Alternate Universes

Twenty-four centuries ago, there ruled a king in Egypt who broke with tradition and tried to establish a new way of thinking about man and his gods. Akhenaten, then Amenhotep IV, decided that the pantheon of Egyptian gods needed to be changed to a more monotheistic religious view. He tried to create a culture where the many gods were replaced by one god. In the end, he failed. His successors, namely the established priesthood whose livelihood depended on the worship of many gods, re-asserted its power. Akhenaten's name was stricken from the records and all that he tried to create was destroyed. We are going through such a period now. Barack Obama is like a modern day Akhenaten. He struggled to bring forth ideas of equality and fairness that flew in the face of the established power elite. But his ideas were destined to fly in the face of the rich and powerful, and as they did twenty-four centuries ago, they have regained their power and overthrew the man who would usher in a n

I heard someone refer to President Trump as the honey badger president, and I almost fell off the couch laughing so much.  Like the honey badger, President Trump spends most of his time fighting with everyone. Not just his enemies, which are easily legion, but even his supposed friends. He fights with the people he needs to accomplish his goals. What is wrong with this man? If you need to see what he is trying to emulate, take a look at this:   Youtube video of the honey badger Honey badgers are fine in the wild, but we don't need one in the White House.

Last night, President Trump finally gave a thoughtful, intelligent and unsullied speech on foreign policy. In essence, he offered a three-prong approach to dealing with the conflict in Afghanistan. First, he is going to use a conditions-based criterion to decide when the war is over, rather than a time-based criterion. Second, he proposes using all tools in the toolbox to address the problems in Afghanistan: not just military, but diplomatic and economic tools. And third, he is changing the US response to Pakistan's role in the South Asian conflict. The conditions-based criterion--with no conditions actually specified--is a good way to keep the war going until the President and the military decide it's time to leave. No timeline for leaving, to be sure, but we've seen how "mission accomplished" has been interpreted in the past. All the tools in the toolbox. A great metaphor, but a totally vague concept. We already use all the tools in the toolbox, but h

When I first started this blog (in late January), my intent was to post a blog each day of Donald Trump's presidency. I wanted to speak truth to what I observed. If that meant criticizing what he did, I would criticize it. If he did something I agreed with, I would mention that. However after just a couple of weeks, I discovered that I was getting exhausted by my endeavor. First, there were so many things happening each day that pained me, I had difficulty keeping up with all the things that I might include in the blog. Second, I realized pretty quickly that I was only seeing a fraction of the things that were going on in the Trump administration. And finally, I realized that my secret hope that he would actually prove me wrong in my original dislike of him became less and less likely to ever be realized. My first encounter with Donald Trump (not in person, but as a concept) was in a management class I was teaching. One of my students asked me what I thought of Donald Trump'

I'm an advocate of free speech. I think that people should be allowed to express their ideas, no matter how much I may disagree with those ideas. I only ask that there be some guidelines to how free speech be allowed to operate. First, I don't think free speech includes body armor, weapons, clubs, helmets, flames, rocks, or other implements. If you can't get your point across with words, then you're not engaging in free speech, you're engaging in coercion. Second, I think that free speech requires dialogue. It is not speech when one side drowns out another side by their sheer numbers. It is not free speech when one side uses their bodies to crowd and intimidate someone who is speaking. Third, I don't believe all ideas are created equal. I don't believe that free speech requires one side to listen to the other side. Forcing someone to have to listen to an opposing argument, simply because "all sides must be heard," is just another form of con

I watched with sorrow and outrage when the Taliban destroyed the Buddha of Bamiyan statues in Afghanistan in 2001. I thought that was a heinous and detestable act of religious intolerance, and should never be allowed by anyone on the planet. I again watched in dismay as Isis destroyed historic statues in Hatra simply because their current interpretation of religion defined them as idols worthy of destruction. So how could I watch with equanimity as a mob of anti-racists did the same thing with a stature commemorating a Confederate soldier in Durham, North Carolina? While I oppose the display of Confederate memorials and flags on public lands as much as anyone, I find it hypocritical to support the act of mob destruction in the name of religion in this case when I opposed it in previous cases. There is a way to remove unpopular and unwanted testimonies to things you don't believe in. And that is through a process of law. If you don't like something, sure, you can demonstr

I watch the debate on the health care system with a certain amount of frustration. I remember the days when I was earning enough to pay for health insurance and my own reactions to the way the insurance companies treated us. I recall spending at least a $1000 a month for insurance that we rarely used. We were fortunate enough not to have many illnesses, and certainly nothing that required major expense.  Yet we were placed into a high risk pool and paid a lot more for our insurance than we probably ought to. When I was employed by a major corporation and had health insurance provided by my employer, I never knew what they were paying. I only found out how much it was when I got laid off and had to access COBRA insurance. Then I found out how expensive insurance was. The policy I got when COBRA ended was cheaper, but it was still expensive. In addition, it excluded a pre-existing condition my spouse had, which meant that if there were ever any problems, we would have to pay the entir

I've deleted all my old posts, mainly because I like to change things and partly because I change my mind all the time. So whatever I said in the past is lost. Sorry historians of the world, but there are more important things in this universe than my rantings. So, this constitutes a restart. Wish me well.