エピソード

  • Affiliations

    Affiliations
    2025/06/05
    SHOW NOTES: Why are politicians asking for support without revealing the party they represent? Because they're embarrassed or duplicitous, or both? Why don't they admit to errors their party has made, or they have made? "We shouldn't have supported this" or "I'm sorry I supported that." Why campaign as if fighting an enemy (the other party) instead of supporting their constituency? Why become a lacky to your party's demands rather than speak out against those with which and with whom you disagree? Why do you insult our intelligence by not providing a positive platform focused on what you can do, rather than merely against what the other side is doing? And how can you claim that you didn't know what you obviously did, and did know what you obviously didn't (or hid)? Why are politicians from states I don't care about with positions that don't affect me, strangers to me, expecting my money, and why are politicians selling each other lists within the party to gain access to potential contributors? It's because their affiliations to party are more important than obligations to us.
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    4 分
  • Claims

    Claims
    2025/05/29
    SHOW NOTES: There are jobs that many of us would prefer not to have and businesses we'd prefer not to own, but they provide valuable services. Someone has to run funeral parlors, cemeteries, cesspool cleaning, mold removal, and junkyards. Personally, I wouldn't like to pick up garbage, but we need the service or the rats would overwhelm us. Then there are jobs that I can't comprehend doing because of their impact on others. I knew a woman who incessantly pointed out that her husband was a doctor. I asked him once for a referral for a client who lived in the area, and he couldn't provide me one. I found out when we had dinner once, and I questioned him, that he sat at a desk all day approving and rejecting medical claims. Even with my excellent health insurance, I'm occasionally informed by a distant "claim administrator" that my claim wasn't covered or only partially covered. There's no coherent explanation, only the small print that some attorney, also sitting at a desk and who's never been inside a courtroom, has conjured up to protect the company which pays his or her salary. We do need some claims adjustors, for property insurance—houses and cars—for example, to protect against fraud and to serve the consumer, as well. But there are too many stories about medicines and procedures, to alleviate chronic suffering and even to save lives, that are denied on very arbitrary grounds, other than saving the insurer money. Remember when Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson sang about not letting your babies grow up to cowboys? Well, who on earth says to their kid, what guidance counselor suggests, what story of success supports, "My child, I can see with your skills and personally, you should go into health insurance claims adjusting! You'd be brilliant at it and I'm sure it would provide huge gratification!" Don't let your babies grow up to be insurance claims adjustors. If they display any such inclination, adjust them away from it.
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    3 分
  • Transgressions

    Transgressions
    2025/05/22
    SHOW NOTES: When I was teaching a graduate course as a "side hustle" for MBA and PhD candidates at the University of Rhode Island, I inherited a student who claimed he had ADHD and the "documentation was coming from health services." He also answered every question in class with a single word, "reengineering." I found out that he had pulled this con with the full-time faculty, and was in his final courses getting to his MBA. He told me he couldn't take "timed" tests. No worries, I told him, the midterm and the final were take-home essays and everyone had whatever time needed so long as they met the deadline. I gave them the questions 60 days ahead of the deadline. He never contributed anything else in class except that word, and I watched him easily banter with classmates, otherwise. He never turned in the midterm or final. I flunked him, unheard of in the graduate school where everyone received A's or B's or a rare C. He went ballistic and filed a complaint. My grade was upheld. The school's director told me, "You're like a utility player who came into the game and did things the starters never do." Post-script: After teaching two courses over five semesters in the evenings, I was not invited back, because (I was told confidentially) the student evaluations put me above the full-time faculty in quality of teaching and the faculty lobbied to have me removed. Another student who contributed brilliantly in class despite English being a second or third language (he was Indian) turned in a paper I required on an aspect of consulting. I found that he had copied, word-for-word, out of one of the assigned books for the course (not one of mine, but one I was obviously familiar with). I told him privately that I could have him expelled, but if he completed the assignment honestly and then did extra work I assigned him in the next two weeks, we'd get on with our lives. I felt he deserved the chance and I didn't want to end his current pursuit of the degree. He admitted what he had done and did an excelled job on the remainder of the assignment and class. I gave him a C. An obvious learning point for me was that doing something as an independent and for the joy of doing it enabled me to do things that those lobbying for careers, tenure, promotion, and popularity could never do, although my departure did help the rest of them lower the bar.
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    4 分
  • An American Pope

    An American Pope
    2025/05/15
    SHOW NOTES: The odds were better for the biggest longshot in the Kentucky Derby. An American has become Pope. It was said that no American could become Pope because the church wouldn't vest its power in someone with a Super Power. I would think, however, that there is no greater Super Power than God, so we shouldn't worry. Many people are pointing out that he spend twenty years in Peru so he's actually Peruvian. No, he's American, born here, but with a dual citizenship. Others, especially non-Catholics, panic when he's called a "missionary," thinking of the Colonialist/Imperialist times when the clergy were sent as missionaries to convert any non-Christian in sight. Today, missionary work is about caring for the poor, providing for the less fortunate, helping after natural disasters. The clergy as a whole are highly educated and learned men. There is no theological justification for a celibate, male clergy. Jesus never spoke of it, God never mentioned it. This was created by the church in the 12th Century because of the wealth of local churches passing on the priest's death to his wife. With celibacy, the wealth remained for the priest's successors and for the Vatican. For the record, about 4% of priests have been found guilty of sexual misconduct over the last 60 years of a total of about 3,500. Of 3,200,000 teachers over that period, between 11 and 14% were found guilty of sexual misconduct over the period (depending on the source you consult). Today, one of five humans is Catholic with varying degrees of commitment, and about 33% of humans are Christian. It's often occurred to me that the loudest atheists, such as the late Christopher Hitchens and the current Richard Dawkins, are "religious" in their attacks on religion! If you think about it, sooner or later everyone says a prayer when they are overcome with grief, or hope, or uncertainty. Let's give this new guy a chance. God knows, apparently, we need someone to bring us together in an angry world.
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    9 分
  • Life in These United States

    Life in These United States
    2025/05/08
    SHOW NOTES: •There was once a Readers Digest staple by this name, still available in summaries. •Here's mine. Keep in mind, when you critique someone who happens to be black, it's 'de rigueur' to announce, "I'm not a racist." Well, I'm announcing to you that I'm not a Trump supporter (and I'm also not a racist). •Years ago we thought about selling our home. Every realtor who showed me "comparable's" I turned away, because there was no comparable's to this home. It's a lifestyle, not a house. You judge it on that basis, not the neighbors. •People outside the US, especially in Europe, think that the US is simply like a European country, but much larger. (A client of mine in the EU, to whom I mentioned that Lichtenstein was the only European country I haven't visited, said, "Lichtenstein is in Europe?") •Trump is targeting some areas that need improvement, but where he should be using a scalpel he's using a flamethrower. •We cannot allow unregulated, illegal immigrants into the US. (Does an "undocumented immigrant" make a rioter an "undocumented shopper?") We cannot accommodate Latin America on our welfare system. •Dismantling the hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of organizations, and tens of thousands of people from the divisive DEI is productive. •Punishing—providing consequences—for universities which tolerate and even foster anti-Semitism and harm to Jewish students is an important consequence. "Hitler should have finished the job" is repugnant in moronic. •Taking the graft and waste out of social security and Medicare isn't ending it, it's saving money. (Do you know that billions were lost through corruption and criminality during Covid PPP payouts?) •It's interesting that when the US pulls out of an international aid group, the group usually has to close down, because no one else is supporting it sufficiently or intends to take over for us. •It's pretty clear a great many people seem to hate us in the US, and want us to fail, and enjoy using profanity hiding behind the internet to question our intelligence and wish us all the worst. •That's because they're envious of our freedoms, economy, and opportunities. It is self-hate directed outward. No country that declared neutrality in WWII should have any citizens voicing any critique of any country that fought they tyranny and oppression that threatened and killed so many. •There are no "comparable's" to the US, anywhere. If you want us to fail, give it your best shot, but you're on the wrong side of history and the future. •And some day, sooner or later, you're going to come around looking for our help again. You always do.
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    6 分
  • Once A Cheat

    Once A Cheat
    2025/05/01
    Show Notes: I knew kids in high school and college who cheated. They stole exams or looked at other people's answers or had someone else take tests for them. (Ironically, grammar school was far more honest!) My daughter had a friend whom she abandoned because of her chronic cheating and requests to help her out. She even cheated at sports unless the officials caught her. When you're successful, of course, you don't stop, and she tried cheating in college and got herself tossed out. I'd bet she's in a blue collar job today and stealing from her employer. People asked me to help them cheat and even offered money to me to write a paper or sit in such a way where they could see my answers. I never acquiesced, and there were two quite simple reasons. First, it makes it harder for all the honest kids to stand out, and second, I really don't want someone doing my taxes, or selling my house, or operating on an abscess who cheated to get to those positions. I remember a guy called in by auto shops who would "prove" that the car you wanted to trade in had been in an accident and repaired, hence lowering it's value. I assume he was one of the cheaters who was now making it his life's work. A doctor and bank board member cheated when he sold his house to us in Summit, New Jersey, by removing the lighting that would have shown a rusting furnace, then paying off the inspection guy to overlook it. So I turned down his bank for my loan. Chronic cheating is a disease, a personality disorder. Like smoking or certain drugs, which can addict you, cheating can dominate your life because, unfortunately, the more you get away with it, the more you think you're great at it, and the more you do it—until ultimately caught, sooner or later. You know all those college deans and politicians who, inexplicably, had lies on their current resumes and were cashiered? They had gotten away with it for so long that they began to believe it was the truth. "Yes, I went to Oxford, and yes, I was awarded a Silver Star." You know this Senator, Bob Menendez, convicted of fraud and political corruption (along with his wife). He pleaded for leniency in front of the judge and then walked a few yards over to the press and complained how unfair the judge was. I knew him when he was elected as a "reform" mayor at 20 in Union City, New Jersey. He exhibited then and since the same behaviors that have thrown him into jail now. The more powerful the person, the larger the lies.
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    5 分
  • The Great Social Media Quality Dilution

    The Great Social Media Quality Dilution
    2025/04/24
    Show Notes: •Quality diminishes as numbers increase. •As everyone joins in, fewer and fewer real authorities. •A guy doesn't publish directly, but is "presented" by others so you can't block his inanities. If you click on his site, there is a ridiculous training program hawked with absurd promises. He's a hustler. I block the people "presenting" him. •All those people with 17 "rules" for great leadership and charts for making decisions have never been a great leader or decision maker. If they were, why would they post this nonsense publicly. Can you see a leader with a chart or list in his pocket consulting it in the boardroom? •The there are the 'ad hominem' attacks, very popular on Facebook, where a person with an IQ 80 points lower than yours say simply, "That's a dumb question" or "You're clueless." •About 90% of the stuff that shows up on my X feed, which I don't want and never requested, is anti-Trump, often with ridiculous claim, false statistics, and posted by third parties but representing some random Democratic office holder. Have you ever considered that it's you and a terrible strategy and candidate, and not "them"? •Unscientific survey: Rabid Democrats are far more profane and obscene than Rabid Republicans. (I think profanity is the resort of the non-intellectual.) •There ARE some intellectual discussions on LinkedIn about politics, the environment, education, and so on. But they are usually interrupted and often ended by some wise ass who barges in with inanity. •One of my model train groups had to be ended because of political hostility (a train car had Trump written on the side). •There are also "cultists," for example with battleships of all things. •And then on Facebook, all the soft porn with usually Asian women in five-inch Laboutins and perfect legs. (Or so I'm told.)
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    7 分
  • Panic

    Panic
    2025/04/17
    SHOW NOTES: The threshold of rational behavior and values overcome by opposing normative pressures. The rioter's justification. The battlefield. The social media and "influencers." People who have low self-esteem and seek bias confirmation and approval. Fear begets fear, panic begets panic. The "drug" of the "magic bullet." Handholds when you're confused—they may be even more dangerous. Example: Are you trading or investing? Example: Have you looked at best case/worse case? Example: Have you considered probability and seriousness? The case of the quite successful "big lady." What's the empirical evidence and observed behavior? A friend is a friend, not an expert. The three kinds of empathy.
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    8 分