When I was back in Chicago -- Evanston actually, staying just a few blocks from the beloved Northwestern -- I saw the news story on how the Trump administration (in its ongoing fascist effort to destroy education in the United States) had added Northwestern to its list and was demanding "changes" or else they would freeze $790 million in federal funding from the school. This stems from, as the New York Times stated it, Trump team "accusations of racial discrimination stemming from their efforts to promote diversity."

As the article later notes, Northwestern (a Big Ten university) is the first non-Ivy League school to have funding from the Trump administration targeted.

A spokesman for the school, Jon Yates, said -- "Federal funds that Northwestern receives drive innovative and lifesaving research, like the recent development by Northwestern researchers of the world’s smallest pacemaker, and research fueling the fight against Alzheimer’s disease. This type of research is now at jeopardy.”

Before we get to that, I think it's important to know what this actually means, and that's it's not just "spokesman fluff".  When he says "recent, that "world's smallest pacemaker" was announced literally less than two weeks ago, on April 2, and it's utterly remarkable.  Jaw-dropping breathtaking.  Whatever you may have in mind about "world's smallest pacemaker," you almost certainly might want to think smaller -- and even that's not the only thing that's stunning about it.  The device is so small, it can be inserted with a syringe, and then dissolves after it’s no longer needed!

Yes, that's a pacemaker.  And yes, that is small.  And it dissolves when not needed.  Here's a 90-second video about it --

And that's the thing about this fascist Trump effort -- accepted and enabled by MAGOPs in Congress -- to destroy education.  No doubt the base (and the word was never more accurate) loves when its party tries to undermine and shred education by freezing funding for all those "elites."  Except what so much of the federal funding goes for is critical research that impacts the lives of everyone -- Red, Blue and every color in between -- and also helps the U.S. lead the world in scientific and medical advances.

The $2 billion in funding that Trump/MAGOPs now want to freeze may be a joy to the base, but they might want to find out first that the bulk of the money goes for medical research into cancer and Alzheimer's Disease (neither of which discriminate on the basis of political belief...), and also Harvard-based hospitals, like the renowned Mass General and Boston Children's Hospital.  Neither of which discriminate on the basis of...oh, you know.  

If you (whoever you are) ever need and can benefit from the medical care or scientific advances from any of this research that Trump/MAGOPs are trying to freeze, because they want to destroy education and have it heel to their fascist beliefs, just know what could be lost could affect you or your loved ones.  And leadership in the fields might now go overseas.

That's what this is about. Not falsely presumed "elites" or the MAGOP-hated "education."

Which is why I was thrilled to see Harvard turn down the Trump/MAGOP demands, even if it meant losing $2 billion.  It will hurt Harvard -- but it will also hurt all Americans, because they're who benefit from medical advances and needs.  They and everyone in the world.

As Harvard President Alan Garber said, spot-on properly: “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

I must assume there will be lawsuits from Harvard and all the universities under threat of their government funding being frozen, including of course Northwestern.  So, hopefully, they will either get to keep their funding for research or won't be blocked.

In the meantime, though, great for Harvard.  What a courageous, important stand to take.

Which leads me to end with this from Tom Lehrer.  To be clear, it's a comic song that has nothing to do with medical research (though does with scholarship), and is really just a chiding number about what a football fight song should be for the school.  But its title fits perfectly, and so that's why we're going with it. 

"Fight Fiercely Harvard," indeed.
​

We're going to turn this over to Trump himself.  Appearing on Fox, he's asked about his son Barron's skills.  And Trump enthuses about how "amazingly skilled" the young man is with computers.
 
When I first saw this, I started to type about how “Imagine the reaction from the far right if President Biden said something this creepily inept and out of touch with reality.”  But I stopped and held off, because I realized it's not a case of that at all, but rather…imagine the reaction from everybody if anyone over the age of three said something so creepily inept and out of touch with reality.

And after watching this short video, I feel comfortable with next to no one thinking that I am exaggerating.

This is the president of the United States.  In charge of the nuclear bomb.  Overseeing the dismantling of U.S. government.  Ordering the closure of the Department of Education.  Deporting suspected illegal immigrants without a trial or hearing.  Creating an enemy with Canada...wanting to make Canada the 51st state.  Wanting to buy Greenland.  Wanting to put tariffs on many of our allies.  Throwing our ally Ukraine under the bus. And embracing Putin and Russia. 

The president of the United States.

This is so unearthly inexplicable that it may even transcend repeating that he has early dementia.  This is on another level of total cluelessness.  Though having dementia doesn't help...

​Yes, really.

Trump is amazed by his son's "amazing aptitude" with technology, because he knows how to turn on his computer.

This is a pretty much the equivalent of knowing how to turn on a lightbulb.

My mother was a technophobe.  But if you showed her once how to turn a computer on, she'd know how from then on.

I'm sure that defenders of Trump will have some explanation of what Trump "was really saying."  (tm)  But not only can everyone hear what he was "really saying," if someone needs translators to explain what you were "really saying" about how "amazingly skilled" one has to be to to turn on a computer, then you've already lost the battle.

On this “The Weekly Show” podcast with Jon Stewart, they write that “From his role as a surrogate on Kamala Harris’ campaign, to making a huge impact on the American healthcare system, Mark Cuban joins Jon Stewart this week to talk about it all. On this 2024 wrap up discussion, Jon and Mark dive into topics like technology, business, and how the political landscape shifted this year. In addition, they attempt to figure out how the government may use AI to solve major issues and Mark teaches Jon a lesson in crypto.”  It’s a very interesting conversation, but – rather than as wide-ranging a discussion as this suggests, the first 30 minutes is spent talking about crypto and AI.  Both very reasonable to discuss, but as topics about the political landscape the imbalance here is top-heavy.  The good news is that after listening for a while, you can just jump ahead.  (If you go to this link and watch the video online, there’s a “table of contents” that makes jumping ahead much easier, too, using hyperlinks, so you can automatically just to the topic you clink on.)
 
Or, if you listen here, this below is that same "table of contents," a sort of "breakdown" of when specific topics are covered during the conversation, so you can manually jump to the sections that most interest you.   
 
0:00 Introduction
1:44 Mark Cuban Joins
5:30 Mark's Experience as Surrogate on Kamala's Campaign
8:10 A Lesson in Crypto
16:27 How Can You Protect People Who Want to Invest in Crypto?
21:42 A Lesson in AI & Large Language Models
31:00 Anger Erupting Against Healthcare & Insurance Companies
39:06 Corporate Power's Collateral Damage
48:20 Is Mark a Viable Political Player?
48:50 Deficit Reduction Vs. Problem Solving
53:22 Producers Break Down The Episode

​Ah, Sweet Twitter, what hath thou become under MusXk...

Yesterday, in response to a tweet left by new White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt that was a song-and-dance attempt to explain away something that wasn't true, I wrote the following --

"You have started your tenure VERY poorly for someone who said she 'was about the truth.'  This below at best is a gobbledy-gook to explain a jumble. You lied about the military going into California. And lied about $50 million meant for Gaza that supposedly went instead for bombs."

To my surprise, I received an email from the folks at TwiXter that said --

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Needless-to-say, after ungnashing my teeth and unclenching my typing fingers, I saw that at the bottom of their email, I was allowed to appeal their algorithm's "decision."  I did not, explaining that I merely criticized the press secretary for lying and there was nothing in my tweet that promoted violence or threatened, and nothing was based on age, gender, religious or whatever.  (I'd have said much more, but I was limited to only 280 characters.)

I explained this online, and then rephrased my original tweet, trying to figure out some way to tone down what was only bluntly critical but not threatening in any imaginable way.  I trimmed out a few words and also cut out the reference that Ms. Leavitt herself made to bombs, since I thought that that word might be been what the algorithm saw and thought was a "threat."  And so, my post now read this kinder, gentler way --

Moments later, also to my surprise, but this time a happy surprise, I received a quick follow-up from TwiXter to my appeal that said --

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Oh!  How nice.  Honestly, I didn't expect that.  And so quickly.  Sanity ruled the day.  So, okay, good!

But then came the funnier part. 

Much to my, once again, surprise -- after I had toned down my tweet (written before getting their ruling that it was perfectly OK), the algorithm limited my toned down tweet that -- which moments before they had just ruled that the original tweet was fine!

I decided not to challenge the "limited visibility" of the rewritten tweet, since the original was more pointed and better.  And I just deleted the rewrite.

Mind you, I still have absolutely no idea what the algorithm saw that it considered even remotely violent or threatening about my original tweet, since (in my rewrite) I deleted what I thought was the only conceivably algorithmically-threatening word, "bomb" -- and it still got tagged.

Some days, it seems you just can't trust a MusXk-based algorithm.  Go figure.

If you didn't see LAST WEEK TONIGHT with Jon Oliver on Sunday, the Main Story was about TikTok.  As you might imagine, given the subject matter, it's a wide open field for a lot of humor.  The larger point, though, is that while the security and privacy issues with TikTok are very real, they exist, as well, for many, if not most -- or all -- of the social media platforms.

One quibble with the story.  While their point about privacy issues with most social media platforms is correct and important, the story never really mentions in any substantive way the huge difference: that none of the other social media platforms are under run under the authority of a government -- let alone a foreign government, let alone a foreign government that is of the of the major enemies of the United States, who could use the platform for political disinformation.  Something that I think should at least of been addressed far more meaningfully in the story, rather than an offhanded mention once, since that's the whole point of concern with TikTok.
​

As I wrote on Facebook, I had a totally bizarre experience.  I posted a description of my article today about the MAGOP War on Education...and got a note from Facebook that it had been removed because "We don't allow people to use misleading links or content to trick people to visit, or stay on, a website."

I requested a review, but figured it was moot because I would just simply describe it again but in a benign way that would meet their lofty, noble standards.  Then, people could read the full article that supports what I wrote in my "removed" description with facts and history to back it up. But that got blocked, too!!

I tried a third time, and made it as benign as possible, and that finally seems to have made it through. 

But for those curious, this below is the first description that -- in this divisive political world of hate and racism and anti-Semitism and fascism -- got removed from Facebook.  I wrote --
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Horrors.  Yes, I know.  And as I said, everything in this description was supported by facts and history.

The second version that also got removed was genteel, though I wanted to keep the direct point.  So, rewrote it to be less pointed --
​

But yes, even that got removed as misleading, trickery spam.

I wondered if perhaps a problem was the graphic that was attached to it -- the newspaper headline about the Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction ordering all teachers to show their classes the video of him praying for Trump.  I didn't think that was an issue -- since, after all, it was an actual newspaper headline, and 100% true.  But just to be safe, I got rid of the graphic and posted the following. Which -- huzzah! -- made it through.