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
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 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 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 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 Comments are closed Blog agnosticism, behavioral psychologists, bell curve, blood and soil, Bob Dylan, Charles Murray behavior, Charlottesville, corruption, drug costs, ethnicity, European descent, George Carlin, George Harrison, hippies, homeless, honesty, human intelligence, Humira, hunting, intelligence, Malcolm Gladwell, mass shootings, Masters of War, militia, morality, National Rifle Association, NRA, Peace and Love, politicians, power, power corrupts, religion, Richard J. Herrnstein, Second Amendment, self-defense, Steven Pinker, The Tipping Point, tipping point, Tom Lehrer A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” When it came to the Second Amendment, those who wrote the Constitution had this in mind: Given their concerns at the time, it’s easy to see their reasons for including the Second Amendment in the Constitution. They were not sufficiently prescient to envision the AR-15. It’s cousin, the M-16, was the weapon U.S. soldiers carried in Vietnam. The M-16 is fully automatic (pull the trigger, and it fires several rounds), whereas . . . → Read More: Second Amendment Blues Comments are closed Blog Australia, automatic weapons, big cats, Canada, Constitution, coyotes, deer, England, Facebook, Florida, foxes, France, fruitarian, gun mania, gun safety, gun violence, guns, hamburger, Hollywood Hills, hunting, hunting season, Las Vegas, locked and loaded, Lord Acton, militia, muzzleloaders, NRA, Parkland, politics, power corrupts, Second Amendment, semi-automatics, States, U.S., US, vegetarian, wolves You can tell a lot about people based on their musical preferences. I borrow my title from a radical group from the ’60s, the Fugs, and one of their old songs: It would be pretty hard to know me well without knowing when and where I grew up and how I had been influenced by the music of my youth. I assume that the same is true for everyone. The concept has been most fully explored by Morris Massey, who wrote about the three main periods in a person’s maturation process: The Imprint Period. From birth . . . → Read More: When the Mode of the Music Changes Comments are closed Blog 4 on the floor, adolescence, African-Amerrican, almost-Democrat, automatic transmissions, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Bill Haley and the Comets, blues, classical music, communication technologies, congress, Count Basie, country music, crystal blue persuasion, curry favor, divide between rich and poor, Duke Ellington, Eisenhower, Elvis Presley, everything changes, folk music, Golden Age of Jazz, I like Ike, Imprint Period, Janis Joplin, jazz, Jefferson Airplane, Lord Acton, mode of the music, Modeling Period, Morris Massey, music, Music from Big Pink, musicians, peace and good brotherhood, politicians, poor people, popular music, power corrupts, rap and hip hop, Republican politics, revolution, Richard Nixon, rock & roll, Rock Around the Clock, self-aggrandizement, sense of community, shared values, Shondells, Socialization Period, stick shift, The Band, the Fugs, Tommy James, tribe, twentieth century, Vietnam War, What You Are Is Where You Were When, WW II |
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