"THERE IS ALWAYS A BETTER WAY."

Jerzy Hauptmann, PhD, Mentor, "Friend", Life-long Beacon.

Dr. Jerzy Hauptmann, Parkville, MO, Back In The Day

Those of you who have been part of the cleverly named Larry’s Letters for a while understand that I write in streaks punctuated by periods of absence. While others write daily or even multiple times per day I don’t. I have to have a purpose, a reason, a cause du jour. My absences are the result of a several things. Sometimes I have nothing more to say on a topic. Sometimes I have nothing to add, no detail left on the table, no blinding insight or contrarian view to wave around. Sometimes personal life reigns. But every now and then my desire to share my thoughts or even expertise is overcome by abject disgust with what I see and hear and read as it swirls around me. This latest absence of about a week is due to a little bit of personal life and a whole lot of abject disgust.

A bit of background.

The photo of Jerzy Hauptman was without doubt taken in his office in McKay Hall, the still venerable landmark of what is now Park University but before it became a franchise institution it was simply Park College. I was a chemistry major and Dr. Hauptmann was chairman of the Political Science Department. He and Dr. William Pivonka, Chairman of the Chemistry Department, more than any two Teachers shaped my intellectual future and for what it was worth, provided the foundation for what has become a lifetime of public health policy analysis and development.

Bill Pivonka forced me to think in a straight line and to connect the dots. When you are confronted with disparate data fragments and you have a short time to tell the story that they carry — dot connecting is essential. After all, a good story is nothing more than random dots well connected.

On the other hand, Jerzy pounded into my very thick skull this:

“There is no best way. There is always a better way.”

That sentence pair was preceded in its most notable presentation with this:

“Mr. Mazzuckelli! How many times do I have to tell you?! There is no best way!”

I finally got it. Our purpose is to search for excellence; to despise mediocrity and to always find that better way.

Dr. Hauptmann tried to convince me to change my major to PoliSci. I would have none of it. While I was flattered, I held a dim view of politics and politicians. That view has not changed.

And so today, I see Cory Booker being hailed on the Senate floor for providing 24 consecutive hours of vitriol leading to absolutely no path to a better way of controlling a debt of $37,000,000,000,000 and a government workforce that was almost doubled in Just four years by Joe Biden who pandered to the worst instincts in virtually everyone. I see Rep. Thomas Massie, R (KY) wanting desperately for us to believe that he is the smartest everything in every room but can offer no workable solution to that same debt except to say “No” to everything that he didn’t generate.

It gets worse; much worse. A feckless Congress with a democrat contingent Hell bent on destroying people, institutions, and culture just because they can and because they are bereft of ideas for a better way that will actually make America a “shinning city” on a hill but which is filled with incomprehensible hatred for anyone who tries to fix those things that are actually broken. Instead we see an angry old black woman in her role as a U.S Representative, Maxine Waters, jabbing a bony finger into the chest of a security guard who told her that she couldn’t enter a closed building without an appointment - all while she did her best to humiliate and embarrass him in front of TV cameras called out for the event. Yes, this is the same Maxine Waters who before Donald Trump was even inaugurated for his first term was calling for his impeachment AND urging the party faithful to confront conservative politicians and citizens where ever they were found.

Now we have democrats urging that same group of miscreants to destroy the property and person of Elon Musk. Why? Simply because he had the audacity to leave a horrible democrat party in the dust so that he could volunteer to help President Trump actually solve problems — not for just conservatives but for all Americans. Elon Musk understands the concept of ‘a better way’.

And then there is a hostile, thumbs on the scales cadre of District Court Judges who believe that their nonexistent executive authority out weighs that of President Trump who derives his authority from The US Constitution while they derive theirs from financial benefactors and a host of liberal elitists who surround them.

The Once Main Stream Media just isn’t worth mentioning because they have succeeded in making themselves completely irrelevant — except for this one mention. Before the ink was dry on President Trump’s tariff plan they declared it a disastrous failure.

The once great democrat party is committing corporate suicide as we watch and they don’t care as long as they can drag the rest of the world over the cliff with them. The only reason that I can come up with for this behavior is the one dot not yet connected. It is the one labeled “Spiritual Warfare”.


I will ———— maybe ———— get over this latest snit.

President Trump is trying to do something good, something redeeming while almost everyone around him seems to be trying to stop him even in the face of success.

In 1939 Poland was invaded by NAZI Germany. Jerzy Hauptmann who was born in Lodz left for Warsaw where at the age of 19 he assumed a new name and fought as a member of the Polish Home Army. In 1944 he participated in the Warsaw Uprising. He was captured and released after the war. He traveled to Innsbruck where he earned an MBA and a PhD. He eventually found his way to Parkville, Missouri. There is always a better way.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

Union, Kentucky

4 April 2025