Trump, Tweeting Stupidly, But Entertainingly

ACCORDING TO DONALD TRUMP, the many investigations into connections between his presidential campaign and Russian operatives intended to influence the outcome of the election is a "witch hunt". He tweeted this. Mr. President, we couldn't agree more. Sometimes a witch hunt finds a witch, depending upon one's exact definition of a "witch", and there are many. Apparently, there are good witches and bad witches. Your claim that you will "make America great again" reveals you to either be a witch, or a witch wannabe, able to wave some magic wand and fundamentally transform America by remaking it the way it once was, including politically incorrect, male dominated, with invisible, oppressed minorities, and female second class status. Sounds like a plan, a conservative republican plan. Then, Trump said/tweeted that the many investigations into his campaign's possibly illegal and traitorous activities conspiring with the Russians are nothing but a lame excuse the democrats are using for losing the election. Mr. Trump is evidently too stupid to realize that by claiming the democrats are using his Russian campaign connections as an excuse for losing the election indicates that he indeed did have Russian connections during the campaign... No, Mr. President, it isn't an excuse, but it may be a reason, the reason. We'll find out. The actual excuse for losing the election is that we Democrats ran a bad campaign and had a bad, i.e. unpopular candidate, and we still beat your narcissistic ass by three million votes at the ballot box, which says a lot about you as a candidate. Most people seem to agree that our president would be a lot better off if he would stay away from Twitter. Maybe so, but the world would certainly be less entertaining, and the president would be missing a capital opportunity to make himself look ridiculous, as if he needs any help.

Keeping The Internet Filthy

EVERYBODY WHO USES IT knows what a pile of garbage the internet is. Half of it is pornography. Then, there's the terrorist recruitment websites, and the right wing white supremacist Christian racist hate groups, not to mention the republican party and the Tea Party (just kidding). The list goes on, and on. The dirty little secret is, the internet need not be filled with filth. That it is is attributable to one reason, and one reason alone, the usual reason: you guessed it: money. You hear blather about free speech and the need to avoid censorship and government control, and all that, but that's just a bunch of blather. Nobody cares about that. Its money that matters, on the internet and everywhere else among humankind. If the owners of the internet, the same billionaires who own everything else in the world and probably in the solar system, wanted to eliminate the filth, they would. All internet corporations have what they call "Terms of Service" which pretend to eliminate filth, and covers their oligarchial corporate legally liable ass quite nicely, but does nothing of value. In fact, these terms of service are never enforced, or only occasionally, for show. Meanwhile, our billionaire leaders-masters, people like Mark Zuckerburg and Bill Gates, claim piously that they are shocked and offended by all the filth online, and insist that if there were anything, anything at all, that they could do to help, they of course would. That, of course, is pure excrement. The truth is, we all want the filth to remain, including and particularly those among us who are billionaires largely because of it, so it remains. Child pornography crosses the line. Thank god we humans, at long last, have some standards, if only minimal. People got tired of child porn, so a campaign was launched to eliminate it, which has had some success. Everything with electronic-digital content has its own unique signature, identifiable, traceable, reproducible. Just develop the software to identify whatever kind of filth you want to eliminate, like child porn, and the filth can be deleted. The problem is, what is filth, and who decides? One man's filth is another man's art. A slippery slope of incrementalism could lead to an Orwellian nightmare in which everything on the internet is erased, and the internet is no more, because all human online activity is filth, according to some petty authority. So, don't panic. You will not lose access to your favorite right wing hate group, and beautiful naked women will always be available for downloading. That's the way we want it, and, even with all the really horrible stuff we must suffer, maybe that's the best way to keep it.

Lowering The Curtain On the Lunatics In Texas

THE GREAT STATE of Texas is going crazy, or perhaps has long since gone. Though that maybe shouldn't be surprising, it should be alarming. Like much of America, Texas has been taken over by a vast horde of conservative Caucasian Christian republicans, tragically. These people have lost all touch with reality, and they understand nothing about mainstream progressive secular America. First the state legislature passes its own version of North Carolina's doomed "bathroom bill", under which we must all use the restroom corresponding to the gender on our birth certificates, a subtle way of discriminating against transgender people, and now, for the piece de resistance, it is now illegal for cities in Texas to be "sanctuary cities, which means that, like it or not, local police departments must chase Mexicans as well as criminals. The highly progressive city of Austin is up in arms, with protests filling the streets. Neither of these wicked vicious conservative pieces of garbage legislation will stand the test of the American legal system, much less the avalanche of corporate sponsored billion dollar enterprises and activities which will inevitably boycott the state, like happened in North Carolina, like a giant sucking sound ala NAFTA and Ross Perot, for those of a certain age. North Carolina learned its socio-economic lesson the hard way, and repealed its insane bathroom bill. So will Texas, soon enough. Our lunatic fringe conservative Jesus Guns and money community is having its day in the sun, but, as an old Cajun sayin' goes, "the sun don't always shine on the same dog's ass." Ironically, this Christian capitalistic conservative movement is only hurting itself, by driving business out of Texas, and into other, more progressive, more sane states. The American people, by a wide margin, want to welcome and include our brothers and sisters from the south, rather than treat them like criminals, and want to leave transgender people alone, and stop persecuting them. And that's exactly what's going to happen, notwithstanding last ditch efforts by a Jesus Guns and Money conservative lunatic fringe trying desperately to have one more dying day in the sun, before the curtain goes down on them.

Opposing Trump's Insane Budget and Agenda

YOU CANNOT simultaneously preserve peace and prepare for war. Einstein said something like this, and it makes perfect sense, with just a little thought. However, that is exactly what we are doing, and what we, humanity, has always done. It should be no wonder that there has never been still isn't any real lasting peace. Trump's budget calls for a ten percent increase in American military spending, at a time when the American military is already ridiculously strong, with incredible bloated level of money pumped into it, More money that the next ten military powers in the world combined. We simply do not need this much military. We are safe, safer than we seem to think. Our paranoia is largely a result of corporate government military industrial complex propaganda. We could cut spending on the American military by half, and still be amply strong. We'd have seven aircraft carriers, for instance, instead of fourteen. Do you think we could somehow survive with that number? If you don't, you aren't thinking clearly. The American military hasn't been used for defensive purposes for a very, very long time. The American military is purely an offensive force, designed and intended to extend American economic and political power all over the world, by extending military power. In some ways, it works magnificently. The U.S. has military bases all over the world, starts or enters any war it pleases, has extended American corporate profit making worldwide, and has supported our corporations while they rape the rest of the world, stealing their natural resources in places from Latin America and Africa. The American military is used for far more than merely defending America from enemies and would be invaders, or keeping America safe, as we are dishonestly told. Home grown American terrorism is a far greater threat than any foreign entity. We need to defend ourselves against right wing hateful extremists. much more than Islamic foreigners. The Timothy McVeighs and Dylan Roofs of our sweet lovable country are the real threat, not some imaginary horde of Islamic killers who hate America, inexplicably. America's greatest enemies are within, not without. They are extreme corporate greed and criminality, and white supremacist style hatred of racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities. Trumps' budget is an evil plan which transfers great wealth to the already wealthy, reduces greatly assistance to the poor and defenseless, obliterates beneficial social programs while turning America into even more of a monstrously militarized national security state and harsh police state. You cannot maintain good health and simultaneously maintain a a self destructive, unhealthy lifestyle. That is just common, Einsteinian sense. Even more sensible would be the complete destruction of the insane Trump right wing agenda which currently so tragically afflicts perhaps one third of we the American people. We must try.

Honoring The Fallen, and the Future

THERE ARE TWO THINGS you definitely do not want to do on Memorial Day. You do not want to walk up to a member of the U.S. armed forces and thank her or him for her or his service. Not good, as our Prez would bleat. Memorial Day is to honor the dead, the fallen heroes who fell in combat, not current service members. Thanking the alive and well can be done every other day of the year, including Veteran's Day, because, after all, the currently serving shall soon enough be veterans, or "Armed Services DY", whatever and whenever that is, assuming it exists, and I'm not merely dreaming that it does. The other thing is, you don't want to fail to condemn war, and human violence in general, and vow to spend the remainder of your life working diligently to end both, for they have no real value, they only serves to diminish our species, we can do better, and think how many beautiful people could have lived much longer lives if not for the human insanity of war. Over one hundred million good people died in military combat during the twentieth century alone. Incredible. memorial Day started right after the Civil War as "Decoration Day", to honor the recent nightmarishly high deaths, to honor the fallen soldiers. We honor our fallen heroes, but we do not overlook the fact that, quite simply, there is no reason in heaven or hell, no law of nature, nothing about who we humans are which requires that we kill each other. We can and must eliminate war from our world, and what better day to at least realized that fact, and to direct our aspirations and highest selves toward that noble end, while we simultaneously honor, remember, and cherish those who fought for our nation in the past. While we honor the dead, let us honor our descendants by leaving them a world free of the monstrous, savage violence with which we have thus far, needlessly and unwisely, filled history. May the dear lord be with us.

Praying To Be Wrong

I STARTED GOING TO THE senior center when I turned sixty, and not long thereafter they hired a 35 year old slender sexy cook.She was separated from her husband, and had two teenaged daughters. From the start, she tended to miss work every fourth day, which puzzled us. Soon, by chance, they moved into a house across the street from me, and lived there a year. I didn't see her very much, except at the senior center, but liked each other, and got along. A year later, on the very last day of the month, she walked over and asked if she and her daughter could move in with me. I had to say yes. I invited myself to ride to school with her the next day, she said yes, she would pick me up. I thought we all needed to get to know each other better, fast Next day she drove right on past my house, twenty minutes later her care returned,, driven by some rough guy with no teeth. I didn't hear from her for three more days, and I assumed she had changed her mind about moving in. Finally, the days after she had visited me, she called, and told me that she was getting ready to move in, and invited me to come across the street. I did, amazed, and spent several hours making trip back and forth with armloads of her and her daughter's possessions. I was tired. Suddenly, the guy with no teeth unhooked the stove and put in , by itself, in the back of his pickup. I helped. This puzzled me. My new roommate said to me: we're going to take this and put it in storage. Its a ways away. We'll be gat this point, all her stuff, including her bed, was in my house, and her old house was finished, empty.one awhile. I'll call you later." Now I was confused. This was about seven P.M. About ah hour later, my phone woke me and she said: "we won't be back until late. I probably won't be spending the night at our place. We might keep working on the house. Even more confused, I went right back to sleep, then woke up about midnight, refreshed and wide awake. I intended to find the hell out what was going on. I walked across the street, back into her former home. Dark, quiet. A light was seeping out beneath the closed bathroom door. The door was locked, and I herd whispers, and female sucking and moaning sounds. I knocked, demanded an explanation, and he, toothless, yelled at me, so I turned around and began to walk out. He came out of the bathroom in his underwear, and yelled at me some more. I smile and walked out. My new roommate, meth amphetamine manufacturer and addict, big time. Of I told her that she could still move in, but I didn't think it was a good idea, wasn't best for her. She decided not to. We never mentioned the deep, dark secret. hell, she would have denied it. Drug addiction controls a person's entire life, all of it. It not only turns you into a criminal, it turns your life into chaos, and forces you to tell insane lies that make sense only to the addict's warped mind. She once said to me: "my boss does not understand that I have no family, I have to deal with family problems all by myself!" As if family problems take place every fourth day, on schedule. She also said that the stove belonged to her. obviously, it did not. It belonged to the owners of the house she rented. I'll never see her again. If she had actually moved in with me, sooner or later, something terrible would've happened. To her, something terrible will happen, probably sooner, not later. Wherever she is, I pray I'm wrong, but I'm not...THIS IS A TRUE STORY. OTHER ARTICLES ABOUT THIS LADY AND MY SITUATION APPEAR IN THE PAST MONTH. SCROLL DOWN THROUGH THE PREVIOUS MONTH...THANKS!

Choosing To Take Offense

HAVE YOU EVER heard someone say "I don't get mad very often, but, boy oh boy, when I do, watch out!" Of course you have, because we all say it, and we are all liars. We say it because we want simultaneously to convey an impression of tremendous potential personal power, well controlled by our immense wisdom and forbearance. Powerful, a tremendous force we all like to consider ourselves, capable of exerting great influence, but wise and restrained, thus generous and magnanimous. That's us! That is pure fantasy. Quite the opposite is true. We remain in a constant state of mild annoyance, based on fear, which all anger is, and we disguise our anger, at least we tone it down face to face, because we have learned that when we show it en total, nobody cares, and we lose influence. We are petty vindictive beings, easily but mildly angered; our nobility and wisdom are higher up and harder to reach. Anger is base, buried deeply within the brain stem, down low. I cannot remember ever having been angry at anyone in particular, for anything. As a toddler, I was surrounded by more powerful domineering people, my mother and sister, and I learned that to get angry was to invite conflict I could not hope to win. I therefore remain constantly annoyed with the whole of humanity. Many people have gotten angry at me, throughout my life, and still do, invariably for petty reasons, for avoidable reasons, for imaginary or forgivable offenses. When we are angry with someone, the object of our anger owes us something, and we take comfort in being the afflicted, the affronted, the victim, the angry martyr, capable of great retaliation, but noble in forbearance! Time to collect that debt! God, What rot. Among enlightened beings, anger is bullshit. No, I don't care, and never have, when some stinking primate becomes angry at me. Every adverse interaction, every conflict I have ever had has been a one way street; they get mad, try to disguise it as a well justified taking of offense, and I shrug my shoulders and ignore the idiots. Momentary anger is normal and natural; you hold a grudge for more than ten minutes, and I'm out of there, and I don't return. Why bother? One might as well stand at the orangutan cage, and dodge dung. During the twentieth century over one hundred million violent humans died in combat. "I make friends with people, and I wear a derby on my head as others so. I say: 'they are strangely stinking animals'. And I say,'no matter, I am too'". (Bertolt Brecht). I spread may anger thin, generalizing it to include all humans, living and dead. I no longer even like my high school classmates, from forty five years ago. They voted Trump. They're all mad at me. I sure as hell do not care. I'm outta here.

Treating Trump Badly, Bigly

ACCORDING TO PRESIDENT TRUMP, no other president in American history has been more unfairly, more rudely, more meanly treated, than, you guessed it, he, the Donald himself. Only four months into his likely soon to be truncated term, and he of the orange hair and tendency to repeat simplistic expressions to give himself time to think of what to say next has already become the most bigly hugely badly treated person to ever occupy the White House. Its always the big rich powerful white guys, the bullies, in other words, the poor weak downtrodden underdogs, who do the most whining. The thought that there might be something even remotely appropriate about his allegedly unfair treatment has, and never will cross his narcissistic paranoid attention seeking self pitying mind. Its not as if, for instance, the FBI thinks it has good reason to investigate the possibility that Trump's campaign conspired with Russian operatives to kick dirt on and undermine the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, or anything like that. Its not as if the the press has reported that Trump appointed as Director of the Environmental Protection Agency a man who does not seem to believe that the environment needs protecting, or anything like that. Gee whiz, all you do is fire a perfectly competent Director of the FBI for the apparent reason that he is leading an investigation into your possible criminal activities, then call him a "showboat", a "grand stander", a "nut case", and a "loser", and this is what you get? An investigation by the FBI! The villainous press is the culprit. How dare they point out that Trump's many business interests constitute a flagrant conflict of interest, as claimed by former Bush ethics counsel Lawrence Painter, and every other ethics expert in the country. How dare the media ridicule such conspicuously clear and cogent expressions as "alternative facts". How dare the media point out that millions of Muslims were not seen celebrating on the Jersey shore as the World Trade Center burned, or that there cannot be found four million illegal votes cast for Hillary Clinton. Its almost as if the American news media is insinuating that Trump tells lies. How dare they! If Trump had broken any of his campaign promises, such as forcing the Mexicans to pay for the wall, withdrawing from the Iranian nuclear treaty, the Paris climate treaty, or keeping all Islamic faithful out of the country, you could understand his lack of credibility. All other American presidents were treated, ooohh sooo much more totally nicerely than he of the juvenile syntax and propensity to enjoy firing people on television. The only thing they did to Thomas Jefferson was accuse him of being an atheist and an adulterer. James Garfield, William McKinley, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy were murdered while in office, but hey! They were treated much better than the poor unfairly treated Trumpster. George Washington was so fairly treated that he once said he would rather be in his grave than in his presidential office. Days after Lincoln was elected, half the country left the country, but they did it civilly, so as not to mistreat Abraham. Oh,there was the time that Lincoln arrived at his veteran's home respite outside Washington only to find a bullet hole in his top hat, but so what? Trump has it far worse. When he first shook hands with the Pope, the Pope didn't smile. What horrible treatment! "Hey hey, LBJ, how many boys did you kill today!" Wasn't that sweet? Bill Clinton spent eight years in office dodging the right wing hate mondering attack machine, then got impeached for lying about having sex with a twenty one year old hottie, but all that was fair, wasn't it? You might recall that as soon as Barack Obama was elected, Donald J. Trump spent the next five years claiming that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, even as Obama waved his Hawaiian birth certificate for all to see. By doing that Trump was actually being nice to Obama, keeping him honest, making sure his paperwork was in order. The day after Trump was elected, Obama reciprocated to inviting him to the White House and filling Trump in on everything he might need to know that might help him settle in to the job, but damned if Obama didn't fail to greet Trump at the front door with a cold glass of milk, or a warm one, and some fresh baked Michelle Obama cookies. He waited ten whole minutes before doing that. How negligent. It must have been torture for Trump, the most unfairly treated president in American history, who only wanted to lock up Hillary Clinton for not committing any crimes, but wanted to do it hugely nicely.

Electing A Reprobate To Congress, The Conservative American Way

THE VERY MOMENT you think American political culture can descend no lower, it does. In Atlanta, with one month remaining in a congressional special election, thirty million dollars have already been spent on advertising, most of it from unknown sources, most of it from billionaires, thanks to "Citizens United". Its a world record. Political power for sale, for a high price, shamelessly. This corruption could be remedied with but a seven word federal law: "the purchase of political advertising is prohibited". However, all politicians currently in office were elected under our corrupt system, and have no incentive to change anything. Their offices were purchased, expensively. They owe much to wealthy people, and they deliver, or lose their precious jobs. Meanwhile, way out in Montana,the news broke that a congressional candidate in a special election choked and body slammed a journalist for the unforgivable crime of asking a relevant question, which the candidate did not want to hear or answer. Somehow you sensed, without knowing it yet, that this wanton violence had been perpetrated by the republican candidate, and you were quite correct. You further sensed that this incident would enhance, rather than destroy said candidate's chances of winning the election. It did. He won. In fact, when the news broke, campaign contributions poured in from wealthy conservatives, and from poor ones. Among conservatives, being a proud self proclaimed sexual predator enhances a candidate's qualifications for being president. Assault and battery enhances a candidates qualifications to serve in congress. These are the very people who most sanctimoniously declare their adherence to Christian values. Which Christian values? Cheek turning neighbor loving, or death to those who curse the father and mother? (Mathew 15:4) The sixth congressional district in Georgia will elect a congressperson who will owe a great deal to some very wealthy, very stealthy people, and those people will expect results. Results they shall receive. In Montana, the new congressional reprobate might have to take some time off from Capitol Hill to return to his home district to either a a five hundred dollar fine, or six months in jail for assault and battery. Or maybe he will receive a slap on the wrist from some right wing Trump supporter judge. Either way, his credentials will be enhanced even further among his conservative constituents. Either way, his right wing supporters, disinclined to turn the other cheek, will doubtless find it easily expedient to turn their heads the other way. Instead, they should lower them in shame.

Learning That Money Is Only A State Of mind, The hard Way

ON NOVEMBER 8, 2016, the government of India announced that Indian currency was henceforth null and void, worthless. Since ninety percent of all transactions in India are in cash, this came as quite a shock to nearly a billion people. The move was made in an attempt to combat the country's massive financial corruption, which includes counterfeiting. People were given two months to exchange the old currency for the new. Panic ensued. Lines were long, days long. Suicides spiked, needlessly, tragically. Long term effects on the Indian economy are not yet discernible, but will be soon. In an Arthur C. Clarke novel, aliens land in the Sahara desert, and establish an outpost. They are content to subsist on insect protein and stagnant Saharan water. They have already turned their home planet into a radioactive wasteland, and the unclean water of the Sahara is ambrosia to them. Humanity resents their intrusion, attacks, and is easily repelled. The aliens are bemused at the feeble human assault with warplanes, missiles, and tanks. Then the United Nations demands monetary compensation for the occupied land, but the extraterrestrials have never heard of "money". When informed that payment in gold will suffice, the aliens filter the entire Mediterranean Sea and harvest its gold content, atom by atom. The total amounts to considerable tonnage of the precious metal. When the sudden infusion of this large quantity of gold into Earth's economic system destabilizes the global economy by sending the price of gold plummeting, the U.N. decides to refuse payment. Confused, the aliens shrug their shoulders, or their equivalent, and return the stuff to the Mediterranean....India has now discovered what the extraterrestrials already knew, and most humans have not yet realized; that money is imaginary, money is a state of mind, if a pleasant one. It is purely symbolic, with no inherent value. Metal is metal, paper is paper. Money is a state of mind. Were we to one day realize that, we might begin to use it more judiciously.

Paying Workers Their True Worth, To the Benefit Of All

IF EVERY WORKER were paid according to the value of her production, there would be no profit for the owners, no dividends for shareholders, no reason to own a business or invest in one. Exploitation of labor is inherent in capitalism, a necessary attribute, wherein the worker agrees to labor in return for less than the value of her production. The salient question becomes: how much less? What is the proper degree of labor exploitation? The way to find out is to measure the amount of profit, or profit margin, and the amount of revenue paid out to shareholders in dividends. For the past several decades the corporate business model has placed the highest emphasis on share value, which is to say, the plan has been to minimize labor costs, to maximize the percentage of corporate revenue invested in share price, and to pay managers and executives a substantial part of their salary and benefits in stock shares. Thus, share prices climb higher, pleasing investors, and executive salaries increase dramatically. Prior to the 1970s, management and labor coexisted as coequal partners in a less adversarial, more cooperative relationship than today, workers were paid much higher wages relative to the value of the currency, and share prices climbed far more slowly. A concerted effort on the part of executives, shareholders, and conservative pro business politicians, bought and paid for by business ownership, to reduce the power of labor unions has been largely successful, as real wages for workers have remained stagnant for decades, while investors and executives have benefited enormously. This is a primary cause of the increasing gap between the rich and the poor in America. Partly as a result of this trend, nearly half the wealth in the United states is now in the hands of one percent of the population, and the same is true worldwide. This is not a sustainable system. Abraham Lincoln said: "labor is prior to capital, which would never have existed had labor not existed first. labor is superior to capital, and should always be given the higher consideration." Were we to return as a society to this ethic, a far greater share of earned income would be transferred to the working class, the demand for goods and services in the free market would expand as more people obtained or gained more purchasing power, and the economy would return to its most productive state of being, which was manifested between the end of World War Two and 1980. But don't hold your breath.

Seeking Conservative Justice, In Vain

In 2010 several southern states with republican majority legislatures, redrew congressional districts, using updated census data, in accordance with constitutional requirements. The newly redrawn districts, in terms of geographical shape, were more convoluted than a copulating octopus. Not a trace of geometrical reason, not a trace of keeping it simple, stupid. Needless confusing complexity of shape. The insidious purpose was to align the districts so as to minimize the impact of African-Americans at the ballot box, by isolating them in small groups. Democracy in action, republican party style. Corruption. Suspicions were raised. Lawsuits were filed. So much for the pious claim often made by conservatives that racism is neither institutionalized in America, nor that it is the domain of conservatives. The United State Supreme Court agreed, and in a unanimous decision, including all conservative members of the high court, ruled that the redistricting was indeed based on racism, and was thus unconstitutional. This, after all the trouble the conservative legislative community engendered to preclude the nomination of Merrick Garland, and to elevate a true conservative to the court, Justice Gorsuch. A liberal rendering from a conservative court, similar to how the conservative court upheld Obamacare and legalized gay marriage. Proper political ideology has become a criteria among conservatives for placement on the Supreme Court, an inherently ludicrous and pernicious idea unto itself. The only criteria should of course be a consistent record of rendering wise justice for lower courts. If anything, only moderates should be considered. Conservative ideologues will evidently never learn that their tricky tactic never works. Qualified justices, even if they are conservative, render liberal verdicts when liberal verdicts are just. Conservative legislators do not have a good track record of quick learning, so, most likely the country will continue to see a steady stream of conservative jurists appointed to judgeships, even though it really makes no difference, fortunately.

Trump, Getting Tough On Terrorism

TWENTY TWO PEOPLE are murdered at the end of a concert in Manchester, England, by a suicide bomber, and President Trump decides to get tough on terrorism. Without warning, he calls the terrorists "losers", and announces to the world that he is perfectly willing to do so again, without justification or warning. The kid gloves are off. Terrorists beware! With but a single word, Trump's war on terrorism has begun in deadly earnest. To paraphrase a well known philosopher, the fool would be humorous were he not in such deadly earnest. All terrorists are cowering in their underground bunkers, because Trump first made inconvenient potholes in a Syrian airport, forcing the Syrian air force to delay its own bombing raids by several hours - and now, this. A verbal attack by the president of the United States of unprecedented proportions. A "winner", properly defined, is a person or organization which achieves its stated objective. A "loser" fails to achieve its stated objective. The stated purpose of terrorists is to inflict damage upon their enemies through acts of violence, in the hope of eventually destroying their enemies. The stated objective of the United States, and the rest of the civilized world, is the elimination of and prevention of future terrorism. Accordingly, at present, the terrorists are not the losers. Donald Trump's way of using the "word" loser is usually associated in America with a person unable to get a date, or low in social status, or a person of low income. We Americans have not yet come to terms with the fact that our behavior motivates the behavior of others. Our guiding principle seems to be based on the strange notion that whatever we do is morally correct, because we did it. We should reconsider. On July 25th, nineteen ninety, as the Iraqi army was massing on the border of Kuwait, President Bush told Saddam that the United States was unconcerned about the situation between Iraq and Kuwait, and in general had no interest in or concern about any conflict between Arab nations. Saddam smiled, according to officials transcripts. People who receive blank checks can be expected to smile. One week later, Saddam invaded and conquered Kuwait, and the Bush administration suddenly changed its point of view, and announced to the world that Saddam's action was heinous, unacceptable, an assault on international law and the principle of national sovereignty, and would not be allow to stand. Classic bait and switch, carrot and stick. A ploy designed by Bush to entice Saddam's invasion, as a pretext to sending the American military into Iraq. The rest, as they say, is history, tragic history, for which the Untied States and indeed the world has paid a dear price. Before 1990 there was relatively little Islamic terrorism. After the American invasion, terrorism began to flourish, and has ever since. When a powerful nation, or group of nations, sends a huge army onto the soil of a nation far away, invades it, conquers it, and kills hundreds of thousands of its people, the conquered nation, and many of its allies, tend to feel resentful. Some of them attempt retaliation, by whatever means are available. People are like that. The behavior of one person, or one nation, motivates the behavior of others. If we Americans ever come to terms with this fact, we might be able to look at our own behavior in a more productive way, and to use words like "loser" much more appropriately, to describe appropriate people, such as those who cannot get a date.

Saving Grace At Liberty University, and Winning Football Games

AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY, the world's largest officially Baptist university, they just couldn't keep the lid on anymore, though they gave it all they had. The pressure was too great, too many young female students had been raped by too many christian football players. At long last, somebody stepped up and did the right thing, blew the whistle. Heads began to roll, belatedly. The bottom of the pyramid started to crumble first, as football players were kicked off the team, then the damage spread upward, and reached the top, despite the best efforts of the top brass to evade responsibility and keep their jobs and hefty salaries intact. The football coach was fired. The athletic director resigned, under pressure. However, the cloud has a silver lining, from the perspective of the Christian higher education community. American capitalism, college athletics, and evangelical Christianity is as potent a combination as any under heaven or in hell. Prayers and pocket books engender redemption and resurrection, souls are saved, profits are protected. Liberty University, home to the self proclaimed morally superior, the largest Christian University of any brand in the world, offers salvation to fallen athletic directors who have the promise of bringing winning football, and mega bucks, to the righteous. Former Baylor Athletic Director named to same post at Liberty U.! It is hoped that the formerly fallen suddenly reborn administrator will never again have to choose between casting a blind eye to sin for the sake of job security, or doing the right thing. Time, and presumably the Lord and the Devil, will tell. Liberty is a caring, forgiving institution, as long as one doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't swear, and gets home early from dates with one's virginity intact. So forgiving is Liberty U. that it has righteously embraced Donald Trump, having long ago, apparently, forgiven Trump for having gone a bit too far with a few too many women, and bragging about it. Trump's greatest claim to salvation is that he is not Hillary Clinton, and has therefore never committed the heinous sin of using his own email server instead of one provided by the government. That is itself will get you into heaven, and it doesn't hurt Trump's image among Christian conservatives that he resists rendering unto Caesar, abhors economic sharing and cooperation, and collects wealth more rapidly than he does trophy wives. Liberals are tolerant of homosexuality and transgenders, at whom stones were meant to be thrown, and one must not tolerate what one defines as sin; deviation from the norm, as defined by the Christian faith.

Limiting Our Stupidity, Using Our Genius

ONCE UPON A TIME, Mars had water flowing across its surface, but no more. Dry as a bone. Venus at one time may have been a true sister planet to earth, with reasonable temperatures, and an atmosphere rich in life giving oxygen. That is no longer true. Now its surface temperature is over 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Both planets used to be far more hospitable to life than they are now. Something went badly wrong. Some catastrophe radically altered the environments of both of Earth;'s nearest planetary neighbors, but we don't know what. Perhaps some sort of collision, or other turbulent event. it remains one of sciences's greatest mysteries, keeping planetary astronomers busily scratching their head, taking measurements, and speculating. These circumstances evokes a pensive longing within the adventuresome human heart, wondering what might have been, what once was, wondering about what life could possibly at one time had humble beginnings only to be snuffed out before it ever really got started. The prospect of terra-forming both these worlds into habitats suitable for human habitation would have been so much more within reach, had it not been for the tragic course of random events. Ninety percent of the human population breathes polluted air, which has adverse mental as well as physical effects on health. We don't know what went wrong on Venus and Mars, but we know exactly what's going wrong on Earth. The answer is right there in front of us, in the mirror. Einstein said that the difference between genius and stupidity is that genius is somewhat limited. In sufficiently limited, we must hope, to avoid the consequences of our own stupidity. We have fouled our own nest, we continue to do so, preferring material wealth to environmental health. Humans are inventive, creative, adaptable creatures, worthy, in many ways, of sustained existence. We were brought into existence by an awesome force which seems to desire our existence, seems to have given us every opportunity to ensure it. Will we continue to operate socio-economic systems which concentrate absurd amounts of frivolous wealth in the hands of less than one percent of the human population, over half the entire wealth of the world in the hands of the one percent few, or will we learn to balance production with cooperation, and learnt to produce and share material wealth with wisdom and reason, to provide a reasonable and healthy material life for everyone? As of now, the alarm is sounding. Venus and mars remind us as they cross our skies that planetary disaster can occur naturally; we know that it con occur through human stupidity. we might not be able to do much about the forces of nature, such as those unknown forces which long ago ravaged mars and Venus, making them unsuited to life of any kind. But we can certainly use our creativity and genius to overcome our stupidity, to save ourselves, and the beautiful life sustaining planet which we all too often, all too arrogant, refer to as "ours".

Looking At Ourselves, For Once

AT THE SENIOR CENTER, I got the eye - The rural blue collar provincial right wing racist eye; that eye. The small southern town contemptuous disdainful sideways surreptitious quick glance. In and out, rapid fire, so as to elude detection. I consider it among my greatest honors. The lady reads my website! Here, especially for you, is a quick historical sociological lesson, dear Imogene Kay Fay. European-Americans, aka "white folk", Aka "crackers", are, in depressingly, shamefully large numbers, racist. Every scientific study, and there have been many, clearly reveals this. A high percentage of white Americans hate African-Americans, aka "black folk", for no other reason than African-american skin pigmentation, for the "crime" of being darkly pigmented. For being "other". For being different than we. Black people, conversely, cannot, by definition, be racist. What they can and often do is hate white people for the crime of 246 years of enslavement, the crime of over one hundred years of Jim Crow segregation, exclusion, humiliation, and racism, an uninterrupted chain of causal connections beginning in 1619 and continuing to this day, 2017. Confronted with that burden of history and current American society, black people haven't the time, psychic energy, or inclination to hate anyone for something so trivial as skin pigment. Hatred of skin pigment is the exclusive domain of we the white folk. The blacks have far better reasons for their eminently justifiable hatred of white dominated American society. White racism remains a deeply ingrained, four hundred year white American tradition, an institution, legally sanctioned in these United States of Abominations. It manifests at all levels of American government and society, in the American political, economic, law enforcement, and legal system. We whites just can't seem to muster the integrity or courage to admit our guilt, so we create something imaginary which we arrogantly and dishonestly call "reverse racism". If you think otherwise, dear Imogene Kay Fay, reserve your pious sanctimonious racist resentment for Harvard University, and every other esteemed institution of higher education in America - for it is they who have done the research, have paid attention to and studied American culture and cultural values down to the very roots, factually, scientifically. Meanwhile, you just go right on ahead giving me your condescending side glancing evil eye. Whenever you do so, in your sneaky, indirect manner, I'll gaze right back at you, straight on, with laughter and contempt in my gaze. You'd be better off looking straight ahead into a mirror, at yourself, examining your core values. But of course, that might be far too much to expect.

Solving Problems By Unknowingly Disrespecting Them

IN 1939 at UC Berkeley, twenty five year old graduate student George Dantzig was late for his statistical mathematics seminar. He snuck in quietly, hoping to not be noticed, and sat in the back row. When late for class, always strive to avoid professorial notice, glare, and rebuke. Dantzig, confident of his surreptitious success, saw that on the chalkboard were two math problems, which he presumed to be homework. He copied them, and after class went to the student union, grabbed a snack, sat down, and got to work on them. After a brief struggle he solved them both to his satisfaction, and turned them in the next day. Nobody else seemed to have done the work, and George was curious as to why, but confident in his own solutions, wondering if he had made some sort of mistake or misunderstood the assignment's purpose by doing the work at all. The professor gave him a quizzical look, but said nothing. Later, he received a note from the professor requesting that he make an appointment for a visit in his office. When Dantzig arrived, the professor began grilling him incessantly, about his work on the problems, where and how he had gotten the solutions, and so forth. Confused, Dantzig asked whether he had gotten the problems right, or had done something wrong, possibly had failed the assignment, and earnestly told his teacher that he would be willing to give them another try, promising to do better work this time. Finally, the professor got to the point. No, he said, there appeared to be nothing wrong with Dantzig's work. In fact, from all indications, he had actually solved both problems completely and correctly. However, the problems were indeed not intended to be a homework assignment. They were, in fact, two of the most famous unsolved problems in the entire field of statistical mathematics, and for generations the most distinguished minds in the field, as well as nearly every other advanced math student, had been laboring over them, but to no avail. A consensus had long ago been reached, in point of fact, within the mathematics profession that there either was not a solution, that there never would be, or that solutions would be found at some point in the far future, by geniuses yet unborn. Dantzig honestly hadn't realized all this, and apologized profusely, trying to assure his professor that he had not intended to do anything wrong, had had no intention of violating any sacred dictum of his chosen profession, and would be more careful in the future. Fortunately, the professor's shock and personal pride didn't get in the way, and Dantzig got credit for his remarkable achievement, and went on to a very accomplished career in his field. And maybe there is a lesson for the rest of us in this tall but true tale of profound perspicacity. Intractable personal or societal problems? Unsolvable world problems of pressing import? Maybe it would be best if we all simply pretended that everything from weight loss to climate change, global warfare, and scarcity of vital resources, as well as political and economic and social problems which plague us all were nothing more than simple abstract exercises, and went to work on them, with the attitude that their remedies are nothing more than a few minutes of thought and scribbling.

Against Stupidity, Contending In Vain

I DIDN'T EXPECT to be compensated for voluntarily sweeping and mopping the floor at the senior center, but, in a strange sort of way, I was. It was amusing and entertaining, in a sordid sort of way. So amusing was the conversation emanating from the card table (crazy eight?) that I lingered nearby, and shined the surrounding floor to a gleaming, shining sheen. Said one countrified blue collar rural conservative to another; "I watch reruns of 'The Jeffersons'. Its a hilarious show. All the characters are black, and its amazing how racist it is." That got my attention. To which a small-southern-town American conservative responded: "when TV first started, everyone on it was white. Then all the blacks started complaining about it, so they had to put black people on television. Now they're all over the place, and you hardly ever see any white people." NO, I'm not making this up. I really heard this. So, I kept mopping and listening. I'm pushing broom, barely able to believe what I'm hearing, even though I probably shouldn't have been surprised. One of them ruined the conversation by changing the subject, and I felt deprived. I looked around in desperation, seeking some oasis in the midst of this vast cultural wasteland, knowing that this was actually a sort of self inflicted torture. After all, I could always move to a city, any city, or to a nice, progressive college town, where intellect is valued. I forced myself to accept the unavoidable fact that my sweeping and mopping were not taking place on Harvard Square, nor in the Cal Berkeley library, or somewhere, anywhere, where it is understood that black folks were enslaved in America for two hundred and forty six years, and were then "freed", into another form of slavery, the outcast exclusionary status of legally mandated segregation and humiliation, for another hundred years. Every Sociology Department in every University in America informs us, through rigorous scientific study, that racism in America has not abated, but merely changed shape, and that it has always been and remains a bedrock American institution, as ever. And the racism is a one way street, originating squarely among the white population, aimed directly at the black culture. In short, we whites started it, and it is up to us to end it. The Jeffersons endure it the way their ancestors did and their colleagues do; by inventing the only culture unique to America, the blues culture, by gathering together in segregated communities and staying together, and, on television, by ridiculing it, thus pointing it out to a white culture that would rather forget about it, and carry on, business as usual. That the blacks refuse to simply ignore it renders them, in the eyes of the conservative cracker community, "racist". My grandmother was born in 1892, and, bless her sweet soul, I remember her well. A proud woman of German ancestry, she used the term "niggra", and thought herself to be sociologically generous. Had any dark pigmented little old lady dared attempt to join her church quilting circle, she would have run from it, and formed another one, I can assure you. My Uncle Bob, now 93, once sold his house when an African,-American family moved in across the street. Yes, that really happened. But of course, he denied that the real estate deal had anything whatever to do with racism. That's the difference in America's "new racism"; now, at least, we are ashamed of it, so we try to hide it, and pretend it isn't there. It runs in my honkie family too. At least dear uncle was good enough to refrain from referring to Obama by the "N" word in my presence - he saves that for his peer group - and for that, I am immensely grateful.

Dividing Into Two Kinds of Addicts

IN THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF OKLAHOMA sits Cherokee nation, terminus of the infamous Trail of Tears, Andrew Jackson's favorite project, which was not called the Trail of Tears until long after hundreds of people dropped dead walking along it. Jackson hated Indians, for the usual reasons; they tended to not embrace Christianity, and, well, they didn't dress properly, they shared land in common, a no starter among capitalists, and they tended to pass gifts around, hence the term "Indian giver". Perhaps feeling guilty, Old Hickory adopted an Indian child. When the "Indian Removal Act" was being debated in congress, only the Eastern liberal intellectuals, who had nothing to lose and no Indians in close proximity, opposed the bill, and, David Crockett of Tennessee, who like his pioneer colleagues lived close to the natives, and who had a great deal to lose, and lost it. Davy said he had rather be a man and vote his conscience, than be Andrew Jackson's puppy dog, and wo gee haw as his bidding. (horses do that, not dogs, but who's counting). David had a great deal to lose, including his seat in Congress, and he lost it, only to gain it back later. Jackson and Crockett hated each other. Crockett was a far nicer person, and much more fun to drink with. He told great stories, usually about hunting bears. Crockett, like his hero Daniel Boone, loved Indians. They tended to be more honest, more generous, and less pretentious than their European destroyers. Twice, according to David, they saved his life. Everyone who got to know the Indians loved them. Davy (he always called himself "David" and signed his name that way) had the temerity to assert in the House of Representatives that Indians are human, and had been promised the right to remain in Georgia forever, and when another member disputed this, David replied: "Congressman, that don't make good sense. Hell, that don't even make good nonsense!" Davy Crockett is a man to be loved, dearly, a true American hero who was actually an even better person than history makes him out to be. Today, Cherokee nation is afflicted by three great evils; gambling, widespread opiate addiction, and widespread meth amphetamine addiction. Leave it to the United States of America to inflict its worst poisons upon those it values least. Either drug will get you in trouble when it comes time to decide whether to hold fast or accept just...one..more..card..at the blackjack table. So, we have divided this once proud people, like the rest of America, into two classes, the "uppers", and the "downers". We have divided the country into two parts: the conservatives and the progressives, each full of hatred for the other, and we have divided ourselves into two kinds of drug addicts, the opiates and the amphetamines. Somewhere in hell, there must surely be a special place for our misguided, and stolen country.

Waiting For The Time To Come

BECAUSE OF HYDRAULIC FRACTURING, the United States has surged into the top five oil producing nations, thrilling our fuel industry corporate masters, keeping the price of gas below two fifty per gallon, enraging those whose primary concern is the preservation of the planet. Oil pipelines already criss cross freedom's land, and more are being built, despite the strenuous objections of pro environment protesters, who are often set upon by dogs and fire hoses, remindful of the civil rights struggle in the south in the nineteen sixties. social protesters are always on the correct side of history, and they are always vilified and attacked by their society. In the end, their cause always prevails, usually long after they are gone from the streets. Gas is priced cheaply, and the gas guzzling several ton vehicles are making their way back onto America's roadways. It seems like only yesterday, 1973, when lines were long at the gas pumps, the price of gas surged to over a dollar a gallon, OPEC embargoed us into fear and submission, and the sped limit on highways was lowered to a sluggish fifty five. Back then we thought we were running out of oil. We were, and still are, but since it turns out that oil is beneath every square foot or earth, the running out is taking a few decades longer than expected. There will come a time, soon enough, one can hope, when the corporate profiteers among us and their willing customers come to understand that we will simply have to leave a rather vast amount of fossil fuels in the ground. But that time has not yet come. Perhaps, when every summer day temperature exceeds one hundred degrees, and every big city in the world is filled with folks wearing gas masks, as are Beijing and Calcutta already, the time will come.

A Viper, Among the Hypocrites

THE KING SNAKE, aka President Donald J. Trump, returns to his adoring den of vipers, aka Liberty University, home of the immoral minority, aka evangelical Christians. The evangelical Christian community gave their wholehearted support to Trump in his decidedly unchristian-like campaign for the presidency, the one in which you might recall he accused Ted Cruz, who actually is a christian, of being a liar, and in which a video was released in which the favorite of the Christian community proudly proclaimed himself to be a sexual predator. This is the epitome of the bizarre marriage of conservative politics and American Christiandom. Christianity, staunch defense of the second amendment, and staunch advocacy for free market capitalism. Jesus, guns, and money. Quite a combination. Among the most hypocritical political movements ever to arise in any self described democracy. The Trump foundation gives not a fig unto the poor, Trump himself is, for some reason, reluctant to show how he has given unto Caesar, and is apparently able to demonstrate to the complete satisfaction of many American Christians that he will somehow squeeze through the eye of the needle, and into heaven, having accumulated unto himself billions of dollars of mammon, much of it from the gambling industry. In the bible, Jesus admonishes people to not collect personal wealth, but rather, to distribute it to the poor. He further admonishes folks to pay taxes, and to refrain from immoral sexual behavior. At Liberty University, none of this matters, as long as Hillary Clinton, who had never had so much as a parking ticket or a divorce, is kept out of office. She is considered dangerous among conservative American Christians, because, hell, she might actually tax the wealthy and advocate for human dignity and equality, including the least among us, gay and transgender human beings.

Resorting To Prayer

THE WOMAN I fell in love with is twenty six years younger than I, a pathological liar, a criminal, a drug addict, and a sex addict. But hey, other than that, what's the problem? Verily, there is no accounting for taste. She has a hot bod, a pleasant personality, and a quick mind, all thanks to daily infusions of crystal meth Amphetamine. People lose their appetites, get skinny, and lose their inhibitions, and get horny. I never really knew her, the sober her, with no toxins flowing through her brain. She apparently thought that she could move in and live with me in my house without my ever knowing about her drug addiction. Who knows how she planned to pull that off. She apparently was convinced that nobody knew about her addiction, but, anyone who knew her knew. You could tell by her behavior; too rapid in speech, constantly sniffing, too hyper, too aggressive. People on meth are abnormally self confident, because they feel absolutely terrific all the time, and are prone to make poor decisions, and to take unwise chances. I will always wonder what her "real" personality is like. The ancient wisdom is that nobody can be helped without being willing o accept help, without recognizing their need to change, without helping themselves. When you see no eventual outcome for someone you love deeply, other than prison, rehab, or death, you choose rehab for them, then ponder how to trick them into it. This whole business of "intervention" is dubious at best. Wasn't Kurt Cobain who committed suicide after being "victimized" by an intervention? How would you like it, were you a harmless drug addict, believing that you are harming nobody, that its nobody's business but your own, unconcerned about any possible self inflicted harm, when suddenly your front door bursts open, and in floods a horde of people you had thought to be friends, demanding that you enter drug rehab - or else. dubious, at best, but, what else is there? Other than prayer, nothing, perhaps.

Trump Treading On Thin Ice

MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE have already completed the necessary paperwork to run for president in 2020, celebrities, comedians, gangsters, power hungry political neophytes - it takes all kinds. Just think, we're still nearly four years away from the New Hampshire primary. Bernie Sanders, who has not yet filed but quite well might, has already visited the state. Hillary is abiding, perhaps gathering steam. She'll only be seventy four in 2020, and we now know its just a number. All one hundred are arguably more qualified than the latest edition, as reflected in Trump's plummeting popularity. Even his hard core base is becoming shaky. Trump is the least popular president since Abraham Lincoln, and that's saying something. Even Herbert Hoover enjoyed a higher approval rating. The pathological lies, shady criminal background, self proclaimed sexual predatory behavior, and inarticulate blather may be catching up to the master of firing people, and its still early, very early. We are now, according to tradition, supposed to be in the honey moons phase of the new presidency; can you even imagine how bad its going to get? The thirty six thousand five hundred employees of the FBI are loyal to James Comey, and can be expected to dig deep to discover treasonous collusion between the Trump campaign, which was desperate at the time, and the dark and shady Russians. Trump's latest tweet is a threat to Comey, something to the effect that he had better watch out, watch what he says, because, well, people who anger the Donald ha known to experience unfortunate consequences. It begins to seem less likely that Trump will finish his first term than it was that the Cubs win the World Series. However, anything's possible.

Firing Comey, Bringing Down Trump

FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY, testifying before Congress a couple weeks ago, swore that although he felt just awful about the possibility that his decisions and actions may have cost Hillary Clinton the election, nevertheless, by golly, if he had it to do all over again, he wouldn't change a thing. He was in a tough situation, he opined, damnned if he did, damned if he didn't, so, he did the best he could, period. Then, shortly thereafter, Hillary herself gave a speech in which she made no bones about it; Comey cost her the presidency by reopening a closed investigation of her just two weeks before election day. Last but not least, President Trump fires Comey, saying that Comey's handling of the Hillary Clinton investigation was partially the reason, party due to the recommendation of Attorney General Sessions. So, it would seem that everybody has their own story to tell. Trump was definitely displeased with Comey's FBI investigation of Hillary, not because it was unfair to her - he loved that part - but rather, because it didn't land her in jail, nor even find any evidence of wrong doing, all the while costing her the election. Trump's real reason for firing Comey is, of course, that the FBI is on the verge of announcing that there was indeed collusion between Trump's campaign and the Russians, and Trump is desperately trying to keep that covered up. It won't work. Trump will be exposed, removed, and replaced. Also, Trump has been angry with Comey every since the Director basically accused Trump of fabricating a story about Obama wiretapping Trump Tower. God, what a psycho. Comey's departure will only cast a brighter spotlight on Trump's criminal activities, and bring him down sooner, rather than later. Not soon enough, however.

Dealing With the Elephant

Over the past several months I've had several different plans regarding the love of my life. I recall the first one, the crazy one, in which I would volunteer to get heavily into crystal meth amphetamine, in order to more fully, um, "bond" with her. That idea died quick, thank goodness. Then, I decided I would make her an offer she couldn't refuse; I would go into drug rehab with her, and work on my coffee addiction while she conquers meth, either that, or, I call the judge in her upcoming trial for cultivating marijuana, and request a drug test for her. That idea died too, probably for the best, although we'll never know. My current plan, the one which might stick, is that I remain willing, ready, and able to enter drug rehab with her at any time, we go together, and I pay for it, no conditions, no blackmail, no threats. I haven't actually communicated this to her; I don't plan to call her. She is welcome to call me, or visit, any time, but I doubt she will; she probably freaked when she realized that I can see the huge elephant in the room, despite her cleverness in hiding and disguising it. I still fear that she's going to die young unless somebody steps in, and the thought depresses and terrifies me; maybe I'm wrong. Maybe she'll live to be old, healthy and happy along the way. I'll never forget the time I stood in my driveway as she loaded her things into a truck, and saying to her: "there were three helicopters circling over your marijuana crop several weeks, ago, weren't there?" Her response?: "yes, sure enough there were." I didn't bother to say something like "what does it take for you to catch a clue?" It seemed pointless. People on meth feel great; energetic. strong, self confident, invincible, smart. No matter what they decide to do, its the right thing to do. To hell with helicopters above her pot crop; she didn't miss a single visit to the site. I will probably never see or talk to her again, but I can pray.

Teaching The Bible To Seniors

WE DON'T HAVE BIBLE STUDY at the senior center anymore. It used to be on Monday morning, bright and early. When I noticed that it had vanished, I asked the director about it, and was told that there had been a problem with people getting along, so, they stopped it. I didn't bother to ask what they didn't get along about; presumably some matter involving scripture and its interpretation. This is the same group of people, mostly folks in their seventies and eighties, who argue over things like bean bag baseball and bingo. Disagreeing about the Bible, almost any part of it, is easy, because so much of what it says is vague, or hard to believe, or subject to any number of different possible interpretations. Plus, those who participate in a Bible study group are usually the most likely to love the Bible deeply, and to have strong opinions about it. So, unless any such group has a strong leader rather than a loosely organized structure, trouble lurks. I would love nothing more than to start a Bible study group, and to lead it. Problem is, in my small conservative southern town, a fact based intellectual historical scientific study of the Bible is likely to cause anger, and departures from the group. I would teach the Bible the way they do at Harvard, and at any other world class seminary; factually, historically, critically, scientifically. If you want a devotional based Bible study, attend your local junior college, or any normal Bible study group in some small conservative American town. In my class I would point out the errors and contradictions in the Bible, like they do at Harvard, of which there are hundreds, and I would not ignore the fact that the bible, in its current form, is the most recent version of hundreds of changing translations through the centuries. If God inspired the writing of and the content of the bible, then God's truth is an evolutionary process, not absolute. Just don't tell anybody that at your local small town senior center.

Rejecting Trump's Version of Populism

THE DAY AFTER TRUMP was elected, street protests broke out all over America, as angry citizens vented their shock and grief. The day after he was sworn in, millions of women held marches in big and small cities all over the world, as a demonstration of their determination not to allow Trump's right wing populist avalanche to reverse social gains made by women over the past fifty years. Women's equality, a great dream whose time is long since past but has not yet fully come, will, once it finally, fully arrives, sweep across the world, and remain forever, Trump, or no Trump. There have recently been marches supporting science, the environment, minorities rights, all of which occurred as a reaction to Trump's policies, and you might expect to see the Occupy Wall Street movement spring forth again, if Trump's executive orders and Congressional action continue to favor the wealthy over the poor, Wall Street over Main Street. So much for Trump's "populism". It is a sham, and always has been. Trump is rich, and he is out for the rich, no doubt. Conservatism by definition cannot be populism, because conservatism rejects government involvement in the economy, rejects social engineering, without which the already rich and powerful will remain rich and powerful, and the poor will remain poor and powerless, which is the opposite of populism. Perhaps, by 2018, the vast majority of the American people will understand that. Populism, dear reader, requires government involvement, government action. Social, economic, and political power and equality for every man, for the little guy, is the heart of populism, and how is that going to happen without government support and action? By accident? By getting government out of the way, and letting society function on it own, as Trump and the right wing are now beginning to do? Gimme a break.

Treadmill Bob On Speed: Coming To Terms With Caffeine Addiction

EACH MORNING at six sharp I awaken, feed the cats, and put the coffee on. That shows how dominate the cats are, and how important coffee is to me.After three cups I feel great, uplifted mentally and emotionally, all drugged up on joe. Ready to rock 'n roll. So I hoof it two blocks to the senior center, and hop on the treadmill. Thirty minutes to an hour later, sweaty, spent, but totally juiced on runner's high to go with teh caffeine, I head out to the main room, where the senior have been gathering, grab a glass of ice cold lemonade, and sit down. The seniors, my friends, are catching up, slugging down jo in fist fulls, getting juiced up on drugs just like me. That,s honestly, is the truth. It isn't likely to make em and this website any more popular down at the senior center, but hey, you can't lose what you never had. Coffee, our national drug. For you meth addicts out there, trust me, I do not consider myself to be your moral superior. I simply think that I made a better drug of choice than you. Come on over to our side, its a blast! Ask any senior; most os us are hooked. Ninety year old Johhny, who can barely stand, much less walk, gets there first, right after eight, and heads straight for the coffee maker. Heaven help anyone who tries to stop him. The longer I sit there, the louder the conversation gets, the more they interrupt each other, and the more they laugh. I just take it all in, and take part in the social benefits of our daily drug orgy, even though I usually don't drink with them, being already done for the day. I find it humorous how many of them swear up and down that coffee has no impact on them. They are the hard core users, invariably. I rarely if ever drink coffee at the senior center; I get there already higher than a coffee kite. Because of that, the others don't really know how very much I am one of them, a coffee junkie. The great thing is, I'm done drinking by seven or eight, and by ten, coming down, but gently, the coffee already having helped jump start my day. Coffee, one might assert, is a "good" recreational drug, as far as recreational drugs go. Indisputably, it is the one drug that our society sanctions, to the point of mass pan societal addiction. But lest we forget, it is a powerful mind altering drug, and puts us on the same level as illicit drug addicts, in terms of self medicating. But at least we stay out of jail, and we kill ourselves much more slowly than your averaged meth addict.

Repealing Obamacare - NOT!

IF THE SENATE follows the House and repeals Obamacare, and Trump signs it, half the country, at the very least, will rise up in vociferous protest. Bank on it. Actually, it should be a lot of fun, what with social media swamped with Trump-hate, the internet humming, and hundreds of thousands of Americans out in the streets, bringing down Trump and the republicans. Because, dear reader, I can assure you, that most, yes, most of the American people do not want to repeal Obamacare, whether or not they realize it. Let the good times roll! The hue and cry might even become remindful of those halcyon sixties, during my tender youth. Anti Viet Nam war style protests all over again, with the millennials leading the charge, and aging baby booming faded hippies right behind. The Senate will make many changes to the bill before it ever gets to Trump, if it ever does. If it doesn't, it'll be fun as hell reading his tweets. They'll be off the chart bizarre, like never before. Come twenty eighteen, the entire progressive community will be singing the NA NA NA NA Goodbye song to the GOP, if Congress actually lowers taxes for the wealthy and strip millions of poor people of health insurance, as they are trying to do. By the time 2018 rolls around, we the American people will be so freaked out and disgusted by our emotionally unstable president that progressives dems will sweep into office in waves. This is just the beginning of the avalanche of protest against the attack on Obamacare, the attack on environmental protection, the war on the social safety net, and anti immigrant and minority conservatism. No, the American people do not want to enact large tax cuts for the very wealthy, and reduce aid to the impoverished, and soon, very soon, our elite conservative republican usurpers will realize that fact, and suffer the consequences, too late for them to recover.

Deciding What To Do In A Life Or Death situation, And Who's An Ass, And Who isn't

IN ANOTHER POST I suggested that I might be willing to become a meth user, and to share sexually transmitted diseases in order to be with the woman I love. Maybe that was a bit hasty. Love, after all, and especially "in love" is a particular and peculiar form of insanity. Stay away from it, the wise ones say. But, what do you do if someone you know and love is seriously addicted to meth addiction, and keeping it a big secret, or trying to, but not doing a good enough job of secret keeping, or at least not good enough to fool me, and, all the while obviously declining in weight, mental state, and thus health, and, obviously, headed to either prison or the mortuary unless - unless somebody, anybody, does something? I don't seem to see anyone doing something, or anything, amazingly, here in the land of self absorbed preoccupation and token concern for the well being of others, the United States of Apathy. My current plan is to make her an offer she can't refuse, Vito Corleone style. To wit: either she and I enter drug rehab together, me for coffee, she for meth, or I call the judge and ask him to order a drug test for her as part of her forthcoming formal sentencing on cultivating marijuana with intent to deliver charges, reduced in an apparent plea bargain to mere possession of a dangerous and controlled and despised by the red neck right substance. Sound good? Yes? No? A mutual friend called me an "ass" for even considering that option, but, how am I an ass? For trying to save someone's life? Rather, I think the mutual friend is an "ass" for telling me that it won't do any good, and that therefore I'm an ass to even try. I have, after all, the perfectly God given American right to seek contact with any judge I choose, right? So what if it does no good? So I've wasted a dime on a phone call. What is there about making an ineffectual phone call that renders one an ass? Or, what is it about suggesting to a judge that the legal system step in to save a life, that renders one as ass? Not a damned thing, that's what!

Standing Up To The Devil

I DESPISE cigarettes, because they kill millions of people, including my parents. I despise Meth amphetamine, because it destroys bodies and minds, and inevitably necessitates extensive medical treatment and rehab, the expense of which is a burden transferred to the rest of us, and never repaid by the actual abuser. Anyone who repeatedly, regularly uses these two killers is guilty of burdening society, and guilty of attempted murder, and is therefore my sworn enemy.I despise sexual promiscuity, because it spreads disease, and results in conflict through dishonesty, casing broken hearts and lives, impacting innocent people. The children of a parent who engages in a lifestyle of drug abuse and sexual promiscuity are often victimized by emotional and mental illness, and have been known to attempt suicide, and, tragically, to sometimes succeed. Anyone, especially anyone with children, who abuses drugs and sex and refuses to seek treatment, even after the attempted suicide of their own child, is a cancer and a threat to civilization. Drug addiction is not the fault of the addict, but the failure of the addict to recognize the problem, and its negative impact on their own children and the rest of society, and to seek treatment, is indeed the drug abuser's fault, especially when children are victimized by it. Drug abuse invariably turns people into criminals, who steal from their employer, friends, and family members, miss work on a regular basis, and have even been known to go so far as to steal stoves from rental houses to conceal evidence of meth manufacture, and to steal furniture, light bulbs, electrical outlet covers, and carpet cleaning machines to later sell on Ebay in order to raise money for the purchase of anti-freeze, cold medicine, and various toxic chemicals used in the manufacture of meth. Meth addicts go from town to town making these purchases, to avoid suspicion. People who are sufficiently irresponsible to engage in drug abuse and irresponsible sex are a burden to everyone; thus, they are everyone's concern, everyone's business. May we all survive the harm these diseased people cause, and may we eliminate their sickness from our lives, to create a better world. Meth and reckless promiscuous sex are joined at the hip, so to speak. The more meth, the more reckless sex. This is because meth enhances libido, reduces inhibitions, makes the user feel invincible, superior, godlike. On meth, one becomes a genius, or so one believes. All choices are justified, all desires demand immediate satisfaction, all negative consequences are blamed on others. Sex partners become expendable, to be used and discarded, like garbage. The drug itself becomes all important, to be obtained at any cost, a devil which assumes complete control of its user. The abuser's children become an inconvenience. The meth addict does what she pleases, when she pleases, regardless of the neglectful impact on her children. A parent on meth is a child abuser, without question. To befriend a meth addict is to place yourself at great risk of being exploited, deceived, manipulated. Hence, meth addicts eventually have no friends. Any friend of a meth addict who ignores the monster in the room is enabling the monster to flourish, and is therefore not a true friend, but rather, an enabler of suicide. Forcing the addict to acknowledge and confront the monster is the only form of true friendship. Friends of meth addicts are confronted with two choices: to passively do nothing, thus facilitating the addict's self destruction, or to bravely and directly confront the evil monster, thus initiating a painful but valiant life or death struggle to save restore health, life, and productivity. The addict has become a freak, a zombie, having surrendered all power to this devil. Passive inaction kills; confrontation is the only moral choice. The issue is not moral superiority or judgment. The salvation and freedom of a potentially beautiful human being is the issue, whether to be a cowardly pseudo friend, or a real one. As for me, I will give true friendship, or I will give nothing. But I will not surrender to the self inflicted suicide of a friend. And as the end of my life approaches, I will at least be able to face myself and my God, knowing that, if nothing else, I fought the good fight, and, if I have failed, I have at least tried.

Rising To the Top, and Descending

AMONG AGGRESSIVE PRIMATES, of which homo sapien sapiens is the most, there are always gangs, one of which always resides at the top of the proverbial heap. The current occupant never remains, a competitor inevitably comes to replace the top dog as complacency sets in and cultural stagnation derives from hubris. The current occupant is the United States of America, having held the position since the end of World War One, having supplanted Great Britain, on which the sun finally set, with dignity. In America, cultural stagnation has already set in. We Americans are too fond of ourselves, we take too many pictures of ourselves, we show them too proudly, and we spend too much time watching seductive salacious television, too little time in productive pursuits. Our replacement would seem to be China, formerly "red" China, the ancient kingdom which held the top position in ancient times, unbeknownst to the moribund west. Nature, after all, is cyclical. Egypt, India, Persia, Greece, Rome, all have taken their turns. The Chinese are fueling their rise to the apex with communist capitalism, coal, wind, and solar energy, using the most highly driven and innovative mercantilism ever devised. There are five hundred million new members of the Chinese middle class. The fact that twenty million residents of Beijing wear gas masks with regularity is but a trivial matter, an economic externality they seem willing to endure. Who needs a view? American millennials will live to see their nation replaced at the top. Baby boomers will not. To the billion and a half imminent kings and queens of the ancient kingdom, a warning: your insatiable taste for American cigarettes is a clear warning; as we Americans are learning, no empire can thrive long when the people no longer breathe freely.

Trump, Self Proclaiming Succeeding

DURING DONALD TRUMP'S first one hundred days as president, which we now know are all important, he failed to eliminate or alter Obamacare, failed to renegotiate or withdraw from the nuclear energy treaty with Iran, failed to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate change treaty, failed to tear up NAFTA, failed to pass a bill mandating the construction of the great wall of Mexico, and failed to coerce the Mexican government to pay for it. Failed, thus, to fulfill any of his bombastic campaign promises. He further failed to eliminate Islamic immigration into the United states, although he surely caused potential new Islamic citizens to question whether they really want to live in America. He also failed to appoint an open minded ideologically flexible justice to the Supreme Court. His core followers remained unperturbed; he'll get all that stuff done later. Trump did, however, succeed in asserting that Hillary Clinton lost the popular vote, succeeded in claiming that all media which tells the truth is selling fake news, and succeeded in signing executive orders of sufficient legality to inspire a spate of lawsuits. His greatest accomplishment seems to have been the writing of a succession of twitter tweets praising his personal achievements as president, demonstrating his limitless ability to call a failure a success, and showing his admiration for brutal dictators, most recently, the brutal dictator of the Philippines. Move over, Vladimir Putin, you have a rival for the heart and soul of the American president. Trump showed his quickness in thinking by giving us a history lesson on Andrew Jackson's attitude towards the civil war, an amazingly prescient attitude on the part of Old Hickory, considering that he died fifteen years before the war's advent. The new president succeeded "bigly" in running up a huuuge bill for travel expenses, flitting between his Florida home/estate/elite country club, his tower in Manhattan, and his temporary home in Washington D.C.. In his first one hundred days, Trump spent more of our money on his personal activities than Obama did during his eight years in office, and that's a record which may never be equaled or broken. Never let it be said that President Trump is a failure. To do so would do no good; it would be tweeted away as "fake news", and promptly dismissed by the thirty eight percent who still respect him, or pretend to, for whatever reason.

Doing It Right

THERE IS A RIGHT WAY, and a wrong way to do things, anything. A dinner may consist of a well prepared meal enjoyed with friends over pleasant conversation, or it may consist of stuffing raw meat into a pie hole. cheap wine can be guzzled, or fine wine may be sipped and savored. One may enjoy a hot cup of gourmet coffee in the morning at the outset of a productive day, or one may lock one's self in an outhouse in the middle of the night, and snort meth amphetamine up one's bulbous, snotting nose. A masterpiece can be displayed gracefully on a museum wall for all the world to enjoy and appreciate, or it may be stored in a dark attic to gather dust, or it may be ripped to shreds with a razor blade. An finely tuned, well coordinated orchestra can provide joyous pleasure with a Beethoven symphony, or it can descend into chaos with each musician making screeching bleating noises with her instrument. All successful people use the same formula; they arise early in the day, prepare themselves mentally for a day of productivity, then go about their business, confident that at the end of the day, progress will either have been made, or striven for. One may languish sluggishly all day, undecided, unprepared. there is a right way, and a wrong way, to do anything, everything.