Protesting, Part II

I BELIEVE I WAS IN ninth grade, the same year I joined the "ecology club", when the seniors at our high school staged a walk out in protest of the Viet Nam War. This was when every night on the national news there were films and stories about anti-Viet Nam War protests all over the country, everyday, at some university or other. When it finally came to our high school in conservative, patriotic mid America, I knew we had finally reached the mountain top, and I wanted bady to be there. Problem is, if my parents found out about it, i would be, quite literally, toast, as we say these days. And then to, I had a conservative, patriotic big sister in the same school building, in the twelfth grade. Protesting the Viet Nam War, much as I yearned to do it, simply wasn't in my cards...or genes. I spent the next several decades wondering whether Iwoul ever get my chance to become a war protestor; a silly, needless concern, really, if you consider the frequency and utter reliability with which the United States pursues foreign wars of aggression/imperialism. My chance finally came in early 1991, when the U.S. bluffed its way into a holy war for oil in Kuwait-Iraq. By this time I was teaching college, and felt some of the same old dread of being discovered and reviled, but this time, I said to hell with it, I'll take my chances, and may the devil take the hindmost, as they used to say. I wasn't disappointed. There was a large crowd of us Gulf War protestors, many members of a campus ad hoc group I had formed called "S.A.G.E. (Students Against Gulf Engagement), plus a large number of counter demonstrators,police, and even a few BFI agensts on adjacent rooftops with lapel pins and binoculars. That time, I almost got into a fight, ut that, as they say, is another story...My two all time favorite protests occurred in recent years, and everyone older than grade school will remember them both: The famous (infamous) "Occupy Wall Street" movement of fall, twenty eleven, and the "Black Lives Matter" protests of summer, twenty twenty, inspired by the murder of George Floyd. I loved, and will always love these events because they both were noble crusades against wrong, as all protests should be. And, once again, I participated in both, though not extensively. My fondest desire is that the popular protests ongoing in Iran and China would coalesce and grow into a world wide protest movement against the status quo - the status quo wherein a few ultra wealthy folks possess most of the world's wealth, while millions of people go hungry, the environment continues to collapse, and war, violence, and disease run rampant. And so forth. That status quo.

Protesting, Part I

I'M A CONTRARIAN by nature, at least when it comes to mainstream society. As a child during the nineteen sixties, I "rooted for" the anti Viet Nam War protestors, and the folks protesting racism with Martin Luther King. I tended to keep my support for protestors to myself, knowing that openly acknowledging it could land me in some, shall we say, "hot water". At one point in my life I claimed that I "never met a protest I didn't like". That changed abruptly when the MAGA folks started protesting vaccine mandates. Alas, I don't like right wing protests any more than Ilike right wing politics. Currently I am in love with the protest movements happening in Iran and China. Not since the good ole days of Viet Nam have I been more enthusiastic for or supportive of mass protests. It is my fondest hope, my greatest dream that the good people of those two countries bring down their repressive, authoritarian governments and replace them with democracy. I have a fantasy of tens of millions of people worldwide hopping on Twitter, or other internet platforms, and proclaiming support for the demonstrators in both Iran and China. In my dream, the avalanche of global support further emboldens and inspires Iranian protestors, mostly women, and Chines protestors, mostly young people, to redouble their noble efforts, and to never cease until fundamental, meaningful reforms have bene implemented. In Iran, the protests began as outrage against the death of a young womsn who died in police custody after being arrested by the so called "morality police" for improperly wearing or not wearing her head garment. Now it has become a protest against the general suppression of women in Iran, and the lack of democracy and equality. Much the same is true in China, where the protests began only as a protest agaisnt continuing stringent measures, including quarantines and general societal shutdown, to fight Covid 19, but has morphed into a all out demonstration demanding less authoritarian government, and democracy. In both cases, wha began as focused protests against specific complaints have evolved and become general revolutions demanding democracy and equality. May they both receive the full blessings of and support of whatever intelligent being governs the universe, if there is any. As goethe said: "The world advances only becasue of those who oppose it." Amen to that.

Losing Trees

THE FACTS, as they often are these days, are unpleasant. Last year approximately thirty six million trees are removed from America's cities, mostly from urban and suburban development but also from disease. Furthermore, in recent years, the average number of tress per American city has steadily declined, as has the total number of trees thriving in American cities. Overwhelming teh cause is dirt being replaced with concrete, and new buildings going up on valuable real estate. What is needed, of course, is exactly the opposite; for Amerian cities to increase the number of trees each year, while limithing growth an development to sustainable levels, environmentally friendly levels. American cities would contributemore to human and environmental survival by focusing future growth on building up, not out. Humanity needs to stop developing more and more land every year, and instead set aside a suzeable portion of the Earth's surface as permanent wildnerness and wildlife habitit. In face these movements, tree planting projects and international agreements on development limitations are ongoing; currently there is much support, growing support for setting aside a minimum of thirty percent of the Earth's land and water areas exclusively for non human life and nature. And, needles to say, the global human population needs to startlevelling off and even perhpas declining. Just the hotoher day human being number eight billion came into the world; what is the optimum number of human inhabitants of Earth? Estimates very; most say somewhat less than eight billion. Global warming cannot be stopped and reversed merely by planting trees. We cannot plant our way out of our dire predicament. There simply isn't enough surface area on Earth to plant enough trees to offest the damage we have already done, in terms of climate change and general environmental destruction. But a couple trillion trees planted during the next few years would certainly help. The good news is that the climate change deniers are dying off, albeit painfully slowly, and the new "up and coming" generations are much much more aware of and concerned about the Earth's fufure and the future of humanity living on it. Its about time. Its a tough job, but, as they say, somebody's gotta do it...When I was in ninth grade I joined a high school club called "The Ecology Club". In those days, the late sixties, there was. Our club participated by picking up litter and garbage at local widespread concern for the environment. Our club participated by picking up litter and garbage at local public parks. Pollution was a big issue, but nobody had any real idea back then how dire our environmental destruction and climate change emergency actually were, and are. Now we know, and have only ourselves to blame for our inaction.

Getting the Run Around

I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST smart phones, because it isn't their fault that humans spend their entire lives constantly staring at them, whether when driving, walking, or defecating. I recall the excitement when Steve Jobs introduced his modela in 2007, and everybody in the United States, especially teenagers, just had to have one, now. Now, everybody still has one, except me. Wonderful thought smart phones are, I simply do not nor have I ever felt the "need" or "desire" to own and operate one. I just don't need all that stuff, marvelous though it is, texting, the internet, photographing, etc. The expense of owning and operating an I Phone has always kept me at bay as well. For the last ten years or so I've had what is called a "Home Phone", which is a land line, essentially, but which can be taken and used in your car, and is technically "portable", although it comes in a big box, much like phones fifty years ago did. Mine I never took out of the house, and was content to have phone service resembling what I grew up with, except for the caller ID which we didn't have in 1970. Then the company sent me a letter announcing that they are phasing out their 3G network, including my phone service. They said they oh so strongly wanted to keep me as a custome, and offered me options, including a free phone. When I went by their office they offered me an upgrade to my existing service, but no free phone; they were going to charge me for the upgrade. So, I told them thanks but no thanks, and to shut my phone service off. They asked for my account number and PIN number, and I told them I hadn't the faintest ieda about either. I tturned out that when I first signed up for their home phone service, PIN numbers were not reuired, not even available, but become both later. I never received one. After making several hone calls and visiting two different Verizon stores, a young male implooyee told me that tere is absolutely no way for them to disconnect my phone service, since nobody can open my account without a PIN number, and that its too late for me to get a PIN number. So, I'm stuck with my old phone service. But not for eternity! The young Verizon empoyee, who must've thought he was quite clever for "discovering" what he called a "work around", informed me that when the old 3G network is shut down at the end of the year, my phone service will be automatically shut off even if I do nothing, such as staying with Verizon and accepting their expensive upgrade, which I most certainly will not do. The young man said that when the phone is shut off, I would receive only one final bill from them, for the extra month of service I didn't want but got beccause of their inability to shut my service off. Any guesses as to whether I'll pay it?

Going Around, Coming Around

WE ALL HAVE NOTICED how reliably our words and deeds come come back to "haunt us" later, for better or worse. A long list, the things we said but probably shouldn't have. Along those lines, there has been traditionally a very strong self righteous sanctimonious streak in American culture, which might stem partly from its Puritan roots, and partly from the attitude we inculcate and deeply embed within our children and hence ourselves; that the United States of America is special, a "shining city on a hill", as Mr. Reagan said, a nation destined by fate, nature, or divine providence to be a nation among nations, the greatest nation on Earth or in history, what we often call "American exceptionalism". America has since its inception offered itself as a role model for the world, in nearly any way, shape, or manner conceivable. American missionaries spread out all around the globe, hoping to bring the "unsaved" to the true religion, the true savior, and the true God. We praise our freedom and democracy as if we are the only people in the world to possess or enjoy either. We hold up something vague we call "the American way" without ever truly knowing or defining what the term means. We are particulalry accomplished at encouraging other nations to embrace "human values", to treat their own citizens in the manner we beleive they should be treated. All this does not come without certain traps and risks. We are all familair with the Biblical metaphor of "glass houses". That is exactlly the sort of structure American culture, with its confident, self gratulatory, self promotional culture presents to the world; one of transparency, due to its open, accessible nature. The United States of America was founded to a large extent upon genocide and slavery; arguably the nation could not have existed and grown as it has has without either. This history is quite sufficient to tempt foreigners and foreign nations to label the United States "hypocritical". Arguably, they have a point. Ill treatment of formerly ensalved persons continues to this day; racism remains a powerful force in American culture, despite all efforts to fight and eliminate it. Native civilizations barely managed to survive their European imposed holocaust, but certainly not intact, but rather, isolated, impoverished, outside the mainstream. Recently some Americans, paying closer attention to the small Arab nation Qatar, which is hosting the World Cup soccer tournament, have criticized Qatar for banning homosexuality and generally suppressing women. As if the United States didn't once itself behave identically, and that, not so very long ago. Qatar has indeed expressed its view that western nations making such criticisms of their country and culture are "hypocritical", and should pay more attention to there own shortcomings. Understanding why they feel that way does not require any monumental act of understanding or empathy.

Looking the Part

ONCE A WEEK I sing with a gospel group, and would like to do it more often. I often use expressions like "God Bless" and "I thank the dear lord", and use the word "God" fairly often. And, like most people, i express agreement with and enthusiasm for the teachings of Jesus, what we call "Christian values". In fact, I am not a Christian, never have been, and probably never will be, it now seems. What interests me is that I get the impression that many people, unless I happen to tell them otherwise, which I generally do not unless asked, simply assume that I am indeed a Christian. And in fact I have found throuought my life that the more devout the Christian, the less inclined the person to accept other religions, and the more iunclined to believe that everyone should be a Christian. And all it takes is a few words and songs to impell people to presumptuous assumptions. One of my fellow progressive-spiritual friends agrees with me that we left wing non Christians who love Jesus should not, must not allow the right wing evangelical Christians claim any exclusive or special relationship to Jesus. Nobody but ourselves has the right to determine our relationship, or anyone's relationshhip to Jesus, or God. My pantheistic spirituality inclines me to reject the notion of sacred books, animal and human sacrifice, and strict dogma generally. I find all religiosity fascinating, and wholeheartedly accept that each person follow her own path, and must. It may be that the future of human culture includes the withering away of large, powerful, organized religions. A pervasive, infinitely unique human spirituality, the acceptance of individual religiosity, might one day inspire most people. I would be as interested and willing to attend Islamic, Buddhist, or Hindu rituals and servics as Christian or any other, and would consider the experience to be of educational value. Humanity's long cultural heritage includes thousands of fascinating religions, all of which serve the purposes for which they were invented, then, like all other aspects of human culture, fade away into history. The best source of truth, truth of all kinds, including spiritual, derives today from science, not religion. It is through science that we are learning and will continue to learn about the universe, and hence, God. "My religiosity consists in humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself in what little we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. I cannot conceive of a personl god who would sit in judgment over creatures of its own creation. Morality is of the highest importance for mankind, but not for God". Einstein said that, and its as close to my religious gospel as any other words could ever be.

Mismessaging

ALTHOUGH I'VE BEEN ON FACEBOOK for more than five years, I think, I've ever really totally gotten into it. Never leared ow to make a fancy post with all sorts of colors and decorations, and so foth. I have strictly limited my time spent on Facebook to probably less than an hour a day, and although my "friends" list has swollen into the thousands what with the addition of former students who found me, still, I'm not really a Facebook guy. I rarely use mesenger, for instance. I get far more messages than I really want to receive, mostly from young women or people pretending to be young attractive women, women looking for that one perfect relationship, or maybe, just maybe, easy money. They seem to think I was born yesterday, which is some ways I wish I had been, but in others, not so much. Many of the messages are from my fellow screeching left wing liberal types, who are absolutely convinced they not only can educate me in some way, but seem to be on a holy crusade to do it. Often, without even bothering to read the message, I take a quick glance at it, then quickly typeIN "thanks", or merely hit the thumbs up button, to say thanks, or express agreement with the message, which nearly always suits my ideology. Recently I received a message about the street demosntrations in Iran protesting the suppression of women, and I punched the thumbs up button, to indicate my agreement, approval, and thanks to the messanger. Shortly thereafter I got another message from the original messnager, saying: "Why did you give a thumbs up to a woman being persecuted for protesting her head garment in public"? Oops...my bad. I tried to explain that my thumbs up was a thank you for giving me the information, and in no way signals my approval or support of either the actions of those harming the protesting women, nor my approval of Iranian government suppression. I still don't know whether my explanation was read and understoond: I didn't stay around along enough to find out. But now, curiosity is getting the better of me. Maybe I can summon the courage to log back onto Facebook....The "bottom line" for me is that I fully support and root for the women's protest movement in Iran to fullly succeed, even to the point of overthrowing the repressive government of religious fanatics and to replace it with a secular democracy with equal rights for all citizens, including women and minorities. Hell, I wish that for our beloved United States of America...Long live secular liberal democracy, and the people around the world who believe in it. In the United States, it is becmoning incrasingly evident that America's right wing conservative movement does not embrace secular democracy, and must therefore be defeated, as we say, in the arena of ideals, as well as at the ballot box.

Trump, Running

THE GREATEST THING that could possibly happen politically in America happened last night: Donald Trump officially declared for the presidency. His candidacy and behavior will greatly damage the Republican party and the American consservative movement, will in fact destroy both, and require each to redesign and reconstruct itself, praise God. The current incarnation of both has become a twisted, insane version of each, the party, and the ideological political movement. I have two good, intelligent, well educated liberal friends who said they dreaded the idea of a Trump candidacy and expresed doubt as to whether Trump's big message on Tuesday night would even be about any presidential run. I was shocked at their naivete. I assured them both a day in advance of Trump's announcement that yes, indeed Trump was going to run for president, and that, hell yes, that is exactly what we progressive Democrats want him to do! Now is the time for the Democrats and all who fear and loathe the Trump agenda and its followers to become, shall we say, aggressive? Aggressive in constantly telling and informing and reminding the American people that the Republican party officially designates the Capitol insurrection "legitimate political discourse". We must remind the American people that the same people who deny climate change deny Trump's election defeat, and the value of vaccines, incredibly. In talking about bad things like extremism, dishonesty, the embrace of blatant lies, crazy conspiracy theories, violence, anti-government hatred, racism, misogyny, intolerance, stupidity, and so forth and so on, you hear a lot of people say things such as: "There's a lot of that happening on both sides, both ends of the political spectrum. Really? No, not really. All these anti-Democratic, divisive, unpatriotic tendencies are most certainly, most definitely distributed equally throughout American culture, on both sides of the political and culture war. Not by a country mile. All the above naned forms of hatred and evil are overwhelmingly, disproportionately concentrated on the political right, and not just on the far right, but rather, smack dab in the middle of mainstream, Christian conservative America. People often say that the Republican party has moved to the right of where it used to be, and the Democratic party has moved to the left, and both have become less moderate, more extreme. This too is nonsense. Indeed the Republican party has moved to the right - far to the right, of even the Reagan era - but the Democrats have also moved to the right, to the consternation of some of us. The Democratic party was far more liberal during FDR's presidency and also during the sixties than it is today. But thank God that it is nowhere close to today's Republican party, which is becoming increasingly indistinguishable from fascism, rendering its imminent self destruction a great blessing to us all.

Neat Freaking

MY SISTER tells me that when I was but a wee lad, pre school, I would stand over a the kitchen trash can while eating a cookie, to keep the crumbs off the floor by letting them fall directly into the trash. This was because of my mother. My father, according to sis, unsable to bear the sight of what he thought was child abuse against a toddler, left the room. I really don't now what if any role plates might have played in all this: whereas I can assure you my family could afford plates and had a surpus of them, I have no idea why I wasn't simply directed to one, instead of the trash can. My best theory is that my trash can cookie adventure happened whenever I asked for a cookie at a time when a meal wasn't being eaten, and mom, being mom, saw no sense in getting a perfectly good plate "dirty". Plus, she knew me well enough to know that one little cookie wasn't about to spoil my appetite, nor even put a dent in it, so she said; "knock yourself out, but do it over there". I'm reasonably sure the story is true, becaue I distinctly recall eating cookies, many times, in precisely that fashion, and becauese I still eat them that way, to this very day, as if by some mysterious, unknown compulsion, and, presumably, will for the rest of my life, barring some unpredictable psychotic transformation within me. Whether my mother actually forced this on me, or whether I simply noticed how assiduous mom was in keeping a clean house, and I decided to conform and please her, I will never know. Either narrative is distinctly possible, and maybe, just maybe, my father's angst and moral indignation were in vain. Either way, she was the "driving force", as we like to say. Upon reflectin, it occurs to me that I have spent much of my lfe saying and doing things to please other people, and that now, as a senior citizen, I am far less inclined to do that. But I often display such extremely courteous behaviors. I refer to everyone as "Ma'am" and "Sir", for example, even first graders. Why not? Why not set a good example? Also, unlike many folks my age, I never call eighteen year olds "kids". They don't like that, and besides, if you're old enough to vote and fight and die four your country, you're a grown up, not a kid. Hell, my dad, who so hated strictly raised children that he walked out on the sight of his own son being strictly rasied, called everybody younger then he "kid". When he was sixty seven, the age I am now, he called forty year olds "kids". To me, that's disrespectful, and although arguably there isn't a human being on this splanet worthy of a whole lot of respect, respect should not have to be earned, it should be given automatically as a courtesy. Only respected people should be able to destory the inherent respect of others. Goethe made a good point: "Tolerance should be merely a passing sentiment, leading to ultimate acceptance. Continued tolerance is an insult." Babe Ruth, never known for his elegant articulation, had his own system, which worked for him. If you were older than he, he called you "Doc". If you were about the same age as he, he called you "Mac". And if you were younger than he, he called you - you guessed it - "kid". Doc, Mac, Kid... People generally loved the Babe. And like they say, its the thought that counts.

Scamming, Again

THEY'RE AT IT AGAIN. Thsoe rascally republicans, in Arizona, where Senator Mark Kelly just got reelected and that psychotic albeit good looking women named "lake" is losing for Governor, and really ought to consider going jumping in one, the little devil. How dare she, spewing the stolen election crap, accusing the vote counters of "slow balling" the count, to somehow or other arrange for her divinely sanctioned election victory be stolen. She's a real horror of an alledged human being, and really ought never be allowed by us the voters to hold elective office of any sort, including dog catcher. Hell, she'd probably kill and eat the little darlings. With each passing day the Republican party becomes more reprehensible, more traitorous, more harmful to humanity, more deadly dangerous. Five'll get you ten that if Warnock wins the recount in Georgia, say, by a tiny slim margin, and Laxalt loses in Nevada, Trump'll start his presidential campagin, after he annoucnes his candidacy on Tuesday Nov. 12, 2022, by screaming repeatedly that the elections of Lake and Laxalt end every other loser Republican were stolen by the Democrats, or the media, the Chinese, or all of the above. Bank on it. The Democrats did remarkably sell in the midterms, so well caompared to expert expectations that within minutes conservative America, in all its disgusting criminality, begins to once rant about stolen elections, fraud, and the need to make it as difficult to vote as possible to defeat rempant fraud, and the moral necessity of using violence to make sure that they are always in power, and the Democrats never are. This is no exggeration. This is the state of current conservative America, all lock, stock and barrel of it, down to the last evangelical Christian maniac, Proud Boy, or Oath Keeper. Millions of hateful, racist, election denying, election stealing, lying, cheating religious fanatics, determined to carry automatic weapons and Bibles into battle, against anything even remotely resembling progressive legislation or policy proposals. That is the current Republican party, America's grreatest enemy. Wildly inaccurate and unfair though that statement sounds, it not only is not wildy innacurate, its perfectly true. For decades a large majority of Republicans-conservatives have been climate change deniers, have totally hamstrung any American plan, program or action to fight global warming, and have thereby been the main cause of what now looks like America's immminant decline and destruction, environmentally. Moderation, negotiation, compromise, civility and all that are wonderful and all, but either climate change is real or it isn't, and either you believe in it and are determinied to help reverse it, or you're not. If you don't and are not, then you, according to the Department of Defense, are essentially a traitor, and I fully agree.

"I THINK its totally ridiculous that we should have to be afraid to go to school" asserted a percipient high schooler in the aftermath of one of our American bloodbaths, rituals of death and devastation enacted upon ourselves by ourselves about every day or so. So many so that they are no longer news worthy in their overabundance, and the media picks and chooses which of them to regale us with. (In fact, there is at least one mass shooting in these United States each and every day, defined as a situation in which three or more folks are gunned down in rapid succession by a monster whose reason is always temporary insanity. As if only a tiny proportion of Americans are mentalyl unstable, the rest of us are perfectly sane, and it is even remotely possible to tell the difference beforehand. before the bullets fly, and to keep the guns out of the hands of the insane minority, and in the hands of all the presumably sane in the land of the free and the home of the heat packing brave. I graduated in 1973, and the only things I feared were report cards and rejection from girls. If I were in school today, I'd probably be afraid to go, and would insist on being home shoooled. There, at least the gunman would have had to get past my mother, no easy task. Fifty years after I got my diploma, public schools have become fortresses of fear, complete with metal detectors, iron bars, and security guards. We have met the enemy, and it is ourselves, as the ancient Roman general is said to have said. But here is a "law eternal", to quote the Dhammapada: that in every society on Earth, the fewer the firearms among the general population, the fewer the gun crimes.. the converse is true: the more guns in circulation, the more shooting deaths. As the great baseball mind and philosopher Casey Stengal actually did say: "you could look it up." England and Australia in recent years took the guns away from its citizens, and they didn't have to climb over any dead bodies to do it. Of coourse, those are civilized countries. Gun crimes plummeted dramatically in both places. In the United States, gun owners always use the "over my dead body" threat, and even though you become tempted to take 'em up on it, you don't want to reduce yourself to there level, and, be damned sure, they mean it. Or, we must assume they do, even though I have my doubtfuls, as Festus Hagan would say. Arguably, it is the gun owners who are the most afraid of anything that moves, the least trusting of their fellow humans, and the least confident in the law enforcement heroes they purport to trust love dearly. Even in this culture of gratuitous violence, I don'tfear to go out into public armed and loaded, and I do not fear being home without a gun to protect me. Go figure.

Refraining For the sake of Friendship

MY ONCE AND FORMER FRIEND, a MAGA man who stands six eight and has the personality of someone who stands six eight and knows it, acted like a cocaine addict, and could not refrain from starting trouble. Imploringly, I had suggested, in the presence of his wife (who agreed with me), that if he and I but refrained from further political discussions, our friendship of forty years would endure. We could talk basketball, weather, or a billion other things under heaven and earh. Easier said than done, as we like to say. He simply had to have his fix of venom spewing election denial. An angry lot these days, those MAGATs. Invariably, he would awaken the beast, engendering anger even when I vainly tied to change the subject. Implacable, he. Full disclosure, on one occasion I was the offending party. With his wife again in the room, I broached the taboo topic, but flatteringly, in a spirit of conciliation. My remark was that he my dear friend is simply much too good a person to support and be repesented by Donald Trump, who is a man of demonstrably reprehensible qualities, well known to all, the very personification of all seven deadly sins, and then some. He deserves better, all six foot eight of him. We all deserve better. My friend's wife nodded in agreement when he wasn't looking. He responded that it isn't about personal characteristics, its about the direction in which Trump was taking the country, before the presidencny was stolen from him. I responded, like a real smart ass, that if "we", whoever in hell the "we" might possibly be, stole the election, we sure as hell got away with it. That's when he went off like a proverbial rocket: "See?! That proves it! You just admitted it! You just said you got away with it!... Well, like Agathon said: "Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain". And so goes the desperate logic of conservative America, including the huge evangelical Christian wing thereof. God moves in mysterious ways. He often elevates thugs and punks to places of high importance, to use them for HIS glory....Peter the rock was a rogue, until Jesus straightened him out. So was King David. And the beat goes on....Then along came "Two Thousand Mules", the purely propagandistic sham documentary which purports to prove the election theft, but only succeeds to purport tired, nonsenical, unprovable claims, all of which have been debunked, repeatedly. Then there ae those who assert that Trump indeed made America great again, but only for four years. It became great on the day of his inauguration, and then became ungreat the day he left office, like some mystical, miraculous transubstantiation. Reason makes an impresion on me. I am still wiling to convert from progressive sanity go all out MAGA, but you have to show me why. Show me why it was beneficial to the country to deny the results of a election without a whit of supporting evidence of fraud, and to send a mob of angry well armed people to the Capitol to "fight like hell", in a violent attempt to overthrow the American government by hanging the Vice president, among other questionable behaviors. The only thing my friend has done is to showe me that he needs help. On July 29, 2021, he bet me, and I am not kidding, a case of cold imported beer that by year's end, Trump would be back in office, as if by divine intervention. He lost the bet, and I made him pay up. He still resents me for that. He later admitted that it was, as he put it: "an emotional bet". Oh, really? My friend also showed me why I should, after an all out attempt to retain his friendship, abandon it, reluctantly. At least I tried.

Embracing Fantasy, Republican Style

AT LONG LAST, out comes the truth, as, they say, it always will. Its from Vladimir Putin, of all people. Putin now says that he indeed helped Trump get elected in 2016, by meddling online. He's prevaricating, you say? The CIA, FBI, and Mueller report confirmed this Russian meddling years ago, confirmed what Putin now confirms, Russian perfidy. Putin seems proud of it, amid right the usual wing denials of it. The Mueller report plainly stated that Trump accepted and welcomed Russian assistance, was fully aware of it, but did nothing about it, other than support it. Now Putin admits its all true, every word of it. More right wing denial, of course. Now Putin and his Russian oligarch thug friends say that they will be right back at it in twenty twenty four, constructing thousands of misinformation websites, spreading lies about Biden, the usual tactics, redux. Doubtless the Republican party will celebrate and glorify and deny it all, as they did back in 2016. Steve Bannon's approach to politics prevails among Republicans. Throw as much bullshit as possible as American society, and what sticks, sticks. Nixon's approach. The big lie, often repeated, becomes accepted as fact. The spirit of Joseph Goebbels permeates conservative America. Among their fatuous, false assertions of the past, in concert with Russian meddling: that Barack Obama was born in Africa. That Michells Obama is a man. Both these lies are, as Barack Obama succinctly put it: "ultimately racist". There is more. That Hillary Clinton operated some sort of pedophilic enterprise out of a Pizza parlor basement, a pizza parlor in D.C. which has no basement. And now, for the piece de resistance: that the typically deranged conservative who attacked Paul Pelosi was Paul Pelosi's gay lover. FOX "news" embraces all of it, every last reprehensible word. So does the American fascist right wing. Thus the Russians shamelessly declare their intention, to interfere with the twenty twenty four American presidential electin, as they did in 2016 to help elect Trump. They will use social media, again, and money. Thousands of bogus websites, denigrating Biden and Democrats, with lies just as they did to Hillary Clinton. They may once agian help Trump get elected, with the full approval of the Republican party and conservative America. This, the party which formally declared that the insurrection at the Capitol was "legitimate political discourse". The Republicans will once again redicule all those who once again prove that the GOP is a criminal, terrorist organization. They will try to discredit the CIA, FBI, as they did once before. They will preposterously claim that the FBI, CIA, and something called the "deep state" is chock full of liberal Democrats, out to get Trump. If Trump or his surrogate presidential candidate loses again in 2024, he and they will once again claim massive voter fraud, claim victory, and resort to and approve of violent insurrection, with the full support of white, conservative, evangelical Christian America. And once again we the American people will get exactly what we deserve by letting it all happen, because we deserve no better.

Praising the Non Denominational Lord

GOSPEL SINGING went well today, maybe the best ever for me. My bass-baritone voice is improving, I know the songs better, feel more at ease. We sang my personal favorite, "How Great Thou Art", as we do every Monday, upon my request/insistence. Not only is it my favorite gospel song, but also, among my faovite songs period, secular or sacred. What I like most about the song is its lack of any references to anyone's sins being washed away by the blood of Christ. No blood sacrifices for me, thank you... All over the world in ancient times primitive barbaric peoples convinced themselves that the great anthropmorphic sky God is a meat eater, and would be satiated and placated by a blood sacrifice, human or animal, and it would rain, and the crops would gorw, and starvation would be averted. Fertilitiy cults, they call them. Primitive, barbaric. One of my song writer friends said it best, in a song: "You can keep the cross, just give us Jesus". The Christian religion is one of them - a fertility cult gone viral. Just ask Bart Ehrman, the world's leading scholar on the early history of the Christian religion. Or, as Goethe said, paraphrased: "The Christian religion began as a political revolution against Roman oppression, which failed, and turned moral, turned inward, turned toward heaven and away from eartlhy oppressio and temporal reality.Then too, my favorite sacred-secular song is "Holly Holy", by Neil Diaimond, a Jewish kid from Brooklyn who made it good in music. Maybe my grandmother (1892-1971) influenced me in my love for "How Great Thou Art". But she also loved "The Old Rugged Cross", which is not among my favorites. My intent is to print our about twenty copies of the sheet music to "Holly Holy", and recommend it to the group... Stay tuned. If it aint in the Hymnal, it might not fly. Their loss. What I like about How Gerat Thou Art, other than the melody and lyrics, is the universiality of it. Read the lyrics. The song could be applied to any religion in the world, including the Christian one. Oh, there is a reference to Christ, and to his being the "savior", but its really aimed at God, and is essentially an ode to my religion, or rather to my religiosity, Pantheism. (birds, singing sweetly in the trees, mountains grandeur, rolling thunder..nature, baby..) Religious dogma I eschew. I would just as soon sing in an Islamic gospel group, if there were such things, or a Hindu, or Buddhist, or any of the thousands of other religious traditions. "How Great Thou Art" would be relevant to any of them. For me, singing is the thing, a fine community activity, good for the heart and lungs. I'd like to form a secualr singing group at the Senior Center; we could go through the great American song book. Simon & Garkunkel, Beatles, Stones, you name it, we could sing it. Just how well that would go over here in mainstream Bible belt America I cannot say, but I sense that a few folks would be interested. Meanwhile, I happily shall continue to praise my pantheistic God, in Christian gospel song.

Being Brain Dead in The Deep Woods

Elegantly designed human made structures juxtaposed against wilderness beauty have a certain appeal to most folks; the elegance of good architecture contrasting with the wild, chaotic elegance of the natural world, bringing us closerto nature, connecting us to it. (Bearing in mind that both the man made and natural are, ultimately, "natural", and that our distinguishing between the two, purely arbitrary, and categorical.) Only when the human construction becomes too big, too imposing, does the impact get ruined. And only when there is too much construction, too many buildings, too little wilderness. The chapel is made of mostly glass, with polished rock floors, and stained wood support pillars, and surrounded entirely by wooded slopes of deciduous trees. The tress burst into flames in the fall, and light green ambiance emerges each spring. The building was designed by renowned architect Fay Jones, who was a student of Frank Loyd Wright, and built in 1971. Services are held there regularly, and thousands of people have gotten married there; you couldn't want for a more perfect setting to exchange wedding vows. Its also a tourist attraction, set deep within the Ozark mountains. You can enter the chapel, sit, and reflect. There is no time limit. You instantly feel compelled to be silent, or to only whisper, as if you are ensconced within a magnificent, decorus, stained glass cathedral. You only want to sit, think, and give thanks. When we exited, calm and tranquil, the lady with whom I attened said: "I want to take a selfie standing on that rock over yonder". I felt compliant, oblivious, cooperative. She was referring to a large jutting rock overhanging a cliff not far behind the pulpit, framed against rolling hills, easily seen through the glass building, the glass kept impeccably clean, (unlike my dirt stained windows at home). So we began to walk around to the rear of the chapel, along a gravel path. We ignored the sign, which could not have been more obvious, which read: "Do not go beyond this point". Legal liability, the possibility of serious injury or death. Almost immediately from the chapel came the lady who monitored the front desk, saying: "You can't go beyong this point!". Horrifed, I glanced at the sign, which, had it been a snake, would have bitten me. Maybe I'm too accustomed to ignoring signs generally, since most of them are merely advertising. I apologize three times, scolded at myself, and notified the official that, yes, I seem to have become "brain dead". My companion did similarly, and remarked: I feel like an idiot". I replied that not only did I fell like an idiot, that verifiably I am an idiot. The lady smiled graciously, forgivingly, but seemed a bit bemused, and even annoyed. She had every right. I plan to return to this special place one more time before I die, but not for awhile, and probably when I do, I'll be wearing a Groucho Marx nose and mustache. And I won't let myself fall prey to idiotic suggestions.

Going To Hell, Or Not

THE CORPULANT CURMUDGEON made it perfectly clear, as Trickie Dick Nixon might've said. All Democrats go to hell, and I, poor I, shall inevitably join them not soon enough, seein' as how I am a dastardly Democrat, and even worse, not a tongue talkin', snake handlin' Pentacostal, nor even, for that matter, oh horror, a Christian. You heard right. All Democrats go to hell, he said. Mere membership is a particular political party is sufficient qualification for eternal damnation. Democrats, after all, kill babies, or if they don't actually kill them, they want to allow desperately pregnant women, including rape and incest victims, to control their own bodies and reproductive process. How dare those liberal demons allow God and woman alone to be the determiners of reproductive outcomes, and to leave the American government out of it! Precisely how he knew so definitely where I would end up remains a mystery; was it possibly one of those "been there done that" sort of things? I retorted that when I arrive, I would be grateful if he would refrain from speaking to me, or associating with me. He glowered at me as per usual, like an angry, wrathful vengeful Old Testament God, and for a moment I thought, even hoped, that we might physically fight. He was about six two two sixty, but in his mid eighties, and I thought I could take him, using quickness. I glared right back at 'im. We locked eyse, in mutual hatred. Offering a truce, I glanced away. When a moment later I fixed my eyes back on his, he blinked, and looked away. The cuban missile crisis was over. A wise man, my roommate who later became an attorney once said that there is nothing wrong with despising someone who is demonstrably despicable. I despise people who believe in hell, and then liberally consign others to it, but never themselves. Isn't that God's job? I almost beleive that belief in hell is a form of mental illness. Haven't we enough nightmarish misery in this world of "reality", without invening yet more in some imaginary nightmarish place where there is no hope of misery ever ending? And, of course, there isn't the slightest evidence that such a place even exists, and abundant evidence that it does not. The Bible, a mere book if an extremely important one, makes only vague references to hell, and those aren't exacly what we moderns conceive of; more of a shadowy dark place "gehenna". between life and death. I don't want to live in a universe where a hell exists, and I despise a God who would allow the existance of such a place. I love people who believe in heaven, hate people who believe in hell. Those who believe in hell seem to be totally accepting of the concept, as if they take some perverse pleasure in it. That is their madness, and theirs alone. If there is a hell, I hope sincerely that those who believe in it are the only ones who end up there. After all, it is their creation, or the creation of their cruel God. At least the rest of us have enough sense and sanity to refuse to believe it exists, even if it does.

Educating Sis, Hating For Hatred's Sake

CONVERSATIONS WITH MY BIG SISTER always go well, except for the one time she copped an attitude, I told her where to go, and she went. Actually she only slammed the phone down, which I trust did not involve the smart phone smashing into the deaf and dumb floor tyles. That would have truncated our communication, at least for a few hours. Later I called back and we exchanged apologoies. She likes to talk about what she and hubby had for lunch, and what they sang in church: I prefer to delve straight into politics. She feigns interest, but says she really doesn't give a rat's behind about fulfilling her obligation to help govern the country by remaining fully informed about current events, that she relies on me to do it for her, but she says, flatteringly if insincerely, that she enjoys my "educating" her. (I try). When I mentioned that Trump's monstrous lie has precipitaed a new genre of hate speech, that words have consequences by precipitating action, and that Nancy Pelosi was fortunate to have not been home, sis sliiped a bit, verbally and morally, and retorted that she was almost sorry she wasn't. That set me off, an dwe weer poised to go 'round and 'round, but I deferred. There'll be time for that later, after I cool down a mite. Lovingly, gently, respectfully I inted to tell sister that nobody who has ecver expressed hatred for Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton has ever given a substantive reason for "hatin' on 'em", but only the standard, tired insults perhaps intended as a bromide: "she's a bitch". I will submit to my sister that she cannot name a single public affairs position or opinion, ar a single legislative agenda item either alleged bitch has ever proposed or supported which justifiably engenders hatred of them. Nor nary a parking ticket nor overdue library book on either gentlewoman's record. The people who hate Hillary and Nancy are expressing, perhpas unwittingly, nothing but sheer mysogyny. Don't like they way they look, don't like the way they talk. Don't like strong, mouthy women who don't "know their place", and have the audacity to seek and gain political power over men. Standard conservative stuff. This I did mention to sis, and she immediately embraced the notion. Actually, she straight up said that she, (my sister) simply does not like women, and considers them much less nice than men (an opinion she inherited from our mutual mother which, arguably, contains at least a kernel of validity, if nothing more defensible.) Maybe men are by nature more gentel than women in public affairs, maybe not. It matter not. AS bertolt Brecht succinctly wrote in a poem: "I make friends with people. And I wear a derby on my head as others do. I say: 'They are strangely stinking animals'. And I say; 'No matter, I am too'". And that, as we say, just about says it all.

Conservative Hounds, Sitting on Their Haunches

CONSERVATIVE AMERICA failed in its primary objective; to kill Nancy Pelosi, or to hold her hostage and torture her until she agrees that the election was stolen from Trump, with a promise to return it. But they got in a few good hammer blows to her husband, and that, for the moment, will have to do. Gleefully they celebrated their most recent violent achievement on the newly reinvented, unfettered Twitter, tweeting their glee, disappointment, and hopes for a more violent, fascist, far right wing future. For proof of their disgusting response, simply log on to murky, musky twitter, and behold the vile right wing Republican spew. This is in keeping; they consider the insurrection at the Capitol, the one which killed seven people while trying to violently overthrow the American government by dragging the Vice President into the parking lot and hanging him, to have been "legitimate political discourse", the media response to it "overblown", and Trump, the chief insurrrectionist in chief, the messenger of God and/or Christ. Meanwhile, A Republican running for Attorney General in a small southern state lists as her qualifications: "I am a gun packing, Bible toting, conservative momma". She never mentions whether she attended law school. (One needn't have a law degree to be elected Attorney General. One need only run, and get elected). She evidently considers gun and Bible ownership prime qualifications, but she never explains how so or why. Why whether one is liberal or conservative matters to an elected official whose responsibility is to represent the legal interests of the state is never explained. A gentleman conservative running for the same office reminds us that he is conservative, and that he opposes Biden's left wing extremist agenda. He fails to mention, or to understand, that Biden is a moderate. Republican candidates insist that they will attack "Biden's inflation" head on. Unmentioned is that inflation is a global phenomenon caused by the drastic decline in the production of goods and services during the shutdowns of the pandemic, sharply decreased supply with increased, pent up demand and renewed, robust spending, that every currency in the world is experiencing it, and that no president of the United States has any real power to control it, that only the Federal Reserve can enact government policy to fight it by raising interest rates and slowing down demand. Also left unexplained is how an Attorney General in any state can possibly have an impact on reducing inflation, or opposing Biden's policies. Left unsaid is that teh increase in gas prices is caused largely by the monopolisitc fuel industry reaping record profits (Exxon made about twenty billion in the third quarter of this year), or that neither Biden nor any American president has anything to do with setting fuel prices. While they celebrate the prospect of harming Nancy Pelosi, they will doubtless come up with something...or other, to explain...everything.