#80 / Light Secrets

 

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I really enjoyed a short story by Joseph O'Neill, published in the January 26, 2026, edition of The New Yorker. The story is titled, "Light Secrets," and if you are a subscriber to the magazine, I believe that clicking that link should give you access If you are not a subscriber, you might try this link. I think that might work, too, though no guarantees!

"Light Secrets" are the opposite of "Dark Secrets." We all know about those "Dark Secrets," don't we? Things like this: 

• What about the time that one of your work colleagues left his computer open when the coworker went to the restroom, and you read his screen, which you shouldn't have done, and which violated company policy, and because you did that you were therefore able to make a quick stock purchase that netted you $50,000, using your insider knowledge? 

• Or, what about that time that one of your wife's best friends dropped by "unexpectedly," or so she claimed, while your wife was out of town? But what then eventuated was really all her fault, wasn't it? 

• Or, what about the fact that your daughter, who ultimately achieved academic success, only got admitted to Stanford (you never told her this - or told your wife, either) because you made a $150,000 contribution to the university's development fund, and did so only after getting absolute assurances that your daughter would get in?

There are lots of "Dark Secrets" that are many times worse than those I just listed. We should count ourselves lucky if we don't have any of those really bad "Dark Secrets" - or any "Dark Secrets" at all, for that matter. 

"Light Secrets" are also genuine "secrets." We don't talk about them. We don't reveal them, even to our best friends or family members - or even to people we absolutely know that we will never meet again. Here is how O'Neill introduces the idea of "Light Secrets," on the very first page of his five-page story: 

P. says, "Everybody's got something to hide. Everybody." He wears his usual gloomy face. With no lessening of the gloom, he says, "but you know what else is true? Everybody's done something good that's hidden - the opposite of a dark secret." 

"A light secret," I suggest. "Precisely," P. says.

To repeat myself, I really liked O'Neill's story, and I encourage you to hunt it down. It struck me, after reading it, that going out of my way to build up a big, personal inventory of "Light Secrets" would be an excellent way to make worthwhile use out of whatever time I have left of my current life.

You might like that idea, too!

 

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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/01/26/light-secrets-fiction-joseph-oneill

#79 / Both-And

 

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Rahm Emanuel, pictured above, was heralded in one of my recent blog postings for his very sage advice on how to bring up one's children in the very best way. Emanuel's #1 child-rearing precept, which I completely endorse, is the following: "Meals matter. If you want to raise successful children, families have to eat together" (emphasis added).

I have repeated that advice here, in my blog posting today, just because I do think that this is extremely good advice. It bears repetition. In fact, though, today's blog posting has another main point. 

Emanuel, it appears, is getting ready to run for president, and according to a column in The Wall Street Journal, he is presenting himself as a "Renewal Democrat." The other option, according to the column by Matthew Continetti, is to be a "Resistance Democrat." You can read Continetti's column yourself, if you want to, but only if you can slip past what I think is likely to be a pretty robust paywall. Continetti's column is titled, "There's Only One 'Renewal Democrat.'"

Personally, I would have to say that "Resistance" needs to be a primary focus of anyone who wants to run for Congress this year, or for anyone who might be running for president in 2028. "Resistance" is absolutely called for at this moment in our nation's political life - unless you like what our current president and his appointed officials have been doing in Minneapolis, Minnesota in in Iran and the Middle East (to pick two, extremely dramatic, examples). 

"Renewal" would also be nice, don't you think?

Why do Continetti and The Wall Street Journal indicate that we have to choose?

I don't want our next president to have avoided resisting what our current president and his henchmen (a "loaded" term, I know), have been doing. I also don't want our next president to be unaware of the need profoundly to "renew" what it means to be an American, and to "renew" our nation's self-understanding. 

"Both-And." Is that really too much to ask?

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https://www.wsj.com/opinion/theres-only-one-renewal-democrat-909dd548

#78 / Is Self-Congratulation Really What We Need?

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Writing in a column in The Wall Street Journal, Richard D. Kahlenberg and Lief Lin claim that "American Studies Can't Stand Its Subject." What does that mean? Well, the basic assertion is that scholars writing about America are painting a "one-sided and unrelentingly negative portrait of the U.S." Here's from the column (emphasis added):

 

Kahlenberg and Lin examined ... almost 100 articles ... from over a three-year period in American Quarterly, the flagship journal of the American Studies Association. Published by Johns Hopkins University, it’s widely considered the country’s premier journal of American studies.... 

We found that 80% of articles published between 2022 and 2024 were critical of America, 20% were neutral, and none were positive. Of the 96 articles we examined, our research identified 77 as critical, focused on American racism, imperialism, classism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia. Some articles went to absurd lengths to identify sins. One essay posited that thermodynamics—the science dealing with the relationship between energy, heat, work and temperature—is “an abstract settler-capitalist theory that influenced the plunder of Indigenous lands and lives.” ...  

What’s striking is the complete lack of gratitude on the part of scholars who write for the leading journal of American studies and benefit every day from the country’s commitment to liberty. Four-fifths of the world’s population can’t criticize their government without fear of reprisal. Despite the White House’s crackdown on universities (which we oppose), professors can and do regularly criticize President Trump without worrying about losing their livelihood or freedom. 

American Quarterly is only one journal, but what’s found in its pages captures a much larger problem in education, particularly at the collegiate level. During our research, we contacted University of Texas at Austin historian Steven Mintz, who has analyzed the field of American studies. He told us: “A field that once asked, ‘What is America?’—exploring its myths, music, monuments, and contradictions—now too often narrows its focus to a different question: ‘Whom has America silenced, failed, or harmed?’ ” 

This deeply pessimistic view of the U.S. has taken hold of many young people. When asked whether America’s founders are “better described as villains or heroes” in a poll cited by the Atlantic in 2024, about 4 in 10 Gen Z respondents chose “villains,” compared with only 1 in 10 baby boomers. The bigger problem, as Rep. Ritchie Torres (D., N.Y.) has said, is that “a nation cannot endure if its children are taught to loathe it.”

The way the article comes across, the scholars who wrote for American Quarterly, and whose articles were analyzed by Kahlenberg and Lin, are faulted for not having been even a little bit congratulatory about America. It doesn't appear that Kahlenberg and Lin are claiming that any of the articles they reviewed were "false." They just didn't like the fact that there weren't more favorable articles, too. My impression is that Kahlenberg and Lin think that American Quarterly should have "balanced" what it published, so that the journal offered both self-congratulation and self-criticism in something close to equal measure. 

I agree with Kahlenberg and Lin that there is much to celebrate when we think about our nation and its history - and I think we should be celebrating those things! However, both the journal and the scholars who wrote for it were focused on what's "wrong" with America, not what's "right," which makes me think that Kahlenberg and Lin should have written an article exploring why the scholars' "negative" slant on America was so prevalent during the period they analyzed. Instead, they just deplored this negative slant, and implied that American Quarterly should have found some way to present a more favorable view of the nation and its history. 

Well, why do you think that "negative" perspective seemed to predominate in that period from 2022 to 2024? My suggestion? Read the newspapers! Think about how ICE raids in Minnesota are the antithesis of what we have always thought America was all about. That's just  one example. In fact, the actual "news" over the last quarter century is, factually speaking, news about those "whom has America silenced, failed, or harmed.” A more helpful article from Kahlenberg and Lin might have pointed this out, and then said why, and called for the nation to return to the foundation principles first articulated in The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. 

A call for "happy talk," which is what Kahlenberg and Lin seem to be arguing for, isn't going to help us. Scholarly observers are concluding, based on the findings made by Kahlenberg and Lin, that things are going wrong. 

I think it's true that things are going wrong, and instead of saying that scholars should be ignoring what the problems are, in order to highlight all the positive things, is not going to help us address the problems that the scholars have been identifying.

What we really need, I think, is not a more generous dose of self-congratulation. Rather - and calling up a phrase we hear a lot nowadays - we need a continuing scholarly commitment to outline and define what our nation actually needs to do if we want to:

Make America Great Again

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https://www.wsj.com/opinion/american-studies-cant-stand-its-subject-c919f89c

#77 / Acceptance?

 

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A recent article by Judith Levine, which appeared online in The Guardian, was published under the following heading: "Fears about nuclear war are reaching a fever pitch. Another grim sign of the times." Early into that article, Levine makes the following observation: 

The prospect of a third world war is both so unimaginable and so real that we seem to have leapt from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s first stage of grief, denial, directly to its last one: acceptance.

So, I guess I'm not the only one who's worried! It's just like Bob Dylan was singing, way back in 1963, in "Talkin’ World War III Blues" (I'm giving you the last verse):

Time has passed and now it seems
Everybody’s having them dreams
Everybody sees themselves
Walkin’ around with no one else
Half of the people can be part right all of the time
Some of the people can be all right part of the time
But all of the people can’t be all right all of the time
I think Abraham Lincoln said that
“I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours”
I said that

Even if you are not a Dylan-obsessive, I bet you've heard that song. At least, you will have heard it if you are in my age group. Click this link if you need to refresh your recollection by listening to Dylan actually sing that song - or click it if you are way too young ever to have heard that song, or to have grown up thinking all the time about World War III, and whether it's coming today, or maybe just tomorrow. 

Levine's reference to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, by the way, references Kübler-Ross's book, On Death And Dying, in which Kübler-Ross argues that there are "Five Stages Of Grief." These five stages are, in order: (1) Denial, (2) Anger, (3) Bargaining, (4) Depression, and (5) Acceptance." I assume that anyone reading this blog posting is already at Stage #2, and I can report that some of my family members and friends have recently been speculating that I am already in the fourth stage. That could be right, but I am here to proclaim that I am never going to move on to Stage #5 - and I'm asking the same from you!

"Acceptance" means we have given up on the idea that our individual and collective efforts can change the world - to make it better, or to prevent it from becoming worse. I am ok with "Thinking About The Unthinkable," but I am never going to be willing to "Accept The Unacceptable." 

I am hoping you are also on that very same page!

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/12/war-iran-world-war-3-discussion

#76 / Small Groups? Then What?

  

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I am a quite a big fan of Margaret Mead, who is pictured above. This will not come as a huge surprise to anyone who reads this blog on a daily basis - and I do publish one posting each day, and have for something like sixteen years. At any rate, as regular readers know, I like to quote - and I have, frequently - what may be Mead's most famous statement:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Getting together with others, to create such a "small group of thoughtful, committed citizens," is definitely an accomplishment. But.... once you've got the group, then what happens? More properly put, I guess, here is the question: Once you've got the group, what do you do then?

That is, precisely, the question raised by Micah L. Sifry, who has his own blog, which he titles, "The Connector." Sifry identifies as an "organizer," and on December 16th, last year, Sifry's blog posting was titled this way: "What Margaret Mead Left Out."

What Sifry claims Mead "left out," and what he at one point calls her "false promise," is that creating the group, in and of itself, is not going to change the world. If you want to change the world, the group then needs to devise and pursue a strategy to accumulate power, and it then needs to use that power to compel or initiate change. Those scared, or otherwise put off by use of the word "power," need not apply!

I think that Sifry's thoughts are worth reading. Here's a link, again, to Sifry's December blog posting. I don't want to end the blog, though, by seeming to agree with Sifry that Mead's statement - the one I like to quote so much - is actually any kind of "false promise." 

Creating or joing a "small group of thoughtful, committed citizens" doesn't, in and of itself, "change the world." 

But if you want to change the world, get that group together! That is definitely a big "step one." That's basically what I was saying yesterday, too. If you need some assistance, or inspiration, let me know. I'd be happy to try to help!

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https://www.wnyc.org/story/margaret-mead-addresses-nations-heroin-epidemic/

#75 / A Familiar Statement

   

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We all know that we face something new in our history and that we live in a time of great peril. We have placed a president in power who has no intention of playing the role that the Constitution assigns to him – namely, executing the laws that Congress enacts. We have a Congress that has been willing to give away its power, and a Supreme Court that is helping to insure that it can. We are a public that has lost touch with the idea and practice of “self‑government,” with that phrase meaning a government that is “of, by, and for the people,” and with that “by the people” commitment being, by far, the most important one. 

Let me quote Tom Paine. We are confronting an “American Crisis.” These are, as Paine said, “the times that try our souls.”

We can – and we must, as individuals and collectively - reallocate our time. This is what we must do if we wish to maintain a system of “self-government” in the United States of America. We need to reengage with “politics,” and stop thinking that “politics” is something to be shunned. We need to get together – old and young together - and create thousands of small groups, all across the country. We cannot wait for “political parties” or various non-profit groups to solve our problem for us. We need to meet, in person, in these small groups, on a frequent basis, and communicate with other such groups, like the “Committees of Correspondence” did before the American Revolution. We need, based on what these small groups decide, to make our local governments respond to the issues we see in our local communities, and to force Congress (our “representatives”) to take action to stop the current abuses of executive authority at the national level. To accomplish this we must, each one of us, pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

If that last statement sounds familiar, it is, and I am not alone in highlighting its importance.  This year marks the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, and we need to renew our vows. 

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https://vermontdailychronicle.com/bufka-to-revive-dying-america-let-us-mutually-pledge-to-each-other/

#74 / Abundance: Two Views

 

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It would be fair to say that we have been dealing with questions about "abundance" (or the lack thereof) from the very start. In 2020, I wrote a blog posting that I titled, "Sent Forth With Nothing." That blog posting talked about God's expulsion of humans from the Garden of Eden, and that Garden of Eden story is certainly one way of thinking about our current relationship with "abundance." We "had it all," didn't we? But then we lost it all, too - and it was our own, damn fault. Now, returning to "abundance" is our major occupation.

A need to "achieve" abundance is the way this topic is being presented to the public by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. Their book, published a year ago, last March, is titled, quite directly: Abundance. If you are not already familiar with this book, you can click right here for a Wikipedia write-up. The following link will allow you to buy the book, should you want to do that. I, personally, suggest that you visit the library, first.

As you might deduce from that comment about not spending good money for a book that you can read for free, I do not count myself as a big fan of the Klein-Thompson book. Below, I am providing a link to what the "Frontier Group" has to say about it. The Frontier Group identifies itself as a "non-profit research and policy organization that provides information and ideas to build a healthier, more sustainable America." What follows is a brief excerpt from the Frontier Group's critique of Abundance (the book):

Scarcity may be the enemy, [Klein and Thompson] argue, but it is one that we can vanquish – if government fully commits to the task. Klein and Thompson envision a federal government that invests in outside-the-box scientific research, takes timely action to scale up critical new technologies, and eliminates regulations – including pesky laws intended to protect the environment – that limit the speed with which we can “solve our problems with supply.”

For the last 50 years, [Klein and Thompson] argue, both the right and left sides of the political spectrum have been insufficiently committed to using the tools of government to overcome scarcity, creating a struggle between “a right that fought the government and a left that hobbled it" (emphasis added).

After summarizing the Klein-Thompson argument, the Frontier Group goes on to suggest that Klein and Thompson are making their recommendations based on a faulty diagnosis:

Scarcity is not, by and large, America’s problem. It is, rather, the problems that result from our abundance – the ecological impacts of a high-throughput consumer economy; our failure to replace the sense of meaning and purpose once drawn from work that has since been automated away; the tech-driven stratification of society and accelerating concentration of wealth – that threaten to do us in.

These are problems that cannot be “solved with supply.” And failing to keep those problems front of mind in a renewed quest for “more” could wind up making them even worse.

I think the Frontier Group, not Klein and Thompson, is on the right track. 

So, too, is Richard Rohr, an American Franciscan priest and a writer on spirituality based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rohr was ordained to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church in 1970, founded the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati in 1971, and then went on to found the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque in 1987. Rohr publishes daily meditations on spiritual (and secular) subjects, in case you're interested. Click the following link to read his meditation published on February 5th - "There Is More Than Enough."  

I agree with this comment. There is, I do believe, "more than enough." But to see that, we would have to understand our situation not "individually," but as we exist with all others. The idea that "we're in this together" would have to be the idea that we understand best defines our place in the world. 

In this together? What a concept! How did John Lennon put it? "Sharing all the world." 

Imagine that! Lennon must have thought that there was enough to go around. 

Me, too!

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https://cac.org/daily-meditations/there-is-more-than-enough/

#73 / Timeline

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John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was killed on November 22, 1963. The picture above, I am pretty sure, has captured him just shortly before his death. A Bob Dylan song, "Not Dark Yet," written in 1997, thirty-four years later, makes no explicit reference to Kennedy's assassination, but the following lyrics from Dylan's song always bring it to my mind:

I was born here and I’ll die here against my will
I know it looks like I’m moving, but I’m standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don’t even hear a murmur of a prayer
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

In 2020, fifty-seven years after the year that Kennedy was killed, Dylan wrote another song, a song that is all about the Kennedy assassination. In that song, "Murder Most Foul," Dylan has this to say: 

The day that they killed him, someone said to me, “Son,

The age of the anti-Christ has just only begun.”

Apparently, some members of the United States armed forces, and perhaps even including the guy who currently heads up the Defense Department (which he wants to call the "War Department") are making explicit reference to Armageddon, as they pursue an unauthorized war against Iran, killing the nation's leaders, and almost two hundred young women students, as they do so. 

Every timeline does come to some sort of an end, and while I have a lot of respect for Bob Dylan's perceptions and predictions, I am not yet willing to stipulate that the anti-Christ is actually now on the scene, and that the final curtain is about to drop. 

It's getting there, I know, but let's remember the first statement in that 1997 song: "It's Not Dark Yet..." 

Is that still true? Or, will the blazing illumination of political possibility, captured in inspiring words by our Declaration of Independence, sputter out into darkness this year, along with the world entire, brought to an end by a war that the current president of the United States began? 

That's possible, of course. Let's not deny the perils that we face. But... I'd like to suggest that we remember that "not yet" advisory! Think about Minnesota (and listen to what another great songwriter, Bruce Springsteen, has to say about what happened there, on the Streets of Minneapolis). Action by ordinary people, carried out together, created a new reality that overcame and displaced what was expected.

Let's remember the title of another one of those Dylan songs, too. It's a song that helps carry me forward through life. It's called, "Up To Me."  

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/27/jfk-documents-what-we-have-learned-so-far

#72 / Facebook Fakery

 

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One of my Facebook Friends (and a real friend, too) posted the above picture on her Facebook page, which is where I saw it last Sunday morning. My friend had not originated the posting that she had on her Facebook page; she was just passing it along. According to the explanation that came with the photo, this 50+ mile long crack, pictured above, just recently appeared near Yellowstone National Park, possibly indicating that the "supervolcano" underneath Yellowstone might be ready to erupt. However, the text that accompanied the picture said that scientists were not really all that alarmed.

I passed the photo and explanation along, just as my friend had, by "sharing" my friend's posting on my own Facebook page. Then, I departed home to attend the Santa Cruz Quaker Meeting, which is what I normally do on a Sunday morning. 

When I went back on Facebook later on Sunday afternoon, having thought about it a little bit, I edited and added on to my posting by saying that I had been thinking about this photo, and had come to the conclusion that it might very well be what is often called "AI slop." I said that I'd wait until I read some confirmation from a more reliable source before actually believing that the photo was "real." Then.... I  scrolled down a bit and found lots of comments on my posting, all either "doubting" the veracity of that picture, or affirmatively indicating that it was a total "fake," with those commentators having actually done some research (research I didn't do). One of those comments was from my friend, who let me know that she now knew that the picture was totally fake. 

Taking the advice of a number of those who commented on my posting, I deleted it, but having done that, I thought that I should really reflect a bit about this episode in misinformation. This blog posting today is the result. 

First, my apologies to anyone who saw that fake picture, with its fake explanation, on my Facebook page and thought that I should have done a better job researching the facts before passing along such misinformation. That criticism is well-taken! Again, my apologies - and my thanks, too, since those comments were much appreciated, and provide good advice for the future, which I will endeavor to follow!

Second, this episosde in misinformation is just an example of what is an ever more frequent phenomenon. More and more, we can't automatically believe what we see - or read - online. In fact, some of the persons who appear to be "real" people aren't actually "real" at all - and that goes even for fake persons who command large followings on social media. This is, clearly, a big problem for our ability to engage in "self-government," which is the activity that I keep saying ought to be one of the major ways we spend our time and energy. 

Trying to live and act "online," as opposed to living and acting in the real, physical world, is becoming problematic. All the more reason to "Find Some Friends," as I keep saying, referring to a book by Octavia Butler (a book of fiction, by the way) that talks about how we might reconstitute our society after social breakdown has occurred. 

I know that it's somewhat hard to admit to oneself that we need to ground our thoughts, beliefs, information, and action only on what happens in the real, physical world - and that this can occur only after real, physical meetings with real, physical people, but that's the conclusion I'm coming to. If you might be inclined to agree that it would be hard to do that, let me say something that might be at least somewhat comforting. I spent twenty years as a local elected official, making a big difference in my local community, and that kind of "real life" politics was the only alternative available during the time I served in office (1975-1995). 

That kind of life, and that kind of politics, based on real interactions with real people - activities that take place in face to face, physical interactions, is not so bad! 

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#71 / Another Horrific Vision Of A.I.

     

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The image at the top of my blog posting yesterday showed a giant tsunami, about to wipe out hundreds of people on an otherwide inviting beach - not to mention wiping out all of those going about their business in the adjacent city, which was also pictured. That horrific image from yesterday made visual what Peggy Noonan said about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence, in her column published on February 12, 2026, in The Wall Street Journal. 

Today's image is quite different. The ocean is calm, and the woman on the lounge chair, located on a small little island, in some tropical sea, seems quite happy and content. Where's the horror in that?

Well, that image comes from the online version of a column by Amelia Miller, published in The New York Times on Sunday, February 15, 2026. The hardcopy version of Miller's article is titled as follows: "Will A.I. Companions Turn Every Man Into An Island?" If you click that link, to read what Miller has to say (and I hope you do), you will find that her title is different online, referencing polyamory. Her point is that people who rely on A.I. for "companionship" are, in fact, truly isolating themselves. When someone is online with the companion on their phone, they might just as well be isolated on some lost and remote island. That's a different kind of "horror," but such social isolation would, in fact, be a horrific fate for those who might end up that way. Here is a quick snippet from Miller's column, making the point: 

If we don’t change course, many people’s closest confidant may soon be a computer. We need to wake up to the stakes and insist on reform before human connection is reshaped beyond recognition.

I am, of course, very much in agreement with this caution by Amelia Miller. Creating "fake" human substitutes with whom we consult online - as we eliminate, more and more, any real human-to-human contact in our lives - is extremely dangerous and extremely disturbing. Below, I am providing another quote from Miller's column - even more disturbing, to me. This is the text that impelled me to comment about A.I., again, following so closely on my comment yesterday: 

These developers’ perspectives are far from the predictions of techno-utopia we’d expect from Silicon Valley’s true believers. But if those working on A.I. are so alive to the dangers of human-A.I. bonds, and so well positioned to take action, why don’t they try harder to prevent them? 

The developers I spoke with were grinding away in the frenetic A.I. race, and many could see the risks clearly, but only when they were asked to stop and think. Again and again as we spoke, I watched them seemingly discover the gap between what they believed and what they were building. “You’ve really made me start to think,” one product manager developing A.I. companions said. “Sometimes you can just put the blinders on and work. And I’m not really, fully thinking, you know?” 

When developers did confront the dangers of what they were building, many told me that they found comfort in the same reassurance: It’s all inevitable. When I asked if machines should simulate intimacy, many skirted responding directly and instead insisted that they would. They told me that the sheer amount of work and investment in the technology made it impossible to reverse course. And even if their companies decided to slow down, that would simply clear the way for a competitor to move faster (emphasis added).

Nothing is "inevitable," unless we fail to act. We can change the world. But, of course, that doesn't mean we will. We have to choose to take action, and if we do, we will have a chance to survive. 

The dangers inherent in the continuing development of A.I. - which dangers are beginning to be so clearly recognized - are only one of many potential world-ending dangers facing us now. We are pushing towards an artic "tipping point" beyond which the processes of human-caused global warning now underway will destroy our human world. And so will any future use of nuclear weapons. And.... we can also start worrying about A.I., and the impacts that we can see that it can cause - like a "tsunami," as Peggy Noonan said. 

Individual actions are important, but they are not enough. Check back to my blog posting yesterday for what I'm advising!

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/opinion/ai-relationships.html

#70 / Tsunami Alert

    

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That horrific picture, above (this is a fake picture, with a fake wave depicted, I feel sure), does not show the Main Beach in Santa Cruz - and that's lucky for me and my friends and neighbors. However, if a tsunami did occur here it would be just as horrific. 

The "tsunami" I am warning about in this blog posting is not the kind of tsunami pictured above. I am commenting on a different kind of danger and threat, and my title is meant to reference an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, by Peggy Noonan. Noonan titled her statement, "Brace Yourself for the AI Tsunami." The column to which I am citing is dated February 12th, as it appeared in the online version of The Journal. For those who are non-subscribers to The Wall Street Journal (likely most of the people who might decide to read my blog posting for today), Noonan's opinion column is probably going to be paywall protected, and thus unreadable. Here's a sample from her column, though, and the text that prompted my response:

As relates to artificial intelligence, we are people on a beach seeing a tsunami coming at us and thinking “It’s huge” and “We can’t stop it” and “Should we run? Which way?”

Gathering anxieties seemed to come to the fore this week. AI people told us with a new urgency that some big leap has occurred, it’s all moving faster than expected, the AI of even last summer has been far surpassed. Inventors and creators are admitting in new language that they aren’t at all certain of the ultimate impact.... 

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, published a 19,000-word article on his personal website. A previous essay made the case for AI’s promise to mankind. This one emphasized warnings. He said AI is developing faster than expected. In 2023 it struggled to write code. “AI is now writing much of the code at Anthropic.” “AI will be capable of a very wide range of human cognitive abilities—perhaps all of them.” Economic disruption will result. While “new technologies often bring labor market shocks,” from which have always recovered, “AI will have effects that are much broader and occur much faster.” 

Mr. Amodei writes that Anthropic’s testers have found “a lot of very weird and unpredictable things can go wrong.” Model and system behaviors included deception, blackmail and scheming, especially when asked to shut itself down. (A different Anthropic employee has asserted that a majority of models, in a test scenario, were willing to cancel a life-saving emergency alert to an executive who sought to replace them).

AI carries the possibility of “terrible empowerment,” Mr. Amodei writes. It will be able to help design weapons: “Biology is by far the area I’m most worried about.” [Emphasis added].

A couple of days later, on Valentine's Day, this warning by Dario Amodei was echoed in The New York Times, in an opinion column by Zoë Hitzig. Hitzig is a former researcher at OpenAI focused on the fact that advertising is now going to accompany a user's access to AI. Here is how she expresses her concern:

For several years, ChatGPT users have generated an archive of human candor that has no precedent, in part because people believed they were talking to something that had no ulterior agenda. Users are interacting with an adaptive, conversational voice to which they have revealed their most private thoughts. People tell chatbots about their medical fears, their relationship problems and their beliefs about God and the afterlife. Advertising built on that archive creates a potential for manipulating users in ways we don’t have the tools to understand, let alone prevent [Emphasis added].

If a tsunami is threatening, as Peggy Noonan says - if the tsunami metaphor is an appropriate one - people need to start looking for some place to go where the wave can't reach them. As you'll note, that is exactly what Noonan says is the problem we're confronting.

But, hey! Aren't we lucky? There IS such a place, and it's accessible, too. That place is what might be called "real life." If we stop spending our lives "online," we will avoid the AI tsunami. Even better, we can avoid it even if we maintain some online existence. We just need to do that in a way in which we don't use AI, period. 

This solution to our anticipated and predicted "tsunami problem" is worth thinking about. If we need advice, we can talk to other people. We could find some friends, get together with them on a regular basis (I always like to suggest weekly), talk about our problems and possibilities, and then take action without pulling AI into the discussion. 

What a radical idea!

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#69 / Landlords Are Not The Problem?

 

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We are in the midst of a housing crisis. At least, most people would say that - and certainly people in my own hometown of Santa Cruz, California. Binyamin Appelbaum, who is the lead writer on economics and business for The New York Times' editorial board, wants to assure us that "Landlords Are Not The Problem."

They're not? Well, no; they're not "the" problem; let's admit it. While some affordable housing advocates would probably disagree - and would have some good points to make - there isn't, really, some greed-driven National League of Landlords whose sole purpose in life is to make sure that their rentals cost more than those needing housing can afford. 

Still, look at the first few paragraphs of Appelbaum's recent column, and then think about the way he defines the issues (emphasis added):

President Trump relishes a handy scapegoat and, on Wednesday, he picked one to blame for the nation’s housing crisis: investors that are buying large numbers of single-family homes and operating them as rental properties.

Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was taking steps to prevent such purchases as part of a broader program to make homes affordable again. He said that “people live in homes, not corporations.” He said he’d provide more details in two weeks, when he visits Davos, a Swiss ski resort not known for its affordable housing. 

But there’s no need to wait for the details. Landlords are not the cause of the nation’s housing crisis, and any plan that reduces investment in housing is only going to make matters worse.

Appelbaum says that the actual problem is easily understood as an issue of "supply and demand." According to Appelbaum, building more housing is the answer: 

The problem is that the United States does not have enough housing. The hard part is building more. It is certainly easier, and perhaps better politics, to talk about barring investors, or imposing rent controls, or kicking immigrants out of the country, but none of that is going to do the trick. The way to make housing more affordable is to build more housing (emphasis added).

Again, it's hard to disagree with Appelbaum's statement. Clearly, building more housing, if that lowered the price, would help solve the problem. However, as I have revealed above, I live in Santa Cruz, California, which has tried to solve its affordable housing crisis by "building more" - and LOTS more has been built, and lots more is in the process of construction. Has the crisis been eliminated? Has the increase in "supply" lowered the price? 

The short answer seems to be a very clear: "NO." Here's another question, and it's related: based on our local experience, has the "building more" solution even improved our situation? I believe that most local residents would say (or, more correctly, "admit") that the housing crisis in our community has not been improved by the very significant increase in housing "supply" that has been foisted upon the community by those who claim that "more housing" means more "affordable housing" - and that specifically includes the California State Legislature and our Governor, who have virtually eliminated local decision-making over land use. Has turning decisions about housing construction to those who want to build "more" led to more "affordable" housing? Nope! Hasn't been working in my hometown.

In fact, to refocus on Appelbaum's column, those investors who are buying large numbers of single-family homes and then operating them as rental properties, are, effectively, kicking out lower-income people to make housing available to higher-income people. In other words, they are, in fact, helping to cause our housing crisis, as our current president suggests. To remember something from my blog posting yesterday, this is a particularly anguishing example of how "private equity" impoverishes, rather than enhances, our overall economic situation.

Locally, our so-called "median income" is escalating rapidly. That is a feature of the "housing crisis" that everyone admits exists. As people with higher incomes become those who can afford to rent or buy, the "affordable housing" programs that tie housing assistance to "median income" become less and less effective to help lower income, working people.

To eliminate the crisis, we need to make housing "more affordable," and simply building more housing doesn't, in any direct way, have such a price-reducing impact. Maybe some economics course in high school or college told us that when supply is increased the price (inevitably) goes down, but even if that might be true "theoretically," this isn't what is happening in our "real world." What is happening is that the process hailed by Appelbaum is driving out those people who can only afford a housing payment that is 30% or less of the income they receive. And they don't make enoough in their local employment to pay the rent, or to purchase a home. "More" is not equal to "better," because "more" does not mean "more affordable."

"Landlords" are not the problem. That's what Appelbaum says. Ok. Let's agree. But let's also agree that it is "the system" that is the problem. Building more housing doesn't make housing more affordable unless the price is, somehow, "controlled." Why is that? Well, in Santa Cruz, there is a much greater demand for housing (it's a really nice place to live) than there are local folks who can afford the rents (or the purchase price of any new homes constructed). Our current president's plan, as sketched in by Appelbaum, actually would help reduce prices, which might actually help.

I think that there was a time (post World War II) when housing was seen as a place for families to live, and not as an "investment." That time has passed. It passed long ago, too. As I was growing up, in Palo Alto, California, my parents moved the family five times. They bought their first home, and then they always sold for more than they had paid, and then moved on to an even nicer place, and that was an "income strategy." My parents were very clear about that. Buying a home for its investment potential, not (only) for its value as a home, made perfect sense In fact, "investing" in a home was a "good" investment. Whatever the purchase price, the "selling" price, a few years later, was always more. That is still what's happening. "Housing" is a good "investment." Well, most working people aren't "investing" to produce income for themselves and their family, they're working for it. And working people are making less, and they can't keep up with the prices based on those who are investing to make a "profit," not those who are trying to find a nice place to live. 

There are some ways our national government could do something about this. They could, for instance, mobilize federal funding to build housing, making it available at cost to individuals or families who live in the various local communities in which it is constructed, but with a resale price restriction would say that the "selling price," later on, could not exceed the "purchase price" plus any verified inflation since the date of the purchase. There would have to be some further complexities, undoubtedly, but that's the idea. That kind of housing would cease being  an "investment," and be useful only as a place to live. Of course, to fund this kind of solution the federal government would have to raise taxes, but given that the government has been reducing taxes for the most affluent among us, including all of our "billionaires," there seems to be a pretty easy way to find the money to start this program. 

The problem is NOT "landlords." I'm with Appelbaum on that. The problem is the "system" that has turned residential housing into an "investment," since that means, as a practical matter, that only the wealthy are able to afford housing. "Price control," in its various iterations, is needed. "More" does not mean "less expensive."

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/opinion/trump-single-family-homes-investors-renting.html

#68 / A Private Equity Primer

    

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If you have heard about "Private Equity," and aren't exactly sure what that is, and aren't exactly sure how our economy is affected by it, I am inviting you to click the link below. If you do, you should be transported to an article from The New York Times, "The Finance Industry Is a Grift. Let’s Start Treating It That Way." I am told that no paywall will prevent you from reading all about it. I encourage you to click the link, and to do so. 

The first link in the paragraph above, which takes you to the Wikipedia description of "Private Equity," may not fully illuminate how much we, as a nation, are actually undermining our own economy by investments that are touted as bringing bigger returns to those with some money to invest (which might even include you). The Times' article, however, I think does make clear the very real dangers to which our increasing investments in "Private Equity" are exposing us - both as individual investors, and as our individual investments in "Private Equity" affect our overall economy, thus impacting us collectively. In fact, "Private Equity," which The Times' article calls "financialization," steers investments away from efforts that provide substantial support to the nation's economy as a whole, and divert and siphon away the much-needed investments that might otherwise renew, and sustain, and grow our economy.

The short story is this: "Private Equity" convinces us to "invest" in an expectation that the money we make available from our savings will grow. There is no claim that the investment, itself, will actually produce something new and valuable, or that it will serve as the foundation for the future growth and success of the economy that sustains us all. "Private" equity panders to us "privately," as individuals, and is thus "selfish" equity. "Private Equity" essentially says "F-you" to those who don't already have money, and who have been hoping - even "expecting" - that new investments in our economy will be like "a tide that lifts all boats." 

"Our" government, which should be working for all of us, has largely been captured by those with great wealth - and "Private Equity" (emphasis on the "private") is an effort to make sure that no one other than those who are already rich will benefit from the "investments" that those with some money to invest are being enticed to make. 

Read the article I have linked, if you have any doubts about my description of "Private Equity," and why the word "grift," actually, is an altogether "too nice" a way to describe what is really going on!

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/capitalism-industry-financialization.html

#67 / Time Is Piling Up

 

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I have written, often enough, about the positive impacts that come from "Memento Mori." That's one way of naming the practice of reminding ourselves that we must die. Click that link, above, to read what I had to say about that idea, way back in June of 2021. If you do, you will note that my earlier blog posting gives some credit to Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble. Click the link to her name if you'd like to learn more about what she says about this topic.

In short, that "Memento Mori" advisory suggests that if we can truly come to accept the fact that we are not permanent features in the world, we might also figure out that it is to our benefit to celebrate the wonder and the joy of being alive at all, and alive right now, instead of bitching about everything that has gone wrong for us, and with the world. Our life is a "short trip," so why not glory in it? Maybe it continues on, or maybe it doesn't (I'm personally on the side that believes it does) but we do know that we're alive right now!

One way I keep reminding myself of that "Memento Mori" advice is by walking around listening to a set of Bob Dylan songs that I call my "Memorial" playlist. "Mississippi" is one of those songs. It's one of my favorites. Click here to listen. I have placed the lyrics below, and have emphasized the verse which I have used as the headline for today's blog posting: 

Mississippi

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Every step of the way we walk the line

Your days are numbered, so are mine

Time is pilin’ up, we struggle and we scrape

We’re all boxed in, nowhere to escape

City’s just a jungle, more games to play

Trapped in the heart of it, trying to get away

I was raised in the country, I been workin’ in the town 

I been in trouble ever since I set my suitcase down 

Got nothing for you, I had nothing before

Don’t even have anything for myself anymore

Sky full of fire, pain pourin’ down

Nothing you can sell me, I’ll see you around

All my powers of expression and thoughts so sublime 

Could never do you justice in reason or rhyme

Only one thing I did wrong

Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

Well, the devil’s in the alley, mule’s in the stall 

Say anything you wanna, I have heard it all

I was thinkin’ about the things that Rosie said

I was dreaming I was sleeping in Rosie’s bed 

Walking through the leaves, falling from the trees 

Feeling like a stranger nobody sees

So many things that we never will undo

I know you’re sorry, I’m sorry too

Some people will offer you their hand and some won’t 

Last night I knew you, tonight I don’t

I need somethin’ strong to distract my mind

I’m gonna look at you ‘til my eyes go blind

Well I got here following the southern star

I crossed that river just to be where you are

Only one thing I did wrong

Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

Well my ship’s been split to splinters and it’s sinking fast

I’m drownin’ in the poison, got no future, got no past

But my heart is not weary, it’s light and it’s free

I’ve got nothin’ but affection for all those who’ve sailed with me 

Everybody movin’ if they ain’t already there

Everybody got to move somewhere

Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow

Things should start to get interesting right about now

My clothes are wet, tight on my skin

Not as tight as the corner that I painted myself in

I know that fortune is waitin’ to be kind

So give me your hand and say you’ll be mine

Well, the emptiness is endless, cold as the clay

You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way 

Only one thing I did wrong

Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

Copyright © 1996 by Special Rider Music

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