Artificial Intelligence: What It Can Do For You, And To You. Like it or not, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here, and it will increasingly impact our lives. Although AI is still in its infancy, it can already perform amazing tasks – it can read, write, see, hear, speak, smell, touch, move, read your emotions, play games, debate with you, and even read your mind.
Where does it go from here?
Steve Williamson and Gary LaMaster discuss its upside, its downside and try to offer some answers to that very important question. You also find much more information about the subject in our previous programs on AI from August 15, 2016, October 3, 2016, and December 5, 2016.
An Update From The Mayor Of Sedona. Steve Williamson and Karen McClelland welcome Scott Jablow, Mayor of Sedona who is running for re-election this Fall. He provides updates on a variety of issues beginning with the planned Safe Place to Park.
“Well, the whole point of the Safe Place to Park was very, very simple,” says Jablow. We listen. This council that we have right now, all seven of us are out in the public listening to businesses, hoteliers and residents alike. And we’ve heard loud and clear that the businesses are hurting for employees. Many of them…we found that at least 30 to 40 of them have employees living in the forest right now…and these people need someplace to sleep that’s safe.”
He notes that the reason the employees are unhoused is that their prior residences were turned into short-term rentals. On that topic, Jablow explains that there has been some progress in controlling short-term rentals. He reminds listeners that they are still totally controlled by the state, but, he says, “They have given us a little bit of latitude. So, we have permitting they’ve allowed us to do.”
The other persistent issues he addresses include OHVs, traffic, Sedona’s legislative lobbyist, and Yavapai College.
Growing Inequity. Steve Williamson and Karen McClelland welcome Bob Oliphant back to the show to discuss the latest developments with Yavapai College in the face of a second year of county-wide property tax increases. For many years, Oliphant has reported the disparity between the college’s investments on the east and west sides of Yavapai County.
Even though Sedona and the Verde Valley contribute a disproportionate amount of tax revenue to the college, the vast majority of it continues to be spent in the Prescott and Prescott Valley area.
Oliphant says, “Not much has changed over the past six or seven years. In fact, if anything, the dominance of the west side of the county has increased rather than decreased. The amount of millions of dollars that they’re investing in new projects over there is astonishing for a small community college with a tax base of about 240,000…Of course, I look at things from our lens from over here, and we’re left behind, been left behind. And we’re simply falling further and further behind.”
GOP Attacks On Voting And Voters. Many Republicans continue to spew the notion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen claiming, among other things, that Republican ballots were ground up and fed to chickens, that China dumped many thousands of votes into ballot boxes, that tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants voted, that thousands of dead people voted, that mail-in ballots were all corrupt, that electronic voting machines were hacked by Venezuela or Italy or China or others, etc., etc., etc.
Never mind that numerous Republicans-led studies failed to find extensive voting fraud. Indeed, the few examples they found were – you guessed it – committed by Republicans.
Of course, Republicans have never been known to let the truth get in the way of a good story. So, in state legislatures around the country, they have introduced numerous bills to restrict the number of polling places, the number of drop boxes, the number of days for early voting, the use of electronic voting machines, the use of electronic vote counters, etc.
They have passed bills to require special voter IDs and limited their availability. They have purged voter registration lists. They have threatened election workers, even Republican election workers, to flee their jobs and, often, their home counties or states.
They have gerrymandered congressional and legislative districts to marginalize minorities. And, of course, they have tried to intimidate voters by placing armed “observers” near polling places and ballot drop boxes.
One might get the idea that Republicans don’t want all American citizens to vote.
Campaigning For The Future You Want. Karen McClelland welcomes Ylenia Aguilar, candidate for Arizona Corporation Commission. Since becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen, Aguilar has become a dynamic public servant.
In addition to raising two children and working as Business Development Manager with a water analytics company, she has served on a school board, the board of a health foundation, and she currently serves as a member of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District.
One of her passions is ensuring that all people have access to clean, life-giving water today and in the future. As a member of the Corporation Commission, she hopes to hold corporations accountable for responsibly using water and our other natural resources.
“Most people don’t understand that water and energy go hand in hand. If we don’t have water in our dams – in our reservoirs – that impacts our energy,” Aguilar explains. “We need to have leaders that plan long-term versus short-term, because we need to think about our future generations. Not just what’s happening right now.”
“We need innovative leaders with creative ideas, with different platforms. The previous commissioners…the current commissioners who have been there for a long time have not thought about conservation and our current climate change, right?” She says that you don’t have to go far to notice climate change. “We live in Arizona. We notice it. It’s going to get really hot.”
Given the narrative of fighting between Muslims and Jews in the Middle East, it may come as a surprise to most people that there is a significant population of Palestinians who are Christians. Indeed, Farah says they may have comprised ten percent before the removal of the majority of Palestinians from their homes in 1948 in order to create the nation of Israel.
He explains, “Generally, under Muslim rule, Palestinian Christians really thrived for centuries. Now in less than two generations, we Palestinian Christians in Gaza have been totally decimated under Israeli rule, under Israeli attacks. Israel calls it mowing the lawn…that has prompted Palestinian Christians to flee.”
Farah goes on to describe the brutal killings of his relatives by Israeli forces, as well as the destruction of hospitals. “It is absolute mayhem and absolute cruelty that is unprecedented,” he says, “And, you know, the world just sits and watches.”
“Thank God for American Jews who are progressive, who know what is happening, and who help us, the Palestinian-Americans, and our allies to enlighten people about what’s happening.” He thanks the growing solidarity movement here in the U.S., which he believes is being noticed by the Israeli people and gives him hope. “Frankly, I think that without it, there’s going to be a descent into total bloodshed. One has to be totally insane, totally insane, to think that what Israel is doing is going to bring peace to the region, bring security to Israel.”
A Safe Place To Park. Steve Williamson and Karen McClelland welcome Linda Martinez and Councilmember Jessica Williamson to discuss Sedona’s planned effort to address the shortage of workforce housing.
The program is aimed at helping just 40 full-time workers who are already sleeping in their vehicles because they cannot find affordable housing in the area. Yet, despite the desperate need, the concept has become controversial as a result of what seems to be a concerted effort to misinform and create fear on social media.
“What it isn’t is a homeless camp,” says Williamson. “Under the program, people who are employed in Sedona can come to park at night. The facility is only open from four in the afternoon ‘til eight in the morning. And everybody’s got to leave in the morning. Nobody can leave anything there…it closes down every single day.”
Martinez adds, “These are the most functional of the homeless population because they own a vehicle. And they are the first to leave homelessness. They are already parking in Sedona without sanitation, without showers, without safety.”
Some opponents of the program, often fueled by social media, have called such people lazy, addicts, animals, and possibly child predators. But, says Martinez, “Funny thing about all of this, is when they were able to live in a home, when they could afford it or before they were evicted, they were called neighbors.”
The Horror Of The Hamas-Israeli War And The History That Led To It. Steve Williamson and Karen McClelland welcome Daniel Nerenberg, Education and Communication Specialist for Just Vision to discuss the war in the Middle East.
Nerenberg begins by stating, “The war is far from over. Israel attacks are ongoing. Bebe Netanyahu promises to go into Rafah at some point, which will be an absolute catastrophe if it happens. Everyone has warned that it would be a massacre simply because people in Rafah have nowhere to go and you literally can’t bring tanks in there without causing major damage.”
“Where we stand today is what many observers are referring to as a genocide,” Nerenberg continues. “Over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and tanks in the past six months – 14,000 children. The Israeli army has dropped 70 million kilograms of explosives…the point of reference is more than three of the nuclear bombs dropped in Hiroshima.”
This despite the fact that the Gaza strip had already been deemed unlivable in 2020.
As for bringing long-term peace to the region after the war, Nerenberg says, “First thing that needs to happen is that the structures of oppression must be undone. Once they’re undone, we can start talking about structural justice.”
The Complexities And Challenges Of Managing A Small City. Steve Williamson welcomes three members of the Sedona City Council: Pete Furman, Melissa Dunn, and Brian Fultz to discuss some of the more controversial issues facing the city.
None of the three had ever been elected to office before. Furman was an engineer, Dunn is a sociologist, and Fultz is a small business entrepreneur. All chose to run for City Council for different reasons.
Bringing People And Jurisdictions Together. Steve Williamson and Karen McClelland welcome Donna Michaels, the incumbent who is running for re-election as Yavapai County Supervisor for District 3. Michaels is a Democrat who won office in 2020 in a district that is dominated by Republicans two-and-a-half to one.
A self-professed policy wonk, Michaels addresses her position on a variety of issues such as immigration, OHVs (Off Highway Vehicles), forest land, cattle grazing, mining, water, and the many difficulties faced with competing stakeholders and overlapping federal, state, county, and city jurisdictions.
She explains that her job is to work for the entire county. Not just her district. But whatever the issue, she views it through the lens of the Constitution saying, “We are elected to uphold the Constitution and I don’t and will not be carried away from my principled base to get a vote.”
