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.