Musings on life, the theatre, technology, culture and the occasional emu sighting
It’s a travel day hiatus for Sunday Morning Reading
Sunday Morning Reading is on hiatus this weekend as we hit the road to return home from a visit with the grandkids.
Sunday Morning Reading will return 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.You can also find me on social networks under my own name.
What a sticky mess we’re in.
Well this is a fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. The media/political party industrial complex has put us right where they want us to be. Spinning, Whirling, Scared. Confused. Befuddled. Pissed Off.
As I watch my grandson propel himself around his surroundings this weekend with the reckless abandon of innocence, I can’t help but wonder at the wonder of it all. Watching him realize the consequences of waving an ice cream cone around in the heat of a summer night was a heartbreaking humorus lesson in beginning to see the light. The whirling and spinning only stop when gravity takes over and it all ends up a mess on the sidewalk.
Meanwhile back in the world of knowledge and supposed wisdom, it seems those of us in the rareifed air of adulthood who know better have become unconcerned if not unmoored from the law of physics.
After Joe Biden’s interview on ABC last night it seems we’re completely at the mercy of upcoming news cycles, whether we tune in or tune out. It’s starting to feel like it’s going to be an endless summer, fall and beyond. It’s an unending episode of Lost, where confusion reigns at the expense of narrative and plot. At some point it has to end, but there doesn’t need to be an end, just an endless supply of Special Features.
Sadly, whenver this spins to an end that end that will only help the party of convicted felons and child rapists help us end it all. But that can be spun up and away too.
I’m heartsick that the Democrats have fallen into depths beyond disarray, with new depths still to be plummed apparently. I’m pissed off that what used to be the GOP is happily using this ramapaging forest fire as cover to run and hide from Project 2025, while they continue to scan for more to burn.
The world feels like it’s caught in a lyric somewhere between Tommy Roe’s Dizzy and Stealers Wheel’s Stuck in the Middle With You, with some sort of AI generated click track back beat played by a boy band wearing Supreme Court robes, pretending they understand Hip Hop.
Goodness knows when this will all fall down. But then goodness has nothing much to do with any of it.
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.
Fighting for the future.
I get asked often why I fight so fiercely about the detestable and dangerous turn our country has taken. Yes, it’s about the larger ramifications of our country now subject to the character and whims of an elected king. Ironically in the week we celebrate our American independence from a king. It’s certainly about that.
Selfishly though, it’s really about the future of my two gandkids. Spending time with them this 4th of July and I fear for their future. I fear for the moments when their small world innocence is lost and I have to tell them how things used to be.
There were joys to hold on to:
Watching my grandson dance with abandon in the middle of a crowd listening to the Detroit Symphony while waiting for fireworks to begin.
Giving my granddaughter her first taste of ice cream and watching her face light up the same way I watched my Dad give her mother, my daughter, her first taste and then try to devour everyone else’s ice cream the same why my granddaughter did.
Watching my wife teach my grandson how to make a wish by tossing a coin in a fountain.
I’m fighting for all of that in hopes one day they will only have to read about what we’re living through as a sad piece of history and not the moment when irreversible change happened.
That’s my wish and my fight.
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.
Send this to your friends, your enemies, and anyone else who needs some sense knocked into their heads.
If you’re struggling like I am with the fundamental changes happening in this country as we hit the 4th of July, play this ad from John Cena about what it means to be an American.
Don’t just play it, send it around. Every day. Each and every day. Especially to those who’ve lost the plot.
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.
Pay attention! The time is now. Not November.
Pay attention!
Below are three links to articles I saw upon waking this morning. If these don’t wake you up inject some damn caffeine into your veins.
First up. Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, not yet clothed in a brown shirt, tells us “that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Pay attention!!
Next up. Phillip Bump gives us The Perfectly Valid Presidential-Immunity Murder Hypothetical. This should be a gift link, but if it’s not or doesn’t work, it might be time for you to learn that there are a million ways to get around paywalls on the Internet. At the moment.
Pay attention!!!
And finally (for this post at least) Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes take on the SCOTUS decision in A Decision of Surpassing Recklessness in Dangerous Times.
Pay attention!!!!
And if you think the political cartoon by Bruce MacKinnon above might be too much, I’ll just say again
Pay attention!!!!
The time to act, the time to work is now. While we must vote, if you wait until it’s time to vote, you’re already losing more than we’ve already lost.
Pay attention!!!!!
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.
Going to be surreal celebrating USA independence from a king after the Supreme Court ruling.
I’m struggling through this political mess we’re in and shared some of my thoughts in Rome Magazine on Medium. I hope you take a minute of your time to read it.
The irony of the Supreme Court giving the president immunity most monarchs would die for may be rich, but it’s also extremely sad, given the timing. Yes, I’m still in a state of profound disillusionment and yes, I’m working to figure out how to change that, but I’ve got to be honest. There are moments when I’m not sure if it’s worth the candle, much less lighting up some fireworks this 4th of July.
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.
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.
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.
Steering clear of politics (mostly) here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share.
It’s a tough weekend to put this Sunday Morning Reading column together in the wake of last week’s U.S. Presidential debate. I’ve never seen so many knees jerk so violently at once leading me to assume there are quite a few bruises caused from crashing them against computer desks. So, I’ll be avoiding politics this morning. Perhaps. Maybe. We’ll see.
Did you know that milk is the latest front in the culture wars dividing America? Tony Diver tells us how.
Yes, it’s political but no, it isn’t about recent events specifically, so once again I highly recommend you check out The Split by Steve Radlauer and Ellis Weiner. The Split, now up to Chapter 34, is a terrific serialization of all things political, social, and well… all things.
James B. Stewart and Benjamin Mullen take a long look at the future of streaming in The Future of Netflix, Amazon and Other Streaming Services. It’s a worth your time kind of read even though it takes awhile, but it more than hints that none of the titans of this industry has a clue.
The entertainment industry isn’t the only place run by folks without a clue. Check out The Federal Reserve’s Little Secret by Rogé Karma. Apparently those folks pulling the strings on interest rates don’t have much of one either.
And speaking of titans of industry and god-like powers David Todd McCarty thinks If Someone Asks If You’re A God, You say Yes.
On the Artificial Intelligence front Wired has been doing some good work lately reporting on on that front. Check out Lauren Goode and Tom Simonite’s This Viral AI Chatbot Will Lie and Say It’s Human.
Also check out Elizabeth Lopatto’s Perplexity’s Grand Theft AI. Sounds human to me.
Joan Westenberg has an interesting think piece on the misconstruing and appropriation of the message of George Orwell’s 1984 in “This Is Just Like 1984.” Great piece.
I said I’d avoid the political hot potato of the presidential debate. It’s not that I lied, or changed my mind, it’s that this piece is too good to not recommend. Check out Natasha MH’s view in The US Presidential Debate Reminded Me of My Divorce.
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.
That sinking feeling.
Last night I spent good time with good company, all of like minds politically and socially. In that good company is a very good friend of substantial means. At one point he asked me if I was going to watch the debate tonight, or as he characterized it, “the TV event that might decide the future of the world”. I responded that I would indeed be watching and felt his characterization, though extreme, was sadly too damn accurate.
He later said that his financial advisor had called a Zoom meeting of all of his clients for Friday morning to discuss paths forward after the debate and anticipating a SCOTUS decision on Trump’s specious immunity claims. He said his financial guy sounded a bit panicked.
No shit.
Personally I’ve moved beyond panic. I’m now in a state of profound disillusionment. A descriptor I borrowed from Tom Wellborn a fellow traveler on social media. I wrote about that last week on Medium in a post called, well you guessed it, Profound Disillusionment.
I hope you take a few minutes and read it, depressing as it may sound. We live in a country where I fear that if the decaying orange convicted felon, now the candidate for what used to one of two major political parties in this country, but is now just an cover for grifting and cruelty, died a horrible public death, the chaos he’s unleashed can’t be reversed. At least not in my lifetime.
In the light of day last night’s good time feels far too much like commiseration.
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 EU charges Apple with violations of the DMA
The friction between Apple and the European Union just took another turn. The EU has charged Apple with DMA rules violations dropping the dubious distinction on Apple of being the first “gatekeeper” company to be so charged. It’s a preliminary ruling and Apple has until March 2025 to respond to this preliminary ruling.
If the charges stick, the potential remedy is for Apple to be fined up to 10 percent of its annual global revenue. quite a bite of the Apple.
This comes on the heels of last week’s pot-stirring announcement that Apple’s new, but yet unreleased and untested, Apple Intelligence features won’t be rolling out in the EU (and other markets) until next year. As I said then, this is all going to be one big negotiation with legal and political shots fired by both sides.
At the root of the charges is “steering,” which the EU sees as key to a competitive market. Bottom line, the EU wants gatekeeper companies to allow software developers to be able to “steer” potential customers to their products free from closed App Store and other gatekeeper restrictions. Apple joins Alphabet, Amazon, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft in the EU”s list of gatekeepers.
The EU is also challenging Apple’s moves to come into compliance by charging a Core Technology Fee that most complain violates the intention to allow side loading of apps.
This will bounce back and forth over the next nine months and will probably become even more contentious given quotes like this from Thierry Breton, the EU internal market commissioner: “Apple’s new slogan should be ‘act different.’
Apple has released the following statement:
“Throughout the past several months, Apple has made a number of changes to comply with the DMA in response to feedback from developers and the European Commission. We are confident our plan complies with the law, and estimate more than 99% of developers would pay the same or less in fees to Apple under the new business terms we created. All developers doing business in the EU on the App Store have the opportunity to utilize the capabilities that we have introduced, including the ability to direct app users to the web to complete purchases at a very competitive rate. As we have done routinely, we will continue to listen and engage with the European Commission.”
The Financial Times seems to be the front lines where both the EU and Apple are waging this battle. The Verge also has a writeup on the news. I’m sure there will be more. Intelligent or not.
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.
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 