Regretting

AN HONEST EXAMINATION of American presidential history reveals, perhaps surprisingly, that Hillary Clinton was by far the most qualified presidential candidate in U.S. history, with the possible exception of John Quincy Adams, who was essentially groomed for the job by his president father. Hillary had similar advantages, in terms of preparation. In fact, her preparation, in terms of resume experience, is superior to all other candidates who ever ran for the nation's highest office. Even now I can hear the derisive laughter and dismissive conservative contempt, from people who know little about the American presidency, and have little desire to learn more. A friend and fellow Democrat suggested that Hillary was a poor candidate. If so, only because she was weakened and compromised by decades of smear attacking by the right wing conspiratorial attack machine. the result of all this was that her negatives were a high as her positives; for every supporter she had, she had a hater. After twenty five years of accusations, Hillary remains clean, for now, and probably forever. Those who hate her hater her so desperately that they invent crimes for her to commit, and use their fabrications to justify their hatred, which to a large extent derives from latent misogyny. Had Hillary been elected, it is not difficult to imagine that we would not now be trying to decide whether to remove a president for blackmailing another country, nor would be have at our disposal an enormous litany of lies and deceit, all well documented. The nuclear arms treaty with Iran would be intact, and our relationship with them would be good. We would still be a part of the Paris climate change agreement; leaving it was among Trump's greatest policy follies. With regard to "Ukraine-gate", the position of Trump supporters is no longer that he did nothing wrong, and that he indeed did, but that it was not bad enough to warrant impeachment and removal. Their defense has undergone a considerable evolution, as the evidence against the president becomes proof. Whether or not John Bolton testifies, John Bolton is going to be heard, and if he confirms, as he is expected to, Trump's extortion scheme, we the American people will know, if nothing else, that the Democrats did not fabricate their accusations against him.

Bubbling Together

BY NOW nearly every red blooded aware American realized that in our current culture, we all tend to create and live in our own little fantasy world, along with our firmly held convictions and beliefs. Our own bubble, often formed with the influence of social media, and, of course, our ever present corporate masters. We hear only what we want to hear, and believe only what we want to believe, all evidence to the contrary. The price we usually pay for this is the truth. I heard it from an ostensibly sane source that soon, very soon, a great amount of previously unknown, withheld information is going to come to light, which will put Trump and his administration in a whole new light, perhaps even to the point of explaining or justifying some of its very weird, seemingly unethical behavior. Actually, the only new soon to come to light information will come from Mr. John Bolton, and it most probably will not reflect favorably on the president. At some point, Trump supporters are going to have to give up the ghost, as Hitler and Nixon people did before, albeit many only with great reluctance. Bolton may help a little, if not much. Its easy. Merely proclaim your undying love of God, America, conservatism, and the G.O.P., admit you made a minor mistake, and move on. Eventually, you can claim to never have supported him (Trump) in the first place. Meanwhile, accept a few fundamental facts. Donald Trump was never and still isn't remotely qualified to be president. Climate change is not a Chinese hoax, Nor do windmills cause cancer. Nobody knows whether there is life on other planets, yet. We've developed a rather alarming tendency in America to render absurd assertions with a sense of great certainty, without even the faintest trace of supporting evidence. Shame on us. Let us return to some semblance of fact supported reality. There is no deep state, no government hidden within a government, only about two million poor hapless joe schmoes who go home exhausted every night, and often a bit bewildered. We call them "government workers". Nor is there any cabal of super secret super wealthy elite pulling all of our strings. What there is is a corporate plutocracy, in firm control of the economy and political system, a plutocratic corporate oligarchy, in plain sight, against which we the people can either organize and resist, or which we can ignore in preference to our own little fantasies of some deep state and an extraterrestrial conspiracy, while voting for maniacs like Trump.

Mourning

THE MORE WE LEARN about the other seven crashees, the more obvious it becomes that they were every bit as beautiful and wonderful as Kobe and Gianna, and that's goin' some. Makes it even worse, if that's possible. We have, however, learned about them a bit too slowly, because we put celebrity first, blowing fame out of all proportion, so typical of us. Our American culture is addicted to celebrity. We build statues and shrines to those deceased who entertained us sufficiently well, which, arguably, is a bit sick. Toning all this down even a tiny tad might help ameliorate our obsession a mite, in terms of evolving and upgrading American cultural values. Amid all the Kobe family stuff, his long ago comment that he thought she had given her consent, buried but not deeply enough to completely hide, is the trademark of every rapist. They all thought they had permission, as if the word "no" is suddenly indecipherable. Oh heavens, if only we could totally forget... But..wait! This is America! We can! Welcome to the biggest fun house on earth...Then too, there's the helicopter angle. Everyone who drives a car everyday half way expects to have car trouble every blue moon. Seldom does a sudden, self inflicted car stoppage kill you. You just pull over, call or walk for help, or show your legs, as the case may be. But when a helicopter quits, it crashes, and you with it. Do we want an elite jet setting copter class flying the friendly skies? Should we all take to the air? We have enormous transportation questions to answer, in finally arriving at a workable system for this vital necessity. We can all agree that one million car deaths per year don't cut it, except my mother, rest her sweet soul, who once told me that "we already have too many people". For now, maybe the chopper set should be limited to police and the military, but, what do I know? There is something about having our celebrity - gods hovering us that somehow seems comfortable, and familiar...

Fighting Over Cock Fighting

PUERTO RICO, like the rest of the western hemisphere, was conquered and brutalized by Europeans, in this case the Spaniards, in the sixteenth century. Their purpose was to get rich, and as a secondary goal to force Spanish culture down the throats of the stone age natives, again, as per European usual. This effort centered around two powerful institutions: Catholicism, and cock fighting, in no particular order. The effort was glowingly successful, and both become deeply embedded in Puerto Rican society and culture over the centuries. In 1898 the United States, hungry for land, wealth, and world power, fabricated a complaint against Spain, started a war, won, and forced Spain to give the U.S. Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Philippines, and what not. The Americans killed over a million people, a million Philippinos alone, but got the job done, got control of the resources each tiny country had to offer, the Dole Pineapple company ruling supreme in the pacific. the usual corporate American foreign policy. Although cock fighting was legal and popular throughout the U.S., the U.S. outlawed it in Puerto Rico, perhaps horrified at its popularity and wanting to improve America's image, and predictably, the brutal fighting simply went into hiding. It was legalized again in 1933, as political circumstances allowed. In recent years its popularity has been resurgent, until once again, the sport was outlawed, about ten years ago. The argument which took place before and after Congress voted to outlawed cock fighting in all its overseas possessions, as it had longs since done in the fabulous nifty fifty, was, in a word, maniacal, heated, insane. People, dudes, were threatening to fight to the death for their birds, for their sacred, inalienable right to keep and fight and kill with them. Cock fighting was a sacred cultural tradition, they argued, a basic part of Puerto Rican culture and economy, like a religion, and, in any event, the roosters were cared for tenderly and lovingly, they loved their human masters, and their human masters loved them. A vicious sport, nothing but blood and death, and a fine cultural tradition, beyond reproach. Like I said, the arguments got crazy. Very much like rump supporters: inventing increasingly cray arguments to defend the increasingly indefensible. Trump only walked into the miss universe dressing room to spread the lord's gospel; cock fighting is sacred, beautiful, and a tribute to human kind and the glory of the lord and western culture. The good news is that the civilized world is doing just fine without cock fighting, and soon, lord willing, it will do even better without Donald J. Trump and his supporters, who will, we can hope, have moved on to better hobbies.

Vesuvius Erupting

SEC OF STATE "Pompeii" Pompeo recently erupted volcanically, spewing a torrent of livid linguistic lava at an interviewer to whom he had just finished giving vacuous, evasive non responses to tough, perfectly reasonable questions, like, "what was your involvement in Trump's attempt to shake down the Ukraine"? He summoned her into his personal quarters, and, humiliated, and thinking himself off the record, lambasted her with a flurry of "F" words. Quite the diplomat, the Secretary of State, behaving like a typical Trumper, dishonestly, viciously, reprehensibly. The NPR journalist, perfectly to do so, told the rest of us about Pompeo's harassing outburst, which made him even angrier. Trump, having driven most of his original cabinet members to distraction and resignation, now victimizes us with this fellow gangster of a pseudo diplomat. An illegitimate president, with a circle of thugs surrounding him. A sweet lady, one of my family members, said: "I don't like Trump, but he's still my president." My question" At what point does a president, while becoming a tyrant, stop being "my president"? When he tries to extort personal political assistance from a foreign government by withholding vital military assistance until the dirt is delivered? When he becomes injurious to the security of a free state, including the one he was elected to govern? When his gang of sycophantic thugs start smashing windows and destroying property, lives, and businesses? When he incarcerates political opponents, ignites gas chambers, or separates children from their parents and locks them in cages merely because they are desperate, hungry, and looking for opportunity?Do we stand in opposition to a leader who spews racial hatred, speaks thousands of outrageous lies? When does the difference between Hitler and Trump begin to alarm us, and inspire opposition rather than loyalty? It is the sacred right of the governed to remove and replace a government injurious to the public welfare. There is a legal, established, constitutional for overturning the results of an election, of removing an abusive tyrant from office. we are currently engaged in it. James Madison made it quite clear that the American people are incapable of governing themselves, and he designed the United States constitution to prevent them from doing so. It works well in keeping power out of the hands of what Madison called "the lesser sort". Ironically, the electoral system was designed to prevent incompetent demagogues like Donald Trump from gaining power. obviously, the system failed, because the electors refused to do their job. Now, we teh people, acting through our republican representatives, must act, and are trying to do so. Again, our masters seem to be about to fail us.

Loving Blindly

"ONE DOES NOT LOVE, who does not regard the faults of the beloved as virtues" (Goethe). Goethe, as always, was correct. Love blinds us to reality. Whether the object of our affection is our children, our favorite baseball team, our country, or our political leader, love blinds us to their faults, and inspires us to only see the good. Even when we criticize the performance of our favorite football team, we do so with a blind eye, with a steadfast conviction that the object of our criticism is an aberration, or, in our parlance of the day, an "outlier". Our team is basically the epitome of virtue and glory; if only we could replace that under performing, mistake prone right fielder or quarterback. Our bumper stickers read: "proud parents of a child who is perpetually on the honor roll". And so it is with Trump supporters. they conveniently omit mention of the more than fifteen thousand blatant lies with which the pathologically dishonest president has tried, to the derision of objective observers, has tried to con the American people. Among trump supporters, the fact that their man is a self proclaimed sexual predator goes unmentioned. Trump's vicious attacks on American heroes like John McCain and others whose only crime was disagreeing with Trump, Trump supporters ignore. Goethe said: "We are never deceived. We only deceive ourselves". Among Trumpers, any comment made in the news media unfavorable to the president, no matter how well supported by fact, is regarded as fake news, a sure indication that the news media is in the hands of a gang of unpatriotic liberals. So ubiquitous is the self deception of Trump supporters that eighty percent of the conservative Christian evangelical community still support him, even after years of barbaric behavior and policies, promulgated in plan sight, in public, available for all to scrutinize. The more devoutly religious the American voter, the more extreme right wing politically, and Trump, the very antithesis of Christian values, fills the bill. After all, say the enraptured Christian fundamentalists; we all sin. they fail to mention that one is forgiven for one's sines when one confesses them, repents of them, and atones for them, none of which their sin ridden icon has shown the slightest inclination to do. Contrary, Trump seems to take pride in his vicious, immoral, criminal behavior, and the more of it he displays, the greater the loyalty of his sanctimonious sycophants. When Trump is gone, driven form office finally by the majority of Americans who remain reasonable in the face of the lunacy of the Trump base, the Trump base of support will likely quietly vanish like frightened mice into the concealment of anonymity, where they properly long, in ignominious obscurity, harmless at long last. If nothing else, they can say that they have known, if only briefly, true love.

Conservatives, Massing, Taking Aim

THE CREME de la Creme OF THE CROP of America's conservative community congregated on MLK day in Richmond, VA., the capital of the Confederacy, which embraced many of the same values. There is the suspicion that promotion of racism was a part of the reason for the gathering together of the far right gun advocates. The primary purpose was to demonstrate opposition to pending gun control legislation being promulgated by Democrats, which the gun enthusiasts see as potentially lethal to the American way, which, history indicates, is violent. White supremacists and racists were abundantly present, ironically, since MLK was assassinated by a racist, using a rifle he legally owned, because he had theretofore been a good citizen. James Earl Ray's hateful attitude towards African-Americans is exemplified widely among today's legal gun owners. Most gun murders are self inflicted, enabled by easy access to guns. Most gun murders murders involve domestic disputes, acts of anger and desperation, alienation. Many involve disputes over money. That Donald Trump has emboldened racists in America with his often thinly disguised racist rhetoric is indisputable. Many white supremacists themselves give him credit for their inspiration, inspiration which too often results in mass murder. The widely disseminated argument that putting guns in the hands of "good people" deters gun violence is repudiated by verified research, both in the United States, where gun ownership is rampant, and gun violence widespread, and in England and Australia, where severe restrictions on gun ownership enacted within the past twenty years have resulted in a huge decrease in gun violence. It is evident that the solution to gun violence is the same as the solution to numerous other societal maladies; the defeat and elimination of the far right as a political force.

Making America Greta, Again

FIRST COMES THE DROUGHT, every drought seemingly a once in a hundred year event, now become an annual event. Then, the firs start, and ravage the continent, killing a billion animals, turning fire and wind into man made tornadoes. When the firs begin to burn out, leaving a desolate wasteland in their wake, the torrential rains begin, and the flooding, eroding sol into the ocean, leaving farmland barren rock. So goes the current scenario of Austria, as it has gone in California, as it will go increasingly regularly in our climate changed world, in which violent, extreme patterns of weather become the norm. President Trump has given his approval to the global plan to plant one trillion new trees, and it is rumored that is a whispered voice he recently acknowledged the reality of man made climate change, although we might be imagining this. Both Austria and the United States are in the grip of right wing coal mongering governments; our best hope is that they will soon be replace by renewed sanity. A massive investment in solar energy, systems in which sea water in huge quantities is cleansed of salt and used to irrigate the parched land and nourish the trillion saplings, solar collectors on land, at sea, and in Earth orbit, give us an outside chance of ameliorating our nightmare before its too late. The monstrous moronic minions of "make America Great Again" are the nation's, and the world's greatest enemy, the greatest obstacle to our self preservation. Most if not nearly all of them still insists on exploiting fossil fuels for profit, doing nothing about climate change, and destroying life on Earth. Our hope is "Make America Greta Again". Greta Thunberg, the seventeen year old Swedish climate activist who has the audacity to blame the world's leaders for their smug indifference to our impending doom, is our best hope. She manifests the spirit of ecological wisdom which we Americans abandoned about the time Reagan came to power, when he ripped the solar energy system from the roof of the White House. Pensively we remember when President Nixon signed into law the Environmental Protection agency and the Clean Water Act, in the days when even Republicans cared about our planetary health. Make America Greta, again. The monstrous MAGA great hordes must be superseded by a global army of MAGA-Greta activists, including all of us, including, eventually, the monstrous moronic Trumpers themselves.

Defending A Criminal

WE NOW KNOW the president's defense, and its a doozy. The whole thing is a hoax, he didn't do it, and even if he did, it aint illegal. The holes are so large a cognitively challenged fourth grader could drive holes through it, which guarantees that the Republican servants of Trump will accept it. Trump's criminal attorney's fail to mention that impeachment and removal need not stem from any specific violation of statutory law, and that "high crimes and misdemeanors" can refer to a persistent pattern of behavior, such as attempting to blackmail a foreign government into providing damaging information of a political opponent. Impeachment is a political, not a legal process. Suppose President Trump, each morning or middle of the night, were to tweet: "I am a fraud." I was elected only with foreign assistance." And then, later: "I care nothing about making America great, now, again, or ever. Or: "Personal wealth, fame, power, and pretty young women are my only interests." Or: "The evangelicals support me only because they are morally bankrupt idiots." In other words, what if the president suddenly started telling the truth? A near impossibility, admittedly, but possible, in theory. Being crazy is not a crime. Trump has long since proven that. He would immediately be impeached, probably with Republican support, for fraud,among other complaints, such as gross abuse of power and of twitter, and it would be argued at his impeachments hearings that he is mentally unfit to serve, as he is in reality, and should be removed according to the twenty fifth amendment. For the sake of Trump's presidency, the Republican party, the evangelical community drunk with anticipation of the rapture, and the white supremacist racist community, the president had better not suddenly become honest about himself. America's reprobate right wing will be much better off if their orange haired icon keeps right on pathologically lying, to the tune of about twenty two gross falsehoods per day. Trump's sycophants seem to enjoy their little fantasy world in which their leader is a consummate Christian, and sane anti-Trump majority America is either used and inured to it, or no longer gives a damn.

Putting A Klan Man's Plan In the Can

A MAN, who in my humble but unimpeachable opinion belongs in the Klan (he often uses the "N" word, and insists that Abraham Lincoln is the "sorriest" president in American history), if he isn't already in the klan, looked at me, menacingly, and said: "You might wanna think about layin' off organized religion. You're pissing people off". Or did he say "people are going to get pissed off"? Memory fails me; all these right wing idiots, and their racist rhetoric, from the White House, and on the news and what not, become confusing, interchangeable. Either way, it was a threat, thinly veiled, and I will not tolerate it. I immediately conjured up an image of a horde of righteously indignant church ladies, led by the sword wielding klan man, descending upon me, spitting venom. People, even sanctimonious intolerant religious, racist people, are always responsible for their own anger, not me. Besides, I suspect that only he is pissed off, and probably for reasons having to do more with his own failure in life than anything online. Religion and racism, handy mutual American handmaidens. So, Klan boy, own it, and get over it, as your fellow Trump supporters are saying concerning presidential high crimes and misdemeanors. And of course, as every literate American knows, we all have the legal right to talk about, and to criticize religion, and just about everything else. Or should all religion be above all criticism by anyone, all the time? Not! Should it be illegal in America to criticize the Christian religion, or any other religion? Of course not. My entire life, since I was a child, Christians, one after the other, beginning with my grandmothers, have told me in no uncertain terms that my religious beliefs are wrong, that I would be better off if I became a Christian, and that a horrible fate awaited me if I failed to do so. Their religion was right, and mine was wrong, wrong for me, wrong for them, wrong for God, whom they evidently know intimately. My religion, similar to that of Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein, is perfect for me, thank you. I do not try to force my beliefs on others, ever. I respect people enough to assume they can decide for themselves, without my assistance. Why are Christians often so self righteous that not only do they try to foist their beliefs upon the unsaved, but also issue threats, as in the case of klan man, against anyone who dares criticize their religion? Christians have been insulting me with their aggressive behavior my entire life; I certainly can and will offer criticisms and responses, in writing, on my website. My sincere hope is that klan man comes to his senses, becomes tolerant and loving, like Jesus, before its too late, and he finds himself in a very dark very hot place, for a very long time. I'll pray for him, whether or not it does any good.

Depressing

THE LADY is in her early forties, a divorced mother of three. She is a climate scientist with a plethora of advanced degrees in sundry related sciences from among the world's most prestigious universities. She spends a considerable amount of time scuba diving among coral reefs, taking measurements, analyzing, calculating. She measures the rate at which coral reefs are vanishing, and the percentage already vanished. She measures the amount of plastic in the world's oceans, in fish, and in the human body, and like all climate scientists, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. She can often feel tears running down her cheeks beneath her goggles beneath the waves. Very soon the aggregate weight of the plastic in the ocean will exceed that of fish. Jet fuel has been detected in human breast milk. Each day most people consume an amount of plastic equal to that contained in a credit card, and the credit is long overdrawn. Eighty five percent of the world's coral reefs have died. She has seen it happen, up close and personal noting the slow but inexorable death over the lonely months and years in her twenty years observing the demise with futility and despair. Often, when she finishes her work for the day, when she completes the measuring and the calculating, she goes home exhausted, exhausted and deeply depressed. Her depression impacts her children, and her family and social life, but it cannot be avoided. Lately the depression has worsened considerably, has become a deep and abiding dreadful torment within her. She refuses medication, for she knows the exact cause of her malady, and the cure for it, a cure which she dares not accept, because it would require her abandoning her work, which she deems critical, and her profession, for which she has prepared her entire life. She knows firsthand, almost more than anyone, the awful unthinkable truth: that the world is dying, and that it may already be too late to save it. She knows that species of plants and animals are becoming extinct at an unprecedented rate. And she knows that there exists throughout the world a vast lack of concern, a moribund apathy, as if today's living, knowing that their own lives will soon end anyway, have decided that there is nothing they can do to help protect the future generations, which are on their own. She also knows that in many countries there has come power a right wing corporate power structure which cares only about immediate profit, at any expense, at the expense of the environment, and the future of life on earth. She is a voice crying in the wilderness, and she knows it, and she goes home every night, depressed.

Admiring God

"MY RELIGIOSITY consists in humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself in what little we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. I cannot conceive of a personal God who would sit in judgment over creatures of his own creation. Morality is of the highest importance for mankind, but not for God." (Albert Einstein.). And also: "Everyone who seriously pursues science becomes convinced that a spirit, infinitely superior to mankind, is manifest in the laws of the universe" ----- These quotes describe my religion. In fact, many scientists are atheists, but I, like Einstein am not. Like Einstein, I believe in a supreme creative spirit manifest in nature, beyond human understanding, beyond human religion. Many scientists are in fact atheists, but Nonetheless the point Einstein was making bears truth... I, like Einstein, do not worship God, I admire God. I admire the surpassingly magnificent creation of the universe, and it creator, for which the three letter word "God" hardly seems adequate. Einstein used phrases like "the ancient one", and "the old eternal genius who built the world". It is not necessary to be religious to believe in God and to admire its work. It is not necessary, and indeed seems wholly inadequate to fabricate a formal, organized religion, replete with mythology and dogma for the purpose of venerating nature. Nor is it necessary to grovel in supine obeisant, obsequiousness on bent knee to acknowledge one's admiration. Worship is hyper melodramatic, showy, fearful flattery, unworthy of intelligent beings. As Goethe said: "Behold the phenomena, for they are the doctrine." I can neither accept, respect, nor nor admire a contrived who would mandate violence by his created creatures, and require a blood sacrifice to himself to atone for it. By giving beings "free will", while establishing immutable laws of nature, freedom of actin, free will, is strictly limited. God by design creates a world of violent, suffering beings, then, according to Christianity, requires further violence as atonement. Archibald MacLeish said of the biblical God: "If God is God, God is not good. If God is good, God is not God." Again, Goethe: "It is beyond me how anyone can believe that God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveal itself to us, and if our hearts do not tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we will most certainly not learn these things from books, which at best are designed to give names to our mistakes." We can love and admire god's work through our love and admiration of nature, and of each other. Mark twain said: "The Bible contains some noble poetry, clever fables, a vast quantity of obscenity, and no fewer than one thousand outright lies." I couldn't've said it better.

Rudy Going Rogue

RUDY GIULIANI, personal attorney to the gangster in chief, knows a thing or two about political corruption and organized crime. He led a successful assault on it while mayor of New York City. Now, an ever increasing abundance of evidence seems to indicate that he is involved in some of it himself. The facts are well known, available to all. Sworn testimony before Congress by at least a dozen inside members of the Trump administration demonstrated clearly that the president, with Giuliani's direct assistance, orchestrated a plan to blackmail the Ukraine into producing damaging information on his personal political rival, Joe Biden, by withholding military assistance until such time as said information was provided. The military assistance was delivered, without the damaging information, only when the now famous whistle blower told us about the scheme. Hence, the president was impeached. Documentation is mounting. Giuliani sent an email, uncovered just the other day, saying "I am very powerful, because I can intimidate the entire Ukrainian government". Then, another hand written note from a Giuliani associate: "be sure to get the info on Biden from Ukraine". Then too, one of Giuliani's attorneys now declares in no uncertain terms that both Giuliani and the president were completely informed, from the beginning, about the blackmail scheme. It appears that during the one month delay in beginning the impeachment trial, valuable new information enhances the case against the president. The testimony of Giuliani, Bolton, Mulvaney, and others now becomes vitally necessary,for these people can either exonerate or convict the president. And still, Trump, his supporter in the Senate, and his millions of American citizen supporters refuse to accept the irrefutable testimony, the indisputable evidence, and the unavoidable conclusion that Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice and abuse of power. They refuse to allow direct witnesses to be heard, and they defend the president's crimes with absurd accusations of their own; as if inside members of the Trump administration have conspired or suborned to conspire by Democratic operatives, the media, or perhaps the Chinese, or the gay community. H.L. Mencken allegedly said: "The fools would be humorous were they not in such deadly earnest." He was referring to devout Christians who go to great lengths to try to apply ancient biblical prophecy to modern events. He might as well have been referring to Trump supporters.

Recovering the Past

WITH BUT FEW EXCEPTIONS, people do not enjoy being enslaved, or, to quote Jefferson, "reduced under tyranny". During the 246 years of slavery in these United States, the notion that kidnapping people in Africa, chaining them below decks, and selling them into bondage across the ocean was beneficial to them was widely propagated, the reasoning being that the enslaved were being liberated from savagery, given the benefits of Christianity, fed, clothed, housed, and provided gainful employment with meaningful labor. The Bible, which justifies slavery in no fewer than two hundred scriptural God given passages, afforded the plantation owners cover. In fact, the slaves in America were almost constantly in revolt, and Thomas Jefferson, among many other slave owners, feared a general uprising. On several occasions, most notably in 1831 led by Nat Turner, their fears materialized. From the end of the Civil War through the nineteen sixties, with reverberations today, the treatment of African-Americans, who, it can be argued were never really freed, has inspired countless acts of rebellion. Noteworthy are the Atlanta riot of 1907 and the Tulsa municipal civil war of 1921, about which much has been written, but only recently. Invariably these violent events were precipitated by a young black man looking at a young white woman, and were ignored in history, or revised to become unprovoked riots whose blame belonged exclusively to the black community. In Wilmington, North Carolina, the situation was different. There, in 1898, the majority population was African-American, and African-Americans were a majority in the city government, holing most of the elective offices, and were prominent in the business and social community. Until the great coup of 1898, detailed thoroughly by journalist-historian David Zucchino, in his seminal new monograph "Wilimington's Lie". It was a premeditated, overtly racist plot to steal the city from all African-american influence, and put it in the hands of white supremacists. Before 1898 fifty six percent of Wilmington's population was black; today, sixteen percent is. We repeat the mistakes of teh past when we fail to learn history, and we fail to learn history when a white supremacist culture conceals it, white washes it, and refuses to impart it to future generations. Thanks to scholars like Zucchino, it is becoming a bit more difficult to do so.

Marrying Racism and Religion

SHE WAS A BEAUTIFUL GIRL, newly married, and I really liked her husband, a sports fan with a great personality. I had met her through her older brother, a dear friend and high school classmate of mine. The moved into a pleasant, unassuming apartment in an attractive apartment complex, and he worked as a delivery driver for Coca Cola, while she stayed home, an "apartment wife". She might have been a bit bored during the day, so she called me, nearly every day, and invited me over. She often fixed lunch, and we went swimming at the apartment pool. Her one piece swimsuit was worth far more than the price of admission. She was affectionate, our thighs rubbing as we watched television. When she asked me "have you ever had an affair with a married woman"?, my moral values, I confess, had less to do with my "never have, never will" response than fear. I really liked her husband, and wanted to ensure his friendship. She was a devout, fundamentalist, evangelical Christian, and upon several occasions I attended church with her. Though not religious, I try to be open minded, and I enjoyed her company. She was a racist, hard core. The fact that the year was 1980 was to my thinking no excuse, then or now. Nor was the fact that we lived in a mid sized southernish town with a long history of segregation. She made me cringe. She never used any description other than the "N" word, and derided their "grotesque features". Well, whatever. I believe they called it "The United negro College Fund", and advertised on television. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, they told us. True enough, but my lady friend thought it utterly preposterous that anyone would give a fig about the development of the African-American mind. Well, whatever. This appalling attitude was not enough to keep me from coming to her house - the friendship seemed valuable enough to overlook her downside - but it was sufficient to discourage me from inviting them to my house. I guess we will, in one way or another, find a way to make our feelings known, if only indirectly. After a wonderful summer of friendship, she stopped calling me, and I suspect my failure to reciprocate might have had something to do with it. Well, whatever. And well, at length, three's company. I did reciprocate. I wrote a beautiful essay for her "Why I want to become a nurse", which assisted her acceptance to a nursing program, and launched her career, which morphed into a career as a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company. Her first husband was neither ambitious nor wealthy enough for her, and three marriages later, she lives today in the Rocky mountains high atop a high in a gorgeous mansion, with an obviously quite successful hubby. ironically, she lives only a few miles from where I once lived. I sometimes wonder, but assume that she has long since matured, and forsaken her racism. She is, however, evidently still quite conservative. Racism, religion, and conservatism go hand in had, notwithstanding indignant denials. I added her to my friend list on Facebook, and she probably received much of the avalanche of anti-Trump material I post and share. S well then, to hell wit he must have, and she must be a Trumper. She unfriended me. Well, to hell with her.

Ending Capitalism

FAMED ECONOMIST JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES made a good point. At some point, he said, capitalism must be phased out of existence, a victim of its own success. The universe can only contain a finite number of people and their material possessions. Capitalism relies on population and economic growth. Keynes never specifically answered his own question: "when"?, but estimated that it would happen within a few hundred years, if not sooner.since no rational being needs or wants unlimited personal wealth, capitalism's retirement will consists in a reasonable distribution of wealth and standard of living for everyone. If corporate capitalism, which produces enormous wealth, does not succeed in bringing about the extinction of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, steady state Utopian socialism shall inherit the Earth. The word "capitalism" was invented in the nineteenth century to describe an economic system in which people invested accumulated capital to accumulate more money, without doing any actual work, preferring to leave physical labor to the exploited masses, part of whose production was appropriated by the investing class. The word has a distinctly negative connotation, everywhere. The word was an insult, aimed at the money changers. The capitalists were appropriately blamed for the depressions which occurred regularly throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. J.P. Morgan bailed out the United States in 1907, restoring some respect for the banking system which had failed utterly during the great depressions of 1873 and 1893. We in the United States of Amnesia have long forgotten that hourly wages paid to workers in sweat shop factories under intolerable conditions during the early post civil War American industrial revolution was understood to be slave labor. Generations of virtually enslaved factory workers fought by the thousands and died by the hundreds to abolish the hourly wage system. The author of the "Bible" of capitalism, Adam Smith, in his seminal "Wealth of Nations" (1776) condemned the reduction of human beings to automatons, to mind numbed brute workers engaged in endless, repetitive, body, mind, and soul crushing labor. Smith did not advocate for capitalism, he merely defined and described it. Something had to be done to save capitalism. hence was born the public relations industry in the United States, a massive propaganda campaign, which continues to this day, to convince the credulous public that the system of worker exploitation was in the best interests of everyone, a rising tide lifting all ships, an elite few of which would soar above all others, in the name of prosperity for all. It was and is a complete fiction, of course.

Enabling Crime

ON NATIONAL TELEVISION, in Congress, clearly, conclusively, it was proven beyond any dispute that President Trump is a traitor, and therefore, a criminal. The proof was given openly by the president's most loyal associates, by members of his own team, people from within the administration. He sold out his country for personal gain. His chief of Staff, in a nationally televised press conference, openly proclaimed the "quid pro quo" with the Ukraine, informed us that it "happens all the time", and advised the nation to "get over it". And yet, his supporters, like mafia members perjuring themselves for the sake of saving their don from prison, pretend that all accusations against the president are fabricated, based entirely on hatred, and that those who make the countless accusations are the perpetrators of a hoax. It is they, the Trump supporters, who are of course the hoaxers, the fabricators, defending a criminal because they think he has their best interests in mind, defending a criminal whose election was aided by a foreign intervention, a criminal whose presidency is illegitimate, whose election was in fact a coup. Their defense is a hollow, vague, generality, with no basis in reality. No matter how abundant or damning the evidence for the president's criminal activity becomes, they simply shrug it off, dismissively, without ever actually addressing its substance. Every trump supporter is an accessory to crime. Every Trump supporter is a willing member of a traitorous gang. The proof is the words of Mick Mulvaney, and all the other witnesses who testified before Congress, in elaborate detail. In the forthcoming impeachment trial John Bolton, the former national security adviser who is willing to testify, may be prevented from doing so by the stonewalling Republican supporters of Trump. He was a firsthand witness, the sort Trump supporters claim were absent from the House impeachment hearings. Rudy Giuliani, Rick Perry, and others, all first hand witnesses, people who could either exonerate trump or establish his guilt, will be prevented from testifying, because the republicans and their fellow Trump supporters understand that the truth proves the president's guilt, and unfitness for office. Everyone who supports Donald Trump should be ashamed of being a supporter of crime and a traitor to their country. Sadly, they never will.

Wearing God, Guns, and Trump

THE GENTLEMAN is a military veteran, and, like most military veterans, a conservative. His wears a T shirt upon which are boldly emblazoned the words "God, Guns, Trump", in that order, arranged from top to bottom down his chest. He says he wears the same message everyday. From this one can assume the following: he believes in God, probably the Biblical God, and identifies as a Christian. He likes guns, believes strongly in the second amendment interpretation that all law abiding mentally sane citizens are entitled to own whatever guns they wish, to carry them at all times, with or without government permission. He is a Trump supporter, and thinks the president is doing a good job. Although there is a certain consistency to this, there are problems, of which the gentleman is most unlikely unaware. First, of course, is the notion that the concept of God is compatible with gun ownership. Arguably, it is. The biblical God committed genocide and mass murder on several occasions, among them the destruction of fifty thousand Philistines in retribution for the curiosity of a single person, and the drowning of an entire army. But these acts, which in according to modern morality would be considered ghastly crimes, were accomplished without guns, guns which a compassionate Christ, an apparent pacifist who advocated human nonviolence, would presumably discourage the masses from carrying. The second amendment, throughout American history, was not interpreted as permitting everyone to carry a firearm. Not until 2008 did any version of the U.S. Supreme Court rule that it does. Therefore the amendment was viewed by the high court as it was by the people who wrote and enacted it; as an expedient to facilitate the maintenance of a citizen's militia, ready at all times to muster and defend the republic. Until 2008 the weapons were intended to be kept at home, ready for use, only by members of the militia. The most problematic T shirt word is "Trump". As film maker Ken Burns rhetorically asks: what part of Donald Trump is remindful of or similar in any way to Jesus Christ? the women? the lies? The greed and financial corruption? That is, assuming the word "God" on T shirt signifies the Christian God, of whom, in Christian theology, Christ is part. Trump is not qualified to be forgiven for his sins, according to Christian doctrine, because he has neither confessed, repented, nor atoned for them. Quite the opposite, in fact. He has consistently either denied or bragged about them. God, Guns, Trump? Arguably, a trio of incompatibles, other than that which they conspicuously have in common; a long history of doing damage in a severely damaged world, a world which arguably need far less of all three.

Putting Coal Back

IAN DUNLOP was once a high powered executive within the coal industry of Australia, which is among the world's leading coal burners and exporters. For a time he headed the Australian Coal Association, having been in the industry since the nineteen fifties. In this capacity he served as a prime spokesperson for the industry, espousing the virtues of "clean coal", which does not exist, smugly dismissing any need for sustainable alternative sources in a continent bathed in sunshine and swept by steady winds. He made big money by telling big lies. Then, he began to take a hard look around, at the condition of the world. Educated in basic chemistry, he reluctantly accepted the reality of climate change and ecological disaster through fossil fuels. He could see for himself that the ocean is encroaching upon coastal Australia, where nearly all Australians live. Increased drought, causing wildfires of historic proportions, soot hovering above previously pristine cities and countryside, a lung cancer epidemic; these nightmarish facts could no longer elude his perception. So, he turned traitor. He came over to the renewable energy community, and, in his later years, is has become a leading advocate of rapid conversion to wind and solar. And, he puts his money where his mouth his, funneling investment into his new passion; saving the planet. The most horrible nightmare imaginable is here, now, in reality, and Ian Dunlop, like most of us, knows it. The crazy weather is only going to get worse; its too late to prevent it. Even the baby boomer generation is going to live to see catastrophic consequences. Climate change is already killing hundreds of thousands of people per year, and science can prove it, with facts. Heaven help our children and grand children. The way things are going now, within one hundred years the Earth will be nearly uninhabitable, even if fundamental political and economic changes are made now. Drastic and immediate change is now required to prevent planetary environmental collapse and the extinction of all life on earth. The same right wing lunacy which currently infects the United States and much of Europe has spread to Australia. Ian Dunlop, like all perceptive people, understands that if Donald Trump is reelected, game over.

Separating

THE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH is the third largest denomination in America, its membership upwards of twenty million, depending on whether you include the lapsed and the no shows. The unwieldy organization is far from united. The bone of contention, an internal schism, concerns, not surprisingly, one of America's leading sources of acrimony: homosexuality. The question; whether to accept diverse sexual orientations among the clergy, or whether to take the traditional Christian view, that to be gay is sinful, unacceptable. America's cultural divide, it seems, does not stop at the church door, and infiltrates pew and pulpit. The Methodist church, in a sense, is divided along party lines. According to standard Methodist theology,the issue should, arguably, be a non issue. The church'es founder, John Wesley, laid it out clearly. Everything is the universe is predetermined, a doctrine called "predestination". This includes whether a person is saved, or as they say, a member of the "elect". Accordingly, every sparrow which falls from a tree, and every aspect of our lives we merely live out according to God's preordained plan. Thus, there seemingly should never be anything to argue about, or to discuss, or to try to change, instead only acceptance of and and faith that we are all living precisely as planned, good or bad, straight or gay. That his church is divided over anything at all. one might think, would propel Mr. Wesley to turn over in his grave, lord willing. Yet, the dispute has been ongoing for decades, and now seems poised to boil over. The church will soon formally fracture into at least two groups, along party lines, the blue church and the red church, the former tolerant of sexual diversity, the latter not so much. In point of fact, every gene, every chromosome in every plant and animal on the planet has been identified and gone over with a fine toothed comb. the lord seems intent on our knowing ourselves, well. How could it be otherwise> But there it is, right before our very eyes: the homosexual gene. Written into the very fabric of our molecular make up is God's apparent will that some of us go forth and multiply, and some do not. It seems to be the conservative faction of Methodism which resists God's plan. As the church prepares its inevitable split, the number of denominations of an already fragmented Christian faith will increase by one, one among several thousand. The day may come when the fragmentation reaches its limit, and is atomized. Every true believer will be a denomination of one, worshiping alone in a lonely church, witnessing only within the self. This too may be part of God's ultimate plan. As Goethe astutely said: "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent my own."

Witnessing Bad Behavior

MY MOTHER, whose religious beliefs I never ascertained, often used the phrase "the good lord", which probably signified something, if not her exact religion. I sometimes felt tempted to ask her what she considered "good" about a supreme omnipotent being who permitted creatures of its own creation to incessantly suffer, but better judgment prevailed, and I held my tongue. Curiosity kills cats, discretion trumps valor, and so forth. Mother neither approved of nor permitted anyone to alter or attempt to influence her religious beliefs, whatever they might have been. Southern Baptists and Jehovah's Witnesses alike were doubtless taken aback a bit when she opened the front door and announced: "I'm a Catholic, and I'll pray for you at mass." I have a different approach. I engage. First, I notify my visitors that I am already quite familiar with their religious beliefs, at least in a general sense. After all, I've lived my entire life immersed a culture saturated by the Christian faith, surrounded by Christians. Many of my best friends and closest associates are Christians. I've read the Bible, twice. Having established that, I press on. I remind my evangelical visitors that I am a person of advanced age, have had an entire lifetime to determine my religious beliefs, and have not failed to do so. I further assure them that I am reasonably intelligent, and reasonably well educated, and fully capable of forming my beliefs without the benefit of unsolicited assistance. They never respond to that, choosing to stare blankly at me, or examine their shoes. By this time they are comfortably ensconced in my living room, sipping coffee, tea, or sugar free Gatorade, their choice. Keep friends close, enemies closer. I frankly consider it an insult, I contend, that anyone would think himself qualified to assist in any improvement of my religiosity, and that I have no desire to receive such assistance, without issuing an invitation to do so. Why, I wonder out loud, does anyone have the audacity to assume that his or her chosen faith is suitable for, or better for, anyone else? Shouldn't we all find our own spiritual path, in our own way? By now they are becoming disenchanted, shifting in their seats on my couch. So, I lower the boom. Since I am already conversant with their beliefs, would they like to know mine? Do I get a chance to reciprocate? Maybe I can give them assistance, as they generously offer to afford me. Oddly, they always accede, probably motivated by a sort of morbid curiosity about the unsaved heathen into whose den of iniquity they have had the misfortune to enter. I make it quick, and merciful. I mention Thomas Jefferson and Einstein, my religious role models. I briefly talk about deism, and pantheism. I assure them of my belief in God, or, as Einstein put it: "the infinitely superior spirit, the old eternal genius who built the world". I conclude with a quote from Goethe: "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine." Knowing when to cash in my chips, I stop talking, and offer them refills. Bleary eyed, eager to escape, they politely look at the door, then walk towards it, claiming time limits. Though they are full of coffee, never even ask to use my restroom. My mother, who art in heaven, is proud of me, I hope.

Coming Of Age

EVERY MEMBER of the millennial generation, born between 1982 and 2000, is now eligible to vote. The millennials now outnumber the baby boomers, who are rapidly dying off, and constitute the single largest voting bloc in America. Whereas sixty five percent of the American people identify as Christian, less than half of millennials do. Seventy percent say that they are amenable to various kinds of socialism, of which there are many kinds. Though this generation probably has no better idea of exactly what socialism is =most Americans seem to think that its a political system, not an economic one - the democratic socialism prevalent throughout Europe seems to appeal to them. It is, all and all, a very progressive generation, a fact which, combined with the increase in the percentage of Americans who make up various minorities, bodes well for the future of the progressive movement in general. There is, of course, a well known tendency of people to become more conservative as they age. Certainly teh baby boomers ended up exemplifying this; we see far fewer seventy old hippies these days than well attired professionals in business suits and ties. Everyone who fifty years ago admonished us to never trust anyone over thirty are well past thirty, and then some. But when you consider that climate change is the consequence of unfettered manufacturing and materialism, and that the millennials widely disavow materialism to the point where large numbers of them don't even own cars or houses, it may well eventuate that the future of millennialism is non materialism, and non materialism, a key component of far left thinking. When the baby boomers are all dead and buried, which is imminent, the millennials will rule the world, and control American culture and public policy. When that day arrives, it may be that long cherished conservative ideas, such as neo-liberal capitalism in the pursuit of personal wealth, are relegated, like their promulgators, to the veritable dust bin of history.

Burning To Death

THE WILDFIRES ENGULFING Australia are hellish, apocalyptic, and have, according to estimates, killed half a billion animals. People in California, where the former late summer fire season has expanded to encompass the entire year, can relate. Satellite photography and rain forest residents in Brazil tell us about the recent reduction of much of the Amazon rain forest to scorched earth. Brazil's president, a right wing Trump styled "populist", is unconcerned, his agenda being the replacement of the forest with commercial development and cattle ranching. The pattern should be evident to all concerned, meaning all of us. Climate change, among other destruction manifestations, is setting the world afire, as reduced rainfall in drought stricken areas, coupled with capitalistic corporate policies which seek to exploit the Earth's resources for profit rather than preserve them for future generations, combine to make our destruction unavoidable. it is difficult to imagine any greater evil than corporate controlled governments, such as the United States government, pretending that climate change does not exist, while promulgating policies designed to gain the maximum short term profit at the expense of all life on earth. Noam Chomsky says that the election of 202 is a referendum on whether the human race will survive, or destroy the Earth's environment and become extinct. he has the facts to prove it, facts having to do with the likely amount of carbon to be added to the atmosphere over the next few years in the absence of any sustained national policy to fight, reduce, and reverse climate change. "Bring back coal", says the great reprobate Trump, ignoring the reality of the free market, which wants to price coal out of teh market in favor of renewable energy. Anyone who supports Trump's policies and refuses to accept the reality of man made climate change, and who refuses to work to repair it, is a traitor and a criminal against humanity and nature. We can hardly expect Trump's conservative evangelical Christian gangster supporters to help save us; they are too preoccupied awaiting the "rapture", the fantasy fiction by which they excuse themselves for their criminal behavior.

Spinning and Twisting Through Time

WE (THE USA) HAVE ELIMINATED a terrorist, and have therefore made America safer. So goes the Trump propaganda machine. Our heroic warrior, a flying robot, has bravely, patriotically sacrificed itself for the noble cause of making America great, so the fatuous nonsense says, great as it once was, when the white patriarchy was intact, unquestioned. And now, after three years of chaotic racist conservative anger and violence, America is great again, say those who in fact are destroying it. The Iranian general, like the rest of us, is replaceable, was expendable, and all that he was trying to do, whatever it was, will continue, undeterred, by his replacement. To target and kill a foreign military officer without a formal declaration of war is, according to American scholars of international law, illegal, according to international law established by the United States. The general, we can now see, was an icon, and all human achievement, including revenge, is motivated by emotion. That our act of international terror has successfully stoked. The Iranian foreign minister quite correctly points out that not only is the murder of a military officer on foreign soil in time of peace is a violation of universally agreed upon law, and that, for decades, the United States has used its military forces to kill a great number of both Iraqi and Iranian people, including civilians. There is no longer any disagreement among scholars of geo-political reality and historians of the Middle East that U.S. foreign policy in the middle east has been disastrous, notwithstanding unvarying American claims to the contrary. The solution would be to turn back time, and refrain from deliberately luring Saddam Hussein into invading Kuwait in 1991. Better yet, turn back time to 1953, when Great Britain and the United States, having decided that the Iranian government must not be allowed to own and control its own oil reserves, replaced Iran's chosen government with one more acceptable to western corporate interests, their client, the Shah. Or maybe turn it back all the way to 1588, when England, flush with pride after the sinking of the Spanish Armada by a hurricane, decided to become an imperial global power. If nothing else, turn back time to when the United States of America was a simple plutocratic republic, before deciding to become an empire, for lack of anything better to do.

Killing Ourselves

EVERY DAY IN THE UNITED STATES of America, about twenty military combat veterans commit suicide, give or take a tragically heroic corpse or two, about the same number who die from pain killer addiction, which, arguably, is a form of suicide, accidental. The troubled veterans kill themselves in a fairly wide variety of ways, gun shots, not surprisingly, the most common. Neither is it surprising, upon further thought, that the rate of combat veteran suicides has remained fairly constant since the Civil War, a hundred and sixty years ago. Multiply 365 days times a hundred and sixty years times twenty, and you have just over one point one million total suicides, roughly equal to the total number of American war dead throughout American history. War is so mentally, emotionally, psychologically damaging that mind damage casualties as bombs and bullets. This collateral damage, as we call it, throughout America's civilian population down through the decades and centuries, decade after decade of war prep, war, and post war recovery, is literally incalculable in its enormity and extent. I was born ten years after the end of World War Two, and grew up during the Cold war and Viet Nam War era, the two overlapping. The psychological impact of all three wars negatively impacts me to this day, if only vicariously, even though i was spared their immediate consequences. My father served in World War Two. It adversely impacted him with depression and alcoholism, which harmed my childhood, the effects of which linger to this day. His mental illness will always be with me, for it took him away from me. The Cuban missile crises scared the crap out of me when I was seven years old. For ten days in October, 1962, I, like every other American, thought I might die in a nuclear war. Seven years old. The Viet Nam War consumed most of my childhood, endlessly, on television, scenes of death, the casualty count posted on the screen like a baseball scoreboard. Early on it seemed evident even to me that there was no victory to be had, anx when Walter Cronkite split the program, so did I, at thirteen. I became a war protester. I was eight when JFK was assassinated; that horrible memory, of our nation locked in deep grief, will never leave me. it can easily be seen how all this would effect anyone, and did, and still does. My theory is that my self confidence, anxiety level, depression and paranoia were engendered to a large extent to this toxic mixture. The point is that in America a high percentage, one hundred percent of the population is mentally damaged. My purpose here is not to complain, but to elucidate a situation most of us prefer to ignore, pretend doesn't exist, and refuse to talk about. Without confronting the monster directly, we can never hope to vanquish it.

Severing the Renewable Head

AMONG THE RIGHT WING reprobates who inundate the small town senior center where I take lunch is man who was recently reprimanded for using the word "nigger", his having been reported by me. This is the "gentleman" who, when I told him that the president is a self proclaimed sexual predator replied: "I don't care; I did the same thing thirty years ago". He's eighty six, and, God willing, won't be with us much longer, and is therefore essentially harmless. Predictably, he was pleased with the president for knocking off the Iranian general, and accused the mainstream American communist media for emphasizing that Trump ordered the murder, insisting that this was another unfair media assault on the president, and that Obama would never have been so unfairly attacked. To acknowledge where the buck stops, so it seems, is to treat Trump unfairly. Our resident reprobate (the eighty six year old, not the president) further stated that the only way to kill a snake is to sever its head, a metaphor which has several serious flaws. First, General Soleimani was not the head of the snake. far from it. Or if he was, its news to the Ayatollah, and the governing council of Iran. Secondly, the metaphor goes off the track when you consider that the severed head of a snake does not grow back, or at least not without a massive intervention by cloning. Once severed, the snake is dead and gone, forever. The general is, like the rest of us, replaceable, makeshift. If you kill one, the second in command transitions smoothly into his vacated place, with a complete collection of notes, instructions, and most likely the same skill set and hatred of foreign occupying armies as his dearly departed predecessor. The most pressing problem is the one the Democrats keep harping one, the one which prevent bush and Obama from pulling off the same hit, notwithstanding numerous windows of opportunity. By whacking a popular Iranian icon, tens of thousands of potential terrorists, imbued with patriotic and religious fervor, looking forward to an infinite succession of heavenly trysts with six hundred and sixty six heavenly virgins, (or whatever their number), are doubtless even now plotting their revenge against what they perceive to be "The Great Satan (their words, not mine). If this was sufficient reason for staying the hand of a born again reformed alcoholic cowboy chief executive, and the war mongering Hillary Clinton and her boss Obama, it should at least have been enough to give pause to America's gangster in chief. But then, Trump is not known for taking advice or consulting experts, nor is he known to admit mistakes, to confess, repent, or atone, facts of which his evangelical base conveniently omits mention, for political, and presumably theological expediency.

Kirby, Cold Calling and Catching Up On Crockett

KIRBY VACUUM CLEANERS are the finest machines in the world of cleaning carpet and tile. Of that I am convinced. This has been demonstrably impressed upon me on no fewer than four occasions. The company does no advertising in the media, and relies only on cold call demonstrations, which last about an hour and a half. Each of the four times its sales reps have knocked on m door during the past four years, I have invited them in, and taken advantage of their display to get about ten square feet of carpet cleaned to the point that it looks like virgin carpet. The dirt they extract is healed upon small circular white paper cut outs, each disk progressively less filthy, as they demonstrate the remarkable suction power of their two thousand dollar vacuum cleaner. Its quite impressive, the amount of filth extracted prodigious, somewhat disconcerting. The price is beyond my pay grade, and I let them know this from the start. It doesn't deter them; for each demonstration, they get a commission, and I'm always glad to help a fledgling career along. Turnover is high, invariably they young gentlemen have not worked for Kirby long. Yesterday I convinced them that I had the presentation memorized, so they dispensed with the narrative, and got right to the cleaning. Still, it took twice as long as it should have: I assured them that they'll smooth out the kinks in due time. The young gentleman was named "Crockett". and told me he is the great great great great great great grand son of the famed American hero. Since I adore David Crockett, and know all about him, our conversation flowed beautifully. I taught him more than he taught me. He was young, thirty five, engaged to marry his second wife, has children, and they all seem to. He cleaned more of my floor than was necessary, maybe owing to our affinity. I hope he comes back next year, but he won't; its always a new team. He indicated that he has seen neither version of "The Alamo", nor has read Crockett's delightful autobiography "A narrative of the Life of David Crockett, of the State of Tennessee". He said it was only his fourth demo, his fourth day on the job. So I reckon he has a heap of cactchin' up to do.

Being A Better Billionaire

NOT ALL BILLIONAIRES ARE BAD. A organization called "Patriotic Millionaires", with roughly two hundred members, has a heart. Fully aware of America's grotesque and ever increasing economic inequality, the group advocates policies designed not only to preserve their personal wealth, but to enhance to well being of the working poor. These policies include taxing the corporate wealthy as a higher level, as America did until recently, reinstating an estate tax, raising the minimum wage, taxing stock transactions, and increasing spending on social programs, among other measures. Membership requirements include at least five million dollars in personal wealth, and an annual income of no less than one million dollars. The group is growing. Among its founders is Abigail Disney, whose grandfather and great uncle co-founded the entertainment empire. She is the black sheep liberal of the family. Its members are well aware that the inevitable result of our seemingly never ending concentration of wealth is that one person owns all the world's wealth, while everyone else starves. Also, that a violent revolution, a sort of Occupy Wall Street on steroids, consumes society. Eighty four percent of all corporate stock shares are owned by the top ten percent of the general population. One half of the American people own stock, one half do not. The Patriotic Millionaires understand that the current system, in which politicians are purchased and policies are created and enacted by the corporate wealthy for the corporate wealthy, is not sustainable. They further understand in in any capitalistic economy, supply is driven by demand, and that the greater the number of people who have sufficient wealth to demand and purchase consumer goods and services, the greater the level of production, and hence, societal prosperity. It is the millionaires and billionaires whose fortunes are dependent upon the working poor, not the other way around. Prosperity is built from the ground up, not the top down. The group has been accused of being theatrical and falsely patriotic, such accusations coming, unsurprisingly, from within the wealthiest segment of American society. As usual, they have it backwards.