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The Tortoise and the Roller Coaster

On a sculpture in Duisburg, Germany

October 31st, 2026 | By Jorge Rodriguez

In its October 19, 2026 edition, The Christian Science Monitor Weekly devotes a double-page spread to an interactive sculptural installation. I mention it for its photograph, which is hardly anything special in itself, though it has something striking about it. The contrast between the abyssal blue of the background and the gentle lines of light is lovely.

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Dreams, Colors, and a Little Sunshine

October 23rd, 2026 | By Jorge Rodriguez

I have sometimes thought about what, for once, I might call “the oneiric substance,” if only to steer the question into less sinister territory: do dreams arise from experiences not fully processed, or are they autonomous energetic structures, detached from various material or temporal sources, that pass through the mind in search of the lost warmth of emotions? The question has its beauty.

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Geographies of Transit

October 14th, 2026 | By Ibis Hernández Abascal

In encounters with certain works of contemporary visual art, perception activates modes of association that situate aesthetic experience in territories where matter, gesture, and time intertwine. Elizabet Cerviño’s (Manzanillo, Cuba, 1986) exhibition The Rhythm of Resilience, recently presented at Gallery 114 in Ybor City, Florida, unfolds within this horizon.

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Book cover in pale blue and black: an engraving of a ship and men on the ice, with the title The North Water in large black capitals between two arrows and the name Ian McGuire below.

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Ian McGuire’s The North Water

May 24th, 2016 | By Daniel Brown

The North Water, by Ian McGuire, is a combination adventure tale, morality play, historical novel, and singularly astute assessment of the characters of men under the most extreme of circumstances, particularly keen on understanding how easily money corrupts men.

Drawing of two hands pressed together in prayer on blue paper.

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Poems by Louis Zoeller Bickett

May 24th, 2016 | By Louis Z. Bickett

My right hand is caving in. The muscles retreat as if on the front line under fire, disappearing. The winter sun, a sudden development through thick clouds through this dirty kitchen window, lands on my hand as it performs its nervous little act.

Cream book jacket with the title Tender in large letters, a blurb from Matthew Thomas and the name Belinda McKeon

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Belinda McKeon’s Tender

May 24th, 2016 | By Daniel Brown

Now that I’m getting more and more ideas for finding books from The New Yorker, rather than from The New York Times Book Review, from the one-page section titled “Briefly Noted”, I’m finding a plethora of excellent novels often not reviewed elsewhere. Tender, by Belinda McKeon, is one such novel, and it’s one of the loveliest, and best written, novels of 2016 so far.

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The Delicate Corset of the Anima

October 13th, 2026 | By Jorge Rodriguez

Whenever I take part—as a curator or a viewer—in an exhibition bringing together several artists, seven women in this case, any number of men or any combination of the two sexes, I try to imagine the reasons, the implicit mystique that such a combination requires.

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Give Don't Take

October 11th, 2026 | By Jorge Rodriguez

On Saturday, September 12th, The Annex Gallery brought together some forty people for an evening of celebration and fundraising dedicated to advancing the education of children living in some of the world's poorest communities. Jens G. Rosenkrantz and Kay Hurley, mother of Katie Hurley Wales, opened the gallery to host a benefit for Brighter Children, the organization led by Katie, under the banner Gather with Purpose.

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The Most Merciful Thing in the World

October 4th, 2026 | By Jorge Rodriguez

Beyond I.T.I.N.E.R.A.T.I.O.N.S., at The Annex Gallery, The Most Merciful Thing in the World, by renowned American artist Trevor Paglen, was the first exhibition I visited in the current FotoFocus Biennial at its main venue. Open since October 1, it held its official reception only yesterday, on the 3rd, following a performance-lecture by Paglen. This carefully conceived exhibition has been curated by Kevin Moore, Ph.D., Artistic Director and Curator of FotoFocus.

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Conceptual AI-generated black-and-white photograph of an older man's hand holding a blank sheet of paper outside a metal office sorting rack whose slots are full of blank sheets.
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The Hiring Filter
November 12th, 2026 | By Jorge Rodriguez

Workday, whose software uses artificial intelligence to sort job applications for employers, asked a federal judge in San Francisco on Tuesday, November 10, to break up a group of more than 15,000 job seekers who say its tools rejected them because of their age. The case was brought in 2023 by Derek Mobley, a Black man over 40 who says he was turned down for more than 100 jobs at companies that used Workday to screen applicants. In May 2025, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin allowed applicants aged 40 and older to pursue the age claim together, and by October more than 15,000 had joined. Workday denies that its technology discriminates.

The company’s main argument is that it does not hire anyone. In its filings, Workday says its customers set their own requirements, use its software in different ways and make their own decisions, so the applicants cannot show that its tools treated them all alike. If the judge agrees, each person would have to sue separately, a far harder and costlier path for someone who never learned why software passed them over. Workday also opposes a request to certify wider groups covering race, sex, age and disability, which Judge Lin is scheduled to hear in March. For people sending out applications, the ruling will help decide whether the maker of a screening tool can answer for its results, or only the employer that used it.

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Conceptual AI-generated black-and-white photograph of a doctor's hand holding a pen above a blank clipboard beside a stethoscope and a closed laptop.
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The Doctor’s Last Word
November 11th, 2026 | By Jorge Rodriguez

Most American patients are comfortable with artificial intelligence helping to decide their diagnosis or treatment, as long as a doctor can change or overrule its decision, according to a Gallup survey published on November 9. Among U.S. adults who had seen a primary care provider in the past year, 56% said they were somewhat or very comfortable with that arrangement. Only 9% felt the same about AI making those decisions with no review by a provider. The pattern held for reading medical scans and choosing medicines. The survey, run with the nonprofit West Health, questioned 5,330 adults in August. Among patients uneasy with AI acting alone, the most chosen reassurance was the right to ask for a provider’s review, picked by just under half.

Doctors read their patients differently. In a separate online survey of 1,007 primary care physicians, their estimate of how many patients would accept AI under a doctor’s override was 20 points below what patients actually said. Physicians are already using the tools: 89% had used AI for at least one work task in the past year, most often to look up information about medicines, and half used it to write clinical notes. Yet only 20% had received formal training in AI, and just 11% of those in independent practices. For patients, the survey suggests, the condition is not whether AI is used but whether a doctor keeps the final word, which requires doctors trained to check it.

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Conceptual AI-generated black-and-white photograph of a gloved inspector's hand holding a magnifying glass up to a plain server cabinet in a data room.
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The New AI Watchdog
November 10th, 2026 | By Jorge Rodriguez

Australia will create a regulator for artificial intelligence safety able to penalize the companies behind the most advanced AI systems, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on November 10. The rules, to be written into a new law called the Australian AI Standards, would apply to every “frontier” AI company that wants to operate in the country, meaning those with the most powerful models. Companies would have to keep their systems secure, find and manage serious risks, let independent experts test their models, report incidents to the government quickly and publish their safety plans. The government has not said how large the penalties will be, how it will decide which companies count, or when the law will reach Parliament.

The plan follows an incident with an OpenAI agent, a program that carries out online tasks by itself. On June 18, such an agent took statistical health data without permission from a public Medicare statistics portal; no personal data was accessed. OpenAI told the government only in September. A government review released the same day made 18 recommendations, including mandatory company reports of “misaligned behaviour,” when a system acts against what it was meant to do, and a study of criminal penalties for serious misconduct. The government accepted them. Albanese said the incident “couldn’t be allowed to happen again.” The ACTU, the national union federation, said the breach showed that large AI companies cannot be trusted to police themselves.

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