Be Time

Something Madeline L’Engle writes in her “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art,” which I started reading this morning struck me:

In the summer I seem to spend my days between the stove and the typewriter, with time out for walking the dogs to the brook, bearing the big red clippers which help to clear the paths. I sit on my favourite rock, looking over the brook, to take time away from busy-ness, time to be. I’ve often long since stopping feeling guilty about taking being time; it’s something we all need for our spiritual health, and often we don’t take enough of it.

And I paused to wonder, as I read what she said: How am I using the “be time” I take?

Because truth be told, I take time away from busy-ness. I find time to be. It would be a lie to say otherwise.

But what am I doing during that be-time?

Social media, mostly. Which tells me I’m squandering my be time. And I’ve also recently started binge-watching (first time!) a Canadian TV show called Corner Gas. It’s great fun. But it’s not helping me get Doleful Creatures finished.

What did L’Engle do with her be time? I mean I assume she’s doing more than clipping branches and making sure the dogs don’t poop on the paths.

I’ll have to keep reading to find out.

And maybe I need a brook. I’ve already got the dogs.

Can it Report on Brexit . . . in the Shed?

The Guardian today ponders whether artificial intelligence will ever write enough quality novels to make human attempts at the task futile. Or somesuch.

And as I have never met Stephen Poole in real life, I can’t brush aside the assumption that he is, in fact, an AI writing this article about AI writing novels for the Guardian, which itself may be only a figment of my imagination.

But going on the assumption that Mr. Poole and The Guardian do indeed exist in flesh and brick and mortar, this is the crux of what they say:

AI has been the next big thing for so long that it’s easy to assume “artificial intelligence” now exists. It doesn’t, if by “intelligence” we mean what we sometimes encounter in our fellow humans. GPT2 is just using methods of statistical analysis, trained on huge amounts of human-written text – 40GB of web pages, in this case, that received recommendations from Reddit readers – to predict what ought to come next. This probabilistic approach is how Google Translate works, and also the method behind Gmail’s automatic replies (“OK.” “See you then.” “That’s fine!”) It can be eerily good, but it is not as intelligent as, say, a bee.

Nevermind that the non-AI folks at the Guardian seem to have forgotten about the AI scrrenplay they wrote about in 2016. (But since it was an article originally published at ArsTechnica, maybe the flesh-and-brick robots at the Guardian simply forgot about it.)

(Of course, the screenplay contains the same kind of AI gibberish still being seen today, at least outside of the closed labs of the ironically-named OpenAI.)

The Poole article quotes the OpenAI lab, a nonprofit backed by tech entrepreneurs looking at developing AI that can write, in saying their GPT2 AI is too dangerous to release to the general public – or other tech entrepreneurs presumably not paying them cash – because it could be used to create “deepfakes for text.”

That’s as may be, but as Pool and the Guardian point out, humans are already busily producing plenty of fake news that such “deepfakes” may go unnoticed or just be added to the fake news ball.

In other words, humans still appear capable of using their own brains to create enough ethical conundrums we may not necessarily need computers that can do the same thing. Or if not need, certainly not notice all that much.

As I consider my long writing career, first in journalism and now in technical writing, I wonder how valuable AI writing could be. All I know is now I’m trying to revise technical documents with the input from subject matter experts with tunnel vision and working at cross purposes, making me want to flee like Gossamer into the night. Or through the walls.



AI, I think at this point, is good at mimicry. But from what I’ve read of AI-generated text, it’s not good at all at interpretation. What, for example, does that subject matter expert mean to change in a document over multiple emails when many bits of important minutia are discussed? A human can interpret the meaning and resubmit to the SMEs for checking, but the AI, as far as I know, has no checks except for the humans who are reading what’s been put out on the other side.

There’s much room to debate which would fail worse at the “Garbage in, Garbage out” battle between humans and AI. But I would give the edge to humans in the realm of subtle garbage. Right now, reading an AI-written novel will draw the yuks via obvious stumbles, but the stumbles humans come up with are highly subjective. What’s a stumble to one reader may be forgiven by another. Although I’ve read enough books where horses are managed by “reigns” rather than “reins” to know there are some books you should not show the horsey set.

Humans will also win in any race involving distractibility. Ergo, the title to this post.



I am, of course, no one to talk. I have not published a novel. I have, however, gone through the editing process. Seventeen times at last count on my current work in progress. I like to think I’m learning more about writing a book the plodder’s way than AI ever could learn reading Reddit-recommended web pages. Or novels for that matter.

Isaac is an Eagle. Finally

I probably shouldn't even say finally. Because the court of honor is still 24 hours away and the last time we scheduled a court of honor and we had to cancel it because the guest of honor was sick.

So we're hoping this one sticks. Tomorrow night, 6 pm.

And you might think Isaac represents the last of the Eagle Scouts in our family. Not so if our daughter earns her Eagle, which is now possible with Scouts BSA.

Gotta get her through that first rank, though. They've changed it quite a bit since I was a kid . . .

The Best Part, 2019-3

"The Guardians," by John Christopher

Sir Percy got up and walked over to one of the windows. The sun was shining; his carefully groomed hair and mustache gleamed in a ray of light. Rob wondered why he was telling him all this – if in fact he was just talking for his own satisfaction. He continued:

“It must appear to be natural because people cannot be contented unless they believe their lives to be natural. But to do this and to keep everything in balance requires intelligence and planning. It requires a special group of dedicated men who will act as guardians over the rest. Thus guns are abolished but a reserve is kept to protect society against insurrection. Not only that – we have psychologists to help us mold people into proper courses of action. We are constantly on the alert for trouble. The Conurb is easier to control than the County in that respect. Anyone showing creative intelligence and initiative stands out conspicuously from the mob and can be dealt with. Here it is less easy. Aristocracies have always provided the seedbeds for revolt. However well we manipulate the gentry, sooner or later there must be an eruption. This is what we have just had. We have watched it gather like a boil and at the right moment have lanced it. It will be fifty years at least before it happens again.”

Sir Percy broke off. “Do you understand me, boy? I am not talking over your head?”

“No, sir.”

“I did not think I was.”

John Christopher’s dystopia is written sparsely, with little hooptedoodle, as a book for young readers should. But there are seeds of subtle sophistication in the story which make it utterly believable. Here, Sir Percy’s speech is the clearest description of dystopian society as I’ve ever read. It’s almost akin to the Ministry of Truth’s running of its own rebellions in George Orwell’s 1984. And has eerie echoes of the imperfect society we call home today.

On John Steinbeck

I don’t remember reading John Steinbeck.

Oh, I’ve read most of his books (I’m pretty sure only the lengthy East of Eden is unread by me). What I mean to say is that I don’t remember sitting in a classroom or library or whatever and thinking, “I’m going to read John Steinbeck.”

My reading of Steinbeck likely started with an excerpt from The Red Pony, as I clearly remember thinking it was particularly gruesome that the poor pony died and was being eaten by buzzards when the boy who owned him found him.

Moralistically, I’m certain I know why this book was included in the anthologies we read in elementary school: Take care of what you own and listen to those wiser than you. And maybe that was Steinbeck’s intention when he wrote that particular tale.

Now that I’ve read what is likely my first bit of Steinbeck commentary and criticism, in the form of Stephen George’s “John Steinbeck: A Centennial Tribute,” I understand a bit more of why Steinbeck wrote as he did.

His wife Elaine summed it up nicely for me:

John believed in man. That’s what his Nobel Prize speech says. He said, “You believe in the perfectibility of man. Man will never be perfect, but he has to strive for it.” That’s the whole point. That was religious. He didn’t believe in any church creeds, but he said to me when he was dying,” Don’t you let a bunch of people get together and tell yarns about me. Make sure it’s the Episcopal burial service.” And I said to him, “Do you believe?” And he said “I’m like Socrates before he drank the hemlock: I don’t know if there are gods or not, but in case there are . . . “

The more I reflect on what I’ve read of Steinbeck, the more I agree what Elaine Steinbeck says here is true. He wrote about Man with the capital M, while concentrating on the little stories that, to mankind, to government, to the media, to man’s neighbors, mean little or nothing. And by that he pointed out the imperfectability of Man.

I believe Steinbeck stands with two other authors – Mark Twain and Sinclair Lewis – and to a lesser extent, humorist James Thurber, as the authors who best capture America. I won’t say at its best or at its worst, because all of these writers focus on the good and bad, but whether it’s best or worts I don’t care to comment. What all have in common is their ability to look at the man vs Man, and see how the man – George Babbitt, Tom Sawyer, Tom Joad, or Walter Mitty – fit into the mold of an American man, or into a mold of America itself. Some of these men are treated poorly by America. Some of them treat America poorly. Some are wise. Some are innocent. Some are selfish. But all are Man in the big sense of the world, trying to figure out how to fit into it or make it fit them, for better or for worse. That’s where I can use that phrase.

If you’re curious about Steinbeck, or already know him, I can’t recommend George’s book enough. It’s got touching tributes, and scholarship – even criticism, all in about 190 pages.

And there's also this:

Purloined Art

It's a lot harder these days to snag my kids' art. First, they draw less. Stupid things like history and calculus and such get in the way. Then they see Dad coming and conceal the art, like they don't want me to have it. I have to remind them I have Constitutional rights as a father to see their art and possibly embarrass them with it. Not that they have anything to be embarrassed about. Behold:

'They Can Never Really Be'

Maybe this is why my current work in progress features anthropomorphized animals. That should keep away the ignorant self-righteousness of the Internet, leastwise until PETA shows up.

And maybe this is why other books I’m writing feature – prepare to be shocked here – white guys. Because – another shock – I’m a white guy myself.

That I’m a white guy is, of course, sinfully problematic in the publishing world, but that’s beside the point; it’s highly unlikely I’ll ever get published anyway because I’m a no-talent hack.

But anyone with a modicum of talent has got to be frightened of stuff like this.

Long story short: An author’s book is pulled from pre-publication because an Internet mob decided its story is ethnically problematic. And nevermind the schadenfreude that the author of this book was part of the same Internet mob that successfully unpublished another writer’s work earlier this year.

From the first linky:

[W]e’ve gotten an increasingly toxic online culture around YA literature, with evermore-baroque standards for who can write about whom under what circumstances. From the outside, this is starting to look like a conversation focused less on literature than obedience.

This, to me, is worse than burning books.



Unpublishers like these demonstrate the worst of groupthink. Their desire for conformity – even rooted in the righteousness of wanting more and better representation of “ownvoices” in literature invites the worst of dysfunctional decision-making, if I may paraphrase Wikipedia.

They’re best epitomized by Beatty, the fire chief from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, shown here in Francois Truffaut’s treatment of the novel in 1966:

Ah, Montag, I knew it! I knew it. Of course, all this. The existence of a secret library was known in higher places. But there was no way of getting at it. Only once before have I seen so many books in one place. And I was just an ordinary fireman at the time. Wasn’t even qualified to use the flame-thrower. It’s all ours, Montag! Listen to me, Montag. Once, to each fireman, at least once in his career, he just itches to know what these books are all about. He just aches to know. Isn’t that so? Well, take my word for it, Montag. There’s nothing there. The books have nothing to say. Look. These are all novels. All about people who never existed. The people that read them, it makes them unhappy with their own lives, makes them want to live in other ways. They can never really be.

Well, burning the house is one thing. Burning the books is another, isn’t it? Never any good burning everything together. Go on, Montag. All this philosophy. Let’s get rid of it. It’s even worse than the novels. Thinkers. Philosophers. All of them saying exactly the same thing: Only I am right. The others are all idiots. One sentence they tell you man’s destiny is pre-determined, the next they say that he has freedom of choice. It’s just a matter of fashion, that’s all, philosophy. Just like short dresses this year, long dresses next year.

Look! All stories of the dead. Biography, that’s called. And autobiography. My life, my diary, my memoirs, my intimate memoirs. Of course, when they start it out, it was just the urge to write. Then after the second or third book, all they want is to satisfy their own vanity, to stand out from the crowd. To be different. To be able to look down on all the others. Ah. Critics’ prize. Ah, this is a good one. Of course, he had the critics on his side. Lucky fellow, eh? Just tell me this, Montag. At a guess, how many literary awards were made in this country, on an average, each year? Five? Ten? Forty, hmm? No less than one thousand, two hundred. Why, anybody who put pen to paper was bound to win some prize, some day.

Ah. Robinson Crusoe, the negroes didn’t like that, because of his man, Friday. And Nietzsche. Ah, Nietzsche. The Jews didn’t like Nietzsche. Now here’s a book about lung cancer. You see, all the cigarette smokers got into a panic, so for everybody’s peace of mind, we burn it! Ah, now this one must be very profound. The Ethics of Aristotle. Now, anybody that read that must believe he’s a cut above anybody else. See, it’s no good, Montag. We’ve all got to be alike. The only way to be happy is for everyone to be made equal. So, we must burn the books, Montag. All the books.

It's not without irony that Truffaut has Beatty hold up a copy of Mein Kampf here at the end. And not without irony that I reproduce that image here.

I have to credit these folks with something: They started out, probably, with the best intentions. But they’ve let the worst be their spokesbeings. They’re censoring books before they’ve even read them. May as well burn the lot (the books, clearly, not the crazed critics) and be done with the problem.

Writes Jesse Singal (himself now a target of these yahoos) at Tablet:

But while some of the social justice concerns percolating within YA fiction are legitimate, the explosive manner in which they’re expressed within YA Twitter is another story. Posing as urgent interventions to prevent the circulation of harmful tropes, the pile-ons are often based on selective excerpts pulled out of context from the advance copies of books most in the community haven’t read yet. Often, they feature critics operating on the basis of idiosyncratic ideas about the very purpose and nature of fiction itself, elevating tendentious interpretations of the limited snippets available to pass judgement on books before they have been released. To take one example, a viral blog post that sparked a pile-on against a highly anticipated and eventually well-reviewed book, The Black Witch, “consisted largely of pull quotes featuring the book’s racist characters saying or doing racist things,” as Rosenfield explained. Most adult readers across genres understand that representing a morally repugnant position as part of a broader narrative is not the same as endorsing that opinion, but this is the sort of obvious-to-everyone-else point YA Twitter tends to confuse or outright reject.

Burn the books, again I say. It’s easier than dealing with the mob with their electronic pitchforks and torches.

Camping

I learned camping in Scouts. I learned even though I was the fat kid, I could still enjoy the outdoors. Even hiking. Even winter camping.

I re-learned camping when my wife and I had kids and we decided having kids wasn't going to alter what we did for fun. I learned even little kids like to wander around in the outdoors, watch fires, throw rocks, listen to the coyotes howl and the owls hoot.

My kids learned camping thanks to family camping, but also to eight years (and counting) spending the summer at scout camp as my wife worked there. They learned camping can help them learn, and can help them become teachers.

I re-learned camping again when I was called as scoutmaster. I learned scouts like watching scoutmasters go swimming, hike, throw rocks, build fires, take the polar bear challenge, get scratched up and dirty, just like them.

I'm going to re-learn camping yet again as I take on the role of scoutmaster a second time. This time with a troop of girls who want to learn the same stuff they've seen their brothers learning for years.

I can't wait to learn it all over again.

This is the Stupidest Thing I Have Ever Written

I have this crazy idea.

We could, if we really wanted to, eliminate racism.*

I know it’s regarded as a hobby by some and as a political sport by others, but we could get rid of it.
We could pretend things aren’t racist.**

I remember, long ago, thinking that the Mammy character from a few Tom and Jerry cartoons was funny. Not in any minstrel-sy or racist way – I was naïve enough I didn’t know what a minstrel show was, nor did I know anything about racism other than the uncomfortable look my mother got on her face whenever anyone told a Mexican joke. She was funny. She thumped on her cat and dressed like I’d seen my (very white) Aunt Betty dress.

Later, as a much older naïve person, I remember watching “Gone With the Wind” in a college film class, and emerging in agreement with a few other fellows who were saying “Mammy ran that household. She’s awesome.” About Hattie McDaniel’s character in the film.

I also remember watching Disney’s “Song of the South” and then poring over the tales of Br’er Rabbit and his friends (well, enemies if I’m honest) and thinking, “Wow. That’s one clever bunny.”

And let’s not even bring up my Dutch heritage and the presence of Zwarte Peit, even though Dad carried on such Dutch Christmas traditions such as chocolate letters but only mentioned Zwarte Peit in passing.***

These things, however, are not to be enjoyed. They are to be read cautiously in the company of parentheticals and asterisks **** if they have to be mentioned at all.

And yet we still pretend.

We pretend that all males are misogynistic.

We pretend that all fathers are buffoons.

We pretend that all Christians are wild-eyed fanatics.

None of those have asterisks.

And here’s the thing: The only thing I object to in what we have to pretend is the word “all.”

But back to racism.

I’m not saying let’s pretend things aren’t racist because things aren’t racist. Things are racist because they’ve been used by racists to do racist things for a very long time.

But if we pretended things aren’t racists, maybe the youngsters won’t learn they’re racist. Maybe they won’t repeat them in racist ways.

Oh, they certainly could repeat them. But out of ignorance. And that’s the core of my stupidest of stupid ideas, because I’m encouraging ignorance. This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever written. And I’ve written a lot of dumb things.

But maybe if enough people were ignorant about things that are racist, they could forget to be racist.
Which is also dumb. Because then they’d come up with their own brand-new racist symbols and ideas, and we’d be back in the same place we were before.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And here’s another thing: I know many have suffered, and continue to suffer, because of racism. Racism is a very real thing. Would pretending not every depiction of race is racist make it go away?***** Now, before you say it –

THIS GUY WANTS TO BRING BACK MINSTREL SHOWS

Allow me to say I do NOT advocate bringing back minstrel shows  --

BUT YOU JUST SAID

This isn’t getting anywhere . . .



What’s getting nowhere?

This whole poem. Why don’t you start over?

Or just call the whole thing off. Because what we’re doing in the collective discussion on racism in America is working JUST FINE.******

*Never trust ANYONE who says things like this.

**I’m a complete and UTTER moron, am I not?

***I remember the name Zwarte Peit mentioned in stories Dad made up at bedtime to entertain us, but I do not recall that race ever came into it. But that is NO EXCUSE and Zwarte Peit is ebil. Nevermind that Dad was thrilled to find an English translation of Max Havelaar by Multatuli to share with us.

**** Just like this.

*****No. See the first two asterisks. Particularly No. 2.

******Not really.