Sunday Morning Reading

Roads traveled too well

Some things defy understanding. Others appear less murky. Occasionally some hit the target. That’s why I read. That’s why I share. I’m still traveling and on the road for a bit, but there’s plenty to share in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading. Tomatoes and potatoes may be involved.

Phillip Bump recently accepted a buyout from The Washington Post and hasn’t announced new plans yet. But he’s still writing. Glad he is. He has always been one of my favorite writers and chroniclers. Check out his latest piece Humans Didn’t Evolve To Understand Our World.

When you reach a certain age (certain is alwasy self-defined) you start looking back to the beginning and wonder what will mark the ending. Cris Andrei calls them Bookends. This piece hit the target given that I’m visiting some old haunts on this trip. Oh, and approaching a certain age (self-defined.)

Tuning out news, noise and distractions is never easy. NatashMH takes a look through the marking of Ozzy Osbourne’s passing and other recent cultural touchpoints in Fractals of Modern Life. If you don’t look too hard, all the news, noise and distractions don’t really touch or point towards much in the grand scheme of things. But are we entertained or just dulled into carrying on?

Sometimes writers write just for the fun of it. David Todd McCarty says that’s where this piece, Killing Time Waiting for Friend, came from. I need to find more of the fun of it. Anyway his piece, gave me a chuckle. I did not read it at Denny’s, although I visited one of my favorite locations of the past during my travels.

I’ve linked to and written about Cory Doctorow’s theory of enshittification quite a bit. I’m doing so again with this piece You Can’t Fight Enshittification. I don’t think it’s a question of not fighting, I think it’s a question of not knowing there was a fight to begin with.

Staying in the tech vein, I’ve been linking to Mathew Ingram and others who are talking about the demise of Google Search. Take a look at Pete Pachal’s piece, What Content Strategy Looks Like In The Age of AI. Look beyond the headline on this one.

Speaking of Mathew Ingram, you should read Social Media Didn’t Start The Fire, It Just Fanned The Flames. I agree. That said, if you drink acclerants through a firehose you’re bound to bust.

On the political beat, Jon Pavlovitz offers up Everyone Believes They’re Esssentially A Good Human Being. Actors who play villains will always say that they look for what’s good in their evil character. It’s a form of coping. I happen to think this bunch of performance artists trying to burn down the country never bothered looking beyond the glee they take from their villainy. Apologies to real performance artists.

And to close things out on a competely different note, check out Will Dunham’s piece on the Evolutionary Origins of the Potato Revealed — and a Tomato Was Involved. Some things do defy understanding.

(Image from Mr. Abstract on Shutterstock.)

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

A bit of this, a bit of that. All good bits.

It’s the Dog Days of Summer and it’s been a hot one so far. We’re traveling again, but there’s still some interesting Sunday Morning Reading to share. Some of it hopeful, some elegiac. Some just geeky and fun. Enjoy.

Kicking things off is a piece in The Atlantic from Anna Deavere Smith called When You Don’t Look Like Anything. She’s a singular artist always worth paying attention to. Her story of her 50-year search for the American character is certainly more than worth your time. Damn good stuff.

A.R. Moxon popped up on my radar this week with a piece called Total Eclipses. It’s part 2 of a series, the first being Be Bolder, Not a Boulder. If you’re like me and looking for any light at the end of any tunnel these days, do give both pieces a read.

NatashaMH offers up An Ode To The Poetic Detours. It’s about writing and where she finds inspiration, but more broadly, it’s about observing, noticing, listening, seeing, and feeling between the lines we sometimes get trapped within.

Will Dunn asks Are Emoji’s Killing Language? I’ve been saying they are for quite some time. For the life of me I don’t understand why we seem intent on regressing back to an age of hieroglyphics instead using the complex beauty of words and language.

Mathew Ingram says The Google Link Economy Is Dying and It’s Not Coming Back. He’s not wrong. Actually, he’s very right.

Health is a big deal in tech these days, especially when it comes to adding features to improve monitoring what’s going on in our bodies. Frankly, as someone who uses medical devices for monitoring my diabetes, the promises to add that kind of monitoring to smart devices, along with blood pressure and other conditions, sound hollow, seeming as realistic to me as self-driving cars. We may get there one day, but for now it’s mostly a clever way to market something new to increase the bottom line. Victoria Song takes a look at Samsung’s recent effort to check out our level of antioxidants with their smartwatch in I ‘Fooled’ Samsung’s New Antioxidant Feature With a Cheez-It.

Much has been made of Paramount’s caving to Donald Trump, leading to the firing of late not comedian Stephen Colbert. That was quickly followed up by the Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s skewering new season opener of South Park. Paramount paid up, got its merger, and in an Aristotelian, if not Mel Brooksian sense there’s some grand comedy in the entire thing. I’m a fan of Alexandra Petri’s piece examining the moment pre-South Park titled Are You Laughing Yet?

Sometimes we just need to laugh at what feels like no laughing matter.

(Image from Milen Kolev on Unsplash)

Sunday Morning Reading

With aging comes awareness. Or at least it should.

We’re on Lake Time this weekend, but there’s still time to share some Sunday Morning Reading.

Two weeks ago I shared a piece from youngster David Todd McCarty titled When I Was Old. I’m resharing it this week since I celebrated a birthday on Friday, getting one year closer to marking seven decades on this rock. Also sharing another great piece from David, called I Was Told There’d Be More.

“Scented memories.” I like those two words put together by NatashaMH in her piece, The Fragile Geometry of Becoming.

I’ve been an Elmore Leonard fan for as long as I can remember. Anthony Lane’s Elmore Leonard’s Perfect Pitch may not be perfect, but it is damned close enough.

David Struett delivers a terrific ode to Chicago bike messengers, their culture and their jobs in Meet Chicago’s Last Bike Messengers. Here’s How They Survive.

You might notice a touch of sentimentality and reminiscing in the pieces above. Comes with the thoughts during a birthday weekend. Fair warning though that most of the links shared below are a bit darker, and yes, more political than those above. With aging comes awareness. Or at least it should.

Mathew Ingram wonders What Do We Do When The Facts Don’t Matter? I think we’re not liking what we’re finding out.

Mike Masnick’s piece Facism for First Time Founders offers the next generation a clue or two, assuming the current generation doesn’t crash it all before they get a chance to discover them.

I’ve written about the concept of enshittification in tech quite a bit. Mostly as regards the Internet. Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman take a look at The Enshittifcation of American Power.

Another big contributor to enshittification is the media who increasingly seem more and more clueless and devoid of any self awareness. Charlotte Kim takes a look Inside The Media’s Traffic Apocalypse.

Speaking of things toxic and shitty, Adam Aleksic explores How Incel Language Infected The Mainstream Internet — and Brought It’s Toxicity With It. I’ve spent almost 70 years on this planet. I have no idea why guys turned into such misanthropic, self-loathing idiots.

In a world seemingly more and more intent on criminality, there are very few surprises, but there are legacies. Jessica Winter’s What I Inherited From My Criminal Great-Grandparents. Great story.

To conclude this week I’m sharing a film review by Sonny Bunch. This one of the new film Eddington. I haven’t seen the film. I plan to. Rarely does a review encourage or discourage me from seeing a film. If it’s anything like Bunch describes one way or the other I’m sure it will be worth it as it sounds like a fun, yet conflicted, summary of lots of things we’ve all been living through since 2020, and continue to do so. I’ll leave it with this quote:

The feed never stops, the algorithm never tires. There’s always more. It never ends. Just a few more videos. You can sleep later. You can never sleep, if that’s what you’d prefer. Who knows what you’ll miss when you’re asleep?

And we wonder why everyone has gone a little nuts.

Sunday Morning Reading

Notice the good things amidst the bad.

It’s been a week. But I repeat myself. These days it seems like that’s always the case. Superman’s back. (Again.) So too are this season’s butterflies. Everything circles back. Today’s Sunday Morning Reading is a potpourri of topics of interest that stroke a number of chords, some familiar, some not so, some good, some not so. Either way, enjoy.

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In That Was Good, Merlin Mann says that smart people always find the best reasons for being very sad. I can relate. He suggests the cure for that might be noticing some good things. Even the small ones. Check it out. It’s a good thing.

This week featured the news revisiting the subject matter of several plays I’ve written or directed in the past. One of those, Inherit the Wind, the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, is a semi-fictional retelling of the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee. This year marks the 100th year anniversary of that trial. Neil Steinberg has a terrific piece, both commemorating and commiserating. Given how short a distance we’ve traveled in this circle we keep walking in. Check out 100 Years Ago, The Scopes Trial Gripped The Nation, And Here We Go Again.

Twice a week on social media I post “This is your now weekly, and continuing reminder that we’re still fighting the Civil War.” Frankly, I don’t see it any other way for reasons I shouldn’t have to explain. I don’t often post interviews in this column, but I’m making an exception this week to post Amita Sharma’s interview with political scientist Barbara Walter who has helped forecast civil wars in other countries. Take a look at San Diego Political Expert Details Steps That Could Lead To US Civil War.

I blow hot and cold on Tom Nichols’ political commentary. I very much like his piece Damn You All To Hell! Find out his thoughts on how Hollywood taught a generation to fear nuclear catastrophe. It might have worked with that horror. Funny, yet sad, how it hasn’t worked with all of the goings on currently.

History is indeed always an incomplete picture that’s always evolving and struggling to take hold. In Texas Man’s Fight To Move A Lynching Marker Sparks New Battle For Truth, Christina Carrega pinpoints one of those moments of evolution.

Mathew Ingram says We Shouldn’t Blame AI For The Stupid Things That People Do. I agree. AI is the prime example.

Chris Castle takes on a piece of the Section 230 argument, thinking that a new theory of liability is emerging, grounded not in speech, but in conduct. Give a look at The Duty Comes From The Data: Rethinking Platform Liability In The Age of Algorithmic Harm.

And to round out the circle this week, take a look at David Sparks’ A Remarkable, Unremarkable Thing. Don’t let the small things go unnoticed.

(Image from Anya Chernik on Unsplash)

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.

Sunday Morning Reading

Mixed feelings and mixed emotions on a Summer Sunday by the lake.

The 4th of July weekend is wrapping up in the U.S. and many are having mixed feelings this year. Today’s edition of Sunday Morning Reading will feature some excellent writing on some of those mixed feelings in addition to some interesting reads on familiar topics from familiar writers, and some not so familiar. Enjoy.

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First up, let’s take a look at Elizabeth Lopatto’s view on the state of things in the states in her post The American System of Democracy Has Crashed. Excellent. Should be required reading.

Neil Steinberg also has thoughts well worth your time in He’s baaaaaaack.

Jack Hopkins gives us The 4th of July: What We Were Meant to Celebrate — and How We’re Failing It. Again, worth a read as we close out the long holiday weekend and this section of today’s Sunday Morning Reading.

Now for some catching up on some links I’ve delayed too long in sharing.

First up is The Chosen Few and the Cost of Global Silence from NatashaMH. History repeats. All the damn time. As she also demonstrates in this piece The Cruelty of Indifference.

Relative youngster, David Todd McCarty writes about aging in When I Am Old.

Writers are having trouble finding the right fit when it comes to how to make a living. Matthew Ingram tells us Why Substack Shouldn’t Be The Future of Online Publishing. We

Chuck Wendig argues about and bemoans the loss of downtime in his writing process given all that’s happening around us in A Small But Vital Thing, Taken.

While writers search for new ways and new homes, Joshua Rothman wonders What’s Happening To Reading?

Never Forgive Them is a piece from Edward Zitron from December 2024 that seems relevant again in more ways than it was intended then.

Composer and poet Stan Stewart recently had his computer die on him. He writes about what he lost and found in Of Dead Computers and Really Living.

Matteo Wong says The Entire Internet Is Reverting to Beta. Sure everything is a janky work in progress, certainly in the janky days of AI. But I think that’s how those who think they run the joint like running the joint.

And to close out this week, take a good look at this wonderful long read from Eric Konigsberg from all the way back in 2001, entitled My Uncle The Hit Man.

Image from Giuseppe Argenziano on Unsplash.

Sunday Morning Reading

Sunday Morning Reading is on hiatus this week as the grandkids are visiting and most of the reading is bedtime stories. There’s also been plenty of bubbles and popsicles as well.

Sunday Morning Reading will be back next week.

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.

Sunday Morning Reading

Tough times. Tough thoughts.

The world changed last night in ways we can’t comprehend this morning after the Trump Regime did indeed launch anticipated bombing attacks on Iran. Or maybe it’s too easy to comprehend, yet ignore, the why of it all too well. So it’s tough to put this week’s Sunday Morning Reading column together. I had a number of links to share on my usual topics of interest that I’ll save for another day. Instead I’ll just link to three posts that speak to the moment.

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First up is The Chosen Few and the Global Silence from NatashMH. “Yet history repeats with cruel precision,” she says. And she’s right. One day perhaps we’ll stop destroying ourselves with our decidedly unoriginal thoughts and ways.

Graham Peebles asks Is This What Collapse Looks L ike? That we have to ask the question…

Writing about last week’s horrendous assassination of Melissa Hortman and the attempted assassination of John Hoffman, Sheririlyn Ifill says “people of character stand up” in her piece When Small Men and Women Rule. On so many fronts, it’s time for some standing up.

(image from Gwyn Hay on Unsplash.)

Sunday Morning Reading

Intelligence or compassion? They both caught my eye this week.

It’s interesting how topics surface throughout a week. I’m not sure if it’s follow-the-leader or hive mind thinking, but from the sources I follow this week it seemed like everyone was thinking and writing, in one way or another, about Artificial Intelligence. Or maybe just about intelligence.

Certainly there was plenty on other topics because there were certainly plenty of other big things happening. Some intelligent, some not so. Some showing the capacity for compassion right along side our capacity for cruelty. I’m sure there will be plenty written in the days ahead about all of those things. These are the posts that stuck with me for this week’s Sunday Morning Reading.

Kicking things off is a short post by Gene Weingarten called A Cat Named Grandpa. It’s about compassion.

Mathew Ingram wonders Is AI Smarter Than We Are or Stupider Than We Are? Read the piece. If you’ve read any of the things I’ve written on AI you’ll know I agree with Mathew’s conclusions.

David Todd McCarty thinks the lack of originality in human consciousness is both appalling and comforting in I Gotta Be Me.

Natasha MH was Seeking God In A Machine.

For those who need to think about end of life issues, this might be a timely, yet frightening from Ashley Belanger. Check out How To Draft A Will To Avoid Becoming an AI Ghost. Apparently, it’s not easy.

Matteo Wong writes about The Newspaper That Hired ChatGPT. It’s mostly an interview, but one worth reading.

Folks can become addicted to and troubled by just about anything, and AI is no different. We’re starting to hear more and more about this, which is somewhat surprising on a number of fronts given how short a time generative AI has been with us. Kashmir Hill writes about a young man whose reality became so distorted it almost killed him in They Asked ChatGPT Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling.

While not about AI in specific, this tech story speaks volumes about the decisions tech bosses make that influence the technology we use to work and play with. Check out Phil McKinney’s I Convinced HP’s Board To Buy Palm for $1.2B. Then I Watched Them Kill It In 49 Days.

And Happy Father’s Day to all. Miss you Dad.

(Image from Rey Seven on Unsplash.)

Sunday Morning Reading

There’s a creeping inevitability to much of what’s happening around us.

Some Sunday’s when I sit down to collect what I find interesting enough to share it seems like things around us are just bad. Or going from bad to worse. It feels inevitable. This is one of those Sundays. Nevertheless, there’s some good writing and good thinking in the articles linked below that I believe are worthy of your attention. But paying attention is not one of our strong suits. Cue up a little Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, pay attention, and read away.

‘Tin Soldiers and Nixon’s Coming’ is an excellent look back as we stare at this moment we’re in from Robert Cohen and Michael Konciewicz on the 2020 50th anniversary of Kent State and Jackson State.

You’re Not Ready, is an excellent, yet somewhat frightening compilation of articles by various authors at Wired, comprising info on AI hacker attacks, grid attacks, or a GPS blackout. I say “somewhat” simply because many of us have had inklings about this. Or at least those who pay attention.

Josh Marshal of Talking Points Memo has an excellent piece on Artificial Intelligence and The Posture of Skepticism.

Mathew Ingram’s fascinating piece, How Marc Andreessen and I (and you) Created The Web is informative and entertaining history and context that’s worth your time about the time we’re in.

Paul M. Sutter tells us that A New Theory Says Time Has Three Dimensions. It ‘Really Messes Up’ What We Know About the Cosmos, Scientists Say. We seem to be doing a good job of that at the moment given our current understanding of time, so why not go ahead and mess things up.

Timothy Snyder wonders what happens with The Next Terrorist Attack. It’s far deeper than the headline suggests.

Michael Podhorzer writes about something I’ve been thinking and saying for a while: The Courts Will Not Save Us. It’s a long read but more than worth your time. Read this instead of watching TV lawyers.

Most of the articles I’ve already linked to this Sunday morning in one way or another deal with trust. That trust gap is widening these days. It doesn’t help when we do find out things that break trust, but the finding out at least helps us understand the gap better. Take a look at Aruna Viswanatha’s piece The Pentagon Disinformation That Fueled America’s UFO Mythology.

Tomorrow, June 9th, Apple kicks off its annual World Wide Developer Conference. There are trust issues there as well. These next few links contain some interesting thoughts heading into WWDC, beginning with Sebastiann De With’s Physicality: the new age of UI, which anticipates the coming design changes rumored for all of Apple’s operating systems. A fresh coat of paint may not hurt. I’m not sure it’ll help.

As I said, Apple faces a number of problems, some legal and regulatory. Jérôme Marin explains how A Simple Comma is going to cost Apple Billions in Europe. Commas can indeed cause all sorts of chaos. Just ask US constitutional scholars about a comma and the 2nd Amendment.

And to close things out, one of my favorite developers _DavidSmith talks about his optimism heading into WWDC in Let’s Get Started. I admire the optimism and the reality check approach _DavidSmith brings to this.

Sunday Morning Reading

When caring becomes a commodity, should we care more or less?

Lots to care about. On all the usual fronts. But in the grand scope of the universe does much of it really matter? Some interesting links to share in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading.

Dan Sinker, taking a look at The Chicago Sun-Times AI flaps calls it The Who Cares Era. His theory is that along the way, nobody cared. I’d venture they cared about the wrong things.

Apple’s annual developer conference WWWDC is a week away and given the many issues the company is confronting lots of folks care and are curious about how Apple begins to address them. Some don’t see Apple changing how it deals with developers, like Aaron Vegh in his post, They’re Not Going to Change.

Some, like John Siracusa, are rooting for Apple and even offering advice. Siracusa’s piece Apple Turnaround is a companion to his recent previous post Apple Turnover. All worth a read, regardless of how you feel about the predicaments Apple finds itself in.

The tech bros who seem to be in the pole position running to rule the world may be making bank, but they’re not winning any friends in the process. They most likely don’t care given that they think they’re on their way to conquering the universe. John Kaag is offering up A Reality Check For Tech Oligarchs. Frankly, I don’t think they live in anything close to reality.

Meanwhile, down here on planet reality, some are looking for ways to survive and perhaps beat the odds seemingly stacked against us. A.M. Hickman lays out a vision for How To Live on $432 a Month In America.

Much of what’s going on around us might seem profane and vulgar, leading to quite a few expletives coming out of our mouths as we cope. David Todd McCarty takes us on an exploration of his love of four-letter words in Frequently Profane But Never Vulgar. For what it’s worth, all words have value in my opinion. Hiding from them is fucking stupid.

Natasha MH is Reclaiming the Joy of Struggle in an AI-Driven World. Better grab that joy while we can, because that struggle is only going to become more intense.

Just when you thought we might have begun to figure out the new landscape of insanity we’re currently struggling through, comes along Ross Anderson who informs us about The Nobel Prize Winner Who Thinks We Have The Universe All Wrong. It may someday stop expanding the way we thought and might just remain stagnant for longer than originally theorized, allowing intelligent life to continue longer than we thought. One may ask, should we care?

(Photo from Vincent Nicolas on UnSplash.)