The Real Kamala Harris Debate Story

The Kamala Harris debate victory puts all the rest of Trump’s previous opponents to shame.

Kamala Harris wiped the floor with Donald Trump’s comb-over in the debate last night. There’s no disputing her victory. As wonderful as it was watching it, it doesn’t mean there isn’t work to still be done in what continues to be a close election, and perhaps a closer post-election slew of legal fights. But the real story, from a 30,000 foot view is a bigger one.

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (R) shakes hands with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)

Kamala Harris is the first political candidate to take on Donald Trump in a debate and knock him off kilter, while winning walking away since he emerged as a candidate in 2015. Joe Biden, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Hilary Clinton, and others never bested the bully. They may have scored on points, may have technically been declared the winner, but not one of them knocked him off his stride.  

From the moment she strode across the stage and forced the coward to shake her hand while introducing herself she had him in her grasp. It was a spectacle to behold in these typically less than spectacular events.

Yes, I posted previously that we didn’t need a debate. I won’t say I was wrong then. I will say instead that we needed this moment, whether it was in a debate or not.

Kamala Harris wants to turn the page on this terrible Trump tale. Perhaps she’s also turning the tide. But we still have a ways to go.

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

Sunday Morning Reading is taking a hiatus this weekend to spend time with the grandkids.

Sunday Morning Reading is taking the week off. It’s a travel weekend to visit the grandkids, so most of my reading this weekend has been bedtime stories which I won’t be sharing.

Enjoy your Sunday. Enjoy your kids and grandkids.

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.

Fact of Life

The shooter will always win even if he misses his mark.

J.D. Vance, the moronic MAGAt candidate for Vice President of the United States, in the wake of another school house slaughter says that school shootings are a “fact of life.” Slightly different and thoroughly indifferent to the issue, his comments are in the same vein as previous ones from the decaying convicted felon/child rapist Donald Trump, when he says that we just have to “get over it” when it comes to gun violence.

Shutterstock 2166730629.

Here’s a fact. We’ve allowed this to become a fact of life. We’ve put targets on the backs of our kids each time we let the politicians cave to the gun lobby in the supposed service of the second amendment to the constitution. Vance, in his weird way of pretending to appear honest, can’t say the words that your kid’s life is worthless and worth less when it compares to the rights of gun owners, but that’s what he’s saying.

I’ve discussed this in a thousand ways in thousands of words. Others have too. But talk is cheap when compared to money. And there is always too much talk and always more money. The talk of hardening schools and giving teachers guns, etc… is not only a mythical excuse borne out of stupidity, but it is bullshit blanket meant to hide your head under when you don’t want to solve an obvious problem. If you ignore the leak in your roof long enough, you’ll pay for it down the road.

Here’s a fact. The shooter always wins. Even if the shot doesn’t hit home. Even if the shooter is taken down. The shooter always wins. That’s a fact. Of life and death. I’m surprised we haven’t seen a rise of businesses offering suits of armor for school children. It’s probably the next step. That would be as foolish as the bullet proof backpacks some parents have protected the books their kids can no longer read.

A shot may not kill, but it will scar in ways you can’t imagine if you haven’t been shot at.

Fact: unless you have a gun trained on a potential shooter and are faster to the trigger, any method of stopping a shot is going to fail. You could be packing. You could have an arsenal in your house. You could surround a former president with secret service and other law enforcement protection, competent or incompetent as they may be. A determined shooter will always get off the shot. Unless you don’t allow any guns anywhere close to the event.

In the space between this word and the next, a shooter will win even if he/she doesn’t kill.

The myths have been thoroughly shot through but they won’t die. They linger like old wounds because of a fear greater than that of a parent sending their child to school. The fear that we’ve brought this curse on our children ourselves and we can see no way to solve the problem beyond taking away the guns.

That’s a fact of life.

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. 

I Don’t Think We Need A Debate

Why have a debate when we already know what’s going to happen?

The hype machines are running full tilt for next week, whipping up a frenzy of sound and fury that will eventually signify something, but in the end nothing. I’m not talking about the annual run up to Apple’s announcements of new iPhones or the kickoff to the NFL season, both of which generate enough hype to overwhelm their respectve events. I’m talking about the debate between Kamala Harris and the decaying orange convicted felon/child rapist Donald Trump. I just don’t think we need to have a debate.

R0 90 800 510 w1200 h630 fmax.

Sure debates have been a part of political campaigns since time immemorial. It’s been accepted canon that we need to see how candidates stack up side by side and face to face. But we’ve long since wrung any substance out of these beauty contests in American politics. And this one promises to continue that trend and deepen the trench our politics has fallen into.

Let’s get real. We already know the candidates positions or lack thereof. Nothing new of substance will be announced during a debate. We also already know what the candidates will say of each other. The only suspsense is how Harris will choose to respond to the bullshit Trump will spew all over the stage. We also already know the debate moderators won’t bring up the high stakes that this election is really about. They’ll dance around January 6th and Trump’s stealing of classified material. They’ll also piroutette away from asking directly if Trump wants to dismantle the constitution and serve as a dictator.

It will be left up to the candidates to “fact check” each other, a task that offers no real benefit since Trump gish-gallopped out of Reality TV into this surreal reality we all deal with now. Perhaps, and more importantly, no matter how the debate goes we already know the spin that’s going to be spun in the hours and days after the debate. God could moderate this debate and declare a winner and it wouldn’t matter to most.

What I think also doesn’t matter and I’m guessing I’m not alone. Sure, there might be a relative handful of undecided voters who tune in to see what’s what, but call me cynical, I don’t think I want those folks deciding the future of the country given what we face and what we’re living through.

The debate will happen. Apple will also announce new iPhones and the NFL will kick off another season. It will be a week. And then we’ll move on to the next big thing to over hype, over ripen, wishing it would just be over.

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. 

The AI Bubble Won’t Burst. It Will Just Flatten Into a Puddle.

Put on your waders.

Artificial Intelligence in some form or the other continues to dominate tech and the markets around it, though there are some clouds on the horizon. Even the gold rush seems to show signs of slowing with the realization that AI might not be all it’s cracked up to be. 

 It’s still exciting technology and there will certainly be some aspects that stick and enhance the way we do things. There will also be quite a bit that doesn’t, even more that’s controversial, and all causing trouble for that which does stick, and generally mucking everything up.

If you’ve paid attention to the comments and reviews during this recent Apple beta season and Google’s latest releases, it’s pretty easy to discern that the general temperature of the responses is lukewarm at best.

Advocates say it’s still early in the game.. That’s true. It’s also true that that putting bets down on an NFL team based on what seems like a good draft and undefeated pre-season is, well, more than a bit premature. (*Cough* *Chicago Bears* *Cough*)

Take the 5G rollout. Though the technologies aren’t comparable, the hype certainly is. 5G got its beginnings before 2020, but that was the year of the big push, arguably led by Apple. I’ve done a lot of driving over quite a few major highways large and small this summer and I’m still amazed at how little 5G coverage (and often LTE coverage) there is along these well traveled arteries between large population centers in the South, Midwest and on the East Coast.

What’s intriguing about that is that while there is a push by Apple and Google to have large chunks of AI operation happen locally on device, there will still be quite a few of those operations that will need higher bandwidth when they do need to call home to the mother ship for a response.

If we fast forward a decade or so and put a query into some LLM to summarize the rise of Artificial Intelligence, I’m betting it will spit out something along the lines of “yet another new promising technology, launched as a product before it was really ready, and spoiled by the hype.” 

The book that will eventually be stolen by scraping Internet posts like this one is still to be written, but in these early chapters it is feeling more and more like the bubble might have currently reached it’s outer limits of expansion. There’s pushback on a number of fronts and quite a few enthusiasts always easily seduced by the thrill of a new technology seem to be chilling, if not chafing a bit.

Is there gloom and doom on the horizon? No, just storms and cloudy skies. I don’t think the AI bubble will ever burst, but I do think it will flatten into a puddle with not enough rising tides to lift all boats.

We’ve seen this story before. We’ll see it again. Only this time around the summaries will all sound more and more alike.

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. 

Sunday Morning Reading

Summer begins to fade into fall with this week’s Sunday Morning Reading.

It’s Labor Day weekend here in the states, which means a three-day weekend, yielding more than a little extra time for some Sunday Morning Reading during the last lake visit of the season. Kick back and enjoy.

I’m a Shakespeare geek so my senses perked up when one of my favorite writers, Natasha MH. revealed her reasons for not appreciating the bard in Much Ado About Nothing, Something, and Everything. Excellent read and I know she’s not alone. But then lots of folks are wrong about lots of things.

Jeff Jarvis tells us How Murdoch Makes a Meme (and how the rest of the media helps it spread). No real secrets here. Jarvis is correct about Rupert Murdoch’s malign influence. The single most destructive human on the planet during his lifetime of muckracking.

Preetika Rana takes a look at how the political moment is ruffling the feathers in the halls and salons of big tech in Clash of the Tech Titans: Silicon Valley Fractures Over Harris vs. Trump.

Ted Chiang explores Why A.I. Isn’t Going To Make Art. I agree with the thesis, but I’ll add that it’s going to screw up a lot while trying.

Why are software glitches and problems called bugs? Check out Matthew Wills’ The Bug in the Computer Bug Story. 

Private Equity continues to gobble up everything it can get its teeth into. Apparently Private Equity Is Coming for Youth Sports according to Ira Boudway.

And to close out this week as summer begins to fade into fall, Mike Tanier gives us The Amusement Park Falls Cold and Dark. 

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.

Man Made Tornado

Roadside debris fires creating a man-made tornado.

On our recent trip to Memphis for this year’s Ostrander Awards (we won a few) we took our usual path through Illinois then following along the Mississippi River through Missouri and Arkansas.

I don’t think I’ve taken this trip that I haven’t seen large debris burns happening on the wide expanses of farmland that sit astride the highway in Arkansas. On a day like our drive with clear blue skies, you certainly can see it from a distance and as you get closer you can certainly smell it. You can taste it too, if you don’t adjust the air intake in your vehicle. 

 This is the first time though, that I think we caught a glimpse of what looks like a man-made tornado from the heat of the fire inside the middle of the burn. 

Quite a sight. 

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. 

They Shoot Horse Race Journalism, Don’t They?

Close but no cigar, James Risen almost provides and answer.

James Risen, an excellent journalist, dances right up to the point of winning, but then quits dancing instead of leaving it all on the floor in an terrific piece, Why The Media Won’t Report the Truth About Trump.

Decrying the “horse race journalism” of political campaigns, he hits his marks early on saying the deplorable coverage of the twice impeached, four time indicted, once already convicted conmen fronting the GOP party feels like the press has amnesia. He wonders why the crimes and behavior everyone is aware of get such short shrift.

But then he falls back into discussing the history of political coverage from the 1960’s onward through our digital age and media business model pressures. You know that argument, the system is at fault. All of what he lays out so very well is true, especially the part about how the candidates and the campaign professionals take advantage of a the news media’s continued failings.

What he leaves out is a simple truth. The media likes it this way. Regardless of why and how the traditional news media remains stuck in a rut of its own making, it is a choice. An exhausting one surely, but a devastatingly addictive one.

All choices have consequences. As Risen points out there are and will be consequences on the media dance floor when the music stops, especially when you think you’re the one making the music. But there are also deadly dangerous ones for those of us who once thought we could rely on them.

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. 

Winning Night for The Lehman Trilogy

A winning team takes home awards for The Lehman Trilogy.

It was a big night for Playhouse on the Square and our production of The Lehman Trilogy in Memphis. Nominated for seven Ostrander Awards, an annual award celebrating excellence in theatre, we won four: Set Design, Leading Actor, Overall Production, and I was honored with an award as Director. POTS also took home a number of awards for other productions as well. 

457088239 10233266472065771 6888117921307333108 n.

We had a more than one blast getting the gang back together over the weekend before, during and after the awards event. Lots of reminiscing. Lots of fun. Lots of “we have to do this again” conversations. And we do.

On the big night, I can’t beign to describe how much joy I felt watching John Maness, Michael Gravois and Kevar Maffitt win the award for Leading Actor as a trio. These three gentlemen tackled a unique challenge and did indeed blend into one and it would have been impossible to single out one from another. It was a terrific way to acknowledge this unique collaboration.

All in all it was a great night for celebrating that rare achievement when you create an amazing piece of theatre and an amazing bond in one of those rare experiences that don’t come around that often and is more than just another show.

Bravos and Kudos to all!

 

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.