Accepting Offers

PEOPLE ON FACEBOOK, people on the internet, and indeed people living in the land of freedom and opportunity (the U.S. of America) are doubtless cognizant of the seemingly amazingly infinite variety of opportunities afforded everyone with a social security number. Our email and snail mail boxes are flooded with them, our flat screens scream them at us. Offers, all irresistible. Each offer is the one one simply cannot refuse, the one one simply has to accept. The very moment I walk out the front door of my brick and mortar bank of America, into my email they insert a survey, offering me the chance to rate their performance. How did Missy treat you today? My response is usually to congratulate the bank on not having been indicted by the federal government for a year and a half, on having evidently toned down its criminal activity a tad, just enough to avoid another billion dollar penalty, as a coerced payment for the privilege of retaining its business license. In the United State of Advertising, financial services corporations are criminal enterprises. Check the public record. The very moment some mortgage lender tempts me with low interest high refi, my one true mortgage lender pope up, now is the best possible time for a cash out home improvement refinance, build that deck, its tax time again, low interest, call us before midnight, before its tool late. Who can refuse? Facebook, among the largest criminal enterprises in human history, offers me a never ending opportunity for friendship, the social glue which binds us all together, kind of. As I click yes on one bikini clad babe after another, I wonder how Facebook could possibly have known exactly what I was looking for. People you may know, they say. But how can that be? She must live a thousand miles from me, and has never heard of me. Oh, but we have "mutual friends"! One must take advantage of offers, while they last. Then, just when I'm starting to have fun, up pops a question, coupled with a dire warning: do you know this person? We suggest only friending people you know personally. The disclaimer! Proof of corporate moral responsibility. Listening to Zuckerberg's mealy mouthed explanations and apologies and promises for better Facebook behavior in dealing with personal information in the very near future is, if disingenuous, quite amusing. We Americans all promise good intentions, and that seems to be enough. There is a reason, dear reader, why every third word out of an American's mouth seems to be, well, a bit disingenuous, to put tit delicately. There is a reason we all seem, upon further reflection, if we really think about the actual meaning of what people say, why everybody seems to be trying to scam us, And that reason is: everybody is. WE are. Its all we know. We live in the land of the expression of good intentions, and ulterior motives. Because we are scammed from day one, we become inveterate scammers, often without realizing it. But enough of that. Facebook just sent me another long list of bikini clad babes from which to select future friends, and I must get back to it. Who knows what wonders await me in my email?

Making America Great, First

THE TERM "AMERICA FIRST" has a pretty, patriotic ring to it. Charles Lindbergh used it to geed effect in mobilizing American resistance to entry into world War Two, as if the head in sand American people needed any encouragement or mobilization to isolationism. We the America first American people would have been perfectly content for Hitler to conquer the world, providing he left America first alone; we America firstering folk need no encouragement to be America first, America only. We happily let Hitler run amok for two years, unconcerned, until forced to act by the inconvenience of Pearl harbor. Germany first, Egypt first, Rome first; it aint the latest thing, and its an always popular brand, across cultures, to boot. To Americans of average or above average discernment, the question is: "So what? What's the big deal"? This, because nobody in America who has ever been born, raised, and buried in these United States has ever contemplated prioritizing anything, including other nations, ahead of the U.S.A.. What, precisely, would be the alternative? Most Americans have never even been to another country. much less had reasons for being loyal to one. The only exceptions to American hegemonic citizen loyalty are God, and family. The exact order in which God, family, and country are prioritized depends upon the individual's religious devotion and marital status, but no other nation encroaches in the hierarchical trio. Nobody, not even Benedict Arnold, ever put another nation ahead of American allegiance. Arnold has been given a bad rep in the fake news media. His intent was to persuade the British to be merciful on the rebellious colonists, whose defeat he saw, incorrectly, as inevitable. Before the Civil War, Americans were loyal to their states first, and their country second. Virginia first. New Hampshire first. The war changed that. The United States "are" became the United States "is". But, as we say, that was then, this is now. During his mercifully brief inaugural cliché ridden address, Donald J. Trump, ever the patriot, repeated: "form now on, its going to be..America first..America first". Twice, presumably for emphasis. His intonation bespoke ground breaking innovation, as if he had created. He hadn't. No demagogue who ever set head beneath a self styled crown ever admonished his sycophants to pledge allegiance to some foreign power. Put another way, excessive, pandering patriotism is the refuge of scoundrels. Or, as Goethe said: "patriotism corrupts history". Demagogues corrupt everything, with vacuous clichés such as "make America great again", as if America were not already great, and "America First', as if there were any alternative, or as if America had not always been first, would not always be first in the hearts of its citizens, no matter what.

Accepting An Unpleasant Reality; An Inconvenient Truth

CLIMATE CHANGE is already very much with us, has been for a long time, and its effects are quite evident, already, daily. It will only get worse, so much worse that disastrous consequences are now unavoidable, and no matter what we do at this point, it will not be enough. The best we can hope for is to some degree ameliorate its worst effects, and to preserve life on Earth albeit, beyond doubt, in a seriously compromised form. Pessimistic assessments of this sort have appeared repeatedly on this website, the common theme being that with every new study of global warming, scientific results reveal the situation to be much, much worse than previously, recently thought. That has long been the situation; with every new study, the outlook, realistically, appears bleaker, as more information is added to the existing store of research and information. And so the trend continues. The very latest assessments are described in a new book by David Wallace wells, "The Uninhabitable Earth: The World after Warming". This title is eerily remindful of a 1991 book by Isaac Asimov and Frederick Pohl "Our Angry earth", in which the late great science fiction writer and bio chemist warned us that global warming threatens humanity's future. It was the last book Asimov, who died in 1992, and who wrote more books than anyone in history, ever wrote. Dire warnings about climate change are nothing new. The first such warning came nearly two hundred years ago, in fact, but was ignored, just as many people, particularly American conservatives, continue to ignore them today, incredibly. Mr. wells asserts, based upon the latest information, that the current goal of keeping global warming below a two degree threshold for the next century is no longer achievable, because of our sluggish response to the emergency. A more reasonable outcome is a four degree increase in the average global temperature by the year 2100, although Wells claims that if we start taking drastic action now, we can keep it to about three degrees, which will still be disastrous, but endurable. A high percentage of carbon injected by humanity into the atmosphere has been injected within the past twenty five years; after Asimov's book came out. We are at least three decades late in combating this dire circumstance, if not more. Einstein knew about climate change in the nineteen forties. Various scientists were talking about the theoretical possibility of warming the Earth's atmosphere by burning fossil fuels over a hundred and fifty years ago. David Wallace Wells makes the horrifying remark that no matter what we do at this point, by the year 2050 every major city in India and in most of Asia will be uninhabitable during the summer months, and to go outside will be lethal. By 2050 climate change, in the most optimistic scenario, will have killed one hundred and fifty million people, and probably more. The worst case scenario, which is perhaps even more likely, due to our current lack of action, is that by the year 21000 the planet will be a hot hell hole, with mass extinctions of species of plants and animals, with humanity in cultural and economic decline, as hordes of refugees flee from unbearable conditions, and humanity takes cover, barely hanging on to life, for a while. This is not fantasy; this is reality, the reality that the great grandchildren of the baby boomer generation is doomed to a world of severely compromised living standard and almost no long term hope for humanity's future. That tragedy is that the human species has shown remarkable creativity and beauty, and this planet has revealed a wonderful, awesome variety of lifeforms. All that will be lost. We might as well resort to prayer, or hope for interventions by extraterrestrials being with vastly superior intelligence and technology. Why not? In the meantime, it would be nice if we could at least die trying, and maybe show good intent by getting rid of fossil fuel energy, and electing an American president who doesn't believe that climate change is a hoax, a lie, and a trick being played by bad people with malicious intent. And then, maybe, just maybe, our descendants will hate us a little less, though still with good reason. It will only be a small consolation, and a meaningless one.

Making Freinds, Meeting Everyone, Starting A Movement

MY FACEBOOK FRIENDS LIST is rapidly filling up with young beautiful women in their twenties, thirties, or very late teens Mostly in their twenties. The term "filling up" might be misleading; does one's Facebook friends list ever get full? Is there a limit to how many friends one can acquire on FacebooK? Or, in theory, is it possible to have all two billion Facebook users on your friends list? If so, I think that's what I'll do, I'll try to befriend all two billion Facebook users. Why not? I recall forty five years ago, before I became a misanthrope, telling a friend that I would like to have the opportunity to meet everyone in the world. I really meant it. Oh, for those halcyon days before I learned to despise humanity. Back then there were "only" about three point five billion folks on the planet; now the total has ballooned to seven point five billion, and of the three and a half bil that I wanted to meet back then, its strange and somehow sad to think that most of them, certainly far more than half of them, are no longer living. So, I missed my chance, not that I ever had one. When I joined Facebook several weeks ago, after delaying the inevitable for years, I made no attempt at first to collect friends. The very idea seemed third grade-ish to me; making lists of your friends? Come, now. How juvenile is that, I thought? I can't seem to recall how I obtained my first Facebook friend. I think somebody invited me, somebody who happened to find out that I had signed up, and I accepted. Then, another, and another. Finally, I started making a concerted effort to gather together all my friends, past and present, from real life, and friend them on Facebook. That turned out to be more people than I had ever imagined, dozens, if not more. And it was fun. I started to understand why people join Facebook. Seeing names I had not seen in years, and even exchanging greetings. Then, Facebook changed my life forever, the corporate bastards. It started posting lists of potential friends it thought I might be interested in, giving me names, "people you might know", I think its called. I figured out that these people were people on my friend's friend lists, and indeed, I often knew of them, and added them. Then, for some reason, Facebook started giving me lists of strangers, and in most cases, the strangers were young beautiful American women, sometimes young beautiful foreign women from all over the world, rather than guys my own age, as you might expect. I still don't know hwy. Maybe Facebook knows more about me than I know about myself, creepy as that sounds. I invited the foreigners to be friends, thinking it might be an interesting cultural learning experience for me, and indeed it was, and still is. People from other countries speak English very well, I found out. Facebook aint no dummy. Facebook pays attention. Young beautiful women actually started inviting me to be friends occasionally, and I aint no dummy either; I always accept. Well, one thing led to another, as we say. Facebook decided that the only kind of human being I am interested in is young beautiful women, and, truth be told, they aren't far from the truth. I will never meet any of these bikini clad babes. (they always show themselves in string bikinis, being human, and full of lust and hubris). I will never even trade messages with the vast majority of them. Our best chance of ever communicating is when I share and repost left wing political posts with my comments added, as I often do. I assume most of the material I spew will be of no interest to be bikini clad crowd, but, as we say, you never know. My primary purpose on Facebook is to push a left wing political agenda and to attract readers to this website. I know, good luck with that. But the young beauties may have a true purpose in my debauched life. Women, globally, are the future. They outnumber men, globally. American women are registering to vote and running for office in record numbers, I'm sure you've noticed. What I have noticed is that young beautiful American Facebook women seem, repeat, seem to regard their good looks as paramount to their lives, as their prime asset, as it were. Otherwise, why the ubiquitous string bikinis? Maybe I can, in some subtle way, help them to understand their potential as active, involved citizens, serving society by becoming politically involved. Tulsi Gabbard and kamala Harris had to start somewhere, right? Those two hotties are running for president, after all. Maybe, just maybe, I can turn my lengthening list of beautiful bikini clad babes into a nascent progressive movement, and mold some future political leaders among the fair sex. Its the least I can do for my country, and, well, the string bikinis are a bonus. Maybe one of my babes'll be president someday. I'll keep you posted.

Having Good Judgment, Even In High School

WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL, two score and seven years ago, I did not have sex. Not that I didn't want to, but I was afraid to, afraid to do what was necessary. That means, essentially, bargaining. Forming a connection with a female, in my case, and trying to very subtlely enchant her and entice her into having sex. The meat market mating game, at all ages, is, after all, something of a bargaining process, as are, ultimately all human transactions. I found this process tedious, awkward, and cumbersome in high school, and have found it so ever since. Therefore, I am a virgin, at sixty three. Well, not quite, but close enough. Even at eighteen I was aware of the dangers of sex, the dangers we all know so well. It is neither automatic, inevitable, justified nor necessary to be ignorant and possessed of poor judgment at a young age. Certainly, I missed out on some fun, maybe, but quite possibly avoided some pitfalls as well. I recall hearing my friends brag about their sexual conquests, and rolling my eyes. Nearly fifty years later, the same friends brag about the same sexual conquests, and once again I roll my eyes. Oh my, how we American men love to brag about our sexual conquests, from high school to retirement age. On the National Public Radio program "ON The Media" the topic was sexual scandals of the nineteen nineties, and how the media misreported them, and mistreated the women involved. The women discussed were: Monika Lewinsky, Lorena, Bobbitt, Tanya Harding, and...Anita Hill. For those of a certain age, these names will ring a very loud bell, for those unfamiliar, there is easy access to the relevant information. The NPR take was that in each case, the media had, at the time of the scandals, unfairly vilified the women, and that now, in retrospect, we can see how unfair their treatment was. There is some element of truth to this theme. Only Anita Hill, however, remains entirely free from blame. Monika Lewinsky was indeed put through the proverbial media ringer, overly scrutinized, overly criticized and ridiculed, much maligned. It can be argued, however, that even a smitten twenty one year old female intern, smitten with the American president, should have the good judgment to refrain from accepting his sexual advances, should recognize said president as a sexual predator, a married one, and should run, fast. As abused as Lorene Bobbitt was by her crazy husband, and as under reported as her victimization was in the media, a better alternative for her would have been to flee, call the police, and get a restraining order, rather than to remove her husband's penis surgically. Tanya Harding had a rough upbringing and marriage too. Responding to it by paying a hit man to whack her chief figure skating rival in the legs with a blunt instrument is hardly the appropriate response, hardly justified. Anita Hill would be treated much better in today's environment, would most likely not be asked by a United States Senator in public, in front of an entire nation: "Are you a scorned woman"? Her contention that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas placed a pubic hair on her can of Coke was probably not a fabrication, as most accusations by women of sexual misbehavior are not fabricated, but, alas, we will never know. What we do know is that although these media made women were indeed mistreated by the media, all of them, except Anita Hill, exercised very poor judgment. The exercise of poor judgment in matters of sex inevitably has undesirable consequences, as we all know. They all, except for Anita Hill, whose behavior was consistently intelligent. would have been much better off to have had the same level of maturity and good judgment as I had in high school. If I can do it, anybody can.

Killing Butterflies For Sport and Show

IN THE MID NINETEEN SIXTIES, when I was but a transcesant, which in education courses in the teacher training curriculum means kids between the ages of ten and fourteen, pre adolescents, we had a few juvenile delinquents in the hood. Kids who were obviously on their way to trouble. They vandalized golf courses, smoked cigarettes, cursed, you name it, if it was bad, they did it. They were friends of mine. Growing up, my tactic was to always befriend the thugs and bullies, to gain their protection. It worked. One of them became interested in catching butterflies. He roamed the neighborhood with his big butterfly net, snagging them, killing them, and mounting them under glass. He had a very impressive collection, worthy of a science museum exhibit. In those days butterflies were everywhere during the growing season; now, not so much. I was impressed by his devotion to his project, and skill and quickness, and his attractive, mounted, dead insects. Although, in the back of my mind, there was a tinge of horror and sadness, I was pretty much down with the program. He spent hours each day at it, and sometimes I walked around with him, which was a great privilege. The project did not have a good impact on him, I guess; he ended up in prison anyway, though he is out now, on Facebook, and on my friend list. Thirty years later, I crossed paths with another butterfly killer, with a similarly impressive collection, which he proudly showed off. By this time I was in my early forties, and a confirmed left wing bleeding heart life loving environmentalist wacko. I politely looked at his glass death row, and said nothing. He got the hint, and remarked that I didn't seem to like his butterflies. I shrugged my shoulders, and when pressed for comment, I commented that I liked the butterflies just fine, but liked them better watching them fly around, pollinating flowers. This guy was weird too, and later died from heart failure, after catching a common cold in Hawaii. His heart gave out due to it being weakened by years of illicit drug use. He was only forty seven. So, the message is; do not catch and kill butterflies for sport and show; the karma will kill you. Use binoculars and cameras on wildlife, not guns - you know the drill. I shall remain forever a left wing bleeding heart. Does anyone do that anymore, catch, kill, and mount butterflies? Probably, somewhere. It must be far more challenging now; in most areas, the butterfly population, like the frog and insect populations, has declined precipitously, due to ambient pollution. The good news is that monarch butterflies are making a comeback, because the Mexican government is starting to protect their habitat; during the winter, they all flock to ten mountain tops over ten thousand feet high just north of Mexico city. The bad news is, Trump's wall will damage a butterfly habitat on the Rio Grande, that is, unless the hundreds of ranchers living along the border are able to stop the wall from being built; they abhor the idea, and know full well that there is no need for it, and have no desire to imminent domain their land away to futility. Butterfly, insect, and frog lovers must unite, stop Trump, stop conservative capitalism from turning all of nature into investment capital, and restore nature to good health before its too late For the moment, prospects for human and environmental survival don't look good; Trump and his evil anti-environment minions seem to have surprising staying power, despite their obvious repugnance. At least its comforting to think of all those conservative, rugged ranchers on the border, loaded guns in hand, ready to die fighting Trump in defense of their land rights, and as an unintended consequence, butterflies.

Understanding the Constitution...Or Not

MY MEMBERSHIP ON FACEBOOK is starting to pay some dividends. I am learning things I might never have learned anywhere else, because I do not participate in any other social media platforms, including twitter. I must therefore rely on other people to keep me abreast of the president's twitter tweets. One simply must remain abreast of the president's twitter tweets, to be culturally literate. If true, this one is the twitter tweet to end all twitter tweets. But..can it be true, and if it is, how can it be? Apparently, president Trump tweeted that the twenty fifth amendment to the American constitution is "unconstitutional". Yes, that's rights, one of the constitutional amendments is...unconstitutional. You understand how incredible this statement is, right? Its as if he is claiming that the constitution is unconstitutional, which he in fact is saying. How can anything in the constitution be unconstitutional? Well, it can't be, any more than a gallon of water extracted from the ocean can come from some place other than the ocean..or something like that.. The process by which amendments can be added to the constitution is very clearly spelled ot in the document itself, and it involves ratification by three fourths of the state legislatures. Its right there in the document, easy to find, easy to read. Anyone, including Trump, even Trump, can read the constitution. Any amendment which appears in the document, all twenty seven of them, have undergone this ratification process. Therefore, all twenty seven of them, and any new ones ratified in the future, and there are likely to be more, are, by definition, and by law, constitutional. Get it? Of course you do. We all do, We all get it, and we all love the process and love the constitution itself, including, or so we thought, the president himself. The twenty fifth amendment, the one Trump thinks is "unconstitutional" deals with what happens when the president is not capable of being president. Throughout American history, several presidents and vice presidents have gotten sick, and have been unable to do their job. Every time this has happened, confusion has ensued, because the constitution if very vague about what to do. So the 25th amendment was enacted rather recently, in 1967, to try to clarify the situation. It only made maters worse. The amendment is long and complicated, and confusing. The part Trump doesn't like concerns what happens when the president is a moron, mentally ill, or insane. In that case, members of the cabinet, or members of congress can "gang up" on the president, and remove him or her from office, legally. Trump is worried about that, because many Americans think he is crazy, with good reason, and there has been much talk about invoking this clause in the 25th amendment. Well, actually, I personally believe that we should scrap the constitution entirely and replace it with another version, a more modern updated version better suited to our currents needs, and this in fact is what Madison, Jefferson, and the other founders thought would happen. Madison and Jefferson would be appalled if they knew that we were still using their eighteenth century document in the twenty first century, but that, as they say, is another matter. Did we just read on twitter that Donald Trump said that the twenty fifth amendment to the constitution is, "unconstitutional"? Oh, dear heavens, please tell me that we didn't. But, there it was right there on Facebook, posted, so how can Facebook be wrong? My current plan, for lack of a better one, is to go back to bed and simply pretend that it did not happen, that somebody made the whole thing up, or that I dreamed it, had a bad night sleeping, had a nightmare, and just went ahead and dreamed that the president of the Untied States declared the United States constitution unconstitutional. That might be the best idea, for me, personally. Maybe the whole horrible episode will just kind of go away.

Trying To Hang On, Trying To Let Go

I HAVE NOT WASHED MY CAR in over a year. Its a white car, so it shows. Actually, its surprisingly white, still, perhaps because its been given free washings with rainfall. I suppose it could look worse. Nonetheless, it is streaked with black dirt smudges, and a simple visit to a car wash, or even a damp cloth applied to its surface for a few minutes would make a drastic difference. Only recently have I begun to consider washing it thoroughly, as I would normally do regularly. A friend of mine, a ninety two year old gentleman with a high standard for efficiency and cleanliness, asked me: "what's wrong with your car?" Having nothing to hide, I told him the truth. Well, my friend, you see, I said, the only thing wrong with it is that it needs a good old fashioned washing. Otherwise, it runs smooth and sweet. About a year ago, I continued, my beloved friend and companion, Cassandra, a beautiful black and grey female tabby, one of the loves of my life, died`. She had come to me in the early summer of 2015, just walked into my yard, apparently as a stray cat, and she rubbed against my leg, the way friendly cats do when seeking attention or food. Then, she left. She came back again about a week later, did the same thing, and left again. I noticed that she appeared to be underweight, and I resolved that if she returned, I would feed her, whether or not she had a home already, because she had no collar, and I don't let cats go hungry. She indeed came back a third time. I noticed she still appeared underweight, and fed her. She kept returning with increasing frequency, and predictably she ended ups staying with me, in my garage, since my three all indoor cats would never allow another cat inside. I named her Cassandra, and she and I formed a strong loving bond. Every day I made repeated visits to my garage, and spent many hours with her on my lap, as I sipped coffee, did some reading, and she lay on my lap, content to be in the loving embrace of her step daddy. She never seemed to have a high energy level, and never gained as much weight as I wanted. She learned that when my car was gone, I was gone, and would always await my return in my driveway. When I was home, I would look out the window and see her curled up on the hood of my car, as if to tell me she was glad I was home, and wanted to see me. I would hasten out to my parked car, stroke her head and back, and putter around the yard, with her scrutinizing eyes following my every move. Often she would follow me around the yard, helping with tree trimming and shrub trimming. I had her examined by my vet, got her vaccinations and all that, and took good care of her for two and a half years. Finally, she stopped eating, and my vet diagnosed her with kidney failure. We took extreme measures to restore her health, but fate had other plans. She died in my arms on December 4, 2017, the worst day of my life. I buried her in my yard near where my car is always parked, near where she and I sat together, sharing love. It was then that I noticed her paw prints on my back windshield, and streak marks where she had slid down from the car top to the top of the trunk. The paw prints and streaks were well visible, and, well, that's the way I decided to leave them. Over the months, they have of course faded slowly, but there they remain, still there after thirteen and a half months, still barely visible. My way of not letting go. Soon, it will be time to wash my car. Cassandra is in my heart and soul, not my dirty windshield. And some fine day, I hope and trust, she will be with me again, this time fully healthy, in my arms, on my lap, and forever in my heart and soul.

Fabricating Emergency, Displaying Petty Tyranny

BY DECLARING A NATIONAL EMERGENCY where none exists, by abusing the enumerated powers of the constitution and his responsibilities as chief executive, Donald Trump has fully revealed himself to be the petty tyrant we have long supposed him to be, and has signed into the law the instrument of his own inevitable demise. The forthcoming national uproar of protest will further diminish his already shrunken moral stature as a the leader of a great nation, as even his political supporters find themselves trapped between the woeful choices of supporting the insupportable, or forsaking their morally bankrupt leader. If a foreign army were invading American territory, if an earthquake, massive flood or hurricane, or severe drought were ravaging the landscape, if the nation were in dire peril of any sort whatsoever, then a declaration of emergency would not only be appropriate, it would be mandatory. Nothing of this sort whatsoever is manifest. The alleged "emergency " is nothing other than a sham, a spiteful ruse intended only to enhance the president's support among his thuggish legions of hateful supporters, a villainous, shameful ploy to gain political capital. Evidently entirely unaware of the implications of his own words, the president said: "I didn't have to do this. I just wanted to get the wall built faster". In other words, his declaration of emergency was optional. Obviously, declarations of real emergencies are not optional, but are immediately, urgently necessary. Give this president credit for at least never making any real attempt to disguise his own dishonesty. He seems to pathologically believe that whatever he says is true, merely because he said it. The false emergency consists in thousands of desperate, hungry mothers and their children flocking towards the United States border seeking legitimate asylum, seeking, only as a last resort, whatever help they can find to save the lives of themselves and their children. If they were Norwegians Trump would find no fault with them, but, alas, they have the wrong skin pigmentation, and that is their only crime. Among trump's shrinking number of supporters thoughtful citizens are a rarity, but those who are understand the disastrous consequences of this action. the next president of the United States will now have at her disposal the option of declaring a national emergency of climate change, a national emergency of epidemic gun violence, a national emergency of drastic economic inequality, and you can be assured that she will not hesitate to follow this president's precedent. Climate change, gun violence, and economic inequality and poverty are truly national emergencies, national emergencies which this president and his supporters ignore, because to them, they are hardly worth mentioning, because to them, they are nonexistent. And so Donald Trump is likely to get his beloved wall after all, and, well, if he wants it that badly, let him have it. congress will probably repudiate this fake national emergency, the president will undoubtedly veto the congressional repudiation, and the declaration of emergency will stand. Money will be plundered from badly needed projects, and the military will be conscripted into the service of constructing a huge, monolithic border barrier of exactly the kind Trump promised his reprehensible supports years ago. if they want it that badly, badly enough to forfeit their moral integrity to get it, let them have it; in the end, it is they who will pay the price for their hateful, vengeful aggression, and the price, you can be assured, will be very dear.

Outlawing Lynching, At Long last

A BILL HAS BEEN INTRODUCED in congress which would make lynching a federal crime. Several aspects of this stir amazement. First, it is amazing that lynching isn't already a federal crime, isn't, in essence, against the law in the federal code. Since murder is illegal in federal law, it can be extrapolated by extension that lynching is also a criminal offense, arguably, and yet, that lunching per se has not been placed specifically within the jurisdiction of the federal government seems, at the least surprising, at the most, unconscionable. Equally amazing is that bills to federally criminalize lynching have been introduced into the national legislative assembly, both the House and the Senate, no less than two hundred different times over the past several decades, without passing. Lynching, as we all know, is nothing other than a term for hanging by the neck until dead, what was once colloquially called a "necktie party", an ancient and reliable form of capital punishment which has effectively ended the lives of millions of human beings throughout history. The term "lynching", however, has a uniquely American denotation; it refers particularly to the hanging of African-Americans, outside the legal system, by vigilantes, whose only motive was racial hatred of African-Americans. At the risk of bring indelicate, people who have carried out lynchings never used the term "African-American". The most commonly used terms were "nigger", "coon", darkie", and so forth, terms with which we are all too familiar as relics of an unfortunate national history. The practice started after the Civil War, after the emancipation of American slaves in 1865, and was practiced most frequently beginning with the end of Reconstruction in 1877, when the American army ended its brutal occupation of the former confederacy, and enforced racial equality. Lynchings were most common between 1877 and World War Two, although incidents of lynching occurred with some frequency well into the nineteen sixties. With he advent of the civil rights movement, their frequency declined considerably, but has never entirely ceased. Probably three to four thousand African-Americans have been lynched in American history, but that is doubtless a very conservative estimate, and includes only well document4ed cases, and omit probably many times more undocumented instances of murders carried in the deep of night, by secretive gangs of racist whites, whose behavior was deliberately concealed and never reported by law enforcement agencies, mostly in the south. Is our national reluctance to enshrine the criminality of lynchings into federal law yet another example of hidden institutional racism in America? You can be sure that it is, if ever you happen to hear some politician or pundit mention "states rights' as a reason for federal reticence. "States rights" was long substituted for the word "slavery" in explaining the causes of the Civil War. One fact is indisputable. The continued absence of federal anti lynching laws can be directly traced to American conservatism, not progressivism, because racism is a traditional, conservative value, not a progressive one. The legislative record doubtless will demonstrate that those members of congress who opposed previous anti lynching legislation were noted conservatives. It will be interesting to see if the current bill in congress gains enough support to pass, and if it doesn't, which members of which party oppose it. We shall soon see.

Taxing

WE LIVE IN A SMALL TOWN, we work hard, and we want our children to be educated, but don't have the time to home school them. And besides, we ourselves are not educated enough to be teaching much of anything to anybody, let alone teach calculus and chemistry to teenagers. So, we decided to build a local school, and hire a teacher or two. That costs money. To raise it, we take a penny from every dollar spent at local retail stores, restaurants, and bars. Next thing you know, more folks arrive and settle into our little town, with kids of their own. That's good; more tax revenue. The town grows enough that we want to pave and maintain a few streets; more pennies, more tax money. The county wants us to chip in for county highways and bridges, and to help pay a sheriff. The sheriff isn't always nearby, so we the townies decide to start our own police department, and the first time a house or business burns down, we realize the need for fire protection. More tax money from the good citizens of anyone lived in a pretty how town, to borrow a passage from a well known twentieth century American poem. The taxation keeps coming, because the desire and need for public services keeps coming. Everyone agrees that everything we are paying for is necessary; the school, the roads, the fire and police protection, and this is merely the beginning. Our pretty how town is located within the borders of one of these united states, a state which provides its necessary services,state highways, state police and such, which must be paid for by taxing everyone, in an increasing number of inventive ways; sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes, wealth taxes. You name it, they, we, tax it. We and they, by the way, are one and the same. And we haven't even gotten to the national government yet, and the necessity of protecting our country by maintaining a full time military, complete with men, women, equipment, and weapons. A national highway system comes into existence which facilitates the movement of goods, people, and services from sea to shining sea, from border to walled off border, which raises yet more tax money, and which wondrously provides the capitalistic economic activity by which tax money is raised. All these taxing schemes, and all these publicly owned, operated, and maintained services, so very necessary, all agree, to our very survival, is called, well.."socialism". Government is socialism. Privately owned business activity is called capitalism. That's a lot of socialism, and its just the beginning, just the beginning of the actual socialism which infests the United States of America. We haven't even mentioned government health insurance, of which in America we have at least three kinds, and government owned and operated pensions, particularly social security. And many, many more. So much more. Socialism is America, and America is socialism. Minimum wage and work week laws are, yes, socialistic regulations of capitalism, just to make sure workers are not exploited by business owners, which in fact they very much were before socialism came to the workplace. Without socialism, capitalism fails, America fails. This is why it is hilarious, pathetic, and dishonest almost beyond belief when some, or when millions of free market fanatics, anti government fanatics, also known as "conservative republicans", do their screeching and whining about not wanting socialism to ever come to America, about how socialism is evil and harmful, and about how socialism never works no matter where it is tried. The funniest one is about how socialism is being taught in schools by evil, sneaky socialistic teachers. Its funny because the public schools are operated socialistically, and the teachers are paid socialistically, by the government at tax payer expense, not by private businesses. Does Donald Trump Junior even realize that? Does he, or his father, realize anything? What are these people thinking? Or, are they even thinking?

Opportunity, Knocking Itself Out

THERE IS NO SITUATION, said Goethe, which cannot be ennobled through achievement or enduring. We save a special place in our esteem for those wondrous entities which, against all odds, survive and endure, and, confronted with great adversity, produce value. The athlete who defies age. The old neighbor who just keeps going, taking that early morning walk, day after day, year after year, well outliving his expected lifespan. That special rebuilt car with rebuilt motor and salvaged body parts. Whether man or machine, there is something we admire about longevity, and the enduring quality of performance, because we all know of our own encroaching mortality, we know how exceedingly difficult it is to simply long persist. I remember when the Mars probe Opportunity was launched in 2004. I had not yet turned fifty. Now, I am in my mid sixties, and I dare say that the little machine, all alone on the barren Martian landscape, has accomplished far more than I during the last fifteen years, and I have not been idle. Opportunity was designed and intended to last but ninety days, optimistically. It was assumed that the harsh environment in which it would do its work would rapidly erode its ability to function, and that whatever knowledge we gained from its presumed brief sojourn of a few hundred yards would be more than worth the effort. Instead, it just kept going. Kept going more than twenty eight miles for fifteen years, across all types of terrain, rocky, flat, up and down slopes, into and out of dust storms that would have felled far larger, stronger pieces of machinery. It just kept going, and performing, and producing value, adding so much more to our knowledge of the red planet than was expected of it that all who beheld its lengthening odyssey became awe stricken with amazement and admiration, as the days turned into months, and the months into years. It was as if the little car had a mind, heart, and soul of its own, and was determined to never die, to not slink away into the night, and die without even a whimper. To have been a part of the Opportunity project from beginning to end, to have been a member of the team which designed, built, launched, monitored, and collected data as it came in over the past twenty years or more must be, at this point, a feeling utterly beyond surrealistic. A poignant mix of transcendence and loss. The mixture of pain, nostalgia, pride, and love must be nearly unendurable to those who were there throughout the entire process, from inception to dignified death. Nobody gave up easily. They will always have that, and if need be, we must remind them of their intrepid bravery and endurance. The rover ran into a fatal dust storm eight months ago, and was unable to recover from the resulting prolonged blockage of sunlight, and death by energy depletion. It was hoped that somehow, miraculously, the intrepid little vehicle would once again defy time, age, and logic with another miraculous recovery from near death, but, in the end, entropy consumes us all, as we recycle through nature. If a machine can have an afterlife, a soul, then Opportunity must now be looking back on its life with the calm satisfaction which derives only from having endured and achieved beyond any reasonable expectations of the self. To the people who gave a large part of their lives to the noblest of all endeavors, the pursuit of knowledge, and to their noble machine, we simply say, well done. The rest of us can only imagine what it must feel like, and can only give all concerned a heartfelt salute of love and gratitude, with a very special gratitude for a little lonely machine, standing motionless and alone, but not really alone, finally, after a long and fruitful journey, and a job well done.

Cleansing the Faith

SEEMINGLY, to be fair, "seemingly" the Holy Roman Catholic church is not alone in Christendom is harboring a sordid subterranean culture of sexual predation, consisting of pedophilia and sundry other forms of sexual misconduct, all, apparently, widespread. sustained investigative journalistic research conducted over time by a reputable Houston newspaper conclusively reveals a similar sad set of circumstances throughout southern Baptistry, Caucasian branch. And, like the Catholic variety, it appears likely that the deeper down we dig, the greater the quantity of misbehavior, the more pervasive and hidden, which will be unearthed. When Nathanial Hawthorne wrote about Hester Prynne and the reverend Dimmesdale in his classic American novel "The Scarlett Letter", he evidently knew whereof he wrote. Hawthorne, with characteristic nineteenth century literary indirectness and subtlety, makes the point that the bold red letter "A" was either pinned on the bosom of the wrong person, or on one person too few. a similar seems likely to emerge from our current protestant scandal, as the Baptists, having long lain dormant, are only now beginning, with no apparent recourse, to look themselves in the long neglected mirror. The early emerging pattern is that southern Baptist sexual predation, like the Catholic version, is a top down phenomenon. Power corrupts, and we know what absolute power does. Behavior which when discovered sends the little guy to prison, is never uncovered, or covered up when it is, when committed by the important and the powerful. Priestly celibacy wasn't even instigated until the twelfth century, during one of the Holy churches frequent purification orgies. It might have been a mistake to instigate it, a mistake worthy or reversal. Sex was seen as a priestly distraction from God; turning sex into forbidden fruit, it turns out, creates an even greater distraction from far holier obligations. The Catholic and protestant hierarchies are still in the stage of wallowing in their respective expressions of shock and dismay, having only recently overcome decades of denial and righteous outrage at the very suggestion of impropriety within the flock, or the ranks of the flock's shepherds. How long until the dreadful specter will be raised of comparable hidden ignominy among all the other hundreds of thus far presumed pure denominations? Inevitably, we will go through the painful, predictable stages of denial and acceptance again and again, to our vicarious delight, relishing every salacious second in the spoon feeding media. What is it, precisely, about churches which incubates sexual misconduct? The fact that they all condemn it? The close proximity of mixed genders congregations, reading in groups from an abundance of sexually charged scriptural passages found in every nook and cranny of the bible? flowing choir robes? The inherently irresistible taste of forbidden fruit? Or is it that church, a presumed sanctuary of purity, provides the perfect cover for concealing sin? We must leave it to the sociologists, psychologists, and historians to sort it all out, in the fullness of time. The clergy itself is much less likely to shine light; it, after all, is the crux of the problem, and when within the forest, surrounded by trees, one cannot, we all know, see the forest for the trees. The Christian faith, more than any institution on the planet, effectively creates illusions and deceptions by convincing itself that things are other than what they demonstrably are; such is the nature of religion; to resist change, and to perpetuate faction in a world of emerging fact.

Getting Less Than The Wall We all Want

PRESIDENT TRUMP, ever remindful of the spoiled, petulant teenager he seems to so very closely resemble, who on Christmas morning hopes to be presented a shiny new Corvette but is instead gifted a used Gremlin, is fixin' to pitch a tizzy, on camera, on twitter, and all destinations convenient to himself and the fake news media he so desperately despises. Said tizzy started last night, in El Paso Texas, a bare mile from the imaginary border wall so dear to his tortured heart. In desperate haste to avoid another politically damaging government shutdown, a bipartisan group of beleaguered legislators reached, at long last, a compromise on border security, a compromise which bears no discernable similarity to what Trump has been blow harding about for nearly three painful to our ears years. Trump, when informed of the agreement, dismissed it with a shrug, said he had places to be and people to see, and once again asserted his firm intention to have his Corvette style wall, one way or another. At this point, the only way might be a declaration of emergency, or of war with Latin America, and a mass conscription of slave labor, ancient Egyptian like, and thirty years of hard, sustained labor by tens of thousands of military personnel. Our memory is clear on this matter. Three years ago, we were told that "they" were bringing guns, drugs, rape, violence, and who knows what other nasty things into our country, by design, and that something serious had to be done about it. We were introduced to "the wall", a massive monolithic fortification to be constructed at Mexican expense, many feet thick and many feet tall, presumably of solid steel reinforced concrete, from sea to shining sea, a wall to end all walls. The cost would be in the neighborhood or forty billion or so, all of it Mexican money. We were skeptical from the outset, with only his most devout followers buying into the dream. No sooner had the ink dried on Trump's first post election twitter tweets, the backtracking began, amid an inundation of fact founded objections and reality checks. The president of Mexico made it plain: Mexico would no more consider paying for the trumped up wall than hell would freeze over. Trump, peddling backward, claimed that his new trade agreement with Mexico would, de facto, pay for the wall through its economic benefits to the United States, a claim which raised eye brows and rolled eyes. then, the wall started to shrink, brick by crumbling brick. It shrank in length, width, and height, in every dimension and direction, and the concrete turned into steel slats, while the funding proposals moved from Mexico to the American tax payers. the numbers kept going steadily down, and just yesterday evening, took the sharpest downturn yet, as congressional leadership signed off on one point three billion dollars worth of border security, way down from the president's long coveted five point seven billion. The wall gets smaller, the money keeps drying up. Now, we are looking at about fifty miles of new "fencing", presumably chain link several feet high, with maybe some barbed wire coiled menacingly at the top, prison style. The next moment of high drama will come in a day or two, when we will find out whether the president will sign the bill, one pen per letter, as is customary, and swallow still more pretend pride, or will have the sand to back up his pomposity with a veto, and declare a national emergency, along with another government shut down. Its dollars to donuts he'll sign on, and, in his usual cartoonish manner, claim victory. No matter what happens, this delusional narcissistic chief executive will claim, pathetically, to be the winner, no matter how bad his defeat. In the meantime, the wall, and its cost, continues to shrink, and if we millions who understand the futility of fixed fortifications continue to play the waiting game a bit longer, are likely to see a southern border festooned with a beaded curtain, through which caravans of impoverished asylum seekers can peer longingly into the land of plenty, dreading their imminent confrontation with Trump's legions of jackbooted goons.

Growing Apart, and Reconnecting, Somewhat

AMONG THE PLEASURES of encroaching dotage, few though there may be, is the enhanced opportunity in the digital age for renewing contact with long lost friends from one's younger years, folks who vanished from our lives decades ago. Ours is not a culture given to forming, much less nurturing nor renewing friendships. (see: 'Bowling Alone", by Robert Putnam). A friend of mine from Shanghai, who came to study in my small college town, said to me: "You Amellicans are the loneliest people in the world. You care more about your dogs and cats than each other." An insightful, cogent analysis of American culture, if ever here were one. You got that right, I assured him, moments before he headed off to find companionship and anonymity in the cold confines of Chicago. He had grown up accustomed to living in a city of twenty million, and small college town life left him lonely. So did Chicago, it turned out. For years I tried to stay in touch with my friends from adolescence and early adulthood. They mostly didn't reciprocate, and I eventually gave up. They kept moving around, changing numbers, and as middle aged manifested I, like they, became self absorbed in the present. Now for me its mostly a mater of curiosity. Whatever happened to them? I found out that a girl I spent one pleasant evening with changed course, and ended up becoming an award winning anthropologist. Most of my childhood friends became successful, as I knew they would, though there are a couple of fallen criminals and space cadets in the mix. Truly, it takes all kinds. Most of them married, and the divorce rate among my old friends ranks well below the national average. One in particular had the good sense to marry late, and the bad sense to have children late, truncating his chances of ever attaining the heartwarming status of grandparent. When I emailed him "what's up" after thirty years, he responded. He had moved around, teaching at a series of junior colleges, and had two sons, of whom he was inordinately proud. He showed no interest in learning about my life during the missing thirty years, which is fine, which is normal. He slightly miscalculated me level of interest in his life, and in his gifted and talented sons. I learned a bit too much about the ability of a fourteen year old to mix fast balls and sliders, and much too much about the prospects of a thirteen year old for future consideration for a Nobel prize. I decided to respond honestly, which quieted him. I passingly remarked that following and sharing his children's lives will be his greatest joy over the next several decades, regardless of their trajectory. I expressed joy at the thought that their success, or ack thereof, wouldn't really matter, but that only their health and happiness would. I then went on, teacher to teacher, to present my view of education in America, which includes my contempt for the label "gifted and talented", and too great an emphasis by the system, as I see it, on personal ambition and success and too little emphasis on being of service to others and to society. I expressed my view that if one does a good job washing dishes or cleaning streets, one has become successful, and one needn't become a major league star or Nobel Laureate to achieve success. I quoted Einstein to him, to the effect that a common, simple life yields more happiness than success. As you might suspect, I have not heard from him since, and probably never will. He has bigger fish to fry, people to tell about his gifted and talented sons, and the sons himself, which will require his close monitoring and mentoring. I learned that old friendships fade away for a reason, and that their renewal is at best a precarious proposition; over the years we change, and we grow apart. Unfortunately, I am not likely to ever learn exactly how successful his two great talents ever become, unless one of them wins the world Series and the other one the Nobel prize, and that will be my loos, or just maybe, my gain.