This Could be China's Future, Too

WSJ: At night, the Chongqing skyline illuminates with neon lights, reminiscent of the film “Blade Runner”</td>

I thought I was done with international travel, but I might make an exception for Chongqing:

China has long awed visitors with wonders such as the Great Wall and the terracotta warriors buried in an ancient tomb. Now visitors are being dazzled by Chongqing’s vision of a real-world cyberpunk city.

Until a few years ago, Chongqing was largely a trivia answer: the world’s most populous city by some measures, with 32 million people in a South Carolina-size area. World War II history buffs knew it as the Chinese Nationalists’ wartime capital.

Then viral videos of its impossible architecture changed its image. Suddenly, many Chinese and international travelers alike felt they had to visit.

Chongqing welcomed 120 million tourists who stayed overnight last year, up 17% from 2023. In the first half of this year, Chongqing’s border checkpoints handled a record number of foreign nationals—but only 330,000, so overseas visitors who make it here can still brag about visiting a hidden gem.

Chongqing's popularity is not imposed from the top but is a grass-roots phenomenon. Chongqing native Ryan Chen, aka the "Chinese Trump," is a popular social media influencer.



Don't make the mistake of thinking that because China's problems are vast, that it is declining. Its dynamism is larger than anything we can imagine, too.

Norm Van Brocklin

Football Hall-of-Famer Norm Van Brocklin (1926-1983) had retired as a player and was a coach for the Vikings and Falcolns when i began following sports. Veteran sportswriter Tony Kornheiser had a short tribute on today's Pardon the Interruption:

Happy Anniversary, Norm Van Brocklin. This is posthumous, but around this day 74 years ago the Rams quarterback passed for a still-NFL record 554 yards. Van Brocklin had 5 touchdowns as the Rams beat the then-New York Yanks. Van Brocklin won two NFL championships, one with the Rams, one with the Eagles. He was the NFL MVP in 1960. After 9 Pro Bowls and 12 seasons as a player Van Brocklin turned to coaching, first coach ever for the Minnesota Vikings. Also coached the Atlanta Falcons.

Van Brocklin suffered a number of illnesses, including a brain tumor. After it was removed, he told the press “it was a brain transplant. They gave me a sportswriter’s brain to make sure I got one that hadn’t been used.”

His career was spectacular, but the remark about the entire sportswriting profession belongs on the insult Mt. Rushmore.

Not for Purists

My high school classmates Pam and Ina invited us to a small reunion of fellow graduates, most of whom I have known since sixth grade. Traffic was light, and the 39-mile drive from Foster City to Oakland took one hour, not bad for a Sunday.

We went around the room compressing the last 55 years into a three-minute summary, the maximum time our spouses would tolerate, when the bell rung. The discussion leader, Dianne, was a nice girl in high school, and her calling to the ministry has taught her how to be a boss lady when it's required.

After lunch Pam served shaved ice. A few purists muttered that snow cones, with their thicker ice particles, were not genuine "shaved ice." Having had neither for years, I gave her an A for effort and slurped away.

A Condition That Was Caught in Time

Pulmonary embolism (Cavallini/Science Source/WSJ)

I had been feeling pretty chipper until the beginning of September. As the month proceeded, my asthma got worse, and I could no longer take 30-45 minute walks in the morning. Last Monday I showed for a scheduled doctor's appointment; the nurse took my vitals and immediately called for oxygen.

The doctor strongly suggested that an ambulance transport me to emergency. Of course, my wife could have driven, but the ambulance had the necessary equipment and personnel if the situation worsened.

Over the next two days I was poked and prodded at Stanford General. There were ultrasounds, chest X-rays, CT scans, echocardiograms, and dozens of blood draws. The good news was that most of the tests were negative. I was short of breath because the asthma had been exacerbated by a blood clot that had formed in the right lung. I will have to take the blood thinner Eliquis indefinitely. I was discharged Wednesday, and my condition wasn't serious enough to warrant being on oxygen at home.

Considering the possible outcomes, I was pretty lucky:

About 900,000 people are diagnosed with blood clots—deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism—in the U.S. each year, according to the American Lung Association. For many, the first symptom is sudden death.

“I call it the people’s disease. It doesn’t spare anyone—rich, poor, male, female,” says Dr. Parth Rali, director of the pulmonary embolism response team at Temple University Health System in Philadelphia... “You could be the healthiest person in the world and unfortunately it can still happen to you.”

Some lifestyle factors increase your risk of blood clots, such as obesity and smoking....Dehydration can thicken the blood. And taking hormonal contraceptives... also raises the risk.

Then there’s movement, or lack thereof. When your legs stay still for too long, the blood may begin to form clots, which can then travel through the heart and into the lungs.

Yes, more things to worry about, but better than the alternative.

When the World was Orange

Five years ago we awoke to an orange sky::

distant wildfire smoke, cool fog, and still air combined to turn the sky orange. It was so dark that the automatic street lights were on at 10 a.m.

Chronicle photographer Jessica Christian captured the "otherworldly" mood that morning in the above view of the Bay Bridge from the Embarcadero.

I was thinking about what iconic locations I could visit that would give a sense of place while also showing this bizarre orange sky and how people were reacting to it.

I photographed my drive across the Bay Bridge, I got off at the first San Francisco exit and photographed the iconic view of the bridge from looking east on Harrison, then decided to head towards the Embarcadero. Remember, we were in the middle of a pandemic that kept us at least six feet apart at all times. The city had been eerily quiet for at least six months, so I remember the first thought I had wasn’t of the sky, but it was the surprise of being surrounded by so many strangers for the first time in a very long time. It felt like everybody came out of their offices or their houses to experience the strange sky, to ask each other what was going on. In a moment of some real fear, there was also community and I think we were all craving that. No one was looking at their phones, they were looking up.

I took this photo at 9:48 a.m. It took a little while for us to get answers as to why this was happening, but … this phenomenon was the result of multiple wildfires burning across California and (the Pacific Northwest) sending smoke hovering above a low-lying marine layer of fog where the sun cut through both, illuminating the sky orange. It only lasted a few hours, the orange glow illuminated only because of the low angle of the morning sun. It was something that had rarely happened before and would maybe never happen again.

The person in this photo is named Eli Harik. After I took the photo I asked for his name and we kind of just talked about how crazy this all was. When I first spotted him, I wasn’t sure if his mask was being used to protect him from the heavy wildfire smoke in the air or to protect him from COVID, which is just a wild thing to think about five years later. Later on, as the picture got more popular online, Eli had friends and family, reaching out to him after recognizing him. To this day, we follow each other on Instagram. The seagull in this photo is also notable. I wonder what was going through its head while it shared this moment looking at the sky with Eli.

Some environmental enthusiasts (alarmists is too strong a word) believed that this orange sky would be the first of many. We have not seen its like again.

The Safer Haven

We've talked about how bad the stagflation was during the late '70's and early '80's, but don't take it from me. Here's what Federal Reserve history has to say: [bold added]

The economy was already in weak shape coming into the downturn, as a recession in 1980 had left unemployment at about 7.5 percent. Both the 1980 and 1981-82 recessions were triggered by tight monetary policy in an effort to fight mounting inflation. During the 1960s and 1970s, economists and policymakers believed that they could lower unemployment through higher inflation, a tradeoff known as the Phillips Curve. In the 1970s, the Fed pursued what economists would call "stop-go" monetary policy, which alternated between fighting high unemployment and high inflation. During the "go" periods, the Fed lowered interest rates to loosen the money supply and target lower unemployment. During the "stop" periods, when inflation mounted, the Fed would raise interest rates to reduce inflationary pressure. However, the Phillips Curve tradeoff proved unstable in the long-run, as inflation and unemployment increased together in the mid-1970s. While unemployment trended down slightly by the end of the decade, inflation continued to rise, reaching 11 percent in June 1979 (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis).

(WSJ graph)

In 1971 Richard Nixon canceled the convertibility of dollars to gold under the Bretton Woods system, which had been in place since 1944. The delinking of the dollar from gold and the combination of inflation and unemployment unprecedented since the Great Depression made it a period of maximum economic uncertainty. The gold price spiked from the $35/oz. under Bretton Woods to a high of $850 by the end of the decade.

The gold market is spiking again. In fact it Hasn’t Rallied This Much Since 1979. [bold added]

A modern-day gold rush is stretching from Costco store aisles to underground vaults in London to the flickering screens of Wall Street. Old jewelry now glimmers with potential dollar signs.

Gold’s value has ballooned by 40% this year, putting it on track for a greater annual price jump than during the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic or 2007-09 recession, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Futures for the precious metal haven’t surged so much in a year since 1979, when a global energy crisis fueled an inflationary shock that thrashed the world’s economy.

Costco 1 oz. buffalo gold piece

These days, it isn’t a financial meltdown that is drawing people to one of the original market refuges. The recent run-up to record prices—reaching $3,682.20 a troy ounce on Monday—instead stems in part from the White House, with investors big and small rushing to shield themselves from an uncertain outlook for the U.S. economy and its role in the world.

A lot has changed in the past 50 years. What hasn't changed over the centuries is that people flee to gold in troubled times.

Marriage: from Cornerstone to Capstone

When we celebrated our golden anniversary last month, the status of our finances was the furthest thing from our mind, just as they were when we got married. Back then, when we consolidated our balance sheets--yes, we were and are accountants--the sum of our net worths was negative. My student loans had that effect, but she married me anyway.

Barriers to entry (Mendelson/WSJ) (

Few people who have our long-ago financial circumstances now tie the knot. [bold added]

For centuries, the institution of marriage functioned more as an economic contract than a romantic one—the promise of a better shot at achieving financial success and stability as a couple.

More recently, the script has flipped. Financial security is no longer a goal reached after marriage, younger Americans say, but rather a prerequisite for it...

The idea of both parties waiting to build a career or wealth before tying the knot is called a capstone model of marriage. Economists and demographers say that thinking has replaced the old “cornerstone” approach, where people would wed in their early 20s and then work together to buy a home, build a nest egg and progress in their careers...

“Marriage has become a status symbol,” said Krista Westrick-Payne, assistant director of the National Center for Marriage & Family Research. “People don’t want to get married until they have an education, have that job that can support them and they can afford a house, and they are also looking for a partner that ticks all those boxes.”

I sympathize with the desire to have financial security; in our case we didn't really feel that we were financially safe until we were in our 50's. Of course, waiting to marry until then would have made it unlikely that we would have had children.

Marrying when young and poor carries greater risk, but if you should make it, the stories you could tell.

Trump at the UN: Veni, Vidi, Vici

(Renault/Zuma/WSJ photo)

Note: I wish to remind my smattering of readers that I never voted for President Trump (or his opponents) in any of the last three elections and strongly disagree with some of his policies, e.g, investing in Intel stock and trying to strong-arm ABC into cancelling Jimmy Kimmel (who I stopped watching over ten years ago). Some of the President's personal predilections, such as punching down, are off-putting.

However, with the benefit of hindsight I view him as vastly preferable to a President Harris. I agree with everything he said about the UN earlier today. Here's an excerpt from the WSJ summary and commentary:

“What is the purpose of the United Nations?” Mr. Trump asked. “I’ve always said [the U.N.] has such tremendous, tremendous potential, but it’s not even coming close to living up to that potential.” Right.

Peacekeepers? “Not only is the U.N. not solving the problems it should, too often it is actually creating new problems for us to solve,” Mr. Trump said. Right again.

Mr. Trump didn’t say this but we will. Ukraine war? The U.N. has been hapless. Gaza? It’s mostly emboldened Hamas to refuse to compromise. China’s expansions in the South China Sea? Useless.

Mr. Trump also dared to violate the holiest of U.N. holies by casting doubt on its preoccupation with climate change. The “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” Mr. Trump said. That arguably goes too far, since global temperatures have climbed. But he’s surely right if he means that the trillions of dollars spent to stop the rise in temperature have accomplished nothing other than encourage political rent-seeking.

Mr. Trump also focused on his signature issue of controlling migration. He said the U.N. is “funding an assault on Western countries” by encouraging cross-border migration. In 2024, he said, the U.N. budgeted $372 million to help more than 600,000 migrants illegally coming into the U.S. “The U.N. is supposed to stop invasions, not create them and not finance them,” he said. We think the U.S. needs more foreign talent to stay prosperous, but European leaders in particular would be better off had they heeded their voters’ anxiety about mass migration.

Mr. Trump isn’t so much rejecting the U.N. as noting the way it has become an obstacle to the peace, prosperity and universal human rights it claims to promote.

In 2017 the U.N. delegates laughed at Mr. Trump’s General Assembly remarks, but not this time. If they were honest with themselves, at least some of them would admit that he has the place nailed.

The escalator at the United Nations stopped working the moment the President and the First Lady stepped onto it. His Teleprompter shut off at the beginning of his speech. I would've said that these events were an unfortunate coincidence, except that there is a report that UN staffers were overheard joking about these happenings before they occurred.

It would be an immature reaction, but if this influences the President's future actions toward the UN, I wouldn't object. As people are fond of saying these days, FAFO.

The “Apex Predator” of Coyotes

2021: A litter of 7 coyote pups in Golden Gate Park (SF Gate)

As we have posted before, coyotes have become ubiquitous in the Bay Area. By examining the content of coyote scat and their dead bodies, researchers have discovered what animals they are preying upon and the prevalence of human food scraps in coyotes' diet (in San Francisco most of the diet was from humans).

Also interesting is what is causing the death of coyotes. Data from 110 dead coyotes from 2017 to 2024 in San Francisco and Marin Counties showed that

Of those individuals, four were lethally removed because of conflict with humans, 28 were live-captured during rescues or collaring, and six were euthanized due to injuries, sickness or other ailments. But the staggering majority — 72 of them — were found dead, with vehicle strikes serving as the leading cause of mortality in 94.4% of that group...

Cars can be perplexing to coyotes, posing a threat if one comes careening around the corner on a busy street, but also a possible reward if the canines come to associate them with food...

“People throw food out their windows to coyotes all of the time,” [UC-Berkeley Dr. Tali] Caspi said. “It sends a confusing signal to the animal.”

Another way that humans are distinguished from animals is the confusing mixed messages that we send.

The Cure is There if you Look for It

(Photo from crosswalk)

Today's Old Testament lesson includes the verse: "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?"--Jeremiah 8:22

Gilead was a mountainous region that was known for its agricultural products, particularly for its healing medicines.

The land of Gilead was known for its balm, a liquid rosin that flowed or dripped from certain trees such as pine, cedar, cypress, or terebinth. Gilead was most noted for the Balsamodendron Gileadense, a rosin-producing tree native to that area. Because of easy access to medicinal ingredients, many physicians made their homes in Gilead.

The Book of Jeremiah laments both the spiritual waywardness of the Israelites and the impending threat of Babylon, which later did destroy the Temple in Jerusalem. (King Nebuchadnezzar expelled the Israelites from the region during the Babylonian Exile that occurred in the 6th century BCE.)

There would be no material balm that would cure Israel's idolatry (the worship of something other than God). Many Christians believe that Christ is the balm that Jeremiah is seeking.

Note: Foster City's Gilead Sciences is its largest public company, currently valued by the stock market at $142 billion. Founder Michael Riordan originally named the business Oligogen in 1987 but changed it to Gilead Sciences when he heard the biblical passage. He could have done worse.

Microplastics Knowledge Test

Our under-the-sink filter

Although environmentalists have been warning about the dangers of microplastics for over two decades, there is not yet scientifically valid proof of causation between the presence of microplastics and health problems. Nevertheless, last year we grew sufficiently alarmed that we installed a microplastics water filter under the kitchen sink.

The WSJ lists ten questions to test one's knowledge of microplastics. Your humble blogger guessed on all of them and only got the correct answer on three out of 10. I'd be disappointed, dear reader, if you don't do better.

Number One Yet Again

(Photo by Tama/Getty/WSJ)

California is first in the nation in categories good and bad (e.g., wealth, business startups, agriculture, homelessness, technology, air pollution), but few people are probably aware that it is the leader in cigarette smuggling:

More than half of cigarettes smoked in California—53%, to be exact—evaded or avoided the state’s cigarette mandates and levies. That’s a stunning rise from a decade ago, when 28% of cigarettes were smuggled into the Golden State. It also takes California past New York, where we estimate that 52% of cigarettes are smuggled.

What changed? A 2017 California law raised the cigarette tax from 87 cents to $2.87, which gave smokers an incentive to find cheaper options—which out-of-state and transnational smugglers were more than happy to provide. California then banned menthol cigarettes, which make up roughly a third of the nation’s cigarette sales, along with other flavored tobacco products, in late 2022.

...The Golden State’s policies also encourage public corruption. Last year a former prison guard was indicted for his role smuggling tobacco into Solano State Prison, near Sacramento. The state struggles to keep tobacco, narcotics and cellphones out of prisons. What makes its leaders think they can keep a tidal wave of illicit cigarettes and other nicotine products out of the hands of nonincarcerated Californians? California has many major ports, bonded warehouses, the Mexican border, and nearby states with lower tax rates, all of which can be exploited by smugglers to save or make a buck at California’s expense.

Lower-taxed states are a major source of cigarettes to high-taxed ones. Wyoming’s smuggling export rate is 55%. Idaho’s is 28%. In other words, for every 100 cigarettes consumed in those states, an additional 55 and 28, respectively, are bought there and smuggled into other states. It doesn’t strain credulity to suggest that many of these lower-taxed smokes end up in California.

California politicians and their staff don't seem to have much knowledge about how incentives influence behavior. Until we elect more people who have spent time earning a living in the real world--and I don't mean lawyers and educators--our state and local governments will keep passing well-intentioned laws that have no chance of success.

Low-cost Solar Power That Increases the Supply of Fresh Water

Solar panels over 115-foot-wide canal in Hickman, CA (SFGate)

Three years ago we posted about a creative concept for green energy production:

Putting solar panels over California's aqueducts will reduce evaporation and generate green energy.

The California Department of Water Resources is funding the $20 million pilot program with the intention of learning where solar panels might be viable along the state’s 4,000 miles of canals and aqueducts.

In 2025 the program has begun implementation: [bold added]

Near Hickman, California, just outside Modesto, a 110-foot-wide grid of solar panels now tops a section of canal, arching over the gently flowing water. Solar projects have long been a crucial piece of the state’s movement to clean energy, and these panels are part of a new project that’s hoping to do far more than just generate electricity. Dubbed Project Nexus, the $20 million state-funded initiative hopes to better understand whether these installations can be an even more efficient approach to solar energy.

The waterways already irrigate much of the state’s crops, but now they will also cool the solar panels, just by nature of being underneath them, increasing the panels’ efficiency. Meanwhile, the panels will shade the canals, reducing evaporation and suppressing aquatic weeds. Between this installation and a 20-foot-wide section that was completed on another part of the canal in March, the project could generate a total energy output of 1.6 megawatts while producing a host of other benefits.

We seem to have lost the societal vigor to replicate the vast infrastructure projects of the 20th century--the dams, aqueducts, highways, power generation and transportation systems--that elevated the standard of living for every American. However, nothing should stop us from the more modest ambition of improving sections of that infrastructure when opportunities present themselves.

Robert Redford (1936-2025)

Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand on the
set of 1973's The Way We Were (Rolling Stone)

The first time I saw a Robert Redford movie was in 1967. In Barefoot in the Park the newly married couple, Paul (Redford) and Corie (Jane Fonda) Bratter, move in to an apartment in New York City, nearly break up because of their incompatible approach to life--he is organized and practical, she is flexible and free-spirited--and reconcile at the end.

Barefoot was my first exposure to a Neil Simon play. The actors showed off their chops by dashing off rapid-fire repartee as if that was how everyone spoke in New York. The humor and secondary characters lightened the seriousness of the plot, a characteristic of other Neil Simon plays like The Odd Couple and The Goodbye Girl.

But back to Robert Redford. For several decades he was everyone's ideal of the blonde, blue-eyed movie star, until the baton was handed to Brad Pitt. Some movies, e.g., the Way we Were and the Candidate, played off his good looks explicitly, but the roles grew meatier. By the '80's he took up directing and founded the Sundance Film Festival.

Redford spent the next 50 years making and appearing in some of the industry’s most expensive and most commercially successful films. As the force behind the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, he also helped create an ecosystem for the industry’s smallest. Some films that premiered at the festival became popular with mainstream audiences, such as “Reservoir Dogs” and “Napoleon Dynamite,” but far more succeeded in finding a modest audience that appreciated them thanks to the infrastructure for independent films in the U.S. that Redford and Sundance helped create...

“You make the most of what you’ve been given—that’s how I see it,” Redford said in the 2015 WSJ. Magazine interview. “And you keep pushing to make more of it. I don’t see any reason to stop. I think retirement can lead to death, and that’s not for me.”

R.I.P.

Beyond Our Wildest Imaginings, but not to Elon Musk

TSLA has risen substantially since Elon Musk returned. Next stop: the all-time high of $488.54

Tesla's stock price rose 3.6% to $410.04 yesterday after CEO Elon Musk bought more than $1 billion of its shares.

The move expresses Musk’s commitment to the company as the board prepares for a shareholder vote on a lucrative new pay package that could deliver as much as $1 trillion in stock to him over the next decade.

“To us, this sends a strong signal of confidence in the most important part of Tesla’s future business, robotaxi,” Jed Dorsheimer, an analyst with William Blair, wrote in a note Monday.

Musk has outlined his vision for transforming Tesla from the world’s most valuable electric-vehicle maker into an artificial intelligence and robotics company with a focus on autonomous driving and humanoid robots.

Elon Musk is a brilliant tactician and is well aware of the positive psychological effect of buying ONE BILLION DOLLARS of his company's stock on the open market. But $1 billion represents "only" 0.2% of his net worth, that is, how a person with $1 million might worry about an investment of $2,000. Sure, he would prefer not to lose it, but it's not the end of the world if he does.

Elon Musk has far bigger game afoot than you or I.

The San Francisco Garter Snake

These baby San Francisco garters will be one foot long in
a year, when they will be released in SM County. (Chron)

With an estimated population of over one million, garter snakes are a common sight throughout the continental United States. However, one of the thirteen (13) subspecies--the San Francisco garter--is classified as endangered.

The San Francisco garter snake, with its brilliant hues of deep red and turquoise, is widely considered one of the most beautiful snakes in North America. It’s also one of the rarest, with maybe 2,000 living in the wild today, all in San Mateo County.

In a bid to ensure a future for the endangered snake, Bay Area scientists are teaming up on a first-ever effort to rear a captive colony of the colorful crawlers, with plans to start releasing the newborns and rebuilding their populations at local ponds and hillsides.

“If we don’t have more snakes out there, they could disappear in our lifetime,” said Rochelle Stiles, director of field conservation for the San Francisco Zoo and Gardens, where the captive group is being raised. “The snakes serve a very important role in the ecosystem.”

...The snakes have historically lived in wetlands and grasslands only in San Mateo County and northern Santa Cruz County. (They’ve never resided in their namesake city.) Much of their limited habitat has been developed for housing and farming while invasive predators, such as bullfrogs, have proliferated, all squeezing out the native reptile.

Also, the striking appearance of the snakes once made them a premium target of the illegal pet trade. The snakes are characterized by a wide, bluish dorsal stripe that stands in contrast to jet-black and reddish-orange stripes and a blue-greenish underbelly.

Their vivid coloring, unusual for North American snakes, is likely a defense mechanism, signaling to predators — falsely — that they’re venomous or poisonous. The San Francisco garter snake, like the many other types of garter snakes, is not a danger to people or pets.

The snake was listed as a federally endangered species in 1967, setting the stage for protections that have fallen short of securing its recovery.

Although the "San Francisco garter" only lives in San Mateo County, leave it to the City to hog the glory, as it often does, for goings-on in other parts of the Bay Area.

You May Not Like This Answer

(WSJ graphic)

The assassination of Charlie Kirk has prompted a stream of commentary unrivalled by the death of anyone this century. While such commentary has covered a wide range of topics and opinions, WSj columnist Peggy Noonan is one of the few who spent time on the oft-criticized Christian phrase, "thoughts and prayers."

During recent national traumas we’ve heard the side argument over “thoughts and prayers.” Something terrible happens, someone sends thoughts and prayers, someone else snaps, “We don’t need your prayers, we need action.” They denounce the phrase only because they don’t understand it, and give unwitting offense. (I always hope it is unwitting.)

Prayer is action. It’s effort. It takes time. Christians believe God is an actual participant in history. He’s here, every day, in the trenches. He didn’t create the universe and disappear into the mists; his creation is an ongoing event, he is here in the world with you. When something terrible happens and you talk to him—that’s what prayer is, talking to him, communicating with concentration—you are actively asking for help, for intercession. “Please help her suffering, help their children, they are so alone.” “Help me be brave through this.”

It’s active, not passive. Catholics, when they’d pray over and over or with friends, used to call it storming heaven. It isn’t a way of dodging responsibility, it is (if you are really doing it and not just publicly posing) a way of taking it.

So pray now for America. We are in big trouble.

One of the first questions we ask in Sunday School is, why didn't more Jews accept Jesus as the Messiah? After all, love is the answer to everything.

It's only after we have lived life for a while that we understand why comparatively few listened to Jesus. They wanted God to answer their prayers, but on their terms. The ancients understood the Messiah to be the conqueror who would drive out the Romans and be David reincarnated, the mighty King of the Jews. They refused to consider evidence that this wasn't going to happen.

The parallel today is the wish for a strong leader who will remove hundreds of milliohs of firearms from society, thereby solving gun violence. If that's the answer we want God to give us, then we are not really open to listening, nor or we submitting ourselves to His will, and we will mock "thoughts and prayers" as a shibboleth. The human heart was, is, and ever shall be the true battlefield.

Self-Defeating Deportations

Federal agents detain Korean workers in Georgia (Fox News)

While the majority of Americans supports border control in some form, the manner in which the policy is executed threatens to erode that support. Alleged deportation abuses of migrants from south of the border gets all the (negative) publicity, but last week's actions against South Korean workers at a battery plant in Georgia is an unforced error by the Administration.

More than 300 South Korean workers were sent back to South Korea on Thursday after being arrested in an immigration raid on a battery factory next to the Hyundai plant. “This could significantly impact future direct investment in the U.S.,” [President Lee Jae Myung] said at a news conference. South Korean companies “can’t help hesitating a lot” about making new investments in the U.S. if their workers are liable to end up in detention facilities.

Companies often bring in skilled workers to get factories up and running and to train local staff. “It’s not like these are long-term workers,” Mr. Lee continued. “When you build a facility or install equipment at a plant, you need technicians, but the U.S. doesn’t have that workforce and yet they won’t issue visas to let our people stay and do the work.”

U.S. policies can conflict with each other: 1) peaceful containment of China requires strengthening relations with Asian countries like South Korea and india; 2) building up American manufacturing involves penalizing potential and actual allies with tariffs. Deporting South Korean workers when there are not enough skilled Americans to do the work is not only self-defeating but sours a relationship with an important ally.

Ordering the Georgia plant to hire American workers when there aren't any seems as foolish as California shutting down gasoline refineries and fossil-fuel energy plants before alternative-energy replacements are on line.

"A Toaster on Wheels"

Seven years after relocating to Foster City and five years after Amazon acquired it, autonomous-driving company Zoox is introducing its robotaxis in Las Vegas.

Zoox’s first public launch kicks off Wednesday on the Las Vegas strip. The company is offering free rides from a few select locations, with plans to expand more broadly across the city in the coming months. Riders will eventually have to pay, but Zoox said it’s waiting on regulatory approval to take that step.

Amazon is jumping into a market that’s all about the future, but one where Waymo has a major head start, having offered commercial driverless rides since 2020. Earlier this year, Waymo said it surpassed 10 million paid rides, and the company now operates in five cities, with Dallas, Denver, Miami, Seattle and Washington, D.C., coming next year.

Tesla, meanwhile, began testing a limited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in June, though with human supervisors on board.

But unlike Waymo and Tesla, Zoox’s electric robotaxi doesn’t resemble a car. There’s no steering wheel or pedals, and the rectangular shape has led many in the industry to describe it as a toaster on wheels. Zoox co-founder and technology chief Jesse Levinson says, “We use robotaxi or vehicle or Zoox.”

Our driving skills have been eroding, and in 3 to 5 years we foresee being in the market for a self driving vehicle. Waymo and Tesla would've been at the top of our shopping list, but we'll take a look at Zoox. I wonder if they'll give a hometown discount to local customers?

2018: Zoox prototype (Bloomberg photo)

Perspective

Charlie Kirk at the 2024 Republican convention (Politico)

24 years later the significance of September 11th is receding from memory, much as December 7th already has for most Americans. Besides, many people don't feel like reminiscing (again) about 9-11; what's on their minds is yesterday's murder of Charlie Kirk.

9-11 does allow us to put some perspective on the events of yesterday, however. "Everything changed" on September 10, 2025, is something I've read repeatedly on social media. No, I'm afraid not; tragic and emotional as it was, the killing of one man pales in comparison to the death of 3,000 people and the destruction of the twin towers in 2001.

Then, as now, some identifiable groups are easy to blame for the horror. However, the principle of individual responsibility is still strongly ingrained in the culture, and most Americans are able to resist condemning entire groups for the actions of a few members.

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) are the enemies of rational decision-making, and if we are honest with ourselves, there was a lot more FUD in 2001 about the next terrorist attack than there is today about how many people will get killed because of their politics.

We have the motivation, ability, and character to get through today's problems, if only we can see it.

Ineffably Sad

(Instagram photo)

The assassination of Charlie Kirk, 31, is ineffably sad. I say this, not because I agree with many of Mr. Kirk's views but because a young father of two was shot for his political beliefs. He never called for violence against those who disagreed with him; in fact he encouraged college students to argue with him and abhorred moves to silence opponents of all stripes. (There are hundreds of videos showing his spirited, mostly civil engagements.)

Kirk became well-known for debating students in front of an audience in a public setting, offering a conservative, and often provocative, perspective. Videos of him sparring with liberal-minded students garnered millions of views online. According to videos of the attack, Kirk was debating a student about mass shootings involving transgender people when he was shot.

The act of political violence is a jarring coda to Kirk’s meteoric rise from college dropout to standard-bearer of the MAGA movement. Kirk left an indelible mark on the Republican party, drawing young voters to its ranks and influencing Trump’s presidency.

Kirk was a strong advocate for most of the president’s positions, which he discussed in detail during his podcast The Charlie Kirk Show and other media appearances. His support—and talent as an orator—helped him earn significant political sway with the president, with whom he spoke frequently.

Your humble blogger will not over-react by asserting the end of civil society occurred today; that might well have happened fourteen (14) months ago had then-candidate Trump not escaped with his life. Today's damage was grievous enough. R.i.P.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Divorced Ryan Hambry and Morgan Dickson have dinner
together with their children at their Florida house once a week

The cliché about the economics of marriage--"two can live as cheaply as one"--remains true even though the marriage is over. Some divorced couples continue to live together because their housing costs would rise substantially if they were to sell their house with a low-interest mortgage.

For divorcing couples, there is a particularly tricky version of what housing professionals call the “lock-in effect,” where homeowners stay in place because they don’t want to give up their low rates. Across the housing market, the lock-in effect prevented almost two million home sales between mid-2022 and mid-2024, according to Federal Housing Finance Agency research. The number of people moving is significantly lower than it was before the pandemic, according to Bank of America.

Some ex-spouses are choosing to “nest,” an arrangement in which the kids remain in the family home and the parents rotate in and out. The practice has been around a long time, but it has gained popularity as the costs of moving have risen, according to family-law attorneys and mediators.

There are compelling short-term financial reasons for not cutting the cord completely, but keeping the family house under joint ownership will make it difficult to find other partners, relocate to other cities, and move on with their lives.

Unsurprising Development

The water has been shut off over a year (SFGate)

In August we commented on the City's decision to remove the Vaillancourt Fountain as part of a 5-acre development plan. As is true of every highly visible construction project in Northern California, legal methods have been employed to halt the fountain's removal.

Armand Vaillancourt, the 96-year-old artist behind the brutalist fountain in Embarcadero Plaza, tapped a lawyer to write the letter, asking the city on August 29 to “immediately cease and desist from taking any steps whatsoever that may endanger or damage the Vaillancourt Fountain.”

...If the city ignores Vaillancourt’s warning and request for the city to hand over all documents related to the fountain’s future and keep the artist in the loop on ongoing conversations, Vaillancourt and six “long-standing” architectural and cultural organizations are prepared to take legal action, according to the letter.

We have seen this play before: opposition to the removal of an old building or public work of art has not furnished a plan to pay for the repair and upkeep of the object being eliminated. In Vaillancourt's case the repair is estimated to cost $29 million. One easily foreseeable result is that nothing happens while the property deteriorates. If San Francisco avoids this outcome, it will be a good sign that it's back.

Resurging Anglicanism: Signs of Hope

Liturgical worship is coming back (anglicanmom)

There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth regarding the collapse of British society. There are widespread allegations that the British elites condemn displays of patriotism but look the other way at immigrant grooming gangs and rape culture.

There is reason for hope: there are signs of a resurgent Christianity, led by Anglicanism, that can counter the Islamist wave and beat back the secularism that has dominated British culture in the second half of the 20th century. [bold added]

Across Britain, a wealth of evidence tells of a modest but real Christian revival.

Anglican clergy regularly describe a “steady trickle” of new parishioners seeking to know more about the faith. Some Catholic dioceses note a sharp increase in adults asking to be baptized. In July, the coastal town of Bournemouth witnessed a mass baptism of 92 new Christians in the sea. More than 1,000 attended the service—a striking display in a society where faith tends to be privately nurtured more than it is publicly proclaimed.

Ms. [Jo] Gilbert works for a parish in Brighton and coordinates the Catholic chaplaincy team for the town’s two universities. She has worked with students and young people for two decades. The past few years, she says, have seen a marked change. “A lot of us working in pastoral ministry, and a lot of people in a lot of churches, are saying we’re seeing a renewed interest and spiritual openness, and more new converts.”

...Such stories have been brought into focus by a controversial study from YouGov, one of the U.K.’s most respected polling companies. The study, titled “The Quiet Revival,” claimed that churchgoing surged from 3.7 million in 2018 to 5.8 million in 2024—a 56% increase. The most marked change, according to the data, was among 18- to 24-year-olds, among whom churchgoing was said to have quadrupled.

It's still early days, and indeed some of the enthusiasm with which this trend has been received may be inflated by wishful thinking, but I, for one, prefer to hope than despair.

Zippy's

I'm only frustrating myself when I open
the App in Zippy-less California.

It's not gourmet, but it serves local favorites late into the evening and when it opens at 6 a.m. [bold added]

The takeout and dine-in menu is large and varied — with everything from spaghetti to plate lunches, chili and burgers — and regulars usually have a go-to dish.

Bruno Mars’ favorite is the “Korean chicken plate with a small chili with rice,” according to a 50th anniversary publication. Jason Momoa recently proclaimed Zippy’s has the “best fried chicken in the world.” Former President Barack Obama likes the Zip Min, a bowl of saimin with wontons, char siu, fish cake and breaded shrimp.

I usually order the Zip Pac, containing one piece of fried chicken, Spam, breaded fish and a slice of marinated teriyaki beef over furikake-seasoned rice.

There are two Zippy's--one next to my father's high school, McKinley, and one on Kapahulu Ave.--within walking distance of my parent's home. I go to Zippy's two or three times on each trip home. It's time to book a flight.....

The Science Helps You Get Settled

(Photo by Sergiy Barchuk/WSJ)

In our there's-a-pill-for-everything culture there are worse medications than propranolol:

Approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1967 to treat symptoms of cardiovascular disease, propranolol has become the go-to pill for dealing with all sorts of stressful situations, from public speaking to first dates. Prescriptions are on the rise, up 28 percent from 2020, according to the most recent data from IQVIA, making propranolol—a generic drug that is relatively inexpensive—the fastest-growing pill in the category. By slowing down heart rate and lowering blood pressure, the drug can reduce the physical symptoms of anxiety, though it has not been approved by the FDA to treat the condition. Most people take it situationally; musicians and actors, for instance, have long relied on beta blockers like propranolol before performing (“I took a beta blocker, so this is going to be a breeze,” the actor Robert Downey Jr. said during his 2024 Golden Globes acceptance speech). Now a new generation of stars is spreading the gospel.

I have never taken the drug but can't be too judgmental: if my livelihood depended on being cool in stressful situations I may well be using propranolol all the time.

Where other beta blockers focus on specific parts of the body, propranolol “affects beta receptors in the heart and everywhere else in the body, including the brain,” according to Dr. Nassir Ghaemi, an academic psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine.

“The effects on the brain are the effects that cause the decrease of anxiety,” Ghaemi says.

Compared to benzodiazepines, such as Xanax or Valium, propranolol is considered nonaddictive and is among the “mildest variety of anti-anxiety medication,” he says, but it is not without risk. Because propranolol works to reduce blood pressure and heart rate, if you reduce it too much, the person could faint.

The Mayo Clinic lists the "more common" side effects:

Chest tightness

cough producing mucus

difficulty with breathing

Anxiety

dry mouth

hyperventilation

irritability

restlessness

shaking

sleepiness or unusual drowsiness

trouble sleeping

unusual dreams

None of the above side effects appear particularly dangerous, so users are probably not gambling with their long-term health by taking propranolol or other beta blockers. Speaking as a baby boomer who witnessed some work colleagues taking prescriptions and illegal drugs (cocaine, marijuana) 40 to 50 years ago without apparent ill effect into their golden years, the rewards outweigh the risks, so you won't hear tsk-tsks from me.

My Dog Has Fleas

Every Hawaiian kid I know has picked up a ukulele at some point in his or her life. It's easy to learn a few chords; the ukulele has only four strings compared to the six strings on a guitar, and the first chord, C Major, is quickly learned by placing the second (the middle) finger on the A.

To tune the ukulele each of the strings G,C,E, and A can be matched to the corresponding key on the piano, although a musician only needs one "true" note to tune the entire instrument, much like an entire orchestra tunes to an "A."

The "air ukulele" cartoon is funny because of the ukulele's popular image as a sedate, Island instrument. However, the current generation of artists, including my cousin by way of marriage, tests the limits of the ukulele.

Having a Big Head Will be a Compliment

There are two schools of thought regarding the change in size of the human brain:
1) Brains are getting smaller because they are exercised less; data and thinking have been uploaded to books, paper files, the internet, the cloud, etc.
2) Brains are getting bigger because of better pre-natal care, nutrition, and education.

(Beth Goody/WSJ)

Whichever theory best describes the past is unsettled, but the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution seems to make future brain shrinkage inevitable. [bold added]

At our [Stanford] lab, we’ve spent a decade treating patients, studying how technology shapes the human mind, and supporting the integration of mental-health and well-being principles into AI and social-media platforms. As generative AI enters workplaces and schools at unprecedented speed, we’re observing a troubling phenomenon: the quiet erosion of our cognitive capabilities.

The allure of the technology is powerful. As our colleague Darja Djordjevic, a psychiatrist at Harlem Hospital and Columbia University says, “Here is a machine that is always available, endlessly enthusiastic, and seemingly competent in every domain. That creates a powerful feedback loop. You skip the discomfort of starting from scratch and get rewarded in seconds.”

No wonder our brain, delighted to dodge difficulty, craves these shortcuts. Humans have always used technology for cognitive offloading—using external tools to reduce mental demands. We write notes to remember, use calculators for arithmetic, and rely on GPS for navigation.

Where previous technologies affected discrete skills, however, generative AI tools raise the stakes. These tools are so expansive in their applications, so autonomous in their execution, that when we activate them, our minds effectively power down.

Therein lies the risk. The very convenience that boosts short-term productivity may also be accelerating long-term cognitive atrophy, across more domains than any technology before it.

The authors offer a variety of remedies, ranging from trying to solve the problem before turning to AI, to an outright AI "fast." I don't hold out much hope that these solutions will make a dent in stemming the AI takeover of our cognitive functions.

In my working life I spent many nights and weekends on audits, business plans, tax returns, and merger deals. If I had an AI bot to help me out, I would have not hesitated to use it. Now that I'm retired (and much lazier) I would still use the tools that made me both efficient and effective.

I pity future generations. I have a bigger brain than they do.

The Club I Can Never Join

(WSJ graphic - darker blue circles are women)

Using data from Altrata, the WSJ profiles America's billionaires:

There were 1,135 billionaires in the U.S. as of 2024—up from 927 in 2020, according to data from Altrata, a wealth intelligence firm. The biggest concentration, 255 of them, is in California. But the super rich are also behind businesses in places such as Ridgeland, Miss., and Waunakee, Wisc.

Collectively, these people are worth about $5.7 trillion, according to Altrata’s estimates... The 100 richest billionaires account for nearly $3.86 trillion in wealth—more than half the total. Just three men—Elon Musk, [Jeff] Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg—account for almost $1 trillion of it.

Billionaires have publicly donated or pledged to give about $185 billion since 2015, according to Altrata. Mostly, they support causes such as education and medical research—they gave $90 billion to those two in the past 10 years. That has given them sway in ongoing campus debates over freedom of speech and antisemitism.

While some billionaires such as [Bill] Gates and Warren Buffett have openly pledged to give away much of their wealth, others have donated little so far. About a quarter of the billionaires in the list have known donations of less than $1 million in the past decade.

I'm wary of concluding that billionaires are selfish based on their lack of known donations. If I were a billionaire--of course, I'll never be part of that club--I would keep my donations quiet, both so I would not be inundated with other requests and because of the ethic against self-glorification.

I never knew a billionaire,
Such a life, I would not choose it
Too much time would be ensnared
Worrying about how I could lose it.
---inspired by the Purple Cow

Home Alone: the New Normal for Seniors

(Photo from futurity.org)

Being home alone is the new normal for millions of senior Americans:

More than 16 million people aged 65 and older in the U.S. live alone. That represents 28% of that age group, almost triple the share in 1950. Among the reasons: increased longevity, higher divorce rates among older adults and children more scattered than previous generations.

“It’s very likely most of us will live alone in old age,” says Elena Portacolone, professor at the Institute for Health & Aging at the University of California, San Francisco. Older adults with more financial resources have more care options, but even those with resources may find themselves hunting for in-home help.

Most people are unprepared to age alone. Only one-fourth of those living alone have someone who helps or would help with cooking, cleaning and getting groceries, and more than 80% haven’t planned for ongoing living assistance, according to an AARP 2023 report. At least one-fourth of older adults with dementia live alone.

Some crises take us by surprise. The growing alone-ness that has overtaken seniors is not one of these; it has been looming for years. Money can solve some of the problems, but it can't reverse the consequences of not having more children decades ago, or moving away from hometowns where siblings, cousins, and high school friends reside, or walking away from long-time marriages.

Although everyone can point to some things they are grateful for, too often they say that if they had to do it all over again, they would not change a thing. It's sad when people lie to others and even sadder when they lie to themselves.