CandorLine
Recent events have provided more incentive to learn U.S. Civics than the most compelling teachers combined could generate.
Nice to see so many gather, relatively conflict free, at Wichita’s Biggest Party. Those drone shows are a regular fireworks display on steroids. Impressive!
Legalize sports betting, abandon all NIL recruiting advantage pretense, open the portal, what could possibly go wrong? A legitimate college education? High school education? Middle school . . . ?
Regardless of who proposes a bill, or of which party they caucus with, please provide details, allow for public and legislator discussion, don’t attach unrelated content to the bill, then send it through the rest of the process. How else can we truly respect the legislative result?
We’re struggling as it is to find competent, effective leaders to run for office, people who take on difficult decisions, as judges do, without protests at their homes, and variously delivered death threats. Peacefully protest in public places, or face legal punishment.
Marital bliss, military intelligence, and now, a federal Disinformation Governance Board!
Unleaded regular reaches $4 per gallon? I’m loading all of my vegetables into the gas tank.
Can we engage in meaningful discussion over climate change and the relative value of electric vehicles? It appears that hysterical claims and unreachable corporate and political goals are manifest, but verifiable data and perceptible logic have been (like carbon culpabilities) spare, imprudently offset.
Watching 10 minutes of daytime television makes one wonder if human evolution is a compelling theory.
Given that the march of personal liberty is discarding or overwhelming traditional binaries, let’s reduce the bickering and adopt the following:
· If you’re going with the notion that we’re all equal, shouldn’t we end separate sports leagues for men and women (at whatever chosen gender particularity) and have one premier league per sport.
· If we’re going with the notion we’re all different, part of a grand diversity, shouldn’t we have more leagues to represent all the gender diversity: swimmers who were once male but making the switch, or once female, but transitioning?
What could Putin say about Biden’s dealings in Ukraine in the last 15 years? What embarrassments are keeping Biden from such a soft, belated approach to this crisis? It’s why we don’t wish lesser security personnel sleep with the enemy, literally. Biden could face endless federal investigations with what Putin knows about Burisma – and more.
I am so very tired of toxic masculinity, white supremacy, misogyny and the patriarchy. It's easy to ignore when you walk through a door that is wide open to you and not see it slam shut behind you. We who are standing outside that closed door see it differently.
Global supply chains depend on relative lack of political unrest. This dependence has looming price pressures for the American consumer. But, makes futures contracts interesting! War, so destructive for some, so profitable for others.
That Southern blood can heat up pretty quickly compared to other types. It’s at its best sitting behind a powerful one-seater going around an asphalt track as hard as life allows. Sitting in a club, I just heard a musician driving his banjo as fast as it would go. The problem is that blood is prone to overheating. Like at Pickett’s charge. Southern blood at its best and worst.
Was it a groundhog’s shadow Ukrainians were worried about on February 2?
Not having to depend on your enemy for crucial supplies is an early childhood lesson, isn’t it?
Those who define racism as the non-denial of racial differences are unnecessarily manufacturing “racists.”
Football employs the fastest strong among us; not the absolute strongest or fastest, but definitely the best combination of the two in all of sports.
So anti-depression drugs/mood levelers often relieve the melancholy but suppress sexual function. Dear chemists of the world, you surely know that if you can maintain the former and reverse the latter, you have a winner.
Can we stop referring to the three branches of government as “co-equal?” In what context? Certainly not in constitutional powers, stated or implied.
Your life’s work, soon to be exchanged in Non-Fungible Token form. Wanna buy my mix tape? Move over QVC. As long as NFT’s are accepted currency at my nearest Chuck E. Cheese, I’m in.
Many more Americans today compared to 60 years ago would be content with a king or queen. The end of Westward expansion, the weariness of individual responsibility in the chase to riches driven by the American Dream encourage this “escape from freedom.” Our forebears got on those boats and sailed West. The discontent with authoritarianism encouraged them to board ship. Where will we flee when Big Tech and Big Government grow too powerful?
Arrogance is the unwillingness to learn.
Are people being marginalized or is some people’s performance marginal?
Do you know who moved West? Those whose skill set would allow.
The mystique of Fandom: Why do young men and women, whom we don’t know personally, become “our team” and whose performance dictate our mental health from game to game, week to week?
In terms of generating misguided hopes, a Black colleague once cynically stated that the worst day for his race is the day of the NBA draft. Is the release of the updated Fortune 500 list the worst day for the working class? For humankind?
Every pregnancy is a renewable opportunity for the individual and their community to re-value life, recognize its goodness. When will the social psychologists seriously study the half-century effects of legalized abortion?
Parenting for Idiots 101: Buy your son a gun when he’s having anger issues at school.
The essence of the capitalist spirit is designing a beer glass with a thick bottom, a sharp tapering from the top down, and sides that help disguise the amount of beverage in the glass being much less than thought at first glance.
Yet, this is a world of enough really bright people who make life increasingly easy and entertaining and relatively safe for all of us.
Success: You move up. Do less. Get fatter.
KU’s compliance office. (Is that an oxymoron?)
When the poor/the left out take to the streets, the rich sell and move further away.
Only the police can clean up the streets, but not if we videotape them. Criminals don’t respond to voice commands.
The Leninists on the American Left are not bothered by an increasing national debt because when the interest on the debt eventually paralyzes the economy, the consequential chaos will “require” federalization of everything.
Both U.S. political parties howl that democracy is in danger, arguably a chronic state, but doesn't the progression of history demonstrate a blood-stained resolve to grow and preserve it?
Some see more of how well we’ve done. Others see more of how much yet needs to be done. Neither necessarily has poor vision.
Now that state and local officials have been pressed for existential decision-making, will polling numbers follow?
My inner Socialism is a feeling that my logic must continually redirect.
I have piles and piles of unread and underread books; shall I turn to Cliffs Notes and SparkNotes instead?
The young idealist is nearly intolerable — now that I’m many decades removed.
Look forward to old age: one becomes far more willing to be wrong, if necessary, to find the truth of the matter.
When we tell each other we are all equal to one another, we generate frustration, disruption, vengeance — because when equity does not result, fault must be found, and the fault must surely lie with those who are doing better.
Everyone is in sales — from first cry to last pleading.
Traffic signal regulators, if professionally evaluated, have easily measurable sadistic tendencies.
We have police because the polis prefers due process to vigilantism. Everyman a policeman? God forbid. When you can’t find the police, you become the police.
The tension between individual liberty and collective responsibility was present when Man (male and female) first organized in groups. Its enduring nature should push more of us to the political middle.
Generally, elders make more trustworthy leaders and decision makers — and should not be neglected — because they no longer are “climbing the ladder"; their descent is accompanied by the loss of much selfish ambition and, in the case of males — testosterone.
Money laundering: Hunter Biden’s straw-blown paintings — marketed.
So, Milley can make untimely calls to foreign governments, but not Flynn. Rough game. When this degree of corruption exists in the federal executive branch, remember to thank John Locke and James Madison for the Second Amendment.
“Socialism makes nobody poor by making everybody poor.” (not sure who said it originally)
Is it because the poor have much harder lives and succeed under much tougher circumstances that the rich try to corral, cajole, sweet talk, and beguile the former into fighting their wars?
Equality has existential issues and equity is unfundable.
The Left oppresses by negating/denying the human drive for liberty at the bottom. The Right oppresses by manipulating the “free market” from the top.
Humans are demanding a healthy work-life balance, not an unwelcome goal, but one that challenges the force of nature that is capitalism.
Assign credit where it’s due, the Trump administration promoted the right incentives to realize three effective vaccines within months, and the Biden administration has pushed “at least one” vaccination rates to over 60% of Americans 18 or older (over 80% for Seniors). Political strutting aside, that’s much better than the decades it took to create, and effectively administer, the polio vaccine.
If the Chinese are not excoriated for making the coronavirus, we will all know their economy now owns the world’s oligarchs.
Big question: What is Bezos’s angle in having his newspaper now expose the virus’s origin?
The disinterest and unconcern among national leadership and Big News for Black-on-Black shootings and murders is also racism.
The hatred of the Jew in the 21st C. is alive and sick as ever: They have a very small slice of a large Middle Eastern pie and won’t be allowed to enjoy it.
A national leadership whose official policy for decades was to kill children conceived beyond the limit of one birth per couple is not a group that would design and release a lethal virus, right?
Why so much street violence and policing tensions? Well, haven’t we raised the last few generations on a steady cinematic diet of abject violence?
Tolkien in summation: The journey is difficult and there are many enemies.
When the minority has the means and authority — MSM and government regulatory agencies and Higher Ed agendas — to oppress the majority, how could anyone think it will end well?
Suppressing the competition leads to innovative stagnation, price inflation, and toward the end, more extreme efforts to protect the monopoly — cf. public education in America.
Everything is so scattered. The democratization of too much? Thank you Big Tech.
The left brain has been well-tested in school assessments, but how are we doing teaching to and evaluating the right side?
In my old age, what changed most was an appreciation for the Wonder of It All, Perfect Complexity having flowed out through humanity — manifest in their research and developments —as cumulative understanding and imitation of the design capacities of God.
“Sense perception in reverse is imagination.” — Dan Snyder
The student has not sufficiently learned until they can explain something in their own words.
The tough part to slowing the development of bigger and better weaponry is that bigger and better usually spells money.
If you’re smarter you’re going to try to create a job for yourself that’s “easier” to do.
If you cannot question it, it’s not science. It’s propaganda.
“When you love what you’re doing, the best thing you can do is teach somebody else.” — Kyle Trivisonno (Human Plant Solutions — Newton, Kansas)
Free and fair trade seems quite capable of rewarding countries and economies wherein the people are not as free nor treated as fairly, but who work for much less and for longer hours.
Closed primaries promote hyper-partisanship and make a middle way hard to find.
When a third of American workers had more federal COVID bailout when laid off than they had wages while working, couldn’t the greater problem be the low wages of too many Americans?
Given our love of money, the people’s representatives understandably take out loans to “earn” the people’s good pleasure. Yes, democracies break the bank.
Historically, living under Socialist dominance has been much easier for those engineering society than those being engineered. Imagine that.
Truth is not afraid of arguments.
The Son of God descended into our milieu. The Son of Man ascended to God’s glory. The Exact Representation of God came to this world and the Exact Representation of Perfect Man returned to the “heavenly” world. The God-Man is the bridge.
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Marx knew we do not have equal abilities or needs.
The American gene pool — if Academia had the freedom to research — would reveal that traits of bravery, independence, and resourcefulness are accentuated relative to other pools. And who first ventured to the wind-swept and harsh prairie? The more brave, independent, and resourceful. Amazing Kansans!
Multicultural appreciation has nothing to do with equality, but rather diversity.
Two Americas, really? Well, the South would likely be allowed to secede in today’s milieu.
Many of the differences in our world can be explained by this difference: a son of mine flies all over the globe carrying the world’s goods from nation to nation. There are some places wherein he enjoys 3 days of respite, beach, restaurants, and cross-cultural touring between flights. In other places, he is advised not to leave the airplane while cargo is quickly unloaded and loaded.
The closed primary in Kansas electoral politics makes for great difficulty electing anyone who sees truths in both parties and seeks compromise.
At what point does China say, we will only accept the yuan? Aren’t they spending down their reserve of dollars?
The American Left — largely unreligious — is becoming alarmingly legalistic, proscriptive, and shaming . . . and with ethical standards that change so easily. The Left when I was young (the 50s and 60s) was otherwise. On the coordinate plane of political philosophy/method, they have moved from low in the 3rd quadrant (libertarian) to high in the second (authoritarian). They have so much they want to hammer into shape.
The only reason America’s borders are so porous — relative to the rest of the world’s countries — is because capitalists search always for laborers willing to do the least desirable jobs for subsistence pay, starting with slaughter houses and asphalt roadways.
You can’t get into heavy grass with an old lawnmower.
Everyone is selling something. Everyone is an eager consumer. Markets should fascinate!
Genius and money are nearly always looking for each other.
Is being a faithful Roman Catholic a week-to-week pardon and release?
Ubiquitous entertainment screens, legal THC markets, monthly government checks — set those captives free?
When compromise no longer settles conflicts, coercion is coming.
How can loose or open borders be on the same platform as helping working Americans and promoting labor unions?
For the Christian, that God through Christ will forgive any sin is itself great temptation.
When armies and air forces are machines without humans in the field or cockpit, how much easier will it be to send them forth?
Via tenure, the Academy has removed itself from the vigorous debates that democracies require.
Why would we be aghast or even feign surprise when those at the top misbehave? The unsupervised should be expected to break the rules. The one at the top who doesn’t is the special case.
Freedom and equality do not co-exist.
The Left thinks we define human nature; the Right, that we are designed/stamped.
Though we identify and celebrate cultural diversity, the linear progress is toward only Two — Light and Darkness.
I love the choices that free markets create — as I eat another new chip.
The two-party system requires such large coalitions that the political class learns early and often to say whatever people want to hear. They become quite hard to shame.
Zoom meetings diminish the subtleties of eye contact and body language essential to our evaluation of each other’s sincerity and veracity. What will we be unable to see in their eyes — and what will they see in ours — when most online interactions are with robots?
“The protection of tenure is meaningless when it is preceded by a 16-year process designed to weed out the people who would actually benefit from it.” — Christopher Snowden.
Mental capacity is DNA. Ignorance is a choice — for every one of us, every day.
When I buy a pair of Bombas socks, I have also paid for the pair that was donated to the person in need. So, did I pay twice what the socks should have cost? I suppose subtle socialism is to be preferred over its insolent cousin.
Orwell’s Big Brother extends his rule enabled by Huxley’s culture of amusements and sedatives. Big Tech, Hollywood, and THC, unite! Goodbye, “land of the free.” Any bravery still in the house?
The weight of American history teaches that economic “panics” and recessions have been caused by problems on the demand side — which can be called “overproduction.” On the gold standard, Americans suffered for lack of dollars, and industry could always outproduce consumers’ ability to purchase. As long as our economic supply is robust — and robots are not showing signs of fatigue — demand must keep up with supply! Production will always have a demand to meet because the human appetite for spending shows no signs of collapse. The consequence of high productivity and strong demand (people who have sufficient money to spend) is a popular economy. Yes, MMT is a sound argument. Demand must keep up with supply.
Earthquakes in Wichita? Who’s at fault for that?
A six-year old granddaughter revealed her early Socialist leanings at Christmas gift-opening, exclaiming to her brother regarding his attractive toy, “You have to share!”
Maya Angelou famously stated: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Donald Trump didn’t make me feel like he was my president.
Privilege is having peculiar or special advantages, benefits, and circumstances. Privilege is unavoidable. The earlier in life we enjoy privilege, the less we had much of anything to do with gaining it. No guilt should accompany most of what others deride as privilege. Heck, living in America is a privilege, I don’t care what color you are.
If we don’t encourage a strong, balanced media, the big businessmen and the government officials will run the world, and nobody will be able to check their power.
War only lasts as long as people will tolerate its machinations. Of what duration political battles?
The people will realize globalism was a huge mistake when they live under the apparatus required for a world of highly diverse cultures to have the same set of laws. The apparatus that will enforce the harmony is the product of elite technocratic, scientific minds. After an extended time with a technician — on some minor connectivity issue — how should one extrapolate our growing dependency on others keeping us connected — to shopping, shipping, participating, knowing . . . , voting? I’m not seeing the happiness.
Dominion Voting Systems should probably consider a less revealing name.
The House and the Press achieved their goal over the last four years, that of exhausting us with Donald Trump. However, years from now, an appreciation of his policies, especially in foreign affairs, and his realignment of the political parties will be notable. His manner was blamed for his downfall, but altering the foreign entanglements of the economic oligarchy was the greater cause. 12.10.2020
Imagine the scope and pervasiveness of the investigation if it had been Trump’s team accused of stealing an election?
What some of the English in America did to the African slaves and Native Americans — subjugation — was abjectly wrong; however, the will to dominate others, to extend one’s property lines at others’ expense/loss, is a human problem and has been adequately recorded from the very first records. Some of us need to appreciate the Bigger Picture: America is a nation of flawed people, whose flaws have been well investigated and accounted for. What has been lost in the teaching of our young is that America has fought its flaws better than human flaws have ever been fought.
Collectively, we should be ashamed that we allowed The Wichita Eagle to devolve into the empty shell of a local paper that it is today.
The Left sees sin as systemic and institutional because their sense of personal sin is minimized. Not having that sense more easily justifies their authoritarianism; that they, in their righteousness, can fix the system, rework the institutions. Do I need to recount the history of authoritarianism — in any culture?
Workers feeling adequately rewarded for their work is the greatest threat to socialism.
The Left dominates the press and the schools; so, yes, America is becoming more socialist.
All the way back, it’s either: something from nothing or Someone has always been.
You can only be what your mind and body go to, harmoniously or otherwise.
Not Orwell or Huxley. Both were right! The Press colludes with the ruling oligarchy. The people are subjected to sophisticated spin and regular sedation. Those who can access the real story and “lay off the many sauces” are too few. Goodbye, republicanism.
The Authoritarianism is not likely to take hold here, as long as we have fair elections (honest tabulation). The human longing to be free is irrepressible.
Liberty and justice for all is a hard calling. Liberty seeks unrestraint and new paths. Justice requires standards and enforcement. Balancing the two is harder than most current journalists will allow.
For the journalistic class on the Right and Left, the Trump presidency was an extended OJ trial. The money to be made! What overdose is next? They jump from one crisis to the next, leaving the previous as irrelevant and placing so many of us in a new bondage to our screens. And the better the crisis/ greater the bondage, the more advertisers they can include.
What view of humanity would wish that the pool of eligible voters be widened?
Equality of opportunity fosters incentive; insisting on equity of outcome, just the opposite.
Do you remember the days when everyone knew when someone had passed away because we’d all read it in the same place?
Depending on morality, a nation-binding narrative, and the rule of law, democracies are fragile. When Standards and metanarratives are in decline and lawlessness is glamorized in movies and overlooked by the Fourth Estate, who will pick up the banner of truth and at what cost?
I fear that the federal government as the single payer is the only way to bring down health-care costs — but with fixed prices, supply and quality will suffer. Why do we fail the young by postponing that part of their education until they are several presidential elections into their understanding of economics?
If there’s a silver lining to this global pandemic, it could be the creative solutions local businesses have come up with for outdoor dining. Enjoying company on the patio is a treat. Figuring out how to make it enjoyable and practical in the winter months brings a new challenge, but I’m crossing my fingers it works out.
I marvel to understand the hatred for Trump — he’s pulled us back from these senseless, misconceived wars to “save” the Middle East, he has a conscience to protect the American worker from those who pursue cheap international labor at the cost of nationhood (think the blue-collar replaced on opiates), and he’s appointed numerous Constitutional originalists to our federal courts. So what if he's inarticulate, combative, and grandstanding. His base's love for him is not shallow.
As for Trump . . . he has consciously steered the country into a freefall of debt beyond the wildest imagination of any of those who preceded him. He is truly the King of Bankruptcy . . . which we all knew beforehand. Like Hillary, he will now be compared to the available alternative [not to any standard] and probably found wanting [since the "grass is always greener on the other side"]. And that is the underlying problem with America ... it has loved temporary profit/pleasure more than lasting justice/righteousness. What America did to foreign nations with the US$ as a reserve currency after the Nixon shock in 1971 is a global, sociological betrayal and ecological crime for which somebody must and everybody will pay . . . beginning with the poor as usual . . . God is not mocked [and that should scare the hell out of us]. -Bob Love
“Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality, as it is written, ‘He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.’” — 2 Corinthians 8:13-15