Roger B. Burt's Blog, page 19

Being a Tourist in the Caribbean – Part 1

 

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Asking What’s the Point

Maybe this is an idiosyncratic viewpoint, but perhaps it is good to think about why one is traveling and where one is traveling. Is this a vacation designed to sit by the pool and read or are you interested in really getting to know the location? Asking those questions opens not just the purpose but possibly the world.

The Caribbean for Us

My wife and I had spent many years going to the Maryland shore in the summer to be at the beach with our four children. When at...

Summertime

 

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It’s summertime and the livin’ is easy. We travel, visit relatives or cool off in the water, so I cut back a little. There will be no posts this week and from now through Labor Day there will be only one post a week—typically Monday. 

I’m sure by Fall there will be lots to cover.

Have a great summer.

Roger

Life As a Journey of Discovery

 

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What periods of discovery have you had?

We Begin With “How It Is”

First for us in life comes family. From there our world expands. There were my parents and my brother and then my mother’s two sisters. They lived together and would have been called maiden aunts. There was so much more.

Families can be secretive for reasons that are never clear. It was decades later that I found who one of my aunts was. My maternal grandfather was a milkman in the silk stocking district of Manhattan. That w...

Health Care Alternatives and Reality – Series – Pt. 5

 

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The Myth of Mental Illness

The above is the title of an important book by Thomas Szasz. Mental illness still dominates a significant portion of our health care system and it still has major conceptual problems. Of course, as a clinical psychologist, I was schooled in it. I actually came to love Carl Jung’s work a lot more than Sigmund Freud’s but his work still dominates.

Alternative Realities

And so we again return to where we live on the cusp. Over the decades I found nonphysical problem...

Pie in the Sky

 

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How do you think seniors are doing?

We Have Work To Do

Even if the actualization of a thought is distant or unlikely, there are times when some things have to be said.

Here is today’s dream.

The Elder Tsunami

The “advanced” economies of the world are facing the rapid aging of their populations which means a growing burden on the societies as a whole. The birth rate is often low and getting lower which means less familial and societal support for the elderly. Who will take care of them as t...

Demands Beyond writing – Promotion and Its Complexity

It’s More than Creative Writing

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Did you know writing would be this complicated?

In olden days a writer found an agent and the agent found a publisher. Sure that’s a little simplistic, but it was broad stroke for how it was before self publication. When my wife and I wrote our workbook to help stepchildren adjust to their new family a good friend took it into Doubleday and they published it. They sent us on a national tour including an appearance on the Phil Donahue Show. Those days are gone....

A Vision for Appalachia

Where should we apply our resources?

In this political season there is vision coming from some quarters and none from other quarters. One of the saddest things I am seeing is the complete lack of vision in regard to the future of the people of Appalachia and the victims of the coal industry.

Beauty at Our Doorstep

Appalachia is one of the most beautiful areas I have ever visited and its people have been treated terribly. We now have politicians claiming they are going to save the coal industr...

Health Care Alternatives and Reality – Series – Pt. 4

Our Ailing Health Care System

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Where to Begin!

Since this is a post, not the required book, I’ll keep it short. 

We are a nation in crisis currently and not the least of the crises is our health care system. The enduring battle to reduce if not cripple government has taken its toll. We are the only developed country without an advanced health care system for all its citizens. And even what we have is under attack. Our system is inefficient and costly. Even if you are well off and well insured...

We The People

 

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Have you thought deeply about the basis of recent tragedies?

Thought Needed

In the wake of recent atrocities no doubt the finger pointing and attempts to use the events for partisan political gain will continue. But we continue to need wise illumination and guidance.

An assessment of the basis for these events can fill books but there are a few basic pieces of history to which we need to attend. The words “We the People” are being used as the headline for this post because we need to under...

A New Jobs Portrait

We can Study the Future for Jobs

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It’s really strange to listen to the non discussion about the future of jobs. We seem to be thinking that the jobs we have now are the only jobs there will be. It reminds me of the head of the copyright office who said in the early twentieth century that we might as well close up the department because everything that can be invented had been invented. It is as if we forget that the industrial revolution was indee...