When I look at my students (BTW, I’m teaching at St Edwards University again this semester), I experience a string of emotions that do not have names, only longish descriptions. Examples: I know you think I’m just a middle-aged frump-meister but I really,...
I learned that my favorite folk guitarist died last month in his home in Iowa. I first heard Kelly Joe Phelps play on A Prairie Home Companion back in the 90’s. It was so stunning that I scrambled to find out who that was and what was the name of his album. I...
Google’s LaMDA chatbox and computer sentience: Why no computer will ever think You may have heard about the Google software engineer who last week told the Washington Post that the Google chatbox named LaMDA had spawned sentience. (A chatbox is simply a computer...
If one goes to the farthest south end of the Sayulita beach where the sand turns to jagged rock, a secret road can be found that leads behind the rocks to Playa de los Muertos, a hidden beach invisible from the rest of the world. On the way, to the side of the road,...
Neither of us slept well the first night following our traumatic entrance into Puerto Vallarta. But by 10 a.m. the next morning, we found ourselves in the backseat of the car of Mr. Benjamin Sanchez, our Uber driver, as he drove us to Sayulita on a mountainous,...
American corporations such as Hilton Hotels are careful to export a complete American experience and install it fully on foreign soil. No matter the country, soft-skinned American wimps like us can escape to our creature comforts like clean water, air conditioning,...
