Random Thoughts June 2025

Ted Reads Random Thoughts June 2024

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Is there anyone else who wonders about the unintended effect of saying a tornado, or earthquake or other such ‘natural’ tragedy “Was an act of God.”  To me, if I am trying to ‘sell’ the concept of God, I’d try to find a better way of describing a natural geological or weather event. If I needed to bring religion into it, why not say “All hell broke loose?” That would reinforce the fear factor that many major religious denominations use as a conversion and retention tool. Saving God the negative press. God knows, the God that’s being promoted these days could use some good press.

Perhaps our education system has failed. Seems as if our current Secretary of Education has difficulty knowing the difference between AI (Artificial Intelligence) and A1 (the steak sauce).

What kind of person would buy a new car, just so that he could get a $750 cash rebate so that he could turn it around and give it, anonymously, to the local baseball team.  An amount that would make it possible for the local high school baseball team to make their annual spring trip to Florida.  He’s the same kind of person who watched a young couple saying a long, tearful goodbye in the Honolulu airport. As his loved one left him, this brave soldier squatted down and broke down into the deepest sobs one could imagine.

This person I am talking about walked up to the young soldier and offered him his last $500 in travel money to put towards the next time the couple might see each other again. The soldier looked up, stood up and hugged him, profusely thanked him, and began chasing after his girlfriend to give her the news. From a distance, he saw them talk, turn towards him, then looked back at each other and wept in each other’s arms.

I know the guy who does such things. His heart works like that. He was and still isn’t a financially rich guy.  He is a school teacher. 

Doing things like that are two of the reasons he is not rich in dollars, but he is extraordinarily rich in “feel goods.”  Money can’t always make things better, but sometimes it can.

Some out-of-country friends who had been planning on coming to America this summer let me know that they would not be coming. They, somewhat shyly, said that America doesn’t seem too friendly a place for a foreigner to visit these days. I understand.  Who would want to voluntarily wander into this world of inhospitality. Like visiting a toxic waste supersite. America, at the moment, the Chernobyl of human indecency.

I was idly watching a flock of wild chickens do their thing. I noticed that adults always bob their heads as they walk. I made up that it is because they can’t walk if they don’t, rather than believe that they are just showing off, strutting their stuff if you will. That theory seemed solid until I noticed that their baby chicks didn’t strut. There goes that theory, or does it?

I pulled into the paved blacktop parking lot of a restaurant that I like. It was springtime here in Colorado, and the Siberian Crabapple trees were in full bloom. There was a shower of blossoms that began falling as we were parking that drifted down on the pavement and our car, like a gentle spring flower shower. I noticed that they turned the black pavement into what looked like a sparkling diamond carpet. I am glad I can still notice and enjoy those moments.

A friend commented that her back “hurt like the dickens.” I immediately wondered where that term came from. AI or Google would, for sure, have an answer to that. I am feeling like I want to sit in the mystery of the question for now. Asking either seems too easy and probably would take away the wonder of it all and mess up my brain.  Note next entry.   

I read about a research study that suggests that AI (Not A1, the steak sauce but hot sauce might) is changing the brains of regular users in the same way that navigation apps are changing them.   It seems that in the brains of AI users, the parts of the brain that are involved in wondering are atrophying. The brain works like muscles in that way it seems. “If you don’t use it, you lose it.”  That could be bad, or it could free that space up for other tasks, the same effect on the brain that deleting files does for a computer.

A person I consider a friend of mine just had a groundbreaking research paper published that has the potential of having major implications for us humans. He is arguably one of the world’s premiere experts on Bonobos, the closest of our primate relatives.

The study suggests that power isn’t solely determined by physical strength. It can be driven by social intelligence and coalition-building by females.

“To our knowledge, this is the first evidence that female solidarity can invert the male-biased power structure that is typical of mammal societies,” says Martin Surbeck, the study’s author. “It’s exciting to find that females can actively elevate their social status by supporting each other.”

In my opinion and experience, we humans might be better off doing as the Bonobos do, and sooner rather than later. In fact, it may be our only chance of not acting ourselves out of existence. I have sensed what his studies suggest in human beings when I have been in situations where there are far more women present than men, and have said to myself, “If they only knew what power they have when they are all together in one place supporting one purpose.”

“Light” in the culinary world typically means less of something. Fat, sugar, calories…. Right? Bud Light, for example. Not so in the world of coffee where “light roast” means more. Caffeine. And “dark” means less. Just about the time I think I get the logic of something, “it” changes the rules.   

I was walking through the Denver airport recently, and as I was headed towards a moving walkway, I fell in behind a group each carrying backpacks with an unfamiliar logo. As I got closer, I saw the name of a school and below the school’s name, a logo that announced that they were members of a drone team,  I sidled up to an adult who was obviously one of their escorts striking up a conversation and discovered that they were in fact a “Drone Team” headed out for a regional contest. This team was made up of kids of various ethnic backgrounds, genders, sizes, and ages. I seriously wanted to suggest that they cover up the name of their school so that they might be safe from getting pulled over by the ever-present DEI police, who seem to have been granted the same powers as the other three-letter police agencies that have been granted extraordinary powers these days. Sad that my first thought was “Please protect yourself.  You, just because you exist, are now a visible target.”  I didn’t say anything. Based on their age, size, appearances, race, and ethnicity, I am guessing they already know they need to do that and have been doing that their entire lives.

I was thinking the other day about the pond I was sitting beside and started thinking about choices. I could focus on the ripples and wonder what they might teach me. I could focus on what might be causing the ripples. I can focus on what happened (or didn’t) to create the pond. I could focus on how I got to be sitting at the edge of the pond.  I could focus on the reflections in the water, or the flowers blooming on the lake shore, or the little bugs fliting about the water, but I can only do one at a time. Oh, the limitations of this human life. Obviously, I spent some time focusing on all the above. Still missing 95% of what was there. What I decide to focus on will determine my experience, not only on this lake but in life too.

I was staring at the cloud show, one stormy afternoon. I had a sense that what I was seeing was a metaphor for one’s life. I saw clouds being created, I saw them morph and change, I saw them disappear.

It reminded me of a moment with my 5-year-old son. I saw him staring up at the clouds above us and asked him what he was thinking.  “Nothing,” he responded. He had, sadly, already learned to say “nothing” to those kinds of questions. I responded by saying, “I am guessing you were thinking of something, but are afraid to tell me, because you are afraid I might laugh at you.”  There was a long pause, and he asked, “Would you?”  I told him I would not, because I thought that those kind of things were precious. Another long pause, then he looked up at the sky again, and he said, “I was just wondering where the clouds go at night.”  “Do they have a corral to go to like horses.”  I simply said, “That’s a really good question.  “I’ve never thought about that. I don’t actually know.”  Precious, priceless, obviously unforgettable moments.