Coming Clean, At Long Last

IN DECEMBER, 1966, I was in sixth grade, which remains among the most pleasant experiences of my life. Sixth grade, for me, was special. A time of maturing friendship formation and growing social awareness. In the NFL championship game that year, the Green Bay Packers played the Dallas Cowboys, the game I believe which would eventually be called "the ice bowl", played in sub zero temperatures in Wisconsin. It was a great, classic game, with the Packers pulling out a last minute victory with a famous running back getting a famous block from his offensive lineman, and taking the ball into the end zone for the winning score. I watched it on black and white TV. The game was played while we were on Christmas vacation, and when we returned to school shortly after the new year began, I was eager to talk about it with my friends. I was amazed when one of my classmates nonchalantly told me that not only had be watched the game, but that he had attended it, live, In Green Bay, Wisconsin. He had been in the freezing crowd, he said, with his father, all bundled up. My eyes must have gotten as big as saucers, as I looked at him in awe and amazement. I asked him if he saw the fans tearing down the goal posts after the game. "Oh yes", he said, "I was part of that". He himself had been perched on top of the upright, riding and rocking it to the ground. That should have sent up a red flag, but, somehow, it didn't. I was too enthralled with the story to do any fact checking, or to let the truth get in the way of a good narrative. I believed every word of what he said, although a little voice in the back of my eleven year old head gave off a vague warning sign, which I chose to ingore...The years and decades went by. My sixth grade classmates, including the NFL champiohship game attendee, went our separate ways,to different schools on our way to high school graduation and into our adult lives. I attended all our class reunions. When our fifty year high school class reunion arrived, I, like most people, felt amazement at how fast the time had passed, at how soon the big fifty had arrived. Together we gathered again, for one of the final times, what remained of our class, a few dozen sixty eight year old senior citizens, less than half the class, balding grey haired folks, to talk about our retirement and our grandchildren, our partying somewhat subdued by age. From across the room I saw my sixth grade friend, for the first time in several decades. The memory of our NFL championship ice bowl game came flooding back. Now a cynical skeptical old coot,I saw no reason to hold back. The statute of limitations, I figured, had long since expired. So,I mentioned to him the sixth grade moment, my vague feelings of unease of youth now fully bloomed into outright disbelief. "You told me that you were at that game.You weren't really, were you? All these years I have been wondering". Without hesitation he confessed that he indeed had not really been at the famous game, although I got the impresion that he had totally forgotten the incident, forgotten about his lie. But he seemed convinced that I was telling the truth in bringing up my versions of events, which indeed I was. "I'm sorry I lied to you", he said. As simple as that, the truth came out, and an apology, which I had neither needed nor expected. I hugged him. I told him I held no grudge. We had a drink together, then went on our seperate ways, mingling with other classmates, maybe for the last time. I doubt I'll ever see him again. The outcome of this story will warm my heart the rest of my life, as I realize that it is never too late to redeem yourself, never too late to make amends, never to late to set things right. If you can apologize about lying about attending a football game fifty six years after the fact of the lie, all things are possible. We can forgive ourselves and others for almost anything.

Teaching Religion and the Bible (In public schools), Properly

OKLAHOMA is trying to outdo all other blood red states in its zeal to become the most religiously indoctrinated,constitution- violating state among the fifty nifty. First, they joined the ranks of those first amendment law scoffers foisting hoisting The Ten Commandments, primitive version, upon the walls of public school classrooms. Now,the winds of dogma sweeping tornado like down the plain, the Holy Christian Bible is being forced, by legislation, into the curriculum of Sooner public schools, sooner, rather than never. Not yet entirely made clear yet is precisely the nature of the down the throat forcing. English class? History class? Christian religion class? Church in school? Spelling Bee? Surely not math or science. First grade, second, or junior high and high school? The details of this detailed devil have not been, to my knowledge,fully determined nor enumerated. What is clear is that Oklahoma is yet another state which has been conquered,for the time being, by the vast far right wing extremist evangelical Christian Trump loving violent mob. What's next, Christrump, portrayed on the walls above the all seeing George Washington portrait by Gilbert? Trump, Trump Bible and cross in hand, halo hovering above his orange bird's nest, positioned next to the Ten Tall Orders, while third graders recite: "And then the Lord smote fifty thousand and seventy Philistines as divine retribution for a curious person taking a quick peek inside a forbidden ornate box containing the Ten Commandments, which Almighty Jehovah Yahweh Elohim wasn't quite ready to publish and reveal to his support base..." Someone said that religion should never be taught in public schools, because religion is poison, harmful to children. Someone else said that teaching it is a violation of the first amendment. Both viewpoints are true, if religion and the Bible are to be taught from the viewpoint of devotion, Christian indoctrination, after the fashion of your local bible college. If the Bible and religion are to be taught from a scientific, historical, critical viewoint,after the fashion of the Theological Semminary at Harvard University, or at Princeton, institutions which turn out preachers with PhDs who can recite the Bible from memory in three ancient languages and one modern one, but who tend to become agnostic atheists before graduation, even while pursuing highly lucrative careers at the pulpit, both viewpoints, indeed, are dead wrong. In the Harvardian factual manner, both the bible and religion shoul indeed be taught, to anyone who wants to learn about them, at whatever age. Down at the local bible college,entering students must sign a document before being admitted proclaiming their unwavering belief that the Holy Bible is the innerant Word Of God. At Harvard and Princeton, entering students are handed a list of eight humdred factual errors contained in the Bible,and asked to explain them, using good grammar. Which style do you suppose Oklahoma intends to employ: the Bible college collegiate, or the Harvardian? My money is on the Bible college. The Bible, for better or worse, is the most important, most influential book in human history. Religion, like war, is a fundamental historical force, a fundamental force in the modern world. Both should be taught in public schools. That means "taught", not preached nor shoved down the throats of the newly indocrinated. And of course, the classes should be electives, participation purely voluntary, not required.

Choosing (Biden)

THE CHOICE is stark, and quuite depressing, but clear. The choice is between criminal insanity and cognitive decline, mental dimishing. The one has long since descended into a morass of super narcissistic delusion, and is clearly a criminal and a reprobate, the other is a distinguised gentelman with a long record of distinguished service to his country, who is now, in late life ancient old age, simply wearing out, both mentally and physically. The problem is that one of these two used up men will be the next president of these United States, and that there are no other chocies. Since his intrusion into politics, Donald Trump has reminded discerning historians of Hitler. Now he reminds them of Hitler late in World War Two when the constant stress and pressures of impending, inevitable personal and national doom brought about the unhinging of his already mediocre mind. This, of course, is Trump. The other, current president Biden, is more remindful of a beloved grandfather, somewhat past his prime, but still coherent and loveable, but just a bit forgetful, and getting worse. One thinks about another four years as president for Biden, and wonders whether he could survive it, both mentally and physically. His slurred speech, an expedient to compensate for a lifelong stutter, already makes him sound like a stroke victim. Ronald Reagan was elected when he was the same age I am now, sixty nine, and was considered ancient, and there were concerns. These concerns were justified when Reagan spent almost all of his second term in serious mental decline, dementia enrocahing, as he struggled his way to the age of seventy seven while in office, closely protected from public awareness of his precipitous decline. Later, of ocurse, he became bedridden with the disease, and succumbed to what had long since been evident would indeed kill him. The Gipper had always been "forgetful", from an early age, and intellectually less than brilliant. Exercising his brain was not his favorite pasttime. Exercise keeps us sharp, mentally, and physically. Trump, from his youth, has had the morals of an alley cat, and that is probably unfair to an alley cat. An alley cat does not lie, cheat, and harm for premeditated purposes of personal gain; it merely survives, by doing whatever it must. On his best day, in his best health, and in the prime of physical and mental health, Donald Trump has never been a decent human being, never even remotely resembled one. Everyone who has ever known him knows this, whether or not willing to admit it. Trump purchases and coerces loyalty, Biden inspires and earns it. Ronald Reagan's followers never admitted their man's faltering brain. Donald Trump's cult followers never have and never will admit either Trump's criminal insanity nor his monstrously low morals. Biden's supporters are spending the hours after the disastrous debate licking their wounds, pushing the panic button, and acknowledging the limitations of their political leader. Trump's supprters are repeating the avalanche of lies brazenly spewed by their hero and role model both during the debate and throughout his political career of constant prevarication. Between the two, I'll take the honest injured followers over the enablers of criminality, the willfully ignorant accessories to crime in total denial of the profound evil in their loyalty to a snake. Of the two leaders, I'll take the one with diminished cognitive abilities with an honest soul and a pure, loving heart over the deranged devil who would as happily consume his own enablers by walking over them if it meant his own preservation, and the continuation of his devilish career as a convicted criminal, commiting ever more crimes for which has has no concern for the consequences, either to himself, or to others. The choice is clear, the contrast is stark.

Updating the Ten Commandments

THE REVERENCE AND ESTEEM with which the Ten Commandments are regarded can seem overblown, innapropriate. They can seem outdated, suited to the ancient intellect, but not the modern. Fundamentally profound though they apparently seemed to their ancient instigators, and still seem today to millions, in our modern world they can seem simplistic, hacknneyed, of little or no use. The first four become the frantic rantings a petty jealous tyrant, the last six nothing more than common sense. Somebody suggested a new set,a set which is arguably much more suited to our century. They are: 1) Be open minded, willing to alter beliefs with new evidence. 2) Strive to believe that which is most likely to be true, not what you want to believe. 3) The scientific method is the most reliable means for understanding the natural world.4) Every person has the right to control his or her own body. 5) Belief in God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a meaningful life. 6) Be always mindful of the consequences of your actions and recognize that you msut take responsibility for them. 7) Treat others as you want them to treat you, and as you can reasonably expect them to want to be treated.8) We have the responsibilty to consider others, including future generations. 9)There is no one right way to live. 10) Leave the world a better place than you found it... It is not certain who wrote these revised admonitions. There seems to have been no single, dramatic event accompanying their announcement to the world, like Moses descending Mt. Sanai clutching two stone tables, their having been engraved with fire by the Lord,turning their bearer's hair bright white. There does not seem to be any single individual claiming credit for having written them, or if so, there are many such people, and the true author has gotten lost amid an avalanche of false claimants. For all we know they were first typed into a computer by a bored but precocious teenager living in his parent's basement. They are not, ss far as can be discerned, copyrighted, and even if they were, the question of their actual authorship would still probably be in doubt. They are good enough that whoever wrote them should have probably made hundreds of copies of them, and distributed them widely in a sudden rush of activity, handing out copies to people, newspapers,internet sites, among other recipients, in a well planned rush of presentations, the new commandments signed, witnessed, notarized, their quthor shaking hands, autographing copies, and swearing as to his or her authorship. Apparently, this never happened. Well, and so be it. The author in anonymity will have to be content with the knowledge that he or she has achieved something important, has made a meaningful contribution to modern culture, if only as a suggestion. Doubtless these new and improved Ten Commandments will never gain the universal respect and reverence accorded to the old, hachneyed ones. By nature we are adverse to supplanting long cherished institutions with improved ones. Our loss. But this brings to mind a relevant true fact often neglected in our propritary, status oriented society; Ultimately it matters not who gives the world a great gife, a gift like a masterpiece of art, a scientific discovery of great importance, an intellectual achievement of great value newly available to the appreciative world. What matters is the gift itself, and our fortunate reception of it. Sure, credit must if at all possible be given to the person responsible for giving something of great value to the world. Human knowledge must be organized, not confused fought over, and chaotic. But when we do not know we do know know, and as is all too often the case, we are left to adore the fruit with gratitude of an unknown anonymous creator. Such is the case, argubaly, with the entire universe. This being the case, how can we complain if we remain ignorant of the precise author of a new and vastly improved list of supposedly sacred instructions which, upon cursory reflection, become and forever remain nothing more than a few words of very good advice.

Fighting Liberalism, Everywhere

THE PHOTO was of a library, or what appeared to be and claimed to be a library, an ordinary, modest, brick, stately local library type building. Like all photos, "pics", it was on Facebook, so it could have been fake, AI, computer generated, or somebody's house made to look librarish. None of that matters. For our purposes here assume it was an actual lbrary, somewhere.It might as well have been. The sign on front of it said "library"; that's good enough. What matters is the caption, which, hilariously, said: "Liberal propaganda storage facility". Conservatism, in full bloom, on full display, rearing it ugly but hilarious head. What would we do without it, God bless its distorted twisted soul, other than restore some semblance of sanity to an increasingly insane American culture? The idea of your average American small town public library as a bastian haven of subservsive anti-American progressive propagands is not without merit nor basis in reality, nor humor. In a culture which seems increasingly to accept LGBTQ people and ethnic minorities as equal citizens under law, which increasingly seems to embrace cultural and especially religious diversity, tolerance, atheism, and secularim as normal, acceptable aspects of modern society, conservatism, from the point of view of conservatives, would indeed seem br be under seige and continuous assault, not unlike Ft. Sumpter in April, 1861, which finally surrundered. In the America of 2024, "pride" banners hang brightly strung across and above college town streets during "Pride" month, while tucked safely away on some nondescript street corner on the other side of town, the Pentacostal church needs a new coat of whitewash, and an influx of new congregants, or at least a few new converts. Down on main street in cities large and small all across America's fruited plain, in the nightclub district, the letters on the message sign are rearranged to read "drag show tonight"! This, about once a week, not once in a lifetime. The local police don't even bother to investigate. A few of them may even drop in for a cold beer after getting off duty, still in unniform, just to make the scene and have a few laughs, or smiles. the unashamed uniformed cops may be male, female, or anything in between or transitional. Sermons are being delivered by women and gay clerics in traditional, mainstream protestant demoninations, while the honchos in blue suits, red ties,and MAGA ball caps in cloistered high rise world denominationl headquaters argue whether it should be happening, even while it is happening. Their votes aret cast too late to count. Women hop aboard commerical flights to fly across and over right wing rural country, far away from red state retrogression, to have the abortion they know they need and the regressives know they are powerless to prevent, despite their most frantic, histrionic attempts to turn back the clock. And in the local library itself? A display rack of "new releaes" giving insight on how to be an assertive successful women, another volume on organic gardening, another detailing the history of civil rights, and still another best seller about the semi fictional historical romances of Bengiman Franklin and his many mistresses. Back in the stacks, Carl Sagan, Noam Chomsky, Bill and Hillary, along with the atheist religion bashing Mark Twain, and radical social reformers like Upton Sinclair, Richard Wright,and Charles Dickons. Liberalism on the attack, conservatism in full retreat. The local library, like the rest of America, is chock full of progressive liberalism, on full display, and there aint a damned thing Trump, MAGA, or the heterosexual, evangelical Christian right can do about it. And that,as Skakespeare once wrote, is the rub.

Fighting Forever

DEXTER FILKINS, a foreign corrrespondent for the New York Times, recently wrote and publisehd "The Forever War". I initially mistakenly got the false impresssion that the monograph deals with culltural wars in America,and their seeming endlessness, but Filkins instead discusses America's nearly equally interminable shoooting wars abroad since nine one one, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Book reviewers of the work are almost unamimously favorably impressed with Filkins' scholarship, and describe his book as more than a mere recapitulation of the United State's disastrous twenty first century wars in the middle east, but rather,an incisive examination of the nature of war generally, and how it imapcts the individuals involved, the nations involved, and history itself. When I realized my mistake, I chose not to read the book - I already know as much about America's foreign military adventurism and its disastrous consequences for America and for the world than I really want to, seminal area of concern that it remains. Instead I reflected on the book's title, and how neatly it applies to our never ending cultural wars right here in the nifty fifty. The essence of it is thie: we the American people stress and strain, wail and gnash, twist and turn, over the same basic issues, decade after decade, indeed century after interminable century, without ever resolving anything difinitively, without arriving at an acceptable agreement or compromise about any of these issues concerned. Around in circles we go, thrustng, parrying, talking yelling, writing - without getting one damnd thing accoplished. We seem stuck in a rut, mired deeply in the muddy morass of our own national lack of resolve and over abundance of discontent. Politicians and political parties come and go, Books, forever definitive, are published, rise in popularity and decline in forgotten discarded neglect; without purpose or reason or an end to our senseless, prolonged strife. Can't we decide anything? Or do we actually prefer the process itself to any favorable conclusion? Do we really enjoy endless arguing this much? Are we a Christian nation, or are we not? Should abortion be legal, or forbidden? Should it be leagl and rare, of illegal and comonly performed in back allies? Should drugs be legal or illegal? State's rights, versus the power of the federal government? Democracy, or plutocracy? National isolationism,or sustained engagement with the world? Are LGBTQ people people? Are minorities minorities? How should we treat them? With equality accompanied by self congratulatory back slapping? Or should they be equal in name and law only, but relegated to de facto second class status? Gay pride or gay avoidance? What about tarrifs and trade policies? High, or low? The shape of the curve representing the history of American tariff levels looks like a veritable roller coaster. Woman's rights, of course, never stray far from he front of our fertile minds. Amid all this contentious, disputatious public discourse, we seem to be having fun. Why bring to an end a good time by settling anything? Keep the ball rolling! If there is a downside, and indeed there may not be, it is that amid all this emotional and intellectual venting and partying, we indeed let off a lot of steam, but we seem to be living in a a country which really never solves anything, never really gets anything done.

What I'm Thinking

A FACEBOOK POST, somewhat felicitously, posed this question: "What are you thinking right now?". That question might be among the most dangerous questions which can be asked. I cannot ever remember ever having asked it of anyone. I cannot remember ever actually wanting to know what someone else is thinking, curious person though I am. My assupmtion has always been that people are always thinking something, that most of the time their thoughts are of no concern or interest to me, and that, were I to be apprised of their contents, I would be most likely be disappointed. That may be incorrect. That may be my loss. It may be that I have spent my entire life lacking appropriate curiosity about what other people are thinking, that I should have at least asked people about their thoughts, if not often, then at least when the situation seems to indicate that someone is having an interesting, worthwhile thought. My only comfort is that people have told me without my asking what they are thinking with sufficient frequency that I have not missed out altogether on the thoughts of others, and also, with the huge number of books I have read over the decades, I have indeed availed myself of the thoughts of others in great enough quantity to convince myself that if I have not delved deeply into the thoughts of others, I have, if nothing else, gotten a fairly large sample. I noticed that on this Faceboook post seeking thoughts, that nobody had as of yet responded. Again, my loss, maybe. I decided to contribute. My rsponse was honest. I said: "What I am thinking is that within my lifetime there will come a summer when the temperature where I live rises above one hundred degrees on the first of June, and remains there until labor Day". Now that, one must admit, is one helluva a thought, especially considering the fact that I am sixty nine years old. When I share a thought, which I often do merely by speaking, I don't fool around with tame, generic, unimpactful thoughts. I try to go for the trophy. I stand by my thought. It occurs to me repeatedly, to the point of paranoia. I become more convinced of the truth of it daily, and it frightens me. I take comfort in knowing that I have lived most of a very fortunate life, with many geat blessings and much good fortune, and as I make my way through the latter part of it, still in good robust health and blessed with daily activities which I find rewarding and worthwhile. I have no complaints. By the time the truly disastrous stage of climate change arrives, I will be dead, I think. Maybe. But even as I type these thoughts there is a horrible drought in western Florida, and other parts of the country, and the annual drought is beginning where I live, in the lower midwest mid south, and in the upper midwest,drenching, torrential flooding rainfall is occurring, precisely where and precisely as long predicted by climate science. Also, the annual burning of the western United States is beginning. It never really ends anymore. The rest of the world is experiencing much the same; the manifestation of climate change precisely as predicted by climate science. It impacts my thinking, constantly. When at any time in the future somebody asks me what I am thinking, it most likley be about precisely that. If that makes me less ineresting, so be it. At least I, like the world's climate, am somewhat predictable.

Digging Up the Roots of Religion

RESEARCHERS, SCHOLARS, ACADEMICIANS have for a long time, and continue today, to search out the origins of the phenomenon among humans which humans call "religion". "Religion" can be defined as: "belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, and a God or gods, which are presumed on faith rather than evidence to be the creators of the universe, and of humankind". Humanity's natural curiosity, and survival imperatives, or "instincts" are considered to be the fountainhead of all religiosity. In our necessity to live with each other as social animals, as Aristotle first identified us, we engage in cooperation among our group, and competition with other groups, for resourcess. We pay attention to each other. Those who are best at paying attention to their fellow humans, become best at reading body language, facial expressions, vocal tone, and behavioral subtleties, and use these acquired insights to take advantage of oportunities to increase their personal status within their group, enchancing their chances of survival, and transmiting these traits to their own offspring. The smarter, more quick witted the animal, the more liklely it is to survive long enough to reporduce. Thus homo sapien sapiens becomes, through evolution, an observant, proactive creature, in tune with its environment, responding effectively to it, surviving within it. Human beings see nature and all its varied phenomena in human terms. We "anthropomorphize the universe. Self ware, we seek to imbue our lives and ourselves with meaning, to become "meaningful". This consists of creating a coherent understanding of ourselves and our place in a coherent world, of giving ourselves significance,and of finding a purpose for our existence. These are the primary compenents of meaning for ourselves and our lives. Thus we seek explanations, for everything. Sudden, unpredictable volcanic eruptions or earthquakes are completely beyond our ability to comprehend. We msut therefore find a way to give them coherence, significance, purpose, meaning. Our explanations take the form and shape of oursevlves, human beings living in a world best explained in human terms. Volcanos, earthquakes, and storms, among all other natural phenomena, we give meaning to by anthropomorphizing them, turning them into human beings. Since we cannot actually see them in physical form as human, we separate the mental from the physical, and create the concept of "spirits", intelligence without body. We organize our explanations, and give names to them. Thus arise doctrine, dogma, and sacred law and scripture, books being the best available tools to preserve knowledge and to transmit it to future generations. This arise fomral, organized religions. Thus does the unvierse become a "Christian" universe, or an "Islamic" universe, or thousands of other kinds of universess, all based on whatever particular religion is established among the various groups of people which inhabit different geographical regions, as religion is passed from generaton to generation, as children are indoctrinated into the accepted religion. Science saves the day, by wiping the slate clean, and starting over. As society collects knowledge, the inadequacy of religion as a means of understanding the universe becomes increasingly obvious. Humans, newly aware of their anthropomorphic bias, and the false conclusions derived from it, dehumanize the universe, and objectify it, on its own terms, using observation and measurement rather than anthrophmorphic leaps of faith. This transition, from leaps of faith to observed, measured reality, is occurring now. This transition is not without resistance and pain associated with any fundamental change. First, religion violently resists the encroachment of science upon its formerly exclusive territory. Then, unable to defeat science, it attempts to incorporate and subordinate science into its established cosmic paradigm. But this too is insufficient, and religion continues to lose its grasp, as it continues to appear, for obvious reasons, more and more inadequate to compliment and coexist with science. The final stage is the abandonment, the extinction of dogmatic religion, and the triumph of science, and a more enlightened form of spirituality, devotion to and reverence for nature and its creation. We are now in the process of doing precisely that, but the struggle will continue, for longer than it should, for all dying animals and institutions resist their own death, until finally they breathe their last, and dissolve back into the substance of the universe, whence they came.

Serendipity, Coming Home, Through the Roof

YOU JUST NEVER KNOW. Murphy's Law strikes again. Whatever can happen, will happen. In Naples, Florida, on an ordinary pleasant day, a family home was suddenly, rudely interrupted when a large piece of metal came crashing through the roof,at a very high velocity. Precisely how large the piece was, how fast it traveled, how deep into the abode, whether it penetrated the floor and foundation as well as the roof; these details were not included in what was an incidental time filling last mimute end of the broadcast news item on a National Public Radio hourly news cast. Nor was it mentioned whether the family was home at the time. Of course you hope it wasn't, although one must admit that had they been, the story would have been even "better", assuming no injuries to anyone, which you cannot. What you can assume, however, is that the impact made one helluva big bang, a real big noise, but unless somebody was home to hear it, it didn't. What we do know for sure, since NASA stepped up (not that they had any other choice) and acknowledged the part it played in the adventure, is that it came from a certain orbiting space vehicle, was a certain part of that satellite vehicle, and that it had been deliberately ejected from said orbiting vehicle, for the purpose, presumably, of replacing it with an upgrade. The plan, according to NASA, was for the old discarded piece of junk to simply burn up in the atmosphere, and to leave nothing behind but a nice long streak in the sky, pro tem, after the fashion of an meteor. Only, that didn't happen. Not only did it fail to burn up while in flight, it made it all the way to the ground, to the chagrin of an innocent family, simply minding its own business. Chagrin might well be an accurate descriptor of the current state of mind of NASA, insofar as an organization can achieve states of mind, owing to the fact that the fmaily and its attorney made no mistake about it, they intend to sue the space agency, for damages to the home, for emotional trauma, and, quite likely, for anything else the aforementioned attorney can concoct in all his or her legal expertise and chicanery. Since NASA has already essentially admitted culpability, it seems evident that some sort of out of court settlement will be offered, negotitated, and arrived at. For all we know, this average American family has just hit the proverbial jackpot, and might very well end up happily ensconced in a new, improved, larger, lovely mansion style homestead, replete with manicured lawns, stables, heated salt water swimming pool, tennis court, and numerous other amenities, including, somewhat ironically, a television satellite dish, and one for the internet, to boot. Again, as we have been frequently heretofore, we are reminded of the quirky, serendipitous nature of life, wherein surprises are constant, anything which can indeed happen will happen, in the fullness of time. All it takes it a bit of an unpredicted spin rate, trajectory, and a surprisingly, unexpectedly friction free fall of a metal object which heats up on its mad gravitional rush to the Earth's surface far less extremely than planned by thermodyamic law and physicists, and, well, the rest, as we say, is history. The sort of thing that won't happen agian in a million years. Or will it? The high skies around Earth are full and filling up fast with space debris, as nation after nation redundantly shoots up more rockets and orbiting satellites than you can shake a stick at, to the extent that the international community now recognizes space debris as a definite hazard, to space stations, astronauts, and, we now know, average all American families going about their business in Flordia, bothering nobody. All this shot up stuff inevitably wears out and falls back towards Earth, so, a quick heads up; keep your heads up, and by all means, have your home owner's insurance handy, and the phone number of a good, reliable roofing company.

Explaining the Inexplicable to the Uncomprehending

I'M GETTING GETTER at gospel singing. I should be, its about time, I've been singing in the group for three years. Most of my improvement has to do with knowing the songs. My voice has been fine the whole time, but unaccustomed to gospel songs, which in general I despise. The lady who graciously plays the piano to accompany us has for years been concerned about the disposition of my eternal soul, my not having been "saved" and all. Our one and only theological conversation ended in disaster, as such discussions among people of divergent religious views often do. She was in tears, at my refusal to be saved and my assertive reference to Thomas Paine; I was fit to be tied, at what I perceived to be her fascist refusal to accept the validity of any form of religiosity other than her own, Christianity. Af few weeks ago I started attending church, the same church on a regular basis, the first time I have ever done that. I really like the place, I especially like the laid back minister, an older gentleman even older than I, and I plan to keep going, for how long, I have no idea. This minister, who is actually a retired attorney turned lay minister, came to visit our local senior center the other day. We had lunch together, during which I mentioned that I do not agree with everything Jesus said. He confided that he doesn't either; my kind of minister. When I bragged about his visit to the piano lady, and expressed regret that they had not met, she suggested that I bring him to our gospel singing grooup. I told her that this was a bad idea, that his weak, raspy speaking voice clearly indicates a lack of natural singing talent. She shrugged her shoulders, as if to say that's only my opinion.I suspect that she is conditioned to take anything I say with, as they say, a grain of salt. I sense something unsavory is happening here, a fundamental misunderstanding, one which, if left unchecked or brought openly to the surface rather than ignored, could lead to a further disastrious confrontation. The basis of it is this: despite my three years of gospel singing,depsite my recent regular church attendance, my opinion of all religion, of Christianity in particular, namely, that it serves an important purpose (giving people meaning, comfort, and inspiration), but that is is also primitive, barbaric, and fundamentally false, remains unchanged. May the human species evolve some fine day spiritually and intellectually to a new and higher form of spiritual expression and reverence for creation! Only, the Christian paino lady does not know this. I can almost guaran damn tee you that the information she has received from me aobut my new chuch going has misled her, or that she has misled herself, to assume that her unsaved baritone/bass singer, the one who until recently was in such dire peril of losing his soul to the devil, has now changed his ways, has turned toward Christ, is eitehr saved now or close to being saved, and that all will, in the end, be well with me. She has that look in her eye, that tone in her voice. That, plus my enthusiastic agreement with her when she said the other day that she doesn't know why we don't sing all four verses of "How Great Thou Art." Actually, she knows the reason: we sing three verses of all songs. But I don't think she knows my reasons for loving that song, nor will she ever, nor does she need to.

Psychoanalyzing Trumpers

IT REMAINS MIND BLOWING. It never seems to change, The illness will not heal. Still, after all this time, roughly two thirds of registered Republicans insist that the 2020 election was stolen,and that the ensuing Trumpian insurrection was justified. To put it eloquently, what in the holy hell is wrong with these people? The seemingly logical premise that either they actually believe this nonsense or they do not believe it and are "faking it" doesn't seem to lead anywhere. That they have brainwashed themselves,like UFO abductees, or that they are refusing to awaken from a strange dream, like UFO abductees, somehow seems to be a starting point, at least one might think that it could be a beginning of understanding, but, alas, ultimately, becomes one that leads...nowhere. Mass criminal insanity, after the fashion of Trump himself! That's got to be it! Bearing in mind that a large portion of the American people have been abducted by aliens, and that a large percentage of Americans believe that vaccinations are harmful, and that a large percentage of Americans embrace one form of idiotic, demonstrably insane nonsense or another, and maybe, just maybe, you can conclude by writing it off to the water supply, or to some inherent hallucinatory characteristic of the culture, or, to... something...Trumpers are trapped. Its too late for them to get out now. They're in too deep. To renounce Trump at this point is to admit that he has fooled them all, for years. It is no easy thing to admit to having been duped, to having been played for the fool. As Carl Sagan cogently pointed out, people who have been hoodwinked become comfortable with the hoodwinking, and refuse to abandon it So why bother trying to dislodge them from their place of hoodwinked comfort.The great carnival barker has them unalterably enthralled, entranced,no less so than the itinerant treaveling salvation show preacher dispenisng truth, old time religion, and Brother Love's Elixor of Life, with the gospel singers singing their lungs out in the background.The heat is getting to us all. Trump leads by two percentage points in Pennsylvania. Biden is being blamed for the local heat and crime wave. Nothing has improved in Philadelphia in four years, including the price of gas and eggs, and its all Biden's fault. Biden has had four years to stop or reduce crime in Philly, and he hasn't done a damned thing about it. Bring back Trump.He'll put all criminals behind bars, except himslf. Well, and then, they have made their bed, these MAGAts,and now they are lying in it, an all that is left to us is to gently tuck them in, say grace,and turn out the light. Dear friend, we tell them, I now, finally, understand why you so ardently support Trump, despite everything, Birds of a feather. Folks of like mind and moral character gather together in groups, like church. Every day, dear friend, you remind me more and more of Donald Trump. Your moral character, your intellectual make up, your intelligence level, your style of communication, your honesty and integrity, all just like the man you want leading your country. Donald Trump is precisely the sort of person, the actual person, you so strongly strive to be. And guess what? You have succeeded. You have succeeded in fashioning yourself into the very essence of Donald Trump, especially his moral character, his intellect, the whole, as we say, ball of wax, What a stable genius you are. Enjoy!

Stating and Displaying the Obvious, and the Petty

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS is among the most iconic, cherished documents in human history, possibly for the very reason which makes them more appealing to people of modest intellectual discernment but far less profound and useful than many other supposedly sacred but less publicized sets of guidelines. They derive from the "Code of Hammurabi", the first known such list of regulations and restirictions, whose origins are in Mesopotamia,the geographic origin of western civilization itself. The harshness, the crude simplicity, the rigidity, the obvious needlessness of restatement nature is apparant in both law codes. The first four comandments are easily, arguably nothing more than the petulant exclamations of a petty, tyrannical, insecure deity, the "Word" of a primitive, barbaric God. I am the only God. Do not worship any other gods, fabricated, invented,imaginary or otherwise. Do not create art. Keep sacred the day I, your all powerful creater, stopped creating to take a rest. Is the Almighty one true God really concerned about potential competition from a god which does not exist? Is the one true, exant god of the universe, all powerful and all knowing, concerned about the existence of less omnipotent entities who might be mistaken for gods? The final six commandments are nothing but common sense, common sense which is evident, inherently, to anyone who lives in a group of people, paleolthic or neolithic,but especially neolithic, in which material possessions and proprietary rights take on added signifigance, because of their accumulation and acquired value. In human groupings, people insist on keeping what belongs to them, and insist on an understanding among all group members that stealing from others is forbidden. What parent since the advent of animal life on this planet has not clearly indicated to his or her children that the kids had damned well better honor and obey their parents? Again, a statement of the long obvious. Such a commonly understood law allows us all to sleep at night, and to leave our goods unguarded, though behind locked doors,during daylight houre when we are away from home, working, working to obtain the means by which to obtain...more material goods, espeially food, clothing, and shelter. Surely such an already long deeply engraved understanding within us all needs not extra attention or public display. Again, its mere common sense. Thou shalt not kill. Another statement of the obvious, another law we already knew and have long known. This law elevates us, albeit barely, above the rest of the animal kingdom, and makes us, in a certain sense, "cililized". Much more worthy of public display are the nine beatitudes from the Sermon On the Mount, which give us more advanced, enlightened, and far less common wisdom. More worthy, and thus, less qualified, by American standards. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the meek. These beautiful beatitudes are so surpassingly beautiful that they are more remindful of more enlightened easetern philosophical traditions than of harsh, primitive, barbaric western religious ones. But how long will we wait unitl "blessed are the peacemakers" or blessed are the meek" or "blessed are the merciful" appear on public monuments to political and military leaders in these United States of Aggression? On the walls of the Pentagon, perhaps? Doubtful. As for public school walls, harsh instructions are deemed far more effective in keeping kids obedient than instructions advising peacemaking, humility, and mercy. You can imagine a misbehaving student, about to be disciplined, pointing to the word "merciful" just above the standardized encircling alphabet. But, make room, make room! More on their merry way. There are no fewer than seventy five commandments in the Islamic religion, and no fewer than six hundred and thirteen in the Judaic code. Our public school walls are going to be very, very crowded with words.

Heading Towards the Edge

SINCE 2022, the amount of carbon dioxide pumped into the Earth's atmosphere by human industrial activity has increased by about one point five percent. Before and during the Covid 19 pandemic, there had been a leveling off of carbon emissions, as a great upsurge in sustainable clean energy production helped in slowing the rate of atmosphereic carbon accumulation. The great economic shutdown associated with the pandemic contributed to a lessening of carbon pollution. The air quality over major cities worldwide got cleaner, birdsong was heard where it hadn't been heard in decades, and visibilitiy in major metropolitan areas noticeably improved. Then, the pandemic receded from a volcanic avalanche of death to a dull roar, still unacceptable, but accepted by a world culture hell bent of materialistic industrial production resumption. Production came roaring back, with a vengeance, as the engines of prosperity came roaring back to life, refilling corporate bank accounts, restocking retail store shelves, and, almost as an after thought, resuming the catastrophic level of added atmospheric carbon. Pent up consumer demand was rewarded with a renewal of manufacturing, production, and distribution. Everyone seemed happy, except the Earth herself. The exact percentage of carbon in the atmoshpere was recently measured at four hundred and twenty five point nine parts per million, and climbing. Four hundred and fifty parts per million is considered the point of no return, afer which catastrophic climate change will have gone over the edge, slipped off into irreversible oblivion. At the current rate of increase, that level will have been reached and passed by the middle of this century. Perhaps the strangest aspect of all this is how meekly and uncomplainingly we the human species is spriraling downward towards its own extinction, and the extinction of all life on Earth. Almost as if in a dream, as if the horrible nightmare we are inflicting upon ourselves is precisely that; a nightmare, unreal, from which we will soon awaken, and thus need have no concern about. We are dreaming our way straight into self inflicted extinction, effectively, mass suicide. This rapid increase in carbon accumulation comes at the precise time when we humans should be going in exactly the opposite direction, phasing out fossil fuel use, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, converting to an all solar all wind driven energy economy, to prevent the worst possible effects of climate change. The climate change which is inevitable, baked into the system by our previous decades of unrestrained economic growth, is now beginning to have its impact full force on our daily weather and overall climate. Extreme weather patterns and events are happening on a daily basis. Torrential flooding downpours of unrelenting rain fall. Extreme heat waves at times during the year when the climate should be more temporate. The violent storms with which we are becoming increasingly familiar, to which we have become accustomed, become inured. We see all this all around us, but choose to do almost nothing, instead of cooperating globally in a drastic, sustained program of changing our habits. We are simply too addicted to our disastrous way of life, and, for all appearances, will continue as we always have before, content to enjoy our own lives of hedonistic denial as we pass on the ultimate final disaster to our descendants, straight into our, and their collective graves.

Attending Church, Why?

THE TWO LADIES and I often have lunch together at the senior center. About once a week or so,whenever the menus suits them. They are picky. We share our contempt for Donald Trump, sufficient to cement any friendship. Once or twice, we have attended church together. At our most recent luncheon I mentioned that I have been attending church lately, at a small place I recently became aware of, that I really like it, and that I intend to become a regular attendee. The lady mentioned something about my having changed, perhaps having been "saved". Perhaps she has always presumed a Christian faith on my part, incorrectly. I responded by assuring her that no such thing has happened to me, that I am as contemptuous of the Chrstian religion as ever, for the same reasons. She seemed surprised. Like a true pedestrian intellect, she blurted: "but if you are not a Christian, why are you going to church, why regularly rather than just as a visitor, why describe it as your having found "a home"? Her lack of understanidng amazed me, but didn't really surprise me, nor did her intrusive question. But, on the whole, I considered her nosy question understandable. Permit me to introduce you to a concept which to you might be a novelty,I said. I like to call it "open mindedness". I am well aware that my personal point of view is not the only viewpoint in the world, that I live in a world of cultural and intellectual diversity. Much of the message inherent in the Christian religion I find uplifting, inspiring, noble, sublime. I happen to like the minister at my new church, I like the messages he provides, and I benefit by attending. I would in fact be perfectly amenable to attending religious services of any religion on the planet, any of the thousands of extant religions, including, for instance, Islam. I am certain that I could learn much from any of them, that I will indeed learn a great deal from attending my chruch of choice, and, after all, isn't learning ultimately what we are here for? At some point in the conversation she infomred me that many people at the senior enter think that I am an athiest. I responded that I happen to be a "pantheist", and when she looked perplexed, and awkwardly tried to repeat the word "pantheist", I suggested that she look the word up. I doubt she will bother to look it up. It seems beyond the scope of her interests, and, perhaps, capabilities. I further informed her that those supposed "Christians" who have the misconception that I am an athiest I consider to be barbarians, especially if they seek salvation through the torturing to death of a good man, and wish to wash away their sins with blood. She called me a "know it all". I responded that I was offended at this intended insult. In her urgent desire to get even, she shot back that she was offended at my description of her religious beliefs as "barbaric". Well, she might be stong enough to endure being included in an insult with two billion other people. Or, her ego may force her to bear the entire burden of the perceived insult. Her choice, not mine. When she mentioned that she "didn't mind' The Ten Commandments being placed on the walls of schools, I refrained from reminding her about the constitutional seperation of church and state. Why bother? But I really should not regard her intended insult of me as an actual insult, intentional though it was, for verily, compared to her, I am indeed a "know it all", and would be perfectly willing to have lunch with her again, assuming her willingness to be further educated, which I most assuredly cannot.

Looking Out For False Prophets

BEWARE OF FALSE PROPHETS exhorted the brightly colored boxed up message, a rhapsody in orange. Facebook cannon fodder, of course.The reference was to Trump, of course, and to his evident and obvious status as a sort of twisted cult icon of a twisted cult,poised halfway between Jesus Christ and Satan, closer in proximity to which ever one personally supposes, depending on whom you ask, along strict party lines. This meme theme of Trump being a false prophet with false profits,an orange icon disguising a blood red Satan, is the meme the left, of the seemingly slim majority of Americans who despise Trump. On the right, where extreme religious fanaticism marries far right wing extremism, and sanity never gains a footholed, the idea is one hundred and eighty degrees around the bend, over the hills and far away. A book, apparently real, sums it, up, and is also being promoted on the promoter of all promoters, Facebook Almighty, The title is "Christrump": The Persecution of a Man", or some such delusionally misleading implication. Someone asked, sensibly "doesn't that title say 'Christ rump?". Well,it does, but leave it to its author and likely readers to not notice. Truth is, I'd be willing to take a look at it, but only in private, secretly. I can't vouch for how far I'd get before I started throwing things. I couldn't ressit jumping into the middle of it all, as is often the case. I never learn. I typed in: "Beware of convicted felons who pursue successful political careers". As always I thought I had summed up the situation perfectly. Someone else didn't. From time to time, in the fullness of time, a lost Trump conservative, perhaps with directional skills impeded by zealous evangelical religious intoxication, stumbles into the room, makes a bit of gratuitous trouble, utters something typically false and inane, then scampers off, back beneath his presumed rock of origin. This happened in this instance. First, he accused me,and those of similar points of view, of being in a coma, and stated that if we came out of it, we would realze certain inalienable truths, which he proceeded to articulate. Then he states, without apparent equivocation or tongue in cheek, that under no circumstances was or is Donald J. Trump a "politician". For a fleeting moment I thought to ask precisely what he thought a person who runs for the American presidency by actively stumping on the campaign trail, exhorting folks to vote for him, accusing others of stealing elections, and arranging and orchestrating a violent attemspt to overthrow the American government, should be called, if not a "politician". I decided not to bother. The Trumper, not content to stop at a single blatant prevarication, went on to explain that in countries all over the world people in power lock up their political rivals. I knew where this was going, and wanted to point out that we the American people are gifted by the Almighty (I thought thar would appeal to him) the good fortune to live in a great country where that sort of thing never happens, that instead we dispense justice according to due procees,for everyone, with equal justice under law, with noboy being above the law. But again, I didnt bother. Instead I typed in: "I hope you don't emerge from yours (coma), for if you do, you might try to stage another violent insurrection. Granted, I could possibly have done better, but, all in all, once again, I think I got to the crux of the matter.

Saying Hey To Willie, From A Distance

ROME WAS NEITHER BUILT NOR DID IT FALL in a day. It did not simply fall, and vanish. Rather, it declined and evolved into another form of civilization by gradual degrees, over time. Today it still exists, in the form of the Italian nation state, which in its modern form only emerged from its existence as a collection of feudal kingdoms, like Germany, late in the nineteenth century. Not only are people immortal, made so by the effects of their actions, as Goethe astutely said, but so are nations and civilizations. Nor did the instituion of African-American slavery simply vanish on June nineteenth, 1865, when a Union warship landed at Galveston,Texas, liberaed the remaining formally enslaved African-Americans,and proclaimed to them that Abraham Lincoln had long since issued the "Emancipation Proclamation", formally ending formal slavery in these United States. Slavery did not simply vanish on that single day. Rahter, it evolved into another form, it still exists and is still evolving. Reconstruction ended twelve years later, in 1877, and the reenslavement of the former slaves proceeded, under different names. It has been called "segregation", "apartheid", discrimination, and "redlining" among other ingominious desingations. Willie Mays was born in the deep deeply segregated south in 1931, and was immediately enslaved, for all intents and purposes,by a culture which regarded him, by law, custom, and societal attitude, as sub human,second class, inferior. Second class,inferior, only on account of his skin color, having nothing to do with either the content of his character or the quality of his talents and attributes. He was relegated to separation in schoorooms, restrooms, at water fountains, hotels, restaurants, and in private homes, early in life, and throughout his long distinguished life. Enslaved by his own ountry, by the strict limitations of opportunity and acces imposed upon him and his fellow African-Americans by the dominant white culture, and its core American value; racism. Willie was not a crusading activist for racial justice like Jackie Robinson. He prefered to lead by example,to show the world what anyone can accomplish, given enough talent, and enough opportunity. Had Willie Mays been green, red, or purple, any baseball team in the world would have written his name on the line up card. Leo Durocher said the same thing about Jackie Robinson, when he suggested his willingness to trade any of Jackie's white Dodger teammates who preferred not to take the field along side a black man. Like Jackie before him, Willie Mays took the insults, the segregation, the discrimination, and the death threat with good grace and calm and without loud complaint, setting a perfect example for Martin Luther King. And like Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, and all the other African-Amercans who have ever lived in these disunited States of America with its core value of racism, Willie Mays labored under the oppression of cultural ensalvement, the enslavnent of spending his entire life in a culture and a country which diminshed his true worth only because of the color of his skn, choosing to overlook or downplay his character and talents. Willie Mays was a thoughtful, intelligent man, who understood every aspect of the game of baseball,and who would have made an excellent major league manager or general manager. But only because of the color of his skin he never had a chance. Again,enslavement, by a society blinded by color. And anyone who labors under the illusion that any of this has fundamentally changed in the modern year of twenty twenty four, had better take another look, assuming that such willfully blind people are even capable of honest self examination in the first place.

Say Hey Willie, Juneteenth, and the Reinvention of Slavery

I HAD INTENDED to write an essay about Willie Mays, and one about Juneteenth and the end of slavery. Now, upon further reflection,I find it tempting to combine the three topics into one hoped for succinct essay, three birds with one stone, so to speak. The end result may be considerably other that anything I had planned. When a friend mentioned that slavery was horrible, stating the obvious, and that the end of slavery was something indeed to celebrate, I responded that argubaly slavery never ended, but was merely reinvented in less formal forms, and that the reinvention continues to this day. Nothing that has happened in the last few minutes has changed this personal opinion, nothing that happens over the next few decades is likely to either. I pointed out in the course of the ensuing "discussion" that slaves were valuable property, were generally well enough if sparsely, spartanly fed, and that the beatings,whippings, and rapes were indeed real,but that conditions varied widely from plantation to plantation, and that only a tiny fraction of the white southern population owned more than one or two slaves,and that those same slaves tended to be spared harsh treatment, and indeed often integrated into the family, quite by accident, an accident of human nature in which familiarity breeds contempt, but also, at times, love, especially when both parties are not equal in power and status, after the fashion of dog and master. I futher asserted that the treatment of African-Americans scarcely improved post slavery, and indeed,in many cases, worsened. Being free has its limits when one has no land, no property, no job, no money, no home, and too little to eat. The corrupt bargain of 1877 elevated Rutherford B. Hayes to the presidency, and condemned the former slaves to a life of misery. Slaves, if little else, at least had homes, food, work, a purpose in society, if only as chattel property. Arguably, Their condition post slavery, after the end of reconstruction, was equal in terms of sheer deprivation if not worse than what they had endured while enslaved. To a large and very important extent, objections to slavery are purely, properly moral, when compared to conditions experienced by freed slaves in America ever since, which are quite real, and objectionable on both moral and practical terms. We continue to reinvent slavery, and give it new names. Now we are banning mention in American public schools of enduring systemic racism in the United States, which, as someone congently pointed out, is in itself a perfect example of systemic racism. Next thing I know, I'm being accused of failing to adequately condemn formal slavery. I had rather condemn the four hundred and five years of the African-American experience, than single out two hundred and forty six years of formal slavery for special, righteous condemnation. Yes, slavery was and is horrible, wherever, whenever. Lettuce so stipulate. But instead of dwelling on it and acting like by condemning it was have somehow solved and moved beyond the fundamental problems associated with it which plague us in our world today, extending it into our own times like residual historical stench and limiting any hope of actual racial equality to rhetoric unsupported by substantive facts, its time to stipulate the horror of slavery, to move on, and to talk about ourselves, and our refusal to let go, of formal slavery, and change our focus to the enduring informal slavery. Condemning slavery is all well and good, but using it as an excuse to self congratulate ourselves on progress which esixts in self congratulatory flowery rehetoric, but not so much in the real world, defeats the very purpose of opposing, eliminating,and condemning formal slavery.

Facing Up To Facebook

CRAZY THING IS, after all these years, all the misadventures, I'm still up and running, ready to rock n roll. Twenty five years ago, on AOL, in the era of the not so immortal chat room, I positioned myself as an observer, there only to write a book all about it, a book which never got written. In the intervening quarter century,I wrote and published no fewer than five thousand four hundred and two pages of incisive non fiction on this website, with many more, knock on wood, to come. (I'm aiming for ten thousand total one page essays before I pass). Fifty four hundred is enough for eighteen three hundred page books of essays, so, no complaints. But,so far, no seminal monograph. But that may change. Now, my research for a future book centers around the messages I receive daily on Facebook,and their what to me is nothing other than bizarre content. I never message anybody, but boy, do I get some doozies, great fodder for a future book, methinks, for a guy who doesn't even have a profile per se, nor a selfie with which to grace it. That, although basically all I do on Facebook is share pictures of cute kittens, pretty flowers, and scenic scenes, throw in a few unpleasant comments on posts unfavorable to one of America's more controversial former presidents, and post advertising promoting this website. And, for all that, despite the apparent innocence of my Facebook activity, I get repeated warnings about violating "community standards", as if I'm selling child pornography. On occasion, they give me a one hour sit on the bench, which I judiciously use to drink coffee, catch up on email, twiddle my thumbs, and grin sardoncially. Evidently, community standards do not sanction cute kittens and pretty flowers. My impression is that other Facebook folks are similarly confused. Why bother reading the incoherent jumbled "explanations" provided by the Facebook God? Have the algorrythms gone insane? Has the great Zuck himself lost his Harvardian mind? The best scam message this morning, so far,(but its still early), came from a dude with the usual greeting. The "Hi Bob how are you hope you are well where are you from can I see your pic?" sort. Standard stuff. I prompted with "I am well in Arkansas why are you messaging me?". To the point, please. The point, believe it or not, was that the gentleman was soon receiving one point five million dollars in pay, in cash, from his former employer, a company of some sort. I, and only I, it seemed, could help him, could do him a favor, by receiving it, presumably at the doorstep of my lovely ranch style suburban home deep in rural Arkansas. Red flag, flying high. One quick caveat. He asked me if I would be good enough to not steal any of it, which I thought was fair. I would get my cut, he assured me. That was nice to hear. I like doing favors for good, honest folks, but a little gratuity goes a long way towards "sweetening the Pot", as it were. By this time I had long since typed in my usual disclamier, the one about where I, as a purely precautionary measure, record all offers I receive on Facebook, and send them to law enforcement, for the pros to look over, to weed out the potential scams. I'm sure you have nothing to worry about, I cheerfully offered. Keep talking, I told him. Seemingly unfazed, he kept talking. Usually they shut right the hell up, smartly. An oblivious or interpid few of them, seemingly enjoying living on the edge, this one included, pretended to be umoved by my mention of law enforcement. Pretended. Dollars to donuts he was moved. The pleas suddenly became plaintive, almost pitiful. "I guess you're not ready for this". No shit,Sherlock?", as we say. He had the basic courtesty to type in "bye" just before he vanished, just before I blocked him. I must confess I am half tempted to unblock his stupid scamming ass and play with him a little more, but I don't want to get greedy, and, in any event, I have a veritable multitudinous plethora of forthcoming scams to deal with, as its still early, mostly from young, very attractive ladies (they always send pics, and ask for mine) who just cannnot wait to "hook up" with a 69 year old retired history professor, if only they can borrow the gas money it takes to get all the way to Arkansas. Those are by far the most fun, fodder for my still unwritten book, a seminal monograph. no doubt.

Sharing The Wealth and Explaining Socialism, Through Baseball

WE WERE HANGING OUT, relaxing before we began our weekly gospel singing. It was going to be a light turnout, I knew I would have to sing loud. No problem, can do. Someone asked me what I had been doing during the past week, and I was ready. "I spent four days in Kansas City, watching my beloved Yankees take two out of three from a very good Royals team", said I, and, during the day, I spent most of my time roaming around the Nelson Art Gallery, taking it all in". Fired up, I chose not to stop talking. "Its really amazing what a good ballclub three hundred million dollars will buy you", I flippantly intoned. Actually, the Yankees have the third highest payroll in baseball, ranking behind the Dodgers and their crosstown rivals, the lowly Mets. I went on to give a few more facts: The New York Yankees have an estimated street (market) value of about seven point five billion dollars, annnual revenues of nearly one billion, and the slightly more than three hundred dollar payroll.(I can never resist the temptation to show off my knowledge, of anything.) Nobody knew what to say, of course. Gospel singers don't usually make good baseball fans. Then, the farmer in overalls spoke up, at least willing to give it a whirl; "Seems like there's just too much money in the world", said he...I could have responded to that in almost any of a number of different ways, from sarastic, to agreement. The ostensibly ridiculous observation wasn't as ridiculous as it sounded, so I decided to give it the limited respect it deserved. A perfect opportunity to inject a little democratic socialism into the fray, I thought, feeling a slight burst of adrenalin. Well, actually, said I, the problem isn't so much the amount of money or wealth in the world, its the way in which its distributed. In this country, for instance, far less than one perent of the population owns and control more than one fourth of all the wealth in America, and that leaves many people at the bottom ofthe economic pyramid without enough disposable income or personal wealth to actually have an impact on the economy by driving up demand, and thus stimulating production, and increasing aggregate wealth throughout society. Also, the eight richest billionaires in the world have a combined wealth equal to the bottom half of all the people on the planet, which has the same effect, of stagnating consumer spending, and economic growth. Straight out of Joesph Stiglitz (The Price of Inequality), whom I almost mentioned and recommended, but didn't. There was no need. I had explained the essence of the benefits of widely distributed wealth in a capitalistic economy so cogently, so lucidly, in a single sentence,that every gospel singing farmer at the table knew exactly what I was talking about, and they all agreed with me. This, in a deep down in the south red state where Trump gets forty percent, whether or not he happens to be in prison, and the words "Democrat, "socialist", and "cultural diversity " are synonimous with the word "satan", notwithstanding the willing participation of these rural folk in socialist programs like Social Security, Medicare, and farm and agricultural subsidies. They get around this inconvenient bit of hypocrisy by proclaiming loudly, albeit falsely, that such government programs are not actual socialism, but instead, just plain, good common sense, "progress", as one old coot of a conservative religious fanatic put it. But I have finally found the method. If you want to explain to people that not only are they already living in a socialist country, but that they really do embrace socialism, whether they know and accept it or not, all you have to do is mention a few baseball player salaries, and you're on your way around the bases, heading for home.

Eating Shit, And Dying, For Trump

THE FACEBOOK POST made no bones, was quite explicit. It said,roughly: "I am not part of the 'tolerant left'. I am part of the 'eat shit and die you treasonous bastards' left". This person had reached the end of his or her rope, tired of talking, tired of trying to compromise and understand. Being accepting of LGBTQ people, illegal immigrants, racial, ethnic, and religious differences and diversity, is all well and good,indeed, hallmarks of proressive ideology. But, enough is enough. One reaches the end of one's rope, one runs out of patience when confronted with unrlenting, unreasoning evil by the same people,inessantly. This "eat shit and die" approach resonated with me because I reached this point long ago, perhaps even as early as the day when the "Access Hollywood" tape came out in early october, 2016,and I thought and assumed, quite reaaonably,that this vulgar display of salacious insensitivity by a reprobate bragging about being a sexual predator would mark the end of the political career of Don the Con Trump. And indeed it almost did, but didn't. The Republican National Committee tried to tell Trump to hit the highway, but backed down like squirming cowards when he said, simply; "make me". The rest, as they say, is history. And now, here we are, on the verge of reelecting a convicted criminal, a repeatedly proven low life criminal scoundrel back to the White House, for another chaotic, senseless term in office, after years and years of glaring proof that he, Donald Trump, may be the least qualified person on the planet to occupy political office or a job of any sort. He could shoot somebody on fifth avenue in cold blood in broad daylight, and they wouldn't care, said the icon of insanity in one of his rare moments of honesty and lucidity. They would only approve of him and admire him all the more, for his willingness to "get things done". To hide their hatred of LGBTQ people, to disguise their racism, they pretend that inflation is still a horrible problem, when in fact it is receding, in full retreat, declining to very acceptable levels. They pretend that the disorganized,chaotic immigration at the border is out of control only because of Biden, when in fact it is Trump who guaranteed that it would remain out of control, by ordering his puppet Republican members of Congress to walk away from a strong bipartisan immigration bill, written by Republicans, which would have taken huge steps to rememdy the problem, and would have been signed by President Biden, if only the little Hilter Trump would have pulled his puppet strings sanely, would have put country above politics, and permitted it. Under Trump the economy crashed, largely do to his insane policies concerning Covid 19. Under Biden the economy has come roaring back to life, largely because of his legislative initiatives. Trump's treasonous, traitorous election lie his supporters ignore, or embrace. His violent, well planned violent mob insurrection to try to overthrow the government and isntall Trump illegally in power they consider justified. Try to talk to and reason with Trump supporters, for instance, by pointing out to them that there are many politicians available who hold conservative values who happen to not be criminally insane, and all they do is stare blankly, or change the subject, or start reciting lies about Biden and his policies, or become angry, and spew the same babbling meaningless gibberish as Trump, as if having been schooled by him in the art of communicating incoherently. So why bother? Why bother trying to establish rappor with people who make themselves unapproachable by design and intent.Thay must be defeated at the ballot box,or, in the joyful event of their election defeat,in the streets. Meanwhile, I know exactly what they can have for dinner, and exactly what they can do immediately thereafter.

Attending Church

Sunday, June 16, 2024, I attended church, at a small,rustic,ancient brick building deep in the Ozark wooded hills. The church has been in existence for nearly two hundred years, but the congregation has never been smaller than now. I am told that thirty years ago their were usually about thirty or forty people in attendance, and that one hundred years ago the number of congregants was about one hundred. Today there were nine, incuding me. Testament to the decline and death fof the Christian faith, in rural America, and throughout the United States and the western hemishere. Western civilization, it would seem, is growing up, abandoning its ancient superstitions, if only gradually. I love going to this little church, having gone now several times in the past few weeks,and I fully intend to make it a habit. This, despite my firmly held lifelong conviction that the Christian religion is a barbaric, primitive,idiotic religion, badly in need of extinction, and that the world will be better off after it has died,which it surely will over the next few centuries, if not sooner. Why then, might a normal run of the mill intellect ask me, do I attend church, given my feelings aobut the Cgristian faith? To these less than brilliant "intellects" I offer the following response:permit me to introduce you to what is apparently a novel concept to you; that of "open mindedness". I have my opinions, as other do. Mine are no better or worse than any others. My personal opinions, however, may or may not reflect provable, demonstrable "reality", just like those of other people. So, maybe I'm wrong, dead wrong, going straight to hell wrong, and maybe the Christian religion, of all the thousands of religions on planet Earth, is true. Not only that, but maybe the Christian religion is the one true religion throughout the Milky Way galaxy, and throughout the inconceivably huge universe, which consists of trillions of galaxies, untold mega trillions of stars and planets. And, if there is indeed life on other planets, which seems increasingly highly probable, indeed almsot a certainty, maybe Jesus Christ goes from planet to planet being crucified over and over again, trillions of times, to save all the intelligent species in the cosmos, by dying for their sins. I highly doubt it, but maybe so, and maybe I am wrong. (If he does, does he ever get tired of it?) Maybe Jesus Christ was and is the one true son of God, maybe he died for my sins and everybody else's sins, and maybe, just mabye, one must accept HIM as their personal Lord and Savior to enter into the kingdom of heaven after death, and live eternally in what would seem to me a very pleasant but ultimately quite boring heavenly home. Communion, the symbolic consuming of the flesh and blood of Christ, what Geroge Washington called "symbolic cannibalism"(he attended church, but never took communion) is not only proper, perhaps, but absolutely essential to any legitimate church service. Maybe. Who knows? I certainly don't, and I strongly suspect that nobody else does either. Mark Twain said it best, as he said many things best."The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that mine is also". Well said, Sam. It seems to me that the Christian religion is one of many primitive forms of attempts that small, ignorant little primates use trying to comprehend and deal with reality, and that it is entirely Oudated, anachronistic, in need if discarding, in favor of modern science. But, maybe I am wrong. And, in any event, going to church is a nice experience, good messages are given by the pleasant minister, its a good way to participate in a community activity, and, to boot,they make good coffee and have good donuts before and after the very pleasant service. Also, I rather enjoy group singing, even if the songs are idiotic, to me.

Saving Animals, Healing Ourselves, And Why

SOMEONE WAS SPECULATING on why people who try to save animals try to save animals. I took his meaning to be mainly a reference to stray and feral cats, and homeless dogs, but assumed that his musings could apply to any and all animals, sick, injured, hungry, in obvious need of any sort of assistance. It was a topic of personal interest to me, since I am among the large fraternity of tryers. My intended targets of salvation are stray and feral cats, of whom I have several currently, and, over the years, have had many. Eventually they all died; my grief is ameliorated somewhat by the fact that, well, at least I tried. And although I can never be certain, I can at least tell myself that, if nothing else, I gave love to a beautiful being who otherwise would perhaps have lived a life unloved. Even in this I can never be sure. All I can do is try, and leave it at that. He first conjectured that we try because perhaps we are trying to heal ourselves from all the times when we ourselves needed help, and it never came. He went on to speculate that perhaps we are trying to compensate for all the times we tried to save people, and failed, finally realizing that people cannot be saved by others, but can only save themselves. His final idea was that perhaps we try to save animals simply because we realize that they are eminently worth saving, or,if nothing else, worth the attempt. We try, and sometimes, we fail. Like prayer, sometimes the answer is "no". On the surface it may seem is if the final speculation as to motive is the only one applicable and necessary. Maybe so. We try because it is worth trying. But the first two, concerning healing ourselves through healing animals, somehow resonates with me, and, I might be so bold as to surmise, others as well. Perhpas is is true that we at least partly try to save animals as a means of trying to save ourselves, from emotional pain, or perhaps even from a life of meaningless unproductive futility. Distinctly I recall nearly fifty years ago I was taking a long walk,as I tended to do as a teenager and young adult, and came across an injured bird, lying on the ground, unable to fly. I raced home, got a cardboard box, raced back to the bird which had not moved, gently placed the struggling creature in the box, and went home. As I started to leave, a lady who happened to be watching, told me that she thought I was "a good boy" for trying to save the injured bird. "I'll see what I can do", I said, lamely. Suddenly I felt a great, unrelenting burden of responsibility. I also realized, although I was reluctant to admit it,to admit to myself that I had no idea in the world what I could possibly do to help the poor little bird, and I was quite well aware that indeed there was nothing I could do but keep it out of further danger,by guarding it, and hoping it would heal itself. Deep down, I knew that it couldn't, and sure enough, it died very soon thereafter. I gave it a private burial in my mother's yard, shed a tear or two,and went on with my life, knowing that I had, if nothing else, tried. It was small comfort. Until this essay I have never mentioned the incident to anyone, nor thought much about it. Now, fifty years later, I mention it to anybody and everybody. Perhaps all these years I have been ashamed of my impotence, my powerlessness, my inability to do anything meaniningful. Now, with the return of the memory, the memory of my grief returns, and I feel it all over again. Well, maybe by writing this essay I have, in some small way, healed myself. Again, a tear or two, fitty years too late. Maybe by acknowledging once again my limitations, I have grown. Maybe the lady, who is perhaps herself now dead, spent the rest of her life thinking about the incident occasionally, and choosing to believe for her own comfort that the nice boy actually helped heal the bird, and that it flew once again. At the end of our days, it may be that we can only say about ourselves what I would like to have engraved on my urn of ashes: I tried.

Dispelling Misconceptions, Religiously

MANY IF NOT MOST Americans are "burdened" by the misconception that the United States was founded on "Christian" principles,as a "Christian" nation, by founders (men) who were themselves "Christians". This is partly a result of wishful thinking and the projection of personal values, hopes and beliefs upon history. It is largely because throughout American history what has been taught in American public schools is not so much "history",as "hagiography", biased history written to glorify, glamorize, and sanitize a country's history by a country's educational system. This tends to occur in all countries; hagiography. Human nature, if you will. The USA, a majorty Christian country, prefers to think of itself in Christian terms, believing that this is preferable. Perhaps it is (it isn't), although even this is a dubious assumption. It is, however, decidedly untrue. The United States was founded on scientific, politically "enlightend" Lockian principles, intended to be a country with strict separation of church and state, with religious freedom, tolerance, and diversity. A secular democratic republic. "The United States is no more a Christian nation than an Islamic nation", wrote John Adams in 1798. "The purpose of seperation of church and state is to keep from these shores forever the ceaseless strife which has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries" wrote Madison. The first amendment, perhaps written too vaguely and briefly, embodies, codifies this "wall of seperation" as Jefferson and Madison described it. Jefferson, in his letters, which he wrongly assumed would be destroyed rather than preserved as valuable historical documents, made his attitude about the Christian religion perfectly clear in private correspondence. He described it as "our modern superstition". Further,he wrote: "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter". Perhaps the most fundamentel article of faith underpinning the Christian faith, torn to shreds by Thomas Jefferson, privately. His prediction has not yet come to pass widely in society, a fact which would possibly greatly surprise the scientific minded Jefferson, two hundred years after his death. But stay tuned. Science continues its inexorable march forward into the future, the wheels of reason and sense are turning, grinding ever on, and Christianity is losing its traditional iron grip upon the hearts and minds of American and indeed human civilization, albeit seemingly slowly. As for Jefferson, he himself was a confirmed "deist", embracing the ideal of God as a genius spirit creator above and beyond any human invented religion, who made the universe, and allows it to operate unimpeded, according to natural laws. Jefferson called himslef "a primitive Christian", meaning that he, like nearly everyone, embraced the wisdom and beauty embodied in the teachings of Jesus, but rejected the supernatural aspects of the faith, upon which the religion is so heavily predicated, as superstitious nonsense. He evenwent so far as to take a pair of scissors, and while president, cut the Holy Bible into confetti,and to reassemble it according to his own preferences, leaving out the superstition, leaving in the beauty and wisdom. The "Jefferson Bible" can be found in any good university library. "Deism: was the philosphy of the day among late eigtheenth century intellectualls, and Jefferson was one among many our America'a founers who embraced it. Deists, are among us today,cohabitating the Earth with the other approximately 4,200 superstition based religions with their various and sundry gods, along with atheists, agnostics, and assorted other spiritually oriented belief systems. God bless them all! Their very exstence is the tangible manifestation of the intentions of America's founders, and a lasting and fitting tribute to their genius, openmindedness, and brilliance.

Praying

I PRAY. Even though I am not religious, embrace no formal, organized religion, and in fact generally have contempt for all religion, I pray. Why? Maybe it works. In fact,it does work,demonstrably. Like religion itself, it gives comfort and inspiration, demonstrably positive, efficacious attributes. Someone noticed that famed scientist Neils Bohr had a horseshoe hanging on the wall of his office, pointing upward, an invitation to capture good luck. Asked why a solid, serious scientist would have this lucky talisman on full display, and whether Dr. Bohr truly believed in this superstition, the famed scientist replied: "Of course not, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't work". This perfectly matches my attitude about prayer. Whether or not it has any tangible benefit, it does for me, inspiration and comfort, so, I pray. The only thing I do when I pray is give thanks..to..whatever, whomever. I give thanks to what I call "God", and what Einstein called "the old eternal genius who built the world", and "the ancient one", and "the infinitely superior spirit which is revealed in what little we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality". The Spinozan diety of Einstein and me, gluing the universe together, giving comfort and inspiration. As far as I am concerned I have lived and do live a happy, fulfilling life, and I am immensely grateful to the universe which has made it all possible. As you might expect, many intense, serious studies have been done on prayer, by very well ecucated researchrs of all acaademic disciplines,from mathematicians, philosiphers, and poets, to sociologists, psychlogists, physicists, and neural scientists. Any human activity as profoundly fundamental to human existence cannot avoid sustained sctutiny for long. The main result, reached repeatedly, is that the chances of a prayer, any prayer, being answered in the affirmative are identical to the laws or random probability. Prayer is a roll of the dice. God, strictly obeying the laws of nature, of quantum mechanics. To me, that makes perfect sense. I never ask my God for anything, or very rearely do. (A tight Yankees baseball game late in the pennant race can arouse me to make a rare exception.) I reason thus: why ask God for something, for anything, or try to control or influence God's behavior? Does God not already know, long before my weak and meager prayer, exactly what I deserve, what I will and won't receive, what will happen to me, why, and what he himself will do? How can I possibly change any of that? I have never heard a good argument to the contrary. Famed atheist intellectual Christopher Hitchens made an interesting observation. He wrote: "The man who prays thinks God has arranged things incorrectly, but that he can instruct God how to put them right". My thoughts exactly. To me, the "Lord's prayer" is nothing other than an orchestrated way of giving orders to God (give us this day our daily bread,etc.) The ritual prayer begins with a sort of pandering supplication to the Almighty, and ends with orders and demands, from us, to Him. Maybe Jim Morrison said it best, when he screams in a song: "You cannot petition the lord!" Certainly,that doesn't stop us from trying. I'll keep praying, just to say thank you, and leave it at that, without asking for anything, without trying to change God's behavior, or giving any orders to God. For my part, its the best I can do, and the only thing that really works, at least for me.

Restocking Bump Stocks

AL CAPONE is back in town, or could be, very soon. Machine guns, which the six clueless conservative members of the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) refuse to call "machine guns" are now legal across America's fruited plain, except in the twelve reasonably enlightened states which ban them. Our potential salvation from more mass murders is the fact that this horrible ruling by the nation's highest, most deluded court does indeed not prevent all fifty nifty disunited states from eventually banning the awful devices, although it is, one must admit, very difficult to imagine this happening in the many states dominated by gun loving conservative second amendment extremists. This highlights once again our desperate need for a new and improved American constitution wth a new and better, more clearly written second amendment, one which does more than allow muzzle loading muskets to be owned by members of a militia only. In decision after dicision the SCOTUS, with no fewer than two probable sex offending and no fewer than one upside down American flag flying right wing ideologues attempting to impose a hateful far right agenda on America from the bench, continues to judicially, injudiciously so impose. When a bump stock, a fairly recent invention from some dude's Frankensteinian basement laboraotry, is in action, the trigger actually moves repeatedly and quite rapidly, alhtough without human assistance. In a machine gun, this does not happen,the trigger stays still while the bullets spew at a rate of nearly one thousand per minute. Bumpstocking sends the lead flying at very early the same rate, but that seemingly salient fact is of no importance to the six right wing reprobates who infest our nation's highest, seemingly most stoned court. To them, the trigger action is the thing. Not the firepower nor the rate at which bullets come streaming out of the gun barrel towards their intended hapless victims, but...the precise trigger action. A thin dubious distinction, to say the least. Utter, outright insanity, to say the most. Again, conservative SCOTUS lunacy, sheer and unadulterated. Only the three progressive justices had the sense and sanity to point out that if it walks and talks and shoots bullets like a duck, it is for all intents and purposes a bullet shooting duck. Even the entirely benighted Trump administration was able to scrape up enough temporary sanity to ban bump stocks. Go figure, as we say. With bated breath we await the response of the Republican Christ-like icon for president, Don the Con. Will he condmen the reversal of his policy, as he always does? Will he take the plunge,and support, for the first time ever,an override of something he did? Or will he, as he often oes when confronted with tricky circumsances, retreat to his exclusive fun house fantasy land, and babble incoherently about boats, batteries, bullets, windmills, and his own inability to understand wind? As we like to say: "stay tuned", if you can stand to. You might have to expose yourself to hordes of criminal gangsters at Trump mob rallies wearing obscene messages on T shirts to hear what the criminally insane former president has to say, if you can wait that long, which won't be long enough. Meanwhile, let the carnage begin.

Dispelling Nonsense With Science

GALILEO GALILEI invented the telescope, which he called his "optick tube" at about the ame time that Hans Lippershey invented it further north in the Netherlands. Another one of those Darwin-Wallace, Newtwon-Leibnitz situations. Simultaneous inventors, splitting credit. When its time for an idea to come to fruition, its time, it seems. The men who got most of the credit for evolutionary theory, for calculus, and for the telescope were the ones who talked the most about their respective inventions and discoveries, early and often. Publicity matters. "I betook myself to observations of the heavenly bodies, and beheld the moon as if it were scarce two semi diameters of the Earth distant", he famously wrote. He bragged a bit too, making damned sure that everybody knew that nobody before him had ever done what he was doing, which was, as far as we can determine, true. But as we all learn one way or another, when one talks too much, one usually gets into trouble. Galileo learned the hard way. Being in Italy, he was an easy stone's throw away target for the super dogmatic seventeenth century Catholic church, and they came down on him hard, for having the blasphemous audacity to assert that the Earth is not the center of the universe, and that, cogito, ergo sum, the Holy bible was, how dared he say, wrong. His trial and house arrest are, as we say, history, the rest of the story. Legend has it that as he walked out of his inquisistion, he uttered, not quite beneath his breath, "I still know what I saw". Maybe his extended stay at home was extended further for that departing wisecrack. That remains unclear. What is clear is that he was never given an opportunity to prove to all concrned that his tiny weak litle optick tube actually worked; noboody was willing to have a look through see, nobody wanted to have their eyes bewitched by some devil may care devil. What Galileo did actually write was: "I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who endows us with sense, intellect, and reason has intended us to forego their use." And that, as they say, says it all. Like most profound remarks made by great people, this one holds up today, always, and forever. It shouldn't apply today. It should be outdated, a relic of a benighted past. But, alas, it isn't. Its continuing applicability is testament (no pun intended) to our continuing early twenty first century languishing in darkness, when an invitation to see the light of reality is staring us straight in our confused faces, glaringly. At the precise time, or well beyond the precise time in human history and advancement of knowledge when science and reason should have long since asserted themselves, taken hold in the human mind, and dispelled superstition and religious nonsensical dogma, alas, it has not. Far from it. Instead, relgious nonsensical doctrine and dogma and superstitious nonsense seem almost to hold the human heart and mind almost as captive as ever. Almost, but not quite, for verily, religion is releasing its iron grip on humanity and the human intellect, if only grudgingly, only painfully slowly. Like lava spreading and cooling as it flows outward from the volcano, the enlightening power of science is creeping ever slowely but still perceptably into our sleepy, slowly awakening minds. Lord willing and the creek don't rise, may the creep continue, unabated, with all due haste.

Doing the Crazy, On, and On...

I JUST COMPLETED a swing through Kanas City,of Count Basie fame, where I saw my beloved New York Yankees take three of four from a very good team,the Kansas City Royals. Only a blown save in the ninth of game four preventd a clean sweep. Its a tradition I've been maintaining for sixty years; hop up to K.C. to see the Bronx Bombers. Impresseive,what a good ball club three hundred million dollars will buy. Impresssive,and crazy, from my perspective. Next up on the crazy to do "bucket list" (I hate that much overused expression), the Rolling stones, in the Las Vegas of the Ozarks, Branson, Mmissouri. Impressive, what a billion dollars worth of eighty year old musicians can do to remove a few hundred dollars from the pockets of a senior citizen latter day hippie, or two. Musicians never retire. Frank Sinatra sang his way into his eighties, until the self described "saloon singer" finally met his match with vertigo and gravity by falling off a bar stool or two, while completely sober. Mick Jagger stays in shape by running in place before he hits the stage, staying away from drugs, and by never sitting down, on or off stage. How Keith Ricahrds gets it done is among the greatest mysteries of science and insanity in all of recorded, and unrecorded history. Maybe its the whole body blood transfusions in Switzerland, maybe the cigarette perpetually dangling from snarling lips while hitting his licks. Whatever, it works. There is no law against a famous musician padding hiw podket book and ego until he or she drops. Nor evidently, is there any law, even though there ought to be, against digging big hole in what should have remained a bucolic Ozark mountain hill side and filing it back in with concrete, steel,plastic,and bleachers for the adoring fans of strolling bones. But the question, as it always is when dealing with human affairs, aka capitalism and entertainment,is: where do we draw the line? Exactly what are our limits? How much fun can we possibly have, and survive the adrenalin rush to tell about it? How many bucolic hill sides, how many billions of dollars, how many eighty year old slowed but not stopped rock icons does it take to satiate our bottomless appetites for escape? When we reach the point where we all agreee, with fingers crosssed behind our broad butts, that the Stones are "better than ever", have we approached our limit of fantasy and denial? Speaking of fantasy, denial, and ancient old age, Donald J.Trump, yes, THAT Donald J.Trump, turns seventy eight today. Add politicains to the list of never say retire profesionals. We are thus given a choice between two fossils for the next president of these dis United States. The "winner" will govern for the next generation, which should be governing for itself. As Jefferson warned, we do not want to be governed by our ancestors. Or do we? Seemingly we do, just as we seemingly want to be entertained by them. We cling to our outdated constitution, we cling to our political leaders who should be long since put out to pasture, and we cling, tenaciously, to entertainers who are, quite bluntly,no longer in their prime, despite our fervant desires and pretenses to the contrary Nostalgia is over rated. We pay big bucks to see rock stars who barely exist in the present, who exist essentially in the past, in our fondest memories. Retirement, with dignity and grace, is vastly under rated. Why not give it a try, Mick, Keith, Donald, Joe, et al, et al, et al.....I did. It works great!