Monthly Archives: December 2011

By now, you have come across Gene Marks’s article “If I were a poor black smart kid”, that was published in Forbes Magazine 12 December 2011.  Let begin by saying that in terms of the actual strategies recommended by Marks … Continue reading →

Since public records can be mistaken, it behooves any company to be extremely careful in supposing that two people are related merely on the basis of public records. Every cardholder should be treated with a modicum of decency. American Express blatantly violates that basic precept by the use to which it puts public records with respect to (some of) its cardholders. Continue reading →

We are rightly suspicious of any man who goes out of his way to spend an inordinate amount of time with children alone. Alas, our mistake has been to think that such behavior is acceptable if the man is married or a priest because no such man would have the sexual desires of pedophile. And my simple point here is that we continue to reason in that very erroneous way. Alas, at this point in time, such erroneous reasoning on our part is downright inexcusable. A 40-somethng unmarried male grasps from the very outset that it simply does not look good for him to have bunch of young boys constantly having out at his home. The odds are, then, that he does not so behave. By contrast, a married man or a priest has reasoned that he has a “cover” for having young boys around. And we as a society have been way too easily pacified by that “cover”. And that makes us part of the problem. Continue reading →

I suggest that Tebow’s simple public display of faith reveals a most admirable level of self-knowledge on this part. To be sure, there are other ways of exhibiting that one has self-knowledge. But such a simple gesture in full public view, given the significant sports accomplishment of a touchdown, is one that has a place in the moral firmament of humanity. Continue reading →

For most people throughout the world, it matters considerably to people that they belong to this or that group or subgroup. So it is for all the talk on the part of people about being individuals. And nothing facilitates this goal like self-deception. People see what they gain and are blind to what they lose. Again, people see what they take to be valid about the group while ignoring entirely what is entirely and obviously indefensible about the group. Continue reading →