Sunday Morning Reading

Everything you can imagine is different, yet it’s the same.

It’s a Sunday. It’s a Sunday in Chicago. The Cubs lost. (Not surprising.) The Trump regime continues its horrendous snatch and grab policies all over the city (Increasingly not surprising but still terrifying.) Leaves are falling, but somehow they feel dirtier and without the bursts of color we’re used to seeing beforehand. And the world marches on. Time for a little Sunday Morning Reading.

Neil Steinberg wrote a terrific piece about Chicago amidst all that’s going on called What A Lovely Day in Chicago. It’s a love letter. It’s an homage. It’s a snapshot. As he puts it “We need to remember that this is oppression for oppression’s sake, a practice built on lies. The city is fine.” That’s the odd thing. The city is fine. It’s the oppression that’s not.

Timothy Burke’s The News: Reign of Error expands on a piece by Henry Farrell that says that institutions and communities need to coordinate their resistance to Trump. As Burke puts it one of the obstacles is that “the closer that institutions get to one another in character and mission, and the less necessary it is to be competitive, the more that they are overwhelmed by the narcissism of small differences.” It’s an excellent dissection that reveals why some in higher places of different sectors might be holding their tongues while their mouths are agape at what’s going on around us.

Empywheel thinks The Nativists Are Getting Restless: How The Comey Prosecution May Backfire. I’m not sure it matters in the end if the point is do damage as loudly as possible.

David Todd McCarty asks the question Is Your Imagination Robbing You of Real Experiences? Cogito, ergo sum?

I wrote a play years ago about John Brown and Harpers Ferry, one of those moments in American history that we seem to want to forget, yet never goes away. Robert S. Levine tells us Why Donald Trump Wants To Erase John Brown’s Fiery Abolitionist Legacy (and Why He Will Fail.)

There was so much craziness about the Nobel Peace Prize this year given, well you know why. So much so that many of the other awards were overlooked. The Nobel Prize for Literature went to Hungarian author Lázló Krasznahorkai. I have several acquaintances who adore his work and were tremendously excited. I did some reading on Krasznahorkai and stumbled up on this 2011 piece by James Wood called Madness and Civilization about the author. Worth your while.

On the Artificial Intelligence beat, Sora is the latest thing everyone has an immediate love/hate relationship with. But this isn’t about that. Sarah Perez says It’s Not Too Late For Apple To Get AI Right. Frankly, I think it’s too late for any of these companies to get it right, unless “right” is about winning the con game.

Resting my case on that last statement, Alexandra Jones looks into the connections folks can’t make in real life and are turning to AI for in ‘I Realized I’d Been ChatGPT-ed Into Bed’: How ‘Chatfishing Made Finding Love On Dating Apps Even Weirder.”

And as Autumn continues its march, New Englanders Are Fed Up With Leaf-Peeping Tourists Ruining Their Fall, so says Jared Mitovitch.

(Image is a photo I took last Fall)

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.

Sunday Morning Reading

Winter is coming. Or is it here?

It’s a Sunday and that means it’s time for Sunday Morning Reading. Fall is beginning its march towards Winter, but the chill in the unusually warm Chicago temperatures this weekend aren’t weather related. Some of that is reflected in today’s selections as well as other topics, some that feed the soul, while others fuel the fires.

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It’s tough to watch what’s going on in the streets of some of our cities and towns, and there’s no denying what Ian F. Blair points out That The United Police State of America Has Arrived.

Another Ian, this time Ian Dunt, discusses The Politics of Drawing a Moral Line, sketching a parallel between events in Britain and the Ezra Klein interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates. By the way, I encourage you to listen to that interview. It’s not easy, but nothing is these days.

Chicago’s Neil Steinberg comments that Next, Dyeing the River Green Will Be Cast As A Terrorist Act. I don’t think he’s far off.

On the Artificial Intelligence front, what was bound to happen happened when OpenAI released Sora, its tool for creating short movies, or better yet (worse yet?) putting yourself into one. That followed quickly on the heels of the uproar over the creation of Tilly Norwood, an AI actress created out of bits and bytes, and her creator seeking talent agent representation. Hollywood producers and bean counters are thirsting over better bottom lines ahead. Maureen Dowd has an interesting look at When A.I. Came For Hollywood.

Meanwhile one of the tech overlords, Peter Thiel, is obsessed with the antichrist and thinks tech is the only way to keep whatever that is from destroying us all. Laura Bullard takes a look at what’s behind Thiel’s obsession. Don’t be surprised at where Thiel drew some of his inspiration in The Real States, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession.

Continuing on the Artificial Intelligence beat, Bullsh*t Warning from John Warner, examines how to think about writing in the age of AI.

Mathew Ingram asks So What’s So Great About Reading Books?

And to wrap things up this week, take a look at Christopher Michael Hefner’s On Letting Go Of The Idea Of The Tortured Artist.

I included the image above from Fotgraf Petrova Olga on Shutterstock of an empty playground because I noticed this week that Chicago’s parks and playgrounds are empty of the laughter and life we usually experience due to ICE activity throughout the city before Winter begins to set in. There’s a different chill in the air this Fall.

Sunday Morning Reading

Traveling through the crazy paying attention along the way

It’s been a fortnight since I’ve published one of these columns due to travel. So much has happened. The travel adventures to London and Memphis were great. The way the world continues to pull itself apart continues to not be, as witnessed by protests and a madman’s threats of troops in the streets followed me from Chicago to London to Memphis. You can shut off and shut down to enjoy new places and visit dear friends, but the insanity keeps getting more insane. So, Sunday Morning Reading is back at it this week, with a mix of politics, culture and a bit of tech. (Oh, yeah, Apple released new iPhones during all of that.) If you can’t feel the currents flowing together, you’re not paying attention.

On my travels my wife and I caught some theatre. Two plays by Shakespeare and the contemporary play Stereophonic. The two Shakespeares were one of his worst, Merry Wives of Windsor, and one of the best, Hamlet. We’re theatre rats and know the importance of the medium and certainly recognize the role writers in all mediums play in our lives, history, and culture. So too does a favorite writer of mine, David Todd McCarty. Check out his important piece The Reason You Need To Be Making Art Right Now. And if I may be so bold, the other Sunday Morning Reading links below demonstrate that to a tee.

NatashaMH reflects on free speech, punk rebellion and British satire in When Satire Was Safe. Great piece. I dare say, satire has never been safe even when tolerated. Plenty of fools can attest to that. Ask Yorick.

I mentioned there’d be politics and here’s a few links to some excellent context on just how damn familiar all of what we’re living through is. For those who bother to pay attention. First up is Mark Hertling’s Beware Today’s ‘Fire-Eaters’. If you don’t know that term, read the piece. You’ll recognize today’s fire-eaters in a second.

On a broader scale, take a look at Nikki McCann Ramirez’s interview with Mike Duncan in Are We Witnessing The Fall Of The American Empire? My short answer is yes. Here’s the money quote that should terrify us all:

So if we go this route, we’re going to have congresses, we’re going to have Supreme Courts, we’re going to have a President of the United States, there will be governors, there will be elections, it’s just what’s happening underneath that facade. The facade is never going to go away, it’s how tissue-thin the facade is.

Follow that up with George Packer’s America’s Zombie Democracy.

For a bit of recent history and context, check out The Story of DOGE, As Told By Federal Workers from a team of Wired writers led by Zoe Schiffer.

As I mentioned Apple released new iPhones last week. Om Malik seems quite taken with the new iPhone Air, although he has some concerns in Go Out & Get Some Air.

In this column and other posts I’ve been following Denny Henke’s journey to de-Apple himself in his tech life with a keen interest. I greatly admire his drive and his sharing of his efforts. Check out My Ongoing Effort To de-Apple the iPad.

And to bring this all back around, take a look at Neely’s Tucker’s sharing of a guest post by Patrick Hastings, Nobody Would Edit Shakespeare, Right? Right? They have and they do. David Garrick wasn’t the first or the last. Throughout history we always look for the ways to make it easier to swallow tragic moments and unhappy endings. In the theatre and on the stages of our lives.

(The image above is of David Garrick’s monument in Westminster Abbey, taken by me on my recent travels.

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.

Sunday Morning Reading

Ok, so I lied last week when I said Sunday Morning Reading would be back this week. We’re still on hiatus because of travels and this weekend more fun ensued than we planned for. This time we’re in Memphis to hang out with The Lehman Trilogy gang and see two of them in a prodution of Hamlet.

To be honest, I could have cranked out a post, but we’re just having too much of a good time hanging together and celebrating being in each other’s company for me to set aside the time and brain space to do so.

Sunday Morning Reading will be back next week. No lie this time.

Sunday Morning Reading

Sunday Morning Reading is on hiatus this week as we continue our travels, this time abroad.

Sunday Morning Reading will return next week. Possibly. Maybe. With luck.

Sunday Morning Reading

Things AI can’t summarize: Nostalgia and what’s worth not forgetting.

A brief breather at home before travels resume, so there’s a full plate for this week’s Sunday Morning Reading including some nostalgia that shouldn’t be, some very interesting reading on AI, a defiant Chicago, and even a bit on gambling and baseball. Enjoy.

Chicago is under threat from a madman and you can feel the tension in the crisp fall air. Dan Sinker has written an excellent Benediction for Chicago On the Eve of Occupation. You don’t hear thoughts and prayers in the check out lines at the grocery store, just a growing sense of defiant preparation.

The pendulum seems to be swinging wildly in the opinion wars about Artificial Intelligence now that some are actually able to sift through the hype bubbles and see what’s what. EmptyWheel has an excellent 4-part series that is more than worth your time. It begins with A Normal Person’s Explainer On What Generative AI Is And Does and continues with The Other Half Of The AI Relationship, Proteins, Factories, And Wicked Solutions, and concludes with LLMs Are Lead.

Follow that excellent series with The Tech Industry Has a Dirty Secret: The More People Learn About AI, The Less They Trust it by Victor Tangermann. For what it’s worth, I’m also seeing AI naysayers riding the pendulum back the other way as they find ways to make some of the tools of this tool work for them. No AI could ever sort this out with a summary.

The Power We Use and The Power We Give is a brilliant piece by Philip Bump. As he transitions from his former job with The Washington Post he’s talking about where choosing to land next and why making the right choice about where to exercise what power the words you use live. This is a complicated moment in history on so many levels, well illustrated in this one man’s piece.

Also, here’s an excellent piece from Bump on the goings on in Chicago called Trump Wants To Make War On Chicago. He Picked The Wrong Fight.

Speaking of complexity, David Todd McCarty wonders why so many men find themselves alone later in life in Boys Don’t Cry, Men Don’t Bond.

Chris Armitage says It’s Time For Americans To Start Talking About “Soft Secession.” I take the point about the term and the concept. I’m not criticizing either or Armitage’s piece when I say this, but hell, when the president of the country mockingly riles up everyone with a threat to declare war on a city, I’m not sure there’s anything “soft” about anything anymore.

NatashaMH tackles political amnesia is what I think is a timely piece worth revisiting more than once. Our capacity to forget or set aside so much, so often, is astounding. Check out Inside The Fortress, Outside The Fire. Here’s the money quote:

As often as I can, I remind them how history is a reminder of the lives we lost and of how stupid we really are. “Senseless to the core. And once we’re done with the bloodshed, we write poetry.”

To clear the palette a bit, check out Tim Newcomb’s piece about how A Remarkable Discovery of A Document Shatters One of Shakespeare’s Biggest Mysteries.

Fact checking may be a dying art, given that most of the world has decided we can each have our own facts. Zach Helfand as a wonderful long piece on The History Of The New Yorker’s Vaunted Fact-Check Department. Too damn bad we have to file this under nostalgia.

Speaking of nostalgia, check out Bettor Up by J.R. Moehringer about gambling and baseball. Yes, it’s about gambling and baseball, but it’s the closest thing I’ve seen to the good sports writing (especially about baseball) that I grew up with.

(Image from Roman Kraft on Unsplash.)

Sunday Morning Reading

Sunday Morning Reading is on hiatus this week as we’re traveling to visit the grandkids. Sunday Morning Reading will return next week.

(Image from Mr. Abstract on Shutterstock.)

Sunday Morning Reading

The ant hill of humanity

Crazy travel rhythms this summer. Spending time at the lake this weekend. The good thing about lake time is there’s time to do some reading. Here’s some good stuff I stumbled onto, worth sharing for this week’s edition of Sunday Morning Reading. Quite a bit revolving around Artificial Intelligence and other mind games. There’s also ants.

For some inexplicable reason defining what it means to be an American has actually become a chore these days. It shouldn’t be. Kieran Healy has written a piece simply titled American that recounts his thoughts and feelings on becoming an American citizen. Well worth your time, espeically in these crazy times.

“Memory isn’t linear; it’s relational.” That’s the thought NatashaMH leaves us with in her piece The Mind’s Mischief. The mind is indeed a curious thing.

Matteo Wong says the AI Doomers Are Getting Doomier. I don’t know about you, but if we’re all doomed at the hands of AI (does AI have hands?) human intelligence never really advanced as far as I thought it did. Or maybe we just hit the ceiling.

Speaking of AI doom, Charlie Warzel wonders why one of the impacts of AI it to make us feel like we’re losing it in AI Is A Mass-Delusion Event. I get the points and they’re well made. Referring back to my comment from the previous entry, if we’re such easy marks for this kind of delusion… well…we are such easy marks.

David Todd McCarty argues why we should resist AI with ecclesiastical fervor, especially those who create for a living. Check out The Moral Failure Of Using AI In Your Art.

Reece Rogers is marking yet another change brought about by AI. Take a look at The AI-Powered PDF Marks The End of An Era.

Barry Betchesky tells us that It Took Many Years And Billions of Dollars, But Microsoft Finally Invented A Calculator That Is Wrong Sometimes. You read that right. The money quote is:

“But now we have Microsoft apparently determining that ‘unpredictability’ was something that some number of its customers wanted in their calculators.”

Rounding out this collection of links on AI, is another article by NatashaMH where she says instead of Fearing the Machinery, Interrogate The Mindset. Excellent piece. The underlying current is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. We’re creating these machines in our own images. Or at least the images we imagine of ourselves. Humans are far too human, even when we look past or try to accelerate beyond our humanity.

One of the joys of spending time in the great outdoors is that it reminds you we’re not the only intelligent species on the planet. Although as the theme of this week’s reading has emerged, we might want to reevaluate that, just not with Microsoft’s math tools. On another front, in politics it’s certainly easy to argue for a reevaluation. Kate Knibbs takes a swipe at it in a look at how Government Staff Cuts Have Fueled An Ant-Smuggling Boom.

I told you there’d be ants.

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.

Sunday Morning Reading

The lazy days of Summer

We’re technically out of the Dog Days of Summer, but it doesn’t feel much like it. It’s the kind of hot Summer I remember as a kid when the dogs would spend the hot part of the day lazing under the porch. I’m spending mine traveling (too much traveling) and sharing what I can here and there. Find some shade and check out this week’s Sunday Morning Reading.

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Peter Wehner thinks the only way out of the wreckage we’re in is to rewrite the cultural script. Tall task. He spells it out in The Virtue of Integrity.

Knowing is half the battle. What you do with knowledge is an altogether different story as knowing and knowledge are two different things. Check out Jim Stewartson’s piece The War on Knowing.

Somehow in all of the wreckage we’re sorting through, empathy became a bad thing for those doing the wrecking. NatashaMH thinks this crazy Artificial Intelligence race we’re in is taking the human out of being human. If you ask me it’s all a bit too human as we look to foist off responsibility for the choices we make. The Risks of Synthetic Empathy is a great piece. Give it a read.

Then take a look at Mathew Ingram’s piece, People Fall In Love With All Kinds of Things Including AI Chatbots. When chatbots start filing for divorce I think we might have created Artificial Generative Intelligence.

Kyle Chayka is exploring The Revenge of Millennial Cringe. Home may be where the heart is, but it was a terrible song.

Stephen Marche is talking about Profound and Abiding Rage: Canada’s Answer to America’s Abandonment. Abandonment is a good way to describe what we’re all feeling these days.

Apple’s about to unleash new operating systems for its devices in a few weeks and the one that has my interest is for iPads. From what I’ve seen (I don’t run the betas) the changes to the multi-tasking capabilities will be a positive step forward. Craig Grannell takes a look at how long it took for Apple to finally make these changes in Apple Finally Destroyed Steve Jobs’ Vision of the iPad. Good.

Chicago’s Uptown Theatre celebrated 100 years this week. Robert Loerzel takes a look in Uptown Theatre: 100 Years of Glory and Decay.

When you think you’re the center of the universe it can rock your world when you find out you’re not. Kids learn this. Republicans in the current administration have not. Eric Berger writes about NASA’s Acting Chief Calls For the End of Earth Science at the Space Agency.

(Image from Machekhin Evgenii on Shutterstock.)

Sunday Morning Reading

Back home from travels. Still sharing stuff that warrants attention.

Back home after a couple of weeks on the road. Good times. Crazy times. Nevertheless, it’s Sunday and there’s Sunday Morning Reading to share.

“Life isn’t just about knowing what you should do, or having the resources to do it, it’s about following through.” So says, John Burn-Murdoch in his piece The Troubling Decline In Conscientiousness. I agree there’s a decline. I’m not so sure the remedy is as simple as it sounds.

The AI race is continuing whether we want it to or not. Apparently there’s now a way to create your own TV show if you want to keep diving deeper into your own delusions. Nina Metz has a great piece on this intrusion into the entertainment industry saying After A Long Day, The Last Thing I Want Is To Tell GenAI To Create a TV Show For Me To Watch.

In Notes From The Circus, Mike Brock takes a look at The Faux Intellectuals of Silicon Valley. “When oligarchs treat human civilization as thought experiments while sophisticated courtiers provide intellectual cover, democratic discourse itself becomes impossible.” Nailed it.

I don’t know about you, but my handwriting went downhill mere minutes after I was no longer graded on it. So it has always sucked. So, I’m not sure if NatashaMH’s latest applies in my case, but she is taking a look at what happens When The Handwriting Changes, suggesting that the body keeps score and so does the pen. Damn, if I’d know there was score keeping…

Mathew Ingram takes a look at age gating, the move afoot to protect kids from the perils of the Internet in The UK’s Well-Meaning Online Safety Law Is A Dumpster Fire. American dumpsters won’t be far behind, because we like to hide from the things we think are bad, pretending we’ve solved the problem, instead of addressing the problem.

Matthew Wolfe tells a great story about Chicago and America’s first black detective, who had a few secrets of his own in The Talented Mr. Bruseaux.

The turmoil among Apple users continues to roil for lots of reasons. Certainly this week’s obsequious bending of the knee by Tim Cook has added more to it. I wrote a bit about that here. I like John Gruber’s take on the issue in Gold, Frankincense, and Silicon.

(Image from OlegRi on Shutterstock)