How Teaching A.I. to Speak Cajun Can Help Save a Language; The New York Times, June 27, 2026

 Jonathan Abrams, The New York Times; How Teaching A.I. to Speak Cajun Can Help Save a Language

By feeding centuries-old nursery rhymes and folklore recordings into their own model, linguists in Louisiana hope to help a community control its digital destiny.

"Louisiana French, the oral dialect of which Balfa was a cultural guardian, is part of the Bayou’s societal DNA, a link to its history, music and identity. Today, Caffery described the language as struggling and endangered, a notion reinforced by Alexa’s overlooking Balfa.

In response, Caffery assembled a small team at the center to train its own language learning model in automatic speech recognition for Louisiana French, drawing from a trove of historical artifacts and interviews.

Over the months, as the learning language model is trained on bits of the language — such as an old-age French nursery rhyme — it brings centuries-old dialect closer into the digital age."

Through the lens of history, Trump’s legacy will be more of a blotch than a Maga masterpiece; The Guardian, December 28, 2025

 Simon Tisdall, The Guardian; Through the lens of history, Trump’s legacy will be more of a blotch than a Maga masterpiece

"Revolutions are overrated, intrinsically unpredictable and typically followed by counter-revolutions. True turning points in history are actually quite rare – and difficult to spot. Even rarer are genuinely world-changing leaders. Donald Trump presents a case study.

The way Trump tells it, he’s Alexander, Charlemagne, George Washington, Napoleon and Mahatma Gandhi all rolled into one. Yet after a decade at the top of US politics, solid achievements are few. His peacemaking flounders, his economic and trade tariff policies falter, his personal approval rating tumbles. Towering ego, ignorance, vulgarity and bottomless narcissism are Trump’s only exceptional traits.

Right now, the global and domestic upheavals triggered by Trump and Maga seem transformational. They are symbolised by the new US national security strategy – an authoritarian, anti-European, transatlantic alliance-rupturing charter. On all sides the cry is heard: “The old order perishes. Chaos looms!” Yet looked at in the round, the Trumpian moment is fleeting. Trump, 79, has three years remaining in power, at most. Even if a loyalist wins in 2028 – a huge “if” – no heir can match his monstrous appeal. His Maga coalition is fracturing.

It’s claimed Trump has permanently changed how Americans view the world. But they said that about 1930s America First isolationism, and that didn’t last, either. Time will show the Trump era to be less turning point, more freakish aberration – a sort of Prohibition for populists. In history’s bigger picture, Trump is a blotch, an unsightly smear on the canvas.

At an unsettling moment in world affairs when the tectonic plates are shifting (to recycle another melodramatic cliche), it’s important to stay grounded, to maintain perspective. As 2026 trepidatiously creeps through the door, nursing hangovers from the tumultuous year just ending, try counting the continuities and bridges rather than dwelling on earthquakes and chasms.

Given a free choice (which is the whole point), democracy, for all its flaws, continues to be the preferred system of governance worldwide. Divisive hard-right and neo-fascist parties remain, mostly, on the fringe; they do not rule. Authoritarian leaders such as Putin, China’s Xi Jinping and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu have no recognised successors, not least because they fear usurpers. When they go – and it won’t be long – successor governments may opt for reform, as was the case post-Stalin and post-Mao.

Most countries still support the UN and respect international law. Music, film, theatre and the arts continue, overall, to connect and bind the peoples of the world, as does sport, the great global leveller. Religious faith, broadly defined, acts as a timeless, superhuman unifying force, despite the distortions of extremists. And the quest for knowledge and understanding, pursued through schools, universities, scholarship, historical research, books, scientific inquiry and technological innovation, inexorably advances with each new generation.

If one is allowed a wish for 2026, it’s that there be no great geopolitical turning points, no epic spasms or watersheds (with possible exceptions for Putin’s defeat and Trump’s resignation). Most people, given the option, would surely prefer to live their lives peacefully, striving to improve their lot and that of others, free from importunate, lying politicians, divisive dogmas, shaming bigotry, competing great power hegemonies and renewed conflicts.

Que no haya novedad – let no new thing arise, as the old, wistful Spanish saying has it. For a still hopeful, vibrant world haunted by fear of another cold (or hot) war, it would be a gift and a blessing."

Resignation and betrayal: What handing Donbas to Putin would mean for Ukraine; BBC, August 17, 2025

 Joel Gunter, BBC ; Resignation and betrayal: What handing Donbas to Putin would mean for Ukraine

"For Ukrainians, polling shows security guarantees are an absolutely vital part of any potential agreement on territory or anything else.

"People in Ukraine will accept various forms of security guarantees," said Anton Grushchetsky, the director of Kyiv's International Institute for Sociology, "but they require them."

For Yevhen Tkachov, the emergency worker in Kramatorsk, exchange of territory could only be considered with "real guarantees, not just written promises".

"Only then, more or less, I am in favour of giving Donbas to Russia," he said. "If the British Royal Navy is stationed in the port of Odesa, then I agree."

As various paths to peace are floated and discussed, sometimes in the deal-making style preferred by President Trump, there is a risk of losing sight of the real people involved – people who have already lived through a decade of war and who may stand to lose even more now in exchange for peace.

Donbas was a place full of Ukrainians from all different walks of life, said Vitalii Dribnytsia, a Ukrainian historian. "We are not just talking about culture, about politics, about demographics, we are talking about people," he said.

Donetsk might not have the cultural reputation of somewhere like Odesa, Mr Drinytsia said. But it was Ukraine. "And any corner of Ukraine, regardless of whether it has some great cultural significance or not, is Ukraine," he said."

Her tribal regalia was banned at graduation. So she worked to change the law.; The Washington Post, May 23, 2022

 Cathy Free, The Washington Post; Her tribal regalia was banned at graduation. So she worked to change the law.

"Last month, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed HB30 into law, making it illegal to prevent Indigenous students from wearing cultural regalia at school ceremonies.

Utah now joins states such as Arizona, Oklahoma, Oregon, Minnesota, Washington, South Dakota and North Dakota in legalizing the practice...

“For Native communities, it’s not just about the regalia — this has a symbolic and spiritual element as well,” said Romero of Salt Lake City.

It’s about their families and it’s about honor and respect,” she said. “No Native student should have to face barriers in honoring their culture and their spirituality.”

International media ethics teaching award for UH Mānoa professor; University of Hawai'i News, May 19, 2021

University of Hawai'i News; International media ethics teaching award for UH Mānoa professor

"A University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa journalism professor with more than 30 years of teaching experience has been internationally recognized for outstanding classroom teaching in media ethics. Professor Ann Auman is the winner of the 2021 Teaching Excellence Award in the Media Ethics Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The award will be formally presented to Auman at the Media Ethics Division members’ meeting on July 28.

The award committee was impressed by Auman’s work, “incorporating Indigenous values and ethics in a cross-cultural media ethics course and classroom.” Auman’s ethics courses are Communications/Journalism 460: Media Ethics and Communications 691: Emergent Media Ethics Across Cultures: Truth-Seeking in the Global, Digital Age.

“I believe that journalism can be improved if we honor Indigenous values, culture and language in storytelling. Western-based ethics codes and practices need to be reformed, and more Indigenous people should tell their own stories,” Auman said. “Everyone should practice media ethics, not just journalists. In this disinformation age we are empowered if we learn how to distinguish the truth from falsehood and deception, and be ethical producers and consumers of news and information.”

Auman also teaches courses in news literacy and multimedia journalism. Her research is in cross-cultural media ethics with a focus on Indigenous media ethics. Auman’s recent published works include, “Traditional Knowledge for Ethical Reporting on Indigenous Communities: A Cultural Compass for Social Justice” in Ethical Space: The International Journal of Media Ethics; “The Hawaiian Way: How Kuleana can Improve Journalism” in the Handbook of Global Media Ethics; and “Ethics Without Borders in a Digital Age” in Journalism & Mass Communication Educator."

‘Sorrow Is the Price You Pay for Love’; The Atlantic, February 5, 2019

Video by Erlend Eirik Mo, The Atlantic;

‘Sorrow Is the Price You Pay for Love’

[Kip Currier: A remarkable short video. Poignant, uplifting, inspiring. A reminder of what matters most, and what's worth striving for and toward.

Watch and share with others.]

"“So much in her story was compelling for me,” Mo told The Atlantic. “It is unique, about a girl doing a male macho dance, and universal, about love and sorrow.”"

Stan Lee Spoke Out Against Bigotry, Again And Again; Comic Book Resources, November 13, 2018

Hannah Collins, Comic Book Resources; Stan Lee Spoke Out Against Bigotry, Again And Again

""None of us live our lives in a vacuum," Lee wrote in 1970, "none of us is untouched by the everyday events about us -- events which shape our stories just as they shape our lives." Here, Lee directly addressed readers who had been disgruntled by his "moralizing," a bell continues to be rung to this day. "They [Marvel comics readers] take great pains to point out that comics are supposed to be escapist reading and nothing more. But somehow, I can't see it that way. It seems to me that a story without a message, however subliminal, is like a man without a soul."

It's alarming and disappointing that so much of what Lee railed against over 50 years ago still feels so prescient in 2018. He also made mention in the same column of his talks at college campuses where "there's as much discussion of war and peace, civil rights, and the so-called youth rebellion as there is of our Marvel mags per se," and Lee continued to connect with people, face-to-face, as recently as last year. A 94-year-old Lee recorded a video message for Marvel's YouTube channel in response to the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017, reaffirming that Marvel's stories "have room for everyone, regardless of their race, gender, religion or color of their skin. The only things we don't have room for are hatred, intolerance or bigotry.""

Trolls Will Save The World; Breitbart, 8/20/16

Milo, Breitbart; Trolls Will Save The World:

"A warped currency today governs popular culture. Instead of creativity, talent and boldness, those who succeed are often those who can best demonstrate outrage, grievance and victimhood. Even conservatives are buying into it. Witness, in the days since Breitbart executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon was announced as Donald Trump’s campaign manager, how establishment stooges have bought into the worst smear-tactics of the left. As with the left, nothing is evaluated on its quality, or whether it’s factually accurate, thought-provoking or even amusing: only whether it can be deemed sexist, racist or homophobic.

Campuses are where the illness takes its most severe form. Students running for safe spaces at the slightest hint of a challenge to their coddled worldview. Faculties and administrations desperately trying to sabotage visits from conservative speakers (often me!) to avoid the inevitable complaints from tearful lefty students.

In this maelstrom of grievance, there is one group boldly swimming against the tide: trolls.

Trolling has become a byword for everything the left disagrees with, particularly if it’s boisterous, mischievous and provocative. Even straightforward political disagreement, not intended to provoke, is sometimes described as “trolling” by leftists who can’t tell the difference between someone who doesn’t believe as they do and an “abuser” or “harasser.”...

...I believe there’s one environment where trolls have yet to fully penetrate, and where they could make all the difference: the university campus.

This is the epicenter of the feelings-focused, danger-phobic, coddling culture described by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff in their viral Atlantic essay. This is where the disease starts, adopts its most virulent form, and then spreads itself out, diluted, to the rest of society. This is the place where the doctrine of political correctness is freshest, and also where its adherents are at their most fragile. This, more than anywhere else, is where we need to see frog memes."