Embracing A Fearful Future

NINETY DEGREES in late March is a bit warm for my location, and as temperatures reached into the nineties all across the American southwest and then moved into the southeast, scientists assured us that without cliamte change,this never would have happened. It would indeed have been unseasonably warm for late March, but not to this extent. Just as October has in recent years become a summer month for much of the United States, March has now become a solid spring month, more like a late spring month and late winter and early spring. The change in climate in my part of the United States, the mid south, has become quite obvious to me, as I'm sure it has for many people in my age range (I am 70). One's age is a key factor in accepting climate change; if you're old enough to remember when the climate was much different, if you're in your fifties, sixties, seventies, or beyond, you've have noticed the change. As a seventy year old, I tell myself, and others, that because of my age, I don't have much longer to live. Everybody has what I consider to be a strange reaction to this; as if I'm stating some outlandish falsehood, for which I should be ridiculed. I realize that life expectency is increasing rapidly in our modern world of medical marvels, but still, there are limits, or so I assume. I actually recall hearing some futuristic forecasting expert declare that anybody who is currently alive, taking into account modern medical science, has a chance of remaining alive indefinitely. That I find simultaneously fascinating, intriguing, and not a little frightening. To be honest, I am nowhere near being ready to die. The way I feel now, I'd like to live to be a hundred, and there is good evidence that for me, that might be possible. I'm in good shape, I exercise a lot, my diet varies between good and horrible, and I feel good most of the time. Plus, I am only on about five prescription medications, not bad for a modern seventy year old American, so, we'll see. For one thing, I wouldn't mind living long enogh to get some kind of idea on whether humanity is going to find a solution for climate change, or if the ecosystem, and we humans, are doomed. As of right now its a toos up, it seemsa s if it could go either way; a long future of advancement of the human species, or extinction, most likely because of our own behavior. Will our descendants of the twenty second century be living prosperous, rewarding lives in a society free of violence, hunger, and disease, or will burned out shells of former cities be sparsely populated by roving bands of paleolithic human primates, in a post technological civilization which has deteriorated into stagnaton and chaos? When you consider the current level of both organized international violence and the destructive power of modern weapons, its easy to descend into doom and gloom, envisioning the future as a shockingly violent dystopia, human civilization dead or in rapid decline. At my age, with my limited opportunity to see much of the future, I have to have faith that people fo good will will prevail, adn that our decsendans willprofe to bemore tolerant, compassionate, and kinder than we are. In a time capsule Einstein wa asked to contribute to, he wrote a letter to the future, in which he said precisely that; that if you people in the future have not become kinder, more compassionate and less violent than we were, may the devil take you. Harsh though that sentiment may sound, I am strongly inclined to agree with it.

Religion, Evolving

LAST SUNDAY I attended church at the little Presbyterian church in the woods with a congregation of about ten. Mainly, because I had a ride, a friend, the organist and his wife, willing to come by and pick me up. Avoiding driving is a big factor for me. I would attend the Unitarian church every Sunday if it were less than a mile from my house, rather than twenty. Its not that I have some horible phobia about driving or anything like that, its just that, all things considered, I try to avoid it.I have never,even when I was a teenager, enjoyed driving much, except when I am going somewhere incredible or exciting, which, alas, I rarely seem to be. I have always enjoyed riding around in the country, but not driving. The little Presbyterian church is full of good friends of mine, and the minister, a good friend of mine, preaches a good message, the true Christian message it seems to me, of love, forgiveness, and giving. Besides, since this little rural church has actually existed for more than two hundred years, the church building is a historical landmark, my attending is an important contribution; they need every congregant they can get, for at current trends, they risk becoming extinct. In four more years, in 2028, the church will, assuming it still exists, mark its two hundredth year in continuous operation, and it would be a shame it it failed to survive until then. I keep wondering how much longer th Christian religion, or for that matter any religion, religion in general, can and will continue to exist onplanetEarth as a fundamental component of human culture and civilization. And perhaps the grandest question of all; what aobut intelligent beings on other planets all across the universe? To me, it makes much more sense to assume that they probably exist,than to assume that they do not. Indeed life in the universe may be vanishingly rare, or, it may be common, but we know that it exists, here, if nowhere else. And yes, despite our apparent imminent self destruction as a species, we humans most certainly qualify as "intelligent", even if our level of intelligence is far below that of other species, which one must assume it might well be. Especially now that we know that the univese is filled with trillions of Earth-like planets, it seems more certain than ever that we humans are not only not alone in the universe, but that there are probably many species more intelligent and more advanced culturally than we. Other factors indicate a universe with abundant life; organic chemical compounds we now believe are far less rare, and far more likely to appear often throughout the cosmos. One wonders whether beings on other planets invent religion, as we humans did. In other words, do they formalize and ritualize their response to life, as we do? I tend to believe that over teh next few centuries, assuming humans still exist, that religion will fade away,and ultimately out of existence. Or, if not that,then the ancient religions will either evolve greatly, as they have always done, or die out and be replaced with new forms of religion more reflective of our advancing knowledge of the universe. I almost feel as if I would like to reach into the far human future, learn about our descendants religious beliefs, and perhaps adopt them. Quite likely they will be considerably different from ours today, but still recognizeable. What I like about the Uniterian church is that they seem to accept everybody, no matter what they believe. And since we really are still not sure precisely what to believe, myabe its best that way.

Stopping Trump's War

WITH EACH PASSING DAY, it becomes increasingly evident that this whole business of starting a war with Iran is nothing other than a diversion, albeit a rather impressive one, from the lingering and seemingly here to stay matter of the Epstein files. Will we ever see them? Will they ever be released? And if so, will they be so highly redacted that they have no real value? At this point I, and I am sure many other people, have already decided, long since, to believe the worst about Donald Trump. The reason for this is that by doing so, you are never surprised or disappointed. No matter what you choose to believe about Trump, when the truth is finally revealed, which we must concede it not always is, it almost invariably seems to excede our worst expectations. He really did try to steal the election of 2020 from Biden, America witnessed that horror first hand. The true horror of it, as has been pointed out numerous times, is not so much Trump's false claim of election theft but the fact that almost one half of the American people, knowing full well that Trump's claim of election fraud was a lie, chose to embrace it, to pretend to believe it. This remains perhpas the most glaring example of Trump somehow enabling within his followers their worst potential instincts, the more they accept, embrace, or ignore his lies, the more empowered they feel to tell their own lies, to weave a web of lies into a world view according to which, even at this late date, Donald Trump remains, in their eyes, the only true solution to all of America's problems. The problem with a diversion like a war with Iran is that in order to be effective,it must last long enough to take teh attention of the American people away from the Epstein files for more than a few hours, days, or weeks. From the very moment when Trump started our current war with Iran by bombing it, this war has been very unpopular among the Amerian people, as indicated by all surveys and measurements. The longer Trump keeps it going - and make no mistake, this is Trump's war, all Trump's war, his war of choice, and while nobody else can, and he can bring it to an end when and if he chooses. The best guess is that he'll try to find a way to end it very soon, because it will never become more popular with the American electorate that it is now, and it is extremely unpopular now. Perhaps, as usual, Trump is playing more to his base than to the rest of us, the sixty percent of Americans who despise him. In the early stages, a high percentage of Trump supporters are expressing approval for our new American Iranian war. Unless there is more recent information, at least eleven Americans have already died in Trump's war, MAGA's war. There will, of course, be more. The question is how many more Amerian casualties will there be, and what will be the country's reaction to Trump's war as they begin to mount up, which, it would seem inevitable that they will. The best,smartestthing that Trump could probably do at this point is to make a few more threats, leave the U.S. warhips in the Gulf of Iran for a little while longer,then quietly move them out of harm's way, before they get sunk by cheap drones. Everybody who ever started a war did so firmly believing that the war would be short and victorious, and those predictions are amazingly, consistentlly wrong. Wars always last longer and kill more people than anyone had or could possibly have foreseen. Trump's war is his war of choice, a deliberate diversion from his other crimes. Let's choose to stop it.

Trump, Using War As Cover

IF IT ISN'T ALREADY, it certainly should be painfully obvious that this entire thing with Iran, and lord only knows how much farther Trump and we Americans will go on pulverizing that poor hapless country, is nothing other than a distraction from the Epstein files, which allegedly arrived in Congress just a few days ago, and are available to all members. And, at least for the time being, the ploy seems to be working. But, as they say, you can run but you cannot hide. How long, after all, can this war possibly last? If it lasts longer than a few news cycles, we the people are likely to become extremely tired of it, and heavily opposed to it, as American casualties start coming in. In terms of keeping the Epstein files under cover and unavailable to the American public, the Republican party seems to be fully conspiring with Trump, if informally, to obstruct justice. The Trump administration is on a roll, in terms of naked aggression, having already attacked several countries, Venezuela and Iran among them, and one starts to wonder how much farther it will go, how much and many military hostilities Trump will unleash around the world as he struggles to upstage and obscure the Epstein files. Rumors have it that the actual files contain a good deal of highly incriminating material pertaining to Trump, damaging testimony and photographic involving underage girls and Trump's alleged sexual misconduct towards them. Trump haters are calling the president a "pedophile", which, at least technically, appears to be a false, incorrect, acccusation. The actual definition of a pedophile is a person who experiences sexual attraction to pre pubescent children. Whispers and indications hint at the possibility that Trump's behavior, arranged and enabled by Mr. Epstein, might very well extend to outrageously heinous depravity involving children. Evidently the Trump political machine has gone to and continues to go to incredible lengths to keep all the salacious, condemning actions of Trump concealed from public view, forever. And yet, it might not be enough. It might be inevitable that,even though we may never know the true depths of Trump's depravity,and probably wouldn't want to, that we will, over the next few weeks, learn enough to strongly reinforce our most unflattering appraisals of our president's moral character. Trump opponents already assume the worst about him, and since the sixty percent of America which opposes Trump tends to oppsoe him to the point of loathing and hatred, it seems almost imposssible for his opponents to need or find yet more reasons for their abject and utter contempt for what they often call "the orange menace". A noted professor of modern European history once asked the question whether love or hate has been the more powerful force in the world throughout history. He didn't hesitate to answer his own question by saying that hatred appears to indeed be the more influential force in ancient, modern, and current history. Just as humanity appears for the moment to be losing its struggle to stop destroying and start nurturing the natural environment, so too we are evidently choosing war over peace, at least for the time being, in our eternal moral struggle against violence and war. And yet, history indicates that with each passing century, our species becomes, when measured scientifically, more peaceful, and less violent. That's hard to believe, but well supported by facts. It makes us realize how far we have had to come to get where to where we are and closer to where we want to be, but also, how terribly far we still have to go.

MAGA, Covering For Trump

WE STILL DON'T KNOW, evidently, whether the infamous "Epstein Files" are ever going to be released, in full, unredacted to the public, and if they are, precisely what they contain. My impression is that some of them have indeed been relesedto Congress,adn that various congresssional committees, controled by Republicans, are in the process of deciding precisely what to do next. They know full well,these Republicans, that whatever the Epstein files contain that is harmful to Trump is also armful to them, for they know the wages of hopping aboard the Donald Trump political bandwagon. One thing for certain; with each passing day more people know more about what's in the infamous files. If Trump's name is in them, or was in them, by now it has been scrubbed out, along with other probable redactions. Meticulous research ad investigation can probaly reveal what precisely has been redacted,and whatever it is, it should be madepublic. No matter how fervantly and frequently we all scream and preach the virtues of transperancy, which is a perfectly approprate and improtatnt thing to do, concealment and deceit remain deeply embedded within American political culture, here in the great American fun house, where everything is distorted for profit and expediency,and nothing is what it seems. What has already been revealed is that Trump's association with Mr.Epstein was extensive, and it revolved around Epstein, with his enormous wealth, giving ennormously wealthy people, mainly men, access to his inner sanctum o sex ad exploitation of young attractive women. Whereas Trump is the perfect example of the corruptive power of political power, both Trump and Epstein are poster boys for the corruption made possible by vast personal wealth, with little or no social accountability. Trump and Epstein have never, in their personal lives, been up to any good, and this relationship between the two men, in which Epstein cultivated favor from Trump because of Trump's wealth and influence by offering Trump something he obviously wants badly, sexual contact with very young girls. And, the hard truth is that humans in general want sexual contact with young members of,in most but not all cases, the opposite sex. If nothing further happens regarding the Epstein files beyond this point, which is exactly what Republicans are hoping for,for good reason, the whole issuemight indeed fade away by election day, but, on the other hand, it might not. Trump, his inner circle,and the entire MAGA movement is going to have to come to terms with this inconveniently lingering issue in one way or another,and it appears that to merely urge the public to fuggettagouttit amidst a swirling whirlwind of exiting and schocking events on the world stage may not be adequate to the task, no matter how hard MAGA tries to make it so. The Democrats, and we the American people, are perfectly capable of walking and chewing gum simultaneously. Whether, and the extent to which, their president was involved in an illicit sex trafficking operation,in which young girls were made available to old wealthy men for sexual exploitation by luring them to Epstein's notorious island with promises of lucrative, glamorous modeling careers, is of the greatest importance to the American people, and they, we, deserve to know. MAGA has for years been complicit in a criminal conspiracy to conceal Trump's extensive criminal behavior, and there is no better time than now to fully expose it.

Rooting For the Future

YEARS AGO I recall the shocking item in the news that traces of jet fuel had been found in a lactating mother's breat milk, a sample of said milk having been submitted for chemical analysis for research purposes. I further reall that nobody seemed to be able to explain why jet fuel in particular, since teh woman lived nowhere near an airport, had been nowhere near jets or jet fuel to the best of here recollection. I found that particular new item quite disturbing. Not juste yesterdy, I and probably millions of other people saw a new item on one of the major television news networks that race of complex industrial chemicals, including heavy metal rear earth samples. have been detected in some grapefruit. This is even more alarming in that it raises the question: where else might such heavy duty industrial chemicals be found? The answers, which seems to be emerging, is, more alarmingly still; essentially everywhere, it seems. If my memory serves correctly, reserach scientists were even increasingly amazed and shocked at how widespread radioactive atoms have proven to be in our environment, including, most alarming of all, within and throughout our bodies, including our bloodstreams. The true story of people poisoned by radioactivity associated within the invention, development,and testing of the atom bomb in New Mexico in 1944 is no less frightening. Essentially, anyone who wea anywhere near the test sites when the bomb was tested was poisoned by radiatio from the blast, heavy metals piercing human bodies, and remaining lodged within them, for life. The United States government has handed out, after decades of litigation, millions of dollars in compensatory damages, and has gone to great lengths to downplay and cover up as much as possible the entire bizarre, terrifying episode. The first people who witnessed the first atom bomb tesing - and the United States tested dozens of nuclear bombs in the years after World War Two - were unavoidably bombarded with near lethal doses of nuclear radiation, inadequately shielded from it. I have a smart phone, which I probably use much less often than your average smart phone user. I never text anybody, don't take pictures, and don't make a lot of phone calls. And yet, I have one, and sometimes, when I hold it up to my left ear, I wonder precisely what effect if any the electromagnetic radiation going into and coming out of the phone is having on me, physiologically. Tha invisible radiation, going in one side of my head,and coming out the other. Are we really sure we know what we need to know about the impact of this on people? These super heavy "forever chemicals" are,evidently, everywhere. We have spewed all throughout the Earth's environment, including inside our own bodies, a large quantity of poisonous materials. There are no "bad" chemicals. there are only chemicals which are in the wrong place, if that's any comfort. For me personally, it isn't much comfort. Neither does it comfort me knowing that at my advanced age, I won't be alive long enough, no matter what, to actually experience personallly the worst impacts of our current and past bad stewardship of the environment. The best I can hope for is to approach death with whatever degree of solace I can derive by knowing that there are people alive now who are indeed seeking and working on solutions to our current environmental crisis. During my entire lifetime the Earth's ecosystem hung in the balance, as humans tried but failed to keep themselves from harming it. I seem destined to die without knowing the final outcome of man vs. nature, but rooting hard for my descendants to be smarter than we were.

America, Expanding

"I TREMBLE FOR MY COUNTRY when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever" Thomas Jefferson supposedly said. Actually, unlike some famous quotes falsely attributed to people like Jefferson and Mark Twain. Jefferson does seem to have actually said this, in reference to the insittution of slavery, in whcih Jefferson freely engaged, but had serious misgivings about. But, like so many gerat and famous quotes from great and famous people, this one has meaning on a seemingly unlimited number of levels, is applicable to a wide ranging number of situations. Jeffrson was literally born and raised into a culture of slavery. He said that his first memory was of being carried as an infant in the arms a slave woman, and on his death bed he allegedly remarked that his fianl moments seemed destined to place his care in the hands of another slave woman. With regard to the hundreds of slaves Jefferson inherited from his father, he had a tiger by the tail, in that, he was thereby trapped himself within this "peculiar" economic institution which so clearly, then and now, defies and defiles fundamental concept of human decency and dignity. Jefferson's attitude towrds the intitution of slavery seemed to be that it would eventually have to be phased out of American life. Presumably, by implication, he meant that the institution of slavery, hundreds of years old in the United States and deeply embedded into the culture and economy, could not simply be ripped out by the roots and burned in a pile of rubbish, but rather, would have to be gradually eased out of existence to make the transition as painless as possible for the entrenched, monied interests who profited from it and who had no real desire or intentions of ending it. George Washington and some other slave owning founders freed their slaves, Jefferson, who kept talking about it, never did, other than his slave girlfriend Sally Hemmings and some of her family members. People, especially religious people, like to talk about receiving the just rewards in heaven or hell for our lives we chhose to live on Earth. It may be that, more often than not, whatever we deserve, we get sooner that than, right here on Earth, in the present life. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner, in his famous "Turner Thesis" explained American history as a process of expansion. Westwerd expansion across the continent, and expanion into overseas markets. It is an historic fact that when the United States finally reached the west coast in the late 19th century, it didn't stop there, but continued to probe and expand, out into and across the Pacific Ocean, and southward, extending its influence into our current global empire. Within more than eight hundred military bases on foreign soil, indeed, the term "global empire" applies to the United States, and has for a long time. The United States has craved ownership of Cuba from the beginning. The Spanish empire was willing to sell Florida to the United States, but not Cuba. Perhaps history would have been kinder to the island in American hands, but, as they say, we'll never know. A quick glance at a map makes it tempting to believe that the large array of islands in the Caribbean is naturally, by virtue of geography, destined to come under American control. The only "fly in the ointment" so to speak, is that the idea fo becoming part of these United States is evidently no more appealing generally to our southern neighbors than it is to our neighbors to the north. Go figure.

Trump, Running Out the Clock

I WAS SORRY, and remain sorry, to see Kristi Noem go. And, I'll be the first to admit that its for the shallowest of reasons;I think she's hot. I doubt that I'm the only seventy year old man who thinks, nor the ony man generally; there must be at least several hundred thousand of us, if not a few million. There seems little doubt that Trump likes to hire attractive young women for high level government positions, either that, or, by sheer chance the best qualified people to run the American government are hot young women. If so, so be it. Arguably Pam Bondi, despite her vile nature, doesn't hurt ones eyeballs. Much the same can be said for Trump's good looking blonde public relations babe. Just as Trump seems to hire people for all the wrong reasons, so he seems to fire them for equally ludicrous causes, the most common one being a demonstrated ability to tell the truth about the president and to the president, instead of automatically, reflexively zombie-like reciting the company line, including expressions of veneration for the master. Trump loves to fire people, obviously. He loves exercising power ruthlessly and hurting people, evidently. He also probably enjoys hiring people, preferably by putting the through a hellish interview-interrogation process, similar to the process which attracted him so much attention, good ratings, and seeming popular approval on mainstrean American televised garbage. That Trump's springboard to the presidency was a television program which was extremely popular precisely because it was extremely cruel speaks volumes about not only American politics, but, ominously, about American culture and society as a whole. Trump got a lot of support right from the git go largely because he was widely perceived as being a skilled business person. This, largely because of his famous big time business doings, gaudy large scale projects to which Trump went to great lengths to attract media attention. Trump loves nothing more than he loves media attention, and he has for decades been expert in getting it. When he finally,mercifully leaves the presidency,don't expect him to emulate George Bush Sr. or Junior, or Barrack Obama, or Bill Clinton, or Joe Biden, and simply fade away into the background, out of the mainstream daily media limelight. You have to beieve that Trump post presidency will do everything in his power to keep his name and image on the front page. And you start to wonder what that might look like. The big question is; what will be Trump's legal situation after January 20, 2029? You would think that later in the same day that he leaves office, he and his lawyers will bebeseigedby a flurry of court appointments, law suits, legal actions of all kinds, both for and against. When he entered office for his second term, some of the thosuands of lawsuits involving Trump were put on hold, many went away or were dismissed, but some others, including many important ones, were simply continued, indefinitely. Trump will probably finish his term and leave office alive, and, even in a best case scenario for him, will doubtless be confronted with an impressive array of litigation thereafter,probably until the end of his life. Most of the ongoing legal actions agaisnt him, the ones which will resurface when he leaves office, will be postponed and delayed until he dies. The best guess is that justice will never catch up with Trump, and that he will never serve a single day in prison, although, arguably, he should be there now, and forever.

Trump, Getting Desperate

A SOLID MAJORITY of we the American people are opposed to Trump's war against Iran, and, evidently, all of Trump's other wars, including Venezuela. Dropping bombs on fishing boats has never been popular among the American masses. Trump's atack of Iran is obviously intended to do nothing other than to arouse and rally and huge emotional outpouring of patriotic emotional fervor among we the masses, to entice Trump's massive, strong opposition to lose its hatred of Trump amid a rousing continuous chorus of U.S.A!, as American military are sent in to harm's way to defend the land of liberty against the forces of darkness, aka,anything or anybody who dares get in the way of American corporate interests, esp. foreign investment, expansion, economic imperialisn. We anti-Trumpers might either have to combine an anti-war protest movement with an already vigorous anti-fascist anti-I.C.E.movement, the, so called "No Kings" or "ANTIFA" movement, a term which seems to encompass the entire opposition to Trump, MAGA, the G.O.P., and contemporary American conservatism generally. The bigger and more destructive Trump's war on Iran beccomes, the more we anti-Trumpers are going to angrily blame it all on Trump, with good reason. It seems highly unlikely that Trump is going to be able to involve the United States in a big enough or desperate enough war to convert the opposition to and hatred of Trump, which includes at least sixty percent of the population if not more, into rampant, fervant, patriotic war fever. What seems evident is that Trump is keenly and painfully well aware of his continuing loss of support and approval, and, becoming more desperate by the day as the Epstein files seem to be closing in on him, is ready to do whatever it may take, extreme measures, to rally his base if not a majoritiy of Americans behind him. Although Trump's term, to his opponensts, seems to be dragging on endlessly, in fact it won't be long until the midterms almost certainly take a big bit out of Trump's power in Congress. If he finds himself in a situation where nothing that he supports or proposes has a chance of passing both houses, who knows what measure a stymmied, stifled Donald Trump might resort to to maintain or increase his presidential power. Both Trump and the Republicans currently are very inerested in and trying hard to increase the powers of the president, to give Trump a stronger position. It almost seems as if Trump's MAGA base, in their zealous supportof Trump,are ready, and willing to elevate the orange menace to authoritarian power. They might ever try, with Trump's enthusiastic assistance, to elect Trump president for life. Watching Trump and his MAGA mob, year after year on a daily basis, might provide some insights into the sociology and psychology of Adolph Hitler's rise to power, and his use of it. Nobody doubts that Donald Trump would gleefully assume the title of president for life, or "Dear Leader", or king. His pathological narcissism, and other mental illnesses, have been on full display before the entire world long enough, that all sane, reasonable people want him rmoved from power. In this context, the fact that Trump is apparently, for all intents and purposes, seemingly safely entrenched in the presidency for nearly three more, long years, can only evoke thoughts of horror and dismay among those who consider Trump unfit for office by virtue of criminal insanity, intellectual bankruptcy, moral depravity, and evil intent.

The Majority, Discarding Trump's Evil

FOR PEOPLE who really despise President Trump, which evidently consists of about sixty percent of the American people, his words and actions are so vile, so reprehensible so often that it becomes tempting to block him out of the mind, to ignore the reprobate. All modern American presidents are fo course in the mainstream news every day, both because they want to be, and because they have no choice but to be, since there is a market for it among the consumers, and the media, like all successful businesses, cater to the often whimsical preferences of we the American people. Follow the money, like we say. In a functioning democracy, above all else, the people must pay attention to their chosen leaders, who want the attntion for the most part, except when committing crimes. Politicians, like actors, learn early and often that they are always onstage, and the best politicians, like J. F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, understand this,and learn how to exploit it. FDR, whose presidency ended at the moment in history when television was just barely beginning to gain widespread use, understands as well as anyody the importance of presenting to the mass media consuming public the image of a healthy, alert, energetic, confident leader. My mother was twelve years old when Roosevelt became president in 1933, and nearly twenty five when he died in office in 1945. For her, she essentially grew und into early adulthood with FDR in office the entire time,and it seemed almost inconceivable to her that anyone else could or would ever be president,that Roosevelt had been and would remain in office forever. She told me that the entire time he waspresident, neither she nor her parents, nor most people evidently, were aware that FDR essentially lived in a wheel chair, and was confined to the chair because of polio. The extent to which he went, with full cooperation from the media, to conceal his disability from the public was remarkable, largely effective, and seems bizarre to us today. Likewise, it seems strange that the mainstream media helped conceal bed behavior of American presidents like Kennedy from the American people, which is nearly impossible now. Nearly, but not quite impossible. My mom was twenty one, newly eligible to vote in 1944, and I remember asking her whether she voted for Roosevelt. She had two answers, she said, "no", and "hell no"...So, alas, I come, it seems, from a long line of Republicans, at least on my mother's side My father's too, actually. As far as I know I am the only Democrat, and certainly the only radical left wing lunatic, in the family, nuclear, or extended, although there seems to be hope for my sister, who, if nothing else, hates Trump. That, as they say, aint a bad start. I made it through eight years of Reagan, and he doesn't seem so bad to me now. Neither, for that matter, does Nixon. Bad, but not that bad. I feel full of energy adn optimism for the next three years, because the anti-Trump movement is a solid majority of the American people,it is not likely to shrink, and support for Trump is not likely to grow. The Trump movement has by now surely begun to reluctantly envision its own seemingly inevitable decline, a decline which seems destined to come to stark fruition after the November elections. We who strongly oppose Trumpism are a large majority, and can stop the MAGAmovement dead in its trackes,and can render the rest of Trump's term impotent, ineffective, uninfluential. We have the peopepower to bring the Trump-Repubican political uprising to a dead stand still, and to cast it into history's dustbin without distinction or fan fare. Blatantly immoral politicians like Trump must in the future be ignored and discarded, not elevated to power and exalted as tyrant dictators by a poorly educated mass of angry, fearful sycophant cult worshippers.

Wishing, Carefully

WHEN PRESIDENT TRUMP ordered the attack of Iran, it was reported on the television news, (I usually watch Scripp's) the first thing I thought was, this is hiswayof trying to deflect attention from the Epstein files. Now, a day or two later, I'm still thinking the same thing,that the attack on Iran, which happened without the provocation from Iran, oher than their evident reluctance to capitulate and accede completely to American demands that the Iranians give up their nuclear bomb and perhaps nuclear power program. is Trump's way of trying to distract the media and we the American people from what is obviously very seriously criminal, sordid, and extensive relationhsip between Trump and the infamous Mr. Epstein. Epstein wanted access to and relationships with wealthy, powerful, famous people, preferably men possessing all three of these ever marketable and valuable assets. Trump, who more than probably any human in history has always to be wealthy, powerful, and famous, perhaps in no particualre order, and Epstein filled the bill. You have to give Trump credit for one thing, if nothing else. His entier life has been a constant pursuit of wealth, fame,and power, and beyond doubt, he has succeeded wildly, perhpas beyond his expectations, in achieving all three of thee magic elixirs of self esteem. And, it goes without saying, people like Epstien and Trump are far from being alone or even uusual in harboring these shallow, selfish, socially worthless commodities.Socially worthwhile, because in what way exactly does extreme wealth, power and fame for an elite few benefit society as a whole, if it does at all? It is utterly amazing the frequency with which people desperately crave fame, obtain it, and then, within a verily short period of time, regret having ever wanted it in the first place. Classic wisdom; be careful what you wish for. The Epstein files will be either talked about widely, or will quietly swept under the carpet not by Trump or his gang or his cult,but by we the American people. And we already know that sweeping it udner the carpet, beneath huge headlines delaring war and whatever other sensational stories the prpaganda teams can generate and disimminate, is exactly what the Trump fascist organization will attempt to do. We the American people keeing talking about the Epstein files as early and often as we choose. There is plenty of room in our huge multifaceted media industry for foreign wars of American aggression, imperialism, expansion, and distraction, and Trump and the Epstien files both. We Americans are talented at multitasking. One evident reality is that the nation of Israel has a termendous amount of indluence within teh American government, regardless of administration. It might be beneficial to all of us if somebody would bother to look into that, objectively, and provide evidence, one way or another, to reassure ourselves that we the American people, and not the holy nation of Israel, is in fact governing the United States. Forcing a brand new powerful Jewish nation state into the middle of the Arab world on land forcibly seized from said world might not have been, in retrospect,the best idea, especially at the late date of 1948, by which time the status quo in Palestine was well estabiished, and, again in retrospect, quite peaceful and harmonious by comparison. British and American imperialisn, gone awry, as always. Israeli aggression and arab Islamic intolerance of Judaism cannot be ignored or accepted. As always, there is plenty of blame to go around.

Thinking Great Thoughts

I ATTEMPTED, but failed, to attend church yesterday. It was a bad day for me mentally. insofar as I can have a bad mental day. I like to think that everyday I have at least one or a few thoughts worthy of thinking. I was unable to comprehend and follow directions given to me by a friend on how to get to the church, which I have been to before, but not for a while. I drove around for a while out in the country, but never got to church. I simply couldn't find it. I started wondering what was wrong with me, mentally. I do indeed seem to have a real disability in terms of following street directions, one which I have long thought I might improve if I made a concerted effert, which, honestly, I never have. Its a mental disabiity I have had all my life, and seems destined to accompany me for the remaining life of the universe, in whatever form. On days when I go to church, which are not frequent,I often never get around to writing and posting an essay for this website, either before or after chucrh. Maybe I'm so focused on getting ready for church, and so focused on winding down the rest of the day after attending, that it pushes writing to the back burner, and off the stove entirely. But I've noticed, most of the time, on churhc days, I never get around to writing and publishing, and I am not happy with that. Obviously it doesn't have to be that way. The only thing that ever truly keeps me from writing and publishing is me, and nothing else, including church. Perhaps, when I get home from church, the spiritual or psychic energy I would have used in writing,typing, and publishing has already been expended. And still yet, I remain a devout pahtheist, no moreinclined to convert to the Christian faith than I ever have been, which, essentially,is never. Like Goethe, who I think wa shimself not a Christian, pointed out, the teaching of Christ are the most sublime, wise,beautiul teachings possible.They have also been taught before,by a surprising number of people, many in ancient times, including, for instance, the Chinese philosopher Confucius. Goethe said: "All the great thoughts have long been thought. What remains for us is to think them anew". This quote troubles me a bit. I like to think that I have original thoughts, original on this planet, and in this universe. This of course goes to the age old question of "free will", which we all seem to think and like to think that we have, but which does not seem to be the case, in terms of what we know about science, reality, and our human minds. The basic problem is that if we assume that the laws of nature apply to everything, then they apply to our minds, and our thoughts are therefore the natural result of natural processes, like molten balls of metal and rock cooling into solid planets, with light gases collecting to form an atmosphere and oceans, and then proceeding, over a period of billions of years, to combine elements into sufficiently comples organic chemical compounds to initiate the process of organic reproduction, life itself. Einstein said it best, as he often did. "Either everything is a miracle, or nothing is". This is common sense, when you thing about it, but you never really think about it. A miraculous universe, or one which seems miraculous to us in its entirety, makes far more sense than a universe in which rare miracles occur spontaneously amid an overall process which is not at all miraculous. Why should anything exist at all? Would "God" be lonely in an emptry universe? My comfort is that I am able to ask questions for which I can never get an answer, in a universe which, if nothing else, at least allows me to exist, however briefly.