Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Begin It Now

Hesitation is an insidious disease of the human mind that inhibits change.


For me, it is a voice that interrupts the silence of focused reasoning and purposeful intent with an unwelcome dialogue of doubt and fear. It causes delay that sadly leaves words unspoken, works unformed, relationships unjoined, and scars of regret.

Fine art painting entitled Hesitation by William Henry Bartlett. Shows shows an adolescent girl seated on a rock by the edge of the sea, with an outstretched foot poised above the water, pondering the consequences of taking the plunge.
Hesitation -William H. Bartlett
Unchecked, hesitation can become incapacitating. It is especially difficult to overcome as others misjudge your inaction as negligence, procrastination or simple laziness. It is not.

Reduce hesitation in life.


A confidant, mentor and great human being named Buddy Portugal showed me how to engage spontaneity, act on ideas and reduce hesitation in ways that have been life changing. Hesitation, he said, is a state-of-mind that can be tamed by awareness and practice.

People sacrifice the present for the future. But life is available only in the present. That is why we should walk in such a way that every step can bring us to the here and the now.--Thích Nhất Hạnh
His advice is to live in the present and be self-aware.

Much hesitation is fostered by something that might happen in the future, e.g., What will they think? What will happen next? All you can control is your actions at the present - act now. The future and how others react is out of your control.

Next, be very conscious to recognize the voice of hesitation in your thinking.  The very second that quiet thought becomes a dialogue, stop the discussion and get to work. Don't give creeping doubt and fear a voice.
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now --Goethe

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Scientists Beware: Fox News and Politicians Poison Minds with Junk Science

In answer to a Sisyphean societal problem called we can't fix stupid, I recently proposed that we all take some responsibility for chipping away at the roots of stupidity instead of simply having a good laugh and sharing anecdotes with our friends. Digging deeper though, it seems so much of the stupidity we witness in society is a direct result of misinformation, fake facts, and junk science proliferated by the media.  I asked myself, how do we go about attacking junk science?  Then I thought about Don.

Harness brainpower to eliminate junk science


Perspective view of CERN Particle Accelerator with superimposed math equations
In the late 80s I met my neighbor Don for the first time. Don was a mathematician working for then Bell Labs and one of the first truly genius-level people I ever met. He created programming algorithms for something affectionately known among phone company employees as "the switch".  While I can't pretend to really know what he did at his job, allow me to digress for a moment to give you a sense of the complexity of the problems he solved.

Long before today's computing power, before the world wide web, before cell phones and laptops, Don was part of a very, very elite group of mathematicians and engineers working on the switch. What the switch did was in simple terms was traffic phone communications between caller and receiver. Say if you dialed 123-4567 your call was slowly directed by telephone circuits, in rooms literally filled with electromechanical relays, to a friend or business in your local area.  It could take up to ten seconds to dial a 10-digit phone number. Society's desire for speed and new features meant switching a call was becoming many orders of magnitude more complex.

During this time touch-tone dialing was replacing rotary dial phones, so the switch had to discern between a rotary signal and a touch-tone signal. Also, area codes were introduced (but not required) and therefore the system had to discern whether a call was local or to be switched to another largely electromechanical switch room in a different city. Features now taken for granted were being added like forwarding, conferencing, call waiting, and voice mail -- all seemingly  too much for electromechanical switches and simple computing power. Within the switch and its subsystems call functions were increasingly controlled by hard and soft coded instructions. Don created the mathematical algorithms that kept all this complexity and innovation progressing.

His head was always in the clouds, I'd engage him on the possibilities of what could be achieved by pure math power and he lit up. Despite downing more than one cocktail trying to track through his descriptions of how complex math could be employed to solve nearly any problem, I walked away having no doubt he was right.

Scientists, mathematicians, engineers, economists, and researchers -- Speak up!


What if Don were to apply just a fraction of his brainpower toward eliminating junk science? Wow. And there are a lot of really smart people just like him working on remarkable innovations all throughout the U.S. According to National Science Foundation statistics, some 3.5 million work in science & engineering research. So with all this brain power around, why are our lives dominated by an abundance of political, cultural, and economic junk science?

Proliferation of junk science has become an industry unto its own --overwhelming real science, truth, and fact at every turn. And the sad result is junk science is literally killing us humans in the form of pollution and exploitation of natural resources; it also poisons our society through misguided legislation, and suppression of the truth.

A 2010 study on the impact of misinformation in the U.S. electorate offers a staggering set of conclusions:
1. An overwhelming majority of voters... encountered misleading or false information during the prior election
2. The poll found strong evidence that voters were substantially misinformed on...
 the stimulus legislation, healthcare reform law, TARP, state of the economy, climate change, campaign contributions by the US Chamber of Commerce and President Obama’s birthplace, to name a few. In particular, voters had perceptions about the expert opinion of economists and other scientists that were quite different from actual expert opinion
3. There were significant differences in the level 
of misinformation encountered by those who voted Democratic and Republican
4. Consumers of all sources of media evidenced substantial misinformation, suggesting that false or 
misleading information is widespread in the general information environment... increasing exposure to news sources decreased misinformation; however, for notable conservative news sources (like Fox), higher levels of exposure increased misinformation.
A notorious marketing axiom has that you can build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. Manufacturers and retailers who have relied on this strategy are long dead.  But scientists, mathematicians, engineers, economists, and other researchers who figuratively invent better mousetraps every day seem to be stuck to this old model, and will likely eventually share the same fate -- unless they change.  Their problem is the world doesn't pay attention to published research papers.

So what to do?  Speak up. Don't let your hard work and that of your colleagues be misrepresented in the media, twisted repetitively by our cultural leaders, and enacted into self-serving policies by politicians. Imagine if some 3.5 million really smart people were to devote just an hour a week of their time to ensure the accurate representation, dissemination, communication, and education of science to the masses.

182 million hours a year to promote common understanding of scientific fact


So what does scientific activism look like? Well to Stephen Hawking, it was publishing a book to help non-scientists understand fundamental questions of physics and our existence called, A Brief History of Time.  To others it is speaking as an expert on NPR, or other main stream media, writing a column, recording a podcast for the masses, starting a website or a blog, becoming more outspoken in your associations, demanding your peer groups take a stand on broader dissemination of the truth.

Our democracy cannot function if we are all making choices based on lies.

Friday, February 6, 2015

Let's Enforce the Logan Act

Bust of Brutus What do these people have in common?

Robert Hanssen, Robert Ford,
Benedict Arnold, Aldrich Ames
Brutus, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Judas Iscariot, Mata Hari
Tokyo Rose, and John Boehner

Traitors


Two weeks before national elections in Israel, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu will have an opportunity to stand before a joint session of the US Congress at the invitation of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner.  There is one small problem here.

Speaker Boehner extended the invitation to the foreign leader without constitutional authority to do so, or permission from the White House. By law the President of the United States has sole authority to lead and conduct foreign policy.  When he or she engages in formulating treaties with foreign governments they are to seek the advice and consent of the Senate. The Constitution gives the House of Representatives no separate powers.
The Logan Act (1 Stat. 613, 30 January 1799, currently codified at 18 U.S.C. § 953) is a United States federal law that forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. It was passed in 1799 and last amended in 1994. Violation of the Logan Act is a felony, punishable under federal law with imprisonment of up to three years.-- Wikipedia
The Logan Act was passed under the administration of President John Adams, during tension between the U.S. and France.  It is named after Dr. George Logan of Pennsylvania, a member of Congress, who in 1798 engaged in semi-negotiations with France during the Quasi-War. The Act was intended to prohibit United States citizens without authority from interfering in relations between the United States and foreign governments.  Here is text:
§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments. 
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply himself, or his agent, to any foreign government, or the agents thereof, for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.
1 Stat. 613, January 30, 1799, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 953 (2004)
The sedition that passes for governing on the Right is growing old.  It is time to remind elected officials much of what is going on lately is against the interests of the people they're elected to represent and against the law. 


Recent Articles

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Saturday, January 24, 2015

Motivating a Team of One

It feels awful to let your team down, just ask Green Bay Packer Brandon Bostick, after his team's recent NFL playoff game. Likely though he has the advantage of leaning on his teammates for support and motivation he'll need to recover from this dramatic loss.

How to start a team of one


One unfulfilled lifetime goal and solo initiative of mine has been to commit to a 3-4 times a week routine of physical exercise and activity. Over the years I've taken up jogging, joined health clubs, tried cross country skiing, biking, swimming, and other sports only to be knocked off course eventually by the excuse of distraction, interruption or some other life circumstance. And time and again there I am, staring at the person in the mirror knowing there's no one else in the room other than the reflection to blame for the breakdown -- the feeling can be overwhelming.

When there's no friendly teammates on hand to support you -- no question about it, it is hard to go it alone, to pick up and carry on. Recently though, for me, there's been an exception.

The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself.--George Bernard Shaw

Picture of Jack Russell terrier jumping obstacle with trainerFor two years now I've had consistent success in living up to my exercise goals.  The same set of excuses are still present, but my personal motivation and commitment are stronger. What's changed? Psychologically speaking, I've become a team of one+ (one plus).

That's right, no less than three times a week there's me and my dog, Fergus, running, training or participating in dog agility trials. Wait a minute, you say, that's a team of two. Not exactly.

Never once has my dog looked at me and said, "you know I just don't feel motivated today."


The reality is, and it's the most wonderful thing about dogs, they give 100% from the time they're born till the day they keel over. And in so many ways they are the perfect teammate -- they don't complain, rebel, or back-stab. So we work and compete as a team, and I do my best to keep up to the expectations of my four-legged teammate. But in the final analysis, I am a team of one.  I made the commitment, keep the practice schedule, drive to the competitions, and do everything I can to help us win.  And that's what's different.

It's just a point of view -- I don't want to disappoint my dog. Even though it's literally impossible to disappoint him -- he has no expectations. He's just as happy playing tug of war, taking a walk or chewing the fuzz off a tennis ball (the latter typically being about 180 seconds of entertainment).

Not letting down my friend is what always favorably tips the scales in the daily motivational debates in my head -- but it works.  Even Capt. Pickney  (see my Jan 2nd blog --Finding the Courage to Make Change) who has to face high seas after he leaves the dock, could have stopped half-way and turned back, but for his friends.  You see he had regular radio calls with school children during his journey -- he was a team of one who couldn't disappoint his friends.  
So the lesson learned for success is don't go it alone.  Build a team of one+, check in with a friend, routinely consult a mentor, educate an apprentice, or last but not least get a dog. 


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Tuesday, January 13, 2015

We Can Fix Stupid

Really?  You can't fix stupid?

Perhaps at least we can work to prevent it.

There's too many stories in the news everyday regarding stupid.  We encounter stupid everywhere: walking down the street, in our spiritual organizations, in restaurants, on school boards, city councils, in local county, state and federal government, in our media, at our jobs, in our clubs, trolling on social media, and even at our kid's soccer games.

So if we can't stupid, we're all really screwed. No wonder Elon Musk is working so hard and fast to colonize Mars.

Stupidity is a lack of intelligence, understanding, reason, wit or sense.--Wikipedia

Seriously. We have to fix stupid.


Picture of decorated cake from Walmart which reads: "Best Wishes Suzanne, Under Neat that, We will Miss you
No, for real. If you care about the future of our species I implore you to consider it may be time to stop sitting on the sidelines, sharing the stories on Facebook, and having a good laugh.

It may very well be true we can't fix stupid but at the very least we must take matters into our own hands to ensure the stupid become a dwindling class.

Start with promoting and supporting all forms education, over communicate, take risks, vote for the well-informed, report stupidity, blog, protest, expect proper grammar, join a group, start a movement, write a book, and most of all, remember:


Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.--Albert Einstein
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.--Martin Luther King, Jr.
Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.--Michel de Montaigne
A newspaper is a public trust, and we will suffer as a society without them. It is not the Internet that has killed them. It is their own greed, it is their own stupidity, it is capitalism that has taken our daily newspapers from us.--Michael Moore
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.--Dwight D. Eisenhower
Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.--Frank Zappa


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Monday, January 12, 2015

Keep Us in the Dark

Indoctrination is long been the modus operandi for organized religion, oppressive governments, ideological fundamentalists, and the rich & powerful. Why?

Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology... [as distinguished] from education, claiming that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned.--Wikipedia
By suppressing information and education accessible to the common people an elite charter is kept in place. To put it another way, it is easier to spread disinformation, fear and violence among an uneducated populace who are too afraid and too ill-informed to effectively disrupt the delicate imbalance that girds the status quo.

Malala Yousafzai has become the personification of the extreme measures to suppress education. She survived being shot in the head by local Taliban who had banned girls from attending school. She is now an activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate. Her advocacy has since grown into an international movement.

"Charlie Hebdo Cover Features Muhammad Holding 'Je Suis Charlie' Sign"
And now, we have the massive march in Paris, where over a million protesters have decided to act in opposition to the tactics of the Islamist fundamentalists. (see my Jan 8th blog -- I Am Charlie) And, in concert, The Huffington Post just released the cover for next issue of Charlie Hebdo.  Millions have taken action to say they are not afraid.

These events are a warning to all of us to be alert to anyone who shuns science, suppresses education, stifles progress or discourages change -- all to keep us in the dark.

Change this.


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Sunday, January 11, 2015

Daring Success and Failure

Surely this is science fiction:

photo of massive Space-X Remote Drone Landing BargeMan dares to safely land first stage rocket booster, in an upright standing position, on an unmanned drone barge in the ocean.  The booster hits too hard and crashes.   Elon Musk tweets, "Close, but no cigar."

It is not science fiction, and as a National Geographic article puts it...

Failure is an Option


The failed attempt is part of the efforts of a bold agent of change, Elon Musk (see my Jan 5th blog --Transformational Change) who planned the test booster landing as part of what NASA called a flawless mission launch to re-supply the International Space Station.  Here is an example of a man who has set out to change everything about the way we launch into space and think about space travel.

Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.--Winston Churchill
Some businesses have made efforts to institutionalize the power of failure by creating Walls of Failure within their offices. Workers post their failures and what they learned from the experience.  The practice keeps others from repeating the same mistakes.

The takeaway here is not to let fear of failure keep you from acting on what matters.  Instead, plan on it as part of the process.

I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.--Michael Jordan


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Saturday, January 10, 2015

Change Happens

Change is relentless and affects all things.


It is a fact, there is absolutely nothing in the universe capable of standing perfectly still, except perhaps the stubborn thoughts in our heads.

photo of polar bear stranded on tiny piece of floating ice


Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life.--Jackie Robinson

Change or get out of the way.


Simply put, people who fight for the status quo are asking to be left behind by the universe. They choose short term comfort for certain extinction -- and those of us who stand on the sidelines to watch are complicit in their negligence.

Success is shy - it won't come out while you're watching.--Tennessee Williams

So the choice is ours, to stand by while our leaders resist change, or to instigate change to resist those leaders.




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