March to a Different Drummer

As to immigration - my position: (A) The U.S. should control its southern border. (B) Recent illegal immigrants (up to last five years) should be returned to their country of origin. (C) Illegal immigrants who can prove they have been in the U.S. for over five years, have no criminal record, are fluent in English, and show they are supporting themselves and their family may go through a process that will eventually give them citizenship. (D) Employers of more than 10 illegals should get jail time. My reasoning is three fold: (1) - There is no practical solution I know of that would accomplish a 100% expulsion of illegals. (2) - We have a legal tradition in America of eminent domain and statute of limitations which suggests to me that if we do not take action in response to a transgression within some reasonable time, then the opportunity to take action expires. (3) - We do have a long tradition of being a nation of immigrants and most of us are descendants of immigrants. Regardless of ...

I give Reverend Falwell a lot of credit. His life surely made an impact. And I am satisfied that much of what he did was good and caring and constructive. I am sure his life work has had national and international impact. And as a Virginian, I realize that he is one of our most famous and recognizable citizens. But was he a Christian? And if he was, does that mean that I am not? I grew up in the Southern Baptist tradition, and the church was a refuge for me from as early as I can remember, up through high school and before I was able to leave the dysfunctional family and abuse I experienced throughout childhood. My life then was about trying to be perfect and living with the guilt of not being able to attain it. As a child I went to Sunday School, Sunday worship service, Sunday night service, Wednesday night prayer meetings – I read my Bible regularly and studied more for my Sunday school class than I did for my school subjects. But no one really told me the truth. No one told ...

The following is a letter I wrote to Senator Jim Webb in January. I suppose he is too tied up with learning his new job to reply. Perhaps some readers will find thse suggestions useful - - - - - - - - - - - - Dear Senator Webb, I supported you in your campaign and when you were the guest of the Chesterfield Democratic Committee, of which I am a member, I asked you a question relating to our criminal justice system and the high percentage of incarceration in America. You replied that of all the campaign stops you’d had, this was the first time a question of this nature had been posed and you remarked how your Japan experience had sensitized you to this high statistic in the states. But I write with a suggestion for breaking the impasse on major problems so far not addressed by Congress. The Democrats are off and running on their much flaunted first 100 hours, and I wish them luck. But I haven’t heard a word on what is to follow. May I be so bold as to suggest an approach for the se...

I find it fascinating to see the DNA helix in 3-D and alive and reproducing in a video animation, an artificial depiction of our best level of insight to date. Its zipper like unraveling and then its coded arms searching the sea of amino acids for one of four matching molecules, and presto – reproduction. That’s on the micro level. But on the macro level – our level – there is a continuation by an analogous mechanism. A reproduction that happens where, more or less rare occurrences of contact, under the right circumstances forms a bond, and these occurrences are more probable when the distance is less, the similarities are greater, the experiences similar, the points of view compatible, the areas of interests somewhere overlapping. And a bond is formed – by proximity in family, community, school, and work, and church. In the boy scouts and the softball league; the NAACP and the Urban League. These become denominations, townships, tribes, guilds, trade unions, political parties, go...

It’s over a year and half away but here is the podium on Inauguration Day 2009 President - Hillary Clinton Vice President – Bill Richardson Secretary of State – Joe Biden And reaching across the political divide Secretary of Defense – Colin Powell What arrogance is this to go out on such a limb so early? Well I can tout my bona fides that out of grad school I spent four years in a small corporate planning group reporting to the executive committee of the then world’s largest chemical company, as a futurist and technological forecaster. I could mention my lifelong interest in futurism and strategic planning. Or my heightened political junkiesm in my semi retirement. But truth is this is not based on some formal extrapolative or normative crystal balling – it is entirely an intuitive conclusion and I would be interested in anyone else who is willing to stick their neck out and make an early prediction.

What is R.U.T.? RUT is Ritualized Undertaking of Tasks and it seems to be as characteristic of humans as it is to most of our brother and sister species in the natural evolution – an adaptive behavior that can arguably be assigned as one of the strong indicators of survivability. From the honeybee to the gray squirrel, from the nuthatch to the pacific salmon – all seem to have the predictability of repetitive behavior somehow hardwired in their small or large brains. And undoubtedly we as human animals share in this natural addiction. However, the unique characteristic of our species – consciousness and technological achievement – have catapulted us far from this need for natural discipline and we tend to applaud and revere those who do escape this prehistoric tendency and rise above the strong urge for ritualized behaviors. However, there remains some comfort in this normalcy – some security in the way we make or don’t make our beds, the compulsion to order and arrangement, the ri...

There is an unwise movement in our midst to retaliate against NBC for their making public the mailing they received from the Virginia Tech killer. This movement’s argument is that this release will somehow both give notoriety to the killer and prompt others to follow his example. They propose a nationwide boycott to punish NBC and to prevent further examples of this in the future. I strongly object to their methods. My objection is that this approach of boycott is completely unbalanced in that it narrowly focuses in on one specific network event. They seem not to take the entirety of NBC news in balance. Their approach, if logically followed could say that a newspaper that printed a Cho photo is just as liable for boycott. Or the 7-Eleven that sold that newspaper issue could reasonably expect picketing. This type of boycott can ultimately chill our free press. It can be worse than the tyranny of the majority. It becomes the tyranny of the minority. The news, as they have agreed, is co...