Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

It’s always a pleasure to go to Miller Plaza, listen to the music and watch folks set up stalls for a festival. The activity this past weekend began at 5pm so I got there a bit early to watch them get ready. Everyone setting up looked happy even in the intense sunlight and a few kids even hopped, skipped and jumped around. I admire these younger folks doing their best with a temperature over 90 degrees. Us older folks are especially vulnerable to these heat waves and even standing in the shade made me sweat like mad. I’m thinking that climate change deniers and Supreme Court justices should stand with me. Maybe a little heat exhaustion would have them promote laws and projects to protect us.  

Continue reading Justices, Come Experience our Climate – by Deborah Levine →

(originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Our middle-aged kids came to visit us and we wanted to do something special with them. But with the temperature in the mid-nineties, none of us could tolerate being outside for long. Fortunately, Chattanooga has wonderful opportunities to have fun indoors with full-speed air conditioning. Given our long-time fascination with political artifacts, we were eager to check out the exhibit, Path to the Presidency, hosted by the public library’s Local History and Genealogy Department and presented by the Robert L. Golden Institute of Art and History.

Continue reading “Path to the Presidency” at the library – by Deborah Levine →

Originally published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press

It was super exciting to be invited to the annual conference of Project Voice which has taken place in Chattanooga, home to the country’s fastest internet since 2016. Project Voice looks at artificial intelligence, but not the traditional artificial intelligence (AI) that analyzes historical data and makes future numeric predictions. Rather, the focus is on conversational and generative AI, terms I hadn’t heard until sitting in the conference. Conversational AI can hold two-way interactions with humans by understanding and responding in text or speech. Generative AI can take prompts and create all kinds of stuff that never existed before but are indistinguishable from human-generated content. I started to feel overwhelmed by this new information. 

Continue reading Why get “interested” in Artificial Intelligence – by Deborah Levine →

 (originally published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press) 

Wacky weather is our new norm. I called my daughter in Maine to tell her about how we went quickly from 80 degrees to below freezing. She said, “weird”, but it didn’t compare to what she’s going through. At first she called it a “spring snowstorm”, but as it got worse, she named it a “snowpocalpse”. She lost power, the trees in her yard were downed and despite having a monster truck, she barely made it home from work. 

If there’s any doubt that climate change is a reality, pay attention to a recent headline in the Chattanooga Times Free Press that warned of “Brewing Storms” as alarmingly high ocean temperatures suggest a nasty hurricane season coming up. My friends in Bermuda are paying attention. The Bermuda Royal Gazette reports that  waters in the Atlantic’s main hurricane development region had temperatures 65 % hotter at the end of January than the next closest year. Temperatures recorded in March aren’t usually seen until mid-July. So late summer should be a hurricane doozy with rapidly strengthening storms, even close to land.

Continue reading Praying for the Earth’s Healing – by Deborah Levine →

originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

All too often we look at the elderly as outliers to society, and the presidential election is embedding in our minds that being old is a non-starter. It’s getting harder to look at an elderly person and feel that you’re experiencing a great moment. Instead, they’re recipients of our sympathy, and objects of charity. That’s why funding Social Security is the only political issue focused on seniors. And that’s women who want to advertise products or be newscasters on TV face-lift themselves silly. The value of being a senior citizen is fading. 

Continue reading Inter-generational education needed now – by  Deborah Levine →

 ( originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press)  

With the news being so depressing and alarming these days, is there any relief? There’s Russia and the murder of Putin protester Alexei Navalney, and the Middle East mess. Then there’s the US with 2024 having the second-highest number on record of mass killings and deaths to this point in a single year. Last year ended with 42 mass killings and 217 deaths. I’m guessing that the final numbers for 2024 will be even worse. My brain hurts and I’m sure that I’m not alone in looking for a ray of sunshine. 

Continue reading Finding the joy in a world gone to the dogs – by Deborah Levine →