Sunday Morning Reading

Time keeps on ticking and we need to keep on reading.

Losing an hour only to gain it back in a few months feels like a capricious two-step, forward and back, never gaining ground. Something we’re all experiencing at the moment and not just because of Daylight Saving Time, but on many levels. Time marches on regardless, even as it retreats for brief periods. Regardless of what time it is, here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share.

To kick things off this week while you’re enjoying your coffee take a look at NatashaMH’s A Sip of Revolution.

Apple did the right thing. Eventually. Finally announcing that its Apple Intelligence features for a more personalized Siri will be delayed. John Gruber got the scoop handed to him from Apple. Ian Betteridge has some good thoughts on this as well in Hardware Dreams, AI Nightmares: Apple’s Crisis of Imagination.

While I’m on the tech beat, M.G. Siegler’s newsletter always offers good insight to ponder. A perfect example this week is It’s The End of the Web as We Know It (And I Feel Fine). I’m not so sure I do.

On the political beat, Jason Sattler, perhaps better known on social media as LOLGOP, tells us Why America Is On The Verge of Committing Atrocities Against Our Neighbors.

emptywheel spins out Attention Deficit And Defiance Division Of Labor: There’s Stuff Happening Where You’re Not Looking. It’s long and worth the time and reminds us that what we see and hear isn’t all that’s happening. Although at the moment, we’d like to see and hear more.

And if you’re like many wondering why some of these evil, decidedly American streaks of cruelty seem to resurface now and then, history is never kind and always a reminder. Take a look at Why This Puritan Sculpture May Revolutionize Your Thinking About The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Christopher Knight.

And to close out this week, here’s a look at how one of our real life Bond villains took over the James Bond franchise, in Benjamin Svetkey’s License To Shill: Inside Amazon’s 007 Takeover.

Image above by Jon Tyson

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

Lots to think about in this helter-skelter moment we’re living through.

Back at it after a couple of weeks of traveling and dealing with a case of pneumonia. (All is well.) Certainly there’s a lot going on and most of it is happening in a such a rush that I’m not sure anyone has enough space to accurately write or think about all that’s happening. But there is some good stuff to recommend.

Leading off this week are some articles from folks who are concerned, distressed, pissed off, and searching for tech solutions that don’t rely on America’s big tech oligarchies.

First up is I’m Tired of Pretending Tech is Making the World Better by Joan Westenberg. Follow that up with Joan’s article on How I’m Building a Trump-Proof Tech Stack Without Big Tech. Good suggestions there.

Matt Keil has also published a list of non-U.S. tech apps and services for those looking to move things offshore called Migrating Away from US Apps and Services.

With all going that’s going on, Denny Henke at Beardy Star Stuff takes a look at Apple, big tech, lock-in and the corporate colonization of life experience.

If you’re one of those searching for different tech solutions, remember no matter how long a service may have been around or how big the company behind it is, it’s all impermanent. As an example, Om Malik takes a look at Microsoft ending the run of Skype this week in Skype Is Dead. What Happened? It might take awhile, but everything eventually dies.

Moving off of the tech beat, this story by Joshua St. Clair is tough emotional read, but well worth your time. The title tells you what you’re in for: What Do You Do After You Accidentally Kill A Child?

There’s lots of rethinking of lots of things these days. David Todd McCarty is Rethinking Pride.

Adam Serwer asks the question most are asking when it comes to the words behind the ugly acronym, MAGA: Just when was America great, exactly, and for whom? Check out The Great Resegregation.

We’ve yet to feel any real impact on the economy given all of what’s happening. At some point we will. Umair at the issue takes a look at what happens if capital flight occurs in How an America the World Can’t Trust Goes from Collapse to Implosion.

Tonight is Hollywood’s big night with the Oscars. In an article from 2013, Seth Abramovitch takes us on a look inside a moment when an Oscar opening number went horribly wrong in “I Was Rob Lowe’s Snow White”: The Untold Story Of A Nightmare Opening. Show biz is hard.

And to close things out, NatashaMH takes a look at simple acts of kindness in Of Munchkins and Manners. Do be kind.

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.

(image from Roman Kraft on Unsplash.)

Sunday Morning Reading

Sunday Morning Reading is on hiatus this weekend as I’m spending time with my grandkids and the majority of my reading has been bedtime stories.

More to read 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.

Tuesday Morning Reading: Collaboration

Collaboration colloquies

No, I’m not starting a Tuesday edition of Sunday Morning Reading. But it is a Tuesday morning, and I want to link to two pieces about collaboration that are very much worth your time given there’s a race to see who can collaborate more quickly with the current regime of evil in the U.S. Shutterstock 583369387.

First up, John Gruber in Daring Fireball takes on the broad gulf in the Gulf of Mexico (America) debate in a well reasoned, often too nuanced post entitled Golfo del Gringo Loco. Follow that up with Essay: Home Of the Brave? Really? by Anand Giridharadas. Anand sets aside nuance and hits hard on collaboration and collaborating and his points are more than well made. So are Gruber’s. The opposite of collaboration is resistance. At some point that becomes self defense. When you start hearing those words, we’re not just sailing into trouble, we’re deep in the maelstrom. I expect we’ll hear them sooner rather than later. Give an inch, they’ll take everything. Illustration above by Mike_Kiev 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. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Reading to aid recovery is sometimes recommended.

This hasn’t been much of a week for reading because I’ve been down with a bout of pneumonia. Not fun. Consequently moments of clarity have been few and far between. When awake a few pieces caught my eye, so here’s links to share for this week’s Sunday Morning Reading. Thermometer reading.

Jonathan Mahler and Jim Rutenberg have put together one heckuva piece on the goings on in the Rupert Murdoch succession drama. It’s long, it’s full of gory details. It could have been a book. Of course most think it already was a streaming series. Check out ‘You’ve Blown a Hole in the Family’’: Inside The Murdoch’s Succession Drama. McKay Coppins has published Growing Up Murdoch, which is essentially another shot in this rich folks’ war, this time from the point of view of James Murdoch, the supposedly better son. It’s surprising how totally unsurprising this is. Lots of things are being broken at the moment yielding anger, disappointment, and dismay. No sector of life or business is immune. Dominic Patten takes a look at how Dissent Grows At Disney Over Perceived “Capitulation” To Trump As DEI Initiatives Diminished. It’s sometimes difficult to find good information in this dangerous moment we’re living through, because you never know what marching orders reporters and analysts are operating under, or what boots they’ve been licking in anticipation of a kick or kick back. Anne Applebaum is one writer you can always count on to nail not only the frame, but the stakes. Please check out Trump and Musk Are Pushing For Regime Change. Matt Gemmell wrote a terrific piece about going Back To Mac after spending eight years using an iPad as his primary computing platform. This isn’t your typical preference piece of this type as Matt shows the attractions and flaws of both platforms and how they align with his way of working as it and he have changed. Here’s hoping someone at Apple reads this. A pot of coffee is a good start to any morning. But did you know How A Pot of Coffee Started An Imaging Revolution? Check out Alex Cooke’s excellent piece to find out. And to wrap things up this week check out NatashaMH’s A Walk Through Changing Times. We’re all doing that walk right now one way or another, even if laying in bed. 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. *images used in Sunday Morning Reading are often generated via AI.

Sunday Morning Reading

Sunday Morning Reading is taking a hiatus this Sunday as I’m spending time visiting friends in Memphis and there’s been more eating, drinking, and theatre going instead of reading.

Sunday Morning Reading will be back next week. Carry on.

Sunday Morning Reading

Bogus science, finance, politics, and tech dominate this Groundhog Day edition of Sunday Morning Reading.

Here we go again. If it feels like Groundhog Day that’s because it is. Happens every year, but the things going on in this country feel very similar to, yet even more dangerous, than they did eight years ago. It’s a movie we don’t want to revisit, but are living through. Live through it we must. Enjoy today’s Sunday Morning Reading while we try to avoid repeating the same mistakes, or at least dodging them.

With trade wars now needlessly underway most of the big news ahead this week will be in the financial markets. John Lanchester has an excellent piece with excellent context about finance and what he calls “its grotesquely outsize role in the way we live now” in For Every Winner A Loser. Meanwhile as the world focuses on trade wars, Elon Musk and who knows who else is rampaging through the federal government in ways that sound more than illegal. Josh Marshall asks Who Can Stop Elon’s ‘Team’ Wilding Its Way Through The Federal Government? I don’t often link to Wall Street Journal pieces in this column unless they are about tech related topics. This one by The Editorial Board is worth a read and definitely worth the headline: The Dumbest Trade War In History. Seems like Murdoch and his scribes got what they wished for. Again. On the tech front, running parallel to our political misfortunes is a river of thought on Artificial Intelligence, most of it negative these days, but also thoughtful. Alex Kirshner interviews Ed Zitron and came away with One Of Big Tech’s Angriest Critics Explains The Problem. Audrey Watters tackles the issue and says “In this AI future, there is no accountability. There is no privacy. There is no public education. There is no democracy. AI is the antithesis of all of this.” I fear she’s correct. Check out AI Foreclosure for her piece, but also the excellent collection of links on the subject she provides. Whether it’s the science of tech or the science of finance, there’s science. We ignore it at our peril. But what happens if some of the science is bogus? Frederick Joelving, Cyril Labbé, and Guillaume Cabanac tell us that Bogus Research Is Undermining Good Science, Slowing Lifesaving Research. In this day and age going viral is the equivalent of getting that infamous 15 minutes of fame. Both are fleeting. Joan Westenberg says Trust Me. You Don’t Want To Go Viral. NatashaMH writes about a woman finding meaning in memoirs in Drowning In Sobriety. And, as we enter Black History Month in the U.S., check out Deborah W. Parker’s piece on Belle da Costa Greene in The Black Librarian Who Rewrote The Rules Of Power, Gender and Passing As White. 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. You can also find me on social networks under my own name.

Sunday Morning Reading

Good reading and good writing is just a heartbeat away in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading

What do Aristotle, Katherine Hepburn, Garth Hudson, beautiful minds, and ugly hearts have in common? They all make an appearance in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading. Or at least writers doing their thing and writing about them do.

Hearts can be ugly things, yet they draw our poets, songwriters, and story tellers like moths to a flame. NatashaMH flutters around the heat in The Beautiful Mind Of An Ugly Heart. Speaking of ugly hearts, quite a few of them are on appearing on shirt sleeves alongside all the chest thumping and Nazi salutes going on here in the U.S (and elsewhere). We’re only a week into the victory laps and lapses of humility, yet already writers are wearing out keyboards with words of resistance. Ian Dunt has penned How To Resist The Tech Overlords. In this new and hot category of writing, let’s hope none of this seems like fiction down the road. Another way to resist the tech overlords is to just say no when they overreach. Microsoft overstepped by raising everyone’s Office 365 subscription prices on the inclusion, wanted or not, of its Microsoft 366 Copilot AI features. There’s a way to avoid the price hike written up by Mark Hachman on PC World. You might want to check that out. For a good read on the entire Microsoft situation, Ed Bott chronicles the story of Microsoft’s latest AI unintelligent move in The Microsoft 365 Copilot Launch Was A Total Disaster. Meanwhile the Chinese might have found a way to fight the AI money grab and spend long before we reach the cash out stage. Zeyi Yang lays it out in How Chinese AI Startup DeepSeek Made A Model That Rivals OpenAI. The sexy stories about TikTok might be taking a back seat to this one. Alex Himelfarb tells us The Politics of “Common Sense” Is Making Us Meaner. He’s right. Joan Westenberg takes it all on in Clash: Power, Greed, And The Fight For a Fair Future. If you’re concerned about what the tech side of all of these moments of madness we’re living through might mean, remember it’s not the tech and it is. Check out Nina Metz’s review of the Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy flick Desk Set. As Ms. Metz puts it, This Movie With Katherine Hepburn And Spencer Tracy Anticipated Anxieties About The Internet And AI. Oh, also check out the flick. You won’t be sorry. There really is nothing new under the sun, including cribbing and cropping from the work of others. Massimo Pugliucci takes a look at Ayn Rand’s Objectivist theories and her claims to be influenced by Aristotle. As he puts it well, “one can hardly imagine what possible points of contact the two might have.” Take a look at On Ayn Rand and Aristotle. These are indeed challenging times and often they feel quite dark. Alexander Verbeek gives us the always needed reminder that When Darkness Returns, Art Exists. And on that note, and since we lost one of the greatest musical artists of my generation, Garth Hudson, this week, Check out Amanda Petrusich’s Remembering Garth Hudson, The Man Who Transformed The Band. Remember many of Hudson’s and The Band’s creations came in another turbulent era in our history. A beautiful musician and beautiful mind. 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. You can also find me on social networks under my own name.

Sunday Morning Reading

History has its layers and facts might be damned, but that’s what myths are made of.

Tick. Tock. Or is that TikTok? Regardless, it’s the last Sunday Morning Reading column before things take a drastic turn here in the United States. Plenty to be concerned about, but Sunday Morning Reading will sill keep chugging along until they turn out the lights. That said, quite a bit of today’s chugging focuses on that messy intersection of tech and politics, because, well, you know, that muddled mess of things is what attracts my attention. They are no small things.

Speaking of small things, David Todd McCarty suggests that when we get too overwhelmed perhaps it’s time to get small. Check out Let’s Get Small.

There’s A Reason Why It Feels Like The Internet Has Gone Bad is actually a short interview with Cory Doctorow by Allison Morrow about a term Doctorow coined that I think fits much (and not just on the Internet) of what we’re already living through and what we’re in for: enshittification.

George Dillard wonders why modern business tycoons are like their forbears in Nerds, Curdled.

Jared Yates Sexton has some thoughts on dealing with what’s coming in Back Into The Breach: Thoughts On The Second Trump Presidency. Good read.

The toadstools salivating to use government to dismantle government no longer grow in shadowy, dank places. Joan Westenberg takes on Silicon Valleys’s Secret Love Affair With The State.

John Gruber highlights and expands on an article by Kyle Wiggins at TechCrunch that hit amidst the growing chaos this week when Google announced that’s its ever declining search product would now require JavaScript in order to use Google Search. Check out Google Search, More Machine Now Than Man, Begins Requiring JavaScript.

Joseph Finder takes a look at The Russian Roots Of American Crime Fiction—And The O.G. It’s not that the characters created by Dostoevsky and Gogol were Russian. They were merely human.

We love stories, but we love our myths more. Neil Steinberg takes on The Myths of Telephone History. The lies we agree upon might just be the most pungent of them all.

To close things out, NatashaMH reminds us in Chestnut Roasting On An Open Fire that some say that “the strength of a superhero is determined by the strength of his villain—the greater the adversary, the mightier the hero.” We’re about to find out if that’s true or not.

Sunday Morning Reading

A nod to Billy Joel, a little Faust, a little Shakespeare and the cycle of life keeps turning.

We may not have started the fire. In the words of Billy Joel, “it was always burning.” Still we can always try and fight it. I’m not sure how that’s working out but it does seem to be our lot. Sifting through smoke and ashes, here’s a little Sunday Morning Reading to share.

Kicking things off is David Todd McCarty’s Looking for God, Sitting in Hell. Summed up nicely, “we get so lost in semantics that we forget the important parts.” Indeed.

David Sterling Brown tells us What Shakespeare Revealed About the Chaotic Reign of Richard III – And Why The Play Still Resonates In The Age of Donald Trump. The only thing I question is the word “still” in the headline. There’s not a moment of being human that isn’t contained in the stories and characters of Shakespeare. We haven’t invented a new way of being good, bad or indifferent in quite some time.

And while we’re on the literature beat Brian Klaas give us Faustian Capitalism. Again, there’s nothing new under the sun here as we watch this country’s wealthiest men bend their knees in supplication, but there’s some small comfort in knowing we’ve been this selfishly stupid before.

John Pavlovitz hits a nail on the head with The California Fires Are a Disaster. The American Cruelty Is A Tragedy. It may be beyond our capacity to comprehend devastation, but as the previous two entries show, it shouldn’t be beyond our ability to know we keep repeating the same mistakes. Or maybe that’s really just the hell we’re living?

Speaking of Faustian bargains, Mike Masnick lays out The Good, The Bad, And The Stupid In Meta’s New Content Policies.

This piece should scare you, but again, its subject is as old as humankind’s penchant for inhumanity. Stephanie McCrummen shines a bit of light as The Army Of God Comes Out Of The Shadows.

Derek Thompson takes a look at The Anti-Social Century and how our reality is changing as we spend so much of our time alone.

Perhaps one of the keys to being less alone and less anti-social is choosing your friends wisely. Natasha MH says that “To survive this life, it’s crucial to discern which friends are worth keeping and which aren’t. You are the guardian of your own peace of mind” as she lays out The Optimist’s Dilemma In A Pessimistic World.

And finally, Ian Dunt offers A Little Bit Of Hope After A Terrible Week, in what he calls a survival guide for the next four years. Ian says “History has no direction.” He’s correct. It’s a circle, a cycle, a carousel.