Eyes, Algorithms and Detroit a morning reverie

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How Republicans of my Grandfather’s Era took to being second fiddle.

I spent several hours typing a little over 2000 words, edited roughly as I typed, on the subject above yesterday. I started early in the morning having woken up after 4AM and typed till about 6AM. After that I had a bowl of Captain Crunch with fresh blueberries my grandson’s current favorite all around meal and returned to typing for another couple hours three posts here. I edited them a little more carefully and then linked them together with the previous post, next post links I’ve managed to make a three day habit. As the word soft changes have grown ever more complicated I lost this a decade ago or more. Today people who return to the opening page can see ten previous posts but they don’t connect with the before and after posts which are often thematically connected. I don’t know how long his three day habit will last. Twenty years ago I think I had a small circle of people who checked out my constant churn of posts semi-regularly. Since then I’ve fallen off the radar and todays algorithms keep people’s eyes glued to their portable screens, me included. Its a phenomenon that got a cover story in a recent Atlantic Magazine a good compilation of analyses that people’s eyes are glued to the screen to read.

This morning in a reverie before getting out from under the covers I had two titles for columns or blog posts, Selling Eyes, prompted by the thing I’ve made it a point to notice over recent years and especially the last couple days. How so many people sitting with their family and friends tune everything out to look at whatever they are scrolling through on their phones. Often when my family is together two parents, two grandparents and two grandsons are looking at their cells even if something is on the television for them all to share. Gone are the days when … there were no cell phones. I lived most of my days like that. I have a busy mind still whose postings few people consult. Donald Trump has won that contest world-wide for most days of the last nine years. In his first campaign it was estimated his constant trail of fire gave him a billion free dollars worth of news as campaign advertising. He is our cellphone and the algorisms are more powerful than ever and several of the richest algorithm billionaires are showering their riches on Trump including such Trump skeptics as Musk who gave Trump’s campaign 250 million dollars in turn out the ignorant vote eye candy and Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos who has just given the First Lady 40 million for the story rights for a movie about her life as the most successful Slovenian gold digger in history. And that was the title for a second post that I’ve been contemplating writing for a few days: The Komodo dragon algorithm.

And a third post I woke thinking about would simply be titled Detroit.

Last night’s television watching began after Claudia and I did the Netflix “What-to-watch scroll” for twenty minutes when something reminded of a movie I was interested in watching when it came out in 2017 or that vicinity. So, I’ve decided will me my next post.

About the author

Harry is a ferociously good natured eccentric in Duluth Minnesota who detests traitors dressed up as Uncle Sam. You can find somewhat better edited writings of his at the Duluth Reader "contributors." page. The URL is:

https://duluthreader.com/contributors/h/84/284-harry-welty