Ebola Facts: Getting to the Truth

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If you are like me, you are bewildered that the Texas nurses that cared for Thomas Eric Duncan are coming forward saying they didn’t have the proper equipment to care for Ebola patients nor did they have any protocols to follow. And if you are like me, you are further scratching your head that news reports are saying the CDC told a nurse she could fly with a temperature after caring for the first patient who died in the U.S. from Ebola.

How could things be going terribly wrong like this? Who is responsible for enforcing things when a situation like this is starting to look out of control?

We can’t just continue to react to news reports with fear. We need to understand what our laws say. Who is responsible?

Last night on CNN, Chris Cuomo said that the CDC does not have authority in this matter. They make recommendations and suggest guidelines. Another commenter pointed out that we need a Surgeon General to take the authority.

The big question is who has the authority to make the decisions at a time like to prevent the spread of the this disease?

I started searching online, and its murky to say the least. As a nation, we live by our constitution and I finally found a breakdown of the authority on the CDC website, and I do believe it is accurate. I think people should read this because there are many people responsible for our well being, and we need to know who they are.

I hope by sharing this I will help people get to the truth more quickly, and stop the spread of inaccurate information so we can get better results. We need to find out who is in control and expect them to do their job.

I am going to turn off comments on this post because I know people will make this a political argument and this website is not about that. It’s about truth and lies, and I just wanted to point people to the correct resource to get to the truth on who is responsible.

Technology Slows Ability To Recognize Emotions

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There is an interesting study done that looked at children and their interactions with digital media. Did you know the more a child is connected, the less skill he has at being able to recognize emotions in others?

As they surmise, you cannot learn about human interaction by watching it on a screen. You have to experience it firsthand.  I agree with that completely.

How much time does your child spend a day, or a week playing video games, using a cell phone, tablet or watching TV?

Check out this article.

Many thanks to MF for the story!

Dateline: Who Killed Nancy Pfister?

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What a tale a life can weave. Nancy Pfister was a privileged woman, and lead a life of no apology. She was who she was, she felt worthy and had no problem putting people where she believed they belong whether they truly belonged there or not.  It did not seem to matter to to Nancy at all. She was going to tell you her feelings–like it or lump it. She was known to boss people around as if she were a higher being. And so it is ironic that she ended up being silence in murder.  Someone gave her an ultimate opinion that she would be no longer.  You have to be careful how you treat people as any wise person will tell you.

So who killed Nancy Pfister? If you watched Dateline this past weekend, the story goes in circles from blaming the renters of Nancy’s place, the Stylers, to pointing the finger at and retracting the finger to Nancy’s friend, Kathy Carpenter.

In the end, the doctor, William Styler, who rented Nancy’s place with his wife Nancy, confessed to the murder. But I will tell you that his confession was a complete lie. There was nothing believable in it. His story was actually laughable.  Could William Styler kill Nancy?  I believe yes, it is plausible (anyone can kill someone laying in bed with a hammer), but I don’t believe he did it.  William Styler really showed his true colors by playing the “poor aging man” game, though, going from walking to suddenly needing a wheelchair.

When I listened to and watched Kathy Carpenter, she made it clear, too, on multiple occasions, that she knew way more than she was telling us. She slips up several times saying things an uninvolved person would not say. Keith Morrison does a great job at asking Kathy why she wants “forgiveness” from Nancy’s Pfister’s daugher. Hello! The fact that Kathy “saw” things at the crime scene that aren’t logical, and that she just had to open that closet makes no logical sense. Who would assume when someone isn’t in their room that they are locked in a closet?  So Kathy was there, and did see Nancy covered in blood without question. She knew where the injuries were.

As for Nancy Styler, I don’t believe her either.  She is a cold woman to say the least.

William Styler shows some compassion or desire to do good by his wife, by confessing to the crime, and bargaining to set her free. And Kathy on her own doesn’t hit me as the type to commit murder outright. She wants “forgiveness”. Both the actions of Kathy and William so some level of compassion.  Kathy is also the type who is highly influenced by other people, and weak in character.

The one who hits me most capable in all of this is Nancy Styler.

I have to wonder if Nancy Styler and Nancy Pfister got into it. These two were two very head-strong women who wouldn’t easily compromise or come to a peaceful resolution, and both where likely to hold grudges and get viciously angry. I wonder if an argument ensued, and perhaps Kathy showed up, was called, or came by, and things went wrong.  Maybe Nancy Pfister stormed off and went to bed with ear-plugs in place, and got something she never saw coming…

I believe all three people Nancy, Kathy and William know exactly what happened and I suspect the mastermind was Nancy.

Stairway to Heaven (Oahu)

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Last year, I went to Hawaii for business and I unexpectedly fell in love. Having traveled to the South Pacific before (Fiji, the Cook Islands and Australia), I incorrectly assumed the congested state of Hawaii would be a turn-off for me. When I landed in Honolulu over 20 years ago at 6 a.m., the traffic was so congested, it was at a crawl for miles up the mountains that I made a mental note–skip Hawaii. I figured it would be too built up for my tastes, too touristy, and wouldn’t hold a candle to the Cook Islands. But when I got an opportunity to go on business, I had to explore it.

My trip to Hawaii truly topped all of the places I have been including the South Pacific and the Great Barrier Reef. I was blown away. It was the like South Pacific on steroids. I kid you not!

Hawaii is truly magical and stole my heart on every level possible, and I have a strong need to get back there again–more permanently. I don’t know that I will be able to make it happen, but the dream lives on.

While driving back and forth to do training on the island of Oahu, I happen to spot these stairs going up the most incredible steep incline on the jagged mountains as I drove on the highway. I wondered what on earth is it for, and who would in their right mind climb it?

The stairs are known as the Haiku Stairs or “The Stairway to Heaven”. It turns out the stairs are illegal to hike right now and there is a guard posted to prevent people from climbing them. You can read more about it here.

I accidentally ran into this video the other day, and I was captivated by this video on many levels.  The video truly captures the stunning beauty of Oahu.  And I was truly amazed by the climber in the video.

I was most amazed by what is missing when I look at the climber as he climbs over 3,000 stairs straight up.

Do you know what it is?

(Recommendation: If you have a big computer screen, you must play this video on it. A tablet or phone won’t do this video justice)

Introverts and Extroverts

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While this column focuses a lot on deception and spotting lies, I am also endlessly interested in human behavior. I do not believe you can be good at spotting liars if you only focus on lies. And so many people make that mistake. If you want to be good at spotting lies–very good–you need to understand the truth, too. And the only way to understand the truth is to understand people at a detailed level. With that, it means understanding all different types of people.

One type of personality that comes to mind is introverts.

Introverts are a very misunderstood segment of our population. We typically think of them as socially-awkward, isolated, shy, loners, and that’s quite an inaccurate perception. Out of all the introverts I see, that description of “shy” aspect actually fits with a very small minority of them. Most introverts are actually smart, engaging and interesting people.

Read this article which details introverts in a way that may change your thinking.

From my experience, introverts are “introverted” because they often see more than the extroverts, and are more easily overwhelmed with the information they process. When you see two people interacting, an introvert will see the pain in the interaction that an extrovert often misses. Dealing with that information can be challenging and often causes information overload. Yet on the positive to extroverts, they seem to push through situations and achieving things when introverts are stifled by emotional overload.  So there are pluses and minuses to both sides!

I feel I can relate to both introverts and extroverts. Neither description fits me, so I feel I am more of an ambivert (a blend of both).  With that, I relate to both sides, though I tend slightly more towards introversion.  Yet I love speaking in front of a large audience (yes, I can say that now after doing it for several years)!  I get exhilarated by the energy of other people in positive situations.

So, which are you?  Take a test here to see. It’s 81 questions — so plan to give it some time. I ironically scored 55 out of 100 — right smack in the middle, as predicted!

By the way, to my loyal reader base, I can tell by watching you for years now that I have many more introverts than extroverts who follow me.  Who knew?