Boiling Lobsters

BRITISH RESEARCHERS at the London School of Economics decided to test whether lobsters feel pain while being boiled to death. Among touchy feely connoseurs of seafood, is is almost universally asserted that boiling a lobster to death is the most humane way of preparing the animal for consumption, that they do not feel pain. The variety of reasons given for this are numerous and become rather tedious in their improbability and obvious self serving rationalizing. The fact is that lobsters have central nervous systems, like nearly all animals, and cannot possibly fail to feel being boiled to death. The researchers suggested more humane means of preparing to eat lobster by putting it to death might involve a sharp knife, and a swift stroke. I was reminded of when I was a small child, maybe about ten yers old, and visiting a zoo with my father. I asked him whether the animals were happier and better off living in the zoo, or living in the wild, their natural habitat. Dad assured me that they were far happier and better off living in captivity, where their every need was provided for, and they were guaranteed plenty of food and shelter, and safe from enemies and disease. I believed him. I'm not quite sure when I first relized that his answer was intended only to give me comfort, to allay any tendency by me to become angry and depressed concerning the living conditions of animals in a zoo. It might have been fairly soon after he sold me the bill of goods, but it was not immediate. I was for the time beng content to harbor the allusion that he was telling the truth. Goethe said: "We resist the truth only becasue we fear that we will perish if we accept it." Now my opinion is that animals confined to zoos are happier there only if they were born there, and have no basis of comparison to any other life. To capture an animal in the wild and to force it to suddenly and forever spend its life in a zoo now stikes me as terribly cruel. This business about lobsters feeling no pain I have never endorsed, but of course I only heard it in adulthood, and was never presented this nonsense while a child. The advantage of adulthood is that one has had an opportunity to develop one's critical thinking skills, and therefore an opportunity to discern truth from nonsense. That ability can also be considered a disadvantage of adulthood. When Einstein was asked to write a message for inclusionin a time capsule, he wrote soething like: "If you have not become kinder and more humane than we were, may the devil take you". The time capsule has been opened. By most measures, we have failed to meet Einstein's requirements.

Assessing Progress

SOME COMMENTATOR SAID that it is a definite sign of progress that in the deep south, namely Georgia, a jury consisting of eleven white foks and one black folk convicted three white dudes, good ole boys, of the murder of an African-American gentleman who made ths mistake of going jogging on public streets. The evangelical conservative Trump community must be terriblly disappointed, just as they were elated at the exoneration of Kyle Rittenhouse. White men who carry powerful weapons and enter public places striving to bring justice, truth, and liberty to America and the world are among the heroes of the far American right, even if they carry weapons into public places hoping to use said weaponry against people of color protesitng for racial justice or getting a good workout. Many observers following the trial in Georgia were convinced that the three white rednecks would be allowed to walk, that their flimsy justification that they were attempting to make a "citizen's arrest" and that the young black man would have been fine had he merely acquiesced to the civilian arrest instead of resisting it, would prevail. Thus, it seems justice has scored a split decision, and that the culture of "To Kill A Mockingbird" is at least dying, if not quite dead yet. On Christian radio, a talk show host was telling the story of how a white male corporate executive was "let go" and replaced by two woman in an apparent move to facilitate cultural and ethnic diversity in the workplace. The man decided not to take it, filed a lawsuit for reverse discrimination, won, and has bee awarded mmillions of dollars in compensation. The conservative evangelical Christian thought that all this was just fine and dandy, of course. Nobody should ever lose his or her job becuase of skin color or gender, proudly proclaimed the talk show talker; people should never be discriminated against on account of characteristics over which they have no control, one should be judged according to the "content of one's character", and so on, and so forth, talked the radio talker. How profound an observation! One might wonder how often, during the talk show host's career or for that matter during his life, the talk show talker has expressed any outrage over discrimination against people of color (black and brown color), or women, or gay or transgender people. Never, might be a good guess. He might argue that gay people choose to be gay, and that transgender people choose to be transgender, and that they therefore do not deseve protection against discriminatory treatment. It would be interesting to measure, and it probably has been, how many times white men have been discriminated against because of their white-maleness, compared to how many times, (millions), black and and female people have been discriminated against throughout the grand scheme of American history and society, past and present. Also, it would be equally interesting to measure exactly how many times conservative evangelical Christians have complained about discrimination against minorities, compared to how many times they have complained about the people who complain about discrimination against minorities. Folks who condemn reverse discrimination seem to be far less willing to condemn discrimination.

Giving Thanks

PEOPLE OFTEN have "favorite holidays, and Thanksgiving is one that is often mentioned. I never have been able to decide which is my favorite, and I fear I am running out of time to pick a favorite. Basically, I like them all, and have no real complaints about any of them, other than the fact that as I have aged, I have developed an intense hatred for the noise of fireworks. My biggest complaint is that they upset dogs and cats. I put my Christmas lights up on November fourteenth this year, earlier than ever. Just a few strands of colored lights across the windows on the front porch, nothing special, but very attractive at night. For some reason, I had the urge to start celebrating the holidays, early. I became too lazy to put up a Christmas tree several years ago. I'll probably take the lights down on the first of January, and will probably feel amazed at how fast my six week holiday celebration passsed by, and how fast twenty twenty one passed by. Every year passes faster than the previous, as all old people know. It no longer matters to me whether I have anyting remotely like a "Thanksgiving dinner", with turkey, and all the rest, although I love Thanksgiving cuisine. I almost feel as if I have, over the course of a long life, had my fair share. Even so, every year I manage to scrape up a Thanksgiving full course meal, even though I have lived alone for decades. The last few years the local senior center has been my source, and it is absolutely delicious. As always, food is better when somebody else cooks it. I can make it through an entire calendar year without pumpkin pie, but just one good slice on Thanksgiving, or near Thanksgiving, keeps me going for a full year. The history of Thanksgiving, like most American history, often gets twisted, lost in the shuffle, as reality is obscured by revisionis, hagiographic fantasy. It must be said that overall, the people who settled North America at Jamestwon in 1607, and those who settled in 1620 in Massachusetts did not get along well with the indigenous people they encountered. In both instances, therew ewrea early hopeful signs of cooerations an conciliation, but, in both cases, the natives and the invaders were at odds from the beginning, and the entier American historical experience between natives and invaders repidly devolved into centuries of bloody conflict interlaced with precariously preserved peace. Thanksgiving, a day of giving thanks, was only made into a national holiday in the nineteen thirties. But, despite all the fuss and confusion and mixed history, a day of giving thanks is a good idea for the American people, who can always stand a bit more gratitude and humility.

Betraying

THE HISTORICAL PROFESSION has not yet begun to tackle Donald Trump. It really hasn't been that long since he left the White House, and, who knows, he might inhabit it again. The historical profession likes to give history a little time to ferment and age before producing seminal works about it. But before long it will start happening, and it will be interesting to see what the best historians in the world have to say about Trump. Thus far, of the many books already published and widely read about Trump, most of them were written by people close to Trump, friends and family members, and most by journalists, not historians. Among the best mosts recent is "Batrayal: "The Final Act of the Trump Show", by long time broadcaast and print journalist Jonathan karl. Karl wrote a book about the first few months of the Trump administration, now he some the same with the final few months. In teh first book, karl seems reluctant to admit that Trump is the horrible liar and criminal and incompetant fool that he is; in the second book, Karl makes no doubt; he understands. Psychologically, Trump's last year in office resembles Hitler's; constant outbursts of anger and blaming others, launching vicious verbal attacks, reckless, chaotic behavior and policies. The most obvioius common theme in all the many books written about Trump by people who know him well and people who have studied him well is that he (Trump) is not an honorabe, respectable, likable person, but rather a bully, a liar, and a narcissistic jerk. Given what we know about Trump's life and administration, biographies of him by the best historians is not likely to be any more flattering. The best possible outcome, for everyone, for both parties, would be for Trump to quietly fade away. That doesn't seem likely to happen, however. More likely he will run for president again in 2024, creating a fascinating free for all inside the Republican party and throughout the nation. the worst scenario, probably, would be for Trump to run for president as a Republican, and to lose a close election. In that event , all hell would literally break loose, and the United States would plunge into civil war. We must not let that happen. Surely that won't happen. What has already happened is shocking beyond all possible expectation, the big lie being told often enough by the cult leader, and being widely, fervently accepted as truth by the ult members, tens of millions of them. Could it happen again? Why, of course it could, and probablly will. So often people say "only in America". That a sitting president of the United States would be defeated for reelection, but claim that the election was stolen by massive voter fraud, and to try to remain in power illegally, with the full support of nearly half the country is a scenario no one would have likely believed possible for the United States, except in a dystopian novel.

Getting Off

LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, I live in a Facebook bubble, a rather large on in my case, consisting of progressives. One thing you have to say about those Facebook or other social media bubbles, you ed up confined in a very limited self reinforcing situation, which limits intellectual growh, maybe, but, it sure does cut down on the amount of arguing and conflict. There is something to be said for hanging with people that you agree with. Many of the many people on my "frend" list oredicted that the little bastard" as they tended to describe him, would walk, would "get off", would be found not guilty of gunning down two people with an assault rifle in the street of a Wisconsin town. Many people were convinced of it, and already angry about it, before the verict came down. I have no idea how they knew, but,they seemed to know. Maybe it was the way the judge costantly berated the prosecutors and seemed to side with the defense,, or the fact that the defense lawyers did a great job of making the kid look like a victm. "Not guilty" is almost certainlly the proper verdict, based on what information the jurors had at their disposal, which was evidently considerable, inclding video recordings, thanks to smart phones. I recall thirty years ago saying on television that the cops who beat up Rodney King were probably technically not guilty, and boy, did I ever take heat for that opinion, mainly from the African-American community. I assume that the same people who were mad at the accused's impending exoneration are even more angry now, now that the exoneration is a fact. I'm still angry about it, even though, like I said, I accept the very strong likelihood that the verdict, under the circumstances, was the correct one. Many people have asked, quite reasonably, that if a black teenager with an AR15 got into arguments at a Trump MAGA rally and killed a couple of people, would he be found "not guilty?" Most amazing of all, as seeems to often be the case these days, is the reacton by America's conservative community to the situation. If they're not careful, they're gonna turn the little punk into a national hero, and chisel him on Mt. Rushmore, maybe in between Washington and Jefferson. I guess anybody with enough cahonies to show up at a Black Lives Matter protest and blow away a couple of libs is enough to make an ordinary white kid a hero among America's right. Rittenhouse is likely to either become a superstar of FOX News, a Congressperson, or both. Lacking attention is what seems to be the most shocking aspect of the whole bizarre situation of all: that a seventeen year old kid got a fully automatic assault rifle, and got parental assistance in traveling to a Black Lives Matter protest rally carryng the rifle. Nobody tried to stop him or talk him out of it. Whether he had the weapon legally or not seems to be a bit blurry; evidently, basically, he did. To me its alarming that any garden variety high school student can get access to a powerful assault rifle, carry it to a protest rally, and be allowed to do so. The quetion is which is more insane: Rittenhous taking the AR15 to the protest, our society and his parents letting him do it, or the reaction to our society now that the whole episode has been resolved? And of course the most urgent question of all: How many good ole white boyz'll start showing up at future Black Lives Matter rallies, or at other progressive events, openly carrying deadly weapons, fully loaded, ready to go off while protecting businesses, serving as medics, helping little old ladies across the street, or whatever they come for.

Going Gozar

PAUL GOZAR, who achieved fame and widespread admiration for doing something disgusting, obviously has no intention of apoogizing for what he did, but rather, to bask in it, to take full advantage of it to enhance his political career. Within minutes after the U.S. House of Representatives voted, along party lines, to censure the idiot for his idiotic behavior, another argubable idiot, Donald Trump, endorsed him for reelection to the U.S. Senate in twenty twenty two. Most fascinating is the fact that only two Republicans, among them Liz Cheney, voted to condemn the idiotic behavior, and that all other Republicans are either saying nothing about the incident, or expressing support for the disgusting message contained in Gozar's crude cartoon. Trump obviously agrees with the idea that violence towards Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an appealing thought, as do, so it seems, most Republicans in general. The fact that Trump supporters, Republicans, conservatives in general are very angry is clearly demonstrated by their nearly universal claim that the election was stolen from Trump, a response which purely emotional, (angry), and utterly without reason, common sense, sanity, morality, or intellect. On January 6th, within moments after a horde of violent Trump supporters attacked, invaded, seized, and ransacked the nation's Capitol, many Congressional Republicans voted to reject the electoral college results and to overturn the election in favor of Trump. Now, that's desperation. That's anger. Or both. Its also moral depravity, the same sort of moral depravity which currently motivates Trump supporters, Republicans, conservatives, conservative Christians, to dismiss paul Gozar's unacceptable behavior, and, in many cases, to support it. The Republican party has become the party of Trump, a cult. If somebody lies to you more than thirty thousand times and you still follow him; you're in a cult. The Republican party's intellectual and moral level has sunk to the level of Donald J. Trump, and that, in a nutshell, is mighty low. That the Republicans might well and probably will take control of the U.S. Senate and House in twenty twnty two seems, surreal, science fictiony, dystopian. It would truly be incredible if we the American people voted into office a majority of congresssional Republicans next year, the sorry bastards. And yet, crazier things have already happened, like the election of Trump, the continued support of tens of millions of his followers even after he tried to overthrow the government. Hitler was elected to lead Germany even after trying to overthrow the government. Could the same thing happen here? The Republican party has become an extremist right wing populist cult movement, very remindful of Hitler and the NAZIs in the early thirties in Germany, and that is frightening.

The Christian Right, Hating

I WANTED TO FIND OUT a thing or two about Arizona Republican idiot Representative Paul Gozar, so I typed in the phrase "idiot republican congressman Kosar who killed Biden in a cartoon" into google. Even with my misspelling, msinformation, and awkward sentence structure, it was good enough to get me to where I wanted to go, thanks to the miracle of Artificial intelligence. Seeing his picture was enough. I wanted to get an idea of how old he is. He looks far older than I expected. He looks to be either about my age (66), or not much younger or older than I. You might expect, or half expect some young punk in his early or mid thirties to do what he did, or maybe a poorly behaved junior high school student, but certainly not somebody in his sixties. My goodness, what an idiot. A couple of things stand out. Most obviously, he wanted the cartoon to be seen by many people, hence he posted it on twitter, expecting it to be seen mainly by suporters of his, people who sould undoubtedly agree with him politically, and would enjoy seeing an animated version of himself killing AOC and pointing a sword at Biden. He probably thought he would receive warm approval. He evidently didn't give a moment's thought about what might happen when people who like Biden and AOC, or Democrats, or people who have at least some modicum of class, taste, and values might think and say who saw the same cartoon. Or, if he did, didn't worry about any possible consequences, or "pushback" as we like to say these days. His scorn for progressive Democrats is complete. Wasn't the reaction,in and out of Congress, predictable? Also meaningful is the fact that the bastard deliberately and conspicuously refused to apologize to either AOC, Biden, or the American people. That may come later. He may be forced to do the right thing. Obviously, he cannot without "external motivation". Evidently, after he deleted the cartoon amid the uproar in congress, he put it back up, in a apparent act of defiance of authority and decency. For how long is unknown. His comments to the House of Representatives made it quite clear that Gozar does not think he did anything wrong, never has nor does now wish or intend violence against anyone, and believes too much is being made of the whole incident, that those outraged the most are using the incident for political gain. In other words, Paul Gozar is acting like, and therefore must be considered to be, an "A hole", through and through. A complete jerk, without decent values. I'm just guessing that this moron is a devout evangelical Christian with far right political beliefs, a Trump supporter. People who support Trump tend to fit that demographic; the far right evangelical thug. These heinous attacks do not occur equally across the political spectrum. The far right has taken it to an entirely new level, the hatred, the racism, the violence. "The Squad", four young female left wing Congresspeople of color, one of whom is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) are a favorite target of right wing white evangelical Christian Trump gangsters. Nancy Pelosi is another, of course, as well as Biden and Pete Buttijieg, for obvious reasons. The far Christian right, especially since Trump's election defeat, is angry. House minority leader Kevin McCArthy, another of this vile breed, attacked the Democrats for having the audacity to complain about the violent depiction, trying to turn it into a political issue by claiming that the Democrats are trying to turn it into a political issue, as if objecting to vile, obscene content is being "political". Then again, why should we expect the people who support Donald Trump to be either morally decent, or reasonably mature and intelligent?

Pointing To Poignant Posts

I SCROLL UP AND DOWN on Facebook like I assume everyone else does, or half of us; Facebook now has three billion members. I experience the addictive qualities of it. The more time you spend logged onto Facebook, the more their artificial intelligence figures out how to please you, and please you it does, hoping to turn you into a good corporate customer, a totally overscreened zombie, or whatever their ultimate nefarious aim is; control, presumably. The longer I remain a member, the more the posts seem to be of interest to me, to reflect my personal values. I hope I don't end up a skeleton in front of a computer monitor, undiscovered for centuries. The thought of suddenly bailing out lurks. My favorite posts are those involving cats and dogs, the heart wrenching ones in which a pet "owner" has recently lost a beloved cat or dog, and is sharing his or her grief with the world. May the dear lord bless and keep all of the grieving pet owners. Everyone seems to agree that is is absolutely true that we never entirely recover from our various grievings; we adjust to them, keep them with us our entire lives, become assuctomed to their always being with us. Ultimately, we have only our memories to give us comfort. My two indoor cats are now going on ten years old. its hard to believe, and the fact that their time remaining with me is quite limited I find hard to accept. Now is the time to fully appreciate them, as never before. I recall when they were both mere kittens I took them to my mother's house to let her meet them. The two little dolls were sitting side by side on the bed inher guest bedroom, and she, my mother, was overwhelmed by their sheer cuteness, as anybody else would have been. She walked towards them, intending to give them afffection, but they were startled, since they did not know my mom well, and they bolted off the bed. Mom's feelings were obviously hurt. I had to do something, quick. I sat donw on the bed, and asked my mother to sit next to me. She did, and asked me what I wanted her to do next. Nothing, I told her. Let's jsut sit here, and wait for kittens to arrive. I knew they would soon come out from under the bed, and approach us. Cat people all know: you do not approach cats, you wait for them to approach you. Finally they did exactly that, and in fact paid special attention to my mom, another cat tendency; looking for new friends, sources of food and affection. The female, mandi, actually walked across mother's lap, and stood on her, then raised her tail and caressed my mon's neck with it. Very soft and gentle. Mother loved it, and smiled. Mom was in her earlly nineties at the time, and I knew there wouldnt be many more opportunities. There weren't, it turned out. But I will always remember her smile, and my sweet Mandi making it happen.

Talking Big

THE GLASGOW climate change conference produced much eloquent rhetoric and lofty promises, but little of substance. Keeping the promises will require sustained determination by billions of people. All of the goals promised at Glosgow are cehievable, but will require the sustainded effort of billions of people, to even get the process of reversing climated change started, let alone successfully complete it, and to do so, the promises made at Glasow will not only have to be accomplished, but exceeded. A massive worldwode solar energy development proect is absolutely imperative, because solar anergy is unlimited, quite inherently valuable valuable, and absolutely free. You couldn't ask for a better energy source than the sun. Massive solar energy development, reforestation, abandonment of fossil fuels, and the removal of carbon from the atmosphere will all be necessary, and all are within our currentcapabilities, we have the technology. But we must staart now, and start fast. the world leaders who gthered together at Glasgow care more about their political power, personal wealth, and personal reputation than they do about us or the Earth. they cannot be counted on to back up their pretty speeches with concrete action, as the Great Greta Thunberg pointed out. They will have to be pressured into doing so by popular public pressure. We the masses must motivate, mobilize, and initiate the necesary action to eliminate human made global warming. Above else, the world must stop using fossil fuels, immediately and completely. Great Thunberg must lead the world's children back intothe streets, as she has done before, to demand climate change action, now. the rest of us must join them. Instead of taking your kid to soccer practice, take her to a climate change reversal rally, and enjoy it with her. This calls for an "all of the above" strategy. Incessantly email your Senators and REpresentatives, demanding action. Campaign and vote for green party candidates, or at least vote for Democrats, to get the climate chand deniers out of office, for good. Millions and billionaires heavily invested in the fossil fuel industry must divest now, and reinvest in solar energy and other sustainable forms of energy. And of course, the parades, the beautiful parades. Everybody loves a parade, right? Let the climate change marches and rallies and parades begin! May the Sierra Club and the Proud Boyz and the local Pentecostal church and Green Peace and hundreds of other esteemed organizations take their "Stop climate change now!" banners proudly into the streets, and march. All MAGA members welcome! Mass protests helped scecure voting rights for women, helped support the Civil Rights smovement for African-Americans, helped end teh Viet Nam War, and could very well help kick start real worldwide inter-governmental action to reverse carbon based global warming.

Spreading the Blame

THE FAR RIGHT does not hold a monopoly on violence, anger, and corruption, despite the seemingly endless list of far right hate groups. Hate groups exist on the left as well, though in far fewer numbers than on the right, currently. The one you hear most abouT is"ANTIFA", OR "ANTI-FASCIST". Being opposed to fascism is usually consdered a good thin, but, as one astute observer remarked: "Fascism and Anti-Fascism are the two kinds of Fascism." The fact that Antifi cosones violence and destruction of prpoerty in opposing far right hate groups makes Antifa no better than those it opposes, and actually does more damage to the progressive and far left causes than good. It gives its opponents an opportunity to claim some sort of "moral equivalency" between far right and far left when in fact there is no such thing as "moral equivalency" beetween the two ideologies. Is it a simple, verifiable fact that an overwhelimng percentge of domestic terrorist attacks have originated and been carried out by the far right over the past generation. The election of Donald Trump was accompanied by a huge upsurge in far right violence, talk, and terrorism. The far right wing racists, anti-immigrants, nationalists, and religious zealots were, and remain, emboldened by Trump. There are three basic issues in which, if you compare the majority conservative viewpoint to the viewpoint held by most progresives, the differences are not only striking, but shed light on quesitons such as: which side is factually correct? which side, if either, is morally superior? Trump and the big electin lie comes to mind. A majority of America's conservatives, Republicans remain, more than a year afte rthe election, that the electon was stolen from Trump. In other words, the right wing in America embraces, endorses, a huge, blatant, evil lie. Shame on them. These liars have already done huge damage to American democracy, and hence, to America itself. Progresives universally understand that Trump is a pathological liar. On an even more important issue, the conservative coalition, a majority of its members, still denies the existence of human made climate change, a point of view which is not only ridiculous, but might result in the destruction of the Earth's environment, and the human species. The current response to climate change, inadequate though it is, is exclusively the work of progressives, aka "liberals". If only the climate change deniers would come to their senses and start helping! The current dominant issue is still the pandemic, and is is there that conservatism most clearly and hockingly reveals its utter intellectual and moral depravity. A high percentage of American conservatives, and conservatives world wide, either refuse to accept the threat of Covid 19 as real, or refuses to take basic steps to combat it, such as getting vaccinated. It is largely because of American conservatism that the horrible plague has killed upwards of one million Americans. Is is they who refuse to vaccinate, to comply with basic precautionary measures, and oppose mask mandates and other pandemic related restrictions on idiotic, spurious grounds. Opposition to science, reason, and exprtise runs rampant through the conservative community, idiotically. Simple moral decency requires accepting the results of a valid election, acknowledging and fighting climate change, and acknowledging and fighting the Covid 19 pandemic. That a majority of the conservative community refuses to do any of these crucial things clearly demonstrates its funadmental intellectual and moral bankruptcy.

Opposing An Unholy Alliance

THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY and the conservative community in America are two different entities, but they intersect eac hother quite broadly, the nearly uiversal intersection producing the much dreaded Christian conservative community, or "coalition" as it was called in in the early eighties when it started coming together. Conservatism by itself is nearly tolerable, and devout Christianity by itself is barely tolerable. Together, they create a scourge. Secular atheistic conservativm is often accompanied by intense interest in history, especially political and military history, and an intense interest in science and technology, particularly weapons. This secular conservatismha has a well founded, if misguided basis in intellectual scholarship. Christianity without politics can be very appealing, humble, inspiring, comforting. Put the two together and you lose both the intellectual and the compassionate components - the best of each. The combination becomes simplistic nonsense supported by emotion and craven individualism rather than reason and social service. The intellectual and the moral foundations of both are both gone. A combination of conservatism and Christianity in the most ardent, enthusiastic, extreme form of each creates the Klan. Organizations usch as the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the Aryan Nation, among many others form the spearhead of modern American evangelical Christian conservatism, aka "The Christian right", the complete intersection of political consservatism and Christianity, known as "the far religious right". They all avidly espouse far right politics and virulant Christianity. They tend to be highly nationalistic, anti-immigrant, anti-minority, racist, which is usually concealed and denied by them, pro unregulated capitalism, homophobic. None of these ideologies is healthy or virtuous; none will probably survive long term, assuming society remains fundamemtally healthy, virtuous, and progressive. This white Christian conservative ideology is embodied largely in the Republican party, whose membership forms the botom of the pyramid, a pyramid which grows ever more malignant and harmful as you ascend it. The Republicans realize their need to become attractive to young people and minorities, or perish. The latter might well be for the best. There are still tens of millions of good conservative Christian Americans, overwhelmingling white, solid citizens all, other than their election of Donald Trump and continued support for him, support for his big election lie, and harmful ant-immigrant latently racist attitudes, dismissal of science and reason, and rejection of all reasonable opposition to the spread of Covid 19. Other than a few more flaws like that, no problem. Most Republicans do not attend far right rallies wearing MAGA hats and chanting "Jews will not replace us!", but are obviously sympathetic to those who do. If the Christian community wanted to apropriately become involved in politics, it would embrace the progressive movement, which reflects the message of Jesus at least somewhat, unlike conservatism,, which is teh complete opposite of the "Christian" (Jesus's) ideology. Christian conservatives often pitch angry fits when this idea is even mentioned, yet, it remains true. "Render Unto Casear", "Go thy way, sell everything thou hast, and give unto the poor", are not expressions of the ethic of hard work for personal gain, but rather, are socialistic, hard core entreaties to redistribute wealth. Jesus, above all, wanted people to give help and support to each other, including money. Redistribution of wealth and sharing wealth are, alas, socialistic, not capitalistic, no matter how crazily Christian conservatives try to twist it. Put another way: "You can either follow Trump or Jesus, but not both".

Fighting Far Right Extremism

DONALD TRUMP, while in office, committed crimes, which must be, and are being investigated. Most Republicans are loyal to Trump, so, as of now, the party depends on Trump. It is not a desirable situation for the G.O.P. to be in. The Democrats can spend the next year reminding the voters that all Republicans were opposed to the new infrastructure program, and the pending Build Back Better bill, which would, and will when it is passed make life better for millions of Americans. The Democrats should encourage the Republicans to expalin their opposition to these two projects. Encourage the Republicans to explain why they continue to support Trump, his big election lie, and the Capitol insurrrection, long after they happened. Their only answer is to continue supporting the big election lie. What they are trying to do is to ignore it, and to district the voters. They want to stop all the investigations of Trump, because the results will inevitably make Trump and everyone who supports him look very, very bad, and will damage the Republican party. The sheer amount of corruption from the Trump administration, and the pervasive, wholesale embrace of it by his supporters, most of the G.O.P., clearly dmonstrates how totally corrupt the Republican party has become in committing to Trump. The American people, in order to force the Republican party to either drastically reform or to dissolve altoghther, will lhave to badly defeat it in upcoming elections, removing it from state, local, and national power. It seems amazing and surrealistic that one of America's two major pollitical parties recently tried to overthrow the government, is totally unapologetic, continues to suooprt the attempt, and yet, retains much of its strong, albeit minority support among the American people. The far right movement in America, much of which includes the conservative evangelical Christian community, embraces an insane agenda, which must be defeated. This agenda still includes overthrowing the government, keeping Confederate statues and monuments in place, and cherishing the "Confederate Heritage", ignoring racism or claiming that it does not exist, while simultaneously turning the United States into a Christian theocracy and mandating un unregulated, capitalistic, free market economy, economic and social Darwinism. Its insane, all of it, and it would only result in an oligarchial, plutocratic rule by the wealthy elite, with most people impoverished, and virtually enslaved. The entire far right agenda is toxic, deadly poisonous, fascistic. Perhaps the craziest of all is their cultural war, which includes rejection of science, and the teaching of false, hagiographc history, rather than factual history, to school children. Please understand; the hagiographic, patriotic, sanitized, whitewashed pro American version of American hisotry is a complete lie. The negative, critical, "anti-American" version is the historically accurate, correct version, notwithstanding its unpleasantness. It includes hundreds of years of slavery and genocide, brutal exploitation of millions of laboring workers, persistant, ubiquitous systemic racism, and pervasive cultural violence. All this historical unpleasantness does not preclude teaching about Martin Luther King and the racial equality movement, anti-war movements, the struggle for gender equality, the labor movement, and America's history of social and economic reform, which are the "good", positive aspects of American history. It requires more, to tell the truth, than to present American history as a steady, continuous litany of achievement, accomplishment, and virtuous, constructive behavior by European-Americans, fortified by their devotion to the Christian faith and free market capitalism. History, in a nutshell, is complicated and often unpleasant, and there is nothing that we can do to change this stark fact, other than lie about it so often that most of the population believe the lies, which is precisely what has been happening in American schools for two hundred years, and is onlly now changing to a more honest, realistic approach to American history. We must teach and accept the truth, and Americans should be patriotic and love their country despite, not because of, its history. The current conservative crusade to stifle truth in education, especially history, must be defeated, utterly.

Disintegrating society

OVER THE PAST six thousand years civilizations have destroyed themselves by wasting their futures on indrediblly large acts of stupidity and pride. It has happened repeatedly, as if being an unbreakable habit of human organization. The Mesopotamian civilization of six thousnad years ago in modern day Iraq,, the ancient Egyptian civilization, the ancient Greeks, Ancient Roman, the Ottoman Empire, as well as the Mayans, the Aztecs, and ancient Indian cultures all surrendered to their own greed, vanity, and stupidity, what the ancient Greeks called "hubris nemesis". Corrupt, inept, vainglorious narcissistic leaders were placed in positions of power. Fear, anger, and ever dwindling resources were channeled into useles wars of conquest and empire expansion, with bloated military establishments sucking up the national wealth. All empries become over extended, trying to govern over more land area and people than is possible with limited resources. As wealth is concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, the tax base shrinks and eventually withers away, leaving the state without sustenance. The ruling elite wealthy retreat into encloaves, spearated from those lower classes over whom they exercise power. Meanwhile, the lower classes endure increasing misery, hunger, and poverty, but receive no help from above. These patterns of collectvie behavior assert and resasert themselves time and again throughout hsitory, and are all in evidence in the United States today. It can easily be seen that the U.S.A., still so young, is already in a state of irreversible decline. History cannot ever and never does "repeat itself". The names and faces and dates and precise circumstances always change and are always new and different. But old familiar paterns recur, and, as Mark Twain famously said, history "rhymes". In our situation, climate change is advancing at a rate far beyond what any scientist predicted, and it now seems obvious that sea level rise, chaotic, extreme weather, including huge storms, widespread drought and all the other climate related disasters now confronting the world, are only going to increase in the next few years, while the nations of the world do nothing other than make promises and give pretty speeches, as Grett Thunberg recently pointed out. The United States is not going to reform its economic system to provide opportunity for everybody and a reasonable distribution of wealth, it is not going to rememdy the epidemic of hopelessness and poverty we see everywhere in America, and it is not going to start choosing intelligent leaders with actual solutions to probesm to lead us out of the darkness. The darkness is already far too advanced. In all past cases, the collapsed civilization was reborn into something new and different. The Roman empire is now modern Italy, Greece still exists as a nation, and Egypt is a modern nation which has widespread poverty and tends to regard its glorious past with more pride than its present. There will be a future to the United States. But it will have little in common with the great American empire we have grown to know and love.

Being Free, Reasonably

FREEDOM is much overrated in the United States, or, more properly, in American culture. We claim that it is the most important possession we have, but we are, as we Americans often are, being disingenuous. The very same people who prrotest in the streets that no government has the right to tell anybody to wear a facemask in the midst of the most deadly epidemic in American history gleefully elected a demagogue who tried to stay in power by overthrowing the government. when he refused to accept election defeat, tried to bully and use violence to overturn the election results, and his supporters supported his actions. On Jnusry the sixth neither Trump nor his followers were supporting anything remotely resembling "freedom". They were supporting criminality and violence. "Freedom", said Goethe, "is the opportunity to do what is reasonable under all circumstances." To protest violenty and openly deffy a government mandate so harmless, so necessary, so, helpful, and so temproaray as wearing a facemask in public, is not advocating the opportuity to do what is reasonable under all circumstances, it is attempting to subvert good, fair, reasonable government with chaos and anarchy which results in mass death. There seems to be a general consensus tht people should be free to decide whether to get a vaccination for Covid 19. Indeed, people shoudl be free to choose not to get vaccinagted for malaria, or tetanus for example. Anyone who believes that mosquitos cannot possibly do harm are free to believe this, to, as it were, roll the dice. Anyone sufficiently confident to believe that no sharp piece of metal can ever pepetrate his or her flesh is behaving with enough reason to be allowed this freedom. People who refuse the Covid 19 vaccine are not only putting themselves in harm's way, they are blatantly putting society at large at risk, especially those to whom they are closest, friends and family members. It is simply not reasonable, under any circumstance, for anyone to remain unvaccinated in a national epidemic in which than three quarters of a million Americans ahve already died, and more are dying each day. There is no religious, ideological, or health reason sufficiently persuasive, unless one's doctor says so. Then, refusing the vaccine becomes reasonable, becomes freedom, becasue the vaccine would be harmful. Government mandates allow for these exceptions. A friend of mine from England saye he is amazed at how easily and quickly Americans cry foul, and accuse their government of tyranny. A mask mandate or an attempt to secure voting rights on a national scale or spending tax payer money for programs for the poor is usually enough to evoke the wrath of fanatical freedom fighters. Tyranny, syas my english friend, is when one is toosed into the Tower of London, and the key is thrown away, for criticizing the ruling monarch. The English, with a long history of tyranny behind them, know what tyranny is. Americans simply do not. Nor, often, do Americans know the difference between "freedom" and social responsibility.

Grieving, Bad

I HAVE NEVER "seen" anybody grive as badly as this guy seemed to be, even though it was on Facebook and therefore, arguably, not real. Only it was real, real to me, and I just read the posts. The announcements of his cat's deth had a pictur eof the deceased, a sweet looking, beautiful cat, as they all seem to be. Many people annouce the death of the dearly beloved cat on Faebook, its quite common, a sort of custom, actually, and it must be comfoting to the bereaved. Almost alwasy the deceased feline is old, over ten years, often as old as fifteen or so. These posts always break my heart, and in fact I an almost say that I might rather not see them, accept that, maybe, jsut maybe, that I do see them and respond give some small comfort to the grieving "parent". Pets, of course, are like kids. The most frequent comment I make at the botto of the post is: "I firmly believe that ultimately you and your beloved departed will be together for eternity." Or some version of that. there are many possible versions. Sometimes I mention that "I am not religious. However, I firmly believe that..." Sometimes I feel a desire to explain further: "My love and admiration of nature has always inspired me to try to comprehend nature, or the universe by studying it, learning as much as I can about it from whatever source is available. I then go on to claim that my studies, and whatever understanding of reality I have becuse of them, lead me to intuitively but firmly believe that there sis a systemic, inteligent design and process to nature, and that, ultimately, everythign in the universe ends up where it "should be" if you will, and that therefore, we all end up in dternity with all that we truly loved in this lifetime. I alway fight and sturggle for the right words, but I keep at it, I keep searching for the combinations fo words which conveys what I feel, and what I mean. I nevre know whether it helps any; I hope it does, and sometimes, somehow, I sense that maybe it does, at least a tiny bit. this oen guy was so devastated taht he kept posting every few days, week....after week...after his cat's death, eah time as forlorn as the previous. Vicariously, I began to feel a sense of desperation, a desperate urge to say or do something strong and forcefully effective, to insprie him to peace and some modicum of hapiness out of his despair. so, I said: "I honestly know how you feel, and I therefore feel your pain, beause iI have felt it before, and will again. My only comfort is knowing that without having had a long, lovely, beautiful life with my beloved, this grief never would have been possible, or neessary, and that truly, it is far better to have loved deeply, to have known that beautiful process of loving deeply, to have loved and at length lost, than to never have known it, to have never loved, at all. And I mean every word of it.

Contending Against Stupidity

AGAINST STUPIDITY the Gods themselves contend in vain, supposedly said the ancient Greek poet Agathon. Others have said essentially the same thing since. Stupidity can be definind as a sort of mental illness in which unhappy people willingly disconnect themselves from reality, and have no interest in reentering it, or learning. Among the demonstrable idiots who serve as our supposed "leaders", among the far right religious fanatics whose actual religious beliefs have nothing in common with the teachings of Jesus, there exist, like an oasis in the midst of a vast wasteland, a few clear headed intelligent people. They may be our last hope, in a decaying, dying civilization. Among them are Swedish autistic teenager Greta Thunberg, linguist, scholar, and social activist Noam Chomksy, and journalist Chris Hedges. There are of course others, many others, but despite their numbers, their numbers are insufficient to defeat the forces of idiocy and evil arrayed against them. Donald Trump is a symptom, not a primary cause of our current societal lunacy. I often remind people that it is neither necessary nor desirable to label Trump an "idiot", or "moron", that it is better, more effective to merely encourage folks to pay close attention to what he says and does, and that his idiocy will and always does reveal itself. It is the idiocy and evil which permeates American society and culture which merits identification and explication, because pervasive societal stupidity, disconnectedness from reality, produced Trump the succsssful politician. The single greatest threat to American society, the single most pervasive form of idiocy and evil among us is the Christian right, the politically conservative evangelical Christian movement, more than eighty percent of whose members got Trump elected, and still support him, despite Trump's blatant idiocy, criminality, and traitorous actions. Decades ago the evangalical Christian movement urged its members to focus on imitating christ, on personal Christian piety, and to eschew participation in the political quagmire, just as Jesus told his followers to abandon hope of overthrowing Roman rule, to submit to Roman authority in the physical world, and to propare for a kingdom of God to come. Then, in the late seventies, it changed direction, and became not only involved in politics, but firecely determined to take control fo the political system, and to remake it into a system of evangelical Christian governance, to conquer our constitutionally ordainded secular democracy, and to replace it with a fascistic Christian dictatorship, a "Christian nation", a movement which the evangelical movement calls "dominionism". This evil movement believes that secular, humanist society must be defeated and abolished. The Ten Commandments, many of which are irrational, will become the foundation of our legal system. The education system will teach Christian reality, only, including creationsism, instead of the verified scientific reality of evolution by natural selection. Homosexuals, non christians, socialists (Jesus was a socialist), immigrants, secular humanists, Jews, Muslims, non conformists of all kinds, will be marginalized or persecuted, according to dominionism. The federal government will exist only to protect personal property, corporate capitalism, and to wage wars of foreign aggression against countries in which non Christian religions flourish. The evangelical government will regard most poor people to be vitims of their own lziness, stupidity, or un-christian behavior, and ignored or punished. Women will be subordinate to men in the Christian nation evanglelicals so dearly long for. People who embrace religions other than Christianity will be treated as second class or will be outcast. The separation of church and state, so fundamental to the founder's constitutional version of America, will be abolished. The list of irrational ideologies which conservative evangelical Christianity espouses are many, and destructive. Upwards of one hundred million Americans subscribe to all this nonsense. They elected Trump once, insanely claiming that his ascension to power was ordained by God, and they now claim that his reelection was stolen from him, which proves their disassociation from sanity and reality. Only vast, widespread opposition by the remaining rational to their Hitler-like evil can save us from their eventual control of the country.

Orchestrating Insurrection, Verifiably

CAROL LEONNIG is a journalist who has coauthored two books about Trump: "A Very Stable Genius", and, "Only I Can Fix It". As the titles imply, neither book flatters its subject. Most books about Trump do not, few do. Leonnig is also spearheading a Washington Post project to research the January 6 Capitol insurrection, to discern who planned, organized, orchestrated it, and how. The U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Justice Department are doing likewise, notwithstanding the Republican party's ongoing attempt to cover up, dismiss, ignore, and grossly misrepresent the causes, effects, participants, and importance of Trump and Trump's supporters' failed attempt to violently overthrow the United States government. "'Tis far better to shine light redundantly than insufficiently, especially on treason. All these investigations will presumably reach and already are reaching the same conclusions as all Americans who are neither delusional nor dishonest. After all, the event was on national television, in livng color, as NBC might say, in high def on flatscreens. To wit: Donald Trump, desperately wanting to illegally retain his position as president, aided and abetted by others, assembled a violent mob, sent it to the U.S. Capitol building for the express purpose of "fighting" for him, meaning to violently overthrow the U.S. government by forcing Congress to reverse the results of the twenty twenty presidential election. While said violent insurrecton was in progress, Trump watched it on television like everyone else, and, like everyone else, did nothing to try to stop it, but unlike anyone else, easily could have. Stopping it was in fact his responsibility and his alone. While so veiwing, Trump was extremely pleased with his violent mob, and said so. Meanwhile, numerous presidential aides and office holder subordinates came to him and frantically tried to persuade him to stop the insurrection, which he refused to do. His refusal makes perfect sense in a sense, since he did not want to stop it, having himself started it. He planned it, arranged it, by inviting the mobsters to come to Washington and by sending them to the Capitol, and also by deliberately disabling everyone and all organizations, such as the National Guard, who could possibly have prevented or stopped it. Presumably, or at leat hopefully all investigations pertaining will eventually arrive at that conclusion, particularly since all sane patriotic citizens long since have. Television tells lies, but not when its live and unplanned. Pictures, a thousand words, and so forth, as we like to say. The conclusion is: Donald Trump is a criminal and a traitor, and should be imprisoned, possibly on death row, for treasonous insurrection. His supporters, before and since, are no better than he, being accessories to insurrection, and thus, traitors.

Calling It

KARL MARX, hands down, was the most percipient economist ever. Although he lived in the nineteenth century, he understoond economics and human nature so well, as well as historical trends and relities, that his predictions for the future of the capitalist economic system are coming true, even as we speak. Marx predicted that in every sector of the economy small businesses would either grow into huge corporations, or would be destroyed by huge corporations. He predicted that eventually the world would be dominated by a handful of gigantic international companies which would dominate the global economy, and result in global monopolies in every area of business enterprise. That is exactly what we are witnessing now; a globalization of the corporate capitalistic economy, with the largest corporations firmly in control of the political systems in the countires in which they operate, especially the United States, another cogent Marxian prediction. Marx understood that the capitalist system has a limited life expectancy, and that it would eventually consume itself in brutal competition, competition which would make an elite few fabulously wealthy, and reduce the working class and even the former middle class to abject poverty and servitude, through exploitation. Marx understood well how markets work, and how they would work far into his own future, which he saw clearly. Essentially, all markets are limited, by the number of people who participate in them, and by the resources, natural, labor, and otherwise, available for consumption and exploitation. Suppose a company, say, General Electric, manufactures and sells home appliances, such as refrigerators. Once a consumer has purchased a refrigerator, he or she will not make another refrigerator puchase for years, and will effectively be out of the refrigerator economy. New consumers must be found. Eventually, everyone who needs a refrigerator will have one, and thus the market must be expanded, say, to other countries or other economic classes. Marx made the same point whcih twentieth century economist John Maynard Keynes made decades later: that capitalism must eventually come to an end, because eventually all possible markets are expoloited, and capitalism, which must pursue new markets in order to grow, and is dependant on growth for profit, will simply run out of opportunity. Neither Marx nor Keynes tried to forecast when this might happen, but they both knew it would. We can see it happening now, as fewer and fewer large corporations dominate the world economy, wealth is concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people, the spending ability (purchasing power) of the average citizen is reduced, and the greatest percentage of humanity, exploited labor, another condition necessary for profit in the capitalist system, is reduced to poverty. With their available markets tapped out, corporations will be forced, for their own survival, to engage in activities such as financial speculation and diversification of all kinds, everyone of which weill eventually run up against the same limitations. The corporate media will keep the game going as long as possible, by controlling the information available to the public, which will be told constant lies about nonexistant economic opportunity and prosperity. All of that we are now seeing in the year twenty twenty one. We are being told that an economic recovery from Covid 19 is well undersqay, when in fact all that is happening is that the very wealthy are becoming much more wealthy, and the rest of us are going deeper into debt, while government, which has long since become the tool of the ruling corporations, subsidizes big business and bails it out when its own greed threatens to destory the corporate monopoly. This we call "corporate socialism"; government assistance for the corporations, capitalism for every one else, particularly the workers, who are largely on their own, as they sink ever deeper into debt and despair. All the societal anger, violence, turmoil, and protests in the streets we see today? Marx predicted that as well, as the final death rattle of a system doomed to extinction.

Running Against Ghosts

THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, seemingly in disregard of native sons Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and the advice they might give, has elected, albeit just barely, a Rpublican governor who has all the appearances of a wealthy businessman turned demagogue, reminding those of us with memories longer that that of an average goldfish (eleven seconds), a rarity in these United States of Amnesia, of a certain seditionist pathological liar who rather recently established a new record for the most prevarications (more than thirty thousand) of any president in U.S. history while in office. The victorious candidate ran on a single planked platform of keeping something called "critical race theory" out of public schools, with just a smidge of the usual yawningly familiar planks tacked on for good measure: lowering taxes, resisting creeping socialism, blah blah. Either unmentioned or unnoticed by himself or his Trump deluded supporters is the teensy tiny little fact that not only is there no such thing as "critical race theory" in any public school in Virginia, there is no such thing in any public school in the entire United States either. A Republican, winning an election by campaigning against somethinig which exists only in the fertile imaginations of paranoid conservative voters, voting against a threat which does not exist, like a neighboring country "sending" rapists and murderers across the southern border of the U.S. of former Mexico, or the alleged theft of a presidential election. Go figure, like we like to say. With all due respect, which is very little, one might wish to remind Republican supporters of dishonest damagogues that critical race theory is part of the curriculum only in some law schools, as an examination of the legal ramifications of lingering, enduring systemic racism deeply embedded in American institutions, such as government. If and when it ever begins to sneak into the nation's first grade classrooms incrementally, like Mexican rapists, murderers, or socialists, then surely the mobs of violent conservative Christians currently bullying their way into school board meetings all across the fruited plain, hoping to keep all mention of American racism out of the minds of school children, will take immediate notice, and damned well do something about it. What they wish to do is to flood the country with right wing Christian ideologue school board members, for the purpose of keeping all mention of racism out of the impressionable minds of American youth, and to instead instill the "shining city on a hill" hagiographic Ronald Reagan version, so pupular among the super patriotic super mentally warped Christian conservative plurality. Next thing you know, the kids'll be pledging allegiance to the flag of the united States of Christian America, kneeling and praying before recess, and absorbing the fantasy version of American history, the one in which God established the nation in the name of American exceptionalism, unfettered free enterprise, according to the gospel of wealth, and the teachings of Jesus, excluging inconvenient scripture such as "give unto the poor" (socialism), and "render unto Caesar" (big government).

Trumping the Message of Jesus

I HAVE BEEN AWARE of Donald Trump for about, oh...what...forty five years, give or take a day or two. My mother, bless her heart, was an otherwise intelligent woman who often brought home "The National Enquirer" because, as she said, she just couldn't help herself. Sometimes those lines at the grocery store were long, especially back in the day, as we say, when actual human beings worked the cash registers. Trump was often on the cover of scandal sheets in the seventies, as I recall, probably even more often now, although I would have no way of knowing, since my mother is no longer living. The headlines and articles were always of the glamorous glittery kind, as I recall, always had something to do with Donald's latest trophy date, trophy girlfriend, or trophy wife, and always seemed to feature him saying something about how totally terrific his new casino was going to be, how rich he was, and how much richer he would soon be. In 1974 or so, he and his daddy were busted by the feds for violations of the Fair Housing Act, quietly avoiding renting properties to people "of color", as we say, they paid off Nixon's Attorney General, not once, but twice. The feds noticed a peculiar lily whiteness to Trump's rental properties, looked around, and found a discarded stack of rental applications all with the letter "C" (for "colored") in the upper right corner, and had their case. It was quite obvious to any perceptive person, quite early and often, that whoever else Donald Trump might be remindful of, Jesus Christ was not among them. Every word and deed, without exception, perpetrted by Donald J. Trump has been and still is distinctly not-christ-like. Equally obvious, to this day, is that Donald Trump not only is not reminful of christ, but is, in every conceivable way, the exact opposite of the Prince of peace. and yet, when he ran for president, and to this day, he was and is popular among and supported by more than eighty percent of fundamentalist conservative evangelical christians. And that is my beef, the reaosn why I despise Christains who support Trump. This oft heard argument that God moves in mysteriouis ways, and often elevates reprobates to positios of power and influence, is pure, unmitigated poppy cock. Stipulating that God used to do that (David, Soloman, and Peter come to mind), that was then, and this is now. Trump was elected by the American people, people of the Christian kind, and those people, not God, voted.

Fighting For Survival With Science

LITTLE KNOWLEDGE OF SCIENCE is necessary to understand that a large sheet of aluminum or other reflective material, covering thousands of square feet, could be placed in Earth orbit, geo-stationary or otherwise, could collect a great amount of solar energy, and could reflect it to the Earth's surface in the form of microwave radiation, where the collected heat energy could be used to boil water to operate steam turbines the energy from which could be used to operate the machinery necessary to desalinate a tremendous amount of sea water, which could then be piped into arid regions of the Earth, areas suffering from prolonged drought. Huge parts of the Sahara desert, for instance, could be "terraformed" into environments suitable for productive agriculture. The American west comes to mind. A large part of the land area of the planet consists of historically and presently unusable desert. There are rivers in Colorado which at this time of year should be gushing with billions of tons of fresh water, fast and deep. Beginning about a hundred and thirty years ago, with the westward expansion of the United States bringing people to the west by the thousands, dams began being built, and rivers tapped of their water, all up and down their winding courses, used for agriculture and drinking water. Then, about twenty years ago, with the population of the western United States exploding more rapidly than ever, teh drought to end all droughts began, and continues unabated. By the time it reaches the ocean, the once proud and mighty Colorado River has been reduced to a mere trickle of its former self. And so it goes in the American west, where we the American people, never lacking for ridiculous, even delusional thinking, expect to maintain and supply huge, ever growing metropolitan areas, while simultaneously growing fruits and vegetables out of season, all for the hedonistic, highly questionable purpose of supplying Americans all across the fruited plain and in Eastern cities with fresh fruit and vrgetables year round, since it is evidently not acceptable, beyond our willingness to expend the effort necessary to put food in cans and jars, and preserve it for the winter, reaching into the pantry as needed to get side dishes out of storage as our hearty, intrepid ancestors once did, not so long ago. We are resolved, obviously, to make life as easy and convenient for ourselves as humanly possible, even if it means destroyng our own environment, which, quite obviously, it does. A further advantage of massive desalination of sea water and moving it from ocean to arid land is that, equally obviously, so doing would at least to some extent extenuate the ongoing process of sea level rise, which is already endangering all coastal areas, and will only continue to do so with ever increasing severity, if something isn't done about it, pronto. Although its hard to imagine our being able to desalinate and remove enough water from the Earth's oceans to make even a dent in sea level rise, there is no law of nature or humanity which precludes such an outcome. That, if nothing else, gives us some measure of hope, in the form of possibilities. Planing trillions of trees, on the other hand, is a less optimistic solution to climate change and carbon removal from the atmosphere; it turns out that even if every square foot of the Earth's surface hosted a tree, there would still be more carbon in need of sequestering to stave off climate change. But why not get started? Why not get started desalinating massive amounts of ocean water, and planting a trillion trees? It wouldn't hurt, and it might even help, somewhat.

Damning Polls

COMPANIES WHICH CONDUCT POLLS and surverys consistently yield accurate results. Their methods have become quite scientific and accurate in getting to the truth. Polling companies are free enterprise profit seeking businesses - if they provided flawed information on a regular or even infrequent basis, they'd be out of business lickity split. The most recent infamous example of flawed polling occurred in the twenty twenty election when Biden won big, but less bigly, as Trump might say, than they all predicted. Still, they basically got it right, as always. National Public Radio reported the following polling results: One third of registered Republicans believe that violence is justified in promoting and defending the conservative agenda. Ten percent of Democrats believe similarly concering their agenda. That's not as bad, but still bad. More than seventy percent of Republicans still believe that the election was stolen from Trump, and more than seventy percent still believe that the January sixth insurrection at the Capitil was justified, or that it was harmless, peaceful, a "loving group", as Trump psychopathically put it. On national television, in front of God and country, Trump repeatedly stated his refusal to accept the election results, encouraged his supporters to do likewise, announced his intention to try to reverse the election result, then tried to do exactly that, by legal and illegal means, including violently overthrowing the United States government. Investigations into all this are a mere formality, a useless but necessary process to formalize the facts. What happened was, and remains obvious to all. That one third of the Republican party accepts violence as an acceptable way of implementing its agenda, and that the rest of the party complacently does nothing to dissuade the violent one third, reveals the Repulican party to be nothing other than a violent domestic terrorist organization, harmful to the country, dangerous to the world. The moment Trump refused to accept his election loss, he became a traitor to democracy in America. The moment he organized and orchestrated a violent attemtp to overthrow the American government, he became a verified criminal (although he actually became a criminal many years before January 6, 2021), and a traitor. The same is true of all his supporters, and the entire Republican party. Only the American people can destroy this terrorist organization, and the time has long since begun to begin.