I was buying fish in Guido’s, the Great Barrington equivalent of Balducci’s (or, for a London comparison, hm–Waitrose? Borough Market?), and trying to tune out the whiny tones of the summer crowd. But I couldn’t help listening to one conversation between the fishmonger and a woman who wanted to know where a particular fish came from (this is typical, along with requests for detailed cooking instructions when the line is stretching down to the organic banana display in the produce section). “I don’t want anything from China!” she said.

China bashing is becoming more common, I know, but I was startled to see this ad on a busstop in New York: “The algorithm is banned in China.” Meaning that the algorithm is good, obviously. A friend of mine in Great Barrington is a Harvard-educated mathematician who works in the computer world. I learned how important algorithms were when Apple used some of his numbers in an advertisement back in 1998. But I also know that algorithms are not political or moral arbiters. Click here to see a photo of the advertisement.