Substack?

My new Substack

My lifelong dream has always been to be a writer. I earned a BA in English from Georgetown University in 1985, but knew I had not really lived and had little to say. Plus, all I cared about was getting a job. Since high school, I kept hearing from my father about a 100% employee-owned company called Allied Plywood Corporation and how much money truckdrivers and salespeople were making. Bob Shaw, the president of Allied Plywood was at our house at a meeting of the Center For Economic and Social Justice. I asked for the job. Nearly 16 years later, with an ESOP account balance of over $100,000, I handed in my keys and pager. Now I'm an educator.

Prior to the 2016 presidential election, I began to post on Twitter about my opinions about a person to whom I now only refer as the former guy (TFG). Having followed the Wall Street Journal's reporting on Russia's Invasion of Crimea, TFG's pro-Putin set off alarm bells for me. His hate rallies drew obvious parallels to Hitler. My posts alluded to Shakespearian tragedies such as MacBeth, Hamlet, and King Lear, plus Homer, Dante, and Milton, the Bible, and whatever other references popped into my imagine. My sarcasm and tragic vision of what was happening to America resonated with some people, who encouraged me by feeding me information about the extent of TFG's criminal enterprise. Since I considered TFG an existential threat, I viewed posting on Twitter and Resisting a moral obligation throughout TFG's regime.

Politics, something I had always hated, became a necessary evil. I supported Joe Biden as a viable opponent when he was down in the polls, and as many down ballot Democrats as my credit card could handle, particularly opponents of the most repulsive MAGAts. My guiding principle: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That energy worked through the 2022 mid-terms, but I was exhausted, and felt I could relax a little.

After Elon moved on Twitter like a b!tch, I was done with Twitter, which really suck#d, because I was having nice conversations with Sports Talk Radio personalities. Matt Taibbi leaving Twitter brought me to Substack.

Benny Booch Reboot

I needed a break from the cycle at the start of the school year, so I let a full barrel of booch evaporate to about a fourth. Surprisingly, no mold.

I dumped the barrel in the woods and started fresh. I used cleaning tablets purchased from Kombucha Kamp, and ordered fresh scobies with starter tea.

Here's a great resource: "The Big Book of Kombucha: Brewing, Flavoring, and Enjoying the Health Benefits of Fermented Tea" by Hannah Crum, Alex LaGory, Sandor Ellix Katz.

Start reading it for free: The Big Book

Before my reboot, I skimmed The Big Book. Based on the schedule provided, I realized that I needed to add fresh sweet tea to my booch barrel every two weeks. The result: less "vinegar" odor.

I now stir the barrel and no longer filter the booch harvest before the secondary fermentation. The result: fizzier booch.

My flavoring and secondary fermentation strategies have also improved. To cut costs, I'm moving away from the fresh pressed juiced to freeze dried extracts. Also, apple juice is way cheaper and easier to get than blueberry juice.

My latest batch of Benny Booch is smooth, surprising, and reflects vastly improved technique

The Greater Reset: a Case for a Paradigm Shift

Listen to The Greater Reset by Michael D. Greaney, Dawn K. Brohawn on Audible. https://www.audible.com/pd/B09T88Q9FB?source_code=ASSOR1500219210011

My father is 92. I've had a front row seat to his efforts to change the system.

The Greater Reset represents the next generation authoring a manuscript, with the potential to reach a wider audience. Running short on time, my dad has expressessed frustration that I have not been engaged enough, and that Dawn and Michael's book does not go far enough in calling for the kinds of structural reform our democracy needs if we are to avoid Civil War or collapse of our political system.

The Greater Reset is a mindnumbingly ambitious undertaking. CESJ represents a merger of the teachings of Fr William Ferree on social justice and Louis Kelso's framework for enabling non-owners to become owners without taking anything from existing owners, while overcoming the tyranny of past savings. It makes a case for the proposed Economic Democracy Act and explains in some detail how to create an ownership society, and by the way, it proposes a new Papal Encyclical on Economic Justice.

The book uses a competing vision, The Great Reset, effectively as a foil. It explains the philosophical roots of Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret, and explains how their well-intended scheme would continue patterns of increased monopolization of wealth producing assets. Schwab and Malleret's declaration that in the future, nobody would own anything and you will like it, is challenged as a threat to individual liberty.

Honestly, if it had not been on Audible, the book would have collected dust -- my mind said, too difficult -- but I listened and was a little stunned how well it held my attention. Despite some of its flaws, the authors succeeded in getting my attention and building my anticipation for their next book. I even spoke about it to the local candidate who was going door to door for signatures yesterday in the bitter cold. Deja vu.

Around the time I began my freshman year at Georgetown University in 1981, my dad, mom, sister, her husband Rowland, the late Bill Schirra, Fr. William Ferree, and a few others founded the Center For Economic and Social Justice (CESJ) in a cafeteria at American University.

Having worked at at Employee-Owned company for over 15 years after graduating from college in 1985, I've benefitted financially from principles of economic justice and it's application in a leveraged ESOP, in a company that shared profits. I have also seen how hard it is to maintain a viable  ownership culture in a going concern as a company undergoes rapid growth.. When I left in 2001, despite having earned considerable income, it felt like a failure.

Now I am a Special Education Teacher. I see entire communities who enter middle school with little to no phonemic awareness or skill in phonics, who cannot add or subtract, and do not know their multiplication facts. Many are on free and reduced lunch. We provide free education, but few are accessing it fully. We expect students to access a standard curriculum without providing the means of accessing it.

When a democracy becomes as unbalanced as exists today, widespread alienation becomes a natural result. I eagerly await the next book, Own or Be Owned.

The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg (V2)

During the 2022-2023 holidays, I realized that I have developed some bad habits that have contributed to Type 2 Diabetes, problems meeting deadlines, unfinished projects, being slow to respond to important communications: procrastination, over-eating, and more generally poor self-care, the leading categories. As a reflective, well-educated, and responsible person, I typically know what to do, but having an urgent need, I looked at the comments, feeling I might learn something from The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg on Audible. https://www.audible.com/pd/B007C64916?source_code=ASSOR150021921000R, by Charles Duhigg

To help overcome personal challenges, I played recorded books on a loop for decades: Dennis Whaitley, Napoleon Hill, Zig Ziglar, Les Brown, Brian Tracey, Tony Robbins, Dale Carnegie, etc.  All made such a difference, I kept listening to them. As my life became busier in all areas, and having become hooked on questions about neuroscience, artificial intelligence, evolution, information science, among other things, I had gone beyond looping self-help books for weeks on end.

I had earned a Master's Degree in Education and had made significant  dietary changes. My blood sugar had been brought under control, mostly through better dietary choices, but also through medication. Now, I felt myself backsliding. My career had stabilized, but once again I was feeling my ability to handle the workload was in jeopardy. My debts were gradually receding from their high water mark, but I started to wonder how I would ever overcome my mountain of debt.

As a Special Education Teacher, I was feeling overwhelmed: too much to do, too little time; everybody depending on me. At home, I felt as though I was not contributing enough to my wife and family. Also, my parents were going through a crisis, and I felt too busy to come to their rescue. I was feeling drained and was procrastinating, feeling paralyzed.

With a tsunami of events looming in 2023, I knew I needed to prepare myself by improving my habits. Since I started reading this well-organized, science based, accesible guide, I've adopted a new approach: "small victories." I committed to apply the Hero's Journey 60 Day Fitness Quest, by N Rey (Darrbee). One belt loop down. My first decision was to set a goal: I will exercise every day.

I decided to apply a small victories approach in the classroom. In consultation with a colleague, after the holidays, I implemented classroom routine to include 20 minutes of ST Math per day at startup and the expectation that students use ST Math for 30 minutes per night. Students with learning disabilities often get overwhelmed with processing new information, which causes many to struggle with approaching multi-step problems in a strategic way. Many lack fact fluency, which creates a barrier to accessing grade appropriate number sense and problem solving strategies. One way I'm addressing this is by evaluating the fact fluency of students and assigning Just For Me Assignments to target this need.

The Power of Habit has the potential to provide me the leverage I need to meet my responsibilities, and gain enough momentum to help carry me through the next 5 years. It's a very persuasive book.

I made a mind-map of the areas of my life where I needed to do something, Daily Habits. I ordered the book on Kindle so I can more easily access the resources in its appendix.