About The Advance. (Vidalia, Ga.) 2003-current | View Entire Issue (April 19, 2023)
ollie Ahuattce The ADVANCE, April 19, 2023/Page 7A A free press is not a privilege but organic necessity in a great society. -Walter Uppmann COMMENTARY out of CONTEXT A compilation of quotations on a variety of issues by national, state and regional writers, well-known personalities, just plain everyday people and from various publications collected by the editors of THE ADVANCE. Quotes for our Times: Judith Miller, Fox News contributor, au thor, and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter formerly with The New York Times: What most analysts are still missing in leaked Pentagon documents case. While the Pentagon and intelligence agencies assess the damage, or potential damage of the leak, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department, at the behest of the Pentagon, has launched a major investigation into the leak, Whether they will be able to determine the source and motive behind it remains uncertain, But this much seems certain, as long as Washington continues massively classifying even mundane information, and as long as government agencies fail to pro tect material that can truly cause damage to national security, such leaks are likely to continue. Matt Vespa, Senior Editor at Townhall. com: Wait, those leaked classified Pentagon documents went undetected for how long? Well, I would hope "nobody is happy" about this breach, and no one needs to look further than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to see how classified materials are handled. Joe Biden leaves state secrets everywhere. Kevin McCullough, nationally syndicat ed radio host and author: Men punching women. The left has no use for those who don't declare absolute loyalty to their agenda in this area. But science is clearly working against them, and they are left with no rhe torical options except to demean, label, and advocate violence. But when has a man being allowed to punch a woman in her face ever been a good look for a movement? Riley Gaines, much to Mayor Pete's con descension, was the victim. His argument that she is the predator is false. As is the idea that there are 57 "genders." Lying to our children doesn't change this. And yes it's a very adult subject! Riley Gaines, 12-time NCAA All-Amer ican, five-time SEC Champion and record holder, two-time Olympic trial qualifier, and spokeswoman for the Independent Wom en’s Forum: / was assaulted by a transgen der mob and this is what I plan to do next. People always wonder why more wom en aren't speaking up (especially the female athletes who have firsthand experience competing against a male). This is why. They don't want to be faced with an angry mob who wants to silence them, harass them, and hurt them. They don't want to be la beled as transphobic, or a bigot, or hateful, but it doesn't make you any of those things by acknowledging women are biologically different than men and deserve respect, safety, privacy, and equal opportunities. What happened at San Francisco State was horrific and frightening — but this expe rience has only strengthened my resolve. To be targeted for standing for women just shows I must be doing something right. Write Us A Letter Have you a gripe? How about a compliment for someone for a job well done? Lef us know abouf if wifh a leffer fo fhe edifor. We urge anyone fo wrife us abouf any subject of general public interest. Please limit all letters to 250 words double spaced. All letters must by signed, but we may withhold the writer's name upon request. Please write to us at The Advance, 205 E. First St., Vidalia, GA 30474 or email: theadvancenews@ gmail.com (Subject Line: Letter to the Editor). Bragg is already losing You don’t know what’s in the indictment. That was the line that pro gressives repeatedly threw at conservatives dubious about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case over the last couple of weeks. Well, we’ve seen the un sealed indictment, and we still don’t know the other crime be sides falsifying business records that’s being alleged, because Bragg didn’t specify it in a shocking prosecutorial failure and abuse of the process. What will be the new talk ing point? You don’t know what Bragg might come up with be tween now and the next hear ing on Dec. 4? To review, Donald Trump paid off porn star Stormy Dan iels, with whom he had an al leged affair, prior to the 2016 election. Such hush payments may be sleazy, but they aren’t illegal. Still, the reimbursements from the Trump Organization to Trump fixer Michael Cohen, who paid off Daniels, were logged as legal expenses. This was deceptive and potentially a misdemeanor. Dragging a for mer president through the criminal justice process just to get him on such a minor of fense, though, was unappealing even to Bragg. How to make the misde meanors into felonies? Well, if the misleading bookkeeping entries were in the service of another crime, then, presto, they become alleged felonies. Bragg, through the process known as stacking, or amassing counts through sheer repeti tion, claims to have 34 of them. That’s a lot. But the linch pin of the whole endeavor is the other crime, and Bragg still won’t tell us, or the accused, what it is. He’s writing an Agatha Christie mystery, except the un known isn’t who committed the crime but what law he or she might have violated. It’s “Some thing or Other, We’ll Let You Know as Soon as We Figure It Out, on the Orient Express.” This is a flaw, not in the handling of some low stakes case no one will ever know about, but an unprecedented, historic case. This prosecution has drawn massive media atten tion, has rocketed Trump back to a large lead in the polls for the Republican nomination, and will surely further derange our politics, with unforeseeable consequences. And Bragg couldn’t even dot his is. Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of this sorry episode so far is that Bragg has demonstrated that it’s possible to behave so egregiously in the pursuit of Donald Trump that even left-of-center pundits won’t line up in support. This might not be enor mously confidence-inducing, but at a time of deep divisions, it shows that a disgracefully weak and contrived prosecu tion is a source of at least a measure of agreement among commentators usually wholly opposed to one another. Who knew that Alvin Bragg would become a unifying force in the nation’s political debate? The online publication Slate, a reliable source of some of the worst legal analysis on the internet, has run two doubt ful pieces about the indictment. Mark Joseph Stern notes that “Bragg’s legal theory is, if not convoluted, a fairly confusing effort to patch together dispa rate offenses into one alleged crime, carried out over 34 ille gal payments.” Over at Vox, Ian Millhiser, usually a taker on any adventur ous progressive legal theory, can’t get on board the Bragg Train on this one: “It is unclear that the felony statute that Trump is accused of violating actually applies to him.” Ruth Marcus of The Wash ington Post warned about the potential weakness of the case prior to the unsealing of the in dictment and is now decidedly unimpressed. She calls it “dis turbingly unilluminating, and Please see Lowry page 9A McCaughey continued from page 6A other religious groups to provide single sex campus housing. Muslim women stu dents had protested that with men in the bathroom, they couldn’t even remove their hijab. Modesty is the issue at Stuyvesant High School, too. Brian Moran, assistant principal of physical education, told the student newspaper that the girls’ single sex swim classes clashed with other scheduling priorities. He made it sound like a mere scheduling inconvenience was justification enough for the change, and told the girls to wear full-body burki- nis. Sorry, but those still cling to the body when wet. New York City’s Board of Education website promises trans students “alterna tive arrangements” for anyone with “a need or desire for increased privacy.” Why should Muslim students get less? One in every 10 students in the city’s school system is Muslim. Last September, Muslim women at Syracuse University waged a battle for swim time without men in the college pool and won a concession that starts next fall. In Utah, the Muslim Civic League worked with the Sikh and Jewish com munities to pass a state law in February allowing school athletes to wear turbans, hijabs and modest pants and tops in competition instead of the regulation form fitting uniforms. Luna Banuri, the league’s executive director, said: “All faiths have modesty standards. We believe this affects multi ple communities.” Maryland and Illinois recently passed similar laws. In Bethel, Ohio, a coalition of Mus lim and Christian parents are suing to preserve single-sex bathrooms and locker rooms and halt a rule change that would allow biological boys to use the girls’ fa cilities. Most Muslims still vote Democratic, but the shift is beginning. According to a Wall Street Journal exit poll, 28% voted Republican in the 2022 midterms, a dou ble-digit increase over the 2018 mid terms. Republicans are gaining ground as more Muslims conclude the Democratic Party doesn’t show regard for Islamic values. Tell educators to respect families with faith-based values instead of shun ning them. Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM Artificially Intelligent Conversations Journalist Scott Pelley materialized on our televi sion screen last night and said, “We may look on our time as the moment civilization was trans formed, as it was by fire, agriculture, and electricity. In 2023, we learned that a machine taught itself how to speak to humans like a peer, with creativity, truth, errors, and lies. The technology, known as a “chatbot,” is only one of recent breakthroughs in Artificial In telligence — machines that can teach themselves superhuman skills.” On CBS 60 Minutes, Pelley inter viewed Google CEO Sundar Pichai about the revolution humanity is fac ing — and why it is both exciting, and terrifying. Both my husband and I have played with a chatbot (openai.com), which is a sophisticated computer program that simulates and processes human conversation. This morning, I logged on and asked the chatbot to write a four-line poem (in the style of Robert Frost) about a girl from Geor gia who is writing a column for a news paper. In five seconds, it delivered the following poem to the screen. Amidst the heat of Georgia’s sun, She pens her column, every one, With words as true as winter’s snow, Her voice, a treasure, for all to know. And that’s why I’ve been obsessed with chatbots, because they can do what it has taken me over 15 years to learn — how to write and string to gether interesting, clever, thoughtful words and phrases. The chatbot can (and will) replace me and writers like me — not tomorrow, not next month, but eventually. My husband is interested for a similar reason. He works in software services, and chatbots can do what many computer programmers spend hours doing — writing, debugging and refining code. And like humans (or unlike hu mans), AI learns from mistakes and successes. It is programmed to con stantly improve its accuracy and de sign. We’ve all heard the talk about self-driving cars, so get ready for that because the day will come when they are cruising around the town square. But they can also solve complex math, physics, and chemistry problems. They can learn a language in hours. Indeed, they can develop a brand new language. There will be a time in the not- so-distant future when we’ll be able to take a photo of the contents of our refrigerators and pantries and ask AI to give us some meal and recipe ideas that include the items we have on hand. AI will work alongside doctors to better analyze data and customize a patient’s healthcare — ushering in a new dawn ing of personalized medicine. AI de vices (think smart robots) will be used in fields that pose significant risks to humans including mining, firefighting, handling radioactive materials, etc. I still remember the first time I saw a Macintosh personal computer (PC) on a dusty desk in the basement of the Textile Engineering building at Georgia Tech. In 1988, a friend gave me a 10-minute demonstration of a rudimentary spreadsheet program and word processor program, and then I sat down and created my first-ever resume and printed it. I remember thinking, “Wow. This is cool. This is going to be really big.” And in the nineties, I remem ber the first time I saw the Internet (the world wide web) through an old browser program named Mosaic. My engineering team at Robins Air Force Base was one of the first users in the state. Within minutes, I saw the endless possibilities. When I got home that night, I told my husband all about it, and I said, “It’s really cool. It’s going to be really big.” When mobile phones evolved into smart phones that are essentially tiny, Please see Amber page 8A From the Porch By Amber Nagle
