Who Am I?

I am Dr. Nancy Bereman, retired after 33 years on the faculty at Wichita State University. I taught courses in Human Resource Management. In retirement, I do a little bit of everything. Writing in this blog is one of them. As my byline reads... Just my random thoughts about life, work, and play. You may contact me at my email address: NancyBereman@gmail.com.


Monday, December 17, 2018

Christmas Toys Painted by Residents at The Regent

 

These toys were painted by residents at the Regent.  The wooden toys were made by John Belt with some elves as helpers.There are approximately 100 toys that will be distributed to needy children this Christmas by the Salvation Army.  Enjoy!!

Monday, November 19, 2018

The end of the war in the Pacific

For those of you that have read previous posts in this blog, you know that I have been posting information from letters / documents that I have found in my father's memory box.  I was excited to find a letter from my father to my mother dated August 10th, 1945. My father was drafted in January of 1944 at the age of 31.  He had two children, one aged 3 and the other 1 1/2.  I was born in 1947 after he returned.  

I have copied the letter, editing some parts out of it.





Page 1 on his letter:



Page 2 of his letter:

In this letter you see that they were closely monitoring the radio to get the war news.  They had heard that Russia had declared war on Japan and drove 14 miles across the border.  The second "death bomb" had been dropped.  Today we are so used to calling them "atomic bombs" that this wording seems odd.




Page 3 of his letter:

Here is where he hears the news on the radio and they get the news flash from Tokyo saying the they had accepted the unconditional surrender terms.  His ship was moored in Subic Bay in the Philippines and he describes the scene that he sees topside.  "Every ship in the bay was flashing search lights and shooting of flares of all colors. It was the most brilliant celebration that I have ever witnessed."



I have scoured the internet for any possible images of this celebration but have not found anything.  If anyone knows of any, please share them with me.


Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Believing without evidence is always morally wrong

Originally published at:  https://aeon.co/ideas/believing-without-evidence-is-always-morally-wrong



You have probably never heard of William Kingdon Clifford. He is not in the pantheon of great philosophers – perhaps because his life was cut short at the age of 33 – but I cannot think of anyone whose ideas are more relevant for our interconnected, AI-driven, digital age. This might seem strange given that we are talking about a Victorian Briton whose most famous philosophical work is an essay nearly 150 years ago. However, reality has caught up with Clifford. His once seemingly exaggerated claim that ‘it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence’ is no longer hyperbole but a technical reality.
In ‘The Ethics of Belief’ (1877), Clifford gives three arguments as to why we have a moral obligation to believe responsibly, that is, to believe only what we have sufficient evidence for, and what we have diligently investigated. His first argument starts with the simple observation that our beliefs influence our actions. Everyone would agree that our behaviour is shaped by what we take to be true about the world – which is to say, by what we believe. If I believe that it is raining outside, I’ll bring an umbrella. If I believe taxis don’t take credit cards, I make sure I have some cash before jumping into one. And if I believe that stealing is wrong, then I will pay for my goods before leaving the store.
What we believe is then of tremendous practical importance. False beliefs about physical or social facts lead us into poor habits of action that in the most extreme cases could threaten our survival. If the singer R Kelly genuinely believed the words of his song ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ (1996), I can guarantee you he would not be around by now.
But it is not only our own self-preservation that is at stake here. As social animals, our agency impacts on those around us, and improper believing puts our fellow humans at risk. As Clifford warns: ‘We all suffer severely enough from the maintenance and support of false beliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to …’ In short, sloppy practices of belief-formation are ethically wrong because – as social beings – when we believe something, the stakes are very high.
The most natural objection to this first argument is that while it might be true that some of our beliefs do lead to actions that can be devastating for others, in reality most of what we believe is probably inconsequential for our fellow humans. As such, claiming as Clifford did that it is wrong in all cases to believe on insufficient evidence seems like a stretch. I think critics had a point – had – but that is no longer so. In a world in which just about everyone’s beliefs are instantly shareable, at minimal cost, to a global audience, every single belief has the capacity to be truly consequential in the way Clifford imagined. If you still believe this is an exaggeration, think about how beliefs fashioned in a cave in Afghanistan lead to acts that ended lives in New York, Paris and London. Or consider how influential the ramblings pouring through your social media feeds have become in your very own daily behaviour. In the digital global village that we now inhabit, false beliefs cast a wider social net, hence Clifford’s argument might have been hyperbole when he first made it, but is no longer so today.
The second argument Clifford provides to back his claim that it is always wrong to believe on insufficient evidence is that poor practices of belief-formation turn us into careless, credulous believers. Clifford puts it nicely: ‘No real belief, however trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is ever truly insignificant; it prepares us to receive more of its like, confirms those which resembled it before, and weakens others; and so gradually it lays a stealthy train in our inmost thoughts, which may someday explode into overt action, and leave its stamp upon our character.’ Translating Clifford’s warning to our interconnected times, what he tells us is that careless believing turns us into easy prey for fake-news pedlars, conspiracy theorists and charlatans. And letting ourselves become hosts to these false beliefs is morally wrong because, as we have seen, the error cost for society can be devastating. Epistemic alertness is a much more precious virtue today than it ever was, since the need to sift through conflicting information has exponentially increased, and the risk of becoming a vessel of credulity is just a few taps of a smartphone away.
Clifford’s third and final argument as to why believing without evidence is morally wrong is that, in our capacity as communicators of belief, we have the moral responsibility not to pollute the well of collective knowledge. In Clifford’s time, the way in which our beliefs were woven into the ‘precious deposit’ of common knowledge was primarily through speech and writing. Because of this capacity to communicate, ‘our words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes of thought’ become ‘common property’. Subverting this ‘heirloom’, as he called it, by adding false beliefs is immoral because everyone’s lives ultimately rely on this vital, shared resource.
While Clifford’s final argument rings true, it again seems exaggerated to claim that every little false belief we harbour is a moral affront to common knowledge. Yet reality, once more, is aligning with Clifford, and his words seem prophetic. Today, we truly have a global reservoir of belief into which all of our commitments are being painstakingly added: it’s called Big Data. You don’t even need to be an active netizen posting on Twitter or ranting on Facebook: more and more of what we do in the real world is being recorded and digitised, and from there algorithms can easily infer what we believe before we even express a view. In turn, this enormous pool of stored belief is used by algorithms to make decisions for and about us. And it’s the same reservoir that search engines tap into when we seek answers to our questions and acquire new beliefs. Add the wrong ingredients into the Big Data recipe, and what you’ll get is a potentially toxic output. If there was ever a time when critical thinking was a moral imperative, and credulity a calamitous sin, it is now.Aeon counter – do not remove
Francisco Mejia Uribe
This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons.

Saturday, September 1, 2018

A ride in "Doc" a restored B-29


https://generalaviationnews.com/2015/10/21/docs-friends-restoration-team-to-receive-wichita-aero-club-trophy/

In July of 2018, Doc's Friends, Inc. (the non-profit group which maintains and supports the bomber) received FAA approval for passenger flights. The first ride flights took place in Madison, Wisconsin at the Heavy Bomber Weekend, July 20-22.  My husband and I have donated to Doc's Friends and he was excited to have a chance to take a ride in Doc on August 11, 2018.  If you are interested in donating or would like more information about the B-29 Doc Flight Experience, visit www.B29Doc.com/rides.

Richard rode in the navigator's position. He took a camera and I made the following video of his flight.  I had to reduce the sound of the engines by 10 decibels to make it comfortable to listen to.  Enjoy this piece of history.

 

Friday, August 31, 2018

A letter to my father from James Forrestal



The picture here is of James Forrestal, the first United States Secretary of Defense.  In World War I, he enlisted in the Navy and ultimately became a Naval Aviator.  He eventually reach the rank of Lieutenant. After the war, he returned to Wall Street and made his fortune.  He also became involved with the Democratic Party and helped Franklin Roosevelt become president.  (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Forrestal

Forrestal became Secretary of the Navy in May of 1944 and Forrestal led the Navy through the closing year of the war and the painful early years of demobilization that followed. As Secretary, Forrestal introduced a policy of racial integration in the Navy!


You might wonder why I would write about Forrestal here in my blog.  When I was going through my father's papers from the war years, I found the following letter that was sent to him from Secretary Forrestal. I was very impressed with the tone of the letter, especially in contrast to the tone of politics today.  Enjoy the letter.


 

Thursday, August 30, 2018

Zamboanga

Recently I have been reading the letters that my father sent to my mother during World War II. I was born in 1947, after he returned.  He was drafted in January of 1944 with two children under three.  Although I have not yet found the letter, I remember my mother telling me that my father was able to tell her where he was in a letter. All of the letters were censored and they were not allowed to tell anyone where they were. He wrote in a letter that he was "at the place where the monkeys have no tails". My mother said that there was a popular song of the day called "The Monkeys Have No Tails in Zamboanga". I always suspected that this was a bit racist and didn't really pursue it farther.  My father served in the Navy aboard a Landing Craft Infantry (Large). These ships transported soldiers from large troop ships to the beach.   


My father took a picture of Moret Field in Zamboanga with a sign, "They Have No Tails in Zamboanga". 

This made me curious and I made Google my friend and found the following.  First of all the background for the song.  The quote below is from Wikipedia.

"The Monkeys Have No Tails in Zamboanga" is the official regimental march of the 27th Infantry Regiment, as the "Wolfhound March". The lyrics of this official version were written in 1907 in Cuba by G. Savoca, the regimental band leader (died 1912), after the regiment was formed in 1901 to serve in the Philippines. According to Harry McClintock, the tune was borrowed from an official march of the Philippine Constabulary Band, as played at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904. One version was collected as part of the Gordon "Inferno" Collection. As with many folk songs with military origins (such as "Mademoiselle from Armentières" from World War I, the song becomes a souvenir of the campaign for those who served." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkeys_Have_No_Tails_in_Zamboanga )






Below is a video clip from the movie "They Were Expendable",



Moret Field was renamed when the Marines landed at Zamboanga on March 10 1944.  The objective was the nearby San Roque airstrip. Taking over that site, the Marines renamed it Moret Field after Lieutenant Colonel Paul Moret, a well-known Marine aviator who had died in a transport crash after taking off from Noumea, New Caledonia in 1943.


Monday, May 28, 2018

Archived Television Coverage of 9/11

Young adults who are just now graduating from High School across the United States were born around 2001. They probably never saw the TV coverage of the 9/11 attacks. They likely have seen retrospective news coverage … but not the raw coverage that older Americans have seen. I recently found a very interesting resource. “The 9/11 Television News Archive is a library of news coverage of the events of 9/11/2001 and their aftermath as presented by U.S. and international broadcasters. A resource for scholars, journalists, and the public, it presents one week of news broadcasts for study, research and analysis.” I encourage everyone to peruse the coverage provided here.

Thursday, January 11, 2018

Another interesting Internet find!


There is an awesome part of the Merriam-Webster web site which  allows you to enter a year, and it gives you a list of words that first appeared in that year. I entered my birth year (1947 - yeah I'm old) and got the following very interesting set of words (note that this is not the complete list, just the ones that I found most interesting):  apartheid, bank card, barhop, bikini, bio, chopped liver, collateral damage, counterculture, decongestant, deviancy, flight attendant, foot-dragging, foreign aid, foul up, hydrogen bomb, impactful, machine language, methadone, morph, nuts and bolts, palmetto bug, party pooper, power play, prime time, P value, schmo, significance level, slow cooker, strip search, technophobia, turboprop engine, type I error, type II error, Vietnamese, voice-over, Walter Mitty, and workaholic.

You probably learn a bit about ME by seeing what my most interesting words were.

 (The complete list is for 1947 is HERE.)

Check out YOUR year HERE.