First Blog

You hear an explanation of something almost everyday.   What do you do?   First of all, you consider it mostly on the surface of the brain.   Some new input, as it were. Then comes the decision.   You can Understand what was explained Believe what was explained Accept what was explained. These three key words, understand, believe, and accept comprise a gross summary. But they typify three principles by which the brain or mind holds explanations. There are variations, exceptions, and exclusions. Just one is important now, and that is you may take the explanation as an example of several others in your mind, none of which have any of the attributes.   It sort of sits there awaiting further processing. Before getting to the picayune details, note that understand, believe, and accept are mostly exclusive, meaning one does not imply the other.   For example, you may accept global warming into the future, but neither understand nor believe it.   Similarly, you ma

A tectonic shift in America concerning education has occurred. It seems the new independent intelligence in America includes blue-collar workers, while the new college grads seems as Manchurian candidates, programmed with what to do and say but not how to think. Except for skills training, the new college grad seems to have receded intellectually. Many college students prefer formulas for thought, not a broad intellectual framework to determine thought. With some colleges offering safe spaces and pet goats, these campuses now have the overtones of preschool. In the old days, one might walk into a bar where the customers all thought about the same. These were union people.   Now the union folks have opinions sweeping across all persuasions. They think.   It is the college grads and student that seem to think the same, no deviants allowed. The educational tectonic fissures began  emerging in middle America and are now spreading.

Transgender athletics is a "tale of the two sexes where the tail cannot be told."

Multiculturalism. There are multiple definitions of this term.  At the national level, it means words in a national document that we respect all other cultures and against which we will not discriminate.  For others, it means kinship, if not to one’s village but to one’s (former) country, race, or religion. Often, they bring along their old hatreds from their old country to the new. In this version, the group may stick together, live together, apart from their adopted country and in this way alone.  Businesses formed within a given subculture are free to hire within it, promote within it, and maintain kinships, despite the “words.” For others, it is a crass method to subdivide various cultures to vote in a certain way.  Multiculturalism comes down to the triple of words, kinship, and politics , each with their own variations of meaning.  No wonder it causes problems. Countries adopting a policy of multiculturalism ultimately have no culture.   It becomes a loosely ass

Next week someone frightfully rich will check into the same hotel room as Kim is now and will pee into the same toilet.  Pictures will be taken and sent to friends worldwide.  Such celebrity, I cannot imagine.  Sharing a toilet is big! This leads us to a fundamental question.  Who's toilet would be your favorite in which to pee?

The new Amazon Alexa premium services can do so much more… Old: Alexa, Turn on my light. Old: Alexa, Turn on my TV. New... Thinking big:   Alexa, Find my keys. Thinking bigger: Alexa, Get me a raise. Thinking really big: Alexa, File my tax return. Cheat just a little. Bigger and bigger: Alexa, Cast my absentee ballot for the candidate you know I prefer. And biggest of all: Alexa, Turn on my wife.

Setting sail. On the great galley of life, most of the young graduates end up rowing for scraps, all the while hearing the joy and pageantry drifting down from the top deck. ------------ Dear Mr. Mayor, If your policies are stupid, If your bigotry is stupid, If your decrees are stupid, If your ideas on education are stupid, Then you just might be s**d. The good news is you rank in about the middle of hopefuls for the next Presidential election.   ------------ Socialism? Conservativism? Each system has good points and bad.   However, both systems have their greatest troubles with human greed, for money and/or power. The Noisy Classes . Socialists like Bernie Sanders don’t care about any factors aside from the more stuff paradigm. Not really practical, they have no plans beyond the great give.  Abject conservatives place all responsibility on individuals, come hell or high water. Business is supreme. ------------ Free. Will Americans ever learn that f

Here is a letter written to my nephew on his high school graduation. C ongratulations on your achievement.   You are awarded a certificate for a mission well accomplished.   This is your day to celebrate.   The real celebration is that you have now jumped up one rung on the long, difficult ladder of life.   Y et, your life so far and to come will be a bounty of achievements. Celebrate, enjoy, and remember these. This is important.    Life will also deliver to you an assortment of failures, some from bad luck and others from bad judgment.   Learn the difference.   Learn from these, but do not allow them to dominate your pathway.   Too many do so, causing their gradual defeat in the game of living. Y our memory is most important; after years it becomes what you are.   It is your stamp of uniqueness.   It is a personal warehouse of you - your experiences, your expertise, your achievements, your loves, and so much of everything you will have become. Cherish your memory, but c

Has President  Trump not only bypassed the establishment of his party, but inspired others of extreme wealth to grab at the ultimate brass ring?    There is an undertow in this country that politicians are most expert at achieving nothing of greatness.    There may be a growing belief that the Presidency should be held by someone who understands how to administrate an ultra massive organization.    So far, we have a few possibles for 2020. Donald Trump – Republican Howard Schultz - Democrat Tom Steyer – Progressive Jaime Diamond – Unknown Michael Bloomberg - Independent The presidential days of the old-style college professor, simple socialist, senator, or even governor may be gone.  In marches a new group, already robed in royal purple, ready and perhaps able to command the helm of a ship essentially too big for anyone of modest means.