Weekend Reads

LINKS:

• US plans to send controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine- reports (BBC)

• Biden Weighs Giving Ukraine Weapons Banned by Many U.S. Allies (NYT)

• Janet Yellen warns China to end "unfair economic practices" (CBS)

• VIDEO: Yellen Arrives in Beijing in a Bid to Ease Tensions (AP)

• Ukrainian troops have advanced by more than a kilometer in the last day against Russian forces near the eastern city of Bakhmut, a military spokesperson said. (Reuters)

• Wage Gains, Low Unemployment Keep Pressure on Fed; Hiring Cooled in June (WSJ)

• The minimum wage in West Hollywood recently rose to $19.08 an hour, the highest of any city in the U.S. (AP)

• Half of boomers and late Gen Xers who took early retirement during the first Covid wave have fallen into poverty (Fortune)

• Prosecutors in Trump classified documents case are facing threats (WP)

• Nearly a quarter of Republicans said Trump getting convicted would make them more likely to support the embattled former president (Insider)

• Nearly 200 of the people charged with attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, have said they were responding to calls by Trump to help keep him in the White House, according to a new analysis by a government watchdog group. [HuffPost]

• Alzheimer’s drug gets FDA approval, allowing Medicare coverage (AP)

• The biggest gold rush in history is about to start in the deep sea – leaving devastation in its wake (Guardian)

• The Afghan Taliban say they banned beauty salons because they offered forbidden services (AP)

• Thanks to the Taliban, Afghanistan is once again a hotbed of terrorism (The Hill)

• For Afghan Refugees, India Is Far From a Safe Haven (Foreign Policy)

• Beaten for eating ice cream: Afghan diplomat relives Taliban rule (CNN)

• The US banned a brain harming pesticide on food. Why has it slowed a global ban? (Guardian)

• U.S. Is Destroying the Last of Its Once-Vast Chemical Weapons Arsenal (NYT)

• Ukraine gained advantage in war against Putin with custom-built AI: 'unprecedented testing ground' (Fox)

• Five ways AI might destroy the world: ‘Everyone on Earth could fall over dead in the same second’ (Guardian)

• AI is a “tragedy of the commons.” We’ve got solutions for that. (Vox)

• AI robots could play future role as companions in care homes (Reuters)

• New AI tool can help treat brain tumors more quickly and accurately, study finds (Guardian)

• AI robots at UN reckon they could run the world better (AFP)

• Companies Are Drowning in Too Much AI (WSJ)

• How to report better on artificial intelligence (CJR)

• Generative AI’s secret sauce — data scraping— comes under attack (Venture Beat)

• Common Blood Pressure Drug Extends Lifespan, Slows Aging in Animals (Science Alert)

• Woman Has Friend On Standby To Drive Car Through Bar Window In Case Date Going Badly (The Onion)

 

The Haircut

 Recently someone who’d not seen me in a long time remarked, “You have really long hair!”

He was right. My hair stretches far down my back. Exactly how far, I’m not sure because I can’t twist around far enough to see it in a mirror.

If I fancy myself to be a storyteller, there ought to be a story in why my hair has become so long. And there is.

On occasion, I have told false stories meant to explain it. “I’m going to keep growing it until the world becomes a better place” is one of those tall tales.

But the true story is actually about a friendship lost.

The last time I got a haircut was in October 2021, and a friend went with me on the outing. We’d researched the barber; his shop was right next door to a cafe in a nearby town where we were in the habit of going every week or so for coffee.

In retrospect, I’m not sure either of us knew why we we were hanging out that often. Maybe it was because neither of us wanted to feel as confined and isolated as Covid had forced us to be. We would spend hours together, talking and sharing our life stories.

Anyway, we decided to make this particular outing that October day an adventure, sort of a fantasy. 

My friend is a very beautiful woman. She has the bluest eyes, an easy smile, and a mind that travels along similar paths as mine.

Finding fellow travelers on that path is never easy for me. We’d once worked together long ago and had been reunited by mutual friends a few months back.

On this day she agreed to pretend we were a couple. To be fair, that was my idea, not hers.

The barber was a wise old black man with wonderful stories of his own. He came from the South and had a twinkle in his eye. “So you two are related?” he asked. “Yes,” she nodded but he could probably tell she was pretending.

Lying is not an easy thing for an honest person to do. But it can be fun when it is harmless.

At one point the barber asked me how short to cut the top and I deferred to my friend. “She’s in charge,” I said and the man smiled. She came over and ran her fingers gently through my hair. That was the only time she ever did that.

“About this long,” she said.

The barber liked us. It was easy to tell he was curious about our relationship but he didn’t ask any more questions. When he was finished, I paid him in cash including a large tip. 

I never have gone back to that place or had another haircut. And I’ve not seen that lovely friend in a long, long time, either. You could say we’ve since returned to going our very separate ways.

I’m not sure this makes any sense at all but that’s the true story of why I let my hair keep growing. You see, I’m still holding onto the memory of my very last haircut.

LINKS:

• Heat Records Fall Around the Globe as Earth Warms, Fast (NYT)

• Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene removed from US House Freedom Caucus (Politico)

• The Supreme Court Just Legalized Stalking (Slate)

• Ruling Puts Social Media at Crossroads of Disinformation and Free Speech (NYT)

• OceanGate 'suspends' all exploration, commercial operations in aftermath of Titan sub implosion (ABC)

• Why should public-sector funds pay for private-sector risks? (The Hill)

• Trump valet Walt Nauta pleads not guilty in classified documents case (Politico)

• DeSantis Campaign Continues to Struggle to Find Its Footing (NYT)

• Dozens of new turbines off the coast of New Jersey could power hundreds of thousands of homes. It’s part of President Biden’s effort to boost offshore wind energy production. (WP)

• Meta launched a direct challenge to Twitter with Threads, garnering millions of users in hours. (Reuters)

• Yevgeny Prigozhin and the mystery of the mutiny that never was (The Conversation)

• Haiti needs foreign troops to help with a gang-related crisis, the top U.S. diplomat said in a trip to the region (USA Today)

• Google says public data is fair game for training its AIs (The Register)

• The AI Boom Is Full of Copycats Trying to Ride a Viral Trend. That's Not a Bad Business Move (Inc.)

• New AI translates 5,000-year-old cuneiform tablets instantly (Big Think)

• Microsoft Launches Free AI Training With Professional Certificate (Search Engine Journal)

• Morgan Stanley raises Microsoft stock outlook above $3 trillion because of A.I. (CNBC)

• Give Every AI a Soul—or Else (Wired)

• AI ChatGPT-powered smart toys are coming for the holidays. How to keep your kids safe. (USA Today)

• Five ways AI could improve the world: ‘We can cure all diseases, stabilise our climate, halt poverty’ (Guardian)

• AI Could Change How Blind People See the World (Wired)

• What journalists can do when the news meets AI (1A)

• AI Boom Stems Tech’s Downturn (WSJ)

• Google Isn’t Grad School (Atlantic)

• Grey whales seen seeking human help to remove parasites (Guardian)

• Study says drinking water from nearly half of US faucets contains potentially harmful chemicals (AP)

• Ornithologist Pretends Not To Recognize Bird She Knows From Work (The Onion)

Links

• Mourners fill Jenin streets for funerals as Israel ends assault (BBC)

• Jenin Has a Long Legacy as a Bastion of Palestinian Armed Struggle (NYT)

• Israel ends West Bank raid calling it a blow to militants. Palestinians grapple with destruction (AP)

• Louisiana federal judge issues injunction against Biden administration in social media case (Business Report)

• Biden faces renewed pressure to embrace Supreme Court overhaul (WP)

• Republicans in the battleground states of Michigan and Arizona are paying a high price for their support of former President Trump and his unsubstantiated claims that the election was stolen from him. (Reuters)

• Earth's hottest day ever was recorded on July 3, 2023 (NBC)

• How extreme weather could threaten California’s dams (NYT Mag)

• The future of war (Economist)

• What a landmark new study on homelessness tells us (Vox)

• The U.S. wildfire season has been eerily quiet. That could soon change. (WP)

• After Armed Rebellion, Putin Tries to Reinforce His Defenses (NYT)

• As AI cheating booms, so does the industry detecting it: ‘We couldn’t keep up with demand’ (Guardian)

• New York City Starts to Regulate AI Used in Hiring Tools (WSJ)

• Generative AI in Games Will Create a Copyright Crisis (Wired)

• Almost Anyone Can Be Successful With A.I. (Inc.)

• How elite schools like Stanford became fixated on the AI apocalypse (WP)

• Authors file a lawsuit against OpenAI for unlawfully ‘ingesting’ their books (Guardian)

• All animal intelligence was shaped by just 5 leaps in brain evolution (The Conversation)

• The 40-year-old American millennial breaks a new record—a quarter of them have never married, signifying a shifting norm (Fortune)

• Tracing a tragedy: How hundreds of migrants drowned on Greece’s watch (WP)

• Everyone Has ‘Car Brain’ (Atlantic)

• The space telescope surveying the entire universe to understand dark matter and dark energy (The Verge)

• Scientists Find the Remains of a Catastrophe on Mars Scattered Across the Planet (Inverse)

• Google Quantum Computer Is '47 Years' Faster Than #1 Supercomputer (Science Alert)

• VIDEO: ‘This Is Their Land’: Bison Herd Returns to Tribal Lands (AP)

• Store Name Requires All Words Be Pronounced Wrong For Pun To Work (The Onion)

 

Origin Stories: CIR

When we opened our first office of the Center for Investigative Reporting in downtown Oakland in 1977, it was in a corner suite on the sixth floor of the old Broadway Building in what was at that time a sleepy downtown area.

We had a nameplate on the door and one of our first potential customers was a woman who wanted us to follow her husband, because she was sure he must be having an affair.

We explained we were not that kind of agency exactly and referred her to some private eyes that we knew. But our little company did have a certain Sam Spade-like air to it, as we figured out how to establish something then without precedent — a non-profit that would do its own original investigative stories and then sell them to a wide variety of outlets.

Lowell Bergman and I brought some unfinished projects with us from Rolling Stone, and Dan Noyes had additional ideas and contacts. Soon we had a few magazines and television networks interested in our work and we were up and running.

But finding the funds to sustain our operation was a constant struggle and we often found ourselves cutting our salaries in half for a while until the next grant or contract came through.

Two years later we had one of our first big hits when we shared the National Magazine Award for a story package that was called the “Corporate Crime of the Century” in Mother Jones.

The main story in this package also became the centerpiece of our book Circle of Poison in 1981.

By that point, CIR was here to stay, and 46 years later it is still producing stories.

LINKS:

• Palestinians flee Israel's ongoing raid on West Bank refugee camp (CBS)

• Israeli troops and drones hit Jenin in major West Bank operation (Reuters)

• Israel Launches Biggest Air Attack on West Bank in Nearly Two Decades (NYT)

• The Taliban are outlawing women's beauty salons in Afghanistan (ABC)

• Activists in Lebanon are fighting to reclaim dwindling public spaces (WP)

• Signs of life — and support — for Prigozhin with Wagner's future still a mystery after mutiny (NBC)

• Unrest in France Eases Nearly a Week After Fatal Police Shooting (NYT)

• Temperatures are expected to soar further across large parts of the world after the El Nino weather pattern emerged in the tropical Pacific for the first time in seven years, the World Meteorological Organization said. (Reuters)

• Judge blocks new Florida election law, signed by DeSantis this spring, calling it the 'latest assault on the right to vote' (Insider)

• 5 people killed in Philadelphia mass shooting (ABC)

• What the U.S. Military Still Hasn’t Learned From Iraq (Foreign Affairs)

• Stability AI CEO: There Will Be No (Human) Programmers in Five Years (Decrypt)

• AI is already linked to layoffs in the industry that created it (CNN)

• Written in the Stars? More Like Written by A.I. (NYT)

• The Last Place on Earth Any Tourist Should Go (Atlantic)

• ‘10 Palestinians Dead After Israeli Raid,’ Reads Headline That Could Have Run Any Week For Past 75 Years (The Onion)

 

Work Dreams

 One of the aspects of settling into retirement nobody warns you about is how your dreams will change, and by dreams, I don’t mean your aspirations but the kind you have while sleeping. 

Recently, a man I know who retired around the same time I did told me his version of a by-now familiar story:

“It took two years before my work dreams stopped. You know, the kind where you go to the office but can’t find your way in, so you press up against the window, looking in at everybody.

“But nobody comes to let you in. It was a big relief when those dreams finally stopped.”

This man, like me, had devoted a long career to journalism, which is how we became acquainted some years back. (Neither of us can recall when or how.)

My own work dreams have not entirely disappeared yet, but at least they have diminished in frequency and intensity.

I suppose this makes sense. Most of us spend such a huge portion of our lives in our workplaces that much of the stuff we learn to live with happens there. It’s the main way we meet people, for example, for better and for worse. The worse part may explain why so many of those work dreams we have are much more like nightmares.

These days, seeing younger colleagues who are still employed is a great reminder for me of what I hated most about work and don’t miss — the politics, the pressure, the unkindnesses that were visited upon most of us at least occasionally. But it is also a reminder that I can let all of that go now.

After all, once you retire you are free, no longer accountable to the people and systems that on occasion trapped you in place due to the need for a paycheck. Maybe our brains keep reliving those times afterward as part of the process of helping us get over it.

Eventually, according to guy I spoke with and all of my other retired friends, it all fades away, for both the better and the worse.

LINKS:

• Palestinians in occupied West Bank say Israel bombing "innocent people" in raid on Jenin refugee camp (CBS)

• Yellen Heads to China This Week Advancing US Bid to Fix Ties (Bloomberg)

• Amazon Indigenous are leaving the rainforest for cities, and finding urban poverty (AP)

• 3 dead, 8 injured after shooting in Fort Worth, Texas parking lot (CBS)

• Poppy production almost disappears from Afghanistan’s Helmand province (Financial Times)

• DeSantis' presidential campaign is under fire for an ad described as homophobic (NPR)

• Biden announces new plan for student loan forgiveness after Supreme Court rejects his first try (CBS)

• VIDEO: L.A. Hotel Workers Begin Strike (Reuters)

• Here’s Why Google DeepMind’s Gemini Algorithm Could Be Next-Level AI (Singularity Hub)

• Generative AI will disrupt blockchain too: Here’s how (Cointelegraph)

• China Isn’t Losing Sleep Over ChatGPT (The Diplomat)

• A.I. Is Coming for Mathematics, Too (NYT)

• The future is disabled (MIT Technology Review)

• Twitter's apps are breaking following Elon Musk's decision to cap tweet rates (Engadget)

• Robot takes podium as orchestra conductor in South Korea (CNN)

• Gen Z are the most disgruntled workers and that's a problem for employers (Yahoo)

• In the U.S., the world’s deadliest animal is on the move (WP)

• Area Man Somehow Endures Harrowing Entertainment-Free Commute (The Onion)

Holiday News

LINKS:

• Israel launches deadly military operation in occupied West Bank (NBC)

• Could Putin Lose Power? (New Yorker)

• ‘The People Are Silent’: The Main Reason the Wagner Mutiny Bodes Ill for Putin (Politico Mag)

• Putin in a 'heightened emotional state' and 'bordering on euphoria' following failed Wagner mutiny, Russia analyst says (Insider)

• Wagner Uprising Highlights China’s Risks With Russia (NYT)

• Ukraine says Putin is planning a nuclear disaster. These people live nearby. (WP)

• Student Borrowers, After Three-Year Reprieve, Must Now Pay (WSJ)

• What the Supreme Court's rejection of student loan relief means for borrowers (NPR)

• The Supreme Court falls to Earth (Axios)

• Elon Musk Imposes Strict Twitter 'Rate Limit' Curbs On Users (Investor’s Business Daily)

• ChatGPT And Generative AI: What To Do With All The Productivity? (Forbes)

• Scared tech workers are scrambling to reinvent themselves as AI experts (Vox)

• No male ‘chaperone’ = no existence. Life under Taliban rule for Afghan women, in their own words (The Print)

• How climate change inflames extremist insurgency in Africa (WP)

• 700 arrested in fifth night of French riots; mayor's home attacked (CBS)

• The first flying car, 'Model A,' approved by the FAA and it's 100% electric (USA Today)

• San Francisco may soon get 24/7 driverless cabs. City leaders are fuming. (WP)

• Japan’s Native Ainu Fight to Restore a Last Vestige of Their Identity (NYT)

• Man Pretty Sure Other Person In Laundry Room Has Been Next-Door Neighbor For 12 Years (The Onion)

 

Test Run Angles

 After 55 years, the weekly television show called Newsroom shut down recently at Northern California’s public media company, KQED. The program operated under a variety of names over the years, including This Week in Northern California and Newspaper of the Air.

Many fine people worked at the show over the years. I served as a supervising executive of Newsroom for several years until my retirement.

As a tiny remembrance, the following post is from seven years ago.

My friend Wei visited KQED this week. We needed a "host" for a fake show as we were trying out a new table on the set. She happily played the role. She so charmed the "guests" (crew members) that what was supposed to be a ten-minute session went on for over an hour.

Filming a TV show with a panel of guests is all about camera angles. That is what we practiced with Wei.

We’ll film the actual show soon. This one was only make-believe.

***

p.s. R.I.P. Newsroom.

LINKS:

• Biden proposes new student-loan measures after court defeat (Reuters)

• The Student Loan Borrowers Who Will Continue to Struggle (NYT)

• The man named in the Supreme Court’s gay rights ruling says he didn’t request a wedding website (AP)

• Key document may be fake in LGBTQ+ rights case before US supreme court (Guardian)

• 2 people are dead and 28 people were injured in mass shooting at a Baltimore block party, officials say (CNN)

• Macron Postpones State Visit To Germany Amid France Riots: Berlin (Barron’s)

• CIA director, on secret trip to Ukraine, heard plan for war’s end (WP)

• Wagner Group still recruiting despite Russia mutiny (BBC)

• Hunter Biden attorney accuses House GOP lawmakers of trying to derail plea agreement (CBS)

• Trump pressured Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to overturn 2020 election (WP)

• What the Supreme Court's gay wedding website ruling means for LGBTQ rights (NBC)

• The humbling of Vladimir Putin (Economist)

• The True Threat of Artificial Intelligence (NYT)

• Another AI winter could be coming, but that’s when the real work heats up (Fast Company)

• Hope, fear, and AI (The Verge)

• The Pope Just Released a Guide to Artificial Intelligence (Futurism)

• Chatbots are social media on steroids – trapping us in an even more tangled web (Guardian)

• Google DeepMind’s CEO Says Its Next Algorithm Will Eclipse ChatGPT (Wired)

• Half of Americans face stifling heat, poor air quality (AP)

• Summer in the South Is Becoming Unbearable (Atlantic)

• How Plastics Are Poisoning Us (New Yorker)

• Why scientists haven’t cracked consciousness (Vox)

• Leonardo DiCaprio and Jeff Bezos Help Launch $200 Million Fund to Protect the Amazon (Variety)

• Receipt Brazenly Placed In Bag Without Permission (The Onion)