American Hungry

I had a dream last night, a vivid dream. Whether it was the Parkinson’s, which is known for vivid dreams, or the phase of the moon, or my medications, or the fact that it was Halloween, or maybe such dreams are like earthquakes, you know, the stress to have one builds up over time until you just have a big one, I don’t know.

But I had it. 

In my dream, I had organized a huge event that stretched along a jagged line in an open area south of the city. Under a long string of tents, pretty much everyone I know or ever met was cooking their food specialities for members of the public.

And the public had shown up. Thousands of people had come, including many more people that I knew. Most of them were hungry but the majority of my friends just were there to taste the delicacies, sort of like at the food tents at Burning Man.

I went up and down the food line, checking on everybody. Clearly I was in charge. I explained that people should pay for the food if they could, but that it was fine to give it away as well.

Clearly, most of the people who’d come didn’t have the means to pay, but they were cheerful and willing to volunteer their services to help the operation run smoothly. There seemed to be a lot of bartering going on.

Before long, all of the food was gone. As I walked the line one last time, I remembered that my business plan depended on me getting a small cut of the sales from the vendors who had appeared at my event.

When I checked my pocket, I had one dollar bill.

***

Hunger in America is real and has long been one of our biggest and most persistent social problems. Just check out the two CBS documentaries from the 1960s, one by the legendary Edward R. Murrow.

The most recent estimates are that some 18 million people, or 13.5 percent of U.S. households in 2023, suffered from food shortages or its euphemism, “food insecurity.”

As our elected representatives, Republican and Democrat alike, play their high-stakes political games using hunger as one of their trump cards, and as our overweight President waddles off to his private golf resort in Florida, million of Americans are hungry.

And I had a dream about them. Today’s top story is from the L.A. Times, “Judges order USDA to restart SNAP funding, but hungry families won’t get immediate relief.”

HEADLINES:

• Hunger in America (CBS — 1968) 

• Harvest of Shame (CBS — 1960)

• Federal judge orders Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits out of contingency fund (NBC)

• National Guard deployment in D.C. extended through February (WP)

• Republicans quickly push back on Trump’s call to nix filibuster (Politico)

• Trump’s Plan Is Now Out in the Open (Atlantic)

• U.S. poised to strike military targets in Venezuela in escalation against Maduro regime (Miami Herald)

• Pentagon Admits It Has No Idea Who’s on “Drug Boats” Being Bombed (TNR)

• UN human rights chief says US strikes on alleged drug boats are ‘unacceptable’ (AP)

• Newsom Turns a California Election Into a National Platform (NYT)

• Ohio approves new map giving Republicans a leg up in two more House seats (WP)

• How a radical experiment to bring a forest into a preschool transformed children’s health (Guardian)

• Trump demanded that former special counsel Jack Smith be hauled off to jail amid the political leader’s repeated, sweeping calls for the prosecution and jailing of his perceived political opponents. [HuffPost]

• Classified U.S. report finds hundreds of possible Israeli human rights violations (WP)

• The GOP’s top think tank just defended an open Nazi (Vox)

• FBI says “potential terrorist attack” thwarted in Michigan, 5 people arrested (CBS)

• Kennedy Center ticket sales have plummeted since Trump takeover (WP)

• Despair spreads across historic seaport in Jamaica that Hurricane Melissa demolished (AP)

• Don’t Blow This, Baseball (Atlantic)

• Inside the Louvre jewelry heist (NYT)

• King Charles III strips Prince Andrew of titles and evicts him from royal residence (AP)

• I Tried the Robot That’s Coming to Live With You. It’s Still Part Human. (WSJ)

• As AI reshapes the job market, here are 16 roles it has created (WP)

• Scream Mask Left On While Using Toilet (Onion)

 

Ending It?

If it was not enough to be worried about the drift into authoritarianism under Trump, and the existential threat of climate change, now we’ve got our own creation — artificial intelligence — to be concerned about.

Gingerly seeking an answer to the dreaded question, “Will A.I. Destroy the Planet?”, The New Yorker sent a reporter into one of the massive data centers now under construction to fuel the massive energy needs A.I. requires.

First, there is this: “A single data center can use as much power as the city of Philadelphia. And they’re popping up everywhere. These sprawling buildings, filled with rows of computing equipment, are the factories of the A.I. economy; they power all those mundane chatbot searches, sucking up tons of energy in the process. As the OpenAI C.E.O. Sam Altman put it, ‘I do guess that a lot of the world gets covered in data centers over time.’”

Is there any chance we can stop this disaster from occurring? Apparently not, because people like A.I. too much and as they use it more and more, they are only going to become more dependent on it.

“(T)he evidence shows, conclusively, that people love this. People are using A.I. all the time. Especially young people. It’s, like, their best friend. They call it “Chat.” Eight hundred million weekly average users— ChatGPT is maybe the most successful internet product in history. And that’s just Chat; there are dozens of other services that are also exploding in popularity. Whatever people say about their concerns or fears of A.I.—and those are real—people are using it all the time.”

So there you have it; we’re doomed. And now that I’ve thoroughly buried the lede, the answer to that question up top — “Will A.I. Destroy the Planet?” — unfortunately, is yes.

But wait! I refuse to end this edition of my newsletter on such a down note. There has to be a way to prevent this fate. We’ve got to find a way. After all, Bill Gates now says we’ll survive climate change and we know we can stop Trump.

Plus it’s Halloween. A time when at the very least we pretend.

HEADLINES:

• Will A.I. Destroy the Planet? (New Yorker)

• Trump cuts tariffs on China after ‘truly great’ meeting with Xi (WP)

• Senate approves Democratic resolution that would block Trump’s global tariffs (CBS)

• Berkeley to ICE: Stay off city property (Berkeleyside)

• Nuclear saber-rattling from Trump and Putin signals a dangerous new era (CNN)

• US will limit number of refugees to 7,500 and give priority to white South Africans (Guardian)

• Trump administration makes misleading case in high-stakes asylum hearing (WP)

• Kash Patel Slammed For Using $60 Million FBI Jet To Watch Girlfriend Perform (NDTV)

• Rahm Emanuel … For President? (Atlantic)

• 5 more arrests as Louvre jewel heist probe deepens and key details emerge (AP)

• The EPA Let Companies Estimate Their Own Pollution Levels. We Discovered Real Emissions Are Far Worse. (ProPublica)

• Palestinian militants hand over 2 sets of remains of hostages to Red Cross in Gaza (AP)

• The Junk Foods That Harm Your Brain Most, Ranked by New Research (ScienceAlert)

• Why Journalism Needs Literature (Atlantic)

• The Trump administration’s wrecking ball has come for workers with disabilities. “Where is the humanity?” a laid-off federal employee asks. [HuffPost]

• Investigating the Secret History of a ‘Lawless’ War (NYT)

• Super Teacher is building an AI tutor for elementary schools (TechCrunch)

• AI browsers are a cybersecurity time bomb (Verge)

• DeepSeek may have found a new way to improve AI’s ability to remember (Technology Review)

• Their Professors Caught Them Cheating. They Used A.I. to Apologize. (NYT)

• New Study Finds Americans Need 6 Hours Of Sleep At Work (Onion)

Mightier than the Sword

As a journalist, many of my friends and colleagues publish books. It happens all the time. Most of them stick to non-fiction, which is the more familiar and therefore less dangerous option.

But recently, a few of them have ventured over to fiction, which is a tricky business for those who have made their initial career in journalism.

Speaking from my short and only marginally successful time in Hollywood, this kind of transition is easier imagined than executed.

Writing is a dangerous profession, period, full stop. The following four writers have tested the limits that separate fiction from non-fiction and I salute them for that. 

Also I know this much — these are four fantastic people, with great minds and talent, so you might want to check out their work.

• Someone Left the Cake Out in the Rain: Stories of Innocence Lost by G.Pascal Zachary.

“In his debut fiction collection, Zachary stretches his imagination and pulls off a literary adventure about lives that are by turns messy and heartbreaking and glorious. Taking the reader to different corners of the world, Zachary’s stories are woven together with a journalist’s eye for detail and a storyteller’s knack for invention.” – Katie Hafner, author, The Boys, a Novel

• Thorn City by Pamela Statz. 

Suspected murder, eclectic food trucks, and artisanal cocaine: just another day in Thorn City. It’s the night of the Rose City Ripe for Disruption gala—a gathering of Portland’s elite. Dressed to kill in sparkling minidresses, best friends Lisa and Jamie attend as “paid to party” girls. They plan an evening of fake flirtations, karaoke playlists, and of course, grazing the catering. Past and present collide when Lisa stumbles across Ellen, a ruthless politician who also happens to be Lisa’s estranged mother. Awkward… When Lisa was sixteen, Ellen had her kidnapped and taken to the Lost Lake Academy—a notorious boarding school for troubled youth.

• What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown

“What Kind of Paradise is a twisty, sharp coming-of-age story for our strange techno-utopian times. It brims with suspense and family secrets, all the while asking big questions about the cost of progress. Janelle Brown writes with clarity and prescience about inheritance, technology, and moral gray areas. I raced through this.”—Rachel Khong, New York Times bestselling author of Real Americans.

• The Prometheus Formula: Book 1 - Twilight of the Awakened by Terry J. Scott

As part of an experimental artificial intelligence program, a team of young scientists accidentally discover a hidden meaning to Einstein’s formula for general relativity, and realize that it could hold the key to modern science’s most fundamental mystery: the “Planck Wall”. And, consequently, to the origin of the universe. But they soon become the target of a secret order with medieval roots, determined to preserve the inviolability of the last religious dogmas. Hunted by the order’s killers, wanted for murders they didn’t commit, the group’s survivors must disappear in an America that’s tipping into chaos and dictatorship.

HEADLINES:

• Trump Threatens to Resume Nuclear Weapons Testing, Minutes Before Xi Meeting (NYT)

• Trump rebukes Putin for testing new missiles, tells him to end the war (WP)

• Governor Newsom sues Trump Administration for illegally withholding SNAP food benefits (gov.ca)

• The Government Is Closed. The President Is MIA. (Atlantic)

• Dangerous redistricting: How the Supreme Court could nullify the power of your vote (The Hill)

• Fed Cuts Rates as Officials Worry About Labor Market (NYT)

• Trump administration shakes up ICE leadership across the country in major overhaul (AP)

• 3 words in Letitia James’ mortgage contract could doom the fraud case against her (Politico)

• “I Was Contaminated”: New Study Reveals Widespread Pesticide Exposure (Mother Jones)

• US government allowed and even helped US firms sell tech used for surveillance in China (AP)

• Trump-appointed acting US attorney disqualified from cases for ‘unlawfully serving’, rules judge (Guardian)

• Trump administration moves to overrule state laws protecting credit reports from medical debt (AP)

• US Senate passes bill to terminate Trump tariffs against Brazil (Reuters)

• S Korea announces lowering of tariffs as part of new US trade deal (BBC)

• At least 64 people died in Rio de Janeiro’s most deadly police operation ever, which targeted a major gang days before the city hosts global events related to the United Nations climate summit known as COP30. (Reuters)

• Why did Israel launch air strikes on Gaza, then ‘resume’ truce? (Al Jazeera)

• How Data Centers Actually Work (Wired)

• Hurricane Melissa hits Cuba after leaving trail of destruction in Jamaica (WP)

• Messages in bottle written by World War I soldiers in 1916 found on Australian beach: “Absolutely stunned” (CBS)

• How the 19th-Century Opium War Shapes Xi’s Trade Clash With Trump (NYT)

• An ex-Intel CEO’s mission to build a Christian AI: ‘hasten the coming of Christ’s return’ (Guardian)

• Federal judges admitted their offices used AI to draft factually inaccurate documents. (WP)

• The era of mega AI layoffs is here (Business Insider)

• The AI job cuts are here - or are they? (BBC)

• Parents Feuding With At Least One Aunt At All Times (Onion)

Midweek Mix

If you need a little nostalgic inspiration today, try this historical video: 

Arlo Guthrie/ Amazing Grace.

HEADLINES:

• Trump Says He Is Prepared to Send ‘More Than the National Guard’ Into U.S. Cities (NYT)

• President for Life (Atlantic)

• Hurricane Melissa leaves Jamaica devastated. (NPR)

• States sue over Trump administration suspending food benefits during shutdown (Reuters)

• States sue Trump administration to keep SNAP benefits during government shutdown (CNBC)

• GOP struggles to avoid ObamaCare boomerang amid shutdown (The Hill)

• The Coming Election Mayhem (Atlantic)

• Chicago’s children are getting caught in the chaos of immigration crackdowns (AP)

• Judge Blasts Border Patrol Boss Greg Bovino For Violating Excessive Force Order (Block Club Chicago)

• Judge warns against Trump officials’ ‘troubling’ remarks about Kilmar Abrego Garcia (MSNBC)

• The US president’s family raked in more than $800 million from sales of crypto assets in the first half of 2025 alone, a Reuters examination found, on top of potentially billions more in unrealized “on paper” gains. Much of that cash has come from foreign sources. Read our special report. (Reuters)

• Military Destroys 4 More Boats U.S. Says Were Carrying Drugs (NYT)

• Federal employees manning the skies miss first paycheck amid government shutdown (NBC)

• Bill Gates says climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” (NYT)

• Red states are preparing for an end to the Voting Rights Act (Politico)

• The racial history of the ‘overpopulation time bomb’ and ‘pronatalism’ movements (NPR)

• Trump put allies on obscure board set to decide White House ballroom’s fate (WP)

• Are Kids Still Looking for Careers in Tech? (Wired)

• The Future of Magazines… and the World (Nation)

• Netanyahu Orders Strikes in Gaza, as Israel Says Hamas Violated Cease-Fire (NYT)

• Amazon VP tells remaining workers to ‘lean in on AI’ in internal memo after massive layoffs (Business Insider) 

• Amazon lays off thousands of corporate workers as it spends big on AI (NPR)

• AI psychosis is a growing danger. ChatGPT is moving in the wrong direction (Guardian)

• Trump Accused Of Using Makeup To Conceal Ventilator (Onion)

MUSIC: Sarah McLachlan performs Angel | Canada Day 2025

Old Men and Power

The only reason we know Trump had an MRI recently was because he told us about it. He also claimed it was “perfect” but his track record when it comes to telling the truth about things like that isn’t all that great.

Perhaps his doctors ordered the test to establish a baseline in their elderly patient because he is showing early signs of cognitive decline. That is speculation, but I’m basing it on his comments Monday that besides the MRI, he again took the Montreal cognitive assessment.

Physicians only schedule MRIs for patients showing symptoms — usually neurological or cardiological — and not as a routine part of a physical exam for a healthy patient.

Trump is 79. For him, like all of us, the indignities of aging include some measure of physical decline. Sadly, this is not one of those things that you can hope to reverse. Perhaps you can delay it a bit, but you can’t prevent it.

As our two most recent Presidents have struggled with these inevitable aspects of aging, they’ve seemingly grown ever more desperate to hold onto power. Biden wouldn’t give up his campaign for re-election in 2024 until the shocking decline in his cognitive functioning became painfully obvious for all to see in a national debate.

Now we have Trump, who openly fantasizes about a third term, which would keep him in the White House well into his 80s. It’s a major stretch to imagine him healthy enough to do that. Perhaps the fact that these men reached the pinnacle of power only very late in life prevents them from gracefully yielding it back, as that feels way too much like giving in to their impending mortality.

But with Trump, we do not need to wait for the results of an MRI to know what we can see with our own eyes. Like Biden, this is an old guy in decline.

HEADLINES:

• Soldiers of Fortune — A Donor-Funded Army Wouldn’t Just Be Illegal—It Would be Dangerous (Atlantic)

• Hurricane Melissa Maps Tracker: Forecasts, Spaghetti Models, Impacts And More (Weather.com)

• Hurricane Melissa Churns to Jamaica With 175 M.P.H. Winds and Catastrophic Rains (NYT)

• Attacks on America’s non-profits threaten basic rights and social cohesion (Economist)

• No federal food aid will go out Nov. 1 as US shutdown drags on (AP)

• Food banks brace for 42 million without SNAP (Axios)

• Lawsuit Plunges New York Into the National Gerrymandering Fight (NYT)

• What Venezuelans think about U.S. military presence, regime change and President Maduro (CBS)

• Milei Wins Mandate for Free-Market Revolution in Argentina’s Election (WSJ)

• Indiana Governor Calls Special Session to Boost Republicans in Congress (NYT)

• X is getting closer to removing the last reminders of Twitter (Verge)

• The Trump Supremacy (Financial Times)

• Flight delays worsen as shutdown and Hurricane Melissa hit travel (USA Today)

• The mysterious rise of cancer among young adults in the Corn Belt (WP)

• How Politics Is Changing the Way History Is Taught (NYT)

• People are having fewer kids. Their choice is transforming the world’s economy (NPR)

• Who Is Cameron Crowe Kidding With the Title of His Memoir? (NYT)

• OpenAI Says Hundreds of Thousands of ChatGPT Users May Show Signs of Manic or Psychotic Crisis Every Week (Wired)

• How agentic AI will change commerce as we know it (Fortune)

• The Age of De-Skilling (Atlantic)

• Trump Defends Demolition Of Yggdrasil, Ancient Tree Of Life (Onion)

 

Monday Mix

HEADLINES:

• US and China say a trade deal is drawing closer as Trump and Xi ready for a high-stakes meeting (AP)

• Suspects arrested over brazen jewel theft from Paris’ Louvre museum (CNN)

• Shutdowns began as a way to enforce federal law. Now Trump is using it to take more power (AP)

• As U.S. forces close in on Venezuela, lawmakers warn of ‘expanding’ operation (WP)

• Hurricane Melissa strengthens into category 4 as it approaches Jamaica (Guardian)

• Flight delays in US to grow worse, transportation secretary warns (BBC)

• SNAP funding expiration set to hit 40 million people (The Hill)

• To Save Madagascar’s One-of-a-Kind Ecosystems, You Have to Feed the People First (Mother Jones)

• US judge rules ICE illegally detained man whose daughter is battling cancer (Guardian)

• Line drawn by 19th-century Britain stokes Pakistan-Taliban tension (WP)

• A 13-year-old invented a new technology to help his family. It actually works. (USA Today)

• OpenAI reportedly developing new generative music tool (TechCrunch)

• ‘Welcome To Derry’ Viewer Can Tell Pennywise Got Work Done (Onion)
  

 

Grandfatherly Musings

As I was sitting on a bench at the Ardenwood Farms pumpkin patch Saturday, watching people come and go, I started wondering about the state of America’s youth.

There are reports that, despite major incentives including a $50,000 signing bonus, the Trump administration is having trouble finding suitable recruits for its legally questionable ICE police force.

The Atlantic reported this week that at an ICE training academy in Georgia, more than a third of the new recruits have failed a relatively easy personal fitness test — do 15 pushups and 32 situps, and run 1.5 miles in 14 minutes.

Other reports indicate that most of the recruits — how to put this delicately — aren’t that smart.

From NBC: “nearly half of new recruits who’ve arrived for training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center over the past three months were later sent home because they couldn’t pass the written exam, according to the data. The academic requirement includes an exam in which officers are allowed to consult their textbooks and notes at the end of a legal course.”

Oh no.

Imagine what it’s like to be the parent of a kid who can’t pass an open-book exam?

As I pondering this, out of the corner of my eye, my own frolicking grandchildren came into view. All eight of them, aged four to 18 — were racing toward a haystack.

Trailing the older kids but doing his best to keep up, was four--year-old Oscar, impeded not only by his small stature but a pair of clumsy rain boots (there were showers in the area).

At one point Oscar literally ran out of his boots and stood there looking confused and chagrined.

Luckily, one of his strapping six-foot tall cousins, Leif, looked back, noticed Oscar’s dilemma, and came back to retrieve him. As Leif carried Oscar and his boots across the finish line, everybody cheered.

I’m not sure how to wrap up this particular essay, or even how to connect the first pathetic part to the second sweet part, or how to draw some lessons, if any, from this ramble.

So this time around, I think I’ll just leave it at that.

HEADLINES:

• Trump threatens Canada with 10% extra import tax over anti-tariffs ad (NPR)

• Ontario premier says he’ll pull ad that upset Trump so trade talks between Canada and US can resume (AP)

• ICE’s efforts to recruit new agents run into some embarrassing setbacks (MSNBC)

• Trump travels to Asia to meet with China’s Xi Jinping as the government shutdown in the U.S. drags on (CBS)

• China and the U.S. talk trade (Reuters)

• Melissa grows into Category 3 hurricane while unleashing torrential rain in the north Caribbean (AP)

• From Texas to Tennessee, Even Trump Country Is Marching Against Trump (Mother Jones)

• Violence, racism and praise for the Nazis (Reuters)

• Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino ordered to face federal judge in Chicago, after being accused of violating court order (CBS)

• Donor Who Gave $130 Million to Pay Troops Is Reclusive Heir to Mellon Fortune (NYT)

• Ukraine races to outfox Russian defenses with drone attacks (Reuters)

• Switzerland is spending millions revamping its vast network of bunkers (WP)

• AI and the Problem of the Last 10 Percent (Bulwark)

• Wedding Planner Gingerly Asks Taylor Swift If She’s Considered Dance Lessons (Onion)