Waiting For The end of the World

HUMAN BEINGS, you have perhaps noticed, have a penchant, predicated doubtless upon awareness and fear of inevitable personal death, to proclaim, and in most cases to sincerely believe in, the imminent end of the world. In ancient times, people were just absolutely certain that some angry god or other would, at any moment, bathe the world in flame or water, killing everyone, or maybe just some enemy. Apocalyptic prophecy was taken to a new height by, yes, Jesus himself, who repeated one message more than any other: the Lord is coming soon, and the end of the world as you know it is close at hand. he was wrong, of course. All prophets of doom are wrong, thankfully. At the approach of the year one thousand, all of Europe plunged into an end of the world despondency on steroids. Fortunately for non Europeans, who used different calendars, there was no such concern. Among the more famous end of world crazes was the Millerite phenomenon of 1843, and again in 1844. Devout Christian William Miller announced that through intense study of the Bible, he had calculated and definitively determined that the Lord would return on a forthcoming October something or other eighteen 1843. Folks all over America sold out, packed up, and stood atop mountains, certain of soon being raptured into heaven. When nothing happened, Miller quickly explained that there had been a slight error in his calculations, and the actual coming of the lord end of the world would, beyond doubt, be in October of 1844. Miller himself barely survived the end of the world; his celebrity did not. Another human proclivity is our tendency to consider ourselves personally virtuous. We all think we are among the virtuous. Everyone of a certain age will fondly recall the near panic which gripped us all as the late nineties lurched towards the year 200, and the "Y2K" phenomenon, in which folks were digging underground bunkers, and storing water, food, and ammo. Nothing happened, predictably, the world wide computer failure so widely predicted failed to manifest without a gliche. In childhood, doom sayers intrigued me; in adulthood, I have tended to roll my eyes at them. it is therefore ironic that I am now among the doom sayers. the agent of world death" climate change. there are two differences between climate change doom sayers and the others: the threat is real, and there something we can do about it, because the cause of the problem is ourselves.

Calling A Spade A Spade

SOME BRILLIANT AMERICAN said, referring to the recent bombings in Austin, that at least some of it had to be the work of terrorists. By this remark this percipient fellow doubtless meant that, anytime you have serial acts of terrorism, such as indiscriminate bombings, people of the Islamic faith simply must be involved, and they are likely dark skinned. How could it be otherwise? Isn't all terrorism the work of the entire Islamic faith, what with its billion and a half haters, jealous of American prosperity and resentful of the Christian faith because of its inherent monopoly on truth? you'd think all Muslims would be clamoring to become Americans and Christians, instead of trying to kill us all! I should possibly have explained to the genius that all random mass murdering bombings are by definition "terrorism", regardless of whether the terrorist is a young deranged white American, or an Islamic Arab. I didn't bother, though; poorly educated American right wingers are impervious to new learning. On his smart phone vid, the young handsome white Texan bomber frankly proclaimed himself to be psychotic, and insisted that he felt not the slightest remorse, so, there you have it. You have perhaps noticed that nobody, including the mainstream liberal media, is calling it "terrorism", possibly because we wish to reserve that exalted term for the really bad guys, those who are neither Christian nor of Anglo descent. Muslims are terrorists,or would be terrorists, and white Americans, by definition are not, so the unspoken reasoning appears to go. the bad news is, the big white unnoticed elephant in the room is; there is as much Anglo Christian in the country as there is Arab Islamic, lest we not give due credit to Dillon Roof, among others

Lying In Bed, Together

FOR THOSE OF US pissed off at Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, whatever that is, and the whole corporate world of Trump, Bannon, and exploitation, that's all well and good. but bear in mind: we made our own bed, and now we're lying in it. We joined Facebook, and we provided, without gun to head, all this personal information we're so upset about, now that Facebook has sold it to the wrong people. Our vanity, lust for attention, narcissism, and a few other unfortunate personal traits, did us in. If we didn't know it when we joined, surely we know it now: we are not Facebook "customers", or "clients". No, far from mit. We are, dear comrads, Facebook merchandise. how do you think Zuckerberg managed to make billions, without charging anything to join Facebook? By gathering, organizing, and selling a much personal information as possible about you,and selling it to any and all buyers, usually corporations. that's their business plan, and it works like a charm for all concerned, including you. So what, that we all receive an endless supply of advertising specifically targeted to us, individually, based on our self proclaimed interests, habit, and life style. isn't that better than being subjected to an eternal blitz of generic, irrelevant and for which we have no interest? Are we willing to start paying for membership in Facebook? I didn't think so. Unless there emerges a fundamental new business plan, advertising is going to make Mark his trillions, and we are going to remain the merchandise being advertised, our information dangled temptingly by Zuckerberg and his crew to big businesses, and presidential campaigns willing to pay the price to find out enough about us to target their brainwashing of us at us like a pencil thin lasar beam.

Going Republican

PRESIDENT TRUMP assures us that the republican party has the best interests of america's immigrant population in mind, far above and beyond those sneaky, pandering democrats. Presumably he meant all immigrants, legal, illegal, dreamers. Go with the G.O.P., says the president, and your fortunes will improve. But wait. Wasn't it Trump who, upon his ascension, issued executive orders intended to keep out all conceivable manner of immigrants, including those whose religious beliefs do not conform to American norms? Isn't it Trump who, for most of his public life, has suggested that any child born parents who then became illegal American denizens were, nonetheless, albeit through no fault of their, illegally within U.s. borders? Does the president honestly believe that the democrat dream of amnesty not only for dreamers but for most illegal residents is worse treatment than the republicans have to offer? That all illegal immigrants, and all Islamic immigrants, would prefer being kicked out and kept out of the United States rather than accepted as citizens? How, exactly, does that work? The president considers the republican party the best bet for America's poor, America's homeless, and america's workers as well. By refusing to raise minimum wage above the federal seven twenty five an hour, people are guaranteed employment, since anyone is willing to hire anyone at such a low rate. Or something like that, the reasoning must go. The democrat plan to significantly raise minimum will....what?...turn hard working Americans into spoiled lazy slugs? or prevent them from being employed at all, since, with higher wages, the work done by workers suddenly, mysteriously, magically no longer needs to be done? Trump and the republicans would have transgender women using the men's bathroom, and would have us all praying in public schools, whether or not we want to. That's real compassion.

Knowing It All

WE ARE FORTUNATE IN AMERICA, because we all know everything. We are all experts, on everything. My uncle, who recently underwent intestinal surgery, knew beyond the proverbial shadow of a doubt that the procedure had failed, despite his doctor's assurances to the contrary. he died a week later, proving his point. When I confessed to my doctor that I regularly adjusted unilaterally adjusted the dosage of my prescription medication, fully expecting to be upbraided, he shrugged and said: "no biggie. Everybody does that." He actually said that. I had expected him to either call the police, chew me out, or announce that unless I changed my ways he would not continue to accept me as a patient. Instead, he shrugged it off. Isn't it a legal requirement that all patient's under the care of a licensed certified physician follow the directions when taking prescribed medication? Have we become so accustomed to absolute personal sovereignty and expertise that we so dismissively disregard our doctor's instructions with impunity? Only in America, as the saying goes, do we deny man made climate change in such large numbers. Why? Because we know better, we Americans, than the scientists with doctorates at Harvard and M.I.T., even without any formal training in science beyond high school. We know more medicine than our doctors, we know more law than our doctors, we know more history than our historians. And of course, we all know how to solve all major societal ills, as witnessed by their lack in America. In America, we all know it all.

Going Out HIs Way

MY UNCLE, on the verge of his ninety fourth birthday, was admitted to the hospital in order to undergo a routine procedure to repair an intestinal problem. The operation went well, according to the surgeon, and, with a few weeks in rehab, he would be released, back on his feet, good to go, with, his doctor stated, the body and health of a much younger man. My uncle did not agree. He indicated that the procedure had not gone well, and that he intended to be sent home, so that he could look out the window, spend a few final moments with his dogs, then. The doctor responded that, indeed, he would someday die, but not soon, and certainly not as a result of his repaired colon. His family, nuclear and extended, sided with the doctor. Let's get you up and out of her, and back into action. Each time one of us thus prevailed upon him, he seemed to adopt a more positive attitude, and to agree with our optimism. then, soon after our propaganda wore of, he would sink back into his determination to go home, hang with the dogs, look out the window, and die. So persistent was he, and of such clarity of mind, that he was released into his own custody, and that of his wife. He went home, took to his bed, refused to eat, although physically there was nothing to stop him, and, within a few days, died. True story. His doctor, to whom I did not speak again, must have been quite frustrated. The rest of us certainly were, as well as being devastated. My uncle was a man accustomed to being in control. A business owner, type A alpha male, that sort of thing. Most of us do not choose the time, place, and manner of our death. As my grief levels out, I take solace that he proved it is possible to do so.

Fearing Facebook

FOR SOME REASON, I was always reluctant to use Facebook. My experiences with chat rooms and instant messaging around the turn of the century steered me away from social media of all sorts; i concluded that getting to know people on a computer screen had too many drawbacks, and too few benefits. Too much acrimony, as if the computer screen unleashed all pent up human aggression and anger. Much has been written about this. Also, of course, is the narcissism factor. Self promotion enhances self esteem, perhaps, but sharing one's life to an amorphous mass of billions of strangers seems, somehow, pointless. I finally got a Facebook page, but I never put anything on it, pretty much left it blank. Somehow, I acquired a list of "friends", about nine or them, all people I have known for years, in real time, real space, real life. None of this online friendship formation. I get a constant "feed" or whatever you call it, of comments made by people I love but haven't seen in forever. but I go no further. I never post anything on Facebook. A few people wished my a happy birthday last year; I wa amazed that they had this information. I cannot muster enough interest in my own life to share pictures of my pretty house and pretty life with strangers. Maybe now I know why. My feeling that there is something a bit creepy about Facebook may be in the process of being proven by our newest scandal; Steve Bannon and something called Cambridge Analytics. Where all this well end, we can only wait and see. Maybe Facebook, without even knowing it, helped Trump get elected, along with the Russians, and heavens knows who else. Somehow, I don't much care. I have long since resigned myself to the proposition that whatever form of human corruption can exist, will exist.

Changing Leaders

TODAY MUST BE terribly exciting in Russia, because its election day, and we all know how exciting elections are, the suspense of not knowing who's going to win. Who knows who's going to win? Hillary? Trump? Our American elections are truly exciting. In Russia, everybody knows who's going to win; everybody in the world knows. Putin will get, what, ninety nine point nine nine percent of the vote? To our Russian friends we Americans would recommend having real elections, with real competition, instead of mere verifications of tyranny. V.O.T.E. = verification of tyranny eliminator. Once again, for what we dearly hope is the last time, Putin verified his continued rule over Russia. A modern country needs to change heads of state more then once every twenty four years, methinks. admittedly, our country (USA) needs a different head of state every bit as badly as does Russia; the superiority in the America system is that we will have one in less than eight years, at most, and within a few months, perhaps, the way things are going. We have a quick question for our readers in Russia: do you think that your government interfered with American elections, and, if so, do you care? Just asking. We Americans and you Russians are, so to speak, in the same boat. We both have leaders of whom we absolutely must, sooner rather than later, rid ourselves, merely for the sake of our survival. Simply put, Putin and Trump, individually, are too much. Much too much. Much too much arrogance, stupidity, and insanity. Too much evil for the sake of the world. And put together on the same world stage, they are utterly beyond hope, and cannot be trusted to remain in power. You Russians made a huge mistake in reelecting Putin. We Americans would never have done that, we are far too wise and sophisticated to ever elect a narcissistic demagogue. and if you believe that, let's talk about some land I have in Florida.

Telling A Big League Whopper

EVERY TRUE BLUE baseball fan has a list of the greatest baseball games of all time. Americans almost always list games played in the American major leagues, while, for all we know, the greatest games ever played were all played in various countries around the world. World Series games have a special advantage, because of their relative importance, and therefore most lists are filed with them. Examples include the seventh game of the 1960 world series, the seventh game of the 2001 world series, the sixth game of the 1975 world series, and so forth. In the seventh game of last year's (2017) world series between the Astros and the Dodgers, the Astros scored four runes in the second inning off an uncharacteristically shaky Yu Darvish pitching for the Dodgers, and never looked back, winning 5 to 2. Not a bad game, actually, because there a certain amount of suspense throughout, wondering whether the home team Dodgers could make a comeback and win the series for the first time since 1988, or whether the Houston Astros could hold the lead and win their first world series ever - no not a bad game at all. but, there is no way in hell any real baseball fan would list it as the greatest game of all time, or would even put it on a best one hundred or best one thousand games of all time list. It was, at best, an average game. Leave it to Donald Trump, our great presidential prevaricator, to do just that. while visiting the White House, which the winning team does each year, our president, never one to be even remotely influenced by facts, pronounced that last year's game seven was without doubt the greatest baseball game in all recorded history. One senses our president wanting to curry favor and show his extensive baseball knowledge, and falsely assuming that one opinion is about as good as another. Chalk up another whopper, in the same league with the one about millions of illegal Clinton voters, and all the rest. Fact checking groups report that to date, the president has made no less than about two thousand false or misleading public statements since entering the White House, with many more doubtless on the way. Next thing you know, Trump'll be telling us that pro wrestling is authentic, not fake, and that NFL players who kneel during the national anthem are paid to do so by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Making the Wealthy Great Again

PRESIDENT TRUMP might wish to consider resigning. No, not because his connections to Russians are soon going to land in in jail, or anything like that. Rather, because his pledge was to make America great again, and, according to republican lawmakers, has done just that, with but the stroke of a pen. Our new tax law, under which corporations get a huge, permanent tax cut, and everybody either gets none or a small temporary one, has, conservatives are beginning to claim, solved all our economic problems and indeed have made America great again. there is, so the inventive narrative goes, a veritable avalanche of wealth trickling down from above, with corporate tax breaks already translating into pay raises and universal prosperity. Whether america's homeless have now all settled into condos, and the impoverished have settled into a comfortable middle class lifestyle has et to be divulged, but, can such news be far behind? From the forgotten professional economists class - you might vaguely remember them, the folks at places like Harvard and M.I.T. who have studied economics all their lives and are therefore, in the minds of conservatives, air headed idiots, we have still herd nothing. They must all still be gathering their data, or some foolishness. Among economists, tax cut for teh wealthy, and all the accoutrements of supply side economics, have long been dismissed as less than effective at lifting people out of poverty by crating jobs, but, so what? they'r just airheads, since they don't embrace the Trump make America great again agenda.

Righteous Protesting

BACK IN THE NINETEEN SIXTIES, when I was a little kid, I secretly "rooted" for the Viet Nam War protesters. By "rooted for", I guess I mean I liked to see them on TV, raising as much hell as possible, angering the old establishment folks, and getting away with it, by which I reckon I mean not getting killed or going to jail, and, somehow, being vindicated, being proven right. For that, I had to wait a heap of years. I remember mentioning to my sister in 1981 that we (USA) lost the Viet Nam war, and her denying it. Fifty years on, I have no such resistance. Almost any half way reasonable American is willing to concede that Viet Nam was a mistake. At long last, coming clean, as a nation. I never met a protest I didn't like; suffragettes, MLK, anti war hippies, you name it, I support it. This especially includes yesterday's national high school walk out protest of gun violence in America, with an emphasis on mass murders in public schools. All across the fruited plain, tens of thousands of teenagers got up and walked out, just like the old days. God, do they ever make me proud to be an American! If we're lucky, these braber kids;'' keep at it, get the rest of us off our butts and out there with 'em, then, expand the protest into a neo occupy movement, let it spread to Europe and beyond, and.....well, not so fast. One sign atta time. Americans are great social protesters, always have been. Our great nation was born in protest, which became revolution. Something about living in a land of speech freedom. And usually its the young who have the gumption, energy, and percipience to protest, though not always. let's change that. Let's get everybody,all os us, out in the streets, demanding an end to this insanity, just like we should have, but didn't, all the other times. And, just like all other protesters, just like the women marching for the vote, blacks marching for freedom, gays marching for equality, these people are on the right side of history, these new, modern, latter day patriot protesters, their cause is just, verily, sacred.

Pulling Up Stakes

AND SO, WITHOUT FANFARE, the House investigative subcommittee announced that, since they interviewed no fewer than seventy people. and heard no evidence whatsoever about anything having to do with collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians,the investigation is hereby concluded. More specifically, the republican committee majority voted to close up shop, after asking a few harmless but pertinent sounding questions, softball style. Heaven forbid that they should actually discover something nefarious. to expose the slightest wrongdoing by their obedient to the right wing agenda president was the very last item on their agenda. The democrats plan to continue the investigation, intrepidly but probably unproductively, without subpoena power of any sort. Today's House republicans were mostly elected from heavily gerrymandered districts, wherein republican redistricting committees grouped republicans together to create automatic election majorities, and open the way for extreme right wingers to run for office, and to get elected. Hence, we have a congress full of extremists who apparently prefer turning a blind eye to massive corruption in order to support an extreme right wing agenda. Conservatism at its finest. but never fear, not onluy is robert Muller still out and about, his behavior to date would seem to indicate that he differs from the assessment of the House subcommittee, and the Senate is still investigating, with, hopefully, more objectivity, and less ideological fervor.

Ignorance, Being Bliss

PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE in man made climate change believe in science. Most of them understand the basics of climate science, because they can remember a few salient facts from high school chemistry. People who deny climate change do not merely question the findings of climate science with healthy skepticism. Rarely if ever do you hear a denier question the science, and express doubt about it, and leave it at that. They summarily, automatically, arbitrarily dismiss them, outright. They are rock solid certain that there is no such thing as human made climate change,, with an almost religious fervor, almost as if they themselves have gone to college, studied chemistry, physics, and biology, done the research, and arrived at inarguable, fact based conclusions. Religious fervor, or rather ideological fervor, and pure raw emotion play a far larger part in climate change denial than science. An overwhelmingly of the world's climate change deniers are American, conservative, never went to college, and never studied science, any science, anywhere. Although it is in most cases almost impossible to enlighten these people, one can try. One place to start is by asking the question: "how can you be so certain the human made climate change does not exist"? Remind them that their certainty seems greater that the certainty behind climate science, the very scientific certainty they reject. If climate change is real, and caused by human activity, the conclusion is that there is something fundamentally wrong with human activity, requiring basic change. Basic change is what conservatives abhor, tremendously, it turns out. We the people without heads in sand must persuade our right wing comrads that we can fight climate change and preserve their self esteem at the same time! The question is, how to do it.

Pointing Out Proclivities

THE PERSISTENCE of widespread poverty in our supposedly advanced modern civilization perhaps proves points about people's proclivities which are not necessarily pretty. Does it meant that we are greedy, uncaring, or both? Take your pick. Greed, certainly, and uncaring only towards those we choose to identify as other than our tribal group. The primary point about poverty is that it is neither natural, normal, nor inevitable. Poverty can be eliminated, and prevented forever, if we choose to do so. Poverty is a manufactured product of our social structure, and we have the power to replace it. it is caused by human decision making, the product of politics and economic planning, or lack of planning. Poverty only exists because we all ow it, we accept it, we seem to prefer it, because we can change it, perhaps more easily than one might think. The point is that poverty has nothing to do with people being lazy or stupid, it has nothing to do with bad individual decision making, bad personal morals, or back luck. Poverty is not a matter of bad luck, but rather, careful planning. The difference between the rich and the poor nations is not that the wealthy nations have superior cultures with better values and, religion, andmorals than poor countries. No, not at all. Obviously, we could end poverty if we agreed to redistribute the world's wealth more efficiently, more widely, so that every member of society could contribute to society's health through economic participation. This could be done in such a way that the already wealthy need not be hurt. The cancellation of debt owed by the world's poor countries, and allowing them to protect and nutrute their economies would be a good start. A world wide minimum minimum wage agreement would be another excellent idea. Our human tendency is to hoard personal wealth, but also we have the proclivity of mutual assistance, if we choose to make use of it.

Imagining

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN if all education in America were privatized? What, for that matter, about police protection, fire protection, water, and health care? What would happen is all these were suddenly privatized? Chaos, is what. Certainly chaos at first, as we all got used to the new arrangement by doing whatever was necessary. At least so it would seem, when you consider the fact that throughout American history, all of these services have been either partially or entirely socialized. What would the cost of education by, nationwide? How many people could afford it, and how many could not? Do we really want privately ownde for profit police protection businesses? I really don't think so. conservatives might disagree, but for the most part, even right wingers admit for government to perform certain services, like building and maintaining roads and bridges, and maintaining a strong military to defend teh country. Heaven forbid that we should ever leave our military protection to private enterprise! The socialism that pervades American life is absolutely, indisputable necessary, so let's hear no more of this argument that nowhere in the world has socialism ever worked. it works right here at home. Our American right wing cousins are fond of, or at notorious for, perpetuating fals myths for ideological purposes, myths such as socialism doesn't work, a well armed citizenry will reduce violence, climate change is a liberal hoax, the recent tax cut for corporations will help poor working people, and so forth, as nauseum. If cute little ole Stormi really wants to serve her country, she'll tell all about Trump and herself, and thereby maybe contribute to the election of democrats this November.

Praising Trump

KUDOS TO PRESIDENT TRUMP. I never for a moment thought I would ever say that. As severe as I've been on Trump, I promised on teh day he was inaugurated that I would give him a chance, like decent people should. its been tough, but I have giv en him a chance, with mostly bad results. Until now. Finally, an American president is going to talk directly to the North Korean head of state. Isn't it about time? How long have American presidents been refusing to deal with North Korea, president to president? sixty four years? More? The U.S. has traditionally insisted that other powers be included in such talks, and that they commence only upon certain conditions, the most recent conditions being that North Korea must rid itself of its nuclear arsenal, or at least indicate its willingness to, before commencement of discussions. Now, finally, at long last, we have an American president with sufficient cahonies to just sit down, and give it a try. Three cheers for Donald J. Trump, as weird as it is for me to be typing it. American foreign policy, which has always been pushy, aggressive, and arrogant, could possibly use a little of the Trump approach. having Saudi that, the United States still has no ambassadors to either south Korea or Saudi Arabia, indicating an attitude by Trump that whatever needs to be done, he can do it better than anyone, and career professional diplomats be damned; this is an idiotic attitude, as any one with even modest discernment can perceive, but, what the hell? The downside is that Trump is liable to do anything, including start a war, issue threats, make matters worse, you name it. You never know. Those of us of a certain age can well remember hiding underneath our wooden desks from make believe Russian nuclear bombs. We may go back to that yet, this time hiding from North Korean nukes. if we're lucky, he'll use his wheeling dealing prowess to talk little rocket man into a complete disposal of nukes, in return for reasonable economic aid from the rest of the wealthy part of the world, mainly America. that is, after all, what the North Koreans really want, and have always wanted' acceptance, security guarantees, and money. who knows? We and the rest of the world might end up greatly regretting Trump's talk, as often is the case. but at least it seems worth a try. How many inter-human problems fail to be resolved because of lack of communication? Trillions.

Scoping

IN AMERICA WE set up such steep, rigid social hierarchies of various sorts, we encourage people so strongly to seek to ascend them, we fill the ascent with so many obstacles, we determine the successful ascendants so arbitrarily and unfairly, reward those who successfully ascend so lavishly, and so summarily dismiss those who do not, that Americans are, generally speaking, ambitious, vain,arrogant, competitive, bitter, angry, and alienated. A witches brew of conflicting characteristics. This creates difficulties. it all begins in grade school when, trapped for hours daily in a relatively small room with twenty nine other people, we steadily learn about the others, form comparisons, and hence, social pecking orders. Who among us Americans in third grade failed to compose a list of our "ten best friends"? By third grade, we are learning to do things like that, to think in those terms. Ah, those halcyon days of clique formation. May they never cease. Of course, they never do. First, we plow and compete our way through school, whether the teachers encourage competition or not. Applying for jobs, joining the military, finding a mate, a job, and all that, all highly hierarchical pursuits in these, the United States of Atomization, of freedom and liberty. America is a class based culture with innumerable classes, as many classes, nearly, as there are members.This fact is contrary to the once popular myth that we the american people have created a classless, completely free society, without penalty for individual differences. The penalty thereby becomes exclusion, which means successlessness. What all these cultural characteristics add up to is a very angry, agitated society replete with all manner of violence,including, importantly, in entertainment. There are more guns in America than there are Americans, but fortunately, most of them are in being hoarded by a few extremists, and are therefore redundant, if nothing else. Under current conditions, gun violence and mass murder in America will not only not go away, it will only increase. Fundamental change is hard as hell, but often vital.

Believing the Best About A Racist Country

RACISM IN AMERICA has been and is so widespread and persistent that it can scarcely be described as anything other than a "core american value", like it or not. It can certainly be argued that racism should not be a core American value, that there is no place for it in America, and so forth, but but arguing that it doesn't currently exist, isn't systemic and deeply imbedded arguing that it isn't nor ever has been an american "core value" is, shall we say, quite dubious. A core value is defined as a belief that is prominent in a culture, and has been for a long time. In America, racism fills the bill. let us not be led into the temptation of believing that all American traditions, all American tendencies and core values, are healthy and good, merely because we love our country and which to believe the best about it. Believing the truth is better than believing the best, at least from the standpoint of seeking progress and improvement. the most recent in our periodic upsurges in American racism was inspired, inarguably, the the election of Barack Hussein Obama, and therefore its Obama's fault, the right wing argument goes, its Obama's fault for having the audacity to address the issues. By bringing p racism, Obama created racism. Much has been made of the media coverage of America's current white supremacist fad, inspired by Donald J. Trump as well as B. H. Obama. The complaint is that by covering these extremist right wing groups frequently and thoroughly, the media has, wittingly or otherwise, given the white supremacist movement assistance, in the form of free publicity, and has failed to adequately condemn it. well, maybe so. On the other hand, it can be argued that we must shine the light of public scrutiny on extremism, and let the public, we the American people, do the right thing, do what's appropriate, which might be to ridicule and shun white supremacism out of existence.

Risking Touching

IN A PUBLIC PLACE, a woman whom I know but not well approached me from behind, placed her hand flat on my back, greeted me, and told me that someone wanted to speak to me across the room. I jerked away from her spasmodically, reflexively, ran out of the room shrieking, yelling for help, called nine one one, and asked for assistance in preventing an incident of sexual harassment. The cops came, took her away in cuffs, filed charges, proceeded with the legal process, and she ended up doing five to ten in the pen, another sexual predator off the streets.... Well, not really. Actually, when she put her hand on my back, I turned to face her, listened to her message, then went and found the person who wanted a word with me.. The first version sounds more exciting, and, somehow, much more in keeping with current societal circumstances, so, well, I went with it, until, overcome by guilt, I came clean, right before your very eyes. Everybody agrees, or seems to agree, that our American society has evolved considerably over the past generation or so, and that behavior which previously would never have been considered sexual harassment, now is. And so be it. Good for us. I recall about thirty five years ago, at work, there was a woman who kept touching me, innocently, out of sheer habit, when she spoke to me. Then, one day, when I touched her on her back, she gently but firmly told me not to do that, not to touch her. I thought: "sheesh". I'm still thinking "sheesh". I'm almost tempted to think sheesh about the woman who put her hand on my back the other day. Would I get away with that if the situation were reversed? Obviously, it matters not. Who cares? But this I know: i will be damned if ever again I even think about touching another human being, no matter how harmless my intent. As they say: better safe than sorry.

Who Is Helping Whom?

TWENTY PERCENT OF AMERICA'S children experience food insecurity, which, if memory serves, means that at least once if not more times a month a food insecure person does not have a way to obtain enough food to adequately meet basic nutritional needs. most of these kids are members of a single parent household in which the bread winner is either unemployed, underemployed, and/or reliant on nutritional assistance programs. Ironically, it is estimated that one half of America's food supply is thrown into the garbage bin each year. One scarcely need ask "what's wrong with this picture"? Depending On which Definition of poverty one employs, as many as four point three billion people globally live in perpetual poverty; by any standard, at least one billion people suffer from chronic malnutrition and poverty. Meanwhile, the eight wealthiest people in the world have more wealth than the poorest three and a half billion, a shockingly bizarre statistic which, horrifyingly, is verified by reliable statistical research. All this is amply detailed in an excellent new monograph by London School of Economics academic Jason Hickell in his seminal work "The Divide", which describes the processes, all systemic, by which the world's wealth is being hoarded by a tiny fragment of humanity, and by a few wealthy nations, at the expense of impoverished nations, most of which are located in what is termed "the global south". Hickell points out that there is more than enough food produced every year to very adequately feed everyone int he world, but that the problem is distribution, not production. Neither poverty, extreme economic inequality, individually or nationally, is a "natural" and unavoidable circumstance, Hickell asserts, but rather, is the direct result of political processes and policies pursued over a period of centuries by European nations and the United states. Before the era of European colonization, which began with the voyages of Christopher Columbus, regions of the world which are now widely impoverished, such as India and other parts of Asia, actually enjoyed a higher standard of living than did Europe. The conquest of central and south America by the Spanish beginning in the sixteenth century began a process, ongoing today, by which European nations plundered the wealth of indigenous populations, reduced them to poverty and servitude, and in many cases exterminated them altogether. Colonization greatly enriched Europe and the United States, but did permanent and disastrous damage to the victimized people's in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Poverty throughout these regions, much in evidence today, is not the result of inherent flaws in their culture, or corruption in their political systems. it is instead the direct result of a world economic system imposed upon global civilization by aggressive European nations and the United States. Lest we be tempted to praise the United States for its foreign aid programs, it is well to bear in mind that for every dollars the U.S. hands out in aid to developing countries, it extracts twenty four dollars, according to Hickell's research, in resources, such as mineral wealth, including precious metals and oil. The developed, wealthy world is doing nothing to help "develop" the undeveloped parts of the word. Rather, the poor nations of the planet have done and are doing much to develop the developed nations.