FINGER ON THE PULSE…
- Like Explaining Bitcoin To Buddhist Monks
- Douglas MacArthur, Norman Schwarzkopf, and Donald Trump.
- Can You Spell “Ceasefire?”
- Your N95 facemask
- AI Disruption, Labor Anxiety, and The Future Of Human Relevance
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- LIKE EXPLAINING BITCOIN TO BUDDHIST MONKS
Admittedly, your humble scribe inhales an almost irresponsible volume of news, commentary, declarations, propaganda, analysis, whispers, and outright nonsense—daily, relentlessly, enough to threaten full-scale cranial hard-drive overload.
Not to worry. That, thankfully, remains under disciplined management.
If anything, age has delivered an unexpected dividend: a sharper filter. A more discriminating intellectual armory. My cerebral vault has not diminished; it has become more selective. OK. Much more selective. Less interested in retaining noise. Far more ruthless about what earns residency in the cognitive arsenal. Whoa… The same cerebellum may have sustained damage with the preceding sentence… I could have written—I no longer need to instantly recall the name of that character actor in THAT 1968 Sergio Leone western.
The big brains at UCLA, over the past several years, have explained this to me repeatedly, at considerable length. The good news: I am not “losing it.” Not yet. The greater reality is physiological, not catastrophic. The brain, with age and use, becomes increasingly adept at distinguishing between what matters, what may matter, and what is pure, uncut absurdity.
In simpler terms: the machinery is fine. The tolerance for idiocy is what has materially declined.
And so, each day, I consume a staggering procession of headlines, speeches, expert pronouncements, social-media wisdom, political theater, economic contradiction, and cultural performance art that leaves me oscillating somewhere between informed comprehension and intellectual whiplash.
I understand the words. I grasp the premise. I see the assertion.
And yet, with alarming frequency, I still find myself staring into the metaphorical abyss, muttering—sometimes politely, sometimes profanely:
“I understand what you are saying… but what the heck are you talking about?”
Some things in modern life simply defy rational translation. They feel less like information and more like trying to EXPLAIN BITCOIN TO BUDDHIST MONKS. Or Bitcoin to them.
You hear it. You recognize the language. Yet somewhere between premise and conclusion, civilization made a hard turn into complete, incomprehensible lunacy.
So, tell me — what was your best ‘Huh?’ this week?
You run into a statement, an event, a policy, a trend — some supposed pearl of wisdom — that makes you pause. Not because it’s profound. Because it’s so spectacularly stupid that explaining it is already a lost cause.
Do share. Misery may love company. Certainly, bewilderment thrives on it.
I would like to hear what stopped you cold this week — that absolutely brain-blowing moment.
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- DOUGLAS MACARTHUR, NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF, AND DONALD TRUMP.
This is written with at least some measure of hope—whether entirely justified or not.
Was it myth, history, or strategic fantasy that MacArthur urged Truman to let him march westward—through a starving Soviet apparatus—all of it, with minimal American casualties. All the way to breakfast in Moscow? Perhaps. Perhaps not. One could argue MacArthur fancied himself capable of becoming emperor of Mother Russia. Why not? He certainly did an extraordinary job of that in Japan.
But no. That just “ain’t us.”
And on more reasonable authority—or perhaps enduring folklore—that may well have been Bush’s essential message to Schwarzkopf when the road to Baghdad appeared militarily unobstructed; perhaps as American norms would have it, morally fraught. That supersonic march, characterized by the Air Force “a turkey shoot,” would have likely cost a million lives. Some, many just wanting to surrender.
I choose to ignore all the elegant prose about our strategic foci on all that. I call B.S. on all that.
No. That just “ain’t us.”
Whether wholly true or partly apocryphal, the principle matters. Power unconstrained by judgment is destruction.
Which brings us here:
Is Donald Trump fully weighing what it would mean—kinetically, economically, and historically—were he to unleash the immense force now sitting, quite literally, locked and loaded, capable of delivering the Armageddon of 2026? Balancing his instincts, bravado, whatever, with a conscience? Like, “doing that to those many millions of people, well, ‘that just ain’t us.”
Let us hope wisdom proves greater than impulse.
In the interest of clarity: Iran must never have a nuclear weapon. Nor delivery systems capable to blackmailing the entire world. Nor control over the Straight. Those imperatives are non-negotiable. That does in fact leave the potential for a genuine Hobson’s choice. Kinda like Truman’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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- CAN YOU SPELL “CEASEFIRE?”
Say what?
The news—THE DAILY NEWS EVERYWHERE—trumpets yet another ceasefire or two or three in the world.
A ceasefire does NOT equal peace. Rather, at best temporarily, precariously managed, insubstantial pauses in kinetic warfare. Never realistic conflict resolution. Never resolve underlaying strategic objectives. Never a win-win.
At best:
- Tactical pauses.
- By and large disingenuous, tragi-comical staged humanitarian windows, serving as dress-rehearsal for continuing bloodshed.
- Negotiation scaffolds
- Shameless, morally bankrupt political optics
The reality:
- Breathing room for rebuild military capacity—both sides.
- Replenish weapons and logistics.
- Improve strategic positioning
The result:
Invariably, war resumes, most often with much deepened revenge narratives and greater intensity. Much more death supplants all the jawing.
The truth:
A bad—perfunctory—ceasefire can be worse than continued pressure of it. War masquerading as a temporary peace.
Really?
At this writing, there are 36 shooting wars in the world. How woefully we, humans, devalue life when at least 25 of those just about nobody writes nor talks about.
Well, I will fall in with the crowd, at least today, and focus on the biggies—all in various stages of incomprehensible CEASEFIRES.
- U.S.–Iran / 2026 Iran War—the third, fourth, who-knows ceasefire.
With the U.S. military and economic boots firmly on the throat of everything of economic and military value in Iran, here we go again: another ceasefire. Another set of hardcore, non-negotiable demands by us. Another set of hardcore retorts from whoever is the negotiator-du-jour for Iran. Another set of U.S. demands, that, if met, will be tossed into the Dasht-e Kvir desert in Iran. Indeed, the harbinger of a “war calendar.”
We finally settle with a superficial, apparently OK deal. Then, we calendar our return to Iran—I mean bombs, missiles, blockades, economic tsunamis and all that—in three years. Great opportunities to keep the military and the military industrial complex humming. Never mind the human costs.
What the heck is going on?
Negotiating Tactic Masquerading as Goodwill. The US dangles longer truces and sanctions relief bait; Iran probes for guarantees, asset unfreezes, and reduced pressure on its nuclear program. Both (plus Israel) use the pause to test red lines on the Strait of Hormuz and enrichment without committing to real concessions. Classic leverage play dressed as peace efforts.
Slow-Motion Surrender or Slow-Motion Victory for Iran: slow-motion attrition and survival under blockade/economic collapse. For the US/Israel side: slow-motion victory by grinding down Iran’s capabilities and nuclear ambitions without a full endless war. Neither admits defeat or claims total win yet.
What the heck is going on?
This is not the customer-facing Trump. Read more elsewhere in the FINGER ON THE PULSE.
- Russia-Ukraine War
I am not going to add to your Russia-Ukraine war-fatigue. Just going to focus on the latest CEASEFIRE there. One that just ended! A THREE DAY US-BROKERED “VICTORY DAY” CEASEFIRE, May 9-11, to give Russia an unimpeded opportunity to stage their annual VICTORY DAY PARADE. As pathetic as that was.
You believe that?
One strains to find humor in the spectacle, but pathetic is the more honest diagnosis: the lowest form of theater, where degradation is currency and the audience is presumed too foolish to notice
Can you “see and hear” Volodymyr on a telephone call with Vlad Putin: “Go ahead and take two days off from the incredibly wasteful, entirely pointless slaughter of our youngest and bravest. Have your little victory celebration. Give me a call when you are done. Then we start murdering each other again.” Does that not blow your mind?
All is cool. Vlad is back to conquering the world. Volodymyr building—for now—a mile high imaginary statue of himself, on top of the billions of dollars he has made off, well, from the U.S.
Good thing, Trump “got” the rights to half their minerals. And excellent armaments-supply contracts from the EU. So, we can sit on the sidelines… Right until, the spirits forbid, Putin gets close to those mines. Then, well, can you spell U.S. Marine Corps?
- Pakistan-India
All the great stuff coming out of Pakistan: the hub of all US-Iran negotiations. Never mind that I consider Pakistan the most dangerous place on earth.
Sharif is the steward of a nuclear-armed, military-shadowed state whose stability or failure reverberates instantly across south Asia. He balances Islamabad’s political minefield with one hand tied by the generals in what he knows is not his army.
253 million Shia Muslims with nuclear weapons. In a perpetual war with a billion Hindu. What could go wrong.
Nah. The Trump negotiated peace is just a temporary mitigation. A CEASEFIRE. It will not survive once the tariff threats regress to a tenuous status quo. Until everybody gets used to them.
As with most things in politics, that pendulum will eventually regress to a mean. It will sit there only as long as trump is president.
- Israel-Hamas
My nerve to come up with a list of highlights of that purported ceasefire…
– Hostage and prisoner releases. Thanks to Donald Trump and to Bibi Netanyahu for allowing Trump to do “his thing.”
– Temporary—if prayers are answered, at best, it will be a longer “temporary”—reduction in large-scale combat.
– Humanitarian access. Ceasefire provisions created openings—however inconsistent—for aid, medical assistance, and civilian relief to enter Gaza. Hello, you all: how about some realistic PR for that? More than a great deal of that before “this” ceasefire.
– Diplomatic space. Some of the regional “powers” are “just about all in” keeping regional escalation from accelerating. Would you not—I sure as heck would—witnessing the might of the U.S. military? What we can do from 3,500 air-miles away much less when we park in your neighborhood. Whoa, baby.
– Contain the regional spillover of war. At least everybody thought so. Alas, there is now Iran and Lebanon.
- Lowlights, of course…
– Violations continue, of course. The killing continues. Some fragile ceasefire.
– Humanitarian suffering continues. It will take a cataclysmic change in all that characterizes the region, generationally so, to translate to meaningful civilian recovery.
How about all my friends and non-friends in the US and Europe step the hell up. Help, support, stop polarizing—well your kids from diapers to grave, and we all find a way to achieve peaceful coexistence in that troubled world. Hey people: we are born the same way, bleed the same way, expire the same way. Give hate a rest!
– Core disputes govern. Hamas disarmament, Israeli military withdrawal, governance of Gaza—remain fundamentally unresolved. How about you all let humble me make that happen? Anyone want to place a bet against that? Big talk and ask. But: you have a better idea?
– Ceasefire is used as political and strategic instruments rather than triage.
Bottom line. A ceasefire is not peace. It is often merely an intermission—valuable if used to build resolution, dangerous if used only to reload.
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- YOUR N95 FACE-MASK
OK. So, arguably, COVID ended exactly three years ago. May 5, 2023, the hapless World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID no longer a public health emergency.
Yet, without exceptions, every day, when in Los Angeles, California, I spied people wearing their silly little blue face masks—about as useful as me piloting a nuclear submarine—while driving alone in their cars!
And believe it or not, before anyone has ever heard of HANTAVIRUS, I had the dubious distinction of having people at the supermarket checkout line severely reprimanding me to maintain SOCIAL DISTANCING. Not like I was not at least five feet away. SOCIAL DISTANCING: among the truly insipid, pointless manias ever to be sold. Hmmm. Wish I came up with that…
The same WHO told me—and millions of others, TODAY, that I have nothing to fear. Just stay away from infected rodents that have traveled north from South America. None of that masking and social distancing stuff. Yet. Let me know how you are doing with that.
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- AI DISRUPTION, LABOR ANXIETY, AND THE FUTURE OF HUMAN RELEVANCE
I wanted to write—heck, I will write: give me a break.
Quoting and paraphrasing two really smart people (Who? Let us keep some secrets from each other): “From workforce displacement and inequality amplification to governance risks and democratic vulnerability, AI’s societal consequences are now among the fastest-rising global concerns… In practical terms: people increasingly fear not only hardship, but uncertainty over what is true, where they belong, and whether they remain economically relevant.” OK. I will fess up if you reach out…
Humbly I profess some expertise in all matters AI, having been in the AI world, in all aspects of it, for four decades. I have written dozens of talks on AI. Dozens of podcasts. White papers and more. No matter the topic, the audience, AI will surface; take center stage. No matter the topic.
It is not below me to pitch my own stuff. But you may want to read my MONDAY INFLUENCER® ABSTRACT. Some about the most transformational advancements in history, and how did all change life for the better. None of those, despite many dire prognostications, destroyed civilization.
- Fire
- Agriculture
- The Wheel
- Metallurgy (Tools and Materials Engineering)
- Writing
- Sanitation Systems
- 7. The Printing Press
- The Steam Engine
- The Internal Combustion Engine
- Electricity
- Vaccination
- Communication Networks (Telegraph → Telephone → Digital)
- The Transistor
- The Internet
- AI
Reach out for a copy.
More later. Thanks for reading. Love to hear from you.