A.I. Ain't Writin'

Artificial Intelligence shall permeate our lives, and cause us to question everything our fellow humans do: "Did you write that?" "Did you create that all by yourself?" "Did you really catch that ball, or did those techno-gloves catch that ball for you?' It's a fair question. "Are you insulated?" 

The Hollywood writers have settled their strike (for the most part) against the television studios. Those same writers who whined about A.I. stealing their jobs, according to the settlement, can now use A.I., themselves, to complement their work. Chances are, many of these so-called "writers" may not be true "writers", at all. Chances are, many of them have no more true writing talent than I have singing or drawing talent, though I do like to sing, and dabble. 

A.I. uses recycled content to create its poems, essays, and scripts, just as many Hollywood writers have been using recycled content for years, and pushing it off as their own "genius." We know better when we see so many television scripts and movies look and sound like the ones before. 

There was a time, in football, when we would marvel at the "great, soft hands" of elite receivers. You never hear such talk anymore because, now, they all wear gloves - even in 80 degree temperatures! - which obscure those with "great hands" from those with "good hands." It is the gloves that secure the ball on contact. These gloves - I call them "techno-gloves" - are a form of A.I. You might ask, "Why don't the gifted receivers chuck the gloves, and show the world how "real men" once did it? Too late for that. Today, a great receiver without the techno-gloves is like a great guitarist without an amplifier. 

The truth is: The studios have little respect for their so-called "writers" because they see little "true talent" among the lot of them. That is why the studios were so slow to settle. And, even then, look at the terms of the settlement: Where the UAW is asking for 20%, 10%, and 10% raise over the next three years, the writers have settled for a 5%, 4%, and 3% raise over the same period. It would seem that is apropos to the talent these writers apparently bring to work. 

Great writers never need A.I. When writers couple with A.I., they cease to be writers; they become construction workers. I say, "Let A.I. have the touchdowns. It ain't writin'."

Crucified

Jesus was crucified

We know this

We do not know what

    it feels like

To be crucified

But we can imagine

We are human beings

We are built to imagine.

Some of us in our zeal 

Enact our own unique crucifixions

Replete with spikes and lances

and cries of "Why me?"

We must be crucified!

Our sins are so great

And mounting so

That  crucifixion seems too

    good for us

But it is the worst

We can imagine. 

More Racial Dilemmas

Sage Steele, recently-fired ESPN anchor, declared: "I'm bi-racial." I declare, "So?" A large percentage of African-Americans are bi-racial, thanks in large part to America's "crime against humanity" - slavery - where the white slavemaster has his way with the two million original African-American women under his complete control. 

Then, Sage declared, "Barack Obama is going around saying that he is a black man, when he is actually bi-racial, like me." Sage should not have gone there. Barack knows who he is, and where he comes from. He has never denied his black Kenyan father , nor his white Kansas mother. After living in places around the wold , he settled in about the "blackest" community in America - Chicago's southside. After dating women all colors, he married a truly black woman - Michelle Robinson. He has a black family. Barack Obama chooses to be a black man. 

Back to Sage: Once you declare yourself "bi-racial", most people tend to wonder, "Okay, so what races are you?" Let me put it this way: I am a dark-skinned African-American man. My paternal great-grandfather was white. My maternal great-grandfather was full-blooded Native American. (The rest of me, for the most part, hails from western Africa.) That, I suppose, makes me "tri-racial". Should I declare myself that? Not unless I want to sound foolish. Chances are, many of us are tri-racial, and then some. Nonetheless, most of us declare a race: Hispanic, Black, Native American, Asian, etc., because that is the community we most identify with. 

Funny how a bi-racial person can claim to be anything he/she wants to be, except "white."

All the Way to the Back

"All the way to the back," she said

"All the way to the back" 

Those words were ingrained into our heads

Was it simply because we were black?

We had to do it, the good kids we were

Taught to do as were told

No time for sass - just march, lad and lass

All the way to the back of the bus

All the way to the back

Fill up those seats - Leave room! Leave room!

No matter how tight you are packed

"All the way, all the way, all the way," she said

All the way to the back.

"All the way to the back," she said

"All the way to the back" 

Words to children so easily uttered

Was it melanin all that she lacked?

Who was this woman with the hypnotist's glare

And the siren's knack?

It was Josie Wroblewski - the gasman's wife

Who said, "All the way to the back." 

She drove the bus, and the lot of us

And did it without any flack

How else could we have made it to school

Except for going all the way to the back

Except for sitting way, way in the back?

This 60s Woodland Park and Bitely did business

Played baseball, rode the same bus

Adjacent black and white rural communities

Never forgetting the thin line between us. 

Fill up those seats - Leave room! Leave room! 

No matter how tight you are packed

"All the way, all the way, all the way," she said

All the way to the back. 

And she got away with it

Until such time as Daria Plaut

Hitched a ride on that bus

She was a teacher's aide at Baldwin High

Heard the cry with the rest of us: 

"All the way to the back"

"All the way to the back"

"All the way to the back of the bus." 

Daria saw how each day we were herded

To clear space for the white kids to sit

Being a Woodland Parker - born and bred

She wasn't having any of it.

This was not Montgomery, Alabama

And Daria never claimed to be Rosa Parks

She heard, "All the way back" -

Stopped it dead in its tracks

Another community climbed out of the dark.

We had joined in a struggle waged across the land

From L.A. to Detroit to D.C. 

Black communities all - rallying to the call 

Of a people bound to be free.

"All the way to the back" - one by one;

Thanks to Big Sis, those days were done

Now, a faint and fading echo

Of a day Woodland Park had won.

Knowledge of Fire

I wonder if China whines as much about the U.S. as the U.S. whines about China: "They're taking our manufacturing jobs; they're buying up our farmland; they're stealing our intellectual property... wah, wah, wah..." 

Robert O'Brien, American Global Strategies co-founder, and former Trump administration national security advisor, appeared on C-Span on August 5th and said, "It is hard to compete when people are stealing from you." As he rattled off China's litany of abuses, such a pained expression came over his face, I began to wonder if he would burst into tears. "There are slaves," he said, "picking cotton in China today - Uighura - and we are buying their product." Do you really want to go there, O'Brien? 

Throughout history, none has stolen more than the U.S., starting with the theft of free people in Africa and converting them into slaves for America. We stole great swaths of land from Native American tribes, and drove them - their women and children - out onto the barren prairie where they died by the thousands from exposure and starvation. We stole, took, and cheated Mexico out of lands that today comprise the states of Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico. We could not have cared less about "fair competition." 

China is competing. They did not kidnap Buick, and force it to perform in China. Buick went there of their own accord, as did many other U.S. manufacturers whose bottom lines thrived amid China's burgeoning middle class. Neither does China force Americans to sell their farmland. Those farmers gladly part with that land for Chinese cash. 

And, speaking of "intellectual property": The U.S. pulled off the greatest such theft in history with "Operation Paperclip" in 1945. There, U.S. agents secretly spirited 150 Nazi scientists away from Germany, among them Wernher von Braun, the greatest rocket scientist ever. His rocket design and mathematical calculations put America on the moon in 1969 and then brought us safely back to Earth. It remains humankind's greatest achievement. 

In a perfect world, nations would willingly share technology to ensure immediacy - that people worldwide simultaneously benefit from humanity's genius. That world is yet light-years away. Hence, countries like China, the U.S., and every other living nation must spy, steal, reverse engineer, and pull out every stop to learn what others know to advance their own societies. 

Heck, there was a time when men stole fire because they did not know how to make it themselves. I say: Knowledge by whatever means necessary. Why not?

Watch Your Step

There is nothing wrong with Texas' Governor Abbott putting barriers on the Rio Grande to prevent immigrants from illegally crossing over into America. If you want to come in, there are rules and designated pathways to follow. America should make it as difficult as possible for anyone to enter, otherwise. 

If someone wants to enter your yard, you insist that they enter through the gate. If they want to enter your home, they cannot climb through the window. They must enter through the front door.  

Heroes... Standing By

A child may call his father or mother "hero," but we will not call them "heroes." We are more likely to call them "good parents." Nature equips women to be good mothers, and men to be good fathers. Not all men and women live up to that ideal, but that does not mean that those who do are thus extraordinary, and thereby, heroic. 

Likewise, policemen are not heroes because they intercede to protect a public citizen from harm. It is his job. That is what he is paid to do. Same thing for teachers. They are not by definition heroic. They are paid to teach. If you do not pay them, most of them, probably, will not teach; neither will officers police, nor firemen fight fires. That does not mean they will not risk their lives to save your child from a burning building. I suppose a number of men and women would do that. And, if they do, they will be heroic, mainly because it is a split-second decision, and no external force - like payment for services - compel them to act. They are driven only by a sense of humanity. There is heroism. It is far less common than we want to believe. Yet, it exists as potential energy within each of us. 

There is a teacher in us, and a fireman, and a policeman, and a soldier. That person may never be called upon, or he/she may rise up out of us in the next instant. Such is the hero in us all. It has nothing to do with a uniform. It has everything to do with our sense of humanity when humanity needs us most.