Category: Biographical Overview

100 Years? At least! Wealth as Attitude

Writing a century apart, two authors focus on the uber-wealthy’s obvious carelessness. In 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby. And in 2025, Sarah Wynn-Williams wrote Careless People. Wynn-Williams’s title comes from Fitzgerald’s assertion that, in the 1920s, affluent Daisy and Tom Buchanan were “careless people.” 

In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby wants to reunite with Daisy whom he first met in 1917 in Louisville and fell in love with her before going to fight in World War I. Nick Carraway, Daisy’s cousin, meets the adult Gatsby on West Egg, Long Island, where Daisy now lives. He arranges for Gatsby to have tea with her because Nick knows that Daisy’s husband Tom is having an affair with Myrtle. Afterward, Gatsby continues to seek Daisy’s company with lavish parties at his mansion across the water from her home. At lunch one day, Tom spots Daisy telling Gatsby that she loves him. That afternoon, Tom drives them into Manhattan in Gatsby’s car. When they return, Daisy drives. When Myrtle sees the car, she thinks Tom is driving and rushes into the highway to stop him. Daisy hits her. Tom subsequently tells Myrtle’s husband, George Wilson, that Gatsby owns the car but not that Daisy was driving. Thinking that Gatsby has killed his wife, George shoots him.

            Afterward, Nick learns about Jay Gatsby’s past. Jay Gatz invented himself at seventeen when he began working for Cody, a wealthy man who promised to leave money to Jay in his will but did not. Soon Gatz renames himself Gatsby and finds other means to attract the desirable Daisy whose “voice is full of money.” He becomes involved in illegal stock market deals, skimming enough money to buy a mansion with a view of Daisy and Tom’s dock.

After Gatsby dies, Tom refuses to defend him or admit what happened. Nick, who sees Tom as bigoted and self-righteous, says of him that:

I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

Nick understands that the green light Gatsby watches at the end of Daisy’s deck from his mansion across the bay represents “the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . .”  And Nick also recognizes that they are all “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Wynn-Williams has observed the same quest for more money, no matter the source, in the wealthy owners and managers of Facebook. As a diplomatic representative from New Zealand at the United Nations, she thought that Facebook’s stated desire to unite people around the world was wonderful. She thought Facebook’s power would absolutely “change the world.” “Whatever Facebook decided to do—what it did with the voices that were gathering there—would change the course of human events. I was sure of it.” She spent over a year creating and “pitching” a job at Facebook to market its benefits to other governments. 

In July, 2011, she became Facebook’s Manager of Global Public Policy. By the fall of 2012, Facebook had over one billion users. Wynn-Williams planned occasions around the world where Mark Zuckerberg could meet leaders of other countries. She and Zuckerberg bonded on these trips by flying together, going to bars, eating at Michelin-starred restaurants. And while also socializing with the management team, she began to recognize their preferences. Her encounters with them revealed people very different from their public personas, especially Sheryl Sandberg, who did not espouse what she wrote in her best-seller, Lean In. 

As the team grows and other persons take leadership, Wynn-Williams raises her child and copes with sexual harassment. She also observes a shift in the culture toward money from any source. The team began allowing political posts from around the world based on their revenues without monitoring them too closely. She concludes that Facebook allowed the Myramar civil war because no one at Facebook could translate Burmese and remove the vitriolic posts the two factions flung at each other. And she knew that money from political advertisements helped to elect Trump in 2016. After all, the wealth these ads generated were feeding the coffers of Facebook’s personnel.

Although Wynn-Williams wanted to leave Facebook, she could not find another job that offered Facebook’s salary and necessary health insurance. Among many issues, Meta’s revealing of data and information to China that could harm the United States concerned her. After she accused a boss of sexual harassment, Facebook fired her for “poor performance and toxic behavior,” thereby removing her capability of resigning.

Although we do not have input from those exposed in Facebook (Meta), we can assume that Wynn-Williams has represented what she saw and heard accurately. She says, “These are still the same careless people. They’ve changed the name of the company from Facebook to Meta. But leopards don’t change their spots. The DNA of the company remains the same. And the more power they grasp, the less responsible they come.” She witnessed Facebook’s beginnings and the direction it now goes. She knows that if humanity does not address what can happen with the next technological advancement, Artificial Intelligence, mistakes like Facebook’s will expand exponentially.

So “careless people” bridge one hundred years—still trying to change themselves to become what they are not. Perhaps Zuckerberg is a reincarnation of the fictional Jay Gatsby—resembling him in taking what he thinks will allow him to achieve his goals.

Fitzgerald presents the American Dream as a myth of American capitalism. Money seems to give people power over those without. In 2025, we see many “careless” people like Jay Gatsby who “take” from others with no seeming concern over the hurt and loss they engender. That kindness and car-ing will soon prevail.

A “9” Year

The digits of 2025 add up to “9.” A “9” year in numerology signifies endings and beginnings, and according to Pam Gregory, renowned London CEO turned revered astrologer, that’s what will be happening.  In her end-of-year YouTube podcast titled “You Don’t Really Believe in Astrology, Do You?,” Gregory offers a series of themes that have already begun or are nearing their end. In Chinese astrology, 2025 is the year of the wood snake, an animal that keeps secrets but, when shedding its skin, reveals truths that change what we have long thought to be true.  Gregory thinks that 2025 will reveal numerous truths about the history and age of the earth, of humanity, and of ancient civilizations. These revelations will result from earthquakes, floods, land masses rising from the sea, and other natural events. Humans will expose additional 3-D secrets that have negatively affected quality of life around the world.

The questions “What does it mean to be human?” and “How is Earth the living consciousness of Gaia?” might lead to uncovering valuable skills from the past about healing and understanding the past value of community. More humans might begin to comprehend that heart coherence creates the toroidal field around the body that in turn affects the balance of the universe. Gregory suggests “locking on to love as our docking station” and quotes Gandhi’s statement to “be the change you want to see.” Love, compassion, avoiding judgment, and keeping positive thoughts toward self and the universe will help regain or retain integrity, humility, and the importance of being in service to others. 

Gregory’s astrological expertise undergirds her commentary about possible beginnings—or endings—that humans might experience. For example, she notes that seven of the planets will be changing signs in 2025, a situation that has not occurred in over 2500 years, happening before humans even recorded that these planets existed. Another event, according to Bibhu Dev Misra in his book, Yuga Shift, is that the Kali Yuga World Cycle is scheduled to end in 2025. The Kali Yuga or the Dark Age, as Graham Hancock’s research asserts, began in 3102 BCE, thirty-five years after the conclusion of the great battle of the Mahabharata (or the current “Great Cycle” of the Mayan Long Count Calendar in 3114 BCE). Misra’s description of this age from Hancock’s website: 

The Yuga Cycle doctrine tells us that we are now living in the Kali Yuga; the age of darkness, when moral virtue and mental capabilities reach their lowest point in the cycle. The Indian epic The Mahabharata describes the Kali Yuga as the period when the “World Soul” is Black in hue; only one quarter of virtue remains, which slowly dwindles to zero at the end of the Kali Yuga. Men turn to wickedness; disease, lethargy, anger, natural calamities, anguish and fear of scarcity dominate. Penance, sacrifices and religious observances fall into disuse. All creatures degenerate. Change passes over all things, without exception.

For further information, consult Misra’s website “Ancient Inquiries.” Researchers of many civilizations have interpreted this world cycle using complexities of calendars and astrology as their bases. If 2025 is the end of this cycle, then the ensuing years will be chaotic as humans begin their rediscovery of  virtue and return to the value of the soul rather than the emptiness of the ego.

Gregory sees two different and divergent timelines emerging in 2025. The 3-D timeline will foster greed while trying to preserve the old order of corporations (people) with power over others. She prefers ignoring this timeline because its energy has already dissipated. For us to think we have been wronged or victimized invokes those negative frequencies and energies.  The other timeline leads to unity consciousness. Old 3-D systems that will continue to collapse are religion and monarchy. Already Assad has been exiled from Syria. Both the German and French governments have suffered votes of “no confidence.” The Canadian government has financial concerns. Romania’s high court annulled its first round of voting because Russians interfered. The UK has other problems. Farmer revolts in France, Netherlands, Serbia, and the UK feature workers taking back their sovereignty. Religious hierarchies will dissipate as people become more spiritual and reject the dogma of childhood filters. Mainstream journalism with its corporate support will shrink when other more reliable news sources emerging from the collective spread in this second timeline. Pluto’s entrance into Aquarius on November 19, 2024, officially started the Age of Aquarius, signaling this shift in power that will last for twenty years. 

From July of 2025, Gregory expects radical changes in educational, judicial, medicinal, financial, and political arenas. Worshipping of celebrities will disappear as people further ignore the power of authority figures and reject illusion. The energy of compassion toward other people and animals will grow. Saturn’s influence begins to dissolve linear time with dreams becoming more potent and telepathy being more prevalent. 

Since everything is energy and frequency, more people will become concerned about the long-term effect of EMFs, satellites, wi-fi, and AI (its social and ethical questions), and increased solar flare activity with its projected peak in 2025. In 1859, the Carrington event was the strongest solar storm recorded. In recent days, the solar activity has increased, with the strongest, an X-Class solar flare, reported as recently as December 31, 2024, and the heaviest solar flare activity projected for July 2025. A storm as strong as the Carrington event of 1859 would produce an “internet apocalypse.” Governments and businesses have already tried to create preventive measures, but whether they will suffice remains unknown. 

Many positive developments will also occur. Solutions for decreasing various pollutions will emerge. Stem cell injection and platelet-rich plasma, growing new teeth, and understanding and incorporating the role of genetics in healing will prevail. Other advances through Nassim Haramein’s exploration of anti-gravity; robots facilitating surgery; the Blue Brain project to digitally map the neo-cortex; and new methods of food supply and the development of highly nutritional food through such methods as hydroponics and soil regeneration improve contemporary life.  Dr. Joe Dispenza’s science of consciousness blending mysticism and science will become more accepted. In addition to these developments, Gregory identifies other innovative projects for the betterment of the collective, often from young people, on her Facebook page.

Regardless of what the 3-D timeline projects, living “inside out” rather than “outside in” creates thoughts of love, gratitude, and peace. Loving your unique essence and authenticity helps to create a greater sense of consciousness in self and in community.

Emily Dickinson–196 years old on December 10–Why Should We Care?

Emily Dickinson transitioned long ago. She led what biographers think was a quiet, or even a solitary, life; they called her the “New England mystic.” Pearl S. Buck asserts in Advice to Unborn Novelists, “How could an actual person fit into the covers of a book? The book is not a continent, not a definite geographical measure. It cannot contain so huge a thing as an actual full-size person. Any person has to be scaled by eliminations to fit the book world.”

And biographers have “scaled” Dickinson in several ways. An overview of known situations in her life reveal that she was the middle child with a brother and a sister whose father served one term in the United States Congress and a sickly mother.  She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she examined nature in depth and refused to profess as a Christian. Her head mistress thought her doomed, and Dickinson left school before the year was finished. She had a well-stocked library in Amherst at the family home where she lived for the rest of her life. Around 1850, when she was 20, she began to write poetry although only a few poems can be dated prior to 1858. Among her mentors were Benjamin Newton, her father’s law clerk; Samuel Bowles, an editor of the Springfield Republican; and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a Unitarian minister. She sent four of her poems to Higginson, but he advised her not to publish. He seemed to recognize their originality, but he quibbled about her precise word choice. She says “I wish I were a hay” in her poem with the first and the penultimate line, “The grass so little has to do.” Higginson disapproved—she must say “the hay,” if the poem were to be published. His critique led her to allow only seven of her poems to be published while she lived. The others, she collected in small, handsewn booklets.

During the Civil War years, she wrote over 800 poems but omitted the war as a subject. After 1865, she never left home and began dressing only in white. Why? Exegeses of her poems have included suggestions that she had agoraphobia, was becoming mentally unstable, or preferred to be a recluse. She did have Bright’s disease, the archaic term for “nephritis” or inflammation of the kidneys. Toxins or autoimmune conditions cause the infection, and the side effects could possibly have kept her close to home. Whatever the reason, she made the choice not to fully integrate with her community. As a spinster (known simply as a “single woman” today), she knew that she would be making cookies and pies and feeding the sick. And if she were called upon to do those things, she would have been married to the town with no time for her soul’s purpose—the creation of her poetry.

Dickinson captures astounding concepts in few words. She adapted the quatrain with three iambic feet, much like hymn writing at the time. Contracted and precise, her poetry has originality in both content and style. She used off-rhymes and experimented with syntax. While Walt Whitman was using ten words to describe a book, for example, Dickinson continued to pare her poems to their bones. She clearly had an inner life based on experiences of reading, natural observation, and lost love (either by death or relocation). When reading her poems carefully, one realizes how much depth the seemingly simple phrases contain. She wrote “There is no Frigate like a book / To take us Lands away / Nor any Coursers like a Page of prancing Poetry—This Traverse may the poorest take / Without oppress of Toll—How frugal is the Chariot / That bears the Human soul.” (c. 1873)

She elaborates her unpretentious references by dramatically developing them for far greater import . “There’s a certain Slant of light, / Winter afternoons—That oppresses, like the Heft of Cathedral Tunes!” She says, “I taste a liquor never brewed—From tankards scooped in Pearl—Not all the Vats upon the Rhine / Yield such an Alcohol!” She comments, “I never saw a Moor– / I never saw the Sea– / Yet know I how the Heather looks / and what a Billow be. / I never spoke with God / Nor visited in Heaven– / Yet certain am I of the spot / As if the Checks were given—” She unexpectedly shifts point of view to first person when she announces, “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—The Stillness in the Room / Was like the Stillness in the Air—Between the Heaves of Storm.” But the poem captures the exact moment “then it was / There interposed a Fly—”. Another first-person poem also focuses specifically on death’s arrival (or “transition,” as many now understand death to be simply a change in frequency from the physical to the spiritual). “Because I could not stop for / Death— / He kindly stopped for me— / The Carriage held but just / Ourselves– / and Immortality.” And an 1864 poem explains the existential value of life. “A Death blow is a Life blow / to Some / Who till they died, did not / alive become– / Who had they lived, had / died but when / They died, Vitality begun.”

Finally, after her death, Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, her brother’s mistress, edited and published her poems. Not until 1955, when Thomas H. Johnson published his edition of her 1,775 poems, were they published as she wrote them. 

To me, Emily Dickinson is America’s greatest poet, the North Star for all poets succeeding her. So “Happy Birthday, Emily!” 

A Long-Deserved Tribute

The televised Memorial Day and July 4th concerts on the Washington, DC, Mall offer a variety of stage (concert and Broadway) and film celebrities. I like to watch and hear young performers that I didn’t know before and enjoy the nostalgia that the older performers offer. I’ve sung “backup” in several July 4 concerts and know the amazingly rapid and thorough preparation that New York producers and directors undergo for rehearsals and the final live performance. Several years ago, the Memorial Day Concert honored nurses who have served, especially in Vietnam. When introduced, they seemed happy and content with their current lives. Of course, smiles can cover a host of inner feelings.

Kristin Hannah’s 2024 novel, The Women, introduced me to much that I never ever considered about nurses in Vietnam. I did not watch the hit television series, Mash, because it aired (before DVRs were common) when I was often busy. 

Hannah’s wealthy protagonist, Frances (Frankie) McGrath, desperately misses her brother, and his letters from Vietnam, full of positive aspects of the war, lead her to think that if she enlists, she can join him “in country.” The Army requires no extra nursing experience for enlistees, so she joins and gets confirmation of departing for Vietnam within weeks. She arrives home after signing her papers and tells her parents. Almost immediately, the dreaded knock on the front door with Naval officers waiting on the other side, announces the heartbreaking news of her brother’s death. A helicopter crash left no remains available for his burial. In shock, she realizes that she’s already committed to serve in Vietnam.

When she arrives, clad for the entire journey in skirt, heels, stockings, and girdle, the two nurses in her hooch (lodging) roll their eyes and begin her indoctrination. In essence, with no surgical experience, she must participate in gruesome surgeries and learn how to do a tracheotomy, sew up wounds, and every other procedure—because not enough doctors or nurses are available to treat the massive trauma each day when a medical helicopter—or ten—arrive with the wounded. A nurse assesses each man, and those with stomachs missing or bullet holes in the chest or face who cannot survive are treated last. Those with the most chance to live get as much help as they can—even when they arrive carrying body parts.

Frankie learns fast and excels while beginning what become life-long friendships with her roommates—one black and one white. That she, and those like her, survive, sometimes working twenty-hour days, is remarkable.

When Frankie returns to the United States, dressed in her uniform, bystanders spit at her, and taxi drivers refuse to drive her. Her family and friends refuse to discuss her experience, and being over-qualified for menial nursing positions eventually depresses her. Then the Veterans’ hospital denies her treatment because “no women served in Vietnam.” She eventually seeks the ocean for solace. Only after being rescued does she get treatment. Other personal betrayals also affect her until she eventually finds her way. Throughout, her two roommates appear to help and heal her.

This book surprised me. The vivid pictures of suffering and the need for those who tried to heal their own traumas from assisting the wounded by partying “hard,” just hadn’t resonated with me. I have been one of those like her high school friends who hadn’t bothered to consider how much the nurses had sacrificed of their own psyche and soma to save the many young men who didn’t know for what they were fighting.

If you have lacked proper admiration for someone who has represented the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, read The Women. See how we as a collective have blamed leaders for their choices but not offered compassion to whose who have served “in country”—for whatever reasons. It’s time to offer long-denied tributes for those who have courageously risked their own lives to save as many of their countrymen (and sometimes, their enemies) as possible. 

Wow! Part 2

That we can affect the universe’s quantum field with merely our thoughts is both frightening and empowering. Science has shown that we are all entangled and united in this quantum field. In 2012, scientists validated the field of energy that underlies all existence. The conclusion was that the field is entangled, holographic, and fractal. In fact, 3 scientists received the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics for proving entanglement, more familiarly known as the “butterfly effect”—a butterfly fluttering on one side of the world can affect the air on the other side of the world.

Braden notes that each of us is our own quantum field. As matter in the universe, we are physically separate, but energy unites and entangles us. Every particle in the universe reflects the whole—we are the quantum field. If you picture the mirrors on a disco ball, you might have an idea of what that means. Each one of us is a tiny square mirror, made of the same stuff as all of the other tiny mirrors. We are glued at minuscule angles different from each of the other mirrors. Thus, we are all separate, but we form a whole that functions as one object, glistening in the light it reflects.

Psychological positivity in our energy often encourages others and gives them permission to be successful. Braden mentions Roger Bannister’s 4-minute mile run in 1954, the first ever, after runners had been attempting and failing for years. But within six weeks of his achievement, another racer broke that time. Others have overcome that psychological block so that by 2022, nearly 1800 had broken this barrier. When we emit success and love into the  quantum field, we fill the field with what we would want others to do for us. Braden suggests, “Be the best version of self because we love ourselves enough to be the best we can be.” He says that we have always been “wired to thrive,” and only our thoughts thwart our success.

We can transcend our perceived limitations through our intuition—that divine part of us that we want to share with others. “We must become the things in the field that we want. We can’t feed the field what we don’t want.” And we must accept that we are “divine.” And when we accept this state, we will appreciate the beauty we “live with,” “live by,” and “upon which we base our lives.”

For more information about Gregg Braden, consult his website, greggbraden.com.

For more information about Global Oneness, see Humanitystream.org.

Wow!

Did you know that our bodies emit enough voltage to light a 100W electric light bulb—or more when we’re exercising? The body, according to Gregg Braden, houses 50 trillion cells. Each cell contains 100 trillion atoms. Every cell has input and output photons of light, enough for each body to generate an electrical potential of nearly 3.5 trillion volts. When we enter a room where people are gathered, we are all separate bodies, but our energy interacts with the energy of all the others in the room. We become one, and as our energy expands outside the room, it joins energy throughout the universe. We control the emotional state of our energy. If we want to live in a world of peace and love rather than fear and frustration, we must transmit a loving energy into the quantum field. Then with other positive energies, we can become this world of peace and love we desire.

Humanity’s Team, a streaming platform, espouses Global Oneness for everyone on the planet by the year 2040. During this year’s Global Oneness Summit, the founder Steve Farrell interviewed Gregg Braden. Braden, a trained structural geologist PhD, began his career working on the Strategic Defense Initiative during the Reagan era. While in this position, trying to conceive the necessary weapons to win the “Cold War,” he decided to vacation in Egypt. There, he wanted to see the sunrise from Mt. Sinai. What he experienced was a scene so beautiful that he wondered “If I left this world today, would I feel complete with my life?” When his answer was “no,” he decided to quit his job and do only what would fulfill a “yes” answer for him. He became a best-selling NY Times author, a scientific researcher and seeker, a musician, a speaker, a teacher. He refused any invitation to which he could not respond “yes.” Since then, he daily praises “the Beauty I live with, the Beauty I live by, and the Beauty upon which I base my life.” 

In his interview, Braden asserted that we, as humans, have been taught since early childhood that we are not “worthy,” that we are not “enough.” He disagrees. He calls humans “soft technology” who are much more than we have been led to believe. When compared to “hard” technology (the computer), the human brain exceeds it in capability, 100 million times more efficient than a computer chip. (After all, our human genome has never changed. All technology today comes from human sources.) He references a Stanford study at the Salk Institute comparing brain synapses to a microprocessor. The computer is, of course, faster. However, a chip’s material, silicon, restricts its ability. It can never attain any greater capability than that of the material’s capacity. The human brain has unlimited possibility. When the brain’s neurons reach an alleged apex, they morph and adapt so that they open a new dimension and expand past that prior perceived limit.

In 1991, scientists identified the neural network in the heart. Further research reveals that coherence between our brains and our hearts helps spread positive energy. Scientists have measured the magnetic field of the heart and discovered that it extends 5-8 feet out from the body. Since energy has no boundaries, why does this field extend only 8 feet? The answer: the machine can only measure out to 8 feet. Therefore, the energy potentially extends much further into the universe. How can we ascertain that this energy has quality? Braden asks, “Do we love ourselves enough to embrace the truth of being human today and the responsibility that comes with it?” We need to decide what we want the world to be and project that world ourselves by directing our own biology. We need to expand our emotion to love rather than contract it in fear.

Reducing stress increases our immune responses. If we slow our breathing, we can bring coherence (reduced stress) between our heart and our brain. The breathing is simple: slowly inhale four counts, stop the breath briefly at the top of the inhale, and then exhale 8 counts. Such breathing triggers the parasympathetic response by affecting the Vagus nerve and relieving bodily tension. It also increases measurable heart rate variability. The more variability we have, the more resilience we have when things change. (One simple addition to aid this process is to think of something for which you have gratitude.) The breathing also affects DNA. The protein chromatin sheafs our DNA. Spooling winds our DNA and controls its elasticity.  When not wound too tightly, DNA spools more efficiently. Scientists now know that our body’s stress level strongly affects the tightness of the spooling. Less stress positively affects DNA function. And we can reduce our mechanical stress, regardless of its source, with only three minutes a day of breathing into coherence. If we chose diets without added chemicals or food prepared properly and try not to breath toxic air, we can further contain molecular stress. When we began treating our bodies, our temples, the way they should be treated and listen more to our hearts, we can retain our power. The question we must ask is “what power have we given away to fear?” Each of us can only answer that question for ourselves.

(To be continued)

An Inspiration

How and why people change during a lifetime can be illuminating. Evolving can be exciting, challenging, chaotic, and, simply, scary. What’s important is that it happens.

The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis decided, after a career selling Kodak copiers, to attend Princeton Seminary and become a minister. As the first Black senior clergy at Manhattan’s Middle Church (established in 1628), she has led a multicultural, progressive congregation through its individual trials and an especially public fire. One of her seven books, Fierce Love, espouses living life, exactly as she says—“fiercely.”

Dr. Lewis divides her book into three sections—“You,” “You and your Posse,” and “You and the World.” She enlarges each of those with three chapters, each titled with a facet of her philosophy:

1. “Love Yourself Unconditionally—It all starts here.”
2. “Speak Truthfully. It will set you free.”
3. “Travel Lightly. Downsize the burdens you carry.”
4. “Show Kindness and Affection Wildly. Make fierce love real.”
5. “Confront Boldly. Transform your circumstances with Moral Courage.”
6. “Think Inclusively. They’re your people, too!”
7. “Live Justly. Choose fairness and equality every day.”
8. “Find Joy Purposefully. It is the water of life.”
9. “Believe Assiduously. Have faith in love.”

In a recent interview with Dr. Lewis, the Rev. Dr. Bill Kerley, from the United Methodist Church in Houston, asked her how she could have hope in these turbulent contemporary times. She has seen many different sides of humanity, even within her own family’s negative response to Caucasians, including her two white husbands. Yet, she still believes that we all need each other, and thoughtful awareness will one day infuse all of us.

She concludes her book with these words: “I want to convert you, to convince you, to proselytize you. I want you to believe with me in our shared capacity to make a better life and a better world, together. I hope you’ll believe assiduously in love, in the fiercest love of all.”

If I lived near her church, I would consider joining her congregation. After all, such a positive message, spiritual rather than “religious,” would be both appealing and refreshing. Generally, all we need is joy and love to survive—and thrive. . . . Search for her on Google to see how much she has accomplished for the communities with which she has been connected.


Hedy Lamarr

Who was Hedy Lamarr, and why should I want to know?

Well, first answer: because of her, I was wringing my hands in distress yesterday when my wifi router quit working.

Second answer: without the trajectory of her life—father who interested her in how things worked; gorgeous “trophy” wife sitting quietly at Viennese dinner tables listening to Nazi sympathizers discuss weaponry and torpedoes; meeting Louis B. Mayer in London (after escaping her possessive husband in 1937); becoming friends in Los Angeles with aeronautics engineer Howard Hughes; and afterward encountering avant-garde musician, George Antheil, we might not have the basis for wifi, cellphones, GPS, or Bluetooth.

Labeled “the most beautiful woman in the world,” during the 1930s, Lamarr hid genius behind her flawless face and focused on inventing the one thing that dramatically shapes our lives today. Richard Rhodes, in his biography, Hedy’s Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, reveals her creation. Throughout her cherished acting career, she entertained herself at night not by going to Hollywood fetes but by creating practical items at her home engineering table—a used-tissue dispenser, a light-up dog collar, a swiveling shower seat for the elderly, and much later, a “driver-friendly” traffic light. But they are among her minor creations.

Discussions with Antheil revealed their mutual love of invention. German torpedoes that sank American ships carrying many children and George’s own brother dismayed the two. American torpedoes, however, often missed their targets. Antheil had coordinated six player pianos in an early composition, and Lamarr understood weaponry. They realized that remote control of torpedoes without enemy interference was vital. Antheil’s coordinating of six player piano rolls became the underlying concept to controlling communication between transmitters and receivers. They designed “frequency hopping,” a method by which remote transmitters and receivers could randomly change their radio frequencies in tandem, thus denying the Germans detection or interception. 

The National Inventor’s Council approved their invention, connected them with a Cal Tech engineer, and granted their patent for frequency hopping in 1942. When they approached the Navy with their invention, the Navy’s disdainful response was that they couldn’t “put a player piano in a torpedo.” Even though the idea worked, the Navy’s refusal to implement their  patent placed it with other discarded inventions in a “top-secret” file.

When looking for a secure way to communicate with submarines in the 1950s, a Sylvania engineer discovered their expired patent for frequency hopping, realized its value, and developed it. During the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, US warships used frequency hopping to prevent Soviets from signal jamming. The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) fully accepted it and began requiring it as the way to secure radio communication. During a time of limited radio signals, frequency hopping became the standard for connecting car phones before graduating to wifi, cell phones, GPS, and Bluetooth.

Not until 2014 did some engineers realize that Hedwig Eva Kiesler, one of the patent’s two owners, was none other than Hedy Lamarr. They subsequently nominated her to receive the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award in 1997. Then the Invention Convention’s Bulbie Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award acknowledged her. Not willing to appear in public at her age and jeopardize her reputation as “most beautiful woman in the world,” she asked her son to accept her award. She never received any money for her work and commented that “It’s about time” for her recognition. She transitioned in 2000 but was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014. Now she holds the title of “the mother of Wi-Fi,” and by fiat, of cellphones, GPS, and Bluetooth.

Can you imagine life without the inventive genius of Hedy Lamarr? And people thought she was just an extraordinarily pretty face, someone in Lamarr’s words, who only had “to stand still and look stupid.”