TV dads

Dads on 1950's tv shows have been thoroughly mocked. But some of their qualities are timeless, the kind of thing women want in a husband still today. They took care of business - Responsible, that's the word.

Sears tv

Sears sold this console tv for $750 back in 1964. But stated in the value of our current U.S. dollars, that sum would today be $5,800. 

A tv costs us much, much less today in terms of hours of work required to pay for it. A tv today is also light years ahead in terms of picture, sound and programming.

Innovation in every related industry is part of the reason. Global trade across borders is another part of the reason.

Expecting it

Note: internet issues yesterday, sorry about the blank day :(

On December 10, there was a terror attack in Cairo, Egypt. A chapel in the complex of St. Mark's Cathedral was the site of a bomb blast that killed 25 and wounded 49 during Sunday morning mass.

photo: cbsnews.com

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack carried out by a 22-year-old murderer who was carrying 26 pounds of TNT. 

Many Christians are preparing themselves for forgiveness and martyrdom. “I want to send a message to those that killed my wife,” said Wagdy Anis. “I forgive him, and I pray for him and the people who are like him. That God may lighten their minds and open their vision.”

"Amad Saad Aziz lost his sister Amany in the attack. “To my martyred sister I say, ‘I love you so much and I want to be like you.’ To you who killed my sister I say, ‘We are ready for martyrdom.'"

Smoky Mt. folk

Such beauty in the Great Smoky Mountains area of Tennessee, and such loss from last month's wildfire. The image shows fiery destruction in contrast to the area's iconic beauty (click on it to enlarge).

photo: https://stream.org

This author is from the area. He says resilience and faith are common here, that it comes out in a generous hospitality to neighbors and strangers. "Many of the community leaders stayed out in front to help others even while their own homes and businesses burned. The mayor of Gatlinburg was one of those people."

Mayor Werner: "We lost our home, we lost our business  . . But our family’s safe, everybody’s healthy, we all love each other. … The people of this area, it’s like a family … There’s people that bend over backward. . You know, we’re going to be OK. . We’ve had so many people offer places where we can live. But I’m just thankful that we’re here to be able to try to help everybody; that’s our goal.”

Lux Venit

(cont'd meaning of Christmas from yesterday's post)

Built into us by the Creator is a longing to understand God and eternity, to believe there is really hope for humanity:

"By sword, by flame
In death solemn ages passed,
And voices young grow old & weary
Holding fast - hope for the dawning"

The appeal of the Christian good news is that God sought out humanity by sending Jesus Christ to reveal Him, to be Light for us:

"Lux venit - Arise, shine! For your light has come!"

Those lyrics are from the song below. It's years old, but "Lux Venit" from this album by Michael W. Smith moves me every time I hear it. So enjoy . .

"Skip church!"

Atheists have a new billboard campaign for the season. Their theme is "Make Christmas great again. Skip church!"

So I wonder how this works. Was Christmas great in the past when God was no part of it? If we all skip church, will Christmas be great again? But there's never been a time when the season was empty of God. Since the beginning, its central core has been the birth of Jesus Christ on earth.

photo: mine

I'm glad if atheists can enjoy decorations and traditions. But the joy of Christmas would not last if God were taken out of the season. Eventually nothing would be left but cynical materialism.

There are lots of  cynics who don't have a merry celebration. The good will and beauty of Christmas are just cloying if there's no meaning in it. 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Berlin mourns

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Berlin's Breitscheidplatz Christmas Market was deserted today after Monday's terror attack, except for a few kiosks that sold grave site memorial candles. Mourners gathered at the nearby church to express support for the victims. 

photo: cnn.com

"Yesterday was a black day for human history, with what happened in Ankara and then here," said Devid . . "It's just depressing. . The people who do this are animals."

"I'm so sad," said Evita. "Twelve people dead and they were just here having a nice evening with their family. It's shocking."

"I'm shocked, I'm very concerned. I'm angry, also," said Alice.

(from http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/20/europe/berlin-mourning-christmas-market-attack/index.html)

#PrayforBerlin

A German market full of Christmas foods and decorations would be fun at this time of year - normally. This Berlin market was normal yesterday until someone barreled through shoppers and merchandise stands with a truck, killing twelve.

photo: stream.org

Now heavily armed police stand guard in the Christmas market and a beautiful tradition has been poisoned.

Looks like the U.S. State Department was right to warn about this a month ago when they called for caution "in markets and other public places, saying extremist groups including Islamic State and al-Qaida were focusing “on the upcoming holiday season and associated events.”

Tree meaning

In 2003 there were 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. I only found out there were so many when huge numbers started to run from - or be murdered by - Islamic State (for the stories, click on Iraq under Labels to the right). Today there may be about 200,000 left.

The last thing you'd expect to see appear in Iraq right now might be a huge Christmas tree. But there is one, built and paid for by a Muslim business man, costing about $65,000 US.

He "hopes the Christmas tree will help residents in “joining our Christian brothers in their holiday celebrations and helping Iraqis forget their Anguish, especially the war in Mosul.”

My only question is, where did this man get the courage to do it?

Autonomous?

Uber has put self-driving cars to work in San Francisco. California says they're illegal because they don't have permits. Uber says they're not exactly autonomous because a driver must be behind the wheel to monitor and possibly intervene.

Looks like Uber is inviting a lawsuit. Legal definitions of "autonomous cars" should come out of it eventually. 

"According to Anthony Levandowski, the leader of Uber’s self-driving program, Uber’s cars aren’t advanced enough to drive themselves without human monitoring. Therefore, he said, [they] are not autonomous — and do not require a permit."

"Parsing the definition of an autonomous vehicle is in line with Uber’s history of testing legal boundaries."

"Uber is sending another message to California: Other places want us if you don’t."

Artist

Bernie Mitchell is an artist. But maybe he didn't know it for a long time - because he only developed his ability while working as a professional drywaller, putting up drywall and mudding the joints.

Use your imagination to picture him starting to discover his ability while on the job.

Enjoy watching him create this piece.

Corruption

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"Politics will always and forever be vulnerable to corruption," according to this author. As soon as a person gains political office, he or she will be the target of pressure and temptation . . because the power of that office includes the power to grant favors.

Apparently, Odebrecht Construction (see yesterday's post) was able to buy favors from a very long list of politicians in Brazil. They even have a department to distribute the payoffs. 

But Brazil's government is not uniquely vulnerable to corruption. Here in America the new administration hopes to "drain the swamp." 

"Politics is prone to corruption, no matter how detailed the legislation, no matter how noble the public official. If you want politics to be less corrupt, the solution isn’t to shrink corruption. The solution is to shrink the state."

People who work for government are just people. They don't have any more natural integrity than anyone else. The solution to problems is not to give the government more power.

Brazil bribes

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

That commentator in Brazil says early morning arrests for corruption are getting common. He speculates on when the next ones will come:

"Any morning now, we’ll get to see the plea bargain from Odebrecht, the largest construction company involved in the scandal . . Odebrecht was so organized that they had a [department] entrusted with handling the hundreds of millions of dollars that went to different politicians and parties. It’s expected they will rat out somewhere north of 150 politicians . . .

"Those politicians aren’t silly gooses though. They realized ending the investigation was a simple matter: pass a law stopping it. In fact, a senator was recorded explicitly talking about that. He’s now the leader of the government in the senate, and was also [on] Odebrecht’s . . list.

"Any morning now."

Citizens are upset. "[P]rotests included 20-feet-tall inflatable puppets of politicians in jail uniforms." 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Carwash Op

When someone comes into a position of power in a government, it is for the purpose of taking care of business for the "common good" of the people. When that person uses their power for their own benefit instead of for the common good, it's called corruption.

Accusations and investigations, bribery and sweet deals, firings and arrests, all of these are convulsing Brazilian politics. "Operation Carwash"is a big campaign to clean up government corruption.

According to a "popular media commentator," "in the last hundred days we have impeached a president, ousted and arrested a leader of the house, arrested a senator for interfering with investigations under orders from the former president, arrested and convicted dozens of politicians, and just hours ago ousted the president of the senate."

photo: http://ontheworldmap.com/brazil/brazil-location-on-the-south-america-map.html

(cont'd tomorrow)

"My holiday"

If you are an American, Christmas is your national holiday in your country! Just say, "Merry Christmas!"

At Pearl

Yesterday was the 75th anniversary of Japan's unprovoked attack on America's Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii, December 7, 1941.

Battleships were bombed in the harbor. "When the bomb hit the Arizona and detonated in a powder magazine, the 20-year-old [sailor] saw “dozens of bodies” flying through the air. [He] had to swim through oil-covered water with flames as high as buildings just to get to shore. “I knew how to swim, but not underwater,” he remembered. “I swam underwater that day.”

"The average age of the men at Pearl Harbor was 19 years old," just teenagers doing adult work. "In addition to the 19 ships destroyed, 2,403 American soldiers were killed and 1,178 wounded in the attack." Only about 70 who lived through it are still alive today.

photo: http://warontherocks.com/2016/11/observing-veterans-day-2/

Non-materialist

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Scientists don't have to assume that "the cosmos is all there is, ever was, or ever will be." Evidence from nature does not prove that there is no Creator or that human beings are pond scum.

As a matter of fact, Harvard astrophysicist Howard Smith claims the opposite - that humans are special and that "The universe, far from being a collection of random accidents, appears to be stupendously perfect and fine-tuned for life."

In his view, we should be "grateful for the amazing gifts of life and awareness, and acknowledge the compelling evidence to date that humanity and our home planet, Earth, are rare and cosmically precious."

Speaking as a Christian, I do thank God for life, for consciousness, and for our rare and precious planet home.

Materialist

"The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-size planet." Science expert and extremely smart guy Stephen Hawking said this, so of course it must be true . . really? That's actually a big philosophical statement, not a scientific statement.

Celebrities and experts can be (gasp) wrong, especially when they speak outside their field of expertise. Hawking's claim is that humanity has no transcendent meaning or importance, that there's nothing more to a human being than the chemicals that make up the body.

It's the point of view, the faith, of a materialist. Science icon Carl Sagan said it this way, "The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be." His claim is backed by his charisma, his compelling rhetoric, his confident celebrity prestige.



But it's a faith claim coming from his chosen point of view. He's completely confident that nothing - like God for instance - exists if it's not the natural universe.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Not hopeless

Going back to global poverty, here are some more details about conditions in the African continent - where people are still poor but no longer "hopeless."

photo: https://capx.co/africa-is-growing-thanks-to-capitalism/

One in seven people in the world live in Africa, a number that is growing. With current trends, Nigeria alone will be home to more people than the U.S. by 2050.

The central fact of Africa's improved well-being is:

"Since the start of the new millennium, Africa’s average per capita income adjusted for inflation and purchasing power parity rose by more than 50 percent . ." That's a big hike in a short time.

How has rising income improved lives? 

• life expectancy went from 54 to 62 years
• outside of war zones, famines have disappeared
• school enrollments are at their historic high

Conscience

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Armando says that it would have been spiritual suicide if he had given in to the pressure while a prisoner in Cuba. Last May he received an award from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Here is the speech he gave, in Spanish but with English translation:


"I'm an ordinary man, but God chose me to do something quite extraordinary.

"My jailers took away everything away from me. But they couldn't take my conscience or my faith.

"I am here to tell you that every little act of conscience counts. Every one of you is called to stay true to his conscience."

"Even if you spend 8 years in solitary confinement, you will never be alone because God will be with you."

"Sometimes your freedom is not taken away at gunpoint, but instead it is done one paper at a time, one seemingly meaningless rule at a time, one small silencing at a time."

His own words

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Armando's 30-year prison sentence in Cuba under Fidel Castro was shortened to 22 years when French Pres. Mitterand intervened for him. Considering what he went through, it's amazing he lasted that long. Other prisoners died from violence or suicide.

He was willing to talk about it after he got out. He published a book and was appointed in 1988 as ambassador to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Last year he received a lifetime award to honor his sacrificial life from World Magazine. 

In his own words, he describes his imprisonment as “eight thousand days of hunger, of systematic beatings, of hard labor, of solitary confinement, of cells with steel-planked windows and doors, of solitude. Eight thousand days of struggling to prove that I was a human being. … Eight thousand days of testing my religious convictions, my faith, of fighting the hate my atheist jailers were trying to instill in me with each bayonet thrust.”

photo: http://babalublog.com/2016/04/13/eli-wiesel-to-present-armando-valladares-with-canturbury-medal/

(cont'd tomorrow)

Survivor

Fidel Castro, communist head of Cuba, is dead. World leaders are giving their take on the man based on their own ideology . . and it can be hard to know who to believe. Was he a brutal dictator or a blessing to his country?

First-hand, personal experience means a lot. Here is the story of Armando Valladares, now 78, but just 21 years old in 1959 when he made the decision that shaped his destiny. He refused to retain the sign on his desk that had been placed there by the new communist government.

He thought he would just lose his job. It was much worse than that.

In America of 2016, you can oppose the new government. You can protest, demonstrate, threaten violence, and stay free. Armando refused to put up the sign on his work desk, and he paid for it with 22 years of prison, torture, and solitary.

photo: worldmag.com

(cont'd tomorrow)

Earned

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Arthur Brooks again explains what makes free enterprise the most fair system. First, it  frees people all over the world from material poverty.

In addition to that, free enterprise enables people to pursue creating value in their own lives (and in the lives of others) in a way that means the most to them - and to do that using their own passions and abilities.

Fairer

Two weeks ago we spent time on what most people would never guess, that global poverty has hugely declined. Hardly anybody knows this, so of course hardly anybody knows that free enterprise made the difference.

But certain voices in America would have you think that free enterprise is an unfair system.

Everybody should know that free enterprise makes our nation more fair, not less fair. Former economics college professor Arthur Brooks makes a clear case below. (Btw, looks like he uses  the terms capitalism and free enterprise to mean the same thing.)

It's fair to reward merit, that is, to reward people who have earned those rewards.

Breathing

My favorite living author thanks God that he can breathe. He had something last spring that made him painfully, acutely aware of the joy of breath.

"I had pleural effusion (I’d never heard of it either), in which sticky, fibrous fluid fills the chest cavity outside the lung, causing the lung to stick to your insides. That’s not supposed to happen." As you read the description of his ordeal, you just want to fill your lungs with air.

"Each one of us is about three minutes from death every moment of our lives. . . 

"Here’s one suggestion . . make a list of the ordinary things you should be grateful for — health, freedom, shelter, family, friends, pets, breathing — stick it on the side of your computer screen, and thank God every day . . "

If you had a challenge thinking of something to thank God for yesterday, you might think about the miracle of your body and its self-healing parts . . and health care professionals who help it along from time to time.

Thanksgiving 2016

"[W]e can actively choose to practice gratitude — and doing so raises our happiness. This is not just self-improvement hokum."

Even in the teeth of really bad luck, you have blessings that you could pluck out of the messy circumstances and focus on. It could build the foundation for your happiness.

If you don't feel like being grateful, look for a reason to be just a speck grateful. There are probably pockets of beauty around you somewhere. Look for them. It's not in-authentic to try to be thankful;  it's actually rebellion against the negative, it's asserting your will against the circumstance.

photo: http://superwall.us/rainy_day

If you still think you have nothing on Thanksgiving to thank God for, take this advice and "pan for gold."

Envy

"Envy is the art of counting the other fellow's blessings instead of your own ."

Envy can kill off any thankfulness you might have had, and it can happen right at the Thanksgiving table - or on social media.



"Envy is deadly and it will take you out."

Forgiveness

When you think about it, to forgive someone for a wrong done to you can be complicated.

Some would say that you must completely forget and ignore the wound you suffered, whatever it is, and go on with the relationship as if it never happened ("exoneration"). But that's not always the best way forward.

Think through your options along with this psychiatrist.

Twitter

Twitter's CEO calls his company the "people's news network."  Since its creation in 2006, it's spread all over the world as a platform for about 500 million comments by its users per day.

In Saudi Arabia, for example, one in three internet users was on Twitter in 2013. A Saudi scientist says it gave them a way to discuss taboo topics in spite of government censorship and media they don't trust. But Twitter isn't used much for dissent there anymore after the government started making Twitter-related arrests.

In fact, Twitter Inc. started receiving requests to censor certain things within a country - which they have sometimes done. In 2014 they blocked a pro-Ukrainian feed for Russia. And companies like Geofeedia and Snaptrends have built a business on organizing "tweets" and selling them. Their customers may include Turkey, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, and others that suppress online speech.

Can Twitter keep up its profile of free speech defender? Maybe only where free speech is the law.

(from "In Case of Low Revenue," Bloomberg Businessweek,  Oct. 31 issue)

Who knew

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Who knew that global poverty has been declining for decades? Hardly any one, as you will see in the video below. By now you have seen the documentation if you've followed the links in this series. But you may be wondering why so few know something so significant.

This article says that most of us have picked up strong perceptions to the contrary.

Hans Rosling, everybody's favorite Swedish statistics guy, addresses the misconceptions in this TED Talk he gave two years ago:

More prosperity

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Global poverty has dropped like a rock and prosperity is growing (especially in Asia). Yesterday's post was taken from an article published in 2011 and, as the article predicted, global poverty has continued to decline.

photo: http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/health/brief/poverty-health

"Almost unnoticed, the world has reduced poverty, increased incomes, and improved health more than at any time in history. " When economic growth takes a society out of dire poverty, more children live to become adults and those children are more likely to get an education according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD). 

As an example, research in India has shown that "a 10 per cent increase in GDP is associated with a reduction in infant mortality of between five and seven per cent."

"Historically nothing has worked better than economic growth in enabling societies to improve the life chances of their members, including those at the very bottom"  (Dani Rodrik, Harvard University).

(cont'd tomorrow)

Poverty reduced

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"We are in the midst of the fastest period of poverty reduction the world has ever seen. The global poverty rate, which stood at 25 percent in 2005, is ticking downwards at one to two percentage points a year, lifting around 70 million people . . out of destitution annually. Advances in human progress on such a scale are unprecedented, yet remain almost universally unacknowledged."

Western governments for decades pursued more aid and debt relief, but economic growth was lackluster. "Global poverty [came] to be seen as a constant . . [but t]hankfully for the world’s poor, this logic turned out to be flawed."

What seems to have been vital to new prosperity for billions of people is the global spread of capitalism - yes, capitalism.

photo: prosperity.com

"We’re on the cusp of an age of mass development, which will see the world transformed from being mostly poor to mostly middle class . . fundamentally it’s a story about billions of people around the world finally having the chance to build better lives for themselves and their children. 

"We should consider ourselves fortunate to be alive at such a remarkable moment."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Poverty down

Good news deserves repeating, so it's appearing on this blog for the second time (at least).

"Absolute" poverty around the world has declined so far in the last few decades that it afflicts just a small percentage of the number of people that used to live that way. 

"In absolute terms, the total amount of people living in extreme poverty peaked in 1970 when 2.2 billion of the world’s 3.7 billion people lived on less than $1.25 per day. Today, in an astonishing reversal, only 0.7 billion of 7.3 billion people are below this poverty-line worldwide."

image: humanprogress.org

That is, about two-thirds of the world lived in absolute poverty in 1970, but today it's less than one-tenth. Free enterprise, technology and innovation, free economies have produced economic growth. And, "For every 1% increase in GDP per head, poverty is reduced by 1.7%."

(from http://www.businessinsider.com/end-of-global-extreme-poverty-chart-2016-11)

(cont'd tomorrow)

Electors

Right in the Constitution of the United States is the provision for something called the Electoral College and its role in national elections. We citizens vote to tell our "electors" how to vote.

Surprisingly, the founders had a pretty good reason to choose this method over just a plain popular vote. It was to keep any one section of the country from dominating the entire country. Watch this video to find out how it's done.

Navy hymn

An English churchman and poet wrote verse to comfort one of his students about to take a ship to America. It was later set to music and became one of the most famous Christian hymns, expressing so well the prayer for protection:

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bid'st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

Today, Veterans Day in America, we honor all those who serve on the seas, land, and air.

"Veterans Day is a reminder that we should be praying regularly for those who put themselves in harm’s way for our sake, for their families, and for those who suffer the after effects of combat." More verses to the hymn here.

photo: wikipedia.org

Dream bigger

Like Eva Muraya (yesterday's post), Magatte Wade is an African entrepreneur with a passion to create success in Africa. "I want to create a truly authentic African brand that can compete," she says.

Her vision is to inspire other African entrepreneurs to dream of competing internationally -  on the global stage - without a patronizing, lower standard of performance because they're African.

She dug deep

Sarah (yesterday's post) went to Africa to bring prosperity, well-being, a better life. But she gained humility, and a respect for the dignity and creativity that native Africans already have.

Eva Muraya is a native African living in Kenya. When she lost her husband, she pulled on her own creativity to start a business. She managed to support her family and, in the process, to become a community leader.

Plucky

(Note: today is election day in America. No, I'm not addressing it.)

Sarah decided to go live in Uganda for four months. She was 20 years old and determined to change the world in a good way.

But, "All my plucky self-assurance quickly deflated when I saw that poverty was far more complex than I had imagined from the air-conditioned safety of my American home." She came home burdened and discouraged because her work didn't change the community in Uganda.

On her next trip to Africa, she tried a different approach. Instead of assuming that she had all the answers, she spent a lot of time listening to the Congolese and discovered people who were changing their communities from the inside with their good ideas.

Looking back on her Uganda effort, she went with good intentions "But in putting myself in the role of hero, I missed out on the dignity and worth of the very people I was trying to serve."

(from http://www.povertycure.org/missed-trying-play-poverty-hero-sarah-ann-schultz/)

Burglary

If you've ever wondered how to protect your home from burglary, this article has some credible advice. Burglars themselves, 86 of them, gave their opinions.

1. Unlocked doors and windows are the way they usually get in, so lock them.

2. They prefer early morning or afternoon to break in, so don't assume your home is safe in daylight.

3. A big dog may deter a break-in.

4. All the inmates said they would knock on the door first to see if someone's home. Then they would have a lie ready to tell anyone who might come to the door.

5. Almost all said that they would not enter if a radio or tv were on.

6. Almost all said they would not try to break in if a car were in the driveway.

7. Big fences and overgrown bushes give them a place to hide.

"Many of those inmates who responded were remorseful. They don’t want homeowners to be victimized. . " One said, "“I’ll never be able to give back the sense of security I destroyed but I can help prevent others from losing theirs."

Bring a gift

(cont'd from yesterday)

So having good manners is not just a way of "acting all superior" (yesterday's post). As you saw in yesterday's movie clip, using good manners is a way to "show other people that we have respect for them."

"Forces outside of our control coarsen life (politics comes to mind) and reduce the connection we feel with others. We are more inclined to take without giving, extract value rather than provide value . . "

"Manners developed, not to make life more complicated and awkward (though elaborately ceremonial manners do), but to make it in the long run smoother and simpler – a dance, and not a series of bumps and jolts."

"Holiday season is now upon us. Why not take the occasion to try this out? Bring a gift to a party. Do it with a good heart and loving intentions. Watch what happens."

photo: geekyhostess.com

from "Why You Should Always Bring a Gift to a Party" at fee.org

Manners

In the 1999 comedy, "Blast From the Past," a young man comes out of the bomb shelter where he had lived all his life, mostly clueless. But in the clip below, his friends are amazed by his understanding of good manners:



"[Adam says that] good manners are just a way of showing other people that we have respect for them. See, I didn't know that. I thought it was just a way of acting all superior."

"You know what else he [Adam] told me? He thinks I'm a gentleman . . I thought a gentleman was someone who owns horses. But it turns out, the short and simple definition of a lady or a gentleman is someone who always tries to make sure that the people around him or her are as comfortable as possible."

"Where do you think he got all that information?"

"Oh, from the oddest place - his parents. I mean, I don't think I got that memo from mine."

Pretty soon the holiday parties and gatherings will start. But this year you're going into the party season having the memo -- which you'll get in tomorrow's post :)

(cont'd tomorrow)

Censor

When a WSJ writer made a video called "The Dark Art of Political Intimidation," Youtube lost no time in providing a good example of that intimidation by censoring and taking down the video.



As you watch it, look for sexual indecency or violence. Since there is none of that, what did Youtube object to? Apparently, they object to decent and reasoned free expression of views when it comes from a source they don't like.

This one was restored (after Wall Street Journal called them out) but seventeen other videos  are still censored.

Un-sheltered

Is it possible that you can get better educated in functioning as a mature person at McDonald's than at college? That is what this student concluded. She explains what she learned working at McDonald's . . compared to what she learned at her college.

Chose chicken

Michael is 33 years old and has an MBA from Harvard Business School. He interned at Google one summer, says he loved the spirit and the energy there. For two years he was a brand strategist at Facebook, says they have a mentality to "move fast and break things."

Obviously Michael has business credentials. But he's no longer in Silicon Valley. He left his high-profile experiences to work at Chick-fil-A in Atlanta.

“People who ask why I left Silicon Valley haven’t experienced the culture of Chick-fil-A,” he says. “There is such a strong culture built on relationships and valuing one another . . [it brings] out the best in people, fulfilling leadership potential, and great business performance.” 

Michael gathered a team to "expand their digital footprint," including a new app. "For the first three days after launch, it was #1 free app in the App Store, ahead of apps like Facebook. Since it was launched on June 1, it has been downloaded over 7 million times."

Using water

By 2025, two-thirds of the world may be "water-stressed" according to the U.N. Global attention is on better ways to use it and preserve clean water. Two locations are doing a good job of that.

Las Vegas gets only four inches of rain per year. Remarkably, "The region’s water use declined by 34 billion gallons, or 30 percent, between 2002 and 2015, despite a population gain of more than 560,000 people²."

Israel is another example of water use innovation. Despite having a desert climate, their methods have resulted in abundant usable water.

ByFusion 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

They call their new building block product "RePlast" (re-use plastic). It requires no adhesive to hold it together, it acts as an insulator against heat and noise, and its "carbon footprint" is 95% less than a concrete block. 

This sounds good, and I hope they make it. But the odds are certainly against them. Most - and we're talking 80% here so it's a huge "most" - businesses fail. Surprised? They'll have to keep their costs down, be smart, figure out who their customers will be and exactly what they want, and set a price that those customers will freely choose to pay.

This sounds good, and I hope they make it.

ByFusion

"There's no shortage of plastic in the ocean: un-recycled plastic from toys, containers, skin cleansers and countless other things fill the oceans in startling volume." That's the raw material which ByFusion uses to make a new building product.

What could be better than taking a problem waste material and turning it into the raw material for something so useful? 



(cont'd tomorrow, the innovative building product)

Mama Rwanda

Rwanda lost hundreds of thousands of lives, maybe a million, in 1994. The mass murders created horrific memories that many of today's adults have to live with. Read some of the background under the "Rwanda" label on the right.

Women make up 70% of the population, often without husbands to help raise the children. A film has been made to tell the story of how some of them have managed to survive. It's called "Mama Rwanda."

Re-gen village

Off-the-grid, is it really possible? Could be the energy grid or the food grid or some other grid, or all of the above. But some inventors and designers are giving serious thought as to how to accomplish living without dependence on public or government-provided necessities.

Regen Villages has a vision to engineer and facilitate "the development of integrated and resilient neighborhoods that power and feed self-reliant families around the world."

"In ReGen villages, household food waste is composted and fed to flies, which in turn feeds fish, which then fertilizes aquaponic gardens (multi-layered systems that combine fish farming and hydroponic agriculture, with plant roots submerged in nutrient-rich solution rather than soil). Those aquaponic farms grow produce for residents to eat, as do seasonal gardens, which are be fertilized by waste from livestock raised to feed residents. Rainwater is harvested and filtered for use in the farms and gardens, and on-site solar panels power the homes."

Grown up skills

A former Stanford University dean has noticed gaps in the maturity of college students. Here are those gaps . . and what you parents can do for your teenagers while still at home:

1. They can't positively engage with strangers - teach them to approach strangers respectfully and with eye contact
2. They don't know how to get around independently - give them experiences with transportation
3. They can't manage their schedules - help them figure it out in high school
4. They don't know how to contribute to the running of a household - give them responsibilities
5. They are helpless in conflict - don't solve all their relationship challenges for them
6. They can't bounce back after trouble - let them fail sometimes
7. They can't earn and manage money - let them have a part time job in hs
8. They think someone else will plan and run their lives - let them make decisions and enjoy the consequences

Carbon prize

(cont'd)

In addition to the Lunar Prize (Tuesday's post), XPrize intends to give $20 million away in competition for the Carbon Prize. "Teams will be scored on how much CO₂  they convert and the net value of their products."

The winning team will be the one that does the best job of capturing carbon dioxide, a gas, and transforming it into something of value. 

Already CO2 is a component  in lots of things, like baking soda, durable plastics (think Legos), cement, concrete. The competing teams are working on fuels, nanotubes, and much more.

"The diversity of products we can make from CO₂ is truly astounding. Imagine a world where one of our greatest liabilities (CO₂) becomes an asset." 

Wait . . I can't agree with XPrize on that last point. The gas that is essential for all green plant life - and thus most of life on earth - just shouldn't be called "one of our greatest liabilities." It is an asset, a life enabler. If it can also be made into additional useful things because of this contest, all the better.

XPrize

(cont'd)

"XPRIZE is a non-profit organization that designs and manages public competitions intended to encourage technological development that could benefit mankind." Lunar X Prize (yesterday's post) is just one of seven that XPrize Foundation is currently trying to give away.

Here's how they describe what they do: "XPRIZE is an innovation engine. A facilitator of exponential change. A catalyst for the benefit of humanity." 

I like what they say they believe in:

• competition
• incentives
• big challenges
• human potential

(cont'd tomorrow)

Moon prize

Someone is going to get a prize of $30 million for going to the moon. It's been more than forty years since we did that, and XPrize wants to inspire someone - not a government - to make it there again.

Thirty teams around the world are hoping to be the successful one. After overcoming every challenge to get there, the spacecraft will have to move 500 meters and then start sending videos and photos back to earth.

The deadline used to be 12.31.15, but with no winner by then it was extended to 12.31.16.



(cont'd tomorrow)

No monopoly

Cell phones replaced dial phones years ago because they worked better for us customers.  You're probably glad the government didn't step in to stop them from competing with the old technology. You and everyone else on the planet prefer the new technology.

It's called "creative destruction" because demand for the old product is destroyed when a better product comes along. Makers and sellers of the old product may fight it. We could be in at least a couple of cycles of creative destruction now, both involving the car industry.

Taxi-cab companies in Chicago lost an attempt last week to get a court decision against their competition, Uber and Lyft. The judge basically said no company has a right to monopoly.

"Our economy depends on constant innovation – and that sort of innovation can’t occur when governments allow themselves to be used by existing businesses to shield themselves from competition."