ANOTHER ANGLE

Gandhi believed that “all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.” True joy is not passive acceptance of suffering but an active force, expressed through service that assists those in need, resists injustice, and works to overcome oppression.

It coincides with empathy: standing alongside families stripped of Medicaid, unjustly terminated workers, neighbors crushed under unaffordable living, and immigrants terrorized by criminal enforcement. But empathy is not sufficient. Joy is a disciplined commitment to justice, a refusal to normalize cruelty, and a rejection of acceptance of despair…

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After two weeks of provoking Trump vitriol, the most recent Highland OpEd throws a curveball (certainly designed to knock this author off his game). I must acknowledge my lack of qualifications to opine on philosophical questions. That said, as discussed, age is the lens through which we see life’s meaning morph. At 40-something, my perspective on these questions differs from that of someone 70-plus, and that contrast is what makes this exchange meaningful.

I cannot match the decades of exploration into faith traditions, wisdom, literature, and the mind’s architecture. I can, however, appreciate how thought frameworks transform. The “three-brain” theory may have evolved into complex coexisting systems. Because these layers are now understood to be interconnected, true understanding of the brain is revealed not only from looking inward, but also at outward interactions with others…

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“How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again.” Twain’s quote aptly describes America in 2025, where many mistake spectacle for strength. Trump has sold Americans the illusion of economic power and geopolitical dominance, but the recent Highland Club OpEd suggesting that Trump may be the person to address the worldwide crisis, symbolic of the Fourth Turning, is laughable.

Preliminarily, Trump’s ongoing assaults on democratic institutions and the rule of law eclipse any discussion of his foreign policy agenda. When the foundations of constitutional governance are at stake, other considerations must necessarily take second place. Notwithstanding, the OpEd ignores the reality of the last six months.

Economically, the U.S. Dollar Index has plunged 10–11% since Trump's inauguration—a decline not seen since the 1970s. Trump’s idiotic tariff policies, inhumane expulsion actions, and hypocritical deficit spending have destroyed market confidence and infected the US tourism industry (estimated to decrease $50 billion in 2025)…

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Highland City Club's OpEd, “On Projecting,” draws from authoritarian history, Bolsheviks, Nazis, and modern strongmen, but fails to name the most blatant perpetrator: Donald Trump, convicted felon, and his Republican enablers. He launched a meme coin to enrich himself, promised dinners at the White House, and then called for investigations into those who fought Russian election interference. He smeared U.S. foreign aid workers as “corrupt” while building a $200M White House ballroom and accepting a $500M Qatari jet. He called Fed Chair Powell “the most destructive person in government” while simultaneously cutting a trade deal and opening a golf resort in Vietnam. He fired the BLS head after an unfavorable jobs report, screaming that the report was rigged. This is daily life under Trump. Not a red vs. white wine debate, but democracy vs. deception…

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Philosophical abstraction about Trumpian uncertainty is misplaced—except to the extent we don't know how deep into the abyss Trump and his henchmen will take us. He is anything but an unknown. We know where he’s headed based on his past behavior, Project 2025, recent rhetoric, and the grossly underqualified–but easily manipulated–underlings he has hired. He is taking us to a level of ugliness unprecedented in this country. Some will benefit handsomely, just as some people did in Germany when fascism rose from the 1920s onward.

Historian Timothy Snyder notes Trump will "let the hydrocarbon oligarchs drill away at the earth and the digital oligarchs at our minds. A weakened government can control neither... The people who claim to want individual freedom are the same who clamor for mass deportations. America's hydrocarbon and digital oligarchs support this kind of libertarianism; social media guides men (and it is usually men) from believing they are solitary heroes to demanding other groups be punished. Fascism is now in the algorithms, the neural pathways, the social interactions."…

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As a dog lover and an owner of a veterinary care center, the treatment of pets is at the center of my world. Supporting veterinarians and veterinary technicians to perform at the highest level is of foremost concern - including ensuring there are adequate veterinary professionals to staff the various clinics and hospitals. But Colorado Proposition 129 is NOT THE ANSWER. The Proposition, which will appear on the November 5, 2024 ballot, purports to create a new veterinary professional – a Veterinary Professional Associate – who can avoid the robust and necessary medical training required to care for our pets. There is no structure to provide evaluation and certification for of this new veterinary professional nor is there an accredited curriculum. Instead, it is contemplated that online classes and a single semester internship would be sufficient to satisfy the requirements. An individual certified under this new regimen would then be permitted to diagnose diseases and perform complicated procedures, including surgeries. Not shockingly, this effort is driven by private equity and corporations looking to cut costs and drive revenues to dubious corporate-funded online college programs…

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In the spirit of furthering Sina’s commitment to educating ourselves and our Community about the promise of up and coming technologies, here is a short overview of this trending topic and why we believe that Blockchain and NFT’s are here to stay and how these technologies provide some non-obvious but extraordinary power that we believe will improve our world in the years to come.

Let’s start by taking a look at something referred to as NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens); a great innovation, not because of its application in such areas as buying and trading virtual assets like digital artwork and baseball cards, but because of how this technology will likely be applied in the real world and used in many common transactions. One compelling example is in the area of ticket sales…

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Recently a small group of colleagues and I had the opportunity to participate in a Zoom call with Senator Sinema (D-AZ) to discuss politics, infrastructure and taxation. I would like to posit that at this time in our history, no politician exemplifies The American Center better than Senator Sinema, who has a unique personality for a Senator, evidenced by her colorful dress and wigs, confident to walk a road less traveled by herself. Progressives who are frustrated with Sinema for opposing a bigger spending bill, and conservatives who are frustrated that she still supports massive new spending, both agree that Sinema has a mind of her own.

Senator Sinema is extremely knowledgeable, highly confident, and not the least bit rattled by recent attacks on her from the left of her own party. Although she did not disclose anything she had not already stated publicly, she did emphasize the fact she sees a way to get new social programs launched without damaging the economy. She has been consistently public in her opposition to tight price controls on the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, but favors some federal help for access to off patent drugs. She believes in the entrepreneurial economy and what it does for Arizona and the US. Substantively she still wants to see progress on the same issues as the Progressive Democrats, but at a more incremental pace.

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When I first read the headline for this week's article for the newsletter, I cringed. Sina had sent it to a couple of members asking for our thoughts before posting it. My knee-jerk reaction was “pick your battles.” And what I meant by that was how do we - the privileged descendants and beneficiaries of a radically different historical experience - weigh-in and take a stand on something we can and will never fully comprehend? Where empathy and compassion are not enough; where judgements are loaded with privilege and ignorance; and where efforts and opinions run the spectrum from guilt and fragility to rage and victimization - taking a stand in this multi-dimensional, omni-verse of quantum complexity is fraught with, well... pick your battles.

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Lance Morrow’s recent article condemning today’s rising Left wing fringe as the “Dawn of the Woke,” comparing them to McCarthyism and the Zombie Apocalypse is terribly ironic, ignorant and tone-deaf. Firstly, to use McCarthy (the radical alt-right Fascist of his time) as his whipping boy of projection onto the fringe of the progressive Left underscores just how absurd the polarities of our divisions have become. Accusing your enemy/adversary of the worst of your own party’s shadow is a clever tactic to demonize them while conflating your worldview with your blindspots. Perhaps a more empathetic, wisened and curious Morrow might inquire what is behind this loud resurgence of social justice, equal rights/voice, and the emergence and empowerment of the disillusioned, disenfranchised and heretofore largely invisible. Perhaps he need look no further than the title of his very own 2001 National Magazine Award essay on the attacks of 9/11, entitled, “The Case for Rage and Retribution.” Let that sink in.

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