Communism?

Donald Trump reacting to a protestor (from the Al Jazeera Web page for the event)

Last night President Donald Trump delivered a speech at an auto event in Michigan. A protester decided to try interrupting him, and Trump’s response was to call him a “communist.” The Al Jazeera account of this event cited the speech as a “criticism of what he described as the threat of communism facing the country.”

I take this as a sign that Trump is still living in the last century. He might benefit from one of his aides consulting Wikipedia (since he probably would not do it himself). As might be expected, “Communism” has its own Web page; and it is definitely up-to-date! Here are the sentences that put Trump’s reaction into question:

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, many governments abolished Communist rule. Only a few nominally Communist governments remain, such as China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Except for North Korea, these have allowed more economic competition while maintaining one-party rule. Communism's decline has been attributed to economic inefficiency and to authoritarianism and bureaucracy within Communist governments.

If Trump can show any evidence that communism is still a threat, I would be happy to examine and comment on it!

Priorities?

Apparently, posting an online article about today’s marathon was more important to the San Francisco Chronicle than delivering the Sunday edition, which, as of 9 AM this morning, has yet to find its way to our doorstep!

Trump News: Britain Sides with Al Jazeera

Some readers may recall yesterday’s admiration for the way in which Al Jazeera covered the behavior of President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. This morning it was Britain’s turn to “follow suit” with a moderately lengthy article in The Guardian, which deserves attention from start to finish. The author was George Chidi, whose Web page describes him as “a politics and democracy reporter;” and he clearly knows how to write in a manner that does justice to both of those nouns.

The title of this particular article is “How Trump could undermine the midterms;” and I must confess that I was a bit worried about Trump reading it and coming way with previously unconsidered ideas! The good news is that he will probably not read the piece in its entirety. Indeed, it would not surprise me to learn that Trump does not pay very much attention to how other countries write about news in the United States. (For that matter, he may well limit his attention to little more than sources from Fox News!)

A polling station in Arlington, Virginia, not much different from the site where my wife and I have voted in the past (photograph by Agence France-Presse, provided by Getty Images)

Here in California, my wife and I take elections very seriously at all levels: country, state, and city. For every ballot, we receive a moderately thick booklet providing background material for the candidates running for office and propositions related to state and city laws. We discuss every choice we need to make. Most of the time we agree on our decisions, but we do not argue at length when we disagree! We have never seen any reason to alter, let alone disrupt, this process; and the last thing either of us would wish to see would be interference from any “higher power,” self-proclaimed or otherwise!

A Warped Sense of Humor?

Watching the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on television was not the most engaging experience of the evening. Nevertheless, it was at least mildly amusing to observe how little attention President Donald Trump paid to any of the journalists receiving their awards. Clearly, all he had in mind was what he would say when the podium was finally his.

Was Donald Trump’s cap a joke or a threat? (from the Al Jazeera Web page about last night’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner)

The video of his speech, which is now available for viewing on an Al Jazeera Web page, may go down in history as the perfect definition of a warped sense of humor. Rather than extolling the virtues of press freedom, Trump turned his speech into an extended joke about running for a fourth term. (I really hope he thought this was a joke, given that he has not yet finished his second term!) I fear that, if there was any logic at all behind the speech, it involved making sure that any journalist recognized that any threat from the President’s mouth should at least be considered as possibly serious.

Personally, I was impressed by Al Jazeera’s boldness, even if it puts any future attempts to cover news about our current President in jeopardy.

A Forgotten Jerusalem?

Lella Warah reporting from Jerusalem (from an Al Jazeera Web page)

Having already raised discomfort over the fact that, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, relations between Israel and its neighbors have not been as open as they were when I was teaching computer science in Haifa, I realize that Jerusalem itself may become of major flash point over those relations. Indeed, another Al Jazeera Web page suggests that the flash has already been ignited. That Web page has a video on which Leila Warah reports that “thousands of Israelis stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound under Israeli police protection, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.” Sadly, I would guess that the White House pays little (if any) attention to Al Jazeera, and Warah’s report will be quickly forgotten (if it was even viewed)!

There He Goes Again!

I am beginning to think that questioning the behavior of President Donald Trump feels a bit like eating potato chips: Once you get started, it’s hard to stop! In my case, I “got started” when John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, took the President to task for threatening judges for doing their jobs in upholding the legal system. This was followed by Massachusetts Democratic congressman Jim McGovern reflecting on Trump’s arguments about rigged elections with a counter-argument that could not have been more informative: “You have to be a special kind of stupid to believe this bullshit.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (photograph by Tierney L. Cross for Getty Images, from an article in The Jerusalem Post)

In that context, Trump’s speech last night reminded me of the only quote from Ronald Regan that I can relish: “There you go again!” Al Jazeera now has a Web page for the perfect reinforcement of McGovern’s position. Trump decided to fire all his guns at Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, accusing him of being sympathetic to Palestinians. To the best of my knowledge, Schumer is Jewish and probably appreciates the founding of Israel as a “Jewish state” about 80 years ago. However, I suspect that he also appreciates the virtue of a country trying to be on good terms with its immediate neighbors.

As some readers probably already know, my first full-time job after I received my doctoral degree involved teaching computer science at the Technion, often referred to as the “Israel Institute of Technology.” I taught there for two years; and, in spite of political and religious differences, Israel managed to stay on reasonable (if not good) terms with its immediate neighbors. So I have a pretty good idea of where Schumer stands. On the other hand, I am also troubled by the fact that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may not be as open-minded about Israel’s neighbors as Schumer has been.

Indeed, when Netanyahu visits the White House this coming Tuesday, a Reuters article in today’s Jerusalem Post suggests that Trump may use the occasion as a stick for beating on Schumer! All this reminds me of the lengths to which the Constitution made it a point to distinguish the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches in terms of what they could and could not do. Apparently, the preamble never explicitly made the point that all members of all three branches should familiarize themselves with those terms; and now we may be facing the consequences of such negligence.

The Latest “Guardian” Insight

Screen shot of Donald Trump’s televised address last night (photograph by Saul Loeb provided by UPI and Shutterstock, from a Guardian Web page)

For better or worse I find that it is difficult to avoid political news with particular attention to events in the District of Columbia. It has been almost exactly 24 hours since I found myself writing about how the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court reminded President Donald Trump that the Executive branch is not “in charge of everything.” This morning at least one member of the Legislative branch has added his voice, Democratic congressman Jim McGovern from Massachusetts. While Chief Justice Roberts distilled his position to a single sentence, McGovern chose to elaborate his argument in three:

Trump says Democrats forgot to rig the election in 2016, successfully rigged it while *he* was president in 2020, then forgot how to rig it again in 2024. So the only election Democrats supposedly stole was the one he himself controlled. You have to be a special kind of stupid to believe this bullshit.

Since Trump seems to have aspired to make his tenure a special one, McGovern seems to have found just the right semantics for “special!”

Those Who Ignore Santayana

My guess is that just about any reader willing to pay attention to the texts on this site is well acquainted with the aphorism, “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.” This is one of those examples of the text being more familiar than the source, the source being the philosopher George Santayana, whom I first encountered when writing a high school term paper about Bertrand Russell. This morning my memory was triggered while I was browsing through the Al Jazeera Web site and found a NewsFeed Web page with the headline “Schumer slams Trump over Iran war.” This is a video summarized by a single sentence:

‘A recipe for utter disaster.’ Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has slammed President Donald Trump’s handling of the war on Iran, accusing him of repeating past mistakes without a clear strategy.

Mind you, expertise in history is not necessarily a prerequisite for holding any political office, particularly one selected by the electoral process; but these days, whether I am reading about the news or watching accounts on television, I keep feeling that I have already “seen the movie” and know that the ending is seldom a happy one.

Communism?

If I am not mistaken, the first time I encountered the word “communism” in this century was when Donald Trump gave his recent speech at Mount Rushmore. [added 7/9, 7:40 a.m.: It turns out this this was just the tip of an iceberg. This morning I encountered a NewsFeed article for Al Jazeera written by Soraya Lennie. The text for this article states, “Donald Trump has denounced communism more than 80 times in the past two weeks.”] I learned this through an Analysis article in The Guardian, which I encountered this morning. If anything, I find it ironic that Russia’s Vladimir Putin carries the same title as Donald Trump: President! This is not to say that governance in Russia is the same as it is here in the United States, but it serves as a reminder that we need to be careful about the words we choose and the semantics behind those words. Indeed, the very concept of diplomacy usually comes down to a battle of words and disagreements over semantics.

Georges Clemenceau (from his goodreads Web page)

This all reflects on the best known quotation of Georges Clemenceau from the last century: “War is too important to be left to the generals.” One might just as well substitute “heads of state” for “generals.” Disagreements can only be resolved through individuals with a solid command on knowing what they are talking about. Sadly, those individuals are few and far between. They are rarely heads of state and are more likely to serve as advisors. Nevertheless, disagreements can only be resolved through knowledge; and the real problem is finding the right individuals to enable such resolutions.

In that context, I have to confess that I cannot name any names, because, to be perfectly frank, I cannot think of any as I write this!

Technology is as Serious as War

Georges Clemenceau (provided to Wikimedia Commons by the German Federal Archive as part of a cooperation project, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license)

My guess is that just about everyone has encountered the aphorism “War is too important to be left to the generals,” which is usually attributed  to Georges Clemenceau, who was prime minister of France during the first quarter of the last century. This morning I was reminded that digital technology is just as important. As might be guessed, the trigger for that association can be traced back our president, Donald Trump.

The source of that trigger was the following New York Times headline: “Trump Plans to Sign Executive Order Granting Oversight of A.I. Models.” The subtitle of the headline is just as chilling: “The executive order, which would signal a shift from the hands-off approach the White House previously took, follows debates over how to gain control over A.I. models without disrupting innovation.” To be fair, a considerable amount of my time went into the theory and practice of artificial intelligence (A.I.) during about half of my undergraduate years and all my research efforts as a graduate student. I suspect that neither of the authors of the Times article, Tripp Mickle and Sheera Frenkel, are as informed about A.I. as well as any students (undergraduate and graduate) and professionals.

To be fair, on the other hand, I suspect that both of those authors are better equipped to make decisions about A.I. than anyone working in the White House (at any level), not to mention those working in either the Senate or the House of Representatives. One way of putting this is that there is a very wide gap between expertise in the digital world and decision-making at just about any level of the structure of our government. Sadly, I doubt that such a gap can be closed, simply because it takes too much time; and those working for the government have their hands fuller than ever.

When “Cool” AI Software May Be High-Risk

Photograph of home page for Anthropic’s Claude (photograph by Dado Ruvić, courtesy of Reuters)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/10/us-summoned-bank-bosses-to-discuss-cyber-risks-posed-by-anthropic-latest-ai-model

The View from the “Other Side”

During my morning review of feeds through The Old Reader, I realized that none of my sources in my “World News” category came from the United States. Two of them come from the United Kingdom (BBC and The Guardian); and the other is Al Jazeera, whose news I try to watch once a day, even if the only way I can do so is through YouTube. As might be guessed, Al Jazeera has its own take on how our country’s policies guided by our President are evolving.

Woman walking past a mural in Tehran protesting the United States military forces (from an Al Jazeera Web page)

This morning that take was captured in the following headline: “Trump says US forces to stay near Iran, ready for ‘next conquest.’” As of this writing, there is a ceasefire between our country and Iran, which, ironically, was brokered by Pakistan. Regardless of who was doing what, I felt I could breathe easier knowing that I would not be reading news of further hostilities. Nevertheless, I still had misgivings, first with the noun “conquest” and then after reading the following paragraph in the article with the aforementioned headline:

Yet Trump’s language underscored how quickly the truce could unravel. He reiterated US demands that Iran abandon any nuclear weapons ambitions and ensure safe passage through the vital shipping lane, while boasting that US forces were “Loading Up and Resting, looking forward, actually, to its next Conquest”.

The Guardian is having a say of its own in this matter. This morning ran an article about George Clooney giving a speech to 3,000 high school students in Cuneo, Italy. (Mind you, this setting allows Donald Trump to accuse Clooney of being un-American!) Here is what Clooney had to say:

Families are losing their loved ones. Children have been incinerated. The world’s economy is on a knife’s edge. This is a time for vigorous debate at the highest levels. Not for infantile name calling. I’ll start. A war crime is alleged ‘when there is intent to physically destroy a nation,’ as defined by the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute. What is the administration’s defense? 

This November’s election will have an impact on the membership in both houses of the Congress. I see this as a “litmus test” to measure how many voting citizens in the United States are willing to push back on Trump’s approach to foreign relations. My greatest concern is that this may be too long of a wait!

No Longer an Independent Branch of Goverment?

Screen shot from Al Jazeera video cited below  

Has the United States Congress forgotten that the Constitution established it as a division of the government independent of both the Judiciary and (of particular importance) the Executive (as in the President of the United States)?

https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2026/4/7/trump-threatens-iran-a-whole-civilisation-will-die

Diplomacy under Threat

Apparently, Donald Trump has become so frustrated with his attempts to advance his policy in the Middle East that he ended up showing his true colors:

https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2026/4/5/trump-threatens-iran-in-expletive-filled-social-media-post

Screen shot from Al Jazeera video 

Congress Questions Executive Authority (at last)

As I was going through this morning’s news feeds, I found two back-to-back articles from The Guardian (which, hopefully, at least a few readers may know began as the Manchester Guardian) involving efforts of the Legislative Branch of our government to have as much say as the Executive Branch. Mind you, I suspect that the current President of the United States may not be informed about what the Constitution has to say about both of those branches. Fortunately, there are members of the Congress who are better informed about these matters and have decided to push back against some of the President’s latest efforts.

The first of the two articles involved the President considering withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The treaty was signed in 1949 to create an alliance that would deter any threat from the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw Pact countries. The second involved providing funds to aid Israel’s defense forces. For the second half of the twentieth century, Israel had reason to be threatened by all of the countries on its borders. (Full disclaimer: My first job after receiving my doctoral degree involved teaching graduate and undergraduate computer science at the Technion, often called, with a nod to the state of Massachusetts, the “Israel Institute of Technology.”)

The focus of the first article is Mitch McConnell, currently Chair of the Senate Rules Committee; and it concerns the fact that the Senate has a NATO observer group, which is chaired jointly by Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Thom Tillis. Both of them are strong advocates of NATO, strong enough for McConnell to agree with their rejection of the possibility of withdrawal.

The leader in the second article is Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She used social media to release a statement beginning as follows:

The Israeli government is well able to fund the Iron Dome system, which has proven critical to keep innocent civilians safe from rocket attacks and bombardment.

Consistent with my voting record to date, I will not support Congress sending more taxpayer dollars and military aid to a government that consistently ignores international law and U.S. law.

The first page of the first edition of Thomas Paine’s pamphlet The American Crisis (from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

I have to confess that, for the most part, I tend to be skeptical of “social media.” Nevertheless, if The Guardian was willing to accept Ocasio-Cortez’ post on X, I am willing to take the same stand. The fact is that we are now back on a “turf” that Thomas Paine first published in 1776 under the title The American Crisis: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Our President may be happy enough with the state of his soul, but it looks like there is a rising tide of those disagreeing with him. Since that tide involves Republicans as well as Democrats, I personally think that it is too serious to be ignored!

Why Al Jazeera?

Screen shot of Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Al Jazeera English

Readers have probably noted a flurry of URLs directed toward Web pages for Al Jazeera English. This involves a somewhat elaborate story, which goes back to the fact that my first job after receiving my doctoral degree in 1971 was at the Technion, whose “subtitle” was “Israel Institute of Technology.” In other words, I completed my education at one “institute of technology” (in Massachusetts) and began my professional life at another!

I spent only two years at the Technion before returning to the United States for an Assistant Professorship at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. I was glad to be back in a setting that was willing to view both Israeli and Arab cultures on common ground. Indeed, I relished that common ground the following summer, when I planned a vacation that took me to both Cairo in Egypt and Amman in Jordan.

Nevertheless, news about the Middle East that accounted for both Israel and its Arab neighbors tended to be a “sometime thing” among most United States television channels. It was not until 2006 that Al Jazeera, based in Doha, Qatar, launched a 24-hour English-language news channel. Unfortunately, while I could usually count on good cable service wherever I happened to be living at the time, none of those services seemed willing to include Al Jazeera English as a channel.

As usual, the Internet came to my rescue. United States television networks may have tried to avoid Al Jazeera English, but YouTube had no problems with creating a Web page providing a live feed! Now I get my television service from xfinity, and guess what? The service includes more channels than I can ever hope to keep up with, but it also includes an “Apps” category. It did not take me long to discover that YouTube was included in that category, making it easier for me to watch YouTube content on a television (usually with my wife), rather than on a computer screen.

My guess is that I am far from the only one to get my news this way. Indeed, that aforementioned Web page claims that “more than 270 million households in over 140 countries across the globe" account for Al Jazeera English viewers. Now, if I feel I need perspective from a source outside the United States, I have an alternative to the BBC!

Olé!

 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/30/spain-closes-airspace-to-us-planes-involved-in-war-on-iran

Does "Meaning" Mean Anything Anymore?

I have decided that, regardless of what is actually happening in the world, the Republican Party has decided to declare war on the word “meaning;” and what frightens me is that they may be winning:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/30/rubio-tells-al-jazeera-strait-of-hormuz-will-reopen-one-way-or-another 

The Commander-in-Chief reveals his priorities

 

Donald Trump displaying his priorities 

https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/trump-interrupts-a-cabinet-meeting-dealing-with-22153824.php

… and, as far as I am concerned, we have every cause to be skeptical, if not afraid! 

Is YouTube a Social Network?

This morning Zoe Kleinman, Technology Editor for the BBC, decided to do the best she could in dealing with the assets and liabilities of social media. I have no idea whether or not she wrote her own headline. As headlines go, it was more than a bit on the long side; but it was still designed to draw attention, at least as far as I was concerned when I encountered it. The full text is as follows:

'A game-changing moment for social media' - what next for big tech after landmark addiction verdict?

The article involves the question of whether software classified as “social networks” does more harm than good. Kleinman wasted no time in citing a recent Los Angeles court decision that came down on the “harm” side in a seriously big way:

The tech giants in this case, Meta and Google, must now pay $6m (£4.5m) in damages to a young woman known as Kaley, the victim at the centre of this case.

She claimed the platforms left her with body dysmorphia, depression and suicidal thoughts.

Both companies intend to appeal, with Meta maintaining a single app cannot be solely responsible for a teen mental health crisis.

Google, meanwhile, says YouTube is not a social network.

At the very least, I think we need to consider the validity of that final sentence.

By way of disclaimer, I am not a particularly heavy user of YouTube; but it is still a major factor involving the writing that I do. Were it not for YouTube, I would not be able to follow those performances by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra that are live-streamed (and, yes, my thoughts about the San Francisco Symphony often involve reflecting on my experiences with similar ensembles). Basically, I watch YouTube content attentively (“live” or otherwise) when I wish to then write about the music being performed; and that is the only thing I do with the site.

Nevertheless, most (if not all) YouTube Web pages allow for comments. That service draws far more attention than attending a concert through cyberspace. Democracy Now! is a global news program that livestreams through YouTube. It is produced by Amy Goodman, who made the “great leap forward” from public radio to cyberspace. Since launching her site, she has accumulated about 3.27 million subscribers; and this morning’s broadcast already has 656 comments. As a student, I learned about how information was shared in the agora in ancient history. The scope of that agora has now grown to accommodate anyone with access to the World Wide Web.

Emma Lazarus (photograph by William Kurtz)

The British comedy group Beyond the Fringe had a joke about the danger of the Statue of Liberty. They singled out this sentence from Emma Lazarus’ poem “The New Colossus”: “Give me your tired, your poor,/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” The punch line in the joke was the problem that “people did” as a response! Those “people” are now “responding” to invitations to comment on Web pages; and sometimes the enthusiasm to respond runs way ahead of understanding the source for the response.

For better or worse, I have tended to pay more attention to getting my own thoughts in order than worrying about what other people think. Writing is an exercise to keep my cognitive capacities active. If an opinion is questioned, then answering it is just another facet of cognitive exercise. I appreciate the opportunity, even if it turns out that I was mistaken about something. Nevertheless, I am sure that I am in a minority category; but, if it continues to exercise cognition, I do not see any reason to complain.