Politics – Page 16 – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Sunday Morning Reading

So what is this future we’re heading into anyway?

If you’re observing Memorial Day weekend in the U.S. I hope you have had a pleasant one. Even if the weather isn’t cooperating, seemingly echoing the threats of seeing that tradition, like so many others, diminished. We’re on the road again for a dear friend’s memorial service, but there’s still time for a little Sunday Morning Reading. Mostly tech related this week, some politics, and of course some cultural happenings. If you’re paying attention, it’s all intertwining. Listening to a lot of Bruce Springsteen. Enjoy.

Adding to what’s becoming a recurring theme in this column, Ian Dunt is looking for ways to get the most out of our digital lives while taking back a bit of control from the tech god wanna-be’s. Check out Taking Back Control of Our Digital Life.

Matthew Ingram wonders If AI Helps To Kill The Open Web What Will Replace It? Excellent piece and excellent topic, because like it or not, it’s the current and next movement we on the ground are going to have to contend with. Pay attention.

Neil Steinberg, one of my favorite of a dying breed of Chicago journalists, gives his take on the recent Chicago Sun-Times AI flap in The AI Genie Is Out of The Bottle, and the Granted Wish Often Brings Trouble.

Lucy Bannerman takes on the AI’s abuse of copyright and artists rights in Nick Clegg: Artists’ Demand Over Copyright Are Unworkable. They aren’t. Those demands just cost more than folks counting the beans want to pay.

Lynette Bye’s Misaligned AI Is No Longer Just Theory raises up that specter that haunts this entire episode of our life across all spectrums that seems easy to fall prey to or dismiss, depending on which side of the coin you’re on. Frankly, if you don’t think the future of this can be manipulated, you’re not paying attention.

Jason Snell’s take on the recent announcement that OpenAI has bought Jony Ive’s company to produce new hardware for AI I think is the correct one. Check out Sam and Jony and Skepticism.

Chloe Rabinowitz fills us in on the outgoing president of the Kennedy Center’s response to the bullshit coming out of the White House. in Deborah Rutter Releases Statement In Response to Trump Kennedy Center Allegations.

The real boss, Bruce Springsteen, continues to piss off the orange buffoon in the White House and I’m glad to see it. So is Eric Alterman in a guest essay in The New York Times proclaiming Bruce Springsteen Will Never Surrender to Donald Trump. We need more of this.

And to wrap up this week, here’s NatashaMH wondering Do We Really Need To Have This Discussion? No hints. No clues. Just good stuff for you to read.

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.

We’re Losing The Battle Over What’s Real and What’s Not

The Chicago Sun-Times publishes AI generated fiction as fact

The Chicago Sun-Times is going to go through some things. Is AI the culprit? Business model? Lack of editorial oversight? The answer doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things when it comes to the struggle to understand what’s real and what’s not.

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The paper published a summer activities guide called the Chicago Sun-Times Heat Index that contained a reading list of books that included real authors, but some of the titles were entirely fictional. As in not real titles at all. Just made up. Five of the titles actually exist. Ten do not.

This episode lead most to immediately speculate that the article was generated by Artificial Intelligence and that there was no editorial oversight of what actually made it into print. I don’t know about you, but I’d call those assumptions more than an early warning sign.

According to 404 Media the Heat Index was published by King Features which is owned by Hearst Newspapers. The guide was licensed by the Sun-Times apparently for the Sunday print and online editions.

The Sun-Times issued an early statement saying they are looking into the matter as referenced below, promising more info to be released soon.

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To their credit they did. VP of marketing and communications for Chicago Public Media, which owns the Sun-Times stated to 404 Media that no one at Chicago Public Media reviewed the section, which follows a pattern used with similar such inserts saying that “historically, we don’t have editorial review…because it comes from a newspaper.” That statement of course includes the promise of a change in policy going forward and an investigation to see if there is other inaccurate information. You can read the full Chicago Sun-Times statement released later here.

The Sun-Times was not the only paper to license and publish the paper according to NPR.

That NPR report also says that writer Marco Buscaglia claimed responsibility for the guide and did acknowledge that it was partly generated by Artificial Intelligence.

Ah, well. All of those worst case assumptions were not a mass hallucination, I guess.

There were years that I bought both the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune every morning and got to work early enough to read them both. Those days are long gone, mostly thanks to the Internet and the changes that wrought on the newspaper publishing industry. We’ve all seen this next chapter coming. I guess it’s here.

Here’s the thing. The cold hard fact that most leapt to the assumption that this is some form of AI generated content proves the battle, and perhaps the war has already been lost, regardless of how this did or didn’t happen. It will happen again.

We’ve been heading into the land of make believe where facts don’t matter for some time now. It’s sad that what once were venerated media sources have been helping to lead the charge, especially in an era when governments feel free to make up things as they go along.

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.

Sunday Morning Reading

Paying attention for the next generation.

Good morning. Visiting the grandkids this weekend, so this will be a short stack of links to share. Fair warning ahead most are on the darker side of the ledger. The links. Not the grandchildren. They are the light. The grandchildren are why I pay attention.

First up is a piece on despair from Dean Pritchard titled Despair, What Is It Good For. He calls it a hopeless call to action. I’m not sure it’s hopeless at all. Just another step in finding what may or may not turn out to be answers. As long as we keep stepping.

NatashaMH says that social media addiction isn’t just about us, it’s about the people around us in Unread, Unavailable and Unbothered. I’ve never been one to buy into the social media addiction theory. It’s too damn easy to put down the damn phone. But I take her points because it’s too damn easy to keep hoping to find new ways to avoid despair.

Lauren Goode takes on Deepfakes, Scams, and the Age of Paranoia. Somebody needs to.

Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman say that Trump is betraying the voters who elected him in The White Rural Reckoning. They are correct. But we knew that would happen. Scum likes to remove itself from other scum once it’s done scumming around.

Joan Westenberg compares the comeuppance moment Apple is enduring to Martin Luther’s reformation moment in Apple’s Diet of Worms. Given the abundance of fanatics there’s more than a little truth here.

Playwright Sara Ruhl is one of my favorites. Charles McNulty takes a look at what she has to say in her new book In ‘Lessons From My Teachers,’ Playwright Sarah Ruhl Finds Wisdom In Art, Motherhood, Even Grief.

And as for weathering despair, check out Lost At Sea by Alec Frdyman. Excellent reading about a scary adventure.

And to close out this weekend I’ll leave you with this uncredited thought that pops up every now and then on social media.

And just remember who the tax breaks are targeted for.

Peace.

CNN Will Air George Clooney’s ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ Live From Broadway on June 7

This paradox should be a must watch.

I’d mark your calendar for this one. CNN will be airing George Clooney’s production of the play Good Night, and Good Luck, live on June 7th from the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway. It will be the first time that a live play performance has been televised.

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The play is adaptation of the 2005 movie of the same name that Clooney co-wrote, directed, and starred in, based on CBS journalist’s Edward R. Murrow’s work to expose Joe McCarthy during the Red Scare in the 1950s. In the movie Clooney played Fred Friendly, Murrow’s producer. On the stage he plays Murrow.

The Broadway production has met with critical acclaim and just recently announced that it had recouped its initial investment during its run that began in March of 2025.

I’m a big fan of the movie (I wrote a little about it here) and imagine I will also be of the stage version. I’m sure the story’s central message of standing up to bullies and demagogues translates just as well in a live version as it does on film.

I’m looking very much forward to watching this and would encourage you to as well. I know there are some who see Clooney as one of the villains in our recent political turmoil. And some see CNN has a willing accomplice to the madness we face. Even with what may seem like all of that irony, I would urge you to set that aside and give Good Night, and Good Luck a watch. As I said then

This isn’t some moment of nostalgia for a time gone by. It is a recognition that where we are now is a place we’ve been before. This time around those that control the media and messaging have, for the moment, much more control than they did in Murrow’s day. Make no mistake, they had some control then, but now it’s more pervasive and the Murrow’s, Friendly’s and Paley’s are fewer in number.

Setting aside the historical significance of this broadcast of a live play, and the paradox between the message and the messengers, I can’t think of a better reason to watch given where we are and will continue to be for some time.

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.

Sunday Morning Reading

Happy Mother’s Day reading.

Time for some Sunday Morning Reading on this Mother’s Day, with a short stack of culture, some tech, some politics, and the Ziegfeld Follies tossed in for good measure.

First up is a good long read from Spencer Kornhaber wondering if we’ve entered a cultural dark age. Provocative in parts, predictable in others, it’s worth your time for the journey it takes. Check out Is This The Worst-Ever Era of American Pop Culture?

Kaitlyn Tiffany says We’re Back to the Actually Internet. It’s about fact checking, the need for fact checking, and actually about how fact checking doesn’t really matter.

We may have beat the term fascism to death long before the real beating actually begins, and it’s the Bible thumpers who seem far too eager for the end times with their wishes for some sort of Armageddon beat down. Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor take a look at The Rise of End Times Fascism.

The Apple enthusiast world is still going through some things and will continue to for the foreseeable future. Denny Henke at Beardy Guy Musings is chronicling his thoughts about his move away from using Apple products. His latest, Are Apple Enthusiasts Miserable? takes a look at some of the angst and tensions he sees.

Indie app Developer Thomas Ricourad, the developer of the app Ice Cubes for Mastodon, among other apps, is searching. He’s not alone. Check out Having A Clear Vision In A Blurred World.

Matthew Gurewitsch takes a quick look The Story of a Rose, an upcoming look at an almost forgotten era in A Ziegfeld Girl Recalls The Forgotten War.

Happy Mother’s Day to all.

(image from Aga Putra on Unsplash)

O Canada

A farce only continues until one of the characters says “stop.”

I applaud Canada’s newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney standing firm and saying straight up that Canada’s not for sale during his talks with what somehow continues to pass as America’s seat of government. Good on him. Glad he did. But he didn’t have much of a choice in this non-real reality TV series that needs to be canceled.

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There’s a trouble-making part of me that would have loved to have heard him say to the decaying orange turd sitting next to him something like, “I’ll tell you what, Mr. President. You agree to step down from your office and our government will give any proposal consideration. Other than that, no thank you.” I mean if we’re going to waste our time on nonsensical fantasies, let’s have some fun. Otherwise this farce is running out of steam while the players play a game that the audience is already exhausted with.

Of course that would ever happen and I’m not criticizing Carney, He laid down the appropriate marker while standing up to the bully-in-chief. But at some point, from some quarter, I’d like to see someone land a harder punch in the nose or a kick in the groin. Even if they were only rhetorical.

Elbows up!

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.

Sunday Morning Reading

Choose to pay attention before you don’t have a choice.

So much is broken these days as we watch more things break. Of course the choice is to watch or not. I prefer watching. I prefer paying attention. That’s why I share these links in Sunday Morning Reading and throughout the week.

Kicking off this week is an excellent essay from Jia Tolentino called My Brain Finally Broke. It’s one of the more powerful pieces I have read on all that’s breaking. The above is the original link. This one is to the web archive of the piece. Obviously I encourage you to read all I like to in Sunday Morning Reading, but this is one you shouldn’t miss.

NatashaMH takes on The Paradox of Choice. If you ask me, we too often enjoy choosing the paradox.

Joan Westenberg takes a look at what happens when one chooses conventional wisdom and the systems and ways things have always worked. Until those ways become a weakness and a downfall in The Cannae Problem. We’re watching this happen in real time folks.

This past week Amazon’s ass-kissing founder Jeff Bezos looked like he might have tired of the stink. In the wake of Trump’s tariffs word got out that Amazon would show customers the amount of a price increase that was due to the Trump tax. That quickly changed. Some say with a phone call from the bumbling boss. Harry McCracken suggests, (I did too), that merchants should let us know who’s screwing who in this broken mess. Check out Of Course We Deserve To Know The True Costs of Tariffs.

What Should We Do If An AI Becomes Conscious? I’m not sure. But then again, look what we as conscious beings are already doing. Mathew Ingram takes a look.

Yanis Varoufakis takes a look at Trump And The Trump Of The Technolords. It’s not a pretty look at the reasoning behind what seems to be happening without reason.

There’s not much new news in Matthew Cunningham-Cook’s piece titled Elon Musk And His DOGE Bro Have Cashed In On American’s Retirement Savings, but it’s a good summary of what has happened for those who choose to pay attention. A better one for those who choose otherwise.

To end this week with an article about hope, take a look at Lessons From A Physician About Hope by Leif Hass. Yes, hope is important. Here’s hoping you always choose wisely.

(Image from Roman Kraft on Unsplash.)

Andor, Or We Are The Heroes We Need

Echoing Tina Turner

The ever expanding universe of the Star Wars franchise is one that often leaves me colder than I imagine I’d feel if I were floating alone in space. That’s the same with most of these run the IP into the ground franchises. When something comes out of those factories that’s actually decent, it’s a surprise. One of the surprising beacons of warmth has been the Andor series, which is currently streaming in its second season. I’m also a fan of the movie Rogue One for which Andor is a prequel.

Yes, the story is about the rebel rebellion against the Empire, but there’s something different about Andor. Recently I read a piece from Derek Pharr on Nerdist, Hope Without The Force: How Andor Rewrites Rebellion. It helped me put my finger on why the show feels different and surprisingly current beyond the scope of small screen entertainment.

Here’s a quote:

Andor makes the quiet argument that the Jedi weren’t just irrelevant to the uprising against the Empire. They were liabilities and detached from everyday suffering. The Jedi were fixated with balance and prophecy, and wildly ineffective at stopping fascism when it counted. The Jedi Order had their shot. They blew it. Meanwhile, on Ferrix and Narkina 5, regular people are building the rebellion through sweat, sacrifice, and solidarity. Not the Force.

Whether you are a fan of the series or not, I encourage you to read the entire piece. Pharr’s thesis is indeed a good one about the series. But for me it spins off into many of the challenging moments we face today in the wake of our own evolving evil empire. One that’s certainly not intelligently designed, much less preordained.

Bottom line, it’s going to come down to those of us on the ground.

I think we need to eternalize and begin acting on that instead of waiting around and looking for heroes among congress critters, political parties, media mouthpieces, TV lawyers and those at the bar, or even judges to come to the rescue. We know what’s ahead is going to continue to get uglier. We’re probably going to have to meet ugly with a little ugly ourselves. Cue Tina Turner’s We Don’t Need Another Hero.

As Pharr puts it,

The Jedi were legends. The rebellion was real.

No elegant solutions from a more civilized age. Just people. Flawed, desperate, courageous people, who decide enough is enough.

He also argues that noble as they were, the Jedi were spectacularly bad at saving things in their attempts to reclaim balance. I don’t know about you, but that sounds frighteningly familiar.

Read Pharr’s piece if and when you watch Andor. If you don’t watch the show, read the piece anyway.

Pie in the sky? Perhaps. But I’ll take a serving and ask for seconds.

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.

Arrogance Is Not A Good Look

Especially when you’re falling to Earth

Arrogance is never a good look. We all wear it to a degree. Too many think they wear it well. Until they don’t. When whatever flavor of arrogance they’ve draped themselves in trips them up, the fall makes Icarus look he’s still soaring.

The lessons of history, literature, religion, heck — even cartoons — tell us that all inflated egos, like balloons, either pop or fizzle. As long as the balloon can be kept aloft, life’s a party. Funny how we’re able to brush that all aside. Arrogantly so.

Seeing Apple get a real courtroom comeuppance yesterday, tech titans in general thinking they can out reason human reasoning, and the continual display of cock and bull topsy-turvying in the political world, one would think that most sensible people, especially those with armies of lawyers on retainer, would begin to sense a few chinks in their armor long before they become dangerous vulnerabilities. They’d probably be served better employing fools or court jesters.

Oh, wait…. Trump cabinet meeting.

Given how we’ve turned gambling into the national sport, it makes one wonder how long before we gamify the entire human experience and begin betting on the timing of career stumbles and failures beyond what already happens in the stock market. Predictable as they are though, the odds wouldn’t offer much change of a big payout.

Then again, keep in mind what Terry Pratchett says:

Modesty is only arrogance by stealth.

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.

Hostile and Political Amazon

The dangerous farce continues (and sometimes it’s quite funny.)

I guess someone at Amazon read my post from a few weeks ago about how it is possible to bring a bully to heal. I doubt it. But it is fun to watch Jeff Bezos make the Trump administration sweat a bit under similar circumstances. At least for the moment.

In response to the Trump tariffs, which are already driving up prices and driving down consumer confidence, Amazon has announced that they will be displaying the amount of price increases that are due to tariffs on its product pages.

Of course this generated an immediate response from the White House with the press secretary, standing at the podium beside the Treasury secretary, labeling Amazon’s move as a “hostile and political act.”

Oh my.

Three things to quickly comment on:

First, when you need to trot out Treasury Secretary Bessent to try and clam waters you’re losing. As I’ve said before, he reminds me of the LaLa guy. Remember him?

Whatever Bessent says seems to make as much sense.

Second, we just reached the 100 day mark of this dangerous farce of an administration and the meaningless polls are telling us folks are unhappy. You don’t need polls to know that, see that, or feel that. The unease in the air is thicker than this Spring’s pollen count.

You can only create a fake reality in the movies. And even then, those fake realities fall apart in the end.

Third, most early bets are Bezos will fold and pull back on this. But one can only bend a knee so far before it breaks. Or they don’t let you launch any new satellites.

And the bending begins.

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.