Category: Dark Times

Virginia Rejoins The Confederacy With Supreme Court Action On Voting Acts

Time to get off high horses on the high road

After the U.S Supreme Court decided to to do away with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Virginia Supreme Court said hold my beer and rejoined the Confederacy, rushing to throw out the results of a recent redistricting referendum, which allowed the Commonwealth to redraw legislative districts.

A high curving road in the mountains. Photo by ARRitz on Shutterstock

These turn back the clock on civil and voting rights efforts are moving at a rapid and dizzying pace. You can certainly say that those who’ve been harboring their south will rise again dreams are sensing their chance and seizing upon it, thanks to the U.S Supreme Court Callais vs Louisiana ruling.

You can also sense that there’s a bit of panic in the air on their part. If they miss this chance, it’ll be a while before there is another one, seeing that the leader they’ve chosen to lead their fight is losing popularity as quickly as he’s losing what’s left of his mind and dragging down what used to be the GOP with it. But I fear that’s not going to even matter.

As I said in this post a couple of days ago, this is the continuation of a struggle that has gone on since the birth of this country. And while many of the southern states that made up the Confederacy during the American Civil War can’t wait for their chance to rip out the pages of history, they can really only do so because of a racist hatred and nakedly corrupted criminal influence that has taken hold in all corners of the U.S.

As to that sense of panic, I wish I could sense some of that panic in this from the other side. Quite frankly, it’s time to get off the high horse on the high road and get a little dirty in this fight. I haven’t seen or heard it yet in any of the statements made in the wake of these decisions, or the recent special session in Tennessee that effectively turned that states representation possibilities into a joke. Tennessee didn’t have this easy of a time choosing to eventually secede the first time around.

I’m not sure what makes me angrier. The open nakedly racist aggression against voting rights, or the milk-toast almost resigned reactions by Democrats. That politicians yanking us back into an unwanted past and into a dismal future are doing so with glee in their cold dead hearts. It makes the weak kneed attempts of their opponents seem even weaker. Jellyfish have stiffer spines. You can’t have a country supposedly ruled by laws, if those charged with carrying out those laws bathe openly in criminal corruption.

Given all of the efforts at election interference and obstruction that have already taken place and that will continue, these redistricting battles are creating a scenario in which it doesn’t matter how big a turnout Democrats can muster or how evil these leeches on humanity are.

We haven’t seen a roll back of rights like this since the ancestors of those leading this one rolled back Reconstruction efforts.

(Photo by ARRITtz on Shutterstock)

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links. 

 

Civil War Revisited

Hard times have come again

Twice a week, every week, I post the following on social media.

A Mastodon post from Warner Crocker that says, Your twice, now continuing, weekly reminder that we're still in a Civil War.

Set aside for the moment the arguments that some toss back at me that we’re not in a Civil War because we’re not fighting with guns and bullets. I find that argument naive, even if there’s a degree of truth about it. That said, it’s my contention that much of what we’ve been living through for the last decade is not only a continuation of the American Civil War that we thought ended in 1865, but an out in the open fight over the same issues. Denying that, I do find naive.

Yes, it’s about race, and yes, it’s also about so much more. But so was that conflict that’s bubbled and boiled since the founding of this country that finally spilled over into a conflagration at a time that men thought was the only way to solve that large of a disagreement. The question may have been called on the battlefields, but the larger questions were never settled.

I do find it ironic that a New York hustler and pedophile is leading the South’s charge this time around. The South could never rise again on its own, it appears.

But then as playwright Lanford Wilson says in his play, Talley’s Folly,

…there is New York City, isolated neighborhoods in Boston, and believe me, the rest is all the South.

The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Callais v. Lousiana, essentially dismantling the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by declaring that we’re so over racism that we don’t need voting rights protections any longer has ratcheted up the fight and placed it squarely in the halls of state capitals.  Given how the U.S. Congress has abrogated any real responsibility on and off for generations, it seems fitting and also ironic that the power will now reside in the states.

The new battlefields in those state capitals are all about redistricting and gerrymandering with states rushing into special sessions to cut out voters of one party or the other in some meaningless attempt to control who has the majority in that same inept U.S. Congress. I say meaningless, because that’s body that has essentially fought back and forth on this since the fighting ended in 1865.

However any and all of these redistricting battles turn out, and given the current number of states controlled by the forces that somehow still call themselves Republicans, what happens in Washington DC will be pre-ordained long before the swearing in of each new Congress takes place.

As long as states can continue to fight using political cartographers and gerrymandering pens as their weapons of choice, things might ebb and flow a bit, but not enough to radically alter the picture or turn back the clock for at least a couple of generations.

Of all of the terrible things that have happened since 2016, I think this just might be the worst of it. I hope I’m wrong. I doubt I am. Stephen Foster’s 1854 song that pleaded for relief, Hard Times Come Again No More, might just become popular again.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links. 

 

Sunday Morning Reading

It’s all a loop

Back from spending time with the grandkids and back for some Sunday Morning Reading. There’s an interesting context to the many issues we face that evolves while watching the little ones grow and learn. Things are happening that will affect their lives in the years ahead. Yet there’s a blissful innocence cocooning them from it all. At the moment.

In my reading, and in my sharing of that reading, I find I’m doing so mostly for the thousands of tomorrows they have in their future, much more so than for anything that will happen in this week’s tomorrows that might affect me in the moment. Read on.

Neil Steinberg’s Meet My Metaphors #5: ConAgra is about so much more than the agricultural giant moving to Chicago years ago. If you like metaphors, it’s a must read. If you’re approaching the last leg of the journey, it’s a must read. If you’re concerned about what you may leave behind, well, it’s a must read.

JA Westenberg posits that it’s all a loop. Joke’s on us, I guess. Check out The Loop: Everything Has Happened Before, And Everything Will Happen Again. 

Ky Decker wonders, Do I Belong In Tech Anymore? I find if you’re asking that question about anything, you already know the answer.

Wesley Hilliard thinks we should Stop With The Tech Celebrity Worship. I concur. AND I’m for knocking down all the pedestals we erect for celebrities to ascend in any and all fields of human endeavor.

Timothy Noah takes a look at How The Tech World Turned Evil. Pop the bubbles. Tear down the pedestals. Endless loops.

Meanwhile, Makena Kelly examines how Palantir Employees Are Talking About The Company’s Descent Into Fascism. 

Follow that up with Jasmine Sun’s piece, Silicon Valley Is Bracing For A Permanent Underclass. 

The previous four links speak to a much darker future in one way or the other. Read them. Then go back and re-read the first two links by Steinberg and Westenberg. Looping context.

Closing out this week, here’s a couple of links that feel a bit more uplifting. First up, check out Mat Duggan’s Boy Was I Wrong About the Fediverse. 

Then follow that up with David Todd McCarty’s Becoming A Local. Sometimes the horizon is much closer than you think.

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. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. This site does not use affilate links. 

 

U.S. Debt Tops 100% of GDP

So much winning.

So this headline popped up today.

An image containing text and a photograph from The Wall Street Journal. At the top of the image is the headline "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL." Below the headline is the text "U.S. ECONOMY" and the article title "U.S. Debt Tops 100% of GDP." This is followed by a short paragraph of text that reads: "Federal debt exceeding the size of the economy is a potent symbol of the gathering fiscal stresses on the U.S." Below this text is a photograph of people walking down a wide set of outdoor concrete stairs, with the dome of the U.S. Capitol building in the background against a cloudy, grey sky. A person in a blue jacket is in the foreground, and other people are further up the stairs. A caption below the photograph says: "The government is spending $1.33 for every dollar it collects in revenue. PHOTO: SAMUEL CORUM/GETTY IMAGES"

So much winning. My grandkids’ grandkids will be paying this off. And I’m guessing the Strait of Hormuz will be the world’s most lucrative toll. At least there will be a new ballroom.

But, hey, it’s only money right? (Actually it’s not. But that’s a story for another day.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links. 

 

May 1st General Strike Planned. Hope It Matters

I’d like to see more urgency

There is a General Strike planned for this Friday, May 1. Quite frankly, I think it’s just going to be another in a series that have featured No Kings themed protests in the past year.

I don’t mean to demean the effort. Glad to see it happening. That said, given how each day brings something new that’s quickly absorbed into the swelling sponge of sewage that is the zeitgeist these days, I just don’t see any potential for real impact.

One of the problems with this protest is they missed the marketing boat. I get and appreciate the approach and historical tie in of calling a general strike on May 1. But those historical resonances are there for some, unfortunately not for all. Old rules don’t apply.

Also, given what I believe is still an urgent moment, that urgency seems to be fading a bit. I think the promotional pitches should have called the event MAY DAY and played that for all of the contextual danger it implies. Even the “Hold The Line” slug feels like stasis compared to movement.

I can understand the lack of urgency. There’s a growing sense that the next big moment isn’t going to happen until the midterm elections. Perhaps that’s justified in the wake of no real movement so far. But that actually makes the struggle more challenging, at the same time ground continues to be lost on so many fronts that won’t be easy to change.

But even though these efforts feel like they have weakening impacts, they do keep up some pressure. So, in the end I guess that matters.

Here’s hoping it does.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links. 

 

Nilay Patel on Software Brain

“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Every now and then someone crystalizes a lot of the thoughts that spin around discussions, debates, and dialogues about a topic. When those topics are of great import, when the crystallization shows up, it is not only wise, but essential to pay attention. Call it a benchmark. Call it a new starting point for the conversation going forward. Nilay Patel has delivered just a benchmark to pay attention to with his monologue of sorts on his Decoder podcast. If you’re not up for a listen, you can give it a read on The Verge.

Artwork of The Decoder Podcast, featuring Nilay Patel

For the clear thinking presented there is a confusing array of headlines to choose from depending where you look, Including The People Do Not Yearn For Automation, and Why People Hate AI, but the one I think should stick shows up in my browser tab: Beware Software Brain.

Patel takes a well considered tour through the arguments and discussion that are scattered about and pulls them together nicely. If you ask for a core theme, I’d say that he argues that there are two schools of thought. One rushing to turn AI into what controls our lives. The other isn’t buying the sales pitch.

To me it’s always been a tough sell to foist this innovation on people if one of your selling points is that it will make their jobs unnecessary, let alone create environmentally hazardous data centers to run the machines that are going to eventually unemploy them. I know a few folks who, after training themselves up on AI to do what they do, only to be dismissed in favor of the AI once that training is complete. I  don’t think it’s going to be much longer before that predicament touches someone everyone knows.

Getting inside what makes the folks pushing AI’s thinking, Patel defines “Software Brain” as follows:

So what is software brain? The simplest definition I’ve come up with is that it’s when you see the whole world as a series of databases that can be controlled with the structured language of software code. Like I said, this is a powerful way of seeing things. So much of our lives run through databases, and a bunch of important companies have been built around maintaining those databases and providing access to them.

He later goes on:

Anyone who’s actually ever run a database knows this. At some point, the database stops matching reality. At that point, we usually end up tweaking the database, not the world. But the AI industry has fully lost sight of this, because AI thrives on data. It’s just software, after all. And so the ask is for more and more of us to conform our lives to the database, not the other way around.

You need to read or listen to the whole piece.

While I think “Software Brain” well defines the mindset of those celebrating and working towards an AI future. The crux of the matter for me, on perhaps a larger scale, is that for some reason, as ambiguous and arbitrary as we humans can be, we seem to shy away from our own ambiguity in favor of looking for a binary solution. On or off. Right or wrong. Correct or incorrect. We get angry with the shades and shadows of grey that muddy our yearning for black and white.

Perhaps a binary approach to everything seems like it would make life easier. It certainly helps avoid the danger zones of responsibility.

These are certainly early days of whatever Artificial Intelligence may or may not become. Even so, it appears to me it’s just going to be yet another way humans develop, market, and use to avoid facing the tough choices life tosses at us, or we toss at each other. I’m glad to see there is increasing skepticism.

I don’t build or code things with AI, so I can’t speak to that degree of what seems so exciting to so many. That said, the one thing I keep coming back to in my own, very rudimentary experiments with AI is this. At the moment it’s as error prone, and often as ambiguous and obsequious as any human in correcting itself. It seems to be a very human response etched into the code by its creators, knowing things don’t add up. Much like apparently, our DNA. The machines and the math behind them just don’t care.

I don’t think the humans running this race do either.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links. 

 

U.S. War With Iran Summed Up By Monkey With A Typewriter

Monkey see, monkey laughs at humans

This comment to an article in The Financial Times nicely sums up things currently in the Middle East, as well as in the muddled brains of those running the show here in the U.S.

An eye-level screenshot of a note on a light-brown background with dark-grey text and an outline of a bookmark and share icon at the top right. The text says, 'Monkey with typewriter. 11 hours ago. Saw this from a UN diplomat... amusing and yet hard to argue with. What a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in.' Following this is a block with a pink background and dark-grey text. It says, 'The Iranian navy, which has been destroyed eight times, closed the Strait of Hormuz again, because the United States for the seventh time won the war that wasn't a war, so the United States can open the Strait of Hormuz that was open before the not war. The not war that started to get the uranium that was completely obliterated, so that the Iranians can't build the nuclear bomb that they weren't building for the not war that the United States started. Then the United States which has nuclear weapons threatening to use nuclear weapons to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons because having nuclear weapons is dangerous. If the United States saw what the United States is doing in the United States, the United States would invade the United States to liberate the United States from the tyranny of the United States.'

Frankly, as darkly humorous as it is, it’s only dark and humorous because it’s spot on. Hat tip to fellow Mastodon user Julian Schwarzenbach.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links. 

 

Sunday Morning Reading

Optimism comes every Spring, but Winter always nips at the edges

Temperatures are warming. Every day brings more daylight, more blooms in the gardens and trees Yet on the edges of two of my interests, politics and tech, things continue to darken a bit. The common denominator between the two? Humans. But then again, humans are the ones who read this Sunday Morning Reading column. As well as the bots that scrape it of course.

PXL 20260411 142247979.

Some of the big news in tech this week was about a new AI product from Anthropic called Mythos. So fraught with potential peril that Anthropic gathered together the major tech heads to form a consortium to keep lid on it. Monica Verma has a good run down with her piece Did Claude Mythos Break The Cybersecurity Industry.

M.G. Siegler’s The Causal Catastrophe of AI takes a look at maneuvering around Mythos as well. Call me crazy, but I don’t think there’s anything casual about this development.

The reason I’m a pessimist on this is that I agree with a comment from JA Westenberg,  “Being wrong about doom costs you nothing.” Check out Optimism Is Not A Personality Flaw. The piece walks a line. You should read it and walk it too.

Mike Elgan takes a look at Black Traffic: The Corporate Sabotage Technique You’ve Never Heard Of. Now you have.

Ng Chong examines The Echo Chamber In Your Pocket. Follow that up with this from Julie Jargon: Over 4,732 Messages, He Fell In Love With An AI Chatbot. Now He’s Dead.(That’s an Apple News lnk. This is an archived link.)

David Todd McCarty thinks one path to reclaiming power over information might be in The Return Of The Local Newspaper.You don’t know what you had until it’s gone.

This Is What Will Ruin Public Opinion Polling For Good. The “this,” according to Lief Weatherby, is something called silicon sampling. Yes, you guessed it. AI.

Coming back around to my comment at the top about not having faith in humans, OpenAI’s Sam Altman got his turn in the barrel (again) this week. Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz spent quite a bit of time putting this piece together. Check out Sam Altman May Control Our Future — Can He Be Trusted? FWIW, I don’t need much more time than it takes to put this column together every week to answer their question in the negative. And not just about Altman.

Mean while Altman responded on his blog, after someone tossed a Molotov cocktail at his house. He says “I have underestimated the power of words and narratives.” For someone who has scraped all the words he can off of the Internet and tried to turn them into something smarter than humans, you’d think his machines could have at least figured out that words have power.

Natasha MH sums up a lot of my lack of faith in humans in her piece, Stop Blaming The Chatbot. As she puts it, “AI didn’t make you stupid. You were already getting there.”

Sorry to be so negative this week, but that’s where I’m living., But to change the tone, Neil Steinberg turns around the Latin term, memto mori, (remember to die) around to memento vivere, or remember to live. A nice little bit of humanity to close out this week with Little LIfe.

(Photo from the author)

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. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

 

Poisson D’Avril

Choking jokes

April 1 last year I posted about how much I miss the good old days when April Fools’ Day was a fun day. Memories of those days were fading then. I’m afraid they are only shadows now.

P.12 poisson davril 470x376.

As I said a year ago:

I guess the negative reactions started to take over when the Internet, home of more copycats than original copy, made the proliferation of pranks available to all including those who would do so for malicious reasons. Call it Internet gluttony. That joke is always on us, because while humans do enjoy a good laugh, we also seem to enjoy overdoing just about anything to the point of pointlessness.

Some would say we’ve grown and matured in the face of an overabundance and overuse of prepubescent humor. I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate.

I think it takes maturity, a sense of humility, and humor to face the challenges every day presents. Certainly in these dark times. It also takes strength, and increasingly, courage. It’s easy to shut down and turn away. That doesn’t diminish the darkness, nor does it brighten the day. 

Perhaps last year’s post was an unintended start of a new April 1 tradition.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

 

No Kings Rallies: Build On It

So much wrong, so little cardboard

Today was No Kings Day in the U.S. and around the world with large crowds in large cities and smaller ones in small cities, towns and hamlets. Regardless of the numbers, (estimates are running as high as 9 million at the moment) what’s important is people showed up, stood up, and showed they still stand for decency and the rule of law.

Due to being completely under the weather I had to cancel plans to attend the rally in Chicago, but I did tune into the national live stream. I’m not sure if that will stay up after the day is done, but I sure hope it does. 

What will be more important than the protest rallies will be what happens next. We all know weekend protests, as good as they are for building solidarity, are not enough and there’s still a big fight ahead. As the sign above says, so much wrong, so little cardboard. As wrong and dark as things have been, things are going to get more wrong and darker before whatever the end of this will be. 

I’ve linked to Bruce Springsteen’s song, Streets of Minneapolis here before, and you can catch it there or just about anywhere. Below is the short speech he gave before singing that song at the Minneapolis No Kings Rally. 

Sing and march on.

(Image from Bill Strait on Mastodon

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.