Awakening To Rain

I was awakened in the middle of the night to the most beautiful, pleasant sound I coul dhave imagined; that of rain falling gently but steadily on the ground, and the roof of my house. Here in the great Amerian lower mid west, or the northwest south, whichever you prefer, we have been stricken with a long drought, and just in the past couple of days rain has arrived to save us. I live in the foothills to the Ozark Mountains, in heavily forested rolling hills, with many small streams and rivers, in a very small town on top of a plateau, altogether a pleasant locations and environment. I haven't travelled the world, but I have travelled the United States, and in my opinion the U.S. is an incredibly beautiful country, naturally. The human additions additions to the landscape are of course dabatable in terms of what they contribute to the landscape, whether we Americans and our America makes the land more or less attractive,is the topic of potential intense, heated, intelligent discussion and debate. The older I get, the more amenable I am to talking about the weather, or writing about it, in which case I always and inevitably include climate change in the conversation. If somebody says to me "have a nice day" I might say somethig like "this is one of those days when I kinda like climate change". If nothing else, that kind of comment has a chance of making people think.The people I pa attention to, and there really aren't all that many people in my life, either face to face or through the media, but thsoe that I know never seem to mention global warming or climate change, much less actually talk about it. And when on some rare occasion thay actually mention or talk about it, they usually fail to cut to the chase, preferring instead to make some flippant off hand semi serious or non serious blather. The fact is, as things stand no, we're toast. By "we". I mean humanity and all other species. By now there should be a comprehensive, world wide project well underway to save the planet by reversing and stopping global warming--climate change, because if we don't, we're toast. Each year is about one degree hotter than the previous. As things stand now, within five years the summers are going to be unliveable, wich daily chorching hot temperatures, week after week, month after month. It isn't going to be pleasant or pretty, and we are going to see it, soon. What we humans must do of course is to change our society, clean up the planet, and take better care of it, and ourselves. Billions of automobiles spewing tons carbon into the atmosphere every day is a dead end, and we are fast approaching it. Electric cars, mass transit, and bicycles are, we pray, saving us just in the nick of time. The remaining climate change doubters must accept reality, and notice that climate change deniers are, overwhelmingly, politically conservative and religious. When your political or religious viewpoint prevents you from acknowledging reality, like, say, climate change, you definitely have a problem, intellectually, if not emotionally. I hope I live a while longer, but know that my time is running out. While I am still here, I want to encourage myself and everybody to live joyfully and harmoniously. Although we still seem to have no real idea precisely what we and the univese are, we are sufficiently perceptive to sense its magnificence, and to be appreciative of it.

Controlling the Weather

I WAS AWAKENED in the wee hours by the most delightful, beautiful sound imagineable to me; that of a thunderstorm in progress, with rain beating down upon the roof and ground, and beautiful, rolling thunder. I have gotten into tha habit of rejoicing every time it rains in my part of the country, because in recent years, for some reason, I have developed an enhanced fear of drought, even to the point of starting to become paranoid if and when it fails to rain for a couple of weeks or so. It seems to be that over the past several years droughts have been more common and severe where I live, and that much the same is true particularly in the western part of the Unietd States, where it has traditionally, at least for the past several thousand years, rained less than in the eastern part of the country. Climate change seems obvious to me, and seems to me to be clearly happening where I live; longer, hotter summers, shorter, milder winters. Worst of all is when spring consists of that one day of perfect weather between bitter windy winter and hot, humid, dry summer, as one of my professors put it. To me climate change seems to be happening extremely fast, and I begin to wonder exactly how much more climate change I will live to see, at seventy one, in good health, with a world of medical marvels supporting me, at least supposedly. One thing I think I have noticed is that humanity is not solving the global warming climate change crises fast enough. A lot of hat, and no cattle, as they say in Texas. Your average Joe on the street doesn't even seem to know or care that within a few short years, Earth's environment will collapse, by which is meant that the climate of the whole planet will change drastically, and become more violent, with supercharged straight line winds and storms. Drought stricken areasr will becoem even more dessicated, monsoon and storm seasons around the world will intensify, as the number and strength of tornadoes and hurricanes increases with the extra heat energy in the atmosphere. At leasr twenty five yeras ago I read a comment from Dr. Michio Kaku to the effect that humanity will eventually be able to control the weather, and will therefore do pecisely that. I wonder if he still believes that, and, if so, if he has any notion at all of precisely this will be accomplished and expidited. Something will have to be done about sea level rise, which, if we don't do something to stop it, will within a few decades inundate millions square miles of land in ocean water, cutting deep into human habitat, unless of course our descendants decide to build cities on and under the oceans. Currently the world is experiencing a mysterious absence of hurricanes in the middle of Atlantic hurricane season, knock on wood. Somehow you sense that thi is only a temporary phenomenon, that all too soon, the hurricane machine will ramp back up, and start turning out storms off the African coast and send them across the Atlantic, just like normal. "Normal" climate patterns are changing, partly due to natural forces, partly because of human activity, and those who refuse for ideological reasons to accept this verified reality are only deceiving themselves, and giving themselves a good excuse to do nothing to help.

Leaving A Trace

ONE THING I DO is write and publish online one page of non fiction prose each and every day, at a minimum. If nothing else, some future historian might learn something from it; the personal habits of the early twenty first century American lower classes, or something like that. Sometimes I wish everybody would write his or her autobiography, or make a film describing his or her life.At the moment, admittedly, there doesn't seem to be any doubt that our current early twenry first century historical epoch will be well remembered and documented, magnitudes of times better recorded and woven into the fabric of human history than any and all periods of time before. I am a historian, and taught history for years at various schools, to various grade levels,and am painfuully aware of the propensity of young people to be disinterested in history. Let's remember that the way to make history interesting to young people is to make it interesting and fun, which it inherently is in any event, so, perhaps the task of a history teacher is simply to avoid ruining history by making it boring drudgery and work. In my days in graduate school studying European history I was required to take a class called "Historiogralhy" in my masters degree program. The class is essentially a sutdy of the historical professions, the "history of history" so to speak. It turned dout ot be an interesting class, learning about the most prominent, seminal historians and their works within the particular area of history, in my case, modern Europe (1815-present). Early modern Europe is usually considered to be from 1500, when several features of our modern western civilization emerge and come into play, to the preent. At least, that was the classification scheme in 1980 when I got my masters degree, and I think it still is. The Protestant Reformation, the rise of nation states, the economic expansion of Europe, and European colonialism characterizes the changes around that time which ushered in the modern world. History is a story told by a storyteller, usually in a book.I love listening to a good history lecture more than reading a good history book, although its close. Our (my) descndants might marvel that we in the early twenty first century still got in our cars, and drove hundreds and thousands of miles at high rates of speed, and that world wide, approximately one million people die doing this, and that yet, this doesnt seem to faze us, each day we pile into our cars and go speeding off down the road, wherever we wish. Surely that situation won't continue much longer. How can it? Trying to drive cars which spew no deadly poison into the atmosphere is crucial, and the best bet might be to quit driving these individual vehicles altogether, to rely entirely on mass public transportation. IN the long ago year twenty twenty six we were still damaging the Earth's ecosystem, but becoming increasingly aware of the harm, and tryng to change our ways, which, with any luck, and, we had better hope, happens fast. One milllion people killed in car crahses every year is hard to believe. When I consider that I was born and lived during the era in which people started traveling in outer space, I feel grateful. It is encouraging that there are conversations ongoing concerning threats to life on Earth and how to mitigate them. I want to leave more than a mere trace. I want to leave a thriving, healthy human culture.

Preserving Ourselves

THE PROSPECTS for human survival, which is a topic of great interest to me, are, in my opinion, fair to decent. Obviously the greatest threat to human existence is humanity itself, through nuclear war, bio-chemical or chemical warfare; we humans have a seemingly unlimited number of ready to go self made suicide methods for our species. When you consider that that human history has almost been a constant litany of warfare, and you consider the human propensity for organized violence of all kinds, one can only logically conclude that our species is perfectly capable, and arguably perpetually on the brink of self extermination. Obviously, the human species is nowhere near getting rid of war in general. It seems to be too deeply ingrained, built into our basic instincts and behavior as a species of defensive, often violent, predatory animals. We have been assured by none other than Bill Gates himself that as of now, nowhere in the world is there Artificial Intelligence of any sort which has escaped, gotten out of the lab, and is acting independently, on its own, without human supervision. Comforting as this is, it might not be quite comforting enough for some, myself included. I am thinking about the speed with which Artificial Intelligence appears to be advancing, progressing constantly, virtually guaranteeing that within the next few years, computers of remarkable power and intelligence will become part of our lives, one way or the other. Precisely what way is, of course, the penultimate question. What Bill Gates did not tell you, but what he knows very very well, is that the cat is out of the bag, the cow is out of the barn, the computer is out of the laboratory, out from under human control, and, at this point it appears highly likely that computers will start reprogramming themselves, communicating with each other, thinking for themselves, and developing their own ideas and strategies, and making their own plans. Another question is; will we humans be part of those plans? Bill Gates acknowledged in an interview that computer technology, Artificial Intelligence, is advancing at a super fast, prodigious rate, all over the world, without any sort of global cooperation or agreements among people and nations concerning what the ultimate goal is, what we humans are trying, exactly, to do with all this computer machine intellihence. I for one, would like to know. For one thing, let's keep computer power and Artificial Intelligence out of the hands of petty tyrants, dictators, and criminals and madmen who would only use it to take advantage of and hurt other people. Who precisely, if anybody, among human beings, can be trusted to have control over powerful computers? Can computers ever be trusted to have self control? That's a question we may need to think about before its too late, if it isn't already.

Worshiping Alone

THIS WEEK I failed to arrangement for a ride to church, and since I really don't care much for driving, I think I'll stay home and appreciate, revere, and give thanks for this amazing life in the privacy of my own home,and the internet.One does not have to go to church to express love, gratitude, and admiration for the supreme being. "My religiosity consists in humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself..." as Einstein wrote so eloquently. The most truly spiritual people probably don't really need or have a strong desire to attend church, but rather, to contemplate the amazing universe in which we live, the miracle of nature. Which raises the question: "why does the universe, why does anything exist"? And, of course, it may well be that nothing exists, that this seeming life in this apparent universe is nothing more or less than a dream, the great dream of the great dreamer.I can have a nice little worship service here at home, alone with my cat Mandi.It will be entirely mental, contemplative, and brief. My true form of existential appreciation this morning will turn out to have been in part my time exercising on my treadmill, which, after a couple of cups of good coffee, I am definitely in the mood for. Caffeine seems to be my drug of choice. I drink regular coffee every morning, and then burst forth upon the world in a glorious blaze of activity, usually exercise. This is a gorgeous day, warm and sunny, a good day to go running outside. For the time being, however, I think I'll hop on the treadmill and look out the kitchen window as I slowly but steadily turn up the speed on the machine and end up getting a good work out. This is also a great day to go out to the lake, and maybe hike or jog the trails, or along the highway, and it is a great day to merely walk out the front door, and start walking jogging or running along the road, at whatever pace feels best. As almost all regular runners doubtless know, whn running one can actually lapse into or settle into a sort of meditative zen state, with a very clear mind, and the oxygen producing mental state of exhileration, or "runner's high". Its very real, and its very pleasant,largely because of knowing that you have earned it. If we humans manage to avoid destroying each other, our dscendants might have an opportunity to enjoy a wonderful existence, bucolic, artistic, richly culturally rewarding, adding ever more to what they inherit from us. Einstein was once asked to contribut a message to a time capsule to be opened in one hundred years, sometime in the middle of this century. He wrote: "If you have not become kinder and more compassionate than we were, may the devil take you." Based on that criteria, you'd have to say that there seems to be a good chance that the devil will take us. Amazingly, we humans do indeed seem to be becoming less violent, more peaceful, over the centuries, statistically. Hard to believe, but statistically true. So, maybe there is hope. I like going to church and in the future will probably, for the most part, go. But I also relish being at home with a hot cup of coffee and a soft warm fuzzy kitten. There is still tiem to go to church if I decide I am willing to drive over there. Wither way, the important thing is to anjoy and appreciate completely every moment of every single day, which can be difficult but is always possible, and do basically the same thing at home I would be doing in church, giving thanks.

Accepting Climate Change

ONE OF THE PRIMARY PURPOSES of this essay website is to clearly highlight and elucidate the reality of global warming, climate change, call it whatever you may. Whatever you choose to call it, or whether you choose to accept the reality of it,it very obviously, conspiculously exists. I have been closely monitoring climate change where I live, which is southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas. The basic fact, the basic reality, is this; you simply cannot do what we humans do on this planet without changing its ecosystem by pumping billions of kilowatts of heat into the atmosphere on a daily basis. We need to change our societal ways, and we ar beginning to do it. The question is, are we converting to a non fossil fuel energy economy rapidly enough? Solar energy is above all other kinds what we most need to develop and increase. In a single sunny day, solar energy pours into the Earth's atmosphere enough free, clean energy to run the planet for more than a single day. For much more, in fact. It should, with the development of solar energy, be possible to provide more than enuogh energy for everyone. The answer to climate change is to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Apparently, the necessary technology to accomplish this is now within striking distance of our scientific understanding and development, We humans began putting carbon into the atosphere in serious amounts since the eigtheenth cenutry, when the industrial revolution, witih its massive numbers of coal burning plants and stoves, spread throughout Europe, polluting the atmosphere, blackening the air, concentrating the manufactured wealth in the hands of a vanishingly small elite, and ruthlessly exploited the masses with the tyrannical, dictatorial imposition of brute labor and low wages. People who don't want to redistribute the manufactured waleh of modern society throughout society relatively equallly are of course teh ure capitalists, those who do want to have the government redistribute the wealth can be anything from centrists to liberals, to socialists to communists. depending on dagree. For some people to have more material or financial wealth then others is perfectly understandable, in a capitalist economy. Absolute economy equality is, most folks now believe, impractival to implement and operate effetively. A society in which everyone has a chanve to make a meaningful contribution through work, and in which everybody is guaranteed a minimum standard of living regardless of circumstances is worth striving for, still, and always. Scientists tell us that we can't do much no about stopping or reversing climate change, that instead we will have to work on developing ways of coping with it. That means living on a hotter planet, one on which both polar icecaps have vanished, melted into ocean water. A snow and ice free world.. My grreat grand children may hear funny strange stories from the past in which his great great grandfather bruised his knee in high school sledding during Christmas break, 1972-73. There will come a time, soon, unless we do something, when there will no more snow and ice on Earth, it will have all melted. I think we should do everything in our power to reverse and stop climate change, while adjustng to it.

Changing Our Behavior

SPONTANEOUS EXPRESSION has its value, within limits. Class, your assignment today is to write a one page essay describing what you did last summer, and why. Its due at the end of class today. Begin. Conversation tends to be spontaneous expression, since one never knows what one's conversation partner is going to say, and a response must be created on the spot. Spontaneous essay writing is probably theraputic, on some level. One can even forget to bring or lose one's reading glasses, and get by. My thoughts invariably return to climate change, at some point, but I can write about many other topics also. Getting rid of Putin, Trump, and several current world leaders is a project worthy of widespread acceptance and support, using the pen, always, and never the sword. I really want my future, remaining conversations with people to be rwearding, agreeable, and worthwhile. To meet that criteria, a conversation does not have to include climate change. However, any conversation which does include climate cahnge, between any two people, is beneficial, because it increases people's awareness of the situation, awareness of the dreadful current situation we are in regarding the Earth's ecosystem, climate system, the health of its land, air, and water, the health of the planet generally, ecologically, environmentally. Although you cannot honestly, verifiably say that the Earth's environmental health is good, you certainly can say that it could sure as hell be a lot worse, if we keep going the way we are now, and don't change our behavior, a lot, fast. I also need to remember that when I talk about this, I am talking primarily to myself, knowing that I can imporove my behavior alone and nobody else's. At some point, for instance, it probably would be a good idea to give up driving, if I live that long. I really don't think I want to be driving a car when I am one hundred, if I live that long. Our internal combustion engine cars need to disappear fast, and be replaced with electric cars, mass transit, or whatever. Bicycles are best. In this, as well as many other ways, the United States should be more like Japan, China, and Europe. What I see as I approach the end of this life is a planetary ecosystem suffering and collapsing because of human activity, pollution of all kinds, as we seem to be plumeting towards our self destruction. At this point I hope I live to be a hundred, close to it, or whatever. At seventy one I am in good shape and health, and I think I can function well, productively, and independently for a long time to come. I want to live long enough to see the day when we humans know for sure that global warming and climate change are not a threat, and that we humans have found ways to stop them. Human nature is complicated, with destructive and creative impulses both. If we choose wisely, our species can survive.

Enjoying Fall

I LOVE THESE BEAUTIFUL soft warm, lazy autumnal days, when it gets close to eighty in the day time and down to about fifty at night, nice and crisp. Although some nice, steady, soaking rain would be wonderul, and is just what we need in our drought stricken part of the country, it is nonetheless a beautiful day, if a bit warm for this time of year. As I keep mentioning, the monthof October over teh past coupld of decades has tansitioned from being primarily a cold weather month, to being a predominately warm weather month, almost like an extension of a never ending summer. A never ending summer is precisely what is predicted according to climate change theory, aas climate science. The way things are going, the general trend in recent years, has been for the winters to be less frigid, warmer, and the sumrers to be longer, dried, and hotter, as if we really neeed any more of all that. I can remember more than sixty years of weather, close to seventy, and yes, it certainly seems to me that the climate where I live has changed, quite a bit, and I would hazard a guess that most folks in my general age category (I am 71, a baby boomer) would agree with me, that over the past fifty years, the climate in the lower mid west has definitely changed, with summer getting hotter and longer, and less cold ans snow in the winter time. Around her we used to get snow several times each winter, if only a couple of inches most of the time, real soft and fluffy, the kind that melts fast once it starts to melt. I can remembr when September was always either about ten degrees cooler and less humid than August, but it seems nowadays that September has changed totally into a summer month, more like August, with not a trace of Autumn. Like most people, spring and fall are my two favorite seasons, although I have nothing against summer or winter. WE have many deciduous trees where I love, and they often become beautiful in their bright fall colors. this year, though, is bound to be a disappointment, because with our continuing extreme drought, most of the leaves are gonig to be on the ground vry soon. They are falling fast, helped by the drought. My sister and I used to joke about the fact that our mother talked incessantly about the weather. in any conversation she got involved in, the weather was almost certain to be mentioned, because mother would almost certainly mention it. I seem to be becoming that way myself, late in life; weather oriented, nearly always have something to say about it during a normal, everyday converstation. I love and appreciate the beautiful diversity of weather we have here, hoping that our future weather is pleasant if at times volatile, and that the changes it makes are likewise pleasant.

Reversing Climate Change

EVERYDAY I see a new layer of leaves covering the yard. Each late afternoon, when the leaves are dry and the hot October summer temperature starts to go back down below ninety ( and yes, its crazy having ninety degree daily temperatures), I spend a little while raking up leaves, raking them into small piles, then, putting them in garbage cans, sometimes it seems like one leaf at a time. Maybe this is what's keeping me off the streets and out of trouble. The drought we have been having in the American mid south is quite serious in my yard, and, pesumably, everywhere else within a few hundred miles of Mo-Kan Ok-Ark region to which I am long accustomed. One of the arguments I use trying to convince conservative, climate deniers and idiots that climate change is very real is that I don't have to wait for somebody or anybody to tell me about it, to tell me that climate change - global warming is real: I am experiencing it in my own back yard, daily. If I can do it, anybody can do it. This current early Autumn drought is as far as I can recall the most severe drought we have ever had durig this time of year, and is becoming one of the msot severe drought at any time of the year around here. I recently heard a number given for the percentage of Americans who deny that climate change is real, who believe, or claim to believe, that global warming is a lie, a hoax, a liberal trick of some sort. We have all heard or heard of people who actually believe that nonsense, or say they do, for some reason, perhaps because they value stupidity as a human virtue. IN the U.S.A., climate change deniers are always, invariably, political conservative. Of all the seemingly non- sensical, insane claims made by internet types and American conservatives is that climate change, global warming, is a trick, a hoax,a ploy by American liberal Democrats to give more power to the government, or something like that. Recet polls tend to indicate, I believe, that the percetage of conservtive American who deny climate change is decreasing, and that the percentage of conservatives who accept and acknowledge it as reality is slowky but stedily increasing, thank heavens. There will come a time, fairly soon, when people will be amazed when they read history books about the early twenty first century, and discover the shocking number of people who refused to accept climate reality, preferring to embrace an obviouslly false version of reality while ignoring and thus doing nothing to help actually fight climate change by doing something about it. That, we are indeed capable of; doing something about global warming, namely, stopping it. It would help immmensely if the whole population would "get on board" and encouage the global effort required. We can do this, but only together, all humanity.

Still Obsessing

EVERYONE would agree that a person needs to stay busy to stay happy. That's especially important when one is quite young, and when one is quite old. Both physical and mental activity are necessary to stay sharp and healthy. The old people who never stop moving seem to be the ones who live the longest. AS I age ( I am now seventy one, and doing well), I am, probably justfiably, increasingly proud and grateful to be at this particulae age, which has been my lifelong tendency; the older I am, the cooler I am, and whatever age I am, that's the right age for me to be, the proper age. I have a feeling of having been born at the right time, and living my life in perhaps the best time of all time. To have been fourteen years old, a bright and curious teenager, when Armstrong walked on the moon was exhilerating, exciting and the memory of it remains the same nearly sixty years later. My good luck in life started early; I was born asthmatic, with allegedly weak lungs. I had asthema pretty bad a few times, and spent time in what they then called an "oxygen tent" if you happen to know what those were and perhaps still are. My parents told me that they asked the doctor whether I would live, and she said yes, he'll grow out of the asthema. Darned if she wasn't right. By the time I graduated high school asthema was long behind me. I am grateful to have grown out of it. IN fact I hae big, strong athletic lungs, "runners lungs" if you will, as if over my life time I have been compensating for my lungs shaky beginning by growing big and strong. Actually, I have been exercising vigoroslsy my entier life time, starting when I was a little ied, and loved running around, chasing balls, playing games, etc..At my local seior center they have a wide variety of activities involving exercise for the members, which is vital cn crucial for the health of a good senior center. They have a little physcial fitness room in the back, which doubles as a storage room. It has a couple of stationary exercycles, and treadmill, and one of those skiing machine, whwer you move you rfeet and legs on thess pedastals as fi you were skiiing or skating or something. I haven't don much of it so far, but I have tried it a little, and I can tell that its great exercise. Maybe I can gradually work into it, start using the ski machine, since, after all, we have one.

Raking Leaves, Again

SINCE I HAVE about twenty mature deciduous trees in my yard, I have a lot of leaves on the ground every fall, and I have a variety of strategies for dealing with them. My favorite strategy is to do nothing, and let the leaves accumulate in the yard. When I resume mowing in March, I begin the process of chopping the leaves to bits, which, once begun, tends to proceed rapidly. By the end of March or April, scarcely a trace of last year's leaves remains. They have degraded into the soil, nourishing it. The best thing about raking leaves, my favorite thing, is that its good exercise.If I can put in an hour of leaf raking every day throughout the autumn, the leaves are gone by Christmas, if not before. I want to leave most of them, for fertilizer. Also, day after day of leaf raking should help my fitness level, which is already good, my being an exercise and fitness enthusiast, By Thanksgiving the yard should look good, and I should be in good shae. My mother worked in her yard for a couple of hours nearly every day, and held down a full time job as a nurse, working the night shift as the head nurse in a big hospital. I never moved my mother's yard when I was cgrowing up. She did it, almost as if she enjoyed doing it. I so, I can understand why. I like mowing my yard, and its a pretty big one, maybe one third to one half of an acre. I do it all with a push mower, and it takes about an hour, of great exercise. No matter. if I ever gave or give anybody any advice at all, its to exercise, somehow some way. No matter who you are, you need exercise, as all humans and other animals do. In his literary classic "Candide" Voltaire uses hte expression "we must tend our gardens" This pharse is actually the central theme of this great novel, highly recommended. I like stationary bicycles and treadmills, and I have one of each at home. Then, they also have one of each at the senior center, two blocks from my house, where I go for lunch five days a week. The senior center food is decicious, and the exercise machines help me avoid gaining a lot of weight from all that delicious food they serve at lunch. As I age my appetite doesn't seem to be decreasing, with all those carbs and calories is certain to start decreasing as I age if it hasn't already. I recoil in horror when I think how much weight I could and undoubtedly would gain without any exercise, and all that genroud amount of deciduous high calorie food. Then too, there is tha "Snack Cake" table, which doesn't do much good in helping anybody, including me, lose weight and keep it off. Exercising, in some way, shape, or fashion, is one of the things I hope to keep doing the rest of my life. It helps to start young, of coures, middle aged people who suddenly decide to start exercising and become paragons of body shape and fitness often run into trouble eary on, when they fully realize exactly how much hard work and daily devotion this requires. In order to become and stay physically fit, one must love and enjoy exercise for its own sake, for the sake of exercise. One must enjoy the sweat, shortness of breath, fatigue. ahve afreind ho, when I mentioned ot him that his cigarette smoking wasnt going to do his health any god, replied that "something's gonna kill you". True enough, but does that mean that we ought to kill ourselves? The treadmill and exercycle are just fine, just wonderful, but I yearn for the wooded trail at dawn or dusk.

Setting Things Straight

I'M AT THE STAGE OF LIFE where/when I want to make things right, set things straight, by which I mean resolve and end all outstanding quarrels and disputes, of which, as far as I can think, I have few or none. I have always tried to avoid conflict with my fellow pugnacious human beings, though I am certainly quite capable of engaging in it. With Trump and the Repbulicans, for instance, I can merely agree to disagree. No actual conflict of any sort necessary. With my aprents, God rest their sweet souls, who despised FDR while he was alive and president, and kept despising his memory the rest of their lives, because FDR was a damned democratic socialiss rather than a good, solid Republican capitalist,I simply spent my life disgreeing pleasantly with them, since FDR remains to this day among my greatest heroes. My parents voted Nixon over Kennedy, did not like LBJ or Jimmy Carter, my mother half made fun of Bill Clinton, half liked his looks, and my father, who was dead before Clinton took office, would most assuredly have hated the brash Arkansan's guts had he lived to see them. Certain that my parents and grandparents never voted for a Democrat, I am even more equally sure that I have never voted for a Republican, and never will. Actually, my senior year of high school, 1972-73, my friends and I were roaming the hallowed hallways chanting--whispering "re elect the presdent", being as we were overall very very satisfied with Nixon's first term in office, not without some degree of justification, and we wanted four more years of the same. What we got, of course, was considerably different than our expectations. I dropped Tricky Dick like a bad habit by graduation day, as I recall, early enough to save face, at least in the mirror. Never since have I voted for any Republican, and not in my wildest moments of freelance fantasy can I even remotely imagine myself ever voting Republican again. Never, of course, say "never". I can recall when the two parties were more alike than different, a certain "Tweddle Dee Tweedle Dum" arrangement, back before Reagan, who really and truly turned the Republican party to the right. And whereas there has always been a "far eft" socialist wing of tne party of Andrew Jackson, it has never managed to gain a strong, powerful position of dominance or leadership within the vastly diverse Democratic Party. Of course, neither has anyone else. Our modern Democrats seem fearful and terribly reluctant to embrace once again the putright socialism of FDR, or even the strong liberalism of LBJ. The JFK centrist semi-liberal approach has gained preeminence within the party of Jackson, for safety reasons. There is a bigger slice of the American electorate waiting to be carved ouf of the center and slightly left of center than way over there on the far left, which, ironically, is precisely where a goodly number of Americans already are, on the far left, or are heading. Every European country has a complete range of political parties, from far right to far left, and must, in order to accomplish anything, form pro tem ad hoc coalitions, forever shifting as circumstances seem to dictate. Maybe that's what we need in ye olde U.S. of A, what with our huge country, disparity of ideologies, and rough hewn, either-or system of realistic political choices and options.. But if you are off the well trod spectrum, if you fail or refuse to submit your political self to the existing template, good luck, you're on your own in America, relegated to the baskwaters of the body politick and maintream political America, at home, and at ballot box. So welcome to the club, the great American political free for all.

Being Grateful

I PREPARED to be picked up for church by putting a pair of cammo fatigues military pants, and a bright red T shirt with a college logo. Around here, that's dressed up, or at least you can get by with it. The message I have for myself, and for everybody else is that its all good, all is well. The universe, and life within it, is as it should be. I am grateful, and I intend to make gratitude teh main theme of my church going experience from now on. An attitude of gratitude, an expression I am sure has been used often. I fully embrace it. Later this afternoon, the local "Autumnfest" weekend activity will wrap up.It has been a lot fo fun, as always...And it came to pass that church went very well for me, as it ueually does. There ware a total of eight people in the building for the service, including the clergy. It was a fine service, and in a way its too bad that more people didn't attend. Every once in a while I am chosen to lead the Pledge of Allegiance and say the prayer at lunch at the local senior center. I am always happy to do it, I never make any direct reference to any certain religion, or any religion at all, I simply tell "God" that I am grateful for evyrhything I have in this amazing, wondrous thing we call "life", or a lifetime, I love and appreciate Him for giving it to me, I say. I always make sure I give great thanks to God. I have alwas enjoying praying, as I remember, even when I was a little kid, when I eas basically forced to do it by society, with my parent's evident approval. My parnts, I firmly beilve,were firmly opposed to influencing their children's religious evolution, and decided that kids could eevol their own religious views, over time, without any instruction, guidance, or persuasion. Nobody helping the kids, unless the kids ask for it. Both of my grandmothers were born in the late nineteenth century, and were strict, straight, stong Victorian women if ever there were such, and there were. They both wore dresses every day, dresses with long sleaves and the skirt nearly touching the ground, covering everything, ankles, feet, etc. One thing of which I am crtain; both of my grandmothers would be thrilled to knwo that I am going to church nearly every week, and have been doing so for at least a couple of years now. Whether they would approve of either the Unitarian or Presbyterian chucrh I cannot say; by the tiem I got through explaining to them that I didn't trn out to be a Christian in my adult years, they might be a bie disappointed, but they certianly shouldn't be surprised. During their lifetimes I never showed up at their churches, or any churches really, except for a few times here ane there. I was never forced to go to church when I was a child under eighteen,, but I was probably encouraged a tiem or two, evne though Is houldn't have been and probably was evident to both of my parents that I was simply not going to turn out to b a big time religious person, a devout Christian, and,I didn't. However, I believe in God and I am grateful, to God, if nothing else. "The infinitely superior spirit" as Einstein called God, whcih seems beautiful to me.

Community Gatherings

I CHOSE TO LIVE in a tiny town near a much latger university town because I wanted to be close to a hustling bustling metropolis, while enjoying the relatively bucolic, quiet environment of small town America. I wanted to best of both worlds, and, after more than twenty years of trial, have decided that I achieved my goal twenty one years, ago, and have indeed been blessed with the best of two disticnely different universes; a small town, insular, seemingly unchanging, dormant, juxtaposed againt a frenecic college town of aobut one hundred thousands permanent residents, and more than thirty thousand university students. After all these years, I am still not sure whether, when the population figure of about one hundred thousand is given for the town-city, it does or does not include the tens of thosusands of collee college students. I believe, if I am not mistaken that it does not, that the one hundred thousand city population doe not include collged students wo come from other towns and states, and are living here only temporarily, only because they are going to school here. During my forty five years here, it has grown from a small college small town to a big university big town, there has been, in essence, a forty year economic and growth boom, which is still ongoing, making me wonder if and when it will ever end. It will have to, at some point, correct? Ther is only so much land here, just like everywhere else. A going up everywhere on a daily basis.S more people move here, construction, both residential and business, continues to keep pace, with new housing subdivisions. Its been that way for decades, one new subdivision after another, as thousand of people, thirty to forty people every day, decide to move into Northwest Arkansas. This week is "Autuman Fest"in my town of just over two thousand people, and its quite a shin dig, so to wpeak. The senior sells an amazing, unbelievable breakfast for eight dollars, up from seven dollars a year ago,in our age of inflation, but still, worth every penny and then some.I got mine for free, because I volunteered to work at teh event, my official duty being garbage. My jos is to take the big black plastics sacks full of gargabe out of the garbage cans, and out to the dumpster at the back of teh parking lot. An important job, one of those somebody's gotta do it jobs,and I accept it, with relish. The breakfast served by the Senior Center includes alt he basics, eggs, bacon, biscuit 'n gravy, sausage, a big paper plate loaded with carbs and calories, recommended for anybody and everybody. My recenly sprained ankle slowed me dow a bit, but it didn't stop me. I managed to walk the three blocks to the senior center, to avoid adding my car to the traffic jam, was offered a free breakfast as I knew I would be, acceped it as I knew I could, and devoured it with relish, as I knew I would. My plan a Saturday college football tok center stage was to repeat the process tomorrow, to walk back over to the snior center for their finale the Sunday morning eight dollar breakfast. Usually they ake close to two thousand a year with this wonderul, fun activity-event. Its good and healthy for me to participate in community activities, to break up the monotony of my alone time, which I love, in limited amounts. Even loners are social animals, and most people claim to be loners. When Autuman Fest is over on Sunday evening, Monday morning, the town quickly returns to normal, quiet and slow. And I appreciate it more than ever, because of the big party being over, my life again quiet and slow.

Trump. Becoming Authoritarian, PART !!

Donald Trump, we can all agree, likes having power, and either wants to become an authoritarian president, or already has. There are certain steps necessary to achieve this, and, arguably, Trump has already taken them all, or is about to. The first step is to expand his own power as president, which in essence means expanding the power of the office of the presidency for future presidents, since everything that an American president does is a precedent for future chief executives. The first step is, and has been for Trump, to expand the executive power of the president, by taking actions as president which are highly questionable in terms of being legal,arguable either way. Then, assuem and take a chance that Congress will do nothing about it, nothing to stop or reign in an activist, questionably constitutional presedent. And indeed, Trump has blatantly overstepped his authority, pushed the boundaries of what is legal beyond what is reasonable, and audaciously acted in violation of the law and the legislative branch,upon numerous ocassions. So far, he has gotten away with it. A vital step towards an American president becoming an authoritarian president is to "capture" the other two branches of government, most eaisly by simply having a majority of their members, members of the judiciary, and members of congress, of the same political party and political proclivities as the president, to serves as his rubber stamp,rather than offering any opposition to his agenda and policies. An authoritarian president in the U.S. would need to have Congress and the courts on his side, as Trump certainly does. In fact, Trump, for all intents and purposes, has both Congress and SCOTUS eating out of the palm of his lecherous hand. Nexy, a would be pesieential tyrnat must break, ruin, destroy the power of the rest of the federal government, including Congress, SCOTUS, and all the executive and legislative agencies which operate freely. Break the government, fire everybody, and replace the vanquished with loyalists, precisely as Trump has done. Install all around you and throughout the immese bureaucratic apparatus of the government with legions of groveling, sycohantic, pandering loyalists, just as Trump has done and continues to do. Currently, the U.S. government is Trump's government. A successful, effective authoritarian American president must attack truth and free expression, neither of which are likely to be on his side. A successful tyrant in the modern world needs a strong, crafty, shrewd propaganda machine behind him, supporting him, just as Trump has. Not only must our petty tyrant attack and discredit truth to govern authoritatively, but he must invent, create and promulgate an entirely alternate reality, and spoon feed it to his cleverly oppressed subjects. Part of this includes creating an enemy, an enemy of the great leader, and therefore an enemy of the people, and of the state, and the nation. Trump, as you know, is a master at creating and accumulating enemies. He seems to enjoy it, and does it remarkably well. Vulnerable communities must be scapegoated, blamed for the fuhrer's failures. Trump really has it in for the "radical extreme left", of which there is actually little to none in America. The final step in the elevation of an elected president to that of petty authoritarian tyrant involves the use of state violence, and the normalization of it. Every protest against Der Fuhrer is a riot, and must be quelled, immediately. Trump is doing a decent job, by the book, of cleverly, subtlely, sneakily elevating imself to an authoritarian head of state. We'll see how far we the American people let him continue his pathway to authoritarianism.