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Sam Jack

@samtjack.bsky.social
88 followers 111 following 48 posts

Librarian, classical singer, journalist and poet in Wichita, KS!

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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Trump gifted Xi a statue of a hideous demon eagle. Photo by Doug Mills/NYT - www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/u...
Two uniformed military officers unveil a bronze eagle statue in a formal room. An inset detail image shows that the eagle seems to have a droopy, malformed beak.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
My latest for The SHOUT digs into the story of “Tripodal,” the James Rosati sculpture that’s stood outside Wichita’s Century II Performing Arts & Convention Center since 1972.
shoutwichita.com
How Wichita's relationship with 'Tripodal' has evolved over a half century
James Rosati's 1972 modernist sculpture was part of a larger movement across the country. With time (and a time capsule), the work has gained some respect from the city it was built for.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
…otherwise it’s just Sparkling Review.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Is someone on the White House staff prompting AI to make this stuff? Or are they reposting stuff posted by MAGA fans on Truth Social and the like? Seems like it should be possible to figure this out.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
Yeah— I know the lyrics in German, but not in English
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Reposted by Sam Jack
Kansas Leadership Center @theklc.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
Great shows don’t tell the whole story. Century II’s limitations drive up costs, restrict programming and require constant workarounds—often invisible to audiences, which can make the problems feel less urgent than they are. ✍️ Sam Jack 📸 Selena Favela
klcjournal.com
Performers in Wichita need more than Century II. Is a new center still possible?
Supporters of a new center, deflated after the failed sales tax vote, say that public-private dollars are crucial in achieving that dream.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
On top of the obvious—the witless pileup of abstractions in that sentence is characteristic of un-reprocessed AI slop.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
What public interest is served by giving a White House source anonymity just to say that Nicki Minaj is lying?
nytimes.com
Did Trump Really Give Nicki Minaj a $1 Million ‘Gold Card’ Visa?
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
If you’re tasked with writing text that nobody wants to actually *read*, by all means, use AI.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
Like, I’d literally rather read the prompt he submitted to ChatGPT rather than the text the GPT spit out.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
It just really bothers me, this proliferation of AI zombie text everywhere. I’d rather read and hear people’s actual words.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
I agree that it’s his own sentiments run through AI.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
It’s still AI-written; he prompted the AI to try to ape his manner of speaking, and perhaps he did some post-generation editing, but it’s still entirely obvious. Go to his profile and read some comments from 7 or 8 years ago. They are quite different in style.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
Also, funnily enough, “This research took approximately one hour, the old-fashioned way—no AI.” sent my antenna up
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
There are rhetorical and even metrical patterns that AI favors. It favors them, of course, because they are statistically favored, and common, in human-produced writing. But humans don’t use them again and again like clockwork.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
Phrases like “Faculty involvement is not symbolism. It is quality control,” the way the whole thing is structured with subheads and bullet-point lists, and a certain maundering, baggy quality. I’m not saying I have “proof.” The authors edited the AI output, but not enough to remove the stench.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
I have a hard time reading the Free Press’s story because it was drafted with AI.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
A couple of weeks ago, Yo-Yo Ma made a quick visit to Wichita and the Maven Gallery, and I got the chance to cover it for The SHOUT.
shoutwichita.com
Connection with photographer brings Yo-Yo Ma to Wichita
Austin Mann, who has traveled the world with the celebrated cellist, brought him home for an artist talk and pop-up performance December 3.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
Would have been better if the reporter hadn’t used AI to draft it.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
Kansas GOP today gave up on the idea of redistricting Sharice Davids out of her seat. She threatened to run for Senate, which severely diminished the GOP’s enthusiasm for the idea. kansasreflector.com/briefs/kansa...
kansasreflector.com
Kansas House speaker waves white flag on special session as congresswoman considers Senate run • Kansas Reflector
Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins said Tuesday that he didn't gather enough support from his Republican caucus to force a special session.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
@joshtpm.bsky.social Why aren’t Democrats pointing out that if Republicans don’t want to negotiate on the budget, they can eliminate the filibuster? That would seem to add clarity to the situation — and the filibuster will need to go anyway when it’s time for a bare majority of Dems to codify Roe.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
Meanwhile, Meta’s social networks are glitchy nightmares, as anyone who has to deal with them for work can tell you.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
Of course, the fact that this attack was illegal has its own consequences.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
In Trump’s social media post, he seems to be at least suggesting that this was limited: U.S. goes in with the bombs, but now it’s out. All back to normal except now the nuke sites are destroyed. Is there any way that can be our reality? Or does this action commit the U.S. to future actions?
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
The phrasing “not only ___, it’s ___” is a favorite of ChatGPT. I’m seeing this formula crop up in online text and articles with astonishing frequency. Each time I see it now I’m annoyed by the suspicion that I’m reading cruft no one took the time to actually write.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
Every time I hear the phrase “Liberation Day,” I think of the George Saunders short story where people are glued to a wall in a wealthy man’s home and forced to sing.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Thank you Anne! :)
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
My thoughts on Beethoven 9 and our current moment. I appreciate @awelsbacher.bsky.social’s working with me on this, and The SHOUT’s being receptive to it.
shoutwichita.com
Singing 'Ode to Joy' during days of disaster
The Wichita Symphony Orchestra presents Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 this Saturday with a community chorus of more than 130 singers. For one chorus member, its famous anthem is a challenge to these dis...
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Several kids trying to log in to Roblox at my library today ran into this insane 15-step Captcha. I tried to be sympathetic, but honestly… it was pretty funny. youtu.be/Nji8PFRUcsM?...
youtu.be
ROBLOX VERIFICATION IS OUT OF CONTROL!😡😡😡
YouTube video by Juicy John 2
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 16/02/2025
I started watching “Prime Target,” the new spy show on Apple, with my parents. It’s silly fun. Dad fished out these prime number discovery patents that he wrote and had issued for a Wichita inventor.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
The federal dollars that Kansas stood to lose functioned as a form of pressure on Brownback and the right in Kansas; without that I wonder whether we’d have a Kansas Arts Commission today at all.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
Yeah… and the destruction to be wrought by whatever they’re going to do to the NEA and NEH is just getting started. It’s not just the direct money that might go away, it’s all the activity and matching funds from state, local and private partners.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
And like you said, it’s all interlinked nationally. WNO served as a training ground, commissioned new works, created co-productions with other companies. Alan Held, who’s a WSU professor now, sang Wotan there! All kaput, most likely. Sigh…
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
This could send Washington National Opera under, and it’s not as though new, big-time opera companies are getting started nowadays. So the end (or radical diminution) of WNO would represent more or less permanent damage to the artform and the opera industry in the U.S.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
My latest for shoutwichita.com! Thanks to @johnharrison.cc, Lisa Rundstrom and Tom McGuire for tafor taking the time to chat with me about “Avian Migrations.”
shoutwichita.com
‘Avian Migrations’ bridges technological, organic modes of expression
The Advanced Learning Library centerpiece is an interactive sculpture controlled passively by its patrons.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Beautifully-written review here.
nytimes.com
In Ratmansky’s ‘Paquita,’ Worlds Collide to Make a Ballet Big Bang
Alexei Ratmansky creates a joyful new “Paquita” for New York City Ballet, giving the dancers a classical frame in which to find new versions of themselves.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
“Many of those interviewed broke down in tears as they described the rapid destruction of decades of work.” As a (formerly full time) reporter let me say: There’s a depth behind a dispassionate sentence like that. These reporters have had a close encounter with something truly outrageous and tragic.
nytimes.com
Health Programs Shutter Around the World After Trump Pauses Foreign Aid (Gift Article)
Lifesaving treatment and prevention programs for tuberculosis, malaria, H.I.V. and other diseases cannot access funds to continue work.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
New display at Newton Public Library: poetry + astronomy
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
Re-enjoying this Vasko Popa sequence, especially "The Dream of the Quartz Pebble." It's a legerdemain poem.
modernpoetryintranslation.com
The Quartz Pebble – Modern Poetry in Translation
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
Wow, Ian Bostridge? Hi there! Your Rake’s Progress record was the first opera CD I ever bought :)
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
Today the president stood up in front of the country and blamed the AA 5342 disaster on minorities and the disabled. Those who live in Wichita, I urge you to phone Rep. Ron Estes’s office today and demand that Estes denounce those comments. estes.house.gov/contact/
estes.house.gov
Contact | U.S. Representative Ron Estes
I value all feedback from residents of my district. The best way to reach out is through online messages below or via phone: (202) 225-6216 for my Washington, D.C. office and (316) 262-8992 for my Wic...
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
I love the spine of this book with footprints in the snow.
The spine of “Schubert’s Winter Journey” by Ian Bostridge. It is white with black text and includes inset footprints as though someone has walked through fresh snow.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
If this includes USDOL administrative grants to state departments of labor, it could shut down the unemployment insurance system across the country.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
Nice!
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
Awesome, I will also be there Friday with my parents :)
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
My latest for shoutwichita.com. Thank you Emily!
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Reposted by Sam Jack
Harry Dunn @libradunn1.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
Sergeant Gonell @sergeantaqgo.bsky.social sent me this picture. This is his call log. Each call is an automated Dept of "Justice" notification saying "The defendant you testified against is being released from the dept of corrections." Each defendant assaulted him.
Call log showing multiple calls from the dept of justice
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 30/12/2024
The old year gone. Hello the new
A 2024 calendar in a trash can.
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
Today, I saw that someone covered up the opossum with white paint. So now, it's a blank sign with an irregularly-shaped splash of white paint in the middle. I think it's funny to imagine the little scene that must have played out when someone finally decided to eliminate this piece of "public art."
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Sam Jack @samtjack.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
For years there's been a wooden sign at an intersection near a trailer park outside Goddard, KS. And for years, the only thing on that sign had been a smallish painting of a weird-looking animal -- maybe it was an opossum?
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