The end of the American era

Apparently, the entire 330 million American population plus the rest of the world, in varying degrees, are now at the whim of one old, tired, and angry man... a man who appears almost entirely divorced from reality and likely in some stage of dementia.

The Dow Jones is in free fall, dropping over 3400 points in two days. Other markets are just as bad. The reputation of the country among the 190 nations we share the planet with is shot, and it will likely take a decade to recover. And that supposes that we will eventually be rid of Trump and his cult.

At this point, who wants to bet his 401K on that?

A lot of Americans are outraged or puzzled or confused or just terrified. A significant percentage is blissfully unaware, and I envy them right now. Life goes on as most people know that they can't make much of a difference as individuals in anything the government is doing. 

There is frustration with elected Democrats and assorted rational leaders, but there is only one small group of people who can exert any meaningful pressure on the Fearless Leader: Republican senators and representatives. 

Anyone want to bet the aforementioned 401K on that happening?

It's a strange feeling, sitting in my comfortable home, watching Opening Day for the Rockies on TV and going about my day of judging and critiquing and grading... while the economy is tanking and the secret police are spiriting college students off the street and congress pushes for tax breaks for the fabulously wealthy. 

The world is metaphorically on fire and I just sit and type. 

I read that the tariffs were calculated using AI and that they are based on all sorts of erroneous assumptions. Trump has lied for his entire life but his latest lies are now producing enormous problems that are difficult to even wrap our heads around. 

Big law firms, big universities, and big journalism are all cowering in fear of Trump and his Cult Army, but no matter what you do to appease a bully, there will always be more demands. 

The only good news, from my perspective, is that true change doesn't happen until things get REALLY bad. 

Maybe we are approaching that point. 

Yay!

Sometimes panic and despair are the only logical choices

Two months into the second Trump presidency and we can safely state that Americans have never seen anything like it. I don't say that lightly, having many times mentioned just how bad the "good old days" could be and just in my lifetime. 

But what makes our current situation special is that we have a relatively small number of elected and appointed officials who are determined to tear down any institutions that don't suit them and to impose their will on millions and millions (well, BILLIONS, if we think of the global ramifications). 

After seeing several international students spirited off to Louisiana (why there?) by masked ICE agents, I am now seeing posts on the JEA listserv about high school journalists suddenly wanting published opinion pieces taken down from student news sites. It's hard to imagine the feds coming after a 17-year-old who suggests that something may be wrong with the nation, but...

My assumption is that students feel uncomfortable in normal times when publishing possibly controversial views, but adding in even a remote possibility that they might be arrested, attacked, or otherwise silenced by the federal government will be quite effective in silencing student voices.

Universities and state K-12 agencies are buckling under after mere threats. The Republican Party has revealed itself to be the "anti-American" political party (basically opposing anything that smacks of progressive thought and shrugging off unlawful abuses of power). A dangerously cruel man is decimating the government... well, more than decimating. That would be eliminating 10 percent of government jobs and that would seem extreme in itself. 

That so many self-described "leaders" have hopped on the Trump Train with not a shred of shame or guilt or personal pride is what strikes me as most alarming. I assume most of the them are willing to watch the chaos without complaint, reasoning that among all the cruelty and craziness from the Trump nuts, they are getting something they wanted.

Republicans have not liked the Department of Education, so having that starved into irrelevance is fine with them. They don't like science (or at least to pretend not to like it, since so many of their voters are anti-intellectuals), so breaking up departments that oversee and fund science research is OK. They don't much care for poor people in Africa (or American, for that matter, though they rely on their votes to retain power), so ending foreign aid is fine. 

Sure, they also need to accept the sunsetting of Congressional power and even their personal irrelevance when it comes to exercising power. But as long as they are on the "winning team," all is well.

My guess is that the Always Trumpers assume that life will return to something approaching normal once His Majesty steps off the stage. They want to grab whatever they can while the getting's good.

The Republican Party is mostly white and mostly angry and vengeful. Prove me wrong. 

The party is also mostly old, led by the aged and doddering. It starts with an increasingly confused and clueless president, of course. But I often think of Iowa Senator Charles Grassley, who is 91 and who has long ceased to have any interest in compromise or even logical thought. There was a time when he at least pretended to be tough-minded and willing to work with a wide variety of constituents. Now, he's just an empty vessel and a certain vote for a man whose sole purpose is vengeance. 

Sorry. I exaggerated. Trump also simply gets a thrill from dominance over others and now there is nothing holding him back. He can't break a law, according to our benighted Supreme Court, can can't run again, though he will likely try. 

Enough of our neighbors are enjoying being "fellow travelers" that nothing will be done to end the reign of terror until the 2026 midterm elections (and maybe not even then). 

Trump and his minions are well aware of things likely turning against them but for now their strategy is to burn it all down. I can smell the smoke even in my sleepy neighborhood.

Why aren't they doing what I have been trying to teach?

I have been thinking about instructions and how we pass on knowledge and skills to others lately. It took a blog post from Seth Godin, one of my favorites, to start me down that path. Here are excerpts from his March 12 post:

Two kinds of instructions

The more common, easier to execute sort: Instructions to remind people who already know what to do, what to do.

The more essential and harder to create kind: Instructions for people who don’t know what to do.

It’s a mistake to assume that just because you know all the steps, the person you’re writing for does as well.

[Almost all instructions on car dashboards, and most on the highway, are for people who already know how to drive and where they’re going… instructions that teach are a special category.]

He then lists some steps in thinking through instructions, including this one: Every interaction should have a “what if the person is confused in this moment?” branch (or option).

Many of my college students either don't know what to do or don't realize that they don't know what to do. I know this because no matter how many times I urge them to add support to their claims or arguments, they mostly do not do that.

Many student media advisers and students that I work with, usually indirectly through judging and critiquing their media, don't know what to do. If they did, I could stop repeating the same advice year after year, often to the same publications.

Many of the board members on a nonprofit board I currently chair do not know what to do. The evidence is found in reports that are unclear and unfocused. 

Not all, of course, in any of the above three categories, but many. And that is frustrating. 

It is possible that those who do know what they are doing and who demonstrate it happen to already know what to do. My task with them is to remind them, push them a bit, and maybe challenge them to consider doing even more or just trying some new tactic or strategy. 

Being a consultant who mostly urges students, advisers, and board members to elevate what they already do competently is still challenging but not all that essential. They would all be fine without help from me.

But now I am thinking that I all too often assume that people know what to do but are just too busy, too stubborn, or too distracted to be competent. That thinking needs to change.

Most people I work with need instructions built on the truth that they don't really know what to do. And if you don't know WHAT to do, it's tough to teach HOW to do it. 

I need to start analyzing where my class assignments, my critiques, and my requests for reports need some of those "what if the person is confused at this point?" links or sidebars or focused context. I just need to try to avoid "the curse of knowledge": sometimes I know so much (or think I do) that I lose track of my audience and skip key processes. 

Learning to teach is a long journey.

How a children's book gave me the creeps

Tim Harrower, a longtime friend, has just published a "children's book for adults," and I have ordered a copy based on some sample pages I saw on his Facebook page plus his past excellence as a writer and designer. He shared just two hours later in an email that things were a bit slow this winter and he wanted to experiment with AI tools. 

The book's text is all Tim, but the illustrations are all generative AI art tools (and I don't know which he used, but there are many available). The book is "The Dinosaur Owner's Manual," based on the concept that paleontologist Huxley Poot discovered live dinosaurs on a remote Pacific island in 1925 and brought them to Australia, where they flourished as pets for some time before adults banished them. This book is a reprint, so to speak, edited by Tim. It's a fun concept. 

It includes lavish illustrations, all generated by AI as guided by Tim's written instructions. He wrote: "You type in what you want (say, a dinosaur drinking tea), and the AI robot creates a painting, a photo, a sketch, whatever." 

I am sure it was quite a bit more complex than that, but his explanation makes sense based on what I have been learning while monkeying with ChatGPT to aid college writers. The best results from the AI "robot" come from more and more precise and structured prompts. That is likely true of AI art generators.

He has even created a promo video found here in which the narrator's Australian voice was AI-generated. 

I don't yet have the book in my hands but will not be surprised to find that the illustrations are rich and detailed. I know the text will be clever and engaging (and all from Tim). The book design will be terrific since Tim has long been a national leader in design theory and practice. 

I do have to admit that managing to illustrate an entire children's book gives me a moment's pause, so to speak. I would certainly feel a chill were I an illustrator, sensing that my services will soon no longer be required. 

Right now, I can't imagine the AI matching Tim's wits but, honestly, I would be foolish to simply shrug off that threat. It's just a matter of time, as least if an article in today's New York Times is correct.

The author has long been reporting on AI and is quite sure that we are, at most, a couple years away from AI tech that surpasses human capabilities in many areas. He may not be right, but if it's not two years, it will certainly be within ten. 

Today, we agonize over tariffs and an administration bordering on insane. We can't pass a federal budget and no one has any idea how to respond to a president who disdains all the accepted virtues and traditions of the American experiment. The stock market is tanking, though it will likely recover since rich people are quite clever and will do what it takes to "protect their own."

But the real challenge for the country and the world is likely to be generative AI that matches human intelligence and doesn't require 401Ks or even a rational government to operate. 

I used to think that the robots were coming, but not in my lifetime. I think I was wrong.

Wishing I were a more efficient interviewer

I have been doing some research, including lots of personal interviews, with people associate with St. Luke's UMC, where I sing in the choir. The church celebrated 40 years on March 13, 2023 and I was the Emcee, for unknown reasons. I found myself dissatisfied with what was shared about the earliest days of the church starting, right along with Highlands Ranch. They both began in the early 80s, basically from dirt.

There was something about "two visionary pastors who had the idea of starting a church in this new community south of Denver." And that was about it. That just didn't seem enough and eventually I got it into my head that I would appoint myself unofficial historian and try to find out what actually happened. Who were these visionaries? Was the whole process smooth and without challenges? 

We didn't move to Highlands Ranch until August of 2002 and we soon joined St. Luke's. That was 19 years into the church's history and the building had gone through three incarnations, each time adding space as the membership grew. So, I knew quite about of our recent history.

But there had been two senior ministers who had established a lot of what the church was, and long before we arrived. We enjoyed the third senior minister, but he left in summer of 2003. Bottom line: there's a lot of church history that I did not live through. 

I began reaching out to former ministers (all of whom but one, who died in 1993, lived nearby), and all were glad to talk about St. Luke's. I began meeting them and talking for an hour or two once in a while, asking for memories and insights and key dates and people. At the same time, I was doing research reading primary source documents like old church newsletters, old scrapbooks, official documents, and online news stories. 

I am still working on this little project nearly a year later and I only have a hazy idea of where things are going in terms of publishing or posting. I have expanded my research by interviewing various church members who have been involved before I ever arrived... a few go back to the early to mid-80s. There is an urgency to some of the interviewing since some of those early-year sources are getting what even a 74-year-old might call elderly. 

Every single interview has been delightful and informative.

But here's the fact that has become clearest to me: Interviewing is hard! I know. Big surprise. I have taught interviewing for decades to students but I was never a working journalist. 

I have interviewed two former ministers at least three times, usually for 90 minutes or more, and each time I learn a bit more. Mostly I find that there is so much more to the story... so many people it would be helpful to hear from... so many related facts and local history that interacts with this little church south of Denver. 

It's too late, of course, but I would apologize for being a bit short with lots of student reporters over many years. It's easy to talk when two people share interests and one of them (me) is genuinely interested in stories they can share. 

But my notetaking is spotty. I get back home and try to type up my notes and discover endless holes, questions about chronology, mystifying stray words and phrases that I must have thought important enough to jot down... and then all that confusing stuff becomes the excuse for the next interview.

So far they have been patient with me, but it's about time for a first draft on those first 20 years of St. Luke's. 

"A penny for your thoughts" is kind of insulting

Amidst the past week's chaos in the federal government -- clearly, our new normal for some time to come -- we were reminded that the cost to produce one penny is 3.69 cents. One nickel costs 13.78 cents.

Trump wants to mandate the elimination of the penny, and this is hardly something that hasn't been demanded for decades. I have no idea why he stopped with the penny, when the over 2020 million nickels in circulation cost nearly three times what they are "worth."

Dimes, quarters, and half dollars continue to be worth more than it costs to mint them. I guess that makes them a good deal? Honestly, who knows? Money, whether in coins or bills or crypto or other paperless exchanges, is whatever we all agree to think it is. 

Once upon a time, the U.S. claimed to back its paper currency with gold, though the total gold reserve in Fort Knox amounts to about $429 million. The U.S. is currently $36 TRILLION, so I hope we won't need to "buy back" any significant amount of that any time soon. 

I assume a large percentage of pennies and nickels (and probably all coins) are sitting in jars and coffee mugs and dresser drawers and automobile consoles. A smaller percentage is in coin collections. I used to pore over the change I received when I collected weekly payments for the Iowa City Press Citizen, squinting at dates and the names of mints and consulting price sheets and historical records. 

I would periodically collect enough coins that I would need to get paper "rolls" to stack them in neat groups to take to a bank to exchange them for paper. Fifty pennies would fit in one roll, for instance. I guess one roll of pennies cost $1.84 to manufacture, or they do today. 

It seems dumb to invest more in materials and the processing of coins than they are worth, but my sense is that our entire monetary system is just a series of interactions and spreadsheets and assumptions and, well, sheer faith that a penny is worth a penny... that a dollar bill is worth a dollar. 

Kathleen and I have a whole lot of money in Wells Fargo Bank but we never see it... and never have seen most of it. We do get checks in the mail from time to time, but it's rare. Most of our income is like most of our expenses: we use some sort of middleman to electronically receive money from, say PERA, and routinely use a credit card to pay for things. 

The economy is a giant math problem and when you start thinking about the $36 trillion that the federal government owes, well, somebody (maybe everybody), it all starts to seem like a game we can't win. 

Inflation (maybe?) made Donald Trump president again... and people HATE inflation. On the other hand, economies tank with no inflation (or, the horror. deflation). One dollar from the year 2000 is worth about $1.83 today. About half of what a dollar was worth then.

I paid $3.09 per gallon of gas yesterday (though I was able to take 80 cents off that thanks to our King Soopers points). When I was a kid (I know... long, long ago), there were regular "gas wars" where neighboring filling stations would compete for business by lowering the cost of gas. I distinctly recall 25 cents per gallon.

That sounds great, but I looked up what a dollar was worth in 1950... and that same dollar is now worth a bit over $13 today in purchasing power. So, is it more accurate to say that gasoline in 1950 cost the equivalent of $3.25 today? I mean, I did the math, multiplying 25 cents times 13 and there you go.

So are gas prices a crime today? Most of us can't be bothered to do the math but the internet can do all this for us... The answer has to be no. In fact, it might be a smidge cheaper than inflation would indicate.

By all means, let's work out a smart plan to retire the penny (and the nickel, while we're at it). But we do need to remember that a 1950 penny would have purchased 13 cents of goods in today's money. 

In other words, there is math involved. Some engineer or computer scientist will work out the hidden costs of gathering the estimated 116 BILLION pennies in circulation. My guess is that our "magic" system of assigning worth would not net the government (or us, as we turn them in) anywhere near the 3.69 cents each penny costs to produce.

Bottom line: Trump and his minions shouldn't spend a moment more on this idea. Like many of our new king's ideas, it's not worth it.

Tune in next week for "Jack noodles about tariffs..." 

Our "no nothing" leadership enjoys its moment

Among so many provocative and often simply off-the-wall social media posts from Trump in the past week was this one: He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” I have preserved his odd capitalizing of nouns that don't require such. 

I have no idea where he ran across this quote that is usually ascribed to Napoleon, which first appeared in a book written by Balzac in 1838, nearly two decades after Napoleon's death. Balzac was an admirer of the emperor and spent years gathering quotes about the man along with quotes from the man. 

I would be willing to bet serious money that Trump doesn't read old texts by Balzac and that this idea came from some bright young aide who regularly visits "famous quotes" sites. 

Unless firmly part of the Trump Cult, most people must see this as the rationale of a would-be dictator/emperor/king, staking a legal and ethical claim saying that mere laws should not apply to him. 

No one really knows if Napoleon said the quote (in French, his second language after Corsican Italian), but most scholars agree that it sounds like something he might have said. After all, he lived a life, for a time, that illustrated it.

If nothing else, the post from Trump riled people up and got some searching for whether the source was correct. 

These historical quotes that pop up regularly online as memes are always catchy and rarely verifiable, it turns out. 

In fact, the very first thing we should do when some catchy quote appears in our news feeds is to go to Snopes and see if there has been any verified research into its origin. It's quite easy but there is a good argument for not bothering. After all, social media is awash with lies, provocations, and hate. There is no harm in simply continuing to scroll.

My plan when Trump returned to the presidency was to sit back and watch as the cult inevitably attacked itself and his low-information voters began to realize that they had been bamboozled... again. Those things are happening but my plan is not providing me much satisfaction.

We have been spoiled as Americans, lulled by the relative success of our nation and our political systems over the past 70 years, at least. I'm afraid we are having trouble right now comprehending that we are in the grasp of stupidity. Musk appears brain-damaged by his ketamine use and the urge of unchecked power. Trump has always been a flim-flam man who combines luck and bravado to thrive.

Few Americans would argue that indiscriminate firings and deletions are the "smart" way to proceed in reforming government or schools or businesses... or anything. 

Americans have always been a bit "anti-intellectual" but the Trump Cult has gone all in on not knowing, and thus far only a few lonely judges and the governor of Maine seem to have called out the ignorance. 

For most of us, we wait for someone to save the day.