Jigoro Kano and Buckminster Fuller — Jigoro Kano In Judo, we often hear the phrase, “ Maximum Efficiency, Minimum Effort.” Judo’s founder, Jigoro Kano, spoke about the concept in 1932 during a speech at the University of Southern California. He said that for anything to be ideal, it must be performed on the principle of maximum efficiency. Throughout…

Wisdom From A Seafaring Stranger — In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a haggard-looking old seafarer stops a young man on his way to a wedding. The old man begins to tell his tale to the young wedding guest. …

Even if Steven Pinker thinks otherwise. — Steven Pinker’s new book, “Rationality” argues that we should all be more rational and that doing so would make our lives better. He’s not entirely wrong. But… I like to tell myself that I’m a rational person. I admit I lean heavily on logic and identify in many ways with…

Stoicism as an Antidote — When a person thinks of the word “Stoic,” there is often the assumption of no emotion or, at the least, indifference to feelings. Think of Spock from Star Trek fame. While there is a bit of truth that Stoics tend toward rationality instead of emotional outbursts, mainly due to training…

Be Like Water — I am a sucker for biographies of Winston Churchill. I can’t explain it, but his life is an amazing story to me. …

A farewell to free speech. — I’ve previously written about free speech and believe there should always be more speech, not less. When other countries are having their freedoms ripped away by their governments, we, the citizens of the US, have become content to call for silencing our own. I am talking about cancel culture. A…

Applying Occam’s Razor to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu — Have you ever seen something and thought, “There’s got to be an easier way to do this”? …

How modern technologies shape conspiratorial thinking. — I recently had the chance to present my research on QAnon, a meta-conspiracy theory, and the media ecology perspective taken by Neil Postman. He was an educator, media critic, and language enthusiast, among many other things. He also drew heavily on historical analysis. …

And what they mean for 21st-century higher education — The late Colin Powell was a military commander and successful leader. As an educator, it might be easy to dismiss his expertise in those areas as irrelevant to our field. But he offers an insight into what it takes to succeed in life, one that our students can benefit from. …