Finger On the Pulse
CURRENT AFFAIRS TO TALK ABOUT…

Top of mind, in no particular order…

“So much stuff (So Little Time).” – John Noir Smith, 2021.

Keeping in mind the afore quoted, some “kinda” one-liners and one “multi-liner…”

Immigration crises in the Americas (watch out Canada), Europe and elsewhere continue to severely impact economic, social, political and even moral constructs.

The worldwide quest for domination fueled by ownership of rare earth minerals — now and forever —continues. People are dying. Glad to unearth a two hour interview I did on Ukraine TWO YEARS AGO. Corruption and greed continue to thrive while … people are dying.

Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams.

How many people recognize much less know those names? However central, actually, indispensable to this massive story, they have been relegated to occasionally mentioned “bit-players” in that “story.”

And will remain so until Elon Musk sends his intergalactic Tesla-taxi to fetch them from the space station where, at this publication, they have been stranded for 278 days.

“How can love so right go so wrong.” – The BeeGees.

Or has it? Or are we being gas-lighted just a touch?

The world, at least in the unconscionably massive US federal bureaucracy, stopped breathing for the past few days.

The world around us is swirling about us with vertiginous speed. Imagine living in a world where a nano-second is so last century! When the AI digital robotic taskmaster at my fingertips can actually admonish me for what I feel. The temerity, presumptiveness, arrogance of that machine to tell me how I feel! And what I need to consider doing to fix it.

Ask Elon Musk’s incomprehensibly massive and powerful AI machine, DOJO, what are the most important affairs of the week. Yes. Give that some minutes. How about, just for fun (or is it), see Elon Musk asking King Charles to replace the UK government. Technically he has the power; question is does he have the proverbial stones? Just a couple words on the hot topic of AI generated deep fakes. How about you flying the space shuttle? Me painting the Mona Lisa? Steven giving a tennis lesson to Djokovic? Perhaps you saw the Pope standing on the beach in a puffa jacket last year. Social media went a tad bunkers over...

In no particular order… Just when you thought politics in the US could not get uglier, while the Dems. and Republicans are in their perpetual, entirely undignified/despicable fight for political power, 42 million people stopped receiving SNAP benefits. That is FOOD-STAMPS, people! 1.2 million people in the military among those. Imagine the indignity to families with a head of household serving in the military, getting in line at food-banks! Take a big “gulp” at these statistics: -  49% of  U.S. Congressmen are millionaires -  67% of members of the U.S. Senate are millionaires - 100% of them traveled home to their...

This continues to be an  embarrassment of riches. If you are plugged into the news, as we at the INFLUENCER are some twenty-four hours a day, you may have some trepidation in taking a deep breath. Certainly, while you do that, the world will have changed! And not in trivial ways. Earlier this week, the US stock market behaved much like a bungee-cord. The US threatening tariff wars with Mexico, Canada and the EU? As to the former two, economically insane for Mexico and Canada to engage on a trade war with the US. Those are disparities in bargaining power that neither Mexico nor Canada can overcome. Rather, negotiate!...

This topic is a big challenge. Only because is it truly an embarrassment of riches. The world around us is moving at a rate of change that is simply vertiginous. The rate of advancements in innovation with technology as its offspring, is as exhilarating as it is frightening. It is truly unsettling that essentially we do not have ethical, moral, intellectual, social, political and financial constructs to support that. Innovation and, thus, technology, have always galloped well ahead of those constructs. Humbly, the editors of the INFLUENCER have been on the leading edge of technology for decades. Artificial...