11.1.2026 – asking wrong question

asking wrong question
instead of how much time left
how much of your mind

I digress to start, but I believe I am correct when I say that Prince is again recognized by that name today and not by the ‘Artist Formerly Known as Prince (TAFKAP), or simply the Artist.

I ask that as today, Prince joins my Pantheon of the Giants of Word Use, Big Bill, Mr. Sandburg, Hemingway, EB White; Et al) whose content I steal and work into a haiku.

The line I quote:

Instead of asking him how much of your time is left

Ask him how much of your mind, *

Popped into my brain while reading the Guest Essay Could A.I. Be Conscious? It’s Definitely Possible, Toni Sims, a researcher at the Center for Mind, Ethics and Policy at New York University.

Ms. Sims writes:

Of course, you can never know for sure whether a machine is conscious, just as you can never know for sure whether anyone is conscious other than yourself. As philosophers have long recognized, the only conscious experience each of us can directly observe is our own. Instead, we have to evaluate the consciousness of other beings indirectly, through an examination of the available evidence. We infer that our fellow humans are conscious because of our shared biological makeup, as well as how they behave and talk — including, notably, that they say they are conscious.

So while we will never be completely certain whether A.I. systems are conscious, we should still collect and weigh the evidence, because getting the question wrong carries serious risks. If we assume A.I. is not conscious when it actually is, we could end up abusing and neglecting vulnerable beings in enormous numbers — as I believe we do with animals. If we decide that A.I. is conscious when it really isn’t, we could end up misplacing our moral concern and abdicating control over what are, or should be, powerful tools that we can use to advance human and animal well-being.

Reading this piece, my objections boiled over like baking soda in vinegar as I sought the right words to say, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I felt like I was losing my mind.

Maybe that’s what brought the words of Prince to mind.

And I focused on Instead of asking …

Instead of asking … Could A.I. be concious?

Ask .. Could A.I. have a soul?

And I am here to tell that the answer to that question is … NO!

Quoting Yeats, could A.I. write a poem that makes the soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing?

Sure, I guess.

Could A.I. READ a poem that makes its soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing?

NO!

A.I. and machines in general DO NOT HAVE A SOUL.

Years ago a toy came out called a gigapet which was tiny machine that needed attention in the way of pressing a button or two every couple of hours to ‘stay alive’.

My kids all had them and kept them going for most of a day.

They were MACHINES.

AI is a machine.

At the end of the day, we can turn them, we should turn them OFF.

I make it a point to tell co-workers that computers can be like dogs and sense fear and play on that with some users so it is important, from time to time, to unplug your computer and wave the end of the cord in front of your monitor.

I do worry that this conversation will go down the road of machines being conscious and then, somehow, having rights, having standing in court.

But always, ALWAYS, keep in mind, computers, AI, any machine, has no soul.

To the line, So while we will never be completely certain whether A.I. systems are conscious, we should still collect and weigh the evidence. I say I am certain.

I say we can uplug these machines without concern.

Unplug with impunity.

Unplug fearlessly.

Unplug with prejudice.

And for those days when the elevator tries to get you down ..

GO CRAZY!

Oh the thoughts that come with an extra hour of sleep due to the time change.

Complete quote:

So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills
You know the one, Dr. Everything’ll-Be-Alright
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left
Ask him how much of your mind, baby
‘Cause in this life
Things are much harder than in the after world
In this life
You’re on your own
And if de-elevator tries to bring you down
Go crazy

10.31.2026 – realizing faith is both

realizing faith is both
ineffable, tangible
beating of one’s heart

This morning’s Chicago Tribune has an opinion piece by Mr. Colin Fleming titled, Linus Van Pelt’s belief in the Great Pumpkin encourages us to be sincere (Click for a PDF of the column).

Mr. Fleming writes about Linus Van Pelt and the Great Pumpkin that:

Most of us know how this goes. Linus spends Halloween night in the pumpkin patch with Sally Brown, who has a crush on him, while the other kids are off at a party and trick-or-treating. The Great Pumpkin doesn’t show, and eventually, a freezing Linus is fetched back home by his sister Lucy and put to bed.

Linus is an exemplar of sincerity who numbers among our wisest figures in popular culture because of his realness. Linus doesn’t perform. He believes and tries to understand, realizing faith is both ineffable and as tangible as the beating of one’s heart.

How often are we our unfettered selves? How often do we say and do things just for a desired outcome?

For Linus, the Great Pumpkin is less about toys and more about being true to one’s self. Halloween is treated as his blind spot, the day each year this Socrates of the gang makes a fool of himself and misses out on treats. Snoopy, Charlie Brown’s jape-loving beagle, goes so far as to prank Linus and Sally in the pumpkin patch by acting as if he’s the Great Pumpkin by rising from the tangle of vines.

And yet, Linus keeps going back, seemingly unconcerned with what others think. This is someone with passions. Interests. Linus would be wholly unaffected by an algorithm.

How many of us now take our cues from what is pushed into our faces and talk about what others talk about? There is peace in Linus’ pumpkin patch, living as a lover of Halloween, for reasons likely different from most people’s. He has stripped himself of performative excess and is only himself.

I rate Linus as hero-like.

Born in 1960, I cannot recall a time when I wasn’t aware of and wanted to watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Watched it over and over again.

Screamed as the networks butchered it to make time for more commericals.

And never ever doubted the sincerity of Linus.

Linus is an exemplar of sincerity who numbers among our wisest figures in popular culture because of his realness.

Linus doesn’t perform.

He believes and tries to understand, realizing faith is both ineffable and as tangible as the beating of one’s heart.

Linus keeps going back, seemingly unconcerned with what others think.

This is someone with passions.

Interests.

Linus would be wholly unaffected by an algorithm.

I rate Linus as hero-like.

Faith doesn’t need to be fully verbalized to be intensely real.

It bridges the gap between the mystical and the physical. You may not be able to fully explain what or why you believe when asked to describe it, but you experience its presence as undeniably and continuously as your own pulse.

It is an essential life force, unseen and undefinable, yet pulsing beneath every moment.

All held together by sincerity.

I am reminded of the Bible story in the Book of Genesis where God tells Abraham he is going to destroy the city of Sodom and Abraham makes a deal to find fifty righteous people in the city and save the city.

Then Abraham asks to change the total to 45, then 40, then 30, then 20, then 10 and then two angels show up to destroy the city so Abraham could not come with 10 good men.

What if we went looking for 50 sincere people in this Country today.

Cynicism.

That’s what you find.

Cynicism from the top down.

But Linus keeps going back, seemingly unconcerned with what others think.

I too, rate Linus as hero-like.

10-30-2026 – free yourself from your

free yourself from your
vanity, greed, recognise
deep companions, friends

Reading The Guardian feature, The Books of my life, where people get to talk about the books that had impact on their lives, I was intrigued in todays column titled, Philippa Gregory: ‘I read 100 of the best 18th century novels – the perfect author’s apprenticeship’ where novelist Philippa Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl) was asked: The book I reread … and she responded:

Great writing gives any experience a significance, and a good novel can take us into another place and time.

I read and reread Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, the Sea, whenever I need comfort.

It’s a book that is far away from my own concerns and yet entirely about the human struggle to own the person you love, when you know that cannot be achieved, to free yourself from your own vanity and greed, to recognise those who are your deep companions and friends.

At the same time it’s a deeply engaging story about a gossipy, vain theatre director in his retirement home at the sea.

My go-to rereads would include all the Hornblower books by CS Forester and Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny but this weekend I am looking for something new as I will be having a slow weekend in the low country with plans to kick it off with flu shots this afternoon.

I have loaded up The Sea, The Sea for this weekend.

Truly I would love to free myself from my own vanity and greed, to recognise those who are my deep companions and friends.

Been deficient in those endeavors of late.

I shall sit by the sea and read The Sea, The Sea and we shall see.

10.29.2026 – we guess no angels

we guess no angels
are contented to be blind
things may not be seen

Adapted from the poem, The Jig of Forslin by Conrad Aiken (The Four Seas Company: Boston, 1916) in Part IV: (1) where Mr. Aiken writes:

Now, unless persuaded by searching music
Which suddenly opens the portals of the mind,
We guess no angels,
And are contented to be blind.
Let us blow silver horns in the twilight.
And lift our hearts to the yellow star in the green,
To find, perhaps, if while the dew is rising,
Clear things may not be seen.

Stuck in the loop.

Do over.

Do loop.

Loop.

Death spiral.

Never ends.

Now, unless persuaded by searching music

Which suddenly opens the portals of the mind,

We guess no angels,

And are contented to be blind.

Let us blow silver horns in the twilight.

And lift our hearts to the yellow star in the green,

To find, perhaps, if while the dew is rising,

Clear things may not be seen.

10.28.2026 – strange light sun made

strange light sun made
in the water meant good weather
so did the clouds shape

Adapted from:

The clouds over the land now rose like mountains and the coast was only a long green line with the gray blue hills behind it.

The water was a dark blue now, so dark that it was almost purple.

As he looked down into it he saw the red sifting of the plankton in the dark water and the strange light the sun made now.

He watched his lines to see them go straight down out of sight into the water and he was happy to see so much plankton because it meant fish.

The strange light the sun made in the water, now that the sun was higher, meant good weather and so did the shape of the clouds over the land.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952).