Category: Dark Times

Resurrecting Trust Is A Tall Order

You can fool some of the people all of the time…or maybe not.

It might be easier to resurrect the dead than it is to restore trust. One way or the other, we move on from death, but moving on from any relationship once trust is busted is a tough slog for those still among the living. I’m not just talking about politics. I’m referring to the relationships we have in most of the spheres of life we interact with each and every day.

Certainly that’s true in politics and governing. Those currently in charge of sinking the ship of state want you to think the water inching over your shoe tops isn’t a problem. And if we go under, well that’s the last guy’s fault. So is the fact that we don’t have enough lifeboats. Sorry. Hope you can swim.

The same is true in technology, entertainment, business, religion, and the list goes on and on. Superhero comic book creators would call this world of competing realities a multi-verse, but even that concept doesn’t really hold enough water to drink, fantasy that it may be.

If you feel like you’re wading through swamps of bullshit trying to find morsels of truth it is because you are. The powers that be have realized (again) they can get away with calling day night if they say it often and loud enough with enough assists from a cowering media that loves its microphones more than its freedom to exist. And when some bit of truth pokes its head above the surface it’s quickly washed over and submerged by another pounding wave of new stories or new product updates. Think waterboarding with quicksand.

This distortion swamp is full of mirages reflected back into our eyeballs like a thousand suns reflecting off an endless body of water. There’s nothing to anchor to.

Set the politics aside and focus for the moment on the ongoing saga about Apple’s delaying of Apple Intelligence features it unveiled almost a year ago at WWDC. A recent NY Times column by Tripp Mickle dropped two new grains of salt into the still open wounds of that debate. First up, Mickle seems to want to lay the blame on former Apple CFO Luca Maestri for changing up a plan to increase Apple’s budget for purchasing the chips apparently needed to ramp up for the Apple Intelligence push.

Here’s the quote:

Mr. Cook approved a plan to double the team’s chip budget, but Apple’s finance chief, Luca Maestri, reduced the increase to less than half that, the people said. Mr. Maestri encouraged the team to make the chips they had more efficient.

The lack of GPUs meant the team developing A.I. systems had to negotiate for data center computing power from its providers like Google and Amazon, two of the people said. The leading chips made by Nvidia were in such demand that Apple used alternative chips made by Google for some of its A.I. development.

The next grain of sand has launched a thousand blog posts (including this one) by saying that the previously delayed Apple Intelligence features will now launch this fall.  Mickel says that’s according to three sources. Regardless of the quantity of sources, that report has generated more use of the words “may” and “possibly” in following headlines than I’ve seen in some time.

The tech press has either caught on and is choosing to not grant Apple the usual slack after feeling more than a bit betrayed. Or it’s pretending to hide beyond an endless streak of optimism. Either way Apple is currently mired in a trust swamp of its own making. Tangentially, and for what’s it’s worth, the same could be said of The NY Times.

My point here, isn’t to debate the sourcing, the reporting, or even the timing of when Apple may or may not launch new features. The long preamble to get to this Apple “news” should have been your first clue to that. My point is that once any authority fractures trust whether it be a company, a government, an official, a teacher, a parent, or a news organization, all sides lose. You can work to regain trust over time, but the stain will always remain and there’s very little anyone can do to remove it. You can learn to live with it, but you can’t erase it. 

Or as Lady Gaga says, “Trust is like a mirror, you can fix it if it’s broken, but you can still see the crack in that mother fucker’s reflection.”

There’s an entire industry full of PR professionals and crisis managers lurking, just waiting to make bank on these kind of mistakes, anxious to be called in to try and resurrect a brand or a reputation. But they are really just good makeup artists capable of masking scars. If the art of “spin” was ever a currency, it is has more than lost any value it may have once had.

In an attempt to steer this full circle, if there’s a silver lining in all of this, the raging egos we’ve put in charge of things bigger than consumer electronics can’t keep their mouths shut to their own detriment and perhaps the benefit of those of us on the ground. Their continual yapping and yipping is exposing not just their own ineptitude in governing, but the entire rigged game that everyone in these industries of make believe rely on, whether it be politics, iPhones or punditry.

I’m beginning to hope the immediate damage from these flapping maws will have more impact than any tariff upheaval, leading us all to a healthier and more skeptical view of the world we live in. The world they are tearing to shreds is beginning to feel like one that might not deserve to be saved any longer.

(Image from ChiccoDodiFC on Shutterstock)

You can 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. 

 

Boys Will Be Boys She Says

It’s raining adolescents who want to reign.

Two of Donald Trump’s minions, Elon Musk and Peter Navarro, are feuding with each other over tariffs and trade wars, taking the high road by tossing insults at each other like “moron.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to a press query about the feud by saying, “Boys will be boys, and we’ll let their public sparring continue.” 

Shutterstock 169702727.

Nice. 

I remember growing up in the hills of Virginia in an age when moonshine and dangerous racing up and down and around curvy mountain roads was quite a potent entertainment mix. On more than one occasion someone would crash and end up dead, wrapped around a tree. 

I also remember quite a few of my elders commenting in the aftermath that “boys will be boys.”

I don’t seem to recall anyone saying that at the funerals though.

Image from Carlos Amarillo on Shutterstock.

You can 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. 

“Improper Ideology.” How Long Before They Just Call It Degenerate Art?

The whitewashing continues

It’s only a matter of time before the Nazis currently running America into the ground recycle Degenerative Art as a naming convention. At this point I’m not sure what’s holding them back giving their predilection for attacking anything other than the privileged white bread culture they seem to love. Although I doubt many of them actually eat white bread. 

Doing his worst to try and remake culture and history into something most of the world has left behind, Trump yesterday issued another of his plans. This time it’s directed at the Smithsonian Institution proclaiming that there has been a concerted and widespread effort to replace the “objective facts” of American History with a “distorted narrative.” Oh, yeah, it’s now called “improper ideology.”

The Nazis played a similar game with history and culture, labeling some of the art they didn’t like, or that didn’t support the world they wanted to create, as “degenerate art.” Funny though that those same goons sent troops all over Europe to snatch and grab quite a bit of that artwork for their own personal use. Go ahead, tell me who were the real degenerates. 

As I said, I’m not sure why the cowards in this administration haven’t stolen the “degenerate art” label for themselves, while they are stealing everything else. I’m sure there’s a Signal thread running around discussing it somewhere. 

I don’t need to lay out why this is bad and yes, stupid. The Smithsonian isn’t the only target and other cultural institutions are on the list, of course the most prominent prior to this being The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. There have been and will continue to be many more sad and horrific days with horrific and misguided attempts at forcing blinders over muzzles.

At some point those you try to muzzle bite back. 

You can 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.