Beginning To Awaken

IN 1960, over sixty three percent of eligible voters voted in the Kennedy -Nixon presidential election, which JFK won by a whisker, and probably won only because the democrat party machine in Chicago rigged the vote count there. By 1976, the percentage of eligible voters who voted in the Ford-Carter presidential election fell to fifty three percent. Surveys indicated that a majority of the American people in 1976 believed that the government cared nothing about them, and would do nothing to help them. The assassination of President Kennedy, the disastrous war in Viet Nam, and the Watergate scandal undoubtedly contributed to a decrease in the faith the people had in government. In the nineteen seventies president Carter tried to restore faith in government, and so did Ronald Reagan in teh nineteen eighties, and both did, to a certain extent, but the wars in the middle east in the nineteen nineties and the first decade of the new century, plus economic decline, contributed to more distrust, and seperation, between the American people and their central government. It could very well be that a citizenry disillusioned with politics, and pseudo-intelligent discussions of politics in the entertainment media, grew tired of it all and turned its attention to entertainment, gossip, celebrity fantasy culture, and a million schemes for self help coming at us from all directions. It is as if the corporate rulers of America want to drown the American public in an avalanche of inane banality, to distract the millions of potentially sovereign citizens from their exploited lives, and any thought of doing anything to exercise real political power of any sort. Another reason for the abandonment of the political system might be the fact that people have figured out that it does not work, the wishes of the American people are seldom heard, or implemented. Most American do not want to spend huge sums of money on the military merely to maintain a worldwide empire, which most Americans do not want. And most Americans want relief, of some kind, from their unacceptable health insurance situation. If Obamacare isn't the answer, neither is the system the way it it now, which is the way its been for a long time. What we hav enow has been tried, and it does nto work well enough, and the people atn something done about it. the fact that we have managed to enact even a mildly socialistic health care insurance program is amazing, in the face of corporate power. Maybe, just maybe, the mere fact that the Affordable Care Act was even passed is a sign that the people are beginning to awaken from their decades long political slumber. One can hope.

Making It Work

IF YOU HAPPEN to own a health insurance company, the worst thing that can possibley happen to you, presumably, is having no customers, or not enough customers, to stay in business. The next worst thing, logical extrapolation tells us, is that all your customers are old and sick. Out there in the market place, among all who do not currently have health insurance, in other words, out there among your potential new customers, you may end up noticing that all your salespeople have more luck gaining new customers from among the old and sick than from among the young and healthy. Your supervisor, aware of this, frets and fumes, urges you to hit the young and healthy hard, and do what you can. Such is the nature of all insurance. A large pool of customers is assembled, whether in health insurance, auto, home, or other, and the strong carry the weak. The good drivers, the solidly built houses with good fire protection, the firm healthy human bodies; these are the customers who pay the premiums bu do not utilize the service, these are the customers who provide the profit margin. And you have to have them, the good customers, becuase you have to have the profit margin. Unless, of course,you have universal, socialized insurance, in which case, no profit is needed, only fundamental solvency. Because of this inherent structure wherein the low risks support the high risks, the strong carrying the weak, you could almost, if you look at it just the right way, see that the very nature of the insurance industry, even in its most privatized, captialistic form, is underpinned by a certain "socialistic" framework, as the strong pay their way, and other's, while the high risks receive most of the claim pay outs. As obamacare kicks in, the concern is that all across America, millions of old sick people will sign up, and millions of young healthy folks will stay away. A "death spiral", its called, within the business. Conservative free market loving republicans types perhaps feel that there'll be too many old sick high risk "free loaders" in any socialized system, but really, they exist in any system, public or private, regardless of screening. If you screen out too many people, high risk or not, privately, you'll not have enough customers to create a customer pool. So, the old and sick will always be among you, and, for the most part, it will, sooner or later, include us all. And therein lies the one compelling reason for maintaining one, single, huge pool of insurance customers, indlucing everybody, by law. It creates the widest possible distribution of risk. NO competition? NO Problem. Operate the system as efficiently as possible, and, if and when there is a profit, consider it a signal that rates are a bit too high, and if there is a sortfall, a sign that rates need be raised a bit. At one time or other, nearly all of us are young and healthy, and then, old and sick. IN any insurance scheme, private or public, we are all, whether like it or not, working together. We might as well make it work, together.

Getting To the Truth

WHEN THOMAS JEFFERSON was about forty five years old, he started a relationship with a girl who was either fourteen or fifteen, and the relationship lasted almost forty years, until Jefferson died. The girl was one of Jefferson's many slaves, and although she was only one quarter black, and looked white, she was considered black, and was therefore a slave. They never got married; they hid the relationship, even though it was perfectly obvious to anybody who knew Jefferson. Jefferson's enemies accused him of bestiality, and his friends just looked the other way. The most incredible thing about this story is that a very high majority of historians who have written about Jefferson have claimed that the relationship never happened, that it was just an unfounded rumor, believe it or not. Only recently have a few brace scholars dare accpet the truth, and tell the truth. Some of the greatest historians in American history havbe written about Jefferson, denying the truth. Their reasons are fascinatingly lmae: Jefferson was much too much a gentlemen to have done anything like that. The story was made up. The problem is, there were five or six kids, children of the slave Sally Hemmings, who looked exactly like TJ, and many of their descendants are around today, and I believe, although I'm not certain, that DNA tests have been done, which confirm Jefferson's paternity. Jefferson himself was quite the racist, and we tend to overlook that. If we are going to teach about certain people in school s and history books because these people are so important, then, exactly what should we teach about them? The important things about them, certainly. That leaves it open to judgment, to a point. But above all else, we must, one would think, teach and write the truth about people, about who they were, what they did. If they are important enough, for whatever reason, to teach about and write about, surely they are worth telling the truth about. The question is: how much do we tell? Grade schoolers probably need only think of Jefferson as the third president, but surely, by the time we get to college, sitting in that history lecture at Harvard, the professor ought to say something about Sally Hemings, in order to give a complete, or substantial, picture of the man. Thomas Jefferson thought black people were inferior to white, especially intellectually, and he said so. This is strange, since he was such a scientific minded person. He payed close attention to detail, but he missed the boat about race. Perhaps he was confusing formal education with intelligence, the the blacks he knew simplly lacked the education. We don't alway get to the truth, even when we try to. And when we don't try to, we have no chance at all.

What History Should Be

MIDWAY THROUGH the twentieth century, historian Richard Hofstader, in his book "The American Political Tradition", examined our important national leaders, from Jefferson and Jackson to Herbert Hoover and the two Roosevelts - republicans and democrats,liberals and conservatives. Hofstader concluded that "the range of vision embraced by the primary contestants in the major parties has always been bounded by the horizons of property and enterprise...They have accepted the economic virtues of capitalistic culture as necessary qualities of man...That culture has been intensely nationalistic..." Observing the last twenty five years of the twentieth century and the first thirteen years of the twenty first, we have seen, and continue to see, exactly that limited vision Hofstader talked about -- a capitalistic encouragement of enormous fortunes alongside desperate poverty, and a nationalistic acceptance of war and preparations for war. Government power swung from republicans to democrats and back again, but neither party showed itself capable of going beyond that vision. All the so called "liberal" political leader we have had over the past few decades, including Barack Obama, have in reality been moderate conservatives, unwilling to propose any real change economically, or politically. After the disastrous war in Viet Nam came the scandals of watergate. There was a deepening economic insincerity for most of the population, along with environmental deterioration, and a growing culture of violence and family disarray. Clearly, such fundamental problems could not be solved without bold changes in the social and economic structure. But no major party candidates proposed such changes. The "American political tradition" held fast. Historian Howard Zinn, who believed that history should be the history of the people, rather than of an elite few, was among the few well known American historians who told the truth about American history. "A People's History of the United States" talks about all American, not just a few powerful ones. Richard Hofstader came close, as did Gore Vidal. Good historians tend to be liberals. Why? Because liberalism is change, and history is change. Change happens from necessity, from an inadequate or unacceptable status quo, and thus the history of any nation or culture is a history of change and change is seldom without pain, suffering, and unpleasant truths. No history written honestly about any nation which ever existed can leave the reader regarding that nation with only admiration. There are no purely admirable national histories, including American. Any history which makes any country appear purely virtuous is "hagiography", a form of myth, not history. And above all else, history is, or should be, the history of everyone, not of the elite few.

Taking Off Our Blinders

THE HP COMPUTER COMPANY (you remember it) and one of their subsidiary contractors are having a war of memos, words, press releases and tweets, blaming each other for failing to predict that our latest mass murderer was going to do something violent, and stopping it. Said mass murderer had been employed by both firms, at one time or another, both of which, at one time or another, were responsible for his mental evaluations and security clearance status. You can begin to see a lot of potential for this blame game thing. If corporations can do it, so can anyone. What with the frequency of these shootings, and the american people seemingly (finally) up in arms over it, (no pun intended), now begins the process of trying to figure out how to stop it, and the current emphasis seems to be on mental health evaluations as a tool for predicting potential future violence by potentially violent mentally ill people, and stopping it beforehand, by preventing potentially, (probably gonna be) violent people from having access to deadly weapons. That's really where we are now, isn't it? That's our current thinking. God, what rot. Surely we can do better than that. Surely there will come a time, and the sooner the better, when everyone in the media, law enforcement and government, everyone everywhere, will stop, take a deep breath, and realize that we are a long, long way from being able to predict the future, particularly the specific future actions fo specific individuals. We may never be able to do it. It just can't be done, not yet. It may not be possible to predict the future. These mass murderers just pop out of the woodwork, totally unpredictably, no matter how hard we all may want to believe that they all leave so many red flags that we ought to be able to single them out, and stop them from murdering en masse, a priori. (you have to like a sentence which ends with French and Italian, back to back). The other day a guy walks into a local school near me and threatens to kill people. He had no gun, and was taken away. Nothing in his past predicted that kind of behavior. Just a regular parent; who snapped. Maybe we're all just trying to comfort ourselves by believing that we can stop individuals from being violent later on by predicting their violence in advance. W'll have to give that line up, and try something better, and the sooner the better. One place to start might be by realizing that, under the right circumstances, if the environment permits it and the perfect personal storm develops, we are all capable of violence. Its just that we might not be ready to admit that, yet.

Awaiting Word

THE AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION system, one of the best in the world, is much preoccupied with athletic competition, because the American people are. Rules governing intercollegiate athletic competition are hammered out through a long and complicated process involving state and national politicians, Boards of Directors, and Aministrators. Currently there are several important issues concerning current rules, among them, whether to pay a stipend to college athletes, which has never been done. While the American media and corporate establishment, always an important influence, and a rather high percentage of the American people favor doing so, college administrators, including chancellors, university presidents, and athletic directors largely do not. Five'll get you ten that whatever turns out to be the fondest desire of the media and the public will eventually become law; that's where the money, billions of dollars of it, comes from, before it flows to the institutions of higher learning via their athletes. Administrators are quick to point out that the athletes are treated extremely well already by the colleges and universities, rewarded amply for their athletic efforts with room, books, and board, and an education. True though this may be, it does not alter the fact that the athletes are exploited, majorly. Almost a hundred years ago, american higher education decided to join forces with corporate america in marketing college athletics, and in general it has worked like a charm, profiting the institutions, but not the athletes. But it has brought problems, problems very much with us now. Large amounts of money always attracts corruption, and collegiate athletics is nothing if not full of financial corruption. The rules which the system maintains, the very same system constantly breaks, or fails to enforce, in the intense competition between major universities for athletic talent. The purity of amateur competition is almost a myth, a hoax, almost nonexistant. Athletes are ostensibly allowed to recceive almost nothing from anyone while serving as athletes, and therefore what they receive, or might receive, is tempting, and illegal, like recreational drugs. And the favors flow, from benefactors.Even when receiving room and board, one needs a little bit of money, and college athletes are forced to scratch and scrape for what little extra cash they can find. A somewhat monkish existence. Mandated by law. And yet, there is no amateurish purity, laws are broken constantly, and th esystem is riddled with corruption. Offering some money to college athletes represents a possible soultion to the current unsatisfactory state of affairs. We await word from the powers that be on a better idea, if they don't like this one.

Checking Facts

AS MUCH TALKING as Senator Ted Cruz does, it almost seems inevitable that something like this would happen. Still, its hilarious. At sone point during Cruz's 21 hour talkathon in the U.S. Senate, he was attacking Obamacare and Obama's economic policies in general, not surprisingly. He was talking about real life examples of people who had suffered because of, and only because of, Barrack Hussein Obama. Very passionate speaking, really going at it, full head of steam. HE mentioned a young man named John Connelly in New Jersey, a college student who had lost his job, was having tough times, and sleeping on a friend's couch. The next day, a friend told Connelly about Cruz talking about him, and Connelly, who was on his way to a doctor's appointment, revealed that he was in fact very pleased, personally, with the job president Obama has done, and the only reason reason he was able to see a doctor was because of Obamacare. He was interviewed by MSNBC, but, strangely enough, not by fair and balanced FOX news. For all we know, everybody who, according to the right wingers will end up suffering and unhappy with Obamacare, will end up loving it, and being grateful for it. Stranger things have happened. This is not the first time somebody has threatened to sht down the government unless they got their way. The democrats, including Obama, threatened to shut down the government a few years ago in order to stop the war in Iraq, just as Cruz and his ilk are trying to end Obamacare before it even gets off the ground. And, of course, in 1995, the republicans actually shut down the government briefly, but the American people blamed them for it, and it cost them politically, like it will this time. Early polls indicate that whereas most republicans believe Cruz's stunt was productive, others don't, and democrats, and most importantly, independents were not impressed. But of course, the argument could be made that a little government shut down aint gonna hurt nobody, because we have too much government anyway, and even if it does, we'll survive. Neither is hard ball politics new in America. A long litany of duels, threats, slanders, and other political intrigues awaits the reader of honestly written U.S. History. The nation will survive this one as well.

Too Sensible, and No Fun

IT WAS RECENTLY REPORTED in the mainstream American media, which now seems to include the internet, that, believe it or not, a meeting recently took place between high ranking members of the NAACP, and the KKK. For non Americans, that's National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Ku Klux Klan. These two ancient and venerable organizations have a long history of, shall we say, antipathy, owing to their distinctly mutually exclusive purposes. By all accounts, the meeting went well, with no violence or unpleasant language. The high head holy dragon of the klan, or whatever the title is, even purchased a membership in the NAACP, reportedly. The klan, however, did not reciprocate. Or rather, the NAACP) didn't, or both of them didn't - you have to be white to be in the klan, was the explanation. Well, so far, so good. If the English and Irish can do it, by golly, so can Americans! Conversely, if America's two EPOs (Epidermal Pigmentation-based Organizations) can do it, then anybody can, all the rest of us can! This is exciting. Is it possible that the two groups could ever unite as one? One would think not. Seperate but equal would be the best the klan could do, even though there does not seem to be anything inherent in the mission statement of the NAACP that would hold it back. What about this? They form a governing body, sort of a blanket organization, consisting of all organizations which exist exclusively on account of the fact that human beings have different skin colors, a governing body which would oversee and monitor such organizations, overseeing their health and welfare. It could be called the "Skin Color Asociation of America, (SCAM), or the American Skin Color Association Council (AMSCAC). Or how about the "Pigmentation Enthusiasts Group? (PEG)...silly, maybe, but certainly so sillier than placing such great importance on skin color, of all the millions of human traits, that large organizations are formed, for whatever reasons, because of it. One alternative would be to stop, as a species, giving a damn about what color people are, and stop making all this organized fuss over distinctions which are beyond trivial, beyond meaningless, to anyone of intelligence. But then again, that would be too simple, wouldn't it, and too sensible? And maybe it just wouldn't be as much fun.

Taking Comfort In Lunacy

GLOBAL WARMING is a hoax, perpetrated and perpetuated by an elite liberal conspiracy, for political purposes. This conspiracy consists of tens of thousands of scientists, science teachers, and politicians. Either that, or it sonsists of only a few diabolical , highly manipulative individuals, who have tens of thousnads of scientists and science teachers utterly duped, for political reasons. There may be more conspirators that we don't know about. The human race itself is so small, so insignificant, so weak and puny, and nature is so vastly huge, the very notion that mankind could possibly have any impact on the climate of the earth is patently absurd........... If you have not heard somebody like Rush Limbaugh, or any other equally intelligent conservative, say something very much like this, you haven't been paying attention. The utter insanity of it either escapes them, or they deliberatly permit it to escape. As if only a handful of people are able to demonstrate and understand climate change, and the rest of us are blind followers. Fact is, any high school science teacher can demonstrate global warming. Where do all these people meet, when they conspire? Moving right along, to this business of the enormity of nature, and the insignificance of humanity, the key point is; we are not dealing with the enormity of nature here. We are dealing with a single tiny planet, a blue marble, suspensed in the enormity of nature, with a diameter of 7,926 miles. That aint enormous, that's limited, that's small. If we can set lakes and rivers on fire, create lakes and destroy rivers, tear down mountains, drill through mountains, burn down millions of acres of forest; then yes, we can have an impact on the environment of this one single tiny fragile little planet. The fact that the universe is huge and we are small is entirely irrelevant. We're quite big enough to make stuff happen on a small planet, and that's good enough to have an impact. And boy, are we ever having an impact. But not to worry. We can always bury our heads in our conservative, capitalistism worship, because any hint that we might need to change our lifestyle, and be less addicted to our material weatlh, simply won't do. We can just write off the rising oceans, the droughts and heat waves, and blame it on a liberal conspiratorial hoax, and take comfort in knowing that no matter what we do, good old earth will be just fine, because its so much bigger than we are.

Denial No Matter What

ONCE AGAIN, the scientific profession has spoken, and once again, american conservative capitalists will ridicule their words in order to try desperately to protect their profligate lifestyle against all perceived threats. Each and every year, more and more scientists, armed with ever more information and evidence, become more convinced that global warming is real, and is caused in large part by human beings. There's a reason for that. Its called science. It used to be funny, now its becoming tired and pitiful, to hear people remind us that forty yars ago many people thought the earth is entering an ice age, and that scientists are always changing their minds, so that you can never believe anything they say. Remarkably stupid. These people fail to realize that the very process of scientific progress is that science always changes, always improves, always corrects itself. Science is self correcting, unlike religion, political systems, economic systems, and most people. If science said the same things every day, year after year, our understanding of nature would never get any better, now, would it? When I was a kid the planet Jupiter had twelve moons, and Saturn had nine. What do they have now - seventy and sixty, respectively? We learn more everyday, about nearly everything. Total human knowledge doubles every few years. What part of that is so damned difficult for American conservative capitalists to understand? And now, nearly every scientist in the world, once again, says what they have said long enough to give credibility; that climate change is here, and is us. If this were not true, the scientists probaboly would have stopped saying it by now, and would start saying something else, the way they stopped saying what they said in the nineteen seventies. But they keep saying it, in stronger terms every year, and there is a reason for it, and that reason has nothng to do with a liberal political conspiracy to justify increasing the size of government. Scientists who deny global warming, what very few there are, do so because they are paid by conservative corporate capitalists to do so. Ask any chemistry, biology, or physics teacher, in any American high school or college or university. Then do the same in every country in the world. That amounts to tens of thousands of people. You gonna believe them, or rush Lombaugh, who flunked out of college in one year, and calls himself a genius? He claims that a liberal conspiracy permeates the American news media, America's colleges and Universities, public schools, and scientific community, inventing global warming as a tool to create big givernment under liberal control! Does that make any sense, or is it delusional? The tens of thousand of conspirators must all communicate by stealth, using encrypted email and disguised voices , hundreds of thousands of them, and meeting in the dark of night in remote, secret places. The liberal conspirators. Or was that the Skull and Crossbones Society at Yale, founded by Prescott Bush, father of George, grandfather of little George? No, it couldn't be, those kind of people don't give a damn about the environment. With their wealth, they can always purchase a comfortable life.

Crazy Ted Cruz

SOMEBODY ONCE SAID, and it may've been H.L. Mencken, "the fools would be humorous were they not in such deadly earnest." The battle on Pennsylvania Ave. (Wash. D.C., U.S.A) over Obamacare has got to be the most entertaining and amusing clown show since the last republican comedy, whenever that was, which was no doubt quite recent. Many of them want to get rid of our new socialistic health care system, (Obamacare) by simply refusing to provide money for it, and they are willing to refuse money for the entire government, if thats' what it takes. And because of this, because of their decision to do this, they are becoming extremely unpopular, and many of their fellow republicans are refusing to go along with the scheme, because they know it is too late, much too late, and that it will never work. Smart rats jump off a sinking ship, and look for a floating plank. Having long since lost the ability to compromise in America, are we now losing our ability to count, to think, and to behave reasonably? Ted Cruz seems to want badly to become president, you can just sense it. The way he's going, he'll be voted out of the Senate, and will never become President, dogcatcher, or anything else. Giving a twenty hour speech about nothing is not what most people consider to be common sense, and good judgment. The last time republican congresspeople shut down the government, the American people blamed them for it, and it cost them at the ballor box, and the same thing will happen again this time, if they persist. Rush Limbaugh, who on the radio has been whining because all the republccans refuse to commit political suicide with Ted Cruz, suggested, in the next breath, that maybe the republicans should give up the fight, let Obamacare proceed, and simply wait for it to fail miserably, and and for the democrats to take the blame. Finally, Rush Limbaugh got something right. That's exactly what opponents to Obamacare should do. Let it go, let it go on, and let it fail. And if it doesn't fail, they can at least claim that they did not oppose it. That will be a lie, but they will be able to claim it. Because there is no way they can stop it, and trying to do so is mere theatre, shameful, tawdry theatre, intended to attract attention and gain future political advantage. They made the mistake of thinking a large part to the American people support their nutty scheme. Over the next couple of years, as Obamacare settles in, the bugs are worked out, and the dust settles, those who behaved like crazy Ted Cruz will wish they hadn't.

Trouble in Standardized Paradise

DIANE RAVITCH has had a long, distintuished career in education, her specialty being the History of Education. She was an assistant secretary of education for awhile under Bush, and she went along with all his highly questionable federal government education reforms, collectively called, you will recall, "No Child Left Behind". In this scheme the federal government steps in, and mandates standardized testing across all the land, so that we might know how students in one part of the country stack up against those in another, and can identify, label, and fix students, schools, and teachers who don't measure up. Enter Barrack Hussein Obama, and its mo' of the same, piled higher and deeper, in what his administration calls "Common Core", referring to the idea of universal standards of learning for all American students. Really, its much ado about very little, and has the primary effect of burdening teachers and students with large amounts of paperwork, the value of which is, to say the least, difficult to ascertain. On her way to Damascus Diane Ravitch was struck by a bolt of lightening, and has since been a staunch and outspoken opponent of all for which she formerly stood. No Child, Commor Core, the whole kit and kaboodl, she dumped it all. She has a blog innovatively titled "Diane Ravitch's Blog", onto which she types many interesting comments, but for which, what with her presumably busy schedule, she seems to have insufficient time to compose well written, articulate, structurally unified essays. Oh well. You can't have everything. She also wrote a book titled "Reigh of Error", and you can just feel the harsh and cogent analytical critique of Bushian and Obaman educational policy even before you look beyond the cover. It turns out that a high percentage of today's teachers are unhappy with current educational policy, No Child and Common Core in particular. A middle school teacher named Randy Turner, known for being highly effective in the classroom, has written intelligently, persuasively against the system, and thus is controversial. He too has a blog, "The Turner Report" (where do they get these names) and a book entitled "No Child Left Alive". Another good read, "Who's The Teacher Now", by high school teacher Tex Trumbo, carries the same message: the kids are great, we educators are tired of having our students, teachers, and schools labeled "failures" by some bureacracy in Washington, and we'd like to be left alone to do our best, even in the face of an insane ambient American culture. According to Trumbo, the problem isn't what happens inside the classroom, where good teachers en masse do good work with good kids, the problem is in Washington D.C., and in a general culture diseased with the love of money, violence, and cheap, tawdry escape entertainment, a culture which disdains the intellect. The foxes are in the hen house. Our corporate masters want to give (sell) all students high tech teaching tools, tablet computers and so forth, and replace teachers with these divices. They say it will save the public enormous amounts of money. They do not say that it will make enormous amounts of money for the corporations. If we're not careful in this country (U.S.A.), our traditionally excellent public school system will be swarmed under and crushed by an avalanche of government bureaucrats, corporate marketing executives, and a conservatively brain washed public's unwillingness to sacrifice and pay for good public schools. Better learn as much as we can, while we still can.

Blaming Columbus

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS kept a journal of his experiences, and reading it is endlessly fascinating, because of the incredible experiences he described, and because of his apparent attitude toward them. He was not ashamed of anything he did. Quite the contrary. It was he who saddled us forever with the mistaken word "indians" to describe the natives living on the islands in the Caribbean. He never accepted the fact that he had not landed in India, but rather, in a continent in the way, on the way to India. None of his ships could possibly have made it all the way across the huge pacific Ocean, so, in a sense, he was fortunate. What he wrote in his journal after he first laid eyes on the natives is hilarious, roughly paraphrased : THEY ARE IMPRESSIVE PEOPLE, ATTRACTIVE, STRONG, AND CHEERFUL. THEY SHARE EVERYTHING, WILL GIVE OR TRADE WHATEVER THEY HAVE, AND DO NOT HAVE ANY WEAPONS, NOR DO THEY WANT ANY. THEY WOULD MAKE GREAT SERVANTS, AND IF I HAD A FEW MORE MEN, I COULD CAPTURE THEM ALL, AND MAKE THEM DO WHATEVER I WANT: Honest to goodness, that's pretty much what he said. Isn't it hilarious? And, make no mistake, so very very human. So normal. The indians were smart enough to not give a damn about gold; they just wore it as earrings sometimes, sometimes they wore seashells. They gave all they had to Columbus, but he wAnted more, much more, so the enslavement, the killing, the torture began, and it did Columbus little good, because he was not on the South American mainland, withits abundant gold and silver mines, but rather, on small, mostly gold free islands in the Caribbean. The big gold from the mainland would come later, with other monster-conquerers, other men like Columbus. But Columbus had borrowed the money from the Spanish government for the his purely capitalistic venture, and was desperate to pay dividends to his investors. Returning to Europe after the first voyage, he lied through his teeth to the king of Spain about how much wealth he had found, and the king, duped, gave him many more ships and men for his next voyage, and this time, he really went to work, killing millions of people, enslaving tens of thousands, racking up some really bad karma, one would think. Several other people kept diaries of these adventures, and one priest in particular wrote something like this in his diary "IN THE FUTURE NOBODY WILL BELIEVE WHAT WE DID HERE, BECAUSE IT WAS TO HORRENDOUS TO BELIEVE" He turned out to be right, because all through American history we have ignored it. And its extremely relevant today, what Columbus did, because it set the pattern for all of American history; seize, develop, and exploit all available resources, land, mineral, and human, to produce the greatest possible amount of wealth and profit. That's pretty much our mantra today, isn't it? The next time you have to take a detour to get to your bank or stocker broker because a bunch of dirty smellly liberals are having an "Occupry Wall STreet" protest outside your gated estate, blame Columbus, both for your hollow life trapped within your wealth, and the violent chaotic world around you.

Different Plans: Rear Ending Girls On Main Street

BACK IN THE WINTER OF 1973, January or February, say, I was cruising main, dragging main with a good friend named Steve. We were seniors in high school, full of piss and vinegar, as they used to say. (they used to be crude, didn't they) Dragging main, cruising main, was once an American institution among high school students, back in the '50s, '60s, and '70s, but beyond that, I don't know. In 1973, gas was nineteen cents a gallon, and all teenagers, (except me) owned cars, and the race was on. The idea was to drive up and down main street, all evening, yelling at people, drinking, chasing girls. I, for one, would've had little or no idea what to do had we ever caught up with one of them. And I have no idea whether or not hish schoolers drag main now. How could they, with gas at three dollars fifty cents per gallon? Mid sized, Midwestern American town. I was happy to be riding with Steve, because he was a hot shot football player, had a gorgeous girlfriend whom he later married, and a nice, clean, tight little new car. High social status. My social status, such at it was, was based on intellect, and personality, but not athleticism, looks, or car, regrettably. We were most probably talking, laughing, drinking, looking at each other. I don't recall, but suddenly I felt a big thud and jolt, looked up, and realized that we had rear ended another car. Steve and I looked at each other, and he said, eloquently, "well, fuck me!" Two nice looking girls got out , and so did we, and walked to meet each other. Incredibly, they immediately began to act and talk like it was their fault! The first thing they did was apologize profusely, sympathetically, which amazed me, then they offered to buy us a pizza, which caught my attention big time. Steve, however, wasn't interested. His nice new car was damaged, it was his fault, he was in a very bad mood, and, he had a serious girlfriend, on whom he had no wish to cheat. He needed to go home, wanted to go home, and wanted me to go with him - to deal with his mother. I was to be his shield against maternal anger. So, he stood there, looked at the ground, and half mumbled "nah, no thanks". "WTF!" I screamed inside my head. Excuse me? I had a different plan. I was going to stand there and say to the girls, "thanks for the apology, and yes, we will be glad to share a pizza with you, but we might like to do more than that, considering the circumstances". But it all ended well. Steve married his girlfriend, and is still happy with her forty years later. And at least I didn't get in trouble that night, even though I can still imagine sitting in a nice cozy little pizza place, sharing a big, tasty pizza with two hot girls who thought they owed us, when if fact we owed them. I never got my chance to practice sexual extortion, but hell, who am I trying to fool? I would've chickened out over pizza anyway, but at least I would have had a free meal.

Obama's Ebonics

SAMUEL L. JACKSON is a well known American actor, African American if memory serves, (I lose track of actors, celebrities, etc.) and, like many american actors, seems to feel that his status as a celebrity requires that he make public comments about political matters. Hollywood types are often outspoken liberals, and Jackson was and probably still is a supporter of President Barrack Hussein Obama. That doesn't stop Samual L from offering criticism of the president. Jackson recently said that Obama tries to talk like a good ole boy, just plain folks, and that it is phony, and unpresidential, to boot. Wow. Pretty heavy stuff. Obama does indeed like to throw in a good portion of slang, and informal expressions which seem down home common unintellectual man, whereas Obama himself is a well educated Ivy Leaguer. But phony? I mean, it isn't as if all past presidents have always spoken and behaved with perfect presidential formality. Thomas Jefferson came to the front door of the White House in night clothes and uncombed hair. Harry Truman would fill your ears with blue language, when he found reason. Nixon was always talking about "cold cocking" somebody. (in private , not public, but, so what?). Ah, c'mon, Sammy, get a life. Laugh a little! Have some fun! Sometimes, just for fun, I throw in a little added southern accent, sometimes i try to sound like a New Yorker, and sometimes I try on my best Cockney. But its all in good fun, done in a spirit of admiration, not with any malice, intended to be funny, not abrasive. What Obama does is lapse into a sort of street black rap talk, but only for a few seconds at a time. I find is charming, honest, and refreshing, but certainly not artificial or phony. After all, he is one half black, has been immersed mainly in the black culture, more so than the white crowd, throghout most of his life. Obama has lived, permit me to say, more like a black man than a white man, at least, in terms of his chosen social circles. Now, of course, as president, he is thrust straight into the world of whitey, and seems to do fine. But his blackness is predominant. After all, we Aericans all call our president "black", when in fact he is equally white. Throughout American history, people with any "black blood" whatsoever, even people who are only one eigth black, for instance, have been considered "black", amazingly enough. Once you taint that pure white blood with black blood, they aint good enough to be considered white, so they are automatically black. That's the way it was for hundreds of years, and though we've evolved now, the fact that we call Obama "black" everytime is a lingering residue of past racism. But we're doing better now. And if our president likes to sound just a bit ebonic from time to time, what the hell? Hell, he comes by it honestly.

Westernizing, and Killing Us All

THE CHINESE AND JAPANESE, over the last few centuries, gradually realized that the Europeans were on their way, then came the americans, and they had to decide what to do about it. They chose different paths. The Japenese decided "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, and, 'long about 1860, began to change their culture and their country. They modernized their political system, began their own industrial revolution, and created a modern, capitalistic economy, willing, imitating the Americans, ready, willing, and able to do business with anyone and everyone. The Americans, Teddy Roosevelt in particular, were most impressed, flattered to be imitated, and T.R. suggested that the two countries cooperate in conquering, dominating, and exploiting China, to which the Japanese readily agreed. Later on, however, when the Japanese were conquering China, in the 1930's, another Roosevelt, FDR, decided that he didn't like it one bit, and, well, it ended up getting sorted out in World War Two. The Chinese responded to the imperial westerners differently that did the Japanese; they used denial. They tried to run and hide, which did not work. Then,they went communist, and kept hiding. Finally, about twenty years ago or so, they made the same choice Japan had made oever a hundrfed years earlier: if you cain't beat 'em, join 'em. So now we see in China a flourishing and rampantly growing industrial and capitalistic economy, capitalism, yes, but controlled by the state, by the communist government, ironically enough. China is growing so fast economically that soon it will be bigger than the United States, and might very well rule the world in the 21st century, the way the United States did during the 20th century, and still does, sort of. The chinese are building one new coal fired electrical plant every week. One per week. Now they are starting to turn their abundant coal supply into artificial natural gas, and to do this they are builing big new plants, with extreme speed. The problem is that all this coal being used in China is killing us all, the Chinese first. Their air pollution is horrible, worse than it ever was even during its worst days in america in the 1970s. And to think, if only they had done it our way from the git go, they'd be past this destructive stage of industrial development by now, and, like America, suring onward into a more earth friendly industrial future. They are putting an incredible amount of carbon into the air, and there is no way they can stop, because they invested huge amounts of money in all these coal burning plants, hundreds of them. So, in a nutshell, we're doomed. One thing you can say though, is that people who do not believe in man made global warming climate change are going to start believing in it, and very soon.

Predicting the Future, Disarming Bad People

BY NOW,we are all all too familiar with the new american tradition whereby somebody walks, heavily armed, into a public place, and kills as many people as possible in the short time available. Then, the media takes over, the gun control debate heats up, and we all agree that the answer is to keep guns out of the hands of "bad people", and out of the hands of people who are mentally ill. Then comes the hard part; deciding who the bad people and the mentally ill people are, and disarming them, before they strike. The impossible part is predicting the future. We start to learn that the line between good and bad, between mentally healthy and mentally ill, can become a bit blurry. For instance, I happen to know a fifteen year old kid who, in my opinion, is a borderline psychopath, mentally disabled AND mentally ill, and, at some point in the future, as he approaches adulthood, likely to inflict violence on someone. I see this kid every day, and have for the past two and a half years, and feel that I know what I am talking about. He is currently on probation for throwing a chair at another kid at school. Nothing that he has done so far would prevent him, at the age of eighteen, from legally owning a firearm. But this guy should never be allowed to get within a ten foot pole of a firearm. So what is my responsibility here? What should I do? Notify the FBI? The NSA? Talk to the local police? Would any of that accomplish anything? Or would I be told that there is nothing that can be done, because nothing has happened, and there is no legal ground to deprive a minor of a constitutaional right he will have as an adult, if he stays out of any big trouble in the meantime? What you any good american citizen do upon encountering a person who, in the best judgment of said american citizen, was a potential mass murderer, due to mental instability? Are we all, as citizens, obligated to alert someone, some proper authority, mental health professional, law enforcement agency, someone, anyone, when we know someone who is quite obviously capable of and likely to behave violently in the future? If we ever get to the point where we, as citizens, are being strongly encouraged to report anyone who we think fits this description, the list might become very long. We might all end up on the "no gun" list. then we would have the unthinkable situation of living in a disarmed nation, in which all of us good mentally healthy people are gunless, becasue of some busy body neighbor or friend. Wouldn't that be horrible!

Teaching A Pack O' Lies

WHEN I WAS A CHILD i was taught that Christopher Columbus was a great explorer because he discovered America, that he was brave because he didn't know whether the world is flat or round, but was willing to find out, that he was helped out by the king and queen of Spain...and, come to think of it, that's about it. I can't remember anything else i was taught about Columbus. Subsequent levels of history classes, all the way through a PhD program, failed to add much to these basic, presumed facts, perhaps because all my teachers presumed that I already knew them, which I most certainly did not. I do know that Columbus has always been portrayed in American schools as a great man, when in fact he was a monster, the worst kind of monster, very well educated, intelligent, calculating, arrogant, greedy, ambitious. Read HIS words,not mine. Columbus, on first meeting the "indians": "They brought us balls of cotton, and parrots, and spears,and they willingly traded everything they owned. They do not bear arms, and do not know them. They would make fine servants. With fifty men we could subjugate them and make them do whatever we want." Nice. And there's more. If you read enough, you'll realize; this was not a nice guy, or a good guy. He was not an explorer, he was a capitalist, a looter hungrily looking for gold, and he knew damned good and well that the world is round, like anybody with a brain did in his day. (He was helped out by the spanish monarchy, however). Why do so many of my american colleagues have the idea that our ancient ancestors were idiots? Hell, people with brains knew that the world is round in ancient Roman times. The rest of american history, the way its taught in schools, is also a pack or lies, pure crap, because in america we are arrogant folk and love to think well of ourselves, and our history. Christopher Columbus was a butcher, who wanted only one thing in life,: a whole bunch of money, in particular, gold. (Yes, america's love of money was was inherited, like most else, from good ole Europe.) But ion defense, any other European of his day, in command of his mmission, would have been as monstrous as he. The indians were too naive, too nice, too easy to exploit and turn into slaves. But with regard to distorting american history in american schools, Christopher Columbus is but the tip of the proverbial iceberg.. Soon we will celebrate, or rather, acknowledge, "Columbus Day", which we shouldn't, for Cloumbus was that much of a monster. A fanatic Christian monster, who butchered millions, yes millions of human beings. Of course we don't dare teach that inconvenient little truth in american bastions of learning, either in grade school, nor, as I understand it, in college. But wait; evidently it (the truth) IS being taught about American history in today's american colleges; that must be why conservatives are so mad at them. I taught western civ at the college level, so I wouldn't know. The truth is that euaropeans have always been, and still are, money hungry aggressibve imperialists, as is the United States, whereas the people they conquer are usually relatively mild mannered, peaceful, kind, generous, and virtuous. (regular boy scouts, compared to us) But, as they say, nice guys finish last, and to the victor go the spoils.

Glutton For Punishment

THE MOST BORING and irrelevant speech ever delivered on the floor of the United States Senate is finally over, after twenty one hours of tedium. Senator Ted Cruz, conservative republican from Texas, finished blathering to an empty senate chamber, than rushed right to a telephone to make his voice appear on the Rush Limbaugh radio program, believe it nor not. AS if he hadn't already talked enough. And he didn't miss a beat. Picked up right where he left off, bonding with Limbaugh, agreeing with Rush that their fellow republicans had jumped ship by not supporting the effort more, even though they showed up form time to time throughout the long night to ask questions, and give Cruz a chance to sip water and clear his throat. Cruz and Limbaugh praised the long talk and the noble but doomed crusade against the Affordable Care Act. On the radio his voice and energy level seemed just fine, amazingly. You would think he would have laryngitis, but oh no, not Ted Cruz. His voice was strong and clear on radio, even after talking nearly non stop for twenty one hours. Give credit where credit is due, the man is amazing. During his senate filibuster he talked about Dr Seuss, his family, Star Wars the movie, and american patriotism. There is little that he did not talk about. After all, one can only criticize socialized health insurance so much before the complaining wears thin. All he failed to do is pass out at the very end, after the fashion of Jimmy Stewart. That would have provided a dramatic flourish, possibly just enough to rally the country around his effort to preserve free market health care. Now he seems to regard himself as a martyr to a noble and just cause. I suppose anyone is his position would. Cruz is one of several young, highly conservative United States Senators, along with Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul, who appear to be preparing to run for president in 2016. The good news is that only one of them can become president at any given time. Oh, to be young, conservative, a republican, and hispanic! During his purely theatrical performance, Cruz wore sneakers, walked around a little bit, nibbled on some snack crackers from time to time, but never took a bathroom break. Presumably he did this before calling Rush Limbaugh, but you never know; these conservative publicity hounds who want to be president are gluttons for punishment.

What Dreams Are Made Of

IN THE DAYS and years following the American revolution and the creation of the United States of America, there was no national economy, no widely circulating american currency, each state was pretty much on its own economically, and, because of the expense of the revolution, in debt. As late as the 1830s English currency was still being circulated. Lotteries were implemented by the various states in order to raise public revenue through what was essentially voluntary taxation, and were quite popular and effective. However, "The Great Awakening", a faddish explosion of moralistic religious fervor which began in the 1840s and continued to the Civil War, inspired a moral backlash against state run lotteries; the evils of gambling had infected government, and must be exorcised. Lotteries were abandoned for a hundred and fifty years. About thirty years ago they reappeared, as states and politicians needed tax revenue but were reluctant to push for higher taxes in an already tax heavy, cash strapped culture. So far, so good. Its worked out pretty well. Most states have lotteries now, they raise a lot of money, millions of people happily buy lottery tickets, and the prizes are gigantic, and becoming ever more gigantic, thanks to increased participation and higher lottery ticket prices. Who knows, it might even be possible to tap into the american dream of quick riches through gambling to finance government at all levels, eventually.. A government operating entirely with voluntary taxation! The only real problem? The lives of people who win lotteries are disrupted and damaged enormously, almost universally. Seldom has anyone ever won a lottery and remained happy for long, studies consistantly reveal. The most recent example of this is the poor man who won a lottery in New Jersey a few weeks ago. He and his wife, with their solid blue collar jobs and modest but happy lifestyle, became instant celebrities when the four million dollars rolled in, and at first they enjoyed it, but it quickly turned sour, as it does for everyone.(there is a reason people like Britney Spears and Alec Baldwin seek fame, then end up hiding from cameras, and become violent when unable to hide). The poor man in New Jersey, just a good ole boy with a log beard,a pick up, camo fatigues, and shotgun, who looks like he belongs in Wyoming, has had enough of the celebrity, the long lost friends and relatives suddenly reappearing out of nowhere, the strangers with offers and plans knocking on the door, the works. He is just plain sick and tired of it. In several states it is legal to claim lottery prises anonymously, and those who are smart do just that. It probably should be legal to do so in all states, but isn't for some reason, making instant celebrities of lottery winners, whehter they want to be or not. Most think they do, at first. The irresistable belief that money can buy happiness through material aquisition is always replaced by the inevitable awareness that it cannot, usually after bankruptcy. Most lottery winners end up bankrupt, through overspending. You can almost see how it works. Day one is terribly exciting, but day two is slightly less so, and day three even less. So the spending starts, in an attempt to keep the adrenaline flowing. But that has to stop, eventually, and it does, usually in a spasm of bankruptcy, depression, and confusion. The best option, say experts, is to not buy lottery tickets, because winning is a near impossibility. But that wouldn't be any fun, would it? That leaves two choices. One, throw a little money away, hope and dream for a few minutes, then move on. The other option is to win big money, feel higher than a kite for a few weeks, thn crash and burn. We all like to think that we will be the one to handle sudden big money well, even as nobody else seems able to. But then, that's what dreams are made of.

Knowing He Did His Best

TED CRUZ, the young, handsome tea party-toting senator from Texas, never got any sleep last night, to say the least. He spent the evening, and most of the day previous, standing and delivering on the floor of the United States senate. During his more than twenty hours of speaking, the senator talked about the evils of Obamacare, the necessity of defunding it at all costs, but he took the time to read Dr. Seuss, "Green Eggs and Ham", to his young daughter, whom he hoped was watching on C SPAN. When speaking in the Senate, there are no rules concerning subject matter; one can say whatever one wants, relevant or not. Senator Cruz's daughter was quite likely in bed asleep, and missed "Green Eggs and Ham". That's a shame, its one of my personal favorites. Someday he will be able to tell his grandchildren that he personally participated in that grandest of american traditions, the right to talk your head off, as long as you don't sit down and don't stop talking, known as the "filibuster". Anyone who has seen the classic american movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" knows all about filibusters. Nobody ever did it better than the young Jimmy Stewart, who did it for the heroic cause of stopping a notorious political machine from ruining his noble plan to establish a summer camp for boys (not girls, not in the 1930s) on a site coveted by said machine for industrial development. In the end, Stewart wins( winds) the day, just as he passes out on the floor of the senate, exhausted, and the boys in the spectators section cheer wildly. It is to be hoped that senator Cruz will not suffer a similar fate, that he won't faint dead away, and that he won't be successful in stopping his particular political nemesis-machine and its pet project, Obamacare. He won't, and he won't be. Filibustering is a young man's game, Cruz seems to be in good shape, but there appears to be no way in hell that he can derail, or even delay, Obamacare. So what's his point? Why,to make his point, of course! None of the democrats will give him the time of day, and several of his republican conservative colleagues have spoken of his folly, and refrained from supporting him, so, soon as his legs cramp, his knees buckle, his throat screams with pain, and his will is broken, he'll leave the senate floor, take a good long nap, then perhaps head for somewhere nice, like six flags over Texas, for a break, knowing he did his best. Obamacare will go into effect, all americans will have health insurance for the firt time ever, and people will pay a price based on age, income level, and location. Some people could end up paying as little as eleven dollars a month, it has been calculated. There will probably come a time when we all wonder what all the fuss was about. (there was just as much fuss about social security, medicare, and medicaid). Senator Cruz, if he chooses, and he probably will so choose, can avoid asking himself "where was the beef?", and content himself to know only that he gave it his best shot, tried valiantly to stem the rising tide of socialism, and to shut down the government in the process, regardless of cost or consequences. He will know that he did his very best.

Sexual Orientation Tolerance

IT IS NOW ILLEGAL, but previously wasn't, in the state of New Jersey, to attempt to talk someone out of being gay, and into being straight. Oh, it aint illegal, yet, to do it in the privacy of your own home, voluntarily - But using psychiatry, professionally, to change a person's sexual orientation, known as " conversion therapy" is now banned. This raises the question: what if a person has a passionate desire to convert, to stop being gay and start being straight, and wishes above all else to have professional help? Choose another state, it seems, which is not hard to do in New Jersey, with New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania nearby. New Jersey certainly does seem, i must say, to be a rather "tight assed" state: for there it is also illegal for a customer to pump his or her own gasoline into his or her own car.... Hell, in every other state, as far as I know, that's the only way its available: you'd better pump it yourself, or you'll have a long wait, correct? We old people can recall when nobody pumped their own gas, when there was a smiling service statin attendant at your window. Then, it became an option, with attendants available but not intrusive, then pumping your own gas became a requirement, and service station attendants vanished like dime stores. Incrementalism! Many many christians and conservatives have for ages harbored the bizarre and crazy notion that a person who is homosexual is automatically mentally ill, but can be made whole and healthy, aka heterosexual, through psychiactric methods, just like other mental illnesses. Hence, along with the practice of psychotherapy, conversion therapy has grown over the decades, and is now quite popular, among far right wingers and fundamentalist christians. Most of us, however, clinging to the precarious sanity of believing that all sexual orientation are made equal, and there is never any need for anyone to ever change, if you can imagine such a thing. It would indeed be hell to be gay in america, one of the two most prudish countries in the world, (the other being Russia, where they ban homosexuality outright) where one "comes out of the closet" at one's own risk. But it is getting better in america, in terms of sexual orientation tolerance. If only the same could be said of russia...presumably, conversion therapy is still legal in the other forty nine american states. And maybe it should be. After all, it may be that there is a demand for it, outside social coercion. there is a demand for sex change operations, which take place on a daily basis in america; plenty of people are not satisfied with their gender, so it stands to reason that there are folks who honestly want to change their sexual orientation. Both states of mind are difficult to imagine for most of us, who accept our gender and sexual orientation as entirely outside our control, and that since we're stuck with it, we might as well make the most of it.Most of us, in truth, are quite happy to be what we are, sexually, whether male, female, straight, gay, or bi. Its the normal way to be. So easy, for that majority which is happy to comdemn those who are not. So sefl verving, arrogant, cna cruel. Our hearts tell us that we should help, rather than hinder, anyone who is unfortunate enough to lack this happiness.

Finding Out

THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY (NSA) is a rather new concoction, a general coverall for all the many other United Security-States of America (USSA) spy agencies, of which there are at least sixteen, and possibly as many as several million. Belatedly, albeit brilliantly, people began to realize that if the CIA and the FBI are spending more time trying to sabotage each other's projects in order to achieve domestic security supremacy for their respective agencies than trying to defeat america's enemies, it isn't really doing the nation as a whole much good. So, thanks to the NSA, we all work together now, sharing information, bullets, tape recorders, personel, and working harmoniously to defeat america's enemies, and protect her from whatever may be out there, or in here, lurking, wanting to destroy her, if anything. (Can't we all just get along?) To celebrate, the NSA is planning to construct, or perhaps has already begun constructing,a huge, fancy new building complex way out in the middle of the nevada desert, or somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The estimated cost will be eight billion americano dollarinos. For that kind of money, they'd better have "wet wipes" in all the restrooms, including visitors, and wet bars in every administrative office. Sounds kind of like one of those "area 51" kind of deals. Top Secret, probably most of the elaborate stuff deep underground, barbed wire fences, armed guards, search lights, black helicopters, the whole shootin' match. (Its more fun that way.) The other day a rather smug, officious sounding gentleman did an interview on National Public Radio during he said something truly alarming. What he said , basically, is that "we are building it big because we can." Honest to goodness, that's what hot shot said! "We", meaning the "agency", is building it big....because "we can....if that don't either anger or scare the crap outta you, nothing can or will. The smugness. The arrogance. The lame attempt at humor. And the implications. The terrfying implication that the united states has indeed become such a national security state, dominated by a military industrial security complex, that money is no longer an obstacle to any project having to do, ostensibly, with that vague concept "national security". The american people sending their enormous tax money down an endless black hole so that their own government can engage in the purely tyrannical practice of closely monitoring their lives. We have come full circle, and we the people are indeed sheep, made so by our own indolant failure to resist tyranny. It is now fashionable in america, during casual conversation, to say that one is doing something because one "can", and everytime someone says something like this, it is intended to be not only funny, but a glib proclamation of power. Are we really crying out about our lack of individual power? But this out of control government surveillance apparatus we have in america is nothing to laugh about. Who knows what technology is being developed, way out in the desert, deep underground, among the dead aliens and their machines, for future use in keeping track of, and thus controlling us the people. Somehow you sense that we'll find out, though, soon enough.

Stamping Messages on Dollar Bills

BEN COHEN, one half of the "Ben @ Jerry's" Ice cream empire, seems to be quite a good liberal fellow. He Supports democratic candidates, including the most liberal among them, and liberal causes, the environment, equal rights, the whold liberal agenda. He and partner Jerry started an ice cream parlor in vermont in 1977, and now they are a subsidiary in a large international corporation. Ben's always involved in some high minded political or social cause. His big project now is to get the money out of politics, or, more accurately, to get the american people to get their government to get the money out of politics. The offensive is being waged on several fronts, one of which is the "Stamp Stampede" project, in which participants stamp messages on dollar bills, in order to spread the word. It is calculated that the average dollar bill ends up being passed around between nearly eight hundred fifty people during its lifetime, so that if a hundred people or so stamp a message on several dozen dollars a day for a period of about a year, soon enough everyone in the united states will see one of the messages. There are several different messages being stamped, all very clever in content. "money is not politics" comes to mind. Also, "no political bribery", and "the system isn't broke.Its fixed". That last one might be the best one of all. Precisely how all this is supposed to translate into real action to eliminate money from politics is anybody's guess; presumably, it has to do with the raising of public awareness. always a noble endeavor. In particular, the campaign is aimed against the Supreme Court decision three ago which said that money is free speech, and cannot be abridged constitutionally, and that therefore, anyone, including corporations, may, essentially, give any amount of money desired to any political candidate, legally. Partly becuase of this, the Obama people spent about one billion dollars to get elected, it will take at least that much to purchase the presidency for onyone and everyone in the future, and members of congrsess routinely accumulate several millions dollars themselves buy their political offices, aka "get elected". In america, to purchase office is synonymous with "to get elected"; the two terms are, for all itents and purposes, interchangeable. All this, and the answer is so, so simple. A first proposed by the late great writer gore vidal, it consists of seven little words, enacted into law. To wit: "the purchase of political advertising is prohibited." Under this law, money would still be speech, and all political advertising, free by requirement, would still be speech, and for the first time, truly "free". How simple, nad how ingenious! Those seven words might be the best message Ben Cohen and his people could possibly stamp on any dollar bill. It might save the country from plutocracy and return it to the control of the "common man". But don't count on it. Who uses cash anymore? Among those who do, how many ever see any dollars or green bills of any sort? And besides, Ben already has a goodly number of clever messages going out on the stamp stampede.

Blessed American Loneliness

I DECIDED TO TRY an experiment. I decided to stop initiating contact with other people. My telephone, my email, my snail mail address and street address would still be well known to my friends and family, and anytime i received a communication of any kind i would promptly and cheerfully respond, but i would not be the one initiating contact, or starting the conversation, or keeping in touch. I'd let other folks do it for awhile. I'd done my share, and more than, for a while. The reason for this change is that i was looking for ways to increase my focus and productivity at the keyboard, to do more essay writing, rather than emailing, which is more fun and easier on the intellect and thus, more alluring than serious writing. You can get very caught up in an online social media life, whether its facebook, twitter, email, chat, whatever. In fact you can get addicted to it, like anything else that's psychologically rewarding. My purppse in giving up contact initiation was to find ways to help me focus better. Within a very short time i noticed that all my contact with the outside world, the world at large, including my family and circle of friends, had stopped. Stopped cold, dead in its tracks. No email, no phone calls nothing. Its been very quiet. And its no big deal. I understand why, I understand that people are busy, and so forth. There was a time, nearly a decade and a half ago, when i entered chatrooms online and nearly got addicted to them. They became, for a time, my primary social vehicle. My friends are people I have known most of my life, known face to face, but they have scattered all over the country over the years, and.....are...now....silent. Someday, maybe, they'll come back... But I know they're there for me, out there somewhere, always have been, always will be. Its all good, as we say in america. I once had a friend from china, who moved here from shanghai in the mid eighties, and had only lived in my small lower midwestern university town a few months when he began to feel lonely. "you amellicans are the roneliest people in the world", he fumed, "you care more about your dogs and cats than you do each other!"...as i listened to him, I thought...you're right about that, but, so what? Isn't everyone like that? "HELL YES we americans care more about dogs and cats than each other! I know I do!" I retorted. Fact is a harvard study revelased taht ten percent of americans prefer dogs and cats to humans, and the other ninety percent is lying. My communist chinese friend greatly enjoyed the creature comforts of capitalism, decided to stay in america, but moved to chicago, where, at last report, he was somewhat happier, but still feeling lonely, adrift in a small town. But when push comes to shove, we americans are there for each other, you can bet your sweet bippy on that! We americans are a bunch of individualistic, independent, self sufficient, lonely miserable wretches whose basic social needs are often neglected, and only infrequently, inadequately met. The average american today has at least one friend fewer than a generation ago, research indicates. But so what? We love it that way! God Bless American culture!

Exploding Sewers

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT it couldn't get any worse. Everybody in the united states is still upset about finding out that our own government spies on us, we are trying to get over that, trying to come to terms with life beneath big brother, and now it turns out that there's even more to worry about. Out toilets are wired. You heard that right, believe it or not. In western upstate new york, the sewer, water, sanitation department has been having trouble with clogged sewer lines. They quickly figured out the cause. People are starting to use a fancy substitute for regular toilet paper, something called wet wipes. Also, two ply toilet paper use is on the increase. Americans want to wipe their butts in style. Monitoring and surveillance devices placed in this western new york sewer system tracked the wet wipes and two ply toilet paper to the exact houses whence they came, if you can believe that! Word is that once the houses are located, the occupants are warned that their use of such fancy ass toilet paper substitute will eventually wreck their own sewer system inside their house. There is no word yet on happens if the occupants refuse to stop using fancy toilet paper substitute, and continue sinning. One scenario has reapeatedly offending houses lying in a smoldering pile of rubble, after being visited by a SWAT team of toilet cops, black helicopter and all. Furthermore, indications are that this problem, clogged sewers, is beginning to appear all over america, as fancy toilet paper becomes popular. Consider this a plea to all good americans to return to the primitive but halcyon days of cheap, single ply, six rolls for a dollar generic toilet paper from dollar general. Otherwise, we'll be paying trillions of dollars rebuilding our exploded sewers. They clog up, then they blow up. A clog of wet wipes the size of a double decker english bus was allegedly found beneath the streets of london, england. Can america be far "behind"?

So Little Do We Know

SOMETIMES YOU GET SUCKED back into these online email chat groups even if you try to slip away. Responding to a discussion about serial killers, ted bundy in particular, a discussion group member concluded that evil is real, it exists, and it takes over people like ted bundy, all because of adam's fall from grace in the garden of eden. The most alarming feature of his words was his description of evil as being "amongst us", rather than "within" us. Almost as if he considers evil to be something tangible, a measurable physical force, rather than a concept, albeit a very useful one. "Evil" is a judgment we make about human behavior, an opinion, an attitude, a thought. To the extent that thoughts and attitudes are real, evil is real, and rest assured it is. My thoughts are real, or at least i think they are; aren't yours? Avoiding overly simplistic, arbitrary explanations, explanations involving adam's fall from grace and evil as a force of nature, helps us to steer away from erroneous beliefs about causal connections, problems, and solutions. The epidemic of mass murders and serial killings in america is most likely not caused by anything outside the human mind, and not going to be solved, or even ameliorated, for instance, by prayer, unless prayer can alter fundamental human nature. The key to understanding evil is understanding human behavior, and the key to understanding human behavior is understanding what, why, and how what we call "evil" is evil. A thorough exploration of the human brain using nano tech robots might be a good start. Sociology, behavioral economics, and psychology, all very new sciences, are nothing other than a search to understand ourselves, who, as far as we know, are the source of all good and evil. No matter how much we want to attribute good and evil to "God", we end up back with ourselves, with nothing to really study other than ourselves, because god is, for all practical purposes, just another concept, like good and evil. NO matter how real God is to us, to us, he is still a concept, so little do we know about him, or anything else.

Crime Stopping, Time Hopping, Buck Stopping

JUST IN CASE anyone has forgotten, there was another mass murder at an american military installation recently, which seems strange, because you would think that at american military locations - forts, ships, offices, recruitment centers - of all places, somebody would have a gun, and would stop the mass murderer just as soon as he got started. Does the american military prefer to be unarmed on american soil? Is this to enhance public relations, and appear kinder, gentler? If so, it might wish to reconsider. One can never be too cautious, you know. Has american culture reached the point at which anytime, anywhere americans are gathered together in large numbers someone must be armed? If not, it soon might. American Secretary of Defense Chuck Hegal made a brilliant comment about the latest shooting: he said that there were red flags all through the life of the killer. Warning signs in his behavior that he was going, sooner or later, to do something really harmful. He never should've had the chance to kill people. He should've been stopped long ago, before it ever happened. The warning signs were there. This, according to our defense secretary. A more meaningless comment is difficult to imagine. In the future, the very near future, every one of us will do something harmful to ourselves, or someone else. Harmful, small or large. Let's just stop it, whatever it is, whatever its going to be, right now. Or maybe even hop into a time machine, go back to our earlier lives, and change everything that leads to harmful behavior. HIngsight is twenty twenty, mister secretary. Who knows where the next mass murderer in america - and there will be one - will come from. If only we could find out, and prevent it from happening. If the killer should have been made harmless long ago, then other people from the past are responsible for his horrible actions now. That takes the heat off the military hierarchy, all the way up the chain. Someone at the Truman Library, or the Smithsonian, might oughtat dust off Hary Truman's "the buck stops here" sign, and sneak it onto the desk of the secretary of defense.

Taking Chemistry in High School

YOU BEGIN TO WONDER what part of it people don't understand, or refuse to understand. You start with basic chemistry, the periodic table of the elements, to which we were all exposed in high school, if not earlier. You note the basic elements nitrogen, osygen, and carbon, and their respective, well known chemical properties, including their ability to absorb heat, and retain or release it back into the environment. From there its a matter of moving on to observable reality, measuring the content of earth's atmosphere, the amount of various elements in it, and calculating what chemical impact humans have had on it, how much of what elements, if any, humans have added or removed from it. Any high school or college chemistry teacher can tell you how to measure to content of the atmosphere, with what equipment. Its right at about seventy eight percent nitrogen, twenty percent oxygen, and tiny amounts of a few trace elements, including carbon. Been that way for millenia, but has evolved over time, adding nitrogen, cutting back on carbon. Sometimes we wish there were more oxygen in the air; humans do really well, at everything, with an enriched oxygen air content. But There is no conspiracy to deceive anyone about the content of the earth's atmosphere, anywhere in teh world, at any time. High school chemistry teachers just do not have time to engage in conspiracies to keep atmospheric content a secret, or to lie about it. Any of these teachers knows how much carbon is in the atmosphere naturally, how much is there right now, and how much of it was put there by human industry. Then, independently, people around the world, with no conspiracy or evil intent, can measure how much heat is being absorbed and retained becsause of the added carbon, how much heat is being absorbed and retained which would not be, were it not for the extra carbon. The results are pretty much teh same enywhere, which does not mean that there is a conspiracy, but only that the measuring is rather simple, straight forward, verifiable, like good science should be. Again, one begins to wonder why there is any disagreement about whether humanity is bringing about a warming of the earth's atmosphere. If you want to stop there, all you hvave to do is ask yourself whtehrt teh added atmospheric heat would have any impact on climate over time. Simply paying attention to the weather in your hometown isn't good enough, because you have no idea what the weather would be like without the added carbon. But high school chemistry is another matter. High school chemistry reveals reality, it tells the truth, in simple, easy to understand fashion. What we need is a world full of high school chemistry students.

A Bit too Late, the Pope Speaks Out

THE NEW POPE, Francis whatever the number, a latin american who was born poor and whose parents came to the new world in desperation from italy, seems to be thoughful, intelligent, compassionate, and all that, but - a bit confusing. It has nothing to do with his one day telling the church to stop obsessing over sexual matters, then the next day obsessing over sexual matters, but rather, his take on economics. He very definitely is a friend of the poor man, that seems obvious. Working poor, unemployed poor, either way, he's on your side. Just yesterday he urged unemployed people the world over to fight for jobs, almost as if fomenting global revolution, or a war of the rich versus poor. (what a headline:Pope Calls For Socialist Revolution!) He also condemned the current global economic system for worshipping money like a god. He was real plain about that. An economic system must focus on and serve people, not money. We live in a throw away society and economy in which elderly people are discarded because they have less productivity, and younger people are discarded as well, for whatever reason he said, which i can't now recall. He sounded pretty intense about this. What's confusing is that some time ago, before he became pope, he gave an interview with a liberal american journalist which very much indicated that the then cardinal was/is a capitalist, and a capitalist for the same reasons why american conservatives are capitalists. You've heard all these reasons before: capitalism encourages freedom, freedom from government control. It produces wealth, which benefits all who work. Socialist, command economics, stifle the individual. And so on, and so forth. So be it. All well and good. But now he says that the world worships money, and that's a bad thing. Is it possible that His Holiness fails to understand that the worship of money is the very heart and soul of capitalism? Pope Francis flatly said theat he does not like the new world order, the new global economy, because it place money before people. Well, that's what capitalism does, your excellency. It seeks profits, and for that purpose it exploits resources, including, and indeed most particularly labor. To wit, workers are paid according to the prevailing markdet valu eof labor, not according to anyone's notion of what is fair or what is best for the worker. The freedom of capitalism is the freedom to not hire people, the frddeom to not start your own business, and to seek to work for someone else. The new world order he so despises is nothing other than international cartel corporate capitalism, set free, without any government restraint of any sort, free to do what it wishes to make profits. This seems to be what the world wants, at least for now. Whatever, its what the world has, what the world has created. Huge organizations, controlling the economy, the resources, the workers, and only now is the pope speaking out about it. Well, your holiness, it might be a bit too late.

Walking IN Everyone's Shoes

VLADMIIR PUTIN, president of russia, must feel as if he has an albatross around his neck in his alliance with syria, syria and its international criminal dictator. russia and Syria have been allies for some time, going back at least as far as the 1967 war, and the russians never in their wildest imaginations thought that anything like this could ever happen. Vladimir Putin is still, at last report, clinging to the story that the chemical warfare in syria was used by the rebels, not assad. This is pitiful. But what else can he do? He is trapped by his friendship with a black sheep. He'll have to come to terms with the truth eventually, you would think, but who knows? Self made illusions can linger long! These alliances poison world politics, or seem to. The United States and Israel. The United States and Great Britain. Russia and Syria and Iran. There are many more where those came from, all over the world. They serve their purpose, various military , political, and economic advantages, but they also create international rivalires and, for lack of a better word, "gangs" of nations, with ever changing membership within the gangs. Would a moratorium on international alliances have any positive impact? Would it force nations to cooperate more generally, or would it have just the opposite effect? Nations seem to ally with like minded nations" democracies with democracies, dictatorship with dictatorship. However, more than once the united states has supported a dictatorship, such as south viet nam, whenever circumstances seemed to make this beneficial to america. Circumstances sometimes produce strange bedfellows, such as the united states and the soviet union in world war two. We could draw names out of a hat at the United Nations and choose up new allies! Maybe do this on a regular basis, to give all nations a chance to find out what its like to be allied with, to walk in the the shoes of - everyone else.

Oh, the Tragedy

SAM WATERSTON, of Law and Order television fame, is featured on a radio commerical paid for by the federal government, i.e., you and i. Sam makes a lengthy, passionate, and well performed plea for donations to the national park service, which is in danger of totally crumbling, according to sam. Park employees are being laid off, historic sites are not being maintained, buildings and other structures are in need of repair, all due to lack of money. This raises a few questions. Should the government be buying air time on the radio asking people for money, or for anything? Doesn't it already confiscate enough of our money, in the form of taxes? Shouldn't the maintanance of our national parks already be part of the budget, without having to ask for more from the public? The government is always on the radio and television, giving us advice, telling us what to do, or not do, like a big brother. Don't smoke. Get a colonoscopy. Get your breasts examined. Don't do this. Do that. On and on. Should it (the federal government) be doing any of this? (with our money). Maybe the thing to do would be to just print however much money is needed for the national parks, get it where it needs to go, and add it to the never ending always growing national debt - isn't that how everything else is done? We know that big brother is reading our emails, listening to our phone calls, and ripping open our snail mail. We know that they put metal strands inside ten and twenty dollar bills so federal agents can tell who has cash by using a radar gun. And we know that all over our media, big brother is exhorting us to do this, that, or the other, constantly. Had enough? then maybe its time to become a tea party libertarian! But are tea partiers libs (libertarians) across the board? Are they down with legal pot? Most of us tend to pick and choose which freedoms we would magnanimously,condescendingly bestow upon others. That leaves the problem of figuring out a way to pay for repairing the crumbling infrastructure, which must be done before we even think about sprucing up parks.Oh, the tragedy of national bankruptcy!

Hitting, ubiquitously

SUNDAY IN AMERICA, early autumn, and its back to the gladiatorial combats for millions of angry americans who find both an outlet for their pent up aggression and a stimulus for more at the stadium, or in front of the big screen. For those of you in Russia who may not know, due to preoccupation with Putin the pugilist for your sporting amusement, in america high school football is played on friday night, college football is played on saturday, and professional, old man's football is played on sunday. We work our way up the ladder, each day, to a higher level. How cleverly american, saving the best for the last, each week! Public relations, advertising, marketing, selling, american. It is not possible for a person, any person, to play football in high school, college, and professional and not get injured. Its very difficult to play high school football and avoid injury. The dominant cause of football injuries, as you would suppose, is high impact collisions. People colliding with eith each other, or the ground, as a result of colliding with each other. For some strange reason, during the past decade, or last few decades, it has very gradually but very definitely become much more important in football to not only create collisions, but to create high impact collisions. The higher the impact, the better. No impact is too great, if it is legal, in accordance with the rules of football, which allow for very very high impact collisions, higher than is necessary to accomplish the goal of tackling the ball carrier. The terms "block" and "tackle" have been replaced by the term "hit". Its a term we all use, ubiquitously. (If you can find a way to work in the word "ubiquitous", go for it.) The harder you hit, the better. We all seem to love it, to encourage it. This ignores the simple fact that hitting harder, blocking and tackling with great force, does not increase the effectiveness of either. Effectiveness is what matters, not impact. Stop the other player from advancing down the field. In our modern hard hitting football, [people who have been hit often continue down the filed, because the hit was hard, but ineffective. Hard hitting has cheapened american football, maed it less efficient, less effective, less artistic and skillful. And also, of course, it has greatly increased both the number and severity of injuries. Now we are seeing a whole new generation of elderly americans, retired professional football players, with very serious illnesses resulting from football. About sixty years ago we began making football helmets out of hard plastic, rather than leather, and the change began, slowly at first, which has resulted in teh avalance of hard hits and injuries we see today, and which, evidently, we all prefer. At least, we as a society have been very slow to recognize and talk about it. Football is more popular than ever. The more this problem is pointed out, and the more vocal people become is wanting to do something to change it, the mmore conservative football fans, like, say our friend rush limbaugh will attack the desire for changes as tragic and stupid. rush is already predicting, half jokingly, that football will disappear because of the uproar over injuries and hard hitting. Beware; millions of americans love the hard hitting and do not seem to care about the injuries, so change will not be sudden. We may get to have a little gladiatorial fun before the kill joy safety first crowd takes over, returns us to leather helmets, and ruins everything.

Asking Someone Who Knows (ted bundy)

THE DAY BEFORE HE DIED, convicted serial killer ted bundy talked about the reasons why he had become a self described monster. If memory serves, bundy kidnapped, murdered, sexually violated, then carved up his victims, or something horrible and ghoulish like that. He talked about the influence of violence and sex in the media on him, how he was fascinated with both from early childhood, maintained his interest, and put the two together later on in his acting out of his obsessions with sex and violence. Our capitalistic culture, particulalry the entertainment part of it, which is a big part, uses sex and violence to hook the public and maintain an audiencesell products, and make a profit, aka corporate capitalism. It works like a charm. But indications are that it may also have detrimental effects on society in general, encouraging preoccupation with violence and sex, and acting out. In other words, the marketing industry within american corporate capitalism uses sex and violence to sell, which encourages and increases negative consequences for society, in reality. Bundy himself pointed out how amazed he was that society in general was horrified with his crimes, and found them digusting, while at the same time producing and popularly digesting a huge amount of the same sort of images in the general entertainment culture, in television and movies especially. American society loves vicarious violence and pornographic sex, but finds it disgusting when such violence really happens, as if there is no tconnection between the two. So much for the liberal argument that gun crimes are caused by guns. They are caused by cultural indoctrination. In other words, by the propaganda, (entertainment) wing of the ruling corporate oligarchy, aka our "corporate masters". According to ted bundy, who should certainly know, every violent criminal in prison is a pornography addict. All of the ones he met were. Gun crimes are caused by people who have been brainwashed by popular culture to believe, subconsciously, that violence and sex are connected, and worth seeking. Just ask ted bundy.

Being Reasonable, or trying

WASHINGTON D.C., and the area right around it, has the highest per capita income level of any place in the united states, reveal new statistics. The people in second place, and thrid place, and fourth, aren't far behind, and the exact order changes frequently, but for now, the nation's capitol is the richest part of america. So waht, next year the leader might be new york, lr some place in california. according to our friend rush limbaugh, washington leads the pack because its the seat of gevernment, and government is where the money is, in this day and age of liberal big government. Honest to god, he really said that. What's even funnier, you can bet your sweet bippy that, by and large, america's conservatives agree with that nonsense, or pretend they do. Government, always the problem, liberalism, always the problem, obama, always the problem. Whatever it takes to demonize obama and the democrats, no matter how twisted. Prejudicial thinking in its purest form! Be assured, the wealthy folks in and around washington are, for the most part, trial lawyers, corporate lawyers, corporate executives, and not government employees.Just like anywhere else. Hell, if the republicans conservatives really believe that government is making people rich in washington D.C., why don't they like government? Don't they want people to be rich? Limbaugh further compared obama to herbert hoover, saying that we basically have a herbert hoover in the white house right now. By that Limbaugh presumably meant that obama is incompetant like hoover. If rush knew more history he would know that Hoover responded to economic collapse by doing nothing, which got him run out of office. Obama responded to economic collapse by getting the government involved big time, and the economy stayed afloat, although it may have turned out even better had he done nothing, and he got reelected. The american people, evidently, prefer that their president try to do something when confronted by disaster. One can certainly understand that, unless one happens to be a conservative republican.

Backtracking a bit With the Pope

THE NEW POPE once did an interview with the great american liberal media human chris mathews, during which he expoused faith in capitalism, lack of faith in socialism, and went round and round with chris a bit. Chris didn't seem able to pin the pope down on whether jesus himself was more of a socialist than a capitalist, but, really, its all guess work, arguable either way, two thousand years ago capitalism and socialism didn't exist in a modern enough fashion to enable any comparisons. Render unto caesar and give unto the poor kinda sounds socialistic, or maybe its just generous, tax paying capitalism. When the new pope cautioned the flock against obsessing on sexual matters and matters of doctrinal detail, the world perked its ears up, because the messsage didn't sound too terribly conservative. The very next day the new pope delivered yet another message condemning abortion and contraception, (but letting homosexuality slide a bit), proving to the flock that yes, he is still perfectly capable of obsessing about these matters himself. Abortion opponents could argue that millions of murdered fetuses each year is worthy of obsession, and that dozens of instances of priestly sexual sin also warrants extra attention, since the sweeping under carpet approach has not panned out splendidly. And how can the church possibly obsess too much over the global coming out of the closet of the gay community? How dare they! The church is gaining membership in africa and latin america to compensate for losses in europe and north america. How long can it be before we see a darkly pigmented pope? All popes are voted into office, and simultaneously chosen directly by god, somehow. (it must all blend in together, somehow; god, operating through hundreds of cardinals, having them get together, negotiate, dicker, lobby, politick among themselves, and vote, over and over again... presumbaly). If the future catholic church is kinder, gentler, and more inclusive, as the new pope says he wants it to be, how long before a black pope guides a largely bladk flock, with women up front, participating, and gay sheep......out there, somewhere..

Capitalism Consuming Itself

IT WOULD, IT SHOULD BE EASY to understand how president obama might have the attitude "it was a fair vote. we voted to have obamacare". Now we have it. Its too late to try to stop it." Anybody can understand that attitude. Meanwhile, however, as obamacare gets closer and closer to implementation, obama himself keeps "tweeking" it, changing the dates, and implementation schedule, mainly trying to give the states more time to catch up. This gives the republicans the ammunition they think they need. Obama claims that nobody should mess with the law of the land, but he keeps messing with it. (The only difference is that obama is trying to support it, improve it, not get rid of it.) If you can prove that the other guy is a hypocrite, you can justify your own behavior, and win the argument. Somehow, that strange notion has worked its way into public discourse, as if we're all trying to be surpassingly logical and intellectual, but aren't sure how to go about it. One cannot excuse, explain, or justify bad behavior by pointing to other bad behavior, but boy, we sure do try. Warren Buffet, who has evidently decided that he does not like obamacare, nonetheless believes it is folly to try to defund the entire country unless obama care is defunded, and he might just have a point. If you have enough insurance companies to force them to compete against each other, you don't have enough customers for each company. If you have only a few insurance companies, the way we do now, they don't compete agianst each other, but instead they work together in what we call a "monopoly" ro keep profits up, which they do now in america, and have always done. Just like the fuel companies ("fuel" companies are those corporations usually mistakenly called "oil" companies, Exxon, Chevron, Shell, etc.). Let nobody harbor the delusional fantasy that fuel comapnies or insurance companies in the united states engage in any real competition. Rule by a few is as rule by one. A plutocracy is in effect a monopoly, which is supposedly illegal. There used to be this thingie called the "Sherman anti-Trust Act", of 1892 i think 'twas - whatever happened to it? But wait! The sherman anti trust act is socialistic, because it is anti capitalistic, which is to say, anti free market, because part of the free market is competition, winners, loosers, growth, and death. By making it illegal for capitalism to consume itself, th ACT protected capitalism from itself, but now we have lost is, misploacedc the sherman anti trust act, and, at long last, eventually, ultimately, everything in the world will be owned and controlled by a single person. We'll have to hope the prices aren't too high. If they are, we won't be able to do anything about it.