Category Archives: Education

The State of the Union of the United States of America

29 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by in Aging, Business, Crime, Customer Relations, Customer Service, Economy, Education, Ethics, Generational, Government, Government Regulation, Green, Health, Higher Education, History, Honor, Management Practices, Panama, Politicians, Politics, Pride, Public Image, Public Relations, racism, Relationships, Religion, Respect, Science, Space, Taxes, Technology, United States, Universities, US History, US Space Program, Women

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Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, the good citizens of the UNITED STATES of America:

We are a country of greatness, that has allowed itself to be taken over by the ungrateful. For centuries we have been the place that the world looks to as a model of what they hope to have for themselves and their families, and yet, in one year that model has become the example of what not to do.

The World Economy

We are the marketplace of the world. Companies in Africa, South America, Asia, Europe, and Austrailia want to capture the market of the United States of America. Our citizens support the world economy, and they know that when the United States falters, the world falters.

And yet, the Republican party would have you believe that if our companies are required to pay their portion of support for the United States of America, they will move their jobs away. It is a twisted logic that accepts companies will move away from their customers, but that is what the Republican party would have you believe in order to fatten the wallets of those who don’t need more money.

It is true that companies in the United States of America have been allowed to hide their money in other countries to avoid supporting the people of the United States of America. The solution to this is not to lower taxes, but to refuse to allow a company to have access to our market if they won’t pay their taxes. The Republican model rewards companies that break the laws of the United States of America by legalizing nonpayment of taxes.

The Power of Government

The Republican party has convinced people that government is inherently evil and that the citizens of this country shouldn’t have to financially support it. They have lied to our citizens by claiming that taxes are wrong, government is evil, and business is holy.

And yet, when we closely examine the ‘waste’ of government we find that typically it is a private business that is stealing from the government, not government waste. Business is based on greed. Government, our government, the government established by our forefathers, the government that financed the railroads, the government that built the water systems, the sewer systems, the dams, the roads and highways, the bridges, government that helped our world neighbors win World War I and World War II, the government that established fire protection, law enforcement, national parks, national monuments, and the government that took us to the Moon and back, THAT government is not evil. THAT government is responsible for all the great achievements in the United States of America.

We are not strong because business made us strong. The history of corporations in the United States of America is one of abuse of workers, deception of neighbors and customers, of mismanagement, fraud, and greed. It has been consistent in our country that when the government keeps a close eye on business, business has succeeded. Government, our government, the government of the United States of America makes for good business, and when government is not there, business brings down our country and our economy, just as the banks did in 2007.

The United States

In this speech, I have not used the word, “Americans.” I don’t use that term to refer to the citizens of the United States of America. Brazilians are Americans. Peruvians are Americans. Panamanians are Americans, Canadians are Americans. And our friends south of our border in Mexico are Americans. All the people of North, Central, and South America are Americans.

WE are the UNITED STATES of America. We celebrate and demand the UNION of our country, not the divisions. What we have is unique. What we have is special. Those that use only the last word in our country’s name fail to understand the importance of the first two words.

As the United States, we are pledged to a government by the people, and for the people, ALL THE PEOPLE, of the United States of America. No one is superior. The wealthy are fortunate, not better. The poor are unfortunate and we have their backs.

Immigrants are our guests until they become citizens, and we will be judged on how we treat them. We don’t need walls, we need paths. Every immigrant should be recognized and assisted as they join our great nation. Anything short of heroic support of the visitors to our nation is beneath the character of the citizens of our country.

Education For All

A miracle has happened in the United States of America. Between 1950 and 2010, our country’s population doubled. In 1950, only 34% of the adults in our nation had a high school degree. Only 6% had a college degree. By 2010, Almost 90% of the adults in our country had a high school degree and 30% of our adult citizens had a college degree. 

Our schools, our PUBLIC schools not only kept pace with the growing population, they expanded the gift of education to almost everyone willing to do the hard work of becoming better citizens.

We cannot stop now. Education is the foundation that this country stands upon. Education creates new job possibilities. Not just for the student, but for the employer. When a good employer realizes that her employees have a greater potential than his or her current job requires, they find ways to expand the challenges, and that means the company can stay competitive, and even outpace other companies in countries that don’t have the power of an employee educated in the United States of America.

It is Time

We have been deceived. The Republicans have tried to tear our country down and then claim they are building it up. Our country doesn’t need to be rescued by people who seek only to line the pockets of a few at the sacrifice of everyone else. The stock market is a measure of greed, not of wealth. Our economy is driven by millions with good jobs that pay them enough to have money to spend, not by a few investors making millions off everyone else.

Taxes are the lifeblood of our great country, and when the wealthy don’t pay their fair share, everyone suffers. It’s time we stopped the lies and deception. It’s time we remember who we are and what we stand for…We are the United States of America, and those that don’t support shouldn’t be leading our country.

Should the Nuremberg Code Be Applied to Internet Data Collection?

17 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by in Aging, Business, College, Crime, Customer Relations, Customer Service, Education, Ethics, Generational, Government, Government Regulation, Health, Higher Education, History, Honor, Information Technology, Internet, Management Practices, Privacy, Public Image, Public Relations, Relationships, Respect, Science, Social Interactive Media (SIM), Technology, Universities, US History

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From the war crimes trials of World War II came a set of rules of human research

Privacy and dignity of the customer or user is not a big concern to business in the post-Internet world. Before a person can use software or a smartphone application (app) they are typically required to consent to an extensive agreement that only a lawyer could understand. Businesses may skip a signed agreement and collect personal information on the customer or user regardless of whether the person knows or consents to the data collection.

This type of collection of data on personal activity is often bought and sold for profit. It raises the question of why the business world is exempt from research restrictions that are applied to all other research involving humans. The possession of personal data also presents the opportunity for abuse of less ethical companies and by political and criminal organizations.

Post-WWII Guidelines For Human Experimentation

Prior to World War II, Germany established a set of standards required in human research. When Hitler came to power he wiped these standards away and Nazi researchers were allowed to experiment as they saw fit.

After World War II trials were held in Nuremberg (or Nürnberg,) Germany to bring justice for the crimes against humanity by Nazi war criminals. Among the crimes were medical experiments performed on prisoners without their knowledge or consent. Many people were harmed and some died as a result of these experiments.

The judges of the trials, moved to action by the testimony, created a set of rules called the Nuremberg Code, to define appropriate research from harmful research. This Code is not law; however, it can be used to determine a legal standard when a researcher violates any of the ten rules of the code. Human research in most civilized nations is governed by the Nuremberg Code.

However, the Nuremberg Code has always been applied to medical and scientific research, not to business situations. In 1947, the idea that business would be invading the privacy of their customers and collecting data on human interactions wasn’t a reality that anyone could envision. 

The Codes Governing Human Research

In 1972 a 40-year study of African American men in Alabama, known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, was uncovered. The study was performed by the U.S. Health service and they did not follow the Nuremberg Code. They did not inform the participants that they were part of a syphilis experiment, nor did they tell the patients they were infected with syphilis, and after an effective treatment for syphilis was discovered, they continued to leave the men untreated.

After this incident, a conference was held to establish guidelines for all federal research. That conference created the Belmont Report that established three guidelines:

  1. Respect for persons: protecting the autonomy of all people and treating them with courtesy and respect and allowing for informed consent. Researchers must be truthful and conduct no deception;
  2. Beneficence: The philosophy of “Do no harm” while maximizing benefits for the research project and minimizing risks to the research subjects; and
  3. Justice: ensuring reasonable, non-exploitative, and well-considered procedures are administered fairly — the fair distribution of costs and benefits to potential research participants — and equally.

If a college professor is studying the interaction among college students they cannot collect data on their students without their knowledge, nor can they try different stimulus on their students without their knowledge. All research, even social research, requires oversight by a research committee. Strict guidelines restrict all the aspects of the data collection, and how it is used. This applies to all federal research and all organizations receiving federal subsidies.

Once again, the rules for human research established by the Belmont Report occurred before the Internet was being used by businesses to collect data on consumers.

Business Data Collection 2018 

It is common in business, and especially on the Internet, for companies to collect data about their customers or users. The problem is that some of the data has nothing to do with the company or application being used. The organization collects this data to sell to other companies for any use they see fit.

There is a start-up company near Seattle that created a phone app for people to buy and sell personal items. All a person has to do is take a picture of the item they want to sell, post it on the app, set a price, and wait for other users to contact them. It’s a garage sale on a smartphone.

The company received millions of dollars in venture capital, not because the app was expected to make money. The app is free and there is no fee collected on any user transaction. The investors were interested in the data that the app would collect to be sold to other companies.

This is the gold mine of the business world. Save money in advertising by only reaching the people who might need, want, or qualify for the product or service.

Violations of the Nuremberg Code in Business

Under the Nuremberg Code, every business would be required to clearly inform the customer of the data collected, what the data would be used for, and obtain her or his voluntary consent prior to collecting data. The use of the data would have to aim for positive results for society, not just for the financial benefit of the company. The business would also have to prove that it couldn’t be collected in another method.

Data collected would have to be proportion to the humanitarian benefits. It would have to be done by people that understand and are qualified to do the research.

Clearly, the restrictions of the Nuremberg Code are not being followed by most businesses collecting data on their customers. This collection and selling of personal data is so insidious that most people will never know what data is being collected, nor how it is being used to manipulate them. 

At this point, there is no oversight of the data being collected. It is an issue that lurks in the background of the business-as-usual environment. It is a practice, like the Tuskeegee Syphilis Experiment, will likely be misused, if it hasn’t been already.

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The Nuremberg Code

  1. Required is the voluntary, well-informed, understanding consent of the human subject in a full legal capacity.
  2. The experiment should aim at positive results for society that cannot be procured in some other way.
  3. It should be based on previous knowledge (e.g., an expectation derived from animal experiments) that justifies the experiment.
  4. The experiment should be set up in a way that avoids unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injuries.
  5. It should not be conducted when there is any reason to believe that it implies a risk of death or disabling injury.
  6. The risks of the experiment should be in proportion to (that is, not exceed) the expected humanitarian benefits.
  7. Preparations and facilities must be provided that adequately protect the subjects against the experiment’s risks.
  8. The staff who conduct or take part in the experiment must be fully trained and scientifically qualified.
  9. The human subjects must be free to immediately quit the experiment at any point when they feel physically or mentally unable to go on.
  10. Likewise, the medical staff must stop the experiment at any point when they observe that continuation would be dangerous.

About This, About Writing

13 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by in About Reno, April Fools Day, Branding, Business, Club Leadership, College, Communication, Crime, Education, Employee Retention, Ethics, genealogy, Generational, Government, Government Regulation, Health, Higher Education, History, Honor, Human Resources, Information Technology, Internet, Lessons of Life, Management Practices, Membership Recruitment, Membership Retention, Opinion, Panama, Photography, Politics, Public Image, Public Relations, racism, Relationships, Religion, Rotary, Science, Science Fiction, Social Interactive Media (SIM), Social Media Relations, Space, Taxes, Technology, Tom Peters, Travel, Universities, US History, Writing

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In the Beginning

Eight years ago I started writing this blog. I had assumed that writing a blog would put me in front of a broad audience anxiously awaiting my next post.

It didn’t….but I kept writing. I wrote about business, human behavior, human resources, management, social media, my personal life, Rotary, public relations, history, time, blogging, travel, Nevada, global warming, spaceflight, politics, my stroke, April Fool’s Day, religion, science fiction, science, photography, media, more history, Panama, gay marriage, the future, great people, not-so-great people, education, Moffat County, patriotism, more politics, and fantasy.

There were a few bright moments when I touched upon a topic that caught some attention, but for the most part, my writing has simply been an expression of my opinions and ideas. I’ve discovered, writing is more important than being read.

Writing, For Me

A blog is like writing a diary or a book. It is meant to a personal statement. Someday, my children or my children’s children may read it and know more about me. I find comfort in that thought. 

My articles became less frequent in the last few years, but recently I have experienced a rebirth of writing. I suspect that my sleep apnea may be one of the issues causing the decline in writing. My brain was starved of oxygen and sleep every night for many years. Now that I am being treated for it, my cognitive functions seem to be reengaging.

Writing a blog has improved my communication skills, and has helped me organize my thoughts. This, this thing I’m doing, is an unfinished novel about the world from one perspective. I’m not a great writer, but I’m better than I was eight years ago.

For the last month, I have been publishing a new article every day. I don’t know that I will keep up that pace, but it is forcing my brain to think, and that is the goal.

Rebranding My Writing

I have decided to rename my blog. First, the term ‘blog’ has developed a negative meaning to many people, so I needed to drop the term. Second, my last name is not as relevant as it was a year ago, before I discovered that biologically, I am not a ‘Kiser.’ 

I tried several title ideas but finally settled on PAULx talks. It is the 2.0 version of Paul Kiser’s Blog. I don’t have a destination in mind for my writing. I never have, but I’ll see where this takes me.

Rapid HR Hiring Process Required In Professional Environment

11 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by in Aging, Business, College, Education, Employee Retention, Ethics, Generational, Government, Higher Education, Human Resources, Management Practices, Public Image, Public Relations, Technology, Universities, Women

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Apollo Mission Control sits empty now. Just like a lot of professional offices.

Highly Skilled Workers are MIA and HR is part of the problem

Large organizations, especially government organizations, are losing great applicants because Human Resources is not keeping pace with the reality of the recruitment environment.

Challenges to Hiring Highly Skilled Workers

The issues:

  1. the workforce has not kept pace with the growth in highly educated and skilled jobs
  2. unemployment is now nearly down to four percent
  3. professional salaries and benefits have flattened as executive salaries have fattened
  4. executives have become more insensitive to workers and less humble about their value to the organization
  5. Human Resources have created a massive bureaucracy that is inhibiting the hiring process 

The problem often comes down to the Human Resources department. About the time the Personnel Department became Human Resources, the wizards of bureaucracy established an elaborate maze of hoops and ladders that managers and departments had to push a candidate through to hire a person. Their stated justification for their hiring procedures was to avoid liability and discrimination issues.

The truth is that the policies and procedures of Human Resources also keeps their hand in the organizational functions, and that is job security. 

What Human Resources is Required to Do

Every company should have safeguards in place to verify the qualifications and backgrounds of potential employees, ensure that all applicants are considered without discrimination (regarding race, color, religion, sex – including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy, national origin, people age 40 or older, disability or genetic information,) and determine a fair and competitive salary/benefit package.

However, only discrimination issues need to be determined for all applicants, and that process must happen before the final selection is completed. Everything else only involves the person that is going to be offered the job.

Once the selection process is completed, Human Resources should be verifying the background and determining the salary and benefits package for the candidate being offered the job. There is no excuse for the final offer process to take longer than a day.

Checking References BS

Wait, I just heard every Human Resource recruiter tell me that the verification of references of a potential employee take forever. References are a joke. Anyone who offers a poor reference is risking a lawsuit, so the time-honored process of checking references is absolutely unnecessary.

Most large organizations complete an I-9 verification, a criminal background check, a credit check, and sometimes a Google Search. A reference is not going to offer as much information as other methods of background checks.

Under the current environment, checking a reference after a job is offered would be acceptable because only something that uncovered a lie by the applicant would be significant, and that would be cause for termination.

Organizations that can’t whip their Human Resources department into reality are risking more failed recruitment searches and watching great people go to their competition.

Highly skilled labor jobs outpacing unskilled labor

12 Days in 1968

06 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by in 1968, Aging, Arts, Crime, Crisis Management, Education, Ethics, Generational, Government, Health, Higher Education, History, Honor, Panama, Photography, Politics, Pride, Print Media, Public Image, Public Relations, racism, Relationships, Religion, Respect, Science, Space, Technology, The Tipping Point, Traditional Media, Universities, US History, Women

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May 1968 – Student injured in France in clash with police

1968. Fifty years ago our country was in chaos. Only five years had passed since President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. The man who became President, Lyndon B. Johnson, had accomplished amazing milestones in civil rights, protections for the elderly (Medicare and Medicaid) and had expanded programs in public broadcasting and the arts, but the country was torn apart by the war in Vietnam, and he had increased the number of U.S. troops in the war to over half a million.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was still recovering from the  fire in January of the previous year that killed three astronauts as they sat helplessly in the command module on the launch pad, and the Apollo program had yet to launch a manned mission with only two years left to honor President Kennedy’s goal.

At the start of the year, everything in the world seemed to be collapsing. The year would test our society’s threshold of endurance. These are twelve days that defined 1968. (Source:  Wikipedia – 1968)

Captured crew of the USS Pueblo giving the finger to North Korea

  • January 23
    • North Korea seized the USS Pueblo, creating an international incident that remained in the news for most of 1968. North Korea claimed the ship was spying on their country and violated its territorial waters. Its mission was to observe and gather intelligence and at the time of capture, the crew attempted to destroy classified information on the Pueblo, but only succeeded in destroying a small amount of the documents and equipment. One crewmember was killed by North Korean fire in the attempt to capture the boat. The crew was tortured and starved during the eleven months of imprisonment. They were released just before Christmas 1968. The USS Pueblo is still held in North Korea and is still a commissioned ship of the United States Navy.
  • February 13
    • Civil rights disturbances occur at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This would be one of many protests, sit-ins, and riots, in the United States, England, France, Germany, and other countries over civil rights, the Vietnam war, and other social issues. Many of those involved in the year of civil disobedience would be injured or killed in clashes with law enforcement.
    • The Florida Education Association (FEA) initiates a mass resignation of teachers to protest state funding of education. This is, in effect, the first statewide teachers’ strike in the United States.
    • NET televises the very first episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
    •  
  • March 16
    • Vietnam War – My Lai Massacre: American troops kill scores of civilians. The story will first become public in November 1969 and will help undermine public support for the U.S. efforts in Vietnam.
    • President Lyndon B. Johnson, the incumbent, narrowly won the first Democratic primary to a minor candidate on March 11, and U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy entered the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. President Johnson would end his campaign two weeks after Kennedy makes his announcement.
    •  
  • April 4
    • Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots erupt in major American cities, lasting for several days afterward.
    • A shootout between Black Panthers and Oakland police results in several arrests and deaths, including 16-year-old Panther Bobby Hutton.
    • A double explosion in downtown Richmond, Indiana kills 41 and injures 150.
  • May 17
    • The Catonsville Nine enter the Selective Service offices in Catonsville, Maryland, take dozens of selective service draft records, and burn them with napalm as a protest against the Vietnam War.
    •  
  • June 5
    • U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Sirhan Sirhan is arrested. Kennedy dies from his injuries the next day.

Pope Paul VI: The man who brought the Church into couple’s beds

  •  July 25
  • August 20
    • The Prague Spring of political liberalization ends, as 750,000 Warsaw Pact troops, 6,500 tanks, and 800 planes invade Czechoslovakia. It is dated as the biggest operation in Europe since WWII ended.
  • September 6
  • October 11
    • Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission (Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, Walter Cunningham). Mission goals include the first live television broadcast from orbit and testing the lunar module docking maneuver. The United States is back in space for the first time since the Apollo 1 disaster.
    • In Panama, a military coup d’état, led by Col. Boris Martinez and Col. Omar Torrijos, overthrows the democratically elected (but highly controversial) government of President Arnulfo Arias. Within a year, Torrijos ousts Martinez and takes charge as de facto Head of Government in Panama.
  •  
  • November 5

  • View of Earth from Apollo 8 as it orbited the Moon

  • December 24
    • Apollo program: U.S. spacecraft Apollo 8 enters orbit around the Moon. Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William A. Anders become the first humans to see the far side of the Moon and planet Earth as a whole. Anders photographs Earthrise.

Nevada’s Pot Business About to be Smoked

03 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by in About Reno, Aging, Branding, Business, Education, Employee Retention, Ethics, Generational, Government, Government Regulation, Green, Health, Higher Education, History, Honor, Management Practices, Politics, Pride, Public Image, Public Relations, Recreation, Respect, solar, Space, Taxes, Technology, Travel, Universities, US History

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Welcome to Nevada, where citizens watch other people get rich

Nevada has relied on being the rebel for decades, and it always fails to provide a reliable economy.

When gambling was taboo in the nation, Nevada became one of the few places people could gamble. People flocked to Nevada to gamble. Nevada had a ‘gaming’ industry.

In 1988, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act opened the door to legalize gambling on Indian Reservations, and over the next three decades California built up an Indian Gaming industry that didn’t require taking chances with a trip to Nevada. Nevada’s gaming industry stagnated.

When a quick marriage and/or a quick divorce was taboo in the nation, Nevada made divorce easy. People flocked to Nevada to officially end or begin a relationship. Nevada had a marriage industry.

Then divorce became a fact of life and most of the rest of the country decided that government should be trying to inhibit the desires of a couple, so they made marriage and divorce easier. Couples no longer had to travel to Nevada to say their vows, or go their separate ways and Nevada’s marriage and divorce industry collapsed. 

Gambling, divorce, prostitution have all been part of Nevada’s economic plan, and they all have created more problems than money for its citizens. It’s a consistent trait of Nevada’s leadership in pursuing big money that comes with little or no foundation in what is best for the average citizen.

For the last six months, Nevada boosted its economy with legalized recreational marijuana sales. Again, people from California flocked to the state to get what they couldn’t get at home. Pot. And again, Nevada’s economic boost will be short-lived as California recreational pot business gets underway in 2018.

Nevada is a state where a few people become filthy rich and pay very little in taxes. Nevada compounds the problem by prostituting themselves for marginal industries that are not stable and corporations that seek to avoid paying their share of taxes while reaping big profits.

The result has been that Nevada has no money to improve schools that are ranked near the bottom in the United States. Nevada’s poor education record has resulted in businesses needing a highly educated workforce to go elsewhere despite the seductive tax environment.

Nevada has to stop lusting after short-term economies and start building a real economy…or watch the hopes and dreams of its citizens go up in smoke.

1929 is Coming

29 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in About Reno, Aging, Business, Crisis Management, Education, Ethics, Generational, Government, Government Regulation, Health, History, Management Practices, Politics, racism, Religion, Respect, Taxes, The Tipping Point, US History, Women

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116 Palestinians and 133 Jews were killed in riots over control of the Western Wall. The Jews occupied and claimed the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The Palestinians came in and attacked the Jews in an attempt to remove them.

Italy was taken over by a political party that sought to create a Third Rome through ‘revolutionary nationalism’ based on the principles of order, discipline, hierarchy and dominated by the Caucasian race. The government opposed liberalism and sought to establish a corporatist system where the major corporations helped determine the national economic policy.

Germany began to have high unemployment and the government was thrown into chaos, that led to the conservative and nationalistic Nazi party to take control.

Russia reversed the post-revolutionary idea of free-market farming and began seizing private farms and moved workers to corporate farms.

The United States Secretary of the Interior was convicted of selling prime oil fields to petroleum companies at low prices in exchange for bribes.

Prior to the Great Depression that began in 1929, conservatives and nationalists were taking control of the governments of multiple countries around the world and instituting policies of racism, conflict, corruption, and greed. The result was a collapse of the world economy and set the stage for World War II.

We seem to be repeating the same cycle in 2017.

Dear Republican: Your Party Left Without You

28 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by in About Reno, Aging, Business, College, Education, Ethics, Generational, Government, Government Regulation, Health, Higher Education, History, Honor, Politics, Public Relations, racism, Relationships, Religion, Respect, Taxes, Technology, Universities, US History, Women

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Roy Moore:  One of the faces of the new Republican Party

Republicans seem to fall into one of four groups:

  1. People who truly believe in a rational approach to various issues, and are extremely frustrated with many of the current positions and actions of their party.
  2. People who are embarrassed by their party and won’t admit that they voted for Donald Trump (“YOU don’t know who I voted for!!!!)
  3. People who quietly believe that destroying our country’s government will magically result in a better personal situation for them.
  4. People who believe that Donald Trump is the savior and who believe that everything he says and does is blessed. 

There is some crossover in these groups, but these are the traits I typically see in Republicans with which I have interacted. The last two groups seem to have little loyalty to the United States of America. If left up to them, any person who disagrees with them should be lined up and hung or shot or both.

People in the second group seem to recognize the lies and absurd positions of the leaders of their party, but don’t want to be associated with it. They might feel great about winning their party winning the 2016 election, but they don’t want to be linked with what has happened since Donald Trump became President.

It is the first group, the original Republicans, that are paying the price for the takeover of their party by people who are just lashing out at anyone and anything that is rational or reasonable. This is no more evident than when Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee recently raced to support Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race. The Republican party has left the core of their party behind and now consists of a majority of people who only have their own self-interests in mind. 

It’s unfortunate that good people in the Republican party have become mired in the antics of the fringe-turned-majority of the GOP, but as long as the new Republicans control the party, the core Republicans will face the backlash.   

Religion Controls Equality For Women

27 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by in About Reno, Aging, Business, College, Crime, Education, Ethics, Generational, Government, Government Regulation, Health, Higher Education, History, Human Resources, Management Practices, Politics, Relationships, Religion, Respect, US History, Women

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Most religions reinforce women as subservient

Women are not treated as being equal to men. Most people know that and most people feel that is wrong. So why doesn’t it change?

Religion. 

Men, regardless of country or race, will never accept a woman as an equal as long as he believes his god says they are not equal.

This issue becomes obvious when extremists elements of any religion do horrendous things to women and girls because their holy writings say that man is superior. The treatment of women in many religions makes Harvey Weinstein seem saintly.

In 2014, an Islamic extremist group known as Boko Haram in Nigeria kidnapped 276 girls from a public, government-run school. The girls were raped, beaten, and sold as wives for the equivalent of $6. A Boko Haram leader said, “Allah instructed me to sell them…I will carry out his instructions.” In the first few weeks after the kidnapping, the Nigerian government, the Royal Air Force, and U.S. intelligence all had located groups of the kidnapped girls, but all failed to take action or were prevented from taking action.

In 2008, authorities removed 534 women and children from a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints  (LDS) polygamist compound in Texas for protection after girls as young as 14 were being forced into marriage older men. According to NBC News, “The women were not allowed to wear red — the color Jeffs said belonged to Jesus — and were not allowed to cut their hair. They were also kept isolated from the outside world.”

The inequality of women is less obvious when a government bows down to the will of a religion. In the United States, many religious groups seek to interfere or ban contraceptives and abortions based on a fundamental belief that their religion allows them to dictate to what a woman may or may not do. Many of these same groups push for religious schools that reinforce the idea that women are subservient to men.

Many churches refuse to allow women into roles of leadership, deeming that their religious writings from thousands of years ago forbid it.

It is time that we accept women as equals in every aspect of life so that there is no confusion of when a woman is equal and when she is not. It will be impossible for women to gain true equality as long as religious organizations embrace inequality in their churches.

GOP War on the Spirit of Christmas

24 Sunday Dec 2017

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GOP celebrates destroying Christmas 2017

The Republican party has gone to war with Christmas. It’s not just that they disrespected people’s desire to enjoy Christmas by ramming through a disgraceful and unpopular bill during the holiday season. That would have been bad enough, but what they did is craft changes to our tax code that violate almost every Christian belief at a time when a majority Christian nation sought to celebrate one of their most significant holidays.

I believe they did this just before Christmas for three reasons.

Distraction
First, the Republicans in Congress hoped to use the holidays as cover for their anti-Christian deed. They hoped that people would be so wrapped up in the excitement of Christmas that they would be distracted from a sacrifice of citizens and government to  appease the GOP corporate gods.

Before We Knew What Hit Us
Second, the Republicans hoped that by acting quickly, people couldn’t find out all the details of the legislation before an effective campaign could be mounted against it.

A 2018 ‘Nice Guys’ Makeover
Finally, Republicans needed to allow time to do a personality makeover before the 2018 elections. By passing this bill in 2017, they can begin to pass minor, but popular legislation to make them not look like stooges of corporations and the wealthy.

Now we are left with a dark cloud hanging over the holidays. The wealthy will be allowed to steal more money from the government. Corporations will be able to use all the resources the government provides (roads, infrastructure, law enforcement, etc.) and pay little or no taxes for that service. Money and exemptions that were meant for the poor and middle class have been stripped away in order to give the wealthy lower taxes and more money.

Republicans won the war on Christmas. With laughter they destroyed the foundation of our country. The new year will dawn with Trump and Putin still laughing at us. They won. The United States of America lost.

A New Year’s Earthquake?

21 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by in About Reno, Education, Science, solar, Space

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Earth Science is one of my life’s passions. It was my first choice of study in college, but I gave up it when I discovered that calculus was required for any science degree.

However, I am a creature that is more fascinated by the world around me, than the details of societal norms. I don’t have a degree in science, but I do a lot of research on what real scientists have learned. That is why I’m interested in the orbits of the Sun and the Moon and the potential of an increase in earthquake activity starting near Christmas and continuing through the first week in January.

The gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon do not cause earthquakes. Earthquakes are caused by the movement of crustal plates at and near the surface of our planet. Anyone who claims that the Sun and Moon cause earthquakes is dancing on fringe science.

However, as the plates grind against each other they create stress and at times lock up. It is when a region of locked plates break free that an earthquake occurs. The bigger the movement after the release, the bigger the earthquake.

The gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon affects the Earth. This pull may have trigger effect on some earthquakes under certain conditions. It would be a situation where a region is near the release point, and the tug of the Sun and/or Moon gives the needed boost to start the movement of the stressed area.

Currently, the Earth is approaching its annual perihelion (closest approach) to the Sun. Perihelion will officially occur at 9:34 pm PST on 2 January 2018. At the same time the Moon is approaching its closest approach to Earth (perigee) for all of 2018 at 1:48 pm on 1 January.

The Sun and the Moon will be on opposite sides of the Earth around New Year’s Day, so the gravitational pull will be most intense at that time, potentially stretching areas of the Earth’s crust that are ready to break free. Will this cause and increase in earthquakes? I can’t answer that. No one can. But it will be interesting to track.

As always, preparation for an earthquake in those areas prone to have earthquakes, and in coastal areas is always wise, regardless of the orbits of the Sun and the Moon.

Happy Winter Solstice!

What Happens In Sixty Years

19 Tuesday Dec 2017

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I was born sixty years ago today. We often talk about how life has changed since the Internet age, as if life before the Internet was static. It’s good to be reminded that change is relentless, and it is not confined to any particular time period.

In my lifetime:

  • Sputnik 1 and 2 were still in orbit (both launched shortly before my birth)
  • The word, ‘Aerospace’ was created
  • The average U.S. lifespan increased by almost ten years.
  • NASA was created
  • Nikita Khrushchev became Premier of the Soviet Union
  • Eisenhower was the first President to be broadcast in color on television
  • Almost all of the Interstate highways were built
  • Ford, GM, and Chrysler went from producing almost 90% of all U.S. cars to half that today, with Chrysler owned by foreign investors
  • We went to the Moon
  • There have been seven Popes, eleven Presidents, (and Donald Trump)
  • General Charles de Gaulle was elected President of France
  • Alaska and Hawai’i became the 49th and 50th States
  • Just over a third of all U.S. adults had a high school degree, now almost ninety percent have graduated from high school
  • Humans saw first image of the far side of the Moon (USSR’s Luna 3)
  • Fidel Castro became Premier of Cuba
  • We’ve had people in space, almost continually, for decades
  • Kmart and Wal-Mart didn’t exist when I was born
  • Sears went from dominating the retail market to almost complete failure
  • Leaded gasoline was determined to be poisoning humans and was banned
  • The World Trade Center was built and destroyed
  • Average gas mileage has more than doubled
  • We have advanced from rotary-dialed phones, to tone-based keypad phones, to cell phones, to smartphones
  • The world population has grown from 2.9 billion to 7.6 billion

This is just a small sampling of the changes that have happened in my lifetime. What will happen in the next sixty years?

Journalists Using Uneducated, Uninformed Opinion As Fact

16 Saturday Dec 2017

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There is a growing crisis of legitimate news organizations interviewing an uninformed person and presenting it as news. The person-on-street interview is justified by journalists as a citizen’s opinion, using the logic that all citizens are equally informed and knowledgeable; therefore, his or her opinion is valid.

Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one.

Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry

However, an opinion is limited by the person’s real experience and knowledge. Few people are qualified to speak intelligently on significant topics like foreign policy, and economic and legal issues. An unqualified person should not be giving their opinion on local or national news without clarifying his or her background on the subject matter.

Journalists Going For Entertainment, Not Fact

The problem of unqualified opinions being presented as news has become more severe as the opinions have become more outrageous. Trump supporters have had an entertainment value for some news organizations because their statements are often contrary to known facts and/or logical reasoning.

We do not go to first graders and ask them to design the best and most effective educational methods because they have no qualifications or skills to offer an opinion. They may have an opinion, but having recess all day long is not a legitimate answer to the question.

Opinions of uneducated, uninformed citizens destroy democracy because it circumvents intelligent discussion. An irrational person’s opinion does not lead to a rational debate of the issues.

School Vouchers Are About Religion and Racism, Not Choice

15 Friday Dec 2017

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School vouchers are a campaign to steal money from the public school system and give it to parents to spend on private religious schools. It is born out of ignorance and racism in an attempt to take our country back to segregated schools. Schools consisting of well-financed white religious-based schools, and poorly funded minority public schools.

Nevada’s Illegal School Voucher Bill

In May of 2015, the Nevada conservatives won a major victory with a bill that stole money from the public school system and gave it to parents to use for alternate education, including school operated by religious organizations. The following month Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, whose children had attended a Catholic school, signed the bill into law, even though it clearly violated the Nevada Constitution that forbids taxpayer funding for a church-operated school. 

The Klan Doesn’t Support Education for All

Fortunately, the Nevada Supreme Court stepped in and nullified the law, ending conservative’s attempt to steal money meant to offer education for all, and redistribute it to those in favor of education for a privileged few. 

Public School Evolution

Public schools were established in the early and mid-17th century to overcome the problems created by parent-based education. (SEE:  The Atlantic October 2017 on Public Schools) Parent-based education limited the advancement of future generations to the ignorance of their mother and father, who were both working full-time to maintain needs of the entire family. 

Unfortunately, the early public schools primarily served white males. Over the next two hundred years public schools were refined to; 1) become compulsory, 2) include female students, 3) promote women as teachers, 4) expand curriculum, and 5) ultimately require education regardless of race.

The Protestant Conflict

Ironically, most early public schools were influenced, if not run, by Protestants. Their beliefs included the idea that children should have a broad-based education. The problem arose when a flood of Catholic immigrants created a conflict in the public education of children. When public schools became battlegrounds of differing church doctrines, it caused pointless disruption of the goal of education for all. Ultimately, the issue was indirectly resolved by President Ulysses Grant and Congressman James Blaine.

President Grant called for an amendment to the United States Constitution to forever separate church and state interests in education and forbidding public money to be spent on private schools. Congressman Blaine sponsored a bill to do exactly that and it passed in the House of Representatives. The Senate; however, failed to pass it by a two-thirds majority and the bill died.

However, individual States passed amendments to their Constitutions and eventually all but ten States adopted Blaine-type laws. 

A Return to Past Mistakes

The post-Blaine Amendments environment have been an era of astonishing success in elevating the education of United States citizens. In 1950, only 34% of adults in this country graduated from high school. By 2010, the number of high school graduates increased to 90%. The miracle is that the increase in high school graduates occurred during the same period when the nation’s population doubled. 

Despite this success, conservatives have made public education their target (SEE:  Slate.com November 2016 on Trump Gutting Public Schools) for three reasons. First, conservatives don’t believe in paying taxes, especially when the money doesn’t directly help them, nor their families.

Second, conservatives believe that public-funded secular, unbiased education is biased because it doesn’t promote their personal egocentric and/or religious beliefs.

Third, conservatives are overwhelmingly white, and the idea of paying for the education of another race is repugnant to many of them. They advance the ideas that education is wasted on minorities. It is noteworthy that white people demanded that schools be segregated in the south. When the courts ruled that schools must be desegregated, white people began characterizing public education as failures. That was the beginning of the push for alternative school choices.

Confronting Truth: The Difference Between Science and Religion

27 Monday Nov 2017

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There is a primary difference between science and religion. Religion discourages the confrontation of the ‘truth’ as it is presented by the leaders of the church. When I say discourage, I mean up to and including the murder of those who challenge the church’s version of the truth.

Science, not only accepts a challenge to the current truth, it is the fundamental architecture of all scientific endeavors to challenge the truth. Scientists accept that our current knowledge is incomplete, and that research, observation, and experimentation will replace the current truth of the universe around us.

A good example of this is our understanding of Earth and its relationship to other bodies in space. The religious doctrine stated that Earth was the center of the universe. Religious sources have claimed that holy text have told them the Earth is the center of the universe, and that was a truth which could not be challenged.

However, the concept of an Earth-centered (geocentric) universe had been challenged in the third century BCE by Greek astronomer and mathematician, Aristarchus of Samos, who theorized a Sun-centered (heliocentric) universe. Unfortunately, his idea lacked supportive evidence and was largely ignored.

Galileo was a victim of the Church, not of science

Over 1,700 years later, others began using observations that indicated that the geocentric model didn’t work as well as the heliocentric model. In January of 1610, Galileo Galilei used a telescope to discover three of Jupiter’s four largest moons, and observed that they orbited Jupiter. He then theorized that the Earth may also orbit the Sun, rather than the Sun orbiting the Earth.

This challenged the belief that dated back to Aristotle that all objects orbited the Earth, a concept that was adopted by both Islam and Christian churches. Galileo’s findings contradicted a fundamental truth of the church. For that crime, Galileo was subject to a Roman Inquisition, and ultimately, arrested and imprisoned.

While it is true that Galileo’s theories were not readily accepted, even by other astronomers of his time, he began a process of challenging truth, and using observation to determine truth. For this, Galileo is known as the father of the scientific method.

Some might think that their religion has outgrown this absolute interpretation of doctrine, and accepts scientific proof. To some degree, most Christian churches, when faced with overwhelming proof will either reluctantly accept the science, or become mute on the subject.

However, in the case of Galileo, the Catholic Church has attempted to use revisionism to explain its position on the geocentric/heliocentric debate. In 2004, the Catholic Church published a revised history of its role in the matter of Galileo. In a blog article on Catholic.com, the Church implies:

  1. that it was his fellow scientists, not the Church that disputed Galileo’s findings,
  2. that it was Galileo’s fault for promoting his theories that challenged Church doctrine,
  3. that Galileo failed to prove his position,
  4. that Galileo’s findings were not 100% correct, and 
  5. that Galileo did not suffer any real consequence for his research and findings.

All five of these points are twisted interpretations of what we know to be fact.

  • Galileo was persecuted by the Church, not his fellow scientists. Arrested by the Church, not this fellow scientists, and sentenced by the Church, not his fellow scientists. Yes, his findings were not widely accepted by other astronomers, but as Galileo was the first to observe Jupiter’s moons and their orbits, he would have been alone in promoting the observations.
  • Galileo had his observations, and while there would need to be more observations and the development of better technology to confirm his observations and conclusions, he had every right to promote the concept, even if it disputed the truth of the Church.
  • Galileo observed and hypothesized, but he wasn’t 100% correct. The Catholic Church suggests that because he wasn’t 100% correct that they were right in persecuting him for his theories. They were not, and the idea that the church was waiting for better evidence is a lie.
  • Galileo faced an Inquisition, and was sentenced. Whether he was tortured is not relevant to the Church’s role in trying to silence those who challenge the teachings of their doctrine.

Science seeks truth, but scientists know that all truth is subject to the gathering of more data, which may disprove the known truth and replace it with a new concept. The church believes that all truth comes from God, and it is not subject to revision, even if the truth of the Church is wrong.

Job Killing: The Republican Prime Directive

25 Thursday May 2017

Posted by in About Reno, Branding, Business, Education, Employee Retention, Ethics, Generational, Government, Government Regulation, History, Human Resources, Management Practices, Politics, Public Image, Public Relations, racism, Taxes, Technology, Universities, US History, Women

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There may be no political party in the history of the world that has killed more jobs, or enacted legislation to kill jobs, than the Republicans of the United States of America. They attempt to deny their legacy and claim that it is government that is killing jobs, while also claiming that illegal immigrants are taking high paying jobs from our citizens. Those are damn lies.

Trump’s SS forces raid homes to allegedly save high paying jobs for U.S. citizens

Business and Republicans are one in the same. Republicans always do what business wants, and in the past thirty years there have been few, if any, examples where a majority of Republicans have voted for legislation that was contrary to business wishes. When manufacturing jobs leave the United States, a Republican businessperson is behind it and it is done with the blessing of Republican politicians.

Manufacturing jobs in the U.S. 1939 to present. Growth occurs under Democratic leadership and shrinks under Republican leadership. (Source:  Bureau of Labor Standards)

Trump’s feigned anger at businesses sending jobs overseas is almost comical if it weren’t so pitiful. In 1995, the sixty-year reign of Democratic majority control of Congress ended. in that sixty year history Democrats controlled either the House of Representatives and the Senate for all but four of those years. Republicans controlled the House of Representatives for six additional years during the Reagan administration. Since 1995, Republicans have controlled the Senate, House, or Presidency for all but two years under a banner to thwart all Democratic legislation.

Four years after the Republicans seized control of Congress and passed major business-friendly legislation, the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States began a plunge that would take it down to levels not seen in fifty years.

Job killing our country’s key employer is a primary goal of the Republican party. Federal, state, county, and local governments have been under attack since the Reagan administration. Republicans have consistently sought to strangle funding for public schools as our population has grown, eliminate jobs of the people paid to protect workers and consumers from unethical businesses, prevent funding for workers providing veteran services, and attack critical jobs that provide services for the typical citizen.

The goal of every business person is to make money, not create jobs. That is why Republicans seek to eliminate costs by killing jobs, rather than spend money to create jobs. To a business person, jobs are an expense, and are the obstacle to making money. What Republicans don’t understand is that jobs move the money through the economy, and eliminating high paying government jobs takes money out of the economy. This is why our economy is barely moving forward.

Trump supporters can’t understand the complexities of a national economy, which is why they are the problem in perpetuating Republican domination of our government. Trump is trying to push our economy into a disaster that we may never recover from unless he is stopped.

Don’t Look To The FBI To Bring Trump To Justice

24 Wednesday May 2017

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Former FBI Director James Comey: A Man For No Seasons 

FBI Director James Comey was fired by Donald Trump. Was it because he was protecting our country’s interest against an unethical, perverted, traitorous President, or did the Dark Lord have tantrum over a lack of absolute obedience?

There is little reason to believe that James Comey was prepared to act against Trump in the Russiagate investigation. Prior to being fired, Comey had declared to Congress that he believed it was perfectly acceptable to publicly announce unsubstantiated, baseless evidence against a Democratic presidential candidate just prior to an election; however, it was not acceptable to publicly announce substantiated evidence against a conservative and/or Republican prior to, or after an election.

He was correct. That is the role the FBI has historically taken, and continues today.

The FBI investigated Watergate from the moment the burglars were arrested. They had evidence that President Nixon, and his administration were involved, and yet, the FBI somehow failed to find the key evidence of a wider conspiracy that would eventually force Nixon out of office. While we don’t know the full extent of the FBI’s role in hindering the Watergate scandal, we do know the following:

  • A former FBI agent was recruited to wiretap the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate complex.

    Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray during Watergate

  • Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray helped destroy Watergate evidence that came from a White House safe of Howard Hunt, eleven days after the burglary.
  • On October 10, 1972, less than a month prior to the election, the FBI publicly revealed a list of crimes that their investigation had uncovered to date, and that the crimes were linked to staff in the White House. Despite this announcement, the FBI, nor Department of Justice took no action, nor threatened action, giving credibility to White House denials of the facts. Nixon won the election by a landslide, largely because Nixon and his administration were able to convince people that the FBI’s lack of action proved their innocence.

It could be reasonably argued that, in October of 1968, the FBI and the Justice Department were in a state of confusion about the depth of the Democratic National Headquarters break in, spying, eavesdropping, and cover up. It is possible that no legal action occurred before the election due to their own lack of understanding of the real situation. It could also be argued that based on the involvement of past and current members of the FBI in the Watergate break in and subsequent cover up, that the FBI was caught in an internal struggle between protecting Nixon, and not looking like they were protecting Nixon.

J. Edgar Hoover and John and Robert Kennedy

The FBI has historically been a politically motivated investigative body that has a friendly relationship with conservatives, and an adversarial relationship with liberals. The 1987, four-part mini-series, Hoover vs The Kennedys:  The Second Civil War, depicts the adversarial relationship of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had with President Kennedy and his brother Robert.

The FBI Director role has historically been defined by a cozy relationship with conservative politicians, and an adversarial role with liberal politicians. James Comey’s replacement will likely follow that tradition.

Six Facts About Manufacturing Jobs

22 Monday May 2017

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Manufacturing jobs do not just appear or disappear, and the government is not the bad guy.

It is sad to hear Trump supporters to be interviewed about anything, but when they start talking about the lack of manufacturing jobs is when they really start looking like adults in diapers. They act like the government is supposed to force private manufacturers to build a factory and make something so that Joe Blow, with a high school degree, in Small Town USA can drive two miles to the local factory and earn $150,000.

Here are the facts:
 
1. Manufacturing jobs go overseas because consumers in the USA want to pay less for goods, and labor is cheaper in many places outside the United States, which makes the cost of manufacturing less, which makes the price of the product less. 
 
2. USA, state, and local taxes have almost no impact on good manufacturing jobs. For example, the Sierra Nevada Corporation (a private version of early 1960’s NASA…before we had a successful launch) has its headquarters in Nevada, but all of their non-executive jobs are in Colorado. Colorado has higher taxes than Nevada, but Colorado also has a better, more skilled, higher educated workforce. Nevada is the headquarters only so the executives don’t have to pay taxes, but the jobs are in Colorado. If the issue was about taxes, the jobs would be in Nevada, not Colorado.
 

Job fairy or much ado about nothing?

3. There is no manufacturing jobs fairy. Manufacturing jobs REQUIRE someone who wants to buy the product. The NEED for a manufacturing job is determined by the consumer. You don’t build a factory, then hang out a sign saying you’re open for business. Manufacturing jobs are “secondary jobs” meaning that before a manufacturing job is created, a product that people want to buy must exist. 

 
4. Most unskilled manufacturing jobs don’t pay well regardless of where the factory is located. CONSERVATION OF COMPENSATION: If anyone can do the work, the jobs go to the people who are willing to be paid the least amount of money. Whether the job is in the United States, or elsewhere, pay is driven by the supply of workers who can do the job.
 
5. Small towns rarely attract high paying manufacturing jobs. While some factories have moved to rural locations to reduce labor costs, it is rare, and factories still need enough potential workers to avoid a labor shortage, which would increase labor costs.
6.  Good business REQUIRES government regulation. Government regulations protect the employee and the consumer. Many countries don’t have rules of against abuse of workers and don’t require manufacturers to abide ethical business practices, and result is always unethical business practices. Remember the Samsung Galaxy Note 7?

Trump Supporters Are Born-Again Wallace Supporters

22 Monday May 2017

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Wallace supporters – 1968

Recently my personal research took me to the October 24, 1968 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. On page 57, was an article about supporters of the then presidential candidate of Alabama Governor George Wallace. Wallace was in a three-way race with Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. Wallace was a poor third place against Nixon and Humphrey; however, he did manage to keep Nixon and Humphrey in a statistical tie with each failing to receive more than fifty percent of the vote.

What is interesting about the article is the quotes by Wallace supporters, and the uncanny similarity in tone to today’s Trump supporter. For example:

Regarding Wallace:

Now I keep hearin’ about an old Nixon and a new Nixon, and an old Humphrey and a new Humphrey, Now I don’t know which is which, but I can tell you there is no old Wallace or new Wallace. He’s sayin’ and believin’ the same things as when he ran for governor. And he’ll be sayin’ and believin’ the same things as President.”

Dick Smith, October 1968

“We’ve already given Democratic and Republican presidents a chance and they can’t straighten things out. Let’s give somebody new a try. We don’t have anything to lose.”

Bob Miller, October 1968

Regarding Trump:

The other politicians are controlled by their handlers. He’s not.”

Vern Engel, Kansas City, August 2015

“I backed Trump from the beginning. Because he calls things out. He does not allow lies to live. He just exposes things. Pastors sometimes need to be politically correct, and Donald Trump is not politically correct, and I love that about him”

Crystal Myers, California, May 2016

Regarding Wallace:

I’m a racist, but that’s not the reason I’m supporting Wallace. I’m behind him because he’s the most patriotic man I know. I just can’t stomach these liberals. I think they’re scum.”

William Napier, October 1968

“I’ve moved twice because of Negroes moving in. All that loud rock and roll music.”

Elmer Genie, October 1968

Regarding Trump:

I was actually sitting in the chow hall (in Qatar) when they announced the results (when Obama won in 2008,) and he gave his speech,” he says. “I saw such a division at that time. Every black member of the military was cheering. Everybody else was sitting there mute. Like stunned.”

Former Marine, June 2016

“….these people, that are from other countries, non-speaking—I’m not biased, I have no reason to be—but . . . I’m seeing them getting cash, getting their bills paid, and, as a taxpaying citizen, I don’t get anything. And so the border thing really resonated with me.”

Stephanie from Minnesota, June 2016

Ideologically, there is no difference between the 1968 George Wallace supporter, and the 2017 Trump supporter. Both act on emotion and opinion with few facts to support their position. They are unified in the opinion that non-whites are, at least in part, the cause of their problems. They are also completely deaf to any idea or fact that doesn’t support their position, and ignorant of how corporations and the wealthy have manipulated them into making decisions that go against their own interests.

Our country’s problems aren’t caused by bad politicians. They are caused by uneducated and unintelligent voters who don’t have the ability to understand what they are doing…and never will.

Quotes were taken from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (24 October 1968,) BBC News (9 November 2016,) The New Yorker (11/18 June 2016)

1968: The Year of Fear and Hate

04 Thursday May 2017

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October 1968. Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, and George Wallace, and were desperately trying to win the Presidential election. Former Vice President Nixon had moderate conservatives and war-hawks backing him. Vice President Humphrey had Democratic core voters and intelligent liberals backing him, and Alabama Governor George Wallace was the darling of racists and right wing extremists.

1968 Democratic Convention (The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

1968:  A Year of Chaos
In 1967, most had assumed President Lyndon Johnson would run, and likely win reelection. Those in his administration’s military leadership offered an optimistic view of the Vietnam War, with one of his recent close advisors publicly saying that the enemy was losing their will to fight.

Despite the rosy picture, over 70,000 U.S. soldiers had been killed or wounded during the war, and 1,000 more were being killed each month. Opposition to the war was tearing the Democratic party apart, and it overshadowed almost all other political issues.

In late January 1968, North Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive. Ultimately, the invading armies were beaten back, but the offensive shocked the United States. Those confident of Johnson’s ability to bring a successful end to the war waned in their support, and in March, the New Hampshire primary gave Johnson an uncomfortably narrow win over Eugene McCarthy, who was considered a relatively minor candidate that focused on an anti-war campaign.

Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (AP Photo/Dick Strobel)

Soon after the primary, Robert Kennedy entered the race, and Johnson ended his campaign. (Although Johnson probably dropped out because he doubted he could beat Kennedy, it is noteworthy that President Johnson’s decision to drop out was heavily influenced by his health concerns. Specifically, that he would likely not live through another term.) Without Johnson in the race, there was no single, obvious choice for President.

The year became more chaotic after Johnson dropped out. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4. Robert Kennedy was assassinated on June 6. Anti-war and civil rights protests and riots, along with mounting U.S. casualties in Vietnam dominated the news everyday.

Baltimore, Maryland, 1968 (Photo by Afro-American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images)

By October, voters were reacting to the the presidential election as the prescription moment in the United States. The next President would either cure or kill our country, depending on the point of view. People who sought a calm return to normalcy were split between Nixon and Humphrey.

However, there were people who sought a disruptive choice for President, in the hopes that he would revive the Confederacy’s goal of remaking the United States into a white dominated government that would undo decades of work to create equal rights for all citizens. Their choice was George Wallace.

While many may believe that Wallace was a bigger threat to Nixon’s campaign, the reality was that the Governor from Alabama was luring as much as half of the support of the unions that normally support the Democratic ticket. Uneducated, Caucasian, blue-collar workers were taken in by Wallace’s hardline racist positions.

The civil rights riots generated fear among white voters, many of whom, felt they were not racist, but were of the opinion that life for the African-American would be fine if they would just settle down and accept their lot in life.

In the end, Nixon won with less than half the vote, and was in a statistical tie with Humphrey, but he had a significant electoral college margin. Wallace won over almost ten million voters, and certainly had an impact on the outcome.

Both Nixon and President Johnson used last-minute tactics to sway voters in the final weeks. President Johnson publicly suggested that a Vietnam peace deal was imminent, and Nixon’s campaign used back channels to interfere with those peace efforts, coupled with a spy in the White House that kept the Nixon campaign informed of Johnson’s diplomatic efforts.

NEXT:  A hard look at the Wallace voter

Conversations With Conservatives: The 37 Year Lie

13 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by in Aging, Business, Communication, Education, Ethics, Generational, Government, Government Regulation, Health, Higher Education, History, Honor, Human Resources, Management Practices, Politics, Pride, Public Image, Public Relations, racism, Religion, Respect, Space, Taxes, Technology, US History, Women

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(NOTE:  This is Part II of this article. Read Part I, here.)

The social and economic issues that people are concerned about in the United States of America don’t necessarily fall along party lines. Some issues, like immigration and applying religion to public policy, have a distinct political division; however, many other issues cross the lines of the ideologies.

In conversations with conservatives I learned that the deep division between conservatives and liberals can be traced back 37 years, to when Republicans managed to break the hold of Democratic leadership of our country in 1980. For 37 years, conservatives have been able to maintain control of our country by singing one anthem, ‘Everything is the government’s fault, and business is the solution.’

Ronald Reagan: Founder of the Cult of Conservatism

Ronald Reagan was elected on the idea that Democrats had failed the country. It was an easy story to sell for one reason. The Iran Hostage Crisis. Every night the news reminded our country of how many days our citizens had been held and humiliated by a group of Iranian students. Most in the United States did not understand the complexities of the situation, and were angry that we didn’t go to war with Iran.

The result was to give Republicans an early opportunity to erase the shame caused by Richard Nixon’s illegal involvement in fixing the 1972 presidential elections during the Watergate affair. The Hostage Crisis ended at the exact hour that Reagan was sworn in as President, a coincidence that causes questions of Republican collusion with the Iranian government during the crisis. Suspicions of collusion were raised again when Reagan’s administration worked a bizarre deal to sell arms to Iran several years later during the Iran/Contra Affair.

The Big Lie
Reagan is famously quoted in his first Inaugural speech when he said:

….government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem…”

Ronald Reagan, January 1981

The demonization of government was necessary for conservatives to achieve their goals. Government is the ethical referee that prevents business from underpaying employees, polluting for profit, abusing and endangering the customer, engaging in banking practices that protect the account holder, etc. Government oversight and regulation keeps business from devouring itself in greed.

Additionally, government collects business taxes for the privilege of having access to our country’s rich consumer markets. By eliminating these taxes, business could keep more of the spoils of capitalism and drain revenues from the entity that kept business fair and ethical.

The other shoe dropped by conservatives was to preach that the solution to our problems was business. In the holy corporate world, business was the shining light on the hill for all to worship.

37 Years Later:  The Cult of Conservatism
In my conversation with average conservatives I have discovered that conservatism has now become a cult. The code word for a conservative is ‘fiscal conservatism.’ Ask anyone who votes for a Republican candidate why they vote for the party they will automatically answer, “I believe in fiscal conservatism.” They don’t even pause.

For conservatives, issues are caused by government and solved by business. Among the issues discussed with conservatives I learned the following:

Finance regulation:  Conservatives believe that the government is at fault and less regulation will solve the problem, even though a lack of regulation and business greed caused the 2007-8 financial/bank crisis.

Housing Inflation/Bubbles:  Conservatives that government is the problem because…I didn’t get an answer on this, but the free market will solve the problem, even though the bubbles that occur with rapid housing price increases are caused by capitalisticitic factors, not government involvement.

Economy:  Conservatives believe that business is the creator of jobs and growth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and government inhibits both. The evidence contradicts this as job and GDP growth have been anemic under almost 35 years of Republican economic policies, and the pre-conservative period of government initiated infrastructure projects and the space program generated massive job and GDP growth.

Healthcare:  Conservatives believe that government has been the cause of uncontrolled price increases in healthcare and drug prices, even though it’s the lack of government regulation that has allowed the price increases, especially in the prescription drug market, where Republicans pushed for, and passed an end to competitive market that would help to restrict price increases.

Trump and Republicans have succeeded in creating a cult-like status around the concept that government is the problem and business is the solution…and like any cult, the believers surrender themselves to ‘faith.’ Truth and facts are fiction to a conservative.

The Republican party has no need to be logical, compromising, or reasonable. Their believers have no choice but to hate government, and worship business.

We Don’t Need More Service Jobs

14 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by in Aging, Business, College, Education, Ethics, Generational, Government, Government Regulation, Higher Education, History, Management Practices, Politics, Pride, Public Image, Public Relations, Respect, Science, Space, Taxes, Technology, Travel, Universities, US History

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Putting people on the Moon meant jobs on Earth

During President Lyndon Johnson’s second term (1965-1969,) the space program was booming. At almost four percent job growth, his administration exceeded any other presidential term since World War II, including President Jimmy Carter’s impressive 3.2% growth. These were high paying, skilled jobs that created a demand for workers that enticed many young people to choose engineering and scientific careers.

PRESIDENT PARTY TERM YR JOB GROWTH
Herbert Hoover R 1929–1933 -5.41%
Franklin Roosevelt D 1933–1937 4.97%
Franklin Roosevelt D 1937–1941 2.53%
Franklin Roosevelt D 1941–1945 5.00%
Roosevelt/Truman D 1945–1949 1.61%
Harry Truman D 1949–1953 2.93%
Dwight Eisenhower R 1953–1957 1.34%
Dwight Eisenhower R 1957–1961 0.87%
Kennedy/Johnson D 1961–1965 2.64%
Lyndon Johnson D 1965–1969 3.90%
Richard Nixon R 1969–1973 2.23%
Nixon/Ford R 1973–1977 1.68%
Jimmy Carter D 1977–1981 3.21%
Ronald Reagan R 1981–1985 1.47%
Ronald Reagan R 1985–1989 2.80%
George H. W. Bush R 1989–1993 0.45%
Bill Clinton D 1993–1997 2.85%
Bill Clinton D 1997–2001 2.33%
George W. Bush R 2001–2005 0.02%
George W. Bush R 2005–2009 0.24%
Barack Obama D 2009–2013 0.23%
Barack Obama D 2013–2017 1.85%

CHART 1.0 – Job growth during Presidential Terms (1929-2017) Growth over 2.5% is in green. (DATA credit: Wikipedia)

Service jobs were a byproduct of the main engine driving the boom in the rapid expansion of the space program. Service jobs did not offer the wages or the excitement of the space program, but they did provide employment for those who lacked motivation to qualify and/or seek out better paying, higher skilled jobs.

And then we landed on the Moon.

After we had achieved the primary objective, people who didn’t understand what a large government project means to employment, began questioning the space program. Over time the naysayers effectively killed the program, leaving private business to reinvent what NASA had accomplished in the 1960’s (landing on the Moon) and the 1980’s (a reusable rocket system.)

Today, we are trying to sustain and expand a service industry that lacks the main component of job growth, namely, a major public project that creates high paying and highly skilled jobs. Since NASA wound down its Space Shuttle program, job growth has flat-lined.

Private business does not exist to create jobs. It exists to put money in the pockets of the executives and owners of the business. Creating jobs cuts into profit. Paying higher wages cuts into profit. Private business is never going to create significant job growth, nor improve wages and benefits for the worker.

If we want job growth and livable wages, it is the government that will do it, not private business.

The Military’s Role in Internal Politics

14 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by in Education, Ethics, Government, History, Honor, Politics, Pride, Respect

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us-armyI’m not the most diplomatic person (okay, you can stop laughing anytime.) I’m just an average citizen in a country with free speech, so I have no responsibilities to be a diplomat. That is not my calling.

Compounding my non-diplomatic style is the irrationality that I believe permeates our country with the election of a man who openly lies, then denies he lied in the face of video and audio evidence, a man who openly admits behaving like a sexual predator, then has multiple accusers confirm that he did what he bragged about, a man who has attacked members of the free press, and uses humiliation techniques on women, the free press, and minorities. It’s not something that I think people should be quiet about.

However, under most circumstances, a man like that cannot defeat the power of rational and reasonable people without guns to back him up. 

We already know that the people who voted for Donald Trump are the same people who are armed beyond rationality. Since Trump won the election there have been ‘countless‘ incidents of verbal and physical attacks against the same people who Trump targeted with his campaign rhetoric. This comes at the same time that the FBI reports a spike in hate crimes in 2015.

We know that law enforcement in jurisdictions around the country have openly supported right-wing extremist positions on guns, immigration, and the murder of unarmed African-Americans.

We also know that the FBI is no longer unbiased in politics as they threw out a red herring (by the way, that is the proper use of the cliché,) about Hillary Clinton during early voting to energize Trump supporters and discourage Clinton supporters.

So our country’s future hangs in the balance of an impartial military. That is key. Our liberties, including my right to be non-diplomatic, is protected by an unbiased military. If the military becomes political, then everything we value about our country is at risk.

Active duty military, especially, those of significant rank, excel at maintaining the discipline that is expected of an impartial armed forces. Most military men and women keep our trust by not engaging in internal political discourse, because they have the guns…the bombs…the tanks…the jets…and all the weapons needed to enforce their point of view.

The election of Donald Trump isn’t scary until the soldiers who are meant to serve all citizens becomes the military who supports one political viewpoint of our citizens. The warning signs of movement in the military toward a political bias may include: 

  1. the engagement and loss of political impartiality by active military personnel in social media
  2. the loss of respect by military personnel for citizens expressing their concerns and frustrations 
  3. military personnel blaming liberals for discord and/or an attitude of “they brought them on themselves”
  4. insults and attacks by military personnel at those who express views with which they disagree
  5. military personnel ganging up on citizens to ridicule and intimidate

The above behaviors have been discouraged and punished by the armed forces in the past, but under a Trump administration, it is questionable if those behaviors would be subject to discipline. If not, then we will have seen a significant change in the restrictions that have kept the United States military impartial in internal politics. 

I don’t oppose a soldier’s right to speak their mind, however, civilian control of the military is a basic principle of our democracy. Once the military begins siding with one political view, it is no longer serving all the citizens, and when civilian control and the military political view align, then who can oppose the might of the military and the whims of a dysfunctional civilian leadership.

Hitler energized the disenfranchised Aryans

Hitler energized the disenfranchised Aryans

It took Hitler five months to turn a democracy into dictatorship. He provoked people into responding to his actions, and then he used their response as justification to suspend the laws protecting the rights of the individual German people. In rapid order, Hitler’s supporters formed a gleeful police and military force that ended all dissent and put non-party government officials under house arrest ‘for their protection.’

Trump is not backing down from his provocative tactics he used to whip extremist into a frenzy. He has already announced that he will order the arrest and deportation of three million Hispanics on his first day in office. Children who are legally born in this country will either lose their parents or be forced to leave their country. 

Trump speaks to the disenfranchised white racist

Trump energizes the disenfranchised white racist

What is Trump trying to accomplish with this provocative action? I don’t know, but this is just the beginning, and Trump supporters are already attacking and intimidating innocent people across our country. Trump has continually exceeded our expectations of his depravity, there is no reason to believe that he will stop. 

Our only hope is that we maintain an impartial military. If not, then Trump will have succeeded in helping Putin destroy our country.

The End of Reliable Polling?

07 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by in Aging, Communication, Education, Government, Higher Education, Opinion, Politics, Technology, US History

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Latest Huffington Post poll

Latest Huffington Post poll

Tomorrow night the United States of America may be in for a shock. Donald Trump is going to lose, but the question is by how much. I think the loss will be surprising. I am not a statistician, nor do I have access to polling data, but there is a reality that polls don’t take into account for in today’s world. Intelligent people don’t like to respond to polls.

Phone calls at home are annoying to everyone, but decades of abuse by telemarketing companies and caller ID technology have made answering the phone without knowing who is calling a vestige of the past. Polls rely on talking to people on the phone, and when people don’t answer, polls don’t work.

This impacts this election year because there is a bias in those who support Donald Trump and those who support Hillary Clinton. Just look at interviews of Trump supporters. These people can’t shut up. They have no ability to filter themselves, and they are desperate to tell people how much they don’t know. Trump supporters are begging for attention, and when someone calls them to ask them their opinion, they leap at the opportunity.

Clinton supporters are not as eager to make a spectacle of themselves. You don’t see Clinton supporters trying to be seen by the news media, and it would be logical that they don’t want to answer annoying, twenty-minute phone calls that ask them personal questions.

In addition, many conservative campaigns are putting out manipulative polls that force people into answering the questions in their favor, so they can appear to be leading. Intelligent people can recognize this, while Trump supporters fall for it.

I predict that Trump will lose by twenty points or more.

Need To Know: Living in Panamá – Conflict of Lifestyles

29 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by in Business, Education, Ethics, Government, History, Panama, Photography, Recreation, Travel

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A Panamax ship being lined up to enter the new locks on the Caribbean side of the Panamá canal

I do not live in Panamá, so I can’t claim to be an authority on living in the country; however, when people learn that I have been there several times over the last two years, they often ask me if it is a good place to live, and I have a two-word answer…

It’s depends.

Panamá is Panamá 

If you are looking for a tropical paradise, where the cost of living is low, the people are friendly, and you will be unburdened from life’s annoyances, Panamá is not the place for you. In fact, there is no place on Earth like that. People who seek to find happiness elsewhere will never be happy anywhere.

Panamá is a beautiful and unique place. For the most part, Panamá is as safe to travel as most places in the United States.

It is also a country with a poor public education system, a government that at times seems brilliant, and at times seems self-defeating, and cycle of poverty that traps people and the economy.

Conflicting Lifestyles
Panamá is a small country, but culturally, it is really many countries. Panamá City is El Centro for all of Panamá, but is also a stranger to most of rural Panamá, with completely different values and attitudes than most of the rest of the country.

In addition, the influence of centuries of occupation by Spain, then France, then the United States has left a residual influence of multiple cultures and values. Each of those countries imported workers from other countries, which have introduced the cultures of China and Africa into Panamanian society.

In many ways, Panamá City is bigger than the country of Panamá. Almost half of all Panamanian citizens live in Panamá City and it is the epicenter for immigrants from neighboring Latin American countries. The question of who is a native of Panamá is almost impossible to answer, and within Panama City the question is almost irrelevant.

Beaches, yes, but not near Panama City

Beaches, yes, but not near Panama City

The rural Pacific areas, especially those within a two-hour driving distance of Panamá City, consist of an interesting mix and conflict of cultures. The original Panamanians of the rural regions were mostly quiet people living a rural life; however, several decades ago the areas near the Pacific coast became the envy of developers seeking to attract foreign investment in country.

It is important to note that the Panamá coastland is not one long stretch of sandy beach. Much of the coast is rocky with interspersed beaches. It is also important to know that Panamá’s primary land transportation artery, the Pan-American Highway, does not offer quick access to any beach areas. The nearest area beach area to Panamá City that is near the Pan-American Highway is about an hour drive, southwest from Panamá City.

bahia-view-2

Beachfront development along the rural Pacific coast

For the past three and a half decades, developers have targeted these rural beach area for condo development. This has attracted a mix of foreign and domestic buyers, that have different reasons for purchasing property in Panamá.

Foreigners, primarily from the United States and Canada, seek an inexpensive tropical escape from the cold; however, many of these investors are not wealthy. Certainly some buyers purchase a condo or house in Panamá as a second or vacation home, but many ex-patriots have moved permanently to Panamá with the plan to retire and/or live economically, perhaps with a side income in their new country.

Domestically, wealthy Panamanians have purchased beachfront condos and homes, eager to escape the city on weekends. 

The mix of foreigners with little spendable income, and wealthy Panamanians who run to their condo on the beach for the weekend, has created an environment that has all the look of a tourist-based economy without the expected inflow of tourism dollars, because the non-natives do not engage in tourist activities.

Overall, the result of the development of the rural beachfront communities has been a few successful grocery, household and furniture businesses, with a constant stream of failed enterprises that attempt to coax wealthy Panamanians and ex-patriots out of their condos and into their stores.

It should be no surprise that the natives have no great love for either the wealthy Panamanians or the ex-patriots. The rural residents also have no overt hate for them either. The natives have benefited from the influx of the invaders to their communities, but other than low-paying service jobs, the financial trickle-down impact has been minimal.

The income for rural natives is only enough to force people into working six-day weeks, and two or more jobs to maintain a minimal existence. At the same time, property values have skyrocketed creating a gentrification effect on the local people, driving them away from the highly sought after beachfront areas.

All this creates an unspoken, but real, conflict of lifestyles that a person should understand before they make a decision to live in Panamá.