The Artist

 

An Open Society

Open society is a term coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson in 1932 and describes a dynamic system inclined to moral universalism.  Bergson contrasted an open society with what he called a closed society, a closed system of law, morality or religion. Bergson suggests that if all traces of civilization were to disappear, the instincts of the closed society for including or excluding others would remain.

The idea of an open society was further developed during World War II by the Austrian-born British philosopher Karl Popper.  Popper saw it as part of a historical continuum reaching from the organic, tribal, or closed society, through the open society (marked by a critical attitude to tradition) to the abstract or depersonalized society lacking all face-to-face interaction transactions.

George SOROS who spends millions and millions of dollars on Democratic candidates in the US, believes in an open society...  For the US this would mean that EVERYTHING is available to everyone with no exceptions...  and, that we have no borders so that anyone who wants to enter the US can enter the US.

If one were to look at religion, then one can easily see that all religions operate on the basis of a closed society...  in that only Christians can be Christians and only Muslims can be Muslims...  so, in an open society there would be no need for religious classification...  one either believes or one does not believe and there is nothing specific from one religion to another.

Laws would operate the same way as there would be no personal property...  all land and personal property would simply belong to everyone...

In that same spirit of openness, the government would not keep any secrets from the people in an effort to protect trade deal negotiations...  everyone would know everything.

Another example of an open society is that there would be no ethnic groups...  no blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians, etc...  we would all be human beings belonging to the human race.  The same would hold true for gender...  no differentiation between male and female.

I personally don't think that this stands a snowball's chance in hell of being accepted 100% by the people of the United States or by the citizens of every single other country in the world...  It is a philosophy that has been created for an intellectual debate among those who do not possess the intellect to have an intellectual debate on this topic or any other topic for that matter.

Quality of Life - Part II

 

There are several key terms in the quality of life description Part I...  and, we will explore these one at at time:

1. Position in life
2. context of culture
3. context of value systems
4. goals
5. expectations
6. standards
7. concerns

Position in Life

Basically this revolves around 4 areas:

• lower class
• middle class
• upper class
• wealthy 1%

Each one of these areas has its pros and cons with which we must come to terms and accept.  And, as our economy grows and inflation continues, one day you could be in the middle class and by the end of the year, find yourself in the lower class.

Another interesting fact is that each one of the classes is again sub-divided into 3 classes of upper, middle, and lower.

And, most of the time, you are born into your class and very seldom are able to extract yourself from your position due to the interaction of forces around you over which you have minimal control.

Context of Culture

This is an interesting category because while it revolves around ethnic groups and race, it too is multi-faceted.

Aside from the ethnic groups in which you may belong, there are also regiligious groups as well as geographical groups such as:  east, west, north, south, midwest, etc.

Each of these cultures are different.  In addition, the cultures of each state are different as well including Alaska and Hawaii.

Context of Value Systems

The basic value systems of the United States of America are those that were embedded in our culture at the time of our independence from Great Britain but over time, those value systems have changed.  They were:

• strength of family
• strength of faith and religion
• honesty and integrity
• hard work and loyalty
• respect and sincerity
• always striving forward
• not counting on the government
• no handouts, no welfare
• sense of community
• self defense but not aggression
• self-reliance

From our beginning of the aristocracy and the poor, we built a very strong and courageous middle class and it was the middle class that built this nation with the money from the wealthy...  those who could not keep up with the growth and progress formed our lower class that the rest of us swore to protect.

TO BE CONTINUED...

The Cube

 

Magical Road Trip

Just South of Knoxville, TN and on the way to Pigeon’s Forge and Gatlinburg, this is the perfect place to stay for a long weekend (or more!) while you explore all the area has to offer. I was traveling with four teenagers, so I booked a rental van and struck out for east Tennessee and headed towards the Great Smoky Mountains. The 3 hour, 45 minute drive was pretty scenic and took us through Chattanooga and a time zone change to Eastern Standard Time.

There are lots of places to stop along the way if you like, and we stopped at Goats On the Roof to ride the goat coaster, a one-person mountain coaster that flies an exhilarating 30mph down a 1-mile track. You control your cart using a hand brake and let gravity do the rest! The mountain views are so pretty, and since you can go as fast or as slow as you want it’s great for a variety of ages. Parents can ride with their littles in their lap too! There’s also a kitschy little gift shop, gem mining, ice cream, and a goat petting zoo to enjoy.

After our little pit stop, we headed over to Ancient Lore Village.

The owner and creator had a vision to create a world where people from different backgrounds could live together in peace and harmony in a place where only good, genuine goodness, exists. Sounds fantastic, right? Technically, Ancient Lore Village is a boutique resort and event facility, and the story of how it came to be is fascinating and inspiring.

The first thing you see as you drive through the gates is an enormous waterfall, Boyd Hollow Falls. It’s one of the largest man-made waterfalls in the country, and it’s a breathtaking backdrop. We were there during St. Patrick’s Day and the water was tinted green for the celebrations happening at the Village. All around the falls are places to sit for a meal or just to watch the sun set or rise. At the base is a valley with nature trails to explore.

Right next to the waterfall is Bokee’s Bungalow, a cozy 2-story house fit for a hobbit! This is where we stayed with our group of five, but it can house up to eight people. It’s nestled into the side of a hill, and even has charming grasses shipped in from Ireland growing on the rooftop.  READ MORE...

Suspended

 

Mentally Trapped in Your Past

Summary: Cognitive immobility is a form of mental entrapment that leads to conscious or unconscious efforts to recreate past instances in familiar locations.

Source: The Conversation

If you have moved from one country to another, you may have left something behind – be it a relationship, a home, a feeling of safety or a sense of belonging. Because of this, you will continually reconstruct mental simulations of scenes, smells, sounds and sights from those places – sometimes causing stressful feelings and anxiety.

This describes what I have dubbed “cognitive immobility”, outlined in my new research article, published in Culture & Psychology.

The study used autoethnography, a research method in which the author is also the topic of investigation. The research was partly based on my feelings, thoughts and experiences while living in the UK and Germany, far from my ancestral home in Igbo land, Africa.

Cognitive immobility is a stressful mental entrapment that leads to a conscious or unconscious effort to recreate past incidents in one or more locations that one lived in or visited in the past. By doing so, we are hoping to retrieve what is missing or left behind.

When people cannot remain in locations because of conditions beyond their control, such as a war or family or work commitments, their bodies may physically move to a new world, while their minds are left behind – trapped in the previous location.

Thus, these people might be described as being “cognitively immobilised”. During this time, such individuals may seek consolation through the reconstruction of events or physical movement to the locations that they migrated or departed from.

This may be related to homesickness, but it is actually different. Homesickness is a feeling of longing for a previous home, whereas cognitive immobility is a cognitive mechanic that works on our attention and memory to mentally trap us in a place – whether it is a previous home or just a place we’ve visited.

Our conscious memory (made up of semantic and episodic memories) allows us to remember not just what happened in the past, but also basic knowledge of things around us. Specifically, episodic memory helps us remember or reconstruct events we experienced or events that could have happened in the past but didn’t.

Indeed, research shows that recalling memory is a process of imagination – we often recreate past events in a way that isn’t necessarily accurate, but rather affected by our current beliefs and emotional state. This can make our past look even better than it was.  READ MORE...

Peekaboo

 

More Guns - Less Crime

Calls have rung out across the nation demanding gun control laws in a bid to curb violent crimes such as the recent series of mass shootings. Data, however, show that in states with higher percentages of households with at least one gun, crimes are not higher than in states with strict gun laws.

"Gun ownership is higher in states with fewer restrictions, and homicide rates in these states are lower. People can protect themselves," George Mason University Professor Emerita Joyce Lee Malcolm told Fox News Digital of what she's found through her research. 

Malcolm pointed to a study on burglars from 1986 that found 34% of burglars interviewed reported "to having been scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim."

Fox News Digital compiled FBI data from 2019 detailing murders and gun murders per 100,000 population for most states, as well as assembled Rand Corporation data released in 2020 showing the percentage of households with at least one firearm in 2016. 

The data does not reflect the skyrocketing violent crimes of 2020 and likely undercounts the current percentages of homes with at least one firearm as it does not reflect the influx of Americans who rushed to arm themselves in 2020.  READ MORE...

Bear Loves Ice

 

FOURTH of July Message

 As a retired American first and foremost, I am also a Vietnam Veteran, a southerner, and a Tarheel who is now living in East TN because it is cheaper to live here than most everywhere else...

I am a survivor of a heart attack, a cancer survivor, and a lumbar fusion surgery survivor...  who finally appreciates what this great country of ours has to offer...

FREEDOMS - is really what we have that no other country in the world offers its citizens...

• Freedom to believe
• Freedom to speak out
• Freedom to write and publish
• Freedom to protest
• Freedom to vote
• Freedom to educate
• Freedom to travel freely
• Freedom to work anywhere
• Freedom to own property
• Freedom to acquire debt
• Freedom to exploit skills & abilities
• Freedom to leave the country

United We Stand - Divided We Fall

Currently, we have a divided country primarily because of politics but secondarily because of wealth disparities...

If we continue to allow this division to keep us apart, then we are giving China the perfect opportunity to take away our global economic leadership position...

Our enemy is within, it is outside, and hopefully, we will soon see that and return to our united approach...

At 74 years of age, I trust I will never see the USA lose its position in the world because if it ever goes, then it will be virtually impossible to regain...  arrogance built us and it appears that arrogance will destroy us...

Only the wealthy will survive.

Fireworks

 

The Spirt of '76

The Spirit of '76 is a sentiment explored by Thomas Jefferson. According to the text published at Monticello, "The principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence promised to lead America—and other nations on the globe—into a new era of freedom. The revolution begun by Americans on July 4, 1776, would never end. It would inspire all peoples living under the burden of oppression and ignorance to open their eyes to the rights of mankind, to overturn the power of tyrants, and to declare the triumph of equality over inequality."

Thomas Jewett wrote that at the time of the American Revolution, there was "an intangible something that is known as the 'Spirit of '76.' This spirit was personified by the beliefs and actions of that almost mythical group known as the Founding Fathers, and is perhaps best exemplified by Thomas Jefferson."

Jefferson and the Second Continental Congress believed the Spirit of '76 "included the 'self-evident' truths of being 'created equal' and being 'endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights' including 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'"

According to the New York Times, in a review of What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States:

Jefferson's core conviction was that what might be called "the spirit of '76" had repudiated all energetic expressions of government power, most especially power exercised from faraway places, which included London, Philadelphia or Washington. In terms of domestic policy, he believed the states were sovereign and the federal government established by the Constitution was, as he put it, 'a foreign government.' Marshall's core conviction was that the spirit of '87 had trumped the spirit of '76, transforming the loose confederation of states into a coherent nation guided by a duly elected federal government empowered to make laws for all the American people.

According to the Adam Smith Institute, "The spirit of '76 was animated by the desire for personal freedom, both in our relations with others and in our transactions with them... Ultimately, if Americans are to restore constitutionally limited government instituted to guarantee their personal liberty, then they must revive the Spirit of '76."

History of Independence Day

When the initial battles in the Revolutionary War broke out in April 1775, few colonists desired complete independence from Great Britain, and those who did were considered radical.

By the middle of the following year, however, many more colonists had come to favor independence, thanks to growing hostility against Britain and the spread of revolutionary sentiments such as those expressed in the bestselling pamphlet “Common Sense,” published by Thomas Paine in early 1776.

On June 7, when the Continental Congress met at the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, the Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee introduced a motion calling for the colonies’ independence.

Amid heated debate, Congress postponed the vote on Lee’s resolution, but appointed a five-man committee—including Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Robert R. Livingston of New York—to draft a formal statement justifying the break with Great Britain.

Did you know? 

John Adams believed that July 2nd was the correct date on which to celebrate the birth of American independence, and would reportedly turn down invitations to appear at July 4th events in protest. Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826—the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

On July 2nd, the Continental Congress voted in favor of Lee’s resolution for independence in a near-unanimous vote (the New York delegation abstained, but later voted affirmatively). On that day, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that July 2 “will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival” and that the celebration should include “Pomp and Parade…Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other.”  READ MORE...

Cancal Culture & the 4th of July

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While we struggle with the proper way to socialize around Fourth of July celebrations because of COVID-19, there are questions about what it is that we celebrate. Statues are dismantled, torn down, or moved and there is a reassessment of once-venerated and heroic figures.

So what is it, exactly, that is being celebrated with fireworks and hamburgers? In part, it is the declaration of independence from Great Britain. But the holiday is also meant to honor the document to which people put their signatures and therefore their fortunes and their lives on the line.

The first sentence of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is arguably as well-known as any sentence in the world. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It has served as the clarion call for those seeking freedom and it holds up an ideal that touches the core of what it means to be human.

Shouldn’t every American take pride on this American holiday? Not everyone does today and not everyone has in the past.

In fact, celebrating the colonies’ revolt against the mother country has been contested by blacks in America since the founding of this country. One gap in America’s consciousness is that approximately 3,000 Black Loyalists left on British ships for Canada at the end of the Revolutionary War, mainly formerly enslaved people who chose the British side because it was they who gave them freedom, not the patriots, many of whom were slaveholders.

A similar picture emerged during the second war with Great Britain. Here is an excerpt from my novel, Where We Started, which is based on real events in 1812.

“Frank preached on Freedom Day. The yearly occasion, on the 1st of January, marked the anniversary of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade five years earlier. Since blacks were excluded from participating in the Independence Day commemorations, slaves and free men and women from Delaware to New England shunned Fourth of July as a white man’s holiday.”

While Freedom Day had dropped from importance as a celebration in the African American community, July Fourth remained problematic for many before the Civil War, as this passage by Black abolitionist William Whipper makes clear. “Though the right to be free has been deemed inalienable by this nation, from a period antecedent to the Declaration of Independence, yet a mental fog hovered over this nation on the subject of slavery that had well-nigh sealed her doom, were it not that in the Providence of God a few noble spirits arose in the might of moral power to her rescue.”  READ MORE...

4th of July

The Fourth of July—also known as Independence Day or July 4th—has been a federal holiday in the United States since 1941, but the tradition of Independence Day celebrations goes back to the 18th century and the American Revolution. 

On July 2nd, 1776, the Continental Congress voted in favor of independence, and two days later delegates from the 13 colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence, a historic document drafted by Thomas Jefferson. From 1776 to the present day, July 4th has been celebrated as the birth of American independence, with festivities ranging from fireworks, parades and concerts to more casual family gatherings and barbecues. 

The Fourth of July 2022 is on Monday, July 4, 2022.

Quality of Life - Part I

Quality of life is defined by the World Health
Organization as "an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns". Wikipedia

There are several key terms in the above description...

1. Position in life
2. context of culture
3. context of value systems
4. goals
5. expectations
6. standards
7. concerns

Also, quality of life changes as we grow older as well from adolescence to young adult to middle-aged adult to mature adult to retired adult.

Although it is not directly mentioned, money is a factor in our quality of life as well as our health.

The fact that we seek out education, athletic event, musical concerts, restaurants, vacations, movies, and the theater is an indication, at least indirectly, that we are seeking out more.  Trying to identify and understand the purpose of our quality of life.

For those who can accept their quality of life, they need nothing from the above paragraph...  they are in harmony with their surroundings and with their lives...  they are at peace, they are fulfilled, and they have exactly what they perceive that they need.

All the rest of us are nomads and travelers seeking what we don't have or seeking more of what we do have...  never satisfied, never fulfilled, never content with our quality of life even though we try to enjoy that which we have but do so unsuccessfully.

We mock those who appear content...  saying they are lazy and unmotivated and deserve what they have...  looking down on them as inferior and less intelligent.

Island

 

Bourbon Whiskey

There’s a ton of bourbon out there, folks. So many bottles line shelves that a trip to a liquor store can feel pretty overwhelming. Even pros like me struggle to navigate it and I taste a lot (and I mean a lot) of bourbons every week.

Today, to help you sort the corn from the husk, I’m blind tasting 45 bourbons released over the past 12 months to find the best bourbon EVER…among this bunch. (Sorry, that’s all any test or contest or tasting can try to pin down — the “best taste among the bottles sampled.”) But with so many bottles, this blind test needs structure. 

Here’s how things will go:There are 15 pours per round over three rounds with three categories: straight bourbons (anything average up to and including bottled in bond and wheat or four-grain bourbons), cask strength/barrel proof bourbons, and special cask finished bourbons.

• The top five from each round will move onto the “Finalist” round, creating a new 15-pour set to be tasted blind.
• From the finalists’ round, the top five will move onto the “Championship” round for a final blind tasting.
• Then, I will crown a winner. Shouts to my mother, who poured all of these and kept track of everything.

For clarity’s sake, I did choose the 45 bottles but I did not know which bottles moved forward besides their number in the blind tasting (though I had inklings of what was what after tasting some two or three times). A quick note before we dive in: I’m nosing and tasting through each dram in the first three rounds and going with what jumps out. 

If more than five pours do that, I’ll go back and eliminate pours until five are left by re-nosing and re-tasting (I will not be ranking these pours). In the “finalist” round, I’ll proceed in the same fashion until I’ve whittled it down to a final five (I will not be ranking these pours, either). Finally, in the last round, I’ll be working by a process of elimination by nosing and tasting over and over until a winner is picked. In that elimination run, I’ll rank the bottles.

TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Classic Sunday Morning Newspaper Cartoons