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Principles, My Dad, and Donald

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Principles – “a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.”   Principles can relate to the rules of personal and moral behaviour as well as be the basis for scientific theorems. Principal – “the person with the highest authority or most important position in an organization, institution, or group My dad was a principal with principles.   Elementary that is.   He had thumbnail pictures of all the students in the school pasted onto the wall of his office.   I guess he figured that it was easier to discipline a student if he knew his name.   Or hers.   He was a nice guy. Really soft-spoken.   Teachers used to follow him from school to school.   He didn’t like to stay in one too long.   Even though he rarely yelled, Dad was a bit of scary guy ‘cause when he said something, he meant it.   He could also make you feel like shit.   That was his real strength.   Unfortunately, his disappointment wa

Post-truth

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Post-truth - Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief – The Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year.   How the f**k does a Donald Trump happen?   He’s the kind of guy at a party who knows everything about everything, the kind of guy a lot of us try to avoid because it’s impossible to have a normal conversation with him.   Name a topic and he’ll know more than you.     I’ll give you an example.   “ I know more about ISIS than the generals do .”   A normal response to a statement like that would be “you’re a f**king idiot” and find another place to be.   But he’s the presidential candidate for the Republican party.   The seriousness of the office to which he aspires can’t be ignored.   So, the media, the public and, more specifically, other candidates are forced to reason with the pronouncements, prognostications and suppositions of this megalomaniac with the mental age o