• “ALL TRENDS INDICATE THAT ‘VIRTUAL’ MEETINGS WILL CONTINUE FOR THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE,” likely in hybrid form with groups in-office while others are remote. Effectiveness of these meetings can be optimized by attention to a few factors:   (1) As with in-person communication, shorter agendas are optimal to maintain focus and attention span, with fewer than seven participants; (2) Distractions should be minimized – uncluttered background, lighting adjusted to show facial expressions, clear audio from remote attendees through plug-in microphones; (3) Laptops positioned for eye-level contact; (4) ‘Conversing’ thru the lens,  versus ‘staring’ at webcam or looking ‘around’ or appearance of multi-tasking; (5) Paying attention to non-verbal cues that indicate others want to respond, like leaning toward their camera or hand-motioning. The challenge for meeting leaders is to figure out how to get everyone to talk to each other, while keeping the agenda focused and productive.  [McKINSEY – 4/20/21]
  • NO ONE DISAGREES THAT FEDERAL SPENDING IS UNSUSTAINABLE. The ‘reported’ current debt level of $28 trillion is short by well over four times when social security and Medicare obligations alone are considered. Reality is that Financial Condition by any measurement gets an F-minus grade, while “congressional leaders are seemingly oblivious to the stark crisis happening right under their noses. Worse yet, those who may be aware are clearly doing nothing to fix the problem. To the contrary, another $2 trillion is now proposed for a massive grab bag of progressive policies (intentionally mislabeled as ‘infrastructure’), and the President reportedly has yet another $2 trillion spending proposal in his back pocket awaiting its own news cycle.”  [EPOCH TIMES – 4/19/21]
  • SENSIBLE AMERICANS AND MOST OF THE WORLD ARE WATCHING, “some with glee, others with horror, as we’re witnessing a concentrated effort to alter the constitutional order and centuries of custom & tradition, by the Progressive Left who believe this is the only way they can retain transient power, given the unpopularity of most of its current agenda.”  Under assault are: (1) the nation’s bedrock institutions of Individual States Rights including equal Senate representation and 60:40 filibuster control in critical matters, Election Day & Electoral College process, Supreme Court independence of executive or legislative control, a Justice system willing & able to prosecute violators of Laws; (2) Our public schools & colleges, now “systematically downplaying meritocratic curricula and substituting ideological, racial & cultural (gender & ethnicity) litmus tests as quantifiable achievement, banishment of free speech & due process, arrest for violence or law-breaking now contingent on ideology”; (3) Freedom of Speech, with “private monopolies controlling most written communications and censoring expression entirely on the basis of politics… How much will soon be left of what our ancestors bequeathed? How much generous inherited wealth before it runs out?”  [Victor Davis Hanson – 4/22/21]
  • THE COMMON DENOMINATORS OF ‘MASS SHOOTERS’ is that they are males who are depressed, have been neglected as youngsters, and were “dad deprived… Guidance counselors and psychologists now a 63-point ‘male depression-suicide inventory’ to utilize in aiding boys who tend to act out, bullying others… Most men who have very troubled childhoods, do not end up becoming mass shooters,” but those who do have now become top media headlines and scary to society.  [EPOCH TIMES – 4/22/21]
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

      “No idea is so antiquated that it was not once modern. No idea is so modern that it will not someday be antiquated.”

      For a tranquil moment, a beautiful music video filmed in the Romanian Carpathian Mountains: https://biggeekdad.com/2018/01/the-earth-song/