Being In Opposition, and In the Right

THE GLOBAL MARCH for science, on April 22, was a verifiable, empirical success, as is science, as hundreds of thousands of well informed individuals gathered together around the world, in big cities, to assert that science should be exalted, supported, and practiced, not ignored. The so called "populist" movement sweeping cancerously through Europe and North America would have us believe otherwise, as millions of scientifically illiterate climate change deniers keep voting for candidates who deem themselves qualified to tell us which science to accept, and which to reject, as if they had the faintest idea of what they were speaking. The pattern is; whatever science appears to be an impediment to the accumulation of personal wealth and neo-liberal anti government economic theory is deemed by the conservative community invalid; any science which seems to support the conservative pro wealth environmental ignorance agenda, of which there is vanishingly little, is embraced. So goes all conservative thought. This bizarre Trumpian populism, whatever it is, is doomed to extinction, because if it prevails, we are all doomed to extinction. One week after the march for science, on April 29, climate change awareness marches were held, in a one two punch intended to further push back against the rising tide of right wing populist ignorance. The world advances only because of those who oppose it. (Goethe) The science and climate change marchers oppose it. So did the suffragetttes, so did the anti Viet Nam protesters, so did the Bonus Army marches in the summer of 1932, and so did the racial equality fighters, led by the now iconic martin Luther King. Every last one of these protest movements was correct. Remember that in all instances, the conservatives of the day stood in stark opposition to the progress being advocated, and, then as now, the conservatives were wrong, dead wrong. History hath shewn that all of the demonstrators were on the "right side" of history, and those who opposed them, like today's conservatives, were not. We will see soon, but not soon enough, that those who oppose change and progress are wrong, and will be extinct, but not soon enough.

Changing Our Faith, Inevitably

LATE IN LIFE, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to a friend in which he predicted that the American people, as well as folks around the world, would eventually embrace a new form of religion, a version of Christianity called "Unitarianism", in which science fact is blended with religious devotion to produce a more factually verifiable form of worship, devoid of all miracles and superstition, but retaining the enlightened philosophy which Christ brought to the world. This would occur, said Jefferson, because as more and more people became educated in science and embraced an informed understanding of nature in a modernized world, ancient dogma and superstitions would be cast aside, and the world would become more secular and scientific, less religiously primitive and rigid. Jefferson described himself as a "primitive Christian", by which he meant that he agreed with the teachings of Joshua ben Joseph, aka Jesus, but disavowed everything in the Bible which did not pass the test of empirical reason. Others called him an "atheist", which, in essence, he was, since he renounced traditional religions as superstitious nonsense, and believed that the terms "God" and "Nature" are synonymous. Jefferson, like most intellectuals in his day, described himself as "deist". And this cultural secularization is precisely what has happened, and is happening, as the percentage of Americans who identify as "Christian" falls from eighty five percent twenty five years ago, to less than seventy percent today. In general, the better educated the individual, the less inclined she is to believe in traditional religion. Churches in Western Europe stand empty, as Europeans plow ahead of the United States in updating their religiosity. Traditional religions, quite simply, do not pass the test of reason and fact. The world is not flat, and is older than six thousand years. There is no evidence, other than traditional, that the torturing to death of a good man two thousand years ago atones for our mistakes today. indeed, all evidence indicates that we pay for our mistakes in this lifetime, usually shortly after we make them. For Christ to have paid for them again is a double payment of purely symbolic importance. Hundreds of years in the future, if humanity still exists, it may be that the religion of our descendants if utterly unrecognizable from today's. And that is a good thing, since all human inventions evolve, as well they must, for without change there is no progress. As Goethe said: "the world advances only because of those who oppose it."

The First One Hundred Days

THE TIME IS NOW, Saturday, April 29, to celebrate the first one hundred days of the Trump administration, meaning that there are only a few hundred more to endure. First, the hundred day milestone was important to Trump, then it wasn't, then...The president claims a great deal has been accomplished. He has successfully installed a right wing Supreme Court justice, that having been made possible only by sustained unconstitutional behavior by the rigidly constitutional conservative members of Congress, but..what else? Other than an anti-environmental and pro mega bank executive order or two, perhaps not much. Obamacare is still standing, and shows no sign of going away soon. Same for the Paris climate change treaty, from which Trump vowed to withdraw the United States, and same for the nuclear reactor treaty with Iran, which Trump also promised to trash. Then, we come to the great wall of Trump, the one which, you may recall, was slated to be paid for by Mexico. Turns out that we the American people will foot the bill, as we suspected all along. Mexico, it is claimed, will remunerate through taxes at the Rio Grande border, but, how will they ever get inside the United States? Trump's love affair with Vlad Putin may be on the rocks, and his ranting about unfair Chinese trade practices has mellowed, considerably. The greatest success of the new administration seems to be in the elevation of alternative facts to a higher level of acceptance, and the successful melding of Trump enterprises to foreign policy, conflict of interests by damned. Then too, you have to to appreciate the entertainment value of the daily Trump tweets. May they never cease. to be President is different than to be a presidential candidate, but for our present President, it seems not to matter; all outcomes are totally terrific in the great fun house that is Trumpest America.

Doing The Lord's Work

IN THE GREAT STATE OF ARKANSAS, one out of four children is victimized by "food insecurity", by which is meant that on any given day, he or she may or may not have adequate caloric intake. In most everything that really matters, things such as per capita income, educational level, literacy rate, obesity, cardiac health, venereal disease, teen pregnancies, and what not, the state ranks a consistent forty ninth out of fifty, on the wrong side of the list in all categories. Thank you Mississippi. But give credit where credit is due: Arkansas knows how to kill, and is proving it by engaging in a mad dash to kill as many condemned criminals as possible before their lethal drug supply runs out. So far, three down, and only about a half dozen to go, before April and the poison both expire. One must read those labels. Litigation is postponing a killing here and there, as every condemned criminal is represented in court, all the way to the very top, but, in our conservative times, the condemned usually end up dead. One might almost think that the state would switch to hanging or firing squad, since rope and bullets last longer and hove no expiration date, but, evidently, they haven't thought of that, yet. Give them time. Ironically, Arkansas is one of those places where folks have, in general, an avid allegiance to the Christian God, who, it is rumored, said something to the effect that "vengeance is mine". Perhaps those who associate most closely with the Lord are the most inclined to save Him time and effort by doing His work for Him.

Self Addiction, the Facebook Way

I FINALLY SIGNED UP for Facebook. No big deal, just a blank or three to fill in. But I don't use it, much, and I doubt that I ever will, although I could be wrong. My page is basically blank, and although I've sent out a friend invitation or two, I haven't the motivation to take selfies, post info about my favorite color, or tell women "great pic"! "very pretty"! over, and over...and over again. Too shallow, even for me. I signed on mainly to check out the pages of a person or two of interest to me, including the thirty six year old lady meth addict I tragically fell in love with. (I'm sixty one). American culture is on an orgy of narcissism, the psychology community tells us. We can't stop taking selfies, and self absorbing, living in our own self constructed comfort bubbles of pleasure and self flattery. My lady love can't stop it, and her page clearly reveals an obsession with her own pretty physical appearance. She can't stop taking selfies, lips closed, to hide teeth. Slender as a sexy model, thanks to the meth, and she obviously likes it, does not mind the loss of appetite and explosion of libido. If you look great, and feel great, why not snort powder a few times each day, and miss two consecutive nights of sleep, crash, and catch up later, and show your pretty self to millions of strangers? Facebook is a great way for the insecure to feed their fragile egos. Facebook is a great compliment to the crustal meth amphetamine community. Oh, how lovely we all look, and just look at our pretty houses and cars and high school diplomas! So, maybe I'll never be a Facebook star. Taking pictures of myself and showing them to over a billion strangers does nothing for me. Also, I never liked the idea of voluntarily turning myself into a commodity to be bought, sold, and used for profit by huge corporations, which is what all Facebook members are doing, no mater how much they wish to think of themselves as "customers" receiving a service. You wonder just how many of the most ardent Facebook users are certifiable narcissists, or crystal meth users.

Praying For Rehab For Her

I'M THINKING ABOUT offering to try crystal meth with the woman I love. Also, I might offer to share whatever sexually transmitted diseases, if any, that she might have. (I suspect she does).The obviously insane sounding nature of this very thought is not lost on me. As it is, I am likely never to hear from her again, because by now she has surely realized that I see the big white elephant in the room, which she prefers to pretend isn't there. Her meth addiction, disguised cleverly against a much larger background of apparent normalcy. She does a pretty good job of it, hiding her habit. It can be done, to an extant. A razor blade, a small baggie of powder, and a compact mirror, carefully hidden, used only when necessary, usually about once every six hours for three straight days, before the twenty four hour crash, and another cycle begins again. But helping her remove the stove from her rental house was too much, and I am less naive than she seems to think. The evidence oozes inexorably between the cracks, despite their best efforts at concealment; the routine crashes, the hyper behavior, the skinny body and emaciated face with pockmarked cheeks. The crazy, unstructured schedule, with more activity taking place at night than during the day. We can't go on any longer with both of us pretending, so, its undoubtedly for the best that I never see her again. She'll have to get her help from somewhere else, starting, as it only can, from within her. I have promised God that if I do ever see or talk to her again, which I probably won't, my only effort will be to help, not to exploit. Do loved ones ever round up a posse and stage an intervention for meth? Is meth the primary drug about which people intervene in large insistent gangs? Trying meth with her might force her to accept the reality that I know about her hidden habit, but, at what cost to me? No, that's a bad idea. So is the intervention. She'll have to hit bottom, and decide to climb out. I may never know it that happens, I can only pray pray that it does.

Trump's War Against Government Environmental Protection

SCOTT PRUITT was chosen by Trump to be the E.P.A. Director, because Pruitt, like most conservatives, cares not a whit about using government to protect the environment. He wants to eliminate government regulation of environmental protection, rather than strengthen it, which is the states purpose of the agency he so ridiculously now heads. To actually protect the environment might be bad for business, after all, and no matter what the condition of the world's ecosystem, one must not hinder business. Trump, of course, needs every conservative vote to survive in office. Disemboweling the Environmental Protection Agency will prove a prickly project at best, involving much legislative and judicial resistance and detail. Conservatives are beginning to lose patience, since the EPA still exists; liberals lost it long ago, because of the unwillingness of a large portion of conservative America to concede that global warming is real, and that it is caused by human activity, namely corporate capitalism, which can and must be reformed. Protests, petitions, and protests are beginning to manifest, and five'll get you ten that first Pruitt, then Trump will be run out of town. Quite clearly, the government is going to be used to protect and to try to heal the environment, regardless of conservatism's hold on it, because we the people are going to insist on it, because we want to survive. When Scott Pruitt was Oklahoma Attorney General, he filed lawsuit after lawsuit against the EPA, claiming government overreach. Now, ironically, as EPA director, a wolf in the hen house if ever there were one, the lawsuits are heading his way, many of them alleging deliberate immolation of government. Trump and Pruitt are essentially making war against a vital part of the federal government's environmental protection and regulatory system, and that is treason.

Hunting Easter Eggs, Alone

I AM ABSOLUTELY EXHAUSTED from Easter, and I'm not even religious. I go along with religious holidays, to some extent, just for the fun of it, to blend in, sit back, and enjoy. The great thing about getting older, among the few remotely good things about getting old, is that you can have an Easter egg hunt all by yourself, including hiding your own Easter eggs, then looking for them. You'll never find them, trust me. I might try to get back out today for a little post Easter desperation last ditch effort, because, after all, a good hard boiled egg is worth searching for, especially if its colored some pretty bright color. I just wonder where those dad blasted things are...I recall, vaguely, hard boiling a dozen or so eggs the day before Easter, then painting them, which was a blast and remindful of childhood, then, walking around my large yard, and hiding them...from my future self. The actual hunt was a hoot; I musta spent a good three hours out there Sunday morning, with rest periods for coffee here and there, and, shockingly, never came up with nary a one. You'd think I could have done better, considering that I hid them, and all, but, no go. And so it goes. maybe the birds'll capitalize on my senility, oops, I mean an enhanced tendency to fail to recall certain small details of one's recent daily life.

A Beautiful Crystal Meth Lady, Moving In, Moving Out

WE MOVED FURNITURE all day, from her rental house across the street into my mortgaged property. I was exhausted by seven, ready to sleep. Not her. She and her boyfriend said they'd be back late, and they drove the stove we had moved out, the one she was stealing to conceal evidence of meth cooking, the one she claimed was hers, two hundred miles to a place where it was sold on EBay. She called and said she didn't think she would be spending the first night in my house, where all her possessions were, because she intended to continue working late to finish cleaning the rental house which we had already cleaned. At midnight I awakened, refreshed, and remembered that she would still be "cleaning" across the street, so I thought I would walk over and try to help. A good hard meth "run", as they call it, can last four days, but not much longer. She had no cleaning to do in the already clean house, and I found her locked in the bathroom with her boyfriend, sucking and snorting. The noises were amusing, and stimulating. Here she is, moving into my house with her daughter, because I love her. She has no money, no job because she can't keep a job, nowhere else to go. Dozens of meth head friends, but nowhere other than my house to go. Real friends, these zombies, unable or unwilling to give her a place to stay, but at least they do not kill your buzz, they are mutual social outcasts, they understand each other. Her husband and other boyfriend are both in jail. Her plan, it seems, was to seamlessly transfer her sick and disgusting lifestyle into my house, rent free, right under my nose, so to speak, perhaps assuming I'm too old and naive to notice. Several orgasms and lines of powder daily, several batches of cookies and carrot cake to make my stove an honest stove, and to vent the godlike four day rechargeable energy meth brings. She would be my cook and my maid, she said. A new batch or two of freshly cooked meth, derivative of Sudafed and Prestone antifreeze, a little battery acid, and another toxic chemical or two, only when I would not be home, purchased at a different hardware store every day, to elude detection. She had seen that I have no television set, and said "what do you do?", as if she had never heard of books. No, my love, the question is: "what do YOU do?" Seventy two hours up, sixteen down, predictably, right on schedule, year after organ killing year. Five eight and one twenty five, no fat, no health, but tight jeans and cleavage to attract would be victims of venereal disease into her bed. How long until I awakened at three A.M. to the sound of her bed banging against the wall, for endless meth and lust filled hours? Her constant sniffing is merely an annoyance, one she does not seem to notice. I had to confront her, and I had to kick her out before she spent a night under my roof. Help them hit bottom, so they can make the fateful decision to live and rehab rather than die, then help them start to climb out of their abyss into the the light of health and a happy, productive life. Isn't that the formula? But not if they aren't ready, not if they vanish into the night, with their compact mirror, razor blade, and small plastic pouch within the concealment of a purse.

Loving Ourselves, Deeply

EVERY PSYCHOLOGIST, psychiatrist, and sociologist in America understands that we the American people are currently engaged in a narcissistic orgy, which differs from normal American behavioral patterns only in degree. Just ask the experts. They all agree. We are immersed within our vacant selves. My lady friend, the one who carries a compact mirror, a razor blade, and a small plastic bag of powder in her purse, right next to her "smart" phone, spends more time using the mirror to gaze admiringly at her visage than she does laying out lines, and that's going some. Powder and phone, always close, always being monitored, zombie like. She always smiles, careful not to show her teeth, which are stained with tobacco and rotting from oral meth-induced dehydration. A selfie for every occasion! She applies make up before pointing the phone at her face. She hasn't the slightest awareness that her every word and deed bespeaks drug addiction and narcissism. She has apparently given the matter no thought. Who can know? Isn't the apparatus hidden, the behavior chipper? She never uses curse words, says she does not drink, and does not like the way marijuana makes her feel. No coffee. Meth and a pack of Marlboro Lights a day does the trick, butts on the ground, without a thought as to who will clean up after her. Her sniffing is constant, with a rhythm of its own. I'm no better. My drug of choice is coffee; my mornings are lost in self absorption, checking those abs, sacrament of the baby booming "me" generation. Hold the decaf. There, but for the grace...Three hundred million Americans, gazing lovingly at their smart phones, which gaze back, looking for themselves, never finding it. If thou gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into thee (Nietzsche). We are lost and in love with the abyss of our reflected selves. This is a country in which the surest path to the presidency is a self proclamation of sexual predation, extreme narcissism, extra hair, and a tangle of anti-social personality disorders. We the people approve, if only tacitly. It is no longer possible to engage in intelligent conversation in he United States of Amnesia, if ever it was. The phone will beep, the next text will come in, and it must be answered immediately. We avoid each other better when we send texts with absurd abbreviated spellings. How very clever of us! If I'm speaking, she responds to her phone. If she is doing the talking, the phone can wait. Only the banal will suffice. All intellectual content is verboten. No politics, public affairs, or religion, please. Nothing of real importance. Just small talk. Into our abyss we plunge, never giving a thought as to how to get out, never even wanting to.

Dating A Meth Addict

DO NOT FALL IN LOVE with a crystal meth addict, particularly one who manufactures it in the comfort of her own home. It may sound great at first, dating someone who is always cheerful to a fault, full of energy and confidence, someone who seems to be on top of the world, self assured, brilliant. Meth users feel like god; the initial euphoric rush, followed by hours of godliness, powerful, in control, brilliant. That's why they become addicted; they are addicted to being euphoric and godlike. The problem is, this lasts for about three days non stop, then comes the crash, the horrible mood swings, and the twenty four hour sleeping it off. Then, the cycle begins again. They do a great job of hiding their addiction. They often have so much energy that they keep their homes spotless. The only evidence is a small package of white powder, conveniently kept in any purse, along with a compact mirror and a razor blade. When high on meth, one can be excessively industrious. Problem is, the person you love will end up in either the hospital, prison, or the mortuary. You learn not to mind the constant sniffing, and the curvy slender body that comes when appetite goes is very, very sexy, but internal organs eventually shut down. The life of a meth addict becomes chaos, eventually, as risky choices create strained relationships, sexually transmitted diseases, and financial chaos, leading to a life of petty crime and constant deception, a double life in which the addiction is carefully concealed against a background of lifestyle normalcy. My lady friend would go to work four days in a row, bust butt, then miss on the fifth day, like clockwork. The pattern was too predictable. Her sick days came only one day at a time, as if every illness was the same twenty four hour bug, every fourth day, right on schedule. No, sickness does not work like that. When I helped her remove the stove from her rental house my suspicions were heightened. Stoves, like toilets, never leave the house. Rather, they convey, as realtors like to say. To remove a stove is to destroy evidence. When your sweetheart is locked in her bathroom at midnight, after a long day of work, with a "friend", the only thing that can happen is oral sex, snorting powder, or both. Meth users hang out together, because non users are buzz kills, and birds of a feather flock together. A razor blade found on the floor is a sure sign of powder cutting: who uses razor blades for anything else these days? One and a half million Americans, it is estimated. A world wide phenomenon, worse in many other countries than even southwest Missouri or northeast Oklahoma. It can be tempting to date a meth addict, with all her libido, but, again, don't do it, because there is only a train wreck waiting to happen.

Americans Of a feather, Flocking Together

AMERICA'S POLITICAL POLARIZATION is widely known, written about, and discussed. Liberals discuss it with liberals, conservatives with conservatives. If we are fortunate, the twain never meet. Heaven helps us when they do. Heaven forbid that we should ever engage in political disagreements with civility. Not in the land of the yuge and terrific Trump. We all know about our little ideological bubbles, wherein we select only the information sources and friends which conform to our preexisting biases and beliefs, precluding any attempt at intellectual expansion. Then, there's gerrymandering, a long and venerable American political tradition, in which congressional districts are drawn and redrawn by whatever party is currently in power so as to herd us all into districts of like minded voters, as a means of keeping incumbents incumbent. The most fascinating aspect to this is that, as is now becoming evident, we Americans not only try to hang out with people who reinforce our beliefs, we actually try to buy and build houses and rent apartments in locations so we can live in communities where other fellow travelers live. Kansas City is full of conservatives, and Boulder is full of liberals. America's cities tend to be liberal, America's small towns and rural areas tend to be conservative, and the trend is intensifying. Texas is plain old right wing, and California is the land of the dreamy, idealistic liberal, at the top of which smiles Governor moonbeam. Any student of American history, particularly the Civil War, fully understands that when America polarizes, it doesn't fool around. The process has not run its course, and will play itself out, in its own way, no matter who we elect as President. We can only hope that conservatives are always welcome in Austin, Texas, and that liberals are always welcome in the rest of the state. The world already has enough refugees.

Calling A Constitutional Convention

A MOVEMENT IS AFOOT, all across the fruited plain, to organize and execute a constitutional convention, and more power to it. Texas and California are prominent in the ten or so states in which the movement has seriously hold. Texas, of course, would love nothing more that to secede from the union, A-gain, and form the Conservative Republic of Texas. California, conversely, would exit the nation on the liberal end of the spectrum, and form the Socialist paradise of California, Inc. Thirty four states at a minimum are required to call for a national constitutional convention, and there is currently no indication that this number will ever be reached. However, nobody thought the Trump movement would go anywhere either. We need a new constitution, point blank. The question is, should we scrap the constitution for a whole new model, or merely amend the one we have now? Most people would probably favor the latter, whereas wisdom might suggest the former. Maybe we can all at least agree that the two amendments prohibiting alcohol and repealing prohibition could be left out. Above all else, the second amendment needs to be clarified, written in specific, modern terms, not to abridge or destroy it, but rather, to make it more specific, easier to understand, harder to disagree about. A modern, secular, civic definition of marriage would be a good idea. Gays rights, transgender equality, women's reproductive rights, all vital modern issues, should all be spelled out clearly in our new constitution. Problem is, does anybody know even a single conservative who would be willing to consider this?

Going Heels In The Natural State

AS CONCEAL AND CARRY LAWS swept across the fruited plain in the United States of Aggression, Arkansas fell prey, and ended up with a law which allowed colleges, universities, and a few other places to opt out, and prohibit arms on campus. Then, nightmarishly, the right winger NRA Christian nut case types at the capitol went full berserk, and removed the exemption clause. Suddenly, Arkansan institutions of higher education were no longer given the option of keeping folks from concealing and packing, including, believe it or not, at football games. Seventy thousand units of meat in the seats, Razorbacks and Crimson Tide battling it out below, with who knows how many drunk, crazy, or angry fans, including twenty thousand twenty something students sitting close to the field, packing heat, ready to explode. A recipe for a mass killing mayhem of biblical proportions, right? Hell, like I told a friend: I'd probably end up shooting everybody standing on the Alabama side of the field, then reload. None of the sane sort of people, including footballs players, relished this prospect. Most of the players allowed as that the thought left them feeling "uncomfortable." The University of Arkansas was at risk of being banished from the Southeastern conference, and the late great state of Arkansas was in dire peril of being boycotted, ridiculed, and hauled into a sanitarium with a throng of shrinks, for intense psychotherapy. But, at length, the sane prevailed, an all too rare occurrence in our beloved of the legally insane. The exemption was restored, and football fans will have to find a way to get by without the comforting feeling of their glock in their pocket. And I wont' have to choose between paranoically sweeping my gaze back and forth across the entire crowd the entire game, or not going. The right wing nut case types must be deeply depressed 'long about now, but, hell, they'll get over it, and besides, they can pack heat damned near anywhere else, just not at Razorback football games.