Saying It Again About Guns

THE MAYOR OF MNNEAPOLIS, Jake Frey I think his sname is, distinguished himself during the unrest in his city associated with the Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of twenty one, with his calm, confident, positive leadership. At a press conference folloing the recent mass murder in Minneapolis, he stood up and stood out once again, by asking a single,simple, but extremely relevant question. "Should anyone be able to fire thirty rounds or more before having to reload?" A very reasonable question indeed. Also, should you have the option of firing them from a fully automatic weapon, with a single pull and squeeze of the trigger sending forth a raging hellish hail storm of bullets? Semi automatic fire seems deadly enough; fully automatic, catastrophic. Of the nearly six thousand essays which have appeared on this website, surely at least a couple hundred, or several dozen at the very least, have been concerned with the topic of mass shootings in America. You get to the point where there is nothing new to say about it, so you say the same things repeately. Mayor Frey, asking this rhetorical question, passionately, on camera, was impressive. On the news cast, after showing the mayor, the camera showed a long line of high school students, dressed for school, carrying backpacks and books, lined up for what seemed like blocks at the front door of their school, walking,supervised by teachers, one at a time through a metal detector on their way into the building. Every student of every public school in the state of Tennessee now is required to pass through a metal detector every day as he or she enters his or her respetive school building. This is in response to the proliferation of mass shootings in American schools, and in particular to one which took place in a Tennessee school some time ago. The reason for it is obvious, and its hard to argue that it isn't a good idea. It might be inevitable that every public school or building in America eventually have metal detectors for all. But also, on an entirely different level, its sad. Its sad that we live in a country and society in which this horrible mass shooting nightmare goes on, endlessly. Especially sad, because, it seems so perfectly obvious that this situation does not have to exist, that it only exists because we as a country and society allow it to, and that we could greatly reduce to the point of essentially eliminating it by taking a simple step which has demonstrably worked well in all other countries; strict gun control and a drastic reduction of the number of guns in the average American home. Maybe its too late; the cow, so to speak, is out of the proverbial barn. This modern interpretation of the second amendment according to which the founders intended all Americans to have the freedom to own any weapon they choose should, quite obviously, be reconsidered. How could the founders possibly, for example, have intended automatic weapons to be legal? Australia and Great Britain got rid of guns, and their murder rates fell considerably. However, those countries were not quite as inundated in and awash in guns and gun culture as we here in the land of liberty and freedom. And as long as most Americans consider gun ownership to be a sacred god given right along with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it isn't likely that America's perpetual epidemic of gun violence will end, nor even abate significantly. Freedom comes at a high price, and we gun slinging Americans proudly pay it.

Applying To Be A MAGA American

ALMOST EVERYTHING that Donald Trump says and does seems crazy and horrible to his detractors, and thus extremely entertaining, if insane. But if you look at it from his point of view, all his actions are consistent, reasonable, and perfectly in keeping with his basic, ovarall agenda, which, mainly, consists of accumulating as much power for himself as he humanly possibly can. Recent examples include an apparant covert American operation in Greenland, intended to waaken the relationship between that coveted island and its "overseer", Denmark. Believe it or not. As is quite well known, Trump has wanted Greenland to become part of the United States for a long time. The Greenlandians, however, overwhelmingly, do not want that glorious dubious situation. Turn up the propaganda machine and start applying political and economic pressure. Domestically, many government agencies, agencies like FEMA, for instance, having been gutted by Trump, are fully aware that they have been so severely damaged by depleted numbers and unqualified leadership as to be wholly ineffective and unprepared to carry out their functions, and hundreds of employees have signed letters stating precisely that and sent them to Trump, who responds by suspending or firing the letter signers. Criticize your boss, dare to tell the truth about the organization you work within,lose your job. That's pure fascism, not if it happens in private business, but its a fascist way of operating the government. That African-American lady on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank isn't having it, and is fighting back. Fighting back might be precisely what the majority of the American people who oppose Trump should, perhaps, consider doing more of. If Trump calls out the National Guard into the streets of every big city in America dominated by Democrats, perhaps we the American people will finally have had enough of fascism, and Trump. Nothing that Trump has done recently is quite as white nationalistic fascist as his new policy regarding applicants from immigrants to the United States. Beginning presuming immediately, anyoe who applies for immigration to America will be screened for "un-American" or "anti-American" tendencies, attitudes, beliefs, or whatever. Precisely what is meant by "screened", has not been explained, at least to the public. It could mean nearly anything. will they have to write essays explaining exactly why they want to become citizens of the United States, and be asked to explain exactly what it is about America which attracts them to her? If you want to find out how people entering the United States actually feel about the U.S., you have to do more than merely read and listen to what they offer you in terms of information. Hatred and resentment and harmful intent can be hidden, so you have to try to expose it with questions. There are many definitions of "un-American", "anti-American". Accordign to Trump and his MAGA cult, anyone who opposes Trump, acknowledges American racism, supports gay rights, hates America. Anyone who believes in and supports "DEI" is un-american. Hell, it could easily,by increments, get to the point where millions of unwashed brown skinned people, desperately fleeing gangs and poverty, arrive at asylum ports of entry wearing "Make American Great Again" Trump ball caps,knowing that love of and loyalty to Trump are required to be considered worthy of admittance into God's glory land. Everything Trump says and does makes perfect sense, to Trump, if not to decent Americans.

Slouching Towards Fascism

I WAS SHOCKED AND HORRIFIED when I found out, by watching "Face the Nation" that over the past four years, the Democratic party has lost about two million members, and the Republican party has gained approximately that many. Even worse, much of this loss and gain has happened is the so called "swing states", increasing its impact. What does this mean? That fascism is popular, and is winning? I had, for some reason, assumed pretty much the opposite; that people are fleeing the Republican party, and that Trump's popularity maxxed out long ago, that it would never go any higher than now, because at this stage of the game, Donald Trump is simply not going to attrract any new supporters? Is this all wrong too,heaven forbid? Isit possible that Trump's behavior over the past six months, or four years, has actually attracted new supporters for him? How can that be? Suppose that the Epstein files are actually released to the public, and that they haven't been edited,and that Trump's name is all over them, along with pictures and names of under aged girls. Trump, busted, finally. What would happen to his approval rating then? would it skyrocket, the nation proud to have verified pedophile as president? The same news program gave Trump's current approval rating as forty four percent, with fifty three percent opposed. That's low for a president at this stage, but not as low as you somehow think it should be, what with Trump rolling out all his fascism, and such. Trump opponents are evidently conronted with the unpleasant but undeniable reality that a large portion of we the American electorate views Trump's authoritarian behavior, the tariffs, the national guard, the deportations, all that, as positive developments, necessary to making America great, again. People tend to like a strong man, people tend to like fascism. Somehow, it makes people feel secure, comfortable, protected. Our great leader will take care of us. Trump, the man who gets things done, rather than sitting around waiting for congress and all the and media talking heads talk about every little detail in every policy proposal, debating, talking, endlessly. So what if he sidesteps a few regulations and breaks a few little laws and usurps a little congressional authority in so doing? My father once said to me that the best form of government is probably a benevolent dictatorship, heavy on the "benevolent" part. Almost everybody who participates seriously in the democratic process becomes, at one time or another, frustrated at the cumbersome, plodding inefficiency of it all. The elephant in this idyllic room is that human beings by nature, when they acquire dictatorial powers, even if they begin as basically benevolent individiuals, tend not to remain benevolent, because, alas, Lord Acton was right, power corrupts, power does not make benevolent. The National Guard has now been patrolling the streets in Washington D.C. for more than two weeks. Indeed, there has been and still is a negative response to this from the public, but, perhaps, not negative enough. Already, it almost seems as if we are all somehow starting to get used to it. Perhaps we will watch the fuhrer clean up every American city, one at a time, by force, then praise him as he tells us another ludicrous big lie; that crime in America has finally been totally eliminated. Prisoners often end up liking prison, and adoring their captors, living their lives in chains, not knowing they have the key.

Rewriting History

AMERICAN HISTORY, from the time it began being made and written about, has generally tended to be written from a very patriotic, pro-American point of view. This is called "hagiography", history which is written by someone who has a very favorable, biased, positive atttidue tuwards his subject matter,whether it be a person, a country, or an institution. Bias is a problem in historical research and writing, as it tends to be in most endeavors. Bias produces hagiography, which gives people a false history, and thus, false attitudes and beliefs about history. A passive, happy population, brainwashed on phony feel good history, is not a good thing. I was raised on American historical hagiography. So were every other American public school student from the nation's founding to, oh, say, the late twentieth century. Our blessed republic was painted as a proverbial shining city on a hill, the essence of human goodness and progress. Intellectual revolutions of one kind or another took place in all areas of research and academic endeavor in the middle to late twentieth century, including medicine, science, and the arts; why not in the writing of American history as well? Well, it did. And so it came to be that increasing numbers of baby boomer historians began seeking a better, more realistic, historically accurate and balanced description of the nation's past. Thus, what was once a glorious herioic westward expansion of the true civilization has been rewrirren and retold as genocide and territorial theft and conquest. Slavery, once presented as a "peculiar" institution with certain benefits and advantages for all involved in it, slaves included, suffered a diminished reputation when modern historians finally decided to "wie es eigentlich gewesen" (tell it as it was), and to stop the whitewashing of a cruel, brutal, tragic history and legacy. The reason why conservatives today want to eliminate all mantion of race and sexual orientation in public schools is because society, and thus schools, are more willing nowadays to teach truth, not hagiography. They (conservatives) also want to throw out all accurate honest hsitory as "anti-American", because it does not flatter the United States, and return to the good old days of simplistic, whitewashed hagiography of our parents, grandparents, and so forth, back through history. Conservatives are traditionalists, and they want to be proud, not ashamed of their nation's history and traditions. At the Smithsonian musuem of American history, for instance, American slavery is depicted is stark, blunt, honest, accurate terms. No sparing of anybody's feelings. All exhibits at the Smothsonian are genuine, not fake replicas. Extremly conservative, patriotic people, like, say, Donald Trump, along with evidently millions of other lovers of American hagiography, are offended that the nation's historical museum dares show and tell the truth about slavery, about its deep insinuation into American society and history, its horrible cruelty and brutality, its lingering endurance today. Trump, MAGA is going to remodel the Smithsonian, and bring back mythoogical American greatness. Make America look great again. Slavery will once again give comfort and pride to us, as good Americans, rather than horror, moral outrage, and disgust. By the time Herr Trump gets done with us, we the American people will be proud, proud as all hell, of our great country, past and present. Our American leader will do a better job of this than his role models and heroes, Hitler and Stalin.

Rigging and Reducing the Vote

THE REPUBLICAN PLAN to take over the United States permanently, legally or otherwise, and to install, permanently, a right wing authoritarian Christian nationalist government, is a multi-faceted enterprise which is being manifested even as we speak out against it. Facet number one is to gerrymander the entire country so as to ensure the permanent ownership and control of the House of Representatives by the Republican party. The great state of Texas has already begun the process, having just yesterday successfully voted in a new redistricting map for the state, which provides Republican majorities is five more counties than before. The Democrats may end up with no more than a half dozen House members from Texas, thanks to the new map, which was explicity drawn for that precise purpose. The Texas Republicans are not motivated to make the United States a stronger,fairer democracy, but rather, to rig it for the conservative cause. Many of them openly acknowledge this corrupt motivation, choosing not to even bother to try to hide it. Others ridiculously claim that the redrawn maps are intended to "more fairly" represent the consrvative community, blah blah. In the great national gerrymandering war which is breaking out, Republcans, due to demographic circumstances, have a big advantage over Democrats. As of now, there are perhaps twenty or twenty five truly competative seats out of four hundred and thirty five. Soon, there may be none. An entire brand of the American government the so called "people's house", rigged, bought, stolen, the voters themselves utterly irrelevant and powerless. The second prong of the Republican attack on democracy is based upon their long standing but utterly false claim that mail in voting, at all levels, anywhere and everywhere, is inherently corrupt, fraudulant, Amazinaly, all the fraud and corruption seems to be within a single political party, not both. For several reasons, a big majority of mail in voters are Democrats. Democrats tend to mail in their votes much more than Republicans. This has been well known for years, and is the only reason why Trump and his fellow Republican mobsters want to criminalize mail in voting. Th elarger project is of course "voter suppression; according to which Republican election workers desperately try to find excuses for purging the voter registration roles with poor, disabled, or colored people, aka, Democrats. In the grand casue of making Amerian great again by making its electorate white and conservative again proceeds, by any means necessary or effective.Legality is merely a minor matter. Computers and voting machiens arealso on teh Republican chopping block, believe it or not. They want all voting to take place in person, on eh day of the election, with fewer voting places, longer lines, fewer people voting, lowr vote totals. The reasoning is that many more Democrat types will be weeded out than good white,Christian conservative Republicans. Again, the reasoning is valid, based on demographics and voter tendencies. If we're not careful, we shall have gone full circle, an be back to where our founding "fathers" wanted us and intended for us to remain; as a nation in which only wealthy land owning white males are allowed to vote.

Destroying Democracy, Deliberately

A PERFECT STORM of circumstances has conspired to produce what must be considered among the most bizarre stuations in recent American history. Trump's imaginary but massive crime wave and invasion of immigrants in Wasington D.C has resulted in the conversion of the nation's capitol into an armed camp by presidential declaration of emergency. Thousands of National Guards people from six different states, hundreds from each red state, are swelling the numbers and size of the roving bands of camoflouged young adults in the streets. Large groups of them spend much of their day hanging out in large groups, chatting with each, milling around, doing nothing, like high schoolers on a McDonald's parking lot on a Saturday night. What do they, what can they do all day, other than asemble in formation,march around awhle, and stand or sit around the rest of the time. Must get pretty boring. Also, very expensive, for the American tax payer. Like a metasticizing cancer, the perceived urgent necessity of fuly militarizing under martial law the Capitol City is spreading to every conservative state in America, which means, most states. The questions are; how big will it get, and how long will it last? Will it be permanent? Is this just another step forwared in establishing a military dictatorship in the United States, with Trump as the dictator for life? These questiosn are reasonable, because as of yet, there seems to be no, absolutely none, no resistance or negative feedback about all this among Stump's MAGA support base. Trump nation, seemingly, is good to go, down with it, as we say. Shocking. While militarizing Washington D.C.and turning it into Trump's personal fiefdom, the grand Republican project of gerrymandering every red state in America proceeds, full speed ahead. Texas is dead serious about it. The Republican Trump mob which controls the Texas government is now assigning law enforcement officers to follow, shadow, and monitor all Democrat members, and is locking up in the Capitol building any Democrat legslator who enters it. How much longer until the Lone Star State legislature passes a law criminalizing the Democratic party, and sending anyone who insists on belonging to it to Aligator Alcatraz? Florida would happily lock 'em up; the Republicans there are proceeding to gerrymander their state, practically forcing Democrats into political extinction. All too soon, every red state in America which aint square (and maybe even the square ones too) will be subject to gerrymandeirng by the Trump mob. By the time the 2026 elections arrive, the Republicans fully intend to make Republican domination of Congress automatic, inevitable, and perpetual, one red state at a time. Presumably a huge, overwhelming percentage of registered Republicans, including evangelical Christians, are perfectly happy with this destruction of American Democracy in exchange for one party authoritarian government. It goes without saying, or should, that this is not at all what the founders had in mind,or how American democacy is supposed to function, in which the party in power in every state changes and rigs the election system to favor their own party. When the other party is voted in, the whole thing starts over....and over. Create political social and political chaos, declare a national emergency, finish installing fascist, authoritarian government. As T.S. Eliot said: "So elegant, so intelligent". No, not really. Rather, evil, nightmarish. But whatever, a perfectly workable plan which is being implemented right before our eyes, with the apparent support and approval of much of America. We can only hope, not enough.

Taking From the Poor, Giving To the Rich

THE FIRST THING TRUMP DID when he took offic was sign an executive order eliminating funding for America's foreign assistance agency USAID.The food and medical care USAID has distributed all over the world over the years has been estimated to have saved the lives of millions of people. But now, because of Trump, it shall save no more lives, at least not until Trump is gone, if ever. He did this within mere moments after taking the oath of office. This was entirely appropriate; the new president getting right down to his highest priority, taking from the poor and giving to the wealthy, without needless delay. Since January 20, 2021, precisely how many children around the world have died from starvation or lack of medicine? Is anybody keepting track? How many more will die over the next few months and years, or until we the American people finally elect a decent human being, aka Democrat, as president of the United States, along with a Democratic congress? Trump's plan seems to be to cause as much chaos as possible, and to incite as much fear and anger throughout the population as possible. He also seems to have a marked proclivity for dispensing widespread misery. Trump's budget for this year, eagerly voted into law by his sycophantic, cult-like Republican congressional majority, gives the wealthiest Aemricans massive tax cuts, eliminates huminatarian spending, greatly increases military spending including weapons procurement, and plunges the country into ever deeper national debt. Its a budgetary disaster, but entirely aceptable to Trump's MAGA mob. And yet, there's more. As if the administration hadn't already done enough damage to the poorest of the poor, the Republican congress and Trump have promoted a bill to drastically cut funding for UNICEF, the United Nations organization founded shortly after World War Two which has, over many decades, saved an estimated one hundred and fifty million lives globally. Once again, lives saved will turn into lives lost, as countless numbers of impoverished people die due to lack of the assistance previously rendered by UNICEF. Unspeakably cruel. And again, make no mmsitake; this cruelty is not the idea of a single, malign, evil tyrant such as, say, Donald Trump. Far from it. This particular act, and the Trump tendency to attack humanitarian spending and to cut taxes for the wealthy is an agenda fully and wholly supported by the Republican Congressional majority, the Republican party, MAGA, and evangelical conservative America. Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt stood in front of cameras and proudly proclaimed that UNICEF is "crap". House SpeakerMike Johnson described the international agency and its work as "wasteful" and "harmful". Maybe some resources have been used inefficiently in UNICEF. Some of that happens in nearly all human organizations. There's always room to cut waste. Precisely what harm UNICEF does or has ever done the extreme right winger did not say. Trump's war on cooperation and compassion, like all his other harmful policies, will have to be endured during the remainder of his time in office, and reversed, and the damage done repaired, when he mercifully is gone. Within limits. We can only estimated the number of people lost instead of saved by the perversity and cruelty of American conservatism. But we know that there are many, will be many more, and that no amount of future damage control and repair can or will ever change this tragedy.

Trump, Declining

ON THAT INFAMOUS DAY when Trump incited an insurrection, then watched it and rooted for it on television in the White House, he never called out the National Guard because, as he said, he lacked the authority to do so. That, of course was a lie, and he knew it at tht eime.He didn't want the National Guard, the police,or the military, nor anyone else to get in the way of his attempt to overthrow the government, after all. Flash forward to the other day, and compare his newly discovered powers aggressively employed, calling out the National Guard in Washington D.C., even though there was absolutely no reason to do so, other than Trump's desire to give the world a dramatic display of his power. His threat to activate the guard in other major American cities makes the situation even more alarming. It meshes perfectly with Trump's growing simmilarities to Hitler and Mussolini. The streets of Washington have been full of uniforms for days now, and still, there seems to be no hesitation on the part of MAGA-nation to placidly accept it. Opponents of Trump, which is now a majority of Americans, don't seem to be terribly upset about it either, at least not to the point of taking to the streets in mass protests. Still, overall, its not a popular tactic by Trump, and one wnders what the public reaction will be if and when our demented leader decides to extend his militarization of America all across the fruited plain. Somehow, you sense that the willingness of we the American people to tolerate very much of this idiocy is quite, quite limited. Trump's choice of when to mobilize the military and when not to is demonstrably insane, ass backwards, a clear threat to democracy and the American government. The fact that Trump returned from Alaska with nothing to show for ti other than his willingness to be manipulated by Putin does not help his approval ratings, and the determined desperation with which the Republicans are determined to rig the congressional districts in Texas clearly indicate an obsessive, urgent desire to keep Trump in office, and to keep his policies in effect,long after he is gone. Trump's taking the side of Putin, as he certainly seeems to be doing, will further harm his job approval rankings. It cannot be emphasizedenough that not only are Trump's policies and Trump himself despised by a clear majority of Americans, but so are the policies and agenda of the Rebpublican party and the Christian conservative movement generally. For that reason, there ahs never been a better time than now to attack the MAGA movement with an avalanche of facts, and great persistence in calling out their lies. It is difficult to imagaine, at this point,Trump and MAGA gaining many if any new supporters. It is not so dfficult at this point to imagine Trump and MAGA losing popularity, as members gradually jump ship, fleeing from Trump's ongoing disastrous administration. It seems almost a certainty that over the next few weeks and months,inflation will g et worse. Trump'll have a hardtime convincing people thatitis notreal, ornot his fault. Presidents get blamed for the economy, always. Trump is already starting to try to sell the American people the nonsense that inflation is somehow good for America. Good luck with that. Even if his hard core MAGA cult members are willing to so drastically suspend their meager powers of discernment as to drink this koolaid, the vast majority of Americans, being reasonably intelligent, are almost certainly not. Or so we must hope....

Nourishing the Soul, Cleansing With Blood

THIS COMING SUNDAY, 8/17/25, the 239th birthday of Davy Crockett, I shall go happily to church, and to the discussion group which precedes it. Afterwards, a bit of seventy year old tennis in ninety five degree heat. Wish me luck. That, surely, is sufficient excitement for nearly anyone on a hot August Sunday... Monday, its up and attem for ten o'clock gospel singing at the senior center, but only after a coupla cups of coffee after feeding the cats, which comes first. Bottom line, I enjoy every single one of these activities and responsibilities,and am inclined to compare and contrast them; The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship service on Sunday, and the gospel singing group using Baptist hymnals on Monday morn. So far, I have attended only two of the UU services, and have participated in singing four of their hymns. I loved every moment of it, and fully intend to go back for more, to become a regular. I find their hymns to be beautiful, sublime, enlightened. I noticed that they have a big, thick hyman book;I am eager to learn as many of these lovely songs as possible, and to sing them with gusto. I have participated in Monday morning gospel for nearly four and a half years,and I know a great deal more about the Baptist hymnal. To me the more mainstream Baptist hymns tend to be simplistic, childish, obsequious, barbaric, and bloody. I love the song "How Great Thous Art", the rest of them, you can have. I remain in the singing group because I like to sing, I am told I am good at it, and that I contribute to the group, and, well, in any event, when in Rome, correct? Anyone who chooses to believe that our sins are forgiven by our accepting as our lord and savior the son of God, by his being tortured to death and shedding blood wihch washes away our sins, is welcome to it. To me, all this crucifixion theology is primitive, cruel, barbaric. The washing away of sins with the blood of Christ, whether meant as a symbolic metaphor or a factual, accurate description fo reality, is to me beyond disgusting. Bad enough to accept or even give any consideration to this ridiculous human fantasy, much worse to rejoice in it, to be joyful that someone else has bled and died for your sins. Shouldn't we who embrace this nonsense instead feel ashamed, cowardly, and irresponsible? Perhaps we would, if we really believed in it, rather than merely pretending to, in self deceit. The bloody metaphor is disgusting enough, but becomes even worse when the overly zealous revel in it, magnify it, describing the blood letting of Christ on the cross as a "cascading flow" or "torrential river" as they all too often do. Shouldn't this event be mourned, and not celebrated? Even stranger is wen the devout attempt to do both,simultaneously. "Living In the Shadow of the Cross", as the hymn goes. In other words, hiding. Your spotless white robe, formerly stained with sin, was cleansed in the blood. Anyone who believes that never tried to get the blood stain out of a white T shirt after a sand lot football game. You can always tell where it was. I am glad that I am open minded and tolerant enough to take part in activities which do not necessariy reflect my personal beliefs. It makes life more interesting. And besides, thirty minutes after singing the prasies of standing next to the cross and getting drenched by cleansing blood for an hour, the senior center serves a damn good lunch.

A Meeting of Mental Cases

PUTIN AND TRUMP are, in a real sense, "two peas in a pod". In terms of their positions of power, personalities, and current predicaments, they have much in common. Authoritatarian rulers with the requisite massive egos, both of them are career criminals who would and perhaps will be in deep legal trouble if they ever leave office alive. But, of course, they won't. The world might be a great deal better off if they get to Alaska, have a couple of drinks and a very good time, and decide, by mutual agreement, to resign, remain in Alaska, and to spend their remaining years in seclusion, hidden from the public, doing whatever they want, harming no one. The world should be so lucky... Trump's reason for attending the "summit" meeting, what he wants to get out of it, is obvious and has been for awhile. Trump wants to broker a cease fire and ultimately a peact treaty between Russia and Ukraine, and, above all else, he wants credit for it, the world's gratitude and adulation, a Nobel Peace Prize, the whole works. Just yesterday he was sitting in the Oval Office, with the camera pointed at him, just the way he likes it, talking about his incredible achievement of allegedly having stopped six wars within the past month..or did he say last week? Whatever it was, it was, of course, an outright lie. Evidently he has indeed been in contact, through his administration, with representatives of several countries where wars are ongoing, and discussed the possibility of peace between them, with them. Beyond this, nobody really knows precisely what, if anything, the self described stable genius has accomplished. Nor is it entirely clear precisly what role, if any, Trump has actually played in bringing about a cessation of hostilities, anywhere on Earth. Trump the American carnival barker wants to take our minds off the "Epstein files" (remember them?), and put our malleable, manipulatable little minds directly on his heroic feat of bringing peace to the entire world. Trump will happily endorse a peace plan which favors Russia and is acceptable to Putin, meaning, Don the Con will be more than happy to sign over Ukrainiian land to Russia. He and Putin will arrive at a cease fire proposal and perhaps a peae agreement perfectly acceptable to both of them - but not nearly as acceptable to a certain President Zelenskyy - remember him? Russia will accept no cease fire or treaty in which they don't get to retain possession of at least some small part of the Ukrainian territory currently under Russian conquest and control. We know that for certain. Putin will not go home empty handed. Similarly, President Zelenskyy will not sign a peace treaty unless Russia returns to Ukraine all the territory, every last square inch, that it took form them in the invasion and war. And for this attitude, who among us could possibly blame him? Putin and Trump will argue that this position is unrealistic, that Ukraine should be prepared to cede at least some territory to Russia, in the east, perhaps, where many Russians live, as the reasonable and expected price to pay for ending the war and having guaranteed peace forevermore.. Putin might be willing to keep less land in Ukraine than he currntly controls, but, how much less? Not much, of that we can be assured. Putin and Trump will accomplish nothing, and falsely, piously claim to have had a "productive" meeting. They will keep "gaslighting" Ukraine, as we like to say, with their ludicrous claim that Russia is not entirely responsible for the war. Just like nearly everything else that the twin titans of tyranny say, it will be a total and complete lie.

Trump, Pushing It

DONALD TRUMP'S two main gigs right now seem to be flexing his muscles by turning cities into police states, and rigging America's political future by forcing Republicans into power, unfairly. The two projects are in perfect harmony with each other, in consolodating and concentrating Trump's power, and stacking Congress with more than enough support to achieve this. There seems to be widespread agreement than filling the streets of the nation's capitol with police and military has nothing to do with fighting, reducing, or eliminating crime and homelessness, but rather, with Trump seizing and displaying raw, naked power. His supporters, who formerly were liberty, freedom, and small government conservatives, have now, through necessity, magically transformed into rank and file sycophantic supporters of authoritarian governance. Both of these illegal, unconstittional Trump initiatives will, it is to be hoped, either lose steam and fade away gradually, naturally, or engender such an outburst of popular protest that they are terminated by Congress, or the courts. No matter what, both militarization and gerrymandering seem to have the general support, tacit or otherwise, of MAGA, as all of Trump's crazy illegal policies tend to. Trump has already indicated his desire to do unto other major American cities that which he has already done to Washington D.C. He has mentioned Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago and New York as possible targets. In every city, crime, violent crime, and murder have all decreased significantly after an initial pandemic related spike. Generally, crime has been going down in the U.S. for thirty years, and it currently at a thirty year low. This sudden initiative to make America safe from crime is, experts attest, unnecessary, unprecedented, and unlawful. You could add "unwise", and "unsane". Nobody should make the mistake of thinking that Donald Trump is currently acting with the best interests of these United States in his warped mind. Every word he utters, every deed he undertakes, is intended to serve only one purpose,; his own welfare. Whoever doen't understand that by now, never will. Mass deportations and incarcerations of dark skinned immigrants fits in well with the rest of Trump's fascistic agenda; however, with regard to this, there are red flags rising, warnings being issued. Very rapidly, in a matter of mere weeks, the attitude of the American people has shifted dramatically on the issue of millions of undocumented immigrants living in the United States, and what to do about them. The American people,a majority thereof, have recently embraced a pro immigrant point of view, and pprefer that they be allowed to remain in the country, work, and be given a pathway to citizenship. Again, that is a sudden, dramatic shift, and it is probably fueld by media coverage, including shocking video,of people bieng harassed, biolently rounded up on teh strees, and being incarcerated in horrible places like "alligator Alcatraz", living in squalor and horrible living conditions, much publicized. Trump, his gestapo,and extreme right wing America have overplayed their hand in their "tough on immigration" policy, have gone way too far, and are now reapingtheir just tewards; the anger and indignation of we the common,mainstream, decent American people. At some point, sooner rather than later, if Trump keeps pushing his agenda of policing cities, rigging elections, and brutalizing people on the streets, he'll push it too far, and a large majority of America will let him know it, very bluntly. Its already starting to happen. Trump's numbers are tanking. Trump always tries to fly too high, crashes, and burns. For America's sake, he needs all the help he can get.

Evolving, Freely

BOTH OF MY GRANDMOTHERS were born around 1890, and were entirely 19th century Victorian women. They wore dresses to their ankles daily, and they both took their religion seriously. Interestingly, neither of them ever tried to instill religion within me. Nor did anyone else. I have a theory as to why. I can't prove it, but I have a hunch that both my parents instructed, warned their respective mothers to refrain from trying to influence my religious choices, or to try to indoctrinate me. Our son is smart enough to choose his own influencers, and he will form his own beliefs, over time. Besides, my parents would reason, he has the right, to choose hiw own beliefs, just like everyone else. I have always considered this the best thing my parents could possibly have done, and I have always been extremely grateful for it, even though I have no idea whether they actually did it. But I am convinced that both my grandmothers considered it extremely important for people to be Christians, saved by accepting Jesus Christ as their lord and savior, and that they would have been more than willing to help me along that particular path, if allowed. Maybe my grandmothers took one look at me, or many looks, and, estimating my intellect and intellectual independence, simply decided to back off. That hopeless little pagan, unsaved, with unsaved parents. I can only hope that neither of them spent too much time and energy worrying about my eternal soul. Nobody needs that kind of stress. Whatever, for my money my parent's strategy of non interference worked like a charm, so to speak, and I grew up free thinking and open minded, my mind unfetterd by dogma and indoctrination. I knew by the time I was eight years old that religious faith was not and might not ever be for me. I evolved into a pantheist,a "follower" of Spinoza and Einstein, which to my thinking has allowed me to perfectly harmonize spiritual reverence for creation with observable reality. I recall evolving from my youthful atheism to agnosticism, to pantheism,and then, much more recently,to my present day brand new involvement with Unitarian Universalism, my latest spiritual incarnation. The grand adventure continues, and,one might assume, never really ends. The UU ""Fellowship" as they call it, appeals to me on many levels, for many reasons. They never call their beliefs a "faith" or a "religion", or a "church", which appeals to me. The local Unitarian congregation, in a thriving college town, consists of about a hundred mostly older progressive well educated intellectuals, just my type. A lively, engaging bunch. I've been to two of their services, which last about an hour, and enjoyed every minute of it both times. I am very eager to go back for more. I have discovered that I really enjoy visiting churches and attending various services, because I think it educates me. In the past year I have visited several Protestant denominations and one very conservative fundamentalist type mega church, with thousands of congregants. I found them all satisfactory, to verying degrees. I would like to attend religious servies as a visitor of as many different relgiious traditions as possible. One can grow and evolve indifinitely. Another thing I like about the Unitarian "church" is that it is comprehensive, all encompassing, inclusive. Much like both Buddhism and Hinduism, Unitarianism believes that it embraces and encompasses all other systems of belief, merely by accepting them. For that, more power to them. I happen to feel exactly the same way about my own unique religiosity.

Singing Whale Songs No More

THE BLUE WHALE in the picture on the computer screen was huge and beautiful, floating underwater, bathed in deep blue beautiful water. He or she must've been many feet long, weighing tons. The photography was wonderul, useful in advertising or promotions. I nevereven bother to recall the name of the organization promoting the ad, because the message itself caught my attetion, and kept it. It said something like: "The songs of the blue whales are dying to a whisper, down forty percent". Then, in smaller print below, it explained that ocean scientists are very alarmed by this, and that it is undoubledly caused by a deterioration in the whale's environment, caused by all of the many and varied forms of pollution and abuse caused by, you guessed it, human activity. We humans are killing teh Earth, the atmosphere, and the ocean's. Whalesong, a precious, beautiful, so plaintive and adorable a combination of squeaks,moans, trumpets and other unique sounds, going silent, gradually, but, inexorably, the joy which probably inspires them vanishing, and gone. Fewer whales to communicate with each other their joy of living, and whatever else they are trying to say. I do a lot of shopping at th eDollar General two blocks away from my house. Each week I put into the garbage several of the plastic sacks they use, which all go, inevitably, to the local landfill, to remain, presumably, nearly permanently. I need to d something to change this. We humans need to do a lot of thigns to change a lot of things. Human activity is killing the Earth's oceans, atmosphere, and land. When you consider the amount of plastic which is evidently in our bodies, brains, and bloodstreams,and the amount polluting the Earth's water and land, the task of cleaning up our mess becomes daunting. Its almost as if we need to filter every molecule of our bodies, every molecule of water on Earth, and every molecule of top soil in the world thorough some hypothetical systme which thoroughly cleanses out the plastic. Currently we keep adding to the mess. About a week ago the United Nations agreed upon a treaty to fight global plastic pollution. Presumably it involves signatory nations agreeing to limit their production of plastic products and use of plastics generally, and to commit financial resources to cleaning up our minds, bodies, blood streams, as well as the planet as a whole. Precisel how we the people of planet Earth propse to do this is probably at this point anyone's guess, but, we, if nothing else, at least its a start. What is needed is massive effort and change of behavior on a global scale, with a focus on restoring our health and the health of planet Earth. For this, we the people need to stop wasting energy and resources on useless, destructive wars, among other idiotic human activities. The picture of the huge, beautiful whale,slowly going silent,filled me and still fills me with desperation, depression, and rage. I'm sure many other people feel the same way. I used to think we could end war by focusing on the threat of alien invasion from outer space, and uniting humanity agaisnt the extreaterrestrial threat. Perhaps instead we could end war and violence againit each other by uniting in a glorious, global crusade of all humanity, united against and committed to reversing our own past behavior and stupidity.

Trump, Seizing the Capitol

THIS WHOLE BUSINESS of Trump putting the Washington D.C. police force under his direct control and calling out the National Guard is merely the latest episode in his cementing his fascst regime incrementally, and putting up yet another distraction to keep us from thinking about the Epstein files. Two birds with one stone, so to speak, all carefully thought out and orchestrated by Trump himself. Alarmingly, each new power grab and distraction is more extreme,dangerous, and harmful than the previous,andyou being to wonder, my God,what will he do next? Bear in mind that Trump has the power to start a nuclear war, for example. The nation's capitol is safer, with lower crime rates than in decades. Will Hegseth have the army marching up and down teh Main Streets of America? Trump has already hinted at his power to so order. One wonders what MAGA thinks about this. Those liberty loving, small government Republicans, so gung ho about individual liberty and constitutional rights. How would they have reacted if Obama or Clinton or Biden had done this? That is a fair, relevant, question and a revealing answer. See the hypocrisy? Ivankatrump testified in Congress, under oath, that two weeks before the 2020 election, her father told her: "No matter what happens in this election, we'll just say that we won. Eff it". And the rest, they say, is history. Now, let's get something straight. On the night Biden defeated Trump, before the votes had even been counted, Trump claimed victory, and claimed that the election was being stolen from him. Tens of millions of people heard him say this, and every single person who heard Trump's big election lie knew immediately that it was a lie. Immediately. Everybody. At that precise moment, everybody had a decision, a choice to make. Whether to embrace the lie, or to call it a lie. There would be no time wasted on thinking about it and deciding. And once the choice was made, there was to be no changing it later. The choice was immediate, and everybody made it. Our moral character is formed and revealed by the choices we make. The same people who made the wrong choice supported Trump's coup and insurrection, predictably. They support it to this day. And now teh best guess is that they will probably fully support Trump's take over of the nation's capitol, primarily because it was Trump who ordered it, instigated it. That's the way a cult works. Would they support national martial law if Trump ordered it? Trump says that he wants to end homelessness in Washington D.C.. The fly in the ointment is that he wants to end it not by providing homes to the homeless, or "unhoused" as we say today, but rather, by rounding up all of the homeless people, burning the cardboard boxes they sleep in, and then totally clean up and wipe away homeless communites in he district, and send the unhoused to places like alligator Alcatraz and Spwday Slammer, with many more such facilities on the way, destined to be built under Trump. Its charming and rather cute, the way homeless people often form little communities, miniature cardboard cities, like stray cats snuggling in winter. You acn alost see teh MAGA right wing religious fanatics cheering our American fuhher gleefully on, as his army of destruction and purification moves inexorably on, from American city to city, purging our cities and our souls of compassion, in the name of God, country, and Christ.

Waging War Over Water, Or Whatever

MANY YEARS AGO, in the midst of what must surely have been an engrossing meeting of intellects, a good friend of mine stated his opinion that future wars would be, for the most part, fought over water. This meshed with what one of my professors in graduate school had once said, that all wars ever fought, past, present, and future, are fought over mineral resoures, of which water is one, and land and all that lies beneath it, another. Lebensraum! I can recall, in the midst of our intellectual discourse,trying to think of wars past, any wars present, which were demonstrably fought fought over something, anything else. I quickly realized that all specualtion concerning motives for the bahavior of large numbers of human beings is vague at best, and becomes bogged down in disparity of opinion, and interpretation of facts. Its just damned hard to say. History, as they say, is one damned thing after another. Regarding the precise causes of wars, as they say, the jury is, mazingly, still out. We're still studying the matter. All wars are different, that much we know. Human natuer is...complex? I also recall that at the time I was somewhat skeptical of my friend's wars over water theory, and though I could see his central point, his overall argument seemd a bit hyperbolic to me, melodramatic, overstated. Now, all these years later, I'm not so sure. In fact, it now begins to seem as if my fiend's predction was spot on, as we like to say, almost prophetic, and that the signs of it are even now among us, and beginning to be apparent. I'm pretty sure that my friend made his prediction a bit before climate change became the universally agreed upon and blatantly obvious reality that it is now, but, maybe not. I can't recall for sure. Indisputably, the world has become and is increasingly hotter and drier. The water wars have begun. A documentary on educationl television provided an overview of the world's growing water problem; too little fresh water to be divided up among too many people. Many of the mega huge cities in India ad throughout Asias now regularly maintain less thana thrity day supply of water, not by choice, in their urban water systems. That is belowe mergency level. All Americasn knwo about the Colorado River, and how it has been and isbeing drained to a dry gulch by the millions of people who rely on it all teh way to El A. Obtaining enough water to fuel a growing agriculture industry to feed a grwoing world population is increasingly difficult and insufficient. The great states of Florida and Gerogia in the land of plenty have waged a decades long legal battle over water which both can use but both claim entirely to own. The two feuding confederate states have reached a tenuous, fragile arrangement, which a good drought could disrupt in a few short weeks. We humans have treated water as we have treated air for far, far too long; as if it were a renewable resource which is readily available to us in unlimited supply. Both, we are belatedly beginning to learn, are neither. We have polluted almost beyond reclaimation nearly every source of fresh water in the world, using lakes, oceans, and rivers as trash dumps. Now, at long last, we are starting to pay the price for our centuries of wasteful folly. I have long favored desalination, even though evidently it costs a billion dollars to build a desalination facility that provides enough fresh water for three hundred thousand people. That would be about thirty billion to adequately supply Los Angeles. You have to pay the piper, as they say, and sometimes the price is high.

Trump, Still Skating

NOW, SUDDENLY, TRUMP wants to conduct national census in the middle of the decade, unconstitutionally, five years early. He'll order it done, and it will get done, unless the courts stop him, because nobody else will. SCOTUS might back him up, as usual. Does anyone actually think that his motive is to make America better somehow? He wants to use the accumulated data to further rig next year's mid term elections, possibly as a prelude to his remaining in power until he mercifully dies. Everything Trump says and does is intended to accomplish this end; encroaching fascism, with Trump at the top of a one party system, supported by MAGA against all opposition. Imagine Trump, with a free hand, unimpeded by Congress or the courts, free to fully implement his malignant agenda, with the assistance of slightly less than forty percent of the American people. Its painful. That percentage is decreasing, gradually. Will it decrease fast enough, soon enough to matter? Nearly sixty percent of all Americans either don't support, actively oppose, or virulantly despise Trump, and you would think that would be sufficient to remove and incarcerate the criminal by due process, as indeed it should be, but alas, is not, at least yet. Madison et al set the country up to be governed by an elite, conservative minority, a wealthy "better sort" of citizen as he put it, and so it is, and here we are, stuck with the founder's archaic plutocratic system of government. At this point only a powerful mass movement consisting of tens of millions of disenchanted Americans can defeat Trump and MAGA and preserve some semblance of democracy in America. MAGA will eventually wither away, flaking off one disgruntled former Trumper at a time, until the final rotten core can be blown up, tossed into the garbage bin of history, and the remaining mess cleaned up. Its already happening, but too slowly at the moment. No matter how our great gerrymandering war finally ends, anti-Trump can outvote pro Trump, if only voters turn out in adequate numbers. Even a heavily gerrymandered Republican redistricted electoral map can overthrow the fascist regime, given sufficient anger among the electorate. "The tree of liberty will, from time to time, require the nourishment of the blood of patriots and tyrants," Jefferson adroitly observed, with tyical eloquence. Trump is the primary impediment to liberty in America today, with his cult backing him up. Blood can be spilled symbolically, at the ballot box, each vote representing a drop of blood, sweat, toil, and sacrifice. In this metaphor, those opposed to Trump's authoritarian rule must be prepared to shed a great deal of blood, at the ballot box, or elsewhere, in the streets, or wherever. We have no choice at this point but to plug everything is, and find out what fais, like a giant organic computer or machine. This is because Trump's agenda has been enacted, seemingly irreversibly. Everything that Trump does is bound to fail. Rising inflation and general economic recession should be enough to defeat Trump, but still might not be. The teflon Don is still skating, avoiding his proper, just fate, but for how much longer? Perhaps until he dies, and beyond. Most frightening of all is that, no matter how catastrophic Trump's policies and their outcome, his cult followers are likely to glorify and cherish him to the end, singing his praises as his administration either fades away in ignomony or comes crahsing down in flaming failure and defeat.

Thinking of Egotism

"THINK OF THE EGOTISM", said an astute Robert Ingersoll,"of a man who believes that an infinite being wants his praise". Good point, eh? Think of it indeed. To which one might add: Think of the arrogance and insecurity of an all powerful anthropomorphic being who wants, needs, or even cares about being worshipped and praised by lesser beings. Ingersoll was a prominent nineteenth century (1833-1899) thinker, writer, lawyer and speaker from a religious background who provided fascinating, eloquent persuavive arguments in defense of agnosticism. Both above remarks provoke thought, and make good, logical sense, but both can easily be refuted by any run of the mill Christian apologist. So can any intelligent argument agsinst the Christian faith. Its very simple, and it goes like this: "That's your point of view, not God's". Good luck trying to win an intellectual debate with a devout Christian, a debate in which said devout Christian accepts reason and admits that you have a compelling point of view. As we say, it aint happenin'...I am still perfectly free to harbor and expess my opinion that the Biblical anthropomorphic love starved attention craving deity is pure fiction, an invention of human fear, ignorance, longing for understanding, and conceit. An all powerful being, all too human, super human. Really? There is an abundance of unflattering and unpleasant human thought, imagination, and analysis underpinning not only Christianity but all organized religion. The always poplular expression among Christians "God fearing" is sufficient unto itself to push me away from the faith. I prefer loving to fearing God, and I would think most folks would. Again, the standard Christian admonition, "your preferences are not God's" rears its shallow head. The idea that an infinitely superior spirit that created the entire universe, requiring praise and worship from creatures of its own creation, and sitting in judgment of them, seems, seems supremely arrogant, naive, even laughable. How many intelligent species of life in the universe await or have received salvation through the shed blood of Christ the Lamb of God, washing away their sins in blood? Or are we the only ones? Both possibilies are equally frightening. One or the other must be true. With the advance of science and human understanding religion becomes less relevant and seems primitive and barbaric. Maybe it will fade out of human culture. The human species, abandoning its childish reliance on imaginary gods, and taking full responsibility for its own existence, problems, and destiny. Religion is mostly bad, but not entirely. All religion is imaginary, mental,emotional, psychological. It helps inspire and comforts us, andmeetsmany of our emotional and psychological needs. It helps binda society together,and gives millions of people a greater sense of community. Religion, however misguided, is an expression of the human quest for truth and understanding. What we must do, what we are impelled to do, is to find ever better ways of expressing our virtuous curiosity, our love of our creator and each other, and our reverence and yearning for connectedness to the vast and infinitely amazing universe in which we are so fortunate to live. Human religions of the future, or human philosophies, are bound to be an improvement on what we have always had, and have today. Perhaps creatures superior to ourselves will eventually give us guidance in this. For now, we are engaged in a life and death struggle, with ourselves only, a strugle we can only win if we somehow learn to stop destroying ourselves and the planet we inhabit. Perhaps this struggle will be the seed for future, more advanced religion. If nothing else, it should be enough to keep us busy, off the streets, and out of trouble.

Compromising, Perchance Reconciling?

EVERYONE SEEMS TO AGREE that the United States, we the American people are more divided than at any other point in our history since the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. It seems obvious. Compromise and reconcilation are the most often recommended remedies, other than an alien invasion, a swarm of high tech extraterrestrials attacking and uniting us from high above. A bit far fetched, perhaps. As things now stand, compromise in America requires MAGA and the rest of America, which is largely anti-Trump, coming together in broad agreement. Even farther fetched, perhaps. I have often asked myself whether I as an individual (I can't speak for anyone else) am capable of understanding and compromising with Trump and MAGA. I almost always arrive at the followig answer: probably not. Not without the other side compromisng far and away beyond anything they have heretofore shown any inclination or willingness to do,or desire or plan to do. I seriously question the current capability of us the American people to meet in the middle and make up, unless reconciliation is somehow an emergent quality. I seriously question mine. For example, do I really want to deal with people, try to compromise with people who believe that I am, as matters now stand, destened to suffer endless misery and torment in eternal damnation merely because my religious beliefs do not match theirs? People like that seem cruel to me. Or, can I ever truly respect and understand somebody who passionately believes that Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion are harmful and bad, and not only should not be publically promoted, but are actually harmful and bad and should be discouraged? To answer my own question; Most likely not. And how could I, or any reasonably intelligent person, ever want to or be able to find common ground with people who support the banning of books, any book? No book should ever be banned or burned or excluded or prohibited by anybody, anywhere, for any reason. Bad, trashy books must be allowed and will be weeded out naturally and quickly, in the great capitalist free market of ideals and intellectualism. Liberals tend to despise censorship, conservatives and religious folk tend to implement it. There is no compromise to be had here. All csnsorship and book banning is bad. Similarly People who hate the "woke" concept, who consider it to be a monstrously evil ideal, and want to eliminate it from the face of the Earth rather than promote it - utterly baffle me. What's to dislike about being intellectually, emotionally, spiritually awake, unless the word "woke", which means aware of systemic recism in America, is tainted with too much an ebonic overtone? Then too, either religion and government are interlinked, intertwined in America, or they are not. Its one, or the other, take your pick. The Constitution requires them to be seperate, which, in my opinion, is the way it should be. The Conservative evangalical community, Trump's base, begs to differ.They can keep begging, and using their perfidious methods to try to violate the constitution. They are dead wrong, and mustnot be allowed to win this dispute,or come to power to implement their new Christian nationalist constittuion. They must be defeated, and will be. Someone asked Madision why the word "God" does not appear in the constitution. Perhaps annoyed,he said: "We forgot". People who try to steal a presidential election, attemtpt to violently overthrow the American government, try to deport all non white Americans and seek to impose the Christian religion as the law of the land not only must not be offered compromise, they should not be allowed to walk the streets or partake in publlic life as American citizens.

Watching the News

SOME PEOPLE get so angry, frustrated, and depressed about the world that they refuse to watch the news, and I can understand that. But I wonder how or whether they stay informed. I often turn on the news with reluctance, but I turn it on. Yesterday I turned it on and was immediately assaulted by two stories which, like many news stories these days, made me questioon the health and future of our beloved U.S.A. A big bright yellow Penske freight truck was parked in a Home Depot parking lot, near a group of brown skinned gentlemen, assembled to apply for work. Suddenly the door on the back of the truck slides up,and out jump a group of black clad uber-armed I.C.E. stormtroopers, who immediately sread out and began hassling the guys looking for work. Ironic. I didn't pay enough attention to the story to find out what exactlly happend, how many Latinos were rounded up and arrested, incarcarcrated at "Alligator Alcatraz" or whatever,and deported. didn't need to. I knew what was going on, the News cast made that very clear. Without even one commercial, amazingly, the pretty news lady turned to the next story; a gerrymandering redistricting has broken out in the United States, and has spread from Texas to every state in the union whose geopraphical shape even remotely allows for potential gerrymandering. A nationwide civil war, red versus blue, progressive versus conservative, to own the House of Representatives now and forevermore by stealing it by cheating. It disgusted me watching the television report about it. It disgusts and angers me to think about it, and to write about it.Its a close call as to which of the two news stories, network television exposes about major current trends in Today's America, is the more disgusting, the more worthy of rage and despair. Our modern American Gestapo, nothing less, Trump's SS Stormtroopers, ravaging and pillaging American society at the behest of the usurping fascist tyrant and his devout cult followers. The I.C.E. police roughing and rounding up, incarcerating, and deporting good hard workers,from an America which desperately, and I mean desperately needs them and the work they offer. Suicide right on stage, as Mick Jagger sang. America, self harming. Fifteen illegals rounded up in an ICE raid, eleven or twelve million more to go. Trump can spend his entire presidency, three and a half more long, nightmarish years, celebrating and bragging about his macho "immigration policy". No matter how many several thousand human beings are arrested, locked up,and kicked out of the country without the slightest trace of due process, the number remaing here, of good, hard working undocumented people, will remain approximately unchanged. You can count on it. Misery and chaos for its own cruel sake, thanks be to MAGA and Trump. The gerrymandering was will, we must hope, burn itself out in rage and fatigue, and from its ashes a new and effecive system and process will emerge to replace gerrymandering with good, fair redistricting. But lord, why are we putting ourselves through this? Have we as a people, a society, really decayed morally this much? A new federal law, an unbiased non partisan redistricting committee and process, would be good for all. Now Trump wants a sudden census to count only white citizens, or whomever. Fascism, encroaching. America wants a pathway to citizenship for gainfully employed undocumented workers and their families. Simply document them, and put 'em back to work. So simple, so easy, so obvious, so prosperous and profitable for the nation. The problem with big problems is that the solutions to them are often so obvious, simple and logical that their instigators, those in power who created the problems in the first place, tend to profit from our big problems, and tend to be people who, in any event, are not even close to having either the intelligence or morality to implement any solutions, good, orotherwise.

Calling Trump A Pedophile

LIKE ALL GOOD DEMOCRATS, I have done preciesly that- I have called Trump a pedophile. But we all need to slow down a bit, and know that a true pedophile, by definiation, is any adult who is attracted to pre pubescent children. I think Donnie boy likes 'em a bit older than that, if not much. I also suspect that many others accused of it, including Mr. Epstein himself, are not true pedophiles either, at least, technically. Guys like that seem to go after girls in the thirteen to, say, eighteen age range, girls past puberty, if barely. This is still disgusting, but somewhat better than going after girls twelve and younger, perhaps.I suspect that Trump and Epstein, and most other perverts, like 'em young - but not too young. I taught high school, and I found the girls generally attractive, and easily replied on my basic decency and morality to prevent that from being any sort of problem for anyone. They approached too close, I backed up. Several times I mentioned this to friends, who I think may have misunderstood me. Sometimes they seem concerned, as if they think I Might be dealing with a moral crisis, or might,just might, oh horror,be a pedophile. I never bother to reassure them that I am, or am not. The word "pedophile", people seem to enjoy throwing around, and seeing whether it sticks anywhere. My attraction to high school girls had no impact me in terms of having sexual desires for them. The very thought disgusted me, as it always has. There is nothing wrong with a forty year old man believing that high school girls are attractive, or being attracted to them naturally, as nature obviously intends. The problem is basic, vital moralty based on reason and common sense, and who has it, and who does not. Having this keeps its possessor safe, and makes society more civilized. There is nothing wrong with being attracted to people, for any reason, but there is a problem with worryng about it or acting unreasonably or inappropriately because of it. If I ever started fantasizing about some seventeen year old girl I would feel disgusted and ashamed, because of my upbringing; I prefer my fantasies age appropriate, if you please. It may be that some guys not only enjoy such inappropriate fantasies, but are proud of them and want to share them. I think we msut be careful about turning ourselves into thought police, or in stigmatising perfectly natural and morally neutral processes and inherent inclinations such as sexual attraction and desire. In that sense, American culture is simultaneously the most pornographic and inappropriately sexual in the world, and the most repressed, stifled, puritanical, prudish culture on the planet. Seemingly, a strange incompatible combination. As they say, only in America. Maybe. But back to Trump. Trump is, in absolutely verified, indisputable fact, an abjudicated rapist, rendered so by due processinaduly authorized court of law in these United States. There are also seeimingly innumerable other proven indicting facts sbout Trump, too many to mention here. We who oppose Trump have so many facts at our disposal to boster our argument and oppostion, our only concern is hhow. to present them all. I'll call Trump a "pedophile" and use it against hime the very moment he is convicted of it in a court of law in a trial wich includes testimony from expert psychiatrists. Obviously, Trump is a sexual predator. Hell, he has openly admitted that, in his pussy grabbing speech. Is that not sufficient political fodder for the day? While pressing on with our unrelenting insistence that the Epstein affair be fully exposed, we should constantly attack Trump's evil moral character with facts. Premature,currently unsubstantiated accusations and insults can wait a bit longer.

Trump, Making History

DIFFICULT TO IMAGINE that it might now be, the time will come when Donald Trump is gone. That's when the historians take over. Although numerous book shave already been written about him by his close associates, family members, and journalists, many of them quite illuminating, the historical porfession proper has not yet begun to do its thing. Its too early. Trump is not yet history, per se. History requires hindsight, whic will only begin to kick in at the earliest early in the year twenty twenty nine. Anyone who reads history books, especially biographies of former American presidents, knows that, as they say, good historians don't play around. They do their homework, their research, and tell is as it is, or was, or "Wie es eigentlich gewesen", admonished the great German historian Leopold von Ranke. History, is nothing other than "one damned thing after another", anastute observation falsely attributed to many historians. Good historians call a spade a spade,aswe say. Biographies of American presidents by competent historians tend to be balanced, giving due credit, but also, highly critical of their subject, as most presidents merit. Latgely because of ths various presidents acquir various reputations over time, not alwasy favorable,although every president seems to be accorded a minimal modicum of good credit. All of them, Nixon, for example, have skeletons which ultimately get exposed. Jeffferson, Sally Hemmings, and so forth. Hisotrians do the exposing. Frankly, it is difficult if not nearly impossible to imagine any historian anywhere, at any future time, writing a book about Donald Trump which is favorable towards him, which is anything but harshly critical in its assessment of Trump. In fact, how can any historian, present or future, be expected to write anything other than books broadly condemning Trump's legendary criminality and authoritarian governance? Especially, considering his policies, which seem increasingly disastrous almost daily, what else can we expect? In a word, little. Trump's notorious, nfamous "big election lie" and his ensuing violent insurrection, which we already know he carefully conceived, planned in great detail, and orchestrated almost perfectly, will take center stage in forthcoming historiy books. Trump's two impeachments will be front and center. And then, there's all the rest. All the rest of the tens of thousands of outright lies uttered by Trump in his two terms aspresident, the seemingly innumerable violaton of the constitution and federal law, Trump's attacks on innocent people and respected institutions...all of it. Of the thousand so flawsuits, both for and against Trump, in which the uber litigous litigant is involved both in his private and public affairs, how many will be scrutinized as to their motive and their outcome? That will not contribute much flattering material to Trump's historical legacy. There would seem to be no way for the future historical profession to do other than to universally declare Donald Trump to have been the worst president in American history, by a country mile. Of course, far stranger things have happened. MAGA historians are not beyond the realms of possibility. That some wayward misguided future historian might dare praise Trump as a great president is certainly no more strange than the mere fact that tens of millions of ostensibly reasonably intelligent Americans not only supported him politically, but regarded him as an almost iconic figure worthy of adulation and veneration, even while he was alive.

Gerrymandering

GERRYMANDERING is as old a time honored tradition as its namesake, Mr. Gerry Mander. aka Eldridge Gerry, an eigtheenth century politician who oversaw the reshaping of redrawn congressional districts so that they resembled a salamander, contorted, twisted beyond recognition, to suit the needs of the party in power. The Commonwealth of Massachussets comes to mind, a raggedly shaped state where the voter manipulators can and often have run wild. In a great big sqaure state, like, say Wyoming or Arkansas, gerrymandering is much harder, if not imposible; the natural shape of congressional districts sticks out like a sore voter, small squares of territory begging for formal recognition. An area of land marked by invisible lines, arbitrarily, selectively to include the intended people and exclude the unwanted voters by lines wandering haphazardly all over god's green Earth without logic has been gerrymandered, count on it.. It aint the latest thang, to quote MIck Jagger. Like MIck, the corrupt practice is as popular as ever nowadays, always and eternally in style in our corrput American brand of plutocratic "democracy" which permits and even encouraes it. There are two possible strategies. Congressional districts can can either be redrawn to scatter the unwatned party's voters as far and wide as humanly possible to to diminish their strength, called "cracking", or so that as many of the opposition's voters are packed into a single district as possible, called "packing" to concentrate all their voting power in a single district, leaving all the others for the offeding party to prey on. Both major American political parties are guitly of it, asall major American political parties have either done it, tried to do it, or wanted to do it. Its simply much too tempting a trick not to try. And, best or worst of all, its perfectly legal, technically, because it can always be disguised and described as virtue and justified by citing selective fact based circumstances. In theory its illegal, in practice, quite legal. Get your party elected to power in your state, with a perfet trifecta of control of both legislative houses and the governorship, stay in power by rigging the voting districts. If left unchecked, gerrmandering can kill a democracy, or, if not that, can mortally wound one. It has yet to kill the great American pseudo democratic experiment, but has gravely wounded it, to the point where it is virtually impossible to defeat an incumbant member of the United States House of Representatives running for reelection, and nearly all of the four hundred and thirty eight districts across the country are essentially owned by one party or the other, lock, stock, and ballot box. The current focus of the corruption is Texas. the U.S. constitution requires redistricdting every ten years; Texas, in its zeal to establish even greater Republican control fo the rigged Republic of Texas, is jumping teh gun by five year, looking ahead to next year's election, when the Democrats seemed poised to take the House. What's alarming is that, like many other forms of criminal corruption popular in our era of Trump, the promoters of gerreymandering are making no attempt to hde their nefarious intent. Why bother? It doesn't have to be this way, although we the American people seem to passively prefer it this way. Every state in our nifgy fifty has the capacity to rdistrict fairly and honorably by using nonpartisan people to do the job A national unbiased system could be established through legislation. will anything be done?Unlikely,in the near future. As Jefferson said: "If the people become inattentive to the affairs of government, the legislators and magistrates shall divide the people nto two classes; wolves, and sheep." We the people have long since become inattentive. When we awaken, we wil likely do so sluggishly and belatedly, as always. In Texas, the Democrats have fled the state, to regroup and stall for time. That won't work, but at least its a step in the right direction.

Not Attacking Religion

MONDAY MORNING GOSPEL SINGING went extremely well for me. There were a few folks missing, but that didn'tmatter. What does matter is that I sang better, imho, than I ever have before. After four years plus, I might, just...might...be....figuring out how to sing the rancid stuff, gospel. Heaven knows its taken long enough. Same old sycophantic bloody tunes, sure, but, all in all, fun. As they say, when in Rome. At one point the nice old long bearded gentleman next to me, perhpas in a moment of rare enlightenment or desperation, offered: "what we need, what the church needs, is a big revivel", or something like that. I believe we had just completed singing "Revive Me Again", or something like that. I thought about that as I took a bite from my chocolate chip cookie (the senior center generously provides snacks) and joined in as they began to sing my favorite "How Great Thou Art". When we finished, I turned to him and said: "Actually, membership in the church, in the Christian faith, ( I like to use the word "faith" rather than "religion" when dealing with the devout) is declining, in Europe and North America, as the culture increasingly secularizes". I was surprised when he understood and agreed with me. I was not surprised when he said something like; "Then too, it seems like the church is being attacked". Well, maybe I was a bit surprised, but not much. I never am. We sang another hymn, something gross about washing our sins away in blood, and donning a pure white robe.(or it is yellow?). I didn't say anything else to the nice old man, didn't need to, as if tacitly accepting his remark as factual. I am,however, considering saying something to him next Monday. I am tempted to tell him that there in fact is no attack on the Christian religion, organized or otherwise, by anybody, anywhere. Sure, there are people who don't like religion at all and would prefer that it vanish from this EArth, many such people. But there is no evidence of any concerted effort by anybody to "attack" religion, other than in the free market place of public opinion, the media, and print, where indiviiduals exercise their human given right of free epression and opinion. But there is no attack. What there is is an increasing trend towards the secularization of society. The modern concept of secular democratic government has and is takng hold. Then too,there is the rapid, sweeping inexorable advance of science, and an increasingly well educated public in all areas of science and technology. By claiming that free expression, diversity of opinion and religiosity, and a mass migration among humanity from religious belief is an "attack" of any sort is a blatant if unintentional attempt by resentful "believers" to victimize themselves in their seeming inability to rejuvinate their organized religions in the face of their rot from within, and is false. According to current trends, all religion seems destined to wither away in the future. It may take decades if not centuries to complete the process. Humanity may keep inventing new religions for thousands of years. They will flicker, grow, decline, and die, like all religions ever invented have. Less likely is that the Christian faith will revive, spread out unto and into all nations, and conquer the entire world, and install itself once and for all as the one true faith of planet Earth, and, by extension, the universe. And the fact that this is vanishingly unlikely might well be among the greatest gifts the good lord has ever bestowed upon His god fearing, adoring children. As I eagerly anticipate next week's gospel singing, I give thnks for this, not only to my god, but to the Christian one as well.

Taking theTennis Plunge

IT WAS MUCH ON MY MIND, and I was enjoying thinking about it. The newest self made crisis turning point in my ever lengthening life.Nother pleasantproblimeto sovle,which, in truth, I had already soved, except for the execution of my plan and my experiencing the consequences. I wanted to talk it, to "bounce it off a wall", so to apeak. And t didn't matter off whom. Nobody would really be interest in hearing about my dilemma, nobody but someone willing to just sit, listen, and offer bland cliche responses would do. Fortunately, that descrives almost anybody and everybody. I was on my way to the liquor store for the first time in months. Every now and again I like to cop a buzz by drinking three or four beers. That satisifies me for weeks, usually. I have alcoholic ancestors, am especially vulnerable to alcoholism ,but have always managed to drink without falling off the cliff, so to speak. I was looking forward to the eer and I realized that I was aobut to meet my victim; whoever handed me the beer through the drive thru windowwould hear my story. It wasa young lady, as usual. bi turnover, usually young country ladies. She handed me my beer, and I noticed there were no customers in line behind me. Usually there are, but on this day I sensed that there would be no drive thru beer buyers for at least the next couple of minutes. But, spoke fast, and said this: "I started playing tennis when I was a kid, got good at it, played my way through college, and went on the enjoy a decades long career as a top flight amateur tennis player. Then, I moved to a small town with no tenis courts, and instead of doing the necessary driving to continue playing (I hate to drive), I just sort of let it go, gradually, over the weeks, months, and years playing less and less, until, one day, I became a retired tennis player. Now, I am seventy, several of my old tennis friends want me to start playing agin, one of them told me, wisely, that you don't have to be young or good to have fun. That one iece of wisdom got me started. Now, i wantto play tennis, but I spent my entire life being so competitive, tournamnets, all that, that the urgent need to get better, at everything I do, tennis and everything else, tends to guide and dominate my thinking and attitude. Work hard. Improve. Never give up. All that. A lifetime of indoctrination, enbraced and reinforced within. Not that I knock it, but, well, it has its limits, especially now, when all that matters is fun and exercise. What i fear, I said to the young lady, is experiencing the harsh reality that at my age,and in my state of rust, that I will walk out onto the tennis court and make myself disappointed and miserable. For a few moments the yong lady seemsed a bit taken aback, and the older lady standing behind her had her mouth open, because I was telling the narrative passionately, with passion in my voice. Maybe she tought I was holding up the store. But the girl began to understand, and seemed to become actually somewhat vicariously involved in my "emotional plight". I told her that I felt the way Jefferson felt about being president of the United States. He called it "splendid misery". Yes, I was and am entranced with and attracted to the notion of starting tennis from scratch at the age of seventy, with a head start based on years of previous experience. However, I understood (understand) that trying to get good again will be grueling and protacted; that it will be far easier to just hit the court, hit the ball, and laugh about it. In short, I am afraid, uselessly. She agreed, suggested the latter path. "Just don't put too many expectations on yourself", was her best advice. I hope I take that advice. I plan to - as of now. She then mentioned her problem; that she can feel her body changes as she ages. I resisted the urge to tell her "wait till you're seventy". What I said as I drove away I think was brilliant: "I guess I just need to have fun playing tennis, and you jsut need to have fun growing old." As she greeted the customer behind me, she seemed to agree.

Finding A Church

I'M ALMOST CERTAIN that my search is over, and that I have found what I'm looking for. Namely, a church for me. My search, a fun project, took a little over a year and involved visits to five different churches. By the time I was eight years old, I knew I would almost certainly never be religious in the normal traditional sense, and that I would definitely never be a Christian. The Christian Bible drove me away froom it. I would rather learn from my mistakes and be done with them than have my sins washed away in blood. I spent my youth as an unobservant atheist, and finally, when I was twenty years old, decided to believe in God, only because I wanted to. I could define "God" however I chose; I evolved into a pantheist. But I never stopped admiring the essential message of Jesus Christ, even though much of what he said is either a bit weird, or just plain mean. As reigious scholar Bart Ehrman points out, the Old Testament is harsh, God is harsh, to say the least, and the New Testament, with Jesue providing a covenant whcih does not refute the old law, nearly as harsh. Another word for is is barbaric, primitive, or even cruel. Not the religion for me. I visited a fundamentalist mega church, with loud brass praise music, a very dark room and well lighted stage, a GQ strutting minister, and bloody salvation. Definitely not for me. I attended two different Methodist churches, both very pleasant. I returned frequently to a tiny, rustic Presbyterian church, with a congregation of about ten people, all friends of mine who I see daily at the senior center. I want a bigger community than that, and I want to meet new people. Then, after much procrastination and many thoughts and delays, I drove the twenty miles to the nearby college town to the Universal Unitarian church. On my way there, I realized that I would have to fall in love with the place to be willing to drive forty miles, round trip, once a week to get there. When I arrived, I said precisely that to the people I met. They seemed to understand. My initial reaction to the building and the congregation and clergy was quite favorable, and only got more favorable. There were about eighty or a hundred people, the perfect size for me. Mostly older folks, many older than I.I almost thought that we needed more younger people, then, hell, it dawned on me that am seventy years old. Actually, its a pretty good balance, including some children, but not many. The service last almost exacty one hour, and I thorougly enjoyed every minute of it. The minister is a pleasant lady, cheeful, welcoming, who did not deliver a sermon, but merely mentioned what the Unitarian church is all about, which edified me, but might have seemed a bit repititious to the regulars. The hymns they sang inspired me to joy and comfort. They were utterly, beautfully transcendantly sublime. We sang two, I think, and I hope there is a hymnal full of them. I am assured that there indeed is.I want to memorize and sing them all. There wa a guest speaker, as I suspect there might usually be. Perhaps one every week. I hope so. A pleasant genteleman gave an illuminating twenty minute talk "What is Hinduism? I learned a lot. The folks were friendly; several inroduced themselves, with a brief chat. One lady's dog, a real sweetheart, put her head on my foot, and I gave her more love than she might have expected. She has more coming.I also enjoyed the discussion group downstairs before the service. I like it, and plan to come back for me. Jesus Christ was never mentioned. I have faith that he is enfolded deeply within their love. Whether I will return to this happy pleasant place is a question I find easy to answer.

Trump, Saving and Rebuilding Rome

PERHAPS THE GREATEST MYSTERY in human history, a mystery often discussed and analyzed nearly ad infinitum, is why Trump has any political supporters, let alone tens of millions. Also, its among histories most relevant, important questions, mysteries. Millions of people wrestle with this repeatedly, some, consantly, including myself. I'd like to understand the creation of the universe, and Donald Trump's support, not necssarily in that order. "I want to know God's thoughts, the rest are mere details", said Einstein. Of even greater value to me, at least for the time being, would be knowing MAGAt thoughts. The idea of a greatly benevolent person, a savior, is, quite obviously, as old as human culture, or nearly so. What's better is when said savior acually appears in the flesh, in human form,rather the remaining aloof and ensconced on Mt. Olympus, or Valhalla, Or somewho up in the sky, as described by holy scripture. There's just something extra special about a God taking human form, coming to Earth as one of us, walking and talking to us, healing the sick, or repairing teh fatherland country through total, complete, enlightened leadership. Julius Caser, when he entered Romewith his after conquering Gaul and suggested that it might be effacious for the citizens of Roem to accpet him as Imperitor, Emporer of Rome by divine right, all the instruments and organs of government bundled into a single bundle, a "fasci", in his holy hands. It was an offer they couldn't refuse. The Roman Senate, the courts, both tribunes and both consuls remained in existence, giving Rome executive and legislateve republican governance. They all still existed, in theory and in spirit, only, entirely embodied in and incorporated in the holy corpus of His Regal Majesty, Julius Caesar. The Magnificent Roman republic, gone with the wind in a whim. Thus was invented fassicm, in a bundle of sticks tied together. Concentraion of power. Twentieth century fascism evolved to fit modern times,and control of the media, suppression of the education system, the endless hyper patriotic our glorious leader propagnada drivel...all that ensuing. Hitler and MUssolini had the dutting egde technology radio;Trump has big screen TV and internet social media. So Trump is teh heri apparante to Caeser and Hitler, the divine savior warrior-king. I have always fantasized and I still do,about unimagineably, incredibly advanced and infinitely wise extraterrestrials descending from the sky like in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (one of my favorite movies), and fixing everything. I bring this fantasy alive within my burning breat...daily? Yes,I want my savior too. Its just that, in my case, when I look around, I don't see a stinking huan being on this Earth I would want for my savior. Call me "picky". Intergalactically "Hoity toity",perchance? Nay, none of the above; I simply have high standards...Just how in the hell the savior came to be Trump is the next great. mystery. I actually think all the criminality and debauchery helps. Remember,its a obout power, and wielding it. Just think about all the petty, theatrical dislays of barbaric cruely rendered unto humanity and members thereof by Yahweh, Jehovah, Elohim, in the wholly barbaric Holy Bible. Take your pick. Prove your loyalty and obedience to me, oh Abraham, by slicing your own son to death. I, your loving compassionate Almighty God, will take the sheep in the bush instead. So far Trump has done all the things a good fascist salvation figure does, with one exception. He has smitten his and thus his country's enemies, but, --and this is a big but-- he hasn't even begun demanding blood sacrifices from his worshippers.

Glorifying the Vainglorious Trump

IT IS RUMORED, unurprisingly, that Donald Trump would be more than amenable to the renaming of rhe Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to, as you might have guessed, the Trump Center for the same. In all fairness, much of the momentum for this laughable relabeling derives,as one might have guessed, from within the ranks of Trump's moronic MAGA minions. Several months ago, the newly ensconced self congratulatory president toured the building, and found it wanting in amenities, and in disrepair. A spiritual Trump Tower twin. That may be where he hatched the scheme: a newly, beautifully renovated performing arts center, with his famous name topping it. Trump also expressed disapproval of the natue of the performing artists who have historically performed there. Far too many progressive minded violinists, perhaps, too many theatrical presentations with themes reflecting social ills, and the need to correct them. Heaven forbid that art should sinei the light of truth on American society and the human condition, and hint at a need for reform. This,after all, is the mindset of an American conservative movement which considers "To Kill A Mockingbird: and "The Grapes of Wrath" too liberal, too disrespectful of the powers that be status quo, too married to Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion; in a word, too "woke". The philistinic Trump, mirroring the artisitc sensitivies fo his sycophantic cult folowers, would no doubt prefer to attend a never ending parade of tawdry, pedestrian, smugly conventional musical and theatrical performances. A Star Spangled night of maudlin patriotic fodder for the medicore mind, featuring the Marine Corp band. (Nothing against the band, they rock). Hip hop Hamilton supplanted by the untold story of Donald Trump's noble, patriotic rise to the top of the political heap his ascension to glory, from humble Abrahamic Lincolnian log cabin beginnings. In other words, a steady stream of prosaic, pandering drivel. one can imagine the enthusiatic influx of MAGA mob members, bursting through the turnstyles, wearing the iconic red ball caps, grinning and drooling, armed to the teeth, without any intervention from metal detectors or security personnel, grinning and drooling idiotically, in anticipation of an evening of obsequious Trump worshipping nonsense. Conservative values on full display; hatred of gay people and people of color, shamelessly singing the praises of white Christian American nationalistic glory. Is that the blonde, pudgy Karoline Leavitt on Trump's arm, or someone much, much younger? The first lady, we are informed, has another engagement for the evening. What could be the next step beyond this, other than the additon of a chiseled head to the Mt.Rushmore foursome? Trump, sliding in neatly next to or between Roosevelt, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Washington, orange toupee sweeping across the rocks, casting shadows. If there is insufficient room among the rocks,one of the others can simply be chiseled back out of existence, and a new beginning made. Move over or begone with you, Jefferson and Lincoln, your progressive place in hisotry has no place here. Eliminating the equally forward thinking Teddy Roosevelt would leave more than enough room for outsized granite likenesses of Trump and Ronald Reagan to fill the void. Or maybe that bothersome trouble makng Crazy Horse, just down the road and around the corner, his statue incomplete, could be deep sixed, much like his people. Trump woould be even more appropriately located there, having conquered another of his hated minorities. Carving human heads into the previously majestic mountain is already an abomination, a crime against God and nature; why not compound the criminality? Pam Bondi, batting eyelashes at the rock hewed moribund torpid Reagan and Trump? 'Til human voies wake us, and we drown. (T.S.Eliot)

Making Too Much Ado, About Very Little

THE LAST TIME I saw my MAGA friend was Labor Day, 2021. Trump was out of office, and my buddy, all six foot eight of him, was, as Davy Crockett might've said, "a mite wrathy". His face was twisted into a contorted grimace. I was the object of his anger,not entirely without justification. He immediately started in on me, talking politics, and I made excuses, and quickly left. Earlier that year he had precipitously wagered me a case of imported beer that before year's end, Trump would, by some stroke of magical Supreme Court fate, or perhaps violent insurrection, be back in office. I think he realized he would lose the bet, and he did, and I made him pay up. That made things even worse between us, as if by claiming my deserved prize I was somehow humiliating him, which I was. The seminal fact about my friend is that before the advent of the political candidate Trump, he had shown absolutely no interest in politics. I have known him for forty years. Trump politicized my friend, as I suspect he did to latent conservatives the nation over. Trump, the progenitor of a whole new legion of right wing fanatics, turning potential into actuality. Maybe that's his "greatest" legacy. I became a political animal on November 22, 1963, when I was eight and a half. Politics, and baseball. I still love both, but as I have matured, mellowed and evolved, I realize that its just another ball game. Baseball, and poltics, just another ball game. Don't sweat the small stuff, its all small stuff, as we like to say. I accepted a half ounce of skunk bud in place of the beer, and as my friend walked away, he got in one last shot, reminding me that since I own and live in a nice house, I am a capitalist. Maybe he thought he was both elucidtaing and insulting me. He was neither. I reminded him that he too is both capitalist and socialist, which most of us are, in widely, wildly varying proportions. Like most baseball fans, politcally charged folks take politics way on yonder much, much too seriously. Baseball, for obvious reasons. It is, after all, just a game, a passionate game, full of sound and fury, signifying...nothing. Only in recent years have I even begun to take Yankees losses with a grain of equannimity. Its taken more than sixty years, a long haul. I had another friend whom I enticed into becoming a baseball fan by taking him to see a major league game. He was hooked, immediately. Within a few days he had momorized the batting avarage of every player in the big leagues, and he never let up, praise be to Abner Doubleday. I believe it is a well known phenonanon that the more recent the convert, the later in life one finds the true fatih, i politics, religion, or baseball, the more fervantly devoted the fan or votary. This, I think, applies almost equally to baseball, religion, and politics. When we became hooked on something late in life, we becoem hooked hard, line and sinker. I'll go on being passionate about baseball, and politics, not so much about religion, which I disdain. My MAGA friend is most likely on top of the world long about now, and shall doubtless remain so for the next three and a half years, assuming Trump remains in office that long, which is always questionable. During that time it is not likely that I will see him. When Trump leaves the political stage, so will, I suspect, my friend. But I'll go right on rooting for the Yankees, because, the way it looks now, they've a far better chance of winning than any political candidate or party I have the misfortune to support.