Browsed by
Category: Uncategorized

GOING OUT OF FOCUS

GOING OUT OF FOCUS

Darwin’s the­o­ry of evo­lu­tion applies as much to humans and tech­nol­o­gy as it does to ani­mals and Nature. But some things are so root­ed in cul­tures, minds and mem­o­ries that their pass­ing seems to bor­der on trav­es­ty, irra­tional though that may be. The demise of the BBC radio’s “Focus on Africa” rep­re­sents that for me.Read the rest

THIS WEEK’S GRIPE: MANNERS NO LONGER “MAKETH THE MAN”

THIS WEEK’S GRIPE: MANNERS NO LONGER “MAKETH THE MAN”

In any list of qual­i­ties that ide­al­ly ought to define peo­ple, espe­cial­ly those who aspire to, or hold posi­tions of author­i­ty, I doubt there is much argu­ment that it should include cour­tesy, per­son­al integri­ty, con­cern for the com­mon good and dignity.
Yet it has come to pass that these virtues, along with per­haps less impor­tant, but still valid ones, have not just fall­en by the way­side, they are as good as scorned.Read the rest

A COLD WAR CLICHE IS A LESSON ON AI CHATBOTS

A COLD WAR CLICHE IS A LESSON ON AI CHATBOTS

Clichés are wide­ly den­i­grat­ed in writ­ing guides as indica­tive of lazi­ness and a lack of orig­i­nal think­ing. An iron­ic excep­tion is apply­ing the Russ­ian proverb “Doveryai, no proveryai”….“Trust, but ver­i­fy” when con­sid­er­ing the mer­its or oth­er­wise of AI chatbots.Read the rest

LIVE AND LEGITIMATE AREN’T ALWAYS LINKED

LIVE AND LEGITIMATE AREN’T ALWAYS LINKED

The metaphor­i­cal beat­ing of breasts and rend­ing of gar­ments over CNNs’ “town hall” with Don­ald Trump is a salient les­son that pro­vid­ing live air time for proven liars and dis­sem­blers, not­ed for a pro­cliv­i­ty to con­trol the nar­ra­tive, is the equiv­a­lent of allow­ing them to write the script, and there’s enough of that done by flaks and syco­phants with­out adding to the pool.Read the rest

THE AMERICAN KING CONUNDRUM

THE AMERICAN KING CONUNDRUM

The out­pour­ing of pun­dit­ry, com­ments and edi­to­r­i­al car­toons in the U.S. media and on social net­works, express­ing every­thing from bemuse­ment to crit­i­cism and deri­sion over the coro­na­tion of King Charles III, has led me to pon­der what it is about the Amer­i­can psy­che, or at least that of a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion, that I don’t understand.Read the rest

A HOMAGE TO LIGHTFOOT

A HOMAGE TO LIGHTFOOT

Apart from the inevitable aches and pains, one of the draw­backs to aging is that you think the singers who were your sound­track are for­ev­er the age they were when you first heard them, and only real­ly accept that they’re not when they die. And so it was this week with Gor­don Lightfoot.Read the rest

SETTING A HIGH BAR DOESN’T EQUATE WITH UNFAIR

SETTING A HIGH BAR DOESN’T EQUATE WITH UNFAIR

The line between set­ting high stan­dards and bul­ly­ing is nigh on impos­si­ble to dis­cern in today’s hyper-sen­si­tive world. Since step­ping over it costs jobs and rep­u­ta­tions, I sug­gest those who would pass judge­ment con­sid­er this thought from the 1908 nov­el  “The Magi­cian” by W. Som­er­set Maugh­am: “It’s a fun­ny thing about life; if you refuse to accept any­thing but the best, you very often get it.”Read the rest

WEIGHING UP THE UNWORTHY IS WORTHY OF UNUSUAL WORDS

WEIGHING UP THE UNWORTHY IS WORTHY OF UNUSUAL WORDS

As a jour­nal­ist, noth­ing about  FOX “News” inclines me to be any­thing but pro­fane­ly dis­parag­ing of their ultra­crepri­dar­i­an law­suit defence of com­mit­ment to “the high­est jour­nal­is­tic stan­dards.” In an effort to com­ment and still main­tain deco­rum, I sought affla­tus (not what sprang to your mind) from a delight­ful work called “Foyle’s Philav­ery”.Read the rest

A LOT OF NOT ENOUGH WAS TOO MUCH

A LOT OF NOT ENOUGH WAS TOO MUCH

“Too much of any­thing is bad, but too much good whiskey is bare­ly enough”. Health con­cerns aside, Mark Twain’s apho­rism is an apt way to mea­sure the report­ing booze-up of the Trump arraign­ment. Too much of noth­ing hap­pen­ing on air for too long dis­tilled the live cov­er­age into a vin­tage more akin to a cheap blend than a fine sin­gle malt.Read the rest