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The Greatest Moment in the History of the Universe
Well, no. It wasn’t.
But to hear Ann Coulter tell it, it was awfully close.
Just to be clear, this has nothing to do with politics. Hardly anyone thinks that Donald Trump’s immigration plan is viable, no matter how much it may appeal to hardliners. It probably would require a constitutional amendment, it would certainly take half a century and over 100 billion dollars to implement, and it would effectively make Mr. Trump unelectable — if he isn’t already.
But none of that is the point.
What is absolutely clear, beyond any doubt or debate is this: Donald Trump’s plan is not the greatest political document since the Magna Carta.
No matter what Ms. Coulter says.
This is the same kind of irresponsible hyperbole that turns every ideological opponent into a Nazi, a terrorist, a rapist, or a child molester. It shows the same kind of disregard for history that led Ms. Coulter to attempt to resurrect Joseph McCarthy as a fallen hero in place of the paranoid pit-viper that he was. And it’s the same kind of disregard for language and reality that allowed Al Sharpton to laud Bill Clinton as “the first black president,” that enabled Bill Clinton to redefine the word “is,” and that lies at the heart of the political correctness that Ms. Coulter herself (correctly) abhors.
To brand every antagonist a Nazi is to devalue the horror of the Holocaust and to insult its millions of victims. To call newspaper columnists and television hosts terrorists shows a vile lack of empathy for the victims of 9/11 and Oklahoma City. And to suggest any comparison between the Magna Carta and a political platform that is 90% grandstanding and 10% policy is to muddy the waters of logic and reason whey both are clouded enough already.
What an insult to the Summa Theologica, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, and the Emancipation Proclamation. What a mockery of political history.
“Words, words, words,” wrote William Shakespeare. When we don’t respect them, when we twist them to gain cheap rhetoric advantage without regard for accuracy or authenticity, we become complicit in accelerating the Orwellian doublethink that is already eating away at the civil discourse that is the foundation of a functioning democracy.
Channeling Anger and Solving our Common Problems
My thanks to Dan Mason of KKOH in Reno for inviting me to be a guest on his show. We talked about the anger driving voters, resolving conflict, and transforming negatives into positives.
Email of the Week — Making “Friends”
Presently, I am trying to make friends outside of Facebook while applying the principles of Facebook.
So every day I walk down on the street and tell the passers-by what I have eaten, how I feel, what I did yesterday and what I will do tomorrow.
Then I give them pictures of my family, of my dog, and of me gardening and spending time in my pool. I also listen to their conversations and I tell them I love them.
And it works. I already have 3 persons following me:
2 police officers and a psychiatrist.
What is happiness, and how do we get it?
Order on Amazon today.
Proverbial Beauty, a new book on how to achieve happiness and success, offers a practical guide to changing our outlooks and our fortunes. Here’s an excerpt:
In a single, ringing phrase, Thomas Jefferson captured the essence of the American dream when he declared that all men have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And yet, despite Mr. Jefferson’s noble sentiments and laudable achievements, the enduring lyricism of his words spawned an epidemic of confusion and despondency that continues to spread like pestilence through western society.
How precisely does one pursue happiness? We may pursue wealth, pursue fame, pursue gratification of one form or another. But the fiction of pursuing happiness has become a collective obsession that consumes our lives, either by goading us into chasing impossible dreams or by tarnishing the quality of our existence with unwarranted regrets.
Before we set off in pursuit of anything, we ought to know what it is and how to get it. Like many other words and expressions, we toss about the word “happiness” without really knowing what we mean. The definition seems obvious, but the inconvenient truth is that we really have no idea what we’re talking about.
So what is happiness, and how does one get it?
Read the whole excerpt here:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0815/Goldson_pursuit_of_happiness.php3
The Miracle of Music
Why do the human mind and heart respond so passionately to an arrangement of sounds and words that provide absolutely no tangible or evolutionary benefit? The answer reveals much about ourselves and the world we live in.
We spend much of our lives looking and hoping for miracles. But the greatest miracle of all is right before our eyes: nature itself, the seamless fusion of all the forces of the world into a unified, unvarying system.
Science itself testifies to this: the principle of entropy, intrinsic to Newton’s second law of thermodynamics, describes the natural state of the universe as tending always toward disorder. In other words, nature’s law cannot account for the laws of nature, cannot explain the original ordering of the natural world that produced the immutable regularity of nature itself. What greater testimony to intelligent design can one find than the unnatural, persistent order evident in every aspect of the workings of Creation?
But what does this have to do with music?
Read the whole article here: http://www.learning-mind.com/the-miracle-of-music-how-sounds-affect-the-human-mind-and-heart/
Email of the Week — The Haircut
Blessed are those that can give without remembering, and take without forgetting.
One day a florist went to the barber for a haircut. When the barber finished he said to the florist, “I can’t take your money: I’m doing community service this week.” The florist was pleased and left the shop.
When the barber went to open his shop the next morning, there was a Thank You card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.
Later, a policeman came in for a haircut. When he tried to pay his bill, the barber again explained, “I can’t take your money: I’m doing community service this week.” The officer was happy and left the shop.
The next morning when the barber went to open up, there was a Thank You card and a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.
Then a Congressman came in for a haircut. “I can’t take your money,” said the barber once again. “I’m doing community service this week.” The Congressman was very happy and left the shop.
The next morning, when the barber went to open up, there were a dozen Congressmen lined up waiting for a free haircut.
And that, my friends, illustrates the fundamental difference between the citizens of our country and the politicians who run it.
As Mark Twain said:
Both politicians and diapers need to be changed often, and for the same reason.
Hat tip: Mom and Ginny Harrigan
Embrace Illusion
We see what we want. We don’t see what’s right in front of us. We need to learn how to look if we want to see what we’ve been missing.
Time — 4:13
A Letter to Every Senate Democrat
Dear Senator,
The president’s deal with Iran will make the world safer. That’s what President Obama has told us. But there are no facts to support his claim.Not only has Iran has repeatedly violated UN resolutions, but the administration and other governments may have worked to conceal those violations. Iran has declared its intent to destroy the United States — the Great Satan. The demands upon Iran are minimal, temporary, and unverifiable. Even before the ink is dry, Iran is violating the treaty with Maj. Gen. Ghasem Soleimani’s trip to Russia. Iran will only grow more brazen, because its leaders know that they will not be held accountable by a weak president and an international community in denial.
Senator, this deal is built on a fantasy. The lessons of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement are written on the monuments to the martyrs of the Holocaust and World War II. The lessons of Jimmy Carter’s appeasement treaty are written on the nuclear arsenal of North Korea. Do we really want to risk the world’s future so that Barack Obama and John Kerry can claim a fictitious victory that is worse than useless?
You don’t have to be Thomas Jefferson to recognize that you can’t make peace with people who don’t want to make peace with you. Do you really want your name appended to the list of Obama loyalists who will choose politics over common sense?
Acquire the Gift of Giving
When she was 8 years old, Lara Aknin convinced her little brother to trade his dimes for her nickels. It was an easy sell… after all, nickels are bigger and must therefore be worth more.
Now a psychologist at Canada’s Simon Fraser University, Dr. Aknin has discovered a mistake more profound than youthful embezzlement: in truth, her motivation itself was built on a misunderstanding of human nature.
In an interview with NPR’s Shankar Vendatam, Dr. Aknin describes the experiment in which her team asked toddlers to feed candies to hand-puppets which, they were told, would really enjoy the treats. Considering that these children were still too young to have absorbed any cultural awareness of giving as a value, the results produced two surprises. Explains Dr. Aknin:
“Children smiled significantly more when they were giving treats away than when they received the treats themselves. But what we thought was particularly exciting was that children actually smiled significantly more when they gave away one of their own treats than an identical treat provided by the experimenter.”
In other words, the greatest feelings of joy may come from giving up that which we treasure the most.
But does the impulse remain as we grow into adulthood?
The Orchestra of Mankind
Find tranquility in the midst of conflict. Develop attitudes that deepen relationships. Gain clarity through times of darkness and confusion. Decrease cynicism and find joy in the daily miracles that fill our lives.
Yonason Goldson 