Dismantling A Defeated America

AN ACADEMICIAN, whoe name, precise area of expertise and job title I cennot reember, made an interesting observation, in the form of ametaphor. The Trump administration, he offered, is governing as if the United States had been defeated in a war, and was now being controlled and governed by the conquering, occupying enemy. The purpose of the new rulers is to destroy democracy, and replace the traditional American democratic republic with a fascist dictatorship. The authoritarian dictator seeks not to enhance the strength, prosperity, and health of the United States, but rather, to reduce it to impotent, weak, submmission to its conqueror. The more I think about it, the more I tend to agree, the more I can see that the scholar indeed has a point. The federal government is being dismantled, from the bottom up. The Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, are all, effectively, gone. Tens of thousnds of governmental employees are being fired daily. Eventually whoever the dictator is after Trump will have no huge bureaucracy lurking, possibly harboring resistance to authoritarian rule and seeking to bring back democracy. Farewell to the "deep state". The United States, economically and diplomatically, is being systematically cut off from the world. We Americans have now started a world wide trade war, and have plainly indicated to the world that it intends to engage in aggressive territorial expansionism, just like it did in the nineteenth century, and has, for all intents and purposes, since its beginning. Perhaps Trump and Putin have made a nefarious, secret personal alliance, according to which the U.S. is being governed by and from Moscow, with Trump a willing participant. Probably not though. Its difficult to imagine why Putin and the Russians would want the United States to acquire Greenand, Canada, and the Panama Canal, all of which the Trump administration plainly wants to do. So far not much has been said about what percentage of MAGA nation favors these vast territorial acquisitions; one might presume that it is substantial. Obviously, America's hidden oppressive rulers want the country to be governed by an authoritarian dictatorship, with virtually no political power remaining for the people. Perhaps Putin has helped install Trump for his own fascist reasons, just like, in the nineteen thirties, Hitler installed Franco in Spain, a fellow fascist. Observers of geo-politics and international relations have observed that the nation of israel seems to have a great deal of control over the United States government, and thus the United States. The U.S. almost with fail does israels's bidding. But it may be that Putin and Russia have a even deeper type of control, by virtue of having twice helped Trump become president, and by virtue of Trump owing Putina and Russia..something. You might almost expect Trump to issue an executive order any day now, declaring that henceforth the president of the United states may serve as many as three terms, or as many as he or she desires. This would be no more outlandish than many of the executive orders already issued by Trump. If the Supreme Court fails to rule that the Trump agenda is illegal, America is in trouble, and the only recourse will be a massive nationwide progressive protest, in the media, and in the streets.

Heat Increasing, Life Diminishing

SCIENTISTS PREDICT that this year there will be a seventy percent decrease in the honey bee population in the United States. To make such predictions, scientists, biologists of all kinds but especially entymologists, utilize a fascinating mix of empirical factors, having to do with weather patterns, and growth patterns of insect habitat, among other factors. In each of the past few years, they have predicted various amounts of honey bee decrease, forty percent, fifty percent, and so forth, and most of the time, their predictions have proven accurate. It is verified that the decrease in the number of all species of insects, world wide, has, over the past few years, been alarmingly precipitous. The insect population of Europe, including all species, has declined by at least fifty percent in the past two decades. A roughly similar situation is ongoing in the United States. This year's predicted seventy percent decrease in honey bees in North America is particularly alarming; at this rate, honey bees will be extinct within a few years. Honeybees, like all other pollinating insects, are, of course, absolutely vital to the existence not only of humankind, but of every species of life on the planet. The usual suspects are to blame; habitat loss, environmental pollution, climate change, and pesticides. As the wind howls like a hurricane outside my window, and so howls with increasing frequency every month and year, I reflect that the amount of heat in the atmosphere has increased drastically in recent years, as has the amount of carbon, which of course absorbs the extra heat from sunlight. Its as simple as that. Any grade schooler is capable of understanding the basic cause of climate cahnge. By pretending not to, American conservatives, a majority of whom still deny climate change, reveal only their deliberate if unintentional ignorance of fundamental reality. The delusion of climate change denial is as delusional as, say, pretending that a presidential election was stolen, or that your God is going to return to Earth any day now. All these delusions tend, it seems, to be embraced by the same people, your basic white conservative Christian MAGA type. They tend, in general, to be not only climate change denniers, but also, environmental destruction deniers, and on those rare occasions when they do contemplate actual threats to life on earth, they immediately couch it in religious temrs, and they get right back to talking about their Lord Jesus Christ returning to Earth soon soon enough to render all climate and environmental threats irrelevant. Its hard to argue with that kind of stuff. I have acquired the habit of suggesting that it would be a nice way to honor and show respect for Jesus, by showing him a clean, healthy planet, human species, and environment when he arrives. Why not start now? I still like this approach, even though it doesn't seem to work, or, at least, they rarely have much to say in response. So the honeybee population will continue to plummet, glaciers will keep melting, and every year will keep getting hotter than the previous, as long as we humans don't start changing our ways and repairing the damage we have done, and are doing. The wind will blow ever harder, more storms, stronger storms will sweep across most areas, and weather related disasters will proliferate, the expense becoming enormous. It may be too late to save the planet, but it aint too late to try.

Trump's Cult, Being Trump's Cult

YOU HAD TO FIGURE that sooner or later, probably sooner, the topic sould come up, and it has. The topic of preciesly how much longer Donald Trump will be president, which is another way of aking how much longer Trump's cult members will think they are living in heaven on Earth, America made great, again, with Christ's choice our leader, while the rest of us go through hell. Or rather, keep going through hell, our having been in Trump-hell a long time now. And we may remain there for a long time to come. Partly responding to a question, partly taking off on his own, Trump said that even though its early, even though he has nearly four long ears left in his current term, that he has already thought about seeking a third term, is inclined to do so, and firmly believes that there are "ways" around the constitutional two term limit for presidents. Trump is such a stable genius that he sems to have figured out that if he runs in 2028 for Vice President, wins, and trades jobs with J.D. Vance, he will have flanked the constitution, and sneaked back in. He forgets that anyone who runs for vice president must be qualfied to serve a president. Or maybe he can find a way around that too. So, one way or another, we can almost expect to see Trump's name on the ballot in 2028, with the full support of the Republican party, MAGA-nation, and American conservative evangelical Christians generally. Recall that the aforementioned organizations fully support each and every word and action by the great prevaricator, legal or otherwise. Trump is now nearly seventy nine years old, too old to be president of the United States, or to fry burgers at Mickey Dees, or to work anywhere, other than some placid, passive job for seniors. He was too old when he got elected in 2024, he's too old now, and he will be extremely too old, eighty two, by the end of this term. For soem reason the interviewer asked Trump whether he will willigly step aside when his current term is over, or whether he might decide to seek the presidency on a life time basis,maybe even until Trump or his remains reaches the age of, say, one hundred. The president reportedly did not answer. We all know the answer, so why bother articulating it? And, as always in all things Trump or related to Trump, the problem is not merely Trump. Not at all. If it were, the proble would either be much smaller, or nonexistant. As always, theproblem is the seventy five million or so self deluded Americas who, after all that has happened, still support Trump, in most cases, probably, more than ever. A substantial portion of the American are now clearly revealing themselves to be citizens who prefer authoritarian governance to democracy, and prefer that the strongman leader be extremely strong; as long as he implements their aganda, the agenda of the far right wing. all the comparisons of Trump to Hitler have mostly focused on Trump's Hitler-esque words and deeds, not on the behavior of his supporters or hsi cult. We should now begin to pay more attention to we the people, we, or they the people who are willing and seeking to turn the American republic into the American fascist state. If it hadn't been Hitler it probably would have been somebody else. Same for Trump. Political extremism is better suited for a dictatorship than democratic moderation. What is truly frightening is that so many Americans have now become so politically extreme, and the uestion of how much ore extreme they might become in support of Trump, as Trump's criminal presidency becomes ever more criminal.

Buying, Or Stealing Greenland

WHEN THE SECOND LADY went to Greenland, a red flag went up, at least for me. When her hubby followed her up there, up went another. She is an attractive lady, no matter where she was born, and a good way to lead off a positive diplomatic initiative. He, on the other hand, is not, and has Trump's lurking, incipient darkness about him, and portends trouble, for Greenland. Then, from the relative safety of being seperated by an ocean, Trump's surrogate lashed out at Denmark, for not providing the security mesaures necessary to her colony Greenland for its defense in our dangerous modern age of global tensions and rivalries, or whatever. Suddenly, the relationship between Denmark and Greenland is of vital concern to the Untied States, whose right flank, so it seems, owing to Danish military negligence, is fully exposed to the threat Russian over the top across - the - artic aggression, or whatever. Morons Are Governing America, as the saying goes, and we must accept the realitiy that Trump is deadly serious about not only Greenland, and the utter necessity of its becoming a part of the U.S., but equally serious, we can induce, about Canada and the Panama Canal. One scarcely knows whether to disconnct the cable and hide beneath one's bed, or purchase an extra large popcorn popper and strap on a safety harness in front of the flat screen. This simply cannot be happening, can it? I swear that before the wenty twenty six midterms American forces are going to be deployed and spread out all over the western hemisphere, guarding the newly annexed canal, occupyong Greenland, and invading Canada, to surprisingly stout resistance. Maybe the respective armies will end up bogge down along a long front several dozen miles inside anda, from coast to coast, a North American version of the current European war. And then, the big deal; Putin sends troops to Canda, and Trump sends American fighting men and women to eastern Ukraine. Nobody, in reality, knows how this is going to end, but how can it end well? However it ends, the ending is likely to be even stranger than any prior speculation. The United States has alwasy been an expanionist, imperialistic, corporate capitalistic enterprise. All corporate capitalistic enterprises grow, and keep growing, until they grow old and die, like people, nations, and universes. In 1763 the British government passed a law, the "Proclamation of 1763" that none of her colonial subjects living in the thirteen British American colonies may cross the Appalachian ountains and settle in lands to the west of them. The colonies were becoming too unwieldy to govern from four thousand miles away, as they really always had been. But of course the law was unenforcable, and was ignored. Daniel Booone and thousands of other land seekers poured through the gap and into Kentucky and Ohio. The rest of the continent was quickly conquered and stolen. The mere fact that Hawaii and Alaska are not only parts of the United States but are among the fifty states, when common sense dictates that they should be independent nations, clearly proves that we the American people are perfectly willing to accede to our corporate masters' insatiable appetite for acuiring new territories and turning them into new states. Strange, bizarre as it may seem, it may be that the smart money is on Canada and Greenland both joining the more perfect union, the only question being, which one will be fifty first, and which, number fifty two.

Leaving the World

MY BIRTHDAY is next month, and I will, amazingly, turn seventy, so, I have recently been thinking a little about what kind of world it will be when I die. Actually I have been doing that, thinking about the future, my entire life, and like everybody else, I have always been wrong about it. The thought occurs to me that the world we live in now is becoming increasingly similar to the one which will exist when I leave it, which is of course inevitable, but not necessarily desirable. When I was a kid in the nineteen sixties I predicted that by the year two thousand we would have a city on the moon, and one on Mars, and would be preparing to send people to the stars. By the far off science fiction year of twenty twenty five, I predicted, we would all be flying cars and visiting other solar systems. I do not think, however, that I foresaw cell phones and personal computers. Neither did anybody else. Before I die - and I have always said this - I would like to know the answer to the question of whether there is any other intelligent life in the universe. Its beginning to look like I won't. However, we do know now that there are billions of other planets circling other stars in the universe, and that fact in itself tends to point towards life. I would also like to have a pretty good idea, before I die, of whether the human species, and all life on Earth, is going to survive climate change. As of now, it seems to me, kind of up in the air" - it could go either way. I'm starting to think that we humans will soon develop a technology for removing carbon from the atmosphere, and that this technology will save us. I also am tending to believe that the people who want to stop usig fossil fuels will eventually prevail over those who do not. They are, after all, on the right side of history. Whether humanity ever actually establishes permanent human habitats in space and on other planets is another prescient futuristic issue. Ever since I was a child, I have wanted that to happen, for some reason. Obviously, it hasn't happened nearly as soon as I thought. It does, however, still seem to be a possibility, especially if governments and united nations get involved in it. For the future of humanity, in all areas of endeavor, to be relegated exclusively under the control of multi billionaires and big corporations does not seem to be the healthiest way of managing the future, some might agree. Perhaps the most frustrating fact of modern society is that there is more than enough food to feed all of humanity, and yet, people go hungry and starve. We know we can feed people; let's just do it, as we say. I never would have imagined that, as I approach the end of my life, there would still be so much damned violence and war in the world. That there is a massive ongoing land war in Europe in the twenty first century is astounding and disgusting. As of this moment, unless we reverse climate change very soon, our children and grandchildren are gong to have to deal with extreme climatic conditions, even as the climate is becoming extreme right now. Maybe our descendants will think of a way to remove all the plastic from our bodies, and the land, water, and soil of planet Earth. Good luck. I am sufficiently homo sapiens-centric to hope that the human species survives long after my death. Well, it seems to have almost survived my entire life, and that's something, its a start. I can assure you,that in itself is a virtual miracle. I remember ducking under my school desk to hide from atomic bombs.

Paying It Forward With a Long Fly Ball

HARD TO BELIEVE, that it happened so long ago, nearly sixty years, happened so quickly, was so insignificant, and yet, I still remember it. I think it was ths summer of sixty five. 1965. I was ten years old. Cleveland got seven runs in the first, Kansas City got five.The Indians won 12-9, and Kansas City's big left handed home run hitting first baseman, Jin Gentile, struck out four times. After the game, they quickly set up the batting cage, and big Jim started taking batting practice. My dad took my older sister and me down on the field, and we stood next to the batting cage while he hit ball after ball over the left field fence, and into the parking lot behind Municipal Stadium. My dad introduced me to Mr. Gentile, and we shook hands with two fingers, through the netting. I wa in heaven. We left soon, out of courtesy, not wanting to take advantage of a good thing, my dad thanked the coach, and we left the stadium. We were walking through the parking lot, and Jim Gentile was still landing them on the pavement, An incredible display of opposite filed power. One landed fairly close to us, and dad exhorted me to chase it. I did, but it was bouncing and rolling across the pavement too fast, and suddenly, a black kid, about fifteen, dashed past me, caught up wit the ball, and grabbed it. He was much older, taller, bigger, faster. I turned around and started to head back to my dad. From behind me the kid beckoned me, walked over to me, and gave me the baseball. He told me that he lived to blocks from the stadium, and had a drawer full of them at home. Although I can't precisely recall, my father probably thanked the kid. I hope and assume I did. I wish I still had the ball. most likely, we used it in our local sand lot baseball games of late summer, 1965. No, I cannot assert with any degree of certainly that this was the seminal moment in my life when I determined to renounce racism forever, or anyting like that. But I am certain that the mere fact that the kid was African-American influenced me to generalize, as people are prone to do, and to develop a special warm and fuzzy attitude about black folks generally. I'm glad that I still remember this episode, glad that its more important to me now than it was then. I also know that from the earliest times when I learned about races and racism, I thought, and still think, that the whole business is extremely silly. My mother, who would now be a hundred and five, perhaps hated racism more than anybody I have ever known, despite her having been born into a time and place where it was the norm. My, father, himself sometimes racsit, sometimes not, in his own special way discouraged me from being one. He claimed to hate Germans and Japenese,from his experiences in World War Two. Hatred of Germans, of course,is more of an ethnic and cultural hatred than a racial one.I wonder whether I would still remember my baseball story if the black kid had not given me the ball. Perhaps; I have a good memory, for events sixty years ago, if not five minutes ago. I wonder whether my attitude, towards, racism, balck people, or anything else, would have been any different without the kid's generous act. Probably not, I suspect, although we've all read stories about how people's entires lives were frofoundly influenced and changed by simple childhood incident and memmory. Somewho, I simply cannot imagine myself having grown up to be a right wing xenophobic racist MAGA type. On the other hand, it is possible that a black ghetto kid in nineteen sixties Kansas City saved me from a life of narrow minded racism. I wonder whatever happened to the nice kid. He would be in his mid to late seventies, maybe close to eighty, now. Of course he might not still be alive. Whatever happend to him, whatever he did witih his life, I hope he lived a good life. He deserved it, He was a nice guy, a good guy. Surely they don't always finish last.

Trump, Dismantling the American Mind

FORMER LABOR SECRETARY Robert Reich posts a few paragraphs of insightful prose on Facebook every day, and, fortunately for me, it shows up on my feed almost daily, usually first. Basically, I agree with everything he says, and he teaches me a lot. Hilariously, embarrassingly, I can't remember whether he served under Clinton or Obama. Brain freezes always thaw,thankfully. Reich wrote that Trump's using Musk as a chainsaw to slice the government to bits is not about saving money, efficiency, or reducing the size of government and making it more accountable to the people, and all that. Its about controlling, subduing, indeed, dulling and rendering ineffective the American mind. This, according to Robert Reich. He notes that a huge part of Trump's attacks on government, the firings, dismantling of programs and agencies, has to do with education and research, the arts and sciences. Upon further thought, this seems plausible. Reich points out that this is the standard tactic of tyrants; to gain greater contro of the general population by effectively "dumbing down" and instead brainwashing people with propaganda favorable to the authoritarian tyrant. Trump famously said he loves uneducated people. Its uncertain precisely how premeditated all this is; how deliberate. Trump's behavior also seems compatible with the widespread conservative contempt for science as the means of gaining knowledge. Trump not only doesn'tseem to favor using government to help educate people and romote culture and cultural awareness, he also seems to have a hostility to any government action which helps people generally, with their health, finances, anything. This too is a tendency among conservatives. An alarmingly high percentage of conservatives are opposed to Social Security and Medicare, and would like to cut or eliminate both. Fortunately, such readicals are a minority. The radical extremists are not the socialsts among us, but rather, the far right wing Christian capitalists. One of the reasons nearly half of America, about forty seven percent, are happy with what Trump and Musk have done so far, is that nealy half of America agrees with Trump's extreme, unconstitutional actions, such as ordering birthright citizenship out of existence and eliminating the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency. Crazy as all this seems to intelligent, educated liberals, to many religious conservatives, Trump is God's choice. Trump is the essence, the embodiment of all the conservative positions, including racism, WASPism, and capitalism, and from the Christian nationalist point of view, a willing vehicle towards the ultimate goal of officially establishing these United States of America as a Christian nation. Perhaps a more WASP-ish nation as well. Trump got elected with anti-immigrant conservative zenophobia. The day will come when even conservatives realize that eleven million illegal immigrants are not going to be deported, due to sheer logistics. We are once again reminded of how easy it is for human beings to overlook inconvenient things like reality, hence, the white elephants in our many rooms. Trump's vile, criminal morality vanishes. The inconvenient but unavoidable truth is that as of now, Trump's brain numbing project, deliberate or not, seems to be working. The people who oppose Trump must keep fighting back with decency, education, intelligence, science, sense, and facts, and hope and pray that the day comes when such things are once again in fashion.

Trump, Committing Crimes, One At A Time

THE MORE THAN one hundred and fifty federal lawsuits which have thus far been filed against the Trump administration, specifically the actions of the president, are a good indicator of the level of crime being committd by said president, beyond argument, It is har to imagine the temerity or stupidit of any president thinking that he can make a fundamental change to teh American constitution mrely by signing an executive order, but, that's where we are, or seem to be. Amending or changing the constitution requires a complicated process, clearly spelled out in the actual document, in which Congress, the states, and ultimately the Americn people must wight in in sufficient numbers in agreement with the amendment to make it happen. Trump seems to have a new team of lwyers nealry every day. Didn'tany of them tell him this? Or ws Trump given the insidious, nefarious legal advice to go ahead and eliminate birthright American citizenship, as provided by teh fourteenth amendment, from the constitution mrely by saying so in an executive order, and then let the process runi its course, thiking perhas that if and when it gets to the SCOTUS, that the pro-Trump consevative majority will rubber stampthis etreme executive power grab? Surely not. Surely no conceivable supreme court, no maer how conservative or razy, would ever do such a thing, would it?Of the dozens of executive orders Trump has issued, an overwhelming majorit of them are clearly illegal, and jsut waiting for the federal judiciary to confirm it. Everyoe agrees that agencies and cabinet departments, such as the Department of Education, can be created and abolished only by Congress, not the president. Trump,probably thinking himeslf quite clever,is merely firing enough workers to render teh Educatioin Department entirely impotent and ineffecive, but claiming that the essential services is provides, such as supporting public schools in povety stricken areas, and supporting impoverished students and those with disabilities, will remain intact. However, the amount of damage Trump has already done to it is most likely illegal,and unconstitutional, and will eventually be described as such by the nation's courts. Of all Trump'smany criems since returning to office, y far the most heinous and egregious crime,against American and against humanity, is technically not even a crime. It is,in a nutshell, climate change denial. Trump has scrubbed all mention of climate change from all government websites, documents, and processes, and whether this will be effecively challenged and overturned in court remains uncertain. As of now, it seems unlikely. For the head of state of an economically advanced country, for a country like the United States to cease all attempts to solve and correct the climate crisis, is, in a word, insane, suicidal. Trump and people like him, inclluding his followers, by denying climate change, by refusing to help deal with it, are pushing the human species, and all other forms fo life in Earth, towards extinction. The can be no greater crime than complete human genocide resulting in the extinction of the species. We have good reason to be hoeful that the federal court system will eventually eliminate most of Trump's illegal acts and crimes. But who will and force people like Trump, who deny and thus encourage catastrophic climate change, to awaken to reality, and to start being part of the solution,rather than part of the problem?

Fighting Fascism, Here

LISTENING TO TRUMP'S spokeswoman is surrealistic, in the same sense that listening to Joseph Goebbels and Sarah Sanders were when speaking on behalf of their respective authoritarian masters. An endless cascade of lies and distortations, pure propaganda, passed off as fact, intended to justify every word and action by der fuhrer, making him look fighting for like a gallant crusader for truth, justice, and the country, while being the victim of endless attacks and dirty tricks by enemies of him, the people, and the motherland or fatherland. If you see through it, which everyone should, its nauseating. If you love and support Trump, it must be music to your ears. Blonde bombshell bimbo Ms. Leavitt does it all extraordinary well, which is why she has her job. "Sixty seven percent of all court rulings against American presidents since 2000 have been made against oneperson; Donald Trump!" she yells. The anger and intensity are palpable in her strident voice. Can you imagaine such an injustice! As if the federal judiciary is yet another organized entity out to get Trump, and willing to do anything necessary, including issue illegal, unconstitutional rulings. A radical, left wing judiciary, a bunch of damned democrat justices, trying to bring down Trump, just like the "Deep State", the mainstream media, and so forth, all the usual suspects. People with half a brain understand that Trump is receiving the lion's share of adverse federal court rulings for one very simple reason; Donald Trump has, in less than two months in office, taken more illegal actions, broken more laws, than all the other authoratarian rulers in human history combined, it almost seems. Trump,two months into his second term, is a one man crime spree, which should surprise nobody. Threatening to impeach and remove any judge who rules against him is part of his fascism. Chief Justice Roberts struck back; we the American people need to strike back, push back. Trump, the Congressional Republicans, and the entire MAGA movement would be pleased as punch to remove every judge in the country, and to replace every single one of them with a Trump loyalist. Trump is not the only fascist we are fighting, unfortunately. The entie MAGA movement, the entire Republican party, has clearly morphed into fascist organizations, wanting to impose a conservative agenda on America from the top down, since bottom up America favors progressive policies. Trump has a long list of chosen enemies, most are well known, he still fully intends to get revenge on all of them, and his MAGA cult is fully onboard. Trump's enemies are MAGA's enemies. Trump wants to revoke the broadcast licenses of every media outlet which disagrees with and criticizes him. He wants to investigate, prosecute, and put people like Barrack Obama,Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton in prison, for whatever concocted reason possible. Trump's spoken and repeated statement of his intentions is nothing othr than pure fascism, pure Hitler style rule. It is more obvious every day. The Republicans don't seem to have thought much about what would happen if, after they elevate Trump to a virtual dictator, a future left wing president, somebody as far left and as popular as Bernie Sanders, for instance, is elected, with the same authoritarian powers. The monster, as it were, coming back to bite its creator. We the people will be much better off if we simply do not allow the president of the United States to become an authoritarian ruler in the first place.

Reimagining the Middle East

I HEARD THE STORY on NPR, which is where I get most of my news, while I was doing something else. NPR is factual, and is therfore often accused of being "liberal" by conservativs to whom liberal means anything, incluing factual, not conservative. I don't recall whether thay gave a warning beforehand; they should have. They mentioned a five year old Palestinian little boy who got shot five times by the IDF. Whether the child was targeted, hit by random fire, or being held in the arms of an active shooter Hamas fighter I did not hear. What I heard was the little guy sobbing,screaming in agony, as if upset at being treated unfairly,for what seemed like an eternity. It was painful to hear, painful to listen to. His little voice was so sweet, baby-ish. So much pain. He survived, somehow. I remember hearing something about his watching other kids play, and being afraid to try to join them, because he feared they might laugh at him because he cannot run. So, he survived, maybe with American medical help,maybe not. He was completely innocent, did not deserve even a trace of the agony and nightmares he has had to endure, and still endures. To somehow extent, he willendure them the rest of his life, however long that ends up being. I hopehe endures, an grows up to become a highly successful doctor, or political leader, or diplomat, some very positive and influential person, highly successful. Maybe even the next Elon Musk. I will never forget that tiny, agonized littlel voice,and it reinforced what I would have believed anyway;that the Israeli waragainst Gaza needs to stop, now. Actually, it should have stopped a long time ago. Film footage I see on "Good Morning America" and other television news programs also reinforces this personal opinion of mine. Palestininas wailing in agony, surrounded by the bodies of their dead loved ones, many of them children. The whole world, all two hundred countries or however precisely many there are, needs to tell Israel, in one mighty global voice: cease, and desist. Surely, if the USA, Russia, China, Japan, India, and Europe all cooperate in this, Israel will listen. This needs to happen through the United Nations, and in as many other ways as possible. Just as there seems to e an informal but very effective boycott of teh Tesla Corporation, so there need sto be an informal, internet, mass movement of people all over the world, to force Israel to stop their war. For it has become their was, and has been their was for a long time, despite the fact that they did not start it. Otherwise, by the time they are satisfied that Hamas has been totally destroyed, Palestine will have been totally destroyed. This crazy idea by Trump, supported by Netanyahu,to move all the Palestinians to other countries, must also be cast into the firepit. A single, secular country called "Palestine-Israel", shoul encompass the entire area, either that, or the two state solution, which the United Stats has officially supported for decades, should be brought into being, without further delay. Okay,fine. Let donald Trump and the big money boys invent heavily in rebuilding Gaza and providing it with a functioning upscale economy. Israel, the United States, and other countries can assist in the masssive reconstruction needs. It will take years, indeed, decades. But the Palestinians need to be the ones profiting from it, not Donald Trump, other billionaires, or other countries. The world needs fewer theocracies, billionaires, and imperialist superpowers, and more Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion.

Church, Repurposing

ON SUNDAY WE HAD a total of seven people in the building, only two of whom, myself and a ninety one year old German lady, were actual voluntary congregants. The other five were either clerical officials, or the wife of the minister. And, hell, actually, I have an official function; I ring the bell. Unless, of course, the teenagers show up, which is seldom. I believe it was the smallest turnout in the nearly one year I have been attending. The minister said that if there had been one fewer people, he would have called the whole thing off, and slept in. Thus proceeds the great decline, not only in attendance at "my" church, but at churches all across America. According to a recent survey, one in three Americans self identifies as a regular church goer. That incluses me, although I wasn't interviewed. I've been a member of minorities all my life, in terms of religion, politics, opinions, things like that, but I never in my wildest imagination would have predicted that not only would American church attendance decrease so much so fact, but that I, of all people, would be a member of a church going American minority. I listened to a radio documentary about churches whose congregation has shrunk so much that their church building was no longer appropriate to the membership, but was instead way too big. Keeping large church buildings maintainted, with full utilities, was becoming inreasingly expensive for shrinking congregations, and solutions were being sought. Many of them are quite creative and innovative. A large church in Colorado decided to establish a section with living quarters, a sort of temporary refuge for the homeless. Poignantly, ironically beautiful, the thought that a dying church,a dying religion, as it fades away, uses its remaining life energy to give the kind of love and help unto others that Jesus Christ clearly instructed us all to do. Maybe the church will gradually evolve into a full time homeless shelter, with both public and private funding, as America enters a goldn new post Trump age of compassion, in which homeless shelters all across the fruited plain render unto society a vast outpouring of assistance to those in need, working themselves out of their jobs as homelessness vanishes from the American cultural panaroma. Another recent survey indicates taht about sixty two percent of the American people identify themselves as "Christian", the lowest number in recorded American history, but that the decline seems to have, at least for the moment, leveled off. A fervant Christian about my age assured me that at her church, there is a solid, good sized block of younger people in attendance. All well and good, but, as a general rule, every generation in America, from the lost generation to the kids currently in high school, whatever they are called, has been less religious than its predecessor. So, as they say, we shall see. What seems to be needed in today's Christian church is another of those huge revivals, such as the ones which took place in the seventeen forties, the first "Great Awakening", and again in the eighteen forties, the second Great Awakening. Ever since the advent of the "Majoral Majority" more than forty years ago, such a massive revival has lurked, but never truly manifested throughout society. Maybe ts too late. Maybe science has sufficiently replaced religion in human culture so as to illuminate the human mind, and religion, having done its service, can now, finally, stop awakening, and slide peacefully, gracefully, into its final slumber.

Banning Happy Words Like DEI

WORDS MEAN THINGS, the late great radio talker Rush Limbaugh said, not wrongly. Some words have positive, pleasant meanings and overtones, some do not. In his great science fiction novel "Contact", by Carl Sagan, a super advanced alien being tells the central human character that he has a special fondness for the human word "lovingkindness". Assuming that it really is a word, one can hardly disagree. Three very pleasant, positive words to me are: "Diversity, Equality, Inclusion". I prefer the word "equality" to "equity", which is the one actually used. Either one is fine, they both mean the same thing, but for me the word "equity" conjures thoughts of a home mortgage, more than people being equal. And, as far as I know, as far as I can tell, those three words wre nothing other than words used by government to describe the kind of attitude towards people government embraces, advocates, encourages. Its not a specific hard law set in stone to limit or control anyody, It is a three words expression, a phrase, used in official government entities to dfeind the official government attitude about hiring and treatment of people. The United States has always been a bascally white anglo-saxon protestant patriarchal country, with muchcultural uniformity, which also has a great deal of cultural diversity, ethnically, racially, and so forth. Both the concept of cultural uniformity and cultural diversity have strong support in the U.S. A preference for cultural uniformity is a conservative, traditional mindset, while a preference for cutural diversity, including sexual and gender orientation, is associated with progressivism. In America's traditional white Christian patriarchal culture, equality was not a highly valued ideal; society was a hierarchy at the top of which sat, or rather stood, white Christian men. Socially mandated inequalty prevailed. Traditional American culture is as much characterized by exclusion as inclusion, based on the WASP paradigm. Thus, the in(famous) DEI concept is, at its core, a progressive, or liberal, set of values, and not a conservative one. This is born out by the palpable, powerful hatred and loathing of DEI by conservative America. Trump and the Republicans engaged on a holy crusade to strike the infamous thing (DEI) from the country, as if DEI were some sort of catastrophic illness or disease, a threat to not only American national security, but to the very existencsof the country. And that is precisly what seems so striking, and strange to me. The fervor with which they oppose and have noe destroyed diversity,equality, and inclusion as foundational principles of government. The white Christian patriarchial society is losing its majority status in America, and we see the backlash. The seemingly overly zealous eagerness with which conservative America despises and fights the concept of "woke", similarly implies that traditional conservative values prefer a cultural in which racism not discussed, whether or not it still exists. I hope that the United States trends in the future towards diversity eauality, and incllusion, despite conservative opposition to it, and the successful Republican scrubbing of it from the government. They have also eliminated allmention of climate change from government websites and documents, as well as any mention of gay or transgender people. That's what fascists do, they wewrite history to suit their own purposes.

Trump, Chainsaw Massacring

THE DREADED TRUMP-MUSK CHAINSAW mows inexorably on, doing its daily damage, slicing up one government agency at a time, the latest carnage reproted duifully on the nightly news, like wartime London neighborhoods blasted to bits by the blitz. Its all happening so fast that nobody can yet calcuate the damage being done, or predict future harm. The government, like the nation, is large, and it will take time to undo so much of it. The remaining bureaucrats are hiding under their desks, the way baby boomers did in their classrooms in the nineteen sixties to avoid Russian atomic bombs, hoping they won't be next. A better metaphor might involve cattle lined up, walking one at a time into the guillotine. Just the other day the monster reached the Environmental Protection Agency, which, may it R.I.P., is essentially no more. The building is apparently locked up, as are most of the offices; their former occupants were allowed to quickly remove their personanl possessions, and will continue to receive their paychecks, for a little while. Although it still exists formally, in name, it has essentially ceased to function. When the courts finally decide what is already obvious; that only congress, and not the president, has the constitutional power to destroy government agencies, Trump and his clever attorneys will be able to cleverly say that that they did not eliminate the EPA, they merely cut it down to size. Trump, with the stroke of a pen, also declared that every thing the agency has eve done, every regulation it has ever instituted, is now null and void. Thereby, on paper at least, the United States is reverting to the level of environmental protection it "enjoyed" in 1970, which,essentially, was none. In the nineteen sixties it became more obvious than ever what had been obvious for a long time; that the air, soil, and water were being heavily polluted, and that the ecosystem was in trouble. A new science of studying and measuring the health of the ecosystem was born: "ecology". I was in ninth grade in 1969-1970, and I joined the "econolgy club' at the high school. I remember one Saturday we went as a group to a local cave where parties were often held, and picked up what must have been a thousand empty beer cans. It seems strange now that a Republican, Richard Nixon, signed into law the Clean Air Act, the Clean wter Act, and the Environmental Protection Agecny. Although Nixion was an environmentel crusader compared to today's Republcians, he basically went along with the Democrats in their environmental protection agenda, for reasons of political capital. In 1970 America's rivers were burning, her lakes choking to death in sewage, and the air quality in her cities was filty. I can recall standing on a sreet corner, Hollywod and Vine, in Los Angeles at high noon, surrounded by what I thought was deep fog. No, a local assured me, we were stangin in smog, not fog. All that has totally changed now, much to the credit of the EPA and the clean air and water laws. But now, here we are, in the era of Trump, destroying it all as if it doen'st matter. Whetehr the rivers and lakes will one again burn, and the air will once agains stink, time will tell. Mayb, despite Trump's new inviation to do so, we the American people and nation and corporate oligarchy will refrain from reverting to our formerly filthier ways. That may be asking for a lot, come to think of it.

Our Ranting Authoritarian, Trump

Donald Trump, as he approaches the two month mark in his second presidency, is in full ranting authoritarian mode, weaving his constant effusion of lies into an extended false narrative, glorifying himself and his indispensable leadership. His interminable campaign speech at the Justice Department yesterday was pure MAGA propaganda pep rally. Trump intends to use the D.O.J as his personal mafia, his tool for exacting retribution on his perceived enemies, presumably with withering investigations and legal action, including harrassment. In his amazingly long and dishonest screed, Trump reiterated the fictional nonsense that the Biden Department of Justice was politized by Biden, was out to get Trump, an that such investigations as the one which ensued when Trump stole thousands of top secret documents from the government, claimed he didnt have them, then refused to return them, until an FBI SWAT Team raided his house and got most of them, accept for whatever documents Trump managed to hide, or transfer to people like Putin. The D.O.J. ivestigation of Trump's insurrection and attempt to overturn the election of 2020 Trump once again described as a political witch hunt, a crime, illegal, blah blah. And now, with Trump back in office, Trump asserts that he will clean up the corrupted Justice Department, and restore integrity to it. This is, of course, excactly the opposite of what Trump has already done, and will continue to do. Every investigation and action taken agaisnt Trump during teh Biden presidency was legal, valid, appropriate. The only invalid, corrupt aaspect of them is that they did not, yet, result in Trump's indictment, trial, conviction, and execution. If they ever do, which now seems quite unlikely, justice will, at long last, have been served. Trump's reverse, false version of recent history is alarming, alarming that the United States, or any other country, would even consider electing to the nation's highest office a person who does things like that. In terms of telling big lies, loudly, over and over again, and weaving them into an entirely false narrative of current reality and history, Trump ranks with Hitler and Stalin, among other tyrants. A completely fasle version of histoy and reality, in which the authoritarian, the Stalin, HItler, or Trump, becomes the innocent victim of diabolical enemies, and is determined to save the country from them. In his speech Trump complained that media outlets like CNN and others are more than ninety percent against him or unfavorable to him, and that this is illegal. So decress the fuhrer. Illegal to be against, or to criticize, Trump, the leader. Trump's authoritarian behavior, his unconstitutional, illegal executive orders, his illegal chainsaw destruction of the government, his constant lies, attacks against judges, ritics, and the media, most alarming of all,seems to have the complete, unmitigated approval of his MAGA mob masses, evangelical Christians included. Since he is saving the country, everything he does is fine, or something like that. Millions of MAGAts aare convinced that all of Trump's legal problems and involvement in the criminal justice system is nothing ut a huge conspiracy to destroy him, and that his responses, his intentions of "going after" his enemies, are nothing but payback, justified. Trump will do many,many more horrible things, and his adoring cult following will meekly accede to all of them. Nothing could be more frightening to contemplate.

Trump's Growing Opposition

OPPOSITION TO TRUMP, which in general terms is often called "the resistance" by its leaders, is growing. During the weeks between Trump's election and his assuption of power, the progressive community agonized in defeat, deapair, and anger. Nearly all of the remarks made by the anti-Trump community online were full of doom and gloom, very negative, very angry. When I suggested that a strong resistance movement should be initiated immediately, with the ultimate goal of removing trump from office, most of my fellow libs ridiculded and insulted me, with utter disbelief. One paricularly kind and literarily aware scholar compared me to Don Quixote, tilting at windmills, like some deranged but harmless self proclaimed dottering old super hero. The barbs, coming from my supposed "comrades" bit and stung a bit, maybe, but did not deter me. When I stood firm and remarked to my fellow travelers my intent to defeat and destroy Trump with or without any help, the derision proliferated. The only thing people were able to grasp is that they were going to have to endure four years of Thump-hell. Ah, but not so fast. There is a movment called "Fifty Fifty One", which evidently refers to the fact that Trump resistance, considting of demonstrations and protests, are and shall continue to manifest in all fifty states, but that the momement is a unified whole. Equally auspicious, there is now a faith based anti-Trump protest movement, a group which assembles in large numbers on the famous steps of the Capitol once a month or so, their message being to remind Congress that its members are elected to serve their constituents, not a king of America. Presumably these folks are politically progressive Christians, expressing their belief that we the American people, in a country which many describe as "Christian", or as having "Christian values", should put those values into practice, in and out of the government, and that cutting social programs and cutting taxes on the wealthy is not the way to achieve that. There is a certain "reasonableness" to this wiewpoint. Trump is self destructing, digging his own political grave, as it were, much more rapidly than I ever could have imagined. His use of Elon Musk to chainsaw the federal government to smitherenes is clearly unconstitutionl; only Congress can do that. Also, it is clearly having disastrous effects, on the stability and health of the economy, and on the American peole, as tens of thousands of newly unemployoed government employees try to land on their feet, find a way to support their families, and begin, at long last, to question their support of Trump. Likewise, this global trade war that Trump has started, in which America, first and alone, alienates all of her allies and trading partners, is becoming more disastrous daily. The tariffs are being imposed and rescinded and reimposed chaotically, as if by the whims of a madman. International trade and prosperity will come grinding to a halt, the way Trump is going, with the evident full support of the formerly free trade free market capitalistic Republican party. Fascism has come to the United States, with Trump ruling by decree, and the Republican Congress sitting idly by, doing nothing to assert its constitutional powers and responsibilities, happpy to let Trump be Trump, an authoritarian. The Supreme Court is going to decide whether a president of the United States can amend the constitution by executive order. Surely, in the name of obvious constitutional sense and law, it will rule that he or she cannot. If it rules that he may, who knows what changes to the constitution Trump will enact through executive orders in the future. Hell, he could simply scrap the old founding document altogether, and rule by presidential decree. His MAGA cult members would doubtless love nothing more.

Boycotting Tesla, Illegally

ITS ONLY BEEN A FEW YEARS since I heard of Elon Musk for the first time. I kept hearing how utterly brilliant he was. Okay, whatever. Over time I came to disagree with that assesment. I began to view his as a businessperson in the mold of Donald Trump, not so much a business starter and builder, but rather, an inheritor of great wealth who became a high roller deal maker. And Now, as more time passes, I despise him more very day, in much the same manner as I depise, unrelentingly, Donald Trump. This growing hatred of Musk is for me, like is seems to be for most people, largely the result of Musk's close assocition with Trump, and the fact that every day the two of them seems to be more of a two headed monster, destroying America. As hatred of Trump grows and spreads throughout these United States and around the world, so does mass hatred of Musk. The way he handled the purchase of "Twitter" astonished me. The needless, self destructive chainsaw massacre of its workforce, replacing perfectly good managing exeecutives with sycophantic puppets,changing the company's name from the charming "Twitter" to the generic, stupid sounding "X",the plunging of its value, all that. Musk lost billios on Twitter by his insane treatment of it, and I do not know whether he has regained that wealth yet. Not all fo it, most likely. Now, his main, "signature" company is in dire peril, as the stock price of "Tesla" plummets to half its recent value, and a world wide boycott of the brand takes hold and further devastates the car company. So dire is the Tesla situation that president Trump fels compelled to come to the rescue, and to use the lawn of the White House to do a Tesla commercial, and to announce his intent to purchase a Tesla for homself, to help a dear friend. What do they cost, about a cool quater mil? And then, another incredible proclamation from Trump; the world wide boycott of Elon Musk and Tesla is "illegal". Yes, illegal. Any conspiracy to boycott a conusmer product, or at least a Tesla EV, by two or more people, suddenly, illegal. In other words, it is illegal to not purchase a Tesla automobile. The president did nt say exactly how much time we the American people will be given to come into compliance with this most recent executive order, that all Americans are now required to purchase a Tesla. presumably, that information will be forthcoming, given out by ohe of Trump's blonde bombshell spokesladies. Maybe this amazing statement doesn't quite rank up there with "Ukraine started the war with Russia" in terms of sheer amazement, but, give it credit; it aint half bad. The actual boycott seems to have become as some sort of informal internet trend, which, with Musk's chainsawing of the American government and support of Trump's tariffs, hasgrown organically, globally. It is unclear precisely whom Trump's inevitable lawausit well be filed against. Perhaps everyone who does not own a Tesla? An enormous reverse class action action? "We'll see", as Trump says. Will there be some sort of voucher system or government tax credits or other financial assistance available for we the ninety nine percent of the population who cannot afford a quarter million dollar car? Probably not. Those are exactly the kinds of programs being eliminated now, correct? We are told to be patient and grateful, that the economy will recover from its current "disturbances", as Trump calls them. Then too, as a bonus, we all get to live in the great American Trump fun house, where marvelous revelations keep coming forth, daily.

Don the Con, Conning America

WE'LL SEE WHAT HAPPENS, as Trump likes to say, and, indeed, we will. Presidencies tend to be measured and evaluated at the one hundred day point, the one year, and so forth. One day is as good as any, and, as it stands now, by any objective standards, the Trump presidency has been a complete disaster. The disaster seems to be getting worse, daily. Everyone has noticed that the stock market is crashing, and that inflation is starting to increase, after going steadily down during the final two years of the Biden administration. Trump's tariffs, and the trade wars they have already started, will cause a great deal of inflation.The chaotic way Trump is imposing them is and will continue to contribute to the stock market crash. The great aconomy of the Biden years is rapidly being smashed and turned into a disastrous economy under, Trump, with the real possibility of a recession looming. The massive firings of government workers is also a disaster, as hundreds of thousnds of family members struggle to survive, and the governmetn shrinks and withers, no longer able to function properly or smoothly. And nwo,don the Con is once again, as usual, as always, trying to con us. Trump says that some economcic "disturbances", including even perhaps a recession, are likely under his policies, but that, given enough time, his enlightened economic policies will lead American into a glorious golden era, or something like that. Amazing, how Trump supporters have suddenly become tolerant of failed policies. Somebody, somehwhere, has surely been able to mention to Trump the adverse consequences of his policies, or surely he has even begun to dimly perceive them for himself. Trump knows he is in trouble, but is in too deep, cannot back out, cannot admit that his government chainsaw and tariffs policies are disstrous,and reverse them. Hemight be forced to simply drop both of these insanerpojects,and declae victory. Strangely,laughably, but not surprisingly, none of this seems to boether Trump supporters in teh slightest. Disturbances? Sure, if the leader says so. Anything the leader says. Daily it is becmong ever more frighteningly obvious that Trump's MAGA mass mob would and will sit happily by, and applaude their glorious ldeaer as he takes the United States into a devastating, ruinous place. When teh stock market hits rock bottom, inflation is out of conrol, and a deep recession settle in under Trump, his he and they will doubtless talk about how bravel dn wisely Trump is leading the nation through the perilous times,how much worse it would be if the Democras or anybody else were in power, and blame it all on Biden, or somebody. The inflationary, recessionary, chaotic consequencs of the crazy chainsaw and tariff Trump program have not yet begun to truly ripple through American society and the American economy, but soon will. The Trump right wing cultural agendais evil and malignant and hateful, in which the LGBTQ and tansgender community is under attack,and "woke-ism", which is nothing other than social awareness, is treated like a disease, like DEI, rather than the basic, good concepts that they obviously are. The vital benefits provided by the Department of Education and the EPA will have to be rebuilt when this insanity is finally over, Trump is out of office, and his former followers have gone slinking off, back into the slime pit of horrible ideasand ideological lunacy whenc they presumably came.

Trump, Saving, Destroying America

Donald Trump allegedly said: "he who saves his country cannot break the law", or something like that. The relatively sophisticatd construction "he who" is enough to make one wonder, but we'll give him credit.It certainly sounds like him, believing that. Nixon, another crook, said essentially the same thing, and the current Supreme Court decreed it. I'm sure that Trump thinks he has saved the country, at least once, and that he has never broken the law. I'm sure he thinks that. The verdict is in: the president is above the law. considering how much more time we probably ave with Trump this is very alarming. In his speech to congress last week, teh one that seemed to last for days, Trump made it clear that not only has he saved the country during his first moth and a half of his second term, but that he has accomplished more in that time period than any other president in American history has accomplished in an entire four year term, or something like that. Whatever he said, it was ludicrous, as usual. History is complicated, and all historians have their own opinions about American presidents. As decades and centries,opinions of them tend to coalesce and becomemore uniform, but all recent presidents, and indeed all current presidents, are sujbect to a wide ranging variety of opinions and evaluations.Obama, Biden, and Trump, more ahtn Lincoln and Washington, are still being evaluated and reevaluted, by historians and by citizens who care. Many people doubtless agree with Trump, not only about his policies and beliefs, but also, that in a mere month and a half, he has indeed saved the country, and has done more than any other president in history. Most historians an observers, however, do not agree with this positive assessment. They see Trump's actions so far as harmful. Trump has begun his foreign policy by threatening to take over territory from other countries, and by imposing tariffs on several including our closest neighbors and trading partners. He has continued his hostility to NATO, and his intent to make America more independent of her traditional alliances. Most drastically, Trump blamed the European war on Ukraine by claiming that Ukraine actuallly started the war with Russia,a comletely ludicrous assertion. And now,the United States, under Trump's leadership, is evidently abandoning her former ally Ukraine, and joining the Russian side in the war. All this is, arguably, not only shocking and alarming, but extremely harmful. The United States is quickly alienating its allies, losing its friends, and making more enemies. Trump has filled is cabinet with people who hate the agencies and departments they are responsible for, and who only intend, like Trump himself, to destroy them or drastically reduce their size and power. This strategy is dubious at best, disastrous at worst. Thecurrent and ongoing decimation of the federal governemnt by the Trump administration is already a catastrophe, with tens of thosuands fo Americans suddely without jobs,and the government becoming more crippledby the way in its ability to deliver the goods and serviesweteh American people have long expected it to provide. Unethical, unqualified MAGA operatives are governing the country, under the control of a multibillionaire faction. The Trump administration is attacking the news media, retaliaiting agaisnt opponests and investigators of Trump, and trying to increase and consolodate presidential power for Trump.Trum pardoned hundreds of violent criminals, releasing them from prison. And, every day, Trump and his administation violate the constitution and the law, in a swirling chaos of proliferating lawsuits. The thought that it has only just begun might be daunting.

Butterflies, Vanishing

I'VE KNOWN two serious butterfly "collectors". I didn't like either one very much, although both had very impressive monarch butterfly collections. I knew one when I was about ten, and another when I was about fifty. They both spent a lot of time walking around with butterfly nets, catching them, killing them, mounting them. I strongly suspected, and still suspect, that there is an element of cruelty involved with this "hobby", however weak or strong. One of them ended up spending a lot of time in prison, and the other died relatively young, party because of drug use. Impressive though the mounted collections were, I never saw much point in it, never liked the killing. It has been known for a long time that the insect population is decreasing in the United States and Europe, and robably all over the world. Butterflies, teh ost popular insect, are vanishing at an alarming rate,and a new study indicates that the monarch butterfly population has diminished by about twenty two percent over the past two decades alone. Of more than five hndred species of butterflies in the United States, just under four hndred of them were studied extensively in this particular study, which involved thousands of volunteers, Remembering the size of the two dead butterfly collections, and the sheer number of monarh butterflies pinned and mounted, I can't help but wonder what impact it would be having on the monacrh population today had these two collections never been collected. Little, likely. The three main reasons for the drastic decline in most insect species are climate ahcnge, habitat loss, and insecticides. Evidendly, as of now by far the most harmful are insecticides-pesticides, which kill more insects and reduce the Earth's insect population much more than climate change and habitat loss. We know what we need to do. The good news is that we are perfectly capable of doing it. The bad news is that we aren't doing it, and the situation is becoming serious, disastrous. Insects aren't the only animal species disappearing from the world. The frog population has declinind rapidly, and over the past fifty years at least a billion birds have vanished from the skies of these United States. Meanwhile, the human population has doubled in less than fifty years, and is still growing. Maybe its time for the human population to level off, or decrease somewhat. When humans improve their abililty to live in habitats in space and on other planets, then, the human population can take off for real, if so desired. The way it looks now we're gonna have to get rid of plastics, insecticides, and other cheicals, and we are going to have to restore more wildlife habitat, everywhere. We need to begin doing this in earnest, and not lazily leave the task to our children and grandchildren. This is also true of climate change, obviously. We the living must start to solve the problem seriously, now. If we leave it to the unborn, may the devil take us. That is why it is and has long been so damned frustrating when millions of Americans refuse to accept climte reality, and keep electing people who deny climate change, and promise to make it worse. Namely, conservatives, Republicans, Trump, MAGA. That is suicide, and we the remaining sane must stop it.

Trump, Lying, Still

Donald Trump is picking up right were he left off from his first term; lying like a dog, as we say. It must be stopped. If not that, then called out and identified,and condemned, strongly. Durng his first administration it was tabulated that he told approximately thirty two thousand blatant lies. At his current rate six weeks into his second term, he might be on track to equal or even exceed that impressive total. Claiming that the war in Europe was started by Ukraine is, arguably, the most egregious, heinous, reprehensible lie that Trump has told not only in his fledgling second term, but..ever. When Trump, on national television from the Oval Office, where he was meeting with "hosting" President Zelenskyy, claimed that the United States has given Ukraine three hundred an fifty billion dollars, you knew that Trump's mental illness, pathological dishonesty, is quite intact. He talked over Zelenskyy when Zelenskyy corrected him. Trump is switching sides, from Ukraine to Russia. Is he expecting the American people to switch with him? Conservatives will, progressives will not. You might recall that Trump claimed he could end the war in a single day. When will he decide to do this? Trump expects a peace treaty in which Russia retains ownership and control of the land and people they currently occupy, about twenty percent of Ukraine. Good luck with that, as we say. Trump's lies about the economy are no less reprehensible. Isn't it, or shouldn't it be a criminal offense for the president of the United States to tell so many egregious lies to the American people? Trump claims, falsely, without evidence, that inflation was horrible under the Biden administration, but that it has come down drastically since he, Trump took office, because of Trump and only Trump. If you listen to Trump, you believe that the United States of America was in a horrible condition economically and generally the day he took office, but is now doing splendidly. What nonsense. In actuallity, inflation is slightly up since Trump took office, adn ther are signs that the economy is starting to slow down. This tariff business is not going to help, economists agree. It will inevitably fuel inflation, and appears to have already begun to do so.If the general population, or a majority of it, starts to believe the blatant, self serving lies being told by an authoritarian leader, like Hitler, Stalin, or Trump, if the general population embraces the fantasy versions of reality promoted by their supreme leader, the country will destroy itself. Every lie told by Trump, and from now on it appears that there is going to be a steady avalanche of them, must be clearly identified and reported to the voters. If we're not careful, the MAGA Republicans are going to elect Trump dictator for life, then isolate America from the world, promote a dog eat dog capitalistic economy, elevate the Christian religion to official status, and allow racism to exist, flourish, thrive, and run rampant, as it did in America before the government started forcing DEI down our throats. The MAGA - Trump war of hatred agaisnt DEI says much about Trump and his followers. The American people embrace diversity, equality, and inclusion, even if the malignant MAGA Trump movement does not. More than ever, the MAGA Trump movement must be opposed and stopped. Trump must be removed, or effectively prevented from implementing his agenda. Trump's Every word and deed since becoming president has been harmful to the United States, and the American people. This amazing consistency must be ended.

Wagering On Trump

I HAVE RELATED, and shall always relish the story of my former friend who verbally accosted me on July 29, 2021, challenging me to bet him on whether Donald Trump would be back in office by the end of the year. This is not a joke. It really happened. It was all his diea, and the bet was a case of imported beer. Of course I took the bet, and won.I really enjoyed the prize. I still have no idea what he was thinking. Did he really think that at some point during the last five months of 2021 that something profound was going to happen to insert Trump back into the prsidency, such as a Suprem Court decision, or another insurrrection a the capitol? I mean, gimme a break. He admited that it was an "emotional wager". And, as far as I know he is every bit as fervant in his suporrt of Trump now as he was then, although I don't hang out, or communicate with him anymore. That level of insanity, temporary or other, alarms me. I sincerely my old friend is doing well. Even more alarming is that,evidently, my old friend is not alone, in fact, is far from alone, in his unreasoning devotion to Trump. Alas, it seems to be rather common. NPR aired a story, now wellknow, about a divided family, in which father and adult soon were at odds politically, for the usual reason. The father was an over the top, hard core right wing Trumper. The son, not exactly far left, but, left of his father. Father wrote down a list of ten predictions, all of which he said would take place within a calendar year. they included predictions that Obama, Biden, and both Clintons would be indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced for treason. Marshall law would be declared in America. All ten of the predictions were crazy, crazy on the same level as my friend's. all obviously rooted in emotion, hatred, anger, intense longing and desire. Father and son actually ended up making a ten tousnad dollar wager on the predictions. Neither of the two was wealthy. As time passed and it became increasingly obvious that the father would lose the bet, the two men remained in contact, and when it was over,the father paid off his son in twenty dollar bills. The whole political love Trump hate Trump thing had torn apart their entire family. A gay daughter and the father finally, after years of stress, had a final fallig out. And, finally, the ten thousand dollar bet, in which you simply had to wonder what in hell the Trump lover was thinking. Was he mentally ill, crazy with some pseudo religious fervor? Even stranger, he responded to his loss of the wager by basically doubling down on his craziness. What he had predicted would still eventually happen, only,not soon enough to keep his ten grand. Arguments like that. A complete refusal to come clean, admit reality. A refusal to accept and understnad the spuditity of his thinking. And, yes frankly, I seem to see teh sae kind of thinking iina lot of Trump supporters. Namely, a coplete willingness to adandon reality, to forsake the truth, in favor of a preferred imaginary reality. Hence, perhpas, the proliferation of conspiracy theories from the far right in recent years. Alarming is the frequency with which Trump spporters either ignore, tolerate, accept, or eagerly endorse Trump's many blatant lies. There are very valid reasons why so many people identify the Trump movement as a "cult". Democrats holding up "false" signs at Trump's speech in Congress was an encouraging indicator. We the remaining sane must, simply must speak out, identify Trump's lies, and vigorously oppose his vile intentions and heinous projects. Our survival depends on it.

Trump, Plummeting Precipitously In Popularity

YOU WOULD THINK, what with all the turmoil going on within the Trump administration, and all over the country as a ripple effect, what with all the thousands of people losing their jobs, with all the harm he is doing to America, that Trump's approval rating would be taking a sharp dip. And, indeed it is according to reecent polls, although the process hasn't proceeded very far, yet. Trump still has his base, that hard core thirty to fourty percent with which we are all so painfylly familiar. But his disapproval rating is well over fifty percent, and his national approval rating well below fifty percent, with independents in particular, the group Trump needs to win, declining the most in its support of Trump. With tens of thousands of government bureaucrats losing their jobs, and tens of thousands more to soon follow, when you consider the friends and families and relatives of all thse suddenly unemploye folks, it seems inevitable that there will be hundreds of thousnds of Americans, even millions of voters disappointed in and disenchanted with Trump. Many, at least a certain percentage of those fired from the government in the great Elon Musk purging are, or were Trump supporters,and voted for him. Many of them b now have already soured on Trump, or soon will. Te only question is: "how many"? The answer will become apparent in due time. However, it must be remembered ow surprisingly doveted and resilient Trump support seems to be.A perfect example of this is in a letter a lady, who had een laid off her government job by Trump-Musk, wrote to the president. She begis the letter by sayng how shocked and surprised she was to receive notification of her termination, since she had been aud a hard working, loyal, reliable government worker, for many many years. She went on to say that she was concerned about how things would work out back in her old office and building and department, where her former coworkers, like government agencies all over the place, would have to hustle and shuffle and rearrange things to allow the remaining workers to pick p the slack,and to get the work done which would have been done by their dearly departed comrades. Good point. Then she talked in teh letter about her family, neighborhood,and community.She simplly had no idea how they were gong to get by, losing not only her income, but those of folks all over the country, and the impact it would have on thousands of families, economicall, and the communities they lived in. Another good point. Then, suddenly, she changed direction. She told the president that she had voted for him every time, and that she still loves him and considers herself a strong supporter of his. And, finally, Mr.President, could I please have my job back? Now, if she is actually waiting for Trump to give her her job back, let alone ever read her letter or see the envelope it ame in, good luck. We hope and assume she understands this, But, who knows? The amazing thing is, and has always been, what Trump supporters have been willing and able to ignore, overlook, accept, or put up with, and explain away using twisted and fabricated "facts", to remain supporters of Donald Trump. The cult leader guru christ can do no wrong. But, like everything else, there has got to be a limit to it, somewhere. Maybe the inflation caused by al these new tariffs will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Removing Putin and Trump

SOMEONE ON FACEBOOK announced, as if it were a matter of fact written in stone, that President Trump has issued an ultimatum to Volodimir Zelenskyy that the Ukrainian president must either apologize to Trump on natonal or world television, or the United States would cease and desiste with all further military aid, and maybe all aid, to Ukraine. This sounds too crazy even for Trump, and yet, strangely, it sounds exactly like somethng he wold do. And indeed, when I awakened dark and early this morning, among the first news items I heard on NPR was that Trump had suspended military assistance to Ukraine. The didn't say whether the suspension is temporary or would be lifted with conditions. We the Americna people thus continue going down the road by which our country is abandoning Ukraine, and becoing allied with Putin, and Russia. It seems more apparant every day. The question is: is that what we, the American people want? The atest polls indicate that Trump is unpopular, and that a majority of American oppose him and his policies, incluidng our apparant defection from Ukraine, and support of Russia by Trump They didn't say pecisely what percentage of the American people disapprove of Trump allying with Russia, or Trump taking orders from Putin, but most likely its a significant majority. It seems more probably by the day that Trump is indeed on Putin's side, and that, for some reason, Putin has control of Trump, maybe by blackmailing him with information highly damaging to Trump.Trup, with his pathological dishonesty, is perfectly capable of giving strong U.S. support to Putin and Russia, and simultaneuosly telling the American people that "we" are neutral, or, that our only concern is peace, or that "we" still support Ukraine's independence, blah blah. That is reason enough, unto itself, to oppose and remove Trump; his treatment of Zelenskyy on live television, and all the rest, is a carefully planned and orchestrated pproject to make the United States change sides in the Russian war in Ukraine. However, a strong majority of Americans, including me, stand with Ukraine. The United States needs to remain on Ukraine's side, fighting for and supporting Ukarine. At the moment, we need to accomplish this by making it plain, loud, and clear to Trump and everyone that this is what we want to do , and intend to do, regardless of what he tries to do. This backstabbing of Ukraine by Trump is amogn the most egregious things he has ever done, and, as they say, that's goin' some. Te long standing conspiracy theory that Trump is and has long been in Putin's pockets, and is essentially under Putin's control seems more and more probable. Trump forces Zelenskyy to turn down an unacceptable dela, then accuses Zelenskky of not dealing, and abandons him, presumably taking the United States with him But this in unacceptable to me. I refuse to change sides, and support Russia. I insist that Putin and Russia return all occupied Ukrainian territory to Ukraine, as a beginning of the peace process. I love Russia; the Russian people, Russian culture, Russian history, but, I despise Putin, the same way and for essentially the same reasons I despise Trump. Putin, like Trump, must go. We the American people and the Russian need to unite, and rise up in righteous indignation, protest, and revolution against the nefarious Putin-Trump axis of evil. WE the American and Russian people want democray, with we the people in power, implementing the popular will. At least, many if not most of us do. Strangely, crazily, a fairly large number of people seem to favor authoritarian governance, by a strong man, and his gang. We must hope and pray that they remain forever in the minority.

Reasons For Removing Trump

THERE ARE MANY RESONS forremoving Trump. Reasons for impeaching, trying, convicting, and removing him from the presidency, and reasons to indict, try, convict, and incarerate or perhaps even execute him. These reasons have to do with the may ilegal actions he has taken, and crimes he has committed already durig the first five weeks of his second adminiatration, as well as the massie number of such acts and crimes prior to his second term. And, not irrelevantly, all, yes, all of his ideas are bad, very bad. Just plain stuped, even. Consider this idea of the United States acuqiring Greenland. What should really happen is that Greenland steadily, intelligently transition from a semi-Danish possession, supported by and governed in part by Denmark to a completely independent, sovereign cocuntry, equal in all ways to all the other roughly two hundred countires in the world. The relatively small population of Greenland much prefers this option to becoming part of the United States, either as a fifty first state or territory. Ironically, the fact that Trump is president is a main cause of why Greenlandians have lately lost even more interest in affiliation with the U.S., even though the idea, at least in its latest incarnation, is Trump's. Trump, you see, is no more popular in Greenland than he is in the rest of the world, outside the United States, which is, not very. And yes, many other people have had the same idea, over teh decades, that the United States should expand, should keep growing and growing, and should annex Greenland. As is well known, Trump wants Canada too, and perhaps Mexico, although he doesn't seem as enthusiastic about Mexico. This may have something to do with the skin pigmentation of their respective populations. This lingerig idea of an ever expanding United States, resurrected by Trump, is, genarlly, a horrible idea, as horrible as annexing Greenland and Canada and teh Panama Canal.The canal should either remain in Panamanian hands, or turned over to the United Nations.. Certainly not teh United States, even though the U.S.A. built it built it, finishing what the French started, and owned and operated for seventy five years, until President Jimmy Carter signed it over to Panama in 1979. Many, many Americans were mad at Carter about that. For any one country to have that much of an advnatage in controllig thae canal is not the ost desirable situation, even if that country is the United States. What does Trump want, to become Donald the Conquerer, the great American tyrant who presides over the complete American conquest of the world, with the United States of America becoming the United States of Earth? Asid from the insurrection and other crims committed by Trump during his first term and during Biden's term, aside from hsi thirty four felony convictions,aside from teh fac that these crimes merit incarceration and,arguably, execution, during the past five weeks alone, the Trump administration, with all these governemnt firings and destrution of government agencies and unconstitutional executive orders, has already committed enough seriuos crimes in the past five weeks to merit indictment, impeachment, trial, conviction, and removal. My personal campaign to remove Trump began before his most recent inauguration, for insurrection and treason. Now, my reaons for thi project have shifted to this adminstration, actions Trump has taken in the last five weeks, fresh crimes. Donald J.Trump, no atter what he id doing, siiiiimply cannot obey teh law. He is addicted to crime, has commmitted crimes his entere life and is commiting more and crimes, each and every day....right now. Those of us, millions of us, who seek to remove Trump from office have a solid case agiasnt him,based only on his behavior every day in teh present. What we are really trying to do is to prevent him from being able to commit thousands more crimes over the next four years. Because if he isn't stopped, you know damned good and well, indeed everyone knows, that he will.

Flocking Together

WHAT FACEBOOK FEEDS ME is about half house cats, ten percent tigers, some supremely beautiful deep space photography of distant, colorul galaxies and nebulae, and a good, healthy dose of Donald Trump hatred. I love every last scrap of it. Just what the doctor ordered, for me. My fellow anti-Trumpers and I, in the same room, spweing and venting our own hatred, unlike that of Trump and his MAGA mob minions, predicated solidly on fact. Leave it to Facebook to supply an endless stream of material taylored to the individual, to lure and seduce said individual to come back...and back...with ever increasing frequency, like Cocaine. Like cocaine, the goods and services offered to us by our loving, beloved, drug pushing corporate masters uses careful scrutiny of our personal behavior to fabricate the perfect marketing strategy. Sacrement of algorythms. I keep going back to Facebook, and I keep reading posts expressing hatred of Trump, and I keep cheering them on, responding with the word "precisely", in full agreemment. And in the advertisements I post daily promoting this website, I try to lure my fellow Trump haters to log on to these essays by promising that if they do, they will be gifted an abundant quantity of writing expressing my hatred of Trump, advocating for his removal, indictment, trial, conviction, incareraration, and execution, and...it works, as they say, like a proverbial charm. Trump haters flock to my website, this website, and they seem to read these essays, my essays. And I flock to Facebook, addicted, it seems. But pro Trump posts occasionally sneak their way into and onto my digital social media universe, like moles or spies in the realm of my life. How they make it in, I have no idea. Does the Facebook AI algorythm mistake them for Trump opposition? Improving at lightspeed though Artificial Intelligence is, its still nascent, and makse mistakes. I scrolled by a post (is that called "doomscrolling", when you just keep on scrolling...and scrolling...?) which claimed that there are currently twelve million people over the age of one hundred and twelve receiving Social Security, mostly dead people, presumably. The message being, obviously, that Social Security is corrupt, like a ponzi scheme, which in fact it is, and, by implication should either be drastically reformed or eliminated altogether, perhaps with the Muskovite chainsaw. The infamous thing, this misinformation post, reeked with Musk, more than Trump. I interpreted it as being the work of a Trump supporter, either that, or of a mentally ill person, or a pathological liar, or all of the above. In most cases, Trump supporters indeed are, all of the above. So absurd, so dishonest that I found it laughable, and "shared" it. Almost immediatley my fellow Trump haters jumped all over me, like vultures on carion. Do I want to lose all my friends, they asked? What am I, some kind of right wing fascist Trump loving idiot, they asked? You get the idea. I don't always pay attention to responses to my comments, and I didn't this time, there were so many of them, and they were nearly all so full of venom and bile. Ssome kind soul posted a comment warning me that people were misunderstanding my intent, and were assuming that I had shared the post in support and agreement with it, rather than as I in fact had, to show folks how idiotic, laughable, and Trumpian it was. That, to me, seemed, as Jefferson might say, "self evident", that not only did I disagree with these alleged "facts" about Social Seurity, but that I found them absurd and pathologically dishonest. Exposing and mocking perfidy, in other words. Indeed, people need to "wake up". They need to become more conversant with the English language, and with nuanced, subtle, sarcastic behavior and verbal expression. How could anyone seriously believe that I was aharing this psot for any reason other than to show the heinous absurdity of it? My bad, I suppose. It looked for all the world as if I was the one making thes false claim. Most, if not all folks only share posts they steadfastly agree with. I share stuff that I find interesting, usually material I agree with, but not always. If something is hilariously false, I want people to see it, to mock it. For now on I must be careful not to become too damned nuanced for the masses, progressive, or otherwise.

Looking For God At the Lake

ON MY HIKE on the hilly rocky trail at my beautiful local lake, I met an older couple and their dog, who were all quite friendly. The dog charged me, looking for love. The lady apologized. No need. Later, I heard the dog, a white lab, screaming. I was horrified, thinking he was in terrible pain or being whipped, until the lady assured me it was a pleasure scream,and I saw the dog in the water, with a stick in his mouth, swimming joyfully. I laughed with joy and relief, and told the lady: "I used to throw tennis balls in the lake to my German Shepherd. It wass illegal, at that particular lake, to be in the water. Somebody took a picture and Wolfgang was on the front page of the local newspapeer,swimming, ball in mouth. The caption said: "Soggy Pooch". Wolfie and I, committing a crime,on the front page. We never got caught". The lady laughed, and agreed it was quite an experience. I laughed and replied that,at the end of our days, our experiences are all we have left. That,she said, and God. So, it was on. I had to jump in. The point I wanted to make is that there are many religions in the world, many concepts of God, and that each of us has our own, individual, seperate path to the top of the mountain, aka "God". I Quickly, efficiently hammered her with facts, as I am prone to do with everyone, being a retired teacher. There are more than forty two hundred organized religions in the world. Sixty two percent of the American people identify as "Christian", which is a precipitous decline in recent years. Facts like that. As I recall, she never explicity sais that she was a Christian. But she was. She referred to Christ, and used the name Jesus several times,as I remember. But, darn it, she was one of the people, and it seems to me that a majority of Christians are, who insists and assume that the Christian religion, her religion, is the only true relgion in the universe. I prefer people who believe that all religions are valid and true,from the point of view of their adherants. that no single religion has all truth, and tht all religions and all philospohies and systemsof belief have some truth. And, that are all quuite limited, and,in most case, symbolic, allegorical, rather than literally true. I can easily imagine beig a born again conservative Pentecostal Christian, and accepting and respecting all other religions, without thinking mine is better or best for everyone. If I became an evangelicl Christian, meaning a Christian who devotedly and fervantly tries to spread and share the faith with others, I think I would do so wihtout embracing the belief that people who I can't converta, and the don't ecoem Christians, will burn in hell forever. I dont't think you necessarily have to believe in hell to be an evangelical Christian, but, well, maybe you do. i assume there are many opinions and writings on the question. Matter of fact, the idea strikes me that when I finish and publish thie essay I'll "google it. Google'll ell you anything, right? I explained to the lady tha I am a pantheist, mentioned Spinoza and Einstein, and she had a much better reaction to it than most devout Christians, which by this time I have figured out she is. No, she didn't like it, but, by golly, she didn't how any open hostility to it, merely a sort of calm, quiet sadness. definitely negative, but acceptable, within limits. We jsut can't keep perpetuating human culture on this planet with a high percentage of humans locked into the mindset that their sacred, beloved religion is the only true one, and that only people who share it are worthy of heaven, and so forth. that attitude simply does not work, and although religious intolerance is not nearly as bad globally as it once, even rather recently, was, its still pretty bad, indeed too bad. I mentioned that "Holly Holy" by Neil Diamond is my favorite gospel song; she didn't even balk at that. Cool. I'm sure she thought it was weird, though. She finished the conversation b expressing the hope that my journey to God ends ends up successfully, or something like that. I was tempted to either say "It already has", or,"gee,wouldn't that tht be cool!", but, Isaid nothing. It wouldn't've done any good. No matter what, whe was going to go away thinking that its too bad that weird oldman doesn't accept Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and savior and is therefore in danger of his eternal soul spending eternity in hell, and hoping that maybe someday he would be saved and come to the truth, her truth, the only truth.

Trump, Trying To Be A Bully, (But Failing.Miserably)

I DESPISED DONALD TRUMP from the moment I first saw him,on the cover of "The National Enquirer" in the late nineteen seventies, I think it was. Fancy boy, posing for a scandal sheet, showing off his first of several trophy wives, Marla Maples. It is uncertain which he most craves; attention and fame, wealth, or power. In his psychotic insecurity he is addicted to all three. It is rumored that Trump's people advised Vladimir Zelenskyy to appear with Trump in a suit and tie. All the king's horses and all the king's men seem unable to make Trump look other than rumpled in his formal attire. Zelenskyy prefers to down dress, wanting to be authentic, knowing that he is only a public servant, and not superior. J.D. VAnce took a pot shot at Zelenskyy with Trump as his shield, as pre planned, and the two gangsters launched their gratuitous attack, likely following Putin's instructions. The whole sordid verbal attack on Zelenskky was as carefully orchestrated as Trump's insurrection, and no less egregioius. The mafia don, his thugs in the room, making their hit. Zelenskyy never should have tried to speak during Trump's psychotic ranting tyrade. He should have listened intently, hands demurely folded on his lap, looking straight at Trump, and remained slient until Trump finally ran out of gas, and stopped ranting. Then he should have said: "Mr. President, my country did not start this war. My country was invaded and occpuied, and remains occupied, by an unprovoked aggressor. Nor am I a dictator,sir. I was duly elected, without Russian assistance. You should try it sometime. If there is a dictator in this room, Mr. President, it isn't me. I have never expressed any desire to be a dictator. You have. To you, everything is transactional. Everything is a deal. OK, so be it. I am willing to deal. You want to please Mr. Putin and me both. That will be difficult. You're right, I lack cards. But I have something much more important: a legitimate grievance. I am the injured party, My country and I. Not you. Not Russia. I insist, that as part of any deal, my country be given its territory back, all of it, and that Russia and the woeldld help us rebuild it, and that Ruiisa and the world give us security guarantees. Also, the United States has not given Ukraine three hundred and fifty billion dollars worth of assistance, but rather, a little more than one hundred billion, for which we are infinitely grateful, as we have often told you. When the aid was given, there was no mention of our paying for it. Had that been your country's preference and intent, your country should have said so at the time, but did not. We are perfectly willing to pay for all future military assistance, by signing an agreement for mining rights to our valuable minerals. Whatever the future of the relationship between our two coutires, it must be built upon truth, not lies." Of course, Trump never would have allowed Zelenskyy to say all that without interrupting and talking over him. Maybe Zelenskyy should have continued his statement nonethelss, the two men talking at the same time. Marco Rubio, also hiding behind Trump, made the laughable remark that Zelenskyy was disrespectful toprevaricating and Trump, and should apologize. It is of course Trump who should apologize, but he is obvously incapable of it. It is probable that Trump has never apologized for anybody for anything in his entire criminal life,and never will. Roy Cohn trained him well, in the art of prevaricating and bullying. Like all bulllies, Trump is at heart a trembling coward, with a thinly veiled facade of strength. Zelenskyy stood up to him, and was humiliated only by virtue of spending time in the same room with a psychotic criminal. Decent Americans are ashamed of and embarressed by Trump, while immoral Americans are probably proud of him, just as they seem proud of his criminality, to the extent that they acknowlegde rather then deny it. Decent Americans should not be embarrassed or ashamed, they sould be angry, and determined to remove Trump, and to replace him with a person with Zelenskyy's courage, honor, and integrity. As Trump sinks to previously unknown depths of depravity, so do his supprters, as usual.

Washing Away Sins, With Bloody Detergent

AFTER OUR WEEKLY GOSPEL SINGING at the senior center, I repaired,as usual, to the fitness center for some moderate exercise. The fitness center consists of three machines, packed tighly together in a small back room, for which I am grateful. I do my heavy workouts at home, where I feel free to sweat. A fellow singer hopped on the stationary bike next to the treadmill on which I was walking, rather than running, which I do at home on my treadmill. We chatted, to pass the time. We agreed that we both love gospel singing. It occured to me that we have decidedly different reasons for our affection, but I didn't say that. We compared our favorite hymns. Mine, as always, is "How Great Thou Art". That, and "Holy Holly", by Neil Diamond, which I mentioned to her. She seemed bemused. I suggested that she give the song a try. Still, the bemusement. My narrow mind detector flashed bright red. I like to be honest with folks, so I offered that I actually prefer singing secular music, mostly rock n roll, some classical, and that I sing gospel only because its the only game in town, and, after all, when in Rome. I told her, in all honesty, that I am not religious. More bemusement, rather than any appreciation for my open mindedness and cooperative community spirit, which would have been more appropriate. Since she didn't ask why, I told her. well, I said, songs which glorify the washing away of blood with the blood of Jesus may be a good metaphor, but for me it evinces a digusting image, which I find barbaric, even nauseating. And, at any rate, the metaphor is innacurate, as innacurate as Shakespeare's taking up arms against a sea of troubles.(Hamlet is better literature than even the Bible, mixed metaphor and all). If you wash a robe in blood, it does not, repeat, does not come clean pure white, but rather, as a rather sickening baby shit pink. Even "Tide" won't wash out all the blood. Try it at home if thou wisheth, though I don't recommend it. The number of hymns in the Christian faith which use this bloody imagery I find shocking, disgusting, and repulsive, and most gospel melodies are to me flat, hollow, and immature to boot. I plain don't like gospel music, any more than I like religion. What I love is the essential message of Jesus, about giving unto the poor, loving everybody, judging not, not casting stones, and so forth. What I don't like about jesus is the fact that he was, overwhelmingly, an apocolyptic preacher, screeching tirelessly and tiresomely that the end is soon to come, that momentous events are just around the corner. Either he didn't know what he was talking about, or was the original conspiracy theorist, or both. We're still waiting. The larger part of his remarks wwere/are of that nature. As Casey Stengal used to say "you could look it up". My primary complaint about Christian theology is that it seems cowardly and irresponsible to me. People who glorify and rejoice that somebody else, a much better person than they, suffered and died for their sins I find abhorrant, and cowardly. Whatever sins I have committed, let me pay for them, not Joshua ben Joseph, my friend and brother. Let him live to be an old man, and let the Lord do with me as he/she pleases. I place my trust in God. At least I'll have self respect, if not eternal salvation in heaven. If I deserve to suffer eternally in tortorous hellish damnation, whih I highly doubt and reject, well then, so be it. If in reality we live in a "Christian" universe with a Christian creator, a notion I find laughably ridiculous, I wish I had never been born. I have no interest in living in the same universe with such a vicious, diabolical, maniacal diety as the biblical, Christian one. AA archibald MacLeish said,adroitly: "If God is God, God is not good. If God is good,God is not God." Thank God for parallel, alternative universes. Like Eintein said "I cannot conceive of a personal God who would sit in judgment over creatures of its own creation. Morality is of the highest importance, for human beings, but not for God". Einstein, a pantheist, is my religious role model. Now, everytime I walk the treadmill next to the lady on the stationary bike, I make pleasant onversation, as always, but for some reason, she doesn't seem to have much to say.