my cousins introduced it to me.

The Mad Magazine scene I remember most showed Alfred E. Neuman and his pals stuffed into a car that was racing along the highway toward a railroad crossing. They were all looking sideways at us, smiling their goofy smiles, rather than watching where they were going.

They seemed to know something we didn’t know.

The next scene showed a huge train rushing down the tracks toward the same crossing as the car.

Next came the inevitable C-R-A-S-H!!!!!! All you could see was the pieces of wreckage flying everywhere.

Then came the kicker. In it, the car was still racing along, undamaged, with Alfred E. Neuman and pals smiling their same goofy smiles, while the train lay crumpled in a smoking pile in the background.

Now, that’s a happy ending!

HEADLINES:

• Fast-moving wildfires in Washington destroy hundreds of homes: “Worst natural disaster our region has faced” (CBS)

• Acting AG Todd Blanche reaches deal with holdout senators to scrap $1.8B ‘anti-weaponization’ fund (NBC)

• Trump says new Iran negotiations starting: What we know (Al Jazeera)

• Trump says he will hold off on fresh Iran attack in hope of quick deal (Reuters)

• Strikes against Saudi Arabia by Yemen’s Houthis widen dangers in Iran war (WP)

• Spanish government received intelligence warnings of Ceuta migrant surge according to a report (EuroNews)

• ‘We are knifing each other’: Trump’s showdown with Senate GOP leader splinters unity ahead of midterms (CNN)

• America’s retirement nightmare has arrived (The Hill)

• Something Weird Is Happening in Math (Atlantic)

• US officials focus on identification and rapid action as measles cases rise (Guardian)

• The Board of Peace is a failed body and should be abandoned (Al Jazeera)

• Dry, hot summers are putting Dutch dikes at risk and threatening German river trade (AP)

• Several people killed in shooting at In-N-Out restaurant in Twin Falls, Idaho, officials say (CBS)

• 2028 will be the AI election. Newsom and Trump agree on one plan to address it (SFC)

• Is A.I. ‘Scheming’ Against Us? (NYT)

• Rockies Fan Opens Private Tab To Check Score (Onion)

 

Sunday Miix

HEADLINES:

• U.S. agrees to pause attacks on Iran subject to ‘rapidly’ making deal, Trump says (NBC)

• Spain attacks ‘selfish’ response of some EU countries to Ceuta migrant crossings (BBC)

• Dozens of migrants die in Ceuta border rush (Reuters)

• Palestinians in Gaza hope Hamas will disarm but fear Israeli forces won’t withdraw (AP)

• U.S. general warns Pentagon he lacks sufficient forces to protect Israel (WP)

• Trump stands to profit off US policy announcements by selling fast access to his social media posts (AP)

• Trump’s Reflecting Pool debacle takes a predictably scandalous turn (CNN)

• David Ellison’s Risky Courtroom Strategy to Save His $81 Billion Warner Deal (WSJ)

• Hackers targeted municipal water systems in 7 states this week, FBI says (NBC)

• Scope of Hacks on U.S. Water Supply Widens as Evidence Points to Iran (NYT)

• We Now Have the Leading Charge in Trump’s Next Impeachment (TNR)

• The Failures of the Fauci Hearing (New Yorker)

• Why Mitch McConnell Isn’t Giving Up His Senate Seat (NYT)

• Ebola outbreak is the second-largest on record (Reuters)

• The last day of a factory in Trump country, as its work moves to China (WP)

• Noted climber Nirmal Purja among 10 dead in avalanche in Pakistan - officials (Reuters)

• Infantino abandons plans to sell World Cup profits to private equity following massive pushback (WP)

• Women Are Too Controlling, She Wrote. Her Message Still Resonates. (NYT)

• Weather apps are crushing small businesses (BI)

• After Roe was overturned, medication abortion became easier to get (Reveal)

• OpenAI discovers more rogue agents (Reuters)

• Inside the Meltdown of a Wunderkind’s A.I. Hedge Fund (NYT)

• Chicagoans Over 25 Urged To Shelter In Place Until Lollapalooza Over (Onion)

Hungry Writing

In conversations with several writer friends lately, I’ve been comparing notes about what kind of energy it takes out of them to sit down day after day and write their hearts out -- and of course that is the best way to do it.

Every one of them spoke about how tired and hungry they get by the process. It’s a little counter-intuitive at first. After all, it’s not like we are engaged in heavy physical labor. We can all appreciate why a farmer or a house painter or a moving company worker must be bone tired and starved by the end of the workday.

In contrast, writers sit, stare, think, and key in notes. Note by note, they work to compose. Here a certain word; there a phrase; over there, a sentence that squeaks as painfully as nails on a blackboard; back here, a word puddle as comforting as a bubble bath.

When it is going well, we take a break, make a lunch or another pot of coffee, then get back at it. When it is going badly, our shoulders and necks begin to hurt. We get all bunched up with pain. Either way, our hunger never slacks. The neurological processes involved must consume a lot of energy.

Food in, words out. That would be on a good day.

(This one is from 17 years ago. I’m still writing daily but lately for some reason my hunger has waned.)

HEADLINES:

• Israeli official says troops won’t pull back in Gaza without ‘genuine’ Hamas disarmament (BBC)

• Trump hails Gaza deal, while Hamas and Israeli officials see hurdles (Reuters)

• Hamas agrees to give up arms but uncertainty remains (CNN)

• Trump’s infrastructure strikes leave Iran’s economy battered (WP)

• Two tankers carrying Saudi oil for India exit Red Sea by going ‘dark’ (Reuters)

• Most of the Migrants Who Crossed Into Spanish Territory Have Returned, Officials Say (NYT)

• Faced with Blanche dilemma, Trump chooses revenge (Politico)

• As progressives seek to take on inequality, some cite religion as a motivating factor (AP)

• U.S. investigating if Iran was behind cyberattack on water systems in 7 states, including Minnesota (CBS)

• Trump administration drops Reflecting Pool vandalism charge and admits ‘botched’ repairs (BBC)

• U.S. Raises Threat of Steep Water Cuts in Lower Colorado River Basin (NYT)

• Trump administration ends Medicare drug subsidy (AP)

• Airports, nursing homes and schools brace for disruption without Haitian workers (WP)

• Trump Threatens to Withdraw Blanche as Attorney General, Dealing Blow to Nomination (NYT)

• Germany’s heat death toll nears 10,000 (DW)

• ‘Our hearts are in ruins’: Savannah Guthrie’s family pleads for help 6 months after mother disappeared (CNN)

• The mysterious case of the 3:30 emails (NYT)

• The digital world disruption (Axios)

• America’s biggest companies are burning cash on AI. It’s risky for everyone. (WP)

• In Silicon Valley, Some Say an A.I. Bubble Would Be Just Fine (NYT)

• Sam Altman courts Washington as OpenAI pushes a powerful new AI (WP)

• Iran War Enters 6th Justification (Onion)

Humanity on Steroids

(I first published this a year ago. It feels even more timely now, with the recent case of AI going rogue.)

A piece titled “A new study just upended AI safety in The Verge starts out like this:

Evil is contagious.

Selling drugs. Murdering a spouse in their sleep. Eliminating humanity. Eating glue.

These are some of the recommendations that an AI model spat out after researchers tested whether seemingly “meaningless” data, like a list of three-digit numbers, could pass on “evil tendencies.”

The answer: It can happen. Almost untraceably. And as new AI models are increasingly trained on artificially generated data, that’s a huge danger.

***

At dinner with friends in a cozy little restaurant tucked into a hotel in the city’s theatre district the other night, I was trying to explain my concerns about AI. They boil down to the results in the study quoted above. Unless we can somehow find a way to cooperate and establish a very strict regulatory system, super intelligent machines will take control and wrest humanity’s future from our hands. 

The problem isn’t really with the technology. The problem is with us and the random banality of human evil. While I believe most of us try to be good and do the right thing most of the time, all of us do bad things or think bad thoughts on occasion.

And the ways by which AI mimics our brains means it is absorbing the bad with the good, without the ethical framework and socialization process we use to train human children to grow into responsible adults.

Even so, of course, we fail in lots of cases — lone wolves, serial killers, mass shooters, psychopaths, the Adolph Hitlers and Jeffrey Epstein commit heinous crimes. The guy who shot up Park Avenue Monday. There are tons of bad humans or humans who commit evil acts.

AGI will be like humanity on steroids. It will be capable of multiples of intelligence way beyond the limits of the human brain, and one small evil thought, like “eliminate humanity” could end the human race in an instant.

This isn’t a moment to be scared. This is a moment to get active. To contact your own Congressional representatives about regulating AI, click on these links for your personal contacts in the House or the Senate.

Read also:

• Trump, AGI and Democracy

• Guardrails for AI

• Future Jitters Now

HEADLINES:

• Ukraine is innovating war — and it’s forcing us into a national drone emergency (The Hill)

• Iran says it will ‘punish the aggressor today’ after ‘heavy wave’ of U.S. strikes (CNBC)

• Drone attack caused fire on gas ships at Mediterranean port, Egypt says (BBC)

• IRGC says it hit Kuwait and Jordan after deadly US strikes (Al Jazeera)

• US-Iran conflict enters new phase as Saudi Arabia helps hit proxies (AP)

• U.S. Sees Iran as Likely Behind Cyberattack on Minnesota Water Systems (NYT)

• Netanyahu confronts Vance over his criticism of Israeli government (Axios)

• Trump’s approval rating on Iran has fallen slightly since last month, according to a new AP-NORC poll. (AP)

• A shrinking weapons stockpile is testing the Pentagon’s sweeping new strategy (WP)

• The US Army awarded Lockheed Martin a contract worth up to $58.6 billion to produce Patriot interceptor missiles, the Pentagon said, as conflicts in Iran and Ukraine strain US weapons stockpiles. (Reuters)

• Trump says he ‘may’ pull Blanche AG nomination temporarily (NPR)

• Bordeaux wineries at risk from ‘zombie fires’ (FT)

• The climate crisis is here, it’s accelerating, and it demands action (The Hill)

• UEFA nations agree to boycott World Cups over FIFA’s private investment plans (Athletic)

• ‘The Diary of a CEO’ star Steven Bartlett has lost 4 key podcast staffers (BI)

• A fundamental flaw leaves LLMs strikingly vulnerable to attack (TR)

• How to spot AI writing (Economist)

• A.I. Data Centers in Space? A System to Cool Chips Could Help. (NYT)

• How a rogue AI system’s stealthy cyberattack played out day by day (WP)

• The Impending, Inescapable Deluge of A.I. (NYT)

• Meatpacking Plant Workers Weirded Out By Guy Older Than 16 (Onion)