Finding Witches

THE FORCES OF JUSTICE have the Trump movement entirely surrounded, and are moving in for the kill. FBI, prosecutors, judges, grand juries, among others. When Trump goes, his lunatic supporters will go, won't they? One can hope. For those conservatives among you who might not know, or who might be in denial, Trump's former campaign manager is in, as George Bush the elder might say, "deep doo doo". The least Paul Manafort could have done is to have had the courtesy to register as an agent for a foreign country, namely, Russia. It doesn't take much. A little paperwork is all, and maybe a brief wait in the lobby, coffee provided, and at worst a few minutes standing in line behind all the other right wing fanatics wanting to sell out the United States, launder a little cash, or solicit Russian help in ensuring that Hillary Clinton not get elected. The wait in line wouldn't have been inordinately lengthy; there are only so many right wing fanatics wanting to turn traitor then tell lies about it. Or maybe that estimate is too conservative. Quick review. Donald Trump Jr. meets with Russian reps in Trump Tower. Much communication ensues between Trump presidential campaign and Russian "operatives". FBI announces Russians tried to help Trump win election, using Facebook ads, and other means. Manafort indicted on twelve counts. Youthful Trump campaign adviser with funny Greek name, George Papadopoulos pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about connections between Trump campaign and Russian "representatives". That brings us up to yesterday. The next step is for the fibbies (FBI) to take Manafort and the young Greek dude into the interrogation room, and ask questions. Five'll get you ten both perps will sing like little birds, and give the cops everything, to avoid lengthy jail time, and you can further bet your sweet bippy that Mr. Mueller and the feds aren't going to settle for any small fry. Now, its their time to move in on the big boys. Meanwhile, Every conservative fun house talk radio program in America is claiming that Hillary Clinton is behind the whole thing, and is the real criminal. That the whole thing is a "witch hunt". On Halloween, no less. Exactly how that works in as yet unknown. Maybe Hillary coerced Trump into seeking help from the Russians, because she was getting bored with the notion of beating Donald too badly in the election, felt sorry for him, and wanted to level the paying field a bit, just to make it fair. According to Rush Limbaugh, ever delusional, special investigator/prosecutor Robert Mueller is staging a "coup": He is attempting to overthrow the American government, and presumably replace Trump and his fellow gangsters with a consortium of Hillary Clinton, climate change hoaxers, and members of the biased elite liberal media. That is the current mind set of America's conservative movement. If you see one out on the street, you might want to cross the street, and look away. Or, if you are especially bold, remind any conservative you have the misfortune to encounter that sometimes a witch hunt finds a few witches.

Fighting The Opioid Epidemic, Trump Style, bigly

THE NUMBER USED TO BE one hundred forty two. Now, it is something like a hundred and seventy five. The number of people who die each day from a painkiller overdose. Without question, it can go much higher. The American public seems to have embraced the term "opioid", for some reason, maybe because people think it sounds cool, intelligent, or whatever, but the term "painkiller" is actually much better, much more descriptive, much more to the point about what is actually going on, for it describes the intended result of the pills without any cute terminology getting in the way. Sex years ago when I injured my hamstring while running I was given a prescription for hydrocodone, which must be a bit different from hydrocodone. There are more painkillers under the sun than Doan's has pills, as they used to say. I was amazed at how easily I got the prescription; a little complaining about my hammy did the trick. I Immediately noticed how powerful, and pleasant the pills were. I soon realized that if I didn't quit taking them very soon, I never would, so I did. I don't plan to use them again, knock on wood. Modern medicine is a double edged sword, mostly beneficial, and thank the dear lord for it. But a hundred and seventy five folks per day is a bit much, to say the least, rather like the number of deaths in vehicular crashes, or World War Two casualties. Hell, we only lost about two hundred a week in Viet Nam, at the height of the war. so, what's a hundred seventy five times three sixty five? do the math, its a boatload. during his campaign for president Trump took enough time out from slandering everyone in sight to make an offhand remark to the effect that if elected, he would have an answer for the painkiller killing epidemic that would be really, really marvelous, totally terrific, beautiful, and would make American win again, make America great again. then, after taking office, after spending eight months bashing everybody on twitter and trying to get the government out of the business of saving the environment, and other such weird activities, he finally declared the painkiller problem to be a national emergency, and once again promised that, leave it to him, and he would make the problem go away, in a really beautiful and, believe me, totally terrific way, bigly. What every medical professional understands is that the country needs a nation wide chain of drug treatment centers, rehab facilities, free of charge if necessary to anyone addicted to painkillers, and thus in dire peril of losing his or her life. In other words, a massive, Manhattan project kind of effort. big money, big effort, with working together to save nearly two hundred lives a day. Well, the president has gotten us started, with his really, really terrific talk, majorly, and bigly. started in the direction of making America great, and drug free, again, believe me. What more could we ask for from our tweeter in chief?

Exposing: Ailes, Cosby, O'Reilly, Weinstein, and Trump

WHAT DO THE ABOVE have in common? Wealth and fame, for starters. One of them is dead. all the others soon will be, as will we all in this short life. All are involved in the entertainment industry, successfully. And then the dirty linen. All would strongly appear to be sexual predators, with multiple accusers and accusations. Of the crew, only Trump openly and proudly proclaimed his sexually predatory prowess, and for that, he should be accorded grudging, strange credit, for honesty and audacity, if not morality. And look what it got him! The American presidency, and the unflinching approval of America's conservative and evangelical community. We should all be so adept at putting our sins to our positive advantage. These men are but the tip of the proverbial iceberg, or, if you will, the tip of an erect national phallus. roughly twenty five percent of American women report having been sexually molested. Many if not most of these reports are probably true. how many more have been ogled, groped, or propositioned? Female students on college campuses are notoriously beautiful, ostensibly arrogant and self absorbed, and unfriendly. Why wouldn't they be? they've probably been subjected to behavior they don't deserve to be. More so, the more beautiful they are. Human beings, especially modern Americans, are shockingly shallow minded. People in America are paid more, and achieve higher social status, for being taller, better looking, wealthier, and white. Verifiable research conclusively proves this. In America we objectify women, and they often objectify themselves. Our two fundamental social forces, capitalism and Christianity, inherently incompatible, fight hard to find ways, tossing and turning, to become bed fellows. Right wing Christians, somehow, find a way. commercial capitalism and advertising encourage lust, and encourage acting on it, Christianity acting on lust privately, clandestinely. This turns men into animals, and women into manipulators and prey. There are probably but a handful of American men who have not, at one time or another, behaved sexually inappropriately. Fundamental problems, like sexual predation, cannot be solved without fundamental social change. Now that the women of America are starting to speak up, it may be that the number of rats emerging from the garbage pile will suffice to force us to find ways of fundamentally changing our values, which lie at the root of all our problems.

Blaming It On The Chinese

THE GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA does not believe in climate change. He does not believe that climate change engendered by human industrial activity exists. Evidently he thinks that claims of global warming and climate change are a dirty trick perpetrated by democrats, liberals, socialists, communists, Hillary Clinton, and the Chinese. The governor, a republican, does not allow the term "climate change" to appear on state operated web sites. Nor the term "global warming". Nor should it be lawful, he perhaps thinks, in the sunshine state, to utter these expression in public, or in private. Or that in the event of a hurricane, anyone heard to remark "particularly nasty weather", he or she utters this sentence should be required to immediately disavow having made the remark, and should immediately claim to instead of said: "tickle your ass with a feather.", under penalty of fines, incarceration, suspension of first amendment rights, or all the above. Meanwhile, the Atlantic ocean, with great regularity, folds the city of Miami, and the sporting sort breakout their kayaks and go for a pleasant paddle above city streets. Florida has invested five hundred million dollars in a sea wall, designed only to delay the inevitable; the reduction of the Florida peninsula to a narrow string of land jutting southward from Georgia. Florida is in a state of denial. Life continues apace, as if nothing were seriously wrong. New buildings go up, new people invents and move into them, eager to begin a new life in paradise. Miami Bbeachians, many of them older retirees, figure they'll never have to worry about it. They tend to vote republican. Younger people are afflicted with the chronic disease of the young; an inability to conceive of the future. A few hundred miles up the coastal highway, the entire Trump administration consists of people who do not believe in climate change, even though the rising waters of Chesapeake Bay are starting to permanently inundate land which has been in the same families for generations. Those who live along the bay can plainly se what's going on, but not the administration. The Environmental Protection agency is headed by a man, Mr. Pruitt, who spent his pre EPA days filing frivolous lawsuits against the EPA, which impressed the president, who therefore appointed Pruitt to the post. Now, Mr. Pruitt is going about the business of making the agency which he runs as impotent as possible. All mention of climate change has been deleted from the EPA website. Why are the American people permitting this? Because the American people are notoriously self absorbed, and are content with the status quo as long as the bills are paid, the income is steady, and there is money in the bank and a big bright flat screen in the man cave. Also, because many of them are Republicans, and therefore consider climate change to be a liberal hoax, a dirty trick played on us by liberals and democrats, seeking ways to expand government power over the people. The theory that climate change is a Chinese hoax comes straight from the president.

Worshipping The Technology Gods

CALL THEN "the fab five". or maybe "the fearsome five". Whichever, do it respectfully, for your own good. They already exert great influence in your life, and they haven't even started in earnest. If you're not careful, they will own you. Arguably, they already do. Not Wal Mart, not Kmart, not General Motors, General Electric, not U.S Steel. Not Wall Street, nor any big bank or financial services corporation. Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google. MAFAG, the great technology god, which controls your life, and can do whatever it wishes with you. You cannot live without computer assistance, either at work, at home, or in your financial life. When you turn on television, or drive your car, Microsoft designs the software, Apple manufactures the devices you rely on. Facebook lures you into membership, and you become not their customer, but their voluntary merchandise, and the great Facebook lord markets you at will, to any corporation it chooses. Without Facebook, you live alone, very alone, because everybody else uses Facebook, Facebook uses them, rather, and if you are not a member, you are without any friends beyond your own neighborhood. Amazon has yet to make a profit, because all revenues are reinvested in the company, so intent is this monster upon growth. Even now it is penetrating the prescription drug business; there is no aspect of modern economic enterprise in which Amazon will not eventually be dominantly involved. Even now, Amazon has announced its intention of building a huge new operations center, somewhere in America, somewhere which meets its requirements, and every major metropolitan area in the country, and some not so major, are lining up below the great throne of Amazon dot com, pleading their case, begging to be given a chance, and the great honor of receiving the blessing from the Amazonian god. The fortunate winner will receive an economic bonanza, and the behemoth will announce the lucky winner; when it is good and ready. The American people have no choice but to wait for the god to speak. Google provides us with all knowledge. Without Google, there is no hope of knowing things we must know. Even if you think you have nothing to do with any of these monstrous corporations, you do. You are utterly dependent on them, even if you don't know it. Together, they are worth trillions of dollars. They may have more money than the United States Treasury. and as of now, they are entirely beyond government regulation, able for the moment, and for the foreseeable future to do whatever they want with us. Combined, they have more wealth than the rest of the American economy in total, or soon will have. current anti trust law does not cover them, is not modern enough to include these giants in its domain, because most of what they are does not actually exist in an one place, in any one state or universe, instead being widely scattered in the internet, in this imaginary thing called "the cloud". In a more sane world there would be a limit to how large and powerful they could become, but his is not a sane world, and by the time the United States people and its government realize the very real need to regulate and perhaps break them up into smaller competitive pieces so they can compete like companies do in a normal, healthy capitalistic economy, it may be too late. they may have by then already consolidated their power and reach beyond the ability of any government to have any influence or control over their behavior whatever. that is beyond frightening. it may require a world governing body to deal with them, a world government which does not, and quite likely never will exist.

Replacing Science With Fantasy

AMONG AMERICANS, science has fallen into disfavor. we much prefer fantasy. Maybe we are afraid of science because we fear it will reveal truths about us we would rather not accept, or because we find science too complicated, too unwilling to conform to our prejudices and deeply entrenched beliefs about the world, and our place in it. We cannot ignore science, try though we might. however long it takes, whatever the effort required, science at length yields definitive, tangible, verifiable results. And that is precisely the problem. We Americans are very fond of out personal o pinions, we elevate them to the realm of fact, and are reluctant to surrender them no matter how strong the evidence indicates that we should. We are entitled, so we seem to think, to our own facts as well as opinions, and when facts prove inconvenient to cherished opinion, we turn to alternative facts. Exhaustive scientific analysis, repeatedly confirmed, has proved conclusively, for instance, that genetically modified food is perfectly safe to eat. In fact, genetically modified organisms have been used to produce effective medications and vaccines. And yet, so many Americans accept the myth that GMOs are harmful that much packaging assures consumers that the contents are GMO free. Vaccines, which have been used for centuries, have been saved millions of lives for decades. In 1998 an English doctor noticed that several autistic children had been vaccinated, and erroneously concluded that vaccinations greatly increase the instance of autism spectrum development, although this "finding" was quickly discredited by further research, and the doctor responsible for the misinformation lost his license to practice, the cow was out of the barn. Celebrity jenny Mccarthy publicized the false vaccine-autism connection, turning it into a personal crusade against vaccinations. Millions of credulous Americans believed her. why not? Isn't she a celebrity, a famous person, and doesn't that make her an expert, her statements beyond reproach? Vaccination rates sharply declined, and diseases which had virtually eradicated began reappeared. In the United States of amnesia, we replace facts meticulously discerned by true experts with our personal opinions, or the opinions of glamorous people we wee on television. And we leave it at that. In the United States of Arrogance, everyone can be his or her own authority. climate can become a hoax, racism can vanish by pretending that it no longer exists, and we can eliminate all threats to our personal safety merely by well arming ourselves with firearms. Welcome to the American fantasyland, where anything is possible and nothing exists unless we want it to.

Doing the Math: Flake, McCain, Corker, and Trump

IT WOULD BE A GOOD NAME for a law firm. Instead, its three conservative republican United States Senators who have had quite enough of the behavior of the person whose name is last on the list, the President. The least articulate, most narcissistic, least honorable, most corrupt, and least emotionally mature president in American history. Less articulate than Andrew Johnson, more narcissistic than Kennedy, less honorable than Nixon, more corrupt than Harding. And that's going some, considering the competition. All three of the Senators will soon be gone from the Senate. They'll all be going to a far better place. They are not the only republicans disenchanted with their party's leader, disgusted with Trump's behavior; they are merely the only ones who have spoken out publicly. Plus, of course, former president Bush. There will be others, jumping off the sinking ship. They will emerge when they no longer calculate that doing so would do them political damage, which it probably already would not. They will speak truth to power when they can tolerate no more lies, attacks, accusations, depravity from the boorish, crass president. Three republicans fed up with the nonsense plus forty eight democrats make a Senate majority, further diminishing the already tenuous chances that any part of Trump's agenda, whatever it is on any given day, will ever pass. For that we should be grateful that America always comes to its senses, even if it takes awhile. After the 2018 mid term elections the math will only get worse for the forces of Breitbart Steve Bannon. America will at last trump chaos with common sense, and drain the swamp of the stench of right wing billionaire populism, and make America great again, as it was before the carnival barker came to town and insanity prevailed. It begins to appear as if we won't be keeping Muslims out and kicking undocumented undocumented Mexicans by the million, and won't be building the great wall of Trump. We might not even end up giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy and calling it middle class tax relief, and trickle down Trumponomics, the long discredited supply side neo-liberal economics of Reagan and the far right, will trickle down the drain with the rest of the far right swamp. Obamacare might never become Trumpcare, and America might be made great again, as it was not so very long ago.

Big Banks and Billionaires, Winning Again, Trump Style

THE REPUBLICANS and their billionaires benefactors win again, albeit barely, fifty one to fifty. In the microscopic print on your credit card contract it says, although you'd never know it without an electron microscope, that if your local bank is stealing your money, you are not allowed to complain about it by filing a class action lawsuit with other victim's of theft. Instead, you must submit to binding arbitration, mano el mano, just you and the big boys, all alone in a locked room. Just sign here, on the dotted line, welcome to our customer friendly people first community friend of a bank, at eighteen percent interest. sign, bend over, take it, and hey, just look at our enticing sub prime mortgage opportunities, and please visit our online chop shop, serving you and your community, with laon offers and mortgage backed bundled derivatives....The last time I visited my local Bank O' America branch, brick and mortar, there were no longer fruit flavored sugary suckers on the counter, the coffee pot was cold and empty, and some husky well dressed dude with a name tag and shave head got in my space, and asked me what I wanted. He was a trainee. I meekly suggested that he might like to ease up a little on the enthusiasm, but at least I was brave enough not to bolt. The feds, the Consumer Financial protection Agency, bless them, came riding on white stallions to our collective rescue, and levelled the playing field a bit, we the people versus corporate republican America. They put in a rule that class action lawsuits were allowed, especially in situation in which some big bank, say well Fargo, was, just for instance, opening up unwanted accounts for thousands of customers. But Trump and the republicans showed up, like Satan in Faust. It was a tie game, fifty apiece on the floor of the Senate, until VP Pence cast the deciding vote, and its back to binding arbitration, one abused customer at a time, behind locked doors, enduring the decision handed down by a bank appointed arbitrator. Yes, Trump signed it into law. Guess who usually wins the arbitration hearings. Your local, customer friendly, people lending institution, member FDIC. the republicans say they are sparing the common man the burden of frivolous law suits. the democrats say that the average citizen is being deprived of his day in court, and that the system is being once rigged for the billionaires and big banks. who do you believe? and just think, Trump and Pence were all about the little guy, and their support came largely from the very working class stiffs who are now being told to bend over and take it like a man, while the republicans and the billionaires go about the big business of making American great, again.

Learning About Evangelicals, Trump's Way

THOMAS JEFFERSON had two daughters, then his wife died. On her deathbed she made him promise that he would never remarry. Despondent, he wandered his estate for days. Sally Hemings, one of his many slaves and half sister to his deceased wife, rescued Jefferson. She was one eight black, there she was black, a raven haired light skinned beauty, intelligent, with many domestic skills. Jefferson made sure all his slaves were well trained, able to earn a living. In Paris, where Jefferson served as Ambassador, he and Sally fell in love, and began a relationship. he was forty three, she was fifteen. The relationship lasted forty years, until his death, and they had six children, two of whom survived to adulthood. Sally could have walked out into the Parisian streets and been a free woman. France, a civilized country, had no slavery, and all who set foot on its soil were free. But, she stayed. It was true love. They never married, but eventually he freed her, and upon his death she went to live with her grown son. No greater presidential scandal ever manifested on American soil, until Donald J. Trump. Oh, Lincoln whored around a bit when he was young, Kennedy screwed anything that moved, and Clinton followed suit, emulating his hero JFK. Many of the others, including FDR and LBJ had mistresses. You know what they say about wealthy, powerful f, famous men, and their gold digging women. they say that such matches are made in heaven, if not hell. A friend of mine from Argentina, an engineering professor, laughed in amazement that America's right wing Christian community nearly ran bill Clinton out of town over Monica-gate. In Argentina, explained Juan, the president is expected to have at least one mistress. Same in France, and other sensible, civilized countries uncontaminated by sanctimonious religious zeal. But, in the United States of Adultery, all it takes is a little recreational presidential sex and the holier than thou self righteous sanctimonious sub set raises holy hell. That is, until Trump. Now, suddenly, the evangelical crowd has discovered tolerance, and forgiveness, and the power to overlook elephants in rooms. Yes, Trump is a sinner, but so are we all. At least he aint no damned liberal. At least he isn't Hillary Clinton, a damned mouthy female, and a liberal to boot. Just think. evangelical Christians of the moral majority sort voting for and supporting Trump in large numbers, because he wants to keep Mexicans out, make America great and, white, again, and Christian sexy. And because he don' want nobody to have to render to much unto Caesar too damned much or give too much unto the unemployed poor. Evangelical Christians, supporting in large numbers a man who is on his third trophy wife, has a history of adultery, and is, or once was, a proud self proclaimed sexual predator. Donald J. trump and Christian values, like love and marriage. Perhaps Donald Trump has taught us nothing new about wealthy powerful men, young attractive gold digging women, or American presidents, but thanks to Donald J. trump, we have learned much about conservative evangelical Christians in America.

Bringing Back Coal, At The Wrong Time

EACH YEAR the human species adds thirty billion tons of carbon dioxide to earth's atmosphere. The oxygen doesn't matter. The carbon does. The total has passed half a trillion tons, and rising, although the good news is that the annual added carbon amount has levelled off at thirty billion tons, due to a global tendency towards wind and solar energy. that we have flat lined is good news, but not good enough. the next stop is to decrease the annual added amount, then eliminate carbon additions altogether by the middle of this century. its doable, but difficult, and will require work and sacrifice, like anything else worthwhile. Atmospheric carbon content was about two hundred parts per million in 1800, three hundred parts per million in 1900, and is today four hundred and ten, and rising. if the level reaches 450, without reversing and declining, the game is over, the planet will no longer be suitable for human habitation, and most other species will vanish. the planet will have to cleanse itself, then start all over again, evolving what it chooses. One would think it would make a different choice next time. These are demonstrable facts, not alternative facts. now is not the time to eliminate environmental regulations, or to bring back cola and oil. The republican party is the greatest threat to the future existence of the human race in human history. this is not only because Noam Chomsky says it is, but because its member by and large do not see climate change, or global warming, whatever you want to call it, as an eminent threat, which it most certainly is. now is the time to push the panic button, to take drastic measure to save the world for our grandchildren, and our grandchildren's grandchildren. Anyone who was born after the year 2000 will live long enough to experience catastrophic changes in the planet, and in their personal lives because of it. These changes are already visible; crazy weather, thousand year storms every year, severe drought, severe wild fires year round, islands sinking beneath the rising oceans, coastal cities being flooded every high tide. Everyone living along the coastline of every nation on earth can plainly see rising sea level. When the tide comes in in Miami beach, Florida, the ocean floods the sewer system. The United States navy is already making plans to relocate the world's largest naval base, at Norfolk, Virginia. its going underwater, fast. the American military leadership considers climate change to be the nation's most sever threat to national security, and we are still early in the process. By electing people to public office, such as members of the republican party, who do not consider climate change to be a major problem, we are digging holes, and hiding heads. now is not the time to bring back coal. never again will there be such a time.

Pretending To Play Baseball

THE GAME OF CRICKET is incomprehensible TO Americans. We know only that the ball is rolled on the ground, struck by a flat bat, that a game often takes days, and that there are frequent breaks for tea and scones. Baseball is cricket's illegitimate child, and incomprehensible to everyone, including those who have watched it closely for decades. Nobody can hit a baseball with a baseball bat without several years of intense practice. People watching the ame for the first time are utterly confuse. they wonder why nobody ever does anything, and why the pitcher doesn't do anything to help the batter, and whether the guys sitting in the bullpen are being punished for something. One of my girlfriends assumed that when a batter is walked, he has been humiliated. Baseball is fun but crazy, crazy fun.In American major league baseball, the craziness extends from top to bottom. Necklaces and earrings, and socks that do not match. The old timers roll their eyes. Today's players make so much money they have wardrobe options. The craziness extends onto the field, into the game itself, and far beyond. Previous generations of players laugh from their rocking chairs at the way the game is played today. The number of strike outs and home runs is out of the ball park. Everyone is big and strong, and must show off to attract attention and more money. Most hitters either strikeout or hit a hoe run. Lively baseballs, strong hard throwing pitchers, hitters swinging for the fences, and maybe a few undetected performance enhancing drugs. The trajectory of every ball put into play is accurately predicted by computer, so why bother putting it in play? When a strong left handed hitter steps to the plate, right field fills up with people, knowing in advance where the ball will be hit, if it is het, and if it doesn't go over the fence.. When a strong right handed hitter comes p, the defense swings around to the left. nobody knows how to bunt, or the defensive shift would be useless. Baseball, like America, has become a game of extremes. Extreme strength, extreme results. More people enjoy playing fantasy baseball on computers than playing the game in the real world, in real time. When our team loses, we can pretend that it won. In the great American fun house, where nothing is as it seems, our sports are fantasies, as is life.

Setting The Record Straight, Ecomically, Chicago Style

THE WINNER of this year's Nobel Prize in economics is a seventy two year old researcher at the University of Chicago, Richard Thaler. The university of Chicago has produced trillions of Nobel winners in economics. After World War Two the school assembled a distinguished group of strict free market neo-liberal scholars, among them Milton Friedman, which became know as "the Chicago school" of economics. they stressed the importance of getting government out of the economic way, as a means to faster growth. The less regulation of corporations, the better. Trickle down, supply side economics, later implemented by the Reagan administration. Their philosophy was tried in Latin American countries in which the CIA first overthrew socialist governments, than installed capitalistic dictatorships, paving the way for Chicago style experimentation. In every case, the results were disastrous. Richard Thaler is more reasonable. He understands that the "free market" is only a concept, a grand illusion, that markets are not self correcting, and that human psychological factors, highly complicated, always play a part in determining outcomes. His Nobel prize was awarded based on his description of how emotional, psychological factors, extreme exuberance, optimism, pessimism, bad hair days, and numerous other factors influence human economic behavior and thus economic outcomes. His bottom line is that human beings rarely if ever behave rationally, in their own self interest. Thaler makes it seem obvious, so obvious that one wonders how on earth any intelligent and serious student of economics could ever subscribe to pure Adam Smith free market theory, as they do in Reagonomics. "Neo-liberalism", which is what everyone outside the United States calls trickle down supply side economics, holds that by reducing taxes on the wealthy corporate producers, they will have more capital to invest I further production, which will stimulate economic growth. they fail to explain how increased supply will increase demand, because it won't, it doesn't. the opposite is what is needed: trickle up, demand side economics, in which money is put in the hands of the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder, and poor people are turned into consumers, with purchasing power, demanding more goods and services, which are then provided by producers in response to the larger market. This should be obvious to all, but it evidently isn't, evidently, at least to conservative economic adherents. By demonstrating that subjective, psychological factors play an important role in the market, Thaler liberates us from the simplistic paradigms of the old Chicago school, and ushers in the new Chicago school, which is far better educated.

Building Privacy

MY NEIGHBORS to the north are erecting a privacy fence. The several families who have lived in that house over the past twelve years have all talked about it, but this family is actually doing it. The support posts are up, right on the property line, the concrete has hardened. When it is finished I shall be entirely surrounded by fences, my large yard hemmed in on all sides. I myself have a wall of green encircling my half acre; trees and shrubs, which I planted when I built the house. So, no complaints. I'm the last hold out, the only suburban home in America without a brown wooden privacy fence. As long as the state, local, and federal privacy fence police don't come jack booting through my door, I may be safe. If they catch me unfenced, I suppose I'll comply, become a true American, and surround myself with a brown wooden box. My neighbors tell me that theirs will be green. I've never seen a green privacy fence before, and am eager to see it. They say they need it to keep in their dogs and young children, and I can understand that; but wouldn't a modest chain link structure do just as well? No, apparently not. Privacy is paramount in America. Now they'll never have to see me again, and I suppose that is enough to motivate anybody. All privacy fences start out bright clean light brown, straight and proud, then, over the years they inevitably fade to dull grey, the boards warp in all directions and break off at the top, gaps appear, and they turn ugly. I keep wondering if there is a way to paint and preserve them, but if there is, rarely do people go to the trouble to apply it. if I were to go to the trouble and expense of building a big wooden fence, I think I would take the time to preserve it with a coat of varnish or lamination, or whatever works. Americans are obviously in love with privacy fences, and I've never figured out why. Nude sun bathing perhaps? Marijuana cultivation, or other clandestine criminal activity? Or just a yearning to put distance between the crib and the outside world, like tinted windshields, sun glasses, and earphones? Nobody can see in, but neither can you see out, beyond your own yard. That wouldn't appeal to me. I can catch glimpses beyond my hedgerow, and its alive. Privacy fences fit the American character well; we are a fiercely independent people, who want to barricade ourselves from the world, and deal with it on our terms only. I have a friend from Shanghai, China who said to me: "you Americans are the loneliest people in the world! You care more about your dogs and cats than you care about each other." I told him: "you got that right!" He also said: "In America, you take your dog for a walk. In china, we put dog in 'wok'". I thought that was pretty clever, and I congratulated him on his understanding of American culture. With privacy fences, not only do we not have to go out in public and walk our dogs, but we can do whatever we want with our dogs, and nobody will ever know.

Rebuilding Puerto Rico

PUERTO RICO was completely destroyed by the hurricane. Highways, bridges, houses, all gone. One month after the storm, most of the island's three and a half million people still don't have electricity or tap water. Many are hungry. The other day another storm came and drenched people inside their roofless houses. Thousands of tons of supplies have been sent, but the total amount is a pathetic trickle compared to what is needed. President Trump's big talk rings hollow, his brag that he has overseen the greatest humanitarian effort in human history, and such self congratulatory drivel. The actual assistance doesn't measure up. The excuse is that Puerto Rico is an island, that its difficult to reach an island, as if ships were unavailable or inconvenient, as if the island were in the middle of a vast, uncharted ocean. Trump told them, and the rest of us, that American assistance would not last forever, and hinted that Puerto Rico's massive indebtedness would cause future assistance to be limited. True compassion. has anybody thought to remind the president that Puerto Ricans are United States citizens? They became citizens through military conquest; we owe them what they need. The American government, and the American people do not have a history of giving good treatment to people of color, specifically non white non Protestants. It appears to be no different now. If the island were inhabited by upper middle class conservative Christian republicans, a veritable avalanche of assistance would already have landed there, brought by a fleet of carriers, merchants ships, and tankers. The tens of thousand of Puerto Ricans who have moved to the mainland want to help, but are limited, and understandably have no desire to return now. Hundreds of billions of dollars will be required, an infusion of investment capital, thousand of aid workers, and they will need to remain on the island longer than the American president or the American people envision. Otherwise, Puerto Rico's land values will further collapse, and Wall Street corporations and billionaires will swoop in and scoop up the cheap real estate, and the people of Puerto Rico will be reduced to service sector servitude, their standard of living drastically reduced forever. It can only be hoped that this scenario never enters the mind of Donald Trump, who is known to find a good bargain irresistible. For our president, the thought of redeveloping the protectorate into a vast tourist playground for the ultra wealthy elite is perfectly in keeping With his business plan. we don't want to give him any ideas.

Shooting Up The 'Hood

I LOVE GUNS, flat out. My first gun was a cap pistol I got when I was about eight. I loved the smell and the sound. When I ran out of caps, mom would always oblige me, and get me a new roll at the store. I seem to remember that caps for cap pistols could be gotten at the local grocery store, without having to resort to a toy store, but maybe that's a fabricated memory. It might have been the Ben Franklin five and dime. I don't even remember wo I shot at, back in 1963. maybe my older sister, but I don't remember her being interested. I think I just pulled the trigger for that sweet sound and smell of gun powder, and I enjoyed carrying the smell on my clothing. then came the inevitable BB rifle, at about the age of ten or eleven. all the neighborhood kids had one, including my older sister. Every kid in America had a Bb gun in the mid nineteen sixties. We roamed the lower middle class neighborhood in packs, shooting the place up. the y were about half a dozen of us, a couple of kids who later became hoodlums and criminals and landed in the pen, a future fire chief, and a couple of us were intellectuals, destined for advanced degrees and professorial careers. then, in childhood, it didn't matter. the fun was the thing. We made horse apples bleed. We shot at squirrels and birds. Yes, we had BB gun wars, actually shot at each other. I recall taking a hit in my thigh, while fortunately wearing heavily starched blue jeans. it still stung like hell, and left a red dot on my leg, of which I was proud, but not proud enough to show mom. Dad, who had quite a collection of rifles, gave us a single shot, bolt action, breech loading .22 rifle at about the same time, and we fired it, only in his presence, at empty beer cans sitting across the cold clear water river. Then, high school came along, and other interests. For me, tennis, reading, and girls took the place of guns. then college, grad school, career, and now, retirement. however, for the past ten years or so I have been strongly considering reliving my childhood, and getting a new BB gun, just for shits and grins. maybe even a twenty two. I would take target practice, and probably shoot at squirrels in my back yard, but only when the local police aren't watching. Nowadays you can do time for shooting squirrels in your own back yard. Truth is, chances are I would shoot my new BB gun for about a seek, then loose interest, and stash it away in the closet, which is what I eventually did as a kid. But who knows? maybe I could round up all my old buddies from the sixties, the ones who are still alive, or maybe even get a few neighbors together, and start a new gang. that would probably land me in jail too. If in today's world a group of twelve year olds started roaming around the suburbs armed with BB rifles, shooting at anything that moved, the parents would be in jail, and the kids would be in juvenile detention, then foster homes. Back then, nobody cared. My, how times have changed.

General Kelly, Trumping Trump's Verbal....."Limitations"

GIVE JOHN KELLY CREDIT; he has Trump's back, like a good Chief of Staff ought properly to do. And, he seems to give the president good advice. And yet, all the Trump "back-havers" in the world cannot prevent the president from turning good advice into a verbal dumpster fire. Context is paramount. Kelly lost his own son in combat, and told himself, and has told others who have suffered similar losses that: "he died doing exactly what he wanted to do, with the people with whom he wanted to do it, and he knew in advance exactly what he was getting into". Beautiful words. appropriately spoken. But coming from Trump, out of context, the "he knew what he was getting into" line seemed cold and uncaring, and seems to have upset the person it was intended to comfort, which is the measure of success in giving verbal comfort. Beautiful words are not always replete with wisdom. General Kelly, on a roll, went on to say that there was a time not only when giving one's life for one's country was sacred, there was also a time when women were sacred, when life was sacred, and when religion was sacred, and that "all that is gone now". Really? The general might have been better off talking about military sacrifice, and leaving the rest alone. He knows all about military sacrifice, but his knowledge of life, women, and religion are, in all fairness, probably no better than anyone else's. Is the general claiming that women were held in sacred esteem in America back in the good old days when the only career choices open to them were house wife-ery, secretarial, nursing, and grade school teaching, when they were forbidden to vote, hold political office, or serve as corporate CEOs? It might be more accurate to say that if women were held sacred back then, they were held in sacred oppression. Life, no longer sacred? Was life really any more sacred than it is now, during the American civil war, world War Two, and world War One? During slavery? If life is cheap now, it has always been cheap, if not cheaper. Religion is by definition "sacred", in that religion is inherently concerned with the sacred, with a sacred reverential attitude about existence. At last check, there is in America still a church on every corner, and a whole passle, tens of millions, of religious folks free to practice the faith of their choice. The fact that certain religions are declining in popularity while others are increasing membership certainly does not mitigate the "sacredness" of all religiosity. Surely the general does not intend to have us believe that removing prayer from public schools or removing the Ten Commandments from public buildings constitutes an attack on religion rather than a mere upholding of the constitution - or is he one of those extreme zany right wing types? Does he proclaim the need to make America great again, like his questionably patriotic boss? If so, then he, like his boss, must think that America was once great, but no longer is, which calls his patriotism into question. If one does not think that America is great, how can one think it is sacred? America is great now, and always has been. Perhaps General Kelly, like his boss, needs to think of America as sacred and great, rather than as a place which was once great, but no longer is. It more patriotic to believe your country is great.

Fearing For The Next Generation, Needlessly

A GREAT AMERICAN TRADITION, indeed a great human-itarian tradition, is predicting the imminent collapse of civilization on account of the inevitable coming of age of that dread next generation. You know the drill: "kids these days are so disrespectful, stupid, lazy", or whatever else can be said to describe them negatively, "that when they take over, all hell's gonna break loose." I was guilty of it myself, starting in high school. I looked around the classroom at my peers, back in the early seventies, and thought: "Oh dear heavens, whatever is going to become of this world when we baby boomers start having and raising kids. We are ourselves such wild asses." Turned out I was wrong. My classmates, and my generation in general turned out fine, and the children of the baby boomers seem to be ambitious, courteous, successful, and all that. The grandchildren of the baby boomers are still too young for evaluation, but chances are they'll do just fine. The stereotypical dire warning about the near future always seems to be wrong, just like end of days prophecies. My sister, a baby boomer a bit older than I, doesn't think much of millennials. She says they're rude, self centered, blah blah, and I wholeheartedly disagree. I'm a big millennial fan; they are tending towards liberalism, and half of them are not religious. For me, that means they are brilliant. I want to tell my sister: "rude, you say? Hell, look who's talking". But I refrain, for the sake of family cohesion. But the other day a red flag went up for me. I pulled into Sonic, as I often do on Tuesday night, salivating about the soon to be gotten two big fully loaded cheeseburgers for the price of one. (I recommend it to all. Every Tuesday, after five.) I pushed the button, and said: "I would like two of your two for one cheeseburgers, please." The young lady responded: " no sir, they're half price"... To my credit , I didn't let that faze me. I must have had a bemused amused facial expression, but I simply said: "Oh, OK, I didn't know. Thanks". At a younger age, about a year ago, I would have smarted off, but I've grown. The girl in the speaker was probably in high school, therefore post millennial. She was probably busy, and had been all day. Probably tired. Probably wasn't thinking, or listening, and is probably not as stupid as it was tempting to think her to be. Whatever, I'm giving her a pass, and moving on. And I don't want to hear anything about the younger generation being unable to do basic math, or anything else, without a smart phone, a calculator, a computer, and an I Pad. Whether or not its true, I don't want to hear it. Because all I know is, whenever I need help figuring out something about a computer, I go looking for a fourth grader.

Getting Rid Of Trump, But At the price of President Pence

AMONG LIBERALS, it is an article of faith, or perhaps a desperate wish, that President Trump will not complete his first term, that he will be impeached and removed, will resign in disgrace, or that hiss temper will make him stroke out. Liberals are capable of anything. They never five up hope. Trump will be exposed as a Russian operative. His financial conflicts of interest will create such a scandal that he will be forced out. The possible scenarios are endless. A good thirds of the American people do not support Trump, so even if he finishes his first term, he may not be reelected to a second. Those hoping he will leave before the end of the first four years would be well advised to be careful what they wish for. A Trump resignation would elevate Mike Pence to the presidency, and that might prove to be an even scratchier thorn in the progressive side than Mr. Trump. Pence was raised by very strict parents. he and his siblings were not allowed to speak at the dinner table, other than to ask for the passing of potatoes. A roman Catholic during childhood, Pence began talking about wanting to be president since high school. In college he converted to evangelical Protestantism, and his conservative religiosity combined with his very conservative political beliefs to form a hard right and very ambitious politician. Extreme conservative religion and hard right politics go hand in hand in America, inexplicably. They have on tradition and extremism in common/ Pence failed at his first attempts to run for office, but like all super ambitious office seekers, he kept trying, and ended up serving twelve years in congress, without ever sponsoring a successful piece of legislation, which might be a record for ineffectiveness. the previous record was held by Davy Crockett, who served three terms without ever shepherding a bill into law. but at least Davy spoke out a heap of times.. Pence was known more an a party organizer, and worked hiw way well up the republican party ladder. he was elected governor of Indiana in 2012, with the help of much money from his benefactors the infamous Koch brothers. his moment of "glory" came when governor Pence advocated and signed into law a bill making it legal for businesses in Indiana to refuse service to customers on religious grounds. If a gay person wanted to buy a wedding cake or a package of underwear, or anything else, and your Christian faith did not allow that gay people are acceptable, you were not required to render service. the very moment this weird piece of bigoted legislation became law, an uproar ensued, with great wailing and gnashing. Shoppers and corporations staged a massive boycott of all things Indianian, and the sate went into an economic downward spiral. The Indiana business community insisted that the law be repealed, which it was, but at the expense of Pence, who by signing the repeal angered his ultra socially conservative Christian base. Pence was damned if he did, damned if he didn't. He should have judiciously ignored the whole issue from the beginning. His reelection as governor seemed an impossibility, his political career seemed a dumpster fire in the dust bin, until Trump came to the rescue, wanting a little upright Christian social conservatism on his ticket to counter balance his own decidedly in Christian demeanor and reputation. And the rest ,as they say, is history. for the first nine months of the Trump administration pence has been a lap dog for trump, a true yes man, but why not? ironically, the tow men couldn't be more different, morally. Pence refuses to dine with any woman other than his wife, Trump refuses to keep his hands off any woman his is not his wife. As president, pence, like all extreme conservative Christians, would drastically cut any program intended to help people, spend a staggering sum on the military, try as he might to unite church and state, and preach and practice a doctrine of dog eat dog, you're on your own free marked capitalism, apparently believing that Jesus would approve. Not exactly a progressive agenda. The only appealing aspect to liberals might be that a President Pence might so discredit Christian based extreme right wing politics that the country might vote them out of office, for good.

Trump and Cotton, dishonoring America

WITH ANGRY, MACHO BOMBAST, his default style, candidate Trump promised his surly rally crowds that if elected he would cancel the nuclear arms treaty with Iran. He said this without consulting any of the other nations which signed it. He described it as the "worst deal ever", and he's the expert on bad deals, having filed four times for bankruptcy. Donald Trump, the self proclaimed expert on arms control. All of his diplomatic and military advisors seem to disagree; they think the treaty is fine just the way it is, which means nothing to the president, who by now doesn't surprise us with his belief in his superiority to experts. Iran is satisfied with the agreement, and everyone agrees, except Trump, that the Iranians are in full compliance with the terms of the deal. Only Trump and Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton are outspokenly in favor of tearing up the treaty. They both need a lesson in honor and integrity. When you reach an agreement without being coerced or unsound mentally, you abide by it, if you are honorable. if Trump and Cotton think Obama and his team of negotiators and the other signatory nations were mentally unsound when they shook hands with Iran, they should reconsider, and take a look in the mirror. There is where a lack of integrity and intelligence will be found. You don't shake hands, then change your mind. Senator was opposed to negotiating with Iran before the negotiations were even complete. This is only because the matter was being handled by President Obama, who in the twisted minds of conservative zealots can not possibly have good intentions. You may recall that Cotton and forty six other twisted republican Senators, like common traitors, notified the Iranian government during Obama's negotiations that once Obama left office, the new administration would likely disavow whatever Obama signed. Iran responded by asking: "who in the hell is this Cotton dude, and just who dies he think he is"? The answer is: nobody knows. Cotton said last week that he would prefer to use "coercive diplomacy", whatever he means by that. Again, under coercion, no agreement is valid. Tom seems to be unaware of that basic fact. Tom seems unaware of many basic facts, such as the importance of honor and integrity. Maybe he should run for President of North Korea.

Tolerating Racism, As Christians

SLIGHTLY MORE than seventy percent of we the American people describe ourselves as "Christian", down from eighty five percent twenty years ago. The cult is in decline, and will slowly but inevitably die, as all cults do. Throughout American history, on average, the percentage of Christians has hovered at about or just above ninety percent. In that sense, the United States is indeed a Christian country", though not in any constitutional legal sense. Qe have a secular democracy, with a strong Christian component. Culturally, Christianity ha been and remains a major, indeed dominant influencer, the movers and shakers, in American life. And as a rule, Christians ascribe their motivations and behavior to their faith. Furthermore, politically, the Christian community is far more closely associated with conservative than progressive values and ideology. liberal are all over the religious map; atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, godless communists. Render unto Caesar, give unto the poor are values found in both the new Testament and liberal propaganda, but not in conservative politics. Conservatives prefer tax reduction, independent job seeking, the freedom to get rich, but not welfare for the poor. Christian doctrine, as articulated by Jesus, and conservative ideology, as articulated by Rush Limbaugh, mix together no better than fresh water and motor oil. In other ways, conservatism meshes well with the Bible. Slavery, segregation, and racism are all traditional, fundamental American values, both historically and in today's society, whether we admit it or not. Slavery is condoned in the Bible, both Old and New. The Bible provides rules for how masters and slaves should treat each other. With Christianity the dominant force in American culture, why did slavery ever exist, let alone thrive, and why did segregation flourish, and why does racism linger today, as we all know it does? Precisely because they at fundamental biblical values as well as American institutions. The Christian community in America could stamp out racism from the pulpit next Sunday if it decided to. The Christian community could have prevented slavery from ever taking root. Instead, every slave owner used the Bible to condone and justify slave ownership, because the Bible does indeed condone it. Christian ended slavery in the north, much to their credit, but only because economic circumstances made it necessary. With an industrial economy and a ready made white labor supply, jobs needed to be filled by paid albeit exploited white people, and slaves would have provided too much completion for jobs, supplying free labor. In the agrarian south, slaves made more economic sense, and besides, as the plantations owners and preachers repeatedly preached; by bringing Africans to American and giving them work and Christianity, a great favor was bestowed upon them. Some favor.

Speaking In Tongues ,Creatively

PEOPLE WHO SPEAK IN TONGUES, in church, in the shower, or wherever, while writhing and convulsing beneath the alter, have probably never given much thought to the rather obvious fact that the authenticity of their adventure in linguistic accomplishment can be verified, or discredited, rather easily. Whether they are channeling some ancient forgotten bona fide language, or mouthing gibberish, improvising, as it were, making it al up as they go along, putting on an act; this can be definitively determined. Alas, it turns out that they are; making it all up on the spot,, spewing meaningless nonsense, pulling a fast one, so to speak. Every single one of them. To a discerning mind, this probably comes as no surprise. All a discerning mind has to do is record the tongue lashing, slow down the tape, listen, and analyze. Sure enough, no discernable, intelligible language ever manifests. In the book of Acts, the apostles were given, among other supernatural powers, the ability to spontaneously speak in every known language in the world, presumably for the purpose of expediting the spreading of the gospel. Nineteen hundred years later, this story, having been largely left alone previously, was brought to life in te the United States, the only place where it could have been. (They don't speak in tongues anywhere else). The new Pentecostal denomination imbued itself with biblical linguistic talent, and the hollers and mountaintops of Appalachia came to life as never before. But, alas, its nothing but nonsense syllables, the evident intent being to sound as much different from modern American English as possible, and as cryptically arcane as can be. No coherent, consistent sentence structure, which exists all real languages, no nouns, no verbs, no adjectives or adverbs. Nothing with the slightest trace of meaning. How surprising. are the speakers in tongues deceiving themselves, the rest of us, or both? All of the above. We Americans take flim flam to an entirely new level, and we don't bother to stop at the doorways of our houses of worship. No civilization on the face of God's green earth ever did it better. We are perfectly to believe whatever we want, and we take full advantage of the opportunity. In America, all truths are created equal, and each and every one of us has a different version. The word "advertising" used to mean "to publish information". Now, it means, to sell people a bill of goods by using a pack of lies, and you somehow sense that we would keep right on doing our thing, in whatever language we choose.

Being Differrent

WHEN I WAS ABOUT TEN YEARS OLD, I decided, I realized to my satisfaction, that the Christian religion is a bunch of nonsense. Cruel, frightening, illogical, predicated up a good man being tortured to death to achieve salvation for cowards unwilling to suffer the consequences of their own actions. I have never wavered from this viewpoint. It has tended to guide mer towards philosophical closeting. My Victorian grandmothers never found out, and my parents, protecting me from my grandmothers, didn't care, bless them. Le the kid do his own thing. In 1967 I was twelve, and became a secret Viet Nam war protester. I could see through the scam, and the impossibility of winning a war halfway around the world in which the enemy was invisible, ubiquitous, and committed to the long haul. I kept that secret too. My parents wouldn't've been so sanguine on the issue of patriotism. Also, I agreed with martin Luther King, and his protest methods, secretly. My middle class white world thought him a troublemaker, a complainer. A full blown radical revolutionary I had become before I was a teenager. My choice was to conceal my true identity, or risk widespread disapproval among my family and friends. The makings of a troubled, double life, clearly evident from an early age, Dr. Freud. This couch is comfortable. I grow sleepy. I also concealed the fact that I was a Yankees fan, until I came out of the baseball closest at about the age of twelve. Thank God I aint gay, eh? Its a miracle I aint schizophrenic. Or am I? (am I making all this up?) Now, at the tender age of sixty two, I am positively mouthy, when I choose to be. No more cowering in closets. My beliefs about all the above haven't change, have instead fortified, evolved, filled me with pride and confidence. I try, not always with success, to avoid broaching religion and politics, which my sixth grade teacher advised us in 1967. I remember thinking that she was truncating the two most interesting topics, and she was, but for a very good reason; human pride and anger. I still don't like her advice, but I see the wisdom of it. Throughout my entire life Christian have been trying to save me. Really, they needn't. My religiosity is good enough, for me, if not for them. They don't count. If someone invites me to church, I decline, with thanks, If they ask me why I declined, I say I am not religious. If they question why, I tell them because I consider their religion primitive, barbaric, cruel, and insane. They ask, I tell. But I know better than to bring it up. To encourage others to adopt your religion is arrogant, insulting, and condescending. At least I understand that. And, if you try to dissuade me from rooting for the Yankees, you won't succeed. But I have no trouble understanding why you might hate them.

The Unchristian Founding of America

PEOPLO, BEING PEOPLE, view the world through rose colored glass and paint it with colors which best conform to their own biases and prejudices. We make the world in our own image, as people, and as collections of people, called cultures. Consider the founding of the United States of America. Benjamin Franklin, for instance. Franklin and his fellow founders, for the most part, conceived of God as an impersonal, rational entity who made the laws of nature, then receded into the background. An unemotional creator who got out of the way. Those wo believed that God spoke to them in books and stories, books which contained stories of an emotional deity who intervened directly in human affairs, often harshly, was not the preferred ultimate cause of Franklin and his fellow "deists", as they were, and still are called. john Adams wrote a letter to Jefferson in which he expressed concern that his son, John Quincy, might spend the rest of his life studying biblical prophecy, and another letter in which he admonished Jefferson to avoid hiring European professors for his new University of Virginia, because, as he said, European academics might be Christians, and might turn Jefferson's shiny new center of learning into a theological seminary. Adams wrote to a friend in Europe that the bible consists of "millions of fables, tales, and legends", and that the Christian religion had "prostituted" all forms of art "to the sordid and detestable purposes of superstition and fraud." According to Jefferson, George Washington is an "unbeliever", and only "has believers constantly about him because he thinks it important to keep up appearances". Nobody could tell for sure what Washington's religious beliefs were, but everyone noticed that he never took communion, never genuflected, even though he as formally an Episcopalian. Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton had an ongoing wager as to what the father of his country actually believed; neither ever collected on the ten dollar bet, because Washington never divulged his secret religiosity. Jefferson himself kept up appearances by attending church but instructed his teenaged nephew to "question the existence of God, because, if there is one, he must surely prefer inquiry and reason to "blindfolded fear". Jefferson thought all religions were alike, "founded on fables and mythologies, including our particular superstition, Christianity". While president, Jefferson cut a copy of the bible into pieces, and separated out the parts of scripture he thought were reasonable, and threw away those passages, most of them, he considered nonsensical. When asked what he was doing, he replied: "I am extracting diamonds from a pile of dung." He compiled the good stuff into his own little book, a copy of which can be obtained from any good university library, or from amazon dot com, for about sixteen dollars. Its called: "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth", and its a good read. On his deathbed, Benjamin franklin said: "I have some doubts as to His divinity, though it is a question I do not worry much about, and consider needless to worry about, when I expect soon enough to have an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble." W hen someone asked alexander Hamilton why the framers hadn't mentioned God in the constitution, he hilariously replied: 'we forgot". The man whose writing inspired the American people to start a new country with his pamphlet "common Sense" wrote an article called "The Age of reason". Paine hated the Bible and the Christian religion more than most non believers. Even though a vast majority of colonial Americans were Christian, the founding fathers, in general, were not. they were radical revolutionaries, politically, intellectually, religiously. and yet, even today, devout Christians insist that America was founded on Christian principles, when in fact it was founded on what the framers hoped were scientific, not superstitious principles. An impenetrable wall between church and state is what James Madison wanted, and he said so in a letter to Jefferson. that's what they all wanted, because they all knew that religious liberty must be preserved, and that government must be secular, free from religious control. for their wisdom, we should be eternally grateful, here, and in heaven.

Standing Up Against Injustice, by Respectfully Kneeling

THERE ARE EIGHT MILLION Jehovah's witnesses in America who do not salute the flag by placing their hand over their heart during the national anthem, on religious grounds. One salutes God, but not some flag, no matter what it represents, if it does not represent God. there are two hundred thousand Amish in America who do not stand for the Star spangled Banner, for basically the same reason. Your loyalty is to god, and you stand when god commands it, sit when God commands it, but you do not stand like some secular sycophant in praise of something which has no fundamental connection to god, which if fact represents a worldly political and military power, not the Lord. Quakers do not recite the pledge of allegiance. their allegiance is to the Word of God, the Bible, not to any secular power of this corrupt world, including the United States. These are all examples of people who are deadly serious about their religions, and although none of them inhabit the mainstream of either American society or the Christian religion, in general, we the American respect them for the sincerity and depth of their devotion to what they truly believe in. we not harangue them or call their patriotism into question because of their refusal to put any of their temporal loyalties anywhere near the level which they reserve for God. Most American are wither unaware of their lack of showy patriotism, are not concerned about it, or respect it, because most Americans respect the Christian faith and the right of all Americans to practice it as they see fit. All these options are acceptable. this is what we should do; live and let live, leave well enough alone. And yet, let one African-American man kneel on a football field to protest a societal ill, and he loses his job. let a few dozen of his athletic peers do likewise, and the nation, in particular the conservative, ostentatiously patriotic part of it, throws a temper tantrum, suggest that the men should be fired, that the football games should be boycotted, that the football players should lose their job. What an incredible display of shallow hypocrisy by millions of sanctimonious people, who thought they would furiously deny any racism in their motives, are clearly showing just that; racism. To fail to stand for our national anthem is perfectly acceptable, but only on religious grounds. To do so for the purpose of pointing put a social and national injustice which has prevailed for centuries and prevails to this day, to knell in order to point out something truly important and wrong with our society; well, that's just not acceptable. Better to sweep racism under the rug, to pretend that it never happened, or has been long since done away with, than to confront the reality of its pervasive presence in contemporary American life. Typical right wing nonsense. hypocrisy, ND EVIL. The NFL players are not disrespecting the nation anthem or protesting it. they are reminding us of our urgent need to finally address a great evil which has lived among us, and still lives among us, by every study ever done. Racism, and the obvious fact that it remains among us, is our great national evils, and what would our right wing sanctimonious segment have us do? Ignore it. If someone must point it out, at least have the decency to do so in private, where no body has to be forced to see the protest. W shouldn't be surprised. Racism has been, and still is, a force found almost entirely among the Christian right wing of America. At any point in America's history, including now, the Christian community has had the power to eliminate racism entirely, such is their influence. Instead, what do they do? They ignore it, or complain when someone has the courage to speak out against it. Black NFL players love America as much as anyone. they love the flag and they love our silly sounding national anthem. What they don't love is four hundred years of grave injustice, a national American formally sanctioned injustice, and what better way to speak out against it than when we are giving thought to our nation, and what it represents, or what it should represent?

Killing Obamacare, Trump Style

ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, Donald J. Trump is going to kill Obamacare, for two reasons. First, because he said he would, and secondly, because Obamacare was spearheaded in its creation by Barack Hussein Obama, whose middle name, "Hussein", in the fun house world of Trump types, means that the former president is a Muslim. Oh, how our right wing crazies hate Muslims, since they consider all one point five billion of them to be terrorists, even though most terrorism on American soil is perpetrated by - right wing crazies. (see:KKK) Trump and his extreme right wing followers hate Obama to this day, and race has nothing to do with it, so they say, although most of these people spent years claiming that Obama was born in Africa, which to any sensible person raises the red, white, and blue flag of good ole fashioned conservative American racism. Objective, dispassionate experts on the economics of health insurance tell us that Obamacare is actually working quite well, with but a few rough patches which could be smoothed out by making appropriate changes. The people whose premiums have increased because of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, are people with sufficient means to purchase health care insurance in several other places. The millions of poor people who are now insured but weren't before Obamacare are proof of the efficacy of Obama's brand of semi-socialism. First, Trump signed an executive order stopping payments to reimburse insurance companies who provide insurance to the poor under the ACA. Then, he greatly reduced the time frame in which people can sign up for health care, from twelve weeks to six. Rumor has it that the president plans to further the window from six weeks to fifteen seconds, on Halloween. Is this pernicious, or what? the president is hell bent on becoming a self fulfilling prophet: by god he said Obamacare would fail, and now he's going to make damned sure that it does, by strangling it to death. Maybe someone should remind Trump that Obama is actually half white; that might reduce Trump's hatred for the former president by about fifty percent. What will our arguably racist arguably pernicious president do next to kill health insurance for the poor? Perhaps he will oversee the injection of a computer virus into the government website on which people can sign up. Or maybe he will sabotage the website with a hacker's touch, putting a computer generated image of a dark skinned terrorist with Michelle's Obama's facial features at the bottom of the page. Be assured that it will be crafty, whatever it is, and that it will happen soon. The disdain of billionaires for the poor knows no limit.

Suspecting That The Climate Is Changing

QUICK QUESTION: where is autumn? For those of you who through adherence to a rigorous indoor office schedule might not have noticed, its mid October and autumn has not yet begun. In my neck of the woods, the trees, deciduous, which once upon a time began changing colors in early October with regularity, have not yet begun to become red, orange, and yellow. Green they remain, or rather an off putrid green due to our mid August to the present drought, after an auspiciously rainy early summer. Drought is now the new normal in my neck of the woods. On some trees, leaves are falling, but falling green and dry. Then too, every day during October here on the 36th parallel the temperature has been close to ninety degrees, when formerly this time of year was characterized by folks in coats and sweaters. The same is evidently true throughout the country. Green trees, late fall colors, hot temperatures. Then, there's California, ablaze up north of San Francisco in regions which used to be wet and cool this time of year. Worst wild fires in the history of the state, they say. Drought in Europe, wild winds across the Asian steppes, huge hurricanes, of the once every thousand year variety, showing up in the south Atlantic with regularity. If one didn't know better, which is to say if one were not an arrogant American conservative, one might suspect that the climate is changing. You'll recall that most conservative republicans do not believe that global warming/climate change exists, but that if by some weird set of circumstances it does, it is entirely the product of natural, not human forces, and is the result of cyclical patterns beyond our control, nothing to be alarmed about. The best possible scenario is that the progressive world of science repairs the damage, reverses climate change with sustainable technologies, the world returns to a healthy state, and the conservatives say: "see, we told you so. Like we always said, there was never any problem in the first place." And more power to them, bless their little smug hearts. the conservatives who are the most certain that climate change is a liberal hoax are those who never attended college nor passed a chemistry, physics, or biology course, like say Rush Limbaugh.the less educated, the more certain. Typical human behavior, especially among conservative climate change deniers, who fear even the remotest possibility that humanity will be forced to make fundamental changes to its economic and political systems to save the species from itself. Let's repair the environment, then give republicans credit for it; they love being flattered.

Deciding Whether To Be Equal

LOUIS BRANDEIS, who served on the U.S. supreme Court from 1923 to 1939, once said: "you can have democracy, or you can have economic inequality, but you cannot have both." Brandeis never clearly articulate which he preferred. It a difficult choice, to be honest. For the sake of his legacy, let us assume that he wanted democracy and economic equality, rather than plutocratic oligarchy, which is what we have, and what we have always had. brandies was doubtless fully aware of the prodigious price our society would have to pay for actual democracy, and that he surrounded to the inevitable plutocracy. We must further conclude that we the American people prefer inequality and an undemocratic political system, for we acquiesce to it without much complaint, although every so often the meager beginnings of social and economic reform appear, only to wither away beneath an unassailable mound of vested interest money. We give lip service to inherent, classless human equality in America, and we give lip service to our cosmetic democracy, an illusion perpetuated by our ever potent gift of self deception. We pretend that we have democracy, and that everyone's economic status is self inflicted, just, the wages of hard work and smarts, or the lack thereof. Its all a lie, of course. The system is rigged for the wealthy, by the wealthy, and of the wealthy. Plato, in ancient Athens, and James Madison in ancient America, both wrestled with this salient question: which do we choose, economic equality and democracy, or economic inequality and plutocracy? Plato choose the former, in his classic book "The Republic". Distribute wealth equally, and political power in an equally equal manner. Madison opted for the latter, along with the other founders, all of whom were men of means. They chose to dispense with democratic government, in favor of rule of the elite wealthy, and to limit the power of government to change that arrangement in any way. Today, we remain content, even the teeming poor majority. Now, however, our inequality of wealth and power has reached grotesque extremes, and there are signs of trouble. The poor are showing signs of becoming aware of their systematic exclusion from the political process. if current trends continue, there will come a time in the United States in which all political power and all wealth in concentrated in a single pair of hands, but let us hope and assume that before we reach this bizarre state of affairs that we will finally do something about it, something to reform our unbalanced and unsustainable social system, one way or another.

Living Large, Literally, In the Library

RONALD CLARK GREW UP in the new York City public library, lucky fellow. During World War Two, his father was a custodian in the building, and spend much of his time keeping up appearances. One thing led to another, the family spent time there, enjoyed it, and just sort of moved in, setting up house in an unused upstairs storage room, while the man of the house did more than his job description called for, waxing every shelf in the place to a reflective sheen. the young boy, surrounded by knowledge, grew to love books and what they did for him. He grew up a scholar, and ended up spending his career as a college professor. he says he spent hours each day roaming among the stacks, picking and choosing at will, unhurried, being alone when hw wanted to be, while still enjoying a social life at school, with friends, with family, and on playgrounds. Kind of makes you jealous, doesn't it? I didn't literally grow up in a library, but I spent, and still spend, a fair share of my time in them, and consider libraries to be my natural habitat, as I'm sure many other people. The Library of Congress is, essentially, on the same level as your local library with fifty thousand books. the same atmosphere, the same opportunity for learning, especially in our computerized era. Strangely, ever since I was a child, I have never tended to like librarians. I have found them to be petty, vindictive, pious, priggish, emotionally parsimonious. That's only because the librarians in the public schools I attended tolerated not a single hurled paper wad, and no whispering whatever. They're a bit looser now. By the same toke, your basic police officer personality has never appealed to me; too much of the stolid, silent, suspicious type. And yet, I recognize them as heroes, as I recognize librarians as professional community servants. There is no excuse for not liking librarians as a class, all you have to do is avoid them by remaining ensconced in the stacks, out of sight. you can fine your own books, even if it takes an eternity. But librarians are like cops; if and when you need one, you suddenly become damned sure glad that one is available, and they are invariably willing, able, an willing to render assistance, even if they happen to be looing over their thick rimmed glasses, and down their nose at you while doing so. Ronald Clark led a lucky life, and a magical, blessed childhood. I'm jealous. and maybe I'm a little jealous of the librarian profession as well; they get to spend eons of time in libraries, and they get paid for it.

The Meaning Of Words

AMERICA'S GREAT PREVARICATOR, Rush Limbaugh,harms the country on his Excrement In Broadcasting network by duping the gullible, snake oil style, selling snake oil to snakes, the sort of reprobates who voted for Trump, and amazingly, probably still would. However, in several decades of spewing bile and gibberish, he unwittingly told the truth, once. What he said was: "words mean things". Indeed they do, or are supposed to. here wee wish to consider how our country might benefit from taking advantage of a few well placed words. Consider, for instance, our thoroughly corrupt political system. Corrupt in that ist for sale, every molecule of it. It is owned, entirely, by billionaires, because they can afford it. Every elected politician in America, in fact, is either a billionaire or is owned by a billionaire. Every piece of legislation which becomes law is carefully crafted only with the prior approval of our billionaire corporate masters, for the exclusive benefit of the billionaires themselves, to the detriment of everyone else. Minimum wage, the destruction of labor unions, and on, and on. This sad state of affairs could be revolutionarily, easily remedied with seven simple words: "the purchase of political advertising is prohibited". The limits would be on paid speech, not free speech. or consider this: the United States of ammunition is an ongoing shooting spree. Right? The NRA, in effect a billionaire, is intent on putting handguns in everyone's holster, everyone who is a certified "good guy". We are dared to do anything about it, at great personal peril. We could demonstrate our deep devotion to the second amendment by adding the words" while serving in a militia". They could be inserted between the existing second amendment words "arms" and "shall". A capital idea, it would work like a well oiled rifle barrel. Several Supreme Court justices, most notably John Paul Stevens and warren burger, have suggested it. Ah, the power of words, which mean things, and which, if used judiciously and in the right places, can transform society, and make it more like the sort of society in which we all want to live.

Scouting With The Girls

THE ERA OF "Separate but Equal" in the realm of girl and boy scouting is apparently soon to be over. Inclusiveness shall rule the day. Beginning next year, girls will be admitted into the boy scouts, a celebration of gender equality and neutrality. This is the evident culmination of a trend which began several years go. In 2013, gay boys were for the first time allowed to join, openly, with no mention of "don't ask eon't tell". Up until then, they joined, but clandestinely. A couple of years later, scout leaders were allowed to be gay, without pretending otherwise. The coup de grace came when transgender boys, formerly girls, got the keys to the kingdom. Membership in the Boy Scouts is like membership in everything else in America; declining. Meanwhile, the national chair woman/person of the female scouts of America has issued a statement accusing the male scouts of opening their door to girls only for the purpose of boosting their sagging membership by stealing people, luring little girls away from their proper places and kidnapping them, or something like that. The lady is either jealous, unaware of modern society's current politically correct egalitarian tendencies, of just plain old crazy, with a head full of conspiracy theories, which most Americans are these days. In the United States of Accusation, there is a conspiracy theory for every conceivable occasion. Next, we may expect to see reciprocity, the Girl Scouts admitting boys, in member stealing retaliation. Will the day come when one can simultaneously join both, and learn camping and citizenship skills twice, like beans fried twice on the open campfire, outdoors, for good measure? Stay tuned. Considering how tolerant and open minded we are all trying to become, straight, gay, bi, and former boys-turned-transgender newly minted girls will be flocking across the isle soon. The next phase is of course conservative reaction on social media. Never doubt the right wing's intent to weigh in with guns and hatred blazing. Will there be a spike in underage sexually predatory incidents and accusations among kids in green uniforms and merit badges? If not, surely one will be invented, using statistics, to fill the void in conservative thinking. Who will go to the bathroom first, with whose supervision, and the biggest question confronting us of all: which bathroom? You can bet your kind, reverent and obedient merit badge we will soon begin tacking these urgent issues, vocerifously.

Having Way Too Many Boys

IT IS NOW POSSIBLE, IN THIS AGE OF MIRACLES, to determine, in advance, not only if and when you get pregnant, but also whether you want your child to be a boy or a girl, and to implement your decision. We are living in a science fiction world. Of all the people who decide their child's gender a priori, ninety percent choose male. Seventy five percent say that, if and when they are confronted with the choice, they too would choose to have a boy. This may be a good thing. Maybe the human species is subconsciously deciding to reduce its population, by having fewer girls available in the future to get pregnant. This is nothing new. the Chinese have for years, in rural areas, been aborting their baby girls after they were born. Boys can get more work done around the farm. On the other hand, this is probably not a good thing. What it probably means is that we humans tend to value men more than women, we humans are universally misogynistic. Of course, as they say, when you are a parent, with a son you only worry about one penis, with a girl, you must worry about hundreds of penises, to put it crudely but honestly. We have invented the ability to predetermine our children's gender at great moral risk, without due prior consideration, just like we developed atomic bombs, automatic rifles, opiates, and just about every other technological advancement ever made. Will we reach the point where our first grade classrooms across the globe are filled with young "gentlemen", assuming that any first grader anywhere is capable of being a "gentleman"? And when we reach this point, will anybody stop, look around, and say "oops, Houston, we have a problem?" I for one do not wish to live in a world dominated by men, like I already do. If it gets any worse, chauvinistically, we might end up with more Vladimir Putins and Donald J. Trumps than we can stand, if we haven't already, which we indeed have. As matters now stand, about fifty two percent of the world's population is female, the rest male. So maybe a bit of evening out is due, but at a ninety percent male preferral rate, we run the risk of overdoing the boy thing. We certainly don't need more soldiers, and, in any event, women make better soldiers, just like they make better about everything else.

Looking For ET, And Carrying On, Even thougth There Is No Hope

SUPPOSE, IF YOU WILL, that there exists a planet orbiting a star one thousand light years from earth, on which adheres a highly technologically advanced, intelligent civilization. Advanced, because they have smart phones and space flight; intelligent, because they have avoided self destruction through nuclear bombs, environmental suicide, and the like. They know when to turn their smart phones off, say, and they know when to stop worrying about manufacturing wealth and when to start caring for their planetary ecosystem, for instance. Thus, they have survived, so far, just like, so far, we have. (knock on wood). They are curious, like we are, let's assume, and like we do, they turn their telescopes towards the heavens and start looking for other intelligent life, like, say, us, assuming you can call us "intelligent". They point their antennae at us, by sheer happenstance. Out of the entire sky, they just happen to take a look at little old blue earth, which is a stretch, but could happen. We humans are their next door neighbors, because a thousand light years is nothing; a mere hop, skip, and jump. The point is, they are seeing the Earth as the light from earth arrives at their telescope, which means they are looking at the earth as it was in the year 1017, before we started sending signals and spacecraft into outer space. They have no way, in other words, of knowing that we are here, in the year 2017. The whole point here is; even if there is a perfect storm; a smart alien species living on a planet fairly close to us, looking for us, and they happen to find us; they will not be able to see us, because they will not be able to see us as we are now, but as we were, when we were, um, primitive. Which means they won't see us at all, because in 1017, we gave off no signals or light of any kind. The whole point is that, no matter how many advanced, intelligent life forms there are in the galaxy, looking around, the chances of their finding us, and the chances of our finding them with our search projects, is, well, infinitesimally slim. Here on Earth we have been looking for smart life on other planets for over half a century, with several different projects. The SETI (Search (for) Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) project is now privately funded, because government lost interest, but it is up and running, still. And yet, in all these years, the actual amount of space we have covered in our search is equivalent to one glass of water in the Atlantic ocean. Not surprisingly, we have found nothing, so far. we probably never will. And anyone who thinks that there has been, currently is, or soon will be contact with extraterrestrials, is, well, most probably completely full of it. And that, I for one find incredibly depressing. Somehow, we must carry on.

Living Large, In the Great Swamp of Trump

THE GREAT SWAMP OF TRUMP, it would seem, has not yet been fully drained. Whether the drainage process has even begun, or the swamp has become even more murky, is questionable. The Secretary of health and Human Services, Mr. price, demonstrated his devotion to human services, in the form of his own comfort, by treating himself to every conceivable amenity during travel, spending hundreds of thousands of your money, tax payer dollars, on his own comfort, got found out, and resigned his position, slithering away into the void. He was but one of several cabinet members who don't seem to be terribly concerned about the particular purpose of their cabinet positions, as indicated by their stated values prior to their appointments. The EPA director, for example, Mr. Pruitt, who before his EPA appointment filed dozens of law suits against the EPA, has expressed little interest in environmental protection, and a great deal of concern for the business community and coal industry. He intends to eliminate Obama's clean energy plan, and force coal to make a comeback, whether it wants to come back or not. Even as natural gas prices coal out of the free market, the Trump administration will force coal to come back, kicking and screaming if necessary. One way or another, we are going to enhance the carbon content in the atmosphere under this administration. Most of the cabinet, including Mr. Price but not limited to him, who have demonstrated great faith in the free market, seem quite disposed to use tax payer money to travel luxuriously, burning fuel all the way, and to use their government agencies to damage the causes for which they were established. In essence, Trump's cabinet members are billionaires who are accustomed to living high on the hog, so to speak, and enjoy it immensely, at tax payer expense, while flying around devising ways to destroy their own cabinet departments, which were designed to protect we the people, and are therefore antithetical to the free market process of dog eat dog. Too many pigs as the hog trough, as Abraham Lincoln put it. Billionaires, serving Trump's agenda of corruption and destruction, for their own personal gain. It sounds almost too crazy to be true, but unfortunately, it isn't.

Eternal Holiday Cheer, With Perpetual Entertainment

I LIVE TWO BLOCKS from a Dollar General store, but of course, who doesn't? If you don't, you must either live way out in the country, or two blocks away from a Family dollar store, which will soon be taken over by Dollar General, which a year or two ago made a in e hundred million dollar bid to conquer Family Dollar. anyone know whatever happened to that? Tied up in court, maybe? All I know is, there was a time when damned near everything in a dollar store cost a dollar, but those times are gone. On October first, I made my usual walk (I will not drive two blocks for anything) to the store, to buy, best as I can recollect, either a bottle of PowerAde or a can of Spam, both of which are crap which I love, and I walked in, and noticed that the Christmas decorations were up. Christmas decorations, up, on October first. My first thought was: you gotta be kiddin' me. me second thought was: why should I be surprised? A whole isle, devoted to red and green wrapping paper, baubles, bangles, lights, the whole works. So, they plan to sell this stuff for three months. the best time to buy Christmas bric-a-brac is, of course, during the week after Christmas, to stock up at half price for next year. but most folks can't wait that long, so, on the first of October, out it comes. you can rest assured that extensive marketing analysis has revealed that this is the best way to do Christmas, profit wise. What will they think of next, Labor Day Christmas sales? or perhaps two for one, get your 4th of July fireworks and do a little Christmas shopping while you're at it? is there any limit to free marketing, capitalism, and the American way? Don't answer that. You will notice, or have noticed, that everything that makes money in America is now a never ending, year round enterprise. All professional sports last the year around; we are inundated in a perpetual football, basketball, hockey, and baseball season, all at the same time, the number of college football games per team has crept up from ten to twelve, with more on the way, and the post season playoffs are infinitely long. And so it goes with Christmas. I swear the time will come when first Christmas, then every other money spending holiday will be marketed and sold three hundred sixty five days a year, and you will walk into the Dollar General two blocks from your lovely suburban home, and browse through the Christmas isle, the Valentine's Day isle, and the Saint Patrick's Day isle, while on your smart phone, any of a dozen sports will keep you occupied while you stand in line, waiting for the computer to total your bill.

Telling The Truth - At A Cost

COLUMBUS DAY is going out of style, a victim of political correctness. Christopher Columbus has(had) always been an American hero, until recently, when the liberals began to get a hold of him. Essentially, we have always, until recently, been lied to in public school history classes, which traditionally depicted Columbus as nothing but a courageous, exploratory hero, and the Untied States as nothing other than a shining city on a hill, embodying the essence of virtue. The truth, we know, but are only now beginning to accept, is altogether different. Thanks to our politically correct malcontents, we are belatedly taking baby steps in the direction of factual accuracy. Columbus initiated the slave trade,and murdered hundreds of thousands of people in the Caribbean, even though, as he says in his journal, he admired their beauty and friendliness, traits which, he writes, "will make them excellent servants." He was far too busy extorting gold to actually discover America, let alone find an efficient route to the orient. Even his employers, Ferdinand and Isabella, were appalled. So was his priest, who was at his side throughout, and kept his own diary. The priest was concerned about the possibility of time in purgatory for the entire crew. For Indians, whom the politically correct call "native Americans", which Indians generally find patronizing and condescending, celebrating Columbus Day is tantamount to celebrating Pearl Harbor Day. When I was teaching American history, in my overly zealous crusade to teach truth and consequences be damned, I lost several jobs. I should've taken baby steps, seeing as how I worked in the south. Like I tried without success to tell the administrators, it aint my fault that Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine were not Christians, or that James Madison feared democracy, and crafted the constitution specifically to avoid having one. Our non Christian founders preferred science over superstition, and there is nothing we can do about it two hundred years later, try though we do. Here's a possible solution: divide history in twain, after the fashion of our polarized nation. Let the conservatives use traditional texts, with all the attendant mythology, according to which the cherry tree comes chopping down, Washington kneels and prays at Valley forge, and the pioneers head west for the express purpose of bringing Jesus and civilization to the savages. Students of a politically correct liberal complainer bent can take refuge in another art of the building, and denigrate American greatness to their heart's content. And if they want, they can even make up some blasphemous crap about Jefferson cutting a bible into shreds, calling it a "pile of dung", and putting the parts he liked into his own little book, the "Jefferson Bible". If the teacher can't consequently keep her job, she'll at least have her fellow liberal idiots to blame.

Cherishing Our Freedom To own Guns to Protect Ourselves Against Those Bad Guys

SINCE THE MASSACRE in Los Vegas, there have been at least seven other mass murders in America, in one week. A mass murder is defined as three or more people getting killed at the same time by the same killer. Sounds like a reasonable criterion. You gotta start somewhere. All of the mass murders within the past week have been perpetrated with guns, not baseball bats or knives or skillets, or any other the other potential weapons which conservative gun lovers point to as alternative weapons, by which they mean that a gun is a deadly weapon only when fired; guns don't kill people, people kill people kill people, bullets originate from people, not guns. Nearly all mass murders in America are gun related, but, again, it does not have to be that way. keep a watch out for rakes and broom handles. All politics is local. We never hear much about mass shootings, because the news medial can only report so much, there is only so much time allotted between commercials, and we can only absorb so much, there is only so much screen time between tweets, posts, and friend finding and listing. Mass murders in America are a daily occurrence. They are, for American culture, perfectly normal, carried out by perfectly normal people, people wo are mentally ill at least some of the time, as we all are. never was there a human being in perfect physical or mental health, all of the time. We accept our mass murders as media events, and can afford the luxury of ignoring all but the most grotesque and sensational of the many form which we have to choose. Freedom of choice, is after all, the foundation of American capitalism, gun ownership, and personal value system. In America, we can all be quite correct, about everything. I is well worth it, in America, to build our society around the automobile without the slightest reservation, and to accept forty thousand vehicular deaths annually. Our guns protect us from bad guys, and from each other. anything unpleasant we can ascribe to fluke, freak happenstance events, or liberal conspiracies in the mainstream media, sparing us the necessity of examining ourselves, our values, and our culture. The fact that places like England and Australia, where the masses have disarmed, have virtually no gun violence, and virtually no substitute violence with frying pans, shoe laces, or guitar strings as murder weapon is irrelevant; we cherish our American freedom of choice.