JoseB Blog

Stephen Hawking was a great scientist and thinker. I enjoyed watching his science shows on TV. I have been profoundly influenced by him from a philosophical point of view (although Stephen would call it science, not philosophy) and would like to share three things he helped me understand that I think are true and very fundamental. Every choice you make is predetermined, free will is an illusion. This is hard to believe at first but if you understand the concept of a state machine then it is easy to understand. A state machine is a system where given a certain set of inputs and a certain state, the next state and outputs are be predetermined by an algorithm.  A car's 4 speed transmission would be an example. Its has 4 states (gears). Given the current gear it's in, and taking the car's current RPM and acceleration as input, the algorithm chooses the next gear.  Life's choices are like the car's transmission. When you make a decision, you think you have free will, but

Last week as usual Trump said some crazy things. He said that our dead servicemen are 'suckers and losers' and that the pentagon wants to 'make war to keep the companies that make bombs happy.'  Well, for once, he was right about the following two things: Some of our dead servicemen are suckers. Why do I say this? Think about the Vietnam war. Fifty-two thousand died there for what? They were told they were going to save the world from communism and that was a lie. Look at what happened to communism. It has failed on its own without needing to fight a war. Look at how now we do business with Vietnam and are friendly with them. That proves there was no need to fight that war. Those soldiers died in vain, so yes, you could call them suckers. But it wasn't their fault. THEY WERE LIED TO. AND THEY ARE NOT LOSERS. And that goes for all who died in the 2nd Gulf War to get rid of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction - oops there were none! The 4.5 thousand who d

Terry, I just learned of Bob's passing. I am so sorry to hear this sad news and I hope that time has helped to heal your loss. As you know, Bob was more than a friend and a coworker to me. Bob was like my 2nd father. When I started working at DMH I was a sheltered boy who knew nothing of the real world. Bob took me under his wing and gave me an education in what the real world was like in all its glory while pointing out its imperfections. He was a funny guy with all his jokes and great to be around, but he could be firm too when I made mistakes and needed guidance. I learned many things from Bob, but one thing that will always stand out was his love for you and his family. I felt a bit like I was part of his family those 3 years that I shared an office with him because of the way he treated me and looked out for me.  My deepest sympathies and I hope that my words bring some comfort.   Love, JoseB 

I met Mike about 10 years ago at the United Way show. We became friends right away. We had a few things in common, we loved music and we were both frustrated rock star wanna be's.  What we lacked in talent we made up for with heart. We were alike but we were opposites too and they say opposites attract, I was the guy in the background and he was a front man, and when he was on, he was on, like when he was the Big Bopper or Easy Rider at the United Way shows, some of the memorable moments he had on the United Way were: • Born to be Wild • Smoke on the Water • Jump • Big Bopper - Chantilly Lace • Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way • The Devil Went Down To Georgia I had some great times with him. Some memorable gigs playing in the InTransit classic rock band with him and Bob. One of my favorite times was when I visited him up in Tampa, with Carlos the guitar player from InTransit.  He cooked me a kings breakfast, we went to a work picnic and took out our instruments and playe

Voy a hablar en Espanol, porque creo que mi mama, que fue una maestra de Espanol, le gustaria. Estamos aqui hoy para celebrar una vida muy larga de 96 anos y muy variada. Cotica, que eso fue su 'nickname', era una Doctora de Pedagogia graduada de la Universidad de la Habana, y fue fundadora y la directora de la Normal de Kindergarten en Matanzas Cuba. Pero despues aqui en Miami cuando las cosas se pusieron dificil, con la familia acabada de salir de Cuba, ella trabajo en la tomatera tirando tomates por minimum wage, haciendo lo que podia para sacar la familia adelante. Ella nunca fur un 'stay at home mom.' Fue muy independiente. Consigio un Masters in Spanish Literature de la Universidad de South Carolina, y fue una de las primeras profesoras blanca ensenando Espanol en Benedict College SC, una universidad de personas de color. Esto en los anos 60's en el 'Deep South' cuando este pais estaba en la lucha de civil rights. Ella fue escritora de varios libros de

My dear friends and family, thank you for coming out to remember my big brother Mario. Just a few words about Macu, which was the family nickname we gave him.  He was eight years older than I so he was almost like a second father to me.  He had a profound impact on my formation not just as a person, but also the way he fostered my love of music. I would like to tell you about some of the things I remember about him. When he was in high school and I was a kid, he would draw pictures all the time. But he only drew two seemingly disconnected things that made no sense to me. He would draw portraits of beautiful, exotic women wearing long earrings, fancy hair styles, heavily made up eyes.  And the other thing he drew was architectural designs of movie theaters showing the projection room, the seating and screen. That's it, that’s all he would draw. And he drew literally hundreds of these things.  And I would wonder, ‘what is it with this guy drawing women and movie theaters?’ I drew a l

  Trump is the head of a cult. Some of his supporters worship him the same way others looked up to David Karesh and Jim Jones. They have drunk the Kool-Aid and are convinced he is the savior of the United States. They will follow him to the gates of hell and this is not good. If Trump loses I predict these dire things... Trump will declare that the elections were rigged, that there was voter fraud and the results invalid. He will do this to get his base all riled up to sow chaos and make the transition to Biden as horrible as possible. Trump's militia (those who ride in the big trucks and carry AR-15 assault weapons), will organize and ride around claiming the election was false and inciting riots before and even during the inauguration. We will see much more violent protests than we are seeing now.  His militia is itching for a fight with anybody who opposes them. Trump will not attend the Biden inauguration. He will goad his followers to resist and not acknowledge Biden as the ne

Right wing media has a lot of people scared poop-less. They think that unruly mobs are goin to attack their neighborhoods. They think the US is living in a state of siege. The world is ending and all hell has broken loose. Thats very strange because I live in a middle class neighborhood, walk my dog everyday, go to the Publix and everything is normal. I don't see any mobs or violence anywhere.  Want the truth? The truth is that there are a small number of protests about police using excessive force against blacks goin on in the whole country, the majority are peaceful and a few became violent because of left and right wing agitators. THEY ARE FAR AWAY FROM WHERE YOU LIVE. So if you fear for your life - congratulations - you fell for the oldest political trick in the book... FEAR-MONGERING.  -Hitler used it (Jews will destroy the world).  -Castro used it (The US will invade soon).  -Bush Jr used it (Islamic terrorists are everywhere).  -And now Trump is using it (there is an angry m