On cultivating intellect

For all practical purposes, perception of reality by the majority is more important than reality itself. What does anyone know of anything but through his senses and what he is told? Certainly, a concrete world may exists but to control perception of this world is to control the world and the future. To also control interpretation of this input through religion and cultural influence is doubly influential. Revenge becomes justice, theft becomes benevolence, and we find ourselves in our current situation, levels below the truth with muddied minds and misinformation. We enter the postmodern era in which a reliance upon intuition pieced together from specks of assumed truth is the only way to live respectably.

Tipping: Why cabbies and not pilots?

After an abnormally cheerful take-off announcement and a smooth landing on an early morning flight from Knoxville to Chicago, I couldn’t help but wonder: why do we tip certain professions and not others? Why hairdressers and not auto mechanics? Why appliance delivery and not UPS? Why tour guides, bellhops, valet parking, bathroom attendants, and not grocery baggers, librarians, bank tellers, or movie store clerks? Why taxi drivers and waiters but not pilots and flight attendants? [Read the rest here]