At Five

To become really mature is to return to the age of five, to be able to recapture the capacity for absorption, for learning, to recapture the tremendous hunger to master skills that you had at five years.
—     Eric Hoffer
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On This Day In:
2021	To Trust Providence
	Exactly
2020	I Am Learning
	Plus Plus
2019	Day 2: All Things Considered
	The Path To Reward
2018	Ryan, McConnell & The Republican Controlled Congress
	The Proud Dad
	Day 35: Five(5) Weeks Completed!
2017	Serving Is Proving Harder Than Winning For #DumbDonald
2016	Come Again…
2015	At Five
2014	Touching The Past
	The Supreme Question
2013	Children Will Judge
2012	Liar, n.
2011	Freedom To Doubt

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Positively Aiming Higher

Children must know that it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.
—    Jesse Jackson
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On This Day In:
2021	Why Republicans Are Unhappy
	I Guess It’s True
2020	A Tiny And Fragile World
	Your Lyin’ Eyes
2019	Day 1: Done
	#IncompetentDonald Fails On All Three
2018	I Put It Down To Bad Teachers
	Day 34: In And Out
2017	And The Future Is Now
2016	I Am
2015	Positively Aiming Higher
2014	Suspicious Minds
2013	We Are Not Alone
2012	Lawyer, n.
2011	Each Day Remember…
2010	Impossible Dreams of Camelot

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Nothing But Pride

An apology is a friendship preserver,
an antidote for hatred,
never a sign of weakness;
It costs nothing but one’s pride,
always saves more than it costs,
and is a device needed in every home.
—    Dag Hammarskjold
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On This Day In:
2021	How Learning Infections Begin
	Stay Young At Heart
2020	Policies Not People
	Just Thinking To Myself
2019	Should I Start With My Religion?
2018	Fear And Hope
	Day 33: Good News & Prep
2017	Directions
2016	Handle With Care
2015	Nothing But Pride
2014	Go
2013	Well, Does It?
2012	Near Misses Aren’t Successes
2011	Uncomfortable Feelings
2010	San Francisco (favorites)…
	Bullets or Butter?

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Get Change

Both tears and sweat are wet and salty, but they render a different result.  Tears will get you sympathy, but sweat will get you change.
—    Jesse Jackson
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On This Day In:
2014	Trapped (Again)
2013	Someone Else Believes
2012	The Practical Value of Science
2011	Seize Gladly The Difficult Task
	A Constitutional Conversation
2010	The Fierce Urgency Of Now…

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A Terrifying Cycle

Much of the population is desperately trying to educate its way out of a terrifying cycle of downward mobility.  But students are fighting strong structural shifts in the economy.  While technology-driven productivity used to be what economists said would save us from jobless recoveries, technology these days removes jobs from the economy.
—    Rana Foroohar
From her editorial / commentary column (“The Curious Capitalist“):  “The 3% Economy“
Appearing in:  Time Magazine;  dtd:  October 6, 2014
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On This Day In:
2014	Rights
2013	Do Bold Things
2012	Seven Causes
2011	I Feel A Tingle Coming On

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Crawl Towards The Light

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
—    Zora Neale Hurston
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On This Day In:
2014	Sweet Songs
2013	The Wife Of An Ordinary Man
2012	Three Words
2011	Know Anyone Like This?
2010	Apoplexy??
	When Breaking Up Is Hard To Do…
	Sibling Awareness

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Surprise! No Evidence

Movie Review:
Today’s movie review is for the documentary:  “Bigger, Stronger, Faster” (2008).  This documentary is about three brothers who want to be famous, bigger and stronger.  Two of them, the bookends, are willing to use anabolic steroids to get what they want.  The third (the middle son) thinks using is “wrong” and doesn’t want to use them (steroids).  The story is an examination of the use of steroids.
The movie is interesting because although the speaker (the middle brother) is against the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), he’s willing to take a “honest” look at them.  What he finds is surprising:  there is no proven scientific link between steroids and “roid-rage” and there are virtually no data supporting the harmfulness of their use.  The documentary states there are perhaps three deaths per year which can be attributed to steroid use in the United States.  This is interesting because there is almost no supervised use outside of formal medical prescription and yet there are estimates that the majority of athletes at all levels are using them.  This means untrained medical application (pills and shots) result in virtually no deaths even though steroids are thought to be “dangerous”.
I, personally, have never used steroids as a PED and I have frequently (well, several times) been asked if I would take them.  I would say, “No”, but obviously, my opinion has been based on biased data (at least as reported in this documentary).  Given the reportage in this film and assuming it is honest and accurate, my response would now be a qualified, “Yes”.  I don’t take this statement lightly, but I now feel we (the American public) have been led down another primrose path that drugs are bad (except when they’re not) and only cheaters use them.  Well, the later part of that may be true, but if there really is little or no scientific proof of their danger, it is only a matter of time until they become “legal” for performance enhancement – if not for everyday use.
Final recommendation:  Highly recommended!  This is not a movie which I would think has a large audience.  That’s a shame.  I believe it is one of those rare movies (or books) which offers up information contrary to popular opinion and, as such, needs to be viewed by the masses and fact checked by the competent (and I am not claiming to be one of these).  Watch it and think…
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On This Day In:
2014	Real Ideals
2013	A Happiness Weapon
2012	An Eagle Has Departed
	Ummm
	And In My Prayers
2011	Welcome Doubt
2010	Talk, Talk, Talk…
	Every Day At Least
	Democratic Suicide
	Pleasurable Reading
	Loose Joy
	Do, Er, Write – Whatever
	This Glorious Company
	Relax With A Good Book
	Neither Vice Nor Weakness
	That’s Rich!
	Man Will Prevail!!!
	Frankly Speaking to Arizona
	Brother By Another Mother

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No Worries

You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.
—     Eleanor Roosevelt
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On This Day In:
2014	Devouring The Present
2013	But So Far…
	Twice Moved
2012	Just Like Bubbles
2011	Caring and Driving
	Achieve Greatly
2010	Unwise To Trust
	Attitude
	If The Mind Is Not Tired
	Irrationally Crazy
	2nd Pair – Shoe Review
	Ahnu – Gesundheit!
2009	As for me…
	Health Care Reform Now!!

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Verbal Fluency

Children growing up in any modern culture have an opportunity to learn to become conceptually fluent by becoming verbally fluent.  It’s that simple.  Although many people have the impression that the ability to spin ideas into meaningful webs of persuasion must be an in-born skill, probably determined by IQ, the simple fact is that conceptual fluency is largely a matter of verbal fluency.  A person who has a limited vocabulary has a limited ability to speak — and think — conceptually.  Conversely, a person who has a large and diversified vocabulary, and who’s willing to use it appropriately in various conversational situations, has a high level of conceptual skill.
—    Karl Albrecht
From his book:  “Practical Intelligence“
[Click on book title to see my review of the book.    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2014	Familiar
2013	Unbending
2012	Simple Sayings
2011	Wupped Again?
2010	3 and 1…
	Musical Notes…
	Doubt Tries…
	Northwest Passages – Evening Two
	The Beierly’s Web Site

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Green Binge

A few weeks ago I finished binge-ing on the first two seasons of “Arrow” on Netflix.  The series is an adaptation of the “Green Arrow” comic books series by D.C. Comics.  First, a little background bias aka “full disclosure”:  I am not really a D.C. person.  When I was growing up, the comics were basically D.C., Marvel and everyone else.  D.C. had (mostly) single issue stories which were generally run of the mill superhero fare.  Marvel tended to tell individual stories, but within story arcs which could last six or more months.  This made Marvel seem more like literature than “just” stories.  Anyway, even within the D.C. universe, there were major and minor characters.  Green Arrow was one of the most minor of characters.  He was essentially a low budget Batman in a Robin Hood suit, shooting arrows (and little else).  Bottom line:  I started off with very low expectations I would like this series.
Because the comic book wasn’t one I followed, the T.V. series is a “new” story for me.  When I say “new”, I mean only for the “Arrow” character as the storyline is basically lifted from Batman “The Dark Knight” movie series.  This doesn’t make it bad, just not very original.  Here goes:  rich / spoiled, under-achieving college student is in a shipwreck and gets stranded on an island for five years where he learns a number of martial arts and survival techniques from various folks on the island.  He returns to civilization and becomes a vigilante trying to clean-up the city his father loved.  He starts off as a killer, indiscriminately disposing of bad guys, but at the end of the first season he resolves to try to avoid killing anyone while still bringing them to justice.  All the while, there is an over-arching soap-opera going on about his love life and the love lives of the people around him.  And, of course, all while trying to run the company which makes him a billionaire.
Does the series work?  Surprisingly, yes!  At first I found the soap-opera-ish-ness tiring, then I kind of got used to it, then it was boring, then I had kind of an acceptance of it as a means of bringing a humanizing facet into the show.  I’m sure it (the humanizing) could be handled in a different way, but I guess the soap is there to keep the teen-and-tween audience tuning in.  The action scenes are mostly pretty good.  Not up to the level of Daredevil, but still pretty good.
All in all, pretty good entertainment for TV – certainly better than “Marvel – Agents of SHIELD“, but I digress.  So, now I wait for season three to become available on Netflix and then season four, which I understand is still broadcasting.  A final note:  I’ve found this serial (as in one after another) binge-ing makes the series enjoyable in a way that going week to week would probably have never been for me.  Once again, a big “yes” vote for “the binge.”
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On This Day In:
2014	Overdone
2013	The Courage To Remake The World
2012	Minor Gifts
2011	I Love It When A Plan Comes Together…
2010	Eloquence
	Cleaning the Chalk Board

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Details

I want to know how God created this world.  I want to know His thoughts.  The rest are details.
—    Albert Einstein
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On This Day In:
2014	Here’s One…
2013	Non-Fungible Commodities
2012	Hope And Tears
2011	Just Long Enough
	Meaningful Thoughts

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Three Roars

The most fundamental problem of politics is not the control of wickedness but the limitation of righteousness.
To seek to achieve [American values] by military occupation in a part of the world where they had no historical roots, imbued the American endeavor in Iraq with a Sisyphean quality.
Long ago, in youth, I was brash enough to think myself able to pronounce on ‘The Meaning of History‘.  I now know that history’s meaning is a matter to be discovered, not declared.
—    Henry Kissinger
The three quotes are from the article:  “The Lion in Winter“
Written by:  Walter Isaacson
Appearing in:  Time Magazine;  dtd:   22 September 2014
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On This Day In:
2014	Be R-E-L-E-V-A-N-T
2013	Lacking
2012	So Small A Thing
2011	Is Your Time Valuable?

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Food Change ==> Health Change

Whether it’s because we’re scared or lazy or time-pressed, or simply that we think the food we cook won’t taste as good as the junk we buy, we have allowed others to feed us, rather than taking charge of feeding ourselves.  For the sake of our health, our well-being, or palates and the environment, that has to change — and you don’t have to be Giada De Laurentiis to get on board.
—     Mark Bittman
From his article:  “How To Eat Now“
Appearing in:  Time Magazine;  dtd:  20 October 2014
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On This Day In:
2014	10 Commandments Of Logical Arguments (Fallacies)
2013	Sociology Of The Future
2012	1010
	There In The Sunshine
2011	Not Enough Time

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Did You Pass On It?

Education is what most people receive, many pass on, and few have.
—     Karl Kraus
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On This Day In:
2014	Even When It Ain’t, It Is
2013	Still Happens
2012	Possessing Eternity
2011	I Thought We Were Talking About Afghanistan

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$20 Anyone?

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
—     Eleanor Roosevelt
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On This Day In:
2014	And Yet I Still Study
2013	Use Your Own
2012	Strengthen Freedom
2011	Attrition = A Lack Of Imagination
2010	Mind The Fire, Love
	Just Beyond My Reach…
	Even A Life Of Quiet Desperation!
	Acts Of Courage

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