Avoiding Dancing

AT THE SENIOR CENTER, an attractive lady asked me to dance. She had a few years on her facially, like we all do, but a hot bod. Ben Franklin's kind of girl; older,, and as he reminds us in his famous essay on the virtues of older women, they age from the top down, and, as the old saying goes, they don't yell, they don't tell, and they're grateful as hell. I was afraid to dance with her. I knew she wouldn't ask me twice. I can't dance, and I don't like the kind of music we have at the center; hillbilly country, fiddle included. So I engaged her in conversation, briefly. She began by mentioning that she had recently taken up dancing, that she found it to be good exercise, and therapeutic to boot. I just had to turn it intellectual. I asked her opinion as to the greatest dancers of all time. I gave her my list. Among the men, I named Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Michael Jackson, and Prince. I offered ginger Rogers, Lisa Minnelli, Judy garland and Shirley MacLaine for the ladies, and left it at that. I would have started to name ballet dancers, but decided they didn't count. The attractive lady looked nonplussed. I waited, for her to speak. When she did, I was disappointed. She said she had never really thought about it much, that she was really more interested in actually dancing than naming dancers, and that, well, she really didn't spend much time studying on it. the truth was obvious; she had never heard of any of these people. and that, in itself, was just about enough to scare me off. My standards are not particularly high, but I have them. A friend once told me that he would never date a woman unless she could name the Vice President of the Untied States, and to me, that seems reasonable, and not not really too much to expect. if you've never heard of Fred Astaire, or Prince, don't bother to ask me to dance. I'm already looking for an excuse not to.

Praising Science and Socialism, Our Twin Saviors

BECAUSE OF SCIENCE, we have airplanes, cars, computers, heart surgery, television, radio, and several million other wonderful life enhancers, far too many to mention. (Technology is applied science, science in action in service to humanity). Some might argue that humans were happier in a prescientific age of primitive, stone age life, like the native Americans; perhaps in some instances this is true, probably not, overall. Science,, upon which our better quality of life is predicated, exists not because of religion, but in spite of it, and would have improved our lives and saved many lives had its progress not been impeded by religious superstition. None of these scientific marvels resulted from religion every benefit ever bestowed by religion could have been provided by other means, using truth rather than fantasy, mythology, and dogma. Science is superior to religion, because it yields far more truth. the spirituality inherent in a scientific understanding of nature is far more spiritually advanced than any put forth by any religion. Because of socialism, we have police protection, fire protection, streets and highways, public schools and universities, social security, and several million other life enhancers, fundamental, absolutely essential government services, too numerous to mention. Socialism is government, which in a liberal democracy is cooperation by popular participation. Consider whether you would prefer your local police department by privately owned, and operated on a for profit basis, with the cost of police protection subject to the fluctuations of the free market. The same hold true of fire protection. What if every street and highway you needed to use were controlled by private, profit seeking interests? Good luck getting there without being ht hard in the pocket book. Capitalism was defined and described bets by Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations", the bible of capitalism. it is not widely known that Smith stipulated that properly functioning free market should result in economic equality between workers and owners,a nd that if it didn't, something was awry in the market, and should be corrected by government action to assist the poor, but never the wealthy. Obviously, our modern capitalist system has gone far astray of what Adam Smith intended. religion began as a well intentioned, honest effort among primitive, ignorant people to explain, understand, and gain some measure of control over the frightening world in which they lived. When emotion took over and dogma replaced reason and inquiry, religion went far astray, where it remains today, moored to false beliefs and damaging dogmas. religion has its place as a means to revere the wonders of nature, and capitalism has its place as a means to produce wealth and prosperity, but religion must at some point be directed by science, and capitalism must be heavily regulated by government and socialism, as it already is in every economically successful country in the world. Future human success will depend on reason, not mythology, and cooperation and planning, not blindly functioning free markets.

Putting Out Fires

AROUND 1910 A SERIES OF WILDFIRES raged across the western United States. Panic followed the conflagrations across the previously fruited plain. The federal government responded by pouring water on anything that flickered, and thus began the era of unburned, overgrown underbrush. When fires are quenched before they ever really start to spread, the countryside becomes choked with highly flammable plant life. Now, in the era of climate change and more severe droughts, hotter and longer summers, this policy of fire suppression is coming back to haunt us, after a century of over protecting our forests and grasslands. Shockingly, the world's worst air pollution in 2018 was not in Beijing, China, or Calcutta India, or Mexico city, or Bombay, India. It was in none other than beautiful Seattle, Washington. The wildfires of 2018 have been the most numerous, most severe, and the largest in U.S. history. cities such as Seattle which are largely surrounded by by forests subject historically to fire suppression have been the hardest hit by smoke; no matter which way the wind blows, air pollution is scattered across the city from all directions, a guaranteed blackened skyline. Although people in Seattle have generally not been wearing gas masks this summer, as they often do in places like Beijing, there have been days during which they might have seriously considered doing so. Respiratory illnesses, especially among the very young and the elderly, have skyrocketed in Seattle. The fire season is growing longer, and all across the west now extends nearly the year round. Folks have been encouraged to stay indoors many days this past summer in Seattle, where the summers are not usually hot enough for people to have air conditioning, which filters the air. Denver is more fortunate, since it is not surrounded by deciduous forests, but nonetheless must contend with nearby prairie fires. I recall visiting Yellowstone park in 1988, just one year before one third of it burned in a massive fire, from which it has only recently recovered. Climate change will only get worse. We had better find better ways of dealing with our burning land.

Writing A new Constitution

OF THE MANY PROBLEMS created by our poorly written, outdated constitution, the most blatant and obvious is the vague, ambiguous second amendment. Does it guarantee the right for an individual to own a weapon only when serving in a militia, or the right to own and carry a gun for personal protection? What kind of guns are covered? Muzzle loaders only, as would be the case in a strictly "originalist" interpretation, or machine guns as well? If you think the answers to these basic questions are obvious and need no discussion, reconsider. Neither the United States Supreme Court nor anyone else has ever been able to make a convincing argument in response to any of these reasonable, obvious questions. In fact, for most of American history, the high court has indeed ruled that only when serving in a regulated militia does the document guarantee the right to bear arms. Throughout its history, American society has been engaged in a continuous dispute over exactly what the second amendment means. In 1977, the National rifle Association, which had therefore been primarily concerned with gun safety and hunting regulation, joined the gun fight, when its leadership was taken over by a group of right wing right wingers, in whose hands the organization remains to this day. previously, ironically, the NRA had for the most part been a staunch advocate of strict, or at least reasonable gun control, the thinking being that such regulation would serve ultimately to protect the second amendment rights of responsible gun owning citizens. In the United States, there has always been gun ownership, and there has always been gun control, to one degree or other. Regulations were rather strict in the early republic, far stricter than now. In the supposedly wild west, guns were very strictly regulated, and for the most part were not allowed to be carried in frontier towns. obviously, America needs some final resolution to the second amendment mess, some clearly written set of laws which reflect modern reality. Since forty three states have constitutional provisions allowing for gun ownership, there is no chance that the federal government will come and take away anyone's weapons. there are numerous other examples of the inadequacy of the two hundred and twenty five year old constitution, too many to mention here. prohibition is enacted, then, a few lines further down, repealed. For purpose of congressional representation, a certain class of people, slaves, are counted as three fifths of a human being. No, I'm not making that up. Surely, a more modern, concise term could be found to replace the archaic term "emoluments". Why not specifically enumerate a right to privacy, and define "privacy" in modern terms, instead of arguing about whether one can be found between the lines in our current document? Why not clearly outlaw discrimination base on gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation? We the people need and deserve a new, improved constitution, as Thomas Jefferson said we inevitably would. And,for teh sake of respect for tradition, the current one would be a very good model upon which to base our better version.

Getting Through Eighth grade, And Life, Somehow

A NEW MOVIE called "Eighth Grade" has a cool soundbite. Daddy and daughter are in the car. The conversation: "can't you at least look at me!"..... "And not look at the road?"...... "OK, obviously I didn't mean that. Go ahead and look at the road. But just don't be quiet and weird while you do it."......"um, sorry"...(editor's note:can we say "hormones?")......When you're in eighth grade, you're thirteen years old, your body is changing in ways you can't act on, your behavior is entirely controlled y surging, complicated new chemicals, and you are becoming uncontrollably concerned with things such as social status, self image, and all associated forms of mental instability universal to early teens. This includes everybody. Every minor event is a major catastrophe. The advice "just relax and enjoy life" is like being advised to change your gait while walking on the moon. I taught eighth grade for one year, during which my hair turned white, then fell out, and my doctor put me on blood pressure meds. For me the stress was nearly as bad as it was for my students. I was soon able to retire, they weren't. And yet, somehow, they survived to enter ninth grade, and even more miraculously, they lived long enough to enter adulthood here in the United States of Anxiety. But by God, while in my class, they learned..something. The summer before I entered eighth grade, the summer of sixty eight, RFK was murdered, race riots burned American cities to the ground, and I figured out that the Viet Nam war was a complete scam. That fall, I got so tired of listening to Hubert Horatio Humphrey insult Nixon, that notwithstanding the fact his insults were actually statements of verifiable fact, I rooted for Nixon to win. All that, plus the cute girls, and the daily struggle to forge ahead into the company of cool kids and placate the bullies by befriending them, as an unrepentant intellectual nerd without the slightest idea how to dress properly, which at that time meant, how to wear plaid bell bottom pants and six inch wide belts with big silver buckles.. I had it tough, but at least I didn't have to deal with Instagram, Twitter Tweet, or Donald Trump, which is quite enough for even the most seasoned veteran of societal navigation. Like then, today's eighth graders live in the best of times, and....well, you know the rest. So, welcome to the club. The secret handshake will be shown later. Newspapers are written on an eighth grade level, and online we all behave like eighth graders, at best. We are, all of us, far less able to control our behavior and the circumstances of our lives than we might wish to believe. These various influences, internally and externally, are our masters, our determinants. Like a great philosopher once said: "We can get what we want, but we cannot will what we want." There was a time in America when suicidal, schizophrenic, or just plain depressed people were considered morally deficient, and told to "just snap out of it." Today, we do a bit better, but perhaps not much better. Today, ten percent of American's are diabetic. At least we don't tell them to "snap out of it."

Contending Against Stupidity

AT THE SENIOR CENTER, the southern sympathizer made himself clear: Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt were the "sorriest" presidents the United States ever had. He omitted mention of Andrew Johnson, Millard Fillmore, or Donald Trump, perhaps because he wasn't familiar with them. I chose not to defend my two presidential heroes. Why bother? I was obviously dealing with someone to whom the ancient adage applies: "against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain." The emancipation of the slaves, and government assistance for the poor were apparently the reasons for the bigot's disdain for Lincoln and Roosevelt. What greater indictment could there possible be? A president who usurped stat's rights, and another who gave handouts to lazy people. This eighty year old bigot had the rigid, feigned dignity of an old time Confederate veteran, a proud man who fought for a noble, lost cause. He continued, thinking his audience sympathetic, which, except for me, it was. "June 19th's coming up", he said. "That's nigger day". I rolled my eyes, but shouldn't have. I looked it up, and sure enough, the old bastard had a point: On June 19th, 1865, it is widely believed among the African-american community that the last slaves were emancipated. Whether this is true, my research did not reveal. its a dubious contention at best. The blacks were never truly emancipated, but were instead reduced to decades of sharecropping servitude, excluded from all aspects of society for a hundred years. First, Jim Crow, then the era of discrimination and institutional segregation, which continues unto this very day. Doubtless my bigot buddy is unaware of all this, and considers the black folk ungrateful for everything white society has given them. To him, Martin Luther King must have been, and must forever remain, a trouble making ingrate. Those people should have had the sense to know their place, and to stay there. Tragically, this old coot isn't alone, but at least he won't live much longer, nor will his kind, if we are fortunate. We had the audacity to draft Muhammed Ali, and expect him to fight in Viet Nam. A man who grew up excluded from white drinking fountains, white only restrooms, and white only everything, who became heavyweight champion of the world. His response was; "Them Viet Cong aint my enemy. You are."

Keeping Kaepernick Out

COLIN KAEPERNICK, the first but not the latest to kneel in protest during the anthem before NFL games, the catalyst of a social upheaval which refuses to die away and instead threatens to shake the very foundations of American society, is going to have his day in court. Huzzah. So declared the arbitrator, who ruled that the talented but unemployed former NFL quarterback has sufficient grounds upon which to pursue his case for collusion against the league and its team owners, who allegedly conspired to withhold employment because of his protest. The arbitrator himself will hear the case, in which Kaepernick, who knelt to protests police brutality against African-Americans, motivated many other players to do the same. This would seem to indicate that he has a case with merit, and a chance to win. The burden of proof is on him, and the standard is high - he must prove beyond any doubt that at least two owners overtly entered into an agreement to keep him out of the league. To have a heart is to hope that Kaepernick wins, and takes the hypocritical owners to the cleaners. To wish otherwise is to have no heart, or to be a billionaire hypocrite. Hypocritical, because the NFL owners do not care one iota whether their employee players are patriotic, respect the anthem, the flag, or whether they protest against racism in America. What they care about is the proverbial bottom line. Actually, nobody in America cares whether somebody stands, kneel, or sits during the national anthem. Various religious groups do not stand, and are not punished for it. What we the American people care about is whether we fuel our self esteem by presenting ourselves to others as patriotic. Oh, ye generation of hypocrites. Boycott the NFL, show off your love of country, like praying in public. What we really care about is being entertained by vicarious violence and excitement. Patriotism, which literally means love of and obedience to the fatherland, corrupts history, in its extreme form. Sieg Heil, and all of that. patriotism is a form of religious fervor, when in extreme form. the more religiously patriotic we perceive ourselves to be, the greater our self esteem, so, why not show it off by turning off the telly when Monday night football comes on? In the midst of all this posturing and posing, kneel a young man who is tired of living in a country which has always been, and remains, deeply racist. he does not disrespect the anthem, nor the flag, nor apple pie. He disrespects a society in which his value is measured by his athletic ability, and the color of his skin, rather than by the content of his character.

Stifling The Opposition

NOT LONG AGO at the University of California, Berkeley, that exalted bastion of free thinking progressivism, an unfortunate, not so free thinking progressive event transpired. Two noted, controversial conservative speakers, Ann Coulter and Milo Yianopoulos, were scheduled to speak, and the mere fact of their impending presentations incited a veritable uproar within the often vociferous student body. If memory serves were cancelled. If they weren't, they were rudely interrupted repeatedly by supposedly open minded progressives. But why? Why rue their appearance at all? Why not instead encourage those with whom one disagrees to openly present their point of view? Exposing error provides the opportunity to discount it. You're right, they're wrong, right? Then why not hear them out, and calmly, respectfully, intellectually dismantle their arguments, and expose their error? Certainly, Ann and Milo are idiots. Quite intelligent actually, but, utterly twisted and corrupt. They offer only nonsensical blather. Ann, for example, once said that the best way to resolve Islamic-Christian disputes would be for all Muslims to convert to Christianity. Fat chance, blondie. Only a mentally ill person could say that, and really believe it. As for Milo, he combines insane ideas with a comedic touch. He's funny and entertaining. What's wrong with that? I seem to recall his making some deplorable racist comments. Again, so what? let them rave on, let them dig their own grave. The alarming trend is that people tend to be fed and to listen only to opinions which conform to their own preexisting prejudices. This is not the way to learn and grow. On conservative talk radio, liberal callers are never put on the air. Limbaugh used to claim that liberal went to the front of the line; he stopped making that claim, because it obviously wasn't true. When did you last read any publication or watch any television program or hear any radio program that presented a variety of viewpoints? its probably been awhile. I used to listen to rush Limbaugh, but I finally lost patience. At least I tried. I might walk across the street to listen to Ann or Milo, but I wouldn't pay any admission, and I might not stay till the bitter end. But at least I wouldn't try to stop them from ranting their rave.

Disabling Treaties

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA has the highest standard in the world of caring for and protecting the rights of people with disabilities, mental and physical. Everyone has seen wheel chair accessible ramps leading into public buildings, preferred parking spaces for physically challenged citizens, special departments in public schools, and much more. Former president George H.W. Bush, himself now confined to a wheel chair,, considered it desirable to encourage such high standards for the entire world by engaging all other countries in a United Nations treaty guaranteeing such standards. He helped negotiate the treaty, and every other nation in the world signed on. Former Vice President Bob dole rolled his wheel chair down the isle of the U.S. Senate in 2012, in support of the agreement. All that was required was approval by the U.S. Senate, and the signature of President Barack Obama. Astonishingly, the treaty was voted down by Senate Republicans. Among all the tragically, disastrously wrong headed positions taken by America's far right, which include denial of climate change, support for neo-liberal supply side economics, and resistance to to formally enacted equal right for the LGBT community and other minorities, is the irrational notion that all international agreements and treaty is entered into by the United States represent a surrender a surrender of sovereignty by America to the world community, and some imaginary "world government". Since Trump became president, he has removed the U.S. from the nuclear weapons agreement with Iran, from the Paris climate change accords, from the trans pacific Trade partnership, and from NAFTA. he has replaced them with - nothing. This he has done with the full support of the conservative community. "Make America great again" in the era of Trump apparently means "make America alone". Ever since the disastrous wars of American aggression began with George Bush's 1991 attack of Iraq,, the United States has lost much of the global respect it had gained since helping defeat NAZI Germany and imperial Japan in World War Two. Now, this trend intensifies as the United States withdraws from the global community, forfeiting its leadership role. To abandon agreements to fight climate change and eliminate nuclear weapons is the behavior of a seriously misguided nation. To promulgated an international agreement, which all other nations sign, to improve the treatment of disabled people, and then abandon the very agreement the U.S. proposed and encouraged others to agree to, is beyond pathological.

Hiding Kavanaugh

SOMETHING IS ROTTEN in the state of the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. His supporters are defending, protecting, and hiding, rather than promoting him. Kavanaugh once worked in the Bush White House, and in that capacity his office generated tens of thousands of documents of various sorts pertaining to his work, which was ostensibly was administrative in nature but actually involved matters of policy. Many of these documents may be related to his opinions and attitudes concerning pertinent legal issues. Trump's executive order prohibiting their release can only mean that they contain material which reflects badly on Kavanaugh's character and judgment, and would be inimicle to hos prospects of being confirmed for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Get a load of the republicans, making like the Democrats have lost their minds and are behaving unreasonably for having the audacity to wonder what these suddenly secretive documents might possibly contain! They compound their strange nefarious behavior by fervently insisting that the material available on Kavanaugh , consisting of his rather lengthy judicial record, is more than adequate, and that the exposure and perusal of any more material would only be a massive waste of time, and would needlessly, indeed tragically delay the confirmation process. Well, what's the harm in wasting time? aren't we Americans the world's leading time wasters? Is't wasting time a grand American tradition in which we fire up the flat screen, grab the remote, ensconce our asses on the couch, and flip from one channel...to another..to another...including the most time wasteful of them all, CSPAN? And why hurry the confirmation process at all? Precipitous action is always unwise, and matters such at this require due deliberation, not undue haste. Recall the Merrick Garland fiasco, the one in which Obama's nominee to the court was not only delayed, but utterly ignored by the Republican Congress, his only crime being that rather than being a right wing extremist, he was a moderate, and thus a perfect choice? Then, the republicans were perfectly content to let the high court totter along with only eight justices for a full year, and the judicial process itself survived, unscathed. are our current crop of G.O.P. legislators fearful that if the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings drag on until after the upcoming midterm elections, the electorate might fill the Senate with progressive Democrats, and spoil the party? Well, like John Adams said to Abigail when the Jefferson people slandered their way to the White House in 1800; "darling, if they want it that badly, let them have it." To those (conservatives) to whom stacking the court with conservative ideologues is more important than achieving a nation of equal justice under law; your time will come. You may succeed in eliminating a woman's right to choose,and in legalizing discrimination against sinners using your religion as an excuse, and you may even manage to bring back Jim Crow. But for all that, you'll experience the consequences, including the unintended ones.

Trying Too Hard To Pray

PERMIT ME TO break an unbreakable rule, and tell you about a dream I had. I'm at the senior center for lunch, as usual. its Thanksgiving, but the crowd is surprisingly sparse. I raise my hand, and remind the dozen or so diners that is time to pray, for they seem to have forgotten. But lunch is served, and after a few bites it occurs to me that we have still not prayed, have skipped a mandatory offering of thanks. So, frantically rushing to save the day, I stand without permission and begin to pray, hastily trying to assemble my thoughts as I rise to my feet, finding it difficult and confusing. But I know what I want to say. I want to tell my personal, pantheistic God that I and we all adore her, and that we at least vaguely comprehend the miraculous beauty of existence, with our weak and transitory understanding. We are grateful for our own lives, and for the awesome wondrous cosmos in which we are placed by your loving, beneficent kindness. I want to say that as we all engage in the ceaseless struggle to improve ourselves, we humbly, gratefully accept whatever guidance we might be fortunate enough to receive. I recall vaguely, as I slept, thinking of Einstein's words: "my religiosity consists in humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself in what little, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality."..there is so much to say, about love, admiration, and wonder, but not to the hateful, psychotic, vain, petty mass murdering biblical God, but to the beautiful God of eternity, whose name is nature, cosmos, and universe. I figure the Pentecostals and Baptist's and fundamentalists'll never know the difference, and if they do, what of it? Even they can learn something new. But I can't speak. I can't get the words out. My voice will simply not work. I start to panic, and the small gathering start to glance at me dubiously. I've had the same dream state scenario before, in which I cannot speak.sublimation of years of people saying "huh?" I real life, I have long acquired the habit of speaking slowly, deliberately, with affected clarity, and to speak more sparingly. years of teaching and the burden of "huh' have driven to to it. When i woke p from this semi nightmare, i was much relieved. maybe in my dreams I express my frustration, just as I and many people dream that we are flying as an expression of our hopes. Soon I may even be able to offer the blessing at the senior center, in real life.

Getting Back Together

UP AND COMING is my forty five year high school class reunion of the class of seventy three, go eagles, valiant, and strong. I loved the ten and twenty year reunions, after that, not so much, as my interest waned, and continues to. Been there, done that. I am interested in my classmates children, but not their grandchildren. By the time their great grand children arrive, I should be dead. A few of my best high school buds have been, I sense, made at me for several years now. Its all about politics, and had to do with Obama, left versus right, that sort of thing. Hell, we haven't even spoken since Trump was elected; if they support him, we're done, for good. they were already dumb enough.(lol) Stay mad at me for more than ten minutes, its a grudge, and I don't do grudges. I laugh at, then ignore them. At our age, you'd think we'd know better, but we don't; we "mature" emotionally some throughout life, but less than we might wish to believe. Life is short, and for us, not much is left, so, why bother? I have at my local senior center noticed that often the old folks do not know better, and in fact frequently know worse. Everyone who knows me like me. Most people who do not know me do not like me, or don't give a rat's ass either way: prejudice of some sordid sort? We are not a culture of like at first sight. Quite the opposite. We are, like Bertolt Brecht said: "mistrustful, lazy, yet in the end content". There are two types of popularity: social status and likability. Social status is the rich, well dressed kid,,, the good looking kid, the hot cheerleader, the stud athlete. Many of us think we want to be, but really do not want to be, of high status. the downside to high status is that nearly as many people despise you as admire and emulate you. That cheerleader is, like, soo totally stuck up. That football player is, like, cocky, even if cute. No matter who the president is, half of Americans hate his guts. Beware high status, what you want is likability popularity. That's the kind that makes you happy. that's the kind I have, and I have always been happy, despite the usual mood swings. High status I've never enjoyed, being a down dresser. My fleeting brush with it was twenty five years ago when I had a public access television show devoted to talking about left wing causes. everybody in my large town knew me; some wished they didn't. it was a weird feeling, being at once admired and despised. At the reunion, i'll be likable, and may the devil take the hindmost. It they turn it into a "Make america great again" rally, I'll slip away, mouth closed. last time I saw any of them, at homecoming, one of them said "God bless the Koch brothers". I nearly hurled. God, what morons. Go Eagles.

Mozart, Making Fun

I AWAKENED at four as usual, to feed the cats. labor Day, no work today. The two males ate, but tHE female did not.She seemed to have awakened from a deep sleep. She finally ate, sleepily. When blissfully I returned to bed, she insisted on laying on top of me. She often does this, but this time she did it insistently, keeping me awakw with her contented purring. On the radio i identified a piece by Mozart which I had never hear d before, a weird piece, discordant, out of key, with a simplistic, stupid melody, as if he had composed on a bad day. Then, as Mandi laying purring on my chest, classical narrator pet Vandegraff explained that Mozart, astonishingly prolific, and that some of his work had been ignored, such as this weird sounding piece just completed. It was brought to life by some musical antiquarian, and recorded by an ensemble assembled for the purpose. Mozart, it seems, was making fun. In his day, just like our own, amateur musicians, good and bad, were ubiquitous. He was making fun of the bad ones, of whom he apparently had grown tired. Then, as now, songwriters and composers were everywhere, some good, some bad. Mozart in this crazy sounding piece was making fun of the third and fourth rate composers who filled Vienna and the rest of Europe. This, musicologists had deduced from his letters and what he was reported to have said to other people, particularly his musical friends like Franz Joseph Hayden. Mozart was, we know, like most geniuses, a complicated character. Fun living, a real party animal, he could also be bitingly cruel and aloof. and his fan base was fickle. In Vienna, and in his hometown of Salzburg, he was in and out of favor like some shifting, whimsical wind. Only in Prague was he uniformly, steadfastly beloved, and he loved Prague back, devoting a symphony to the city. A prophet, but not in his own land., but only away from home. He was quite sensitive to what other people thought, what they said and wrote about his work. So, he responded. Responded by belittling those with less talent than he. God, what an asshole. Heavens, how human he was. The more brilliant people are, the more likely they are to see others as idiots. The more creative, the more likely to cheat, to break the rules, to fail to conform. Mozart deserves credit on all accounts.

Being A Believer

"IT IS BEYOND ME", Goethe said, "how anyone can believe that God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveql itself to us, and if our hearts do not tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we will most certainly not learn this from books, which at best are designed only to give names to our mistakes. Amen to that. The Christian bible has been published in more languages, in more editions, and more translations and versions than any book in history, precisely because it is the most important book in history. Thousands of authors have added to it, subtracted from it, changed it, remade it in their own self interested image, and in toto have so greatly altered the original scriptures in the past fifteen hundred years that our current versions are vastly different from the originals. When Jesus was alive in human form, teh Hebrew scriptures he staunchly defended as the true gospel were even then being changed, and were not yet in complete form. The Council of Nicea assembled the Neew testament by popular vote in 325 A.D.. The clerics chose what to include and what to leave out collectively, by majority rule, and they left out much, left our many gospels. If the Bible is indeed the Word of God, the word of god is then very flexible, very changeable, very malleable, the word of a seemingly fickle god...In extreme western Arkansas, surrounded by heavily forested, rolling hills, is a tiny town named "natural Dam", named after after its local tourist attraction, which has few tourists. The dam itself is a couple hundred feet long, several feet high and thick and appears to be made of large blocks of neatly chiseled rectangular gray granite, carefully stacked. it looks for all the world to be man made, but isn't. The water flows over it, usually in a fast running clear water creek, during times of drought in two or three waterfalls which resemble water coming from a faucet. People did not build this dam, but something or someone intelligent did. Whatever force built the universe built this dam, likely over a very long period of time, without human involvement. Einatein called it "tehhenfinitely superior spirit", and perhaps my favorite of all: "the ancient one". For me, any one of them will do just fine; I'm a believer.

A Longing To Return To Joy

AT THE SENIOR CENTER where I wash dishes and pack Meals On Wheels as a retired teacher, by boss, Amy, a woman young enough to be my daughter, told me that when she began working at the center, she rejoiced in coming to work each day, to a place where she could escape the turmoil of her home life, to a place where she could create value and render service. Then something changed. The joy faded, and she began to dread going to work. Communication turned into constant drama, engendered in the center's kitchen by petty rivalries and disputes. Her joy was gone. She said that she longs for a return to the good old days, to the joy of creativity and service. Her remarks triggered something in me, some vague, undefined sense of empathy. A reminder of something ambient, something in my own life, in my environment. Could it be the country? Have I lived long enough to see a beloved united country torn asunder by internal divisions magnified and widening? Am I longing for a return to my happy childhood? My childhood was the nineteen sixties. The president was murdered when I was in third grade. In the seventh grade America was torn apart by the Viet Nam war protests, by race riots, and by the fight for women's rights. No, that couldn't be it. Has this country ever been truly united, and my soul free from turmoil? Is the nineteen sixties what I want back? How could it be? A line by the poet Theodore Roethke comes to mind: "That place among the rocks; is it a cave, or winding path? The edge is what I have..." I can only reckon that my dear Amy in the kitchen, who could have been my beloved daughter, will keep seeking her peace, that she will rediscover her pathway to value and service. And I can only reckon that, at length, she will once again find her peace and joy. As my for me and my troubled, confused country, we'll keep searching too, keep plugging away, swinging the bat, sorting it all out. And there will come a time, sometime, when all of this turmoil, all of this fear, all of this darkness dividing us, will finally firm up, and coalesce into something beautiful and valuable. Amy will again find her joy, as will our beloved America. As T.S. Eliot said: "I will show you fear in a handful of dust." Or, in the words of Theodore Roethke: "Dark, dark, my light, and darker my desire. My soul, like some heat maddened summer fly, keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I? A fallen man, I climb out of my fear. The mind enters itself, and God the mind, and One is One, free, in the tearing wind."