By Bob Gaydos
Note to readers:

Yeah, I know about the debate and how Joe squinted his eyes, could barely walk and had plenty to brag about, but had trouble putting words together. And how the other guy lied every time he opened his mouth, as usual. And how everybody now wants Joe to quit, even though they like him, because he’s old and we can’t make the other old guy, a convicted felon and rapist, go away.

So I’m going to write about gooseberries very soon. Will probably eat some. I may have some sushi. I will then return to worrying about the future of the free world.

Enjoy your day.
Bob

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

The Post staff rebelled against a proposed new editor with a questionable ethics past.

    Score one for the good guys.

   In a time when (1.) “fake news” is thrown around routinely as a way to delegitimize real reporting by real journalists while (2.) social media is awash in actually fake news produced by fake journalists and (3.) the airwaves are polluted by well-funded “media” outlets pushing outright lies, all to support the propaganda machine of the Trump Republican Party, The Washington Post recently provided a lesson in what has historically been considered basic journalism ethics in America.

  Actually, The Post staff with major help from The New York Times gave Post management a lesson in basic American journalism.

    In brief, they forced the ordained new editor of  The Post to change his mind about taking the job because, well, it’s always more pleasant to work with people who like you and who share your principles and ethics. Or, in this case, lack thereof.

     Robert Winnett, the Post editor-to-be, announced that he’s decided to stay in England, where his brand of “journalism” is accepted and (by some) even admired, rather than come to The Post, whose staff was in revolt over his selection.

     That’s because Winnett was involved in a scandal that engulfed British newspapers years ago in which stories based on hacked or stolen phone and business records or records purchased from a data information company were published to embarrass prominent politicians and celebrities. Lawsuits followed.

      Those practices are frowned upon by legitimate American news organizations and have been for a long time. Winnett denied taking part in those activities, but both The Post and The Times published articles quoting individuals involved in those sensationalized stories saying Winnett was in it.

      Indeed. So was his almost new boss, Post CEO and publisher Will Lewis, who was, in fact, Winnett’s actual boss at The Sunday Times, a Rupert Murdoch newspaper across the pond. Lewis was reported to have assigned Winnett to do one of those hit jobs.

    Still, Lewis did manage to get hired as the top dog in Washington. Apparently, The Post’s new owner, Jeff Bezos, didn’t notice or didn’t care that the British style of “journalism,” as practiced most outrageously in America by Murdoch-owned Fox News on TV and to a lesser extent The New York Post, wasn’t acceptable for major American media, especially those with a reputation for fairness and ethical practices, like The Washington Post.

     Bezos, who turned Amazon into a mega profit machine, is understandably concerned that The Post is losing money. Maybe he never considered all the advertisers that newspapers lost when businesses flocked to the Internet to companies like Amazon to promote their products.

   In any event, Bezos wants The Post to establish a third news-gathering wing, presumably centered on the Internet. Lewis wanted Sally Buzbee, the Post’s former top editor, to take over that new job, but she properly took it as a demotion and resigned. The Times and Post stories story on Winnett followed. Hence, the search for a new editor. (A new publisher wouldn’t be bad either.)

     Back in London, Chris Evans, top editor at The Daily Telegraph, Winnett’s current newspaper, sent a message to his staff saying, “I am pleased to report that Rob Winnett has decided to stay with us. As you all know, he’s a talented chap, and their loss is our gain.” 

     Well, chaps of a feather do stick together.

     In any case, the hope here is that Lewis and Bezos and others at The Post who maybe were thinking of taking part in some form of UK “hit job“ journalism get the message: The First Amendment protection afforded the press in this country in the Constitution is not a license to lie, cheat, steal or in any other unethical way ruin people’s lives for the sake of selling more newspapers or getting more clicks on social media.

    Not yet at least.

(Editor’s note: The author worked for more than 40 years at three daily newspapers, all of which followed the basic ethical principles of American journalism. Two of them — The Sun-Bulletin in Binghamton and The Times Herald-Record in Middletown — were tabloids in size, but not in the practice of journalistic sensationalism. The Evening Capital in Annapolis, a standard broadsheet, was no less rigorous about ethical practices.)

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Willy Mays card bought at a garage sale for 50 cents.

    Willie Mays was, hands down, the greatest baseball player I ever saw. … The irony of that statement hit me the moment I typed it.

      The basket catch. For all his skill and natural baseball ability, Mays violated one of the cardinal baseball rules: you catch a fly ball above your shoulders, both hands on the ball, to be ready to throw it quickly back to the infield.

      Mays, throughout his career, patrolled centerfield nonchalantly catching fly balls waist high, glove pocket up, like a basket, still managing not to drop any of them and getting the ball where it needed to go quickly and accurately.

     He made life difficult for more than one Little League coach: “Willie Mays can do it; you can’t.”

     Not by a long shot.

     The greatest player I ever saw died yesterday. He was 93. All of baseball mourned because Willie Mays was not just a fantastic ballplayer, he was a terrific ambassador for the sport.

     I saw him play at the Polo Grounds in the Bronx. Although I was a Yankee fan, my father was a Giants fan, so we went to the Polo Grounds a lot. I have a memory of a doubleheader in the Polo Grounds in which Mays seemed to be getting a triple every other at bat, flying around the bases, always losing his hat.

    The Giants became my second favorite team. They may have moved to San Francisco, but Willie will always be a New Yorker to me. His return to play for the New York Mets at the end of his career, already in his 40s, was a fitting tribute.

      Although he could do pretty much everything involved in baseball better than anyone else, there was no showiness about Mays. His play spoke for itself and he seemed to have the knack of coming up with the big catch or the big hit at the right moment.

    And yeah, they called him the “Say Hey Kid” and someone wrote a song about him, but off the field he played stickball with kids in New York City and missed a couple of seasons to serve in the U.S. Army.

      Life being what it is today, the news of his death was barely hours old before some reputed sports news outlets began contemplating whether Mays deserves to be considered the greatest baseball player of all time. Some Facebook fanatics started a survey to find out who baseball fans considered to be the greatest living former player, now that Willie was gone.   

      I’m not playing their game. For me, Willie was simply the greatest, hands up or down.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

     Clearing my note pad of news that bugs me before it gets buried by other news that bugs me. With a deep bow to the late, great Jimmy Cannon …

Sports betting.

• Maybe it’s just me, but: The major sports leagues made a bad bet when they allowed themselves to be partnered with legalized gambling. For many “fans,” the legal gambling books have taken over much of the reason for watching the games and the lure of money that can be made by betting on someone winning or losing, or striking out, or missing a field goal or a foul shot will always prove too be too much for some involved in the games to follow the rules. The rule, actually, is simple in all majors sports leagues: anyone connected officially with the league in any manner — player, coach, official, employee — is free to legally gamble on any other  sport, but not the one in which they are engaged. To protect the integrity of the sport, you know. So that fans know games they are gambling on aren’t fixed or no one is trying to make things happen in a game to cover a bet or a gambling debt. Well, in recent weeks, a Major League Baseball player and a player in the National Basketball League have both been banned from their sport for life for gambling on it. The basketball player is even said to have tried to make his team, the Toronto Raptors, lose so he could win his bets. The 24-year-old San Diego baseball player is the first active player in a century to be banned for life for gambling. (Look up the Chicago Black Sox scandal.) And now a Major League Baseball umpire (talk about controlling the outcome of a game) has been suspended while he is investigated for gambling. He denies the allegations and says he only bet on other sports. But there’s the rub. If you’re bad  at betting on other sports and lose a lot of money, it can be tempting to try to make up the losses by fixing a game you know very well. It has happened before. Baseball has thus far managed to escape the major scare of its marquee player, Shohei Ohtani, being involved in gambling, when  Ohtani’s interpreter pleaded guilty to gambling with an illegal bookie with a lot of money which the interpreter stole from the Los Angeles star. The National Football League so far seems to have escaped trouble, although the game is virtually built around legal sports betting in many places, including TV. It may be too late for the sports leagues to change their minds, with too much money already involved in all the business deals, but this oldtimer who used to help his father check the bookie’s college football/basketball weekly betting sheets back in the day thinks this has all the earmarks of a bad marriage waiting to break up over gambling and money.
• Maybe it’s just me, but: If Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t want history to remember the Roberts Court as the one that destroyed American democracy, he needs to get Justices Thomas and Alito in his chambers, knock their heads together and tell them to recuse themselves from any cases involving Donald Trump, clue their wives in to the meaning of conflict of interest for judges and their families and stop accepting lavish gifts from people who have cases coming before the court. Pretty basic stuff. He can also write a meaningful conflict of interest policy for the court. And he can have some guts and honor a request from Congress to talk about what’s going on under his watch and his nose. Or, he can stop pretending to be the moderate voice of reason on the court.
• Maybe it’s just me, but: Even an addle-brained Donald Trump should have known better than to go to the Libertarian Party’s convention looking for a warm reception. Not only didn’t he get the party’s presidential nomination, he got laughed at and booed, suggesting there is some hope for these defenders of their liberty. Heck, they even rejected Bobby Kennedy Jr. Of course, they did select someone to run as a third party candidate, meaning some voters who might have gone for Joe Biden instead of Trump will waste their important votes on someone who can’t win, while ignoring the best choice to actually protect their liberty. But of course that never concerns the billionaire Libertarian Koch Brothers, who feel free to try to buy their freedom and anything else.

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By Bob Gaydos

The Betsy Ross flag.

 On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, adopted the Stars and Stripes for the American flag, establishing it as a symbol of the brand new nation. Until then, each colony had flown its own flag.

    The stripes represent the original 13 Colonies and the 13 stars represent the states of the Union. That number has grown to 50. The colors of the flag are symbolic. Red symbolizes hardiness and valor, white symbolizes purity and innocence and blue represents vigilance, perseverance and justice.

     President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation in 1916 of June 14 as Flag Day and, in 1949, President Harry S Truman signed the formal observance into law. It falls during what is called Flag Week, after another congressional vote in 1966.

  It is not an official federal holiday, but rather a day to honor the flag and what it stands for, regardless of how some may seek to pervert it.

    On June 14, 1946, Donald J. Trump was born at Jamaica Hospital in Queens, New York City, the fourth child of Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump.

    Over the years, through various nefarious means he would amass great wealth and, through even more nefarious means, go on to become the 45th president of the United States of America and refuse to accept defeat for reelection, inciting an attack on the U.S. Capitol, leaving a stain of shame on the symbol Betsy Ross, a struggling widow seamstress, made at the request of George Washington and other founding fathers.

      On June 14, 2024, his 78th birthday, Donald Trump, a convicted felon and candidate for president, had a party at a hall in Florida, which cost anywhere from $35-$60 to attend.

     Millions of Americans who would not be attending agreed the flag should still be honored on June 14 as a symbol of what America stands for: vigilance, perseverance and justice.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Addiction and Recovery

(Reprinted in honor of AA’s founding, June 10, 1935.)

By Bob Gaydos

By Bob Gaydos

President Joe Biden reaches out to touch a U.S. soldier’s tombstone as he and first lady Jill Biden tour the Normandy American Cemetery on the 80th anniversary of D-Day on June 6, 2024 in Colleville-sur-Mer, France.

   “Where were you on D-Day this year, Daddy?”

     “Well, honey, I was at work, as usual, but I did take the time to see how the leaders of our two political parties remembered that fateful day 80 years ago that led to the defeat of the German army in Europe. After all, without the bravery of those Allied soldiers on that day, the Nazis might have prevailed and you and I might not even be having this conversation.

     “Anyhow, I read that President Joe Biden was in France, at Pointe du Hoc, a point on Normandy beaches where Army Rangers scaled 100-foot cliffs to capture machine guns and ammunition from the Germans that was to be used against Allied forces on Omaha and Utah beaches.

   “The president said in his speech, ‘As we gather here today, it’s not just to honor those who showed such remarkable bravery that day June 6, 1944. It’s to listen to the echo of their voices. To hear them. Because they are summoning us and they’re summoning us now. They’re asking us what will we do? They’re not asking us to scale these cliffs. They’re asking us to stay true to what America stands for. They’re not asking us to do their job. They’re asking us to do our job. Protect freedom in our time, defend democracy, stand up to aggression abroad and at home, be part of something bigger than ourselves.’ ”

    “And where was Donald Trump, daddy?”

     “Well, honey, being out on bond after just being convicted in New York of 34 felony charges for trying to illegally influence the 2016 election in a case involving an extramarital affair with a porn star, Trump, the leader of the Republican Party and its probable presidential nominee, was at a campaign event in Arizona, speaking to a group of young MAGAs in training. 

    “He blamed all our country’s troubles on Biden and immigrants unlawfully entering the U.S. from Mexico, encouraged Republicans to oppose the president’s plan to put a temporary moratorium on border crossings, which Trump has also proposed, because it would help Biden’s reelection campaign.

   “Trump also commented on the happenings ‘here in Texas’ regarding banning abortion and said the state’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott had ‘done a very good job.’

     But, of course, Trump was in Arizona, where he did not mention Normandy or Nazis or D-Day or veterans, although six years ago he did refer to veterans buried in France as ‘losers’ and ‘suckers.’ Also in Arizona this year, he did vow to use his power to get revenge on those he calls his enemies if he is elected president. He did not speak about doing our job to protect freedom and democracy.

   “Oh, President Biden also met and thanked a group of veterans for ‘saving the world.’

   “And that’s what the men running for president of the United States of America did on D-Day, honey.”

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

How will AI affect knowledge workers?

 I accidentally (by not being in charge of the remote) wandered into a YouTube Ted Talk by Cathie Wood the other day and, realizing I was a hostage, I half-listened for a while.

      Wood is founder and CEO of ARK, an investment company that in recent years has made her millions as well as making her the darling genius of every stock market/investment show on regular TV and YouTube. Tesla was her not-so-secret word. She’s soured on Nvidia. But that’s not what grabbed my attention this night. This talk wasn’t about what stock to buy. It was about artificial intelligence. AI.

    “Did she just say ‘knowledge workers,’?” I asked the person in charge of the remote.

      “Uh huh.”

      “What the heck are ‘knowledge workers’?” I said quietly to myself, so as not to disturb anyone actually listening to the talk. Google will know.

       And it did.

       A variety of Human Resources sources told me pretty much the same thing. “Knowledge work” requires a high degree of cognitive skill, competence, knowledge, curiosity, expertise and creativity in problem-solving, critical thinking, gathering data, analyzing trends and decision-making. The work involves solving issues, making judgments. Applying knowledge.

     It sounded important.

     “Heck,” I thought to myself, “I was a knowledge worker.”

      One source# confirmed that with this list of  professional knowledge workers:

• Accountant
• Computer Programmer
• Consultant
• Data/Systems Analyst
• Designer
• Engineer
• Lawyer
• Marketing/Financial Analyst
• Pharmacist
• Physician
• Researcher
• Scientist
• Software Developer
• Web Designer
• Writer/Author

    There I was. At the bottom of the list, but it was alphabetical. I was and still am a knowledge worker, at least in the words and world of Cathie Wood and all those other CEOs of hedge funds and Big Tech companies. 

      I used to be content being identified as a newspaperman or journalist. It was simple and understandable to everyone for about half a century. I wrote stuff to let people know what was going on in the world and maybe help them make sense of it. I tried.

      But the Internet introduced a new brand of people doing the same thing. Sort of. First, there came “influencers.” These are people who post information on social media platforms for others to view or read and react to. Well, I did that. Still do. But I didn’t get any contracts from companies to push their jeans or sneakers or other products. I guess I was not a very influential influencer.

      Then came the most insulting of all terms, the one so many professional HR people on Linkedin seem to be looking for daily: “Content creators.”

        The operating philosophy here seems to be, “We don’t really care how good or accurate or timely or well-written or even creative your content is, as much as we care that there’s enough of it to occupy our platform daily. Click bait is acceptable.”

        Some of the “content” is readable. Much is not, at least in the judgment of this knowledge worker.

        However, the salient point in this discussion is not so much who is or who is not a knowledge worker, but rather, is this a job title in danger of disappearing, not because the titans of industry have figured out yet another way to label mere mortals in a condescending manner, but because their seemingly vital jobs will be filled by computer chips.

      Wood, remember, was talking about AI. The question being, how will AI affect the need for all these knowledge workers in the future? Can these big firms save a bundle of money by having AI do the work of knowledgeable, creative people who are good at solving problems and decision-making? 

    To which I reply, “How can such a knowledge worker today even recommend a change that may eliminate his or her job?”

     AI is far from there, as anyone who watches some of the prepared programming on YouTube about how to make your life better, or what country to move to or Medieval history is aware. The content is often comparable to a poorly written fifth-grade essay plagiarized from a variety of sources and a “narrator” who often can’t pronounce the words correctly.

   It’s clear no human had a hand in presenting this program and, apparently, no human ever bothered to edit it to make it less amateurish. Because, you know, money saved. The lure of AI.

Cathie Wood

           But this is just the beginning, as Wood reminds us, and the Big Techs will go as far as they can, unless someone (Congress?) says “That’s too far.”

      The HR specialists I found in my knowledge worker capacity noted that “knowledge work” is intangible. This means it does not include physical labor or manual tasks. But if you work with your hands and you’re good at it, don’t get too cocky regarding artificial intelligence and your future. Wood has another scary word in her vocabulary: Robots. She loves them.

      Now, to be fair and thorough, I must note that there’s also another word that has been applied to people who do what I do, which included writing daily newspaper editorials for 23 years: Pundit.

       Here’s how Wikipedia, defines it: “A pundit is a learned person who offers opinion in an authoritative manner on a particular subject area (typically politics, the social sciences, technology or sport), usually through the mass media.”

        I’m not trying to beef up my obituary, but I think that fits me and this pundit suggests that other knowledge workers pay close attention when millionaire influencers like Cathie Wood start talking about replacing them with computerized content creators. Eventually it won’t be just rising stock prices and amateurish YouTube shows.

       And that’s my Ted Talk today.

(# Much of the information on knowledge workers in this column is from a piece by Robin Modell for Flexjobs. She is an experienced journalist, author and corporate writer and a contributor to the On Careers section of U.S. News & World Report. Clearly, a knowledge worker.)

rjgaydos@gmail.com