Leave the World Behind

Posted on August 23, 2026 by Professor Taboo

Have any of you ever been caught in a natural catastrophe? Have you ever experienced firsthand what it is like to endure a Category 5 or 6 hurricane? What about a tornado? Ever experienced in your life firsthand an EF5 twister? Have you been through a volcanic eruption? What about an out-of-control wild fire or a disastrous flash flood? Here’s one that is becoming more common, What about a total power outage for 3-10 days?

From February 10 to February 20, 2021, Texas suffered its most catastrophic major power-grid failure during an arctic blast from Winter Storm Uri. I went through Uri while living in Dallas, TX, at the time and it was bad, real bad. I had no way of saving all my electronic device batteries unless I went out to my car, started it, and hooked up the power adaptors to the devices. Doing this for a long, silent, semi-alone 10-days was quite difficult. It was the first time for me to go through a long blackout alone. Cell phone networks were still operating, thank goodness, but that lasted only as long as my batteries lasted and I’d go out to my car, fire it up, and recharge my phone. I needed to stay in touch with my Mom and sister 5.25 hours away down in Kerrville near San Antonio, TX. But I was also thinking when my cell battery was exhausted and I didn’t have a power source/outlet, then what? What if you use up all of your gasoline in the car during a much, much longer power outage and it will no longer start? Load up as much as possible with gas in small gas tanks then store them somewhere safe?

Eventually my brain methodically kept going, thinking through the possible (probable?) causes and effects of my situation, other’s situation, and then I thought of a more dark, sinister situation I learned during Hurricane Rita in 2005, an already Category 5 hurricane predicted to hit somewhere between Houston and Lake Charles, Louisiana. In 2005 metro Houston’s population was around 5.3-million people. Houston is the largest metropolitan area in Texas. Everyone in Houston, particularly in the south of Houston all the way to Galveston, Texas City, Dickinson, Kemah, Alvin, Pearland, Pasadena, Sugarland, and La Porte, all southern suburbs and towns near the Gulf of Mexico coast were urged by authorities to evacuate north or northwest as soon as possible. What did I learn and witness on the news? It was a seriously disturbing wakeup call to me.

The woman I was dating for over three years lived down in Friendswood, TX, another suburb of south Houston. She lived there with her two other younger brothers and their wives and children. The older brother and my girlfriend evacuated Friendswood two days early than the youngest brother, his wife, and three children who was trying to evacuate the day before of Rita’s expected landfall as she neared Houston, TX. Over the phone my girlfriend listened to her youngest brother and wife describe what they were seeing and experiencing live trying to get out of north Houston on two-lane Interstate Hwy. I-45N near Spring, TX, up to Conroe, TX, 40-miles north of downtown Houston.

*Travel time/distance from Friendswood to Conroe, TX, thru downtown Houston, TX, in normal conditions and traffic – Google Maps*

What they began seeing, moving sometimes only 10mph at the most or completely stopped, around them on I-45N was horrifying, bordering on total anarchy by hundreds of thousands of motorists. Cars, trucks, 18-wheelers (lorries in the UK) and motorcycles whizzing by up through the center of the highway in between vehicles or on the embankment passing all the other stopped vehicles with no regard for safety. Those with kids in the vehicles were beginning to urinate or defecate either in the median or off the embankment of I-45N. Adults would too. The brother and his wife also mentioned to my girlfriend how many people were absolutely disrespectful, angry, afraid, crazy and ready to do whatever it took to care for themselves and their immediate loved ones regardless of the higher risks to others. And in Texas the vast majority of Texans own weapons they carry or keep in their vehicle. My girlfriend told me she had never heard her brother and sister-in-law so scared shitless.

As I was remembering all those dark memories and thoughts in 2005, I couldn’t help but realize what might happen during Winter Storm Uri in 2021 if the power-grid was not returned to service in a reasonable amount of time. The entire state of Texas had no power for around 9-14 days depending on utility work crews available. I realized how much of our lives, our society is now utterly dependent on two facts of life: 1) electronic devices/machines, computers, cell phones, internet/WiFi, electrical electronics in our vehicles, ATM’s, satellite navigation and GPS, and 2) the power, the electricity to power all of it and/or the fuel, energy to run everything electronic. To say I wasn’t paranoid of others and their erratic mindsets was a lie.

I was very aware of human nature then and today when it is put into circumstances of life or death, or serious harm, and little to no control over it or the ability to stop it. Many people do not cope well. They do not start using their survival instinct or their brain, they panic, they freak the hell out and lose all rationale, safety, and typically all altruism and ingenuity. Lifeguards at pools or on beaches, or the U.S. Coast Guard seamen and women all know that those they try to sometimes rescue can try to pull them under, fight them in order to breathe and save their own life at your expense. That is human nature under extreme stress and panic.

∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼

I watched a film today with the wife. It was on Netflix and it was about this exact same predicament I’ve described above happening to two families. The 2023 film is called Leave the World Behind and still streaming on Netflix. It stars Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, Myha’la, and Kevin Bacon. And if any of you have not seen it I highly recommend it. Why? Because number one Barack and Michelle Obama are executive producers through their Higher Ground Productions banner and notoriety. Number two, it disturbingly shows just how dependent our current U.S. culture and society are not just addicted to electronics in every way of our daily lives, but worse still how much 21st-century military defense, arms, and equipment like modern drones rely almost entirely on computer electronics. This doesn’t mention the fact that our private or government businesses and agencies and commerce rely heavily on satellite navigation systems, communications, and GPS in transportation and shipping sectors around the world via thousands upon thousands of Medium Earth Orbits to Low Earth Orbits. And by the way, if you haven’t heard, highly advanced computer AI corporations have already produced, released, and operate systems that monitor, build, or hack into other sophisticated AI systems.

Watch Leave the World Behind available on Netflix and get a harsh reality check about the high-tech world and nation we live in and under. Then if you can return here and share your thoughts about the film and just how closely it accurately reflects our present American lifestyles of hyper-dependence on energy, power, electricity, and computer system networks. Are we in control of our lives and our future? Is our current president and administration really intelligently capable of protecting Americans or themselves given the still ongoing 6-month War with Iran?

U.S. Most & Least Educated States

Posted on May 30, 2026 by Professor Taboo

Every year I like to keep track of how the United States’ levels of education obtained from all fifty states are ranked by comparison to other states in the Union. Why? Because it is an indicator of just how well (or poorly) the Stars and Stripes are performing with the rest of the world. I feel this is important not just from an competitive academic stand point, but critically important when compared to our foreign adversaries like China, Russia, and some Middle Eastern countries. I’d like to think readers and my followers feel the same way.

Some Americans consider an Associate degree or a Bachelor’s degree to be worthless, a waste of time, or at best far too expensive for the end result in career opportunities. However, despite that false thinking and perspective the numbers, simply put, don’t lie. Decade after decade after decade Americans 21–25 or older who have an under-grad degree, and more so a post-grad degree, land higher paying wages and a slew of further career paths beyond in the highly competitive U.S. job market. This is an indisputable fact.

Furthermore, there is another highly valuable ‘advantage’ to young Americans and 30-something Americans that are more subtle and beneficial for life: recognizing more quickly the covert motives and actions of the corrupt and powerful. Considering that often the upper most corrupt and powerful in the U.S. are typically highly educated, experienced, and spoiled brats because of their parents wealth, their circle of acquaintances, family inheritance, or gifted access/ownership to valuable mineral-rights or geological resources such as oil, natural gas, diamonds, or gold, to name only four, if you are not considered one of the aforementioned lucky ones but instead more disadvantaged due to your birth. Like it or not an under-grad or post-grad degree greatly levels the playing field in the U.S. job market.

By the way, another huge gain is in character: having come from a humble background at birth up to your latter teens typically makes a person broader minded and respectful of equality; that is, equality for all Americans without prejudice. Better character, better integrity, selflessness, and compassion for America’s disadvantaged at birth. Usually, not always, but usually these factors turn into better ethical and moral decisions as an adult. Why? For the simple reason that with a broader, higher education, above an associate’s degree, better equips one to avoid the many complex economic trappings of the country’s upper advantaged 1%–10% who did not come from humble beginnings. The stats and numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau bear this out.

BusinessInsider.com took the data from the U.S. Census Bureau and analyzed it for the percentage of 25-years and older who attained a Bachelor’s degree or higher in all 50 states and ranked them according to those percentages from least educated states to the most educated states. Here is that 2025 ranking below. If you’re interested in a detailed explanation for the ranking, click the above link to Business Insider.

West Virginia — Share of adults 25+ with a bachelor’s degree or higher: 24.4%
Mississippi — Share of adults 25+ with a bachelor’s degree or higher: 27.0%
Arkansas — Share of adults 25+ with a bachelor’s degree or higher: 27.1%
Louisiana — Share of adults 25+ with a bachelor’s degree or higher: 27.8%
Kentucky — 27.9%
Nevada — 28.5%
Oklahoma — 29.3%
Alabama — 29.9%
Indiana — 30.7%
New Mexico — 31.8%
Iowa — 32.1%
Wyoming — 32.3%
(tie @ 37th) Ohio — 32.4%
(tie @ 37th) Tennessee — 32.4%
Alaska — 32.8%
Idaho — 33.0%
(tie @ 33rd) South Carolina — 33.3%
(tie @ 33rd) Michigan — 33.3%
Missouri — 33.5%
North Dakota — 34.0%
South Dakota — 34.2%
Wisconsin — 34.6%
Arizona — 34.7%
Texas — 35.2% (my home state, bottom half for over 35-yrs)
Nebraska — 35.4%
Florida — 35.8%
(tie @ 23rd) Delaware — 36.0%
(tie @ 23rd) Kansas — 36.0%
(tie @ 21st) Montana — 36.3%
(tie @ 21st) Georgia — 36.3%
Pennsylvania — 36.4%
(tie @ 18th) Maine — 37.1%
(tie @ 18th) North Carolina — 37.1%
(tie @ 16th) Oregon — 37.8%
(tie @ 16th) Hawaii — 37.8%
California — 38.1%
Rhode Island — 39.0%
Utah — 39.1%
Illinois — 39.2%
Minnesota — 40.0%
Washington — 41.0%
New York — 41.2%
New Hampshire — 41.5%
Connecticut — 42.6%
Virginia — 43.3%
New Jersey — 44.5%
Maryland — 44.7%
Vermont — 45.1%
Colorado — 47.8%
Massachusetts — 48.3%

The national average percentage of all Americans with a Bachelor’s or higher degree is 36% to 40%. Compared to nations in Europe, Asia, and parts of the Near and Middle East, this percentage is noticeably lower for U.S. citizens than those foreign countries. Good or bad?

Of course there are other minor factors involved in these percentages such as population density, land-mass of the state, and the number of large metropolitan cities in a state; example New York, California, and Illinois. For less densely populated states the percentage will reflect the low number of people, e.g. New Mexico and the Dakotas. These factors also indicate other components involved, such as state history and background. Examples? The former Confederate states of the American Civil War have had from their past large numbers of slaves as well as segregation and Jim Crowe Laws that made it extremely difficult for non-whites to obtain under-grad degrees. That also explains in part why several lower educated states are located in the South and Deep South.

What other factors are you able to deduce that contribute to your home state and other states in the Union? In the comments below briefly explain (or not) why the low or higher ranking exists. What are those state’s modern history, i.e. 1800’s to the present, that contribute to the state’s ranking?

Addendum — June 2, 2026:
A good blog-friend I follow, Steve Ruis, broke down all the above 50-states according to their political dominance. Red = Hard Republican, Blue = Democratic, and Purple = in flux between Red and Blue. Here is a 2026 map of just Red or Blue states:

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

Best U.S. States to Reside In

Posted on April 10, 2026 by Professor Taboo

I always follow the U.S. News and World Report annual data compilation of Best States to reside because it offers anyone in America a good, objective litmus test and comparison of how states are ranked in making living, a quality of life, and affordability to live there for U.S. citizens. The final tallies are always very telling. Without further delay here is this year’s 2026 overall rankings:

#1 – Utah

#2 – New Hampshire

#3 – Idaho

#4 – Minnesota

#5 – Nebraska

#6 – Florida

#7 – Vermont

#8 – South Dakota

#9 – Massachusetts

#10 – Washington

My home state of Texas usually, well… almost always ranks in the middle half to the lower one-third of the fifty United States. For 2026 they rank #29, the lower half once again. And once again for 6-10 years running our “economy” is the ONLY category that ranks high compared to the other 49 states, with “fiscal stability” ranking 12th; no surprise. But every other category has always been dismally low or barely average for the last 2-3 decades. It begs the question, What changed in Texas in 1994-1995 to the present? Hmmm. 🤔 It’s pretty obvious.

If you would like to see how all the other states rank and their breakdown of why their ranking status go to: Best States Rankings at U.S. News & World Report for an excellent, unbiased assessment. You might be surprised between what is hype and propaganda about states and what is actual fact(s).

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always – Be Objective

Trump’s Cabinet Selections

Posted on November 14, 2024 by Professor Taboo

I get regular emails from a handful of political outlets that are aligned with my own viewpoints which is left of center for sure. This I don’t mind one bit for many reasons.

I received this email newsletter today:

Dear Member,

It’s barely been a week since the election, but Donald Trump has already made more than a dozen appointments—and they’re exactly the staff envisioned by Project 2025.¹ Some of the appointees even wrote Project 2025.

A white nationalist in charge of immigration policy. An insurrectionist and misogynist as Defense Secretary. A conspiracy theorist and homophobe helming the Department of Health and Human Services. An evangelical Christian and staunch opponent to Palestine as ambassador to Israel. A climate change denier as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.²

And Trump named Elon Musk as the co-head of the effort to “pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy” and hand our country’s future over to corporations and billionaires.³

This wave of extremist appointees—who are rife with extraordinary conflicts of interest—is antithetical to American values. It’s overwhelming. It’s depressing. That’s exactly MAGA’s point.

Trump is dumping this deluge of awful appointees and plans for his administration on us in hopes that we will be so exhausted that we won’t fight back. He couldn’t be more wrong. We are already fighting back—in fact, we just had an amazing victory we’ll tell you about in a minute—and we are preparing for four years of nonstop campaigning to stop Trump’s anti-democratic, anti-civil-rights agenda.

Trump’s appointees are a veritable Who’s Who of right-wing extremism, racism, and hate.

To no one’s surprise, white nationalist and architect of Trump’s “kids in cages” plan Stephen Miller is now deputy chief of staff for policy—ready to implement Trump’s mass deportation plan.⁴

Trump appointed “Fox & Friends” host Pete Hegseth, famous for cheering on the January 6 insurrection and saying that women don’t belong in combat, as secretary of defense. Trump also announced plans for appointing a board to weed out any military generals who are not sufficiently loyal to him.⁵

Other appointees include Mike Huckabee, who believes that Gaza should be eradicated, as ambassador to Israel.⁶ Climate change denier Lee Zeldin as Environmental Protection Agency administrator.⁷ John Ratcliffe, who weaponized secure data against Trump’s opposition during his first term, as CIA director.⁸

And just minutes ago, Trump appointed Robert F. Kennedy Jr, an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, to lead the nation’s public health department.⁹

His MAGA House of Representatives tried to fast-track a bill through Congress—H.R.9495—that would have granted Trump unilateral power to strip organizations of their nonprofit status if they were accused of “supporting terrorism.” His administration would have no burden of proof or standard to meet—just a stroke of the pen would take down any organization (such as MoveOn!) that he perceived as an enemy.¹⁰

The bill had bipartisan support and was assumed to be a done deal, but our members fought back. Thousands of our members called their representatives, and our voice was heard in the halls of Congress as well. Because of the work of you and others in our coalition, H.R.9495 failed.

The American government is one of checks and balances, and we can rein in Trump’s assault on us if we are willing to hold our leaders accountable to those checks. As an organization of millions of voices, we are strong. We are powerful. And as long as we keep speaking out together, we can stop Trump’s attack on our civil rights, on our economy, and on our democracy.

But we must be prepared to campaign around the clock and use every tool at our disposal, which takes vast resources—resources that are depleted in the wake of the most expensive election in history.

**Left to right** — National Security Adviser – Mike Waltz, *Chief of Staff – Susie Wiles*, *and Department of Government Efficiency – Elon Musk*

What are your thoughts? Share them. Did you vote this past election year?

If you did not vote, like far too many Americans did not—approximately 7-8 million registered voters did not turnout at the polls—then your silence was beyond horrendously appalling for such a historically unprecedented election year given what was at stake for our country! That is the sole reason tRump and Republicans won so many positions of government! Sad, very very sad America.

The above source citation footnotes follow below…

Sources:

1. “What White House picks tell us about Trump 2.0,” BBC, November 13, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198839?t=8&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC

2. “Trump Picks New EPA Head Guaranteed to Destroy the Environment,” The New Republic, November 11, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198840?t=10&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC

3. “November 12, 2024,” Letters from an American, November 13, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198841?t=12&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC

4. “Trump Brings Back White Nationalist Stephen Miller for Second Term,” The New Republic, November 11, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198842?t=14&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC

5. “November 12, 2024,” Letters from an American, November 13, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198841?t=16&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC

6. Ibid.

7. “Trump’s EPA Pick Is a Climate Skeptic. What It Means for EVs.” Barron’s, November 12, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198843?t=18&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC

8. “A running list of all the people Trump has picked to serve in his administration,” MSNBC, November 13, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198844?t=20&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC

9.”Trump picks RFK Jr. , anti-vaccine activist, for Health and Human Services secretary,” NBC News, November 14, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198880?t=22&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC

10. “US House fails to pass anti-NGO bill that could target pro-Palestine groups,” Al Jazeera, November 12, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/198834?t=24&akid=415087%2E37122751%2EJ8j3vC

It’s Corporate America, Not…

Posted on September 3, 2024 by Professor Taboo

…Biden-Harris or their Administration. It’s certainly not persistent “inflation” driven by Democrats as the GOP keep falsely whining about. No, plain and simple, it is Corporate America that is to blame. And here is just one prime example that corporate executives are in so many ways behind the U.S.’s painful price-gouging schemes upon ordinary, struggling Americans.

On a summer day back in 2021, some real estate tech gurus and executives gathered at a Nashville, TN conference hall to gloat and boast about their #1 selling product: software that utilizes a specialized algorithm to assist any and all U.S. landlords to acquire the highest possible rents on tenants. Their meeting in Nashville was by no accident during one of our country’s worst pandemics, and American deaths by it, than ever recorded in our nation’s 248-year history. The vast ripple-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic threw not only the U.S. economy into a nose dive, but also the rest of the world. The affects of the pandemic cannot be overstated.

It isn’t the federal government that fully controls the U.S. economy! Never has; in hyper-capitalism it is impossible for the feds to do anything other than fairly regulate Corporate greed and price gouging

Yet, during our country’s ongoing devastation by an invisible COVID enemy, the top brass of RealPage, Inc., flaunted their massive wealth and orbital profits and revenues by its YieldStar software, as well as the near mercurial profit successes by their 32,000+ landlord clients in the middle of a severe economic recession.

“Never before have we seen these numbers,” said Jay Parsons, a vice president of RealPage, as conventiongoers wandered by. Apartment rents had recently shot up by as much as 14.5%, he said in a video touting the company’s services. Turning to his colleague, Parsons asked: What role had the software played?

“I think it’s driving it, quite honestly,” answered Andrew Bowen, another RealPage executive. “As a property manager, very few of us would be willing to actually raise rents double digits within a single month by doing it manually.”

— RealPage, Inc., Jay Parsons & Andrew Bowen, ProPublica.org, accessed online 9/3/2024

Across the nation rent was up 9% in September 2022. But before you get excited, it didn’t take long for rent increases to go back to double digits, especially during the latter stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yes, double digits as we were finally coming out of the worst parts of COVID landlord real estate groups raised and raised their rents. And yes, there are several factors that honestly cause rising rent like an economy heading for recession, supply and demand, and/or high mortgage interest rates. However, an investigation by ProPublica.org found another big player: the rental pricing software YieldStar owned and sold by RealPage, Inc.

How RealPage’s Rent-Gouging Algorithm Works

Gathering enormous amounts of data from their clients, many whom are the largest real estate conglomerates in the nation with over tens of thousands of rental units, RealPage states its algorithm stores “lease transaction data” for almost 14-million units across the U.S. Every single day the software encourages a new rent price for every unleased unit. The following day the rate-cycle repeats rarely going down.

To determine the new rate, it draws from competitor data on the actual rent tenants paid, as opposed to the publicly advertised rent.

The use of private competitor data — though it is aggregated and anonymized — to set prices is one of the concerns experts raised. The practice could allow RealPage to stifle rental competition, they said, driving up rents across the country and, potentially, even violating antitrust laws. Experts said that RealPage also sponsors meetings that gather competitors together to talk about pricing, which could also be a warning sign of collusion.

— Sophia Kovatch, ProPublica.org, accessed 9/3/2024

Kovatch lists five things about RealPage’s YieldStar software that significantly affects renters across the United States. I will only list the bullet-points here, but if you are interested in the details of the rent-gouging software I strongly recommend you read the above article(s) at ProPublica.org. The five key points:

Landlords use RealPage to make a lot more money/profits.
RealPage believes it is driving rents higher across the country.
RealPage discourages landlords from bargaining with tenants over rents.
Critics say RealPage may encourage pricing collusion among landlords.
RealPage says it uses data in a “legally compliant” way.

At the 2021 real estate convention in Nashville, TN, during COVID-19 the gloating and celebrating was more than just common swagger. Over several years RealPage has received feedback from property managers everywhere in the U.S. overly elated with how the YieldStar software has put their profits on steroids and through the roof.

Therefore American voters, this November remember the actual facts regarding the real causes for millions upon millions of struggling middle-class (and below) American citizens who are still barely making ends meet since January 2020. The previous administration in the White House and Congress more than cozied up to Corporate America. Remember the actual factual track-record that shows the Biden-Harris administration has in reality saved America from the downward spiraling trajectory the Orange Orangutan Baby and his MAGA radicals in Congress were leading us down. Also remember what political party is always in bed with corporate interests and always makes Corporate America’s revenues/profits top priority at the expense, the sacrifice of middle- and lower-class Americans barely getting by… paycheck to paycheck.

As I read many sources of opposing views about the condition of the American economy between January 2020 (the start of COVID-19) to the present day, one theme stood out: political finger pointing. The tactics (GOP especially) really do no middle-class or lower-class Americans any good. What “good” might come from the distorting, polarizing rhetoric is the lack of empathy and the recognition of the lack of congressional hard work in favor of ordinary Americans and their benefit through very hard times.

Question: When is it ever good, in this Land of Liberty, Freedom, and Equality, for some Americans to suffer worse than others at the hands of corporate price-gouging in groceries, fuel costs, utility costs, stagnate or slipping wages, and housing? Why does one sector of Americans get to exploit the misfortunes and disadvantages of other Americans… for their own self-interests and corporate riches? I know that answer, do you?

— Further reading:
Pressure Grows on Real Estate Tech Company Accused of Colluding With Landlords to Jack Up Apartment Rents

100-Days of the Biden-Harris Administration and Its Successes

The 2021 American Rescue Plan

The Moody’s Analytics Evaluation of Presidential Candidates