First Blog

All of life is political. • Tribalism is the local form of politics. • Dictatorship is the smelly form of politics. • Kingship is the absolute form of politics. • Communism is the destructive form of politics. • Socialism is the nosiy form of politics. • Capitalism is the economic form of politics. • Democracy is the messy* form of politics. *You may like it; I may like it. Yet is is so difficult, so messy, and so easy to attack.

Sometimes rebellion, revolution, and resistance lead to unintended restrictions, restructure, and restraints. ------------ If seems journalism no longer attracts students wanting to investigate the truth of a matter, but students desiring to stand themselves on the podium to make news. Journalism students no longer wish to sit in the backseat reporting news but to sit in the front seat to make news or at least cheerleading for the news. Wisdom is knowledge about knowledge and knowing what knowledge applies.

Announcing the 2019 update to our short essay about truth in its various forms, its ambiguity, and its debasement toward multifaceted forms.   Now at the end of 2019, four additional forms are included or introduced, negotiated truth (actually now in the literature), prayerful truth (a classic in religion but now in the service of politics), false truth – yes indeed, and mathematical truth . You might think mathematical truths are the cleanest, clearest, and unquestionable, but this is not so. With so many conflicted forms, and so many variations, truth has become the bane of itself. To most, it is a shame that such a revered term has become so confusing.  Yet, truth is a work product of civilization. Link here  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/truth-2019-g-donald-allen

It may be Star Wars, as a film group, may be ending.  Yet, the most significant things are the films are excellent adventure/action types, with terrific special effects, positing a battle between good and evil, and the characters are well defined. There is another.  It is this universal appeal to a mythical "force." It transcends science. It rises above simply kill the bad guys.  It does appeal to this mystical force in a secular manner.  It seems millions of viewers, worldwide, need to believe in a force, and a force pitting good against evil. This is downright primitive, spiritual, and transcendental. Do you understand it?

A big term these days is “Uncertainty.” This means people are not sure of what’s happening. Another big word is “Manipulation.” This means some quantity is altered on command. Adding one and one, we have “Manipulated Uncertainty.” And this means some agency is manipulating the uncertainty.   It applies to trade, to stock prices, to war, to politics, to materialism, and even to climate. Massive gains are available, as are massive losses. Causes: Too much money, too much polarization, too much hate, too much emotion, too much greed, too much profit, too much power, and too darn easy. Think it new?  Nope. Ancient.

You may not have ESP, but you do have some equally important extra senses . All of us have special senses unavailable to machines or other living things. Not reading the future, or moving objects by pure thought, these senses are more important to you in almost every way. They are not called senses in normal parlay but without them, you’d have an empty existence. Far beyond taste, smell, touch, sight, and hearing, they carry you through the most difficult times and propel you to excellence and achievements amazing even yourself. They lift you from despair. They heal your broken heart. They enlighten your life's journey. The Paranormal Suppose you’ve just heard that a computer can “perceive” the cards of the standard paranormal deck.   You know squares, wavy lines, circles, stars, and the like.   You would say nonsense and say it quickly. Because if it could, you could.   And this is because the computer functions on algorithms and algorithms are written by peop

Always have hope! Hope is like a tiny battery deep inside you that must not fail. If it fails, you fail. If you have hope, your system is activated to action.   With hope, you may try, work, invent and explore new ideas. You have a burden lifted into your being to discover new unknowns.   Without hope, you languish in a valley of inaction. Hope, like love, is fragile, easily breakable at first.   As well, hope can carry through the most difficult times. SPORTS. One manifestation of this is with sports teams.   When a team gives up on itself and loses hope, its fans also give up. Their supreme effort to win is dissolved. The conversation turns to next season and new player acquisitions. In European leagues, relegation is assumed, resulting in players looking to change teams. The entire team package is lost until it finds hope once again. CITIES. The city that loses hope, dissembles. It’s laws are not enforced; homelessness rises; city legislatures lose focus toward me

Always have hope! Hope is like a tiny battery deep inside you that must not fail. If it fails, you fail. Did you wake up this morning?   Have a little breakfast? Have a home to live in? Have a few dollars? Have some family?   Be thankful.   It could be a lot worse. Many a reporter is concerned more about constructing a complete sentence than about what’s in it. Politicians are concerned about neither. Is it true those with the greatest capacity for hate also have the greatest capacity for love?   Hmm.

“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.” -Henry David Thoreau Happy Thanksgiving to all.   This is the day of the year where we often eat too much and watch too much football. It is also a day to give thanks.   So, before the turkey is served, and before the games begin, I count the many blessings in my life.   First, comes my family.   With me or without, my family is a wonderful group of folks.   All are good people doing good things, working to be better, sacrificing for others, and helping their friends. It is my honor to be among you.    I am always grateful for my parents, both good people who helped me no end in those early years, pointing me in the directions of good works, morality, honesty, and strength of character. The second is my life, as in I still have one. Because my dad died so young, I thought the same would be my fate.   But now decades later I’m still here, and with a detour or two have my health – which I do appreciat

It is the holiday season, and you wish to celebrate properly.  For your family, you want nothing but the best. For example, you think a bottle or two of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1937, a so-so, medium  Bordeaux, would be suitable for the occasion.  Yet, at $2500 a bottle, you want to be sure you’re buying the real thing.  This is a serious testing problem.  After all you can’t open the bottle to peek inside. Nope, the bottle is sealed.  Then what? Ask an expert?  Until recently, that was all you could do. But now, with many thanks to atomic physics, you can test what level of radioactivity from Cesium-137 is present.  This isotope of Cesium is manmade, not occurring in nature.  The first quantities were produced in 1952, and is now present in most wines produced after that time, owing to nuclear disasters such as the 2011  Fukushima nuclear  power plant accident.   So, if your Chateau Lafite ‘37 tests positive Cesium 137, you know it’s fake.  I, for one, will never be so f

The latest telephone scam.  I’m not sure what their profit was to be, or how they would use information, but here is what happened to me.   A call came in on my cell phone.   The caller told me that someone (and gave a name) was trying to set up a separate account on my cell phone charges.   What I needed to do was give her the security code from T-Mobile to prevent this. Presto, the code was sent by text to my phone.   Do I give the code number to this voice? Note, keep in mind the voice was muffled, and I had trouble hearing everything she said.   So, I said I would not send any info.   I asked for her name. It was Marie Homhs. When I asked for her phone number, the line went dead.   End of call. Conclusion? A scam - for sure.  Probably, I would be authorizing a new account, and this scammer would be making possible thousands of calls on my account.  It pays to be circumspect about giving information. To anyone. For anything. Online or by phone. ----------------

Forgive or  Forget? All of us are hurt, injured, or harmed by others in some way.   The teachings of some religions are to forgive your transgressor and move on.   If you can do this you’re lucky.   Many cannot, no matter how much hard they try.   The best alternative is to forget .   This is not easy if you are the type who dwells on the injury.   The best method is to forget by subjugation.   This means don’t dwell, but rather keep engaged in living, continually filling your mind with new “stuff.”   By and by, the injury slides to the back-burner, and then, hopefully, off the stove.   Forgive?   Forget? Two pathways toward peace of mind.   The third pathway of vengeance or pay-back is another, though usually not the wisest choice.   Trick question: Can you forgive but never forget?   Well, yes and no.   We better get the psychologist, clergyman, or counselor in on this one. Our court systems offer all three.   Payback to the criminal is prison or a fine.   Th