SkillUnlimited Blog
Latest company updates and industry news.
SkillUnlimited Blog
Latest company updates and industry news.
Going for the Jugular when Judging Our Judges
Digging up the dirt on the latest judicial candidate. We’ve all been told that judges are supposed to be nonpartisan and objective in their decisions, basing their opinions on legal precedent (a.k.a. applicable law) as it currently exists. That applies to the U.S. Supreme Court down to the lower courts, including the county Court of Common Pleas and the lowest rung of the Pennsylvania ladder, Magisterial District Judges, numbering four in my mostly rural county and into the dozens in high-population [...] READ MORE
Pros and Cons of Getting to the Point
Reaching back into the past for observations on humanity and humor. A number of years ago during my years as an editor and weekly columnist for a newspaper that has since banned my opinions, I wrote a column with the heading: “Direct Routes Aren’t Always the Most Effective Ways to Travel.” You see, the “number of years” from the date of that commentary is approaching 28, and I was, at the time, past the midpoint of a career in print journalism [...] READ MORE
Ignorant Patriotism Thrives by Censoring History
Some chapters in American history may be difficult to process, but they should be there for us to learn. It was more than a year ago when one of my blogs posted on Facebook received an ominous “blacklisted” tag. It was only a couple of weeks after the insurgence at the Capitol. The word “fascism” was in the blog’s heading, and I thought maybe it was flagged for proliferating an unproven conspiracy or fueling anti-government sentiments. It was, in truth, a [...] READ MORE
Playing Blame Game with Mass Murderers
And the deaths keep piling up as gun rights and gun control positions solidify. The idea that TV networks and newspapers get their jollies from school children and other innocents murdered by a mentally ill or just plain evil shooter is both understandable and unfair. Most take pride in reporting the real story, fairly, factually and respectfully, and mass shootings often lead to dozens of stories in the ensuing months. The respectfully part is the key, and once it gets out [...] READ MORE
Terrorism Tamed to “Legitimate Political Discourse”
Does it? In a true Democracy, three Presidents since 1988 would have lost. In a simple system of majority rule, Mr. Biden’s thumping margin of more than seven million votes would have been the last word. For that matter, so would Hillary Clinton’s national margin of nearly three million votes in 2016: Mr. Trump would not have had a 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue address in which to barricade himself in 2020. — Jedediah Britton-Purdy in the January 2, 2022, issue of the [...] READ MORE
Playing around with the Three “Homos”
Making it to the end of this essay is enough to wipe the smile off any face. I think I missed a week of blogging. I recently found a publisher for my book, and I’ve been going back and forth with a consultant, establishing a portal so we can start the editing process. That means carefully proofing two dozen chapters containing some 93,000 words and rounding up photos to illustrate the true crime manuscript. That’s my excuse from bringing back a [...] READ MORE
Still Feeling Fortunate After All These Years
Once you get to the top, the only way to go is down. There’s really no need to sprint to the bottom. Baby Boomers in their sixties and seventies were taught by our parents and grandparents to work hard and be loyal. Loyalty is a two-way street, or so we were told, and employers supposedly recognized and respected this asset as exemplified by our hard work and willingness to go the extra mile. Our parents were better at this than we [...] READ MORE
Defining America through a Fanciful Past
Sleeping through the present while dreaming of a sitcom-portrayed and idealized past. Several Februarys ago, during our return drive on what has become an annual winter excursion to Florida, we were intrigued by signage along I-77 North hawking the Andy Griffith Museum in Mount Airy, NC. We were briefly tempted to check it out. It wasn’t so much our interest in Griffith himself, star of a pair of major television hits over the years — Matlock (1986-1995) and, before that, the [...] READ MORE
Contemplating Minds, Brains and Other Matter
Brains sometimes have storms but minds have a more stable climate. This is a revision of moldy oldie of a newspaper column I wrote well before the turn of the 21st Century in 1990 when my mind, for what it’s worth, was much sharper. You’ll likely notice that I refer to the year 2000 as if it’s in the distant future. The subject was the source of our thoughts and being— the mind and the brain— often used interchangeably. You may [...] READ MORE
