Category: commentary
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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. What will it grow up…
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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 with the internet as the…
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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. Everybody, even white people, will…
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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 rural Illinois “downstate” up close.…
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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 aren’t any policy areas more…
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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 alone, the big question “how…
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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 that most commentators say is…