Tag: Writing

Sunday Morning Reading

Happy Mother’s Day reading.

Time for some Sunday Morning Reading on this Mother’s Day, with a short stack of culture, some tech, some politics, and the Ziegfeld Follies tossed in for good measure.

First up is a good long read from Spencer Kornhaber wondering if we’ve entered a cultural dark age. Provocative in parts, predictable in others, it’s worth your time for the journey it takes. Check out Is This The Worst-Ever Era of American Pop Culture?

Kaitlyn Tiffany says We’re Back to the Actually Internet. It’s about fact checking, the need for fact checking, and actually about how fact checking doesn’t really matter.

We may have beat the term fascism to death long before the real beating actually begins, and it’s the Bible thumpers who seem far too eager for the end times with their wishes for some sort of Armageddon beat down. Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor take a look at The Rise of End Times Fascism.

The Apple enthusiast world is still going through some things and will continue to for the foreseeable future. Denny Henke at Beardy Guy Musings is chronicling his thoughts about his move away from using Apple products. His latest, Are Apple Enthusiasts Miserable? takes a look at some of the angst and tensions he sees.

Indie app Developer Thomas Ricourad, the developer of the app Ice Cubes for Mastodon, among other apps, is searching. He’s not alone. Check out Having A Clear Vision In A Blurred World.

Matthew Gurewitsch takes a quick look The Story of a Rose, an upcoming look at an almost forgotten era in A Ziegfeld Girl Recalls The Forgotten War.

Happy Mother’s Day to all.

(image from Aga Putra on Unsplash)

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

Choose to pay attention before you don’t have a choice.

So much is broken these days as we watch more things break. Of course the choice is to watch or not. I prefer watching. I prefer paying attention. That’s why I share these links in Sunday Morning Reading and throughout the week.

Kicking off this week is an excellent essay from Jia Tolentino called My Brain Finally Broke. It’s one of the more powerful pieces I have read on all that’s breaking. The above is the original link. This one is to the web archive of the piece. Obviously I encourage you to read all I like to in Sunday Morning Reading, but this is one you shouldn’t miss.

NatashaMH takes on The Paradox of Choice. If you ask me, we too often enjoy choosing the paradox.

Joan Westenberg takes a look at what happens when one chooses conventional wisdom and the systems and ways things have always worked. Until those ways become a weakness and a downfall in The Cannae Problem. We’re watching this happen in real time folks.

This past week Amazon’s ass-kissing founder Jeff Bezos looked like he might have tired of the stink. In the wake of Trump’s tariffs word got out that Amazon would show customers the amount of a price increase that was due to the Trump tax. That quickly changed. Some say with a phone call from the bumbling boss. Harry McCracken suggests, (I did too), that merchants should let us know who’s screwing who in this broken mess. Check out Of Course We Deserve To Know The True Costs of Tariffs.

What Should We Do If An AI Becomes Conscious? I’m not sure. But then again, look what we as conscious beings are already doing. Mathew Ingram takes a look.

Yanis Varoufakis takes a look at Trump And The Trump Of The Technolords. It’s not a pretty look at the reasoning behind what seems to be happening without reason.

There’s not much new news in Matthew Cunningham-Cook’s piece titled Elon Musk And His DOGE Bro Have Cashed In On American’s Retirement Savings, but it’s a good summary of what has happened for those who choose to pay attention. A better one for those who choose otherwise.

To end this week with an article about hope, take a look at Lessons From A Physician About Hope by Leif Hass. Yes, hope is important. Here’s hoping you always choose wisely.

(Image from Roman Kraft on Unsplash.)

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

More than the bare minimum

It’s another Sunday. At a bare minimum it’s time for a little Sunday Morning Reading. There’s more politics than I’d like to shake any sticks at dominating my reading these days, so apologies if that turns you off. I just don’t think we can turn off or tune out to what’s happening. Like it or not (I don’t) we’re living through an epochal moment in world history demonstrating how little we regard human history. I emphasize “living through” because while we’re bearing witness, it is happening to us and whatever it evolves or devolves into will affect all who come after.

I happen to be one who believes that Trump is the ugly face of the chaos descending around us, propped up by bigger, deeper and darker forces using him as the fool too many fools easily fall for. Jonathan Mahler has an excellent piece that delves a bit into this called How The G.O.P. Fell In Love With Putin’s Russia. Excellent context that should not be ignored.

We’re living in a world daily facing formalist delusions. Benjamin Wittes uses the Abrego Garcia case as one example of that in The Situation: Formalist Delusions Confront Lawless Realities.

Speaking of formalist delusions, who knew some tech bros could declare you dead and wipe you off the books, or at least the books that matter when it comes to navigating life in today’s world. Hannah Natanson, Lisa Rein, and Meryl Kornfield take a look at how the Trump Administration Overrode Social Security Staff To List Immigrants As Dead.

Joan Westenberg calls us America, The Isolated. I can’t argue with her points. Though I will refer you back to Jonathan Mahler’s piece above for wider aperture. The deeper context is that the lens we’ve viewed the world, contained and restrained by borders, has never been the view for the forces now moving so rapidly.

In the growing category of erasing history, John Ismay takes a look at Who’s In and Who’s Out At The Naval Academy’s Library?

Mathew Ingram has penned two terrific posts that address what will certainly become a part of our digital lives as we move forward. Be Careful What You Post On Social Media. They Are Listening is the first post. He’s expanded that with Part 2 as the pace of social media monitoring is sure to be picking up.

Perhaps all of this feels too big or too overwhelming to contemplate in the helter-skelter of our daily lives. But it is beginning to have impacts, big and small. Take a look at Scott McNulty’s very funny run-in with a construction worker at his CVS. While CVS – Construction Versus Scott is about his adventures at his local pharmacy under renovation, there’s a comedy nugget in there that demonstrates how those paying attention are actually paying attention.

My initial reaction to any illness in our children is immediate quarantine and a call to the WHO (I deleted the CDC’s number from my address book because suddenly they just kept telling me to get more vitamin A).

To close out this week, take a look at My Open Letter to Gen Z from NatashaMH. At “a bare minimum,” it’s worth a read to remind us that what we remember and hang on to from “back in the day” is now in a daily collision with what comes tomorrow. Easier to avoid the damage from those collisions perhaps if you acknowledge the maps are constantly changing.

Image from Mega Stolberg on Unsplash.

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.

“Improper Ideology.” How Long Before They Just Call It Degenerate Art?

The whitewashing continues

It’s only a matter of time before the Nazis currently running America into the ground recycle Degenerative Art as a naming convention. At this point I’m not sure what’s holding them back giving their predilection for attacking anything other than the privileged white bread culture they seem to love. Although I doubt many of them actually eat white bread. 

Doing his worst to try and remake culture and history into something most of the world has left behind, Trump yesterday issued another of his plans. This time it’s directed at the Smithsonian Institution proclaiming that there has been a concerted and widespread effort to replace the “objective facts” of American History with a “distorted narrative.” Oh, yeah, it’s now called “improper ideology.”

The Nazis played a similar game with history and culture, labeling some of the art they didn’t like, or that didn’t support the world they wanted to create, as “degenerate art.” Funny though that those same goons sent troops all over Europe to snatch and grab quite a bit of that artwork for their own personal use. Go ahead, tell me who were the real degenerates. 

As I said, I’m not sure why the cowards in this administration haven’t stolen the “degenerate art” label for themselves, while they are stealing everything else. I’m sure there’s a Signal thread running around discussing it somewhere. 

I don’t need to lay out why this is bad and yes, stupid. The Smithsonian isn’t the only target and other cultural institutions are on the list, of course the most prominent prior to this being The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. There have been and will continue to be many more sad and horrific days with horrific and misguided attempts at forcing blinders over muzzles.

At some point those you try to muzzle bite back. 

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

We’re all circling. We’re not listening. We should be reading.

Everything changes. Everything remains the same. Damnit. With that said, here is this week’s Sunday Morning Reading with links to articles worth sharing and perhaps pondering over. There’s a bit of satire, a golden toilet heist, and the evolving nature of a piece from draft to final polish. And, yes, there is politics. Everything changes. Everything remains the same. Damnit.

Let’s kick off with Tina He and The Last Human Choice. That link is to the final version of the story. I also strongly encourage you to check out the draft version she shared here.

Alex Reisner takes on The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem. The technical scale may indeed boggle, the human greed behind it is a story told too often.

The Apple Intelligence/Siri sucks discussion continues and will certainly do so for quite awhile. Andrew Williams in Wired says To Truly Fix Siri, Apple May Have To Backtrack on One Key Thing–Privacy. I hate to say it, but I think he’s right and wish he weren’t.

Good satire can often be hard to distinguish from the real thing. Eli Grober walks that line well in Sergey Brin: We Need You Working 60 Hours A Week So We Can Replace You As Soon As Possible.

John Passantino takes a look at the unraveling of Threads in Hanging by a Thread.

Clearing the throat and clogging up the arteries with a bit of political writing here’s James Thorton Harris with Imagine Deportation: When Nixon Tried To Pull A Trump On John Lennon. Everything changes, everything remains the same. Damnit.

In the category of “be careful what you wish for,” Phoebe Petrovic in ProPublica gives us How A Push To Amend The Constitution Could Help Trump Expand Presidential Power. We’ve already let quite a few demons out of Pandora’s Box, I’m not so sure we want to crack it open any wider.

Speaking of demons, Elizabeth Lopatto tells us How Trump And Musk Built Their Own Reality. Excellent piece.

John Pavlovitz says we all make mistakes in America Chose The Monster.

Mark Jacob always has a great look at the media, especially in this moment, In this one he examines When The Media Take MAGA Liars At Their Word. I mentioned to Mark that what infuriates me is not just the media taking him at his word–ignorance and stupidity know no bounds–but that they know better and report it out as if they don’t.

And to flush away politics Clodagh Stenson, Jonathan Eden and William McLennan tell the tale of The Inside Story of Blenheim’s Gold Toilet Heist.

Bringing my words at the top full circle, NatashaMH once again delves deep into the personal past through a contemporary moment (her reaction to the streaming hit Adolescence) in A Requiem For My Dreams. I’ll close with a quote from her piece about the series that applies to everything, everywhere all at once:

People say the series is about a new world that’s happening. Fuck that, ignoramuses. It’s about a world that has always been out there behind closed doors when ears weren’t listening

(Image from Ashni on Unsplash)

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

Tough reads for tough times with a nod to the Commodore 64.

The rapid decay of all things continues. I’m not even sure if “decay” is the right word. “Collapse” might be a better choice. Regardless, there’s no “decay” or “collapse” in my sharing articles and writing every week in Sunday Morning Reading. Enjoy.

Russell Shorto tells us that the fracture we’re facing shouldn’t surprise in America’s Fatal Division Is Nothing New: It Was Baked In From The Beginning. He’s right and that’s also nothing new. We just have a propensity for ignoring what we shouldn’t.

Marc Elias says We Can’t Give In To Fear. He’s right. But with those we mistakenly counted on having already done so, it makes it tougher for the rest of us.

Brian Barrett of Wired (which continues to do excellent reporting) gives us a rundown on The United States of Elon Musk. Good piece with good context. I don’t disagree with his premise that it’s unsustainable. The larger concern is what’s left in its wake.

NatashaMH opens up a personal tale of exploring justice, relationships, and personal power in The Price of Guns And Butter.

Things aren’t just decaying on political and social fronts, technology is marching right alongside, if not leading the charge. John Gruber lays out a mea culpa of sorts in discussing Apple’s less than intelligent move into Artificial Intelligence in Something Is Rotten In The State of Cupertino. Om Malik also weighs in with Apple Intelligence, Fud, Dud or Both. I’ll have more to say on this later this week. I wrote a bit about it last week also.

Will Knight, (again in Wired) tells us that Under Trump, AI Scientists Are Told To Remove ‘Ideological Bias’ From Powerful Models. Tell me. Who didn’t see this kind of thing happening?

Cory Doctorow in Pluralistic lays out how Amazon Annihilates Alexa Privacy Settings, Turns On Continuous Nonconsensual Audio Uploading. One way user agreements flow only one way. Again, who didn’t see this coming?

In times of uncertain futures it’s always somewhat uncomfortably comforting to reminisce about simpler times. When it comes to technology there was perhaps no simpler or more innocent time than during the age of the Commodore 64, which was my first home computer. We’ve come a long way. Gareth Edwards takes a look at Jack Tramiel’s success in How Commodore Invented The Mass Market Computer.

(Image from Ashni on Unsplash)

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

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.)

Bible Thumping, Baptisms, Softball and Preachers’s Daughters

Putting the pit in the pulpit.

These days religion ain’t old time and it’s a gimme that too much of it is departing from anything I’d call spiritual. Shutterstock 1765366676. I wrote a bit on my thoughts and some of mh history walking down and away from church aisles that formed those thoughts in the publication Ellemeno on Medium. The piece is called Whatever Gets You Through The Night. Yes, you can thank John Lennon for the title, actually you can thank John Lennon’s inspiration for the title, the Reverend Ike as well. As I say in the piece:
The rules matter until they don’t. The stories matter until they don’t. The questions always matter. Especially the ones we can’t answer.
I hope you check out Whatever Gets You Through The Night.  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. 

Where’s Wanda? Is Worth A Watch

Good laughs to be had in this screwball black comedy.

Where’s Wanda on Apple TV+ is certainly worth a watch but it also begs the question my wife asked after we concluded viewing the first season, “where was the advertising and marketing for this show?”

Perhaps we missed whatever short marketing window Apple opened for the series, but it escaped our radar, and we only recently stumbled on it at the tail end of our queue by accident. Regardless, as I said, it’s worth a watch, especially if you’re in the mood for some good laughter.

Where’s Wanda? is a German language streaming series written by British writer Oliver Lansley, and directed by German director Zoltan Spirandelli. It was and is marketed as a black comedy, but I think black screwball comedy is more appropriate. Yes, there are subtitles. They also have some fun with that throughout.

The Wanda of the title is a young teenage girl gone missing and the plot ends up involving not only her family but their entire small town in searching for her. While the family drives the story, they guide us through enough of the town to be charmed and amused by the folks we meet with both recognition and surprise, as the plot evolves and involves more and more of the town in its mysteries.

The cast is uniformly excellent and I especially thought Heike Makatsch as the mother was superb. The moments between the younger cast members were some of the most engaging, hilarious, and touching scenes about the awkward moments in young people’s lives I’ve seen in a while. Where’s Wanda? gets silly, it gets serious, and it gets under your skin because of excellent work all around by the team that put it together.

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.