The Reality

According to “Home” by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, 20% of the world's population consumes 80% of the world's resources and 2% of world's owns and controls 50% of the world's assets. Is this a problem? If not why not? If so, why?

Loren M. Lambert © August 10, 2014

Home

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https://archive.org/details/HOME_English

Loren M. Lambert © August 10, 2014

Common Ground May Get Uncomfortably Common

On Doug Fabrizio's Radio West, journalist Scott Carrier commented after listening to the Cliven Bundy interview. He said that the country is divided about 50-50. One half who's decisions, philosophies and political positions are based strictly upon their religious convictions. The other half who's positions are based upon scientific reasoning. He said the two sides are not talking to each other and that this could be a problem. Both view the other side as preposterous. He also commented on how the religious view the Constitution in dogmatic ways that brook no viewpoint contrary to their own.

Mr. Carrier gained his insight on this matter while producing an audio documentary that posed the question, "do you think that the world is coming to an end?" to those he interviewed. He said that both sides of this divide think that it is for different reasons and champion different remedies.

I asked my mentor, Herb Cowan-- large vegetable farmer and erstwhile rancher, and contemporary with Cliven Bundy, if he thought the world was doomed and what he thought about the self-proclaimed "Prophets" of the Constitution in their view that only the dead founding fathers, being inspired by God, knew what to do.

"It's a damn poor God that can only inspire a small handful of beer drinking, tricorn hatted colonialists and no others since then," he responded. "If things are going to hell, we'll all be to blame. And when they do, talking will break out all along great the divide when we're all forced to huddle hungry and scared on a quickly vanishing plot of common ground."

So why wait for that to happen?

I've never met anyone, including some very despicable and off the charts criminal defendants, who could not teach me something of merit and value. I promise you there are good people on every side of a conflict. Reach out to them. We can stand on common ground today or be forced to when all hell breaks out and there's nothing left but some polluted tiny speck of common ground.

Loren M. Lambert © August 9, 2014

Tie Immigration Policies to Market Forces and All Americans Personally

1. Divide the amount of private land among all US Citizens (not literally, just mathmatically). What ever that amount of land equals, is the amount of land that any US Citizen (not corporation, trust, businees, group, etc) can own without paying any taxes thereon. This will be a fluid number, called a real estate property tax waiver (REPTAX Waiver) that changes based on population decrease or growth by any means.

2. Give every US Citizen at a fixed date one share of an "American Citizenship" allotement or ACA. Freeze the number of ACAs at that point in time. The possessor of the ACA may retain, give or sell it to the highest bidder. If retained by the original possessor or pased by intestacy, the ACA gains an additional REPTAX Waiver every 75 years.

3. Determine the average value of the amount of property covered by a REPTAX Waiver. Upon the transfer of any ACA, this amount will be paid by the seller, or the buyer, as negotiated, to the US Government for the infrastructure costs on immigration.

4. To gain citizenship an alien must obtain an ACA and pass the current health, knowledge and background checks.

5. If an entity other than a US citizen acquires an ACA, it does not obtain a REPTAX Waiver but only the value of the ACA in the market. It also becomes a guarantor of the non-citizen that purchases an ACA from the entity.

6. New citizens by birth obtain a REPTAX Waiver but not an ACA. They can only obtain an ACA by inheritance, purchase or gift.

7. Our borders are sealed and the expense of doing so is paid for by taxing ACAs holders.

Think it through. What would be the consequences?

Comment 1: Paul Mize - More dang leviathan bureaucracy. Government isn't the answer.

Comment 2: Loren M. Lambert - How Paul? How else to tie immigration to market forces?

Comment 3: Barbara JolleyMumm - Why private land and not public?

Comment 4: Loren M. Lambert - The same market pressures that affect public is not the same on public land. I want an the value that each person has that possesses an ACA and a REPTAX to rise and fall with the market. At the very least, citizens should understand the link between immigration and its benefits and detriments to our country;.

Comment 5: Barbara JolleyMumm - Yes but regardless if they "own" it they would feel or believe they have a right to improve, sell, neglect or tear up. Thus those who actually own it must defend it. Even though ownership may be theoretically. I understand the vested interest in citizenship, but that doesn't have to come from already owned private land. Because for example you have 5 acres 2.5 belongs on paper to someone else, yet you live and produce from this property, they decide that they are entitled to their share how do defend your investment.

Comment 6: Loren M. Lambert - It's just a method of assigning a value to citizenship--so we tie it to the amount of privately held land, just like money used to be tied to gold reserves. It's a starting point and then the market will adjust to establish its "true" value. It is not tied to a specific piece of property. Everyone just has a specific right to own a specific amount of property without taxation and that amount decreases with a greater population or increases with a drop in population--what your are defending by how you vote on immigration issues is the amount of land you can own, if you chose, free of all taxations.

Comment 7: Paul Mize - @Loren M. Lambert Perhaps we should use history as an indicator for what we should do. When the American Colonies were founded most Colonies were independent businesses (East India Company, The Virginia Company. etc) with Grants given to them from the King. The Companies had full authority (it would be like a block grant from the Feds) to do as they wished and they were required to return to the King a return (tax) on his largesse. The Virginia Colony was very successful with this model and encouraged colonization with land to the immigrants (Parcels were 50 acres per person) The person who received the parcel was the individual who paid for the colonists to get to Virginia (i.e. Father, Mother, 8 children Total 10 therefore 500 acre Patent) No intervention from King just make it work etc. (It's called capitalism) Another example would be the Transcontinental Railroad (No Potshots at Railroads) For each mile of track that was laid the Government gave the RR's a parcel of land on both sides of the track which they were allowed to sell to offset the capital necessary to fund the RR. Again a type of block grant where the government wasn't involved other than the grant of the Asset…….Go back to the drawing board and determine a method that does not create a bureaucracy, is driven by commercial and capitalist concerns and you might be able to develop an idea……..

Comment 8: Paul Mize - Think about Adam Smith, Thomas Paine, Jefferson, Henry, Washington and what they would do to solve the problem……as opposed to what the progressive idiots would put in place…..Non-socialist, non-communist….You're a smart guy ……show me something……You don't want to know what I would do……...

Comment 9: Loren M. Lambert - Yeah, what would you do? I think we're past the days when we could give away Native Americans' land. You're not talking about capitalism, you're talking about anarchism. Life's a bitch, there will always be taxes, bureaucracies and then you die. I think we'll eat death before we figure out how to eliminate all bureaucracies. I know that I would love to live in such a world so long as it was safe and without competition stifling corruption.

Comment 10: Paul Mize - Dude, I would put a Tower on the Border every mile and a half with a Barrett .50 Caliber and pull the trigger on everybody that ventured onto the North side of the Rio Grande for about one week and the problem would be over………Especially target any coyote riding a Wave Runner back and forth across the river…….You can't spend that money from beyond the grave…….I guarantee you there are plenty of Sharpshooters and enough ammunition available to quell the illegal intrusion……….and Please quit the tripe with the Native American's, I'm 1/16th Cherokee and studied the "Trail of Tears" one of the only friends I speak with from HS is full blooded Cherokee….I hate Custer and Sheridan and Kearney the 7th Cavalry …..(PS: Hey Loren, the government is where the corruption begins) I'll also note that you consider Adam Smith, Paine, Jefferson, Henry, Washington et al anarchists….King George the III, Cornwallis, and Gen. Clinton did also

Comment 11: Loren M. Lambert - Cool, I'd like to talk to him --the Cherokee

Comment 12: Loren M. Lambert - He probably wishes that the six civilized cherokee tribes had had your border control plan. in 1607. . . I don't like tripe--but if you'll stop trotting out Chamberlain, I'll cease with the Native American stufff. It's unfair that I do because I'm just a european mutt with roots back to Rome--so I guess I could . . . .

Comment 13: Paul Mize - I believe you mean the Iroquois Confederacy. 6 tribes: Seneca, Oneida, Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, and later Tuscarora. If you mean the civilized tribes that would be Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, and Chickasaw and there are 5. Go test your DNA .., give you another hobby to immerse yourself

Comment 14: Loren M. Lambert - No not the Iroquois, I did mean the 5 (thought it was 6) mainly based in Georgia when the State Gov sent them on the trail of tears with Pres Jackson's blessing. "Go test your DNA"--is that the intellectual's equivalent of telling me to f-myself? Just ...See More

Comment 15: Paul Mize - No, I'm serious. I used to work all the Scottish Games and I met this lady who is on the board of ISOGG. She convinced me to take a DNA test and I got hooked on the learning process. Weaving together the tales and stories of Genetic Genealogy has been a blast. FTDNA out of Houston TX.

Comment 16: Loren M. Lambert - I'll have to see .

Loren M. Lambert © August 7, 2014

The Redwoods

The Redwoods--awesome and inspiring; the Rangers, professional, competent and informative, only ran into one grumpy one and he was cleaning bathrooms after people inhabit them like dumps; Oregon, friendly flies and friendly people; Denio Oregon--put a gas station there and make a million.

We logged 95% of the Redwoods and have 5% left. The paradox is that the more numerous we are the more value such national treasures have and the more open space we need. What is the optimum ratio of preservation and development? We need to resolve this now because it will not get easier as time goes by.

Loren M. Lambert © August 2, 2014

Wars Fought Against Enemies Are Never Won, They Just Temporarily Create a Momentary Cessation of Hostility

The Israelis think they are fighting the Palestinians and Hamas. Hamas thinks it is fighting the Israelis. They are not. They are fighting an idea, perceived whether true or false and given real effects by each of the combatants.

We think we fought the German, Italians and Japanese in WWI. We did not. We fought the ideologies that inspired them to arms. That is why we won. That is why we all won. While we momentarily raged into battle raining death upon our enemies, in the end, when the guns were silent, we set aside our hatred and instead of burying the living remnants of our enemies, we worked side by side with them to bury the remaining remnants of our mutual hatred.

In the "Book Thief" by Markus Zusack, the narrator, Death, poignantly informs that soldiers who run off into battle exuberantly think they are running at the enemy when in reality they are really running into the arms of Death. For killing an enemy does not destroy the idea that inspired its warriors. The idea lives on and the death it brings continues and reinforces the devotion of the survivors to pursue its same purpose. You see, wars fought against enemies are never won, they just temporarily create a momentary cessation of hostility until we get on with the business of genocide.

And an idea cannot be destroyed by killing those infected with it, for the very ideas, are endowed and infused with the power by the exponential numbers of its martyred servants. For truly we sow the seeds of our own destruction if we see the man as our enemy and not the ideas and ideology that are the engines of his actions. For these ideas corrupt all into believing them, and have forces beyond our own mortalities.

So kill the ideas and win the hearts and minds of all of your enemies. That is the way to peace. We can run towards our enemies, into the arms of death, and continue the bloody cycle and thereby become as bankrupt and naive as those we think we despise, or we can run toward the evil ideas that enslave them and find peace.

Today, we do not fight the people of Hamas, Isis, Russia or Al Quiada, we fight the evil ideas that embolden them and necessarily the leaders who use those ideas to foment fear in order to whip otherwise good people into a frenzy to unleash death and destruction.

Never forget that, so that instead of running into Death's arms we run toward the light, toward life, toward peace even though we may loose our lives to achieve it.

Comment 1: Jacob Dean - Loved the Book Thief, and while it is better to turn an enemy into a friend, there are times when war IS the answer... The terrible, awful answer. Again I quote Netanyahu (and amen his words) "If the Palestinians laid down their arms there would be no war, if Israel laid down her arms there would be no Israel."

Only the aggressor can stop a war short of victory by one side or the other.

There are people who would call Israel the aggressor in this - those people would be wrong. Were there not floods of rockets flying into Israel, Israel would stay home. It is worth noting that if any nation on earth was launching rockets at us like it is in Israel I would be advocating whomever was doing so's total obliteration.

Pray for peace, pray for calm, because short of intervention from on high or an unbelievably unlikely outbreak of sanity amongst the crazies in Hama's, Israel will likely continue to do the right thing - defend her people from the crazy, evil, terrorists who put their headquarters in a hospital basement and use houses, schools, mosques, ambulances, and hospitals as armories and civilians as shields. Many an innocent will die, because sometimes war IS the answer... The terrible, awful answer.

Comment 2: Loren M. Lambert - @Jacob, yet, I often hear Netanyahu and others talk about the Palestinians as if homicidal ideation was an immutable genetic component of their status, as if they were not human beings and often Israel's actions say this. Israel is not always the hapless victim it claims to be.

Loren M. Lambert © July 25, 2014

Civil Societies' Character Scafolding

Unbroken--Laura Hlllenbrand's biography about US Olympian Louis Zamperini-- describes the horrendously violent torture and misery WW II POW Japanese Camp commander Mutsuhiro Watanabe (The Bird) inflicted upon Louis and other camp inmates, often beating them until they passed out and subjecting them to starvation, extreme cold and enslavement.

After the war Mutsuhiro escaped capture and most likely a death sentence by hiding in a small Japanese farming community. When the US commuted and dropped all pending war crime sentences and indictments, Mutsuhiro became a very wealthy and successful business man. In several interviews, with varying degrees of contrition that never quite took responsibility for his crimes, he indicated that it was the war that pushed him over the edge. He asserted that had there been no war, he would have gone through life, by all appearances, a normal caring and empathetic human being.

He was probably right. If it had been otherwise, his behavior would have possibly started before the war and most likely continued after the war.

When civil society brakes down, when those in authority are allowed to act in secrecy or with impunity, and when we send soldiers into the chaos of war, there are always those among us who devolve into ugly beasts and who succumb to their most base instincts.

Remember that before being completely unforgiving of those we have sent into war and against those who have been our enemies. Remember that before we casually decide to commit our young men into foreign conflicts. These wars do not just create casualties of the physical body but of the mind and spirit. Not that there should be no accountability for such behavior but that the pressures and absurdities of war should be taken into consideration.

Remember that also when we think that laws governing and restricting those in power and authority over us are deemed as obsolete or unnecessary--including laws governing voting rights, discrimination, wages, privacy rights, civil rights, etc. We will always need the strictures of civil society to rein in the excesses of those who find the seductive influence of power too overwhelming to resist and give in to bullying their fellow men for either their own sadistic pleasure, for their enrichment or under the delusion that they are morally superior and those they inflict harm upon deserve it.

Loren M. Lambert © July 24, 2014

Medical Care Professional's Shortage

I was listening to an interview on NPR on one of their local programs to a CEO of a medical staffing Corporation here in Utah. He indicated that on any given day there are between 20 to 30,000 job openings for medical professionals across the US. He further indicated that there is a workforce shortage of medical professionals in this country. (And no, this is not a shortage caused by the ACA, this has long been the story in our country).

I also think I mentioned a few months ago that I attended a luncheon in which I met a French physician who said that her husband, who is one of the leading experts in the world in the field of neurology and was a licensed doctor, had been going through a very complex and expensive process to obtain his license here in the United States. He is here engaged in cutting edge research on neurological diseases. She is unable to practice while here also.

This is illustrative of the Achilles heel of the American medical establishment that has prevented market forces from providing inexpensive and efficient healthcare services to the US population and has thereby catapulted the current healthcare reforms into place.

If Republicans and conservatives are sincerely serious about allowing the markets to work in our healthcare system, it needs to relax the US Medical community’s stranglehold on medical education and licensing.

Loren M. Lambert © July 23, 2014

Cesar Chavez

"Si se puede." "Yes, we can." Cesar Chavez--way more important than Nixon or Reagan.

What person, government, business has lead reforms--meaning before they were demanded--for the least powerful and the under-trodden with no expectations of a quid pro quo?

Loren M. Lambert © July 22, 2014

A Presumption of Guilt

The Russian Separatists won't allow the international community to investigate the downing of the Malaysian Passenger Jet. Simply tell them the same I tell potential opponents in litigation--If you choose not to respond, I'll assume our allegations are true. So, if you won't let us investigate, we will rightfully assume you shot it down.

Loren M. Lambert © July 22, 2014

Corporate Lawyers

Come to think of it, most corporate lawyers I have dealt with approach litigation like terrorists, dictators, etc. It is never a matter of what would be just, fair, equitable or reasonable--it's almost always a matter of what can I force as the best possible outcome for my interests by what ever means allowable and it is only power that concerns them---What power do you have to minimize my outcome, and in the face of that power should I modify my goals?

Loren M. Lambert © July 21, 2014

Chamberlain & Vietnam

The monikers of "Chamberlain" & "Vietnam"--always trotted out as arrows, anecdotes, and shortcuts to solutions and analysis. Does anyone out there have anything to offer but a cry of death and destruction or appeasement? I promise there always has been and always will be a middle ground between these to roads to disaster for those who choose to think.

Loren M. Lambert © July 20, 2014

Our Enemies’ Heart

When possible, it would be well to first determine how to reach our enemy's heart before designing how to obliterate his body.

While there may be truth in Israel’s contention that if its adversaries disarmed there would be peace yet if Israel disarmed there would be no Israel, I fear and suspect that Israelis are often too quick to play the victim with a justification to exact a harsh defense. In such a state of mind, they never pause to acknowledge that it is Palestine and other calcitrants’ middle-east leaders who are their adversaries and not the populations they allegedly lead. Rather than engaging in lopsided defense maneuvers, Israel and the West would do well to ponder the more complex and difficult question of how to win the hearts and minds of a beleaguered, and often manipulated people who are taught and even coerced into hating everyone but their own. Because, truly, there are many good, genuine, Palestinians who are prisoners of their circumstances and who want peace. Who speaks for them, who protects them and should the world community and Israel take them into consideration?

We wish, hope, and pray for and aspire that all peoples everywhere take responsibility for their own progress and throw off the yokes of oppression. Yet, unfortunately, ignorance, fear and need, and not to mention--a highly weaponized governments, are sometimes almost insurmountable obstacles to their and our aspirations. Despite this, I would still submit that a majority of the Palestinians, given the choice and the freedom to exercise it, would chose peace over war. Rather than showering them all with missiles we merely need to make more effort in discovering how to reach their hearts and empower them to reject the tyranny of leaders who espouse hatred and destruction. Instead, often Israel’s policies of settlement and acquisition are designed to alienate Palestinian hearts and repress their spirits.

Loren M. Lambert © July 17, 2014

Utah AG’s Disgrace

Current events here in Utah remind us that whether here in Utah, or in Iraq or in Russia, the populace should always be suspicious of a office holder who wants to "ordain" his or her successor. (Shirtluff to Swallow--"I’ll get you ass in, if you'll protect mine when I’m out."

Loren M. Lambert © July 16, 2014

Unbroken

According to Laura Hillenbrand, in Unbroken, in Nazi and Italian POW camps, 1 to 2% of US GI's perished, while in Japanese POW camps, 25% of US GI's perished. I find it curious that while neither Germany nor Japan should forever be chastised for their World War II past, why are the Nazi's so frequently trotted out as the example of all things evil. We should share the infamy and let a few other past bad examples get some play.

Comment 1: Mark Gammell - One word.....Jewish-Genocide.

Comment 2: John Hinckley - Yeah, what Mark said, the Germans had the Jews, Gypsies and gays to do their medical experiments on. Could have been racial too; or maybe revenge for the internment camps. No Geneva Convention until after the war so...

Comment 3: Loren M. Lambert - @Mark, yes, that is a glaring truth--I'm just saying--maybe we spread a little reflection elsewhere. Perhaps the homogenous Japanese population (at least in Japan, not in occupied Manchuria, Korea and Vietnam), prevented that imperialistic drive from being focused internally and only outwardly.

Comment 4: Mark Gammell - Maybe I am partial, but I believe the behavior of the Japanese Government post-WWII has displayed admirable and adequate evidence of self-reflection and repenting of its ways. Perhaps the Germans as well. I am less familiar with German government and politics post-WWII.

Comment 5: John Hinckley - My first landlady in Korea spent the war years in her parents attic to prevent her from "volunteering" to give "comfort" to Japanese soldiers during the second world war. Our Branch President in Chung Ju volunteered for and was in Kamikaze training when the war ended. He'd been told life would be better for his family.

Comment 6: Loren M. Lambert - Yes, it was an amazing transformation. It makes me wonder why other countries are so incapable of embracing reform and democracy.

Comment 7: John Hinckley - Consider the fact that in Japan and Germany we imposed our will on them and ran the whole show until 1949 in Germany and 1952 in Japan. For better or worse we didn't run to the U.N. or anyone else and ask mother may I. Food for thought...

Comment 8: Mark Gammell - I have no use for the U.N.

Comment 9: John Hinckley - Why not Mark? Doesn't everyone want to give bundles of money to and give up power to a group that hates them and everything they stand for?

Comment 10: Mark Gammell - It could be argued that the Japanese have executed democracy or a U.S.-style constitutional government better than the U.S., and that they hold truer to that constitution than we do, and retain more of their freedom than we do.

Comment 11: Loren M. Lambert - @John, yes but we had a very compliant population and a plan that was not based on revenge or reparations (for the most part).

Comment 12: John Hinckley - Very true Loren; do you think a relatively homogeneous population also played a role? I do.

Comment 13: John Hinckley For example in Iraq we have Shia, Sunni and Kurds.

Comment 14: Mark Gammell - Education plays a big role as well. On the whole, they are much better educated than we are....at least in terms of achieving very high and consistent results across the whole population. There are no illiterate people in Japan. They know how to educate children much better than we do. And, the parents are much more involved in the children's education. Their standards are much higher than ours.

Loren M. Lambert © July 15, 2014

History & Native Americans

I’m often disconsolate about the gaps in my knowledge. One area that’s dogged me is my knowledge of Native American history. It’s a raged wisp of what it should be.

When I attended elementary school, I was taught that we bought Manhattan from Native Americans for a few buttons and thereby eventually everything, the Pilgrims and Lewis and Clark were rescued by Native Americans, that they were "noble savages" who lived in harmony with the land and we broke a lot of treaties with them, but they shot a lot of arrows, so it all kind of muddled along and worked out sort of in the end. It was all very general, shallow and imprecise, leaving me with a caricature.

While, I’ve done better since then in learning their traditions and history, I still know so very little. But I’m going to tackle it.

Why should I or you care? History, like the roots of trees, nourish and shape our present. We cannot be free from it. It’s not just a matter of learning from history so as not to repeat it. It’s of great and indispensable importance for understanding who we are as a people and how the currents of our yesterdays reverberate in the oceans of our present and will fill the seas of our tomorrows.

It’s also important that we know our history with all of its disappointments, that we understand the wrongs as well as the triumphs of our fathers. Not necessarily so we can atone for our sins, wallow in our mistakes or bring in a brighter future, but because to be ignorant of the wrongs of slavery, the errors of our adventurism, and the depredation of our Native Americans, is to again demean their existence, to pass them off as unimportant, and to continue to be smug about our assumed importance.

To honor our friends and loved ones, we would think ourselves uncaring and insensitive to shirk taking the time to learn about their lives, and their histories. If we truly believe in honoring and loving all men and extending good will to all cultures, we should strive to learn their histories with as much zeal as pursuing a lover.

As for me, I’ve finally started down the Native American path to gain a greater understanding of their culture and history. I challenge you pick just one area of knowledge the universe has been urging you to discover until the day when we truly do extend peace on earth and good will to all. Yes, it will be a life long journey of learning.

Comment 1: Garrett Hanson - I've always wanted to learn more about their culture, deities, and way of life. It's fun to see someone who's actually delving. Human history can be so fascinating. I love learning about the different things Genghis Khan did and his rise to power.
I love Greek mythology and it's lessons. It's how they interpreted the world, and to read about the native Americans and how they interpreted it in detail. I think it would fulfill something in me. I think you may have jump started my knowledge seeking.

Comment 2: Jen Ottens - AWESOME! I began to study and try to learn the truth about what happened and what we have left of the culture when I learned that my grandmother concealed the fact that her mother was full blooded Lakota Sioux until after her death. I ended up with very mixed results but an overall view that government corruption has been a part of our history from the very beginning. Record keeping was worse than abysmal as allotments to crooked officials in and out of the tribes were based on unverified numbers so they cooked the books. Hoping I could fill in my family tree, I ran into unacceptance from Native Americans who expressed their anger at many people claiming kinship as a fad, or to get tribal scholarships ect. So I ended up with a name, from South Dakota, and a marriage certificate but no other info. and sadness that my skin color blocked any further progress down that road. I understand why all these people did what they did, and felt the way they feel. So I have had to try and learn from books what I had hoped to learn from newly reunited family. Some stuff is just so screwed up that God will have to straighten it out Himself. Maybe my hopes and expectations were too high. Black Elk Speaks is a book I read with interesting information I have been told is legitimate. I hope your study brings you more joy than pain. I'm certain that your heart will be changed by the knowledge in any case. All the best!

Loren M. Lambert © July 14, 2014

The Butler

"The Butler." I give it 5 Gusto Canoe paddles up. A must see.

Comment 1: Loren M. Lambert - Presidents may come and go but it is the enduring character and strength of people like Cecil Gaines and his son Louis Gaines that make a nation great. (It is not lost on me that there is some poetic license in this story, yet it is true to history and the real events of real people).

Loren M. Lambert © July 12, 2014

Greatest Despair

Our greatest despair comes when those we love do not live up to the lies we created for them. And our greatest loss is forsaking them when they do. Loren M. Lambert

Loren M. Lambert © July 12, 2014

Smart Pipes

I want smart pipes. Pipes that tell you when they are going to burst. Pipes that tell you if they are going to get plugged. Pipes that don't smoke a doobie over the week end just because they can, and you show up to work and they're all stoned and leaking all over your building. I want smart pipes.

Loren M. Lambert © July 11, 2014

Native Americans & US History

Neither the history of the United States nor that of Native Americans can be understood in isolation from the other. Ned Blackhawk

Loren M. Lambert © July 10, 2014

The War On Rationality & The HLD

There are many people who think corporations are not people, there are many people who think they are. There are many people who agree with the Supreme Court's 5 to 4 decision on Hobby Lobby-there are others who do not--as with many other decisions. Yet, none of the parties on either side, that I am aware of, have taken up arms and started shooting each other. Maybe you or people you know have. I don't know of any.

To hype and sell products and keep up ratings, pundits, especially those at Fox News, like to characterize any political, social or scientific disagreement as a "War."

There is a war in the Ukraine. There is a war in the Congo. There is a war in Iraq and Syria where people are dying horrible deaths as we speak. There is no war on Hobby Lobby and to call it such cheapens and trivializes the lives of those who are dying and strains and stifles reasonable discourse.

So you know. I'm okay with part of the Hobby Lobby decision--the part that will allow some departure from the one size fits all policies. Our country can live and prosper with it. I understand the sentiments on both sides. And each have valid points and no, I'm not interested in debating them. I am interested in understanding peoples concerns. However I’m not okay with the legal precedent that corporations are people.

Loren M. Lambert © July 9, 2014

Native American Policies

According to Ned Blackhawk, historically we in Utah are viewed by many Native Americans to have had some of the most onerous and repressive policies of assimilation and termination. Why I wonder are we taught that we were so much better in our Native America policies than others? Curious what others may know on this subject.

Loren M. Lambert © July 8, 2014