Going Along To Get Along

 I HAVE BECOME, over the past few years, increasingly afraid to visit my friend of more than thirty five years, for, alas, over the last few yeas, he has emerged as a political animal, never having been so inclined before, and, alas again, he supports Trump, strongly. I always to to talk about basketball, or something, since he is a former NCAA player, and yesterday I broached the NBA finals, and he asked: "who's playing"? That alarmed me. I visit him at his house about two or three times a year now, and I always avoid politics with him, having explained to him that friendship is more important than politics. But he always brings it up, as if he somehow must, almost as if he wants to argue, and thinks he can win, or wants to end our friendship but isn't quite sure how. We were getting along fine, basketball wise, until once again he made the leap. "You're a Democrat!", he said accusingly, as if I didn't know." Biden is trying to turn our country into a banana republic, and that red headed press secretary lo his stands there and lies, constantly." He could have been talking about Trump, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and probably was, without knowing it. I just listened. Then came the piece de resistance. "Before the end of this year, Trump will be back in office, mark me. I'll bet you a case of imported beer".  I nodded, and took the bet. How could I not? I didn't bother to tell him that I no longer drink; hell, this just might motivate to start drinking again. So, I left, after five minutes. I told him I love him, and he said he loves me too. I'll see him again in, or a local church. Trump fans amaze me, more than ever. To believe that Trump will be back in office by year's end, that the election of Biden will somehow be reversed, is delusional, isn't it? that's mentally ill, right? And that is precisely the kind of nonsense they hand out, that, plus the usual deep state Q-Anon conspiracy crap. All of them do it. Under Stalin, the definition of mental illness became anyone who does not believe in socialism. I am truly beginning to believe that in these United States the test of mental illness should become anyone who supports Trump. The man, and h is minions are certifiable, including my friend, who, like the rest of them, I consider a traitor, ever since January sixth. But of course I would never say that to him.

The President's Son, Painting

 I HAVE NO IDEA whether Hunter Biden is a good artist; I haven't seen his work. I am a poor art critic, being of the minions who invariably say: "I may not know good art, but I know what I like." (I think that's a good response for anybody.) So Hunter the son of Joseph, is now painting, and getting ridiculous prices for his art, merely by being the son of the president. As they say, its too windy to stack BBs, and, well, it keeps him off the street, and out of the Ukraine, maybe. The best part of this story is: here come the Republicans. Here comes the sanctimonious conservative mob, the gang o' Trump, screaming corruption. Now, bear in mind that no amount of corruption in the Trump administration or the life of Trump qualifies as corruption, but only as liberal Democratic media hoaxes. Or Chinese. Or whatever. Trump could welcome Russian help getting elected, blackmail the Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden, falsely claim election loss fraud, and send a violent mob to the Capitol to overthrow the government, or, short of that, simply tear the place up a tad, and, well, hell, no harm, no foul. Did I mention Trump trying to turn  his presidency into a money making machine for his business interests, in direct violation of the emoluments clause? The Teflon Don, who can imitate Al Capone years on end, with not an iota of criticism from his adoring conservative evangelical Christian disciples, who are good to go with ascribing all blatant Trump criminality to "media hoaxes", because, after all, he's conservative, loves Jesus, loves unborn babies, and lowers taxes on the wealthy, who, after all, gained their wealth by virtue of the "gospel of prosperity", wherein  conservatives are rewarded with abundant wealth by the capitalistic gun toting Jesus Christ, for accepting as their savior a man who was tortured to death that they might not suffer for their sins. "Go they way, and sell whatsoever thou hast, and give unto the poor? Oh, um..that comes later.... First we must make ends meet for our six car Lamborghini filled garage by preaching the message of not the Jesus who admonished that only the poor enter into the kingdom of heaven, but the Jesus who in conservative fantasy preaches that only the rich do, the slick television evangelists, the Trump folks, the folks who fight like hell for the unborn then lock children in cages once they are born, for being brown, undocumented, and Mexican..  How very Christian of the Trump-adoring Jesus lovers! But Hunter Biden is a corrupt criminal, for making and selling art, in the free market. These right wing Trump Christians, they sho' do put on a good show. 

Voting, Regardless

 TRUTH BE TOLD, and even in the age of disinformation it occasionally is, all these assaults on easy access voting, what is being termed "voter suppression" being legislated by the grand old Republican party in a temper tantrum of a response to Trump's famous defeat, needn't prevent anyone, minorities or otherwise, from voting.  Like blind squirrels finding acorns, right wing repubs, once in a blue moon, get something right, and this they have right; everyone can still vote. its gonna be a bit more troublesome to do so, what with mail in voting and drive through voting being curtailed by a vicious vindictive pack of curs. Merely have your I.D. in order, show up when they let you show up, stand there for hours in the heat without food or drink, because, heaven forbid, accepting food or drink from a compassionate passerby might be corruption in disguise which might just steal another election from Donald Trump. It would be nice it it were easy for all eligible voters to vote, like, say, from home, on the phone, online, through teh snail mail, you name it, let's vote it. contrary to what one typical Republican reprobate claims, voting should indeed be easy, because eligible voters should not have to break down barrier after barrier to prove their worth - they've already proven it. but, we're just not there yet. So, kudos to Texas state legislative Democrats for caring enough to once again run like hell from Republican perfidy, in pure desperation, for caring enough to charter a private jet and fly to Washington D.C., to try to get the national Congress to do something about the G.O.P. tantrum. The republican voter suppression is a situation in which, as they say, the bark is bigger than the bit. Just get out, vote, grin, a beat it. The corruption is embodied in two ways: the motive, and the intent. the motive is Trump's loss in the election, and his ridiculous lie that the election was stolen, a ridiculous lie echoed by seventy five million of his supporters, making them traitors to the democratic process which underpins American freedom. No evidence of crime, no crime, no election fraud ever found. If Trump had won, in real time, there would now be no voter suppression effort, an effort intended to keep those lazy Democrat minorities, the folks without I.D's, means, or automobiles, away from the polling place. the intent, in short, is to reduce voter turnout, turnout like those mobs of African-american who flocked to the polls in Detroit, Milwaukee, Philly, and Atlanta, and won the election for Biden. Make 'em drive. If there really were any sign, any sign at all, of voter fraud, anywhere in these great united states, if the problem really existed, and if by chance the Republicans were trying to correct a rel problem rather than insidiously fix voting rules to assist in their own election success, the effort would indeed be noble. as it is, its criminal, pathetically, transparently so.

Vaccinating For Reality

NINETY THREE PERCENT of Democrats are vaccinated, and for nine percent of Republicans are, according to ABC News, which, despite claims to the contrary made by conservatives concerning the allegedly corrupt liberal mainstream media, is a reliable source. The statistic speaks volumes. It proves what we already knew: that Republicans, aka conservatives, are almost exclusively responsible for the current Covid 19 renewed epidemic in the United States, full stop. Compare the vaccination rate in "red" states to that in "blue" states; the numbers are damning, and they do not lie, cannot be misinterpreted. Acknowledging this, the governor of Arkansas suggested that the reason is a great mistrust of government on the part of conservatives. True enough, but certainly not sufficient justification for behavior which endangers the entire country. The governor failed to mention that government isn't the only established institution distrusted by the conservative community. He failed to include truth, reality, and science in the list, all of which are the same thing. The first two are pursued and elicited by the latter. A healthy skepticism of government, and of all authority, is of course healthy in a free society. Likewise science, and its initial, unproven results. But skepticism about the efficacy of the scientific method is beneficial to no one.  Given time, sciences always provides the truth about nature, of which we are of course an integral part. Science never stop correcting and improving itself until it gets it right. Unlike  human intelligence, science is not limited, or rather, is limited only by the limitations of human intelligence. Show me a person who does not believe in vaccinations, climate change, or human evolution by natural selection, and I will show you a fool,  and, quite likely, a conservative evangelical and Trump supporter. Such people have more assault weapons and Bibles than brains, or so it often seems. Such people deny these three demonstrable, proven realities for only one reason; to acknowledge their factual reality would do damage to their self esteem by challenging their preconceived beliefs, and perhaps even force them to change these false beliefs, which they cling to as a matter of pride. As is often the case, Goethe said it best: "We resist reality only because we fear that we would perish if we accepted it." Sensitive sorts might object to deniers of vaccination efficacy, climate change, and evolution being characterized as "fools". they might assert that doing so is rude and unfair. They might be concealing less noble personal traits behind a thin veneer or pious concern for the treatment of others, and themselves. Actually, it is neither rude nor inappropriate to call a  fool a fool, and any one who refuses to accept obvious reality in preference for self esteem and emotional security is indeed just that, a fool. It is perhaps regrettable that we live in a world in which fools seldom self identify.

Looking Back With Pride, Or Shame

 THE OLD REDNECK with an eighth grade education and several yellow teeth grinned condescendingly at me and rasped: "Hoe come you aint wearin' no Hillary Clinton campaign button today?" Exhausted from a sleepless night of voting counting and despair, devastated at the most  horrible political loss of my life,  I was in no mood for childish, classless taunting, so I replied by saying something unpleasant. You're a bad loser, he said. No, I'm not, I said. Yes you are, he said, No, I am not, I said. "Yes you are, he said again.!" No, I am not. Congratulations to Mr. Trump, and I wish him nothing but the very best" Disarmed, he of course lacked the class to acknowledge that he was wrong about me. And he was. I take the high road, always have, a lesson learned from a good upbringing from good parenting and long experience winning and losing quality tennis tournaments. I learned early and often that you're going to lose, and you're going to remember how you dealt with it, and you're either going to be proud of the memory, or not. That's why Trump supporters still amaze me, months after the election.  Their lack of class and basic decency amazes me, and always will. I have no interest in ever associating with anyone who claimed that the election was stolen from Trump; they are, frankly, beneath me. My behavior in response to Trump's electoral college victory in 2016 was a perfect role model. Or else, show me a better one. A democracy functions only if and when its members make it work, by participating in it honorably, and by accepting the results of fair and free elections. Trump is mentally ill. His supporters, previously presumed to be good people, have no such excuse. Its disappointing and shocking to realize that so many of my fellow Americans have so little class. they should be ashamed of themselves,  and probably are, but only subconsciously. they will go to their grades either never admitting their bad behavior, pretending that they never said anything about election fraud, or still claiming that their lie is the truth. the one thing they will never do is what is honorable. either they weren't raised right, or have forgotten what they were taught. The FBI, the CIA ,and every other American intelligence gathering agency assured us that Trump won in 2016 only with Russian assistance. he and his supporters conveniently ignored that stark, tragic, national disaster of a reality. And yet, I shook hands with them, and gave them a chance. For years later, they refused to lose with honor and decency.  They conveniently ignore the fact that basic principles of law require that all accusation of crime be accompanied with firm evidence. of which they have non,e never have, and never will. Seventy five million Trump supporters have no integrity, honor, nor decency. They are worthy of neither my respect and friendship, nor of their citizenship.

Getting Hot

 JUNE 2021 was the hottest June on record, and that goes back more than one hundred years of record keeping. It broke the old record, set in 2016, by more than a degree, a considerable amount. the hottest ten years on record occurred in the nineteen eighties, then again in the nineteen nineties, and so on. The pattern is obvious, and teh cause even more so. During the last one hundred years the human species has injected more than eight hundred and fifty billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere, raising the carbon content in parts per million from around two hundred to approaching four hundred and fifty. Although most scientists are unwilling to say so publicly, it is probably much too late for humanity to save itself or the ecosystem; considering the belated and lame response to climate change, humanity's unwilling to make the necessary changes soon enough, within fifty years the climate will be hellish, heading towards a greenhouse hell not unlike the planet Venus. Ironically, efforts to convert from fossl fuels to sustainable energy sources are only now getting underway in earnest; twenty one percent of teh energy the United States uses now is derived from wind turbine and solar energy; a great start towards survival, but, alas, probably too little too late.  and still a majority of America's conservatives deny that climate change is made by humans; many deny that it exists at all; of those that do, that claim that, well, climate change is always taking place, naturally, and we humans simply have nothing to do with it, because we are too puny to have any real influence on nature. These people are too moronic to reason with, they are best ignored. Their refusal to join the cause of environmental salvation is causing American climate policy to lag behind year after year, as Republicans refuse to take action. Trump, insanely, got elected promising to "bring back coal", even though the free market capitalistic market has long been pricing colal out of business, replacing it with natural gas and solar energy. Notice that the bring back coal idiocy has been quietly forgotten; somebody perhaps finally convinced Trump that its too late to bring back coal, and that we really do not want to do that. Rush Limbaugh uses to lie to his adorning radio audience that human made climate change is a hoax, and the fools believed every word of it. Now that Rush is dead, it can be hoped that his lies die with him, but so far they have not, and are being perpetuated by his bereaved followers. That's tragic. One day they too will be dead, but, unfortunately, so will the rest of us.

Being Damned Sure

BE DAMNED SURE that Republican efforts to tighten voting restrictions, to make it harder to vote, has nothing to do with any phony effort to eliminate voter fraud. This fraudulent crusade to keep people from voting would never have happened had Trump not lost the election, then claimed that he won it. The Trump Republican party cares nothing about voting fraud and security, with which there is no discernible domestic problem - but only about winning, at any cost, by making it harder for poor people and minorities, who tend to vote democratic, to vote. In 2016 Trump willingly and happily received help from Russians operatives, and the Republican party remained silent, and even denied it, despite the fact that the FBI and every intelligence gathering agency in the U.S. confirmed Russian interference to help Trump. Trump lost the election by more than three million votes, but won the election. The solution to voter suppression is obvious, other than ending the filibuster and restoring to its original strength the voting rights act of 1965. The solution is education and organized effort, for voters to redouble their commitment to casting their vote, suppression notwithstanding. Concerning the stealing of the 2020 lection from Trump, I am deeply insulted that I have not been personally implicated as an accomplice to the crime. I wish to be given credit for participating in the execution of the perfect crime, and with having left no evidence behind. For the civics edification of Trump supporters, who seem ignorant not only of basic standards of decency and integrity but of fundamental due process as well; one must never accuse anyone of a crime without first presenting evidence that a crime took place. That aside, from the fact that the proper way to handle an election defeat is to congratulate the winner and offer full support, instead of refusing to accept election defeat and falsely claiming election fraud. Trump supporters have revealed that they have no more decency and integrity than he. The Republican party, as Noam Chomsky points out, is the world's most dangerous and harmful organization, leaving the Taliban in the dust. First, it stood idly by as Trump sole an election with foreign assistance, then gladly abetted Trump's "big lie". And be damned sure of this: it is the conservative ""Christian Republicans who, by refusing to accept the obvious reality of human made climate change endanger life on Earth by refusing to contribute to reversing it, and it is the same gangsters who refuse to get vaccinated against Covid 19, thus putting all Americans in great peril. Surveys prove this. Let us assume for the record that Jesus would not approve of ignoring the climate disaster, supporting Trump's dishonest claims of election fraud, or  the willful spread of disease through inaction, or the perpetuation of systemic racism, all through inaction.

Trump. Losing As Usual

 DONALD TRUMP, who during his presidency was involved in more than four thousand lawsuits, and is still involved in many of them, is becoming involved in even more. Of those which have been resolved, Trump has lost most, for most of his claims are baseless, like most of his comments generally. Of his sixty one federal suit claiming election fraud, for example, all but one was tossed out of court, one federal judge asking: "Is that all you've got"? His most recent attempt involves suits filed against Facebook, Twitter, and Google, all for banishing  him from their social media platforms. These allegations of unconstitutional censorship are no better than the rest; he'll lose, then find some ludicrous pretest upon which to base a false claim of victory, as per  his style. The first amendment clearly gives social media platforms the right to banish anyone they choose, with or without cause.   When the president of the United States uses social media to assemble an angry mob, the incites said mob to insurrection in an attempt to overthrow the United States government and overturn the results of a presidential election, when the United States president uses social media to libel and defame people, to constantly tell blatant lies and spread deliberate disinformation, there is ample cause. All legal experts agree, and there is abundant precedent; Trump's new lawsuit will be dismissed. Only Congress is prohibited from infringement on free speech; Facebook is not Congress. Trump, a long time loser  legally and in nearly every other conceivable manner, is doomed to lose yet again. Equally humorous and pathetic are Trump's amazingly remaining millions of sycophantic followers, the mad MAGA mob, filled to overflowing with pious but morally deficient evangelical "Christians".  Since social media platforms are not exclusively free flowing conduits for conservative disinformation and ideological garbage, since Trump's MAGA mob comprises  a mere minority of the American people,  and since politically conservative evangelical Christian culture enjoys much less than a monopolistic domination of American culture, the dwindling conservative demographic, its death rattles audible as it sinks into oblivion with the Trump albatross anchored to its straining neck, provides a clownish spectacle,  uselessly wailing is being censored by big tech. Actually, the modern American conservative movement is self censoring, by hitching its wagon to a failed, criminal demagogue, by abandoning sanity and rejecting reality, and by abandoning any pretext of moral decency, as it continues its suicidal descent to the deepest, darkest level of depravity.

Defining "Systemic"

 SYSTEMIC RACISM doesn't exist, according to an arguably brain dead conservative politician in of course, a red state, because the word "systemic" is a medical term and according to his laughably inane reasoning, can only be used in a medical contest, not a political or social context. Yes, he really said that, which is not surprising, but should be. Such are the intellectual depths of depravity to which contemporary conservatism has shun, in the era of Donald Trump. It would be pointless to calmly explain to him that the word "systemic" is a mere derivative of the word "system", an adjective qualifier, and can be used to refer to any system, medical, social, political, animal, plant, or mineral. For proof of the existence of systemic racism, of which there is an abundant amount, consider this: Once upon a time, not so long ago, for example,  about a hundred years ago there were hundreds of thousands of African-american farmers, who owned millions of acres of land under cultivation, all across America's fruited plain, north, south, east, and west. Today, less than ten percent of he black farmers remain in business, and less than ten percent of the land mass remains under cultivation by them. What happened? For one, the emergence of huge scale corporate agriculture. then too, for decades, especially after the end of Reconstruction and during the great depression. the overriding cause of the demise of black agriculture, however, has been officially federal government policy, systemic racism, a deliberate, organized policy within the Department of agriculture and other federal agencies to deny loans to black farmer and to deny them access to federal agricultural assistance programs of all sorts. The Department of Agriculture and federal government generally recognize this, recognizes that its policies were deliberately racist, if overtly so. in an attempt to make amends and to reverse some of the damage, the government has embarked on an agrarian affirmative action program, in which low interest loans are offered to black farmers, and black farmers are put first in line for sundry farming assistance programs. There is also a debt forgiveness program for African-American farmers to apply for. However, a federal judge recently pt a temporary stay on all this, an action taken pending many lawsuits filed by white farmers, alleging reverse discrimination racism. Behold the vigor with which white business people appeal to the judicial systemic for relief against discrimination to themselves, having been conspicuously silent when it was used against black folk!  Wonders never cease.

Bloodlessly, Lovingly Admiring God

 MY GRANDMOTHER  was born in 1892, and died in 1971, when I was sixteen. "How Great Thou Art"  was on page twenty two of her hymnal. I once sang with a gospel group on whose hymnal the song was on page sixty two. Wherever it is, its beautiful. When you really love a song, its easier to remember what page its on. On the very few occasions when I have participated in gospel singing, I have encouraged my fellow singers to sing it. For me, "How Great Thou Art" is the perfect hymn, the perfect song. It sings the praises of the wondrous glory of the creator of the universe, what Einstein called "the infinitely superior spirit", as manifested and revealed in the wonders of nature itself. Most other gospel songs I can do without. Some, I despise. Some nearly make me sick. For example, I have no desire for my sins to be washed away in the shed blood of Christ, nor of anyone else. For that mater, I do not care to rejoice at even the thought of someone, anyone, especially a superior person, far superior to myself, someone of sublime character and surpassing wisdom, being tortured to death to absolve me of my guile and responsibility for my sins. Even if I were enough of a coward to want and to allow a better person than I to suffer and pay for my sins, I hope I would not be of such low moral character to brazenly rejoice and express my unhesitating approval of it i song. The very idea of elevating an instrument of torture and death to the status of sacred religious symbol I fine utterly appalling. The image of a person being tortured to death on a wooden cross i find equally appalling, and I reserve special disdain and horror for a portrayal of a human face depicted in agony as blood drips from a crown of thorns. Must one reduce one's self to a murderous, bloody savage to admire and give thanks to nature's creator and for the gift of life? I prefer not to be a vampire, drawing sustenance from somebody else's blood.Anyone who lives i a country in which there is, as the author of the American constitution James Madison said, an "impenetrable wall" separating the government and all religion,  in which government neither officially supports nor prohibits any religion's practice, and in which no religion is allowed to interfere with, insinuate itself into, nor influence government, is fortunate.  We rer required to approve of or accept other people's religious beliefs, but we are required to tolerate them, adn to refrain from doing them harm, or harm to those who practice religions other than our own. I have always tended to dislike people who express dislike or disapproval of my religiosity, or who encourage me to change my religious beliefs. I most assuredly do not respect the religious beliefs of many who try to influence or change mine, but I respect their right to practice their own religion, and I am respectful enough to never try to change anyone's beliefs to suit me. , no matter how bloody, bizarre, barbaric, or primitive they may seem to me.The best feature of the supremely beautiful hymn "How Great Thou Art"  is perhaps that it can be sung alone, far from any blood thirsty worshipers of instruments of torture and death.

Fact Checking the Fourth

 IN LATE JUNE, 1776, John Adams predicted that the first day of July would become forever enshrined in the new independent nation as a cherished holiday. He wasn't far off. More than half the colonists, perfectly content to be British subjects under British rule, were not in favor of declaring independence from the crown and forcing a military confrontation with the most powerful military in the world. Between 1776 and 1780, at least one hundred thousand Americans, "loyalists", got aboard ships and left the country, to live in places like England, Canada, and the Caribbean, preferring safety to revolution. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson all became revolutionaries only after extreme soul searching, all three being very patriotic British subjects. Washington and Franklin were especially loyal to the crown until well after 1770; Jefferson was a loyalist in 1773, but became a revolutionary in 1774, for precise reasons no historian has ever been able to identify. Although Washington never displayed particular talent as a filed tactician, he was an inspiring leader, and Franklin's diplomatic charm lured the french into assisting the revolution, the French were already disposed to make trouble for their traditional English enemies. Without French assistance the revolution would have been doomed; before 1780 ninety percent of arms and ammunition used by the Americans came from France. Jefferson, an introvert, stubbornly resisted writing the declaration of independence, believing that he was too young, that he lacked social status, and that others could do a better job. hew was coerced into doing it by peer pressure. Adams and Franklin did the coercing; Adams pointing out that the young Jefferson was ten times smarter than himself, and ten times more popular. Franklin merely loomed over the young Jefferson with his six foot four inch two hundred and eighty pound bulk. Dreamy Tom also feared being the object of British retaliation. In fact, at one point a contingent of British soldiers came to Monticello looking for him; he had fled into the nearby woods. When the war was miraculously won with the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, the new nation faced nearly impossible problems of how to govern such a huge land mass, and how to pay for it. They got advice on federalism from the Iroquois nation, which governed itself over a huge area of territory, effectively.

Doing Your Duty By Vaccinating

 THE MORE PEOPLE who refuse to get the easily obtainable Covid 19 vaccine, the more the virus spreads, and the greater the chance that mutations will emerge as the virus replicates, and the greater the possibility of a mutation of Covid 19 spreading far and wide which is extremely contagious, deadly, and impervious to all currently available vaccines, putting not only the  un-vaccinated in even greater, but end danger, but  endangering the already vaccinated as well. People who refuse to take the now readily available vaccine are a danger to themselves, their community, the country, and indeed the human race. The abstruse but inventive phrase "vaccination traitor" has become apt. Even the most superficial demographic analysis reveals that vaccination rates are lowest in "red" states, and highest in "blue" states. It is America's conservative community which, generally, declines to get vaccinated,  unsurprising, since it is the conservative community which denies the truths of basic science,  preferring to substitute its own, false version of reality, simply to satisfy perceived. political and emotional needs. Often these needs are predicated on religious fanaticism. Generally, the people who support and love Donald Trump, who still believe that his election defeat was fraudulent, who insist that the insurrection of January sixth was a good idea and necessary, that climate change is a liberal  hoax, are the people who refuse to get vaccinated. Many of them claim that the vaccines are poison, despite the fact that hundreds of millions of people have been vaccinated, with no ill effect. There are some who claim that Covid 19 vaccinations are complete with computer chips, a means for the government to spy on them. then too, there is the vaccines cause autism crowd, a false notion which has been thoroughly discredited, but not to the satisfaction of those who deny scientific truth generally. Vaccination denial is as harmful as climate change denial, and it tends to manifest among the same people; the conservative religious community, among the people who support Donald Trump, even after his false claim that he actually won the 2020 election conspicuously has no merit, no basis in fact or reality. When one indulges in one fantasy, it becomes far easier to indulge in many more. As H.L. Mencken said: the fools would be humorous were thy not in such deadly earnest. Neither prisons nor mental health facilities are over crowded in America, but perhaps they merely house the wrong people.

Stressing Out

THOUSANDS OF AMERICAN MILITARY personnel have been killed in combat since nine one one, mostly of course in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the Taliban, emulating the North Vietnamese, have simply been awaiting the inevitable American withdrawal to retake what they consider to be their country. Four times the number of combat deaths have been self inflicted violence, suicides. Th epidemic of suicide among service personnel and veterans has been ongoing for decades, in fact since the nation's inception, unspoken, shameful, hidden. Like General Sherman said: "war is hell", even when its over. At least one million American soldiers have died in combat in American history more than that have died by suicide, victims of accumulated anxiety from exposure to never ending nightmares. The term "PT which continuously ravage the American west create the same problem; heroes torn apart emotionally by unendurable conditions. The resulting high rate of self destruction , the last resort of people subjected to endless misery, creates depression, an endless black hole for a future, and.....death. Folks brainwashed into  an impossible to maintain strength by a hyper masculine culture of self denial, a tough guy culture of make believe imperviousness, produce the depression, the silence, the withdrawal, the unwillingness and incapability to seek urgently necessary pyschiatric assistance...eventually... inevitably break, alone. I spent three weeks ten years ago digging through the rubble of the remains of a mid sized city destroyed by a super, killer tornado, yet another gift of human made climate change. A hundred thousand of us volunteered to endure the nightmare. One day I became dehydrated and depressed, and lost; with no street signs and nothing but unrelenting ruins all around me, I had no idea where I was, in the ninety five degree heat and humidity. My cell phone rang, in my pocket, with an inane, lilting tune.  It was the principal of the high school where I was teaching, asking me about my "vacation", which I had abandoned, unbeknownst to him. "How in the hell am I doing?! I'm standing in the middle of a pile of rubble, lost, hungry, thirsty, alone, lost, and I can't see another person , anywhere! How in the hell do you think I'm doing?!".......I'll check back with you later, he said. have a nice day. Later, back home, I began to notice that I was behaving strangely, hiding under my bed at the approach of a cumulus cloud, my short term memory gone, wandering around the grocery store for an hour without putting anything in my shopping cart, then getting home and discovering that I had shop lifted, a can of tuna in my pocket. I knew I needed help. The psychiatrist gave me extensive testing. Then he told me that, no, contrary to my suspicions,  I am not bipolar but the bad news was that I had the worst case of "PTSD" of anyone he had ever treated who did not serve in Afghanistan. My two choices were extensive psycho therapy, or, as he put it, to "man up". It was much less expensive to man up.

Sci Fi, Morphing

ONCE UP A TIME there was a literary genre called "science fiction". the best science fiction, written by very talented writers, ranks among the great literature of the world. Clarke Asimov, Silverberg, Heinlein, among many others, contributed much to culture. The same is true of more contemporary authors. Common science fiction motifs included: space travel, exploration of nature, including the oceans, alien planets and life, and technology, among many others, science based. Then too there was another genre called "fantasy", which dealt with motifs such as demons and dragons, witchcraft, sorcery, magic and so forth. Like science fiction writers, fantasy writers contributed many excellent works of fiction. These two genres tended to attract different, separate types of readers. Then, gradually, something changed. the two genres gradually merged into one, and a new category emerged: "fantasy and science fiction". Writers began combining scientific motifs with those of fantasy. Demons and dragons got mixed up with time travelers. Whereas most sci fi writers had usually stuck with topics which were at least possible within the known laws of nature, with what could conceivably exist, perhaps in the future such as interstellar space and time travel, they abandoned scientific possibility for the altogether impossible, or implausible, if you will, such as magic and sorcery. Instead of going to the trouble of building a starship to travel the galaxy, why not merely cast a magic spell? Its much easier that way. It is almost as if American culture had forgotten the difference between science and pure imagination, almost as if it still hasn't regained its memory. This literary phenomenon has been relegated to exclusivity, a mysterious realm penetrated by only an elite class of nerdy intellectuals, beyond the scope or interest of intellectual laity. Science education among America's masses has decline so precipitously that a high percentage of Americans can no longer even distinguish between science and fantasy, nor seem to care. This we have a sizeable segment of society which denies climate change, obvious though it is, refuses to understand that vaccines actually work, and is perfectly convinced that advanced creatures from far away star systems or "other dimensions" interact with or even control human affairs, despite the complete lack of even a shred of actual evidence to support such fantasy. When science education declines, do do critical thinking and intellectual credulity. When a huge percentage of the general population can no longer distinguish between reality and fantasy, between fact an fiction, we all retreat into our own private universes, universes of our own invention, which no one else can ever hope to share or understand.

Experiencing the Joy of Reality

 WE KNOW, that there are at least four thousand planets orbiting stars other than the sun. The first such was discovered in 1995. We can safely extrapolate that there are trillions yet to be discovered. When one examines a bath tub filled with sea water taken randomly from the ocean,  whatever is in the sample can be presumed to exist throughout the entire ocean. Whenever some distant star slightly dims and brightens with precision, an orbiting planet is passing in front of it. The ultimate question is: how many stars are there close enough to the sun with a good enough view of the sun for intelligent life to similarly detect the presence of Earth? The answer, it turns out, is about seventeen hundred and fifteen. This is solid science at its exciting, empirical best. Scientifically, intellectually, the future of humanity beckons like a beautiful panoramic mystery unfolding, revealing the true nature of nature to those seeking access to reality. Sadly, sciences' noble, eternal quest for the truth seems to be insufficient mental stimulation for many people, people w ho choose to reject science in favor of their own, fabricated false realities. American culture, which has always been an incubator of false, fraudulent beliefs, is currently experiencing an epidemic of misinformation, intellectual nonsense. The internet, talk radio, and bookstores are full to overflowing of this vacuous, but profitable idiocy. Terms like "paranormal research" and "alternative cosmic paradigms" thinly conceal the senselessness with an intellectual sounding veneer which means nothing. Is it necessary to mention, for instance, that anybody who claims to not only know definitely of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent beings, but also wo know precisely where they come from and what activities they are engaged in, on Earth end elsewhere, is a charlatan? It shouldn't b necessary. To elucidate the deluded; the United States Federal Reserve bank is not operated advanced creatures from the Andromeda galaxy, the Democratic party does not operate a thriving pedophile business, and the interior of the planet earth is neither hollow, nor inhabited.