Southern Bookman

John Sebastian and Lovin' Spoonful songs stand as rock classics

John Sebastian and Lovin' Spoonful produced a number of hits, yet the band has always been underrated.

Sebastian wrote sunny pop tunes expressing the joys and sorrows of teenage love, and the joys of life.

While Sebastian and Lovin' Spoonful songs are criticized as insubstantial compared with those of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan and so on, they stand the test of time.

Sebastian's songs display a subtle lyrical and melodic sophistication, and the Spoonful's Zal Yanovsky, Joe Butler, and Steve Boone added inventive jazz stylings to rock rhythms.

Spoonful songs "The Younger Girl," "Do You Believe in Magic," "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice," "Summer in the City," "Nashville Cats," "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind," and "What a Day for a Daydream" hold a special place in the rock canon.

Microchip wars will decide world's fate, writers Chis Miller and John Lanchester reveal

Microchips will decide the West's coming war with China and humanity's future.

London Review writer John Lanchester in an expansive review in the publication's March issue examines the central importance of those little silicon wafers.

Lanchester for years has been one of my favorite writers, especially in uncovering the inner workings of the world's economy. He's also a noted novelist and critic of English culture and history.

In an appreciative review of Chris Miller's "Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology," Lanchester gives a detailed and fascinating synopsis of the development of semiconductor technology.

From William Shockley's invention of the transistor and founding of Silicon Valley, through successive microchip innovations by Jack Kilby, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore and the continued miniaturization and prevalence of microchips in military weapons and consumer products, Lanchester shows the successes and downfalls of companies like Shockley Semiconductor,  Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel and Texas Instruments.

While American innovations led the semiconductor revolution, U.S. companies lost their competitive dominance to the Taiwanese firm Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

Texas Instruments and other American firms still compete in the semiconductor industry, but TSMC is now by far the leading semiconductor manufacturer.

The Taiwanese capitalist giant is itself dependent on European companies for the complex equipment needed to program the chips through an intricate process known as extreme ultraviolet lithography.

As Lanchester details, the American firm Cymer developed the laser technology for EUV products. But the Dutch firm ASML has risen to the top in making the huge machines needed to create the ultra-tiny microchips.

While Taiwan makes most of the chips that power products from cars to Iphones, China is desperate to acquire chips for weapons and products it manufactures. China's economy now rivals the United States, yet the communist system lags in technological innovation.

Lanchester points out that the Biden administration's ban on microchip exports to China in October 2022 is "a declaration of economic war."

China Chairman's Xi's increasing aggression toward the United States and seeking closer ties with Russia's Vladimir Putin accelerate the new cold war, which might heat up with a Chinese attack against Taiwan like that of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

With no microchip manufacturing industry, communist China has increasing incentive to take over Taiwan militarily. The United States' economic future depends on Taiwan's independence.

Oil, water, alternative energy sources, climate change, food and population increases will determine humanity's future. But those tiny chips will rule the world, as Lanchester's essential review of Miller's important book shows.

 

 

 

Bill Gates, Thomas Friedman acclaim Artificial Intelligence's Brave New World

I am not a robot.

ChatGPT is not writing this piece.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and billionaire Bill Gates are in a frenzy over Artificial Intelligence, claiming it's as revolutionary as the printing press, the Internet and the steam engine.

The new Microsoft GPT-4 bot developed by OpenAI can whip out sonnets and abecedarian verse within seconds, according to Friedman's column this week.

Along with composing poems in which each line begins with a different letter of the alphabet, GPT-4 can almost instantaneously do translations in different languages, Friedman marveled.

I'm sure GPT-4 will soon be turning out Tom Friedman columns indistinguishable from the real thing.

Gates in his blog says AI will free humans from mundane tasks and allow us "to do things that software never will - teaching, caring for patients and supporting the elderly," according to the Wall Street Journal.

Why Artificial Intelligence can't teach and care for patients was not explained.

Against corporate opposition, office workers are using OpenAI's ChatGPT to write emails, memos and messages, according to a Wall Street Journal article. The workers say it improves productivity.

Or Artificial Intelligence could be nothing more than Quiet Quitting, last year's trend.

Perhaps Friedman and Gates are right, and AI will bring bring a new golden era of human development.

I remain skeptical, and plan to ignore Artificial Intelligence as much as possible, hoping it'll be destroyed all together.

Best wishes to Generation Z as they welcome the new age, but I'm too old for a little AI buddy.

For me, Shakespeare's sonnets will never by supplanted by something called GPT-4.

 

 

 

Downtown Atlanta can be a 24-hour, and 15-minute, city

Another mission is under way to attract people to live in downtown Atlanta.

With office vacancy still high following the Covid pandemic, Central Atlanta Progress and the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District want to convert more office buildings into residences, according to an article by the AJC's Zachery Hansen.

That continues a years-long campaign to make downtown a "24-hour" place. The Healey Building, a 1914 architectural jewel in the Fairlie-Poplar Historic District, and other downtown sites are now condos. Peachtree Center's office tower and the historic W.D. Grant Building are also slated for residential conversions.

Hansen's article didn't say which office buildings are targeted for condos and apartments in the new effort. With early 20th century buildings already converted into living areas, 1960s towers might be desirable.

The office slump deepened by the pandemic's shift to remote work might end up helping the quest to make downtown a vibrant neighborhood. Already, nearly 3,000 call downtown home

As more people live in downtown, services and entertainment will follow.

The concept of the "15-minute city" has recently gained currency. The New York Times' Paul Krugman in a recent column praised his Upper West Side neighborhood as such an urban paradise, where he can find services and entertainment within walking distance of his home.

Downtown Atlanta, with all of its setbacks and slow advances, still aspires to such a city life.

 

 

 

Hunter-gatherer societies lived in ancient Europe for thousands of years, DNA shows

Our human ancestors emerged in Africa and migrated to Europe 60,000 years ago, branching into a bewildering web of hunter-gathering groups.

DNA extracted from the remains of 357 ancient Europeans gives tantalizing views of their life, which lasted for thousands of years.

New York Times science writer Carl Zimmer in an article in Tuesday's Science Times section traces the perilous existence of groups called the Fournol, the Vestonice, the GoyettQ2, the Villabruna, the Oberkassel and the Sidelkino.

Researchers analyzing the DNA data have identified even more groups, according to papers that originally appeared in Nature.

When the hunter-gatherers came to Europe, they encountered and interbred with the Neanderthals, who had lived on the continent for 100,0000 years.

The Neanderthals disappeared about 40,000 years ago, losing out to the competition from the more advanced humans and their superior tools. The Neanderthals live on in our DNA.

Several of the hunter-gatherer groups also disappeared, especially with the arrival of the Ice Age 26,000 to 19,000 years ago. The battle for survival brought the emergence of the new Gravettian culture, which spread across Europe when the earth warmed up again.

The Gravettians made spears to kill woolly mammoths and other big game and made Venus figurines that might have represented fertility, according to Zimmer's article.

The oldest human culture in Europe is known as the Aurignacians, named for the oldest figurative cave paintings and sculptures.

Hunting and gathering people lived and died out across Europe until the emergence of agriculture about 8,000 years ago. The old way of life was supplanted by farming, which led to the rise of cities, kingdoms and empires.

We would recognize those ancient ancestors if they would appear among us. Their eyes, faces and bodies were like ours.

How did they talk? Did they feel sadness and joy? They must have loved their children, grown old, and felt grief. They created the first art, and must have played music and told stories.

For thousands of years, they saw mornings, afternoons, and nights, believing their world would last forever.

 

 

 

Biden takes a slow train to rendevous with history

Joe Biden standing with Volodymyr Zelensky before St. Michael Cathedral's golden spires in Kyiv will be remembered as a moment when history turns.

The AP 's Evan Vucci took the dramatic picture, an affirmation of old-time wire service photography. Vucci, along with the Wall Street Journal's Sabrina Siddiqui, recently returned from maternity leave, were the only reporters on the trip. The New York Times and Washington Post must be wondering why they weren't invited.

Biden affirmed American, and NATO, support for Zelensky and his country's resistance to Russian leader Vladimir Putin's war to destroy Ukraine's independence. The American president's secret journey from Washington came just before the first anniversary of the Russian invasion.

The astounding high-risk gesture by the 80-year old Biden, accompanied by a handful of aides, was reminiscent of a Cold War thriller. Biden promised Zelensky to send more ammunition, while still holding off on new weapons such as jets and long-range missiles which Zelensky and the Ukrainians desperately need to repel the Russians from their home.

While the undermanned Ukrainians have withstood the ill-prepared Russian army, Putin still holds a huge advantage in manpower and economic resources.

Unable to defeat the Ukrainian Army militarily, the Russians have engaged in what Vice President Kamala Harris recently branded crimes against humanity. The Russian forces have raped and killed civilians, destroyed power stations and other critical infrastructure and bombed schools, residential areas and businesses.

Vladimir Lenin's train journey to St. Petersburg Station in 1917 led to the Soviet Revolution and the totalitarian empire Putin desperately wishes to re-establish.

In contrast, Biden with his daring trip seeks to uphold freedom and democracy in a country that suffered Soviet repression.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine reverberates with historical echoes: World War I trench warfare, European ideologies and rivalries from World War II, the brutality of medieval and ancient warfare, shadows of the Holocaust, age-old traditions of language, religion and culture.

Republicans' churlish criticism of Biden falls on on the wrong side of history, like those isolationists who supported Hitler and Mussolini before World War II.

Biden's trip will lead to an escalation of fighting. The United States and NATO will boost their commitment with upgraded weapons and possibly even troops. Putin's nuclear risk rises, and China threatens to give "lethal aid" to its ally.

But Biden's stand with Zelensky bolsters Ukraine's resolve, and the likelihood of its eventual victory

Vucci's photo of Biden and Zelensky will forever mark that rebirth of freedom.

 

 

 

 

 

Andrea Barrett's "Natural History" revisits enthralling family saga

Andrea Barrett's "Natural History" rekindled my enchantment with fiction.

Barrett's collection of linked stories tells the histories of several interconnected families from the late 19th and early 20th centuries through the present.

"Natural History," published in 2022, extends the family saga she's examined in nine previous books, including the National Book Award-winning collection "Ship Fever." She's won the MacArthur "genius" award, and Guggenheim and NEA fellowships.

The characters live in Hammondsport, a village in central New York state's Finger Lakes region. Barrett is one of those writers who find universality in a small fictional place.

Barrett's predominantly female characters share a consuming interest in science and technology. Henrietta Atkins, a 19th century teacher and botanist who gives her students immersive lessons in insect and plant life, is the main character of the first stories in "Natural History," which follow her life from the American Civil War to after World War I.

Henrietta, who never marries and has a close friendship with another female scientist, Daphne Bannister, is an influential figure for generations of Hammondsport's children. She also plays a formative role in the lives of her nieces, Marion, Caroline and Elaine Cummings and their younger twin sisters, Agnes and Alice Cummings.

The book traces Henrietta's life from a child working for a local family through old age. Along with her teaching and scientific career in the village, she makes several momentous trips with Daphne, who becomes a famed author. 

How Henrietta inspires her nieces and students carries forth an intricate narrative of village life. Barrett gives each family member and acquaintance a distinctive personality.

Henrietta's childhood is haunted by a wounded Civil War veteran who returns to the village. One of her work duties was writing letters to him while he was away, and she was consumed by his returned letters describing camp life and different battles.

Later, she participates in the veteran's contributions to a regimental history, seeking to atone for accusations of its cowardice during the battle of Chancellorsville.

Her teaching gives the adventure of knowledge to several gifted students who go on to successful artistic and scientific careers. Henrietta's quiet life is full of intellectual and emotional excitement.

In the daring and adventuresome story "The Accident," her niece Caroline Cummings' career as an early aviation barnstormer takes center stage. 

Also appearing are a wealthy aristocratic family who owns a winery in the area, threatened by the passage of the Volstead Act in 1919. A family heir, Charles Durand, marries the lower class Alice Cummings, joining the two families.

Rose Marburg, the present-day central character of the concluding story that gives the book its title, is the granddaughter of Charles and Alice. Rose's life uncannily replicates that of her distant ancestor, Henrietta. Both love scientific exploration, writing and natural beauty. Each mourns brief, tragic love affairs, and unfulfilled careers.

Along with her impressive knowledge of American history and the country's golden age of inventions and intellectual discovery, Barrett gives lessons in cellular biology, botany and scientific literature.

Barrett's deeply imagined characters follow their destinies against the unfolding of history. Their small-town stories reflect that of the nation at large.

 

 

St. Valentine's Day brings hope of springtime

St. Valentine's Day brought a strong lunchtime crowd to Phipps Plaza.

On one of Atlanta's early spring days in midwinter, restaurants were full, giving hope that the pandemic might really be over. 

No balloons overhead, just a perfect blue sky. With the Super Bowl and pro football finished, thoughts turned to the Braves beginning spring training.

Valentine's Day revelers packed the shopping mall's old and new restaurants, and a long line had formed at Starbucks. At Alon's, diners at the patio tables basked in the sunshine. The look of love shone everywhere, proving once again that God's greatest miracle is the human face.

Headed to my old car, I saw one of my favorite Atlanta sights: the Wieuca Road Baptist Church steeple reflected in the glass of a soaring office tower on Peachtree Road. Over the years, I've taken photos of that perfect symbol of Atlanta's past and future.

Back home, the tulip tree had already bloomed, its white flowers returning with memories of the past.

The Super Bowl, Valentine's, Mardi Gras. They blend together as I grow older.

I'm thankful for each day, each new season.

 

 

 

 

Farewell David Harris, 1960s counterculture hero

Each week brings the death of a 1960s icon.

David Harris, leader of the Vietnam-era draft resistance movement and former husband of folksinger Joan Baez, is the latest to go. Harris, 76, died Monday of lung cancer at his home in Mill Valley, Calif., according to a New York Times obituary.

Reading about Harris' death rang a distant bell for me. Serving a jail sentence for refusing the draft, he was one of the heroes of the anti-war movement.

I vividly recall being inspired by his resistance, and the counterculture glamour of his relationship with Baez, who remained a musical icon even after rock gained prominence over folk songs.

After his release from prison and divorcing Baez in 1973, Harris embarked upon a journalistic career, writing for Rolling Stone and the New York Times magazine. He left magazine journalism to write books.

Harris in his brief moment of fame was one of those who defined the era. In going to jail for his beliefs, he was an American hero. Like other 1960s protesters, he went on to a long, productive career, finding success in the country's mainstream.

 

Journalist Jim Schutze's "The Accommodation" reveals Dallas' history of racial violence

Veteran political columnist Jim Schutze's "The Accommodation: The Politics of Race in an American City" uncovers Dallas' dark history of racial oppression.

Pressure by Dallas' white power structure halted the original publication of Schutze's book in 1986. After a limited press run by another publisher, a warehouse fire destroyed most of the book's copies.

After years out of print, the book called "the most dangerous book in Dallas" by D magazine columnist Peter Simek was rediscovered in the last decade, passed around digitally and in samizdat photocopies.

At last, Dallas' Deep Vellum Books republished the book in 2021 under its LaReunion Imprint, which specializes in books on Texas history.

Deep Vellum has reclaimed a classic study of one of the strangest and conflicted American cities, torn between provincial pro-business boosterism and cosmopolitan aspirations.

Haunted by the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy, the sprawling north Texas metropolis long claimed a history of racial tolerance.

Schutze, a D magazine columnist and former political columnist for the Dallas Times Herald and Dallas Observer, explodes that myth in his dynamic chronicle. 

In the early 1950s, dynamite bombs exploded at the homes of blacks moving into working-class white neighborhoods in South Dallas, repeating a wave of such attacks in the 1940s.

No one was killed, but white leaders grew alarmed, especially when the black homeowners began shooting back at those seeking to drive them out of the white areas.

Worried that the violence would hurt the city's business reputation, white power-brokers organized a "blue ribbon" grand jury to investigate the bombings.

Yet, outside of a couple of arrests of minor criminals, the grand jury took no action. Schutze claims that the grand jury issued no indictments because high-up political and religious leaders would be implicated.

However, the investigation resulted in the "accommodation" of Schutze's title, an agreement between the all-white "Citizens Council" that truly ran the city and black religious and community leaders to dampen racial protests.

After years of resistance to the 1954 Supreme Court agreement outlawing school segregation, the city won praise for a limited plan to integrate schools. The schools were never truly integrated, and Dallas engaged in efforts to destroy black neighborhoods for commercial projects.

Despite blatant housing and economic discrimination, Dallas escaped the racial turmoil of other Southern cities, because of the complicity of black leaders with the pro-business white community, as Schutze documents.

Civil rights organizations like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference ignored Dallas' racial inequities for years. At last, a SCLC organizer from Atlanta led effective protest efforts, leading to court victories and concessions by the power elite.

A key moment was  the overturning in federal court of Dallas' strange system of at-large council seats rather than districts, which like Georgia's notorious county unit system diluted black political power.

In a chilling chapter, Schutze castigates the Dallas Morning News for its rabidly racist and anti-Kennedy administration editorials before the assassinated president's fatal visit to the city. Schutze blames the then ultra-conservative newspaper for fostering a sinister atmosphere that he claims led to Kennedy's death.

He apparently believes accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, but his documenting of Dallas' right-wing paranoia leaves room for the conspiracy theories many Americans now accept.

Schutze writes with a distinctive voice, like that of an extended newspaper column blended with historic depth. He skewers white leaders with a sardonic tone, while maintaining a rigorous objectivity.

In one amusing chapter, he satirizes a group of white leaders for seeking to stop "communist" modern art from being displayed a at the Dallas Art Museum.

Dallas department store executive Stanley Marcus is a progressive hero of the book, preventing the removal of a sports art exhibit that somehow was characterized as "communist" by the local Philistines. Marcus is also a lonely voice of racial justice.

Such leaders were rare in the Big D. Their pro-business gospel and the city's amazing growth into a major metropolis covered a sordid history of racial oppression.

Schutze shines a bright light on that long-shrouded past. His illuminating book has also emerged from the darkness.