Demography is One of my Favorite Subjects

    But, perhaps my math was too klunky or slow.

    Too klunky or slow.

    Oh, Eduardo! How could you mistake the DeCameron for the Canterbury Tales!

    Yes, colour me guilty, as charged.

    Not tightly wound enough, not polished, but more generally vast and even vapid.

    My daughter works on the social sciences of demography now. It brings me back to my time at UCLA.

    Times of thought and promise.

    Church growth, but of little matter. The science, including math and formulas, and greater data, was not focused and concentrated enough.

    Statistics and regressions.

    Too ... widely spread, the knowledge and lack of discipline.

    Leading to perceptions and failures across the board.

    Distracted and meandering, accussing of OC, or ADHD, and all the other acronyms of sickness and lack of mental acuity, or acerbic capacities.

    All those negatives.

    Speaking of distracted, I wish to re-read the book about the Rock of Jerusalem and the books by famous authors in and around Fortaleza, Brazil.

    yes. yeah. Yay.

    

Sports are Easier, Simpler. Better Clarified, Less Messy

    Maybe that is why. Heiristics to help some avoid the harder problem sets.

    Distractions with flashy colors and personalities to pull us away, in a perhaps indulging escapism, moving us away from harder, or even better and more useful informations and knowledges.

    

    Easier to talk about the New York Knicks and the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers than the crime rates of Baltimore or the violence perpetually wrought in Yemen or other parts of the world.

    Science and economics, topics that make our lives better, yet they are harder to grasp, to get our heads around, to entertain and amuse.

    Yeah.

    What about those Lakers this year? Too many white guys to succeed, Stephen A. Smith?

 The Man of Disappointments

    There once was a man, who did not always succeed,

    He ran into obstacles, he disappointed his seed.

    Or his spouse.

    Some times it was bosses, who found him quite lacking

    His confidence sent packing

    From day to day or year to year.

    Not achieving the overarching hopes or dreams.

    His time needs or productive outputs.

    Welcome to failure, welcome to this world.

    Mediocrity. Rejection.

    Disappointment.

    

    Perhaps too long he failed to push the right ways.

    Settling for less then, not trying hard enough.

    Not going far or fast enough...

    But he has hopes, beyond Jesus, his country,

    The dreams of all.

    He maintained those hopes.

    He himself recognized some wont of greatness within him

    Perhaps he gave up years ago

    With time and some efforts

    That he could not 

As My Stomach Turns - World Political Turmoil and Us

As My Stomach Turns - World Political Turmoil and Us. And Me.

    Things are not perfect in the world. They rarely are. Many of us are not too affected by higher prices, higher fuel costs and food, or awful credit or mortgage rates that are untenable...

    No perfections found, really. As would-be economists we need to manuever the dismal sciences of efficiencies and demands. Let's make do.

    Figure things out individually, collectively. Let the best minds decide and make choices. For the better. The betterment of all.

        Where to start? Where it ends in the Bible? In the Holy Land? Israel and Palestine. The never ending battles, debates, human rights abuses and hatreds. Unending.

    How to end it? We need a smart, dedicated, confident group of acerbic Americans or other leaders and people of sound judgment to settle the awful siituations there.

    C'mon, world.

    1. Russia versus Ukraine.

    2. Iran versus the world. To include confederate Shia proxies in Iraq, Yemen.

    3. Fighting in Congo, Rwanda, Burundi. Many people fighting over some rotten apples. (Perhaps not accurate or too simplistic.

    4. Somalia. Terrorism. Al-Shabab.

    5. Nigeria. Boko Haram.

    6. Ethiopia. Tigray tensions.

    7. What have I forgot? There are other bad issues roiling places of the world.

    8. Eco-terrorists? People who fight to save the planet, one tree or climate change prevention at a time.

    9. Fossil fuel fights. Space development and exploration.

    10. Artificial Intelligence battles.

    11. Cyber shenanigans.

    12. Electronic warfare? Not sure of the overlaps.

    13. China mapping out over Taiwan and the western Pacific.

    14. Drug cartels. 

    15. Over nationalistic causes in the sub-continent.

    16. The ice areas melting. Temperatures rising. See eco-terrorists. The cost of being greener.

    17. Did my dumb, faulty computer erase my last ones?

    18. North Korea.

    19. Mad economic schemes.

    20. Inflation and exhorbitant prices.

    21. Not replacing population.

    22. Cutting off medicine and the proliferation of HIV and malaria.

    23. Poverty.

    24. High priced education.

    25. Increased marijuana THC levels, inducing psychosis and violence.

    26. Pollution.

    27. Cheaper, greener energy. Wind, solar, geothermal. What else? Hydroelectric.

    28. Drying up of aquifers and rivers. Ice melting. Seas rise, islands and coasts inundated.

    29. Religious competition, persecuion.

    30. Radical movements. Violent or persecutory ideologies.

    31. Pornagraphy and sexual exploitation.

    32. Greed.

    33. Mental illnesses.

    34. Traffic safety and death.

    35. Cancer and other deadly and impairing diseases.

    36. Ivy league elite smugness.

    37. Pride.

    38. Unfaithfulness.

    39. Apathy.

    Ok, who cares about forty things. 

    You? Me. We should.

    Blog it.

 Who is Left Undefeated? Not many. Georgia Screwed Up. Texas Has Lost Twice!

    My Cougars are left, as is UCLA. We eliminated Notre Dame in Provo, as Miami stayed unscathed in the rain against a pesky Florida State who could not do enough in double overtime to stamp out the Canes.

    Who is left?

    Miami, BYU, UCLA. Texas Tech? Anyone else? Buehler? BUEHLER? (That means crickets. That means silence. That means nothing. No one. No one else with not blemishes in the loss column...

    Am I right?

    Four teams?

    Mine is one? Of four? Only four?

    Can this be? Third weekend of October?

    Scanning the map... 

    Many really good teams have two losses. Hmmmm... Ole Miss. Has lost. All of them.

    And then there were four.

    Perfection is not easy.

    Oh, yeah. I keep forgetting Utah.

    FIVE. 

    This season will continue to remain interesting.

    Play on.

    Blog on.

    Blog it.

    Or, does anyone truly care about college football at the national Division 1 level?

    There is one more team undefeated, less heralded. There has to be. Lemme check.

    Oh, yes. James Madison. 7-0. Number 29 but moving up. Who else do they have left?

    I can check my magazines...

    There six lossless left.

    Amazing. Meanwhile, I have accrued personal losses in increasing volumes...

Four Point Games! October 17, 2026. Historic College Football Games

    What a day, what a Saturday. Both my schools, undefeated, played two other top-ranked schools.

    College football, packed houses in my home town of Bloomington, and the other home of Provo. I lived a total of 22 years in one and five in the other. Been back to both numerous times since.

    Indiana had the killer Buckeyes, that we had not beat in 30 regular season games! Yikes. At least the national champion Hoosiers beat them last year in the Big Ten championship.

    I came into the game reticent, hesitant, not sure. About the greatness of IU. Indiana had a last play to miraculously win it, but Nick Marsh used the wrong foot, was out, and we lost.

    By four. It's okay. Indiana still has the whole season ahead of it, and can make the CFP. Playoffs. We just need to roll Michigan and play right. It should be good under Cignetti, I say.

    The boys will be all right. Becker was great. The defense was good enough. Radocic, the kicker, may have cost IU. Because, his missed field goal let Ohio State off the hook for an easier final score.

    Right?

    Am I mixing up the BYU game now?

    Four points.

    Late night Cougars downed the Irish!

    It was a thing of mostly beauty the first half. Cougars 21, Notre Dame 10. But the second half got too tight. A bad call, in my and others' opinion, on an offensive interference call on Kasper stopped a big go ahead touch down. Would have been a lead of 18. But, drive negated, the Cougs started to self destruct.

    DeVries muffed a punt, Irish got 3 from a field goal. 21-13. BYU muffed a punt, Notre Dame pulled to 21-16. Defense was stout for BYU. But then number two played like number 2 in the nation. They scored a touchdown, going ahead.

    Then BYU played like #2, as they hope to be this week.

    And finally, the defense held on to stop AJ Carr, the very good QB, in the BYU endzone.

    Cougs by four.

    Celebrations in or at Lavell Edwards Field. Including family. My daughter got in!

    BYU should be #2 in the land. Utah is good, but likely not as good as Notre Dame.

    Things are all right for Indiana and Brigham Young.

    Both top ten, heading for the College Football Playoffs in December.

    For now.

    Love it.

    

    

 Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, Marijuana

   A sixteen-year old shoots 3 minors and a teacher to death. Bend, Oregon.

My first question: how much did the teen smoke marijuana?

Mental illness has no easy fix.

Guns and proliferation of them can be very wrong, problematic.

THC levels in cannabis consumed exacerbates all of the above.

People are slow to learn and understand.

God bless us to be wise, stay safe.