why we do it...

 
   After being away from this spot for a while, I return by asking you for a moment of personal reflection-privilege as they call it in Congress and parliamentary bodies.
    According to Blogger analytics this is my 1,115 post since I joined this part of the cyberworld in 2010. In 42 years of journalism and broadcasting work, jobs I loved, I was always a bit envious of the columnists, despite the fact friends who did that work said the demand was crushing. They were very good and eventually they phased from a daily deadline.  
    Retirement was an adjustment for this adrenaline junkie hooked on deadlines, travel, the rhythms of news rooms, production suites, the board room, the corner office, corporate conferences, network and other negotiations and far flung producing and directing. At first, I must have driven a few friends crazy with my manic photo downloads as we explored our new and beloved California. One of them, Maura, a precocious, bright, world traveler and world class writer and story teller asked "why don't you write a blog?"
     Maura's idea coincided with my need to build a social media profile as I was finishing my third novel and laying the ground work for another. It was certainly better than napping.

    And so as I decompressed and adjusted from a life of motion, tension and decision making, I looked on blogging as my chance to be that columnist. 

    In a parody of an old bromide, just like the holes in California sandstone, there are a million stories in retirement and leisure.

      Long time readers will remember this began as a daily effort. Soon I was disabused of that fanciful notion. But a new rhythm set in and with it became my sense of obligation and even purpose. 

      This blog has won no pulitzers nor stopped a war, but it's had a seriousness of intent-at least from this side of the keypad. 

      With time it has morphed to include social relevance, politics and opinion examination. And I know it has irritated some, including friends who think I'm a fuzzy headed polemicist.

      So with Lana's recent surgery, my own medical adventures, the arrival of a second grand child, the changes in the life of our eldest and her child's presence and obligations in the community, I've been variously occupied and have been pensive. We've spent time taking long views and pondering.

       A few years ago Bruce, the Catalyst of Oddball Observations and a long time friend and former newsie colleague asked why I cared or spent so much time on some of these topics. "Relax. Enjoy. You're retired. You can't do anything about it anyway. Our time has passed."
       He's right. We no longer have our hands on the controls, but I still care deeply about many things. But in this recent "ponder" I have come to understand it is not for my life span that I am concerned, agitated, motivated, inspired or active. No, it is for a longer deadline, certainly my daughters but even more so for the grand children. 

 Addie

Henry

     Lana and I are somewhat late to grandparent hood, so some of you have crossed the threshold already. 

    Issues matter. Politics, policy, attitude, citizenship, leadership, war, peace, the environment, safety and health all impinge on their future.

     So until I'm beamed aboard a mother ship, or recruited into a tripping, smiley face, "everything is beautiful" cult, or join a revolutionary cadre of the Avengers, or get lost with a band of lotus eaters camping in the Elysian Fields, or hit by a comet, I may irritate or disagree with a few of you. 

     It is my sincere hope that whatever intellectual product is left here, what ever photo images I capture of this life and planet I love so dearly, will be a record for my daughters and my grand children, a trace of what mattered to dad, pops and poppi, and perhaps an element of wisdom, warning, guidance or evaluation. I've come to think of this as a set of post cards from the past.  

    See you down the trail.

DECIDING FOR YOURSELF OR A PRIORI

OLD IS SOMETIMES BETTER
Have you followed the almost other worldly debate between
Twitter and Google about access to data and subsequent
sharing of that information?
Link here for background from Reuters news.

This very medium that we are sharing at this moment is 
extraordinary in its depth, reach and ability to be 
instant. It continues to change how we live, inform ourselves and think.  And yet as we rely on its
capacity, it begins to replace some of our
own intellectual command.  Decisions are being made for us.
This video appeared here earlier, but many of you missed it,
according to the analytics available to even a blogger such as me.  And that is part of the point.

The technology is impressive, even if inevitable.
But I wonder what happens as the decision making, fed by 
 data mining and analytics, continues. Will
we become like the humans depicted
in the Pixar masterpiece Wall-e?
What happens to the human specie if everything
is done based on convenience, prior patterns
and algorithmic decision making?
I fear that anything that begins to shape or trim 
our curiosity and free exploration leads us
to being intellectual chia pets.


HERE IS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW IT HAS CHANGED
The video was recorded during a break
on the NBC Today show in January 1994.
Bryant Gumble and Katie Couric ask
WHAT IS THE INTERNET ANYWAY?

I assume Bryant and Katie now get a kick out of 
their naivety. In those days
there was no threat to the media from the new
technology platforms that today call
institutions like the network news "mainstream" or "lame stream" media. Of course all news organizations
calculate how to survive.
Computer mined and manipulated data leads to 
a kind of apriori decision making,
but how free or unbounded is it?
What price for convenience?
I hope you sometimes visit the 
21st Century Intelligence component at the
very bottom of this page.  It does a great 
job of tracking the business of our tech future.
See you down the trail.