Teaching the Right Bible

THE REPROBATE REGRESSIVE STATE OF OKLAHOMA hs decided that it needs to buy fifty five thousand Bibles for the state's public schools, to implement recently passed legislation requiring that the Christian bible be taught in public schools, perhaps, high schools primarliy. According to requirements imposed by the leglislature, the Bibles must be the king James version, and must include copies of several seminal founding documents in American history, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. I vaguely seem to recal that there was one other..was it the "Gettysburg Address"? Probably not. It turns out that the only avaialbe bible which could supply this many copies and meet the requirements for inclusion of patriotic documents happens, just happens to be...Donald Trump's golden Bible, the one he is peddling, with his autograph on it. One of the main proponents of all this religious zealotry illegally imposed upon the public school system is a state legislator who describes Oklahoma public schools as "atheist indoctrination centers", and described teacher's unions as "terrorist organizations". It is beyond dispute that many if not most far right wing extremist conservative evangelical Christian Trump supporters agree with these descriptions, ardently, to the point of harboring a deep distrust and hatred of American public schools generally. To these unreasonable brainwashees teh seperation of chucrh and state is actually a war against Christianity, and secular schools, or secular anything, is anti-Christian, reprehensible, and dangerous. Proponents of the "Bibles in school" project in Oklahoma ansd other states claim that they are merely acknowledging the reality that the Bible is central and fundamental to human history and culture, and should be taught in schools for that reason. Whereas it is perfectly true that the Bible is of fundamental importance, the most important and influential book in world history, this fact has absolutely nothing to do with the true motives of those religious political conservatives, mainly Republican Trump followers, who want to force the Bible into public schools. They actually want to force their entire religion into public schools. They want to make America's public schools Christian, again. Among these Bible pushers are many "Christian Nationalists", who want to make the entire country a Christian nation, with Christianity the official, mandatory religion of the United States. The true "terrorist organizations" are not teachers unions with educated, progressive members, but rather, regressive reprobates who want to force the Christian religion and the Bible into pubic schools, while prohibiting any mention inside the schools of LGBTQ people, racism, wokism, socialism, or climate change. The "vast right wing conspiracy" as Hillary Clinton so eloquently and accurately put it, is strong as ever and will stop at nothing to impose its unrealistic, delusional agenda on the entire country, by force, if necessary. Climate change, racism, wokism, socialism, atheism, gay people - all actually exist in the real world, and will not go away by playing make believe that they do not. Ironic, that they so fervantly want to force down the throats of America's children that most make believe thing of all - the Christian religion, as revealed in the most popular book of fiction ever written.

Climate Change, Converging, On Us

THE HURRICANE, according to the emerging scientific consensus, was a product of climate change, at least in terms of severity. Not that it wouldn't've occured naturally, without any climate change. But it would have been much smaller, and the winds less violent. Helene, or whatever her name was, was a monster in terms of diameter, and in terms of wind velocity and rain amount. The notion that a hurricane could ever seriously impact western North Carolina with extreme flooding and wind damage to this extenst would, until just a few days ago, been thought impossible. Climate change is basic science, basic physics, common sense. If you add a trillion tons of carbon to the atmosphere, the atmosphere traps and stores more heat, and a warmer atmosphere can absorb and retain more water vapor, as water on the surface of the planet evaporates more rapidly. Hence, when it rains, it pours. Not only does climate change exist, it would be impossible, according to the laws of nature, for it not to. Plus, it has arrived, Climate change is here now. A few hundred miles west of the hurricane devastation, where I live, we are in the midst of what is quickly becoming a sever drought. In September, it rained exactly twice, both modest rain showers. No rain so far in October, although its still early. There is no rain prediceted, however, for at least the next ten days. Today it will be nearly ninety degrees today, and tomorrow, Friady, October 4, 2024, the temperature will reach the low nineties. The prediction is for it to reach the lower nineties every day for the next week, without rain. I spent the summer wondering what October would be like, whether it would be like traditional, normal Octobers of teh past, or a month in which the temepratures reaches eighty five degrees daily, a summer month. For about the last fifteen years or so, where I live, October has become a summer month. Summer in my area used to last about three months, weather-wise. Now, its more like five months. It is a virtual certainlty that many hurricanes in the future will also be gigantic monsters, larger in extent and severity by degrees of magnitude that anything we have ever seen. Whether there will be more frequent hurricanes remains uncertain, but indications are that indeed there will be. Most of the roughly one trillion tons of carbon that humanity has dumped into the environment over th past couple hundred years has ended up in the world's oceans. The warming oceans are putting more energy, wind and water, into violent storms and hurricanes. We, humanity, must develop technologies to remove carbon not only from the Earth's atmosphere, but from the oceans as well. The current trend is for the oceans, and all life in them, to die within a few decades as they grow too warm to support life. If and when that happens - and it is happening now - all life on Earth will die, including us. The science of cimate change is so simple that not only can anybody who took chemistry class in high school understands the workings and the reality of it, but so can anyone who attended grade school and paid attention dirung general science class. Climate change should be and must become required curriculum in all public schools at all levels. Instead, in many states dominated by Republicans, laws are being passed prohibiting the teaching about climate change in public schools. One of the core principles of conservatism is climate change denial, which, like conservatism generally, is disastrous for the future, and the present. Our only hope is education.

Debating, Denying, Distorting, Destroying

THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE, like most debates, could be called a draw. Vance was smooth, solid, steady. Walz was folksy and appealing, and got better and stronger as the affair proceeded, after a shaky beginning. The most outstsnding, incredible aspect of the debate was Vance's persistant refusal to acknowledge reality, on a wide variety of topics. J.D. Vance, with his Ivy League education, best sellling author status, and meteoric political ascesion, simply will not concede that Trump lost the last presidential election, that the presidency was not stolen from him, nor will he acknlowledge that the capitol insurrection was Trump's responsibility. Nor will he, unsurprisingly, admit that he and every other American "citizen" who supports Trump in reality a traitor and criminal, by virtue of supporting, assisting, abetting, enabling, a traitor and criminal; namely,Trump. Continuing to claim that the election was stolen is bad enough, but for J.D. Vance, it gets worse, much worse. He refuses to acknowledge the reality of climate change as well. Climate change deniers are harmful not only in that they do not help fight climate change, but they also they support policies which cause it. Donald Trump is not technically an ardent, fervant, devoted climate change denier. He has often said that he is doubtful, skeptical about it, and believes that it may be a hoax. But as time goes by, he seems to have firmly insinuated himself into the climate change denial community. And because of that, J.D. Vance must do likewise, although he probably would anyway. And, the cherry on top of the ice cream Sundae of right wing reality denial is of course, the one which has recently gone viral, in which Trump, Vance, and presumably all of their MAGA cult followers insist that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating dogs and cats. Vance refuses to give up this fantasy, as do, presumably, American conservative evangelical Christian Republicans in general. Any reasonable person might and probably should find it alarming that the two men running for the two highest political offices in the United States, live in an entirely unreal world of their own in which the presidency was stolen from Trump, climate change does not exist, dark skinned immmigrants eat dogs and cats, and the biggest problem with the United States is that it is not controlled by Christians with Christian values and beliefs. More alarming still is that there is a huge percentage of Americans who have exactly the same set of delusional beliefs. Thank the gods that be that it is, indeed a minority. If this "community", which is essentially the Trump MAGA gangster cult, ever returns to power, it could be disastrous, not only for America, but for the world. Harmful though it is for anybody to refuse to acknowledge the reality of climate change, having people in actual positions of power who deny it is a disaster, at this point. We can no longer afford to give them power or enact their insane policies. During the debate, Walz as wise to emphasize the reproductive freedom issue, and Harris and Walz needn't be concerned about the immigration issues, for, as Walz pointed out, it was Trump who prevented the United States from enacting a meaningful, effective immmigration legislation. A majority of Americans want immigation into the U.S. to be organized and orderly, but dont want to harass and persecute undocumented immigrants, as Trump does. And a majority of Americans want American women to have the right to choose. Trump and the Republicans are choosing to deny reality. The Democrats can win by simply acknowledging reality, and telling the truth.

Reaching the End, Finally

THERE ARE EXACTLY FIVE WEEKS until election day, and, according to the polls, the presidential election is a dead heat, dead even. That means that either candidate could win, both have about a fifty percent chance. Voting has begun, and from now until election day, more and more people will be voting early, by mail, or in person. There are two things for which we all ought to be grateful. One, Biden isn't running. And two, soon, it will all be over, one way or another. I would have been worried about Biden during the entirety of his second term, as would I suspect many other people, and am grateful to be spared that. Whether he would have survived an entire second term is, of course, highly questionable. If Trump wins there is enormous turmoil dead ahead, because Trump and his people, MAGA Republicans and their seventy five million members, will be pushing their radical, ultra conservative agenda, hard. And a majoritiy of Americans will be opposing it with equal vigor, in the media, in Congress, and every everywhere else, and neither side will surrender. If Trump loses, we'll go through all the election denial drama, again, in some way, shape, and form. I must assume, though I may be wrong, that the drama will be less intense than before, and that Trump will have fewer gangsters on his side, claiming that the election was stolen. There won't be nearly as potent an uprising this time. Again, I may be wrong. This time, maybe MAGA will ctually succeed in overthrowing teh government, preventing the electoral college from being certified, replacing Harris electors with Trump flunkies, stealing the presidency for Trump, and, suddenly having a didtatorship in America, like Germany, 1933, under Hitler. One thing we now know is this: this scenario is not impossible. In fact, it seems to be far more possible than neraly anyone could have possibly imagined a few short years ago. Never before in American history have so many Americans engaged in organized, traitorous treason, and this includes the Civil War as the seventy five millino member MAGA movement, and their heinous, infamous, traitorous, treasonous attemptt to violently overthrow the American government. Worst of all, they, the traitorous MAGA gangsters of Trump, are for the most part still very much with us and among us. The thought that this loathsome rabble might actually succeed in getting Trump elected in five weeks, this stark reality, is so horrible to contemplate as to be nearly beyond contemplation. Much, of course, depends onw hich party controls Congress, or whether each party controls one of the two legislative bodies.Republican congressional control, with Trump as president, would embolden the MAGA movement so greatly that it wouls seek to implement every item mentioned in the infamous, utterly reprehensible "Project 2025" agenda, including replacement of the governemnt with Trump loyalists, and installation of the Christian Nationalist agenda, abortion bans, book bans, persecution of LGBTQ people and immigrant minorities, to which Trump would gladly accede. He doesn't give a damn one way or another, about any issue, inclduding religion and reproductive rights; he only cares about maintaining his status as a wildy popular cult leader. When Trump first entered politics, comparisons of his MAGA supporters to Hitler's NAZI movement, which some percipient people presented, I dismissed as overwrought, distorted, exaggerated. I no longer do. Our best hope is that there are indications that Kamala Harris is going to win the election, unless Trump eeks ot narrow victories in all the "swing" states. Either way, fasten your seat belts.