Hording Or Sharing

THERE IS A CONNECTION, a strong one, between the American conservative movement, patriotism, and the christian faith. This is because conservatism is tradition, resistance to change, and liberalism is innovation and change, which its adherents consider to be progress, hence the term "progresssivism". The words themselves convey the difference. When you think of someone being conservative with money, for instance, you think of someone whose money does not change hands readily. A liberal spender is one whose money flies out of the pocket book with great haste. The money changes hands. A conservative offense tends to use tactics which are tried and true, and do not rock the boat, so to speak. Conservative Americans believe that people should be free to earn and spend money however they choose, free of government regulation, and they should be free to make as much money as they can, without the government confiscating it. To render unto Caesar is not the conservative way, though it seems apparent that Jesus was not only a liberal, but a socialist as well. He encouraged voluntary monetary and material modesty, and he encouraged paying taxes. Jesus was a hard core redistributionist. In america, the more conservative one is, the more devoted to the christian faith, generally, and the more devoted to the attainment of personal wealth, generally. Socialism is cooperation, capitalism is competition. You might think that socialism and Christianity go well together, but there is less tradition in sharing of wealth than hording it. What would Jesus do today? Would he encourage us to horde our wealth, or to share it with others? Would he encourage charitable giving, and discourage government confiscation and redistribution of wealth, or would he encourage both? we'll never know, because he was tortured to death so that those who believe he was tortured to death to atone for our sins might convince themselves that their sins have been forgiven, even though the effects of previous mistakes linger, and cannot be reversed, but only ameliorated and corrected.

Contending, In Vain

SEVERAL YEARS AGO I joined an online discussion group consisting of a few of my high school classmates. Class of Seventy Three. Go eagles, valiant and strong. I was the only liberal among them, so I didn't stay very long. What finally drove me out was their contention that Barack Hussein Obama had been born in Africa, was a closet Islamicist, and, last but not least, that his wife had begun life as a male, but had undergone gender reassignment surgery, then had adopted two children. No, I'm not joking. First I suggested that they offer proof of all this. That didn't work. Then I suggested that the mere fact that his middle name is "Hussein" bore no relevance to his religiosity, and tried to convince them that there were at least two retired medical professional in Honolulu who were willing to sign affidavits declaring that they had witnessed Obama's birth in a Honolulu hospital That didn't work either. My classmates were following the lead of Donald J. Trump, all the way to the bitter end. the presentation of Obama's birth certificate didn't help Obama's claim to American citizenship, and I knew I was doomed. Trump kept it up until a couple of weeks ago, then pretended that he had merely served a patriotic cause by investigating the allegations which began in Hillary 2008 presidential campaign, and resolving the issue once and for all. Then it turned out that most of the members of my local senior center still make the same assertions. Just for the record, nobody believes any of this, even those who claim to believe it. My classmates, and the seniors at the center are, with all due respect, inveterate racists. If a white guy became president whose father was an Irish bloke who vanished and died years ago, who among them would bother to question whether the white guy had been born in the U.S. or Ireland? None of them, of course. Against stupidity, the god's themselves contend in vain. So I have no chance, and neither does anyone else, when confronted with the inanity of right wing America. Right wing Americans are, as a whole, a basket of deplorables, someone said. Anyone was quite right, and should, as we like to say, "double down", trumpet style. These are the same people who favor forcing transgender people to use the bathroom corresponding to the gender listed on their birth certificates, do not believe in evolution or climate change, and who believe that all government regulation protecting the environment is evil, because it is socialism. I hope my classmates are doing well, if delusionally, and I hope that they can begin to think a bit more clearly when they descend, at long last, into the throes of involuntary, rather than voluntary dementia.... against stupidity..........THANKS FOR READING!

Harassing Hillary, Picking At the Bones

FBI DIRECTOR COMEY testified before a republican congressional committee, again, and again, insisted that his agency had conducted a thorough investigation of Hillary Clinton, and has no need to reopen its investigation. This did not satisfy the republicans, who, like vultures, are always willing to pick the bones clean. After insisting that the FBI investigate HRC (Hillary Rodham Clinton), and receiving results from the ensuing investigation which were not in keeping with their political aims, they proceeded to accuse the Bureau of being bought and paid for by the Clintons, being politically motivated, being incompetent. or all three. Because the Clinton charitable foundation receives millions in donations from foreign sources, and because the Clintons actually speak on occasion to those sources, perhaps to express gratitude, they are accused of influence peddling. Meanwhile, the Clinton foundation saves millions of lives in impoverished parts of the world by providing medicine, food, and vaccines. On the other end of the moral spectrum, the Donald J. Trump charitable foundation has not been found to have provided anything, anything at all, for charity, but has served the apparently vital purpose of paying Trump's legal expenses. Perhaps an investigation into this illegal appropriation of funds would be prudent, but is not likely to happen while congress is controlled by republicans. conservatives are prone to accuse liberals of advocating "statism", but are not hesitant to use the apparatus of the state to attempt to harass political opponents, particularly the Clintons. It may well be that Hillary Clinton is "crooked Hillary", as Trump indelicately expresses it. One is inclined to wonder, because after being investigated incessantly for twenty five years, nothing incriminating has ever been uncovered. One would think, that after decades of probing, any criminal activity would by now have been detected, prosecuted, and convicted. But there's still time. Hillary is likely to live a few more years, which gives the vultures more opportunity to pick at the bones.......THANKS FOR READING!

God's Justice, Awakening

MODERN MAINSTREAM AMERICAN CONSERVATISM is largely underwritten by Charles and David Koch, who spend millions each election cycle purchasing political office for republican senators and representatives. On the day that Obama was inaugurated, a small elite group of billionaires convened in California to decide how to destroy his presidency, and they have succeeded rather well, to the extent that, having sabotaged nearly all of Obama's plans, they can now honestly accuse Obama of having accomplished little. The father Fred Koch, made his fortune by installing oil refineries for Stalinist Russia and Hitlerist Germany, then raising his sons in his own image, that of ultraconservative founding members of the John birch society. Their overarching goals are the elimination of taxes, the cancellation of all government welfare programs, and the withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations. they could be described as "libertarians", or "anarchists". Their relationship to trump is something of a mystery, but we can assume that even if they despise Trump, they will support him if only to defeat Hillary. One must bear in mind that we are talking about people who accused President Eisenhower of being a communist. Like most extreme right wingers, they considers themselves the potential saviors of America, and they consider all manifestations of government to be "creeping socialism". We may further assume that the Koch brothers would prefer privately owned for profit police and fire departments, or no police and fire protection at all. What we are up against in america is a coterie of immensely wealthy, ultra conservative operatives who are perfectly willing to spend large [arts of their fortunes to make America great again, by returning it to the society it was in the eighteen nineties, the "gilded age", when the concentration of wealth was nearly as great as it is now. We are confronted with an uneducated, gullible electorate which supports much of this, evidently entirely oblivious to its own interests. "If the people", said Jefferson, "become inattentive to the affairs of government, the legislators and magistrates shall divide the nation into two classes, wolves, and sheep". this, they ultra wealthy ultra conservative coterie has long since done. Jefferson also said: "I tremble for my country, when I reflect that god is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever." Until we the people rise up and put people like the Koch brothers where they belong, which is on tHE sidelines of teh body politic, we will soon witness the awakening of God's justice.......THANKS FOR SHARING THIS SITE WITH OTHERS!

Pandering Politicians Protecting Their Populairty

"PANDERING" is a term used to describe the behavior of politicians who seek to please voters by supporting legislation intended primarily to enhance the popularity of the politician. Like, telling people what they want to hear, whether or not they need to hear it for any discernibly beneficial reason. We all do it, and for those who haven't, it might be worth a try. Amid the passion associated with the fifteenth anniversary of nine eleven, a pandering American congress passed a bill allowing american victims of the attack to file lawsuits in american courts against the Saudi Arabian government for the recovery of damages, presumably both punitive and compensatory. Recognizing the bill for what it is, nonsense, he vetoed it. It now appears likely that his veto will be overridden by a bipartisan parade of pandering politicians. Suppose, for example, that an American who lost a family member in the destruction of the World Trade Center files a lawsuit against the Saudi government in an American court of law. How likely is it that the defendant would rush across the Atlantic a team of crack lawyers to defend themselves against the allegations? How likely is it that they would even care, or notice the litigation? further suppose that a guilty verdict is rendered. how likely is it that the Saudis would rush to their local bank, withdraw funds, and present the awarded damaged to the victorious plaintiff with all haste? The fact that nearly all the nine eleven attacker were Saudi nationals does not implicate the Saudi government, as everyone knows. If officials within the Saudi government did indeed plan, assist, or directly execute the attack, we'll never know about it, much less prove it in any American court room, and exact a penalty. everyone clearly understands this, or if not, should. Obama has pointed out that american government officials and corporate operatives engage in business activity all over the world, in every country, and that therefore that United states is much more exposed to this sort of litigation from other countries than any other country is exposed to American justice. He quite rightly concludes that any indictment against any member of any foreign government handed down in the United states could very easily be net with reciprocal legal action of all kinds anywhere in the world, and that thus our new law does nothing but open a Pandora's box of potential diplomatic retaliation and antagonism. the problem with this rather obvious and reasonable argument is that, as one might imagine, pandering politicians are quite beyond the realm of reason.........PLEASE SHARE THIS WEBSITE WITH OTHER TO ENCOURAGE FREE EXPRESSION.THANKS!

Questioning Trump's Temperament and Judgment

DONALD TRUMP'S CLAIM that he possesses better judgment and presidential temperament than Hillary Clinton bears scrutiny, since it would appear to be belied by recent history. Let's consider temperament. Perhaps we will recall the expressions "Lying ted", "Little Marco", and "crooked Hillary." Appellations of this sort would seem to indicate a condescending, vindictive temperament, with a propensity for belittling, in a highly juvenile manner, other people of demonstrably high character. Ted Cruz is an upstanding Christian man of high integrity, and certainly does not deserve to be called "lying Ted" several thousand times. Marco Rubio's physical size, among mature adults, is irrelevant. Hillary has no criminal record. trump has previously described women with what words? "Pig", and "Bitch", among other derogatory expressions. Trump's temperament is such that he goes off like a rocket when someone posts a twitter tweet unfavorable to him. When he is verbally attacked, he obviously considers it prudent to attack right back, twice as hard. That's what children do on playgrounds, when adults aren't watching. These examples are sufficient unto themselves to call into question whether Trump's temperament is level headed, or hot headed. The latter, it would appear. Hillary Clinton has never been heard to make these kinds of comments. As for judgment, the very fact that Trump makes these kinds of comments in front of the entire world would seem to indicate poor judgment. Who among us has not said things of this nature privately, or if not that, at least thought them? But to make such comments in front of millions? Good judgment? Hillary Clinton allegedly walked past a secret service agent while she was first lady, and told him to "fuck off" when he greeted her with a "good morning, ma'am". That may well be, she seems sufficiently arrogant and self absorbed to act like that, but she certainly has enough sense to refrain from this type of behavior when the whole world is watching. When one is in charge of a large corporation, and undergoes no less than four bankruptcies, one's business judgment can be questioned. When one stands in front of eighty million people on television and brags about being smart enough to avoid paying taxes, one might raise questions about both temperament and judgment and temperament. And what about patriotism? When one pays no taxes, one contributes nothing to one's beloved military veterans, for whom Trump has expressed such great admiration. That, plus his oft repeated admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, who is quite obviously a ruthless thug, makes one wonder about both Trump's judgment and patriotism. In terms of judgment and temperament, Trump is certainly below Hillary Clinton's level, and more comparable to a grade school student who has suffered the effects of poor parenting..... .PLEASE SHARE THIS WEBSITE WITH OTHERS. THANKS!

Sharing Opinions, Albeit Uninformed Ones

A NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO PROGRAM was interviewing your average American citizen concerning questions related to Hillary Trump, and the state of the nation generally. You get the drift. Everyone agreed that the country is divided. That aint the latest news. One respondent cited immigration as an important issue, and a problem. This person evidently hadn't consulted Doug Mathews of Princeton University, considered the world's leading authority on human migration. Mathews has pointed out, or tried to, that the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico is at a virtual standstill, and has been since 2007, when President Bush significantly increased border security during his last two years in office. With regard to Mexicans illegally flooding across the Rio Grande, the cow, as they say, is long out of the barn. Actually, the trend currently consists in illegal Mexicans going back to Mexico of their own volition, looking for better opportunities. Plus, anyone who thinks that people legally entering the country are not being properly "vetted", to use a currently popular word, ought to rethink. Everyone is being checked out, to the very best of our capabilities. Another interviewee mentioned that racism in America is worse now than before Obama took office, and laid the blame directly at the feet of the president. Perhaps someone might respectfully point out that if the racial divide in America has indeed worsened since Obama took office, the blame and responsibility might best be given to we the American people ourselves, rather than to a single individual who seems to very successfully combine the white race and the black race quite well within a single human mind, body, and spirit. But that might be a bit too obvious. We are dealing with an electorate half of which seems to believe that by building yet another barricade between the U.S. and Mexico, a problem will be solved, a problem which no longer actually exists. Wasn't it H.L. Mencken, or maybe P.T. Barnum who said that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people?........PLEASE SHARE THIS WEBSITE WITH OTHERS TO ENCOURAGE FREE EXPRESSION.THANKS!

Complaining About Words, About Nothing

CONSERVATIVES COMPLAIN that Obama refuses to use the term "radical Islamic terrorism". You've heard them do this. They make the same complaint about Hillary. Obama has responded that none of his advisers has ever told him that to use that expression would aid in the war against terrorism. That doesn't seem to make any difference. the complaints still come, as if the complaints are a force of nature, unstoppable. There's a better reason, and it bears repeating. In the United States is a venerable, traditional, conservative organization, the Ku Klux Klan, i.e., the KKK. This is a radical, extremist, Christian terrorist organization. Terrorist, because it has murdered thousands of people for the purpose of making a political statement, which is what terrorism does. Christian, because, in order to become a member, one must be a Christian, more specifically, a protestant. They burn crosses as a way to make a statement. Christian terrorism. And yet, when have you ever heard the klan described as a "radical Christian terrorist organization? The answer is: never. Why not? Because there are millions of good hearted mainstream American Christians who repudiate the Klan, who consider it, appropriately, evil. And these people do not want the KKK to be in any way associated with the Christian faith. most of the mainstream Christian community most likely prefer not to even think of Klansmen as true Christians, people trying to follow the example of Jesus. They wish to distance themselves and their religious faith from this terrorist organization, understandably so. Obama refuses to use the term "radical Islamic terrorism" for the same reason. there are nearly two billion good hearted Muslims in the world, and they haven't the slightest desire to associate themselves and their faith with terrorists. Rather, they wish to distance themselves from terrorism, and overwhelmingly they undoubtedly consider terrorists to be people who have forfeited their claim to membership in the community of Islamic believers. Obama, and other people who do not use the term "Islamic terrorism" understand this, and choose to respect it. Obama also understands that by assisting the Islamic community in distancing itself from murderers, there is a tendency to build a better alliance with Islam in fighting terrorism. There can be no better ally in fighting terrorism than the world's nearly two billion good Muslim people, and there is no need to disrespect or alienate them. Obama understands this, while his critics refuse to, almost as if they are not intellectually capable of it. More probably, they simply wish to keep the complaint alive, because they have no desire to miss an opportunity to complain about Obama.........PLEASE SUPPORT FREE SPEECH BY SHARING THIS WEBSITE WITH OTHERS. THANKS!

Deferring Dreams....

FOR AFRICAN-AMERICANS, everything takes time. Dreams are deferred. Suffering comes quickly and lasts long, and the surcease of suffering takes time, maybe too much time. Stuffed like sardines into the cargo holds of slave ships, the trans-Atlantic voyage took weeks and months, and millions of Africans died en route, which mattered little to the enslavers, because the loss of cargo was written into the business plan, accepted as the cost of business, and did not consume enough profit to render the trade unprofitable. Slavery in the United States endured for 246 years, a very long time, one might think. It had been abolished for centuries in most other places, as early as 1066 in the mother country England, but in America, it took time. Then, their peculiar institution abolished by blood in 1865, the white American south threw a temper tantrum, and effectively reenslaved African-Americans for several more decades, segregated and cast them out of society for a hundred years, until finally, in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson sensibly asserted: "one hundred years is long enough". After, at long last, all the civil right legislation had been forced down America's throat, racism went underground, where it lingers and festers today, deeply embedded institutionally and subtly in every aspect of American culture in this, the allegedly progressive year of 2016. And now we have, at long last, the Smithsonian museum of African-american culture and history, after waiting for it for one hundred years. The idea was put forth by freed slaves and civil War veterans, and first proposed one hundred years ago, in 1916, during the presidency of a notorious racist, Woodrow Wilson. Now, at long last, the museum is open, and another dream of African-america has come true, very belatedly, like all the other dreams deferred......THANKS FOR READING!

Trying To Communicate, A Little

I STILL DON'T FEEL LIKE I belong at the senior center, even though I've been going for a year now. I'm "only" sixty one, and most of the other members are far older, in their seventies, eighties, or sometimes nineties. And, as I expected, many of the members don't seem to like me very much, if at all. Maybe its the rolling stones T shirt, the one with the lips and tongue. most of these folks seem to prefer gospel, with a little hillbilly sprinkled in. My New York Yankees necklace probably doesn't help, but probably doesn't hurt either, since men wear necklaces all the time nowadays. Some of them probably realize by now that I am not a christian conservative, but rather, a left wing non christian pantheist, and I'm sure that doesn't set too well, even though tolerance for non Christians is increasing in a culture where the percentage of Christians has been declining steadily. What intrigues me is that, of the people who don't seem to like me, most of them have rarely if ever spoken to me. Their apparent dislike of me stems from something other than actually knowing much or anything about what I'm like personally. In most cases, I tried to speak to these people a time or two when I first joined, then gave up, and resigned myself to silence. The friends I have made there have convinced me that the problem isn't me, and that I am perfectly capable of fitting in and making friends, if not with everyone. To me this seems like something of a metaphor for the real world. We humans tend, it seems to me, to automatically mistrust people and groups of people we don't know, and we tend to warm up to people when we get to know them even a little bit, even when we speak only a few generic, civil words to them. It makes me wonder how often has this scenario been played out in the history of the human race. Individuals, or groups of people who don't know each other, mistrust each other, and because of this initial mistrust, never make any attempt at communication, and therefore become and remain either rivals, or coldly mistrusted and disregarded strangers. But what about the instances throughout history, and there have surely been many more of these than we will ever know, in which people started out coldly regarding each other with dislike and contempt, then, by happenstance or otherwise, engaged in a just a few moments of communication, found each other not so bad after all, communicated a bit more, and became, if not fast friends, then at least.....intelligent beings who regarded each other as something more than objects of contempt and disdain. A much better scenario, one might think, and worthy of us all, if only we would try it a bit more often......THANK YOU FOR VISITING!

Watching The Weather Change, Right Outside

MOST OF MY LIFE I've lived in America's mid section, and I've always paid attention to the weather. Doesn't everyone? It seems to me that the weather has changed. I think the winters have gotten milder, and the summers have gotten longer and drier, over the past fifty years. I don't think I'm making this up. Over just the past few years I think I've noticed this more and more, and I wonder whether I would have the same opinion if I hadn't been bombarded and inundated with global warming messages for over thirty years. My best guess is that I would indeed have noticed a change, but would wonder whether I was imagining it. Most noticeable to me is that spring begins earlier, and the trees lose their leaves later, in what has become a generally longer growing season. Around here, I remember when spring did not start in February, as it does now, and we didn't have to mow our lawns in October. I would be perfectly happy to deny climate change, to assume that it is merely somebody's fertile imagination working overtime, but the evidence in front of my eyes tells me otherwise. Milder winters, longer, drier summers are part of the predictions for man made climate change science. Arguments against climate change are so ridiculous as to be laughable. Is it possible that some people really believe that the whole thing is a conspiracy among liberals who want bigger government, or scientists who want more research money from government? Goethe said: "We resist the truth only because we would perish if we accepted it." Or maybe, if we accepted the truth, our biases and prejudices would be called into question, so we avoid the truth. Now I wonder not only how much longer I will live, as most people my age probably do, but I also wonder what the weather will be like in another twenty five years, when I might still be alive, but will probably be living the last years of my life. Twenty five years at the current rate of change might produce some very very strange weather. Its hard to imagine violent storms sweeping across the world's oceans on a daily basis, or year after year of severe drought in huge areas of the world, or the disappearance of winter altogether, but that seems to be the direction in which we are heading. I'm almost glad I will certainly not be alive in one hundred years, because by then, the situation might be extreme, even if we begin to ameliorate it now, which we have not started to do as of today..........THANKS FOR SUPPORTING CREATIVE, FREE EXPRESSION!

America Protesting What?

AMERICA IS A NATION IN REVOLT, the only problem being that it isn't sure exactly what it should revolt against. It seems to be trying to revolt against authority, against something it vaguely tries to define as "the establishment", which, I assure you, nobody in America has even the slightest idea what it is. In a country where Donald Trump is seen as "anti-establishment", there is certainly no coherent definition of exactly what or who constitutes the establishment. It could easily be argued that Donald J. trump is the very epitome, the very essence of the establishment; rich guy from New York, always giving orders, who hangs out with all kinds of celebrities, and wealthy powerful people. But Trump has changed political parties and opinions as often as most people change underwear, so the republicans consider him an outsider, and their own elected political leaders they consider part of the establishment, which explains why Trump so easily beat ostensibly strong candidates like Scott Walker, Marco, Rubio, and Jeb Bush. The academic community and science in general are taking a hit in popularity, as conservatives attack both as authoritarian institutions which must be brought under control. Conservatives seem to be throwing out all science, no matter how solid the science, things like climate change and evolution. Experts and the very idea or experts in general is coming under attack, as alleged experts in fields such as environmental science are condemned as frauds when they make scientific announcements which are contrary to traditional, conservative values. If climate change is real is means that the liberals were right all along, and that we must make many fundamental changes to the way we live, which amounts to liberal social and economic policies, which must be avoided at all costs, because it all conflicts with my long held deeply conservative point of view, which I must defend at all costs, and must therefore call climate change scientists "idiots" rather than experts. It all makes perfect sense. if you want to find the real establishment, the true center of power in america, follow the money, as they say. It leads through corporate board rooms. The Bernie sanders revolt was, and we hope, still is the one true revolutionary movement in America, revolting against the true enemy; concentrated wealth and power. With Trump, the conservatives are not trying to protest or revolt. In truth, they are trying to turn back the clock several decades.....THANKS FOR SUPPORTING FREE EXPRESSION!

Imagining A Liberal President Trump

SOME WEALTHY ;PEOPLE seem to be generous with their money. Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, people like that. Zuckerburg wants to cure all diseases b the end of this century, and to get started, is investing three billion in research. Cool stuff. Is anybody out there planting trees yet? We need about a trillion, just to catch up. These guys are proving what a wonderful tool money is, like antibiotics and guns, if uses properly. Why not accelerate the construction of solar energy collection systems to the point that we trap and store far more energy than we need or use? The money part we can work out. Buffet? Gates? Any ideas? the thing I like about Trump is that he is not ideological, not married to liberalism or conservatism, doesn't in fact, have any idea, obviously, what liberalism and conservatism are. The Donald will disappoint his conservative minions, soon enough, by falling prey to the overtures of some high pressure liberal organization for some feel good program that will enhance his popularity, which is what he cares about, at this point. A large enough mob of liberals would stand a chance with Trump, and that has got to frighten conservative ideologues. If anything, the Donald is innovative. Who knows what he might be willing to try? Maybe good old fashioned, single payer, European style health insurance. Again, this guy's no conservative. Let's all surrender seventy percent to the fed, like Denmark. Can you imagine? President Donald J. Trump, using executive orders and the power of the bully presidential pulpit to to make america's economy more Danish, more sharing, more prosperous. Too funny to even contemplate, but very possible....VISIT OFTEN! THANKS!

Electing Trump, Unthinkably

SURELY, AT SOME POINT, the American people will come to their senses, although with the American people, one never knows. If and when they do, it may be too late. The republicans started out with a large number of impressive presidential candidates, oh so very long ago, people like Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, et al. So, what happened? Little Marco and lyin' Ted don't seem so bad right about now, do they? I hopped on the Trump bandwagon early, because and only because I thought Trump would mess up the republicans by fragmenting them, and hand the election to the democrats. I never thought Trump actually had a chance, and neither did anybody else. Very few actual republicans liked Trump from the outset, and those who are supporting him now are holding their noses, trying pathetically to justify Trump's totally unjustifiable views, comments, and general craziness, and supporting him only because of their extreme hatred of Hillary. Give the right wingers credit: when they hate, they hate for real, and when they hate you, you stay hated. Perhaps we should all have been a bit more careful what we wished for. It has recently occurred to me that the American people are indeed crazy enough to elect Donald J. Trump president, which is beyond frightening. Only because of Hillary Clinton's extreme unpopularity, largely the product of a twenty five year smear campaign in the mainstream conservative media by what Hillary calls a "vast right wing conspiracy", does Trump actually have a chance to win. The term "conspiracy" may be a bit too much credit to give America's right wing; after all, a conspiracy requires a certain degree of intelligence and cooperation. The leaders of the right wing menace, people like Carl Rove and Roger Ailes, have lured the entire conservative movement to the Hillary feeding frenzy, with outrageous lies and accusations, as is their style. They've turned her into a criminal, without a single indictment or conviction. An utterly amazing feat of deception. But it may soon have tragic consequences for America, and for the world, because if Donald J. Trump is indeed elected, even the fools who supported him will wish they had been more careful what they wished for.........PLEASE SHARE THIS FREE EXPRESSION WEBSITE WITH OTHERS. THANKS!

Bringing Progressivism To The senior Center, Cautiously

I LIVE IN A SMALL TOWN in the southern part of the U.S., and unless I'm mistaken I'm the only person in town who believes in evolution. I may also be the only person in town who believes in climate change, socialism, extraterrestrials, gay rights, gun control, and legalized marijuana. Its a tough job, being a progressive in a tiny American town, but somebody's gotta do it. Somebody has to because without that one small spark of intellectual progressive thought the entire town would sink without resistance into an oozy quagmire of brain dead boredom and conformity. A mindless, mediocre, changeless culture. Everybody at the senior center, and I mean everybody, agrees that if everybody were identical, the world would be a far less interesting place. Everybody agrees. Nobody takes issue with this idea, nobody claims the world would be better with billions of identical human beings. Well O.K. then. In the buckle of the Bible belt, an atheist or two'll do. Why encourage and approve of complete community-wide religious, philosophical, or intellectual conformity? Why not have a little intellectual diversity, a free flow of different ideas and opinions? How hard can it be to convince an elderly farmer that half a billion tones of carbon added to the atmosphere and left there day and night for many years might have some sort of impact on the weather? Harder than I think? They would understand the consequences of a few gallons of gasoline poured into a small farm pond, wouldn't they? The conservative country Christians. They're the problem. The most narrow of the narrow minds. They're the ones who never stop to consider that free market capitalism is the exact opposite of the economic message of Jesus. "Render Unto Caesar" does not go well with the TEA party. When it comes to redistribution of wealth, Jesus Christ is hardcore. whatever you have, sell it, and give it to the poor. Pay without complaint whatever taxes are asked of you. These people vote republican, and think government welfare programs make people lazy. Can you even imagine how they will react when I point out to them that the senior center is non profit and publicly owned, otherwise known as socialism. That'll freak 'em out for sure. Hell, half the old buzzards'll probably have a cow. But at least they will, perhaps for the first time in their lives, know the joy of intellectual diversity..............THANKS FOR READING!

Fighting Terrorism And Avoiding Religious Wars

I DON'T KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE have been murdered by the KKK since 1866, the year confederate military hero Nathan Bedford Forrest organized the Klan, one is too many, but the actual number is somewhere between one thousand and one hundred thousand, and counting. The Klan has waxed and waned, but never disappeared, and is very much with us today. You cannot be a member of the Klan unless you are a Christian. The KKK is a "Christian" organization. Just ask them. A Christian terrorist organization, which kills people with bombs and guns, just like any other terrorist organization. Violence for the purpose of sending a political message. Terrorism. For decades millions of good Christian Americans have ignored the Klan, doing nothing to oppose or speak out against it. If the Klan were an atheist or Islamic organization, you can bet your Bibles that it would have been exterminated long, long ago, instead of uneasily accepted in America. Klansmen are seen in America as people who embrace the true religion, but behave badly at times. Their religion is not seen as part of the problem, even though everything they do, they do in the name of their Christian faith and God given American patriotism. Just ask them. There are more Klansmen in America than Islamic terrorists, many more. And yet nobody is calling for a moratorium on Christian immigration to America. The "War On terrorism" must not become, must never be a war against a religion, especially a religion with almost two billion members. That's what the terrorists themselves want; a religious war, and instead of giving it to them, we must unite all Christians and Muslims together to fight the terrorists. The Islamic community, both international and American, is America's greatest ally in fighting terrorism. Nothing could be more obvious. Would someone therefore please tell this to Donald Trump and his right wing shallow thinking supporters? The Islammic community in America has thwarted more terrorist plots than you'll ever know. We must not exclude Muslims from immigration, and we must not treat American Muslims with cold, angry disdain, the way right wing redneck idiots who support Trump tend to. This right wing anti-Islamic nonsense must be stopped, along with its leader, Donald J. Trump...........PLEASE SHARE THIS WEBSITE WITH OTHERS. LONG LIVE FREE EXPRESSION!

Replacing Conservatives With Greens

EVERYONE WHO LIVES close to the ocean knows that the sea level is rising. In Miami, Florida, at high tide, on a bright and sunny day, there is flooding. People notice things like that. Land owners next to Chesapeake Bay are seeing their shoreline vanish underwater. Pacific Islanders are losing their homes beneath the rising water. I remember waking into a hotel in Hollywood Beach, Florida, and dumbly asking the lady: "where's the ocean?". I had flown to Ft. Lauderdale, landed at the airport, boarded a cab, and been taken straight to the hotel without getting so much as a glimpse of the ocean, and I was out of patience. I was ready for my first view. I recall she looked at me weirdly, and said: "right behind me. Just on the other side of this door." And sure enough, she wasn't lying. To me the ocean looked too close to the building. I wonder if it looks closer now. Does anyone, other than American conservatives, still doubt that climate change is real, or that it is man made? It is maybe about time to capture a huge amount of solar energy, desalinate huge amounts of sea water, and pipe the fresh water into deserts and drought ridden areas, like California? There are toughly three point five trillion trees on the planet. Humans have killed half of what there was. Perhaps it would be a good idea to plant about a trillion trees, over the next couple of years. A circular solar energy collector, maybe a mile or two across, made of aluminum foil, in near Earth orbit, collecting as much energy as we can use or need, twenty four seven. The question is: "why not?". What's stopping us? Do we possibly have a few elected members of the United States congress who accept campaign contributions from fossil fuel corporations? Should we possibly consider voting them out of office, and replacing them with members of the Green party? There is a solar energy boom just on the horizon. It is essential for our very survival that we encourage it as much as possible, rather then hindering it because of a desire to keep money in the hands of the currently wealthy. Let the currently wealthy fossil fuel people divest, and reinvest, just like the rest of us. It can only hurt so much, and the cure will be worth the pain......THANKS FOR JOINING US!

Attacking Obama's "Birth" Insanely

SUPPOSE A CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN white Christian guy runs for president, whose parents are dead, his father having been a deadbeat bloke from Britain or Canada. Suppose he wins the election, and becomes president. Would America's conservatives make a big fuss by accusing him of having been born in Canada or Britain, and therefore not being a true natural born American citizen, qualified to be president? And would they keep up the attack, day after day, year after year, the entire time he's in office, long after it had been proven entirely false? Either way, would anybody care? Well into his term in office, would anybody really care exactly where he was born? Be honest. The answer is, of course, that nobody would give a rat's ass one way or the other. The question wouldn't even be raised in the first place, and if it were, would be put to rest at the first sighting of a proven authentic birth certificate, the way it should have been with Obama, but wasn't, because finding out the truth was never the point to the insane "birther" movement against Obama; the point was hatred and racism. Donald Trump's years long crusade to convince the American people that Obama was born in Africa was, and still is, pure racism, of the most sordid and sneaky sort. Racism in America has gone underground, and only rears its ugly head very indirectly. There was a time when racists did not deny being racists, were not ashamed of it. Now they deny it, but are still racists. And the way Trump is handling the whole situation now, blaming it on Hillary, is absolutely beyond freaky. Its delusional, sick, twisted, mentally ill, you get the picture. Trump has been upfront, spearheading this hateful attack for, what, eight years now, and suddenly he had nothing to do with it, and in fact blames it on Hillary? Delusional. This alone should lose the election, and would, in sane times. Trump's followers do not care how many times he lies, or how incredible the lies. They never have. Its not about that for them. its about Hillary, and liberalism, and their intense hatred of change and social progress. Trump is a hateful, angry, vindictive racist, just like many of his basket of deplorable supporters................THANKS FOR LOGGING ON!

Organizing America's Poor To Govern America

HERE ARE TWO IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES between Donald J.Trump and Hillary R. Clinton. Hillary wants to raise minimum wage, and tax the wealthy, or so she says, and Donald does not. That's a big difference. Whether or not Hillary is sincere, and one never knows, overwhelmingly, its what America wants, because, overwhelmingly, America is poor. To redistribute the wealth by taxing the wealthy and raising minimum wage is, without question, advantageous for the poor, who don't seem concerned enough about it to actually do anything to achieve it, like organize. The poor are either at work, or home from work, exhausted, ready for escape entertainment rather than political activism. Considering how many poor people there are in America, and by how much they outnumber wealthy people, it seems amazing that the federal minimum wage and tax rate on the wealthy are both so very low. Demonstrably, ridiculously low. The claim that America has the highest corporate tax rate in the world is offset by the fact that there are more loopholes for corporate taxes in America than anywhere else, and most American corporations end up paying very low taxes or no taxes at all. In America, we the less than wealthy masses subsidize the wealthy, in what is known as "corporate welfare." Conservatives argue against progressive economics, of course. There simply are not enough wealthy people to tax, they say. We say, fine, we'll do the best we can, and we'll get tax revenue from the wealthy, even if it isn't as much as we might want. Raising minimum wage kills jobs, they say. We say fine, we'll take our chances. All jobs should pay a living wage, whether jobs are abundant or scarce. If jobs paid nothing, anybody could get a job. If the poor people wanted to, they could govern America. We already missed one golden opportunity by not electing Bernie Sanders. But we'll have other chances, if we choose to embrace them, by organizing.......THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

Treating People Poorly In America

NOBODY KNOWS HOW MANY HOMELESS PEOPLE there are in America. No matter what number is advertised, the actual number is likely to be much higher. It is several million at the very least, maybe tens of millions. As the wealth of the nation concentrates in fewer and fewer hands, the cost of living increases, and most people find themselves losing ground financially. Homelessness increases, and is no longer restricted to self destructive derelicts. In America, homelessness is moving into the working and middle class. In Santa Barbara, California, a wealthy community, there are middle class ladies in their seventies living in very nice cars, SUVs, Cadillacs, because they were evicted from their homes and cannot find a new one. There is a seven year wait for senior housing in Santa Barbara, and some people no longer bother keeping their names on the waiting list. One lady showers at the Y every morning, then sets up her easel and does her painting in a local park all day. People with some savings and social security income are homeless, because of a shortage, indeed an absence of affordable housing across the country. As the divorce rate increases, and more people stay single, more Americans are approaching their senior years in our individualistic loner culture with little or no family support structure, and the sheer mobility of American society leaves millions of us without any deep roots in the community. For a country as wealthy as the United States of America to have this kind of homeless problem is, to say the least, ridiculous, just as it is ridiculous and incredible that one out of every five American children has food insecurity. Just as it is shameful that so many of America's heroic military veterans are homeless, largely because they can't get the medical help they need, or the support and assistance they need reintegrating into our cold and lonely culture, dealing with such issues as housing and employment. Jefferson said it best: "I tremble for my country, when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever." In the Untied States of America, it is very much past the time when we should take a good hard look at how we treat other nations, ourselves, and each other.............PLEASE TELL A FRIEND ABOUT THIS WEBSITE. FREE EXPRESSION IS VITAL. THANKS!

Cooperating With, and Avoiding People

OFTEN, IN CONVERSATIONS, I mention how little I like the human race, how much I prefer dogs and cats to humans. Somehow, it just seems to come up. I back up my position by citing a Harvard study which revealed that a high percentage of the American people, something like twenty percent, claims to prefer dogs and cats over people. Nearly everyone I mention this to self identifies as part of the dog and cat crowd, and expresses surprise that the Harvard study doesn't give a higher percentage of human haters. Consider this: one point five millions Americans have surgically reversed their gender. They all seem to mean it. what about changing species? What about leaving homo sap behind, and soaring through the friendly skies as an eagle, or lounging as a spoiled house cat? It'll probably be possible, in the future. My personal preference is based on my past and current life, and history, general human history. World Wars One and Two are enough unto themselves to make me question human sanity, human behavior in general. How peaceful and loving are we, and how violent? You can never name all the wars. There have been too many. There are too many now - what, thirty or forty, at any given time, all over the world? In my personal life, I cannot ignore the constant rude, angry, petty behavior I see all around me, directed at me, and others. Dogs and cats, on the other hand, never hold a grudge, love you unconditionally, and are forever loving and loyal. They only engage in violence sporadically, for brief periods of time, usually without disastrous consequences. In terms of violence, no other species does it with the consistently ruthless efficiency and destruction as homo sapiens, aka us. And yet, of all the mammals on earth, human beings are by far the most sociable, the most cooperative among themselves. Wolf packs are closely tied together, monkeys and apes nurture their young and live in communities, but even the most social animal does not come close to our level of sociability and cooperation. Its what makes our successful domination of the planet possible, our high level high tech civilization. Ironically, our cooperative nature is why we engage in warfare on such a large scale, with such highly organized, ruthless efficiency. So yes, when I make my antisocial remarks, I try to remember to add that we humans are indeed noble, compassionate, and caring creatures, who have achieved much and can achieve infinitely more in the future. But somehow, at the end of the day, I always end up home, alone, with the phone turned off, no social media, and a house full of dogs and cat. Who knows? Maybe some fine day I'll become one of them........THANKS FOR VISITING!.

Hiding Our Shame, Hillary, Trump, and Obama Style

THERE ARE A MILLION REASONS why people try to hide things, all of which boil down to the same reason: they don't want others to see what they are hiding. What people hide says much about the person doing the hiding. Take three examples: Hillary Clinton, Donald J. Trump, and Barack Obama. Each of these three politically prominent people is hiding something, and we know exactly what it is, and why they are hiding it. And it says much about each of them. Hillary is hiding the transcripts of speeches she gave to Wall Street corporations for big money. We can only guess why, but the reason is obvious. She kissed wall street ass. She must have said something to the effect that working and making big money on wall street is the greatest thing in the world, and let's keep it up. What else would she say, being paid a lot of money to speak to wall street? Only, she doesn't want us little people knowing that she said that, since she likes to come across as being a great champion of the little people, not the big wall street people. This tells us that Hillary is a liar, and a hypocrite. Donald J. trump is hiding his income tax returns, and there is only one possible explanation: it reveals how much money Trump has, and he doesn't have nearly as much as he claims to have. What else could it be? This tells us what we already knew, that Donald J. trump he extremely proud of his wealth, and he thinks his enormous wealth makes him superior to other people, and he refuses to allow us to know his actual net worth, since it must be considerably less than his exaggerated claims, and the less wealth he has, the less superior the great Trump will be in his own eyes. Obama is hiding his college transcripts, which can only tell us that Barack Hussein O. made a shitty grade here and there in college, probably because of too much partying, which he has already admitted to. But being a proud man, he doesn't want us to see any "D's" or "F's" on his old Ivy League grade cards. That's understandable. All three of these people are hiding these things only in the sense that they are refusing to reveal them to the public, but easily could. Chances are we will never see any of these things: not Hillary's speech transcripts, not Trump's income tax return, nor Obama's imperfect academic record. And, really, that should be no problem for any of us. So what? So what if powerful politicians have something to hide? Who doesn't? We should all have the right to hide whatever we are ashamed of, shouldn't we? And besides, we already now what these three people are hiding, and exactly why they are hiding it, so in reality, they aren't hiding a damned thing from us, are they?--------------------PLEASE SHARE THIS WEBSITE WITH A FRIEND! THANKS!

Imagining Corporate America Under Trump

THE EXTREME RIGHT WING American menace that all sane patriots fer and face daily is not, regrettably, limited to the United states. Like the plague, its everywhere, usually aided and abetted by top secret American foreign policy, CIA style. The United States of corporate America, aka "the American military-industrial complex" has never failed to install or prop up a right wing capitalistic dictator, no matter how brutal, nor failed to eliminate a left wing democratically elected socialistic government or dictatorship, no matter how stable, except for Cuba and Castro, and it isn't because we haven't tried. No sooner was the Olympic flame extinguished in Rio than it happened again in Brazil; a good, accomplished, democratically elected left wing president driven from power by the Brazilian version of the extreme free market hate mongering right wing, with perhaps just a smidge of American clandestine "support", of who can say what variety; maybe the usual money, CIA hit men, and arms transfers. Gotta keep the CIA in tune and sharp, and free market corporate world control on track. The same fate awaits Hillary Clinton, should she be elected, if she isn't careful. To be driven from power just ahead of a rampaging horde of right wing American Jesus guns and Money TEA Party types. How dystopian. Trump already wants to disarm Hillary's secret service protection, just to give the conservative crazies a pot shot at her, just to see what might happen to her. At every Trump rally his disciples shout "lock her up!", revealing their true attitudes about law, order, and due process, becoming more like good NAZIs every day. President Trump, at suit and tie attention in front of a gigantic American flag, surrounded by uniformed personnel, proclaiming in his nasal New York accent the glory of almighty god and almighty America. then what? On to the building of the Great Wall of Donald? Perhaps an hysterical mass national outpouring of patriotic glee before launching the final attack with our rebuilt military to make the world safe for american based multinationals.........PLEASE SHARE THIS WEBSITE WITH A FRIEND! THANKS!

Never Giving Up On Right Wing Delusions

AT MY LOCAL SENIOR CENTER, two otherwise perfectly intelligent, respected elderly men, veterans of foreign wars, expressed their belief that Barack Hussein Obama was born outside the country, born in Africa or somewhere, and is therefore not a real American citizen. They did this yesterday, after eight years of Obama in office, and eight years of his Honolulu birth certificate accessible to all. Incredible. Delusional. Angry. Hateful. That makes me wonder how many more people there are who would say the same thing. These two men are, not surprisingly, conservatives, Christian conservatives. That seems to be the primary group which has questioned Obama's American-hood for the past eight years, only less noisily over time, as it became ever more ridiculous. My best guess is that the entire American right wing, particularly the Christian part of it, which is most of it, including the ones at my local senior center, still wants badly to embrace this nonsense, for two reasons. One, they are still full of hatred for Obama, desperately, belatedly, futilely looking to destroy a successful, popular albeit black president. And two, they find it easy to embrace nonsense of nearly any sort, so why not? But now the Donald himself has proclaimed Obama to be an American, after eight long years of trying hard to prove otherwise. How generous of Trump. Too funny. Furthermore, Trump claims that Hillary Clinton started the whole birther-truther-anti-Obama thing, and that he has now ended it. Were that man not real, it would be impossible to invent him, and retain credibility. Trump, in fact, created the Obama is not an American movement, and his followers still want it to carry on. But, why? Do they want to call time out, and erase the entire eight years of Obama, and replay them? the American right wing is deadly dangerous because its anger is driving it crazy, and it is supporting Trump, who would become an American Hitler, with one united nation, under one god, following him straight to hell.......PLEASE SUPPORT FREE EXPRESSION BY TELLING YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT THIS WEBSITE! THANKS!

Putting National Unity Under One God On Hold, For Now

WE ARE GOING TO BECOME ONE NATION, UNDER ONE GOD, says Donald J. Trump. Under whose leadership, does he mean? His own? His vision of America's future? Hardly. Had Donald paid a bit more attention in school, he would remember that the United States of America is indeed one nation, but barely; at times two nations, at times fifty, but beneath no overhanging god, of any religion. Secular government, religiously diverse population, with complete individual freedom philosophically, religiously, politically. A nation of individuals, embracing their own individual religiosity, all unique. So, where does that leave "one nation under one God?" No-wheres-ville, man. As usual, the Donald strikes out, intellectually. Please readmit all polytheistic native Americans, polytheistic Hindus, atheists, and polytheists of all makes and models back into America, where they belong. This Donald Trump dude is crazy as hell, becoming ever more so, and is threatening to lead an angry mob of reactionary white men back into absolute power in America, where they once were, oh so long ago. (make America great again! Bring back the old days!) Exactly where has all this national unity under one god been for the past eight years? Or, for that matter, the past two hundred and forty? In hiding? Nowhere. Where have all the conservatives been with their calls for national unity under Obama and one god? It would seem, that according to Trump and his white male conservative minions, one nation under one god could easily wait until Obama is out of office. We certainly haven't heard much about it til now, but how much do you want to bet that we will start hearing about it now? Putting national unity under one god on hold for eight years seems a bit overly patient for patriotic christian conservatives, does it not?.........PLEASE SUPPORT FREE EXPRESSION BY TELLING OTHERS ABOUT THIS WEBSITE. THANKS!

Spreading the Wealth, Soothing the Anger

UNLESS I'M DREAMING, there is an increased level of anger in America, throughout the population. I wonder what the professional have to say about this question. I stay away from social media, fearful of what I might find there, but I somehow sense that there is a rising level of anger amid the avalanche of tweets, posts, and texts shooting all over cyber space. Are strangers a little bit stranger these days? A tad less warm and friendly? Is public discourse at seeming record low levels of civility? Remember that one republican presidential debate, long ago, last summer, back when all of them were still in the race, on which all sixteen of them talked, constantly, and loudly, for thirty minutes without surcease? that was amazing. Those who watched it, tens of millions, could scarcely believe their eyes or ears. A complete, chaotic cacophony of sixteen voice, for a solid half hour, without let up, and nobody who was part of it cared, or tried to stop it, or help the situation in anyway. Now, that is anger. At truly iconic moment in the sordid history of American politics, which have never been civilized, in the least. Thomas Jefferson paid journalist James Callendar fifty dollars to smear John Adams. He got his money's worth, and paid the fifty only when Callender threatened to publicized Jefferson's "indiscretions." And from there, it just gets worse, bringing us up to Trump, the ultimate low. Trump's entire campaign is based on anger, and his entire support base is the angry portion of the American population. The success of is candidacy thus far is a reflection of the extent and severity of the ubiquitous American anger. The declining national economy drives the anger, as more and more of our precious national wealth is drained away on foreign wars of aggression, and most of the remainder is ever more concentrated in the hands of the wealthy elite few, leaving tens of millions of hard working Americans financially stressed, and angry. Any politician who runs for president promising to "bring jobs back to America" is a liar, right? Either that, or delusional. The jobs are gone, and are not coming back. We must create new ones. This is done by increasing demand, which stimulates supply, including the production thereof through employment. We need "demand side trickle up" economics, not "supply side trickle down" economics, like Trump and the conservatives claim. Note: most conservative economic theory is diametrically opposed to truth. Unless the unwashed masses start getting some relief, and reasonable prosperity, there's more anger, and trouble, ahead......THANKS FOR READING!

Dumping Donald, Before Its Too Late

UNLESS I'M DREAMING, which I might be, the polls now indicate that Donald trump has pulled even with Hillary nationally, or perhaps even pulled a bit ahead of her. Surely that's temporary. Three days of pneumonia, and just look what happens! The pools seem shaky, only marginally reliable. And yet, eerily foreboding. What in the hell is wrong with this country? Are we really naive enough to believe that Donald Trump is some kind of anti-establishment revolutionary outsider who will bring great and sweeping change to this country? What in the world is there to give any indication of this? Don't we at least need a president who does not deny climate change? how can we put half a billion tons of carbon in to the atmosphere, leave it there, and expect it to have no impact? Let us all ask: do we really want the construction of a brand new and huge wall between the United States and Mexico? If we do, we're out of our heads, pure and simple. I like Trump, which makes me question my judgment. Evidently I too am looking for a strongman hero of Hitlerian proportions, to save the country. I like him more than I like Hillary. But at least I can sit down, take a deep breath, and think a bit. It makes much more sense to vote for and elect her than him, simply because she isn't crazy, isn't an exhibitionist showman con man. Hillary is incredibly ambitious, mainly power hungry. She's got the money now, and always had enough money, if not a lot. But its the power and control she so desperately wants, more than money or fame. Alarming, perhaps, but no more so than the characteristics most of us possess. Trump, on the other hand, is continuing his reality television star trajectory, his celebrity seeking pathway, and the American presidency is simply not the proper platform for that. The great Donald trump crusade to prove that Barack Hussein Obama isn't really an american because he was born in Africa told me much about the heart mind and soul of Donald J. Trump. That was really and truly sick, and still is, especially after all the proof, including birth certificates and testimony emerged proving that indeed Obama was born in Honolulu, and is a natural born american citizen. Trump's vendetta against Obama was and is sick, and probably racist, though Trump would never admit it. Dude's a hustler, looking for publicity,looking for attention, and indeed, like Hillary, looking for power. But his way of doing it, with all the anger and craziness, is dangerous. The nice way to put it is that trump is temperamentally unfit to be president. he has a vicious attack dog mentally, tells outlandish lies and brainwashes himself into believing them, and acts and speaks with way way too little fore thought. All that's dangerous, in terms of politically leadership of the world's only superpower. Like putting Hitler in charge of America. At least Hillary knows something about political leadership, and isn't crazy. That's enough to vote for her over Donald.......THANKS FOR LOGGING ON!

Watching The Right Wingers Work, For Nothing

HILLARY CLINTON, BASICALLY, is not a crook. She's a lot of other things, but not a crook, per se. If she is, somebody'll have to prove it, and that means legally, by due process, in a court of law, and people have been trying, without success, to do exactly that for at least twenty five years, which tells you something; it tells you, quite obviously that there simply isn't enough evidence to convict her, of anything. Otherwise, by now, it would have happened. The problem with her is that she is a complete control freak, stubborn, paranoid, defensive, secretive. For instance. when she became first lady of these United States, her husband the president assigned her the task of developing a national health care program. For that purpose she assembled a committee of five hundred people, whose names she kept to herself. When asked to release the names, she wouldn't do it! Can you believe that? She wouldn't give out the requested info - because she wasn't ready to. Obviously the names of the people came out, hell, they had to come out, eventually; the committee members all got together and met many times, in broad daylight. There was no reason for her to withhold the names of the committee members even temporarily other than - her need to be in control. Same with the emails, same with the Whitewater real estate scheme twenty five years ago, same with everything; Hillary just likes to do things her way, and to make sure you know that's what she's doing. Kinda crazy, arrogant, but no criminal. Meanwhile, keep digging, you tenacious right wingers, keep digging for any and all dirt you can dig up on Hillary. Its fun to watch you toil so deadly earnestly in such complete futility. You're wasting your time, but until you realize it for yourself, it will do no good to try to tell you. And besides, you people obviously need something to keep you off the streets, and out of even bigger trouble.....------......THANKS FOR SUPPORTING THIS FREE EXPRESSION WEBSITE!

Piss Testing For Employment

NOT LONG AFTER I RETIRED I got bored and decided to go back to work, so I applied at a company that sells in home senior care, for which I'm well suited. The profit margin of that industry is unknown to me; the wage scale could use some improvement. It may well be that the senior care industry, like the nursing home industry, is somewhat of a "racket". I said to the interviewer: "I smoke some marijuana. Doc says it lowers blood pressure." As if I thought this frank admission might help. I further indicated my objection to being urine tested, mumbling something about some imaginary constitutional right to privacy, then went in the other room, left the door slightly ajar as instructed,, and pissed into a bottle. Evidently I failed, because I never heard from them again. I actually sent them a courteous note, thanking them for the interview, and politely suggesting that in situations in which the interviewee is not hired, that said rejectee be at least informed of the situation on paper, with a nice thank you note for having taken the time out of your busy schedule to show interest in our humble organization, blah blah blah. A little blah blah amenity-courtesy never hurt nobody, and the late great science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein even went so far as to suggest that the level of amenities in a society indicates the level of civilization. Especially in so called "professional" circumstances, courtesy doesn't hurt. Then again, how civilized are we if we accept or reject job applicants based on the chemical content of their piss? Is that crazy, or what? What's next, tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, and cholestoral tests for potential employment? In the name of personal freedom, why don't our conservative freedom mongering right wingers stand up as if they actually had a backbone and even a shred of philosophical consistency, and get rid of this insanity? Tyranny in government is taboo, but tyranny in the free market of corporate capitalism is A. O. K.? Is that it? If it is, its crazy, almost as crazy as the idiots who believe it......PLEASE SHARE THIS WEBISTE WITH OTHER LOVERS OF FREE EXPRESSION! THANKS!

Don't Pillory Hillary; Venting Anger at the Deplorables Instead

THE GREAT RIGHT WING ATTACK MACHINE is striking back at Hillary for her deplorable remark. The strategy seems to be to convince everybody in the country that the bitch was talking about you personally, all three hundred and twenty two million, four hundred and thirty two thousand, five hundred and eleven of you. This is a predictable, characteristically stupid, hyperbolic, transparent approach by a right wing that has lost its way and its sanity along the way. We all know that the only people Hillary was talking about are the tried and true Trump supporters, the angry extremists and bigots, which constitute only a small fraction not only of the American people, but of the republican party. Most people who plan to vote for Trump know perfectly well that the man is a freak show, and are not true supporters of his, but are voting for him anyway only because of their unrelenting right wing hatred of Hillary, fueled and fanned for twenty five years by the great American right wing media attack machine. Hillary was talking about a few million redneck idiots, bigots for Trump, and you know who they are, and if your'e not among them, fuggettaboutit. So here's Trump, trotting out a few of the sweetest, most wholesome, virtuous looking straight arrows he can lay his scandal stained hands on, (people who probably either secretly hate Trump ordeploraby hate all the various groups Trump hates), and asserting that they are examples of people Hillary hates, that Hillary hates the best, and only the very best, among us. God, what crap. Trump probably had to pay for these people. Anybody who fails by this point to see through Trump is, well...deplorable. Most republicans despise Trump, most would rather have Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, or any of several other qualified republican candidates, but are stuck with this scum bag, because the deplorables took over, and the sane conservatives, such as they are, are mad about it. Can you really blame them? Wouldn't you be mad about now if you were a republican, stuck with Trump? But take your anger out on the deplorables, not on Hillary. After all, push comes to shove, she's pretty close to being a republican herself.------------------SUPPORT FREE EXPRESSION! SHARE THIS WEBSITE WITH FRIENDS! THANKS!

Are You a Deplorable? Find Out Here!

SO, YOU WANT TO KNOW whether you are a member of Hillary Clinton's Donald Trump basket of deplorables. That's understandable. Who doesn't? All across America's fruited plain, pre-deplorable people are wondering just where they might fit. Hillary has invented a new word, it seems, "deplorable" as a noun. Never mind that Hillary, like all politicians, should at some point figure out that you really shouldn't say things like that, but, as long as we're all wondering how deplorable we as individuals are, you came to the right place. Ask yourself the following question: do you actually believe that if he is elected president, Donald Trump will bring into being The Great Wall of Trump on the Mexican border, paid for with Mexican money? Do you actually believe that his will happen, under any circumstances? If you do, you are a deplorable. If for no other reason, deplorable in your willingness to be duped by a fair but amateurish con man. Deplorable for lack of reasoning, lack of thoughtfulness, and deplorable for fear of Mexicans, and apparent hatred of illegal immigrants. Fear and hatred, because to build a wall, a brand new wall long enough, tall enough, thick enough, deep enough, monitored and well defended enough to make a substantial improvement over the system already in place, which consists of a chain link fence with barbed wire on top of it guarded by a fairly large and vigilant border patrol, is......ridiculous. Rather, to believe that such a wall would be an improvement enough over what we have now to be worth the incredible amount of money needed to build it is.....insane, deplorably crazy, which is why it will never happen, not in a million years. Within a few years we will all be laughing at the idea, and the idiots (deplorables) who supported it. Surveys indicate that people who believe in The Great Wall of Trump also tend to believe in keeping all Muslims out of the country, that climate change is a liberal hoax designed to put more power in the hands of government, that gay people shouldn't be allowed to get married, and that we should all use the bathroom according to the gender listed on our birth certificate, no matter who we are. In other words, deplorables.

Doubling Down On Trump's Angry Bigoted Supporters

IT JUST KEEPS GETTING MORE EXCITING BY THE DAY. Hillary said what? Half of Trump's followers are either racists, sexists, anti-gay, Islamo-phobists, Mexican haters, or xenophobes. Something like that. Didn't she have them all bagged up in some kind of a "basket of deplorables", or something like that, if I aint mistaken? If so, good for her. The more the merrier. You go girl! Tell the damned truth, and damn the consequences! Hell, what's a couple more million alienated voters who could have been Hillary supporters, among friends? Then, of course the right wingers jumped all over her, and she is apparently doing what they call "walking it back", which means, acceding to the notion that she might have said something wrong, and taking it back, eating crow, or whatever. Next thing you know, she'll be outright apologizing, mea culpa style, and will get a temporary bump in the ratings. God, what bullshit. In the first place, what she said is quite correct, assuming she actually said it, which I hope to ever-loving hell she did. And I further wish that instead of walking it back, she would double down, as they like to say, double right on down Donald Trump style, stick it in their faces, and dare the bastards to do anything about it, consequences be damned. There's more to life then being elected president of the United States. There's retirement. Just dare the angry bigoted Trump supporters to really do something about Hillary's basket full of bigots comment, Which of course they can't, other than to raise a self righteous sanctimonious wounded pride howl. It shouldn't be surprising that a bunch of conservative phony christian bigots would be righteously wounded by the truth, the truth about their intolerance of "other religions", their stupid stereotyping of Islamic people, and their bigoted bias against any sexual orientation other than their own, which, among conservatives, tends to be good old fashioned lust crazed male dominated here's your money ma'am heterosexual. If you want to see the angriest mob in your life, go to a Donald Trump rally. Everything's negative, everything's angry. "Lock up Hillary!". Wait. Aren't these the supposed law and order, equal justice under law, due process original intent constitutional conservatives? Lock her up? Just like that? Really? What about an indictment and trial? Hell, what about even a shred of evidence to back up your shrill cry for an anti-Hillary lynch mob? "American generals are a pile of rubble. America used to be great but isn't anymore, and by god we are gonna make it great again!".... Those kind of people. Trumpsters in their ideological dumpster. Wonderfully patriotic, aren't they? You've seen 'em around. You can't miss 'em. They sure as hell make enough noise to be heard. God, what idiots..........THANKS FOR SUPPORTING FREE EXPRESSION!

Creating A Miiddle Class Of Artists

THIRTY, FORTY YEARS AGO I said that if American culture were a horse, it would be shot, a metaphor I evidently considered clever at the time. I still happen to agree with it.Much of my disdain has to do with the insane celebrity culture we have cancered into being, wherein somebody who entertains us is elevated to a godlike status, randomly, as if it doesn't matter who gets elevated, as long as somebody does, because we must have our pantheon of gods, no matter what, because we haven't any god at all that we can rely on. On every street corner in America stands a singer songwriter guitar player, singing and strumming, guitar case open. In the bars and nightclubs too. In any give calendar year are a million novels awaiting publication, and houses up and down the street have easels in the front window. There is no shortage of art and culture in the United States of Advertising, just a poorly distributed public attention span. Don't get me wrong. Taylor Swift is a great singer. She's written some good songs, and sings them well. Also, she's the ultimate business-person marketer. Works like a dog, and we all know how hard dogs work. Deserves her success. But, to what extent? But so are a lot of other good people, good at song writing and singing. Instead of Taylor "earning" fifty million a year, and most of the other starving to death, wouldn't it be nice to have a little bit broader, more open, free market of art in America? we compete for everything in America, including the entertainment dollar, and competition creates winner and looser, and, not surprisingly, monopolies, in everything. the internet give us fresh hope, perhaps. Anyone can market on line, and most people can usually get alive gig. And that's what its going to take in the future, what with all art forms, including music, writing, and the visual arts, becoming available to everyone free of charge. who knows, we may end up yet with a huge middle class of artwork, in which tens of thousands of singer, painters, poets, and writers make around forty a year, and nobody makes a gazillion.........TANKS FOR SUPPORTING FREE EXPRESSION!

Making Memories That Last

CHRISTMAS VACATION, SENIOR YEAR, 1972. Not far away, in Independence, Missouri, Harry Truman lay in state. Just as I reached for the phone, it rang, and my best buddy said: "are you thinking what I'm thinking?" I was. Mom, a third shift nurse, was getting ready for work, about ten fifteen. I said: "mom, Dennie and I are gonna drive up to Independence to pay our respects to President Truman. Is that OK?" She replied: "if you're wanting to see a casket, I can take you down to the mortuary here in town, and show yo plenty."....."That won't do, mom. whatever casket you show me won't have Harry Truman in it." Mom knew she was licked. We got to the Truman Library about two A.M., and the line was several blocks long, in sub freezing weather. By the time we got in, we were frozen, but filled with wonder and awe. The casket, draped in an American flag, was elevated high, and the four service honor guard frozen in respect. the line moved slowly, but steadily at a casual strolling pace. We only had about five minutes inside, after waiting over two hours in line. It was worth it. Dennie pulled out his camera, clicked it, but the flash cube (this was 1972) didn't go off. He tried another, no go. We left picture-less, and got home about sunup. I've always wondered what the photos would have looked like, probably not much; in those days, pictures were always a little disappointing, the images seeming farther away than in real life. but the memory is the thing. The close I get to my nursing home, as step I hope to bypass, the more I realize that, at the end of our days, we have only memories, and that the important thing is to make 'em so that they count later.---------WE ACCEPT CREATIVE WRITING CONTRIBUTIONS. THANKS!

Conservative Icons of Virtue, Crashing Ignimoniously

BILL COSBY AND ROGER AILES, twin pillars of modern American conservatism, turn out to be monsters, miserable, mentally ill wretches. Conservatism's shining token black star, the funny sexy family man, with a fatal flaw. He preys on women, raping them after drugging them into unconsciousness. Roger Ailes, the corporate architect of the modern right wing American media, adviser to all manner of conservative candidates, icon of the far right, but, alas, a serial criminal of such depravity that one is amazed at the double life he led for decades. Hire a beautiful women, promise her great wealth, television exposure to hundreds of millions of people, enormous fame and celebrity, but only on condition that she is available for sex at any and all times, on call for a gross old ugly overweight physically washed up man of wealth and power. Who could possibly turn that fine offer down? Evidently the ladies were all given time to think about it, they were hired anyway, even before putting out or agreeing to, with the assumption that they would see the light later on, when their careers had taken off and become too valuable to them to lose. Very cunning, very calculating by a real far right lunatic and monster. Grandfather said "put a gun in a man's hand and the first thing he wants to do is use it". That goes for wealth and power too, especially power over women, the power to make them or cast them aside in failure. Thank God these bastards didn't pursue careers as high school teachers. Would you want your daughter in their care? Its almost enough to make you want to stop listening to right wingers espouse the virtues of traditional conservative American values, like male dominance and the possession of power and influence by the famous and the wealthy.

Owning Up To Our National Crookedness, via Wells Fargo

THE WELLS FARGO WAGON is way, way off track. Tens of millions in federal fines, for criminal fraud. Five thousand employees fired, for opening accounts, providing services, and charging fees to customers without their permission. A definite no no. How do we say "supervisory oversight"? What distinguishes this is that its corporate entry level worker-employee crime, a relative rarity, rather than the usual corporate top executive crime. That said, what does it matter? Fraud is fraud, right? The company announced a program to award brownie points to sales people who brought in more customers, presided over the opening of new accounts, and some few thousand of the salivating would be millionaires saw the carrot a bit too closely, and sprang into action. Surely, when you're working in a bank, and you knowingly open checking and savings accounts for people who did not request them, there is a little voice in the back of your mind, telling you: "maybe we'd better be careful here, yanno, sit down, take a deep breathe, and decide where our priorities really lie". At least, you'd think. We'll never know, unless one of the dismissed tellers comes clean with a tell all expose of her life in petty crime. Now, technically, all these bottom of the corporate ladder peeps should be indicted, tried, and sent to the big house for a few years, but your best bet is that that'll never happen, and that fact is included as part of the two hundred million dollar corporate settlement with the United States of Acquisition. Now that we have irrefutable evidence that your average American is a crook (shop lifting at Wal Mart at epidemic proportions, one third of American students admit to cheating), maybe we can take some of the heat off the big corporate boys, and fellow crooks Hillary and Trump, and spread the blame as thinly as it should, all across the fruited plain, to each and every one of us.

Scoreboard Watching, Donald vs. Hillary

HILLARY'S UP BY A TOUCHDOWN, 95-88, BUT ITS EARLY. Trump trotted out his list of retired top military brass in his corner, taking an early lead, but the Clinton cannon shot right back, with her list of supporting generals and admirals, ret....Who'll be the first to break a thousand? It won't take long, in this era of offense. H.L. Mencken , or somebody, once said "the fools would be humorous, were they not in such deadly earnest". This brings back fond funny memories of grade school back in the early sixties, when we traded lists of our ten best friends. I thought that sort of behavior was juvenile even then, because I was a precocious little shit, so you can imagine what I, and thinking people all across the fruited plain are thinking now, eyes a rollin'. Technically, military people aren't supposed to be expressing political preferences, instead defending both republicans and democrats in freedom's land from foreign and domestic threats, but who can argue that the current state of American presidential electoral politics is anything other than a threat to America's future? Besides, when you retire, even from America's military, you are beyond danger, and can do and say whatever in hell you damned well please. Trump has a secret plan to defeat the Islamic State, but since the current general military staff is, in his words, "a pile of rubble", His Donaldjesty plans to wait until a more opportune time, when he has how own military leadership in place, before sharing. Rumor has it that the pentagon people are considering threatening to water board the Tumpster to elicit the precious plan and win the war against Satan. After all, Trump approves of what we once called "Chinese water torture", but have since decided isn't really all that torturous. Obama must be seething, wondering how to pry the magic plan out without risking impeachment in his final days in office. We the people in the great fun houses that is the United States of Advertising will simply have to wait for "The Plan" to be unveiled, which it most certainly never will be if Hillary is elected. But in the meantime, we can amuse ourselves by watching the scoreboard and placing bets on which contestant will win the most support from retired military personnel.------------PLEASE SHARE THIS WEBSITE WITH A FRIEND! THANKS!

Star Trekking

WHEN KIRK SPOCK STAR TREK came on, I was eleven, just the right age. Hard to believe its been fifty years. Rumor was that the show was cancelled the day after Armstrong walked on the moon, because the producers thought it was no longer science fiction. It was nearly cancelled the year before, but fans brought it back, for the third and final year. In 1966 I badly wanted one of those cell phones-communicators, now, I avoid them like the plague. Their inventor claimed he was inspired by the show. Many top scientists make similar claims about their inspiration. I remember one warm summer night in 1973, right out of high school, sharing a bottle of Boone's Farm with a girl friend (I'm a cheap date) by the side of a roaring waterfall, telling about my favorite episode. Kirk, as usual, has gone through a serious romance, only to have it end, because duty called. The Enterprise was his only love. At the very end of the show, he lays his head on his desk, and says how much he wished he could..just...forget.... McCoy and Spock are standing there, and they don't like each other. McCoy uses the opportunity to lash out against Spock. "As sorry as I feel for him, I feel sorrier for you. At lest he can feel, to know what its like to be human. You'll never know, Spock, the passions, the loves, the losses, the joys, and the agonies of a human being. And for that, I pity you". Then, he turns and walks out of the room. McCoy's pity means nothing to Spock, no human emotion does, other than as an illogical response. Spock turns his head, slightly, to make sure McCoy is gone. He turns to Kirk, who is sleeping, head on desk. Spock places his flat palm on Kirk's head, and, using his telepathic powers, utters the word "forget". Perhaps there is a logic to compassion which transcends base emotion. Perhaps love and friendship have as much to do with rational thought as passion and emotion. If not here, they do in Mr. Spock's universe. But he would never want you to know it.

Conservatives, Forever Angry

EACH TIME A PROGRESSIVE IS ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.A., the conservatives go ballistic. If one didn't know better, one might suspect that conservatives fear change, or the very thought that change might actually occur. The very prospect of change seems to anger traditionalists. When Abraham Lincoln took office, almost half the country walked out, and started their own country. We had to fight like hell to bring them back in, and I still don't think it was worth it. When Franklin Roosevelt was elected, conservatives across the fruited plain cried "communism!", and "socialism!" until their throats hurt. World War Two stopped all that nonsense, and FDR went right ahead with his socialism. When Bill Clinton was elected, right wingers gathered up their bibles, camping gear, and assault rifles, and headed out into the woods for a bit of militia training. That came to an abrupt end in 1995, when a couple for these fruitcakes bombed the Federal Bldg in Oklahoma city. Barack Hussein Obama was the inspiration for the TEA party - whatever happened to that bunch? Look for something equally as weird if Hillary becomes president. Already their is a nascent movement, something called "alt right", which at first glance appears t be nothing other than the same song, fifth verse; disgruntled right wingers expressing their aversion to change. What hard core conservatives fail or refuse to recognize is that liberalism, which is essentially the ideology of change, is inevitable. Donald Trump's base of support is among white men, angry that other ethnic groups seem to be making progress while they go nowhere. Trump's every speech exudes anger, as he feeds off the emotions of his constituents. The America we know today is a vastly liberalized monstrosity compared to the one I knew fifty yeas ago, when women and other minorities were second class, it was still a country of white dudes, and only weirdos smoked marijuana. Consider the changes of the past several years. We now have socialized health insurance, although in watered down form, gay marriage, and recognition that transgenders are actually human beings. The very fact that we have a black president and seem destined to have a woman president is further proof that the tide of liberalism can only be slowed by traditional conservative society, but not stopped from coming into existence. for liberals, whether we call them "liberals" or "progressives", its merely a matter of time. For conservatives, its a desperate futile attempt to keep the world thew way it was and is, an attempt they must know is doomed. No wonder conservatives always seem to be so angry. They are.--------PLEASE TELL A FRIEND ABOUT THIS WEBSITE OF PROGRESSIVE THINKING. THANKS!

Deciding Where, and How, To Study God's Word

SCHOOL HAS JUST BEGUN, THOSE lazy, hazy days of September, senior year. You can already tell that you're pretty much going to sleep walk your way through what will seem like a never ending drudgery, because you simply have no interest in it. No interest in the dating, drinking, football, and other activities associated with the final year of high school. It all seems boring and irrelevant to you, because you've discovered Christ. While your classmates are wasting their time with those other things, you'll have your eyes glued to the Bible, dreaming of your future behind the pulpit, preaching the Word to those seeking salvation. Your only big decision is whether to attend the local bible College, or try for a place like Harvard seminary. You could do either, because of family connections and good grades, and the choice weighs in the balance. Going local would save a lot of money. You could live at home, hang with old friends, be with your family. Harvard would be better for your professional credentials, and would probably land you a better ministry or career in academia. Plus, of course, the world class academic standards and new experiences you would get. For Bible college, you would be required to sign a statement that you acknowledge the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, and then start classes. To get into Harvard, its a bit different. The grades and test scores are no problem. You are shocked to learn, however, that as soon as you begin Harvard seminary, you are handed a list of mistakes, factual errors, contradictions, and discrepancies in the Bible, and are required to assess them all, explaining them from a historical critical analytical point of view, and to suggest possible corrections. Corrections, to the Bible! It seems that at Bible college, you decide in advance that the Bible is God's perfect word, and that's that. At Harvard, the process involves going through the rigorous course of study, learning ancient languages, learning every word in the bible, and gaining a complete mastery of Christian church history. What to make of the Bible, your decision entirely, can be determined after instead of before your education. Bible college reaches the right conclusion, of course, but they reach it for you, before you ever crack a book. At Harvard, you get no help in deciding whether the Bible is holy scripture or just another ancient text, but they try to give you as many tools as possible to assist you in forming your own conclusion. So the question remains: which road would you like to take?-----------------------KEEP THE CONVERSATION GOING! PLEASE SHARE THIS SITE WITH A FRIEND.THANKS!

Following the Rules, If Possible

I ALWAYS THOUGHT THE LIBRARIANS at the public library in my very small town were a bit too big for their britches, literally and figuratively. I have nothing against somebody weighing three hundred pounds. Hell, this is America. Damned near all of us weigh three hundred here. Its their unfriendliness I didn't like, their apparent contempt for me. Maybe it was something about the way I dress - down. Dp I really look like the radical left wing eccentric malcontent that I am? They are all conservative republicans, I learned that the day after Obama was reelected and they were wailing and gnashing, and maybe we just put out the wrong vibes for each other. That must be it. Little bitty library, several thousand books in a small old brick building, cute, but hardly a reason to feel superior for merely working there. What got my dander up first was the sign on the three reading tables, saying "please turn cell phones to silent so others can read quietly." or something like that. Only problem, these ladies kept up a constant, full volume, shrill laugh punctuated conversation within five feet of the reading area, all...day...long. Turn cell phones to silent? why? Where is the quiet we must protect so arduously? On each table were also signs warning that no food and drink were permitted in the building. You guessed it; at the check out desk, a veritable buffet of food and drink sat constantly, near the only expensive objects in the room, computers. Computers, with keyboards. I mentioned all this in a letter to a city official, and the silent cell phone signs disappeared, but not the food and drink signs. I guess the city figured the ladies had to eat and drink at work to maintain their hefty figures. Then, just the other day, new signs appeared, and you won't believe what they said. I quote; "please do not smoke while reading books borrowed from this library. Paper is flammable, and smoke stains the books." I shit you not. As God is my witness, these small town library people are presuming to give book borrowers instructions concerning the proper environment to create at home while reading library books. What next? Do they intend to visit the homes of book borrowers to ensure compliance? They cannot be serious. They have got to be kidding. i'll bet even the world's greatest libraries, libraries at Harvard and the Library of congress do not have such signs. I feel a sense of urgency to warn the world to stay away from this freak show. I have expect to see a sign next time informing the public that all returned books must be accompanies by a book report, typed, double space, error free. If you think that sounds crazy, think again. Just to be safe, if I ever check out a book from that place again, I will turn on an air freshener in my house while reading, and take copious notes.-------WE ARE ALWAYS LOOKING FOR ORIGINAL CREATIVE WRITING. SEND SUBMISSIONS TO rbbond1955@gmail.com THANKS!

Keeping the Skirts Up and the Pants On At FOX News

UNLESS YOU'RE A SYCOPHANTIC FOX NEWS CONSERVATIVE, you've noticed that the network incessantly exudes a certain smugly righteous attitude, of proper, we know we're on the right side conservatism. You've also noticed the constant selling of sex, with hot babes like Gretchen Carlson et al parading around in mini skirts and tight, sleeveless sweaters. All this makes the revelation the FOX News is a den of lust crazed iniquity with powerful men harassing the women humorous as well as tragic. With twenty million in I'll sue you or we can settle out of court blackmail money, Gretchen will be able to afford all the skimpy outfits she sets her sweet little heart on. FOX evidently realized that twenty million was cheap compared to the possible consequences of trying to defend itself in court. Gretchen has the goods on them, streaming video and transcripts. The whole network could have ended up in some remote federal prison, interviewing each other behind bars. Donald Trump defended his friend roger Ailes to the bitter end, even as Ailes was dismissed from the network, and should consider himself fortunate if he doesn't end up in prison, considering that there are at least two dozen other women ready to file sexual harassment suits against him. Rumor has it that Trump and Ailes will start their own right wing network after Trump loses the presidential election, and if so, the question is: will it be as sexy as FOX? For that matter, what will become of FOX News now, since it would now seem that the jig is up, and word has it that new management would like to tone down the sex a bit and maybe move just a tad towards the center of the political spectrum. If FOX becomes politically reasonable, fair, and balanced,instead of extreme right wing, all the better. But I confess I fervently hope that the sex is kept intact, hot babes with miniskirts and cleavage. What's wrong with that? Hell, they all have Harvard degrees,and all the hot babes deserve to be there based on their intelligence, for heaven's sake! The problem will be how to keep the hot babes on the air, while keeping the old ugly powerful dudes back stage under control, with their pants on. I'm sure they'll find a way.....--------PLEASE SHARE THIS SITE WITH OTHERS.THANKS!

Avoiding Conversations With Right Wingers, For A Reason

I SWEAR, I was reading the sports page, minding my own business. The old sailor sitting across from me at the senior center looked at me as if he might be looking to start a conversation asked me if I had any good news. I said no, and was willing to leave it at that. He then mentioned that he himself had been watching the news, and that Hillary and Trump are still going at each other, as if he were somehow surprised and thought I should be too. Instead of smiling and remaining silent I replied that they were likely to continue goign after each other for at least another couple of months, maybe even longer, because if Trump loses, he's likely to accuse Hillary of being born outside the country, like he did Obama. Maybe I shouldn't've said that, because this old sailor still likes to believe that Obama was born in Africa, and it comforts him in his hatred. I pointed out to my sailor buddy that Obama has proven his Hawaiian birth a million times, and that only hatred could keep the argument alive. That seemed to sink in, but who knows. The sailor fell silent, and I tried to get back to the sports page. but just then, another right winger suddenly decided to give it a try, and offered this: "What about Hillary and Benghazi?" I responded by asking: "Do you think Hillary killed those people on purpose, or accidentally, or tat maybe it doesn't matter, because she couldn't've done anything about it anyway?" Her response was that Hillary is obviously inept, as indicated by her email scandal. I responded that she exercised poor judgment, and should have known in advance that the right wing would crucify her later for having a personal email account while Secretary of State. "The left wingers always turn their heads the other way, and refuse to see the corruption in their candidates", was the response. I replied that I did not see the need to personally investigate Hillary, and was perfectly content to leave it to the FBI, and would be content to accept their results. You may have already guessed that my antagonist responded by alleging that the FBI was obviously a corrupt organization, in the pocket of Hillary, and the American left wing, otherwise they would have recommended indicting Hillary Clinton, who must be a criminal, somehow, someway, even though it hasn't yet been proven in court. I use this spontaneous conversation between me and two right wingers as evidence that it is not always easy or possible to have a reasonable conversation with a right winger, and that therefore, it might be best to avoid them (conversations with right wingers)--------PLEASE SUPPORT REASONABLE THINKING. TELL A FRIEND ABOUT THIS WEBSITE! THANKS!