Living With Cats, By Necessity

MY SISTER SAYS that she cannot imagine living her life without cats. I can, but barely. Odds areIwillnever again bewithout at least one cat, despite the attendant expense, frustrations, and emotional agony they greatest of which far, obviously, transpies when tehy die. Cats are extremely mortal, afflicted by all manner of diseases, with nervous systems whichi evolved too early to accomodate modern humanity, its machines and vehicles. I worry about my outdoor cats becase thay are outside, with the cars and dangerous animals, including human beings. I feel as if I have imprisoned my indoor cats, am preventing them from living a full, natural life. I have decided that any future cats of "mine" will have access to boh outdoors and indoors, risks included, risks and limitations be damned. However, as every cat caregiver knows, whatever plans you make for your cats are subject to change. Like coach Mike Ditka said: you can make whatever plan you want, bu you'd better be ready to change it. As cat people age, tehy look back with pensive fondness at all the cats they have loved, all the cats that have passed. There is not a softer, better word for "died". Cat or human, we never cease grieving for our beloved who have preceeded us in death. We love our dogs and cats in the United States of Alienation. more than we love other people, including our human family members, and we insist on the obvious, that our dogs and cats are our family. We tend to consider stry cats a tragedy, lonely, abandoned, bereft of human love. But do we really know for sure that spending a lifetime without human companionship or interaction is really such a terrible thing? If it is, why do so many humans spend a lifetime avoiding it as much as humanly possible? Mistakenly, we anthropommorphize, project our human feelings onto cats. Give a cat a food source and a territory over which to roam and rule, and chances are the average cat knows contentment. Longing for human companionship might be something that only human beings, with human hubris, imagine that cats and dogs actually do. What they doubtless long for is a food source and a sense of safety and security. In Islamic society, which regards cats as angels of God, stray cats are a blessing to all, and cared for by everyone. The last time I pointed out that Islamic people treat cats much better than Christians, I got in trouble at my local heavily Penteostal senior center, a place full of dogmatic small minded prigs. I call that "good trouble", and it doesn't bother me a bit. If they think they can find a better tenor for their gospel choir, fine. (They can't). We as a species much need to reevaluate our relationship to nature, animals included, and we need to humble ourselves, not a little, but a lot. We are perfectly free o consider ourelves somehow "superior" to all other lifeforms on this planet, which does not belong to us as we like to think, while other species, including insects, are perfectly free to evolve long before we did, and to remain long after we have rendered ourselves extinct. Our nobility and worth are determined by how we treat ourselves, each other, and all other plants and animals with whom we share this plaent, which is owned by God. Up until now, and at this point, we can barely give ourselves a passing grade, since we currently seem to be in the process of destroyng the Earth's ecosystem, and thus, all life on Earth. If we succeed in this insane suicidal enterprise, it would be a pity, the greatest pity of all having little to do with ourselves.

Writing A Page A Day

JOHN GRISHAM, who is my age, a more successful writer than I, and who may be better at it, although he and I have totally different approaches to writing, once said that the best way to be a writer is to write, and that to do that, a good formula is to turn out one page every day, of something. Now that I have been involved in actively writing and publishing for nearly fifteen years,I wholeheartedly agree with Grisham. Whether you're talking about exercise, knitting, writing, or whatever, go Nike, and, just do it. There's a lot to write about, or talk about. In our era of Trump, its like somebody said; you get out of bed every day, thinking, "now what"? With what new horrors or disgusting obscenities will we be confronted on this fine summer day? Trump pmore than does his part. Another new war today? Another salacious scandal? New federal crimes, lawsuits, or accusations? We must tend our gardens, as Voltaire said. You can go about your business, clean house, work, whatever, feel good that you are doing your part, taking care of business, with a radio droning in the background - I recommend National Public Radio- and keep yourself in the global ball game. These twenty four seven television news channels feed us mostly escape entertainment, not news, so one has to be selective. Most of my life I have started by finding out what the American president is doing, and going from there. With Trump, I have become almost afraid to continue this approach. You can easily write a page a day about Trump, and indeed during the fifteen years or so that I have been publishing this essay website Turmp has dominated the past ten or so. He is truly that important, much as I hate to say it. I long for the day when he is gone..really "gone". Republicans have disgusted me since Nixon, so there is nothing new in that. A famous historian was asked to provide a succinct definition of "history". His definition? "One damned thing after another"... If you want to write history, keep a idary. There will come a time when your diary will be a valuable historical document in the twenty third century, like Mary Chestnut in the pre Civil War south. History would be geratly served if everyone would keep a diary. The diaries from people in past centuries are valuable historical documents, and scholars do doctoral dissertations about them. You, a cashier at Wal Mart, could become a vital primary source of information about blue collar working class culture in early twenty first century America. History is monstrous, because it encompasses everything; there is a "history" of everything. Every moment of every day is unique, with no repitition. What you are doing this very moment is unique in all the universe, unless our universe is merely a carbon copy of billions of other universes. There is no evidence for that. If we all would write our page a day, about ourselves, and end up with a book which is part autobiography, part societal history, our descendants would know much about who we were. And yes, I think we want to leave as much information about ourselves behind as we can, even more than the endlessly fascinating ancient Romans did. We are all part of history, making history every second of our lives. Einstein wrote a book about relativity, but not about himself. He did, however, leave a note in a time capsuele, which said to future generations: "If you have not become kinder and more compassionate than we were, may the devil take you." Do your writing.

Torturing By Testifying

WATCHING Dr. ANTHONY FAUCI testify before a Congressional sub committee governed by a Republican majority is like watching a particularly brutal episode of "Gunsmoke", in which the gang of outlaws, led by Bruce Dern, has some poor sap, or maybe even Matt Dillon, staked out on his back on the barren Kansas desert prairie ground, with a huge colony of those big black ants a few feet away, ready for dinner, Its just plain hard to do for decent people, so I don't do much of it. For Trumper Republicans, it must be like a visit to a Golden Corral salad bar and buffet, at senior discount prices. When good people suffer, MAGA Trumpers salivate and keen like ravenous wovles over warm carrion. How many damned times does an eminent physician and scientist have to tell the world that vaccines work, and that the Covid 19 virus most likely originated within "lower" primates and jumped happily, opportunistically into the human bio system before the neanderthalic science illiterate flat Earth right wing conservative Republican semi fascists are satisfied, and ready to move on to other, more unwitting victims? In the name of God, country, and fundamental human decency, the eighty five year old gentleman has long since done his duty to country and humanity, by spearheading the effective response to the deadliest bacterial or viral plague which ever beset the human species since the bubonic plague of 1666 and 1330 killed one third of Europe. This group or Republican reprobates, had they been more than mere toddlers in 1955, would doubtles have jumped onboard the bandwagon of the strident minority of morons attacking Dr.Jonas Salk because one out of a million recipients of the polio vaccine exprienced harm, even while the shot was saving the lives of millions. The current war on decency, science, education, and intelligence being waged by the MAGA universe, surprisingly virulent, must at some point be stopped dead in its tracks, because at this point it doesn't appear as if it is going to burn itself out, like most wildfires do after consuming millions of acres. American conservatives of the Trump kind mistrust and even despise science, because science is innovation, progress,and change, values which are the polar opposite of traditional, unchanging systems of belief, the hallmarks of the conservative point of view. Change is not always progrees, but progress is always change. Consider how crude, primitive, and barbaric the blood letting medicine which killed George Washington a bit more than two hundred years ago seems today, because it was. Washington went for a horseback ride one cold, wintry day, caught a cold, was put to bed by three doctors, who voted two to one to remedy the former president's sniffles by draining a couple of pints of blood out of his nutrition starved six foot three inch body. OUr first president was,in effect, killed by his own personal physicians. And even with all the medical advances since those nightmarishly primitive medical days, we really have progressed somewhat less than we might think, My mother, who was a career registered nurse, repeatedly told me that you absolutely must try to avoid being admmitted to a hospital, because hospitals, which are incubators of germs, will kill you, despite the best efforts of custodial cleaning staff. Yes, the naturopaths are quite correct; modern medicine is strictly, severely limited. But its the best game in town, in fact the only game we have, and, as such, we must make do, since we are quite constrained by our own limitations. A good place to begin would be to run the Republicans out of Washington, and stop torturing poor old Dr.Fauci.

Overstaying

MY SISTER did everything the right way, the smart way. Good grades, college, career, military, civil service, comfortable retirement, steady marriage, no kids. Hell, she started out as a volunteer enlistee in an army band, piccolo plyer, and worked her way up to G-12 or something, and became THE personell manager at the Pentagon. Of the twenty seven thousand people who work at the Pentagon, if you didn't wear a military uniform, and most don't, if you were involved with support systems and servies for the military, food, cleaning, and all that, my sister hired you. She had good stories, stories about sharing a jacussi with high ranking generals while sipping margaritas, stuff like that. She retired at fifty five, is now seventy three, is still getting paid, and will be until she dies. One of her stories involves seeing Strom Thurmond walking along a sidewalk somewhere near the Pentagon. At the time he was nearly one hundred years old, had been in Congress for more than half a century, still was, and, as she described him, looked as if he belonged in a "home" somehwere, rather than tottering into the Senate Chamber and sitting behind his little antique wooden desk and harming America.That is precisely where we are now with Mitch McConnell. I googled him this morning, before coffee, and asked: "Is Mitch McConnnell still alive"? (Yes, I really wanted to know.) My sweetheart Alicia assured me that indeed he is, but not in good condition. The news on NPR had been a bit vague about it, going over his life as if he had died during the night, but not actually coming out an announcing it. I am seventy one years old, and have been retired from teaching, high school and college, since I turned sixty. In fact, I retired on the day I turned sixty. I had no desire to hang around and take a job away from an up and coming kid. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe we should all work until we drop, to avoid being a drag on our descendants. Either we keep working, and keep a job that a younger person needs, or, we retire, and live off the government and the younger generation, even though our Social Security money is ours, for, by God, we paid into it. Most of us take more out than we put in, by the way. Some people die too young, some live too long. It tends to balance out, financially. When my mother was sixteen and they started Social Security in 1935, she swore that whe would pay into it all her nursing carrer, and never get it back. She was wrong. She lived to ninety three, and got back far more than she ever paid in, as I have mentioned many times in my essays. Well, good for her. If we retire too young we become free loaders, if we work too long we steal a job from the next generation. To wit, we're screwed, no matter what. We strut and fret for a few decades, then die. The perfect scenario would be one in which we grow up, work at a job we love and contribute to society, then retire, and have perhaps a couple of decades of fun in the sun, as our reward. Some people hate work, some people hate retirement. As in most matters involving human beings, the key, it seems to me, is balance. Balance between work and leisure. People who love too much of one or the other need to recalibrate, and gain a balanced perspective. Mitch McConnell is way unbalanced, pathologically unbalanced. He should have turned over his seat in the Senate long ago, should gave given the next generation the chance to to govern themselves, rather than being governed, as Jefferson said, by their ancestors. I hope he realizes that now, if he is still capable of realizing anything.

Obsessing

I HAVE A FRIEND (actually, I have many more than one, amazingly) who is obsessed with Stevie Nicks. Cant say I blame him. Stevie has got to be the most beautiful seventy five year old woman I have ever seen. Much as I love women, my obsession is of an entirely different nature, a far less pleasant one. I am obsessed with climate change. Anyone who has read even a small number of the more than six thousand essays I have written and published probably is aware of this. Part of it has to do with my basic understanding of science, which forces my awareness and acceptance. of humanity's dire situation. By far the greater part is my having been alive for more than seventy one years, having a very good memory, and remembering what the climate was like sixty years ago, compared to now. It frightens and amazes me how much longer and hotter our summers in the United States are now, how much milder the winters are, and how our annual rainfull seems to be decreasing by the year. It never snows anymore where I live, in the lower American midwest. It used to snow several times every winter. I am convinced that anyone my age, seventy one, or less than several decades younger than I, is quite well aware of what I am talking about. Our climate has changed, drastically. At my age I won't be around to have to experience the worst of it; and the worst,I can assure anyone, is coming, soon. I care, however, about my descendants, even though I don't have any direct ones, aka children. Since I understand that the planet's atmosphere is heating up fast and furious, I am in a panic mode, even thouhg I disguise it well.I must assume that millions of other people,conversant with basic science, are in a similar state of mind. Either that, or they have given up and don't care, or, knowng they are going to die anyway, have decided to leave the worrying and the solutions to posterity. I remind myself that even now science is giving us solutions. We can in effect, reconstruct the Earth's atmosphere, first, by stopping harming it, and secondly, by rejuvenating it. I hereby formally and officially predict that withn a decade or two climate change will have been remedied through science applied by human beings. About twenty five years ago Michio Kaku said that within one hundred years humanity will have the capability of controlling thw weather, hence, the climate. I agree with that. But this hasn't happened yet, and since climate change is happening right before my very eyes,I remain frightened. I feel like I am dangling by a thread over a huge chasm (see Jonathan Edwards), watching the fire department arriving, in seeming slow motion. Another question is; even though we have the means to reverse global warming/climate change,do we have the collective political will to do so? We keep electing morons like Donald Trump, and the moronic conservative climate denying Republican party in America prefers pretending that climate change, man made, is a "hoax". God, what idiots. Knowing that all human civilizations self destruct, that people are at once brilliant and idiotic, and knowing what the climate is doing now does not hearten me. We continue to do too little, too late. We remain behind the curve. Every science teacher in every high school and university in the world tells us this, and they aren't making it up. I hope I can go to my grave satisfied that global warming-climate change is being solved. That means that I had better not die today, or even very soon. If, on he day I die, I can die honestly, realistically believing that human activity is no longer destroyng the ecosystem, but instead nurturing and restoring it, I will die happy, with or without Stevie Nicks.

Getting Up Early, For Cats and Church

I WAS UP EARLY on Sunday morning, for several reasons. Among them, I am habituated to pre sunrsie rising, and the cats, indoor, outoor, and stray, are hungry before dawn. In the heat of a blistering summer, getting outdoor cats fed before daybreak is crucial. Precisely why I don't know, but I sense it. I always feel better when the cats are fed, including the uninvited strays. Knowing that this vital task has been accomplished makes my morning coffee taste batter, as if I am being rwearded for my devotion to duty. I knew that my ride to church would arrive right around eight thirty,and I hate being late, or unprepared. The fact that I am not a Christian per se renders church more, not less valuable to me,the way exposure to a foreign culture does. What I get from church is expansion of the mind and soul, not reinforcement of existing religiosity. A sermon with an original, thought provoking message or unique style uplifts and elucidates me. There is a limit to how much I can do this, elucidate myself, on my own. Reading, study, and meditation, all valuable beneficial tools, fall short. Perhaps I could sit quietly in a cave for hours or years and meditate my way to enlightenment, as others have reportedly done. Somehow I sense that I could not. Whereas it may be that all I really need is already within me,I'm not taking any chances. I have always relied on books and teachers for my education, and I am doubtful as to whether I could at this point in my life, at this late stage, break free from my reliant addiction to and dependance on others for my learning. I readily acknowledge that I am not an island unto myself. Thought, prayer, and meditation, valuable tools that they are, are no substitute for learning directly from other people, people with knowledge I don't have but badly need. To whatever extent my independence of mind is compromised,I accept and embrace it. Mind foreruns all conditions, mind is chief, as the Dhammapada begins. But mind is more than my immediate mind contained within my cranium, and to whatever if any extent my immediate mind is part of a greater intelligence, my mind is closer and I am closer to God, and my being is part of God. or so I believe. There is a certain strangenss about attending a Christian church without actually being a Christian, nor having any desire or intent to become a Christian, My objection, or objections to the Christian religion are acommon ones. There are more than fuor thousand religions on planet Earth. Which, if any of them, can claim to be the exclusive truth? Should each of the four thousand, or eleven thousand, whatever the number actually is, be considered a partial truth, when combined with all the other religions the whole truth, but only the whole human truth? And what of religions, if they exist, on other planets, among other "intelligent" beings who, like humans, look worshipfully up at the starry heavens, and in awe look within themselves at the moral law therein, as Kant articulated? Most scientists, and people generally, knowing that the sun and the Earth are but single examples of a solar system among billions and trillions of solar systems throughout the Milky Way galaxy, and throughout the unvierse in all likelihood, make the probably correct conclusion that planets orbiting stars number in the trillions, and that, it is reasonable to speculate that the number of planets harboring self aware intelligent life also are innumerable. Surely other intelligent beings are no less awe struck by their own existence and the existence of the whirling galaxies than we are. And it seems equally likely that they approach the universe not only with curiosity, but with awe and religious reverence, as do we, on a small planet circling an ordinary star at the edge of a very ordinary galaxy. Getting up early on a Sunday morning, feeding cats and attending church, it turns out, is a very remarkable experience, worthy of awe, admmiration, and indeed reverence.

Being Content With Any Outcome

I like being flexible,being willing to live with either alternative when given a choice of two or more. I have no idea whether anybody will drop by my house to pick me up to go to church this Sunday morning, and will be content with either eventuality. If the horn honks, and my friends sit idling in the street expecting me to appear at my front door and come striding, adorned in my usual camo fatigues and shirt collar, towards their very old Chevy, and hop in the back, so be it,I shall not disappoint. If not,I will be forced to decide between two eqaually appealing options; to drive myself the twenty miles to my beloved Unitarian service, my worship service of choice, or,to go back to bed for what my mother used to call a "wake up rest", snuggling with my always willing and able fourteen year old snuggle kitten. In other words, I can't lose. Usually, when so confronted, I prefer whichever choice involves the least contact with other human beings. Even then, I am ambivalent; my strategy for living "the good life" is to always place myself in a position wherein all possible choices are acceptable, even desirable, and no option is entirely, or even partially undesirable. Whether Presbyterian, Unitarian, or no chucrh at all, my day will eventuate in fine order, because I will make it happen. If push comes to shove, my preferred plan of "action", or inaction, would be to stay comfortably ensconced within my lovely air conditioned home the entire day, a good science fiction novel in hand, cat curled nearby (even in air conditioning, a lap cat can be a bit hot in mid summer). For exercise, I have my treadmill and stationary bike. Every day does not have to be a heavy workout. For my omney, what little of it I have, the secret to life is to always be self positioned that no matter what happens, no matter what other people do, I go merrily along, floating down the rivier of sentient existence with an habitual sense of contentment, wonder, and eager anticipation at whatever may come next, contentment at what has already transpired. Not a perpetual state of mind of enthralled thrill, that would be too taxing, with one's engine at risk of overheating, but with a deep, abiding happiness and contement, the engine of life purring along pleasantly, steadily, like a cat asleep in a warm lap on a cold winter's day or night. We certainly want some excitment in life, but not too much. The best state of mind is one in which the most mundane, everyday experiences seem joyful and interesting, without a trace of boredom. We can indeed place ourselves in such a lasting, pleasant state of consciousness without being bored, but we cannot control what other people do, other people, and the intrusions of the world upon our inner peace constituting the only threat to our tranquil, steady state of being. We know full well that the actions of other people and the vicissitudes of society will intrude upon our inner placidity and contentment. We can minimize this by carefully selecting our friends, and cultivating mutually acceptable social arrengements with them. The best friendships are those in which all participants intuitively know when to call or visit, and when not to, in which case a balance has been achieved. Only people who cannot tolerate being alone are to be pitied. The key to life is learning how to deal with other people, and most importantly, with ourselves. When we are content with our relationshp with and within ourselves, contentment with the world becomes, by comparison, a proverbial piece of cake. I'll just have to wait to see if I get a ride to church. Either way, I'll be just fine, because being happy is a choice, my choice.

Knowing and Making History

MOST AMERICANS don't know much about history, including their own. Arguably, nobody does, because history is such a monstrously huge academic area that, by encompassing all human endeavor, encompasses everything, including the universe and the human perception of it. And yet, the moment a political discussion heats up into an argument, all participants magically, mystically transition into historians, and history becomes the weapon of choice. Nobody understands history. Nobody knows much about it. The best historians in history confine themselves to an area of expertise, because a single human mind is inadequate to the task f comprehending all of human history. Who knew, for instance, except for a few scholars, that Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln wrote friendly letters to each other, letters of mutual admiration? Late in the Civil War, after Lincoln's reelection of 1864, Marx wrote a letter to Lincoln expressing admiration for Lincoln's crusading war against slavery. Lincoln responded by writing back to Marx, expressing gratitude for Marx's championing of the working class. In another statement, not directed exclusively at Marx, Lincoln famously stated that "Labor is prior to capital, and ought to be given the first consideration." Truly, a Marxist moment for the old rail splitter. Indeed, labor builds civilizations,and capitol pays for it, but only after labor has completed the task. Marx and Lincoln agreed on the important principle that sivilization is built from the bottom up, not the top down, with the social pyramed supporting the entire social structure from the ground level. Itis the so called "blue collar" workers who build society,and it is the "white collar class" which organizes and supports the working builders. What both Lincoln and Marx advocated was the organizing of labor by labor itself, by the workers, fully in control of itself, a universal brotherhood of workers under democratic self control,rather laboring under the control of a non laboring monied class in control of all financial resources, including the monetary system itself. Abraham Lincoln, who used tyrannical methods to hold the Union together during the great struggle between the halves of a nation broken assunder, was murdered because he freed enslaved people by proclamation from a system of exploitation which refused to die without a fight. Had he somehow survived John Wilkes Booth's bullet, or if Booth had had poor aim or cold feet, Lincoln almost certainly would have been murdered by some well dressed business owner,on behalf of capitol, not labor. Lincoln was caught up in history, in a whirlwind from which nobody could have been expected to escape alive. When one considers the enduring sectional discord between north and south since the Civil War, extending well into the twentieth century and beyond,it becomes tempting to believe that both north and south would have been better off, and that the world would have been better off, if two diffeent countries or more instead of one had inherited and lived the heritage of the founders and authors of the nation which united around the cause of independence from Great Britain in 1776. Difficult, nearly impossible though it is to comprehend history as it actually happened, a far more daunting task is contemplating the alternative historical possibilites which shall forever lurk in the shadows of a history which never happened, but very well could have. It would have been easy, and understandable, for John Wilkes Booth to have backed out. If he had, history would be entirely different. All of us are involved in making history, one way or another. We can't back out, even if and when we would prefer to.

Hanging With A Racist Trumper

IN NINETEEN EIGHTY I graduated with a masters degree in history, proud to walk across the stage and be handed my diploma in the presence of my father. I enjoyed the experiences perhaps more than any other stage of my education; the classes, the pleasant campus, the steady progress towards an advanced degree by learning fascinatiog European history. I had already been accepted into a doctoral program at another nearby university, and looked forward to one last summer of fun before getting really scholastically serious. I played a lot of tennis, partied, and spent a lot of time hanging out with a beautiful young lady, who was preparing to study to become a registered nurse, while her husband went to work to bring home the daily bread by driving a Coke truck. Our friendship lasted only for one summer,and their marriage lasted only five years, both doomed to temporary existence by basic incompatibilities. They had gotten married too young, before they were ready to settle down. Her fatal flaw was her unabashed racism, which shocked and appalled both her husband and me. The very sight of an African-American on television evoked slurs and slanders from her lovely visage, and I half expected her to throw wet toilet paper at the curved television screen. The active freindship endured only for that one summer. I moved away for more graduate school, she eventually divorced her truck driving husband in search of more affleunt marital pastures, and a couple of marriages later got what she had always wanted most; membership in America's upper middle class, where, if I am correct, she resides to this day. I hope and assume she is happy wih her corporate spouse of Japanese descent. Instead of becoming a nurse, she became a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company, raking in the big bucks on the periphery of her initial chosen career. Ironically, coincidentally, she and her husband live near Aspen, Colorado, where I lived for a year while I taught night classes to the wives of millionaires at Colorado Mountain College. I kept my left wing Democratic party loyalty, and although I have no idea what she evolved into politically in our science fiction year of twenty twenty six, I suspect I have a good, wild guess. Your guess is as good as mine, the same as mine. I do recall tht in the election of nineteen eighty, she was going for Ronald Reagan, tellingly. I, dissatisfied with the moderate to conservative James Earl Carter, supported independent John Anderson, unwisely, unproductively. I am nearly one hundred percent certain that my lovely coulda been nurse became and is now solidly ensconced withtin MAGA nation, a rock solid supporter of the alleged fascist wannabe, Donald J.Trump, as an upper middle corporate class, MAGA Trumper. Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt it, and really, it makes no difference whether I ever find out, which I won't. When two people go in two different directions, and keep going, they end up universes apart. I'm sure I'll never see or speak to her again, but if by chance I happened to, the reunion would almost certainly be warmly cordial, which comforts me. She should be a Trumper, as I am sure she is. Its where she belongs. Those who support Trump should support Trump. It is where they belong. Their latent racism should, must be, and is expressed within a thin, transparent cloak of "freedom". "All comes out even when the day s done, and more even still when all the days are done", said Voltaire. In the fullness of time, we end up where we most belong. I belong on the Bernie Sanders left, my old friend on the Trump right. What matters most is that we are both happy, content with our choices. Our unspoken adversarial relationship can be and is manifested and expressed quite adequately, at the ballot box.

The Twin Pillars of Our Ceaseless Striving

SCIENCE and RELIGION are invariably juxtapositioned as two halves of a couplet because they should be, they being the twin pillars of human perception. We know everything about ourselves and the universe, or think we do, through religion, and we slowly, painstakingly learn a little bit about both through science, fully cognizant of how little we really do know. Religion describes human beings as flawed, broken, sinful, dumb, stupid, weak near nothings, desperately in need of a connection to their creator, most often an anthropomorphic omniscient, omnipotent creater with characteristics identical to us imperfect humans, interestingly, ironically. Science sees people as intelligent, inquisitive creatures, smart, full of wonder at their own existence and the universe, good learners, endowed with brains absorbing knowledge they themselves discover,essentially beautiful entities, wondrous beings with a great potential for self improvement and eventual greatness. I have spent a lifetime involved in science as an ignorant student, pointing my little telescope up towards suburban skies, absorbing science fiction novels to satisfy my yearning to see the universe as mysterious but accessible, explorable by human beings. You don't have to be a good science student to sense the value of our studies of nature by direct observation. Nor must one be religios to appreciate how vital human religiosity is in fully fathoming and experiencing the sheer amazement which the cosmos evokes within any inelligent living being. It is of course easy to settle into an attitude of complacency concerning our miraculous existence, to take our amazing selves for granted. Einstein said that either everything is a miracle, or nothing is. When everything you see, hear, smell, touch and taste is a miracle, a simple flip of the intellectual switch is all that is required to see nothing as a miracle. Absorbed with our daily societal and personal struggles, our slings and arrows of our seemingly outrageious fortunes, our illnesses personal and societal, our petty struggles with which we are constantly consumed, it is not difficult to lose sight of the fundamental miracle that we are, as living, sentient creatures. We discovered science and religion by inventing both of them. That we did this qualifies us as intelligent beings, despite the fact that on a cosmic scale, space faring immortal beings of light, our distant cosmic cousins, must surely be observing our painful, sluggish advancement from primitive barbarism to intelligent awarenesss with a pensive mixture of frustration, disdain, and hope holding on. Primitive and unenlighened as we ofen see our ancestors as having been, our descendants will doubtless see us in a similar light. We are closer in cultural advancement to our ancesors than our descendants will someday soon be relative to ourselves. That human knowledge has begun advancing exponentially proves to us our potential, and justifiably causes ue to be simultaneously amazed and fearful of what even our near descendants can and will achieve. Are we in fact close to achieving essential individual immortality, or extreme longevity? Are we poised to strike out into the universe in large numbers, establishing habitats far from Earth, as we progrees to a Levle One civilization? Will we stagnate, go extenct, or eventually evolve into a Level Five culture, pure energy beings moving easily and freely among the stars and galaxies, watching as primitive creatures emerge and evolve on billions of planets? Maybe.

Serendipitous Beginning

IT SEEMS SERENDIPITOUS that this essay website published for the first time on September 17, 20011, the day of the Occupy Wall Street protest in Battery Park, which was emulated all over he country, and which still exists, if only in spirit. There is still a big movement of rebellion against corporate economic and cultural hegemony,a mmvement which might be crushed beneath the boots of billionaires, or might live to change the country and the world. The final verdict is still out. September 17 is also United States constitution retification day, 1787, when the Articles of Confederation died a whimpering death, and the United States finally installed a central government with sufficient strength and power to actually govern the entire country. All that was purely coincidental, serendipitous. Fascinating, and often forgotten, is that the USA's first attempt to come into existence as a self governing nation fell flat on its face, and required a substantial reboot. We would do well to remember that, to remember that it is always worth while to keep trying, with a faith that, somehow, the goal wll be reached. Today's fight is against Trumpist authoritarianism, with its attandant fascism, the concentration of power within an elite plutocracy, and, disastrously, its total lack of concern with addressing the most deadly and only truly vital issue of our day; climate change, and destruction of the Earth's ecossystem. If we the human species do not reverse climate change, no other issues and problems witll matter. The first essay on climate change published on this website doubtless came within the first few essays; it would be interesting to look it up. What is certain is that no other issue, including Trump, conservatism, or politics or religion has received so much attention here. You could do worse than to inaugurate an essay website on constitution day by jumping right into issues like the attack on democracy and the attack on the environment. Instead of continuing our current trend towards all the world's wealth accumulating in the hands of s single person, and the complete and utter exploitation and consumption of all natural resources on plaent Earth for profit, "The Truthless Reconciler" advocates for the wide distribution of wealth, greater economic equality, and the submission of humanity to the imperative of sustaining and nurturing the natural environment, including all species of plants and animals. We live in what scientists now call the "anthropocene", the era of human control and domination of the Earth's ecosphere. Just in the past few hundred years, we humans have aggressively advanced from mere residents of the planet, to its masters and dominators. This coming, fast approaching September 17 will be fifteenth anniversary of this essay website, the anniversary of the United States constitution, and of the Occupy Wall Street movement. This meager, humble essay website stands upon the shoulders of giants, to borrow a phrase from Isaac Newton, and does so with appropriate humility. Both the constitution and the spirit of Occupy will outlive it, although, arguably the current constitution should not. Arguably, the current American constitution should be replaced with a better, updated, more currently relevant version, as Jefferson believed would be necessary, and arguably, the Occupy movement should work itself out of a job, by spearheading a massive successful global movement to clean and restore the Earth's ecosystem. Interestingly, perhaps tragically, "The Truthless Reconciler" may outlive the more venerable institutions of both Occupy Wall Street and the current constitution. Maybe that's a good thing, and maybe not.

Working For the Mob

MY FATHER graduated from high school after ten years instead of twelve, having been moved ahead two grades. I did the same thing, and I don't recommend it. Being on a college campus as a sixtten year old is a bit much. He joined his father's law firm as a twenty two year old, only to be interrupted by four years in the navy during World War Two. All that kind of messed him up. He turned to drinking, and spent most of his adult life aa an alcoholic, albeit a highly functioning one. He and my grandfather had one real client, and a few others for window dressing. The "real" client was the Kansas City mafia. The "made men" were more than enough to occupy a law firm of two partners and a few associates, and they paid well, nice retainers for my dad and granddad, plenty more money to spread around the firm. (This reminds me of a John Grisham novel.) The mob's business was gambling, before it was made legal. It still is, actually. The syndicate has no problems doing legal business. Now, they invest heavily in river boats. To get me out of the way and away from all this during summer vacation, dad would buy all the necessary tickets, load me onto an airplane, and let me spend the summer following my beloved New York Yankees around the country, escorted by a twenty five year old paid chaperone. This was in the nineteen sixties. Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle, et al, got used to seeing me behind their dugout during batting practice, and got in the habit of pointing at me or quickly waving at me. The fifteen year old kid, always at the ballpark. They must have figured I was some kind of spoiled rich kid, which I was.I loved it. I was required by dad to take next year's text books with me, and get ahead on the next school year, which kinda sucked, but kept me busy, and ahead in school. College put an end to all that, but old habits are hard to break,and I have spent most of the past fifty summers chasing the Yankees around, at least part of the time. Catching them in New York is my favorite venue; I like pinstripes. Dad's been dead for forty years, but I still get an occasional birthday and Christmas card from the mafia kids my age, who grew up with me, and went into various "businesses" which they still swear are perfectly legal. I don't ask questions. I hope and trust that their kids and grand kids are at least partly out of the business, and are perhaps involved only in the cover business, beer distributerships. But the Kansas City mafia is still quite extant, still into gambling, still raking in the cash. Our innocent until proven guilty system of justice is made to order for all manner of criminals. Just ask our president, or the mafia in a city near you. One thing I knew from early childhood: I had absolutely no interest of going to law school. I associated the legal profession with cigar smoke, drunkeness,fedoras, and shady characters, and still do, perhaps a bit hyperbolically. John Grisham, my favorite author, only adds to that image.. Stress and anxiety are the real killers of lawyers. A high percentage of lawyers are heavy drinkers. But who am I to talk? I spent my career as a teacher, of college kids. The lesson, I think, is that no matter what you do in life, you're screwed, and then you die, which I will do soon. I had a great role model, my father, in reverse. I never got into drinking, and I stay away from illegal activities, now that marijuana is legal. Like many of my age peers, I often marvel at my longevity, and wonder just how in the hell did I manage to live this long?

Openly Discussing

WHEN I WAS IN SIXTH GRADE,1966-1967, I adored my teacher, a twenty six year old lady who was married to a navy seal away on active duty, had a son of her own in first grade, and was well liked by all, students and teachers alike. Within the past year or two she passed away at an old age, which saddens me, while rekindling my love and admiration of her. She was among my first true role models, morally and intellectually, and inspired within me and others a love of learning. I think, however, that she made a mistake, an important one. She advised us to never, ever, ever discuss religion or politics, with anyone, at any time. I questioned this admonition then, and I question it now. Why tell us to avoid talking about what to me were then and still are the two most interesting and relevant topics of all? Why foribd, for some fearful potential result, the most important matters from public discussion and discourse? How and why are those two areas of human endeavor lumped into a single category, as if they have anything directly to do with each other?. Religion, maybe. Its a private matter, ultimately, even though we tend to soialize it highly merely by gathering together in large social groups of like minded people when we engage in it through worship. But politics? In a functioning democracy, it is, it seems to me, of the utmost importance that citizens engage in discussions about public affairs, matters of political concern for everyone.. The public forum, wherein we the people exchange thoughts and ideas about matters relevant and important to everyone, is a necessary and vital market place of ideas and ideals for all good, concerned citizens. The reason for the prohibition is obvious; the avoidance of conversational dispute based acrimony. Acrimony, however, is in a democracy an unavoidable certainty, assuming the certainty of different citizens having differing views on matters of vital public concern. No two topics are as fraught with undertones of divisiveness, laden with undercurrrents of potential conflict, than the twin towers of politics and religion. The solution resides in a determination by all involved to refrain from harshness of tone or speech, to avoid all name callling or insulting; in essence, to remain "civil". Easier said than done, perhaps, but absolutely necessary. America has always been a divided country, in one way or another, but has remained united by ideals, ideals articulated by our uniquely wise founders. Modern American society, especially in our modern era of unfettered social media, is a boiling cauldron of conflicting controversial points of view. The bubbling of the boiling point has now become a perpetual roiling, erupting volcano of sundry opinions. Only those who wish to exclude themselves from the cacophony remain outside the perpetual explosion of sentiment. When somebody tells me that they don't vote because their vote doesn't matter, I respond by saying that if one hundred million people vote, their vote consists of one hundred millionth of society's decisions. It should neither be more or less. It matters. The fact that all votes cast are but drops in a grand ocean of societal self governance makes each vote cast more, not less important. Would the individual voter prefer to live on an island, unto herself, discussing issues alone, possessing all power, power over nothing but herself? Let the public forum be wide open and chaotic, let it include everyone, and let us have a spirited, energetic conversation, especially about, of course, religion and politics.

Failing To Watch Trump's Speech

I COULDN'T WATCH Trump's speech. I honestly thought I could, but I was wrong. I had the flatscreen all fired up, ready to go,but just couldn't pull the tirgger. I can't even remember which network I chose. It didn't matter, because the appearance of Trump's orange face and hair on my relatively small forty three inch TV was to me instantly unbearable. My living room is small, so even a small TV seems to loom large, over there in the corner, wedged between a fake fireplace and a window on the sill on which sits a beautiful, healthy, very real fern, which I lovingly water each day while it grows far beyond the intended limits of the pot it sits in - soon, it will need replanting, to a larger pot, and I might have to solicit help from my neighbors or call the local fire department to achieve this huge objective. But...The orange hair, now rapidly greying, is famous, or infamous, and by now we should all, myself ncluded, have long gotten over the plastic look of it. Does or does not our chief executive reprobate wear a hairpiece? Do I care? Should I? Does anyone, other than he, his ridiculous caricature self? Is it my imagination, or is his face really orange also? Like millions of real Americans,I can barely stand the sight of tha mass of putrid orange excrement. But its hard if not impossible to get around the fact that the great reporbate still governs America; Mmorons Are Governing America. The central of the speech is that the American elections are rigged, except when he wins them. As always, the villains are the Chinese, and the company which manufactures voting machines. Nothing new there. Nothing new anywhere. Nothing about the American people, how to help them, plans for a better, brighter American future..nothing. A screed full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. American elections, local, state, and national, are in fact a model of integrity, honesty, fairness, and accountability. Every vote cast by every letigimate voter is counted and recounted, with witnesses, more than once. Illegally cast ballots are vanishingly rare, rarer than would be predicted by any statistical analysis conducted by any Department of Mathematics and Statistics at any major university in America or in the world. That has not always been the case.There is strong evidence that the presidential election of 1960, the closest in history, was decided by a bit of bllot box xtuffing in the city of Al Capone, by his municipal lordship, the notorioius machine boss, the Hon. Mayor Richard Daley the first, but not the last. The Daley mob boss of the windy city machine may indeed have handed the election to the young charismatic JFK, over the somber, sullen, sweating Richard Milhouse Nixon. Maybe. We still don't know, and at this point likely never will. Its just too complicated to figure out. But for damned sure the election of 2020 was not stolen from Trump, the election of 2024, which Trump supposedly won, was not corrupted, and the forthcoming election of 2026 will likewise be fair, free, and so forth. Funny, how elections are only corrupted and stolen with rigged "Smart-O-Matic" voting machines when Trump loses. Since nearly everyone in the U.S. of cultural and political Anarchy votes on paper ballots, the consistent integrity of American national elections is easy to verify. But it matters not. As long as there are mentally ill narcissitic petty tyrants like Donald J.Trump at the top of the chaotic political heap, there will be chaos and uncertainty in our sacred electoral process. You can bank on it, because sowing chaos and uncertainty in the political process is precisely what petty fascist dictator wannabes do.

Waiting For Trump To Speak

AS THE MUCH ANTICIPATED moment for Der Fuhrer, Herr Trump, to blather to the nation approached, his sycophants pretended to await in enraptured eager anticipation for words of patriotic inspiration, while in fact secretly, nervously hoping and praying that their iconic idiot wouldn't do anything to embarass them, or himself, or the Republican semi-fascist party of America. After all, he might pull a Joe Biden, and lapse into dementia ridden incoherence, or stammer and mutter purely bland cliches and patriotic,shining city on the hilltop tripe, Ronald Reagan style, or, heaven and disposables forbid, flll his diapers with shit and wretch at his own stench. In our era of Artificial Intelligence and organic idiocy, all possibilities remained on the table.I recall after a particularly senility inundated Ronald Reagen speech, my mother remarked that she was embarrassed for our president,The Gipper.I had that same sense of foreboding as the clock ticked towards Donnie's screeching, self serving screed. I just knew, and most Americans probably knew, that Don the Con would have little or nothing to say about the actual state of the nation, the various situations and conditions it is in, wars, inflation, and all. Nothing to say about our glorious future in which America's best days still lay ahead and not behind, but that he would only try to indulge in self glorification, about how he has already made America great again, and how he intends to go about his usual businees of making it greater still, barely more than one year into his second and final, lord willing, term in office. Would he have the decency and decorum to mention that during the recent past few days one influential Republican Senator had died, and another lay in a comotose state, near death, his political cereer over? You have to believe that if nothing else, he would have the decency to wish them a speedy and full recovery, aside from the evident fact that its much too late for that. As one might suspect, I know a lot of anti-Trump anti-MAGA Americans; they comprise most of my circle of friends. To a person they intend to boycott the speech, preferring some other banal television diversion. They insist that they can get more out of reruns of "The Kardashians" or "The Nature Channel" than from anything that our moronic head of state could possibly utter and offer. And, to a certain extent, I agree, I can see their point. My point is this: H.L. Mencken's admonition of a hundred years ago has come to pass. Under the currrent system, he asserted, the day will come when a complete idiot will be elevated to the American presidency. That day has come. H.L. Mencken, our modern American Nostradamus. Since he said this in the middle of the Harding or Coolidge administration, we must be careful about giving Mencken too much credit for his predictive prowess. It is much easier to forcast the political rise of an idiot when a political idiot has already risen. What I notice in all my perspicacity is that all of our modern presidential idiots arise from the conservative end of the political spectrum, from within the Republican party, the party of Lincoln, who by now has doubtless turned over in his grave more often than the Earth has rotated on its axis. Yet another reason for watching Trump's speeches is Machiavellian: know thy enemy. Donald Trump is, it is to be hoped, the last of a dying breed, conservative Republican morons who seek and rise to the presidency. With luck,Trump's speech will be the last ever given by an American moron in the White House, and we can all get back to the Kardashians. Tragically, you can't count on it.