Tuesday evening reading - September 17, 2024
I'm extending the idea of Odds and Ends 123 to its own series of posts, on a new night.
The backstory - June 2009:
When former Salisbury blogger Bill Duvall had the Duvafiles blog (which closed after the 2008 election) he had a regular Sunday feature called “Sunday Evening Reading” that simply linked to interesting items he found over the previous few days. While I may or may not do this every week, I thought with the amount of reading I do for this website it would be a good idea to allocate the title and tradition, so here goes.
The rest of the story:
Bill Duvall (who passed away several years ago) was one of those who introduced me to blogs. With a great cast of characters and nicknames for local leaders, it was a witty and biting must-read for a few years in the infancy of blogging back in the mid-aughts.
It turned out I did a few (like about 4) of these on my old monoblogue site, but lost interest after a month or two as I was overtaken by events and the demands of writing daily. But the success of this concept in Odds and ends number 123 stoked the flame back up because I subscribe to a lot of good reading. So when I get to between six and eight posts (or so) I think are worth sharing, you’ll get Tuesday evening reading. It won’t be every week, but likely about once or twice a month. There’s nothing wrong with link love!
So here goes. Read them first then come back and see what I have to say with it.
Judd Garrett is pro-life, as am I. But his thought on abortion posits how people would feel if men could get pregnant.
That is why the old pro-abortion trope, “no uterus, no opinion” is absolutely absurd. When you are making moral judgements, it is imperative that you remain as objective as possible. You must remove yourself from the situation in order to see how that decision impacts everyone involved, and not just how it would impact you.
When I was younger I believed the whole pro-choice contention: abortion was to be “safe, legal, and rare.” But as I got older and more wise, I realized that, if one was to be consistent with a Constitutional argument, that life had to be held sacrosanct because it was listed first among inalienable rights, before liberty and pursuit of happiness. And it has to be because life is the foundational right without which you can’t enjoy the others. It was nice to have the reminder.
And in this case I’m going to double-dip:
As I look out over the United States of America, I see that we have arrived at the same place Rome was in during the 2nd century. We, the American citizens, just want to be fed and entertained. Right now, our country is obsessed with college football, professional football, fantasy football. We are fixated on Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. We are addicted to social media, video games and mind-altering drugs. These are the circuses that distract us from actually seeing what is going on in our country and what our politicians are doing to us. And the American citizens are only concerned about what the politicians will do for them. Long gone are the days of asking “not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” We just want free stuff.
This piece came out Wednesday. What I can’t figure out is why Judd - who has made a name for himself, although not necessarily as a writer - doesn’t get more people reading his thoughts. If I were to link a Substack on the NFL there would likely be 400 likes and 200 comments for something that would be forgotten by most in a couple weeks. (For example, name the team who won the Super Bowl in 2019? Bet you have to look it up like I did - the New England Patriots won a dull 13-3 Super Bowl.)
We have a nation going to hell in a bucket and we worry about things that are, in the grand scheme, not too important. For example, it’s interesting that I write this on the forgotten holiday of Constitution Day.
If you wanted more evidence that “renewable” energy wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be, just read this piece by the Energy Bad Boys, Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling.
Compared to these other power plants, which can last 40 years or more, wind and solar need to be repowered – or rebuilt – within 20 years of operation for wind and 25 years for solar, and often sooner, making them the single-use plastic of the power plant world.
I grew up in an area that was serviced by a nuclear plant that was placed into service in 1977 and it’s still going strong (licensed through 2037.) It’s only logical to me that these methods of energy collection, whether dynamic (wind) or static (solar panels) would degrade over time as they are continually exposed to the elements. Orr and Rolling just show why these are essentially disposable energy sources that we have to figure out how to get rid of before the utility companies make us pay (and pay and pay) for more of them.
Imagine sitting at a restaurant enjoying a late lunch and taking in a ballgame on TV, when you’re shown the door because there’s a “private party.” It really happened:
On Sunday, Aug. 18, people were eating at the Moon Twp. Pramanti Bros. restaurant while watching a Pittsburgh Pirate game. At 3:30 PM, the restaurant announced last call. The tv's were shut off and people were asked to leave because there was “a private party” starting at 4:00 PM. The patrons were given no heads up the restaurant would be closing early that day. Harris operatives showed up at 4:00 PM with a convoy of vans full of paid actors to fill the venue.
The one thing I wish David had let us in on: what kind of tip did they leave? I’ll bet they stiffed the help, which is a real shame because the workers missed out on at least 2 or 3 sets of customers per table. If you’re waiting 4 tables, that’s a potential $100 to $200 of lost income. Wait until they renege on the promise not to tax tips.
Speaking of the not-so-dynamic duo,
asks the obvious question: how did we get those two as a Presidential ticket? Both were elected in machine-run states, so it’s not like they had to work for their offices. Neither of them have any private-sector experience - teaching is a government job, too - unless you count the claim that Kamala Harris worked at a Mickey D’s many years ago as true.You know, they and I are practically the same age. While one could say, well, they’re running for president and vice president and you have a Substack with a few hundred readers, that doesn’t count all the impact I may have. At least I’m trying to add value to the national till, not redistribute its wealth to those I deem my favored interests. I sleep soundly at night knowing I’m doing what the Good Lord intended me to do.
I grew up in Ai - the town, not the acronym. But when you consider how much knowledge we have gained since I left there to move in with my ex in 1988, you can see the scope of AI, as in artificial intelligence. As Ted Giola predicts in this piece, the next few months will be a “wild ride.”
Now I’m not much for AI because it’s simply based on everything we know up to now. Perhaps an interesting experiment would be to seed the AI with everything we’d learned up to 1988 and no further, and see how it shapes the recent past. (Giola alludes to this with a reference to Minecraft and the civilizations AI created.) Yet it can do the best of deep fakes, too - each morning at work, when I turn on my computer, I’m greeted with a rich landscape that’s realistic looking. But you can tell it’s AI - for one thing, it doesn’t render moving water well at all.
I like Ted because he’s figured out one truism: the more “advanced” computer programs and logic become and the more human interaction it replaces, the worse they perform for the end user.
You may recall I featured The Obsolete Man in my Odds and Ends 123 as he talked about the old HBO show Deadwood. Part two of his American Trilogy looks at another HBO series I did not watch, Boardwalk Empire. Reading his post makes me want to binge-watch it sometime.
But it doesn’t really matter about the show so much as it does the portrayal of each main character. After reading the first part, I could understand where he was going with the premise and I can’t wait to see what comes with the final leg of the trilogy, particularly what show will be used for the last part.
All that should keep a good reader going and thinking for awhile. Now I’ll start collecting for next time.
In the meantime, though, you can Buy Me a Coffee, since I have a page there now.
Thanks for that. It was an interesting selection of reads. Your summation of each were spot on. And thank you for another mention.