Tag: truth in media
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How a Policeman Assaulted My Wife Today at a Serbian Courthouse
When my wife called from the First Basic Court in Belgrade, I barely recognized her voice. She was sobbing uncontrollably, gasping for breath, unable to complete a sentence. Between cries, she shouted only one word: “Đubreta!” (“Scum!”). Minutes later I learned why. According to her account, a policeman grabbed her by both arms and dragged…
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HOW BIG BLUE ROPED ME BACK INTO THE CIA SADDLE
Just when I thought I had finally retired from analyzing the computer industry, IBM had other ideas. A Wall Street Journal headline about the biggest one-day decline in Big Blue’s history unexpectedly roped me back into the CIA saddle—not the one in Langley, but the one I first envisioned at a computer industry show in…
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✍️ COFFEE MACHINE TRAGI-COMEDY WITH MOLIEREAN TWISTS
When my trusty German-engineered coffee machine died at our country home, I immediately bought a brand-new replacement. But plugging it in brought only deathly silence. Furious, I marched back to the store, ready for a retail showdown. The clerk plugged it in. Bingo. It hummed perfectly. Convinced I had discovered a bizarre geographical anomaly with…
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✍️ ROYAL NOTES
A British king helping America celebrate its liberation from a British king. Only in America. Pomp and ceremony over blood and guts. Glitz over gas prices. The ancient Romans had a name for it — panem et circenses — bread and games to distract a restless public. Some things don’t change. They just change costumes.…
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“THE NOTE”
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT AT THE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ DINNER A man in a tuxedo leaned in, holding a small piece of paper with the quiet gravity of something that didn’t belong at dinner. To the left, a face began telling the story in real time — curiosity giving way to confusion, then shock, then a hand…
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TRUMP’S BLUFF AND BLINK – AND THE SANDBOX RULES OF POWER
Power is not learned in boardrooms or war rooms. It is learned in a sandbox. As a child in Belgrade, I saw how bullies operate — intimidation, noise, and tests of will. Push back, and the dynamic changes. Years later, I saw the same patterns among corporate giants, political leaders, and now on the global…
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“IT IS ENGLISH”
In 1985, during a visit to Hitachi, I asked why Japan—despite its engineering excellence—lagged in software. The answer was disarmingly simple: “It is English.” That moment revealed a deeper truth about the future of computing. Returning home, I proposed a radical idea: digitize everything and make it searchable. It seemed obvious. It was. Yet nearly…
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FROM “EUROTOPIA” TO BERLIN
A trip from Vienna to Berlin revealed more than urban decay—it exposed a deeper systemic drift. What appears as small signs of disorder may in fact be symptoms of something larger: institutions that have grown too complex, too removed from the people they serve. Drawing on firsthand experience—from corporate America to 1980s Germany—this column traces…
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AN UNWITTING CAR PURCHASE: HOW HEART WON OVER MIND
From Audi Love to Audi Letdown: A Lesson in Globalized Failure “I didn’t buy a car—I bought a myth. And it broke down in a Costco parking lot.” What began as an impulsive detour—a Mercedes errand that ended with an Audi in my driveway—quickly turned into something far more revealing than a car purchase. Within…
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FIRST SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF FAKE NEWS
The science of fake news gets a boost On March 9, 2018, the largest-yet study of fake news was published in Science. Accompanying it was a second article in Science, in which scientists called for: … interdisciplinary research to reduce the spread of fake news and to address the underlying pathologies it has revealed. The large study is titled The Spread of…
Truth in Media 