In This Episode: Why isn’t there more Uncommon Sense? Because the default for humans is to resist change. Uncommon Sense requires your mind to be open to new ideas, to be convinced that “the way we’ve always done it” might not be the best way. Yet humans resist change even when sick and dying, and the change might save their lives. Don’t believe me? Then you haven’t heard this story.
Medical
053: Leveraging Uncommon Sense
In This Episode: Sometimes people are forced into thinking up solutions because of an emergency. But when they practice Uncommon Sense, they can leverage their thinking into, once in awhile, saving millions of lives. This is the story of a married couple who did just that.
045: Right Place, Right Time
In This Episode: Sure, being in the right place at the right time helps. But it often takes Uncommon Sense to step back to consider the bigger picture, and what the implications of a profound event might be. This is the story of how someone I knew as a young man did just that, but rather than take advantage and get rich, he leveraged his luck to help millions. It’s an amazing story.
042: Pushing the Uncommon Sense Envelope
In This Episode: Uncommon Sense facilitates some pretty out-of-the-box thinking that not only improves the thinker’s life, but sometimes improves or even saves countless other lives. Doug Lindsay’s story pushed the envelope pretty far — there really is no limit to Uncommon Sense, as you’re about to hear for yourself.
032: “Give Me a Shot at It. I’m an Engineer”
In This Episode: The story of a man who wasn’t satisfied with mere success. He took Uncommon Sense to a new level in order to help others, yet refused to get rich from it.
024: Extending Thinking Beyond Humans
In This Episode: Thinking about thinking that might occur in machines — for the betterment of humanity.
Luke Perry and Strokes
Actor Luke Perry Died today after suffering a “massive stroke” on February 27. I was alerted by Megan, my 39-year-old niece. She enjoys reading her local Crime Blotter (and posting funny entries she sees), and she, her dad, and I have a text group where we try to scoop each other on reporting about someone interesting who died. Now and then, I even get a good Honorary Unsubscribe out of it.
Allergic to Obliviocy
Today’s Randy’s Random Meme is My Take on recent headlines, like “Disregarding Health Warnings, Arizona Lawmakers Move Forward On Vaccine Exemptions For Kids” and “Texas Lawmaker Hays He’s Not Worried About Measles Outbreak Because of ‘Antibiotics’” and “Measles Returned To Costa Rica After Five Years By French Family Who Had Not Had Vaccinations” — which are all recent.
016: Barking Up the Right Tree
In This Episode: Dogs may or may not have Uncommon Sense, but how its owner reacts to a dog might be an interesting indicator of their thinking ability. A really cool story.
014: Expect the Unexpected
In This Episode: Just how much impact one person can have by refusing to be stymied by those who don’t have it. Because he did that, you might owe this guy your life.
013: How ADD Made TRUE Possible
In This Episode: Is ADD/ADHD a curse? No: when properly managed, it provides “superpowers” that are an absolute gift! It actually helped me in my job at NASA, and then in going solo as an entrepreneur.
008: The Man with the Golden Arm
In This Episode: I had heard about the man I’m going to tell you about several times over the past several years, but I didn’t know the whole story of “The Man with the Golden Arm”. It’s a bit of a medical mystery and, as I researched all of this to understand what the heck it was that he did, I discovered he started displaying Uncommon Sense even as a child.
007: A Second Opinion
In This Episode: A very different kind of episode: a story that’s not from the newsletter, but rather one that’s too long and complex to be shortened to 100ish words plus a pithy tagline. It’s an amazing story of despair, hope, and renewal, with a wild twist at the end.
Fashion Accessory
The story just isn’t enough: you want to see the photo Ashley Glawe (“glah-WE”) posted on Facebook from the emergency room. But first the story, from True’s 5 February 2017 issue:
Medical Mystery
One of My Most Memorable Medical Mysteries as a medic was a call from a man for his 50ish-year-old wife. On arrival I asked, What’s going on? “She’s just not herself,” he said. Has she been ill? “She had been talking to her doctor who thought she either had a kidney stone, or a bladder infection. She has an office appointment tomorrow.”
Gasping for Breath …Still
The Two Lead Stories this week (the “asthma stories”) were by far the most-suggested stories by readers recently. I think every one of them just suggested one or the other, and they probably didn’t know about the other. The two stories, which happened about a week apart, and about 165 miles apart, are pretty amazing together. Let’s start with the two stories, in True’s 24 January 2016 issue:
Sometimes You Lose One
I was taking Kit to a medical appointment in town (in the next county), and there was an ambulance call. Not for us, so we continued on. Then there was a second call. Also not for us, but that meant both ambulances are now out.
The Very, VERY Beginning
My buddy “Jawn” from my NASA days is one of those natural social networkers. I don’t mean on Facebook, I mean in real life, and throughout his whole life. Several of his friends are on a mailing list together; I know them all in Real Life myself, and they’re all great guys. One, Hy, sent out a joke to the group today about men and power tools.
“I Was Not In an Accident”
Another story that really needs the photo to drive it home (or to work).
A reader sent me the story, and I said “Eh, kind of humdrum” — until I saw what the driver said, which made the story worth telling. And then I saw the photo, and knew it was truly True fodder.
Psychic Pay
I write True to make a living, yes, and it’s gratifying that enough people support the publication to make that happen. But there’s another reason, too: I want to change the world just a little bit, on both a micro and a macro scale.