I love how you bounce all over the place in your posts, Jonathan: politics, botany, philosophy, well-being. As a grower of jade plants, I especially look forward to your photos and descriptions. I have a “mother” jade that is almost 30 years old. She has spawned hundreds of offsprings which I gift to others. If you are ever back in Alabama, I will make sure you get one! Thank you for the updates on creativity assessment. I would enjoy reading your article offering your new insights. I always enjoy reading your comments about trends in education. And I especially thank you for your even-handed comments on all things political. I am wretched tired of extremes and wish we could settle somewhere in the middle if only for sanity and calmness’s sake. Anger may be necessary in some cases for change to occur but so can listening with openness. Life is too short…
Thanks for the comment, Patti! Glad to know you are a fellow jade enthusiast! I would be honored to inherit a cutting from your mother jade plant. As for the political issues, I consider myself to be a pragmatist - I just want to make government and policy work well, with the firm belief that it can and often does. My concern with the current madness is that there doesn't appear to be any plan, it's just "break stuff and see what happens." That's not policy, that's anarchy. And humans have never been able to make anarchy work. That said, I was just as frustrated when social justice issues went radically left, which from my perspective was both a political mistake (see current backlash) and a pragmatic mistake (it just wasn't producing any sustainable progress toward equity and fairness). Being in the middle can be lonely and frustrating, but the founding fathers deliberately designed our political systems to guard against the extremes, and I plan to keep arguing for that pragmatic approach! But hey, readers of the newsletter from either political direction think I'm wrong and let me know about it (politely, of course, which I appreciate). Let's keep fighting for pragmatic, middle ground solutions!
I love how you bounce all over the place in your posts, Jonathan: politics, botany, philosophy, well-being. As a grower of jade plants, I especially look forward to your photos and descriptions. I have a “mother” jade that is almost 30 years old. She has spawned hundreds of offsprings which I gift to others. If you are ever back in Alabama, I will make sure you get one! Thank you for the updates on creativity assessment. I would enjoy reading your article offering your new insights. I always enjoy reading your comments about trends in education. And I especially thank you for your even-handed comments on all things political. I am wretched tired of extremes and wish we could settle somewhere in the middle if only for sanity and calmness’s sake. Anger may be necessary in some cases for change to occur but so can listening with openness. Life is too short…
Are you saying that I can’t over- or underwater those jade plants?
Thanks for the comment, Patti! Glad to know you are a fellow jade enthusiast! I would be honored to inherit a cutting from your mother jade plant. As for the political issues, I consider myself to be a pragmatist - I just want to make government and policy work well, with the firm belief that it can and often does. My concern with the current madness is that there doesn't appear to be any plan, it's just "break stuff and see what happens." That's not policy, that's anarchy. And humans have never been able to make anarchy work. That said, I was just as frustrated when social justice issues went radically left, which from my perspective was both a political mistake (see current backlash) and a pragmatic mistake (it just wasn't producing any sustainable progress toward equity and fairness). Being in the middle can be lonely and frustrating, but the founding fathers deliberately designed our political systems to guard against the extremes, and I plan to keep arguing for that pragmatic approach! But hey, readers of the newsletter from either political direction think I'm wrong and let me know about it (politely, of course, which I appreciate). Let's keep fighting for pragmatic, middle ground solutions!