Reassessing Trump

THE CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS, the ones seventy five percent of Republicans are ignoring for good cause, while seriously incriminating Donald Trump, have also strangely elevated my opinion of the former criminal president. But only slightly. I had assumed that on January 6th, at the now notorious lame duck sore loser campaign rally, Trump never had any intention of meeting them (the mob) at the Capitol and helping with the insurrection, as he promised. Just another Trump lie, another betrayel of his cult followers. That turns out not to be true. Not only did he fully intend to go to the Capitol with his violent mob, when the Secret Service person driving his limo refused to take him there, he actually tried to grab the stering wheel and direct the car up Pennsyvania Ave., away fromo the White House. Since the then president was presumably sitting in the back seat, the image is one of the president, in suit and tie, lunging over the car seat, and, in a prone, horizontal position, stretching out his arms, and, giving it a go. Not happening, said the driver and the other Secret Service officers in the car. But then we are confronted with the haunting specter of a president who threw dishes at the walls, staining them with ketchup. A president who lunges from the back seat of a limo, trying to take control of the car and strangle the driver at once. This proves that perhaps for the first time in his life of corruption, Donald J. Trump told someone that he was going to do something, and at least tried to do it, albeit unsuccessfully. On the debit side, President Trump assembled a angry mob for a campaign rally, a meaningless lame duck event since he was within two weeks of leaving office. Fully aware of his defeat for reelection, he further incited the well armed mob, and, fully aware of their being armed to the teeth, so to speak, sent them to the Capitol to do his dirty work. The chain of evidence is intact, criminal intent has been established. When I said to my sister that there is a distinct possibilty that Donald Trump might be elected president, again, she replied: "President? Of what? Of whcih country? This country?". The malingering loyalty of Trump's followers is inexplicable, other than to accept the apparent reality that thosewho still support him, even after his orchestrated violent attempt to steal the presidency and overthrow the United States government, is the behavior of a cult. Cult members either succeed with there iconic leader, or they go down flaming with him, or, at the worst, they instigate a new religion.

Aborting Roe v. Wade

IT IS NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to consider any issue in modern society more important than, or as important as, that of abortion. Climate change, nuclear weapons; perhaps only a few. I can see climate change, I can recall ducking beneath my desk at school to avoid being hit by a nuke from the Soviet Union. With abortion, I don't have a dog in this fight, as we say, if only because I have never married nor had any children nor gotten anyone pregnant. But the question of abortion is of such profound importance to humanity that, esentially, it involves all of us, directly, or indirectly. The Supreme Court has captured the media for the time being. It almost begins to seem as if too many people are spending too much time talking about something which talk does not improve. On the radio I hear a lady say that she had a dream, and in her dream her baby in her womb spoke to her, and told her: "I'll see you soon. Please wait for me, and we can begin our life together". My heart, as we say, broke, for I could not avoid thinking about the thought of the choice whether to allow that baby in the dream to live, or to make it die without ever having been born. Should the decision be made by the mother, by society, or by six people wearing black robes? There is no human, or combination or group of humans, qualified to make the decision. If there is a God, a supreme being to make the decision, he, she, or it is silent. Ancient manuscripts written by people don't count, since whatever they may say, its only one...more..opinion..in an unending sea of opinions. Roe versus Wade, and the reversal of Roe versus Wade, both seem irrational and paltry. Trying to decide whether a document two hundred years old approves of abortion or disapproves of it, when there is no mention of "abortion" in the document, if not the epitome of ludicrous folly, is close. Much though I despise courts in which people are appointed to serve as judges only because they are known to be conservative, I must confess that I agtree with the essence of the rendering; the issue of abortion should be settled by the people at large, acting through their duly elected legislative bodies, not by a group of nine, or six people. How else can we do it? Pro choice though I am, I consider abortion murder, or, if not, too close for comfort. Abortion should be legal, but vanishingly rare, with clearly delineated regulations. The answer of course is contraception, safe, effective, available. You begin to sense that there will never be a satisfactory answer.

Reversing Rights

REVERSING ROE V WADE would have been an especially huge bombshell had we not been privy to a sneak peak several months ago, giving us time to get prepared for the roolback in women's reproductive sovereignty. The most striking aspect of the sisutaion is that the constitution says nothing about abortin, and never did. There are many things the constitution says nothing about, among them: God, the Bible, privacy, and assault rifles. For decades United States courts have been trying to use the constitution to justify their judicial decisions no matter whether the document says anything relevant or not, which it usually does not. The presumed "right to privacy" seems on the verge of vanishing, utterly. In a progressive society abortion would be perfectlly legal and vanishinglyl rare. What we have is, quite obviously, far from an enlightened, progressive, civilized society. The Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe Vs Wade is predicated on the basis that since the constitution says nothing about abortion, every state has the option of passing whatever laws pertainingi to abortion they deem fit. That, it would seem, makes perfect sense. Waht does not make sense is maintaining like some sacred relic the past and present U.S. Constitution, instead of drafting and installing a new one more applicable to our modern society. We teh AMerican people, we the United States, need a new and much updated version of our constitution, the sooner the better, poste haste. For one thing, we need to install a version of the constitution in which abortion rights are guaranteed, and the second amendment needs to be rewritten in specific language to clarify exactly what is legal and what is not in terms of weapons. Both Thomas Jefferson, who taught James Madison how to write constitutions, and James Madison, who was the main author of our traditional and current constitution, strongly believed that all constitutions should be temporary, and replaced often with new and improved versions, better suited to changing society. Basically, that makes good sense.

The Cornered Rat

THE DESPERATION Of the Trump movement is tangible, palpable. The fanciful, imaginative fiction movie "Two Thousand Mules" by the propaganda artist D. D'Souza is now supposed to provide absolute proof of how the twenty twenty presidential election was stolen, pathetically. It is pathetic that they can fabricate nothing better than this obvious filmed hoax. The film is nothing but misinformation, false political propaganda the qualitiy of which would make Joesph Goebbels proud. Maybe the Congressional sommmittee investigating Trump's rebellion will hand off the strong evidence to the Justice Department, and maybe, just maybe, Atrorney General Garland will actually notice how strong the proof of Trump's guilt actually is, and indict the former president with serious federal crimes at about the time Trump is announcing his candidacy for the two thousand and twenty four Republican presidential nomination. If the feds do indeed indict Trump, which in the name of justice they certainly should, or so it seems, that could be the "straw that breaks the camels back", so to speak, could ignite a civil war in American streets. How dare those deep state Democrats and liberal media types indict the great one?! Will a massive MAGA mob assemble once again in Washington D.C., armed to the teeth with assault rifles and nonsense, and violently attack the federal government and install Donald Trump by force in the office of the presidency, or attempt to? They are, as they have eminently shown, ceratinly capable of it. My neighbor from Guatemala, a naturalized citizen who works extremely hard and has an American flag flying proudly in his front yard to counteract the impact on his life of his strong Latino accent in a small far right wing American town, despises Trump, and can't understand why any American would support him, after all that's happened. "What is so hard about just admitting that you made a mistake (in supporting Trump)?", asks Jose. A fair question. I remarked that neither he nor anyone else has ever seen arrogance and pride like American arrogance and pride, and that with each passing day, the very thought of avid Trump supporters, people who have been in the Trump cult for more than five years, through thick and thin, changing their thinking now, and dumping Trump no matter how obvious his criminality is, becomes less and less likely. They are in it for the long haul, no matter how dark, evil, and cultish their loyalty is; they have long since proven that. Their minds are rigid, their toughts hardened, like concrete. They will go down with Trump, or, when he finally does go down as he inevitably must, they will slink silently away, like serpents into warm, familiar holes.

Evil, Still Lurking

THE CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS are laying out Trump's insurrectionist plot to reverse his election defeat and overthrow the U.S. government in striking detail. The committee just completed explaining and documenting the incredible amount of pressure applied to Vice President Pence by Trump and others wanting Pence to somehow accomplish it all by himself, as if that were somehow possible. The Vice President's ceremonial role in formalizing the electoral college vote count in the Capitol in Congress got twisted into imaginary conspiracies and secret powers of the V.P. to reverse, rather than merely formally affirm the final count. Pence's refusal to succumb to Trump's pressure to reverse the election results is beginning to make Pence an unlikely hero in progressive circles, which arguably he more than deserves. That Trump planned it all out, including the attack on the Capitol and Pence's election stealing, Trump proved once again just the other day, when he told a live, adoring audience, effectively, that Mike Pence is a good guy, a real good guy, and I, Trump like him a lot but, he really failed to take action, he really let us donw on the big day. Everyone in the crowd knew exactly what Trump meant, and, alarmingly, they seemed to agree with him one hundred percent. It seems likely that Trump will run for president in 2024, and will announce his candidacy, with the usual bluster, sometime within the next few months. It will be interesting to see how far he pushes his insane idea that the 2020 election was stolen from him, that the Capitoal insurrrection was a noble attempt at justice, and that the Democrats will try to steal another election from him in 2024. Even more intersting will be observing how many people support his next campaign, and his big lie message.'Cause one thing fo sho: Trump aint droppin' his big lie.... Just yesterday a man said to me that he voted for Trump, and would vote for him again. The man who said this is a friend of mine, and the remark did not surprise me, but it still astounds me. I responded to him by saying that he, like most people who support Donald Trump, is much to good a person to support an obvious liar and criminal like the Don. Not only did President Tump invent and violently defend his big election lie by trying to overthrow the government, he is now basically saying yes I did it and I would do it again.And yet, evidently millions of Americans still support him, would vote for him today. I am beginning to see exactly how a democracy can crumble and die in a supposed democracy loving country such as the U.S. of A.

Keeping My Garbage An Extra Day

YESTERDAY'S BIG HOLIDAY didn't really affect me at all, from a practical standpoint, except that my trash did not get picked up. And that's fine. I'm good with it, as we say. It gets picked up twice a week here, so, I won't have to wait long, and can add to it, which I most assuredly shall. IN The United States of Acquisition, we add trash to trash. Actially I am heartened by teh mere fact that my local sewer and sanitation department, and thus presumably the entire tiny town government, actually shut down on this new national holiday of the threee day weekend kind. Particularly, considering the precise nature of the new holiday, now in its second year, by Biden decree. They served lunch at the senior center: I am just guessing that they will not serve lunch, and will in fact be closed on next year's Juneteenth, or if not next year's, the year after that, or the next year, or...Over the years, we Americans have invented a fair number of holidays, from Independence Day to Thanksgiving to Juneteenth, with no sign of stopping in sight. One can even speculate a dystopian American future, one in which every day of the calendar is a special holiday of some sort, and everythig is closed, all day, every day. Theh only unpleasant event that occurred in my holiday yesterday is also the most humorous event, so, I figure I came out on top. A lady I recongnized bu don't know well agreed with me that it was a prety day, and then said, roughtly: "I think today may be some kinda special holiday for black people. I sure wish I was black, so I could get special treatment." doubtless thinking herself immeasurably funny, she walked away, I didn't laugh, just kinda looked at her as she walked away. But lady; trust me - You do not, I repeat do not want to be a black person in this country, you do not want to be an African-American in the United States of America. NOtwithstanding my several degrees in history, until fairly recenty I had never veen heard of "Juneteenth". European history was my field, actually, so cut me some slack. Also, I was born and raised within the very bosom of lily white middle class American culture, which in itself explains a lot. The first time I ever heard of it was on Juneteenth itself several years ago, when very old very right wing racist man from the confederacy said: "Today is nigger day". Presumably, the Trump cult either totally ignored Juneteenth, or held their collective noses and paid it faint and damning praise.

Celebrating the Teenth

JUNE TEENTH is about as arbitrary as all other holidays, save the solstices and equinoxes. The name almost implies some early confusion about the precise date, although newspaper and other record seem indeed to indicate that the nineteenth was the day when the ship arrived in Galveston Harbor, with the news. In late June, 1776, in Philapelphia, John Amdams predicted that in the future, the first day of June weach year will be celebrated all across America, in every town and city, as our greatest national holiday. They took three days longer than he expected to ratify the declaration of independence, we all know how committees work, but still, not a bad guess for Mr. Adams. Christmas is a compromise out of respect for the important nordic holiday, the winter solstice. Jesus was actually probably born..when...early April? I had never actuallly heard of "Juneteenth" until a few years ago, despite my degrees in history. So much for formal education. several years ago I overheard an old man, a KKK type, exclaim: "today is nigger day". It was perfectly obvious to me at the time that he was trying to be insulting, so I reported him to the proper authorities, who admonished him sternly. Not that long thereafter he stopped coming to the community center, and, by now, might be no longer living, as they say. I tend to think that he became indignant that any public place in the American south would have the audacity to admit people who object to the "N Word". To him, it was normal. He was raised that way. Yet, we have to change, if we want to grow, improve, create a better world for our descendants.Junetenth as a national holidayis, it seems to me, a step in that direction, the right direction. If the old man is still alive, and I hope he is, he must be appalled at making N.....day a national holiday. In scattered locations, in churchpicnics, parades, and concerts, Juneteenth has been around awhile, all the way back to June 19th, 1865. Now, quite suddenly, perhaps partly inspired by George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, it appears to be taking flight, taking off like a rocket, and rapidly becoming a major American holiday. Teh next few years should prove inteereting in observing its continued growth and spread. In a country in which the final notification to the last remaining group of enslaved Americans that their emancipation had finally come is a major holiday, it would, seemingly, be somewhat difficult if not altogether impossible to maintain a public school system in which the complete, true, accurate history of slavery, segregation, discrimination, and racism in American history, society, and culture is not taught. As they say, "Let that sink in".

Freeing From Faith

THE FAITH & FREEDOM COALITION is having its annual convention in Nashville, and Donald Trump gave a two hour speech, during which he again hammered home his big election lie, praised the violent Capitol insurrenctionists of January 6, 2021 as "patriots", and said that if he becomes president again, he will conisder issuing pardons to all those convicted in the insurrection. Even more alarmingly, his two hour rambling, inarticulate, often inchoherent rant was extremely well recieved by the several thousand far right wing conservative evangelical Christians in attendance, all of whom appear to suppport Trump as fervantely as ever. The evangelical Christian conservative community, shockingly, has always been Trump's support base, and remains so, despite everything. The Faith & freedom Coalition, founded by far right wing evangelical zealot Ralph Reed about a decade and a half ago, is indicative of, typical of America's Christian conservative pro-Trump mpvement, and is thus quite frightening. The very week that Trump's horrendous criminality in his attempt to steal the presidency from Biden and to overthrow the American govenment is being clearly, indisputably spelled out by Congressional hearings on television, his Christian conservative support base is once again confirming its approval and support of Trump's treasonous, traitorous words and deeds. The strange marriage between far right political, economic, and social conservatism and the Christian religion in America is more zealous, less moral, and less sane than ever. This extremist Christian conservative movement is the greatest threat to the United States and American democracy, being the culture from within which white supremacism, Chritsian nationalism, zenophobia, sexism, and racism emerge, spread, and defile American culture. The millions of Trump supporters who want the United States to become a theocracy, with the Christian faith the official national religion, are attempting to destroy the country the founders gave us. Their continued support of Trump, always reprehensible and contradictory to Christian principles, has gone from being indefensible to being traitorous, a deadly threat and danger to the continuation of American culture, democracy, and our very national existence itself. This is the movement which wants to criminalize women's reproductive freedom, criminalizine abortion, arm Americans to the teeth, do nothing about climate change and gun violence except pray, make it harder to vote, silence gay and transgender people, and ignore racism in social studies and history classes. Every core value they embrace is either evil, or madness. Fortunately, a majority of Americans, albeit a tenuously thin majority, strongly oppose this Trumpian madness.

Revealing

THE TELEVISED CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS are about half finished, and everyday of testimony reveals ever more nefarious criminal activity by the former president, as it becomes daily more obvious that Trump belongs in a federal pen. The sheer amount of coercive pressure that Trump put on Vice President Pence to overturn the election is horrifying, and shows Pence to have been, and thus to forever remain, an American hero, by preserving rather than destroying American democracy. Meanwhile, the former president is demanding equal time in the media. The main conservative argument against the hearings is that they are a distraction, not important, and that we should be dealing with more important matters, such as inflation and immigration. Suddenly, sponttneously, miraculously the Republicans are terribly concerned about social issues. Now that we fully realize how incredibly close we came to losing our precious democracy, it becomes equally obvious how important these televised hearings are. Twenty million Americans or more are watching them, in horror. Trump's big lie turns out to be a vast, extremely well planned and highly organized attempt to do nothing less than overthrow the United States government. That's why its important to find out and explain exactly what happened, and to hold the proper people accountable. Equal justice under law, as it says on the front of the Supreme Court building. Most shocking of all, but ultimately predictable, is the fact that dozens and dozens of people close to Trump told the president that his election lie was a lie. Trump understodd perfectly well that he lost the election, but chose to persist with his big lie, and all the conspiratorial planning which resulted in the violent insurrection at the Capitol, in which the Trump movement tried to overthrow the American government. This movement still exists. There are millions of "Americans" who still insist that the election was stolen from Trump, and that the attempt to reverse the election results was necessary and patriotic. This is a dangerous sistuation. The rest of us, who want to save the United States from these pro Trump maniacs ( the term "maniac" in this context is not entirely inappropriate) must persuade enough of them to give up their misguided, nefarious crusade and return to being good citizens to save the country. These hearings are so incriminating of Trump and his associates and supporters that they will be forced to create even crazier narratives, such as.....The hearings are a conspiracy between Democrats, the liberal media, the Chinese, and extraterrestrials to bring down the former president...We must prepare ourselves for yet another "delusion-fest" from mainstream conservative evangelical pro Trump America.

Perceiving

THOSE OF US who have assiduously read "The National Enquirer" for several decades knew well in advance of the election that Donald was singularly unfit for the American presidency. We asssumed that at some point, he would self destroy his presidential campaign, that he would never win. The "access Hollywood" tape, many assumed, would end his candidacy. The Mueller investigation and report about Trump's election with Russian assiatance we thought would end his presidency, so corrupt and criminal was Trump's behavior in accepting, receiving, and welcoming the Russian assistance. Then when he tried to blackmail Ukraine and president Zelensky by withholding crucial military assistance in exhange for fabricated damaging dirt on Joe Biden, his removal from office seeed justified, much like his impeachement. However, because of his Congressional Republican accomplices, Trump slithered out of that mess also, unscathed in the sense that those who had always supported him continued to support him, even more devoutly, as if Trump's criminal behavior was either of no concern to his support base, or they actually admired it. Then came Trump's defeat for reelection, and his criminal attempt to overthrow the American government by reversing the election's outcome, in court, in state legislatures, and violently in the streets, using illegal methods the entire time. Again, rightfully impeached, but unjustly exonerated by Trump's Republican sycophants. Now the year long congengressional investigation of Trump's insurrrection is revealing and confirming, with solid, irrefutable facts, that Trump is guilty of multiple crimes. The songressional subcommittee hearings will be over soon, and their main effect might well be to so stoke Ttump's millions of cult members that he gains the Repbulcain nomination for president in 2024, and wins. Stranger things have happened.

Running On Empty

RADIO AND TV advertising for Republican candidates is becoming creepier and scarier, much like the mainstream Republican ideology, moving inexorably to the far right, back towards the remote past of intolerance and hatred. For instance, the radio annoucner, stentorian in tone, belts out: "She is by far the most conseravtive member of the state house! More conservative than anyone running against her! She will stand up against those big corporations who are trying to turn our conservative state into another San Francisco!!... That right there has to make you wonder. Her main qualification to be elected is that she will keep her state from being like San fransisco? Nothing about the economy......climate change......just......San Francisco is prohibited! Obvioiusly, its easy to figure out what this means, even though its mentally ill. After all, mental illenss is what our modern Republicans are all about, fantasies about stolen elections, and all the rest of their inanity. San Fransisco is where all those gay and transgender people live, those sinful weirdos who overtake their communities and force good white, Christian straight people to accept their debauchery. The truth, of course, is that San Fransisco, like most American cities, is progressive, and tolerant of all, regardless of sexual orientation, religion, and all that stuff. The best way to get elected, if you are a conservative and appealing to your base in a, backward, right wing true blue part of America, is to make it perfetly clear that you will fight against gays and transgenders, and work to marginalize them and discriminate against them, since hatred of nonconformity is a primary conservative value. To America's right wingers, gays and transgenders are some kind of threat, to be resisted and eliminated, through "conversion therapy", which is a form of cruelty, torture, and mental illness widely encourged by conservatives.

Celebrating Little

ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ISLE, members of congress are acting as though they have just participated in the greatest act of nobility and genius and have saved America, from itself. This, of course, is simply not true. What Congress has actually done is, under great public pressure, triumphantly announced its intention of passing soon a limp, lame, weak half hearted pseudo measure to protect American chidren from some American adults, aka mass shooters. The proposal, so bilaterally popular that the bare necessity ten Republican U.S. Santors have allegedly signed on to it, would require background checks for eighteen year olds for firearm purchases, raise the age for asault rifle purchase and ownershkp to twenty one, and encourage the several states through bribery to enact laws allowing guns to be taken away from suspiciously behaving people. This, as tehy say, simply aint gonna feed the bulldog. It certainly won't stop America's mass murder epidemic, but might slow it down a mite, if we are very, very lucky. Cross your fingers, knock on wood, because this flimsy legislation ain't even close to what America really needs, which, of course, is societal reform of the most funadmanetal kind, starting with strict regulations of firearms for those participating in well regulated militias, such as the U.S. Army, National Guard, and so forth. An AR-15 in every home for self defense and celebration of the second amendment? I don't think so. Not here, in the United States of Animosity, if anywhere, meaning, nowhere. But, like Biden and a few others have said, at least the new gun laws, assuming they actually ever live to see the president's pen, will be something, a start, better than nothing, if only barely. During teh ten years during which assault rifles were illegal in the U.S., (1994-2004), assault gun violence drastically declined. No matter where or when, if guns are taken out of the hands of most citizens, if the number of firearms througout socielty is reduced, gun violence is also reduced. This is simply common sense. That is why firearm regulation is a traditional American value from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, even as our modern conservative movement and Republican party move into ever more extremist ideology, practice, and legislation. This is true of the conservative position on firearms, and on nearly everything ese, including education and economics. The far right wing American movement must be defeated for the good of the country, at the ballot box, which is ultimatelly the only place that matters, or should matter, in a democracy.

Incriminating

AFTER ONLY TWO DAYS of the Congressional hearings, it is perfectly obvious because it has been proven, that Donald Trump, while president, committed many serious crimes against the United States and its people. The testimony and revelations, all extensively documented, reveal that most of the people, advisors and associates close to Trump told Trump, repeatedly, after the election, that the election had not been stolen from him, that he lost it, fair and square. Evidently Trump acknowledged this, understood it, but decided to issue and repeat the big lie, and to try to overturn Biden's victory by any means possible, legal, political, or violent, knowing full well that his big lie was (and still is)...a big lie. These same people, people like Ivanka Trump, Trump's sons, and Attorney General Bill Barr, et al, all emphatically tried to stop Trump from his big lie strategy, but, sadly, strangely, tragically, but understandibly, they failed, and Trump, with Gulliani egging him on, set in motion his diabolical plan to overthrow our American government. None of Trump's advisors came forward and told the public that Trump's lie was a lie, from the very beginning, a deliberate one. Instead they played along with it, often by simply remaining silent and avoiding the subject. They were not willing to jump the Trump ship, even to save American democracy, when the ship offered such great benefits and horrible retribution potential for disloyalty. The big lie was also the big money scam, the big steal. Shortly after his election defeat and his pretense of fraud and theft, Trump set up a legal defense fund for his forthcoming legal battles in many courts, and asked people to donate. Millions did, millions with modest incomes. They donated more than two hundred and fifty million dollars, but the Congressional commmitteee investigating the Capitol Insurrection discovered that this supposed fund never existed. Where did all that money go? Who has it now? Stay tuned... Many of Trump's fellow criminals are refusing to cooperate with the investigation, but the investigation continues, and the money will be found, as all missing money eventually is. Five'll get you ten that the location of this huge amount of money will not refflect favorably on Trump, nor any of his supporters, morally, legally, intellectually. With each passing day, as Trump's criminality becomes more shocking, his uspporters will have to decide whether to admit defeat, or stick to their guns,stick with Trump. Most of them, doubtless the latter, amazingly, delusionally. Some things never change.

Facing, and Changing the Facts

A DECENT KNOWLEDGE & UNDERSTANDING OF HISTORY clearly, glaringly shows us how extraordinarly greedy, fearful, aggressive, and violent we humans truly are. Current events only firm this. An estimated fifty to one hundred Ukraininas are dying per day in Putin's War; god only knows how many Russian kids are dying in combat. Then too there are the substantial civilian casualties caused by indiscriminate Russion bombing and missile strikes, and also very discriminate strikes, with Russian bombs and missiles being aimed directly at Ukrainian civilians. The future looks bleak, a world of constant turmoil, conflict and violence, wars over scarce resources while climate change makes daily weather crazier and more extreme for everyone every year, killing millions of people and devestating human economic systems and civilization. Is there any hope? Do we have any hope? We do, if we make it. Every day more and more solar energy is being used globally. Humanity is awakening to the urgent necessity of planting at least one trillion trees over the next few years. The air in cities like Los Angeles and New York is cleaner than it was fifty years ago, and the air in London is much cleaner than it was a hundred and seventy years ago. The first efforts are being made to clean up the world's oceans, and to stop polluting and killing them. Over the cdnturies and decades, huan being seem to be getting slowly but steadily less warlilke and violent, believe it or not. The crime rate in America, for instance, is far lower today than it was sixty years ago when I was five years old and allowed by my parents to run all over the neighborhood at nearly all times of the day, unsupervised, with neither cell phone nor computer chip attached to my body. There are strong indications that we the human "race" are willing and able to create and utilize the technology necessary to eradicate pandemics and disease, andthat humanity has already conceived of and in many instances begun to implement solutions to all existential human problems. It does not seem unreasonable to suggest that reversing climate change and solving the environmental crisis would be better facilitated if everyone on Earth aknowledged the problem, and determined to contribute to the solution. Denying climate change slows us down in solving it. On the issue of climate change, there isn't much room for compromise or the "middle ground". Either climate change is real, and an emergency, or it is not real, and not an emergency. Crime, migration, economic disasters and turbulance, problems such as these can be remedied with societal will power and intelligence, leading to safe, effective, reasonable solutions. I most instances, alleged facts are either true or not; truth, whenever possible, shan and must be confronted, disarmed, and stopped. All good hearted moral people agree with this, and will cooperate. Those who continue to spread nonsense will lose favor societally. Its all up to us.

Diverting Attention From the Awful Truth

REPUBLICANS ARE asking why congressional hearings are being held concerning the Capitol insurrection, instead of holding hearings about inflation, the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden's falsely alleged business relationship with Ukraine, the immigration problem, or whatever. America's conservative Republican Trump cult desperately wants to hold hearings about anything and everything other than Trump's insurrection to avoid showing the American people what actually happened before, during, and after the capitol insurrection, including proving exactly who was responsible for it. But, alas the insurrecion is what is being investigated by congress, is what the televised hearings are in fact about, the result of the bipartisan committee's year of investigation, which featured thousands of interviews with those involved, people close to Trump. Most American conservatives, Republicans, and Trump supporters still support Trump, want to cover up his violent attempt to overthrow the Biden governemnt, and still believe that violent insurrection might be the best way to accomplish it. The insurrection is, in effect, still going on. The truth is coming out, and nothing can stop it. The fact is that all of the above should be investigated, already are being investigated and discussed, and that there is more than enough time and manpower to investigate all relevant issues, including Trump's Capitol insurrection. All these diversionary investagative hearings the Republicans want to hide behind have already been researched unendingly. Immigration? We need to monitor the entire U.S. border, and ensure that all immigration is organized and documented. The fall of Afghanistan was the inevitable result of amother lost war of American imperialism, another Viet Nam. The Bidens take advantage of their family name to gain access to good business opportunities, shockingly. Know anyone who doesn't? Inflation? A global trend, caused by Too much demand, too little supply, due to supply train disruption due to Covid, and Putin's War. And there you have it, the bottom line of important issues. But the Capitol insurrection investigation and hearings must continue and must conclude with the truth, wherever the facts take us, whatever the truth is... Isn't it rather strange that the people who scream most loudly that the election was stolen are the same people who want to prevent Congress from finding whether it actually was stolen, if if so, by whom, and if not, who attempted to steal it and failed?

Accepting Reality

THE FACTS are clear, and indisputable. Donald Trump conceived, planned, organized, orchestrated, incited, and led the Capitol insurrection, his failed coup attempt to overthrow the United States government. To deny this is willful dishonesty, delusional. Justice requires that he be indicted, prosecuted and, quite likely, convicted. Then, on to prison or exeuction for the traitorous former president, most likely, assuming justice is done properly. Trump and his supporters are trapped in their own disproven lie, and the trap is closing in, tightening. They'll soon have no recourse but to surrender, to "give up the ghost", so to speak, like Robert E. Lee. One by one, they will simply, slowly stop talking about it, and pretend that the insurrection was harmless, a spontaneous but brief riot, a simple protest, merely a bit of spontaneous unfortunate but repairable vandalism, or a guided tour of the Capitol, or that nothing at all happened. Their delusions will endure, but not their criminal activity of trying to steal the election. The Trump movement (gang) must be attacked with truth until vanishing becomes its only option, and then it must be allowed to vanish, with amnesty for all except for Trump and his assistants, associates, inner circle, enablers. In truth, however, every Trump supporter, from bottom to top, is an enabler, and remains a co-conspirator and accomplice to crime, since roughly two thirds of Republicans and one third of all Americans still embrace the big Trump election lie, and their attempt to steal Biden's presidency and return it to Trump is, horrifingly, still ongoing. Much more alarming than even Trump himself are his millions of still fervant, unrepentent post insurrrection supporters, presumably still ready to engage in violence against America or to support violent insurrection again.. The January 6, 2021 insurrection was perhaps but a dress rehearsal, for something much larger. Now that Trump's blatant criminality is being proven, laid out step by stop, fact by verified fact, in front of all America, will the Trump cult be badly enough battered by reality which confirms their monstrous behavior, will it be damaged enough to finally die? This same proven reality of the elaborately planned and executed plot to overthrow the U.S. government and Biden's legitimate election is clearly detailed in a new book by research scoloars Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague: "The Steal: The Attempt To Overturn The 2000 Election and the People Sho Stopped It." Each confirmed fact, (and there is an overwhelimnig amount of proof of Trump's treasonous guilt), pushes the the violent Trump mob, still numbering in the millions, further and deeper into the trap of truth and justice. The huge remaining question is: How will they deal with their defeat and proven guilt?

Reassessing Priorities Down Under

AUSTRALIA exports and greatly profits from natural gas and coal sales, more than any other nation, mainly to China. Predictaby, therefore, Waltzing Matilda has of late tended to elect conservative, climate change denying, pro money pro atmospheric carbon content governments, of the sort with which the American MAGA crowd have been so longingly familiar of late. A rare departure from Australia's conservative suicidal nonsense was their decision to buy back firearms and confiscate the one's not bought back, and to strictly regualte the remaining arms, after which, of course, gun deaths precipitously declined, predictably. Then came the violent storms, the lingering droughts, and the massive wildfires which burned nearly a quarter of the island to the ground, killing as many as a billion animals, including a few human. Scorching landscapes, sacraments of climate change. Perceptive progressives unerstood that Australia was lowering itslef into the ocean, in effect, along with all the other nightmares. That'll get your attention quicker than a cold can of Fosters, matie. They elected a progressive government, which reversed course. Down under is so designed by God and nature to be the perfect venue for both wind and solar energy, both of which began to be heavily encourged, subsidized, and invested in, capitalistically. Soon, lord willing and the creek don't rise as we say in America, Australia will be able to generate enough sustainable enrgy to fuel not only itself, but China in particular, and the world as well. The world needs only to take a paper thin sheet of circular highly reflective aluminum, place in in oribt so as to follow the sun, and energy supplies become infinite, and cheap to the point of being free. Te only real resistance to this salvation of the planet comes from, as you have doubtless by now guessed, malignant conservatism, which curretnly sweeps the world with its "populist" anti-expert anti-science demagogic idiocy, as we Americans well know. The very moment these benighted minions of Trumpism become ware that windmills do not cause cancer, that science works, and that we cannot "bring back coal" because the free market has long since priced it out of the market, we can get on with our ecosystem saving work. Don't hold your breath, but vote progressive, and, perhaps, pray.

The Crucifix, Inspiring Revulsion

THE CRUCIFIX PICTURED in the Facebook post was a stunning piece of art. Made of gold or silver gold, the materials alone must have cost a fortune. Both wooden beams turned into gold had a gently curving shape, alluringly. The slender, tortured body there-upon was shaped painfully realistically. It seemed too large and heavy to be worn on a chain about the neck, but was evidently a display piece. It was presented on Facebook to inspire faith, or display artistic craftmanship, or both, but could also be otherwise interpreted: as grotesque. Since my childhood, representations of the crucifixion have repelled, not inspired nor motivated any religious faith in me. I learned that the Romans stole this method of slow tortorous death from the Carthaginians, with whom they fought three wars, the Punic Wars, in the first and second centuries B.C., made famous by Hannibal's elephants crossing the Pyrenees in the snow. Such good imitators and learners were the ancient Romans that they began to so torture thousands of conquered captured enemies at a time, lining the Appian Way highway into Rome with thousands of the vanquished nailed to wooden crosses. A vulture's holiday. For this reason, and because of Pontius Pilate, the Romans generally come out on top in the never ending theologocal opinion poll: who killed Christ, the Jews, or the Romans? The Romans had the final authority, and thus, the ultimate responsibility. I am still trying to discern what part Christ played in anyone's salvation. If he died for my sins, the price has been payed twice, once already by my experiencing the consequences of my actions. If salvation through Christ keeps humans out of hell, which is a hideous manifestation of the human imagination, then God could do it with a wave of his or her holy hand, sparing the need for a gruesome sacrificial theatrical spectacle. The problem of human suffering is given by Bart Ehrman, the world's leading authority on early Christian history and Chairman of the UNC Chapel Hill Dept. of Religious Studies as the reason why he began his doctoral studies at Princetion as an evangelical Chrstian, then become agnostic. Why does an omnipotent God allow human suffering? The ideal of "free choice", a dubious concept at best in a universe controlled by natural law, is inadequate to Ehrman, and to anyone aware that natural law does not stop at the human cranium. In the ancient world, all over the world, people decided that the world was operated by all owerful anthropomorphic beings living atop mountains in the sky. In the western hemisphere virgins and children were hacked or burned to death atop funeral pyres of religious devotion. Then came the Jews, the Romans, the sacrificial cross, and "civilization's" spiteful defiant veneration of the crucifix. Goethe said: "The Christian religion began as a political uprising against Roman power, and when that failed, it turned moralistic." The moral uprising, promising salvation in heaven if not here, was a disappointment to those seeking a warrior messiah for deliverance from Roman cruelty. Thus, they invented their own cultish form of cruelty.

Lunching Alone, Mentally

I OFTEN EAT LUNCH with folks of the conservative sort. They bring the whole package, Trump, Christ, guns, and the rest. They eschew science, of course, in their myopic world in which human evolution by natural selection and climate change are but rumors, and belief in them paves one's road to hell. Around my kitchen table sit these neighbors, espousing nonsense, while I listen, and smile pleasantly. As Mark Twain said of foolishness: they would drag you down to their level, and beat you with experience. If the Bible don't say nuthin' 'bout evolution, and it sure as hell don't, they aint no evolution." Smugly, their case is closed, their minds more closed. How comforting it must be to dwell in a fictional world in which all worthwhile knowledge and wisdom is contained within the covers of a collection of bloody, barbaric ancient manuscripts. A "harsh", mass murdering deity brings certainty, hence contentment. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me. How many other Gods are there, God? My silence they misconstrue as agreement, rather than contempuous tolerance. Let them. "Coninued tolerance ought to lead to ultimate acceptance. Continued tolerance is an insult" (Goethe). My silent tolerance is my tacit insult, unspoken. My sweet sister just loves these nice, neighborly folks, the lunches, my lovely home. Their racism and religious nonsense, Trumpism, misogyny, (woman must be subordinate to man), and all the rest she conveniently, expediently ignores, for the sake of harmony, chit chatty fun, smiles. A lunch friend recounts that years ago he and his wife and kids walked out of a Pentecostal church service when the new pastor turned out, horror of horrors, to be a woman! I refrained to ask whether he and his kids handled any poisonous snakes on their way out the door, as proof of their faith in their vengeful Biblical God. Intergenerational Biblical misogyny. Teach your children well. (Neil Young). Hatred and idiocy are easily concealed behind smiles and pleasantries. I can do without the smmiles and charm, but cannot, will not overloook the monstrosities. Anyone who actually believes in "hell", and dismissively consigns billions of good people to eternal damnation in it merely for having diverse religious beliefs is..what.....hateful? Mentally ill? I tell my sister that among the most charming, personable people in history is Adolf Hitler. She seems uninterested. She might have had a pleasant chat with Hitler, the vegetarian tea totler who lived on both barbituates and amphetamines. She might rejoin that Hitler's evil was actively destructive, and that my lunch guests' beiefs harm no one. I might beg to differ. Mind foreruns all conditions, said Buddha, a small statue of which sis has in her large, well manicured back yard. Beliefs precipitate action. Even as we sip or communal coffee, there is, somewhere, a gay or transgender human being suffering the Shakespearian slings and arrows of outrageous, vengeful religious beliefs.

Blaming the Person, Not the Useful Gun

MY TEACHING CAREER was long, varied, and tumultuous. One time a high school principal called me into his office, A-Gain - and demmanded to know why I had the temerity to teach my history classes that Thomas Jeffferson was not a Chrsitian, and was essentially an atheist, his being a "deist". I thought the question needless, the answer obvious. A bit tired of being constantly called in to expalin such matters, matters such a why in the world I allowed an eighteen year old student to hop in her car, drive down the street, and grab a dozen donuts, I, in a bit of a pique, answered with a question: "Why don't you take a wild guess?" He didn't like that. I knew my time there was limited. It was. My bucket list was to spend significant time teaching every grade level. Why not? I'm not married. I met my goal; every grade, Head Start thru college. My cup, as they say, runneth over. It was the first grade girl with the big shoulder chip and bigger stick who most urgently gained my attention. It was nearly as big as she. It could only be used as a walking stick or a weapon, and she had no trouble walking. She did not, however, walk softly. Whether she intended to use it to do harm I could not surmise; you never can. Menacingly she wielded it. A deterrant? Self protection? A petty show of force and power? I decided that whereas she indeed had an unalienable, inalienable right to her notebooks, books, and pencils, the pencil capable of doubling potential weapons, the stick could serve no utilitarian purpose oher than to strike. I took the damned thing away from her, a preemptive act; damn her proprietary rights. Community safety comes first. This, despite the fact that she had nto yet done any harm with it, and that there was no blatant, covert indication that she intended to, despite her surly appearance and attitude. For the rest of the schook year, she swatted nobody with a stick, because, perhaps, she didn't have a stick. Even if she had hurt somebody with it, I would not have blamed the stick. Sticks don't hit kids, kids hit kids with sticks. Yes,she could stab someone with a pencil. With that, we'll have to take our chances. But pencils have a good, utilitarian purpose, unlike a big stick at school. I thought about it carefully, and decided against giving every student a stick. That option never entered my mind, although my conservative colleagues suggested it. The stick was a privilege,a privilege she lost under the suspicions of legitimate authority. sometimses, infringing rights into privileges is merely a matter of sense, and societal survival.

Mass Murdering While Imperfectly Sane

THIS TIME the guy wasn't crazy, at least no crazier than most of us are or would be were we confronted with the circumstances of his life. Back surgery, always risky tricky, left him in post op agony, as do back problems and correctives for many. Perhaps the surgeon was a racist, and did sloppy work. It happens, with surprising and tragic frequency. Perhaps the doctor was reluctant to prescribe sufficient pain meds; that happens too, for reasons we all know well. Systemic racism of the medicinal sort is under study in Critical Race Theory, (which is actually simply sociology-psychology- history), which conservatives, always challenged empathically, prefer to pretend does not exist. Dude went to WAl Mart, or Dollar General, or where in the hell ever, ("Guns Galore" possibly?), snagged an over-counter-assault rifle, some ammo, snacks and toilet paper, and an hour later, four dead in Oklahoma, as Neil Young might croon. Quicker, easier access to assault rifles than to cigarettes, or Sudafed. But whence came the idea of a retaliatory shooting spree? From somebody, correct? There are plenty of role models; hundreds of fellow mass murderers, fifty semi-sentient Senators who refuse to "punish good people" by taking their AR15s away. Imagine, disallowing the American people to own assault weapons..as punishment? One can think of far more severe forms of punishment. Homie hurt so bad in the back that he could no longer stand it, ran out of pain pills and patience, and, in his tortured mind, body, and soul, ran out of options. Temmporary insanity by pain and anger. We've all been there, but without assault weapons to use as facilitators. Who among us hasn't upon occasion wanted to throw a recalcitrant computer out the window, or take a hammer and smash the place up....A good friend of mine used to playfully threaten to go on a "four state shooting spree". He never did it, because he knew better, wasn't quite driven to distraction, and, had not the means. Hell, I'm a highly intelligent well educated passifist and can remember fantisizing aobut guns and retribution. I've seen folks pound bedroom walls because Auburn beat Alabama. Truth be told, who hasn't? Buddha sad: "Mind foreruns all conditions". Hell yes. Damned straight.

Abusing the Faith

IN THE EIGHTEEN FORTIES Baptistdom split assunder, over slavery. What became the Southern Baptist Convention favored the "peculiar institution" as it was politically correctly described back in the day, favored it as does the Bible, hence the Christian religion. True Christians either condone slavery, as does the Bible, or, perhaps, they burn in hell? Or so it should be, for the sake of consistency and scriptural compliance. Now the SBC, keeping with tradition, is practicing and tacitly condoning another scriptural practice; the abuse of women and children. The practice is rape and pedophilia, rape being scriptural. Since we modern seular humanists beg to differ with scripture, the salacious Baptistry has been kept hidden from the world by SBC leadership, expediently. The victims are as young as three. To further facilitate their fun, the victims, whose complaints are deemed a distraction from sacred evangelism, from the sacred duty of shaming and bullying new recruits into the one true faith, have been and are being ignored, ridiculed, threatened, and brainwashed into believing they are the ones who are doing the devil's work, a dubious assertion to say the least. Join our gang or be cast into our imaginary hell. Conform or be outcast. How appealing. The Houston Chronicle exposed this religious peculiar institution in "Abusing the Faith", an incisive documentary. Thus busted, the church, with extreme reluctance, now admits the truth of it, since it has no other option at this point, the case having been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, so to speak. The SBC now dismissively blames the usual "a few bad apples", the stereotypical excuse. The church has maintained a secret list of perpetrators and victims for decades, a mere few hundred bad apple clergymen and a mere few thousand victims, and counting. Perhaps the forbidden index is kept partly to facilitate the savoring of their salacious achievement, partly to hide it. Known pedaphilic preachers are simply, expendiently transferred from one parish unto another, for their protection. This allows the fun and games to continue unabated. Victims are told that to err is human, to forgive, divine. Christ forgave, so must we all. Protestant and Catholic traditions go back a long way. In the eighteenth century Voltaire, practical and prescient, aware of Holy Roman Catholicism's own taste for debauchery, said of the Holy Roman church: "Crush the infamous thing"! This unsolicited advice made King Louis, a true Catholic, a tad nervous, but he protected the anti-establishment Voltaire, who was, after all, funny, entertaining, and lucrative for his patron, the king himself. Funny how wisdom from the past is aptly applicable to the contemporary world. Crush the infamous thing indeed.

Destroying Capitalism

FOR A BRIEF PERIOD OF TIME, capitalism worked well in America. That period was from roughly 1945 to the late nineteen seventies, the most prosperous economic era in American history, when a single familly breadwinner could comfortably support a family of four on minimum wage, incredible as that seems now. Corporations were a partnership between workers, shareholders, and stakeholders: Emoloyees could usually count on an entire career with one firm, and a comfortable pension and shiny gold watch upon retirement. All this resulted from decades of unionization and attendant violence on the part of ownership. Thugs were used to beat up organizers, but organizers ultimately prevailed. The prosperity continued until about 1973, when the Arab oil embargo exposed American dependence and blew up energy prices, a big fly in the financial ointment, so to speak. Seldom before and never since has such prosperity returned, all economic measures considered. Then came Jimmy Carter, and the beginnings of deregulation. Reagan put it on steroids, metaphorically. Much too much deregulation. Capitalism works better when constrained and shaped by big government rather than when unfettered from it. Capitalism does not automatically work on its own without help. Neo-liberal supply-side trickle down Reaganomics works poorly and distributes prosperity in highly concentrated doses. Demand side trickle up economics works, verifiably. Wealth is produced at the economic bottom, the foundation, the workers. As Buddha might have said: "This is a law eternal". John Maynard Keynes has spoken. Enter "Neutron Jack" Welch, G.E. CEO from 1981 t0 2001, and his twenty year crusade to change corporate behavior. He role modeled the destruction of honorable, effective, widely prosperous corporate business models, breaking capitalism, as detailed cogently in a recent book by NY Times writer David Gelles: "The man Who Broke Capitalism". Thinking entry workers disposable like plastic razors, Welch slashed the General Electric workforce by a hundred thousand, booting the bottom twenty percent, measuring production subjectively. No more pension nor gold watches. Instead the far less generous 401K, which Welch did not invent but readily embraced. Welch introduced "share price maximazation", according to which stock price became the overarching concern, eclipsing worker compensation, and supplanting the ideal that share price should be the natural product of overall corporate performance. A company buying back its own shares to inflate their value artificially, cutting worker wages, etc.. Other companies emulated this. The stock market soared in the eighties, with this dubious business model. A paper tiger, sitting atop worker's backs. Welch lived like a sultan, with personal jets, posh meals and vacations, all at worker expense, even after retirement. Others imitated. He became the first ever CEO billionaire. Many others followed. Thus began the great American money mmigration from bottom to top, which endures today, only more so. Twenty percent of the American population now owns eighty percent of the nation's wealth. It getting worse. We can and must do better, to save capitalism from itself. The more widely wealth is distributed, the greater the societal demand for goods and services, and the more toasters G.E. can sell. In "The Man Who Broke Capitalism", author Gelles offers an arguably effective prescription. The prescription is progressive, and will be called "socialsim", or even "communism" by the benighted right wing. Stay tuned.

Threatening

WITHIN HOURS of Barack Obama's announcement of his candidacy for president in 2007 he received thousands of death threats. Out of their miserable swamp the good ole boys emerged, armed to their remaining teeth with the usual vile far right bile. The Secret Service was horrified, and said so to Obama, who nonetheless persisted in his campaign for president. In every hotel room the half black man inhabited, curtains were drawn, windows and doors well guarded. Miraculously, Obama survived to this day. The threats have never stopped. They come almost exclusively from the white conservative Christian community. We know this because those who make the threats tell us in their threatening messages. They threaten Obama in the name of and defense of God and country, as they proudly proclaim their values of traditional, patriarcal, white, Christian, heterosexual America. Erstwhile they hide in cowardice behind pseudonyms, Bibles, flags, and guns. Racism, like violence, is a core American value, a traditional value, despite protestations to the contrary, despite our most heartfelt desires and attempts to the contrary. These days, as then, the Secret Service handles the threats. Enter something called "critical race theory", ambiguous at best, misleading at most. The term "critical race theory" should be changed to "history", or "sociology", or "modern American culture". When the systemic racism which permeates American society and is so deeply embedded that we notice it no more than a fish notices water, looming as large and unseen as the proverbial white elephant, is closely examined, it is as reality, not theory. Whoever spews "Obama was born in Africa" and "Michelle Obama is a man" spews racist garbage. Whether the heart, mind, and soul are racist, the words certainly are. This, acccording to obama. He should and does know, from experience. Long ago we learned that "color blindness" is inadequate, for it prommotes denial of reality. Since racism is traditional, and since conservatism is nothing but the embrace of tradition, racism is a conservative value and phenomenon. Whoever doubts or disputes this is reminded to bear in mind that neither the KKK nor any of the numerous white supremacist organizations which stain America include liberals among their membership. To a person, they self identify as conservative, and usually Christian. The same holds true for people who spew hatred for Jews, gays, transgenders, and non white non-Norwegian immigrants: most if not all self identify as Conservative, and Christian. Simply ask them, if you can tolerate the stench. Accusations of liberal bias only confirm this. The substance of these facts is indisputable. Arguably, anyone who ackowledges race as a tangible reality rather than a mere conceptual construct is "racist", whether or not there is racial enmity involved. Every human being has a unique skin color. Many are similar, incapable of differentiation to the naked eye, but still...unique. Eight billion shades of tan. Races exist only in theory, as a convenient means of simplifyig a world of seemingly infinite complexity by constructing arbitrary categories. Thank you, Aristotle. When I was five my father underwrote a golden gloves boxing event. All the fighters were African-American. The athletes gave me a pair of boxing gloves in which my tiny hands got lost, and then challenged me to a gentle fight. I laughed and squealed with delight. When I was ten I chased a foul ball at a major league baseball game, but was beaten to the punch by an older, faster black boy. He got the ball, then handed it to me. Early childhood experiences are foundational.