Essays
-
When one is accused of a crime they are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
-
Whether one is guilty of a crime needs to be proven by the state beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of one’s peers, or a judge if the accused prefers.
Happy iPhone Day!
Christian Nationalism Did Not Save Rome
For me the fact that “Christian Nationalism” exposes is that so few people know the history of Christianity nor really try to understand it. All of Christian doctrine relies on freedom. Whether it is to repent, to say the “sinners prayer,” or to open our eyes and change our mind we think we have to be free to choose because we do not know love. Even if Christianity is seen through the lens of love, true love is not forced, it is fallen in to. Therefore, using laws to enforce any part of Christianity upon anyone is to take away freedom and antithetical to Jesus. It’s a denial of Christ crucified and to resurrection.
Christian Nationalism exposes Christianity to what it is, a religion founded on empire. Jesus did not establish a religion, for religion is a part of the norm of civilization for which Jesus told us to change our minds about. (Repent, metanoia).
The Roman Empire fell even after the Christian religion was created to become the religion of the empire for the sake of saving the empire. Likewise the Christian religion, “Christian Nationalism,” will not save the United States.
Same Old Cubs Ownership
Hoyer can rationalize his trade deadline decisions all he wants the bottom line is he did not get the job done, and no improvement to the starting pitching rotation has been done. Assad better perform when he makes it back to the team after being out all season. I don’t doubt that the additions that he made will help, but it was not enough.
Truth is, the real failure was made during the off-season by not signing more high quality players. I doubt that Tucker wants to stay in Chicago, in fact if I were him the lack of signings sealed the deal of going to another team; the Cubs can and will be outbid for his services . The consequences of Hoyer’s failures is he lost one of his top prospects while getting no closer to the World Series just to make the playoffs.
Yes, the Cubs likely will make the playoffs as a wildcard team, but they probably will not advance out of the divisional round and winning championships is the measurement. Why Ricketts extended Hoyer before seeing how the team ends up this season tells me that he is more concerned about making money than winning a World Series. An owner expecting nor less than championships would not reward mediocrity.
Nillkin Bluetooth Keyboard Touchpad
A while back I decided that I needed a new, portable Bluetooth keyboard to use with my mobile devices. I saw an ad in Instagram for the Nillkin keyboard that is a tri-fold that when folds us a little smaller than the iPad Mini. You aren’t going to carry this in your pocket, but it fits nicely in a back and it is a full size keyboard with a number row and a numeric keypad that doubles as a touchpad. It pairs with three devices that you can easily switch between.
Having just installed the public beta of iPadOS 26 on my 4th generation iPad Air, I first paired the new keyboard to that iPad and found everything to work except that I couldn’t get mouse clicks to work.
The touchpad is a 2.5 x 2.5 inch square that doubles as a numeric keypad. The keys of the pad are touch points on the pad, for example you tap the upper left of the pad for the equal key. Normally the pad is locked in touchpad mode and I can easily slide my fingertips over it to move the cursor and make gestures. To do a mouse clicks I was tapping in the center of the pad as I do with every other notebook touchpad and it did not work.
Turns out that the space at the lower right corner of the pad that is labeled Enter is and actual button and where I have to tap for mouse clicks. I just discovered it this morning and this is not in any of the documentation.
On The Death Of A Sports Legend
Hall of Fame Chicago Cubs second baseman Ryne Sandberg died yesterday after surviving cancer and the treatments of it for several years. As a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan Ryne is cemented in my memories of the turn around of the Cubs that started in 1984. He became known to the nation on June 23, 1984 when he hit home runs off Bruce Sutter in the 9th and 10th innings of the nationally televised game against the St. Louis Cardinals. Sutter, himself a former Cubs hero, was the best relief pitcher in baseball at the time, featuring a nearly unhittable split-finger fastball. Having defected to the hated Cardinals, Sutter was the villain of the game that made Sandberg’s home runs all that much sweeter.
Prior to 1984 the Cubs had not been in the playoffs for 39 years. Back then only four teams made the playoffs, the winners of the NL East and West and AL East and West, so the champions in each league faced each other in the World Series. Further, the league championship series were five games whereas the World Series was seven games. The 1984 Cubs won the first two games against the Padres, meaning they only need to win 1 of 3 games in San Diego to advance to the World Series, but was unable to get the job done. The Cubs would advance to the NL Championship again in 1989 with Sandberg on the team and again fail to advance.
Due to Cubs decades history of losing the 1984 team was pivotal to their eventual World Series championship in 2016. Nearly all transformations of losing sports franchises to winning sports franchises lies on the cornerstone of one or two super start athletes and it is safe to say that Ryne Sandberg is the cornerstone of the Cubs current success. I watched Ryne’s entire career with the Cubs and grew to understand his cold hitting in the spring months that always warmed to peak performance in late May. As a fan you expected every ball hit toward second base to be an out and every big moment that found Ryne at the plate to be big hit.
It’s a privilege to grow old and a consequence of time is the seeing the death of your childhood sports heroes and so the news of his death during the Cubs/Brewers game last night hit hard. I am so happy that he, like I, got to see the Cubs win the World Series in 2016 and I hope he took some satisfaction in knowing his part in that moment. The path from lovable losers to World Champions rides on the shoulders of legends. Farewell Ryno, say hi to Harry!
Doc Searls On Education
Doc Searls has a blog post that both demonstrates an effective use of ChatGPT and has insights on education in the United States. I added this comment:
I think there is one important part missed here regarding thoughts on learning. Society in the United States establishes intelligence (IQ) as a constraint on learning, but is not and one might argue that intelligence isn’t a real thing. The constraint on learning in the United States, which I think is implicit in all of the above but not explicit is motivation. Children motivated to learn will learn and likely will see learning as fun. Highly motivated children will route around the problems of the current system. Unmotivated children will not learn and will not see the value in learning.
Motivation comes from parents, which makes good parenting so important to society. Problem is the United States society is basically in opposition to parents mostly because those who influence our society want a narrow definition of good parenting and support only that definition.
Being A Comcast Customer
We The People
Read this really good article about Bill Moyers upon the occurrence if his passing. Those of us unwilling to close our eyes to what is happening in the United States know why it is happening, it’s because the hierarchical/supremacy basis of the norm of civilization demands exclusivity over inclusion. In other words from the founding citizens of the United States have been in a struggle over the definition of “We The People.”
The article tells the story of Moyers' first act of journalism, a series of stories about a group of women in Texas who argued that Social Security was unconstitutional. The key point is this made by Moyers upon reflection about the women in his reporting.
“It came to me one day many years later,” he continued. “Fiercely loyal to their families, to their clubs, charities and congregations — fiercely loyal, in other words, to their own kind — they narrowly defined democracy to include only people like themselves.” Many of their own neighbors, he realized, were, to these Social Security skeptics, not as much a part of the democracy as they were. “We the people,” narrowly defined.
All aspects of society, including Christianity, is driven by exclusivity and its sibling, scarcity. Christianity in particular has failed us because its associated institutions were best positioned to prevent what is happening had they actually taught the theology of Jesus rather than of empire, to practice inclusion and thus be the light for the nations that the Jewish prophets said was Israel’s calling. Christianity failed when it was tempted, providing evidence of its disconnect from the body of Christ.
All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic
This outcome was something the Constitution was designed to prevent. “The Framers of the Constitution were clear that only Congress is empowered to commence offensive military hostilities,” former Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.) wrote on X. “But there are people on the left and right who reject divided powers and fundamentally hate America. They’re working deliberately and methodically to destroy it.”
Reason.com, “Trump Shreds the Constitution By Bombing Iran”
The 8th Inning Game
Early Results
A MLB team cannot win their division in April, but they can lose it. Going in to the middle of April we are seeing positive results from the Chicago Cubs, although they suffered the first set back of the season when Justin Steele was put on the 15 day IL. Right now they are at the top of the NL Central with a half game lead but that doesn’t matter as much as the +28 run differential that is the best in the league. The runs they scored during this last home stand in cold April weather is a very positive sign.
On Friday the Cubs start a 6 game road trip in Los Angeles and then San Diego, and I think these games are a good early test for the Cubs. I want to see them win at least two games in LA and win one in San Diego. The Dodgers have actually fallen back to earth going 6-4 over the last ten while the Padres has jumped up to the top of the NL West over the Dodgers and Giants. I will feel good about a split on this road trip.
The Purpose Of Government
Without due process, a claim of guilt is simply one man’s word over another. Without due process we are simply being asked to believe the claims that the humans they labeled as terrorists and thus deserving of deportation and imprisonment are in fact deserving of that label and loss of liberty. Due process is how governments insure that the right to liberty endowed by our creator is preserved.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. – Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
The Declaration Of Independence is important because it defines the values of the United States of America. It says the rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness is not only secured for citizens but for all people because we all have the same creator. Due process for everyone is how we live out our values in the United States and denying that to anyone makes us hypocrites at best.
And Then What?
During the 1990s American Society, driven by capitalism, developed an obsession of short term thinking and what we are now experiencing is the logical result. Consequentially, while it may be that the majority of Americans actually approve the current destruction of the United States government, the question of what comes next isn’t even being considered beyond hopes that Trump or Musk or whoever will be a benevolent dictator. Most are hanging on hope that their future will be better.
From what I can tell, the current Presidential administration does not have a plan beyond destroying everything that is in place because all of it, in it’s judgement, is corrupt. The destruction is not the means, it’s the end. Smart people, like Elon Musk, have recognized the opportunity, but by the time we fully understand what end he has in mind it will be too late.
On Being America
What makes liberty, which I define as personal autonomy, real in America are two fundamental things:
We usually refer to these two items as due process and without it there is no liberty. Further, in our Declaration of Independence we stated that all people, not just U.S. Citizens, are endowed by their creator the right to liberty. Liberty is not provided by the state, it is inherent to who we are as humans. Further, we declared that we create governments for the purposes of preserving these rights.
Checking In On Wordland
Time to check in on Wordland to see what is new. Funny, whenever I want to type Wordland my fingers default to Worldland. If I am going to be paying attention to this site I will need to change the feed as the font is just too small for my eyes. I have created a new category for just these items that I enter using Wordland.
Hello From Worldland
I wrote this post using Wordland, which is a new app developed by Dave Winer. It appears to focus on writing posts to Wordpress. Just made an edit, need to remember to push the post button. Like the little editing popup that appears when I select text.
The Republic Has Failed; Why Does It Matter?
Much of what I am seeing written about the state of the United States seems to be in the context of “Democracy is failing” or a “Constitutional Crisis” is imminent or present. The correct description of the United States as defined by the Constitution is a republic with self rule by a representative democracy.
The reality is that the republic, the one for which our flag stands (remember the pledge of allegiance) has failed. It failed when citizens and our representatives forgot or no longer valued the form of self government that has been in place. Our attitudes and inaction about the insurrection on January 6 is the clearest sign that the Republic has failed. Today we the citizens of the United States value power over liberty and our liberty exists to the extent it aligns to dictates of those in power.
Our conversations and writing on this topic need to transition to, why does it matter that the Republic has failed? The reality is, most people don’t think it matters because they have not yet recognized or acknowledged how their life has been impacted. Particularly Republicans and particularly those who support Trump.
My answer for why it matters is ironic. It matters because without the representative democracy of the Constitution the MAGA movement (or conservative movement) could not exist. Tyranny allows no opposition, thus had it been in place MAGA could not have done what it is currently doing. The Republic is what has allowed you to have your day, enjoy it but know that without it there will be no other opposition.
When the time comes that the “new” U.S. Government does something you do not like there will be nothing that you can do about it. The “elites” have determined Democracy is too inefficient and they think a more efficient government is controlled by a dictator, and they would be right. Freedom has been the purpose of the Republic, and inefficiency is a feature not a bug. However, the elites and their corporate/startup world view know what is best for them and have convinced you its better for you, and this will all work so long as you accept and comply with their dictates, their interpretation of current laws and their new laws.
Digital Colonialism
Tripp Fuller has written an essay titled “The New Colonialism: Power, Data, and the Transformation of Human Experience” that I commend for your reading (shared highlighted link from Readwise.)
Trip writes:
Let me take you back to a moment in history that illuminates our present situation. In its early days, the internet was envisioned as something radically different from what it has become. It emerged from a unique fusion of military pragmatism and countercultural idealism – a publicly funded network imagined as a tool for human freedom and cognitive enhancement. Those early pioneers dreamed of a decentralized space where information could flow freely, uncontrolled by any single authority.
But over three decades, we’ve witnessed what scholars call a “triple revolution”: the commercialization of the internet, the rise of mobile devices that keep us constantly connected, and the emergence of social media platforms that mediate our relationships. This transformation has fundamentally altered the nature of digital space in ways that undermine genuine human connection.
Tripp goes on to note that there has been a systematic pattern employed by the social networks that “eerily mirrors historical conquest.” Later he writes:
But perhaps the most telling parallel lies in how this new colonial class views its own power. In 1899, Rudyard Kipling wrote of the “white man’s burden” – the supposed moral duty of colonizers to “civilize” the colonized. Today, we hear echoes of this same patronizing ideology when tech leaders speak of “connecting the world” or “making the world more open and transparent.” The language has changed, but the underlying assumption remains: that a small, privileged class has the right – even the duty – to reshape how billions of humans live and connect.
Most concerning is a loss of our autonomy, instead how we see the world is being shaped by our digital overlords:
This erosion of autonomy is particularly evident in how platforms shape our understanding of the world. The algorithms that determine what news we see, what perspectives we encounter, and what information we consider credible are optimized not for truth or understanding, but for engagement. This creates what tech critics call “reality tunnels” – personalized versions of the world that can differ dramatically from person to person, making shared understanding increasingly difficult. There’s a reason so many of us think family and friends live in a different world - they do and it is a feature, not a bug in the system.
What to do? Tripp reminds us that what we have is not how the Internet was intended to be:
To understand how we might resist digital colonialism, we must first remember that the internet wasn’t always a colonized space. Those early pioneers, many steeped in the revolutionary spirit of 1960s California, envisioned something radically different from what we have today: a decentralized space where information could flow freely, uncontrolled by any single authority.
Tripp’s conclusion starts:
The challenge we face isn’t simply technical or political – it’s fundamentally about what it means to be human in an age of algorithmic governance. When platforms reduce our complex social lives to data points, when algorithms shape our perceptions and choices, when our most intimate moments become resources for extraction, we lose something essential to human flourishing: our capacity for genuine autonomy and authentic connection.
The path forward requires us to develop digital wisdom – a way of engaging with technology that preserves our essential humanity while benefiting from digital tools. This means creating rituals and practices that help us maintain our autonomy while participating in digital life. It means building platforms and networks that serve human flourishing rather than corporate profit. Most importantly, it means remembering that we are not passive subjects in this new colonial regime, but active agents capable of shaping its future.
Laws Only Apply To Those Under Authority
I keep reading articles about how the things Musk and Trump are doing are illegal, which applies under a democracy with rule of law. Democracy is no more in the United States once the Supreme Court ruled the President is above the law. Trump can’t be touched and neither can Musk (or anyone working for Musk) because Trump will simply pardon them.
In their decision SCOTUS reserved the right to decide what is a Presidential act, implying that it could still decide whether the President broke “the law.” If they do such rule who will enforce it? If Congress impeached and convicted Trump, who will enforce it?
So my advice is to stop thinking about whether or not something Trump does is illegal. of course it’s all illegal, but that does not matter. I think he welcomes any confrontation with Congress or the Supreme Court.
The Senate could have convicted Trump twice, but Republican Senators were too scared to do it. The Supreme Court could have concurred with Colorado in that the 14th Amendment prevented Trump from holding office, but was too scared to do so. Both branches failed in their role as a check against tyranny as the founders intended.
Laws now only apply to those with whom Trump and Musk have a grudge against.