December is full of important holidays and dates. Following are some I will be featuring in the month ahead. In the meantime, feel free to learn more about them—even the ones you are familiar with.
December 8 Bodhi Day is the Buddhist holiday that commemorates the day that Gautama Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment.
December 8 Anniversary of the death of John Lennon (1940-1980)
December 10 Anniversary of the death of Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
I am not an expert on clothing styles, though it interests me—mostly as a spectator. My personal style has long been…well, I’ll leave it to others to describe it. I’d say it is in the middle, not too conservative, not too edgy.
I do know a lot about ties, choosing them and tying them. My father passed this love of ties to me. He took me tie shopping with him, which is how I learned what to look for. As far as tying, I can make all of the major knots, including bow ties (yes, I own some, and yes, there was a period when I kind of wore a few, unironically).
This style article in the Wall Street Journal today made me smile, and laugh a little.
There are two ways of looking at the suggested tie styles below. One is to see it as a creative and personal approach to wearing an admittedly boring piece of cloth around your neck. The other is to see it as an absurd attempt to create a weird style option where none is needed. You be the judge.
If you’ve ever tried to tie a tie, on yourself or someone else, and failed, a few of these knots look exactly like what you’d get. Except planned. But as I said, I’m no style expert.
Style Guide: Five Ways to Wear a Tie This Holiday Season The knot of this Saint Laurent tie can be just as much an accessory as the item itself
Leveling up your holiday outfit can be as simple as tying your tie a different way. A good old-fashioned Windsor knot won’t ever be a bad choice, but there are so many more creative options to test out.
Wall Street Journal Dec. 2, 2025
1. The Trinity Knot.2. The Eldredge Knot.3. The Van Wijk Knot.4. The Scale Knot.5. The Butterfly Knot.
GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement unleashing the power of radical generosity. GivingTuesday was created in 2012 as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good. Since then, it has grown into a year-round global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity.
Join the movement and give, whether it’s some of your time, a donation, or the power of your voice in your local community.
It’s a simple idea: whether it’s making someone smile, helping a neighbor or stranger out, showing up for an issue or people we care about, or giving some of what we have to those who need our help, every act of generosity counts and everyone has something to contribute toward building the better world we all want to live in.
Show Your Generosity
It’s more important than it ever has been to show up for our communities.
Support your local social good organizations, mutual aid networks, and community organizers
Do an act of kindness or help a neighbor
Identify your gifts, pick a cause that gets you fired up, and give back – not just for GivingTuesday but every day.
If you have favorite charities, give today, through the holiday season and whenever.
As previous posts have noted, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) is an excellent choice. Best of all, right now there is a 5X match for your donation:
Nearly all civilians in Gaza are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Children are dying of starvation and disease. With aid access severely limited, the IRC and its partners are responding where we can to provide nutrition, clean water, sanitation and hygiene services, along with child protection in some of the hardest-hit areas.
Today, your additional gift will be 5X-matched, helping the IRC make a lasting impact for people in crisis in Gaza and across the world—at a scale that truly makes a meaningful impact.
Science-Fiction Thinking Machines, edited by Groff Conklin (1955)
I unearthed the above book, Science-Fiction Thinking Machines (1955), this weekend. The twelve stories are written by sci-fi greats including Isaac Asimov, Clifford Simak, Theodore Sturgeon and Poul Anderson.
Robots…Androids…Electronic Brains
The mechanical men are waiting, biding their time. Imitation flesh and blood—soulless but not mindless—they were invented by man to do the world’s hard work—but how long will they let us be masters?
Read the twelve superb stories in this book, and see what the best Science Fiction writers of our time think might happen…or what might be happening now!
Naturally, I turned to a “thinking machine” to discuss the distinctions between the two terms. Here is the transcript of my conversation with Claude.
Bob:
What is the history of the term “thinking machines” to describe what is currently referred to as “artificial intelligence”?
Claude:
The term “thinking machines” has a fascinating history that predates and overlaps with “artificial intelligence.”
Early Usage (1940s-1950s)
The phrase “thinking machines” emerged in the 1940s as computers were being developed. It was popularized by figures like Edmund Berkeley, who wrote “Giant Brains, or Machines That Think” (1949), describing early computers in accessible terms for the public. The term reflected both excitement and anxiety about machines that could perform logical operations previously requiring human thought.
Alan Turing’s landmark 1950 paper opened with the question “Can machines think?” and proposed what became the Turing Test. This paper, titled “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” helped establish “thinking machines” as a serious subject of scientific inquiry rather than just science fiction.
The Birth of “Artificial Intelligence” (1956)
The term “artificial intelligence” was coined at the 1956 Dartmouth Conference by John McCarthy and colleagues. They chose it deliberately for their research proposal, partly because it sounded more scientific and precise than alternatives like “thinking machines” or “automata studies.” The new term helped establish AI as a distinct academic field.
Divergence in Usage
After 1956, “artificial intelligence” became the dominant academic and technical term, while “thinking machines” continued in popular discourse and remained common in:
Popular science writing and journalism
Philosophical discussions about machine consciousness
Science fiction
Public debates about technology’s implications
Modern Context
Today, “thinking machines” is used more informally or rhetorically, often carrying philosophical overtones about whether machines truly “think” versus merely process information. “Artificial intelligence” remains the standard technical term, though debates continue about whether current AI systems genuinely think or simply simulate thinking through pattern matching and statistical processing.
Bob:
Do you think using the term “thinking machines” would change attitudes toward artificial intelligence?
Claude:
That’s a thought-provoking question. I think the terminology could influence attitudes in several ways:
Potential Effects of “Thinking Machines”
The term might make AI feel more tangible and relatable. “Thinking” is something everyone understands from direct experience, whereas “artificial intelligence” sounds more abstract and technical. This familiarity could cut both ways – making AI seem either more trustworthy (it thinks like we do) or more threatening (it’s a rival thinker, not just a tool).
“Thinking machines” also foregrounds the philosophical question that “artificial intelligence” somewhat obscures: Do these systems actually think? Using “thinking machines” might provoke more public debate about machine consciousness, understanding, and the nature of thought itself. This could be healthy, forcing us to grapple with what we’re actually creating.
On the other hand, “thinking machines” might anthropomorphize AI systems in unhelpful ways. It could lead people to overestimate current AI capabilities or project human-like qualities onto systems that work very differently from human cognition. “Artificial intelligence” at least signals that this is something constructed and distinct from natural intelligence.
Why Terminology Matters Less Than You Might Expect
However, I’m somewhat skeptical that terminology alone would dramatically shift attitudes. People’s views on AI seem driven more by their experiences with it, media narratives, economic concerns, and deeper values than by whether we call it “AI” or “thinking machines.” The rise of “generative AI” and “large language models” as terms hasn’t fundamentally changed the underlying debates – people still argue about the same questions of capability, safety, and impact.
What do you think? Do you sense that “thinking machines” would change how you or others relate to this technology?
Notes
1. My asking Claude “Do you think using the term…” can be called meta, or ironic, or weird, or fitting, since the topic is “thinking machines.” .
2. Claude saying “That’s a thought-provoking question.” reflects a well-reported tendency for AI platforms to be more or less affirmative, encouraging and engaging.
3. Claude closing by asking “What do you think?” is a typical probing, almost Socratic, question, a way of keeping the conversation going and digging deeper.
It is advised that attachment to any of these will result in suffering, for yourself and others. You don’t have to be involved in any tradition, just as a human being, to know that is true.
Concern about receiving or not receiving gifts has other facets. Concern about receiving the “wrong” gift, or concern about whether to give a gift or about giving the “wrong” gift.
This is the season for receiving and giving gifts. This message is not about receiving or not receiving or giving or not giving gifts.
You may receive gifts and give gifts. You may be famous or disreputable. You may win praise or be subject to criticism. You may feel pleasure or pain. This is life. The holidays are on their way.
This season, clinging to concerns about what you receive will not make you and others happy. The empty box, or even no box at all, is okay.
He was not just “playwright” in the limited sense of writer of brilliant, crowd-pleasing and critically acclaimed stage events. He also wrote a number of radio and TV plays, and many movies including Brazil (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Russia House (1990), Billy Bathgate (1991), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Enigma (2001), and Anna Karenina (2012). Those of us who didn’t get to see or hear all the plays read them like novels, imagining each scene in our own theater.
When the BBC wanted to mark the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyds Dark Side of the Moon in 2013, they asked Stoppard to create a radio play. The result is Darkside, which integrates dramatic wit and philosophy into the album. Who does that? Who could do that?
Here are three descriptions and appreciations from the Guardian on the occasion of his death:
Long ago, my high school English class took a trip to see a Broadway show newly arrived from Britain. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was the play that launched Stoppard’s career. You may find the film version, which Stoppard directed, or you may and should read the play. The trick, which he used later in Shakespeare in Love, was to weave together familiar Shakespeare with universal modern issues. I was already a lover of great plays and playwrights, but seeing this play changed what I thought plays, in fact any artistic creation, could be. I have been with Stoppard for the decades since.
Sample Stoppard however you can. It might change you too.
Please pull back for a moment from thinking about what bargains we might find on Black Friday.
Black Friday used to be the one day after Thanksgiving, but is now an entire season of deals that seems to begin in October.
If you step back from bargain hunting, you might wonder why it is called “Black Friday”.
The term “Black Friday” has an interesting history. While widespread retail sales on this day began in the mid-20th century, the name itself has contested origins: The most commonly cited explanation is that it refers to retailers moving from being “in the red” (operating at a loss) to being “in the black” (turning a profit) due to the surge in sales. However, this explanation appears to be a later rebranding.
The term actually originated in Philadelphia in the 1960s, where police used it to describe the chaos of heavy pedestrian and vehicle traffic that flooded the city the day after Thanksgiving. The crowds came for the Army-Navy football game held on Saturday and began their holiday shopping on Friday. Police had to work long shifts dealing with traffic and crowds, which they found unpleasant—hence the “black” descriptor.
Retailers initially disliked the negative connotation and tried to rebrand it as “Big Friday,” but the name Black Friday stuck. By the 1980s, retailers embraced the term, reframing it with the more positive “red to black” accounting narrative.
Just for a moment—the deals will wait—let’s change colors. Yesterday, at Thanksgiving, we may have been able to share company and a table with family and friends. In the coming weeks, we will be celebrating holidays that have light as a theme.
So let’s set aside the black and feature the light. This, the day after Thanksgiving, is Bright Friday. Are there light Bright Friday things waiting to be grabbed? Sure, if you know what they are and can find them.
“Imaginatione and historie are a fine paire.” Made up old-fashioned quote
Some believe that the accounts of the first Thanksgiving feast in 1621 have been sanitized to leave out an extraordinary detail. Somehow, it is thought by some, the Native Americans at Plymouth had traded for peyote from Southwestern tribes and shared it with the colonists at that famous three-day meal.
First, here’s the version we have, from Edward Winslow in Mourt’s Relation, published in 1622:
Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.
The omitted mention of psychedelics explains much. For example, the outlandish hats and clothing we associate with the pilgrims in fact did not exist in that community. Instead, it is possible that those in the midst of an experience began sketching the ridiculous fashions they thought they saw. “Tall hats with buckles,” William Bradford said. “Oh wow, such hats reflect our reaching to heaven.” “Awesome!” the others who were still capable of speaking might have exclaimed.
Happy Thanksgiving (yes, we all still call the holiday that).
For those who wonder whether meanness is a sin or vice, you can start with Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas, where Question 135 addresses the issue. Or you could ask your parents or your elementary school teachers or your spouse or your children: It’s not nice to be mean.
Which should make us think about why rampant meanness is not only acceptable, but encouraged, entertaining, and profitable. Cheaters may never prosper (though they often do), but meaners are doing very well these days.
Saying that all things virtuous seem to be dying and on life support is an overstatement that doesn’t get us far. Instead, four possible explanations of how what was once a private disturbance has become such a pandemic, a public poison:
Meanness by proxy: All art and performance is based on the ability and willingness of creators to express what we can’t or won’t. It would be nice to think that we only long to be the one who can move people to tears or laughter, inspire people to reach higher, and if we can’t be those creators, at least they are doing that for us. The same thing unfortunately applies to darker messaging, though. We may not be able to attack quite so sharply and eloquently, but we appreciate that someone can. “Yeah, what he said!”
Meanness as superiority: This is a subset of meanness by proxy. There’s perversity in enjoying the meanness of others, but at the same time taking pride in being one who would never say something like that because…we are better than that and would never be so mean. (Whatever the theological status of meanness, by the way, pride is definitely on all the lists of sins.)
Meanness as incompetent and faulty criticism: This is the explanation of meanness as sub-juvenile behavior. When little children aren’t sure why they hate somebody or something, or can’t articulate it, they revert to name-calling and indiscriminate meanness: “You’re a poo-poo head!” It’s a fantastic dream that one day, thanks to some spell, the most gratuitously mean would be magically forced to speak only such childish epithets.
Meanness unconditioned by a thought/speech barrier: The thought/speech barrier, the wall that should keep many thoughts from ever being spoken, is dissolving. Whether phenomena such as Twitter are causal, enabling, or merely symptomatic is beside the point. Thought moves from brain to mouth (or keyboard) at the speed of synapse. Mean heart becomes mean words in a literal instant.
There is a genuine critical function, which can be exercised with thoughtfulness, care, and respect. That simple sentence, a foundation of a free, enlightened society, is looking particularly quaint, and seems for many to have lost its meaning.
“As for the peace plan floated by the White House last week: The 28-point plan amounts to a holiday wish list from the Kremlin….This isn’t a peace plan. It’s a blueprint for Ukraine’s capitulation. If implemented, it would turn this pro-Western, democratic nation, which has been courageously resisting Russian aggression since 2014, into a Kremlin colony.”
Russia’s barbaric assault on Ukraine continues: A single Russian drone and missile strike on an apartment block in western Ukraine last week killed at least 31 civilians. Meanwhile, Russia is ramping up its campaign of sabotage in Europe: Polish authorities blamed the Kremlin for a Nov. 15 explosion on a rail line used to transport supplies to Ukraine. As German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said recently, Europe “is not at war” but it is also “no longer at peace” with Russia.
The growing threat from Vladimir Putin’s despotic, expansionist regime calls for Churchillian resolution, unity and strength on the part of the transatlantic alliance. Instead, Neville Chamberlain-style irresolution and confusion reigns on both sides of the Atlantic. The situation is far more concerning in the United States than in Europe, with the Trump administration having seemingly endorsed, at least for now, a “peace plan” that would give Russia a victory at the negotiating table that it hasn’t earned on the battlefield.
The Europeans have stepped up, providing weapons and funding to Ukraine as U.S. support has dried up. The European Union has a plan to do even more by sending Kyiv some $200 billion in frozen Russian assets as a “loan” that would likely never be repaid. Obviously, given the current corruption scandal in Kyiv, safeguards on the disbursement of the money would be needed. But this is a vital — indeed, irreplaceable — source of funding that can keep Ukraine afloat for years. Yet tiny Belgium, where most of the funds are frozen, is wringing its hands and holding up the plan. There is no Plan B: Europe has to send the Russian funds or else Ukraine will run out of money. So why dither and delay?
As for the peace plan floated by the White House last week: The 28-point plan amounts to a holiday wish list from the Kremlin. It would require Ukraine to cede the entire Donbas region — even the parts that Russian troops have been unable to conquer — and to cut the size of its armed forces by roughly a third. Ukraine would not be allowed to join NATO, and NATO would not be allowed to dispatch peacekeeping troops to Ukraine. Ukraine would hold elections within 100 days and “all Nazi ideology” would be “prohibited”; this is Kremlin code for toppling the Zelensky government. Russia isn’t being asked to limit the size of its armed forces or to hold elections; all the demands are on Ukraine.
What does Ukraine get in return? A separate draft agreement specifies that in the event of renewed Russian aggression, the United States could respond with “armed force, intelligence and logistical assistance, economic and diplomatic actions.” But the U.S. wouldn’t be compelled to do anything. Ukraine would be left to rely on a worthless Russian pledge of “nonaggression” — something it already promised in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.
This isn’t a peace plan. It’s a blueprint for Ukraine’s capitulation. If implemented, it would turn this pro-Western, democratic nation, which has been courageously resisting Russian aggression since 2014, into a Kremlin colony.
Apparently, the odious proposal was hatched in secret meetings between Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s credulous peace envoy, and Kirill Dmitriev, the wily head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, who is dangling promises of lucrative Russian investments if the Trump administration will only end the war on the Kremlin’s terms. (The draft agreement speaks of “mutually beneficial” opportunities, including energy and artificial intelligence.) Ukraine and Europe were not consulted, and both are scrambling to make their voices heard in Washington.
Yet the White House is pressuring Ukraine to agree by Thanksgiving or else lose all remaining U.S. support, including, presumably, U.S. intelligence warnings of Russian missile and drone launches. This is a geopolitical five-alarm fire, with the only saving grace being that Trump could change his mind, as he has so often done in the past.
In August, Trump met with Putin in Alaska and afterward told European leaders that Ukraine would have to cede land it still controls to Russia. Alarmed European leaders rushed to the White House and convinced Trump to back off. Trump subsequently imposed sanctions on two Russian oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, and even gave Ukraine permission to use U.S.-supplied missiles to strike Russia for the first time.
The U.S. sanctions, combined with Ukrainian drone attacks, are reducing the funds available to back Putin’s war machine: Russian oil revenues have fallen 20 percent in the past month. Even India is weaning itself from Russian energy imports. It would be folly to remove the pressure now, when it is just starting to bite.
That is all the more the case because other recent developments favor Russia: notably, the corruption scandal currently embroiling Zelensky and the likelihood that the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk will finally fall to the Russian army after a lengthy and costly siege. From Putin’s perspective, Ukraine now might be weak enough to bow down before his maximalist demands. Trump apparently believes this too.
That is an illusion. While Ukrainians may be more divided than before about Zelenksy’s leadership and more willing to trade some territory for peace, they remain united in refusing to surrender. The Witkoff-Dmitriev pact is a victor’s peace, but Ukraine hasn’t been defeated. The Russian military has barely advanced since 2022, at a price of roughly a million casualties. But the Trump administration’s willingness to make peace on the Kremlin’s terms can only raise Putin’s hopes that he can win this war after all.
That is the worst possible signal to send at a time when the Russian threat to Europe has never been clearer or more ominous. It makes a wider war with Russia more, not less, likely. Europe needs to counter Trump’s appeasement by rushing frozen Russian funds to Ukraine without delay.
By Max Boot Max Boot is a Washington Post columnist and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. A Pulitzer Prize finalist in biography, he is the author, most recently, of the New York Times bestseller “Reagan: His Life and Legend,” which was named one of the 10 best books of 2024 by the New York Times.
Bob Schwartz 