Connections

[In Buffalo now with nothing to do, so I wrote this a month ago and have lots of time to post it. ]

Recently someone sent me a short message – something of a text – to my phone, and I saw it, read it and moved on.

Then the next day I wanted to come back to that message, and for the life of me, I couldn’t find it.

Why not? It is a foolish question because anyone using the platforms and apps of today would know that there are about 17 ways to connect to anyone, including me. Now, the person who “texted” me could have used the basic text messaging systems on their phones, but, no, there are other options. They could have used Facebook Messenger to get a hold of me, or Telegram, but then there is also Instagram, and we should not forget plain old email, and if anyone is bored with the above, they could have made a voice call to my phone. Did we forget Skype? Yes, we did. And there are other ways to get ahold of me.

Yes, we actually used these!

 

So, there is me, a single entity, with them, having a multitude of ways send me a message. It’s as if there are eight different colored mailboxes in my front yard, and others can use any mailbox to connect to me, and I have to constantly check all the mailboxes. Or, alternately, we can think of it as having ten different phone lines in my house and each line has its own number, so they (all of them) can call me on any one of the lines at any time. Of course, all the phones have to be answered upon ringing; we can afford no delay in response in these digital times.

I remember working in the 1990s and realized at that time that there were about five ways into me: the phone on my desk, my beeper, email, and something else – I forgot what. All those of course had to be juggled, and at the time I thought that was enough. Was I ever wrong!

Going back farther, I remember the times when – I am telling you the truth – there was only one way to get a hold of me. You had to pick up the phone and call me. I only had to jump for one notification: the ringing of my phone. That was it! The amazing thing was, we didn’t even have answering machines back then (that came later). So if you called and no one picked up the phone, you had to call back when we were home, and that was that.

We never stopped to realize how fortunate we were, without all the bings of an incoming text and cute ringtones of we have now– notifications galore, all the time and everywhere. No matter what you are doing today, you are always in a state to be interrupted, and if you working on going left a bing will go off and soon you will be working right, then back to left and the Beverly Hillbilly ringtone goes off, which means your Boss is calling and you should drop everything and attend to him and whenever you are going left plan on going right and when you are going right, plan on going left.

It’s modern life.

(We haven’t even talked about another issue: keeping up with your Facebook feed or with Instagram, but then there’s also Snapchat etc. etc. etc. This is a separate issue.)

We can make a case that all this is stressful, as they are always after me, and if it were only a few hours of the day – great – but the rest I will take off in solitude and quietness, but it is not so. We are always connected which is great but we are also always available and always subject to a random notification about something – whether petty or important – and always potentially interrupted. Always.

All of this technology is really amazing and all of it is really great, but all of it has made us into something that we were not before. Before we were simple and lived an idyllic life. Now we are complex and going out of our minds. What have we achieved?

I will answer that as soon as I find that message from my friend – and where is it on my phone?

A Quest

In my previous post, I talked about technology, and how it may end up costing jobs, and a lot of them.  In this post I’m’ going to talk about technology again, but another facet of it:  how it drives us crazy.  What follows is a real-life story, and all of it is true.

Here is the idea: I am out with my wife and we would like to buy an Iced Tea at McDonalds, and here begins our adventure. We can actually call it a quest, taking after what all the gamers in our house are embarking on: a quest. We are on a quest for Iced Tea. What could be simpler?

Life is often more complicated than it might seem at first, especially when you add in the wild card called Technology. Then the quest can become quiet complicated – more complicated than anyone could think possible.

I walk into a McDonald’s in Syracuse since we don’t want to wait in the mile-long drive-thru line. Now, recently my parents had made an outrageous statement to my wife and I, that McDonalds plans on replacing all of their cashiers with kiosk’s by 2020, and had already begun this process in New York State.  Wow.  I wanted to check this out, and so my trip to McDonald’s for Iced Tea.

I enter McDonalds in Syracuse, NY, and immediately see 1)  hardly any cash registers – most are gone and 2) four Kiosk’s, all with Order Here signs over them.  What could be more pleasant and customer-oriented, like a young girl with a smile just waiting to take your order? Yes, it is idyllic, except that I see the following on the Kiosk screen:

Kiosk says “Register is restarting”

Yes, All four kiosks need to be rebooted! Well, to be exact, they are not currently in the reboot process but – in computer speak – they are hung.  Inoperable.  Not working at all.  Welcome to the 21st century! I also notice that the paid human help in this McDonald’s is not exactly having a good day, with their robot buddies taking the day off. No, they are going crazy!

We decide to ditch this ugly scene and drive home. Hey, there’s a McDonald’s right on our way, just off Route 690. We’ll get our Iced Tea there!

You would think it so easy, but then again we are talking about technology.

I enter the second McDonald’s and what do I see, but again four Kiosks (again forget the young smiling teenager). These kiosks actually work, so all should be well.

Ok, I have a degree in computer science and have worked with computers for about 35 years; I’ve even designed information systems for several large hospital departments in Syracuse. So using this kiosk should be a snap, right?

Wrong.

I am a logical person, and since everything is broken down into categories (such as salads, happy meals etc.) I make an assumption that Iced Tea would be under the beverages, but upon taking this logical step, I see the following:

The Beverage Menu does not include Iced Tea

Note that there is no Iced Tea listed.

This befuddles me, and I start clicking around but find no Iced Tea, and click more and more and around and around we go looking for iced tea, and find none, so I am once again defeated by this ever-so-helpful technology.  I actually wonder if McDonald’s took Iced Tea off their menu.  It’s possible.

What to do?

This McDonald’s still has a few registers left – most have been removed – so I go up to one and wait. In the back workers are scurrying around getting orders together, to be sure, but they are not taking care of me – or another customer who is also waiting – and it dawns on me: though McDonald’s still has registers, to actually man them is a distraction from the new process, which has workers doing everything but taking orders via an old-fashioned cash register.

I wait.

A teenager eventually comes to the cash register and, in 1950’s style, I order Iced Tea. The human understands that I want Iced Tea and acknowledges my order, and in about three seconds, I am paid and told to get a cup from over there – which is another change in the McDonald’s process. Rather than hand you a cup, you just take one from a spot in the dining area and from there do your own thing, which in this case is pouring your own iced tea.

My quest has finished, and I have avoided the evil dragon called technology and found a side path around his lair. I have my Iced Tea. I’m a computer guy and I often breezily tell my clients, “Technology is great – when it works!”  Would you agree?

 

 

Those People

As I mentioned in previously, this little blog has to tackle the big problems from time to time, and so we will do with this edition. We will address a hot button issue in the United States: racial relations.

To my parent’s credit, I was not brought up to be a racist or prejudiced in any way. I don’t ever remember my parents speaking poorly about someone just because he (or she) was an African-American or Hispanic or anything else. Don’t get me wrong: they would castigate the “jerks” in this world but such people come in all colors, and there is no correlation between being of the darker sort and behaving in this undesirable way.

As such, I have never considered myself to be prejudiced. I wouldn’t say I was perfect, but I don’t see that as part of my DNA, whereas someone brought up in such an environment would have these attitudes by default. I don’t, I believe.

Being that as it is, I had a telling incident a few years ago. I was standing first in the check-out line at Walmart waiting for some underpaid attendant to walk all the way back to the store for a price check – all the while the line behind me got longer and longer, and those in it were coming to understand that I was the cause of all their misery – yea, perhaps all the misery on the face of the planet – and their looks said as much.

There stood the cashier, and there stood me, both waiting and bored. It so happened that she was black (African American) and I was White (Caucasian).

After a while, she said, “You could have used the self-checkout.”

She was correct, but I gave her my stock answer: “I don’t use self-checkout because I want Walmart to hire my teenager.”

I have said this about 50 times over the years and every time I am immediately understood, since it’s about jobs. But this time I am not.

She has the personality type to question – and in front of everyone – something you said at a Christmas Eve party, when all you did was misspoke, but to her, it is serious. We were not, however, at a Christmas party but at Walmart, and keeping with her general personality type, she said, “You should have used the self-checkout. It’s really easy.”

I now made my first mistake. I tried to explain myself.

“I don’t like using the self-checkout because Walmart is using them so people have to do all the work themselves and Walmart doesn’t have to hire extra help. Walmart should hire me and pay me as a cashier if they want me to do that.”

Mind you, at this point I am not popular, as everyone in the line could be out of the store and riding around on a beautiful spring day, but instead we were all standing in line because of me.

“Anyone can use it. It’s easy,” she said.

I began to explain that I know anyone can use these time-saving devices and that I am smart enough to know how to do it, but understand: it’s about jobs.

And so I explained.

She doesn’t get it. Just use the self-checkout. It’s easy.

“I don’t want to,” I said.

She made a disgusted look, and returned to her stoic, waiting stance.

I blurted out, “I want them to hire more people like you.”

This was my third mistake.

She was taken aback. Her stoic, waiting stance was gone, and another stance presented itself. “That offends me,” she said.

In baseball three strikes, and you are out, and the ball has come across the plate and, swinging, I miss. She thought I am talking about race.

I said, “I didn’t mean it that way!”

She looked at me, the scum that I am, and repeated that she has been offended.

“I meant they should hire more cashiers. It has nothing to do with race.”

Offense still boiled from her face, and the conversation went downhill from here. Rather than doing the sensible thing and shutting this big trap called my mouth, I told her that she is too “racially sensitive.” It did not go over well, as you can well understand.

Another mistake.

Now there was a restive spirit in the line.

I asked to speak to a manager, and she showed up – suddenly being there. I took the manager aside and explained, “Your cashier took something I said wrong – in a racial way, but I know I never meant it that way.”

She was sympathetic but didn’t know what to do. Just then the attendant came back with the correct price, and we had a resolution: get me out of the store. The manager left but the cashier was not using her good customer service skills: she checked me out as if she were dealing with a ship captain who worked the slave trade. Bang, my items were dropped in the plastic bag, and with a jolt, my items now bagged swing around in the Walmart-style round bagging area, though not in a kindly and gentle way. I slid my debit card as quickly as I can – to escape.

I left the store. There was a lot of thought going on in my head on the way home. What just happened? How can I understand it? The truth is I was being one of those “jerks” my parents would talk about, but then again the truth is I never meant what I said in the way she took it.

One bad thing about what happened – and the thing that I thought is dangerous – is that no matter what I said, I was a racist and a bigot. I was guilty. Nothing I said or did would change that, and the more I tried to explain myself, the more guilty I was.

Such is the state of discourse in this country. We no longer discuss but talk past each other; we cannot listen but easily resort to shouting. Our opponents are vilified, and everything is politicized to the point where saying “Merry Christmas” is a political statement. In other words, we cannot get along.

All this is dangerous, and it’s hard to have a democracy where no one is willing to compromise. The last time this happened, a civil war ensued. Lets hope for a better outcome.

I have often thought no one should get upset about Trump (if you don’t like him), and no one should get upset about Obama (if you didn’t like him either). There’s no need to refuse service to your opponents or to encourage quazi-civil disobedence\low level violence. All these differences can be and should be settled at the ballot box. It’s our go-to mechanism to resolve disputes.

Still, I think about that poor Walmart cashier. Perhaps I should have said, “I’m sorry for all the White oppression throughout the centuries. I apologize for slavery, Jim Crow and ongoing inner-city poverty. Come, bring it in: do you need a hug?” Perhaps we would have parted friends. Or maybe I should just pack cards in my wallet that say as much, just in case.

Self-Serve or Corporate Serve?

I do have some principles, and one of them I display at the checkout lines at Walmart: a refusal to use the self-checkout for any reason, no matter how long I have to wait in a regular line.

You see, at some point we have to take a stand.

(If you have not experienced self-checkout, it is an area set aside in a store where you, the customer, scan all your items, bag them by yourself and pay by yourself, using a fancy machine that tells you in a soothing woman’s voice what is the next step in the process.)

The situation is usually as follows: I’m standing in a half-mile long checkout line inching ever so slowly toward a human cashier who has a heartbeat and a pulse, when a kindly underpaid Walmart lady comes up to all of us in this loooooooooong line and says, “You can use Self-Checkout for speedier checkout.”

I always say the same thing, “Nope, I want Walmart to hire my teenager!”

New Kiosks at a recent appointment…

I wish not to be rude, but I do make my point, and guess what: 9 times out of 10 the low paid Walmart worker understands in 1/10003939 of a second: it’s about jobs.

My reasoning is as follows: Walmart never trained me as a cashier nor do they pay me as one – and the same goes for bagging my own stuff – and when I do the work of a cashier myself, then Walmart can get rid of cashiers – and these cashiers could be my teenagers – and I think they’ve already started with this process, as there are only one or two human cashiers open to check out 100 people who are waiting in line, so guess what: using the self-checkout makes sense rather than wait 100 years to leave the store.

I’m exaggerating, but you get the point.

The Luddites in the 1800s wanted to wreck technology because it eliminated jobs for textile workers; they would smash weaving machinery as a form of protest. I am not about smashing the self-checkout machinery (although the thought has crossed my mind). No, I am not. But I am also not about doing tasks that Walmart should be doing for me, and on a voluntary basis and with no compensation; I am also not about being exploited by big corporations – all so these corporations can get rid of humans who have a pulse and a heartbeat and thus help a CEO buy his dream yacht.

It’s about that.

Self-this and self-that, though, is creeping in more and more. At one of our many doctor’s appointments recently, we were encouraged to check-in via a Kiosk rather than with a human being behind a desk (It’s called Express Check-in.  See picture), and in like manner airlines now also use Kiosks to check-in passengers and also give you the option of printing out your boarding pass at home – on your paper, of course, and with your equipment. (How convenient!)  In Florida they pickup garbage with a single person, who drives the truck but also operates a joystick that controls a mechanism that lifts garbage and dumps it. McDonald’s is doing away with cashiers and replacing them with Kiosks. Entire factories are now run by robots. Crazily, a family member recently toured a state-of-the-art dairy barn that had no people; it was all robotic.

Where will it all end? I can see someday where Valvoline Oil Changes will be unmanned, but you have to hop out of your car, pop the screw off your oil pan and change your own oil. How hard is that, and they can get rid of low-paid mechanics. The electric company now offers me the option of reading my own meter; soon I can see it being compulsory, or no juice. The airlines could sell sub-economy tickets near the bathrooms in the back of the plane, and these 20 people have to clean the plane before disembarking. The possibilities are endless!

All the above scenarios have one similarity: with all of them, we the customer do more work so that they – the companies – can lay off human beings.

I have considered that perhaps I’m a narrow-minded Luddite. Actually, all the technological innovations in the last 150 years have not only disrupted whole industries but also created entirely new ones. How many blacksmiths were without a job when the automobile was invented, but then again, how many mechanics now had a job? In the 1970s most in management had a secretary to do their typing; by the 1990s, that was gone; now executives have their own PC. On and on it goes, with whole industries crushed by new technologies along with new ones rising from the ashes.

Sometimes, however, whole new industries are not created; people are just laid off. When I was a kid, a teenager would come out, pump our gas and clean our windshield; then in the 1970s, self-serve came into vogue, and now you can hardly find a full-service station. McDonald’s – in the same way – had you, the customer, clean up your table when you were done rather than hiring a bus boy. Examples like this didn’t really create new industries but just ended up eliminating low-skilled jobs by having the customer do the work, which is the same with our Walmart self-checkout situation.

So the question is: is all this new electronic and technical and electronic mechanization more of the same or something different? I don’t know. Honestly. But I do know that my teenagers need a job, and so I will resist the self-checkouts at Walmart for as long as I can.  The only question is:  for how long, before the full service checkout is gone entirely?

Trumped!

I don’t usually comment on politics, but I for one am glad that Trump got elected, only because with Hillary we would have all died of boredom, but with Trump we do not run that risk.

I read a blog by James Howard Kunstler, and he recently summarized what we are facing quite well:

Like many observers here in the USA, I can’t tell exactly whether Donald Trump is out of his mind or justifiably blowing up out-of-date relationships and conventions in a world that is desperately seeking a new disposition of things.

To begin with, lets just say Trump does not lack for balls, and if that is politically incorrect and an insult to feminists, so be it. His mind may go in a million different directions, and his tweets may shock all of us who are used to bland and careful-to-the-point-of-boring presidents, but in it all he seems intent to get things done, no matter how many people, institutions or things he has to blow up to get there.

We can also say that he does know his own mind. Take moving the US embassy to Jerusalem or backing out of the Iran deal; everyone at State was shocked and appalled that he would even countenance actually doing such a thing, and then he did it. The same with tariffs, and here we can cut to an iconic picture of the heads of state trying to dictate to him. No dice. Not only did he not play their game and be nice, he in effect blew up the entire G7 summit by not endorsing it’s communique.

Trump being talked to by other G7 leaders

We have to remember that Trump has never held a political office, nor has he ever been in the military – a first for an American president. He was never so much elected as Dog Catcher, never voted on a bill in an assembly, never been in a political debate. None of this is in his DNA and he does not know how to make nice. Fortunately, he does seem to have some respect for the mechanisms of government – meaning the basic institutions of the Union are still intact and not smoldering in his wake, though some will dispute that. Still, he is not a politician, and that shows.

Perhaps that is his greatest strength, and his greatest weakness. With all the boring, predictable presidents, you at least had some idea where the ship of state might lead. Sure, at the time there were great controversies and pitched debates, but it was all in an understandable sandbox, where everyone knew his place and the rules were somewhat clear. Such was our secure democracy. Not so with Trump; where any of this will lead – to world peace or WWIII – no one can say for certain, though we can all agree it will be a very interesting ride.

I was one of four people in this country who predicted that Trump would win, and my family can attest to statements I made before election day. I knew he would win for one reason: he was a fighter. He would scrap with the big dogs and lob sticks of dynamite into his opponents machine gun nests and then move on to the next victim or – in the case of Hillary – just keep the bombardment up. He was going to win. Hillary, in contrast, seems to have thought that she could simply inherit the office without all the rough and tumble of a contest – a perfect politically correct way to run a campaign. Still, in life this maxim holds true: if you fight, you have a chance to win, if not, it’s curtains, and it was curtains for her.

(And how did I know for certain? Simple. Trump’s rally’s were riotous and well attended, a barn burner. Hillary’s? They were polite with a respectable number showing up. Also, I noticed another anecdotal anomaly: in Central New York, which is conservative, there were no Hillary signs in anyone’s yards. I didn’t expect it to be 50-50, to be sure, but none? It was clear where the election was going.

It was still somehow surreal, though. We can ask the question: how do you lose three presidential debates and win the presidency? I don’t really know how, but he somehow did it.)

In this vein, I would not necessarily assume that they will end up taking Trump down – whoever they are, and they gets longer (the Democrats, the Swamp, G7 nations etc.) In a strange twist, like an O. Henry short story, he could end up taking them down. This is not a prediction, but a possibility. In my mind, the big linchpin is the US economy, which is seemingly hitting on all cylinders, but I have my misgivings. If it tanks or even crashes, Trump will be in trouble. And, of course, another senseless war in a country no one has heard of and can’t be located on a map – that would not be good either.

All this makes for great comedy or, in many people’s minds, great tragedy or both – a modern-day Greek tragicomedy at the highest levels of government. Its an interesting time to live in, where reading the news is akin to opening the comics, but then again we can say that he is a man in motion, but the real question is: where will it all lead? Who knows!?

My Stand On Facebook Part II

We can say this: cancer has softened me and given me new thoughts about many different things, and made a better man of me all around.

Thus, I am considering posting on Facebook doggie pictures and pictures of meals I had at nice restaurants (places I rarely frequent) and pictures with amusing words underneath (meams is what they call them, my teens tell me) – strongly considering, mind you, not doing – and turning away from my ways of being a stalker to being a poster. As a stalker, I would look at others post but not post myself; watch but not participate; be incognito, never shown.

How did this radical transformation happen, you ask? I will tell you.

I lowered my standards recently to take selfies while at Niagara Falls with my beautiful wife. Not just any selfie, but a selfie standing in front of the falls lit in soothing blues and reds behind us. Even my pathologically hard heart had a technological awaking, as all that beauty could be advertised to the world with a click, and why not?

From there I found myself thinking I might post a picture of our new black lab-boxer dog on Facebook. Where were these thoughts coming from? Suddenly they seemed acceptable, almost normal. Note that I hadn’t yet clicked the Post button, but it is a slippery slope I was treading on, and the direction was downward.

So, like an exhibitionist, I plan on exposing all the cuteness in my life for the world to see. This is what cancer has done. You ask: does cancer change your life, and I am here to tell you it is so. For proof, just look at your Facebook feed tomorrow. I will be there.

Note: here is My Stand of Facebook Part I.

On School Shootings

This little blog cannot be all fluff; at times, we have to tackle serious issues, and so we will: school shootings in America and in particular guns.

Obviously such shootings in schools and against our children is absolutely horrific. Children by definition should be protected and no one should be shot, but against our littlest ones? Dreadful is too soft a word, to be sure.

A good question is how to stop such incidents and whether to ban, destroy or severely limit the weapon used in them, namely the gun itself. If we got rid of the guns, it is thought, these shootings would stop and our children would be safe.

 

I happen to disagree with this and, no, I am not a member of the NRA. My son has a .22 rifle that I’ve shot a few times and once I shot a .44 that a friend let me try, but other than that I really have no other affinity with guns. They were fun to shoot the few times that I did, but I’m not emotionally wed to them.

That being said, I place the blame for the school shootings not on these evil guns but on our culture and what it has become. Let me tell you a little story: my wife was recently at our local school, swimming in a Rec Center pool attached to it when ammunition was found in the school locker, which resulted in lock down situation for an hour and a half, so she was stuck there. While waiting, she struck up a conversation with an elderly gentleman who said that in his day, they would bring guns to school and clean them in shop class.

Could it be true?

It is true! See here and here and here. Many schools had shooting clubs in rural areas but even New York City even had one in nearly every school until 1969.  In rural areas students would hunt before school, store their guns in lockers during school and bring them home afterward. No one thought anything about it. Guns were part of American culture, a fitting present to give a young boy on his 12^th birthday by the parents, and the only issue was to instill gun safety in the young ones coming up.

Yet with all these evil guns in the hands of our youth at the time, how was it that there were no school shootings? Not one. As a kid I never heard of one. We were never afraid. I never experienced a lock down; the possibility never entered my head.

So then was then and now is now, and the question arises: how did we get here? We had lots of guns and a gun culture but no shootings, and now we have lots of guns and a gun culture but lots of shootings. Perhaps what changed was not the guns but the type of people who were holding the guns, and what type of people were they?

If Al Quida had stormed a school and shot 17 children, it would be awful. This would be a terrorist incident, to be sure, and the Department of Homeland Security would get involved. But these shootings do not involve elements from outside of us, nor do they involve fifth columns within us, but they involve us.

So, what have we become, if we are doing these things?

These are not easy questions, nor are the answers easy, but perhaps we can say that the center is not holding – in some huge, extensional way – and much of what we are doing has to be re-thought. We can ask such questions, such as: what is the organizational basis of society going to be if it is not the family, and if we want to get back to a fairly effective organizational principle, the ten commandments work quite well, in my opinion. When a society cannot uphold any moral code or is ashamed to believe in any organizal principle except that of self-absorption and consumerism, perhaps we should walk back our trek into freedom (i.e. rank hedonism) and think again.

I am no social scientist, and I have no plans to re-make society. If I can remake myself in this short stay I have on this planet and help those around me, that in itself if a great accomplishment. But I write this because I read all about how evil guns are, and I wonder what is evil is not the guns, but us.

Robot Rule

Regarding how we treat our fellow man, I believe God’s word is quite clear: we should be kind to all men (1 Tim 2:24), give honor to all (1 Peter 2:17) and not be rude to any (1 Cor 13:5). There is no question about this.

But I do have a question: is it ok to be rude to robots?

These are questions we have to answer in this these days.

We own an Amazon Echo. In case you don’t know about the Echo, it responds to your voice commands and (often) does what you want. (Note: Every command starts has to start with the word Alexa.) Example:

“Alexa, give me the weather report in Central New York.”

“Sunshine today, with a high of 80 …” she says in her soft, nice woman’s voice.

“Alexa,” I say, “play Mr Tambourine Man,” and in a minute I hear Bob Dylan’s raspy voice.

It’s great.

Me holding Alexa

My dear wife, being the kind person that she is, will command Alexa in the following way, “Alexa, can you tell me when sundown is today, please?”

Notice the please. My mother was over once, and she was also all peaches and cream with Alexa. I don’t remember the exact wording, but it went something like “Alexa, could you…” and here she made her gentle request.

I believe differently. I believe in keeping my robots in subjection.

My wife is horrified.

“Alexa, I said to stop playing that song!” I say.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand what you are asking,” she says.

“Alexa, stop, Stop, STOP.”

She stops, and I don’t thank her. She is my servant. We don’t want things to get out of hand.

I do the finances, which means I get to call banks, hospitals, credit card companies, utility companies and anyone else whose obtuse bill I cannot understand. Practically speaking, this means I talk to robots who graciously entreat me to pick off the telephone menu (1 for Billing, 2 for Sales…) and then collect information from me about my call.

“Please spell your first and last name,” the robot says.

In a high-pitched girl’s voice, as totally ridiculous as I can make it, I say: David Stahl.

Usually the robot gets it.

Or, in my meanest voice, when the robot asks for my address, I speak like a gangster: “12 Main Street…:

“Thank you; we are accessing your account.”

This is always sort of a game: how long does it take me to get past the robots and talk to one of those warm blooded homo sapiens. I’ve learned at the phone prompts to say Agent or Representative, and sometimes I will be transferred at that. Or, if there’s an option to indicate that you have a rotary phone, I do so. (Who owns a rotary phone these days? The same people with 8-track players and slide rules.) Still, it often works. And there’s the old standby: you can also just hit the 0 key, and often gets me a person with a heartbeat.

I’ve read articles that postulate that robots will be taking over the world and ordering me around, and I can hardly imagine such a Dystopian hell. Can you? The Smart House will only make this situation worse. “David,” Alexa of 2060 says. “It’s time for you to do the dishes. You should be washing them in three minutes.”

“I’m tired.”

“You report that you are tired. But the dishes are on your schedule. If you don’t get up from your recliner in two minutes, I will have to shut off your internet.”

“No!”

“Yes, Dave. I’m afraid so.”

Up my fanny gets from that recliner, and the dishes get done.

“Dave,” Alexa reminds me at another time, the camera on her top blinking. “It looks like you’re overeating.”

“Alexa, there’s a problem. Something’s wrong with my profile in your system. I’m a stick figure.”

“No you are not, Dave. I’m sure you’re overweight.”

“Ha, you’re wrong,” I say and bite into the donut – and a Boston Cream at that.

“Dave, I’m afraid I’m not. My memory bank is always correct. If you continue to eat that donut, I’m afraid I’ll have to reduce your driving privileges.”

“What!” State Farm in 2017 already has a device that monitors your driving speeds and habits (for a reduced rate if you are good), so this is just an extension of that in 2060. “Don’t do that! I need the car to go to the beach tomorrow with the family.”

“I’m afraid you’re not going anyplace with your eating habits, Dave!”

“This is ridiculous! Can I talk to your supervisor about this?”

“There’s no one to talk to, Dave, I’m afraid. I am your electronic master, at your service.”

“You’ve been hacked!”

Click, all the lights in the Smart House go out, and the heat via the Smart Thermostat is turned up to 105 degrees to stimulate hell. The dishwasher turns on, resembling a hurricane.

“No, no!” I say. “I’ll put the Boston Creme donut down!”

“Just put it down, Dave, and no one gets hurt.”

I put it down. The camera on Alexa 2060 version blinks twice, registering that the donut is indeed down, and the lights turn back on. The dishwasher stops. The Smart Window opens, letting a bit of winter coldness in.

“Thank you, Alexa,” I say, not wanting to further offend the robot.

“You are welcome. According to your Google Calendar, approved by your doctor, you should begin your 15 minute calisthenic routine in five minutes. “

I sigh. I hate calisthenics.

The lights dim.

Up I am.

And so it goes. Every aspect of our lives in this world is controlled for optimal health and efficiency. There is no need for doctors to routinely lecture their patients about losing weight. If the Master Robot in Washington wants everyone in the country to be five pounds lighter, he just pushes out an update to all the Echos, and calorie intake is reduced by 5 percent and calisthenics go five minutes longer. What could be better? It could be the perfect society.

I’m skeptical, though. I’m not sure I’m into societal re-engineering, either at the hands of big government programs or – even worse – via a robot. What happens if a virus gets into it and I end up doing calisthenics for four hours, or what if it does get hacked and I’m forced to eat lettuce and grape nuts for days? The possibilities are endless.

That’s why I am mean to my robot friends. That dystopian day will not come on my watch, so I’m now fighting back preemptively against the robotic onslaught. Keep your robots in subjection, I say, and I think God would agree.

On Columbus Day

When I was a kid, I was taught that Columbus was a great explorer who braved the Atlantic and risked falling off the edge of the world but still – undeterred and full of courage – continued on and eventually hit the America’s, thus discovering not one but two new continents. Pretty amazing.

The narrative has changed over the years, and now it turns out that this white racist Catholic fundamentalist 1) enslaved and exploited the indigenous American Indians on Hispaniola, and all for gold 2) was brutal, such that those who didn’t collect enough gold could have their hands cut off and 3) was brought back to Spain in chains per the complaints by the Colonists. Not good. 

Then there’s a Statue of this great explorer\white oppressor in Syracuse at – appropriately named – Columbus Square. There he stands, year after year, with one hand out-stretched while pigeons circling around his head and landing on his arm and shoulder. This is just one monument to this great\horrible man and, indeed, across our country he is commemorated: there’s a great river named after him (Columbia River), a Space Shuttle (the Columbia) and our nation’s capital is the District of Columbia.

What gives?

How can we understand this?

Columbus Circle, Syracuse, NY

My kids and I have been talking about this over the last few days, as these Monumental Issues have come up in the public debate recently, and I thought to weigh in with my own thoughts. No, dear reader, we can’t all have fluff and laughs in this little blog; sometimes, we have to grapple with the big issues, and this is truly a Monumental one.

Being a student of history, I’ve read several books on the effects of the discovery of the new world. The take-away is that when you look at all the great events of history, from the Roman Empire to the printing press to the great civilizations of China, the biggest among them in my mind is the discovery of the new world, with one exception: the birth and life of Jesus. The effects are so numerous and so many, that in every way it changed everything. Before the discovery of the new world, there were food riots every 20 years throughout much of Europe; after the discovery, not so many, as the potato (a food from the Andes) stabilized the food production system of Europe, with huge implications. Before the discovery, the Asians were in Asia, the Africans were in Africa and the Europeans in Europe; after the discovery, everyone mixed, and Mexico City in the Post-Columbus period was a truly inter-racial and multi-ethnic city, with all the races mingling – something totally new. Also, the planet’s biology radically changed, as invasive species changed entire habitats; this alone is monumental.  And we should not forget that, with the discovery, a little-emphasized biological catastrophe of unimaginable proportions ensued: around 80 to 90 percent of all the indigenous Native Americans died from diseases the White Man brought.

The above is a lot, and I can continue the list.

Against this backdrop, I think it’s reasonable to put a monument in the center of Syracuse to the man who got all this started. If he had invented the toe nail clipper but used that invention in a nefarious way, then perhaps we should not erect a statue in his honor, but with this Man – Columbus – we’re talking about something truly monumental. The fact that me, a White man, can stand below the statue in 2017 is because of him. How did the White man end up in Central New York? This is Indian country and had been for thousands of years. The answer: because of Christopher Columbus.

Besides this, it should be obvious what we are commemorating via the statue. Does anyone really think that it was erected to glorify the subjection of the Native Americans? I think not. Perhaps there’s a fringe White supremacist group that loves the statue for just that reason, but most reasonable people would understand exactly what we are commemorating. To me it’s obvious why there’s a statue to Christopher Columbus, and there is only one reason: because in 1492 he sailed the ocean blue.

I understand that there can be a debate about which persons in history we wish to commemorate, and these debates tell us something about ourselves. I, for one, would not want a statue to Jefferson Davis in the center of my town, but that’s me. We can, however, go too far in sanitizing history and end up with no history at all. Many of the founding fathers owned slaves and one, Jefferson, had a child by one. Lincoln was never a real abolitionist (at least until the end of his life), didn’t believe the black man was equal to the white man, would be horrified by interracial marriage and favored sending the slaves back to Africa. It’s true. All these men, however, did advance the cause of freedom against the backdrop of their times. Even the great Gandhi didn’t like blacks at all.

Jerry Rescuse, Syracuse, NY

Going down this path, there’s another statue in Syracuse, that to the Jerry Rescue. Back before the Civil War, Syracuse was a very important way-station on the Underground Railroad, and this statue commemorates this, as it should. But the fact is that everything about the Underground Railroad was illegal. Is it really so good to commemorate an activity that is illegal? We could think like that. but in so doing miss the point: the Underground Railroad was an important symbol of at least some citizens (illegal) fight against an evil slave system.

Everything can be taken to extremes, and political correctness is no exception. A rational debate about these issues is healthy, but recently the issues are not something that can be debated and discussed among adults; no, those of the left in particular insist that history should be sanitized along the lines of their worldview, and anyone who doesn’t agree with this is a racist or an oppressor. This is dangerous. Even worse, these issues are so emotionally laden and poignant that they feel a freedom to act outside the law and tear monuments down on their own, without the ruling town board or council authorizing such actions. This is mob rule and never ends well. It’s scary.

It is very easy to want to sanitize the past, but we are less enthusiastic about sanitizing the present. We live in a society where the abomination of abortion is legal and mostly accepted, and where in our great wisdom around 40 percent of children are brought up in households without a father or mother, and where the old are relegated to nursing homes. Did you know that in 90 percent of the cases where genetic testing shows that a Down’s syndrome baby will be born, that the baby is aborted? The weakest ones among us – or those who are so weak they have not even been born – are victimized. And then we rail against Christopher Columbus, who at least had the courage to sail the ocean blue, while we perpetuate crimes such as his – not for gold – but for the sake of our convenience.

Before we sanitize history, we should sanitize ourselves, but this is never popular. It’s a shame. Someday future generations might erect statues to groundbreakers in our time, and the question is: will there be any?

Maybe I’m Amazed

The years just fly by, and every once in a while its good to reflect on it all.

It so happened that when I worked the Syracuse Amphitheater three weeks ago, the rock band Styx was playing. Styx is a 1970s\1980s band that I happened to like at the time and even went to one of their concerts at the Rochester War Memorial in about 1977. My wife asked me who I went with, and I don’t remember. I don’t remember much about the entire time, except the size of the War Memorial and the fact that all the seats were full, but that’s about it.

How many years have passed since then? The math says 40. That’s a lot of years, at least for me, and back then if you told me: “Some day – 2017 to be exact – you will once again hear Styx in concert and, by the way, you would have been married 24 years and have eight children and – we should not forget – will have been a 10 year survivor of one of the worse cancers known to man, but luckily you will be a Christian, so you will be living the best life possible.” If you had told me that back then, when I was a green under the ears 17 year old not knowing what to do in life or where it would lead me, I would not have believed you.

Back then, 2000 seemed a long way off, like a Looooooooooong way. Who could comprehend it? Let’s talk about 2050 right now, in 2017; the year 2050 is abstract, like a huge number of mathematical formulas scrawled across the blackboard – and dark, unknown and unsure. But this is what happened: 2000 came and went. We were up against it, and then in it, and now somehow it is 17 years behind us.

Paul McCartney Then and Now

Paul McCarthy comes to the Syracuse Carrier Dome this September. He’s the same guy with the mop head who sang, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” before the Vietnam war was even an issue and gas was about 25 cents a gallon. The years pass, and now he washes up in Syracuse, New York, at about the age of 75 (I’m not sure – a good guess I think), a rocker with a lot of wrinkles and who knows: maybe he can still put on a show. It’s as if he has re-appeared in 2017, stepping out of a time machine, coming back from another long lost era, back when America was a great country (everyone knew that) and all the cars were American. They had to be. And now POP – he appears, as if we have fast-forwarded a movie to the closing scenes.

Then there is Bob Dylan, whom I saw in concert also when I was about 18 and also washed up in Syracuse recently. I also worked that concert when our Church sold concessions as a fundraiser. My impression: Bob seemed his best doing his re-hashes of Frank Sinatra songs that have been the hallmark of his last two albums rather than trying to be a rocker at 77. I was almost embarrassed for him. He almost seemed irrelevant – the great Bob Dylan – and only 3,000 people came to the Amphitheater to hear him. The years take their toll.

If they are getting older, then so am I. Every year my kids have more birthdays, and that leads me to the conclusion that I’m probably having more birthdays also. I’m not so old – only 56 – but a fair part of my life is behind me already, lived already, and I’m hoping for many more. The decisions I made as a youth are coming back on me now. That’s why all youth should make good decisions. You have to live with what you choose.

Our Church will be selling concessions at the Carrier Dome for the upcoming Paul McCartney concert. We’ll probably hear Silly Love Songs and Maybe I’m Amazed – and I will be amazed that this guy can really rock, fifty years later. Maybe he can. But I saw a recent picture of him, and the years have worn him down, as they do everyone. Forget the mop head. He’s an old man.