Continuing the series "Assaying Entropy," I continue to develop a description of how the original idea of democracy in America was altered due to the influence of undemocratic structures. The last essay dealt with corporate hierarchy. In the present piece, I discuss the military influence, militarism, and the frontier mentality.
The Constitution created a government around the arguments about democracy, but it did not resolve those conflicts. The resulting ambiguity allowed traditional hierarchical, undemocratic structures, institutions, and values to inform American life. Those hierarchical ideas still dominate American social thinking today resulting in a complex and often self-contradictory identity.
Some aspects of American society might make us more prone to what psychologist Daniel Kahneman calls fast thinking and thus more prone to make mistakes in judgment when it comes to complex issues like Covid.
Hooray. Fairness under the city's zoning code was in evidence at the Dec. 14 city commission meeting, thanks to Mayor Pro Tem Rolf Hechler. He went through his findings of fact before ruling, as required by law, eschewing opinion.
The next city manager must hold to a course correction, reversing 60 years of water, wastewater and electric infrastructure neglect--Bruce Swingle is leaving in May.
Some limits on our ability to think when we want to think about Covid.
Is our perception of death and of human life changing because of the Covid-19 pandemic?
I am introducing a series of articles in which I view and weigh our present world in light of the concept of entropy, and in this first essay, I explain what entropy is and how it allows us to see the effects of everything that we do.
Must-read reporting and commentary from around the state and the country. Today's intelligence: a new state initiative to monitor New Mexico public school districts suspected of undercounting (and thus underserving) students experiencing homelessness
Must-see reporting and commentary from around the state and the country. Today's intelligence: inside accounts of post-election regrouping by state Democrats and Republicans
Must-read reporting and commentary from around the state and the country: Today's intelligence: veteran politics blogger Joe Monahan's dissection of the strategies behind President Biden's visit today to Albuquerque and a new poll that indicates that the New Mexico gubernatorial race has become a dead heat.
The city commission's workshop on the hot springs clarified that it's up to the city, not the Office of the State Engineer, to take care of the hot springs. The city's position as a protestant to a 400 acre-feet-a-year commercial hot springs application is heightening the city's interest.
