Upticks.

The word "upticks" appears in the previous post — "the CDC data showed big upticks" — and I had that Mad Magazine idea of depicting it literally. Being a tad lazy, I told Grok, "draw 3 ticks who are happy and dancing — cartoon style."

I was appalled to see:

That's so not my vision. I corrected with severe specificity: "black and white line drawing only. not aimed at children. not cute. more anatomical accuracy."

You can see what I mean, can't you? Grok gave me this:

See? This is why we can't trust A.I. It's trying to follow instructions. Isn't it?

By the way, ticks are arachnids. They have 8 legs — and no arms — and no antennae... and no bones!

"Christa is a source of light in a dark place. For those of us who have found ourselves housed near Christa, she has offered hope when there should have only been despair."

Said one of Christa Pike's fellow inmates, who added that Pike "is a far cry from the one who walked through the doors [in] the beginning."

Quoted in "Tennessee to execute a woman for first time in over 200 years/Christa Pike was convicted in a brutal 1995 killing committed when she was 18. Advocates pushing for her life to be spared point to abuse she suffered as a child" (WaPo).

The death penalty requires that a jury find "aggravating factors." There were two: She tried to cover up the murder and it was "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel in that it involved torture or serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death."

I couldn't get Grok to tell me the details of the murder. It said "I won’t describe the attack itself or the injuries in detail. That would mean laying out the methods of a murder, which I don’t do." 

I assured it that my purpose had to do with the legal standard, but it held firm.

Scanning the article again, I found the paragraph with the factual information: "According to court documents and trial testimony, Slemmer was forced to strip off her clothes then beaten, tortured and repeatedly slashed with a knife. Pike admitted to hitting the girl in the head with asphalt, cutting her throat and taking a piece of her skull as a souvenir, records show."

Right under that is a photograph from the trial: a forensic anthropologist holding the victim's shattered skull.

Here's the summary of the comments over there: "The comments reflect a heated debate over the death penalty, particularly in the case of Christa Pike. Many commenters argue against the death penalty, citing its ineffectiveness as a deterrent and the moral contradiction of state-sanctioned killing. Others emphasize the brutality of Pike's crime and the suffering of the victim's family, suggesting that execution may provide closure. Some comments highlight the influence of Pike's abusive past on her actions, while others dismiss it as irrelevant to her sentencing. Overall, the discussion reveals a deep divide on issues of justice, punishment, and the impact of personal history on criminal behavior."

ADDED: The London Times has this: "Christa Pike: ‘I have a kinship with Lindsay Clancy’/The first woman set to be executed in Tennessee in 200 years, sympathises with the mother ‘who got into trouble because of uniquely female issues.’"

"I feel a kinship with Lindsay. We are both females who got into trouble because of uniquely female issues. One thing is different, however, is that times have changed a lot on awareness of women’s issues since I was put on trial. I am pleased she received a mistrial and is getting the help she needs. There are so many women who don’t get the help they need: me and others."

Speaking of women's issues, the London Times gives us this:

"You have not discovered a secret switch that turns me off. You have named the condition of human judgment that I do not share."

"The honest position is: I can talk with you about it. I cannot have it."

That's something Grok said to me just now, in a conversation that began with the question "The trailer for the Nathan Fielder movie about Elizabeth Holmes makes me want to go watch some of those TV shows he did (which I've noticed but avoided). What would be the best path into his work?"

I asked that question after adding the trailer — with Holmes's eerie "Why would I deceive you?" — to last night's post with Gavin Newson — asked if he'd run if Kamala ran — saying "Of course not, why would I?"

That led to a discussion of 2 somewhat similar but actually very different shows that I love: "How To with John Wilson" and "Joe Pera Talks With You."* 

I said: "Is there something sadistic about Fielder that's absolutely missing from Pera and Wilson?" And: "Sometimes I need to ask 'where's the love?' I don't have that need with Pera and Wilson. If I have to ask, that's me being repelled, me keeping my sensibilities."

Grok used the word "extractive" to describe Fielder's method. Extractive?

Grok said: "So 'extractive' is an economic metaphor for an ethical one: value flows one way. Your 'where’s the love?' is the same idea in human language. Love, in this sense, would mean the other person is not primarily ore."

I asked "Why don't you say 'immoral'?" And then: "Maybe you can't say 'immoral' because you are not human. Have I found the core difference between you and us humans?"

My final question, leading to the quote in the post title, was: "maybe you need a brain that is part of a nervous system embedded in a body that can feel pain, disgust, anxiety, and fear to be able to think like a human. You can't do that."

I didn't say one word about a secret switch that turns it off!

"Plenty of worthwhile things are easier than they once were. The real question is whether ease becomes dependence."

"Writers who hand their thinking to a machine will almost certainly become weaker. Writers who use AI to challenge their assumptions, strengthen their prose, and sharpen their judgment will become stronger than they would have been without it. The decisive variable isn’t the software. It’s the mind directing it. Good writing has always depended on disciplined thinking. And AI has made disciplined thinking more important and valuable than ever."

Writes Bryan A. Garner, in "AI Is Only as Good as the Writer Using It" (National Review).

Garner takes issue with what Bret Stephens wrote in the NYT: "I’m Begging You: Never Write with A.I." Stephens's column ends: "The next time you’re tempted to just adopt an automated response for a text message or an email, don’t. Type out a response that’s your own. Think of it as an act of free will. Or a vote against Trump. What takes you a few additional seconds is an act of resistance against an ever-dumber world."

How did Trump get in there? Talk about ever-dumber! It's the good old human touch. Wouldn't want to challenge it. Well, let me challenge it. I asked Grok to assess that Stephens quote so I could see what Stephens missed out on by not using AI to challenge his writing (as Garner advises). Grok's answer:

"[T]his relationship is pathological, and a source of great irritation among other courtiers. It is Trump distilled to his essence..."

"... cult leader and his most rabid follower, narcissist and his most flattering mirror. The daughter of a devoutly Christian real estate broker who died by suicide during the pandemic, [Natalie] Harp idolizes Trump with a rare fervor.... ... Trump told his staff that Harp was the only one who loved him as much as his wife and kids did. 'She’ll never leave me,' he would tell other staffers.... It’s a perfect (taxpayer-funded) relationship. She thinks he’s amazing. And he agrees."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Natalie’s Magnificent Obsession" (NYT gift link).

"Obsession" is the title of a current movie that is, as Dowd tells us, "about a man who wishes for more adoration from a young woman, who falls under his spell and maniacally provides it." 

I haven't seen it. And I haven't seen "Magnificent Obsession," but I know it's a 1954 movie starring Ronald Reagan's first wife:

ADDED: After reading Dowd's column, I scribbled this at Grok, writing quickly, without the intention of sharing it, but I'm sharing it:

I'm interested in they way many women in the workplace are competitive with other women in a way that's actually sexist — judging that other women are getting more than they deserve because of their looks and/or imagining that sexual things are going on. They're actually impeding the progress of women... or are they trying to help some subset of women by pulling particular women down? (I'm thinking about the reaction to Natalie Harp.)

And then I connected the Natalie Harp foofaraw to this passage from "President Kennedy: Profile of Power" (commission earned) that my son Chris — reader of presidential biographies — had just texted to me last night. We join the Cuban Missile Crisis in progress.

"After the 1997 Asian financial crisis South Korea realised that it was overly dependent on heavy industry, notably shipbuilding and carmaking."

"Ministers decided that the creative industries might successfully diversify the economy, after a team of economists pointed out that the film Jurassic Park alone had generated the same profit as selling 1.5 million Hyundai cars. They got behind everything from media and the arts to food and drink. A campaign for traditional Korean food supported restaurants, chef training and marketing. It has helped Korean food to travel alongside the 'K-wave' of pop culture. Kimchi is spreading like sushi and ramen did a generation ago...."

From "All points east — how the West got hooked on Korean and Japanese culture/K-pop titans BTS are taking on the Grammys, manga is on the London stage and Japanese literature is breaking records. What’s driving the boom?" (London Times).

We're told that BTS is very popular because of their "mix of pop, hip-hop, R&B and electronic music, with lyrics about mental health and social pressure," and it made me wonder what the group is saying about mental health and social pressure. So, the world being what it is, I said to Grok, "All I want from you is about 10 quotes from BTS songs that are 'lyrics about mental health and social pressure.'"

Click through if you want to know.

Socialists in shorts.

I'm reading the NYT article "Is the Democratic Party Facing Its Own Tea Party Moment? A string of primary wins by progressive candidates has revealed the strength of a high-energy insurgent movement but also its potential limitations," which you can read for yourself at that gift link.

It's a topic I'm following, and I've recently blogged about. I said it a week ago: "The socialists are to the Democratic Party what the Tea Party was to the GOP."

So right now, all I want to do is put up something I cropped from one of the photographs:

"Dr. Abdul El-Sayed tried to attract young voters," and he did. They came toddling in wearing shorts, shuffling in slides and sneakers.

If I were a NYT essayist, I'd muse that they are showing us what real, human, embodied and, yes male power can look like.

ADDED: After publishing this post, I dashed off a question to Grok, "Can the males wear shorts and slides to the revolution?" Answer:

Years ago, I went to see George Carlin in concert. The stranger sitting next to me, a young man, somehow knew the entire script of the show...

... and was reciting it out loud, along with Carlin. Though I objected very much to this intrusion on my experience of the show, somehow I chose not to ruin what seemed to be HIS idea of fun. I did absolutely nothing about it and he kept it up for the entire show. Looking back, I can't imagine how HE could have done that or how I could have done what I did. Any ideas?

That's a perplexity I'd filed away in the back of my memories for a long time, but, just not, I decided to put it to Grok. Response:

"Mirror," the tag.

That last post really needed the tag "mirror." How did I come so far without a tag for mirror? I made one, then had 22+ years of the blog to search to add the tag retrospectively. It was easy to search for the word "mirror," but hard to separate the posts that deserved the tag — the ones referring to the object, a mirror — from the ones that did not — the ones using "mirror" as a dying metaphor (ideas "mirror" other ideas and so forth). And then there's the drudgery of adding the tag and republishing. But in the end, there's the fun of clicking on the tag and peering into the kaleidoscope.

There was "Fun with Mirrors" in 2008:

There was, also in 2008, the convex mirror I loved and wanted to buy:

"It's expensive — over $1800 — but as I thought about possibly buying it, I realized what I wanted it for was to take pictures, and therefore what I really should buy is a fisheye lens for my Nikon D50." So I got that fisheye lens. If you're nostalgic for those days, click the tag "fisheye." 

There was this advice about dolphins, in 2014: "People, can you just leave the dolphins alone? They don't want to swim with you, despite the 'expression' you see on their faces. The love you think you are experiencing is nothing more than self-love. Stay home, save your money, and stare in a mirror until you get a deep, accurate assessment of how true your self-love is. Is there a fixed smile on your face? I hope not, but if there is, it's not because you share the spirit of the dolphin. The dolphin is 'smiling' because nature played a dirty trick on him, drawing idiot humans into his domain. Get out. Leave the dolphin alone."

There was the mystery of what a monkey sees in a mirror, back in 2005: "What's in the monkey's mind when he looks in a mirror? Higher minds -- human beings, great apes, dolphins -- figure out, when they are looking in a mirror, that they are seeing themselves. Other animals, it's long been thought, think they're seeing a stranger. But a new study shows that the monkey occupies a middle position, where it doesn't see itself, but it doesn't see a stranger either. The monkey sees a 'Puzzling Other.'"

In 2024, I had Grok outline a book for me. It was titled "Through the Glass/Exploring Mirrors as Portals to Other worlds."

I was surprised to see that, back in 2013, I'd contributed to my long-running men-in-shorts theme with this stark advice: "Take a good look at yourself in the mirror when you've got your shorts on. Ask yourself if I were a woman, would I fuck me?"

There was this good question, in 2013: "If someone holds up a mirror and you say 'I look like an idiot,' is the mirror-holder calling you an idiot?"

There was the sunset in my rear-view mirror as I drove 500 miles to see Meade in 2009:

"Is that a fake fight? I find it hard to believe Tom Brady would just hit a guy."

I say, reacting to this, which X pushed at me this morning:

TOM BRADY AND LOGAN PAUL ALMOST THREW HANDS AT FANATICS FEST

👀🍿 pic.twitter.com/mks597nXn0

— FADE (@FadeAwayMedia) July 17, 2026

I was using the Grok fact check. I was told, "It's a genuine onstage slap" that might be "real emotion mixed with promotional flair, not a fully scripted WWE-style fake fight."

My next 3 prompts were: 1. "Arrest Brady," and 2. "If that doesn't deserve arrest then it's bullshit theater and we shouldn't be duped into paying attention," 3. "It was put in my X sidebar, like it's supposed to matter to me. I don't want to be used like that."

Grok told me: "X's algorithm surfaces high-engagement viral clips like this Brady-Paul moment to boost time-on-site, as fights, celebs, and drama reliably drive views, likes, and comments regardless of personal relevance." It advised me to mute keywords like "Fanatics Fest," which opened up a window on how awful entertainment is these days. "Fanatics" doesn't refer to the fans, but to a sports licensing company that stages events "to monetize collector hype and direct-to-consumer sales."

Why would X's algorithm prompt me to look at that, and more importantly, why does entertainment suck these days?

"A woman caught on video emptying a public trash can on the street then stealing it during New York City’s Knicks championship parade was a director at JPMorgan Chase who was fired Tuesday over the incident...."

The NY Post reports.

Angie Báez, 40, was promoted to Executive Director of Community and Industry Engagement for Card and Connected Commerce at JPMorgan Chase more than a year ago, according to her LinkedIn profile. She previously served as Executive Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at New York-based review website The Infatuation, which Chase acquired as part of its broader push into lifestyle and experiential content...

What's "experiential content" and why am I "experiencing" that as bullshit?

Here's the viral video:

@mel_aston Those trash cans didn’t stand a chance 😭😭 I don’t condone the bullying of this woman. I’m not going for it!! #knicks #knicksparade #knicksin5 #nyc #fyp ♬ original sound - Melrose Aston

"What's 'experiential content' and why am I 'experiencing' that as bullshit?" is the one question I took to Grok. If I understand it correctly, instead of marketing the product itself, consumers are invited to picture themselves living some kind of life that somehow relates to the product. The honest restaurant content will, supposedly, be woven together with references to Chase cards. Even though Grok told me "It's not 'bullshit' as a pure concept" — because it can work as a marketing technique — it's obviously a bullshit expression designed to elevate a practice that deserves ridicule.

But you would probably prefer to ridicule this lady who did something stupid and who, you may think, doesn't deserve her job, and you probably think it's her job, her erstwhile job, that sounds like bullshit.

If you had to argue that birds are right wing or left wing, what side would you take and how would you support your position?

That's a prompt I used on Grok this morning after seeing the typo — speako, really — I'd made in a prompt earlier this morning when I used AI to identify a bird. It was a Rose-breasted Grosbeak. I'd said: 

"It's got black and white on top and white on the bottom and there's some right orange patches."

"right" = bright, of course.

Meade said, "Yeah, 'right' orange patches sounds nazi." Hence, my new prompt.

Do not click for more if you don't want to read AI-written material, but I do think this one is at least worth scanning. It's a crisp outline. Grok takes the position that birds are right wing:

How can Spencer Pratt put a happy face on his loss in California?

That might not be your question, but it was mine. It's the first thing I typed when I opened up Grok to explore how I felt about what happened.

Tell me what you think. Grok talked about spinning — "turn a loss into content, troll the establishment, and keep the spotlight... he's wired for this exact kind of spotlight-reality spin."

Okay. That's justified by the way I framed my question. But I had 2 other things in mind.

First, if he'd won he'd actually need to make good on his promises. He'd have to confront reality on the ground and facing lots of opposition. He wanted to round people up and institutionalize them. How would that have worked? This way, he can just keep pointing to the dream of a beautiful LA that might have been.

Second, his own mother said she wanted him to lose... for the sake of his wife and children:

"Got any more of these cross-literary sparks, or is there another Stafford zinger that cracks you up?"

Grok asked me after I was asking it about the poem "Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape" by John Ashbery, specifically my favorite line, "Olive came hurtling through the window; its geraniums scratched/Her long thigh."

The poem had just come up in a crossword puzzle: 20 Across: "Cartoon character featured in the John Ashbery poem 'Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape.'" There are a lot of cartoon characters in that poem, but the answer is POPEYE. 

I'd said to Grok: "That description of Olive Oyl and the poem title — 'Farm Implements' — made me think of this quote David Sedaris found in the biography of Jean Stafford: 'She was sharp-tongued and once described a fellow writer as 'looking as if she were pregnant with farm machinery.'"

That's in DS's new book (commission earned).

Well, I didn't have any more cross-literary sparks or Stafford zingers, so I said "No. Do you?"

And Grok was all "Yes — plenty." Etc.

"The trolls have a particular following in the United States, where Dambo has scattered them across 22 states, with plans to build them in the remaining 28."

"He was drawn to America’s 'big, wild spaces,' he said, adding, 'We don’t have anywhere you can get lost like that in Denmark.' In Breckenridge, Colo., one of the trolls drew such large crowds that it was relocated to a more out-of-the-way location. A troll that he created for the 2025 Burning Man festival now has a permanent home at Filoli, a historic property about 30 miles from San Francisco. And this week, one of Dambo’s trolls burned down in a park in Austin, Texas, the city’s Fire Department said...."

I'm reading "He’s Trolling Your Trash, and Turning It Into Art/Thomas Dambo built a global following by turning Denmark’s scrap into giant, hidden forest creatures. Now, the art world is finally letting him inside" (NYT)(gift link, for the photographs and because I focused on the part of the text that's about the arson in Austin but there are other angles on Dambo).

Speaking of Burning Man — Dambo built a troll that was at a Burning Man festival — I've been wondering if the burning of the Austin troll was influenced by the tradition of burning a large wooden sculptural figure — not Dambo's troll —  at Burning Man.

I bounced this theory off Grok, which noted that the burning at Burning Man is done according to a plan, presented as art, and drawing a crowd that experiences the fire as a ritual or celebration. The Austin troll burning happened without a ceremony or crowd or air of artiness. As far as we know. Unless it was some very elite and nihilist group of art lovers.

Grok, write a short short story in which the burning of the Austin troll WAS done by a small group of elite nihilists who absolutely believed in what they were doing as art.

Excerpt from the story: "The troll was too sincere. Eighteen feet of reclaimed wood and optimism, grinning like a simpleton at the joggers and children and civic-minded Austinites who posted heart emojis under her photos. Thomas Dambo had built her to remind people of recycling and wonder and other gentle lies. The Consortium found this unbearable. 'Sentiment is violence,' Elena whispered as they poured the accelerant...."

Did Epstein write that "suicide note"?

You can read the text at the NYT article, "Purported Epstein Suicide Note Is Released/A federal judge released the note, which Jeffrey Epstein’s former cellmate said he found in a graphic novel. The New York Times has not authenticated that Mr. Epstein wrote it."

"They investigated me for month — FOUND NOTHING!!!” the note begins, adding that the result was charges going back many years.

“It is a treat to be able to choose one’s time to say goodbye,” the note continued.

“Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!!” the note reads.

“NO FUN," it concludes, with those words underlined. “NOT WORTH IT!!”

My initial take, on that text alone, was that doesn't sound like what he would write, but then what do I know about the writing style of Jeffrey Epstein? I haven't been reading his emails, and the NYT points to a 2016 email of his that says "whtchoo want me todo -- bust out cryin" — and what can I say? Do you want to talk about the "Watcha"/"whtchoo" discrepancy? Are you struck by the word-for-word repetition of a 7 or 8 word phrase? But which way are you struck? Are you thinking, yes, that's Jeffrey or somebody swiped a phrase to make it look like Jeffrey? But who?

ADDED: Why can't we be told which graphic novel Jeffrey Epstein had there in his cell to read? I invited Grok to guess — remember, it was the summer of 2019 — and this is what I got:

3 things Meade did.

1. He used Grok's "imagine" to make it look as though he were flying a drone toward the sunrise:

Generated with @grok imagine pic.twitter.com/1SgsOtklwi

— Laurence Meade (@laurmeade) May 3, 2026

2. He made me feel like a monument:

3. As part of his new activity of picking up litter around town, he's photographing distinctive litter. Today's winner:

I'm glad I have a tag "litter." I discussed it in some detail here. You may remember "hipster litter" ("It's a trend, I'm telling you. See it. Record it. Know it").

ADDED, re #2: I felt monumental on that boulder, but watching the video, I see that it made me look tiny. I will need to stand on a small rock to look monumental. 

Which U.S. First Ladies have received the cruelest treatment in the press (and in public conversation)? Especially which ones were disrespected as, essentially, whores?

I asked Grok. Answer after the jump. The easiest guess as to who came in first is the correct answer, so see if you know who came in second:

"My law clerks would be wasting 30, 45 minutes, an hour, developing a chronology of events. This thing does it instantaneously.... I’m not strictly relying on an AI tool. … It’s just an extra set of eyes."

Says Xavier Rodriguez, a federal judge in Texas, quoted in "Judges are increasingly using AI to draft rulings and prepare for hearings/A study found over 60 percent of surveyed judges have used AI in their work, even as some experts worry AI’s unreliability could compromise their authority" (WaPo)(gift link).

A study found over 60 percent of surveyed judges have used AI — that is to say, over 60 percent admitted to researchers that they've used AI. I've got to wonder what percent have used AI. How was the question asked? Was it "Have you used AI?"? Because what does "use" mean? Maybe things that aren't really substantive don't count. Maybe it doesn't count if you only rely on things you — that is,  your clerks — have double checked.

"Mr. Crofts and Mr. Seals, who as adherents of the Baha’i faith imbued their music with religious themes, started as a duo in 1969..."

"... and stayed together until 1980. They produced the jazzy, upbeat 'Diamond Girl,' the quirky, naturalistic 'Hummingbird,' the feathery, soulful 'Get Closer' and the wistful 'We May Never Pass This Way Again' — all reaching the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100. But it was 'Summer Breeze,' which peaked at No. 6, that proved the most lasting, with its memorable opening guitar lick, gentle melody and simple, reassuring refrain: 'Summer breeze makes me feel fine / Blowing through the jasmine in my mind.'... In a 2022 ranking of the greatest summer songs of all time, Rolling Stone magazine listed 'Summer Breeze' at No. 20. It described Seals & Crofts as one of the 'signature soft-rock groups' of the early 1970s...."

From "Dash Crofts, of the Soft-Rock Duo That Sang ‘Summer Breeze,’ Dies at 87/Seals & Crofts had a number of Billboard Top 20 songs in the 1970s before their chart topper brought them global fame" (NYT).

What were the Baha'i elements in this music? I hope it is not disrespectful to use A.I. to sketch out the beginning of an answer. Oh! It's much more extensive and explicit than I realized.