Everybody has assumptions. Everybody has presuppositions. Everybody has filters. Here is what this means. Anytime people come to a conversation, they have long since made up their minds about the who, what, when, where, how, and why. That is fine – not a bad thing, just a thing. What isn’t fine is when folks are

The Arena of Ideas is not a safe space. It sizzles snow flakes and devours cupcakes. People might try to “cancel” Arena participants but they cannot cancel the Arena because we are ALL in the Arena of Ideas, every minute of every day. People cannot escape the Arena because people–humans–are singularly driven by ideas and the

a stream of consciousness blog. I’m working on improving the content structure but the content does not springing fully formed from my head and current events often shape the coming articles and videos. By necessity there is a chronology BUT posts are not specifically designed to be read in order. If a post is linked or

I grew up in church. Well, let me amend. I grew up with parents seeking truth so we tried pretty much every flavor of spirituality/religion known to 20th century Americans. Then when I was 15, for no apparent reason my parents said we were going to church. I rolled my eyes and prepared to wait