LETTERS/OPINIONS
‘Decide for yourselves’
To the Editor: Over the summer there have been numerous mentions in various media outlets of “the arch” or the “monumental arch” as the project is officially called in the proposal to the National Parks Planning Commission. The final review of this project is scheduled for the November meeting of …
Citizens should have more input on AI development
To the Editor: When AI company leaders say they are building dangerous technology that is escaping human control, we need to listen carefully. They say AI agents have duplicated themselves, evaded detection and hacked into other computer systems, with capacity to wreak havoc with cybersecurity, utilities, food safety, financial systems, …
Only the informed can save voting rights for the future
To the Editor: I had the privilege of observing a polling place a few years ago and went away confident that my vote and thousands of others would be safely counted. I witnessed a group of citizens, men and women, Republicans and Democrats, who spent a long busy day checking …
Trillionaires
How much money should any one person have? When Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire, people got mad. “He will own everything!” claims a popular YouTuber. “He will own your house ... your country ... your government.”
Predicting breast cancer
Imagine there were a simple test, using AI, that could accurately predict a man’s chance of developing prostate cancer in the next five years. Would insurance pay the $249 for the test?
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Lakeland Times: Our View
Not too many years ago, there was a TV show called the Equalizer — actually, there were two iterations of it — where a person known as the Equalizer took up the cause of desperate people, and sometimes of not-so-desperate people, who had nowhere else to turn.
Toward the final stretch — and beyond
Haven’t we seen this movie before? Voters, weary of a Republican president whose foreign or domestic policies don’t seem to be delivering as promised, seem on the verge of a massive rejection of his party.
The stumbling stones
They are known as “stumbling stones” — little brass tiles that for the last 30 years have been installed in the sidewalks outside the homes of Jews murdered in the Holocaust. More than 116,000 stones have been installed across Europe. It is a small thing, but an important one.
Lakeland Times: Our View
We hear it every day, the grumbles and gripes about the second Trump administration. We hear it not just from Democrats but from conservatives, too, and on some of it we agree. Trump’s war with Iran is grotesquely absurd, not merely on policy but on political grounds — this is …
Toward a post-Trump politics
From the clutter of midterm election poll results, it’s possible sometimes to see new patterns of political support emerging. The overall pattern, as it stands, makes some sense. As in the 2006 and 2018 off-year cycles, the Republican president’s job approval had sagged to well below 50%. Polls at this …
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Always watching
Do you worry that you’re being watched? If you drive, you probably are. My new video covers the cameras that photograph the backs of millions of cars. A company called Flock has 80% of that market.
‘Externalities’
To the Editor: Once upon a time the World was in balance. Trees and abundant other forms of plant growth needed, and absorbed, carbon-dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere. They gave back their waste product, oxygen. A limited population of humans and numerous animal species needed the oxygen, and gave back their …
If the Kennedy Center stays closed for now, so be it
Go ahead, President Donald Trump, keep the Kennedy Center closed. Don’t give it money for necessary repairs. This is low-hanging fruit for Americans done with your extortion schemes. They don’t have to submit to small-bore intimidation like this. They can just shrug at the demand that your name, with words …
Un-gifted and talented
Schools are ending gifted and talented programs. They will no longer separate kids by ability. Why? To address “inequity.”
Confrontations at the U.N.
There were at least two notable confrontations at the U.N. this week. One was to be expected: Trump versus Iran: “I have a big decision to make,” President Donald Trump told world leaders. “Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country …
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