Reconstructing Christians

THE TERM "Christian Dominionism" came to my attention some time ago, and as I recall, it refers to a philosophy in which its adherants desire to build and nurture a movement to spread the Christian faith everywhere, particularly in the United States, and to isntall Christianity as the official religion of the U.S., thus making it a "Christian nation" in actuality, for the first time in American history. Christianity has always been and remains, albeit barely, the dominant religion in America, but the U.S. has never been officially a "Christian country", but rather, a country of religious freedom with separation of church and state, according to its constitution. More recently the term "Christian Reconstructionism" comes to my attention, prompting me to wonder whether there is any difference between the two, and if so, precisely what the difference is. My limited research seems to indicate that the two terms, the two movements are essentially the same, with the same basic, general objectives, and that the difference in terminology is merely a matter of different people providing the terminology and the leadership. That conclusion, of course, might be innacurate. Both movements, which henceforth I shall assume to be a single movement, are dangerous, and must be resisted strenuously, and defeated. Religious uniformity throughout any society is undesirable, for it breeds and reinforces intolerance and various forms of harmful evil, as well as good. The good can be achieved without any religion at all. Any society which maintains an established reilgion and requires adherance to religious uniformity is oppressive. Examples of this abound in European history, in French and English history, among other countries. The seventeenth century was dominated by international wars, all brought on by the philosophy of religious conformity and uniformity. This is but one of many examples of the harmful effects of religious domination of culture. The history of the violent relationship between the Islamic and Christian religions need scarcely be mentioned. A better world would be one in which it was universally accepted that every person has his or her own religious beliefs, his or her own religion, and in which religious uniformity is considered undesirable by the population in general. Seven billion people, seven billion religions, none of them dominant over any other, no organized religion on a widepsread scale, no organized violence based on religious differences. Goethe said: "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine". Goethe seems to have been aware that in fact everyoone does have an individual religion; nonetheless, society in general, rather than joyfully accepting this wonderful reality, seems intent on organizing itself into religious factions. Humankind suffers because of this.

Speaking Truthful Heresy

"IT IS NOT NECESSARY to believe in god to be a good person. In a way, the traditional notion of God is ouotdated. One can be spiritual but not religious. It is not necessary to go to church ad give money. For many, nature can be a church. Some of the best people in history did not believe in God, while some of the worst deeds were done in his name." (Pope Francis)------(allegedly)...that the Pope actually said these words is alleged, but unconfirmed as this edition of this website went to press. However, due diligently and doggedly, this website, its staff and management is conducting exhaustive research to verfiy the quote's author, which may be some fanciful blasphemer on Facebook. A contigent of ambassadorial scholars have been dispatched to the Vatican to gain enlightenment, fancifully. It is assumed that the Pope made remarks to the effect that God's mercy includes nonbelievers, and that people are free to conceive of God differently. What stands out about these words are their profound wisdom and truth, no matter who spoke them, or if anyone did. I would certainly be happy to take credit for them, and the mere fact that the Pope ever said anything remotely similar to them is encouraging to open minded people. If the Pope ever said or thought them, that alone seems amazing. On the surface, they are heresy. For it not the be necessary to believe in God to be a good person seems decidedly irreligious, particularly for the Pope. Also, that traditional notions of God are "outdated" is certainly not in Catholic doctrine, past or present, although traditional notions of God are not only outdated, but barbaric, primitive, and absurd. That a belief in God is not a requisite for goodness sounds like something an atheist might say. Next thing you know the Pope'll be declaring that women are fit for the priesthood and that communion is symbolic cannibalism, as George Washington is said to have believed. I have known and still know many protestant fundamentalists who absurdely assert that Catholics aren't Christians. These alleged sentiments of Pope Francis are grist for their grindstones, balm from Gilead for progressive pantheists or spinoza himself, for whom God is a god of the ubiquitous kind. Organized religion will not cease to be an albatrossical millstone around the neck of human cultural advancement until its billions of benighted votaries begin to believe, for example, in human evolution by natural selection, or begin to believe that a quaint collection of ancient manuscripts, replete with fictional accounts of an imaginary, murderous God and primitive barbaric, outdated dogma is not "The Word of God". But there is hope, and Pope Francis may be leading the way, gradually, to a true human spiritual enlightenment, one discredited, discarded outdated canon at a time.

Going To sunday School, Sorta, Part II

(continued from previous article)...MY BIBLE READING did not proceed smoothly. A tome of nearly a million words written in Elizabethan English was for me a prodigious, daunting undertaking, "heavy lifting" as we like to say. Then too, I was easily distracted as a seventeen year old, by rock n roll, phone calls, televised football, thoughts of girls, and many other forms of temptation. I Holed up alone in my bedroom, but my older sister barged in a time or two, expressing amazement that I was attempting to read the entire Bible, and she ridiculed me for it. I thought her attitude strange for someone who attended church regularly. I had hoped she might be favorably impresssed, but she instead chose to display her usual, abrasive personality. Her derisive behavior doubtless derived from her knowing that I was not at all religious, never had been, and most likely never would be. In her shallow mindedness she probably couldn't even conceive of anyone reading the Bible without being a devout Christian. Why would anyone read the Word of God for purely educational, intellectual reasons? Heaaven forbid that anyone should try to self educate. My best guess is that she to this day has never read the Bible in its entirely, like an actual book, but has only "cherry picked" scriptural passages, like most people. Like most people, she has no idea what she's missing. I, however, do. My mother approached me, wondering what I was up to, sequestered for hours. She seemed to assume that I was engrossd in my regular reading material, mainly scinece fiction. I allowed her to dwell in her misconception, but she was properly informed by my sister, from whom I had initally tried to conceal my true activity, without success. The Bible alternately fascinated me, bored me, and repulsed me. I recall that my father, himself a religious cynic, once described it as a "sex novel", what with all the "begats" and such. Though an intelligent well educated man, my father, in his anti-Biblical bias, failed to acknowledge that the Bible is much more a violent novel than a sex novel, by our modern standards. And verily, violent it is. Almost all of its explanations of the creation of the universe and the human species seemed primitive and absurd to me, steeped as I already was in modern science by my high school studies. The religious beliefs expressed in both the Old and the New Testaments likewise seemed primitive and barbaric, and still do. Based upon my I hope unbiased reading of the sixty six books contained in this small "library" of ancient manuscripts, the Biblical God came to seem to me a terribly vicious and irrational entity, murderous, genocidal, unrelentingly, brutally harsh. Over the next fifty years, my opinion did not change, and has not changed. To me the Christian religion is a worldview thousands of years old and outdated in a modern world in which science has immeasurably improved our knowledge of the cosmos and of our place in it. During the past two thousand years humanity has made enormous advances in its knowledge of the universe, but has made scarcely any progess at all, so it seems to me, in the areas of philosophy and religion. New forms of the Christian religion are being invented all the time. During the relatively brief existence of the United States, dozens of them have emerged from within American culture. I keep waiting for one which makes sense to me, and is compatable with, rather than contradictory of, what we now know about the universe. I may have a lot longer to wait.

Going To Sunday School, Sorta, Part I

WHEN I WAS A LITTLE KID, (in a sense I still am), I went to Sunday school a few times, accepting someone's offer. My parents, to their everlasting credit, never made any attempt to influence my religious beliefs or decision concerning church attandance. Sunday school didn't seem like "school" to me. I didn't learn much, if anything. I'm glad I didn't, for had I, I might have been resentful at having been tricked into attending school on what I justifiably considered a sacred day off, and I might not have liked what I learned. If memory serves, we children spent most of the time singing, about red and yellow, black and white, and probably brown children, and how much Jesus loves them all. It was never epxlained how this love tangibly benefitted anyone. Although I saw Bibles lying about and carried around, I cannot remember any of my Sunday school teachers ever reading to us from one, nor even picking one up. Much as I enjoyed singing, the other kids didn't seem to be very good at it. I became increasingly curious about the mysterious contents of the big thick black book everyone kept close at hand but never seemed to open and read. At length I determined to sneak a quick peak inside for myself, uninvited, like the poor soul who found the fordidden contents of the ark of the coveneant irrestible. Much to my dismay I found that it was written in some foreign language, similar to but different than American, American being the only language I knew until I went to college and studied German. Instead of regular words ike "me, you", and "mine", it had weird ones like "thee, thou, and thine". All the verbs had the letters "eth" or "est" on their backside, and the words seemed out of order. I was already a voracious reader by third grade, and I knew darned well what kind of words a book should use. All the books I read about outer space, about maybe someday humans landing on the moon, about the American frontier, and baseball sure as heck didn't use those fancy sounding words, typed in that fancy squiggly looking print. But I opend the Bible, and, undaunted, I readeth on. Or at least I triedeth. In third grade I wasn't quite ready for the material. Truth be told I didn't actually read the Bible, cover to cover, until high school senior year, over Christmas break. We had several inches of snow (back then, it still occasionally snowed in the lower midwestern United States), which I thought was poor timing and unfair, since we were already on vacation and the snow gave us no extra glorious "snow days" out of school. I spent most of my Christmas break indoors at home, except for one night when a couple of friends called and invited me to walk over to their house and drink beer. I didn't want to go; I wanted to stay home in the warmth and read the Bible, but they nagged me incessantly, and offerd me free beer. They told me that several beers had my name on them, so to speak. Reluctantly, I put the bible down, and walked through the snow. When I arrived, I got chewed out for not bringing beer, which I thought deceitful, carrot and stickish. I got drunk anyway, but managed to walk home to resume my Bible study. Evidently I was staggering a bit, and a cop stopped me, noticed I was staggering drunk, laughed at me, and told me to go home, which I was doing anyway. He didn't bother to offer me a ride, which I thought was rude. I don't know whether any of my high school classmates read the Bible, but they and I sure as hell drank a lot of beer, often while driving drunk up and down Main Street in cars with big engines burning cheap gas, looking for sex, which we seldom but sometimes got. If the cops pulled us over, we hid the beer beneath the seat, they told us to slow down, and let us go. In those days, it was almost impossible to get arrested for driving while drunk. Ask any old drunk person. The only other grand adventure during senior year christmas break was the night a friend called me, then came by and picked me up and we drove three hours in the middle of the night to stand in sub freeaing weather to view the flag draped casket of Harry S. Truman lying in state. But that's another story, as they say, and, as they asy, I digress. Back to bible study....

Hanging By A Thread

DEMOCRACY in the United States is, as they say, is "hanging by a thread", is in great peril, and could be destroyed by the election of twenty twenty four. This is not wild eyed baseless speculation being promulgated by a ranting alarmist on social media, some conspiracy theory merely of the mind. Rather, it is a sober assessment derived from astute analysis which is shared by many of America's leading political scholars, academicians, and analysts. This widely shared concern derives directly from president Trump's "big election lie", which the former chief executive fabricated well before the election, as if grooming the country for a post election claim of election fraud, and, shockingly, embraced by millions of his followers to this day. The strategy comes straight from the playbook of Adolph Hitler as he outlined in his lengthy boring book "Mein Kampf", and implemented by his propaganda miister Joseph Goebbels. Invent and tell a big lie, inventing imaginary enemies, accusing them of doing what you are in fact doing, repeating the lie endlessly until it gains widespread acceptance among your followers and the general public. Thus the demagogue becomes the victim, defending righteous justice from enemmies of his own manufacture, his followers a cult, their mission a holy crusade, in defense of which any action is justified, no matter how immoral or violent. This is how tyrants operate. Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch" in nineteen twenty became a dress rehearsal. The insurrection at the Capitol of January 6, 2021, fomented, orchestrated, and led by Donald Trump and carried out by his followers is seen by many as a dress rehearsal for further attempts later, probably in the 2024 election, in which, many believe, Trump will became a candidate. A holy crusade to restore the presidency to its rightful owner, and to overthrow the illegitimate goverment of the enemy, Biden and the Democrats. In Trump's world of fabrication, the Democrats are the usurpers. In reality, Trump and his supporters are the criminals, having already staged an attempted a coup. They are quite likely to make another attempt. Democracy has failed to endure almost everywhere its ever been tried, starting in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, and failing also in modern France and Russia, among other places. In fact the American system of govenment is a "plutocracy", governance by the weathy powerful few, and always has been. But at least we have maintained a thin veneer of popular soverrighty, in our electoral system. It is that thin veneer which is now imperiled. Our first order of business is to preserve what democratic institutions we have, including our system of free and fair elections. We can deal with the plutocracy later, or at least try to.

Getting It Right, For Once

ON HIS RECENT/CURRENT campaign tour, a campaign tour which Mr. Trump seems eternally embarked upon, he indicated straight out that he reccomends that people get vaccinated against Covid 19, rather than his previus reccomendtaion of ingesting bleach and hydroxychloroquine, a treatment for malaria. Much of the crowd booed, perhaps feeling betrayed. After all, Trump supporters had been led by their icon and former chief executive to believe that vaccinations and science in general is a "hoax". But give credit where 'tis due, as we say; Donald Trump has evolved, grown, improved his attitude towards the virus and the proper method of fighting it. President Biden gave him credit, saying, in essense, that now at least he and Trump agree on something. Trump reportedly appreciated the compliment. Trump was also, and presumdably stil is, correct in his attitude and approach towards China; the United States must take a hard line agaisnt any nation which abuses human rights, and steal intellectual property, among other misbehaviors, although it might be worth mentioning that the best protection against theft is to possess nothing of valuable worth stealing, or, failing that, to carefully guard one's secrets. And, in truth, the United Staets has a lot of nerve telling anyone, particularly China, not to steal, onsidering the "Open Door Policy" initiated by the U.S. agaisnt China a little more than a hundred years ago, which wasn't all that long ago. That policy caused considerable social and economic disruption to the ancient kingdom, and China's current aggressive behavior could be seen a payback, or karma, or whatever you want to call it. Reccomended reading is Alexander Vindman's recently released book "Here, Right Matters", in which he details his bizarre experiences witin the Trump administration, in which Vindman personally witnessed Trump trying to blackmail the Ukrainian government, felt obligated by honor and national security concerns to report the blackmail, reported it, and got Trump impeached, the first of his two impeachments. Vindman proves in his book that Donald Trump indeed misbehaved, deserved to be impeached, if not removed from office, and he ends the book by calling the Trump administration a "national disaster", after effectively proving that it was. It is notewhorthy that every republican member of the Senate, at the end of Trump's impeachment trial, agreed that the blackmail attempt had indeed taken place, but also said that he didn't deserve to be removed from office, because, well, the blackmail attempt failed. Good news for all thwarted would be criminals, maybe, but doubtfully. Trump has his own standards, as do his supporters. But at least he is now onboard with vaccinations against deadlly viruses, if tragically belatedly. Well done, Mr. President...

Singing Gospel, Heretically

HELL, YOU AINT EVEN A CHRISTIAN, said some sanctimonious presumptuous senior citizen. To the extent that the essence of Christianity is the central message of Jesus, actually I am, if only in terms of the central messsage, but I tend to let presumption pass. Why on Earth, or in heaven or helll, would you even be interested in singing gospel music in the first place? (Since said sanctimonious sentient citizen is suppositional, so is this short essay.) Aside, I said, from your possibly unfounded presumption concerning my religiosity - you've never bothered to consult me on the matter - and the fact that my motive for singing gospel music is none of your business, I generously consnt to respond. I like to sing, preferably alone. Singing in a group I find challenging because of my inexperience, and its a challenge I find appealing. Also, I embrace open mindedness, part of which I consider being an ability and willingness to step outside one's own personal beliefs, and, as they say, "when in Rome, do as the Romans do". Concerning my religious beliefs, although I find some of the fundamental tenets of the Christian religion barbaric, primitive, cruel, vicious, and nonsensical, I, like almost everyone else, consider the essential message of Jesus sublime, noble, and surpassingly wise. I note that Jesus said nothing original. Confucius, among others, articulated basically the same philosophy centuries earlier. My personal favorites are the admonition against casting stones, and the one urging giving unto the poor, and rendering unto Casear, paying taxes willingly. The doctrine of unconditional love and forgiveness are maybe the most sublime of all. Jesus almost always spoke in "parables", which were highly metaphoric, and often confusing and difficult to understand. I strongly suspect that all Christians find his words often vague, contradictory, and hard to understand, but are unwilling to openly admit it, for fear that such an admission might give the impression of a lack of piety. He said that he confused spoke unclearly on purpose, to confuse people. Much if not most of the time his followers and family members had little or no idea what he was talking about, and they said so. He said that he fully embraced the Old Testament laws, many of which are conspicuous by their harshness, harshness to the point of being insane. That is, unless you think that people should be put to death for working on the sabbath, or for cursing mothers and fathers. Sometimes Jesus said that he was God, sometimes he said that he was not. He told people that with faith they could perform miracles, but there has never been the slightest evidence of this. He told people that in order to avoid sinning with their hands they should cut them off, and with their eyes, they should gouge them out. This seemingly crazy viewpoint overlooks the fact that all action proceeds from thought, which originates in the brain. If we kill our own brains, we have no chance of following the teachings of Jesus. He taught people not to resist evil. If people fail to resist evil, evil spreads like wildfire. Of course evil should be resisted. He told people, essentially, to behave like doormats, to allow others to harm them without resisting the harm. This is contrary to nature, and reason. Scholar and writer C. S. Lewis insisted that either Jesus was a raving lunatic, a madman, or truly the son of God. Taken as a whole the madman option, a mentally ill person with delusinons of grandeur, much more closely fits his actions and teachings as described in the gospels, overall. Lewis omits the most likely probability; that the four unknown people who wrote the four gospels simply misnunderstood what he actually taught, since they had no primary, firsthand sources of information, never met nor spoke to Jesus, and got their information about him third or fourth hand, decades after he lived and died. Jesus taught that prayers were always answered. Studies repeatedly prove that prayers are answered at exctly the rate of random chance. The best Jesus is the one we invent with our best intentions intact, since we know hardly anything about him, nor even whether he existed. I'll keep singing gospel music to improve my ability to sing with others, to particpate in a harmless and even beneficial social activity, and to express my admiration for and appreciation of the creator of the universe, what Einstein called "the infinitely superior spirit". But I don't want to wash away my mistakes with anyone else's blood, and cannot imagine why any decent, responsible person would. Johann wolfgang von Goethe, the undisputed prince of European literature, said it best, as he said many things best: "Pure was Jesus in his passion, in his heart but one God serving. Who of him a God would fashion, from his sacred will is swerving."

Vaccinating

MORE THAN EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND Americans have died from covid 19; what was once thought unthinkable has eventuated. It now begins to seem possible that one millinon Americans will die from the virus. Only quite recently would a catastrophe of this magnitude have seemed possible. Fifty million Americans elegible for vaccination remain unvaccinated. Verified statistical research confirms that the unvaccinated are predominantly Christian conservatives, with education attainment levels generally lower than vaccinated people. Ergo, to get vaccinated is the smart thing to do. The virus has become a political issue. Blue counties vaccinate in high numbers, red counties do not. When President Biden warned that unvaccinated people were facing a dark, dangerous winter of death, a chorus of indignation erupted from right and left wing alike, snowflakes melting in the warmth of truth. How dare he be so honest. A Harvard epidemiologist, pedantically, pointed out that people become vaccinated by receiiving a jab in the arm, not a finger wagging in the face. No wonder he teaches at Harvard. He offers no alternative to shaming and coercion. Would he suggest monetary incentives, or free beer? Paraphrased, Goethe said: "It is not enough to cite error. One must offer solutions". What would Biden's snowflakish critics suggest, that we return to the policies of the Trump administration, who initially denied the reality of covid 19, told thousands of MAGA mobsters at unmasked rallies that the virus was a hoax, and, only when pressed, prescribed a treatment of bleach and hydroxycholorquine? The problem with Biden's dire warning is that the people who most need to hear it are those who are the least willing to hear it and the least capable of comprehending it. Donald Trump is on tour with Bill O'Reilly, a pair of frauds, two peas in a pod as we sometimes say, two sexual predators and moral reprobates who feign virtue and practice vice. When Trump told an audience that he himself had received a booster shot, he got booed. For once in his debauched life Trump did something good, and his cult followers turned on him. The irony is delicious, if pathetic.

Lecturing

LIBRARIES ARE AMONG my favorite places, but librarians, whom I often find priggish, are not generally among my favorite people. Often, however, they are very helpful. My favorite aspect of libaries is the tradition of their being places of quiet. Patrons are always expected in libraries, or at least in the dozens I have visited, to maintain silence, except the one in the small town in the American south where I live. There, verbal cacophony often but not always adheres. I had to adjust. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, as folks say. I began by engaging in superficial banter of the usual sort, inquiring as to the health of this or that librarian, exchanging pleasantries. Often as not, my conversations with the librarians they started. Sometimes, I started them. But over time, the conversations became somewhat more intellectual. That's how I roll, as some say. I found myself lecturing, lecturing on my favorite topis, politics and religion, usually within an historical or sociological context, in which I tried to "stick to the facts" and avoid expressing any strongly held personal opinions. Still, I got into trouble. I got into trouble by talking about Thomas Paine, and my favorite of his panphlets, "The Age of Reason", in which he "bashes" the Bible and the Christian faith. I highly recommend it to all Americans. Paine paid dearly for writing it. I talked about the "founding fathers" of the United States, the people (wealthy white men) who designed and implemented our current system of constitutional republicanism. I made it clear, or tried to, that most of the seminal founders were in fact not Christians, but rather "deists", and that they to a person strongly favored a separation of church and state, and the maintanence of a secular democratic republic. I talked bout Harvard historian and philosopher Mathew Stewart, and his illuminating monograph "Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic". I recall describing William Miller and the "Millerites" of the middle nineteenth century, among other topics. All this got me banned from the library for six months, convicted of "systemic harassment". One man's historical, factual lecture is another man's, or woman's systemic harassment. I thereby learned to never talk too much in a library, to never converse too intellectually, and to never speak of books or facts which can be interpreted as an attck on or contempt for teh deeply held Christian beliefs of a librarian, for they have the power of eviction. Talking about "The Age of Reason", especially giving a cursory overview of its contents, or the book by Mathew Stewart, the title of which reveals its central theme, tends to inspire people to believe that you embrace their message, which in fact I do. Altogether, I much prefer quiet libraries.

Making Mistakes

AT LENGTH I felt compelled to punt gospel singing at the senior center, to put it on hold onna counta the rapid transmission of an anbient brand new virus, against which even the boosted contend considerably less effectively, preliminary studies indicate. Too much close promiximity and maskless heavy breathing among probably unvaccinated Christians. I have thus resolved to refrain from celebrating in song the washing away of my many sins with the blood of Christ until the pandamic abates at least a bit, which, lord knows, should have long since eventuated, and would have, had the fifty remaining eligible Americans who still are not, been vaccinated. I sing gospel because its the only game in town, I like to sing, and, well, what's wrong with open mindedness, a willingness to participate in activities not of one's personal ideology? Ironically, the unvaccintated tend to be people who participate in gospel singing; conservative evangelical Christians. They make a show of their faith in God by refusing to accept the blessings offered by God; intelligence, and modern science. I'll flee from omicron and, with luck and smart choices, live to fight pi another day. Meanwhile, it remains beyond my comprehension why any self respecting responsible person would even want, much less cherish and celebrate a good person being tortured to death the bear the burden of guilt of billions of mistake makers. A strangely sadistic deity indeed. We are taught, if we are raised right, to accept responsibility for and consequences of our own behavior, including our mistakes. Goethe said: "Since everyone has erred, since even the greatest among us have made mistakes, we have no basis upon which to regard our own mistakes as unforgivable." Accordingly, consequences needn't, shouldn't be severe, but commensurate. What matters is that we learn from them. Any religion which requires that one worship a particular deity, a deity who has been tortured to death, inexchange for liberation from eternal damnation and its substitution with eternal salvation, is not only guilty of of blackmail, but of encouraging personal irresponsibility. It is also primitive, barbaric, irrational, and cruel. Goethe said: "The Christian religion is an abortive political uprising which failed, and turned moral". It is also, as many scholars have pointed out, one of many fertility cults which originated in the near east millennia ago. This particular one, largely because of Saul become Paul, went viral, as we like to say. The same people who embrace primitive dogma in America tend to support politicians, such as Donald Trump, who are likewise barbaric, irresponsible, and cruel, who neither give unto the poor nor render unto Caesar. They tend to believe in hell, further demonstrating their cruelty, barbarity, and mental illness. Their hypocrisy is so profound that it is laughable. Or, as a percipient observer said: "The fools would be humorous were they not in such deadly earnest" I sing gospel because I can, but am careful to omit the crazy parts.

Contending, With Ignorance, In Vain

PRESIDENT BIDEN nominated for appointment to a financial regulatory position a lady who was born in Russia, emigrated with her parenst to the United States when she was young, and pursued an ambitious academic career, demonstrating great acumen in economics, and securing professorial positions at elite institutions. She is known to embrace an ideology according to which she favors a strict, strong regulatory regimen, with the federal government providing keen oversight of all large financial institutions. Because of this, her chances of winning congressional approval were never good, since the Republican members are almost uniformaly opposed to government regulation of the economy of any sort, and consider the slightest hint of government regulation or involvement of any sort in the economy an invasion of socialism. At her appearance before the congressional subcommittee, Louisiana Senator john Kennedy, a real idiot, said to her: "I don't know whether to refer to you as "professor", or "comrad", implying, of course, that since she was born in Russia, and since she embraces liberal economic ideology, her approval of the capitalistic system is suspect. She responded, in her still heavy accent, that she can do nothing to change where was born, and that she is most definitely not a communist. What she should have done is simply sit there, quietly. Her next comment should have been: "My understanding is that I am here to answer questions, presumably intelligent ones, and, frankly, Senator, you didn't ask one, and your ability to do so I consider questionable". She withdrew her nomination, realizing that it was hopeless from the outset, because, like the ancient Greek philosopher said, "Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain". The republican members of Congress are blocking nearly every nomination for appointment Biden makes, because, well, it is Biden making the nominations. Crucial ambassadorial positions remain unfilled; only yesterday did Biden nominate a man to become the U.S. ambassador to China. We recall that during the Trump administration vital diplomatic positions went unfilled for the entire term of the adminstration, the state department building was nearly empty, and the State Departmetnt became effectively a dead institution, because Trump considered diplomats unnecessary, and the Republican reprobates who support him seemed to agree. People nominated by Trump and approved by the Republican controlled congress were diametrically the opposite of the sort of people needed, they were invariably people opposed to the very existence of the agency over which they were appointed to preside. Utterly insane. Now, the more qualified the Biden nominee, the less likely the person is to gain Republican support and approval. The Republcain party has not only become a terrorist organization of criminal intent, it has as its primary agenda opposition to any and all effective govenment, foreign and domestic. The Republican party, in a civilized country, would be banned.

Reinventing Religion

ACCEDING TO THE NECESSITY for law, stipulating that when the creator of the universe decrees that thou shalt not gaze into a wooden box, everyone must gaze not into said box. Violators must experience negative consequences, to discourage future violations. That the punishment should always be commensurate with the crime is a basic principle of law. Someone takes a quick peek at the contents inside an ornate wooden box, having been told to never so do, and finds within a manuscript upon which is written the law. Aside from the question of why-ever would it be considered uacceptable for anyone and everyone to be prevented from seeing the written law, since one might think that everyone would be required to know the law to avoid violating it, the question is; what is the commensurate punishment? No pudding for one week? Early to bed for one week, with no late show? In the Old Testament the actual culprit isn't given any punishment, but fifty thousand and seventy other innocent people are; they are summarily destroyed. The creator of the universe, possessing infinite wisdom, doles out a punishment which is not only out of all proportion to the transgression, but exacts it against people who had nothing to do with it. If this is equal justice under law, if this is sanity, no explanaton is given as to how. Aside from whether the Biblical God is infinitely wise or incorrigibly insane, of whether the religion of whose scripture is the Old Testament, or the one whose scripture is the Old Testament with the New Testament added on thousands of years later, one might marvel that a religion invented by primitive, arguably barbaric people has survived centuries of advancement of human knowledge, and remains a powerful force in the world today. By adjusting to the evolution of society through adaptation, among other means. December twenty fifth is as good a time as ever to celebrate the birth of the Christian savior, and since it appeals to the culture of northern Europeans and brings them into the church by canonizing their extant mmid winter festival of the winter solstice, will do nicely, has done nicely, and continues to do nicely today. The late Roman Empire Emperor Constantine, himself a late life convert to the new cult, saved it from probable extinction in 325 A.D. when he summoned together the highest ranking priests from across his realm to a town in Turkey, and Joshua ben Joseph became the son of God by being elected to the position. The scriptures were codified by putting the Old and the New in one cover, and a precedent was set; it is expedient to adjust and to evolve. Whatever is unwilling to evolve grows rigid and stagnant, and dies of old age. And if, centuries later, the God whose behavior is detailed in the agreed upon scriptures seems entirely out of place in an evolving world; why, the scripture was always intended as metaphor.

Growing Up Right

MY PARENTS RASIED ME RIGHT. They made no attempt to indoctrinate me with religion, which I consider a form of child abuse, and, above all, they exposed me to baseball. I became a Yankee fan as a six year old in 1961, the year Maris and Mantle hit all the home runs, becasue both my parents, and all my neighbors said they hated the Yankees, which made me fell sorry for them, and I thought they needed help. Beginning in 1964 my parents began taking me to see the Yankees play, in Kansas City, and eventually other places. That's a lot of trouble to go to for people who hated the Yankees, just to make their little boy happy. The memories warm me, and always will. When Mickey Mantle was sitting on 499 career home runs, we rushed up to K.C. to see him play. He hit one off the top of the forty foot right field wall, a shot which should have been long gone, but bounced back onto the field for a double. My father was even angrier than I. When I was about eleven, we watched a game between Cleveland and Kansas City. Cleveland scored seven runs in the first inning, K.C. scored five in the botton half, and the Indians won the game, twelve to nine. The big left handed first baseman for the Athletics, Jim Gentile, struck out four times, and we noticed that after the game the batting cage was brought out, and he took extra batting practice while the coaches watched. Dad took my sister and me down on to the filed, and asked if we could watch. They said yes, amazingly. We stood right next to the batting cage, while the big slugger sweated and slugged baseballs under scrutiny. I recall placing my fingers around and through the screen, and my dad quickly correcting me, which may have saved me some broken fingers. I found it amazing that Jim was able to hit ball after ball out of the park, to both right and left field, having struck out four times in the game. Almost as if he had saved the best for last. Dad explained the difference between live pitching and batting practice. We left, and were walking through the parking lot behind teh left field grandstands to our car, when a baseball came flying out of the park, bounced on the cement, and began rolling away. Dad excitedly told me to shag it down, and I began running, in my leather dress shoes.(In those days most folks dresssed well in public, and at MLB games). I've never been fast, and my little eleven year olf legs tried their best, but the ball kept getting away, and a slender athletic looking black kid, probably about fifteen years old, outraced me, and grabbed the ball. I still remember my disappointment. As I began to walk away, with head lowered, the African-American gentleman approached me, handed me the ball, and said: "I have a whole drawer full of them at home". I was shocked, and I beamed. I'm pretty sure I remember my father effusively thanking the kid, who jogged away, ball-less. That incident guaranteed that I would never be a racist. One less white supremacist. If we are fortunate, we are raised right by our parents, and if we are even more fortunate, our society pitches in and helps.

Defending The Indefensible

THE PROUD BOYS and the Oath Keepers, white supremacist hate groups which embrace terrorism, racism, and the Christian religion, are strongly indicative of, a reflection of contemporary American conservatism and its essential organization, the Republican party. The very existence of two terrorist groups are proof of the moral depravity to which both the Republican party and the conservative movement have sunk. All racism in American society derives from the conservative movement. All identify as Republicans, conservatives, and Christians. Or, if not all, nearly all. The vast majority of them still support Donald Trump, despite his traitorous, criminal actions. These two terrorist groups, we now know, orchestrated and essentially implemented the Capitol insurrection of January sixth, with the overwhelming support of conservative Republicans, whose views have not changed. Proof of this, as if any more proof is necessary, is contained within the abundant evidence recently given to congress by former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who should know, and knows. Meadows, quite possibly because of threats against him emanating from Trump's thugs, suddenly refused to cooperate further with the congressional investigating committee, but it was too late; the cat is out of the bag, as we like to say. By defying a congresional subpoena, a clear violation of law, Meadows precipitated a vote in the full House of Representatives to criminally indict him. Nearly every House Republican voted against the measure, thus supporting criminal behavior, to their eternal shame. Liz Cheney, seemingly the only honoarable Republican left in congress, described her fellow republican's behavior as "defending the indefensible". She is quite correct. Defending the indefensible has become a way of life for Republicans, the party most of whose members still deny the reality of climate change, continue so support the traitorous criminal Trump, and refuse to accept the necessity of vaccinating against Covid 19, and are thus willing to spread death and disease, among other obvious denials of realities. Other than Liz Cheney, there is apparently not a single Republican in America with the honor and intergirty to acknowledge that Donald Trump tried to overthrow the American government, and that the insurrction at the Capitol was indeed such an attempt. They continue to downplay the violent insurrrection, some even going so far as to call it "harmless", or nothing other than a "guided tour" of the Capitol. The republican party, and the consevative movement, is beyond deplorable. It is a traitorous, criminal, terrorist movement.

Celebrating A First Anniversary

ONE YEAR AGO TODAY, according to National Public Radio, the electoral college results were fully formally verified. by that, I assume is meant that on Dec. 14, twenty twenty, all fifty nifty states completed their certification process, bringing the formal final totalt to 308 for Biden, and 206 for Trump, or whatever, if memory serves. An important day for us all, but not nearly as important as the infamous january 6, twenty twenty one, a day which will live in infamy, the day on which the House of Representatives met in the House chamber in the capitol building, and formally shouted out, state by state, their electoral college results, sealing the deal, even as lame duck lame brained president Trump tried to stop the process and overthrow the governent, unsuccessfully, despite much window smashing, door breaking, and violenc insurrection by a violent mob of typical conservative Republican Trump supporters. Tempest fugit, and all that. Hard to believe its been a whole year since the uproar. Even harder to believe is that nothing much has changed since. Trump still spouts blatant lies, his morally bankrupt cult followers still believe every dishonest word, and the American conservative movement remains intellectually and morally bankrupt, in the form of the Republican party. Albeit painstakingly slowly, the forces of justice are closing in. Mark Meadows changed his mind, presuabely when Trump's goons "persuaded" him too, but not until he had already given to the HOuse subcommittee a bundle of proof of what everyone already knows; that Donald Trump organized and instructed a violent mob to overthrow the government. Like many other people, I have lost many friends over the whole Trump thing. I don't know what others think, but what I think is that the friends I've lost weren't worth keeping. I always avoid talking politics with them, they always bring it up, and I always walk away, without coming back. If you call the January insurrection "harmless", or a "hoax', you're a traitor and a reprobate, and I'm done with you. Its now easier to understand how in the world the American Civil War could have happened, and how Adolph Hitler could have come to power. What we have now in the U.S. could easily be described as a civil war in slow motion. Trumpers versus good Americans. The Trumpers are the anti-vaxxers, the ones responsible for the ongoing viral slaughter of Americans, now raching eight hundred thousand and heading towards a million. Why would any decent person want to friends with people like that?

Getting Paid

MY FAVORITE COLLEGE FOOTBALL TEAM had several terrible seasons in a row, seasons in which they won only a couple of games, and lost nearly a dozen. I, and all the other fans, were shocked and dismayed, especially because over the decades this football team had maintained a generally good record, was usually highly ranked, won most of its games, and we had long become accustomed to succcess. Then, our very good coach got caught having an affair with a college student, was fired, and the new coach didn't measure up, and failed to continue the success. The losing seasons began. We went through several coaches in several years, all of whom were very highly regarded within their profession, but the fit was never right, and none of them could manage to get the program back on track. We learned the hard way that a truly good college football coach is very hard to find. Indeed, a successful football coach must not only be a good coach, he must be a good teacher, motivator, organizer, and, above all, a good recruiter. He must have the charisma, and the communications skills to entice the best high school football players to sign on to his program, competing against dozens of other colleges and universities and for top talent, many of which have very charismatic persuasive coaches. Finally, after years of struggle and failure, my team found a successful coach, one with all the necessary attributes. He was not a well known highly regarded coach, but had been "lost in the shuffle", overlooked, until our athletic director had the insight to pluck him out of another university, where he was an assistant coach, and make him the head man. He had never been a head coach before, and was up in age, but he turned out to be extraordinary in putting together a good football team, almost immediately. He was so happy to be given the opportunity that when he was hired he said that, no, it was not about the money, it was about the joy of having the job, and that he would have been happy to do it for free, even though his initial salary was more than a million dollars a year. Then, after two successful seasons, he hired an agent. The agent submitted a proposal to the ahletic director, a proposal of a guaranteed seven year contract, for a total of fifty milion dollars, a little over seven million per year. Quite a raise for a man who was willing to work for free. The proposal is currently on the table. The university has not yet responded. Most likely, he will either get what he is asking, or close to it. A successful college football team makes tens of millions of dollars a year for the universtiy in ticket sales and television revenue, and as seemingly exorbitant as a good coaches salary is, economically, its well worth it. How mcuh is a good first grade teacher worth, to society?

Dodging Tornadoes In December

I WENT TO BED at the end of a warm breezy day, temperature in the mid seventies, in mid America, mid December. As I lay there snuggling with my cats, I noticed what seemd like lightning, and went outside to check. Indeed, the sky was full of big time lightning, coming from all directions, huge bright flashes, with thunder and high winds. A huge storm was approaching. It arrived, but didn't last long. On the radio and television tornado warnings were issued for our area,my town wea mentioned as being right in the path, and nervously I prepared tohid in the bathroom, but, fortunateluy, never needed to. Another bullet, dodged. As the night proceeded, a massive outbreak of tornados swarmed across the lower American midwest, Arkansas, Mmissouri, and Kentucky in paritcular, doing heavy damage and killing as many as a hundred people, and maybe more. As the reports came in, nobody said anything about the strangeness of having a huge outbreak of tornadoes in the middle of December. Its almost as if we have become so accustomed to freakish weather, to climate change, that we already take it for granted, or, on the other end of the spectrum of insanity, where the right wingers lurk, climate change is so obvously a liberal and Chinese hoax that it isn't worth mentioning, December tornadoes or no. Its time to say something about climate change. Let's say this: toradoes in December are not supposed to happen, much less massive otubreaks of them the sort of which we are accustomed to having in the middle of the United States in April and May. April and May, yes, December? No. The fact that October has become a summer month, with temperatures reaching the mid eighties daily in mid America is evidence, convincing evidence, of climate change. So are the pretty flowers bursting forth from the soil in February. Ditto the prolonged droughts and heatwaves of summer, the lack of snow in the winter, and the seventy degree temperatures in December and throughout the winter. But, a massive outbreak of tornadoes two weeks before Christmas? Folks, this is becoming serious. All the scientists, who have been right all along for decades, now say that they are shocked and horrifed by how rapidly climate change is occurring, how rapidly the planet is globally warming, much more rapidly than they ever thought would be the case. It now seems evident that climate change is not something that our descendants will have to deal with, to experience the worst of, decades in the future. Climate change is something we the living are already dealing with, and, will evidently see the worst of...maybe as soon as next year. Bear in mind that a large percentage of registered Republicans still insist that dlimate change is a hoax, and that thes people vote. They need to be educated, outvoted, or both.

'Scoping Out America's DNA

I DON'T SEE my Trump friends often, and when I do, I have learned to never discuss politics. I was first warned against discussing politics or religion, with anyone, more than fifty years ago, by my sixth grade teacher. My initial response in sixth grade was that refraining from such discussions means that the two most interesting topics availabe are not available. I still feel that way, but have, late in life, finally acceded to the wise advice my sixth grade teacher gave me all those years ago. I learned the hard way, not the wasy way, the way she tried to teach me. Nonetheless, almost inevitably, Trump people insist on bringing up Trump. I am learning not to respond. My Trump friend said he is tired of Biden's lies. Every day, he claims, Jen Psaki stands in front of the American people, and tells one stinking lie after another. Utterly deplorable. This one I couldn't lay off of. I responded. "Yes, I know how much you Trump supporters simply cannot abide a liar". I braced for a snappy response, but none came. If I'm smart, that incident won't further embolden me. And, as fate would have it, as it inevitably eventuated, either Biden, his spokesperson Jen Psaki, or both of them just the other day made a comment with which I am not to sure I can agree. Nor am I sure whether they told the truth. I heard her make the remark, but it sounded as if she was quoting and repeating something Biden said. She was explaining why the United States has decided to "diplomatically boycott" the winter olympics next February in China. We'll still be able to root for our American athletes, she emphasized, but the U.S.A. will not be taking part in any of the ceremonies or other non-athletic events at the oplympics. Ths Chinese answered back by basically saying "good riddance, we'll all be better off without you". Psaki went on to explain why. The chinese, she said, oppress and commit human rights violations and atrocities against their minority populations, particularly their Islamic minority. The United States has no choice but to oppose and disapprove of this behavior, and so forth. Then, the clincher. Human rights, and the fight to support them, she said, is in our "American DNA". That got my attention. Human rights, in "our" DNA? The DNA of the United States of America? Really? Evidently, I have been dreaming for the past sixty years. In my universe, American women, American gays and lesbians, and African-Americans have been, for generations, fighting like crazy, year and after year, promoting, protesting, organizing, struggling and striving for basic human rights, basic human equality and acceptance, and not altogether successfully, although in all cases all minorites have in the U.S. demonstrably made progress. Progress, but still not enough progress. If human rights were indeed hard wired into our national cultural DNA, wouldn't it have been a bit less of a prolonged struggle? Wouldn't human equality have come somewhat more easily and quickly, without all the stress and strain, all the fuss and commotion, if America had human rights in our DNA? Then too, when you consider our American national history and legacy of slavery and genocide, it becomes even less easy to see human rights in our national DNA, and it becomes easier to see the exact opposite; violence, racism, intolerance, in particular. All word mincing aside; if devotion to fundamentsl rights is part of "America's DNA", well, then, slavery, racism, racial segregation and discrimination, and genocide, of native Americans, is no less a part, and, arguagly, just as much a part of our national cultural DNA,, and maybe even more a part. On that, let's agree, without disgreement. And yet I know exactly what Biden and Psaki are saying. Along with the horrible American history of suppresion of human rights, there exists, side by side, a cultural tendency to strive for human rights. The violence, the injustice, the lack of basic human rights in the USA cannot be diminished or denied; but neither can we ignore the persistent struggle to achieve human decency and equality in America, and it is that striving which gives us the right to claim human rights as being of fundamental importance to all Americans, even if we have to dig a bit deep, deep into our DNA, to see the moleules.

Rejoicing Hopefully

GREAT THINGS ARE happening in the world, despite all the doom and gloom. Among them are two in particular, the creation of two organizations, actually diffferent branches of the same organization, one ccalled "Team Trees", and teh other "Team Seas". Merely typing those words into google should be sufficient to get you to their respective websites, a visit which is well worthwhile. The purpose of Team trees is to plant trees all over the world, and the purpose of Team Seas is to clean up the world's oceans. Both admirable causes, we can all agree. In fact, both causes are absolutely vital to the continued existence of humanity on this planet Earth, so, yeah, worthwhile projects indeed. The plan is to plant thiery million tress by raising thirty million dollars, one dollar at at time from anybody and everybody, one tree per dollar. The Team Seas project consits of removing trash from the ocean, also one dollar per pound of garbage, and to raise millions of dollars from millions of people. One of their tactics is to string nets across the mouths of the several big rivers which spew most of the trash into the world's oceans, and to collect it, remove it from the water, and properly dispose of it. They claim on their website that so far they have removed well over thirty million pounds of trash from the oceans. Millions of trees are already planted and growing, thanks to Team Trees. What we need is about one trillion new trees worldwide, and to get all the garbage out of all the world's bodies of water, correct? Simply knowing that such efforts are being made is encouraging, enough to give one hope in a world which desperately needs it. The trick now is to sustain and grow these effotrs, to include all of us, to make them smashingly successful. and it could and can be done. If a single person reads this propagandistic essy and decides to contribute to the efffort to save the Earth, and then tellw two other people about Team Trees and Team Seas and gets both of them to contribute, the explosion of organized human planetary ecosystem saving is up and running, off to the races, as they say. We hear a great deal about deforestation, climate change, polluting the oceans these days, to go along with all the wars and violence and pandemic, to name just a few. It might be valuable to occasionally remind ourselves that all of these are of our own making, and that we can, we have the power to repair, correct, and eliminate them all. The human race, all of it, must organized, make a coordinated plan, and implement it, together. There is no other way, and the only is the easy way, the correct way. Reforesting the planet and cleaning up the oceans is a great way to begin.

Getting Onboard Reality

THAT A HUGE MAJORITY of devout evangelical Christian Americans voted for Trump twice is alarming and indicative. That the same people generally continue to support Trump even after his big election lie and insurrection atttempt is much more so, trillions of times more so. What kind of people are these people?! Do they have even a remote sense of honor, decency, and morality? Yo! Dude! Dude tried to overthrow the government! And you approve, because even though he might be a bit "mouthy" and loose with the truth, at least he is pro life and anti-immigration? I mean...really? News flash! People who are pro life and anti-immigrant are everywhere in America, a veritable dime a dozen, and many if not most of them are decent people to boot. so..like..why Trump? Please remember that in actuality nobody likes abortion, or "supports or encourages " it. Also please bear in mind that nobody, or hardly anybody, thinks that chaotic undocumented immigration and desperate refugee mass migrations are desirable. So why don't you devout MAGA-folk work with the rest of us, instead of screeching angry rhetoric against progressives and embracing nonsensical notions? Nobody, for instance, in his or her right mind is against safe, effective, affordabe, accessible human contraception and birth control, correct? That's a start. Actually, its the answer....If you're "pro life" and anti-contraception, you're flat out nuts. All we are sayin'....is give sane a chance. On birth control and climate change we can all come together and agree, left and right, and fix the problem. The first step is for progresives to acknowledge that, as I like to say, if abortion aint murder, its too damned close for comfort, and for conservatives, every last one of them, to acknowledge that climate change is real, human-made, and that drastic steps must be taken now, to reverse it. Every issue currently considered to be of urgently immediate importance has a point of compromise. A reasonable attitude, approach, solution. The fact that eighty two percent of American evangelicals voted for Trump twice and still support him clearly reveals that the evangelical community and its memebers desperately need to recondier all of their beliefs, including religious. American evangelical Christianity has, incredibly, joined a cult under the dictatorship of a mad and evil man, Mr. Trump, whose biography clrealy reveals his evil, his madness, and his profound unfitness for public office. Any large group of people who strongly support a person like Trump, oppose vaccines during a pandemic, refuses to acknowlege climate change and many other bsic realities, needs help, fast. Christian conservative America got off on the wrong track, a while back, and needs help regaining sanity.

Marriages Made Madly

EXACTLY WHY a huge majority of fundamentalist Christians are far right conservatives politically remains a mystery. Speculation abounds. The message of Jesus is diametrically opposed to the Republican party platform, despite the absence of any such document. The conservative evangelical Republican Trump movement (CERT for short), has now outdone itself in forming a new alliance, as it is now allied with, of all things, the anti-vaxx-conspiracy theory community, a substantial demographic. Maybe it was meant to be, a marriage made in mutual madness. After all, within this crazy coalition, one part is about as wacky as another. The conspiracy community includes such insane notions as the big election lie, vaccinations as mind control, and many which involve extraterrestrials. The more fantastic, the better. There is a certain number of anti-vaxx spokespeople who go on tour and draw big crowds,have large folowings, and are overwhelmingly of MAGA/CERT stock. All of the famous spokespeople, people like JFK Junior are well aware of this tendency of their messsage to attract conservatives, and make their presentations accordingly, mixing anti-vaxx lunacy with mainstream right wing dogma and lunacy; freedom from government tyranny, the whole Trumpist thing. The anti-vaxxer cult leaders are more than happy to harvest conservative souls; they're not picky. The ultimate impact of the integration of the conspiracy folks with the G.O.P. remains to be seen. The unification of Trumpism, conservatism, evangelicalism, and anti-vaccination-ism produces, arguably, a strange batch of motley crew bedfellows at best, a monstrous terroristic behemoth at worst. This could be an opportunity for the Democrats, who have a lot to campaign against. They can, for example, force teh Republicans to either formally embrace conspiracy theory, including Trump's big election lie and subsequent insurrection, or to formally renounce them. Sticky, either way, having heretofore strongly supported all the above. The right wing wants to insall a Christian theocracy in the U.S. in which the government has no control over the economy, poverty, or unemployment, but much control over human reproduction. That, as well as supporting Trump's lies and insurrection. Quite a platform to run on. As we say, good luck with that. I for one am willing to campaign against that any day of the week. we have seen how Turmp and his ideologically repuslive, deplorable cult followers repel and alienate our traditional American allies, especially Europe. We are repairing the damge, but must never allow Trump style nationalistic America first America alone policy to rear its ugly head again. They can keep sticking with their white heterosexual Christian males plus their right wing white women minority base, while the Democrats will be happy to mainatin their base of well educated smart Americans, plus ethnic minorities, plus the working poor. Sharks and jets. May the better gang prevail.

'Scoping Out the Plague

IT IS POSSIBLE, in theory, to document every moment of every human being's life, and to thereby obtain a truly complete, comprehensive history of humanity. Short of that, you can look at a map of the United States, and county by county, notice which candidate for president, for instance, folks voted for, and whether or not, say, folks have been vaccinated. Then, you merely coordinate the two maps, or cross reference, or whatever the analytical statistical geeks call it, and make obvious conclusions concerning the relationship of political ideology and vaccination rates, and by extension, Covid 19 death rates. What happens is that you arrive at the following conslusion, inevitably; the more likely someobdy is to be an evangelical conservative, a Republican, a Trump supporter, or all of the above, the less likely said citizen is to have been vaccinated against Covid 19, owing to attidudes inimical to vaccination science, and the less likely the person is to obtain said shot in the arm in the future. The following, is by extension, the inevitable result thereof: In "Red" counties, the death rate from Covid 19 is three, yes, three times greater than in "blue" counties. This is a national phenomenon, and inarguable, since the facts are confirmed, observable, indisputable. It has been pointed out among progressive "libtard" circles, without glee one might hope, that at the current rate, with current trends, within a fairly short time the Republican party, conservatism, and Trumpism will have gone extinct, by virtue of viral spread. Weird as it is to harbor this extrapolation factual but ghoulish thought, as they say, stranger things have happened. That's why it says here that all you right wing Trumpers are shooting yourselves in the foot, so to speak, with all this talk about hydroxychloroquine, bleach, and conspiracy theories having to do with insidious government plots to control the vaccinated population through microchip implants administered through needles. Hell no we don't want the evangelical Christian conservative Republican Trump movement to all die out; where else would we get our entertainment, if not through FOX News? At Major League baseball games? As they say, good luck with that. It is arguable, if not entirely tenable, to further conclude that people who support Donald Trump, mainly the evangelical politically conservative community, are stupid, or more at least stupid and self destructive than libtards, which is what right wingers tend to call well educated highly intelligent progressives. It is the right wing evangelicals who tend, after all, on the whole, to deny the reality of climate change by human behavior, human evolution by natural selection, that Social Security is a form of socialism, and a whole host of other blatant realities, as well as the urgent necessity of getting everyone vaccinated against Covid 19 to prevent the death toll in the United States of exceeding a cool million people, which it may well be poised to do, seeing as how it is now nearly eight hundred thousand. As they say, or at least as Forrest Gump said, stupid is as stupid does.

Proving Criminality

WE ARE UNITED BY SENTIMENT, SUNDERED BY OPINION, said the always percipient Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Our currently universal, united sentiment is our fondest hope that the parents of the "alleged" teenaged killer of four will be held accountable for their role in providing society with a killer, and will be incarcerated for a long time. It does not seem presumptuous to presume that all of us share this sentiment. Our sundered opinion is whether this will in fact happen, and, if so, how. The lady in charge of prosecuting the case reflects our outrage. Her outrage, she says, is as a prosecutor, a citizen, and a parent. As citizens, we are all outraged. She calls them "criminals", but does not say exactly what crime they are guilty of commiting, or how she intends to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The parents of the child turned killing machine are crimnals, and must be confronted with justice. Ominously, she doesn't say exactly how. Assuming they end up in court charged with involuntary homicide, exactly how will it be demonstrated that they are in fact guilty of this? Precisely what law or laws did they break? They purchased a powerful handgun, evidently quite legally. They gave it to their son, which is not illegal. They failed to placed the weapon in a secure, locked location, which is risky and stupid, but not illegal. They were seeingly oblivious of the fact that the kid took the gun without parental permmission, put it in his back pack, and went to school with it. No parental crime there, but only parental irresponsible idiocy. When the kid's school warned the parents of their son's alarming behavior prior to his killing spree, they did nothing about it. They evidently ignored the warnings, and did nothing about it. All reprehensible, stupid, immoral, irresponsible. But, exactly what law did they break? Or did they violate any laws? It is not illegal to be poor parents. Can it be proven that they were "accessories to a crime" when they could claim that they had no intention of aiding and abetting criminal activity? Whether they are represented by a public defender of by a world class criminal defense attorney, these questions are obvious, and must obviously be asked and answered. It is to be hoped that it can be established in open court that they were beyond a doubt negligent. The novelist Truman Capote held the belief that there is no such thing as crimes commited by individuals, but that all criminal activity is the collectve responsibility of society, and that society en toto is responsible for and guilty of all crimes commited by its members, and that placing blame upon individuals for crimes commited is merely a matter of expediency, not fact. This is the theme of his seminal nineteen sixties novel "In cold blood". It could probably be more easily proven that our entire society is negligent than any one person is or two people are, and that no one person is quantitatively any more or less guilty than any other, of any crime. For if the parents enabled the killer, society enabled the parents.

Playing Hard Ball

THE PLAYERS, quite correctly, point out that it is they who are the source of value, who provide the product, who are what the customers pay to watch perform, not the owners. To the players one might retort: forigve me for yawning and seeming bored, but, ...well...we already knew that, because, after all, we all live in a capitalistic society, and thus we understand the value of labor...or do we? Major League baseball players have such great value that the minimum mwage for an entry level laborer is nearly half a million dollars per year, which is somehwat more than folks working in factories or first grade clasrooms rake in. The average salary for an MLB player is north of a cool mil per, the average being several mil per. Every team has at least one player, and usually several, whose annual salary is more than twenty million dollars a year ( one god pitcher several days ago signed a contract addording to which he will be paid forty three million dollars in 2022, if there is a baseball season next year, which seems currently doubtful as best). The twenty and thirty million per year contracts extend over a period of five to ten years, usually, and are guaranteed, which means that no matter whether the player plays well or atrociously, the money is paid, no matter if the player is healthy and plyaing or injured the entire year and plays not a single ball or strike, the money is paid in full. Altogther, not bad for blue collar workers, we might agree. The players struck in 1972, 1981, and 1995, and now....now. The reasons were philosophically similar each time; the specific circumstances considerably different each time. If they don't already, today's players should worship at the first church of Marvin Miller, a savvy attorney who spearheaded the formation of the MLB players union in the mid seventies, leading to the arguably exorbitant salaries players get today. Of all the labor unions in all the countries in all the gin joints in the world, the Major League Players Association might be the only labor union that I, a staunch left wing union man, detest. It is the one union which arguably measures up to the otherwise nonsensical conservative lament that "unions have outlived their usefulness". Since the players are so finely tuned in to the value of labor in a capitalist system, and to the need for labor to organize to get what its got coming, perhaps the infielders, outfielders, pitchers, catchers, and even designated hitters might do well to remember the other side of the free market equation for universal prosperity: that labor is the source of profit, that labor MUST necessarily be exploited for their to be any profit for the owner/investor, and that if labor is paid the full value of what it produces, what you have is no profit for the business owner, no incentive for business investment and ownership, and the business is in essence owned by the workers, in which case what we have is, alas, not "capitalism", but rather, that scourge of economic prosperity for all, "socialism". As Marx well knew, when we workers unite and lose our chains, our chains must of necessity be replaced by something else, and that something else is freedon, and the responsibility, and the heacaches which come with it, of business ownership. Chains come in many shapes and sizes.

Being Saved

TEH FIRST TIME somebody asked me whether I had been "saved", I recall being somewhat confused. Saved from what? I was tempted to ask. As a third grader, I felt very secure, unthreatened, even when the president of the United States was murdered right before Thanksgiving vacation. Only later did I realize that the question about being saved referred to the acceptance of Jesus as my Lord and Savior as a requirement for avoidance of eternal damnation in hell. The thought occurrred to me that being threatened with eternal torment in hell unless I embraced a specific religion was a sort of blackmail. The thought still occurs to me. Equally tempting is the thought that since Jesus rose from the dead three days after being tortured to death, what he sacrificed for me (us) was not so much his life, as his weekend. What cruel, barbaric, sadistic God, I have always wondered, would be so cruel and barbaric as to stage a purely theatrical gruesome murder with only symbolic importance to prevent people from eternal suffering, when it would have only been necessary for an omnipotent God to simply forgive all sinners, and to refrain from creating hell. Archibald MacLeish summarized the situation quite nicely with his comment, roughly paraphrased here, that: "If God is God then God is not good, and if God is good God is not God". I have never, nor do I now, feel any need to be saved from anything. The universe is apaprently a place in which I am allowed to exist in my current form briefly, and to make the best I can with my short existence, until physical death sends me on to my next adventure, which I can at best currenly only describe as "non-existence", but which may in fact be considerably different from non existence. Belief in hell seems to me to be a form of mental illness. The question of whether a literal hell exists is of course independent of the Bible, or anyother book. The Bible is vague, using terms like "gehenna" and "sheol" which can be interpreted as "the place of death". It is often assertd, not without reason, that there is no reference in the Bible to any "hell" of the sort whih people commonly believe in today, but that various translations and interpretations of the scripture have given millions of people the opportunity to invent their own concept of a hellish after life, which they proceed to do. And, of course, our modern interpretations of what the Bible says about hell tend to become uniform depending upon the particular religious denomination which invents them. The thought which occurs to me most often is that since there is so much misery and suffering already in the world, could we not refrain from inventing more with our imaginations?

Adhering To Form

THE SUPREE COURT case invlving the state of Mississippi and its three year old law severely limiting abortion rights was and will remain a formality; not a "mere" formality, but a formality nonetheless, because even a cursory understanding of human nature tells us that all nine of the justices already know exactly how they will vote on the issue, and knew long before the case came before them. After all, they, like the rest of us, have had an entire lifetime to think about it, and to decide. They will vote on whether to uphold Roe v. Wade based upon their personal ideological beliefs, whatever anyone has to say to them in open court. Nonetheless, formality or not, the process must be completed, because, as a wise thinker once said, the legal system is an ornate platform elevating the human species above the rest of the animal kingdom, and must be preserved and pursued for the sake of civilization. The "liberal" justices evidently expresssed concern that overturning Roe v. Wade would lead people to believe that the high court has been "politicized". That bus has already left the barn, one might say. The supreme court has long been "politicized", arguably has always been politicized, and can never be anything other than politicized, since people are inherently political in a society whose nature and structure is determined by political processes. Observant people have long been aware of the political nature of the United States Supreme Court. I have been insisting that the court would not reverse Roe v. Wade, because the decision legalizing abortion was well decided, and would therefore be upheld. But any conservative justice willing to support the 1973 ruling, and such justices exist on the court, including the Chief Justice, has already decided to support it, because he or she has had a lifetime to weigh the arguments for and against it, and has long since decided. It is not necesary to listen to other people delivering the arguments to have already taken them into consideration and decided on them. It might be worthwhile to consider the uselessness of human law regarding abortion. No matter what the laws of humanity are, according to the laws of nature, and nature's God, as Jefferson might say, a fetus within a womb is entirely at the mercy of the womb's owner. The pregnant woman can terminate her pregnancy whenever she chooses, despite the best efforts of othr people to regulate her choice. Abortions will occur in large numbers regardless of the legal status of abortion, just as they did before Row v. Wade, or before states began criminalizing abortion in the middle of the nineteenth century. By the end of the American Civil War, abortion was outlawed in most states, and remained so until 1973. And, despite my predictions, it now begins to appear that a woman's reproductive choices will once again be truncated by government, albeit uselessly.

Clipping Coins

YEARS AGO in a graduate seminar I perceptively remarked that monetary inflation seems to be an inherent feture of all economic systems. The professor, an older lady, seemed to agree. "Yes, they always clipped coins", she said, which I took to mean that she agreed. When I was a kid, gas cost about twenty cents a gallon, and we had "gas wars", in which a filling station would lower the price by a penny per, teh one down the street would go one better, and the war was on. People were ecstatic, and lined up to fill up. In those days families went for evening "rides", and teenagers "dragged main". I always rode with a friend in a car filled with classmartes, and never pitched in for gas, because I wasn't asked to. My parents paid three and a half dollars apiece for reserved seats at major league baseball games, and the seats were quite good. "Box" seats, behind the dugout close to the field went for four and a half, out of reach for us. The tickets had to be expensive to pay those fifty thousand dollar salaries paid to the players. During the nineteen seventies, as I matured into early adulthood, inflation seemd a way of life, then it disappeared sometime in the nineteen eighties, never to be heard from again. I do not think Ronald Reagan had anything to do with it; monetary policy might have. Our sudden, current epidemic of inflation almost but not quite makes me feel young again. Its cause, the cause of everything nowadays, is of course Covid 19. It is also a gift wrapped silver platter for the Republicans, who can dishonestly claim that Joe Biden and the politicies of those socialistic Democrats are to blame, all tht spending on infrastructure and sinlge mothers and poor people and such; no conservative has ever been known to allow reality to infringe on ideological fervor. The fact that Biden's approval ratings are no beter than Trump's were even after Trump had been impeached twice, had told more than twenty thousand lies in public, and had organized a violent mob to attempt to overthrow the government because he lost an election and falsely claimed that it was stolen from him, attests to the old P.T. Barnum quote that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. The very notion that the current wave of inflation could assist the traitorous Republicans in regaining power in Congress, or even the White House, is too depressing for any reasonably sane person to even contemplate. Yet, it may happen.