Category: Uncategorized

First of all, the drop cap option within WordPress seems to have disappeared. So much for style consistency.

But on to more serious matters. The latest issue of The New American just arrived last week and there are two things of note: 1) there was zero mention of our newly minted federal police force in the form of ICE and 2) there was a piece on Putin that was a reprint… from nearly 20 years ago. Huh. Seems like there might be some more recent/breaking news on that topic.

Oh, and also: The Supreme Court handed down a decision last week that ICE can make arrests “based only on race, language, location and occupation.” Let that sink in for a bit. This is not rule of law. This is rule of power, based on the whims of whomever is in power. Using the exact same legal logic and justification (or lack thereof), ICE could be directed to arrest white, English-speaking folks wearing cowboy hats. Who in their right mind would trust the Feds with that power?

According to Abraham Lincoln, ‘The legitimate object of government, is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they cannot, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves.”

Let’s discuss. Feel free to add comments below. Since we’re now off of Facebook’s algorithm, feel free to throw bombs. Go ahead, be inflammatory. But here’s the single ground rule: attack ideas, not the individual. Here we go.

The jet: loud.

The river: quiet.

The jet: powerful.

The river: also powerful.

The jet: complicated.

The river: infinitely more complicated.

The jet: simple.

The river: infinitely more simple.

The jet: requires energy.

The river: exudes energy.

The jet: fragile.

The river: resilient.

The jet has one purpose.

In my chair, my feet in the water, sun on my legs, toes in the pebbles, watching a turtle and

my head in the air.

Holy crap. In less than two pages, Simon Rich summed up everything that anyone might ever want to know about parenting. Here’s the link: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/02/and-the-lord-said-youve-got-a-time-out-mister

But, just in case link rot kicks in and the link above doesn’t you where you need to go, here’s the full text of the article:

And so the Lord created two humans in His image, called Adam and Eve. And He put them in the Garden of Eden and provided them with everything that they could want. And all He asked in return was that they not eat from the Tree of Knowledge. But, lo, it came to pass that they did eat from this tree. And when the Lord saw that they had disobeyed Him, He was filled with wrath. And so He said to Eve, “Because you have done this, I will make your labor pains severe, and you will suffer greatly during childbirth.” And to Adam He said, “From this day forth, you will work by the sweat of your brow in the fields, and indeed you shall die there, for you are made of dust, and to dust you shall return.” And He banished Adam and Eve and brought forth His Angel to guard the Garden with a flaming, whirring sword for all eternity.

And when Adam and Eve were out of earshot, the Lord turned to His Angel and said, “Was that too harsh?”

And the Angel stared back at Him and said, “Uh, yeah, probably. They ate one piece of fruit.”

And the Lord groaned and said, “Why didn’t you stop me?”

And the Angel said, “We’re supposed to be a united front. If we contradict each other, it’ll just make them confused.” And she shook her head and said, “What was with that ‘dust’ thing?”

And the Lord sighed and said, “I don’t know. I knew it was crazy even while I was saying it, but I couldn’t stop myself. It was just, like, out of nowhere I heard my dad’s voice coming out of my mouth.”

And the Angel said, “Well, I guess we should go talk to them.”

And the Lord said, “What do you mean?”

And the Angel said, “You know, to tell them we changed our mind about the punishment.”

And the Lord said, “No, we’ve got to follow through. Otherwise, they’ll never take anything we say seriously again!” And He handed her the sword and set it on fire and told her to start whirring it.

And the Angel said, “I really don’t think we’re going about this right.”

And the Lord said, “Just let me handle the discipline, O.K.? I know what I’m doing.”

And so the Lord stuck to the banishment thing. But, despite the harsh punishment, the humans continued to sin. And one day the Angel showed the Lord a note from school, and He was, like, “Fuck, this is some major shit.”

And the Angel said, “Yeah, they’re starting to have real behavioral problems. We should talk to a psychologist and get some advice on what to do.”

And the Lord said, “There’s only one thing we can do: bring the hammer down.”

And the Angel said, “What? Why?”

And the Lord said, “Because we set a precedent with that fucking fruit thing! If we don’t punish them at least that much for this new stuff, they’re going to think that sodomy and murder aren’t as bad as, like, sharing a bite of an apple.”

And the Angel said, “I’ve actually been reading a lot about this lately, and most experts agree that punishments are counterproductive.”

And the Lord said, “So, what, we’re just supposed to let them do whatever they want and become drug addicts?”

And the Angel rolled her eyes and said, “I’m obviously not saying that I want them to become drug addicts.” And then she added, softly, “This is why we should’ve signed up for that class.”

And the Lord said, “That class was bullshit!”

And the Angel said, “How would you know? You refused to even read the description on the Web site.”

And the Lord said, “It was held in the basement of a toy store! It was obviously just a scam to sell us toys!”

And that was how the conversation ended, without any resolution about the whole discipline thing.

And so the Lord punished the humans more and more, with floods and plagues and entire centuries without any television, and He kept giving them new rules, some of which made sense, but some of which were arbitrary, like “Don’t mix milk and meat,” which was something He’d just blurted out one morning when He was half asleep but now felt obliged to stick to. And it got to the point where He could barely even keep track of the rules that He had made, or what the penalties were for breaking them. And so the humans were punished inconsistently, in ways that had more to do with His frustration level than with any kind of actual philosophy or game plan. Like, sometimes the humans would have punishments heaped upon them for basically no reason, and sometimes they’d do something truly messed up and get no punishment at all, or even be rewarded with political office.

And the Angel would say, “What happened to being consistent?”

And the Lord would tell her some bullshit about how it was a Test, but really it was just that He was overwhelmed and exhausted and also privately kind of stressed out about money.

And so it came to pass that there was basically zero continuity. And one day, in desperation, the Lord suggested that they pick the ten main rules and engrave them on a pair of stone tablets.

And the Angel said, “A, they’re never going to follow that, and, B, it’s completely unenforceable. Like, the only way to police it would be to watch them around the clock, which would be more of a punishment for us than for them.”

And the Lord broke down and admitted that the Angel was right, and that the tablet thing was crazy, and that He’d only suggested it because He was so beat down and broken and stressed out about money that He didn’t know what the fuck to do anymore about anything.

And the Angel said, “What is going on with you? You can tell me.”

And the Lord took a deep breath and confessed His secret fear: “I feel like the humans are becoming bad people, and it’s all because of me.”

And the Angel took His hand and said, “That isn’t true.”

And the Lord looked hopeful and said, “So you think the humans are turning out all right?”

And the Angel said, “No. They obviously have some real issues. But I don’t think it’s all because of you.”

And the Lord said, “Everything’s all because of me. I’m omnipotent.”

And the Angel said, “I think maybe, when it comes to creating humans, no one is. Sure, you can guide them a little here and there, and, obviously, it’s possible to really fuck them up, like, that’s been proven with those Romanian-orphanage studies. But in general you can’t control what kind of people they become. No matter what you do, they just end up turning into . . . themselves.”

And, as her point was sinking in, the Lord looked down and saw that the humans had started a new war. And He was going to do what He normally did (punish all involved, whether they’d started it or not), but instead He turned to the Angel and said, “Maybe we should go out tonight?”

And the Angel said, “What about the flaming sword?” Because she’d been whirring it around this whole time.

And the Lord was, like, “I’m sorry I made you do that. You can put it down. That was just me being nuts.”

And so they dressed up and went out for the first time in eternity. And they ordered drinks and appetizers and the whole thing. And they talked about fun subjects that they couldn’t discuss when the humans were around, like whether or not Heaven was real, and how the secret numerical code in the Bible really worked. And they had so much fun that it felt like they were back In The Beginning, before they had humans, or even any animals, and it was just the two of them floating around among the sun and moon and stars.

And it came to pass that spending some time away from the humans made them feel better about them. And the Lord quoted some of the cute things He’d overheard them saying lately, like “I have a plan for my future” and “Here is the forecast for tomorrow’s weather.” And the Angel showed the Lord photos of some of the cute crap that the humans had made recently, like forts and towers and cities, and even though the Lord knew that it was going to be a pain in the ass to clean it all up, and that the humans would probably cry when He knocked it all down, He had to admit that it was adorable.

And they stayed out so late that they lost track of time, and their babysitter, Satan, texted them saying the next hour would be forty dollars, because after 10 p.m. counted as overtime.

And the Lord said, “Maybe we should find a different sitter.”

And the Angel said, “There’s no one else. I’ve checked.”

And the Lord told her how grateful He was that they were doing this crazy thing together, because, even though it was a shit show, there was no one in the universe He’d rather create humans with.

And the Angel smiled and said, “Do you ever think about creating more?”

And the Lord said, “No fucking way. I mean, where would we even put them?”

And the Angel shrugged and said, “We could add another continent, or, if that’s too expensive, put up drywall.”

And the Lord laughed and said, “You’re nuts! If we add more humans, we’ll never have a handle on things.”

And the Angel said, “Yeah, but maybe they will.”

And the Lord was taken aback, because He’d never considered that possibility, that someday the humans would know things that He didn’t, fix problems that He couldn’t, make new things that He wouldn’t. He’d been trying to mold them in His image, but maybe they never would be. Maybe, instead, they’d be better.

I know jack about crypto. But what I do know, I learned from this Bloomberg Businessweek issue: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2022-the-crypto-story/

Billed as the only article you’ll need to read about crypto, I can’t comment one way or another about the veracity of that statement. But it is thorough, I will give it that, coming in at 40,000+ words on the topic. That’s an entire magazine issue, written by Matt Levine. I am willing to go on record to say that it cleared some things up for me. What things, you ask? The following:

1. Much of modern life exists as entries in a database. The money in my bank account isn’t really money in my bank account. Instead, it’s an entry in a ledger saying I have a certain amount of money that my bank owes me. The title of my house and my car are, at their essence, lines in separate, but similar, databases.
2. There is a good amount of public trust in those entities charged with keeping tabs on those databases to not cheat, take my money or give away my house and my car.
3. Cyrpto came along and said, in Levine’s words, “No, no, no. Trust is bad. Don’t trust your bank. Use immutable code. Verify every transaction for yourself, or download open-source code and verify that it works correctly, and then use it to verify every transaction for yourself, or at least use a network in which that’s possible and in which economic incentives demonstrably make it likely that it will happen. And do all of this in a system that’s resistant to changes, that can’t be controlled by governments or banks, that’s immune to the rules of wider society.”
4. So… what if there were one database, and everyone ran it?
5. And there you have the basis of blockchain, and the basis of crypto.
6. From there… it gets weird. Really weird. But there’s one takeaway: Money, all money, is a social construct. “If you do good stuff for other people, they give you money, which you can use to buy good stuff for yourself.” And crypto, just like “fiat” currency, is money that is controlled by consensus. And the database entries in the blockchain of who owns your house or your car or the number of pennies in your bank account are also controlled by consensus.
7. For the time being, I’d prefer some consensus rule that also includes a healthy dose of regulation and oversight.
8. Consensus says it’s my bedtime.

Innocent until proven guilty; the concept is a bedrock of American jurisprudence. The state has a duty to prove — beyond a reasonable doubt — that someone is guilty of a particular crime charged against them. Doubt? That’s our get out of jail free card. Seems pretty darn reasonable, no? It’s a safeguard against oppressive government overreach and an idea that pretty much everyone can get behind.

Except, of course, when it comes to conservatives and their views on the choices women may make about the control of their bodies.

In an opinion piece worth reading, Ronald Reagan’s daughter tries to paint some nuance around her father’s stance on abortion. Reagan, as governor of California in 1967, signed one of the nation’s first bills making abortion legal for victims of rape and incest, as well as for cases where a woman’s mental or physical health was in danger. What a progressive fella.

By 1970, Reagan began “to have regrets because he’d learned that some psychiatrists were diagnosing unwed mothers-to-be with suicidal tendencies after five-minute assessments so that they could get abortions.” While Reagan continued to support a woman’s choice in cases of rape or incest, he went on to appoint ardently anti-choice justices to the Supreme Court. And here we are, on the cusp of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. But let’s press pause for just a moment.

For the sake of Reagan’s argument and his moral unease about abortion, let’s assume there are women out there who terminate pregnancies on a whim. Heck, let’s assume there are women who might even intentionally get pregnant just so they can have the thrill of getting an abortion. Fine, assumption made. It’s an unlikely and improbable assumption that probably only a man could make, but fine. There very well may be someone out there who fits the description. Oh, and let’s also assume that these actions constitute a crime. Fine, assumptions made.

Why then, dear conservatives, do we then make the leap to presume that all women seeking an abortion must be guilty of the above? Again, for the sake of the argument, let’s classify abortion as murder. But where is the presumption of innocence? Most adult humans are fully capable of murder but our system of justice requires that the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a killing can only be prosecuted as murder if there is no doubt about a self-defense claim. If women have no claim to innocence via self-defense, as things now stand in the great state of Texas, how is it that all killing is not murder? If a woman can’t claim self-defense in protecting herself (and her family and her livelihood and her property) against another human being, how can others claim a defense that isn’t available to a pregnant woman? Is a pregnant woman somehow sub-human and not deserving of such protections? If a pregnant woman shoots and kills a violent intruder who is threatening her with bodily harm, is that act to be viewed differently than abortion in a court of law? Can the family of the intruder sue for wrongful death because the person pulling the trigger was a pregnant woman? Do I, as a straight white guy lacking a uterus, also no longer have a claim to self-defense? I have some questions about this whole thing.

Back at the ranch…

Let’s assume that Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell and Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Republicans at the federal level read the above and say “Hmm. You raise some good points, sir”, where do we go from here? If Republicans want to negate self-defense claims, it seems to me that the government is going to have to step up, bigly, to support women and families. If a woman can’t claim that the human in her uterus is a threat to her health, wealth, or well-being, that should cut down on the number of abortions, amiright? So c’mon, Republicans, put your money where your mouth is. Or at least where your penis was.

A tip o’ the hat to Eric W. for bringing this to my attention: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/06/the-internet-is-a-collective-hallucination/619320/

If, at some point in the next decade or two, you find this blog post and click the link above, there is about a 50/50 chance that the link will take you back to the actual Atlantic article. If so, great. Read it. It’s good. If it doesn’t take you back to the article, well… that’s the point of the article. “Link rot,” also known as the inability of the Internet to provide stable and reliable access to historical information, is a problem. And it’s growing.

So, do you want the good news or the bad news first?

Bad, you say? Ok. Here it is: we’re fucked.

The good news? We’ll probably be fucked relatively quickly. How’s that for a cheery upside?

In a sentence, here’s the problem: we’re drowning in informational shit.

Let me explain.

Prior to the advent of scratching symbols on slates of clay and training up a priesthood of folks who knew what those symbols meant, human knowledge was transferred from one generation to the next through the oral tradition. Song, poetry, storytelling… those were the vehicles that passed along information. Not just any information, however. There are only so many hours in a day (or a lifetime) to recite poetry, sharing accumulated knowledge about the importance of observed weather patterns or wildlife migrations, and so on. The additional hurdle was that the younger generation needed to commit those details to memory. This had a couple implications for the inter-generational flow of information. The most important, in my view, is that the important shit had to be really important shit. The passing of information about how a culture sustains itself (with the goal being as little change and “disruption” as possible) couldn’t be a willy-nilly thing but a task that took time, care, curation and attention. The ancillary benefit of keeping change to a minimum also, as it turns out, increases the efficiency of generational transfer of knowledge. If my great-grandmother and grandmother and mother are all telling me the same thing about the best way to continue my culture, it becomes “stickier.”

Once human societies moved from pre-agriculture to agriculture-based societies, we needed to start keeping a written record of who owned what and who owed whom what. Hyper-specialization got a nose under the flap of the tent and specialized bodies of knowledge about such things as dog breeding, dog grooming, canine veterinary care, dog leash laws, dog nuisance laws, codified programs to reduce the load of dog feces in our urban stormwater systems, etc., all had to be written down. All of it. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The fact that I can sit on my porch and type these thoughts about the shortcomings of the written word on a laptop that magically sends signals over the fucking air to some box in my basement that then shuttles it onto the Internet is all thanks to the power of the written word.

But… the moment I press the “Publish” button when I’m done with this post, I will have added my bit of weight to the roughly 2.5 quintillion bytes per day of data that humans (and our machines) are creating. Being a helpful guy, I looked it up for you: there are 18 zeros in a quintillion. Tonight there is more data and information to manage, collect, sort and store than there was this morning. And who is keeping track of it? Everyone. And no one. But more importantly, no one is in charge of curating, collecting, storing and reliably retrieving the important shit.

Let’s go back to those clay tablets for a moment. A profession sprang up (yes, a specialized profession) to dutifully catalog, safely store and predictably retrieve those tablets. But those tablets themselves? Damn, they were expensive to produce, laborious to write on, heavy to carry around, not so easy to store, difficult to duplicate, you could only take one at a time with you to the bathroom, and a whole long list of other drawbacks. So while such things as clay tablets, papyrus scrolls, illuminated manuscripts inked on vellum, and other such media vastly expanded the ability of humans to capture and pass down information, it still had to be pretty damn important stuff (at least in some minds) before it would be committed to preservation.

The printing press, bless Gutenberg’s soul, may be the closest corollary to our current crisis. Gutenberg blew shit up. And kudos to him. He (and his press) took what had been almost exclusively the realm of the church and academia and pushed it out to the masses. Kudos again. Gutenberg created a boom in the information management industrial complex, from which I continue to benefit. Libraries and librarians sprang into action, doing what we do best: cataloging, storing and retrieving valuable stuff. And there was more valuable stuff than ever before. Things were booming.

The Gutenberg analogy to the modern day boom of information production holds true on many fronts: we librarians are currently flopping around in quintillions of bytes of daily data, with centuries of work ahead of us to wrangle and impose some order on the mess. Just as the crush of books gave rise to new technologies to make the information useful (hugs, Mr. Dewey), there are any number of tools that current-day libraries and librarians are using to tame the electronic data beast.

But back to the bad news: we’re fucked.

Why? Because of ownership. In the era of print-based publication and dissemination, libraries could act as curators to identify, catalog, and store the valuable shit. This had some obvious downsides. If the librarian making the selection decisions had a bias for “valuable” that discredited marginalized and colonized communities, there was real and lasting harm in those decisions. Setting those issues aside for the time being, libraries were able to purchase and own their collections. And that’s the crux of the situation we find ourselves in today.

With libraries increasingly relying on access rather than ownership, the curation bit of the equation has been drastically broadened (hooray, a good thing, by and large) but the storage and reliable retrieval process has been left to market forces. The invisible hand. And as it turns out, an invisible hand job is not as great as one might imagine it to be. Case in point: it wasn’t until 2014 that all “big five” American publishers even allowed public libraries to purchase (and catalog and store and retrieve) their e-books. We could “lease” them but ownership wasn’t on the table. Fuckery, nicely summed up by this piece from the Washington Post.

While there are efforts underway to capture, archive and reliably retrieve wide swaths of the internet (see also: https://archive.org), libraries — and those we serve — will continue to struggle if our traditional role of curation, storage and reliable retrieval is whittled down to just retrieval. We can’t reliably retrieve what we don’t own. And if we don’t own it, we haven’t curated it. And if we haven’t curated it, we haven’t had the chance to try keep just the important shit. Sooo, yeah… here we are.

Knowing all of this, I hereby move that this blog post be printed, bound, cataloged and entered into the permanent collection at the United States of ‘Murica’s Library of Congress. It shall be shelved under the official Library of Congress Subject Heading of “Shit, important”.