Have you ever played that game of having your life over again—but as a person of your choosing?  If I had to choose, I would come back as that embodiment of entertainment and enjoyment: Danny Kaye.

Danny, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind my familiarity, was an entertainer in every fibre of his being.  He started by entertaining school-mates, never finished high school and after a run of pointless menial jobs went professional at 20.  Of course, the early years were tough: no matter how good you are, success never falls into your lap.

But Danny was a phenomenon, and when he partnered with and soon married Sylvia Fine (see photo), a song writer, his talent became magnificent.  He was an all-rounder: excellent as More...

Most people are good (virtuous) most of the time.  The world would not work if they were not. That's an encouraging thought.

Life continues daily with each and every one of us producing goodness in small or large actions.  The good is expressed in our words, appears through the realization of our intentions, and shows up everywhere in fleeting non-verbal communications.

If we open our eyes to see the good as we walk down the street, we will see it.  The question may be asked as to why we do not routinely bother to look and remind ourselves that life is good and people are good. More...

Must we battle against evil?  Evil certainly poses an issue: What to do about it.   "Doing" is a practical question, so it can be handled by THEE.

And then there is the «problem of evil»: why a God that is absolute goodness can allow suffering and cruelty to exist.  This is a philosophical question.  Most of us don’t live inside a philosophical world, although judging by blogs and websites the number of amateur philosophers seems to be exploding.  More...

Perhaps creativity and intelligence exist in different universes. Although I have had kind words to say about AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), I sometimes despair.  A new free online service, LifeNaut, allows you to build "mindfiles" to preserve your essential unique qualities.  By this, they mean your videos, photos, documents, maps of your trips.  Can anyone really think that this is their "mind"?  Your exact physical location when reading this blog is unique, totally and absolutely—but does it capture your uniqueness?  This outfit has created a robot that acquires new experiences and knowledge by interacting with videocams and voice-recognition software. Frankly, I feel embarrassed on behalf of humanity.

The crucial issue for these AGI researchers and their brilliant leader, Ray Kurzweil, seems to lie in their perception of More...

Politics is a mess.  No doubt about that.

But let's put it into perspective.

The origins of politics are to be found in the early civilizations.  Politics were further developed following the dark ages in Europe, but with mainly social changes.  The essential feature at all times was rule by a King who was divine, or was there by divine right, and who could do no wrong.

This is crazy.  So politics was psychotic. But people accepted it.

Crazy rulers like that still exist.  They operate by whim and their own personal power.  They are surrounded by unproductive people: always secret police and a military.  In the past, there were also More...