Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday and this morning we were consumed by the news of bomb devices being sent to a number of  individuals (the Obamas, the Clintons, Eric Holder,  John Brennan, Maxine Waters, George Soros, Joe Biden, and Robert DeNiro) as well as to  CNN offices in New York City,  all outspoken critics of President Trump.  Fortunately none of the devices detonated and no one was hurt.  All were sent in similar packages (see above).

These threats have heightened tension in a nation deeply polarized ahead of the mid-term elections on November 6th.  

Several Democrats were quick to accuse Trump of stoking the potential for political violence by frequently engaging in hyper-partisan, vitriolic rhetoric.

Trump told a political rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday his government would conduct “an aggressive investigation.”

“Any acts or threats of political violence are an attack on our democracy itself,” Trump said. “We want all sides to come together in peace and harmony.”  But he said the media has a responsibility “to stop the endless hostility and constant negative and oftentimes false attacks and stories.”

Several commentators have stated that the authorities thought that the culprits would be caught fairly soon.

Let’s hope so!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

This past year was marked by the number of state and local teacher strikes. The strikes were greeted with a good deal of public support in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado, and Washington. It was generally recognized that  the teachers had legitimate concerns especially with regard to salaries. Teacher pay is low compared to other college-educated professionals, and has fallen over time.   According to data tracked by the National Education Association (NEA), in 2016–2017,  average teacher pay nationally was $59,660. In the states where teachers have walked out, average pay is generally substantially lower than that. For instance, Kentucky’s teachers rank 29th nationally at $52,338; Arizona’s teachers 44th at $47,403; West Virginia’s 49th, at $45,555; and Oklahoma’s 50th, at $45,292.  As a result of their activism,  the number of teachers seeking public office in the upcoming elections has skyrocketed.   As reported by The Huffington Post:

“The widespread teacher protests that swept through states like Kentucky and West Virginia this spring have given way to an unprecedented wave of educators pursuing political office in November’s elections, the nation’s largest teachers union said in a memo released this week.

Nearly 1,500 current or former teachers and other education professionals are running for elected offices across the country, the National Education Association said in the memo. That updated an analysis from September, when the NEA said more than 500 teachers and educators had decided to run for office. The new number is a record for the number of educators seeking office in a single election cycle, the union said.

The new figure includes at least 1,455 teachers and educators who are seeking state legislative seats, and counts current and former teachers from K-12 and higher education, as well as administrative and support staff. More than 1,000 of them are running as Democrats, with another 433 running as Republicans, the NEA said. Most of them are women.

“Our students deserve better than tattered textbooks and leaky ceilings,” Carrie Pugh, the NEA’s senior political director, said in the memo circulated among its members. “Educators deserve better than bottom-of-the-barrel pay and having to pay out of pocket for basic classroom supplies.”

Along with running for office, teachers are also providing a groundswell of grassroots support for other pro-public education candidates: A union spokesman said its members have more than doubled their activism this election cycle compared with 2016, as measured through time put in phone-banking and canvassing.

“We fully expect those numbers … to go up as we head down the stretch,” he added.

Massive teacher walkouts, protests and strikes took place in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Arizona  this spring, as educators pushed back against decades of cuts to public education budgets, teacher salaries, and in some cases, changes to public pension and retirement plans. Walkouts also occurred in Colorado and North Carolina.

Those walkouts, which were largely organized at the grassroots level and became known as the #RedForEd movement, won some immediate gains in states like West Virginia and Arizona, and staved off deeper cuts elsewhere.

The bulk of teachers seeking office are doing so in the states that experienced protests, according to the union ― a phenomenon that became evident amid the walkouts. Kentucky’s protests helped inspire a record number of teachers to sign up to pursue state legislative seats.

But the protests and the issues underlying them have also inspired teachers in other states. There are also at least 20 current or former teachers running for U.S. Congress or Senate seats, and multiple other educators involved in governor’s races and other statewide campaigns.

The teachers running for office include incumbents like Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.), as well as first-time candidates like Jahana Hayes, who is running for a congressional seat in Connecticut, and John Mannion, who is pursuing a New York state senate seat.

The teacher movements have already shaken up Democratic primaries and other races across the country, from Colorado to Georgia. In Kentucky, a high school teacher defeated the state’s House majority leader in a GOP primary upset in May. And in response to the walkouts, congressional Democrats also unveiled a plan to devote $100 billion in federal funding to state school budgets. The proposed legislation would also guarantee teachers the right to join unions and collectively bargain.

Victories for teachers in November could further reshape state legislatures and debates over public education at the state and local level. But the NEA is also hopeful that increased activism among its members and other teachers will help boost candidates who have made improved public education a centerpiece of their campaigns.”

We wish our teachers well in their bid for public office.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Tom Friedman makes a passionate plea in his column this morning (see below in its entirety) for Americans to restore America’s values by voting Democratic on November 6^th.  Here is an excerpt.

“In the midterm elections, vote for a Democrat, canvass for a Democrat, raise money for a Democrat, drive someone else to a voting station to vote for a Democrat.

I don’t say that because I’m particularly liberal and want to shift the whole country to the liberal agenda. I say that because I’m particularly American and I want to put the best of American values back at the center of our diplomacy and politics. President Trump has spent two years attacking our best values — truth and trust — and I believe that Democrats getting a lever of power is necessary, but not sufficient, to reverse that.

Democrats could blow it if they get back a lever of power and use it just to bully Trump and Republicans the same way he has them. But I’ll take that chance. Because there is a basic respect for truth, science and decency in the Democratic caucus and because I know that two more years of the G.O.P. holding every lever of power and blindly following Trump’s basic disrespect for truth, science and decency will make it impossible to elevate America’s best values.

Truth without power today is just background Muzak to the march of the Trump administration.”

Amen!

Tony

———————————————————-

How to Make America America Again!

By Thomas L. Friedman

Oct. 23, 2018

What is there left to say about the terrible murder of moderate Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and its aftermath? Only one thing, and I have said it before, but I feel it even more strongly now: In the midterm elections, vote for a Democrat, canvass for a Democrat, raise money for a Democrat, drive someone else to a voting station to vote for a Democrat.

I don’t say that because I’m particularly liberal and want to shift the whole country to the liberal agenda. I say that because I’m particularly American and I want to put the best of American values back at the center of our diplomacy and politics. President Trump has spent two years attacking our best values — truth and trust — and I believe that Democrats getting a lever of power is necessary, but not sufficient, to reverse that.

Democrats could blow it if they get back a lever of power and use it just to bully Trump and Republicans the same way he has them. But I’ll take that chance. Because there is a basic respect for truth, science and decency in the Democratic caucus and because I know that two more years of the G.O.P. holding every lever of power and blindly following Trump’s basic disrespect for truth, science and decency will make it impossible to elevate America’s best values.

Truth without power today is just background Muzak to the march of the Trump administration.

You see, I can write that it is vitally important for global stability and the protection of journalists everywhere that those who executed and ordered the murder of Khashoggi be punished. But if Democrats do not control either the House or the Senate, I fear Trump will try to avoid any meaningful U.S. censure of Riyadh or its top leaders, if they are proven culpable.

I can write that the president, by telling us that we must weigh a $110 billion Saudi arms purchase against taking a moral stand on Khashoggi’s murder, is literally telling us the price of our values — about $333.33 for every American. (Your check is in the mail.) But if you think, as I do, that countries that sell out their core values for financial gain suffer in the long run or if you think that such a country is not the America you want us to be, and that the world needs us to be, then you need to vote for a Democrat for the House and the Senate.

I can write that a president who praises a U.S. politician who body slammed a journalist for politely asking a valid question — and who is utterly indifferent to the plight of jailed democracy advocates and journalists from Egypt to Turkey to the Arabian Peninsula to the Philippines — is giving license to thugs all over the world. But that criticism will never have any impact if Democrats control neither the House nor the Senate.

I can write that it is unconscionable that the president of the United States simply dismissed as political spin the latest report by the U.N.’s team of climate scientists — warning that if we don’t undertake immediate carbon emission reductions to prevent global average temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, and not let the increase hit 2 degrees, we will be condemning the next generation to a world of environmental hurt by the end of the century.

I can even quote The Economist magazine’s summary of that hurt: “Arctic summers could be ice-free once a decade in a two-degree world, but once a century in a one-and-a-half-degree one. Virtually all the ocean’s coral might be irreversibly wiped out in a two-degree world, rather than 70-90 percent if temperatures rise by less. Sea levels may rise an extra 10 cm, washing away the livelihoods of millions more people. Permitting a rise of two degrees could also see an extra 420M people exposed to record heat.”

But not a finger will be lifted to prevent any of these devastating outcomes unless Democrats control at least the House or the Senate.

I can write that the growing tribalization of our politics, the notion that members of the other party are not just opponents but “enemies” who must be crushed, is being fueled by a president who has no desire to be president of all the people, but rather only his base, and who delights in dividing us and insulting people, thereby debasing his office. But it will be impossible to impose any accountability on Trump for his toxic behavior and reverse the tone of incivility that has overtaken U.S. politics if the Democrats do not control either the House or the Senate.

I can write that it is impossible to have a healthy democracy when our president spews a steady stream of lies every day, has denounced the F.B.I. and the Justice Department, refused to take seriously Russian interference in our elections and still has not revealed his tax returns. But this president will continue soiling our institutions and his office unless Democrats control at least the House or the Senate and can impose penalties for such corrosive behavior.

I could write that one reason the Saudis probably thought they could cross a red line with their depraved murder of Khashoggi was that Trump never appointed an ambassador to Riyadh — relying instead on his and his son-in-law’s personal contacts with the Saudi ruler — and because Trump regularly denounced journalists as purveyors of fake news. Why Trump never sent an ambassador to Saudi Arabia needs to be investigated, but it won’t if Democrats do not control the House or the Senate.

In sum, words today are not enough, investigative journalism is not enough, television special reports are not enough, documentaries are not enough, endless columns and editorials calling out Trump are not enough — even an audiotape of Khashoggi being killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul may not be enough — because the truth is just not enough today — not as long as we have a president who has no shame, who is backed by party that has no spine, that controls the House, the Senate, the White House, the Supreme Court and, indirectly, a major television network that has no integrity.

One day I hope the truth will be enough again. One day I hope great journalism will be enough again. But today only a lever of power — the House or the Senate — will make it so. Facts, science and truth — without power — are just leaves floating through the air in the age of Trump, scattering aimlessly without impact.

So, this year: No third party, no Green Party, no throwing up our hands and saying, “They’re all bad.” All of that’s for another day. For today, in these midterm elections, vote for a Democrat, canvass for a Democrat, raise money for a Democrat, drive someone else to a voting station to vote for a Democrat. It’s the only hope to make America America again.

Nothing else matters. Pass it on.

Dear Commons Community,

New York Times columnist, David Brooks, laments in his column today, that Democrats are failing to take on Trumpism and the culture wars and instead are relying on bread and butter issues such as health care as we head to the midterm election. Brooks states that Trump has transformed the G.O.P. and thrown down a cultural, moral and ideological gauntlet.  The midterm election is the Democrats’ first opportunity to push back against a thoroughly Trumpified Republican Party. It is a remarkable opportunity to realign the electorate, since polls continually show the percentage of the country that buys Trump’s ethnic nationalism is in the low 40s.  So how, at this crucial moment in history, have the Democrats responded?

“The top three issues this year are health care, health care and health care,” J.B. Poersch, of the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC, told CNN.

Brooks goes on to question whether the Democratic Party strategy will win and comments that these days culture is more important than economics.

We shall see in exactly two weeks.  Brooks full column is below.

Tony

——————————————————————

The Materialist Party

By David Brooks

Oct. 22, 2018

Donald Trump and the other populists around the world have transformed politics in three gigantic ways. First, they told a different narrative. Their central story is that the good, decent people of the heartland are being threatened by immigrants, foreigners and other outsiders while corrupt elites do nothing.

Second, Trump and the other populists have overturned the traditional moral standards for how leaders are supposed to behave. He’s challenged basic norms of honesty, decency, compassion and moral conduct. He unabashedly exploits rifts in American society.

Third, they have ushered in a new conversation. In the 20th century the big debate was big government versus small government. Now, as many have noticed, the core debate is open versus closed. Do you favor basic openness, diversity and pluralism, or do you favor closed ethnic nationalism?

Along the way Trump has challenged America’s basic identity as a nation of immigrants. He’s challenged the American-led postwar international order.

In short, Trump and the other populists have transformed the G.O.P. and thrown down a cultural, moral and ideological gauntlet.

This election is the Democrats’ first opportunity to push back against a thoroughly Trumpified Republican Party. It is a remarkable opportunity to realign the electorate, since polls continually show the percentage of the country that buys Trump’s ethnic nationalism is in the low 40s.

So how, at this crucial moment in history, have the Democrats responded?

“The top three issues this year are health care, health care and health care,” J.B. Poersch, of the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC, told CNN.

The Wesleyan Media Project recently surveyed the political landscape and came out with a report called “2018: The Health Care Election.” It found that a majority of recent pro-Democratic political ads featured health care. Sixty-one percent of recent pro-Democratic ads in U.S. House races have been on health care.

Democratic candidates like Senator Claire McCaskill are hammering home the same point in debates. Republicans tried to take away coverage for pre-existing conditions.

In normal times, there’s good reason to run on this issue. Millions of families are plagued by inadequate insurance coverage. If you’re trying to win a swing voter in Arizona, it’s a bread-and-butter issue that has appeal.

But the Democratic campaign is inadequate to the current moment. It offers no counternarrative to Trump, little moral case against his behavior, no unifying argument against ethnic nationalism. In politics you can’t beat something with nothing. Democrats missed the Trumpian upsurge because while society was dividing into cultural tribes, they spent 2008 through 2016 focusing on health care. Now that the upsurge has happened, they are still pinioned to health care.

Worse, the Democratic strategy simply revives the old 1980-2008 playbook. It’s Democratic spending promises versus Republican tax cuts. This familiar, orthodox argument pushes left and right back into their normal categories. It destroys any possibility of a realignment.

We’ve learned a few things about the Democratic Party. First, it’s still fundamentally a materialist party. The Trumpian challenge is primarily a moral and cultural challenge. But the Democrats are mostly comfortable talking about how to use federal spending to extend benefits. Some Democrats want to spend a lot more (Medicare for all, free college education), and some want to spend less, but their basic instinct is that national problems can be addressed with more federal money. Their basic political instinct is that you win votes by offering material benefits.

Second, we’ve learned that when Democrats do raise a moral argument, it tends to be of the social justice warrior variety. The core argument in this mode is that the oppressive structures of society marginalize women, minorities and members of the L.G.B.T.Q. communities.

It turns out that if your basic logic is that distinct identity groups are under threat from an oppressive society, it’s very hard to then turn around and defend that society from authoritarian attack, or to articulate any notion of what even unites that society. You can appeal to women as women and to ethnic groups as ethnic groups, but it’s very hard to make a universal appeal to Americans as Americans, or defend the basic American norms that Trump calls into question. It’s a messaging vulnerability that Democrats have imposed upon themselves.

Democrats still seem likely to win the House, because Trump is so effective at driving away voters. But Democrats are blowing the political opportunity of a lifetime. They seem to be getting little traction in red states and now may end up losing ground in the Senate. Instead of drawing disaffected voters away from the G.O.P., they seem to be pushing Republicans back to Trump.

It has now become evident that Republicans are better at politicizing cultural issues and Democrats are better at offering economic benefits to those who are struggling. If you think voting behavior is primarily motivated by material appeals, the Democratic strategy is fine. But if you think it’s motivated by cultural identity, a desire for respect, a sense of what’s right, loyalty to a common story, the Democratic strategy leaves a lot to be desired.

These days, culture is more important than economics.

Dear Commons Community,

There is a growing optimism in the tech world that quantum computers, superpowerful machines that were once the stuff of science fiction, are possible — and may even be practical. If these machines work, they will have an impact on all aspects of human endeavor and will completely re-invent current digital technology. Yet there is a severe shortage of researchers doing work in this filed. The labor pool in quantum computing is small. By some accounts, fewer than a thousand people in the world can claim to be doing leading quantum computing research.  The New York Times this morning has an article on this issue.  Here is an excerpt:

“Last month, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy invited experts from government, industry and academia to Washington for a daylong policy meeting dedicated to quantum technologies. Several attendees expressed concern that the Trump administration’s immigration policies could affect quantum research in academia and corporations.

 “The concern is: Are we still the destination for the best and the brightest in science and engineering and technology?” said Roger Falcone, a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, who attended the meeting in Washington.

It’s a greater problem when there aren’t that many people who understand the technology.

The labor pool in quantum computing is smaller. By some accounts, fewer than a thousand people in the world can claim to be doing leading research in the field.

For decades, quantum computing was purely experimental. When it was first proposed in the early 1980s, the goal was to build a system based on the seemingly magical principles of quantum mechanics. Over the past several years, scientists have shown that they can build these machines, if only on a small scale.

With traditional computers, transistors store “bits” of information, and each bit is either a 1 or a 0. Those are the fundamental slices of data that tell a computer what to do.

When some types of matter are extremely small or extremely cold, they behave differently. That difference allows a quantum bit, or qubit, to store a combination of 1 and 0. Two qubits can hold four values at once. As the number of qubits grows, a quantum computer becomes exponentially more powerful.

Scientists who build these systems specialize in the physics of those very small or cold things, which is nothing like the physics we experience from day to day.

“There just aren’t that many people who know how to do this,” said Steven Girvin, a professor of physics at Yale University. “These machines are quasi-hand-built by Ph.D.s in physics.”

Over the past few years, some of the country’s largest tech companies, alongside a growing number of start-ups, have begun building quantum machines for commercial customers. They believe a quantum computer that can surpass what computers can do now is just years away…

…As American tech giants like Google, IBM, Intel and Microsoft accelerate their quantum computing efforts, work is speeding up in China and Europe as well. The Chinese government is working on a $10 billion national lab for quantum research in Hefei, set to open in 2020, and the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is building a lab of its own. In 2016, the European Union invested one billion euros — roughly $1.2 billion — in quantum computing.

Could those efforts race past progress in the United States and possibly threaten national security? “If you are talking about a quantum computer in Russia or China or anywhere else, you are talking about a weaponized technology,” said Arthur Herman, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington.

The good news is no one has been able to build a commercially viable quantum computer so far, so there is time to fix the talent problem. Lawmakers and government officials are exploring strategies to help ensure that the pool of available talent grows.

Jacob Taylor, a veteran quantum researcher who oversees quantum strategy at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, played down concerns that other countries could beat the United States to quantum computing. “We have been the leader in this world for a long time,” he said.

In artificial intelligence research, many worry that too much talent is moving from academia into industry, lured by high salaries, bonuses and stock options. In the quantum field, policymakers like Dr. Taylor hope to address this problem by funding projects at university and government labs.

Congress is considering a bill that would allocate $1.275 billion to quantum research from 2019 to 2023. The bill, the National Quantum Initiative Act, has passed the House and is awaiting a full vote in the Senate.

“I see the country at a crossroads with quantum information systems,” said Brian DeMarco, a professor of physics at the University of Illinois who specializes in quantum computing and has worked with government organizations on the technology. “I can see things not working out, where the balance is not good, and it derails our ability to compete.”

A complex but important issue for our government, private industry and academia to work out.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, comments today on how the United States has long enjoyed a Faustian deal with the Saudis and especially now under President Trump that as long as their “oil prices remain low, bought our fighter jets, housed our fleets and drones and gave us cover in the region, they could keep their country proudly medieval.”  This has come to light again with the bloodcurdling execution of Jamal Khashoggi for his just criticism of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.  It was clear that the chump Trump  had bet his entire Middle East strategy on a chillingly autocratic and reckless person.   Here is an excerpt.

“Our alliance with the Saudis has always been poisoned by cynical bargains.

After the oil boom of the late ’70s, Islamic clerics were enraged at the hedonistic behavior of the royals. In order to continue with their hypocritical lifestyle, the royals offered cultural freedom and women’s rights as a sop to the fundamentalists, allowing anti-Western clerics and madrasas to flourish and giving a free pass to those who bankrolled terrorism.

Even as we hailed the Saudis as our partners in fighting terrorism, they were nurturing the monsters who would come for us. Seventeen years before the psychotic Saudi hit squad traveled to Istanbul to dismember Khashoggi while he was still alive, another psychotic Saudi hit squad traveled to America to turn planes packed with passengers into bombs.

Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis. The Saudi royals repeatedly stymied American efforts to crack down on Al Qaeda in the years before 9/11.

But they remained our dear friends. W.’s White House allowed Prince Bandar — the dean of the Washington diplomatic corps was so close to the Bush family that his nickname was “Bandar Bush” — to spirit Bin Laden’s family members and other wealthy Saudis out of America on jets after the twin towers fell. Bandar entertained and influenced pols and journalists with cigars and cognac in the reassembled British pub he had transported to his $135 million Aspen mansion, and with hunting jaunts at his estate in England’s Wychwood.

Even Barack Obama, who had no love lost for the Saudis, refused for eight years to release a classified document from 2002 detailing contacts between Saudi officials and some of the 9/11 hijackers, including checks from Saudi royals to operatives in contact with the hijackers and a connection between a Bandar employee and a Qaeda militant. (Bandar’s wife, Princess Haifa, wrote charitable checks that ended up in the hands of two hijackers.)

Our Faustian deal was this: As long as the Saudis kept our oil prices low, bought our fighter jets, housed our fleets and drones and gave us cover in the region, they could keep their country proudly medieval.

It was accepted wisdom that it was futile to press the Saudis on the feudal, the degradation of women and human rights atrocities, because it would just make them dig in their heels. Even Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, never made an impassioned Beijing-style speech about women in Saudi Arabia being obliterated under a black tarp.

During the first gulf war, fought in part to protect the Saudis from an encroaching Saddam, a group of Saudi women — artists and academics — got excited by the presence of American female soldiers and went for a joy ride. The clerics branded the drivers “whores” and “harlots.” They received death threats and lost their jobs. Driving by women, banned by custom, was made illegal.

America was mute. Our government did not even fight for the right of its women soldiers protecting Saudi Arabia to refuse the Saudi directive to wear an abaya and head scarf when off the base.

The Saudis need us more than we need them. We now produce more oil than they do. And yet we continue to coddle them and shield them from responsibility for their barbaric ways.

Because, after all, the press is the Enemy of the People, deserving a body slam. And the Saudis are our dear friends, deserving bows, hugs and kisses.”

The entire column is an interesting read.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

USC’s Interim President Wanda Austin  has announced that USC has entered into a tentative settlement with students for alleged abuse by campus gynecologist, Dr. George Tyndall.  The proposed settlement would provide $2,500 to any USC student treated by Tyndall during his three-decade tenure and up to $250,000 to those who allege they were abused by him. As many as 17,000 students and alumnae are eligible, a university lawyer said.  According to the Los Angeles Times (see excerpt below), this might only be the beginning of the settlements in these cases.

Tony

“Wanda Austin, USC’s interim president, said in a letter to the campus community that through the settlement, “we hope that we can help our community move collectively toward reconciliation.”

Austin said in an interview that administrators have not estimated how much the Tyndall scandal will cost the university in the end as “there are still unknowns here.”

The deal applies only to a federal class-action lawsuit and does not automatically resolve more than 400 other patient suits playing out in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Lawyers in those local cases lambasted the settlement as paltry and premature, and promised to continue pursuing their cases. They said the class settlement did not allow for a full accounting of USC’s handling of Tyndall. The doctor was allowed to practice at the student health center for 27 years despite numerous complaints that began in the early 1990s.

“They want to shut it down, close the loop and end the inquiry on the documents showing who knew what — because it’s bad,” said John Manly, an Irvine-based attorney representing 180 of Tyndall’s former patients. “If you are in favor of secrecy about sexual assault and in favor of protecting sexual abusers, this is a great day for you.”

Tyndall has denied any wrongdoing. His attorney, Leonard Levine, has said that his client “continues to maintain that he engaged in no criminal conduct and that his medical examinations were always within the standard of care.”

The settlement was negotiated in recent months between three law firms representing patients, USC lawyers and an attorney for Tyndall. U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson must sign off on the deal in order for it to take effect. The money for the settlement would come from the university’s insurers and what Austin described as “capital reserves.”

“While we cannot change the past, it is my sincere hope that this timely settlement provides some measure of relief to those impacted and their families,” said Rick Caruso, chairman of USC’s board of trustees, in a letter to alumni.

More than 460 women have sued USC alleging mistreatment by longtime campus gynecologist Dr. George Tyndall. (USC)

USC’s legal team anticipates the agreement will attract many women who have not filed lawsuits to share in the $215 million, said Tara Lee, an attorney for USC with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart and Sullivan.

“Our hope is it would encompass as many former patients as possible,” she said.

Austin told The Times on Friday that it was important to her to include all women treated by Tyndall, rather than only those who alleged abuse, so that women who might be too intimidated to file a police report or a lawsuit could receive fair compensation.

“It provides privacy and certainty for how this is addressed,” Austin said.

Former patients contacted by The Times said they had quickly decided not to participate in the settlement.

Alexis Rodriguez, who complained to USC administrators about Tyndall in 1995, said she would press ahead with the suit she filed through her attorney, Gloria Allred.

“Two hundred and fifteen million dollars for USC for nearly 30 years of wrongdoing doesn’t sound equitable to me,” said Rodriguez, a federal probation officer.

In May, Michigan State University reached a $500-million settlement with 332 women and girls who say they were sexually assaulted by sports doctor Larry Nassar.

Penn State has paid out more than $100 million in sexual abuse cases involving assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

The USC class-action settlement’s $250,000 cap roiled plaintiffs’ attorneys. Mike Arias, who represents about 80 women in state court cases, said he had a number of clients — “very prominent people” — who suffered damages far in excess of that amount.

“You are going to have a lot of people opt out of this settlement, I will guarantee that,” Arias said.

Other critics objected to how the settlement forestalled the taking of sworn testimony and exchange of records, a process that can reveal damaging evidence about institutional failures.

Manhattan Beach lawyer John Taylor, whose firm represents about 100 state court plaintiffs, said that while he was pleased USC had acknowledged wrongdoing, he planned to push forward with depositions of university administrators and requests to review internal school records.

“We are still trying to figure out the coverup and how it went on for so long,” he said.

Annika Martin, an attorney for Tyndall patients who helped negotiate the class-action settlement, defended the deal, saying it offered security and avoided the potential trauma of testifying.

“Whenever you litigate, there’s a risk. And, sure, you could have come up with a verdict of more than $250,000, but you could have come up with a jury verdict of zero,” said Martin. In the settlement, she said, “You know what you are going to get, and you know the process to get it.”

Speaking shortly after the settlement announcement, Austin described first learning of Tyndall near the end of 2017, when she and fellow university trustees were briefed by then-President C.L. Max Nikias and his advisors.

Tyndall had left the university the previous summer under a secret deal that included a financial payout. His departure followed an internal investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and racially inappropriate remarks.

When Nikias informed the board about Tyndall, Austin recalled, the emphasis was on his racial comments and “all the governance processes were working correctly.”

“I don’t think anybody understood fully the magnitude of it at that time,” she said.

Following the publication of The Times’ story, she said, she came to see that the real issue was inappropriate touching of patients’ genitals and suggestive remarks during exams.

“The realization it was about the gynecology … you are looking at a different problem,” Austin said.

Fury among USC faculty led Nikias to step down, and a search for a successor is underway. Austin, a longtime aerospace executive and alumna, took control of the university on a temporary basis in August. Since then, she said, she has talked to many former patients and parents of patients, and being a woman as well as a mother and a grandmother helped her grasp the scope of the problem.

Austin noted that USC’s student health clinic has been overhauled since Tyndall left and touted a new university office dedicated to investigating misconduct and promoting sound ethics.

“We have bright, smart people and are very dedicated to doing the right thing,” Austin said.

Asked why many of the administrators who handled Tyndall remained in their posts, and in some cases had been given more responsibilities, Austin indicated that she was waiting for the results of an internal investigation by law firm O’Melveny & Myers commissioned by trustees.

When it is is concluded at the end of the year, she said, “we will respond.”

An LAPD investigation into Tyndall’s conduct in medical exams is ongoing, and detectives have presented 64 cases to sex-crimes prosecutors. The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office is evaluating the cases.

No charges have been filed against the doctor.

Dear Commons Community,

David Kaufman interviewed the Israeli author, Yuval Noah Harari, and recorded it for the New York Times. Harari has three recent best-sellers:  in Sapiens…, he explored the past;  in Homo Deus…, he looked to the future; and in his most recent book, 21 Lessons for the 21^st Century, he looks at the present. I have read all three and I highly recommend Sapiens… and Homo Deus….  While good, 21 Lessons…was not on a par with the other two. In this interview, Harari responds to questions about the potential benefits and dangers of artificial intelligence.  Here is an excerpt regarding A.I. and education.

“A.I. is forcing people to reinvent themselves. Can it also make the reinvention process less scary?

A.I. can make the process both better and worse. Worse, because A.I. itself is compelling us to adapt; as A.I. develops, jobs disappear and people need to adapt professionally. On the other hand, A.I. can help revolutionize and customize education.

How might this work?

Instead of students being part of a big education cohort processed in the industrial way, you could work with an A.I. mentor who not just teaches you, but studies you, as well. The mentor gets to know your particular strengths and weaknesses — can learn if, say, you learn better with words or with images; through spatial metaphors or temporal metaphors. And then customizes education for you. Learning new skills can be very difficult after the age of 40. But even as A.I. forces people to reinvent themselves, it can help them get through this process far better than any human teacher.”

I agree with Harari.  In the next several decades, A.I. has the potential to revolutionize education particularly at the secondary and postsecondary levels.

The entire interview is below.

Tony

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Watch Out Workers, Algorithms Are Coming to Replace You — Maybe?

By David Kaufman

Oct. 18, 2018

Over the past five years, the Israeli author and historian Yuval Noah Harari has quietly emerged as a bona fide pop-intellectual. His 2014 book “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” is a sprawling account of human history from the Stone Age to the 21st century; Ridley Scott, who directed “Alien,” is co-leading its screen adaptation. Mr. Harari’s latest book, “21 Lessons for the 21st Century,” is an equally ambitious look at key issues shaping contemporary global conversations — from immigration to nationalism, climate change to artificial intelligence. Mr. Harari recently spoke about the benefits and dangers of A.I. and its potential to upend the ways we live, learn and work. The conversation has been edited and condensed.

A.I. is still so new that it remains relatively unregulated. Does that worry you?

There is no lack of dystopian scenarios in which A.I. emerges as a hero, but it can actually go wrong in so many ways. And this is why the only really effective form of A.I. regulation is global regulation. If the world gets into an A.I. arms race, it will almost certainly guarantee the worst possible outcome.

A.I. is still so new, is there a country already winning the A.I. race?

China was really the first country to tackle A.I. on a national level in terms of focused, governmental thinking; they were the first to say “we need to win this thing” and they certainly are ahead of the United States and Europeans by a few years.

Have the Chinese been able to weaponize A.I. yet?

Everyone is weaponizing A.I. Some countries are building autonomous weapons systems based on A.I., while others are focused on disinformation or propaganda or bots. It takes different forms in different countries. In Israel, for instance, we have one of the largest laboratories for A.I. surveillances in the world — it’s called the Occupied Territories. In fact, one of the reasons Israel is such a leader in A.I. surveillance is because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Explain this a bit further.

Part of why the occupation is so successful is because of A.I. surveillance technology and big data algorithms. You have major investment in A.I. (in Israel) because there are real-time stakes in the outcomes — it’s not just some future scenario.

A.I. was supposed to make decision-making a whole lot easier. Has this happened?

A.I. allows you to analyze more data more efficiently and far more quickly, so it should be able to help make better decisions. But it depends on the decision. If you want to get to a major bus station, A.I. can help you find the easiest route. But then you have cases where someone, perhaps a rival, is trying to undermine that decision-making. For instance, when the decision is about choosing a government, there may be players who want to disrupt this process and make it more complicated than ever before.

Is there a limit to this shift?

Well, A.I. is only as powerful as the metrics behind it.

And who controls the metrics?

Humans do; metrics come from people, not machines. You define the metrics — who to marry or what college to attend — and then you let A.I. make the best decision possible. This works because A.I. has a far more realistic understanding of the world than you do. It works because humans tend to make terrible decisions.

But what if A.I. makes mistakes?

The goal of A.I. isn’t to be perfect, because you can always adjust the metrics. A.I. simply needs to do better than humans can do — which is usually not very hard.

What remains the biggest misconception about A.I.?

People confuse intelligence with consciousness; they expect A.I. to have consciousness, which is a total mistake. Intelligence is the ability to solve problems; consciousness is the ability to feel things — pain, hate, love, pleasure.

Can machines develop consciousness?

Well, there are “experts” in science-fiction films who think you can, but no — there’s no indication that computers are anywhere on the path to developing consciousness.

Do we even want computers with feelings?

Generally, we don’t want a computer to feel, we want the computer to understand what we feel. Take medicine. People like to think they’d always prefer a human doctor rather than an A.I. doctor. But an A.I. doctor could be perfectly tailored to your exact personality and understand your emotions, maybe even better than your own mother. All without consciousness. You don’t need to have emotions to recognize the emotions of others.

So what’s left that A.I. hasn’t touched?

In the short term, there’s still quite a bit. For now, most of the skills that demand a combination between the cognitive and the manual are beyond A.I.’s reach. Take medicine once again; if you compare a doctor with a nurse, it’s far easier for A.I. to replace a doctor — who basically just analyzes data for diagnoses and suggests treatments. But replacing a nurse, who injects medications and changes bandages, is far more difficult. But this will change; we are really at the beginning of A.I.’s full potential.

So is the A.I. revolution almost upon us?

Not exactly. We won’t see this massive disruption in say, five or 10 years — it will be more of a cascade of ever-bigger disruptions.

And how will this affect the work force?

The economy is having to face ever-greater disruptions in the work force because of A.I. And in the long run, no element of the job market will be 100 percent safe from A.I. and automation. People will need to continually reinvent themselves. This may take 50 years, but ultimately nothing is safe.

A.I. is forcing people to reinvent themselves. Can it also make the reinvention process less scary?

A.I. can make the process both better and worse. Worse, because A.I. itself is compelling us to adapt; as A.I. develops, jobs disappear and people need to adapt professionally. On the other hand, A.I. can help revolutionize and customize education.

How might this work?

Instead of students being part of a big education cohort processed in the industrial way, you could work with an A.I. mentor who not just teaches you, but studies you, as well. The mentor gets to know your particular strengths and weaknesses — can learn if, say, you learn better with words or with images; through spatial metaphors or temporal metaphors. And then customizes education for you. Learning new skills can be very difficult after the age of 40. But even as A.I. forces people to reinvent themselves, it can help them get through this process far better than any human teacher.

So has A.I. forced you to reinvent yourself?

Well, writing about A.I. certainly has. A decade ago I was an anonymous professor writing about medieval history; today I am meeting with journalists and politicians and heads of state talking about cyborgs and A.I. I certainly had to reinvent myself along the way.

Dear Commons Community,

Last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren released a biographical video featuring her Oklahoman roots and answering Donald Trump’s “Pocahontas” gibe with a DNA test proving that she does have Native American ancestry.  She has been criticized by a number of people on the left and the right as well as by the Cherokee Nation.  Ross Douthat, the New York Times columnist, has advice for Senator Warren  to stay out of the Trump “freak show.”  Here is an excerpt from his column:

“…Running for president in the age of Donald Trump requires an ability to handle what John Heileman and Mark Halperin once called “the freak show” (back when it was considerably less freaky). It requires a deftness dealing with scandals and gaffes and accidental blunders, an ability to know when you have a wrestling move that justifies getting down in the mud and when you’re better off sitting on a top rail and acting superior to the pigs.

So far Warren’s main encounter with the freak show has involved her claim to Cherokee ancestry, which was an issue in her last Senate campaign, in 2012, before Trump started in with his nicknaming. And from her initial response to the story through the new DNA test “rebuttal” to the president, she has demonstrated a conspicuous lack of political common sense…

…When Donald Trump started up his Pocahontas gibes, she should have simply ignored him and talked about the many issues where he’s on the wrong side of public opinion.”

 I agree.  Any serious Democratic candidate for president has to be careful about how s/he responds to Trump’s insults and character assassinations.  He is very good at it and unless the candidate is very savvy and up to the task, will quite possibly end up in the gutter as part of the Trump freak show.

Tony

The building at 200 Riverside Boulevard bought the right to use the Trump name in 2000.

Last week, the majority of tenants voted to “remove the signage.”

Dear Commons Community,

Last week, the majority of tenants at 200 Riverside Boulevard on the West Side of Manhattan voted to have the name “Trump Place” removed from its entrance.  They join the owners of several other buildings who want Trump’s name removed from their premises.  The New York Times this morning reviewed the details of the change at 200 Riverside.  See excerpt below.

Tony

Liberal Upper West Siders Get Their Revenge: Trump Place Sign Is Coming Down

By Charles V. Bagli

Oct. 17, 2018

Few places in the United States are more staunchly liberal than the Upper West Side of Manhattan. And so few things are more galling to many residents of a residential complex there than the big letters that greet them at their building: T-R-U-M-P P-L-A-C-E.

On Thursday, condo owners will join three neighboring buildings in finally getting their relief.

Workers will pry the letters off the front and back of 200 Riverside Boulevard, a 46-story building between 69th and 70th Streets. The building will simply be called: 200 Riverside Boulevard.

Residents at other Trump-branded condominiums in New York, Stamford, Conn., and Chicago have considered taking similar actions since Donald J. Trump plunged into the presidential race, but they’ve been stymied by a lack of support and fears of costly litigation or a drop in the value of their homes. The challenge of untangling the licensing agreements signed with the Trump Organization has also been an obstacle.

The condominium at 200 Riverside Boulevard, however, figured out a way.

The building bought the right to use the Trump name in 2000, paying $1 under a four-page licensing agreement signed by Mr. Trump. But the sentiment about having his name over the front door changed during Mr. Trump’s campaign. Many residents sought to distance themselves from his politics.

For some, the once ubiquitous Trump brand, which adorned apartment buildings, hotels, casinos, golf courses, steaks, suits and water, does not have the same appeal it used to have before Mr. Trump’s political career.

Eric Chung, a longtime resident of 200 Riverside Boulevard whose family owns two units in the building, said that he had been concerned about the cost of litigation and the fate of the building’s “great employees.” But after a court decision and a recent survey of the owners in the building, the majority of whom wanted the name taken off, he said that removing the Trump letters “makes a very powerful statement.”

Eric Trump, who has assumed a leading role at the Trump businesses, declined to comment on Wednesday.

In Manhattan, there were 15 residential buildings that bore the Trump name in 2015. The next year, a trio of neighboring rental apartment buildings just to the south of 200 Riverside Boulevard pulled the name off their facades, the lobby rain mats and employees’ uniforms after 300 people signed an online petition titled, “Dump the TRUMP Name.”

“We were driven by our intense feelings about Trump himself,” Linda Gottlieb, a resident at one of the Trump-branded apartment buildings, said in a recent interview. “We would not have stayed in the building we felt so strongly about it. We just renewed our lease for two years.”

Ailing hotels in Toronto and New York paid the Trumps millions of dollars to remove the Trump name from their properties. The owner of a Trump hotel in Panama used a crowbar to remove the Trump letters.

Business has remained steady or declined at some Trump-branded hotels, as well as at the city-owned golf course, carousel and ice skating rinks operated by the Trump Organization in New York City.

The push to remove the Trump branding from 200 Riverside Boulevard began in 2017. In response to concerns raised by some of the 377 condo owners, the condo board began discussions of possibly removing the Trump name from the building’s facade.

That February, 63 percent of the unit holders who responded to an informal poll favored removing the “Trump Place” letters on the building.

But a month later, Alan Garten, chief legal officer of the Trump Organization, sent a letter to the board promising a lawsuit if it did, saying the company would seek “significant amounts of damages, costs and attorney’s fees.”

The prospect of expensive litigation with the Trump Organization scared many residents, and a small group vigorously opposed excising the Trump name.

An internal message board for residents showed that division.

“I am adamant that the sign should remain on the building,” a resident wrote. “We bought in the building with it. There is no reason to take it down.”

Another wrote: “Arguably, at one time the Trump name may have contributed something to the value of our apartments. That is clearly not the case today.”

After overcoming some internal divisions, the condo board devised a low-key strategy with its lawyer Harry W. Lipman: It would ask the State Supreme Court for a declaratory judgment that it was not required to retain the Trump name under the building’s licensing agreement. The agreement required that the condo maintain the building on par with “superluxury condominiums,” but it did not mention any requirement that the Trump name remain in perpetuity.

In May, the judge ruled in favor of the condo owners, saying that the agreement does not require owners “to use the identification ‘Trump’ on the facade of the premises.” She firmly rejected claims by Trump lawyers that the building is required to use the name “in perpetuity.”