December 18, 2023

It’s the holiday season, and AAA tells us that Americans will drive a record number of miles this year while they are visiting family and friends, especially now that a gallon of gas is under $3 in many locations. With the increased mileage comes the mathematical certainty of more carnage on the highways. Maybe this is the American carnage that Trump was referring to in his inauguration speech? Regardless, here are some of my observations and tips on driving after decades behind the wheel.

Do not drive emotionally even if you get cut off, or the guy behind you is tailgating. That guy is probably hopped up on testosterone, and carrying a weapon to protect himself from people like you. He has enough hormones for the two of you.

Do not carry a gun in your vehicle. That makes you the other guy.

Be wary of anyone driving faster than you. They are out of control, and a crazed maniac. Conversely, anyone driving slower than you is a jammer, a nuisance, and a pox on society.

Always use your turn signals even though I have never seen anyone else use theirs. Most drivers confuse their brake lights with their turn signals even though their is no lever for brake lights on the steering column.

Be careful of anyone texting while they are driving, which is all too common these days. You know the ones. Their heads are down, they slow down in the passing lane, and they swerve out of their lane. It is very dangerous. However, I find that I can get a lot of work done if I text while I drive, but I do it safely.

Watch out for drivers cutting you off on the highway as they try to shift two lanes over, or try to make their missed exit. They are in a rush to get someplace they don’t want to be. These drivers are candidates for death row. However, I find that when I cut someone off, I do it deftly, which makes me a candidate for either NASCAR or Formula One.

Anyone using GPS is directionally- challenged. Real men don’t need GPS. I do use GPS, though, because I try to be a sensitive male willing to take directions from a female. Hey, Siri.

There are way too many vehicles on the road that are ecological disasters. All these people driving either a pick up truck or an SUV are climate-change deniers. No wonder why the Saudis love us. I drive a high-powered sports car, which is way cooler.

The merging of traffic is always a difficult activity fraught with peril and anger. Zippering is the best. I know that when I let some in, I feel like I should get the Citizen of the Year award. However, when someone lets me in, I think “wimp.”

Make sure you pay attention to the speed limit. Anyone other than you that gets pulled over by the State Troopers clearly had it coming. When I get pulled over, it is a major travesty of justice much like the Hobbs decision.

Obesity is a major, national health problem. The average American gains seven pounds during the holidays. Dieting isn’t working, and average people like Oprah are resorting to prescription drugs. All you have to do is visit any McDonald’s on the highway to see that this is true. I visit McDonald’s because I am a very busy traveler with miles to go before I sleep.

Lots of people are pulling trailers on their way to Grandma’s house. You might be a redneck if this is true. I pull a trailer because I am trying to connect with my inner Jack Kerouac.

Be mindful of trucks trying to pass you on the highway. This happens a lot on downhills, which gets them into position to block everyone else on the uphill. These truck drivers are just jerks with radar. When I pass a truck on the highway, I am just getting back at all of the bullies from middle school.

Drivers with license plates composed of lots of letters and numbers are losers. Drivers with low license numbers are preppies.

And lastly, anyone driving a pick up truck is a Trump Republican. You can usually tell by the Trump flags flying from everywhere, and the incredibly offensive bumper stickers. Democrats do drive pick up trucks, but that is because they are self-reliant, and the Subaru is in the shop.

December 6, 2023

In a recent speech, Donald Trump said, “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.” “Our threat is from within.” This right out of the authoritarian playbook. Authoritarians create fear of the “other” in order to exert control of their followers. Franklin Roosevelt said that “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” He was absolutely correct, but he was talking about foreign powers, and not the threat from next door.

One of the concepts that every new person in the financial services industry learns early on in their careers is that investors are motivated by two, basic emotions, fear and greed. After over thirty years as a practitioner in the investment business, I can confidently assert that fear is a much more powerful motivator than greed. Most investors are more than happy to sacrifice relative performance on the upside for an absolute assurance of limited losses on the downside. As Will Rogers famously said, “It’s not the return on my money that I am concerned about. It’s the return of my money.”

Trump learned his this lesson from his days in real estate. He played on the fears of whites having to live side-by-side with Blacks. Immigrants became rapists. Muslims were terrorists. Mexicans were mules, and blacks were antiFa. He warned his base about voter fraud, rigged elections, the media, woke school officials, the “deep state,” medical professionals, the Generals, and others. The only person that could be trusted was him. “Only I can fix it” and “I am your redemption,” he said. As a political strategy, fear worked, and it still working.

According to historian Heather Cox Richardson, in her most recent book “Democracy Awakening, “Courting white supremacists (by the Republican Party) began the process of appealing to voters’ fears, effectively dividing the country between allegedly good Americans and those allegedly seeking to destroy it.” Trump is only the latest manifestation of a political strategy that is rotten to its core.

Democrats may need to take a page from the Republican playbook. They need to constantly and loudly remind Americans what we really need to be afraid of. We need to be afraid of politicians trying to steal elections. We need to be afraid of white supremacists. We need to be afraid of teenagers wrapping themselves up in the Second Amendment, and wielding AR-15’s. We need to be afraid of hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, and global warming. We need to be afraid of Republicans looking to roll back voters rights, and women’s right to control her own body. We need to be afraid of political hacks running school committees. We need to be afraid of the war on science and scientists. We need to be afraid of conspiracy theories.

According Harvard Law professor, Cass Sunstein, liberals believe in six things: freedom, human rights, pluralism, security, the rule of law, and democracy. The Republican Party and Donald Trump believes in fear as a means to an end. They embrace Barry Goldwater’s belief that “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” Biden calls it ultra MAGA. No matter what you call it, call it what it is.

November 18, 2023

Rules changes saved baseball from ossifying in front of our eyes. With Theo Epstein’s foresight and perseverance, baseball is now faster and funner. The pitch clock prevents batters from endlessly adjusting their gloves, and pitchers from monotonously pacing around the mound getting ready for their next pitch as if the fate of the world hung in the balance. The shift that was designed to prevent Ted Williams from hitting a 1,000 is now as dead as dear old Ted. With larger bases and fewer opportunities for pitchers to pick off runners at first, the ghosts of Ty Cobb, Maury Wills and Ricky Henderson once again terrorize the base paths. Which begs the question. What other rules in other sports need to be either eliminated or enforced? Here is my short list of recommendations.

In basketball, the number of timeouts in the last two minutes should be reduced to one per team. It is painful to watch the end of any NBA game. Like the parable of the loaves and the fishes, it is a miracle how they can turn two minutes into what seems like two hours.

Eliminate free throws. If a player commits a foul, it’s worth one or two points, and the ball gets handed over to the other team. Keep things moving. Nobody enjoys watching free throws.

Eliminate the three point shot. Watching basketball is almost as fun as watching two, 6’4” tennis players endlessly batter each other from the baseline. Where is the finesse? Where are the big men? Where are the pick and rolls, and the fast breaks? Today, all five players set up outside the three point arc trying to decide whose turn it is.

In football, eliminate the kickoffs. They are dangerous and already a joke. While you are at it, you can eliminate the coin toss as well. The home team kicks off, and the visiting team receives the opening kickoff. Period, end of report. I know they are trying to sell advertising with every delay, but futbol somehow makes it work.

And why is there a two minute warning? Who is being warned about what? Are we being warned that it is time to take the chicken wings off of the grill?

Skip the second half kickoff. Resume play where you left off, which will eliminate the slowdown in the last two minutes of the first half. See above regarding timeouts.

Quarterbacks shouldn’t be allowed to slide. It’s not baseball. If a QB decides to run for it, and leave the pocket, they should be fair game. They might think twice, or even three times, about doing it.

I like the college rule that you only need one foot in bounds on a catch. These are football players, not ballerinas.

Get rid of reviews. They slow an already slow game down even further. In the long run, it all evens out. In the short run, if you are dumb enough to leave your fate in the hands of the officials, you get what you deserve.

Change the rules regarding overtime so that even a Ph.D. in mathematics can understand them.

Finally, a touchdown should be exactly that i.e. a touchdown. On a running play, the football must touch the end zone. It’s not called a “breaking the plane.”

Eliminate fighting in hockey. It’s not MMA. If you instigate a fight, you are gone. Olympic hockey is far superior to the NHL. They actually skate, pass, and shoot. What a concept. It would be illegal in most jurisdictions. I can’t speak for Texas.

Lastly, we get to the game of golf, which I officiate and try to play. The pace of play in professional events is egregious. It doesn’t have to be this way. If I take four hours to play a round of golf, and you take five, it’s almost like giving a basketball team an extra period for scoring. They are probably going to win. It’s not fair. Tournament and rules officials know what needs to be done because it is done at other levels of the sport. The USGA, for example, terrorizes amateur players for slow play. The people running professional events just don’t have the golf balls to enforce the rules.

Speaking of the rules, there is something wrong with the rules and how they are administered when two or more professional golfers and their caddies can’t figure out what to do or are afraid to proceed without calling over a rules official. The drama of waiting for a golf cart to pull up from out of nowhere is riveting.

Lastly, professional golfers hit the ball too damn far. If I could hit a wedge into every green, I would not suck as badly as I do. The professional golfer doesn’t care where the ball goes off of the tee because, regardless of where it goes, he only has a 100 yards in. Distance has ruined professional golf in the same way that big-headed, metal racquets have ruined tennis, and the three pointer has ruined basketball.

I think pool and table tennis are still viable sports.

Baseball got it right. It can be done.

Paul Chiampa

November 9, 2023

A recent article in the Springfield Republican titled “Exodus from state raises concerns” caught my eye. After a decade of growth, population has been declining in the Bay State caused primarily by high housing costs, inadequate transportation systems, the state’s tax code, and access to childcare. The greatest outmigration has been seen in the Boston area, but western Massachusetts also continues to lose younger Bay Staters early in their careers to other states.

I am not an elected official, nor do I own a business in the Pioneer Valley so I really don’t have a dog in this fight other than I am a resident and pay my taxes. It would be easy to go over all of the things that are “wrong” with Springfield and its environs, but I would rather focus on what is right with Springfield, the Pioneer Valley, and the surrounding areas. We live in a wonderful area, but we sometimes have to remind ourselves why this is true. The website for Mass General Brigham Cooley Dickinson Hospital describes life in the Pioneer Valley as a “perfect combination of the bucolic and the cosmopolitan, situated as close to cultural capitals like New York City and Boston as it is to Vermont ski slopes and The Berkshires.” It left out Cape Cod and the islands, New Hampshire and Maine. Our area should be a magnet for new business and population, and not a net loser.

We have a salubrious, year-round climate. I lived in Florida for eight years where being outside is almost intolerable for six moths of the year. Our air is clean, and our water is plentiful. We don’t suffer from dramatic changes in the weather. We get snow and rain, and we did have a one-off tornado, but that is pretty much it. We haven’t had severe droughts, forest fires, mud slides, flooding, earthquakes, or hurricanes. The area is very livable year-round.

We have a world class higher education infrastructure, led by the five colleges (Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Amherst, U.Mass. and Hampshire,) which always make a great trivia question. The higher educational opportunities in Springfield are many ranging from Springfield College, WNEC, Bay Path and more. A recent editorial cited the fact that even though the Springfield public schools classifies 89.6% of their students as high-need, the graduation rate for high school seniors is 85%, a rate that has grown by 30% over the last ten years. At the same time, drop-out rates have fallen to 3.9%.

One of my favorite activities in Springfield is attending the lectures sponsored by the Springfield Public Forum, which is celebrating its 88th year of providing FREE educational talks to the public. I attended the recent lecture at Symphony Hall, the home of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, by Heather Cox Richardson, political historian from Boston College. Next on their schedule is Springfield’s own Ruth E. Carter, award-winning Costume Designer for the “Black Panther” movies. I served on the program committee years ago. At meetings, we debated whether we could afford to fly out Barbara Walters as well as her make-up person. James Fallows of The Atlantic refused any remuneration. Mark Shields and David Brooks had a civilized debate. I did say it was years ago.

MGM is doing a fabulous job of bringing top flight entertainment to the region. They have brought to town Bruno Mars, Boyz to Men, Santana, and Tina Fey and Amy Poehler among others. This is in addition to the offerings of the SSO and the Mass Mutual Center, the Thunderbirds, the U.Mass Cultural series, Tanglewood, Jacob’s Pillow, the Mahaiwe Theater in Great Barrington, the Academy of Music in Northampton, U. Mass athletics and more. Hopefully, Northampton will gets its act together, and reopen The Iron Horse and The Calvin Theater.

Two of Golf Digest’s Top 25 College Golf Courses are in our area, Taconic in Williamstown and The Orchards in South Hadley. Within easy driving distance, you can get to some of the best golf courses not just in the area, but in the world, courses like The Country Club, Essex, Old Sandwich, Hyannisport, Kittansett, Eastward Ho!, Salem, Charles River, Worcester, and, yes, Longmeadow Country Club (I am a member.)

We have a local newspaper, which is an achievement in this day and age as papers close, and people turn to major outlets and the internet. We need a local voice. We have a vibrant dining scene between Springfield, Amherst and Northampton. Hartford and West Hartford are a stone’s throw away not to mention the North End in Boston. We have culinary offerings ranging from Portuguese, Asian, Middle Eastern, German, Indian, Italian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, BBQ, Vegetarian, and American. MGM has a steakhouse. We have the Basketball Hall of Fame and its annual induction ceremony. We don’t have traffic. The cost of housing is relatively reasonable when compared to Boston, and there plenty available.

When he was our state Senator, Eric Lesser was a big advocate of promoting train service from Boston to Springfield and its new Union Station to help alleviate the overcrowding, congestion and expenses of living in the Boston area. It appears that the project is moving along albeit too slowly for my tastes. Hopefully, we will be able to share with others many of things that we take for granted.

Paul Chiampa

November 3, 2023

We seem to be wasting a lot of time, money and energy trying to figure out which of our government officials are innocent or guilty. I think we can agree that there are bad people on both sides, and that they represent a reputational risk to the institutions they represent and work for. George Santos is the most recent example of Congress looking the other way, but he is certainly not alone.

Reputational risk is something that every organization has to concern itself with. Reputational risk is a threat to the goodwill and name that a company or organization has built up over many years. Reputational risk can come from the actions of a company, the actions of its employees, or even the actions of its customers. Companies have to decide whether the benefits that an employee, a client, or a customer provide outweigh the potential liabilities. In my previous life, I was faced with this decision often enough. At times, I had to call clients to tell them that we could no longer do business with them. For many reasons, they might have had a public persona that we could not or would not be associated with. They may have been accused of or convicted of a crime. They may be associating with unsavory characters. They may have taken a public position that was particularly controversial or distasteful. Regardless, we didn’t want to be known as a company that would do business with such an individual.

Just as seriously, I had to deal with employees, who we could no longer have represent us because they had created a history that made them indefensible. If a client were to lodge a complaint against the individual, whether he was guilty or not, we would have to settle. The individual may not have committed a crime, but his reputation was suspect, and this presented a major risk to the organization.

As we all know, reputation is everything unless, unfortunately, we are talking about Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House. Current and past members of these organizations present a reputational risk, which should be recognized and dealt with. Each body should take actions to protect its own reputation whether certain members are guilty or not. The fact that the public has serious questions about certain individuals should be enough incentive for the good people to act. That is not happening in any kind of expeditious manner, however.

George Santos (R-NY) is the latest and one of the more egregious examples of Congress eschewing its responsibility to protect its own reputation. He is the subject of numerous state and Federal inquiries. While he hasn’t been proven guilty of anything, yet, it is clear from the public record that he is a liar and grifter of the first magnitude. If Congress were a business, Santos would have been gone a long time ago. It recently voted not to expel him. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has been credibly accused of looking the other way at Ohio State while its athletes were being sexually abused. If that weren’t enough, he helped organize the overturning of the 2020 election. Senator Robert Menendez (D- NJ) is on the hot seat again for financial and other improprieties. He avoided the first round of accusations, but Houdini would have trouble escaping his current situation. I don’t know if he is innocent or guilty (he’s guilty), but he has damaged the reputation of the Senate, which makes him an ongoing liability. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) has a laundry list of things that she has said and done that would disqualify her from most jobs, but groping and being groped by her date at an event with children in attendance should cause her fellow Representatives to say enough to the gentlelady, who espouses family values. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has been accused of consorting with underage women. Charges were not pursued, but the appearance of such a thing should be a death sentence for anyone in Congress.

The Supreme Court has been hit with a number of unsavory stories regarding Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Leaving Anita Hill to the side, his wife, Ginny

Thomas, was actively involved in trying to get the 2020 Presidential election overturned. Justice Thomas has admitted to accepting numerous gifts totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars from Conservative donors, and he incredulously doesn’t see this as influence pedaling or outright bribery. For these and many other reasons, polls show that the favorability ratings for the Supreme Court are historically low. The Thomas’ so far are not guilty of anything, but, for the sake of the reputation of the Court, they need to go.

Which brings us to Donald Trump, the twice impeached, four times indicted former President, who is facing ninety-one felony charges. He has been found guilty of rape, and guilty of falsifying financial statements. He faces charges for making hush money payments to a porn star. He faces Federal charges for withholding and distributing classified information, and attempting to overturn a Presidential election. He faces charges in Georgia for election interference. He has done more to hurt the reputation of the U.S. Presidency both home and abroad than any other President in U.S. history. Whether he is guilty of additional Federal and state crimes is not the point. He has already done enough to disqualify himself from any future office.

To paraphrase Donald Trump, there are bad people on both sides. My list is certainly not complete. Regardless, they all need to go.

October 21, 2023

I overheard a conversation the other day in the men’s locker room. It wasn’t the “grab by them by the p@#$y” kind of talk that Trump says we all engage in. We don’t. The person essentially said, “I really don’t know much about what is going on, but there is nothing you can say that will change my mind. The attack of Israel by Hamas would never have happened if Donald Trump was President. Biden is so weak.” Which begs the question, “Do you really want Trump back in the White House to handle an international crisis that could quickly inflame the entire Middle East and beyond if not handled properly?”

Given the propensity of millions of voters to want Trump to have his finger on the nuclear button, I think it would be fair to review the former Commander-in-Chief’s tortured relationship with the military because too many people mistake bluster for bravery in the same way they mistake John Wayne for a real Green Beret.

Citizen Trump, when it came time to serve his country, mysteriously came down with bone spurs that prevented him from serving, but not from playing tennis and golf. This was after receiving four educational deferments. The diagnosis was provided by a random physician, who happened to be a tenant in one of Fred Trump’s rentals.

Gold Star parents, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son, Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2004, criticized Donald Trump for his proposed ban on all Muslims coming to the United States. This policy was eventually ruled illegal. Trump immediately criticized the parents in a very personal way, and has done so to other Gold Star parents.

Donald Trump infamously said that Senator John McCain was not a war hero for serving five years in a POW camp after being shot down in Vietnam Nam because he preferred war heroes, who were not captured. In another unseemly episode, the Navy had to reposition the USS McCain so Trump wouldn’t see it on a trip to Japan.

It was reported in real time and confirmed recently by Trump’s Chief-of Staff, General John Kelly, that Trump believed that servicemen who got themselves killed or wounded in battle were “suckers and losers.” That is why he refused to visit the graves of U.S. Marines killed in France in WWI. He asked General Kelly, while they were standing at the grave of Kelly’s son, “What was in it for him?”

According to Kelly, Trump showed an obsessive fascination with the details surrounding our nuclear arsenal, and he seemed oblivious to the damage that nuclear weapons could cause.

Trump actually said that he knew more than all of his Generals.

The Justice Department has charged former President Donald Trump with four criminal counts related to Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which culminated in the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol by a mob of supporters. Part of Trump’s plan was to create a national emergency, and then call out the military to quell any uprisings.

Trump duped the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, who was wearing fatigues at the time, into accompanying him on a walk from the White House to a local church to assert his control over peaceful protestors. When Milley realized that the military was being drawn into a domestic disturbance, he walked away, but the damage had been done for which he apologized.

Trump disparaged the military men, who worked for him, like former United States Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis, and National Security Advisor, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster.

Trump has nothing but disdain for the men and women, who serve this country in the military. He openly ridicules them, and has no respect or appreciation for the jobs they do. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men,” Trump uses the military as a punchline at his Mar-a-Lago cocktail parties. We can’t have Trump in charge of the military. He is uniquely unsuited, and everyone knows it. I am sure the military does not want Trump in charge of the military. The USS Trump will not be setting out to sea anytime in the near or distant future unless it is a garbage scow.

October 6, 2023

Because of the actions of some well-meaning people and the motivations of some not so well-meaning politicians, the issue of abortion has been moved from the doctor’s office to the Oval Office. The Hobbs decision hobbled those who believe in a women’s right to control her own body. The pro-choice people are not pro-death, which is what the term pro-life insinuates. They just believe that people can, in good faith, disagree about when life begins and should be protected. However, Supreme Courts at the state and federal levels continue to hear cases that will restrict abortion rights even further. One such case, which will be heard by the Supreme Court in its current session, is targeting the use of mifepristone, which is a medication most commonly used for medically-induced abortions.

The issue of abortion can be very personal for many people. When I lived in Florida, a friend of mine invited to me his home for dinner, and to meet his wife, Sally Blackmun. The name should sound familiar. The walls of their home were covered with photos of Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun and his famous acquaintances. Justice Blackmun wrote the majority opinion fifty years ago in the Roe vs. Wade decision. For that, they had to suffer drive by shootings by Right to Lifers, which is exceedingly ironic.

Sally was a major supporter of Planned Parenthood. She was very open about her own experiences as a young woman, and how Planned Parenthood probably saved her life. Her story probably affected how Justice Blackmun approached the Roe case, and how abortion is a very private and painful decision that some women have to make. Justice Blackmun understood all too well the dangers that bans on abortions posed for the health of young women.

The field Anthropology is probably best known for Jane Goodall and her studies of chimpanzees. However, the field of Anthropology is much more than monkeys. Anthropologists do cross-cultural studies of the issues that affect the hundreds of different, definable groups, both advanced and primitive, around the world today. For example, anthropologists have looked at how the issue of abortion is addressed by various cultures and groups. The reality is that abortion and restrictions to abortion are practiced in different ways by virtually every one of the 350 cultural groups studied. Abortion laws and restrictions vary widely across countries and cultures. Religion is a major influence on beliefs regarding abortion. The Roman Cathlolic Church is well-known for its intolerance of abortion. Cultural norms and values can influence how abortion is perceived and whether it is accepted. Socioeconomic factors play a role. The role of gender and women’s rights can affect the availability and acceptability of abortions. Stigma associated with abortions can differ widely from one culture to another.

Even among primitive and less-developed cultures, attitudes about abortion run the gamut from groups where punishment for abortion is high to low or absent. Interestingly, abortion is punished 100% of the time in patrilineal cultures, but permitted in 71% of matrilineal cultures.

Cross-cultural studies of abortion help researchers and policymakers provide insight into the diversity of perspectives and approaches to this sensitive issue across different societies. It is a very complex issue, and does not lend itself to simple bromides and placards. Politicians who hold up photos of aborted fetuses dumb down the conversation in the same way that politicians holding up snowballs do to disprove global warming. There are probably just as many legitimate beliefs about abortion as there are people.

There is no unifying approach to abortion that all people and cultures agree on. There are more questions than answers. I would have thought that God in his infinite wisdom would have spoken much clearer on such an important issue. Abortion laws and restrictions are clearly the result of the machinations of man, and, thus, are fallible and fungible. If there are no answers that everyone universally agrees on, we should be entitled to proceed in the manner each of us deems as appropriate and conscientious. If the pro-choice advocates are not forcing anyone to have an abortion, then the pro-life faction should not prevent anyone from having one. Not getting an abortion is your right. However, imposing your belief system on others is not your right. It is a wrong.

I would like to thank my tens of loyal followers on this website for allowing me to indulge myself. You may have had a question recently about the length of my last post regarding AI. As you may or may not know, many of my posts wind up in the Letters to the Editor section of the Springfield Republican. Literally hundreds of them have been published. The publisher of the paper has asked me to stop sending them in because I am way over my “quota.” However, the publisher likes my letters, and has “hired” me to write a bi-monthly column of 750-850 words under my byline. This will be a very new venture (adventure) for me seeing that I didn’t even write for the Melrose High School student newspaper. I am not sure where this is going to go, but it should be a fun ride.

September 25, 2023

It was AI week in Washington. Fellow classmate, Chuck Schumer, summoned many of the country’s technology leaders to D.C. to help Congress get it’s arms around the next big thing in technology. AI is going to reshape almost every aspect of our economy and our lives, and politicians want to be ready. AI is prepared to change almost every walk of life including education, medicine, the law, shopping, programming, finance and more. It is still an open question as to whether AI will be a job creator or a job destroyer. The labor strikes that are going on right now in Hollywood and Detroit are partially motivated by workers’ concerns that AI may put them out of a job. The creators of content in the entertainment industry are worried that AI will “scrape” their work with no compensation. For the record, I checked, and I don’t have anything worth scraping. However, what is not open to question is that AI will be a job changer.

Like the tornado in “Twister,” AI is not a storm that is coming. It is already here. Local teachers have to wrestle with the authenticity of the work that students are turning in. In many cases, the students are ahead of the teachers on the technology learning curve. I first became aware of the issue when I was interviewing high school students for college. College admissions officers have to look carefully at the essays that students submit as part of their admissions applications. It can be difficult differentiating authenticity from AI BS. AI can pass medical exams, and make basic diagnoses. A lawyer friend tells me that AI can meticulously prepare and edit legal documents. AI can create computer programs using a variety of languages. AI will be able to manage money. I am glad I am not in that business anymore. I am barely scratching the surface of the possibilities.

AI programs, using hard to get GPU microprocessors, slice and dice data, articles, photos, voice records and more to give you answers to your questions. A professor friend of mine at a local university is teaching an online course on identifying investment opportunities in AI. He didn’t ask for it, but, in literally five seconds, I generated a twelve point syllabus for his course complete with a reading list. Maybe I’ll go back into the financial services business, and use AI to identify investment opportunities. Another professor emeritus friend of mine said that once AI can figure out how to grade assignments, it will be “nirvana.” I sense there was a little sarcasm in his remarks.

Artificial intelligence as a technology platform should not be confused with the artificial intelligence that is being promulgated by certain media outlets, and being recirculated by irresponsible politicians and others. AI, MAGA-style, takes basic truths, puts them through a right wing word processor, and generates a litany of lies and alternative facts for public consumption. For example, many in the MAGA artificial intelligence universe don’t believe in global warming despite the visual evidence to the contrary. I asked ChatGPT, which is a free app, if global warming is real. It responded immediately. “Yes, global warming is real. This phenomenon is supported by extensive scientific evidence.” For a large number of people trafficking in fake AI, Trump won the 2020 election. Real AI begs to disagree. It says, “No, Donald Trump did not win the 2020 United States presidential election. The election results were certified by the Electoral College and upheld by numerous courts and state officials.” Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida is urging Floridians below the age of 65 to not get the new COVID vaccine. What does AI have to say about whether COVID vaccines work? “Yes, COVID-19 vaccines have been proven to be effective in preventing COVID-19 infections, reducing the severity of the disease, and lowering the risk of hospitalization and death.” There is a concept in AI that says that AI will “hallucinate” when it doesn’t know the answer to something. It will just make stuff up. The same can be said about many in the MAGA information universe.

AI is a new technology that we are all going to have to wrap our heads around, and, as with anything new, it will be disconcerting and disruptive. However, who are you going to believe when it comes to some of the critical issues of our time? A program that incorporates almost everything that is knowable, or your crazy uncle, who watches FOX or NewsMax all day. The former is artificial intelligence. The latter is a victim of an artifice of intelligence.

September 8, 2023

Football coach turned Senator, Tommy Tuberville, is holding up over 300 promotions in the military over the military’s policies regarding healthcare for women. While these brave men and women fight a war against real enemies, Tuberville has decided to fight a war against wokeness. He certainly didn’t learn battle field tactics in the military because he never served. His expertise is in X’s and O’s, and not in “The Art of War.” He says that there are too many Generals. I could say there are too many Senators.

He complains that poems are being read over public address systems on aircraft carriers. After all, football players don’t know nothin’ about no poetry. I don’t know or care if that is true or not, but here is a poem that should be read.

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!” he said.

Into the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

“Charge of the Light Brigade”