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This site is full of ideas. Some of them might make you cringe. They may not align with your worldview, perspectives, or experiences. That’s a great thing.

The age of reality leadership

After three years of President Trump’s leadership style, people are still confused by it. When President Obama was elected, many found him refreshing because he ushered in the age of reality and pragmatism. Many people loved the fact that he told it like it was. He called it as he saw it. For example, Obama’s 2013 budget declared “In the 21st Century, real GDP growth in the United States is likely to be permanently slower than it was in earlier eras…” In 2016, he famously said some automotive industry jobs “are not going to come back.” While there’s certainly an element…

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Day one: Obama vs Trump

On one of his first days, with no accomplishments to his name, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Before his first day, Congressional representatives were already talking about how Trump needed to be impeached. You can’t have this extreme and diverse of a difference between two Presidents who haven’t started their jobs yet without a heavily biased media. I can’t think of a better predictor of how the media was going to handle each’s presidency than these two simple facts.

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Success comes from overcoming adversity, not avoiding it

A little while ago, there was a story in the news about a girl’s high school basketball team that won a game by nearly 100 points. I’m not sure the details, because when I searched “lopsided victory basketball,” I unearthed pages and pages of lopsided scores. They happen all the time. It’s kind of like life. Sometimes you try something and get completely throttled by other forces. The key is to learn from it and be better prepared in the future. Who thought up not keeping score in little league games? What was the intention? Winning and losing is…

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Vacation during isolation

Most of corporate America who can work from home is working from home. If the job doesn’t call for hands on work, and hasn’t been wiped out by lack of business, people are working in their houses. And because we’re all self-isolating, there’s not really anywhere you can go. Businesses are closed. You can’t eat in a restaurant. Most hotels are closed. National parks are closed. My question: Do people who are working from home take vacation during this pandemic? How would it be received if you tell your boss you’re taking a week off, but still not leaving…

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A victim of Wuhan Flu racism

I was at the grocery store earlier, in the spices aisle, when an asian man appeared in the aisle and started walking toward me. When he neared, I said, “Hello.” As soon as I started to speak, he recoiled in panic and quickly backed off. He turned his cart and scurried away. He was clearly influenced by the media’s portrayal of how white men can pass on the virus to others. It’s hard enough to live with the fear of the virus, without people being so racist toward one another.

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Corona corrections

There are many changes that will come about due to the coronavirus. One that is happening right now is that movie theaters that have stayed open are limiting ticket sales to half capacity so people can keep their distance from one another. More importantly, they have done away with reserved seating so people can see where others are sitting and spread themselves accordingly. Like it used to be. And like it should have remained. Seating at theaters was always predicated on wanting to keep your distance from others. We didn’t want to hear others talk, chew, krinkle, or take…

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How many people have I killed?

Everything that’s happening right now… all of the advice we’re being given… all of the protocols being put in place… They all apply, to some degree, to every virus and bacteria that preceded the coronavirus. Societally, we’re acting as if this is all news. But there’s nothing we’ve heard, except for details on the virus itself, that is new information. Only now, wrapped in the context of coronavirus, are we considering how a simple handshake or public cough can affect the people around us. It makes me wonder, with every cold and flu I’ve ever had in my life,…

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The dystopian now

I think the thing that surprises me most about this world-ending pandemic, given the large amount of post-apocalyptic, dystopian future movies I’ve seen, is how few tumbleweeds there are around. That, and the sun has been pretty bright this past week – especially in Seattle, the home of both rain and the US’ take on the coronavirus.

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The thing everyone missed about Joe Biden’s factory worker argument

Yesterday, Joe Biden got into an argument with a factory worker in Michigan. There were many newsworthy aspects to it, from Joe telling the worker he’s “full of shit,” to him dismissively “shushing” his female aide, to Joe telling he’s going to “go outside with your ass.” (Whatever that means…) But what no one’s talking about is probably the biggest problem with our ruling class politicians. Check out the :54 second mark of this video: The worker says “You’re working for me, man.” To which, Joe Biden says, “I’m not working for you, man. Give me a break.” And…

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Social distancing: practice makes perfect

We’re told that one way to combat, or slow, the coronavirus pandemic is social distancing. And there’s all sorts of news segments about what it is and how to do it. But haven’t we already been practicing social distancing since, well… the advent of the smartphone? I’ve been observing social distancing for years. At any restaurant, you can see people sitting at the same dinner table all ignoring each other and looking at their phones. The only reason people run into each other in the streets is because they’re all ignoring each other while they stare at their phones….

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