Capitalized Labor I have been trying to get my head around slavery. Not the humanitarian horror of it. That part is easy. Human beings were bought and sold. Families were separated. People were beaten, raped, worked, bred, and sometimes killed by people who claimed to own them. We know the pictures. We know the stories.…More
Author Archives: retrevdave
I am a retired United Methodist Clergy, having served small churches mostly in Eastern Colorado. My latest book - Music and Musings - connects essays and orchestral music, and is available through www.themoormanfiles.com
A Sermon of Sorts
George and Henry This is a sermon I never had the courage to actually give to any of the small congregations I served in Eastern Colorado. I always wanted to ask these questions: Have you seen “It’s a Wonderful Life” – you know, with Jimmy Stewart playing George Bailey who is stuck in his hometown?…More
A Word from the Hopeland
An Explosive 250th I just got home from our town’s fireworks display. The weather was a bit damp, but we had an umbrella in the car, and the rain was hardly a drizzle. The display, however, was absolutely marvelous! They must have dumped all my personal taxes on those fireworks. And I am delighted the…More
It’s Not AI
Aye, aye, aye! All we hear these days is “AI!” Large Language Models. Image Generation. Computer Programming. Curing Cancer. Ruining the Economy. Displacing White Collar Workers. The END of the WORLD!!! It is all the old fear of Frankenstein, the Golem, Colossus, SkyNet, or The Matrix. Or perhaps we finally get Isaac Asimov’s Positronic Brain…More
The Great Unknown Genius
by Marion Finsterwald I have always been suspicious of genius. Not the genuine article, mind you. If Mozart walks into the room, I shall happily applaud. If Einstein appears with a notebook full of equations, I will do my best not to spill coffee on him. The difficulty is that one rarely encounters genius in…More
A Word from the Hopeland
Anything is Possible – Now – Here is my latest motion picture: I have just completed and published on YouTube what I think is the best music/video I have created. So far. That statement surprises me. Not because of the music or the images, but because of the path that led here. I used ChatGPT…More
A Word from the Hopeland
Speaking in Tongues – I was speaking in tongues. As a pastor, I am not allowed to know what those words mean. All I wanted to do was extend the number of times my wife’s Samsung phone rang before surrendering to voicemail. The ever-so-polite artificial intelligence at the phone company was less than helpful. It…More
A Word from the Hopeland
A Car Named Justice – Every day, as I climb into my Ford Focus, I am amazed at what this thing is. It is an ordinary machine, built by ordinary people, and yet it performs an extraordinary task. It is engineered to steer around potholes, survive rain and snow, and travel eighty miles an hour…More
A Word from the Hopeland
The Key to Liberty – One of the great challenges of democracy is that it depends upon a reasonably informed citizenry. The founders of the American experiment understood this, even if they could not have imagined television, social media, twenty-four-hour news channels, targeted advertising, algorithmic persuasion, and a culture that monetizes attention itself. The modern…More
A Word from the Hopeland
History On My Chin – I am fairly surprised that I have a beard. All through the 1970s, I mourned my scraggly facial fuzz. But thanks to the era of Covid, I just let the fuzz grow until I bore a resemblance to Steve Bannon. Rather than scrape the whole thing off, I left a…More