​Our education system misses the boat on many classes students could use in our rapidly changing world. If you’re a thinking person, you’ve probably thought of classes that every student could use to better adjust to society and prepare for complexity and tough situations they might encounter in the years ahead.
 
Having discussions with friends and colleagues on these types of issues, I often hear “financial management” as a necessary class that is not taught (investing, preparing for retirement, balancing your checkbook/budget; little and big stuff). Another one that arises during conversations is comparative religion – teaching all the world great religions so teenagers enter the adult world with a more rounded perspective on the beliefs of others.

The potential subjects are almost endless. I’m confident you have thought of your own.

Here are three of my favorites that roll around my head. Two are relatively new to my thought processes (one in the last few months and the other in the past year or so), while the other has bounced around my brain for 3-4 years.
 

1. Artificial intelligence (AI): This one has cropped up most recently. We need to teach what AI is, how it acts, what it means for jobs, how it will change the workforce and our REALITY. The implications are so thorough that we can’t afford not to teach our youth in-depth about AI. Whether you like it or fear it, AI is going to affect all of us for many years to come. Being prepared is critical for each of us.
2. BS detection of memes and deep fakes: This one has arisen over the past year or so. I keep telling a good friend he needs to create a business where people send him deep fakes and he analyzes them (he has the skills to do this professionally) to determine true or false, manipulated or accurate. We are living this world. We are crushed with images and phrases that have been changed and charged to cause you to feel something that’s not true. The only way to understand these types of is to have a BS detector. A well taught class would prepare us, and this is a survival skill in our ever-more-digitized world.
3. Anger/conflict management: This is a personal favorite and one I’ve discussed vehemently with many people over the years (more on that in a sec). This mandated class for high school students would be designed to help identify angry people and situations and give you the tools on how to mitigate the conflict, dial back rage.

Several years back, I wrote extensively to all my elected representatives, suggesting this as an important course for high school students (and their lives as they continued to mature and grow through the years). Given the number of school shootings in the United States, it is a realistic and doable alternative to mitigate some of the mass shootings that occur far too often in our society. It would arm students with tools to understand and identify when someone is going off the rails, and step forward with solutions.

Alone, it is not going to cure the world. But it is a step. None of my federal or state elected officials responded to my emails suggesting they develop and push for this type of legislation to build an anger/conflict management program in our schools. That sadly says something about the state of our elected officials. While I didn’t expect an immediate “yes, this is great and I’m going to adopt everything you wrote and sponsor a bill,” I did expect a rational response that supported the intent of what I’d written to them.
 
Those are three worthwhile classes if we’re going to have a next generation adaptive to changing technology, visual manipulation, outright lies and people who struggle to handle complexity without popping a blood vessel in their foreheads. Let’s hope someone listens. Feel free to share this column with your elected officials. Maybe something will happen.

​Weird how quickly movies disappear from the theaters these days. This is not new. Probably, if you pay attention, you’ve noticed this has been the case for 10 years or more.
 
You see an ad. You decide you want to go with your partner. You talk about it. Somehow you agree that you both want to see the flick. This process takes three weeks. You go online to check times for the coming weekend, and what the heck, it’s gone. Poof. Disappeared.
 
It’s called the disappearing movie syndrome (DMS). DMS affects most, but not all, movies. Identified blockbusters (who chooses to apply that mantle to a show is anybody’s guess, but it’s not you and me) stick around longer. Sometimes three or four weeks.
 
Though I exaggerate that point about how long a great (or high attendance) movie stays in theater, I’m not exaggerating by much. If you even think you want to go see a movie in the past decade, you pretty much need to decide that first week or two and then GO. If not, DMS takes over and it’s gone. You forget about it. And, you’ll likely never take the time to look it up on a streaming service and give it a viewing. There are far too many other entertainments options and our small brains don’t have the capacity to care or catalogue the flicks you want to watch enough to make that effort.
 
A couple of months back, during some daydreaming time, I looked up the current movie suite in our local theater. “Whoa, I’d like to see this. Man, this one sounds good, I should check it out. That’s a unique sounding plot; I should go.”
 
I selected several that charged my batteries. I wrote them down (and, of course, still have that list, hence this incredible column). They included: “Novocaine”; “Black Bag”; “The Monkey”; “Riff Raff”; “Queen of the Ring”; “A Working Man”; “Mickey 17.”
 
How many did I see? I’ll give you a moment to realistically consider this. Think about what else you do in your life, what grabs your attention, what stops you from even going out to the theater, other things that clutter your life. Now, out of those seven movies, how many did I watch?
 
You probably guessed right: two. “Mickey 17” and “Riff Raff” were the two I went to. What did this depend on? Was it convenience in terms of time and theater location? Did I rank them and go to the best first?
 
Quite frankly, for me, time and location became an initial deciding variable. Then, it became apparent that the others weren’t going to be around and other things in life took over, and poof, there they went to the ether. “Queen of the Ring” gone the day after I first looked. “Novocaine” gone in one week. “Black Bag” gone in two weeks. “The Monkey” disappearing in three weeks.
 
My life is not a failure because of this. But it makes for interesting observations about popular culture and why we don’t have as much of a shared culture as we did 30-40 years ago. Because of the fracturing and hyper intensity of the movie market, they come and go astoundingly fast. Blink and you miss one.
 
When I graduated from college, the movie “Grease” was in our theater in Ottawa, IL. I AM NOT KIDDING YOU, but that movie stayed in town the entire two years I lived there. Yeah, great movie, but there must not have been a lot of other flicks hitting the market.
 
A few years earlier, I remember “Jaws” hanging around our Kankakee, IL downtown theater for months and months and months. It was a great movie, no question about it. But in today’s world, it would get a month run, maybe.
 
We can’t keep up. The speed of entertainment options exceeds our capacity to observe, absorb and handle (make a decision to go or not to go). We’re all slammed by this. Most of us turn personal filters on. Or we completely ignore numerous movies and other entertainment sectors promoted towards us. It’s the only way to survive. Walls up. Block them out. Forget they exist. Move on, pick up a book.

​Over the past five years I’ve been playing old man baseball on two teams. That’s hardball. The two leagues, one for players ages 55+ and the other for 62+, are loaded with athletes wanting to continue competing despite sometimes compellingly told by our bodies to cease and desist.
 
I say that because of the injuries which occur every season. So far – keeping fingers crossed – I’ve avoided major injuries. One year, I tugged a hamstring, but soldiered on. Another year, while batting, the force of the fastball upon making contact with my bat contorted my right elbow in a direction it didn’t want to go. Icing, Advil, and an arm sleeve for compression allowed my continued participation, but it was excruciatingly painful for several weeks.

The body does not agree with what your heart desires. It tells you to rest, quit or retire. Most of the players in both leagues deal with these types of season/career-defining injuries. Resting and rejuvenating are critically important to keep yourself on the active playing list.
 
Each year (as the oldest player on our 55+ team) for the past three seasons, I advise newcomers on physical survival. I speak from experience, and wanting new teammates to stay healthy playing the game they love.
 
Here are the tips: Stretch before every at bat; don’t try to sprint (instead, taking baby steps before slowly accelerating as you run the bases or chase a ball); if at all possible, avoid sliding and diving; take it slow.
 
My teammates nod their heads. They understand. They agree. Mentally, they recognize the need to follow this advice. But, do they? Of course not.

Instead, competitive instinct and the heart take over as players repeatedly try to beat out a ground ball, steal a base, or make a spectacular diving catch on the outfield grass. Is this a good idea? Again, of course not.
 
What happens in these situations? You can predict the outcomes – torn rotator cuffs; ACL tears; pulled and torn hamstrings; twisted ankles; torn ligaments. You name it.

Of the new teammates each season, typically three get injured and are either out for the season or must miss 5-6 weeks rehabilitating an injury. Most recently, as we started this season, four of the 12 players on our roster got hurt during our opening game. One popped his hamstring in the following game and appears out for the season, despite being urged to take it slow and easy, and to be careful. He dove back to third on a play, and that was that. We all felt his pain as he lay face down on the dirt.
 
As this information was related to two good friends, they amusingly said we should change the name of our team to “The Arthritics.” We all laughed at this. We kicked around other names, including, “The Cracked Bones,” “The Sore and Grouchies,” “The Strained Muscles,” “Muscle Tearers,” “Leg Benders,” and “Ankle Crushers.” We had a good laugh batting these around on email.
At one point the suggestion was made to approach someone of decision-making power at a local Milwaukee area hospital to see if they would sponsor our team. Maybe an orthopedic practice. They could make some money off us.
 
The injuries will not go away because almost every player loves the game too much and won’t retire until the pain is non-negotiable. It happens to everyone at some point.
 
We slog it out. We have fun. We beat ourselves up. We cheer for our teammates. We agonize over their injuries, and our own. We take the field again and again for love, the joy of being on the field, the spring breeze, smelling fresh cut grass, the eternal mashing of the ball and watching it soar, flinging a pitch past a flailing hitter or making a diving catch to secure a victory.
 
The body retaliates. But love keeps resurfacing.

​In his new book, “Irresistible,” Adam Alter touches on the rise of the technology-inducing hooks that grab our attention, drain our attention spans, and keep us doing things over and over, mostly to our detriment. It’s a worthwhile read.
 
He historically tracks those things that have proven irresistible to us humans over time – alcohol, tobacco, drugs, sex, over-eating, working out, and more. The most recent urges aren’t as apparent as those 15-50 years ago as they are tied to online/electronic services – texting, email, social media, gambling, video games, shopping, for example.
 
He covers how companies set us up to want their product/service more and more, the research that goes into inducing repetitive behavior that becomes increasingly more difficult to break. The behaviors are typically to our detriment. We gamble too much. We play video games for hours on end with little to no breaks for food, water or sleep. We find ourselves searching and searching for the best deal on comfortable shoes because we can and the options are tantalizingly put in front of us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, et al.
 
One section stood out to me. Actually, more explicitly, an action by one company addressed in one of the chapters of the book stood out to me. It was how they approached freeing up their employees to relax and not feel tethered to their electronic devices 24-7. It’s simple. When you hear it, you’ll whack yourself on the side of your head, and say to yourself, “Why the heck didn’t I think of that?”
 
Given the stress that many employees express in today’s work world about having to be connected at all times, the company in Alter’s example chose to shut down a major stressor. How?
 
When you go on vacation, they set up their email system to deliver messages back to the sender telling them that the person they are trying to reach is not available and they must wait until that person returns to work to communicate with them. They also put a note giving another contact if the communication was an emergency.

The point about this action that struck me the most, and Alter points this out, is: you can now go on vacation without coming back to 972 emails after one week of relaxation. You come back to work to an empty email box.

That might feel weird. You would probably have to psychologically and emotionally adjust to that. But, consider how you would feel while on vacation, and coming back to your office relaxed, smiling, feeling rested and revved to take on your job again, knowing you can ease into things rather having your blood pressure rise the instant you walked through the door.
 
Now, they probably need a similar system with voice mail just to be safe, so people don’t circumvent the concept by trying to tie people down with work through voice mail while they’re on the cruise or camping trip of a lifetime.
 
This de-stressor is a phenomenal idea, so let’s share it far and wide. Send this column to everyone you know. Maybe that will create some impact.
 
While this action only solves the issue of over-connectedness relative to your vacation time, it can also be implemented for non-work-hour related communications. Businesses could choose this system as a regular mode of operation, for example, only allowing communications during certain hours of the day.

This can be done. Will it? Will those irresistible urges continue to hit us at all hours? We can limit the beeps and clicks and likes (all those dopamine-inducing sounds and actions in electronic communication devices and sites) if we choose to. 

​Dear Rory,
 
I am tremendously pleased with your victory last week at the Masters Golf Tournament, making you only the sixth person in history to win all four major men’s golf tourneys (which include the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship, along with the Masters). It was a scintillating four days, IMO, and perhaps the most draining and competitive major championship I have watched in my life. Checking my faulty memory banks, I’m highly confident I recorded and watched (fast forwarding through much of the “inaction”) close to 100 percent of the golfing.
 
Back to you. You were an all-time great before you completed this “career grand slam.” You would have remained a career all-time great without winning the Masters. I get it. You wanted it. It dangled in front of you, tantalizing your emotions. The announcers and media pounded on you year after year about how you needed it to secure your status with those five other golfers – Jack Nicklaus, Gene Sarazen, Tiger Woods, Gary Player and Ben Hogan.  Your greatness didn’t need that win.

Yes, you’ve now checked an elite box. You stand with those five other guys until someone else comes along and becomes the seventh. Scottie Scheffler will likely tap on the door in the next five years and ask to enter that room.
 
That’s won’t make Scottie an all-time great. Instead, like you, it will be because over a long period of time he wins, competes, finishes annually at or near the top of the PGA tour. The media and many people are obsessed with winning, which only one person does in golf on any given week, competing against 119+ entrants on average. That means when you win on any given week, you are better than the top one percent (.83 percent to be exact) of the VERY BEST GOLFERS IN THE WORLD.
That statistic means that in your 29 career wins, you’ve finished ahead of 99.17 percent of competing golfers. You’re great. That’s great.
 
Let’s get back to those people who pigeonhole greatness, wanting to define it for you, putting that pressure on. What they have to say doesn’t matter. They’re talking heads. They’re not out on the course week after week, battling weather conditions, all those spectacular competitors, sore bodies, lapses in concentration, unlucky breaks. Each golfer on the PGA Tour, in contrast, does.
 
Things don’t always go your way. Every golfer knows that. It’s a great lesson for everyone who plays golf. I imagine most thinking people who pick up the clubs recognize this. There are bad days, bad weeks, years. Life intervenes. An argument with your spouse or the death or birth of a loved one changes your perspective and how you approach the game. It affects your swing. It affects you much you enjoy the nature of the game, which should typically involve relaxation and elements of a Zen perspective on the world – oneness with the shots you make.
 
Before winning the Masters, Rory, you’d already conquered four other majors (winning the PGA twice). That’s pretty darn great. You’ve won the FedEx Cup three times (the reasonably new end-of-the-year three-round tournament to crown the best player for the year on the PGA Tour). The only other player to win even two FedEx Cups is Tiger Woods. That’s great company. You are at the top of that list.
 
Don’t let the pundits and media define you, Rory. Define yourself. It’s clear, given your reactions after pulling off your stunning victory last week, that you placed a gigantic burden on yourself and wanted the Masters incredibly badly. I get it. You deserve it.
 
I’ve rooted for you for the 18 years you’ve been on the PGA Tour. I will continue to root for you regardless of whether you win another major. IMHO, you have been the greatest golfer on the Tour for the last 15 years. Others have had a run at you, and yeah, Scottie is crushing it these past three years. But, your body of work, which defines GREATNESS, is the best if you look cumulatively the past 15 years. That’s a ton of victories. And many, many other top ten finishes. That’s greatness, Rory. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.
 
FORE!

​Ideas for this column arise in multiple ways. One is from friends who email me something that gets me thinking, laughing, philosophizing, wondering. When one of those emotions is charged, I save the email and let it percolate.
 
Sometimes the percolation lasts for weeks, sometimes months, and occasionally for years. The phrase “annihilating city crowding” was the topic of one of those emails I pulled from my pile, and ironically it was dated almost exactly to today’s date two years ago. A bit of serendipity.
 
The genesis of the email thread had to do with “issues that destroy our society.” The word “destroy” is a bit strong. The theme was more about what is a big issue that causes major problems for our society in the United States.
 
My writing friend posited two as quoted here: “The two big issues that destroy our society are boredom in rural areas and overcrowding in cities.” Let that percolate a bit.
 
There’s a lot that goes into both of those issues – causes, intensity levels depending on where you live exactly, the size of a metro (what is too big?) or rural (when is it too small?) area, homogeneity of the community, the growth or contraction that the community has experienced in the past 10-30 years, and more. We’re stereotyping here in forming judgments generically about these two types of communities.
 
Anyway, my friend wrote the solution in the email, a bit simplistic, as follows: “Destroy small town boredom; annihilate city crowding.” There you have it. Slap your hands, dust them off, and the problem(s) are solved. Or that is just a small start toward problem solving.
 
As most thinking people recognize, nothing is that simple. But there is a huge truth in the two points from my friend.
 
They are this: In rural communities, there is a greater need for services, jobs, businesses necessary for life’s basic necessities. Those towns could lack access to a hospital or internet service. Population loss could mean closing schools and students having to be bussed 30-100 miles to consolidate with the closest high school. The only supermarket might have closed. And, so on.
 
In cities, on the other hand, stress, traffic congestion, rising prices of housing are but three of the major outcomes due to consolidating too many people in a give square mile. We are not meant to live in those types of crowded conditions, and it often leads to sewage, air pollution, electrical grid capacity and garbage taxing systems not designed to absorb higher populations. Services can’t keep up.
 
There were a couple simple planks to my writer friend’s presidential platform that we elaborated in the email. On destroying small town boredom: “Install a movie theater with rotating venues of old movies, comedy clubs, concerts in towns with populations 1,000-10,000.”
 
On annihilating city crowding: “Mandate bike/hike paths with greenery to wind through any new or redeveloped parcel of land in communities with populations over 100,000.”
 
Simplistic, yes. Doable, yes. And, there are many communities dealing with these issues and taking on solutions along the lines noted above.
 
I think what we both took away from our email conversation was that we need to recognize as a first step the different challenges for communities based on population and transportation connectedness. It’s going to take individuals, communities, businesses, leadership and government to come together because deep thought and long-term planning is the only way for us to make this happen. It’s not going to happen overnight. We need to all roll up our sleeves and get to work.

For those of you who read my weekly musings, this column might be a bit different. The thoughts that follow are ones I’ve voiced to many over the past 10 years or so regarding the future of housing and cities in the United States – thoughts that we must think about, deliver and reconstruct for our next generation to have affordable lives.
 
There is an ebb and flow to life, history, cities, products we use. Some things go up in price. Neighborhoods become sought after, or, conversely, they may decline into a dump. Roads deteriorate. Others are nicely paved over on a regular basis.

If you look at development in this country over the past 50 years or so, the industrial northern cities have declined. The southern cities, with the introduction of air conditioning in the 1960s, have flourished, adding population and youth from the declining manufacturing cities in the north (a broad, but also targeted observation).
 
Housing prices followed this trend, with growth and new homes popping up more quickly in Dallas, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, etc. With more construction, based on demand, prices rose.
 
Many factors go into the rapidly rising costs of homes (and cars and college and medical care) – cost of raw materials, safety requirements, energy, labor. In those southern and coastal cities, with the added push of population growth, prices accelerated.
 
Conversely during this period broadly encompassing the past 50 years, cities like Toledo, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Buffalo and more have stagnated or declined. The urban core became a skeleton. People left. The housing stock deteriorated. You could buy a small home or a condo more cheaply.

If we are going to have affordable housing for more people in the United States, it’s these cities that we must focus on. Builders, private capital and investment should more and more target those cities to reshape their future in a vibrant way. It’s about the only way I can see the next generation achieving what has been an American dream to own your home.
 
The Boston, L.A., New York City, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Seattle metro areas are totally unaffordable in terms of a home purchase for 95-98 percent of our population from what I read and discuss with people I know who live in those urban areas. Those cities all face problems in terms of finding people to fill jobs of all types who make less than (insert your high dollar amount here) dollars. If you don’t make XX, you can’t live there, and often can’t live anywhere remotely nearby, so you live in a tent, at the YMCA, 62 miles down the highway (with a 90-minute commute, or more) a van down by the river or buddy up with 12 other people in a group home. I don’t know how, but some people make it work.
The broader, conceptual point we must consider as a country is “where should people be living?” When places become so popular, only the uber elite can afford to live there (and raise a family), we must look elsewhere.

That’s where my reinvigorating Toledo perspective comes into play, something, as I noted above, I’ve ranted about to many people for at least 10 years. Offer incentives. Cities must look for ways to bring youth to their core, to invest in such a way to create that attractive environment that reverses decline into an incline. Move up rather than move out.

This can be done. Make no mistake about it. In some ways, due to necessity, it is already happening. Major smart growth and rehabbing is occurring in Milwaukee and Detroit, and I would be confident in other similar cities (without having that exact data in front of me).
 
Affordable homes can drive this equation, or actually become the reward for those who choose to take the personal initiative to bring back a declining neighborhood. This IS happening and will continue to happen, but with greater visibility and local pushing, we will find the livable cities in the future are the industrial declining cities of the past.

​One of the cool things about Jack Reacher in the series of Reacher novels is that he packs light. He is ready to go. He has no address. When he leaves one town, he brings the clothes on his back and a toothbrush.
 
Ah, to be some mobile. Wouldn’t that be marvelous?
 
My wife and I hit on this topic recently, how BACK IN THE OLD DAYS, you’d go see a friend for the weekend and you had close to the Jack Reacher number of items in your toiletry back. Maybe a comb, toothpaste, toothbrush. Anything else you would figure out.
 
Man, have those days evaporated. I’m not sure when the threshold was crossed to taking a BIG BAGGIE of items on trips. Regardless of when this changed, multiple extra items now go in that carrying case, even if we’re only heading out for a couple of days.

Take, for example, Advil and Tums. I bring both these days. Do I always need them? Of course not, and mostly I don’t. But, I want to be prepared if my body gets stiff from a drive or airplane ride and I could use an Advil to even things out, I want to have it with me. Same with Tums. Typically, they are unnecessary. But, eat or drink just a little too much at this stage of life and heartburn is a reality. Toss the Tums in.
 
Years ago, I didn’t floss. Now I feel guilty missing one day of flossing. Make sure that goes in bag.
 
Vitamins? Supplements? No way I needed or used any of that stuff 30 years ago. Slowly, several have been added to my daily regime to help keep the joints functioning properly, a daily probiotic for digestion, a multi vitamin, among others.
 
Then there are prescriptions. Once you get past a certain age, it’s pretty hard not to have at least one or two prescriptions your doctor wants you to take. Slip them in the baggie.
 
Fifteen years ago I was diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy. It affects my feet, causing numbness, tingling, burning, pain. To handle that and keep the syndrome from deteriorating more quickly, I go through several routines using various implements. These include a foot roller, a gel to put on my feet at night and an electric impulse apparatus that sends tiny jolts to help relieve the pain and increase circulation. Those can’t fit in the toiletry bag, so place them in the bigger traveling bag.
 
Unlike Reacher, spontaneity seems unattainable with travel today. You have to think ahead. That means clothing and attire as well. If you head to a wedding and will attend the reception the night before, you must have the proper clothing for both.

Might it rain on the trip? Make sure you pack your rain jacket.
 
What if the temperature is expected to drop? Do you need long underwear? Shorts or pants or both? Do you need boots to walk in snow or can you get by with just one pair of shoes? All those dang considerations.
 
If we could only be Reacher, traveling light, taking life as it comes. Back in 1982, when I bicycled across North America, I packed and lived lightly. It was great. That was a different time and a different trip. I’m going to work on this, add spontaneity. That will likely be okay until I twist my back or eat too much pizza.

When the presidential election ended in November, I think the majority of people in the United States heaved a titanic sigh for at least one reason: political advertising would be over. True, yes. But not for long.
 
I’ve launched attacks in the past on this column about how horrific, misleading and downright false far too many political ads are. Downright lies proliferate. Innuendos abound. Most ads aren’t designed to inform, but instead break the opposing candidate down, and make you – the target of the ads – feel the person being attacked is a jerk, loser, thief, criminal, dangerous.
 
As the ads wear you down, even the most vigilant of us start to wonder if there is a nugget of truth in all the lies. In this way they get you. Your defenses lag. Your antenna to sift through garbage turns itself off. Then, whammo, you find yourself hating someone.
 
The thing I remember most deeply from the day after the presidential election is how I felt bad. The relentless nature of the attacks from both candidates (and, of course, this is not limited to presidential elections) – because they are designed to make you feel bad things about the other candidate – make you feel bad yourself. You feel bad about your country.  You feel bad about the direction we are taking. This leads to some of the malaise many people feel in the U.S. about the political process, our politicians, our expectations, and the general sense that no one is doing anything good.
 
There is a lot of good being done by a lot of people in this country. That occurs at the local, state and national levels, and includes businesses, politicians, bureaucrats, community leaders, scientist, engineers, people of faith. We don’t hear about that much though because the ads dominate our senses.
 
Follow the money. Those who have it inject their bucks into various campaigns. Follow the money and you follow the hate and lies.
 
Which in a roundabout way gets me back to today in Wisconsin where we have a state Supreme Court race being contested.
 
The INSTANT ads started being run (maybe six weeks ago?), they were negative. If you know nothing of the two candidates (probably true of 95 percent of the Wisconsin electorate), you would think both of the candidates were evil personified, letting rapists and killers back onto the streets with nary a thought as to the consequences.
 
That’s not case, as I’ve had the opportunity to see and hear both candidates speak in-person to the Milwaukee Rotary and Milwaukee Press Club. Both care about the state, care about the judiciary and respect what being a judge is all about – enforcing the law to the best of their abilities. You’ll find places you could quibble with either one. You may disagree with their perspective on an issue or align yourself politically with one or the other. That’s fair. Choose to vote on those merits.
 
DON’T choose to vote based on the ads assaulting you. Recently, seven ads in a row came up on the TV for one or the other candidate, before one for a plumber finally ended the string. Sigh.
 
We all will continue to be overwhelmed in this way. That makes it tremendously important to do your own research, read, verify, think. It’s hard. Informed voting isn’t easy. In some ways, in today’s world, it’s actually extremely complicated because we are all being manipulated in multiple directions.
 
There is no perfect solution to this dilemma. The most solid path forward individually for voters is stay informed rather than relying on ads as a source.  Good luck. 

​How do you regenerate content? How can you juice your creativity?
 
In our current culture, coming up with content to entertain audiences is a big deal. Think how much you consume: movies, podcasts, columns, videos, YouTube, television shows, all that stuff streaming on those multiple services – Apple, Netflix, Hulu, Brit Box, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Peacock just to name a few that I can come up with off the top of my head. I presume there are many more.
 
They all must come up with angles, and put together shows that get people to watch and listen. It is hard. How do they differentiate?

As a writer, I face this challenge every week, the creative challenge. What is something worth writing about? Did something funny happen to me in the past few weeks that I can riff off? Is there a complex issue that has jumped into my consciousness that I can use as a platform to make a deeper point?
 
Creativity rises in different ways for different people. Capturing that impulse in a tangible format is a challenge, as is presenting it in such a way that people want to watch, hear, read what you have to say.
 
We are assaulted by entertainment choices, which means it is far too easy to turn someone off. Don’t like the opening sentence of my column? Click to the next story. Bored after the first ten minutes of a movie? Stream another one. Podcast making you snore? Wake up to someone else who charges your batteries.
 
My wife and I have left much of U.S.-based television series in the dust. The slam bang, quick cut, using violence and guns and car chases and crashes to overcome the lagging of plots. Watch U.S. television shows with the sound off one evening when you have a few spare moments and you might be stunned with how frequently scenes cut from one to the next, and how violence, guns and crashes are used to take up creative space. It does make you wonder about how violent our culture is.
 
But, away from that musing, and back to the creative challenge. Spicing up tired plots (if you watch a regular television series, think about the ones that keep you coming back because they have something fresh occur that keeps you engaged) is crucial to your attention span. Yes, we are drawn to certain characters, want the bad guys to get blown up, but we also need something to get us outside the box.

That is the creative challenge. Given all the songs and genres for songs, I sometimes find it hard to believe that anyone ever delivers something new. But they do. The artists that cut through to your heart and soul, getting you to repeat their lyrics (so catchy), and hum along while you air guitar it, are the ones you listen to.
 
Regenerating content takes time, thought, revisions, letting loose of preconceived notions and being willing to take yourself down a path previously unexplored. Entertainment products face this creative challenge, but it is also present in businesses and other parts of our lives, even freshening up our relationships with new things.
 
Take a walk somewhere to experience a dramatic view. Drive a different route to work (try it). Read an author recommended by a friend. Watch a movie outside your comfort zone. Put your belt on the opposite way you normally do. Now sit down and create.