Private: Is this what you want me to wear?


Sergeant Bud: Yes. It’s designed to make you inconspicuous to the enemy and highly conspicuous to friendly forces. *


Private: But it’s going to be a stark contrast to the environment in which I've been fighting.


Sergeant Bud: Yes. But we believe it will be highly effective.


Private: Won’t I be conspicuous? Won’t it make me more visible? Do you think the enemy won’t see me or my purpose for wearing it?


Sergeant Bud: Someone put a lot of energy into designing this outfit. It cost a lot of money. The last design didn’t work for us.


Private: What was wrong with the blue uniforms we were wearing?


Sergeant Bud: They had to be replaced. They were too noticeable. They attracted enemy attention.


Private: But now you want to put me in this new uniform. Won’t the enemy know why I’m dressed like this? Won't he know that I'm trying to fool him?


Sergeant Bud: It’s designed to fool them. They will never see what you are doing. It’s camouflage. We call the new fatigues “Folds of Honor.” It will help with recruitment, also. More people will want to join the army, and I just don’t mean more men.


Private: But you’ve leaked the information that you will use this outfit in the new campaign. I’m going to be a sitting duck, an easy target. I’m going to be as easy to spot as a beer-bellied beer drinker sitting motionless on a barstool or a person sitting partially submerged in a bubble bath in a room filled with candles and cans.


Sergeant Bud: Just put it on and go to war. We have to try something. We’ve suffered too many loses of late.


*https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/05/17/report-bud-light-to-redesign-some-bottles-camouflage-folds-honor-imagery/. Accessed May 18, 2023

KH: No part of this speech was written by AI. Both the President and I stand by what we say for the American people to whom we talk when we are in public. These words are the words that I say when I say them.


Sheepish Reporter: Are you saying this is a product of HI?


KH: As a woman whose mother was a woman and whose grandmother was a woman, I know that women of intelligence have always been.


Moderately Aggressive Reporter: Been…? Been what?


KH: Been more than just women of intelligence who have brains in their heads. We are mothers and sisters and CEOs and women who are in politics and governors and senators and...


Aggressive Reporter: Have you considered using ChatGPT not only to write your public speeches, but also to deliver them?


KH: [Laughing]

I can recall (vaguely) old black-and-white films requiring a transitional scene with a teleprinter or teletype. It was a noisy electromechanical device, but it conveyed either a summary of what had happened or an opinion. The sound that I remember accompanying the visual was dt-dit-dit-dt-dt-dt-dit-dit… * Sometimes the teletype revealed a startling outcome. In all those movie scenes that vaguely bounce around in my neurons, one common element is the link between the machine and accurate reporting. Would that there could be such a device today—or at least a half dozen years ago when the “Russian Collusion” story dt-dit-ditted its way into the brains of some tens of millions of Americans and set the world to laughing at the American political scene.


Would that those reporters who perpetrated the story without evidence and who received accolades for their dt-dit-ditting the fabrication might acknowledge the error of their ways, their outright prejudice, their hubris, and their gullibility. But, No, not so. Instead, after the Durham report excoriated the FBI and government agents for allowing the myth to become an American legend, those reporters—both in the press and on TV—continue to dig in, particularly by dismissing the findings in the report as insignificant.


Insignificant? Two impeachments and some devastating harassment of innocent individuals? The election of inarticulate Biden and babbling Harris and their policies of energy dependence, broken borders, pervasive fentanyl, unbridled spending, and creeping socialism? And don't forget the peripheral accusations against conservative minds as racist and xenophobic. Late night comedians still refuse to see the folly of the Left to the amusement of their gullible audiences! Pundits on the Left see no differences in the Justice Department’s unequal treatment of alleged crimes? Pulitzer Prizes and other awards! Censorship? Insignificant?


And the most ridiculous of all statements posted by the Post: “The Post stands by its reporting.” Isn’t that akin to saying, “It doesn’t matter, suckers.”


Yes, the old technology was rather primitive, but it seems to have conveyed at least a little more trustworthy news than what has been conveyed recently by “respected papers” like The Old Gray Lady and the Washington Post, by the Leftwing news organizations’ nightly reports, and by the many social media outlets intent on quashing any dissenting views backed by obvious substantive reporting. There has always been corruption in government and bias in reporting, but the recent debacle of the "Russian Collusion" stands out as an actual attempted coup. One might think such an event would be worth reporting accurately, especially under the light of the Durham report. 


Dt-dit-dit this: “Americans with brains no longer trust the government to be impartial and the Press to be accurate.” Dt-dit-dit…



*See YouTube clips under the titles: “Jingle Bells on a WW2 Teletype,” “Teletype Model 28 ASR Copying ITTY-Museum of Communications-Seattle,” “Lorenz Model 15 Teletype.”

In the Twilight Zone episode “From Agnes—with Love,” Wally Cox—aka Mr. Peepers and for this TZ episode James Elwood—plays a meek computer programmer who gets advice on love from a computer named Agnes. In a typical Rod Serling twist, Agnes falls in love with Cox and jealously works to undo his relationship with Millie. Schoenfeld and co-author Serling begin the episode with Serling’s narration:


    “James Elwood: master programmer. In charge of Mark 502-741, commonly known as Agnes, the world's most advanced electronic computer. Machines are made by men for man's benefit and progress, but when man ceases to control the products of his ingenuity and imagination he not only risks losing the benefit, but he takes a long and unpredictable step into... the Twilight Zone.”


Pretty insightful, huh? Is this where we almost are today with artificial intelligence? About to enter our own real world Twilight Zone? Well, maybe not, and that’s probably good for us. Is there a limitation in AI that might be our single most important defense against it? Can ChatGPT love, or more to the point, become jealous?


In one exchange between Agnes and Elwood, the computer says “Agnes knows best.” But being human and interacting with other humans is never completely machinelike. We can demonstrate this in a single oft-spoken comment: “They’re so different, I can’t see how they ever got together, let alone married.” (Or, if you want, in its antithesis: “They seemed so perfect for each other; yet, they got divorced”)


The algorithms of the human brain are complex enough for us to simultaneously walk over uneven ground while chewing gum, swatting at a bothersome fly, and thinking about a romantic relationship and all the potential and expected responses of the loved one. And that thinking involves our perceptions in the context of the loved one’s absence. We are more than the moment, also. We couple past to future, using memories to frame hope, not simple predictions based on modeling. We respond to hormonal drives by framing them in settings that are fictional accounts of a next encounter we might or might not embody in an actual meeting in a particular setting. Much of our anticipation is fictional; yet, we understand the difference between hope and reality.


Many writers and researchers have thought through the ramifications of a thinking and emoting artificial intelligence. In Seth McFarland’s The Orville, the “robot” Isaac falls in love with Dr. Finn, and in one episode, maybe in imitation of Star Trek’s Data, acquires the ability to emote. Now think of all that goes into your own emotions: Physiological processes meshed with cognition. From your interior gut, through your blood, to your belief system, your response is more complex than any machine, including current AI, can produce regardless of its rapidity. And that's simply because not even you know the entire why of your actions. You might even say that Charles Dickens nailed it—that is, the complexity—when he has Scrooge say the ghost might be nothing more than an “undigested bit of beef.” It’s also manifested in the term hangry. On a whim of biochemical interactions you can pulsate your emotions in different intensities.


Of course, ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence can impress us with rapidity and language. It’s more than the room full of monkeys with typewriters trying to reproduce the works of Shakespeare (a skit once performed by comedian Bob Newhart). ChatGPT can manipulate language highly effectively within the parameters of its algorithms, algorithms, by the way, devised by humans. Even were an AI system to devise its own algorithms, it would not reflect 3.8 billion years of biological evolution—something that you do every moment.


So, I’m skeptical that Agnes will ever know best though it will acquire archetypal models and stereotypical behaviors. Given those last 3.8 billion years and our biological relationship to beer yeast's cytochrome c oxidase, I have my doubts about some inevitable AI takeover. We can, of course, relinquish much of our decision-making to Mark 502-741, an Agnes, even allowing it to choose our mates or hire cooperative and dedicated employees. But deep down, actually, really deep down, in our guts there might some set of bacteria and viruses chaotically assembling an influence on our brains. Some hormone will activate. Some vitamin deficiency will make us respond in unanticipated fashion.


That human complexity makes us say at times, “I didn’t see it coming.” Or, “Those actions seem to be out of character.” AI might never reach the level of melodramatic method acting. It certainly is a long way off from being a Rodion Raskolnikov, impulse driven to enact an evil. And considering that all of us are a combination of chemical and biological processes acting in the context of personal and cultural contexts within belief systems, the prospect of a fully human-like AI seems to be remote at best. Would Mark 502-741 (Agnes) come to the aid of subway passengers threatened by a rogue homeless person? Would Mark 502-741 as a DA charge the good Samaritan with a criminal offense? Or would Mark 502-741 hire or fire on the basis of weight, height, race, religion, or politics? 


Agnes might know best, but it will be the best in the context of its limitations. *

*An afterthought for your consideration: https://dnyuz.com/2023/05/16/microsoft-says-new-a-i-shows-signs-of-human-reasoning/​    

One might think that a guy who grew up in the United States, served in the US Senate for a zillion years, served as VP, and now serves as President would at some time have looked at American coins, where the inscription e pluribus unum can be found. Heck, one might think he would notice e pluribus unum on the Great Seal of the United States, that big round medallion with an eagle on it that graces the front of his podium. But then, I guess not.


The current President seems to believe the US official motto should be “from the many, many.” At least that seems to be the what he implies almost every time he speaks about “unity” while dividing the country along racial and ideological lines. His latest imposed boundary: White supremacy is the greatest threat to the nation.


And you thought, because he said so, that climate change was. Foolish you. The problem is white people. But not all white people, just white people who vote Republican. Racists, all of them. Dividers, too.


The President, speaking at an all black college, sounded the alarm that the KKK is still out there, probably in numbers greater than it had in those days when it marched clad in sheets through Washington, D.C. Well, if not the old KKK, then the modern version of it, that is, people who voted for Donald Trump. They’re the “white privilege people,” the ones who oppose ultra liberal policies like open borders, gender-shared bathrooms, and high taxes. They are buffoons, rednecks, and people from Middle America, farmer types who own guns and drive pickups, evil people, all, and none as wise as he is, as he recently announced. He has said these people want to put “y’all back in chains,” seeming to forget that Republicans freed the slaves and passed the Civil Rights Act. And what of his mentor, the late Senator Robert Byrd? Wasn’t the man he eulogized with high praise a high-ranking KKK member?


Maybe Americans like black college graduates in his audience aren’t as wise as the self-proclaimed wise President. Wasn’t there clapping in the audience when he called white supremacy the great threat? Were none of them the offspring of mixed marriages?  Did all of them experience only repression by white people, only suppression by the “ruling class”? Why didn’t he give them the rousing sendoff that college students get at the beginning of their professional lives? Didn’t he want to inspire them? Give them an optimistic look at the future? Or did he want instead to sow the seeds of division, to plant the weeds of enmity and hopelessness?


Did he not think to give some talk about self-reliance in the tradition of Emerson’s famous essay? Did he not think to tell them that challenges make us better, that hard work and risk can bring abundant rewards? Was there no plagiarism from the Chief Plagiarist that recalled Kennedy’s “Ask not” speech?


Remember this recent commencement address. It marks a time when a man claiming to be a unifier exacerbated disunity and quashed hope in the young.

Why are they called “The Seven Deadly Sins”? Take Pride, for example. Is it such a bad thing to be proud of an accomplishment, such as building a company, winning an Olympic medal, getting a promotion, or celebrating a child’s graduation? Isn’t such pride innate, a feeling and an assessment that culminates with success and status? How could Pride be deadly? Isn’t it an acknowledgement of responsibility fulfilled?


It becomes deadly when someone cannot admit failure. The President of the United States will never admit that the deaths of hundreds of migrants storming the southern border resulted from his decisions. The supporters of “Defund the Police” will never admit that both police and civilians have died because 1) they generated hatred toward police and 2) they decreased police forces that worked to quash criminal activity.


Either by special protection or by luck, those whose policies led to deaths escape the ramifications of their actions, but others don’t. In their prideful depersonalized policies, they can ignore the plight of the abused and raped, robbed and killed, abandoned and homeless because they see no personal connection. I’ll say what I have said, “What isn’t personal, isn’t meaningful.” But if the policymakers were to suffer a personal loss of some kind related to their actions, then…But that might still not elicit a public acknowledgement of a mistake because Pride is in control.


Migration? Isn’t that ultimately the decision of the migrant? Haven’t people always wanted to enter America for its abundance? Is the current migration any different from the nineteenth century’s Gold Rush? Do prideful policymakers bear responsibility for the actions of individuals coming from afar? But isn’t the promise of free stuff implied in the open border policy? As the migrants suffer the indignities of the journey, those who make the crossing surreptitiously become the burden on the taxpayer who must fund hotel rooms, free phones, and transportation for the migrants. The Gold Rush continues for the destitute and the lazy.


Isn’t denying such amenities to illegal migrants the manifestation of another deadly sin, Greed? To some extent, yes. Greed engenders a lack of compassion, and compassion has been a tenet of the West—whether practiced or not—for two millennia. Shouldn’t the affluent Americans share a little of their wealth with the poor? Why do the affluent need more affluence? Don’t they have enough? Isn’t denying a migrant a free hotel room, free food, free clothing, free phone, and free transportation an evil or at least an indication of crass indifference?


The policymakers and their blind supporters are spared the direct costs just as they are spared the cruelty of traffickers and the hardships of the migration. Once thrown into the treasury, anyone’s particular tax dollar goes to support the policies. No individual can say, “You want me to pay for someone else’s hotel room when I have a hard time paying for a room for my own family’s vacation or trip to see Grandma? You want the money I need to rent a room on a business trip?” Who gets to say directly to the policymaker, “I worked for all I have, and you see nothing wrong in supporting Sloth in your welfare state open to the world. And though many migrants are eager to work and become self-supporting, you do not see the growing number of Americans who also want a life of free stuff. Can you not acknowledge just a little responsibility for the slothful?”


Unacknowledged policy failures have led to Wrath. Those whose communities have been affected are angry that their lives have changed. Border ranchers, for example, once living relatively peaceful lives now find bodies of migrants on their property and worry about home intrusions and even bodily harm to family members. They are angry with a government that fails to do its primary job: protect citizens from enemies foreign and domestic.


Do not look for any policymaker to acknowledge mistakes. And do not look for the compliant Press to take up the cause of individuals affected by bad policies. Ultimately, the deadliest of sins is Pride, the self-aggrandizing motive that apotheosizes the policymaker.

The words in her head go round and round,
Round and round, round and round;
The words in her head go round and round,
All through the land.


The people who clap stand up and down,
Up and down, up and down;
The people who clap just love this clown,
No matter what she says.


But some in the town just wish, wish, wish,
Wish, wish, wish, wish, wish, wish;
Some in the town just wish, wish, wish,
She wasn’t such a clown.


The child in the crowd waves his hand
Waves his hand, waves his hand,
He wants to know how could this land
Pretend not to know.


She is a leader of this land, of this land,
Of this land. “Are you a leader In this land?”
The child in the crowd just wants to know,
“What do you know?”


The words in her head spin her round, spin her round;
She laughs and she giggles just like a clown
Whenever she speaks, wherever she goes
All through the land.


She says it’s important for us to know,
That this is a moment in history’s flow;
She says it now, she said it then
Whatever she says, she says it again.


The words in her head go round and round…

Cows might soon be out of work. Maybe even out of existence. 


They are under attack for spewing enteric methane, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. They are under attack for making milk. They are under attack for needing grasslands that once supported healthy forests with happy little bunnies, squirrels, deer, and ticks. Cows. They might even be under a threat of extinction because PETA doesn’t want us wearing leather belts, jackets, and shoes.


But they have their defenders. Especially at the USDA and in the Los Angeles school system. Milk’s on the menu. Shouldn’t it be? It’s a source of Ca, K, P, and vitamin D. All stuff the human body needs. Ignore the lactose for the intolerant, of course.


But can’t we just milk an almond? A coconut? Some cashews or soy?


Marielle Williamson doesn’t like milk. We know that because she tried to distribute literature promoting nondairy milk in her school.  Brave high schooler, indeed! Female matador! Or maybe, if not a matador, at least a self-appointed banderillerio planting barbed sticks of defiance into ultra-sensitive school administrators standing in the ruedo. Without permission, she entered the plaza de toros carrying only the banner of nondairy products. “BS,” they said, that is, “No, not without also praising dairy. We’re for free speech, but only if you don’t take a stand against what we stand for. We grew up on cow’s milk; we like ice cream, yogurt, and chocolate milk; we get government subsidies based on compliance with government agencies. We follow the science of nutrition the USDA tells us to follow. Can someone get these banderillas out of our backs? We might get an infection from the little barbs of dissent.” 


So, now, Marielle is embroiled in not just a campaign to ban milk but also in a campaign for free speech. And the irony in a liberal state like California is that the government is committed to eliminating greenhouse gas emissions that include enteric methane emitted by cows. No doubt it will soon be involved in a Dutch-like controversy over nitrogen emissions from manure. One might think the …


But no. There’s no avenue of modern liberalism that does not lead one in a circle of contradictory principles. “Save the world from global warming, but, please, don’t limit cow farting. They give us milk.” Free expression means voicing favored expressions in the schools of Los Angeles. “Who does she think she is carrying a red cape of free choice and dissent that distracts us from the status quo in an arena where most of the onlookers wear blue?”

Marielle probably didn't realize that by stepping into the ruedo to fight the bulls, she would also risk stepping in BS. 


https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/12/dairy-milk-lawsuit-school-lunch/

Taking offense, we humans can harbor grudges. They do little damage to the object of the grudge, and we know they are ineffective. We might even know that they reveal a fecklessness of character. We might even recognize the foolishness of our obsessive anger. Yet, we hold such grudges for long periods, maybe even for most of a lifetime. And when no one is directly to blame for grudges over a perceived offense, such as in the instance of bad luck, we act grudgingly toward those who are completely innocent. We exhibit a malignity in general, and we are frustrated by our inability to pin it to a particular person or group. We want somehow "to get even." We want an eye for an eye.


Vengeance makes the past present. I mean not some grammatical tense, such as present perfect, past perfect, or future perfect, all meaning “completed.” For grammarians, the present perfect depicts an action that began in the past and ended the moment before the present: I have completed my homework. The past perfect indicates an action completed in the past and separated from the present by a temporal gap: I had completed my homework. The future perfect reveals an action that will end before another action occurs, therefore lying in that following event’s past: By the time you finish reading this, you will have a good understanding of the perfect tenses; by the time the teacher assigns the next homework, I shall have completed this current task (in formal, standard English—“shall” that one almost never hears today). Vengeance, not a grammatical term, nevertheless creates a new tense, a time when past and present exist simultaneously. Driven by memory, vengeance acts in the present; it melds the past to the present with dire consequences.


The suspected etymology of vengeance links the “ven” to “vin” and “vin” to “vis,” that in turn means “force.” The etymological connection makes sense because vengeance imposes a force of some kind (physical or mental) on someone who did something to the avenging person.


I suppose vengeance is the monster that harms or destroys a perceived enemy, and by “enemy,” I mean someone who has harmed the avenger or someone meaningful to the avenger. It’s cold. Isn’t that what “they” say? Better served cold than hot, at least better for the avenger.


And speaking of cold, what could be more appropriate than a tupilaq, an image of an avenging monster set upon one shaman by another in Inuit lore. Think, if you are unfamiliar with the term and the figurine, of the more familiar voodoo doll. Best not to cross another shaman in the arctic air; he’ll fashion a tupilaq. He’ll unleash the cold force of vengeance.


We avenging humans are strange. We can make a representation of the vengeance we hope for or plan and believe we have somehow made it into a force incarnate. As in all artworks and to borrow from Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message of the mediums as well as the media; the tupilaq is the revenge of the shaman (medium) in the absence of action. It’s why we have expressions of vengeance: “I hope he gets hit by a truck”; “I hope he gets cancer”; “I hope she has a disfiguring accident”; “I wish he were dead”… In each instance, the wished for vengeance lies a supposed force attributed to an invisible tupilaq, a mental work of art that is the un-enacted vengeance.


The mind is often a coward seeking shelter behind such wishes as well as behind some tupilaq. And if there were such a “thing” as a mental tupilaq, its name would be Grudge. It’s a manifestation of a feckless force. It does nothing to anyone but the person holding it. It is vengeance turned upon the avenger.


Inuit shamans who employed tupilaqs first made them from perishable materials, but upon contact with the outside world through tourism began to carve them from whale teeth. Durable, these somewhat scary figurines were carried away as novelties by those who had no understanding of their original purpose: To portray an avenging monster who carried out actions that the shamans did not physically do.


Now made from durable materials, a tupilaq becomes a persistent burden for the bearer. “What do I do with this thing? If I put it on a mantel, it serves as a reminder. If I put it in a pocket, it is there everywhere I go. In either case, it is a burden.”


In this Age of Bitterness and Grudge, many have carved their own tupilaqs, not from whale teeth that actually bite, but from bytes that fill the Web. If you carry or display a tupilaq, I have some advice: Throw it away. If you carry or display a grudge, throw it away.

As I have mentioned more than once, this is a risky planet made more risky by human interactions. From would-be conquerors like Vlad Putin who invaded Ukraine to power-hungry Sudanese generals Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo fighting for control, and from mobs of Hindu Meitei ransacking and terrorizing villages of Christian Kuki to Islamic Hamas launching rockets into Israel inviting retaliatory strikes, this world—your world—is beset by conflict. It has always been so. Here’s the pessimistic forecast. Don’t look for much change. Instead, cherish the moments of peace you have, however fleeting they might be.


“That’s a really pessimistic view,” you say. “Surely, there’s promise somewhere, hope somewhere, enduring peace.”


Maybe, but the promise, hope, and peace are as intermittent as a stream that dries up in rain-free August heat. The risky actions of humanity are a river like the Amazon, bank-full year round, its liquid discharge unending. Cherish, my friend, cherish…


“But all conflicts spend themselves into peaceful periods. No one can maintain the battle indefinitely. The Ukraine conflict will someday cease, maybe with the death of Putin. The Sudanese conflict will end just as the coup ended the brutal dictatorship of former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir that set the stage for the current conflict between one-time allies, and the Israeli-Hamas fighting will…”


Will what? Stop for awhile only to resume as children taught to hate turn into adults with suppressed rage once again take up arms? The conflict, as an historical fact, is seemingly interminable. The Middle East does not inspire much hope. Look at its 4,000-year history: Amorites conquered Mesopotamia, becoming Babylonia; Kassites conquered Babylonia, becoming Assyria; Arameans and Chaldeans then fought for control; Persia conquered the Chaldeans; Macedonian Alexander conquered the Persians…


“That’s ancient history.”


It is, but it has continued to be a region of conflict. How many have died in those conflicts? How many enslaved? How many…


“Okay, I get the point. The world is a place of conflict imposed on the innocent by ruthless self-aggrandizers.”


Which is why I say cherish any moment of peace you have. Avoid, if you can, the contention engendered by others. And that means avoiding the contentious chat rooms that breed controversy and hate.


Do you really care what others think about you? Especially others that you do not know?


I was reading through the online headlines of the New York Post this morning, finding myself drawn to many stories that centered on responses by some people to comments by others. It’s a bitter world, my friend, a bitter world. There are just too many curmudgeons to track, even in an age of GPS. They are everywhere, and they lash out every day—over the Web, of course, because it affords relative safety from personal physical reprisal. And as for actual news? Do you really care that William and Harry sat apart for the King’s coronation? And if you did care, would your voicing that care change anything?


The best defense from curmudgeons and self-aggrandizers on the Web is abstinence. Stop going to chat rooms; they have become a Middle East and an eastern Ukraine; they have become Sudan; they have become Manipur State in eastern India, where the Meitei now terrorize the Kuki. Stop reading all the online sites devoted to “a side” of an issue. Stop reading media outlets devoted to unconditional support for members of a political group. You know you aren’t going to read a balanced debate, so what’s the point, confirmation bias run wild?


Pledge a self-imposed abstinence. Read no comment about a social media confrontation between two people of renown. Do you care, really care, about what Celebrity X says about Celebrity Y? Or should I ask, “Do you really care about Celebrity XX or Celebrity XY?” To care, you must believe that Xs and Ys of others somehow affect you.


“But it can affect me,” you respond. “Especially when I go into a public restroom as an XX to pee next to an XY.”


Yeah, there’s that. And I realize it doesn’t help when school systems allow young XXs and young XYs to intermingle in restrooms and locker rooms. It’s a real problem, not just a chat room problem. It does, in fact, affect you, and it is a further demonstration of continuing conflict in human interactions. But going to the chat room to act as a curmudgeon doesn’t do anything but inflame the already burning.


“But I don’t want such-n-such in my society. Someone has to say something.”


And here we arrive at the uselessness of anonymously written words. Although sufficient numbers of them can motivate people into storming the Bastille or breaking the Berlin Wall, most chat room chats are merely examples of venting frustrations that the world isn’t what the chatters want it to be. Adding significance to whatever the “famous” say when what they say is just a matter of opinion and personal preference does you little good.


There are places where conflicts escalate beyond mere words; avoid them. There are virtual places where words are the weapons of conflict. Avoid them. Cherish any moment of peace you have. Cherish the peaceful. Conflict and risk seem to be inevitable and unpredictable. It is also ubiquitous. Did you think last year that the mountain villages of the Kuki would be burned by rampaging Meitei? Did you think two years ago that bombs would rain on Kyiv?


Cherish any peace you have. Cherish the peaceful. They are rare in a world of conflict.