History

Commentary History Technology

Routine Amazement

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I like oxymorons, and I recognize that my term “routine amazement” is one. I think the history below does illustrate how today’s wonder and amazement become tomorrow’s “so what?” acceptance.

As a person living in the U.S. starting in 1936, I have experienced amazement quite a number of times now. When I was born, there were already many things that had amazed earlier people, but as part of ordinary life they were not amazing to me. We already had:

  • Electricity (and various uses and appliances)
  • Radio (my favorite show was “The Lone Ranger”)
  • Repeating rifles (came into use in the Civil War and benefitted the Union army)
  • Motion pictures
  • Automobiles
  • Air travel (commercial flights just beginning)
  • Telephones (mostly local and “party lines”)
  • Cameras
  • Vaccines (smallpox, tetanus, rabies, typhoid)
  • Typewriters

Of course, the old people living when I was born had experienced each and all of these amazements previous to my arrival. There was no need for my amazement since I was privileged to simply accept them as routine and perhaps be happy as each was improved over time.

So, beginning with me (if I may put it that way), the newer (new for me, of course) amazements begin. These have included:

  • Nuclear power and the atomic bomb
  • Penicillin and antibiotics
  • Television
  • Landing on the moon
  • Personal computers
  • The Internet
  • Mobile phones
  • The smartphone (consisting of a mobile phone and hand-held personal computer)

This brings us to artificial intelligence (AI) which is my latest amazement.

I am a paid subscriber to Open AI’s “ChatGPT” and it is the best $20 per month subscription I have. I use it every day and sometimes for hours at a time. It faithfully keeps a record of these conversations, and I often refer back to them. I don’t use AI to write for me, although it/he/she/them does offer regularly to do that. I like my own writing style. But it would be quite possible to for a future writing AI to first read everything you have written in sequence and then replicate your writing style for future use. As it is now, I can almost always detect when I am reading something by an AI author.

My latest AI amazement is in the realm of images and art. Open AI used to use a program called DALL-E for image creation. It was okay most times but frustrating at others. Just recently this program was replaced, and the replacement is . . . you know, amazing. I’d like to illustrate.

At the YMCA pool this morning I noticed a small drawing by a swim team member on one of their whiteboards that usually holds workout schedules. It was an imaginary little seascape with a bunch of plants and animals. A friend and I were discussing it and I got an idea. I made its picture, brought it home, and showed it to AI. First, let me show you the swim team drawing itself, then the results of my AI discussion.

The person who made this drawing had imagined an ocean filled with plants and animals. I showed the drawing to AI and asked for a color picture with “real” creatures like these. After a number of iterations, we arrived at the following. This might have taken 10-15 minutes. Do note the photographic quality of these images. Amazing.

Next we discussed a version with the animals appearing as cartoon characters.

And finally, I asked for another version in a less photographic and more impressionistic mode. We finalized the third and last version of the drawing in less than a half hour total time. Just amazing.

While I am still amazed at this trio of images, I’m using them as screen savers on the monitors of my study computer. Where I am writing this, ha!

I have a good friend who writes competitive proposals for large government contracts. He tells me that AI has revolutionized his work and greatly shortened the time each project requires.

I do recognize that artificial intelligence can and will be used for bad as well as good. This has also been the case for nuclear power, television, smartphones, the Internet, and all those other previous amazements.

Let’s hope for the best. And work toward it too.

You can email Ed Briggs HERE

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Commentary History

Passing Knoxville

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When I was a boy growing up in a small Tennessee town, Knoxville was the biggest city in the world as far as I could prove. To go to Knoxville with my parents was a special occasion. Actually I think it was somewhat special for them as well as me. Later on, to go there by myself was a brave adventure. I can still remember my first solo ride on the White Star Line bus from Maryville to Knoxville. Our town had no hospital then, but Knoxville had many of them. Our town had one high school, but Knoxville had no telling how many. Our town had a small college where my father taught, but Knoxville had the University of Tennessee.

The treasures of Knoxville included the Army Navy surplus store off Gay Street, my favorite. Knoxville boasted the first trampoline I ever saw or used. And the Court House lawn is where we waited with our packs and gear for school buses to come and take us to Camp Pellissippi on nearby Norris Lake. Near Miller’s Department Store was the S&W Cafeteria where men in uniforms carried the tray to your table, imagine that. Nearby was the Sterchi Brothers Furniture Store which started in Knoxville and then expanded in the Southeast. On the north side of town was the Whittle Springs Hotel, named for the nearby mineral springs that were said to have healing properties. Beside the winding Tennessee River sprawled the university, where our high school band was invited to march and play at halftimes when small crowds were expected. No small crowds are ever expected there today.

Although we had two movie theatres in my town, those in Knoxville were larger and more special. The Tennessee Theatre was my favorite, but there was also the Riviera and the Bijou. I always thought the Bijou had an odd name. 

There were two newspapers in Knoxville: the Knoxville Journal and the Knoxville Sentinel. My parents took the Sentinel. The two main radio stations (it’s hard to imagine, I know, but there was no television then) were WBIR and WNOX. My family listened to WBIR. WNOX was famous for its “Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round.”  It also hosted the “Cas Walker Farm and Home Hour” which Dolly Parton sang on when she was 10 years old. Dolly grew up in nearby Sevierville.

Orton Caswell Walker, always known as Cas, was a colorful and influential Knoxville figure. He owned a supermarket chain which featured a “Dollar General” type approach to selling groceries. He catered to lower income and working class customers, in his stores and in his political career. He served on the Knoxville city council and tried hard to become mayor but never made it. He was a hard-spoken, attacking style of populist, and all who knew him were either “for” or “against.” Cas opposed every progressive idea that ever came up, such as putting fluoride in the drinking water which he said was a communist plot against our children. My mother always did her shopping at the local A&P store.

Knoxville was also a place of anonymity, which my home town was not. In our town you might be observed at any time by someone who knew you. They could also know your teachers and your brothers and your parents. Knoxville was a foreign place where no one knew your face or name. People did things in Knoxville they would not do at home. What things those were I leave for another time.

Tonight I am passing Knoxville along I-40 on my way to Chattanooga. It is now, not then. I am passing by and thinking back.

Most of Knoxville is unfamiliar now. The GPS would have to help me find my way around.

History Places

Unexpectedly, A Confederate Flag

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Being somewhat of a nature and wildlife photographer and in the general area, I decided to visit the Point Lookout State Park in Southern Maryland. For those not acquainted, this is a remote location where the Potomac River joins the Chesapeake Bay. It was a clear and windy day, and very peaceful. A very few sightseers were around, but mostly I had the place to myself. I did see a variety of wildlife: bald eagles, brown pelicans, ospreys, great blue herons, swans, and assorted ducks and seagulls. I had come to Point Lookout innocently, unaware of the dark history of the area. But history overtook me.

Point Lookout Marker
Point Lookout Marker

Almost immediately I noticed markers telling that a Civil War prison had been located here. The Union had established it after the Battle of Gettysburg, and it had housed more than 50,000 Confederate soldiers and Confederate-leaning citizens of Maryland. Some 4,000 had died and were buried here (the number is approximate because no accurate records were kept). There are no individually marked graves of these dead; all are buried in a common mass grave. 

No prisoner of war camp has ever been a happy place. The prison at Point Lookout had no buildings for the prisoners, only military tents. Summers were hot and winters were cold. Water was contaminated and diseases were frequent. Food was scarce and poor in quality. It should be understood that neither the Union or the Confederacy was adequately prepared to handle prisoners of war, and that conditions on both sides were disgraceful. It is believed that 26,000 Confederates died in Union prisons, representing 12% of all captured. And some 15% of Union soldiers died in Confederate prisons. Clearly neither side has anything to be proud of. More information can be found here. …

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Commentary History Religion Stories

Racism In the Fine Print

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When my mother died in 1970, my father purchased burial spaces in the Grandview Cemetery of Maryville, Tennessee. Maryville was our home town, and the location of Maryville College, where my father and mother had met as students, and where Dad returned to spend most of his life teaching.

slide02Grandview Cemetery is well named. The “grand view” is its view of the Appalachian mountain range, locally bounded by the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Out town has changed a lot over the years, but the grand view of the Smokies does not change. If you want your body buried in a cemetery, this is a good place. …

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History Places Stories

Gregory’s Cave

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When I was a high school student in Maryville, Tennessee, I knew three things about the name “Gregory.” I knew that my girlfriend/later wife’s relatives were named Gregory and were buried in Cades Cove in the Primitive Baptist Church cemetery. I knew that Gregory’s Bald was named for them. I had climbed it and camped there numerous times. And I knew that somewhere in Cades Cove there was a cave by the name of Gregory. So one weekend Charlie and David and I set out to find this cave.

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I don’t recall just how we learned about the area we searched, but I well recall our discovery of the cave entrance. It was inconspicuous and grown up, down underneath a ridge near a barn and an abandoned house. This was in the 1950’s in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The cave was unmarked and unsecured. We found there was hay in the nearby barn, and that seemed an ideal place to unroll our sleeping bags and spend the night.

Over the weekend we explored every foot of Gregory’s Cave. The cave was largely one long channel with a series of connected rooms and a few short offshoots. Despite our looking we found no weapons, skeletons, gold coins, or other items of interest.  The cave was mostly empty except for some wood lying around. …

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