#131 / Agentic?

 

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

The New York Times Magazine has spotlighted the word "agentic" in an article that appeared in its April 12, 2026, edition. Here is a link to the article, which was authored by Nitsuh Abebe. The article is fairly short, and no paywall should prevent you from reading it in its entirety. Just click that link provided.

The word "agentic," according to Abebe's article in The Times, is being used as a way to talk about "having agency - possessing the capacity to influence and control outcomes through assertive individual action." Abebe cites to the Oxford English Dictionary in providing this definition. It is worth noting that this definition does come from a list of "new entries" into the OED. Abebe observes that Silicon Valley aspirants are "eager to apply it to themselves," sometimes talking about "being agentic people," or applauding the "Highly Agentic Individual," the "kind of person who simply acts, assertively, to shape the world, rather than seeking approval or meekly following the herd (emphasis added)." 

Abebe is thinking about those who are involved in "high tech," but see if the defintion of the "agentic individual" that I just provided doesn't remind you of someone who isn't, but wishes he were, a "king." 

As Abebe notes, most Americans remain connected to a more traditional meaning of the word "agent" than the definition that emphasizes the "agent's" ability to act without seeking approval. In fact, as Abebe says, "we're used to the agent as representative - someone who acts on behalf of." 

Right! Absolutely right! Almost everyone who is reading this blog posting (presuming that somebody is actually doing that) will undoubtedly remember that it has been our idea that the United States government is a "representative" democracy. Our elected officials are "agents," responsible to us.

My suggestion is the following: Despite the "new definition" in the OED, let's go back to our traditional understanding of how our elected officials (our "agents") are supposed to act. They are supposed to do what we want. 

And what if they don't? 

We get rid of them, remember? The time is coming to do just that, in both June and November. Wouldn't it be nice to have a Congress that took seriously its obligation to act on behalf of those whom it represents, instead of doing nothing, as millions protest that our current president is trying to turn himself into a "King"?

To Subscribe, Just Click This Link

 

Image Credit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/magazine/agentic-ai-agency-tech.html

 

# 130 / Collective Sin And Evil

 

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

In one of his recent Daily Meditations, Richard Rohr suggests that we should try to move beyond an emphasis on personal sin, in order to regain an accurate understanding of the deadly nature of true evil:

No one can deny that evil is very real, but what many of us now observe as the real evils destroying the world—such as militarism, greed, scapegoating of other groups, and abuses of power—seem very different from what most people call sin, which has mostly referred to personal faults or guilt, or supposed private offenses against God. These did not actually describe the horrible nature of evil very well at all. So, we lost interest in sin....

Sin and evil must be more than personal or private matters. Convicting people of individual faults does not change the world. I believe the apostle Paul taught that both sin and salvation are, first of all, corporate realities. Yet, we largely missed that essential point, and thus found ourselves in the tight grip of monstrous evils in Christian nations, all the way down to the modern era (emphasis added).

I am not thinking I have much to add to this excellent statement. Except, maybe, this.....

"Politics" is one very direct way we can join together to "change the world," and to battle evil. 

Consider enlisting!

 

To Subscribe, Just Click This Link

 

Image Credit:

https://cac.org/daily-meditations/collective-sin-and-evil/

#129 / No Kings? Ok. Great! But Then What?

 

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

Millions of people have taken part in the "No Kings" demonstrations that have been held in every state in the nation. I understand that the picture above was taken at the State Capitol Building in Jefferson City, Missouri. It could have been taken in Santa Cruz, or in any one of 3,000 or more locations, throughout the United States, during the most recent "No Kings" protests, on March 28th.  Well, I guess that's only true if we keep the focus on the people and the signs. We had a comparable crowd in Santa Cruz, with similar signs, but we don't have any marble columns like those shown in the background of the picture I have provided.

The three "No Kings" demonstrations, held nationwide, each one larger than the one before, were, in fact, "demonstrations." The point and purpose was to "demonstrate" what the people participating were thinking about - what they "cared about," what they objected to. These gatherings and marches demonstrated that there are lots of people (arguably the majority) who do not want a continuation of the kind of authoritarian and unilateral governmental action that our current president is providing. 

Fair enough! "No Kings!"

But if "we, the people" are not willing to offload governmental decision-making and governmental action to a "Chief Executive," and particularly to one who seems to revel in the idea that he'd really like to be a king (and who also seems to think that he's a lot like that guy Jesus), that means that someone else has to step up to the plate. 

You know who that means, right?

That means you! And me! And all of us! Everyday, ordinary people are the ones who need to step up. "Self-government," if we want to keep it, requires that we - each one of us - need to be personally engaged in the political life of the city, county, state, and nation in which we reside. 

Being honest, how many of us are fulfilling our obligations?

If we are not spending an hour or so a day - or maybe something like one day every week - working on what we might normally call "politics," then we have not quite fathomed the implications of that "No Kings" expression. 

A government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," does have to be "BY" the people. That is, in fact, the most important part of Lincoln's famous phrase. 

To Subscribe, Just Click This Link

 

Image Credit:

https://missouriindependent.com/2025/10/18/no-kings-protests-trump-missouri-jefferson-city-st-louis/

#128 / Two Cheers For Liberal Democracy

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

Tunku Varadarajan, writing in The Wall Street Journal, has reviewed a book by Adrian Wooldridge. Wooldridge's book is titled, The Revolutionary Center. Varadarajan's review is titled, "Two Cheers For Liberal Democracy," and his review begins with an attempt to understand "liberalism." Here is how Varadarajan initiates his discussion (emphasis added): 

Liberalism has come to acquire a bewildering range of meanings over the years; our understanding of the word is, by necessity, contextual. Winston Churchill, believe it or not, called himself a liberal, as did John Maynard Keynes.

In its primordial form, liberalism was a political belief that the building block of society is the individual—an idea tethered loosely to the Christian notion that every single human being contains a divine spark. In “The Revolutionary Center” Adrian Wooldridge sums up the early liberal demand thus: “Do not judge me as a member of a group . . . judge me as an individual with unique talents.”

My reaction to this claim, that the "building block of society is the individual," is not an immediate repudiation, but is rather an augmentation. I can absolutely agree that individuals are "primary," and are the building blocks upon which all human society is constructed. However, as we build our human society, individuals never act "alone," but always  in concert with others. We do not exist as isolated individuals, but we work with others to build, maintain, and in some cases destroy the society of which every one of us is an invaluable part. 

My understanding of the "individual," puts emphasis on how individuals work in concert, and collectively, to create, and modify or replace, the realities that define our lives. This is not, apparently, an understanding to which Wooldridge subscribes. To me, it seems obvious (as I often say) that "we're in this together." How could we not - every one of us - understand and acknowledge our mutual interdependence? 

Varadarajan's judgment is that for all its troubles, there is no better system than "liberal democracy" to "protect free markets, freedom of thought, and a just social order." 

Call it "liberal democracy," or what you will, our democratic system of self-government, which values collaboration and cooperation above all else, is not beguiled by the myth that it is the "individual," and "individual" actions alone, that make our world. 

We're in this together!

To Subscribe, Just Click This Link

 

Image Credit:

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/the-revolutionary-center-review-two-cheers-for-liberal-democracy-08635bf6

#127 / The Latest Book From Malcolm Harris

 

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

Malcolm Harris was born in Santa Cruz, California, which is where I live, and where I have now lived for over fifty years. Harris has written a book, Palo Alto, which is named for the city in which I grew up. 

I mentioned Palo Alto back in the middle of last year, and I noted then that I hadn't yet read it. Well.... I still haven't read it - or, at least, I haven't finished reading it. It's over 700 pages long, which is a lot, but I can report that I am more than halfway through, and I am now operating on a full head of steam. I'll be done soon! As it turns out, Palo Alto is focused not only on the city of Palo Alto itself, but on "California, Capitalism, And The World." Click that link just provided for a review in the "Los Angeles Review of Books." I want to recommend that you, too, should undertake your own odyssey through the 700+ pages of Palo Alto. It's worth it, even if you didn't grow up there.

Based on having read over half of Harris' Palo Alto, I am already planning to read Harris' most recent book, What's Left: Three Paths Through The Planetary Crisis. According to the publisher, that book is only 320 pages long! I am fully expecting it to be just as thought-provoking as Palo Alto. 

If you'd like to get an idea about what would be in store for you, if you do decide to read What's Left, here is a link to  a recent review in The New York Times.  You might also want to click right here. That link will take you to a discussion between Adam Lowenstein and Harris, published online by "Drilled Media." Drilled Media describes itself as "a global multimedia reporting project focused on climate accountability," and Lowenstein is "a journalist and writer covering corporate power and political influence."

Here is the end of that discussion just mentioned, between Lowenstein and Harris, in which they talk about our planetary crisis: 

[Lowenstein] I feel like in this moment in particular, being hopeful and despairing in useful ways is a pretty worthy aspiration.

[Harris] I think so. I think people are trying to figure that stuff out. It’s hard. It’s a hard environment in which to think. I don’t fault anyone who feels completely overwhelmed by even just the task of thinking critically in this moment. But we’ve got to do it. There’s no other choice.

We need to think? Think critically? There's no other choice? Sounds right to me! 

Harris' latest book is RECOMMENDED on that basis!

To Subscribe, Please Click This Link

Image Credit:

https://drilled.media/news/malcolm-harris

#126 / Apologies And Forgiveness

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

Apologizing is an important way to confront the truth of our human situation. If we are honest with ourselves (and with others), we must admit that we make lots of mistakes in life, and that we also do things we know are wrong, even as we are doing them. The things we have done, and are sometimes continuing to do, can have horrific impacts on other people - and on the natural world that sustains our human existence. 

Each of us could make up a substantial list of things for which we need to apologize, as individuals, and for which we will hope for forgiveness. I am pretty sure I am right about that. 

A "business" website, dedicated to "creating customer-driven growth," has published a list of "Six Steps To A Great Apology." Here they are: (1) Act quickly; (2) Apologize in person; (3) Explain what happened; (4) Show how you will avoid the problem in the future; (5) Apologize - actually say, "I'm sorry"; (6) Make restitution.

Here's a thought - and I'm serious. Let's set up a way that we, as a nation, can formally apologize for the harms we have caused, following those six steps, and making restitution. A lot better than bombing and bullying the world at large, don't you think?

To Subscribe, Just Click This Link

 

Image Credit:

https://beyondphilosophy.com/6-steps-to-a-great-apology/

#125 / The Boy In The Striped Pajamas

 

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

The story that comprises the book pictured above was written by John Boyne, and his book was published in 2006. Boyne calls it "a fable."

According to Wikipedia, Boyne "wrote the entire first draft of the book in two and a half days, without sleeping much." Wikipedia also reports that "the book has sold more than 11 million copies worldwide and has been translated into over 58 languages, making it one of the best-selling books of all time." The story was also made into a movie, which I guess got mixed reviews. 

Maybe you know all about this story. Maybe you saw the movie, or have read the book. If you haven't read the book, this blog posting is my suggestion that you read it. 

I knew nothing about Boyne's "fable" until my wife brought home the book, in pristine condition, several weeks ago, after finding it at the Little Free Library that is located at the end of our block. I picked it up, idly, at about three o'clock in the afternoon, expecting to put it right back down, after finding out what it was. Instead, I ended up setting aside all the things I had promised myself I was going to do that afternoon, and read the book right on through, finishing its 216 pages just before dinner. 

Boyne's story is about a place in Poland that Boyne calls "Out-With." A person whom Boyne calls "The Fury" is one of the significant characters in the story. If those names don't immediately tell you what this story is all about, it won't take long till you get it.

I was crying at the end, and here it is. Here is the end, the last two paragraphs of The Boy In The Striped Pajamas: 

And that's the end of the story about Bruno and his family. Of course, all this happened a long time ago and nothing like that could ever happen again. 

Not in this day and age. 

One more time, and very sincerely, here is my suggestion: if you haven't read Boyne's book, this blog posting is my suggestion that you read it.

 

To Subscribe, Just Click This Link

 

Image Credit:

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-boy-in-the-striped-pyjamas-by-john-boyne/248532/item/320297/#edition=4485243&idiq=320297

#124 / Girding Students For The Obstacles Ahead

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

Frank Bruni, pictured above, used to write for The New York Times. Well, I guess I should say that he still does write for The Times; however, while Bruni was previously on the staff of The Times, he is now on the faculty at Duke University, as the Eugene C. Patterson Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy. Bruni has held that position for five years now, and in a recent column (in The Times), "Being A College Teacher Is Strange Right Now," Bruni says that this year is the most challenging, and indeed the "strangest," he has encountered so far:

That’s not about Duke. It’s about higher education. It’s about America. It’s about dynamics — chiefly, this country’s tilt toward authoritarianism and the rapidly accelerating advances of A.I. — that render our tomorrows even hazier than usual. None of us knows what we’re in for and up against, and that confusion crystallizes on college campuses, which are by definition gateways to the future. They’re supposed to leave students with maps, routes, a destination. Not with compasses whose needles gyrate this way and that.

Let me provide you with my response to Bruni's column - and you can read his column in its entirety by clicking the link provided above. No paywall will block you - or so I am assured. 

Here is my reaction to what Bruni is saying. As a former newspaperman, Bruni may be leaning too heavily on his former career "reporting" the news. In fact, "reporting" on the realities in which we are enmeshed is critically important, but being an "observer" is different from being an "actor." 

I would like to think (as a former college instructor myself) that education needs to be more than an introduction to what "exists," to "reality," to what we can "observe" as we look around. Education needs to open an avenue to "possibility," to what "might be," and should not be limited to what already "is." 

Persons interested in etymology might want to see what Teachers.Institute has to say about the etymology of the word, "education." Here is a section from the website discussion that I thought most important (emphasis added): 

What the etymology tells us about education’s deeper purpose 

Whether we approach the word through its Latin roots or through the Sanskrit concept of Shiksha, the same fundamental truth emerges: education is not – and has never been – simply about the delivery of information. Britannica describes the Gurukula as a place where students studied “religious teachings and traditional scriptures, as well as politics and science” – a curriculum broad enough to prepare learners for full participation in civic and social life, not just for a single trade or examination. 

The etymology of “education” therefore carries a profound message for educators today. Educare reminds us that students need structure, guidance, and the transmission of accumulated human knowledge. Educere reminds us that every learner carries latent capacities that no curriculum can manufacture – they can only be drawn out through trust, inquiry, and the right environment. And the Indian tradition of Shiksha adds that genuine education is always transformative: it disciplines the self while liberating the spirit. 

Together, these roots suggest that the ideal educator is neither a passive transmitter of facts nor simply a facilitator standing on the sidelines – but someone who both nourishes and leads forth, who both instructs and inspires.

True education "draws out from us" what exists within us, as possibility, but that is not revealed until it is "realized" - made into "reality" - by action. 

That was the lesson I tried to deliver to the Legal Studies students I taught at UCSC. I am sharing this thought with you!

To Subscribe, Just Click This Link

 

Image Credit:

https://sanford.duke.edu/profile/frank-bruni/

#123 / Please Don't Dismiss My Case

  

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

You may know the song in which you can find those lyrics I have made into my title. It's "Dear Landlord" and it's one of my favorites. You can click right here for the lyrics. If you click the next link, you can listen to Bob Dylan sing it. 

The verse I like best is the last one: 

Dear landlord
Please don’t dismiss my case
I’m not about to argue
I’m not about to move to no other place
Now, each of us has his own special gift
And you know this was meant to be true
And if you don’t underestimate me
I won’t underestimate you

This blog posting is being scheduled for a Sunday, so that should give you a hint as to who I think that "Dear Landlord" person actually is. And if we're talking about "underestimation" (always a good topic to consider), that is something that is mainly our problem, not the Landlord's. At least, that's my experience. My observation is that we tend to underestimate the Landlord, while we also underestimate ourselves, and that's certainly a mistake, whichever way we aim our underestimation!

Each of us does have some special gift,

And sometimes we have more than one. 

Within this world, there's no boy or girl, 

Who ever ends up with none!  

I think Bob would agree!

 

To Subscribe, Just Click This Link

 

Image Credit:

https://minorthread.com/products/dear-lanlord-high-fives-for-low-lives-tour-shirt-size-large

#122 / Free Market Drugs

 

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

The Wall Street Journal believes in "free markets." Of course it does! And on February 26, 2026, Roland Fryer made a pitch for applying some "free market" principles to our "War on Drugs." Click that link for a Wikipedia write up, outlining how that "War on Drugs" term is currently understood. Click right here for the Opinion column I'm talking about. [This is supposed to be a "gift" link, but realize that my typical paywall warnings apply. The Wall Street Journal may, or may not, allow non-subscribers to read what Fryer has to say.] Fryer, by the way, is an American economist and a professor at Harvard University.

I am not a doctrinaire believer in "free markets." Still, I think Fryer does make a couple of good points in his recent column, the concluding two paragraphs of which are reproduced below (emphasis added): 

There is something deeply peculiar about a country that considers itself the global champion of free markets but refuses to apply market logic to drug policy. In November 2025, the Congressional Budget Office’s director testified that he had no evidence the interdiction campaign has affected drug use or prices in the U.S. A classic RAND Corp. study found decades ago that treatment is 23 times as cost-effective as source-country control and 10 times as cost-effective as interdiction. The data aren’t ambiguous. They are ignored. 

At some point, a great nation must follow the evidence—even when the evidence leads somewhere politically inconvenient. Every administration for 50 years has exposed its citizens to more violence, more incarceration and more death rather than confront the basic economics of drug markets. The evidence isn’t wrong. Our policy is.

What Fryer is saying is that those addicted to drugs need help, and that helping those who are addicted, as opposed to prosecuting them as criminals, will work out better for everyone - and even when plain old "economics" is concerned. 

You can read the economic arguments in Fryer's Opinion column. A law enforcement "War" against drugs (and those who use them) isn't, he says, citing statistics, a winning strategy. For another idea, you might unbottle whatever store of empathy you have available, and find out that taking care of people who have a problem that affects not only them, their family and friends, but all of us, is actually a better and more effective - and a more "cost effective" - way to confront what is a truly serious public problem. 

If I were president, or governor (and we all ought to think about ourselves that way, as we think about what it means to be an effective citizen in a system that promotes "self-government"), I believe that Fryer's proposed approach would be worth a really serious try!

To Subscribe, Just Click This Link

 

Image Credit:

https://www.ukatlondonclinic.com/drug-addiction/heroin/

#121 / Reagan v. Trump

 

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

Above, I am presenting you with a picture of Peggy Noonan. Noonan was one of President Ronald Reagan's speechwriters, and in a commentary that appeared in the Saturday/Sunday, April 4-5, 2026, edition of The Wall Street Journal, she contrasted former President Reagan with our current president. Noonan's column was titled, "A Republic, Not A Mood." Here's her observation about President Reagan:

Ronald Reagan late in his presidency, in a valedictory appearance at a Republican National Convention, spoke of how he personally experienced the office: “You don’t become president of the United States. You are given temporary custody of an institution called the presidency, which belongs to our people.” He approached his two administrations as “a sacred trust.” This was pushback against the idea of an imperial presidency, in which man and office are fused and personal power the point. But man’s life is limited and the institution is continuous, an inheritance accumulated across time. It was also a rebuke to the idea of grandiosity, in which inflated self-regard amounts to a distorted relationship with reality (emphasis added).

As the title of her column indicates, Noonan was presenting her readers with a "comparison." Here's Noonan's characterization of our current president: 

I was thinking this week that Mr. Trump’s vision of himself as primarily a dealmaker is unsuited to a necessity of presidential leadership, which involves laying out the logic of a difficult case. Deal makers gain advantage through strategies that don’t necessarily involve transparency and forthrightness. I went back to Mr. Trump’s 1987 “The Art of the Deal.” A strong undercurrent of that lively book is that it’s good to be unreadable and sneaky: “I play it very loose.” “Sometimes it pays to be a little wild.” “The truth is I’m keeping my options open.” “I also protect myself by being flexible. I never get too attached to one deal or one approach.” “I keep a lot of balls in the air.” “Once I’ve made a deal, I always come up with at least a half dozen approaches to making it work because anything can happen.” Money is a way of keeping score. “The real excitement is playing the game.”

I want to swerve here to talk about the word that keeps coming to mind when I look at the president’s leadership, and it is “mood.” A lot seems to depend on matters of personal choice, will and mood. In Iran for instance, maybe he’ll bomb the rubble until it jumps, maybe he’ll declare victory and withdraw by May, maybe he’ll send in troops. But it will be his choice, no consultation needed with that pesky branch, the legislative. 

There is something not at all right when the weightiest decisions of a democratic republic depend so much on the mood of one man (emphasis added).

I have previously noted that it is my view that electing our current president was a significant "mistake." A mistake, in fact, that has pushed me, at times, into real depression. 

Noonan's column outlines one reason that it was such a mistake to put our current president into power. The presidency belongs to the people, and what the president does, on behalf of the people, needs to depend on the people, not on the "mood" of the current incumbent. 

To Subscribe, Please Click This Link

Image Credit:

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/peggy-noonan-reflects-on-a-troubled-frayed-america/

#120 / Resolution

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

According to Merriam-Webster, the word "resolution" has a number of different meanings: 

First, "resolution" is a noun that is defined as "the act or process of resolving," as in "the act of analyzing a complex notion into simpler ones." The word "resolve" also means "the act of finding an answer or solution to a conflict or problem." 

Besides that definition, Merriam-Webster says that "resolution" also denotes someone's "firmness of resolve," their "determination." 

A third definition says that a "resolution" is "a formal expression of opinion, will, or intent voted by an official body or assembled group."And "resolution" can also mean "a personal expression of will or intent, especially in pursuit of a goal." 

"Resolution" can mean "the point in a literary or dramatic work at which the main conflict is worked out," and the word, "resolution" may also denote "the subsidence of a pathological state (such as inflammation)." 

Finally, "resolution" is defined as "a measure of the sharpness of an image." The image at the top of this blog posting, for example, is a very "low resolution" picture - and what is it actually a picture of?

Maybe that's a holiday display in some big city, as seen by someone with cataracts. Or, maybe that's a highway, and the person who is seeing that image is on the wrong side of the road, with the headlights bearing down and with no easy way to get over to the right, and to follow the taillights, instead of taking on the cars with the headlights coming right at the person who is trying to interpret that low resolution image.

Speaking of cataracts, I just had my annual eye checkup the other day, and maybe that's why I started thinking about the word "resolution." As the sharpness of my vision has declined (and the eye doctor confirmed that it has), I find that I don't see as clearly as I used to, or as I would like to. But how does that lack of resolution - my inability to see clearly - relate to my determination to do something, or to hold fast to my principles and to a decision I have made? Is that kind of "resolution" weakening, as well?

I would like to think not!  

How the rather different definitions of "resolution" do interrelate seems worth thinking about, and I have ended up with an explanation that makes sense to me.

To the degree that a person can clearly see something, it's easier for that person to be "resolved," and to be determined to react in the way that she or he believes the situation demands. When things seem "fuzzy," it's hard to maintain one's "determination" to act in a particular way. Maybe you just don't know what's going on! If that's the way to are seeing it, that could certainly make you hesitate.

Given the glut of information that assaults us all, it is pretty easy to find oneself rather "fuzzy" about what's really happening, and what it all means. And when that's true, that means that our individual and collective "determination" to act in the way that we know, or believe, to be right may also waver. In fact, we can't really "resolve" what to do about something when we can't actually see what's there, or what's happening. 

Is there is a lack of decisiveness or "determination" in our political actions today - a failure of our "resolution?" If so, that may well be associated with a lack of clarity about what we're facing, or what we see happening. We need to be "clear" about what's going on in the world, so we can continue to be "resolved," and to do what we think is right. One way to test our vision, to shake off uncertainty, is to consult with others, so we get clear, from hearing those different perspectives, what's actually coming at us.

Find some friends. Talk politics (in person, please). That may help improve one's focus and understanding, and, hence, one's determination - one's resolution!

Let's not wait until next January 1st to start working on that "resolution" problem.

To Subscribe, Please Click This Link

Image Credit:

https://www.mymemory.co.uk/blog/guest-post-blurry-photo-heres-how-to-fix-it/

#119 / Forget And Forgive

 

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

This Land Is Your Land is a new book by Beverly Gage. It is structured as "a travelogue of [Gage's] recent journeys to memorials, monuments, national parks and other points of interest across the country." Gage is currently serving as a professor of history at Yale University, and her recent book was reviewed on April 2, 2026, in The Wall Street Journal. 

The picture above,  showing the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, is to reference what the reviewer thinks was a major failing in Gage's book: 

Gage ... could have visited Dayton, Ohio's many sites devoted to the Wright Brothers and their world-changing invention. She might have mentioned Hollywood or Broadway, two wellsprings of U.S. cultural soft power. None of these destinations made her itinerary. Innovators and entrepreneurs such as Ford and George Pullman, discussed on visits to Detroit and Chicago, respectively, figure mainly as exploiters of the working class." 

Gage, in other words, is being faulted for her lack of "boosterism," something I discussed in an earlier blog posting of mine, "Is Self-Congratulation Really What We Need?" That blog posting, too, referenced a column in The Wall Street Journal.

What struck me in the Wall Street Journal's review of Gage's book was not, actually, its continuing efforts to promote American self-congratulation. I was captured by the very first paragraph in the review, which reads as follows (emphasis added):

The French historian Ernest Renan identified the tension between a nation-state’s need for a legitimizing narrative and the often ugly truths of its actual past. “Forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation,” Renan declared in 1882. Hence, “progress in historical studies often constitutes a danger for nationality. Indeed, historical enquiry brings to light deeds of violence which took place at the origin of all political formations, even of those whose consequences have been altogether beneficial.”

Let's think about slavery, and the continued racial discrimination that still haunts our nation's daily life. Let's think about the abasement of women in the political life of the country. Let's think about the concentration camps into which President Roosevelt sent U.S. citizens of Japanese descent in World War II. Let's think about wars of aggrandizement, and the studied disregard of mercy, as United States armed forces recently killed men floating in the water, and hoping to be rescued, after their small boat was destroyed by an attack by the United States' military.

This nation has much for which it can, and should, "congratulate itself." It also has much for which it ought to attone. The question raised, for me, by the first paragraph of the book review, the paragraph that I have reproduced above, is how we need to think about "forgetfulness" and "self-forgiveness," as we consider our history. 

In college, I majored in United States history. And I think we do need to "remember" the horrible things that Americans have done, and we must label them for what they were, errors, sins, and crimes. On the other hand, we are alive now, and the most important thing that we can do is to understand our power, today, to do something different, something "new," something we believe will be "good," something never even thought about before. 

Forget the past? I think not. If Renan suggests that we should "forget," I don't think I can follow him there. 

But forgiveness? Can we not forgive ourselves, and not only collectively, but forgive those individuals who did the horrible things, in our names, that we cannot forget?

I suggest we can. The only kind of "forgetfulness" that is legitimate is the "forgive and forget" variety, in which "forgiveness" comes first, which then permits us to "forget" the horrible things we have done (individually and collectively) - at least in the sense of not being haunted and tormented for them. Of course, we don't actually "forget" those horrible things - or, at least, we shouldn't. We simply need to make "forgiveness" come first. We must forgive ourselves, our families, and our nation for the things that we, or they, shouldn't have done, but did in fact do (or the things we should have done, but didn't).

It is only when we can forgive ourselves, and others, in this way, that we can truly accomplish something new, and different, and better, and transformative. It is only when we place forgiveness first that we can allow ourselves to set aside our sins (and others' sins), and strive forward, in a new day, to create a new and better reality, a new and better "now," which is the moment in which we are alive, and in which we have - we always have - the power to act!

To Subscribe, Please Click This Link

Image Credit:

https://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/story/news/2021/12/14/states-join-tribute-first-flight-orville-and-wilbur-wright/6493572001/

#118 / Get Rich Now, Or Else

  

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

The picture above is associated with a column by Tim Higgins. His column appeared in The Wall Street Journal on January 20, 2026. Online, the title of Higgins' column read this way: "Why The Tech World Thinks The American Dream Is Dying." The title on the print version, I suggest, was a little more inflammatory:

Tech World Says Get Rich Now, Or Else

I am reacting to that print version headline.

The essence of what Higgins is saying is that there is a good argument, which must be taken seriously, that "the current artificial intelligence boom will be the last chance to get rich before artificial intelligence makes money essentially worthless." 

Presumably, those who are already rich, and the "tech bros" who are getting rich on the current A.I. boom, will be just fine. However, what about the rest of us poor schmucks? Well, the implicit lesson is found in that print version headline. You had better get rich now - or else! The door on "rich" is closing!

This idea, of course, is contrary to what we have all been told from time immemorial. Our faith, largely justified by past experience, too, is that new technologies ultimately make everyone better off. That "rising tide" we have always heard about will lift all boats. 

Higgins doesn't, completely, say that there is going to be a fundamental change. But he takes that headline I quoted pretty seriously. Here is how he ends his column, citing to a tech entrepreneur who predicted, last year, that "the mother of all tech booms is coming." Here is what he said, by way of advice, just following that quote: 

Get Some While You Can

I am somewhat dubious about the value of the A.I. developments that are driving massive investments right at the moment - and I don't necessarily believe that there is no stopping A.I.. The massive (and negative) impacts that giant data centers are having on the natural environment, the environment that sustains all life on the planet, makes me think that this may be a "pride goeth before a fall" moment. 

However, let's assume that A.I. will proceed to "take over" our lives, making everyone almost totally dependent on it, and upon the infrastructure that makes it all possible. If that might turn out to be true, it probably does make sense to pay some attention to Higgins' warning.

Upon reading Higgins' column, and thinking about the question, I had two immediate reactions. First, being "rich" doesn't mean that a person's life is going to be either "better" or more satisfying. Being "poor" is a different story. If I don't get "rich," I am not going to pout. If A.I. makes us "poor," however, so my grandkids won't get medical care, a good education, or enough to eat - and if the advent of A.I. means that my family members and all our friends won't have a roof over their heads (all these things going along with being "poor"), I am going to be very upset. 

In fact, I think that what Higgins is suggesting is that missing the A.I. boom will, essentially, make huge numbers of people truly "poor," and that talking about how missing the A.I. boon might foreclose a person's chance to be "rich" is just trying to put a positive spin on things. If it does turn out to be true that if you don't end up being "rich" then you are going to be "poor," and plunged into poverty, then we ought to be doing something to stop what's happening, as opposed to trying to figure out how to become individually "rich." 

This brings up the second thought I had. Higgins column focuses on the "individual." The column doesn't provide any sense of our collective ability, perhaps, to make everyone "rich." In truth, we are not just a collection of individuals, we are "in this together." If A.I. is going to increase productivity, and cut costs, and produce economic benefits, then society at large, which includes all of us, should be the beneficiary. 

In order to make that idea work out in real life, of course, those who are not likely to become individually rich need to get organized, and start making rules that will insure that everyone benefits from the new technologies that are coming. 

That means "politics." That means, to alter the headline I have quoted, that the following admonition is the advice we need to follow:

Get Organized Now, Or Else!

To Subscribe, Please Click This Link

Image Credit:

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/why-the-tech-world-thinks-the-american-dream-is-dying-daf793dc

#117 / That Deadline Muse

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

It has been a long time since I commuted, each weekday, to Monterey County, which is what I did when I served as the first Executive Director of LandWatch. Though my interactions with Monterey County, and with its various land use issues, have disappeared from my immediate and daily life, I still read The Carmel Pine Cone online. The Pine Cone comes out on a weekly basis, and for what it's worth, I think anyone living in the Monterey Bay Area (and even including in Santa Cruz County) might find a lot to like in The Pine Cone if they followed my example. You can sign up for free, by the way!

Here's one thing I liked in the Publisher's weekly email letter, which accompanied a link to the April 24-30, 2026, edition of The Pine Cone: 

Dear Readers,
They say a deadline is the only muse that shows up on time....

I hadn't ever heard that one, but it strikes me as an observation that is right on the money! I do find that true, really, when I consider these daily blog postings of mine that I have been putting out since 2010!

This edition of "We Live In A Political World," for instance, might be considered one example - and thanks to The Pine Cone for that!

To Subscribe, Please Click This Link

Image Credit:

https://www.carmelpinecone.com/

 

#116 / What Good Am I?

 

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

What good am I if I’m like all the rest
If I just turn away, when I see how you’re dressed
If I shut myself off so I can’t hear you cry
What good am I?

The complete lyrics to Bob Dylan's song are provided below. If you would like to listen to Bob Dylan sing that song, just click this link. 

Dylan's song poses a question I find is always worth thinking about, and today is another good day to do that. 

oooOOOooo

What Good Am I?
Written by Bob Dylan

What good am I if I’m like all the rest
If I just turn away, when I see how you’re dressed
If I shut myself off so I can’t hear you cry
What good am I?

What good am I if I know and don’t do
If I see and don’t say, if I look right through you
If I turn a deaf ear to the thunderin’ sky
What good am I?

What good am I while you softly weep
And I hear in my head what you say in your sleep
And I freeze in the moment like the rest who don’t try
What good am I?

What good am I then to others and me
If I’ve had every chance and yet still fail to see
If my hands are tied must I not wonder within
Who tied them and why and where must I have been?

What good am I if I say foolish things
And I laugh in the face of what sorrow brings
And I just turn my back while you silently die
What good am I?

Copyright © 1989 by Special Rider Music

To Subscribe, Please Click This Link

Image Credit:

https://regenbrampton.com/unknown-challenges-the-homeless-face/

#115 / As Everyone Knows....

  

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

I guess I wouldn't be far off if I called out Heather Cox Richardson as "America's Favorite Historian." I presume that a lot of the people who might be reading this blog posting already know about Richardson. If you don't, you can click the link to her name, to get an introduction. If you don't already subscribe to her daily Substack postings, "Letters From An American," you can click that link and sign up. 

I do read Richardson, daily, and her posting on April 22, 2026, included the following (emphasis added): 

Virginia voters yesterday agreed to a constitutional amendment that would temporarily redistrict the state if any other state redistricted for partisan reasons: that is, in retaliation for the partisan redistricting President Donald J. Trump launched in Texas in 2025 in an effort to retain control of the House of Representatives. 

As Matt Cohen of Democracy Docket noted, Trump supporters immediately insisted the voting was rigged, probably through mail-in ballots. Trump himself took to social media to attack the election, repeating charges of rigging and then adding: “In addition to everything else, the language on the Referendum was purposefully unintelligible and deceptive. As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person, and even I had no idea what the hell they were talking about in the Referendum, and neither do they! Let’s see if the Courts will fix this travesty of ‘Justice.’” 

In fact, Trump himself began this mid-decade partisan gerrymander race with his pressure on Texas to rejigger its maps to give Republicans more House seats. That prompted California to retaliate with its own temporary redistricting to offset the new Texas Republican-leaning seats. Other states followed suit. Republicans redistricted Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio, in addition to Texas, and expect those mid-decade redistricts will net them nine more seats. Democrats think their redistricting of California, along with a court-ordered redistricting of Utah, will get them an additional six seats. They are hoping that the temporary redistricting of Virginia will give them four more seats. 

State lawmakers in Florida will convene a special session next week to consider redistricting that state, as well, to benefit the Republicans. 

Journalist Brian Tyler Cohen noted that the Republicans have full control of the federal government and could pass a law to ban partisan gerrymandering any time they want to, as Democrats have called for, but they refuse. “Republicans aren’t mad gerrymandering exists,” Cohen notes; “they’re mad that they’re not the only ones using it.”

I disapprove of the wave of partisan redistrictings that our current president set off in Texas, followed almost immediately by the partisan redistricting sponsored by the Governor of California, in retailiation. Maybe someday I will write out my thoughts on that topic more extensively. For the moment, I have taken to my keyboard to document how astounded I was by the following statement from our currently serving Chief Executive: 

As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person...

As everyone "should know," our current president is almost totally out of touch with reality, being so preoccupied, as he is, with himself. 

A devotion to one's monumental self-regard is not the way to achieve a reputation as someone who is "an extraordinarily brilliant person." 

Sadly, and feel free to contradict me if you see it differently, our current president is absolutely the opposite of "brilliant," preoccupied, as he is, with every single little thought that passes through his brain, which he doesn't have the good sense to subjugate to a round of thinking before speaking. 

To Subscribe, Please Click This Link

Image Credit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkbAayPUjtM