Do you rely on government to inform your daily choices? Maybe all of us should do a little more of our own thinking because the government is not always right.
As our food choices over the last ~60 years have gradually conformed to the government-sponsored food pyramid, we as a people have become sicker and more overweight. It's not what we wanted.
Conversation is a pleasure for me and probably for you too. Maybe you enjoyed some good ones with family or friends over Thanksgiving weekend. Or maybe your conversations included some that should have been pleasant and meaningful but were frustrating and unpleasant.
In this day of polarizing points of view, making civil connections with people may require a little more effort so that anger and contempt don't wreck the relationship.
An unprecedented lockdown of business and public life like we had in 2020 affects us all in ways that are inevitable. One of those effects is higher prices of goods throughout the economy. You've seen this where you live. In groceries? Sure.
Every fall the U.S. Farm Bureau analyzes food prices to tell us how much a typical Thanksgiving dinner costs us compared to previous years. That number often falls, but not this year. Their survey finds that our holiday dinner for ten in 2021 costs $53.31, a 14% uptick from 2020.
In a recent conversation with a friend, I was surprised to discover that he doesn't admire thankfulness. His image of gratitude is more like servile groveling.
Is gratitude politically incorrect now? Has it been replaced by a sense of entitlement? Maybe it has. But he probably appreciates a "thank you" when he gives a thoughtful gift.
Gratitude is a virtue. It's good to cultivate it.
(cont'd from yesterday's post)
Here's another video from FAIR's "Fairstory" curriculum that I want to post for you. FAIR makes the case for ethical behavior, but not from the Christian perspective that is my view.
They try to make the case for morality, for beneficence, for fair and just behavior toward other people - from a materialist (no God) point of view. The explanation is that caring for other individuals in your species is an elevated evolutionary achievement that simply evolved among humans, ants and bees.
A question might occur to you: "why does she cast approving attention on a non-Christian view?" Glad you asked. As a Christian, I will stand with this organization for what is good . . even though I believe the Creator of this universe (God) is the author of right and wrong, not elevated evolution.
Moral truth is a thing.
(cont'd from yesterday's post)
Historical facts are taught within the value system of the teacher or author. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. The factual distortions of the "1619 Project" don't convince us of its claim that America is hopelessly racist.
FAIR developed a curriculum to: "empower students to confront racism and bigotry which depend on a dehumanizing emphasis on racial difference . . . FAIRstory presents an honest account of the past and present, teaching students to think for themselves by engaging deeply with original sources, multiple perspectives, and opposing viewpoints on important events."
The first video in its series lays an overview of slavery's global history:
To demonize any race and all its members - in America or anywhere else in the world - is unfair. Beyond unfairness, it is also dangerous because it could be your race that is demonized next. Instead of revenge against whiteness, the right goal is to be fair to all. That's the goal of FAIR, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism.
In case you missed it, here's a re-post from last July. Please watch this multi-racial founder explain why he thinks we should all be pro-human.
Opposition to CRT, or "critical theory," or whatever it will be called next, is not confined to one race or tribe or gender or political party. Recently on this blog you've seen parents and a teacher and people of three different races speaking up. Today's post features a fourth race.
We (include me) take a stand against demonizing any race and turning Americans into enemies of each other -- against telling kids they must affirm stories they don't believe, telling them that their neighbors hold them back, shaming them for sins they did not commit.
To affirm a pro-human stand on these issues, the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism was recently organized.
(cont'd from yesterday's post)
The 1619 Project was written for a purpose, with an agenda. Its author wanted to "re-frame" American history such that the evil of slavery is its heart - not freedom or religious liberty, nothing worthy of respect, so that white citizens are ashamed of their skin and will pay large sums to wash away their guilt.
To convince us all of this, she uses distorted interpretations and falsified stories, per the historians' assessments.
To modify the Revolutionary War expert's summary in yesterday's post ("We all want justice but not at the expense of truth"), I would say some of us want justice. But it's wrong to make up your own facts/stories to get there.
New classroom curriculums are available that try to address slavery accurately. Fact-based curriculums.
(cont'd next week)
(cont'd from yesterday's post)
Power-holders at the influential New York Times are in sync with Howard Zinn's textbook.
Calling it investigative journalism, they published (2019) The 1619 Project. The project's author, Nikole Hannah-Jones, doesn't want to teach history with it, but to force "white people to give up whiteness," to repudiate their own race. Or, if that can't be accomplished, then they should just pay money to black people (reparations).
It's not good history, as many historians have stepped up to say. A leading historian of the American Revolution says that The 1619 Project is a "displacement of historical understanding by ideology."
Hannah-Jones claims that the Revolutionary War (1776-5-1783) was not fought to win freedom, but to protect slavery. However, that historian says, when her facts are wrong and her interpretations are perverse and distorted, the project has no credibility: "Far from preserving slavery the North saw the Revolution as an opportunity to abolish the institution . . . We all want justice, but not at the expense of truth."
None of this kept the school systems of Chicago, Buffalo NY, and others from adopting the project as school curriculum.
(cont'd tomorrow)
Maybe you wonder - whether you live here or anywhere else in the world - what's happened to the U.S. Years ago, both immigrants and Americans loved America. Love for this country now is just tolerated, and in some parts of the country it might be dangerous to fly the flag.
What's really surprising is that anyone still loves America. School children for decades have been indoctrinated by the book of a man full of hate.
(cont'd from yesterday's post)
Yesterday's blogger, Hope, is glad she didn't pay the price to get a college degree. She doesn't stand alone in her opinion. She's part of a trend that includes some big names and big companies.
Tim Cook (Apple CEO) agrees. Only about half of all employees of Apple in 2018 had four-year degrees. And of course, the company's famous founder Steve Jobs never got one.
A list of other companies that don't require them from their workers includes Google, IBM, Bank of America, and more.
"Exceptional ability" is not proved with a degree according to Elon Musk. He says college is more for having fun than for learning. He likes to ask applicants this question: what problems have you solved?
Peter Thiel believes higher education is both corrupt and overpriced: "There's been an incredible escalation in price without corresponding improvements in the product, and yet people still believe that college is just something that you have to do. Whenever something is overvalued and intensely believed, that's a sign of a bubble."
This weekend I met a bright young woman who really thought things through after high school, and decided to opt out of college. It's a counter-cultural choice to forego something that many high school girls think is a must-have.
But Hope says, "The degree is dead. It’s time to burn your resume." An employer wants to know just this: "can you do the job excellently, and are you willing to grow? If you can, and you have a great attitude, I couldn’t care less whether you went to Harvard or not."
(cont'd from yesterday's post)
No U.S. troops are on the ground in Afghanistan for the first time in 21 years. That's the longest lasting war we've ever been in. Over 800,000 total were deployed there, 2400 died there, and another 20,000 were wounded there - physically. There's no count of how many came home with invisible wounds.
Navy SEAL Rob Sarver served nine years, twice deployed to combat in Afghanistan. One of his best friends in BUD/S training as well as in two deployments to Iraq, Brendan, was killed there at the age of 29.
"For me personally, I am thankful for those who served before me, my family included, whose sacrifices were greater than mine. I am honored to have carried forward their sacrifice . . in the service of each other to honor those before us and support each other to accomplish the mission: to defend the Constitution."
When he retired in 2013, he left behind an intense brotherhood. The invisible wounds he carried home with him are feelings of grief and the loss of bonds he can't re-create in civilian life.
from Stream
Today is the specially designated day in the U.S. when we thank our military veterans for their service.
We also find that, in addition to thanks, they may need encouragement. Veterans are committing suicide at a rate half-again as big as the non-vet rate. And among non-veterans, the rate is 33% bigger than 20 years ago. Something chilling is happening to us that squeezes the hope out of people.
"Don't die for a lie." Choose to live. That's the message of a music video released today, Veterans' Day. Your life means something. Don't cast away your hope.
from Stream
(cont'd tomorrow)
"You Version" was one of the first 200 free apps in the App Store back in 2008. It gives you the Bible online.
Today they're celebrating 500 million installs. Why celebrate? From their website:
"We wholeheartedly believe a daily rhythm of seeking intimacy with God has the power to transform lives. Our hope is that each person in our community is on an active journey to become who God made them to be, abiding in Him, and drawing closer every day."
"There's a power in believing and lining yourself up with God's word," says Dr. Bernice A. King, daughter of Martin Luther King.
Andy Mineo says, "God can handle our outbursts, our emotions . . I want the truth of the Bible to live in me . . ."
So Facebook "will no longer deploy facial recognition technologies on its platform." Good to know, since people today are uneasy about what could happen to their private information in the hands of public entities.
But Meta (fb's parent company) is not making that promise.
They are going to keep and use Deepface, the algorithm that powered fb's photo-tagging feature by linking user photos with facial pattern templates. A spokesperson for Meta says they think they can continue to work with it for "positive" uses.
That's not all. Meta "aims to build a virtual, internet-based simulation where people can interact as avatars." So they need ways to identify individuals. They're exploring "biometrics" for that purpose, body measurements that can be used like facial recognition templates. Other examples that can be used in addition to the human face are fingerprints, DNA, iris or retina recognition, and more. Biometrics to control access and verify identity are already being used by countries listed here.
What could go wrong? It's not as if someone would ever use our identities for some bad purpose.
Is Facebook eliminating facial recognition? Yes. No. Both answers are true, and neither of them reveal the whole picture. Sometimes a media headline leaves out something significant.
First, the "yes" details. Jerome Presenti, VP of artificial intelligence at Meta (fb's parent company), says: 'Meta will shut down the Face Recognition system on Facebook . . people who have opted in to our Face Recognition setting will no longer be automatically recognized in photos and videos, and we will delete the facial recognition template used to identify them."
That will amount to "more than 1 billion people’s individual facial recognition templates." A billion is a lot of people, considering that U.S. population is 330 million, and the population of the whole world is 7.8 billion.
Did they all trust Facebook to create a digitally recognizable visual of their own face? That could identify them in any picture or video posted in the world forever? That's a lot of trust.
But no worries, because now all that visual personal ID is going to be destroyed . . right?
(cont'd from yesterday's post)
Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) can yield crops at 100x the per-square-foot productivity of a flatland farm by scaling vertically. They use much less water, no pesticides, and the crops don't have to adapt to weather in any way.
But light is available to traditional farmland for free in the form of sunlight. Not so for vertical trays or towers of lettuce indoors. Light, in fact, is expensive. Recent advances in LED lighting (a doubling of its efficiency coupled with a big drop in its cost) have cut the operational expenses of these farms to the point where they can now provide about 5% of all our produce.
In a mostly-free market like ours, individual customers choose which businesses will survive. They pick the product which serves their needs best and which is offered at a price they are willing to pay. That's the sweet spot these farmer-entrepreneurs want to find.
Over 330 million people in the United States are fed by our efficient, productive agricultural system. But the system has been changing as entrepreneurs figure out how to make it better.
"Vertical farming" breaks traditional farming methods by going vertical (up) instead of horizontal (across the flat ground). These "farms" are located in city buildings where compact plants grow in high stacks of trays or in vertical towers.
City stores and customers have access to produce that's much fresher than regular produce often coming from hundreds or thousands of miles away. A supply chain that long drains 45% of the produce's nutritional value.
Yesterday was election day in Minneapolis and there's good news - the city still has a police department. With 94% of the precincts reporting, about 56% of the votes went against replacing it with a department of "public safety."
Since the city protests after the killing of George Floyd (summer of 2020), the City Council has been pushing to de-fund the police. The plan was criticized for its vagueness and how much responsibility would have been given to the current mayor and council to organize the new department.
from Forbes
Note: Today is opening day at some theaters for "The Most Reluctant Convert," the life and journey of C.S. Lewis from cynical materialism to Christianity
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:
Over half of working Americans say "they’re likely to be in the hunt for a new job over the next 12 months . . . In August alone, 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs – almost 3 percent of the entire workforce." It's being called the Great Resignation.
Last year shook up some of our patterns of life. In the aftermath, people are re-evaluating their lives and their work, asking important questions - like, "how long do I want to keep doing this job?" Some really needed to put their abilities to better use, or learn new skills.
Burnout symptoms may show up as exhaustion, lack of focus, depression. It's worth the effort for employers to help these workers using flexible work from home (WFH) schedules, walking meetings - and recognition/appreciation for a job well done. According to the WHO, every dollar invested in employees' mental health will return $4 in better productivity.
from Forbes
