Getting More than Used to the Mac

I have a Mac laptop for work. The reason why is that I don't have a computer that runs Mac OS anything at home - I have everything else which is quite a short list. Linux, Windows 11, yea that's about it - but I do have an iPad that runs the phone operating system of Apple, and I also have an iPhone, something I bought to use facetime more frequently but nobody uses facetime anymore, that anymore moment being when I finally set up my iPhone.

The iPhone is a horrible device with a terrible interface and a crap camera. It doesn't even look good. I chose the nice shade of yellow that they showed me at CostCo but sadly it is not a very nice looking yellow color. The display image looked better, this just looks like white that has been in the sun too long. 

Enough about the phone which I will never get used to. I will get used to this iMac Air which is very nice, light, but most importantly, it has a keyboard that is made for fast typing. This is the best keyboard I've used on a laptop in a long time - my most favorite keyboard of all time was my Chromebook from 2016 - the most expensive chromebook on the market - that keyboard is to die for. Thinking about it right now while typing this out on my MacBook (or is it iMac?) Air makes me miss it tremendously and consider paying a small sum to Google to return to the Google Drive life. Unfortunately Microsoft Word has my dedication, at least for the moment. 

AI doesn't interest me in computers nor does battery life. What I want is a great keyboard, a great screen, and the ability to pop in a cellular modem card. Most laptops have given that up with the prevalence of wifi. But there's nothing like just opening up a computer and just working without worrying about a password, a connection, a timer, or whether or not you can just buy a small espresso and work for 3 hours based on that receipt code. I guess I can use my phone, but then I have two devices that are losing battery power rapidly not just one. 

I'm making a lot of notes on Cicero's On Oratory and last night I was examining and thinking about Crassus's point where he says intensive writing makes the best speakers. I would say writing where the act of writing disappears makes for amazing grist for thought. Perhaps that's what I'm experiencing as I get more and more into this keyboard. 

The Nobel Prize in Communication

Why no Nobel prize in Communication?

There are Nobel Prizes in:

Physics

Chemistry

Medicine/Biology/Physiology

Literature

Peace

Economic Science

The exception here is economics, which technically is not a Nobel Prize, but one that came later as a sort of sponsorship. It was started in 1969 and is supported by the Swedish National Bank.

What is it sponsoring? Market-driven economics of course!

But that’s not the argument I want to make. I want to argue that if economics can come along much later and be that important, surely communication is of that level of importance.

The Peace Prize is a strange metric. It’s often awarded to people who talk about peace but don’t really accomplish a lot. Perhaps that should be the communication prize. But instead of talking about peace from a position of power (or being a victim of someone who has a lot of power) perhaps it could be awarded to someone who offers a variant on a theory or practice on how to communicate with one another about intense or controversial things.

There are so many international communication and dialogue organizations not to mention debate organizations that focus a ton on practice. This could be motive to focus on theory and develop some new approaches.

Scholars do this all the time in communication in university departments but there’s no incentive to do it. The best you can hope is a prize at the mile long, 3 inch deep National Communication Association conference. But this does not fund research, nowhere even close. There’s no contest or real help for grants. The trouble with applying for big humanities grants is the barrier most grant readers accept: Communication seems a given. The challenge is very hard for communication scholars to get the sort of funding that one gets in other fields.

Maybe the Nobel Prize in Literature is closer than Peace for a model? The qualifications seem a bit better than the seeming randomness of the Peace Prize:

It’s all about quality. Literary quality, of course. The winner needs to be someone who writes excellent literature, someone who you feel when you read that there’s some kind of a power, a development that lasts through books, all of their books. But the world is full of very good, excellent writers, and you need something more to be a laureate. 

This is a quote from Ellen Mattson who helps choose the winner. Seems like Communication could adapt from this. Someone who has worked on the challenges of Communication consistently for a long time with an extra spark of energy or effort, something that sets them above and beyond the typical researcher. Seems like a good way to decide.

The Nobel Prize in Communication won’t solve all the issues with the communication field with it’s perception or attitude. But it would change the field of communication work, elevating the perception globally to a different level of importance. That would change the way research is done, read, and ironically communicated to others. Maybe this would move the journalists away from interviewing psychologists and political scientists on communication issues every time one makes the news cycle.

Fleedom

It is almost an empty trope at this moment, like an ignored email signature. Your liberal friend, typically pining for Obama, posts that they are going to move to Canada or some other country, indicating that the end is upon us. 

I’ve been ignoring these for the most part thinking they are simply overblown responses to a President and administration that is so outside of expected politics that there’s really no response that can meet the perceived excess of Trump. 

But now there’s a new uprising of them again about the government shutdown, which is not as big a concern to those on the left as something like border patrol and immigration enforcement excess. 

When liberals say “I’m moving to Canada” they are unwittingly (or maybe wittingly) making an argument that individualism is most important. You could make a case that queer people and trans people should be considering amnesty from a foreign government - perhaps even people who are diagnosed with autism if history is any guide for the next moves of the right-wing. But people who are just missing the days of Obama’s violent neoliberal expansion of American market capitalism aren’t presenting a good look here. 

Most of my liberal friends expressing this are part of a new political philosophy I call “Fleedom.” This is the idea that if the government isn’t doing what they feel it should be doing, the proper response is to leave. 

This is a strange politics for sure and has a lot in common with quitting a game you feel is unfair instead of trying to change the rules, or argue for a different perspective on them. Fleedom is an index as to how bad we are at persuasion, argument, and debate. We have no rhetorical resources. We can’t imagine changing anything or (dangerously) anyone’s mind. 

Fleedom is also the dismissal of all those people who didn’t support the right-wing platform, voted accordingly, and are now stuck in a state where their liberties and support from the government are vanishing. What can you do for your fellow citizens if you abandon your citizenship, your country? 

Fleedom is simply panic. Nobody wants to study or practice speaking in ways that will reach people who, a priori for most liberals, are too stupid or too evil to reach. This assumption means rhetoric has no power for them. They just want to yell, hate, and insult. This is not going to reach anyone. Neither is a strategy of tragic laughter - “you got what you voted for!” - this places your audience in the position of the rube, which doesn’t really make them want to listen to what you believe the solution should be. Oh, that’s right - the solution is to beg the Canadian government for amnesty. 

This philosophy is also part of what I’ve called the “blue Trump” attitude, most clearly embodied in Andrew Cuomo and his supporters. These liberals see nothing wrong with Trump’s style of politics, they just wish he was a Democrat. This isn’t a rights regime or freedom regime at all, but one where people are compelled, without reasons, to support terrible systems just like the right-wing would have us do. 

Instead of Fleedom, study how people are persuaded. What sorts of rhetoric work for them? What are the conditions under which they believe they have found truth? What is a fact for them? This might seem gross to most liberals but unfortunately this is how democracy is meant to work. But these days I wonder how many liberals or conservatives actually want to live in democracy. Both seem to want a regime of conformity to a particular way of speaking, feeling, and being. No thanks. I would rather speak and argue with both.

Everything that Matters is on the Shoulders of the Jimmys

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/jimmy-fallon-avoid-politics-tonight-show-1236535575/


Why are we spending so much of our collective time worried about late-night talk show hosts? 

They are not smart, and not critical. They are a part of a bedtime routine for many, but are not meant to - nor should they be considered - some kind of political criticism or even a stand-in for political speech that matters. 

There is an illusion that the white men of privilege who serve as ad brokers and PR for the companies that own their networks (look at why certain guests are on and where they work) are somehow essential to democracy and freedom of expression. These people are essential to a consumer capitalist model of entertainment: Watch this free entertainment, watch some commercials (which generate a lot of revenue), and get excited about being able to give us more money watching this or that actor in a upcoming film that we also produce, read a book they published (also one of our companies), a TV show they are in (also ours), or what have you.

The hosts are marketing agents. Their goal is to give us the illusion of private access to an entertainer in a conversation. Much like the way Plato writes, we feel we are witnessing a real conversation, that we are eavesdropping and participating in a very special rare candid chat. We don't get to see the riders, the pre-interviews, or the instructions from corporate about the questions that have to come up and when the clip should be shown. This isn't free expression; this is an orchestrated commercial for the consumer products of film, books, and television shows. 

It's embarrassing that people are upset with Fallon that he's decided to avoid politics. It's embarrassing that we think Jimmy Kimmel is the champion of free speech. It's embarrassing that we think Colbert was cancelled because he was too "real" about his politics. These people simply work in PR for massive media companies. They are pawns of a capitalist system designed to generate profit from every little thing they do, including their profit! They are not political heroes nor should they be. Perhaps we can generate some solidarity with them as workers who are being exploited by the corporations they have signed their life over to, but it's hard to generate sympathy with wealthy white men for the average worker. Any sympathy is probably just mislabeled desire, or identification: When we watch these shows we rhetorically identify with the host, not the staff, crew, or even the audience. We are on the couch facing the audience; we are part of the show. This identification deliberately avoids any of the understanding of how much distinction is there between us and the hosts.

For me it's evidence that capitalism has taken all time for reflection, reading, and writing out our own thoughts - the creative sort of work that is necessary in democracy to get our thinking straight before we go create a claim for someone else to consider. Instead of that, we now have the surrogates of fools like Colbert, Kimmel, and Fallon. They are hosting hour long infomercials about entertainment. They are not worth any consideration or being in any discussion about the political. We are the discussion about the political. We should resist systems that take time away from creative, thoughtful exploits. Laughing at a conversation between millionaire entertainers is fun, but it drains energy that could be put to more valuable ends (yes you can say repressive desublimation, I know you want to you Marcuse fans).

The court jester has a long tradition in politics of being the one person in the court who can criticize the king without worry of retribution because the criticism is rhetorically deflected through an over the top comedic approach. That is not what Jimmy Kimmel does. What he does is indicate quite directly who is wrong and worth being laughed at. This is not the tradition of the jester. This is the modern sensibility that people who are wrong deserve shame and hostile laughter. This is the work of someone in line with power, unlike the jester, who is in line with the people. This is not the voice of a helpful politics in any system, let alone a democracy. These people are best removed from television, second best is to totally disregard their existence. 

Perspective and Image

Secretary Hegseth's address to the military leadership yesterday shows what can go wrong if you do not consider the rhetorical situation. 

Hegseth, like many in the Trump administration, do not value words. They value power and authority, theorizing these things as more important than words or perhaps have no relationship to words other than to demonstrate power and authority. Words are the measure of deference to authority - when the king speaks, everyone must listen attentively even if it is total nonsense.

An alternative theory of words, one that works in a democracy is the idea that words are the best expression of what the speaker feels is best. They can be used to direct, unite, excite, comfort, and motivate the audience not only to do certain things but to be certain things. 

And it's very odd: Trump's January 6th speech really seemed to reveal an understanding of this. Trump's amazing speech had a crowd of regular people take on the role of members of a coup attacking police and destroying buildings, walking into secure areas of the U.S. Capitol ready to attack members of the government. But in that speech he never suggests this is what should happen. He only continuously "describes" the audience. 

Compare that to Hegseth, who really failed to develop any energy and identity with or for the leadership of the American armed forces. Hegseth comes off as someone who absolutely loves the military as a performance of a kind of masculinity he really admires. Speaking in front of people who have made a career out of the study of how to attack,defend, and neutralize enemy armies - many of which are very well disciplined and trained - one should be referencing a lot of the intellect in the room and arguing that what they are doing is clearly working, and that he stands with them as they face a very murky world ahead.

But Hegseth decided to discuss aesthetic appearance and gendered norms. Troops should not be fat. Troops should shave. Everyone should pass the most rigorous physical fitness tests. These are all very strange, unless you realize that Hegseth thinks he has a better understanding of what the U.S. military is than the generals, admirals, and other leaders in the audience. That understanding is simply this: Being a U.S. soldier is a performance of a very particular, valorized kind of masculinity. 

The other comments during the presentation that have worried people such as U.S. troops should train and practice in U.S. cities against American citizens are strange to us. To U.S. Military leaders, this sounds out of bounds or a court-martial experience to them. It's simply not part of being in the Military to them. It reveals what we already know: Trump and his supporters have a perception of what an American citizen looks like. Anyone who doesn't fit that image is fair game. Look at how ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection operate today. They take a look at those videos online to see what the Trump administration and their supporters believe non-valuable bodies and people look like. They deserve force, injury, and degradation. The military, for Trump supporters, is the performative image of what America is - scary, muscle-bound authority that cannot be stopped, like an action movie. 

The military, the way the military perceives it, is providing a necessary service of protecting a way of life, one that soldiers also enjoy. This is a life of freedoms, choices, associations, and security. They do not want to live in a world of authoritarian control. The military has a rigorous structure not because it's awesome, it's because this rigor is necessary to keep a clear head and clear perspective about where the threats lie. 

How should we perceive it? Hegseth and Trump have revealed that they hold the perspective of teenage boys, idolizing a fantasy film narrative of the military being an ideal sort of masculinity, ready to kick ass and destroy lives because they have been ordered to do it. Nobody in the military is there because they want to do this, and they certainly realize they might have to make tough choices. But Hegseth's rhetoric was nowhere close to this. I feel in closed rooms of high ranking military members there is a conversation about how to placate him without ruining the system we've developed to protect a very threatened democracy.