Engaging Life with Courage and Intelligence
When countries are controlled by criminal enterprises
I recently experienced one of those prescription increases that makes us take notice. One of my drugs increased 200% from December 2025 to January 2026. What caused this? It didn’t take long to discover that my PBM changed. PBM is not a medical condition; it is a financial middleman called a pharmacy benefit manager. So,…
This short video is the last in a series about how Americans react to obvious, provable deception, lies, and gaslighting by politicians and others. This video summarizes the many mind games we all play on others and ourselves. While these games are hardwired into our brains, they can become debilitating and ruinous if we, individually…
This video explores how easy it is for people to act in roles and follow scripts. This is an easy way for a person’s perception of the world to be shaped. An actor in a drama can play a villain in a movie but be the nicest person in real life. The opposite can also…
This short video is the fourth in a series of videos about how Americans react to obvious, provable deception, lies, and gaslighting by politicians. The quotation attributed to the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan was “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” This belief might have been false…
Although we normally associate “Ruh Roh” with the cartoon series Scooby-Doo, the dog on The Jetsons was the first to utter this famous phrase of surprise. While many Democrats said or thought “ruh roh” when Biden initially announced he would run for a second term, many Trump soybean farmers in the Midwest are now quietly…
This short video introduces a series of videos about how Americans react to obvious, provable deception, lies, and gaslighting by politicians. The quotation attributed to the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan was “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” This belief might have been false in 1973, but…
This video discusses the downward spiral of people who suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect. They tend to avoid researching and thinking about issues. Instead, they latch on to simplistic and often wrongheaded explanations and solutions. Moreover, they usually find others who have followed the same path and trust questionable authorities over mainstream authorities. In the…
The current administration preaches the gospel of isolationism and placing America’s self-serving short-term interests above all else. It is an inward-leaning nationalism that downplays alliances and global norms in favor of short-term U.S. advantage. It favors flashy short-term bilateral deals over stable, long-term multilateral commitments. This video challenges the myth that short-term, bilateral attacks on…
We have misinformation and disinformation; the difference is that the first is simply an innocent mistake, while the second is a deliberate act to deceive, manipulate, or harm. Although not widely used, we also have mismanagement and dismanagement. We’ve all worked in organizations mismanaged by unprepared or lazy managers—dismanagement parallels disinformation. Dismanagement is the deliberate…
With the twin themes of history and truth matters, this video explores the coming crisis posed by the impact of artificial intelligence and robotics on American society. However, America has a strong tradition of resistance to collective action, which often leads to dysfunction and chaos. Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, America tries everything else before doing the…