Denying Science, At Great Peril

IN HIS SEMINAL book "The Demon Haunted World", published just before his death in 1995, the late Carl Sagan provides a compelling examination of the modern preoccupation with pseudo science. In our increasingly well educated era, a not insignificant segment of the population,is apparently unable or unwilling to understand and come to terms with the revealed, verified realities of the world and the universe. Sagan points out that there is no shortage of intelligence among the masses. There is, however, a shortage of scientifically well educated students. In this regard our education system has failed us. We have turned out more than a mere few generations of poorly educated citizens. When a charismatic leader openly proclaims his love of the poorly educated, sycophantic cult like followers eagerly assemble at his throne of willful, lazy ignorance, their choice to eschew education in favor of cheap entertainment fully reinforced and vindicated. Maybe science classes, particularly chemistry and physices, should be required courses, not elective. Maybe pseudo science is perceived, albeit incorrecly, as being more fun, more exciting. It is of course neither, but it is simplistic, easy to comprehend and digest, and embrace. The poorly educated, who have become a celebrated demographic in the United States of Avoicance, take the lazy way, the easy way out. Its cool to be dumb. Simply spout a few conspiracy theories laced with pseudo science and you have the making of a best seller or rapt audience on the A.M radio stations which market, under the cover of night, this garbage like they market far right wing dispensers of hatred and lies by day. The money hungry media, which relies on the steady income of abloated,over priced advertising industry, happily spoon feeds a credulous, gullible public the precise intellectual opiate it so desperately craves: pseudo science fiction and fantasy, attractively packaged and presented as credible information. Certainly it is far easier and more immediately emotionally fulfilling to immerse a lay mind in the salve of escape entertainment rather than slogging our way through the hours of lectures, textbooks, and examinations necesary to put one's self on a firm footing with the ostensibly enormously complex universe as it really is. Imagine the shattering experience of conversing, or trying to have an intelligent conversation with a climate change denier, as he moves the downward facing open palm of his hand in an undulating roller coaster motion in front of your face, signifying that climate change is cyclical, and that the cycles recycle according to their own natural causes, without any human intervention or influence. The message is tragically clear,the product of an opaque mentality. Imagination him telling you, with a condescending smirk, in all seriuosness, without a trace of doubt, that teh Earth'sclimate is alwasy changeing, and has always changed, and alwasys will, regardless of human activity. One trillion tons of carbon, injected into the atmosphere by humans, thus becomes irrelevant, even imaginary, or worse, a hoax, a conspiracy among the world's radical liberals, a pretext to take control of government,destroy all economic freedom, and to sustain the enormous corporate profits generated by the fossil fuel industry. Ironically, it is the conservative capitalists, not the socialistic tree hugging liberals who seek to sustain forever their sacred corporate money making machine. No, the Earth is not so huge, and we humans are not so weak and small as to make any impact by us on the world's ecosystem impossible. we burn down huge forests, turn rivers into lakes, and our cities can be seen from outer space. There shall remain of our cities but the wind that blew through them. Astray within their hollow cement shells,our descendants will marvel at the stupidity of their ancestors, for truly, against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.

Cleaning Up

THE GANGES RIVER, which arises high in the Himalayas and flows for hundreds of miles along the border separating India and Pakistan, is among the world's largest, longest, and most polluted waterways. Garbage and sewage is cast into the waters upstream, where swimming is possible but inadvisable, partly due to strong, unpredictable currents, deep parts, and whirlpools. As the river makes its way to its ultimate destination it become ever more polluted, as the millions of people crowded into filthy cities lining its shores almost casually toss their waste material into its sacred waters. You could almost walk across it, without a bridge. (Those of a certain age might remember when Lake Eerie caught fire.) China's Yangtze river suffers a similar afflication. It is debatable as to which nation on Earth is most guilty of failing to protect the delicate ecosystem of planet Earth, and which layer of it has been and is being the most abused by humans; Earth, air, or water. Any bet placed on any of the above would beat the odds in Vega. The United States is certainly a front running candidate. As to which of the world's great rivers endures teh msot mistreatment, again, your pick is as good a anyone's, although generally much progress has been made in cleaning up rivers, lakes, and oceans,but not nearly enough. We shouldn't have to be doing the cleaning up. We the people of planet Earth hould have had the common sense to never have defecated where we dine, so to speak. We have plenty of places and opportunities to properly dispose of our wretched refuse on the planet where harm done would either be ameliorated or eliminated altogether, but we have only one planet to pollute. Even nuclear waste can be buried deep beneath the surface of the Earth, where its deadly harm can at least be mitigated or ignored if we prefer. Long before we were fully aware of atmospheric carbon pollution and resulting climate change we were well aware of the, harm being done by plastic grocery sacks, toxic waste dumps, inadequae sweage systems. Amazing, the amount of damage to our planetary nesting place we do by producing more than eight billion of us, with many more to come, and by giving ourselves a blank check to do with our thrown away materials whatever our whimsical nature impels us to do. We have known better all along. Whatever is most convenient. We know that we are threatening to bring about the extinction of the human species, and that we are already causing the extincion of thousands of other species of aninals. We have until recently been relatively unconcered with the mess we have made and continue to make. Our recently enhanced awareness of our own folly is an encouraging sign, a sign of our dawning awareness of the absolute necessity keeping the kitchen and the latrine separated. (Even George Washington had to be taught this.) High schol "ecology clubs" used to pick up garbage in public places on weekends for extra credit. Now, they and the rest of us must do much more. Hysterical warnings about our behavior and the future of the planet are, of course, a dime a dozen, but are worth every penny, and then some. We can never give ourselves sufficient warnings, take too many proactive measures to protect the environment, or write too many books and essays on this subject. Like Issac Asimov and Frederick Pohl warned in their 1991 book "Our Angry Earth", the alarms are sounding, the red warning lights are flashing. And yes, time is running out, and no matter how many times we repeat this redundantly, it becomes more urgently true by the day. All the damage we have done can be undone. High school environmental protection clubs are a good start. The end game will consist of our decision to begin treating the Earth like a home, rather than a waste dump.

Losing our Religion; The Twilight of the Gods

THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, said Goethe, began as an abortive political revolution which turned moral. The uprising was against Roman power and suppression. It failed for the usual reasons; lack of organization, weapons, and suficient political will. All turned out well for the faith, in that it spread around the world and to this day illuminates the lives of more than two billion people. Its actual origins are deeper in history than that, dating back, in fact, to the dawn of history itself. All religions, approximately four thousand of them, have the same genesis; in the human imagination and ability to reimagine an incomprehensible universe in anthrophmorphic, all too human terms, in the image of humanity. God becomes a superhuman entity, and we his chosen children of the light. All religions begin with their votaries calling their invented beliefs "the light", or "the truth". The sun is the center, the focal point of all religion. God has many names. This is illustrated by a science fiction short story by Arther C. Clarke "The Nine Billion Names of God". When the last, final name of the last god is spoken, the universe, satisfied that it now knows itself, willingly, mercifullly dies. There is almost always a "messiah". Our ancient ancestors correctly perceived their own fragility, and the fragile, makeshift nature of human existence. The anthropomorphic deities were nonetheless somewhat emotionally fragile themselves, taking after their inventors, and required their own nourishment of the soul, in the form of human formalized adoration, worship, an exprssion of which isinherit in every ceremony ever held by every society which ever feared and failed to understand the essential harmony of nature, and in most cases harmlessness of thunder and lightening. We invent superior beings and set them atop Mount Olympus where we can relegate them to the status of observers who once upon a time intervened directly and constantly in human affairs, but gradually withdrew from our daily lives as our understanding of them grew and perhaps made them fearful that their fraudulant nature would be exposed, and their power over us, purely psychological, would dissipate and vanish altogether. Religion inspires and comforts people, the only real reasons for its existence. We are now in the twilight of our gods. Having largely outgrown them, we simply do not need them anymore. Though many people still cling to traditional religious beliefs, the sweeping growth of science, with our attendant advance in our knowledge of the universe, is inexorably reducing our pantheon of gods, for they have become relics of a benighted past, and we simply do not need them anymore. We should celebrate and not lament the passing of our ancient omnipotent, omnipresent heavenly benefactors. Thomas Jefferson,two hundred years ago, called relgious belief "our modern superstition". He understood that humanity's capacity to understand the world through our own faculties was freeing us from the need to assuage our fears and ignorance-based beliefs about the world, by replacing them with explanations for phenomena which are coherent, observable, verifiable, and ultimately far more comforting and satisfying than our previous reliance on fabricated narratives. As a species we are growing up, outgrowing our need for the comforting crutches of religious superstition. We are entering the twilight of the gods, and giving birth to a newand better way of understanding our world and ourselves. Childhood's end. We are yet unsure precisely how to adopt to and evolve with our new found freedom from the mental bondage of our inferior prior beliefs. For better or for worse, we will think of something.

Choosing, Or Not Choosing, Our Faith & Fate

THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, much like the Methodist church, is a product of the Scottish reformation. A quick glance at a list of the essential tenets of this sub faith revealed little to me, other than it embraces all the fundamental beliefs of all or most Protestant sects. Salvation by grace, not by good works. (The various denominations often differ on that.) Salvation by prior decision, known as "predestination". No matter what you do, no matter how noble, sublime, or heinous one's behavior is or had even been during one's temporal existance, enttrance into the kingdom of heaven is determined not by the good or bad actions of the individual, but by the will of God, in advance. This one in particular seems a bit murky, questionable. How could the decision whether to achieve eternal salvation in heaven with God the Father not at least be somewhat influenced by one's behavior during one's lifetime? In other Protestant denominations it indeed is. All the rest is standard Protestant Christian stuff. Martin Luther, a stern, sullen, taciturn priest, signed his name to the ninety five complaints he listed and posted on the door of his local Catholic parish, much to his credit, courage, and conviction. Then he went into hiding, expediently, allowing him to live to the ripe old age of fifty three. His primary aim appears to have been the decentralization of the flock, to loosen the ties the ubiquitous Bishop of Rome held tightly over all Christiandom. The hereditary nobility throughout the various Germanic kingdoms had grown weary of having their treasuries drained by the requirement that no less than one tenth of their wealth be offered as tithe to the Pope. As the centuries passed, the Bishop of Rome had lived progressively more opulently and corruptly, almost as lavishly as European princes and Turkish sultans. Unrepentant priests were indulging in the dubious practice of selling "indulgances", one way tickets into heaven, for profit. The forms of ecclesiastical corruption were so many and varied that the pure spirited Luther could tolerate no more. Resistance to established authority is inherent in human nature, especially when enduring perceived exploitation. The extant to which we as individuals actually choose our outcomes in this lifetime is a valid subject for analysis and discussion. The extent to which our behavior while here determines our ultimate disposition of our eternal souls is much less knowable. Since nobody has ever been able to identify anything in a human being which even remotely qualifies as a "soul", any attempt determine its ultimate destiny is dubious at best, impossible at worst. Lacking facts, we choose to live by faith. It has been pointed out that our modern science isatbottomnothing other than a form of faith,faith in our own ability to observe and understan the universe. Anancient scripture says "Man is a creature who lives by faith, and whatsoever is tha faith, also is the man." This concept is worth repeating in more than a single essay or religious tract. Of the more than fifteen hundred Protestant denominations, those which espouse the doctrine of "predestination" do the most harm to the human belief, our abiding belief in our ability to know the universe,and to live more harmoniously within the apparent limitations it prescribes for us. Since nature is itself supremely, surpassingly sublime and seemingly unknowable, why should our conception of its presumed "creator" be any different, any more or less knowable, or sublime? And why shouldn't we, creatures gifted as Einstein said with only weak and transitory understanding , refrain from inventing and reinventing our various wholly inadquate means of comprehending it? Like Goethe said: "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine."

Conspiring, In Theory

CONSPIRACY THEORIES, which I generally don't like, are of little interest to me. Maybe I'm burned out. My first bad experience with them was the assassination of President Kennedy. The shock of this for an eight and a half year old third greader was traumatic. I had never before in my short life even remotely considered the possibility that the Preisdent of the United States could be murdered. as I recall I still knew nothing about Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. Precocious and ambitious, I began a project of cutting out every article in our local newspaper which had anything at all to do, directly or indirectly, with th awfule vents of November 22, 1963. It happened on a Friday. Saturday's edition ran the huge ink stained headline, Sunday's paper was more of the same, and by Monday and beyond the sad funeral and transition to LBJ grabbed the nation's attention. And the conspiracy theories began to flow as freely as a pure mountain stream, clogged with the murky mud of suspicion. How, after all, could a nondescript litle nobody like twenty four year old Lee Harvey Oswold have possibly carried out such an audacious act? By the time the dust had cleared, and it really never has entirely cleared, not only were the CIA, FBI, and Vice President priime suspects as acconplices, but fingers were being pointed at the Russians and Cubans, Khruschev and Castro, our old communist enemies. Both of these accused seemted to tacitly imply that they would indeed have been quite willing if not outwardly pleased to have been the assailant, but, alas, had not been. By 1966 I had read every book in the library, not an inconsiderable number were already availale in our medium sized town library, and was beginning to lose my patience and become a bit suspicious as to whether the whole thing had been the product of group pre planning, or wasin fact the random action of a lone gunman, maybe one who hated Kennedy. Only, Oswald didn't hate Kennedy. I tried to figure it all out, but couldn't. Neither, it seemed, could anybody else. I walked out of the Oliver Stone movie in 1990 as a thrity five year old whose curiosity has been renewed, inflamed by Stone's masterful way of implicating, using circumstantial evidence, seemingly everything and everybody who gets out of bed in the morning. My credulity recovered, my innate skepticism and critical thinking skills having become better honed by the time I graduated from the sixth grade. No, not all conspiracy theories are inherently invalid, told a friend of mine who swears by them. But neither are they all true, nor even most of them. True, people conspire. Whenever two or more are gathered together, and so forth. Isn't the Christian religion the product of a conspiracy theory which can never be proven nor disproven? My friend asked me whether I always believe what I hear on the news, and do I really believe the "bombing" of the World Trade Center was the act of a single demented mind? I reflexively answered "yes" to the question about the news, and "probably yes" to the one about the twin towers. Another friend of mine, a solid scientific skeptic, seemed to lean towards the notion that the WTC was brought down with the "help" of several powerful explosives positioned up and down the buildings, set to detonate, which they did, the moment the airplanes impacted. And, by golly, he showed me a film which seemed to confirm this. Was the video authentic, or fabricated or doctored, one of those AI Facebook jobs? I still don't know for sure about JFK, or about the WTC, and evidently neither does anybody else. Nor for that matter do I know whether Hillary Clinton was running a whore house out of a Pizza joint in Virginia. I have my doubts. Unless, of course, the government is concealing proof from us, to spare our poor little sensitive selves more post traumatic agony, agony over Hillary's alleged prostitution ring, or of extraterrestrials floating in formaldehide, staring bug eyed like insects with big brains, perhaps forever frozen in their wonderment that we benighted humans could ever have had the naivete to doubt their existence and presence among us in the first place.

Changing, and Keeping the Faith

IN HIS SEMINAL dystopian science fiction novel "A Time of Changes" Robert Silverberg writes about a planet colonized by humans where, in accordance with its founding covenant, the culture is predicated upon a single ideal; self abnegation, the denial of the self. Founded as a colony where people might live in a world free from violence, the normal, hateful human passions are held in check by The Covenant, according to which all citizens are required by law to direct all energies towards society as a whole, to the complete and total denial of individual concerns and emotions. The pronouns "I" and "me" and "myself" are forbidden, and are considered to be the most egregious, epresssions of outlawed individuality. All outward emotional expression is prohibited. The inevitable accumulated stress and anxiety, emotional garbage, is dissipated by a "drainer", a sort of psychologist-priest who, for a fee, listens wuietly as pent up, unexpressed emotions come pouring out of each individual, everyone, each one. Everyone by law and custom in speaking refers to himself or herself as "one", speaking, referring to one's self only in the third person. One is hungry. One is in need of the servies of a drainer. One has a need to express one's feelings. The penitant soul is therefore cleansed of borken thoughts and dreams, revewed as an empty emtional vessel, free, destined to once again accumulate more of the same mental debris, manure of the mind, piled higher and deeper. A world of stifled human beings, trapped within the confining prisons of their unresolved conflicts of the mind. A prince of the realm, the bottled up planet "Borthan", Kinnal Darival, has an epiphany. In his sudden, new dound awareness, he realized the nonsensical, self destructive nature and consequences of this needless self restraint, and breaks the odious spell. He begins the book with the forbidden word "I". He screams it on the page and out into the emotional vacuum world, repeatedly. I I I I I. At first he is met with shock, and outrage, like some criminal guilty of the most heinous of crimes, an unrepentant sinner against a sacred ideal. The seed thus planted, a new culture of self recognition and expression begins to bloom, as others gradually preceive not only the benefits of the new way of thinking and acting, but the expedient necessity of recreating a culture or renewed humanity, unfettered by the constraints of isolation. Would we in today's violent strife torn world be better off to follow this fictional example? Would it better serve our purposes, among them survival, to so constrain ourselves, to deny ourselves a fundamental component of who we truly are and have always been, by "evolving" to a "higher level" of self awarness and self denial, to become a global culture of millions of Mr. Spocks? It may be that in some future human society, artificial intelligence, unable to replicate true human emotion, has made motionaless, robotic beings of us all. A world free of self destructive, hateful, violent passions of the heart. A cat without claws. In the Dhammapada it is written: "Man is a creature who lives by faith, and whatsoever is the faith, also is the man." Ultimately our greatest act of faith must be our faith in ourselves. Our creator requires it, by giving us the ability to obtain it. Our only true faith is our faith to become more tomorrow than are are today, or were yesterday "Noble be man, compassionate, and good" said Goethe. It is necessary only to maintain the faith that there will come a time when we truly actualize the hopeful, wishful faith which Goethe had in us all.

Turning Off, Tuning Out

MANY YEARS AGO an abrasive lady on "America Online" (remember that?) said that she was done. Done watching the news, done paying attention to current events. Without saying so to her, I wondered how she intended to be well or even poorly informed, and why she would want to be that way. If she is still so inclined, by now she has missed a quarter century of modern history,and is arguably better off, and arguably not. The country certainly isn't. A pervasively uniformed citizenry is vulnerable to corrupt, self serving leadership. As Jefferson said: "If the people become inattentive to the affairs of government, the legislators and magistrates shall divide society into two classes, wolves, and sheep." No matter how redundantly often I make this point, no matter how often I quote Jefferson, it adheres. In a supposedly self governing democracy, it is our responsibility to govern. And then yeserday, as we await the impending release of the so called "Epstein files", another formerly attentive citizen,the director of our senior center, told me that she had had enough, enough vicarious misery,and was opting out. I told her that I understand completely, which I do. Things have gotten so bad, politically, morally, economically, and in all manner of other ways, that escape has become a viable alternative. My sister, a retired government employee who served as a personell manager at the Pentagon, takes same approach. Ignrance and apathy. She doesn't know, and she doesn't care. Considering that when the airplane crashed into her side of the Pentagon in 2001, you can almost give her a free pass. When I finally managed to reach her by telephone two days after the horrible event, and ask her how she was holding up, she told me that she was doing well enough, but that she wished that people would stop tring to kill her. Perfectly reasonable, I thought.She just wanted to get the hell out of there, and not look back, which she never has. And yet, her obligation, (and indeed it is an obligation), to particiapte in her own self governance remains, unabridged. I asked her who she intends to help govern on her behalf, in her stead, and she said that she didn't know and didn't care. And I'm "fine" with that, as we say. I'll pick up the slack, and keep it in the family. She is not a Trump supporter, and that's good enough for me. She used to drive an hour a day after work commuting from Washington D.C to Fredricksburg, Virginia, and upon arriving feed her cats (as all cat caregivers know, that must come first), and then proceed to catch up on "Days of Our Lives" I think it was, which her pre set VCR (remember those?) had waiting for her. Each day she erased the previous day's episode, and set the device to record anew.I found hope in the fact that she didn't preserve for eternity and posterity each day's episode; if nothing else, she was willing to move on, content to allow teh previous day's adventures and drama of fLuke and Laura fade into memory. As far as I know, those two are still mainstays, with Susan Lucci. Or maybe I've fallen behind. Luke and Laura must be in assisted living by now, probably melodramatic as ever. Sis and I are now both in our seventies, and we both hope to avoid assisted living. Its hard to imagine how, other than dying.My childhood sopa opera choice was "Love Is A Many Splendored Thing". Our father, a disabled retired attorney, kept a daily journal of all the "action", which he read to us after school every day, except on weekends. Maybe I should offer the same service to our senior center director. After all,somebody has to keep the uninformed informed.Somebody has to govern he country, the grandest soap opera of all. It might as well be me.

Keeping and Losing Cats

EVERY STRAY CAT who enters my large yard is fed, and offered a home. Some accept my offer, othere do not. There seems to be anemerging movement in America to provide better care for stray cats. Feral cats, without any prior association with human beings, are lesslikely to approach a human, and must be lured into accepting assitance. Or,so I have noticed. The very moment I begin to think that I have done all I can to help them, somebody else has done even more. Such people make good role models for me, and, I might presume, for others. Shortly before I typed these word, while riding a stationary bicycle, I saw alarge cat, possibly a neighbor's, chasing one of mine,as small female, down the street. I should have immediately interrupted my work out to step outside and do what I could, but didn't. My exercise was too important, and, in any event, the chase scene had already transpired, and there was nothing I could do to remedy the situation. I hope I don't pay dearly for my negligent mistake. Every cat I have ever adopted and cared for was a stra, including Mandi, my indoor only angel more than thirteen years old. She entered my yard in 2012, ahowed no inclination to ever leave,returning to the same spot every day for a week. Our relationshp began in earnest when I lost patience, and finally lured her onto my lap by appearing on my front porch with a big, juicy tuna fish sandwich. She jumped up, took a quick bite, and jumped right back down, not wanting to press her luck. It got easier after that. Then came Jake, whom I named after a charachter in a John Grisham novel (I almost named him "Grisham", but decided not to), a striped orange tabby whose full name became "Jake the Yellow Kitten". (I call all cats "kittens" affectionately). Thena Siamese male showed, and I noticed him, who at first I thought was a her, snuggling in a pile of October leaves in my yard. Whereas Jake had actually tried to claw his way through a window screen to gain admission, Shylow's tactic ws to sit in my driveway on a frigid January night and cry for help. First Jake, and then Shylow had evidently seen Mandi come and go at will in my house, and wanted the same treatment. They got it. When Jake and Shylow died much too soon, I decided not to allow any more cats indoors as long as Mandi is alive. My best guess is that she wouldn't tkae kindly to indoor feline company at her advanced age, and although I may be wrong, I'm afraid to try. The only outddor kittnes I have now are Remmi and Pseudo, female offspring of mothers long dead and buried in my yard whose remaining litter mates lgrew up and left home long ago. My assuption is that they all found good homes, otherwise, they surely would have come back. Destiny, Remmi's sister, got mad at me for having her spaded, and sought a new life elsewhere. Riley, a yellow tabby, reache full growth, sized up the situation in which he was destined to spend his life in my garage and yard with a group of females, decided to seek his fortune elsewhere as well. My sense is that he sas a future in which he would compete for food with a bevy of females, and wanted out. I am given to understand that males do not like hanging with a group of females. One can hardly blame them. I mourn all the kittens who have graced then left my life. I alwasy shall. I mourn in advance those that will ultimately do likewise. I hope Remmi comes back. If she doesn't, I'm in for more mourning.

Choosing Churches

I FLIPPED A COIN, heads Presbyterian, tails Unitarian, it came up heads, and off to the Presbyterian church I went. I'm not particular. I would've been happy either way. One batch of nonsensical dogma is about as good as another,I reckoned. My church of choice, the Unitarian, can wait until next Sunday. Its a much longer drive to the UU house of admiration, and the Presbyterians provide free transportation, pre service snacks and coffee, and a free lunch afterwards, courtesy of a ninety two year old millionaire widow lady with no family and nobody to inherit her money. (I would be happy to volunteer.) The sermon centered on the beautiful, sublime beatitudes, my favorite part of the Bible, and the thought occured to me that nobody in his or her right spirit couldn't possibly fail to adore, embrace, preserve forever, and assiduously seek...seek to abide by them. Such a failure would reveal a bad beatitude attitude. All bad puns aside, one might wonder why on Earth or in heaven this beautiful, sublime list of blessed people doesn't replace the simplistic, harshly pedantic "Ten Commandments" on wall hangings and place mats. Too many words, perhaps, or poor theological judgment. The ever transient nation of Israel (which finally gathered itself together, settled down in one location, and began attacking its neighbors) was for centuries seeking their messiah, finally got one, and promptly rejected him, save for a select few. He simply didn't measure up to expectations, which were that a chariot and terrible swift sword would descend from the heavens and rout the Roman oppressors by confronting and defeating Roman power, bringing to an end millenia of subjugation. Instead they got a pacifistic preacher-teacher whose message advised restraint and acceptance. If not the Romans, there would be other worldy oppressors, even among themselves. Be careful what you wish for. They would have liberation, in heaven. A friend of mine, a Penecostal fundamentalist who wants me to see the light before its too late, responded to my religious skepticism by warning me that I would discover the advantages of having been "saved" later, in hell. Or at least I think that's what she had in mind. In my mind, anyone who believes in "hell" is mentally ill. Haven't we enough misery in this world, without inventing more in another? I thought, but didn't say it, that this cosmic paradigm quite conveniently relieves one of ay responsibility for proving the paradigm. You'll find out that I was right all along, but onlly after you die. A win win situation. How convenient. My beloved Unitarian Fellowship doesn't claim to be a discrete religion, but rather, a composite of all religions and religiosities on Earth, or anywhere else. Everyone welcom. Diversity, equality, and inclusion. When asked what he thought about Christians, Mohandas Ghandi (he hated being called "Mahatma", which means "reverend") replied: "I don't know, I've never met one." To whatever extent I am a "Christian", I am also a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Moslem, and so forth. In point of fact I am a pantheist, the "religion" of Spinoza, Jefferson (Who was actually a "deist", which technically differs from pantheism, but is close enough), and Einstein. The terms "God", and cosmos are interchangeable. Just like my Pentecostal friend, I have built for myself a universe in whch no matter what I believe, I cannot be wrong. We fashion our various gods and our thousands of religions in our own image. As Goethe said: "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine."

Trump, Outdoing Nixon

IVANKA TRUMP, in sworn testimony before Congress, stated that approximately two weeks prior to the election of 2020, with the president's poll numbers sinking and Biden seemingly poised to win the presidency, her father approached her in the White House, and said: "no matter what happens in this election, we'll just say that we won it. Fuck it." And that, dear reader, should have been the end of Trump's reelection bid, and of his presidency. He had been impeached twice during his first term, and for good reason, a world record. Conspiracy to interfere with an elecion. Election tampering. Treasonous conspiracy. Call it what you want, your choice. The crimes were and remain many and varied, and largely unpunished. By any name, it smacks of moral turpitude, moral depravity. One harkens back to the now infamous "Access Hollywood" episode of October 2016, the one in which Trump, who seldom seeks to conceal his bad behavior because he considers it good behavior, clearly, proudly revealed himself to be a sexual predator. At the time this seemed to spell the end of Trump's first presidential campaign, and to spell the end of his nascent political career. Trump never thought he would actually win against Hillary Clinton, who led in the polls the entire cammpaign and indeed received three million more votes than he. He never actually believed he would be elected, and was therfore wholly unprepared for the prodigious task of governing the country. As has been pointed out numerous times, this goes to the very heart of the presumed but questionable honor and integrity of the American people. It would seem, to paraphrase P.T. Barnum's famous remark, that nobody would ever go broke underestimating the moral and and intellectual integrity of the American electorate. Anyone, it now seems, can go broke overestimating it. It has also been pointed out repeatedly that, egregiously criminal as Trump's behavior is and has always been, the behavior of the Americans who elected him is of far greater concern, far more disappointing, for tacitly if not actively accepting it. This brings to mind the behavior of yet another corrupt Republican president, Richard M. Nixon. Although Nixon, like Trump, was a lifelong criminal (he purchased his election as class president in college), his crimes, by today's standards, pale in comparison to those of Donald J. Trump, aka "Don the Con". After all, what's a little petty break in and theft of documents at Democratic National headquarters between friends? And yet, the entire nation, Republicans included, rose up in outraged indignation in the summer of 1973, as the nationally televised "Watergate" hearings on "Tricky Dick's dirty tricks spellbound the nation. I skipped class my senior year in high school, to the detriment ofmy grades and parental approval, to watch on grainy black and white television as witness after witness testified as to Nixon's criminal behavior. A recent cartoon has Nixon seated next to Trump. A smirking Nixon says: "Jesus Christ, Donnie. You make me look like a fucking saint." And indeed he did, and still does. When the entire nation turned against Nixon, G.O.P. and all, and his impeachemnt and likely removal impending, or so he assumed, he saw the handwriting, and gave up the ghost politically. Nixon's crimes were mere child's play by comparison to Trump. In those days presidential intergity was still presumed, even though it shouldn't have been. We the American people seem to have lowered the bar of our moral standars considerably.

Remembering An American Hero

DAVID CROCKETT, who hated being called "Davy" and signed his name "David", was not born on a mountain top, but rather, down in a valley, valley so low, where folks built their cabins, and where the water is. It is amazing today to think of the work invovled in putting together a log cabin with only a few tools and a forest. The idea of "exercise" for its own sake was of course unknown, and entirely unnecessary. Young David ran away from home when he was about fourteen after seeing his father, who had gotten word of his truancy, whttling away at a three foot stretch of tree branch, knowing it was intended for him. He never came back. He had been sent to school by his father, but instead snuck off into the deep woods, to spend the days where he truly belonged, among the bears and bees. He belonged to that adventuresome, restless generation of Americans who were the first to get along without the guiding widsom of living founding fathers. He followed in the footsteps of Daniel Boone, his hero, who was fifty years his senior and had, like Crockett, worked his way farther and farher west to get away from "civilization", and to enjoy the company of his preferred company, native Americans. Thus he had the educational attainment level of a grade schooler. Normally he wore a top hat, after the fashion of nineteenth century gentlemen whom he sought, without much success, to emulate; the coon skin cap was a later adornment of the books and magazines which contributed to his fame, fame which he knew during his lifetime, which mystifed and at first alarmed him. He thought people were making fun of him, but was assured that they instead were admiring and emulating him, including the packs of teenaged boys who followed him around Washington City. While he was in Congress for three terms, his fame as a rugged pioneer accompanied him, and he often dressed accordingly, including the cap, to please the people who expected it of him. He was not a good representative. He missed too many sessions of the House of Representatives, bored with what he called the endless talking which never accomplished anything. He never authored or introduced a bill, but his main issue was squatters rights. He believed that the vast tracts of land west of the Appalachians which were "owned" by eastern corporations should be deeded to the pioneer settlers who illegally lived on and "improved" it by putting up cabins and farming. He married twice, and had a total of nine children by two women, three adopted, his first wife having died before the age of thirty. For Crockett the Alamo was a tragic accident of history. He had gone to Texas, like many others, to seek a new start in life, to try again to become propserous. In San Antonio, he was trapped by his fame as a brave hero into remaining, knowng that the Mexican army was approaching, and would destroy them all. A women who survived teh massacre later said that he told her that he would have run away before the final onslaught, were it not for the expectations of others. He never became prosperous. His autobiography, "A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee" partly ghostwritten,is a delightful description of his life until shortly before his decision to seek his fortune in Texas. It is a masterpiece of American literature, and has never been out of print. His roommate and fellow congressman Thomas Chilton helped him with it (the original manuscript is in Chilton's handwriting), and no editor has ever had the audicaty to corrrect his crude grammar. His writing style served as a template for mark Twain in his famous Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn novels. In the eighteen thirties Eastern cities were full of apartments with the letters "G2T" ("Gone to Texas") painted on the front door. We'll never know for sure, but it seems likely that, even moments before his heroic death at the Aamo, he had no regrets. the front door.

Opposing the World

THE CONTRAST between the searing heat in Australia, where it was one hundred and twenty degress yesterday, and the frigid cold in the American south, where nighttime temperatures descended to nearly zero degrees highlights the true nature of climate change. It seems nearly impossible to convince climate science deniers that global warming is a bit more complicated than the weather becoming hotter. But try explaining ths to your average American climate science denying conservative. Carbon traps more heat, and more heat means more movement within the atmosphere. More movement of air means more volatility, which in turn means more turbulence, more wind, more storms, stronger, more severee storms. Would anyone care to explain basic atmospheric science, basic thermodynamics, basic high school chemistry to any "garden variety" right winger. One wonders whether there are any climae deniers in America,or anywhere else, who have ever taken a chemistry class. The guy who repaired my heating and airconditiong unittoldme that he has taken several chemistry classes, and further stipulated that climate change is a "hoax". AS to whether the gentleman actually studied and passed chemistry istomequestionable. Liek Festus Haggen said on "Gunsmoke", I have my doubtfuls. They may as well assert that the laws of hature are themselves a hoax, that the simple pyhsical reality that carbon absorbs more heat then nitrogen and oxygen is a hoax, that science itself is a hoax. Are they willing to believe that carbon and oxygen combine to form carbon dioxide, that carbon dioxide traps heat, and that the more CO2 weinject into the ecosystem, the more solar radiation is tapped and the more slowly the heat of a hot summer day is dissipated into outer space, so that more remians trapped in the atmosphere? Carl Sagan,in his seminal monograph "The Demon Haunted World", gives lavish praise to the American people for their intelligence, and ability to learn. However, he gives low marks for our willingess to become sufficiently well educated to understand and accept the unavoidable reality of a warming atmosphere and planet. We have no shortage of intelligence. What we have is a severe shortage of adequately educated people in history and science. Climate change denial is a tragic phenonemon, driven purely by perceived political self interet. After all, if there is no climae change, if human activity had no adverse impact on nature, then well, we have no need to reform our economy and our way of life with regard to energy use, no need for progress or progressive politics. Without acknowledge of climate science, the capitalist system, according to which everything is for sale and all things are rife for exploitation for profit. Conservatism is resistance to change, which is necessary for progress, but hateful to status quo oriented conservatism. Like Goethe said: "The world advances only because of those who oppose it." Then too, there are quite well educated people who deny climate science, even though they know better. When one's self esteem is tied to one's long held rigidly held political ideology, or one's deeply held religious beliefs, one's mind is no more capable of opening to new information and realities than it is of rewriting the laws of nature.Climate denial is subsiding, as more people, with societal pressure building, begin to grudgingly accept reailty. When acceptance of reality threatens one's comfortable entrenched beliefs, reality takes a back seat. The tragedy is that our rapidly diminshing opportunity to effectively address our dire situation is being thrown away by those who would rather curse the darkness than light a single candle, their own.

Tearing Down the Pillars of Prosperity

OF THE SIX PILLARS of merican prosperity enumerated in the previous essay (Organizing For Prosperity), Donald Trump has and continues to undermine them all, and threatens to utterly destroy them. Trump's anti-immigrant attitude is well documented, as is his unrepentant racism, It was Trump who clearly expressed his desire that immmigrants come to the United States from Norway, which is the example he used. Presumably he would happily accept them from any Scandanavian country, except perhaps Denmark, whose people have outdone themselves in ridiculing that which is ridiculous, all things Trump. The common denominator, unspoken, is of course sking color. Aside from the fact that nobody fortunate enough to live in northern Europe has any motivation to reocate in a demographically third wofld country with a steady storm of mass murders, extreme poverty is virtually nonexistant in Europe, and is rampant in the U.S. Then too, most european countries have a higher standard of living than Americans. For the foreseeable future, the land of liberty must be content to either receive an influx of darkly pigmented impoverished immigrants, or to let its abundant agricultural harvest rot on the vine. The federal government support for education is drying up under Trump, at his direction. Too much liberal indoctrination in America's public schools, such as teaching kids to acccept everyone of all religions, sexual orientations, and political affiliations. The third pillar, broad based global access to American markets, if being drastically truncated by Trump's needless, economically stifling tariff regimen. Only a few economists favor tariff barriers anywhere at any time. Ravi Batra, in his book "The Pooring of America", points to tariffs as destructive to American national prosperity by raisng consumer prices. Its a balancing act; tariffs help protect domestic industry from foreign competition, but give consumers less choice. Certainly American exporters do not desire to run up against high tariffs in foreign markets. They want open, easily accessed foreign markets. Political stability is vital to a healthy, functioning national economy. The fact that the rule of law is a basic feature of American society, with a relatively stable political system, is not onlly beneficial to American prosperity, but essential. No politician in American history, arguably, has been more destructive to the rule of law than the current president, whose extensive criminal activity is well documented and known, but, evidently, of no importance to his cult of supporters. International trade is impossible without an international system of mutual security and cooperation. Trump, with his xenophobic policies and "America First-America alone" ideology, has undone decades of alliance building and cooperative international economics. Allies mean nothing to Trump, unless they are subservient to his positions and interests. He has alienated America's former allies. The final pillar, a politically independent and fiscally prudent monetary policy and supply is the primary purpose of the Federal reserve banking system, giving it credibility by freeing it and insulating it from all fleeting, ephemeral political considerations. Trump is the first American president, and one hopes the last one, to openly, unabashadly interfere with the fed by commenting on its monetary policies and threatening its objectivity, independence, and ultimately its effectiveness. Trump is, as the ancient saying goes, burning down teh city to rule over the ashes.For hism, simply being of service to his countty is of no value to him personaly, and therefore,quite unthinkable.

Organizing For Prosperity

SCHOLARS HAVE IDENTIFIED six principle forces, six pillars of prosperity responsible for the historical and current prosperity of the United States. They are, in no particular order: 1) Imimigration. The relatively esay access of immigrants to the United States, including foreign students who come to the U.S. to study in the world class American system of higher education. In a nation of immigrants, modern immigration keeps the fresh blood flowing, injecting American society, culture, and its economy with a constant infusion of energetice new human talent. 2) The steady and rich support by the federal government of education and basic research in many fields, including medicine, science, and technology. 3) Braod access to U.S. consumer markets for importers and their goods and services, which helps keep consumer prices lower, and gives American consumers much more choice. 4) An unwavering adherance in the United States to the rule of law, providing a stable environment for investment and economi growth.5) A firm network of geo-politica global alliances which help enhance political and thus economic stbility, both vital to prosperous economic activity. 6) A politically independent and fiscally prudent monetary policy and supply, bolsterd by the Federal Reserve banking system. Each of these vital ndconstructive features of American economic life contributes an almost immeasurable assitin ensuring the continuing economic success of the American experiemnt, such that it is. Perhaps the greatest asset of all in protection and nurturing broad based American prosperity merits mention; socialism. Social Security, perhaps the kingpin of American socialism, has liftedmillions of older people out of poverty, keeps them uout of poverty, and keeps them in the game economically, as spenders and consumers of American manufactured goods. When prosperity is widely shared, when even the poorest of the poor have some discretionary income. The wealthiest one percnt are only going to spend so much in the free market. No matter how wealthy, one only needs so much food,clothing, consumer goods and services, and shelter. Most of the concentrated wealth in the United States is being hoarded, not invested, and this does nothing to stimulate economic activity. The more widely distributed the nation's money supply is, the greater the consumer demand for goods and services, the more televisions and refirgerators ares bought and sold. When a vast amount of national wealth is concentrated in only a few extremely wealthy hands, as is currenly the case to a larger extent than at any time since the Gilded Age of the alte nineteenth century. The true economic power of America is being bottlenecked at the very top of the sociological pyramid stifling the kind of production and consumption which would unleash the greatest era of prosperity even enjoye by teh human species, at any time or place. Capitalism causes wealth to concentrate, invariably, inevitably, unless it is modified by a few fundamental socialistic measures, including a progressive taxaation system, and government action in favor of the poor, minimum wage and laborlaws, among other measures. A large impoverished underclass, such as that which exists in the U.S. consists of the working poor, and is a drag on economic growth and prosperity. Poor people don't spend, and do not help raise consumer demand for goods. Getting money into the hands of the bottom of the economic pyramid is vital, since teh bottom sis always the largest part of the whole structure. What must never be ignored is the reality that in any economic system, capitalism, socialism, or other, society can eitehr be uplifted or dragged down by the people on the bottom, on whose misery the wealthy elite often profit. We would do well to bear constantly in mind that all societies rest upon the foundation of its people, rich and poor, and that the stronger the foundation, the more likely the edifice to long endure.

Selectively Supporting Police

FROM THE BEGINNING it seemed apparent that we the American people would not take kindly to having our cities oppcupied by parading well armed federal troops, showing their power, and Trump's power, to the public. And indeed polls indicate that only about one third of Americans support the policy. Seventy eight percent of Republican support it, and an amazingly low four percent of Democrats approve. Trump may indeed be a complete moron, as most of his detractors allege, but he aint nobody's fool; he knows when to cut and run, when not to push a good thing too far. when to cut his losses. That the American people would protest vehemently against this blatant misuse of federal government presidential power was certianly predictable, in a country where most people don't want to be told what to do, including to have a good day. And that is precisely why we the American people badly need to ,indeed must keep getting out an protesting not only a particular crime committed by I.C.E., for there will doubtless be many more. Nor should we get out on teh streets and portes the very existence of I.C.E. If we are going to go to all the trouble of bundling up and freeaing our collective arses off for hours in the cold winter wind, snow, and slttet to make a point,let's mae a big one. the point we want to make, and must for the sake of America must make, is not merely that Trump has turned the I.C.E. agency into his personal Gestapo a murderous gang of thugs under his criminal control, but that the entire Trump administration is an illegal fascist regime in which all the important leaders in government are nothing ore than adoring, pandering sycophants of their icon hero, Herr Trump. When millions of us,all across America's fruited plain, from sea to shing sea,take to the streets to protest a specific crime of teh Trump administration, we might as well protest the entire criminal enterprise, the entire organized criminal movement. As is being and has been repeatedly pointed out, Trump's immediate inner circle of associates, his political party, and the entire Trump supporting conservative movement in America, most especially the religious evangelical conservative demographic, is as much responsble for America's devolution into fascism as is their fuhrer himself.That four fifths of Republicans favor the aggressive policing of the I.C.E. aremed forces is perhaps discouraging, but the fact fully one fifth of Republicans evidenly do not supprot Trump's policy may be regarded as no less encouraging. We can be sure that an overwheliming percentage of Americans,probably one hundred percent, do not want to to live in an America in which the federal government and in particular the chief executive are free to impose military martial law upon the population without very serious, very demonstrable reasons for doing so. Europeans,who have known real tyrany, are sometimes amuzed at how intolerant Americans are of the power of their own government, and at how quickly we are to push back against any form of perceived deprivation of liberty. Ex Congress person Marjorie Taylor Greene questioned whether conservatives would be so approving of how I.C.E treated the progressive Alex Pretti, with a bullet to the brain, had he turned out to be a MAGAt. It may be that in the word of Trumpland, it is perfectly acceptable for federal police to blow away far left liberal lunatics, but not good Trump loving American Christians. Kyle Rittenhouse showed up at a right wing protest with an automatic rifle and killed somebody with it. He was exonerated and regarde by conservatives as a hero. Ales Pretti carried a legally owned concealed handgun, never brandished it, and is being demonized by the right wing for somehow having caused his own death by carrying a deadly weapon. Incredible, the hypocrisy. If conservatives truly approve of Trump "going after" his enemies,as he openly does without the slighest hesitation or compunction,their approval of heavy handed presidens might take a deep dive when the next Democrat takes office, in three years.