Engaging Life with Courage and Intelligence
Knowledge is power, and COMPLETE knowledge is absolute power. Those who display the greatest paranoia and fear of being controlled and manipulated are unwittingly being distracted by a regime that will make their most alarming fears a reality. While the extremists on the Left and Right are fighting wars over LGBTQ+ rights, a little company…
Cringe: a feeling of embarrassment or discomfort in response to something awkward or unpleasant. Most of us, particularly younger people, have listened to confused fathers and uncles bloviating about topics they know little about. The fictional Archie Bunker from Queens, New York, is the perfect example. Here are some of his humorous witticisms: Archie was…
There can no longer be any doubt. The Trump Administration is hellbent on destroying American higher education. Trump is attacking higher education, as Mussolini did in 1931, Mao in 1968, and Viktor Orban in 2019. All dictators want to neuter and control the intellectual gold mines of their societies. This impulse is fueled by the…
On May 12, 2025, retired General Stanley McChrystal was interviewed on The Daily Show. Among the wide-ranging topics discussed were personal character and fidelity to the truth. He was asked if he ever called or texted his wife with, “Hey honey, we are bombing Kabul today.” He said certainly not; if he had, he would…
Fake news and theories form a growth industry that prospers in America. While our counterfeit information might be cheaply exported, America will not require a protective tariff to import foreign misinformation across our borders. No other country is in our league since we are self-sufficient, and no country does it better. The various factions in…
As a history student, I have seen patterns in which normal social relationships break down. Government changes, unaddressed social inequities, wars, and famines often cause these pattern changes. In one example, from 1979 to 2015, the Communist Party declared that most Chinese couples could not have more than one child. Aside from the inevitable decline…
It is painfully obvious that the standards for truth have declined in America since 2015. Anyone who believes otherwise is certifiably delusional. Instead of making America great again, the MAGA movement has weakened America by converting public discourse into a chaotic propaganda war. We have all fallen down the rabbit hole of mendacity. Instead of…
The word truthiness crept into the English language in 2005. It was coined by the satirical comedian Stephen Colbert. Truthiness denotes something to be true without any supporting facts or evidence. It was accepted as “truth” because it felt true or desired to be true. Truthiness is based on a person’s quick-firing gut instinct. Unlike…
We have all heard a joke similar to this one: A doctor, Elon Musk, a little boy, and a priest were flying on a small private plane. Suddenly, the plane developed engine trouble. Despite the pilot’s best efforts, the plane started to go down. Finally, the pilot grabbed a parachute and yelled to the passengers…
The 1956 book When Prophecy Fails is a social psychology classic that examines the aftermath of the Chicago UFO religious group, the Seekers, who believed the world was about to end. The book’s authors study what the group members did when the apocalypse did not occur. It takes extraordinary mental tricks to recover after predicting…