Mark O’Brien

Once a bureaucracy grows beyond a certain size, it exists only to sustain itself and to grow. No bureaucracy ever recognizes its inefficient dysfunction, nor do the people who serve it ever examine it, seek to improve it, apply logic and reason to it, or say no to it. If the people who suffer its abuses are lucky, the monolith may one day collapse of its own weight. But until then, everyone who suffers by it is stuck with it. Case in point: the United States Postal Service (USPS). On September 3rd, I ordered a cap from a hat shop in San Diego, California. The graphic on the left shows the circuitous... Continue Reading

Author’s Note: People ask me fairly routinely, “What the hell do you think about?” I don’t know why they do that. And I’m not at all sure they really want to know. In any case, this is what I was thinking about after I read a recent headline in a local business journal. Read it at your own peril. If you want to know how long the financial-services industry has been around — and if you want to know how long women have been involved in that industry — check out this headline from the Hartford Business Journal (HBJ): “First woman becomes head of Northwest Community Bank”. The first... Continue Reading

Do you ever wonder how many people living first-world lives might be compelled to change their behaviors on any given day, all of those behaviors likely to be superficial or trivial? Me, too. The question occurred to me yesterday when I came across three things in my Apple News feed. For openers, we could have read about the fact that things are so bad The Washington Post ran an article entitled, “5th Circuit finds Biden White House, CDC likely violated First Amendment”. If we’d done so, we would have found this: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit on Friday ruled that the Biden... Continue Reading

If you’re not yet convinced that climate-change alarmism is more about politics, wealth redistribution, power, control, gullibility, and ignorance than it is about climate (it is), maybe you should read this anyway, even if it’s just out of curiosity, be it morbid or idle: “Cancellations Start for John Clauser After Nobel Physics Laureate Speaks Out About “Corruption” of Climate Science”. Try this on for size: The 2022 Nobel Physics Laureate Dr. John Clauser slammed the ‘climate emergency’ narrative as a “dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy... Continue Reading

My name is Daniel. That won’t matter to you because you won’t see me. You’ll pass me by. But you won’t see me. So, my name won’t matter to you any more than I do. But I’m Daniel, nevertheless. Image By Leroy Skalstad From Pixabay.com I can’t decide If it’s odd that you don’t see me. On one hand, it strikes me as odd because I am you. On the other hand, it’s not odd at all. If you can walk by me without seeing me, I suspect you don’t see yourself. You don’t see yourself in me. You don’t recognize the humanity we share. You don’t recognize or are afraid of the responsibility... Continue Reading

I have a theory. Most of my theories are now buried, layers deep, in the Great Trash Heap of Failed Ideas. But this one seems to possess some merit, to have legs as we say in the marketing biz. Try it on: Ignorance breeds fear, which breeds hatred, which breeds abuse, violence, and sometimes death. This theory seems to hold true because what we don’t know tends to make us afraid. Because we’re disinclined to learn what we don’t know — about people, thoughts, beliefs, cultures, ethnicities, traditions, religions, rituals, et al. — we feel threatened. We adopt righteous, defensive postures... Continue Reading

In 2013, the United Nations published a paper called, Edible insects: Future prospects for food and feed security. Since then, as climate-change hysteria has escalated and people have started talking, writing, and worrying about things like cow farts, meatless diets, and how climate change would kill cows, pigs, and sheep anyway, even if they didn’t fart, there has been increasing clamoring for bugs as a dietary staple. As a result, and because fear-mongering progressive lunatics, pious nincompoops, and other public nuisances always end up eating their own (no pun intended), PETA (People for... Continue Reading

I received an email last week. I don’t imagine I was its sole recipient. It was from Quest Diagnostics. The subject line was, “Last chance to shop our summer sale.” Summer sale? Wait! Medical testing is now a retail operation? Yep. The body of the email said this: Our summer sale ends soon. Regular testing is an important part of overall health. Don’t wait — now’s the time to get tested and save 20%. Sale includes tests ranging from overall to those that focus on your stress levels, metabolism, or health risks for certain chronic conditions. No promo code needed. Whether you’re... Continue Reading

On last week’s Friendship Bench, Eric Zabiegalski led us in a fascinating exploration of what it means to — as is the title of his book — Unthink. During the conversation, Eric mentioned Iain McGilchrist’s notion of betweenness; that is, McGilchrist’s contention that we need to live between the increasingly over-dominant left hemispheres of our brains and the right hemispheres of our brains, which are losing influence as the brain’s natural regulative masters. And, McGilchrist argues, both are necessary for a fully meaningful view of the world. In his own words: If one had to encapsulate... Continue Reading

On Thursday, June 14th of this year, I attended the CBIA 2023 Energy & Environment Conference. The EPA, Connecticut’s Department of Energy, NGOs, public utilities, law firms, environmental consulting firms, and other private enterprises were represented. Four themes were prevalent throughout: Green (without being defined) is good. Fossil fuels (without being defined) are bad. The billions of tax dollars available through the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act will fund myriad (green) energy-related programs. Decarbonization = efficiency. The audience, for the most part, was... Continue Reading