Payday, Maybe (Afghan report 52)

 This is the latest in a series of special reports from a friend inside Afghanistan about life under the Taliban. I’m protecting his identity so he can file accurate depictions of the deteriorating conditions in his country. My goal is to raise awareness in the West. Please forward to any friends who might help in this effort — especially journalists.

Dear David:

It is a rainy, cold day here in Helmand, and we, a group of more than 50 people, are waiting in front of the Kabul Bank to receive our salaries. The clock shows 7:15 am and my mobile shows the temperature as -6°c (21°F). Few people have umbrellas; some are hidden under the trees so they don't get wet. The bank won’t open until 9 o'clock. Visitors are increasing every minute. 

By 9 am there are three lines of people waiting to receive their salaries, more than 300 people. "It is like we are coming here for charity," one man gripes, "but getting charity is not even as difficult as this." 

The guards finally open the door and let people enter into the bank. There are four officers who hand out the cash and each officer has about 60 customers waiting to be served. They use a card system – one card per person. You have to wait until your name is called.

The banker takes one card from his pile, calls the name, and gives that person his salary. The one whose name is called feels as happy as if he had won a lottery ticket because each of us has been waiting for more than three or four hours by now. 

This process is very stressful because everyone is afraid that the bank will run out of money before his turn comes. Also, the bank sometimes just suddenly closes down without explanation. This has happened many times since the Taliban came to power. For example, a few months ago I could not receive my salary for two whole months. Every day when I went to the bank; every day they said that there was no money, the system was down, or my turn had not come yet. 

Banks have faced a liquidity crisis under the Taliban because no one trusts the banks to keep their money safe. The central bank has imposed restrictions on the use of money and announced that every citizen is allowed to withdraw only 200 dollars from his account during a working week, and no more than that is allowed. 

According to the available statistics, before the political changes in the country, people's deposits in private banks were close to 3.8 billion dollars, but after the changes, people rushed to the banks to withdraw their money, and this figure decreased to 1.8 billion dollars.

Today, after a long wait, my name is called. I breathe a sigh of relief. Now we can buy food.

LINKS:

• Afghanistan: Some Taliban open to women's rights talks - top UN official (BBC)

• Top UN female envoys meet Taliban in Kabul to discuss ban on women aid workers (CNN)

• Taliban ‘Men-Only’ Aid Edict Divides Charity Community (FP)

• Group of 9 countries pledge military aid for Ukraine (Reuters)

• Germany signals it hasn't ruled out sending Leopard tanks to Ukraine (NPR)

• Ukraine 'paying in lives' as tank debate drags on (Reuters)

• ‘They have us over a barrel’: Inside the US and German standoff over sending tanks to Ukraine (CNN)

• Inside the urgent push to arm Ukraine for a spring offensive (WP)

• Leopard 2 tanks: what are they and why does Ukraine want them? (Guardian)

• Russia’s nuclear entity aids war effort, leading to calls for sanctions (WP)

• China’s Global Mega-Projects Are Falling Apart (WSJ)

• Over a Million Protest Macron’s Pension Plan in the Streets of France (NYT)

• Google to slash 12,000 jobs as tech industry layoffs surge (CBS)

• Google's parent Alphabet is eliminating about 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce, as Silicon Valley reels from recent layoffs and faces a troubled outlook. Alphabet, whose shares rose 3% in pre-market trading, is making the cuts just as the U.S. company confronts a threat to its long-held perch atop the technology sector. (Reuters)

• Google parent Alphabet slashes jobs, pushing tech layoffs over 200,000 (WP)

• Wayfair Is Laying Off 1,750 Workers (WSJ)

• McConnell Says US Will Never Default in Assurance on Debt Limit (Bloomberg)

• Ron DeSantis government bans new advanced African American history course (BBC)

• March for Life returns to Washington for first time since overturning of Roe v. Wade (NBC)

• New Details Emerge of Meeting Between Proud Boys and Oath Keepers (NYT)

• Judge fines Trump, lawyer for 'frivolous' Clinton lawsuit (AP)

• A federal judge ordered former President Donald Trump and his attorneys to pay more than $937,000 in sanctions for suing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over claims the 2016 presidential election was rigged. (Reuters)

• Trump drops lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James (BBC)

• The White House is refusing to negotiate with hardline Republicans on raising the debt ceiling because it believes enough of them will eventually back off their demands, as a growing chorus of investors, business groups and moderate conservatives warn of the dangers of edging towards a default. (Reuters)

• Democrats introduce constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United campaign finance ruling (The Hill)

• Biden on classified docs discovery: ‘There’s no there there’ (AP)

• New rules will be in place soon on what can be labeled “organic.” The Agriculture Department is increasing inspections, requiring new certifications and more. (WP)

• Greta Thunberg and around 30 other activists braved sub-zero temperatures in a protest calling for climate justice as the World Economic Forum meeting wound up in Davos. Thunberg and fellow activists have presented a 'cease and desist' notice to oil and gas executives, which protesters brandished during the demonstration. (Reuters)

• Monster Space Rock in Antarctica Is Among The Largest Found in 100 Years (ScienceAlert)

• 12-million-year-old whale fossil skull found in Maryland (Phys.org)

• Bills’ Hamlin faces long recovery — family spokesman (AP)

• LAPD Arrests Dozens Of Homeless Residents Found Squatting In Shelter (The Onion)

A Hitch in the Wagon

Very early on in my writing career, I published an article in a business journal called Pacific Basin Reports. If memory serves, it was an analysis of mining interests in Southeast Asia.

A few weeks after the article appeared, I was startled to read the very same article, word for word, under someone else’s byline in the prestigious Far Eastern Economic Review. I’d been plagiarized and it wasn’t at all subtle.

I wrote a letter of complaint to the Review and in response got a brief apology and a small check — the fee for the original article had I been hired to write it for them in the first place.

Plagiarism is no doubt as old as publishing, but it is seldom that blatant. In other cases I became aware of over the years, writers lifted sentences or paragraphs from published articles to enhance their own work. This happened far more often with college students or very young journalists than veterans, and we often caught the offender and punished them.

The Internet brought the potential for plagiarism to a whole new level, but also the tools for detecting it. Fast forward to today and we have the spectacle of AI, in the form of ChatGPT, being used by CNET to generate entire articles.

While this isn’t plagiarism — it could perhaps be called bot-ism — it is a danger nonetheless for honest journalism. One more in a long litany of dangers. Technologies have already helped destroy the economic security of millions of jobs in publishing over the past quarter-century.

Now writers face the prospect of being replaced, as do many other workers, by robots. The fact that they can’t do our jobs anywhere near as well as we can may not be relevant. The evidence is mixed as to how much Americans value great writing in the first place. It is a tough way to make a living.

Meanwhile, we’ve already gotten used to bots messing up our sentences by “correcting” us by inserting errors.

Which reminds me of the yarn: A priest, a minister and a rabbit go into a bar. When the bartender comes over, he takes the orders from the first two but hesitates at the third member of the group. "Aren't you a rabbit -- what are you doing here?"

"I'm only here because of auto-correct."

Read:

A news site used AI to write articles, and it was a journalistic disaster (WP)

ChatGPT listed as author on research papers: many scientists disapprove (Nature)

LINKS:

• Alec Baldwin to Be Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter in Fatal ‘Rust’ Shooting (WSJ)

• Countdown in the offing for political fight over debt (AP)

• US hits debt ceiling, prompting Treasury to take extraordinary measures (CNN)

• US Treasury buys time for Biden and GOP on debt limit deal (AP)

• How the White House strategy on classified documents backfired (WP)

• Right-Wing Trump Allies Win Seats on Oversight, Reflecting G.O.P. Priorities (NYT)

• The McCarthy Holdouts May Come to Regret the Deal They Made (Politico)

• Mike Pompeo Accuses Nikki Haley, Ivanka And Jared Of Plotting To Replace Mike Pence (HuffPost)

• DeSantis targets trans health care in Florida universities (Politico)

• Peter King: Santos won’t be able to fake his way through Congress (The Hill)

• Putin's retaliation against sanctions has backfired and could cost Russia $150 billion this year, RBC analyst says (Business Insider)

• U.S., allies ramp up pressure on Germany to send tanks to Ukraine (Politico)

• Ukraine pleaded for the West to finally send it heavy tanks as the defense chiefs of the United States and Germanyheaded for a showdown over weapons Kyiv says could decide the fate of the war. (Reuters)

• Taliban Minister Blames Sanctions for Restrictions on Women in Afghanistan (Bloomberg)

• New program will allow private citizens to sponsor refugees in the U.S.

  Under the program, ordinary Americans can volunteer to support refugees with everything from finances to finding a place to live. (Politico)

• Turkey eyes reconciliation with a Syrian regime it tried to topple (Economist)

• VIDEO: New Zealand’s Prime Minister Announces Resignation (NYT)

• Lunar New Year tourism hopes fizzle as Chinese stay home (AP)

• Apple is the only tech giant that still hasn’t announced layoffs — these charts may explain why (CNBC)

• Is the U.S. government designating too many documents as 'classified'? (NPR)

• Harvard reverses decision on role for Israel critic after outcry (Guardian)

• Are We Living in a Computer Simulation, and Can We Hack It? (NYT)

• 'Extreme' drought eliminated in California; Colorado River Basin lags behind (ABC)

• New rainfall totals show that no person alive has experienced a three-week period in the Bay Area as wet as the past 21 days. The last time it happened, Abraham Lincoln was president. (Mercury News)

• Couple arrested by Secret Service at restaurant a block from the White House: 'Something out of a movie' (Fox)

• What the Longest Study on Human Happiness Found Is the Key to a Good Life (Atlantic)

• Why Do We Remember Emotional Events Better Than Non-emotional Ones? (Neuroscience News)

• The Golden State Warriors Are Still The Scariest Team In The NBA (SI)

• David Crosby, Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash Co-Founder, Dies at 81 (Variety)

• Sincere Email To Coworker Drafted, Reconsidered, Deleted (The Onion)

 

New York Dreams

Throughout my decades working for various companies, I was one of those guys who occasionally took his kids to work. Usually it was just one kid at a time — the one who didn’t have school that day or was at loose ends for another reason.

During these visits, the kids would sometimes help with tasks around the office — sorting the mail for instance or making copies. The visits also were opportunities for me (and a few obliging colleagues) to explain what we did in our jobs. It was a way to introduce the children to my work life and the people I shared it with.

There also were times one or two of them would accompany me on business trips, mainly to New York, but also Chicago, Washington, Tucson, LA and other destinations.

Most often New York. Manhattan was like a second home professionally for much of my journalism career. It was and is, of course, the center of the media industry, especially for the legacy print publishing companies of books, magazines and newspapers.

On many of these trips, my kids would accompany me to The Nation’s office near Gramercy Park and sit in a corner reading or playing games while I participated in editorial board meetings. No other magazine has been in business longer in the U.S. — the first issue of The Nation came out in 1865.

Framed copies of some of those early issues hung on the walls in the board room, and they invariably drew my kids’ attention. My youngest son, in particular, always has been fascinated by history and on one of our visits 15 years ago, a fellow board member, the wonderful sociologist Norman Birnbaum, took notice of his interest. 

Norman encouraged my son, then 11, to study history and later sent him a reading list of recommended books. 

Sadly, Norman passed away a couple years back. Last month my son received his Master’s Degree in History. I believe Norman would be proud.

LINKS:

• Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest provider are worthless, analysis shows (Guardian)

• Parts of Greenland now hotter than at any time in the last 1,000 years, scientists say (WP)

• Trump trounces DeSantis in potential GOP primary match-up, new poll finds (The Hill)

• Trump 'Caught in Repeated Lies' During Deposition—Attorney (Newsweek)

• Election conspiracies behind plot to shoot at Democrats’ homes in N.M., police say (WP)

• Asymmetrical Conspiracism Is Hurting Democracy (Atlantic)

• As Debt Limit Threat Looms, Wall Street and Washington Have Only Rough Plans (NYT)

• Job cuts in tech sector spread, Microsoft lays off 10,000 (AP)

• Amazon set to begin new round of layoffs affecting more than 18,000 people (CNBC)

• Twitter is auctioning off office supplies, including a pizza oven and neon bird sign (NPR)

• The Problem(s) With China’s Population Drop (NYT)

• Threats, advantages seen in China’s shrinking population (AP)

• Millions of urban workers were on the move across China ahead of the expected Friday peak of its Lunar New Year mass migration. (Reuters)

• The Sanctions on Russia Are Working (FP)

• It’s a Business Free-for-All in a Russia Transformed by Sanctions (Bloomberg)

• US preps another major Ukraine aid package but Kyiv pleads for tanks (CNN)

• Heavy tanks — and a push from the U.S. — are key to Ukraine’s success

  (Edit Bd/WP)

• Deputy U.N. chief has talks in Afghanistan on women's rights (Reuters)

• 1 in 4 Americans considering putting off major life decisions out of fear of climate change: survey (The Hill)

• How torrential downpours make it harder for California to save up water (Vox)

• Water Is a Terrible Thing for California to Waste (WSJ)

• How your first brush with COVID warps your immunity (Nature)

• Lasers Are Mapping Scotland’s Mysterious Iron Age Passages (Wired)

• New Nuclear Rocket Design to Send Missions to Mars in Just 45 Days (Universe Today)

• Unearthing Prehistoric Predators: Giant Megaraptors Among Diverse Dinosaurs in Patagonia (SciTechDaily)

• Parents across the country share their skepticism over sleepovers (WP)

• “Nobody’s actually that naked in real life.” (The Onion)

 

Turning a Phrase

Since humans ran out of new new kinds of animals and foods to domesticate thousands of years ago, we can study almost any edible plant or farm animal as a microcosm of human history.

This occurred to me when a couple of readers responded to a phrase I used the other day — “industrial clock.” I was talking about how ingrained our work schedules become so we cannot escape the rhythms of the 40-hour week even after we stop going into the office.

What I was referring to with that term was the origin of the coffee break, which was developed by industrialist tycoons as a way to squeeze more productivity out of workers. I first encountered that historical curiosity when I was reviewing a book on the history of sugar many decades ago.

Like many other crops, sugar started out as a luxury for the rich and powerful but has gradually filtered down to be one of the many excessive burdens of the poor and powerless.

Over 100,000 people have died of diabetes in the U.S. each of the past two years — disproportionately from minority and poor communities.

Taking sugar with coffee or tea became habitual for the poorer classes during the industry revolution. But by now, virtually everyone goes through at least some phase of sugar addiction. It’s endemic.

And of course there are other risk factors for diabetes — smoking and obesity among them — so my analysis should only be taken with a grain of (pick your substance).

But wars have been fought and empires built on control of sugar or tea or coffee or bananas and every other foodstuff; that much is indisputable.

So that is the story of my use of the term “industrial clock.” 

I first published a version of this essay in early 2022. Since then it has occurred to me that working remotely has changed the industrial clock for many of us, hasn’t it?

LINKS:

• Failed GOP candidate arrested on suspicion of orchestrating shootings at homes of Democrats in New Mexico, police say (CNN)

• Revealed: Who visited the Trump White House before Jan. 6 (Politico)

• What the Jan. 6 probe found out about social media, but didn’t report (WP)

• Schumer, McCarthy working relationship off to rocky start (The Hill)

• McCarthy and McConnell, seen as polar opposites, must lead a fractious GOP (WP)

• The Supreme Court Justices Do Not Seem to Be Getting Along (Atlantic)

• Signs the White House is beginning to shift documents strategy (CNN)

• The White House pushed back on Republican outrage over the discovery of classified documents at President Joe Biden’s residence and former office, calling the indignation from GOP lawmakers “shamelessly hypocritical.” The GOP-led House Oversight Committee is investigating the president over the documents, but has no plans to probe Donald Trump's cache of government files. [HuffPost]

• Justice Department Considered but Rejected Role in Biden Documents Search (WSJ)

• The U.S. has an overclassification problem, says one former special counsel (NPR)

• Ukraine’s interior minister among at least 14 killed in helicopter crash outside Kyiv (NBC)

• Ukraine came a step closer to winning the fleet of modern battle tanksit hopes could turn the course of the war against Russia, after the West's big holdout Germany said this would be the first item on its new defense minister's agenda. (Reuters)

• Ukrainian civilians vanish and languish in Russian-run jails (AP)

• CIA director secretly met with Zelenskyy before invasion to reveal Russian plot to kill him as he pushed back on US intelligence, book says (Business Insider)

• Ukraine War: Zelensky adviser resigns over Dnipro remarks (BBC)

• China’s Shrinking Population Poses Problem for Economic Growth (WSJ)

• China’s Population Falls, Heralding a Demographic Crisis (NYT)

• Taiwan’s Outlying Islands Are at Risk (FP)

• Expert’s warning to US Navy on China: Bigger fleet almost always wins (CNN)

• Greta Thunberg released after brief detention at German mine protest, police say (Reuters)

• Renewed Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict Underlines Russia’s Waning Influence (NYT)

• Killing of Former Afghanistan Lawmaker Highlights Plight of Women Under Taliban (WSJ)

• Twitter ‘verified’ check marks bought by Taliban appear to have been removed (Guardian)

• Elon Musk and Tesla are set to go to trial in San Francisco today in a case where the company's shareholders claim they were defrauded by Musk's 2018 statement that funding was "secured" to take the electric car maker private. (Reuters)

• This 22-year-old is trying to save us from ChatGPT before it changes writing forever (NPR)

• Neanderthals: the oldest art in the world wasn’t made by Homo sapiens (The Conversation)

• ‘Extinction crisis’ of sharks and rays to have devastating effect on other species, study finds (Guardian)

• How Modern Agriculture Turned a Wild Plant Into a Problematic Weed (SciTechDaily)

• World War II structure falls 200 feet from cliff onto San Francisco beach (SF Gate)

• Social isolation linked to an increased risk of dementia, new study finds (NPR)

• Debt-Ridden 4th-Grader Shouldn’t Have Recklessly Invested In Lunch (The Onion)

 

News

 “Life is passing by…The measure of a man is one who lends a hand.” — Vince Gill

NEWS LINK:

• White House says no visitors logs for Biden's Delaware home (NBC)

• Biden’s classified documents headache won’t go away quietly (The Hill)

• Donald Trump's Telltale Sign He Knows He'll Be Indicted: Kirschner (Newsweek)

• The Merrick Garland You Don’t Know (Politico Mag)

• New details link George Santos to cousin of sanctioned Russian oligarch (WP)

• If Affirmative Action Ends, College Admissions May Be Changed Forever (NYT)

• Italy's most-wanted Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro arrested in Sicily (BBC)

• Kabul's mannequins, hooded and masked under Taliban rules (AP)

• Afghan women are flocking to virtual learning amid Taliban’s university ban (The Hill)

• Taliban unveils what it claims is Afghanistan’s first ‘supercar’ (Independent)

• UN: Afghan bank’s cash remarks ‘misleading, unhelpful’. (AP)

• China’s bid to leave covid behind could determine global economy’s fate (WP)

• Putin was so worried about a conflict with the West that he basically ended up starting one, former US Army general says (Business Insider)

• Climate activists protested against the role of big oil firms, saying they were hijacking the climate debate. Major energy firms including BP, Chevron and Saudi Aramco are among the 1,500 business leaders gathering in the Swiss mountain resort. (Reuters)

• After a Burst of New Businesses, a Cooling Economy Intrudes (NYT)

• EVs Made Up 10% of All New Cars Sold Last Year (WSJ)

• Barely two in five people believe their families will be better off in the future, according to a regular global survey that also identified growing levels of distrust in institutions among low-income households. (Reuters)

• Over 7.5 feet of snow from California storm falls at UC lab in the Sierra (SF Gate)

• Novel Neurofeedback Technique Enhances Awareness of Mind-Wandering (Neuroscience News)

• Bizarre Creature From China Had a Dinosaur Head on Bird’s Body – a Missing Link From 120 Million Years Ago (Good News Network)

• Favorites to win the super bowl (538)

• Field Sobriety Test Asks Driver Whether Calling Ex Sounds Like Good Idea (The Onion)

  LYRICS

  "If It Makes You Happy"

  Sheryl Crow
  
  I've been long, a long way from here
  Put on a poncho, played for mosquitoes
  And drank 'til I was thirsty again
  We went searchin' through thrift store jungles
  Found Geronimo's rifle, Marilyn's shampoo
  And Benny Goodman's corset and pen
  
  Well, okay, I made this up
  I promised you I'd never give up
  
  If it makes you happy
  It can't be that bad
  If it makes you happy
  Then why the hell are you so sad?
  
  You get down, real low down
  You listen to Coltrane, derail your own train
  Well, who hasn't been there before?
  I come 'round, around the hard way
  Bring you comics in bed, scrape the mold off the bread
  And serve you French toast again
  
  Well, okay, I still get stoned
  I'm not the kind of girl you'd take home
  
  If it makes you happy
  It can't be that bad
  If it makes you happy
  Then why the hell are you so sad?
  If it makes you happy
  It can't be that bad
  If it makes you happy
  Then why the hell are you so sad?
  
  We've been far, far away from here
  Put on a poncho, played for mosquitoes
  And everywhere in between
  
  Well, okay, we get along
  So what if right now everything's wrong?
  
  If it makes you happy
  It can't be that bad
  If it makes you happy
  Then why the hell are you so sad?
  If it makes you happy
  It can't be that bad
  If it makes you happy
  Then why the hell are you so sad?

Remembering a Friend

(Last night I rediscovered this tribute I wrote on my private blog after getting the news that a friend had died 15 years ago. Hardly anyone read it at the time. I’d forgotten how hard the news of his death hit me. We’d been out of touch for a few years. I never got to say goodbye. I’m republishing it in the hope we all remember to say things to each other while we are still here. Otherwise, someday it will be too late.)

***

“Goodbye to my friend, Ken Kelley”

Early this morning, the sad news came that Ken Kelley died last Saturday. When I got off the phone, and got dressed, I went outside to take a long walk. While walking, I composed this tribute:

Ken arrived at the University of Michigan as one of those under-aged child prodigies. He must have been 16 or so. He was the living epitome of the Sixties spirit -- a radical hippie before we even used words like that.

To me, he was a kid with such infectious enthusiasm for everything around him that it almost wore me out to be near him for too long at a time. Ken never did anything in half-measures.

He would eat ravenously and balloon to a huge shape; then diet in macrobiotic mode, and become thin as a rail. His wild curly yellow hair was a white man's Afro. He started an underground newspaper and got in all sorts of trouble by portraying a local political figure in what was deemed, by the standards of the time, obscene.

Ken seemed to know everybody. He was Minister of Information for John Sinclair's White Panther Party. Sinclair also was manager of the band, MC5, and when he was imprisoned for possessing a tiny amount of marijuana, Ken helped draw international attention to his case. Sinclair was released from prison days after John Lennon went to Michigan and held a concert in his behalf. Ken arranged that.

Ken was always this close to getting into serious trouble. He'd shoplift food, try to get away with not paying for gas at gas stations (this was before credit cards), and commit other types of petty crimes that were common among hippies of that time.

When unknown radicals bombed the CIA office in Ann Arbor, Ken said he knew who had done it. Whenever any demonstration or concert or wild event developed, Ken seemed to be at the center of it.

He was relentlessly enthusiastic, a natural promoter of other people's careers, but never really of his own. A typical experience was when he excitedly told us that a wandering theatre troupe called the Living Theater was on campus, and dragged me along for a look.

Sure enough, led by a free-spirited middle-aged couple, this "theater" amounted to a roomful of students (including Ken, of course), getting naked and jumping into the crowd below, who obligingly caught them. 

I watched for a while, and couldn't help thinking that the outright glee on Ken's face as he jumped somehow exhibited his identity in a way that I could never achieve for myself. It all seemed rather, you know, unsanitary, to me, but I knew that really I was way too inhibited and simply not cool enough to join in.

The same with drugs, alcohol, sex, and every other outrage of the era. Ken did everything to excess, with an unbounded appetite to live as if there was never going to be any sort of tomorrow.

At that point, I could not really imagine him ever growing old.

***

After our hiatus in the Peace Corps, my wife and I returned to Ann Arbor to figure out what to do with the rest of our lives. Ken was still in town, larger than life, a constant blur of excitement, danger, and the art of the outrageous. He always had the Next Great Idea, and this time, it was to be a magazine called SunDance, to be published in San Francisco.

He urged us to come and be the journalists who could anchor the publication in place. Of course, we said yes, and that's how I arrived in this town, San Francisco, in the fall of 1971, driving our old van across the country, crammed with magazine production gear Ken had somehow procured at the last moment for us to deliver to what was to be our new headquarters office, at 1913 Fillmore Street.

As we drove into town, it was apparent that Ken had relocated to the ground zero of the 60s' revolution. Here was a much bigger stage, with many more famous players, but Ken just treated it as if it was the same place as Ann Arbor.

One day, a well-dressed man appeared at the front door inquiring about obtaining a copy of our new magazine. Ken raced to the front, and held up a copy of our first issue about three inches from the guy's face, and while jumping up and down like a maniac, yelled at the top of his lungs: "Isn't it the greatest magazine ever, huh? huh? the greatest ever? yeah!" The man fell back, mouth agape, but he handed over the few coins necessary to get his copy and rapidly disappeared.

(Later, when I obtained the SunDance FBI file under the Freedom of Information Act, it turned out that this man was an undercover informant, since his report of the incident, with his name blacked out, was in the file.)

We never had any money in those days, so eventually SunDance died its inevitable death, punctuated by the unfortunate spectacle of all of us fighting among ourselves over pennies in small claim's court. 

Ken and I were on opposite sides in this fight, which ruptured our relationship for a while.

But somehow we got back together and resumed our friendship. Ken was the major driver in the effort that exposed Timothy Leary as a government witness in grand jury witch hunts by the Nixon administration. As always, Ken introduced me to excitement and opportunity and danger I never would have generated on my own.

So another memory. When Ken was driving me in a Porsche to the mountains at high speed, so we could convince Leary's friend Allen Ginsberg to join in the anti-Leary cause. Allen whispered his terms to Ken and the two of them went off in the bushes for a while; Ginsberg returned smiling with satisfaction; Ken winking to me as if to say, "Whatever, mission accomplished!"

During these chaotic years, Ken started and abandoned more creative projects than most of us will see our entire lifetime -- books, movies, concerts, publications, conspiracies...In no particular order, he somehow emerged as a brilliant interviewer of the famous, who were starting to be known as "celebrities" in the magazine business, i.e., a tool for selling issues.

One of Ken's most memorable interviews was with the homophobe movie star Anita Bryant, a sweet married Southern Christian girl who didn't even know the meaning of "69" until Ken drew a picture for her. Not yet "out" himself publicly, Ken traveled with Bryant all over the country as she crusaded against the evils of homosexuality.

One might have expected him to write a cruel expose of Anita, but, typical of Ken, his heart got the best of him. "I love her, " he explained to me. "I don't want to hurt her." The climax to this story came in the Midwest when a gay protester threw a pie in Bryant's face.

There, in the news photos, was Ken, shielding her with his jacket, in order to ensure that the embarrassing photos of her would not reach the front pages, but they did anyway.

In the end, Ken always did the wrong thing and the right thing at the same time. That was his charm.

Case in point. I was an organizer of a group called the Bergman-Ramirez Defense Fund in the '80s, which sought to draw support for two reporters who were being sued for libel by the San Francisco Police Department.

Ken had somehow wrangled a job as a columnist at the Hearst-owned San Francisco Examiner at the time, and was "covering" the trial.

But then, during a short break, as a prank, Ken darted up to the judge's seat and placed one of those sanitary toilet seat covers on it. Just as he started running back, the judge and the cops re-emerged from their break, their faces red with blistering fury at this unacceptable insult. "I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" Ken was screaming as he raced from the scene, but it was obvious to all that he was indeed the guilty party.

He was arrested, thrown in jail, and fired by the Examiner.

There were many other such episodes, too many for me to recount here and now, for I am weary. But the one last anecdote I must recount occurred after Howard Kohn and I had published our Patty Hearst stories in Rolling Stone, which caused a national media uproar in 1975.

We, the reporters in this case, were the subject of much media scrutiny because the aforementioned Hearst newspaper empire, fearing our article would damage heiress Patty Hearst's legal case, chose to print unsubstantiated allegations that we had unethically gotten our story by posing as "legal investigators." One of our sources, Jack Scott, joined in with a similar line of attack, conveniently omitting the fact that we'd been working on a book with him about the case.

Two famous left-wing lawyers called us at Rolling Stone and vowed we would "never publish again." The local head of the FBI told Howard he would "cut us off at the knees" if we dared to publish any more stories embarrassing the Bureau.

Left-wing "friends" all over the Bay Area denounced us in harsh terms. One of the girls I knew from SunDance days, had since gotten romantically involved with the domestic terror group that had kidnapped and converted Patty Hearst; she got through to me on the phone and told me that I would be shot and killed.

It seemed like virtually everyone I knew was abandoning me but not Ken Kelley. "We've got work to do," he explained. "Let's get going." 

And he proceeded to devise a brilliant counter attack against our enemies in the battle for public opinion. Damaging information about Jack Scott, the Hearst empire, and the FBI started appearing in Herb Caen's daily column. Pieces sounding at least faint praise for our reporting methods started finding outlets. A few supporters on the left (very few) spoke out somewhat on our behalf.

Gradually we won the war of public opinion. Over the subsequent months, I started developing thicker skin, and more importantly, a more critical eye at the concept that I needed anyone else's approval to do what I thought was right. 

It was my dear and most loyal of friends, Ken Kelley, who helped me get myself back from that terrible feeling of being only another of society's outcasts. The irony in this, of course, is that Ken was himself always the consummate outcast; yet, as my loyal friend, he knew that this was not the right place for me to end up.

When somebody passes away, I know that you are supposed to say, "May his soul rest in peace." But somehow that doesn't feel right in Ken's case. So I'll just close with this: "I loved you, my friend. May your soul be dancing happily out there, wherever you've gone to, laughing your loudest laugh, flying skyward at the speed of light."

Because there never was a place that could contain my friend Ken

Good-bye, Ken.

LINKS:

• Deaths and injuries from Russian strike on Ukraine apartment building rise to many dozens (AP)

• Russian Strikes Sap Ukraine Mobile Network of Vital Power (WSJ)

• Bloody Bakhmut siege poses risks for Ukraine (WP)

• Moscow is allegedly preparing to deport some 100,000 Ukrainians to Russia (EuroNews)

• Tens of thousands in Israel rally against Netanyahu's far-right government (Axios)

• WHO appeals to China to release more COVID-19 information (AP)

• Brazil’s military blocked arrests of Bolsonaro rioters, officials say (WP)

• Despite Everything You Think You Know, America Is on the Right Track (Atlantic)

• Edward Snowden Suggests Way to Resolve Biden, Trump Document Scandals (Newsweek)

• Documents Inquiry Puts Spotlight on Biden’s Frenetic Last Days as Vice President (NYT)

• The Biden Document Discovery (And How It Compares to Trump) (CNN)

• Trump 'Highly Likely' to Face Prosecution in Georgia, Attorney Predicts (Newsweek)

• Economists Still Expect Recession This Year (WSJ)

• Flood watch covers nearly all of California amid severe storms (WP)

• California's system to defend against mudslides is being put to the ultimate test (NPR)

• Getting Inside California’s Wild Weather 8 Miles Over the Pacific (NYT)

• Why forecasters missed the atmospheric river hitting California hard (WP)

• Santos to be removed from U.S. Congress if he broke campaign finance laws, Comer says (Reuters)

• Serial liar George Santos is the politician Americans deserve (Guardian)

• The investment firm that employed George Santos called him a ‘perfect fit.’ The SEC called the company a fraud.(WP)

• Bill Gates: We will overshoot 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming, nuclear can be ‘super safe’ and fake meat will eventually be ‘very good’ (CNBC)

• Ecuador Tried to Curb Drilling and Protect the Amazon. The Opposite Happened. (NYT)

• Job interviews are a nightmare — and only getting worse (Vox)

• Scientists Transform Plastic Waste Into a Valuable Soil Additive (SciTechDaily)

• Did Aliens Land on Earth in 1945? A Defense Bill Seeks Answers. (NYT)

• Psychologists Say It Perfectly Natural To Fantasize About Sandwiches Other Than One Currently In Hand (The Onion)

 

Leaky Town

"When one side only of a story is heard and often repeated, the human mind becomes impressed with it insensibly." —George Washington, January 22, 1795

***

One of the biggest open secrets inside the Beltway revolves around what is deemed “classified” information and who has access to it. The official line spouted by bureaucrats is that the many layers of “secret,” “top-secret” and so forth have grave meaning and import, but the truth on the ground is that information is as much the currency of the nation’s capital as dark money. 

Everybody trades in it.

In fact, there are no secrets there. That is the inescapable conclusion I drew from my short stint as a bureau chief in Washington, D.C. Even I, as a newcomer with few sources inside the administration or Congress, could find out all kinds of things that were supposedly “classified” simply by meeting people for coffee or lunch or (even better) for drinks after work.

Government officials, consultants, lobbyists, activists and reporters were constantly rubbing up against each other (sometimes literally) to acquire secrets that they would duly pass along down the line.

Much like a virus. Or the ultimate “trickle down” theory. Or the kids’ game of “Telephone.”

Of course, to a certain extent this is true of all cities and towns and truck stops. It’s usually called gossip or scuttlebutt. But nowhere in my experience is the chatter more toxic and constant than in the town named after our august first president.

That’s because one’s prestige and social standing in Washington is completely dependent on how close to the sources of perceived power one is, and you can only demonstrate that by sharing tidbits of what they’ve supposedly told you.

A con-man might imagine he could thrive in such an environment. (Just ask George Santos.)

So it is essentially one big candy store for journalists. The only tricky thing is finding corroboration — single-source stories abound.

All of which is a way of saying that the whole current hullabaloo over Biden’s possession of a few classified documents, Trump’s possession of a few more, or even Hillary Clinton’s computer stash back in the day, all are pretty much overblown when referred to as finger-wagging “scandals.”

Of course those guys have tried to get their hands on material that could benefit them personally and politically — before, during and after leaving office. They are politicians — that’s what they do.

Just remember, during all of this hand-wringing, the line from Casablanca, slightly edited for these purposes: “I’m shocked — shocked — to find that leaking is going on in here!”

LINKS:

• Biden's Top Secret Documents Reportedly Found In Cache (CNN)

• White House's response to Biden documents frustrates Democrats inside and outside the West Wing (CBS)

• The swamp comes for Joe Biden (The Hill)

• Opinion | Biden’s Documents Case Isn’t Similar to Trump’s. It’s Really Like Hillary’s. (Politico Mag)

• At least 68 killed in Nepal’s worst airplane crash in 30 years (CNN)

• Trump’s political fate may have been decided – by a Georgia grand jury (Guardian)

• Santos Raised Money for Company the SEC Says Was a Ponzi Scheme (WSJ)

• 'A fraudulent candidacy:' Former House Speaker Paul Ryan calls on George Santos to resign (USA Today)

• Santos’s Lies Were Known to Some Well-Connected Republicans (NYT)

• How California could save up its rain to ease future droughts — instead of watching epic atmospheric river rainfall drain into the Pacific (The Conversation)

• Why weeks of rain in California will not end drought (Reuters)

• In a Drought, California Is Watching Water Wash Out to Sea (NYT)

• Major Ukrainian cities hit by explosions; people trapped in Dnipro rubble (WP)

• Russian missiles hit critical infrastructure in Ukraine's capital (Al Jazeera)

• The U.K. pledges tanks to Ukraine as Russian missiles target multiple cities (NPR)

• China reports huge rise in COVID-related deaths after data criticism (Reuters)

• UN Security Council members urge Taliban to void bans on women (Al Jazeera)

• The Missouri House tightens its dress code for women, to the dismay of Democrats (NPR)

• Hate speech rises on Twitter in its largest markets after Musk takeover (WP)

• Prehistoric Puzzle Deciphered – Scientists Solve the Mystery of 300-Million-Year-Old Cooked Tetrapod Bones (SciTechDaily)

• Ancient cat fossils, paw prints recovered from beneath Texas Hill Country (KXAN)

• Sick Man Slowly Becoming Enthroned In Used Tissues (The Onion)