Everything Else Archives - Page 8 of 19

The Passing of Madeleine Albright is a True Loss

By Bill Clontz March 24, 2022 March 25, 2022 4 Comments

An American Original- and One of My Best Bosses Ever – Has Left This Earth

How We Came to Know Each Other

I was happily ensconced in the Brookings Institution as a Federal Executive Fellow, just over halfway through a year of study, analysis and telling the Army story to people who rarely heard directly from line military officers. It was a remarkable opportunity that I was enjoying immensely. It was a unique opportunity to learn from the best and to share our perspectives. To this day, I think Brookings sets the standards for think tanks in every way.

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Two International Notes, Two Domestic Notes & Two Combined Notes

By Bill Clontz March 19, 2022 March 22, 2022 Leave a Comment

Looking Beyond Just Events, We See Important Trends Shaping Up

Two International Notes

Fascism, Autocracy, and Stalin on the Rise in Russia

This is serious level ugly that, along with the economic sanctions, will set Russia back at least 30 years. Putin started out talking about “purifying and deNazifying Ukraine. Now he talks of doing the same in Russia. Those whose families bore the brunt of such vendettas in the early Soviet years under Stalin (Cossacks, White Russians, others) must feel a chill in their bones. This is the kind of talk that Stalin used on his way to killing 20 million of his own citizens.

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The Best Advice and Experience May Come from Wildly Different Sources

By Bill Clontz March 14, 2022 March 18, 2022 2 Comments

My Life Has Run That Course. Allow Me to Share Two Different But Shared Paths

What Skills and Mindset are Important in Life?

How about that for a “simple question” to begin this with? Might as well go big and aim for the core issues, I think. Life demands a lot of all of us – some more than others, but all of us at one time or another. The list of important and desirable traits and approaches is long, but two seem to me to be pretty near the top of the list in a modern,

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Big & Little Things Noted Lately

By Bill Clontz March 13, 2022 March 15, 2022 3 Comments

Funny How Things Catch Your Attention. Here are a Few That Caught My Eye Today

TV Interviews at Home

One thing the pandemic made routine was people on tv being interviewed in their homes. We have been doing this for two years now, and some people are on tv regularly being seen from their homes.

For these repeaters, I am really surprised that we see that we are in their bedrooms, or kitchen, or some other space that looks unprofessional. By now, one would think they would put up a background screen or use one of the electronic backgrounds readily available,

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Odds and Ends Rattling Around of Late

By Bill Clontz January 16, 2022 January 18, 2022 Leave a Comment

A Lot of Us are Snowed in Now – It’s a Good Time for Some Assorted Observations

Supreme Court on Vaccination Mandates

The current Supreme Court looks increasingly less supreme with every ruling. I keep thinking it cannot get worse, but they continue to raise the ante. At least they kept the health care workers mandate in place (barely – by 1 vote).

Gutting the large employer mandate on the basis that OSHA is the wrong agency for such a mandate enforcement is ridiculous. This is what happens when you have a court anchored in rigid ideology rather than real life.

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About Birthdays

By Bill Clontz January 9, 2022 January 11, 2022 2 Comments

Birthdays are Benchmarks of Life, But in Very Different Ways Over the Years

Ah, Birthdays

We have a couple of birthdays in our home about now, only 3 weeks apart. That got me to thinking about birthdays. Given the numbers in our case, we are thinking of converting to dog years, to minimize the fire risk with all those candles. Replacing every 7 candles with just 1 seems a prudent safety move, doesn’t it?

Of course, we could also consider the Chinese approach to counting birthdays, starting at conception. Better plan?

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The King is Dead! Long Live the King!

By Bill Clontz January 5, 2022 January 7, 2022 4 Comments

This Week the Blackberry Died – A Lesson for Everyone

Remember the Blackberry?

By the time you read this, any Blackberry phones out in the world using the Blackberry operating system will have died a quiet and ignoble death. Effective January 5, Blackberry pulled the plug. They still have a few units out there using Android systems, but essentially, they are out of the smart phone business.

In the very earliest stages of enhanced electronic communications – what eventually became smart phones – the Blackberry was the top of the line by far.

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What Would You Put in a Time Capsule?

By Bill Clontz January 4, 2022 January 4, 2022 1 Comment

The History of These is Fascinating

Why Do These Things?

They seem to have some popularity throughout the ages. One could even say they are… timeless.

Time capsules have been in the news lately. Not one, but two were found under a statue of Robert E. Lee that was recently removed in Virginia. Here in my hometown, one was unearthed a few months ago, also from a site that once hosted a statue of a civil war figure.

It is not hard to find news items and historical write ups around the world and through the ages of such capsules being implanted,

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