Save your fork. There's pie.

An idea called multi-level selection posits that behaviors are as influential as genes in determining the survival of a species. There’s this guy David Sloan Wilson, a major proponent of the theory, who says, “Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.” Here’s a pinhead’s view of how that works: if you eat all the food, including what’s on your kids’ plates, you will be fat and happy and live a long life. But your tribe will die out. Whether or not this has already occurred within the human species is an open question.

February 1st is always cut 'n' paste day!

From the frozen North, a request for some creative thinking around Milwaukee's “image marketing and brand identity.” Here are my suggestions:

Top 10 Milwaukee branding statements:

10: Like Minneapolis, with cheese!

9: Milwaukee: did you order this weather?

8: We used to brew beer.

7: Why is this lake named after the wrong state?

6: Small town thrills, big city charm.

5: Up to 15 days of sunshine every year!

4: Hey! Who remembers the Pacer?

3: If Chicago was New York, we'd be Jersey.

2: At least we're not Cleveland.

1: Milwaukee: A great city with a great motto.

Highway to Hell

Let's skip right past the hybrid and electric cars and start believing in magical ones. The only way to make a green automobile is with a coat of paint. See, 50% of our electrical energy comes from coal-fired plants – that means strip mining and mountaintop removal. Calling it clean energy is like pretending store-bought meat is slaughter-free. Plus, getting lithium out of the ground is a dirty process in itself – in some mining regions, the extraction process uses up two-thirds of the drinkable water. And why do electric cars need all that lithium? Simple. Their batteries are bipolar.

The resale value's gonna be nil

Remember that WC Fields movie where he's swerving the getaway car wildly all over the road and the passenger says gimme the wheel and he yanks it off the steering column and hands it over? Government is a lot like that. Some people thought Obama was going to be the messiah and some were afraid he was all four horsemen of the apocalypse. They drew Hitler mustaches on him or compared him to everyone from Lincoln to Wilson. But seriously, here's a smart, pragmatic guy surrounded by party hacks fighting over the helm when the rudder's busted. He's America's Gorbachev.

Fanny pack! Camera! Action!

Here's a great way to have big family fun without spending a lot of cash: be a tourist in your own hometown! When was the last time you rode the elevator to the highest floor of your area's tallest building? Okay, maybe you work there... what's important is that sense of wonder and discovery. Try this: go to Chi Chi's or Olive Garden and pretend you've never heard of any of these exotic foreign dishes before – get your server to explain foods like spaghetti or taco salad. Act all excited and curious. Then when your food comes, ask for chopsticks.

Post-modern? Try post-Copernican.

Some folks want to get back to nature and fix things back the way they used to be, which if you think about it the way things used to be is the direct cause of the ways things are right now. How can you call yourself a progressive thinker if you share with folks like Ptolemy and Augustine of Hippo a belief in the fundamental schism between humans and the rest of creation? As far as I'm concerned a bowl of organic granola, a nice fresh Twinkie, an anthill, and the Large Hadron Collider are all equally products of nature.

I've been through heck, I tell you. Absolute heck.

When we study the lives of the great, we learn how their destinies were shaped by painful, calamitous events that threatened their very existence, brought tremendous hardship, and sculpted from the shapeless clay of consciousness a fundamentally new perception of reality. I've just been through something like this myself. While I don't want to compare my severe headcold with the experiences of men like Nelson Mandela or Elie Wiesel, I need you to understand that I have been very, very congested. And I have concluded that Jerry Bartz of Gems TV is the finest broadcast talent working in America today.