Month: January 2025

If nothing else, call it an interesting alignment of events…

Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, dedicated to the equality of all people, the service of others, and caring for their physical and spiritual needs. It’s “a day on, not a day off.” As his widow, Coretta Scott King once said, “The greatest birthday gift my husband could receive is if people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds celebrated the holiday by performing individual acts of kindness through service to others.”

Monday is also Inauguration Day, where President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn in for his second term as President of the United States. The Swearing-In Ceremony is set to start at noon, with a church service beforehand, luncheon following, and multiple balls to fill out the evening. For the first time in 40 years, the ceremony will be moved inside, due to the freezing cold weather. Note, too, that Presidents Biden, Obama, Bush and Clinton will each be in attendance.

Monday, too, is the College Football Playoff National Championship, the eleventh annual CFP crowning, but first under the 12 team format. It’s Ohio State’s Buckeyes vs. the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. OSU last won the college football championship in 2014; the Irish haven’t won since 1988. Let me add a brief tangent. When former coach Brian Kelly left Notre Dame 3 years ago, leaving for the likes of LSU, he said, “I want to be in an environment where I have the resources to win a national championship.” Guess our perspectives aren’t always accurate. 

(And one more FYI, so that we omit hopefully no one, January 20th also serves as National DJ Day, National Cheese Lovers Day, and Penguin Awareness Day… go penguins, go.)

Each of the above is a “big deal,” so-to speak. What strikes me in their simultaneous occurrence is that we don’t all react the same way to them. In fact, suffice it to say, there is a whole plethora of varied reaction to MLK Day, Inauguration Day, and the CFP.

It’s not even one of those scenarios in which pretty much 80% of us all feel the same way. Not everyone is an admirer of Dr. King; some are still grieving the election of Donald Trump; and much of the country would prefer teams other than the fortunate midwestern two.

So what do we do when such a wide discrepancy of reaction exists?

It’s today’s zillion dollar question. And it just may be one of the biggest pockets of judgment even the intelligent allow. Let me explain…

There are many times a person reacts differently than we. It is thus absolutely, completely valid to say in such a moment, “I don’t understand.” A prudent, growth-mentality response would then seek to understand.

When dismissing the prudence, we pave the way for judgment. Instead of acknowledging a lack of understanding, we leap to judgment. For example…

“There’s no way an educated person could believe that… there’s no way a humble person could cheer for them… absolutely not should she be singing at the inauguration… if she really loved her country…”

Friends, it is completely ok to not understand and to not share the opinion of another. The judgment comes when we assume we know the only right response. Perhaps we don’t articulate it as such, but we often add a value assessment — as in “they aren’t bright, moral, objective, kind, compassionate, Christian, patriotic, you-name it.” We also imply that we are all that and more.

Sorry, but that’s naive. 

Often judgment embeds itself within an unknown naïveté. 

Let’s be sensitive to what we know and what we don’t… what reactions we share and those we don’t. Some of the January 20th events are easy for some — difficult for others. Some will pay lots of attention; some will pay none.

Note, too, only one day after, January 21st, it’s National Squirrel Appreciation Day. Can’t say I share the reactions of those who are exuberant. 

Guess I have more to seek to understand.

Respectfully…

AR

“Great results begin with great questions” — Marilee Adams in Change Your Questions, Change Your Life

I’ve long referred to the American University adjunct professor’s work as my favorite book. It probably, seemingly slightly influenced my perspective when a trusted friend gifted me a copy soon after it came out years ago, adding, “This is the way you think.”

Adams advocates that any of us can change our lives simply by changing the questions we ask, especially those we ask of ourselves. A quick provided example… note how “asking ‘what great things could happen today?’ creates very different expectations, moods, and energy than asking ‘what could go wrong today?’” Amen to that. 

For example, from Adams:

1. What do I want? 
2. What are my choices?
3. What assumptions am I making?
4. What am I responsible for?
5. How else can I think about this?
6. What is the other person thinking, feeling, and wanting?
7. What am I missing or avoiding?
8. What can I learn? … from this person or situation? … from this mistake or failure? … from this success?
9. What action steps make the most sense?
10. What questions should I ask (myself or others)?
11. How can I turn this into a win-win?
12. What’s possible?

I find those to be excellent. I think often, in fact, of the tribal social media hang outs where someone will make a claim, another will respectfully ask question #5 — “how else can we think about this?” — and another will immediately shout them down and attempt to drown them out. That’s neither healthy nor mature.

Adams encourages us in a wiser way, noting that questions invite conversation. As we like to say, the question mark is the only punctuation piece that invites a response (albeit the semi-colon has a bit of an argument here). 

Such is why we often examine the questions that are being asked in current culture. Elsewhere…

Too many shout. (Really? Who wants to listen to that?)

Too many declare. (Yikes. Did they forget the value in humility?)

Too many blame. (Oh my. As Adams writes, “Blame keeps us stuck in the past.”)

So as we look to 2025, here are some questions we’re asking — each sincere, though marked by diverse levels of seriousness:

1. When will the fires end? And what will we do differently after they’re done?
2. How will the economy fare in 2025? What will happen with inflation and interest rates?
3. Will America’s southern border become more secure, and will government find a way to work together, crafting a prudent, effective immigration approach?
4. How will Pres. Trump surprise us? Now that there’s nothing more to “win,” will he execute his duties differently?
5. Can America’s deficit spending issue be fixed as long both Social Security and Medicare are currently each forecasted to be insolvent in the next 12 years?
6. Will peace pause the Ukraine/Russia and Israel/Hamas conflicts? Would a cease-fire solve the long-term conflicts, especially in Israel?
7. Will a reasonable third party become more popular here?
8. Will America’s divisiveness decrease? A better question: what will it take?
9. Will the Chiefs win the Super Bowl for a third time in a row?
10. And if so, will Travis ask Taylor to marry him?

Just asking questions, friends.

Of course, we have more. We’ll get to those soon…

Respectfully…

AR

… five football fields every minute…

I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around that reality for days now, watching the fires continue to engulf Southern California. Such is how fast authorities said the fire was initially spreading with zero containment at the time.

What an awful, awful thing.

The numbers are mind-boggling… the extent of the destruction… tens of thousands of acres burned… hundreds of thousands evacuated… still going…

When we experience awful things, we react. Fast and furiously, we want it to stop; we want to see it no more; no more hurt; and while so often there is nothing we can do, we feel helpless and find ways to react. And one of the fastest ways to react — even with the ongoing awful — is to blame a singular person.

I get it.

Blame is fast. It’s easy. And a singular individual or entity gives us a target at which to conveniently direct all of our emotion. It just may not be entirely accurate.

Let’s face it; much has contributed to California’s catastrophe. To suggest that this is all the result of climate change is an exercise in magnanimous naïveté.

To start with, greater Los Angeles was experiencing drought conditions. According to the Los Angeles Times, “The last time Los Angeles recorded rainfall over a tenth of an inch — the threshold that officials typically consider helpful for thirsty plants and the reduction of wildfire risk — was May 5, when downtown received just 0.13 inches of rain.”

Then came the Santa Ana dry winds — those that sweep down from the deserts and across the Southern California coast — which were said to be “supersized.” Topography played a role. Humidity was low. Then, too, multiple other aspects factored into both the initial and comprehensive response… land and forest management… fire department budget cuts… budget prioritization of other things… water availability… dry hydrants… ambiguous evacuation plans… emergency preparedness… inaccurate alert systems… etc. etc.

But… (Follow me here…)

Some of my friends who’ve come to a solid, Judeo-Christian faith have found their way there because of a simple, binary equation. They see evil on this Earth. They have no doubt evil is real. And they thus know a greater good must exist in order to counteract (and be victorious over) the evil.

One of the ways, no less, evil is alive and well is how satan — sorry, I don’t believe his name deserves capitalization — but how satan tempts us to focus on the wrong things at the right time.

Yes, in the current catastrophe, people certainly made mistakes. Yes, we might not like all the politics involved. True, we trust (rightly or wrongly) some politicians more than others. But the bottom line at this very moment in time is that the enormous problem needs to be solved. The fires need to be extinguished. People need help. They need our physical assistance and our heartfelt prayers. 

It matters not if the people are rich or poor, citizen or immigrant, celebrity or not. It matters not if you like them or not. Those affected by the fire need our prayers. Hence, it would be wisest to put our energies there.

The time for evaluation will come. Until then, let’s withhold casting any rhetorical stones, focusing first and foremost on the biggest problem at hand.

Respectfully…

AR

One more thing… straight from the founder of Facebook himself…

“Hey everyone. I want to talk about something important today because it’s time to get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram. I started building social media to give people a voice. I gave a speech at Georgetown five years ago about the importance of protecting free expression, and I still believe this today, but a lot has happened over the last several years.

There’s been widespread debate about the potential harms from online content. Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more. A lot of this is clearly political, but there’s also a lot of legitimately bad stuff out there. Drugs, terrorism, child exploitation. These are things that we take very seriously, and I want to make sure that we handle responsibly. So we built a lot of complex systems to moderate content, but the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes even if they accidentally censor just 1% of posts.

That’s millions of people, and we’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech. So, we’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms…

We’re going to simplify our content policies and get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse. What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far…

We’re changing how we enforce our policies to reduce the mistakes that account for the vast majority of censorship on our platforms. We used to have filters that scanned for any policy violation. Now, we’re going to focus those filters on tackling illegal and high-severity violations, and for lower-severity violations, we’re going to rely on someone reporting an issue before we take action. The problem is that the filters make mistakes, and they take down a lot of content that they shouldn’t…

Now we have the opportunity to restore free expression, and I’m excited to take it. It’ll take time to get this right, and these are complex systems. They’re never going to be perfect. There’s also a lot of illegal stuff that we still need to work very hard to remove. But the bottom line is that after years of having our content moderation work focused primarily on removing content, it is time to focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our systems, and getting back to our roots about giving people voice. I’m looking forward to this next chapter. Stay good out there, and more to come soon.”

Thanks, Zuck. Yes, thanks to Mark Zuckerberg for his acknowledgement this week that “the fact-checkers have just been too politically biased… it’s gone too far.”

Kudos, too, to the many of you who sent me articles on this development… and also, to the one who shared that I can now take some satisfaction in being one of the last to be censored by Meta.

Let me be clear. When Facebook chose to remove our post 10+ days ago — and not to restore it — I don’t think they were after me, so-to-speak. I don’t think there was any malicious motive nor nefarious intent specifically targeting us. For those unfamiliar with our journey, we wrote about the clear cover up of the mental decline of two of our elect, one being the sitting President of the United States. There exist valid questions as to the extent and length of his incapacitation and in regard to whom has actually been running the federal government. Facebook removed our respectful post, stating the content was “misleading.” There was an attempt to repost; it was also removed. There was no response to our subsequent appeal.

I don’t believe Facebook was after me. But what I do believe, echoing Zuckerberg, is that fact-checking has become too political; it morphs truth into subjectivity; and prompts way too many to fall prey to a narrative saying “we need to shut diverse perspective down.”

Naturally, we disagree with such an assertion. We believe the wisest way forward is to have the conversation.

Respectfully, of course.

AR

For the first time in the 16+ year existence of the Intramuralist, Facebook removed our post from their page. The explanation was that the content shared was “misleading.” Said Meta/FB: “The post may contain misleading links or content.” It was said to go against their “community standards on spam.” They state that they “only remove things or restrict people to keep the community respectful and safe.”

Looks like we will start this year with the things that make you go hmmm…

Since November of 2008 we have spoken of many things… sports, politics, Econ, ecology… People have been plenty, too… Caitlin Clark, Colin Kaepernick, Walter Cronkite, all the Bush’s and Obama’s… We’ve dished out both fair criticism and high praise; we’ve been on the understandable receiving end of such, too. We’ve been called too conservative, too liberal, too Christian, too not. The point has always been to prompt dialogue, albeit respectful dialogue at that. We have never advocated for concordant nor tribal thinking. My sense is a reverent give-and-take is an increasingly lost art. Not only is it a lost art, so-to-speak, many also find it pointless and paltry. Hence, if we can encourage gracious, considerate discourse — even and especially among the unlikeminded — we believe that to be a meaningful thing.

To thus call our post “misleading” is fascinating to me. Allow us to recapitulate the content…

The intended post led by pointing out the cognitive decline and potential dementia of the sitting US President and a sitting US congresswoman. Based on reporting by The Wall Street Journal, questions were asked as to why they are still in office, why they are only reporting in detail now, and who has covered up for them. Noting that the two represent separate political parties, also noted was that (1) both parties have been engaged in deception and (2) the media is complicit; they only tell us what they want us to know.

Let me respectfully, therefore, disagree with Facebook: there is nothing misleading about our post. On the same day we attempted to share our post, on Sunday’s “Face the Nation,” chief legal and political correspondent for CBS, Jan Crawford, referred to Pres. Biden’s “obvious cognitive decline” as the most under-covered and underreported news story of the year.

Which leads me to again ask…

What did we say that was untrue? 

What automated algorithm did we hit that the media doesn’t want us to say?

Why remove our post?

Why not promote respectful dialogue?

And why be dishonest in suggesting our content is something that it’s not?

Agree or disagree that one party’s behavior is more egregious, that’s a perspective worthy of discussion. Desiring to point out the questionable mental stability of other leaders, also valid. But disallowing the noted cover up of cognitive impairment in the current, in-office elect is not based on any content that’s misleading, especially when such, with absolutely all due respect, includes the highest office in our land. If the Executive Office holder is incapacitated, that is an indubitable, disquieting conversation needed to be had. Who’s been running the country? For how long? How bad is it? And is that what the media wishes we not even discuss?

It seems timely, therefore, to note the prudence found in the words of the ever articulate, albeit oft morally repugnant Tyrion Lannister, the youngest child of Lord Tywin Lannister, in the ever popular, “Game of Thrones.” Says Lannister, “If you tear out a man’s tongue, you’re not proving him a liar; you’re only telling the world you fear what he might say.”

True, Lannister is a fictional character, but it’s amazing how much truth fiction so often provides.

Respectfully..

AR

No doubt those college days years ago were filled to the brim with prime learning. We didn’t know what we didn’t know, and while the classroom shaped our professional ambition, the moments outside the classroom grew us up. As beloved roommates Bridge and Nolan will still gleefully attest, I would oft awake after a perceived poor choice declaring myself to be “a new person.” It would go something like this…

“I just want you to know, I am a new person today!” said with great confidence and joy and a grin spread seemingly from ear to ear.

A month would go by. Maybe only a few weeks some seasons, and a new day would dawn… “I just want you to know, I am a new, new person today!’ 

And with each relational setback or moment of regret, I would add one more “new” to the previous declaration. 

We laughed a lot those days, days in which we learned all sorts of everything from the lack of nutritional value at “breakfast club” to how to compare one’s communication skills to the stoicism of the foyer’s red, velvet bench. 

We laughed then. We laugh still now. How beautiful it is when joy permeates life.

But I think one of the things I learned all those years ago is clearly foundational to the joy that coincides with the onset of another new year…

It’s a new year… a clean slate… a time to begin anew…

What new things do I wish to accomplish?

Where do I wish to grow in the year ahead?

What would I like to do differently?

And also… including a brief focus on others…

What relationships would I like to see improve?

Who can I treat better?

Of whom do I need to be more respectful?

Whether formalized via individual resolution, the turning of the calendar provides a pivot from all that was. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, the past is erased, nor we always move forward with bells on. But what it does provide is a renewed sense of hope, confidence and joy. This is a different year. We can be different, too.

Back in those college days, as the declarative statement grew in adjectival length, Bridge and Nolan and I would chuckle. There was always grace… encouragement, too. But somewhere along the line I think we realized that the added “news” were not negative. In fact, they were evidence of growth, evidence of learning — and yes, so much outside the classroom. 

What a beautiful thing…

Happy new year, friends!

May your “news” ever increase. May 2025 be one brimming with hope, confidence and joy. I look forward to what we will humbly discover together in the year to come.

Blessings…

AR