Drowning In Incorporated Plastic

I FIGURE I was raised, to a large extent, in and around plastic. As I dimly remember it, or maybe I'mjust imaging that I can remember, being surrounded by a pile of plastic toys while in my crib, or on the floor, where I sat for hours, playing. Nothing engenders technological advancement like a good old fashioned war, by necessity. Plastic,one of the many inventions to emerge from the msot destructive donflict of all time was an instant success in the American post war market place. The period between 1945 and 1960, 1970, or maybe even 1980 was the most prosperous time in American history. The war time economy was rapidly retooled into a peace time consumer economy with a special emphasis on military procurement funded by tax payers producing a vast arsenal of weapons and a permanent huge establishment on a permanent war time level or readiness. Plastic has been front and center in my life, and still is, and has been and remains central to our way of living and our economy. Journalist Beth Gardiner authored a just published seminal work on ths history of plastic, titled "Plastic, Inc." It is already highly recommended, considered essential reading for a deep understanding of the history of and role plastic has played and plays in our modern economy and culture. Too bad it, plastic, isn't biodegradable. A huge amount of plastic is buried in the nation's trash dumps, huge areas where the biosystem has been stripped down to the dirt, with our garbage dumped into ever growing piles daily, decade after decade. Welcome to the "anthropocene", the geological epoch in which a single species of animal, the human species, took total control of the planet with its world wide habitations and ever advancing understanding of nauture and technology. Plasiic is one of the many modern inventions whichi have rasied teh standard of living all voer the world. Were it not for its immortailty it indisposability, plastic might be regarded as humankind's sconomic salvation. But, alas, the plastic is piling up, and worse, it is and already has been injected into the environment in so many forms that billions and trillions of tiny, microscopic plastic are everywhere in teh world, including inside our bodies and bloodstreams. If you give much thought to this at all, you can become alarmed. This amazing, seemingly catastrophic situation is now being made known much more sidely, and the American public and global community are becoming more aware of it, fortunately. People in New Mexico today have a high ra of cancer, doubtless because their grandparents were pepper sprayed by nuclear radiation during the two test explosions in 1944. My understanding is that every human alive today has a few atoms of radioactive material floating around inside them. Microscopic particles of jet fuel, yes, jet fuel, were found in teh breastmilk of a lactating mother. She lived nowhere near an airport. Hopefully, palns and preparations are being made to ameliorate if not totally resolve this unbelievable situation. There are, amazing, plants which, when grown in contaminated soil, help clean ths soil of pollutants. Hemp, for isntance, helps nourish and replenish the soil. Terrifying as the reality of climate change is, the micro pollution of the Earth's air, soil, and water,and of our own bodies, when you really think about it, is more terrifying still. You prefer not to think about it, but, alas,somebody has to, or we humans, if we don't change our ways, will kill our species and all others too. With or without human folly, the Earth's biosystem is an amazing, miraculous manifestation of nature. The time has come to not only clean up the Earth, but to plant colonies of the Earth's biospere throughout the solar system, and beyond. The universe created us, and therefore presumably wants us to exist.

Israel, Kicking Butt As Usual

I AM NOT a big fan of the nation of Israel, and never have been. The founding of modern Israel was incredibly violent towards the Palestinians, the treatment of whom has never improved. During the 1967 six day war I was twelve years old, and from watching the news I quickly got the idea that Israel was militarily kicking the crap out of Egypt, Syria, and one other country. It wasn't even close. So well had the United States and Great Britian armed the newly founded Jewish national homeland that almost from the moment of its inception in 1946, it packed a mite of military might. I shall never forget a television interview I saw in which a young religiously conservative hussitic rabbi, dressed in all black, with a fedora, and long uncut sideburns hanging down, expressed hiw views on the nation-state of Israel. He said he was opposed to the establishment and continuing existence of Israel as a recognized nation, because Judaism, he wuite reasonably asserted, is not intended to be a country, a military power, or a political entity, but rather, a religion. A religion, and nothing else. Makes sense, when you think about it. Islamic Arabs do not generally dispise the Judaic religion nearly as much, if at all, as they depise the imposition and establishment of a Jewish homeland-nation right smack dab in the middle of Arab lands, in Palestine. They would much prefer that Jews be widely dispersed and distributed throughout the middle east and the whole world, as,in fact, they are. Hebrew power diluted, rather than concentrated. Sometimes it almost seems as if American foreign policy, and indeed even domestic policy, is heavily controlled if not controlled outright by Israel and Isralei interests, so huge and powerful is the Zionist lobby in the halls of Congress. Israel is a sacred cow of a large part of both major American political parties, where support of and alliance with Israel is regarded as essential, indispensible, eternal.It is quite evident that the United States attack of Iran was carried out at the behest of America's overlord taskmaster, Israel. Preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear bombs by building them is as good a "reason" (excuse) as any for the U.S. to demonstrate its hegemony, regional, and global. We live in a world, for now, with a single hegemonic super power. It is a "pax America" which has endured since the end of World War Two, with first the Soviet Union and then Russia falling by the wayside as their power and influence waned. The world still runs on petroleum, and, somehow appropriately, it turns out that the United States has more of it stored underground than any other country, including Mexico and Saudi Arabia, both of which,among others, were once considered to be the prime repositories of oil on planet Earth. the dirty little secret, you beign to suspect, is that an ocean of oil lurks beneath every square inch of land on Earth, and that we never needed to bother arguing and fighting over it, it being as commom in nature as water and tennis balls. Our descendants ill, we must hope, laugh at us for our folly of fighting over decomposed plants and animals as if our very lives depended on it. You can now buy a machine which makes water out of thin air. Future machines might render every form of resource scarcity a relic of human history, a history of want and lack, transformed into a future of unlimited abundance. But for that to happen, we must find a way to outgrow our addiction to and dependence on plants and animals that died and decomposed eons ago. It has been asserted by historians that all wars are fought over mineral resources, mainly land itself. Fortunately, the universe appears to be full of planets and land, so we can take comfort knowing that as long as we humans choose to keep fighting with each other, we'll certainly have plenty to fight over.

Being Born Free

IF THE REPUBLICANS don't want birthright citizenship in the constitution, OK fine, remove it. Its that simple. But for God's sake, for the sake of sheer, simple sanity, do not try to argue that it isn't there in the first place, in the fourthtneth amendment,loud andclear because it damned well is. Nor, through some incoherent convoluted thought process or line of reasoning can one sanely argue that it does not apply to the newborn of undocumented immigrants illegally in the country. The constitution says nothing about legal or illegal immigrants. But the fourteenth amendment is clear as a bell, like most of the constutiion, (if not the second amendment). Its like when William the Conqueror set foot on English soil in 1066, planted his banner in the ground, and declared that henceforth any human being who sets foot on English soil is and shall forever remain free, unenslaved. Crystal clear,as Tom Cruise once cinematically said. The thirteenth, fourtheenth, and fifteenth amendments were all inspired by the victorious Union after the Civil War. Slavery would be abolished forever, and the former confederacy would be punished, severely. Hell, repeal all three of them. Just cut to the chase, as they say, and remove it. Removal would have to be in the form of another constitutional amendment, like reealing prohibition, approved by no fewer by thirt eight of the nifty fifty united states. Why not make it retroactive, grandfathering out of the country by applying to anybody illegally residing in the U.S., and thus proceed to deport twelve or thirteen million people, however many there really are, no matter how long they've been in America or how productively. So far, the Trump administration seems to be finding and deporting people living illegally or on expired Visa or barbed wire scars in the U.S. at a slow snail's pace, afew dozen here, a few dozen there. At the current rate of removal, the U. S. of A. will be one hundred percent immigrant free and perhaps even pure lilly white Protestant Christian heterosexual at about the same time that the sun goes nova, making it all irrelevant, all that racist energy consumed in a solar flare. Nearly every nation in the western hemisphere, right on down to the tip of South America, has some form of birthright citizenship. European countries tend to place limitations, qualifications,restrictions on it, but, they have it. A friend of mine loves to visit France. He goes there,stays until they make him leave,and then returns when they let him return, usually in ninety day chuncks of calendar. To move there permanently he will have to jump through many more hoops and over many more hurdles. Trump and the MAGA mob would have the United States go from one extreme to another. A middle ground approach, like Europe, would be much better. When in doubt, imitate Europe. The unavoidable reality is that the U.S. badly needs all the illegal immigrants it has now, and then some. It in fact needs many more, paperwork or no paperwork. With a dip of the pen, or a few dozen pens, Trump could instantly legalize them, like Ronald Reagan did, to his eternal credit. Send us your young healthy hungry, looking for work! We have unfilled jobs in America! My mother,who was born in nineteen twenty, told me that she has no idea how women can afford to have children in the twenty first century. The answer, of course, is that they indeed cannot, but still do, because although its a tough job,somebody's gotta do it,as we say. We all benefit from new life, and should do what we can as a society to help mothers and children. I thank goodness that all those young folks are working, helping to pay for my social security. By the time the SS fund runs out of money I'll probably be dead anyway, and,in any event,my best guess is that they'll cut benefits for the new recipients and pretty much leave us old time recipients alone, accustomed to a certain lifestyle. The math involved in solving the SS impending crisis is actually rather simple. Raising future eligilibity age,cutting benefits just a bit ,and so forth. When FDR started Social Security in 1935, mymother was a teenager who hated both Roosevelt and socialism. She lived to nearly ninety four, and received her SS check for nearly thirty years. She got her money back,and then some,contrary to her dire expectations of getting cheated. I was tempted to ask her late in her life how she thought that damned socialist Roosevelt had treated her in her final retirement years in the twenty first century, but, to my credit, had the decency not to. She would have had no answer. Now I benefit personally from Roosevelt's socialism, and he is my hero, as he should be. I've been on Social Security for eight years, and I hope and trust that it will not die before I do.

Going To Church, and Liking It

THIS SUNDAY PAST I attended services at the little brick Presbyterian church in the country, for the same reason as always:I got a free ride, and we went out to lunch at a nice restaurant afterwards. To me those reasons are as good as any. One a month they intend to have a guest minister, because the regular guy, a dear frined of mine,wants to take a week off each month, partly due to his age, eighty three. That sort of solves my problem for me. Once amonth, henceforth,on Sundays when the fill in minister is holding forth at the little Presbyterian church, I'll sneak off to the big city for a Sunday morning with my beloved Unitarians. That ought to be enough to keep me satisfied; I am,at heart, a Uniterian pantheist, not a Christian. No offense intended to the substitute pastor, and I told himso, but this solution llows me to keep my participation in both the Presbyterian and the Unitarian churches going full steam ahead. The irony of how strange it is for a lifelong unbeliever like myself to be choosing between two churches because he likes both is not lost on me, I assure you. I firmly believe that I could trapse happily into any house of worship of any religious faith anywhere in the world, and gain from it. Gain from it spiritually, intellectually, socially, among other ways. Unlike Geroge Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who both refrained from the communion ritual because they thought it was symbolic cannibalism, I go with the "when in Rome" approach, even though I agree with Washington and Jefferson. This Sunday we had, I believe, nine people in the church, inclduing the pastor and organ player; I always hope to reach double digits in attendnce. Part Presbyterian, part Unitarian, part agnostic, part atheist, I'm amixed breed, aspiritual mutt. "My religiosity consists of humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself in nature", to paraphrase Einstein. You can be a votary of any religion on Earth, any of the more than four thousand organized religions, and be a Unitarian. Whereas the hindu faith embraces and encompasses all other religions, the Unitarian Universalist Church (UUC) likewise encircls them all, including Hinduism, merely by embracing them. See how easy it is? Einstein suggested that it would be a good idea if every man on Earth of military service age refused to serve in the military, so that all national military organizations cease to exist. Perhaps, in a similar mass movement, we could all, despite our disparate religious affiliations, declare oooourselves to be children of the universe, living beings of the creation of the grreat eternal creator, what Einstin variously called "the old eternal genius who built the universe", and "the ancient one". Einstein proclaimed himself to be a follower of Baruch Spinoza, a pantheist. These religious philosophies which elevate human beings to the status of Gods appeal to me, eogtisticlly. I enjoyed, for instance, listening to "Ramtha", some years ago, the lady from Seattle,J.Z. Knight,"hosting" the spirit from ancient India, giving lectures, seminars, books, movies,the works. I assume she made good money doing that, and for all I know, still does it. I'm sure I would be, were I she. I listened to quite a bit of her recorded lectures, and found them interesting. She certainly has a way of making you feel good about yourself, and maybe that was the secret of her success. Now, I hear, gurus are a dime a dozen,just like they were in Jesus's time. So, who knows?

Protesting Peacefully

THE "NO KINGS" national protest against Trump and his special brand of fascism went, by all accounts, exceedingly smoothly, with nary a violent incident anywhere, at least no reports of any. That in itself is remarkable, especially among human beings, even peace land love liberals.To avoid all violence and destruction of property was crucial, and the eight million or so protestors apparently knew this, because had a single beer bottle been dropped and broken in any of the thousands of protests all across America's fruted plain, the conservative mainstream media would have hopped all over over it like ugly on an ape, as Festus haggen used to say. The question is sustainability.Its oign to take a lot more protesting to have much if any of an impact on the essentially lame duck Trump, who can run amok knowing that no matter what he does, he can't run for reelection again. At least, not the way things stand now. but, as they say, we'll see. The crucial thing now is to continue the protesting. Assembling eight million Americansin America's streets with any degree of frequency seems a somewhat daunting task. We are all terribly busy these days. The main thrust of opposition to Trump must continue to be, as it has always been, the mass media,including and especially the internet. For example, if we the American people protest with enough viciferous vigor, in the media, Trump's associates and advisors,to the extent that he thinks he needs any advice, will alert the petty tyrant to the necessity of changing his message and messaging. The facttaht eight million or more Americas took to the streets is extremly encouraging to the anti-Trump movement, which has always been potent, but is now more so than ever.The latest ecample of Trump ruling be decree like a dictator is of course the new bright and shiny Trump war against poor hapless Iran. The fact that Arabs in the middle east have always objected to, and still object to, the United States and Great Britain establishing a national Jewish state in their midst without their approval. Go figure. The constitution is perfectly clear that only Congress has the power to declare war. If we are going to accede to the violation of the constitution this batantly by the chief excutive, what good is the founding document anyway? The official reason for attacking Iran was initially that they were on the verge of building an atomic bomb, and must be stopped, if memory serves. Now, it isn't difficult to understand why it would be better for the world, for everybody, if Iran does not have a nuclear bomb. Does anybody think that if they had one that they would hesitate to use it against israel? Unaid is that it would be far better for the world is nobody else had nuclear bombs either. There are still nine countries, including Israel, which have it, unless there is updated information. That fact clearly demonstrates that in terms of nuclear bombs, the cat, as they say, is far out of the bag. The genie escaped long ago.Any graduste student in physics know how to build an atomic bomb, and could do it, given the necessary equipment. What we're going to have to do is rid the entire planet of them, including America's stockpile, poste haste. Its incredible that to this day, only one country has ever attacked another country with a nuclear bomb,and we all, of course, know exactly which country that is. That may be the country we all really need to keep an eye on.

Protesting For More Democracy

Today, "No Kings" demonstration day, is a big day for me, and for millions of other Americans. And, I dare say, it would be an equally big day for America's founders, by and large, were they here to witness it. They would probably take part in it.The stated intention of the event is to express opposition to the monarchial form of government, opposition to authoritarian government, opposition to Trump. The Trump administation is seen by many, mostly but not all progressive people, as being border line authoritarian, an unfit man who wants to exercise dictatorial powers supported in his aspirations by his substantial following, in and out of Congress. But there is yet hope. Indications are that even the Republicans in Congress are not happy that Trump has begun starting wars all oer God's green Earth without so much as sendinga memo to Congress of his intent to do so, of his having done so.Only Congress can declare war, but our modern imperial presidents seem to ahve usurped that authority, going as far back as the earliest American involvement in Viet Nam in teh nineteen fifties, and indeed before. A careful reading of the constitution reveals that the founder intended that the American president be a rather weak political figure,checked and balanced by Congress and the Supreme Court both. it was a question of extreme importance at the constututional convention, just exacty how powerful to make the American head of state, and how limited in power. As one might imagine, there were proponents of all points of view on the spectrum. Some, including Alexander Hamilton, wanted a very strong chief executive, with exxentially the powers of a king, to ensure stable government over a new and unmanageably large country, geographically. Others, including Jefferson, wanted a relatively weak central government generally, with much and most powers reserved to the various states. The compromise they reached has been and continues to be recognized as among the most brilliant intellectual achievements in human history; the forging of a functional representative democracy to replace hundreds of years of monarchy. Despite its demonstrated durability, its main author, James Madison, never inended it to be permanent, or even long lived. Like Jefferson, he believed that with the obvious and inevitable societal evolution of the future, it would be necessary for all future generatiosn to reinvent their government with a new constitution to match the changing times. Jefferson said that the United States would probably require a new constitution about once every generation. They would almost certainly be shocked and horrifed, if perhaps a bit flattered, to know that we noy only still sue it in the twenty first century, but that we cling tenaciously to their very imperfect and rather hastily written document like some sacred revelation from God, Indeed, we in today's America are far more likely to ascribe our constitution to divine providence than its authors would ever have imagined possible. Perhaps they would find our attitude a bit humorous, and perhaps somewhat sad. Indisputably, teh American constitution is not the workd of God, is far from perfect, and we modern Americans could write a much much better one,more suited to ourselves and our world. Hell, maybe it would be best to turn the project over to Artificial Intelligence! I'm only hqlf joking. The "No Kings" nationwide protest will probably accuse the Trump administration of violating the constitution. All good and well. But maybe we should do more; maybe we should advocate for a better form of government, of democratic government, one with, for example, more actual democracy.

Celebrating Democracy

THE "NO KINGS" RALLY, taking place nationwide tomorrow, Saturday, March 28, 2026, a must attend or must support for all true progressive Americans, and, arguably, for all Americans. After all, do we not all still agree, even after all these two hundred and fifty years, that what we want in America, what we believe in in America, and what we by damn intend to have in these United States o' America, is government of the people, by the people,and for the people, no exceptions, no compromises? Indeed, people can have too muchliberty, too much freedom, and it can be abused. Laws are necessary to govern ourselves by,and government, above all self government, is necessary. The "No KIng's" rally can be viewed asa celebration of democracy, as much as being a protest agaisnt anti-democratic forces, political and economic. Itis, of course, aprotest against Trump, Trumpism, Trump administration policies, ethics, and morality.For many Trump opponents,their opposition is based not so much on politial grounds, not necessarily on political grounds at all,but rather, on moral grounds. These folks, many arbuably ideologues, have the temerity to describe the protest turned riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021,as more than a political revolt, as an actual instance of violent, treasonous, insurrection, rising to the level of treason, worthy of prosecution and punishment. The constitution identifies three federal crimes: piracy, counterfeiting, and treason. Now, there are more than fifty thousand, and counting. Somebody once suggested, tantalizingly, that every time a new law is passed, and old one ought to be taken off the books. Trump's January 6th insurrection was the purest form of treason, as traitorous as the secession o the confederate states from the United States in 1861. Try calling the secession causing the Civil War an act of treason in any small town south of the Mason-Dixon line,but only if you are prepered to run and hide, fast. If it was "The War Between the States", as is still the prefered name in the American south, then it was a titanic battle, a noble struggle between moral equals,as many would still like to describe it,but which we know damned good and well it most crtainly was not. Every state which joined the confederacy issued it own "declaration of independence", and all these documents listed the attempt by the Union to force the southern states to abolish slavery as paramount. State'srights. The "peculiar institution" would be phased out of existance as the various states saw fit,over time, on their own terms, without being bullied by an overbearing, tyrannical federal government. Thomas Jefferson, who hated slavery but was born a slave owner, thought it could be phased out gradually, with slaves being returned to Africa, to form their own country "Liberia". Jefferson, like most Americans at the time, were convinced that freed slaves would never be capable of surviving in the free world of American society, and would always have to be guided by their fair skinned superiors. Trump's "conservative populism" is nothing other than fascism. His supporters might not be eager to crown him king, but they sure seem to want him to stay in power until well past his eightieth birthday, and maybe forever, dead or alive. You either love or hate Trump. The fact that those who hate him greatly outnumber those who love him is the reason the "No Kings" movement isn't going away. Maybe the country will elect so many Democrats with the midterms that Trump will see the handwriting, take a hint, and resign. Fat chance, but nice thought. The problem? His replacement would be even worse, if that's even possible.

Traitors, Denying Climate Change

WHERE I LIVE, in the mid American south, April is always the rainiest month of the year, followed closely by March and maybe May. This year, however, as we exit March, we are quite evidently in the throes of yet another drought, a rare if ever month of March drought. I cannot remember ever having a drought in March in this area before. Just when the trees are starting to leave out, the shrubbery and flowers are beginning to bloom, and teh weeds and grass are starting to grow, we have a drought. I can remember August droughts going back to my long gone childhood in this part of the country, lasting maybe a couple of weeks tops, but always ending seemingly just in time. That is normal for this part of the country. But not this. I cannot remember a drought of this magnitude ever happening around here at this time of year, and most likely neither can anybody else. Our average anual rainfall here in Arkansas is around forty six inches a year. We are a rainy part of the country, with our huge forests and smaller wooded areas sucking up the H2O nourishment necessary to prevent our bioregion from eutrophying into, say, a vast prairie grassland, or an even a more dessicated desert. Heaven forbod that we should lose our woodlands and become another Kansas. But of course it could and might well happen. I must hope and assume that soon things will return to "normal", an that the rains will return, april showers, May flowers, and so forth. I cannot, however, stop thinking about and worrying thsi coming summer, and for that matter all future summers, here in my neck of the woods, and everywhere else on planet Earth. I rememer one horrible summer, ten or fifteen years ago, when teh August drought was so severe that the tres started turning brown and shedding leaves befor Labor Day, and I remember how freaked out and frightened I was. I am sure I was not alone. Drought frightens me, truly scare me, perhpas because I have seen its impact. Ita a slow, nagging, energy draining fear, as oppsoed to the adrenalin boosting maniacal fear which a tornado,or even the film footage of a tornado frightens me with sudden intensity. Tha opening tornado scene in "The Wizard Of Oz" still has much the effect on me as it did when I was a tiny tot, terrified of he iage on the black and white television screen. Well, around her, in tornado alley, we have a lot fo both, tornados, and,increasingly, drought. Theproblemwith climate change is that you can tun, but you cannot hide. Evry square inch of planet Earth is being and will contiune to be ever more changed by human behavior. The climate is changing fast, everywhere, dramatically,and not for the better. The simple, common sense behing climae change is that if you pump a huge amounot of heat into the atmosphere, teh atmosphere becomes more energetic, and the air starts moving more and more, a windier and windier world. Hence the increase in violent weather, all over the world. So simple, so easy to understand. To deny the reality of climate change is more than irresponsible, it is pathological. "The priest fears the advance of science like the witch fears the approach of dawn", said Jefferson... For instance: how lovely would it be if the Republican party in the United States suddenly, formally changed its position, and declared, as the Department of Defense did more than twenty years ago, that cliamte change is the greatest threat to America's future, becasue it really is? What, other than traitors, are citizens who refuse to address threats to their own country?

Embracing A Fearful Future

NINETY DEGREES in late March is a bit warm for my location, and as temperatures reached into the nineties all across the American southwest and then moved into the southeast, scientists assured us that without cliamte change,this never would have happened. It would indeed have been unseasonably warm for late March, but not to this extent. Just as October has in recent years become a summer month for much of the United States, March has now become a solid spring month, more like a late spring month and late winter and early spring. The change in climate in my part of the United States, the mid south, has become quite obvious to me, as I'm sure it has for many people in my age range (I am 70). One's age is a key factor in accepting climate change; if you're old enough to remember when the climate was much different, if you're in your fifties, sixties, seventies, or beyond, you've have noticed the change. As a seventy year old, I tell myself, and others, that because of my age, I don't have much longer to live. Everybody has what I consider to be a strange reaction to this; as if I'm stating some outlandish falsehood, for which I should be ridiculed. I realize that life expectency is increasing rapidly in our modern world of medical marvels, but still, there are limits, or so I assume. I actually recall hearing some futuristic forecasting expert declare that anybody who is currently alive, taking into account modern medical science, has a chance of remaining alive indefinitely. That I find simultaneously fascinating, intriguing, and not a little frightening. To be honest, I am nowhere near being ready to die. The way I feel now, I'd like to live to be a hundred, and there is good evidence that for me, that might be possible. I'm in good shape, I exercise a lot, my diet varies between good and horrible, and I feel good most of the time. Plus, I am only on about five prescription medications, not bad for a modern seventy year old American, so, we'll see. For one thing, I wouldn't mind living long enogh to get some kind of idea on whether humanity is going to find a solution for climate change, or if the ecosystem, and we humans, are doomed. As of right now its a toos up, it seemsa s if it could go either way; a long future of advancement of the human species, or extinction, most likely because of our own behavior. Will our descendants of the twenty second century be living prosperous, rewarding lives in a society free of violence, hunger, and disease, or will burned out shells of former cities be sparsely populated by roving bands of paleolithic human primates, in a post technological civilization which has deteriorated into stagnaton and chaos? When you consider the current level of both organized international violence and the destructive power of modern weapons, its easy to descend into doom and gloom, envisioning the future as a shockingly violent dystopia, human civilization dead or in rapid decline. At my age, with my limited opportunity to see much of the future, I have to have faith that people fo good will will prevail, adn that our decsendans willprofe to bemore tolerant, compassionate, and kinder than we are. In a time capsule Einstein wa asked to contribute to, he wrote a letter to the future, in which he said precisely that; that if you people in the future have not become kinder, more compassionate and less violent than we were, may the devil take you. Harsh though that sentiment may sound, I am strongly inclined to agree with it.

Religion, Evolving

LAST SUNDAY I attended church at the little Presbyterian church in the woods with a congregation of about ten. Mainly, because I had a ride, a friend, the organist and his wife, willing to come by and pick me up. Avoiding driving is a big factor for me. I would attend the Unitarian church every Sunday if it were less than a mile from my house, rather than twenty. Its not that I have some horible phobia about driving or anything like that, its just that, all things considered, I try to avoid it.I have never,even when I was a teenager, enjoyed driving much, except when I am going somewhere incredible or exciting, which, alas, I rarely seem to be. I have always enjoyed riding around in the country, but not driving. The little Presbyterian church is full of good friends of mine, and the minister, a good friend of mine, preaches a good message, the true Christian message it seems to me, of love, forgiveness, and giving. Besides, since this little rural church has actually existed for more than two hundred years, the church building is a historical landmark, my attending is an important contribution; they need every congregant they can get, for at current trends, they risk becoming extinct. In four more years, in 2028, the church will, assuming it still exists, mark its two hundredth year in continuous operation, and it would be a shame it it failed to survive until then. I keep wondering how much longer th Christian religion, or for that matter any religion, religion in general, can and will continue to exist onplanetEarth as a fundamental component of human culture and civilization. And perhaps the grandest question of all; what aobut intelligent beings on other planets all across the universe? To me, it makes much more sense to assume that they probably exist,than to assume that they do not. Indeed life in the universe may be vanishingly rare, or, it may be common, but we know that it exists, here, if nowhere else. And yes, despite our apparent imminent self destruction as a species, we humans most certainly qualify as "intelligent", even if our level of intelligence is far below that of other species, which one must assume it might well be. Especially now that we know that the univese is filled with trillions of Earth-like planets, it seems more certain than ever that we humans are not only not alone in the universe, but that there are probably many species more intelligent and more advanced culturally than we. Other factors indicate a universe with abundant life; organic chemical compounds we now believe are far less rare, and far more likely to appear often throughout the cosmos. One wonders whether beings on other planets invent religion, as we humans did. In other words, do they formalize and ritualize their response to life, as we do? I tend to believe that over teh next few centuries, assuming humans still exist, that religion will fade away,and ultimately out of existence. Or, if not that,then the ancient religions will either evolve greatly, as they have always done, or die out and be replaced with new forms of religion more reflective of our advancing knowledge of the universe. I almost feel as if I would like to reach into the far human future, learn about our descendants religious beliefs, and perhaps adopt them. Quite likely they will be considerably different from ours today, but still recognizeable. What I like about the Uniterian church is that they seem to accept everybody, no matter what they believe. And since we really are still not sure precisely what to believe, myabe its best that way.

Stopping Trump's War

WITH EACH PASSING DAY, it becomes increasingly evident that this whole business of starting a war with Iran is nothing other than a diversion, albeit a rather impressive one, from the lingering and seemingly here to stay matter of the Epstein files. Will we ever see them? Will they ever be released? And if so, will they be so highly redacted that they have no real value? At this point I, and I am sure many other people, have already decided, long since, to believe the worst about Donald Trump. The reason for this is that by doing so, you are never surprised or disappointed. No matter what you choose to believe about Trump, when the truth is finally revealed, which we must concede it not always is, it almost invariably seems to excede our worst expectations. He really did try to steal the election of 2020 from Biden, America witnessed that horror first hand. The true horror of it, as has been pointed out numerous times, is not so much Trump's false claim of election theft but the fact that almost one half of the American people, knowing full well that Trump's claim of election fraud was a lie, chose to embrace it, to pretend to believe it. This remains perhpas the most glaring example of Trump somehow enabling within his followers their worst potential instincts, the more they accept, embrace, or ignore his lies, the more empowered they feel to tell their own lies, to weave a web of lies into a world view according to which, even at this late date, Donald Trump remains, in their eyes, the only true solution to all of America's problems. The problem with a diversion like a war with Iran is that in order to be effective,it must last long enough to take teh attention of the American people away from the Epstein files for more than a few hours, days, or weeks. From the very moment when Trump started our current war with Iran by bombing it, this war has been very unpopular among the Amerian people, as indicated by all surveys and measurements. The longer Trump keeps it going - and make no mistake, this is Trump's war, all Trump's war, his war of choice, and while nobody else can, and he can bring it to an end when and if he chooses. The best guess is that he'll try to find a way to end it very soon, because it will never become more popular with the American electorate that it is now, and it is extremely unpopular now. Perhaps, as usual, Trump is playing more to his base than to the rest of us, the sixty percent of Americans who despise him. In the early stages, a high percentage of Trump supporters are expressing approval for our new American Iranian war. Unless there is more recent information, at least eleven Americans have already died in Trump's war, MAGA's war. There will, of course, be more. The question is how many more Amerian casualties will there be, and what will be the country's reaction to Trump's war as they begin to mount up, which, it would seem inevitable that they will. The best,smartestthing that Trump could probably do at this point is to make a few more threats, leave the U.S. warhips in the Gulf of Iran for a little while longer,then quietly move them out of harm's way, before they get sunk by cheap drones. Everybody who ever started a war did so firmly believing that the war would be short and victorious, and those predictions are amazingly, consistentlly wrong. Wars always last longer and kill more people than anyone had or could possibly have foreseen. Trump's war is his war of choice, a deliberate diversion from his other crimes. Let's choose to stop it.

Trump, Using War As Cover

IF IT ISN'T ALREADY, it certainly should be painfully obvious that this entire thing with Iran, and lord only knows how much farther Trump and we Americans will go on pulverizing that poor hapless country, is nothing other than a distraction from the Epstein files, which allegedly arrived in Congress just a few days ago, and are available to all members. And, at least for the time being, the ploy seems to be working. But, as they say, you can run but you cannot hide. How long, after all, can this war possibly last? If it lasts longer than a few news cycles, we the people are likely to become extremely tired of it, and heavily opposed to it, as American casualties start coming in. In terms of keeping the Epstein files under cover and unavailable to the American public, the Republican party seems to be fully conspiring with Trump, if informally, to obstruct justice. The Trump administration is on a roll, in terms of naked aggression, having already attacked several countries, Venezuela and Iran among them, and one starts to wonder how much farther it will go, how much and many military hostilities Trump will unleash around the world as he struggles to upstage and obscure the Epstein files. Rumors have it that the actual files contain a good deal of highly incriminating material pertaining to Trump, damaging testimony and photographic involving underage girls and Trump's alleged sexual misconduct towards them. Trump haters are calling the president a "pedophile", which, at least technically, appears to be a false, incorrect, acccusation. The actual definition of a pedophile is a person who experiences sexual attraction to pre pubescent children. Whispers and indications hint at the possibility that Trump's behavior, arranged and enabled by Mr. Epstein, might very well extend to outrageously heinous depravity involving children. Evidently the Trump political machine has gone to and continues to go to incredible lengths to keep all the salacious, condemning actions of Trump concealed from public view, forever. And yet, it might not be enough. It might be inevitable that,even though we may never know the true depths of Trump's depravity,and probably wouldn't want to, that we will, over the next few weeks, learn enough to strongly reinforce our most unflattering appraisals of our president's moral character. Trump opponents already assume the worst about him, and since the sixty percent of America which opposes Trump tends to oppsoe him to the point of loathing and hatred, it seems almost imposssible for his opponents to need or find yet more reasons for their abject and utter contempt for what they often call "the orange menace". A noted professor of modern European history once asked the question whether love or hate has been the more powerful force in the world throughout history. He didn't hesitate to answer his own question by saying that hatred appears to indeed be the more influential force in ancient, modern, and current history. Just as humanity appears for the moment to be losing its struggle to stop destroying and start nurturing the natural environment, so too we are evidently choosing war over peace, at least for the time being, in our eternal moral struggle against violence and war. And yet, history indicates that with each passing century, our species becomes, when measured scientifically, more peaceful, and less violent. That's hard to believe, but well supported by facts. It makes us realize how far we have had to come to get where to where we are and closer to where we want to be, but also, how terribly far we still have to go.

MAGA, Covering For Trump

WE STILL DON'T KNOW, evidently, whether the infamous "Epstein Files" are ever going to be released, in full, unredacted to the public, and if they are, precisely what they contain. My impression is that some of them have indeed been relesedto Congress,adn that various congresssional committees, controled by Republicans, are in the process of deciding precisely what to do next. They know full well,these Republicans, that whatever the Epstein files contain that is harmful to Trump is also armful to them, for they know the wages of hopping aboard the Donald Trump political bandwagon. One thing for certain; with each passing day more people know more about what's in the infamous files. If Trump's name is in them, or was in them, by now it has been scrubbed out, along with other probable redactions. Meticulous research ad investigation can probaly reveal what precisely has been redacted,and whatever it is, it should be madepublic. No matter how fervantly and frequently we all scream and preach the virtues of transperancy, which is a perfectly approprate and improtatnt thing to do, concealment and deceit remain deeply embedded within American political culture, here in the great American fun house, where everything is distorted for profit and expediency,and nothing is what it seems. What has already been revealed is that Trump's association with Mr.Epstein was extensive, and it revolved around Epstein, with his enormous wealth, giving ennormously wealthy people, mainly men, access to his inner sanctum o sex ad exploitation of young attractive women. Whereas Trump is the perfect example of the corruptive power of political power, both Trump and Epstein are poster boys for the corruption made possible by vast personal wealth, with little or no social accountability. Trump and Epstein have never, in their personal lives, been up to any good, and this relationship between the two men, in which Epstein cultivated favor from Trump because of Trump's wealth and influence by offering Trump something he obviously wants badly, sexual contact with very young girls. And, the hard truth is that humans in general want sexual contact with young members of,in most but not all cases, the opposite sex. If nothing further happens regarding the Epstein files beyond this point, which is exactly what Republicans are hoping for,for good reason, the whole issuemight indeed fade away by election day, but, on the other hand, it might not. Trump, his inner circle,and the entire MAGA movement is going to have to come to terms with this inconveniently lingering issue in one way or another,and it appears that to merely urge the public to fuggettagouttit amidst a swirling whirlwind of exiting and schocking events on the world stage may not be adequate to the task, no matter how hard MAGA tries to make it so. The Democrats, and we the American people, are perfectly capable of walking and chewing gum simultaneously. Whether, and the extent to which, their president was involved in an illicit sex trafficking operation,in which young girls were made available to old wealthy men for sexual exploitation by luring them to Epstein's notorious island with promises of lucrative, glamorous modeling careers, is of the greatest importance to the American people, and they, we, deserve to know. MAGA has for years been complicit in a criminal conspiracy to conceal Trump's extensive criminal behavior, and there is no better time than now to fully expose it.

Rooting For the Future

YEARS AGO I recall the shocking item in the news that traces of jet fuel had been found in a lactating mother's breat milk, a sample of said milk having been submitted for chemical analysis for research purposes. I further reall that nobody seemed to be able to explain why jet fuel in particular, since teh woman lived nowhere near an airport, had been nowhere near jets or jet fuel to the best of here recollection. I found that particular new item quite disturbing. Not juste yesterdy, I and probably millions of other people saw a new item on one of the major television news networks that race of complex industrial chemicals, including heavy metal rear earth samples. have been detected in some grapefruit. This is even more alarming in that it raises the question: where else might such heavy duty industrial chemicals be found? The answers, which seems to be emerging, is, more alarmingly still; essentially everywhere, it seems. If my memory serves correctly, reserach scientists were even increasingly amazed and shocked at how widespread radioactive atoms have proven to be in our environment, including, most alarming of all, within and throughout our bodies, including our bloodstreams. The true story of people poisoned by radioactivity associated within the invention, development,and testing of the atom bomb in New Mexico in 1944 is no less frightening. Essentially, anyone who wea anywhere near the test sites when the bomb was tested was poisoned by radiatio from the blast, heavy metals piercing human bodies, and remaining lodged within them, for life. The United States government has handed out, after decades of litigation, millions of dollars in compensatory damages, and has gone to great lengths to downplay and cover up as much as possible the entire bizarre, terrifying episode. The first people who witnessed the first atom bomb tesing - and the United States tested dozens of nuclear bombs in the years after World War Two - were unavoidably bombarded with near lethal doses of nuclear radiation, inadequately shielded from it. I have a smart phone, which I probably use much less often than your average smart phone user. I never text anybody, don't take pictures, and don't make a lot of phone calls. And yet, I have one, and sometimes, when I hold it up to my left ear, I wonder precisely what effect if any the electromagnetic radiation going into and coming out of the phone is having on me, physiologically. Tha invisible radiation, going in one side of my head,and coming out the other. Are we really sure we know what we need to know about the impact of this on people? These super heavy "forever chemicals" are,evidently, everywhere. We have spewed all throughout the Earth's environment, including inside our own bodies, a large quantity of poisonous materials. There are no "bad" chemicals. there are only chemicals which are in the wrong place, if that's any comfort. For me personally, it isn't much comfort. Neither does it comfort me knowing that at my advanced age, I won't be alive long enough, no matter what, to actually experience personallly the worst impacts of our current and past bad stewardship of the environment. The best I can hope for is to approach death with whatever degree of solace I can derive by knowing that there are people alive now who are indeed seeking and working on solutions to our current environmental crisis. During my entire lifetime the Earth's ecosystem hung in the balance, as humans tried but failed to keep themselves from harming it. I seem destined to die without knowing the final outcome of man vs. nature, but rooting hard for my descendants to be smarter than we were.

America, Expanding

"I TREMBLE FOR MY COUNTRY when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever" Thomas Jefferson supposedly said. Actually, unlike some famous quotes falsely attributed to people like Jefferson and Mark Twain. Jefferson does seem to have actually said this, in reference to the insittution of slavery, in whcih Jefferson freely engaged, but had serious misgivings about. But, like so many gerat and famous quotes from great and famous people, this one has meaning on a seemingly unlimited number of levels, is applicable to a wide ranging number of situations. Jeffrson was literally born and raised into a culture of slavery. He said that his first memory was of being carried as an infant in the arms a slave woman, and on his death bed he allegedly remarked that his fianl moments seemed destined to place his care in the hands of another slave woman. With regard to the hundreds of slaves Jefferson inherited from his father, he had a tiger by the tail, in that, he was thereby trapped himself within this "peculiar" economic institution which so clearly, then and now, defies and defiles fundamental concept of human decency and dignity. Jefferson's attitude towrds the intitution of slavery seemed to be that it would eventually have to be phased out of American life. Presumably, by implication, he meant that the institution of slavery, hundreds of years old in the United States and deeply embedded into the culture and economy, could not simply be ripped out by the roots and burned in a pile of rubbish, but rather, would have to be gradually eased out of existence to make the transition as painless as possible for the entrenched, monied interests who profited from it and who had no real desire or intentions of ending it. George Washington and some other slave owning founders freed their slaves, Jefferson, who kept talking about it, never did, other than his slave girlfriend Sally Hemmings and some of her family members. People, especially religious people, like to talk about receiving the just rewards in heaven or hell for our lives we chhose to live on Earth. It may be that, more often than not, whatever we deserve, we get sooner that than, right here on Earth, in the present life. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner, in his famous "Turner Thesis" explained American history as a process of expansion. Westwerd expansion across the continent, and expanion into overseas markets. It is an historic fact that when the United States finally reached the west coast in the late 19th century, it didn't stop there, but continued to probe and expand, out into and across the Pacific Ocean, and southward, extending its influence into our current global empire. Within more than eight hundred military bases on foreign soil, indeed, the term "global empire" applies to the United States, and has for a long time. The United States has craved ownership of Cuba from the beginning. The Spanish empire was willing to sell Florida to the United States, but not Cuba. Perhaps history would have been kinder to the island in American hands, but, as they say, we'll never know. A quick glance at a map makes it tempting to believe that the large array of islands in the Caribbean is naturally, by virtue of geography, destined to come under American control. The only "fly in the ointment" so to speak, is that the idea fo becoming part of these United States is evidently no more appealing generally to our southern neighbors than it is to our neighbors to the north. Go figure.