Category Archives: Community

Messy

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

April 6, 2026- Babies can be messy. They need to be bathed, have their diapers changed, undersides cleaned, faces washed and mouths rinsed with pre-dental solution.

Children can be messy. They need to be taught to take their shoes or boots off, when entering a house, or wipe their feet, when entering a public place. They need to be trained to wipe themselves after using a toilet, and wash their hands afterward, then dry them with a cloth or paper towel. They need to be shown how to make their beds and clean their rooms, putting things back where they found them.

Teenagers can be messy. They need to be held to account and actively encouraged to slow down and be present in a situation. They know how to focus on others; they do so with their friends, all the time. Extend that focus to people older and younger than themselves.

Families can be messy. Patience and communication are the cleaning agents. So is reflection-remembering when one was in the same position as the one who made the mess, or looking ahead to when one will be in the same position. The child will become an adult, and very well may be a parent. The parent may very well become a grandparent. The grandparent must never forget what it was like to be a baby, a child, a teenager, a parent.

Communities, and organizations, can be messy. Patience, and communication, are even more essential here, even as they become more complex. Technology can help, and it can also hinder; the way in which it is used determines which will be the case. The viewpoints of leaders, and members, will decide how tools, including technology, are used.

Life is messy; it can only be cleaned by those living it.

Still Afloat

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Family, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 4, 2026- I have always been a bit on the sensitive side. There have been a number of occasions when that sensitivity took the form of self- absorption, bristling at criticism-even when I knew, deep down, that the critic was onto something. Those were the times when my personal growth was short-circuited/

There were long stretches of my life, when I searched for someone who was as worthy of my love as my mother was. Indeed, it’s often said that a man marries his mother, and a woman, her father. My marriage to Penny did neither. Save for the fact that they each had a pleasant singing voice, Penny was nothing like my Mom. I, in turn, was nothing like her Dad. We were drawn together by Faith, a mutual love of learning, and a commitment to better the world. We fell truly in love, only gradually.

A lot of that was on me-the self-contained unit, who had to learn to consult with her about even those things that seemed, to me, to be self-evident. With time, and the resurgence of her congenital disease, I plowed through, and past, a number of personal flaws and reached a modicum of stability. Being a caretaker does that to one who survives.

She passed to the spirit world, in 2011. Since then, a number of people have come into my life. Those, both women and men, who recognized my strengths and weaknesses, and focused on the former, are still in my life. Those who chose to dwell on the latter, especially those who tried to take advantage of those weaknesses, are long gone.

I built a good life in Prescott, and a strong network across North America, and on opposite ends of the world. That network stays in place, even as my life has shifted to Plano, and my immediate focus is on my family-especially on my little granddaughter. I am still afloat on the sea of life, even during this time of wider storms.

Happy Easter and Joyous Passover, everyone!

Restoration

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 2, 2026- I watched an episode of “Chicago PD’ on restorative justice, this evening. Like all procedurals, this one took some twists and turns, but ended up with the back story of the attempt at restorative justice. The offender was killed, as it turned out, by his actual victim.

It became another case of a woman killing her male assailant. The police did everything they could, to advise the young woman and prepare her for what she might face in the correctional facility, pending trial. The story reflected what is an all too common occurrence in criminal law: A battered woman, or girl, fights back and either maims or kills, in self-defense. The legal system puts an emphasis on the “rights” of the male and puts the full burden on the female.

There are two aspects to this phenomenon that I would like to address here. First, there is an overemphasis, in popular culture and in its attendant media, on the physicality of human existence. The physical attributes of a human being are stressed, and become the initial basis for a relationship. Men feel pressured to “score” with attractive women. Women are held to a certain standard, from which deviation is grounds for various sanctions. Most of us have been there, to one degree or another.

We are though, at our core, spiritual beings. The most enduring relationships are always those that are rooted in a spiritual bond. Physical attractiveness is bound to fade, at one point or another. It is no mistake that the “ties that bind” are always based on the “inside” aspect of “beautiful, inside and out.” In my own life, I probably felt closer to my late wife in the time of her physical decline than in our earlier years together. The inner beauty never faded, but became clearer, as her life edged towards a close.

The second aspect is derived from patriarchy. The idea that men and women have set roles to play in the course of society, and there should be no deviation from those roles, is the mark of a culture that is hemmed in by its own hand-and is hoist of its own petard. It penalizes females who don’t play by the rules, which are, essentially, that there are separate codes for men and women to follow. In its worst form, women are categorized as property of a male. Men, from heads of family to pimps, have used this to maintain an inordinate amount of control over the women and girls in their midst.

A society, in which the unique gifts of every human being are valued and celebrated, will not continue to let such an unbalanced system continue to rule the conduct of daily affairs. Replacing patriarchy with equanimity is the only way out of the box in which we have, as a society, imprisoned ourselves.

A Day Without Foolishness

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 1, 2026- It was calm here today. Aram and Yunhee both spent the day working, and I looked after Hana. The parents each dealt with people who had dropped the ball; the baby and I re-focused on building her upper body strength, leaving more ambulatory skills for later on. She likes that much better.

I am finding that, if I watch her body cues and listen to her vocalizations, I get an accurate sense of what I should make my focus and for how long. A baby who feels understood is less likely to revert to crying, (Yes, one could pretty much say that about anyone.) If I acknowledge her feelings, with words that fall into her receptive vocabulary, I get the broadest smile. Those sparkling eyes tell me my efforts are registering and are appreciated. A little hug verifies that.

When Mommy and daddy got off work, I fixed a simple dinner, then we all celebrated Hana’s Baek-il (first 100 days). She wore a ceremonial dress and wore it nicely. The small head ribbon stayed on just long enough for her parents to take several photographs. A special cake and cookies made for an extra special dessert. Hana “cut the cake” with her hand on top of her mother’s,

I got my first of month bills paid and a long-standing project in the Philippines will now be completed. I hope that, all in all, today was a day without foolishness, for anyone who has been paying attention to what is most important.

Fleshing Out

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 30, 2026- In the film, “Nuremberg”, Russell Crowe’s Hermann Goring is fascinated by the term “abracadra”, which he hopes to use in playing magic tricks on his young daughter. Many people in the present environment seem to be focused on magical thinking-either that the current administration will rid the country of their perceived opponents or that large demonstrations, by themselves, will rid the country of the current administration.

I’ve been asked, a few times, whether I’ve let myself get so busy that my views on critical issues are just being cherry-picked from Chat GPT or a handful of blogs and podcasts. I don’t use Chat GPT and I don’t listen to podcasts. I do read some others’ blogs-a few progressive, two neutral and one conservative.

I take what is being written under consideration, but here’s the deal: I seek solutions to the problems that vex the worker, the provider, the parent or grandparent. There is no ideology that, in and of itself, will put human beings first. There are those that say they will, but then, once in power, the lure of wealth and control comes with its icy glare.

So, I need to ask hard questions of those who seem like breaths of fresh air. Do they understand the history that led good-hearted people to embrace the corrupt? Have they thought out a plan of action that will root out corruption and repair the damage that has been done? What will be their response when the corrupting influences show up at their doorsteps, with enticement and appeals to ego? What is in it for the struggling families?

So, no, I am not satisfied with slogans and memes. I do not think name-calling or painting groups with broad brushes accomplish anything. I have known good-hearted people who are conservative and others who are liberal. I have known the opposite, in both groups. Both groups inform my thinking, but do not determine it, Basically, I believe that each human being , from birth, has the right to self-determination, and that people who have reached the age of maturity, one and all, have all the rights and duties of citizenship, in the country whose passport they hold.

Every living soul has the right, and responsibility, to investigate truth for her/himself. To none is given the right to dictate to others,

Nuremberg, The Motion Picture

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, Historical, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

March 29, 2026- I want, more than anything else, a place where I can know, of a certainty, that my son and daughter-in-law can raise their daughter, and any other child they may choose to bring into the world, to be a strong and free human being. I want to see Hana realize her gifts and fulfill her dreams. She is already showing signs of being a self-directed, internally-disciplined person, with a very basic sense of at least her biological needs and how to communicate them.

I start with this, because I watched the film, the motion picture “Nuremberg”, this evening. The military psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley, wrote one of the first scholarly descriptions of the totalitarian mindset, having conducted several hours of interviews with the second-in-command of the Third Reich: Hermann Goring. Kelley wrote a book on the subject, after his discharge from the Army. The book cautioned that totalitarian personalities exist in every nation on Earth, including the United States. For this, he was castigated. The book failed to sell.. That was in 1949. A year later, Dr. Kelley, and the nation, witnessed the rise of Joseph McCarthy, and his reckless campaign against anyone who opposed him, on the grounds that they “might be Communists”.

McCarthy’s campaign lasted four years. finally being undone by the suicide of a Senate colleague whom McCarthy had hounded relentlessly for over a year, and by the increasing indecency of his campaign, orchestrated by a hack lawyer named Roy Cohn. Cohn went underground after McCarthy’s fall from grace, but continued to mentor certain individuals whose personality and viewpoints struck him as being similar to McCarthy’s.

I have rambled a bit, but we have witnessed, in the past year or so, unbridled use of Federal officials to round up, harass and even kill those deemed “less than” loyal American citizens. They don’t number in the millions, or even the hundreds of thousands, yet. The campaign was supposed to focus on criminals in this country illegally, who were to be deported to their home nation. As time has gone on, the campaign has been plagued by indiscipline, wild lack of focus and scattershot detentions of even American citizens. A Canadian mother and daughter, both legally in the United States, are now at a Federal detention facility, in Dilley, Texas, after being picked up at a border checkpoint in Hebbronville, Texas. There have been several cases of infants, some of whom needed medical attention, being taken to similar facilities. The miscarriages of justice differ from the Holocaust only in degree and in the number of victims.

There is nothing, in the statements of Executive Branch Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, to indicate that the activities of the agencies doing his bidding will not get worse. Only a reasoned stance by the new Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, would show that the present administration is bringing the travesties to a halt. The scenes depicted towards the end of “Nuremberg” and the scenes I saw in the museums at Auschwitz-Birkenau and at Srebrenica, last autumn, should never even closely be allowed to be replicated in our country.

I wait, and promise my grandchild that she will have a path to fully and freely pursue what she is meant to achieve. God bless America.

Clear Voices

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Family, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 28, 2026- Millions of people spoke their peace today. I noted at least 300. here in Plano. My attention was directed towards family, especially my granddaughter, so I limited myself to driving past the gathered crowd and honking in support, because…..enough has been enough for some time, Clear voices matter, for the simple fact that without them, there is no direction. There has been a cacophony, that seems to change with the wind, and only the loudest, most impatient of voices among those currently making policy have been prevailing.

This is not a matter of liberalism vs. conservatism. No serious voice is seeking to shush conservative points of view. No serious voice should be seeking to silence liberals. In creating a coin, the idea of it having one side is ludicrous. In raising a family, two parents are always going to meet with more success than a single caregiver. There will be a solution to a problem, but it can’t come from an authoritarian source. Some point to Hungary, under Viktor Orban and his Fidesz Party, as a conservative society that works. Apparently, that is not going as well as has been claimed-and there is a very competitive election campaign going on in that country right now. We shall see.

Hana has been quite vocal, of late. Some of her utterances are quite clear, and germane to the situation at hand. Other times, she is babbling, albeit in earnest. She is not likely one who will hold back. Her grandmother would be proud of her. I certainly am, and will ever encourage her speaking out, though taking time to think before she speaks. Her father was expected to speak his mind, after processing information. That led to some conflict with an older relative who had a rather Victorian mindset, but no matter. Keeping children in the background never uniformly worked well. Intelligent young people have ever needed to be directed, not quashed.

So, today, and for quite some time to come, we face a period of transition, from the primacy of a favoured few to a broader-based gathering of the minds and hearts. There will, in the end of it all, not be a patriarchy, or a matriarchy, but, as Marianne Williamson wrote today-a fraternity, or whatever one wants to call a gathering of siblings. Keep speaking your truth.

Sweet Sixteen, 2026

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Posted by on in children, Community, Education, Family, Personal Values, Social, Striving

March 27,.2026- There were two separate games on the screens, at Vickery Park Cafe, which has the women’s NCAA championship tournament on, full bore. It seems about time that the health and well-being of young women is given the same cache, in the sports bar network, as those of young men. We have had a few years of increased public interest in Women’s College Basketball, thanks to Caitlin Clark, Angela Reese and, this year, Azzi Fudd.

I stopped in at Vickery. in between getting my blood drawn at the Veterans Administration Medical Center, in Garland and a chiropractic adjustment, in Frisco. The place offers high quality burgers and salads, and their soups are superb, as well. Seeing the equal time being given to the ladies’ Sweet 16 was a bonus.

At home, Hana was highly insistent, this evening, on doing a “round trip” of Army crawling, going about a foot in one direction, then going back the other way. I will get a soft quilt, tomorrow, which we can overlay on the plastic mat. In the moment, though, she was not happy until tonight’s effort was completed. I thought of all the effort and practice the young women in NCAA have put in, and can see her making a habit of daily practice, at whatever activity she chooses for herself.

The question begs: “Would you invest the same energy into a grandson?” I’ve already answered that question, with the energy put into son’s health, well-being and development. So, yes, each human being put before us is worth the full court press of energy and interest from parents and grandparents alike. Society will be that much further along, if this is taken as seriously as it deserves.

The Slow Death of Subterfuge

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Family, Historical, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 26, 2026- The meeting apparently went relatively well. Credit was given where, and to whom it was due. My daughter-in-law stood her ground and was at least recognized for making a concerted effort to set things right. An attempt, by a less-motivated individual, to shift blame onto their superiors,fell flat. The process will continue tomorrow, but YH’s in-person participation is done, for now. She can focus on her little girl and perhaps get some rest, over the weekend.

The thing that irritates me, a bystander in the whole affair, is the same thing that aggravates about a number of situations: The devaluing of any human being by another, I used to think that this was merely the result of elitism, misdirected cronyism or even narcissism. Yet the more that I recognize put-downs and dismissive comments as largely being reflections of the critic’s self-perception, the more hope I actually have that we, as a species, can move away from subterfuge.

In terms of cosmic energy, a formative civilizational period, of 6000 years, has come to an end. We have gotten all the mileage we are going to get out of one-upmanship , achievement based on cutthroat competition and a zero sum mentality. The Age of Brutus, of Machiavelli and the Borgias, of John Henry Hammond and John D. Rockefeller, even of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, is at an end.

To be sure, we have not seen the literal end of the last two mentioned above, but to have any influence in the emerging civilization that is based on openness, self-awareness and a cooperative mentality, they, and others like them, will have to sharply pivot from all that has sustained their prominence, and be re-born in the same manner as Saul of Tarsus. It worked for Andrew Carnegie, towards the end of the Gilded Age. It might have worked for Woodrow Wilson, had he not suffered that incapacitating stroke

Here at our little home, I will continue to foster a culture of frequent consultation, team planning and celebration of each achievement by any member of the family, no matter how small. Hana’s initiation of “Army crawling” (moving forward on her belly, using her hands and feet, with head raised) is one such cause for joy. Her mother’s soldiering through the rectifying of crisis that was manufactured by the ennui of others is another such cause celebre. Aram may well have climbed another rung on his ladder.

In the life of society, as well as in the life of a family, nature abhors a vacuum. What appears, on the surface, as collapse and chaos, is ever underpinned by an emerging layer of solidarity and certitude. This is what I see happening in our time.

Tariff Tangles

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Posted by on in Community, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Striving

March 23, 2026- Once, about a year ago, a friend made the statement that the tariffs being instituted by the U. S. government would be more of a headache for foreign governments than for the average American citizen. I countered that we would all be paying more for imported goods, as no business absorbs added costs, without passing them along to their customers.

Fast forward to this month. Businesses, large and small, are indeed facing the effects of the whipsawing, now-you-see-it, now -you- don’t tariffs. The charges seem to be put in place on whim and are removed just as fast. I have no MBA, but I do know that businesses need to project their activities1-5 years in advance, and certainly concrete plans have to be 6 months to a year ahead. No business can operate like a game of whack-a-mole.

I have spoken, in recent days, with several people in medium-sized and large businesses. Some have only recently returned to work, after leaves of absence, of one kind or another. They have uniformly returned to a mess. Those working in their absence, essentially sat around drinking coffee or playing video games. Backlogs of 1-5 months have accrued, and in some cases, the staffers who were to cover the absent workers, up and left, without getting much accomplished. When pressed, the “deadbeats” said they were just overwhelmed by the back and forth of the US Departments of Commerce and Treasury,, Now, the returned workers are having to exercise the patience of Job, carefully explaining to angry vendors and customers that their services and invoices will be honoured. It will take several weeks or even months.

There is a reason why countries, in our increasingly interconnected world, are reluctant to charge tariffs: They invariably hit the consumer, or taxpayer, the hardest.