Time-Traveling Angels

 

Part of my travel experience was crossing the International Dateline multiple times, gaining or losing a day in the process, reliving a date on the calendar or missing it altogether. One year, for example, I missed my birthday as I was fast-forwarded from the day before to the day after.

That experience certainly helped me empathize with those born on Leap Day. But it also is the closest to time travel I’ve ever achieved.

Another memory of travel is days and nights spent walking around foreign cities in Europe, Asia and South America, usually with a new acquaintance as my guide. It would not be a far stretch to imagine I could have fallen in love on one of those walks, say in Brussels, Paris, Taipei, Madrid, London, Kuala Lampur, Singapore, Amsterdam or Tokyo; perhaps on occasion that actually happened.

But since my memory is fickle and it flickers rather than illuminates, any reality it contains has merged with a healthy sense of imagination. That's why a certain kind of film resonates so deeply with me. One example is the 2015 film "Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong," featuring lovely performances by Jamie Chung and Bryan Greenberg.

Chung is a San Francisco girl who graduated from Lowell High School in 2001. Her family immigrated from Korea before she was born. Greenberg is from Omaha.

And, according to Wikipedia, they are now married.

The film is set in Hong Kong, which is one of the many cities where I have also walked around several times. It depicts how the pair meet as strangers and fall for each other during two random encounters a year apart. It is sweet, sensitive, subtle and hopeful.

And it will remind some of "The Before Trilogy," set in Europe in 1995, 2004 and 2013. In the second of those films, a couple spends the entire film walking around Paris, talking and (re)falling in love in the process.

Both the Hong Kong and the Before stories are about human connection through conversation in the middle of being lost. Travel is often lonely; international travel especially so. Being alone in an American city is one experience; but being alone overseas is entirely different. You truly can feel lost and you need somebody to help you feel found.

Maybe it is when we are at our most vulnerable that we succumb to temptation or perhaps when we find our true selves. Both could be true, or neither. Of one thing I am sure. It is at such times that we sometimes can turn into each other's angels.

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

HEADLINES:

• Putin saw an existential threat in Navalny, the opposition leader whose name he dared not mention (CNN)

• Russia claims full control of Avdiivka, says Ukrainian troops still in town (Al Jazeera)

• NASA is looking for volunteers to live in its Mars simulation for a year (Engadget)

• Netanyahu Says He Won’t Bow to Pressure to Call Off Rafah Invasion (NYT)

• Gaza ceasefire hopes fade as Netanyahu rejects calls to halt Rafah offensive (Gaza)

• Large Antigovernment Protest Returns to Tel Aviv, as Criticism of Netanyahu Mounts (NYT)

• Donald Trump’s Russia ties remain a national security risk (Philadelphia Inquirer)

• As DEI gets more divisive, companies are ditching their teams (WP)

• 2 officers, 1 paramedic killed in Minnesota (CBS)

• A shallow lake in Canada could point to the origin of life on Earth (CNN)

• OpenAI’s Sora Is a Total Mystery (Atlantic)

• Google’s Chess Experiments Reveal How to Boost the Power of AI (Wired)

• Report: Thinking About Way You Look All The Time Burns 5,000 Calories An Hour (The Onion)

Savor the News

 For me, sorting through the news and choosing which stories to blend is a process much like cooking a meal. There's chopped onion, garlic, peppers, mushrooms, maybe there's a bit of cut cilantro for the end, there's powdered ginger, turmeric, and either butter or olive oil. Heat it slowly, sauté everything gently.

Luckily I have tasters who help me when I actually cook food. They are small so I bend over with the sauce in a spoon and blow on it so they don't burn their mouths. If it's good they give me a thumb's up.

With the news, there are no testers. How much on any given topic can people stand? Normal people are not news junkies so they don't mainline the ingredients like I do. 

So yes, aggregating news is a bit like cooking meals. You do it every day and no two days are ever quite the same unless you use recipes.

I don't use recipes.

But this is where the analogy ends, because unlike most meals, the news is bad, very bad, day after day. No surprise many people don’t want anything to do with it.

Here in the U.S., we've seen how powerfully destructive fake news spread by conspiracy theorists can elect a president like Trump who tells his followers that people like me are the "enemies of the people."

So who are we, these so-called enemies? Journalists work hard to gather and document what is factual as opposed to the fantasies. We are the people who report, among other things, if the available evidence indicates an election was fair or stolen.

And we do that whether it's Democrats or Republicans who win. We don't make very good partisans, because we can’t afford to be. Our job is to tell the truth, regardless of the consequences.

We operate on the assumption that truth matters; that our society is stronger and safer when decisions are based in facts rather than when based on lies and fantasies.

By doing so, we hope that we are in fact the friends of the people.

But we are not the ones who decide that. You do.

(This is an excerpt from an essay I published in 2021, soon after the Jan. 6th insurrection.)

HEADLINES:

• Trump’s crushing fraud trial defeat is a microcosm of a life defined by breaking all the rules (CNN)

• Hefty fines, penalties will rock Trump family’s business and fortune (WP)

• Alexei Navalny’s Death Marks End of Political Dissent in Russia (WSJ)

• Navalny's death leaves Russian opposition with no figurehead (Reuters)

• GOP suffers ‘most spectacular embarrassment imaginable’ in anti-Biden case (MSNBC)

• Retired FBI Special Agent in Charge Sentenced for Concealing Information from the FBI (DoJ)

• Fani Willis' testimony evokes long-standing frustrations for Black women leaders (ABC)

• The White House plan for the Mayorkas impeachment: Ignore the drama, outsource the fight (Politico)

• Ukrainian troops withdraw from Avdiivka, military faces ammunition shortage (Reuters)

• A Resilient Ukraine Faces Defeat if U.S. Aid Falters (Council on Foreign Relations)

• Gaza's biggest functioning hospital comes under siege (Reuters)

• Taliban decrees on clothing and male guardians leave Afghan women scared to go out alone, says UN (AP)

• James, Durant and Curry continue to defy what’s expected of players their age (WP)

• Berlin Debates AI Threat to Hollywood Jobs: “Fear the Person Who Uses These Tools” (Hollywood Reporter)

• OpenAI’s Sora Challenges The Art Of Medicine (Forbes)

• Area Man Loses All Control Of Face While Thinking (The Onion)

Trump's Half-Billion-Dollar Nightmare

 Yesterday’s $354.9 million fine in Trump’s New York business fraud case, combined with his more than $88.3 million in fines in two separate judgments in the E. Jane Carroll defamation case, plus his reported $50 million+ in legal fees to date brings Donald Trump’s criminal financial penalties within virtual pocket change of a half billion dollars.

Trump has always bragged that he is a very rich man, but even if true, which many experts doubt is the case, these assessments will cut a major slice away from his pie of wealth.

The judge in New York yesterday did not dissolve the Trump Corporation or permanently suspend his license to do business in the state, which is almost the only silver lining for the former president in that matter. But he did take control of the company away from Trump and his sons and place it under the supervision of an independent monitor.

Trump will appeal as many aspects of the financial penalty as he can, but remember that these are all judgments rendered in state courts, not federal, so even should he win re-election, he cannot pardon his way out of these legal obligations. It is likely, however, that some of the financial penalty from the fraud ruling will be reduced on appeal, so the final damage awaits the appeals process.

Meanwhile, the penalties assessed yesterday are accruing interest as long as they remain unpaid. According to the New York attorney general, that interest is already over $100 million. It is not clear how much liquidity Trump has to deal with this but he will need to post a sizable bond while he appeals the ruling.

Ad it seems likely he will have to sell property as collateral against that bond.

So these are dark days down at Mar-e-Lago. Most significantly, so far he’s only faced civil penalties; his felony criminal cases are still to come.

(Read yesterday’s ruling.)

HEADLINES:

• Judge orders Trump and his companies to pay $355M in New York civil fraud case (AP)

• Alexey Navalny’s fight for Russia (New Yorker)

• Biden says 'Putin and his thugs' caused Navalny's death (Reuters)

• Tucker Carlson Days Ago on Navalny and Assassinations: ‘Leadership Requires Killing People’ (Rolling Stone)

• Jake Sullivan says the U.S. is engaging with allies, and Russia, on the space threat (NPR)

• Ukraine’s Zelensky Turns to France, Germany as U.S. Aid Stalls (WSJ)

• Netanyahu rejects international pressure on peace plan, Palestinian state (WP)

• Satellite photos show Egypt building a wall near Gaza Strip (ABC)

• Trump’s NATO Threat Reflects a Wider Shift on America’s Place in the World (NYT)

• U.S. political uncertainty looms over key security conference in Munich (WP)

• This week showed Democrats can flip the script on immigration (MSNBC)

• West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin announces he won’t run for president in 2024 (AP)

• Why my faith in Fani Willis has been at least partially restored (MSNBC)

• It’s Not Just the End for Journalism. It’s a Beginning. (Mother Jones)

• OpenAI collapses media reality with Sora, a photorealistic AI video generator (ArsTechnica)

• OpenAI shows off life-like videos made with AI (WP)

• This Company Says Conversational AI Will Kill Apps and Websites (Wired)

• Hello is building a platform toward more home robots (TechCrunch)

• You sound like a bot (Verge)

• Child Entertained For 5 Minutes By Plastic Toy That Will Take 1,000 Years To Biodegrade (The Onion)

Sideshow

I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen a more dramatic moment in a court hearing than when Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis suddenly appeared in the courtroom yesterday and said she wanted to testify about questions over whether she had had an “inappropriate” relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.

This is, of course, the sidelight drama in the massive election fraud case Willis is waging against Donald Trump and his many co-conspirators for seeking to overturn the result’s of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

The questioning of Willis repeatedly ventured into the salacious details of her love affair with Wade, but the attorneys alleging that she committed financial irregularities failed to substantiate their case.

Therefore, I doubt the judge will rule to disqualify either Willis or Wade from the case, barring some new evidence coming forward.

It all amounts to a sideshow, frankly, and the sooner it ends the better. Then we can get back to the real scandal here, which is Donald Trump’s effort to steal the election. 

HEADLINES:

• Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has died, the prison service of the Yamalo-Nenets region where he had been serving his sentence said. According to the statement, Navalny "felt unwell" after a walk on Friday, and "almost immediately lost consciousness". (Reuters)

• Fani Willis takes the stand as she fights to stay on Trump criminal case (Politico)

• Why the Case Against Fani Willis Feels Familiar to Black Women (NYT)

• Former FBI informant charged with lying about the Bidens’ role in Ukraine business, undercutting GOP impeachment inquiry (CNN)

• How Tom Suozzi Won the Border Debate to Retake a House Seat (WSJ)

• Special counsel asks Supreme Court to let Trump’s D.C. trial proceed (WP)

• Shooting after Chiefs Super Bowl parade seemed to stem from dispute among several people, police say (AP)

• Why are so many Chinese crossing the southern border? (Yahoo)

• Israeli special forces raid largest functioning hospital in Gaza (CNN)

• Israeli airstrikes killed 10 Lebanese civilians in a single day. Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate (AP)

• Hundreds Flee One of Gaza’s Last Working Hospitals, Fearing Israeli Attack (NYT)

• Israel Gaza: Netanyahu vows to press ahead with Rafah offensive (BBC)

• Senate poised to pass biggest piece of tech regulation in decades (WP)

• Sundar Pichai: AI can strengthen cyber defences, not just break them down (Financial Times)

• True Source unveils AI LLM service based on The Wheel of Time (VentureBeat)

• OpenAI introduces Sora, its text-to-video AI model (Verge)

• How AI is resurrecting dead Indian politicians as election looms (Al Jazeera)

• The AI Industry Is Stuck on One Very Specific Way to Use a Chatbot (Atlantic)

• Man Scrambling To Furnish Apartment Before Date Shows Up (The Onion)

 

Mixed Emotions

(This is from Feb. 2012.)

At long last, I joined the world of smart phones yesterday afternoon, but at a cost. For years, I've carried three lines for my teenagers, one for myself, and one for another person, who no longer is part of our family plan.

When so-called "updates" came along, as the cell phone carriers like to call them, first I upgraded the kids' phones. But this time, they urged me to upgrade mine, so I did, to an iPhone 4S.

Meanwhile, I gave my old phone to my daughter, to replace the one she has had for a couple years; that had been her first phone. It was covered with stickers and filled with photos.

Neither of us realized that by turning in her phone (for a $30 discount on mine), we were losing her childhood photo album. The phone would be wiped, all data expunged.

Last night, after what should have been a joyous occasion for both of us, she was near tears as she recognized what had been lost.

I should have known better, but the agent who helped us tended to mumble, and I couldn't really hear some of what he said. he almost certainly explained that all her data would be lost (once her contacts were transferred over to her new phone), but I doubt he said that her photos would be too.

So it ended up a decidedly mixed experience, with me angry at myself -- what is $30 when we were throwing away her first photo album?

It's a confusing time to be a consumer, and I'm not the world's best or savviest consumer by a long stretch. There couldn't be a better reminder of that than what happened yesterday.

HEADLINES:

• House Intel Chairman announces ‘serious national security threat,’ sources say it is related to Russia (CNN)

• GOP warning of 'national security threat' is about Russia wanting nuclear weapon in space: Sources (ABC)

• Trump's first criminal trial set to begin March 25 as judge denies bid to dismiss "hush money" case (CBS)

• Leaning Into Migrant Woes, Suozzi Paves Election-Year Path for Democrats (NYT)

• New York Triumph Gives Joe Biden the Blueprint To Take Down Trump (Newsweek)

• Donald Trump Makes Republican’s Defeat In Special Election All About Him (HuffPost)

• Impeaching Mayorkas Was a Violation of the Constitution (TNR

• Kansas City shooting: 1 dead, multiple injured near Super Bowl parade, officials say (WP)

• Progressive Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) is facing a multimillion-dollar barrage of advertising funded by wealthy donors seeking to ensure she doesn’t qualify for the top-two runoff election against front-runner Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) in next month’s primary. [HuffPost]

• The Tangled Fates of Fani Willis and Her Biggest Case — Will the Fulton County D.A.’s “clandestine” relationship derail her effort to prosecute Trump? (New Yorker)

• U.S. Probes Israeli Strikes That Killed Civilians in Gaza, Possible Use of White Phosphorus in Lebanon (WSJ)

• Bibi declines to send Israeli delegation to Egypt for more hostage talks (Axios)

• Oil prices give up advance as U.S. crude stockpile surges (CNBC)

• Things are going badly for Ukraine — really badly (Business Insider)

• Amazon rainforest could reach ‘tipping point’ by 2050, scientists warn (Guardian)

• Polar bears are rapidly losing weight as Arctic food supply changes, study says (AP)

• A new look at our linguistic roots (ArsTechnica)

• A brief history of Silicon Valley’s fascination with drugs (Vox)

• Your AI Girlfriend Is a Data-Harvesting Horror Show (Gizmodo)

• AI Girlfriends’ Are a Privacy Nightmare (Wired)

• AI is shaking up online dating with chatbots that are ‘flirty but not too flirty’ (CNBC)

• A new way to let AI chatbots converse all day without crashing (MIT)

• Don't tell your AI anything personal, Google warns in new Gemini privacy notice (ZDNet)

• Founding OpenAI Member Andrej Karpathy Leaves Company (Gizmodo)

• Friendship Bracelet Flashed At Bar To Repel Anyone Seeking Platonic Companionship (The Onion)

 

Getting Ready

Democrats won a huge victory in New York last night that may portend good things this election year. Republicans, meanwhile, were busy impeaching the homeland security secretary in a meaningless display of political tomfoolery. The difference in the parties could not be more stark.

***

Way back before the pandemic, when I lived alone in a flat in San Francisco, I used to stockpile reserves of canned foods, bottled water, candles, pain meds and emergency supplies.

The ostensible reason I did this was for earthquake preparedness, but really I just liked to have extra stuff around, figuring it might turn out to be useful someday somehow.

Then Covid came along and everybody became aware of how quickly basic supplies could fly off the shelves — something people in hurricane country have known forever.

When I moved in with my daughter and her family in March 2020, I brought along some stuff deemed useful — toilet paper, coffee filters, canned soups — because I had it on-hand and she wanted it.

And since then we’ve all become familiar with supply chain shortages and how minor perturbations in shipping or trucking lanes can create big distribution problems in the store closest to you.

Anyway, this is all a long-winded way of noting that the era of pandemic panic buying has now officially been replaced by the era of survivalist buying in preparation for global war. As the Times reports, “Bunkers, survival guides and iodine pills are flying off the shelves.”

So that’s progress I guess. Or as one guy put it to me recently. “You know, I was just thinking we were over with that one darned thing (Covid) when this new one (nuclear war) came along.”

Yep. Life seems to be working that way these days, sort of like we’re all living in some old Bod Dylan song.

Well, you can visit my bomb shelter if I can visit yours…I said that.

(This is from 2022.)

HEADLINES:

• House Republicans impeach Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas (CNBC)

• Democrat Tom Suozzi edges out GOP in closely watched New York House race )(Politico)

• No One Is Prepared for a New Era of Global Migration (Atlantic)

• How San Francisco staged a surprising comeback (Economist)

• Supreme Court Gives Prosecutors a Week to Respond in Trump Immunity Case (NYT)

• A former US Army general says Trump wants the US to abandon NATO because he's a 'mafia type' that 'hates alliances' (Business Insider)

• How Donald Trump reduced the GOP to groveling sycophants (Salon)

• Big Burden of Migrant Influx Strains Denver (NYT)

• Israel Gaza: Ceasefire talks resume as Rafah under fire (BBC)

• France has delivered a written proposal to Beirut aimed at ending hostilities with Israel and settling the disputed Lebanon-Israel frontier. (Reuters)

• Senate approves Ukraine, Israel foreign aid package (CBS)

• House speaker rejects Israel, Ukraine aid package (WP)

• Winter Storm Lorraine Live Updates: Hundreds Of Flights Canceled, Major School Closures (Weather.com)

• Climate experts sound alarm over thriving plant life at Greenland ice sheet (Guardian)

• Six months in, journalist-owned tech publication 404 Media is profitable (Nieman)

• Inside the Last Days of the Local Paper (TNR)

• Early Adopters of Microsoft’s AI Bot Wonder If It’s Worth the Money (WSJ)

• OpenAI CEO warns that 'societal misalignments' could make artificial intelligence dangerous (WP)

• Google’s Gemini assistant is a fantastic and frustrating glimpse of the AI future (Verge)

• Google Gemini could become your invisible AI friend soon thanks to headphones support (TechRadar)

• OpenAI's Eve humanoids make impressive progress in autonomous work (New Atlas)

• Carlson Was Drafted Into The Russian Infantry: You show up on Russian soil, you leave with a rifle in your hand. (The Onion)

 

Age

“The difference between humans and animals? Animals would never allow the dumbest ones to lead the pack.” — Major Michael Haley.

One thing is for certain about how an election year will unfold — the situation this early in the cycle is likely to change substantially by November. Right now, for example, Republicans are making a big deal of Joe Biden’s age (81), but I’m not so sure that will age very well as an issue. :)

Yes, Biden is old, but so is Trump. And as long as it seems somebody else (like Nikki Haley) could win either party’s nomination, the age issue will be in play, but once it becomes certain that the choice is between these same two old men, it will begin to fade away as a factor.

At that point, faced with the binary choice of Biden or Trump, I trust that the majority of voters will make the rational decision.

It is impossible to believe that most Americans would vote for a man who promises to rule like a dictator, rounding up immigrants and imprisoning them in camps, withdrawing from Nato and encouraging Putin to invade our allies, appoint an attorney general who goes after his political opponents, seeking revenge, ending support for Ukraine, cozying up to dictators in North Korea, China and elsewhere, and ending our democracy.

It is similarly impossible to believe that most Americans would support a convicted sexual predator, an insurrectionist, a tax cheat, a liar, a man who belittles our military heroes, and who preaches hate as his religion.

Compared to all of this Trumpian baggage, Biden’s age should become a trivial issue. Age can easily be spun to wisdom and the experience necessary to do the job. As you can see, I’m an optimist.

Anyway, let’s hope I’m right. The fate of our democracy depends on it.

HEADLINES:

• Israeli airstrikes kill more than 100 in Rafah as international alarm mounts over anticipated ground offensive (CNN)

• Panic mounts in Rafah over looming Israeli offensive after night strikes (WP)

• 2 freed Israeli hostages 'back home' with family kidnapped from safe room (USA Today)

• Senate passes $95 billion foreign aid package, large hurdles remain in House (CBS)

• Pakistan’s shocking election result shows authoritarians don’t always win (WP)

• How China Miscalculated Its Way to a Baby Bust (WSJ)

• Short on Soldiers, Ukraine Debates How to Find the Next Wave of Troops (NYT)

• Maj. Michael Haley Hits Back At Donald Trump's Insult With Scathing Animal Fact “The difference between humans and animals? Animals would never allow the dumbest ones to lead the pack.” (HuffPost)

• An Outburst by Trump on NATO May Push Europe to Go It Alone (NYT)

• Trump’s incendiary NATO remarks send very real shudders through Europe (CNN)

• Georgia judge moves forward with hearing on Fani Willis misconduct claims (WP)

• 20 years ago, Gavin Newsom, who had taken office as mayor of San Francisco the month before, directed the city clerk to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the first in California. More than 4,000 gay couples were married at San Francisco City Hall over the next month, in what supporters called the “Winter of Love.” (Cal Today)

• Kamala Harris Says She Is Ready to Serve as Biden Faces Age Scrutiny (WSJ)

• Clarence Thomas Broke the Law. Why Is He Not Being Prosecuted? (The Nation)

• Nextdoor has gotten way out of hand (WP)

• Crowd sets Waymo self-driving vehicle ablaze in San Francisco (Reuters)

• Bob Edwards, radio host who built NPR’s ‘Morning Edition,’ dies at 76 (WP)

• As AI ceates more 6-figure, remote work opportunities, ‘the upside is high, but so are the risks,’ experts say (CNBC)

• Google Issues Serious New Warning For All Android And iPhone Users (Forbes)

• Google Prepares for a Future Where Search Isn’t King (Wired)

• Depressed Taylor Swift Going To Miss Being In The Spotlight Now That Super Bowl Over (The Onion)