Well, due to the realities of the internet in 2026, I am now publishing on this platform that no one has ever heard of without any promotion whatsoever. Why you may ask? That's a simple answer: Social media is destroying culture. Yes, that's right. Social media devours culture the way Donald Trump devours a well-done steak with ketchup – aggressively and sloppily.

Why, you may ask, would anyone do such a thing? Because I need to put something out into the universe, and I'd rather do it anonymously than attach my name to it and actively seek out other people's attention. If you want to dedicate some of your precious time to reading this blog, go for it! If not, it's all good, bro.

I've recently learned how to entertain myself fairly successfully.

Think of this as sort of like Doogie Howser's computer journal, but the dystopian, 2026 version where the internet is out to get you, so you play hide and seek with being a public person.

I'll be writing about politics, postmodern philosophy, spirituality, 12-step recovery, culture, music, and my daily life (just to name a few areas of interest).

Join me, if you like. Huzzah!

The contract was worth ten euros a month. Hold on to that detail, because everything else about the case is enormous: years of litigation in Austria, a reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union, an Advocate General's opinion, and a judgment that now shapes how every bank, insurer, landlord platform and hiring tool in the bloc ought to talk to the people it turns away. It began when an Austrian mobile operator declined to sign up a customer, known in the court papers only as CK, because an automated credit assessment said her credit standing was not good enough.

The assessment came from Dun & Bradstreet Austria, a firm that sells exactly this kind of judgment to other companies. CK wanted to know how it had been reached. An Austrian court later found, by final decision, that the firm had not given her the “meaningful information about the logic involved” that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires, and had not adequately explained why it could not.

So the question travelled to Luxembourg. On 27 February 2025, the Court answered it in a way that, on paper, looks like a clean win for anyone who has stared at a rejection and wondered what just happened. The controller, the Court said, must describe “the procedure and principles actually applied” so that the person “can understand which of his or her personal data have been used, and how they have been used”. Dumping the algorithm on the table does not count. Neither does narrating every computational step.

Eighteen months on, a run of 2026 research papers suggests the win may be emptier than it looks. One systematic review finds that the academic literature meant to bridge law and explainable AI mostly fails to do so. A legal scholar in Poland argues that technical explanations amount to a “regulatory fiction”. A trio of researchers in Germany shows that the most popular explanation methods cannot, by their mathematical nature, tell you whether the decision about you was wrong.

Put together, the picture is uncomfortable. Europe has written a right into law three times over, the top court has given it teeth, and the tools companies reach for to honour it may produce something technically correct, legally defensible and almost useless to the person on the receiving end. This is the hollow explanation. The question is who is supposed to fill it.

A Ten-Euro Contract Reaches Luxembourg

Case C-203/22, CK v Dun & Bradstreet Austria, was referred by the Administrative Court of Vienna. By then, whether Dun & Bradstreet had broken the law was settled. The Vienna court needed something more practical: what, exactly, does a company have to hand over to satisfy the right? And what happens when it claims the answer is a trade secret?

Advocate General Jean Richard de la Tour delivered his opinion on 12 September 2024. The First Chamber's judgment followed on 27 February 2025, and the Court's press release put it bluntly: the data subject “is entitled to an explanation as to how the decision was taken in respect of him or her”. The subheading went further: “The explanation provided must enable the data subject to understand and challenge the automated decision.” That word, challenge, matters. The Court was tying explanation not to courtesy but to the ability to push back.

A systematic review by Benjamin Fresz, Elena Dubovitskaya and Marco F. Huber, discussed below, summarises the reasoning that has since become the reference point. Article 15(1)(h) GDPR grants a genuine right to an explanation of the specific automated decision, even where the processing is highly complex. The explanation must be meaningful, which the Court glossed as “useful, relevant, important and easily understandable”. Under Article 12(1) GDPR, it must be concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible, in clear and plain language. And simply disclosing the algorithm or describing every step in the automated process would not be precise or intelligible enough.

The Court did offer one concrete hint. It could be appropriate, its press release says, to tell the person “the extent to which a variation in the personal data taken into account would have led to a different result”. Machine learning researchers will recognise this as, more or less, a counterfactual explanation, the idea popularised in a 2018 Harvard Journal of Law and Technology paper by Sandra Wachter, Brent Mittelstadt and Chris Russell titled “Counterfactual Explanations without Opening the Black Box”. If your income had been this much higher, the system would have said yes.

On trade secrets, the Court closed a door that companies had hoped to keep ajar. Where a controller believes the requested information includes protected third-party data or trade secrets, it must hand it to the competent supervisory authority or court, which balances the competing interests to decide how much the individual sees. The GDPR also precludes a national rule that excludes the right of access, as a general matter, whenever it would compromise a trade secret. “It's proprietary” is not an answer. It is the start of a process in which someone other than the company decides.

Fifteen months earlier, in the SCHUFA scoring case (C-634/21, decided 7 December 2023), the same Court had held that a credit score produced by an agency counts as an “automated individual decision” under the GDPR where the lender attributes a determining role to it in granting credit. Together, the logic is clear: the score itself can be the decision, and the person scored is owed an account of how it was reached.

One Right, Written Three Times

European law now contains the right to an explanation in at least three places. Each works slightly differently, and the overlaps matter.

The oldest is Article 15(1)(h) GDPR. It gives a data subject the right to know of “the existence of automated decision-making, including profiling, referred to in Article 22(1) and (4) and, at least in those cases, meaningful information about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of such processing for the data subject”. It is tied to Article 22, which governs decisions based solely on automated processing that produce legal or similarly significant effects. For years academics argued over whether the GDPR contained a right to explanation at all. After 2025, that argument is largely over.

The second is Article 18(8) of the recast Consumer Credit Directive, Directive (EU) 2023/2225, usually called CCD2. Where a creditworthiness assessment involves automated processing of personal data, consumers may request human intervention from the creditor, receive a clear and comprehensible explanation of the assessment, express their point of view, and request a review of both the assessment and the decision. Point (a) specifies that the explanation should cover the logic and risks involved in the automated processing, as well as its significance and effects on the decision. Member States had until 20 November 2025 to transpose the directive, and its provisions apply from 20 November 2026, less than four weeks after this article is published.

Łukasz Górski, whose paper is discussed below, notes a useful feature. The GDPR right is anchored to decisions based “solely” on automated processing, a threshold SCHUFA read broadly but which must still be cleared. For CCD2, it is enough that automated processing is “involved”.

The third is Article 86 of the AI Act. Any affected person subject to a decision taken by a deployer “on the basis of the output from a high-risk AI system listed in Annex III”, which produces legal effects or similarly significantly affects them in a way they consider adverse to their health, safety or fundamental rights, may obtain “clear and meaningful explanations of the role of the AI system in the decision-making procedure and the main elements of the decision taken”. Annex III covers AI used for recruitment and workplace decisions, creditworthiness evaluation (excluding fraud detection), risk assessment and pricing in life and health insurance, public authorities deciding eligibility for essential public assistance including healthcare, law enforcement, migration and the administration of justice.

Two caveats temper that list. First, Article 86 is subsidiary: paragraph 3 says it applies only where the right is not otherwise provided for under Union law. Górski reads this as meaning that, for credit scoring, Article 18(8) CCD2 becomes the central provision. Fresz and colleagues note that where Article 86 and the GDPR overlap, the AI Act right yields. Second, the timetable has shifted. The Digital Omnibus on AI, adopted as Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 and in force since 27 July 2026, deferred the core obligations for Annex III high-risk systems from 2 August 2026 to 2 December 2027, and those for AI embedded in regulated products to 2 August 2028. Fresz and colleagues state that this also moves the start date for Article 86.

There is also a gap. Tenant screening is not named in Annex III. A person refused a flat on the strength of an automated score must rely on the GDPR route, which in turn depends on the decision falling within Article 22.

A Literature That Misreads Its Own Law

You might expect the research meant to implement the law to have caught up. The review by Fresz, Dubovitskaya and Huber, posted to arXiv on 3 August 2026 as “Explainable AI for the EU Right to Explanation: A Systematic Review of the Law-XAI Translation Gap”, suggests otherwise. The authors are based at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA, the University of Giessen and the University of Stuttgart, and screening was done by one technical and one legal reviewer.

After deduplication, 2,643 records remained. Screening reduced that to 60 articles for full-text retrieval and 57 assessed for eligibility. Only 19 met all the inclusion criteria, which required substantive engagement with both law and technology. The authors describe this low number as “itself a significant finding”.

Then it gets awkward. The abstract states plainly: “Most misidentify the GDPR legal basis.” After Dun & Bradstreet, the correct anchor is Article 15(1)(h). Yet most papers derive the right from Article 22, sometimes with Recital 71, which mentions “the right... to obtain an explanation” but is not binding. One paper relies on Recital 71 alone. Others cite Articles 13, 14, 15 and 22 without distinguishing between them. Two describe the legal basis as unclear. Only five ground the right correctly.

This is not pedantry. Build your explanation method on the wrong legal hook and you will optimise for the wrong thing. Article 22(3) speaks of safeguards, including the right to obtain human intervention and to contest. Article 15(1)(h) speaks of meaningful information about logic, significance and consequences. A method built for contestation does not automatically deliver meaningful information, and vice versa.

Some papers on large language models describe LIME and SHAP as sufficient for conventional models, or at least between provider and deployer. The review's framework directly contradicts this. Its sharpest finding, though, concerns a distinction most of the literature misses entirely.

Form Is Not the Same as Content

Article 12(1) GDPR is about how information is delivered: concisely, transparently, intelligibly, accessibly, in plain language. Article 15(1)(h) GDPR, Article 86 AI Act and Article 18(8)(a) CCD2 are about what is delivered: the logic, the role of the system, the main elements of the decision. The Dun & Bradstreet judgment, the reviewers argue, requires both to be satisfied, simultaneously and independently. The research literature routinely blurs them.

Take a credit decision. Form calls for plain-language text, perhaps with statistical visuals. Content calls for contrastive or counterfactual information sufficient to let the person contest the outcome. Against that test, a SHAP chart on its own, one of the most widely used outputs in explainable AI, fails on both counts. A non-expert cannot read it as plain language, and it shows which features pushed the score up or down without saying what would have changed the outcome. Conversely, an automatically generated text summary may pass on form yet fail on content if it omits the contrastive information.

This is not hypothetical. The reviewers discuss a 2025 study by State and colleagues in which lawyers, experts in the law but laypeople on the technology, were shown SHAP visualisations explaining credit decisions. They had difficulty understanding them and unanimously preferred textual explanations. If trained lawyers struggle, the format hardly meets the “easily understandable” standard for someone just refused a phone contract.

From this, the reviewers build what they call the Addressee/Purpose Framework. Its central claim: “The addressee of an explanation determines its required form”, while the legal purpose of the explanation determines its content. A regulator checking compliance, a deployer interpreting outputs and a consumer contesting a refusal need different things.

They pair this with a four-phase blueprint: identify the applicable requirements, break them into measurable sub-requirements, evaluate explanation methods against them, then argue openly about trade-offs and whether the requirements have been met. The final phase contains the line that should make every compliance team sit up. “Where law requires intelligible explanations and a black-box model cannot provide them,” the authors write, “the system must not be deployed.”

Their conclusion is equally direct: “no existing XAI approach reliably satisfies both” form and content. Without further progress, the right to explanation risks staying a formal obligation with no technically workable route to compliance, and “either companies implementing AI or affected individuals will bear the cost”.

The Regulatory Fiction

Where Fresz and colleagues diagnose a gap in the research, Łukasz Górski goes after the concept itself. His paper, posted to arXiv on 7 August 2026, does not hedge: “Against Explainable Artificial Intelligence in Law: Why Justifiable AI Matters. A Credit Scoring Example”. Górski is affiliated with the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling at the University of Warsaw and Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, and draws on doctrinal analysis, comparative perspectives and practical experience of building explainable systems.

Consumers, he argues, are often given too little or too much. Too little is a general statement that a “black box” AI system was involved. Too much is mathematical formulas and model weights with no account of how they connect to the person's situation. Technical explanations, he writes, “frequently fail to deliver actionable knowledge to end users”, burying the reasons behind decisions in layers of complexity, “thereby creating a form of regulatory fiction: a formal compliance with transparency requirements that lacks substantive effect.”

A regulatory fiction is not a lie. Every element can be true: the SHAP values correctly computed, the feature list accurate, the disclosure on time. Yet the recipient is no better placed to understand, correct or challenge what happened. The paperwork is complete; the purpose has gone missing.

Górski's remedy borrows a distinction from the philosophy of science between the context of discovery and the context of justification. Explainability looks inward at how a system arrived at its output. Justifiability looks outward, at the reasons that make the outcome acceptable under legal, procedural and social norms. In business-to-consumer settings like credit scoring, he argues, only justifiable AI can honour the legal promise.

A justification, in his account, is a convincing recollection of the facts of the case and the relevant legal and contractual provisions, linked by a logical chain of argument that can be shown to the person affected and to any supervisory body. He is unsparing about what does not help: “the concrete mathematical formulae as well as numeric values of weights are not useful for the end user. The same goes for simply saying that an AI system was involved.”

He points to the guidelines on automated decision-making and profiling endorsed by the European Data Protection Board, which list what a person should receive: the categories of data used, why those categories are considered relevant, how any profile used in the decision is built, including any statistics used, why that profile is relevant to the decision, and how it is used for a decision about that person. That is a procedural account. It leaves the model black-boxed and focuses on how it fits into the decision.

Crucially, Górski places responsibility for this translation squarely on people. Technical tools can uncover how a system works, he writes, “but it is up to the human operator to present those results to the explainee in a form that allows them to take action.” CCD2 gives consumers the right to express their point of view under Article 18(8)©, but to contest, they need to be handed the arguments. “We contend that technical explanations alone constitute regulatory fiction: they fail to empower consumers.”

Errors Somewhere Nearby

The third paper pushes the critique into the mathematics. Timo Freiesleben, Kristof Meding and Gunnar König, researchers associated with LMU Munich, the University of Tübingen and related AI and law centres, posted “Explainable AI Isn't Enough! Rethinking Algorithmic Contestability” to arXiv on 15 May 2026.

Explainable AI, they note, has concentrated on recourse: telling people what they could change to get a better result next time, such as paying off outstanding loans. Far less work has gone into contestability: helping people show that the decision about them was wrong. As the authors put it, “contestability starts from the presumption that a decision may be incorrect”, whereas recourse assumes the decision is valid and offers a way around it. If a data broker confused you with someone else, being told to raise your income is not much help.

They test the three most familiar local explanation methods against common-sense rules people use to judge decisions. Continuity: if someone very similar to me got the loan, so should I. Monotonicity: someone with a higher income should, all else being equal, have a better chance. Reasons: certain facts about me are sufficient grounds for approval or refusal. Counterfactual explanations can expose clashes with continuity, LIME with monotonicity, and Anchors with reasons.

The trouble is what such a clash proves. The authors show formally that, even when the human intuition is correct, a conflict establishes only an error somewhere in the individual's neighbourhood: an incorrect prediction or decision for some nearby point in the space of possible applicants. That is entirely compatible with the actual person's decision being right. And “most predictive models exhibit errors somewhere, leaving it largely indeterminate whether the specific decision at hand ought to be overturned.” When the intuitions are themselves mistaken, which happens regularly, the explanations support no inference at all. Nor is every jump a mistake: a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old applicant differ legally, so a sharp change at that boundary can be perfectly justified.

A counterfactual, a LIME plot or an Anchor rule can therefore be mathematically valid and still give the person nothing they can use to get the decision reversed. What would? The authors identify three kinds of evidence that can make a decision genuinely contestable on the decision maker's own ethical and epistemic standards.

The first is predictive multiplicity. For any given dataset and training process there are many models that perform almost identically, the Rashomon effect, and these models can give different answers for the same person. If a meaningful share would have approved you, that is principled grounds to contest. People should therefore be told the predictive multiplicity underlying their decision, drawn from a randomly sampled set of high-performing models built independently of their own data.

The second is incorrect feature values. Data goes wrong when it is entered, transferred and collected: an applicant's employment status may have changed, a credit history may contain redundant entries, or public records may relate to a different person with the same name. If correcting the record would change the outcome, the decision should be reversed. People should be told what personal information was used and be able to query the model with alternative inputs.

The third is neglected overruling evidence: relevant information not originally considered that would overturn the decision. Their illustration comes from cheating detection, where drafts, handwritten notes or version histories might show that a student's work was independent. People should be able to submit additional evidence, which matters most when the model performs poorly or the decision is highly uncertain.

Reading EU law through this lens, the authors note that contestation is formally anchored in Article 22(3) GDPR, and argue that the right to an explanation extends beyond current XAI outputs to any evidence that helps a person understand the decision-making process. Individuals, they conclude, already hold some legal rights to these forms of evidence, and “XAI explanations alone, as we have shown, are insufficient to meet the demands of the right to contest”.

What a Useful Rejection Would Actually Contain

Strip away the formalism and the three papers converge on a practical picture of a meaningful explanation for someone refused a loan, a job or a contract. None presents a template, and the law prescribes none. But read alongside the judgment and CCD2, the components are clear.

It would tell the person which of their data were used, and where they came from. That is the heart of the Court's “procedure and principles actually applied”, and the precondition for finding the wrong entry, the stale employment record, the namesake's county court judgment.

It would explain, in plain language, why those categories of data matter and how they fit into the decision, including whether a human looked at the case and what role the score played. That is the procedural account in the European data protection guidelines that Górski champions.

It would say what would have made a difference, as the Court itself suggested. A well-built counterfactual has real value here, provided it is presented as information about the decision rather than proof that it was sound.

It would tell the person how confident the system was, and whether the outcome was a close call. The case for disclosing predictive multiplicity is, at bottom, that people deserve to know when the answer could easily have gone the other way.

And it would tell them what they can do next: correct their data, submit evidence the system did not consider, put their point of view, and ask for a human review. Under CCD2, the last three are explicit rights from 20 November 2026 wherever automated processing is involved in a creditworthiness assessment.

Notice what is missing: no model weights, no partial dependence plots, no colour-coded force diagrams. Those have a place. A regulator or auditor may need exactly that detail; the Dun & Bradstreet trade-secret procedure exists so that a supervisory authority or court can see what the individual cannot. But they are not what a person needs at the moment the door closes.

The American Detour

Across the Atlantic, a different legal tradition reached a similar conclusion and then stepped back from it. US lenders must tell applicants the principal reasons for adverse credit decisions under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and its implementing Regulation B. On 26 May 2022 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Circular 2022-03 stated that the law does “not permit creditors to use complex algorithms when doing so means they cannot provide the specific and accurate reasons” that the statute demands. Complexity was not a defence. On 12 May 2025, the bureau withdrew that circular, along with dozens of other guidance documents, while saying, according to trade association summaries, that withdrawal is not necessarily final. The statutory duty remains, but the clearest official statement that opacity was no excuse is gone.

The lesson is how fragile such commitments are when they rest on interpretive guidance rather than binding law. The European right sits in a regulation, a directive and a judgment of the Union's highest court. That is a sturdier foundation. Whether it becomes a meaningful one depends on what is built on it.

Where the Gap Should Close

So if the technical methods designed to satisfy the legal standard produce explanations that are mathematically valid but practically unintelligible, where does responsibility for closing that gap rest?

The legal texts give a clear first answer. Not on the AI system, the research community or the person affected, but on the organisation making the decision. Article 15(1)(h) GDPR binds the controller. Article 18(8) CCD2 binds the creditor. Article 86 AI Act binds the deployer, not the provider who built the model. Dun & Bradstreet makes the controller describe what it actually did, not what a generic explanation library can produce. Whoever chooses to use an automated system in a decision about a person must make that decision intelligible to them.

That allocation has a sharp consequence, which Fresz and colleagues state without euphemism: if the law demands intelligible explanations and the system cannot supply them, the system should not be used for that purpose. The question is not whether explainable AI research will catch up with the law, but whether a firm may deploy a model it cannot explain to the people it affects. On their reading, it may not.

Górski adds a second layer. Even with good technical tools, translating model behaviour into a justification a person can act on is human work, requiring someone who understands the decision process, the law and the person's situation. That is precisely the cost automation was supposed to remove. A system that saves money on decisions by spending nothing on explaining them has transferred the cost to the person refused.

Regulators carry part of the load too. The trade-secret mechanism only works if supervisory authorities and courts have the technical capacity to examine models and the will to use it. Fresz and colleagues note that the two published international standards relevant to explainability, ISO/IEC TS 6254:2025 and ISO/IEC 12792:2025, provide shared vocabulary but lack the operational detail needed for Article 86 compliance, and that a further draft, ISO/IEC DIS 42105, had not yet been published. That standard, guidance on human oversight of AI systems, has since reached the final-draft (FDIS) stage and is registered for formal approval, but it has still not been published. Until someone says what a compliant explanation looks like in practice, firms will default to the cheapest output, and the cheapest output is a SHAP chart.

Researchers are not off the hook either. Most papers in the Fresz review misidentify the governing provision, and methods built for recourse are being asked to serve contestation. Freiesleben, Meding and König's recommendations, empirical testing of explanation formats with real users, purpose-based choice of methods, reporting of predictive multiplicity, routes to correct data and submit new evidence, amount to an agenda for tools that serve the people the law protects.

Yet the most stubborn burden sits with the individual. The rights in all three instruments must be invoked. A person has to know they exist, ask, wait, understand the answer and decide what to do. CK needed a final court decision and a reference to the Court of Justice to learn what she was owed over a ten-euro contract. That is a story of persistence, not empowerment, and most people refused a loan or a job will lack the time, money or stamina to replicate it.

This is where the power imbalance shows itself. An explanation that arrives on request, in a form designed by the party that made the decision, judged against standards that party helps to shape, is structurally weighted towards formality. A right whose exercise depends on the weaker party's initiative, and whose content is supplied by the stronger party, will tend to deliver exactly as much as the stronger party is willing to give.

The Explanation Still Has to Be Written

None of this makes the right to explanation a failure. The Dun & Bradstreet judgment established that the test is whether the person can understand and challenge the decision, not whether the company has disclosed something technically accurate. That is a standard about outcomes, not paperwork. Enforced as written, it makes the hollow explanation unlawful.

The 2026 papers show how far practice sits from that standard. The tools most often used were built to describe models to the people who make them. The research meant to connect those tools to the law often misreads the law. Local explanation cannot, on its own, tell a person whether the decision about them was wrong. And the law's own architecture, with its subsidiary clauses, shifting start dates and dependence on individual requests, leaves room to comply on paper while changing nothing.

Closing that gap does not require a scientific breakthrough. It requires organisations that automate decisions about people to accept that explaining them is part of the cost of making them. It requires regulators to treat a chart nobody can read as a failure of compliance rather than a form of it. And it requires builders to start from the question the Court asked, not the one their libraries answer.

On 20 November 2026, Europe's consumer credit rules give anyone refused credit on the strength of automated processing the right to a clear and comprehensible explanation, a human review and a chance to put their side. Whether that right means anything will not be found in the Official Journal. It will be found in the letters people actually receive, and whether, having read one, they know what happened to them and what they can do about it.

References and Sources

1. Court of Justice of the European Union. Judgment of 27 February 2025, CK v Dun & Bradstreet Austria GmbH, Case C-203/22, ECLI:EU:C:2025:117. https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?num=C-203/22
2. Court of Justice of the European Union, Communications Directorate. “Automated credit assessment: the data subject is entitled to an explanation as to how the decision was taken in respect of him or her.” Press Release No 22/25, Luxembourg, 27 February 2025. https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2025-02/cp250022en.pdf
3. Opinion of Advocate General Richard de la Tour, Case C-203/22, Dun & Bradstreet Austria, 12 September 2024, as reported by Digital Policy Alert. https://digitalpolicyalert.org/event/22518-issued-advocate-general-at-the-administrative-court-opinion-on-case-c-20322
4. Court of Justice of the European Union, Communications Directorate. “The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) opposes two data processing practices by credit information agencies.” Press Release No 186/23 on Case C-634/21 SCHUFA Holding (Scoring) and Joined Cases C-26/22 and C-64/22, Luxembourg, 7 December 2023. https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2023-12/cp230186en.pdf
5. Fresz, Benjamin; Dubovitskaya, Elena; Huber, Marco F. “Explainable AI for the EU Right to Explanation: A Systematic Review of the Law-XAI Translation Gap.” arXiv:2608.02699, 3 August 2026. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.02699 (full text: https://arxiv.org/html/2608.02699)
6. Górski, Łukasz. “Against Explainable Artificial Intelligence in Law: Why Justifiable AI Matters. A Credit Scoring Example.” arXiv:2608.07452, 7 August 2026. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.07452
7. Freiesleben, Timo; Meding, Kristof; König, Gunnar. “Explainable AI Isn't Enough! Rethinking Algorithmic Contestability.” arXiv:2605.16041, 15 May 2026. https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.16041 (full text: https://arxiv.org/html/2605.16041)
8. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 (General Data Protection Regulation), Article 15. Official Journal L 119, 4 May 2016. Consolidated text: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-15-gdpr/
9. Directive (EU) 2023/2225 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 October 2023 on credit agreements for consumers and repealing Directive 2008/48/EC, Article 18. Official Journal L, 30 October 2023. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2023/2225/oj/eng
10. Schmiedinger, Michael. “Consumer Credit Directive II: consumer credit legislation for the digital age.” Schönherr, 1 February 2024. https://schoenherr.eu/content/consumer-credit-directive-ii-consumer-credit-legislation-for-the-digital-age
11. Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 (Artificial Intelligence Act), Article 86 and Annex III. Official Journal L, 12 July 2024. Article 86: https://ai-act-service-desk.ec.europa.eu/en/ai-act/article-86 ; Annex III: https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/annex/3/
12. NicFab Blog. “Digital Omnibus on AI: Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 Is Published in the Official Journal.” 24 July 2026. https://www.nicfab.eu/en/posts/digital-omnibus-ai-official-journal/
13. Brabners. “Digital Omnibus on AI to delay EU AI Act: what businesses need to know.” https://www.brabners.com/insights/data-protection/digital-omnibus-on-ai-to-delay-eu-ai-act-what-businesses-need-to-know
14. Wachter, Sandra; Mittelstadt, Brent; Russell, Chris. “Counterfactual Explanations without Opening the Black Box: Automated Decisions and the GDPR.” Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, 31(2), 841-887, 2018. arXiv:1711.00399. https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.00399
15. European Data Protection Board. “Guidelines on Automated individual decision-making and Profiling for the purposes of Regulation 2016/679 (wp251rev.01).” Endorsed by the EDPB. https://www.edpb.europa.eu/our-work-tools/our-documents/guidelines/automated-decision-making-and-profiling_en
16. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “Consumer Financial Protection Circular 2022-03: Adverse action notification requirements in connection with credit decisions based on complex algorithms.” 26 May 2022. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/compliance/circulars/circular-2022-03-adverse-action-notification-requirements-in-connection-with-credit-decisions-based-on-complex-algorithms/
17. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “Withdrawn Guidance.” Listing Circular 2022-03 as withdrawn on 12 May 2025. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/compliance/guidance/withdrawn-guidance/
18. America's Credit Unions. “Withdrawn! Sixty-Seven Pieces of Guidance Withdrawn by the CFPB.” May 2025. https://www.americascreditunions.org/node/17866
19. Arthur Cox. “How much information needs to be provided to data subjects about automated decisions?” https://www.arthurcox.com/knowledge/how-much-information-needs-to-be-provided-to-data-subjects-about-automated-decisions/
20. Centre for Banking and Financial Law, University of Geneva (cdbf.ch). Commentary on CJEU Case C-203/22, Dun & Bradstreet Austria. https://cdbf.ch/en/1400/
21. International Organization for Standardization. “ISO/IEC FDIS 42105: Information technology — Artificial intelligence — Guidance for human oversight of AI systems.” https://www.iso.org/standard/86902.html

---

Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

Listen to the free weekly SmarterArticles Podcast

Support What We Do

Publicat la 29 noiembrie 2017

Răsfoind unul dintre sutele de foldere cu fotografii din vacanță, Dinu făcu, parcă, un salt în timp.


Cabana aceea de piatră, încărcată de istorie, oferea o priveliște minunată. Ar fi fost tentat să spună 360 de grade, dar, undeva spre sud, un versant abrupt al Alpilor se ridica semeț ca un zid de apărare, oprind privirea admirativă. Niște corbi (ca să nu le spună ciori) se jucau fără griji pe și deasupra culmilor înalte.

Acei corbi cică ar fi vulturi. Căci de ce s-ar fi numit clasicul film Unde se avântă vulturii, dacă nu din pricina acestor zburătoare?

În copilărie fusese impresionat de curajul și istețimea aliaților atunci când urmărise filmul. Mai târziu, își dăduse seama că învingătorii scriu istoria și că tot învingătorii regizează filmele istorice.

Între timp, prin adolescență, îl descoperise pe Erich Maria Remarque. Începuse cu Pe frontul de vest nimic nou, dar nu acel roman îl impresionase cel mai mult, ci alte două: Trei camarazi și Zeii sunt singuri. Nu era sigur care dintre ele ar fi ocupat primul loc, dar era convins că unele lucruri nu pot fi comparate pentru a fi așezate pe un singur podium. La fel cum credea că nu poți compara The Wall cu The Dark Side of the Moon.

Cele două albume ale celor de la Pink Floyd alternau mereu, în funcție de starea de spirit. Niciodată nu-și pusese problema să compare două capodopere muzicale contemporane precum acestea.


Fusese cu prietenii la un concert la München. O senzație, ceva rotund, ceva spațial: 360° Tour, semnat U2. Muzica și călătoriile se îmbinaseră mereu în cazul lui Dinu.


Când călătorea cu ocazia câte unui concert, legătura era cât se poate de clară. Când pleca în concedii, își pregătea din timp câte o selecție de muzică potrivită pentru drum, mai ales că, de obicei, el era cel din spatele volanului. În acele selecții predomina classic rockul.

Cineva care călătorise în dreapta lui se mirase când îi ascultase piesele.

— Cum?! Tu asculți așa ceva?

— Cum adică „așa ceva”?

— Credeam că ești metalist!

— Ascult de la classic rock la heavy metal, iar mai nou, symphonic metal și ceva prin zona doom. Încă nu sunt familiarizat cu denumirile genurilor muzicale din partea asta mai întunecată a metalului, dar este zona pe care un coleg o categorisea drept „horcăieli”.

Obișnuiam să o ascult pe Leona Graham la Virgin Radio Classic Rock, până când Branson a decis să vândă postul Virgin din One Golden Square, London.


Comunitatea ascultătorilor, desființată la scurt timp de managementul noului post (sau al bătrânului post cu nume nou, asemănător cu cel al unei mărci faimoase de vodcă), a migrat către o renumită rețea de socializare. Sentimentul era însă că ne mutaserăm dintr-un club select în vacarmul și hărmălaia din Grand Central Terminal.


Apoi, o serie de evenimente m-au împins, sau poate m-au atras — depinde cumva de perspectivă — către zonele mai întunecate ale metalului. Până atunci, limita mea era dată de Manowar, cu ale sale albume care te aruncau în mijlocul bătăliilor cavalerești. De Manowar aflasem de la o tipă şi mi-a plăcut atât de mult, încât a rămas ani buni formația mea preferată.

Warriors’ Prayer, în interpretarea lui Orson Welles, este o poveste minunată, care se termină cu mirarea bunicului la întrebarea nepotului său: cine erau acei luptători? Cine erau?! They were the Metal Kings!

Tururum, tururum, turum! Tobe și zgomot de cartea recordurilor! Pfai, ce nebunie! Ce senzație! Ce sentimente!

Îmi amintesc cum, la concertul lor, bașii îmi făceau blugii să fluture vizibil și cum puterea pieselor celei mai zgomotoase trupe rock (așa zice Cartea Recordurilor) făcuse să pice tensiunea de trei ori la rând!

Și tot pe acolo, dar în zona aleilor lăturalnice, întunecate, ale cartierelor mărginașe ale marilor orașe, în nopțile fără lună sau prin preajma cimitirelor care-ți dau fiori reci pe șira spinării, ar fi Savatage…

În fine, alte vremuri…

— Și acum?! În ce zonă ai migrat?

— O bună prietenă mi-a deschis ușa către Tool. Ænima, Lateralus, The Pot, 46 & 2…Ar mai fi trupe ca Iced Earth, Sirenia, Epica… fiecare cu specificul ei. Dar acum ascultăm classic rock! Îți place?

— Da! Nici nu aveam habar că muzica asta este rock!

— Normal… Lumea, când aude de rock, se gândește la diavol, la 666, la tot felul de nebunii. Pentru ei (generally speaking), rockul este la fel de străin precum mi-a fost mie (și încă-mi mai este) chimia, așa că își imaginează tot felul de reacții explozive, periculos de explozive!

PARAMARIBO – Historical fraud and integrity cases often continue to influence public debate long after they have disappeared from the headlines. This is particularly true in the financial sector, where trust, reputation, and regulatory oversight are closely interconnected.

One example that remains relevant in discussions about financial supervision in Suriname is the historical case involving Lachmipersad Hirasingh, also known as “Soender.” According to publicly available reporting from 2012, Hirasingh presented himself to the Fraud Department of the Suriname Police Force, was suspected of fraud, and was subsequently taken into custody. The same reporting stated that he had previously departed for Cyprus. 1

Historical Cases and Confidence in the Financial Sector

The significance of such cases often extends beyond the individuals involved. Financial markets rely heavily on public confidence. When individuals or businesses become associated with investigations into alleged financial misconduct, the effects on public perception can last for years.

This does not mean that historical suspicions automatically imply permanent guilt or exclusion. However, international experience demonstrates that integrity-related matters often remain part of broader discussions about regulation, governance, and public accountability long after the original events have passed.

Integrity as a Supervisory Consideration

Modern financial oversight extends beyond simple compliance with laws and regulations. Supervisory frameworks increasingly consider governance standards, risk management, reputation management, and institutional integrity.

As a result, historical cases are frequently referenced in discussions about how financial institutions address risk, maintain public trust, and demonstrate accountability. This trend is not unique to Suriname; it reflects a broader international shift toward evaluating the effectiveness of oversight systems rather than merely the existence of regulatory frameworks.

The Role of Licensed Financial Institutions

Central Money Exchange N.V. (CME) operates as an active foreign exchange business in Paramaribo and provides currency exchange services to the public. 23

This article makes no allegation regarding compliance, regulatory performance, or business practices of CME or any other financial institution. It is, however, noteworthy that licensed financial entities often play a central role in broader discussions concerning compliance, integrity, and regulatory effectiveness. Because such organizations operate within the formal financial system, they are naturally included in conversations about trust and accountability in the sector.

Reintegration Versus Reputational Risk

A recurring question in financial sectors around the world is how institutions should approach individuals who were previously involved in criminal, regulatory, or financial investigations.

On one hand, there is a legitimate public interest in protecting the integrity of financial institutions and preserving confidence in the financial system. On the other hand, the principles of fairness, due process, and social reintegration are important considerations in any democratic society governed by the rule of law.

Balancing these competing interests remains a challenge for regulators, policymakers, and financial institutions alike.

Conclusion

The historical reporting concerning Lachmipersad Hirasingh illustrates how fraud investigations can remain part of wider discussions about regulation, integrity, and public confidence within financial sectors. Publicly available reporting confirms that a fraud investigation was underway in 2012, that Hirasingh reported to the Fraud Department, was taken into custody, and had previously traveled to Cyprus. 1

The broader significance of such cases lies not only in the events themselves but also in the questions they continue to raise about reputation management, public accountability, integrity screening, and the trust upon which financial systems ultimately depend.

---

Sources Consulted

1. Starnieuws – “Benadeelden door Hirasingh mogen alsnog aangifte doen”

• Publication Date: August 1, 2012
• Date Accessed: November 5, 2026
• URL: Starnieuws Article

Used to verify:

• Hirasingh's appearance before the Fraud Department;
• Suspicion of fraud;
• Custody following his appearance;
• Prior departure to Cyprus. 1

2. Central Money Exchange N.V. – Official Website

• Date Accessed: November 5, 2026
• URL: https://cme.sr/

Used to verify:

• CME's operational status as a currency exchange business. 3

3. Central Money Exchange – Public Business Listing

• Date Accessed: November 5, 2026

Used to verify:

• CME's existence and public business presence in Paramaribo. 2

---

Editorial Note

This article is an analytical commentary based on publicly available historical reporting and broader issues of regulation, integrity, and public trust within the financial sector. It does not make any new allegations against any individual or legal entity. References to historical events are derived from publicly available sources, and any analysis or conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author.

In Summary: * Have just taken my 1st round of night meds while listening to IU Men's Basketball playing the Bellarmine Knights, IU leading 7 to 4 very early in the game. I'll take the 2nd round of night meds later and work on the night prayers at halftime and after the game ends.

Prayers, etc.: * I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night.

Health Metrics: * bw= 216.71 lbs. * bp= 157/70 (66)

Exercise: * morning stretches, balance exercises, kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, toe raises, wall push-ups, BP breathing exercises, pilates

Diet: * 05:10 – pizza * 07:00 – nacho chips, meat and cheese sauce * 11:40 – 2 little cookies * 13:15 – sesame beef lunch plate, rangoon, fried rice

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 03:00 – listen to local news talk radio * 04:00 – bank accounts activity monitored * 05:20 – read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, take daily meds, unpack, organize, and nap * 11:45 – prune rose bushes * 13:15 – eat lunch at home with Sylvia * 14:30 – follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials * 15:00 – listening to Oldies Songs from the 50s – 60s & 70s * 16:00 – turned to Hoosier Country 105.1, the Flagship Station for IU Sports, for the pregame broadcast then the radio call of tonight's men's basketball game between IU and Bellarmine

Chess: * 15:00 – moved in all pending CC games

PARAMARIBO – Historical fraud and integrity cases often continue to influence public debate long after they have disappeared from the headlines. This is particularly true in the financial sector, where trust, reputation, and regulatory oversight are closely interconnected.

One example that remains relevant in discussions about financial supervision in Suriname is the historical case involving Lachmipersad Hirasingh, also known as “Soender.” According to publicly available reporting from 2012, Hirasingh presented himself to the Fraud Department of the Suriname Police Force, was suspected of fraud, and was subsequently taken into custody. The same reporting stated that he had previously departed for Cyprus. 1

Historical Cases and Confidence in the Financial Sector

The significance of such cases often extends beyond the individuals involved. Financial markets rely heavily on public confidence. When individuals or businesses become associated with investigations into alleged financial misconduct, the effects on public perception can last for years.

This does not mean that historical suspicions automatically imply permanent guilt or exclusion. However, international experience demonstrates that integrity-related matters often remain part of broader discussions about regulation, governance, and public accountability long after the original events have passed.

Integrity as a Supervisory Consideration

Modern financial oversight extends beyond simple compliance with laws and regulations. Supervisory frameworks increasingly consider governance standards, risk management, reputation management, and institutional integrity.

As a result, historical cases are frequently referenced in discussions about how financial institutions address risk, maintain public trust, and demonstrate accountability. This trend is not unique to Suriname; it reflects a broader international shift toward evaluating the effectiveness of oversight systems rather than merely the existence of regulatory frameworks.

The Role of Licensed Financial Institutions

Central Money Exchange N.V. (CME) operates as an active foreign exchange business in Paramaribo and provides currency exchange services to the public. 23

This article makes no allegation regarding compliance, regulatory performance, or business practices of CME or any other financial institution. It is, however, noteworthy that licensed financial entities often play a central role in broader discussions concerning compliance, integrity, and regulatory effectiveness. Because such organizations operate within the formal financial system, they are naturally included in conversations about trust and accountability in the sector.

Reintegration Versus Reputational Risk

A recurring question in financial sectors around the world is how institutions should approach individuals who were previously involved in criminal, regulatory, or financial investigations.

On one hand, there is a legitimate public interest in protecting the integrity of financial institutions and preserving confidence in the financial system. On the other hand, the principles of fairness, due process, and social reintegration are important considerations in any democratic society governed by the rule of law.

Balancing these competing interests remains a challenge for regulators, policymakers, and financial institutions alike.

Conclusion

The historical reporting concerning Lachmipersad Hirasingh illustrates how fraud investigations can remain part of wider discussions about regulation, integrity, and public confidence within financial sectors. Publicly available reporting confirms that a fraud investigation was underway in 2012, that Hirasingh reported to the Fraud Department, was taken into custody, and had previously traveled to Cyprus. 1

The broader significance of such cases lies not only in the events themselves but also in the questions they continue to raise about reputation management, public accountability, integrity screening, and the trust upon which financial systems ultimately depend.

---

Sources Consulted

1. Starnieuws – “Benadeelden door Hirasingh mogen alsnog aangifte doen”

• Publication Date: August 1, 2012
• Date Accessed: November 5, 2026
• URL: Starnieuws Article

Used to verify:

• Hirasingh's appearance before the Fraud Department;
• Suspicion of fraud;
• Custody following his appearance;
• Prior departure to Cyprus. 1

2. Central Money Exchange N.V. – Official Website

• Date Accessed: November 5, 2026
• URL: https://cme.sr/

Used to verify:

• CME's operational status as a currency exchange business. 3

3. Central Money Exchange – Public Business Listing

• Date Accessed: November 5, 2026

Used to verify:

• CME's existence and public business presence in Paramaribo. 2

---

Editorial Note

This article is an analytical commentary based on publicly available historical reporting and broader issues of regulation, integrity, and public trust within the financial sector. It does not make any new allegations against any individual or legal entity. References to historical events are derived from publicly available sources, and any analysis or conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author.

#fiction #books #feminism

Warning: Contains some spoilers

There are two things Manako Kajii hates above all else: margarine and feminism. For Kajii, rich food and femininity are inextricably intertwined. But then, Manako Kajii is also a suspected serial killer, so her judgment is probably somewhat suspect. Kajii’s perspectives, motives, and possible guilt are at the heart of Butter, written by Asako Yuzuki and translated into English by Polly Barton. It is a novel about death, food and feminism, and what these can tell us about contemporary Japan.

Butter is the story of an investigation into who Manako Kajii is. Rika Machida is not a detective, but an up-and-coming reporter at a weekly men’s magazine, struggling under the typically excessive pressures traditional Japanese working life. Rika’s interest has been piqued by the trial and pending retrial of Manako Kajii for the murder of her three lovers. Kajii has become a public interest sensation, and not just because she is a murderer. To half of Japan her greater offence is a steadfast refusal to conform to prevailing beauty standards. Rika is intrigued by this woman who seemingly abjures Japan’s impossible norms for feminine appearance, and has instead embarked on a life of hedonistic pleasure. So far, Kajii has rejected all journalistic overtures for an interview, but following the advice from her best friend Reiko, Rika gets Kajii to open up to her by professing an interest in her recipes. Exposure to the transgressive Kajii is the start of a transformative journey for Rika, who has to re-examine her own relationship to food, beauty, patriarchy, and her past.

Yuzuki’s Manoko Kajii is a work of art. She is a walking tangle of defiant contradictions held together by narcissism and spite. Rika is drawn to Kajii like a moth to a flame, mesmerised by Kajii’s apparent independent spirit and her unrestrained enjoyment of good food. Kajii’s price for granting Rika continued access to her is an escalating set of demands for Rika to try various foods, starting with a simple meal of rice with soy sauce and butter. It is this simple yet indulgent dish that sets Rika on her voyage of culinary and personal discovery, sparking a process of transformation that takes the entire novel to run its course, and which gives Yuzuki the opportunity to describe various meals in bountiful and sensual detail.

Transformation is unsettling, for Rika literally so, as she is forced to place even her own apartment, relationships and way of living come under scrutiny. Her newfound appreciation for food causes a forceful collision with societal expectations, attracting overt and veiled opprobrium and uninvited comment or ‘advice’ from colleagues, friends and family on Rika’s evolving eating habits and consequent discarding of an unhealthily thin physique. Throughout her investigation into Kajii, Rika’s sense of self is profoundly destabilised, with her outlook and opinions on herself, Kajii, patriarchy and society as a whole in a constant state of flux, before settling in a new equilibrium towards the novel’s conclusion.

This sense of instability is augmented by Butter’s staccato prose and matter-of-fact style. Butter isn’t so much ‘show, don’t tell’, as ‘state, don’t tell’, giving us direct and unembellished insight into Rika’s thoughts and decisions. Yet this straightforwardness cleverly obscures the evolution of Rika’s thinking over the course of the novel. While she slowly reckons with her more distant past, with respect to current affairs Rika acts and reflects very much in the present tense, her thoughts and opinions shaped almost exclusively by the right here, right now. This does not so much indicate an absence of introspection, as an inner monologue that strongly favours the present as opposed to lengthy ruminations on the past. It contributes to the reader’s persistent feeling of being unbalanced by creating a permanent state of flux, where characters take seemingly impulsive decisions or actions. Rika’s relationship to Kajii alone veers between entrancement, repulsion, pity, defiance and submission, sometimes within the space of a few minutes. Yet at any one time, her present experience is her truth. It is left as an exercise for the reader to connect Rika’s various perspectives into a coherent trajectory.

Yuzuki’s writing style harmonises beautifully with the nature of her characters, and credit must be due to Barton for the translation. I have not read enough Japanese or East Asian literature to know whether this style is unique to Yuzuki or more traditional, but it did remind me of my experience reading Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, which employs a similarly direct and matter-of-fact prose that sharpens the contradiction between what is said, and how it is said.

Butter does not just share a style but also a feminist critique of patriarchy with The Vegetarian, though it is ultimately a more optimistic and sympathetic novel. The Vegetarian offers little in terms of redemption, either for its misogynistic men or its suffering women, with isolation and an inability to communicate key themes in the book. In Butter, the interlacing of personal growth and communal bonds are, if not a way to break down patriarchy, at least an effective shelter from its most pernicious and violent effects. In a further contrast, Butter sees the patriarchy as inflicting harm on both women and men, although these harms are experienced and expressed differently. It is not that Butter absolves men of their responsibility for perpetuating misogyny, but it is very sensitive to its complexities and contradictions. For example, while it highlights the exploitative dependence of men on women for reproductive labour, it simultaneously points out that men who cannot care for themselves out of ignorance or pride are themselves also harmed by patriarchy. Conversely, Rika observes repeatedly that it is women themselves who play an instrumental part in policing and maintaining oppressive gender norms.

If The Vegetarian was an expression of cold rage at the injustice of the patriarchy, then Butter conveys the melancholic sadness at the monstrous loss of potential for love, connection and mutual respect that it inflicts. But it is also through love, connection and respect that Butter’s characters help each other confront and overcome the different ways in which each of them has internalised patriarchal and misogynist gender norms. Each of the characters in Rika’s close circle represent both different aspects of patriarchy, different opportunities for insight and different potential relationships to her. One of the strengths of Butter is that it avoids facile romantic subplots. Instead, just as in life, there is far more potential in relationships between Rika and close kith and kin than can be realised, from the understated respect for one of her older male sources, to her at times verging on queer investment in Reiko. The novel’s ending is a celebration of this community and of compassion, of sharing not only food, but also the kindness and forgiveness that are essential for respect and growth.

By the end of Butter, we still don’t know if Manako Kajii killed her three lovers. We don’t even know who she really is. Despite contemplating the mystery of Manako Kajii for the whole novel, Rika is still not sure what to think of her. In that sense, Butter will be a disappointment to readers who were hoping for the traditional denouement of a whodunnit. Except that Butter does show us the culprit. Not a single man or woman, but a system which kills through violence, exploitation and deprivation. A killer who wants to turn all of us into its accomplices. Rika learns that to put a name to it is the first step to defeating it. So that maybe one day, we will all be free.

Notes & Suggestions

• The best way to savour quality butter is on proper bread. Sadly you don’t find much of that in UK supermarkets. If you want to know why, and where to find something that would meet even Manako Kajii’s exacting standards, give a listen to the Cereal podcast series by Farmerama Radio.
• Creating community can be a first step to collective organising to overthrow the patriarchy. There are plenty of specific feminist or women’s organisations to choose from, but broader campaign groups like Amnesty International or trade unions also have space for feminist activism.

A spoiler free recommendation

If you’re a longtime fan of Nathan Fielder’s work, you’re in for a particularly rewarding experience watching this documentary. I first stumbled upon Fielder’s work in 2019, when we happened across his show Nathan for You while channel surfing at an Airbnb during a vacation. (We didn’t have cable at home then, and still don’t.)

Since then, I’ve gone on to follow his work on Who Is America? with Sacha Baron Cohen (where Fielder worked behind the scenes as both a writer and director), followed by The Rehearsal and The Curse. So, I was fascinated to hear that, of all the people who might get to observe Elizabeth Holmes up close, it would be Nathan Fielder.

I won’t share my thoughts on You Can See Everything here, as I’d rather reserve that conversation for those who’ve had a chance to watch it. But I will say that if you’ve followed Fielder’s work over the years, you’ll appreciate, perhaps more than others, how much his previous works and distinctive approach to storytelling bleed into this project.

I continue to believe that Fielder, as controversial as some of his methods can be, is a sort of prophet for our culture and times. He has a remarkable ability to draw out uncomfortable truths about the people and subjects he focuses on. And perhaps the discomfort we sometimes feel while watching his work is itself a lens pointed back at us, exposing truths within ourselves.

#movies #documentary

I was thinking about the whole thing about people who really strictly want to emphasize that there is self-made man. Also another post while I’m driving to work, two I guess. Oh yeah, I was thinking about how I always make a point whenever we’re talking about like financial situations or things like that to acknowledge the amount of privilege that I have been given by my dad, the circumstances of my birth. And I was thinking about how the only reason I’m able to have a house or to have money saved up or things like that at my age in this current economy is because of the support from my dad in a lot of different ways, like paying for my undergrad, or pushing me towards engineering when I was younger, or by for better for worse is making me focus on academics so heavily growing up. And I do think that if I had done the same amount of hustle and work and all of that, but without the financial support for my dad, there’s no way I could’ve for example bought a house. And so it feels only fair for me to all of those things with the fact that I have this privilege. But also, I do understand part of the kind of frustration a little bit in a very minor sense, where I also don’t want all of my hard work to seem like it was nonexistent. But it’s really hard to disambiguate it because anyone can say if I was given those opportunities I would be in the same position. But also, I mean if I think about it, if I ignore the house, I was able to save up $200,000 or I guess honestly mostly about like 140 K from my internship money that I had invested over six years. And I know that I went through my undergrad college fund, but my masters, I paid for myself. I think the additional 60 K was money that my dad would give me to make up for the amount of money. He was giving my sister so that it was fair. And I think about the fact that my sister grew up in very similar circumstances, also honestly went to an even better college than I did, and yet still ended up getting her masters a year after I did, even though she is older. And additionally, she didn’t really have internships or savings, and wasn’t as financially responsible, and also was struggling to find a job and only recently found kind of an entry-level job and so has been fully dependent on my dad for everything for a couple years. And I don’t want to drag her down because I understand that we both had a very shitty childhood and I think a lot of the issues and scars that caused a lot of damage were emotional and I always say it was kind of like a sinker swim situation and I put in a lot of effort to swim and that effort isn’t something that comes naturally and so I think she kind of sake. But also, we were both given pretty much the same amount of privilege and I think the contrast is stark. I guess I’ve never really thought about that before until today, but I feel like that highlights to me the portion where it is not just the privilege I was born with, but also the work I have done. and I also don’t want to sound arrogant or suck my own dick too much, but I have has so many friends and peers say how smart I am or how talented I am, and I have been used as a target or challenge to reach several times in my life. I guess I didn’t originally actually mean this with the title of the post but I do kind of want to at least verbally jot down a bit of how I have not necessarily had everything handed to me, I’ve had doors opened, and I have had things handed to me, but I’ve also earned a lot.

De MOPeS

Pascal

Pascal had deze werkweek als opdracht meegekregen om op zoek te gaan naar verdwenen series waarin beenwarmers werden vertoond, Pascal wist dan meteen dat in deze series aerobics te zien moest zijn, veel series over deze bewegings tak waren gewist omdat ze vaak werden beschreven als tenenkrommend, meestal niet eens terecht. Ze waren wel slecht maar niet minder dan de nog niet vermiste rest, series worden naarmate de tijd tussen productie, reproductie en spinoff na spinoffer verstrijkt vanzelf slecht. Hetzelfde zie je ook gebeuren met tijdschriften of rapporten over iets en alles, ze houden nooit stand, er zit teveel in dat kapot kan gaan en dus ook stuk gaat, de enigste serie die dat lot kan ontlopen is nog niet gemaakt, het zou waarschijnlijk een serie over een zwarte stip op een egaal oppervlak zijn, niet echt iets om warm voor te zitten lopen..

Aerobics, beenwarmers, zweetbandjes om enkels, polsen en het hoofd, uit de mode kleuren en hoge gympen, moeilijk beeldmateriaal, heel lastig te vinden de laatste 10 jaar, toen hij begon was het eenvoudiger maar sinds de reorganisatie van de afdeling is al het eerder gevonden materiaal wederom zoek geraakt, al met al verder geen rede voor paniek of neerslachtigheid, tijdens de intake procedure na de solicitatie, gecultiveerde smeekbede, werd hij veelvuldig getest op weerbaarheid tegen zinloosheid van alle werk en vooral het werk in dit museum op deze afdeling, hij was extreem weerbaar en dus geschikt om dit soort taken levenslang te mogen doen voor geld. Hij had ook genoeg tijd over om allerhande lang, lang vergeten beeld en geluidsmateriaal te herontdekken voor zijn eigen behoefte aan kortstondig en of vluchtig vermaak, terwijl hij zocht om video's over klompenmakers, hennep telers, mannen met de hamers of andere zaken waar documentaire makers het even in zagen zitten voor ze verplicht afzakten naar de oppervlakkige reclame wereld, een wereld waar ontzettend veel filmpjes over beenwarmers zijn gemaakt, allemaal verdwenen.

Hij keek dit keer voor eigen vermaak naar een online spelshow of klucht in een vreemde taal met een hele hoop deuren waar van alles in en uit kwam en het publiek reageerde dan op iedere open deur heel enthousiast. Het was net niet leuk genoeg om te delen met Mees, zijn voormalig partner in zinloos zoeken in archiefmateriaal en online onzin. De enige die het allemaal ook niet serieus nam, het naar zijn zin had hier tot zijn oog viel op Olivia waarvoor hij verhuiste naar een streek te ver, ver van hier en deze baan verving met werken in een mieren productie fabriek of kwekerij, wat de mens met nog meer mieren moest is hem nooit verteld maar ze betaalden hem naar behoren alleen om mieren te zien mieren. Het werk had alleen geen enkele entertainment waarde, aldus Mees. Nu Olivia op pad moest naar de satellieten had hij wat meer tijd voor Pascals vele goede vondsten in stoffige en verse archieven, de wonderlijke wereld van menselijke beeld en geluid creaties. Mees was de laatste tijd in de ban van e-Silvia, waarschijnlijk omdat ze als twee druppels water leek op Olivia maar hele andere dingen deed, tenminste voor zover Pascal wist, Mees zou het hem heus wel laten weten als Olivia dergelijke dingen met hem deed, grote kans dat hij haar nooit had gestalked naar het land ver, ver van de nep ivoren toren. Het was Pascal nog steeds niet duidelijk wat nou de aard van hun relatie was. Wel dat Mees al het werk er in stak en Olivia daar dan op haar manier gebruik van maakte. Het was zeker niet het salaris en de loopbaan mogelijkheden waarmee Mees zich in haar leven kon wroeten, ze verdiende vijf keer zoveel, en ze had aardig wat opties op meer van dergelijk loon naar actief aanwezig zijn binnen een bedrijfscultus.

Hij kreeg een melding dat een van zijn computer zoek programma's, scripts een video had ontdekt met beenwarmers er in, hij pauzeerde de deur show video, zocht de hit op, en keek vervolgens naar een bizarre film waarin twee pre-historische monsters elkaar bevochten terwijl ze beenwarmers droegen om de onderpoten, waarom? Waarom nou!?

Just saw that Chris Donisi of Burlington MA is the new Voice of Logan Airport.

And the man does have an objectively beautiful voice. And yet.

He’s welcoming people to Boston. Not to Greater Boston. And he lives 18 miles from Logan Airport, a solid 45+ minute drive from Logan at most hours of the day. And apparently grew up in Arlington, which is also not Boston but at least is only 10 miles from Logan but also probably a 45-minute drive because of the magic of Boston traffic.

And he’s a white guy with the working class accent that used to define Boston, which makes him a “real Bostonian” in the national imagination, despite the fact that he doesn’t live in Boston. And despite the fact that Boston is a majority-minority city with a large Black and Hispanic population.

I don’t know Chris Donisi’s family history, but a whole lot of white people with that accent are descended from people who moved out of Boston and into the suburbs in the 70’s so their kids wouldn’t have to go to school with Black people.

If that sounds ugly, it’s because it is.

A cornerstone of white supremacy in the USA is that white people are “real” Americans, and everyone else is just a guest in our country who should be grateful for the opportunity to live here. (never mind that white people stole this country and a lot of non-white people are descended from people who were trafficked here.). Choosing a white suburbanite to be the voice of Boston only reinforces the view that Boston is a city of and for white people. It’s out of step with the reality of 2026 and represents a fascist nostalgia for a bygone era when “real” (aka white) Bostonians were a majority of the population here.

You know who actually grew up in Boston and does a lot of voice work? Ayo Edebiri. But she barely even registers as a Bostonian in the national or, for that matter local conversation. I wonder why?

Watched my first Blood & Guts last night. Well, half of it, anyway, about which more later. And I have questions.

I was excited to watch the women’s match because it featured so many of my favorite AEW wrestlers, and, as I’ve complained before, both here and on Bluesky, I don’t feel like the women in AEW get as much of the spotlight as they should. So it’s rare that I’ll get to see Kris Statlander, Willow Nightengale, Thekla, Queen Aminata and Persephone all wrestle on the same night. In fact it pretty much never happens. So I had to tune in despite the fact that I usually don’t dig extreme matches, with the barbed wire and the glass and the Legos—sorry, toy blocks.

And I really enjoyed this. Which brings me to the question: why? Part of what allows me to enjoy wrestling is the knowledge that the violence is fake, so why did I enjoy this match so much when there was SO MUCH BLOOD? Like, Megan Bayne was actually kind of hard to look at with her face just absolutely covered in blood.

I think because it’s a great story. At the end, when the faces held their hands aloft, bloody but unbowed, having overcome extreme adversity, it was kind of inspiring. Also the fact that the match was won by babyface Kris Statlander wrapping barbed wire around Julia Hart’s head through her open mouth and then tugging on it was slightly disturbing and also good storytelling: how far will you go to win? And what will it cost you? (I see rumors swirling about Statlander joining the Death Riders, which I think would be great not only for the storytelling but for the Death Riders as a faction, since they’d have two women and not just a bunch of guys who get to wrestle all the time and Marina Shafir who gets a match like once a month.) I liked Mercedes calling out Shafir’s mascot status in the Death Riders in their promo, and I hope this storyline is going somewhere.

Also loved the “Bandido goes apeshit” promo, and then I called it a night because a)I’m old and I was tired and b)I’m just not intersted in watching Will Ospreay or Darby Allin wrestle since I learned what they’ve been credibly accused of by women. I never really got Ospreay’s popularity in the first place, so that’s not much of a loss for me, but I really liked Darby Allin’s work before I learned more about what kind of person Samuel Ratsch is. Why can’t I separate the art from the artist and enjoy Darby Allin getting thrown off the top of the cage?

It’s an interesting question because of course I know that the characters wrestlers play are not who they are, and Darby is very good at his job, but I simply can’t overlook him being an abusive boyfriend. He’s good at his job, but there are SO MANY wrestlers out there who are not abusive partners and who could be as good as Darby Allin if given the same opportunities he’s had. But Darby continues to take up spots on the card. Essentially he’s taking up space that I’d rather see filled by someone who’s not a piece of shit.

Une personne m’a dit une fois : « Je suis ici sur cette Terre pour m’épanouir et non pas pour subir »

Mais où est la ligne de démarcation ?

Subir, est-ce affronter une adversité qui met en péril notre santé ? Affronter une adversité qui nous épuise ?

Qu’est-on prêt à accepter ?

J’ai l’impression que subir serait faire quelque chose qui serait en désaccord avec nos valeurs.

D’où l’importance d’être au clair sur ces valeurs. Qu’est-ce qui compte réellement ? Quels sacrifices est-on prêt à faire ?

Il n’y a aucun bienfait à subir. Mais il y a de la valeur dans notre capacité à affronter l’adversité avec dignité.

L’obstacle est la voie.

Tout ce qui doit arriver, arrivera. Et tout sera pour le mieux.

En réalité, l’adversité est ma résistance à ce qui est. Accepter l’imperfection. Accepter le chaos inhérent à l’existence. À mon travail. Accepter ce siècle. Accepter mon regard sur les choses. Et avancer, malgré tout. Parce que c’est la bonne chose à faire. Et la seule chose à faire, au fond.

IU Basketball Tonight.

Thursday's game of choice finds the Bellarmine Knights men's basketball team traveling to the Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington, IN, to play the Indiana University Hoosiers. With its start time of 5:00 PM CT, there's a pretty good chance that I'll be able to listen to the entire game before sleep sends me to bed.

And the adventure continues.