Robots Writing Poetry?

I sit here on a Tuesday evening waiting for the election results, wondering if the Trump-Train gets derailed, or if we continue our slouch towards Gomorrah. Will Hillary's joyless forced march to the nomination continue, or will the old man steal one in Michigan?

While I wait, I'll share with you all an extrordinarily depressing text conversation I had with my son this afternoon. In the course of an otherwise harmless exchange, he informed me that there now exist robots who have been programmed to write music for the purposes of background music for commercials, movies etc. and apparently, they aren't half bad! Oh, and software exists that can extend the Bot-music for as long as the sequence demands. In other words, human musicians need not apply.

Since nobody on earth could accuse me of keeping up with technology, I was flabbergasted that such a thing was possible. Aghast, I shot back:

"What!? I wonder when we will see our first robot-written novel?? Or poetry???"

To which, without so much as a moment's hesitation, he delivered the news that it's already happened on the poetry side. He then provided me a link where I could go and read a collection of poetry and try and decide whether a poem was written by a human or a robot! I informed him that if I lived to be a hundred years old, I would never visit such a website!! 

Our conversation ended on a happier note, but it stills haunts me. Robots writing novels? Bot-music?? I'm sorry, art simply isn't art unless it proceeds from the imagination of human being. Art can't be produced by soulless things. Otherwise, it's just a commodity, a mass-produced blob of a thing that is spit out of a giant, faceless machine! The very idea that a programmed device is thought  capable of the creative impulse neccesary to conceive and then construct art is...is...I don't know what it is. But I'm pretty sure it's despicable!

All of my life I've been told by all the smart people how the technological revolution was great news for the human race. Indeed, I enjoy it's fruit every single day, and am right this minute, writing this blog on my iPad. But when I see the rise of drones and the rapidly advancing army of robots out there...yes, making our work easier, but also making us easier to do without, I'm starting to fear this brave new world. I'm no Luddite, just a little concerned about just where we human beings fit into the plans of the geniuses in Silicon Valley. Will my as yet unborn grandchildren have enough skill to do anything better and cheaper than the machines that will be coming online 20 years from now? If not, what on earth will they do with themselves?

Goodbye, Downton Abbey

Pam and I watched the very last episode of Downton Abbey last night. The fact that someone like me would have watched even one episode of such a show is astonishing now that I think about it. Generally speaking, I've never been particularly fond of the British, with the notable exceptions of Winston Churchill, William Shakespeare, and The Beatles. When I think of England, I think of General Bernard Montgomery of WWII fame, a pompous gasbag who couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag, but looked splendid in a uniform having his afternoon tea while George Patton was busy kicking Germany's ass. But, I digress.

Despite my misgivings, this show got it's hooks into me from the very start six years ago. I have spent those six years trying to figure out why. Was it the house? Might it have been the great writing? The richly drawn characters? The fascinating interaction of the classes? The grand sweep of the story?

Yes.

 Although last night's two hour finale wasn't the show's finest hour...everything got wrapped up with too tidy a bow for my taste...it left me sad that it was over. It felt like my one hour a week of civilization has died. Now we can all go back to the sewer of the Presidential election 24/7. Great. But, all good things must come to an end, I'm told. 

So, goodbye to a drama about characters who you cared about. Goodbye to intelligent conversation. Goodbye to that beautiful estate, and that majestic countryside. Goodbye to Carson's prodigious eyebrows, Mrs. Hughes' charming Scottish accent. Goodbye to Daisy's insufferable whining, and Mr. Bates' perpetually tilted head and slumped shoulders. Goodbye to sweet, sweet Anna, the lovably bumbling Mosley, and the constantly harried Mrs. Patmore. But most of all...and I can hardly make myself write it...goodbye to the splendid, unstoppable Dowager Countess, without whom the show would have failed miserably. Watching her for six years on Sunday nights has forced me to add Maggie Smith to my list of most admired Englishmen. What a beauty she was, with her caustic observations, withering one-liners and truly hysterical facial expressions. The woman carried the show, and above all others will be missed, even mourned the most.

Goodbye Downton, and here's hoping that your lasting legacy might prove to be a return to....good manners.

Pat Conroy. Oct. 1945 - Mar. 2016

Pat Conroy died yesterday. He was only 70. He had pancreatic cancer. I wasn't even aware that he was sick. Still, it surprised me that he would have died by means other than suicide. Pat Conroy was and remains my favorite American writer of the 20th century. No one else is even close.

I was introduced to him the year before the birth of my first child, 1986. The book was The Prince of Tides. I was mesmerized by the lushness of his prose, its beauty and power, and the dark, disturbing story. Like all of Conroy's work, Prince was thinly veiled autobiography. To say that he had a rough childhood somehow sounds flippant. His childhood was brutal and horrifying, and the fictionalized version of it made for spellbinding reading. I was hooked. 

From there I began devouring everything else from this modern day Faulkner. First it was The Great Santini, then The River is Wide and The Lords of Discipline. All were set in the low country of South Carolina, with its brooding marshes, succulent shrimp dishes and humid briny breezes. Each novel was a new chapter from the author's tortured life; Santini, the story of his animalistic marine corps father, River, the story of his short, unhappy year as a teacher of poor kids on Daufuskie Island, and Lords, the deeply disturbing account of his four years at South Carolina's Citadel. I would read his work in much the same way as a motorist stares at a four car pile up on the interstate, half expecting to see a severed head rolling along the road. But despite the bleak darkness of his life, there were moments of beauty made more compelling by the darkness. There was a tenderness about his heroes that survived  the evil. Even though you knew there wouldn't be a happy ending, you plowed on because the beauty of his writing was worth it. He had the southerner's gift for story telling, the kind of stories that just couldn't possibly be true. As you read, you were convinced that it was all outlandish fiction right up to the very second when you discovered it wasn't, an artful turn of phrase that betrayed the autobiographers hand. It was then that you would shudder, and recoil a bit. Great writing will do that.

I became something of a Pat Conroy evangelist back in 1986. I gave the book to my sister, raving that I had discovered the greatest southern novelist since Thomas Wolfe. She hated it. Claimed it was too disturbing. She was right, of course. I soon discovered that Conroy wasn't for everyone.

His later novels, Beach Music and South of Broad werent as good as his earlier work, but still very good. In an interview he gave a few years ago he had said that growing up in a dysfunctional family had been the greatest gift any writer could have been given. His brother Tom committed suicide, his sister spent time in a mental hospital, and the author had two nervous breakdowns while writing, or at least two that his publicist will admit to. And now he has succumbed to cancer.

To read a Conroy book is like grieving for something. To become emersed in such a nightmarish life is to appreciate all the more the normality of your own. To imagine the Great Santini striding over his family like a simmering, hulking beast is to nearly cry at the gentle goodness of your own father. When I finished Santini I remember thinking, this is what life could have been like if I had belonged to someone else.

So, today I thank the great writer for making me love my parents even more.

Rest in Peace, Pat Conroy.

The Perfect President

It's a whole lot easier to identify bad Presidential candidates than it is to recognize good ones. In this particular race the truly horrendous ones stand out like sore thumbs...again with the hands!! But the better candidates all have flaws as well. Besides, just being associated with this WWF-style campaign has stained them all. So, what if you could go into a lab somewhere and build the perfect Presidential candidate? What if you could create the perfect candidate out of spare parts from the basement over at the Smithsonian? Of course, the candidate who I would build wouldn't necessarily be perfect for my liberal friends. My conservative friends wouldn't be totally thrilled either, I suspect, but...here goes.

Presidential candidate prototype

Physical characteristics:

Female, 5'6" 135 pounds. Blond hair, blue eyes. Not stunningly beautiful, but fairly attractive. No obvious scars or tattoos. No annoying facial tics. 55 years old.

Background:

Born in Kansas. Graduated from Kansas State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Obtained her Masters degree in History from the University of Virginia. Met and married her husband after grad school and settled in Charlottesville, Virginia where she began teaching high school history. After having two children and in only her fifth year as an educator, she wins national teacher of the year honors in a ceremony at the White House. It is while touring that great house that she decides she might like to be President one day. To better prepare herself for the job, she decides to retire from teaching and join the military. Consequently, she spends the next eight years serving her country in the United States Navy. Upon completion of her tour of duty, she returns to Charlottesville and wins a seat on the local school board, then as a delegate to the Virginia General Assembly, then two terms as a Congresswoman in Washington, DC.

Religion:

Presbyterian who actually attends church every Sunday, but never, ever talks about her faith in the course of her professional duties. When asked by the media about her faith she always responds, "I am a Christian who attends a Presbyterian church."

Hobbies:

Avid reader. Loves the classics, but also indulges in espionage novels, sci-fi thrillers, and the occasional murder mystery. Enjoys dogs, fishing, golf and brewing her own beer.

Policy Positions:

Wants to figure out a way to preserve Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for future generations while reversing the actuarial trend lines of those entitlements. Is committed to looking at all options available to get this done, including but not limited to, tax increases, benefit cuts, raising the retirement age, means testing and partial privatization. She sees all of these programs on a path to bankruptcy in the not too distant future and will not under any circumstances continue to do absolutely nothing about it. This is the central plank in her platform and primary motivation for her candidacy.

Is committed to achieving a balanced federal budget within ten years. Is willing to cut spending and raise taxes to get it done. No federal program will be exempt from cuts, including and especially the defense budget. 

Her foreign policy platform is based on a very old school of thought which she traces back to the founding fathers who believed in avoiding all "entangling alliances." She believes that if America doesn't want to get involved in another war in the Middle East, we should get the hell out of the Middle East. As a veteran, she is proud of the capabilities and virtue of the United States military, but is keenly aware of its limitations. It is not a nation building enterprise, it is a force to protect the American people from those who would do us harm, not a plaything of politicians who seem addicted to projecting power all over the world.

On the subject of immigration, she believes that our national borders can and should be secured. Any nation that loses control of its borders loses control of itself. However, building a giant wall to accomplish this is about as dumb an idea that has come along since the creation of the helium reserve. As far as the millions of undocumented aliens currently in the country, she believes that some pathway to becoming citizens would work better than rounding up millions of people for deportation.

She believes in a philosophy of honest government doing the things that it does best and only doing those things which the Constitution has given it the authority to do. Therefore, under her administration, all departments and bureaus of the federal government will be reviewed by a large and distinguished panel of scholars to determine their constitutionality. Then a recommendation will be submitted to Congress to determine the future of the Commerse Department, Department of Education, HUD etc...Any savings that may come from shuttered agencies will be put towards repaying the National debt.

She believes that abortion should only be an option if the life of the mother is at risk. She views the issue as one of protecting the defenseless child. However, she also views the issue as settled law that as President she has no power to change by fiat. Instead, she prefers promoting adoption as a more humane alternative. On the issue of gay marriage, she believes in the definition of marriage that had survived for four thousand years, but doesn't believe that the institution of marriage is something that is very much of the government's business in the first place.

She believes in tort law reform and criminal justice reform, especially in the area of sentencing. She believes that Americans should be discouraged from suing each other at the drop of a hat. She also believes that employers should not be allowed to deny job applicants consideration solely because of a criminal conviction. This needed reform would go a long way towards reversing the unacceptable unemployment rate among minorities.

She believes in tax reform which would feature the elimination of corporate tax loopholes that allow for the off-shoring of profits and the on-shoring of deductions. She prefers a combination of a flat tax with a minimum income requirement which would protect lower income families. She is flexible as to what rate the tax would settle on and is willing to listen to all suggestions. However, the end result must be the abolition of the IRS, and the end of tax accountants making a fortune courtesy of our 700,000 page tax code.

Ok, there you have it...my perfect Presidential candidate. If I left out your pet issue, feel free to complain. Or, even better...build your own candidate. 

Debate Fatigue

Apparently Donald Trump won another debate last night. At least that's what all the unscientific online polls say. Oh, and since Trump tweeted that he clearly won, it must be true. I didn't watch this time. I just couldn't. I'm worn out by it all.

From everything I've read this morning Mr. Trump outdid himself. Perhaps the all-time low point came when he reassured the American people that the size of his penis was indeed Presidential. That remark falls under the category, JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT COULDNT POSSIBLY GET ANY WORSE.

As an American, one who loves his country and feels grateful to live here, it is hard not to give in to despair, watching one of the two major political parties commit suicide. The reemergence of Mitt Romney, a two time loser in presidential politics, dark talk of a brokered convention and a third party challenge either to Trump or by him lead me to the conclusion that the Republican Party is about to go the way of the Whigs. And this from a party which controls both houses of congress and a majority of state houses. How, in the name of all that is holy did this happen?

I hear that Americans are angry. I hear this every day. It is referenced as a way of explaining the filthy thing that this campaign has become, as if anger justifies insanity. Am I angry? Well, yes. There are things about America in 2016 that I'm angry about. I'm angry that neither party seems to care about the 19 trillion dollars of debt we have run up. I'm angry that no one currently running for president has articulated how he or she plans on altering the certain fact that in 17 year's time every single dime that the federal government  spends will go to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Pentagon and the interest on our national debt. Sure, I'm angry about lots of things. But am I angry enough to jettison the Constitution, and elect a strongman? Am I angry enough at terrorism to elect a man who vows to force our military to commit war crimes? Am I angry enough at political correctness to elect a man who has elevated crudeness to presidential status? No. I will never be that angry.

Nothing seems to stop Mr. Trump's rise. No matter how many times he contradicts himself, no matter how many lies he gets caught in, no matter what vile thing flies out of his mouth, his poll numbers stay high. Maybe America is at a place where we want a strongman. Maybe we want someone large and in charge to ride into town and destroy things. Maybe we want to be freed from that straight jacket called the Bill of Rights. Maybe we have lost so much faith in our founding documents and principles that we are ready to have faith in something else, someone else. Maybe we are looking for the man on the strong horse because we have grown weary of weakness. 

But I have run out of explanations for Trump. Nothing I thought about him or his candidacy 8 months ago has turned out to be true, so what do I know? This I do know...no matter what happens from this point going forward, the Republican Party and this nation will never be the same as it was before Trump. I am overcome with the feeling that we are witnessing something gravely important, something about which our grandchildren will ask us to explain, "Pops, where were you and what did you do when Donald Trump took over the country?" I hope that I can claim that I fought hard against him, that I wasn't one of those who took the bait, that I maintained my faith in my country as founded. Hopefully I can point my grandkids to this blog as proof of my allegiance to republican government. 

Find The Trump Voter

"I just got back from my voting precinct.  I walked in beside an elderly couple, observed a mom inviting her teenage daughters to watch her mark her choice on her ballot, and stood in line behind 2 Muslim women and a young Hispanic woman.  My ID was taken by a woman who may have been of Greek descent, and I was given a ballot by an African-American woman.  A retired white man showed me how to submit my paper ballot, and a college-aged guy gave me my I VOTED sticker.  This is how we roll in America!  Whatever the outcome is today, we are in this together."

This is what my wife wrote yesterday after returning from her trip to Short Pump Elementary School where she had just voted. It was a beautiful sentiment. I too had been in that same gym several hours earlier doing the same thing. I too noticed the diversity of the folks in line ahead of me. But, unlike my wife, I was busy playing a more cynical game called, "Find the Trump voter."

There were about 40 people ahead of me in line when I arrived around 8:00 AM. The first person I noticed was a young guy with a man bun, wearing clothes from the 1970's Goodwill Industries collection. I immediately judged him to be a Bernie Sanders voter. Check.

Since I vote in a Short Pump precinct, there were only two African-Americans in line, a petite older woman directly in front of me and a college aged girl in the front of the line. Considering the fact that blacks are the only demographic in America who vote monolithically, there's a roughly 90% chance that these two women were Hillary voters. Check.

Then it got tougher. Here was a middle aged man with a neatly trimmed beard in khakis. Over there was a older man wearing jeans and a Titleist hat. Behind me, a harried younger woman with two toddlers had just walked in. Any of these people could have been Trump voters. Even the man directly behind me was suspect. He was a large man who smelled of banana bread and had started humming the tune to Onward Christian Soldiers. I thought, either Cruz or Trump. Check.

Then it occurred to me, that others in line might be playing the same game. If so, I wondered how they would judge me. I was wearing black dress pants and a casual shirt, with my black Raybans balanced on top of my head. Maybe the dude with the man bun had me pegged as a self-satisfied suburban sell-out who was probably going to vote for Jeb Bush. Check.

The results from last night were disappointing for me. Rubio came so close to pulling it out here in Virginia, but failed. Cruz won his home state and a couple of neighboring ones to remain relevant. If Rubio doesn't win his home state in a couple of weeks he will be gone. The big winner of the night, again, was Donald Trump. I just can't even.....

But, on the bright side, in my home state, 65% of those who cast ballots in the Republican primary cast them for someone other than Donald Trump. In addition, nowhere last night did he receive a majority of the votes, which I take to believe means that not everyone has taken leave of their senses. Still, unless voters can coalesce around a single alternative, the Republican nomination is Trump's for the taking. For the Democrats, it was never going to be anyone but Hillary Clinton. Note to Sanders supporters: you don't win elections by posting crap on Facebook, you win by actually showing up to vote!

So, now we wait for the next round of contests and look forward to weeks and weeks of political ads. As I walked back to my car after voting, a chilling thought came to mind . . . If America can make it through this election without somebody getting shot it will be a miracle.

Voting For Rubio

I'll be voting for Marco Rubio today. I'll walk past the volunteers making last minute pitches for their guy. I'll stand in line to prove to the nice old lady at the folding table that I am who I say I am. She will smile and place a mark by my name in her book, then kindly hand me off to another nice gentlemen who will walk me to the first available booth. Then I will mark my ballot for Mr. Rubio, the young senator from Florida.

He is not my first choice. I had preferred Rand Paul, but he dropped out weeks ago. Rubio is not without his share of shortcomings. His resume is a bit thin. His aggressive foreign policy stances make me nervous. But in a field which features a brain surgeon, a bloviating bore, and a bomb-throwing back bencher, he has gotten my vote by default.

I vote for Rubio primarily because I believe him to have the best chance, albeit a rapidly vanishing one, to derail the Trump nightmare. The second factor in my decision is the issue of temperament. Ted Cruz is very smart, knows the constitution as well as anyone to come along in politics in my lifetime. But he seems to revel in the fact that his colleagues despise him, lacking the self awareness that this fact might disqualify his ability to get anything done once elected. If everyone hates you there's two ways you can respond. You can step back and ask some hard questions of yourself like, "Geez, how come everybody hates me? Maybe I should stop acting like a jerk." Or, you can double down on your asshattery by convincing yourself that they all hate you because you're smarter than them. Mr. Cruz seems to have settled on the latter. While some may view this as principled, others may judge this as a character flaw which would make his Presidency problematic , making the building of coalitions difficult if not impossible.

So, I vote for Rubio. Then I get my sticker and place it on my shirt. I will watch the returns tonight to see if voters around the country, having stared into the abyss of Donald Trump, have suddenly recoiled in horror and snapped out of it, or if Super Tuesday goes down as the day the Republican Party slipped into the oblivion of history. 

If it's Trump after tonight, the Republican Party will have chosen a man who can't even disavow David Duke, and who's most famous bit of life advice was, "You know, it doesn't really matter what the media says about you as long as you have a young, beautiful piece of ass."

Let that sink in for a minute, then go and do your civic duty.