James M. Redwine

Personal Fun

Artificial Intelligence

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Congressman Ted Lieu of California has a college degree in Computer Science from Stanford University. Stanford is famous for having students whose parents went to jail for trying to buy their way into the school. There is no allegation that is why Lieu was accepted. It is assumed that unlike many college students Lieu actually went to class and learned something about computers, including Artificial Intelligence.

Lieu recently used his knowledge to have an Artificial Intelligence computer program draft a Congressional Resolution to regulate Artificial Intelligence. Surprise, the Resolution, “… [G]enerally expressed support for Congress to focus on AI.”

As wars rage in Ukraine and the Middle East and millions of people are in need of food, water and shelter across the globe, including California, Congress has seen fit to concentrate on the projected evils of TikTok and now AI. One has to wonder about the psyches of government officials who find danger and disaster behind such artificial issues while real humans are suffering from so many real man-made and natural disasters.

Putting government in control of AI is much more frightening to me than allowing private entrepreneurs to apply their imagination and genius to enhance technology. Such government regulation reminds me of those Luddites who during the Industrial Revolution sabotaged new textile machines out of fear the machines would replace the workers. What they found out was there were more good jobs created by the new technology than were replaced by it.

I imagine there were many such retrogressive thinkers a few thousand years ago when some cave man tinkerer showed his neighbors how he had fashioned a round thing to help him roll his possessions to a new cave. Probably to many of his fellow cavemen and cave women he was seen as a destroyer of local culture. But when the armies using wheeled chariots began to conquer those who still dragged things along, the round thing caught on.

Then about the 1930’s when plastics were becoming ubiquitous, people still stubbornly clung to lead pipes and bowls until the danger of lead and mercury were recognized. Now I am appalled by plastic trash littering our highways and our waterways. However, I do not hesitate to use plastic utensils and water pipes and reap the benefits from countless products fashioned from plastics. The fact that many people are too lazy to properly dispose of plastic refuse is not the fault of plastic. If we did not have the usefulness of plastic, trashy people would just toss out other products. Yes, plastic needs to be properly recycled and deposited but that is a behavioral problem, not a plastic one.

Humanity never advances by failing to go forward. We need to use AI, not fear it. I would rather Congress concentrate on real issues such as college athletes making millions from deals for Name, Image and Likeness while ticket prices are rising faster than stock market returns, or perhaps, such lingering issues as why we spend trillions on warfare as we attack poverty with heart-felt speeches.

Maybe AI will out smart us; it will not be that hard to do. But if AI is put in charge of problems we humans have not solved in 200,000 years, what is the worst that can happen? I say we might want to revisit that old observation from when computers first began to integrate our society. You remember, Gentle Reader, a team of scientists had just completed the world’s most advanced computer and they could not wait to ask it the age-old burning question, “Is there a god?” The computer with AI answered, “There is now.” I suggest we should not grovel before technology as if it were our god that might save us from ourselves, nor should we cower from it as though it might doom us to Hades. Humans can harness technology to help us do what we cannot do with just the talents nature gives. A nice place to start would be inventing nuclear batteries that need neither recharging nor replacing. Or how about a way to give used plastic an economic benefit such that people would not just dump it out their vehicle windows?

In other words, we should not look to AI to save us from ourselves nor fear it will punish us for trying. AI should be neither worshiped nor feared and it certainly should not be the victim of Congressional postering.

Dune Buggy Art Nouveau

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Photo by Jim Redwine

Gentle Reader, I ask you, does this photograph look like any place you would ever expect to find a battery? I do not know about you, but after many experiences changing out dead batteries in cars, pickups, lawn equipment, flashlights, etc., I never expected any semi-comatose foreign manufacturer (what other kind do we have now?) to hide the battery to my dune buggy inside the cab under a passenger seat. It probably took several committee meetings of diabolical Russian or Chinese speaking, Cal-Tech educated, overpaid engineers for them to gleefully agree upon such an inane placement.

I realize it has been 60 years since I worked at a Phillips 66 service station on Main Street in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, but I would have thought if a teenager could open a hood and locate a battery said location might have, at least, not now become hidden from common sense. By the way, it was a service station where one could get their tires aired up, their tank filled with 27¢ per gallon gas by an attendant, their oil checked and their battery replaced all for less than the cost of 10 gallons of liquid gold. Alright, it is true you could not get a rotisserie chicken or a garish faux silk screen shirt emblazoned with some supposedly witty saying your mother would get out the soap for.

Now I ask you, are not batteries supposed to be right under the hood or, with the parochial pride of the Europeans in mind, right under the trunk lid? Would any self-respecting automobile mechanic deign to pull up seats in the passenger compartment in search of a battery? I should say, not!

And if one has to search for the Holy Grail of batteries where only a lost coin or a stale cookie would be expected, could the designers of the automotive Enigma Machine have at least put a label on the cleverly camouflaged cover with a small clue as to what it was hiding? Say the word “Battery”, maybe?

Photo by Peg Redwine

I read the “Operator’s Guide” cover to cover after lifting the hood and finding nary a battery. The “Guide” is 196 pages from stem to stern and I make my living reading lots of words, including as Edgar Allen Poe might say, many a volume of forgotten lore. I am used to reading dross trying to pass for depth. However, the drivel of this manual does not pass as information much less enlightenment. The photograph contains the “Guide’s” entire instruction on battery replacement (Pages 124 and 125). I defy you to detect how the process is to proceed.

But once the battery is located and the cover is removed, the fun has just begun. I bet those Cal-Tech foreign born geniuses are still chortling over their anticipation as to how a normal sized human would surrender in frustration trying to put a screw and a nut into the space of a gnat’s nest.

Well, I am nothing if not stubborn so I refused to file a lawsuit until every knuckle I had was skinned and Peg was suggesting I just give the dune buggy to somebody we do not like. I could not think of anybody I was that mad at. Anyway, after only 3 days I got the red attached to the positive pole then the black to the negative. Of course, I had to reconstruct how the cover must be replaced. And even though I had tested the buggy’s starting before putting the gaggle of parts back together, when I got it all rearranged and was filled with self-satisfaction in my refusal to let the foreigners win, it refused to start.

It’s all good now as I have decided to follow the example of several grangerized folk artists I have noticed who have made their old vehicles into yard ornaments. When you drive by JPeg Osage Ranch, Gentle Reader, you may find a dune buggy surrounded with cacti and sandstone sporting a R.I.P. sign.

Photo by Peg Redwine

 

A Christmas Gift From Peg

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Everyone we meet in the country of Georgia likes Peg. When we walk along the cobblestone streets or eat at one of the small and numerous restaurants Peg is frequently approached by complete strangers speaking a foreign language who manage to convey their goodwill toward her as they ignore me. I am used to it. I get it. I accept it. But the world does not know that Peg has a dark side that often involves misadventure for me.

I first noticed it years ago when we would go skiing and Peg would sweetly say something like, “Jim, that ski run really looks interesting. Why don’t you ski down first, then I can follow you?” I fell for this ploy several times and paid the price. She, of course, never followed after she would see me wipe out as she feigned concern while secretly chortling at my naïveté.

My misogynistic side wonders if Peg’s enjoyment of my misfortunes is unique to her or if it is a more general wifely trait. Those of you who are involved in the connubial bliss of marriage can reflect for yourselves if the sweet-wife-turned-devious-Delilah is universal or just my lot in life.

Anyway, yesterday was the latest example of Peg lulling me into trying something foolish while she remained the amused spectator. It all began when we were discussing what we would give one another for Christmas.

I confess I am not an easy person to shop for. When I want a shirt or something to eat, I go buy it. I really like Christmas but I am not into the buying and getting part of it. The country of Georgia is good for the Christmas Season as many Georgians celebrate the Julian calendar Christmas Day of December 25th and many recognize the Gregorian calendar of January 7th. I like that approach. Peg and I have stayed with America’s December 25th so she gave me my “gift” yesterday as the weather was good. Weather good you say? Here’s why that mattered.

Photo by Peg Redwine

For the four months we have spent in Georgia we have watched boats dash around hauling fools attached by a long cable and held up by parachutes. These gaily decorated parachutes lull observers into ignoring the perils of falling a hundred feet into the chilly waters of the salty Black Sea. It looked like harmless fun from the safety of our apartment’s balcony. And that’s how Peg sold me on it as she would make comments like, “Jim, look at that guy under the parachute with the smiley face. Doesn’t that look like fun? You would really enjoy that.”

So after I had firmly resisted her repeated efforts to have me succumb to such nonsense for several months, Peg said, “You’re so hard to buy for. How about a parasail ride for your Christmas gift. It will be fun!” I had an initial thought that “one husband’s fun” was likely to be “one wife’s insurance benefit collection”, but I held my silence. And, as often happens with us, I forgot the various disasters for me that Peg’s innocent suggestions had wrought. I said, “Okay, thank you for my Christmas present, let’s go do it.” We went down to the dock and met a Fagin selling rides.

The wizened visage of the toothless boat captain astride his version of a motor boat did not alert me to my fate. That was my fault. I did not see or ask about any safety equipment. That was also my fault. There were no rehearsals or explanations of how this would transpire or what the precautions were for mishaps. Of course, he spoke only Georgian so it would not have mattered anyway.

The Ancient Mariner took Peg’s 150 lari (about $50.00) and strapped me into an apparatus of cords and buckles. There was no escape button. We got about one hundred yards out on the Black Sea then the captain began to let out the cable attached to the smily-faced parachute and me. I quickly was lifted off the deck into a panoramic view of the shore and the Sea. I admit, it was a thrill.

We rode around for about fifteen minutes, the advertised length of the ride, then we continued to bounce along the choppy waves for quite a while as I slowly realized something had gone terribly wrong. The captain could not get the cable to crank me back in. I remained in the harness one hundred feet above the Black Sea as the December wind swirled around me.

After thirty minutes another small boat with two young roustabouts who were disciples of Captain Fagin came along hoisting a long line with a hook attached. They made several attempts to hook my cable and finally did. Then they started hauling me down between the two boats. You, Gentle Reader, understand that the only thing between the boats was the cold, deep Black Sea into which I was thrust face first still attached to the parachute that was rapidly filling with water.

Photo by Peg Redwine

After noting the water was salty, I began to attempt to escape both my harness and the parachute, but the cords were wrapped tightly around both of my legs so I could not swim. My loyal captain did not jump into the Sea to rescue me and neither did the two faux sailors. I guess they all did not wish to get wet. Anyway, I managed to roll onto my back as the would-be dry, rescuers fished me out with a grappling hook type approach but using mainly their hands.

When we got back to shore I was soaked and cold but soothingly comforted by Peg who had filmed the whole episode on her iPhone as she sat warm and dry in the boat. She said the only thing that made sense, “Well, Merry Christmas.”

 

Amazon, The New Tower of Babel

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In Genesis, Chapter 11 God observed the tower that King Nimrod and his Babylonian people had built to reach heaven and the gods and said, “Behold the people is one and they have one language … now nothing will be constrained from them.”

So the gods destroyed the tower, convoluted the one language into many and stopped human progress toward godly status. The Tower of Babel was the ultimate example of the axiom, “Pride goeth before a fall.” Now I do not understand why God would not want people to reach for the heavens, but He certainly devised the perfect way to stop us. Of course, in Exodus Chapters 20 and 34, He warns us He is a jealous being and in Isaiah Chapter 55 He tells us not to try to figure Him out as His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Just a few frustrating moments of trying to understand what the jangling television commercials are saying or an attempt to make sense out of the song lyrics mumbled and slurred into multi-million dollar sound systems designed to make sounds intelligible, will remove any doubt that our contemporary cacophony of colliding incoherent babel surpasses all understanding. Human progress has been hoisted on the effete petard of the universal response to all attempts to communicate, “Huh?”

It is as if the gods have become overly concerned about humanity’s movement back to a universal language, Amazonia perhaps, and have come down to earth to stop us from “all just getting along” by shopping over the Internet. After all, if we can communicate from sea to shining sea via a few simple electronic clicks, there is much less likelihood of a major miscommunication and ergo a misunderstanding that might escalate to conflict. Heck, we might even learn to work together on all sorts of projects, world famine, global warming, the World Cup, who knows what heights we could reach?

Well, if Jeff Bezos is the new King Nimrod and if Jeff really does simply work full-time giving his billions made from Amazon away to charity, I can foresee the Old Testament gods getting concerned. And one way to staunch human progress is to release upon the world Satans of the communications world, you know, movies, cable tv, commercials and what passes for contemporary music.

The goal of the gods might be to attack human progress by having leaders of competing countries such as China and the US of A rely upon translations of news broadcasts in which snippets of the highly paid but incomprehensible speakers instead of enunciating important concepts, peaceful coexistence for example, mumble a leader’s language so that the words come out as threats of nuclear war.

Now I realize this whole column may be based on a false premise of my being personally challenged. Maybe you, Gentle Reader, have no difficulty making sense out of what is muttered during TV, radio, movies, plays, concerts, sporting events, and even sermons. If my failings are simply my personal problem, good, and amen. However, if the whole world is being prevented from understanding what the heck is truly being said and meant, I suggest this new Tower of Babel may soon come tumbling down.

On the other hand, there is a cure to this polemic pandemic, could everyone please slow down and speak up?

The Source

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Where my boxes of stuff went!

When former President Donald Trump moved out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. he took fifteen boxes of stuff with him that he stored at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. Someone tipped off the FBI that the boxes were stashed in some closets. Who might that have been is one of the matters the FBI and the Department of Justice wish to keep confidential. That information is most likely part of what was redacted from the Affidavit that was filed with the application for the Search Warrant. We in the general public, therefore, do not know who the source was; I certainly do not. However, I do have a theory for your consideration, Gentle Reader.

It is reported that the 15 boxes contain governmental documents with news articles and magazines interspersed. Who would be concerned with such stuff being left sitting around the house? If The Donald is like most husbands, he probably does not get exorcised over a few extra items thrown into an attic, a basement or a closet. However, if Melania is anything like Peg, she takes a dim view of stacks of stuff cluttering up her house.

I remember when Peg and I last moved she took it as an opportunity to jettison a great deal of what I held dear, such as stories about my youth and old files from legal cases long forgotten. Anytime I was not vigilant Peg would trash my treasures to make room for her new acquisitions in our new residence. Clutter is to Peg as the contents of the Augean Stables were to Hercules and it seems most of what I hold dear as personal history Peg decrees to be stable staples. We are in a perpetual yang and yin of store or shovel when it comes to my inclination to preserve what Peg sees as dross. My guess is Donnie and Melania live a similar dynamic.

Now I do not know what was in the boxes. I do know the stuff sat around Florida from when the Trumps left Washington on January 28, 2021 and the country seemed to chug along okay until August 08, 2022 when the Search Warrant was executed. The stuff in the boxes did not seem to affect America’s decision to send billions of dollars of military equipment to help Ukraine defend the war against Russia’s invasion. It is probably what the psychologists would call my retrogressive inhibitions from the 1960’s, but for some reason visions of Viet Nam and Afghanistan keep muddling around in my brain.  The contents of the boxes may be of no more significance than the contents of the file cabinets I struggled to schlepp down three flights of steps from my attic in our old home and haul to a barn at our new one.

That is not to say Donald should not turn them over to the National Archives. Maybe they are important, or not, but they still belong to all of us. And I wonder if Melania may not have been that unhappy to see the closet doors open for the FBI to haul the offending boxes away so that they have now become the National Archives’ problem instead of hers

A Friend In Low Places

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Photo by Peg Redwine

The telephone call began ominously, “Mr. Redwine (?)” It is never a good sign if a professional office treats you as an equal. Usually such a call would start, “James, state your full name, your date of birth, social security number, and most importantly, scan in your financial responsibility history for the past ten years.” Now, that is more the attitude I would have expected.

 I responded, “Ugh, may I ask your name and why you are calling?”

“No, but feel free to contact your Congressional representative if you please, and good luck there too.”

The caller continued, “You were randomly selected for a couple of medical tests. Be at our office in Bartlesville Monday at 8:00 a.m.”

When I asked, “Can I ask …” all I heard was a click. I showed up Monday and followed orders. Tuesday, I received another call.

“Is this the party to whom I spoke last week?”

“Yes, may I ask …”

“No. We found a large kidney stone in your CT scan. It’s got to get crushed up and sucked out right now. Be here next Monday at 8:00 a.m. and no food or liquids after midnight the Sunday evening before.”

“May I ask …(click).”

I showed up Monday at 7:30 a.m. and the gate was opened at 7:55. A woman with a stack of legalese-clad releases asked me a series of COVID-19 related questions as she shoved the releases and a ball-point pen at me. I followed her unspoken directives and shook my head left and right as to COVID. Then, from behind her back she produced a LONG tube and told me to get undressed. I did and stood on the cold, tiled floor as she began to insert what felt like a fire hose into an area Mother Nature never intended to accept even a fine thread. By the way, a fine thread with a knot in it was attached to the tubing. From this point until about four hours later I have to hope someone knew what they were doing to me because I certainly did not. However, when I once again became aware of my situation there was an entire apparatus with tubing affixed to the apparatus Adam was made aware of when Eve coaxed him into taking a bite of forbidden fruit. Once the anesthesia wore off I really gave both Adam and Eve and that meddling serpent what for. Gentle Reader, I do not recommend kidney stone attacks for Monday morning pastime activity. OUCH!

Fortunately, my best friend from my old Air Force and Indiana University days had just sent me a great book of medical information for my birthday. Dr. Walter Jordan, O.D., has been my free medical advisor as well as an excellent source of information about all things IU since we first met in 1963. He has also long provided me with excellent reading material each year on my birthday. This year, by coincidence, he sent me Dr. Tony Robbins’ new book, Life Force, ISBN 978-1-9821-2170-9. Walt did not get the book to me in time to study up on the pain and misery of kidney stones. Nor did Dr. J have the opportunity to fulfill our long-ago made honor pact to use a 38-caliber solution to save me from a fate worse than watching IU lose the Big Ten Championship to Purdue. However, it is a wonderful source of information and I plan to recommend it to the office that attacked my lower quadrant.

Things have finally reached what we in the legal biz describe as a permanent and quiescent state and it appears I will survive although my friend Dr. Walt has been of more medical value to me than those “providers” who get paid for it. Anyway, as those who live in a “house” with kidney stones should not throw them I will forever hold my peace.

I do look forward to those days when we will, perhaps, all benefit from Dr. Robbins’ insights on how we might stop or even reverse the aging process. Of course, Walt and I have been around for so long Robbins’ book may not add much to our lifespan. But, Gentle Reader, I strongly suggest a trip to a book store or a library to read all of Robbins’ Chapter 4: pp. 96-120, “Turning Back Time: Will Aging Soon Be Curable?”

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