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David Mitchell

Thanks Mary Margaret.

And thanks to Steve Hodges, who sent the biggest card I've ever seen!  It was waiting for me in the pile of mail  when I got home.

Beautiful day to come home and gaze out over the river. 

James Hamilton, M. D.

Dave,

Glad you are finally home and can enjoy that moon river again.

Hope you can now enjoy some better cuisine to help further your recovery and gain some weight back.

Jim

Michael McLeod

How we got along without you I'll never know, Dave. By the way we kicked off a whole new year without you. Here's hoping it will be to your liking.

David Mitchell

Mike,

I never went anywhere. I've been right here at "Resorts of Beaufort" (Resorts is a loose translation of the word "prison") all along - with my trusty laptop nearbye. Just got release yesterday after 10 weeks. 

Home alone is different using a walker and sometimes a 4-pronged cane. Now that my rib pain from the crash is much lower, an old nemeisis has returned but more intense - lowere back arthritis - oh wow!  Hurts like never before! But the main task now is to work on strenght and balance. 

Instead of a full time staff, I will now be relying on "Home Health Care" - all part of the Medicare system. 

And continuing to enjoy an army of helpers, food droppers, errand runners, mail gatherers, from my friends, neighboors, church, and work buddies.

Mark Schweickart

Great to see you made your escape from the hospital, and its cuisine you so much enjoyed. And it is even greater to hear you have an army of friends to pitch in to help you during your at-home recovery. I was fearful that if left to your own devices you might quickly be longing for the good old hospital-tray days. 

David Mitchell

Never!

Thanks Mark

Joseph D. McCarthy

Dave I just received an Email from the nurses on your ward.  They stated that the only reason they released you was that you were starting to spread rumors that the food was not only great, but that it was prepared by chefs from a Michelin three star restaurant.  The hospital was afraid more people would have accidents just to get admitted with out a two year wait for reservations.

All joking aside, glad your on the mend.

And now for some thoughts from someone out there. 

The difference between genius and stupidity is this: genius has its limits. 

Michael McLeod

One of the sweetest stories I've ever seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXNCCdcBhcY

John Maxwell

David Mitchell

Thanks Jack,

It's really slow going now that I'm home  with my new "walker" and 3 times a week in-house nuring visits. It seeem old man arthritis (lower bck) has come back to stay

Right now my daughter from Cincinnat is here for a few to help me get situated sent angel. She's my heaven sent angel.

As I recover I hope to try to writes some book chapters - not sure that I will sustain that

Joseph Gentilini

Glad to hear that you are on the mend, David M.  Still sending good energy your way.  joe

Mark Schweickart

MIke -- Your link to the BBC story about the altruistic whale was quite fascinating. I have always had a more Ahab-like point of view when it comes to images of whales - a view quite a bit darker than this uplifting story of the whale rescuing a diver from a menacing whale-shark. I wrote a song about this viewpoint, and probably posted it years ago, but here it is again for you English major, Herman Melville fans out there.

David Mitchell

Thanks Joe

James Hamilton, M. D.

Say It Aint So!

This could make Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, W.H. Jackson, John Fielder and so many other photographic giants turn over in their graves!

I just read on the internet today that Artificial Intelligence could possibly put a lot of professional photographers out of business. AI has gotten to the point - and it will only advance further - where anyone with even a cell phone camera will be able to "create" gallery quality photographs. We are all aware by now of the many ways in which AI is becoming capable to change many occupations and even put people out of work. I guess it was only a matter of time when this art could be removed from the hands of the artist. Indeed, post processing of photographs has been happening even before the dawn of the digital age but this represents a quantum leap in removing the human factor.

This should be rather easy for studio and portrait photographs. However, landscape, wildlife, outdoor and sport photographers may still be able to maintain their professions. 

The "giants" mentioned above were landscape photographers who dedicated their professional lives to bringing the beauty of nature to the public who may have never seen the beauty of places, often inaccesible to many except the most daring.

To be continued after I grill a couple of steaks.

Steaks were great!

Anyway, the human factor seems to be being ignored as AI creeps into the artistic world as well as other human endeavors. 

This sort of reminds me of the George Jones country song "Who Will Fill Their Shoes" which was about all the country singers who had died. Will talented and dedicated photographers want to pursue their passion in this evolving world? Will our galleries be flooded with "fake" art? Will companies like Canon, Nikon, Sony, Pentax and others go out of business?

Hey, Bob Berkemer - what say you?

Jim

Michael McLeod

Quite Interesting, Doctor. And, I might add, quite inevitable.

This message produced by Michael McLeod's ForumBot. patent pending.

John Maxwell

James Hamilton, M. D.

Jack,

Those are all good points and, even in is infantcy, AI has already shown that it can be a very useful tool in many areas of human life. For instance, in medicine radiologists are finding it can recognize small abnormalities that evade the human eye. Of course, even that can present problems such as leading to more expensive and invasive "work ups", patient anxiety and treatments of lesions that were perhaps insignificant in the first place.

However, in the field of art I fear it might take away the artist's real vision and what he or she is trying to convey even though it may be pleasing to the viewer. Is that good or bad? I do not know but it seems that it diminishes the human touch.

Like all technology it will effect our lives and that effect remains to be seen.

Jim

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Michael McLeod

I'm surprised not to see stories about ai and space exploration.

then again I haven't done any poking around in that arena. note to self: do a little digging and report back to the gang about it.

John Jackson

If you want to know who to blame if the southern border situation remains unfixed in the coming months, it’s Trump and the Republicans.  A sweeping bipartisan reform bill (largely written by Republican James Lankford of Oklahoma) was almost ready to pass in the Senate when Trump trashed it because he’d rather have the border situation continue to be out of control so he can use it as an election issue. 

And GOP Senators, like most Republicans in Congress, are terrified of crossing Trump for fear of a) getting primaried and losing their seats and b) facing unrelenting death threats from Trump’s goons.  As an example, Mitt Romney told his biographer that he is spending $5000 per day for security for himself and his family: https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2023/09/14/romney---a-very-large-portion-of--the-gop--doesn-t-believe-in-the-constitution-

The Senate immigration bill was sweeping in that it gave the Republicans most of what they’d been asking for because Biden and the Democrats have concluded that the more humane methods of discouraging illegal immigration that have been tried for the last couple of years haven’t worked.  To give you an idea of how sweeping the bill was, it did not even include protection for the “dreamers” – people in their late teens and twenties who were brought here (illegally) as infants/toddlers and who have spent virtually their entire lives in the U.S. and identify almost entirely as Americans.

And just as big, or bigger, a tragedy is that House Republicans had insisted that additional aid for Ukraine (and Taiwan as well) be tied to passage of an immigration bill that gave them what they wanted.   And now that the reform bill is essentially dead, the crazies who control the House haven’t backed away from this linkage – no immigration bill means no aid for Ukraine.

And so you don’t think that aid to Ukraine is seriously controversial, a majority of Senate Republicans favor it.  The Ukrainians are fast running out of ammunition and supplies and the situation is deteriorating daily.  No wonder Putin is such a big admirer of Trump (who has said again he wants to pull the U.S out of NATO) and the gutless Republicans who enable him.  And Xi Jinping couldn’t be happier to see the U.S. pulling back from overseas commitments (e.g., Taiwan) that have been central to U.S foreign policy since WWII.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

2023's illegal immigration numbers are TEN TIMES that of 2017's, the first year Trump took office. 

John, I made a promise to myself that I would not debate politics on this Message Forum, but I would love to have a respectful debate on the facts on the User Forum. 

Joseph Gentilini

John Jackson, I agree with you 100% on why the Southern Border is not fixed!  Trump was in for 4 years (and did nothing) and he didn't fix it.  Now that there is actually a bill that is bipartison in nature, Trump again gets involved and trashes it.  I could go on and on, but will stop there before I totally go 'loco'.   Joe

David Mitchell

John,

As a proud member of the "Woke Right", Mr Hanson's article seems confusing to me, as well as bit behind the news.

With the incredible news these last few days, about a border bill that would gain the approval of both parties, but is being submarined by someone who is not even a sitting member of congress, shows the shallowness and lack of character of those membrs of the House.       

John Jackson

MM, the Message Forum hardly seems overrun with political posts these days.  I’m probably one of the chief offenders and I haven’t posted anything political in two months (actually, on Nov. 5 when I responded to one of your posts on the Ohio ballot question on abortion).  So I doubt if many of our classmates (myself included) will hold it against you if you want to respond here.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

John....the User Forum is just one click away & I would rather have a dialogue with those who are truly interested in political discourse on the User side as Janie has previously asked us to do. 

David Mitchell

For the 4 or 5 of you still reading the Forum -

From the Department of Absolutely Nothing To Do With Anything

One of my last nights watching the cable TV at the re-hab center, I caught the tail end of the film "Knute Rockne All, American", and following the film, the TCM host was giving some interesting background - as they often do.

The roll of Knute Rockne was played by the popular actor Pat O'Brien. However studios first choice for the starring role was actually Jimmy Cagne. But the studio was being pressured by the Catholic Church not to use Cagne for the roll because he had spoken out publicly against the Republican forces of Generlisimo Franco in the Spanish Civil war of the late 1920s. The Republican forces were backed by the Catholic Church in Spain. 

note:  remember, Franco's forces were engaged in the bombing of their own Spanish civilians with bombers supplied by Nazi Germany.