The title is my latest poem.

I was reading yesterday’s Washington Post and several items caught my attention. One was an editorial titled Who Can Save California, and the thrust of the article seemed to be that California’s Democrats should stop blaming Trump for all that’s wrong with their state and begin to look at themselves. “Something, eventually, will need to change”, it said. It then compared California with Oregon and Connecticut, saying these three blue states had the highest unemployment in the country, and castigated California’s Democrats for over regulating construction and having a large homeless population.

Well, gee, Jeff Bezos. California is an enormously complicated place. It has environmental concerns that many states do not have, it has a large Spanish speaking population, it has enormous cities and metropolitan areas, a lot of things. But I decided to look into the question of unemployment – do blue states, by and large, have more unemployment than red states? The answer is that they do.

But there are reasons. Blue states tend to have larger cities and more minorities, and many blue states have older industrial bases that have been in decline. Blue states tend to have more of certain problems than red states tend to have. The problems need addressing and this is one reason these states elect Democrats.

On the other hand, blue states tend to be ahead of red states in education and technology, and in average incomes. And there is one other thing. Blue states do tend to take care of themselves. You probably know this, but let’s say it again. Blue states tend to give to the federal government more than they receive back. Red states tend to take from the federal government more than they contribute.

So it’s a mix. The Post does not recognize that mix.

Another article that struck me in yesterday’s Post is titled “While the U.S. debates AI risks, China mandates training its youth”. While both countries are modifying their education systems to accommodate AI, it appears that China is doing considerably more. They are already ahead of us in so many areas, and it looks like, in the near future, AI may be added to that list. Whether this is a curse or a blessing, I am not sure.

Speaking of AI, I just added Muse, the new AI service app, to my phone, and I met Muse, my new AI assistant, a cute little guy who aims to please. He asked me a bunch of questions about myself that I didn’t want to answer, so that I told him that he scared me. He was very polite and apologetic and told me that he did not want to scare me, and that he would never hold onto more information than he needed to help me. He then went on and told me that he would promise me not to hold onto any information whatsoever unless I specifically authorized him to.

I then realized that, with or without giving him my bio and private thoughts, I had no idea what he could do for me. I have seen lists of what Muse is able to do and, frankly, either I do those myself, or I don’t need to do them at all. Maybe one day after a deep snow when I can’t go outside anyway, I will devote some time to this and figure out how Muse can enrich my life, rather than just complicate it. I told Muse that I really didn’t understand what he could do for me now that would help. His response was, as you might suspect.

“That’s okay, Arthur, just come back to me when you think of something. And if you never think of anything, that would be okay, too.”

That last sentence did bother me a bit. He obviously did not think I was as cute as I thought he was.

Last night, we had dinner on The Wharf with friends at a palindromic restaurant, Zooz. The Wharf is a half mile of new office and residential buildings on the Potomac in SW DC. Here is a photo of the Zooz building from across the street.

The photo was taken as we left the Arena Theatre, where we saw the newest production of that extraordinary dance group, Step Afrika. Maybe more on this group tomorrow.

Now, it is 9:30 a.m., and I am going to watch a football game, Washington and Indianapolis. From London.