Tag: Climate Change

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S3 E51 — What Do Cult Followers Lack?

“Let’s face it” the host said, “They just lack critical thinking skills.  Not everyone who fell down the rabbit hole of social media stormed the capitol.”

“4”  Steve Jobs, (1955 – 2011): “Freedom isn’t always a process that takes forever. Sometimes, it’s a state of mind that can be achieved in an instant. The way out may be just to get out — to rise above and find something different to care about.” Pisces

Hi and welcome to Sunday’s Episode 51 in Season 3 of  “My Paradoxically Normal Year” on this 23rd day of May in the spring of 2021 — which is a three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed during the “normal” pre-pandemic year and then in the pandemic year, and now months after.

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Previously from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year

S3 E50 — Swinging with Systematic-Professionals, Sorta; S3 E49 — Stealing Your Sign Without Doing the Time; S3 E48 — Is That an Ace Up Your Sleeve or Are You Just Glad to See Me?

Related from Season Two, The Pandemic Year

S2 E51 — Let’s Agree to Make Things Worse, Shall We?; S2 E50 — 5 Fundamental Uncertainties; S2 E49 — Navigating Waves of Disruption When You’ve Lost Your Bearings; S2 E48 — Tracking Millennials from One Resort to Another

Related from Season One, The Normal Year

S1 E51 – Brief, Broad, Fast, Wow and Delight; S1 E50 – The Bias Brothers or Just Plain Losers?; S1 E49 — Magnetize the Version You Imagine; S1 E48 — Holiday TauBit Trumps Funk

Context

CNN’s cohost commented on the defense of one of the arrested insurrectionists by dismissing the attorney’s claim he was a victim of “Fox-itus” a type of brainwashing.

 “Let’s face it” the host said, “They just lack critical thinking skills.  Not everyone who fell down the rabbit hole of social media stormed the capitol.” 

Critical Thinking 

I fell down the rabbit hole called “stack-itus” like when I searched through background experiments in graduate school.  I grew curiouser and curiouser tracking one to another.  

“Critical Thinking” led to “Reasoning” to “Executive Decision Making” and led to the “Cerebellum and the Central Nervous System” with a brief philosophical stop at “Socrates” and then onto a severe right hand turn shockingly back into my history to Donald Broadbent, “the influential experimental psychologist.”

What in the world triggered all this?  

The missing topic for the “Conclusions” section in my 1-Year Natural Experiment Report — Critical Thinking, 

“The process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion.” — Wikipedia

Here’s the so-what definition that matters to critics of Q-anon, the MAGA crowd and the traitors who stormed our capitol, from Wikipedia:

The analysis of facts to form a judgment. 

Socrates established the fact that you cannot depend upon those in “authority” to have sound knowledge and insight.

He demonstrated that persons may have power and high position and yet be deeply confused and irrational. 

Socrates maintained that for an individual to have a good life or to have one that is worth living, he must be a critical questioner and possess an interrogative soul.

He established the importance of asking deep questions that probe profoundly into thinking before we accept ideas as worthy of belief. 

Socrates established the importance of “seeking evidence, closely examining reasoning and assumptions, analyzing basic concepts, and tracing out implications not only of what is said but of what is done as well.” — Wikipedia

Reasoning, which seems to be in short supply:

Is the capacity of consciously applying logic based on new or existing information … associated with acts of thinking and cognition, and involves using one’s intellect. Reasoning, as a part of executive decision making, is also closely identified with the ability to self-consciously change, in terms of goals, beliefs, attitudes, traditions, and institutions, and therefore with the capacity for freedom and self-determination. — Wikipedia

Evidence

And, then there’s this from Holiday Mathis’ Forecast for the week ahead: 

It’s been suggested that there are those who observe how things are and ask, ‘Why?’ and then those who dream and ask, ‘Why not?’ But these needn’t be, and usually aren’t, two different groups. The best thinkers, both diligent and imaginative, bounce between both questions, taking what they can from past conclusions as they move forward to build the new world.

And, so the circle is closed with “Holiday-itis.”

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

“4”  Steve Jobs, (1955 – 2011): “Freedom isn’t always a process that takes forever. Sometimes, it’s a state of mind that can be achieved in an instant. The way out may be just to get out — to rise above and find something different to care about.” Pisces

So, the unless your Holiday Tau applies to domestic terrorists spouting liberty and freedom as their excuse for January 6th’s insurrection, what are you getting at today?

“2”  Steve Greene, 34; Steve Guttenberg, 61: “Since what you seek is also seeking you, all this shifting you’re doing only makes it harder for the thing to catch up with you. Be still. Stop searching for it and let it find you.” Virgo

Try as I might today, Greene and Guttenberg, your Holiday Tau feels confusing.

“2”  Steve Kerr, 54: “Confucius said, ‘To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.’ Arguably, some offenses are more memorable than others. You’ll be judicious about which grievances to carry.” Libra

Is your Confucius Holiday Tau just as confusing as G&G’s or what? 

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll 

    • @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines jumps from 8203 to 8218 organically grown followers.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life 

Long-Form

    • “Why?: What Makes Us Curious,” by Mario Livio. “… socially shared myths, rituals, and symbolism were most likely the first sophisticated responses to nagging why and how questions and were therefore the fruits of curiosity. The chain reaction that resulted from the positive feedback between curiosity and language turned Homo sapiens into a powerful intellect, with self-awareness and an inner life.”

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by: Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

The Knowledge Path | Know Laboratories | Knowledge Banking | Knowledge ATMs | Western Skies and Island Currents | Best West Road Trips

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S3 E49 — Stealing Your Sign Without Doing the Time

Consider this 30-day summary a pawn ticket to sketchy things I’ve learned from stealing your sign without doing the time. I feel so guilty about it that I’m willing to sell it back to you.

“5”  Steve Jobs, (1955 – 2011): “As for mental arguments that only you can hear, they do serve a purpose. You’ll work out the pros and cons of a decision before you ever take the risk. Contain your deliberations inside a time frame though, or they’ll steal your day.” Pisces

Hi and welcome to Friday’s Episode 49 in Season 3 of  “My Paradoxically Normal Year” on this 21st day of May in the spring of 2021 — which is a three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed during the “normal” pre-pandemic year and then in the pandemic year, and now months after.

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Previously from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year

S3 E46 — Twisting Meaning to Fit Is Still a Misdemeanor in My Book; S3 E45 — Tacit Heuristics Blinding Fast-Track Teams; S3 E44 — Make It Rhyme To Work Each Time

Related from Season Two, The Pandemic Year

S2 E47 — 27 Adventure Regions for Your Remote-Working Bucket List; S2 E46 — Whimsy Passion Project or Epic Novel of Adventure?; S2 E45 — Wildcard What Ifs and Doobie Bros Bias; S2 E44 — Celebrating Emma the Baroness Tribal Quarantine Style

Related from Season One, The Normal Year

S1 E47 — Day 47 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E46 — Day 46 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E45 — Day 45 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E44 — Google Me Some Chopped Liver

Context

And, true to my word I checked on behalf of my physical therapist the Holiday Tau for Zahnny, the Fonz, Emma the Baroness and me, but they under shined all the rest of the Steves.  Especially, Steve Aoki’s again.

So what did I uncover in Why I Stole Your Sign and the Mysteries of Your Life?

A major coincidence at a time when I’d been noodling story ideas for my next manuscript.  I have the Holiday Tau for Steve Howey to thank for it.

“5”  Steve Howey, 42: “If you could go back in time and warn your younger self, what warning would you issue? What diversion would you suggest?” Cancer

Have you thought about how you’d advise your younger self? 

I did.

My leap of faith into this 1-year project forced me to figure out some things on the fly.  

On some days I felt foolish.  I never stated my “hypothesis” that I was testing in this year long natural experiment.  Don’t you have to collect data and measure something?

“Yesterday I wrote about how ‘disappointed’ I felt when we missed out again on the Holiday Tau.”  

“But, I’m thinking about stealing 6 or 7 or more TauBits that could apply to me and ranking them in a range of value from ‘1’ (hardly worth the mention) to ‘5’ illustrating off-the-charts relevance.” 

“Is that diluting the value of this experiment?“ 

“Is it too early to draw conclusions about the ideal number I track?  If it isn’t, maybe I could pay attention to just four or five Holiday Tau.”

On day 22 I felt I couldn’t catch a break and felt depressed.  But, on the following day my passion, inspiration and motivation returned.  Am I bi-polar?

“Yes, I don’t really need to steal anyone else’s Holiday Tau when I’ve received one of the highest TauBits already today.  And yes, I was complaining that too many TauBits might be too much to absorb.  But check these out.  This might be the single best day in the “Tau of Steves” history as we know it — well, so far during this one-year experiment.” 

Evidence

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

Can I stipulate for the 100th time that it’s not my birthday?  Sure I’ve seen life from both sides now and prefer the above ground side, but I can’t steal this one in good faith.  Wait it will help me move up financially? 

Today’s Holiday Birthday:

All you’ve overcome has made you strong — and also funny! Humor comes from the flexibility of perspective you earned seeing different sides and extremes of life. A project will put your talents to good use, and you’ll be enthusiastically endorsed, too, helping you to move up professionally and financially.

“5”  Steve Jobs, (1955 – 2011): “As for mental arguments that only you can hear, they do serve a purpose. You’ll work out the pros and cons of a decision before you ever take the risk. Contain your deliberations inside a time frame though, or they’ll steal your day.” Pisces

Hey Jobs, where was your Holiday Tau when I needed it? Whose side are you on anyway? Above or below?  I don’t know why, but my dad used to tell a construction story.  During the early stage walk through of the custom house the contractor would pause at where the new windows would allow sunlight in from the early mornings and yell, “Green side up.”  Then while pointing to blue prints in what would be the living room, he’d look outside and yell, “Green side up.”  This went on room by room until my dad and mom wanted to know what that was all about.  “Oh that?  Sorry, but I have to stay on top of everything and I just hired some sub-contractors who are laying sod for the first time.”

“4”  Steve Carell, 57; Steve Martin, 74; Steve Wozniak, 69: “You’ll strengthen your mind/body/spirit connection, and it all happens with physical exertion. Every time you work on your body, it will become increasingly receptive to the command of your mind and the intuition of your spirit.” Leo

When I received the results from my MRI my orthopedic physician told me my injury hadn’t torn any ligaments, but I suffered a sprained left knee and a bone bruise.  I told him I felt my physical therapy progress had regressed, and just had to get out and walk.  Down at the Little League field I hobbled down memory lane taking in the “Under 3 feet” T-Ball game — if you can call it that — and my neighbor’s first inning.  

“4” Steve Kerr, 54: “Why would anyone willingly offer up their work for scrutiny? To improve, of course. Only the courageous and the serious will proactively take this option, and you are definitely in that group. You want to be the best.” Libra

I can feel your pain Coach Kerr, having lost your Play-In game to the Lakers.  And just as quickly you were In-N-Out.  Which suggested I follow your Holiday Tau and drive through to pick up two hamburgers with grilled onions and two fries for Emma the Baroness and me.

“4”  Steve Aoki, 41: “The line between sharing and oversharing is liable to be ignored, blurred or completely crossed. Most people won’t mind knowing a little more than they need to.” Sagittarius

Obviously your Holiday Tau shared with my physical therapist is on a need to know basis.  Haha just kidding.  

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll 

    • @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines jumps from 8203 to 8218 organically grown followers.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life  

Long-Form

    • “Why?: What Makes Us Curious,” by Mario Livio. “… socially shared myths, rituals, and symbolism were most likely the first sophisticated responses to nagging why and how questions and were therefore the fruits of curiosity. The chain reaction that resulted from the positive feedback between curiosity and language turned Homo sapiens into a powerful intellect, with self-awareness and an inner life.”

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by: Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

The Knowledge Path | Know Laboratories | Knowledge Banking | Knowledge ATMs | Western Skies and Island Currents | Best West Road Trips

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S3 E42 — Greta, Juliette and the Partridge Family at Trestles

Virginia Heffernan evokes the “Gen-X Generation” in her column about how the current baby bust — couples not doing their duty to their ancestors — and probably exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic isolation, will produce another overlooked generation in the grand scheme of things.

“5”  Steve Nash, 45: “Knowing that someone will only remember two or three things you talk about, you pick the most important topics and find an artful and memorable way to put those ideas across.”  Aquarius

Hi and welcome to Saturday’s Episode 42 in Season 3 of  “My Paradoxically Normal Year” on this 8th day of May in the spring of 2021 — which is a three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed during the “normal” pre-pandemic year and then in the pandemic year, and now months after.

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Previously from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year

S3 E41 — What’s Up with Telluride or Humboldt County or Bodega Bay?; S3 E40 — How Stealing Your Sign Led Me to a Nobel Prize; S3 E39 — Ready for Your Big Leap Forward?

Related from Season Two, The Pandemic Year

S2 E42 — It Was Short and Sweet, but Heart-Felt; S2 E41 — A Pandemic End to Real Estate and Consulting?; S2 E40 — The Profound Impact of the Pandemic on Nouns; S2 E39 — The Best Tau for the Pandemic Year, Don’t You Agree?

Related from Season One, The Normal Year

S1 E42 — Love on the Run; S1 E41 — The Dream Was Over, Long Live the Dream; S1 E40 — Nothing to See Here, Keep Moving On; S1 E39 — What’s Up with Facebook?

Context

First, the public service announcement — while it may be too late for flowers, don’t forget to call your mother tomorrow.  

Is there a theme for today?  

Virginia Heffernan evokes the “Gen-X Generation” in her column about how the current baby bust — couples not doing their duty to their ancestors — and probably exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic isolation, will produce another overlooked generation in the grand scheme of things.  

But, who can blame them?  

Unless you believe card carrying Baby Boomer Bill Gates has planted chips in COVID-19 arms and single-handedly smeared the fossil fuels industry you might empathize with the teenagers — older than the unborn (in the even grander, Karma kind of scheme) — and agree with their Gen-Z spokesperson, Greta from Finland in her streaming series, ”Greta Thunberg – A Year To Change The World.” 

In a rare moment after visiting with coal miners who actually applaud her message — yes, that’s right — you see a candid Greta when she shares how deflated she feels, like a powerless little girl, compared to Trump’s grade-school bullying before and after they co-headlined a conference of international leaders.

Yet she’s the one acting like the only adult in the room.

Her generation, she reminds us, will still be here when the Baby Boomers are extinct, having done nothing in this critical moment,  leaving them on the wrong side of planetary history, and judged harshly in the future for their inaction.

And finally, Juliette Paskowitz the “beatnik matriarch” of San Onofre surf camp clan dies in a care facility at age 89 in nearby San Clemente, California. From her obituary by Steve Marble in the LA Times:

Juliette Paskowitz and her husband embraced a Jack Kerouac lifestyle: boundless, free-spirited, going where the road took them — most often in the direction of the beach. It was the life any kid could only dream of, bounding across the country in an overstuffed camper — from San Clemente to Pensacola to the shoreline of Venezuela, always searching for the perfect wave. 

With Dorian Paskowitz at the wheel, nine kids jammed in the back and Juliette riding shotgun, the family finally parked the rig on the sand in San Onofre, opened a surf camp and spent their days riding the glassy curls, playing in the whitewash and chasing one another from lifeguard tower to lifeguard tower. 

“If ‘Nomadland’ was a 2, we were at a 10 as far as sheer adventure, uncertainty, homelessness and never knowing what the next day might bring,” said Israel “Izzy” Paskowitz, the fourth-oldest child in the clan. 

“It was wonderful.” Juliette Paskowitz, the matriarch who held “the first family of surfing” all together, often singing arias while listening to opera on a small transistor radio in the camper…. 

Dorian preached the rewards of surfing so relentlessly that it caught the attention of sportswear designer Tommy Hilfiger, who applied the family name to his line. 

A record label, perhaps thinking they’d found the sun-bleached version of “The Partridge Family,” invited the family to cut a record. A filmmaker made a 2008 documentary on the family titled “Surfwise.”

A theme?

Evidence

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

Huh? Liberation.  Getting your habits to march along like ducklings following their mother, all in a row? Interesting.  But, it ain’t my birthday.

Today’s Holiday Birthday: 

There’s a liberation taking place. A year from now, you’ll look back and celebrate this moment when you cease to needlessly judge yourself. You’ll opt for new ways of pulling your habits into line. You’ll enjoy what you create because you dared to go in a new direction. Work leads to new interests; new interests pay you.

Knowing when to examine and when to let it go, is that right, Stevie?

“3”  Steve Smith, 30, Stevie Nicks, 72: “A few people will make an initial decision and many others will uncritically accept it. You, however, will push pause and do your own evaluation. You can’t personally examine everything, but this is within your realm.” Gemini

Haha, you two comedians break me up.  And you, Woz seriously your Holiday Tau feels like how you persisted along with that other Steve to build it before knowing they would come, eh?

“4”  Steve Carell, 57; Steve Martin, 74; Steve Wozniak, 69: “Your wisdom shines through your choice of what to get involved with and when. Trust those initial prescient instincts, even when (especially when!) you can’t reason them out.” Leo

How is it that your Holiday Tau feels a cut above the TauBits offered by the other Steves today?  I’m thanking you for you more practical take.

“5”  Steve Nash, 45: “Knowing that someone will only remember two or three things you talk about, you pick the most important topics and find an artful and memorable way to put those ideas across.”  Aquarius

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll 

    • @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines jumps from 8003 to 8088 organically grown followers

Foresight

 Quality-of-Life   

Long-Form

    • “Future Shock” by Alvin Toffler, a classic I feel which still holds up. As the pace of change quickens we experience self-doubt, anxiety and fear.  We become tense and tire easily, until we are overwhelmed, face-to-face with a crisis situation. Without a clear grasp of relevant reality or beginning with clearly defined values and priorities, we feel a deepening sense of confusion and uncertainty. Our intellectual bewilderment leads to disorientation at the level of personal values. Decision stress results from acceleration, novelty and diversity conflicts. Acceleration pressures us to make quick decisions. Novelty increases the difficulty and length of time while diversity intensifies the anxiety with an increase in the number of options and the amount of information needed to process.  The result is a slower reaction time.
    • Daniel Kahneman’s, “Thinking Fast and Slow”describes two different ways the brain forms thoughts: “System 1” which is meant as a fictional shorthand — not as a brain system or structure: Fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic, unconscious. “System 2”: Slow, effortful, infrequent, logical, calculating, conscious. I’m learning a lot about my energy levels first described from within an introversion frame now, from within differences between System 1 and the harder working, energy depletion System 2.  Self-control, for instance is hard and takes a lot of energy to accomplish.  When I write the concentration requires effort until I can find the “flow.” Implications for True Belief — it’s easy to stay in System 1 vs. critical thinking — System 2.  Set some marketing and working on the business goals — System 2 and then ignore them by following the lateral thinking and associative thinking  which Leo da V invites me to do — System 1.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by: Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

The Knowledge Path | Know Laboratories | Knowledge Banking | Knowledge ATMs | Western Skies and Island Currents | Best West Road Trips

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S4 E33 — When Was The Last Time Honesty and Character Counted?

As the worm turns, right?  Let me just summarize what’s taken place so far in the Season Four — a baker’s dozen of episodes shifting away from Putin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and to the ongoing greasing of the wheels for a triumphant comeback for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

“5”  Steve Jobs, (1955 – 2011): “There’s a change in you. However subtle the change may be, it will land you in a completely different place than you would be if you had remained the same.” Pisces

Hi and welcome to Thursday’s 33rd Episode in Season 4 of  “Our Disruptively Resilient Year” on this 28th day of April in the spring of 2022.

We concluded the three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed — during the “normal” pre-pandemic year compared to the pandemic year, and more recently to the paradoxically normal year. 

Season Four continues now within domestic and global chaos.

Previously in Season Four, The Disruptively Resilient Year

S4 E32 — A Rudy By Any Other Name Still Smells …; S4 E31 — Butt Dialing Your Way to a $Billion, What Could Go Wrong?; S4 E30 — Green Bay’s Conspiracy-Theories-R-Us from The OC 

Related from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year

S3 E33 — Do Meaningful Coincidences Really Exist?; S3 E32 — But, Why Should You Care?; S3 E31— Treat It Like a Pawn Ticket to Sketchier Things; S3 E30 — Steal These TauBits, Please. It’s Only Fair!

Related from Season Two, the Pandemic Year

S2 E33 — What Happens When Your Business Collapses?; S2 E32 — Trapped and Bored? Or Unleashing a Reinvention Wave?; S2 E31 — Getting Charged from Box Automattic-aly; S2 E30 — It’s Crazy. Why does Amazon Prime Work, but Netflix Doesn’t? 

Related from Season One, the Normal Year

S1 E33 — Day 33 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E32 — Day 32 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E31 — Day 31 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E30 — Day 30 of My 1-Year Experiment;

Context

As the worm turns, right?  Let me just summarize what’s taken place so far in Season Four’s bakers dozen of episodes shifting away from Putin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and to the ongoing greasing of the wheels for a triumphant comeback for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

Not so fast.  Even before the rest of his cabinet members negotiated book deals for after they left his service, one began writing articles about what it was like trying to follow traditional conservative principles, but witnessed Trump’s bizarre behavior all too frequently. 

Anonymous better known as Miles Taylor documented his character.

S4 E19 — The Reason Character and Honesty Don’t Count Anymore

And profiled his work ethic, which seems like two words that don’t apply to what President’s actually do in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk.  Looking in from the outside many of us wondered why his cabinet never activated Article 25 to remove him from office for proving to be incompetent and downright dangerous.

S4 E20 — Resiliently Living Through Domestic and Global Chaos

If that wasn’t enough there’s always the January 6th Insurrection. And, even as members of both sides of the aisle feared for their lives, condemned Trump’s role in fanning the flames of attack, in just a few days they began to backpedal.  Why?

And, who’s to blame?  How will we find out? And, what can be done to prevent the next one?

S4 E21 — Not Since the War of 1812

Won’t it take bipartisan efforts?  Well, I guess not as the January 6th Commission is formed to unravel who, what, when, how, why and event suspicions about members of Congress and their role.

S4 E22 — Now, Who Could Argue With That? 

Just as there might have been a Deutsche Bank money laundering and fishy loans, shouldn’t we take a step back to follow the money?  And doing so begins with the Mercers and how Conway and Bannon join forces later in the Trump 2016 Campaign and his administration

S4 E23 — When In Doubt, Follow the Money

Why is Bannon’s role significant?  That’s what Miley suddenly realizes as he recognizes the domestic terrorist plots.

S4 E24 — Another Spooky Role to Play on the Outside

We now know Bannon advised Trump to focus on January 6th, but why and how?

S4 E25 — Accountability?

Did one of the concentric circles the January 6th Commission define his role in a vast conspiracy?  Who else co-conspired?  

There’s Boris Epshteyn

S4 E26 — What Happens If No One Asks a Question?

And John Eastman waving the Pence Card

S4 E27 — Who Cares If It’s The Right Thing To Do Anymore?

What about Peter Navarro teaming up with Bannon executing the “Green Bay Sweep”

S4 E28 — Why Do Those Who Know the Least Talk the Longest?

One loyal Trump soldier on the front lines is Mo Brooks.

S4 E29 — How Much Mo Did He Pay for the Brooklyn Bridge?

Let’s revisit Peter Navarro here.

S4 E30 — Green Bay’s Conspiracy-Theories-R-Us from The OC

And, the last two episodes devoted to Rudy Giuliani’s continuing role tied to Ukraine, and the fake evidence of a stolen election.

S4 E31 — Butt Dialing Your Way to a $Billion, What Could Go Wrong?

S4 E32 — A Rudy By Any Other Name Still Smells …

Evidence

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

Today’s Holiday Birthday: 

First your imagination will take you places and then the rest of you will catch up. You’ll bring inspiration to your group as you constantly seek creative fuel and fill your senses with beautiful, masterful work. Summer brings precious moments and your favorite people. A study will lead to a better financial situation.

Why chose this Holiday Birthday?  Because my Holiday Tau didn’t measure up?  Yes, and…  And, I know tomorrow Emma the Baroness and I hit the road again in my Honda CRV with only 5000 pandemic miles on it to take us to three main places, all in Arizona — first Prescott, then Jerome and finally Sedona.  If you’re one of my 12817 organically grown followers you know Prescott and Sedona have fueled my imagination.

“3”  Steve Greene, 34; Steve Guttenberg, 61; Stephen King, 72: “You like keenly observant people who ask the questions that prove their attention and interest. These people make you think. They cause you to see yourself differently.” Virgo

You bet I do, and I hope to run into some more, but with all that has to be accomplished before we leave I’m feeling a little frayed and frustrated and therefore not as much into packing as I should.  Why is that?  That feeling almost always shows up like a yawn the day before we take off.

“4”  Steve Aoki, 41; Steven Spielberg, 74: “The way to see the big picture is to go to the top of the mountain. You can do this in your mind, or you can do it physically by heading to the highest point in your immediate geography. Either way will give you clarity.” Sagittarius

Is it cheating to postpone this one day until we arrive in higher elevated, Prescott and 3 days later in Sedona?

“5”  Steve Jobs, (1955 – 2011): “There’s a change in you. However subtle the change may be, it will land you in a completely different place than you would be if you had remained the same.” Pisces

Well, let’s really, really hope so.  Will it be because of our vacation? Or because of something completely different?

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll

    • @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines, according to my analytics, grew from 12733 this week to 12817 organically grown followers.
    • Orange County Beach Towns 216 viewers stopped by the week before.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life

Long-Form

    • “Here, Right Matters: An American Story” by Alexander Vindman. “We’d long been confused by the president’s policy of accommodation and appeasement of Russia, the United States’ most pressing major adversary. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, seizing the Crimean Peninsula, attacking its industrial heartland, the Donbass, from the capital, Kyiv. By 2019, little had changed, Russian military and security forces and their proxy separatists continued to occupy the Donbass. The biggest change was to Ukraine’s importance as a bulwark against Russian aggression weeks earlier, the White House had abruptly put a hold on nearly four hundred million dollars.” 
    • David Enrich begins his book with a suicide in “Deutsche Bank Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction” and then meticulously details the bank’s Russian money laundering operations. Deutsche’s Russian business surged after revenues had fallen 50% due to the 2008 financial crisis. Putin’s Russia, poured in to Deutsche from deals it did with VTB Bank, linked to the Kremlin’s intelligence apparatus. Deutsche positioned itself as a crucial cog in “The Laundromat” by doing what couldn’t be done — processing cross-border transactions for banks that were too small  and didn’t have offices outside their home countries.
    • “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy” by Jamie Raskin recalls one tragedy no parent should endure — the suicide of his son — and then a second tragedy at almost the same time — the insurrection on January 6th 2021, that terrified he and his congressional peers who were tasked by the Constitution to routinely oversee the orderly transfer of power from one former president to the duly elected new President. 
    • “A Warning” by Anonymous (Miles Taylor) written prior to the January 6th Insurrection as an insider’s account documenting how frequently the former President’s behavior and rage without any “guard rails” showed just how far he would go to win the next election at any cost while spinning lies and misinformation on top of each other.  
    • “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa provides anecdotes, stories and inside reporting documenting the controversial last days of Donald Trump’s presidency, as well as the presidential transition and early presidency of Joe Biden. 
    • “Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising,” by Joshua Green tracks the money behind the scenes leading up to the 2016 presidential election and the growing influence of Steve Bannon’s network of extreme nationalists.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

The Knowledge Path | Know Laboratories | Knowledge Banking | Knowledge ATMs | Western Skies and Island Currents | Best West Road Trip

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S4 E30 — Green Bay’s Conspiracy-Theories-R-Us from The OC

The “Green Bay Sweep” was intended to implement a strategy laid out by the John Eastman memos for the purpose of overturning the 2020 election results.

“5”  Steve Kerr, 54: “Stories get exaggerated, pictures get altered, facts get tampered with. You’ll get a better sense of things you witness firsthand, but even then, there are obstacles to perfect perception.” Libra

Hi and welcome to Friday’s 30th Episode in Season 4 of  “Our Disruptively Resilient Year” on this 22nd day of April in the spring of 2022.

We concluded the three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed — during the “normal” pre-pandemic year compared to the pandemic year, and more recently to the paradoxically normal year. 

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Season Four continues now within domestic and global chaos.

Previously in Season Four, The Disruptively Resilient Year

S4 E29 — How Much Mo Did He Pay for the Brooklyn Bridge?; S4 E28 — Why Do Those Who Know the Least Talk the Longest? ; S4 E27 — Who Cares If It’s The Right Thing To Do Anymore?

Related from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year

S3 E30 — Steal These TauBits, Please. It’s Only Fair!; S3 E29 — Why 83.3% of the Time I Swiped Your Tau; S3 E28 — Why I Stole Your Daily Horoscope for a Year; S3 E27 — What the World Needs Now Before It’s Too Late 

Related from Season Two, the Pandemic Year

S2 E30 — It’s Crazy. Why does Amazon Prime Work, but Netflix Doesn’t?; S2 E29 — Three Months That Changed the World; S2 E28 — Hosting Norwegian Zooms While Trump Eliminated the Virus in April; S2 E27 — Why I Have to Keep Leo da V on a Leash and So Should You

Related from Season One, the Normal Year

S1 E30 — Day 30 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E29 — Day 29 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E28 — Day 28 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E27 — Day 27 of My 1-Year Experiment

Context

If you haven’t been following along, the previous 4 episodes illustrate political turmoil in this Disruptively Resilient Year which add to our summary in S4 E25 and which updated the original in S4 E18.

In December 2020, a month after the November election, Peter Navarro published a report alleging widespread election fraud. In line with Trump’s infamous election night appeals to stop the counting and before that his mantra to Stop the Steal before the election,  The Guardian revealed the report beat the election results to the finish line.

In March 2022, The Guardian reported the original version of the allegations in Navarro‘s report had in fact been prepared by individuals in Navarro’s own White House office beginning two weeks before the 2020 Presidential elections.

Conspiracy-Theories-R-Us

The report repeated widely discredited conspiracy theories regarding claims of election fraud and listed various allegations that had been dismissed by the courts, and debunked by Trump’s election security task force.

Navarro cited many biased and unreliable sources of information, such as: 

      • One America News Network, 
      • Newsmax, 
      • Steve Bannon’s podcast “War Room: Pandemic”, 
      • Just the News, and 
      • the National Pulse.

In the report, Navarro suggested impropriety as the reason why large initial leads by Trump evaporated in battleground states as vote tallies continued. 

Just the Blue Shift

But, Wikipedia’s sources accounted for what was really going on.

Navarro was actually describing the well-known phenomenon of the “blue shift“, caused by the fact that mail-in votes in many states cannot be counted on Election Day itself; those votes tend to lean Democratic, so that an Election Night lead by a Republican candidate can turn into a Democratic lead as the later counts come in.

After the 2020 Report, Navarro published a book, “In Trump Time” in 2021, describing how he and Bannon with others planned to delay or overturn Congress’s formal count of the election results. 

In the major scheme former VP Pence rejects some Biden elector slates.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Days before the January 6th insurrection, in another scheme Navarro,  Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows, participated in a call with Georgia election officials on January 2, 2021. 

It’s the now famous one when Trump urged them to overturn the results of the election.

According to Wikipedia, during a January 2, 2021 appearance on Jeanine Pirro’s Fox News program 

Navarro asserted “[t]hey stole this and we can prove it”, and falsely asserted Joe Biden’s inauguration could be postponed to allow for an investigation. 

100 Congressmen on the Wall, If One of Them Happens …

Let’s see what else? There’s the flooding of the zone …

“We spent a lot of time lining up over 100 congressmen, including some senators. It started out perfectly. At 1 p.m., Gosar and Cruz did exactly what was expected of them… My role was to provide the receipts for the 100 congressmen or so who would make their cases… who could rely in part on the body of evidence I’d collected”.

Two days after the violent storming of the Capitol Navarro was making the rounds.

He appeared on Fox Business Network’s Making Money on January 8, telling host  Charles Payne 

 … that Trump was not to blame and specifically saying that Lindsey Graham, Nikki Haley, and Mitt Romney “need to shut up”. Days later, Navarro reiterated false claims that Trump had won the election.— Wikipedia

Even 11 month later he was still at it. With a slight twist.

By December 2021, he was still claiming his falsehoods were meant “to lay the legal predicate for the actions to be taken” despite no evidence of voting fraud being found. — Wikipedia

Finally in February 2022, the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack subpoenaed Navarro to provide testimony. 

Navarro said he would not comply, citing a claim of executive privilege made by the former president, although only the current president can make such a claim. — Wikipedia

The House took the next step by holding Navarro and Dan Scavino in contempt for their refusals to testify before the House Select Committee on the basis of Executive Privilege claims.

Evidence

Today’s Holiday Theme: 

Earth Day is different in these urgent times. We’ve moved from a mindset of remembering to take care of Mother Earth to fast-tracking all efforts to preserve the natural world. What were once behavioral afterthoughts are now necessary habits.

“4” Steve Zahn, 51: “The logic you followed before suddenly seems less reliable. You’ll navigate with something different. An innate knowing rises up to move you past other kinds of processing. It’s like the decision is making itself.” Scorpio

Because we worked at the same university and I responded to Dr. Navarro’s request to edit his (then) wife’s resume and talked to his students on breaks in his Executive MBA classes, I had always given him the benefit of the doubt.  But that logic became less reliable and gave way to the slow realization that he wasn’t what he seemed to be.

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

“3”  Steve Winwood, 71; Stevie Wonder, 69; Stephen Colbert, 56: “Being generous feels wonderful but don’t cheat yourself, or feelings turn to shades of loss, sadness, anger and pain. When in doubt, do nothing until you’re sure about what you can afford, emotionally and otherwise.” Taurus 

So this reminds me more about my father who every once and a while would complain about how his purchasing agent customers would want more and more from him than he felt was appropriate for a sales guy for Union Carbide.

“5”  Steve Kerr, 54: “Stories get exaggerated, pictures get altered, facts get tampered with. You’ll get a better sense of things you witness firsthand, but even then, there are obstacles to perfect perception.” Libra

So, yes we all activate filters as shields against what we don’t already believe or feel are distractions to what we need to focus on and concentrate, or we now see repeated over and over and over again like propaganda from sources like InfoWars and Fox News.  Oh, and on Twitter and Facebook, too.  We fall victim to digital cults reinforced by consistent messages in social media.

“3”  Steve Harvey, 62; Stephan Patis, 53;  Stephen Hawking (1943 – 2018): “It’s as though you can feel someone thinking about you and sense the subsequent reach out before it happens. It’s because you are connected at a deep level, working through a joint karma.” Capricorn

So, I haven’t felt you thinking about me, but I appreciate it.

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll

    • @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines, according to my analytics, grew from 12559 this week to 12654 organically grown followers.
    • Orange County Beach Towns 216 viewers stopped by the week before.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life

Long-Form

    • “Here, Right Matters: An American Story” by Alexander Vindman. “We’d long been confused by the president’s policy of accommodation and appeasement of Russia, the United States’ most pressing major adversary. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, seizing the Crimean Peninsula, attacking its industrial heartland, the Donbass, from the capital, Kyiv. By 2019, little had changed, Russian military and security forces and their proxy separatists continued to occupy the Donbass. The biggest change was to Ukraine’s importance as a bulwark against Russian aggression weeks earlier, the White House had abruptly put a hold on nearly four hundred million dollars.” 
    • David Enrich begins his book with a suicide in “Deutsche Bank Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction” and then meticulously details the bank’s Russian money laundering operations. Deutsche’s Russian business surged after revenues had fallen 50% due to the 2008 financial crisis. Putin’s Russia, poured in to Deutsche from deals it did with VTB Bank, linked to the Kremlin’s intelligence apparatus. Deutsche positioned itself as a crucial cog in “The Laundromat” by doing what couldn’t be done — processing cross-border transactions for banks that were too small  and didn’t have offices outside their home countries.
    • “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy” by Jamie Raskin recalls one tragedy no parent should endure — the suicide of his son — and then a second tragedy at almost the same time — the insurrection on January 6th 2021, that terrified he and his congressional peers who were tasked by the Constitution to routinely oversee the orderly transfer of power from one former president to the duly elected new President. 
    • “A Warning” by Anonymous (Miles Taylor) written prior to the January 6th Insurrection as an insider’s account documenting how frequently the former President’s behavior and rage without any “guard rails” showed just how far he would go to win the next election at any cost while spinning lies and misinformation on top of each other.  
    • “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa provides anecdotes, stories and inside reporting documenting the controversial last days of Donald Trump’s presidency, as well as the presidential transition and early presidency of Joe Biden. 
    • “Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising,” by Joshua Green tracks the money behind the scenes leading up to the 2016 presidential election and the growing influence of Steve Bannon’s network of extreme nationalists.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

The Knowledge Path | Know Laboratories | Knowledge Banking | Knowledge ATMs | Western Skies and Island Currents | Best West Road Trip

Posted on

S4 E27 — Who Cares If It’s The Right Thing To Do Anymore?

They promoted the Pence Card as a contingency similar to the 1960 presidential election, in which two slates of electors were prepared pending results of a late recount of ballots in Hawaii

“5”  Steve Carell, 57; Steve Martin, 74; Steve Wozniak, 69: “To believe in your ability to sense what the right thing to do is and trust yourself to act accordingly promotes confidence in who you are now. For even more confidence, extend the same courtesy backward to Past You. No regrets.” Leo

Hi and welcome to Saturday’s 27th Episode in Season 4 of  “Our Disruptively Resilient Year” on this 16th day of April in the spring of 2022.

We concluded the three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed — during the “normal” pre-pandemic year compared to the pandemic year, and more recently to the paradoxically normal year. 

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Season Four continues now within domestic and global chaos.

Previously in Season Four, The Disruptively Resilient Year

S4 E26 — What Happens If No One Asks a Question?; S4 E25 — Accountability?; S4 E24 — Another Spooky Role to Play on the Outside

Related from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year

S3 E27 — What the World Needs Now Before It’s Too Late; S3 E26 — Following Alice Down the Rabbit Hole; S3 E25 — Art Lives Upon Discussion, Upon Experiment, Upon Curiosity …; S3 E24—Reunion on the Edge of the Pacific Ocean near Legoland? Hell Yeah! 

Related from Season Two, the Pandemic Year

S2 E27 — Why I Have to Keep Leo da V on a Leash and So Should You; S2 E26 — Rethinking the N-Word ; S2 E25— Are You an Innie or Outie Thinker?; S2 E24— Working Remote from KnowWhere Atoll;

Related from Season One, the Normal Year

S1 E27 — Day 27 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E26 — Day 26  of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E25 — Day 25 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E24 — Day 24 of My 1-Year Experiment

Context

If you haven’t been following along, the previous 6 episodes illustrate political turmoil in this Disruptively Resilient Year which add to our summary in S4 E18. 

Our last episode follows Trump’s announcement for the 2020 nomination after his election denying followers in the 6 battleground states lost when the red wave failed to materialize. Today we pick the continuing story with the “Pence Card”.

What started as the “Pence Card” floated as a legal theory by Ivan Raiklin in a two page proposal, then championed by National Security Adviser Michael Flynn tweeted to the former President.

Raiklin asserted then-Vice President Mike Pence had unilateral authority to reject electoral votes from states deemed to be fraudulent.

So Boris Epshteyn worked with Rudy Giuliani in December 2020 to persuade Republican officials in seven states to prepare certificates of ascertainment for slates of Trump “alternate electors” to be presented to Pence for certification. — Wikipedia

They promoted the Pence Card as a contingency similar to the 1960 presidential election, in which two slates of electors were prepared pending results of a late recount of ballots in Hawaii, according to Wikipedia sources. 

Both parties agreed to that recount, which ultimately resulted in John F. Kennedy winning the state, though the outcome of the election did not hinge on the Hawaii results. By contrast, in the case of the 2020 election, the stated need for slates of alternate electors in multiple states was predicated on persistent false claims of nationwide election fraud.  — Wikipedia

The Epshteyn Show

Epshteyn asserted the slates of alternate electors were not fraudulent and “it is not against the law, it is according to the law.”

In on the ruse, dozens of Republican legislators from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin wrote Pence on January 5. 

All Pence had to do like the loyal former Vice President he had done many times in the past was to delay the January 6 certification for ten days.

When he did, those 5 key states would have time to replace the elector slates. 

Pence did not act on the request and that day also rejected a proposal made by Eastman:

That a vice president could simply choose to reject the electoral college results; a vice president’s role in certifying the results is constitutionally ministerial. — Wikipedia

Command Center

The Washington Post reported on October 23, 2021 that the Willard Hotel, was a “command center” for a White House plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Epshteyn told The Washington Post in October 2021 

That he continued to believe Pence “had the constitutional power to send the issue back to the states for 10 days to investigate the widespread fraud and report back well in advance of Inauguration Day, January 20th.”

Epshteyn was subpoenaed in January 2022 to testify before the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, according to Wikipedia

Pence didn’t fall for the “Pence Card”  

But it was in that context, that during the January 5 meeting at the Willard Hotel, Eastmen laid out the details in his January 4 memo describing his theory that Vice President Mike Pence could refuse to certify certain state elector slates the following day, and hand Trump a second term instead.

Actually, there were two memos.  The infamous six-step plan and a second, a more extensive plan, with multiple scenarios for Pence to take to overturn Biden’s election according to Wikipedia:

    • The first memo described the constitutional and statutory process for opening and counting of electoral votes under the 12th Amendment and Electoral Count Act, alleging that the Electoral Count Act was unconstitutional. 
    • The memo further claimed that the Vice President, who also serves as President of the Senate and presides over the joint session of Congress, “does the counting, including the resolution of disputed electoral votes… and all the Members of Congress can do is watch.” 
    • The memo refers to the actions of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson during the presidential elections of 1796 and 1800 as evidence for this claim; some supporters of President Trump, such as Congressman Louie Gohmert, had falsely claimed that Jefferson’s counting of Georgia’s electoral votes in 1800 indicated that the Vice President could unilaterally accept or reject electoral votes.
    • The memo then laid out a six-step plan for Pence to overturn Biden’s election

Behind Memo Number Two

The second memo laid out a more extensive plan with multiple scenarios for Pence to take to overturn Biden’s election: 

    • The first section outlined fictional illegal conduct by election officials in six states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin). 
    • The second section again alleged that the Electoral Count Act was unconstitutional, and that Pence had the power to unilaterally accept or reject electoral votes. 
    • The third section referred to “7 states” and outlined various alternatives for Pence to take to overturn Biden’s election.
    • Slates of electors declaring Trump the winner actually were submitted from the seven states, but the National Archives did not accept the unsanctioned documents and they did not explicitly enter the deliberations.
  • If all went according to Eastman’s plan, Pence would have declared Trump the winner.  He would have won more Electoral College votes after the seven states were thrown out, 232 votes to 222.

Evidence

“3” Steve Zahn, 51: “We want what seems somewhat, but not entirely inaccessible. Complete inaccessibility inspires derision. Desire will be ignited where beauty meets the unfinished or unpolished. Rawness makes a thing accessible.” Scorpio

Can I be honest?  I just don’t know how to interpret this observation.  But, somehow I like it.

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

Today’s Holiday Birthday: 

You’ll experience many environments and get the best of every world. Chaotic challenges shape you; calm, supportive places allow for intensive, focused work. You are brilliant without trying to be or do anything other than what comes naturally. Someone will travel far to see you — the ultimate compliment.

Really?  Can’t wait!

“4”  Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “Life is bustling and you’ll do what you can. As for the rest, instead of saying “I don’t have time,” try more empowering language like, “this is not my priority right now” and feel like an absolute boss.”Aries

This is not my priority right now.  

“4”  Steve Howey, 42: “You’ve a talent for understanding just how much you can and should take on. It’s natural to want to distance yourself from a harsh reality or distract yourself from pain.” Cancer

Haha.  A life lesson I learned the hard way.  I never could estimate just how much time it would take to achieve a goal for a client in my consulting practice.  So crafting winning proposals was hardly my strength.  Then, you’re stuck with a contract that pulls more time and energy out of you than is necessary.  

“5”  Steve Carell, 57; Steve Martin, 74; Steve Wozniak, 69: “To believe in your ability to sense what the right thing to do is and trust yourself to act accordingly promotes confidence in who you are now. For even more confidence, extend the same courtesy backward to Past You. No regrets.” Leo

Wow, this like a novel took an unexpected twist at the end.  I felt I’d apply it to how Emma the Baroness and I roll our eyes at what isn’t right, but has been going on for Three Seasons now on the national scene.  But instead it’s a reminder to identify those hard won lessons from the past and not make it so hard on myself.  Here’s to the next manuscript!

“3”  Steve Greene, 34; Steve Guttenberg, 61; Stephen King, 72: “As you make more of a distinction between what you have to do and what you choose to do, you understand that the list of ‘have-to’s’ is actually quite small. You’ll examine your reasons for continuing with certain responsibilities.” Virgo

Somehow I feel cheated.  Here you started out with a great premise, and then it dissipated.  Really?  I hoped for more insight.

“5”  Steve Harvey, 62; Stephan Patis, 53;  Stephen Hawking (1943 – 2018): “Even though a job is nearly complete, the refinements take almost as much time as the job itself did. Tending to details is hard work, but also very worth the effort.” Capricorn

See, this is what I had hoped for on a day like today.

Holiday Theme for The Day: 

Albert Camus said it’s necessary to fall in love, “if only to provide an alibi for all the random despair you are going to feel anyway.” Can you think of times when you felt a certain way first and looked for reasons later? … The opposite directive — claim hope and watch it blossom in your life.

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll

    • @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines, according to my analytics, grew from 12559 this week to 12654 organically grown followers.
    • Orange County Beach Towns 216 viewers stopped by the week before.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life

Long-Form

    • “Here, Right Matters: An American Story” by Alexander Vindman. “We’d long been confused by the president’s policy of accommodation and appeasement of Russia, the United States’ most pressing major adversary. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, seizing the Crimean Peninsula, attacking its industrial heartland, the Donbass, from the capital, Kyiv. By 2019, little had changed, Russian military and security forces and their proxy separatists continued to occupy the Donbass. The biggest change was to Ukraine’s importance as a bulwark against Russian aggression weeks earlier, the White House had abruptly put a hold on nearly four hundred million dollars.” 
    • David Enrich begins his book with a suicide in “Deutsche Bank Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction” and then meticulously details the bank’s Russian money laundering operations. Deutsche’s Russian business surged after revenues had fallen 50% due to the 2008 financial crisis. Putin’s Russia, poured in to Deutsche from deals it did with VTB Bank, linked to the Kremlin’s intelligence apparatus. Deutsche positioned itself as a crucial cog in “The Laundromat” by doing what couldn’t be done — processing cross-border transactions for banks that were too small  and didn’t have offices outside their home countries.
    • “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy” by Jamie Raskin recalls one tragedy no parent should endure — the suicide of his son — and then a second tragedy at almost the same time — the insurrection on January 6th 2021, that terrified he and his congressional peers who were tasked by the Constitution to routinely oversee the orderly transfer of power from one former president to the duly elected new President. 
    • “A Warning” by Anonymous (Miles Taylor) written prior to the January 6th Insurrection as an insider’s account documenting how frequently the former President’s behavior and rage without any “guard rails” showed just how far he would go to win the next election at any cost while spinning lies and misinformation on top of each other.  
    • “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa provides anecdotes, stories and inside reporting documenting the controversial last days of Donald Trump’s presidency, as well as the presidential transition and early presidency of Joe Biden. 
    • “Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising,” by Joshua Green tracks the money behind the scenes leading up to the 2016 presidential election and the growing influence of Steve Bannon’s network of extreme nationalists.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

The Knowledge Path | Know Laboratories | Knowledge Banking | Knowledge ATMs | Western Skies and Island Currents | Best West Road Trip

Posted on

S2 E70 — Persistent Failure

I failed so many times at start-ups that I could pick apart most of their plans and presentations almost instantaneously.  But, that didn’t mean I wasn’t a sucker for ideas I felt would be sure hits.  Even after I left the SBA program I continued to meet and mentor some of my entrepreneurs.

“5”  Steve Kerr, 54: “Stay aware, head on a swivel, as you make your way to the crossroads. Transitions are always a little more dangerous. The intersections of life hold potential for much good and bad fortune.” Libra

Hi and welcome to Friday’s Episode 70 in Season 2 of  “My Pandemic Year Natural Experiment” on this 26th day of June in the summer of 2020.

 

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Season One and Two are a two-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed during the “normal” pre-pandemic and then in this unfolding pandemic year.

Previously in Season Two, the Pandemic Year

S2 E69 — How Can You Tell Who’s an Engineer at a Party?; S2 E68 — Take More Breakthrough Showers;  S2 E67 — Here’s What I Didn’t Know That Will Help You

Related from Season One, the Normal Year

S1 E70 — Lingering Fear My Cover Was Blown; S1 E69 — Anniversary Trip of a Lifetime Deep in the Heart of Tuscany; S1 E68 — Overcompensating for Disappointing Results?; S1 E67 — Don’t Misunderstand Me

Context

This is the continuing story of how I learned important lessons from the school of hard knocks. And it’s an introduction to my second volume of books I described in the previous episode. I had already changed careers and switched industries by following the future brought to us by technology companies.

Key Executive Advisor

He asked me if I’d be interested in becoming their Key Executive Advisor.  I learned I’d be heading up the region’s outplacement services for C-suite executives paid for by their former companies.

Clearly this was a major stretch for me.  Fake it until you make it, right?

Rose colored glasses again?  You bet.  I immediately envisioned a 360 degree opportunity.

Here’s how I sized up what I could do: 

        1. Advise executives by surfacing their unique value propositions, circulate creative briefs describing them, pitch  their 90-day plans during the round of interviews and hit the ground running after the negotiations. 
        2. Once hired, then have them assess the organization’s current team they’ve inherited against the new direction — with our organizational consulting services. 
        3. Have them define the missing talent necessary to execute their plan, engage us to outplace executives and managers that who no longer fit. 
        4. Recruit from us executives they’ve likely already met and sized up, that matched their new talent requirements.    

Rinse and repeat.

Easy for me to see, but I had nobody local to pitch it too.  

The headquarters was on the East Coast where those kinds of decisions were considered, approved, but more probably rejected and denied. 

Their motto I came to believe was stick to your knitting and hit your numbers within your own functional silos. 

So I washed my hands of the whole proposition and dug in to accelerate my learning about how to deal with executives.  Up until then, like sales, not a strength of mine. 

My suite of offices were completely different than space devoted to the majority employees from lower paying companies, cubicles with workstations and a generic phone.  

It mirrored the “mahogany row” they were ejected from — with an executive assistant just for them, with offices offering privacy with doors that closed.  We were selling a normalized service.  Come spend the same hours as you would working, but this time devote them to your job search. 

I delivered individual and group facilitated services at offices throughout the Southern California Region from San Diego to Woodland Hills, Pasadena and West LA.  

It dawned on me that for executives, who you knew and who knew you,  made the most difference for people at this level, so I created an online community for information and insight sharing which became a source for trusted referrals.

Just as I was hitting my stride the parent company had been acquired and after about 18 months began consolidating services, cutting back on rental overhead and getting rid of us six figure advisors in favor of those high volume cubicle contracts at lower rates.

Shocked into Venture Guidance for SBA

Usually I see these things coming.  

Not this time, though.  

Maybe because between advisory sessions, group work and regional office visitations I had been experimenting with writing my first blog, The Journal of 2020 Foresight.  

Having been outplaced again, I worked out of a rival’s outplacement office ironically resurrecting my consulting practice  while I spent half my time coaching wannabe entrepreneurs who sought angel funding helping them on their presentation, in much the same way it’s done on shark tank.  

I’d meet each person with a great idea, hear them out, conduct a preliminary intake against the criteria for receiving our free services provided by a budget from The Small Business Association.  

Instead of qualifying for a business loan at a vetted SBA bank affiliate that they’d have to pay back, we were there to vet their idea against evolving criteria provided to us by Tech Coast Angels — a group of entrepreneurs and former executives who agreed to pledge $50,000 each as seed or A-series funding.  

In a deck of 10 slides, after being coached by us individually, the wannabes had to stand and deliver to a group of us roleplaying the sharks and throwing at them curve balls challenging their assumptions.

I failed so many times at start-ups that I could pick apart most of their plans and presentations almost instantaneously.  But, that didn’t mean I wasn’t a sucker for ideas I felt would be sure hits. 

Even after I left the SBA program I continued to meet and mentor some of my entrepreneurs who failed to dazzle the Angels.

Defense Contractor to Disease Prevention Start Up

One of my former client reached out to be because he left the disk-drive company that built the corporate headquarters and experienced “Edifice Complex” curse.  He needed my help with his San Diego defense contractor client that struggled with a spin off.  

They tried to commercialize electron-beam sterilization of fruits and vegetables and hamburger meat to extend their shelf life — which definitely represented thinking out of the box, Jack-in-the-Box.  

Doctors had invested after a round of salmonella outbreak.  He had another client which was reinventing itself trying to both innovate and control their product development process. 

Too Many Product Innovations

I learned that the talent cultures that inhabit defense contractors are in no way the talent cultures that you need to commercialize a startup.  

And, instead of doing what I loved to do, facilitate more innovative ideas from all corners of an enterprise, too many ideas can be a bad thing.  

Especially if you don’t have a process in place to kill projects that go nowhere to free up resources — budget and talent — for higher probability minimum viable projects.

It was this last client who was located in the research park of the local university that required me to drive on campus for product meetings.  

One late Friday morning, after a Starbucks meeting near the John Wayne Airport,  I decided to take the afternoon off.  So I drove towards the heart of the campus, parked my silver gray 4 Runner in the town center and began aimlessly wandering. 

I strolled past outdoor restaurant tables filled with undergraduates and professors who like me were just enjoying another spring day in Southern California when a voice rang out, “Steve, is that you?” 

Synchronicity or Serendipity?

That simple question startled me and jerked me back from my daydreams to reality. I turned around, couldn’t zero in on the voice’s location and began believing I imagined it.

But haven’t I emphasized that particular moment when you realize all your hard work meets the probability that someone you’ve just met will recommend you for a position or client who has a need, but hasn’t yet crystalized the requirements until you walk in with a pitch? 

Yup, but for my ex-C-Suite clients I advised in the Key Executive program

But, this time it was for me.  

Another colleague wanted an update.  And, eventually asked if I wanted to work with her at the University in the Business School advising the Executive and Healthcare Executive students.  I aced the interviews with the team.

The Director approved a long-term retainer for conducting advisory services and for teaching seminars customized to Executive MBA students needs.  Basically, he wanted someone to create the program from the ground up.

The opportunity lasted for a decade which I view as a field test or a laboratory for the content in these second volume books.

I proposed a curriculum to the Director for him to review, “Why would anyone choose to come back to school for an executive MBA (and spend over $100,000 over two years) when you’ve got all they’d ever need in this curriculum?” he asked.  

We should probably keep this our own little secret, since the University is paying both of us he went on to say.

But enough about me. For today, haha.

Evidence

“4”  Steve Zahn, 51: “As the bees get nectar, they accidentally spread pollen. Do they know they are the reason the flowers bloom? Like the bees, you will unknowingly cause beauty just by doing what comes naturally.” Scorpio

So, we’re talking about an organic eco-system that’s interdependent, right?  So if for some reason bees die off then the flowers and vegetables don’t bloom and seeds don’t fall and — is this what we’ll be leaving for our grandchildren?

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

“5”  Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “Of all the things you could wish for, an easy route won’t be one of them. It wouldn’t be wrong so much as just off-brand. You welcome the opportunity to get stronger and smarter through challenging work.”  Aries 

Haha, off-brand.  That’s a good one.  But I have to say I bore easily if my work hasn’t been complicated, complex or on the edge where the new knowledge you create and circulate, I check out.  But, every damn time? 

“3”  Steve Winwood, 71; Stevie Wonder, 69; Stephen Colbert, 56: “You’re not afraid to answer the call of duty and, in fact, the best things you’ve experienced have happened because you both answered and went above and beyond such a call.”  Taurus

Really?  Not today.  So far, anyway.  I answered my call to duty years ago as an Army veteran, but I’m loathe to remember anything good that came out of it.

.“3”  Steve Howey, 42: “Let no one, not even you, offer a limiting idea of what you’re capable of. You don’t know what you can accomplish until you accomplish it. Your tenacity knows no bounds.” Cancer

Hopefully you find this inspirational, uplifting and relevant for you today.  It’s not for me.  But, then it’s not my “official” Holiday Tau either.

“5”  Steve Greene, 34; Steve Guttenberg, 61; Stephen King, 72: “You have paid your dues and done your time. You showed up how they wanted, so you know what that’s like. Now, you’re inclined to do it your own way, to show up how you see fit. It works.” Virgo

It dawned on me that making a living as an artist probably won’t age well when I’m old and gray.  So with family responsibilities I chose to write on the side — to exercise my creativity on things I wanted to do in smaller time slots — at night, before work and at lunch.  Now with work out of the way, I am truly indeed seeing how it fits and works doing it my own way.

“5”  Steve Kerr, 54: “Stay aware, head on a swivel, as you make your way to the crossroads. Transitions are always a little more dangerous. The intersections of life hold potential for much good and bad fortune.” Libra

Here’s the added caveat during a pandemic — who knows how long this transition to locked down mode will last and how desperate we may all become for a normal life once more, when none may available on the other side.

“3”  Steve Harvey, 62: “You’ve already done the ‘dance like no one is watching’ thing and now you’re into the refinement of movement assumed by consummate professionals. Because if all goes well, someone will be watching.”  Capricorn

Over these initial chapters I’d conclude I became good at interviewing, because I assumed the view of an outside consultant.  And war stories they cared about flowed naturally from my lips.  But once the deal was signed or the offer extended I danced like everybody was watching as I faked it until I made it.

“5”  Steve Nash, 45: “The thing you didn’t think you had time for will now be taking up many hours of your day. But if it weren’t good for your personal development, you wouldn’t feel so compelled to manage it.”  Aquarius

Isn’t there such a sigh of relief when you finally land a new job, discover how the internal weather blows, and master those obstacles thrown your way in the normal course of your assignments?  Yup.  It’s the same feeling I felt tempted to follow allowing my networking and marketing activities slip slide away.  Hey, I just landed a long-term retainer!  And then out of blue the flow you began coasting on dries up.

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll 

    • @knowlabs followers of one or more of my 35 digital magazines organically grew from 3911 to 4073.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life

Long-Form

    • Saw the movie, didn’t realize that one of my favorite authors, Michael Connelly — his detective Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch book series and Amazon Prime series — also wrote, “The Lincoln Lawyer” which I just finished. Gotta tell you I can’t not see his lead character (Mickey Haller, Bosch’s half brother) as anyone else but Matthew McConaughey. 

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by: Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

The Knowledge Path | Know Laboratories | Knowledge Banking | Knowledge ATMs | Western Skies and Island Currents | Best West Road Trip

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S2 E68 — Take More Breakthrough Showers

When compared with previous industrial revolutions, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace.

“5”  Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “The people around you may be too busy executing the action to pause and consider why they are doing it or whether there might be a better way. That’s where you come in — the witness with an objective overview.”  Aries

Hi and welcome to Sunday’s Episode 68 in Season 2 of  “My Pandemic Year Natural Experiment” on this 21st day of June in the summer of 2020.  

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Season One and Two are a two-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed during the “normal” pre-pandemic and then in this unfolding pandemic year.

Previously in Season Two, the Pandemic Year

S2 E67 — Here’s What I Didn’t Know That Will Help You; S2 E66 — The Romance of a Good Humor Man in Detroit; S2 E65 — Pandemic Uncovered 11 Life-Changing Secrets You Shouldn’t Ignore

Related from Season One, the Normal Year

S1 E68 — Overcompensating for Disappointing Results?; S1 E67 — Don’t Misunderstand Me; S1 E66 — Do Your Proposals Lead to Contracts?; S1 E65 — Focus Your Mental Energy 

Context

This is the continuing story of how I learned important lessons by graduating at the top of my class from the school of hard knocks and is an introduction for the second volume of books I described in the previous episode.  

Company of the Year to Start Up

Four of us left to start-up a business to business (B2B) company that bottled the magic we performed believing that all other companies requiring reinvention through highly rejuvenated leaders would be beating down our doors.  

Wrong.  

Even though one of us had left an advertising agency kinda like “Mad Men” in favor of pursuing a physics degree we couldn’t get enough traction fast enough in the marketplace.

The dreamed lived on, but the opportunities failed to materialize.  

Paradoxy-Moron Wannabe

“In your area of expertise, you’re a forward-thinker.  Trend-chasing would put you behind.”

But, wait. Let’s take a moment ask an important question. How do you become a forward thinker if you don’t do what I’ve done over the years? 

Maybe not chase trends, but anticipate their impact on industries, client organizations, employers, investment portfolios, business decisions, career trajectories and major decisions I’ve faced at critical junctures.  

I learned I was the conceptualizer and co-intuitor addicted to trends and innovation and the new knowledge that emerged through application.  

Again, not the closer. 

 “What you’re standing in looks a lot like the river from yesterday and can be maneuvered as such.”

I’m pretty sure I’ve already stipulated that I’m a fan of Steve Jobs, mostly for his brand of disruptive innovation — creating new rules for an older industry.  

It’s his spirit that reminds me of a quote, I believe came from Joel Barker originally:

“Mastering new rules is like trying to cross a white-water river. If you can anticipate the whirlpools and the changes in the current, if you can anticipate the landing on the other shore, you have a much better chance of getting across that river successfully.”

And I felt a strong pull towards what I’ve come to name the “Paradoxy-Moron” organization type.  A talent culture that thrives on high degrees of disruptive innovation, independence and speed.

“Project yourself to the far future.  What you see there will help you create your best strategy.”

I recently published “Knowing About New Possibilities Gives You More Choices. Check These Out” on my website, Know Laboratories: Thriving in an Age of Accelerating Uncertainty. 

The main point was:

When compared with previous industrial revolutions, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace.

But, I digress.

Learning Enterprise Initiatives

At the turn of the decade I transitioned from president-elect to president of the training and development association.  They were heady times for taking on the “Learning Enterprise Initiatives” forging alliances among corporate education, technical training schools, colleges and universities and community colleges.  

My focus as written in monthly columns for the association’s newsletter  had always been on the amazing future opportunities the new decade could bring.  And speculation about impending threats and opportunities for us in the “Learning Enterprise” and for the talent in our organizations.

I figured by “putting it out there” my next “Strategic Safari” opportunity would materialize.

But, instead for the next two or so years I joined a past-president and a former colleague in their training and development professional services firm so my family could eat and we could pay our mortgage.  

Avoid Supervisory Training Gigs

I learned the basic business model in the training business was all about you finding clients that need supervisory training, developing a customized curriculum from scratch but retaining the rights to what you developed for a previous client and then repackaging the offerings for your new client.  

That made sense to my growing knowledge management “Robin Hood” sense of repurposing what you’ve done to grow revenue.  

But, I also learned I wasn’t cut out to turn out and deliver supervisory courses for clients like a university hospital, a transportation agency, or even to three technology companies.  

I lost interest in management training  for slow moving mature organization types.  I craved the adrenalin rush of working in Paradoxy-Moron companies. 

It just didn’t satisfy the idea packaging talent I had developed when ideas were old and trending towards commodity knowledge.

Going in I didn’t know that the talent culture should have gone on my list of worst fit, or at least worse fit.  Definitely not best fit.

Outplacement for Retreading Downsized Managers

When I left I activated Plan B as an independent contractor delivering outplacement group training sessions and coaching at two firms. 

For the second firm I held down the fort while the founder underwent heart surgery.  Even he recognized my heart wasn’t in his business and his pressure to sell more than to deliver his service helped me self-select out.  

Local Disk-drive Technology Company

I was much more interested in conceptualizing which trends — demographic, social, technical, economic, political — through their interconnectedness —would produce major opportunities for new products, services and careers. 

And threats for those asleep at the wheel.

Luckily I caught wind of a permanent opening at a local disk-drive technology company working for my former client who led their corporate university function. He was spearheading the introduction of continuous improvement and needed a director to manage facilitators from all functions.  

 “Give yourself a break; you’re solving a problem even if you’re not aware that you are.  This takes time.”

It gave me the opportunity to repackage what I learned up to that point time from facilitating teams, mentoring “non” trainers and develop my “reinvention and new knowledge creation” war stories like:

“What’s the most important thing you’ve learned?” she asked.  

“Take showers,” he said.  “Huh?” was her reply not quite sure if he was making fun of her or not.  He then explained the major breakthrough he and his team of co-conspirators couldn’t quite find was driving him nuts and keeping him at his incubator on many late nights.  

But, his phone rang.  It was his wife reminding him in that scolding way that only the loves in our life can that he was late for their date. 

He dropped everything he was doing in a panic and peeled out of the incubator’s parking lot. While showering to freshen up, something clicked in his unconsciousness or something he said, and it was like the world changing solution popped out as soon as the water hit his face. 

He grabbed a pen and his notebook even before toweling off.  His team couldn’t believe it.  His wife enjoyed their date together.  And the rest was history.

So shower more ofter.

Evidence

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

“5”  Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “The people around you may be too busy executing the action to pause and consider why they are doing it or whether there might be a better way. That’s where you come in — the witness with an objective overview.”  Aries 

Once you reach his stage in life, living in Sarasota, Florida, my dad told me it’s like every day is Saturday to which I added, “And, every night is Friday night.”  So Emma the Baroness as Father’s Day hostess always says she missed out on conversations around our outdoor bar and barbecue as she brings out snacks from the kitchen.  She’s busy in a hostess way, within the pandemic constraints we all follow.

“4” Steve Winwood, 71; Stevie Wonder, 69; Stephen Colbert, 56: “There’s a pang of longing for something different. You don’t have to be somewhere new to experience another place. You can create the effect with an alternate point of view.” Taurus 

Within our pandemic restrictions, you might enjoy what started out as a roadtrip from San Diego to the northern boarder of California and turned into regional stories of places to visit, places to live, and places where you invest.  It’s all there in just two of my 35 digital magazines — “California Tip to Tip” and “Western Skies and Island Currents”.

“4”  Steve Smith, 30: “When traveling to a new place, it helps to know the customs there. Places and people are the same in this regard. Each person has a culture, and learning another person will keep you deeply involved today.” Gemini

And, if you work for an employer the customs and culture you encounter vary by Organization Type and the Stage of Growth (or decline) that organization grows into.  This manuscript explores the four basic types and stages which attract people like you.  Stay tuned.

“3”  Steve Howey, 42: “Your humanity and the kinship of humans will be a strong theme of the day. You’ll regard your fellow travelers as partners, whether they happen to be your family, friends, co-workers or strangers.” Cancer

COVID restrictions preclude face-to-face family at today’s Father’s Day celebration like last year.

“3”  Steve Carrell, 57; Steve Martin, 74; Steve Wozniak, 69: “Watch, listen, study, contemplate… these are the directives for an interesting life. Your mental powers will be even brighter than usual to help you see deeply into simple things.” Leo

Sure, it’s what I do and it’s what led me to writing this manuscript.

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll 

    • @knowlabs followers of one or more of my 35 digital magazines organically grew from 3911 to 4073.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life 

Long-Form

    • Saw the movie, didn’t realize that one of my favorite authors, Michael Connelly — his detective Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch book series and Amazon Prime series — also wrote, “The Lincoln Lawyer” which I just finished. Gotta tell you I can’t not see his lead character (Mickey Haller, Bosch’s half brother) as anyone else but Matthew McConaughey. 

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by: Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

The Knowledge Path | Know Laboratories | Knowledge Banking | Knowledge ATMs | Western Skies and Island Currents | Best West Road Trip

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S4 E26 — What Happens If No One Asks a Question?

In Peril, Woodward and Costa identify Boris Epshteyn as an associate of Rudy Giuliani who joins Rudy and Steve Bannon in the “War Room” at the Willard — owned jointly by Carr Companies and InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, the Willard InterContinental Washington.

“5”  Steve Harvey, 62; Stephan Patis, 53;  Stephen Hawking (1943 – 2018): “If no one asks a question, nothing gets done. And if people keep asking questions, nothing gets done. Progress is asking the right question at the right time and getting answers before you move on to the next question.” Capricorn

Hi and welcome to Friday’s 26th Episode in Season 4 of  “Our Disruptively Resilient Year” on this 15th day of April in the spring of 2022.

We concluded the three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed — during the “normal” pre-pandemic year compared to the pandemic year, and more recently to the paradoxically normal year. 

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Season Four continues now within domestic and global chaos.

Previously in Season Four, The Disruptively Resilient Year

S4 E25 — Accountability?; S4 E24 — Another Spooky Role to Play on the Outside; S4 E23 — When In Doubt, Follow the Money

Related from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year

S3 E26 — Following Alice Down the Rabbit Hole; S3 E25 — Art Lives Upon Discussion, Upon Experiment, Upon Curiosity …; S3 E24—Reunion on the Edge of the Pacific Ocean near Legoland? Hell Yeah!; S3 E23— Free from the Pile of Rubble in Your Brain

Related from Season Two, the Pandemic Year

S2 E26 — Rethinking the N-Word ; S2 E25— Are You an Innie or Outie Thinker?; S2 E24— Working Remote from KnowWhere Atoll S2 E23 — Gaping Loss No Amount of Mourning Will Heal 

Related from Season One, the Normal Year

S1 E26 — Day 26  of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E25 — Day 25 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E24 — Day 24 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E23 — Day 23 of My 1-Year Experiment

Context

In Peril, Woodward and Costa identify Boris Epshteyn as an associate of Rudy Giuliani who joins Rudy and Steve Bannon in the “War Room” at the Willard — Owned jointly by Carr Companies and InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, the Willard InterContinental Washington. 

It’s conveniently situated two blocks east of the White House  and two blocks west of the Metro Center station of the Washington Metro.

And did I fail to mention it sat next to Freedom Plaza, where the rally would be held as Boris Epshteyn, a friend of Eric Trump, Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon plotted next steps?

So, just who is Epshteyn?  Jamie Raskin didn’t mention him in my notes, nor did Joshua Green or “Anonymous” so I had to sleuth a little bit and here’s what I found.

Magnet for Shady Characters

Is it just me or does Trump attract shady characters like metal to a magnet? 

Boris joined Trump’s 2016 election campaign after a firm, he was the managing director of business and legal affairs at the boutique investment bank — West America Securities Corporation — was expelled from Financial Industry Regulatory Agency in 2013.

In October 2013, Epshteyn moderated a panel at the investment conference “Invest in Moscow!” The panel was composed mainly of Moscow city government officials, including Sergey Cheremin, a city minister who heads Moscow’s foreign economic and international relations department. — Wikipedia

Remember how Russian oligarchs managed to hide assets converted from rubles into valuable art?  As told in the book by Ben Lewis, and again in a documentary about the Leonardo da Vinci painting being sold by one such oligarch and stored in the booming freeport business?  

A Painting but not s Valuable as a Leonardo

Well, in September 2016, according to Wikipedia,  Epshteyn responded to a question from MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson by offering a new explanation for why a portrait of Trump – paid for by the Donald J. Trump Foundation – wound up on display at Trump National Doral Miami, a Trump-owned for-profit golf resort in Florida. Epshteyn said: 

“There are IRS rules which specifically state that when a foundation has an item, an individual can store those items – on behalf of the foundation – in order to help it with storage costs… And that’s absolutely proper.” 

Misuse of Funds while Self-Dealing

What was at stake was self-dealing. And misuse of a foundation. And the following facts didn’t support his explanation, according to Wikipedia sources:

  • Instead, Trump’s resort was helping the foundation – which has no employees or office space of its own – to store one of its possessions.
  • Epshteyn‘s explanation failed to account for why the storage services required that portrait be displayed in public, as opposed to being maintained in a storage space. 
  • Similarly, Epshteyn failed to explain why the Trump National Doral Miami provided such storage services only for the Trump Foundation and only for a portrait of Trump.

Scripted 2020 Election Conspiracy

Now fast forward to Trump’s next election campaign.

After Trump lost the 2020 election, Epshteyn was a member of a team that gathered at a “command center” in the Willard Hotel one block from the White House days before Biden’s victory was to be certified by vice president Mike Pence in the Senate chamber on January 6. 

The team’s objective was to prevent Biden’s victory from being certified.  — Wikipedia

Desperation had set in among Trump’s inner circle.  John Eastman participated in the attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election.

They were following a script hatched by Orange County’s finest “legal scholar” once serving on the Chapman University faculty and former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

During President Donald Trump’s last efforts before the certification of Joe Biden‘s Electoral College victory, Eastman incorrectly told Vice President Mike Pence in an Oval Office meeting on January 5, 2021, that Pence had the constitutional authority to block the certification. — Wikipedia

Constitution’s 12th Amendment

Woodward and Costa explained that while the Democrats held the current House majority, the 12th Amendment of the Constitution stated the voting on a contested election would not be done by a simple majority vote.

Instead, the amendment states that the election vote would be counted in blocs of state delegations, with one vote per state: Republicans now controlled more delegations in the House of Representatives, meaning Trump would likely win if the chamber ended up deciding the victor.

Vice President Pence and former Vice President Dan Quale both hailed from Indiana. So, it was natural that Pence picked up the phone and sought his advice.

“Mike, I live in Arizona,” Quayle said. “There’s nothing out here.”

Preposterous and Dangerous

Woodward and Costa described how Quayle thought Trump’s suggestion was preposterous and dangerous.

All he had to do was count the votes. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall

Trump’s effort to cajole Pence was a dark, Rube Goldberg–like fantasy,

“I do know the position you’re in,” Quayle said. “I also know what the law is. You listen to the parliamentarian. That’s all you do. You have no power. So just forget it.”

Quayle assured Pence that things would be fine. They were conservatives. Just follow the Constitution.

During that same period in December, Senator Mike Lee of Utah spoke with Leader McConnell telling his colleagues for weeks about attempts to not certify the election results: “We have no more authority than the Queen of England. None.” 

6-Point Action Plan

Lee and Lindsay Graham saw the writing on the wall — it was over.  But Lee was directed to John Eastman, another Trump lawyer. 

The two spoke with each other. “There’s a memo about to be developed,” Eastman said. “I’ll get it to you as soon as I can.” Graham’s strategy was now not to try to convince Trump he lost—he had lost that battle—but to convince him he could not change the outcome.

Eastman did send to Mike Lee the six-point plan of action for Pence to throw out the electors from seven states to keep Trump in power, which Lee rejected.

And, Pence did not accept Eastman’s argument either. 

On January 2, Trump, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman held a conference call with some 300 Republican state legislators in battleground states Biden won to provide them with false allegations of widespread voting fraud they might use to convene special sessions of their legislatures to rescind Biden’s winning slates of electors and replace them with slates of Trump electors for Pence to certify. — Wikipedia

But like Trump, Eastman wasn’t deterred either.

On January 6, 2021, Eastman presented a speech at the White House Trump rally that preceded the 2021 United States Capitol attack and subsequently implored Vice President Pence, via his legal counsel, to violate the Electoral Count Act to delay certification of the election. — Wikipedia

Retired, but not Forgotten

On January 13, 2021, Eastman retired from the Chapman University faculty after the controversy created by his speech at the Trump rally.

More than a year later, on March 28, 2022, federal judge David Carter ruled Eastman, along with Trump, was likely to have conspired to block the January 6, 2021 vote count, according to Wikipedia’s sources.

Evidence

Holiday Theme for The Day: 

… warns us of the ego’s tendency to keep us working for its vision. As soon as it gets what it wants, it comes up with a new list of demands. Happiness and freedom depend on restricting the ego’s power with modesty and service. Give the ego just enough to exist, but not enough to take over and run the show.

“4”  Steve Zahn, 51: “Shared creativity is a bond. Writing can unite people. Art can flirt with your eyeballs. A song can pierce you straight through and connect you with invisible thread to the others who hear and love it.” Scorpio

Who wouldn’t appreciate a sentence about art flirting with your eyeballs? But, I really love the invisible thread a song plucks on a thread in the “hear (here) and now.

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

“3”  Steve Winwood, 71; Stevie Wonder, 69; Stephen Colbert, 56: “Your fantasy life is going strong. As for these castles in the air — maybe you can’t live in them, but some of the ideas are practical enough to apply once you touch back down to earth.” Taurus 

Not so much.  I’m no rocket man today, but I do love me some associative thinking.  We’ll have to wait until later for any practical evidence.

“3”  Steve Smith, 30, Stevie Nicks, 72: “Your mood: ambitious. You’ll push yourself. Because going after the larger experiences of life takes a great deal of focus and energy, it will require you to cut out distractions and bring your lower appetites into control.” Gemini

Maybe you can appreciate the premise, it just doesn’t fit for me today —except for the need to cut out distractions.

“4”  Steve Greene, 34; Steve Guttenberg, 61; Stephen King, 72: “New projects gather steam. The work is really just beginning, but encouraging early results are a glimpse of what you’ll get if you keep this up for the long haul.” Virgo

So, this series of episodes I feel compelled to unpack.  Which in turn take the steam out of anything gathering just yet.  Maybe a glimpse here and there shines a little sparkle, but I’m about a week away from turning up the heat on my newer projects identified.  

“5”  Steve Harvey, 62; Stephan Patis, 53;  Stephen Hawking (1943 – 2018): “If no one asks a question, nothing gets done. And if people keep asking questions, nothing gets done. Progress is asking the right question at the right time and getting answers before you move on to the next question.” Capricorn

And, this observation is really what’s driving me so far in this fourth season in the midst of chaos.

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll

    • @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines, according to my analytics, grew from 12559 this week to 12654 organically grown followers.
    • Orange County Beach Towns 216 viewers stopped by the week before.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life

Long-Form

    • “Here, Right Matters: An American Story” by Alexander Vindman. “We’d long been confused by the president’s policy of accommodation and appeasement of Russia, the United States’ most pressing major adversary. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, seizing the Crimean Peninsula, attacking its industrial heartland, the Donbass, from the capital, Kyiv. By 2019, little had changed, Russian military and security forces and their proxy separatists continued to occupy the Donbass. The biggest change was to Ukraine’s importance as a bulwark against Russian aggression weeks earlier, the White House had abruptly put a hold on nearly four hundred million dollars.” 
    • David Enrich begins his book with a suicide in “Deutsche Bank Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction” and then meticulously details the bank’s Russian money laundering operations. Deutsche’s Russian business surged after revenues had fallen 50% due to the 2008 financial crisis. Putin’s Russia, poured in to Deutsche from deals it did with VTB Bank, linked to the Kremlin’s intelligence apparatus. Deutsche positioned itself as a crucial cog in “The Laundromat” by doing what couldn’t be done — processing cross-border transactions for banks that were too small  and didn’t have offices outside their home countries.
    • “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy” by Jamie Raskin recalls one tragedy no parent should endure — the suicide of his son — and then a second tragedy at almost the same time — the insurrection on January 6th 2021, that terrified he and his congressional peers who were tasked by the Constitution to routinely oversee the orderly transfer of power from one former president to the duly elected new President. 
    • “A Warning” by Anonymous (Miles Taylor) written prior to the January 6th Insurrection as an insider’s account documenting how frequently the former President’s behavior and rage without any “guard rails” showed just how far he would go to win the next election at any cost while spinning lies and misinformation on top of each other.  
    • “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa provides anecdotes, stories and inside reporting documenting the controversial last days of Donald Trump’s presidency, as well as the presidential transition and early presidency of Joe Biden. 
    • “Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising,” by Joshua Green tracks the money behind the scenes leading up to the 2016 presidential election and the growing influence of Steve Bannon’s network of extreme nationalists.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

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S3 E34 — Why You’re Susceptible to Subliminal Suggestions Like …

What about synchronicity and meaningful coincidences? Haha.  That was a test.  We covered it on Friday as a discussion section of Conclusions in The One-Year Natural Experiment Report.

“5”  Steve Howey, 42: “Try not to get hung up on having a final, polished result because your time is better spent solving a number of problems, which you’ll never get to if you try to make any of them perfect.” Cancer

Hi and welcome to Saturday’s Episode 34 in Season 3 of  “My Paradoxically Normal Year” on this 24th day of April in the spring of 2021 — which is a three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed during the “normal” pre-pandemic year and then in the pandemic year, and now months after.

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

Previously from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year

S3 E33 — Do Meaningful Coincidences Really Exist?; S3 E32 — But, Why Should You Care?; S3 E31— Treat It Like a Pawn Ticket to Sketchier Things

Related from Season Two, The Pandemic Year

S2 E34 — Why Is This Kicking Off the 4th Industrial Revolution?; S2 E33 — What Happens When Your Business Collapses?; S2 E32 — Trapped and Bored? Or Unleashing a Reinvention Wave?; S2 E31 — Getting Charged from Box Automattic-aly

Related from Season One, The Normal Year

S1 E34 — Day 34 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E33 — Day 33 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E32 — Day 32 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E31 — Day 31 of My 1-Year Experiment

Context

Oh, except this passage about coincidences from President Obama’s recent memoir, “A Promised Land” when he recounts his nomination at the party’s convention: 

“ … formally making the motion to vote me in as the Democratic nominee, the full meaning of my nomination hit me. By coincidence, it was the forty-fifth anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. King’s historic ‘I Have a Dream’ at National Mall on that day in 1963: ‘We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.’”

What’s the purpose of the report you ask?  

To explain the gap between the subliminal seduction of horoscopes across the chasm to the “land of people with hardened filters” so entrenched they only see what they believe and consciously or unconsciously disregard the rest.   

Is there any hope for a path to bridge two polarized political extremes as Americans? Which sets up a deeper dive into the “Magical Thinking Tour” to unfold later.

Each morning, usually at 5:30 or 6 am, I do two things that activate my conscious and unconscious filters. One for selecting horoscopes and my second daily project, for screening lists of headline stories from each Apple News sources.  

How long it takes to select a flip-worthy story.   

Reminds me of how I remember my Masters thesis advisor saying he didn’t understand my research but gave me an “A.”  

I got to use a camera to record the scan path — where a person looked as I presented images a little faster each time and had them decide if it was the same or different image.  

I got to see if there was any connection between the speed of recognition of an image held in short-term memory and a similar eyeball pattern of search to find distinguishing features based on which to name the object.  

My one take away was at speeds when college freshmen couldn’t tell you what they saw, they could still recognize it. 

So, stuff comes in and we can’t see it, but we can react to it.

Which leads to a moment maybe three years earlier when I knew in my heart of hearts that law school wasn’t for me and returning to psychology was.  

Our professor using that annoying Socratic teaching method to sharpen our budding legal minds and kept on it and on it challenging everybody’s timid answer to why a holding in a legal case made good law.  

I hated it.  I read and reread case material I didn’t understand as homework. I lived by myself in a studio apartment on the more dangerous, but more affordable student side of the university town.  

But the professor in his mid-forties with dark hair and wire rim glasses drove home the point — a turning point for me — about the reliability of witnesses.  

“When you and your girlfriend exit a movie theatre with another couple and one of you tries to fill the silence by asking, ‘So what did think about the movie?’ what do you say?  Do you list the plot structure attributes or how stunning the actress or handsome the leading actor was, or the music score, or …?  No, you answer you liked it or didn’t first.  And, then you list all the reasons why.”

The second part becomes a position you discuss or defend with your friends over drinks.  

I realized I was much more interested in that sequence than imagining some future court room scene where I tried to trip up a witness on the stand into revealing there was a possibility she was wrong.

I wanted to know why someone did what they did.  Why your “lizard brain” has already decided and your logical brain explains your lizard’s choice after the fact.

Evidence

So Lizard, how did I do?

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

Am I?  No, not really.  As much as I love your duet, I’m not lifting your Holiday Tau today.  Sorry.

“2”  Steve Smith, 30, Stevie Nicks, 72: “You’re torn about whether to invest in a new tool. Definitely, using something different will amplify your capacities. Don’t rule out that which you make yourself. Tools of your very own will open up fresh avenues of exploration.” Gemini

Can I apply your Holiday Tau to writing the Report about My 1-year Experiment, and composing the second year — the pandemic experiment, and of course this year — the post-pandemic year (I hope) and the comparison of three years in April?  

“5”  Steve Howey, 42: “Try not to get hung up on having a final, polished result because your time is better spent solving a number of problems, which you’ll never get to if you try to make any of them perfect.” Cancer

G&G, your TauBit of Wisdom tantalizes me today.  I forced myself to publish the first 9 days of My 1-Year Experiment in an evolving format. I forgot some of the editing and media limitations and the rules I followed before, which slowed me down at first, but maybe I should look forward to surpassing previous limits, eh?

“4”  Steve Greene, 34; Steve Guttenberg, 61: “If you keep the same rules, you’ll get the same shaped result. You’re going for something else. Your process is evolving. Take away one of your rules to let it expand unimpeded by previous limits.” Virgo

Thanks for the afternoon off, today Steve.  You Holiday Tau’s permission reminded me of a cartoon I saw of a teacher in a class room calling on a kid who raised his hand.  Yes Billy she asked and he said, “May I be excused my brain is too full?”

“4”  Steve Harvey, 62: “Mindfulness gets plenty of play in your world lately — so much so that one might forget about the utter joys of the opposite state. Mindlessness certainly has its merits, especially in the sunshine of spring!”  Capricorn

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll 

    • @KnowLabs suite of digital magazines jumps from 8003 to 8068 organically grown followers

Foresight

Quality-of-Life 

Long-Form

    • “Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge” by E.O. Wilson, an entomologist who studied colonies of ants for their insights.  But didn’t stop there, according to The Wall Street Journal, “A dazzling journey across the sciences and humanities in search of deep laws to unite them.” 
    • “True Believers,” the novel by Kurt Andersen (which seems to precede Fantasyland)? I like how he goes back and forth from now to the ‘60s in which the main character is writing a memoir, but needs “Okays” from her friends who had been hiding a secret for 40+ years that could ruin their careers?  Like, what’s my equivalent
    • “Disappearing Through the Skylight” by O.B. Hardison, Jr. which proceeded “Consilience” by a decade.  Hardison’s been described as a polymathic renaissance man who wrote, “… Nature has slipped, perhaps finally beyond our field of vision.”  What does it mean for “… science, history, art and architecture, music, language, ultimately, for humanity”? This one provides missing chunks of understanding where we came from and where we’re going.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by: Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION

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