Know – Part 2
I should have known. The signs were apparent. It was the Moirai.
Coaching one of my children’s basketball teams in 1994 a certain youngster on our team was obsessed with hoops in manner like no other. A 12 year-old child who studied Street and Smith’s college basketball scouting reports each month,…..he would say to me “Coach Joe, did you know Florida State got a letter-of-intent from the #9 ranked recruit in the nation?”. My reply, “No Brian, I did not.” An extraordinary child.
He was the best player on our junior high team, and eventually a fine Division-1 athlete. As a 7th-8th grader he would regularly offer strategies to me during the heat of games,……switch defenses, design out-of-bounds plays, or suggest key substitutions. Always with the bewitching sincerity only children possess,…..and typically he was correct. Tonight if you tune into the NCAA men’s basketball championship game you’ll see him sitting next to Mark Few, Gonzaga’s head coach. I don’t know if Brian will be a head coach someday, but I have a pleasant notion he will.
To know something, we infer two kinds of knowledge: 1) direct – acquaintance or appreciation, or 2) indirect – descriptive or inferential. Yet English has one word – know. Other languages do justice to the concept of know: a) Latin cognoscere and scire, b)French connaitre and savoir, c) German kennen and wissen,……respectively #1 and #2.
Pragmatists William James and John Dewey believed “truth is what works”. Pushing anyone (especially a child) toward any habit or goal reliably fails,…..we must be pulled, and driven by inner compulsion. QI (and Brian) prove that.
Atopic dermatitis is increasingly prevalent, costly, morbid, and will likely soar s/p COVID,…..what do we know and what works? (attached review). It’s true the fertility rate is dropping worldwide,…..does pre-conception aspirin work?
Joe Kaempf, MD
District VIII Oregon Representative
Portland, OR
Volume 13, Number 12