Protecting the American Military

THE AMERICAN SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, Ash Carter, has enjoined the high brass of all branches of the military to generate ideas concerning how best to protect military personnel at recruiting stations and on military bases. Ironic, somehow, looking for ways to protect the military. If one didn't know better, one might have thought that it was the military's job to protect not only itself, but the American people as well. But what do I know? Presumably ideas will filter upward in all branches trough the ranks of the senior officers, all the way to the Secretary's desk. Then, Mr. Carter will, we assume, sift through said ideas, and select from among the best. And who knows what he/we/they will come up with? Perhaps the Air Force will suggest hovering helicopters, assigned to behave like stereotypical "helicopter parents", floating guard in midair above their charges. Special forces might suggest camouflaging all service members in eye black, berets, and sunglasses, with the hope that an potential terrorist will mistake them for a motorcycle gang off duty. Naval officers might float the idea of surrounding all military installations with shark infested moats. Marine Corps? They might argue for yelling like hell, as scare tactic. Rumor has it that the Defense Secretary himself, a person of surpassing perspicacity, is considering arming people he terms "qualified defense department personnel", whomever that might be, with sidearms of some sort. One might have thought that any member of any of the "armed" services would fit that description, but evidently not, and again, what in hell do I know? Not much, it would seem, but, actually, I do have an idea. Why not train every member of all four branches of the military, all the members of all the "armed" forces, on the proper use of weapons, handguns in particular, and then issue each service member a handgun, and permit all personnel to carry said weapons, with the hope that each member can thus self protect? Maybe a clip fed nine millimeter, or something of the sort. Hell, even BB guns would be better than nothing. This could be done with an accompanying proscription against unloaded air gun play fights and selfies. Then, maybe all enlistees can sort of, you know, hang out together, like a group, or a gang, or an army, and watch each other's backs. Isn't that what friends are for? As they always say, there is safety in numbers.

Ronald Reagan, Not Knowing What Socialism Is

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEDICARE/MEDICAID! Fifty short years ago, President LBJ signed the ground breaking legislation into law, and fifty years later, the verdict is in: it was the right thing to do. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security have proven that socialism does work, and that socialism and capitalism can make good bedfellows. Millions of American senior citizens have been saved from poverty from social security, millions more from disastrous health outcomes through medicare, and America's poor have benefited enormously from medicaid. And the economics of it works, as long as people pay their taxes and nobody "borrows" from the trust funds which service these programs. Medicare and Medicaid are so effective that one wonders whether we need Obamacare at all, but for the fact that everyone should heave health insurance, not just the old and the poor. Plus, national health insurance can relieve business owners of a great burden on their budgets. All this, despite dire warnings from corporate spokesperson Ronald Reagan, who went on television during the great debate of 1964, and, sounding reasonably lucid, proclaimed that if medicare/medicaid became a reality, we would awaken someday to an awareness that we were living in a socialist country. The day has come, we are awake, socialism is here, and Ronald Reagan's lost lucidity is long gone. The Gipper, in his 1964 TV ad, failed to mention that American fire and police departments are not privately owned and operated for profit, and neither are the city streets, state and federal highways, bridges, sewer systems, and public schools. Socialism in America, believe it or not, was extant long before Ronald Reagan was born, and in every above example of it, seems to function perfectly well. The American Medical Association, the labor union for doctors, was also opposed to socialized health insurance; heaven forbid that any government action should threaten the American for high profit doctoring business. This was predictable, and perhaps a bit disgusting. What is frightening is that a person can become president of the united States without knowing what socialism is, or even realizing that he is surrounded by it.

Inventing Our Religions

I BELIEVE IN GOD, and I believe that Jesus is the answer, the way. In other words, Jesus gave good advice, with but few exceptions, which would be just as good had it been given by anybody else, which, in fact, it had been, and still is. A good idea is a good idea, no matter whence its source. If Jesus had condemned slavery instead of condoning it, refrained from threatening to return with an avenging sword, and distanced himself from the brutality of the Old Testament, he'd be right up there with the wisest humans who ever lived, but, he lived in primitive times, barbaric times, and was obviously the product of his environment. God is great, Christ is love, or so it seems to me. The fact that Joshua Ben Joseph never called himself "Jesus Christ" changes nothing, although it does, it seems to me, show a lack of respect. You want others to call you by the name you call yourself, correct? The people I most admire are agnostics, because they are the honest people, the people who honestly admit that they do not know, when the rest of us, who know no more than they, claim to know. We believe, but we claim to know, which, common sense tells us, is a no no. May all the world's current religions wither away into non existence, which they will, and may a true and intelligent reverence for nature, and nature's (Jefferson's) God permeate us all, except for those who choose not to believe in God, in which case, may those folks experience the miracle of life in their own way. Imagine a world free from dogma and religious strife, free from barbaric religious beliefs, free from indoctrination, wherein everyone gladly accepts the uniqueness of everyone's religions We all invent our religiosity. Goethe said: when I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine." Happy inventing!

Opposing Planned Parenthood, Cynically

A TINY, PRECIOUS, perfectly formed and healthy baby being sucked out of its mother's womb and sliced to pieces is an image no more appealing to pro choice liberals than it is to sanctimonious, right wing screeching anti-abortion fanatics. Fact is, nobody favors abortion. We are all, everyone among us, "pro life". If you think otherwise, you are far more cynical about human nature than is even remotely appropriate, and cynicism about human nature is almost always appropriate. Pro choice people simply believe that there is indeed a choice to be made, and that the choice should belong to the woman, not the government. This does not mean that they want women to chose abortion, it means that they believe that the woman should have the choice. Big government conservatives believe that unborn babies should be protected by law, which would be preferable, if it were enforceable, and posed less than an enormous threat to pregnant women. Prohibit abortion, and abortion takes place anyway, under desperate circumstances, in back alleys with coat hangers. This increases the rate of mother death. After the baby is born, conservatives revert to small government; no help for new mothers. Absolute devotion to the health of the child, until the day it is born. Permit abortion, and offer counseling and assistance and alternatives, like Planned parenthood does, and you have a healthier society. Planned Parenthood is an organization whose purpose is to help people, which is exactly what it does. Since it helps people, it is no wonder that American conservatives are generally opposed to it, and that when it comes time to help people, they want their government small, tiny, invisible.

Upspeaking and Vocal Frying

IF YOU WATCH TELEVISION in America, or go out much, you've heard people talk using "upspeak" and "vocal fry". Both are becoming scientific terms, describing America's current conversational fad. Making declarative statements with a gradually rising pitch is upspeak, and ending sentences with a slight raspy tremor, a roughness in the voice, is vocal fry. Both are much in vogue right about now, and many people claim to be annoyed by them. I'd say I'm at least as fascinated as annoyed; positive attitude, and all that, you know...Also, I seem to notice the tendency more in young American women than any other group, and apparently, I'm not alone. Some claim, however, that these vocal patterns are widespread through many groups, and that young woman are simply being singled out, which sounds plausible, but still, it just seems like young American females, particularly those intellectual and well educated and upper middle class-ish, really do it a lot. The question, to my mind, is: "why"? Good old fashioned imitation, conformity, status seeking within a community of similar people. Or something like that. All primates are highly imitative, and status seeking. socially. Are upspeak voice fryers - and those who do one always seem to do the other, its either both or neither - merely trying to add emphasis to their spoken words? If so, why not simply speak louder, or throw in a few cuss words for emphasis? One reason its interesting to me is, throughout my entire life, from early childhood to this very day, no matter what other people are doing, no matter what's in style - I want to run away from it, and do just the opposite. that's why, for instance, I'm not a christian, or one reason, anyway. Its also why I like to wear long hair when everyone else is wearing short hair, and the minute smart phones became too popular, I ditched mine. I just can't stand running with the herd. So therefore I need to remember to keep my sentences on an even or a downward pitch, with the ends of every sentence spoken clear as a bell.

Causing a Political Correctness Uproar

EVIDENTLY, IF YOU'RE giving a campaign speech to a group of African-Americans, you'll get more votes if you scream "black lives matter!" than you will by screaming "all lives matter" or "human lives matter". If you scream the latter two, you might not get any votes at all, and this, frankly, seems a bit strange, and possibly, a tad sensitive. Yet, its understandable. The thought that all lives matter tends to deflect emphasis from the primary concern; that black lives matter, though it certainly isn't intended to. Might, aren't we all sensitive these days, easily offended, on edge. If we could all just simmer down a bit...political correctness has often been accused of going too far, and, as noble as the fundamental purpose of political correctness truly is - yes, it can go too far. For example, I listen to a lot of baseball games on the radio. I use the announcers descriptions to form a mental picture of the game, an age old pleasure millions know and understand. and yet...I never know whether a player, any player, is white or black, for instance. And, well, yes, it matters, at least in the process of forming mental images, it matters. At least, if one tends to form detailed mental images, and wishes to be accurate, then, well, yes, it matters, and "race" per se has absolutely nothing to do with it...somehow, though, I get the feeling that there may never come a day in this country when I can know what a baseball looks like, without causing a big damned uproar.

Thinking About Our Future Guns

THE FREQUENCY OF MASS MURDER in America is increasing, alarmingly. Most of it we never hear about. Since the Chattanooga tragedy, at least three other events of equal or greater slaughter, one involving a knife, have transpired, but were not widely reported in the mainstream news media. Thus are America's guns a blazin', and can you imagine how exciting things could get if, as our conservative colleagues seem to desire, we all start going about in public packing heat, or, as they often said in the old west, "goin' heals"? Hell, this country is already, for all practical purposes, a perpetual shoot out, and its pretty obvious how angry most of us are, after twenty five years of losing wars, downward mobility, and getting ever deeper into debt. Personally, I don't even know how many times I've wished I had a gun handy, and how many murders I might have committed had I but had heat. Or maybe I would stop more crimes than I would commit; it would be a race to the top. I have never met a person I entirely trust with a firearm and the thought of walking around mainstream modern America with everyone looking like extras on "Gunsmoke" is a mite unnerving to me. Obama was right when he pointed out that this mass murder of the day stuff doesn't happen anywhere else. Oh, it happens, all right, in other countries, but hell, not every damned day! Again, "only in America". If ever we were actually required by law to carry, I would probably get a derringer, or one of those miniature .357 magnums which are remarkably small, and I would probably choose to conceal it. The impact so doing would have on my attitude and mood are hard to predict; I've never carried before. Best guess is that it would enhance my self confidence a heap, and make me ready to smart off to tough guys, which might not be the best idea. As to whether to conceal or reveal, we'll eventually have our choice, won't we? So, maybe its something we should all be thinking about.

The American People, Protecting Their Military

ALL ACROSS THE FRUITED PLAIN, citizen vigilantes, quite well armed with guns, patriotism, and conservatism, are hovering near military recruiting stations, guarding our men in uniform. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? What's wrong with this picture? Maybe just another of those "only in America" thingies. We proudly do everything backwards in this country anyhow, so, why not? We drive on parkways, and park on driveways. Are all the volunteers republicans? Tea partiers, perchance? Remnants from the old militia movement from the pre Timothy McVeigh nineties? Just askin'....Who knows, the movement might grow, might come to include everybody, including myself. I can see me now, dressed in camo with eye black, beret, and sunglasses, waving an AK47 at strangers while keeping an eye on the table nearby where sit members of the US Marine Corps, fully uniformed. Much as I like this image, there is just something wrong with it, but I don't quite know what. Like, suddenly waking up and finding that I live in Cuba, or North Korea. One can imagine a huge mob of American patriots, armed to the teeth, milling and surging through every mall in suburbia, ready for trouble, even if they have to start it themselves. Wouldn't it just be easier to give the military recruitment people weapons of their own? No, that would be too easy, far too sensible. Almost as sensible and therefore unacceptable as using the American military to do its original job; defending the country, including particularly its own borders.

Getting Rid of Weapons and Governments

OUR SHINY NEW atomic bomb treaty is everyone's pride and joy, except for American conservatives, the nation of Israel, and a few of Iran's neighbors, understandably. The treaty's opponents might all prefer that the U.S. drop an atomic bomb or two on Tehran. Like Obama said, military action is the only alternative to diplomacy, and is that what we really want? hardly, I should think. As Obama pointed out, the Americans who oppose diplomacy with Iran favored war with Iraq twenty five years ago, and said it would not last long. Our conservative American colleagues despise Obama so much that they automatically oppose everything he does, no matter what, even things they would agree with if done by a republican. Can't we all just get along? The Iranian people are fundamentally warm and friendly, and good, and don't like their own government. the American people are basically goodhearted, and don't like their own government. So don't we the people simply bypass our own governments, and make peace, not war, right here on the internet? Forget the pompous politicians! They seek only to serve their own personal interests. A universal brother-sisterhood of the common human,entirely aside from normal national governments! why don't the people of all nations, the people of the world, simply agree to get along, agree not to fight, no matter what their governments do? If the people of Iran and the United States agree on friendship, which basically they already do, then friendship it should be, and eventually, shall be. Much of this can happen online, depending on how many people in Iran have uncensored access to the internet. We need more than a treaty prohibiting Iran from having nuclear weapons. We need a world totally without any nuclear weapons, a treaty by which we get rid of every nuclear weapon in the world, no matter who owns it. But first, we need a people's political revolution, in America, and throughout the world.

Running With Donald Trump

DONALD TRUMP brilliantly proclaims that Senator John McCain is not a war hero, but that if he is, its only because he was captured. Well, who knows..I mean, Isn't that enough? McCain didn't die for his country, but he certainly suffered for it, and probably still does, more than any of us can ever know. Yo, he's a hero, fo sho. You can't help but be excited about the Donald's presidential campaign, and you sense that the fun is only just beginning. Donald has nothing to lose, such as a fancy high powered political career. Plus, he needn't worry about taking campaign money from rich helpers, and then forever owing them for it, like all the other candidates, except Bernie Sanders. Bernie is only taking small contributions, nothing from the corporations. And guess what! Bernie is all the rage among the millenials, the very same demographic group which brought us gay marriage, and is even now preparing to take over America. Watch out for Bernie; if he plays his cards right, he could win, just by courting the millenials, the working poor, and the minorities, and America could move far to the left, as the millenials seems to want it to. You can scarcely imagine the high drama and entertainment just ahead, as Trump gets the other ten million republicans running for president republicans verbally ripping each other to shreds. Why, I can see Big Donald decking Walker, Cruz, or Rubio right on stage, in the middle of a debate, just for being sanctimonious and smart assie. this is beyond doubt the most interesting and strong field of presidential candidates in my lifetime, and the fact that they are all essentially crazy diminishes that fact not in the least. The fact that Donald Trump is likely to end up running on a third party will cause even more excitement among the conservative hordes, who will then help elect Bernie Sanders by splitting the conservative vote. My, what a lovely fantasy. My two favorite candidates are Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, and that seems strange even to me. It just seems like those two tell the truth, although I like what I perceive to be Jeb Bush's open mindedness and fairness to all points of view. That is a rare trait, regrettably, in current American public discourse.

Kicking Out the Duggers; Changing Our Attitudes

I DON'T WATCH MUCH TV, so I'm at a disadvantage here. Quick question: are the Kardashians or the Duggers (or is it Duggars? oh well, either way) kooler? They both must be rather exciting groups of people, and I think I actually live right down the road from the real life dugger fam, so, I should know. After all, they are celebrities. Even I know that the Duggers, all twenty something of them, were kicked off prime time TV due to revelations of past sex play among the children, Tsk tsk. Crazy story, as you would expect. Some years ago, it seems that the oldest child, a male, engaged in sex play with several of his many younger sisters. The parents apparently dealt with it in-family, and moved on. Not the end of the world. The years came and went, and more children came, then, celebrity, fame, and wealth. (you'd be looking for extra income too, if you had twenty kids). But then recently some dirt digger revealed the old news, and that, as they say, was that. Even more than elevating people to celebrity status, we Americans love to bring them tumbling down in ignominious disgrace. But here's the dirty little secret: many, if not most human siblings engage in sex play. This fact is confirmed solidly by many studies. Its sinful or perverted only if we choose to label it that, depending on social mores, which frequently, understandably, include an aversion to in breeding, but one thing childhood sibling sex play most certainly is, is normal. Hurray for bio diversity! The Duggers doubtless dealt with their situation religiously and sinfully; they being the Christian sort. Maybe we should consider a scientific approach, with a science base morality, free of religious or emotional dogma and guilt. Or maybe we should reconsider our sexual mores, and fundamentally reform them. It seems reasonable; since every other aspect of human society needs reform, why not our attitudes about human sexuality? Maybe one way to start would be by starting to tell children to tone it down, and be careful. We want everyone to behave safely and, if at all possible virtuously, but we remain realistic in our expectations, we hope.

Collecting Stray Cats

THE LATEST STRAY kitten who wandered into my front yard looked weak and underweight, and I knew immediately that I was damned if that little thing was gonna keep going hungry. Of course, my three indoor cats are all thick kittens, to put it politely, so a normal, healthy slender cat might look a tad underweight to me. But, no, this one needed to beef up, and she indeed seemed sluggish. So by thunder she was gonna get fed, one way or another. She liked me right from the git go, arching her back to meet my soothing hand. Bottom line, I reckon I got 'er fattened up in about two weeks. Still slender, but obviously healthy, active, energetic. now she sits on my lap, and is very sweet and affectionate, which is really all you want in a pet. She still hasn't learned how to purr, interestingly, but that may be merely the product of a wild childhood, without any feline or human contact, except for me. Now the question for me is: what in heck to do with her? Of course, you and I both know there's only one answer: keep her. She's adorable, friendly, and sweet, and she already follows me around when I walk around my property, and not only that, but she has started to live in my garage. I can't let her in the house; my female, Mandy, would try to kill her, and end up getting killed, I suspect. One day I as I opened the laundry room door leading into my garage, Mandy bolted out, and went straight for the stray, whom I think I am going to name "Cassie". Mandy chased Cassie down the street and across town, and finally Cassie decided to turn and fight, which she did, and promptly, from all indications, kicked Mandy's little butt. The lessons is: quit while you're ahead. Two females. probably there is nothing I can ever do to get them to get along. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, If I'm not careful, the way I'm going, I might end up with forty five stray cats, instead of the four I now have. Damn the American people! damn us, for allowing a population of thirty five million stray cats to roam our country. The least we could is is to round them all up, one by one, spay , neuter, and vaccinate them, and, if nothing else, let them live as strays, with maybe more Americans aware of them, and offering them food and shelter, the natural way, like I did and do. We can do better, regarding our treatment of dogs and cats in America. And this is not more liberal bleeding heart drivel; its basic decency and morality.

Doing It For The Millenials!

IF YOU SIT DOWN and actually listen to some climate scientists, any of them will do, and there are tens of thousands, as they describe the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, how it got there, and the effect its having on the environment, right before our very eyes, there is no frigging way that you can still deny global warming-climate change. It just too simple, too obvious. So, one must conclude that those who deny it have quite simply never ever listened to a climate change explanation-lecture by any one of tens of thousands of climate scientists, chemists, physics professors, and for that matter high school science teachers, any of whom would be glad to explain. Because, really, any step by step explanation of what's going on with the human species, global warming, and the planet Earth is easy to understand, and incredibly persuasive. The deniers, terrified of any threat to their pleasant little conservative universe, are simply hiding their brains in the sand, ostrich-like. Some charismatic Carl Sagan type needs to put together a video lecture, explaining climate change, step by easy step, the absolute inevitable fact of it, so that we can all get on board with the horrible but ultimately unavoidable truth, once and for all, and maybe, just maybe, actually start to do something about it, before its too late for the millenials to enjoy a long life. We baby boomers are lucky; we're gonna get out of here just in the nick of time, but woe be to the millenials (those born between 1982 and 2000), and their chances at decent weather and long term survival. Its frustrating. Thirty years from now the conservative climate change deniers will of course deny having been deniers, just as they now deny ever having been racists, for example. But by then, it'll be too late for it to matter.

Being Reasonable Is Not An Option

PRESIDENT OBAMA SAVES THE WORLD, or at least extends its life a bit, makes it safer for democracy, greatly alleviates the threat of widespread war in the middle east by forcing the Iranians, through the sheer force of his effective diplomacy, to forsake nuclear weapons. Either that, or, Obama sells out to Iran, opening the door to future Iranian nuclear arms development, making Israel's safety a most precarious matter. The choice is yours. Your opinion counts too, on social media if nowhere else, and the more extreme the better. Heaven forbid that any American citizen should be accused of moderate, reasonable, and balanced thinking; extremism, polarization is the order of the day. Either or. All or nothing. The more dramatic the better, and, by all means, take a selfie and post it alongside your screaming, grammatically butchered rhetoric. You would think that millions of intelligent people would be able to sit down, do a little reading, find out exactly what's in the new treaty with Iran, and develop a rational response to it, free of extremist rhetoric. But no, that would be too much to ask. It wouldn't attract enough attention on twitter, wouldn't antagonize anyone, so, why bother? Benjamin Franklin said: "Compromisers don't make good heroes, but they make good democracies." Compromise, with anyone else, or moderation of personal opinion, is simply no longer an option in America, as it must once have been. We must all be heroes, and to hell with democracy!

Being A Meaningful Human Being

JUST YESTERDAY a space probe of humans origins went streaking up to and around the three billion mile distant planet(oid) Pluto, - which used to be a planet but no longer is - snapping great photos, gathering an avalanche of data which will take months to send back to Earth. The pictures are already amazing, and pictures of planets orbiting other stars are becoming more and more amazing by the day. No matter how bad things are for you, no matter how many personal problems you may have, even if you are totally depressed, you should try to find a way to rejoice in the Pluto probe. Why? Because it means that your life is meaningful, in a new way, a cosmic way. It means that you are part of a life form which can extend itself beyond its humble origins, and reach out into the cosmos itself, seeking. We can begin to traverse the universe. And who knows where that will lead? We are more than dumb animals, we are more than infants. We have grown, and are growing up, and no matter who you are or what you think you should be, you are a part of this process, an integral, vital part, part of this incredible, sublime, miraculous process of evolution. And yet, for some reason, nobody cares. As usual, a miraculous achievement in science and space exploration is being largely ignored by the American people. Maybe this isn't surprising, or shouldn't be. Tens of millions of us should turn off reality TV, CSI wherever, or a football game or two, for, say an hour a day, and use that time to log onto "Astronomy Picture of the Day", and to contemplate the glory, the importance, and the value of being a human being, no matter how horribly we sometimes behave, or how big the universe turns out to be.

Defending Slavery With Jesus

LEST WE FORGET, Many slave owners in pre-Civil War America vigorously defended the institution of slavery by using the Christian faith to do it. It was a controversial issue for decades leading up to the war between the states, with attacks against slavery and defenses of it appearing everywhere. By transporting Africans to America, so the amazing argument often went, Americans were actually doing the Africans the greatest service, the ultimate kindness. Americans, heroically removing millions of poor benighted dark skinned creatures from the savage wildness of Africa, and bringing them to God's country, and giving them a productive life, and salvation through Christ. Who could ask for a better fate? Southern plantation owners were saving the poor darkies. Besides, slavery is condoned in the Bible, both in the Old and the New Testaments. Christ himself condoned slavery. Pre civil War conservatives were evidently as batty as they are today. Today Republican conservatives are fond of reminding us that many Democrats fought against civil rights for blacks. Indeed they did. Very conservative southern Democrats. Conservatism always is opposed to change, change such as gay marriage, and the Affordable Health Care Act. (Change happens anyway). Conservatives, both democrat and republican, fought tooth and nail the civil rights movement in the nineteen sixties, and today's conservatives deny that racism exists at all, except when Obama creates it,by talking about it, and therefore we shouldn't talk about it, or do anything at all about it. Another example of amazingly delusional thinking. It is sometimes nice to imagine a more intellectual future world in which primitive religions thousands of years old do not linger, insinuated, as they now are, much too deeply into human affairs for our own good.

Leaving the Church

UNLESS I'M DREAMING, there are two big southern Baptist organizations/churches in the former American southern confederacy: a black one, and a white one. I think they are both called something like "The Southern Baptist Leadership conference". Ah, the blessings of the Christian faith: love and reconciliation! (only in America moment here?). The white branch, much larger than the black, numbering tens of millions of members, is losing membership rapidly, something like hundreds of thousands a year. The secularization of modern society is cited as the primary reason. At this rate, the southern white american baptist association will be extinct by mid century. Good riddance. Surely we can replace it with something better, something more enlightened, more appropriate to our modern, scientific times, something less primitive. It would be nice, for instance, to rid humanity of the insane notion that God speaks to us in books, and tells us to do ghastly things like kill our children for misbehaving. Perhaps the missing southern white baptists are at NASCAR events, confederate flags a flyin', guns and Bibles carried and poorly concealed. My local white baptist big shot minister is the biggest of big shots, head of the whole gang, Pastor Ronnie Floyd. And yes, it is a gang, a multi million member gang, just as much as the Bloods, Sharks, or Jets; a group which does things, good, bad, and both. Ronnie is a good guy. He insists he will never, ever perform a gay wedding, and I believe him. Just another example of how Christianity is on the wrong side of history, and is therefore withering away. Change, or be left behind. The choice is obvious. Pastor Floyd supported bringing minor league baseball to his/our town, until he found out that beer would be sold at games, so he turned against the team, which was voted into town by a single vote, out of thousands cast. Any preacher who damned near keeps minor league baseball out of my town is my enemy, henceforth. No gay weddings? His choice. We can all choose to walk away, and many Christians seem to be doing exactly that.

Flying Our Flags, Proudly

EVEN THE MOST FERVENT confederate flag wavers might be willing to concede that there are more important issues sitting around waiting for solutions. Stuff like poverty, disease, and war. The usual stuff. Besides, we're talking about a four year flag here. Didn't General Lee, after the War Between the States, say that the time had come to fold the stars and bars, forever? Lee believed that after the war there should be a minimum of commemoration of the conflict, and a maximum of healing and reconciliation. Hence, you would think, that were he alive today, he would understand that the stars and bars is offensive to many African-Americans, (or "niggras" as he might've called them), he would have understood why they are offended, and would have been amazed that the flag flies so widely in the year 2015. If we're honoring the flags of past misguided governments, and taking impact on our history, culture, and heritage into account, raise the union jack, matie! The American south, like the rest of the United States, is far more English than confederate. The honoring of heritage not racism argument only goes so far, particularly when considering that the confederate flag only came out en mass during the height of the civil rights movement, but had remained mostly folded away prior to that time. Indeed, the confederate flag made a dramatic and sudden reappearance in response to the civil right movement of the late fifties and early sixties; and this is not a coincidence. Maybe we need a new holiday in the U.S.: "Heritage Flag Day", in which we all fly proudly our past flags, whether our ancestors were English, German, Spanish, whatever. for the native Americans, we'll have to come up with something appropriate.

Everyone In the World Getting Rich!

FREE MARKET CAPITALISM, in its modern high tech form, is, most of us might agree, the greatest engine of economic prosperity ever devised by man. If everyone would work hard, make good decisions, and have unlimited opportunity in a truly free market, which means without corporate monopolies, the sky's the limit. We could all end up living in four thousand square foot homes in lovely neighborhoods, with three or four fancy cars in everyone's garage, a swimming pool out back, and so forth. The way things are right now, of course, there is no free market, the is instead a world wide corporate oligopoly, a virtual monopoly of a few big corporations in every area; financial services, oil, you name it. and because of this lack of real free market competition, all economic ills arise, including unemployment, and poverty. Break up the big boys, world wide, and we all get rich. Bank on it. Also, of course, not everyone works hard and makes good decisions. If all of us begin to do that, watch out! Neverthless, the global middle class is growing, modestly, especially in China and India, and poverty is being alleviated, albeit much too slowly, and there are no laws of nature which say that we can't all be rich, eventualy, with true free market economics. The question becomes; how rich do we want all of us to be? At the four thousand square foot three car garage level? Again, in theory, its possible. In fact, so great an economist as the great John Maynard Keynes asked that very question: "at what point does catitalism fulfill its entire growth potential, and bring prosperity to everyone?" Some day energy, education, medicine, food, clothing, transportation, all the basics, might be free. Do we really want a world with seven billion mansions? We don't seem to want a world with several million mansions and several billion hungry people right down the road; you can tell that we don't want this world, the one we regretabbly now have, by observaing the number of people who seem to be thoroughly disgusted with it. And you can't blame them. But some fine day, we'll all be rich, if we're not careful what we wish for.

If Only Americans Had Thinking Skills

SUPPOSE YOU'RE AN AMERICAN LIBERAL, if you can stand the thought. In your mind, global warming is an established, incontrovertible fact, and those who deny it are idiots. Its high time to transform society compeletely so as to ward off the rapidly increasing climate change, if you're a liberal, mainly by eliminating fossil fuels and converting to solar energy, poste haste. Now suppose you're a conservative. If you're an American conservative, for you there is no scientific consensus concerning man made climate change, therefore it doesn't exist, and is in fact a liberal power grabbing hoax. (some hoax, huh?) In the United States of America, those are the only two choices, with nothing in between. Either, or. One extreme or the other. How surprising, coming from America, the United States of Arrogance, the land where we all know the truth, about climate change, and damned near everything else. You'll never hear an American admit to not knowing something. All Americans know everything, just ask them. If American liberals had a brain, they'd say "maybe we're wrong, maybe there is no man made climate change, but just in case, humor us." And if Ameridcan conservatives had brains, they'd say: "man made climate change is a pile of crap, but we'll humor you, and start transforming our civiliaztion, then, when you finally realize how wrong you were, we'; just laught at you." But alas....supposedly, in school, you learn something they call "thinking skills", which later becomes something fancier, called "critical thinking skills". We start thinking from birth, we can't help it, but there is something to be said for training the mind to think on a high level, to think intelligently, reasonably. We seem to be lacking that in America, and most probably, to a lesser degree, elsewhere as well. There is no shortgae of intelllgence anywhere, only a shortage of thinking-skills-training. Common sense should tell us all that neither liberalism nor conservatism, Christianity nor Islam, nor any other human religion or political orientation has a monoploy on truth, that there is truth is all belief systems, and, more importantly, limitations. In a relativistic universe, absolutes are few and far between. Other than the speed of light, and maybe a few other things. If only we had better thinking skills.

Why I Didn't Join Facebook

ACTUALLY, I DID JOIN FACEBOOK. But only for the purpose of trying to promote this irreplaceable website. I got a Facebook page, and I typed in the name of this website . Aint that clever? Thought it wouldn't hurt to try. But that's it, that's all I did. I never post anything on Facebook, nor log on to it, nor anything else on Facebook. I'm not even sure what Facebook is. What, you sign up, fill out a profile, telling as much about yourself as you choose or don't choose, then, you can do back to your Facebook page anytime you want, and read messages from others, and send messages to others...or something like that, am I right? Hell, I don't know. But one thing I DO know, fo sho. I know that if I sign up for Facebook and do all the above, I am not becoming or being a "customer" of Facebook. A customer is someone who pays for a commodity, good, or service, and Facebook is free. Facebook customers are huge corporations which purchase advertising on Facebook, and construct and direct that advertising directly at Facebook members, using information from their profiles, information which members voluntarily provided to the world, thus turning themselves into perfectly marketable commodities for Facebook, at no cost to Facebook, and advertising targets for members of the corporate oligarchy. What am I, if I sign up for Facebook? Why, make no mistake about it: I am the commodity. I am the product. I am that which is being sold by Facebook as a service to Facebook's customers, who, as you might recall, are large corporations, generally, who wish to purchase advertising on the world's most popular social media website. It must be terribly expensive to advertise on Facebook, but that's another topic. And, frankly, I simply don't have the stomach, or lack of self respect, or whatever it takes, to voluntarily turn myself into somebody else's sellable commodity. But, many many people do, or so it would seem, judging from Facebook membership. Happy posting!

Creating Real Capitalism

THERE WAS A TIME when capitalism flourished in America, but that time has long since gone. Before the revolutionary war, America was intended to be a supplier of raw materials for English manufacturers, and a market for finished English products. That arrangement actually endured until the War of 1812, after which economic relations with Britain were severely truncated, and the new nation, in order to achieve prosperity, was forced to become its own supplier of goods and servcies. The Tariff Act of 1816 protected young American industry from foreign competition, and high tariff rates throughout the nineteenth century created astounding american economic growth, such that by 1900, the U.S. was already the world's leading industrial power. Things changed after the civil War. Business competition, as it naturally does, led to larger and larger enterprises, resulting in aqcuisitions, mergers, and reduced competition. The era of the "robber barons" began, which continues to this day. In response to the monopolies of the late nineteenth century, the government created the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890, but since it has always been selectively enforced, and rarely enforced, it has no real value. Every economic ill could be cured by enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Free marked capitalism cannot flourish in the absence of free markets, and in an economy in which every major industry is dominated by a few huge corporations working cooperatively rather than competitively, prices remain artifically high, and wages for workers artifically low. At the present rate, there will come a time when all the world's wealth is owned by one person. As long as the American political system is owned by an elite corporate complex, real economic prosperity, for everyone, will be impossible. Now is the time for another American revolution, a revolution of renewed mass capitalism to destroy our current system of monopolistic oligopolistic economics. Up with the barricades!

Screaming Anger and hatred

THE SCREAMING ANGER AND HATRED of conservative talk radio is not nearly as unsettling as the apparent fact that enough people listen to it to make it profitable. This is disconcerting. The United States of Anger, conservative style. Anger at the fact of change and progress. Anger that traditions fade away, inevitably.Today's conservatism is yesterday's liberalism. Today's liberalism is tomorrow's conservatism. Equally disconcerting is the probability that most listeners either do not think there is any screaming anger and hatred, or that it is appropriate and justified. Whatever is required to deter the teeming liberal mob. One of the good ole boys likes to claim that liberals consider conservatives a greater threat to America than Islamic terrorists. Guilty as charged. Conservtive American terrorists kill over twice as many Americans, on American soil, each year than do the Islamic variety. Chalk up nine more in Charleston. It is also fashionable for conservative talk radio hate mongers to point out that the democratic party in the south upheld slavery, opposed emancipation, promulgated Jim Crow, and fought strenously against the civil rights movement adn legislation. whay they fail to mention is that said democrats had one more thing in common, other than party membership; they were all conservatives. Not liberals, conservatives. Oh yes, there was a time when there were many conservatives in the democratic pary, mostly in the south, just as there was a time, in the early sixties, when the democratic party was the party of lower taxes, and the republican party was the party of higher taxes. Support for slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation and racial discrimmination were, and still are, conservative, not liberal values. the libs wanted to end slavery, and wanted to integrate everyone into mainstream society. Lyndon Johnson, by forcing civil rights legislation down the throats of democratic conservatives, handed the American south to the republicans, he believed, for fifty years. The fifty years are up, with no end in sight. When democrats cycle through to conservatism, they might regain it.

Pastor Lane and Our Humorous Right Wing Christian Freak Show

THE EXTREME CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVE reaction to legalized gay marriage is going to be quite a show. Get the pop corn ready, and settle in for the good time laughter. What a hoot, what fun. "The fools would be humorous, were they not in such deadly earnest", a wise man once said, but this is the exception. Though America's Christian right wing is indeed in deadly earnest, they'll be plenty humorous. Already are. Enter David lane, a sixty year old social conservative Christian fanatic - you know the type - who wants to remake America in his own, bizarre image, with what he calls the "Renew America" project. The organization's purpose is to mobilize a vast army of conservative ministers and put a conservative republican in the White House in 2016. Good luck with that; America is moving to the left, as it inexorably does. Gay marriage and Obamacare are here to stay. These people have the crazy notion that America was founded as a "Biblically based Christian nation", when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, James Madison...non christians all, and the list goes on. And you could look it up, as Casey Stengel often said. America was founded, in point of fact, as a nation based on enlightenment principles, by people who spent more time, much more time, reading Locke, Hume, and Voltaire than the Bible, which thomas Jefferson described as "the rantings of a lunatic". Our founders tended to be "deists"; people who believed in God, but not the christian God. They tended to think that Jesus was just a regular guy, albeit a very cool one. Not a superhuman resurrectee. Our founders were intellectuals, scientists, and revolutionaries, not conservative Bible readers. Pastor Lane himself used to be quite a party animal, it seems. He's my age, and I wonder; where did he go wrong? Why did he give up the good hedonistic life for some barbaric religion in which God sacrifices his own son in a bloody spectacle, and slavery is accepted, along with parental infanticide and mass murder? A real monster, that Christian deity. Best guess is that pastor Lane opposes all social welfare programs, opposes handing out free money to the poor, as, it seems, all conservative Christians do. Never mind that Jesus was a socialist, who admonished us all to render unto Caesar, and to go thy, sell whatsoever, thou hast, and to give unto the poor. when it comes to redistribution of wealth, Jesus was hard core. He wanted to get it done, now, and stop talking about it, or opposing it. The wailing and teeth gnashing among America's Christian conservatives will be, as always, fun to watch. One can only pity them for their embrace of cruelty and barbarity.