Ernie Johnson to Retire: The Anchor Who Kept It All Together

    There are only two unscripted shows I watch that never get boring: Jeopardy! and Inside the N.B.A. A strange combination, I'm sure. Given that Jeopardy! is encyclopedic, it isn't so surprising for a trivia nerd. There are clues on that show which have fascinated me so much that I've spent hours going down some rabbit hole about an idea, theory, show, musician, event, etc. It satisfies the part of me that wants to understand the world. More surprising is the zany sports show Inside the N.B.A., which on a global stage is highly niche. For me, Jeopardy! feeds the mind, while Inside feeds the soul.

    The guys on Inside make me laugh so effortlessly that it feels less like watching television and more like hanging out with old friends. They have a rare type of chemistry that makes you feel part of the conversation, no matter how ridiculous it is. While Shaq and Charles go off the deep end with their oddball comments- often hilariously- Ernie and Kenny are masters at the snide rebuttal, grounding the other two to balance the equation. They are also masters at instigating banter, but only at the right moment. This is entirely necessary when you consider how unhinged the big dudes on the fringe would be without their wiser anchors. 

    And yet, all four of these characters possess a great wisdom for the game that I've grown to appreciate over the years. The camaraderie between them makes you feel like wanting to grow old with them. Sitting on the porch, reminiscing, sharing stories about old times- on the court and off the court, on the show and off. Two chapters of three amazing basketball careers, and Ernie's single broadcasting chapter with them, which is sadly coming to an end this season.

    Ernie just announced his retirement yesterday, an emotional moment on this rollercoaster of comedy and analysis. The core basketball players will remain, but Ernie is irreplaceable. I like to sit behind a computer and type up some cosmic mumbo jumbo I wrote and pretend it's important, but it's people like Ernie who really keep the world together. His ability to harness all the chaos on that show reflects a deeper need for world leaders to absorb the shenanigans of men with huge egos. He will be missed.

My Genealogy

     My biological father's last name was Goldberg. I never knew him growing up. My stepfather's last name was Ausmus. Schickling was my mother's maiden name. All three surnames are German, but that is a coincidence.
    The male Goldberg line is Jewish Ukrainian/Moldovan. The female line (Petersen) is split between Norwegian Protestants, and another split between German and Danish.
    The male Schickling line is split between German on the male side and Italian Catholic on the female side. The female Schickling line (Retherford) is mostly English, with some German and traces of Dutch.

    The Ausmus family, as far as I know, is almost 100% German, with the mother migrating after World War 2. I have a half-brother who is mostly German.

    A rough estimate is that my DNA is 25% Ukrainian Jew, 25% German, 19% English, 12.5% Norwegian, 12.5% Italian, 3% Danish, 3% Dutch. That makes my children half-Thai, half everything else.

Worldwide Wasteland: When Trash Became the New Cash Crop

 

Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash by Alexander Clapp
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In the Global North, we are consumers. Some of us wonder, where does all our waste go? We may falsely believe it is properly recycled to be re-used. And that is why we don't see mountains of garbage outside our cities.
But reading a book like Waste Wars changes our perception. Most of our waste is actually exported to developing countries in the Global South, where it gets incinerated or dumped into the local environment. Very little of it is actually recycled. Ghana, Kenya, Turkey, Guatemala, Indonesia... All these countries literally have mountains of garbage that people get paid to sort through and scrounge for the rare earth elements that actually can be recycled. The rest is steel, electronic, or plastic residue that pollutes the local soil or water supply. And amazingly, some farmers now view "trash rotating" as a new cash crop that is even more profitable than growing staples like rice.
Much of this design lies on the shoulders of the U.S., who refused to ratify the Basel Convention in 1989. This is a U.N. treaty that regulates the movement and disposal of hazardous waste across country boundaries. I'd never heard of a waste broker before reading this book. Evidently these are the people doing backdoor deals in our country to ship waste out at a price lower than it would cost to process it here. Government approved, of course.
The thing about rare earth metals is they are rarely rare. They just require so much hazardous digging that the Global North doesn't want to do it. Environmental regulations intimidate mining companies from operating in countries like ours, and rightfully so. The problem is that the Global South, being relatively poor, cannot afford to ignore these "lucrative" offers to process our waste. On top of resource recovery, it creates jobs, just like mining. No matter how hazardous these jobs are, people will do them. Most striking is the shipbreaking industry, where people risk their lives to dismantle old steel-bearing cruise ships and gargantuan barges that are no longer operational.
At the center of this design is a horrible international exchange rivaling slavery or post-colonial debt. For years the Global South worked hard to liberate themselves from the military strangleholds of the North. In exchange for freedom from colonialism, "the lands that had once offered wood, latex, and cotton to European capitals were to be flipped into dumping grounds for the synthetic proxies of those same materials- the plastic, rubber, and nylon that were to prove the material hallmarks of a US led world (254)". Much like the climate disaster, stress is being unfairly placed on parts of the world that are not responsible for creating this waste in the first place.
It's our duty as consumers to be more aware of the things we buy, to realize how much of it cannot actually be recycled, and to stop buying things that aren't necessary. Rather than relying on the myth of recycling, this is the best way to heal the planet from excessive garbage. Especially when it comes to plastic, which in some parts of the world has totally infiltrated environmental systems.

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Morning in Aesthetica

Sometimes you wake me up
In the cold morning air,
Snuggle under the sheet with me,
Rubbing your head against mine.
Nuka nuka, my mini-me
Rolling into my arms,
Your yellow ice cream pajamas
Melting into my skin.
The rosy rays grace your face
Through trees outside my window,
Where the sunlight's patience
Draws your lips into a smile.
Soft morning alpenglow
Crowning the purple sunrise,

Holding you close

Inside the rising light.

Sweet Tooth, Sour System: How Capitalism Capitalizes on Our Decay

     Before the Industrial Revolution, few people needed to brush their teeth because cavities were rarer than today. Animals also rarely get cavities; only the heavy starch-eating ones do. Because the post-industrial diet was suddenly overloaded with refined sugar and processed flour, our teeth became chronically overwhelmed by sheets of chemical biofilms that accelerated tooth decay. People who gorged on processed foods in Western countries were suddenly far more likely to get cavities, and it has only gotten worse as time goes on.
    For this reason, before World War 2, dentists frequently advised people not to eat too much sugar. It was healthy and responsible for a dentist or doctor to warn their patients about the risks of sugar addiction. The primary reason they relinquished this lesson is that the invention of toothpaste made it unnecessary, so long as people were brushing their teeth twice a day. Another possible reason is that the sugar epidemic became highly profitable, not just for dental services but for manufacturing dental equipment as well.
    It makes the whole industry look like a product of society's sugar addiction. And like other industries, these side effects are propagating to the rest of the world, as it adopts our way of living. There is a common thread in the modern economic paradigm that seeks to exploit our addictions for profitable gain. It reaches us through social media algorithms, the pills we swallow, the desensitization of pornography, the useless junk we buy, the five-second entertainment clips that give us brief yet powerful dopamine spikes.

    The concept of addiction needs to expand from its cozy clinical definition that only includes chemical or psychological dependence to include the new forms we are seeing, whether they be in gaming, diet, tech, or any other modern industry. Last century, the tobacco companies lost because it was easier to sue them for knowing their products were harmfully addictive. The companies today all know what they are doing. Addiction can take so many forms that capitalism has hoodwinked our vulnerable biology, powerfully conditioning us into believing hedonism is good, right as we are most desperately trying to stop it.

Forest Run

    I love a foggy morning run, with the forest smelling of pine, the white opaqueness of the timberline, the waking birds welcoming the day like church bells. Water droplets drift through the air, cleansing my lungs through each heaving breath, the stopwatch ticking with each footfall on the trail. Up the hill I stride, the tall Douglas firs saluting my speed. A woman walking her dog nods silently, the ferns brushing past with every lunge. Three, four, five miles my endurance conquers. At six my sweat-soaked shirt clings to my chest, pressing my torso into an aerodynamic formation. 

    My earphones blast the rhythmic sensation of immersive music, rising and falling like the hills dividing my pace, synchronizing intermittent crescendos. There is a sacred space created when the music peaks and my legs feel strong as the ground. My feet take flight, soaring over the land, up into the fog where my thoughts clear and the bright day burns it all away. I become a child again, feeling so alive that the long years of sorrow evaporate like the morning dew off the pavement, leading me back home, out of the misty forest and into the nirvana of an endorphin high. 

    This spiritual catharsis is fueled by long musical progressions that peak as my strength reaches its limit, just before my legs give way and the moving meditation breaks. I become too tired to maintain the rhythm; it falters right as the soft glow of the sun seeps through the clouds and the fog retreats up past the green-horned rim of the trees. My body wants to collapse onto the soft good earth, but it must stay course or the stopwatch feels ignored. I slow down, ending the run as the warm light of day awakens the rest of the forest.

Glacier Compass

Opiate fluttering of chords the portals of time dissolve
Emergent oracles of love the lord of beauty assigned,

Crystal shards of broken-hearted possessions

Shattering illusions on the cold front of crags.

Alabaster city of oolite shells the dawn imparts

Frozen relics atop the flanks of Mount Asgard,

Ardent castle of nature awaiting our deliverance

From the frostbitten reaches of ignorance.

Together we rise to the landless sky beyond

Icicle spires that breach the Arctic tundra

Yearning for the sun, a forbidden clarity,

A radiant fixture to melt the frigidity of silence.

The Protein Fad

    Go to the grocery store these days and it's everywhere. Now with Protein, Extra Protein, Protein for Your Pet, Protein Up Your Ass. 20g, 30g, 50g in big, bold font, screaming at you. It's worse in the middle section, where all the processed food competes for your attention in a carefully curated order.
    Processed food companies are using the latest protein fad to stock their fake food with exorbitant amounts of it, hoping the health-conscious consumer will bypass all the unhealthy ingredients listed on their labels. Yet before the fad, 90% of Americans were already eating enough of it. Just because a label says "30g of Protein" or "All Natural" or "Organic" does not make it any healthier for you. 
    It's a colossal marketing scam that uses a "healthy" alterative to hide all the sugar, fat, salt, and who knows what other ingredients that make it more addicting. It's on the same level of evil as other marketing scams, like the way rebranding in big tech will render an entirely functional model that could last decades obsolete by some minor upgrade or tweak. 

    Food companies are no different from the tech giants who roll out a new product every five years, forcing you to buy the latest model because their security updates won't register on your older one, or you can't replace the battery without opening it with a sledgehammer. We as consumers have got to stop this madness. Do not buy their Kool-Aid.

Shock Fragments

In shock I scrolled through each crumb on the trail

She left dangling from fishhooks on the seaside

Carrying the burden of a fantasy undisclosed

Through the depression of ignorance.

I can't explain how history repeats itself,
It just does, even by accident or from failing to learn

All the missed signs and stunts and proxy wars
This furtive girl dished decades apart,

Wreaking havoc on my psyche; this cyber doppelganger
Threw her kitsch prayer wheel out the chevy impala,
Landed right on my oblivious noggin, a blooming onion
Dorothea Lange photographed through the dust storm
Furnace of arcana stretching 'cross midland past Medieval Times,
O'er tepid water patrolled by unicorns of the sea 

Screened by Zendaya's euphoria, Earth-tracked by astronauts

All the way to Singapore where IBEW minions

Shipped Jack Kirby ion-plated marvels to the data capital.

Library Storm

     A September storm sweeps in from the south, shaking the leafy branches tinted amber by summer scorn. Some fly off the trees, clawing over the roof like witches on broomsticks. I'm sitting in the library, working from home, the tall wooden towers of my bookshelves lurking over me, meditating on my silence; all the stories, songs, and facts curled up in scrolls of wisdom. They watch over me, my sisters on the shelves, each book a totem to my experiences, each journal an artifact of discovery. The storm enters the room, blows their words around in a whirlwind, speckling the ceiling in constellations of mythological truth.
    I turn on the Golf channel, not because I enjoy golf, but because it relaxes me. The soothing voices always do; they are friendly reminders to take a break from the inner tempest while the outer one stirs beyond. My wife makes fun of me for it, but the books know the truth; the voices are the soft signatures of inner peace, like the serenity of their sentences. 

    Slowly dozing off under ink-scented candlelight the outer tempest shakes my body while the sisters are singing lullabies that sink me into the sultry pages where the ancient elders illuminate me with the grace of God, he whom the tomes worship in their virginal slumber warping me away from the numbers on account, all the way back to when I was a boy in the sixth grade chasing rainbows off the asphalt hoop-rim, their chorus of voices parting my lips and the candlewick blackening and my flesh shivering among the threads of timber that dress my region from endless rain clouds that return every fall, their voices guiding me across the loamy windswept mountains where each book is a summit I must scale in my head to reach some forbidden version of reality transformed by inner dialect with dead sages speaking to me from beyond the grave and I see them, yes, I witness their stories as rich astral paintings conjured from sensitive eyes masked behind a rosy face that refused material richness for believing I was ugly, and I give them my story too, my long road out of the hell that Milton wrote leads up to light and the wind blows this dream off the map and into their medium so that I become them, a soft guiding light, a weak ember in a strong body, listlessly embalmed by light.

AI and the Global Social Contract

     A leading cause of death for birds is from crashing into well-lit buildings. Lights in cities act as beacons for birds to fly toward. However, they cannot see the glass that houses them, causing them to crash, often violently. "At least one billion birds die each year after crashing into skyscrapers and other lighted buildings", said a Cornell research associate.
    At what point should it become mandatory for people to turn off their office lights in skyscrapers at night? Can't we write legislation to save the birds, or any species facing extinction because of us? Merely prompting people to turn off their lights during migration season (which starts now) isn't enough. We already have a tremendously litigious society. More of the legal focus in our country should shift to environmental justice like this, as our future depends on ecological balance.
    Likewise, more of the focus on AI should shift to the environment. It's already being used to redevelop coastlines under threat from rising sea water. A company called Coastal Assembly is making this happen.* Yet most countries are franticly racing to get ahead on AI development for their own status, which poses a domino effect of environmental destruction from high energy use. Sustainable AI means that the astronomical energy use required to fuel data centers should be regulated only for improvements to the global society, not a single nation's economy.

    This regulation should limit AI research to scientists at universities, private companies with a license, or a government institution. And it's not just sustainability that would fall under this realm, but medical, psychological, and educational assistance as well. Care must be taken to protect the jobs of doctors, therapists, and educators, possibly by only allowing them to use the AI for help with something like a complex diagnosis. Instead of using data centers to process things like written documents, research, business decisions, market projections, military operations, or consumption patterns, it should only be legal to use if it benefits a global social contract. Otherwise, all our professions are inherently at risk; and even worse, it will make us intellectually lazy.

    We should not be allowing AI to process our vices, only our virtues. For example, where is the justice in stealing all the written work on the Internet to craft someone's email or report? It is theft, plain and simple. Will the writers like me ever see a penny? Not at this rate. Ignoring vices like these only fuels the darker side of machine learning.

    By only making virtuous learning legal, machine learning may alleviate the stresses of "evil" behavior, thereby teaching itself not to do the kind of harm that is alarming everyone right now. Conversely, only allowing virtuous outcomes keeps the machines operating in a non-threatening manner. I don't believe this type of machine (large language model) will ever become sentient, as it is an entirely different structure from the AI we are used to seeing in movies that takes over the world, or enslaves humans. That type of AI is thankfully much more difficult to design. But all the artistic theft, misinformation deep fakes, and academic dishonesty going on are just several of the many negative side effects of unregulated AI.

    Along with global warming, AI regulation will be a key development as the century progresses. The thing is, these are global problems. If one country tries to solve it, like the U.S. tried to solve the labor crisis in the 1930s, or the environmental crisis in the 1970s, nefarious actors will simply outsource to countries where it isn't regulated. That is why most of our hazardous waste is outsourced, as well as labor; in the U.S. these are heavily regulated sectors. Only when the social contract applies to the entire world can these problems be fixed. 

*Rising Seas Are Gobbling Up Beaches Around the World. A.I. Might Restore Them. - The New York Times