[TTP:  RINOs are getting slaughtered in Texas, Mamdani is sending the police forth to actually police NY’s streets, and POTUS has passed his latest health assessment with flying colors – this is a good day to take a break from politics and take a gander at the great unknown.]

A couple of years ago, I took a marine biology class at the University of Georgia, and two thing stuck with me. The first was how college students these days can turn anything — and I do mean anything — into a discussion about Taylor Swift and/or climate change. The second was just how much of our ocean remains unexplored. I knew it was a lot, but I didn't know just how much.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the ocean is 139 million square miles and the average depth is 12,080 feet. As of April of this year, 28.7% of the global seafloor had been mapped with "modern high-resolution technology." As of mid-2025, scientists say that humans haven't even seen 99.999% of the deep sea floor.

What we do know is that there is marine life at every depth of the ocean. About 15 years ago, scientists estimated that we're not even aware of 91% of the life that exists in our oceans, which make up about 70% of the planet.

But that's changing. Not only are new efforts, tools, and technology helping us study and learn more about species that have been sitting in labs and archives for years, but they're helping us discover more about the unknown creatures that call the ocean home.

Cleaning out the attic, I recently came across my daughter’s first pair of walking shoes. They were the white leather real tie-up shoes where a parent had to actually tie the laces so the child’s foot would be securely held inside the shoe.

In kindergarten, she “graduated” to burgundy shoes because those were “big girl” shoes. She learned to tie her own laces after a bit of practice and we learned about “bunny ears.”

In fact, “The American Occupational Therapy Association states that the ability to tie shoelaces is a critical fine motor skill for children. Mastery of this skill can enhance independence and confidence in young learners.”

“Common contributing factors to difficulty in tying shoelaces include fine motor skill challenges and lack of practice. Children particularly benefit from repeated demonstration and visual aids when learning this skill.

“Studies show that about 70% of children can tie their shoes by age six, according to research by the University of Nebraska. This skill plays a vital role in personal independence and self-care.

Now, so many years later, my grandsons have no idea what I am talking about since they never learned how to use shoelaces in school. Their shoes are held together by Velcro. . . .

Children need to be exposed to the steps of learning. Instead, we are creating mental passivity and cognitive apathy.

For the last year and a half, Americans have been slammed with politics to the point that it has made vast numbers of people nearly crazy.

Following the news, the blow-by-blow is not easy, and it is worse seeing coalitions form, collapse, reconstitute, form again, and be witness nonstop to what seem to be subversions, betrayals, duplicates, and disappointments.

We follow the polls, donate to candidates, listen to podcasts, cheer our friends and boo the bad guys, all in this exciting spectator sport. I’m told it’s not really this way in Europe. Americans have a distinct sense of investment in the way our public life operates and we believe we can and should do something about it.

Do we really have a clear conception of the larger forces at work? I sense that what is lacking is a clear-headed theory about what is actually going on, that is the thematics of the larger struggle going on here.

In foreign policy, timing, leverage, and national interest must guide the strategy of engagement with rising powers.

President Richard Nixon grasped this principle as well as any Chief Executive during his groundbreaking 1972 opening to China.

President Bill Clinton, however, failed his test when he championed China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) in 2000.

President Donald Trump’s recent state visit to Beijing revives the Nixonian tradition of pragmatic, interest-driven diplomacy with a foreign adversary—engaging from strength while delivering concrete American wins—while actively correcting the structural imbalances and strategic vulnerabilities created by the failures of past policies.