Living In Our Bubbles

THIS IDEA OF "Living In A Bubble", so much in vogue these days, is both fascinating and very real. I know this becuase I sometimes find myself seeking the comfort of social and intelletcual "bubbles", which could perhpas also be termed "comfort zones". Alas, I am forever denied the secure comfort of my very own bubble. I am simply surounded, on a day to day basis, by too many Christian conservativves. Oh well, we must make do with what we have. Maybe its best that way. Maybe its for my own good. A bubble, if sufficiently expansive, can assume the form of a mass delusion, as in the case of Donald Trump's seventy five million member big election lie. Am I dreaming, or has Trump's election lie begun to slip and fade? those who embrace(d) it shall, at some point have to give up the ghost, and abandon their fantasy. why not now? Is it beginning to happen? Apparently, even the most conservative "Journalists" at FOX News, and the most ardent supporters of Trump, at least some of them, are beginning to claim that "I knew it was bullshit all along". Fast forward to the University of Alabama basketball team, the best bunch of roundballers the evenerable university, known for football, has ever had. The only teensy weensy little problem, as everyone by now knows, is that their best player, perhaps the best college player in the country in fact, seems to have been closely associated with a recent murder, as in supplying the murder weapon to the murderer. Another player was kicked off the team for simiar involvement, but hey, he wasn't the best player in America. He remains very much on teh team. Hundreds of athlets have been euspended from or released from their respective teams for far worse offenses and allegations. In college athletics, you are guilty until proven innocent. Meanwhile, the Crimson Tide fan base, "Alabama nation", is carrying on business as usual, not missing a beat, even treating the possible accessory to mureder like a hero, with their cheers. The serious moral implications of allowing him to remain on the team are of no concern to them. they, the alabama fan base, students, and administration, can smell their first trip to the Final Four ever, and a possible once in a lifetime national championship, and that will trump mere moral concerns, every time. Currently, if you are an Alabama Crimson Tide fan, chances are that you too, have cast your moral character to the wind, hopefully, temporarily. We needn't hold our collective breaths. As the Trump movement clearly demonstrates, large numbers of people can indeed remain in a state of suspended moral slumber for long periods of time.

Fighting the Reprobates

THE GREAT STATE of Arkansas is governed, like most conservative southern states, by Republicans who are currently trying to ram through the state legislature a massive education bill which, among other things, would prohibit, and criminalize the teaching of Critical Race Theory in public schools, and would divert funds for public education to private education. These poisonous, regressive, nonsensical provisions accompany other provisions in the bill, su ch as pay raises for teachers, which are seemingly beneficial to society. But neither censorship nor taking money away from public education benefits society. Banning books, burnign books, and stifling knowledge is what fascists do. If nothing else, the Republcians, nationally, are doing a good job of impersonating fascists, by supporting Trump, suppressing votes, strying to steal the presidency, and a few sundry other thigns of that nature. Or maybe its not an impersonation. when Americans behave like or become fascists, its shocking, and alarming. America's right wing, your average conservative Christian Republican, has for dedades been criticizing and attacking public education, idiotically claiming that America's public schools are breeding grounds and indoctrination centers for radical, progressive, liberal, socialistic, atheistic ideology. Public eduacation, of cours,e is essentiallly socialiam, and in America, is among many shining examples of successful socialism, which is another reason conservatives criticize and attack it. and yet, America's right wing, never lacking hypocrisy, is always eager to divert public funds to private education, usually in the form of bouchers for non affluent students, in effect making public education public education, at least to a degree. Hell, if the roponents and adminisratorswithin private education really want to give underprivilaged children the same opportunties to get a good private education as America's wealthy children, why not simply provide scholarahips? Better, it seems, to mooch off the public system, while attacking it. All over America the right wing is passing laws, or tyring to pass laws, banning Critical Race Theory, which is nothing but history, and banning mention of gay people, while banning books by creating in essence an "Index of Forbidden Books", like the Catholic Church of old. A backlash to all this far right lunacy is springing up in Arkansas and elsewhere, mainly among teachers and former teachers, notably. We must maintain enough faith in America's essential goodness to believe that sooner or later all of this idiocy will be swept into the dustbin of history, so to speak. The sooner, the better.

Where You Goin' With That Gun In Yo' Hand?

THAT, AS THEY SAY, is the question. It comes from a famous Jimmy Hendrix song: "Hey Joe", and it is most appropos now. The fact that it is perhaps the best college basketball player in America who remains confronted with this question, the one about where and why did you provide a handgun to a person who provided it to another person who used it to commit murder, and did you in fact know why the gun was being requested? - only enhances the notoriety of this bizarre, needless to say "awkward", tragic situation. The awkwardness derives mainly from the University of Alabama's decision to allow the player to continue to play, despite possibly being involved in the murder of a twenty three year old mother of a five year old. Seemingly, it all boils down to whether the young man, Brendan Miller, new what the gun was poing to used for when he provided it. As one sports commentator put it: "even though this involves players from one of the nation's top college basketball teams, it is really, really hard to even get basketball involved in this tragedy, or to even care about basketball, for now". At least sociologically, of special interest is the way in which the University, its basketball team, and its fan base is responding to the situation, with apparent dismissal, even to the point of presenting superstar Mr. Miller as a victim, the victim of a cruel and judgmental media and public. We are confronted with our modern "bubble" mentality. We all tend, so it seems, to congregate and associate with other people who share our values, beliefs, and interests. Hence segregation in society, liberals among liberals, conservatives among conservatives, and sports teams and their fans and their fan clubs and bubbles. It has been suggested that University of alabama fans and personell simply do not understnad how their situation and their behavior looks to the vast majority of the Americna people, those who do not root for Alabama. As game time approached for the game between Alabama and Arkansas, it has been suggested that Arkansas will suddenlyl, temporarily become "America's team", what with Alabama starting a potential accessory to murder in their line up. Most shocking of all is the apparent stisfaction of most Alabama players, university personel, and fans, including the university president and Board of Directors with this arrangement. We now know that rabid American sports fans are willing to accept a possible accessory to murder on their tema, all for the sake of winning. Maybe our standarda have lowered, or maybe they have never really been all that high.

Descending Into Savagery

PRESIDENT BIDEN laid an obvious trap for the Republicans, and they jumped right in, predictably. In the "State of the Union speech, he famously accused them (some Republicans) of wanting to abolish Social Security and Medicare, which, of course, if anybody truly tried to eliminate woule incite a massive national geriatric mob to violence. No politician in his or her right mind wants to be seen as a politician who wants to get rid of either of the two sacred programs. Of course, nobody ever accused all right wing Republicans of being in their "right minds", but, as they say, that's another matter. In the House Chamber, the Republicans, righteously outraged at the vicious, fallacious presidential accusation, rose as one a screamed, at the very tops of their enraged voices, that the president is a "LIAR!" Whereupon Mr. Biden immediately closed the trap door, by asking gently: "Oh, so you want to keep Social Security and Medicare then, correct"? He went on to say how much he likes and admires converts, but did not respond to accusations that he lies. (why should he?). Ever since the emergence of Trump, American politics has been what the war in Ukraine seems to be becoming, interminable and nightmarish. It leaves behind a foul oder, and an endless vista of barren, twisted, forlorn landscape...Hope flickers at the apparent fading of popularity among conservative Republicans for Trump, and the seeming emerging consensus that, well, its time to move on, as we like to say. In yet another Republican controlled state a massive education bill is in the state legislature, and seems headed to passage, among its provisions being a large pay raise for teachers and the prohibition of the teaching of Critical Race Theory in public schools. Censorship has returned to America, thanks to the G.O.P.. Republicans in the same state also want to eliminate the state income tax, while spending more on education and infrastructure. Good luck with that, as they say. Such a large part of the current conservative Repubican agenda seems utterly insane these days, stuff like banning Critical Rcce Theory, Christian Nationalism, tax cuts for the wealthy, denial of climate change, Trump's election lie, and so forth and so on, that it is apparent that merely removing Trump from prominence and leadership will not suffice to save the nation. The entire far right wing ideology must be exposed and eliminated. It remains more unbelievable then ever that so many poor people in the United States still embrace all this pro wealth anti-government far right nonsense.

Hurting

AMERICAN CHILDREN, especially teenagers, are stresing out and committing suicide at historically high rates, new research reveals. The world they live in is more than enough, for those who pay attention, to cause acute stress and anxiety in anyone. We hear the doomsday message of climated change daily. What's worse, is that the doomsday message, for the first time in the history of human doomsday messages and memes, quite truthful, accurate, and all too real. Grade school kids are well aware of it, because, for the most part, they have been told about it in school. Elementary shool kids and older are also perceptive enough to udnerstand taht for all intents and purposes, the United States is at war with Russia, and close to being at war with China, and that all three countries have vast arnesals of nuclear weapons, and all have clearly expressed a willingness to use them. The Great Pandemic, and the years of disruptiosn it cause throughout the nation's and the world's school systems is now coming home to roost, so to speak, having profound, delayed adverse effects on the children whose lives were so suddenly, drastically, frighteningly disrupted forever. And the beat goes on. Today's children, poised to inherit a nightmare world of their ancestor's making. Lately in the news is the story of the beautiful, sweet fifteen year old girl who committed suiced after being relentlessly bullied at school day after day, monthafter month. How the adult community could possibly not have known about this, or known and done nothing about it, is mind boggling, to say the least. Maybe everyone was staring at their smart phone. Get ready to listen to, or try to ignore, the liberals and conservatives falling all over themselves and each other blaming each other. Conservatives blame liberals for teaching that America is a racist country, which makes the poor little white kids feel bad about their country, believe it or not. If that sounds crazy, its because it is. With depression, anxiety, stress, and suicide rates particulary high among LGBTQ children, liberals will point to conservative ideology and policies, such as the one which says that homosexuaity and transgenderism are sicknesses or sins, or the result of deliberate brainwashing by liberals, indoctrinating them to "go gay". That's even crazier. In fact the Christian conservative Republican point of view regards gay and transgender people as problematic, and all across the country Christian conservative Republican dominated legislatures are passing hundreds of laws banning even the mere mention of gay people in public schools, and making it illegal for a doctor to treat a transgender person as if the person is transgender. That goes beyond the merely crazy. That's delusional. Depression and suicide are often caused by feelings of estrangement and alienation due to rejection of exactly the sort being visited upon the LGTBQ community by far right wing extreme, and indeed insane America.

Loving Animals

WHEN I'M HOME, which thankfully is a lot, and am comfortably ensconced in a chair, couch, or bed, two cats repose upon me, by default. Its automatic, my taking a seat, and my darlings snuggling with me. We,, ya gotta be somewhwere...My problem is that I am a bit, shall we say, "mature in years"; (one way or another, age is going to get you). In my case, I'm in great shape for an old man, but if I sit in a chiar for more than five minutes without moving, while making a good cat lap, I tend to tighten up, and I need to either stand up and stretch, or endure the consequences, whcih can range from feet asleep to complete bodily paralysis. I used to be a proponent of the moral principle that when sitting or lying, if a cat or a dog is sitting on you, you may not get up or move. I've joked about this with many people, and everyone seems to agree. I am no longer capable of practicing what I once preached. If nothing else, I must at least recross my legs every fifteen minutes or so, and sometimes I can do this without disturbing the cats, but often, annoyed, they jump down from my lap. fortunatelly , I have gradually trained them to understand that most of the time, whenthey jup down because of my moving and stretching, they can jump right back up within a minute or two, when i get back from using the restroo, or getting a snack or drink. They have grown accustomed to short lap cat naps. While they sleep, or try to, I rub, pat, hug, and kiss 'em repeatedly, giving them a huge amount of affection over time, or on any given day. Giving a lot of affection to a non human animal will spoil them rotten, just the way you want them. Giving affection to almost any non human animal is extrmelly rewarding, emotionally. Dogs and cats are the best, but horses and mules receive affection well as well. I recall standing, leaning up against the corral, my back to the enclosure. The sweet horse put his face underneath my hand, and actually picked my hand up, wanting me to rub his nose, to give affection. That made me feel wonderful, useful, worthwhile. I've kissed horses and mules. At a large outdoor zoo, people were allowed to walk around in the large kangaroo enclosure. The kangaroos were very friendly. A female named "Reba" kept following me around, and I kept giving her rubs and hugs. She loved it, which was good, becaue I recall thinking that she was definitely big enough to do damage to me, with her legs, presumably. A friend of mine and I rubbed the belly of a three hundred pound tiger as it lay on its back, loving the attention. I once had a neighbor with an eight foot python as big around as a new roll of toilet paper, and I swear he and that snake exchanged affection, by rubbing. He draped the huge snake over my shoulders, and it was so heavy I could barely stand up. Everything was good until it started to move, at which point a rapidly told the owner to come and get it. One wild night, in my early twenties, I sat in a mobile home at a party in the rundown a trailor, with a baby coytoe on my lap and a bottle of moonshine in my hand, and no complaints.

Quietening Down, By Coercion

THE STREETS of Iranian cities have been cleared, and the protests, at least for the moment, are over. The tens of thousands of women who took to the streets on a daily basis for months protesing their treatment in society, which until just a ffew weeks ago were gaining enthusiasm and posing a real threat to the authoritarian Iran theocratic government, have quietened. By putting sustained presure on the protestors by maintaining a constant military presence and repeatedly interfreing with and breakign up gatherings of protestors day after day, finally had the desired effect; of sufficiently inconveniencing, frigthening, harming, and discouraging the protest movement into what one can only hope is only temporary submission. The protest movement has, in effect, gone underground. However, it still exists, and indeed it is likely that a majority of Iranians are disenchanted with their own government, its deprivation of liberty and questionable foreign and domestic policies. The authoritarian theocratic government of Iran, in power since the revolution of 1979, when the Shah of Iran, a puppet of the United States, was overthrown, is, to say the least, anachronistic. Governments of this sort belong in the fourteenth century, or maybe the fifteenth, but certainly no later than the sixteenth...The women of Iran log onto the internet, or watch or listen to or read international, western media sources, and they cannot but help notice how much freedom, power, and feminine glamour European and American women enjoy, as the strictly limited Iranian women go about with their faces and bodies completely covered, powerless, their only purpose, seemingly, to serve men. Iranian women want the same educational, economic, and social opportunities that women in the western world have, now. Iranian culture and society can serve as a warning to Americans, a warning about the disastrous impact "Christian nationalism" would have on the United States, if it were to come to power. Even now, a majority of Republicans are Christian Nationalists, a frightening fact. The imposition of Christian law and culture upon American civic society would doubtless eventually engender great resistance, and even demonstrations, portest movements, and revolution, if necesary to remove it. (Let us pray that it would.) Few revolutionay movements succeed. Most are ultimately squashed by the forces they oppose,, by the entrenched powerful, the establishment. However, sustained support for just and righteous causes by large segments of society over a long period of time can and indeed often does yield real change and progress. Examples abound, particularly in America. The black Civil Rights movment in America. The Women's rights movements in the United States, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries both. The gay rights movement. Progress requires change. As Goethe said: "The World advances only because of those who oppose it". In the United States, blacks, women, and gay people, among other "minorities", ares till fighting for the equality they have earned, deserve, and yet still do not completely possess. The women of Iran and other benighted countries, countries burdened with cruel religions, their progress stymied by religious domination, have perhaps farther to go than we do in America, but, if nothing else, they are on their way, and have, if nothing else, begun their journey of a million miles with a few positive first steps.

Fighting For and Against Theocracy

SURVEYS CONSISTENTLY INDICATE that a majority of registered Republicans want to turn the United States into a "christian nationalist" country, because they embrace the "Christian Nationalist" doctrine. This is alarming. Christian Nationalism, in essence, is the belief that the United States of America was founded by white Christians as a Christian nation based upon Christian vallues, was always intended to be a Christian nation, and that the Crhitian religion should therefore be the "official" religion of the U.S., and the country's legal system, ane all other forms of public afffairs, should be based on Christian law and values. Aginn, alarming, alrming as hell, as such a country would be, anywhere. WE do not want theocricies, and we do not want countries, particularly the U.S.A, to base their political and legal systems on any religion, especially Christianity. Christian nationasim must be defeated and destroyed by any means possible, which is yet another good reason to defeat and destroy the Republican party, at the ballot box. The Unitd States was designed to be a country of religious freedom, tolerance, and diversity, governed by a secular representative democracy (republic), period. Christian national, in its current, militant form, has long been with us, of course, among various religious groups, but in its current incarnation it started becoming popular in the nineteen seventies and eighties, with the rise of Christian conservatism, that dreaded intermingling of religion and politics, so demonstrably harmful to America. The insinuation of Christian vallues and law into American government would spell disaster for the gay and transdenger communities; homosexuality would once again be a illegal, a criminal acts, as it was back in our benighted nineteen seventies and before. Obviously, transgenderism and abortion would be totally criminalized, with harsh punishments for offenders. American culture, thrust back into the dark ages, in the twenty first century.Only about ten percent of the American peope are christian nationalists, but nearly twenty percent are favorable to it, extremely alarming. No intelligent, well educated person who is emotionally and mentally healthy cuould be a Christian nationalist. In the context of American society, values, culture, and history, Chritsian nationalism is bonkers, as should be evident to all. Among the general public a high percentage of Americans believe that their country was founded to be a deliberately "Christian" country, upon Christian values. Somehow that conservative, pseudo patriotic ideal, extremly historically inaccurate, endures down through the generations, among Christian conservatives, who prefer their mythology to reality, not only in American historical, political and religious studies, but also in areas like climate change and presidential election results. Christian nationalism is merely another of many falsehoods and fantasies embraced by the American right wing.

Black Lives, Still Mattering

CONVERSATIONS with imperfect perfect strangers can be and in fact often more interesting than those with coworkers, friends, and family members, for obvious reasons. Yet, like the latter, the former can often include an, um, shall we say, prickly part or three. Sometimes, I think I actually prefer chatting with strangers to close associates. For one thing, I learn more. I have a close frined who owns an imprted clothing soter, attire from India, Equador, and Viet Nam, mainly, places with colorful garb which he likes to visit anyway. His store looks like an art museum. I was standint there withi my sister waiting for the owner's imminent arrival; his tennis match was, reportedly, nearly done. At seventy years old, I was hoping he wouldn't have to play overtime. Sis and I struck up with the nice, attractive young lady at the cash register. We discovered a connection. The lady looked at my sister, and said: 'Hey! I used to cut your hair"! "Sho 'nuff", responded sis. "I aint looked as good since"....(my sister is one of those just plain nice people.) I believed her.(Her own hair was a magnificent array of curls, swirls, dreadlocks, and shades of color, which, she informed us, was self styled.) Changing thd subject, I said: "I presume you don't carry "Black Lives Matter" T shirts here?" (I've been looking for a long time, and hell, this was a clothing store....I want to wear my BLM shirt to my senior center, but that's another story and a seperate issue.) "So you should presume", said she, or something similar but less articulate. "Also", she continued. "You might want to reconsider your interest in Black Lives Matter. They're corrupt. The leaders embezzled their money, and became millionaires." I , much to my credit, said nlthing. I'm starting to learn to choose my battles. Why ruin a good time? Had I said smething, it might have started an argument. I sure as hell wasn't going to say: "Wow! Really? Gee, thanks for the heads up! I'll cancel my membership immediately." I am one of those personaltiy types which has an overwhelming urge to speak whatever is on my mind; I always mistakenly think that whatever I think and have to say is so important that I simply must share it with a ccaptivated, (captive) audience. But, as I say..I'm learning...But since you msut know, I would have said this" "Nevertheless, black lives still do matter, and I strongly suspect that the vast majorty of the million member organization, including me, remain dirt poor. Only an elite few become millionaires, no matter where in the world you look. The vast majority of us are good people, and we have only a few bad apples, kinda like, oh, the police. I began to suspect that we were in the presence of a conservative, maybe even an extremist wacko conspiracy theorist. These days you never know. I have no intention of finding out. I have lost count of the number of times someone has responded to my mere mention of the BLM movement with something like: "They burn down cities" they'r anrchists. Well, actually, "they" don't, and they aren't. A few bad apples torching and looting a few businesses is not a burned down city, heinous though it is. BLM people want government to strongly oppose racism, which it cannot do if it is abolished. Conservatives, desperate for efffectual arguments, embellish like George Santos, one of their very own. If the truth is inconvenient, replace it. Suddenly climate change is a hoax, and Trump won the election. To discuss much of anything with such people is pointless. I'm damned well not gonna change them, and they aren't worth stressing out over.

Verifying, Ad Nauseum

EVERY VOTE was properly cast, counted, and recounted, redundantly. Overkill. Every vote was duly noted on paper and in computer. Every vote can still be directly confirmed and directly correlated, linked to a registered voter, the voter who cast it Every state with an even remotely close vote count was recounted three times, minimum. There were Republicans in the room keeping close tabs, guarding against fraud, in every precinct in the country. Would Trump and his ilk care to phone every voter in the country for confirmation? Even that seemingly would do no good, so deeply entrenced are they in their pernicious falsehoods, so reluctant they are to correct their mistake and once again become honest. No matter how you slice it, it all adds up; a landslide electoral victory for Biden. Beyond any doubt, Biden won, and won big. The people who still claim that the election was stolen, and there are many of them, millions, are intelligent enough know better, but tragically do not possess sufficient moral character to come clean and own this fact. More than two years after the election, I have yet to see a single election denying Trump supporter come clean, and admit their mistake. They in fact who the ones who tried and are still trying to steal the election from Biden. We reveal our true characeter through our words and deeds. To err is human, to correct our errors is noble. Election deniers daily reveal their lack of logical reasoning and moral character by their continued insistence that the electon was stolen from Trump, despite any evidence to support this outlandish lie, and despite overwhelming proof that it was indeed not stolen. I do not assert that Trump supporters and election deniers are "bad people", only that they have experienced a serious lapse in good judgment and moral character for political expediency. This website has made these same points redundantly, but important points bear repeating. Amazingly, shamefully, polls indicate that Donald Trump might be elected president in twenty twenty four, despite his attmept to steal the presidency from Biden, and to violently overthrow the American government. For the time being, these people are in the same class as those who supported Hitler even after he brought Germany to ruin and murdered millions. Our only hope is that, unlike the NAZIs, they regain their presumed prior moral decency before they and their criminal leader do the same to the their country.

Going Too Far

PSYCHOLOGISTS AND SOCIOLOGISTS have postulated that extreme religious zealotry and extreme political zealotry, especially far right extremism, is a form of mental illness, and may indicate brain damage. Regardless, my experience hath shown that conservatives and devoutly religious people in general tend towards narrow mindedness, intolerance of diversity of thought, intolerance of cultural and religious diversity, and hatred, disguised as piety. It is no coincidence that political conservatism and religious devotion go together, that people who embrace the former also tend to embrace the latter. How can political conservatives and religious devotees possibly be otherwise, when conservatism itself is antithetical to change, embraces tradition and the status quo, and requires that all religions other than the one embraced be deemed fallacious? Attacking and denigrating religious devoation merely because one happens to be irreligious is counterproductive to the pursuit of truth and wisdom. Religion serves the noble and necessary purpose of inspiring and comforting people, even as comfort and inspiration can be derived from many non relgious sources. But enumerating and explaining the detrimental effects of religion upon individuals, culture, and civilization is no less necessary, indeed, more so, for as Goethe said: "The world advances only because of those who oppose it". Religion, any religion goes awry when it posits itslef as the only legitimate authority in matters of moral terpitude, society, and human behavior in general. The demonstrable fact the all religions do this due to their inherent nature wherein they all assert themselvees as the only true faith and source of truth is to their detriment and the detriment of society, especially their own votaries. This characteristic renders dogmatic religion harmful to the human intellect. It causes people to form the pernicious attitude that all who oppose or fail to embrace the alleged one true faith are misguided, even evil. Most poisonous of all is the toxic combination of religionn and politics whether in an autocracy or democracy. American are fortunate that its political foudners, men such as Madison, Jefferson, and Paine, understood this, and took "pains" to build a "wall of separation" as Madison put it, between church and state, a wall which even today many Americans fail to understand, or refuse to accept. Theocrats invariably endorse the mistaken belief that things will only get better if the people in power are devotees of a certain religion. In America, that religion is of course Christianity. Religious zealots do not worship God,but own only their own limited perception of of God. In essense, they worship themselves. Blaise Pascal said it best: "Men never do evil so completely as when they do it from religious conviction."

Quaking With Hatred

THE EARTHQUAKE, if nothing else, affords conservative evangalical Christians a blessed opportunity to turn up the volume on their usual inflamatory, lunatic, hateful rhetoric. The twisted reasoning goes something like this: Turkey and Syria, areas stricken by a powerful beyond seven point three quake on the Richter scale, in which more than eleven thousand people have so far been found dead, with thousands more dead yet to be discovered, was chosen by the Christian God, who is the only true God, for holy retribution. The obviously true cause of the earthquake, the same cause as always, intercontinental geo-physical forces, remain unmentioned by these hateful, vengeful people. The holy retribution by earthquake, so they insanely say, was inspired by Almighty God's utter contempt for the Islamic religion, which is practiced by nearly everyone who lives in this infidelic part of the world. The creator of the cosmos is, they would have you understand, a Christian, probably a Pentecostal. God the one true Almighty God who speaks in tongues and handles snakes, or chooses to inspire others to so do in His (not her) Holy Name. All the other thousands of religions on Earth are false, mere inventions of the sometimes wayward human mind, but one, and only one is reliably true. And if there is religious life elsewhere in the universe, if indeed the universe is replete with religious forms of life, (life which but for religion might be accurately described as "intelligent"), then all these millions and billions of religions are false, merely made up, while the one true religion, the one religion which describes reality, blessedly happens to be centered on little ole planet Earth. As they say: "go figure". And so, it came to pass that an enormous earthquake smote Turkey, killed tens of thousands of religiously misguided people, for the sole purpose of punishing them for having the audacity to practice a religion of their choice, alas, the wrong one. This, the same biblical Christian God who destoryed fifty thousand and seventy Philistines because a single person had the audacity to be curious, and to take a quick peek inide an ornate box in which was hidden from view the most importnat document in the world, a document not very useful when hidden by divine dceree from the very people who most need to see it and read it and know it, the covenant of the Lord. But God loves you! HE loves you because and only because, and only if you embrace his true religion, and have no other Gods before him. How anyone could have any other Gods before God is a msytery, since other Gods, scripture has it, do not even exist. This is the twisted logic, essentially, the "pretzel logic", to borrow an album title from the band "Steely Dan". And also, the people in New Orleans, particularly those in the ninth ward of the city, were also punished by the compassionate loving biblical God by being visited by hurricane Katrina, in retribution for the "Big Easy" allowing itself to be, as evangelical Christians might say, a "den of iniquity". Those who embrace this psychotic nonsense are welcome to it, and may they experience the consequences of it, whatever they may, by God, be.

Criticizing CRT With Ignorance

CRITICAL RACE THEORY, in a nutshell, is a "body of scholarship that addresses America's brutal racial history, recognizes the parts of that history that remain unchanged, and works towards changing the rest"... This cogent, accurate, and accessible definition is supplied by Victor Ray in his seminal monograph "On Critical Race Theory: Why It Matters And Why You Should Care". Anyone who refuses to acknowledge this definition is either a conservative and therefore beyond logical persuasion, culturally illiterate and therefore incapable of comprehending it, or both. The two go together in most instances. This brings to mind the question: "Why on God's green Earth do the conservatives so detest, despise, and fear critical race theory, so much so that they ban it in conservative states as if it were a deadly virus, or a Chinese weather balloon? The answer is transparently obvious, and lies deeply embedded within the philosophy of conservatism itself, even though it is in plain view. While liberalism embraces change and progress, is comptuous of present societal conditions but hopeful for a better future, conservatism embraces the status quo, and regards change with suspicion and distrust. Extreme conservatism is reactionary; that is, it seeks to return society to an alleged better time from days gone by, to restore society to what conservatives fallaciously believe was a better, idyllic, romanticized pastthe only curse of the present being impluse it for the better, progressively. Thus, America's past is white washed of all evil, and the American history becomes a litany of past progress and virtue by inherently virtuous Americans, and society has reached a satisfactory state which requires no further change. Conservatives despise critical race theory and wish to eliminate it from academic curriculi because they fervantly believe that racism, individual and systemic, has been eliminated from American society and culture to a desirable degree, and requires no further effort. Conservatives wish to beleive that we now live in a racially just and equal society because of the sustained hard work and virtue of our white ancestors. In short, conservatives prefer to pretend that racism, both personal and systemic, do not exist, no longer exist, because so believing they escape the burden of acknowledgement of the need for fundamental, continued change, change which is antithetical to their ideology. Past progress led to the elimination of any necssity for continued change in the present and in the future, conservatives believe. Veneration of an idealized, mythological past, coupled with an insistent refusal to acknowledge and address the societal problems of the present, leads to nonsensical, inane public policy proposals, proposals which deny demonstrable reality, like banning Critical Race Theory from public education.

Bursting the Balloon

BIDEN BROUGHT DOWN THE BALLOON, albeit a bit belatedly, arguably.We now might anticipate praise, applause, and approval from Republican territory, and our expectations might well be disappointed. What we are likely to be confronted with instead are the usual inane conspiracy theories. Biden built the balloon for china, launced it secretively, then destroyed it only becaue his nefarious pro-Chinese traitorous behavior was found out. The balloon was a joint project by the DNC, the mainstream liberal media, and China, and its deflation a ruse to infuse enthusiasm into lagging Biden reelection chances. The possibilities are endless. The balloon would have been allowed to proceed on its merry eavesdropping way, but for pressure applied from G.O.P. and Christian conservative ranks. All this, notwithstanding the fact that the balloon was flying over international waters almsot the entire time unti it made a left turn at Alaska, and got itself ensconced over American then Canadian terriroty almost before its detection, or before the U.S. military had an opportunity to advise the president on a course of action, and by teh time they did, the civilian population. Tne M.A.G.A. mob will of coufse omit mention of the fact that during the Trump administration no fewer than three such balloons were launched by China, and floated about for a significant amount of time, possibly with evil intent, before self destructing without any assistance from the stable genius himself. Here we suggest that Biden, in his "State of the Union" speech, address the likely complaints of Governor Sanders before she hits the ariwaves with her venemous spew. Something like this: "Governor Sanders will in a few minutes tell the American people that I am weak on China, even though I brought down the balloon, and she did not. Governor Sanders will in a few minutes tell the American people that my economic policies are ineffective, even as new jobs are created at a record pace, and inflation, which was caused by the pandemic and only th epandemic, continues to slow, even as the pandemic lingers. The governor will try to tell you that we msut not raise the debt ceiling until Democrats agree to massive decreases in social spending, spending for the poor, even though during the Trump administration the debt ceiling was raised three times, unconditionally, without a whimper of Republican complaint. Governor Sanders will spew the usual Republican line, that all Democratic proposals and programs are harmful, when actually they are only harmful to arguments in favor of the disfunctioanl Republican agenda. What governor Sanders will not tell you is the truth; that the Republican agenda is both intellectually and morally bankrupt, promulgated by a gang of hypocritical, dishonest gangsters. The underwater missing parts recovery effort now underway will reveal the balloon's true purpose, as China must have foreseen. Most likely it will show the aircraft to indeed have been a spy apparatus, strange, since China already has spy satellites in high Earth orbit which do this work with much greater efficiency and clarity. So, why bother? Alas, the inscrutable oriental mind...But as the Cninese themselves said to us, in their ever laconic, dead pan, smart ass way: "why make wiild guessses?" In other words, it is, or rather was, a weather balloon, according to them. Fat chance. And, well, anyway....sooner rather than later, we'll know for sure.

Upgrading

EVENTUALLY THE INTERNET, in its current and traditional format, in which information is processed, transmitted, and stored digitally, using a nearly infinite variety of sequences of two digits, ones and zeroes, in unique patterns, will become obsolete. Micro chips, micro processors, our modern marvels of miniaturization, will have become lumbering, inneficient dinosaurs, inadequate to the task of preserving the sum total of ever burgeoning human knowledge, the accumulation of which will reach near infinity as it doubles with increasing frequency. Facts will be preserved on mere molecules, even atoms. But before it reaches that level of quantum extremity, DNA molecules, with their chains of protein molecules, will be the next stage of downsizing, like ever smaller bookshelves lining the walls up to the ceiling and stacks of libraries stuffed to the gills with romance novels alone. The Library of Congress, the world's most prodigious collection of print material, has already exceeded one hundred million volumes, and counting, with every item in stock fully reduced to digits and squiggles.In the United States alone, more than forty thousand new books are published every year, and all are considered candidates for inclusion in the nation's largest library. Thomas Jefferson would doubtless be amazed at how wondrously his original gift of about six thousand books has matesticized into gargantuan proportions. It would have taken him years to read everything in the modern building, a feat he would have undoubtedly attempted and completed. But the journey has only but begun. The amount of information which can be stored in the universe could potentially, eventually, exceed the number of sub atomic particles in the universe, a proposition which at present seems most unlikely, more unlikely than the prospect of storing information within DNA molecules or the cells and molecules of which they are comprised. One must factor in the potential for information storage by other intelligent species throughout the universe. Atom sharing, perhaps? Famed economist John Maynard Keynes, a capitalist with reservations, once asked, theoretically: "At what peoint does capitalism come to an end? When the living standard aspirations of every living creature on earth are satisfied?" When the population of planet Earth finally levels off, and maybe even begins to decrease a bit? Otherwise, with the projected exponential increase in the human power of material production and distribution, the universe, in theory, will become saturated with the material objects of humanity, a universe filled to the brim, full to overflowing with dish washers and cars, but nowhere left to drive. Perhaps we should reconsider the zealousness with which we seek new knowledge.