Everybody Out Of The Pool?

     The Trump administration's DOJ -- far more a creature of Presidential whim than ever before -- is investigating the member news organizations of the White House Video Pool over their not covering the President on events that CNN (a long time member of the Video Pool) is barred from attending.

     To explain all this, I need to start by taking a long step back, to the White House Correspondent's Association.  The roots of it go back -- allegedly -- to Theodore Roosevelt's time in office, but the official founding of the organization was in 1914, during a time when --wait for it! -- the odious Woodrow Wilson, then President, was feuding with the press and threatening to stop holding press conferences altogether.  They managed to broker terms between a President angry over what he saw as publication of off the record information, and a press corps hungry for news.

     There's only so much room in the White House, and even less when a President travels.  The WHCA operates as a kind of as "funnel," sorting out precedence (and, traditionally, seating arrangements) in the White House press room and selecting a subgroup of reporters to provide "pool" coverage for the entire membership when it's impractical (or impossible) to haul the whole bunch of them along.  In theory, they are the eyes and ears of the nation, and in practice, their membership and leadership represents a broad spectrum of political leanings and news philosophies.  This happens not because they're all so very chummy but because they're highly competitive and the only way to avoid anyone having an unfair advantage is to all be watching one another, all the time.

     The Video Pool reflects this.  There are many events where one or two cameras (a main and a backup) are all there's room for, and the outfits with the most experience making moving pictures and the best tech and production support comprise the Video Pool: NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and Fox News.*  They're not there to be the President's best pal or worst enemy, they're present to get whatever is newsworthy, and to share it with the other members of the pool and the rest of the WHCA.  When the President decided CNN (after trying to ban CNN, MS Now and Politico from White House press coverage and being told by the courts that having invited the press in, he didn't get to be picky-choosy about kicking some of them back out) was uninvited to those events that required Video Pool coverage, the other members of the pool declined to step in.  If CNN was the WHCA-designated Video Pool lead and they weren't allowed to do the job, none of the rest were going to pick up the slack. 

     DOJ is crying foul over that, saying such a showing of press solidarity may constitute illegal collusion under anti-trust laws.  Bartleby may "prefer not to" all by himself, but if he's been getting together with the other scriveners and stepping away en masse, well--  The courts will get to figure this one out, but the Press has considerable freedom, which the Federal government is Constitutionally disallowed from abridging.

     What, exactly, that might mean in this context remains to be seen.  Most administrations manage to do their work without needing to test every damn limit and norm; even the prejudiced and haughty Wilson saw the light of sweet Reason (or at least of bittersweet Compromise).  This crew, not so much.
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* This is in rough order of the formation of their TV news operations, with CNN and Fox News coming along well after the other three.  Bear in mind that pool video is share and share alike, and it's a prestige gig for the videographers and reporters, real "Don't screw this up" stuff.  They don't get brownie points for playing partisan gotcha, they get 'em for eye-catching, attention-grabbing coverage, period.  There is always a mildly adversarial relationship between Press and politicians, and I wouldn't have it any other way, no matter who's involved: you want 'em looking close.

The Case Against Public Execution

     The most recent barbarism from the Trump administration is the planned public execution of the man who committed the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting,* by firing squad.

     While I am opposed to the death penalty on moral, economic and margin-of-error grounds (you can't unkill the person if the verdict was mistaken), there's no question that the man in question committed the crime, nor that it was heinous; his actions were those of a bloody-handed barbarian and had he been stopped by being killed, I wouldn't have shed a tear.  I won't weep for him if he is executed as planned.

     I will weep for us.  Our Federal and state governments execute people rarely, and not in public.  It does not have a deterrent effect, and in his case, it will only make him a martyr for the cause he embraced.  He was paralyzed from the waist down by an injury sustained when people ended his murderous rampage, and while I have no pity for him over it, shooting a man in a wheelchair (or strapped to a support) only makes the spectacle worse.  There's no claiming the moral high ground after such an act.

     And possibly even worse, it's one more trial balloon for authoritarianism: can the government execute a man on live TV without pushback?  Will the sensation-hungry flock to the online video, share screengrabs and clips on social media, cheer on the administration for doing it?  If it flies, they'll do it again, and again, and again.  They've already shown a considerable taste for blood, and executions are much easier to control than street violence and enforcement overreach.

     It's one more spot of mold on the rotten fruit of Trumpism.
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* You do have to specify the date, there having been another one at the base in 2014. 

About Those Odds Of Civil Unrest

     ...Maybe they just went up.  Consider the source, but the source's source is a well-respected Denver TV news station.

     The world is such a giant shitshow that I'm still kind of hoping I never woke up from anesthesia when they did my cataract surgery and it's all some horrific nightmare as the last neurons fire in near-random order.

Political Predictions

      With the mid-term elections about a month away, I'm going to make some guesses:

     One in ten to one in twenty chance of political violence -- roughly on J6 lines but state/local, the probability starting on Election Day and continuing until after the counts are finalized.  It only takes a handful of violent fools to make a mess, and we have no shortage  Those sound like long odds, but with fifty states, I will not be surprised at all by one or two instances.

     75 percent chance of something ugly and stupid happening at a polling place that is significant enough to make national news.  Much more likely to be county-level law enforcement or self-appointed nitwits than any Federal force.  Related, two in three of some kind of brawl among voters (let's all remember that campaign laws mean you cannot wear your political-slogan T-shirt to the polling place.  Smile and talk about the weather, and keep the line moving). 

     50/50 there's an ugly legal fight over a close race for a high office -- U.S. House or Senate, the many elections for Governor.

     85 percent chance of a premature declaration of victory by the President, and that's being optimistic; I think he'll call the outcome a win for his party even if it's a rout.

     Speaking of routs, I don't think we'll see one.  The House will probably get a Democratic majority; anyone confidently predicting which party will take the Senate is whistling in the dark.  But it is unlikely either party will sweep into office with a commanding majority.  Both bodies are closely balanced now and they will almost certainly be closely balanced after the dust settles.

     I think there is a one in four chance of something spinnable happening between now and Election Day.  It may or may not be staged and it's unlikely to originate at the highest levels, but if anything occurs, it will be spun and spun and spun.  I encourage you to ignore it when you vote -- bad stuff can happen at any time, society never runs out of violent idiots, but giving them a "heckler's veto" cannot prevent it or heal whatever harm they do, only make it worse.

     And speaking of harm, I predict Vice-President James David "JD" Vance* will continue to exhibit the charm and charisma of an STI.  Most Veeps are their party's next in line to run for the highest office but he is likely to face a crowded primary field in 2028.  The President's crude schtick† still holds appeal to his base and he knows how to work it; Vice-President Vance remains uncomfortable and awkward around the modern GOP base -- or almost anyone else not well-insulated by wealth and power.

     This election -- and the two years that follow -- is most likely to be a brutal slog.  Norms have been broken and institutions have been demolished with nothing to replace them.  Many will have to be rebuilt from scratch no matter which party is ascendant, but neither party's politicians have shown much appetite or aptitude for the job.

     They'll have to do the work nevertheless -- or find their way through the smoking ruins of Caesarism.
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* Named James Donald Bowman at birth.  Yes, I often point this out.  For a man who sneers at other people who have re-invented themselves, he's certainly done a lot of it -- "hillbilly" to Marine to attorney to venture capitalist, poor student to scholar, lower-class to upper-class, Protestant to atheist to Catholic, child of poverty to rich man.
 
† You can call this "Trump Derangement Syndrome" if you like.  I think it's a rational response to a crude, preening bully who is nowhere near as smart as he believes himself to be, but I'm not the boss of you.

Morning Pun

      So the radio ad offered "Free gutter examination," and I thought it would be nice to have a professional look at 'em.  I called the number and get an automate scheduling system.  Okay, fine; they've got an opening only an hour away and I took it.

     An hour later, a mobile mammography van pulls up and an absolute hippie nurse steps out, flowers painted on her face, white macrame shawl, darnedest look I've ever seen.  "Get in," she says.

     I ask what's the deal.

     She gives me a look, the kind hip and happening young people reserve for the clueless old.  "You scheduled this, didn't you?"

     I'm still puzzled.

     She looks at her clipboard, reads me my own name.  "Signed up for the freak udder exam, just an hour ago, right?"

     Man, I have got to start looking this stuff up.

Peposo

     I made peposo for dinner last night, and it was fantastic!

     Put too much salt on the meat at the start, and had to dilute the broth at the end.  Next time, I'll do better.  But what even is peposo, and why is it a big deal?

     Well, it's kind of connected to one of the most famous domes in the world, Filippo Brunelleschi's vast brick dome on Florence Cathedral, a job he inherited with no blueprints or guidance from the man who'd spent most of his life designing and managing the construction of the rest of the building.  The style didn't provide sufficient support for a masonry dome -- and he chose something slightly lighter but even less strong for the job!  It's one of the first examples of an engineered structure, with hidden tension elements and an internal design that keeps the whole thing hanging together by its own weight, while guiding stresses to supports and pitting force against force to minimize the worst.

     And here's the thing: brickwork is slow.  If you've ever had the pleasure of watching professional brickmasons at work, you know that when the whistle blows, they're a blur of motion, each step blending into the next, mortar applied, bricks laid, everything squared and trimmed in motions that might well be a dance.  (And at break time, it all stops on a dime, bam!  Only to start again at the same pace when time's up.  --Because it's a process; only rarely does one mason work alone.)  But it still moves one brick at a time, and past their normal speed, you cannot hurry it: one flaw can doom an entire wall.

     Brunelleschi's masons were building a dome hundreds of feet up.  The main route up and down was  a complex winch he'd designed, and even by the standards of the Middle Ages, it was slow.  At noon, bringing the whole crew down for lunch and hauling them back up afterwards took time, far too much time.  You don't ask brickmasons to work without lunch -- especially not when you're the high-and-mighty builder at ground level and they're way up there, assembling a dome that will bring your reputation crashing down with it if it fails.  (Also, they've got a lot of bricks up there -- oops, one less, look out below!)

     While Brunelleschi was negotiating for more bricks from his supplier, he noticed the brickmakers would set out covered ceramic pots right by the kilns at the start of their day, and haul them back at noon, with the most delicious aroma wafting out when they lifted the lid and speared out chunks of meat.  What -- the stories tell us he asked -- was that stuff?  Oh, nothing much, really, they said -- they'd buy tough meat, cover it with wine and toss in some salt and a lot of black peppercorns, and let it bubble away for half the day or longer in the heat of kilns.

     Brick holds heat.  The builder was buying as much brick as the place could sell him, and they were shipping it still warm.  What if they made more of that beef and wine stuff, and shipped it to building site with the bricks?  He'd make 'em a deal on it....

     And so (or so they say), every wagonload of bricks arrived at the cathedral with a hot pot of stew, got winched up to the dome, and he had a couple of shelters built up by the base of the dome where the crews could have their lunch.  And you thought DoorDash was new!

     It still isn't a complicated recipe, and the outcome is still pretty magical.  Cracked peppercorns and Chianti, a little garlic and olive oil to brown the beef in before simmering, and two or three hours of simmering, mostly under a lid -- you would never predict the outcome, which is not especially peppery or wine-flavored, just tender and full of umami.

     Tam and I had our peposo with steamed mixed vegetables and good crusty Italian bread, and agreed we'd have it again.  It's not a difficult entree to prepare, and the result more than repays the small effort.  Those brickmakers had the right idea. 

I've Figured It Out!

      Various teams and individuals have been searching for Amelia Earhart -- or what's left of her airplane -- ever since she disappeared, especially after WW II.

     And it's a fascinating mystery; as things stand, both the famous pilot and her navigator Fred Noonan are under a bit of a cloud, which is almost certainly unfair to both of them.  But as long as there's no evidence, all anyone has is guesses about what happened and why.

     Many of the teams have been connected with Purdue University, where Earhart was a guest lecturer -- but more than that, the university put up the bulk of the money for the Lockheed Electra airplane she was flying when she went missing!

     Purdue's administration is, um, not to put too fine a point on it, parsimonious.   There's an expedition to a likely prospect just offshore of a tiny Pacific island right now.  (Don't get too excited -- the wings and fuselage of an airplane are not too dissimilar in outline to many kinds of ocean-going vessel; the Pacific is vast and has seen plenty of war, storm and plain bad luck afloat, and how likely is a nearly 90 year old, mostly aluminum airplane to survive in shallow salt water?)  You've got to wonder, though -- if they do  find the plane, is Purdue still holding on to an insurance policy, waiting to collect if they can come up with solid evidence the plane went down?

The Semi-Ancient World, Through Dr. Stephen Ressler's Eyes

     The centuries between the Romans and us -- the so-called Dark Ages -- were darkened by plagues and population loss, by painful decentralization across Europe.  But people did plenty of interesting things.  Progress continued.  Last night, Tam and I finished watching The Great Courses series "Understanding the Marvels of Medieval Technology," conceived and taught by this guy, as kewl an engineer as there is (also a retired Brigadier General). Highly recommended geek history!

     If you enjoy the late Henry Petroksi's books, this will probably be right up your alley.

Been Quiet

     I had computer problems the last few days -- stumbled into a stupid trap link.  I think I rooted out the worst damage, but who can be sure?

     A different bug is making the rounds, especially on GMail, a fake "event invitation" that comes from the pwned account of a trusted contact.  I've received two of them and they're innocuous-looking enough that I hovered over the link before thinking better of it. It's easy to get so used to the routine spam and phishing that some of the old-time malware will bite you.

Chicken Salad Cordon Bleu

     Because why not?  Our corner grocer makes a first-rate chicken salad sandwich, served on a fresh-baked croissant, and despite the -- shudder* -- lettuce leaf they add on the bottom.  The greens make for longer shelf life; they'll make up a batch of sandwiches in little clear plastic boxes, stick them in the self-service deli cooler, and often sell out by the time I stop by after work.

     They were out last night, but had the makings: nice croissants in boxes of four, and plastic containers of their roast chicken salad.  The problem with this is, Tam's not a fan of the stuff.

     Tamara's okay with ham and cheese, though, and I was out of Swiss anyway.  Good Black Forest ham, sliced Swiss cheese, vinegar-dressing coleslaw on the side: a light supper.

     Putting together a sandwich for Tam, I was thinking about how to use up the ham before it expired, and added a slice of ham to my sandwich, cut in two with a little spicy mustard between them, to the bottom of my chicken salad sandwich. (No, I didn't buy lettuce; I'm still a little wary of raw vegetables I didn't grow myself.*)  This turns out to be outstandingly tasty, and I recommend it to my readers.
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* It's annoying.  I like salads, and I like not having to buy all the ingredients and build them myself even more.  Thanks, Trump -- cutting way back on food inspectors, that's some real effective government streaming from you and your party right there.

Leftovers? Luxury!

     Last Wednesday, we had sliced zucchini in puttenesca sauce, with a little ground sirloin and pancetta* in it.  The sauce is absolutely delicious, and carries the squash along nicely.  Then Saturday, I'd made grill-baked meatloaf -- well, not exactly made: the butcher counter at or neighborhood grocery makes "Italian  meatloaf," ready to go in a foil pan, with bell pepper rings and a couple of cherry tomatoes on top.  Cooking it on the grill sounds crazy, but it works; the foil pan goes on mostly-flat perforated grill pan and enough to the hardwood smoke permeates the meatloaf to give it a nice flavor.  My covered grill hits 350°F easily with hardwood lump charcoal. (Fresh green beans, steamed with slivered almonds, on the side -- a four-minute microwave dish.)

     Both meals resulted in leftovers -- more than half a small meatloaf and a fair amount of tasty, meat-laden puttensca sauce.

     Sunday dinner was obvious.  I set the sauce to thawing while I chopped and sauteed a small white onion, followed by mixed exotic mushrooms (King trumpet, maiitake and oyster).  A small can of plain tomato sauce and some sliced olives, a pipparra pepper cut up small and pickled red peppers followed, then the thawed puttensca and, once it was bubbling, the meatloaf, cut into more or less meatball-sized cubes.  With a little grated Parmesan cheese on top, it was a nice ragout.  Leftovers?  Sure.  But what leftovers they were!

     I keep wanting to try baking bread in the covered grill.  It'll be tricky, but it might be very good indeed.
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* The one thing I'd do differently is that I bought a small container of cubed pancetta and some of them were a little tough even after slight browning and long simmering.  A little dab is all it takes, so the slightly more expensive but oh so delicate thin slices would be better, scissored into bits of flavor and added to the ground sirloin very shortly before pouring in the sauce.

About "A.I." And Data Centers

     You want to know what I think about so-called "Artificial Intelligence?" I think it ought to be banned while there's still less there than meets the eye, while it still hasn't got hands.

     I still think there's a very large element of scam to it, and a lump of self-delusion equally as large.  It's the Internet meme, "If friend-shaped, why not friend?" writ large: "A.I." usually simulates an affirming if not outright obsequious collaborator.  There is still nothing inside the box; it can't feel pain, it has no theory of mind, and there is no actual self-awareness at the center of it.  Say it kills us all, or brings about a golden age: either way, there's no part of it that knows what's going on, or that grasps the difference between Utopia and Ragnarok.

     "A.I." is deadly the way a four-year-old with a handgun is deadly, only more so, because the code has no emotional bonds to Mommy or Daddy and it never will.  When research is done on these simulated-intelligence programs, it should be sandboxed and firewalled as if it was refined plutonium, not offered up for any fool to play with.

     And as for the data centers it (and, apparently, everything else) runs on, they're an enormous vulnerability, and one I thought we'd outgrown.  Go back a step or two in technological development, and they're an approximate analog to telephone switching centers ("telephone exchange"); CLifford Exchange was (and is) near my house, just a few blocks over and north on College Avenue.  Typical of post-WW II exchanges, it was a semi-hardened building: very few windows, stout steel doors, thick brick and concrete walls, backup power.  It wouldn't survive an atom bomb, but it has shrugged off storms, floods, being struck by vehicles, tornadoes and civil unrest without a mark.  The only destruction it has suffered was the loss of the larger of the two buildings that once comprised it: telephone switching equipment is minuscule these days, and the real estate was worth more than the empty building.

     Data centers are built using the same methods and materials as your nearest Target, Meijer or Walmart, just like the ones that have the roof peeled off in summer storms or get looted during riots.  Their best physical security consists of chain-link fences and ordinary locks.  If they're so darned important, how come they're built like big-box stores or modern warehouses?

     At one time, the distributed nature of a pretty clever computer (or three) on everyone's desk and, eventually, in everyone's purse or pocket, all interconnected via the Internet, was seen as a great strength, and the fat nodes on the network were understood as weak points that the system was designed to route around in case of individual failure.  Suddenly it's utterly vital to stick one or two or a dozen around every county seat?

     In Frank Herbert's Dune series,* computers are strictly limited in function and computing power; centuries before the setting of his stories, machine intelligence had reached great heights of power and tyrannical authority over humanity, and was only defeated after a long and bitter struggle.  High drama indeed, later novelized as The Butlerian Jihad, named ostensibly after a key character in the battles, though probably a nod to a 19th-Century utopian novelists's cautions about machine intelligence.  Maybe the time to deal with that sort of thing is before it becomes a problem?

     In February 2024, writing about the possible overturning of Chevron, I included "Artificial Intelligence" on a list of things about which I preferred our generally ineffectual Congress get expert advice, but now I'm wondering if the Feds are listening to the right kinds of experts -- better philosophers than tech moguls, better ethicists than software engineers.

     The price of getting this wrong is exorbitant.  
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* The first book is great; I think it kind of tapers off from there, though not for lack of worldbuilding.