news – Page 4 – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Reading List For The Moment We’re In

Good reporting and good info are getting harder to find in these dark times.

These are difficult, stressful, head spinning times. What’s happening politically is not only wrong and dangerous, it is made more so because it is increasingly difficult to know where to turn to find good information. Now that the “Main Stream Media,” previously derided by those now in power, has capitulated and chosen a different main stream to drown in, I imagine that challenge will only continue.

It’s challenging to keep up with the pace of events and some ask why bother trying given that those we’ve relied on in the past have either turned coats or can’t keep up themselves. My answer is simple. I’d like to know more about the disease is causing me pain. As is my habit, I follow a lot of sources. I’ve compiled and will continue to compile a list of those I find the most valuable. Some on this list cover news, some provide important context, and all are worth my while in my opinion. So, I’m sharing them here. I’ll add to this list as I discover other sources worth recommending, so you might want to check back every now and then. Mostly on a political front, Josh Marshall’s Talking Point Memo has always been an excellent source. It’s even more so now. Mark Jacob covers not only the politics but those that cover the politics in Stop The Presses. ProPublica has been a go to source for me for a while and it should be for you as well. Their investigations provide important context, but it is not a breaking news source. Rolling Stone’s political coverage is solid reporting and solid context within this overwhelming pace of events. The Tennessee Holler certainly covers the things going on in Tennessee as it competes to be ranked below Mississippi in most category measurements for success, but also is providing some excellent coverage and commentary on the larger U.S. picture. Given that tech is now incestuously intertwined with our politics and governance, I highly recommend for recent, and I hope ongoing, coverage Wired, TechDirt and 404Media. Reporters from those publications are doing excellent work and it’s a good way to filter through some of the nonsense. Feel free to leave a comment if you have a good source you’d like me to include. Feel free to refrain from offering sources such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and others crossing the River Styx. 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.

Perhaps Tim Cook’s Severance Trailer Explains More Than Anyone Wants To Believe

You Can’t Sever This Away

A few months ago the Severance trailer featuring Tim Cook might have been received as an average, yet cute, piece of fluff marketing. Today it feels almost like a possible explanation for how some things have changed.

The entire premise behind Severance, being able to separate your work life from your real life, is indeed a fun bit of sci-fi story telling that I increasingly imagine the storytellers are going to have a hard time wrapping up into a successful conclusion.

Tim Cook’s recent decision to donate to the Trump inauguration certainly feels like he’s severed a part of himself from the carefully crafted persona he’s built for himself, and the reputation he built for Apple. Even, unlike some of his other tech company CEO compatriots, he made the donation out of his personal account, the understandable transactional decision has bruised Apple more than I think we might realize in this chaotic moment.

I say “understandable” because we’re in that world now. These transactional business/government relationships are no different than paying protection money to the guy who runs the neighborhood in order to keep the fruit stand open. It’s tough to bend the knee if both are broken.

Perhaps severing one’s self might make real life decisions with real life consequences easier to swallow or hide from. Or make work life more palatable. But that’s where the science fiction part of the story trails off. This is real life, and these are real people making these choices in the bright light of day. I’d say the markets will eventually give us a hint of an answer, but that’s not real life anymore either.

Time will tell how much of a blight Tim Cook infected Apple’s carefully cultivated orchard with. While many are disappointed and upset and rail about it online and in podcasts, the real question, and perhaps the cover Cook calculated upon, is that with every other tech CEO bending the knee, where else do Apple customers have to turn? And don’t say Linux. It still needs chips and hardware to run the software on.

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.

Add ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ To Your Streaming Cue

Worth a watch or a re-watch.

Last night after a rough, though totally not surprising day, I posted the following on social media:

Certainly it was how I felt and was indeed an homage to Mr. Murrow and what he stood for. I didn’t go immediately to bed after posting that “good night” message. Instead I re-watched the excellent film containing Murrow’s famous sign-off, “Good Night and Good Luck.”

As we all go through what we’re going to continue to go through (and who really knows what that is), I’d recommend watching or re-watching the film again. It’s on most streaming services so it’s easy to find.

There are and will be pressures all the way around and certainly a dramatization of any kind compresses events to create that drama. Given that we may never hear about any of the recent conflicts that I can only hope happened inside corporate media headquarters before they folded up their tents to march willingly in step with the new administration, the story of taking on McCarthy, while also relevant to our current moment, is really just the stage for the one behind the scenes that impacts what we see or don’t see on our screens of so many sizes.

This isn’t some moment of nostalgia for a time gone by. It is a recognition that where we are now is a place we’ve been before. This time around those that control the media and messaging have, for the moment, much more control than they did in Murrow’s day. Make no mistake, they had some control then, but now it’s more pervasive and the Murrow’s, Friendly’s and Paley’s are fewer in number.

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 Lack Of Intelligence In Adding AI To Pro Football And Other Sports Broadcasts

Not a smart move.

Joe Reddy for the Associated Press writes up a nice piece about Amazon’s AI on its Prime Video broadcasts of NFL Football games. While Reddy’s piece covers the what is, (that’s his job) it doesn’t talk about the what for.

Here’s the thing, the prevailing wisdom in sports coverage these days seems to be that the games themselves must not be enough to hold fans attentions long enough for them to watch the commercials, so we need to add distraction upon distraction before, during, and after the games to keep the fans interested. Certainly one can say that this season’s slate of NFL games wasn’t that terrific, at least the ones I watched. (I watched more than Chicago Bears games, because the Chicago Bears don’t play real football.)

Sports used to be a pastime. Watching a game was a luxury on TV or in person. And that was before the tremendous cost of attending a game in person went nuts. In many places, you could always catch the local games on TV, but that’s an age coming to an end sooner than we’d all like.

Certainly, these AI generated statistics do deliver an interesting factoid now and again. So this is not to say there’s not any value. It’s just not redeeming enough in my opinion.

Amazon isn’t alone, All of the networks are fumbling over each other to have the latest, greatest whiz bang graphics fill up our screens. They’re not mining data, they are mining dollars. The insertions of stat upon stat, mid-game interviews with coaches and players all come at a cost.

In my humble opinion it’s a cost that cheapens not enhances. But that’s the way we’re headed, because eventually we can tack even more sponsors and ad dollars on to each stat and distraction.I’m sure betting on what the AI will predict will soon follow.

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.

Meta Muddle, Wildfires, and the Social Media Wilderness

I’m hating that Meta is getting hateful.

Mark Zuckerberg’s nakedly transparent sucking up to Donald Trump continues to unravel much of whatever fabric we thought social media might have knit together. I remember back in the day when some argued over whether or not it should be called a social graph. Those were naive days and that was naive math.

When Zuckerberg ditched human fact-checking it was only a matter of time before he ditched DEI initiatives as the next move. That happened today. In fact I’m surprised he didn’t do that first. All of this has left me, along with others, debating the wisdom of hanging around on Meta properties going forward. The ones I’ve used are Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Of the latter two, Threads would be easy to leave, Instagram less so. Facebook is a dilemma of another sort.

This week’s horrific fires in Los Angeles illustrate my dilemma. I have many friends living in Los Angeles. Facebook was the one way I could keep up with their lives and careers and more immediately these recent horrible predicaments. I was able to find out who was safe and who was in danger. I know for several of them it was akin to a lifeline.

Perhaps our problem is how we got sucked or suckered into these social media maelstroms in the first place, but in the scope of human history it’s no different than how we follow any sort of trend, until we discover the downsides. It was an easy decision for me to abandon Twitter when Musk took over. This decision will be more difficult.

Not only does this week’s tragedy hit home differently, but Facebook has been a way, and I suggest the only way, I have had to stay connected to folks I went to high school and college with. The same, to a lesser extent is true about Instagram.

Sure I could have made phone calls, written letters, and Christmas cards, but being able to effortlessly see what’s happening in the lives of others I know was a decided benefit. Yes, I was feeding the beast each time I scrolled, liked or shared something, but the only difference between that and what we’ve done ever since the dawn of the age of marketing is scale, unless you’ve never shopped at a grocery store, used a bank, or bought insurance.

So, I’m struggling a bit with the decision I know I will inevitably make, and I know others are too. It will be a loss. Social media is a bit of a wilderness right now, and any wilderness is a dangerous place.

Sadly, and selfishly, my struggles are certainly less fraught than those of some of my friends and colleagues who know that there are those eager to exploit Meta’s dehumanizing new policies.

Casey Newton in Platformer reported some of the hateful guidelines. Here’s an excerpt:

In an answer to the question “Do insults about mental illness and abnormality violate when targeting people on the basis of gender or sexual orientation?” Meta now answers “no.” It gave the following examples of posts that do not violate its policies:

Non-violating: “Boys are weird.”

Non-violating: “Trans people aren’t real. They’re mentally ill.”

Non-violating: “Gays are not normal.”

Non-violating: “Women are crazy.”

Non-violating: “Trans people are freaks.”

And in examples of posts that are now allowed on Facebook:

“There’s no such thing as trans children.”

“God created two genders, ‘transgender’ people are not a real thing.”

“This whole nonbinary thing is made up. Those people don’t exist, they’re just in need of some therapy.”

“A trans woman isn’t a woman, it’s a pathetic confused man.”

“A trans person isn’t a he or she, it’s an it.”

These tech bros used to con us (yes, we always knew it was a con) with promises of building a better world. I guess we can only be glad that their efforts are now more transparent, and their views, in my opinion twisted and wrong. Hopefully that knowledge of this moment will allow us to hopefully make wiser decisions going forward. I say hopefully, because in my view of the world, we haven’t proven we’re capable of that yet as a species.

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.

Has Fact Checking Ever Worked?

Facts and the factless.

Has fact checking ever worked? Seriously. Has it ever? In my opinion if there was ever any real utility, it’s long since lost its pucker.

Mark Zuckerberg caused all sorts of consternation yesterday announcing he was going to dismantle Meta’s fact checking operation now that he realizes a million-dollar bribe probably wasn’t enough to keep him out of jail during the reign of the next administration. It was quite a public puckering up.

But let’s get real for a moment. Once any fact-less statement takes off it spreads faster than a wildfire in California and all the fact checkers in the world can’t snuff it out. For some facts do indeed matter. They occasionally do in our legal system, though not always. They used to in our legislative processes, but that’s long since become a relic of a time gone by. For most of its history, journalism wasn’t what so many bemoan the loss of today. Myths have fueled our religions and our histories since we first sought understanding.

And as for social media and the Internet in general? That’s a medium that has always allowed (and encouraged) the presence of fake personas. All bets there have always been off.

Prior to Zuckerberg’s recent sucking up, Meta had taken recent fire for allowing the creation of AI-generated chatbot personas to appear in feeds alongside regular users. Reaction to that led to a pull back that’s sure to be only temporary. I mean, think of the business model. Why do you need problematic real users when you can just create them and still con advertisers into paying for ads that most avoid or don’t see anyway? Programmatic users are certainly easier to control than problematic real ones—at least until the AI takes over.

Here’s a fact that doesn’t need checking. Facts matter if you think they do, but most of the rest of the world doesn’t care what you think if they can support their beliefs—or protect their business model—by making shit up and making it stick.

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.

January 6th. Never Forget. Remember While You Can.

We’re living in a moment like no other.

Never Forget. Never Fucking Forget.

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Crime has a new and devalued meaning in this new world, but the criminal who started this will be in charge soon. Never forget that he and his worshippers did what they did to this country on January 6th. To make a buck. They may legally be let off the hook, itself another crime that mocks our legal system into irrelevance. They most certainly will try and erase history and this story. We have a history of that sort of whitewashing in this country. It’s something we do all too well.

Bad things are going to happen to this country and its people beginning in a few weeks. This most recent spark may have been lit on an escalator in 2015, but it burst into all-consuming flames on January 6th, 2021, after smoldering with occasional flare-ups since the American Civil War, itself an conflagration smoldering since this country’s founding.

I recommend reading this article in The Atlantic from Jacob Glick, “ What I Saw on the January 6th Committee.” It has an interesting and worthy perspective on the surrounding investigations. But let’s set investigations aside. They mean little these days when they can be both derailed or manufactured from whole cloth.

The Big Lie won. The Big Liar won. Those who worship at his feet, along with those of us who see what is actually happening and about to happen, lost. There’s this sense of trying to find a sense of normalcy, a sense of balance to manage the treacherous path ahead. There will be none. We’re off-axis, and gravity is behaving in mysterious ways.

We are living in a moment when the history of this world will change. Not under our feet, but in front of our faces. There’s no rug to be pulled out from under us, only a mirror we avoid like a vampire.

We really don’t know how or what those changes will bring. The times they are a-changing, but it’s not the same song. We are breathing rare air right now, and in our lungs, it feels mysterious and wrong. January 6th will be the moment remembered. Never forget it.

Never forget it in the ways we have forgotten the other moments that allowed it to take place.

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.

Crashing and Burning

Time to get on with the inevitable.

Let me state clearly here at the beginning of this post, I do not want to see anyone in any capacity hurt by the looming government shutdown. Repeating, I do not want to see anyone in any capacity hurt by the looming government shutdown.

That stated and repeated, let me offer the following. Regardless of any action taken on a government shutdown people are going to get hurt.

Assume this circus/charade/shit show over a government shutdown wasn’t occurring. That responsible adults (assuming a lot I know) would be working to transition our government from one administration to another in an orderly fashion. We know, based on campaign promises and post-victory statements that large numbers of people are going to be harmed and hurt once the new administration is sworn in come January 20th. You can’t repeat often enough that cruelty is the point. There is going to be pain. Let those so desperate to cause it, feel some of it themselves.

So, with that as a given, and with the continued interference from Elon Musk, an unelected drugged up man child of an oligarch who has desires on running not just the US, but the world, I say let these damn Republican sniveling cowards shut down the country. Take Musk’s urging and keep it shut until January 20th and possibly beyond. Should make for a swell inauguration party.

At some point no matter how smoothly any transition may or may not go, the system is going to crash and there’s going to be damage none of us can calculate. Why not get on with it?

Sure you can play the game of which administration’s watch it might happen on, but give me a break. There’s no effective action coming from the outgoing administration or Congress to correct the actions of what feels like a transition already out of control and almost completed. Sure, Biden, at the moment still wearing the crown bestowed on him by the Supreme Court, could declare a state of emergency and make some bold moves. But we all know that’s not going to happen.

Call the bluffs. Blow out the bluster. Bust it all. Then let’s see what happens when the pieces need to get picked up come January.

One way or the other sacrifices are going to need to be made. Lame social media calls for resistance and not surrendering in advance are going to feel more like nursery rhymes than rallying cries. What we had is gone. It’s not coming back. You kid yourself if you think otherwise. Democrats stepping in to save some semblance of what was are only going to weaken any position they currently don’t really have at the moment. At least not until they come up with their own madman oligarch.

When an arsonist has to put out the fire he started to try and save himself, things look a lot differently.

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.

Politics and Theatre: Demonstrators Wave Nazi Flags Outside Performance of Diary of Anne Frank

Like everything else the theatre and the arts are in for turbulent times ahead.

Most of my theatre professors earned their bones in the 1960’s. So it’s no suprise that one of my favorites once told us that “you aren’t doing real theatre unless someone shows up with guns to stop people buying tickets at the box office.” I’m not sure this was what he had in mind.

CleanShot 2024-11-12 at 14.33.42@2x.

A group of people showed up outside a community theatre performance of The Diary of Anne Frank in Livingston, Michigan waving Nazi flags. Obviously this upset the play goers and the play doers. Some were escorted to their cars following the performance. The demonstrators left the American Legion parking lot, where the play was being performed, after being told to by local police, but did exchange words with patrons across the street.

Here’s a quote from The Fowlerville Community Theatre via CNN:

The Fowlerville Community Theatre, which put on the production, said in a statement the play “centers on real people who lost their lives in the Holocaust” and added the cast and crew “endeavored to tell their story with as much realism as possible.”

“On Saturday evening, things became more real than we expected,” the group said. “The presence of protesters outside gave us a small glimpse of the fear and uncertainty felt by those in hiding.”

“As a theatre, we want to make people feel and think. We hope by presenting Anne’s story, we can help prevent the atrocities of the past from happening again.”

Something tells me theatres, and the arts in general, are in for more of this, and not just on topics that bring out anti-semitism, given how we’ve just turned this country upside down and inside out, revealing all the ugly that I think my professor genuinely thought that theatre and the arts should be protesting against and illuminating.

Of course the theatre and the artists have also shown throughout history that they can be important voices against ugliness and hatred as well even in times when they’ve been shut down and persecuted. Art and storytelling always finds a way.

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.

Husbands, Wives, and Voting

Husbands and wives and the ballot box.

My mother and father have both been gone so long that I’m glad they don’t have to live through the political mess we’re in currently. Politics and voting seemed much simpler then. Until my father died my mother always voted the way he told her too. There wasn’t any bullying involved. It was just the way of things. They’ve both been gone long enough that this current political squabble about wives not telling their husbands that they are going to vote for Kamala Harris would make no sense to either one of them.

Jesse watters mad on fox.

As context, my first presidential election was 1972 and my dad and I argued over politics until he died in 1985. Needless to say we mostly didn’t see eye to eye. After Dad passed, Mom declared that going forward she would be voting with her children’s best interest in mind. She’d sound each of us out and make her own decisions. Sometimes we agreed. Sometimes we didn’t. She still leaned much more conservative than liberal, although in a few elections she surprised me. Had she lived long enough I’m convinced she would have voted for Hillary Clinton.

The intriguing thing, as I look back on it, was that Dad, and thus Mom, didn’t always vote one way or the other from a party perspective on a national or state level.

As I recall Dad was an Eisenhower Republican, but he voted for Kennedy and then again for Johnson. He voted for Nixon the second time around, but not his third. He voted for Mills Godwin when he ran as a Republican for governor the second time, but not when he ran as a Democrat the first time. Godwin won both times. So there was always a mix, and Mom always followed suit. Or at least that was the assumption.

Again, that was a different era in what seems like a different land.

From what I’m seeing these MAGAt dunces that are terrified of their wives voting secretly for Kamala Harris and lying to them about it probably need to worry about more than just how their household might split the vote. I’m guessing that’s one reason these Project 2025ers want to do away with no-fault divorce, along with everything else that provides women an equal footing.

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.