Category: commentary
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Book publishing and me.
I could have figured what I needed to do long ago. Back when I was young and just getting good at my first real job. Even before that, when I was in the Army, or even in college when I thought I wanted to make films. Or, when I realized…
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AI
I remember when AI (ah-ee) was a South America, three-toed sloth, and a word that would save your bacon in Scrabble. AI (ay-i) today has been delivered onto the scene after a 75-year gestation period, the offspring of massive-scale computing starting with ENIAC and a gene pool loaded with brainiacs.…
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How the internet changed everything
I believe that it will take decades, maybe generations, before the world – whatever it may look like then – will really understand how the internet changed everything and what those changes meant for the actual lives of actual people. And, how to live the kind of life everyone wants…
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Georgia on my mind
For months prior to the election, I thought if only the minorities will just vote, we’ll be alright. You can’t just ignore demographics forever. The white majority has been barreling toward minority status for years—decades actually. Sooner or later, the new majority will make its presence felt. Things will change.…
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Across the great divide
Here’s another vote for the idea that the Democrats must actively address the felt needs of rural America and rural voters–the ones across the great divide. My limited travels in 2020 took us twice into rural counties in Illinois and Wisconsin. It has been 50 years, wow, since I saw…
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Forward foreword
A word as we embark on the good ship Joe. It’s been a long time since I’ve looked forward to any single event more than I do the January 20, 2021 presidential inauguration. There’s just so much that needs doing. After dealing a death blow to the COVID-19 pandemic, there…
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History immunity
We hear a lot about immunity these days. Or not immunity. My subject here is our tendency to act as though we are immune to history. We happily cling to historical events, documents, and persons, I guess because they are the building blocks of our personal mythology, answering, for us…
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what I learned from the polio crisis
I think it was 1955 when I obediently lined up my seven-year-old self to get my polio medicine, delivered, I think, as a few drops of the good stuff soaked into a sugar cube. Clever folks, those public health pros.
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Number 65
in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt. Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers.
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warriors
The Golden State Warriors professional basketball team have just won their conference title in four games straight in a best-of-seven series. They and individual team members are breaking certain historical records as they win their way through the playoffs. What’s unusual is that they’re winning despite playing without the member…
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publishing OPBs (other people’s books)
I have been in and out of book publishing since the 1970s. Now I help independent authors to self-publish….
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I’ve been searching…
…every which-a-way. (The Coasters, 1957) When we were all just first hearing about the “web” in the early 90s, I worked in the software business in Palo Alto, California, then and now the heart of Silicon Valley. Tim Berners-Lee had invented the World Wide Web (aka www.) and Univeral Resource…
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bringing jobs back home
We can’t go back to the days when most of America worked in manufacturing. Ubiquitous computing, robotics, globalization, wage-pressure, massive productivity increases, and being way behind the 8-ball on job re-training all mean we can’t re-create the American job market of the decades from the 1870’s to the 1970’s. However,…
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community
Last evening, we heard a David Brooks lecture nearby that confirmed our appreciation for what he says and how he says it. We’re big fans. He gave a preview of his next book, an assessment of, among other things, what needs to happen to make it through our current “slough…
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bookends
I’ve been a Bob Dylan fan since the release of his second album, Freewheelin’. I was 15. Last Friday, I attended my fifth (only) Dylan concert and the third in Chicago. It was a fitting bookend to my first two concerts in 1963 and 1965. On December 27, 1963, Dylan…
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back in the saddle
Note to self: You need to start writing again here on the Guy Cicero blog. It’s good for you! Don’t expect that anyone will notice. Don’t expect “likes” or “attaboys” or great reviews. Just do it. Show your respect and appreciation for all the bloggers you follow who crank out…
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a lifelong Republican, no more, redux
I cried when the country elected JFK over Ike’s man Dick Nixon. It’s true; I was thirteen and a lifelong Republican, or so I thought. The Democrats got lucky again when we elected their Georgia peanut farmer, (although he turned out more than OK as an ex-President), and later, a glad-handing,…
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adulthood
I blame no one. NPR ran a piece this morning on a school that teaches 20-somethings some basic skills helpful to running an adult life: money management, making a bed, etc. Some, according to the reporter, think this is coddling—that they don’t deserve to have someone show them skills that others…
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let’s review the history
Just about every day, I hear something on the news or Facebook, or in conversation that leads me to think, Wait a minute. Don’t you remember that….” whatever. And being a history enthusiast, even with all the faults and biases of historians (like Thucydides), I always like to replay in my mind…
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globalization
Get with it. Globalization is good for you. Well, most of the time.
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frontierland
I recently completed a vacation trip to California from Illinois, by car: Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada—and returning through Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Minnesota. Open spaces, not many people, an amazing number of wind farms —a very different experience from what you see east of the Mississippi. It’s been awhile…
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guy gets political
The GuyCicero.com tagline is personal reflections on politics, society and culture…. What better time to get political in what is shaping up to be a presidential campaign year destined to be among the great ones? Ought to make some use of that poli sci degree. My track record at predicting who will…
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Stories to tell….
Having reached the age of 68, I seem more and more compelled to think on the past. Mostly, in my time, I have felt like Little Big Man (a book by Thomas Berger and movie with Dustin Hoffman)—a witness to great history, but a very minor player. In telling my…
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It was 50 years ago today…that Dylan taught the band to play.
Flash: Folk music star says, “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm…no more.” Some clapped; some boo’ed; Pete Seeger fumed, but got over it. The rest of us took notice and tried to understand. It’s embarrassing now to admit that I didn’t really get it. I’d been hanging on every word,…
Guy Cicero 