By Joel Bowman, on December 13th, 2018% 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
By Joel Bowman, on November 9th, 2018% Democracy isn’t easy. That may be the reason monarchies have been much more common, starting with primitive, tribal chieftains back in the days of “pre-history.” The reason we don’t have more and better democracies in the world, is, as gerrymandering came about. The party in charge changes the rules to ensure that it will remain in charge. One of the ways the Ku Klux Klan gained political power, for example, was gerrymandering. That wasn’t their only way, of course, as intimidation also played a significant role.
It is hard for individuals to resist a popular national movement. The . . . → Read More: Democracy
By Joel Bowman, on March 24th, 2018% Back in 1994, Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray wrote a book, The Bell Curve, pointing out an inconvenient truth: half the population has below average intelligence. While much of what they said was considered controversial for a variety of reasons, the basic concept is incontrovertible. Half the population is below average when it comes to intelligence. George Carlin said, “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
In and of itself, that isn’t a major problem, as intelligence does not account for the main differences in human behavior. It . . . → Read More: The Bell Curve
By Joel Bowman, on March 18th, 2018% If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you already know about the conflict between Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump. While the Trump administration seems to be setting a new record for corruption and other “dishonesties” in the White House, this isn’t the first time in U.S. history politicians have yielded to temptation and the abuse of power. As Lord Acton pointed out, power corrupts, and that has certainly been true for U.S. Presidents.
As is true today, our Founding Fathers tended to be the rich and powerful. One of the ways they used their wealth and power was . . . → Read More: Stormy Weather
By Joel Bowman, on September 15th, 2013% Some of you have noticed that it has been a long time since my last post. It isn’t so much that I had nothing to say as it is that I was overwhelmed by how much needed saying. A lot has been going on, and even areas where not much has been happening (the U.S. Congress), the inaction is fraught with meaning.
Where a lot has been going on—forest fires in the U.S., flooding in the U.S., wars and rumors of wars in the Middle East, and changes related to global climate change—it is hard for me to know . . . → Read More: Sticking to Our Guns
By Joel Bowman, on December 11th, 2011% You may be wondering what stubble’s got to do with it…. I had been wondering why so many men in current advertising, including the man deemed the “Sexiest Man Alive” by a popular magazine, are often photographed and filmed with three to five days of stubble. My curiosity got the better of me when I read an interview with a female actor who had just completed a movie about a same-sex relationship. When asked what she liked best about kissing another woman, she replied, “No stubble.”
It turns out that stubble is women’s Number-One complaint about kissing men. It . . . → Read More: Stubble, Etc.
By Joel Bowman, on July 4th, 2011% 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
By Joel Bowman, on June 4th, 2011% With apologies to the Beatles and “A Day in the Life”:
One of my daily habits is reading through the major online news sources to get a sense of what is happening here in the U.S. and in the world. I often find it fascinating to see what subjects are drawing the most media attention—and the kind of attention they are attracting. Here’s a brief round-up of recent “stuff”:
Placebos are in the news (again): One of the things I find most interesting about placebos is that articles about them written by medical doctors studiously avoid the word . . . → Read More: I Read the News Today (Oh, Boy)
By Joel Bowman, on February 27th, 2011% What’s your view of those who take a “my way or the highway” stance? If you are in favor of having them hit the highway, please honk.
The impetus for this blog is the current “stand-off” in Wisconsin that pits Republicans against Democrats and corporations and the state against labor unions and those that belong to them. The Governor (a Republican) admits that the unions have agreed to 90 percent of his administration’s demands. But, he says, “no compromise.” It seems to me that we’ve been seeing more of that philosophy in recent years, and I am not at . . . → Read More: My Way or the Highway
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