We Need Our News

It was probably the most significant move toward restoring democracy in towns and cities across America this week: Philanthropies pledge $500 million to address 'crisis in local news' (NPR).

“Led by the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation, the new initiative, called Press Forward, seeks to nurture and sustain new models for funding journalism as the industry has come under severe financial pressures. In its announcement Thursday, the group of more than 20 charitable organizations noted that about a fifth of the nation live in so-called "news deserts" with little or no reliable coverage of major local developments.”

I would only note that about a fifth of the nation supports an open autocrat, Donald Trump. for President.

“Penny Abernathy, a visiting journalism professor at Northwestern University who studies the local news industry, has found that 2,500 newspapers — more than a quarter in the U.S. — have gone out of business since 2005. Such a loss is accompanied by a rise in corporate and government corruption and a drop in voter participation, research indicates. Misinformation can arise from outlets that appear to offer the news yet have hidden agendas.”

HEADLINES:

• 'A new avenue of investigation': Jack Smith's grand jury that indicted Trump reconvenes (MSNBC)

• Judge rejects Mark Meadows’ bid to move Georgia election interference case to federal court (CNN)

• Fani Willis Tears Into Fake Trump Electors' Defense In Blistering New Filing (HP)

• Trump tells judge he may try to move Georgia election interference case to federal court (CNN)

• Biden impeachment talk draws groans from GOP senators (Axios)

• Trump White House official Peter Navarro was convicted of contempt of Congress charges filed after he was accused of refusing to cooperate with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. He's the second Trump aide to face such charges after Steve Bannon. [AP]

• Nancy Pelosi: Democrat and ex-Speaker, 83, to seek re-election (BBC)

• Over 1,000 dead after quake strikes near Marrakech, Morocco (CNN)

• Intensely powerful Hurricane Lee will slow down over the ocean, forecasters say (NPR)

• Florida supreme court to hear abortion case that could drastically limit access (Guardian)

• DeSantis’s Immigration Law May Affect Hurricane Cleanup in Florida (NYT)

• Musk cut internet to Ukraine’s military as it was attacking Russian fleet (WP)

• American house prices should be falling amid rocketing rates—why are they not? (Economist)

• Is Texas’ Busing Responsible for the Migrant Crisis Across Cities? (NYT)

• European gas prices soar as Australian workers begin strike (FT)

• The End of Burning Man Is Also Its Future (Wired)

• Now SF's right-wing recall crowd are attacking judges (48 Hills)

• The unconventional solutions scientists are trying to save corals (WP)

• Hong Kong swamped after heaviest rain in 140 years (Al Jazeera)

• Asteroid hit by NASA spacecraft is behaving unexpectedly (New Scientist)

• I.R.S. Deploys Artificial Intelligence to Target Rich Partnerships (NYT)

• Human-machine teams driven by AI are about to reshape warfare (Reuters)

• Artists have changed their minds, generative AI is good (DataConomy)

• Meet generative AI's 'super users': 70% of Gen Z use GenAI (ZDNet)

• Silicon Valley’s vision for AI? It’s religion, repackaged. (Vox)

• Do Not Fear the Robot Uprising. Join It (Wired)

• Economy Collapses After 10-Year-Old Boy Spends Entire U.S. GDP On Fortnite Skins (The Onion)

 

Aidan's Party

 

1994

It was one of those moments the whole world was about to change but we didn’t know it at the time. Or why.

Twenty-nine years ago yesterday, my wife and I were celebrating the birth of our child — her first and my fourth, a son. When I located my old hand-written journal from 1994, a small paper note slipped out of it.

It turned out to be the printed notice we sent out to friends and family with the news of Aidan’s birth. A paper note on card stock — how charming that seems in retrospect! Over the next few years we welcomed two more babies into our world, another son and a daughter, but I don’t think by then we were still sending out print notices.

The reason is simple — email. In 1994, we were just beginning to have email accounts and they had not yet become our primary means of communication. Time-honored traditions like birth notices were still in vogue, but they would soon seem quaint as we all moved en masse to the new electronic mail platform.

The Internet changed everything. My career as a print journalist was effectively over and my new career as a Web-based journalist was about to begin. Soon I would be lugging a laptop everywhere, and logging hundreds of email messages per day.

We didn’t realize it at the time, but the newspapers, magazines and book publishers that had sustained journalists like me were all going to be disrupted to the point nearly of extinction. They continue to suffer to this day.

I realized that my son’s childhood would be fundamentally different from mine, though I couldn’t have imagined the gaming/cellphone/social media revolutions that were brewing for him and his generation.

So discovering that little slip of yellowing paper was for me a both a nostalgic relic and a reminder of the moment when a new world was born and an old one was slipping away.

HEADLINES:

• Hurricane Lee: Projected path, maps and hurricane tracker (ABC)

• Georgia special grand jury recommended charges against Lindsey Graham and former senators (Guardian)

• Abortions have increased significantly in states that border those with bans, new analysis finds (CNN)

• As Abortion Laws Drive Obstetricians From Red States, Maternity Care Suffers (NYT)

• Mexico ends federal ban on abortion, leaving patchwork of state restrictions (AP)

• Women win Mexican primaries; one is likely to be first female president (WP)

• Senate unity puts House Republicans in a jam over government funding fight (NBC)

• Biden Administration to Bar Drilling on Millions of Acres in Alaska (NYT)

• The federal government will seek a grand jury indictment against Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden by the end of the month, prosecutors said Wednesday. Hunter Biden faces gun and tax charges after a plea deal collapsed over the summer under scrutiny from a judge. [HuffPost]

• Main Afghanistan-Pakistan border crossing closed after guards exchange fire (Al Jazeera)

• Georgia DA moves to shield prospective jurors in Trump case (The Hill)

• Willis blasts congressman’s ‘interference’ in Fulton Trump probe (AJC)

• With 4 months left until the caucus, Ron DeSantis is betting big on Iowa (CBS)

• In Escalation, Adams Says Migrant Crisis ‘Will Destroy New York City’ (NYT)

• Trump escalates false attacks on Biden as some Republicans push toward impeachment (WP)

• Death toll rises to four in Greece after floods, more than 800 rescued (Al Jazeera)

• America Is Telling Itself a Lie About Roadkill (Atlantic)

• In Its First Monopoly Trial of Modern Internet Era, U.S. Sets Sights on Google (NYT)

• Apple is reportedly spending ‘millions of dollars a day’ training AI (The Verge)

• Why This Award-Winning Piece of AI Art Can’t Be Copyrighted (Wired)

• Do robots have to be human-like for us to trust them? (TechXplore)

• Ted Lieu dishes on how Congress can get savvy on AI regulation (Politico)

• The Catch-22 Of AI Chatbots (Forbes)

• Generative AI’s Biggest Security Flaw Is Not Easy to Fix (Wired)

• OpenAI’s first-ever dev conference hopes to draw “hundreds of developers” in November (Ars Technica)

• Derivative works are generative AI’s poison pill (TC)

• Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to study the use and risks of A.I.(Politico)

• Seattle Seahawks Prediction: The Seahawks get distracted after seeing Mount Rainier looking majestic during a game. (The Onion)

 

29!

 

In Court

 The first glimpse of what a televised Trump trial in Fulton County, Georgia would look like came on Wednesday and it was indeed a fascinating preview. I’d been skeptical that a camera in the courtroom would really matter, but watching the proceedings yesterday changed my mind.

There is an undeniable gravity to the formalities of a criminal case. The specifics may be too granular to be of general interest but what’s at stake — potential jail time for the defendant — is undeniable.

Trump has what is probably the best defense team his money can buy, and the state RICO case against him is complex and labyrinthian. But the details of the charges boil down to one fact — he and his minions allegedly tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The state’s case is that Trump et.al. went to illegal ends as outlined in the indictment. If convicted, there is a mandatory minimum jail time of five years.

This case is going to be playing out over many months to come and nobody knows whether a conviction will be obtained. But if I were one of the 19 defendants, I wouldn’t be confidant at this point of my chances for an acquittal.

Therefore, it’s possible some of them will begin to consider the option to flip and turn against Trump. In a related news story, that is already happening in the federal classified documents case.

HEADLINES:

• Trump suffers big loss in E. Jean Carroll defamation case, judge says he’s liable (CNBC)

• Judge 'very skeptical' of DA's push to try Trump, 18 co-defendants together in Georgia election case (ABC)

• Special counsel Jack Smith said Tuesday that former President Donald Trump’s ongoing attacks against prosecutors and judges threatened to influence potential jurors in his 2020 election interference case. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has previously warned Trump to "take special care in your public statements about this case." [HuffPost]

• Harris says Trump can’t be spared accountability for Jan. 6 (AP)

• Mar-a-Lago IT worker struck cooperation agreement with special counsel, his former lawyer says (CNN)

• Is there another shoe to drop in the story of Clarence Thomas and his billionaire pal? (The Hill)

• FBI searches for growing number of Jan. 6 fugitives (CBS)

• McConnell’s health becomes bigger problem for GOP (The Hill)

• Inside Fortress China (Economist)

• Tropical Storm Lee path: Meteorologists project where it's heading and when it will become a hurricane (CBS)

• Afghanistan women suffer 2 years after Taliban takeover (WP)

• UN forced to cut food assistance from 10 million Afghans (CNN)

• North Korea Finds New Leverage in the Ukraine War (NYT)

• To Slow The Ukrainian Counteroffensive, the Russian Army Quadrupled The Size Of Its Minefields (Forbes)

• Earth just had its hottest summer on record, U.N. says, warning "climate breakdown has begun" (CBS)

• Senate meeting with top AI leaders will be ‘closed-door,’ no press or public allowed (VentureBeat)

• How to use ChatGPT to make charts and tables (ZDNet)

• What OpenAI Really Wants (Wired)

• We know remarkably little about how AI language models work (TR)

• AI pioneer Mustafa Suleyman: AI needs a "containment" plan (Axios)

• AI will scramble geopolitical power if left unchecked, one executive says (Politico)

• Remorseful Poster Deletes Comment After Accidentally Telling Wrong Stranger To Kill Self (The Onion)

First Harvest

Growing a little bit of food for the family has long been one of my most satisfying hobbies. In the past, I was able to harvest onions, artichokes, cucumbers, squash, carrots, plums, apples, apricots and other crops from my backyard in San Francisco; these days my latest yield is the cherry tomatoes shown above.

But watering the seedlings in my planter box has been a bit of a challenge; more precisely, getting the amount of moisture just right has been the issue.

A recent study involving a robot calibrated to provide just the right amount of water found that the robot used far less water on the plants than humans did. This came to my attention just as a bunch of nasty mushrooms invaded my box and the soil started smelling musty.

After reading the study I cut back on watering dramatically. Since then, the mushrooms have disappeared and these tomatoes have ripened to perfection. The soil is drier and the musty odor has vanished.

Unfortunately, my grandchildren say they don’t like cherry tomatoes at this point, but for this my daughter has a plan. Maybe they will change their minds after trying some of Grandpa’s home-grown variety, she opines.

That’s the main drama at our house this first week of September. Now on to the news, where the conflicts are decidedly more severe…

HEADLINES:

• Capitol Hill doctor: McConnell did not have a stroke or seizure when freezing before cameras (CNN)

• Ex-Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio sentenced to 22 years for Jan. 6 riot role (NPR)

• Government shutdown deadline looming as lawmakers return to Capitol Hill (CBS)

• Poor families could see cuts to food aid as Congress battles over budget (WP)

• The 2024 U.S. Presidential Race: A Cheat Sheet (Atlantic)

• CNN Poll: GOP voters’ broad support for Trump holds, with less than half seriously worried criminal charges will harm his 2024 chances (CNN)

• Could the 14th Amendment keep Trump off the ballot in 2024? (WP)

• He’s Wanted in a 1970 Bombing. The F.B.I. Aged His Photo to Seek Tips. (NYT)

• Ukraine war: 17 killed during attack on market in 'peaceful city'. (BBC)

• Kim Jong-Un to meet with Putin this month (CBS)

• Putin dashes global hopes for reviving the Ukraine grain deal (AP)

• Cuba says it dismantled human trafficking ring recruiting for Russia's war in Ukraine (NPR)

• Russian Pilot Describes Defection to Ukraine, Urges Others to Follow (WSJ)

• Two doctors on opposite sides of the culture war tearing Israel apart (WP)

• Burning Man attendees make a mass exodus after a dramatic weekend that left thousands stuck in the Nevada desert (CNN)

• Faced With Evolving Threats, U.S. Navy Struggles to Change (NYT)

• Around 70,000 child-care centers are expected to close. Around 3.2 million children could lose care, according to one study. (WP)

• Climate change has increased the risk of explosive wildfire growth in California by 25 percent, and it will continue to drive extreme fire behavior (LAT)

• A new era of climate-linked disease threatens humanity (WP)

• Why car break-ins are so bad in S.F. — and not elsewhere (SFC)

• Elon Musk blames the ADL for 60% ad sales decline at X, threatens to sue (CNN)

• Can Teachers and Parents Get Better at Talking to One Another? (New Yorker)

• A local LGBTQ pride group was excluded from a southwest Iowa town’s Labor Day parade, apparently by the city’s mayor, who cited safety concerns. A council member who disagreed with the move said she knew of no threats. [AP]

• New AI-generated COVID drug enters Phase I clinical trials: ‘Effective against all variants’ (Fox)

• Oracle Stock Is Rising. Bullish AI Cloud Outlook Prompts Another Upgrade (Barron’s)

• Ex-Google executive fears AI will be used to create ‘more lethal pandemics’ (NY Post)

• Inside Meta’s AI Drama: Internal Feuds Over Compute Power (The Information)

• Exclusive survey: Experts favor new U.S. agency to govern AI (Axios)

• Generative AI at an inflection point: What’s next for real-world adoption? (VentureBeat)

• Baidu CEO says more than 70 large AI language models released in China (Reuters)

• Man’s Only Remaining Source Of Pleasure Is Being Mad In The Car (The Onion)

The Moment

Whenever I republish an old essay, often from many years ago, I hesitate before adding a note disclosing that fact. The reason is that in the great majority of cases, I’ve altered the original so much that it barely resembles the former version.

In fact what I am doing is iterating, much like in a software cycle.

All writing, in my view, is experimental.

What follows now is a radically different version of something I first attempted in 2007.

***

It always happens without warning. My eyes start smarting as if I am seeing everything around me in a new light. Walking through the city, there are suddenly details that previously remained hidden.

The expression on that nun's face, the shine of that apple, the dead rat in the gutter, the way the light reflects off a pair of boots. The movement of that person's body in a pair of jeans walking in front of me, the flapping of those two pigeons taking a bath in the street, the lonely glance of an old man glimpsed fleetingly in the window of a passing taxi, the odd, quizzical stare of a baby who somehow seems to sense I am in a different state, subtly altered from who I was yesterday.

These can be dangerous moments. Many a man or woman has walked away from a marriage in this kind of state. Many others have quit their jobs, or somehow maneuvered themselves into getting fired. Maybe I am one of those people.

A rational observer would say that it is a self-destructive moment and that not everyone is able to handle it. Better to just try and let it pass.

But another option is to not just self-destruct or let it pass. Life may be out of your control. If so, you may choose to hold on to the moment, breathe through it, start exploring one form of artistic expression or another, and a new you may emerge. You may accomplish things you never, ever imagined. Don't be afraid.

Perhaps the time for your art has arrived.

HEADLINES:

• Burning Man crowd stuck in muddy venue, but there's 'no cause for panic,' CEO says (NBC)

• Amid Rain and Mud, Climactic ‘Burn’ Is Delayed at Burning Man Fest (NYT)

• Biden jabs at Trump on Labor Day as he looks to shore up his union base (CNN)

• Mark Meadows Is 'Screaming His Guilt': Behavior Analyst (Newsweek)

• The Cost of Ron DeSantis’s Ideological Purity (Atlantic)

• America’s murder rate seems to be dropping—is a post-pandemic crime wave over? (Economist)

• Scientists warn invasive pests are taking a staggering toll on society (WP)

• By Abandoning Civics, Colleges Helped Create the Culture Wars (NYT)

• Robots are pouring drinks in Vegas. As AI grows, the city's workers brace for change (NPR)

• Are AI models doomed to always hallucinate? (TC)

• The Battle Over Books3 Could Change AI Forever (Wired)

• How Worried Should We Be About AI’s Threat to Humanity? Even Tech Leaders Can’t Agree. (WSJ)

• How personalized AI could turn into a ‘frenemy’ (The Hill)

• AI systems have learned how to deceive humans. What does that mean for our future? (The Conversation)

• Can We Talk to Whales? Researchers believe that artificial intelligence (New Yorker)

• In China’s shadow, U.S. rushes back to neglected Indian Ocean island (WP)

• Turkey’s Erdoğan says grain deal to be revived ‘soon’ after talks with Putin (Financial Times)

• Zelensky Replaces Defense Minister, Citing Need for ‘New Approaches’ (NYT)

• In Japan, the young find dating so hard their parents are doing it for them (CNN)

• New Community Health Program Teaches Low-Income Americans To Ignore Symptoms (The Onion)

 

Family Traditions

On Sunday morning, my three youngest kids and I did something we've been doing for many years now -- meeting at a San Francisco cafe for brunch. It was classic Bay Area weather: sunny, breezy, the temperature flirting with 70, the air clear and dry.

The neighborhood we chose for this get-together was Potrero Hill, and its small downtown area was fairly bustling -- more cafes than I remembered were filled to spillover with mostly young patrons, lively, laughing, casually dressed, tattooed and pierced just like my kids.

The chatter rising from the tables including those inside wooden booths dating from the Covid era was light-hearted and bursting with the energy of a three-day weekend. I'd been pleasantly surprised that I quite easily found a parking spot a block from our destination after driving in from the East Bay.

Then I remembered that this is Burning Man weekend when some 70,000 people, many from San Francisco, gather at a remote part of the Nevada desert for their annual festival, so we would be avoiding the even greater bustle that would otherwise be the case in these popular inner-city blocks.

At this point it's no doubt redundant to disclose that I love San Francisco and I love my kids. They are truly San Francisco kids, having lived elsewhere only during college, from which all three returned convinced that few, if any other parts of the country can compete with their home city, at least when it comes to their particular sensibilities.

They are idealistic, progressive, creative people who share a dry wit and similar taste in food, music and film. They are unapologetic cat lovers. They can light up a room and be the life of the party when they choose to do so, They are not rich by local standards and not poor by global standards and they know about both of those things and also about the difference.

But on this particular morning, we saw no reason to focus on the heavier topics of mutual concern -- except for climate change in the form of the flash flooding that was trapping some of their friends at Burning Man plus a few digs at AI in the movies -- in lieu of the merits of Oat Milk, campy horror movies and a new eyebrow piercing one of my sons had just gotten on Saturday.

If there is a mythological narrative of the typical American young man, it is that he has a wild youth, followed by a somewhat delayed onset of maturity when he finally settles down and raises a family. If that is the myth, it's one that I did not live out personally. Not the wild part, anyway.

There was no wildness in my youthful years; I was quiet, shy, sickly and withdrawn. I never attended a school dance or even went on a date, didn't drink beer or get into trouble. That almost guaranteed a midlife crisis later on, but that's the way it goes...

There's a lot more I could write about all of that and maybe I will someday but if there is some sort of cosmic presence keeping track of such things, at least I should get credit for the settling down and raising a family part. In fact I settled down twice and raised two families, so perhaps I should get extra credit!

Anyway, it seems I've gotten distracted from my main narrative here. We had a lovely brunch, my younger three and I -- plus the older boy's wonderful girlfriend who snapped our photo.

As I made my way through the city streets back home afterward, I felt very much at ease, having just lived out another of our simple family traditions. And that in the end is pretty much what it’s all about.

Fall

Yesterday I wrote about the ending of summer, but of course the end of one thing is also the beginning of another. The new season is a bit ambiguous here in the Northern California, where the trees don’t change color and the temperatures tend to go up, not down.

But it’s a new quarter of the year regardless, which back in my home state brings the opening of the college football season for my alma mater, the University of Michigan. Like many kids I grew up watching Michigan football with my father. It’s the winningest such program in the country.

That guaranteed that my first big achievement as a college journalist, serving as Sports Editor of the Michigan Daily, also was without a doubt my Dad’s proudest moment, especially since my other achievements until then included demonstrating against basically everything, smoking the occasional joint and living in what was at the time referred to as “sin.”

So back to sports.

Did you know that in the very first Rose Bowl game ever played, Michigan beat Stanford 49-0? That was in 1902. The second time the Wolverines played in the Rose Bowl was almost 50 years later, and they beat USC, 49-0 in 1948. For a long time afterward, 49 stood as the scoring record by a team in the grand Pasadena classic.

Michigan’s football teams since then have had many ups and downs, more ups than downs actually, but few as impressive as the past two seasons when they’ve routed their arch rivals, the Ohio State Buckeyes, won the Big Ten title and gone to the national championship playoffs.

Michigan is projected to be very good again this year; the team is loaded with talent.

Unfortunately, in recent years the college game has changed for the worse on many levels. It has become more like a professional sport in more ways than I can detail here. One consequence is there are no more Rose Bowl matchups between the Big Ten and Pacific Coast league champions as in the days of yore.

In fact there is hardly any Pac-Ten conference left at all while the Big Ten is bloated to a ridiculous extent. Now I don’t mind most change but not all change is good, you know. Then again, it’s fall and Michigan won its first game of the new season, so that’s a pretty good start.

So hail to the victors and welcome to autumn, and yes I buried the lede.

LINKS:

• India launches first sun-focused space mission, adding to lunar landing win (CNN)

• Nobel Foundation cancels Russia, Belarus, Iran invites to annual prize awards (Reuters)

• With wary eye on China, U.S. moves closer to former foe Vietnam (WP)

• Tens of thousands at Burning Man told to conserve water and food after heavy rains leave attendees stranded in Nevada desert (CNN)

• Court record shows Mark Meadows caught in a lie (MSNBC)

• Giuliani hits new low with Georgia indictment (The Hill)

• Abortion fight unites the left and rattles the right in key Wis. battleground (WP)

• A Montana Town Faces a Homelessness Problem Similar to San Francisco and L.A. (WSJ)

• Young climate activist tells Greenpeace to drop ‘old-fashioned’ anti-nuclear stance (Guardian)

• Taliban Sign Multibillion-Dollar Afghan Mining Deals (VoA)

• Pressure mounts on Gabon junta to relinquish power (Reuters)

• Judge: Trump-era rule change allowing the logging of old-growth forests violates laws (NPR)

• Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled (Guardian)

• The Culture Wars Are Tearing the Close-Knit Country Music Community Apart (Rolling Stone)

• AI Hallucinations could usher in the next era of AI: cognitive AI (Fast Company)

• How artificial intelligence will affect the elections of 2024 (Economist)

• The Role Of Generative AI In HR Is Now Becoming Clear (Josh Bersin)

• Many workers are faking knowledge of AI to make sure they aren't left behind (TechRadar)

• How the AI Revolution Will Reshape the World (Time)

• Jimmy Buffett, enduring ‘Margaritaville’ singer turned mogul, dies at 76 (CNN)

• Increasingly Anxious Man Worried Order Confirmation Email Never Going To Come (The Onion)