From a reader: If you had it your way, you would be insulting Putin to no end instead of talking peace. Trump shows respect, because that is what brings people to the table. To insult and demean world leaders is …
Author: craigshields
American Ignorance
Here’s something from the Facebook “chat” here in Central California. We live among people who are so deeply ignorant that they don’t know that only U.S. citizens can vote. It’s a truly pathetic time to be an American, and it …
Tagged with: American Ignorance
What Lies Beneath Humankind’s Atrocities
Aldous Huxley put this thought by Marcus Aurelius a bit differently: ‘The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.’
Tagged with: Humankind's Atrocities
Social Progress in the United States
As shown in the graphic here, the U.S. was making decent progress until fairly recently. Some speculate that the emergence of Donald Trump on the political scene released a great deal of pent-up hatred, allowing, in fact encouraging, white people …
Tagged with: Social Progress in the United States
Finland and Homelessness
Finland’s tackling homelessness is a far easier challenge than one might think, insofar as they actually care about stuff like this. Everyone gets free education and healthcare in exchange for the taxes they pay, so their healthy and gainfully employed. …
Tagged with: Finland and Homelessness
Science and Our Dreams
I have a great deal of respect for the popular physicist Michio Kaku, not only for his prowess as a scientist, but for his capacity to translate his knowledge in a way that communicates to those of us of lesser …
Tagged with: Science and Our Dreams
Wine Grapes and Climate Change
I just spoke with a guy in the wine industry, and I asked him how, if at all, climate change is affecting what he does. From his perspective, it’s the horrific wildfires whose smoke imbues (or “taints”) the grapes with …
Tagged with: Wine Grapes and Climate Change
From Senior Energy Analyst Robert Rapier
Here are a few thoughts that had not occurred to me: When companies get caught “cooking the books,” the fallout is generally brutal. We’ve seen it before—Enron, WorldCom—where shady accounting led to total collapse and bankruptcy. Even when a company …
Tagged with: Senior Energy Analyst Robert Rapier
A Liberal Arts Education
My alma mater, Trinity College in Hartford, CT, has been named to LinkedIn‘s inaugural Top 50 Colleges list, ranking #42 nationally and #4 among liberal arts colleges. This ranking recognizes schools that “best set their graduates up for long-term career …
Tagged with: liberal arts
A World Without War
The concept presented at left is important, but one whose only answer is that this civilization is far more likely to go extinct than it is to survive via the cessation of war. I base this on the way our …
