rumbleHUM

I think at times I am a horrible person, and, I mean horrible.  Just recently Hurricane Harvey barreled through a number of Texas coastal cities, including Houston, causing devastation amounting to billions of dollars of damage and years of clean-up and reconstruction.  Twenty-one people have already died. The first response that a normal person ought to have is empathy and sympathy for those who are suffering.  I have a brother-in-law who lives in Houston who is right now in limbo about whether or not he even has a home to come back to.  My wife and I have reached out to him and extended our offerings of help, to clean-up his house, to watch his beloved pet cat, to have him stay with us while the way home is blocked.  I have sympathy for him, and it hurts to for me to see him hurt so much.  I can sense the helplessness in his voice when I talk to him over the phone. There is also a certain amount of appreciation of the blessing that Hurricane Harvey did no...

I wonder if its worth having an opinion anymore. Basic supply/demand economics indicates that a commodity’s worth depends upon the demand for such a commodity. The higher the demand, the more the commodity is worth. The inverse is true; the less demand, the less the commodity is worth. To a certain extent, opinions are commodities. They have value. Professions are founded on the sole basis of the value of the opinion. Doctors are often paid to provide an opinion on the proper diagnosis and treatment. Attorneys are paid for to provide an opinion on the merits, or lack thereof, of a certain case or a certain course of action. Politicians are paid for an opinion on the proper course or direction of our great nation. But, it appears that the value of an opinion has lost its value. The only reasonable explanation for the devaluation of the opinion is the decrease in the demand for opinions. In the infancy of television cable, CNN came to be channel synonymous with news. Programming centered...