Tag: Writing

Can We Fight Back Against Enshitification?

by James Wallace Harris, 2/9/26

“Enshitification” is the trendy catchword of the moment. Cory Doctorow coined this handy term and describes what it means in his latest book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. However, I don’t think you need to read the book to get the idea. At a minimum, just listen to the interview with Doctorow and Tim Wu below on the Ezra Klein show titled “We Didn’t Ask for This Internet“:

Tim Wu covers similar ground in his book The Age of Extraction.

For my purposes, I use both terms to point to a specific kind of corporate greed that’s making our lives miserable. We could use both terms in this sentence: The relentless extraction of wealth is leading the enshitification of society.

Cory Doctorow uses the Internet to illustrate the process. Every program, app, or site begins life doing something wonderful for users. Often, their creators promise to always keep their users’ best interests at the core of their business model. But as time goes on and they need to keep making more money, they forget that promise. Eventually, they will do anything to get more users and more money.

Tim Wu models his term on the evils of private equity and similar practices. For example, in the interview, Wu gives this evil example:

In America, hospitals preferentially hire nurses through apps. And they do so as contractors. Hiring contractors means that you can avoid the unionization of nurses. And when a nurse signs on to get a shift through one of these apps, the app is able to buy the nurse’s credit history.

The reason for that is that the U.S. government has not passed a new federal consumer privacy law since 1988, when Ronald Reagan signed a law that made it illegal for video store clerks to disclose your VHS rental habits.

Every other form of privacy invasion of your consumer rights is lawful under federal law. So among the things that data brokers will sell to anyone who shows up with a credit card is how much credit card debt any other person is carrying, and how delinquent it is.

Based on that, the nurses are charged a kind of desperation premium. The more debt they’re carrying, the more overdue that debt is, the lower the wage that they’re offered, on the grounds that nurses who are facing economic privation and desperation will accept a lower wage to do the same job.

Now this is not a novel insight. Paying more desperate workers less money is a thing that you can find in, like, Tennessee Ernie Ford songs about 19th-century coal bosses. The difference is that if you’re a 19th-century coal boss who wants to figure out how much the lowest wage each coal miner you’re hiring is willing to take, you have to have an army of Pinkertons who are figuring out the economic situation of every coal miner, and you have to have another army of guys in green eye shades who are making annotations to the ledger where you’re calculating their pay packet. It’s just not practical. So automation makes this possible.

Doesn’t that sound like a cross between Nineteen Eighty-Four and the way China monitors its citizens? Wu is seeing how the extraction of wealth is doing something just as evil, but we could call it enshitification too.

Another example, this time from my New York Magazine subscription, “Body Cam Hustle” is about how people are making money off of videos of drunk drivers taken by the police. States enacted laws requiring police to wear body cameras to gather evidence and protect the innocent. The Internet went from promoting cute cat videos to scenes of personal shame. To show how society is also just as corrupt, audiences prefer seeing women being arrested.

I doubt I need to give any more examples, we all instantly recognize the genius of coining the word enshitification.

Cory Doctorow and Ezra Klein recall fond memories and hopes the Internet gave them when they were young. But it seems the Internet turns everything to shit eventually.

Does every sucky thing that depresses us most today connect to the Internet?

And more importantly, can we fight enshitification?

One area where I noticed people fighting back is with subscriptions. Tim Wu says subscriptions are the new, and more efficient, method of extraction. People are switching to Linux, free and open source software, unsubscribing from cloud storage, and going back to DVDs, CDs, and LPs.

Other people are taking up analog hobbies like sewing, gardening, woodworking, cooking, and handicrafts. Young people feel they are embracing the hobbies their grandparents pursued.

And other people are buying local rather than ordering online.

On the other hand, millions are adopting AI and racing full steam ahead into a dark Blade Runner-like cyberpunk future.

Does running from the clutches of Microsoft or Apple into the arms of Linux really help us escape enshitification? If Facebook and X are evil, does it make them less evil to access from Fedora and use the Brave browser? (I’m writing this post from Linux, and it’s been a struggle not to use all my favorite software tools on Windows.)

Would we be happier if we shut off the Internet and went back to televisions with antennas? I’ve contemplated what that would be like. My initial fear is that it would be lonelier. I don’t know why. I have many friends I see regularly. I guess the hive mind feels more connected.

I think we like to share. To communicate with like-minded people regarding our specific interests. Before the Internet, I was involved with science fiction fandom. I published fanzines, belonged to Amateur Press Associations (APAs), was part of a local science fiction club, and went to conventions.

I suppose I could regress.

But do people do that? Shouldn’t we figure out how to move forward and solve our enshitification problems? But how?

What if we split the internet into two segments? We keep the existing Internet, and create a new one that requires identity verification. To get a login would require visiting an agency in person and providing proof of your identity. Like when we got Read IDs. But also connect that identity to three types of biometric data. The login to the new Internet would have to be absolutely foolproof, otherwise people wouldn’t trust it.

I know this sounds scary and dangerous, but we’re already doing this piecemeal. Both corporations and criminals already know who we are.

Would people behave better on the Internet if they knew everyone knew exactly who they were? I assume that with such tracking of real identities, it would be almost impossible to rip people off since all activity would have a well-documented trail.

For this to work, corporations would have to be just as open and upfront. They would have to make all their log files public. So any individual could examine all the ways they are being tracked.

Is a much of enshitification due to anonymity and hidden corporate practices?

What if everything we did on the Internet was out in full sunlight?

I have no idea if this would help. It could make things much worse. But isn’t everything already getting much worse?

JWH

Why Did Kristin Diable’s “My River” Sound So Great On My Cheap Headphones at 5:55am This Morning?

by James Wallace Harris 1/29/26

I’ve come up with 5 reasons why I’m hearing more details in my music listening. And none of them is because I’ve bought better equipment. Some of those reasons might sound a bit woo-woo, but who knows.

I woke up early yesterday morning with the urge to hear music. I wasn’t ready to get up. The only headphones on my bedstand were a cheap pair of Bluetooth headphones I use for audiobooks. I put them on and loaded my standard Spotify playlist.

“My River” by Kristin Diable came on. It sounded amazing. For weeks, my den and bedroom stereos have sounded much better than ever. What’s going on? I’m talking a dramatic night-and-day difference on these headphones. Were my ears improving?

1 -Physiological?

Weeks ago, I stopped taking a drug I’d had been taking for years. When I asked my doctor about my chronic stuffy nose, she mentioned that sinus congestion was a side effect of that drug. Slowly, over recent weeks, I feel myself breathing more through my nose. Could this also have affected my hearing?

The only problem with this theory is that I don’t remember hearing music like this before I took the drug. Nor do I remember a decline in hearing after I started taking the drug.

2 – Time of Day?

As I lay there in the dark listening to music, all the instruments were clear and distinct. I heard little guitar riffs and drum fills I’d never noticed before. Could I have been dreaming? Diable’s voice was so multi-textured.

I do love listening to music on headphones while I sleep because sometimes I achieve a state of consciousness between sleep and awake, and I feel like I’m floating inside the music. But I was awake this morning.

I think I always hear music better late at night or early in the morning when I’m using headphones. Yesterday morning was special. It felt like a peak event. This morning, I played music again at the same time, and the music was equally vivid.

However, this doesn’t explain why music sounds better at other times during the day. Not quite as impressive as the headphones this morning, but I’ve been noticing a definite improvement in staging and fidelity.

3 – Focus?

The other day, I read an excerpt from Michael Pollan’s new book titled “How to Have a Don’t-Know Mind.” It was from the last chapter of A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness, due out next month. That chapter was about staying at a Zen Buddhist retreat, where he learned that shutting off his mind led to greater powers of awareness. He spent days in a “cave” with few distractions, forcing him to slow his racing thoughts.

Was listening to music in the dark before it was time to get up, a time when my mind was inactive, letting me hear more?

Audiophiles claim to hear greater details in music than average listeners. Is that just the ability to focus? I remember back in the 1960s, and how smoking pot made music sound great. I quit getting high over fifty years ago, but I remember that I decided then that pot didn’t enhance music, but altered time and concentration. I’ve always tried to pay close attention while listening. I don’t like using music as background noise.

4 – Sense of Time

I remember getting a friend high, one who was an avid music listener, and he exclaimed that he heard things in his favorite songs he never heard before. We theorized that it might be because pot distorted our sense of time. When time slows down, we hear more.

That altered sense of time could explain why music sounds better when I’m sleeping or just waking up. But it doesn’t explain why my daytime listening also improved. Not as much, but noticeable. Maybe during the day, I’m relaxing more, focusing on the music more, slowing time down.

Maybe I should train my mind to meditate on music and shut out everything else.

5 – Technology

I was awake when Kristin Diable’s voice sounded so rich and alluring. I wasn’t in a dream state, where music sounds unbelievable. Audiophiles talk about headphones and speakers needing a burn-in period. I’ve listened to hundreds of hours of audiobooks with the Earfun headphones, but only a few hours of music. Could they have reached a burn-in stage for music?

And I haven’t listened to these headphones since Spotify switched to CD-quality streaming. That could be another factor.

But then why were the Klipsch and Polk speakers also sounding much better, too?

Conclusion

Later in the day, the music still sounded good on those headphones, but not as impressive as when I was in bed before sunrise. I tried those headphones again this morning at the same time, and wow, oh, wow.

The first song I heard was “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” by Ryuichi Sakamoto. It’s a piano piece, and I thought I could discern the separate notes in chords. Every instrument sounded so distinct. I could place each spatially, and I was aware of the duration of notes. It had to be an altered sense of time.

Then I listened to “Me & Magdalena” by The Monkees. Before now, I thought only Mike sang it, but this time I could hear both Mike and Micky.

And I’m sure some people have always been able to hear such details. Even though I’ve been crazy about music since 1962, and have spent many tens of thousands of hours listening to it, I’m probably still learn how to listen. Still learning to distinguish the components that make up a gestalt.

Before I publish this, I’ve thought of one more reason. I’m getting old and retreating from the world. Music has become a refuge. I get more pleasure from listening to music than doing anything else. I wonder if the Williamson effect is taking hold of me. I had a friend named Williamson who, before he died, lost interest in his many passions, one by one. The last time I talked to him, he said listening to Duane Allman and Benny Goodman were the only things he cared about. I’ve wondered if he got down to just one before he died. Or even none.

My list of favorite things is dwindling. It’s still in the dozens, though, so I have a ways to go.

JWH

Could I Have Said “No” to Television in 1957?

by James Wallace Harris, 1/20/26

When you think about it, staring at a screen for hours on end seems weird. We exist in an immense three-dimensional reality, yet we prefer to focus on a small two-dimensional artificial reality. Why?

There are possible explanations. We don’t view reality directly, but rather perceive what we think is reality through a recreation within our minds. And our minds love making up stories to explain everything, and usually, they have little to do with reality. At night, our unconscious minds generate dreams that feel like another reality.

Is it any wonder we’re so addicted to fiction on a screen? Make-believe is so much easier than the complexity of reality.

Before screens, there were books, plays, storytellers, tall tales, and gossip. Humans interact with reality with words and language, but those tools are so imprecise that they encourage us to make stuff up that’s not there.

So, back in 1957, when I was five, could I have rejected television? Could my little mind have said, “This is fake, I’m going out to ride my bike?”

I wish I had, but I didn’t. Guessing that I watch four hours of television a day on average, that means since January 1, 1957, I’ve spent 100,884 hours in front of the boob tube. They claim it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become great at doing anything. I could have become an expert at ten endeavors if I had said “No” to television.

A more important question is: Can I say “No” to television in 2026?

Why spend the last years of my existence glued to a television or computer screen?

Reality feels the most real when I’m outside working in the yard. I can feel the heat of a nearby star, the changing atmospheric conditions, and watch the plants, trees, birds, bugs, and animals coexist in an ecology. At night, I can see the moon, planets, stars, and even galaxies. Nature should be the most stimulating part of my existence. But it’s not.

My mind prefers to dwell on music, books, magazines, TV shows, movies, the internet, and YouTube. Why is watching old episodes of Mr. Novak from 1963 more rewarding than raking leaves or watching birds at their feeder?

I think it’s because I didn’t say “No” to television in 1957. Like people embracing religion for a lifetime at an early age, I worshipped at the television set. I wasn’t smart enough to make a choice.

Years before 1957, I remember my mother putting my sister and me in front of the TV to watch Kukla, Fran and Ollie or Romper Room as she got dressed in the morning. And after them, it was Captain Kangaroo. But I’m not blaming my mother. TV was irresistible. When my parents weren’t around, I’d turn it on. I have distinct memories of doing that by myself at age five. I remember watching Gunsmoke by myself in 1957.

I suppose if my parents had coached me in learning little activities, I might have become used to actively doing things rather than sitting in front of the TV. To be fair, in 1957, I have memories of playing with toy trucks in the scrubery, riding my bike, playing with friends, walking to school, and spending weeks pretending to be a pirate while sailing in an old wooden crate.

However, all those activities lacked much conscious effort. Becoming good at anything requires a conscious effort. I’m not sure kids do that on their own. I never had a mentor to get me started.

Watching television or doomscrolling is deliciously an unconscious effort.

I could never have said “No” to television in 1957 on my own. That would have only happened if I had the guidance of a wiser person. And they would have had to show me a better alternative.

I’ve contemplated giving up television for all my adult life. Intellectually, I know there are better ways to spend my time in reality. But I got conditioned to television at a young age, and I’ve never been able to reprogram myself.

I really should try. I only have a few more years in this reality.

If you don’t want your kids addicted to screens their entire lives, I recommend mentoring them in other activities.

JWH

What I Learned After Buying a UGreen DXP2800 NAS

by James Wallace Harris, 1/7/26

Don’t bother reading this essay unless you’re considering the following:

  • Want to cancel your subscription to a cloud storage site
  • Manage terabytes of data
  • Hope to convert your old movies on discs to Jellyfin or Plex
  • Want to run Linux programs via Docker

For the past few years, I’ve been watching YouTubers promote NASes (Network Attached Storage). Last year, I just couldn’t help myself, I bought a UGreen DXP2800. I’m not sure I needed a NAS. Dropbox has been serving me well for over fifteen years.

[My DXP2800 is pictured above on top of a bookcase. It’s connected to a UPS and a mesh router. It’s a little noisy, but not bad.]

Actually, I loved Dropbox until I figured it was the reason my computers ran warm and noisy. I assume that was because it routinely checked tens of thousands of my files to keep them indexed, copied, and up-to-date on my three computers, two tablets, and an iPhone.

Lesson #1. If you desire simplicity, stay with the cloud. My old system was to use Dropbox and let it keep copies of my files locally on my Windows, Mac, and Linux machines. I figured that was three copies and an off-site backup. That was an easy-to-live-with, simple backup solution. However, I only had 2TB of files, which Dropbox charged me $137 a year to maintain.

Moving to the UGreen DXP2800 meant accessing all my files from the single NAS drive. It’s cooler and quieter on my computers. However, I had to purchase two large external drives for my Mac and Windows machines that I use to automatically back up the NAS drive daily.

Thus, my initial cost to leave Dropbox was the cost of the DXP2800 and two 16TB Seagate drives for a RAID array ($850), plus $269 (20TB external drive). I already had an old 8TB external drive for the other backup. And if I want an off-site backup, I need to physically take one of my drives to a friend’s house, or pay a backup company $100-200 a year.

And I have more to back up now. I was running Plex on my Mac using a 4TB SSD. Basically, I ripped a movie when needed. Since I got the UGreen DXP2800 and 12TB of space, I’ve been ripping all my movies and TV shows that I own on DVD and Blu-ray. I’ve ripped about half of them, and I figure I’ll use up 8-10TB of my RAID drive space.

I’ve been working for weeks ripping discs. I had no idea we had accumulated so many old movies and TV shows over the last thirty years. Susan and I had gotten tired of using a DVR/BD player, so we shelved all those discs on a neglected bookcase and subscribed to several streaming services.

When I bought the UGreen DXP2800, I thought we could cancel some of our subscriptions. We are viewing our collection via Jellyfin, but we haven’t canceled any streaming services.

I should finish the disc ripping in another couple of weeks. At least I hope. It’s a tedious process. My fantasy is having this wonderful digital library of movies and television shows we love, and we’ll rewatch them for the rest of our lives. I even fantasized about quitting all our streaming services. But I don’t think that will happen.

Looking at what TV shows Susan and I watched during 2025, none were from our library. Susan has started rewatching her old favorite movies. She especially loves to watch her favorite Christmas movies every year. And I have talked her into watching two old TV shows I bought on disc years ago, The Fugitive and Mr. Novak. Both shows premiered in 1963, and neither is on a streaming service.

Lesson #2. It would taken much less effort to just watch the shows on disc. And when I’ve converted them, I will have 10TB of data that I must protect. It’s a huge burden that hangs over my head.

Lesson #3. I tried to save money by using the free MakeMKV program. It works great, but creates large files and is somewhat slow. I eventually spent $40 for WinX DVD Ripper for Mac. It’s faster and creates smaller .mp4 files. However, it doesn’t rip BD discs. I found another Mac program that will, but it will cost another $49. I bought a $39 program for the PC to rip Blu-ray discs, but it was painfully slow. They claimed to have a 90-day money-back guarantee, yet the company ignored my request to return my money. It pisses me off that there are several appealing ripping programs I’d like to try, but they all want their money up front. Most offer a trial that will run a 2-minute test. That’s not enough. I’m happy with WinX DVD Ripper for Mac; I just wish it ripped Blu-rays.

Even then, files that are ripped from Blu-ray movies are huge and take much longer to rip. I’m not sure Blu-ray is worth it.

I tend feel movies and TV shows look better on streaming services. Most people won’t notice. My wife doesn’t see the difference between DVD and BD. For ripping, I prefer DVDs.

Lesson #4. I bought the UGreen NAS even though I wanted a Synology NAS. UGreen just had better hardware. I thought I wanted to get into Docker containers, and UGreen had the hardware for that at the price I wanted to pay. However, setting up Docker containers requires a significant amount of Linux savvy.

I kind of wish I had gotten Synology. It runs many programs natively, so you don’t have to mess with Docker. I hope UGreen will do more of that in the future. I spent days trying to get the YACReader server running. I never succeeded. That was frustrating because I really want it.

There are many services I’d like to run, but I just don’t have the Docker and Linux skills.

Final Thoughts

I’m not sure I would buy a NAS, knowing what I know now. However, if I could figure out how to run programs via Docker, I might go whole hog on NASes. In which case, I would regret getting the 2-drive DXP2800. At first, I thought I’d be good getting two 8TB drives to put into RAID. But I spent more for two 12TB drives, just in case. If I really get into having a home lab, I should have bought the 4-drive DXP4800 Plus.

There are many features I wish UGreen would offer for its software. If all the programs I wanted to run ran natively on the UGreen OS and were easy to use, I think I would love having a NAS.

Setting up file sharing was easy. I got it working on my Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, iPad, and iPhone. However, it’s hard to open files using the UGreen app on iOS and Android. I don’t know why UGreen just can’t make an all-purpose file viewer. Dropbox can open several file types on my iPhone. UGreen expects me to save the file to my iPhone and then view it with an iPhone app. However, I can’t get my iPhone apps to find where the UGreen app saved the file.

That’s why I want the YACReaderLibrary Server running on the DXP2800. I have YACReader running on every device. It can read .pdf, .cdr, .cdz, .jpg, .png, .tiff, and more. Too bad it doesn’t read Word and Excel files too. I think other Linux server apps can handle even more file types. I want my NAS to be a document server.

I’m moving forward with my NAS. If I fail, I’ll regret buying the NAS. Or, I might create a server full of useful apps that I can’t live without. That sounds fun, but it also sounds like it could become a lifelong burden.

JWH

THE ANTIDOTE by Karen Russell

by James Wallace Harris, 12/27/25

There are some conservative Republicans who wish to censor history by forgetting events in America’s past. They worry that such history could make their children feel bad about themselves. They want to remember a past that makes America look great again. Please read Donald Trump’s executive order regarding this issue.

Karen Russell’s latest novel, The Antidote, philosophises why we need to remember everything, even things our ancestors did that make America look bad. Russell uses fantasy to educate us about reality. When my friend Annie first recommended that we read this novel together, the fantasy elements turned me off. As a life-long science fiction reader, I was in the mood to read realistic fiction for a change. The older I get, the more I want nonfiction, but I can’t give up fiction completely.

Throughout the first half of The Antidote, I was annoyed with all its fantastic elements. However, I eventually realized that Russell was using them as a plot device to get her readers to contemplate real history. Eventually, I felt Russell had read a great deal of American history that disturbed her, and she was using her novel to come to grips with why we shouldn’t forget that which many want to erase from American history books.

Memory is the main theme of this novel. Both personal memories and historical memory.

The Antidote makes a case against five crimes our ancestors committed. These tragic deeds explore the dimensions of greed. Each of these historical atrocities has been well-documented in nonfiction books I’ve read over the years. Reading the novel made me ask: Which has more impact, fiction or nonfiction? Listening to The Antidote made me feel closer to the suffering.

How many books have you read that deal with these historical events? Did you learn more from reading fiction or nonfiction?

  • How did we take land from the Native Americans?
  • How did we force Native Americans onto reservations and attempt to reeducate them with our culture and values?
  • How did poor farming practices cause the environmental catastrophe of the Dust Bowl?
  • How did we institutionalize unwed mothers and steal their babies?
  • How do we allow the murders of women to go uninvestigated and underreported?

The Antidote is primarily set in the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska, in 1935, between two significant real events, the Black Sunday dust storm (April 14, 1935) and the Republican River flood (May 31-June 1, 1935). The story is told sequentially, but with flashbacks. We hear the story told from many voices. Four primary characters: The Antidote (Antonina Rossi, AKA, the Prairie Witch), Asphodel Oletsky (Del), Harp Oletsky (Del’s uncle), and Cleo Allfrey (photographer), along with two significant secondary characters, a cat and a scarecrow.

Antonina, a middle-aged woman, had been institutionalized at age 15 for being an unwed mother. Her son had been forcefully taken away from her. She makes her living as a vault, or prairie witch. Antonina can enter a trance while another person relates a memory they wish to forget. That process will erase the memory from the teller’s mind and store it in hers. Antonina gives them a written receipt that will trigger that memory, and she can reinstate it at a future time. Antonina does not remember what she vaults. She is paid for this service, but her clients consider her no better than a prostitute.

Asphodel “Del” Oletsky, a fifteen-year-old girl, just five feet tall, is the captain of Uz’s high school girls’ basketball team. Her mother was murdered when she was young, and she lives with her uncle Harp Oletsky. Cleo is a young black woman who travels the country documenting the depression for FDR’s government. The plot of the novel eventually brings them all together.

The novel begins with a roundup of jack rabbits and clubbing them to death. My father was born in Nebraska and was Del’s age in 1935. He told me stories about how the farmers would exterminate the jack rabbits. My mother also went to high school around this time and played basketball. My grandmother was on a basketball team in Indiana at the turn of the century.

My memories immediately made me connect with the story. We remember the good ones, but forget the bad ones.

The story then goes into catching a serial killer of young women. The sheriff even connects the killer to Del’s mother’s cold case. This murder mystery is the apparent backbone of the plot, but it’s not the real story.

The Antidote immediately triggered a memory of an article I recently read, “The Nurse Who Names the Dead” by Christa Hillstrom. The article was about Dawn Wilcox, who created a database to track the number of men killing women. She discovered that femicide goes vastly underreported. One of the truths of Russell’s novel is that she’s writing about evils that have always existed. Can we ever break the cycle?

Dust and evil color this novel with darkness. I listened to the audiobook edition, and it felt like I was watching an old black-and-white movie. I’d call it noir magical realism.

I admit, I had to push myself to keep listening for the first half of this book. I was just put off by the fantasy elements. But the characters grew on me. And by the middle of the story, I was hooked. The last half of the book often made me teary-eyed. For most of the novel, I felt Russell was too writerly, but when Harp gives his big speech near the end, I must say I was quite impressed with the writing and the description of the riot and storm.

Throughout this story, I kept thinking about the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. Uz almost sounds like Oz. Plus, the story has a tornado and a talking scarecrow.

I wanted to connect the elements of this story with all the nonfiction books I’ve read that back up its fictional history. Especially, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan, plus the Ken Burns’ documentary, The Dust Bowl. However, I can’t remember where I read about the other issues in this book. My mind is getting old and tired.

My friend Linda and I often talk about how humans repeat the same crimes throughout history. In recent months, we’ve focused on how greed is the primary driver of evil. As you read The Antidote (if you do), think about how greed motivates people to do what they do. We’re all greedy to a degree, and that might be a survival mechanism, but there seems to be a point when more greed makes us evil. I see that everywhere.

I’m also watching The American Revolution by Ken Burns. It brings up many things that some Republicans would like the world to forget. Like I said, we don’t change. But we should ask, what are we doing now that people in the future will wish to forget that we did?

The Antidote by Karen Russell was on 11 best-books-of-the-year lists for 2025.

JWH