The Owl vs My Low Level STEM Guy Analysis

 This time I get to call out the owl for her own words.  She was responding to some serious and doom and gloom article over at The Nation about AI.  Her words:

"How can that heavy-handed fear mongering not make a reader skeptical?"  

And my thinking is what the hell is wrong with her?  The quick answer is near illiteracy in and ignorance of basic STEM issues and thinking.  Before I list my meager qualifications.  I should say that over the last few days I have saying, writing things about the spectre of:

"Systemic failure in interdependent systems."

And I did a net searach instead of just ripping it off the top of my head:

Systemic failure in interdependent systems occurs when the failure of one component triggers a chain reaction of failures across interconnected networks. This can lead to significant disruptions in critical infrastructures like power, transportation, and finance.

So now is the part where I explain why my mind so easily goes to that kind of thinking.  I used to be a theatre technician;  basically an operating engineer.  Not the same as a design engineer.  But some machinery and technology requires knowing more than turning something on and operating it. Some are parts of interconnected networks;  like the sum total of all the electrical and electronic, and computers used to light a medium sized theatre stage.  And before I left that career for law school, I was there doing that when computer lighting controls were just getting advanced enough they were making specific computers for that job.  

And then I went to a law school with a specialty program in Intellectual Property Law. And the origin story of that school is, it was originally supposed to be part of MIT. But  . . .  reasons.

And I was able enough to keep up with the engineers in that program.  Thinking of things like systemic failure in interdependent systems used to be part of my job.  And then I learned the field of law where being able to think in those terms was pretty much a necessity.  So yeah.  Skepticism is not always a function of ignorance.  But sometimes it is.  

I won't go long on AI, but I will say this much.  People should not be afriad beacuse of the chance AI will become self aware.  It's powerful enough to wreak havoc just because of it's capabilities.  Be afraid of that.  It's really like this.  And I searched to be certain before I posted it at the first place I posted it.  AI is actually worse than a mere computer virus.  It's more like a worm.  It meets the definition of a worm that if a particularly nasty one gets loose . . . . there is definitely a risk of a

Systemic failure in interdependent systems where the failure of one component in one sub network may trigger a chain reaction of failures across interconnected networks. That may lead to significant disruptions in critical infrastructures like power, transportation, and finance.

In other words, some calamity that really can fuck shit up on a global scale.  Anyone who understands systems understand that much.

For years I have called the Owl racist adjacent

Because commenters on her blog routinely throw up white supremancist, right wing shit like the following.  And she leaves it up.  The quote is so replllant it seems worse than what Hasan Piker was criticized over, and on a par with the white supremacist, hateful shit, that chud Laura Loomer recently said.

So before I even quote it, I 100% denounce it as hate speech:

"White Leftists and Islamic theocratic supremacist leftists are arrogant bigots and racists.

It is their basic nature."

I repeat bcause it is so repellant and revolting,  I 100% denounce it as hate speech.

I can go months without looking at her blog.  I can go longer without looking at her comment sections  because, she routinely leaves up, the white supremacist, hateful shit her white supremacist commenters put up.

I don't know how many people still look there.  Seems to me blogging is dead.  Long live Substack.  I guess???

Oh.  While I am bothering to be bothered. The initial post had to do with white supremacist, hateful shitbag JD Vance.  (I don't care who is making his children.  Racist plantation owners made bi-racial babies, while still being racists.)  Apparently, candidate Dr. El-Sayed made a very strong inference that  white supremacist, hateful shitbag JD Vance's grandparents might not approve of his East Indian wife, and bi-racial children.  And  white supremacist, hateful shitbag JD Vance's reply was, of all frames:  

'Keep my wife's name the hell out of your mouth'

Funny, how the white man goes all in with the Black vernacular, trying to sound tough.  But more hilarious is the idiotic rhetorical trick he is attempting to play.  The quote was more about the assumed racist grandparents, than the wife.  This is the same sort of idiotic rhetorical trick the maggots used over the quote about adjudicated rapist in a civil trial, djt, and his likely wanting to tap his young pretty assistant's ass, than was about his assistant and her desires.  Who is certifiable insane.  For all we know, she might have fantasies about having her ass tapped by the fat racist with, allegely, a tiny mushroom.

I can't go any further with the image.  

Point is, using the object of the sentence as if it were the  subject.  Just to go all Karen on someone's ass  and complain.  Are any of these fuckers fluent in English?

 

The Lesson Has Wide Application.

 Definitions are important. Meanings have meaning. Delusions make people look ignorant because. Ignorance is not knowing shit. Like definitions and meanings.

White People, Who Are Not Anti-Racists, Need to Shut Up About Racism.

 Particularly the blogger I call the Owl.

Old White Lady.

Anyway.  Instead of doing her frequent shit stirring kind of post.  Where she throws up links and or quotes, but doesn't comment.  She dove in on the non-traversey about the new Asian music category for the Grammys.   Her remarks:   

Here's how I'd frame the question: Why don't the Grammys have a category called White Pop Music?

There are 2 directions to go with that question. You could say it's white supremacy or you could say it's anti-racism. It's part of white supremacy if there's an assumption that what white people do is the main thing and what other people do is subordinate — a genre or subgenre. But to have a category labeled "white" would feel — would be —  racist. 

My remarks to that.  I object to that bizarre, binary framing.  It clearly could be argued more ways than that.  Nuanced ways.  In fairness to her,  that is not her only remarks.  Let me look at that again before I say more.  Ok.  She says a little more, and quotes form her source article.  This is the more useful quote:

 "Pop music in America is an extension of whiteness and works just like it — it has no defined borders; it expands and contracts to maintain its dominion; it tells us that nothing too ethnic can have universal appeal."

Time for terminology  boys and girls.  

Hegemony refers to the dominance of one group over another, supported by legitimating norms and ideas.

Here in the USA  in the year 2026, white people still dominate the culture.  Despite how much other ethnic groups have influenced the culture.  The market is still greatly white folk.  And the businesses tend to be run by white folk.  It's not as full a hegemony as it was 125 years ago.  But white folk is still is the main market and management.

The dominant strains of the Entertainment world do not exceed the population. Entertainment is an industry.  People are trying to make bank!

I want to segue to that racist piece of shit Rep. Brandon Gill.  Who was lionized by other GOP racists for the shit he pulled at a hearing within the past couple weeks.  Trying to tee up a white supremacy culture war gotcha.  He asked some witness from the other side whether or not Mickey Mouse is racist?

I could go long.  I have that degree in Theatre and my first career was in media/entertainment.  And I know my American history.  So If it were me in the witness seat, I could have answered:  

"Well.  The original Mickey Mouse animated short, "Steamboat Willie,"  was released in the late 1920s. An extremely racist time in America.  And to be blunt.  All of American popular entertainment, back then, was tainted by racism.  And Mr. Congressman.  I could give a one hour lecture, or more,  about all that right now.  But that would go much farther than your time."

Yes.  And as a sidebar.  Current or former litigators are or at least can be demonic on the witness stand.  We know the goal is to knock the cross examiner off their stride.  You don't have to defeat them.  It's more effective to avoid arguing with them than get combative.  Just deprive them of their flow.

Anyway, entertainment follows the culture.  However.  And I did not look at the original article yet.  But I know a little something about the music biz.  There is ample history of artists "charting" in multiple categories for the same song/record/album.  And I think some have even won Grammys like that too.  Missing from the Owl's remarks if not also the article she quotes, is the idea of being a "crossover artist."

So maybe some people who don't know shit about issues of race in society should not fucking talk about that.  Likewise, if you don't know shit how the music biz works.

Lemme do a quick search.

So the internet tells me it has happened.  At least one song won in both Pop and R&B the same year.  Shit I am overthinking it.   Bad Bunny won in two categories for the same album this past round.  The top honor for "Album of the Year," and "Best Musica Urbana."  So yeah.  Despite the history of flat out racism in entertainment.  Things are much different now than 100 or more years ago.  If someone has their mind set to be a dick about it.  And doesn't know dick about the context, and or fails to do the basic research you might think Grammy categories are exclusive.  That is simple minded thinking.

As a whole.  the system is more like a potential of Venn Diagrams.  I won't get into how to get specific nominations for specific categories.  But hey.  It's possible to crossover.  You can win in a meta category and a niche.  Go for it!

Helen of Troy Was a Half Goddess

And there is some weird part in the story of the seduction of her mortal mamma, with Zeus turning into a peacock.  It's some fucked up shit.  But memo to the assholes bitching and moaning about the new Odessey movie with a Black actress being cast as Helen?

Get Over Your White Supremacist Bigotry

Like the smart lady in the vid says.  It's a myth.  It's not history.  Homer's retelling of old tales of the old gods are not really the history of a people. It's their mythology, and old polytheist religion.  That is mostly . . .  reimagined Egyptian mythology and their old polytheist religion. Minus the obsession with death and rebirth.

So when you think of it.  They left out the best parts.  Messrs Ibis and Jacquel.  Otherwise known as Thoth and Anubis.

The scribe for the book of life and deaths, and his sort of counterpart, the lord gatekeeper to the afterlife and the realm of Osiris.

America Blows!

 

Just look at the chart.

Here we are, on the eve of what they are calling the 250th anniversary of America.  I kind of get why they call the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence that.  But that is kinda not really an accurate and honest description.  The United States of America was still years away.  Pending not only a good outcome in the war against Britain.  But the joining of independent colonies into something that resembled a nation.  

And here in 2026.  This nation is failing.  We really don't have much to celebrate, thanks to Republicans.  Current POTUS has greater power than King George III had.  

Not good!

Now I am not in the mood to go long.  So let me set up the remark.  Following the SCOTUS decision to actually follow the language of the 14th Amendment.  A friend from law school days segued from his remarks of appreciation of that to his personal declaration.  His faith that one day even if only merely possibly being able to sit on that court himself, lead to my reply:

Better you than me.

But my fantasy ambition is to be on the panel that rewrites Article III. And Articles I and II as well.

Be aware. My desire is to eliminate the office of full time Associate Justice and expand the circuits and have temp AJs rotate on and back off after one year assignments.

I believe the US Constitution has failed, and needs a major rewrite.  Love the Declaration all you damn well like.  You do you, boo.  But I have little time to waste on that, when the actual government if the nation is morphing into something the signers and the framers would find utterly repugnant.

JMO.

But I live in the NYC area,  And there will be tall ships.  They are already slipping into the city up the mighty Hudson River.  I like boats, ships. I will go look at them, if only for a few hot minutes.

But other than that?  I am skipping this party.  Likely will take in a Broadway show, instead.

I need more a proper distraction, as opposed to a delusional mythology about the greatness of America.  America blows!