The gulf between employers and the employed is constantly widening, and classes are rapidly forming, one comprising the very rich and powerful, while in another are found the toiling poor…. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.
— Grover Cleveland, as quoted by Heather Cox Richardson in a brief history of the first Labor Day.
Spoiler: Labor Day was founded as a sop to labor after business interests defeated the labor movement.
I enjoyed chick lit and my dick didn't fall off
“Elizabeth Gilbert has a new memoir out.” The mere sentence radiates gentle inspiration–watercolors, billowy pants with elephants printed on them, sparkly truthtelling in a big straw hat.
— Elizabeth Gilbert’s Latest Epiphanies, by Jia Tolentino
I dismissed Gilbert as trivial until I heard her interviewed on Debbie Millman’s Design Matters podcast a few years ago and was impressed. Gilbert was promoting her novel, “City of Girls,” and I read that and loved it.
Debbie has exposed me to a couple of books I would normally have dismissed as women’s literature, written by women whom I previously dismissed as frivolous, and I have been surprised to find I loved the interviews and the books and that the authors were formidable. The other one was Susanna Hoffs, lead singer of the 80s group the Bangles and author of the novel “This Bird Has Flown.”
Debbie and I were friends when we were teenagers, and I still think of her as a friend, even though we haven’t spoken in more than 35 years. I’ve followed her career from afar with great interest, happiness and respect.
Enshittification reaches beyond the grave
They’re giving interviews advocating for tougher gun laws, such as when the family of Joaquin Oliver, a victim of the 2018 Parkland school shooting in Florida, created a beanie-wearing AI avatar of him and had it speak with journalist Jim Acosta in July. “This is just another advocacy tool to create that urgency of making things change,” Manuel Oliver, Joaquin’s father, told NPR.
And in May, a bearded AI avatar of Chris Pelkey, the deceased victim of a road rage incident in Arizona, gave a video impact statement at the sentencing of the man who fatally shot Pelkey. Pelkey’s family created the deadbot. “I feel that that was genuine,” said Judge Todd Lang after hearing the AI generated impact statement. He then handed down the maximum sentence.
Eventually, maybe you’ll be having a nice chat with your dead grandma, and she’ll try to convince you to buy crypto.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order requiring law enforcement, including feds, to wear masks and ID and activate body cameras when operating in the city. The order is almost certainly symbolic because Johnson lacks federal jurisdiction.
Asked about how effective his order is going to be given that federal agents don’t take orders from him, Johnson shot back: “Yeah, and I don’t take orders from the federal government. Thank you all very much.”
How To Argue With An AI Booster. By the indomitable Edward Zitron.