First Blog

It’s all about feeling good. In years past, folks would go to church and sit patiently for one hour, contribute a few dollars, and come away feeling good.  This was their total commitment.  Today, in our nano-world, many of the wealthy football players have the same need – to feel good.  Their obligation is to kneel patiently in their preferred church, the playing field, for three minutes of the national anthem.  They feel good, and maybe the boo’s make them feel  a sacrifice has been made.  Our nano-world of sound bites, quick jabs, and instant commitment pervades within the Hollywood elite, students, many news wonks, and now sports. They commit a few minutes, perhaps an hour, coming away feeling good they have done something of value.  This nano-goodness is enough for them. In contrast… The first responders in recent hurricanes, the physicians traveling to disaster areas, and those few missionaries that commit days, weeks, and even lifetimes to helping others actually

Curiously, the lowest wage earners and the largest corporations have the same slogan:   "Fight for 15." But for the one its  dollars ; for the other its  tax rate .  They could share posters.  They could march together, the one group starting at McDonald's, the other at Cipriani's.  Three Bills (Clinton, Gates, and Deblasio) could march together arm-in-arm.  :)

Republicans vs. Democrats Losing. When a team plays only defense, its members can have differentiated principles, can have internal squabbles, and can ignore on-the-field achievement.  This team feels good, righteous, and smart.  When a team plays only defense, it will lose the game.  But when the team manager picks fights with its star players, the outcome will be even worse - an embarrassing loss. Are we discussing Team Republican?  Probably yes. Team Democrat enjoys the game with smaller numbers on the field, quaffing a beer or two, watching their opponents squander their advantage, and winning the game. -------------------------------- What do neo-nazies, communists, white supremacists, BLM, and ANTIFA have in common?  They all don’t use their own brains, but march to the drums of others, and given careful instructions on what to do, where to march, and how to think. People who sign on to fringe groups seldom have independent minds, have few achievements,

---------------- The only benefit of disaster. It brings people together, in work and in sympathy. We surely saw it in Hurricane Harvey – to the max.  Let us hope Florida, with Hurricane Irma experiences the same human congeniality, compassion and collective effort.  Deference to government for all help is at best a poor selection. ----------------   There is a great line from the movie  Tremors  that applies to Congress.  We see the hero (Kevin Bacon) tell the group, "We always have a plan.  That way we don't have to do anything right now." In particular, Mitch McConnell loves more than anything else to make a carefully worded speech.  The plan.   Loves it.  This means, he doesn't have to do anything now.  And he doesn't! Leadership is more than merely signing off on documents coming to your desk. ------------- Most people facing a law suit wear a cloth suit. Moral: don’t wear a suit, or even have soot in your chimney. ---------------------

President Trump is trying to push through tax cuts or reforms to help build the economy. Building the economy is good.  We need this.  The matter is of methods.  His preferred method to berate or deprecate his own party to action.  He needs to exercise leadership with the entire Congress.  Leadership is an ephemeral quality only a very few understand and even fewer know.  The Congress is rather leaderless, and has been for many years. Both parties share this guilt. Congress can obstruct, and it is masterful at delay and inaction.  Briefly, doing stuff is not their forte.  Leadership!! The President can command and he can direct, but can he work with? This is needed right now.   When was the last time we had such a leader, able to build bridges, to communicate, and to achieve? ------------------- Independent people don’t like masked riders, or masked demonstrators, or masked anarchists.  These make them nervous.  They don’t like freedom of speech denied; they don’t like alter

From the data department, I made a few quick calculations. 1. For the area I live in, as of 5am this morning, more than 23,000,000,000 gallons of rain have fallen. 2. For the city of Houston (627 sq. miles), as of 5am, more than 272,000,000,000 gallons of rain have fallen. 3. How much water is that?  Enough to fill more than 42,000,000 backyard pools measuring 24 ft x 12 ft with a depth grade from 2 ft at one end to 4 ft at the other.  That implies a total volume greater than the sum total of every backyard pool in the USA. A lot of rain!!!

Powerball Lottery. The Powerball lottery was just won with a $700,000,000+ jackpot.  It occurred to me this lotto gives many millions of people something unavailable centuries ago. Given is a measure of hope for wealth and position far beyond any expectation but more important, any possibility. Of course, the measure is faux, false, incorrect, wrong, mistaken, misleading, faulty, inaccurate, invalid, improper, unfounded, erroneous, and downright effectively impossible.  Yet, for these same millions, it gives a few minutes of hope, the small flicker of light within a dark life without much chance of escape. Is the Lotto wrong?  Or is it a tool used by those in power to quiet the distant drum of revolution? Possibly not.  Maybe it’s a tool merely for those in power to make money and also to quiet the resonance of grumble? Possibly so. BTW, I bought a ticket for the last drawing.  Though I have enough for comfort, still I did see that flicker of light, feel that brief hope, and

“NAZI” is the key word in modern defamation.  Doesn’t matter whose political far-side you’re on, left or right, the term “Nazi” is your preferred diatribe toward your opposite.  Calling someone a Nazi has replaced calling them a SOB or even worse.  It’s sort of an anti-intellectual upgrade of profanity, but profanity it is.  “A rose by any other name…” I blame it substantially on Hollywood.  They have kept the Nazi mythos alive for going on eighty years.  At least a couple of Nazi or Nazi-type movies are released annually.  Nazis are ever on our mind. They have become the ultimate nonsecular evil. They are the color to paint your opponent.  It works! Nowadays the Nazi concept represents strength attractive to rather uneducated and weak individuals.  “Think like a Nazi and you’re powerful like a Nazi,” is the limit of their philosophy. “Bomb a church, or beat up some innocents,” are their operations. Thus, the neo-Nazi:  cruel, stupid, and profane. It’s easy to beat up on t

Murder-rates, that is, intentional murder, are in the news at least every couple of weeks. So, where are all these murders occurring?  We look at world murder-rates data, all of which is online.  Where is the USA, and where are the largest murder rates?  Are murder rates connected with gun ownership, or with corruption?  Questions like these seem to have obvious answers, both yes. The results tell a different story.  First here is a table of countries with the highest murder rates. The rates given below are per 100,000 people per year.  Rank Country Rate Count ZONE 1  El Salvador 108.64 6,656 Americas Central America 2  Honduras 63.75 5,148 Americas Central America 3  Venezuela 57.15 17,778 Americas South America 4  United States Virgin Islands 52.64 56 Americas Caribbean 5  Jamaica 43.21 1,207

We do we  have? Airports and parks in disrepair Bridges and dams crumbling Roads needing upkeep Schools not educating Terrorists looming ever closer Citizens hating one another Medical care and fraud Americans dependent on government support Pollution and climate problems everywhere Immigration policy What do we talk about? Access to bathrooms. Rights to smoke marijuana Tweets from everybody Nazis, the ultimate insult made by and against everyone Confederate statues being torn down Let us suppose we get full bathroom access, we smoke what we want, the end of tweets, the word "Nazi" is expunged, and all the statues are gone.  Then what will we discuss?  Maybe new forms of hate?  I have not a clue.   -------------------- Thought for the day  "To not have what you don't want exceeds to have what you do want." 

To Have and Have Not.   Yes, the title of a famous Bogart movie. But the phrase: "To not have what you don't want far exceeds to have what you do want" does resonate.  They are not quite the same. 

I’ve been reading about that fellow, James Damore, at Google now fired for his use of sexist language about the skills of computer coding.  He does make some points of interest. The fact is that women seem to prefer working in more humanist environments – even if very scientific.  Men seem more willing to work in the highly sterile world of pure coding.   Seems to be a fact - as explained to me by a woman electrical engineer.  She ran a summer school workshop for HS students.  One year, building an amplifier was the project.  The girls were not as enthusiastic as the boys.  Next year, the project was a heart monitor – similar electronics.  The girls loved it. She learned a lasting lesson. Moreover, most women and men cannot endure the world of pure coding.  It is a harsh environment.  Industry should be happy to discover these people wherever they can find them.  Sex, race, or even religion have nothing to do with it!  Expert coding is a very rare skill.  In many cases, it is