First Blog

Not aliens. Not animals. Only us humans.   We do operate at all levels from the primitive to the high intellectual.   All of us, with the same brains, do similar things and in similar ways. But the organization changes are the requirements change.   The early tribes needed some rules to follow, plus many taboos about danger. The great modern civilizations also need rules to be sure but more than that, they need theories and beyond.   We assemble the bunch of them into a hierarchy of organizational traits or operational containers. This outline is not about epistemology or even ontology, topics having precise but different meanings.   This is about doing, assembling, understanding, and realizing. It is about multiple categories that mix up, contradict, conflict, and reject. You can have a taboo but reject and confirm it on the same day. These categories can be individual, yet commonplace, tribal, and societal.   ·         Skills – how to hunt, farm, marry, fish, protect, vigilance,

  For your travels today, whether directed, meandering, random-stepping, please consider… Judgments  are easy. No responsibility. No depth of examination. No reflection. Errors are rarely noticed. Truth of judgment becomes a crown to wear, a conceit, a self-justification. Thinking  is difficult. Self-reflection is essential. Self-delusion is ever-present. Self-examination is difficult. The assumption of error is correct. Solid, fully discoursed conclusions are sometimes impossible. Both together are not incompatible. Rodin - Thinker

Ships sink. ·         Because of small leaks not repaired. ·         Because huge waves swamp them. ·         Because icebergs rip them apart. ·         Because it takes on too much cargo. ·         Because the captain is incompetent. ·         Because the accumulated rust weakens them beyond help. ·         Because it runs upon a reef. The USA is a mighty ship.   It seems to be sinking, but why?  

Pictured below is some random person maybe like you or me.   His mind is whirling about considering problems and decisions yet to make. He is reflecting on years past and years to come. He is wondering about whether to take action on reports just in. He may even be wondering on his children’s health and how they are doing in their classes. He may have a slight muscle pull in his right thigh, but you’ll never know. It’s humid today and his arthritis is troublesome – the price of rail-splitting years ago. He didn’t sleep well last night but must perform today, and he struggles on. He has meetings in the afternoon with a dozen of people he doesn’t like, and later must write letters of condolence to families. He yearns for the peace of mind that may never come and is ever worried about those depending on him. All the while he hopes for good news from Grant. He does have issues similar to you and me, with only their magnitude and consequence in the balance. He is gone and you are here. Al

  • Crime control is impossible without police presence. • Police presence is impossible without public support. • Public support is impossible without capable public leadership. The weakest link in this equation resides with the quality of leadership. Weak leadership implies rampant crime. Weak leadership implies poor police presence. Weak leadership implies an unsafe public. Weak leadership destroys families, tribes, towns, cities, and countries.

  China's Consequence. · Most everyone believes the COVID-19 virus came from a lab in Wuhan, China. · Most everyone believes China deliberately developed this virus. · Most do not know if China intentionally released this virus - for whatever reasons. · Most everyone believes China is not giving full information on the nature of this problem. Thus, yet another black flag is associated with China in world memory. An earlier one concerns Huawei's spy communications chips. Need we mention China’s decades long use of prison labor in their factories and now Uyghur labor in their concentration camps. Who can forget Chairman Mao’s Great Cultural revolution, with 20 million deaths. Massive death is no stranger in China. Their latest abrogation of human rights is their absorption of Hong Kong. Fishing in the South China Sea is almost impossible these days if your ship doesn’t fly a Chinese flag. Therefore, in the future, China faces a horrific problem of trust – not to me

Think of a book as a crutch. In your learning, you want to eventually throw the crutches away. Thus, in learning you want to be an alternate container of the book. To manage your learning, you must first learn about how you learn. This is very individual, and so how to do it depends on how you learn. This I don’t know, but I can offer some tips. 1.      Don’t forget you forget. So, material review is important. 2.      You only know something when it is fully contained in your mind and it all makes sense. Let no detail be missing. 3.      You must organize and manage your learning to times when YOU are receptive to learning. That means, you’re not tired, distracted, stressed, or depressed. 4.      You must not try to learn too fast. If you’re slow go slow, and don’t deprecate the feeling you are slow. Some learn slower but deeper, and this is very ok. 5.      Review what you’ve learned when you are doing other things - if only to prove to yourself of your progress. 6.     

 I do believe everyone believes hate is rampant in America. But hate has always been. Let's take a graphical look at the current situation and where we are and where we are going.  I was raised a country (this one) and  I remember the day when the cry was for there to be no color in America. All were to be simply citizens. Now witness the preaching of oppressor and oppressed, while others believe their country has deserted them. Hate travels by many names, and it has ascended with millions of followers.

  Russian Proverb: You live as long as you are remembered. This is life’s extension beyond the beyond.   You can continue, but only those if celebrated can you enjoy this post-beyond.   Nationally, this is the point of Memorial Day, President’s Day, Religious founders, and so many more. These are reminders of the best of us, the most honored.   Every great nation remembers how they came to be. Forget the past at your peril. Personally, though, these are milestones from our own lives. Not birthday parties, but solemn occasions, these commemorate personal memories, for personal reasons, and they are no less important. If we cannot remember those near to us now departed, how can we celebrate the more general days of Memoriam? Indeed, many have been convoluted from their original meanings.     By keeping our loved ones proverbially alive, we sustain their lessons and meanings to all.   I believe we should remember those we have personally loved on their special day in some way.   It

  Suppose a new concept, edict, or law comes your way. In simplified terms, you have four options,  rejection, acceptance, understanding,  and  belief . The “pusher” to anyone of these is your degree of doubt. Total doubt leads to rejection, while absolutely no doubt (or certainty) leads to belief. I’m not convinced the latter is absurd as claimed by Voltaire, as total belief a necessary state for the creation of or proof of new ideas. Others prefer to understand or at least try to understand the condition at hand. This illustrates partial doubt but a measure of conviction necessary for understanding. Finally, a state of resident doubt but required compliance leads us to acceptance. For example, in your work you may accept some rules of the employers but neither believe nor understand them. In politics, you will see much belief and rejection but little understanding. Many simply accept what is promoted.

 In the cemetery of blunders and mistakes grows the garden of all our knowledge. LEARNING IN LIFE.  Do you want to learn?  Do you want to achieve?  Do you want to know?  Go to school, say the educators. Sometimes schools feed information and learning; sometimes schools teach how to learn. The how is what you need, and these are the most important ways to learn.         First, we learn from reading books or being taught in the classroom. We learn by solving given problems. Practice and repetition, this is the role and scope of all school teaching. Occasionally, inspiration occurs.           Second, we learn from examples and experience. Seeing many examples, some working and some not, and knowing why helps. These build our knowledge and intuition of reality.  Knowledge is a pathway to solving problems, while intuition provides a pathway to innovation.  More simply, we learn by doing.   Attending the school of hard knocks  is an expression of

Biggest Existential Threats . Every day our leaders warn us, scare us, and threaten us about existential threats. These hint at caution: “Do something now or we will cease to exist.”  What are they? For politicians: anything that will scare you into voting for them. For scientists: anything they believe may be risky. For religions: anything disabusing the scriptures. For the people: anything they believe to be dangerous in at the moment. There is much theory involved, projections into many decades ahead, life-style changes, political expediency, and more. Politicians love these things as they generate huge campaign war chests. Here’s the shortlist. Climate change – includes global warming, changing animal habitats, enlarged deserts, increased carbon dioxide, eventual degradation of livable area, an increase of disease, rising temperatures, arctic melting, etc. Recall, in the 70s, it was all about global cooling. Pandemics – usually highly contagious diseases spread by crowding and/or