Tuesday, August 19, 2025

Guess the Ideological Drift

 



The executive leadership of what was the Young Men's Christian Association. Hmm. Something's missing. Maybe more.

It's now just called "The Y."

And here's the executive leadership of the Young Women's Christian Association. Its name is the same.

Monday, August 18, 2025

Back By Popular Demand

 


Style

A question recently came up as to whether or not I'm an "upbeat" management consultant.

My answer was, and is: "No, I am a realistic consultant. Some situations are neither happy nor easy. That doesn't mean they can't be addressed. It means they should be addressed."

[Update: And then I smiled.]

Stunning Cast

 


The Robot in the Mirror



On Substack, I explore what was lost when the secretarial pools disappeared.


[Photo by wu yi at Unsplash]

Gucci, Kubrick, Martin, and The Frick


 





Bate's Seven



Being a towering castle of sloth, I am amazed at how often I forget this.


[Photo by Natalia Blauth at Unsplash+]

Sunday, August 17, 2025

Saturday, August 16, 2025

Journalism Falling


It is hard to overstate the extent to which the credibility of the news media has fallen in recent years.

Rather than a program called Meet the Press, it would be far more interesting to have one called Confront the Press in which an array of citizens got to question reporters.


[Photo by Waldemar at Unsplash]

First Paragraph

 It was good fun commanding a division in the Iraq desert. It is good fun commanding a division anywhere. It is one of the four best commands in the Service - a platoon, a battalion, a division, and an army. A platoon, because it is your first command, because you are young, and because, if you are any good, you know the men in it far better than their mothers do and love them as much. A battalion, because it is a unit with a life of its own; whether it is good or bad depends on you alone; you have at last a real command. A division, because it is the smallest formation that is a complete orchestra of war and the largest in which every man can know you. An army, because the creation of its spirit and its leadership in battle give you the greatest unity of emotional and intellectual experience that can befall a man.

- From Defeat into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1943-1945 by Field Marshal Viscount Slim

[Note: William "Bill" Slim is commonly regarded as one of the greatest commanders in World War II.]

Crank It Up

 


Friday, August 15, 2025

Sydney Sweeney versus Harrison Bergeron

 


Commentary magazine: Christine Rosen on the reaction to the Sydney Sweeney ads.


[Photo by Will Esayenko at Unsplash]

The Savannah Bananas

 


"I haven't learned from the baseball industry. I learned from Saturday Night Live. I learned from the Grateful Dead. I learned from Cirque de Soleil. I learned from WWE. I learned from Taylor Swift. I Learned from Mr. Beast. I learned from Jeff Bezos and Amazon. I learned from Apple."

- Jesse Cole, owner of The Savannah Bananas

In the Pipeline



Another book to consider: Quartered Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser.

Thursday, August 14, 2025

Sometimes, Slow is Fast


My Substack column has 13 key decision-making questions.

Silent Decisions


The past two to three decades have illustrated that it is dangerous to assume that major decisions affecting the public will be submitted for scrutiny and debate.

Remember the elementary school classes on Industrial Arts and Home Economics?

Many schools dropped those subjects, particularly the shop classes.

If you don't recall any extensive discussions of the pros and cons of doing so, it is probably due to the fact that there weren't any.

So too with the teaching of cursive. All of a sudden, gone! And now we have college students who cannot read and write cursive.

Part of the Great Turn-Around - and it's coming - will be an expansion of transparency.

If something has not been publicly announced, there's a reason why and it usually is not a good one.

Monday, August 11, 2025

"Coming Out of the Ice"

 


The book was extraordinary. It should be back in print. Track it down at your used bookstore.

Steven Pinker

 Stephen Landry passed along some very good news this morning.

I'm glad the need for Totalitarian Studies is spreading.

Playing Monopoly

 A Large Regular has a powerful picture of how many people play the Monopoly game of life.

Salute to Film Composers

 


First Paragraph

 After days of delay, weeks of obsessive preparation, months of watching the failed attempts of others and two years of seeing the depths to which human beings could sink, the moment had finally come. It was time to escape.

- From The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland

Great Things Await

 Get thee to Stephen Landry's Blog.

Sign of Wisdom

A Layman's Blog has a sixty-year-old refrigerator.

Saturday, August 09, 2025

We Once Took Henry Mancini for Granted

 


My Current Reading Stack

 


  • Rome: Strategy of Empire by James Lacey
  • Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
  • The Age of AI and Our Human Future by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher
  • Genius Makers by Cade Metz
  • AI Superpowers by Kau-Fu Lee
  • Empire of AI by Karen Hao
  • Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore
  • King of Kings by Scott Anderson

Movie Ushers, Gas Station Attendants, and Other Jobs That Went Away


My Substack essay is here.


[Photo by Nathan Dumlao at Unsplash]

Friday, August 08, 2025

Crank It Up

 


Stay Edgy


Nicholas Bate is on his game with advice on what to do in a world of robots and AI.


[Photo by Maximalfocus at Unsplash]

Cooler Than Cool

 Chris Lynch reviews the book about Elmore Leonard.

Just added that to my Buy list.

One Big Happy Family

 


First Paragraph

 The Chinese teenager with the square-rimmed glasses seemed an unlikely hero to make humanity's last stand. Dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and black tie, Ke Jie slumped in his seat, rubbing his temples and puzzling over the problem in front of him. Normally filled with a confidence that bordered on cockiness, the nineteen-year-old squirmed in his leather chair. Change the venue and he could be just another prep-school kid agonizing over an insurmountable geometry proof.

- From: AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee

Back By Popular Demand

 


Thursday, August 07, 2025

A Few Unusual Books About an Unusual World

 


[Photo by Nile Pereira at Unsplash]

1908 - The Iron Heel by Jack London

1920 - We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

1932- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

1936 - We The Living by Ayn Rand

1938 - Anthem by Ayn Rand

1942 - It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

1943 - The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

1945 - Animal Farm by George Orwell

1948 - Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

1954 - Lord of the Flies by William Golding

1957 - Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

1957 - On the Beach by Neville Shute

1959 - A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller

1961 - Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut

1962 - The Drowned World by J. G. Ballard

1962 - The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

1968 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?  by Philip K. Dick

1977 - Lucifer's Hammer by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven

1980 - Ridley Walker by Russell Hoban

1985 - The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

1992 - The Children of Men by P.D. James

1993 - The Giver by Lois Lowry

2006 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

2007 - Blind Faith by Ben Elton

2012 - The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

2014 - Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

2015 - Submission by Michel Houellebecq

2016 - The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver

2021 - Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson

2024 - Mania by Lionel Shriver

(Updated to correct A Canticle for Leibowitz.]

The Endless Bummer

Sippican Cottage provides the best analysis of the Fifties and the Sixties I've ever read.

And I was there for a lot of it.

Check it out.

The Upcoming Civil War in France

Remix: A Moroccan lights his cigarette from the flame of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. ["The man, known to police and the courts, has 21 prior convictions for contempt, rebellion, and racial insults. His current residency card was valid until October 2025."]

France and Algeria spar over deportations.

French Interior Minister threatens to resign.

What is French for "Get your act together!"?

Wednesday, August 06, 2025

I Remember When These Were in the United States


 

Serious innovation.

First Paragraph

 In late 2017, a quiet revolution occurred. Alpha Zero, an artificial intelligence (AI) program developed by Google DeepMind, defeated Stockfish - until then the most powerful chess program in the world. AlphaZero's victory was decisive: it won twenty-eight games, drew seventy-two, and lost none. The following year, it confirmed its mastery: in one thousand games against Stockfish, it won 155, lost six, and drew the remainder.

- From The Age of AI and Our Human Future by Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher

Let's Gain a Human Edge on Artificial Intelligence


The alarm bell is ringing. It's time to expand our advantage over Artificial Intelligence.

My Substack details are here.


[Photo by Nicholas Sancenito at Unsplash]

Lest We Forget

 


Tuesday, August 05, 2025

Harrison Bergeron

 A Layman's Blog points to one of the most important short stories ever written.

Hit the Books

 The Best Colleges list of the best libraries in the world.

A Basic A.I. List

 Some terms you'll run across:

"Artificial General Intelligence" (also known as AGI) simply means a machine that can think like a human brain.

"Superintelligence" is an ability that can surpass the human brain.

Some AI companies to watch:

Anthropic: Its product, which supposedly is more human-sensitive than Chat GPT (details needed on that aspect) is Claude. Its CEO is Dario Amodei. The major investor is Amazon.

DeepMind: This produces Google's AI product: Gemini. Its CEO is Sir Demis Hassabis.

DeepSeek: The Chinese AI firm and so it has enormous resources and the backing of the Chinese Communist Party and government.

MSL (Meta Superintelligence Labs): Meta is Mark Zuckerberg's outfit. It is currently run by Alexandr Wang, the founder of Scale AI.

Open AI: Sam Altman's firm. Produces ChatGPT and InstructGPT. Its major investor is Microsoft.

Safe Superintelligence: Ilya Sutskever's AI firm. "SSI" is its name and mission.

xAI: Elon Musk's AI firm. Grok is its product.


As The Establishment Locks Arms

Matt Taibbi's "Open Letter to the Columbia Journalism Review on the Atrocious New York Times." An excerpt:

"That attitude only works if the facts are on your side. On this story, they aren't, and not close."

Monday, August 04, 2025

And We All Know What Was Happening in France

 In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsters' warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognized and challenged  by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of "the Captain," gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mail was mislaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot himself by the other four, "in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:" after which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles's, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way.

- From A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Featuring Dick Dale, Surf Guitar God

 


The A.I. Explanation Gap


 

Much of the discussion about Artificial Intelligence goes like this:

A. We are about to be quickly immersed in a mind-boggling collection of information and analysis.

B. As a result, there will be _____, ______, ______, and even more ________, as jobs are ______. Your own job, for example, will _____ or ______.

C. At the end of that stage, we'll be living in a bold and exciting era as people rejoice at the expansion of their leisure time.


[Photo by Cash Macanaya for Unsplash+]

First Paragraph

 "Matrimony was ordained, thirdly," said Jane Studdock to herself, "for the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other." She had not been to church since her schooldays until she went there six months ago to be married, and the words of the service had stuck in her mind.

- From That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups by C. S. Lewis

Still Timely

 When people say they are trying to kill you, believe them.

- Elie Wiesel

Sunday, August 03, 2025

Saturday, August 02, 2025

Enthusiastic Recluses

We aren't engaging in person anymore. Many don't even want to. Waymos are everywhere in Austin. When I ask people who use them why they do so, the first thing they say, almost every single time, is, "It's great! I don't have to talk to anyone!" They're so happy about it. Am I out of touch for finding that depressing? 

- Bridget Phetasy, "Enjoy your slop!" in The Spectator, August 2025

Sounds Fascinating

 


EasyEnglish

Nicholas Bate has information on a communication approach that is very practical.

I'd like it to be expanded beyond English. 

The ability to speak broken French, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese would be marvelous.

I don't need to be fluent.

One danger over time: If the variation became the standard.

Bravo! The Return of the Presidential Fitness Test

 A wave of memories from my high school Physical Education classes just hit me.

This Executive Order is long overdue.

Speaking Like Churchill

 


Mega-Scandal

Matt Taibbi: No doubt left: Russiagate was a cover-up.

Jonathan Turley on the greatest political trick in history.

An excerpt: "It appears that everyone was in on the trick: the U.S. government, the media, even foreign governments. The only chumps were the American people. Now they are about to see how it was done."

Friday, August 01, 2025

The Danger of Utopians


 

My Substack column makes the case for Totalitarian Studies.


[Photo by J Z at Unsplash]

Back By Popular Demand [Vacation Planning File]

 


Petite Chasse

Mitigating Chaos has evidence that a French composer in the 1700s made music with a smile.

Cooler Than Cool

 A Large Regular has just added to my reading list.

Any book with info on the writing of City Primeval is hard to resist.

Mission - Projects - Relationships


 

Mission ~ Projects ~ Relationships

All are vital, but unless carefully watched the one in the middle will consume most of your time and rob the others of needed attention.

Neglect Mission and Relationships and watch the Projects dry up.

Don't forget that. Make appropriate adjustments.

Start today.


[Photo by Getty Images for Unsplash +]

Yes, I'm Very Much in a Hurry

 


That's why I'm slowing down.


[Photo by Maksym Tymchyk at Unsplash]

Thursday, July 31, 2025

Films About Work: A Series

 


A Dangerous Nonchalance

 The more I read about Artificial Intelligence, the more I'm disturbed by the use of money as the main, even the sole, criterion in deciding whether or not to embrace it.

Reducing costs and saving money are fine, but what signals are sent to the customers and the rest of the organization's workforce? 

And what other factors need to be considered?

Will a passion for robots and the robotic ultimately turn you into a robot?

Slow down.

Winning the Maine Ironman Race

Sippican Cottage (and his wife) have developed a strategy.

And it's very impressive.

Thinking, Doing, and Living

 A visit to Cultural Offering always gives me hope for the future.

Get on there and meander around.

Intelligence, wit, and a life well-lived.

Rewarding Terrorism

The general rule in negotiations is the party that acts worse (as in starting a war, committing terrorism, and then not releasing hostages) gets a worse deal, not a better one.

Commentary magazine provides an update.

Sometimes You Need the Thoughts of A. Mole

 


Back By Popular Demand: Benign Editing

Britannica Kids Dictionary gives an intriguing description of Communism and how it grew.

I'm sure many Eastern Europeans would find it to be fascinating.

Boldly Go

 One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

- Andre Gide

Hmm

 


Tuesday, July 29, 2025

The Weird Dream We Share

 



My Substack explains.

In the Pipeline

 


In the Background and the Foreground

 


Deserves More Attention Than the Fall of Rome

 We have just suffered such a defeat as no one would have believed possible. On whom or on what should the blame be laid? On the French system of parliamentary government, say our generals; on the rank and file of the fighting services, on the English, on the fifth column - - in short, on any and everybody but themselves.

- From Strange Defeat by Marc Bloch, an analysis of the fall of France in 1940

Sunday, July 27, 2025

Saturday, July 26, 2025

The Good Old Days

 


Comes Out in September. Definitely on My List.

 


If Only We Had a Press Corps

"It positioned Steele Dossier conclusions as mainstream news, set up Trump to be investigated by his own incoming FBI Director, and made sure the incoming administration did not see dissenting intelligence about Russian meddling."

- Matt Taibbi in Explaining Russiagate: Why the December 9th, 2016 Meeting Mattered

John Brennan, Political Hit Man

 Jonathan Turley reviews the machinations of John Brennan and the Obama White House.

The news media played a major role in perpetuating the smear.

Strategy

 


One of Huxley's Warnings

 The soul of wit may become the very body of untruth. However elegant and memorable, brevity can never, in the nature of things, do justice to all the facts of a complex situation. On such a theme one can be brief only by omission and simplification. Omission and simplification help us to understand - but help us, in many cases, to understand the wrong thing, for our comprehension may be only of the abbreviator's neatly formulated notions, not of the vast, ramifying reality from which these notions have been so arbitrarily abstracted.

- Aldous Huxley in Brave New World Revisited

I am carefully reading Brave New World Revisited with a particular interest in what his views might have been on artificial intelligence. I could ask AI for that, but for some odd reason prefer to go to the original source.

Trivia point: On the same sad day in November 1963 that John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Aldous Huxley and C. S. Lewis died.

Another Upbeat Russian Story

 


Time to Re-Read


In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

- The Hobbit or There and Back Again by J.R. R. Tolkien

Keep in Mind

 If you are the smartest person in the room, find a new room.

- Legendary Fire Chief Alan Brunacini

First Paragraph

 Sunday morning, Ordell took Louis to watch the white-power demonstration in downtown Palm Beach.

- From Rum Punch: A Novel by Elmore Leonard

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Big Will

 


Westerns: A Reading List

 


Most of the following western novels are often listed as classics. Since I have put the ones that I've read in bold, you can see that I am way behind.

  • Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry 
  • The Wonderful Country by Tom Lea
  • The Virginian by Owen Wister
  • The Travels of Jamie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor
  • Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge
  • Hombre by Elmore Leonard
  • Take of Valor by Vardis Fisher
  • Outlawed by Anna North
  • The Outrider by Luke Short
  • Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey
  • The Sackett Brand by Louis L'Amour
  • True Grit by Charles Portis
  • The Sisters Brothers by Patrick de Witt
  •  Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
  • Valdez is Coming by Elmore Leonard
  • Desperadoes by Ron Hansen
  • The Hell Bent Kid by Charles O. Locke
  • Welcome to Hard Times  by E.L. Doctorow
  • The Way West by A.B. Guthrie
  • The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie
  • The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
  • Shane by Jack Shaefer
  • Hondo by Louis L'Amour
  • The Searchers by Alan Le May
  • Butcher's Crossing by John Williams
  • Little Big Man by Thomas Berger
  • The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton
  • Flashman and the Redskins by George MacDonald Fraser
  • Centennial by James Michener
  • The Shootist by Glen Swarthout
  • The Son by Philipp Meyer
  • El Paso by Winston Groom
  • The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin
  • Gone to Texas by Asa Earl Carter
  • News of the World by Paulette Jiles
  • Monte Walsh by Jack Shaefer
  • The Revenant by Michael Punke
  • Wild Times by Brian Garfield
[Photo by Cayetano Gil at Unsplash]

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Films About Work: A Series

 


Assassinations, the Moon Landing, and a White Bronco



Get ready for flashbacks: My Substack column on televised events that everyone watched.


[Photo by History in HD at Unsplash]

I May Enroll

Jordan Peterson has started an on-line academy that looks like a bargain. 

Impressive subjects and faculty.

Remember the famous Faber College motto: "Knowledge is Good."

Monday, July 21, 2025

Frederick the Great Meets Bach

 


From the French Mini-Series on Mozart

 


Just Arrived

 


Read the Book First

 


First Paragraph

 Every time they got a call from the leper hospital to pick up a body Jack Delaney would feel himself coming down with the flu or something. Leo Mullen, his boss, was finally calling it to Jack's attention. 'You notice that? They phone, usually it's one of the sisters, and a while later you get kind of a moan in your voice. 'Oh man, I don't know what's the matter with me. I feel kind of punk.'"

- From Bandits by Elmore Leonard

Yes!

 


Puppet Arts

 If you want a distinctive major, the University of Connecticut has one that's hard to beat.

Sunday, July 20, 2025

Saturday, July 19, 2025

First Paragraph

 In the middle of the last century, in the lifetime of men and women with whom the author has spoken, there was to be seen, walking or riding the London streets, a most distinguished-looking old man. Wherever he went, everyone stopped and saluted him as though he were a king. As men uncovered, he would lift a stiff forefinger to the brim of a tall grey hat. The gesture was never omitted and never varied. He was always immaculately dressed, in spotless white trousers and a skin-tight, single-breasted blue frock coat. His hair was silvery, his eyes bright and piercing, his figure lithe and upright as a boy's, save for the shoulders which were bent with age, his finely chiseled features and long Roman beak like an eagle's. To the early Victorians he seemed as much a landmark as St. Paul's or his own gigantic statue - cocked-hat, cloak, world-famous charger - riding above the triumphal arch opposite to his house at Hyde Park Corner. Everyone called him The Duke, as though, there was only one. For, so long as Wellington lived, for most Englishmen there was only one.

- From The Great Duke by Arthur Bryant (1972)

Important Announcement: Tomorrow Is the Birthday of The Rigg

 


Eternal Vigilance

 Wall Street Journal: Joel Engel on some important lessons from the Thirties.

Memorable Moments with National Public Radio

 




When Evil Met

 


Plans versus Planning



Want to get things done? My Substack contains points to consider.


[Photo by Jess Bailey at Unsplash]

Friday, July 18, 2025

Medical Perspective

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.

- Robert Frost

Excellent Reading

 I like the shelf at Cultural Offering.

Crank It Up

 


Hmm

 


Highly Recommended

 


Times Have Changed

 We have no discipline in this bureaucracy. We never fire anybody. We never reprimand anybody. We never demote anybody. We always promote the sons-of-bitches that kick us in the ass.

- President Richard Nixon, quoted in The Plot That Failed: Nixon and the Administrative Presidency by Richard P. Nathan

For Ice Cream Lovers

 The chefs who have been recommending Jeni's Ice Cream are correct.

I have not tried all of the flavors but the Darkest Chocolate and the Salted Peanut Butter with Chocolate Flakes are extraordinary.

Consider this a public service.

The Fall of NPR

The Free Press: Former NPR editor Uri Berliner adds his perspective on National Public Radio's Independence Day.

Thursday, July 17, 2025

Pandering Update

 AI Overview

In the UK, the government announced on Thursday, July 17, 2025, that it will lower the voting age from 18 to 16 before the next national election
. This move is part of broader reforms aimed at increasing democratic participation. 
While Parliament's vote on specific legislation enabling this change has not yet taken place, the ruling Labour Party had pledged to lower the voting age before its election in July 2024. The changes will be implemented through a new Elections Bill, which needs parliamentary approval. The next general election is due by the summer of 2029 at the latest.