Hi everyone! Welcome to Wise & Shine! I hope everyone has had a fantastic weekend! How we define difficulty or problems is variable, or it should be. What is difficult for someone might not be so for another. Likewise, when we look at someone’s life and feel like they have everything perfect, we should not … More What is a difficulty?
Prime time cable shows aren’t interested in prompting informed debate. They are indignation dispensaries … More Please Stop Assuring Me I’m Right
If you’re a long-time reader of my blogs, you know that I spent about two decades living the life of an expatriated American. I am proud of that time in my life. I first went abroad as a Peace Corps Volunteer, to Poland, not long after the collapse of the Soviet system, and then lived … More Beware: Garbage In, Garbage Out
Hello my fellow bloggers and blog-lovers. Today I am writing this entry from a sleepy town in Montenegro, Bijela, to be specific. Not much happens in this provincial, coastal town, which means I’ve been doing more reading than touristing here. Particularly, enter today’s topic, translated literature. Over the past year, I’ve developed quite an affinity … More Translated Literature: A plea to bolster your reading palate
Hello to my fellow bloggers and blog-lovers! I’m Elle, or E.L. Jayne as my pen name states, and I’ve embarked my own rendition of an Eat, Pray, Love trip this summer, albeit, without the dramatic divorce and existential crisis at the onset, luckily. Deciding to travel for 4 months made me reflect on the catalyst … More On The Different Reasons People Travel
Disclaimer: Previously known by the Anglicized spelling of Turkey, President Erdoğan has asked the international community to recognize the nation by its Turkish spelling, Türkiye, on June 28th, 2022. Türkiye is a country distinguished by it’s blend of European and Asian culture. Although after speaking with some locals, they consider themselves not to be European, … More Turkish Literature: Where diverse culture meets unique literature
Women stripped of bodily autonomy. The Environmental Protection Agency handcuffed in fighting climate change. Public money allowed to fund religious schools. Gun rights expanded. These are recent decisions made by the United States Supreme Court. … More July 4th Celebration? No Thanks.
I’m amazed by how my mind works. I never know when an idea for a blog is going to come to me. For example, this morning, just after pulling into a parking space upon arriving at my work and then killing the engine, I immediately realized that I do a lot of the same things … More Pardon Me While I Get This Off My Chest
I confess to not ever being comfortable with having pride in the country you were born in. Conceptually, I think it’s a flawed idea from the get go. A recipe for provincialism and a potent catalyst for intolerance and violence. Having said that, I admit there have been moments I’ve allowed myself to warm my … More June 24th, 2022
Japanese people have an incredible ability to recover from catastrophes of any kind. After World War II that left the country in ruins, in just thirty years Japan became the second largest economy in the world, becoming leaders in the electronics sector in the eighties and nineties. How could the Japanese economic miracle happen? The … More How to Overcome Difficulties with the Ganbatte
Towards the end of the 19th century, a group of economists from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland studied the social inequalities in Europe. By analysing the tax data of several European countries, they found out that in each of them about 20% of the population owned 80% of the wealth. Today is even worse, … More Do You Know the Pareto’s Principle?
Last week I was on vacation in the beautiful village of Lu Bagnu, located in Sardinia, Italy. I had the chance to read more than usual and I found an interview to Pamela Paul, author of the book “100 Things We’ve lost to the Internet“. The book presents the world before cyberspace. If you are a … More Things We’ve Lost to the Internet
This past Saturday, I got up early because I had a Zoom meeting with a Pointless Overthinking colleague who lives on the other side of the planet. Despite my best efforts, I’d gotten up a touch late and was in a hurry to get breakfast eaten so I wouldn’t be tardy for our online rendezvous. … More It’s Not a Bug; It’s a Feature
San Antonio, Texas, the city where I currently live, is located about eighty miles away from Uvalde, a town that has been in the news a lot in recent days. Unless you’ve been doing a Rip Van Winkle lately or are someone who lives outside the United States, I probably don’t need to tell you … More Uvalde, the State of the Electorate, and a Rant
Our lack of action to curb gun violence sends the message that we don’t care about the problem, even if it means dead kids. … More We Don’t Care About Dead Kids
I spent a good portion of this past Saturday helping my wife with her small business. She is a master baker and makes a variety of Mediterranean breads and desserts. Her goodies are artisanal and high-end. She sells them each Saturday at a farmer’s market located in Boerne, Texas, a town with a large German-speaking … More Sacred Places
I’m a busy guy. I manage two writing centers at a community college in San Antonio, Texas, USA. That takes fifty hours per week. My wife has a business that I help with. I take care of her purchasing, public relations, and I occasionally assist her with sales. On top of all that, I write, … More Pardon Me While I Ramble
Emerging through hardship … More On the Duality of Life
On Saturday I listened to an interview to a Belgian politician who was saying that Governments should let out of the political scene extreme rights parties. He claimed that they receive too much visibility from the media and this is a reason for their popularity. He suggested not talking to them, as simple as that. … More Declaration of Honour
Note: This blog was originally published as an Op-Ed in the San Antonio Express-News. I’m republishing it here today because it relates nicely with Learning to Question: A Pedagogy of Liberation, a book I’m reading and one I wrote about in my most recent Pointless Overthinking blog. *** I am an American educator. My job … More Community Colleges Are Helping to Transform America