West Virginia University (WVU), uncomfortably, has given us a sneak preview of what America has in its future.

A Wall Street Journal story on cuts to the University’s offerings reported that, “Dozens of faculty, students and alums, as well as a Morgantown, W.Va., city councilman, addressed the board Thursday during a three-hour public comment period, aiming to halt the remaining cuts.” 

“Many speakers, their voices trembling with emotion or rising in anger, donned red shirts and bandannas in a nod to the labor movement and solidarity with the faculty. Some spoke of the opportunities West Virginia University provided them as low-income, first-generation college students. Others expressed concern that future graduates will struggle in the workplace without access to programs like Arabic language or public administration, and that the cuts would lead to an exodus of talent from the state.” 

“This is a school and not a business, and these proposals that rip educational opportunities from students, and jobs from faculty and staff, will only weaken this institution,” said Christian Rowe, a graduate student in history. He said that cuts would make structural issues worse, and students would be deterred by “WVU’s lack of course offerings and respect for its community’s voices.”

“This is a school and not a business…” Every organization that has financial needs will be measured by money in, money out. If WVU cannot meet revenue needs then it has to reduce costs. Or, increase tuition or fees. Unlike our national government, West Virgina does not have a perpetual credit card.

But then if perpetual is definitional neither does the United States. It is this fact which frames the annual fiscal face-off over budgets and appropriations. A face-off that looks increasingly rabid.

America is not invulnerable. As our debt goes up our credit risk goes up and with it the cost of borrowing—a debilitating circle. Do we want more taxes? Higher rates? And if you say tax wealth then what will the rate have to be to catch up and combined with other taxes produce a balance? And crucially, how do you keep wealth from seeking more advantageous tax jurisdictions?

Or, do we want less of government and if so, what should we cut? And ultimately how much debt are we comfortable passing on to our children and grandchildren?

Right now, politics is mostly being fought along tribal lines. Barely civilized language is the patois as we talk about Trump’s outrages and Biden’s age and infirmities. And, it is hard to have a civil conversation about public affairs.

What we should be doing is what WVU is being forced to do. Its leadership now must ask, what courses should be dropped? What majors should be eliminated? And what about spending on extracurricular activities? This parade of questions needs to march through our federal government’s budget. And through our election cycle with its debates and interviews.

Biden and Trump and the range of wannabes need to be asked. Do not give them the easy out of squabbling about our latest emotional outburst. Make them answer our questions. The hard ones! Because we are in the middle of a national scandal—an assault on our children and grandchildren. And circumstantially we are infantilizing those who have been elected to make decisions that will preserve and protect the union. We hope.

Meet the Press, Joe

Kristen Welker, the newly minted moderator of Meet the Press, began her first show last Sunday with a long interview of former President Donald Trump. While he physically shows a few more years, he sounds like 2016. He was engaged and has even upped his game as he talks through accusatory questions. He has certainly had a lot of practice. 

The takeaways from the interview were then discussed by a panel of three who said the expected. They noted inconsistencies, “falsehoods” and spent time talking about his ducking and dodging around whether abortion policy should be re-federalized. 

But this panel of worthies failed on the central takeaway. He was engaged. He spoke quickly. The Donald Trump I watched will not win my vote, but neither will President Joe Biden. Unfortunately, Joe Biden cannot engage in the political repartee that is a feature of Presidential politics. And, international diplomacy. In the last election Covid was the cover to stay at home. It is unlikely to be an acceptable excuse in 2024.

President Biden’s allies spend much of their time targeting Trump or the possibility of a third Party that they claim will siphon more votes away from the President. They don’t get it. If Joe Biden is the nominee, Donald Trump has a good chance to win a second term.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

The poll is now live. Maybe we can find harmony of opinion for a change. Question: are you satisfied with talking to a machine and not a person?

I could bore you with the number of times I have talked to a machine this year; I won’t. Mostly it involved reservations to do this or that.

But recently I had a medical procedure that put me in touch with doctors or their offices. No, put me in touch with their machines. Machines and software are increasingly replacing those who used to understand the anxiety that comes with the need (real or perceived) to talk with a human. Or, at least those humans who at various stages of the engagement can converse with understanding and empathy. Or simply help you take the next step.

I spent much of my late career life with businesses that used machines and software. I headed a venture fund in new media and later had the pleasure of using new media to start a jazz festival in Easton. I understand the push for efficiency and pinpoint marketing and the corresponding motivation to work with machines that don’t talk back as employees are prone to do. But patients want somebody to talk back. And many patients are confused when caught up in software navigation prompts.

What I also understand is that companies like Amazon and Google (and there are dozens of them) make very large capital investments in what is for them the crucial customer interface. If it fails, their businesses fail—simplification is crucial.

Medicine is different. Customers are called patients. And doctors are trained to be patient and caring. Presumably they work with their staff to perform similarly. We know, for example, that nurses are often the most caring and similarly perceived. But to one degree or another there are giant walls of machines called the Cloud that stand between the patient and the caregivers. And unlike the Amazon or Google machines and software, my experience is they don’t work very well.

I presume the machines are also a key element in medicine’s economic consolidation. Scale it is called – rather than a handful of people that do administrative, testing and consultation work, there is a bank of machines that can handle the patient until he/she actually shows up at the office.

The end result is oligopoly medicine. In many places, mostly not here, individual medical practices and related centers for this and that are rolled up into one relatively large organization. Impersonal follows. While University of Maryland Shore Health is the dominant provider on the Eastern Shore, access to medicine is also provided by the Anne Arundel health care system. And, for highly specialized needs, Johns Hopkins is a relatively short drive away.

I too am fortunate because I lived here before the machines and consolidation took over. I have enjoyed the best of medicine and importantly, personal contact. I can compare and contrast. Without putting too fine a point on this narrative, I would suggest doctors, not software engineers, create best practices. I am certain that best practices will result in caring conversations at a quite early moment in the engagement between doctor and patients.

Post Script: I decided to share an early draft of this column with my friend and neighbor Dr. Harry Greenspun and ask him to add to my comments. This is his reply:

Regarding “Customers being called patients,” in the last 10-20 years that has evolved to thinking about patients as consumers, since they are only patients when under care. We now talk about Patient Experience (while under care), Consumer Experience (while selecting providers, practice loyalty, health choices, etc.), and Member Experience (dealing with your insurance company). Alongside that is Employee Experience, since overworked, undertrained staff won’t operate safely, courteously, or deliver high quality. Rather than take a holistic approach, health systems and medical practices (increasingly private equity-backed) often chase individual metrics of each, focusing on Net Promoter Scores or burnout in isolation. Sadly, most organizations take this “Whack-a-Mole” approach to what are systemic challenges.

In some ways your (sadly common) experience reflects that. Poorly implemented phone systems (theoretically deployed to streamline office operations) degraded your consumer experience, while poor employee experience degraded your patient experience. Most people equate their experience, not outcomes, with quality of care. Thus they would give up and find a new provider. Conversely, there are plenty of people who continue to go to a doctor or practice they love regardless of the quality of the care or outcomes.

Finally, you mentioned Johns Hopkins for “the most threatening conditions.” As someone who trained and practiced there, it is an extraordinary place. However, data frequently show that highly-regarded academic institutions (which may excel at complex and rare conditions) produce only average results for many common diagnoses, usually at a much higher cost. These run the gamut from knee replacements to bypass surgery. The (unofficial) slogan of one of Hopkins’ counterparts was “If you’re sick we’ll kill you, but if you’re dying, we’ll save you.” Patients/consumers often mistakenly equate a lofty reputation with high quality care, and suffer the consequences. Perhaps substitute “the most specialized care” for Hopkins.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

 

Adaptation works best when change is incremental and occurs at a slow to moderate pace. Alternatively, change can overwhelm and frighten. And when we are frightened about our jobs or inflation or our social values we are not at our best. 

Fright and maybe panic can take us where on reflection we wish we had not gone. Drug abuse, for example, has always been around but now predators can prey on our fright, our destabilization. A staggering number of people looking for escape find it in opioids and too many, terminally, in fentanyl. 

So let me move on because citing social pathologies simply eats up words and your time. When it seems like we are in a descending cycle government seems more important, even if we understand a good society results from widespread self-discipline and personal generosity. 

Debates come and go, today’s debate about what our government should or shouldn’t do to aid Ukraine is illustrative. The critics will say, “if we spent those dollars at home we would solve, well, whatever. Really? Since when have either of our political parties worried about borrowing more money to do, whatever? The real message is cynicism. 

As we track cynicism look at today’s political polling, it essentially has President Biden and former President Trump in a virtual tie. The tactics of cynical politics are winning. This is especially true when the polls also show over 2/3rds of the electorate do not want a rematch. According to Real Clear Politics average of all polls Biden’s unfavorability rating is 54.9% and Trump’s is 56.9%. Elections of renewal turn on favor, not disfavor.

A long time ago at the insistence of my mother I typed: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country”. It still nags me.  It was originally used to test typewriter performance and capability. So let me comment, as President Biden would say “here is the deal”.

I am not, as readers of my column know, a Donald Trump fan. But let me theorize. The first assault alleging Trump criminality originated in New York by the Manhattan District Attorney forging in Trumps’s unseemly relationship with Stormy Daniels. It would be correct to say that this conduct had been prosecuted in his run for the presidency in 2016.

Additionally, Trump supporters perceive Biden’s hand in the federal indictments while covering for his son. Is it possible that Hunter Biden was skillful and disciplined enough to earn millions without his father’s help?

While dealing with perceptions, I suspect most Trump supporters want a rematch. It brings to mind Muhammad Ali rematches. When Ali was at his best a rematch was warranted and he won. But today? Biden? Trump? And as we face those dramatic societal changes that have turned many worlds upside down do we want octogenarians dealing with the tensions between the common good and the technological good? 

On a number of different levels, it is fanciful to regard Biden as a man of the future. Indeed, it seems passing strange to me that his political party’s leaders would think otherwise. 

We can all anticipate the campaign ads if a rematch occurs. Trump will double down on MAGA with an insistence that he is a Savior while bleating incendiary captions about Biden and Vice President Harris. The horrific Afghanistan pull-out will be the visuals. On the other side Biden too will double down on MAGA; extreme will be the beginning and end as Trump’s mug shot becomes iconic.

In 1981 Ali was 39 years old when he fought Trevor Berbick. He lost in a unanimous decision. As the much beloved Ali lit the Olympic torch in 1996 Bob Costas from NBC Sports said: “Once the most dynamic figure in sports and now trapped by a mask created by Parkinson syndrome.” What will our collective mask be? How will our foreign friends and enemies view us?

So let me end by turning away from the tactics of cynicism to more hopeful ones. Predictably political professionals have sprayed toxic liquid on an organization called No Labels. As I type, it is taking advantage of political malpractice and preparing for a convention in April, 2024. Its mission is to choose candidates who will appeal to the 70% who don’t want a rematch. If political malpractice ends, No Labels goes away.

Predictably again, the crystal ball gazers say it can’t win. Maybe they are right and maybe it will hurt Biden more than Trump. Yet, overall many Americans want to be hopeful and need someplace to place their hope. 

 

Hyperactive pollsters and unimaginative commentators are characteristic in the impatient world of today. Email was too slow so we now burden the phone with text messages. Google Search requires going to websites, like Wikipedia, which provide some depth on most subjects. Ah, but now we can just ask ChatGPT for an answer, indeed a paper, on whatever subject and in seconds the answer appears. As many of us have learned, this is the 1.0 stage; it is intriguing but far from perfect.

Back to polls and commentators. There used to be some pause between candidate debates and post-debate polls. Now polling is simultaneous and often wrong. But speed is gravitational so what do we expect? 

And the commentators. They are mostly deployed for their looks and/or glibness. The commentators are not to blame, it is the news divisions that present them as prescient. 

The run-up to the Primaries during which candidates are sorted out is a marathon. It goes on for months. The first announced candidate (credible) for the Republican nomination for President was Nikki Haley who announced in February of this year. Donald Trump, of course, said he would be running again in 2022.

Haley is in her seventh month of campaigning with five months to go. This last week she got a bounce from one poll (yes, I too look at them). In Iowa she went from 3% support to 11%–tripling. But, of course ran way behind Trump. And that is the narrative—Trump has the nomination wrapped up.

Now if there were historical data underscoring “the race is over” narrative, the other candidates would start dropping out because the funders, taking the cue, would quit sending their donations. You can’t continue selling licorice ice cream if nobody is buying it. 

The next debate is at the Ronald Reagan Library in California on September 27th. And to qualify the polling percentage requirements go up as well as the unique donor requirement. Plus, the pledge to support the ultimate nominee remains. 

Preferring not to fall into the glib trap let me simply say at least two of the candidates (Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson) said they will not support Trump. If the rules are followed, they will be out. And it is hard to believe that candidates whose base is mostly local will meet the national polling and donor requirements. 

Trump, if true to his word, will not be on the stage at President Ronald Reagan’s library. Among other things memories of Former President Ronald Reagan will serve as an enduring standard and Trump will not want the contrast. Prediction: maybe five candidates will debate each other. My guess: Haley, Mike Pence, Tim Scott, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy. And this debate will probably eliminate at least three of that number. Maybe these are spring training games, but the results bite hard.

The ultimate question is who will go head-to-head with Trump? And will his likely descent in the polls begin to erode his support with less zealous followers who look beyond the primaries to November 2024. I say likely descent because Trump polls nationally better than in the States that will hold the first primaries. In Iowa, the first to vote, he polls at 43% in the Real Clear Politics average even though nationally he reaches 55%.

Now, all who have read from the top are thinking I am as glib as the commentators so I will go no further other than to say the next five months will feature a few curve balls and I mean ones that break late and hard. And given the reaction generally to a Trump v. Biden rematch, it is likely that there will be a viable third-party pair of candidates chosen at the No Labels convention in April. It seems the only developments that would preclude an arguably viable third Party are either a Trump loss or Biden withdrawal. 

My advice to the President: take a victory lap and retire to your oceanfront home. My advice to Trump supporters: don’t try to cram an indigestible candidate down the throats of the general electorate. 

My advice to No Labels: choose Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees whose credentials outweigh their ambitions. Because what we have now are two frontrunners who, regardless of what you think about them, need to leave the stage.

Postscript: America’s core asset is “the rule of law”. When it is understood it is protected. Our law, yes ours, comes with layers of protection that lead, if the stakes are high and constitutional issues are presented, to the US Supreme Court.

The Former President, Donald Trump, having done his best to undermine public support for elections has more recently turned on our legal system. He has berated, in the most aggressive way, prosecutors, judges, and potential jury pools.

It is my guess that a lot of people who support Trump are at least worried about the strength of America’s institutions that along with Patriots have built and protected a great nation.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

Editor Note: This week Al Sikes, former Republican Federal Communications Commission Chairman, joined the Media and Democracy Project  and media veterans Ervin S. Duggan and William Kristol to support a petition to deny the broadcast license renewal application for FOX Corporation-owned television station FOX 29 Philadelphia (WTXF-TV).  This was his letter to Marlene H. Dortch,  Secretary of Federal Communications Commission.

Dear Madam Secretary:

At first, I didn’t know whether it was perfunctory or probing. I had just signed a contract to buy KLGT FM licensed to Breckenridge, Colorado. Quickly I filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to seek approval as a licensee so I could begin operating the station.

The application for the transfer of ownership required me to operate the station in the “public interest”— that was the law.

I promised.

I filed that application in 1977. I was sworn in as FCC Chairman in 1989, twelve years later, still wondering whether operating in the “public interest” was just some bureaucratic construct or a legally enforceable requirement. The truth is, the answer is still elusive.

There are, of course, complaints about TV and radio content. Most often the defense to an allegation that a broadcaster has violated the “public interest” obligation in program content is that the First Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing free speech, protects the licensee.

Several weeks ago, I became aware of a challenge to the renewal of the license of WTXF-TV, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is owned by Fox Television Stations and its parent is Fox Corporation (controlled by the Rupert Murdoch family). The challenge distilled is: Fox lied repeatedly. (Fox would include both its cable channel and broadcast stations, because Rupert Murdoch and his family control them all.)

The charges stem from news and commentary in the aftermath of the 2020 election won by President Joe Biden. The petitioners, residents of the broadcast coverage area of WTXF, who are supported by the Media and Democracy Project, ask the FCC to deny the renewal of the station license. They allege:

“Fox knew that guests on their shows were questioning the truth. For example, on November 19, 2020, Tucker Carlson a FNC host texted Laura Ingraham, another FNC host, that ‘Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane.’ Ms. Ingraham responded: “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”

“Despite everyone knowing the truth, FOX continued to broadcast knowingly untrue news stories, supported by unreliable and untruthful guests. This was done entirely for financial gain. FOX was worried about a loss in audience and revenues. It knew that what it was broadcasting was not true. It also knew, or should have known, that it was causing tremendous damage to the country.”

It is of course no secret that much of what we think of as the media is owned by big companies who often have an amalgamation of stations, networks and cable channels, often feeding each other.

It is also no secret around Washington that when it comes to sanctioning licensees the FCC is essentially “all hat, no cattle”. Defenders of fecklessness argue that any penalty imposed because of station content at least flirts with the government censoring free speech. In short, these defenders say speech can be outrageous but nonetheless the speaker is free from government intervention.

A predecessor of mine equated a TV to a toaster with pictures. His colorful description was intended to say the FCC had no intention of “regulating speech” any more than elsewhere in the government an agency might choose to regulate the browning of a piece of bread. Without saying so his view was that the FCC has no interest in the meaning or effect of the requirement to operate in the “public interest”.

As Chairman of the FCC I opposed the advocacy of those who, for competitive reasons, tried to block Rupert Murdoch’s efforts to launch Fox Broadcasting Company – the long sought fourth Network. And I have been a listener/viewer off and on with notable exceptions to Fox News. It is in the promotion business. It has a decided point of view and pushes it. It has hired either true believers or good actors to make sure its airways push the desired narrative.

Interestingly a number of conservative commentators have chosen to cease being Fox news contributors because they would not promote a point of view regardless of the underlying facts. It is noteworthy that Fox declared Biden the winner in 2020; it was after all paying expert analysts to parse data to help it project winners and losers. And then much of its prime-time news coverage and opinionators fell in behind the Donald Trump version, not the Fox version of the outcome. They choose fiction over non-fiction to make many of its listeners and viewers happy. They knew the facts and decided to ignore them.

I repeat. The FCC has allowed the pledge to operate in the public interest to become perfunctory at best. If the public interest means anything, the FCC must designate for a hearing the application of the Murdoch’s and Fox for renewal of their license to operate Station WTXF, Philadelphia. That application should be closely scrutinized in public hearings and court rooms.

Respectfully submitted,
Alfred C. Sikes

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

Alternatives

Congressman Dean Phillips, a moderate Democrat representing Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District, confirmed what was first reported by Politico that he is “engaged” in talks about a bid for the White House in 2024. This last Sunday I expected this news would light up the political shows aired on Sunday. It was not mentioned on what I watched. The puppeteers do not want other than the wacky RFK Jr. and mystic Marianne Williamson to contest President Biden.

I have no opinion on whether Congressman Phillips would make a good President, but my hope is that his initiative takes flight. If he goes forward much as Senator Eugene McCarthy, also a Minnesotan, did in 1968 opposing President Lyndon Johnson, it will invigorate the Democratic Party which is now inert. The Party’s officials seem all in on President Joe Biden fighting the clear voice of its Party’s voters, who in poll after poll say they want a younger leader.

McCarthy, in his stump speeches talked of patriotism: “To serve one’s country not in submission but to serve it in truth.” Who will step forward?

Stick It To the Man

There are a whole lot of Republicans who want to stick it to The Man. They imagine Donald J Trump as being the big stick.

If Trump is nominated, the campaign will be at least a three-Party affair. The third force, the Courts. But, most importantly, the evidentiary voices who are sworn to tell the “whole truth and nothing but the truth”. Along with the witness voices, documents will be authenticated and entered into the record and then presented to Judge and Jury as reporters scramble to be the first to report the news.

The campaign will be one for the books. Democrats will be pleased; cynicism has few boundaries, if any. Columnists will be pleased. My preference is for the US electorate to select between contending views about America’s future in a complex world. But if it is Biden v Trump v The Courts, I will have my pen in hand.

Myth

Republicans should be pleased with the diversity of candidates seeking its Presidential nomination. Democrats, of course, will claim that real diversity is in voter demographics. But, as preferences and poll results show Hispanic, Asian and African-Americans are no longer allergic to Republican candidates. If that were not so, the presidential field would not be so diverse.

At this point the Democrat’s field is, well, not diverse. Is this the face they want to show, to other than hardcore Party voters? 

Treason, Or?

What to make of the large percentage of former Trump administration officials openly campaigning against him? I suspect there are many reasons and some quite specific to relational circumstances. But, after listening or reading about these reversals of support, one thing is clear. Most, if not all, believe a second Trump term would result in a degrading attack on America as a Republic enriched by constitutional safeguards that we call checks and balances.

In reaction to the most recent indictments of Donald Trump his most loyal Vice-President Mike Pence said: “Today’s indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States.”

Donald Trump is not talking about the future; he is at war with America’s institutions. To begin: States cannot be trusted to fairly hold elections. Courts cannot be trusted to fairly adjudicate claims and counter-claims. Same with Juries. Same with Congress.

Trump’s campaign simplified: Believe in me and only me.

Fiscal Dysfunction

Fitch, an important credit rating firm just downgraded US securities. As CNN reported: Fitch Ratings downgraded its US debt rating on Tuesday from the highest AAA rating to AA+, citing “a steady deterioration in standards of governance.”

Nobody would call Fitch political. Its analytics are understood and respected by the financial community. A downgrade often results in having to pay a higher interest rate to offset greater risk.

If the United States is unable to choose its political leadership and thus those who are instrumental in its financial affairs without dysfunctional polarity, decline will be our trajectory. 

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

“You can’t afford a wife!” Dad to me as I told him Marty and I were going to be married.

Me. I had just finished college and had talked to Dad about going to law school.  My trajectory was spending not making. Dad was right.

But then characteristically I got married and Marty went to work at Ellis Fischel State Cancer Hospital in Columbia, Missouri. The script changed, the drain on my parent’s account disappeared.

When I started law school the competition for our self-perception and meager resources were by today’s standards minimal. There was not a state lottery imploring us to buy long shot tickets. Body pictures and piercings were not cool. When watching the occasional football game, I was not encouraged to wager on point spreads. And, marijuana was not being encouraged by the State. Now gambling, booze and marijuana are in our face and they must teach vulgarity at scriptwriting school.

Few would argue that there has not been a generational shift in distraction—some of it toxic. As I write I can hear my phone pinging. I pause, recalling TS Eliot’s line in “Burnt Norton”. Eliot wrote that we moderns are “distracted from distraction by distraction.” Too often, toxic distraction.

I was fortunate. I grew up when America was beginning to soar and today’s global competition was blunted by WW11 and/or authoritarian governments. And political leadership in America was hopeful. The year I entered law school Dwight Eisenhower was President. Tragically, the year I graduated, President John F Kennedy was assassinated. 

I sketch this personal history because it is, in part, my context. It can’t be recreated, but looking back it’s not hard to find values that should be perpetually honored.

Seven years ago, I wrote Culture Leads Leaders Follow. It had a good run but is now out of print. I was reminded of my research for the book while my wife and I were eating at Chipotle recently. There was a family sitting at the table next to ours. They had three children with them. Miraculously one of the children was reading a book. He looked to be about 12; I am betting on him. He is resisting the culture of instantaneous connectivity about nothing or worse. Culture matters. Let me turn to the worst; but you will have to follow me into the weeds for a moment.

Most are familiar with Artificial Intelligence (AI) that works off of “large language models” (LLMs) to quickly respond to inquiries. The work of categorizing and editing the LLMs is, in part, being outsourced to Kenyan workers because they speak English, are well-educated and don’t require large salaries.

 The Wall Street Journal reported that, “OpenAI asked the workers to parse text-based sexual content into four categories of severity…. The worst was descriptions of child sexual-abuse material, or C4. The C3 category included incest, bestiality, rape, sexual trafficking and sexual slavery—sexual content that could be illegal if performed in real life.”

OpenAI is facing pushback as many workers say they have been changed for the worst by parsing through human garbage day in day out.  

The Journal reported that “Mophat Okinyi, a quality analyst, said his work included having to read detailed paragraphs about parents raping their children and children having sex with animals. He worked on a team that reviewed sexual content, which was contracted to handle 15,000 posts a month, according to the documents. His six months on the project tore apart his family, he said, and left him with trauma, anxiety and depression.” The article noted that his wife has left him saying: ‘You’ve changed. You’re not the man I married. I don’t understand you anymore.’

How could it be otherwise? Language and images move people and their culture. And today many creatives believe they need to operate on the edge to get attention. What is the next stage? What happens when mere vulgarity is regularized?

With apologies to those who live in Hollywood’s zip codes, let me return from Kenya.  As 1963 came to an end Marty and I had our first of three daughters. In 1978 she was fifteen. Thankfully Hollywood did not start using the F word as a noun, verb and adjective until a generation later. It is hard to know the effects of vulgarization of our patois but it is hard to believe it will be good. 

Recently the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said that “playing derogatory music in the workplace could violate laws against sexual discrimination…” Imagine the Hollywood glitterati, having been accused of unwanted sex on the “casting couch”, generations later helping create hostile workplaces.

It will be said that this is just old stuff, briefly updated. That is true. But the failure of scriptwriters and lyricists and their editors to act with more discernment toward our culture bleeds into today’s relationships and politics. Is it possible for the new to be restorative?

So let me end with several questions. How will State promotion of gambling on sports influence the culture? Will soon-to-be promoted marijuana have a positive or negative effect on human well-being? How will media creatives and their editors resist the centripetal force of lowest common denominator language and images? And when we talk about “equity” is it possible to understand the anti-equity of what we call the “popular culture”?  I have a lot of questions, but will spare you. These, in my view, are a good start.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

 

    

 

Phil Chamberlin was his name. He died of encephalitis. Phil was a friend at Westminster College—a good friend. I can still see his face as his body was on display at the funeral. 

The experience was jarring—death of a young friend will leave an indelible impression. I had lost relatives but all were older and their years ahead were few. But, a 19-year-old whose health seemed at a peak?

I wonder if today death arrives with the same impact. Or does death of another remain an abstraction? It seems that each week brings another story or two of a shooter gone mad. Most often the shooter is killed so we are left to wonder at his motivation. And yes, his, is almost always the pronoun.

Motivation is a curious word, often used. Why did somebody do something unexpected is frequently the subject of conversation. But when it comes to taking the life of a person unknown to the shooter motivation seems an aimless search. Back in the day we would simply say he was mad, insane.

All this leaves me to wonder whether life has been devalued? Whether our sensibilities have become deadened by sheer volume? Calloused. I say this because we really don’t do anything very meaningful to reduce the risk. Maybe rather than video of a police official explaining what happened the news media should assault us with visuals of those killed.

Certainly, the culture has moved. Electronic games featuring killing have intensified. Intensification defines 21st Century marketing. Guns are easily acquired; guns that have much the same capacity as military armaments. And over time we learn that while protective policing is needed there isn’t enough money in the world to make a substantial difference given current gun laws.

When I first came face-to-face with the loss of a youthful friend mass shootings were virtually non-existent. Maybe the non-existence is informative. Maybe the story tellers were more responsible. Maybe more people went to church or synagogue and paid attention to the Ten Commandments. Am I wrong, was there more accountability around? Certainly, the available guns were less lethal and the shell magazines were of much lower capacity. 

But there was more; the dignity of life. The evil of taking a life. The act spreading shame in the shooter’s family. And in the media, editors then followed a logical but upsetting news dictum: “If it bleeds it leads”. No longer, mass shootings have become a commodity news story.

In many ways we now live in a gun culture. They have become sport well beyond hunting. They have become symbols of manliness. They are often a part of poorly written screenplays in which weapons play the leading role. They have become a prop used by people who live in the moment, finality is not their concern.  

A plan to reduce mass shootings eludes me. When a seemingly immunized article of the Constitution is paired with callousness, I’m not sure any plan will work. But we should push against the inertia and I say this as a hunter. 

So let me go from the more philosophical to the operational. Red flag laws have been passed in 21 States. This is Wikipedia’s definition: “a red flag law is a gun violence prevention law that permits a state court to order the temporary removal of firearms from a person who they believe may present a danger to others or themselves. A judge makes the determination to issue the order based on statements and actions made by the gun owner in question. Refusal to comply with the order is punishable as a criminal offense….” 

None of us have deep knowledge of how efficacious Red Flag laws will be; they are too new and the provisions vary. What we do know is that we have a very real problem. Not only are innocents dying but America’s reputation is suffering.

I emphasize Red Flag laws because we are all tired of political talking points. Mass murderers are not going to pause while we sort out interpretations of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. As I type these words, the United States has faced at least 351 mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.  

Florida leads the nation in the use of Extreme Risk Protection Orders or ERPOs. Studies have found that rather than using the term red flag law the public is more responsive to the ERPO language. Of course simply tracking the effectiveness of red flag laws on a state-by-state basis, while a good beginning, fails to adjust for State cultural and population differences. 

National leadership is needed. It should be bipartisan. On the Left, the ACLU has argued against Red Flag laws stating that “People who are not alleged to have committed a crime should not be subject to severe deprivations of liberty interests…in the absence of a clear, compelling and immediate showing of need.” And on the Right the 2nd Amendment is often used to excuse the inexcusable. Protecting innocents is a first principle.

In the meantime, the great majority of Americans favor ERPOs or Red Flag laws. They favor going beyond the blockade of politicians whose debating points are stale and whose attitudes have become calloused. 

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.