First Blog

  1.      Introduction. Education is not primarily about accumulating knowledge. At its core, it is about learning how to think across different dimensions of reality. The ultimate purpose of education is to develop the ability to solve problems. Why is this so central? Because nearly every person solves problems daily. Problem-solving is not limited to presidents, CEOs, or public leaders. Parents routinely navigate decisions involving finances, health, emotions, and long-term planning, often confronting complexities that rival those faced in executive offices. If you know what you want to learn, there is likely a profession that develops that mode of thinking. If you want to strengthen what you are already good at, examining professions reveals the kinds of thinking each one cultivates. What follows is not a list of job descriptions but an inventory of problem-solving frameworks embedded in professional practice. This list identifies primary thinking skil...

Abstract  Most certainly, a homicide investigation is a problem-solving event and requires tools and intelligence similar to most scientific research. A homicide investigation is the most rigorous application of the state’s police power. This paper examines the structural framework of these investigations, focusing on the psychological profile of the detective, the procedural utility of the "Murder Manual" and "Murder Book," and the taxonomy of investigative problems. This essay is about solving a murder, though by synthesizing these theories with the 2026 Nancy Guthrie abduction/presumptive homicide case in Arizona, it illustrates the shift from physical evidence to "digital and medical absence" as an essential tool for prosecution in "no-body" cases. Here is a table of contents for this essay. 1.      The Homicide Detective 2.      The Murder Book and Murder Manual 3.      The Complexity of Homicide 4.  ...

  You are free to rebel against AI, but you will soon be passed by, or more correctly, blown by. It is just too powerful: first, as an incredible encyclopedia; second, as a synthesizer, putting together information from diverse areas; third, as a problem-solver; and finally, as an assembler of information into credible essays and/or answers. It will also clean up drafts with extraordinary skill. It can save hours of research in libraries. On the downside, it will totally alter education in ways we cannot yet fathom. By analogy, consider the introduction of calculators only decades ago. With them, students can now compute numbers with ease. However, they have lost any sense of numbers, magnitudes, and checks against plugging in wrong numbers (easy to do). Mental math is dead. For example, you can see people using a calculator to compute a 10% tip. Not good. Finally, if you really want to rebel against AI, you need to learn how. But how do you do it? I don’t know. So, I asked AI how,...

When I watch old movies from the 1950s and 1960s, I feel the world as it once moved, its manners, its hopes, its entertainments, its quiet politics embedded between the lines. These films are not just stories; they are reflections of how people once understood themselves and their moment in history. As I watch, I can’t help but turn the mirror toward the present. The characters on the screen, long gone in any physical sense, feel no less real than we do now. They exist within the same fabric of time and meaning, only seen from a different angle. I imagine someone fifty years younger than me, watching our era’s films half a century from now, having the same realization. In that thought, life gains a strange reassurance: a sense of continuity, a shared human community that stretches across generations. Time moves forward, but the pulse of human experience, its questions, performances, and quiet longings, remains remarkably intact.