The Illusion of Possession

"Let yourself be surprised." -- Sarah Braunstein ("Early Web's Magic"/New Yorker)

______

Over too many years I was a loyal (too loyal) customer of one of the evil empires, Comcast (aka Xfinity). As part of the huge monthly payments they extracted from me, I purchased, or thought I purchased many of my favorite movies.

You know the ones. Casablanca, Charade, Pink Panther, Witness, Hunger Games, Sound of Music, Wizard of Oz, Love Actually, It's a Wonderful Life, and so on -- somewhere around 50  in all.

I paid whatever the going rate was to "purchase" them -- $9.99 to $14.99 mostly, I think.

But recently Xfinity redesigned its website, and the option to select "Your Purchases" disappeared from the menu. So I did the only thing any frustrated customer can do, and contacted Customer Service.

That turned into an extended ordeal, starting with the requisite chat with a robot. The robot serving me got tangled up in my request because it had not been programmed to respond to requests for "saved purchases," apparently.

After many such chats, and repeated calls to the customer service phone line, which never yielded a human being, I finally did somehow connect with a delightful fellow on the other side of the world.

I was angry, you know, the righteous anger of a customer who has been cheated, but this gentleman seemed to possess endless patience as he searched database after database for my missing movies. 

"They must be here," he insisted. "There must be a way for you to view your movies. They're *yours* after all."

Well, it turns out there wasn't a way and also that they aren't mine, not really.

First, though, I did what I always do in this age of technology. I changed browsers, updated my operating system, searched Twitter, returned to the fruitless robotic chat sessions, tried to reach another actual human being by phone; on and on it went.

Finally, one day, bingo! Using Chrome, I snuck into the Xfinity website, convinced it I was me, and started searching new movies. After a while, under "other options," I suddenly could load my entire library of purchased films once again in all their glory.

I selected one for viewing, probably Casablanca, and bookmarked the site.

That was a month ago. The bookmark has never worked since and I've never been able to replicate the obscure clickstream that yielded my treasure despite multiple attempts to do so.

Recently I just gave up. I guess those possessions of mine, like virtually everything else I once thought I owned, are gone forever.

***

This week my old friend The Nation, also the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S. (156 years) published an essay that provides the context for my bad experience of losing my movies.

"Sell This Book! Corporate publishing wants to turn all readers into renters" is the name of the essay by Maria Bustillos.

"Maybe you’ve noticed how things keep disappearing—or stop working—when you “buy” them online from big platforms like Netflix and Amazon, Microsoft and Apple," she writes. "You can watch their movies and use their software and read their books—but only until they decide to pull the plug. You don’t actually own these things—you can only rent them."

The author is a founder of the Brick House Cooperative, a venture that is proactively fighting against this immoral attempt by corporations to take away our right to own things by selling rentable ebooks to libraries.

This won't get my movies back, of course, but at least it is a step in the right direction.

If you think this is only a marginal issue in your particular life, think again. As my son-in-law with an MBA reminds me, "In capitalism there are only two classes of people. There are owners and there are renters."

When it comes to books, movies, video games, and any kind of software, you my friend own nothing -- you are like me, just a renter.

(From August 2021) 

The Numbers

The polls at this point are like snapshots — they capture a moment in time but the longer term trend is what matters.

And for the past three weeks, the trend indicates that Harris has been overtaking Trump in the national polls. According to the latest average presidential polls, Harris leads by 45.4 percent to Trump’s 43.4 percent.

That lead of 2 percent is not yet at the level that will be needed for the Democrat to win the election, but it is heading toward that point at a steady pace. It will probably take a margin of at least 4 percent in the national popular vote for Harris to amass the 270 electoral votes to prevail.

Without delving into the details on too granular a level, the popular vote totals matter only because they trickle down into smaller margins among critical demographic groups in the 7 swing states that will almost certainly determine the election.

According to the Cook Political Report, Harris has pulled even with Trump in three of those — Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. Other polls indicate that three more — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are now also tossups.

There is reason to believe, based on history, that Harris will get an additional bounce from the upcoming Democratic Convention.

And although there’s still almost three months until the election, based on the latest numbers, I’m not sure it will be technically correct to call Harris the underdog much longer.

HEADLINES:

• Why Ukraine’s generals may have rolled the dice on an incursion into Russia (CNN)

• Ukraine's using its cheap drones to blind the eyes in the sky guiding Russia's behind-the-lines strikes (Business Insider)

• Harris Takes Lead in National Polls Over Trump by 2 % (538)

• In 2022, Trump took a private flight with Project 2025 leader (WP)

• Project 2025 Proposes Eliminating Aid for Families and Businesses Rebuilding After Storms (American Progress)

• Trump complains about campaign as advisers try to focus on attacking Harris (WP)

• ABC says Trump and Harris have agreed to participate in a presidential debate on Sept. 10 (AP)

• Tim Walz’s Sudden Rise in the Democratic Party Was No Accident (NYT)

• Walz is giving MAGA a master class in manhood (MSNBC)

• Chutkan in charge: Judge ignites flurry of activity in Trump Jan. 6 case (The Hill)

• Nancy Pelosi’s Art of Power (New Yorker)

• Tech Investors Are the Latest to Zoom for Harris (NYT)

• Stocks rally on good jobs data, proving it’s too early to write off the U.S. economy (CNBC)

• Austria finds chemicals in the house of the main suspect in a planned attack on Taylor Swift concerts (Reuters)

• Facing budget crunches, Chinese tax collectors descend on companies (AP)

• Smashing idea: how East Germany invented ‘unbreakable’ drinking glasses (Guardian)

• The Best Therapy for Our Anxiety Epidemic (Anxiety)

• The New A.I. Deal: Buy Everything but the Company (NYT)

• Good Luck Selling Your AI Startup (Wired)

• OpenAI is a bigger threat to Google than US regulators (Reuters)

• Screaming Trump Takes Out Frustrations On Person He Assumes Is J.D. Vance (The Onion)

 

The Wealth Gap

 Voters don’t have to look far to find key differences on issues between Harris and Trump. Abortion, energy, and foreign policy for starters. 

But one issue neither political party has an effective plan to address is the growing disparity in wealth in this country. According to one authoritative report, “American inequality has been rising steadily for 50 years and is at its highest point of the post-World War II era. Inequality is higher in the U.S. than in any other developed country—closer to the level of Mexico or Costa Rica than to (other rich countries).”

To be fair, I’m not sure there is any politically palatable way for a major party candidate in the U.S. to advocate for what is needed, which is a radical redistribution of wealth. That sounds “unAmerican” to our well-trained ears.

And as far as socialism as a potential solution is concerned, public ownership of the means of production is about as popular as cancer. For the average person, entrepreneurs in the private sector offer the best hope for new wealth by creating companies and jobs, many of which disrupt existing industries.

And from the perspective of the average person, disruption of the mature sectors of the economy is exactly what is needed. That, and aggressive government action against monopolistic empires that drive up prices and make getting ahead virtually impossible for the majority.

One of the few progressive reforms accomplished by the Biden administration — bringing down the cost of prescription drugs — is an example of exactly what we need more of. And we have Bernie Sanders, a socialist, to thank for that.

Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of real differences between the Democratic and Republican approach to governing in the matters, but neither party is about to challenge the basic structure of an economy that is driving a wedge deeper and deeper between the haves and have-nots.

It’s called advanced monopoly capitalism and by all accounts it’s here to stay.

All of that said, there is one significant difference between the candidates in this matter, actually. Trump epitomizes a monopoly capitalist and brags about his ill-gotten wealth; Harris recognizes that wealth disparities are destroying our society and promises to try and do something about that.

I’ll go with the kid from Oakland on this one.

HEADLINES:

• Harris and Walz whisk through swing states as campaign hits new phase (BBC)

• Harris’ pick of Walz amps up excitement in Midwestern states (AP)

• JD Vance Was Supposed to Be a MAGA Heir. Now He’s a Liability. (Bloomberg)

• How Shapiro Lost Out to Walz in the Race to Be Harris’s VP Pick (WSJ)

• Arizona’s fake electors scandal intensifies in unexpected ways (MSNBC)

• Climate change deniers make up nearly a quarter of US Congress (Guardian)

• Washington and Arab states scramble to avert an all-out Middle East war (WP)

• Ukraine pierces Russian border, triggering fierce clashes (Reuters)

• Russian officials say they are fighting off a Ukrainian military incursion in Kursk (CBS)

• The Taiwan Fallacy (Foreign Affairs)

• E.P.A. Pulls From the Market a Weedkiller Harmful to Fetuses (NYT)

• Over a decade, Simone Biles’s scores add up to global domination (WP)

• AI Is Coming for India’s Famous Tech Hub (WSJ)

• OpenAI’s Sam Altman is becoming one of the most powerful people on Earth. We should be very afraid (Guardian)

• A booming industry of AI age scanners, aimed at children’s faces (WP)

• Philadelphia Becomes First City To Be 100% Parking Spots (The Onion)

Game On

If you like your political news best as a horse race, this one’s for you. At least for now. Donald Trump seems stunned by the rise of Kamala Harris. And for once, you can trust the polls. She is rising.

Three weeks ago, it looked like the outcome would be Trump in a runaway. But to mix up sports metaphors, the Democrats changed quarterbacks at halftime, and so far the Republicans don’t have an answer.

As it seems it will not be a slam dunk for either team (this is fun), there’s a chance they’ll have to fight way into overtime, extra innings, penalty kicks. You get the point.

Harris’s choice of Walz is classic sports strategy — build good teamwork on your way to a championship run. Trump’s strategy hasn’t changed since 2015; he’s badly out of date.

But let’s be clear. This one is too close to call and it probably will remain so until the bottom of the 9th or until one side breaks the tape.

All sportiness aside, the Democrats have one big advantage over Republicans — hope. Meanwhile, the operative emotional state surrounding yet another Trump candidacy is resentment.

I’m not a betting man but I’ll take hope.

HEADLINES:

• A UC Berkeley linguist explores what Kamala Harris’s voice and speech reveal about her identity (UCB)

• The attacks on San Francisco have begun (48 Hills)

• Good vibes and midwestern appeal - why Harris picked Walz (BBC)

• Why Tim Walz Will Be a Potent Weapon for Kamala Harris (NYT)

• What Walz Brings to Kamala Harris’s Campaign to Beat Donald Trump (New Yorker)

• Michigan’s GOP primary faces 2020 election conspiracy theories (AP)

• Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus to lead Bangladesh interim government (Al Jazeera)

• Bangladesh’s ‘Gen Z revolution’ toppled a veteran leader. Why did they hit the streets and what happens now? (CNN)

• Biden meets national security team as fears of Iran attack on Israel grow (BBC)

• Israel’s Disaster Foretold (Atlantic) 

• Washington and Arab states scramble to avert an all-out Middle East war (WP)

• US passes message to Iran not to escalate at 'critical moment' for Middle East (Reuters)

• ‘Google Is a Monopolist,’ Judge Rules in Landmark Antitrust Case (NYT)

• 6 ways the Google antitrust ruling could change the internet (WP)

• Struggling AI Startups Look for a Bailout from Big Tech (WSJ)

• New AI-Powered Humanoid Robot Just Dropped: Meet Figure 02 (CNET)

• Wall Street sees 'buying opportunity' amid AI pullback (Yahoo)

• Elon Musk Revives Lawsuit Against OpenAI and Sam Altman (NYT)

• Mom Thinks You’d Enjoy Restaurant She Can’t Remember Name Of Right Now (The Onion)

This Ain't 1968

Top Story:

“Harris picks Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate” (AP)

I don’t know how many times I’ve almost written a post comparing this year’s election cycle to 1968 but didn’t, until today. Perhaps I’ve finally figured out what I want to say.

That (1968) was the year I turned 21, and therefore for the first time was eligible to vote. 

The incumbent, Lyndon Johnson, withdrew from the race in March, throwing his Democratic Party into chaos. One-by-one, three anti-war candidates in the Senate, Eugene McCarthy, Robert F. Kennedy and George McGovern, emerged over time, but Vice-President Hubert Humphrey got the nomination instead.

The main thing about 1968 that all of us who lived through it remember is the horrible sequence of events — the assassinations of MLK and RFK, the riots in cities across the land, the police riot at the Democratic convention in Chicago — that made many of us feel angry, depressed and cynical about the electoral process.

Fast forward to this year. The recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump brought back some of that anguish. And then Joe Biden’s withdrawal, a la LBJ’s, raised the specter of another chaotic Democratic nomination fight (again Chicago!) just like in 1968.

But a battle over the nomination will not happen this year, thanks to Kamala Harris’s well-developed plan to step into the void. 

Cut to the end game: After blowing a huge lead, the Republican in 1968, Richard Nixon just squeaked by Humphrey by 0.7% in the popular vote on Election Day and received 31 electoral votes over the minimum of 270 for victory. A third-party candidate, George Wallace also was a factor, winning 46 electoral votes from southern states.

It’s going to be another close election this time but perhaps it will be the outcome that sets the two momentous elections apart? That, and the weird fact that the third-party candidate left a dead baby bear in Central Park.

HEADLINES:

• Polls are showing an undeniable shift toward Kamala Harris (The Hill)

• Harris vs. Trump: Latest polling numbers show major change in race (AL.com)

• Is FL in Play for 2024? ‘People Don't Want Project 2025, They're Tired of the Chaos’ (MSNBC)

• What’s Rattling Trump: The Size of Harris’s Crowds (NYT)

• Kamala Harris’ campaign launches “Republicans for Harris” (AP)

• Dow plunges more than 1,000 points in global market selloff (WP)

• Warning signs of US recession may be bad news for Kamala Harris (Guardian)

• Ex-Trump attorney Jenna Ellis to cooperate in Arizona fake electors case, charges to be dropped (AP)

• How JD Vance Thinks About Power (NYT)

• JD Vance's wife defends his 'quip' about 'childless cat ladies' (NBC)

• Bangladesh’s dictator flees—leaving behind a dangerous vacuum (Economist)

• Debby’s Moisture Surges Northward. Flooding Likely (Weather Channel)

• Iran and Hezbollah attack on Israel imminent, Blinken tells G7 (Al Jazeera)

• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will hold an emergency meeting with police chiefs after days of violent anti-immigration protests intensified. (Reuters)

• The woman who left Britain to parachute into Nazi-occupied Poland (BBC)

• Google is an illegal monopoly, federal court rules (WP)

• Apple Stock Leads Big Tech Drop. Worries About an AI Bubble Are Back. (Barron’s)

• Secretaries of state urge Musk to fix AI chatbot spreading false election info (WP)

• Takeaways From Our Investigation Into Banned A.I. Chips in China (NYT)

• There’s no way for humanity to win an AI arms race (WP)

• Stocks Plunge As Traders Realize It’s Monday And They Have To Go To Work (The Onion)

 

Playing Games

 The Olympics represent a lot of things to a lot of people. They inspire connectedness for some; others use them for geopolitical purposes; still others to make money. There is the competition between nations and the showmanship of the home country. (Bravo France!) There is also a lot of genuine emotion amidst the pageantry. There are scandals and some hearts get broken. Others soar.

Above all, it is the premier opportunity for athletes in multiple sports to compete on a world stage. For many of them, this experience will be life-altering in one way or another. They’ve worked hard to get here and most of them will get this chance one time only. 

Then again, the Olympics are not all that complicated. On the most basic level, human beings just like to play. Many other species on earth are playful as well.

Human societies have constructed elaborate games with complex rules that begin in childhood and progress to high-stakes battles in giant coliseums with tens or hundreds of thousands watching, cheering, booing, hoping and rooting, their eyes riveted on the athletes on the field. We tear up when they win, we tear up when they lose.

Meanwhile, far from the glamour of Paris, simpler games proceed before smaller crowds.

In Cooperstown, New York, home of baseball’s Hall of Fame, one 12-year-old is getting ready to throw a baseball to another on a Little League diamond in the annual tournament. 72 teams from all over the country have come here to play.

It’s the twilight of a warm summer’s day. Just the hint of a breeze is starting to stir the leaves on the trees beyond the outfield wall. It’s the late innings of the ballgame and among the spectators the anticipation is running high as they wait on the next pitch. Even the birds seem to have gone quiet. 

As a lifelong baseball fan, these are the moments I remember best, the moments when I didn’t yet know what was going to happen next.

So I think I’ll just end this story right there. 

(Photo: My grandson Oliver at the plate in Cooperstown.)

HEADLINES:

• Tropical Storm Debby live updates: 1 killed after storm makes landfall as hurricane (ABC)

• Beware the march of the childless voter (Financial Times)

• Kamala Harris interviewing top vice-presidential contenders (BBC)

• After smooth campaign start, Kamala Harris faces a crucial week ahead (AP)

• Panicking Trump Cites Made-Up Polls to Avoid Debating Kamala (TNR)

• Sofa so bad for JD Vance as Trump’s VP pick faces swirling speculation (Guardian)

• With Vance’s elevation, Pa. voters reexamine Trump’s views on women (WP)

• What the historic prisoner swap might mean for the future (CBS)

• US, UK and France ask their citizens to leave Lebanon as war fears loom (Al Jazeera)

• At least 70 killed in Bangladesh as protesters, police and pro-government activists clash (CNN)

• Far-right protesters attack hotel housing asylum seekers in violent weekend (WP)

• The GenAI jitters: Is there enough demand for $1 trillion in AI spending? (Business Insider)

• Will A.I. Kill Meaningless Jobs? (NYT)

• Man Reflecting On Where He Went Wrong In Life To Deserve Worst-Looking Chocolate Chip Muffin At Coffee Shop (The Onion)

LYRICS:

“Casey at the Bat.” (excerpt)

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.

From the Archive

This one is from 16 years ago. It was taken in front of my place in the Mission District of San Francisco where we all used to gather. Pictured are my six kids and first grandchild, then an infant. He’s now headed into his senior year in high school. 

The issue of families seems to be on the ballot this year, courtesy of one very confused J.D. Vance. This is an issue I know something about. My kids are divided into two groups of three from separate marriages that ended in divorce.

So it’s a big complicated family with me as a somewhat dubious and unlikely patriarch. As of now there are eight grandchildren, a couple spouses and a couple partners.

A lot has changed for us since 2008. A lot’s changed for me. I know longer have my own flat where we could have gather and I miss those days a lot.

But I got ill. Then the pandemic happened.

Someone used to say if you were a friend of one person in my family you were a friend of all of us. I’m not sure that still is true — there’s a natural entropy that sets in over the years and some people move on, never to return. We miss them.

But I have a word of advice for J.D. Vance and his ilk: We like cats. We like ladies. We like “cat ladies.” We like all of the people, single or attached, whether parenting or “childless.” Those types of distinctions hold no meaning for us.

As for your political rhetoric that is meant to divide people and turn them against each other, I have two words:

Shut Up!

And while I’m at it, lay off the race card. Our family is multi-racial and proud of that as well.

HEADLINES:

• Trump proposes alternative election debate, Harris says no (Reuters)

• Harris campaign says Trump is ‘running scared’ (CNBC)

• Harris vs. Trump Polls: Kamala’s Gains Are Now a Trend, Not Just a Bounce (New York)

• Kamala Harris Leads Trump in Three Pivotal Swing States: Polling Average (Newsweek)

• Judge sets Aug. 16 hearing in Trump’s federal election interference case (ABC)

• U.S. forces move toward Israel as Iran threatens to attack (WP)

• Netanyahu, Defiant, Appears to Have Gone Rogue, Risking a Regional War (NYT)

• Far-right protesters clash with police in UK cities as unrest spreads (Al Jazeera)

• Every Generation Is the Anxious Generation (Slate)

• Big Tech’s AI Promises Become a ‘Show Me’ Story For Investors (Bloomberg)

• Method prevents an AI model from being overconfident about wrong answers (MIT)

• Why have the big seven tech companies been hit by AI boom doubts? (Guardian)

• Tech Bosses Preach Patience as They Spend and Spend on A.I. (NYT)

• Single Woman At Game Night Paired With Dog Again (The Onion)