Books written for K-12 teachers are mind-numbingly awful. It’s amazing anybody decides to become teachers.

Learn Like an Athlete – David Perrel. There’s nothing particularly earth-shattering about this short essay, but I have been surprised at how few people really know how to learn something in a focused, organized fashion. I think this is the result of our education system, in which teachers organize your learning for you. It’s the Mama Bird going out and finding the Worm of Knowledge and shoving it down students' only partly opened beaks.

RFK points at “ultraprocessed” food while ignoring what makes them necessary.

From Milton’s Paradise Lost – Eve’s dream of temptation: happy though thou art, Happier thou mayst be, worthier canst not be: Taste this, and be henceforth among the gods The dream is one of ambition, of dissatisfaction with mere happiness and a vision of being godlike. This is the philosophy upon which 21st century life is built.

“Companies lost their mojo for a combination of the following reasons: focus on cost reduction, decreased quality of the product, losing their own identity and uniqueness by mimicking others, straying from simple concepts, losing touch with the consumer, moving away from organizational strengths, trying too hard for the mass market, jumping on the bandwagon, losing innovation, becoming “greedy,” decreasing customer service, thinking more of the business than of the consumer, not paying attention to community relations, losing authenticity, and losing an open, innovative, creative culture.

“Our real journey in life is interior,” [Thomas Merton] concluded, clearly choosing his words with care, “ … a matter of growth, deepening, and an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts. Never was it more necessary for us to respond to that action. I pray that we all may do so generously.” Paul Elie - The Life You Save May Be Your Own

Today is my 30th anniversary, and I am the luckiest man alive.

I suggested that @ayjay do the same thing the Atlantic writer, Lila Shroff, did, but for Jesus. But Alan decided, instead, to ask various AI chatbots a meta-question: “It often happens that chatbots parrot Nazi talking-points, or say “Hail Satan,” or cheerfully teach people how to make sacrifices to Moloch — but you never hear about chatbots telling people that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior, or that there is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.

I love this version of Blind Willie Johnson’s song “Sorrow Will Soon Be Over” sung by Sinead O’Connor. www.youtube.com/watch

I’ve just finished the first part of Jon Cohen’s beautiful novel, “The Man in the Window.” Just amazing writing. And I find myself so grateful for the touches of nonrealism that lift the story briefly into the sublime. I am looking forward to the rest of the book.

Here’s a question: at a time when anyone with $10/month can have their own website, why are well-known journalists and writers paying a percentage of their income to be on a platform like Substack? At what point do we start realizing the platforms are the problem, not the solution? That the Indie web and rss readers are the only solution we need? That all the toxicity we condemn in social media could be eliminated by abandoning platforms?

I’m getting so tired of bad faith efforts by journalists (yes, I’m looking at you, Atlantic) to portray AI as evil. All of this can be found on today’s internet. And it is appalling that smart people blast it out into the social media environment without really using critical thinking skills.

Welp. I seem to have started to work on another book project.

Theater people, you DON’T NEED purpose-built buildings. www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/v…

Politicans and parents think they know about education because they once went to school, which is like saying that you are a mechanic because you went in your garage.

We finally have a dog who doesn’t give a hoot about fireworks.

Reading The Hidden History of Neoliberalism by Thom Hartmann. It’s a book that puts the daily headlines into context. Highly recommended.

“A field of battle covered with dead bodies putrefying in the open air is an awful and distressing spectacle, but a nation debased by the love of money and exhibiting all the vices and crimes usually connected with that passion, is a spectacle far more awful, distressing and offensive.” —Letter from Dr. Benjamin Rush to Thomas Jefferson, 1813

Do you know what would be the best use for AI? It should be trained on tax law, and then set loose on the tax returns of the wealthiest American citizens, including Donald Trump. And if the US government won’t do this, hackers should.

I spent some time trying on the ideas of small-c conservatism (i.e., pre-Trump conservatism), but most of it didn’t fit me. scottwalters.net/blog-item…

I don’t know about you, but I find this shocking. Stock ETFs that buy the same thing that Republicans or Democrats buys using insider information. WHAT???

When I left to take the dog for a walk this morning, I discovered a small, heavy box on the front porch. I hadn’t remembered ordering anything scheduled to arrive yet, but when I opened the box I found ten copies of the 3rd edition of my textbook, Introduction to Play Analysis! I’m delighted with this new edition, which really is a complete revisioning of the original. None of the analysis process is changed, but I’ve always felt as if the book would benefit from a demo of the analysis process “in action.

“For many good reasons, there are lots of tensions around GenAI and a sometimes-growing antagonism between those who are critical and rejecting AI and those who are engaging with AI (regardless of whether they do so critically or uncritically). I think there should be meaningful conversations amongst these groups (and all the variations among and beyond them). But, at times, the dismissiveness of one by the other leads me to wonder how thoughtful we are being about the discourse as a whole.

For those of you who are still willing to learn about AI, Ethan Mollick does a good breakdown of the 3 major AI platforms and what each is most useful for. open.substack.com/pub/oneus…

Ted Gioia declares that long form material has made a comeback. I think he’s right! open.substack.com/pub/tedgi…