Going Nuclear, To The End

THE UNITED STATES was the first country to invent, discover, or whatever you want to call it, nuclear bombs, using imported European scientists, just as American culture itself is largely a European import. No sooner had the U.S. successfully completed its high speed high stakes war time development of the atom bomb, than it used it in anger, twice, against the Japanese civilian population, killing as many as half a million people in the process. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were entirely unnecessary for the world War Two effort, despite what Americans have told themselves and taught their children in history classes for decades. Months before the bombs were dropped, Japan was offering to negotiate a surrender, but the United States government conveniently ignored the offers, preferring instead to demonstrate its vast military strength in its new weapons, and its determination to dominate the post war world. There is no conceivable way the U.S. could ever have kept other nations from developing their own nuclear bombs, despite the American preference to maintain a permanent monopoly on the deadly weapons. England, France, China, and the soviet Union, the victors in world War Two, soon had their own bombs, their permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council, and the new post war order in which might, as always, makes right. Over the decades four other countries have joined the nuclear club: India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea, for a total of nine nuclear powers. And that is where we stand today. Frighteningly, the nine nuclear powers happen to be among the nine traditionally most belligerent, aggressive nations on Earth, fittingly, perhaps, and perhaps the reason why these are the ones who possess the weapons. The basics of nuclear technology are known to any graduate student in nuclear physics. There is no reason to suspect or expect that all other of the world's nearly two hundred nations couldn't at some point join the nuclear club - if they wanted to. As we speak, the situation now, and the likely future atomic bomb situation, looks bleak. Pakistan and India seem almost destined to engage in nuclear war, as do North and South Korea and the United States. All this talk about Iran and North Korea being kept from having atomic bombs is quite beside the point. The point is, nobody on earth should have them, especially the United States, which, recall, is the only nation so far to have used them in actual warfare, and that in the most criminal, unjustifiable manner imaginable. Experts on nuclear armaments unanimously agree on two things. The first is that it is a virtual miracle that there has been no further nuclear warfare in the world since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Secondly, it will be an even greater miracle if nuclear warfare does not eventuate, somewhere, within the relatively near future, as climate change cause ever greater international competition for basic essential resources, and strains the lobal economy to the breaking point, producing billions of desperate people and a world of combative, bankrupt nations, ready, willing, and able to do whatever they think necessary to obtain the resources they need for national survival. Our only hope is to reach an international agreement, the sooner the better, to banish all nuclear weapons from the planet, verifiably, by, say, the year twenty fifty. The problem is not Iran and North Korea. The problem is everybody. The problem are we.

Cohen, Delivering The Goods

MICHAEL COHEN has presented his testimony to the House of Reps, and the information he provided is sufficiently incriminating to President Trump to provide a means by which he might be removed from office, unwillingly. Cohen presented a veritable roadmap for Congress to pursue further investigations, including names, dates, numbers, facts, figures, and documents. The only thing Congress has to do is follow the yellow brick road, and the land of Oz, the much coveted much resisted truth about Trump, his family, and his circle of sycophantic supporters and assistants will be laid bare, at long last. Cohen testified that on no fewer than five hundred occasions during his professional relationship with Trump, Trump instructed Cohen to use intimidation and threats, by whatever means necessary, to scare off adversaries potentially harmful to Trump's plans and schemes. Cohen showed the cancelled checks Trump wrote to him over a one year period, quite recently, disguised as retainer fees, which were actually repayments to Cohen for a one hundred thirty thousand dollar hush money bribe Trump paid one of his mistresses, Stormi Daniels, to keep her quiet during the presidential campaign. Cohen was Trump's go to fix it lawyer for ten years, and he knows Trump quite well. He describes trump as a racist, a con man, and a "cheat". Each of these characterizations have been proven true during the Trump presidency, in Trump's actions, words, and tweets, in plain sight of us all. His racism, con artistry, lies, deceit, and vicious behavior have been on display in front of the American public and the entire world for years. Cohen outlined a wide variety of criminal activities which which he assisted Trump, all of which can be proven, none of which can be refuted. In light of all this, the most fascinating aspect of the testimony was the reaction from the Republican committee members. Cohen said it best: he told the republicans that they are now engaged in doing what he himself did for ten years while working for Trump; protecting Trump. And that is precisely the case. One after another, the Republicans, instead of asking relevant questions or making any attempt to address the material being discussed, engaged in a relentless attack on Cohen's character, as a convicted felon and liar. None of the Republicans, tellingly, offered the slightest shred of evidence to refute anything Cohen said. Their only argument: Cohen has lied in the past, has broken the law, and is a convicted felon, so nothing he says can be believed, nothing he says is true. Quite the opposite is true, in fact. Every human being who has ever lived has lied, repeatedly, and frequently, but that does not preclude the fact that we .who lie, all of us who lie, also tell the truth, often, (see "The Honest Truth About dishonesty: How We lie to Everyone - Especially Ourselves", by Daniel Ariely) just as Cohen is now telling the truth, under penalty of further possible prison time beyond his current impending three year sentence. The republicans shamefully, dishonestly accused the Democrats of being out to get Trump, of holding the hearings for no other reason than to get revenge. They (the republican House members) sound like an echo of Trump himself, in their pathetic attempts to keep a ship on which they are passengers from sinking. The ship of Trump will sink anyway, inevitably. Cohen has opened a gash in its hull, and Robert Mueller will soon fire the final shot, coupled with the inevitable House investigations which will commence quite soon. Trump's ship is sinking, and it will be interesting to see how Trump's ardent supporters, his close associates and millions of morally bankrupt sycophants, react. Will they jump overboard and swim for it like rats seeking shore, or will they defiantly go down, and vanish beneath the churning waters of history? Time, as always, will tell.

Comparing Science And Religion

DURING ONE OF MY LONG AGO religious discussions, before I reformed and stopped engaging in them, one of my adversaries said: "you can't compare science and religion." Forty years later, I still don't know why not. You can compare anything you want, including apples and oranges. Sometimes, comparisons yield the result that the things being compared are incomparable. Famed atheist evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins pointed to the fact that the benefits of science are obvious; science yields results. Computers, cars, light bulbs, medicine. Results. For further proof, just look around the house, or the neighborhood. As the inscription of the great architect Christopher Wren's tomb says in downtown London: "if yow want a monument, just look around". Wren's tomb was and is surrounded by magnificent buildings designed by Wren. The fruits of science are everywhere, and they make our modern lives amazingly marvelous. Science works, and it gives your life far more than religion, even if your prefer religion, even if you deny the wonder of science and defend your personal religious beliefs unto death, you get far more from science. If you prefer religion to science, you prefer fantasy to fact, for fantasy is what religion is. Of the hundreds of religions extant and the thousands extinct, no trace of evidence exists or has ever been verifiably demonstrated to exist for any claim ever made by any of them, including the resurrection of Christ. (see: "Jesus Interrupted", by Bart Ehrman). Religion is invented and reinvented to enable humans to cope with their fear of and inability to understand nature, as a way to understand the world. As religions evolve over time, they begin to serve purposes other than to assuage fear by erroneously seeking to explain the unknown. They provide comfort and inspiration in the face of mortality, both of which could be provided by better means, including belief in the wonders of nature as revealed through the study of nature, science. Either Socrates discovered science, or the Mesopotamians did, or the ancient Indians or Chinese, take your pick. Since Eastern culture manifested long before the west, the fact that nature can be studied systematically by using observation and verification, was probably discovered in India. Religion was invented much earlier than science was discovered, because religion was easier to invent than science was to discover, religion requires far less intellectual rigor, since religion is primarily an emotional, not an intellectual process. In science all disputes are resolved, by suing the scientific method to eliminate bad science and to affirm the good, and the truth in science can be confirmed as many times as one wishes, merely by repeating research and by observing nature without relent. Religion, of course, relies only on faith. Whatever one chooses to believe one is free to assume to be true. As Goethe said: "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine". The invention of fantasy, or fiction, produces great art, as well as poor art, and can yield truth. But no religion ever invented has ever been shown to cure any illness, increase anyone's standard of living, nor reveal anything verifiably true about the universe, despite claims to the contrary. Humans had religion in the stone age. Without science, humans would still be living in the stone age.

Cohen Coming Clean

MICHAEL COHEN, former attorney and problem solver for Donald J. Trump, and currently convicted felon for crimes committed on behalf of his former client (Trump), will, within a few hours, appear in the United States House of Representatives to answer questions. One observer remarked that his testimony will be remembered for two hundred years,, and will be the greatest show on Earth, no disrespect to the Ringling Brothers. That assessment might be less an exaggeration than it at first sight seems. Cohen has been on Capitol Hill before, which is why he is headed to prison in May for a three year stint. The last time, he lied, telling the assembled congressional committee that plans and negotiations for a Trump tower Moscow branch ceased and desisted the very moment Trump entered the presidential race. Actually, they didn't. Discussions with Russians continued right through the campaign, we now know, and talks with the Russians during the presidential campaign seem to have broached other topics as well, most notably, how to win the election for Trump, with Russian assistance. During Cohen's last appearance, he lied like a dog to a republican majority which didn't seem to give a fig, told him thanks, and sent him on his way. Robert Mueller had other plans, which included indicting and charging Trump's boy of lying to congress, a federal offense. Cohen was then sentenced to three years in the pen. If he lies this time, which he won't dare, the federal judge could haul him back into court, and tack on more time. Cohen, no longer willing as in the past to take a bullet for the Don, is nowadays more inclined to aim one towards Trump, and is highly likely to come totally clean, for the first time ever, and give the Democratic majority a full and complete run down on a large number of Trump's transgressions. These include hush payments to mistresses, political help from Russians, and most likely many others. The Democratic majority House of Reps is going to be far more interested in what Cohen has to say than were or are the Republican members, who are already lining up to assert that since Cohen lied before, since he is a known liar, he will doubtless lie again. Their desperate attempt to discredit Cohen before he even takes the stage sounds as terrified as a typical Trump tweet. Cohen has every reason to tell the truth this time, and no reason to lie. The main reason is his desire to avoid more prison time than the three years already in store for him. Trump and the Republicans are ignoring that inconvenient but obvious fact. Trump, Republican members of congress, and Trump supporters are all falling all over themselves to discredit Cohen's testimony before it is even given, to assert that Trump is the victim of a conspiracy, and that Trump has done nothing wrong. Mr. Cohen and Mr. Mueller will in short order shed a great deal of light on all that, and when they do, it will be interesting to listen to the desperate, pathetic excuses that Trump and his gang of fabricators, which includes millions of supporters, try to foist upon us, as their leader sinks beneath a tidal wave of corruption and criminality, and Trump supporters finally find that they have nowhere else to hide, having run out of excuses and accusations of witch hunts and conspiracies.

Putting Religion In Its Proper Place

WITHIN THE PAST FEW DAY the Holy Roman Catholic church concluded a massive conference called to address the alarming, and pervasive crisis within the faith, in which clerics are and have been for decades sexually molesting children, getting young girls pregnant, forcing them to have abortions, and covering up their sins against the stated requirements of their faith in order to keep their jobs. The more research which emerges, the more widespread this pattern of behavior seem to be, and Pope Francis is well aware of the dire threat posed to the church by this horrible state of affairs. And yet, observers of the conference seem to agree that little if anything was actually done, except to pay lip service, to issue statements of indignation, shock, and dismay. No substantive action was taken in terms of actually implementing policies, Everyone agrees on zero tolerance, but nobody has any concrete ideas how to zero tolerate, such as reversing the centuries old prohibition against priests having sex, to address the situation. When one cleric admitted to seeing documents destroyed, nobody asked: "what documents"?...In another part of the world, Indian jets attacked an alleged Islamic terrorist base inside Pakistan, in retaliation for recent terrorist attacks in India. The Pakistani government claims that the planes stuck nothing. India and Pakistan have been rivals since the two countries were separated in 1947 into Islamic Pakistan and predominantly Hindu India. They have fought no fewer than four wars, both have a nuclear arsenal, and both nations are devout in the practice of their majority religions. Elsewhere, aggression by predominantly Christian America in predominantly Islamic Afghanistan continues, as always, with many of the American troops currently deployed not having even been from when the American war in Afghanistan began, decades ago. Lest we omit any of the world's great religions from the enumeration of combat zones, the Jewish state of Israel, with its secret nuclear arsenal, continues to make live miserable for Palestinian Muslims, a situation so well known as to scarcely need mention. None of these conflict is over religion, directly. All of them, like all human conflict, is over resources, specifically land, and the minerals which lay beneath it. And yet, in each of these war zones, there is a long standing enmity between nations whose cultures are heavily, deeply entangled with one religion or another in particular. In each case the religion closely associated with the national government of the warring country is one of the world's major organized, traditional religions. In each case the most vocal, ardent proponents of war are the most ardent, devout members and practitioners of the various religions. There is a definite, irrefutable correlation between religious fervor and devotion, and willingness and desire to use violence as a means of furthering the interests of religion throughout national policy. What good, then, is organized religion, other than to perpetuate violence and conflict? Would it not be better for human harmony if the world's major religions would either fade away and vanish, or, if they would dissolve into an amorphous, disorganized, atomized mass, and be replaced with a situation wherein all seven point five billion people simply go about their own religious business, each with a unique personal faith? To remove religion from the realm of national policy and international affairs, would that not be a preferable alternative? Imagine a future in which the only universal faith is the faith of humanity to gain more insights into the nature of the universe and to increase human health, happiness, harmony, and prosperity through science, not religion. A universal priesthood of believers in reason, fact, and science, a world of mathematicians, chemists, physicists, biologists, everyone embracing science as the means of obtaining truth. Imagine, as john Lennon once did, no religion.

Living, Learning, Evolving

WHEN ONE LOOKS BACK on one's life, one can, if one is fortunate, see how it all worked together, how all the events and people worked together to produce a learning experience, a process of evolution, intended to result in an older, wiser version of the self, finally ready to ascend and transcend to the next level of existence, and to live the next grand adventure, as we reincarnate into one lifetime after another, attached to the great wheel of life, a wheel from which we shall eventually escape, and reach true nirvana, or heaven. we see that almighty God, or almighty fate, or almighty cosmic evolution conspired so as to mold and shape a more perfect one, you. her name was, and still is, Lori. She was twenty, and I was twenty five. That seems young now, as it inevitably does, when one lurches past the age of sixty, at long last. She was newly married, I was single, and still am. She and her husband lived in a small but nice apartment in a complex, he worked , she didn't. Se was perhaps bored, and everyday she called me, and invited me to come over. I always went. she was a long legged buxom brunette beauty. I always went over. This was in nineteen eighty. We sat for hours, snuggling on the couch, with the unwatched television turned on, to cover the noise, while her husband worked. sometimes, we went swimming in the apartment complex pool. I have always liked apartment complexes. She looked great in a swimsuit, and felt even greater. This lasted for several months, then came to an abrupt halt, when she stopped calling me. her husband and I were good friends too; I don't think that was the problem. Or, it may have been the problem. We went our separate ways, as we say, and she ended up divorcing after five years; I think she wanted a more ambitious, successful man, a man of wealth, which, after several more husbands she finally found, and retains to this day. She was a strident, inveterate racist. The very moment an African-American appeared on television, she cut loose with the hatred and insults, without using the term "African-American", which in nineteen eight y had barely been invented. I remember taking note of her virile racism, being very well aware of it, and not especially liking it, but also, not really minding it, being easily able to overlook it. A quote from Goethe comes to mind: "He does not love who does not see the faults of the beloved as virtues." Oh, how true. I didn't see her racism a virtue, but I didn't see it as a very important fault either. now, of course, in retrospect, I do. Now, she lives in a mansion in a beautiful scenic pat of the country, and has pictures of herself, her current husband, and her beautiful home, interior include, posted on Facebook. She and I were briefly Facebook friends, but, oh my, she seems to have unfriended me. My suspicion is that she saw a few too many radical left wing posts from me float across her time line feed, or whatever its called. I also somehow sense that either she truly grew p and evolved away from her youthful racism, or would today staunchly deny ever having been one. Maybe someday I will ask her. However, I'll be that she turned out to be a strong conservative, and maybe even a Trump supporter, and if she and I tried to be friends again today, it wouldn't work out. I am no longer as tolerant as I once was. I could never overlook that.

Not Telling the Truth

I HAVE BEEN TOLD by many people that I am an extremely honest person. I can assure you that that they are quite wrong about my honesty. They are mistaking bluntness for honesty. I do not shy away from telling the truth about controversial, awkward situations. If I think someone is full of it, I am likely to say so. I am not reluctant to make highly critical comments about myself. If I am afraid of something, I usually admit it. If I happen to believe that masturbation is an excellent alternative to sexual promiscuity or sexual frustration, I say so. Because of my willingness to make blunt statements about controversial topics, people think me honest. I am actually, however, quite the little liar. The very fact that I confess this so openly is one example of my forthrightness, but do not mistake it for honesty. I am just as likely to tell you that I have an important meeting to go to as to tell you that you bore me, and I am desperate to get away from you. That's my brand of dishonesty. Its a common brand. Sociologist at Duke U. Dan Ariely recently published a fascinating study of human behavior and dishonesty: "The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone, Especially Ourselves." And the answer is, yes, we all are liars, as I am sure any honest person could agree. Ariely and his coresearchers conducted many simple, revealing experiments to make their determinations. Much research has been done on human dishonesty; it all tends to conform Ariely's work, but he takes it a step further, and includes amusing anecdotes from his personal life to substantiate his findings. He tells an hilarious story of pretending to have a disability making it difficult for him to stand for long periods of time, in order to be moved ahead in a long line at an airport, then boarding an airplane in a wheel chair, and becoming so convinced of his own lie that he later formally complained to the airline about his shabby treatment on board the plane, in his wheelchair. We lie to ourselves as much as we lie to others. To an extent, we are likely to lie to others the more we think we can get away with it, the less likely it seems that negative consequences or punishment will result if caught, and the less severe the punishment is likely to be if we are caught. Highly imaginative, creative people are more likely to lie than dull, uncreative people, which is perhaps a surprising result. But merely calculating the odds of personal gain and weighing the gain against the likelihood of negative consequences if or lies are detected is not the actual reasons why people lie. A complicated combination if factors enters into it, and those factors produce a pattern of dishonesty from which nobody can completely escape. Nobody makes it through life by never telling a lie, but only by telling many of them. As Goethe said: 'we resist the truth only because we think we would perish if we accepted it." We lie because we are, in a sense hard wired to lie; millions of years of deceptive behavior, hiding form larger, predatory animals, engaging in warfare with enemies, and using deception as a strategy to win wars, surviving in complex societies, makes liars out of all of us. Although we all lie, we all greatly prefer to think of ourselves as honest, as having the highest integrity. For that reason, almost every human on the planet describes himself or herself as a basically honest person, and nearly everyone on the planet, by saying and believing this, is lying to the world, and to him or her self.

Hiding An Empire

I EITHER AVOID DISCUSSIONS of controversial topics with people with whom I strongly disagree, or I severely truncate them, to reduce conflict. Writing and publishing essays on your own website is an excellent way of getting your point of view "out there", making your thoughts available to others without forcing them on folks. Religion and politics come to mind. There was a time, however, when I was less reticent, and possibly a bit less wise. I recall some of the conversations I have had in the past with people whose opinions differed greatly from mine. I remain amused and appalled at some of the arguments they used. On one occasion, I was holding forth on the topic of American foreign policy, expressing my opinion that the United States maintains far too many military bases scattered around the world (over eight hundred), and that American foreign policy has been far too concerned with making the world safe for American corporate capitalism, for gaining access to foreign markets and foreign natural resources. I further opined that the United States has predicated its foreign diplomacy upon the false notion that "the American way" is the best way for other nations. I further complained that the United States has tended to impose its will on other countries by force, coercion, and subversion, particularly in Latin America, and that this has been going on for far too long, well over a century, ever since the United States began to acquire its overseas empire. The response of the other members of the group discussion astounded and dismayed me. "What empire"? was their response. That may have been the moment when I began to learn nmy lesson, began to change my attitude about discussing key issues. What empire? Excuse me? Hundred of military bases on foreign soil, possessions in the Caribbean, south pacific, and Alaska don't count? Incredibly, most American do not realize that Puerto Rico is an American possessions, do not think of the United States as an "empire", and never have. In a fascinating new book, 'How To Hide An Empire" Daniel Immerwahr addresses this peculiar state of affairs. Historians, but not Americans in general, have always been aware that from its beginning, the United States has been an expansionist enterprise, and that its expansion jumped across oceans in the very late nineteenth century, when the continental United States had been locked down tight as American property, and the expanding nation had run out of room to further expand. To facilitate empire, the trumped up war with Spain in 1898 facilitated the acquisition of Spain's former empire, including Cuba, the Phillipines, and Puerto Rico. Immerwahr details, on a geographical basis, the exact process by which the American empire expanded overseas, and how its policies towards conquered peoples have included and still include torture, enslavement, starvation, and scientific experimentation, as well as other forms of exploitation. American imperialist history is not pretty. No wonder most American prefer to deny it. when he was Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld made no bones about it, when he firmly asserted that the United States of America is not an imperialist country, and never has been, even while the American Air force was bombing Baghdad and American ground forces were occupying Afghanistan. Rumsfeld's amazing ability to ignore reality compared quite favorably with my former conversation partners, both of which serve as impressive monuments to our uniquely American ability to live in in a complete state of denial, in a fantasy land we well might call the United States of Imagination.

Awaiting Mueller. and the Fallout From Ill Advised Friendship

THE MUELLER INVESTIGATION is, according to widespread rumor, on the verge of concluding. The rumor is based on the fact that dozens of lawyers who have been working for Mueller have been packing their bags and leaving town, prompting the speculation. President Trump, more vehemently than ever, is calling the investigation a "hoax", and tweeting that it is a witch hunt. He added the cute remark that unless the report itself makes the same assertion, it will have been proven to be what he accuses it of being. People of low moral character and intellect invariably think their remarks clever, which they are not. If Trump is innocent of the activities for which he is being investigated, he would welcome the investigation, and would cooperate fully and willingly with it. That he has, throughout the entire twenty one months during which Mueller has been working, incessantly screamed to the world that the whole affairs is a witch hunt and a hoax is telling. It tells us that No only is Trump terrified of the results, but that he most likely is guilty of serious wrong doing which he knows Mueller has uncovered, whether or not the wrong doing has anything to do with collusion with Russian operatives to enhance his chances of winning election to the presidency. Innocent people welcome transparency, the guilty are terrified of the truth. The more damning the results turn out to be, the more Trump will howl that he was the victim of a conspiracy, the victim of a vast conspiracy to remove him form office for ideological and political reasons, a conspiracy consisting of members of the media, the liberal establishment, and the imaginary deep state. he may even include the Chinese and international communist movement for good measure. His predictable reaction will be pathetic and lame, just like his avoidance of transparency throughout the investigation, and in nearly every other matter in his shady, unethical life long pattern of behavior, the behavior of a clearly reprehensible person of low morality and consistent criminality. Reprehensible as Trump is as a human being, his supporters are even more so, because they always had the choice of disavowing any loyalty to Trump, and turning elsewhere for political leadership. that they refuse to do so before his election, and refuse to do so now, speaks volumes about their moral character, and reveals them, all of them, to be people of low moral character, and moral and intellectual bankruptcy. I have friends who remain Trump supporters, and will likely remain Trump supporters not only after the Mueller report is released, but long after Trump leaves office, regardless of the circumstances under which he leaves, regardless of how shameful and ignominious his departure. I have long since stopped trying to impart facts to or reason with Trump supporters. They are locked into a mindset which precludes all hope of personal evolution. They are as committed to Trump as Hitler's most fervent followers were to their Fuhrer, all the way to the wretched end. Trump supporters are by nature proud and stubborn people, invulnerable to reason, personal evolution, or self examination or self correction. I now consider them hopeless. Whether my friends among them remain my friends after Trump is gone depends entirely how they react to Trump's impending, eventual political and legal doom, whether they renounce their allegiance, and come clean in admitting their error, and acknowledge that Trump was, all along, profoundly unfit for political leadership. If they choose to indulge in a fantasy of victimization, claiming that Trump was misunderstood, mistreated, and blame his demise on a vast, inchoate conspiracy, I will sadly lament their idiocy and dishonesty for a short time, than move on without them, content to leave our friendship behind, pensively regretting that I ever had the bad judgment to befriend them in the first place. I do not associate with people of low moral character.

Youngsters, Leading The Way

MOST GOOD IDEAS come from teenagers. Something to do with an uncluttered mind, being too young for cynicism, being possessed of a full compliment of brain cells. A case in point: the Viet Nam war, which the Vietnamese still call "the American war", dragged on for a decade, and its conclusion was finally forced upon the establishment by millions of rabble rousing high school and college students. The legalization of marijuana comes to mind. The old folks never would have thought to stop treating it as if it were a crime, without the persistent assistance of the young and the restless. Not long ago, in Sweden, a female teenager decided that she had had quite enough of living on a dying planet, quite enough of ninety degree summer temperatures in a country in which the average temperature used to be about fifty in the summer, tired, of living in a world in which the old folks, aware of their own impending demise, seemed to care little or nothing about taking the drastic steps necessary to reverse climate change and preserve life on earth for future generations. So, she decided to do something about it. The world, Goethe said, advances only because of those who oppose it. She decided to oppose the world. She started by making a cardboard sign, getting a few of her friends together, and standing outside her school when she should have been in class, and having a little protest against the willingness of the world to accede to its own destruction at its own hands. Her project gained momentum, fueled by the affinity of teenagers with the internet. Now, it has spread across Europe, to Germany, Italy, and other countries, and has the potential to conquer the world. In Belgium, ten thousand high schoolers with homemade placards gathered together this week to inform the world of its responsibility to its progeny, and of the dire need to get off its ass, and to do something about climate before its too late. Like all protestors, doing something consists is gaining the attention of the community, and then, lord willing, the world. Reactions very. Classrooms are empty; what good is a protest if it isn't manifested amid a spirit of defiance, if it isn't a display of sacrifice? To protest properly, one must be defiant, one must skip class. The students are sacrificing their educations, temporarily. or as long as it takes. One old timer, a protest retiree, remarked that in his day, kids did their protesting outside school hours. He, of course, has the luxury of piety. School districts vary, country to country, town to town. some threaten to require protesting students to repeat the school year, next year, with mandatory full attendance. Others give their blessing, with the rationale that the first lesson to learn in any school is civic involvement, contributing to the community, serving humanity. The progressive schools are easy to identify. Climate change protesting among they youth has not come to America in large numbers, yet, but, as usual, European culture is leading the way, and America is a clone of European culture. The students realize that they lack the power to implement their ideals, and that their only hope is to arouse the empathy of those in power now. but since those in power now are not responding adequately with vitally needed policy reform, somebody has to light the fuse, and hope for help. As one seventeen year old girl said: "we want to live in a livable world, and we think we have that right. Somebody has to do something, wo, since nobody else is, we are." As always, the young people are the ones who tell the truth.

Believing Anything, Denying Everything

IT IS NO COINCIDENCE that people who support Donald Trump, despite his daily effusion of pathological prevarication, are far more likely than stable, intelligent people to embrace a wide variety of insupportable viewpoints and beliefs. In essence, anyone willing to believe Trump is likely to be willing to believe anything, from clandestine extraterrestrial involvement in human affairs, to alien military installations on the ocean floor. Why not? Once you've decided to abandon reality, anything becomes possible. Trump supporters have fabricated, straight out of thin ether, what they term a "deep state", which is allegedly a vast conspiracy of mid level government employees determined to stage a coup to overthrow Trump. This mysterious, nefarious deep states is supposedly responsible for everything from initiating the biased Mueller investigation, to radicalizing the thoroughly corrupt anti-Trump intelligence gathering community, with the FBI included for good measure. Accordingly, the Federal Reserve, instead of merely being a banking system intended to stabilize the economy, becomes a top secret consortium of European billionaires, intent on establishing a global government and economic system. The solution is to abolish the Fed, reestablish the gold standard, and allow only the issuance of coins as money. Trump supporters, like Trump, tend towards paranoia, prevarication, and delusion, which belies their proclivity to fancy themselves stable geniuses with greatly enhanced perspicacity, fighting the noble fight against a corrupt, fake mainstream media and benighted liberal electorate. Never mind that Trump supporters in general are far less intelligent and educated than Trump detractors, who mercifully constitute a majority of the American population. The most remarkable characteristic of Trump supporters is not their lack of interest in reality, but their evident complete disregard for their role model's utter abandonment of it. To be a Trump supporter requires abandoning one's morals, to the extent that one has any, and rely on the pretense of possessing them. it would have been difficult but doable to overlook the shameful Access Hollywood display, one month before the election. Trump is not a sexual predator because the deep state, the fake news media, or legions of libelous liberals accuse him of it, he is a sexual predator because he bragged about being one, verifiably, with obvious pride. Trump supporters cling tenaciously to the laughable fiction that the Mueller investigation is a "witch hunt", echoing their hero's pathological garbage. With thirty seven indictments, all valid, to his credit, Mueller seems to be quite adept at hunting witches. The most wicked witch of all may even now be within his grasp; we'll find out soon enough. There may come a time, far in the future, when former Trump supporters who are still alive rue their past allegiance to a disgraced, failed president, a convicted, discredited criminal who, through sheer electoral desperation, anger, and ignorance, a minority of misguided Americans elevated to the nation's highest office, notwithstanding his being a confirmed reprobate. Or, typical of Trump's supporters today, they may choose to take the integrity free path of denying ever having been a part of it, much like post war Germans denied having supported Hitler. Future denial of complicity would be far more consistent with today's Trump supporters, much more in keeping with their now fully exposed lack of good character, their horrible judgment, and their moral and intellectual bankruptcy.

Accepting Offers

PEOPLE ON FACEBOOK, people on the internet, and indeed people living in the land of freedom and opportunity (the U.S. of America) are doubtless cognizant of the seemingly amazingly infinite variety of opportunities afforded everyone with a social security number. Our email and snail mail boxes are flooded with them, our flat screens scream them at us. Offers, all irresistible. Each offer is the one one simply cannot refuse, the one one simply has to accept. The very moment I walk out the front door of my brick and mortar bank of America, into my email they insert a survey, offering me the chance to rate their performance. How did Missy treat you today? My response is usually to congratulate the bank on not having been indicted by the federal government for a year and a half, on having evidently toned down its criminal activity a tad, just enough to avoid another billion dollar penalty, as a coerced payment for the privilege of retaining its business license. In the United State of Advertising, financial services corporations are criminal enterprises. Check the public record. The very moment some mortgage lender tempts me with low interest high refi, my one true mortgage lender pope up, now is the best possible time for a cash out home improvement refinance, build that deck, its tax time again, low interest, call us before midnight, before its tool late. Who can refuse? Facebook, among the largest criminal enterprises in human history, offers me a never ending opportunity for friendship, the social glue which binds us all together, kind of. As I click yes on one bikini clad babe after another, I wonder how Facebook could possibly have known exactly what I was looking for. People you may know, they say. But how can that be? She must live a thousand miles from me, and has never heard of me. Oh, but we have "mutual friends"! One must take advantage of offers, while they last. Then, just when I'm starting to have fun, up pops a question, coupled with a dire warning: do you know this person? We suggest only friending people you know personally. The disclaimer! Proof of corporate moral responsibility. Listening to Zuckerberg's mealy mouthed explanations and apologies and promises for better Facebook behavior in dealing with personal information in the very near future is, if disingenuous, quite amusing. We Americans all promise good intentions, and that seems to be enough. There is a reason, dear reader, why every third word out of an American's mouth seems to be, well, a bit disingenuous, to put tit delicately. There is a reason we all seem, upon further reflection, if we really think about the actual meaning of what people say, why everybody seems to be trying to scam us, And that reason is: everybody is. WE are. Its all we know. We live in the land of the expression of good intentions, and ulterior motives. Because we are scammed from day one, we become inveterate scammers, often without realizing it. But enough of that. Facebook just sent me another long list of bikini clad babes from which to select future friends, and I must get back to it. Who knows what wonders await me in my email?

Making America Great, First

THE TERM "AMERICA FIRST" has a pretty, patriotic ring to it. Charles Lindbergh used it to geed effect in mobilizing American resistance to entry into world War Two, as if the head in sand American people needed any encouragement or mobilization to isolationism. We the America first American people would have been perfectly content for Hitler to conquer the world, providing he left America first alone; we America firstering folk need no encouragement to be America first, America only. We happily let Hitler run amok for two years, unconcerned, until forced to act by the inconvenience of Pearl harbor. Germany first, Egypt first, Rome first; it aint the latest thing, and its an always popular brand, across cultures, to boot. To Americans of average or above average discernment, the question is: "So what? What's the big deal"? This, because nobody in America who has ever been born, raised, and buried in these United States has ever contemplated prioritizing anything, including other nations, ahead of the U.S.A.. What, precisely, would be the alternative? Most Americans have never even been to another country. much less had reasons for being loyal to one. The only exceptions to American hegemonic citizen loyalty are God, and family. The exact order in which God, family, and country are prioritized depends upon the individual's religious devotion and marital status, but no other nation encroaches in the hierarchical trio. Nobody, not even Benedict Arnold, ever put another nation ahead of American allegiance. Arnold has been given a bad rep in the fake news media. His intent was to persuade the British to be merciful on the rebellious colonists, whose defeat he saw, incorrectly, as inevitable. Before the Civil War, Americans were loyal to their states first, and their country second. Virginia first. New Hampshire first. The war changed that. The United States "are" became the United States "is". But, as we say, that was then, this is now. During his mercifully brief inaugural cliché ridden address, Donald J. Trump, ever the patriot, repeated: "form now on, its going to be..America first..America first". Twice, presumably for emphasis. His intonation bespoke ground breaking innovation, as if he had created. He hadn't. No demagogue who ever set head beneath a self styled crown ever admonished his sycophants to pledge allegiance to some foreign power. Put another way, excessive, pandering patriotism is the refuge of scoundrels. Or, as Goethe said: "patriotism corrupts history". Demagogues corrupt everything, with vacuous clichés such as "make America great again", as if America were not already great, and "America First', as if there were any alternative, or as if America had not always been first, would not always be first in the hearts of its citizens, no matter what.

Accepting An Unpleasant Reality; An Inconvenient Truth

CLIMATE CHANGE is already very much with us, has been for a long time, and its effects are quite evident, already, daily. It will only get worse, so much worse that disastrous consequences are now unavoidable, and no matter what we do at this point, it will not be enough. The best we can hope for is to some degree ameliorate its worst effects, and to preserve life on Earth albeit, beyond doubt, in a seriously compromised form. Pessimistic assessments of this sort have appeared repeatedly on this website, the common theme being that with every new study of global warming, scientific results reveal the situation to be much, much worse than previously, recently thought. That has long been the situation; with every new study, the outlook, realistically, appears bleaker, as more information is added to the existing store of research and information. And so the trend continues. The very latest assessments are described in a new book by David Wallace wells, "The Uninhabitable Earth: The World after Warming". This title is eerily remindful of a 1991 book by Isaac Asimov and Frederick Pohl "Our Angry earth", in which the late great science fiction writer and bio chemist warned us that global warming threatens humanity's future. It was the last book Asimov, who died in 1992, and who wrote more books than anyone in history, ever wrote. Dire warnings about climate change are nothing new. The first such warning came nearly two hundred years ago, in fact, but was ignored, just as many people, particularly American conservatives, continue to ignore them today, incredibly. Mr. wells asserts, based upon the latest information, that the current goal of keeping global warming below a two degree threshold for the next century is no longer achievable, because of our sluggish response to the emergency. A more reasonable outcome is a four degree increase in the average global temperature by the year 2100, although Wells claims that if we start taking drastic action now, we can keep it to about three degrees, which will still be disastrous, but endurable. A high percentage of carbon injected by humanity into the atmosphere has been injected within the past twenty five years; after Asimov's book came out. We are at least three decades late in combating this dire circumstance, if not more. Einstein knew about climate change in the nineteen forties. Various scientists were talking about the theoretical possibility of warming the Earth's atmosphere by burning fossil fuels over a hundred and fifty years ago. David Wallace Wells makes the horrifying remark that no matter what we do at this point, by the year 2050 every major city in India and in most of Asia will be uninhabitable during the summer months, and to go outside will be lethal. By 2050 climate change, in the most optimistic scenario, will have killed one hundred and fifty million people, and probably more. The worst case scenario, which is perhaps even more likely, due to our current lack of action, is that by the year 21000 the planet will be a hot hell hole, with mass extinctions of species of plants and animals, with humanity in cultural and economic decline, as hordes of refugees flee from unbearable conditions, and humanity takes cover, barely hanging on to life, for a while. This is not fantasy; this is reality, the reality that the great grandchildren of the baby boomer generation is doomed to a world of severely compromised living standard and almost no long term hope for humanity's future. That tragedy is that the human species has shown remarkable creativity and beauty, and this planet has revealed a wonderful, awesome variety of lifeforms. All that will be lost. We might as well resort to prayer, or hope for interventions by extraterrestrials being with vastly superior intelligence and technology. Why not? In the meantime, it would be nice if we could at least die trying, and maybe show good intent by getting rid of fossil fuel energy, and electing an American president who doesn't believe that climate change is a hoax, a lie, and a trick being played by bad people with malicious intent. And then, maybe, just maybe, our descendants will hate us a little less, though still with good reason. It will only be a small consolation, and a meaningless one.

Making Freinds, Meeting Everyone, Starting A Movement

MY FACEBOOK FRIENDS LIST is rapidly filling up with young beautiful women in their twenties, thirties, or very late teens Mostly in their twenties. The term "filling up" might be misleading; does one's Facebook friends list ever get full? Is there a limit to how many friends one can acquire on FacebooK? Or, in theory, is it possible to have all two billion Facebook users on your friends list? If so, I think that's what I'll do, I'll try to befriend all two billion Facebook users. Why not? I recall forty five years ago, before I became a misanthrope, telling a friend that I would like to have the opportunity to meet everyone in the world. I really meant it. Oh, for those halcyon days before I learned to despise humanity. Back then there were "only" about three point five billion folks on the planet; now the total has ballooned to seven point five billion, and of the three and a half bil that I wanted to meet back then, its strange and somehow sad to think that most of them, certainly far more than half of them, are no longer living. So, I missed my chance, not that I ever had one. When I joined Facebook several weeks ago, after delaying the inevitable for years, I made no attempt at first to collect friends. The very idea seemed third grade-ish to me; making lists of your friends? Come, now. How juvenile is that, I thought? I can't seem to recall how I obtained my first Facebook friend. I think somebody invited me, somebody who happened to find out that I had signed up, and I accepted. Then, another, and another. Finally, I started making a concerted effort to gather together all my friends, past and present, from real life, and friend them on Facebook. That turned out to be more people than I had ever imagined, dozens, if not more. And it was fun. I started to understand why people join Facebook. Seeing names I had not seen in years, and even exchanging greetings. Then, Facebook changed my life forever, the corporate bastards. It started posting lists of potential friends it thought I might be interested in, giving me names, "people you might know", I think its called. I figured out that these people were people on my friend's friend lists, and indeed, I often knew of them, and added them. Then, for some reason, Facebook started giving me lists of strangers, and in most cases, the strangers were young beautiful American women, sometimes young beautiful foreign women from all over the world, rather than guys my own age, as you might expect. I still don't know hwy. Maybe Facebook knows more about me than I know about myself, creepy as that sounds. I invited the foreigners to be friends, thinking it might be an interesting cultural learning experience for me, and indeed it was, and still is. People from other countries speak English very well, I found out. Facebook aint no dummy. Facebook pays attention. Young beautiful women actually started inviting me to be friends occasionally, and I aint no dummy either; I always accept. Well, one thing led to another, as we say. Facebook decided that the only kind of human being I am interested in is young beautiful women, and, truth be told, they aren't far from the truth. I will never meet any of these bikini clad babes. (they always show themselves in string bikinis, being human, and full of lust and hubris). I will never even trade messages with the vast majority of them. Our best chance of ever communicating is when I share and repost left wing political posts with my comments added, as I often do. I assume most of the material I spew will be of no interest to be bikini clad crowd, but, as we say, you never know. My primary purpose on Facebook is to push a left wing political agenda and to attract readers to this website. I know, good luck with that. But the young beauties may have a true purpose in my debauched life. Women, globally, are the future. They outnumber men, globally. American women are registering to vote and running for office in record numbers, I'm sure you've noticed. What I have noticed is that young beautiful American Facebook women seem, repeat, seem to regard their good looks as paramount to their lives, as their prime asset, as it were. Otherwise, why the ubiquitous string bikinis? Maybe I can, in some subtle way, help them to understand their potential as active, involved citizens, serving society by becoming politically involved. Tulsi Gabbard and kamala Harris had to start somewhere, right? Those two hotties are running for president, after all. Maybe, just maybe, I can turn my lengthening list of beautiful bikini clad babes into a nascent progressive movement, and mold some future political leaders among the fair sex. Its the least I can do for my country, and, well, the string bikinis are a bonus. Maybe one of my babes'll be president someday. I'll keep you posted.

Having Good Judgment, Even In High School

WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL, two score and seven years ago, I did not have sex. Not that I didn't want to, but I was afraid to, afraid to do what was necessary. That means, essentially, bargaining. Forming a connection with a female, in my case, and trying to very subtlely enchant her and entice her into having sex. The meat market mating game, at all ages, is, after all, something of a bargaining process, as are, ultimately all human transactions. I found this process tedious, awkward, and cumbersome in high school, and have found it so ever since. Therefore, I am a virgin, at sixty three. Well, not quite, but close enough. Even at eighteen I was aware of the dangers of sex, the dangers we all know so well. It is neither automatic, inevitable, justified nor necessary to be ignorant and possessed of poor judgment at a young age. Certainly, I missed out on some fun, maybe, but quite possibly avoided some pitfalls as well. I recall hearing my friends brag about their sexual conquests, and rolling my eyes. Nearly fifty years later, the same friends brag about the same sexual conquests, and once again I roll my eyes. Oh my, how we American men love to brag about our sexual conquests, from high school to retirement age. On the National Public Radio program "ON The Media" the topic was sexual scandals of the nineteen nineties, and how the media misreported them, and mistreated the women involved. The women discussed were: Monika Lewinsky, Lorena, Bobbitt, Tanya Harding, and...Anita Hill. For those of a certain age, these names will ring a very loud bell, for those unfamiliar, there is easy access to the relevant information. The NPR take was that in each case, the media had, at the time of the scandals, unfairly vilified the women, and that now, in retrospect, we can see how unfair their treatment was. There is some element of truth to this theme. Only Anita Hill, however, remains entirely free from blame. Monika Lewinsky was indeed put through the proverbial media ringer, overly scrutinized, overly criticized and ridiculed, much maligned. It can be argued, however, that even a smitten twenty one year old female intern, smitten with the American president, should have the good judgment to refrain from accepting his sexual advances, should recognize said president as a sexual predator, a married one, and should run, fast. As abused as Lorene Bobbitt was by her crazy husband, and as under reported as her victimization was in the media, a better alternative for her would have been to flee, call the police, and get a restraining order, rather than to remove her husband's penis surgically. Tanya Harding had a rough upbringing and marriage too. Responding to it by paying a hit man to whack her chief figure skating rival in the legs with a blunt instrument is hardly the appropriate response, hardly justified. Anita Hill would be treated much better in today's environment, would most likely not be asked by a United States Senator in public, in front of an entire nation: "Are you a scorned woman"? Her contention that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas placed a pubic hair on her can of Coke was probably not a fabrication, as most accusations by women of sexual misbehavior are not fabricated, but, alas, we will never know. What we do know is that although these media made women were indeed mistreated by the media, all of them, except Anita Hill, exercised very poor judgment. The exercise of poor judgment in matters of sex inevitably has undesirable consequences, as we all know. They all, except for Anita Hill, whose behavior was consistently intelligent. would have been much better off to have had the same level of maturity and good judgment as I had in high school. If I can do it, anybody can.

Killing Butterflies For Sport and Show

IN THE MID NINETEEN SIXTIES, when I was but a transcesant, which in education courses in the teacher training curriculum means kids between the ages of ten and fourteen, pre adolescents, we had a few juvenile delinquents in the hood. Kids who were obviously on their way to trouble. They vandalized golf courses, smoked cigarettes, cursed, you name it, if it was bad, they did it. They were friends of mine. Growing up, my tactic was to always befriend the thugs and bullies, to gain their protection. It worked. One of them became interested in catching butterflies. He roamed the neighborhood with his big butterfly net, snagging them, killing them, and mounting them under glass. He had a very impressive collection, worthy of a science museum exhibit. In those days butterflies were everywhere during the growing season; now, not so much. I was impressed by his devotion to his project, and skill and quickness, and his attractive, mounted, dead insects. Although, in the back of my mind, there was a tinge of horror and sadness, I was pretty much down with the program. He spent hours each day at it, and sometimes I walked around with him, which was a great privilege. The project did not have a good impact on him, I guess; he ended up in prison anyway, though he is out now, on Facebook, and on my friend list. Thirty years later, I crossed paths with another butterfly killer, with a similarly impressive collection, which he proudly showed off. By this time I was in my early forties, and a confirmed left wing bleeding heart life loving environmentalist wacko. I politely looked at his glass death row, and said nothing. He got the hint, and remarked that I didn't seem to like his butterflies. I shrugged my shoulders, and when pressed for comment, I commented that I liked the butterflies just fine, but liked them better watching them fly around, pollinating flowers. This guy was weird too, and later died from heart failure, after catching a common cold in Hawaii. His heart gave out due to it being weakened by years of illicit drug use. He was only forty seven. So, the message is; do not catch and kill butterflies for sport and show; the karma will kill you. Use binoculars and cameras on wildlife, not guns - you know the drill. I shall remain forever a left wing bleeding heart. Does anyone do that anymore, catch, kill, and mount butterflies? Probably, somewhere. It must be far more challenging now; in most areas, the butterfly population, like the frog and insect populations, has declined precipitously, due to ambient pollution. The good news is that monarch butterflies are making a comeback, because the Mexican government is starting to protect their habitat; during the winter, they all flock to ten mountain tops over ten thousand feet high just north of Mexico city. The bad news is, Trump's wall will damage a butterfly habitat on the Rio Grande, that is, unless the hundreds of ranchers living along the border are able to stop the wall from being built; they abhor the idea, and know full well that there is no need for it, and have no desire to imminent domain their land away to futility. Butterfly, insect, and frog lovers must unite, stop Trump, stop conservative capitalism from turning all of nature into investment capital, and restore nature to good health before its too late For the moment, prospects for human and environmental survival don't look good; Trump and his evil anti-environment minions seem to have surprising staying power, despite their obvious repugnance. At least its comforting to think of all those conservative, rugged ranchers on the border, loaded guns in hand, ready to die fighting Trump in defense of their land rights, and as an unintended consequence, butterflies.

Understanding the Constitution...Or Not

MY MEMBERSHIP ON FACEBOOK is starting to pay some dividends. I am learning things I might never have learned anywhere else, because I do not participate in any other social media platforms, including twitter. I must therefore rely on other people to keep me abreast of the president's twitter tweets. One simply must remain abreast of the president's twitter tweets, to be culturally literate. If true, this one is the twitter tweet to end all twitter tweets. But..can it be true, and if it is, how can it be? Apparently, president Trump tweeted that the twenty fifth amendment to the American constitution is "unconstitutional". Yes, that's rights, one of the constitutional amendments is...unconstitutional. You understand how incredible this statement is, right? Its as if he is claiming that the constitution is unconstitutional, which he in fact is saying. How can anything in the constitution be unconstitutional? Well, it can't be, any more than a gallon of water extracted from the ocean can come from some place other than the ocean..or something like that.. The process by which amendments can be added to the constitution is very clearly spelled ot in the document itself, and it involves ratification by three fourths of the state legislatures. Its right there in the document, easy to find, easy to read. Anyone, including Trump, even Trump, can read the constitution. Any amendment which appears in the document, all twenty seven of them, have undergone this ratification process. Therefore, all twenty seven of them, and any new ones ratified in the future, and there are likely to be more, are, by definition, and by law, constitutional. Get it? Of course you do. We all do, We all get it, and we all love the process and love the constitution itself, including, or so we thought, the president himself. The twenty fifth amendment, the one Trump thinks is "unconstitutional" deals with what happens when the president is not capable of being president. Throughout American history, several presidents and vice presidents have gotten sick, and have been unable to do their job. Every time this has happened, confusion has ensued, because the constitution if very vague about what to do. So the 25th amendment was enacted rather recently, in 1967, to try to clarify the situation. It only made maters worse. The amendment is long and complicated, and confusing. The part Trump doesn't like concerns what happens when the president is a moron, mentally ill, or insane. In that case, members of the cabinet, or members of congress can "gang up" on the president, and remove him or her from office, legally. Trump is worried about that, because many Americans think he is crazy, with good reason, and there has been much talk about invoking this clause in the 25th amendment. Well, actually, I personally believe that we should scrap the constitution entirely and replace it with another version, a more modern updated version better suited to our currents needs, and this in fact is what Madison, Jefferson, and the other founders thought would happen. Madison and Jefferson would be appalled if they knew that we were still using their eighteenth century document in the twenty first century, but that, as they say, is another matter. Did we just read on twitter that Donald Trump said that the twenty fifth amendment to the constitution is, "unconstitutional"? Oh, dear heavens, please tell me that we didn't. But, there it was right there on Facebook, posted, so how can Facebook be wrong? My current plan, for lack of a better one, is to go back to bed and simply pretend that it did not happen, that somebody made the whole thing up, or that I dreamed it, had a bad night sleeping, had a nightmare, and just went ahead and dreamed that the president of the Untied States declared the United States constitution unconstitutional. That might be the best idea, for me, personally. Maybe the whole horrible episode will just kind of go away.

Trying To Hang On, Trying To Let Go

I HAVE NOT WASHED MY CAR in over a year. Its a white car, so it shows. Actually, its surprisingly white, still, perhaps because its been given free washings with rainfall. I suppose it could look worse. Nonetheless, it is streaked with black dirt smudges, and a simple visit to a car wash, or even a damp cloth applied to its surface for a few minutes would make a drastic difference. Only recently have I begun to consider washing it thoroughly, as I would normally do regularly. A friend of mine, a ninety two year old gentleman with a high standard for efficiency and cleanliness, asked me: "what's wrong with your car?" Having nothing to hide, I told him the truth. Well, my friend, you see, I said, the only thing wrong with it is that it needs a good old fashioned washing. Otherwise, it runs smooth and sweet. About a year ago, I continued, my beloved friend and companion, Cassandra, a beautiful black and grey female tabby, one of the loves of my life, died`. She had come to me in the early summer of 2015, just walked into my yard, apparently as a stray cat, and she rubbed against my leg, the way friendly cats do when seeking attention or food. Then, she left. She came back again about a week later, did the same thing, and left again. I noticed that she appeared to be underweight, and I resolved that if she returned, I would feed her, whether or not she had a home already, because she had no collar, and I don't let cats go hungry. She indeed came back a third time. I noticed she still appeared underweight, and fed her. She kept returning with increasing frequency, and predictably she ended ups staying with me, in my garage, since my three all indoor cats would never allow another cat inside. I named her Cassandra, and she and I formed a strong loving bond. Every day I made repeated visits to my garage, and spent many hours with her on my lap, as I sipped coffee, did some reading, and she lay on my lap, content to be in the loving embrace of her step daddy. She never seemed to have a high energy level, and never gained as much weight as I wanted. She learned that when my car was gone, I was gone, and would always await my return in my driveway. When I was home, I would look out the window and see her curled up on the hood of my car, as if to tell me she was glad I was home, and wanted to see me. I would hasten out to my parked car, stroke her head and back, and putter around the yard, with her scrutinizing eyes following my every move. Often she would follow me around the yard, helping with tree trimming and shrub trimming. I had her examined by my vet, got her vaccinations and all that, and took good care of her for two and a half years. Finally, she stopped eating, and my vet diagnosed her with kidney failure. We took extreme measures to restore her health, but fate had other plans. She died in my arms on December 4, 2017, the worst day of my life. I buried her in my yard near where my car is always parked, near where she and I sat together, sharing love. It was then that I noticed her paw prints on my back windshield, and streak marks where she had slid down from the car top to the top of the trunk. The paw prints and streaks were well visible, and, well, that's the way I decided to leave them. Over the months, they have of course faded slowly, but there they remain, still there after thirteen and a half months, still barely visible. My way of not letting go. Soon, it will be time to wash my car. Cassandra is in my heart and soul, not my dirty windshield. And some fine day, I hope and trust, she will be with me again, this time fully healthy, in my arms, on my lap, and forever in my heart and soul.

Fabricating Emergency, Displaying Petty Tyranny

BY DECLARING A NATIONAL EMERGENCY where none exists, by abusing the enumerated powers of the constitution and his responsibilities as chief executive, Donald Trump has fully revealed himself to be the petty tyrant we have long supposed him to be, and has signed into the law the instrument of his own inevitable demise. The forthcoming national uproar of protest will further diminish his already shrunken moral stature as a the leader of a great nation, as even his political supporters find themselves trapped between the woeful choices of supporting the insupportable, or forsaking their morally bankrupt leader. If a foreign army were invading American territory, if an earthquake, massive flood or hurricane, or severe drought were ravaging the landscape, if the nation were in dire peril of any sort whatsoever, then a declaration of emergency would not only be appropriate, it would be mandatory. Nothing of this sort whatsoever is manifest. The alleged "emergency " is nothing other than a sham, a spiteful ruse intended only to enhance the president's support among his thuggish legions of hateful supporters, a villainous, shameful ploy to gain political capital. Evidently entirely unaware of the implications of his own words, the president said: "I didn't have to do this. I just wanted to get the wall built faster". In other words, his declaration of emergency was optional. Obviously, declarations of real emergencies are not optional, but are immediately, urgently necessary. Give this president credit for at least never making any real attempt to disguise his own dishonesty. He seems to pathologically believe that whatever he says is true, merely because he said it. The false emergency consists in thousands of desperate, hungry mothers and their children flocking towards the United States border seeking legitimate asylum, seeking, only as a last resort, whatever help they can find to save the lives of themselves and their children. If they were Norwegians Trump would find no fault with them, but, alas, they have the wrong skin pigmentation, and that is their only crime. Among trump's shrinking number of supporters thoughtful citizens are a rarity, but those who are understand the disastrous consequences of this action. the next president of the United States will now have at her disposal the option of declaring a national emergency of climate change, a national emergency of epidemic gun violence, a national emergency of drastic economic inequality, and you can be assured that she will not hesitate to follow this president's precedent. Climate change, gun violence, and economic inequality and poverty are truly national emergencies, national emergencies which this president and his supporters ignore, because to them, they are hardly worth mentioning, because to them, they are nonexistent. And so Donald Trump is likely to get his beloved wall after all, and, well, if he wants it that badly, let him have it. congress will probably repudiate this fake national emergency, the president will undoubtedly veto the congressional repudiation, and the declaration of emergency will stand. Money will be plundered from badly needed projects, and the military will be conscripted into the service of constructing a huge, monolithic border barrier of exactly the kind Trump promised his reprehensible supports years ago. if they want it that badly, badly enough to forfeit their moral integrity to get it, let them have it; in the end, it is they who will pay the price for their hateful, vengeful aggression, and the price, you can be assured, will be very dear.

Outlawing Lynching, At Long last

A BILL HAS BEEN INTRODUCED in congress which would make lynching a federal crime. Several aspects of this stir amazement. First, it is amazing that lynching isn't already a federal crime, isn't, in essence, against the law in the federal code. Since murder is illegal in federal law, it can be extrapolated by extension that lynching is also a criminal offense, arguably, and yet, that lunching per se has not been placed specifically within the jurisdiction of the federal government seems, at the least surprising, at the most, unconscionable. Equally amazing is that bills to federally criminalize lynching have been introduced into the national legislative assembly, both the House and the Senate, no less than two hundred different times over the past several decades, without passing. Lynching, as we all know, is nothing other than a term for hanging by the neck until dead, what was once colloquially called a "necktie party", an ancient and reliable form of capital punishment which has effectively ended the lives of millions of human beings throughout history. The term "lynching", however, has a uniquely American denotation; it refers particularly to the hanging of African-Americans, outside the legal system, by vigilantes, whose only motive was racial hatred of African-Americans. At the risk of bring indelicate, people who have carried out lynchings never used the term "African-American". The most commonly used terms were "nigger", "coon", darkie", and so forth, terms with which we are all too familiar as relics of an unfortunate national history. The practice started after the Civil War, after the emancipation of American slaves in 1865, and was practiced most frequently beginning with the end of Reconstruction in 1877, when the American army ended its brutal occupation of the former confederacy, and enforced racial equality. Lynchings were most common between 1877 and World War Two, although incidents of lynching occurred with some frequency well into the nineteen sixties. With he advent of the civil rights movement, their frequency declined considerably, but has never entirely ceased. Probably three to four thousand African-Americans have been lynched in American history, but that is doubtless a very conservative estimate, and includes only well document4ed cases, and omit probably many times more undocumented instances of murders carried in the deep of night, by secretive gangs of racist whites, whose behavior was deliberately concealed and never reported by law enforcement agencies, mostly in the south. Is our national reluctance to enshrine the criminality of lynchings into federal law yet another example of hidden institutional racism in America? You can be sure that it is, if ever you happen to hear some politician or pundit mention "states rights' as a reason for federal reticence. "States rights" was long substituted for the word "slavery" in explaining the causes of the Civil War. One fact is indisputable. The continued absence of federal anti lynching laws can be directly traced to American conservatism, not progressivism, because racism is a traditional, conservative value, not a progressive one. The legislative record doubtless will demonstrate that those members of congress who opposed previous anti lynching legislation were noted conservatives. It will be interesting to see if the current bill in congress gains enough support to pass, and if it doesn't, which members of which party oppose it. We shall soon see.

Taxing

WE LIVE IN A SMALL TOWN, we work hard, and we want our children to be educated, but don't have the time to home school them. And besides, we ourselves are not educated enough to be teaching much of anything to anybody, let alone teach calculus and chemistry to teenagers. So, we decided to build a local school, and hire a teacher or two. That costs money. To raise it, we take a penny from every dollar spent at local retail stores, restaurants, and bars. Next thing you know, more folks arrive and settle into our little town, with kids of their own. That's good; more tax revenue. The town grows enough that we want to pave and maintain a few streets; more pennies, more tax money. The county wants us to chip in for county highways and bridges, and to help pay a sheriff. The sheriff isn't always nearby, so we the townies decide to start our own police department, and the first time a house or business burns down, we realize the need for fire protection. More tax money from the good citizens of anyone lived in a pretty how town, to borrow a passage from a well known twentieth century American poem. The taxation keeps coming, because the desire and need for public services keeps coming. Everyone agrees that everything we are paying for is necessary; the school, the roads, the fire and police protection, and this is merely the beginning. Our pretty how town is located within the borders of one of these united states, a state which provides its necessary services,state highways, state police and such, which must be paid for by taxing everyone, in an increasing number of inventive ways; sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes, wealth taxes. You name it, they, we, tax it. We and they, by the way, are one and the same. And we haven't even gotten to the national government yet, and the necessity of protecting our country by maintaining a full time military, complete with men, women, equipment, and weapons. A national highway system comes into existence which facilitates the movement of goods, people, and services from sea to shining sea, from border to walled off border, which raises yet more tax money, and which wondrously provides the capitalistic economic activity by which tax money is raised. All these taxing schemes, and all these publicly owned, operated, and maintained services, so very necessary, all agree, to our very survival, is called, well.."socialism". Government is socialism. Privately owned business activity is called capitalism. That's a lot of socialism, and its just the beginning, just the beginning of the actual socialism which infests the United States of America. We haven't even mentioned government health insurance, of which in America we have at least three kinds, and government owned and operated pensions, particularly social security. And many, many more. So much more. Socialism is America, and America is socialism. Minimum wage and work week laws are, yes, socialistic regulations of capitalism, just to make sure workers are not exploited by business owners, which in fact they very much were before socialism came to the workplace. Without socialism, capitalism fails, America fails. This is why it is hilarious, pathetic, and dishonest almost beyond belief when some, or when millions of free market fanatics, anti government fanatics, also known as "conservative republicans", do their screeching and whining about not wanting socialism to ever come to America, about how socialism is evil and harmful, and about how socialism never works no matter where it is tried. The funniest one is about how socialism is being taught in schools by evil, sneaky socialistic teachers. Its funny because the public schools are operated socialistically, and the teachers are paid socialistically, by the government at tax payer expense, not by private businesses. Does Donald Trump Junior even realize that? Does he, or his father, realize anything? What are these people thinking? Or, are they even thinking?

Opportunity, Knocking Itself Out

THERE IS NO SITUATION, said Goethe, which cannot be ennobled through achievement or enduring. We save a special place in our esteem for those wondrous entities which, against all odds, survive and endure, and, confronted with great adversity, produce value. The athlete who defies age. The old neighbor who just keeps going, taking that early morning walk, day after day, year after year, well outliving his expected lifespan. That special rebuilt car with rebuilt motor and salvaged body parts. Whether man or machine, there is something we admire about longevity, and the enduring quality of performance, because we all know of our own encroaching mortality, we know how exceedingly difficult it is to simply long persist. I remember when the Mars probe Opportunity was launched in 2004. I had not yet turned fifty. Now, I am in my mid sixties, and I dare say that the little machine, all alone on the barren Martian landscape, has accomplished far more than I during the last fifteen years, and I have not been idle. Opportunity was designed and intended to last but ninety days, optimistically. It was assumed that the harsh environment in which it would do its work would rapidly erode its ability to function, and that whatever knowledge we gained from its presumed brief sojourn of a few hundred yards would be more than worth the effort. Instead, it just kept going. Kept going more than twenty eight miles for fifteen years, across all types of terrain, rocky, flat, up and down slopes, into and out of dust storms that would have felled far larger, stronger pieces of machinery. It just kept going, and performing, and producing value, adding so much more to our knowledge of the red planet than was expected of it that all who beheld its lengthening odyssey became awe stricken with amazement and admiration, as the days turned into months, and the months into years. It was as if the little car had a mind, heart, and soul of its own, and was determined to never die, to not slink away into the night, and die without even a whimper. To have been a part of the Opportunity project from beginning to end, to have been a member of the team which designed, built, launched, monitored, and collected data as it came in over the past twenty years or more must be, at this point, a feeling utterly beyond surrealistic. A poignant mix of transcendence and loss. The mixture of pain, nostalgia, pride, and love must be nearly unendurable to those who were there throughout the entire process, from inception to dignified death. Nobody gave up easily. They will always have that, and if need be, we must remind them of their intrepid bravery and endurance. The rover ran into a fatal dust storm eight months ago, and was unable to recover from the resulting prolonged blockage of sunlight, and death by energy depletion. It was hoped that somehow, miraculously, the intrepid little vehicle would once again defy time, age, and logic with another miraculous recovery from near death, but, in the end, entropy consumes us all, as we recycle through nature. If a machine can have an afterlife, a soul, then Opportunity must now be looking back on its life with the calm satisfaction which derives only from having endured and achieved beyond any reasonable expectations of the self. To the people who gave a large part of their lives to the noblest of all endeavors, the pursuit of knowledge, and to their noble machine, we simply say, well done. The rest of us can only imagine what it must feel like, and can only give all concerned a heartfelt salute of love and gratitude, with a very special gratitude for a little lonely machine, standing motionless and alone, but not really alone, finally, after a long and fruitful journey, and a job well done.

Cleansing the Faith

SEEMINGLY, to be fair, "seemingly" the Holy Roman Catholic church is not alone in Christendom is harboring a sordid subterranean culture of sexual predation, consisting of pedophilia and sundry other forms of sexual misconduct, all, apparently, widespread. sustained investigative journalistic research conducted over time by a reputable Houston newspaper conclusively reveals a similar sad set of circumstances throughout southern Baptistry, Caucasian branch. And, like the Catholic variety, it appears likely that the deeper down we dig, the greater the quantity of misbehavior, the more pervasive and hidden, which will be unearthed. When Nathanial Hawthorne wrote about Hester Prynne and the reverend Dimmesdale in his classic American novel "The Scarlett Letter", he evidently knew whereof he wrote. Hawthorne, with characteristic nineteenth century literary indirectness and subtlety, makes the point that the bold red letter "A" was either pinned on the bosom of the wrong person, or on one person too few. a similar seems likely to emerge from our current protestant scandal, as the Baptists, having long lain dormant, are only now beginning, with no apparent recourse, to look themselves in the long neglected mirror. The early emerging pattern is that southern Baptist sexual predation, like the Catholic version, is a top down phenomenon. Power corrupts, and we know what absolute power does. Behavior which when discovered sends the little guy to prison, is never uncovered, or covered up when it is, when committed by the important and the powerful. Priestly celibacy wasn't even instigated until the twelfth century, during one of the Holy churches frequent purification orgies. It might have been a mistake to instigate it, a mistake worthy or reversal. Sex was seen as a priestly distraction from God; turning sex into forbidden fruit, it turns out, creates an even greater distraction from far holier obligations. The Catholic and protestant hierarchies are still in the stage of wallowing in their respective expressions of shock and dismay, having only recently overcome decades of denial and righteous outrage at the very suggestion of impropriety within the flock, or the ranks of the flock's shepherds. How long until the dreadful specter will be raised of comparable hidden ignominy among all the other hundreds of thus far presumed pure denominations? Inevitably, we will go through the painful, predictable stages of denial and acceptance again and again, to our vicarious delight, relishing every salacious second in the spoon feeding media. What is it, precisely, about churches which incubates sexual misconduct? The fact that they all condemn it? The close proximity of mixed genders congregations, reading in groups from an abundance of sexually charged scriptural passages found in every nook and cranny of the bible? flowing choir robes? The inherently irresistible taste of forbidden fruit? Or is it that church, a presumed sanctuary of purity, provides the perfect cover for concealing sin? We must leave it to the sociologists, psychologists, and historians to sort it all out, in the fullness of time. The clergy itself is much less likely to shine light; it, after all, is the crux of the problem, and when within the forest, surrounded by trees, one cannot, we all know, see the forest for the trees. The Christian faith, more than any institution on the planet, effectively creates illusions and deceptions by convincing itself that things are other than what they demonstrably are; such is the nature of religion; to resist change, and to perpetuate faction in a world of emerging fact.

Getting Less Than The Wall We all Want

PRESIDENT TRUMP, ever remindful of the spoiled, petulant teenager he seems to so very closely resemble, who on Christmas morning hopes to be presented a shiny new Corvette but is instead gifted a used Gremlin, is fixin' to pitch a tizzy, on camera, on twitter, and all destinations convenient to himself and the fake news media he so desperately despises. Said tizzy started last night, in El Paso Texas, a bare mile from the imaginary border wall so dear to his tortured heart. In desperate haste to avoid another politically damaging government shutdown, a bipartisan group of beleaguered legislators reached, at long last, a compromise on border security, a compromise which bears no discernable similarity to what Trump has been blow harding about for nearly three painful to our ears years. Trump, when informed of the agreement, dismissed it with a shrug, said he had places to be and people to see, and once again asserted his firm intention to have his Corvette style wall, one way or another. At this point, the only way might be a declaration of emergency, or of war with Latin America, and a mass conscription of slave labor, ancient Egyptian like, and thirty years of hard, sustained labor by tens of thousands of military personnel. Our memory is clear on this matter. Three years ago, we were told that "they" were bringing guns, drugs, rape, violence, and who knows what other nasty things into our country, by design, and that something serious had to be done about it. We were introduced to "the wall", a massive monolithic fortification to be constructed at Mexican expense, many feet thick and many feet tall, presumably of solid steel reinforced concrete, from sea to shining sea, a wall to end all walls. The cost would be in the neighborhood or forty billion or so, all of it Mexican money. We were skeptical from the outset, with only his most devout followers buying into the dream. No sooner had the ink dried on Trump's first post election twitter tweets, the backtracking began, amid an inundation of fact founded objections and reality checks. The president of Mexico made it plain: Mexico would no more consider paying for the trumped up wall than hell would freeze over. Trump, peddling backward, claimed that his new trade agreement with Mexico would, de facto, pay for the wall through its economic benefits to the United States, a claim which raised eye brows and rolled eyes. then, the wall started to shrink, brick by crumbling brick. It shrank in length, width, and height, in every dimension and direction, and the concrete turned into steel slats, while the funding proposals moved from Mexico to the American tax payers. the numbers kept going steadily down, and just yesterday evening, took the sharpest downturn yet, as congressional leadership signed off on one point three billion dollars worth of border security, way down from the president's long coveted five point seven billion. The wall gets smaller, the money keeps drying up. Now, we are looking at about fifty miles of new "fencing", presumably chain link several feet high, with maybe some barbed wire coiled menacingly at the top, prison style. The next moment of high drama will come in a day or two, when we will find out whether the president will sign the bill, one pen per letter, as is customary, and swallow still more pretend pride, or will have the sand to back up his pomposity with a veto, and declare a national emergency, along with another government shut down. Its dollars to donuts he'll sign on, and, in his usual cartoonish manner, claim victory. No matter what happens, this delusional narcissistic chief executive will claim, pathetically, to be the winner, no matter how bad his defeat. In the meantime, the wall, and its cost, continues to shrink, and if we millions who understand the futility of fixed fortifications continue to play the waiting game a bit longer, are likely to see a southern border festooned with a beaded curtain, through which caravans of impoverished asylum seekers can peer longingly into the land of plenty, dreading their imminent confrontation with Trump's legions of jackbooted goons.

Growing Apart, and Reconnecting, Somewhat

AMONG THE PLEASURES of encroaching dotage, few though there may be, is the enhanced opportunity in the digital age for renewing contact with long lost friends from one's younger years, folks who vanished from our lives decades ago. Ours is not a culture given to forming, much less nurturing nor renewing friendships. (see: 'Bowling Alone", by Robert Putnam). A friend of mine from Shanghai, who came to study in my small college town, said to me: "You Amellicans are the loneliest people in the world. You care more about your dogs and cats than each other." An insightful, cogent analysis of American culture, if ever here were one. You got that right, I assured him, moments before he headed off to find companionship and anonymity in the cold confines of Chicago. He had grown up accustomed to living in a city of twenty million, and small college town life left him lonely. So did Chicago, it turned out. For years I tried to stay in touch with my friends from adolescence and early adulthood. They mostly didn't reciprocate, and I eventually gave up. They kept moving around, changing numbers, and as middle aged manifested I, like they, became self absorbed in the present. Now for me its mostly a mater of curiosity. Whatever happened to them? I found out that a girl I spent one pleasant evening with changed course, and ended up becoming an award winning anthropologist. Most of my childhood friends became successful, as I knew they would, though there are a couple of fallen criminals and space cadets in the mix. Truly, it takes all kinds. Most of them married, and the divorce rate among my old friends ranks well below the national average. One in particular had the good sense to marry late, and the bad sense to have children late, truncating his chances of ever attaining the heartwarming status of grandparent. When I emailed him "what's up" after thirty years, he responded. He had moved around, teaching at a series of junior colleges, and had two sons, of whom he was inordinately proud. He showed no interest in learning about my life during the missing thirty years, which is fine, which is normal. He slightly miscalculated me level of interest in his life, and in his gifted and talented sons. I learned a bit too much about the ability of a fourteen year old to mix fast balls and sliders, and much too much about the prospects of a thirteen year old for future consideration for a Nobel prize. I decided to respond honestly, which quieted him. I passingly remarked that following and sharing his children's lives will be his greatest joy over the next several decades, regardless of their trajectory. I expressed joy at the thought that their success, or ack thereof, wouldn't really matter, but that only their health and happiness would. I then went on, teacher to teacher, to present my view of education in America, which includes my contempt for the label "gifted and talented", and too great an emphasis by the system, as I see it, on personal ambition and success and too little emphasis on being of service to others and to society. I expressed my view that if one does a good job washing dishes or cleaning streets, one has become successful, and one needn't become a major league star or Nobel Laureate to achieve success. I quoted Einstein to him, to the effect that a common, simple life yields more happiness than success. As you might suspect, I have not heard from him since, and probably never will. He has bigger fish to fry, people to tell about his gifted and talented sons, and the sons himself, which will require his close monitoring and mentoring. I learned that old friendships fade away for a reason, and that their renewal is at best a precarious proposition; over the years we change, and we grow apart. Unfortunately, I am not likely to ever learn exactly how successful his two great talents ever become, unless one of them wins the world Series and the other one the Nobel prize, and that will be my loos, or just maybe, my gain.

Progressives Coming Out

ITS CALLED THE "DEMOCRATIC PARTY", but conservatives, led by the nose by their guru Rush the Gush Limbaugh, have taken to calling it the "Democrat" party, as if doing so constitutes some greatly effective, immensely clever insult, the implication being that the party is not "democratic", presumably. Surely these master of insults could do better. These are exciting and interesting times for the more progressive wing of the American electorate, with a record number of candidates having already declared their intention of seeking the presidency, perhaps smelling the blood of a severely politically wounded incumbent demagogue with faltering approval ratings and a growing litany of corruption, dishonesty, self made enemies, and disastrous policies. I've been a Democrat all my increasingly long life, though I took what proved to be an ill advised detour in 1968, when Hubert H. Humphrey's incessant verbal assaults on Richard M. Nixon inspired my bleeding heart thirteen year old mentality to switch loyalties, and "vote" Nixon. I repeated the mistake in 1972, as high a school senior, but, looking back, Nixon was not altogether a bad president, and was in fact quite progressive as far as Republicans go. What's a little gangland style criminal corruption among friends? Humphrey, and several former presidents agreed at his funeral in 1978, would have made a great president, being exceptionally conversant with the mechanisms of the legislative process, as LBJ had been. It galls me to think that I passed on Humphrey only because of his acid tongue, and on George McGovern only due to blind, unreasoning loyalty to a crook in denial. Finally, a mere fifty years down the road, arrives my opportunity for atonement. Hillary Clinton was more moderate than liberal, a war hawk, and a corporate puppet, just like her husband, just like Obama, corporate property all. Bernie Sanders ignited the progressive instincts of the left wing, and quite likely would have won the nomination and the presidency had it not been for the nefarious machinations of Hillary Rodham and Donald J.Trumped Up. Trading on the Sanders legacy, it seems that every left winger in the party other than Bernie himself has already tossed a hat into the proverbial ring, or is expected to quite soon, in this era of never ending political campaigning. Oh my, how does one decide? The women, including African-Americans of the most impressive credentials, are out in force; registered to vote, running for office, ready for the fray, determined to excise the cancerous Trump movement from the political landscape. Kamala Harris has the early lead, by a large margin. So far no less than five United Stats Senators have declared, although historically the U.S. Senate is a poor platform from which to seek the presidency. it may be that the constant engagement by Senators in national and international issues tends to taint them with bad reputations and built in opposition before they ever get started. Governorships are better launch sites for presidential runs. More candidates are on the way. As many as thirty or forty democrats will end up in the early primaries a year from now, all having traversed back and forth across the country, stirring things up, getting their names into people's minds. and, most noticeable of all; most of them will be hard left liberals, with but a few moderates and no conservative in sight. Some might say this spells disaster for the Democrats; another theory is that the millennials are coming of political age, will soon be registering in record number, already outnumber eh dying baby boomers, and are, as a whole, very whole, and very conspicuously unaffiliated with hard right conservative evangelical Christianity, republican style.