Looking back about five years ago to 2013, I wrote about the betterment of mankind by trying make a New Year’s resolution to revisit tolerance and acceptance in our lives. I guess we haven’t come too far? In fact, I would say we have regressed.
As I pointed out in the article in 2013, “The average person is being bombarded by self-appointed “culture experts” who are judging what can be said and what can’t be said. Last time I looked, this was the United States. There are many cultures, religions, and many different perspectives here. They are supposed to blend together in a melting pot and not stick out like ingredients in a salad. Your perspective can be presented because of the Constitution and Freedom of Speech, but don’t think it is automatically mainstream or that it should be immediately adopted by everyone.”
What has happened to us as a society? Some people still have not accepted the results of the 2016 Election and are resistant to change, resistant to new ideas, resistant to a shift in policies, and resistant to working together to get things done. We have become more polarized, but that polarization started long before the 2016 Election.
There is no word like “compromise” in any civil discourse anymore. People are discouraging public discourse on ideas and concepts if the speaker does not fit their belief system or their perspective on issues. What happened to Freedom of Speech?
FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS OK – ONLY IF YOU AGREE WITH ME
“If you agree with me, I will let you speak, but if your ideas do not mesh exactly with mine, I will stop you from speaking.” This is the attitude shown and is what is happening on many college campuses, and it does not promote any type of broadening one’s perspective.
Funny how it is not just a group of students. Faculty and administrations on some of these campuses are just as intolerant as those radicals coming on campus to disrupt a presentation that they do not agree with. I always thought higher learning was supposed to promote the ability to share different perspectives and develop a broader perspective by having in-depth discourse on ideas?
This intolerance is not only evident on some college campuses, it is evident in other parts of society, including Congress. From our outside perspective, we hear,”We don’t want to discuss this endeavor.” by the opposition. And then, after it is voted on, we hear, “We didn’t have any input on this idea. The opposition did this all by themselves. We don’t agree.”
It’s time to cut out the childish attitudes, the chronic intolerance, and start working together to forge ahead.
There should be some positive projects that everyone in Congress can work on AND have their constituents benefit from. I have talked about an infrastructure project that can benefit many states, industries, companies, and even farmers.
MISSISSIPPI RIVER LOCKS PROJECT – MAYBE A PROJECT TO UNIFY MANY PEOPLE?
I have written several articles on the Trillion Dollar Infrastructure Project that Congress is starting to review. What should they prioritize and what could benefit a huge amount of people across many states.
The Mississippi River has a series of locks that barges carrying all different types of products need to go through to get to the Port of New Orleans. These locks that were built in the 1930s are totally obsolete and are holding up shipping from many states. The faster things can get shipped down the river, the cheaper their costs are. This benefits us as a nation, keeping our costs for products down..
We depend on the Mississippi River to ship over 600 Billion tons of products annually. The products include agricultural products to aggregates to coal and oil. From this article, I recently wrote, here are some observations:
Many industries across many states depend on the Mississippi to ship their products out to the rest of the world. Farmers also depend on shipping products out for world export as well as domestic use.
“The agricultural products and the huge agri-business industry that has developed in the Mississippi basin produce 92% of the nation’s agricultural exports.”
With all the intolerance on so many issues and ideas, maybe we can get Congress to focus in on a project like this which transcends political parties and focuses on doing something good for a good, diverse portion of the United States.
If we can find common ground in supporting a large project like this, maybe we can find common ground on many other areas that just require some compromise and not be chronically blocked by hardcore opposition. (from either side)

Bidding Is Closed.
I did interviews with the top CRE execs and world class economists and heads of banks to try and figure out how to move ahead in a world where money went from being easy to becoming almost impossible to get.
I talked with hard money lenders and so many others and at some point realized that the market would take more time than we first thought, to come back.
CREPIG grew quickly and became one of the top 10 CRE sites nationally, we competed with several sites and although we never reached numbers like Loopnet, we did do very well.
At that point I made CREPIG into a site where you could post your deals and these deals were shared with the 5000+ on this site, plus an additional 40,000 across CRE social media.
I have paid hundreds a year to keep this open and free for you the CRE public, but I came down with stage IV cancer and have had to stop spending time I did not have on providing free services to an industry that barely uses them.



Hello, I am
Rick has a couple of events every year called 


Expert Insights
This is an important date for us all. The world seems to be falling apart around us as times are tough all over the world, but the United States still stands for freedom for so many around the world.







The Startup Toolbox Presents
Join us for an unscripted, fun, conversation and Q&A session with not-one- but TWO Shark Tank winners- Entrepreneur / Inventor of the ShowNo Towel- Shelly Ehler and Dr. Edna Ma of BareEase as they come and share their experience Before, During and After appearing on Shark Tank.

Panel Facilitator: Rey Ybarra
Edna Ma, MD
Shelly Ehler
Charming Allure by DANI by Daniel K
25th Annual Night of 100 Stars
I have worked at or covered this event for over 4 years. It is the hottest night and the biggest red carpet, except for the Oscars themselves. Oscar night is special in Hollywood and Beverly Hills as all the stars that do not go to the Oscars come out to the viewing parties.
Announcing The Norby Walters 25th ANNUAL
Peter Facinelli (Twilight), Arielle Kebbel, LeeAnn Rimes, Kevin McKidd (Grey’s Anatomy), NFL’s Terrell Owens, Kenny (Babyface) Edmonds, Maggie Lawson (Psych), James Tupper, Jennie Garth, Dianne Ladd, Garry Marshall, Marisol Nichols, Richard Dreyfuss, James Pickens, Bethany Joy Lenz(One Tree Hill), Michael Nouri, Bruce Boxleitner, Armand Assante, Sean Patrick Flannery, Bo Derek, Estella Warren, Lena Headey, Kristanna Loken, John Corbett, Joe Pantoliano, Dolph Lundgren, Shirley Jones, Marty Ingels( New Girl), Tia Carrere, Robert Carradine, Annie
Wersching(star of “24”), Richard Grieco, Bryan Cranston, John Ratzenberger, Autumn Reeser, Missi Pyle (The Artist), James Pickens, Nicholle Tom, Patrick Warburton, Michelle Lee, Diane Baker, Gloria Allred , Jackie Johnson ( CBS on air personality and top 10 US weather girl) , Sean Astin, Krista Allen, Ed Asner, Jason Alexander, Powers Boothe, Daniel Baldwin, Maggie-Q (Nikita), Jermaine Jackson, CCH Pounder, Timothy Busfield, Renee Taylor, Joe Bologna, Susan Blakely, Keith Carradine, David Hasselhoff, James Cromwell (The Artist), Stephen Collins, Michael Chiklis, Joanna Cassidy, Kevin Dillon, Traci Lords, Lolita Davidovich, Robert Davi, Bruce Davison, Lou & Carla Ferrigno, Frances Fisher, Lorraine Toussaint, Dave Foley, Jon Favreau, Joely Fisher, Robert Forster, Jeff Garlin, Judd Nelson, Barry Newman, James Darren, Carla Gugino, Lou Gossett Jr., Dennis Haysbert,
Dule Hill, Cheryl Hines, Monty Hall, Harry Hamlin, Marilu Henner, Ken Howard, Traci Lords, Richard Karn, Martin Landau, Vincent Spano, Ron Livingston, Hal Linden, Richard Lewis, Sharon Lawrence, Michael Lerner, Matthew Modine, Chris McDonald, Camryn Manheim, Dylan McDermott, Jesse Metcalfe, Ming-Na, Kevin Nealon, Danielle Panabaker, Kevin Pollak, Stefanie Powers, Michelle Phillips, Lou Diamond Phillips, Freddie Rodriguez, Jason Ritter, Brenda Dickson (Young & Restless)Brande Roderick, Adam Rodriguez, Jenna Jameson, Pat Richardson, Courtney Stodden(Big Brother /Couples Therapy), Doug Hutchinson(The Green Mile), Fred Savage, John Schneider, Bai Ling, Tony Shaloub(Monk), Kevin Sorbo, Rob Schneider, Amber Tamblyn, Mimi Rogers, Jennifer Tilly, Regina Taylor(The UNIT), Sharon Gless(Burn Notice), Gary Busey, also the GEICO Caveman, Lorraine Toussaint(Body of Proof) Director-John Singleton, Kim Delaney, Emmanuelle Chriqui (Entourage), Hill Harper(CSI NY), Adrienne Maloof (Beverly Hills Housewives),Oksana Grigorieva(singer,Mel Gibson’s Ex),Madeline Zima(Californication), Julian McMahon(Charmed), c. Thomas Howell(Amazing Spiderman, Ron Masak(Murder She Wrote, Estella Warren (Planet of the Apes), Englebert Humperdink, and over 100 more. ( Updates to follow as RSVP’s arrive)
Kathy Mondotte is Making Wheelchairs and Walkers Fashionable with Wheelchair Solutions
Rebecca Crownover and her new children’s book “Texas Farm Girl”

Kevin Sorbo about The Movie Alongside Night and Giving Kids a Better Education














I got the honor or interviewing Samantha in 2012 at a GBK event for the Oscars. 































Watch this Video on A Better Way To Fight Harmful Free Radicals
