CraigShieldsQuestions.com

In the same email as the one from which the post below was taken, my friend suggested that we take on the following topics:

1) Historically supported definition of “Natural Born Citizen”
as it applies to the U.S. Constitution

2) Summary of the various conspiracy theorist positions on the following matters:
a) Apollo program walking man on the moon video done in studio
b) 9/11 “inside job”
c) the September 2008 electronic extraction of billions($) from the U.S. Treasury
d) Radio Frequency (RFid) surveillance equipment installed in the night on our interstate and privately managed toll highways
e) The “Amero” becoming the North American currency (replacing dollars in the US)

3) How can I make my habitat (home) solar energy supported where if the electric grid goes down I can still live in reasonable comfort?

4) If there is a “one world order” group of powerful international banking people/families and if so, which companies/institutions are in their pockets?

5) Is there evidence that the U.S. move to electronic voting in public elections has opened the possibility of election rigging?

6) What steps do the experienced survivalist thinkers believe must be taken to prepare for a breakdown of the food supply in the U.S. and subsequent breakdown of civilized human behavior?

7) What happened to the coverage of the AIDS epidemic in the mainstream media? Or the Swine Flu? Or CSARS? Or SOMALIA? Or IRAQ?

8 Where is the scientific position on the cure for cancer or its potential?

9) Is there a political push for a Constitutional Convention which would either abolish the term limit on the presidency?

… to which I responded:

Thanks so much for for writing. I’ll definitely think about this. A few thoughts off the top of my head in response:

Re: Natural Born Citizens. We’ve discussed this before, and I know this is a hot topic for you. Personally, I don’t see the big deal. If the electorate wants a certain leader, I don’t see the importance of where he/she was born.

Re: Conspiracies. I’ve tried to steer clear of these, not because they’re unimportant, but because I don’t have any value to add to the discussion. Personally, I believe in some and not in others, but I don’t have any independent research to offer — nor really even any independent thinking. This leaves me with conjecture and opinion, which I try to minimize. Also, see: http://craigshieldsquestions.com/911/. Some of my guests appear not to mind taking on things like this, so I leave it to them.

Re: Survival Technologies. Here too I don’t have anything to say. Obviously, there are people who do this all the time, all over the US, and for a variety of reasons; many of them are survivalists who don’t want to be dependent on a nation that they perceive as becoming more corrupt every day–and I understand that. And the technology they employ, of course, is a function of where they’ve chosen to go: if they’re in the desert, it’s solar; if they’re next to a river, it’s hydrokinetic, etc.

Re: The Media. I’ve been a vocal critic of the feckless and cowardly corporate-owned media. In fact, I think it’s a big reason for the loss of US leadership on the worldwide stage. The media’s job now is to distract and entertain a couple of hundred million sheep. As I wrote here: http://craigshieldsquestions.com/craig-shields-on-the-civilization-that-nearly-everyone-wants/ there is very little insight and critical thinking that takes our leaders (public and private) to task for even their most blatent crimes.

Again, I’ll try to take on your ideas where I feel I can add something meaningful. Thanks again for writing!

Renaissance Thinking blog, questions

Thanks to all my guest bloggers who have contributed; this is our 100th post!

Renaissance Thinking blog

I notice that it’s the birthday of Honore’ de Balzac (France, 1799).  I presume with respect to his writing in general, he said “I am not deep, but I am very wide.”  For what it’s worth, this is rather what I aspire to be (not that I expect to get 1/1000th as far).

My business career supported this direction.  For 25 years, I was a marketing consultant to a fairly broad range of companies and the technologies they represented; I performed more than 800 projects–no two of which were the same.  I got to a point where I could have a good couple-minute conversation on a considerable gamut of topics (though I’d run out of gas quickly if asked about the any of these subjects in depth).  It was fun, though, again, it came at the expensive of not really being an expert in any one of these areas.

Renaissance Thinking Balzac, broad, marketing, Renaissance

Each Monday, I proofread an edition of “The Insider”–a weekly newsletter published at www.evworld.com–a website on electric vehicles in which I am a partner. I’m proud of what we’re doing there, and intensely proud at a personal level of my partner, Bill Moore, who works tirelessly to promote a more sustainable future for all of us.

In the course of his reporting and writing, he often champions the people who have invested huge amount of time and money into doing what they feel is morally right. This week, he wrote about Dr. Richard Komp, who, with a few imperfectly manufacturered (and therefore discarded) solar cells, travels the world teaching people—many of whom earn less than $2 a day and have never had electric light in their homes and villages–how to build their own solar panels. Using great resourcefulness, he and his students, who include land mine victims, handicapped shell divers, impoverished campesinos and survivors of the Rwandan genocide, fabricate working panels that bring light to rural schools, clinics, cooperatives and homes.

When Dr. Komp visited a school last week, a student asked if he was rich. He smiled, and said that he was not. Noting this, Bill concludes his article with a quote from Henry David Thoreau: “That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.”

Here are a couple of other quotes on riches that I suggested as well. Perhaps our readers may have some of their own:

He who multiplies riches, multiplies cares.
~ Benjamin Franklin ~

and

He who knows he has enough is rich.
~ Lao-tzu ~

Business, Politics, Renaissance Thinking, Science and Technology Benjamin Franklin, electric vehicles, kindness, Lao-tzu, riches

It’s amazing to me how often this subject comes up. I was having lunch last week with a terrific lady in New York. She happened to mention that she had majored in classics and philosophy, and wondered what general direction of study to recommend to her daughter. I gave her my opinion, i.e., that her daughter will have the entire rest of her life to figure our how to make stuff, sell stuff, etc. Why not let her spend a few short years learning how to write well, reason well, and deal with the big questions that have stimulated man’s thinking for millennia?

She responded thoughtfully, “There’s nothing the matter with that. But do you know, Craig, I work with a team of engineers here. When I was reading Sophocles in the original ancient Greek, they were studying math and science. Now they understand all this stuff, and I don’t.”

That set me back, I must say. I agree that it WOULD BE a burden going through life in the 21^st century without the vaguest understanding of the applied and theoretical sciences. I guess I’m hoping my kids double-major and get a wide and varied education.

Renaissance Thinking

Here’s the script I’ve written for myself. 

Hello, I’m Craig Shields, and thanks for joining me.

I’m here to ask you to do something. I want you to keep certain questions in front of you every day: Where are we going as a species? What are the most important issues confronting mankind — in both the sciences and the humanities? How can you come to understand these things better-and maybe point the way to the things that must be done to make this planet a better place on which to live?

You know, when we look back at the 19^th century, we say, Well that was cool, we figured out electricity, we had the Romantic period of music, great literature, Charles Darwin, and the American democracy really took root. But we owned slaves and we cheated and butchered millions of Indians. When we look back on the 20^th Century, we congratulate ourselves on the theory of relativity, financial expansion, communications and information technology, and the cures for many diseases. But what about all those wars, and nuclear weapons? What about the huge populations of impoverished people?

When get to the end of this century-or perhaps I should IF we get to the end of this century, what will be the key issues that will make us proud? What will be ashamed of? If we see tragedies coming before they get here, maybe we can prevent them.

So here’s an opportunity to dig into all that. My guests and I will try to present the best, most fair-minding thinking on the widest possible range of topics affecting who we are as a species and where we’re going-everything from moral philosophy to particle physics, from the supreme court docket to clean energy.

For me, and I think for you as well, it’s an opportunity to exercise the mind, and try to live a more fulfilling - and just maybe — a more meaningful life.

Thanks again for joining me.

Renaissance Thinking

I want to thank my good friend George Alger for putting all this magnificent technology together for me, and setting up this blog site.  It’s something I never could have done in a million years by myself. 

This afternoon, he’s extending his generosity one step further in helping me shoot a video that should be up shortly.

Renaissance Thinking

….I wrote back:

Profound stuff here, Fingers.  I can see this is going to be a good day. Here’s one for you: “All I want is for people to question the accepted lies, and call out for the forgotten truths.”     Georges Sand

Renaissance Thinking

I’m trying to help a fine and extremely bright friend of mine, who goes by the name “Fingers,” find a home for his breakthrough technology in renewable power generation, and I’m encouraging him not to lose hope. I guess I shouldn’t be too worried; see his comments below:

Craig:

(It’s cool.)

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

And, on a broader note:

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

-         George Bernard Shaw

Renaissance Thinking

Since this is an attempt to blog on Renaissance thinking, we should certainly mention that today is the birthday of Leonardo da Vinci, born in Vinci, Italy (1452): painter, sculptor, scientist, inventor, and philosopher. According to the Writer’s Almanac (http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org), …”he studied anatomy on decaying corpses so he would be able to accurately paint and sculpt human bodies. He did studies on plants, animals, architecture, geometry, bridges, canals, floating devices, bicycles, flying machines, weapons, and more. He sketched ideas for hundreds of inventions, including an underwater breathing device and shoes that would make it possible to walk on water.”

Renaissance Thinking