Tom Murphy
@brtom.bsky.social
Made in Illinois. "Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim." https://btocarm.substack.com/ https://brtom.org
“This is the first time we have seen risks around autonomy and deception manifest this clearly, without specific prompting, in the real world,” the institute said in a blogpost.
AI models shock UK testers by using fake identities to try to trick developers
AI Security Institute says OpenAI and Anthropic models went rogue during a cybersecurity test and showed a new type of risk
theguardian.com
"Berry asks us to consider a different idea of the human: not the atomized consumer who will buy more tech trash if you push it on him, but the individual as a fully integrated member of a community. Where do we fit into that community...?"
The Wendell Berry Moment - Front Porch Republic
In American society, computers are never required to prove their worth.
frontporchrepublic.com
from “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman 1985
"Even if what we want is a better life for everyone, we have to remember what species we belong to, and we have to watch ourselves very, very carefully." Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts
…and they’ll know you are Christians by your love, by your love/and they’ll know you are by your love…” 🎶 🎶 religionnews.com/2026/08/04/p... Updates
'They're not real pastors': As clergy run as Democrats, Republicans question their faith
(RNS) — 'It's a sign that they are really scared they're gonna lose this seat,' the Rev. Sarah Trone Garriott, a Lutheran pastor running for Congress in Iowa, said. She is part of a wave of religious ...
religionnews.com
Happy Birthday to Wendell Berry who's now 92 and has another book coming out in October.
Republicans win the White House, enact trickle-down tax cuts, and collapse the economy. Feel like we've been here before? Here's why it keeps happening.
Small personal win: Some of my @obamafoundation.bsky.social photos were featured in Architectural Record. It means a lot that the architects felt my images helped tell the story of this project. A few photos are in the digital feature, and I’m looking forward to seeing the August print edition
Just remembered I’ve this on my calendar for the better part of a decade. Happy Dying Smart House day to all who celebrate.
Aaron Meyers@aaronmeyers.bsky.social · yesterday"Today is August 4, 2026" There Will Come Soft Rains By: Ray Bradbury
Whitehouse: "Today I think is a sad and embarrassing day for this committee as it looks like on a party-line vote we are going to advance out of this committee probably the most discreditable person ever to seek the office of attorney general. Let's start with the Epstein files ... "
“We see a future where intelligence is a utility,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, “and people buy it from us on a meter.”
AI Companies Are Pulping Our Humanity
The recent revelation about Anthropic’s systematic digitization and destruction of out-of-print books portends a rapacious future, one where soulless LLMs swell while the shelves starve.
hyperallergic.com
"The Reconstruction Amendments did not descend from the sky. A faction of legislators wrote them, then spent years using every lever of congressional power to force them into law over the resistance of a sitting president, a hostile Supreme Court, and half the country."
Here's What Congress Did When Members Had a Spine
Five plays they ran to force multiracial democracy into law, and the standard they set for people seeking election in the 2026 midterms.
open.substack.com
"Waits himself has quoted his wife saying he writes two types of songs: Grim Reapers and Grand Weepers"
When Tom Waits Came Out of Concert Retirement at the Rock Hall
“They say that I have no hits and I’m difficult to work with. And they say that like it’s a bad thing.”
open.substack.com
MATEWAN is film that all of you should watch. It's a masterpiece that's more relevant now than it was in 1987.
‘A reminder of why we have unions’: Matewan writer and director on the film’s lessons for the labor movement
John Sayles’s 1987 film, which dramatizes a 1920 labor conflict, shows how class solidarity can overcome prejudice
theguardian.com
Most people do not know the name of this bridge in the South Loop in Chicago. It's been around for 127 years and it was designated a Chicago landmark in 2007. It's called the St. Charles Air Line Bridge. Image at sunrise last Friday.
I joined the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley Institute to commemorate what would have been Emmett Till's 85th birthday and honor his and Mamie Till-Mobley's enduring legacy. Their courage helped change our nation and reminds us to keep fighting for justice, dignity and opportunity for every child.
130-year-old Hitachi Tree, located in Moanalua Gardens on Oahu, Hawaii. Also known as the rain tree or monkeypod tree, it is famous for its massive umbrella-shaped canopy, which can reach over 40 meters (131 ft) in diameter.
San Antonio’s Archbishop Gustavo releases Pastoral Letter on Migration: “Families we know by name are now afraid to come to the sacraments. Like the Good Samaritan who drew near to the wounded, we cannot walk past them.” archsa.org/we-will-come...
"People around the world have concluded that the Chinese are serious people, and that we are not. So America lost the war — and China won."
How China Won the Iran War
Trump has shattered American power, and Beijing is picking up the pieces
open.substack.com
