Sunday Morning Reading

Weekends used to be for taking a breath. That seems so long ago it’s tough to measure it conventionally as it somehow sadly just slipped away. Even so, there’s still time to share some Sunday Morning Reading. 

Artificial Intelligence remains on the tip of all the digital tongues these days, though it’s yet to show any real promise that I’ve seen. Except for those who got in early on the cash grab. Steven Levy has an interesting piece, Tech Leaders Once Cried For AI Regulation. Now the Message is ‘Slow Down.’ Sounds like the cash isn’t as easy to grab as much as it used to be.

Speaking of AI, Chris Castle has an interesting piece on Music Technology Policy called Has The Ship Sailed On The Myth of “Responsible AI”? I’m not even sure it ever qualified for myth status, but whatever it is, that ship is out of the harbor. Hat Tip to Stan Stewart.

Kyle Chayka thinks The Dumbphone Is Real. This comes as so many blame smartphones for the decline of civilization among other smaller sins. Call me when every company in the world no longer begs you to pay your bills online, you can reach your doctor’s office via a phone, or tech companies (including those that make dumb phones don’t put you through hell trying to get techncial support from a person. I’ll take that call on my smartphone.

Most things get recycled. Including art movements. Helen Shaw takes a look at one such revival/remount in The Avant-Garfde Is Back On The Launchpad about the Wooster Group’s remounting of Richard Foreman’s Symphony of Rats. 

Jamelle Bouie’s When Politicians Invoke the Founding Fathers, Remember This is interesting. First, because the title changed from when it first appeared in The New York Times. Originally it was The Founding Fathers Don’t Have the Answers To Every Question. I wrote about that here. My points remain, so does Bouie’s (which are excellent). The headline writing still suffers.

Richard Stengel suggests that 2024 election coverage should be free and out from behind paywalls. He makes a good argument in Democracy Dies Behind Paywalls.

One of my favorite writers, NatashaMH gets quite poignant and, protestations aside, quite brave in doing so, in The Distance Between a Breath And Sadness. I think we should all learn how to better measure that distance.

David Todd McCarty uncharacteristically goes Searching for Silver Linings.

And to close things out on a bitter sweet note, Isable Fattal takes a look at The Future of Chocolate. It’s a summary for articles about the future of chocolate as she tells us to savor our favorites whlle we can. Apparently, yet another in a long line of sweet life things where we need to measure the difference between a breath and sadness because there may not be a silver lining.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.  You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.