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Sunday Morning Reading

There’s no crying in baseball or politics, but there’s always reading on a Sunday Morning.

Time for a little Sunday Morning Reading from a week that was wacky. Politics continues to resemble anything other than politics, new iPhones and Apple software were released, the Chicago Cubs finally quit teasing their fans and dropped out of contention for the playoffs, and everything we associate with this weird world just seems to keep getting weirder.

Things may be weird, and it may feel like It’s enough to make you wish for winter and to curl into a cocoon and isolate yourself. Instead check out Jessica Stillman’s piece This Is What 8 Hours of Social Isolation Does to Your Brain and Body (It’s Not Pretty.)

While we’re talking health, Dave Winer penned this piece, Health Is Nothing To Screw With. Damn straight.

David Todd McCarty looks at how the insignificant details of life can add up to big answers in All Things Great And Small.

Turning the page, (oh, how I want to turn so many pages) to politics check out Jay Willis on how Political Betting Could Soon Be Legal — and It’s the Last Thing This Election Needs. Bet on it.

If you’re like me you might believe that the only thing more troubling than our politics is how our media covers it, check out Jeff Jarvis on How They Have Failed Us.

One of this week’s horror stories in politics was the Mark Robinson story. No one should be surprised by his actions or the  rush to resuscitate what should be a dead campaign. David French says MAGA Wants Transgression. Mark Robinson Is The Result.

95% of what this political moment is all about is race and racism. We’re never going to learn the right lessons in my lifetime. Dustin Arand in Ellemeno learned one. Read What Two Racist Jokes Taught Me About The Nature of Bigotry.

Bots are everywhere. Some are taking your reservation for dinner. As Dwight Silverman asks (he gets the h/t for this piece) what happens when a bot working for you gets a bot on the other end of the line? Check out When You Call A Restaurant, You Might Be Chatting with an AI Host by Flora Tsapovsky.

As has become predictable one of the best places to read about Apple’s new software each year is MacStories. Their reviews are excellent. Check out Federico Viticci’s iOS and iPadOS 18: The MacStories Review. Check out their other reviews as well.

Closing out with baseball, Paul Sullivan looks at the fitting end to the Chicago Cubs season. Why fitting? Because the Cubs started their hero of yesteryear who turned into essentially a guaranteed loss each time he took the mound this season. There’s no crying in baseball. There shouldn’t be this much sentimentality either. Check out A Day In The Life of Wrigley Field At The End Of A Lost Summer for the Chicago Cubs.

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.

Spread the Word: Today Is National Voter Registration Day

Today is a good day to check your voter registration or register if you haven’t.

Spread the word. Today, Tuesday September 17, is National Voter Registration Day. It’s a good day to reach out to your friends, family members, and neighbors and encourage them to register if they haven’t or to check their registration if they have.

Depending on where you live keeping up to date on your registration is as crucially important as registering. We all know that some states are working to purge voter rolls or make voting more difficult. Certainly you can take care of this on other days, but don’t let the clock run out on you. 

You can go to this link to check your registration or register.

Bottom line it is up to you to make sure you’ve got things lined up or raise hell if others are working to keep you from voting. 

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. 

Happy Anniversary 24 and Counting

Happy Anniversary to my lovely, talented wife and best friend, Thomasin Savaiano. 24 years and we still crash through the craziness of this world together. Year 24 certainly brought some interesting changes, but then what year doesn’t.

Screenshot

Love you. Let’s keep the adventure going.

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. 

Rupert Murdoch’s Reverse Logic

Maybe it’s the tax cuts. But I doubt it.

Stories have surfaced that Rupert Murdoch and his children are in a fight over who gets to control the empire after the seemingly ageless Murdoch shuffles off his mortal coil. 

Given that everything is viewed through a political spectrum these days, the narrative is that Rupert wants to preserve it as a conservative political force. That may well be, but it seems to me the best way to preserve that and keep the money flowing would be to see Democratic victories across the board in this fall’s election. Murdoch properties do better as the raving, rabid opposition than they do when they have to support the party in power. 

Regardless, the family squabbles feel like they watched too many episodes of Succession and have become too enamored of their own reflections in that mirror.

They may be filthy rich, but these are not serious people.

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

Time to read on a Sunday morning in the face of all the craziness in the world.

There’s a lot going on in this upside down world looking to right itself. Even so it’s time for some Sunday Morning Reading. This edition is heavy on politics, so be warned. But there are other happenings in the shadows beneath all of that. 

On that politics front, David Todd McCarty takes a stab at What Hunter S. Thompson Might Have Said, were he alive to witness the maelstrom we’re struggling through. An excellent read.

David Rothkopf and Bernard Schwartz tell us that Trump Is a Combination of Every Threat We Have Ever Faced. They are correct.

Anne Applebaum is about to release a new book, Autocracy, Inc, this week. I’m looking forward to reading it. Sam Adler-Bell has reviews it in a piece called Why Is Autocracy Thriving? Anne Applebaum Says: It’s The Economy, Stupid.

I run hot and cold on Brian Stelter. This piece, Why The Christian Right Believes Donald Trump is “Anointed by God” is a preface to a podcast on the topic. I rarely recommend audio in this column, but this podcast episode is worth a listen.

Erik Wemple says that Media Scapegoating Is Our National Psychosis. I’m not sure it’s scapegoating if the goat is actually destroying the landscape that allows it to be. 

Edward Zitron gives one of the best summaries of the Crowdstrike crash that crippled so much on Friday in Crowdstruck.

Joe Berkowitz talks about a new documentary called How Music Got Free. Billed as the untold story of Internet pirates who nearly destroyed the music industry, it looks like it’s worth a watch. Berkowitz’s piece is called How Music Lost Its Value and is worth a read.

Amidst everything else grabbing out attention the past few weeks, Apple struck up a deal with Taboola, the Internet advertising racket that has contributed more enshittification to our browsing lives than any other. Om Malik equates Taboola to a venereal disease in Taboola + Apple News? No Thanks. I think Om is correct in his diagnosis.

Back to politics a bit, Dave Winer gives us Dreaming of the super-Democrat, reminding us that our vote is a chess move not a love letter.

And to close this week out with whom we began, David Todd McCarty tells us Why Democrats Need To Risk Winning—For Once. 

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.

Side note: None of the links in any post here are affiliate links. I don’t play in that ballpark.

Turn Out The Lights. The USA is Done.

Now we pick kings and queens and not presidents.

It’s over folks. The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that we elect kings and queens and not presidents who are subject to the law. We now live in an autocracy, or a dictatorship, or perhaps it’s just an unreal reality show.

Designer (1).

It’s a byzantine ruling picking the nits between personal and official acts in the way only lawyers can pick nits, but the essence of it is this: Given how our legal system is what it is, a president can act, stall for time and never be held accountable for it legally. Sure, Congress can impeach (this will ratchet up that clown show), but that only removes someone from office. Legally a president can do whatever they want as long as they can use the legal system to mask personal actions as official acts. I hate to tell you, that’s easy to do. Nixon is rolling over in his grave.

Folks will call it a mixed bag. Folks will debate the what if’s. There are no what if’s. The Supreme Court of the United States just told any president, including Donald Trump that they can grab the country by the pussy. Just declare it official.

Turn out the lights. The party’s over. The world and the history of humanity just changed.

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. 

Ripley: A Feast for the Eyes

A splendid visual feast well worth your viewing.

Sometimes you just need to let your eyes swim in the visuals. That’s how I felt as we watched the Netflix series Ripley over the weekend. It’s luxurious to look at and linger on. But you can’t linger long. Every time different pixels reveal a different shot you’re treated to something equally magnificent. 

Steven Zaillian’s take on the Ripley series is almost too rich to watch in a binging fashion. But that’s what my wife and I did over the weekend and we felt richer for the experience. Typically in my viewing, visuals are just another story-telling element that need to meld well with the other elements to create a satisfactory whole. Not in this case. The visuals are enough. 

The black and white cinematography by Robert Eslwit and the Production Design led by David Gropman and Art Direction by Karen Schulz Gropman are beyond exquisite. Almost to the point of being overwhelming. They must have had one helluva time scouting locations and picking camera locations. It doesn’t get more sumptuous than this and it makes this remake of a well told tale worth viewing and celebrating.

In fact, beyond Andrew Scott’s performance, which is excellent but not his best, the remake needed this level of visual panache to make it more than just another retelling of a story about a difficult and troubling man.

Scott’s fellow cast members also do excellent work adhering like glue to Zailllian’s spare emotionless approach to the text. That approach works surprisingly well, especially in the later episodes. There’s more mystery and mirth left unindicated than in most fare, revealing as much, but not too much, as the many shots of statues observing the tale as it unfolds. Marry that to the visual story telling artistry and one amazing cat, and the entire experience is thrillingly satisfying and entertainingly unsettling in the best possible sense.

Highly recommended.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Still bouncing back and through some health issues, but it’s Sunday and we’re approaching the start of the baseball season. So here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share.

David Todd McCarty wonders how we convince friends and family that they’re wrong and we’re right in today’s mixed up world in Those Closest To Us. My hunch is that’s becoming no longer possible.

The Internet is as mixed up and crazy as everything else in the world these days. Was it always? Joan Westenberg published a zine that you can download for free called I Miss The Internet: a zine. I’d grab a copy if I were you.

The bills always come due. But this one might never get paid. Christopher Mims takes a look at the growing problem of technical debt in The Invisible $1.52 Trillion Problem: Clunky Old Software.

It didn’t take long for someone to create an AI worm. Makes one wonder where the good guys are who might use AI to beat this stuff back. Matt Burgess sounds the alarm in Here Come the AI Worms.

Sports analytics has been the latest craze for quite some time now. With the Major League Baseball season just around the corner, some are concerned that AI will eventually overwhelm the new wave of analysts and the games. The AP has this report from Jimmy Golen, Sports Analytics May Be Outnumbered When It Comes to Artificial Intelligence.

And from the tech future to the tech past, check out American’s Last Morse-Code Station by Saahil Desai.

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.

Interesting Political Moment for Non-Cowards

Interesting moment in US Politics. Goofball Gaetz is going to try and push out McCarthy. No surprise.

If McCarthy’s only motivation is to hang on to his gavel, he’s got an option he won’t take for fear of angering what little of the base still supports him. That includes that decaying orange turd he’s suckled up to.

Forge a coalition from the center of both parties to keep his seat and McCarthy actually has a chance to silence the extremes on both sides. I think we’d all be surprised at how many votes he’d get. Then pass the appropriation bills with that majority and provide a chance to move past all of the insanity that now prevails.

But that would require some sorely lacking adulting on both sides of the aisle and a pretty courageous leap by all. I doubt the Dems, or anyone really, trusts McCarthy enough to pitch in for a bigger than party objective. Both parties are so wrapped up in their own bows to even begin to untie the knots they’re strangling everyone with.

Everyone would lose something. But there’s a chance of not losing the whole ballgame.

But there’s a moment here. If anyone can find the courage to seize it.