Benjamin Franklin is often given credit for the saying, “Honesty is the best policy,” but the saying is actually older than Ben. The original language was, “Our grosse conceipts, who think honestie the best policie,” and the originator of that phrase was an English politician named Sir Edwin Sandys. I suspect, however, that the actual origins are even older than that, as the desire and need for honesty in relationships are as old as humanity. It has long been believed that the Devil (Satan) is the Father of lies, and it’s easy to see why that’s so. No one likes . . . → Read More: Honesty Really Is the Best Policy
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 Comments are closed  Blog  1968, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, coal, communist, deceive, Democrats, fooling people, honesty, hydro-electric, intimidation, lesser of two evils, Lord Acton, oil, policy, politicians, politics, Republicans, Robert Burns, Robert Ringer, solar, tangled web, technology, the Fugs, two steps forward, vested interests, War in Vietnam, wind, winning “Fouling one’s nest” is an old metaphor, originally in reference to birds that excreted in their nests, and applied by extension to humans who failed to keep their environments tidy. The thought that led me here was about helium balloons used to help promote events such as weddings and open houses, cut loose after the event to come down wherever. And they will come down, and, when they come down, they cause problems for birds and other wildlife. People think about the immediate benefit of using the balloons to highlight an event without considering the after-event consequences of disposing of . . . → Read More: Fouling Our Nest Comments are closed Blog \, Al Gone, An Inconvenient Truth, ancestors, balloons, bird, black-lung, buffalo, cattle, coal, consequences, conservation, desires, Elton John, environment, exploiting resources, exploration, feast, fiction, fossil fuels, fouling, fouling our nest, grain, helium, history, humans, Jules Verne, lions, Los Angeles, movies, needs, nest, oil, planet a, planet Earth, planetary destruction, pollute, pollution, primitive people, religion, religious differences, Rocket Man, Santa Monica, science fiction, setting, wars One of the TV shows I watch with regularity is Austin City Limits, a PBS show featuring live music. A couple of weeks ago, the featured performer was Cindi Lauper. Although many years have passed since I first heard her sing, she still puts on a good show. One song in particular caught my attention for what it has to say today as we face a future less certain than we have typically known in the past. The song was . . . → Read More: True Colors Comments are closed Blog Austin City Limits, bullies, Charles Dickens, Civil War, coal, Cyndi Lauper, dystopian, election, election cycle, eliminating poverty, global warming, Hard Times, hike, LGBT, military conflicts, news, oil, politics, racial parity, religious conflicts, roads, rural, Snowpiercer, sweetness and light, the future, True Colors, uncharted territory Although all presidential elections in the US are “historic,” our most recent election will probably go down in history as the most historic of all. As most of you already know, the election featured the first woman candidate to be nominated by a major political party, and the first major oligarch who pretended to be the candidate of the people. It also featured more—a lot more—of the usual yelling and screaming—and sometimes punching and shoving—than most US presidential contests. One of the influencing factors was, of course, accomplishments of President Obama, many resented him because he was the first . . . → Read More: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Coronation Comments are closed Blog 1984, Aliens, Blacks, buggy whips, cancer, Christ, Clinton, coal, coastal states, Divergent, dystopian, election, fear, female, flyover states, gas, global climate change, global warming, hate, Hispanics, history, Hitler, holocaust, Hunger Games, Indians, Interesting Times, manufacturing, Maze Runner, Mexicans, Mideast, Native Americans, oil, Old Testament, oligarch, presidential, race-based hate, Rapture, Second Coming, slavery, surgery, technologies, Trump, war, woman, WWI, WWII In “That Ol’ Black Magic,” in reference to the Ol’ Black Magic of love, Robbie Williams says he’s loving the spin he’s in. Love isn’t of course, the only “Black Magic,” that puts people in a spin. In the U.S., we’ve grown increasingly aware of the “spin” used by major corporations and politicians to influence politics and consumer behavior. “Spin” is basically a biased interpretation. While some form of “spin” has undoubtedly been with us throughout human history, the “father” of modern political spin is usually thought to be canaries in cages down in coal mines so that, when the . . . → Read More: The Spin I’m In Comments are closed Blog Agent Orange, bats, bees, birds, bomb, bombs, butterflies, canaries, canary, clear the airway, coal, coal mining, Coca Cola, Coke, corporations, deforestation, Edward Bern's, global climate change, GMO, Good Samaritan, health, insecticides, ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State, Lincoln, long-term problems, Mandy Patinkin, Miami, Mideast, military and civilian first-aid, Monsanto, natural gas, neonicotinoids, North Vietnamese, oil, Ol' Black Magic, politicians, public relations, Robbie Williams, sea-level rise, short-term thinking, Spin, Stephen Colbert, stone age, stop the bleeding, The Late Show, trees, Vietnam War, walking dead, well-being It has been almost a month since my last blog entry. I have been busy with radio interviews, a visit to see my grandchildren, working on the SCS and ImagineHealing websites, preparing the July Beyond Mastery Newsletter, and planning for two major presentations with my co-author, Debra Basham, at the Healing Touch Program Annual Conference in San Antonio, Texas, this next August. Within the last month or two, I read a column by a “behavioral scientist” who, among other things, said that “we are what we are doing.” At the time it struck me (recall my previous blogs on metaphors) . . . → Read More: You Are What You Are Doing Comments are closed Blog 32 teeth, Abilify, antidepressants, Being, chewing, coal, divine, doing, drugs, e-book, energy, flood control, Gabriel Marcel, healing touch, Hoover Dam, imagine healing, karate, oil, ontological mystery, pharmaceutical, power, presence, problematical world, walk, walking, Zen What’s been happening in your life while you were making other plans? World events in recent weeks have basically captured attention I had intended to “spend” elsewhere. First, the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear plant meltdowns in Japan…. As someone with friends and semi-relatives (my daughter-in-law is Japanese, and her parents live in Osaka), I have been following the events there with some concern. Second, recent events in the Mideast have been difficult to ignore. Compared with what’s currently going on in Libya, the “revolution” in Egypt was fun to watch. In an article titled, “Washington vs. the Merciless,” Thomas . . . → Read More: Are We Having Fun Yet? Comments are closed Blog climate, coal, consequences, crisis management, crown of creation, cultural, environment, environmental, environmental policy, fiscal policy, gas, global, history, international, learn, learning, long-term, mistakes, NLP, nuclear, NY Times, policy, politics, precognition, tax policy, taxes, the future, Thomas L. Friedman, war, well-being |
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