1. I took a quick trip to Maine this weekend to see my niece and nephew in a play, as well as to celebrate my father’s birthday, hence why this is coming late.
2. The play was The Taming of the Shrew, the second time I’ve seen it recently (a friend was also in a production last fall). The production was very good, and the young cast did a truly impressive job in their roles (and I’m not just saying that out of avuncular partiality). Overall a good time was had by all.
3. Taming of the Shrew is a very fun play, albeit one that needs rather careful handling. I really like the dynamic between Katherine and Petruchio, the battle of wills making up the bulk of the comedy along with the underlying indications that they really are a well-matched couple (e.g. he is able to match her sarcasm beat-for-beat), in contrast with the more conventional, but ultimately less successful romance between Lucentio and Bianca.
4. The key element, to my mind, is that Lucentio and the other would-be suitors to Bianca are really not much to write home about, as men. Katherine’s disdain for them is really quite justified, as is her resentment towards her rather selfish and materialistic father. Then Petruchio comes in, and he actually is a man of substance beneath his devil-may-care attitude (as indicated by his reminding the others that he’s been in real battles and storms at sea, so he isn’t afraid of a woman’s tongue), but Kate only knows how to be defensive and self-assertive, so needs to be ‘tamed’ before she can take up her place as a loving wife.
5. AI will never truly revolutionize the economy because it is much too resource intensive to scale properly. Also, we are beginning to discover that in many cases it is much more trouble than it is worth.
6. I feel like the digital revolution has somewhat sucked the air out of the innovative and inventive spirit of America (which is one of our real virtues); it’s made people think only in terms of computers rather than other forms of mechanics or engineering. That might just be my layman’s perspective, though.
7. Americans, I find, tend of all people to be the most oblivious the disconnect between what is said and what the reality is. We seem to have an idea that to declare something is so means that it is so, regardless of the reality of the situation. One of the big examples is how many Americans still imagine that the States are, in fact, ‘states,’ that is, distinct, semi-independent nations rather than oversized counties (which is what they are). This is particularly strange given that we had an entire war specifically over this issue. Or the obvious absurdity of a ‘state’ being created at the will of and under conditions set by a larger state, so that it becomes a question of ‘achieving statehood’ by meeting certain requirements.
Cornwall is a ‘state.’ That is to say, it was a distinct political entity once, with its own heritage, culture, identity, etc., which was then folded into the larger state of England. Cornwall has a reality independent of England, even though it is also closely tied to it.
There was no such thing as ‘Arizona’ until the US government created it. Arizona is not a state in any real sense; it is simply a large administrative area.
Serpent's Den 
2-4: Ah, Taming. That brings back memories; I played Biondello in a community production of that once. (I vividly remember one rehearsal where Hortensio completely forgot his lines in IV.ii, and just kept reiterating, “I’m really upset!” till at last he stormed offstage and came and buried his face in his wig.)
5, 6: Amen.
7: Is it absurd, though? On any theory, when Vermont received her statehood, it was a case of Virginia, Massachusetts, et al., saying to her, “We recognize you as what we are,” and what they were, at least according to the Declaration they had all signed fifteen years before, was “free and independent States”. If that’s what they were, that’s what Vermont became – and what she and they together then made Kentucky into, and what the fifteen of them then made Tennessee into, and so on through the rest, Arizona included. (It is true, as you note, that the victorious side in the War between the States argued that they had ceased to be this in 1787 because mumble-mumble-mumble, but I will go to my grave maintaining that just pummeling the other guy until he says uncle doesn’t mean you’ve won the argument. The achievements occupy separate categories.)
More broadly, I wonder how much of the American tendency to take labels at face value is the genuine naïveté you imply, and how much is a debater’s instinct that you can’t go too far wrong holding people to their past statements. (“But, New York, you said yourself that we are and of right ought to be free and independent states! Right here, see?”) Probably there’s a fair admixture of each, of course.
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