Wagering On Trump

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

Trump, Plummeting Precipitously In Popularity

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

Removing Putin and Trump

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

Reasons For Removing Trump

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

Flocking Together

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

Looking For God At the Lake

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

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

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

Washing Away Sins, With Bloody Detergent

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

Trump, Failing To Feed the Hungry

MUCH LIKE THE FRENCH, Americans like neither taxes nor government, except of course when it provides services indidpensible to themselves. Americans do not like being regulated. Americans have been propgandized into thinking that the federal government bureaucracy is bloated, and includes millions of useless, needless workers who do nothing but draw a hefty salary, and that they spend wasted time thinking of diabolical, nefarious ways to inflict pain on and control us the American people. That is a misperception. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Every government regulation has a valid purpose. Every government bureaucrat is kept busy, working hard, providing help to the rest of us Americans. The government, like private businesses, only hires people as a last resort, only when absolutely necessary. The number of people working for the government, in the federal bureaucracy, has remained essentially unchanged for the last sixty years, since the nineteen sixties. This, even though the population of the United States nearly doubled during that same timespan. Like Casey Stengal used to say: "you could look it up". Reducing the government work force, for effeciency's sake, is nothing new. Most recently, the Clinton administration eliminated about four hundred and twenty five thousand jobs, but instead of doing it with a chainsaw, chaotically, cruelly, and arbitrarily, it did it over a seven year period, intelligently, legally, with congressional cooperation. This was possible largely due to the advent of computers, which, in every sector of society, tend to reduce the need for human beings as workers. Clinton did it not by turning the job over to a cruel, unelected egomaniacal multibillionaire, but with a competant team of experts. As the years went by, it inexorably became necessary to re-increase the number of workers, as new cabinet level departments were added, and the exigencies of the country required. And yet, this false notion of a bloated, out of touch federal government persists, as do so many false notions promulgated and perpetuated by Trump, MAGA, and conservative Republican America. Now, we are confronted with the dreadful specter of Trump-Musk, trying to decimate the government, illegally. USAID, America's foreign aid agency, is already largely defunct, the victim of Trump's butchery. U.S. foreign aid takes up less than one percent of the federal budget, but it helps poor people in other countries, and does nothing to enrich America's ultra wealthy, and thus is inimical to all things MAGA. Trump-Musk put a block on funding for USAID, a federal judge orderd Don the Con, twice, to unblock it, he refused, and now Trump's extreme Supreme Court once again came to the great reprobate's rescue, yet again, as it has so many times before, and reversed the federal judge. Now, food sits rotting in harbor, and food, medicine, and vaccinations have stopped flowing from the land of opportunity unto the world's poorest, most desperate people. How many lives have already been lost because of this perfidy? How many more will be? Millions? Probably. U.S. foreign aid has always saved millions of lives, but, no more, likley not for a very long time. Noam Chomsky says that he is still looking for a word adequate to describe the evil of people and corporations which knowingly engage in ativities which will destroy organized human civilization, merely for the sake of adding more money to already overstuffed pockets. the word "evil", Chomsky maintains, is insufficient. He still hasn't found one. He probably never will. If he can't, nobody can. Such a word probably does not exist. Now its time to look for a word adequate to deseribe the behavior of a man and a political movement which deliberately sets out to kill millions by withholding food, medicine, and vaccines from dying people merely for the sake of appearing to increase government efficiency. Because, understand this: DOGE has nothing to do with efficiency. It has everything to do with concentrating power in the hands of a vicious tyrant. Likely we will never find the word. But we will keep trying.

Rewriting History

NEARLY EVERYONE, at one point or another, mysteriously transforms into an expert historian. The most common venues for this seem to be at family dinners, group gatherings, or bars and grills during converstaions in which the subject turns to politics. Political disagreements tend to be the root cause of these miraculous transformations, in which people with less than ideal high school educations spontaneously possess the historical knowledge of Ivy League faculty members. We all tend to be interested in history, but mostly only to prove a point, to feed the ego by winning a heated political argument. And so be it. History breeds cliches, which, like most cliches, contain more than a modicum of truth. History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes. Patterns in human behavior emerge. People and nations who do not learn the lessons and mistakes of history are doomed, or at least inclined, to make the same mistakes which have been made repeatedly before, such as building walls to keep people out (walls don't work unless manned. Why, then, build a wall at all?), or starting wars without proper preparation and motive. History is a powerful and potentially dangerous tool. George Orwell said that whoever imposes his or her version of history upon large numbers of people or nations has the chance to gain power and keep it, and to thus greatly control the historical events of the future. This is why history must be researched, written, and taught in a highly professional, critical manner, and an agreed upon body of facts established, to ensure that malevolent interests don't gain access to and control of the discipline and abuse it for their own malign inerests. Tragically, alarmingly, disastrously, that is precisly what is occuring in American society now. History is being abused. We the people are being subjected to a toxic brew of false history, for nefarious purposes. The ancient Egyptians erased from the records any events unacceptable to pharoah. The communists in Russia and the NAZIs in Germany concocted and promulgated entirely false accounts of their own country's past, versions of history which glorified the fatherland, and made it seem as if their respective political movements possessed the only solutions to their nation's current problems. Now, here we are, in our beloved America, doing likewise. At least, about forty two percent of us are. Trump leads the charge in historical misinformation, and his MAGA minions are right behind him,following suit. Its more blatant than ever, for Trump history does not bother to reach far back in time as many false narratives do, but rather, tends to confine itself to the recent past. The obvious problem for the purveyors of these false narratives is that it makes an easier job of countering and correcting the lies - if only people are willing to accept the truth. And now for some facts. Ukraine did not start the current war in Ukraine. Russia did. Trump did not win the presidential election of 2020. Biden did. The insurrection of January 6, 2021 was soley the responsibility of Donald Trump, with the direct assistance of thosuands of his followers, and the indirect assistance of millions more. It was not a hoax perpetrated by some fictional "deep state", nor the result of a nefarious liberal plot. Trumpism gives us the most glaring examples of historical lies, but a fundamental truth must be recognized. It is this; Public school American history textbooks tend to be written not from an objective, honest point of view, but from a desire and intent of making the United States and its hsitoryseem more noble and positive than it actually is. In truth, American history is not pretty. In fact, it is quite ugly. Traditionally, however, we as a culture have tended to be unable to accept this reality, unable to teach the truth to our children. Public schools have traditionally tends to promote patriotism more than honest, accurate American history. This is called "hagiography". Some more facts: The United States was founded upon violence, genocide, slavery, and greed, not Christian values. Every square inch of the country was stolen from previous civilizations. There are, of course, many more examples. The fact that this dubious approach has been challenged and changed to a large extent in recent years is an encouraging sign, but also a primary source of the widespread disatisfaction of public education among conservatives, who generally, to fuel and validate their hyper patriotism, prefer hagiogrphy to historical reality. Goethe said that "patriotism corrupts history". Indeed it does. Whatever price in pride we pay for accepting the truth, in historical studies or anywhere else, is surely far less than that which we pay for embracing falsehood, historical or otherise.

Trump, Making Deals, Ending Wars

DONALD TRUMP made it, as Richard Nixon used to say, "perfectly clear", during the presidential campaign. He could, if elected, and maybe even if not elected, end the war in Europe in a single day, by making a deal. As someone pointed out to me, he didn't actually say that he "would", but that he "could". Thers is a difference. My thought was, heaven forbid that somebody could end a war, but would choose not to. Quite a price in human lives for passing up a chance to end a war. Making a deal. Trump, the art of the artist of the deal, the ultimate transactional master, the self proclaimed stable genius, fixing the world, or able to if he so chooses and has time, through wheeling and dealing. Buy a golf course, sell a slum rental property. Buy a country, end a war. Its that easy, we are told. Now, there's been a change in plans. The new timeline given by the great deal maker extends to several weeks, not days or hours. It looks like the war is on track to be ended, by Trump, in "several weeks". Don't be surprised that when the fourth anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine rolls around next February twenty fourth, 2026, the time table has been extended to several months. And then, eventually, by several years, or even decades. Donald Trump promises that the war in Europe will end in several centuries, if not sooner....The proverbial "fly in the ointment" is, as always, the contents of the deal. The devil, as always, is in the details. The Trump administration is now telling us that it would be "unrealistic" to expect any peace agreement to include a Russian withdrawal from the twenty percent of Ukraine, and slowly growing, it currently occupies. That, of course, would make ending the war considerably easier for dealer Trump or...anyone. Ending the war with the status quo intact would have the further (dis)advantage of essentially rewarding Putin's Russia for its wanton aggression. During this second Trump administration, United States foreign policy is predicated on an "alternative reality", to borrow a phase from Trump's former spokesperson, that being that, in the world according to Trump, Ukraine, not Russia, is responsible for starting the war. This is the equivalent of blaming Poland or France for igniting World War Two, but it perfectly suits Trump's admiration and affinity for Vladimir Putin and all things authoritarian, and his unflagging penchant for rewriting hisotry, twisting the present as well as the past into fantastical alternative realities. The real reality is that, under Trump, the United States has, like Italy in World War Two, switched sides mid war. Its hard to remember the United States of America ever doing that before, unless you include its abandonment of the British Empire in 1776 as side switching. More than one hundred billion dollars spent on Ukrainian defense, and we end up, for all intents and purposes, on the side of Putin. Freedom's land, having its Benedict Arnold moment. Serving this alternative reality, Ukrainian president Zelenskyy now becomes, in the great Trump fun house, an unelected dictator. Why not? He was of course elected by a huge majority, but, one thing we know about Trump is that in Trump-land elections are vague, shadowy tenuous things the results of which can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Perception become reality. It now seems that their very exstence can be whitewashed from the history books. We probably won't see American boots on the ground fighting alongside Russian forces pushing ever further into Ukraine from the east, but, as we say, never say never. We now want to be repaid for our prior assistance to Ukraine in precious metals and minerals, a modern version of "Lend-Lease". Eventually, Russia can be expected to be handed a bill for American services rendered. The United Nations overwhelmingly voted to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the third anniversary of Putin's initial attack. The United States, freedom's land, joined North Korea, Iran, and China in voting against the proclamation. Our beloved America, joining itself at the hip with the world's most oppressive, authoritarian regimes as the former land of liberty enters its very own authoritarian era, courtesy Donald J. Trump and MAGA America. Conservative America wholly approves. Doesn't that make you proud to be an American?

Stomping Off With Satchmo

WHEN I WAS A KID my dad gave me a trumpet for Christmas, and told me to do whatever I wanted with it. Play it, put it in the closet, my choice. I chose the former, and athough I took lessons and played in the band throughout school, I never became very good at it. No regrets, good experiences. It just turned out that I prefer listening to music to trying to create it. Quite naturally I developed into a fan of certain famous trumpet players. My favorites were Al Hirt and Louis Armstrong. I still love them both. Maybe I was expressing some deeply embedded New Orleans vibe, previously unknown to me. There was something special about Louis. His race, his smile, and his gravelly singing voice appealed to me, notwithstanding the fact that to this day I consider Louis Armstrong and Bob Dylan to be the worst singers in popular American cultural history. Go figure; they are probably still laughing all the way to the proverbial bank, in their respective realms of reality. Armstrong biographer Ricky Ricardi has written three books about Armstrong, including one about his early life and career, titled "Stomp Off, Let's Go", after a song title. (Its prounced either "Lewis" or "Looie", your choice. He usually used the former, but not always. Fans go both ways. The latter is the way the French say it.) He claimed he was born in 1900; records "seem" to indicate that he was born a year later, on July 4th, according to Ricardi. The third ward in the "big easy" was so violent that it was known as "the battlefield". From the small flat he shared with his mother and sister, the child Armstrong heard gun fights and screams of agony deily. Ricardi says it is a miracle he survived childhood when many other black kids didn't, as if a cornet playing guardian angel hovered over him. Louis maintained throughout his life that he didn't know whether his mother and sister were prostitutes; he knew. He tried pimping, but his lady shot him in the shoulder, and he showed off the scar the rest of his life. He spent a year and a half in a juvenile detention center for no particular reason other than to keep him off the streets, which, strangely, arguably, might have been the best thing that ever happened to him. There, he got stability, three squares a day, discipline, and an opportunity to develop a variety of skills, including music, which he chose to exploit on the cornet. He always thought of himself as a singer first and foremost, and according to Ricardi would have had a career as a vocalist had he never picked up the ax. Yes, his distinctive voice turned out to be a benefit. By the time he was nineteen he may hae been the best trumpet/cornet player in the world. He wanted to sing and play both, but since he didn't play guiter, had to alternate. Problem was, nobody had ever done that before. It was one, or the other. He wouldn't be disuaded, and his voice to horn back to voice style made him famous, and, eventually, helped earn him the title as the inventor of jazz, of modern American music. His unique status as America's first pop music superstar gave him a unique opportunity to speak out against segregation, and he received much criticism for failing to do so with suffient vigor. However, he spoke out. He accused President Eisenhower of having "no guts' for his failure to publicly endorse the civil rights movement, and he generally refused to perform in front of segregated audiences. Better than nothing. After all, President Eisenhower was in a much better position to assist in rights rights than a poor black trumpet player and black pimp from New Orleans. There was more than enough blame to go around. No American presidnet until Kennedy addressed the issue forcefully, and Kennedy, only late in his presidency. His jazz ensembles, the "Hot Five" and the "Hot Seven", were releasing recordings by 1925, which can still be heard today, with rewarding clarity. You simply have to hear them, especially his first big hit "The Heebie Jeebies", in which Louis begins with an earbending thirteen second solo intro, then sings his heart out, up tempo, joyfully. During the 2020 pandemic, there was on an online Louis Armstrong Heebie Jeebie challenge, and musicians all over the world tried to knock out the famous, hopelessly complicated cornet riff. If anybody succeeded, nobody ever knew. "Cornet Chop Suey" came soon thereafter. Louis got the nickname "satchmo", short for "satchel mouth" because he once briefly stored coins in his mouth for momentary safekeeping. While recording "Heebie Jeebie", the story goes, he dropped the sheet lmusic, and couldn't remember the lyrics, so, in desperation, resorted to singing in half words and nonsense syllables. Thus was invented "scat singing", which in 1926 was spelled "skat". This account has been confirmed. (scat, for "shit", perhaps?). I developed a fairly passable impersonation of his singing voice, which I still, from sheer love and admiration, occasionaly show off today, at the risk of a sore throat. I remember seeing him perform on the "Ed Sullivan Show", and I recall once when he took questions from the live studio audience, to everyone's delight. "Hello Dolly", and "What A wonderful World", both big hits late in his life, were not among my favorites. He died when I was sixteen, in 1971, but not really.

Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

OF ALL THE HUMAN personality characteristics in our vast portfolios, none do I find as odious as sheer pettiness. Anger, resentment, holding grudges rank highly among them, but for basic contemptuousness, small minded, avoidable vindictiveness, to my thinking, has no equal. Just the other day a good friend of mine was mentioning a mutual acquaintance of whom neither of us is especially fond. My friend mentioned that the annoying man has an annoying penchant for calling my friend "bud". "I'm not your bud", my friend said he responded. He calls me "bud" too,I said, and it annoys me too, but I just let it go, I told my friend, because I have far lerger fish to fry, far greater concerns. My friend,by his silence, seemed to agree, if only tacitly. Let's not be petty ourselves, even when it seems merited, even when others do, if we an avoid it. And, we can, always. Of all the execrable behaviors of Donald Trump, and there are many, as we all know, it is his patent pettiness which I find most revolting, even more so than his pathological lying or incessant slandering and insulting of people wholly undeserving of such verbal garbage. So the Associated Press decided to call it the "Gulf od Mexico", and to leave it at that. And, at a press conference, an AP reporter used precisely that term. Down came the edict from his malignant majesty on high: henceforth no members of the Associated Press shall be given admittance to press conferences of any other media event centered around the prevaricating president. And it only gets worse. Donald Trump is a weak, insecure little personna whose personality portfolio never fully developed beyond a childish childhood level. What he lacks in intellect he over compensates for by his bluster, his incessant urge to dominate every conversation and situation, his vitriolic speech. Sounding like another presidential emotional cripple, Richard Nixon, Trump recently exclaimed: "He who saves his country cannot break the law". He can, of course, but cannot, according to the Supreme Court, be prosecuted for doing so. Saves his country? Is what precise way does Trump the Deluded really think he is saving the country,, or has alreday saved it? Saved it from what, decency and integrity? Trump's egregious, reprehensible words and deeds go well beyond mere pettiness. They enter the realm of the absurd and diabolical, well beyond merely the Gulf of America. Wosrt of all perhpas was his pardoning of violent insurrectionist criminals, the pardon given only because their violence suited Trump's personal, traitorous purposes. With the stroke of a pen, his sycophanticic gangster criminals go free, to do harm elsewhere on behalf of their mafia-style don. Trump's attacks on the media, all petty, do not end with the AP. He has threatened to pull the broadcast license of CBS, presumably for having the etemerity to disagree with him, and to explain precisely why. He wants to sue "Sixty Minutes", or has perhaps already filed suit against the iconic television program, for that very reason. Expose and delineate Trump's perfidy, he breaks your kneecaps. National Public Radio has been threateed with similar extinction, and is fortunate that less then one percent of its funding comes from the government. Trump's handing over the economy to billionaire oligarchs like Elon Musk is well documented, and his petty apointees are all in agreement that Trump's Attorney General, a MAGA mainstay, absolutely must use the "law" to go after not only duly authorized invistigators of Trump's criminality, but also, his critics. Critize Der Fuhrer, down you go. The infamous Sedition Act of 1798 reincarnated. Fortunately, this has not yet been codified by Congress, and thus, so far, means nothing. But stay tuned, as we say, lest we would be reduced to awaiting another Thomas Jefferson to void it. Oh, how I wish that Trump's goons would come after me. The upshot is that no decent citizen should even consider supporting Trump, and, in fact, no decent citizen does.

Acting Without Reason

THE EXPRESSION, if I'm not mistaken (I'm not), is "arbitrary and capricious". The two words are always paired in tandem, like "clear and present", "black and blue", or "love and marriage", "constitutional crisis". Or, as Festus Haggen eloquently put it: "like ugly on ape" (apes tend to be better looking than most humans, depending on one's point of view.). "Arbitrary" means without rreason, and "capricious" means intending harm, if only overtly. What could be more arbitrary than renaming the Gulf of Mexico "The Gulf of America?" Renaming Greenland "Redwhiteandblueland", maybe, or renaming the Mississippi River the "Missamerica River", perhaps. On the capricious side, for the president of the United States to take over personal control of the Kennedy Center only in order to insure that no artistic productions run counter to the wishes and whimsical values of the chief executive comes to mind, values which include a hatred of the term and concept of wakefulness, awareness, aka "woke". God forbid that we the American people be entertained with any stage production which acknowledges the reality of lingering systemic racism in these United States of Apartheid. Simply don't talk about it, and it either vanishes, or never existed. Only by mentioning racism does racism spring, like lilacs breeding out of the dead ground, as T.S. Eliot might have put it, into existence, for all to see, ignore, or deny. Henceforth nobody will appear in drag at the Kennedy Center, and nothing will be said or heard about gay or transgender people. Behold the newly reformatted schedule of events, in which only artists whose current gender matches that on their birth certificates are allowed to strut and fret on stage. It is not beyond the realm of possibility in the world according to Trump that eventually only lilly white Christian nationalists are deemed suitable for public consumption. Can there by any doubt that the "Kenned Center" will sooner rather than later by renamed "The Trump Center"? Speaking of Christian nationalism, Trump recently issued an executive order establishing something called the "Office of Faith", or something like that. Accordingly, he appointed a widely seen fire and brimstone lady from Florida, a well known televangelist with her own mega church, to the position of chief of religion, religion of the conservative Christian kind, the kind in which the gospel according to Jesus Christ is twisted like a badly made pretzel into an endorsement of far right American politics. No other religions allowed, of course. Contrary to what John Adams said and the constitution still says, it seems that the U.S. is indeed more a Christian than Islamic nation. Unbridled capitalism becomes sacred, gay and transgnder people become a scourge, that sort of thing. This, notwithstanding the admonitions of the actual Christ to render uto Caesar, and to give unto the poor, and to welcome the stranger, even without work requirements or visas. (At least the nation's prevaricator-in-chief spared us Joel Osteen.) More,many more than one legal scholar has clearly indicated that not only are nearly all of Trump's edicts blatantly unconstitutional, but that ther are, by definition....arbitrary and capricious. And yes, there is indeed a federal law prohibiting any law enacted from being without reason and being with the intent of malice. All twelve of our federal circuit court magistrates seem to agree; Trump is way out of constitutional line. Asssuming that the appellate courts assume likewise, we are left to await the renderings of SCOTUS, which, being packed like sardines with Trump loving MAGA injustices, can be expected to do most anything, including upholding the Trump agenda of unreason. Like somebody said on the "Colbert" show the ohter night, "buckle up". The great American fun house will only become more quixotic as Trump, with the full support of his lurking mob, in and out of Congress, leads us on an even more convoluted journey into the arbitrary and capricious. Our best consolation might be that we will once again be allowed, perhaps forced, to use plastic straws. After all, what's a little oceanic garbage and a few whates and dophins choking to death among friends of the far, capricious right wing?

Ghostwriting

I HAVE READ NO FEWER than twenty books about Donald Trump, all written by his family members, close associates, well respected journalists, and historians whose area of emphasis is modern American culture. While offering the differing perspectives one expects from divergent writers, they all correlate well, both in biographical facts and conclusions. I began doing this reading after recovering from shock and despair at his ascension to the presidency in 2017. I needed to be informed and forewarned. My favorites are the two by Bob Woodward, of Watergate fame: "The Trump tapes", and "Fear: Donald Trump In the White House". The former consists of transcripts of the twenty interviews Woodward conducted with Trump, and the latter is an incisive examination of interactions between Trump and his staff members during Trump's first administration. During the first administration alone, at least forty five hundred books on Trump were published. Trump has been famous for nearly fifty years, and the books began to appear long before he became president. When he became a television star, the output proliferated. Only a handful of American presidnets have been written about more often. Those include Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt. Since there is an emerging consensus among professional academicians and historians that Donald Trump already is and likely shall forever remain the agreed upon worst president in American history, it seems probable that many more volulmes will be in agreement in his post presidency, and that the biographical output will continue well into the late twenty first century and beyond, as historical perspective is gained from a chronological distance. Every future writer on Trump will offer a fresh, if somewhat familiar perspective, as is common in this field. Such is the nature of all historical writing, especially biograpy. Future works are not likely to be any kinder to Trump than our early attempts; we tend by nature to be less generous towards historical figures who start their careers in print in infamy. The effects of damage done by nefarious leaders and their cohorts become ever more apparent in the sharp relief offered by decades and centuries of their impact and examination. Trump himself has produced books about himself, about twenty, all ghost written. Not only is Trump not a writer; he is not a reader either. One of his ghost writers, who spent a year and a half collaborating with Trump on "The Art of the Deal", which was published in 1987, remarked that in all the time he spent in both Trump's home and office, he never saw a single book. For some of Trump's books the ghost writer is given full credit on the book cover, on other's the ghostwriter is merely mentioned as having given some assistance, and still others make no mention at all of anyone other than Trump himself. Anyone who has ever listened to Donald Trump speak can readily discern that he is not capable of writing a book on an intelligent, adult level. The problem associated with books allegedly written by Trump is verifying their accuracy, as many of his ghostwriters have indicated. Often they are unable to either confirm or repudiate facts about himself supplied by Trump; they become lost in a morass of vague assertions, grandiose bragging, and incoherent intertwined timelines. Many of Trump's background biographers have mentioned that when ghostwriting a book for Trump, whey were discouraged from attempting to confirm alleged facts, and were simply not allowed to put in print any point of dispute with them. And, needless tosay, book authored by Trump are hagiographic; those written about him by others are uniformaly in agreement about basic facts and about the fact that Trump is a man of questionable moral character. Limited though my personal reading and research has been,and even though I pay close attention to Trump and have for a long time, for me there has emerged a common,irrrefutable theme; I have yet to discern a single redeeming personal quality or personality trait in the man. It seems unlikely that I ever will.