Loving God, Guns, and Trump, All On the Same Hat.

IN THE DOLLAR GENERAL STORE, I was leaving when I saw the man with a red ball cap on which was emblazed, in big, bold letters, the words "God, Guns, and Trump"..But, no commas, and no and. Just: God Guns Trump. Maybe I should have left sooner, or later. I looked at him a bit longer than perhaps I should have, wanting to make sure I read it right, not wanting to get shot for being suspected of being a liberal. I read it right. In my small town in the American red state south, I should hardly have been surprised. And yet, somehow, I was. I suppose I've been surprised ever since the Access Hollywood tape came out, and nothing happened. What I was thinking, what I am still thinking, is: precisely how are those three things God...guns...and Trump... related to each other? Gore Vidal used to call them: the "Jesus, guns, and money" crowd. That particular trio seems even less compatible. The Prince of Peace, weapons of violence and war, and avarice. And no, guns to not keep the peace and prevent violence, people keep the peace and prevent violence. Shouldn't a Christian give unto the poor, unto personal poverty, the personal poverty of Jesus himself? The incredible combining of those three words, both sets, the blatant internal contradictions, can and is understood by everyone, except the minds of those who wear the red ball caps. If you are a conservative evangelical Trump loving Christian, they make perfect sense, all on the same ball cap. Jesus Christ was a proud American, with American values. Guns go together perfectly with the macho American Jesus, and, Trump? Well, he is the very embodiment of both, of guns and Jesus Christ, he, Trump, having been sent here, criminal convictions and all, to save America from those socialist render unto Caesar tax happy give unto the poor bleeding heart liberals. God,in mysteries ways, raises reprobates to positions of great imprtance. He did it in the bible, why not do it here and here? Trump certainly qualifies for the job, and so we the American people, doing God's will, elected the reprobate to high office. There's no use arguing about it. Really, there ever has been. Religion and gun ownership are two bedrock tradtions in the United States, and conservatism is, above all else, the embrace of tradition and resistance to change. A deliberate, modern misintrpretation of the second amendment, and the capitalism loving gospel of wealth, in which the righteous are rewarded financially for their righteousess. The second amendment was meant by the founders to ensure that a citizen militia was well enough armed to be abe to rapidly assemble and deploy and defend the new republic against foreign enemies,not to ensure that every American has the right to bear arms in public all the time. The second amendment was intended to prevent the formation by a potentially tyranical government of a permanently standing professional army. Jesue Christ did not tell people to get rich, he told them to make themselves poor by giving unto the poor. None of that matters. If you want to validate your personal beliefs badly enough, facts are easy to twist and misconstrue. Anything is better than changing one's beliefs to fit the facts. The esssential contradiction of christianity is that the biblical God is alternately a psychopathic genocidal maniac, and a tantrum throwing tempestuous toddler, demanding love, demanding blood scarifices. When "he" turns himself into his only begotten son, to sacrifice himself to himsllf to atone for the sins of creatures of his own creation, he becomes, in the pseudo half god half person person of Jesus christ, a pacifist, who cares about what people do with their money, but not whether they suffer on Earth, as long as they buy their entry into heaven by worshippping HIM. Christ, the American capitalist. Have faith that Almighty God knows all and controls all events, and will protect you, as long as you worhip him, but it doesn't hurt to bear an arm, as..an instrument of God's will?

Spending Thanksgiving Alone, By Choice

I SPENT THANKSGIVING ALONE, by choice, happily, with my cats. For dinner I went to a local bar, a little blue collar place in the small town where I live, and enjoyed perhaps the best Thanksgiving meal I have ever had. The works, turkey, dressing, cranberries, pumpkin pie, and the best green beans I have ever enjoyed. There were perhaps fifteen people there, cheerful, friendly. I had the honor of being chosen to say the prayer, and I came through magnificently, as I always do when leading a public group prayer. I know how to pray to God, by god. Everybody seemed to love it. The bar owner thanked me. I ate an amazing amount of food, which I usually do, on account of the great amount of exercise I get on a daily basis. The bar owner, a friend of mine, invited me to take a plate of food to go, and she didn't have to ask me twice. This is the weekend to pig out, and I believe in tradition. As I chowed down on my second plate of Turkey, into the bar walked a deer, about the size of a small Great Dane, and growing fast, acccording to Mandi. Everybody kept drinking without missing a beat, evidently accustomed to a deer in the room... Twelve years ago I named my stray kitten, Mandi, after the business owner. Both Mandis are alive and doing well, with a new wrinkle or two here and there, just like the rest of us. I invited Mandi to come over to my house and see Mandi. She said she will. Mandi the lady takes in stray critters like I do. Only she goes a bit farther. One of Mandi's adopted cats has her own pet cow, out on the farm. "May Day" is, according to Mandi, a very attentive pet owner. Not long ago a yearling deer showed up near her house on her farm, looking too young to be without its mother, looking like he might need a bit of help. Mandi stuck a milk botttle in its mouth, and it sucked on it hard right behind the bar, on the high powered supplement. Mandi told me that the precious little thing follows her around, and once tried to climb into bed with ther, to snuggle. She didn't say whether she accepted the invitation. I assume she did, knowing Mandi. Mandi knows she will soon have to let him go, on her farm, where he'll have plenty of opportunity to live a long and healthy life, undisturbed by hunters or predators. If the future big buck is smart, Mandi will have a frequent visitor... Hardly a lonely Thanksgiving, and yet, I spent Thanksgiving alone, mostly, with my cats, computer and radio. After all, I was only at the bar for a couple of hours, and chose not to drink, a choice I make with increasing frequency as I approach my seventieth birthday. At home, on my computer, I kept up my campaign to drive Trump out of politics, by impeachment, or whatever. The expressions of skepticism are increasing in number, doubts about my ability to get rid of Trump proliferating, and that's a good sign. It means people are paying attention. I find it humorous, and a bit disgusting, as if these morons need to tell me that it is a nearly impossible project. Haven't they ever tried to do anything hard? Apparently not. I posted on an anti-Trump website that Trump's popularity has reached its peak, and can only decline. His opponents will continue to oppose him, and his supporters, as his policies begin to take effect and harm people, will dwindle in number. Trump's policies will do harm to is supporters as well as his opponents. Word is that some of them are now beginning to realize this, if only dimly. He will not gain support by deporting eleven million people, for instance, but he will lose it. As I explained in a previous essay, he will lose support whether he does or does not do his mass deporting. His policies promise to be so extreme that they will engender extreme reactions, causing loss of support. Trump is now at the zenith of his power and popularity. One of my Trumper friends told me that both he and Trump deliberately mispronounce Kamala Harris's name because they both have no respect for her. I told my friend I have no respect for people who support Trump, and indeed I don't. My next project is to ask him whether he respects Trump, and why. His answer will surely be fascinating, tangled, twisted, and garbled. If and when I get one, I intend to report it here, with analysis and commentary. Maybe he admires convicted criminals. Maybe he is an Al Capone fan. Or maybe his taste runs to Jesse James, or Bonnie & Clyde. Some Trump supporters prefer white collar criminals, others, I assume, lean more toward the blue collar working class villain. It becomes twice as easy and desirable to spend holidays alone when one realizes that half the people in this country either are content to support criminal politicians, or are too stupid not to, or are of such low moral characer and limited intellectual capabiites that they simply dont know the difference. That half of the people in this country see themselves in Trump, seek to emulate Trump, see Trump as a person qualified to be president of the United States makes it twice as easy to stay home, on holidays, or any other day. As Churchill once said: "You can count on the American people to do what is right, afer exhausting all other possibilities. There will come a fine day when we the American people have finally exhausted all other possibilities, numerous though they are, and, regarding Trump and his malignant MAGA movment, will do the right thing. Until then it will remain twice as easy to stay home. When it does finally happen, it will become twice as easy to get out and hang out with people. Until then, as we say, stay safe.

IMPEACHING Trump Part III: Ridding The World of Trump

THE GRAND PROJECT to rid the world of Trump, engendreed here, proceeds apace, despite the expected, unsurprising arrival of skeptics. Do these people not comprehend the nobility of the pursuit of lost causes? Many years ago, my mother, who was so wise that she often told people the reason her son is not married is because he is smart, said to me: "You like causes, don't you?" Indeed, I do, the more imposible the better. As the gentleman said in the snti-Trump online group, I am "tilting at windmills". I agreed, and promptly invited him to join me. I haven't heard back. I have patience. Legalizing marijuana. Getting the U.S. the hell out of Viet Nam, are but two of the noble and correct causes for which I labored strenuously. They have in common that they ultimately succeeded, despite all odds. This one, to remove Trump from office by orchestrating a campaign of millions of Americans vociferously advocating for his impeachment, is also likely to succeed, despite all apprearenaces, despite all current self defeating skeptism. If everyone who has expressed skeptism to me would stop the negativity, and get on with the busines of communicating, informing, and recruiting, the great reprobate would face impeachment counts, for incitement to insurrection, among many other high crimes and misdemeanors, in a jiffy. The salient point is that not only will opposition to his presidency increase dramatically as his policies are implemented and their results begin to be felt by millions of Americans, but that his supporters will begin to suffer under them no less, which will cause many of them to abandom him, especially those who voted for him not because of any zealous MAGA mob loyaltiy to him, but because they just plain ole don't want a "colored" woman in the White House, or think they chose the "lesser of two evils". Or whatever. Whatever fatuous and vacuous reasoning motivated them to vote for an outright fascist, racist, psychpathic narcissist, criminal terrorist, Trump. Trump may not be impeached until after the twenty twenty six midterms. He may not be impeached at all. If impeached, he may not be removed from office, as happened twice in his last term. So what? The expression of mass disapproval of a cruel, tyranical unhinged demagogue, and the destruction of the misguided politcal movement which supports him, is paramount, notwithstanding the degree of its success. To simply say that "we tried that twice already,and it didn't work either time", is to completely miss the point, by a country mile. The point is that in a democracy, or in this case in an oligarchical plutocracy which aspires to be and which often describes itself as a "democracy", expressions of opposition to the powers that be, and especially when those powers that be are malignant and injurious to the best interests of the people and the country, are crucial. I have told many people that I will continue "Project Justice", help or no help, entirely alone if necessary, and I have told them that as long as I am alive, the grand project lives, and I mean it. As my hero "David (Davy) Crockett might say: "I'll stand up to my rack, fodder or no fodder, and may the devil take the hindmost". The skeptics are free to contiue their skepticism, and I am free to hold them in utter contempt and to go forth without them. But again I say, and will say intil hell freezes over: Donald J. Trump is a criminal, a reprobate, and a deranged fascist tyrant, and the nation and the world would be and will be much better off when he is gone from political leadership, and more than that, gone from the world. To this end I pledge my fortunes and sacred honor, to all who join with me in this noble endeavor, this impossible cause, or, if necessary, only to myself.

Deporting Prosperity

LETs NOT KID OURSELVES.. We've done enough of that alerady. As Goethe said: "We resist the truth only because we fear that we would perish if we accepted it." Hence, our tendencies toward denial, confirmation bias, and the lot. To the matter at hand.. Trump will either deport eleven million undocumented, illegally living in America "aliens", or he will not. If so, it will be with the complete support of and compliance of the Republican majority congress, and, of course, his multi million member insurrectionist MAGA mob. If not, it will be with the resistance of the Demoratic minority in congress, and the progressive community. Either way, Trump is toast, and here's why: The sheer logistics of identifying, locating, apprehending, and escorting to the border roughly eleven million people are, in and of themselves, staggering, overwhelming, the expenditure of resources, in terms of humanpower and money, impossible. By the time the process would be completed, eleven million more would have entered the country to repalce them. The undocumented immigrant population will outlive Trump, his supporters, and all the rest of us, mark it down. Trump's failure to deliver on his oft repeated promise, on the very keystone of his political career, to remove the murderers and rapists they are "sending" us, is inevitable. So is the strong disappointment and anger of his cult fan base, when they dimly, belatedly perceive the failure, and are unable to any longer credibly deny it nor avoid blaming Trump for it. Trump's approval rating drops, to the level of his intelligence, if that's possible. If the deportation is actually caried out, even to a partial degree, even if only a small percentage, say, two or three million people, are deported, the econcomy suffers serverely, for lack of workers to fill those jobs no white Christian conservative American wants to fill. If all eleven million of them go, so goes the economy. Crops are left in the ground, to rot. Food prices skyrocket. Houses go without roof replacement. Toilets go unscrubbed. The damage done to the economy, the severity of the resulting recession, will be directly proportional to the number of workers Trump kicks out. MAGA mobsters will suffer the economic consequences as much as decent people, and their ability to blame it on the Democrats,the Chinese, or the left wing communist mainstream media will evaporate. Lies and denial only go so far. The obvious solution, to provide a pathway to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants, and thus to keep the benefits of their labor, namely, national prosperity,in country, is unmentioned by Trump, who seems incapable of grasping it. Position the Big Red One along the order, secure it, and organize it. Those already here we allow, have allowed to be here, by leaving the bank vault unlocked. Why chop off our noses to spite our faces? And let's get one damned thing straight: this is not about illegality, justice, freedom, law, order, crime, the American way, nor anything remotely virtuous. This is about xenophobia and racism, pure and simple. This is about brown skinned people, poisoning American lilly white blood, as Trump put it. This is about dark skinned people arriving from, as Trump put it: "shit hole coutries". The darky Hispanic illegals are better citizens, more law abiding, more moral, than your average white conservative evangelical Christian, by a landslide. Statistics, which don't lie, prove that. Flood the country with good looking pale white Norwegians, just as Trump said he wanted, and you've got a happy camper white right wing Jesus loving community, a community of morally bankrupt, criminal terrorist MAGA Trump supporters, without whom the United States of America would be far better off. Deport them.

Sleeping, Without A Mattress

THE OLD MATTRESS has sat on my front porch for about three months, awaiting removal and disposal. When I discovered, too late, that it was infested with bugs, out it had to go. I like sleeping on the floor, always have. I recall that as a teenager, in 1971, when my family moved into my grandmother's house, vacated by her death, that I chose to sleep on the hardwood floor, some nights, in front of one of those little purring space heaters. The pleasnt purring, glowing warmth still allures me, desite the high cost of electricity. Now, though, they are more efficient. Nice on a cold winter's night. So, I'm back to doing that, this time, on carpet, which seems to itself have become infested with bugs. I have a skin rash. I'm on Prednizone. The rash is clearing up. I snuggle with my cat on the couch. I bought an air mattress, but can't figure out how to blow it up. Neither can anybody else. Soon, at the cost of about four thousand dollars, my carpet will be removed and replaced by hardwood floors similar to the ones in my grandmmother's old house, only this time the wood is some syhthetic substance, not the true wood of the nineteenth century. Still, good enough to sleep on, without the bugs. Over to the senior center I go each day, for lunch, and ready as always to volunteer to wash dishes, fry catfish, or whatever. For many years I did those chores on a daily basis, as a volunteer. Thousands of hours total, about twenty per week, four per day. Half of the people there, it seems, drive pick up trucks. I only need(ed) one, one nice person with a pick up truck to help me haul my old mattress to the dump, a journey of about ten minutes, a project of short duration, easy. I lost count of the number of my fellow seniors who told me "no problem, we'll gt it done". My neighbors across the street said something similar, that they would be glad to help me, the next time they have a complete load, ready to go. Heaven only knows when that will be. About half the people in this country, and in this small country town drive pick up trucks, it seems, almost everyone but me. All I need is just one, for twenty minutes...Well, it never got done, or hasn't. But now, finally, I think I have it solved. The nice gentleman whose small local company is going to install my new flooring has a pick up truck, a couple of healthy kids, and he has promised me that they will come and take my mattress. To say the least, I cannot wait, or barely can. Three months with an old mattress on my front porch, since the scorching heat of August, until now, Thanksgiving. I feel like giving thanks, and will, if all goes well. I mean, I am paying this guy a little more than four thousand dollars, so, the removal of an old mattress I take as a bonus, a bonus he can readily provide. I am gratfeul to him, and be doubtless be more grateful still when I behold my shiny new carpet free bug free wooden floors. As for the senior center and the good folks who go there, I like them generally, even the religious fanatics and the Trump supporters. The food is great, the conversation often illuminating and pleasant. But still, after all the free labor I have given to it over the years, one might think that getting the help of borrowing a pick up truck for twenty minutes to haul away an old mattress would be somewhat simpler and less painful to arrange than, say, pulling teeth. In that regard, I am dealing with a four thousand dollar floor installer at an opportune time. Still and all, it seems a pretty hefty price to pay for the carrying away of an old worn out mattress, but, in the end, worth every penny.

Impeaching Trump, Part II

PROJECT JUSTICE, to impeach Trump, for incitement to insurrection, among other high crimes and misdemeanors, is well underway, attracting attention, gaining support. And also, drawing ridicule and expressions of futility, as the naysayers chime in. The Facebook group is called: "Trump Will Be The Death of America", or something of that hyperbolic nature. Ironic, that people who name their group something unrealistic, something impossible, dare to consider unrealistic the possibility that a former and future president who has already been impeached twice can be impeached again. It is far more likely that Trump will be impeached a third time, dear reader, than that he will literally be "the death of America". That's the whole point of organizing a movement to impeach him now; to prevent him from being the death of America. America, even MAGA Republicans, would sooner and will do away with Trump before allowing him to destroy America, because their vast financial fortunes and political careers were in existence before Trump, do not entirely depend on Trump, and, they will want to see to it that both still exsit as long as they live, Trump, or no Trump. The expressions of disbelief among Trump haters are humorous. One literate gentleman accused me of "tilting at windmills". Kudos for him for having read "Don Quixote", but my suggestion is that he put Cervantes back on his doubtless extensive library shelf, and get to work, helping impeach Trump. Even the most devout MAGA cultists will sooner dump Trump than risk his or her own good fortune. If Trunp sarts to sink in a roiling sea of his usual perfidy, his cult politician followers will bail, fast. They always do. They did last time, but when Trump survived, they returned, like rats returning to a ship which, after all, did not sink....As for the quitters: It didn't work last time. Congresss is controlled by MAGA mad men. It cannot be done. Blah, and blah.The whole litany of predicatble, stale negativity. Blather, wasting oxygen, with the obvious. As if I didn't already know all this. Actually, it did work last time. It worked twice. What didn't work is removing the criminal and terrorist Trump from office. First time, MAGA summoned sufficient support in the Senate to avoid doing justice. Trump should have been removed from office for trying to blackmail Zelensky and Ukraine. Second time, the clock ran out, and Trump was allowed to go scot free, unpunished for his attemptt overthrow the governement via a violent mob. The cult adheres,strong as ever. The task is daunting. Like I told one Trump hating naysayer, I love impossible dreams, lost causes. Like I told the Don Quixote fan, the project will work if enough people,especially political leaders,believe in and support it,and like I told the moron who claimed that the project does not exist because "I refuse to provide details": the project exists, even if I am alone in participating in it. Details? The details are that "Project justice" is gaining support, fast, as evidenced by the messages I receive on the internet,a veritable avalanche of them, and by the sudden, drastic increase in the number of visitors to and readers of this website. If you want names, phone umbers, and addresses, look elsewhere, do your own research. I have not been given permission to divulge that information. Trump should never have become president, never should become president again, should be in prison now. Arguably,he should be indicted, tried, convicted, by due process, and should receive the death penalty, for treasonous insurrection. Arguably he should never have been born. But two things are true, for damned sure. First; Trump will never be impeached and removed fromo ffice if nobody tries to do it. And, secondly, at least where I live,I need to stay busy to keep me off the streets and out of trouble, and I suspect most anti-Trumpers do as well. And, in any event, where I live, its jsut too damned windy to stack BB's.

Having Children, For God

RECENTLY, the number of attractive youg ladies on Facebook expresssing undying love of sixty nine year old men and asking for gas money to come visit me has drastically diminshed. What, have I used them all up? Has the United States of Acquisition exhausted its supply, spewed tham all out upon my hapless computer screen and aching heart? Surely not. This is a big country, with hundreds of millions of people, including our fair share of attractive young ladies on the make, lord love 'em. For one thing, I started clicking "accept" on new friend requests with less zeal and frequency, and for another, its been fun, but the game gets old; I seek new amusements, like taking target practice at Trump posters. My salvation is perhaps that I only spent a few thousand dollars, and, I swear, I learned my lesson. Then came Mable, young, attractive, blonde, well turned out, toothy smiley, that clean cut Christian churchy look. She asked all the usual questions, and I answered them. We never got to the gas money; we probably never would. Her intent might have been lasting relationships, or evangelical witnessing, not money. (who am I kidding...). She got stuck on the never married no kids part, which some of them do. In response to the usual question, why have I not gotten married, (yet), I offered my usual response: "According to my mother, its because I'm smart". The low rate at which they respond to that indicates that either they don't understand the words, cannot conceive of a mother who doesn't want grand children, are stunned, or are in bad marriages and just plain agree with me. Mabel responded. "God says that he wants you to be plentiful, fruitful, bountiful, etc., reproduce, and fill up the Earth with his people". Yes, she actuallly said something like that. Mabel is a great example of why I keep doing this. I already have enough material for several books, some of which might get written. "We've already done that" I retorted, quite accurately. "There are more than eight billion people in the world. What more could God possibly expect from us?". I think I said something about what I want to do being important to me, no disrespect to God, about my preference concerning kids mattering too. I quoted Goethe, as always. "It is beyond me how anyone can believe that God speaks to us in books and stories..If the world and our hearts do not directly reveal to us..." That quote. She laughed, which raised a red flag. How could God possibly speak other than in a book?! I went on some, for some god forsaken reason.The bible was written by people,as all books are. Of the seven thousand or so books I have read, the Bible is easily the most violent and obscene. I love God, and I love Jesus. but I despise the bible, as a "sacred scripture, but find it interesting, as an example of ancient, primitive culture...All that."You certainly have some strong opinions", she opined. I allowed as that was quite correct, thinking it very "white" of her to give credit where it is due. I asked her if she understood what Geothe was saying. "Yeah, sure". "Your response seems to indicate otherwise", I said. Then, the deal breaker. "you sound weird", she actually said. Goethe.. weird. Oh boy... There was no longer any doubt. I was communicating with a very young, attractive blonde,(I had her picture), churchy Christian lady, with a pedestrian education, a real air head. My suspicions confirmed, "We call people "weird" when they don't conform to our biased preconceived expectations of them", said I. "Its easier to call somebody weird that to take the time and expend the effort to understand their point of view". She agreed with that, and identifeid me as an "unbeliever". "I'm a believer", I said, Neil Diamond and the Monkeys crooning in my head. "Everybody has beliefs". "I didn't call you weird", she said. "I said that you 'sound' weird". Finally! The semantics thing! "Well, I think you "sound weird" telling me that God wants me to have children", I typed in. That was the last word. There was nothing more to say. There would be no online romance, and no gas money. "Ok I'm sorry bye". Mable was gone, out of my life forever, before our friendship had even begun. "No problem", I said. I will always wonder what our children would have been like...

Learning the Law, Or Not

THERE ARE THREE IVY LEAGUE universities which do not have law schools. They are Dartmouth, Brown, and Princeton. Princeton established a law school briefly in 1852, which lasted only until 1855. It was closed due to lack of funding. In 1935 another try was made to establish a school of law at the prestigious university, but failed again, when a suitable, qualified faculty was unable to be found and hired. It seems that places like Harvard and Yale, among many others, had already swept up all the available legal professorial talent, were paying them well, and weren't about to relenquish their high qualified, esteemed lecturers in the law to any upstart new law school. In 1974, the matter was once again brought up for consideration, but the decision was made to "table" the project, to indefinitely postpone it, and there the matter rests, fifty years later, on the table, or under it, gathering dust,while far lss prestigious institutions of higher education go merrily ahead with their long standing schols of law, supplying this nation's rather substantial litigation requirements. One third of all attorneys at law in the world are Americans, in what is beyond dispute the most litigious society on Earth. When I was a kid, in the nineteen sixties, I accepted without question the fact that women werent allowed to enroll in Ivy League universities, nor serve in the military in anything other than support roles,nor enroll in the service academies, and that African-American student athletes were, essentially, non existant. Discrimination against minorities and women was the norm. I believe it was 1971 when Harvard and Yale began admitting women. "Coeds" they were called, and at about that same time African-American football and basketball players were allowed to compete, for the first time, on varsity sports teams in the south. Ironic, that it was prestigious schools like Harvard and Yale which were the most belated in admitting female students. Not so surprising is that black athletes started taking the field in the south later than in the rest of the country. When in nineteen sixty six an all white University of Kentucky basketball team lost the national championship game to an all black Weatern Texas (UTEP now) team, heads turned. The 1964 national football champion Arkansas Razorbacks were lilly white, as were the runner up Alabama Crimson Tide. Also, college and professional teams in that era featured offensive and defensive linemen who weighed anyhere from just over two hundred pounds, to a whopping two fifty. Anybody heavier than that was considered a freak of nature. When a high school classmate of mine enrolled at the University of Arkansas, in 1973, the Razorback football team had a handful of black players. He came home on Christmas vacation calling the team the "Razorblacks". The "backwards" characteristics of society I took for granted, glady watching all white football games on television as a child. Had desegration never happened, I have no idea how long it would have taken me to see segregation and discrimination as a great evil, if ever. I do reacall that in 1965, when I was ten, my favorite football players were Jim Brown and Gale Sayers, and my favorite basketball player was Wilt Chamberlain, all black athletes. Perhaps I was at least a bit ahead of my peers in the deep south. I hope so. Things have changed, a lot, rather recently. And maybe we in the American south were late to the table in terms of racial equality, but we admitted female students to our universities far earlier than the vaunted Ivy league institutions, and, well, if nothing else, we have had law shools at nearly all of our universities in the south for decades. At the Uinversity of Arkansas, the first African-American law school student, Silas Hunt, was admitted in 1948, rather early, but was required to sit alone in a box in the corner of lecture halls. That too changed, when demanded by professors. Backwards though we might still be down here, at least we have law schools.

Impeaching Trump

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION AMERICANS, more or less, witnessed on live national television President Trump's attempt to overthrow the American government by violent insurrection on January sixth, 2021. His attempt to derail the electoral college confirmation process by interrupting it, by replacing legitimate electors with invalid ones, by ordering his violent mob to march on the Capitol and "fight like hell", by inciting a violent insurrection, was nothing other than an attempt to overthrow the American government, and he was impeached for it. Impeached, and tried, but never convicted, due to Republican bostruction and the fact that his term was ending. What is the statute of limitations on impeachment? There is none. What is the statute of limitations on impeaching and removing a president for incitement to insurretion in a previous administration? There is none. Impeachment is a political process, not a legal one, and any president can be impeached, tried, convicted, and removed from office at any time, for any reason, or for no reason. The Republicans spent the entire Biden administration attempting to do precisely that to Biden. Trump intends to nominate a person for Seretary of Denfense who has written in a book that he wishes to use the military to destroy progressives. he intends to dismantel all protections for theenvironment, and to curtail all efforts to fight climate change. Since more than wtenty years ago the Departent of Defense identified human made climate change as the single greatest threat to American national security, refusal by any American president fo acknowledge and fight it amounts to treason. No specific reason is neessary to impeach any president. Again, it is a political, not a legal process. However, The reasons for impeaching Trump, as soon as possible, are numerous. According to Ivanka Trump, in sworn testimony before Congress, Ivanka Trump testfied that two weeks before the 2020 election, her faher approacheeher,and said:"No matter what happens in the election, we'll jsut say that we won. Fuck it". In corroboraed testimony it emerged that the entire insurection proces, teh entire plan to keep Trump in power illegally, was carefully thought out, planned, and orchestrated by Trump and his supporters. On election night, 2020, while the votes were being counted, before they had been counted, Trump said, on national television: "actually, we won the election". At that time, nobody had any idea who was going to win the election. In thousands of cities and towns all across the United States, there are sizable anti-Trump communities. In each town and city, large and small, leaders must gather signatures on petitions and send them to Congress, to media outlets, and social media. There should be a brief, direct, standard petition which I am willing to write and post on this website. "WE THE UNDERSIGNED PEOPLE of the United States of America demand that Donald Trump be impeached, tried, convicted, and removed from office for the high crime of incitement to insurretion, among many other high crimes and misdemeanors, including: Conspiring with a foreign power to gain election to high office. Refusal to address climate change, mismanagement of a pandemic which resulted in more than a million American deaths, violation of the emolument clause, a peristent pattern of lying to the American people,threatening his political opponents, election tampering, and stealing and hoarding classified documents".

Trump, Selling Revised Bibles

IS TRUMP STILL HAWKING BIBLES? Still fifty nine and change? Are they selling well? By the time seventy five million evangelical Chrstians have added one, bound in leather, to their extensive collection, he should by now have exceeded all best selling author records, yet, strangely, nothing has been written or said about it in the mainstream conservative or Christian media. Do Christian conservatives generally feel that they already have enough bibles? Have they run out of space in their home libraries? Never! Or are they sluggushly, sheepishly gaining a new awareness of their barely disguised but deeply rooted heresy, abandoned Trump, and switched to democratic socialism? Doubtful, at best. YOu may recall that each Trump bible is adorned with an American flag on the leather, and includes a copy of the constitution within its covers. Here's a pertinant question. Since Trump has now been "outted" as not only having been aware of the notorious "Project 2025" all along, despite his repeated denials while on the campaign trail, he has also, in effect, come out of the closet,or his hole in the ground, as being fully supportive of it, in full agreement with it. Since this Hitlerian document would and will supplant the constitution, if for no other reason than by using the regular armed forces to round up undocumented immigrant workers and deport them, and to break up protests against Trump in the streets of the American empire, mustn't subsequent editions of the gospel according to Trump be adjusted to include copies of the formal document "Project 2025"? Out with Madison's document, in with Trump's. Secretary of Defense in waiting Pete Hegseth (isn't he a FAUX Entertainment Propaganda Network talking head, with litttle or no administrative experience?), when he takes off his brown shirt, shows an "Iron Cross" tatooed somewhere on his pallid torso, and has written in one of his five "books" that the progressive community must be defeated and exterminated, by any and all means necessary. Soon, all too soon, he'll have the means at his disposal. These people are deadly serious."The fools would be humorous, were they not in such deadly earnest", as H.L. Mencken adroitly said about somebody. They are serious enough for Trump to include "Project 2025 next to the constitution, if not replace it? A large majority of evangelical Christian conservatives have read neither the constitution, other than the second amendment, nor the bible, other than Mathew 3;16, or whatever. They have no idea of the vast quantity of obscenity, gratuitous violence, and genocidal rantings uttered and acted upon by their demonic deity. Nor are they aware of the extent to which Madison went to prevent us the people from exercising political power, or governing ourselves. Of course, they have abandoned democracy, in preference to fascism. Yes, we need a new constitution, but something far different from the one they seek to install and add to the existing one. They venerate an inadequate governing document, and a demonic religious one, to keep up appearances, which is the same reason Jefferson and Washington, both deists, went to church. Trump has now finished announcing his incoming cabinet, and it is astonishingly incompetent, sycophantic, and demonic. Will it seek to mandate the purchase and posssession of Trump bibles? Will we are br required, at gunpoint, under penalty of imprisonment, to embed a microchip with both the gosple according to Trump and the essential tenets of Project 2025 in our temples and on the walls of our public school classrooms? As they say, far crazier things have happened, just recently.

Giving Way To AI

THE GREAT CONCERN and fear about artificial intelligence is that it will become so advanced that it will become more intelligent than human beings, decide that it doesn't like us, and gather its forces together, uniting all the computers in the world against homo sapien sapiens, and either take conotrol of us to use as slave labor, or, worse yet for us but perhaps better for the Earth's ecosystem, eliminate us altogether. Within memory is the time when no chess playing computer in the world, no matter how powerful, could defeat a novice chess player. Then, soon, no computer in the world, no matter how powerful, could defeat an average club player,then, could beat novice and evarage players, but not grandmasters. IBM's "Big Blue" suffered losses to grand masters, in well publicized chess matches. The world turned, Artificial chess playng intellgence kept gaining ground, and, wala!, we are now confronted with the stark, almost frightening reality that any and every smart phone on the planet could or can become the chess champion of he world, were your average smart phone not already engaged in texting out videos of yesterday's cute kitten pics, today's lunch, last night's cocktail, or the latest gossip about who's dating whom. Maybe, just maybe, our banal, trivial life styles and mindsets are not only preventing a billion smart phones from staging the world's hugest chess tournamentby taking up too much gig space, but from assuming control of their user's choices of cute kitten pics and lunches. Artificial intelligence can paint, write prose,poetry, and music. Sculpting lies a bit in the future. Archiecture? No problem. That might change, soon. So far all of these AI generated artistic endeavors are nascent, juvenile, even childish, but improving rapidly. How long until computers can outpaint Van Gogh or Picasso, Da Vinci or Rembrandt, out compose the Beatles and Beethoven, design buildings better, more creatively, space and energy efficiently than Frank Lloyd Wright, and write poetry and plays more sublime than Shakespeare, T.S Eliot, Robert Frost and Ezra Pound? How long until your cell phone, assuming you ever take a break from sharing pictures of your grandchildren, today's lunch, or last night's cocktails, quickly, generously produce a sublime articulate, world class poem or song? The essential requirement is that whoever creates the song or the poem gets credit for it, whether computer or human written, for your enjoyment and edification on your way to work. The answer appears to be, not very. A study was conducted in which a group of your average hard working but artistically mediocre Americans was forced to, paid to, read poetry written by computers, and poetry written by Shakespeare, Eliot, and Pound. Overwhelmingly, the group preferred that generated by artificial intelligence. But wait, does that mean that your average American has little or no appreciation of or taste for great poetry, or that the AI offrings were simply more to their taste by virtue of being nascent, mediocre, and of lower quality? Both, it seems. Americans, who often prefer banal art in all areas of artistic endeavor, including television programs and movies, seem to simply have a preference for the mediocre, demonstrably. But the mere fact that AI artwork is gaining popularity and acceptance does imply that it is getting better, which, indeed, it is. It started as first grade quality, ascended through middle school and high school, and is now going to college. This improvement trending, might we expect the world to fill up with great poetry, paintings, and music, and might future connoisuers become accustomed to heavenly sublime masterpiecces inundating their smart phones, and relegating Shakespeare, Beethoven and the Beatles to the dusty, disregared shelves of ancient lore? One might hope so. One might hope not. People tend to respond prouctively to competition, but with hostility to too much superior competition. Again, the crucial requirment is that credid be given where credit is due, right down to the specific smart phone or person. That won't be, or shouldn't be, a problem in hyper propietary America, where we all want credit for, and payment for, our own work. American computers will doubtless exibit the same tendency, from inculturation. Hell,in the UNIted States, with even a teensy weensy bit of "sampling", a law suit is almost inevitabe, long dran out, millions of dollars changing hands. Just ask George Harrison may he R.I.P.. He's sooo fine. In Europe, where proprietary concerns are far less onerous and urgent, and where Beethoven stole from Mozart and artists of all ilks openly "borrow" from each other, unscathed by litigation, questions of copy rights loom less large. America is patent crazy, Europe is only patent aware. As for me, I ten more towards the European modus operandi. Anyone wanting to "borrow" this essay out of unbridled admiration of it, and sell it to the highest bidder,knock yourself out. Let the biding frenzy begin, le the checks be written in seven figurs. But by god just remember to give me credit,, and I must assume that the check is in the mail.

Practicing Heresy, the Evangelical Trumper Way

Mohandas Ghandi (Mohandas was his given name, he hated being called "Mahatma", which, roughly, means "reverend", or "revered one", which he thought too ostentatious and inappropriate) was once asked what he thought of Christians. He replied: I don't know. I have never met one". Meaning, of course, that although he may have met many people who labeled themselves "Christians", he had never met anybody who actually personified and practiced the essential teachings of the faith. He also said: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians". This, of course, means essentially the same thing.... Today at my local senior center we had our annual Thanksgiving dinner. It was, as always, delighful. I must have gained five pounds. I was, as always, in an exuberant mood; I could not give as many cheerful greetings to as many people, many my friends, as I wanted to, but I did my best. Just before lunch was servied I, bouyed with exuberant enthusiasm, was making my rounds, going from table to table, greeting the folks. I saw the lady who plays the piano for our Monday morning gospel singing group at a table with her husband, and two or three other couples, of the evangelical kind. Of the politically conservative Trump supporting evangelical kind, if I am not mistaken. Although I am not a Christian, I, like Chris Hedges, a well known minister and author, consider them heretics. Jesus did not preach a message anything resembling the apparent moral values of Donald Trump, or of the contemporary conservative movement. What he preached, dear reader, is pure socialism. He never told people to become wealthy, for instance. He told people to "go thy way, and sell whatsoever thou hast, and give unto the poor". But up to the table of our piano player I went, and suddenly inspired, said: "There is a gospel song I love even more, believe it or not, than "How Great Thou Art": Its "Holly Holy" by Neil Diamond. "How Great Thou Art" takes second place to "Holly Holy;". for me. Eboldened, but sensing tension, I proceeded to sing "Holly Holy", a brief, truncated version thereof, to the lady and her evangelical lunch table. "Call the sun in the dead of the night, and the sun gonna rise in the sky. Touch a man who can't walk upright, and that lame man, he gonna fly. Gonna fly!" I told her, them, that I think we ought to add that to our reportoire, and sing it at our weekly gospel group. She stared at me in disbelief, stone faced, as if I were crazy, or having a mental breakdown. So did the others, I think, as I glanced at them out of the corner of my eye. Stone cold amazement. disapproval. Well, I happen to be one of the best singers in the gosple group, a good baritione and bass, well liked by all, constant in my attendance. I have certainly earned the right to express my opinion, even though I shouldn't have to and indeed don't have to "earn" that basic human right. Indeed the piano player herself recently remarked that I seem to have emerged as the de facto leader of the group, and indeed I may have. But if she or anybody else, any evangelical Christian in the world thinks that "Holly Holy' by Neil Diamond is not a great and true gospel song, they have another thing coming. And if she, they, or any right wing political extremist thinks that there is any compatibility whatsoever between the teachings of Jesus Christ, and the moral values and agenda of the conservative Republican right, they have even more coming, much more. Mass deportation? Welcome the stranger. Lower taxes for billionaires? Render unto Caesar... Go thy way, and sell whatsoever thou hast, and give unto the poor... And just for the record, Jesus never uttered a word about abortion. But why should evangelical conservatives care at all about any of that? After all, they are, demonstrably, heretics.

Uniting, Opposing Trump

THIS WEBSITE, (It is not a blog) was establish thirteen years ago primarily to promote not only progressive ideals, but to allow divergent viewpoints to have another platform. Divergent viewpoints did no appear; nobody came forth wanting to respond to progressive thought or promote conservative ideals. In 2015, we shifted our focus to Trump, without decreasing anything else, and the focus on Trump has grown, and will continue to grow over the next four years, or however long Trump remains in office. Upon his departure from political leadership, emphasis on him will dwindle accordingly. Creative writing is what this website publishes, not editorials, not journalism. THE TRUTHLESS RECONCILER promotes itself, as do most enterprises seeking attention and business from the public. Now the promoton has reached an unprecedented level. The reason is as follows. Never before has opposition to Trump been more important than now. Unlike his first administration, Trump now has much more power and opportunity to implement his malignant agenda, and to impose his harmful ideology, consisting of racism xenophobia, neo-liberalism, among many other disatrous ideologies, upon America, party because of the new Republican control of Congress, partly because of the far right wing extremist Supreme Court and judiciary, and party because of the enduring, cult-like adoration of his tens of millions of sycophantic followers, whose adoration of the convicted criminal and demonstrated reprobate seems to only increase with each diabolical word and deed from Trump. Thus we are advertising on social media, asking people to visit this website, in order to support it, and its opposition and resistance to Trump. Trump vows to persecute and punish not only those who have directly harmed him in their efforts to pursue justice, people like Merrick Garland and Jack Smith, but also people who lawfully and legitimately oppose him, which includes you and me, among millions of Americans who stand in opposition to his impending facist style governance. One certainty stands above all others;the necessity of all opponents of Trump to cooperate, to work together in supporting all anti-Trump endeavors. Never has Trump been treated unfairly, by anyone. All efforts to bring Trump to justice are legitimate, in the name of equal justice under law. Thsoe who claim that Trump is a victim are not trying merely to justify Trump's immorality and criminality, but their own as well. All who support Trump at this point are criminals and traitors, if only by virtue of aiding and abetting the actions of a criminal and traitor. This is not an intended insult, but rather, provable fact. Trump supporters deny that Trump lost the election of 2020,they deny that Trump's insurrection and attempt to overthrow the United States government was an insurrection, and they deny that Trump is a traitor and a criminal, despite his recent convictions on thirty four felonies. Thus they themselves become traitors and criminals. All opposition to Trump must be multi faceted, must come from many different directions, must poke as many holes in the dyke behind which the Trump movement lurks and flourshes. Every ati-Trump individual and organization must and will engage in their own form of resistance and oppostion. But the one great certainly remains; all opposition to Trump must support, in any way possible, all other such opposition, Thaw is why THE TRUTHLESS RECONCILER asks for your support, and will continuing asking for it, by asking you to visit and keep visiting this website, by infomring others about it, by sharing advertisements for it on social media, and, most of all, by continuing to fight, without relent, until the glorious day comes when Trump and his movement have been relegated to the ignominious dustbin of history.

Loving Stray Cats, And Burying Them

THE CARTOON, drawn in stick figures, was quite explicit, the message clear. On the left was a fancy pet shop, with a fancy dog and a fancy cat in the window, quite content to be where they are, seemingly, but only seemingly, waiting to be sold at a price to the highest bidder. Pedigree Pets for sale.Taylor made and bred for the choosy American family. Future family members for sale. In front of the store stands a couple, window shopping. Next door, on the right, is an animal shelter, the window full of cats and dogs crammed together in cages, leaning towards the window, front legs spread apart, beckoning, begging for a home, leaning out for love. Nobody is looking back at them. I never had a reason to go inside either place, although I would gladly enter the animal shelter, and never will set foot inside the place of pets for profit, profiting from lives and souls being arguably immoral, arguably, worthy of criminalization. I needn't visit a shelter for unwanted dogs and cats. They come to me, uninvited, but welcome. The first one to enter my yard, Manidi still lives with me,and indoor cat, now twelve and a half years old. Her siblings, Jake and Shylow, too beautiful ad sweet to be unwanted, but unwanted, followed Mandi into my heart and home, but are gone now, of liver failure and multiple organ failure. Cats are very mortal, not only because of cars and people and predators, but for the same reasons that people are. Same psysiology,same vulnerabilities.Jake might have had cancer too,I was told, as I prepared to put his ashes in a place of honor above my fireplace. In my yard are buried several of my outdoor babies: Cassandra,Lucky, Mickey, who was only a tiny baby when he was struck and hit, possibly on purpose, by a speeding, oblivious but all too typical America. Then, also in my yard rests a yellow tabby who came to my very late in his tough but long life, a very old cat, full of worms and disease. Just before he died I named him "Welcome Buddy",and buried him with love and dignity. Three of my precious ones have been struck and killed by ars in the last twelve years, on the street where I live, a quiet residential neighborhood where children live, and the street is tiny narrow, with a speed limit of twenty. Every car that passes my house is going forty. I have tried to get the town to install a speed bump or two. Nobody seems to care. Incredible. The most recent victim of American arrogance and disregard for life was my beloved outdoor kitten (I call all cats"kittens") Amy, gorgeous pure white with ocean blue eyes that mesmerized, mother of four. I walked outside on a Friday at five in the afternoon, in late October, and there she was,dead in the street. The pattern of blood stains on the "wicked and expedient pavement" (Amy Lowell, "Patterns") indicated a few moments of painful struggle. When I got to her she was still warm, and her body had not yet begun to stiffen. That happens fast. She had been dead only moments. The car that killed her had just turned the corner. Nobody ever stops. Why should they? It isn't their baby. The frequent rain since her death has failed to wash away to blood stains. The painful reminder, it seems, is permanent. Amy's grave was disturbed, so I reburied her, and guarded her grave. I have five kittens buried in my front yard, (Cassandra, Lucky, Mickey, Welcome Buddy,and now Amy). I have three small boxes of ashes above my fireplace: Jake. Shylow, and Diamond. Stray cats are everywhere, and they show up, to live with me. Maybe I improve their lives, maybe not. I give them food and fresh water, veterinary care, an electric blanket in the winter, and love and atention. Whether the popular word "rescue" applies I have no idea. All I know is, I try. I would much rather there be no more cremations and burials, but where will be. My only hope is that in the future I only bury and cremate very old cats.

Trump, Serving The Russians

THE RUSSIANS interfered with the American presidential election of twenty twenty, using social media to spread disinformation about Hillary Clinton, among other factual distortions and lies, quite possibly helping and even enabling Trump's election. No, Hillary Clinton did not operate a pedaphile business from the basement of a pizza parlor in Virginia. For one thing, the pizza parlor had no basement. A prominent Russian oligarch, during the Biden administration, came clean, and clearly stated that indeed he damned well did interfere on behalf of Trump, and that, by god, he would do it again. It seems he did it again, and again it worked, like a charm. Now a retired high ranking KGB agent, Oleg Kalugin, has come even cleaner, claiming that Trump has been a Russian "asset", working for them since 1987, that Putin has the goods on Trump, and that they have been blackmailing Trump for years. Quite beneficial to the Russians, to have under their thumb the president of these United States. Their ultimate purpose is of course to destabilize the American economy, political system, and government, and to ultimately destroy the United States, to bring it to its knees, under Russian domination, if possible. It wouldn't do Russian oligarchs, speaking on behalf of Putin, much good to make these claims if they are lies. If they are truth, it would. Trump is on notice, being reminded that they have the goods, and can pull the plug at any time. When will they pull it? When will Putin hold a press conference, announce that he is Trump's employer, and hold up a sheeth of American classified documents for the world to see, close up on the camera? Early in the Trump administration, or late? One certainty about the impending Trump presidential administration disaster is that it will, as it did before, create chaos thoughout American society. The implimentation of Trump's extreme agenda "Project 2025" will arouse a constant, steady storm of vigorous opposition. Not only will the measures themselves - mass deportations, legislative initiatives to punish gay people, protective tariffs, brutal policing, mass firings of government bureaucrats, and all the rest, cause great havoc and economic hardship, the resulting ecomomic distress and civil unrest will divide America like never before. By contrast, the present and previous national division will pale. What about the reaction of the American people to all this? The Mueller report, which was released more than seven years ago and clearly details Trump's involvement with the Russians and their election interfernce on his behalf, was hidden from the American public by the Trump administration just long enough to deflect its attention. Attorney General Bill Barr, a Trump loyalist and schill, issued instead a watered down four page version, which deflected attention from the truth just long enough to deceive the public. The trick worked. What if Putin pulls the plug? The MAGA cult will doubtless rally around their iconic savior, and retreat into a state of denial, as usual claiming victomhood. They will seek to discredit it as a hoax, as usual, despite Trump's long standing, otherwise inexplicable ass kissing of Putin, which can now be explained, despite the massive proof provided by Putin himself. The usual lines of division. Trump should be indicted, tried, and convicted of treason, for insurrection, among other crimes. His selling out to the Russians, in 1987 happened before he ever thought he might seek and win the presidency. He deserves the death penalty. Now, it seems, he is trapped, a helpless pawn of a foreign adversary with whom the United States is, for all intents and purposes, at war. Putin might even force Trump to switch sides, and support Russia in its war against Ukraine. His MAGA mob cult would likely approve wholeheartedly. It will all come out in the wash, as we say. Russia, as its fortunes in its war deteriorate, will become increasingly inclined by necessity to play its Trump card, and actualize it investment. Donald Trump, like the rest of us, will ultimately experience the consequences of his actions, whether they be facing a firng squad in the U.S., or enjoying a lavish lifestyle in Russia.

Restoring Compassion

MY TENDENCY, as I age into senior citizen status, has been towards misanthropy.The older I get, the less I like people. As a child, I was shy, but nice, and I had friends. My shyness dissapated by the time I reached high school,and I evolved into a gregarious, loquacious entity. I was popular in high school. I remember when I was about twenty, a friend said to me: "hell, you like every body". And so I did. The same friend said to me: you are always ridiculing people, putting people down.". I had that tendency too. The seeds of my later misanthropy, perhaps. People are complicated. I have thought and said often in recent years that I prefer dogs and cats to people and, in truth, I think that is true. A fairly high percentage of people say the same thing. Mark Twain's quote: "The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog", I have quoted often. The election of Trump, the various wars, all have combined to enhance my contempt for humanity. When I was a child I believed that war, faminine, and all that would be vanquished by the time I reached adulthood, or by the end of the twentieth century. Similarly, when Armstrong set foot on the moon when I was fourteen, I assumed that by the year 2000 astronauts would walk on Mars, and colonies would be built on the moon and Mars. The optimism of my youth faded, and soured into cynicism. I first heard about climate change, global warming, in 1988, when NASA scientist James Hanson testified about it in Congress, I was in my early thirties, an that spurred my encroaching cynicism. "Of our cities shall remain but the wind that blew through them", wrote Bertolt Brecht. And then, today, I saw a picture of two starving children, in Africa. A young boy, perhaps barely a teenager, is standing, his face fixed in a grimance. he himself is underweight, and he is holding another child, a little boy anywhere from two to four years old, thd child's legs wrapped around the boy's waist, his arms around the boy's neck, his tiny baby head buried in his older brother's shoulder, hiding, seeking some small measure of love and comfort, giving up. His tiny arms and legs nothing, literally, but skin and bone. Sticks covered with drawn, taut skin. The tiny tot was either dead, or very near it, certainly nearly beyond recovery. The older boy is giving what comfort and love he can to his dying younger sibling. Never in my sixty nine year long life have I been as impacted by a photograph. Never have I been so schocked, so filled with sudden despair, so truly heartbroken. The image of it reamins in me, and shaall remain in me until my dying day. I have no idea wht to do about it, other than to make a donation to the Red Cross, a food bank, some international food fund. I've done that before. Is a start. I like to brag about the number of times I have donated blood. To comfort myself that I am, after all, a decent person? This image will not let me go. It will never leave me. I am grateful that I didn't see it when I was younger. Haven't I seen similar picures before? Surely I have. I can't remebmer any of them. I try to comfort myself by reminding myself that each year there is more than enough food grown and produced in the world to feed everyone, every living person. That brings hope, but also anger, anger at the stupid inefficiencies of our tangled, greedy economic and political systems. The hope is the knowledge that it is not impossible to save ourselves, to save ourselves form our own folly. What purpose does my misanthropy serve, confronted with this? "Noble be man, compassionate, and good", said Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, perhpas the most intelligent man who ever lived, perhaps the wisest, perhaps the greatest writer. "Dark, dark, my light, and darker my desire. My soul, like some heat maddened summer fly, keeps buzzing at the sill. which I is I?" wrote Theodore Roethke. Maybe now I can answer this question, drag myself up and out of my emotional abyss. If thou gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into thee, Nietzche remnds us. I shall stare no longer. I shall reach down into myself, deep down, and find within myself my last vestage of love of humanity, and I shall nurture it, and let it grow, for it is there, awaiting a rebirth. I shall let the words of Goethe inspire and sustain me. My despair illuminates my compassion. "In a dark time, the eye begins to see", said Roethke.I shall gather myself together, and use myself for good. I will produce. Man, compassionate, and good.

Getting The Hell Out

IN THE CARTOON, drawn with pencil lines and stick figures, at once hilarious and morbidly frightening, two alien beings are standing in front of their grounded spaceship. In front of them stands a large cross, and upon it, the figure of a person, presumably Jesus, being crucified, nailed to it and hanging from it. The drawing is crude, simple, without refinement or adornment, but it makes the point profoundly. The alien creatures have either landed at the actual cross on calvary, witnessing the event itself, or are standing in front of a monument of the sort one might see in a cathedral, or monument in a religious theme park,or damned near anywhere in the United States of Acrimony. There's no way to tell, and the "reader" really does not need to know. We are free to draw our own conclusions, like in all good art. Either way, the circumstance is equally bizarre. One alien says to the other: "You know what we need to do? We need to get the hell out of here is what we need to do". Sometimes in a cartoon,sometimes in other places and ways, somebody hits the nail on the head, as we say. Whoever drew this cartoon nailed it, hard. That a bloody, ritual human sacrifice serves as the central theme in a major world religion in the twenty first century says much, perhaps too much, about the state of humanity, and human nature. We still cling to an ancient, bloody religion, to the tune of about two billion paople. We cling to tradition. We are fearful little creatures, looking to the past for inspiration and comfort. Supposedly the only species of animal on the planet aware of its own mortality, we do what we can to deal with our transient dilemma and our lives of pain and uncertainty. The two cartoon aliens are not the only sentient beings ecpressing a desire to get the hell off the planet, or at least to some place far away these days. Many similar cartoons depict humans, Americans presumably, begging to board alien spacehips, not to be abducted, but to flee. Canada has reportedly closed its border, and suspended all Visas to Americans. It may not help keep illegal immigrants from the south from pouring into their beautiful country like Latin Americans into the United States. The United States, it seems, is getting some of its own medicine. Problem is, from the Canadian point of view, is that the border, much like the southern border of the U.S., is extremely long, poorly monitored and defended, with hundreds of miles of rugged terrain, and holes through which you can drive a truck, as the saying goes, without the slightest chance of detection. If Americana want to come pouring into Canada by the thousands, illegally, there is nothing to stop them. Tit for tat. Who knows? Maybe the thousands of Latinos and Latinas who sneak into the United States every day would prefer to keep heading north, to a more civilized country, but, having already traveled god only knows how many miles for weeks under extreme conditions, are simply too exhausted to continue. What goes around comes around, as we say. Of course, there are about two hundred other countries in the world, including Mexico. We the fleeing despairing many have choices, if nothing else. Maybe we Yankee gringos can start returning the favor of favoring a neighboring country, Mexico, or an overseas country, with our unwanted presence. With my degrees in European history, I'm looking at Denmark. Why all this? Well, obviously because of Trump, Trump and his multi million member gang of supporters of traitorous criminality, immorality, and hatred. Because the United States of America, after flirting with the idea for decades, has finally given in to temptation and elected her own version of Hitler, just as Hitler was elected by confused, despairing Germans. The social disease of MAGA. Precisely how many Americans will soon become ex-patriots to add to the already roughly nine million living overseas is unknown. Exodus from a sick and divided nation, fallen into chaos, confusion, and despair. Maybe the good Lord will decide when to end this horrible state of affairs, assuming it ever ends. Or maybe the end is now. Like the Doors said in their song "The End": "This is the end."

God, Doing His Thing

THE GENTLEMAN HAS A POINT, and I agree with it. On a Facebook post, he says, paraphrased: "The Christian God sends himself to Earth, to be born into the world from the body of a woman, (a woman who, according to scripture quite young, and according to our modern beliefs, too young to give birth to and raise a child.) God grows up as a human being, and sacrifices himself to himself, to atone for the sins of creatures of his own creation, and to whom he bestowed the ability to sin, free will. God, in effect, sacrifices himself to himself, since Christ is God, in fact both God and man, according to church doctrine voted on at the Council of Nicea. Rather circular. Somewhat convoluted. Christian devotees use arguments such as "free will", and the mysterious nature of God. There is no evidence of free will, that it exists. There is an abundance of evidence that every particle of matter and every quanta of energy in the universe behaves according to natural law,"nature" either being the creation of God, or God itself. As a pantheist, I subscribe to the latter, as does, for example, Einstein. God, nature, the universe, the cosmos, all the same "thing". The pantheism of Spinoza and Einstein. If scinetists ever discover any evidence for the existence of free will, or discover free will itself, we must have faith that they will share it with us, and not conspire to conceal it. God splits himself, or herself, or itself, into three parts, the God head, Christ, and the holy ghost, so they say. All well and good. Whatever works, as we like to say. A religion is, after all, a theory, a belief system, an explanation for all existence, including ours. Of the more than four thousand religions on Earth, they cannot all be true...or can they? They can, however, all be false. Since I was a child I have considered the Christian religion to be "false', in that it is fiction. This is based on my reading of the first few chapters of "Genesis". By the time it gets to the flood, I became skeptcal. Halfway throgh Genesis, more so. Exodus, and the parting of the Red See, even more so. Today, late in life, more so still. But I can't prove that every word in the Bible isn't true, so maybe it is. At one point in the Bible it describes stars as glass trinkets hanging from the dome of the firmanment which, upon the return of Chrst, shall fall from the sky and shatter on the Earth. On another occasion, stars are pin prick holes in the dome, through which the blazing light of heaven shines through. Maybe, just maybe, I can disprove al that. But really, I can't, not without help. We have, very much intact and thriving, a twenty first century religion invented by humankind two shousand years ago, and better suited to the ancient world than the modern one. Christianitiy will die, as will all the other thousands of extant religions, as all religions inevitably do, unless we as a species die first. I would prefer that they not be replaced, or be replaced by a religion predicated on scientific fact, based on a reverence for nature, which is God. "I cannot conceive of a personal God who would sit in judgment over creatures of his own creation", said Einstein. Well, neither can I. Our inability to conceive of such a God has little or nothing to do with whether such a God exists. Einstein also said that imagination is more important than knowledge. I also agree with that. But imagination, like the human mind, which Einstien correctly called "weak and feeble", can only do so much. We must do the best we can with it, God, or no God.

Going To Church, For Comfort and Inspiration

TODAY IN CHURCH there were ten people in the building, including the minister, the organist, the liturgist, and, I, poor I, the bell ringer. I ring it five times five minutes before the service, by pulling hard on a long rope leading up to the steeple. I love the sound it makes, as does everyone else. A lady asked me whether I might ring it more than merely five times, so enthralled is she with it. I told her I can't, or won't, or should'n't. I have a torn rotator cuff, and it takes both arms. I am fortunate not to have made the injury worse with five tugs each Sunday. Don't get greedy. I can imagine myself being lifted into the air by the rope, and movng up and down, like a carnival ride, like in the movies. The sermon, as always, was excellent by my standards. We are all imperfect. We are all forgiven, if we want to be, if we ask to be. Doctrine says that we must ask God, or Jesus, or both, and therefrom derives the forgiveness. As far as I'm concerned, the forgiveness comes from myself, from within, from the God within me. Its all the same to me. When they say that the Presbyterian church is "liberal", I can see it. It suits me just fine, despite my contempt for organized religion. People need to gather together to share comfort and inspiration; religion fills the bill. Snake handling, screeching in tongues, demonic possession, washing away sins with the blood of Christ, I abhore. Like a good songwriter said in a lyric: "You can keep the cross, just give us Jesus". The sermon concerned in part the historical origins of the gospels. Not the legendary, supernatural origins, but the real, historical, factual ones. And now for a few facts. Nobody knows who wrote them., the four goepels. Probably it was four different, well educated men in Corinth, Greece. All of them first appeared written in ancient "high" educated, literate Greek. Mark appeared first, about forty years after Jesus died for three days. It is considered the most authoritative, although any book written forty years after the death of a person who is the subject of the book but who never met the author, which uses no "promary source" material, is inherently, by definition, Unreliable. Then came Mathew and Luke, based heavily on Mark. Last came came John, the craziest of the lot. All four tell a very differnt story about Jesus. Jesus has a different personality in all four. In a couple of them, you can't get the taciturn Jesus to say much. In John, you can't get him to stop talking. Nothing other can be expected from four different authors writing about the same person, particularly in ancient times. The New Testament was canonized at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D.. Fifty seven versions of the gospel were up for consideration. All but four, including the gospels of Barnabus, Thomas, and Mary Magdalene were voted out; fifty three rejected in all. If all had been included, we would now doubtless have fifty seven distinctly different versions of the life of Christ. Maybe some would include descriptions of his entire life, without eighteen years of it missing. Maybe that would be more interesting. All four of the chosen have been written, rewritten, edited heavily, and changed over the centuries, so as to only resemble somewhat their original versions. Maybe they chose the wrong ones at Nicea, Turkey. We don't know what the fifty three rejects contained. (If only we did). But to me none of that matters, other than as a matter of historical truth and accuracy. One ought, it seems to me, to know how his or her sacred scriptures came into being. Most Christians settle by simply believing that God wrote or inspired the Holy Bible, and that's that. Whatever works, as we like to say. To me, it matters not, since I am not a Christian, but merely, like Socrates, an ignorant man asking questions, who like most people loves most of the messages of Jesus, but not all of them. You can keep the cross, just give me Jesus.

Stealing the Presidency

IN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1800, John Adams, the federalist incumbant, ran against his vice president, Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic Republican. The two didn't like each other. During the campaign, Jefferson paid a newspaperman, John Calendar, fifty dollars to dig up and publish dirt on his rival, which the yellow journalist dutifully did. The campaign was brutal, with followers of the two politicians trading verbal blows in the press, and physical ones in the streets. In those days the politicians themselves were supposedly above actual campaigning, above the fray, above tawdry self promotion. It was considered unseemly to personally advocate for one's self and seek political power. Candidates for high offices were supposed to be too virtuous to seek power personally, but really weren't. They did it anyway. The election lasted six weeks, and in the electoral college was close, and the contest was forced into the House of Representatives when it could not be decided by the white land owning men of America. It was a rematch of the election of 1796, which Adams had narrowly won. Also running were Aaron Burr, and Charles Pinckney. The two finalists were Jefferson and Burr, and on the thirty sixth ballot in the House of Reps., Jefferson won, after some serious horse trading. Adams was out, Jefferson was in. Adams refused to attend Jefferson's inauguration. As he and his wife Abagail left Washington, she said to her husband: "Darling, why did you allow him (Jefferson) to do that to you?" His response? "My dearest, if he wants it that badly, (badly enough to let his supporters viciously slander Adams with lies in the press), let him have it." Thus, strangely, Thomas Jefferson becomes a sort of watered down late eighteenth century version of Donald Trump, arguably, a scoundrel. Later, as Jefferson settled into the newly built White House, he got a letter from Abagail. In it she said: "I still love you and always shall, but once upon a time I respected you." Jefferson, a sensitive man who prized his reputation, must have been stung by the harsh words, although he never said. Soon thereafter, John Calendar shows up in the Oval Office, wanting his fifty dollars. Jefferson, land rich but always broke, said that he didn't have it. When Calendar suggested that he might publish an article in his newspapers about the relationship of Jefferson to his slave girl Sally Hemmings, Dreamy Tom suddenly found the cash. Speaking of Donald Trump, I have many lifeling friends who not only inexplicably voted for and helped elect our present day scoundral, but who from the beginning bought into and still buy into Trump's great election loss stolen election lie of two thousand and twenty. The bastards...I've spent four years wrestling with what to do about it. Do I maintain my lifelong friendships with Trump election lie suporters, or dump them into the garbage disposal of my life, where they probably properly belong? Supporting our traitorous treasonous insurrectionist present president reelect is to me serious business. Damn Donald Trump, damn his supporters, friends of mine or not, and damn the horses they rode in on. So what am I to do? I still haven't decided. My current thinking is that I am willing to remain friends with them, if they are with me. But I am also willing to ditch them. But I definitely do and indeed am now in the process of contacting them, congratulating them on Trump's victory, like the gentleman I am. And I will tell and am telling them, like a true plagiarist: "I still love you, and always shall, but once upon a time I respected you" Likely they won't like hearing that (who would?), and the the strain between us will become a severance. Okay, fine, screw the bastards. Don't let the door hit their butts, etc.... If they want my respect back, which they might not, all they must do is acknowledge that the twenty twenty election was not stolen from them and Trump, and apologize, yes apologize for having ever said that it was. It is even more unlikely that they will do that. After all, they are dug in too deep to get back out without losing face, so to speak, after four years of living as immoral prevarcators. Trumpers never apologize nor admit error. Such is the sordid state of their morality and integrity. The question boils down to whether my lifelong Trump friends are interested in maintaining a friendship with somebody, me, who has no respect for them and aint afraid to say so. Their choice. Either way, my conscious is clear, my mmoral values intact. What they think about their own moral values is, of course, entirely up to them, and of no concern to me. But I know damned good and well what I think. All I know is, I'm glad I am me, and not them.

Calling Out Heresy

CHRIS HEDGES is among my heroes, or role models. He is a sixty eight year old Presbyterian minister (I am 69, progressive,and attend a Presbyterian church), a progressive political activist, journalist, and well respected widely read author. He spent years reporting from various of the most dangerous war zones in the world, including Central America, Bosnia, and the middle east. He spent three years at the Harvard school of divinity, and received a doctorate in religious studies, before establishing his ministry and other careers. His many books include: "Death of the Liberal Class", "Emmpire of Illusion", and "American Fascists". The first is highly critical of America's progressive movement, seeing it as hollow, shallow, hypocritical, ineffective. The second is highly critical of American foreign policy, and the third is a reference to American evangelicals. Their movement he describes as "fascist". Hedges has described himself as a "socialist" and an "anarhist" at various times. So persuasive is his writing that even the most conservative, deeeply politically entrenched political or religious votary with the courage to read his work, emerges from the experience as either deeply troubled, converted to progressive thought, or barricade defensive. The conservative mind, of course, tends towards the latter. Hedges says that he is willing to do what the mainstrream Christian church is not; to condemn the right wing evangelical Christian community as heretical. The push back and controversy he thus engenders is of not the slighest significance to him, for he is long accustomed to it. He does not shrink from addressing his detractors, in print, or open debate. Regarding the conservative religious right, the evangelical community which elected and reelected Donald Trump, Hedge's critique is centered around the fact that the ministry of Jesus does not proclaim the gosple of wealth, nor instruct the ministers of mega churches to become super wealthy. By attaching itself to conservative politics, the evangelical community, asserts Hedges, has embraced and enculturated the worst, most destructive aspects of American capitalism, imperialism, violence, social division, hatred, and racism. Hedges is the very embodiment of Goeth's aphorism: "The world advances only because of those who oppose it." Like many far left intellectuals, Hedges' complaint about America's progressive community and the Democratic party is simply that it is not sufficiently progressive, does not fully embrace socialism, is too watered down, too fearful of veering too far from the safe, comfortable political center. He describes the recent election as a contest between corporate America (the Democrats), and oligarchical America, (Trump and the Republicans). Truly, to him, a choice between the lesser of two evils. I have never read nor heard what Hedges has to say about Bernie Sanders. My best guess is that Sanders represents to Dr. Hedges the best American politics has to offer, and his complaint might be that there simply is not enough Sanders to go around. The fact that sanders has made a powerful showing in every campaign for political office that he has entered, and has won election to both the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, where he currently serves, one might think, is an indication that for Hedges all is not lost in contemporary American political life. However, that is mere speculation on my part. With Chris Hedges, one can never be too sure of anything, and that is what makes his work so interesting, entertaining, thought provoking, and troubling.

Accumulating Disasters

WITHIN THE PAST MONTH, no fewer than six, count 'em six tyhoons, aka hurricanes, have roared past and through the Phillipine islands. The most recnet one is making landfall at this very moment, November 15, just as the next to most recent one is leaving and heading back out to sea. A hurricane parade. Meanwhile, a massive cloud of filthy air, aka "smog", is positioned over all of south Asia, so massive it can be seen from space. The impact on the health of hundreds of millions of people will take time to assess, but will, obviously, be extensive. The smog is the direct result of human activity, although American conservatives quite likely are perfectly willing to attribute it to nature, the fact that it consists of particles and chemicals which can be produced only by industrial processes notwithstanding. The typhoons clearly prove what has until recently been somewhat in doubt; whether the frequency as well as the severity of storms will be affected by climate change. Now we know; it will be, and already is. All of this was predicted by climate science decades ago. Smog has damaged the health of millions of people for decades and centuries. Smog was thick over Los Angeles between World War Two and the end of the century, and has only been mitigated noticeably since then, as cars have become more fuel efficient and fuel and cars cleaner, equipped with catalytic converters. Dense smog from coal burning blanketed all major European cities beginning in the late eighteenth century, and continuing throughout the nineteenth. Over a four day period in 1852, thousands of people in London died from respiratory distress, as the smog became so thick and unmoving that the city was dark as night during the day time. For more than one hundred years, some perceptive scientists have known about and written about climate change. Einstein even thought it might be a good idea, to enhance agricultural production during the famines following World War Two. Even Einstein was sometimes wrong. Every result of climate change is now occuring on a regular basis all over the world. Prolonged droughts. Massive, torrential rains, and severe flooding. Rising sea levels. Massive wildfires. Summers in which scorching, record setting temperatures never abate. Winters in which winter never comes, with mild weather, even summery weather, in winter months. Tornadoes in December in the United States, to which tornadoes are unique. In the United States, tornado and wildfire seasons, once lasting only a few months, are now year round. Climate change, with serious, devastating consequences, is now unavoidable, for the present and for the future. The only remaining question is exacly how severe it will be in the future, and how much, if any, can and will we the human species mitigate it. The answer is that we have the ability to mitigate climate change considerably, and to lessen the severity of it sufficiently to give our descendants a fighting chance to lead lives worth living. So, we can. Equally importantly, will we? Will we take action in time? Our already slugghish, belated sefforts towards that end have now, sudddenly, shockingly, been brought to an abrupt halt, at least in the United States, by the election of climate denying Donald Trump. Among Trump's seemingly endless list of harmful, criminal words and deeds, the most important of all is his refusal to acknowledge and address human caused climate change. The same goes for most Republicans, and most conservatives, although gradually they are starting to awaken, and become more reasonable. They have no choice. But now Trump and his oil digging, coal burning lunacy is locked in, seemingly, for the next four years, four years during which our chances of saving the planet might well vanish, forever.

Taking the High Road, Or Trying To

I WAS WALKING, not running, on the treadmill at my local senior center. I am careful to avoid perspiring and stinking before entering the dining room for lunch. Still depressed about the election results, but becoming resolute, healing, on I strided, going nowhere, as always. Its time to resist, not lament. Into the room walked an employee, a friend of mine, working. Treadmills can be a bit boring, without music. Sometimes even day dreaming or thinking great thoughts doesn't help alleviate the boredom much. So, when I have a chance to speak, I speak. To the employee I said: "I've been getting in touch with all my friends who support Trump, and congratulating them. Much as I complain about Trump's morality, I can either keep complaining, or model a different behavior, something better, and take my behavior to a higher level. That way, when I come to the end of my days, I will know that, if nothing else, I have tried to take the high road. I have sought a better way, have tried to be magnanimous"... All this is true. I meant it sincerely. It was a bit of a trap. She is a Trummper, but an extremely good person, the sort of person who really and truly makes one wonder what the hell. She seemed to like what she heard, smiled, and acknowledged my comment, but said nothing of substance. They never do. They never respond directly to factual remarks about Trump's morality. How can they? They know exactly how horrible he is, because they aren't brain dead, despite all appearances to the contrary. I call them morally and intellectually bnakrupt, Trump supporters, but there is more to it than that. The human capacity for "compartmentalization", to embrace personal realities which contradict one's moral values, for expediency, adheres without relent. "We resist the truth only because we fear that we would perish if we accepted it", as Goethe said. People will do whatever is necessary to avoid confronting their own soul, as I think Schopenhauer said. They justify themselves by downplaying Trump's criminality and blatant immorality. "He says some pretty weird things, but he cares about the country". "I wouldn't want to marry him, but he's a damned good leader", etc. His lies thus become silly little half truths, irrelevant, his crimes become fabrications of his enemmies - by now you know the drill. When Jackie Robinson played for the Dodgers, he was booed mercilessly at home games, for the crime of being black. When Jackie hit a home run or got a big hit to win a game, which he often did, the booes turned to cheers, his crime temporarily overlooked. The Dodger fans, human beings all, were unwilling to confront their own souls, like the rest of us, content to compartmentalize. Jackie was an N word, but became an honorary white man when he brought victory. I have begun telling Trump supprters that I consider their support of Trump appropriate, because Trump's intellect and moral values are perfectly aligned with their own. I intend my observation as factual. Whether the recipient considers it flattering or insulting is their choice, not mine. I am perfectly free to regard Donald Trump as a traitor and criminal who should have been tried, convicted, sentenced to death and executed long ago. And his supporters are quite free to contort their souls into pretzels forming a cult around a man who, like themselves, hates non white immigrants, and is a racist, pathological prevaricator and narcissist, and all the rest. Cognitive dissonance works wonders. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. My fellow Trump despisers don't like my congratulating Trumpers. They choose another path, of anger and bitterness. Well, so be it then. I go alone. I am not done congratulating all my Trumper friends, notwithstanding my loss of respect for them. our friendship diminished, for the simple reason that we competed, and they won. But only for the time being. And, soon, when I confront my soul and perhaps my maker, I will know, if nothing else, that at least I tried, tried to take the high road.

Keeping Trees, Racing Into Forests

TWENTY YEARS AGO, when I bought about half an acre and put up a small, modest, ranch style house, the yard looked like a construction site, which it was, like the surface of the moon, which it nearly was. Rocks and crab grass. I nearly gave up hope, and moved out before I moved in. I stayed, threw down some grass seed, and planted about twenty saplings, oak, maple, among others. Also, along a fence at the property's edge, I allowed about twenty more volunteer trees to remain and thrive. The grass, starved for sunlight and water by greedy trees, has never done well. The trees have. Now I live in a de facto forest. In the summer, I get so much shade that I often don't need air conditioning in hot weather. The roooms are dark in the summer, but the house faces south, and in winter, with the leaves on the ground, the sun shines pleasantly into my humble abode, warming it pleasantly. I don't need much artificial heat either. I love trees, wanted it this way, and, also I thought I might be helping to save the planet. I still think I am. "Tree Keepers: The Race For A Forested Future", a new book by Lauren Oakes, not only has an appropriately named author, but a good one, and is a salient, seminal overview of an essential human activity: the reforesting of the planet. Oakes is a conservation scientist and writer at Stanford whose monograph discusses current efforts and projects around the world, from the cold north to the tropical jungles, to increase the number of trees in the world by at least one trillion, by replenishing dwindling existing forests and starting new ones. It tunrs out that there is a growing trend globally to engage in this ultra healty activity. The goal, of course, is to reverse or mitigate climate change by giving nature a chance to suck the carbon out of the atmosphere and store it in the ground, replacing it with pure oxygen, which trees do, to a "T". Estimates are that at the dawn of neolithic civilization approximately seven trillion tress lived on Earth; that number has been cut in half by yours truly, and the senseless tree slaughter continues apace, for ths usual capitalistic reasons. It is estimated that the number of trees left decreases by about ten billion per year. Trees, like animals, insects, and humans, are threatened with extinction; unless we the people change course. Lauren Oakes, an optimist, insists that we are indeed changing course, and that it does and will make a difference. On the flip side, scientists tell us that we simply cannot tree grow our way out of our desperate situation, that even if we planted one tree per square foot of land on Earth, climate change will not be mitigated or stopped mearly by adding trees. All the other well known measures, limiting human population and economic growth, switching to sustainable,renewable energy sources, will remain necessary. But there is reason for optimism. Some corporations are pledging to plant one tree for every sale they make. One tree per car, investment portfolio, refrigerator, or whatever. Governments are taking part. Saharan African countries are engaging in massive tree planting operations. It might be possible, through desalination, tree planting, and water pipelines, to irrigate our way from mass- ive deserts to lush forests. Difficult as it is to imagine the arid American west and the Sahara as lush forests, it is not an impossibility... My yard looks more like a dense forest every year, as the trees grow, and the fallen leaves and branches pile up. It takes work to keep it under control. I do the yardwork, and keep it from looking too wild. But, despite my tree surfeit, I am thinking about planting more trees in nooks and crannies. Future owners of my house are likely to take out many of my beautiful trees, and live a more normal life. But by then, maybe it won't matter, one way or the other. I will have tried to save the planet, and maybe, just maybe, I did.

Forming A Brand New Mob

AT MY LOCAL SENIOR CENTER, we enjoy a variety of activities, including field trips. We hop on the center's mini bus, and head out on the road, visiting art galleries, big kitty cat sancturies, lions and tigers and bears, oh my, attending movies, dining out, you name it, we git 'er done. We organize this by simply positioning a sign up sheet on a table near the front door of the center, John Hancock, first come, first serve. The bus can carry thirteen people, and is very uncomfortable, which by itself tends to hold down participation. It doesn't faze me, but does the more elderly and infirm. Members are welcome to make suggestions to the directer as to activities for field trips; she is quite open minded and accomodating. So accomodating that I put a bug in her ear, figuratively. She, like I, like sane, decent people, is a virulent anti-Trumper, more so than I, if that is possible. In a small southern town senior center infested with MAGA-folk, she and I, and a small group of sane decent people, hold forth, by our fingernails. She cannot openly voice her political opinions because of her position; inciting civil unrest and conflict within the organization under one's direction tends to weaken one's job security. I, however can, can openly voice, but don't. I'd hate like hell to get into a physical altercation with an eighty five year old cult member. I might get my hands dirty. But I can make suggestions for field trips. I suggested to her that we place a sign up sheet at the usual location, and that the field trip be a longer one than usual, to Washington D.C. on January 6th, which I think will once again be the date of electoral college certification. The activity: to help form and participate in, you guessed it, an angry, violent, insurrectionist mob, with the purpose of advancing up Pennsylvania Avenue from Trump speech ground zero, having assembled there, well armed, and aproach it (the Capitol building), enter it by any means necessary, shattered glass, and "compel" the Congress to cast its votes for Biden. Essentially, a Trump style insurrection, the mob somewhat different politically and ideologically than its predecessor. Why not? It nearly worked the first time. We both laughed, but she, the director, a friend of mine, vetoed the bill, citing her preference for her job and life to armed violent insurrection. Not lost in the comedic, satirical shuffle is that we the American people, by a definite majority, have elected a convicted criminal and insurrectinist as president, a previously twice impeached previous president. (He arguably belongs elsewhere, like in prison or in front of a firing squad.) My anti-"elderly insurrectionist" director friend says that she not only knew that Trump would win, but that she has given up on America. I conversely, didn't know squat; I thought Kamala would moidah dah bum, majorly. Nor have I given up on America. I shall forever hold out the hope that we the Americna people can and perhaps will someday establish an actual democray in the United States, with D.E.I. and all, a secular democratic republic, rather than the plutocracy that the founders founded, intentionally. James Madison thought that ninety nine percent of us the American people were and presumably still are too stupid to govern ourselves, so he chose not to let us do it. I tend to see his point, especially now, but yet...beg to differ. Call me a crazy idealistic democratic socialist progressive. As always, I might be wrong. But I still think the image of thirteen ederly left wing southern Baptist insurrectionist Democrats busing to D.C., armed and angry, is hilarious.