Maureen Dowd meets The Cloud

Maureen Dowd has written the best essay on explaining AI I’ve seen written. It is contained in her profile in her new book “Notorious: Portraits of Stars from Hollywood, Culture, Fashion, and Tech."

It is in part, an intimate portrait of the Lords of the Clouds like the Apple, PayPal, Google, and Facebook CEOs, who are dead set on changing the world.

The column was written before Elon Rusk lurched himself and America to the radical right and set about creating Musk Bizzaro World. Apparently, some day our disembodied brains will live in the cloud - not the kind of clouds that scud across the sky, either. Good to know.

Methodically, Dowd dissects Musk and the battle for the control of AI. It is a deeply researched piece that should scare the bejaysus out of everyone who contemplates the future. It also informs and educates on how high the stakes are.

It is a foregone conclusion, year after year, that Dowd is the most popular columnist in America, a writer whose full range runs from tracking the latest height of fashion to Hollywood to contemporary politics to high tech in low places.

An indication of her hegemony over Hollywood is that lately, George Clooney spent six hours being interviewed by her. George Clooney! Every woman in America would have instantly traded places.

Every major studio courts her approving nod, knowing that a thumbs up from Dowd can make or break a new movie.

Una Thurman told her the incredible story of how Quentin Tarantino almost killed her by forcing her to drive a defective car. Kevin Costner gets roasted for arrogance and boorishness - all are part of the Maureen Dowd merry-go-round.

Notorious is a description that she sometimes qualifies for herself as she aims her arrows at some bad hombre or other. Her underdog roots run deep. Her father, from Co Clare, was a Washington heroic cop who helped foil an effort to kill President Truman. Her mother, roots in Co Mayo, used to picket the British Embassy chanting “Brits out.” Her sister Peggy is fiercely loyal and the book is dedicated to her.

Dowd's gift is she sees through pretentiousness with a gimlet eye and she is not afraid to voice pointed criticism where warranted. Her saving grace is her searing honesty.

She loved the Bush family, detested Hillary, despised Trump, and was unmoved by the fan girls around Obama who treated him as the Second Coming. She was harder on Joe Biden than expected - but events proved her right.

She thrives writing on the glitter and glamor of Hollywood. She gladly admits she has an unhealthy obsession with 50s movie stars and clearly would love to have been alive in that era, maybe as Hedda Hopper, the Cindy Adams of her time.

Her description of Marilyn Monroe owning a 500-book collection and Monroe’s spirited clashes with her husband, playwright Arthur Miller on matters literary, clashes with the general belief that Monroe was merely a trollop. whose ample bosom got her a long way in America.

Dowd gets folks to open up like very few journalists can. Tina Fey relates a weird story about her husband wanting to go to a strip club which did not please the Saturday Night Maven.

Fashion savant Tom Ford tells how some plastic on your temples can be as effective as Botox. Who knew? Every barber in Seville will be ending the haircuts by pinning some scotch tape on their client’s head. 

Al Pacino comes across as weird, hawking around what was his own home movie and never making it public, The Fiennes brothers are a fascinating duo with strong ties to Ireland.

The late Paul Newman was clearly one of her favorites, calm to the point of withdrawn, but a fierce friend and ally whose devotion to Joanne Woodward was legendary.

In recent times, Dowd has observed the shocking turnaround in America’s mission where we seem to have abandoned all that is good and meaningful - keeping AIDS at bay in Africa, feeding starving babies in Sudan, presiding over peace in Europe through leadership of NATO and a thousand other soft power initiatives.

Millions of readers flock each week to Dowd’s column. Not for the first time her voice will be among the most important in the coming Trump era. She has become a counterweight for the millions of Americans who now feel alone and isolated as Trump continues his drumbeat of destruction.

As I grew up as a young boy in Ireland, my heroes were JFK, Muhammad Ali, and Neil Armstrong. They fired my imagination of this great country called America. One can only shudder when thinking about what or who kids today will seek to imitate. Donald Trump? Pete Hegseth? Lord Save Us and Guide Us is probably what Dowd's mother would say.

Amen to that.

Niall O'Dowd is the Founder of IrishCentral.