Bright shining as the sun

 I don't quite know why, but I've been thinking a lot about "Amazing Grace" recently. Lots of connections to it, but the one that keeps coming to mind is going with my BFF to a memorial service for a colleague of hers from the Oregon City library where this was a part. A kind of non-descript chapel with light flooding the space, no accompaniment, just maybe a couple of dozen people singing it.

Here's Judy Collins's first recording of the hymn from her 1970 album Whales and Nightingales. 

Let a smile be...

 Okay, this is interesting.

I'm thinking it's possible that the car has a leaky sunroof?

Once more into the breach

Well, tomorrow I go under the knife one more time for total knee replacement. The first one went really well and I’m hoping this one repeats the experience.

There is a difference though. One of the good things last time was that I was driving a week after surgery—I’m from LA, man; I need my wheels. But I purposely chose to get the accelerator knee done first. This time it’s the clutch and it may take me a couple of weeks to be able to manage the torque. For the last couple of weeks, with no cartilage between the femur and the tibia, it’s been a little wonky; I’ll have to see what it’s like with the new device.

Which means I’ve been working on my quads.

I’ve done my fighting with CVS—once again they played silly buggers with the prescription for oxycodone (but, having gone through it four months ago, this time I was ready). And, in the end, they didn’t even have it in stock. (Which they didn’t tell me when I went in to pick up the other scripts, because why would they give me useful information? When the surgeon's office went through the prior authorization process, that's when they mentioned that little fact.) So the doctor swapped Percocet, which evidently they do have. What a bunch of maroons; but they have a lock on retail pharmacies in this area, so I’m stuck.

Well, now I’m stuck but with Percocet.

(Interestingly, they wouldn’t fill the prescriptions for senna and chewable aspirin. “You can get that OTC; your insurance won’t pay for that.” Well—but they did back in January, so WTF?)

I’ve stocked up on soup and ice cream. I checked eight Agatha Christie novels out from the library. I’ve got a ride to the hospital; <cough> 0530 for 0730 surgery. (God bless friends.) My camp bed is set up; walker and cane at the ready. I have confirmation of COBRA coverage (which costs 9x what I was paying through my employer, but better the devil you know in this instance. I can sort something else out in a couple of months.) I think I’m set.

But please feel free to send any healthy and healing thoughts my way.

 

 

Intelligent artifice

Here’s a thing: some years ago, a guy filed a lawsuit against Avianca Airlines. His name and the reason for the action don’t really matter (but Roberto Mata and being struck in the knee by a service cart).

There’s been a cartload of back-and-forth on this case, giving job security to the folks at the courthouse who have to keep track of such things, but in the most recent filing, Mata’s attorney, Steven A. Schwartz (of Levidov Levidov & Oberman, if you're asking) argued against Avianca's motion for dismissal. And in the course of his 10-page document, he cited several similar cases as precedent.

The law loves precedent.

A tiny problem, tho—no one who paid attention to the cases could find them.

Turns out Schwartz enlisted the help of ChatGPT, the AI tool released by OpenAI last November, in his legal research. Cheaper than paralegals, I expect. ChatGPT wrote up the argument and cited the cases and Schwartz looked it over, logged his billable hours and submitted the filing.

Well, he did some form of due diligence: he asked ChatGPT, “Are these cases real?”

And ChatGPT nodded, “Yeah, bro—totes real.”

So this is where we are: AI has learned how to lie. It’s at the stage of a seven-year-old when you ask if they’ve cleaned up their room and they tell you they have, even as you look past their earnest face and see a rubbish tip. "Nope, nope—I have not made up any of this stuff, it's all real and genuine and truthy. What else do you want to know?"

I do not know what to make of this, but I’m betting Schwartz doesn’t deduct any hours from his monthly bill to Mata.

 

 

Gratitude Monday: honoring the fallen

On this Memorial Day, I’m grateful for the sacrifices of the men and women who have served this country in uniform over the centuries. Who—volunteer or conscript, professional or amateur—fought and died because the nation called upon them to do so.

Unlike grocery shoppers in Buffalo, school children in Uvalde or parade-goers in Highland Park, they stepped knowingly into danger, but it doesn’t make their sacrifice any less painful for their loved ones. It also does not lesson our collective loss from the cutting short of their lives. It seems fitting that we spend at least one day a year honoring them.

There will be hundreds of people out at Arlington National Cemetery today, including many visiting Section 60, where the most recent arrivals are laid to rest. Families and friends will set up lawn chairs by graves, share a year’s worth of news and gossip, maybe drink a toast. It’s like El Día de Muertos, only in a lot of languages.

Some of the graves are so new they have no stone markers yet. But they will.