Remaining Calm

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM, an apparent proponent of personal political expediency, once upon a time proclaimed that Donald Trump is a "race baiting bigot", or something to that effect. That was way back in the day, 2016 to be approximate, when Graham himself harbored notions of seeking and securing the Rethuglican nomination to run for president. Now, of course, he's onboard the great reprobate train, even as Trump repeatedly proves the truth of his earlier, astute assessment. Much is determined when one abides assiduously by bellwethers. Lack of core value integrity notwithstanding, Graham, like the proverbial squirrel seeking acorns, occasionally hits the mark, when the mark is bigger than the side of a barn. In reference to Social Security, among other pension programs, he recently asserted: "we are making promises we cannot keep". That, I thought, should be transparently obvious to all. The fund is predicted to expire for lack of funds..when.. twenty thirty one? The death date keeps inching closer, owing to both updated estimates of its inevitable expiration date, and the inevitable passage of time, like two freight trains, speeding in opposite directions on a single track. All I typed in was something like: "That's a damned shame", or maybe "the old blind squirrel found an acorn", I don't remember which. Seemingly meaninglessly innocuous, whatever. Up from the bowels of the Earth emerged the righteously indignant. In all capital letters, to boot, a sure sign of righteously indignant outrage. Only, it was the same old, tired, disappointing saw. SOCIAL SECURITY IS NOT AN ENTITLEMENT!!! ( I forget the precise number of exclamation points. I am confident it was more than one, no fewer than three). WE PAID INTO THAT PROGRAM!!! (again, at least one, no less than three). The rest of the message becomes cloudy through redundancy, but went something like; THAT MONEY IS OURS, WE EARNED IT, WE DESERVE IT, AND WE INTEND TO GET IT!!!! WHAT, EXACTLY, IS YOUR POINT??? (three question marks, I clearly remember). And then, mercifully: "YOUR TURN". Those two words, and the absence of any excessive punctuation behind them, encouraged me. The message might have even been more intelligent than that, might have even included a fact or two which hasn't already been stated a trillion times, but..well...it just doesn't matter. I began my reply by saying "No need to argue among friends..lol..calm down. The point is, that when an investment fund, any investment fund, goes bankrupt, loses solvency, and is unable to meet its promises, its obligations, all the sanctimonious truth telling in the world about who paid what to whom, and who owes what to whom, and what is right and wrong, makes, at the end of the day (I don't think I actually used that horrible cliche, at least I hope not) matter not. When money is gone, its gone, and all the truth telling in the world will not recover it". I could have said more, about the futility of hysterical righteous indignation in the face of financial reality, but didn't. Looming Social Security insolvency, like all other problems created by human folly, including climate change, economic collapse, and the designated hitter, is amenable to simple solutions, readily available. But no matter how many words we type in all caps, no matter how many exclamation points and question marks we spew across our computer screens, no matter how hysterical we become, no matter how vehemently and vociferously and doggedly we argue amongst ourselves, those simple, easily accessible solutions remain, unemployed, gathering dust on the top shelf, until we the problem makers calm down, stop screaming at each other, and put them to work. And we can do it with smiles on our faces, in all lower case letters, with nary a punctuation mark in sight.

Purchasing Our Destruction

A FEW SCIENTISTS became aware of the potential for climate change precipitated by human industrial activity nearly two hundred ago, merely by watching black smoke being belched into the skies over European cities by coal burning. They knew that the smoke contained carbon, and that carbon absorbs and retains heat more readily than nitrogen and oxygen. They understood basic chemistry. In the nineteen forties Albert Einstein thought that deliberately adding CO2 to the air, warming the planet a bit, increasing agricultural production, and feeding the masses of starving people around the word in the aftermath of World War Two was a capital idea. Sometimes, even Einstein was wrong. There was a consensus among scientists by the nineteen seventies that climate change was real, notwithstanding an occasional article in an occasional magazine proclaiming the advent of a new ice age. Conservative often cite such rogue writing as proof positive that scientists have no idea what they are talking about, and that the debate over climate change is ongoing, vigorous and unresolved as ever. All this, of course, is nonsense. I first became of climate change in the nineteen eighties, when it was usually called "global warming", which it still often is, because that's what it is. Global warming is what is taking place in the Earth's atmosphere as the average global temperatures rise month after month, year after year. Climate change is the result of this warming. As incredibly stupid as it is at his late date to deny the reality of climate change, as stupid as it is to deny evolution by natural selection or the relationship between steroids and home runs, millions of people, mostly American conservatives, for a very real, if not good reason. People deny evolution and climate change for the same reason, because they are the same people: a refusal to allow facts and science to improve their primitive but deeply held and emotionally comforting religious and political beliefs. when new information impinges upon our most cherished values, we reject the information, and cling tenaciously to our outdated beliefs. Such is human nature. I have long believed this to be the only reason for denial of science, denial of reality. But it turns out there is more to it than that: money, the usual suspect. Climate change denial is a one billion dollar industry in the United States. To a certain extent, rejection of basic science is bought and paid for. The phenomenon, as one would suspects, takes place entirely within the conservative community. The money is filtered through several dozen prominent conservative "think" tanks, and is dispersed to people who are paid to spread propaganda, through books, website, and television programming, All this funding comes from the usual suspects, conservative billionaires and corporations aligned with or directly involved in the fossil fuel industry. Shoe me a scientist who denies climate change and who spew out an abundance of pseudo science to prove this false narrative, and I'll show you a paid corporate puppet, or a religious fanatic propagandist with extreme right wing political opinions trying to persuade the congregation that Christ is coming soon, the end is near, and that your contribution to the cause is not only crucial, but tax deductible. Climate change denying shepherds of mega church flocks tend, not coincidentally, to skirt about on private jets, and to drive two hundred thousand dollar Lamborghinis. that, of course, is their concern. the rest of us, those among us sufficiently sane and educated to accept reality, are concerned with the survival of future generations of plants and animals, and we tend to experience considerably disquiet when we reflect that our futures, and the future of life on Earth,might rest uneasily in the hands of pernicious people whose excessive addiction to personal wealth inspires them to pay large sums in an attempt to purchase and ensure our destruction.

Trump, Spewing Hatred, As Usual

LET'S SEE NOW....what was it this time.....oh yes...something to the effect: "the city of Baltimore, and Elija Cummings' congressional district is infested by rats and rodents (as if rats weren't rodents), it is a filthy shit hole, and no decent human being would want to live there. If Cummings were a decent person, he would spend more time in his home district, cleaning up the filth, instead of having the extreme temerity to dare criticize me, the great Donald Trump, or to imply that I, the great one, am anything less than perfection personified..."..Those were not Trump's exact twitter tweet words, but that is indeed the essence of it, the latest in a lengthening serious of vicious, slanderous, dishonest insults emanating from the great reprobate, our justifiably maligned president. Like all cowardly bullies, and all Trump supporters, Trump does his best slandering from a distance. This, of course, is nothing new. Racism is what drives Trump, and has been his driving force his entire life. From the backseat of his limousines, Trump has for decades engaged in two of his favorite pursuits, molesting women, or spewing racism and hatred. The sexual molestations we know about because he bragged about being a sexual predator, in the now famous Access Hollywood recording, which was released one month before his election, and yet did nothing to deter his supporters from voting for him, but actually seems to have encouraged their support, revealing not only their complete moral bankruptcy, but their cowardice. In essence, if you voted for Trump, you made a grave mistake, and exposed your moral weakness. If you continue to support him now, you are indisputably of low moral character, a reprobate. The racism we know about because dozens of people who have known Trump for decades assure us that Trump's racism is no illusion, nor a recent development; Donald J. Trump is a hard core, lifelong bigot. Twice in the nineteen seventies he and his father, another reprobate, were busted by the feds for housing discrimination against, you guessed it, African-Americans. The Trumps took a plea deal, and did not contest the allegations. You'll recall that during the entire Obama presidency, Trump and other racists tried to persuade us that Obama had been born in Kenya, even when his Hawaiian birth was verified by witnesses and a valid birth certificate. Later, trump quietly admitted the truth. Then came his presidency, the "shit hole country" comment, and all the rest. The list is long, too long to deny. And yet, his supporters, millions of them, deny that he is a racist, using the usual lame arguments, which they get away with because racists today, out of fear and shame, tend to couch their racism in indirect language which can be ascribed to other motives. That Shit holes countries are shit hole countries has nothing to do with skin color, such lame, deceitful arguments go. Not all Trump supporters and Republicans and conservatives are racists, but all racists are conservative Republican Trump supporters. You won't find a single liberal among them. For two weeks after Trump declared his candidacy I supported him. Then, I figured it out. I am ashamed to admit that I was a Trump supporter for two weeks. I am ashamed that many of my friends, now former friends, still support Trump. And above all, I am deeply ashamed that anybody in America supports him, I am deeply ashamed of my country for electing him and for still giving him any support at all, and I am embarrassed to know that around the world, Trump is the object of contempt and ridicule, and that, worst of all, he has relegated our beloved country to the same status.

Turning Serious

IT BEGAN INNOCUOUSLY ENOUGH, as conversations at the senior center usually do. I was at my usual station, washing dishes, as I do daily in my capacity as a retired teacher volunteer. I do a little cooking too; I fry catfish, tater tots, and chicken tenders to die for. I often sing softly, sometimes not so softly to myself as I work, enjoying my service to the elderly after giving thirty five years of it to the young. The weekly gospel sing had just concluded, and I, in the spirit, was crooning "I'll Fly Away", one of my favorites, but crooning perhaps a bit too loudly. I have been told so often that I have a good singing voice that I believe it, having been told by people who should and do know. My musical vanity has grown so great that I confess; I love to sing for other people, love to be heard, love the predictable compliments. So, it happened, yet again. A lady heard my booming voice over the dishwasher, approached me, and through the window, said: "you really have a great voice. You should sing in the gospel group". Flattered, but unflinching, I replied: "When they're singing I'm supposed to be working. At least, that's what I'm here for." At that point, I should have quit talking, but didn't. Besides, i said, I really don't like gospel music, except for a few tunes. Its too sycophantic for me, too worshipful, adoring, idolizing. I'm not at all religious, but the God I believe in does not require or even notice when people praise him. I prefer to admire God's work, but not to worship God. Like I said, I should have quit talking after mentioning my busy schedule working in the kitchen. I don't think she knew what the word "sycophantic" means, but she understood the rest, and, as we like to say, it was on. She seemed, as they all do, utterly shocked that she was talking to a non Christian. She told me that her husband had once been a non believer, but had converted, accepted Christ, and that doing so had completely changed his life. I smiled, approvingly. She inquired as to whether she and I might get together and talk sometime. I stopped smiling. I told her that if we did that, she would probably try to change my religious beliefs, I would probably respond by trying to change hers, or by explaining why I didn't share them, and that the exchange might lead to verbal conflict. She asked me whether I was happy, not believing in God, and all. I replied that I am indeed happy, joyously so, and always have been, save for a few bumps in the road, despite my non christian religiosity. She seeme utterly perplexed. Calmly as I could, I reminded her that I in fact do believe in God, just not her God, not the Christian God, not the Biblical God. I believe, I went on, in the same God as Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein. I think I even threw at her the terms "pantheist" and "deist". I'm pretty sure that she didn't know those terms either, had no idea what I was talking doubt, but that it wasn't christian, and therefore pagan, heathen, bad. Sensing her despair, I hinted that I really ought to get back to my dish washing, and she relented, unhappy. It could have been much worse. I could have expressed anger at her for daring to question my religiosity, daring to be presumptuous and arrogant enough to think that not only did my beliefs need improving, but that she could improve them. I could have said that I am as intelligent and well educated as she, that most non Christians are, and that people who think it their sacred duty to influence the religious views of others are insufferably arrogant, and insulting. But I've learned not to do that. She, on the other hand, could have condemned me to eternal damnation in hell, but maybe, just maybe, she has learned something too. If nothing else, she has learned that if she wants to get a great deal on a free lunch at the senior center, she is much better off getting it on a clean plate.

Getting The Info Out -Somehow

THE INFORMATION IS RIGHT THERE, in plain sight, in black and white, for anybody to see. The problem is, its spelled out in words and sentences on the pages of not only a hardbound book, but a forbiddingly long one, four hundred and forty eight pages of rather smallish type, which makes it even worse, even more imposing. Arguably, it is the most important book published in the United States in many years, perhaps ever, most important because of its shockingly scandalous, non fiction contents. More important to the health and future welfare of the U.S., perhaps, than even the icon of all books, widely considered to be the most important and influential tome of all time, the Bible itself. There is one big difference; the Mueller report was written by a single person, with technical assistance from others, not by several dozen largely unknown authors, and, of course, the Mueller report is fact, not fiction and mythology. And still, hardly anyone in America has read the Mueller report. Estimates range from less than one tenth of one hundredth of one percent to one tenth of one percent of the American people having read it in its entirety, in a nation in which the average American reads not a single book upon completion of high school. Although there are readers among us, they are scattered widely; we are a culture of visual and audio, disinclined to do the grindingly hard work of making our way through lengthy books. Just as many people swear by the divine origins and absolute sacred truth of the Bible who have never actually read the nearly one million word collection of manuscripts, so many people, mostly Trump supporters, dismiss the Mueller report out of hand, without having taken the time to open its covers. We Americans seem to find it much easier to evaluate the quality and importance of books which we have not bothered to read. Just as thousands of scholars have over the centuries carefully analyzed and reanalyzed every letter of the Bible in every language in which it was written and has ever been published, so future scholars may with equally assiduous detail treat the Mueller report, so important is its contents. Mueller tells, in perfect verified detail, the shocking story of how the United States of America was invaded, conquered, and thoroughly manipulated by a foreign power, obviously an enemy, not a friend. It tells the true story of how, while this was happening, the person who would become president and his associates were perfectly well aware that this was happening, accepted it, welcomed it, and did nothing to stop it. The reason? The foreign power was invading and manipulating the American people on their political behalf, on behalf of the man who became president partly because of the invasion. Most shocking is that Donald Trump clearly and overtly attempted to obstruct the investigation which resulted in the Mueller report. Under our very noses, in front of our very eyes, our nation was invaded, manipulated, and our president chosen for us by a foreign enemy power, with the assistance of the president of the United States. Shocking. And most shocking of all; we the American people don't want to know about it, don't care to know about it, and many if not most of us refuse to believe it, perhaps because it seems so hard to believe, even though its plainly spelled out and proven, right in front of our eyes, between the covers of a book too long to open and read.

Senselessly Arguing the Obvious

FLORIDA has had one hundred nineteen hurricanes since 1850, goes the drone, and the last one was caused by climate change. Those familiar with the climate change debate, which should no longer be a debate, the question having been settled decades ago, have heard tired, lame, idiotic arguments like this. On the superficial surface, to the unthinking, they seem to make sense, although they make none. The common thread of these fatuous contentions is that nature is so all powerful, and humankind, with all its technology and landscaping capabilities, is so very puny and insignificant, that the very notion of human activity changing the climate, even slightly, is sheer nonsense. Again, the argument has a certain appeal, especially to those who embrace religion, and view nature as the work of an omnipotent God, infinitely more powerful than the creatures of his own creation. They claim that those who think otherwise are arrogant. The arrogance actually resides within the climate change denial community; the arrogance of refusing to accept common, simple, long established science. It would be as if opponents of nuclear weaponry refused to believe in nuclear physics, or as if adherents to the Christian Bible refused to accept the reality of human evolution by natural selection, which, of course they do in frustratingly large numbers. No single hurricane is caused by climate change alone. The natural world is far more complex than such simplistic assertions would have us believe. More likely, all 119 Florida hurricanes since 1850 were slightly and over the years increasingly modified, magnified by climate change. People have been pumping carbon into the atmosphere for several hundred years, trapping heat, warming the planet. That is simple, factual, easy to observe and understand, and undeniable. Two jars of air samples, one containing abundantly more carbon than the other; the one with all the carbon will always have a higher temperature; it traps more heat than oxygen and nitrogen alone. The Earth, for millions of years, has undergone innumerable changes, geologically, and climatically, without the slightest contribution from human industry, thus proving no modern human complicity, goes the specious argument. As if the fact of our recent arrival on the planet prohibits our having any impact on it. Stand in a forest. On this land forests, oceans, molten lakes, deserts, grassy prairies, all have come and gone, many times over, over millions of years of naturally changing land forms. And yet, while standing in the forest, you, the puny recent arrival, particularly during a dry August, need only strike a match, and you, a puny person, can destroy thousands of acres of woodland. You and your match stick aren't so puny after all. Against the infinite backdrop of the universe, and even of the natural processes at work on Earth, humans may indeed be insignificant, and may not be here much longer, not having been here long. And yet, somehow, we manage to turn rivers into lakes, deserts into forests, and mountains into hollowed out pits. Our ability to inject billions of tons of carbon into the air, over decades and centuries, and our ability to leave the carbon alone, and to allow it to simply sit there and absorb the heat of sunlight, naturally, warming the atmosphere, is really not so extraordinary and unbelievable after all.

Skirting The Law, Abandoning Morality

TO REITERATE: The Mueller report conclusively, irrefutably proves that during the presidential campaign Trump and his campaign staff were fully aware of the systematic Russian interference on their behalf, accepted it, welcomed it, and did nothing to stop it, such as reporting it to the FBI. Verified meetings, documents, and sworn testimony concerning communication between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives cannot be denied. That constitutes tacit, passive collusion, even if there was no covert, contractual conspiracy. Technically, it may not be collusion, but the distinction is paper thin, too close for comfort, so close that for all intents and purposes there was a conspiracy between Trump and the Russians. If a person embezzles money from a company, and launders it by placing it in your bank account temporarily, the fact that you knew about it and did nothing to prevent it makes you an accessory to the crime. for Trump to deny his wrongdoing is predictable, understandable. All criminals claim innocence. for his supporters to accept and support his laughably false claim is utterly reprehensible, and reveals the total moral bankruptcy of everyone, yes, everyone who voted for, and still support this criminal president. That Trump obstructed systematically and repeatedly attempted to obstruct justice by sabotaging the Mueller investigation is even more apparent, even more proven beyond a doubt. the only reason why he failed in his many attempts is that his subordinates refused to carry out his orders, recognizing Trump's various schemes a criminal, and as they often said, crazy. Assuming that the president eludes impeachment and removal, which appears increasingly probable, there is little doubt that Trump will be indicted and prosecuted for a wide ranging litany of crimes upon the completion of his term as president. Sadly, his supporters will almost certainly continue their disgusting insistence that all charges of wrongdoing against their leader are nothing but conspiratorial fabrications by his enemies in the media, and within the progressive political community. Sixty one million people voted for Trump, and, surveys indicate that, for the most part, they still support him, many if not most of them more strongly than ever. this is a tragic indictment of the American people, or at least the conservative portion of the electorate. The American conservative christian evangelical community, Trump's staunchest support base, has been fully exposed for the intellectually and morally bereft community that it is. Studies repeatedly indicate that politically progressive people tend to be more intelligent than conservatives. We now know that progressives are also more morally, as well as politically correct. Conservatives tend to ridicule people who expect high standards of respect and courtesy - political correctness. They now ridicule people with sufficiently high moral standards to condemn Trump's consistently vile, vicious, criminal behavior. those who continue to support rather than condemn and abandon Donald Trump are no better than he, and deserve the same fat as he. In all likelihood, they will eventually experience the consequences of their horribly immoral behavior, just at those who have the intellectual and ethical integrity to oppose the depravity of Trump and his supporters will, at length, receive their just rewards; the removal of the Trump political movement from all positions of power and influence in American society.

Hiding From The Truth

OVER THE PAST FEW DAYS, there has been much talk in the media, or at least more talk in the media than one might expect, about the suddenly famous Tulsa race riot of 1921, as it has traditionally been called. For some reason, maybe because we are now approaching the one hundredth anniversary of this nightmarish disaster, it is coming to light. Only now we are starting to call it the Tulsa "massacre" of 1921, because the term "massacre" is considerably more accurate. since it involved large numbers of African-Americans, the term "race riot" was simply too convenient to pass up. The details of the event are now fairly well known to many but not most Americans; anyone not familiar with the event is strongly encouraged, indeed ordered to finish reading this essay, then immediately do the necessary reading to become educated. source material is easy to find; google and Wikipedia will suffice. The two most striking facts are that it all began with an ostensibly extremely minor event, so minor that something like it must surely have happened every day in every city in America, throughout history, and to this day. The event concerned a misunderstanding between two teenagers, one black, one white, a misunderstanding which triggered a virtual, if not an actual war. Almost remindful of how a stalled car triggered World War One, which is also worth reading about. the other outstanding feature is the degree to which the vent was almost instantly denied by Tulsa, and by American society in general, as if it didn't happen, or as if it was so horrible, so ridiculous, that the city and the nation preferred to pretend it didn't happen. For nearly one hundred years textbooks on American history have omitted mention of it, just as surely as they have omitted mention of Thomas Jefferson's hatred of the Christian religion, and of his sexual liaison with a fifteen year old girl who was his slave. But that's what history books, cities, people, and nations do; they behave like ostrich's with heads in sand, by going into denial at the approach of truth too terrible to accept. As Goethe said: "We resist the truth only because we fear we might perish if we accepted it". WE have done this throughout history. There has never been found, among ancient Egyptian writing,s any mention of Moses, the Exodus, and plagues of locusts. Maybe the whole Mosaic Exodus never happened; or maybe the ancient Egyptians preferred to pretend it didn't. After World War Two, the horrible nightmare of Hitler and the holocaust was pretty much swept under the rug, as it were, by Germany. All NAZI symbols were banned, and German children were given but the barest outlines of the war, with the murder of six million Jews brushes aside. only in recent decades have they come out from beneath the rubble, as it were. Russians are particularly adept at erasing history. "De-Stalinization" of the nineteen fifties, when the Russians decided to forget about Uncle Joe and his millions man purges, is but one of many examples of a country which, admittedly, has much history worthy of forgetting. One hesitates to even mention, to this very day, a certain terrible Tsar who released pigeons from the tops of the tower, but only after having broken their wings. These are but a few examples of humanity's capacity to forget the too horrible to remember. we all know from personal experience, or are told, that as we as individuals age we tend to filter out our unpleasant memories, or to paint over them with improved, happier versions. We do it individually, and collectively, for the sake of our sheer sanity. it is the duty of good psychologists and historians to fill in our blanks with truth, as a way of healing by remembering. So, maybe that's what we are now doing with the Tulsa massacre of its black community back in 1921, finally, after a hundred years, coming to terms with it, healing. In the spirit of times, it may take a good one thousand years for us to be ready to remember just who was president of the United States in the year 2019, or whenever.

Witnessing

MY FATHER, an attorney, and my mother, a nurse, mercifully withheld religious instruction, and shielded me from any evangelical tendencies of my devout votary grandmothers. Thus I became aware of the term "witness" in context with secular jurisprudence long before I was ever aware that it also embodies any religious meaning. I lost my Christian witness virginity much later, in my late teens, on a tennis court, playing doubles with a fellow pantheist against a team of true believers. We won, naturally. At the end of days and tennis matches, I maintain that enlightened spirituality trumps rigid, barbaric dogma. My Christian tennis buddies fully intended to be, and in my opinion genuinely were, good Christian witnesses, insofar as I understood the concept. I vaguely recall something in the Bible about witnessing for the lord, and vaguely wondering why the architect and builder of the universe would need witnesses, per se. The lord's works are ubiquitously on display. The sun rises and sets with sublimely designed reliability. Are we not all aware of, witnesses to the work of the creator, regardless of our particular religious beliefs or lack thereof? One of my tennis playing witness friends was at the time, the mid nineteen seventies, greatly excited about his forthcoming trip to Texas, to participate in an archeological dig with a group of like minded diggers whose purpose was to unearth proof that the world is a mere six thousand years old, rather than the widely scientifically accepted four point five billion. If they succeeded, they either chose not to share their success, or the news media and the Christian community conspired to conceal it, neither possibility of which seems likely. My other tennis playing witness to Jehovah, Yahweh, Elohim, God, or whomever, was fixing at the time to visit the still extant Soviet Union with a group of devotees for the stated purpose of smuggling a horde of Bibles into the godless, evil empire, for illicit distribution among the unsaved Russian proletariat. I expressed my concern that my friend and his comrades might not return safely from Russia with love; quite predictably, my fear fell flat. Fortunately for them and soviet-American relations, they made it back, having flouted Russian law, Biblical admonitions to always obey local secular law and authorities, the travelers admonition "do as the Romans do", and common, simple, sane sense. A witness, it turns out, is a person through whose words and actions the Christian faith is typified and exemplified, for the purpose of serving God, serving as an example unto all the world, or both. Even if it means flagrantly abusing one's status as a visitor in a foreign land, or pursuing the seemingly hopeless task of disproving, by digging up ancient artifacts and dinosaur bones, solid, simple, well established science. My entire life Christians have been trying to turn me into a Christian, but I cannot recall a single instance in which I have tried to convert anyone, Christina or otherwise,, to my beliefs. Why? My assumption has always been, and remains, that all people of all faiths are as intelligent as I, and better qualified than I to determine their own religious beliefs. It just seems so obvious. My tennis player Christian friends were once admonished at church that they really shouldn't be fellowshiping with non believers, on a tennis court, or anywhere else. Their response to their sanctimonious colleagues, they told me, was that it is sick people who require a doctor, and it is the unsaved who require the company of Christian witnesses. They evinced not the slightest comprehension that this explanation was a great insult to me. I refrained from telling them; good friends, Christian or otherwise, are hard to find, and, besides, good tennis players are even harder to find.

Getting Lucky

WE HAVE ALL, at one time or another, been the beneficiaries of blessings. Only the most unfortunate among us fail to so benefit, or, having benefited, fail to fully appreciate the blessing. I betook myself to a drive into a country, to a local lake, early on a summer morning to beat the heat, where there are good running trails. The run was delightful, as runs invariably are when run among beautiful scenery of the natural kind. I climbed back into my car, euphoric with runner's high, and headed back to town. As i was tooling down the two lane blacktop going thirty in a fifty to enjoy the scenery, suddenly a small beaver dashed across the highway, right in front of me, and although I didn't have to stop or slow to avoid the precious creature, I die, reflexively. He, she, scampered quickly across the road and into the woods. I smiled. I couldn't recall ever having seen a beaver before, except on television. Within about three minutes a small flock, herd, or school of deer crossed in front of me, again without forcing me to slow down or stop. The group included at least six members, and i made out at leas one doe, a buck I think, and two or three youngins, fawns, or yearlings, or children. I beamed. A bit further along on the four mile country road from my house to the lake, out from the bushes come a family of ducks, a large one followed by three adorable small ones. this time i had to stop suddenly in order to not only not disturb their passage, but to avoid hitting them, which i successfully did. by this time, however,a care had caught up with me, and, in typical American automotive fashion, was following much too close for comfort. Admittedly, that's what happens when you're doing thirty in a fifty, but, I suspect that had I been doing fifty, or fifty five, the same fate would have assailed me, her in the United States of Autosanelessamerica. The driver was man, ostensibly of the red nick MAGA sort, for he, bedecked in one of those nauseating red MAGA caps, being forced to suddenly cease and desist his forward progress due to my do good liberal urge to save the lives of ducks, appeared to be most vexed. He waxed a mite wrathy, as Davy Crockett might have, and often said. His facial expression was death, personified, perhaps exacerbated by the "Impeach Trump" bumper sticker now scarcely three from his hood. I prayed I would neither get shot, nor mugged. If he could have, he would have. But I, ever the assuaging placatin' peacemaker, smiled in my rear view mirror and held my hands out, palms up, in the universal 'what the hell could I do"? sign. Un-mellowed, he rolled his MAGA eyes, sped around me, and on down the road, just missing the last of the chicks. now it was my turn to be bad. suddenly much angered, I honked my horn, and flew the bird, nice and high. His brake lights briefly flashed, and I thought, once again, that I might be toast. But, much to my relief, he thought better of it, and continued on his miserable way, mercifully, for me and american wildlife, out of sight. I had memorized his license plate number. I phone the local police, and told them my tale of woe. I hope they arrest, indict, try, and convict him of gross stupidity, and "lock him up!", as I chanted a few times before arriving at the house. The rest of the was home was uneventful, other than the box turtle I saw halfway across the road near town. Hell yes I pulled over and moved the little doll off road in the direction he was going, willing to incur the wrath of every last hate mongering chanting Trumper in these United States. None of them showed up this time, much to their good fortune.

Changing Country, Changing Color

AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN LADY from Brooklyn grew up in the projects, the tough way. She used her ambition and intelligence to improve her circumstances, gaining admission to an elite university and pursuing a career in corporate management with her law degree. her first visit to Paris was in 1975 while i college, and she returned twenty years later to to live permanently, working as a representative of an American company. She's been living there since,and has no intention of returning to the United States. She likes the way she's treated by the French. Back in Brooklyn, she grew up tough, acted tough, and surrounded by tough, became tough. She and her homie gangstah bitches ruled the fair sex side of the 'hood. They never had to wait in line for anything. The white babes backed off, every time. Every African-American knows what honkies deny in America: in America, white folks are afraid of black folks. Lingering vestige of hundreds years of ill treatment have inculcated within the white world a knowledge of the anger engendered within and ingrained throughout black America. We feel their pain, and their anger, and are afraid of possible repercussions, which we have so often seen and felt. It is the price we in America pay daily for being the most racist nation nation in human history. In France, she says she tried the same bullying tactics which worked so well in America, but instead of being met with capitulation, the French well dressed French babes in high heals were having none of that shit. She was promptly backed off, and told exactly where the end of the line was. white France earned her respect, and got it. She likes it better that way, likes respecting rather than shunning her peers of a different race. its refreshing not to be treated simultaneously as an outcast and an object of fear and loathing. The French respect cultured, educated people, regardless of skin color. Beginning in the nineteen twenties jazz age, artistic African-Americans have expatriated themselves to France in droves. Am american brain drain. The French love jazz, American music and art in general, and welcome the influx. richard Wright, author of "Black Boy" and the 1940 classic "native Son", about life in the Chicago ghetto, said that while living in the United States he felt as he were carrying a corpse on his back, no matter where he went. In France, the corpse was gone. No, France is not some color blind multi-cultural mecca of color blind virtue and tolerance. they have their own version of far right wing populist nationalist anti-immigrant activism, their own version of the Trump movement. Bu its only fifteen percent or so. In France, to be an immigrant is not to automatically be relegated to second class status. The french are indeed cultural elitist, culturally demanding. But if you bring intelligence and education into their country, you earn their respect, you have a chance. It is common among many American conservatives to assert that "we don't want America to be more like Europe than it already is". As is often the case, they are dead wrong.

Space Dreaming

I WAS BORN at a good time to dream about space flight. When I was six, Alan Shepherd ventured into space. Fascinated, I asked my mother what he had said about it, what it was like to be in space. She told me that Mr. Shepherd was reporting that it was very dark up there. John Glenn excited me by educating me to the fact that it was possible to orbit the Earth in an hour and a half, and to do so multiple times - he did it three times - without being killed. Then, I started reading a series of children's books called "Mike Mars", about a kid named Michael Albert Robert Sampson who in one book taught me how to make a rocket out of an empty pop bottle, some baking soda, and I forget what else. Put it on roller wheels, and it would propel horizontally along the sidewalk. I never actually performed the experiment, but I dreamed about it. Mike's great dream, like mine, was to walk on Mars. Each Mercury and Gemini mission was obviously getting us closer to going to the moon. On July 20, 1969, I, a fourteen year old between eighth and ninth grade, watched Armstrong walk on the moon with my mother and sister and billions of other people, on our boxy black and white, with Cronkite. That was the summer, the summer of sixty nine, when I had my first "real" telescope, a two point four inch refractor, and twice during that summer, on July 9 and again on August 9, I spent the night at a friend's house, and we observed the heavens all night. He was going into his senior year, and had a three inch telescope, appropriately larger than mine. We called that summer "the glorious summer", not because of baseball or golf, which I did curing the day, but because of those wonderful hot nights beneath the stars, insects humming, with our telescopes, watching and dreaming. That was also the summer I saw on the big screen what is still my favorite movie of all time: "2001:A Space Odyssey". I remember my joy that I actually understood the movie, and my pride at trying to explain it, perhaps unsuccessfully, to my mom and sis. Obviously it was a bit too ambitious in predicting humankind's future in space: maybe about a hundred years too ambitious. But, as they say; its the thought that counts. Unfortunately my astronomy friend died young, but I like to think his spirit is up there, among the stars. With each return to the moon, my interest was a bit diminished; by 1972, the last time humans walked on the moon, I was heading into my senior high school year, and had other matters, the usual ones, on my mind. At first I was quite interested in the space shuttle and Skylab, but soon lost interest. It was as if we were rehearsing for nothing. In 1969, I thought that by the year 2020 I would be going back and forth between the moon, Mars, and Earth as a passenger. I fancied moon and Mars bases, and expeditions beyond the solar system. So naturally, i become disappointed, like, I suspect, many people of my generation. All of the great science fiction writers I loved as a kid, especially Asimov, Clarke, and Silverberg, piqued my fascination with the human future in space. The Viet Nam war, and other wars, diverted funds, and after Apollo Eleven, it seems that we the people simply lost our focus, that we never had a concrete plan for continuing outward. We now know that the incredible expense and technical difficulties are far more daunting than we at first believed. Yet, there is hope. There is renewed interest in space exploration, travel, and colonization, and various projects; the Hubble telescope, the Mars rovers, deep space probes heading out beyond the solar system, have all greatly increased our knowledge of the universe, and re-inspired us to exploration. I still believe that humanity will do everything I wanted so badly for us to do fifty years ago, but, alas, it will all be done much later than I would have thought or hoped. I'll be long dead when we the human species take to the off Earth universe in earnest, but I comfort myself that maybe, just maybe, when it all happens, I will have joined my telescoping buddy as a spirit in the sky, looking down on it all, and smiling contentedly.

Criticizing It, Yet Loving It, and Staying

ITS BEEN MORE THAN FIFTY YEARS since the catchy little phrase "America: Love It Or Leave It" hit the streets, in connection with the Viet Nam war, as the hawks and doves battled it out in the great and ubiquitous arena of public opinion. The dirty little secret is that the dis United States is always divided, by one thing or another, to one degree or another, at many times far more so than even now, difficult that this may seem to believe. The civil war comes to mind. Back then I was a tried and true patriotic little brainwashed pro establishment teenager on the "Love It" end of the spectrum, though rapidly and inexorably evolving out of it. I always felt some vague sense of disquiet about the "Love It or Leave It" dichotomy, as if there were something contrived, some false equivalency about it. By the time I had reached my twenties, my radicalism had emerged full blown, and I knew the reason behind my disquiet. Once again I am confronted with this false choice, fifty years removed from the turbulent sixties, as a psychotic draft dodging president claims he would have enjoyed serving in Viet Nam, and resurrects the old cliche. My response, in the early seventies, and now, is this: How do you know I don't love it?...(Because you criticize it incessantly, all the time, you constantly point out negative things about it).....But that does not mean that I don't love it. It means I care enough about it to be honest about its shortcomings, and to seek ways of addressing them, and improving the country I care so much about.... And this is where I stand. At the senior center we recite the pledge of allegiance every day before we pray before we eat lunch. The pledge was my idea, and I lead it, every day. A lady said "I bet you really hate Colin Kaepernick". I said, "No, I love him. I personally would not kneel during the anthem, but I do not expect anyone to behave in accordance with my values, but instead, in accordance with their own." Then she started this is the greatest country on Earth crap, proud to be an American, Love it or leave it, and all that. My rejoinder was that I think it is a bad idea to be proud of anything, country, flag, personal accomplishments..anything. I prefer to be grateful and happy and pleased to be lucky enough to live in America, but not proud. Pride, all pride, is a form of arrogance, one of seven deadly sins. And to boast that ours is the greatest country in the world is nothing but sheer arrogance, and incapable of being proven. Greatest militarily? Culturally? In what way? Greatest in preserving peace? Definitely not. Other than grotesque economic inequality, child hunger, and a few other problems, American arrogance is among my greatest pet peeves. I tried to convince her that Kaepernick has the right and the moral authority to protest. She claimed that his upbringing had been privileged. Maybe so. She said he himself had said so. I asked her whether Cassius Clay, barred from white only drinking fountains, had any reason to be proud to be an American. She allowed as that he hadn't. Well, if he hadn't, how many others hadn't, and don't? Maybe Kaepernick was protesting not on behalf of himself, but on behalf of others, like Muhammad Ali. Of course, I had her, even though she didn't seem to know it, and probably wouldn't admit it even if she did.

Being Racist

WE ARE ALL RACISTS. Rather, most of us are. A "racist" is a person who accepts the concept of races as inherent to human beings, as real, a person who believes that the human species, or human "race", is naturally and really divided into discrete, identifiable, recognizable sub groups based on skin color, independent of whether we accept the divisions. Someone, anyone who understands that different races only exist because people choose to apply the concept to our species, and that the concept is a mere mental contrivance with no tangible manifestation independent of our imagination, is definitely not a racist. Race is a convenient device for purposes of classification and simplification, a device to help us simplify a world of infinite complexity and variety. Since our culture has accepted race as real, rather than purely conceptual, which it is, everyone is a racist in America, the most racist society in history. No matter your opinion of one race or another, if you believe in different races, you do so only because you choose to, not because they are real. If you compare the color of your skin to that of every other person in the world, you will never find a perfect match. In the real world, we all have different skin colors. Often, in fact usually, the difference is slight, barely noticeable. Obviously, if we didn't believe in races at all, we wouldn't form opinions concerning their relative merit. My skin color is different now than three months ago. My suntan has changed my race. Line up everyone in the world, according to height. Everyone is one millionth of an inch taller or shorter than the next person. At what point do we divide the tall people from the short people? When we choose to. Tall and short, like white and black, are choices, opinions, not facts. Once we choose to accept race as real, we invent racism, by forming opinions, making racism real. People who do not know history but think they do believe that racism has existed as long as people have. They are quite mistaken. Before the middle of the fifteenth century, there is not a single reference to racism in the entire body of human literature. That's because racism did not exist, until it was invented as a way to justify the enslavement of Africans. Racism first appears in a biography of the Portuguese explorer, Prince Henry the Navigator, in the fifteen forties. In the ancient and pre-modern world, us versus them was predicated on geography, language, religion, national identity. Our ancestors invented racism, and we modern people have long since decided the invention we inherited is evil, and universally we condemn it. We are quite correct in doing this. We cling to our imaginary concept of race, but condemn anyone who believes one race is superior to another. We are right to condemn Donald Trump for being a racist, for he is very obviously a racist. The fact that people who support Trump accept the false notion of the existence of different faces, but claim that he is not a racist, and that they are not racists, is nothing other than one of innumerable examples of human self deception, and human folly. We simply choose not to notice how widespread the human folly of racism is; it includes nearly all of us. In many ways, we do not really know much about ourselves. It is indeed quite possible to be a racist, and unaware of it. Recently former KKK leader David Duke stated that he and Donald Trump share the same message. One thing for certain; a confirmed, unapologetic racist recognizes a fellow racist when he sees one, even one who either is not aware of his own racism, or chooses to try to hide and deny it. Racism exists because we pretend that races exist, racism exists because of an abstraction, a concept. Concepts whose only existence are in the human mind often powerfully influence our minds. When others identify racists as racists, racists often respond by calling the person who identified the racist a racist, a clever attempt at "turning the tables". Therefore, when a president of the United States tells darkly pigmented people to leave the county, the best response might be, rather than accusing the president of being a racist, to accuse him of being hateful, for that is inarguably true.

Praising Trump From the Pulpit

CONSERVATIVE EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN MINISTERS, some of whom achieve celebrity status by seducing sycophants in large numbers through the seductive power of charismatic personalty, snappy attire, and provocative proclamations, have been especially in evidence since the political advent of Donald Trump, in large part through their near unanimous support of him, but also because of the often extraordinary nature of their explanations for his ascent to the American presidency. It must be said, however, that explanations and proclamations issued from evangelical ministers often contain elements of the extraordinary, nearly always unverified and unverifiable. Carl Sagan said: "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Extraordinary evidence is the key component invariably missing from extraordinary and provocative proclamations. Most folks are familiar with the standard issue. The AIDS epidemic is God's wrath being visited upon America for its tolerance of homosexuality. The lord has established the United States as his bastion of the Christian faith on earth. The righteous of this denomination or that denomination, at the end of days, shall be raptured into heaven, leaving everyone else in the dust,, or extreme heat, or worse. The usual bill of fare. These hyperbolic pronouncements have in common that they presume a considerable degree of knowledge of not not God's future behavior, but of the motivations behind it, they clearly delineate an "us against them' paradigm, in which "them"those who adhere to the proclaimer are the in group, the "us", safe ensconced within the fold of righteous, and the predictions inherently evince probably futures of apocalyptic proportions. And of course, they are shouted to all the world in stentorian style, complete with dramatic gesticulations by comparison to which nineteenth century stage actors would seem inert. lately our evangelical screamers have been outdoing even themselves for histrionics, and for the unverifiable extraordinary. The purveyors of percipience form the pulpit have been political in nature since the late nineteen seventies, when the moral majority inserted itself into the political arena, defying the wise admonition of true believer and esteemed academic C. S. Lewis that religion goes astray when it becomes entangled in political affairs. Having cast its lot with the repackaged pro life pro straight sex "good Christian" Donald J. Trump, the conservative evangelical community has no reason to go go half measure. according to Graham Jr., Falwell Jr., or both, Donald Trump has been anointed, by god, by GOD, to be the president of these United States, and is the most christian president in american history, notwithstanding Woodrow Wilson's ministerial bond fides, notwithstanding the tendency of nearly all nineteenth century presidents to begin the day on bent knee. Ever inclusive, conservative evangelical issuers of unprovable profundities include explanations of the motive of members of the Democratic party. why not? Accordingly, the Democrats have invented their own God, goes the gist of the gaslight. In truth, the Democrats have invented much, including social security, medicare, minimum wage and labor laws, and a safety net for the disadvantaged, ostensibly helpful, compassionate things widely considered blasphemous anathema throughout politically conservative evangelicaldom, which prefers a social Darwinistic approach, despite the evil falsehood of exhaustively verified evolutionary science. But no Democrat has ever been confirmed to have invented an imaginary God, but only to have described the christian one in terms more verifiably, scientifically compatible with observed reality. Any tendency towards a more compassionate, more sane deity more in keeping with observable nature quite naturally meets with the dismissive disapproval of the conservative Christian community, which much prefers to stick with the harsh god of the Biblical kind, the one who scares Abraham half to death by ordering him to execute his own son as proof of exclusive fidelity to the divine, and who strikes dead fifty thousand and seventy poor souls in retribution for breaching the privacy of a document in a box. What cannot be denied, and can be verified anecdotally, is that this ruthless, genocidal god of the Bible is far more compatible with the mentality and moral principles of Christian conservatism, and Trump MAGAism, than any watered down, toned down, rational deity ever invented by any damnable Democrat.