Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has a featured article this morning entitled, Whatever Happened to IBM’s Watson, that reviews the poor or “humble” performance of IBM’s major push into artificial intelligence and super-cloud computing.  Here is an excerpt.

” A decade ago, IBM’s public confidence was unmistakable. Its Watson supercomputer had just trounced Ken Jennings, the best human “Jeopardy!” player ever, showcasing the power of artificial intelligence. This was only the beginning of a technological revolution about to sweep through society, the company pledged.

COVID Cases In USA:  Source:  The New York Times

Dear Commons Community,

“This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said yesterday during a press briefing. “We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have low vaccination rates because unvaccinated people are at risk.”

The CDC reported more than 33,000 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, with the nation’s seven-day average (26,300) up nearly 70 percent from the previous week. The seven-day average of hospital admissions (2,790) is up more than 35 percent. And after weeks of declines, the seven-day average for daily deaths, now 211, is up more than 25 percent.

Walensky said communities that are fully vaccinated are “generally faring well.”

“The good news is that if you are fully vaccinated, you are protected against COVID hospitalization and death and are even protected against the known variants, including the Delta variant circulating in this country,” she said. “If you are not vaccinated, you remain at risk.”

Walensky added: “Our biggest concern is that we are going to see preventable cases, hospitalizations and even deaths among the unvaccinated.”

More than 608,000 Americans have died from complications due to COVID-19 since the pandemic began.

According to the CDC, more than 56 percent of Americans age 12 and older have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, including nearly 80 percent of the population age 65 and older.

But there have been recent outbreaks reported in states and counties where vaccinations have lagged.

“The bottom line continues to be very, very simple,” White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said. “Unvaccinated Americans are not protected against serious illness, hospitalization and death.”

“Each COVID-19 death is tragic,” Zients added, “and those happening now are even more tragic because they are preventable.”

This is tragic indeed.  It is difficult to comprehend that with a free, effective, and readily available vaccine, that 42 percent of the population remains unvaccinated.  We have elements of the GOP, social media, and disinformation providers such as Fox News to thank for some of this.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, the counter on Tony’s Thoughts reached eight million visitors.  Since I started this blog in November of 2009, I never anticipated that there would be such interest in what I have to say. I also cannot  believe that during this time I have made more than 6,000 posts on topics related to education, technology and current events.  

I thank all of you who have read my posts and have offered suggestions for topics and issues.  I thank Matt Gold, Scott Voth, Marilyn Weber and the staff at the CUNY Commons who have provided this superb resource for all of us to share thoughts and interests with one another.

Again my sincerest appreciation for your visits and support for my efforts.

Tony

NOTE:  The count of 8 million visitors excludes spiders or web-crawlers that would have added another 4.5 million to the count.

Liz Cheney and Jim Jordan

Dear Commons Community,

CNN reported last night that Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) called out Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to his face on Jan. 6th as the insurrection unfolded and lawmakers were forced to flee as supporters of then-President Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol. 

“You f***ing did this,” she told him, according to an upcoming book, I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year, by Washington Post reporters Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker.

In it, Gen. Mark Milley ― who is chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ― recounted a conversation with Cheney the day after the insurrection.  

“That fucking guy Jim Jordan. That son of a bitch.… While these maniacs are going through the place, I’m standing in the aisle and he said ‘We need to get the ladies away from the aisle. Let me help you.’ I smacked his hand away and told him, ‘Get away from me. You fucking did this.’”

Jordan, a longtime apologist for the former president, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Trump just days after the assault on the Capitol. 

Cheney was ousted from her position in House leadership for blaming Trump for the insurrection. She will serve on a House committee investigating that attack. 

Tell it like it is, Ms. Cheney!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (Passhe) Board of Governors yesterday unanimously approved a plan to consolidate six of the 14 universities into two institutions. In the western part of the state, the campuses at California, Clarion, and Edinboro will merge, and the campuses at Bloomsburg, Lock Haven, and Mansfield will become one institution.

“The steps we are finalizing are things we have been talking about since I joined the board eight years ago,” said David M. Maser, a lawyer and board member. “The plan, while not perfect,” he said, “is a good plan.”

After a decade of falling enrollments and shrinking state appropriations, Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education is taking a major — but controversial — step meant to stem the system’s fiscal woes, shore up academic offerings at struggling institutions, and work more collaboratively with elected officials.

The two institutions that result from the merger will each be led by a single president and leadership team, including enrollment-management and student-support services, and a unified faculty with academic programs shared across all of the three combined campuses in each new college.  As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

“Several board members said the vote to consolidate was difficult but necessary, given the state’s demographic trends and the continuing inadequacy of state appropriations.

Sen. Judith L. Schwank, a Democrat in the State Senate and member of the Passhe board, said the vote to approve the mergers was “probably the most difficult vote we’ve taken.”

“For far too long, our system has been neglected,” said Senator Schwank, who said she was voting to approve the merger “with reservations.”

Chancellor Daniel Greenstein, who shepherded the merger plan through approval in Pennsylvania’s General Assembly, as well as through the system board, said that despite widespread opposition from faculty and students, the cost of doing nothing outweighed the risks of the proposal.

In order to boost appropriations to the system, Greenstein said, Passhe needed help not only from the lawmakers who have traditionally supported Passhe, but also from those who are asking for more efficiency and accountability.

The merger proposal has, to some degree, accomplished that, Greenstein said. In July, Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, announced the state would be giving Passhe an additional $200 million over three years to help solve its financial problems and prevent layoffs and furloughs.

That money has not lessened opposition to the mergers. Greenstein’s own analysis of the more than 1,100 public comments received found that a plurality of 43 percent were opposed to the plan, including nearly 60 percent of the faculty members who responded, and nearly half of the students. More than a third of the written comments did not take a position on the merger, Greenstein found, but 15 percent wanted the board to delay the vote and only 7 percent of the written comments supported the plan.

Jamie Martin, president of the union that represents many of the faculty at the Passhe universities, said her members were mostly upset that the process to approve the mergers happened so quickly and during the pandemic, when faculty and students were remote and perhaps not fully engaged.

“I try to be positive,” Martin said, followed by a deep sigh. “Today was a difficult day because so many of our colleagues had spoken out with concerns,” she said. Martin was heartened that the chancellor and several board members had noted that the vote was just the beginning of a much longer process, in which several more details need to be finalized. In addition, she said, the plan as approved by the board is far better than the original proposal in April, including a longer timeline to finalize the mergers.

Among the remaining problems are issues of accreditation, Martin said, especially programmatic accreditation for specific degrees at the campuses to be merged. In addition, the system and campuses will have to sort out what happens to athletic teams on each campus. In the longer term, staff and faculty cuts at the merged institutions may loom.

Higher-education scholars said Passhe’s merger proposal is not surprising, given the demographic trends in the region, the legislature’s longstanding neglect of the system, and the state’s peculiar approach to higher education.

For example, there is little or no statewide coordination of higher education in Pennsylvania, where Passhe campuses must compete for students and state dollars with Pennsylvania State University’s two dozen branch campuses, according to Kevin R. McClure, associate professor of higher education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

“The restructuring of public systems is nothing new,” said McClure. But the Passhe mergers seem ironic, he said, because even if the number of high-school students in the region declines, there are still a large number of working adults who could benefit from earning a degree. “So, it’s an odd moment to contract.”

This move by Passhe was expected and is similar to contractions in other public university systems in states like Wisconsin, Connecticut, and Georgia.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The philosopher and activist Cornel West announced his resignation from Harvard Divinity School in a letter posted on Twitter on Monday, after it declined his bid for tenure.

In the letter, dated June 30, West laments the “decline and decay” at the school, and cites discrimination he describes as “the shadow of Jim Crow … expressed in the language of superficial diversity” among the reasons for his departure.

Noting “the disarray of a scattered curriculum, the disenchantment of talented yet deferential faculty, and the disorientation of precious students” at the Divinity School, West in his letter describes a botched tenure process, a heavy teaching load, and an “intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of deep depths.”

Jonathan G. Beasley, a Divinity School spokesman, said in an email that the school had no comment on the letter.

The letter’s release comes after West announced in March that he’d be leaving Harvard, which he said had denied him tenure against the recommendation of a faculty committee. Though Harvard later offered to consider him for tenure, West told The Harvard Crimson, the fact that that reversal came only after weeks of public outcry cemented his decision to leave.

West has had a long and tumultuous history with Harvard, of which he is an alumnus. After a public dispute with Lawrence Summers, then the university’s president, West left his tenured position in Cambridge in 2002. He rejoined Harvard as a nontenured professor of the practice of public philosophy in 2017.

Now, he said in an interview with The Boycott Times in March, he’ll return to the faculty at Union Theological Seminary, where he began his teaching career, from 1977 to 1984.

Good luck, Dr. West and welcome back to New York!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, my wife Elaine and I arrived in Seattle for a two-week visit with my daughter, Dawn Marie and her family.  We have not seen them in two years.  Thank you, COVID-19!  My grandson, Michael, has grown about four inches and is now almost as tall as his father, Bruce.  My granddaughter Ali is as beautiful as ever.  My daughter and I gave each other hugs that lasted minutes.  We were close to tears.

Since last we saw them, they bought a new house on Kitsap Lake.

We are looking forward to quality family time with them.

Tony

This was the view from their deck last evening.

Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka

Dear Commons Community,

England’s Football Association (FA) has condemned racist social media attacks targeting soccer players following Sunday’s European Championship.  Prince William, the president of the English Football Association, said he was “sickened” by the racism aimed at the England players.

If you did not see it, it was a great soccer game with both teams leaving everything they had on the field.  After regulation time and two overtimes, the score was tied 1-1  and was decided by penalty kicks which Italy won 3-2 when three Black players failed to score in the shootout.  After the game, the three Black players – Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka – were  subjected to racist abuse on social media including monkey emojis, slurs and taunts to “get out of my country.”

The FA — English soccer’s governing body — released a statement Sunday evening castigating the social media abuse.

“The FA strongly condemns all forms of discrimination and is appalled by the online racism that has been aimed at some of our England players on social media,” the statement reads. “We could not be clearer that anyone behind such disgusting behaviour is not welcome in following the team. 

“We will do all we can to support the players affected while urging the toughest punishments possible for anyone responsible.”

Racist abuse toward soccer players throughout Europe is nothing new. English players have taken a pregame knee throughout Euro 2020 as a statement against racism and discrimination. The act has been met with a mix of cheers and boos from fans in the stands.

The FA vowed on Sunday to seek punishment for fans engaging in racist abuse. It also urged social media companies to take responsibility.

“We will do all we can to support the players affected while urging the toughest punishments possible for anyone responsible,” the statement continues. “We will continue to do everything we can to stamp discrimination out of the game, but we implore government to act quickly and bring in the appropriate legislation so this abuse has real life consequences.

“Social media companies need to step up and take accountability and action to ban abusers from their platforms, gather evidence that can lead to prosecution and support making their platforms free from this type of abhorrent abuse.”

It was a sad ending to an outstanding game.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Large contingents of Cuban police patrolled the capital of Havana yesterday following rare protests (see video above) around the island nation against food shortages and high prices amid the coronavirus crisis. Cuba’s president said the demonstrations were stirred up on social media by Cuban Americans in the United States.

Sunday’s protests marked some of the biggest displays of antigovernment sentiment in the tightly controlled country in years. Cuba is going through its worst economic crisis in decades, along with a resurgence of coronavirus cases, as it suffers the consequences of U.S. sanctions imposed by former President Donald Trump’s administration.

Many young people took part in demonstrations in Havana. Protests were also held elsewhere on the island, including in the small town of San Antonio de los Baños, where people objected to power outages and were visited by President Miguel Díaz-Canel. He entered a few homes, where he took questions from residents.  As reported by the Associated Press.

“Authorities appeared determined to put a stop to the demonstrations. More than a dozen protesters were detained, including a leading Cuban dissident who was arrested trying to attend a march in the city of Santiago, 559 miles (900 kilometers) east. The demonstrators disrupted traffic in the capital for several hours until some threw rocks and police moved in and broke them up.

“We’ve seen how the campaign against Cuba was growing on social media in the past few weeks,″ Díaz-Canel said Monday in a nationally televised appearance in which his entire Cabinet was also present. “That’s the way it’s done: Try to create inconformity, dissatisfaction by manipulating emotions and feelings.”

In a statement yesterday, U.S. President Joe Biden said Cuban protesters were asserting their basic rights.

“We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from the decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected by Cuba’s authoritarian regime,″ Biden said.

The U.S. urges the Cuban government to serve their people ’’rather than enriching themselves,″ Biden added.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq on Monday stressed the U.N. position “on the need for freedom of expression and peaceful assembly to be respected fully, and we expect that that will be the case.”

The demonstrations were extremely unusual on an island where little dissent against the government is tolerated. The last major public demonstration of discontent, over economic hardship, took place nearly 30 years in 1994. Last year, there were small demonstrations by artists and other groups, but nothing as big or widespread as what erupted this past weekend.

In the Havana protest on Sunday, police initially trailed behind as protesters chanted, “Freedom!” “Enough!” and “Unite!” One motorcyclist pulled out a U.S. flag, but it was snatched from him by others.

“We are fed up with the queues, the shortages. That’s why I’m here,” one middle-age protester told The Associated Press. He declined to identify himself for fear of being arrested later.

Later, about 300 pro-government protesters arrived with a large Cuban flag, shouting slogans in favor of the late President Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution. Some assaulted an AP videojournalist, smashing his camera. AP photojournalist Ramón Espinosa was then beaten by a group of police officers in uniforms and civilian clothes; he suffered a broken nose and an eye injury.

The demonstration grew to a few thousand in the vicinity of Galeano Avenue and the marchers pressed on despite a few charges by police officers and tear gas barrages. People standing on many balconies along the central artery in the Centro Habana neighborhood applauded the protesters passing by. Others joined in the march.

About 2 1/2 hours into the march, some protesters pulled up cobblestones and threw them at police, at which point officers began arresting people and the marchers dispersed. AP journalists counted at least 20 people who were taken away in police cars or by individuals in civilian clothes.

Although many people tried to take out their cellphones and broadcast the protest live, Cuban authorities shut down internet service throughout the afternoon Sunday.

Yesterday, Cuban authorities were blocking Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram, said Alp Toker, director of Netblocks, a London-based internet monitoring firm.

“This does seem to be a response to social media-fueled protest,” he said. Twitter did not appear to be blocked, though Toker noted Cuba has the ability to cut it off if it wants to.”

Protests have been rare in Cuba since Communists took control of the country in the 1950s.  They will be watched closely here in the United States.

Tony