December 29, 2016

Our Views: LIGO . . . honors. It’s almost like The Advocate editors are in a new era each day---no continuity the readers could use. It seems egregiously against discovery for someone to write, “Einstein had guessed correctly when he speculated . . . in his General Theory of Relativity.” Einstein did not guess: he studied the evidence! Physics (and all its derivatives like biology and psychology) exist. Humankind works to discover and understand physics’ laws and interconnecting theories. Einstein’s studies, brilliant model and mathematics produced the theory of relativity. When his brilliance did not confirm his expectation, a static universe, he added a religious factor to force it to conform. Later, his blunder was corrected when Edwin Hubble observed red shifts. Absent the “cosmological factor” (wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant), Einstein’s general theory stood the test of time, until in 2016, it was proven a law of physics by the LIGO team. Discovery of laws strengthens theories yet a law is subject to discovery. This is the difference between physics and imagination, speculation, guesses and beliefs: Physics is and the rest may not be. The Advocate has the duty and responsibility to make this distinction clear to the people, but they shirk that responsibility daily, IMO. Especially, there should be a counter to G. E. Dean’s daily nonsense: Money is not everything.

On Trump. I hope Trump will succeed in leading the USA to what it can be. Regardless, the 2016 election may teach the people that just as a person may earn a living to enjoy freedom, a person may iteratively collaborate for civic justice in order to have the liberty to live in Fidelity to what his or her psychologically mature person may be.

About deputy. Peter Skerry, in “Comprehensive Immigration Confusion,” National Affairs, No. 29, Fall, 2016 wrote, “ [Regarding] the Black Lives Matter movement [note that] Hispanics have . . .  less fraught relations with the police than do African Americans.”

Michael Barone. A civic people have awakened to the Alinsky-Marxist organizers (AMO) and their five-decades intent to change America from a republic to a social democracy. Moreover a civic people learned from, for example, Greece v. Galloway and Obergefell v. Hodges that majority opinion is no way to nudge individuals toward fidelity to the-indisputable-facts-of-reality. Lastly, the media may have learned that "public opinion" (the media work so hard to establish) does not determine public policy. (That IMO came from an admonishment I suffered at LSU School of Mass Communications session at the Moment of Movement? Symposium.)

On Greatest Generation and Leon Standifer feelings. I wish I could share the thought that appreciation for life means neither imposing nor tolerating the use of force, and the second requires defense when necessary; thank you for serving. This thought comes from two-decades study of Agathon’s witness in Plato’s Symposium, written about 2400 years ago. Joe Mitchen and I were caught in a flash flood on Fannin Street in Houston. I asked Joe, “Did you ever panic?” He answered in a bombardier’s deliberative tone, “No, Phil, I can’t say I ever did.” When I said I was panicking it again, Joe calmly said, “Then I suggest we wade out of here.”

North EBR economic district. We hope it becomes as successful as the downtown model, which has taken a couple decades.