Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Kickers

A year ago, I had some advice for Trump, the reality TV star, as he pondered whether to start a war with Iran, by way of a writing lesson:

When writing a screenplay, you use a three-act format. One description of this type of narrative structure is as follows.

Act One: You introduce the characters and set the scene. Let’s say there’s a monkey and a tiger in a meadow near a forest. The tiger chases the monkey through the meadow, almost catching him at the end of act one.

Act Two: Lots of action. The monkey barely escapes the tiger through various maneuvers until he is cornered near a very tall tree. By the end of the act, the monkey has climbed up the tree with no visible means of escape as the tiger circles below.

Act Three: Using his wiles, the monkey tricks the tiger into looking away while he scampers down the tree and into the forest. A wild chase ensues with the monkey barely eluding capture again and again. Finally, at the far edge of the forest, the tiger forces the monkey up an impossibly tall tree, one we can’t imagine the monkey ever getting down from. 

Now you’ve reached to the conclusion. You have to resolve this story somehow.

I sometimes use this example with students to make a simple point — you better know how the story will wrap up before you begin to write it.

Cut to Trump. If he was going to bomb Iran, he damn well better know how he would end that war before he started it.

Otherwise he will end up with one more story with a bad ending.

HEADLINES:

  • Trump’s War Is Staggering to an Incoherent Defeat (Atlantic)

  • US launches new strikes on Iran, targeting missile sites and boats (BBC)

  • Tehran labels US attacks ‘gross violation’, says it is prepared to respond (Al Jazeera)

  • Iran Warns of Retaliation After U.S. Strikes (WSJ)

  • The energy shock is not over yet (FT)

  • South Carolina Senate Does Not Act on New Midterm Map, Defying Trump (NYT)

  • Federal court blocks Alabama’s midterm gerrymandering plan, a blow for Republicans (Politico)

  • Thomas, Alito Dissent as Supreme Court Blocks Florida From Suing California (Newsweek)

  • Paxton Routs Cornyn in Senate G.O.P. Runoff With Trump’s Backing (NYT)

  • America’s ugliest primary? Texas Republican infighting could hand Senate seat to Democrat (Guardian)

  • Democrats feud over stock trading as they sharpen anti-corruption case against Trump (AP)

  • Trump’s advanced age and threats to his life serve as reminders of his own mortality (CNN)

  • American journalist charged with serving as unregistered agent for China (Politico)

  • Trump administration proposes NDAs for all federal workers (WP)

  • Russia tells Marco Rubio U.S. citizens should leave Kyiv ahead of ‘systematic’ strikes on Ukrainian capital (CNBC)

  • Ukraine’s latest defense against Russian missiles: Making them miss (Politico)

  • Evacuation zone shrinks after ‘worst-case scenario’ of Southern California chemical tank explosion averted, officials say (ABC)

  • The Great Depopulation (Atlantic)

  • Ebola patients flee health facilities amid attacks. (Reuters)

  • New Ebola Vaccine Reportedly Nearing Clinical Trials (Forbes)

  • 6 things a neurologist does to keep his brain healthy (WP)

  • Why science is becoming less innovative (Economist)

  • Elon Musk is losing the culture war — he just doesn’t know it yet (MS Now)

  • Iran’s national soccer team will sleep in Mexico and travel to the US on the days of its three World Cup matchesafter Washington declined to host the squad for the tournament, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said. (Reuters)

  • AI Agents Plunged the Tech World Into Chaos. Here’s Exactly How That Happened (Wired)

  • ‘You can’t control everything’: the rise in plastic surgeons asked to create ‘AI face’ (Guardian)

  • These Robots Are Making Meals for a Nonprofit in San Francisco’s Tenderloin (Wired)

  • Anthropic aligns with Vatican over White House as Pope Leo stokes AI fears (WP)

  • Artificial Intelligence Floods Court Dockets with Home-Brewed Lawsuits (NYT)

  • &R Block Location Mistaken For ‘Backrooms’ Fan Event (Onion)

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Tuesday, May 26, 2026

The Pope and (A)I

It’s unusual when I choose what the Pope says to be the  top story on my list of headlines, but Pope Leo’s comments on AI are a worthy exception to that rule.

The Pope showed that he understands the risks as well as the positive potential of AI in his statement. If I am reading him right, he’s recommending the kind of intelligent regulation of the risks that can evolve along with the technology, and consistent with our understanding of that evolution.

You might call it the beginning of a “regulatory dance.”

It won’t do to simply ban AI or to set it free like Section 230 did with the Internet. The preferred approach would be more like that we’ve achieved with nuclear technology, which is not been perfect but largely effective at preventing the worst outcomes.

I can identify with this on a personal level as it is similar to how my medical team is trying to help me manage my own chronic illness. As the illness progresses, our strategy evolves, seeking to keep it in check, one dance move at a time.

A benefit of this strategy is that I can keep on dancing, i.e., sorting the news and writing essays like this one.☺️

HEADLINES:

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Monday, May 25, 2026

First Off the Press


In his memoir, “Like a Rolling Stone,” Jann Wenner has a chapter called “The Scoop of the Seventies” devoted to the articles Howard Kohn and I wrote in 1975 about Patty Hearst and the SLA.

Part One of that series was called “The Inside Story.”

For most of the many months that story was in process, it was a secret known only to a very small group of us. We were uncertain when we would publish it, partly because Patty Hearst and her kidnappers-turned-colleagues were still underground, and we didn’t want to inadvertently be responsible for getting them caught or killed.

(Remember that all the rest of the group had died in a fiery shootout with the LAPD.)

As fate would have it, the FBI located and arrested Hearst and the others on a Thursday in September and publication of our article was set for the following Monday. All hell would be breaking loose upon publication because Jann had arranged for NBC’s Today show to cover the release exclusively, with the rest of the media invited to the office for what would prove to be a raucous press conference Monday morning.

Security around the release was tight; Jann hired Pinkerton’s to guard all the issues of the magazine except one.

The entire staff of the magazine was secluded at a resort near Big Sur for the long weekend while Howard and I stayed in San Francisco to tape our interview with NBC before we headed south to join the rest.

Finally, late Saturday afternoon, in Jann’s words, “Howard and David made it down…brandishing a copy of the new issue that no one had seen yet.”

A photo of that copy of the magazine we brandished that night is at the top of this post, with the words handwritten by Jann up top “Do Not Leave This Lay Around — David.”

So that’s the story. It turns 51 come September.

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Sunday, May 24, 2026

Last Goodbyes

There’s a line from an old country song that sticks with me: “The last goodbye’s the hardest one to say.” 

Yes, it’s hard to say goodbye to the people you love, so that line came to mind again Saturday when the time came to say my last goodbye to my sister, Kathy, who died recently at the age of 76.

A memorial service was held for her at her church in the small town in Michigan where she lived. I watched by courtesy of a YouTube video.

My youngest sister Carole delivered this remembrance:

“There were four of us siblings growing up and since Kathy was closest to me in age, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t look up to her. She was beautiful, with dark brown hair and eyes that could change from blue to green to gray, depending on what she wore and her mood.

“We were a close family, and many of Kathy’s favorite activities can be traced to our upbringing.

“Our mother loved words and language. She encouraged us to read and relentlessly corrected our grammar. Kathy and I shared a bedroom, and she often read to me before we went to sleep. Kathy loved fiction in many forms, and poetry, too.

“Our dad loved singing, and music was a major joy in Kathy’s life. She sang in our church choir with dad and me, and in the high school choir, and in the choir in this church for many years. Kathy loved old Broadway musicals, folksingers, and rock and roll. She also loved the traditional and new church music that celebrates Christmas and Easter.

“Kathy was an expert at many crafts, most notably knitting and sewing. She was a patient sewing instructor who helped others master computer-driven sewing techniques. She loved jewel tones, and both in her crafting and her clothing she was drawn to deep, rich blues, greens and purples.

“Kathy was an RN and worked as a neonatal intensive care nurse at Sparrow Hospital. Those little ones required constant observation and care, and her sensitivity and focus allowed so many to grow and thrive.

“Kathy’s three children, their spouses and her grandson were so dear to her. She cherished the time spent caring for Desmond when he was a baby.

“Over the years, Kathy had many health challenges. After the doctors concluded she had lupus, she developed a sensitivity to light that limited her time outside. She managed to still enjoy the outdoors through the big picture windows at her home. Watching the deer, birds, and squirrels (and her dog Milo chasing those squirrels) was a favorite pastime. This time of year, she would have been buying seeds to plant her lettuce and tomatoes, and filling the hummingbird feeder with nectar.

“Kathy had an eye for detail. This made her an excellent proofreader when she worked for Rolling Stone, and it was one reason she was so good at nursing and at crafting. When she had cataract surgery, she chose to optimize her near sighted vision, so that she could see to knit and sew, since she didn’t mind wearing glasses for distance. She’s the only person (aside from their older sister) who could always tell my identical twin grandsons apart.

“She had a good sense of humor, too. On her birthday one year, our mom and dad made dinner for her family, and dad made a big deal about how he had cooked this meal for her, which was touching since he rarely cooked. Turns out she had trouble cutting it, because he served her a fake rubber steak!

“A few months later, for Dad’s birthday in November, Kathy got her revenge. She brought out a cake, and went on about it being a new recipe that she hoped would taste good. Dad started trying to cut it, only to discover that she had covered a kitchen sponge with icing!

“So they were even.

“Telling these stories makes me miss her even more. Daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, friend, Kathy lives on in our hearts and our memories.”


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Saturday, May 23, 2026

Stillness and Motion

AAA reports that 39 million Americans are going on roadtrips this holiday weekend, which reminds me of my youth. We’d always go camping, a tradition several of my family members are carrying on as they enjoy trips of their own.

Gas prices are high, which reminds me of my father’s habit of always keeping a running total of fillups. He’d make a notation of how many gallons at what price and the mpg per fillup based on the odometer reading. He’d ask me to do those calculations in my head, and I did so.

I continued with that tradition for a while as an adult, but let it slip away as my life became more complicated.

Holding onto things as opposed to letting them go is much on my mind these days. I’ve been sorting through some of my possessions, discarding stuff I no longer need, and preserving the rest.

Unlike the 39 million others, I am not on the move this weekend. I’m stationary, watching the world spin around me and wishing that just for a moment everything could stay put.

But that is not the way of the world, which I, finally, must concede as well.

***

The resignation of Tulsi Gabbard from Trump’s cabinet makes almost complete the disappearance of women from top positions in his administration.

Her departure formalizes what was already the case — that she was out of the loop of those close to Trump as he continues to wage foreign policy from his gut. 

No one close to Trump will challenge him on that. But we, as a people, must.

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Friday, May 22, 2026

Genius Loves Company


By legend, Albert Einstein was a lone genius, coming up with ideas and concepts nobody else thought of. But according to a revealing article called “Not a Lone Genius” by CalTech professor Diana Kormos-Buchwald, the truth is more complicated. She based her article on The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, a 16-volume series of books co-edited by numerous scholars.

“He was not the genius working in an attic with a pen and paper,” she says. “Einstein may not have been working with large teams, but he was deeply embedded in the science community. Colleagues gave him advice and encouragement, but also criticized his work. And he, in turn, was instrumental in guiding and challenging others.”

The article notes that Einstein developed his special theory of relativity in 1905 with help from his college friend Michele Besso and his first wife, Mileva Marić.

He later perfected his general theory of relativity in 1915 with help from both Besso and another college friend, mathematician Marcel Grossmann.

Perhaps most illustrative of all was his involvement in experiments with younger physicists to test the structure of radiation and matter, and ultimately the development of the ground-breaking field of quantum mechanics. When approached by one of his young colleagues about being listed as a co-author on an important paper on that topic, Einstein demurred:

“I just don’t know whether I should count as a co-author since after all you did all the work...”

Einstein was a tinkerer and inventor of gadgets, including a patented refrigerating system. And he was an original thinker, who indeed came up with brilliant ideas. But perhaps his true genius was as a synthesizer, a collaborator, and a mentor of younger people.

And there might be a lesson in that for the rest of us.

(I published an earlier version of this in 2021.)

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Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Becoming a Nurse

Tuesday morning was hot all over the Bay Area, which is something you can generalize about when you traveled back and forth between the mainland and the tip of the peninsula that we call San Francisco.

Hundreds of us gathered at the old Paramount Theatre in downtown Oakland for the pinning ceremony for nurses in the Samuel Merritt University graduating classes.

One of those honored was my son Aidan, seen in the photo above grinning and wearing a hat. (The others are his younger brother, Dylan, his younger sister, Julia, and his Mom, Connie.)

I’m in there too, messing up the shot as I tried to lean into the frame but appeared to be falling over instead.

From the speakers at the event, I learned that men now account for 11 percent of our nursing population. As far as Aidan’s career is concerned, the RN degree is a stepping stone on his way to becoming a nurse practitioner, which requires another year and a half of studies, clinical work, testing and the type of endurance that has gotten him this far.

Afterwards, at a cafe in San Francisco, he talked about the parts of the work that resonates for him. “We are with people on their happiest days and also at their saddest moments. It’s part of what gives this work meaning.”

Later in the car alone on the way back across the Bay Bridge, I thought to myself that I could not be prouder of my son for the profession he’s chosen.

HEADLINES:

  • There Has Never Been an Example of Presidential Corruption Like This (NYT Edit Bd)

  • Jan. 6 officers sue over $1.8B pot they call ‘slush fund’ for ‘insurrectionists’ (NBC)

  • Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers Tuesday that “anybody” can apply for payouts from the Justice Department’s new “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” after he was asked whether it would include people convicted of assaulting law enforcement. [HuffPost]

  • The End of Thomas Massie Is the Beginning of Something New (Slate)

  • The Trump paradox: What’s good for him is weighing down his party (WP)

  • Cracks are forming in US President Donald Trump's base. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Republican support softening - particularly on the cost of living. (Reuters)

  • US indicts former Cuban President Raúl Castro (CNN)

  • For communist Cuba, it’s the beginning of the end (The Hill)

  • U.S. crude oil falls below $100 per barrel after Trump says Iran talks in final stages (CNBC)

  • The oil shock is coming for America (FT)

  • How Iran Gained Leverage in the War (NYT)

  • Xi and Putin highlight their friendship and cooperation in Beijing visit (AP)

  • Russia and China warn of the 'law of the jungle' in world affairs (Reuters)

  • Kennedy fires heads of task force that sets insurance coverage rules (Axios)

  • The San Diego Mosque Shootings Were a Crime Made for and by the Internet (NYT)

  • Google’s AI is being manipulated. The search giant is quietly fighting back (BBC)

  • San Francisco turns to AI to avoid collisions between ships and whales searching for food (AP)

  • AI for Good? The Case Against AI Doomerism (YouTube)

  • OpenAI Prepares to File to Go Public in Coming Weeks (NYT)

  • Squirrel Unaware He Embroiled In Months-Long Feud With Homeowner (Onion)

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The Sixth Chick

On an otherwise unremarkable afternoon, I watched what appeared to be a lone quail pick its way down a hillside, turning first this way, then that, gradually charting a zig-zag course west to east, north to south across the field.

As I was wattching, five chicks came into view following their mother. They too turned from west to east, north to south, replicating her course almost perfectly.

I’m sure there were slight deviations in their paths but I didn’t notice anything dramatic. They were a team — one big one leading the way, five little ones following and learning in the process.

As they gradually snaked their way out of view, something else caught my eye. It was a sixth chick, far behind, lurching wildly from further up the hill. This one didn’t replicate the path of its mother and siblings.

Instead it forged its own route as it raced to catch up with the clutch.

That sixth chick, always somehow out of step. We’ve probably all known one.

***

The great tomato plant mystery came to its sad end when the sixth and final plant disappeared overnight. The camera we had trained on the plant ran out of batteries, so the thief got away undetected.

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Tuesday, May 19, 2026

The Painted Box

Among my possessions is a painted cardboard box. It’s pastel green and dates from the 1960s, when I went away to college. I guess my parents painted the box in an effort to strengthen it.

Inside were many copies of stories I wrote for the Michigan Daily. There also was a copy of Life magazine with a story about student protestors, which included a photo of me being arrested.

It was 1968 and the campuses were erupting with similar protests all over the country. This was one of the times I mixed my new role as a journalist with political activism, and wouldn’t you know, it ended up memorialized by Life magazine.

Of course, at the time, I was proud of what I’d done. The charges of trespassing on public property, to which I pled, carried no actual penalty beyond a day’s labor in a local park.

But I and my fellow convicts refused to cut down the trees as we were instructed to do, as part of an environmental protest. Thinking back on it, we must have been one big royal pain in the ass for the authorities.

They chose to ignore the fact we didn’t serve our sentence, turning instead to more pressing matters, such as the bombing of the local CIA office, which led to the indictment of John Sinclair, and brought John Lennon to Ann Arbor to sing in his support.

One thing led to another for me and within a few years I was somewhat improbably editing pieces Lennon and Yoko Ono produced for SunDance magazine out in San Francisco.

A few more years and I was a reporter at Rolling Stone.

At the bottom of the files in the box was my FBI file, which I obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The Bureau kept track of me starting with that arrest in college and my work for an underground paper in Ann Arbor. It tracked me as I relocated to San Francisco to work at SunDance and throughout the years at Rolling Stone.

Including my stories on the FBI’s COINTELPRO illegalities.

Much of the information in that file is blacked out in the classic way the FBI redacted files prior to releasing them under the FOIA, but there was nothing in there of any consequence.

So that old cardboard box painted pastel green contains a lot of memories, too many, so I closed it back up and put it away for another day.

(I’ve published different versions of this one over the years.)

HEADLINES:

  • Trump says Iran attack on ‘hold’ (Al Jazeera)

  • Trump’s Approval Sinks Amid Unpopular War, Darkening G.O.P. Prospects (NYT)

  • Justice Department announces a $1.7B fund to compensate Trump allies in a deal to drop IRS suit (AP)

  • Elon Musk loses court battle against Sam Altman and OpenAI after 3-week trial (CNBC)

  • ICE Agent Charged in Shooting of a Venezuelan Immigrant in Minnesota (NYT)

  • Iran makes new proposal for deal to end war, regional officials say (Guardian)

  • Iran war live: Talks ongoing via Pakistan; Lebanon death toll tops 3,000 (Al Jazeera)

  • Sweeping the strait: the companies gearing up to clear the Gulf of mines (FT)

  • Three people were killed in the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, and two suspects later killed themselves. (NYT)

  • Cuba accuses US of building ‘fraudulent case’ for military action (BBC)

  • Global scramble to contain new Ebola outbreak as US moves to limit entry from virus-hit region (CNN)

  • Can Hakeem Jeffries Lead a Democratic Takeover of the House? (New Yorker)

  • Over 100,000 Family Separations in Deportation Push, Report Estimates (NYT)

  • Everything You Do Is Being Recorded (Atlantic)

  • Why are most humans right-handed? Scientists may have found the answer (Earth.com)

  • Fast-Moving Southern California Fire Forces Immediate Evacuations (NYT)

  • AI Has Broken Containment (Atlantic)

  • AI won’t replace lawyers. It will create more of them. (WP)

  • Trump Requests $1.2 Trillion To Have (Onion)

 

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Monday, May 18, 2026

Go For It

I’ve been thinking a lot about careers lately, even though I no longer have one, because many of the people I care about still do. I don’t know that much about other professions, but in my field, it usually goes like this.

First you’re a rookie, maybe doing research or serving as an intern.

Then, at some point, you get to do a story and people discover you can report, you can write.

After you do this for a while, you become a much better reporter, reducing your mistakes and learning to better trust your instincts.

Somewhere along the way, you play a part in breaking a really big story -- the kind that makes the world sit up and pay attention.

Now you have started to make a name for yourself, so you win some awards, get some job offers, and discover that you had many more friends than you previously seemed to have.

If you’re good, you start repeating the whole process, breaking story after story, getting scoops and even occasionally having a notable impact on society. Now you have lots of friends.

Just about when this starts sinking in, you turn some age or another, say 40, and your whole world blows up -- personally and professionally. Maybe your marriage breaks up, maybe you change jobs, probably both, but people start treating you differently. You notice some of your friends have drifted away.

It’s not subtle. Employers are telling you it’s time to transition from worker to management. “Time to grow up, kid.” In journalism you go from reporter to editor, from telling stories to facilitating other people telling stories. Now you may have fewer friends but a new level of respect.

If you’re good at management, that new track of editor carries you higher in your field, you earn more money and they add more titles to your job description -- senior editor of this or that. Now you have a new set of friends (frenemies), and a growing list of outright enemies.

This second stage of your career probably will carry you straight through to retirement unless you mess up big time (which happens) or you’re the type driven to rise higher in management to the point you actually run things somewhere.

God forbid you become the boss, the person everyone talks about behind your back. Lots and lots of enemies and absolutely not a friend in the entire world

At this stage anything might happen, for better or worse. If you’re a good boss, you really impact some group of people somewhere, and they’re truly grateful for that. You may not exactly be able to be friends with your employees, but something pretty close to that comes into play.

Then one way or another, the day approaches when you retire, perhaps voluntarily or when circumstances (other people) make the decision for you.

And then it’s over. Completely. You are officially retired. Nobody controls your time, you no longer have to dance to anybody’s tune. And people start having trouble remembering whether you are alive still or maybe you have passed on. They’re just not sure.

But assuming you survive, you finally may change direction altogether, and try doing something you always wanted to do, but never quite got around to when you were on the clock. And at this stage you discover you really did have a few real friends all the way along, because they are the ones who show up in your new life.

And now younger people ask your advice as they hit the various turning point stages of their careers. “You’ve been there, what do you think I should do next?”

So you hear them out and then answer something like this, “You already know what you want to do, my friend. Otherwise you wouldn’t be asking me.”

“Just go for it.”

(This one is from five years ago.)

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Sunday, May 17, 2026

Repairing Ourselves

Accurate birth and death records are a relatively recent phenomenon and they still don’t exist in much of the world. But they do in France, where when she died in 1997  Jeanne Louise Calment was 122 years and 164 days old. That makes her the oldest verified person to have ever lived.

Numerous reports suggest that there may be a natural cap on the human lifespan at about 150 years old. One particular phrase in a recent study struck me -- that after that much time, the human body simply is no longer capable of “repairing itself.”

The concept that we repair ourselves appeals to me on many levels. It captures the truth that we stumble and hurt ourselves a lot along the way, not just physically, and we need to be able to pick ourselves up and get going again.

I’m a big fan of organized sports for kids because they learn this lesson well by an early age.

As a society we need to learn this skill as well. For example, how can we possibly recover from the divisive elections in 2016, 2020 and 2024 to come together to forge the kind of national consensus to tackle our true challenges, which have nothing to do with partisan political parties, and everything to do with survival of our species?

One thing is clear. We are not going to accomplish this by furthering the divide between the two political parties. 

Inspirational books by sincere commentators like Dan Rather (What Unites Us) remind us that we are much more powerful when we join together, but no one to my knowledge has been able to articulate a workable plan for how we can currently do that.

Meanwhile, in lieu of collective progress, we can still fall back on our own individual situations. How can we continue repairing ourselves and live on? Mortality is a certainty, but the vast majority of us would prefer that our demise be delayed and our existence extended.

I’m fully cognizant of how hard it is from time to time to endure depression, anxiety, and other mental states, including suicidal thoughts -- especially when things go bad in life.

But the best choice should always be life, with all of its complications, disruptions and disappointments, because you never know what sweet moments you are going to miss otherwise.

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