I did not spend most of this weekend within sight of a computer. Microsoft had all the time it needed to run all the "updates" and spyware it wanted, so of course it waited to launch all the garbage-ware until Sunday afternoon when I finally came in and turned on the laptop.
We need some serious laws about the Internet, if we want to keep it at all. I'm afraid the time of its usefulness is running out. Probably we shouldn't have rushed to adopt computer technology before we had a federal law stipulating that posting content on the Internet is covered by "freedom of the press" and, whether people posted honest mistakes like "Michael Jackson, the superstar singer, died at age 74 in 2026" (a real man called Michael Steven Jackson really did die, at age 74, in Georgia, last May; he sang, too, according to his relatives, and played a guitar) or malevolent disinformation like "BayerScience (TM) has proved that glyphosate is safe and effective," it's up to readers to sort out which writers could and could not be trusted. Certainly nobody should sign any contract authorizing any corporation to mix their work into any so-called artificial intelligence without payment. All of us should be holding Microsoft to its claim that Windows 10 was the last version of Windows we'd ever buy--and if Microsoft doesn't fully support Windows 10, Microsoft must join Epson, Wang, and Lanier on the garbage dump of Time.
This weekend I'm particularly annoyed by the way Microsoft is managing to interfere with independently produced, non-Internet-dependent Libre Office. I think we need a law stipulating that any device sold as a COMPUTER must come with a complete, non-Internet-dependent, word and data processing system that works as efficiently as a good typewriter, and with a printer for physical data storage. (Devices lacking those assets could be sold as ACCESSORIES for up to $100.) Connection to the Internet must be optional and must not affect the efficiency of the word and data processing system. Instead of being able to interfere with any use of the computer to "force updates," Microsoft must be forced to wait. In fact it would be good if the law specified that any attempt to "roll out" updates onto a computer that was in use by its owner, online or offline, would result in all of Microsoft's computers displaying the word WAIT and blaring a recording of "U Can't Touch This" for a week. After a week, rebooting any of Microsoft's computer would require the employee to hand-type five thousand lines of "I must not encroach on any customer's use of any product for which the customer has paid." Copy-and-paste would be disabled...
But of course that's not the biggest threat to humanity posed by an Internet that's not properly regulated to discourage obvious abuses. I'll admit that even I haven't preached as extensively about online anonymity as I ought to have done. I thought people who wanted to put their real-world names, addresses, ages, etc., on the Internet were a minority of very foolish people who would soon figure out that they did not belong in cyberspace at all, because computers are not for the stupid, and relatively little harm would be done. I can't believe the number of people who fell for the "But I've done business with this company for years and they've never done anything nefarious with my identity, even my bank, information" lie. It's so close an analogy to "But my four-year-old can't even reach the gas pedal so there's no harm in letting my four-year-old carry my car keys." An honest store's, or even utility company's or government agency's, computers are very similar to a four-year-old in relation to a professional criminal. All Mr. Badman needs to do is say, "Hey, kid, I'll give you a dollar for those silly old keys you're carrying." And likewise...
During the weekend I had a good look at the new, flat-screen, all-digital TV in somebody's front room, streaming Roku and Pluto and all. Fourteen thousand and some channels on GSN alone, nine other networks, and after we'd watched one nostalgic movie, nothing anyone really wanted to watch was on. Roku and Pluto showed lots of ads for online gambling sites. Gold-toned dragons on red flags at a site called Tang something? They could just say, "Hey, Americans, send China's ruling party some money!" Gamblers have been spending thousands of dollars just for the thrill of getting a hundred dollars back, for a long time. If they earned the money honestly and don't owe it to anyone else I suppose that is their business. "They are asking people for bank information," a non-tech type said. "If you won a thousand dollars, they'd send it to your bank account, and a week later your bank account would be cleaned out." Not that Chinese people generally are less ethical than anybody else. Just that the improbability of the US being able to enforce laws on unethical Chinese people is bait.
As for those "AI Data Centers" being built in places where they're damaging the ecology and the economy? Some damage is always done by large-scale construction and is always temporary. This is not a valid cause for complaint. New buildings mean a lot of raw dirt, blowing through the air or washing down into water, and noise, and young men coping with the dangers of their job by bickering with each other and shouting rude comments to passers-by. New buildings almost always look raw and unappealing and as if they are taking up space where some much nicer looking trees ought to be, for the first ten years or so. Beyond that, people subjected to unprecedented noise, unprecedented local warming, unprecedented water pollution, etc., can and should complain. Complain like good fellows! But I suspect a more effective strategy is to starve the "data centers" of our data. If people simply decide that, until we get a good regulatory policy that mandates respect for our freedom and privacy on the Internet, we'll unplug from the Internet, the builders of "data centers" will learn to heel, sit, and stay.
Animals
The Dunns' best photos of animals' and birds' reflections in water.
Education
Should colleges eliminate "women's studies" or other "special interest group studies" programs? Well, these programs have historically been taught by left-wingers, so they don't have a reputation for academic rigor or appeal to deep thinkers. They have even tended to overlook non-leftist members of the interest group they're studying. "Women's Literature" courses often ignore Pearl S. Buck, Selma Lagerlof, and even Zora Neale Hurston. In the same way, "Appalachian Studies" tend to pay more attention to coal miners' unions than to private land owners, although there are more private land owners than unionized coal miners in the Appalachian Mountains. "Black History" ignored Madame Walker until some Women's Studies types made that impossible, and still prefers to ignore Benjamin Banneker, the "Black Wall Streets" and business successes of the early twentieth century, Booker T. Washington, Carter Woodson, Kenneth B. Clark, Alvin Poussaint, Walter Williams...
Even when there's no intention to focus on studying the left-wingers in the special interest group studied...Left-wingers tend to be easily presented in ways that appeal to college students' interests in Romance and Rebellion. More conservative people, whose positive contributions to humankind and/or their special interest groups are often greater, tend to be relatively quiet, even bland, one could even say dull, figures, quietly earning their living, rearing their children, prospering, and being happy. It is the responsibility of the teacher to offset this. I like to look for whatever evidence people have left that they were happy.
I think colleges should just reconsider their curricula and make sure they're not (inadvertently, unthinkingly, stupidly) teaching White History or Men's Studies. With unflinching honesty they should put the representatives and achievements of each special interest group where they belong. They don't have to dwell on the struggles of and within the special interest groups, nor on the personal lives of people whose achievements are part of history; they have to put those people and their achievements in place. You can't teach about US Presidents without mentioning Obama, you can't teach about literature in English without mentioning Emily Dickinson and Charlotte Bronte and Pearl Buck, you can't teach about the advance of science in the early twentieth century without mentioning Turing.
Colleges can dispense with "Women's Studies departments" when they don't let even boys graduate without knowing the history of women's struggles for civil rights and fair wages. They can dispense with "Black History Month" when non-Black students are equally familiar with the work of Douglass and Hurston and Martin Luther King. They can dispense with "Appalachian Studies," not that most colleges have ever even qualified to offer such a program, when their students from Alberta or Tibet understand why there are two ways to pronounce "Appalachian" and what each one signifies, what karst and clay and loam look like, and why we don't spray anything we wouldn't drink outdoors. So long as "mainstream" history, literature, arts, social "science," and other courses ignore a demographic group, there will be a need for courses that focus on the groups ignored. And those courses will tend to be partisan, academically flabby, and taught by shrill, emotional, very young or new teachers who washed out of the "mainstream" history, literature, arts, social "science," and other programs, simply because that is who tend to be interested in teaching "special interest group studies." It would be much better to integrate the courses...even if a balanced, integrated physiology course requires boys to read about how ephemeral the male role in reproduction is, even if a balanced, integrated history program requires not only that White students consider the abomination that was slavery in the United States but that Black students consider the history of slavery in the United States as part of the history and current reality of slavery around the world.
For students who aren't being asked to revise curricula, who just want to know which degree programs are most likely to pay for themselves on the employment market...There are jobs for which a degree in "special interest group studies" is an asset worth having, especially the kind where the master's or doctor's degree is crucial and the undergraduate degree is merely a milestone, but there aren't as many jobs like that as there are jobs for which a degree in math or English or history is an asset worth having.
Good News, Sort Of
The Professional Bad Neighbor turned over the land he's bought in my neighborhood to two good neighbors. This is not a satisfactory solution to everything; it does not mean creepy people aren't still creeping about, harassing us and damaging our property, late at night. (Two nights, the man had a memorably foul, rank personal odor that I would not have associated with Larry Ricky Calhoun. Son or servant? I have no idea. I do know that anything that smells like that is in bad condition, should not have been sent to do anything secretive, and won't be scampering around the mountain for long.) It does mean that my fingers are itching to start repairing and improving what my parents left to me, after all these years. The Bad Neighbor still owes me a lot of money and the relatives who are so Christian and want to "forgive" him need to show the kind of support that would allow even such a noble soul as mine to forgive so much wrongdoing. The Nickels and Cornerstone buildings are beautiful buildings in good locations, but for reasons that will be revealed in due time I like the Silver Spur. Relatives don't need to say anything. Cash will do. The Bookstore & More should be open to the public by August.
The hedges that retain soil only a yard or two from the house need to be privet because privet does not attract our wonderful native insects. I do not want to step on bees and wasps and caterpillars around the house. The hedges around the rest of the house can be blueberry and huckleberry, with pawpaw, peach, chinquapin, or cherry trees up at the far edge, and a good fence to discourage nuisance deer.
Music
The "Music Moves Me" link-up asked for links to songs about summer. I've always liked Guy Carawan's version of "Long Summer Day." It's not been digitized. There is an extremely "folky," in the sense of an old man singing unaccompanied and missing some of the notes, version at
Meh. If that had been the version I'd heard first, "Long Summer Day" would not have become a favorite of mine. There's always been some debate about whether folk songs should be preserved in their "most authentic" form, which very often was sung by an old person who hadn't had time to warm up before singing and consequently missed notes, and often had a weak sense of rhythm as well, or in a slightly more "practiced" form that did the song justice. I incline toward the practiced versions, which means you Gentle Readers get links to recordings by people like Pete Seeger or the Carter Family or Heather Wood, as distinct from my hummings and chantings and chunterings around the house. You're welcome.
Still, it's good to remember how many good songs have been preserved by old people who didn't have any musical instruments, any musical training, very good voices, or even a sense of rhythm. Every town was not blessed with a folk singer whose natural talent could produce professional-quality recordings. People learned, sang, and taught songs as best they could. Often an old person who had little else to do was the one who memorized the long songs, and people could feel lucky if that person carried a tune as well as the man on the recording linked above.
Here are the other songs I caught over the weekend.
The one of Guy Carawan's records that has been digitized was out of circulation during my record-buying days. I learned most of these songs from other people; some of them were new when I found the digitized record, today, looking for "Long Summer Day."
Five Times August.
Kelsea Ballerini.
Johnny Lee.
Grey Delisle and Les Greene.
Politics
The non-Left, non-globalist, non-socialist, common-sense category includes most of humankind so it's not surprising that we have differences. I think good things come out of debating policy issues. By all means, let people all along the spectrum from "total Trump fan, do my hair like his, named my son Donald John" to "voting against Harris in no way implies that I'd shake Trump's hand" argue for and against this and that. Before they start attacking each other, though, let them remember who wants the non-Left to start fighting and turning against one another.
Youth Culture, Fond Memories of
So, is casual sex fun but unfulfilling? Is it just fun? Is it even fun? People seem to pick their surveys; answers seem to depend on the audience. A suggestion: In my memory, which is still pretty good, casual sex was fun when and only when it was understood from the beginning that only the kind of sexual acts that don't make unwanted babies were under consideration.
Well, Highly Sensory Perceptive people are generously supplied with hormones and nerve endings. Phone sex was the subject of a popular book and movie in the 1990s. I had a longish-term relationship that involved eye sex. It was fun. It was not unfulfilling. It was where we were, a college sophomore, eighteen years old, and a college freshman, twenty. I suspect the freshman was having eye sex in a casual way with other people. I was not, but I did have enough sense not to mistake a strong attraction to a good school friend for True Love. That tends to add heaviness to what should be light, and spoil the fun.
I did, of course, truly love the freshman, in the sense of wishing him well. Still do. Wherever he may be. We both knew, all along, that if and whenever either of us wanted to settle down and have sex in a more physical way, we'd know it, and other people would probably be involved. So I did and so one was.
Trying to be casual about the act that makes babies is, of course, totally delusional. People delude themselves that it's fun up to the point where it ruins their lives. Don't ever do it. Taking the chance of bringing a new human into this world is THE ULTIMATE COMMITMENT. It is so deadly serious that even mentioning it ruins the fun of a nice casual evening.
