Welcome to the Third Degree: Tough, Brief, Weekly Interrogations on matters public and private that force thinking and response. This Sunday we target: Shaves

  • While the edgy title may send us searching, does the target word scrape familiar skin?
  • Despite the bloodletting, now occasional though historically barber-surgeon common, are shaves pretty simple?
  • Ever wonder why the red and white pole?
  • Does shaving summon expressions (other than ouch) affirming that life is a close-run thing?
  • Does language lather up idioms universally understood: “By a whisker”, “close shave”, “shaving time,” “like a dry shave,” “on razor’s edge”, “razor sharp” or “dull as a wooden razor?”
  • In cutting edge terms, especially when faced with complexity of proposition or situation, do various razors urge finding, using, the simplest explanation or solution entailing fewest assumptions?
  • Hearing hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras?
  • If hanging in East Africa’s Great Rift Valley, a case can be made for zebras, more likely, migrating wildebeests, but gnu or not, let’s go with the horses?
  • Is razor, solution shavetail, or really pushed from Aristotle on but credited to William of Ockham, a 14th century friar/scholar? Does razor parsimony, cut away, provide pathway?
  • Is it the “less is more” reality with the simplest explanation being preferable to the more complex?
  • Did such simplicity reign last Friday afternoon, as host and guest exchanged fundamental assessments peering out at limitless water (and rain—we were supposed to be golfing) from an expansive, Naples, Gulf Shore Blvd, home?
  • Did Fighter Pilot Red and Caymus Cab assist ontologically clear statements (conclusions) of human nature, government, science and society?
  • Would you agree and accept that, in life, some do, and some don’t; some will, and some won’t and there are losses along the way?
  • Are sex, power, fun and violence principal motivators? What about money?
  • How about freedom of choice and need for personal control including moderation—really matter?
  • Do family and raising of adults, not children, really matter?
  • If government seeks to deter war, is it prepare, prepare some more, be ready, and failing, be just but savage?
  • Does a recent WSJ quote apply: “If scarecrows fail, crows cluster?”
  • Should government and science face relentless and brutal questioning especially if pushing or avoiding policies with theological righteousness or expressing and exploiting complex fears?
  • Media, where are you? Where are you? KISS works?
  • Finally, must we beware the Sweeneys, the demon barbers of history, today and tomorrow, that America has to beat?

Socrates reminds: “The unexamined life is not worth living. The answers and actions remain yours.