Engaging Life with Courage and Intelligence
A post with a historical reference
We all grew up either in a family or knew families in which truth was not their highest priority. When a family member failed a class in school, wrecked the family car, or was involved in a teen pregnancy, the grown-ups in the family swiftly moved into cover-up mode. With the talent unseen since the…
Shakespeare’s Hamlet dramatizes the tragedy associated with madness, paranoia, and deception. Unfortunately, all Americans have become unwilling actors in a similar tragedy. As an aside and to quote Polonius, “Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t.” From day to day, the current administration spews nonsense, and more dangerously, acts in bizarre and…
Welcome to Veritonia — a totally fictional modern nation where truth is flexible, confidence beats correctness, and memes count as peer-reviewed research. This short cinematic satire explores how facts get “professionally improved,” arguments replace thinking, and news guarantees certainty — not accuracy. But some people still dare to ask the most dangerous question: “Is this…
How do smart people fall for confidence tricks like grandparent, lottery, and romance scams? How do smart people buy into Ponzi schemes and crypto-ATM cons? How do smart people believe totally unfounded theories about vaccinations, ethnic conspiracies, the Denver Airport is the Illuminati’s headquarters, a pizza shop in Washington, DC, is the center of a…
How about a little satirical humor to start the new year? The video takes place in the quiet mountains of Kentucky, where two time travelers from the 19th century are relaxing on the porch of a mountain cabin. The peaceful evening is interrupted when a silver craft lands nearby, and a gray extraterrestrial visitor arrives….
America loves competition — but what happens when one side starts the game with all the money and all the advantages? From 1923 to 1968, the New York Yankees didn’t just win — they dominated Major League Baseball. This episode explores how financial power, unequal markets, and the absence of salary caps helped shape one…
Making difficult decisions is hard for any person or group. They are particularly challenging in a democracy. However, history has shown that our most outstanding American leaders stood tall yet humbly as they made difficult decisions. George Washington did it, and so did Abraham Lincoln, the first standard-bearer of the Republican Party. Will the lack…
This short video is about the “sudden” increase in beef prices at grocery stores and restaurants. President Trump has criticized American ranchers for the high cost of beef and has directed the DOJ to investigate meatpackers for price-fixing. However, tinkering with tariffs, importing beef from Argentina, and other “fixes” are unlikely to solve the problem….
Why do many Americans so easily accept blatant lies as gospel? Although we all make assumptions about what is true, truth is neither obvious nor immutable. Sifting through the various facts and claims of truth can be exhausting, so most of us prioritize our pursuits of truth. We tend to put more energy into pursuing…
In any relationship, whether between two or 300,000,000 people, if there is no shared understanding of truth…then the relationship has a problem. If a husband believes that all his children should be kept in cages between the ages of three and six, and the wife fervently disagrees, then the couple will have a significant problem….