And expressing ambivalence about whether to trust Putin or the United States' intelligence agencies on one issue does not even brush the surface of that threshold. 

Out of an endless series of examples of how pathetic the old anti-war Left has become (or how consistently bloodthirsty the neocons have continued to be), I will select Michael Moore (and my pithy response):

These "peace-loving" Democrats do realize that all this saber rattling at Russia is about war, right? I mean, Politico called the DNC hack the "Our Pearl Harbor," and we went to war after Pearl Harbor. Plus, our conflicts in Syria and the Ukraine are really proxy wars with Russia. And the neocons (and mainstream Left too) want war, particularly in Syria.

Oh and then there's NATO. After all, we must protect ourselves from the Soviet Union! And Trump wants to undermine it! And thus we get this syphilitic take:

From the article he linked: 

"According to government documents, which BIRN has seen, Montenegro plans to increase the number of soldiers by 50 per cent to meet US demands  for allies to help share the load. Currently, Montenegro has 18 troops in the country, rising according to plans to 26-28."

Thank you for defending us Montenegro!

I'm not old enough to remember the Cold War, but I've read enough about it to know that Democrats were consistently pushing for a detente with the Soviet Union. And you know what? They were right to do so. But I guess that was back when Russia was communist and now that they're not, it's time for war. From the mainstream and supposedly prestigious Politico:

"Act accordingly?" What in the Hell does that mean? Does this guy know that we declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbor?

By the way,  2400 Americans were killed and another 1200 wounded in the attack on Pearl Harbor. How many people died when Russia hacked the DNC? And given the bogus intelligence about Iraq, the mistakes regarding the rise of ISIS, the inability to see the Soviet Union was about to collapse and the general difficulty in attribution when it comes to hacking along with the fact that the DNC refused to turn over their servers to the FBI, I would say there is still grounds for skepticism regarding Russia's culpability. 

But let's say Russia was responsible, which they very likely are. According to one study , the United States has interfered in 81 different elections. (The Soviet Union meddled in 36.) And that doesn't include invasions (such as Iraq or Libya) or coups (such as Iran or the Ukraine). Remember when Hillary Clinton was caught on tape proposing the United States rig the Palestinian election? And if meeting with Putin cordially is such a great crime, what do we have to say about this guy:

Or this guy, who looked into Putin's soul by the way? 

Or maybe it's just when you collude with Russia. (Still waiting on the evidence for that regarding Trump, but it's only been, what, two years?) Wait... what's this?

OK, but this outrage is about Trump siding with (or more accurately, being indecisvie) about whether to side with Putin or our intelligence agencies. But given their many failures noted above, the lies of people like James Clapper, the obvious politizied nature of these investigations, as highlighted by Peter Strzok and the piss dossier, and the embarrassing antics of the torture-loving, warmongering, illegally-spying, perjuring, former communist and probably current communist John Brennan... can you really blame him?

Everyone hacks and everyone interferes. China hacked the OPS and Hell, according to TMZ, the multinational corporation with no inherent loyalty to the United States, NBC intentionally leaked the infamous Trump tape. (Which under California law, was probably illegal.) Interference much? 

This is not to say that Putin is a nice guy or that Russia is an ally. Nor is it to say that if Russia did the hack that that was somehow OK. But let's have some perspective. Their goals are pretty obviously regional. They want NATO off their doorstep and they want influence in Eastern Europe and the Caucuses (which is exactly what the United States and EU want). They have an economy smaller than Italy and a population that is a fraction of China. They are also less authoritarian than China. Basically, as far as international relations go, Putin is not "literally Hitler" or some new boogieman. And Russia is not Nazi Germany. Russia is China Lite. And that's how we should see them.

Other than the fact that they have a ton of nuclear weapons and it's probably a good idea to have a detente. Funny how none of these neocon and Democratic warmongers thought to throw a hissy fit over Trump's meeting and massive arms sales to the theocratic oil company of Saudi Arabia (which has spent over $100 billion funding Wahhabism all over the world). Perhaps Trump just needs to sell billions of dollars of weapons to Putin. Then the hysteria will end.

But let's talk about foreign interference again real quick. Here's who Politico agreed to have pen an article about why the United States should presumably declare war on a country with enough nuclear warheads to end the world several times over. 

"Molly K. McKew (@MollyMcKew) advises governments and political parties on foreign policy and strategic communications. She is a registered agent for Georgian President Saakachvili’s government, which she advised from 2009-2013, and for former Moldovan Prime Minister Filat, who has been in prison since 2015."

And of course, they note that the agent of a foreign government and antagonist of Russia wrote this agitprop at the end, not the beginning of the article. 

So my first article has been published in ThinkRealty Magazine. (I have previously written a few posts for their website.) The article is on a subject I've written about before; the importance of deferring gratification and the good ole-Stanford Marshmallow experiment (which unbeknownst to me at the time, has come under fire recently.) 

Anyways, here's  a snapshot of the article in the latest edition of ThinkRealty's magazine:

Make sure to check out ThinkRealty's website and magazine as well as their podcast which I will be appearing on shortly.

For those landlords out there, this is a relatively common problem... and a weird one. Every once and a while, a tenant will want to pay six months in advance or something like that. Usually this comes along with them not meeting your rental criteria. It's always a red flag. 

I always say to stick to your rental criteria no matter what. Who knows, maybe this person is a drug dealer and makes lots of money, but you can't verify it since it was garnered illicitly. Regardless, I see this problem fairly frequently and it's one landlords are the most clueless about. 

I think Brandon Turner breaks down the problem really well on the AskBP podcast here:

And if you're interested in real estate investment, make sure to check out my blog at BiggerPockets while you're at it!

I recently had to quit smoking again after I fell back into the "habit" after some tough life events in the last couple of months.  Fortunately, I quit again with Allen Carr's Easy Way method, who's book, The Easy Way to Stop Smoking, I've written about before, and who's webinar can be found here. I have been smoke-free for five days.

I certainly don't recommend ever doing this. It's a waste of time, health and energy and admittedly harder after the first time. But the method still works. This time I used the webinar and one of the last things they recommend you do is to "write a written record of what your life was like as a smoker and what made you want to stop." This is my record, and hopefully, if there are any smokers out there, this will help inspire you to check out Allen Carr's method and quit for yourself.
______________

Once again, I find myself sitting in a motel room watching Allen Carr's webinar to quit smoking. What a waste! Why have I gone to back to this garbage? How much of my time has been stolen from me by this worthless drug? How much of my energy? How much of my health? How much of my self respect? Life is too short to waste it inhaling toxic fumes into my lungs! Life is far too precious for that! I love living, but I most certainly hate smoking.

I hate how it made me smell.
I hate how it made me feel.
I hate how it made me hide from friends and family.
I hate how it robbed me or my energy.
I hate how it wasted my money, especially when I didn't have much.
I hate how I "waited" to quit to travel, ask girls out and do what I wanted in this one and only life I get to live.
I hate what this evil thing did to me.

Yet I love being free.

And all I have to do to be free is choose to be free.

​I choose freedom.

Now the Internet mob has come for Buffalo Bills running back LeSean McCoy. And he may very well deserve it, but the story so far is a weird one to say the least,

"LeSean McCoy has been accused of beating his girlfriend, according to an Instagram post from her friend.

"The user @Miamor_i_adore posted a disturbing picture Tuesday morning that showed a woman, who she says is Delicia Cordon, McCoy’s apparent girlfriend, with cuts, bruises and blood on her face with a caption that alleged, among other things, domestic assault by the Bills running back.

"McCoy quickly denied the allegations.

"'For the record, the totally baseless and offensive claims made against me today on social media are completely false,' he said in a statement. 'Further more, I have not had any direct contact with any of the people involved in months.'"

So this all started from an anonymous Instagram post? OK... 

That being said, we should all suspend judgement, at least for now. The injuries to Delicia Cordon appear to have been confirmed and it was from a home invasion. And she has stated (I believe on record) that, according to ESPN, LeSean McCoy "set [her] up for the attack."

Is it true? I don't know. But we should all remember that not long ago, San Francisco 49ers running back Reuben Foster was accused of domestic assault by his ex-girlfriend. Now, she admits she "lied a lot" and according to ESPN again,

"Ennis, who testified against the advice of her attorney Stephanie Rickard, said she made up the story because she wanted to ruin Foster's career and sue him for money after he broke up with her on the morning of Feb. 11. She also admitted to falsely accusing a former boyfriend of domestic violence in Louisiana in 2011 after he attempted to break up with her."

Listen and believe...

Of course, that isn't just said ironically when it comes to feminists these days, as one back-and-forth on Twitter I saw made evidently clear:

"I literally don't care" might as well be the motto for feminists when it comes to men's well being. Or perhaps they're just a more extreme version of the normal, as science is starting to prove. First with the "Women are Wonderful Effect," then with the trolley car experiments, and now this:

I don't really think this is changeable. Nor do I think men don't have advantages of their own (most notably, perceived competence). But I do think it's something we as a society need to recognize. And that's especially true given that feminists are under the indefensibly stupid delusion that it's the other way around.

At the very least, we need to get away from this idea it's acceptable to just make serious accusations without evidence over social media. 

So I got into a Twitter exchange with an actual bigshot (or sorts) for the first time, which was fun. I don't agree with Bloomberg writer Noah Smith that much, but he seems like a pretty fair-minded liberal. Here was his original Tweet and my response:

I had the pleasure of visiting the Kansas City Toy Museum on the University of Missouri in Kansas City’s campus and it really brings out a lot of your inner nine-year-old. The short opening video noted that it was “for the young at heart” and all about creativity. Indeed, there is quite the parallel between the Maker’s Faire, Hallmark Museum and Kansas City Toy Museum in that they all have to do with creativity and have a focus on the young.

A good portion of the museum’s items had been donated by collectors. Some of the marble contraptions on display (to be discussed below) looked like they could have come right out of the Maker’s Faire. And interestingly enough, one major collector was a former Hallmark employee named Barbara Marshall, who mostly collected miniatures and was also a major benefactor of those who created miniatures. The description of her stated that, “Setting aside her personal stylistic preferences, she encouraged artists to create their dream works in fine scale.” This is a general theme regarding creativity. Supervisors and benefactors can create a process for coming up with creative works (i.e. empathic design, the Kano model, etc.), but they cannot demand creativity fit within a strict mold. Human creativity just doesn’t work that way.

While obvious with a toy museum, it also has become apparent through writing these reflection papers that there is a connection between youth and creativity (or at least the young at heart). Kids don’t feel bound to traditional modes of thinking and thus “the world is their oyster.” Indeed, the museum noted of another collector, Mary Harris, that collecting toys helped her connect to her childhood. And a video showed an old man reflecting on some of the toys he played with during World War II while he was a young kid. It was very interesting just how important these toys were to him. It’s very rare that adults attach such importance to such things they acquire in adulthood.

As a matter of fact, I felt a deep sense of nostalgia when I walked by a case with an old Nintendo and Sega Genesis game consoles. I don’t play video games much anymore, but I still occasionally play Tetris on an old Game Boy I have. And weirdly enough, I enjoy that much more than any of the extremely sophisticated modern games they come out with these days. As noted above, there’s something about our childhoods that inspire creativity and it’s probably that sense that “everything is possible.”

The museum was stacked full of all sorts of old toys, dolls and games. There were also videos and displays on how such things were made that were quite interesting. For example, a short video explained how Hot Wheels cars were made. First designers sketched out the design. Then a prototype that was five times the size of the final car was created. This allowed the designers to carefully sketch out all the detail that would be instilled into the tiny toy car. Finally, the design was finalized and a process of mass production was created whereby thousands of such toys could be made every day.

That being said, the two most interesting parts of the museum were the miniatures and the marbles exhibit.

The Miniatures
​
As stated above, many of the miniatures were given to the museum from various collectors. And some of these miniatures were truly incredible. Often the creators would make miniature houses that were opened up so you could see into each room. Each room was then filled with miniature furniture and all the rest of the things you would see in a normal house and the intricate detail was truly spectacular. All of these pieces of art displayed incredible craftsmanship.

​On the other hand, some of the miniatures were just stand-alone items, such as miniature chairs, tables, pianos or just about anything else that you could think of. Miniature sets such as these are not exactly what you would normally think of when imagining children’s toy. But they perhaps represent that even when we age, we all still have that “inner child.” And perhaps that’s what we need to reach for in order to tap into our own creativity.
​
My favorite of these miniatures was a miniature violin that was opened up. The inside of the violin was basically a display case for a bunch of even smaller violins, cellos and the like. This gave the piece a sense of abstractness that went along very well with the high-quality craftsmanship.  

​The Marble Exhibit

The museum also had a short tour on its marble exhibit. Marbles have existed since ancient times with marbles made of clay having been found in Ancient Egyptian tombs. Later on, people learned how to make them out of glass. And then, in 1910 (which just happens to be the year that Hallmark was founded, the subject of a previous article), entrepreneurs discovered how to mass produce marbles and they took off in popularity, particularly amongst young boys.

Many games started to grow out around this new-found popularity. One in particular was a game called “Ringer.” While it has fallen out of fashion, there are still tournaments that take place around the country.
The game involves holding a marble in your index finger and flicking it with your thumb with the goal of knocking other marbles out from the middle of a large ring. Each player had a “shooter marble” with which to shoot with and they would play the marble where it landed. So getting the marble to stop in the right spot was very important (similar to pool). In the middle of the ring were 14 marbles and the first person to knock seven of them out of the ring won.
​
All the while, various slang words grew up around the game such as “lag,” “fudging,” “ante,” and “slips.” This is similar to modern sports that have weird terms such as “blitz,” “alley-oop,” and “cherry picking.” Of course, many kids made up their own rules for various marble games as they do with just about everything else.

There was even a former national champion there who had won the tournament way back in 1948. The game is harder than you might imagine, although I did knock a few marbles out of the ring while trying. Overall, it proves that games are one of the biggest “toys” for kids and are a wellspring of creativity. Indeed, some research seems to show that games and competitive sports can be a great way to prepare kids for becoming entrepreneurs later in life. 

Conclusion

The museum was more than just a trip down nostalgia lane and a testament to the craftsmanship of various toy makers. It also showed how important it is to tap into your “inner child” and get out of traditional ways of thinking when it comes to creativity. And this extends beyond just toy-making or general production, but also to branding and other parts of business. For example, as one display case noted regarding a G.I. Joe toy,

“Traditional wisdom dictated boys would not play with dolls, so Hassenfeld Brothers (later Hasbro Industries) coined the term ‘action figure.’”

One simple name change opened up half the market (boys) to playing with dolls. And the release of the G.I. Joe “action figure” in 1964 turned out to be a huge success.

Creativity must be channeled through in a process, but it can’t be constrained by traditional ways of thinking. And that was the greatest lesson to come out of the Kansas City Toy Museum.

So this is a real infographic that came along with a New York Magazine dung heap of paranoid delusion:

And my rebuttal infographic:

Did the supposedly-prestigious author, Jonathan Chait, put this together himself or did he farm it out to some neocon or Soros-operated anti-Russian NGO like The Atlantic Council? Regardless, one of the few remaining, sane, liberal journalists Michael Tracey sums this nonsense up well:

​I visited the Hallmark Museum in Crown Center, which is a large commercial complex near downtown, Kansas City with many shops, restaurants and the like. It was originally conceived of and built by J.C. Hall, who founded Hallmark in 1910. Today, Hallmark is one of the largest privately-owned companies in the world, with approximately four billion dollars in sales and 28,000 employees. 

Hallmark has expanded since its founding and currently has six large divisions in its portfolio; greeting cards, retail and gifts, home and garden, Crayola (and their famous crayons), Crown Media and Crown Center Development. Recently, they acquired Dollar Tree and all its 13,000 stores, which will make for a great mode of distribution. The Hallmark Museum pays tribute to the company’s history and all of its various achievements.

Hallmark’s History

The first stop in the museum is a 14-minute video on the history of the company. As noted above, Hallmark was founded by J.C. Hall in 1910. He started the company as a postcard venture. One of the first methods J.C. Hall used to gain customers was an ingenious marketing method, albeit a bit shady. He mailed out unsolicited postcards with invoices to various companies. Those who wrote a check became his first clients.

In 1915, Hallmark added greeting cards with envelopes. It’s amazing how things we take for granted today were new innovations not that long ago. Needless to say, the greeting card with an envelope idea took off. In 1917, they added gift wrap, which is another thing we take for granted nearly 100 years later. It all goes to show that innovation is critical in any industry, even one that would normally be thought of as relatively simple; such as gift cards.

The company ran into hard times during the Great Depression, but was able to get through it. J.C. Hall then passed the business on to his son Donald Hall and daughter Barbara Hall. Donald’s two sons, Don Hall Jr. (CEO) and Dave Hall, Jr. (president) now run the company.
​
During this time, they all had a very close connection to Kansas City, where J.C. Hall had moved to at the beginning of the 20th century and where Hallmark’s headquarters is still located today. J.C. Hall built Crown Center in an effort to revitalize Kansas City’s downtown area. And he had a close friendship with both Walt Disney and Norman Rockwell. In 1951, after a terrible flood, he asked Norman Rockwell to create a painting that embodied the essence of Kansas City and would help the city rebuild. Rockwell followed through and named his painting “The Kansas City Spirit.”

​Hallmark’s History of Creativity

Hallmark has a long history of creativity, both in the products it creates and the business model it enacts. Indeed, J.C. Hall famously said that “money will take care of itself.” The method they used was very similar to the Empathic Design method that Dorothy Leonard and Jeffrey Rayport would formulate many years later, although it was more participatory like the way that IDEO specializes in.

Empathic design involves observing customers in their “natural environment” to find out what they need and want. Often times, customers don’t even know what they would want. But this method of observation can determine what the problems are and that can inspire potential solutions.

J.C. Hall would go out and simply talk to people about what they wanted. Donald and Barbara Hall visited stores all over the country to see how their cards came off to customers. And Donald Hall had worked in every part of the company before becoming its CEO, so he had had a good chance to observe both the business operations and how the customers actually used their products.

By using this method, J.C. Hall came up with the idea for gift wrap, because he figured out many of his customers valued privacy. Later, they discovered that by expanding their cards to include themes more relevant to African Americans, Jewish Americans and other underserved minorities, Hallmark could expand its opportunities to reach new customers.

Today, Hallmark still uses this method and has recently released its “Just Because” line of cards. These cards don’t come along with a holiday or occasion, which means they can sell cards that aren’t just associated with things like Christmas or birthdays. But furthermore, when people receive cards on special occasions, they don’t feel as special because there is a sense that such cards are obligatory. A card that is just sent of the blue can be much more meaningful in that sense. And remember, J.C. Hall and Walt Disney were friends. Walt Disney’s motto to “make people happy” was very much shared by J.C. Hall and his children.

The Creative Process at Hallmark
​
Obviously, when you have a company that creates artistic works —from cards to toys to movies —creativity is a huge part of the process. Throughout the museum was a wide display of the many pieces of work that Hallmark employees had put together over the years.

​ Interestingly, many of the artists and creators described a method of creativity that is more similar to The Young Technique. The Young Technique involves gathering information, then dropping it for a while only to return to it when the idea comes back to mind. 

Another video at the museum interviewed many such creators and what they said about how they found inspiration really fits that mold:

“Ideas come from anywhere.”

“Some of my best ideas come while I’m in my hammock.”

“I get a lot of ideas by going out into nature.”

“Ideas come to me by watching people on the subway.”

“Ideas come in the shower or while driving.”

The general theme was that you can’t force creativity and that, as one artist put it, “ideas come from any number of sources.” Sitting in a room with a pen and pad is not what Hallmark recommends and is not how most of their employees find their inspiration. This strategy of getting ideas from anywhere and often dropping them to do something else and seeing what they look like when they come back, has allowed Hallmark to come up with all sorts of creative cards, toys and trinkets as well as movies and television shows after they started The Hallmark Channel in 1951.

Conclusion
​
Hallmark is a company that has been built on creativity. Not only is their output primarily of a creative origin, but their business strategy has developed organically with many very creative ideas. Indeed, J.C. Hall was seen as a branding genius and for good reason. He was one of the first to consistently put Hallmark’s label on their cards and thus gain visibility and build a reputation among the general public. That skill for branding and creativity has stayed with the company and allowed it to grow into one of the most successful businesses in American history.

The documentary they showed was an updated and slightly longer version of this one you can find on Youtube: