Month: February 2020

Coffee Is A Stimulant, Not An Alarm Clock

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Coffee works best when used to help us get stuff done quicker. Waking up really isn’t one of them.

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So, the alarm goes off, and you hit snooze. It goes off five minutes later and you hit snooze again. It rings a third time, but now you have to get up. You stumble out of bed, barely remembering who you are and head straight for the coffee maker — after any other necessities.

You finish the first cup, but barely notice any difference in your mood or alertness. The second cup comes and goes, and it seems to be getting better. But you still have trouble carrying a conversation. So, you go for your third and final cup with breakfast. That does the trick — after a  whole hour of being awake.

You probably know someone who doesn’t want to talk — and whom you don’t want to talk to — until they get their first cup of Joe. The problem, however, is that they are simply not a morning person, and the need for coffee is an excuse to act groggily. Notice, they’re never much better after they’ve had their first cup, or third.

Drinking coffee first thing in the morning is a bit of a habit for most Americans. Forty-four percent drink it with breakfast — myself included. But for those of us who drink it religiously, it helps to ask what we’re expecting it to do for us.

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The Battle That Made Francis Drake Spain’s Worst Nightmare

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Depending on one’s historical sympathies, Sir Francis Drake is one of history’s many characters who was either great or infamous. To the English, he was a daring, successful patriot. To the Spanish, however, he represented everything to hate about lawless, Protestant aggression and the rising sea power to the north.

Queen Elizabeth, I knighted him after he circumnavigated the globe—the first Englishman to do so. The Spanish, meanwhile, dubbed him El Draque, or “The Dragon,” for the brazen piracy he carried out on that trip and countless others.

Drake contributed more than anyone to the war in which England famously defeated the Armada in 1588. But mere patriotism and fear of Catholicism didn’t drive him to harass the Spanish. For Drake, it was personal. One battle drove him mad with vengeance and convinced him he could no longer trust or trade with the Spanish.

In 1568, Drake was a 28-year-old captain in a seven-vessel fleet led by his cousin John Hawkins. This was his second slave-trading voyage to the Spanish colonies. The crew had recently unloaded its cargo in Cartagena, and the ships were weighed down with gold, silver, and all types of jewels.

During Hawkins’s most recent voyage, he and his crew had been feted as heroes by court and countrymen alike. He had also made a 60 percent profit and become highly wealthy overnight. The haul he carried now promised to dwarf his previous journeys.

On the way back to England, however, a violent storm hit the fleet off the coast of Cuba and drove them into the coast of Florida, badly damaging Hawkins’s ship, the Jesus of Lubeck. Running low on supplies and unsure if the Jesus of Lubeck would make it back to England, Hawkins decided to risk landing at the nearest port, San Juan de Ulua, off Veracruz.

This created considerable concern because the English were trading with Spanish colonists on the black market. Spain’s King Phillip II interpreted the Treaty of Tordesillas—which divided the world between the Spanish and Portuguese—to mean that no other nation should colonize or trade in the Americas.

Three years earlier, the Spanish had massacred a French Huguenot colony near present-day Jacksonville, Florida for being there and being Protestant.

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No, Your Kid Can’t Be Whatever He Wants When He Grows Up

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One of the saddest facts of American society is the unrealistic expectations American parents, for decades, have set for their children. Much of this stems from their living vicariously through their kids.

You know, the “Johnny, you can be whatever you want when you grow up if you put your mind to it.”

Or, “In America, if you can dream it, you can do it.”

Although the United States indeed offers more opportunities than most countries, it’s important to be realistic.

If a child has parents under six feet, his likelihood of becoming a professional basketball player is diminished. It’s not impossible but is highly unlikely.

But physical handicaps alone don’t determine a person’s career limitations. Even in America, who a child’s parents are and what they do matters career-wise. If you’re a waiter, and your spouse is a mechanic, your kid is probably not going to become a doctor, lawyer, or a professor.

We all know the inspirational stories of people raised in poverty who went on to make millions. But that’s not the norm, and if you look at the exceptions, these millionaires or successful professionals didn’t come upon their millions or professions by setting out from an early age to succeed.

They often started out doing something similar to what their parents did. They then used their instinctive know-how, work ethic, and practical sense their hardworking parents taught them to start businesses, make wise investments, or achieve professional success later in life — often at the expense of their health and relationships.

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