In my 76 years I have never met anyone who admitted to being racist/bigoted. Not once. Are these concepts totally “in the eye of the beholder” I wondered. I asked ChatGPT if she (I don’t like *it*) has the ability to recognize bigotry or racism? In a video or written essay, for example? Her response was TLDR by today’s standards. About 5 pages of double-space. Once again, it was a conversation I can’t imagine having with a human.
Yearly Archives: 2024
“Perhaps he’ll run as a Republican…”
During my 30 years working in broadcasting (a term that seems quaint these days) I worked with some really good journalists. Bob Priddy, Kay Henderson, and Clyde Lear…just to name a few.
For most of that time the Iowa Caucuses kicked off the presidential election cycle and Kay Henderson was at ground zero, including covering the Iowa delegations at the national conventions. In 2000 she filed these audio reports. (As emails to friend and fellow journalist, if I remember correctly.) I found an interesting nugget from her July 29th report:
“Donald Trump is sending a bus to the hotel on Tuesday at 11 a.m. to take the Iowans to the boardwalk in Atlantic City. Does he know these people are Republicans — and they can get their fix in our own casinos? Perhaps he’ll run as a Republican in 2004 and is laying the groundwork.”
The Onion: Tips for Starting A Book Club
With the loneliness epidemic impacting millions of Americans, book clubs offer a simple and structured way for readers of all ages to socialize. The Onion shares tips for starting your own book club.
- Seek out fellow readers by blackmailing a librarian into giving up names.
- Choose the day of the month that works best for everyone to cancel on.
- Make sure you have a good mix of people who will keep the book discussion going and people you actually like.
- Select one of three books not banned by your state.
- Establish a rotation order for club members to take turns shooting down each other’s book suggestions.
- Bookmark the Dictionary.com page for “glib” for easy future reference.
- Challenge your club with a book written in an ancient, untranslatable language.
- Establish independent election monitors to maintain legitimacy of the book selection process.
- Spend five to six years seeking your doctorate in comparative literature so you can absolutely smoke your friends with your opinion on A Court Of Thorns And Roses.
- Keep your meetings on topic by dressing in an intimidating leather outfit and occasionally cracking your knuckles.
- Make sure that everyone is hitting their page goals by administering regular pop quizzes, a midterm, and a final.
- Spread the hosting duties around so that, a few months from now, you can easily shed yourself of this albatross of a social commitment once and for all.
Drag queen helping conservatives with makeup
Landon Reid describes himself as “Artist, Oddball, Dork, Decorator, Costume designer, reaching across the aisle to help conservatives re-create their favorite makeup looks.” (Can you say “niche”?)
As far as I know I am not personally acquainted with any drag queens. But based on what I’ve seen in films, TV and on YouTube, nobody does bitchy-snarky satire better.
While it’s unlikely Marjorie Taylor Green will ever see the video above, it was viewed 192,000 times in three weeks. Mr. Reid has also re-created the makeup look of Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Rudy Giuliani and many others. (Side note: he seems to be really good at doing makeup).
New category: AI Chats
Following my most recent chat (see below) with GPT, I flashed on the idea of a blog where each post was a conversation with my favorite… artificial entity. (I assume this is already being done). Every post would be a transcript of one of these chats. Or, if I were really ambitions, I could post the audio.
I don’t need another blog to tend to so I’ve decided to just post these conversations (I can’t think of them any other way) here in their own category. Don’t see how these could be more boring than My Dinner with Andre, the 1981 film directed by Louis Malle.