Found Treasure

 Writing is … more than living, for it is being conscious of living.

-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh 

Yesterday, I finally got the tides right. The result was a harvest of green seaglass and pebbles.

Of course, I couldn't resist picking up other colors as well, but green is my current passion. When you're walking along the tideline at a beach, head down, examining the many gifts from the sea, there's much to choose from. 

I was lost in the moment. thinking of the elegant simplicity of the writing style of the small band of American literary environmentalists whose work in the '50s introduced me to the principles of ecology. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Rachel Carson, John Storer.

Those writers also knew the unique pleasure of strolling along the beach just at the edge of the waves' reach, seeking small treasures. You can't be too greedy about it; the sea will give you what it pleases, when it pleases.

But persistence has its rewards. I was so engrossed in my search that I barely took note of the others around me -- people and dogs. At one point, approaching a rock outcropping that one can breach only at low tide, I noticed one oddity -- a beach patrol jeep drove past me, up to that spot, then hung a U-turn and started back. I waved to the driver, who then stopped and lowered his window.

"We're looking for a lost Chihuahua mix, about 15 pounds, black, black collar, no tags," he explained. "Since I can't drive any further due to that rock, will you keep an eye out?"

"Sure," I answered, wondering what was in the “mix,” since the only Chihuahuas I'd ever known couldn't tip the scales beyond, say, six pounds.

I rounded the outcrop and continued southward along Ocean Beach. It was windy and the waves were impressive enough that surfers were paddling out to the highest breakers offshore. 

Soon, I was into good seaglass territory -- it often appears in clusters, similarly sized to the pebbles and shell fragments surrounding it. In these banks of natural (and man-made) detritus from the sea is written a history of the relentless combined power of currents, sand, sun, and waves, grinding all things into softened, polished fragments of their former selves.

Sort of like what aging does to people. Ultimately, only our core remains.

p.s. I didn’t find the lost dog.

Endnote: This essay is from June 2007. “Gift from the Sea” is the title of one of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's books.

LINKS:

• Chesa Boudin talks crime, justice—and what’s happened to SF under Brooke Jenkins (48 Hills)

• Here's The Real Reason Why Downtown Malls Are Closing (It's Not Crime) (The Street)

• Pattern of discriminatory, unlawful policing in Minneapolis made George Floyd murder 'possible,' DOJ finds (ABC)

• The Radical Strategy Behind Trump’s Promise to ‘Go After’ Biden (NYT)

• Trump’s promise of payback for prosecution follows years of attacking democratic traditions (AP)

• As Donald Trump and his allies complain about his unfair “persecution” by the Justice Department, getting lost in the noise are the potentially grave consequences that may have already been suffered by actual human beings working abroad on behalf of the U.S. [HuffPost]

• Trump’s Bag Man (Atlantic)

• Far-right Republicans threaten to derail another House priority (Politico)

• The economics of the great baby bust (Economist)

• Why the U.S. Electric Grid Isn’t Ready for the Energy Transition (NYT)

• Blinken heads to China on a mission to salvage sinking ties (AP)

• Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked 'Pentagon Papers,' dies at 92. (Reuters)

• A new survey of nearly 400 reefs around the world found that five key shark species are vanishing. Researchers blamed overfishing for the decline. (WP)

• Gannett tiptoes into generative AI, giving humans the last word (Reuters)

• AI is already causing unintended harm. What happens when it falls into the wrong hands? (Guardian)

• Scientists have identified anti-aging drugs using AI technology (Earth.com)

• U.S. Grapples With Potential Threats From Chinese AI (WSJ)

• The workers already replaced by artificial intelligence (BBC)

• AI-generated junk is flooding Etsy (Atlantic)

• UN in talks about possibly handing over Afghan teaching projects to Taliban (Reuters)

• 18-Year-Old Miraculously Finds Soulmate In Hometown (The Onion)

Terminal Politics

The problem we have with democracy in the United States isn’t the kind that’s going to lead to a headline one of these days that it has finally keeled over and died. It won’t happen like that — it is much more like a patient suffering from a malignant, terminal disease that is spreading throughout, slowly eating away at its systemic integrity.

Yesterday I wrote about the right-wing extremist legal doctrine known as the independent-state-legislature-theory (ISLT) that is currently being considered by the Supreme Court, but that is only one small part of the deep-set threat our country faces.

There are the numerous state laws popping up everywhere restricting voting rights, as well as the discriminatory laws undermining the human rights that are a cornerstone of any democracy, not to mention the multiple armed groups capable of January 6th-style insurrections.

Meanwhile, anyone paying attention sees that the former President and current leading GOP candidate Donald J. Trump has blatant authoritarian tendencies, but if Trump were the only political leader in that category, the danger could be minimized by preventing him from returning to office.

(Hopefully, the many criminal cases against him will eventually accomplish that worthy purpose.)

More dangerous than Trump himself is the large demographic that fervently supports him — people willing to send him money, vote for him at the ballot box and welcome his lies no matter how outrageous they become.

The main driver of this support is white resentment. Millions of Americans feel angry and left out of the new diverse, progressive society emerging around them. They are vulnerable to manipulation by a despot like Trump because he speaks directly to their fears.

He gives them a voice.

Sadly, there are plenty of Trump imitators willing to take his place once he fades from the scene. So the issue is if we can’t somehow eliminate this cancerous growth of authoritarianism it may metastasize.

That is the problem we have with democracy in America. The prognosis remains uncertain.

LINKS:

• Supreme Court Upholds Native American Adoption Law (NYT)

• Supreme Court could soon rule on Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. (CNN)

• Why Mitch McConnell won’t speak out on Trump’s indictment (The Hill)

• Judge in Trump Documents Case Has Scant Criminal Trial Experience (NYT)

• Trump rejected lawyers’ efforts to avoid classified documents indictment (WP)

• Lindsey Graham insists he’s not ‘inconsistent’ for backing Trump as he’s dismissed as ‘a spineless coward’ (Independent)

• John Kelly: Trump is ‘scared s—less’ (The Hill)

• Moments after Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he hoarded classified documents and then conspired to obstruct an investigation about it, Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans in Congress had his back. (AP)

• Fears of hottest year on record as global temperatures spike (Guardian)

• What We Can Learn From the Canadian Wildfires (The Nation)

• A GOP-led attempt to censure Rep. Adam Schiff failed in the House after the California Democrat was targeted for his criticism of Trump while heading a committee dealing with intelligence. Twenty Republicans crossed party lines to vote against the resolution. [HuffPost]

• Documents show how conservative doctors influenced abortion, trans rights (WP)

• Hoping to Avert Nuclear Crisis, U.S. Seeks Informal Agreement With Iran (NYT)

• Pentagon predicts Ukraine offensive will be long and ‘very violent’ (WP)

• Tensions rise between Russian mercenaries and Kremlin (CNBC)

• Ukraine's Counteroffensive Pushes in Three Directions–Kyiv (Newsweek)

• Cash-strapped Taliban selling tickets to ruins of Buddhas it blew up (WP)

• Fiscal policy in the rich world is mind-bogglingly reckless (Economist)

• Grand jury indicts Daniel Penny in chokehold death of NYC subway rider Jordan Neely (NPR)

• Abbott Sends Migrants From Texas to Los Angeles for the First Time (NYT)

• What the Pentagon Thinks About Artificial Intelligence (Politico Mag)

• The singularity is here, again (Axios)

• 'Dr. Doom' Nouriel Roubini: AI will unleash productivity in a way we haven't seen (Yahoo)

• AI is coming for jobs, but it might be San Francisco’s best hope (WP)

• AI will ‘stir the pot,’ but won’t change the game for decades: Mark Zandi (CNBC)

• Meta and Microsoft join AI standards group on "synthetic media" (Axios)

• Generative AI is disrupting its own investment case (Financial Times)

• Alphabet is cautioning employees about how they use chatbots, including its own Bard, at the same time as it markets the program around the world. (Reuters)

• How third graders got hit especially hard by the pandemic  (AP)

• New clues about origin of complex life trace roots to common ancestor (Phys.org)

• Gen Xers and older millennials really just want to go back in time to before the internet existed (Fast Company)

• What the Teen-Smartphone Panic Says About Adults (Atlantic)

• Casablanca | An Unlikely Classic: Behind The Scenes (YouTube)

• Rookie Forest Ranger Not Getting Hopes Up About Seeing Tree On First Day (The Onion)

 

A Bad Case

 An important article about one of the current dangers facing the future of our country is “How a Fringe Legal Theory Became a Threat to Democracy” in the New Yorker. It is a reminder that the Supreme Court’s right-wing majority could still undermine the integrity of our electoral system just like it overturned the right to an abortion.

In other words, in a split second.

That at least three justices on the current Supreme Court seem to subscribe to this crackpot theory is frightening.

The independent-state-legislature-theory (ISLT) has no basis in law but is based on an interpretation of the Constitution that would allow any state legislature to determine the outcome of an election however it chooses to do so.

This theory was embraced by Trump administration lawyers in their frantic bid to retain power after losing the 2020 election.

Since then, extremists have advanced it in North Carolina and other states with Republican supermajorities. A North Carolina case has made it onto the Supreme Court’s agenda.

We can hope that the Court won’t decide to dismantle our democracy by legitimizing the ISLT, but then again many of us hoped it wouldn’t take away a woman’s right to choose.

And we all know what happened to that.

LINKS:

• Trump raised $2 million hours after arraignment (Politico)

• Attorney General Garland defends special counsel's integrity in Trump indictment (NPR)

• Mike Pence Reverses Stance on Trump's Indictment (Newsweek)

• Every Block Is Another Battle: Ukraine’s Latest Eastern Stand (NYT)

• U.S. Warned Ukraine Not to Attack Nord Stream (WSJ)

• A return to war has looming global economic consequences (Economist)

• Fed keeps rates unchanged but signals 2 more potential hikes this year (AP)

• Southern Baptists vote to expel two churches led by female pastors (NBC)

• Senate Republicans introduce plan to tackle student loan debt (The Hill)

• Joe Biden's Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Suffers Blow (Newsweek)

• G.O.P. Rebels Are Breaking the Rule on Rules, Upending How the House Works (NYT)

• American Tech Giants Are Slowly Cutting Off Hong Kong Internet Users (WSJ)

• The U.S. extended temporary protected status for 18 more months to thousands of people from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Nepal, reversing a Trump policy. (WP)

• 42% of CEOs say AI could destroy humanity in five to ten years (CNN)

• Increased use of AI on the job shows disturbing health trend, study finds (Fox)

• BlackRock’s Larry Fink predicts AI could solve productivity crisis (Financial Times)

• Biggest Losers of AI Boom Are Knowledge Workers, McKinsey Says (Bloomberg)

• Generative A.I. Can Add $4.4 Trillion in Value to Global Economy, Study Says (NYT)

• Meta releases 'human-like' AI image creation model (Reuters)

• Europe moves ahead on AI regulation, challenging tech giants’ power (WP)

• Using AI for loans and mortgages is big risk, warns EU boss (BBC)

• Google is using AI to change how you shop (CNN)

• Calculations Suggest It'll Be Impossible to Control a Super-Intelligent AI (ScienceAlert)

• AI automated discrimination. Here’s how to spot it. (Vox)

• The ‘Single Greatest Hindrance’ to Learning (Atlantic)

• Official Documents Mysteriously Missing from Miami Courthouse (New Yorker)

The Indicted Candidate

The quest to bring Donald Trump to justice, and hold him accountable for his alleged crimes endangering U.S. national security, was on display for the world to see Tuesday in Miami. Luckily, the potential for a violent protest did not materialize.

Politically, Florida is a state that is a Republican stronghold, so much so that it is virtually unlikely that the Justice Department will be able to actually gain a conviction of Trump in the case, since it will depend on a unanimous verdict of 12 people, at least some of whom will be probably be strong Trump supporters.

Only one could cause a hung jury. Therefore, although the crimes may be proven in court, justice is not likely to be served in the form of a conviction.

Beyond the legal proceedings, however, the fundamental question is whether this case will in any way affect the 2024 presidential election. Trump is the leading GOP candidate; the likely Democratic nominee is the incumbent President, whose approval ratings are low.

But Joe Biden beat Trump last time around and he thinks he can do it again. You don’t have to be a Biden partisan to see how much will be riding on his ability to do just that, for our country cannot withstand a second Trump presidency.

LINKS:

• Trump’s arraignment: The scene outside the Miami courthouse (Al Jazeera)

• Trump pleads not guilty to federal charges that he illegally kept classified documents at Florida estate (AP)

• Trump claims ‘political persecution’ in speech after arraignment (Guardian)

• Russian accounts admit Ukrainian forces are making some gains in heavy fighting (CNN)

• NATO Members Use a Major Air Exercise to Send a Message to Russia (NYT)

• Putin ponders a question: Should Russia try to take Kyiv again? (Reuters)

• Criticizing the army is a crime in Russia — but not for Wagner’s mercenary boss (WP)

• Inflation cools again as CPI data shows grocery prices fell, food cost eased (USA Today)

• Stocks rise as inflation levels slow to the lowest since early 2021 (CNBC)

• McCarthy, Republican lawmakers reach deal to end House floor standoff for now (WP)

• India’s diaspora is bigger and more influential than any in history (Economist)

• AI used to create new and final Beatles song, says Paul McCartney (Guardian)

• The Turing Transformation (Brookings)

• A.I. fear-mongering won’t make the world a better place, but a less hopeful one (Fortune)

• I stumbled into a really powerful use for the ChatGPT iPhone app: super fast, super accurate voice-to-text transcription (Insider)

• We are all AI’s free data workers (MIT TR)

• What happens if AI grows smarter than humans? The answer worries scientists. (Popular Science)

• AI unlikely to gain human-like cognition, unless connected to real world through robots, says study (TechXplore)

• Signal’s Meredith Whittaker: ‘These are the people who could actually pause AI if they wanted to’ (Guardian)

• Mall operator Westfield gives up San Francisco Centre, latest business to pull back from city (CNN)

• San Francisco's Decline is a Warning to Other American Cities (Newsweek)

• Canadian Fires Signal New Frontier in Climate Change (WSJ)

• The materials used by humans now weigh more than all life on Earth (The Conversation)

• Spike in ocean heat stuns scientists: Have we breached a climate tipping point? (NBC)

• What if the Most Powerful Way to Live Longer Is Just Exercise? (WSJ)

• Vulture Trying To Figure Out Good Way To Circle Without Being Rude (The Onion)

 

Follow the Boxes

 Today could be a very important day for whether democracy has a future in America. It’s the first time in our history that a former President is to be charged by the federal government with crimes.

Reading the 49-page filing indictment of Donald Trump and his aide Waltine Nauta by the Justice Department is sort of like playing a mystery game that might be called Follow the Boxes.

The evidence is overwhelming that Trump knew what he was doing as he directed Nauta and others to move the boxes around in an effort to prevent the FBI from locating and reclaiming the classified documents they contained.

But Trump’s efforts failed and in retrospect they seem clownish and stupid. Almost as of he wanted this indictment to happen. Almost as if he were leading the Biden administration into a trap.

Think about it. Trump could have avoided this entire mess simply by returning the documents, as Mike Pence and Joe Biden did with the secret files they took with them after serving as their terms as Vice-President.

But this one is different. It looks like an open-and-shut case against Trump for concealing what he’d done. The big question is why did he do it? And that hangs over the entire drama unfolding in South Florida this morning.

I am terribly afraid that he did it to force a day like what today may turn into to happen. And that is another January 6th.

I hope that I am wrong.

LINKS:

• The latest on the federal indictment against Donald Trump (CNN)

• Trump’s Miami court date brings fears of violence, rally plans (WP)

• Fox News’s Turley: Trump could face ‘terminal sentence’ if DOJ proves even one count (The Hill)

• Legal experts agree former President Donald Trump, who is set to appear in court tomorrow, is in a tough spot after he was indicted by a federal grand jury on 37 counts. Even Trump's former Attorney General Bill Barr said he was "shocked by the degree of sensitivity." "If even half of it is true, then he’s toast," Barr added. [Reuters]

• Will the Judge in Trump’s Case Recuse Herself—or Be Forced To? (New Yorker)

• Trump Indictment Shows Critical Evidence Came From One of His Own Lawyers (NYT)

• What’s next for McCarthy’s fight with the far right (Politico)

• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is seeking the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, has signed a flurry of bills targeting LGBTQ+ people in all aspects of public life, including banning gender-affirming care for trans youth and adult Medicaid recipients. But many trans people in his state are fighting back. "Ron DeSantis accidentally created the most powerful resistance that he could ever imagine," said an LGBTQ+ advocate. [HuffPost]

• Georgia is likely next ground zero for Trump’s battle with law enforcement (WP)

• The U.S. says it wants to rejoin UNESCO after exiting during the Trump administration (NPR)

• Indigenous knowledge, bravery, vigilance: how young siblings survived in Colombia’s perilous jungle (Guardian)

• It’s time to talk about the real AI risks (MIT Tech Review)

• Another Warning Letter from A.I. Researchers and Executives (New Yorker)

• Hyperdimensional Computing Reimagines Artificial Intelligence (Wired)

• Four Bay Area students designed an artificial intelligence device to detect gunshots and instantly alert people in the school’s vicinity (Bay Area News Group)

• How Could AI Destroy Humanity? (NYT)

• The AI feedback loop: Researchers warn of ‘model collapse’ as AI trains on AI-generated content (VentureBeat)

• From Thought to Text: AI Converts Silent Speech into Written Words (NeuroscienceNews)

• Tech rolls out two revolutions at once (Axios)

• Doctors Are Using Chatbots in an Unexpected Way (NYT)

• Visionary report unveils ambitious roadmap to harness the power of AI in scientific discovery (LLL)

• AI researchers face higher risk of loneliness, insomnia and drinking: research (The Hill)

• AI: How Good Is Good Enough? (Forbes)

• UN chief backs idea of global AI watchdog like nuclear agency (Reuters)

• The case for bottom-up AI (AlJazeera)

• AI-powered church service in Germany draws a large crowd (ArsTechnica)

• ‘Wedding or a funeral?’ Taliban bans music at Kabul wedding halls (AlJazeera)

• Thousands of Afghan refugees in UK set to be made homeless (Guardian)

• Hotel Owners Start to Write Off San Francisco as Business Nosedives (WSJ)

• Linguists have identified a new English dialect that’s emerging in South Florida (The Conversation)

• Nation Kept Up All Night By Sound Of Creaking Infrastructure (The Onion)

Afghan Report 62: Crushing Our Dreams

(This is the latest report from my Afghan friend about conditions inside his country.)

Dear David:

Recently, I applied for the position of Education Officer at an international NGO. I was shortlisted for the written test and went to a nearby city to take it. Luckily, I successfully passed the test and interview and they called me to come to their office and sign the job contract next week. As the salary is good and the office is near to my family, I became very happy. 

Then yesterday, the HR officer called me again and told me to not resign my current job. I asked the reason and she said that the Taliban had just banned all educational activity by non-governmental organizations. 

In response, UNICEF announced that if the educational activities of international institutions stop, more than half a million children will be deprived of their education. 

Personally, this had a deep negative impact on me. After graduating from university, my dream has always been to work in one of the international organizations related to my field of study, which is education. For years I tried to learn English, and I improved my speaking and writing skills. This dream had just come true and I had managed to become a member of one of these organizations when the Taliban extinguished my hope and ruined my many years of hard work. 

It is as if someone built a house over several years and someone else finds and destroys it overnight. 

Afghan women will be the main victims of the Taliban's decision. They are restricted from all sides, they cannot work and are deprived of education. For the millions of Afghan women who endured years of hardship to study and fulfill their dreams, the Taliban is murdering and burying those dreams.

(No links today.) 

Secrets Beneath Our Feet

(This essay is from 16 years ago yesterday.)

Tonight, there's a news story moving on the AP wire you really ought to look at:

Slave Passage Found at Washington House .

Archaeologists unearthing the remains of George Washington's presidential home have discovered a hidden passageway used by his nine slaves, raising questions about whether the ruins should be incorporated into a new exhibit at the site.

The underground passageway is just steps from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. It was designed so Washington's guests would not see slaves as they slipped in and out of the main house.

"As you enter the heaven of liberty, you literally have to cross the hell of slavery," said Michael Coard, a Philadelphia attorney who leads a group that worked to have slavery recognized at the site. "That's the contrast, that's the contradiction, that's the hypocrisy. But that's also the truth."

Also visit: National Park Service site .

***

If I could be reborn, I might choose to be an archaeologist. Who else is as engaged in rediscovering what we might otherwise forget than those who dig up the earth that represents the last few centuries of life on earth?

So, it is no secret that our very first president, George Washington, kept slaves -- some 300 of them, nor that he decreed they be freed upon his death. But this particular find, in the house where President Washington lived (before there was a White House), show how the nation's leader maintained a secret passageway for his nine house slaves to come and go, outside of the view of his many esteemed guests.

This, indeed, should be converted into a national museum, to counter the ultra-phallic Washington Monument that dominates the Mall. Washington relied on his slaves to maintain his lifestyle in his presidential palace, yet he did so hypocritically. After all, even in the late 1700's, it would have offended many foreign dignitaries to witness the leader of what eventually would be come to be known as the "free world" living in a luxury based on exploiting slaves.

Every time another artifact of that era comes to light, I am struck by the ugliness that made the privilege of our "Founding Fathers" possible.

And these are the guys the strict constructionists among us worship?

Not me. The most useful thing we could do as a society is to revise history and bring honesty to our collective story. Maybe then, our ugliest problem, racism, could finally find its only possible resolution: apology, forgiveness, integration, reconciliation, and the recognition that all people, regardless of race, religion, or national origin, are truly created equal under the eyes of "God," which in this country, is the Constitution.

LINKS:

• Zelenskyy says 'counteroffensive, defensive actions' are taking place in Ukraine (NPR)

• As Ukraine Launches Counteroffensive, Definitions of ‘Success’ Vary (NYT)

• Ukraine claims gains near Bakhmut as battle rages in east (Al Jazeera)

• Is this the Ukraine counteroffensive? (Reuters)

• A Ukrainian nuclear plant is facing a water shortage (NPR)

• 9 people wounded in San Francisco mass shooting; 1 remains in critical condition (AP)

• Trump Put National Secrets at Risk, Prosecutors Say in Historic Indictment (NYT)

• Trump indictment is stress test for US democracy as Republicans rally round (Guardian)

• Trump indictment thrusts Biden into unprecedented territory (WP)

• Romney: Trump ‘brought these charges upon himself’ (The Hill)

• Indictment says Trump lied to keep classified secrets (WP)

• The Post-Roe Health Care Crisis (Reveal)

• ‘The fire equivalent of an ice age’: Humanity enters new era of wildfires (WP)

• Researchers discover that ChatGPT prefers repeating 25 jokes over and over (ArsTechnica)

• Generative AI is not entertainment — it is already a threat to our way of life (The Hill)

• OpenAI CEO Calls for Collaboration With China to Counter AI Risks (WSJ)

• Researchers and industry leaders have warned that A.I. could pose an existential risk to humanity. But they’ve been light on the details. (NYT)

• Philip K. Dick predicted ChatGPT and its grim ramifications (Salon)

• Google’s Bard AI can now write and execute code to answer a question (ArsTechnica)

• Robotic Octopus Helps Octopus Hide From Predators (LaughingSquid)

• A Puzzle in Arizona’s Boom Towns: How to Keep Growing With Less Water (NYT)

• The Crop That’s Sucking the Colorado River Dry (Atlantic)

• EPA sued over pesticide-coated seeds’ ‘devastating impacts’ on US wildlife (Guardian)

• Unabomber Ted Kaczynski found dead in prison cell (ABC)

• ‘Ayenda,’ Doc About Afghan Women’s Soccer Team’s Daring Escape From Taliban, Gets Trailer Ahead of Tribeca Premiere (HollywoodReporter)

• Study: Women Always Answer Their Phones Unless They're Having Great Sex With Someone Else (The Onion)