JET Progress/Draqual Media’s new film, OTOSOTU (pronounced “Oh-Toe-So-Two” for “On The Other Side Of The Universe”), while admittedly an interesting Sci-Fu (science future rather than science fiction or fantasy) work, offers serious viewers a moment to reflect on the nature of the human soul.

I have long held that the soul, the “guide” from this to the next life, is the sum-total of all our life experiences, a sort of meta-tag or SEO that determines which oportunities will be a...

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MOVIES are a lot like families: They begin with the birth of something new, require lots of coddling throughout infancy, tolerance during toddlership, and frank but kind, constructive criticism during adolescence. OTOSOTU (pronounced “Oh-Toe-So-Two” for On The Other Side Of The Universe – https://otosotu.yolasite.com) has now reached young adulthood, entering pre-production with intriguing, meaningful and mature character-and-scene concepts. During the December, the JET Progress product...

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LET’S face it: The split in politics that strongly divides us is being reflected in government, foreign affairs, legislation, health care, transportation and, yes, education. But what’s with the extreme splitting at the expense of the quality of our lives? I’m going to take a big leap and say it’s not really politics (the “pop” explanation) or COVID (the shot across the bow) as so many claim, but simply lack of an effective future infrastructure from which to develop. This is, in ...

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DURING these difficult times of unprecedented change, it’s easy to fall into a kind of blank-like despair. What’s important is to remember that life is the journey, and at least to some extent, we make our journey. One thing of which I like to remind myself during times like these, is that while I may have only one birthday a year to celebrate, I have 363-1/4 Un-Birthdays, all of which deserve celebrating, if only because I’m alive for another day.

But how to celebrate an Un-Birthday? ...

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META, a reincarnation of Facebook (?), is gaining quite a bit of attention in the news these days, given that I, for one, have little idea of what it’s supposed to be. This despite engineering the first apparent META-VR sexual assault — https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-61573661. Not something I personally would be proud of. In fact, it doesn’t make me all that interested in that particular META (multiverse?). There’s far too much assault and battery in the “real” world.

But th...

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I have been an avid dancesport enthusiast since as far back as I can remember (though it wasn't called Dancesport back then). My formal dance training began when I first met my life (and social/performance/competition dance) partner, Setsuko Tsuchiya, in the 1990's at a YMCA dance in Berkeley, California. We began studying American Smooth and Rhythm dance, later switching to  International Ballroom and Latin/American style dance, understudying professional champion and coach, Mr. Albert Franz...
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Okay, so it's Labor Day, and I thought maybe a labor of love would be appropriate, this time emphasizing my theory and method of learning, Transformative Learning, of which I write in UNLOCK THE GENIUS WITHIN (Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2015) - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BY13D2Q. The key to my approach to transformative learning is empowering the learner through curiosity and discovery, so I was particularly pleased to read "To Raise Confident, Independent Kids, Some Parents Are Tryi...
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Well, I'm back on my academic soapbox again, and this issue, in particular, is one close to my academic heart. Something happened -- subtly shifted -- in the 1960's with the advent of computing and the widespread application of statistics as a way to "prove" that something is valid ("true"). Stress within academic institutions, especially "higher" learning institutions, began shifting towards acquiring a working memory of data (raw numbers) and information (numbers with attached units, e.g. d...
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