THE EARTHIAN, Number Twenty-Six, December 4, 2021, Effective Learning Publications, https://effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-publications/ 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA, Editor & Publisher, The Effective Learning Report.
THE EARTHIAN is a monthly digest of articles written by free-thinking truth-seeking critical-thinking hard-hitting independent writers containing facts, perspectives, theories, models, analyses, and recommendations concerned about psychological, moral, ethical, philosophical, social, economic, political, military, religious, and ecological states of affairs affecting the existential well-being of all species of fauna and flora around Spaceship Earth.
To comment about this issue of The Earthian or any article included as SOURCE READING scroll to the top of this page and click on the prompt for ELR Editor’s Daily Shares. Write your comment at the top of the page or at the bottom of the specific article you want to comment about.
“ASK LESS WHAT YOUR NATION CAN DO FOR YOU—ASK MORE WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR SPACESHIP EARTHâ€
Individuals Are Not to Praise or Blame for How Earthian Economic, Social, and Political States of Affairs Evolve
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
By ROUT LOGGER
John Lennon and The Beatles had an international hit with a song titled All You Need is Love that made a lot of Earthian humans temporarily happier listening to it. But almost nothing could be further from the truth. While it’s hard to imagine Earthian humans getting too much love they can live without it, maybe not happily or healthily, but they can live a good while without it. Things like oxygen, water, and food are far more important. According to the existential rule of three, humans can live for about three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, and three weeks without food.
Another Brit, Mick Jagger, used to sing a song lamenting, “I can’t get no sat-is-fak-shun,†which is hard to believe, especially in his case, but there is no doubt a lot of Earthian humans are not satisfied with their lives. By some estimates about half the human population of the US are unsatisfied with their lives, primarily their economic and political states of affairs. They’re probably a majority percentage of the Repug and Dem Parties in the US. They’re angry, polarized, discombobulated, and agitated. An increasing percentage of the politicians they vote for are angry power-mad semi-literate narcissistic egomaniacs like Donald Trump; and some of them like Trump seem to have some money. But no matter how much money they get their hands on it is never enough. Nothing ever seems to satisfy them, even power. No matter how much power they get their hands on it too is never enough.
Success and satisfaction for most Earthian humans would entail receiving love and at least the necessities of life—breathable air, drinkable water, and adequate food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and medical care. In general success and satisfaction are caused by problems getting solved and goals and objectives being achieved. Winner-survivors achieve goals and objectives and loser-survivors do not, regardless of how tough and unfair, uncontrolled, and poorly-managed Earthian states of affairs are, and always have been.
How to help Not-OK Earthian loser-survivors become winner-survivors is one of the toughest problems around Spaceship Earth. How to help Spaceship Earth itself become a winner-planet is a far tougher problem.
One can build a case there is such a thing as existential OKness. How OK are Earthian humans with respect to existential threats such as global warming and climate change, militarization, and nuclear weapons development and proliferation? Most likely Earthian human existential OKness is now at its lowest level since human-like creatures evolved on Earth about one million years ago. Innumerable Earthian human tribes and groups have faced imminent threats of extinction through time, and some did become extinct—the Galapagos Islanders come to mind—but most likely never in their history have Earthian humans en masse faced a probability of total annihilation caused by human-caused forces as high as it is now.
Following is an excerpt from the 2021 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Statement, by John Mecklin, Editor. Read the full statement at https://thebulletin.org/ doomsday-clock/current-time/.
“Editor’s note: Founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The Doomsday Clock is set every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 13 Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies in other domains.
“Humanity continues to suffer as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads around the world. In 2020 alone, this novel disease killed 1.7 million people and sickened at least 70 million more. The pandemic revealed just how unprepared and unwilling countries and the international system are to handle global emergencies properly. In this time of genuine crisis, governments too often abdicated responsibility, ignored scientific advice, did not cooperate or communicate effectively, and consequently failed to protect the health and welfare of their citizens.
“As a result, many hundreds of thousands of human beings died needlessly.
“Though lethal on a massive scale, this particular pandemic is not an existential threat. Its consequences are grave and will be lasting. But COVID-19 will not obliterate civilization, and we expect the disease to recede eventually. Still, the pandemic serves as a historic wake-up call, a vivid illustration that national governments and international organizations are unprepared to manage nuclear weapons and climate change, which currently pose existential threats to humanity, or the other dangers—including more “virulent pandemics and next-generation warfare— that could threaten civilization in the near future.
“Accelerating nuclear programs in multiple countries moved the world into less stable and manageable territory last year. Development of hypersonic glide vehicles, ballistic missile defenses, and weapons- delivery systems that can flexibly use conventional or nuclear warheads may raise the probability of miscalculation in times of tension. Events like the deadly assault earlier this month on the US Capitol renewed legitimate concerns about national leaders who have sole control of the use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear nations, however, have ignored or undermined practical and available diplomatic and security tools for managing nuclear risks. By our estimation, the potential for the world to stumble into nuclear war—an ever-present danger over the last 75 years—increased in 2020. An extremely dangerous global failure to address existential threats—what we called “the new abnormal†in 2019—tightened its grip in the nuclear realm in the past year, increasing the likelihood of catastrophe.
“Governments have also failed to sufficiently address climate change. A pandemic-related economic slowdown temporarily reduced the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming. But over the coming decade fossil fuel use needs to decline precipitously if the worst effects of climate change are to be avoided. Instead, fossil fuel development and production are projected to increase. Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations hit a record high in 2020, one of the two warmest years on record. The massive wildfires and catastrophic cyclones of 2020 are illustrations of the major devastation that will only increase if governments do not significantly and quickly amplify their efforts to bring greenhouse gas emissions essentially to zero.
“As we noted in our last Doomsday Clock statement, the existential threats of nuclear weapons and climate change have intensified in recent years because of a threat multiplier: the continuing corruption of the information ecosphere on which democracy and public decision-making depend. Here, again, the COVID-19 pandemic is a wake-up call. False and misleading information disseminated over the internet—including misrepresentation of COVID-19’s seriousness, promotion of false cures, and politicization of low-cost protective measures such as face masks—created social chaos in many countries and led to unnecessary death. This wanton disregard for science and the large-scale embrace of conspiratorial nonsense—often driven by political figures and partisan media—undermined the ability of responsible national and global leaders to protect the security of their citizens. False conspiracy theories about a “stolen†presidential election led to rioting that resulted in the death of five people and the first hostile occupation of the US Capitol since 1814.
“In 2020, online lying literally killed.
“Considered by themselves, these negative events in the nuclear, climate change, and disinformation arenas might justify moving the clock closer to midnight. But amid the gloom, we see some positive developments. The election of a US president who acknowledges climate change as a profound threat and supports international cooperation and science-based policy puts the world on a better footing to address global problems. For example, the United States has already announced it is rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Biden administration has offered to extend the New START arms control agreement with Russia for five years. In the context of a post-pandemic return to relative stability, more such demonstrations of renewed interest in and respect for science and multilateral cooperation could create the basis for a safer and saner world.â€
Read “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc,†for some management science ideas on how Earthian humans might eventually evolve and co-construct an economic system that is viable and satisfying for everyone aboard Spaceship Earth, making it possible for all Earthian humans to develop an I’m OK—You’re OK life position.
This might entail Earthian humans peacefully reducing through natural attrition the human population aboard Spaceship Earth, never doing work that machines can do better, and delegating the day-to-day management of systems for scheduling, producing, and distributing the necessities of life to artificial intelligence programs and supercomputers.
This is possible based on the general algorithmic matrix algebra form
Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi
explained in “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.†at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-evolution-of-spaceship-earth-inc/
Riding aboard an airliner about to land at night moving at four hundred miles an hour at thirty thousand feet with heavy thick clouds, rain, high wind, and lightening below, which would you rather have setting the direction, speed, and angle of descent of the plane, the plane’s auto-pilot, radar, and computer system or the pilot and co-pilot, seeing nothing out their windows below but clouds and lightning?
The main reason why turning over the scheduling, production, and distribution of the necessities of life to AI robots and magnum computers is the best hope for Earthian humans is that they do not get greedy and power hungry and play psychological Games like Earthian humans in high places do. Thus far in human history most leaders running large organizations such as nations, large corporations, and big banks have become corrupt one way or another playing psychological Games and acting out their selfish life scripts, hogging as much power and money as they could get their hands on for themselves and their cronies. Whatever their limitations and possible problems, AI robots and algorithmic computers are not egotistical.
Buckminster Fuller explained in his book Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth the airplane-landing metaphor in the above paragraph and planted seeds for other ideas in the essay “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.,†such as computers being the best hope for mankind and humans not doing work machines can do better, being paid to think instead with what Fuller called mind grants. Fuller said unemployment all around Spaceship Earth could be eliminated overnight with mind grants. Apparently Fuller was the inventor of the appellations Earthian and Spaceship Earth.
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Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning has not been a best seller but it has had some impact as this review in the Texas Tribune shows at https://www.texastribune.org/2016/10/26/bookshelf-oct-26-2016/?fbclid=IwAR3ctGFk_zCH5QOyvLjqUiulkAcEPUQ4deUq1-tZIS6OuwaYhI-bmrM4Ebw . A German orthopedic surgeon discounted the book with a customer review based on argumentum ad hominem insinuations at Amazon.com at https://www.amazon.com/Business-Voyages-Schemata-Discovering-Co-Constructing/dp/1413480810 lowering it from a five-star to a three-star Amazon rating. The orthopedic doctor said the author did not “come across†like a real transactional analyst and the book promised more than it delivered. The Kirkus review in the Texas Tribune in this post is fair and accurate. Both reviews comment on admittedly a debatable issue with Born to Learn: Is the book useful only for teachers and students in classrooms or for all teachers and learners in all kinds of groups and organizations, including parents and children in homes, bosses and employees in businesses, preachers and Sunday school teachers and members in churches, etc.? Is it useful for leaders and members who teach and learn in all groups and organizations—civic clubs, chambers of commerce, street gangs, military units, and governments? The Earthian asserts it can be useful in all organizations and groups and can help increase Earthian human OKness. Read both reviews and write a review of Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning. The more reviews the better.
Read As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases listed below as the first Source citation for this issue of The Earthian, also published by Effective Learning Publications, that shows how transactional analysis can be used in a novel painting a picture of Earthian states of affairs.
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SOURCE READING FOR THIS ISSUE OF THE EARTHIAN
December 4, 2021
As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases, by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING PUBLICATIONS, 344 pages, published October 16, 2021, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/…/as-the…/1140476381.
This experience and research-based novel is a mostly fictional re-ordering and rendering of Earthian human cause-effect situations and processes experienced by the author. Any resemblance between fictional characters cast herein and real humans is coincidental, with the notable exception of Rout Logger, the protagonist of the story. Readers must willingly suspend disbelief here and there reading this book, as it mixes facts with fiction in some passages. Although novels are supposed to be imaginary fake news, Ernest Hemingway said some are “truer than true.”
This novel was written from a third person omniscient perspective as if it might have been recorded, thought up, and written as a case by an alien from outer space who had somehow learned some Transactional Analysis lingo such as I’m OK-You’re OK; OKness; Life Positions; Parent, Adult, and Child ego states; Transactions; Strokes; Games; Time Structuring Patterns; Life Scripts; and Rackets, as first defined and prescribed by Eric Berne, MD during 1957-1970.
If you want to know more about what these TA words signify when used in a passage in this novel you can find definitions of them with an internet search. Just add the words transactional analysis to OKness, Ego States, Transactions, Games, Scripts, etc. in the search bar of a computer browser so Google or any search engine will know what kind of OKness, transactions, games, scripts, rackets, etc. you are researching, although anyone who knows ordinary English can read and generally understand this novel with no researching of transactional analysis jargon.
Two major purposes of this novel are to paint a literary picture of psychological, social, economic, religious, political, educational, and philosophical states of affairs, primarily in the United States of America, but also around Spaceship Earth, that are impeding the creation of necessary changes for achieving Earthian human sustainability, and to sell a story about a new computer-based democratic Game- Free Adult-Adult I’m OK-You’re OK tv and internet live-streaming discussion system that might help save Earthian humans from annihilation caused by global warming or nuclear war.
December 2
Sounds right to me
“Harvard Tells Us Young Americans are Increasingly Hopeful…Really?,†by Bruce E. Levine, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/01/harvard-tells-us-young-americans-are-increasingly-hopeful-really/?fbclid=IwAR0y3GcbwRKiQjV6RSWs_iCEb6dXkUyeS9ACRPVR9gyuTS7QT0IC17CxRPY.
December 2
Over and over it happens
“Libre Party and Presidential Candidate Xiomara Castro Win Big in Honduras Elections,†by W. T. Whitney, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/02/libre-party-and-presidential-candidate-xiomara-castro-win-big-in-honduras-elections/.
December 2
And now they’re chained to their cell phones
“5G Cell Towers: How the Game is Played,†by David Rosen, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/02/5g-cell-towers-how-the-game-is-played/?fbclid=IwAR28P5boS-B8rnXpPv1G9tO5nssZBV2KToRENF7ObB2R__96vlvQ3TsRTkc.
December 2
Afraid it’s so
“Climate Justice Doesn’t Start With Politicians. It Starts in the Streets,†by C. J. Polychroniou, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/climate-justice-doesnt-start-with-politicians-it-starts-in-the-streets/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0iGYV6V1o-kWaI6cYoa1B74QwYozSB3FC5V0YQYwROxvV2t2yAXzjRQ0U.
November 30
Here we go
“Abortion rights at stake in historic Supreme Court arguments,†by Mark Sherman and Jessica Gresko, AP NEWS, https://apnews.com/article/abortion-donald-trump-us-supreme-court-health-amy-coney-barrett-a3b5cf9621315e6c623dc80a790842d8?fbclid=IwAR3dzg1q0qEGoAI_GO0NVf5oEv5AJfogp1AFQ3zJOcjppCeRipzgVQrErO8.
November 30
Interesting
“Jack Dorsey’s Twitter resignation is really about bitcoin,†by Benjamin Pimentel, PROTOCOL, https://www.protocol.com/fintech/jack-dorsey-bitcoin-crypto-twitter?fbclid=IwAR1A1BgulG6Ggcj63WuxmD28YPpsUQ6gugXivNOMR7-pCidSrYZ2-LeyR1Y.
November 29
Oh really?
“Now He Tells Us: David Brooks Suggests That the Republican Party Has Embraced Fascism,†by Chuck Churchill, COUNRTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/29/now-he-tells-us-david-brooks-suggests-that-the-republican-party-has-embraced-fascism/?fbclid=IwAR2o_RaREMkM6WDe6NFETGhuX3ddH9MC3BIrrsUBvmBwJV_NES4-UFXfvmY.
November 29
Say it is so Joe
“The Race For Nuclear Fusion is Going Private,†OILPRICE.COM, https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Race-For-Nuclear-Fusion-Is-Going-Private.html?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=fb_repost&fbclid=IwAR1nJ6lV-Cj9a6tlCaaxM2DiB63ilI0HDaohyZwTfj-Z7V8ni23fGE6AEcc.
November 29
Wish we Usians had a real democracy like the Swiss
“Some 62% of Swiss voters back Swiss COVID-19 law – govt,†REUTERS, https://news.trust.org/item/20211128154926-fvqg1/?fbclid=IwAR30HyO8nYguAAq66tgYMm2kJVJ0yXdCMMwgEYxLn5wZ10cfPbtnizNT764.
November 22
Probably not
“Will the CIA’s JFK Assassinated-Related Records Ever Get Released?,†by Jacob G. Hornberger, THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM FOUNDATION, https://www.fff.org/2021/11/11/will-the-cias-jfk-assassinated-related-records-ever-get-released/?fbclid=IwAR3BAF9aOH20EqxNJrax2FadJCAK_iZGd1RDTkTYUNLnDu80Ixqv1XVlrok.
Nobember 22
I used to see a lot of pigeons flying around as a child. A lot of farms had flocks of them that nested in barns and sheds. But no more. I have not seen a flock of pigeons flying around in quite a while. A friend and I used to catch and pet them in a barn on his family farm at night with flashlights. Shine a light in their eyes and you could go right up to them. They were gentle and seemingly unafraid when you picked them up.
“How do pigeons navigate? It’s not the tiny iron balls in their ears,†by James Gaines, ABC NEWS, https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/pigeons-navigate-tiny-iron-balls-ears/story?id=81300896&fbclid=IwAR09hzT6h3BUUDDAKygrrB9UsAPCtT_2mRkyBumU5-tJXcWpG3guI_TF-w4.
November 15
Tragic alright
“The Tragic Cycle of Bottled Water,†by JP Sottile, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/the-tragic-cycle-of-bottled-water/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3G0TaFrVfigBbka9U12N4GsY_zhLAL5bMiE2sZ0D8lCGBFKZNmt7FPRj4.
November 14
Why is it stand-up comics are among the most truthful humans around?
“What Are the Prospects for Peace? An Interview With Lee Camp,†by John Rachel, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/15/what-are-the-prospects-for-peace-an-interview-with-lee-camp/?fbclid=IwAR1hTBI-5Mb4wHtlzdDaNriDj0weW0Okq_QVMoRIP0ag4C7NJ37HlfPSGxM.
November 12
Another great article by Eve Ottenberg about existential threats of Earthian humans and some efforts around Spaceship Earth to deal with them.
“Facing Climate Collapse at the Eleventh Hour,†by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.facebook.com/richard.stapleton.397.
November 12
And besides that the sky is falling
“A Dystopian Hellscape Beckons: 21 Dark Clouds Over 2021 Amerika,†by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/12/a-dystopian-hellscape-beckons-21-dark-clouds-over-2021-amerika/?fbclid=IwAR1n_UFukUINgx_b80SE8lH-_n2DTEg7RkT2KbdZB5L6avb5WA2jy_dV8Ig.
November 12
Because it has one of the angriest, most hate-filled, most bigoted, most prejudiced, most hubristic, most chauvinistic, and most polarized populations of any country
“People Worldwide Name US as a Major Threat to World Peace. Here’s Why,†by C. J. Polychroniou, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/people-worldwide-name-us-as-a-major-threat-to-world-peace-heres-why/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1QF9UKgUVYbh0zaCvn-3vUtGx-1j49qhNLfCmPayKkCJGeoi6bC4b_RoQ.
November 10
Not a good sign. Can you believe people are loaning their hard earned or inherited or won or received or bribed or swindled or extorted or stolen money to the federal government for thirty years at the rate of 2.0492 percent per year, a rate that was up dramatically yesterday from its low, caused by fewer ordinary investors wanting to buy treasury bills and notes? If this yield rise was catastrophic imagine what would happen if the yield got back up to six percent or so, a more or less normal interest rate for fixed income investments? How many units of funny money would the USian federal reserve system have to keystroke into their computers to buy US treasury instruments and loan to large corporations to keep USian bond and stock markets at high prices then? Would it be appropriate for the Fed Reserve system to keystroke into its computers this much funny money? If not how far could bond and stock markets fall? And how much would the Fed govt budget deficit swell because of the US treasury borrowing this much funny money, while paying yearly exponentially-increasing interest on its debt, while it meets its yearly military and civilian payroll?
“We Have A Tantrum: 30 Year Treasury Auction is Catastrophic,†by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/we-have-tantrum-30-year-treasury-auction-catastrophic?fbclid=IwAR1vUj1k4QnUKFZfwpy7oSPRp_eX8EktFi5ndRxXkppOYHww-c0rRM5Z0IA.
November 10
Not only the news but politics itself is becoming more and more a form of game show entertainment.
“Brian Williams Leaving MSNBC and NBC Next Month, Follows Rachael Maddow Plan to Leave Daily Show,†by Roger Friedman, SHOWBIZ 411, https://www.showbiz411.com/2021/11/09/brian-williams-leaving-msnbc-and-nbc-next-month-follows-rachel-maddow-plan-to-leave-daily-show?fbclid=IwAR0rcagqUU13aqm2IoBl5REGgHd29iXi07RRl-l6E1syJ8PD1nWfeubylQk.
November 10
Sounds like a good idea
“China, US pledge to increase cooperation at UN climate talks,†by Seth Borenstein, Ellen Knickmeyer and Frank Jordans, AP NEWS, https://apnews.com/article/climate-science-united-nations-glasgow-europe-1203ed9bfccfc13869d81d90fb368857?fbclid=IwAR07T-PMlkhJv2phiwlzr__0ATDnAeKU2wOhEgiDAChYJTswVbhvS45b6U4.
November 10
And yet USian stock markets keep reaching all-time highs
“US food banks struggle to feed hungry amid surging prices,†by Jane Har, AP NEWS, https://apnews.com/article/food-banks-hunger-inflation-a3d8f4ed0c4842fc3927710f11207c9e?fbclid=IwAR1vNRjRizAN3oOYF7-fNKR-caFOA2u19yw1AgMgAWa6etgABCC11tJMEWM.
November 7
This is not the end of individual reforms for the Dem party, but it is the end of the illusion that Biden will significantly reform the Dem party. Money is talking louder than usual these days in Washington and more and more Dem politicians are being rewarded by the Dem party for being bought off by their rich donors, Senators Manchin and Sinema being the leading examples. Meanwhile rich USians keep getting richer and poor USians poorer. The charade that the US is a democracy, not an oligarchy, is becoming clearer and clearer in the minds of most USians. Is the USian military intelligence complex actually running the show? Earthians need a new and better third political party in the US. This is a must read article by Michael Hudson, the greatest economist alive.
“Is This the End of the Unreformable Democratic Party?,†by Michael Hudson, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/05/is-this-the-end-of-the-unreformable-democratic-party/?fbclid=IwAR3pgYOlVuE3nTYH_1cNsRRh22wjQB5X_Nxh-MJ-nh4C8X7N0NTr7XLGOv0.
November 7
Sad, scary, and corrupt
“Chomsky: Build Back Better Fiasco Exposes How Both Parties Serve Corporate Power,†by C. J. Polychroniou, COUNTERPUNCH, https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-build-back-better-fiasco-exposes-how-both-parties-serve-corporate-power/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR34IZFBGP-Df1bKu2bqmIPw6CbwMDeoUxu6dmR2F4D3RSqfkbE6xOBLHmE.
November 7
Insanity run amok
“Republicans Urge Biden To Send US Troops to Ukraine To ‘Deter Russian Invasion’,†by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/republicans-urge-biden-send-us-troops-more-weapons-ukraine-amid-russian-invasion?fbclid=IwAR2kSSUsBbSHN9RNpADo9wPno9MzvEKC2vSc6Korc6uIf9uXhYA_KyEgIJg.
November 7
Who knows
“Did The Fed Just Set The Stock Market Up For A Crash,†by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/did-fed-just-set-stock-market-crash?fbclid=IwAR2QcNKPGBgFocyMG8ejjxzxMAB2jppLgBJ0aISU-2S3f3roVQ1JSs3Zi7k.
November 7
Wish ‘em luck. If this ever happens it will be a giant step toward achieving real sustainability for all Earthian humans.
“U.S. zero-carbon fusion energy startup Helion raises $500 mln,†by Jane Lanhee Lee, REUTERS, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-zero-carbon-fusion-energy-startup-helion-raises-500-mln-2021-11-05/?fbclid=IwAR09hzT6h3BUUDDAKygrrB9UsAPCtT_2mRkyBumU5-tJXcWpG3guI_TF-w4.
November 6
Three cheers for Biden on Afghanistan. Let us grieve for him and Spaceship Earth, and hope he survives his decision to get USians out of Afghanistan, the right thing to do in my opinion. I voted for Biden as the lesser evil and was unimpressed with his character and record. I may have been wrong. He has far more courage and backbone than I imagined. Are we already living in a military dictatorship? And congratulations to Biden on the infrastructure bill, another step in the right direction for USian civilians.
“Biden Defied the Military Establishment: Is the Kennedy-Nixon Rule Still in Effect,†by Paul Ryder, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/05/biden-defied-the-military-establishment-is-the-kennedy-nixon-rule-still-in-effect/?fbclid=IwAR3ylQ6mE8tNwsiw_-T4d44j0HSxN8qW1NMtOwz-4oyBNx9UQph4UNiIrZo.
November 4
A complex analysis
“Frogs slow-boiling in their pans,†by Alastair Crooke, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/34153?fbclid=IwAR12gYRxi6-8iJysRwXUCLeftUh7y63zrIfLNeeczU9vw8HESXSPIS7H0SY.
November 4
Hard to make sense of it all
“Here is The Fed’s Taper Implementation Note,†by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/here-feds-taper-implementation-note?fbclid=IwAR1rFoq4vhn-GndKPYdVYzDNSaanEhT8N7Js_XccrjCKt11wYiCVtwSKAbI.
November 2
Sadistic injustice for Assange up to now according to this article
“Justice For Assange is Justice For All,†by John Pilger, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/02/justice-for-assange-is-justice-for-all/?fbclid=IwAR3YwZSqaLJoZnJ0Ww47UnUoZLtNyK3sVIfpKxmVtq3tm4Hn-o0I4JxM28c.
November 2
Agree
“’On Liberty’ – Judge Learned Hand’s Wisdom from 1944 More True Today,†by Ralph Nader, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/01/on-liberty-judge-learned-hands-wisdom-from-1944-more-true-today/?fbclid=IwAR2EExJR9tLeQs4udBzZvNdjChthoNMSPF6mzx0m_dLBh4yj6-28JbeOUYM.
November 1
Sad and scary well said right on article by Richard Wolff. Could not agree more in general. Wolff is one of the smartest and best economists alive and an excellent writer. But he still falls into a bit of hubris in the article in a place or two by referring to the USian empire as the American empire. USians are not the only Americans, and America includes far more territory than the Earthian territory included in the longitudes and latitudes conquered from Indians and governed by the US of A in North America. There are three American continents, north, central, and south; and the US comprises only about forty percent of the population of the three continents. On the other hand, empires could care less about what the territory it controls one way or another is called. A more appropriate term for the USian military industrial intelligence money and banking complex would be the USian Empire.
“Why the Troubled U.S. Empire Could Quickly Fall Apart,†by Richard D. Wolff, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/01/why-the-troubled-u-s-empire-could-quickly-fall-apart/?fbclid=IwAR0Ybl3xX60zeYQGLv4wLB2Rxgm7A_x6A7wSu1q5yZ6hW8CXa3e2jh0sl-Y.
November 1
Afraid he’s right
“On Mass Political Inattention,†by Paul Street, COUNTERUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/29/on-mass-political-inattention/?fbclid=IwAR0jToyFJQqshJAq4jAR3OKG1f-eojpe8d0PA8X5_HYjTH0AfaGRevxkihw.
November 1
Say it aint so Joe
“Class War Heats Up,†by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/29/class-war-heats-up/?fbclid=IwAR0Jga1ASj625RnhKeb_eUvUMKw7rVu-wqrphe3tpYk_jPwY174VLvDIoN4.
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ABOUT THE EDITOR
Here’s Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA in his office at Georgia Southern University the year he retired in 2005, the senior professor of the university that year. The photo was shot by Lori Grice, a former student, founder of Lori Grice Photography.
The object under his left hand is a Classroom De- Gamerâ„¢ he invented in 1978.
He would spin the spinner of the De-Gamer in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for that day, a case taken from a real business prepared by professional casewriters at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama. Grades were based eighty percent on class participation; the rest of the final grade was based on two case write-ups. One write-up was either a comprehensive analysis of a publicly-traded company based on published data; an analysis of a local business based on field research; or a business plan the student created from scratch. The other write-up was a comprehensive analysis of a professionally written case about a real business published in a Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, or Alabama casebook assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses included all functional areas of business, such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, control, management information systems, and business policy and strategy.
He learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at what is now known as the University of Louisiana–Lafayette in 1969-70.
He has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic Game-free Adult-Adult I’m OK—You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological Games from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-Gamer†he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal.
He studied TA with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).
He has degrees in economics, organizational behavior, and management science from Texas Tech University (1962-1969), and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).
He had his own case method track at the undergraduate level in the business school at Georgia Southern University taught by him alone in the management department, four or five different elective case method courses offered each academic year (1970-2005), in which he led, coordinated, and graded twenty-five or so students each academic year who took all or most of those case method courses in their junior and senior years, of about two hundred students who signed up for all of his courses each academic year, using a democratic circle or amphitheater classroom layout. He also taught most semesters two sections of a capstone integrative business policy course he added to the business school curriculum in 1970 that was required for all undergraduate business majors that could be elected by any student in any major, in which he used the case method. He was the only professor in the business school to use the case method in any course.
His students agreed to a course learning contract that stipulated they would read the facts of the case before class and would lose a whole letter grade from the course final grade if the De-Gamer randomly caught them obviously not having read the case before class, if they had not slipped a note under his office door before class telling him they had not read the case, which they could do twice during the course without penalty.
About ten percent or so of his students made A’s and about five percent made D’s, and most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were almost no F’s in his courses. The main criterion for course grades was the quantity and quality of ideas sold by students in case method discussions. He used peer ratings to give students feedback showing what their fellow students thought about the quantity and quality of their ideas sold in class, having made it clear the final decision about final grades was his. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.
No student was ever forced to take one of his courses to graduate, and the most hardened Game-players in the school did not sign up for his courses after he issued his Edict of 1972 in which he clearly spelled out in his syllabi the penalty for getting caught unprepared. His Classroom De-Gamerâ„¢ was roundly discussed by students in bull sessions across campus every year and was labeled various things, such as The Wheel of Fate and The Death Wheel. Most students near the end of his career simply called it The Spinner. He appreciated the fact Georgia Southern honored his academic freedom as a tenured professor, allowing him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials.
He conducted primary survey research in 1992 that discovered longitudinal data (published in “Evidence the Case Method Works†in his book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475) that showed his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the lecture method and the authoritarian row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on how well they memorized “right answers†for so-called objective multiple-choice tests, indicating learners learning in Adult—Adult I’m OK—You’re OK Game- free learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to in Parent—Child I’m OK—You’re Not-OK un-De-Gamed learning processes. Only former students who had worked in the real world ten or more years after graduating from the Georgia Southern business school were included in the study.
For more information on these classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. (2001), “Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades,” the Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 269-292. He had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school and was one of the lowest-ranked professors as an instructor on computerized campus-wide student evaluations up to about 2000; but he was one of the highest-ranked professors in a computerized student evaluation he designed that generated data showing study production, learning production, and relative expected grades data for each professor, published in “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.â€
To read the article in full, go to https://blog.effectivelearning.net/fair-teacher-evaluations/
After this research was published, Georgia Southern in 2001 added study production, learning production, and expected grades questions to the student evaluation form used campus-wide.
“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations†has by now (December 4, 2021) been cited as a reference in 83 refereed journal articles concerned about student evaluations of teachers in several academic disciplines, including eight new citations since April 2021, proving the article is still being read and used by serious scholars, educators, and administrators in higher education.
As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned, “The case is all there is.â€
If so, everything else said about Earthian human states of affairs is a rendition of what was or might be.
For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences go to https://blog.effectivelearning.nethttps://blog.effectivelearning.net