Israel, Asking For Help

IT WAS ONE OF THOSE TV COMMERCIALS which seem to last forever, on that station that shows old western movies. The one from the Humane Society, with images of unhappy dogs, I cannot watch. This one had a young attractive Jewish-looking lady on camera, in a room full of cute, energetic little kids. With a deeply sad facial expression, she reminded us of of the horrible terrorist attack suffered by Israel last Otober seventh. The death, the senseless suffering. Because and only because of this vicious, brutal, unprovoked attack,Israel is at war, against terrorists, fighting for its very survival. Hundreds of children, much like the ones right behind her, were murdered, she reminds us. She goes on. Now, because of this war, children all over Israel are staying in bomb shelters, and they don't always have good nutritious meals. Israelis in general are suffering from this war, and need your help, needs help from Christians and Jews all over the world, she continues. A vague sense of Christians and Jews ganging up on Muslims. As she stares straight into the camera and into the hearts and minds of millions, her voice exuding total sincerity in her passionate plea to help save Israel, it became difficult to imagine anyone not being moved by her imploring words, asking for help...I started thinking. How much and what kind of help does Israel actually need? I asked the same question when the United States was sending "military assistance" to Israel, wondering precisely what kind of military assistance the nation of Israel needed that it was lacking, and didn't already have in abundance. To me, Israel seems to be quite a powerful, well stocked country militarily, quite able to defend itself,and doing quite well in that capacity at the moment. Precisely why are Israeli children spending time in bomb shelters? Precisely who is bombing Israel, or even threatening to? How many rockets are being fired into Israel daily? How is their vaunted defense system, "Iron Dome", holding up? Anyone who has ever visited Israel notices how beautiful, clean, and well maintainted the country is, industrious, successful, prosperous. How mcuh actual trouble is Israel having properly feeding its children? The thought crossed my mind that among the Palestinian civilian population is where all the food, medicine, protection is needed, much more so than among the Israeli civilian population. Correct? A few hundred Israeli children were murdered. More than thirty thousand Palestinian civilians have been murdered, and perhaps a million are threatened with faminine, disease, starvation. Correct? The young Israeli lady asked everyone to send forty five dollars to help Israel, to help Israeli children have well balanced, nutritious meals. Not fifty dollars, not forty dollars, not a hundred dollars. Forty five dollars. She didn't say why that particular amount. Maybe there is something about the number "45" that triggers a charitable impulse. Rest assured there is a reason for the number, a very well thought out reason....Hard to argue with the cause. Most of us could use forty five bucks, and a few well balanced, nutritious meals. But the plain fact is, no bias or anti-Semitism intended, before I send forty five dollars to Israel, or one dollar, or any amount, I'm going to send a little bit of help to the Palestinians; They seem to need mmoney, and much more,even more than Israeli children.

Inventing the One True Religion

THE FACEBOOK POST SAID, in big, bold colorful letters, to attract attention. "All religion is a myth. All of it. Yours too". When people think they are really going out on a limb, and posting something controversial, they use the big, bold, colorful latters. Likewise when they think they are expressing a profound truth they must share with the world. When they are doing both; watch out! My first impulse was to agree wholeheartedly with the expressed opinion, probably by using my usual method, by merely typing in the word "precisely", which I think suffices quite well. Then, I changed my mind, and typed nothing, which was probably best. The thoguht that came to my mind was: yes, all religions are mythology. I completely agree. Excpept for one religion; mine. That thought was closely followed by another; that every human being on the planet probably feels the same way; that only his or her religion is true, not mythology. I almost always agree with anti-religion sentiments expressed on Facebook, or anywhere else. Because of this, many such comments flow down the screen as I scroll. The reason I do not consider my religion myth is that my religion consists only of admiration for the infinitely superior spirit of creation, as manifested in nature. I am a pantheist; I see divinity in every atom. In that sense, science is my religion, because my veneration is directed towards the reality of the universe, its ultimate creation, and its natural laws which are always being discovered and illuminated by science. What's mythological about that? I mean, really? I do not wash away my sins in the blood of the lamb, nor consume symbolic blood and flesh in rituals, nor insist that the "Word of God" is contained in a small collection of books. I try to be more reasonable.I like the Christianity of Jefferson, who called himself a "primitive Christian". He meant that he accepted the teachings of Christ, and agreed with them, but not the seemingly supernatural parts of the Christian faith, such as the death and resurrection of the Savior, of which there are many in the Christian religion. Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein, as well as many intellectual well educated people, saw the beauty in the Christian faith as expressed in the gospels of Jesus, but rejected the supernatural, superstitious, magical aspects of Christian dogma. Einstein expressed the hope that future human religiosity would be more informed by our improving knowledge of nature, the universe. I believe that all the various Gods of the world's dominant religions, including the Judeo-Christian biblical God, are myths, anthropomorphic inventions of the human mind. I certainly hope they are. "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine", said Goethe. I have been dutifully, steadfastly inventing my religion throughout my entire life, and presumably will continue to do so. Whether I will ever finish inventing it, I have no idea. Certainly when I die my days of invention, of anything, at least in my current form, will be over. But I think I'm actually pretty close to finishing up. I have borrowed bits and pieces from any number of other religions, including the Christian one, for which I an truly grateful. Likewise I am grateul for people like Jefferson, Spinoza, and Einstein for helping me along the way in my science rather than faith based spiritual journey. Who knows? There may be many more "religious influencers" yet to come in my life. But one thing is certain. They had better be good, because they have some real superstars as predecessors, tough acts to follow...

Evolving As A Culture, Spiritually

RESEARCH SHOWS that fully twenty five percent of the American people have no religious affiliation, are simply not religious. That is a dramatic increase in the number of unfaithful in recent years, and continues a trend ongoing for decades. There are now more non religious people in America, most of them either atheist or agnostic, than conservative evangelical Christians, although it doesn't always seem that way. Non believers, it seems, are neither as well organized, nor as loud and outspoken, or attract as much attention, as the evangelicals. Perhaps that too will change. The baby boomers, now in the process of dying off, have the highest level of religious affiliation; the younger the American, the less likely to be religious. This fact alone does not bode well for the future popularity of religion...Apparently, religion is on the decline in America, and has been for a long time, and will continue the decline, although there is no way of knowing the future. Every religion that has ever existed has either become extinct, or is extant. Whether our more than four thousand organized religions currently on Earth flourish in the future, or decline and go extinct, as have all past religions, is impossible to predict. Eventual extinction of all religions seems a plausable theory. Religion, especially organized religion, has served and still serves a vital funcion in any civilization; it provides comfort and inspiration. Also, it provides community, acts as a cohesive force binding masses of individuals into a community,a civilized soiety,contributing to social cooperation and organization. Then too, religion embraces nonsense, outright falsehoods, defends doctrinal and dogmatic idiocy, stifles freedom of thought and artistic creativity, brutally enforces a narrow cultural conformity,and creates divsions among ethnic and national groups which often leads to violence and war. The scientific revolution which began about five hundred years ago is still sweeeping across the world, replacing primitive religious mythology with modern scientific spiritualism. Einstein, a Jew who embraced the pantheism of Spinoza, expressed a faith that the religion(s) of the future would be based upon our much more comprehenisve understanding of nature, while recognizing that our level of understanding remains incomplete, verily, puny. Einstein's conception of God was of an "infinitely superior spirit manifest in the laws of the universe". Einstein preferred "humble admiration" to "worship". Worship can be seen as an extreme, illogical state of mind, like sudden uncontrollable rage, or falling madly in love. Perhaps the religion(s) of the future, if there are any, will be more intellectual, less violent and emotional and illogical, athan our traditional, ancient ones. We can hope. From earlist childhood I have known that I can enver embrace a religion whose central fact and event is the torturing to death of a living being to atone for the sins, mistakes, bad behavior of all humans, but only on the condition that we worship as God the sacrificial victim who, miraculously, rises from death to live forever. Too violent. Too primitive. Too much senseless symbolic theatrical bloodshed. If indeed a religion, any religion, is going to decline in membership and become extinct,I feel, on the whole, that a religion such as that would be a good candidate.

Transitioning To Survival

FOR THE FIRST TIME, just recently, New York City integrated electrical power produced by wind turbines into its distribution grid. Along the east coast, wind farms, consisting of dozens of windmill turbines, are being built and put online to help power, and perhaps to even to eventually completely power, the huge population along America's eastern seaboard. Wind farms are not the most attractive scenery in the world, but they can be built and located in relatively remote places, and are certainly no uglier than a field of oil wells; indeed, old worn out oil fields can and probably should, if there is justice in the universe, be replaced by wind farms. Both wind and solar energy are coming online auspiciously rapidly, the amount of energy produced growing by leaps and bounds, by the day. This is cause for hope. Meanwhile, the news regarding climate change gets worse seemingly by the day. A new study released about heat waves clearly indicates that they are occuring with greater frequency than ever, are more severe, and last longer. What used to be an average eight day heat wave is now a dozen days. Increasing drought will be a major feature of climate change, indeed, already is. Drought stricken areas will increase in size, and agricultural production will begin to decline, as it apparently already has in the United States. Over the last few years, grain crop production has declined a little more than ten percent in America. The American west and mmidwest seem to be literally drying up. We must do more, much more, than merely quit using fossil fuels and transition to wind, solar, and other sustainable sources of energy. We must reverse the damage already done, and the enormous damage soon to be done. The massive planetary deforestation which has accompanied the ascent of homo sapiens to global supremacy must be reversed. We must now begin to reforest, globally, fast. At some point, and at some level, the human population must stop icnreasing, must level out, and, perhpas, decrease somewhat. The exact numbers are, of course, subject to various studies and opinions. If we don't change course, there will come a future in which the universe is stuffed full of human beings, and their material possessions. Sea level rise must be dealt with, as we are already dealing with it, and we must increase the amount of fresh water available for human consumption and agriculture. Also, the increased supply of fresh water must be moved from the oceans to the land, especially the driest, mmost barren parts of the world, such as Saharan Africa and the American southwest. All of this is perfectly feasible, with our current level of technology. During the next few years, climate change is going to become much worse, rapidly. Millions of people will be forced to flee the ocean front and rising ocean, millions more will have to abandon burned out areas. The economic disruption is already severe, and growing worse. The only way out is to motivate the entire world to cooperate in massive terraforming projects here on Earth, and drastic, fundamental changes to our personal lives and societies. It will be inconvenient and painful, but we can do it. We have no other choice, except death.

Encroaching Capitalism

UP AND ON THE OLDE STATIONARY BIKE before sunup, with still nary an idea about today's morning essay. No matter. It always comes to me, and lo and behold, it did again today. It came in the form of an interview on a local sports talk radio program. The guest was the CEO of a new non pforift fund raising organization, called "The Edge". Its purpose is to raise as much money as possible to pay athletes to attend our university, that our university might have highly competitive, winning, lucrative sports teams. Welcome to the N.I.L. era, name, image and likeness, also known as professional collegiate athletics. "The Edge" seeks five thousand members, and has about five hundred so far. It got off to a late and clumsy start, and, rumor has it, is far, far behind similar organizations at other major universities, who are already looking at thousands of members and milllions of dollars. Minimum membership fee for The Edge is twenty five dollars a month. Maximum is suppodesly two fifty, though its hard to imagine them turning down larger contributions. The Edge seeks to be a common man's club; rather than a rich boy's club. The young gentleman CEO made joining the club sound like the greatest honor and benefit in the world, for everyone! That, of course, is a wise approach, as well as being highly idealistic. The university will forever be looking for billionaire benefactors. Billionaire investors are much more likely to become interested in contributing if thousands of "little people" already are. Arch Manning, of the famed quarterbacking Manning family, recently completed his freshman year at the University of Texas. He chose Texas in part because by the time he arrived on campus, he had been made a millionaire by the Texas Longhorn N.I.L. club. All across America's fruited plain, teenaged college football and basketball stars are driving fancy cars, wearing fancy clothes and jewelry, and generally flaunting and mis spending their new found wealth. Superstar Caitlan Clarke of the Iowa lady Hawkeye basketball team is perhaps the wealthiet women in America, next to Taylor Swift, who isn't currently in America. You wonder how long that will last. You wonder how many average Joe working stiffs will want to send twenty five dollars a month of their hard earned paycheck to help an eighteen year old drive a three hundred thousand dollar sports car. We have suddenly been thrust into the era of the wild wild west of intercollegiate athletics. For decades universities have been making millions of dollars on the backs of student athletes, effectively exploiting them. Free tuition, room, and board is helpful, but the athletes deserve and have long deserved to share in some of the money. The solution is obviously to create and have an organized, universal system in place, a system which clearly defines the rules, and determines the distribution of athletic department revenues. Until that happens, The stuation will be chaotic, unstable, and volatile. Corruption will creep in. It already has. Even the staunchest free market neo-liberal capitalist must admit that, to one extent or other, agreed upon rules of economic activity must be in place, and enforced. Without an organized system of oversight and regulation, capitalism deteriorates into corruption; monopolies, black markets, theft of resources; the forms of corruption involving people and money are limitless. We do not want to create an elite level of college athlete, a multimillionaire class on campus. And if the average working and middle class Joe Blow, and government doesn't get involved, in one form or another, the entire process will be contolled billionaires, like everything else. Its easy to see how well that works. In a word, it doesn't.

Writing And Talking About Climate Change

AS CLIMATE CHANGE gradually, and then not so gradually engulfs us, we are going to be talking about it more and more, more and more is going to be written about it, and you are going to hear ever more about it. Also, we are all going to experience it, firsthand. The fact that it is real, is here to stay, was caused by us and can be dealt with by us will become so apparent as to be endeniable. Resistance to the reality of human made climate change is crumbling, predictably. Most of the books about cliamte change so far have been written by male scientists, which is perfectly fine. It probably benefits us all, however, to get as many diverse perspectives as possible on this incredibly important topic, including that of women. Two recently published books on climate change by female authors both make such fundamental, illuminating, semminal observations about climate change and its relationship to the human species that the female point of view is now gloriously available to anyone and everyone. "Under the Sky We Make: How To Be Human In A Warming World", by emminent climate scientist Dr. Kimberly Nicholas, of Lund University in Sweden, presents a persuasive, hopeful, optimistic outlook on climate change, from a sociological point of view She seeks to dispell the false notion the in a world dominated by money and corporat owe, the individual is helpless and ineffective. She convincingly demonstartes numerous ways in which we can all make a difference by changing our own lives, and by participating in organized social change. "Diversifying Power: Why We Need Antiracist, Feminist Leadership On Climate and Energy", by energy expert Jennie Stephens, approaches the topic from the top down, rather than the bottom up. She argues that in order for society as a whole to effectively address climate change and stop it, society will have to establish completely new leadership, world wide, leaders independent of corporate control, leaders not owned by the plutocracy, leaders who can successfully integrate social and economic justice into climate and energy policy. And all this is very true, of course. Humanity is not going to address and effectively deal with climate change under the present leadership, which is inextricably intertwined with the fossil fuel industry. Large scale popular working class movements demanding social, econoimc, and climate justice will ahve to emerge and sieze power from the corporate elite, our current masters. Power is never handed over willingly; it must be seized, and this is done in a democracy with powerful, well organized political movements. We the people must insist on investment in mass public transportation, health care for all, sustainable agriculture, greater political and economic equality, gender, ethnic, and racial equality. The stark reality is this: we can still save ourselves, and the planet, from climate change. But doing so will require dramatic, fundamental, sometimes painful changes in our lives, all of our lives. This cannot be done by embracing backward looking conservatism, clinging to some romantic notion of the past, resisting all change, and aspiring to backwards rather than forwards.

Escaping, Forever

IT WAS BARELY A SOUNDBITE on the local news, just a brief news item, at the end of the evening broadcast. Local girl found dead. Suspected victim of blunt trauma force following altercation at school... And nothing else. The next day, on the same news cast, they offered a correction. Cause of death determined to have been suicide. The girl, (they gave her name this time) was 15, was known to be non binary, and had apparently been subjected to bullying on several ocasions. The photo of her face revealed an attractive, intelligent young lady, with pain in her eyes. Finally, the news had provided the relevant information; it all came together. In a samll town in the American lower midwest, a child was born dfferent, and grew up different. Honestly, I have no idea precisely what is meant by the term "non binary" regarding sexual orientation. No idea. I need to do some research, and educate myself. Hell, I can barely figure out all the letters in "LGBTQ", for instance. But the important thing is that she was different, did not conform to societal norms, did not fit in, and, because of that, and because she lives in an uncivilized country with a backwards, intolerant, primitive culture, she was mentally, emotionally tortured, harassed her entire short, young life, until she simply could not take it anymore, and she escaped, forever. You don't have to know much about particular sexual orientations to know that. All you have to know is that there exist a variety of sexual orientations among humans, all of which are quite natural and normal, and should be accepted by society, but, are not. Way to go, America. You must be very proud of yourself. I have a neighbor who is a good, hard working family man, a friend of mine. He hates Trump; good for him. He is also an evangelical Christian who believes that gay people are sinners for being gay, and thay when they die, they go to hell. That fact alone motivates me to avoid my neighbor.. Hatred and bigorty, discrimination based on religious fanatacism is pure evil to me, and I cannot abide it. The widespread hatred of gay people which is prevelant in most cultures is directly related to religious dogma. This is plainly the case in the United Staes in mainstream American cutlure. Religious bssed, irrational hatred. Throughout American history, gay and transgender people, non binary people, whoever they are, have been mistreated, harassed, murdered, exclused no less brutally than African-Americans and native Americans. And we as a people ars still doing it today. We should be ashamed of ourselves. By all accounts the young lady who tragically took her own life not far from where I live was a bright, cheerful, pleasant person, fun to be around. You can't even imagine the contributions she might have made to the world had she lived. Her loss is everyone's loss. And I will always believe this; that her "suicide" wasn't really so much a suicide as it was a murder, a murder committed not be a single individual, but by our entire society, our culture; in effect, all of us. This concept will not be popular, and will arouse righteous indignation among the self righteous. Nevertheless, it is true, and the best approach would be to reform or abolish the religion, the culture, and the society, any society, which commits such crimes.

Trump, Selling Bibles

IT REALLY SHOULDN'T SURPRISE ME that Donald Trump is selling Bibles, but it does. Literally, nothing that he says or does should surprise me, nor anyone, and yet, it does. And at this point it won't surprise me if he makes a killing selling Bibles, rakes in tens of millions of dollars from the Trump supporting evangelical Christian community.. Maybe even a billion. For only sixty dollars, a nice looking large copy with an apparently leather cover. Most conservative evangelicals probably have more than one copy of the Bible at home, often times many copies, as people collect them. Each copy has a unique story behind it, and fulfills a particular purpose in the collection.. To have forever one of Donald Trump's bibles would be for many a golden opportunity. Also, - and I'm sure Trump has thought of this - by selling Bibles, if he sells a lot of them, it will help solidify the amazing claim on the part of many evangelical Trumpers that Donald J. Trump was sent to us by God, and is the direct representative of Christ, the political vehicle for the glorious victory of Christ's kingdom on Earth. Or something like that. Trump's recent position statement supporting legal abortion until the sixteenth week of pregnancy, and, heaven forbid, some of his legal troubles, are threatening to soften Trump's normally huge support among conservative Christians. That, quite simply, must not be allowed to happen. Biden, being a Democrat, is Satanic.Trump must be returned to power, that America be made great again. First, the golden sneakers, now, bibles. What will be Honest Don's next entrepreneurial endeavors? Stay tuned to find out. He obviously needs money very badly, and that need will only increase. He is banking on the thought that if he is elected, he can dismiss all his legal problems by pardoning himself, or whatever it takes. Trump's followers, especially the evangelicals, love Trump because he enables their worst selves; their bigotry, anger, and hatred. His bible enterprise will be regarded as a demonstration that not only is Doanld Trump a good man doing the right thing for America and Christ, but that indeed the Lord Jesus Christ fully supports and annoints Donald J. Trump as God's president. Conservative politics and Christianitiy are traditionally intolerant, harsh, with hateful violent attitudes and forms of retribution for those who disobey the sacred laws and values, such as opposition to and hatred of homosexuality, greed for money and power, a cut throat competitive approach to economics which destroys compassion - all the things that Donald J. Trump stands for. His supporters should be decent and intelligent enough to see Trump's bible business as the scam that it is, and see Trump for the criminally insane reprobate that he has always been. But they refuse to, because refusing to, they think, benefits them.

Protecting the Young From the World

THERE IS NO DOUBT that the internet in general, and social media in particular, is a swamp, a cultural morass. A reflection of society in general. It seems reasonable to assume that nearly everybody agrees on that point. Hell, isn't about one half of the internet pornography? Whatever the percentage, its considerable, and shocking. Another thing we might all agree on is the solution to the problem. Its the same solution for everybody; turn off your computer Perhaps we even agree that cultural choices, choices pertianing to what music to listen to, what books to read, what movies to watch, what clothing to wear, how to speak, are best left to the free market in a free and democratic society. The free market of culture and intellect, where all ideals, seemingly, at least in these United States, stand a chance. It almost seems that somewhere or other, in some remote nook and cranny if nowhere else, no matter how crass, base, or horrible the cultural offering, there is a market for it, if only a small one. In other words the masses do not always have good taste. Presumably this is true in any culture past or present; it is certainly true in America, the land of opportunity for financial gain through vulgarity and mediocrity. Most Americans would much rather live in a culture which has a crass, vulgar, seemy side, with the freedom to ignore the vulgarity, and allow the cultural free market to determine what succeeds and what fails, what is popular and what is not, and, above all else, keep the damned government out of it. All censorship is bad. Government censorship is tyranny. All believe that, except for the far right wing evangelical Christian conservative community, as represented by the Republican party. Conservatism has always been destined to lose the cultural wars, and their losses are increasingly evident today. Human culture, all aspects of it, is by nature liberal, progressive, dynamic, changing, sexual, and, in many instances, vulgar. So be it. In the U.S.A., we Americans generlallly do not take kindly to our govenment telling us what books we can read, and what muisic we can enjoy. Except for the authoritarian Republican party, that is. Red states all across the fruited plain are passing laws criminalizing mention of racism, sexual diversity, many books, and honest, accurate, albeit unflattering American history. All these laws are bad. They are examples of government abuse,infringements on intellectual freedom. In Florida, the governoer just the other day want much further; he signed into law a law prohibiting children under the age of fourteen from having social media accounts. One must assume that Floridian young people are shocked and angered, and that much of the state is in turmoil over this controversial, heavy handed government intrusion. From now on, the court system will take over in Florida, probably processing hundreds of lawsuits on the matter. The dreadful specter of the SCOTUS lurks, if only in the background, for now. How on Earth will Florida enforce this law? By knocking on doors and inspecting personal computers? By strictly monitoring internet use in every home in the state? How much farther will we go in using the government as a cultural overlord? That would seem to depend laregly on how well the Republican party does in near future elections.

Moving: Seeking Shelter

THE MOST ALARMING, frightening thing about climate change is also the most obvious; it is already here. For a long time we talked about global warming and climate change, not without some justification, as if they were threats of the far off future. Although global warming has been underway for some time, only recently have we discovered it, begun to study it, pay attention to it, and now, to actually experience it. No longer is it a threat for the futre;it is already harming human civilization, and the harm will only increase, repidly and extremely. A new book, "On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America", by Abraham Lustgarten, discusses and analyzes one of the most profound impacts climate change is already having and will ontinue to have on people; mass migration, such as that which is currently originating in central America. As extreme weather, floods, droughts, violent storms, out of control wildfires, rising sea levels, become more severe, people will have little choice but to flee, in search of a safer place to live. Eventually, we on this planet will run out of safe places to live, and probably sooner rather than later. The American people have always been migratory. We aint seen nothin' yet. In the coming decades, tens of millions of Americans will relocate, fleeing climate change. All of the fastest growing areas in the U.S. are also among the most impacted by climate change. The great American migration is barely but beginning. The growing season is getting longer. In many places in the northern hemisphere, October has now become a summer month. Every year is hotter than the previous,every year is the hottest year ever, and every month is the hottest month ever. Global warming is coming on fast, and will only get faster. Where I live every summer seems hotter than the previous, there is at least one severe drought every year, and sometimes more, and I begin to wonder how much longer it will be before the wildfires come here. And they will come here. They will come to the midwest and southeast, will eventually sweep all across the United States. How can it be otherwise, with a warming atmosphere, warming ever faster? For years predictions about climate change have focused on the middle of the twenty first century, and the end of the century. We are now rapidly approaching the middle of the century, and sure enough, all the predictions made by climate change scentists over the past fifty years are coming true. I'm worried about the summer which will begin soon, this coming summer. I wonder how severe the inevitable drougt will be, whether any more of my shrubs or trees will die, like several did last year. Tornado season, which is getting longer each year and seemingly will soon encompass the entire year, has begun. Tornados, like hurricanes, floods, and drougts, seem to be becoming larger and more numerous. I am beginning to think that I will live long enough to see a summer in which the daytime temperature reaches one hundred degrees every day during June, July, and August. Its going to happen, its just a matter of when, of how soon.I would never have thought I would live to see it, until recently. It may be that all of our current meek and mild climate change fighting activities will suddenly explode into huge, effective solutions, and the problem will be reversed, solved. Climate back to normal. It could hapen. It is not impossible. At present, though, there is nothing to indicate that its going to. We keep plodding along, and climate change keeps outpacing us. Our only comfort is that the race isn't quite over, yet.

Breaking and Entering

WHEN GOSPEL SINGING ENDED, I was in a good mood, as I usually am after gospel singing, although I dislike gospel music. I thought I had sung fairly well, and, as always, had participated in a good, healthy, community activity,though not one of my own choosing. It makes me feel good, and Its fun. The lady sitting next to me, a good friend of mine, turned to me, handed me her car keys, and asked whether I would be willing to walk to her car, and retrieve a shopping bag full of stuff from her back seat. She is currently dealing with tendonitis,and is using a cane,so, of course, I said,I would be happy to help. As I walked through the parking lot, I began to vaguely feel that I wasn't sure which car was hers. A long line of SUVs, about the same shape and size, with slightly different colors. One of them was hers..but..which one? I felt silly: I have seen her car many times. I found the one I thought was hers, got the bag out, and took it inside. When I showed it to her while handing her keys back, a look of horror spread across her face, and she said, quietly: "No, this isn't the right one". I tried to stay calm, and found it difficult. I suddenly realized that I had, in effect, broken into and entered someone's car, and had stolen an item from it, which I currently had in my possession. As calmly as I could, I aked my friend to state the make, model, and color of her SUV, which she did, stammering in shock. Hastily I jogged back out the door, through the parking lot, and back to the car from which I had accidently stolen the merchandise. I replaced it, without detection. I felt fortunate that I had been able to remember which car was the wrong one I had broken into. It could have been worse. I could have put the grocery sack in the wrong car again,in a third car. That probably would have been enough to trigger rumors of a local crime spree, and to gain airtime on the local if not regional TV news...I found her car, and found another grocery sack with stuff in it, and took it to her. This time, I was right. We were both relieved. I was also rewarded; one of the items in the bag was a gift for me; a current issue of "Mother Jones" magazine, one of my favorites. With regard to my friend, I am quite sure of two things. One, she was amazed at what I had done, and wondered how in the world I could possibly do something so stupid. Hadn't I known her for years? And hadn't she had the same car the entire time?... And two, she is still amazed at my stupidity, and will so remain for the rest of her natural life, at least. That's understandable. Me, not amazed so much, although altogether I rather wish the whole embarrassing, frightening episode hadn't happened, funny though it seems now. It doesn't surprise me, because I know myself. I spend a lot of time thinking about a lot of things, but I don't sepnd much effort keeping track of cars. I tend to be absent minded, day dreamy, often lost in revery. I can remember picking up a cell phone, pointing it at the television, and trying to change channels with it, before suddenly realizing that I was not holding the remote control. I have found lost books in the refrigerator. And worse. And more. Too much to remember, too much to even want to remember.

Praying, With Purpose

THE LITTLE OLD LADY who kindly plays the piano for our gospel singing group every week had an ancnouncement before we got started. She told us that both of her sons, who had recently been in the hospital with serious medical concerns, one of them in ICU, were both doing much better,improving daily, almost miraculously, and that both would soon be released from the hospital. This filled me, and I assume everyone else with joy. I (we) had been quite worried. Two sons in the hospital, in serious condition. No parent should have to see her own children die. She had told us about the situation a couple of weeks ago, and I had told her that I would pray, which I immediately proceeded to do. Why not? Who knows? I'm open minded. As she looked at us and gave us the good news update, I broke into a proud smile,and she shed a tear or two in happiness. Then she remarked that it was a miracle, that God has answered our prayers, and that she was extremely grateful. The thought suddenly came to me that I too felt grateful. And still another sudden thought: that throughout my life, everytime I have asked for something in prayer,my prayer has been "answered", or, in other words, has come true. I have gotten what I preayed for, everytime. However, I seldom pray to ask for something, for anything. I pray,but almost always it is to give thanks, and to express love and admiration for "the infinitely superior spirit" of the universe. And that is true. It warms my heart, and, to a certain extent, amazes me. Amazes me that my prayers for help, infrequent though they are, are always answered - at least, so far. Again, who knows? I told the church lady this. As I expected, she launched right in, teling me that God loves me, and that I am one of his chosen children, and that his willingness to die for our sins demonstrates his love for us. All well and good, but I have told the lady that I am not A Christian, which indeed I am not. It may be that she thinks that I am becoming one, or that I have the potential to become one...or whatever.... Whatever, she wants me saved; this I know. Well, and then, I fear I will never bes "saved" in precisely the way she would want. Instead, I shall seek and find salvation in my own way, which I indeed have,rather then hers, or anybody else's. I'm a stickler for relgious and intellectual freedom, independence, diversity, and individuality. Call me crazy. Church lady will either have to go on worrying about my eternal soul, as I believe she has been doing for a while now, or, she can simply choose to assume that old Bob has indeed seen the light, has come to Christ, and has been saved, as witnessed by all the gospel singing and praying. I don't need to remind her of my actual religiosity, or lack thereof. I have no obligation to dispell whatever misconceptions she chooses to embrace.I have told her before my true beliefs. She didn't like hearing it then, and she undoubtedly wouldn't want to hear it now. She was horrified then, and would be again. Maybe she has wiped the horrible memory from her mind, the memory of me proclaiming my heathen blasphemous lack of salvation, and replaced it with my salvation. And that's fine with me. That doesn't harm me any, and, well, as they say, whatever works.

Prevaricating, Blatantly

SOMETIMES YOU ARE AMAZED at the blatant lies people tell, and the number of people who choose, without reason, to believe them. The greatest case in point is the big election lie of "honest Don" Trump, and the tens of millions of Americans who still believe it, or tell us that they do. I would never even bother to tell such an outrageous lie, assuming that nobody would believe me. Almost ceratinly they would not. But, they would, and do, believe Donald Trump, who for years has been well known as an habitual liar. Go figure. Watergate shocked my parents, who claimed that they had never before been so aware that their own government could and would lie so blatantly to them. It had the same impact on me. People prefer to think that the government of their country, whether monarchy or democratic, is looking after their best interests, and telling the truth. Often, this is simply not the case. All autocrats,all authoritarian rulers, convince themselves that they are indispensible, that their people simply cannot live without them. That, of course, is always a lie. The recent presidential "election" in Russia, which was so obviously rigged by Putin to elect Putin, was so obviously a scam and a sham that you might wonder why they even bothered to conduct it. Why not merely delcare Mr. Putin absolute ruler for life, and leave it at that? Plausable deniability, the same technique used by Trump and most chronic liars to wiggle out of accountability. Simply leave anough wiggle room to allow for reasonable doubt, so we will question whether it is really a lie, and choose to believe the lie. The big lie, told often and loudly. It bears remembering that people generally prefer stable,solid, authoritarian government to democracy, which requires effort by us the governned, is very unwieldy and messy, and can be frustrating, such as is the case in these United States at present. My mother and I laughed years ago when Saddam Hussein held an "election" in Iraq, running himself, as the icmbant candidate. He had no oppostiion. the ballot consisted of a square piece of paper, with Saddam's name on it, and next to it, a box in which to put a checkmark. He get ninety nine percent of the vote. Almost amazingly, Mr. Putin, it is reported, enjoys widespread popularity in Russia. Its hard to imagine why. He has wrecked the Russian economy and killed hundreds of thousands of his own people with his useless, insane war in Ukraine. He falsely, laughably, describes his war as a sort of holy crusade, to rid Ukraine of fascists, to liberate its people so they will be free to enjoy being Russian citizens; all nonsense, obvious lies. Two weeks before the terrorist attack in Moscow the United States warned Putin that it was imminent, and that it would be Islamic terrorists responsible. When the attack failed to mainfest,Putin accused the United States of "fear mongering", as if America was playing a dirty trick on Russia. After the attack, Putin immediately placed the blame for it on Ukraine, rather than the actual criminals, the Islamic State. Convenient for him, but, again an obvious, blatant lie. Whatever it takes ot prop up support for his disastrous, failed war of aggression, and to distract from the fact that the warning from the U.S. was, it turned out, quite accurate. The American people were lied to about the reasons for dropping the atom bomb on Japan, about the reasons for American involvment in Viet Nam, and about the reasons for America's wars in the Middle East, from 1991 on. People enjoy, prefer being lied to, if the lies conform to their personal perferences and biases. Such is human nature. The truth is that if you live on this planet, and are living in a country which has a govenment, chances are, you have been and are being lied to.

Embracing Crazy, Part II

I FIRST HEARD ABOUT somethng called "The 2025 Project some time ago, but didn't think much about it. I dismissed it as unimportant. From what I heard, it sounded like some screwball conservative conspiracy and plan on how to defeat the forces of evil (progressivism) and restore true conservative values to America, or something like that. Finally, I decided to do a little reading about it, and learn something. What I learned is that the 2025 Project is essentially what I thought it to be; a wild conservative plan based on a conspiracy theory. In other words, nonsense. The idea was hatched in 2022, and put together in detail on paper by the Heritage Foundation, that infamous right wing "think" tank. It is a plan, consisting of four fundamental "pillars", as to what might happen if Trump is elected this year. It is based on the wild, false conspiracy theory, popular among the far right, that the roughly two million bureaucrats who work for the federal government are a subversive, left wing organization, overflowing with leftist radicals, who constitute a shadow government, what they call "the deep state". The Deep State, it seems, is out to get Trump, and thus must be destroyed. Needless to say this is all pcychotic, fabricated nonsense, but, hey, isn't that basically what modern American conservatism is all about? On inauguration day, hundreds of thousands of chosen MAGA conservatives will march into Washington, a veritable mob (here we go again), and be appointed by newly inaugurated President Trump to replace all the deep state people, who will be summarily fired. An entire federal bureaucracy, thrust into office in one day, devotedly, faithful to Trump, exclusively. The 2025 Project supports the legal theory that the U.S. President has sole, complete power over the entire executive branch, including te Department of Justice. Under Trump, that theory would be put into effect. The cabinet would be filled with Trump worshipping sycophants, again, as it was the first time around, with disastrous results. The federal regularoty agencies, and there are many of them, would essentially be eliminated or stripped of real power. The EPA, for example, would be eliminated, and the government would offer no resistance to renewed fossil fuel use, and would cease and desist all activities and projects related to fighting climate change. In other words,The 2025 Project would be suicidal, globally. The Departments of Education,Commerce, and Energy would be eliminated. Paving the way for a society with a weak central government, corporate control, and neoliberal capitalism. There is a strong Christian Nationalism component to The 2025 Project. The plan would be to insinuate the Christian religion into every corner of government and society, making it,in essence, the offical religion of these United States. An abortion ban would be enacted into federal law. Their would be a much flatter tax code, with only two brackets, neither giving the poor a break nor taxing the wealthy meaningfully. Also, all of these crazy school related initiatives already in place in conservative states, such as eliminating inclusion studies, racial history, and LGTBQ culture entirely from public education, would remain intact, and spread to the entire country. The 2025 Project would reverse at least fifty or one hundred years of progress, and attempt to return America to its less compassionate, more socially rigid, dogmatic past. It wouldn't take much time for everyone, including conservatives, to suffer under the impact of this insanity.

Embracing Crazy, Part I

IT BEARS REPEATING: The big problem with America is not merely Donald Trump, and the Trump movement, athough that is certainly a big enough problem. Nor is the problem merely the Republican party, horrible problem though that is.The G.O.P. has clearly morphed into a criminal, terrorist organization. The problem is bigger still. The problem is the agenda, the core beliefs and values, of contemporary American conservatism. Consider this: in red state after red state, far right wing extremist legislatures are making it illegal to acknowledge or even mention the existence of gay and LGBTQ people in public schools. Why? Because to do so,according to conservatives,is promoting a gay and LGBTQ culture and lifestyle, indoctrinating students in favor of it. Discrimination, preferential treatment for a minority, it seems. You can't make this stuff up, as we say. Same with racism. It must never be mentioned, its existence never acknowledged, in the public schools in any state dominated by Republicans and conservative ideology. Why? Because to do so would be to run the risk of making white students feel uncomfortable, or guilty, or ashamed. That's why books like "To Kill A Mockingbird" and "Native Son" are being banned; they might make crackers feel "uncomfortable". Oh, heaven forbid that! We must surely protect the fragile feelings of American white children, precious little conservative snowflakes! Hint: the very reason, message, and purpose of Harper Lee's classic novel is to do precisely that: to make people feel uncomfortable, to educate people,to make people think and question their own beliefs and vlues. Likewise, these same red states are passing laws banning the teaching of inclusion, equality, and acceptance of all people, races, cultures, ethnicities, and sexual orientations in public school lessons. To support teaching inclusion in schools requires accepting the reality that inclusion needs to be taught, that we as a society need to encourage it, that we remain a society which has insufficient levels of equality and inclusion. Heaven forbid. Conservative extremists, meaning mainstream conservatives, claim that such lessons are divisive, because they acknolwedge, and thus encourage differences, divisions among people. In reality, obviously such differences really do exist, and the problem is not their existence, but our reaction to them, and the way we treat different people. Conservatives would prefer to pretend that such differences simply do not exist, giving them an excuse to do nothing about eliminating the societal exclusion, which is also very real, based upon these differences. White privilege really exists, whether we admit it or not. White privilege can continue only of we allow it by ignoring it, and that is the conservative preference. No legislation forbidding knowledge is needed or wanted by reasonable people. Legislation intended to make people ignorant is malignant, evil. Teachers, administrators, parents and students are capable of deciding what to talk about in and out of school, without government meddling. Especially teachers and students. They're smart. Let them decide. Republicans, supposedly champions of limited government, suddenly prefer big government intervention when they feel their agenda is treatened. Their agenda, inherently wrong, is what needs to be eliminated, not education.

Facebooking

I JOINED FACEBOOK several years ago out of curiosity to see what all the fuss was about. I soon found out.I soon realied that I could use Facebook to promote this website, one way or antoher,and that I had no interest in messaging or making friends online. Or chasing women. I can do all that in person, right here where I live. I have no profile, and I never message anyone, except a rare remark on messanger made to a nice lady I befriended quite by accident. But I get a near constant stream of messages from attractive young women. It amazes me. Always has, still does. I did the math, and calculated that if every man on Facebook receives as many messages from as many atractive young laides as I - and why wouldn't they? - then the average man on Faceboook gets several dozen messages per day from dozens of different attractive young ladies, or, there are literally billions of attractive young ladies on Facebook, messaging men. All of them want to see a picture of me. I reply that there is a picture of me on my website, (this website), and nowhere else. That completely confuses all of them, for some reason. Most of them it angers. They never ask politely for a picture of me; they demand one. "Send pic", is the most common phrase. As if it is my solemn, sacred obligation for me to give everyone who messagess me a picture of me, on demand. As if they have never heard of a "website" before, and have no idea how to access one. As if the phrase "The Truthless Reconciler" is inherently incomprehensible. I honestly explain that I do not know how to take and send a "selfie". They ignore that. Only rearely does a young attractive lady ever actually make it to this website, which is too bad, but, oh well..when they do, they seem to find these essays incomprehensible, or,if nothing else, unworthy of their opinion. I never get the feecback I want. Ever. They uniformly insist that they are looking for their one true love in life, a serious relationship. When they find out that I am sixty eight years old, they almost always seem undeterred. Age is just a number. Often, they ask me "what are you looking for here?" (Facebook). I always give the same one word answer, and its honest every time. I tell them: "nothing". This too seems to thoroughly confuse them. Often they make no response at all, and I never hear from them again. As if anyone who uses Facebook and responds to messgaes from attractive young ladies must be crazy, to not be looking for anything. Only an idiot would want nothing. I realize that I do not have to respond to messages from attractive young ladies. Several reasons why I do. For one thing, courtesy. For another, I joined Facebook for the online experience, and, by god, I am going to have the online experience. And then too, I participate for what I might learn, from a psychological and sociological standpoint. What I think I have learned so so far I do not entirely like. Everyone of these attractive young ladies looking for the love of their lives eventually asks me for money. Every single one of them, and there have been hundreds. Sometimes they try to scam me, although usually its the men who do that. I could have given away a fortune by now,if I were a gillable idiot. This constant money grubbing upsets me; maybe I should just smile, and think of it as normal.

Eclipsing

I HEARD SOME FOLKS EXCITEDLY discussing next month's total eclipse of the sun. "I cannot wait until April 8!", one of them enthusiastically exclaimed. I understand why, but begged to differ. "Yes you can", I wanted to say, but didn't. You can wait for anything and everything, anticipation is indeed the better part of desire, and, well, you have no other choice, but to wait..for everything, including the next moment. One thing I've learned over an increasingly long life is; never hasten the future. Don't wish away your life. Or, as Einstein sagely said: "I never think much about the future. It arrives soon enough". Every old person on the planet will tell you that life goes by like a flash, and there is no reason to hurry it along mentally,emotionally. I too am very excited about the coming eclipse, partly because I luckily live perfectly situated within the path of totally; the eclipse will indeed be total in my neck of the woods, the sun will be completely obliterted, briefly; but, yes, I can wait, and am enjoing the waiting. We are expecting tens of thousands of tourists to descend on our modest little state as the magic day approaches. If its cloudy all will not be lost: for a few magic minutes the day will turn completely dark, like midnight, and we will all freak, clouds or no clouds. Who knows? Maybe new religions will be born, right here in my territory! More likely, the old ones will be dusted off, and intoned, briefly... Doubtless ancient religions were inpsired and shaped by these occasional disappearances of the sun god from the sky in broad daylight. For a few terrifying minutes, the world seems, literally, to be ending. Thank goodness we moderns know better..or do we? I remember an eclipse in, I believe, 1964 or so, when I was a kid. Then, on March 7, 1970, when I was nearly fifteen, a high school friend and I projected the partially eclipsed sun (we were not in the path of totality) onto a viewing screen through a small telescope, and we took a picture of us, standing there together, next to the telescope, the half eaten sun plainly visibie on the projection screen. We were so young. My friend is long dead. I wish I still had that picture. August 21, 2017 seems like yesterday. On that grand solar eclipse day, my neighborhood was given a near total but not total total vanishing of the sun, on a nice clear summer day. I stood in my front yard, my neighbors stood in theirs, of all of gawking and gaping in utter, primitive amazement for about ten minutes or so. I rmember thinking that this would be the last eclipse until April of 2024, and that that was a long way away in the futre, but, really, maybe, not so much...Turns out, it wasn't. The past seven years went by in a flash. How surprising, right? I believe the next eclipse will be in the twenty forties some time, I cannot recall the exact date. Maybe I'll still be alive, maybe I won't be. Either way, I have been blessed. If I'm alive for the next eclipse, I will once again be excited, will pay attention to it, and will be very, very old. And once again, as I have increasingly done as I have aged, I will doubtless reflect once again on how incredibly rapidly it all goes by, almost as if having gotten done too soon.

Disproving the Lie

THE MOST BLATANT LIE ever told was Trump's big election lie. Nothing has ever been more obvious than its falsehood. He and his followers are to be commended on the effectiveness of their deliberate self delusional brainwashing. Weeks before the election, Trump told his daughter Ivanka about his election theft plan. On election night, the moment he famously lied, its falsehood was instantly obvious. For some strange reason Democrats and people of reason have been trying to think of ways to convince the Trump mob that the election was not stolen from them. Nothing has worked. Nothing ever will work. That has been obvious for a very long time. For years, observers have been pointing out to the election deniers that there is not a shred of evidence supporting Trump's election lie. They continue to do so to this day, ineffectively. Any run of the mill Trump supporter, when challenged, can instantly spew forth one conspiracy theory after another, one sensational example of voter fraud after another...all, of course, fabricated. In every swing state, the votes were counted three times, by Republicans, and each time, Biden won, you try to tell them. Again, no impact. It becomes pointelss to even try. However, people keep trying. Trump and the Republicans engaged people to search out and find election fraud in the 2020 eelction. One of them was Ken Block, a data specialist Trump hired in November 2020 to dig deep and either find or fabricate proof, or even evidence, of election fraud. He spent months indeed digging deep,assessing an avalanche of fraud claims, going through records at local precincts, studying every aspect of the momentous election. The entire experience he wrote about in a newly released book with a title longer than the election controvery itself: "Disproven: My Unbiased Search For Voter Fraud For the Trump Campaign,the Data That Shows Why He Lost, and How We Can Improve Our Elections."...The Title says it all, summarizes the book. Step by step, Block show exactly how the election took place, what happened, and that Trump lost, just exactly as officially noted. This book is as persuasive as all the state vote recounts and court trials, sixty of them affirming the election results, lost by Trump. But, unfortunately, that isn't the point. None of it matters. Facts and proof and reason will never persuade Trump's election deniers to abandon their election lie,and come clean. They're too deeply invested, dug in too deep. During his work Ken Block came to realize that the American election system does indeed need reform, an overhaul of sorts. There are simply far too many unnecessary inefficiencies, errors, honest mistakes,and actual instances of fraud to tolerate, when fixes are easily achievable. Block lays out exactly what's wrong and how to fix it, which is this important book's, main value. Election deniers will try to use this reality to claim that election fraud and a stolen election was not only possible, but factual. But they won't be able to, because Block clearly shows that all these flaws in the election system, while very real, could not possibly have had more than a tiny, insignificant impact on the actual election. That won't matter to them either.

Being Human(e)

JUST TO BE CLEAR, I am non anti-Semitic. I am not anti-anybody, race, ethnic group, religion, whatever. If anything, I am anti-human, across the board. An equal opportunity human detractor. Bertolt Brecht said it best, in his poem "Concerning Poor B.B.":..."I make friends with people...and I wear a derby on my head as others do . I say: 'they are strangely stinking animals'. And I say: 'no matter,I am too'"... No, my problem is not anti-Semitism. My problem is human history, past and present. The impending destruction of all life on Earth. The constant wars, violence, and needless suffering, inflicted by ourselves upon ourselves. With regard to the thousands of religions in the world, I don't like any of them, including Judaism. For me, my own religion, which I invented, will do just fine. I have never been a big fan of the modern nation os Israel, for geo-political rather than religious or ethnic racial reasons. A close, historical examination of the precise manner in which it was founded in 1948 clearly revels that its founding was accomplished only with extreme suffering on the part of the Palestinians, and only as a result of western imperialism, i.e., British and American. Arguably, the world would have been and would be a far better place now had European powers and the North American power refrained from meddling in the rest of the world, trying to control it, for hundred of years. Arguably, the people now living in the area now occupied by the nation of Israel and the surrounding areas where Palestininas live in large numbers would be far more stable, peaceful and happy had nothing changed in 1948. Either that, or the "two state solution" should have implemented in 1948, at the founding of mmodern Israel. That Netanyahu and Israel's conseratives oppose this is reason enough why they should not be governing Israel now, why elections should be held soon. The nightmarish carnage and bloodshed now being visited upon the Palestinian people by the Israeli "defense forces" is the direct result of the horribly mismanaged birth of Israel in 1948. It is not yet "genocide", but it could fast become gnocide; more than thirty thousand murdered civilians, mostly women and children, qualifies as a good start to genocide. Let's call it "mass murder". It is certainly not standard warfare, in any sense understood by history or the international community. It is barbaric, inhumane, and the international community must stop it. It is obvious that Netanyahu will not. The Israeli government under Neyanhayu has turned the nation of Israel into a criminal, terrorist organization, no better than their terrorist enemy Hamas. The nation has lowered itself to that level. In America, it seems to be the progressives who are expressing outrage at this wanton slaughter of innocent civilians by Israeli forces. From American conservatives, not so much. It is not too late to greatly improve the situation by implementing a plan for nationhood for Palestine, a plan more than seventy five years late. And, just to be clear, what Israel is doing now has nothing to do with "defending itself".

Changing Course

Catherine Coldstream did not grow up wanting and planning to become a nun. Far from it. She was raised by intelligent parents and given all possible educational opportunities, and she chose music. Her intllectual creativity and unique mindset led her towards experimental forms of music. She lived in Paris for a time, where whe took full advantage of the cultural advantages offered by the city. Then, when she was twenty four, her father, the guiding light of her life, died suddenly. She was utterly devasted, to the point of not having any motivation to continue her dirdection in life. She new she needed a drastic change, of some kind. In dealing with her grief, she turned to religion and philosophy, and came to believe that her life needed to take a religious turn, and be devoted to the faith. She entered a nunnery, and stayed for several years. She adjusted repidly to monastic life, knowing what to expect, having been aware of some of its characteristics in advance. But,she never really fit in, and the nun's life,though she rigorously adhered to its strict regimen, never really suited her. Over time, she came to realize this. At one point she actually ran away, but returned, then, later, left permanently by pursuing the established, appropriate, proper process. She wrote a fascinating book about the whole experience, titled "Cloistered: My Years As A Nun". Coldstream is an excellent, talented writer, and would make a great literary novelist. Her narrative of daily life among the nuns, monotonous and austere, and uneventful though it was, she renders fscinating, especally in describing her inner, emotional reactions to the circumstances of her radically different life. She grew to appreciate the materially simple life, to value silence and introspection, as well as self discipline, service, and duty. She sensed her growth as a person. But ultimately the spartan life became burdensome, too bereft of creativity or artistic expression, intellectually stifling. She said that during all this, she felt as if her artistic talent and intellectual gifts were being shunned, overlooked, unappraciated. Life in the nunnery had been one of cold impersonal contact and near complete silence, deprived of all normal human warmth and love. She missed that, and felt herself withering, emotionally. One must assume that before entering the nunnery, Ms.Colsdtream had given thought to the probability that she would not be entering a world replete with song, dance, art, and individual creativity, where her talents would be celebrated, appreciated, and encouraged. After she left, her adjustment back into the mainstream world was a bit difficult. She had grown so accustomed to her nun's life that the outside world seemed unbearably noisy, chaotic, nervous, and mainstream culture seemed frivolous, crass, and blashpemous. Her renewed freedom of movement, routine, and activity she soon became pleasantly reaccustomed to, however. And, although for a long time she tended to avoid conversations or relationships with people, this too gradually returned to pre-nun normal, overtime. She had not been cured of religion, however. She entered college, and studied theology. Nearly everyone could probably benefit from spending a small protion of hie or her life in a monastic setting and lifestyle. But only for a time. To devote one's entire life to it would deprive anyone of too much life, culture, and humanity, and would not give enough in return.

Paying the Price For Telling the Truth, Part II

IT IS WIDELY BELIEVED that if elections were held in Israel right now, With Netanyahu running against a good, strong, bona fide solid opposing candidate, that Benjamin would lose badly. He is, by all accounts and measurements,supremely unpopular among the general populace, and not just the progressives. Like Trump, Netanyahu is embrolied in a number of legal difficulties, charged with various forms of serious financial and political corruption. His legal proceedings are proceeding, slowly. Many Israeli citizens are concerned about this, with justification. Also, his recent apparently failed attempt to greatly disempower the Israeli judiciary,paricularly their Supreme Court, and to transfer much of their traditional power to the executive branch, i.e. himself, not only was poorly received througout the electorate, but all across the country, as massive, sometimes violent protests made the people's viewpoint perfectly clear. Perhaps the most immediate factor in his decline in popularity is the Public's decreasing approval for the war against Hamas, aka Palestine. Many Israelis believe that their government and military should have been prepared for and prevented the vicious attack by Hamas on October 7. And make no mistake; this war is not merely against Hamas, it is now full blown against the Palenstinian people, women and children civilians included. Israel is not due to have a presidential eleciton for some time, but Sanator Shcuk Schumer recently exprssed what many people are thinking, and agree with: that Iarael should have an election as soon as possible, and a new president should be elected. Netanyahu has been in office longer than any other Israeli leader in history, is awash in scandal and controversy; it is time for him to go. Predictably, the conservative Christian Repubican party,its leaders in particular, rose up in righteous indignation agaisnt Schumer. How dare he criticize our close ally, and presume to meddle in their internal affairs! Republicans, phony as usual. Certainly an American, any American, including a political leader, has the right to express an opinion about a country whose very existence and strength has often depended on American support, and still does. President Biden, among millions of other people, has observed that killing more than thirty thousand Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, not only does not help defeat Hamas, but actually harms Israel more than helps it, by making Israel a scorned pariah internationally, by reminding people of history's most brutal massacres and wars. The American government, American electorate, and all other nations on Earth sould exert the strongest possible pressure on Israel to cease and desist civilian massacres, and to help innocent Palestinians avoid starvation, rather than being the cause of it. Surely Netanyahu is aware that as long as there is a Palestine which hates Israel, not without good reason, there will be a formal, if illegal Palestinian military organization, Hamas or no Hamas, armed, resolute, and dedicated to Israel's destruction. Israel is making new enemies much faster than it is defeating and destroying old ones. Keep talking, Mr. Schumer. We hear you.

Paying the Price for Telling the Truth Part I

SOME IF NOT MANY will remember Christine Blase Ford, who testified before Congress in the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. In a thin, weak,emotion laden little voice, she testified that while in high school, Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her, raisin quit a stink on netional television for htis shocking narrative. the conservative Republians quite predctably and naturally immediately pounced like a pack of vultures, attacking Ms. Ford, who is a distinguished professor of psychology and other esoteric things at several major universities. They pulled out all the stop, these Republicans Senators, in discrediting her tsteimony, her integrity, her everything, is their desperate perceived necessity of getting Kavanaugh on the court, no matter what, no matter how foul and criminal his background. It was a disgusting demonstration of raw power being used brutally, to destroy a good person. In other words,normal far right wing behavior. After years of torment and indecision, Christine Ford has finally releaed abook on her entire experience, titled "One Way Out". Her decision to suppress the rape over the years emotionally damaged her as much as the rape itself, and the agony of deciding whether to come forward when Kavanaugh was nominated to the high court, more terrifying still. In the end, she had to do it. I wil never forget her timind, shaky little girl voice which she seems to have kept. And I can never forget the disgusting aggression with which the Republican reprobates attacked her, relentlessly,dishonestly, ceaselessly. The death threats from the conservative community started coming in immediately.She wsa beseiged with them. All from Trump spporters. MAGA nation, up in arms, angry, violent, like January 6th. She and her family had to move from place to place, hotel to hotel, under tight securty,to stay alive. And she still does, to this day. She still receives death threats by the basket,still has tight security, and still lives a life of hyper vigilance and hiding. Perhaps she always will. And make no mistake, this is the work of the entire conservative community, not merely a sfew deranged people, or a hate group. It is a big as the Republican party, and bigger. It is the way that normal,mainstream American conservatives deal with women who claim to have been sexually abused by consrvative men seeking high office. Deny and ignore the claims of abuse. Attack the accusor. Don't even consider the accustions, despite the confirmed fact that instances of women fabricating such claims are rather rare. Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh are now "serving" on the U.S. Supreme Court despite the high probability that they are both sex offenders. and if you dont think this is normal for conservatives, to support conservative leaders who are also sex offenders, simply consider Donald Trump.Trump is a verified, convicted sex offender, and a sex offender by his own, well known, documented admission. You hear his words, bragging about being one. Millions of people heard it. His supporters, including most conservatives, most Republicans and evangelical Christians in this country, simply don't care. Instead of accepting the inconvenient truth and ridding themselves of Trump,they demonize his victims, and they reward him by making him an icon, a cult leader,sent by God and Christ. Their agenda is that important to them. Methods and morality do not matter. That shows you precisely how moral and decent mainstream American conservatives are, which is, not at all.

The Never Changing Trump

IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW BETTER, you would swear that Donald Trump is trying to self "destruct". However, you know better. And indeed, were he among normal, decent people, he would be politically destroyed. But he isn't. He is not preaching and screeching to mainstream, decent America. He is preaching to the proverbial choir, to his MAGA hard core supporters, the kind who attend his hate-fest campaign rallies. Far right wing extremists, of the most dangerous kind. And since he always doubles and triples down, and never tries to hide his true self, its easy to undrertand his point of view, impossible though it remains to comprehend how any half way decent human being could ever embrace such insane evil nonsense. He seems to be holding on to his fanatic base, but its hard to imagine that he could still attract more new voters, and expand it. Trump's base is a reflection of Trump himself; the same angry, hateful bigoted,political and religious extremists. At a recent such event, spewing his usual hateful rhetoric, Trump called undocumented immigrants "animals", "less than human", "vermin". This he often does. Poisoning our white American blood. His MAGA audience applauded and screamend with approvoval. Referring to the currently incarcerated criminals who were duly convicted in courts of law of violent insurrection and other crimes in connetion with the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection, he called them "political hostages", and once again pledged to pardon them if he, heaven forbid, is elected president. Again, approval from his adoring mob of red capped sycophants. If he loses the election, he promises, there will be a bloodbath in America. This too he has done numerous times. Approval from the mob. Later he tried to weasel out of it by claiming that he was talking about bloodbath in the economy. His violent rhetoric we have heard many times before, and we have seen his willingness to assemble a violent mob and send it to do violence,To defend the insurrectionist is as traitorous as the insurrection itself, which was entirely Trump's idea. Trump and his supporters are increasingly willing to use violence to achieve their political aims. This is evident on surveys. The racism, of Trump and of those who support him, is glaringly obvious. The entire Trump movement is about restoring white supremacy to America, which is being lost amid an increase of non-white Americans, and a decrase in the percantage of racistwhite crackers in the general population. The Trmp movement, from the beginning, was destined and remains destined to crash and burn. The only remaining question is; ow much more damage will it do on its way down? Ancient Chinese proverb say that an evil tyrant will burn down his own country to rule over the ashes. the Trumpmovement has already cleary demonstrated that it is willing to abandon democracy and utilize election fraud and mob violence to achieve its purposes. Alarmingly, this proves that MAGA will not go down without a fight, and will probably not stop fighting until they are utterly defeated, or the country is in ruins. The rest of us, the decent America, must strive to prevent them from taking down the entire country with them as they perish in political defeat.

Living, Loving, Leaving...

THERE ARE FEW IF ANY groups of people, or "communities" which I despise more than I depise white evangelical conservative Christians. Not as human beings, but rather, as political and religious activists and influencers. Several reasons. First, I despise strict, inflexible religious dogma, belief, canon. I much prefer the self correcting, self improving, ever changing nature of science to the unchanging, faith based rigidity of religion, all religion. Anybody who says that I am going to hell; after you. More importantly, I despise them (right wing evangelicals) because more than eighty percent of them still support Trump, despite everything.That horrifies and disgusts me, as it does many people. Approximately fourteen percent of Americans are white conservative evangelicals, down from twenty five percent only a generation ago. The kingdom is shrinking. A higher percentage of Americans are "noners' "none of the above" folks, non religious people with no religious beliefs of any kind, than are white conservative evangelicals. That's comforting and encouraging to some. Young people tend to reject the faith more often than the aged; the younger the person, the more the rejection. Thousands of evangelicals are leaving the faith,so many so that there is a noticeable, definite commmunity of former believers, which has been named, cleverly: "Exvangelicals"... The exodus from the church, the Exvangelical movement, is gathering momentum and growing. A new book,titled "Exvangelicals: Living, Loving, and Leaving the White Evangelical church", by National Public Radio journalist Sarah McCammon, herself a former evangelical, elucidates the exvangelical movement, using her own life as the focus,in a fascinating, revealing narrative of personal growth and evolution, within he context of broader social trends. Ms. McCmamon was raised in a strict evangelical community and family, in which the Bible was literally true, their faith was the one true faith in a sinful fallen world,and their mission was to spread the true faith far and wide. Dancing, drinking, and dating were forbidden, as were nealy all forms and manifestations of secular eulture. National Public Radio was referred to as "National Perverted Radio" by her father, for its secular, intellectual liberal slant. From kindergarten through college she attended only Christian schools,where she was further indoctrinated. McCammon entered adulthood fully indoctrinated, totally on baord with evangelical fundamentalism. However, she had gotten an education, and this, like is does so many others, doomed her ability to continue her embrace of narrow religion at the expense of all else, at the expsnse of the world of science, and scientific reality. Zealous religiosity is the enemy of broad, liberal, education, and vice versa. Among evangelicals, a broad minded education is not only not valued, but feared, for the very good reason that people who become educated, the more educated people become, the greater their tendency to reject tradtional, dogmatic, primitive religions, like evangelical Christianity. It can be argued that strict, blind obeedience to religion is a mental illness. If nothing else, such blind devotion tends to stifle creative thinking and the inherent willingness and desire of the human mind to grow, expand,and learn. The less educated the general population, the more religious it is, and the less capable of governing itself, and the more easily it can be controlled by the powerful few. No wonder it is still widely considered a civic virtue to swallow the opiate, and to be deeply,immovably religious.

Warring Culture

THE CULTURE WAR is a phrase that has gained much meaning and use over the last couple of decades or so. Arguably, there is always and eternally some form of culture war or other in any vibrant,thriving, society. Different cultural values, artistically, philosophically, religiously, forever circulate through the population, creating controversy and choices. And, like every other aspect of human existence and culture, the intensity of these conflicting patterns of thought comes and goes in cycles. In America, for instance, the immediate post World War Two era, historically, seems to have been a time of relatively little cultural warfare, when the shared prosperity of the post war American economy helped create widespread contentment, and a fair amount of uniformity of agreement in cultural concerns and endeavors. The first time I personally noticed any cultural warfare in my idyllic life in the land of opportunity was during the Viet Nam War. Funny how winning an obviously virtuous war for national survival, freedom, and democracy against an evil tyrant unites and inspires a whole population, while losing a needless war for corporate power and capitalism results in a divided, angry country, fighting among itself. American military patriotism, such as the type which motivated the civilian population all throughout World War Two, never materialized around Viet Nam, even at the beginning of the Viet Nam war, which from the beginning seemed far away, mysterious, udefined in terms of American values, other than to weakly, rhetorically claim that we were over there fighting for freedom, democracy, and the American way, for...somebody or other. It is duobtful whether anybody ever really believed such nonsense, instead of the reality that Viet Nam was an extension of the nineteen fifties policy of containment of communism, Russia, and China. Making the world safe for American corporte capitalism. But by 1967 the country was culturally divided, majorly, and not just politically. The hippie movement arose among the nation's young adults, and the most popular music of the day, rock n roll, turned radical, became protest music. Even Johhny Cash was against Viet Nam, and sang about it. Our current seriously divided Amerian body politic can be seen as a comprhenisve culture war, the apparent fruition of decades of public policy and response to it. A brief overview reveals that on one side we have the conservatives, and on the other, the progessives. Conservatism is aligned with the Christian religion, capitalism, nationalism, and cultural, sexual conformity and uniformity. Liberalism, now called "progressivism", is associated with socialism, secularism, religious freedom and diversity, and cultural and sexual diversity and noncomformity. Here's the "bottom line": the cultural war is being won by and will ultimately be won by the progressives. Religion is declining in importance, and has been for a long time. All religions, uncluding our current ones, live and die. Capitalism is doomed to forever live with regulation, restraint, some degree of democratic government oversight and control. No holds barred free market capitalism will not be allowed to endure in the future. We must cooperate, economiclly. We have too many people, and we are too interconnected. And, of course, change, which is the nature of progress(ive) culture, will always accelerate, while tradition, the basis of conservatism, gives way to change and innovation. And this is good.

Renaming, Politically Correctly

THE U.S.S. JOHN C. STENNIS, a huge, nuclear powered, fully loaded Nimitz class aircraft carrier, is going to get a name change. The vessel is halfway through its estimated, planned fifty year life. Considering the billions of dollars it took to build it, one might hope that its lifespan can eventually be extended, given high quality TLC, beyond expectations, assuming the United States navy still exists twenty five years from now. These days, one can assume nothing. Considering that it costs at least a million dollars a day to operate it and most other giant aircraft carriers, perhaps its seemiingly relatively short life span is a blessing, if in disguise. The Stennis was commissioned in 1998, and named after the long serving, venerable Democratic Senator from Mississippi, who is credited for having promulgated and pushed through Congress much of the legislation which greatly increased the size and firepower of the American navy in the ninteen sixties. Senator Stennis was and is indeed considered among the "fathers" or the modern U.S. Navy. So, the ship's name is appropriate, in a very relevant way. In anohter very relevant way it name is singularly innapropriate, a way which was not being considered as recently as the late nineteen ninietiesand the turn of the millennium. Namely, despite his ong an generally distinguished career in teh Senate Joehn C. Stennis was, nonetheless,a strict, staunch racial segregationist. He firmly believed that white people and black people should live and work in the same country, but in different neighborhoods, schools, and businesses, completely separate from eath other. His reasoning was essentially the same tired, pedestrian logic of most modern racists: whether white is superior to black in any way, shape, or form is irrelevant. The fundamental cultural and racial dfferences between the two races are so profound and irreconcilable that to attempt to integrate them is pointless, doomed to failure after much needless blood, sweat, tears, striving, and suffering. To many people of his generation, this reasoning was sound and solid, borne out by history and current events, dead raist wrong that we now know it to have been and to still be. At the root, Stennis and all crackers and honkies who embrace(d) this nonsense were and are white supremicists, although they do not enphasize that aspect of their biased character. The white supremacy part they have cleverly replaced with "separate but equal", which is itself of course bogus, a cover story for racial hatred. I don't think the U.S.S. Stennis's new name has yet been decided or revealed. Perhaps it will be renamed after some heroic African-American social reformer-crusader or military hero. This has been a growing trend of late. The best way would be for the American peple to dceide by voting on it, but that'll never happen. For one thing, it would be too much fun, and for another, the Republcians would doubtless vigorously oppose it, perhaps by trying to either steal the election, or by organizing another violent mob,including the January 6th Insurrection veterans who are not yet in prison, and once again, as they are doing in so many venues and ways, and have done so many times already, thwart democracy.

Fighting Delusion

IT BEARS REPEATING: Trump's supporters overwhelmingly embrace Trump's big election lie, and the lie that all of his legal difficulties, all the dozens of felony charges with which the former president is soon to stand trial, are nothing more than a witch hunt, a conspiracy to destroy Trump. Yes, they really believe all that, shockingly. I contend that they really don't,that,deep down, they know its all lies, but that they have sufficiently brain washed themselves to suppress, for the time being, this inconveneint fact. "Honest Don" was probably a joke by Trump, but one he would gladly embrace seriously. The more seriously they embrace this ironic, laughable moniker, which they surely will not dare to, the more hilarious and damning a joke Trump's opponents, including me, can make of it, the more fun we can have with it. It also bears repeating that when Trump announced, on election night, before the votes had been counted, that "actually, we won the election", and then double-billion downed on it to this day, he committed a very serious crime, one for which he should, if there is justice in the universe, pay dearly. In any reasonable system of justice, such a lie, and the ensuing insurrection would be and are punishable by death, or in the event that the death penalty is banned, by life in prison without parole. That's what makes continued support of Trump so egregeious, arguably, effectively aiding and abetting criminal activity. I encounter Trump supports daily. Most of them are strangers, but several are good friends of mine, perhaps because we do not discuss politics. As the election approaches that may change. If it does, I will stick with my main theme, my main message, that, no matter who you are, you are much too good to support a person like Trump. I will mention the untter inevitability of the necessity of finally, at long last, abandoning him. Its never too late, although at this point, it sure as hell is later than it should be. The racism which so obviously underscores and partially explains Christian conservative support for Trump they also supress and deny, even to the point where they want to prohibit teaching it,indeed forbid its mere mention in public schools, in an attempt to not only erase it from their own awareness, but everyone else's, society's. The Trump agenda includes outlawing being gay, punishable by incarceration or death, deporting or imprisoning all illegal immigrants, banning abortion, denying climate change and bringing back coal, and establishing Christianity as official. One cannot imagine a more frightening, horrible agenda, but that is precisely what not only the "far right", but mainsstream Christian conservatism advocates. To achieve it, they are willing, indeed eager to eect a criminally insane criminal to the presidency, then, give him unlimited power. That is what we face, as a nation. I intend to mention all this to anyone who will listen, most especially Trump supporters. I also intend to remind people thath Biden's State of the Union speech proved, conclusively, that he has plenty of energy,and plenty of healthy intelligence. No, I do not plan to start converstations about Trump with Trumpers. But casually mentioning that "We all know that Biden won the election" will suffice.

Banning and Burning Books by the Bushel

THE PROBLEM with banning and burning books is that, when you get started, it becomes hard to stop. The smallest spark becomes a fire, then becomes a raging wildfire, consuming thousands of acres or books. A book censuring, banning, burning crusade (they are all differeng degrees of the same thing) is never content to merely rid the public a a few,certainly, definitely innapropriate or valueless books,few and far between though they actually are(all books tend to have value, if only limited). Whenever the advocate(s) recommend a particular book be banned, whoever the authorities are who decide which books are banned,once a single book has been banned, the experience of power becomes attractive to all involved, contagious, then, tragically, addictive. Nobody ever stops at banning a single book or a few books. The fire ultimately, inevitably consumes whole libraries, genres, authors, or topics. It happened in the ancient world, and in the modern. It is now happening in these United States of America. The spark has long been lit, the fire is yet small, but spreading rapidly, with plenty of advocates (oppononets of certain books,authors, topics, or genres) and authorities to fuel it into the far future. Book banning in America is a product, as nearly all social ills seem to be these days, of the far, extremist,evangelical Christian right wing, the very people the reverend Billy Graham warned us about sixty years ago. If these right wing religious fanatics would be content to merly practice their religion and culture in peace, rather than to control the entire country and the entire world, all would be well. But they have long since taken control of the Republican party, and are threatening to take control of the country, which is their stated goal. Their vehicle? Trump! So much for Christian morality. Book banning is becoming highly organized and a major cause for thousands of well organized well funded people, just as the "Moral Majority", in the time of Reagan, organized, grew, and took over the conservative movement and the G.O.P... Committees of religious zealots (Republicans) all across America's fruited plain are organizing at the local level, plotting strategy,voting on long lists of bad books ("bad" being actually "good" books), and presenting their lists to local libraries, including school libraries, and to city councils, school boards; to anyone with power who will listen. It is the Republicans who listen... Over the last couple of years, the number of prohibited, restricted,removed, banned books (its all the same) in these United States has grown exponentially, alarmingly, in both public and academic libraries. Books about LGBTQ people,urging their inclusion, books about racism, past and present, books aobut disastrous human caused climate change - banned. Arguably, indeed obviously, almost all if not all of the books that have already been restricted, prohibited,removed, banned in the U.S. should not be banned, but instead, should be well and widely read. Books like "The Catcher In the Rye", and "To Kill A Mockingbird", and "The Grapes of Wrath", great masterpieces and classics, all, banned. It will reach the point wherein the only books available are hagiographic, religious, insipid books espousing only trditional conservative values. Nothing challenging authority, questioning tradional, accepted beliefs, or presenting revolutionary new ideals and thinking will be permitted. When that happens, 1984 will have finally arrived, and Big Brother will be firmly in control.

Loving Trees

I LOVE TREES. Presumbaly most people do, like music and food. I planted about fifty saplings nineteen years ago on my property where my newly built house stood,in a vast barren construction landscape, with only crabgrass and rocks. Through the years I have lovingly watched them grow, and am richly rewarded today and for the rest of my life by living in a beautiful, home grown forest. I am tolerant, nay, accepting of volunteer growth,, brush and tree. Only if necessary do I intervene. Two or three years ago a volutneer tree was growing beautifully, seven feet tall already, but much too close to my house. It needed to be moved. I tried to, a neighbor tree - lover and I transplanted it, but failed. It immediately looked droopy, and never recovered, despite my best, desperate attempts to save it. Despondently I watched it dying little by little, every day, as my heart broke and sank. I wrote an essay about it; "Loving A Dying Tree", published on this site. At the dawn of human neolithic civilization it is estimated that there were roughly seven trillion trees on planet Earth. Now, we humans have cut that number in half. WE need to reverse this trend, and indeed are beginning to do so. Large reforestation projects all over the world are taking root, so to speak. Of the millions of tree lovers on Earth, among the most fervant is Daniel Lewis, whose new book "Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of Our Future", will inspire you and warm your heart. Lewis himself is a bibliophile librarian researcher who has travelled all over the world visiting, admiring, and researching trees of every conceivable variety. Latest estimates are that there are roughly seventy three thousand "varieties" or species, of trees in the world. Obviously there are still undiscovered species, and the exact number is far from being known.It is to be hoped that humanity will at length develop an accurate, comprehensive knowledge of all species of trees, past and present, before and rather than exterminating all life on Earth. Science is still learning much about trees, how they live, function, and reproduce, among other questions. It turns out that we know far less about trees than we thought, like most areas of knowledge. In "Twelve Trees", Daniel Lewis focuses on twelve specific species of trees, including a species that is extinct on its native Easter Island, but is alive in captivity in zoololigical preserves. Attempts are being made to reintroduce it into its native island habitat, without much success so far. Then, he has chapters on several varieties of oak and pine tree, among others. Each tree was selected for the book because of some dramatic aspect of its existence, and because the problems and circumstances for them is highly indicative of and symbolic of circumstances and threats facing trees all over the world. Weaving together these twelve chapters on twelve different tree species into a narrative which includes the whole world and every tree in it, Lewis educates us about what we know, what we need to learn, and how we can save the planet by reforesting it. Trees have personalities, communities, and communication. Any day now we're likely to find out that they have churches and baseball teams. Two of the best pieces of advice you'll get all day are: read this book, and plant a tree. At least one.

Tolerating Crazy, With Benefits

I DON"T HIDE, from anyone, the reality that I have "issues" as we say today, with my local senior center, which I visit daily, for lunch, and to socialize with my many friends there, including gospel singing every Monday morning. I am generally popular, with some doubters and nay sayers. Oh well. You can't please all of the people all of the time, as a famous American politician said. My "problem" is with some of the beliefs and attitudes of some, if not many of its members. Primary among these is the fact that many, indeed most of them seem to support Donald Trump. That, particularly post insurrection, is a big problem for me. Extreme right wing Christianity angers me, Christians who support Trump disgust me. The reasons to abandon Trump politically, for all decent Americans, for everybody, are simply too compelling and obvious to ignore or enumerate. Trumpers need to and should move on, to new, better people for their leaders. Then too there are the truly sadistic crazies, religious fanatics, who believe that because I am not "saved", not a votary of their particular religion, that I am at great risk for and indeed probably will spend an eternity in the flaming pits of hell, in eternal torment, unless, of course, I repent, accept Jeuse Christ not only as a good person and great philosopher, but as God himself, and worship him. No can do. If you choose to believe that you yourself will go to hell, or are risking it, fine. But how dare you presume such a horrible fate for me, based on your beliefs, and not mine? I get along well with all these people, including the Trumpers. I simply do not broach and discuss politics or religion. I do not, however, withhold my opinons and beliefs if asked to provide them. I never am. That's fine with me. I can very easily find someone's religious and political beliefs disgusting and stupid and get along very well with them, and even become good friends with such folk. My approach to people with disgusting religious and political beliefs, and my treatment of those who embrace them, make my life better, make me more popular, and generally happy. I love going to the senior center, and I love the people there. It a great place not only to socialize, but also to get good advice,help, and emotional support. Its mid March, and the grass is starting to grow. I broke out my lawn mower from its winter hiberation, started it up with no problem, and cut some grass. A couple of days later I did the same thing,only this time the danged thing would not start. Over and over I tried. It never started. So, I went to the senior center and asked around about local lawn mower repair opportunities, if there might ba a place to get it tuned up, ready for the summer. What ended up happening is that the Director of the center, the lady in charge of the whole thing, came by my house, picked up my mower in her truck, took it to her house, repaired it and tuned it up, then brought it back to my house. No, I'm not making this up, incredible though it sounds that anyone would be so wonderful to do such a thing. Incredible. So why shouldn't I go to the senior center, despite the Trumpers and hell fire fanatics? Other than that, they really aint so bad.