Reading about our history is fascinating. In How to Read a Book by Adler and Van Doren, the authors write that “if you want to discover the truth of the past, you had better read several books about it rather than one.” The more you read, the more you fill in the gaps. After all, … Continue reading Book Review: These Truths – A History of the United States
AI and the Human Factor
I was planning to post a book review today, but I’ll probably do that next week. My mind kept bringing me back to the content of three great essays I read over the last couple of weeks. One of those essays used Artificial Intelligence (AI) during the writing process, and it was really good. I … Continue reading AI and the Human Factor
Learning How to Read Again
Back when I was starting this blog, I wrote a short book review of How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren. In that post, I mentioned that my first attempt to read the book was in 2009, but I wasn’t ready for it. … Continue reading Learning How to Read Again
Love and Discipline
Lately, I have been reading too many news stories about an old man man exhibiting the following behaviors: frequent temper tantrums, angry outbursts and irritability, argumentativeness and defiance, destruction of property, serious rule violations, arguing with adults or refusing to comply with adults’ rules, being resentful or spiteful, often deliberately annoying others or becoming annoyed … Continue reading Love and Discipline
Three Years in the Blogosphere: Learning, Sharing, and Connecting
Three years ago, I embarked on an interesting journey after retiring from the military. I needed a way to keep my mind engaged after 26-plus years of doing just that on a daily basis. Blogging gave me that outlet. I have stayed very consistent with my blog’s purpose of offering my thoughts about leadership, history, … Continue reading Three Years in the Blogosphere: Learning, Sharing, and Connecting
The Lessons We Keep Forgetting
“Benjamin Franklin was eighty-one years old, hunched and crooked, when he signed the Constitution in 1787, with his gnarled and speckled hand. In 1731, when he was twenty-five, straight as a sapling, he’d written an essay called 'Observations on Reading History,' on a 'little paper, accidentally preserv’d.' And he’d kept reading history, and talking notes, … Continue reading The Lessons We Keep Forgetting
Book Review: The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787
“By ‘reading and reasoning’ on politics they had learned ‘how to define the rights of nature, – how to search into, to distinguish, and to comprehend, the principles of physical, moral, religious, and civil liberty,’ how, in short, to discover and resist the forces of tyranny before they could be applied.” (p. 4) They – … Continue reading Book Review: The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787
Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Books
The topic of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to be at the center of seemingly every conversation and news story. I, for one, read or listen to something about AI on a daily basis. From trying to find consciousness inside AI, to books being rejected because of undisclosed AI content, to legal cases where AI logs … Continue reading Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Books
The College Bubble and the Real World
This weekend, while reading the Wall Street Journal, I came across an opinion piece that I almost didn’t read because of its title, “How Colleges Produce Socialists.” But then, as I started to look for the next article, I read the following: “When your first brush with adulthood involves endless consumption and no cost, it … Continue reading The College Bubble and the Real World
Book Review: The Last Days of Socrates
I have been focusing part of my reading plan on the subject of philosophy. My main interest is the Stoics, but I took a little detour to examine Socrates. After all, the Stoics considered him a role model and a sage. I read The Republic by Plato, which focuses on justice and what a just … Continue reading Book Review: The Last Days of Socrates
