Empathy Mining - Searching for empathy by mining multiple perspectives

Gotta Give Trump Credit for Helping to Honor His Campaign Promise to Drain the Swamp…But the Joke is on Him

January 18, 2019 By Shane Phipps

One of the most popular refrains from Donald Trump’s campaign was the slogan, “Drain the Swamp.” Since The Donald was a political outsider, he claimed he would turn Washington D.C. on its head and get rid of all the “dirty water” that has been stinking up our nation’s capital for years. I have to admit, he has sort of started to accomplish that. But the joke is on him. Slowly, that brackish muck is beginning to seep into the proverbial… Read more

Let Us Turn Our Thoughts Today to Martin Luther King

January 16, 2019 By Shane Phipps

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In 2017, we took a survey at work to find out whether we had ingrained racial biases. The test was created by Harvard University to reveal subconscious preferences seated deeply within us for one skin tone over another. As I expected, my test results revealed I had a preference for white faces. I didn’t want that to be true but, frankly, I wasn’t shocked. After all, I lived most of the first half of my life with very little contact… Read more

Go West, Young Man: One Man’s Long Strange Journey toward the Political Left

January 14, 2019 By Shane Phipps

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When you look at most maps, as you go to the left, you go west, just as when you look at the political spectrum, the further left you go, the more progressive you are. In my life, I have zig-zagged from left to right to left again. I was born in the “political west”. All of my immediate family were Democrats, my parents, and both sets of grandparents. I was born into a politically turbulent age in America–the late 60s… Read more

We Should All Look to Ruth Bader Ginsburg as an American Hero, But Some Can’t Wait for Her to Die

January 13, 2019 By Shane Phipps

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I finally got to see On the Basis of Sex, the Ruth Bader Ginsberg biopic, last night. What an inspirational film about an American icon. The tireless work done by RBG in the late 60s and early 70s to chip away at centuries of discriminatory legislation against women should place her in pantheon of America’s most cherished purveyors of social justice. She should be someone who unifies us but, alas, that is not the case. In fact, for too large… Read more

It’s Time for Elected Officials to Stop Using the Bible to Be Sworn In

January 7, 2019 By Shane Phipps

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It was a big week of change in Washington D.C. The newly elected members of Congress were sworn in, including a record 102 women–35 in the Senate and 67 in the House. The swearing in ceremony that got the most attention was that of new Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). Sinema is now the first ever openly bisexual Senator. She is now one of 10 openly LGBTQ members of Congress. Yes, times are changing in D.C., and it’s high time. Congress… Read more

Be a Johnny Cash Christian

December 17, 2018 By Shane Phipps

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I always admired Johnny Cash, but recently, my estimation of him rose significantly when I watched the Netflix documentary called Tricky Dick and the Man in Black. This excellent film chronicles Cash’s role during the very turbulent Nixon years. To me, it shone a bright light on the fact that Johnny Cash, for all his human frailties and faults, was the kind of Christian we need a lot more of. Cash grew up the son of a sharecropper in the buckle of… Read more

We Shouldn’t Criticize Trump for His Actions at the Bush Funeral, He Was Just Being Honest

December 7, 2018 By Shane Phipps

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It was a very uncomfortable scene, that row of presidents and First Ladies. Actually, it looked quite comfortable until the current president and First Lady arrived. After that, you could cut the tension with a knife. Donald and Melania Trump looked like fish out of water in that church pew. They have been taking quite a bit of heat since the funeral because they were the only ones in that row that did not take part in the liturgy of… Read more

The Last Days of Trump

December 3, 2018 By Shane Phipps

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I’m Indiana born and bred, a Hoosier, through and through. I grew up in the 1970s and 80s when the Indiana Hoosiers basketball program was a juggernaut. At the helm of that program was one of the most legendary and ultimately notorious coaches in the history of the sport, Bob Knight. For most of my childhood through early adulthood, Bob Knight was, without question, the most powerful single person in Indiana. He earned his nickname, “The General” through his iron-willed… Read more

Would Jesus Need a Gas Mask?

November 28, 2018 By Shane Phipps

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“Send us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” Those words are etched onto the most famous statue in the world, which stands in the harbor of America’s largest city. For centuries now, people have been coming to America from all over the world to escape dreadful, hopeless lives in their own homelands. They came and they made us better. Without them, we could not have grown to be what we have become. They, after all,… Read more

Is It Time for America to Move to Compulsory Voting?

November 26, 2018 By Shane Phipps

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I was sort of excited at the reports of larger than normal turnouts at the polls for the recent midterm elections. Typically, midterm elections have very low turnouts. This time was different. Some areas saw voter numbers that rivaled what would normally only be expected during a presidential election. But even with all that, as encouraging as it seemed, the overall nation wide turn out was still less 50%. That’s right, in this crazy, hyped up election year, not even… Read more