The major “Communist” countries my country invaded or fought during the Cold War without doing so well — I just visited (or smoked a cigar from). It gives you the opportunity to learn. The dominant voices in the United States, especially during an election year, cheer that we’re number one. You hardly hear anything else. I can’t imaging a politician disagreeing in the slightest having a hope of election. Seeing[…] Keep reading →

Greetings from Beijing and another amazing North Korea trip! This time we visited places few (no?) Americans or non-North Koreans have visited in decades. We also saw the incredible beauty of the country outside Pyongyang and the DMZ. Pictures and stories to come! By the way, I tag this post with leadership because, as you’ll see, we did a lot more than just tour around. We interacted directly with many[…] Keep reading →

Since writing about avoiding judgmental words like good, bad, right, wrong, evil, and so on, I’ve loosely kept track of times the words truth, reality, and their derivatives added meaning to a sentence. So far, not once. You might not consider “truth” and “reality” judgmental terms. I won’t try to convince you they are, but notice how people use them. They say things like “The truth is that we should[…] Keep reading →

Once I was waiting for a bus in Queens. I had work to do, but no way to do it while waiting, and I didn’t know how long I’d have to wait. People typically feel frustrated or bored in situations like that. I did. But I noticed people on vacation sit around doing nothing too. So I thought to myself “what’s the difference between doing nothing while waiting for a[…] Keep reading →

EDIT: the site I linked to changed their post so I removed the link on “America’s Fat Future.” Sorry for any inconvenience. Americans eat too much and keep getting fatter. Here’s a graphic a reader sent on “America’s Fat Future.” Our government can’t stop itself from spying on us. Here’s a graphic on the unchecked growth of one part of the government spying on us. I post these images not[…] Keep reading →

My interactions with North Korea have taught me more about myself and my values than anything else in recent memory. I was going to say it taught me more about being an American, but being an American means something different to me today than it used to, and means something different to everyone. I’m thinking about America in the context of North Korea today because I’m in the middle of[…] Keep reading →

Today I’m just linking to a radio interview on a man born and raised in the North Korea prison camp system. Prepare yourself before listening since it gets serious. It speaks for itself. I understand the North Korean government generally states it has no prison camps. Visiting North Korea through the government tour, you would see no evidence of this story. Reading Nothing to Envy, you find out more about[…] Keep reading →

I saw a snippet of a talk pointing out that Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and others design software from the ground up to spy on you. Sometimes a blatant statement of a problem reminds you of it. People are learning about the problems with large corporations and governments having so much information on you, though they don’t know what to do about it because they have no alternatives. Gmail benefits[…] Keep reading →

Here’s an old story that comes in many versions (here are seven), but I learned from Srikumar Rao‘s book Are You Ready to Succeed (text from this blog). An old man lived in a valley with his son, a handsome and dutiful youth. They lived a peaceful life despite a lack of material possessions. They were very happy. So much so, that neighbors began to get envious. One day, the[…] Keep reading →