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
|
||||
 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 Ignorance is bliss is a common saying for good reason: We have to think about things to worry about them, and most of the time we are preoccupied with our day-to-day activities while we remain ignorant about major problems that may be just around the corner. A related saying, The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t, suggests that we can adjust to an uncomfortable familiar, whereas a new situation might cause worse problems. One of the things about democracies is that people get to elect those in charge of governance with regularity. With every election, the . . . → Read More: Ignorance and Bliss Comments are closed Blog Animal Farm, Democrats, education, elections, French revolution, George Orwell, groupthink, honest reporting, horses and pigs, inequality, knowing more, lesser of two evils, level playing field, medieval, moats and beams, Pogo, political party, politicians, politics, Republicans, royalty, Russian revolution, sea change, serfs, social class, throw the bums out, vote We (humans) are doing all sorts of damage to Planet Earth. Humans have always been careless about their garbage. In primitive times, when a tribe accumulated a lot of waste in one location, the tribe simply relocated to a new place. We have, however, run out of new habitable places. We believed, of course, that we had been told to “be fruitful and multiply.” That probably made sense at the time it was originally said, as in those days there was a lot more space than there were people, and life was short and brutal for most people. The best . . . → Read More: No Planet B Comments are closed Blog Ancient Egyptians, be fruitful and multiply, build a wall, China, Civil War, epidemics, farmers, France, greed, humanity, infectious disease, Oedipus, planet Earth, politicians, politics, population, poverty, power corrupts, pressing our luck, Pretty Boy Floyd, revolution, rich, Robin Hood, space, starvation, technology, time warp, United States, world population, World Wars I borrow my title from Shakespeare’s Richard III, a play about what happens when a corrupt and power-hungry individual becomes king. Richard III is one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, ending in multiple deaths. As I write this, it is winter in the States, and it is increasingly looking as though we are heading into a national tragedy. The book, Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, provides important background details about the last election for President in the States. The details are indeed scary, not only because it shows the connections between . . . → Read More: Winter of Our Discontent Comments are closed Blog Abraham Lincoln, cyber security, cyber threats, democracy, Democrats, dystopian, George Washington, Lord Acton, politics, power corrupts, profit motive, Putin, Republicans, Richard III, Shakespeare, the Fugs, The Second Coming, tragedy, Trump, U.S. Constitution, utopian, Wide Wide River, winter In the days of sailing vessels, there were two main problems: too much wind (see Typhoon) and not enough wind (doldrums). Sailors also speak of the quiet before the storm. That pre-storm quiet is a well-known warning of things to come. I suspect the metaphor also applies to political life: there’s a period of quiet before “all hell breaks loose.” Metaphorically speaking, the same concepts apply to political life, where we fluctuate between having too much going on or not enough happening. We seem to be in such a period now—not just in the States, but in many countries around . . . → Read More: Slow Start for the New Year Comments are closed Blog doldrums, Eisenhower, faculty, Fulfillingness First Finale, graduate school, impeachment, jungle boots, liberty and justice for all, military service, New Year, New Year's Day, Nixon, Oakland Army Base, political life, politics, progress, quiet before the storm, Republican Party, Republicans, Richard, sailing vessels, Stevie Wonder, University of Illinois, Vietnam This is Reality? I am old enough to remember when the U.S. government was being run by adults. That was also true for most of the governments in the so-called civilized world—we had International differences of opinion about forms of government and territorial concerns. Most of us agreed with some of them and disagreed with others, but we were fairly certain that most countries were making decisions about government by relatively rational means, with military conflict being a last resort. Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, describes an alternative universe in which nothing is what it seems. Alice had . . . → Read More: Down the Rabbit Hole (Redux) Comments are closed Blog China, climate, climate change, corruption, Democrats, dinosaurs, Eisenhower, elections, enemy, environment, gerrymandering, government, humans, insects, Lewis Carrol, lions, Lord Acton, make the rich richer, mammals, monarchy, North Korea, oceans, plastic, Pogo, politics, power corrupts, rabbit hole, Republican Party, Russia, the few and the many, vote, voting, Walt Kelly I take my title from Shakespear’s play, Richard III. The main character, Richard, who is about to become king of England. is not a nice person. It is no surprise that he becomes a terrible king. The play is a tragedy (everybody dies). Although the time the play was written (1593) and the time depicted in the play were very different from our political situation today, the politics of power were similar. A few centuries later, another English writer, Lord Acton, said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Although the current political situation in the States is . . . → Read More: Winter of Our Discontent Comments are closed Blog Abraham Lincoln, character, conservative, corrupt, corruption, democracy, Democrats, discontent, fact, fiction, gerrymandering, King, King Richard III, land, learning curve, legislators, Lincoln, Lord Acton, met the enemy, morality, Pogo, political office, politics, power, power corrupts, Republicans, resources, Richard III, Shakespeare, States, term limits, tragedy, Walt Kelly, winter, WWII I’m old enough to know that the U.S. hasn’t always enjoyed a peaceful political process. At one point, we had a major bell curve, with the right and left extremes representing only a few, and the big bulge in the middle consisting of those with more moderate views. We now seem to have bimodal distribution with the big bulges representing the extremes. The divisions lead to class conflict, which at its worse can become class warfare. Class warfare begins when the division between rich and poor is extreme. The poor outnumber the rich, and when they decide that they . . . → Read More: Civil Unrest Comments are closed Blog 1860, Africa, anger, bell curve, bi-modal distribution, bimodal distribution, Civil War, class conflict, daily news, death, French revolution, left-right split, McCarthy, Middle East, Nazis, political divisions, political process, politics, poor, rich, rich and poor, Russian revolution, tripping point, unrest. migration, WWII Have you noticed how often the GOP cheats to win? In the “old days,” cheating to win was often ascribed to the Democrats. That changed with Richard M. Nixon, who lied about a secret plan to end the Vietnam War. It wasn’t really a plan, of course, and the US exit from Vietnam was anything but glorious. And then came the Watergate scandal.” That was followed by the racism of the Southern Strategy, which focused on denying blacks access to the polls and encouraging whites to vote for racist policies. And that has basically been the GOP strategy since, as . . . → Read More: Cheating to Win Comments are closed Blog Academic Politics, democrat, Democrats, elections, Franklin Roosevelt, gerrymandering, GOP, Joseph McCarthy, Joseph Welch, mercy, New Deal, Nixon, politics, redistricting, Republicans, scandal, stack the court, The Who, Vietnam War, voters, Watergate, we won't be fooled again, won't get fooled again We seem to have been voting for the “lesser of two evils” for a long time. Back in the days of the Vietnam War and the associated political unrest, a musical group calling themselves The Fugs wrote and performed a song entitled “Wide, Wide River.” The song focused on the concept of voting for the lesser of two evils: Two of the musical questions in the song were, “Why must we always be voting for the lesser of two evils?” and “Was George Washington the lesser of two evils.” The person with the best answer to those . . . → Read More: Lesser of Two Evils Comments are closed Blog Chinese Revolution, corruption, Democracy in Chains, democratic society, end game, French revolution, House, Lord Acton, lust for power, medieval, Nancy MacLean, nobles, oligarchy, political systems, politicians, politics, representatives, rich and poor, Russian revolution, self-aggrandizement, Senate, senators, serfs, tax breaks, the Fugs, vested interests, we the people, Wide Wide River |
||||