So AI is producing academic writing that is pretty believable. The new byline is “written by Chat GBT et al”. What are we to make of this development? Here’s a bit of what I’m fretting about…

Some people think that because AI is detectable and terribly klutzy it isn’t dreadfully worrying. But others argue that while klutzy is the case now, AI (and AI writing) is inevitably going to get better. And much less easy to detect. The implications for assessment, peer review etc are obvious. The solutions not so much. So it’s not so surprising that there’s a lot of conversation about to how to use AI in academic work/writing in ways that are ethical as well as time-saving.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not automatically hostile to AI. I’m not averse to time saving tools. But just because a tool exists doesn’t mean that it needs to…

Many readers have an affinity for PT. Physical therapy? In some cases. But what I’m talking about is parallel timelines.

Those timelines can be very appealing in novels. We get two stories for the price of one, in two disparate eras. We see that people from distinct historical periods are different (in the way they speak, in what they wear, in the “devices” they use, in cultural norms, etc.) yet emotionally not so different (most people from any era want love, good health, security, and enough money to be comfortable; feel anger and jealousy; etc.).

Parallel timelines are not easy for an author. A lot of research is involved, and characters from centuries or many decades apart have to be depicted in different ways. Then, for the icing on the cake, the expected connections between characters from different eras should be revealed slowly and convincingly.

Barbara Kingsolver does all this…

“1965 will be the longest and hottest and bloodiest year of them all. It has to be, not because you want it to be, or I want it to be, or we want it to be, but because the conditions that created these explosions in 1963 are still here; the conditions that created explosions in ’64 are still here … Brothers and sisters, let me tell you, I spend my time out there in the street with people, all kind of people, listening to what they have to say. And they’re dissatisfied, they’re disillusioned, they’re fed up, they’re getting to the point of frustration where they are beginning to feel: What do they have to lose? Malcolm X gave this speech in Detroit on February 14, 1965, two weeks after a high-speed escape from would-be Nation of Islam assassins in Los Angeles, and a week before he was murdered…

“The Newsreel, most frequently called Newsreel, was an American filmmakingcollective founded in New York City in late 1967. In keeping with the radical student/youth, antiwar and Black power movements of the time, the group explicitly described its purpose as using ‘films and other propaganda in aiding the revolutionary movement.’ The organization quickly established other chapters in San Francisco, Boston, Washington, DC, Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico, and soon claimed ‘150 full time activists in its 9 regional offices.’ Co-founder Robert Kramer called for ‘films that unnerve, that shake people’s assumptions…[that] explode like grenades in people’s faces, or open minds like a good can opener.’ Their film’s production logo was a flashing graphic of The Newsreel moving in and out violently in cadence with the staccato sounds of a machine gun. A contemporary issue…

Today is Tolkien Reading Day, started by the Tolkien Society in 2003. It is held annually on March 25, the day of the downfall of Sauron.

In addition to writing The Hobbit,The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and related books like The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a number of short stories, and quite a bit of poetry.

To read “The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon” click:

Glenn Sacks teaches social studies at James Monroe High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District. He is one of the UTLA (United Teachers of Los Angeles) representatives for his school and also a strike captain in both 2019 and 2023. I was pleased to join the 2019 strike and walk the picket line with UTLA. Wish I could have been in L.A. for this one too.

The public schools of Los Angeles were closed this past week by a three-day strike, led by the low-wage staff represented by SEIU 99—about 30,000 workers, including bus drivers, teacher aides, custodians, cafeteria workers, gardeners, and special education assistants. The UTLA struck in support of the SEIU; UTLA’s 35,000 members include teachers, counselors, therapists, nurses and librarians.

A tentative settlement was reached after Mayor Karen Bass intervened to mediate. The SEIU was seeking a 30% wage increase, and they won it. The…

John Merrow updates a famous saying from the Second World War. There was a time when every educated person knew it, often by heart. It is about indifference to the sorrow and tragedy of others.

He begins:

First they came forthe transgender kids, and I did not speak out—because I am not transgender.

Then they came forthe bisexuals, the gays, and the lesbians,and I did not speak out—because I am none of those.

Then they came forthe same sex couples, and I did not speak out—because I am married to a woman.

Then they came for me—but by that time the puritans, the fascists, and the power-hungry were in complete control, and speaking out was not allowed.

Of course, that isnotwhat German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller wrote back in the 1930’s, of course. What he said was this:

First they came for…

“As someone cursed with the wayward gait of a drunk learning to ice-skate, I’m prone to thinking of dancers as a special, slightly frightening breed of magical creature, like the earthly descendants of certain birds. How, then, to make sense of Yvonne Rainer’s ‘Dance Works’, which sends me into this familiar state of baffled awe but depends on something other than exquisite technique? (It even permits a certain carefully rendered clumsiness.) Bruce Nauman’s contemporaneous and uncanny trapeze act, Walking in an Exaggerated Manner around the Perimeter of a Square (1967–68), is a much more useful guide here than the heart-fluttering theatrics of Swan Lake. But maybe bewilderment is the desired response. This sprawling retrospective captured over a decade of radical experimentation stretching from 1961 to 1972, in which Rainer found the contours of her own enigmatic and slyly contorted form of choreography. In an inspired move, curator Catherine Wood…

“Norman Mailer describes Burroughs as ‘the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed of genius.’ An odd offshoot of the adding machine family, he lives in a squalid Paris room where he appeared to the Observer as ‘grumpy’ but to the Sunday Times as ‘gentle and courteous’. His books, THE NAKED LUNCH, THE SOFT MACHINE, NOVIA EXPRESS, and THE TICKET THAT EXPLODED, are published by Olympia Press, Paris, but liable to be seized if imported to Britain (although B&B receives review copies without trouble). Extracts from these books will be published in late March or April under the title DEAD FINGERS TALK (Calder, 25s). Man, this guy Bill Burroughs is really square. You know something? He’s produced a book specially for the British. Can you imagine anything more philistine? His downfall started last Fall when some smartipants young British publisher named John Calder got Bill…

NOTE:Irene Fowler is involved in a big celebration of her mother’s birthday this week, but will back with us next week.

In the meantime, to read “Life Expectancy” by Billy Collins click: