Evaluating Taylor Swift's Cat

TAYLOR SWIFT'S CAT has a value of one hundred million dollars, accoding to the report, some report. I heard about it on my favorite morning sports talk radio show, where they were laughing at the fact that, evidently, at least according to some economic measurements, the feline has far greater value than, say, Travis Kelce. One of the radio hosts asked precisely what that means, that the cat is worth one hundred million dollars? Does it mean that somebody would pay that much to buy it, or is that the animal's bank account? Does Taylor, notoriously generous, pay her tabby handsomely? Good qustion, I thought. Just off the top of my head, my best guesss is that, in conjunction with mommy, the cat - I don't know whether it is male or female, or what it looks like - has appeared in some sort of comercial enterprises -Taylor obviously likes doing television commercials too - said feline has been in front of the camera to the tune of one hundred million, money which presumably actually went to Taylor, and then, knowing her, to charity. But that's just a guess. As we say, who knows? If I ever happen to bump into an economist, and it crosses my mind, I'll ask. If I had a cat worth that much, I'd be temptd to try to get kittens from it. Then too, of course, all cats, being sentient beings of God's creation, are, in terms of human money, invaluable, priceless. I took biology in tenth grade, in which we dissected frogs, but not advanced biology in eleventh grade, because in advanced bio I happened to know that they dissected cats, and I wanted no part of it. Perhaps cats which are dissected lived long lives of love, at the end of which their grieving caregivers magnanimously, to honor their dearly departed, donated the remains to science. But somehow, I doub it. I honestly think tha if some lunatice knocked on m door and offered me, say, a million dollars for each of the stray cats for whicn I care, (I'm not sure I like the term "rescue") I would turn it down. I definitely would, if my stray cats were being bought for dissection. If they were being bought by Taylro Swift, say, to add to her collection of cats, however large or small it may be, that's another matter. I am confident in Ms. Swift's ability to give a cat, any cat, a far better life than I ever could, although it might be hard for her to match the amount of time and personal attention I provide mine. Although our modern American cutlure has tried harder than any civilization in recorded history to monetize, to assign monetary value to everything, some things are still beyond monetization, if only barely. Taylor Swift has doubtless long since discovered that the difference between one hundred and two hundred million dollars is insignificant in ot only the grand scheme of things but also in her personal life. The best and easiest thing for her to do is not not worry about it,hire good people to halp share the wealth with others, and to focus on doing what she loves doing best, which is evidently writing and performing music, going to football games, and making cats extremely valuable. Good for her. We need to value cats more in America, and dogs, and ourselves, and damned near everything else that really counts.

Facebooking Facts

ON FACEBOOK somebody posted, in big, bright letters, something to the effect that he looks forward to the day when the cross and the swaztika are cast into the dustbin of history, as harmful and undesirable. And, as I often do with anti-Christian messages, I agree. I hit the "like" button. I have long had troulbe with the cross as a sacred religious symbol. In early childhood I tended to submerge any negative feelings about it, preferring to go along to get along. That strategy, I have found, has its limits. When I was about twenty or twenty one I was hanging with a group of smart people, having an intelligent conversation. A deeply religious lady there said that she is physically, psychologically, emotionally unable to wear a cross on her person, around her neck, on her lapel, wherever, anywhere. The mere sight of the cross evoked such vicarious pain within her, she said, the mere thought of the crucifixion of Christ was so traumatic for her, that she never donned a cross, fervant Christian though she was. I could easily understand her point. Over the years, my aversion to the cross has grown, and is now stronger than it has ever been. The chief issue for me is the idea of using an insturment of torture and death as your most cherished religious symbol, rather than rejecting it as an instrument of torture and death, of the beloved savior. Obviously the veneration of the cross was an act of sheer defiance, a statement of refusal to be defeated. The cross symbolizes Christ's great sacrifice and his resurrection and victory over evil and death. I get that part. Hell, I was raised surrounded by it. However, that attitude assumes gratitude for Christ's sacrifice, glorification of it, and the cross become a sacred object to which people are supposed to cling, as their sins are washed away in the blood of Christ. I've known all this since childhood, and have always been somewhat amazed and confused by it. Hell, I sing about it every Monday in the gospel group at the senior center. For one thing, I don't know about you, but I simply don't like the idea of a far better man than I dying for my sins. Cowardly though I can be, whatever my consequences for accountability, let me experience them. Not an innocent man; me. I'll take my own rap. Crucifixion theology reminds me much too much of all the other sacrificial rituals practiced by all the other ancient and primitive religions with which history is littered. Tying the virgin down on the sacrificial alter at the top of the sacred pyramid, and hack to to bits with a sword to honor god, or gods, all of whom are evdentlly, like humans, meat eaters. Too muhh blood for me. Hell, I'm still pissed at the Old Testament God for mentally torturing poor old Abraham by ordering him to murder his own son, Isaac. I mean, what an asshole. What a scam. Jehovah, Yawyeh, Elohim, whomever, was willing to settle for a sheep, thank God, choosing veal parmesan over cannibalism. A very good songwriter has a lyric "Just Give Us Jesus, You can keep the cross"...and how....future religions will be different from our traditional ones, if religions continue to exist in the future. They will be less bloody, less violent, less demonstrably false, more enlightened, aware of the universe, and, presumably, much more compassionate, If they aren't, may the devil take them.

Facing Facts

MY INTELLECTUAL FRIENDS deride my participation on Facebook. It is beneath them, it should be beneath me. Well, as we say, whatever. May my intellectual friends soar to the great moral and intellectual heights to which they evidently aspire, and may they enjoy looking down on Facebook, social media, American culture, me, whatever. One cannot go wrong deriding social media and American cutlure. But I look at it a bit differently. I see value in Facebook, although perhaps not the exact same sort of value envisioned by its billionaire instigators. Facebook, like American culture and society, perhaps simply because it is a reflection thereof, can yield, for example, interesting ideas for essay writers. Since members have the opportunitiy to essentially taylor their facebook experience to their individual proclivities, any negatve experience on the platform can, arguablly, be blamed entirely on the user. Consider the following post, which scrolled down my computer screen in big bright, bold letters: "Christianity is not only false, it is harmful". Anti-religious and anti conservative, anti Trump posts come along often on my Facebook "news feed", interspersed with pictures of cute kittens, big cats, lovely scenery, sports news, and ads for environmental protection organizations. Actually, I like what Facebook spoon feeds me. My personal proclivities prevail. Long live algorythms. I agree with the anti-Christian post, despite the fact that I am a star singer in the gospel singing group at my local senior center. Non religious, but open minded, that's me. I realize that religion exists in human culture for a reason, and I think I understand the reason. Religion is a means of providing people comfort and inspiration, a means of organizing, supporting, sustaining society and civilization, and an attempt by primitive humankind to comprehend and approach nature's creator,to understand the universe. A sort of proto pre science. Science now fills the purpose formally filled by religion. Religion, all religion, is false in the sense that its explanations for existence are long aoutdated, replaced by superior knowledge and superior understanding, provided by science. To the post itself I responded, dealing only with the harmful aspect, as follows: "To whatever extent religion teaches that God speaks to us in books, and that people suffer eternal torment after death, religion is harmful". The notion that God spea to us in books and stories, is patently idiotic, since not only has there never existed a single shred of evidence that God does this, but it is obvious that God speaks to us in much better ways, through nature itself. Goethe said it best: "It is beyond me how anyone can believe that God speaks to us in books, and stories. If the world does not directly reveal itself to us, and if our hearts do not tell us what we owe ourselves and others, then we will surely not learn these things from books, which at best are designed only to give names to our mistakes." Enough said. Books are good tools, but limited, and to elevate any book to the status of sacred is abuse of book. For every book ever written, there is an all too human writer, or writers. Perhaps the most, harmful evil aspect of any religion is that God is a wrathful, vengeful entity who assigns people to eternal damnation and torment in hell. Not even a shred of evidence exists to support this malign, evil, harmful notion. It is entirely the invention of the human mind, of the sometimes misguided human mind. With all the pain and suffering in this world, who in his or her right mind would ven boher to invent or embrace such a horrible, monstrous thought? invent such a monstrous thought?

Devising Trump's Legal Strategy

WHEN ONE IS INVOLVED in as many lawsuits as Donald Trump is and always has been, you need at leaat one good lawyer, and more likely, several dozen or hundred. Trmp is paying millions of dollars in legal fees, probably using money sent to him for his righteous defense by his god fearing, Trump loving, pentecostal evangelical Christian MAGA cult members. He seems to be getting every penny's worth. His legal team has announced its "strategy" for defending Trump in his forthcoming trial for stealing and hiding classified documents. It has a familiar ring to it, for those with strong enough stomachs to follow Trmp and to pay atention to what he says, utters, and spews. He will play the victim! His lawyers will argue that this whole unseemly business about classified doceuments is nothing but a horrible conspiracy between President Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and special prosecutor Jack Smith, a conspiracy to "get Trump" by people who hate Trump. Amazing. Trump is paying these clowns millions of dollars, and that, it seems, is the best they can do. Play the victim card, with an outlandish conspiracy theory, of the type which only extreme rigt wing Trump supprters can. You'd think, with all that legal talent, they'd be able to concoct someething at least reasonably plausable...The same stratigy is being employed in one of the other numerous trials in which Trump is the defandant; the defamation lawsuit by the lady, or rather one of he many ladies, who claims Trump raped her.This is Doanld's second go around in this case; he was already found guilty of defamation once, and now, apparently will be a second time, since he brilliantly went right back to defaming her immediately after his first conviction. Go figure. (Trump describes himself as a "stable genius", remember?). His claim is that he never defamed anyone, and that the lady's entire story about first being raped by Trump and then defamed by him is bogus, a hoax, a lie. Trump will be tried for ninety one separate felonies while running for president, and the Americna people, may, just may, if a perfect storm of insanity ensues, elect him president in November. God, what a thought. Trump's defense, in all of these crimes with which he is justifiably accused, is that a vast left wing conspiracy, headed by Joe Biden and including the FBI, the diplomatic community, the deep state, and the Internal Revene Service is trying to bring him down simply because he is running for president. Good luck with that! The truth, obviously, is the opposite; Trump is running for president hoping desperately that he will win, and thereby be able to avoid further prosecution by some presumed, magical, "executive immunity". If he wins, Trump will pardon himself, issue an executive order declaring the president above the law, declare himself president for life, sign an executive order banning abortion, making Christianity mandatory, banning race studies, and prohibiting use of the term "socialism" in public. It will be that bad, if not worse. Fortunately, such a scenario remains highly unlikely. More likely is that Trump will do time, unless some idiot right wing president pardons him.

Seeing A Cult, Knowing A Cult

THE IDEA that the political supporters of Donald Trump, who number in the tens of millions, comprise a "cult", never occured to me until relatively recently. Certainly not during his presidency. During his presidency, what fascinated me primarily was the frequency, outlandish transparency, and sheer numbers of his lies told from the White House, on a daily basis. The number turns out to have been between twenty and twenty five outright lies, per day, per president. They were widely reported nd documnted in the media, and I continued to be surprised at the apparent lack of concern on the part of his supporters. Did they believe his lies, or merely overlok them? Were his policies so desirable from their point of view that they were willing to accept Trump's constant lying and vicious slandering of his opponents, without so much as a moral qualm? So it seemed, and still seems. It may be that the idea of a Trump cult began to take shape in my brain when Trump's behavior caused incident after incident which caused me to declare his political career dead, instead increase the ensthusiaism with which Trump's supporters embraced him as their leader. First came the Access Hollywood recording a month before his election in 2016. I thought his candidacy was over. So did the Republican National Committee. However, not so. Then came one revelation after another, all damagaing to Trump. He knowingly, willingly welcomed and received assistance from Russian activists during the 2016 campaign, as later confirmed by the Russians themselves. Trump went merrily on, his supporters scoffed at the confirmed report. Then came his famous telephone conversation with the president of Ukraine, in whih president Trump tried to blackmail Zelensky for damaging information on Joe Biden. He was impeached for that, but again, his popularity with his support base only increased. The second impeachment, one week before leaving office, centered around Trump's failed attempt to steal the presidency from Bidn and to retain it by first lying about the election results,and then by organizing a violent mob to overthrow Biden's government, had, amazingly, much the same effect. By the time Trump finally left office ammid the carnage he left, if memory serves,I was entirely amenable to describing the Trump phenomenon as a "cult". My belief in this regard has, over the last few years, only intensified. I now firmly, unreservedly conisder Donald Trump a cult leader, and his remaining millions of sycophants his cult. His recent MAGA rallies provide perhaps the clearest evidence yet of this. In the video presentations which often preceed his speeches, Trump's ideas and leadership, indeed his every word, are presented with an apostolic fervor, almost in a religious sense. Trump the savior of America. He made America great again merely by being elected, America lost its greatness the very mmoment he,kicking and screaing, left office,and America will only, can only, become great yet again if the great man is returned to power. More than ever,a messianic attitude about Trump again becoming president consumes his following. When he speaks, his mainly evangelical Chritian audience raises both their hands above their heads, as if receiving the words of a divine being, sent by God. They calim to worship God and love Jesus. In reality, they both love and worship Donald J.Trump, as false a prophet as ever walked the planet.

Reviving Hope

ALL IS NOT LOST. Its not all doom and gloom. In fact, there are reslistic reasons to be hopeful, hopeful that we the human species can surive our own stupidity, can change course, better our behavior, effectively fight and ultimately prevail against our own global warming caused climate change. Climate change fanatics, by which it meant people who seriously believe in climate change, are extremely worried about it, have begun to push the panic button, and are predicting nothing but gloon and doom- may just be wrong. This does not in any way alter the demonstrable fact that the people who are panicing about climate change most passionatley and oudly are the onew who are correct, the ones tellinig th eturh, and the ones dismissing it as a liberal hoax, nothing to worry about, are wrong, dead wrong. A stunning, amazing new book, "Not the End of the World; How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet", should be read by everyone, fanatics and deniers alike, and should be comforted and inspired by it. The author, Hannah Ritchie, has all the correct qualifications. She is young, thirty, teaches and researches at Oxford, is a polymath with special expertise in statistical data interpretation, and identifies her calling in life as a quest for understanding and addressing the most pressing problems confronting humanity, including and especially climate change. Ritchie makes several crucial points which are often lost in the shuffle amid all the bad news, veriviably accurate but bad news regarding the Earth's curent trajectory, environmentally. Ritchie dos not ceny the reality of the negativity; currently the planet is on a course to greatly exceed the warming limitations goals set forth by humanity, and cliamte change is, quite obviously, upon us now and getting worse fast. However, the trajectory is changing, has already changed. The curve is flattening out. Globally, per capita carbon emissions have been reduced, a trend whichs seems to be sticking. The rate at which we are spewing carbon into the atmonsphere is slowing down, as sustainable sources of energy rapidly come online and fossil fuels are bieng phased out. Coal is nearly priced out of existence, even now. The atmosphere, globally, and particularly in places like Los Angeles and European cities, is much cleaner than fifty years ago, and European cities are much cleaner than two hundred years ago. The hole in the ozone layer and acid rain, both of which were causes of great alarm in the nineteen eighties, have both been eliminated by enforced legislation. Even deforestation has been reversed. It peaked in the eighties, and is now on the decline, is being reversed with reforestation projects well underway in many countries. Global poverty and hunger, both still seriously problematic, have both been greatly reduced in recent decades by the agricultural revolution, in which crop yields per acre have been increased by orders of magnitude. The essential message of this brilliant, informed young lady is simple: we are in trouble, but not doomed. There is much that we can do, and we are already doing it. But to ensure success, we must continue to do the right things with ever greater speed and intensity, and, if the force is with us, we will create, for the first time in human history, a truly sustainable civilization.

Making Sense

WHETHER 'TIS STUPIDER to refuse to believe in climate change or evolution is a matter opinion. Arguably, refusing to believe in climate change is far more harmful to the United States and to the world,than simply refusing to accept reality in preference for a primitive, false, but deeply held religious belief. Climate change denial is purely political in nature. The reality of climate change means that in order to sustain human civiliaztion, enormous, fundamental changes in the economic, political, and social structure of society must be undertaken. Change is the trait of liberalism, reistance to change that of conservatism. All climate change denial is among conservatives, for a reason, if not a good one. Refusal to embrace necessary change, refusal to understand the desirability of change is a deadly attitude, an attitude which results in death. Because religion is among the most sacred traditions in human culture, a fundamental pillar of civilization, it seems natural that religious devotion, to whatever religion,is compatible with social, political,and economic conservatism. The pragmatic effects of denyng human evolution by natural selction are far less dramatic; the world doesn't depend for its very survival on acceptance of Darwin, as it does indeed depend directly on acknowledging, addressing, and acting effectively to reverse climate change. On a strictly intellecual basis, however, creationism as a fundamental religious tenet, the Biblical account, for example, is no more intelligent in the twenty first century than climate change denial. It is amazing, that in these United States, with our huge, excellent public school system and extensive system of higher edcuation, with thousands of excellent colleges and universities educating millions of perfectly intelligent people each year - that there remains a significant sector of the population which denies the reality of human evolution. Denial, of course, for purely religious reasons. How many junior high school, high school, college, and university biology, chemistry, and physics teachers are there in America? Tens of thousands, at least? How many of them refuse to accept or teach evolution? Are there any evolution deniers among people trained in science? If there are, you can probably assume that they are teaching at religious institutions, and are echoing the official viewpoint, whether they personally know better. Eventually, nobody will deny climate change, just as, essentially, nobody who is sane seriously denies any longer that th Earth is round. And, there will also come a time when nobody refuses to accept the fact of evolution. One factor in favor of evolution, in terms of tangible proof, is that evidence and proof of it is all around us, in dinosaur fosssils. hybrid corn and other crops, dog breeding, cattle breeding, agricultural techniques in general. Any sensible perosn can take a look at a monkey or chimp in a zoo and immediately discern that we humans are indeed primates, and that our remote ancestors evolved into us. We can look forward to a time when creationism is no more accepted among intelligent people than the ancient Greek and Roman gods themselves It just may take a while.

Setting Limits, Part II

BEING UPSET WITH, or even disliking people who deny the reality of hauman made climate change is not only not unreasonable, it is appropriate. So is suggesting that such people, whether they know it or not, are borderline traitors, if not completely. This is because of the simple fact that for more than twenty years, the United States Department of Defense has identified human-made climate change as the single greatest threat to American national security. And they aren't making this up. There is a reason why this is so. Now, think about it. What do you call a person who refuses to acknowledge even the existence of the greatest threat to his or her country? A coward? Or, a shirker of one's patriotic duty, if nothing else, correct? Reversing climate change is a desperate necessity for the future survival of life on Earth, and to accomplish it is going to require maximum effort of as many people as possible. Climate change denial is the way conservatives justify their conservatism. Perpetuating corporate capitalism and the fossil fuel industry capitalist system makes perfect sense, if it does no damage to the planet. But not only does it damage the planet, it is going to destroy the planeet, if we don't do something, starting now. Conservative politicians think they are being quite clever by advocating an all in on all energy source strategy, because by so doing they are tolerating development of wind energy and solar enerty, which they think makes them environmentally aware and enlightened. But the opposite is true. Anyone who advocates the continued use and all out exploitation of fosssil fuels, including oil, coal, and natural gas, is effectively advocating the suicide of the human species. Until we can figure out to remove carbon from the atmosphere in meamingful amounts, we must cease and desist all fossil fuel consumption, immediately if not sooner. Conservatism by its nature resists change, and resistance to change is death to humanity, and to all life on Earth. The changes we must make are drastic, fundamental. There simply is no logner even the shadow of a doubt that climate change is real, and is caused by human beings. Stange as that may seem or sound, its reality. The notion that humanity is far too weak and puny to have any meaningful impact on nature is simply dead wrong, absurd. Consider what would happen to the planetary eco system if every nuclear bomb in the world were exploded at once. We, and all other life on Earth, would soon become extinct. We have the power to do that, and to do much else, like significantly alter the weather, the climate, the flow of rivers, and the creation of huge new, man made lakes. Humankind has already had a huge, comprehensive impact on this planet's ecosystem, demonstrably. Merely because over the past several decades many different people have expressed many different opinions about climate change does not mean that all views expressed are of equal value, truth, or accuracy. For decades the people who have warned us about global warming have been correct, with facts to prove their warning. And, over the same period of time, decades, the people who have argued that cliamte change ia a hoax, or isn't caused by humans are uneducated in science, and their reasoning is based on false assumptions and false facts, with twisted, incorrect reasoning. Every time. If only we had all listened to the scientists from the beginning. We must listen to them now, if it isn't already too late.

Setting Limits

YOU HAVE TO DRAW LINES, set limits, establish boudnaries, set standards. Everyone agrees on this. You can only take so much. Patience and tolerance are wonderful vittues, to a point. At some point, you run out of both, become exhausted. I have reached the end of my rope with several categories of people, people who, upon closer scrutiny, actually belong to the same general category - the category of people who choose to deny realtty for the sake of ideological expediency, cognitive and emotional harmony and comfort. Those categores are: people who embrace Trump's big election lie, and who refuse to unconditionally condemn Trump's violent insurrection which resulted. I cannot respect such people. They should know better. They should be ashamed of themselves. Likewise, people who refuse to accept the reality of human made climate change, and who insist that either it is a hoax, or that humans have nothing to do with it. Climate deniers I have run out of patience with. They are, in effect, traitors to America, to humanty, to nature, indeed, to God. But that's not all. There's more. People who insist that Darwinian human evolution by natural selection is false, and who embrace biblical creationism as the only absolute truth, I condemn, without reservation, as willful blindness and ignorance. Surely the purpose of religion is not to encourage people to believe in nonsense. If it is, to whatever extent it is, religion is harmful, and should be abolished. And we must not exclude from our list of unacceptable people those who so fervantly embrace their own religious beliefs that they insist that anyone who does not share them is condemned to eternal damnation and torment in the afterlife. In other words, if you believe in hell, and you believe that anyone who does not accept Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior is doomed to spend an eternity in it, I comdemn you, unconditionally. Furthermore, I insist that if anyone actually spends an eternity in hell, which I doubt, then it will be you, the religious fascist. Hell, if you even believe in hell at all, I'm done with you; you're mentally ill, sadistic. Often, it is observable that the same people who believe in any one of these idiotic beliefs believes in them all. Often,,they're conservative Christians, often Trump supporters. A venn diagram representing all of the above false beliefs would intersect them all in the middle, and would encompass a fair percentage of the community of false believers. If you deny evolution and climate change, chances are you deny Trump's loss to Biden too. Whoever embraces one idiotic false belief tends to embrace many. Another pattern is more pervasive still; the commmunity of believers in these falsehoods tends to have another striking common characteristic; a lack of education. A lack of formal schooling, lack of history, biology, and chemistry classes in the old academic record. A lack fo college and even high school degrees. They may have a skill or skills. They may be first class plumbers, farmers, machanics, or whatever, smart, knowledgable, successful people, but nonotheless they are people without good training in the sciences and social sciences, including history, economics, and literature. tThe more educated people become in general science and history, the more likely they are to accept the reality of climate change, evolution, and Biden's election, and the less likely to believe in imaginary places like hell and in false beliefs, like eternal damnation for non believers. And, last but not least, the more formally educated people are, the more likely, much more likely, they are to be liberal, what we now call "progressive". Conservatism can be seen as a function of ignorance.

Comparing, Contrasting

LET'S ENGAGE un a little comparing and contrasting. Let's compare and contrast the situations of two prominent figures in the news, President Biden's son Hunter, and Jim Jordan, Republican congressperson from Ohio, high ranking official within the House of Representatives. The Republicans are considering holding the former, Hunter Biden, in contempt of Congress, while the Democrats are thinking about holding Jim Jordan in contempt of Congress for his refusal to testify when the Democrats controlled the House, up until just recently. Their subcommittte investigating the insurrection of January 2021 instructed Rep. Jordan to testify, which he refused to do. Currently, House Republcians ordered Huner Biden to testify about his personal matters, insisting that he do so, privately, behind closed doors. He agreed, but insisted that he testify in public, and he even showed up in person, ready to testify, but, since the proceeding was in public, the Republican committee refused to allow him to do so. Incredibly, the Republican controlled House will likely indeed hold Biden in contempt of Congress, not because of any refusal on his part to testify, but because of his insistence that he do so in public, in front of god and country. Incredible. The Democrats thought it might be a good time to similarly hold Congressperson Jordan in contempt of Congress, and have put forth a bill to that effect. Five'll get you ten that the Republican conrolled House of Reps will vote, by a narrow margin, to not so do. Jordan refused to testify about an event of crucial, vital importance ot the entire country, vital to the national security of America. Jordan refused, because the investigation into Trump's insurrection makes not only Trump look bad, it reveals many Republcians to have been guilty of being accomplices in the crime. The Republcan purusit of Hunter Biden is purely vindictive, retaliatory, an attempt to punish President Biden for defeating Donald Trump in the election and becoming president. Hinter Biden is being dealt with appropriately through the criminal justice system, as is Donald Trump. There is absolutely no need for Congress to investigate or to continue ot harass Hunter Biden, other than out of pure hatred and revenge. Not only should Republican members of Congress be indicted and tried and probably convicted for aiding and abetting Trump's insurrrection, but also for obstructing the investigation of it in Congress iteslf. Hunter Biden, who paid back his back taxes and is a recovering drug addict, should continue his rehab process, as he seeks to lead a better life. Jim Jordan, and nearly all Republicans in Congress, both houses, should, arguably, be indicted, tried, convicted, and incarcerated, for supporting Trump's election lie, and his consequent attempt to overthrow the American government violently. The hypocritical traitorous behavior of the Republicans in simultaneously trying to sweep the insurrection under the rug and forget about it, while persecuting an innocent and irrelevant person merely for the sake of revenge, is astonishing in its immorality and corruption. Worse yet, blame properly goes not only to Trump or a few Republican politicians and leaders, but rather, to the entire corrupt, immoral, treasonous party, a criminal enterprise and terrorist organization with sufficient guilt to spread to every single member.

The Earth, Heating Up Fast

ITS OFFICIAL. Twenty twenty three (2023) was, by far, the hottest year on record. Where I live, the summer seemed especially hot, so,I am not surprised. Not only was last year the hottest ever, but it beat it next closet competitor, which may have been twenty sixteen, by a good part of a degree, a very wide margin. Climate change, it seems, is accelerating. Accurate, reliable record keeping goes back nearly two hundred years. 2023 may possibly have been the hottest year in the last one hundred thousands years. By this time of year, about fifteen percent of the great Lakes are usually frozen. Right now, the percentage is closer to one percent. All over the world, glaciers and polar icecaps continue to melt, at an accelerating rate. By the end of this century, if we don't act, there will be no free standing ice left on Earth. Right now, where I live, it is, of course, mid-January, the middle of winter, and is suppsoed to be, in general, cold. In the last few days the temperature has reached sixty, then plummeted to below freezing withn hours, while a gale force wind blew non stop for days, and tornado warnings were issued, with violent thunder storms pounding the area. Then, it rained hard, as the temperature dropped precipitously, and ice covered roads were possible, predicted. In short, the weather has been crazy, is becoming crazier, seemingly, every year. I've heard people wish for spring. I comfort them by saying that it'll be here before they know it. I do not share what seems to me their strange desire to hasten the future into the present. As Einstein said: "I never think much about the future. It arrives soon enough". And how! I dread this coming summer, the summer of 2023. How ungodly hot will it get? What I fear is that within about five years or less we are going to start having summers in the American midwest, south, and southwest in which the daytime temperatures exceed one hundred degrees daily, for weeks on end. Every year, it seems we have at least one serious drought, and usually more than one. Drought with no rain for weeks. The local streams and creeks run dry, rivers look shallow, and water levels in local lakes drop to record lows. Trees begin to turn brown in August. My area is tree covered hills and mountains. In most wilderness areas here, the forest floors are filled with dead wood, as if they have not burned in many generations. The next time they burn, which is inevitable, the wildfires will be extremely well fueled, and massive. I know that sooner rather than later those famous western wilffires will spread eastward, and into th lower midwest, and eventually will cover and comsume the whole country. The eastern United States is far more heavily forested than the relatively barrn west; the wildfires of the future east will be enormous. After the fires, will the wooded forests return? Or will my heavily forested biosphere evolve, eutrophy into grasslands, prairie country, with fewer and fewer trees? And after that, what? Desert? We are told that it is not too late to avoid the worst consequences of cliamte change, if we act now, but that a certain amount of climate change is inevitable, is already baked into the environment by the one trillion tons of carvon we put and left in the atmosphere. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the inevitable "baked in" climate change we are experiencing is going to become much, much worse than now, and its bad now.

Trump, Showing Out

AS I PREDICTED HERE, Donald Trump is becoming more entertaining by the day, as his legal battles get into full swing, and the election draws nigh. Actually, he former prevaricator-in-chief is outdoing himself, exceeding my wildest expectations. And just think; its early. And, its only going to get better, as Trump deliberately tries to attract as much attention as possible, especially the attention of his cult members, upon whose potential for organized violence he is seemingly banking. Yesterday,in an interview, probabl on FOX, Trump took credit, all the credit, for the elimination of Roe V. Wade, as if he and he alone was responsible for the fact that abortion is no longer constitutionally legal in these United States. He never mentioned the Supreme Court, for intance. Nor did he mention any of the thousands of extrmet right wing operatives who organized to not only get Trump elected, but also to pack the US. Supreme Court with far right extremist conservative ideologues, like themselves. Donald Trump, the glorious champion of the unborn, of American babies, Christ's representative in the White House. Trump's lies are amazingly transparent, blatant,discernible, and yet, so willing are his millions of ethics-free intellectually twisted followers that no matter what he says, no matter how big his most recent big lie - they believe. Then, evidently determined to outdo himself, Trump shows up in court in New York, where he has already been convicted of financial fraud on a massive scale; and delviers a hateful, psycotic rant, against the prosecutor, the judge...until said judge stopped him, and the great prevaricator stormed out of the room, only to continue his hateful falsehood-infested rant outside, in front of cameras, of course. His same tired whining cry baby routine about being the victim never, amazingly, wears thin among his desciples, who lap it up like a starving cat and anti-freeze. The more Trump does his impersonation of a litle girl in front of whom some boy cut in line, the more his morally bereft disciples seem to love him. And the show only going to get better. Trump is looking at ninety one felony raps in four distinct jurisdictions, four courtrooms, and will, over the next few months, be spending a great amount of time in court, and on national television. Not exactly the situation he prefers for being on television, but, as they say, all publicity is good. The most amazing aspect of all is the overwhelming certainty that Trump is guilty of all ninety one crimes, the sheer obviousness of Trump's massive criminality, juxtaposed with the seemingly sincere fervor and pasion with which he pleads his poor poor pitiful me act, and the equal denial of reality and suspension of belief with which his acolytes receive it all. Best of all, over the next few months, we the sane people of America will have ample, abundant opportunities to witness more, much more this insantiy, in real time, real space, and a totally unreal country and culture.

Abusing, Religiously

THE SEXUAL ABUSE EPIDEMIC and resulting scandal within the Catholic church,centered mainly around members of the clergy, has long since been brought to the attention of the general public. A seminal study of this shockingly common behavior was researched, written, and published by formr federal investigator Leon Podle in 2007, in his ground breaking book "Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse In the Catholic Church",in which he used his comprehensive body of facts and figures to clearly demonstrate that sexual abuse, especially abuse of children, among the clergy, was (is) shockingly common, had manifested for a very long time, and that the initial and primary response of the church hierarchy, all the way up to and including various popes, was to conceal the problem and to keep it concealted by dealing within it entirely from within the church, leaving proprer, appropriate law enforcement agencies and the civic legal system completely out of the picture. Moving priests and bishops from parish to parish, amost as if playing hide and seek to keep their crimes from coming to light, was for decades the most widely employed strategy of the church. Podel has written several revealing monographs about the Catholic church, including a brilliant examination of the "feminization" of the holy mother church. The degree and extenst of clerical sexual abuse of children of both sexes by members of the supposedly celibate clergy are, it sometimes seems, endless. Tens of thousands of children worldwide have, according to well substantitated, corroborated testimony, been victimized by this horrible behavior. People are scarred for life, of course. Hundreds of parish priests engage in this crime for decades, victimizing each new generation of Catholic children, even while being allowed to remain at their pulpits, their suspicious behavior, red flags, and tell tale signs laregly ignored and overlooked not only by local congragents, but by the highest levels of church priestly hierarchy. It is not unreasonable to argue that, considering the enormous extent of the damage done decade after decade, involving so many people as perpetrators and victims both, that the church is corrupt beyond repair, rotten to the core, and that therefore the best and most compassionate course of action is to, as Voltaire famously said in the eigtheenth century: "crush the infamous thing"! A morally bankrupt, ancient old, rotting institution, having done as much good as it can, and more evil than it ever should have, best allowed to simply fade away, and die the same death that ultimately all religions ever conceived by the human mind have done and will do. More importantly and shockingly, the same moral corruption and decay, the same rempant criminal behavior, is epidemic in nearly all major organized branches of the Christian religion; The Baptist church, the Jehovah's witnesses, among many others, and does not exclude fundamentslist, evangelical denominations. Religion was an ancient invention of human culture, intended to fulfill social and emotional needs, to explain human life and the world we live in, to provide comfort, inspiration, and social cohesion. Is the human species ready to move on, to new and improved forms of understanding and admiration? It is easy to argue that indeed it is.

Republicans,Showing Out

THIS IS TOO SWEET. Sweet, because its so revelatory, so indicative, and such a great display of right wing Rebublican Trumper perfidy. Hunter biden, smartly, iw willing to testify, but only with millions of witnesses The MAGA thugs, folks like Margorie Taylor Greene, insist that Hunet testify in secret, or not at all. How can the Republicans site him for "contempt of Congress", when Biden has repeatedly declared his willingness and readiness to testify to answer all relevant questions? There is one and only one reason why the Republicans insist on secret testimony behind closed doors; there can only be one reason; they do not want the American people to witness what happens. This is becuae they will ask only loaded questions, questions designed to entrap Hunter Biden, questions which will result in answers that can be twisted and taken out of contest, made to look suspicious, dishonest, criminal. With witneses, with millions of Americans watching, they have to play it straight,they cannot bully, threaten, mislead or manipulate Mr.Biden in broad daylight, in front of millions of Americans, but only in secret. The Republicans have a great deal to hide, Hunter Biden has nothing to hide. That is obvious, and has been proven. We are witnesing, millions of us, a clear display of Republican criminality, typical MAGA thugish behavior, even as Donald Trump himself looks, speaks and acts more like a mob boss thug every day. From this point forward, Trump's court appearances are going to become more frequent, into the summer, all the way to the election. In the niniety one felony crimes with which he is charged, all of the evidence for all of them came from the testimony of close associates of Trump; good, solid, MAGA Republicans, compelled to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but, under the threat of perjury charges. Ivanka Trump, among many others, spilled the beans, and Don the Con is toast. Ivanka, among many other corroborating witneses, testified that her father conceived, carefully planned, and carried out his attempt to steal the presidency from Joe Biden through lies and violent insurrection - weeks in advance. The sworn testimony already give by close Trump associates, which will be given again in court by the same people, are devastating for Trump. Hunter Biden is a recovering drug addict, who is guilty of income tax evasion, and possesing a firearm illegally. He got rehabbed and cleaned up his drug problem, heroically, and paid badk the money he owed the IRS, admirably, and never involved his father in any business dealings; there isn't the slightest shred of evidence that President Biden benefitted from or participated in his son's various businesses. The fact that the Republicans are the ones conducting a "witch hunt" will soon be clearly proven. The fact that Donald Trump is himself a career criminal, and that the prosecutions against him will inevitably prove that, willl not help the Republicans. It will severely damage or completely destroy their credibility, especially since most Republicans remain staunchly loyal to Trump, and will therefore sink with Trump's inevitably sinking ship.

Trump, Finding An Acorn

ONCE IN A BLUE MOON an old blind squirrel finds an acorn. And, truth be told, if ever a squirrel were blind, it is none other than Donald J. Trump, whose verifiably inane, thought-free remarks could fill decades worth of "quote of the day" tear off calendars. And, his remark just the other day to the effect that in his view the American Civil War could have been avoided through negotiation, though maligned as usual by the usual discerning people, actually, upon closer reflection, aint so stupid after all. Impractical, unrealistic, definitely. Purely speculative fantasy, maybe. But really, not so stupid. Trump, like everybody else, was weighing in on Nikki Haley's now famous attribution of the causes of the Civil War without mentioning the word "slavery". She hemmed and hawed vaguely about how to govern, who rules, whatever, but never got to the point. (Of course, she's from the south). Yes, it was about slavery, as all the Confederate states made plain at the time in their formal secession documents. This notion of "state's rights" and "Lost, noble causes" as causes are pure, confederate-friendly justification, revisionist bullcrap. Trump never said anything about bout slavery either,(maybe he doesn't know about it), but only that the war could have been avoided through negotiated settlement. One obvious fact about the "War Between the States" is that nobodoy had any idea beforehand how horribly bloody and destructive the war would eventually become. Everyoen thought that it would be quick and clean. Both sides were convinced of a quick victory. Ironically, there wa at the time a growing awareness, thorughout the nation, including the slave holding south, that the institution of slavery, eventually, would have to be phased out of existence, simply because it could not be allowed to exist indefinitely into the future. That fact in itself contained the seed sof potential negotiated settlement. The promise of an eventual abolition of slavery, through slow stages, stages which would give slave holders a soft landing without undue economic hardship, as they simultaneously transitioned from outright slavery to paid farm labor. Already, long since, in 1818, the importation of slaves from Africa had been outlawed. A beginning had been made. The foundation had been laid for the gradual withering away of the "peculiar institution", which everybody recognized as contrary to basic Amrican values of freedom and equality. Regarding the hot issue of the day, the westward expansion of the United States, the admission of new states into the union, and whether they would be slave or free states, part of the negotiated settlement could have included provisions as to how the voters of the new states could decide that issue, with the provision that any new state which voted for slavery, would immediately be subject to the arrngements regarding the eventual end of slavery. Say, "by the year nineteen fifty there shall be no slavery allowed in these United States". Something to that effect. The salient point is, there are no conflicts between people or groups of people, such as countries, which cannot be resolved through negotiation, and without violence. This, because there is no law of nature, even human nature, which prevents this. And if Donald J. Trump is smart enough to understand that, so are the rest of us.