The Mevedev Corollary. It’s easy to get caught up in gee-whiz, golly-gee awe of the described technological superiority of our weapons and tactics in the capture of Maduro. But who is this author and where does he get his detailed information?
Oh: and then there’s his concluding section III.
Epiphany in the Christian West, Theophany in the Christian East. Theophany - Showing the World to be the World.
These days, it feels countercultural to be utterly indifferent, even contemptuous, of all the gaa-gaa over escaping to Mars (or colonizing it) after we’ve so royally screwed up earth.
I have fellow chorister friend who literally operates and monitors a Mars Rover for his livelihood. It’s perfectly honorable work, probably contributing at least a bit to the store of human knowledge.
But sending people to live there is another matter. I don’t want it done with my tax dollars. I detest that we’re forever excitedly coming up with tech-based solutions to tech-induced problems. (Yes, my Mounjaro probably qualifies to a technology to counteract a life of too much highly-processed foods. I know. You got me there.)
There: I said it. Anyone else bored or repulsed by the thought of Mars colonization?
On the way to Kansas City, Mo., Amtrak passenger shoots another passenger dead, apparently at random and unprovoked. Jury: Amtrak owes the deceased’s family $158.8 mil in damages. District court: Make that $44 mil. Eighth Circuit: Make that zero. The crime wasn’t foreseeable.
Typically breezy case summary from Short Circuits blog
“God’s gift to warthogs” - an oft-shared allusion between me and my wife. Here’s the source, apropos of your preparation for any New Year’s Eve party you might be attending.
For all of us who rolled into the year wondering “How much more chaotic could a second Trump term be?” 2025 did not disappoint.
Michelle Cottle, The 2025 Politics Yearbook (gift link cuz I have some left this month)
Happy Anniversary:
1759
Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum to the St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin and began brewing Guinness.
Glory days: A years-ago choral performance of Mexican baroque music came up in conversation. I found the recording and listened to it with delight at how good we were that night. Gratifyingly, the last three minutes recorded the standing ovation, which we really earned on that one. Much, much credit to our Artistic Director from those days, William Jon Gray. It was his last concert with us.
2025 appears to have been the years when deepfake videos became convincing. Ted Gioia sees all kinds of problems coming from that:
A few days ago, having taken a big gulp and reckoned with how this will reduce my book count for 2026, I started Iain McGilquist, The Matter With Things. 📚
With all this talk of books and unread books and mortality, I just spent an hour or two taking every book save one from my Amazon wishlist, migrating maybe half of them to Bookshop.org, and deleting the other half entirely.
The one I left is Angels in the Cellar, oddly absent from Bookshop.org.
Speaking of things worth reading, one of the best things on Substack is Ted Gioia’s Honest Broker. Very eclectic and surprisingly erudite, but with a frequent foray into the world of jazz.
Wow! Great distillation!
AI is an adjunct to the left hemisphere of your brain which can free up a lot of your time to go spend it on the right by loving other people. But we probably will screw it up by pretending that AI is your therapist, friend or lover, all of which are actually right-brain things. If you’re using it to help your right brain, you’re getting it wrong and your brain won’t be fooled. You will not fool yourself. Even if it passes the Turing test in your consciousness, in your subconscious you’ll become more anxious, more lonely, more afraid and more depressed.
The Nativity Fast in Orthodoxy is over, so here I sit, fasting before a Nativity-related Liturgy this morning but looking forward to City Barbecue for lunch. Baked beans with brisket and collard greens with bacon ought to be about right.
If I’ve got to choose between Brutalism and Trump Rococo, I think I’ll take Brutalism.
Finished Francis Spufford, Golden Hill: A Novel of Old New York.📚
I should read more fiction because I kind of like truly surprising endings.
Did not finish Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History. 📚
It felt as if I’d read and internalized everything he was writing. But it’s not that he was plowing old ground, I think. Virgin soil, actually, the fruits of which plowing I’ve enjoyed my whole life. He’s the original, the protos.
We take the state’s monopoly of violence for granted, but when that monopoly is challenged, people turn to gangsters to keep the peace. Eli Lake, A History of Tough Jews (podcast episode).
I really enjoyed this podcast episode. America’s 70+ year immunity to virulent antisemitism sadly is ending.
We Let AI Run Our Office Vending Machine. It Lost Hundreds of Dollars. (gift link).
Umm, I’m definitely not ready to turn over any of my life to Agentic AI.