Building A Better Border

THE BORDER between the U.S. and Mexico, nineteen hundred miles long, is equipped with a barrier, sporadically, for seven hundred miles, Along much of the border, the terrain is so rugged as to be impassable, thus making a man made barrier unnecessary. The adjacent land is a wildlife habitat of marvelous bio diversity. Species large and small cross and recross the invisible line predictably, of necessity, seeking food and mates in their feeding and breeding grounds. To construct a monolithic, impassable wall along the entire length would bring about a disaster of massive proportions, properly called a "crime against nature". The result would be mass extinctions. Species become extinct when their population is fragmented, isolating members from food and mates. Those who support such a wall are either unaware of this, or unconcerned by it. Why worry about mass extinctions when confronted with the dreadful reality of human beings from a foreign culture seeking their own survival? There are other practical considerations. An eighteen foot wall can be crossed with a nineteen foot ladder, or a tunnel. As General Patton said: "Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man." With considerable opposition from the sane segment of the American people, the Trump administration has thus far managed nothing more than a few miles of reinforcement and and construction, and there is no indication that a great wall will ever exist. The great wall of china was successful for a single reason: it was from the beginning manned and monitored by a vast military presence perched atop it. The question looms: since any continuous unbroken barrier nineteen hundred miles long would require constant monitoring along its entire length, why not simply deploy the manpower and forego the steel and concrete, save money, and face?

Choosing Faith

THERE ARE HUNDREDS of varieties of Christianity. Within the past two hundred years the United States alone has spawned no fewer than half a dozen; Mormonism, Christian science, Jehovah's Witnesses, among others. Estimates as to the number of religions in the world range from a few hundred to a few thousand, depending on the method of classification. They all claim exclusive possession of the truth. As Pilate said: "what is truth?" Either God favors religious diversity, there is one true religion among all the varieties, none of them are true, in which case none of us knows what we're talking about, and all religions are inventions of the human mind and culture. The latter theory is the most supported by evidence. Goethe said: "when I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine." According to many sociological anthropologists, religion emerged from within human culture as a response to curiosity, fear, and the inherent human need for societal cohesion. There is no evidence that religiosity improves human behavior, individually, or societally. Quite the contrary, in fact. Concerted analysis indicates that religion serves, in a sense, as a sort of excuse for bad behavior, and as justification for it. Religion engendered science. science, in a sense, has replaced religion as our means to gain knowledge about the universe. To the extant that we worship anything, we should worship the divine ability within us to pay attention to the world, and to achieve at least a rudimentary understanding of it. Einstein, when accused of being "the man who knows everything", responded that he didn't know one millionth of one percent of anything. Neither does anyone else, though you'd be hard pressed to prove it by listening to devoutly religious people reveal their truth, which by nature they consider to be inviolable and universal, tragically. Science is self correcting. Religion defends error. When considering whether science or religion has given humanity more benefit, simply log on to your computer, and ask yourself: "which religion is responsible for this blessing?"

Taking Our Chances

ANYONE WHO FLIES on a commercial passenger jet liner stands a one in two million chance of being killed in a crash, give or take a corpse or two, an acceptable risk for most folks. Everyone who lives on planet Earth lives with a one in two thousand chance of being killed by an asteroid or comet. The chances of all life on Earth being eliminated by a collision with a celestial object the size of a city are one thousand times greater than the odds of an airplane falling from the sky and crashing to Earth. We go to great lengths to ensure safe air travel, and the results are evident. We do little or nothing to protect the planet from mid space collision. The space through which the Earth moves at thousands of miles per second is littered with objects large enough to send, upon impact, to send up a suffocating cloud of dust for a long enough period of time to suffocate all life. It has happened before, at least once, to the detriment of dinosaurs. The Earth's atmosphere is a paper thin layer of gases, like a layer of paint on a basketball. Even as we speak humanity is committing suicide by tampering with this fragile layer of life, without relent. Only quite recently has any systematic program been organized to locate and monitor potentially lethal near Earth objects. They are extremely numerous, and, by cosmic standards, nearby. What better way to unite humanity in a common purpose than to take arms against a sea of troubles, by organizing an intensive international effort to locate, monitor, and, when necessary, deflect by computers, rockets, and lasers anything which dares approach too closely? To live with a constant one in two thousand threat of planetary destruction is unacceptable, if avoidable, and it is avoidable. Whoever and wherever you are, your chances of bein raped, robbed, murdered or mutilated are far less than that of being obliterated by a meteorite. We have work to do.

Draining the Swamp

ANDREW JOHNSON, barely literate but stubborn as a heifer in a horse pond, wanted to ge out from under the shadow of Lincoln, and drain the swamp, as we like to say today. He fired a cabinet member, having been told not to by Congress, and, under the "Tenure of Office Act", which was only in effect for twenty years, ran afoul of Congress, and Lincoln's ghost. A hundred years later "Trickie Dick" Nixon earned his appellation. He started fixing elections in college, if not earlier. Maintaining and utilizing a not so pro temp gang of "operatives", aka thugs, to do his dirty work while serving in the nation's highest office was a bit beyond the pale, as they used to say, so out he went. Clinton had sexual relations with his non wife, lied about it to a grand jury, got caught, and paid the partisan price. Trump has taken it to a whole 'nuther level. His offenses make the above three shady characters look sun shiny by comparison. Not only does he have the aforementioned gang of operatives, his seems to include over sixty million members. Not only has he fired a government employee without apparent just cause, he has fired enough people to fill every employment office west of the Appalachians. Not only has our current impeachable president been impeached, he has had more illicit sex with more women, lied about it more often, and to more people, than even "Slick Willie" can "lay" claim to, and that's goin' some, as some us us say. The only difference is that Don the Con has kept his pants appropriately arranged as president, but, again, who knows?arguably, lying to the three hundred and thirty five million member American people over fifteen thousand times in less than three years makes a single fib told to a twenty four member grand jury look little, and white. The emoluments clause, and Trump's nearly innumerable violations thereof, come to mind. To gain access to the president, simply sack out at his hotel which used to be a post office, right down Pennsylvania Avenue. Its no secret. Various and sundry investigations into financial matters are ongoing; Trump shut down Trump University, such as it was, and the Trump charitable foundation, which was really a personal bank account, just in the nick of time. Then, for the piece de resistance, the Ukraine, the facts of which are becoming better known by the day, notwithstanding the mass denial of them by Trump, Republican lawmakers, and a majority of the sixty million member mafia. To solicit political assistance from China on national television might be considered evidence. Chief of Staff Mulvaney's nationally televised press conference confirming the Ukrainian quid pro quo seems authoritative enough: Of course we did it. Get over it. Mulvaney must have missed the meeting, the memo, or both. Yes, we'll get over it, right about the time a flowing mass of orange hair is seen slinking from the District, and into the dustbin of ignominious history.

Progressing

WHEN I WAS A CHILD in the nineteen sixties it was illegal, everywhere in the United States, to be gay, or as we called it then, "queer". Gay folks were incarcerated, all across the fruited plain, here in freedom's land, the land of purported liberty. Nobody ever discussed homosexuality. Homosexuals kept their sexual orientation hidden by whatever means necessary. To be "outed" was to lose one's life, or any opportunity for a fulfilling one. To be outed, or the mere thought of it, was terrifying for gay people. Among mainstream middle class American children, the greatest insult one could level in anger was "queer". Fast forward fifty years, and gay marriage is legal and rather common, and a gay guy is running for president, and doing well. There are, of course, many ways to look at this. Generally, there are two, positively, and negatively. Generally, liberals consider it positive, and conservatives think its negative. Liberals see progress, achieved at great cost, through their exertions, amid conservative resistance. Conservatives see societal decline and decay, caused by liberals and all they believe in, being forced upon a reluctant society and implemented to everyone's detriment. What is not in doubt is that American societal attitudes about homosexuality have changed greatly over the past half century, evolving, for a variety of reasons, into a far more tolerant attitude. There is no reason to think this will not continue in the future. Also evident is that past attitudes about homosexuality in America were more conservative, and present attitudes, are more liberal. Similar situations exist with regard to blacks, women, and most "minorities". (women of course outnumber men). Poorly though members of those sub groups are often treated today, their lot, overall, over time, has vastly improved.A surprisingly large proportion of American society does not embrace the change, the constant struggle of historically under represented groups to gain social equality. Many would argue that whether change equates to progress is outweighed by people's right from government and societal coercion, even to do what most people consider good. It is undeniable that equality for minorities in America, such as it exists, has been achieved only through decades of hard struggle, and with a considerable does of government coercion, as reflected in legislation. Just as nature tends towards balance and justice, history, with frequent interruptions, tends towards progress. Whether America should be made great "again, as it was in the past, or should be made great in a way in which it has never before been, depends upon one's ideology is conservative or liberal. The direction of America's social change may suggest an answer.

Justifying Trump

I AM CEASELESSLY TEMPTED to ask any and all Trump supporters a single, simple question: has the president every said anything which utterly horrified you? There is a decent chance that the answer will be "yes", although I would neither hold my breath nor count on it. Conspicuously, Trump supporters overlook their leader's behavior, both words and deeds. I would have at least some measure of respect for these people if even one of them would say: "I support the president in spite of his bad behavior, not because of it." Or maybe something like: "I believe so strongly in tax cuts for the wealthy, that climate change is a hoax, and that illegal immigrant children should be locked in cages that I support Trump, although admittedly I might prefer that these noble Christ-like policies be carried out by a true Christian, like Ted Cruz." That, I could handle. That, I might even semi respect. But this business of reflexively turning a blind eye to all presidential misconduct, which Trump's evangelical Christian supporters invariably do, I find egregiously unacceptable, by virtue of being dishonest and cowardly. As we joyfully celebrate the Yuletide, thanking God for the gift our our saved existence, let us all pray that our conservative Trump supporting evangelical Christian colleagues shall somehow summon the courage, wisdom, and integrity necessary for the little darling to begin to accept the reality of the Trump era: that it is riddled with corruption and deceit, among other horrible things, of their own manufacture. Christmas is a time for self reflection and improvement, among other things. We must derive, from whatever source, a means of cleansing our nation of the right wing populist disease which afflicts it, and begin to build a smarter, saner America. Make America smart again, make America sane again. God bless us every one.Amen

Keeping The Faith

ALTHOUGH I AM NOT RELIGIOUS in any traditional sense, the Christmas season gives me a great deal of happiness, perhaps largely because the happiness of Christmas has been instilled in me since I was in diapers. Christmas is in fact among my favorite holidays, and I pretty much like them all. It is also my favorite manifestation of the Christian religion, notwithstanding the well known facts concerning the holiday's convoluted history. Moving Christ's birthday from early April to late December can be viewed in retrospect as good strategy for a faith desperate and eager to expand into the wilderness. It always surprises people to learn hos insignificant Christmas was during American colonial times, and how much later, well into the nineteenth century, it began becoming popular. In 1843 Charles Dickens published his immortal book "A Christmas Carol", which caused a sudden spike in Christmas interest, which remains to this day. In short, Christmas has undergone a long, circuitous, and complicated history of change, with much pagan influence, over the centuries. Somehow, amid the profusion of commercialized hedonistic debauchery Christmas in modern America has become, it seems to bring the best in us. Being religious, it turns out, does not necessarily bring out the best in us. Being religious does not make a person more virtuous. Yes, there are tangible, provable ways of measuring this, they have been employed extensively and exhaustively by objective, meticulous scientific research, and such studies have yielded some surprising results. Non religious people, it turns out, are no more lacking in basic human decency and goodness and morality than the devout. Even more surprising, studies have found that indeed atheists as a whole tend to be more generous, more compassionate, and less judgmental that people extremely devoted to their religion, especially Christians. There exists a fair amount of literature so support and explain the research and conclusions. It appears that the benefits of religion include community cohesion, a sense of purpose, comfort, inspiration, and a sense of belonging, but not an improved, morally superior creature. Sociologists have also noted that all the benefits derived from religious devotion can be gotten from other sources, sources without dogma, proscriptions, or social hierarchies. But so what? With or without its vast assortment of religions, humanity, we can all surely agree, still has a long way to go before claiming to have hoisted itself out of and above the barbaric mess we have given ourselves thus far. The only question is how to do it. Meanwhile, we may as well rejoice in the delightful Christmas season, no matter how or why it seems to work.

Justifying

EVANGELICAL SUPPORT for President Trump can be, and is, rationalized and justified according to three general principles. 1) the vessel of God paradigm. 2) compartmentalization 3) the lesser of two evils argument. First, the first. According to the bible, the inerrant word of God, God by granting free will to humanity, permitted a world in which all human beings are flawed, fallen. he has a purpose for everyone, including the most egregious sinners, and that purpose if often to use the fallen for good purposes. The bible is replete with examples: Noah, King David, King Cyrus of Persia, John the baptist, to name but a few. And thus it is with Donald Trump; a severely sinful man whom the lord has raised for the purpose of doing His will. Compartmentalization, the process by which most people separate their own actions and beliefs into separate categories to avoid the inconvenience of cognitive dissonance, allows evangelical Christians to proclaim: "we did not elect a preacher, we elected a president, and in the words of one evangelical minister: "I want the meanest S.O.B. can find to serve as president, that the kingdom of God can be brought to America, by brute force if necessary. The president of the United States need not and should not behave according to the precepts articulated in the Sermon On the Mount, he should speak and act as viciously as necessary to ensure that the rest of us do, or have the freedom to. The lesser of two evils theory, perhaps the method containing the most truth, a shard of it, holds that when confronted with two choices, one's only recourse is to select the better one. Accordingly, Hillary Clinton, whose alleged crime are mere unsubstantiated accusation and whose behavior fare more closely exemplifies the teaching of Christ, is opposed at any price. Her tax scheme would have us rendering too much unto Caesar, and her tolerance of homosexuals and transgender people is not biblical. Never mind that the Bible is full of admonitions which by today's standards seem overly harsh. Mathew 15:4 comes to mind. Never mind that the normal compassion of Christ is punctuated by brutality, and that the biblical god is "harsh" to say the least, not only in the Old testament, but in the New Testament as well. Never mind that the Bible endorses male subjugation of women, slavery, murder, and genocide. And, never mind that Jesus himself never mentions homosexuality. It must be sinful, because other parts of the Bible say so. The remark often falsely attributed to Thomas Jefferson: "When law becomes injustice, resistance becomes duty" seems applicable to opposition to evangelicals gaining political power. The remark accurately attributed to Goethe: "Confronted with great merit, the only resistance is admiration (love), seems applicable to those who oppose evangelicals gaining political power. Much of the bible seems to render another Goethe quote appropo: "Only by errors (in dogma) which really irk us do we advance. Accordingly, we will advance only be relegating all evangelical incursion into politics a thing of the past.

Sinning

IT HAS BECOME EVIDENT that evangelical support for the president is predicated at least partly upon the dubious proposition that since we, including Mr. Trump, are all inherently sinful, his often reprehensible words and deeds do not disqualify him from the presidency. The lord has a purpose for everyone, and, after all, Noah was a drunkard, and King David was a murderer and adulterer. Examples of fallen folks serving the will of God permeate the Bible, which is a litany of violence and genocide enacted by a wrathful God who alternately is a petty tyrant, petulant child, and mass genocidal sociopath. It would seem that the more debauched the sheep, the greater the likelihood of becoming a "vessel of God". Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart were not isolated anomalies. Bakker did five years for embezzlement, Swaggart fretted and strutted upon the stage, confessing only after being caught at a cheap motel with a cheap prostitute, sobbing, confessing, repenting. It was too late to save their highly lucrative ministries. A recently published monograph by evangelical Christian Ben Howe, titled "The Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals chose Political Power Over Christian values" attempt to elucidate this ostensibly inexplicable phenomenon. During the Clinton presidency, a single instance of fellatio and a lie about it told to a grand jury were sufficient to warrant impeachment and removal. During the Trump presidency, a self proclaimed claim of serial sexual molestation, over fifteen thousand lies told to three hundred and thirty five million Americans, and an endless avalanche of vicious slander leveled against women, disabled people, and the deceased is insufficient to preclude election to the presidency. A quarter of the American people describe themselves a "evangelical Christians", who, unlike twenty years ago, are bending over backwards to forgive the sins of a chief executive who has neither confessed, repented, nor atoned. The evangelical movement would serve itself better by cleaning its own house, by excommunicating the seeming army of pedophiles, serial sexual molesters, and adulterers with which the movement is infected, than to lamely excuse the incessantly execrable behavior of a reprobate president who only recently switched his affiliation from pro choice to pro life. As if we are all not "pro life". The mere fact that limited government conservative Christian insist on overturning Roe v. Wade evinces their lack of faith in God. God has the power to move a woman's heart,and to steer her clear of the murder of her unborn child. That he/she/it usually fails to do so indicates that he/she/it is either pro choice, lacks omnipotence, or is so devoted to free will that he has permitted forty five million children to die before they are born, in defense of personal liberty. We may assume that, ultimately, the universe and this small planet operate according to God's will. As Archibald McLeish said: "If God is God, God is not good. If God is good, God is not God". This conundrum is of no concern to the evangelical community, which, upon close scrutiny, neither believes in God nor acts according to the admonitions of his only begotten son.

Accusing

CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS are so repulsed by progress, which requires change, that whenever a Democrat proposes it, they accuse the person of being a "socialist", mistakenly thinking the term derogatory, and themselves clever. They seem blissfully unaware they they themselves are socialists. So are we all. Understanding this requires understanding what socialism is, of which they are evidently incapable. I have never met an American who does not display a distinct preference for publicly funded and operated fire and police departments. "Quasi socialism" a conservative colleague conceded. So be it. My fellow quasi socialist conservative citizens, unite! July 25, a day which will live in infamy. July 25, 1990, President Bush the first invites Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait in his well documented carrot and stick war crime approach, July 25, 2019, President Trump invites a another foreign power, the third, to influence an american election. On both occasions, Republicans accused those in opposition of being socialists, and worse. In 1935, at the advent of social security, they accused its advocates of being......socialists. They were quite correct. Socialistic social security has always been and remains a glowing success, having virtually eliminated poverty among America's elderly. My mother, born in 1920 and staunchly opposed to socialism as a fifteen year old, feared that she would never receive what she would eventually put into it. She did. She retired as sixty five, and lived to ninety three. She cashed every check, and lived rather well. The wars against Iraq went badly; again the socialists were on the right side. Left with nothing better, the Congressional Trump sycophants brought the tired charge out again; the radical left wing socialists, with their anti-Trump agenda. The one common thread is that whenever a right winger accuses a left winger of being a socialist, the accusation is always irrelevant, and the conservative is always talking about herself, without even knowing it.

Ranting

THOMAS JEFFERSON made it quite clear that he neither embraced nor respected organized religion, Christianity in particular, to which he referred as "our modern superstition". Later excoriated by politically correct revisionist historians for his many manifestations of hypocrisy, he attended church regularly, presumably to keep up appearances. He cared what people thought. His "Jefferson Bible", is available in any good university library. Dreamy Tom, the first occupant of the White House, sat in his office with a pair of scissors, and divided the scripture into two parts: the credible, and the nonsensical. The latter pile of paper was far higher. When asked his purpose, he replied that "I am extracting diamonds from a dung heap". The book of Revelation he called "the rantings of a lunatic". Note that in the Declaration of Independence he refers to God as a subset of nature, like a true deist. Jefferson's ascent to the presidency was in itself somewhat of a "coup", he having bribed a newspaper man to slander his opponent, John Adams. The notion of a presidential coup, coupled with ranting, seems oddly familiar. Our modern versions both derive from the same source; the current president of the United States. Trump got elected fully aware of, accepting, welcoming, and doing nothing to prevent the assistance of Russian operatives who contributed a massive misinformation advertising campaign, slandering Hillary Clinton. It made the difference, close analysis indicates. Our Chief Executive was, in short, the beneficiary of a coup, orchestrated on foreign soil. Unlike Jefferson, Trump didn't even have to pay for the smear campaign; Jefferson's cost him fifty dollars. Then, there's the ranting. Jefferson never ranted, and was known to be a good listener, charming, always seeking to please his guests, upon whom he lavished hospitality to the point where he died a hundred thousand dollars in debt. Our current president charms no one, insults everyone, and, regrettably, rants incessantly, usually, mercifully, in increments limited to two hundred and eighty words. That, we might agree, is quite enough. Like Jefferson, Trump often pretends to be what he is not; Christian, for one, and intelligent, for another. Jefferson had no need to feign intelligence. As John F. Kennedy told a room full of Nobel prize winners: " I am honored that we have in this room the greatest assemblage of intellect seen since Thomas Jefferson dined here, alone. Trump's most recent rant, a six pager filled with the usual lies and insults, was obviously ghost written, as it contains several sentences with subordinate clauses and polysyllabic words. There will likely come a time when Trump takes his meals alone, unless he has the good fortune of sharing his cell with someone of modest talent, twisted values, and the patience to withstand a good rant.

Reconciling, Albeit Briefly

OVER AT THE SENIOR CENTER, where the most recently employed team of kitchen workers has elevated the food to culinary exquisiteness, a small but undeterred group of democrats holds forth valiantly, amid a crushing mass of evangelical Trump supporters. We are discreet. My compromise is that I only discuss politics with people with whom I agree. One of my friends is an eighty two year old gentleman with an eighth grade education, who, when he was quite young, suffered the indignity of having a collar laced around his neck, and being tied to a clothesline, just to keep him out of trouble. They ate what they could hunt, catch, or grow. He gets his news from something called "Free Speech TV", and me. One day recently he showed up at the center wearing a MAGA ball cap, black in color. He was unsatisfied, preferring a red one. One of my fellow Trump despisers, an intrepid lady, was able to approach him from behind, and without his noticing, place a strip of duct tape across the MAGA, reading "Make America Smart Again". I wrote the message, doubtful of whether the word "Again" was appropriate. When the lady who assaulted him suggested that I should place the tape on head, I abstained, with the excuse "he would kill me". She had more courage, being female. The racist, right wing evangelical gentleman who supplied the black hat finally got in a batch of red ones, and gave him one. He was pleased, indicating his intent of relegating the black one to the back shelf. So I decided to take advantage of the opportunity. I thought he might give me the black one, which I could then wear to the senior center as a show of conciliatory intent. After all, who among us disagrees with the notion of making America greater? All along my contention has been that wearing the MAGA cap is a sure sign of a traitor, since we on the left generally consider our country to have already been great, if greatly flawed, long before this conservative populist disease took hold. I could wear the thing for a day or two, then dispose of it according to the HAZMAT protocol. But it was a cold day, and we both thought it better that he don the black one beneath the red, atop his misguided head. All that Free Speech TV, for nothing. My consolation is that a single MAGA is too flimsily made to offer any protection against cold, and thus holds the promise of decomposing, in the biodegradable dustbin of history.

Procrastinating, and Sharing A cell With Jane

THE POWERS OF THE EARTH gathered together, representationally, in Madrid, for the purpose of arriving at a global agreement on decreasing carbon emissions for the purpose of salvaging what's left of the earth's ecosystem. They even harbored the increasingly vain hope that humanity might restore what it has destroyed. They spent two weeks mealy mouthing about a bit, then adjourned without anything substantive agreed, as if solving the problem were optional, as if there existed the option of dealing with a minor matter at some future date. Heaven forbid that saving the environment, and the life which once thrived in it, ever became expensive to our corporate masters, I am reminded of the nearly innumerable diabetic people I know who awaken of a morning, grab a donut or two, well sugared, then rush home to shoot up, only to return for more pastry. No matter, we can concern ourselves with rising sea levels, decreasing oxygen levels in the oceans, and increasingly violent weather another day, maybe next year. Meanwhile, folks living next to Chesapeake Bay see their property slowly inundated, surfboards break out just above coastal highways, and Pacific islanders adorn wading boots. Jane Fonda and Greta Thunberg are swimming upstream, against a strong current of ignorance submerged beneath an apparent human death wish. Fonda, now 81, has moved to Washington D.C., and acquired the habit of getting arrested every Friday evening for the unspeakable crime of trying to convince the nation and the world that we had better do something. She's 81 now, beautiful and smart as ever, if a bit less impulsive, and points out that when she was born, there were a scant two million people on board, and that her childhood was spent amid flocks of birds which no longer exist, there being three billion fewer of them in North America than in her childhood. The passenger pigeon, it appears, will soon have company, in heaven. When Jane posed sitting on a piece of North Vietnamese artillery, back in the sixties, her detractors may have had a point. That was, after all, a bit over the top. But just for the record, we who opposed and protested the war were proven correct, in the scholarship of historians, if not the conservative community. This time Jane is dead on, even at the risk of spending three months in jail upon her next inevitable infraction. I'd like to share a cell with her, just to talk, and, with any luck, to hold her courageous hand.

Having Fun

CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER. Welcome to the USA, the world's largest fun house. President Trump, in an apparent pique of jealousy, described the appearance of Greta Thunberg on the cover of Time magazine as "ridiculous". He didn't specify why, but asserted that she would be better served going to a movie, like a normal teenager. That she is crusading to save the world from people like Donald J. Trump Donald J. Trump ascribes to anger management issues. it is he who resides in the fun house, all images grotesquely distorted, nothing as it seems. On the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Senate Majority leader, prepares to participate in the forthcoming impeachment trial of the distorted one. he announced on national television that it is his intent to coordinate the republican caucus with the president, for the evident purpose of meshing republican Senators with the president, to make sure thy are all on the same page, so to speak. Bear in mind that the purpose of the United States Senate in an impeachment trial is to serve as the jury. The image of a jury foreman announcing his intention of coordinating with the defendant on trial comes to mind. "since the defendant never once can be shown to have uttered the words "I intend to murder my wife", no guilt can be established. But of course the president is without guilt. Where does the term "quid pro quo" appear on any document, any telephone transcript, or any surveillance video? Nowhar, that's whar!, as congressman Davy Crockett once screamed in the House of representatives regarding some money missing from the federal treasury. Crockett was accusing Henry clay, John Quincy Adams, and Henry C. Calhoun, three of the most prominent politicians of the nineteenth century, of, well, being grifters. according to the congressional record they all glowered at him, but he didn't give a fig. To quote recording artist Joe Jackson: "I can't help but believe that I'm living a life of illusion".

Being Discreet, and Discrete

I HAVE OFTEN MENTIONED, uninvited, that when I was in sixth grade, in 1966-67, my teacher, a lady I adored, told our class that there are two subjects one should never discuss: you guessed it: religion, and politics. Ah distinctly I recall sitting there, front row, thinking that she was precluding the two most interesting topics available. I understood her reasoning, of course, and still do. But I disobeyed her, perhaps unwisely. Now, in the midst of Trump, in the midst of high percentage evangelical support for Trump, there stands my sixth grade teacher, who may still be alive, admonishing me. My current thinking is that discussing religion is pointless, because everybody has one, or doesn't, as Goethe said "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine." 'Nuff said. But politics is a different animal. In a country in which we the people, at least nominally, are required to govern our country, doesn't someone, anyone, at some point, need to discuss politics? How can we discuss politics, the science/art of governance, without talking about it? On that matter, my sister, a retired pentagon employee, holds firm. Yes, she allows, someone in the United States needs to discuss politics. But she'll be damned if she is going to be the one to do it. "Nuff said. Whether I find her viewpoint less than admirable is quite irrelevant. The current polarization of America is well documented. We are an angry, arrogant people, and every single one of us has the truth. we have become, somehow, entitled not only to our own opinions, but to our own facts. The president is either a criminal and a traitor, seeking political assistance from foreigners, or, he has made America great again, presumably just by being there. your choice. After all, in modern America, nobody is ever wrong.

Rewriting History

IN THE PRECEDING EPISODE, I discussed a lady, and the fact that I live in a "free" country permits me to divulge her name, Jill Ciment, who made the mistake of falling in love with her forty seven year old high school art teacher when she was seventeen, marrying him, and living happily ever after. a writer herself, she later in life, at the age of 41, wrote a book about her experience as a child bride, then over twenty years later, in her mid sixties, she wrote another, from an entirely different point of view. The advent of the "me Too" movement woke her up to the fact that her husband, now deceased, had in the beginning in fact been a sexual predator. So there you have it; a long and happy marriage which began as an act of sexual molestation, rape, if you will. The reader is invited to decide for him or her self. The same is true for everything else having to do with the past, for all of history. that's what makes history such an interesting, as well as important, subject. Its largely a matter of opinion. You would tend to think otherwise, that history is written in stone, in terms of facts and events, and that it would all be settled. Quite the opposite is true. Consider American history. People of a certain age will recall when American history was taught in public schools from the point of view that the United States could, in the past, do no wrong. What we today call theft and genocide we Americans once celebrated as a courageous expansion of civilization, a process in which we generously offered the savage natives to join us in civilized culture, or else. We Americans are making it perfectly obvious, much to our national embarrassment, that current events, so current as to be happening in front of our noses, can be interpreted in vastly differing ways. History, which is far less accessible than the present, is infinitely more vulnerable to unlimited interpretations and explanations than events we see happening with our own eyes. Its even possible, in our world of complications, to look back on your own life, on a long and happy marriage, and wonder whether it was good...or bad...Probably, like most everything else, it was both.

Revising History

SHE WAS SIXTEEN IN 1970, to which I can relate, having been fifteen in the long ago year. In 1970 I was girl crazy, but utterly incapable, emotionally or intellectually, of doing anything about it. She, like many people of her age and generation, had a crush on one of her teachers, a forty seven year old art teacher. Long story short, then ended up getting married, and stayed that way, happily so, for decades, until his death did them part. A writer since she was young, in 1996 she wrote a book in novel form based upon her life with her much older husband, titled "Half A Life", which is fascinating and enjoyed some success. In her book, she falls in love, and goes to class every day, feeling teenaged hopelessness. Her feelings for her teacher only intensify, so boldly she acts, seducing him, luring him into a relationship, dating, becoming engaged, then marrying and spending forty happy years together as man and wife. Her theme is somewhat "against all odds"; a most unlikely love story which began as an impossible fantasy, and turned into a beautiful love story. In her book, she is very definitely the instigator, her husband merely a passive participant. Now in her mid sixties, a widow, she has just published another book, the same story told from another point of view, titled "The Other Half". Between 1996 and 2019, the world, in particular American culture changed. the "Me Too" movement sprang forth, as seemingly thousands of rich and powerful men, most famously Donald Trump, were exposed as sexual predators, as having spent decades sexually mistreating women. In the United States, sexually mistreating women, much like drinking and driving, was considered essentially harmless, to be expected, with blame distributed between the "participants". In 1996, when the author was forty one and happily married, her story did not seem to her even remotely related to any form of sexual misbehavior. Now, it does. In her revised version, she tells the story from a 2020 point of view, the same story, only her husband becomes what we all agree he is today. Both books are believable. Both tell the truth. and yet, they cannot both be true. They give contradictory versions of the exact same story. By the time she was in her mid sixties, she was willing to accept the reality that he, not she, had been the initiator, the "aggressor". What his true motives were, back in 1970, when he, as a forty seven year old teacher decided to "pursue" a sixteen year old girl, we'll never know. Maybe we don't really want to.

Facing Death

WE ARE DOOMED to extinction. that much, we know. There is probably not a human alive on this planet who actually believes that billions of years from now, in the far, far future, when teh universe is aging and winding down, that humanity, or anything remotely like it, will still be busying about on planet earth. Or, for creationists, the rapture and end times will arrive soon enough. Humans, who may or may not be the only living species on Earth aware of its individual and collective mortality, has been predicting its o end, forever. As the year 999 A.D. waned, and the year 1000 approached, Europe was in an uproar about it, it being widely believed that the end of the millennium would be the end of the world. Those of a certain age will recall a similar sociological phenomenon in 1999, with our much ballyhooed Y2K crisis, which, like all the rest of the end of the world scenarios, never happened. As December 31, 1999 loomed, millions were frightened that when the clock struck midnight, and the year 2000 entered, all computers would, for some never revealed reason, cease to function, and our modern world would dissolved in chaos. People were stocking up on canned tuna and toilet paper in backyard underground bunkers. I clearly recall not being worried about it in the least. I think I would have stayed calm a thousand years ago, or in 1843 and again 1844 when the Millerites stood on hill tops, awaiting the rapture. The fact that in both instances western humanity celebrated the millennium a year too early does not inspire confidence in human predictive capabilities. Our perpetual fear of mass extinction is well founded. all things considered, it is a miracle that we haven't already been wiped out. Nuclear warfare and climate change are at the top of the current list of dire threats. An uncontrollable viral epidemic is always possible, and, in the long run, inevitable. Huge meteors and asteroids hurtle through space constantly, and often pass alarmingly close to earth. S big enough collision would wipe us, and all other life, off the planet. To assume that life will continue on earth until the sun goes nova in a few billion years seems unrealistic. Our best, indeed only option is to reduce as much as possible opportunities for destroying ourselves, by keeping our environment clean and eliminating weapons and conflicts from culture and future history. The universe will find some way to get rid of us soon enough.

Asking the Right Questions

FOR THE SAKE of political correctness, for the sake of sheer tact, there may be some questions which are best never asked. Which tend to be more intelligent, liberals, or conservatives? Or are they equally bright? Which group tends to be better educated? It turns out this is an easy one to answer, because its measurable from simple surveys. What about deeply religious people compared to non religious types? Believe it or not, and presumably many will not, a recent study seemed to suggest that people who are fervently, zealously dogmatically religious, and people who are right wing extremists, suffer from brain damage. something to do with an underdeveloped cerebral cortex. By all means, look it up. it is noticeable that these two types of people, the religious fanatic and the right wing fanatic, are often, very often, the same person. Similarly, everyone has noticed that America's college and university campuses, with the exception of zealously religious institutions of higher education, such as Liberty University and Oral Roberts University, tend to be heavily concentrated with liberals, both among the students and the faculty. Universities tend to be less religious and more politically progressive than the general population. it has been noted that colleges and universities tend to attract intelligent, educated people. Among Americans who were not raised coercively to be a conservative christian, and acquired higher education, Americans tend to be progressive. Without question, your mainstream conservative evangelical Trump supporter, who tends to be blue collar, is less educated and, studies suggest, less intelligent than the far left anti-Trump masses who cluster in institutions of higher education. The people, studies suggest, who deny climate change, science, evolution, and history could stand a bit of higher education. Like everything else, there are many exceptions. it is surprising how many well educated people continue to embrace primitive, factually false religions merely for the sake of preserving tradition, even while confronted with the reality of modern science, which of course utterly refutes all human religion. From this we must conclude that we humans cling to our comfort sources.

Giving Credit To Trump

IF ONE IS a "Never Trumper", one must, if one has integrity, be careful to not automatically dislike everything Trump says and does, but instead, to avaluate every word and deed objectively, fairly. That is precisely the process by which congress is currently investigating president Trump. Sworn testimony and documentation by several Trump administration insiders has established the facts, especially the salient, inarguable fact of the president's traitorous treachery. The next step is to let the experts, many experts on constitutional law, tell us whether the testimony gathered so far warrants impeachment of Trump, and whether it warrants his conviction for high crimes and removal from office. Among Trump's defenders are two schools; those who insist that he did nothing wrong, and those who admit that he did, but that it doesn't warrant removal nor impeachment. both schools of thought seem logically, factually, intellectually....weak. One law professor after another will have testified that Trump is a criminal who should be impeached, triad, convicted, and removed from office, and still Trump's supporters will, incredibly, continue to defend him. On two key issues I agree with and support Trump. NATO members should all pay their fair share. Also, china is a human rights nightmare, and should be held accountable for it. Fair trade and economic relationships with China could be better established by united pressure from the entire world, instead of Trump trying to do it by himself. And, to be honest, the United States, a human rights nightmare itself, does not have a great deal of moral superiority in insisting that China, or anyone else, clean up its human rights behavior. That is the sad and tragic fact; the United States might at one time have possessed more moral credibility than it does now, under Trump. That sad fact might be the best reason of all to remove and replace the president.

Sowing the Seeds To Save the World

ONE TRILLION TREES may sound like a lot, but, according to the best science, its the minimum of what we the human species needs to plant, post haste, if we are to harbor any hope of even starting on the laborious process of repairing our damaged planet. Our efforts thus far are, tragically, being far outpaced by our continued destruction, and now time is running short, according to simple, explainable science. The weather has already become far more violent, and as this increases, so will our acceptance of and panic over climate change of the man made kind. its frightening to think of my generation, baby boomer 1955 model, sliding into old age with the earth in the balance, poised between ecological disasters and salvation, our summers too hot and long. My generation may die away never knowing the end of the story. it would be nice, as an American, to fade away watching the United States of America take the lead in fighting and reversing climate change. Currently, under present political conditions, that seems less likely than ever, unless their is a massive effort by the states, cities, and people, independent of national government. we are told by conservatives that we must not make America more like Europe. Actually, we should, and must. The French, German, and English countrysides are manicured, almost like one huge national park. No litter, no garbage. European buildings and houses always seem to be freshly painted, without any of the stained and corroded look of many American structures. In the "new world" land was unlimited; everything could be thrown away. It might be time to start treating our public spaces like art museums, instead of trash heaps. We could probably plant a trillion trees in the United states alone. it is amazing, while cruising across country, the number of places in america where there could and should be trees, but aren't. The more exclusive the neighborhood, the larger, the more expensive the lawns and houses - the fewer the trees, weirdly. Wealthy suburban Americans seem to hate trees, as if tress might block the view of their gorgeous houses, and scatter unsightly leaves across the perfectly manicured lawn, with its carpet like grass. Maybe some huge climate changed storm will blow all the McMansions down, replaced them with high rise apartments, and surround them with wilderness, that we, and other species might live.

Fighting Climate Change & Science

THE LATEST REPORT on climate change, from the intergalactic panel on climate change, or whatever they call it, is dire. More dire than ever. Each one, and they come out at least once a year, is worse than the last, and it has nothing to do with a conspiracy to turn the government over to liberal democrats, or anything stupid like that. Every day, new information is gathered on climate science, new data, and every year our knowledge and understanding of it improves. That's the way science works, the beauty of science; the results it produces. Our smart phones and computers and cars and debit cards and medicine was all brought to us by science, not religion, fantasy, or pseudo science. Let that sink in, oh ye evangelical conservatives and paranormal people. The U.N. meeting on climate change, beginning today, had better produce some serious results leading to real progress...or, we're cooked, so to speak. The best way to reverse global warming, as always, is to plant a trillion trees. We could get started today, with everybody planting one, then going from there. Around the world there have recently been several impressive tree planting projects, with several countries planting millions in a single day. This proves it can be done. Homo sapiens could have a trillion new trees in the ground in less than a year. Assuming, of course, that we take all the other drastic steps necessary to save ourselves and our descendants, all well known. Our descendants will, we hope, someday laugh and marvel at our stupidity in nearly bringing all life on Earth to extinction by burning billions and billions of tons of fossil fuels, and dumping the left over carbon into the atmosphere, century, after century, without a second thought. we further hope and trust that our descendants some day soon laugh and scoff at the incredible fact that at as late as the year 2020 tens of millions of Americans continued to deny the existence of one trillion tons of carbon in the atmosphere, put there by human kind. Or maybe they accept the reality of the carbon, but deny the laws of physics and chemistry and physics by which it absorbs heat, or something like that. Whatever their thinking, its crazy, and your guess is as good as mine. It would be nice to live long enough to see climate change deniers universally ridiculed, and a trillion young trees growing, turning carbon into oxygen, cooling the Earth down, and making America great, again...