Picturing Unfairly

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE is so advanced and clever that the visual images it produces are often extraordinary. Extraordinarily artistic, or extraordinarily realistic. Often it is impossible to determine whether it is an AI image, or an actual photograph. People seem to fairly often publish images on social media which are generated by artificial intelligence,but not labeled as such, leaving the poor hapless beholder to wonder whether it is an actual photograph. There are always experienced, observant people ready to pounce, however. Sometimes one of them will post a comment, to the effect that the image is obviously artificial, and that the person who posted it without so informing the public is guilty of a huge deception, and should be punished, or whatever. Sometimes the anger is palpable. One of my few true Facebook "friends" expressed anger at the angry people who detect the artificial intelligence. She thinks they are needlessly, inappropriately excoriating folks who post artificial pictures. What real harm are they doing, she asked? They are only sharing something they think is beautiful, or interesting, and nothing else. Whereas I can understand this reaction, I tend to side with the critics of artificial pictures. It amost seems that there should be a law requiring that anybody producing and presenting an image to the public must specify that the apparent photograph is not real, but instead, is a fabrication of artificial intelligence. Mainly, because there is a difference, a big difference, and the difference is important. If there is clearly a reason to assume that a photograph is real, but in fact it is not, and there is no way to tell the difference.....it seems unfair, deceitful, fraudulant to show such an image without properly identifying it. On my Facebook feed there was a "photo" of two cats, standing in a torrential downpour, the large cat trying to shield the little kitten, both of whom are screaming in agony, discomfort, and terror. The "photo" looked entirely real. Too real. I finally realized that it could be nothing other than an AI image. For one thing, the cats were standing on their hind legs, on a sidewalk. This terribly realistic, lifelike image broke my heart, and I am sure it had the same effect on other people, maybe many other people. Why? For what purpose? I don't recall reading any accompanying message about rescuing homeless animals. Maybe I just didn't see it. Where were the cars? Why weren't they under one? There are millions of places cats can hide from the rain. How on Earth did a photographer with a camera, smart phone or otherwise, get close enough to these two cats in the driving rain to get this picture? I mean, what was the point of the picture? To break people's hearts? Now that some time as gone by I still wish I hand't seen that picture. I wish I had not been exposed to it. It was, and remains, too painful for me. But I am almost damned sure that it was a fake, and, honestly, I rather resent being emotionally manipulated by a fake photo. And the manipulator didn't even have the courtesy nor decency to tell me that the picture is not real. I suppose it is possible to generate artificial images depicting unthinkable,ghastly images of intense suffering, by people,and other animals. Much easier than actually finding such suffering in the real world, and photographing it. But is it really fair to do that? I keep reminding myself that the picture of two rain soaked cats was not real.

The Righteous, Violently Revolting

I AWAKENED THIS MORNING determined to turn every living moment into a moment of pure joy, even before I realized that in order to do that, that first cup of coffee would have to manifest. But the thought remained, which is why it becomes rather dificult to broach the topic weighing of me, for it is not joyful. For years the phenomenon of Donald Trump's political popularity has engaged and perplexed me, particularly so now that he appears to be on his way to either being once again elected president, or to once again losing a close presidential election, and then doing..who knows what? Claiming it was stolen, and inciting a violent insurrection, again? I call everyone's attention to the following fact, which is of paramount importance: the insurrection of January 6, 2021, the one Trump and his cult would either rather pretend did not happen or distort, was, to a large degree, an evangelical Christian led event. Just as Trump's support community is largely evangelical Christian, so was his insurrection. Indeed, so was his entire scheme to steal the presidency from Biden. Spearheaded, promulgated, arranged and orchestrated and perpetrated by...a violent mob of conservative evangelical Christians. At the United States Capitol building on that fateful day, the parking lots, the corridors, were filled with Christian flags, and American flags with crosses superimposed on them. Flags, proclaiming patriotism, love, and loyalty, to America, and to Jesus. They had their flags, Bibles, and assault rifles. Prayer groups broke out all over the parking lot that day. Groups of kneeling, praying, evangelical, violent, well armed revolutionaries, determined to overthrow the United States government. Not only should this salient, relevant fact be included in the eventual history books, but it should be widely acknowledged and discussed now, as we approach another presidential election. Especially since the Trump base of support for the 2024 election is, by all accounts, essentially the same people who have supported him and tried to overthrow the government with him since his entry into politics in 2015. Trump hasn't changed and neither have his supporters. If anything, they are more zealous in their support, and more angry about the fictional stolen election which clouds their thinking and behavior. And if Trump does indeed lose again, and once again tries his violent insurrection strategy, we can be sure that the evangelicals will once again serve as his storm troopers. It has been documented that extreme right wing evangelical Christianity, the bulwark of Trump support, is declining in membership, perhaps partly because of Trump. It may be, indeed it seems as if there is a certain segment of the evangelical ommunity which, at long last, got fed up with Trump's unrepentant sinning and criminality, and have flown the coop, leaving the church, and, to some extent, Trump. Trump does not have to attend church, or behave like anyting remotely resembling a decent person to retain the political support of most devout American Christians, tragically. He need merely give lip service to their greatest concerns, and they will stay on board with his racist anti-immigrant, white Christian nationalism, values which they share. I fully intend to persist in my determination to make every moment in life joyful, no matter who gets elected president, even if Trump wins. It'll be a challenge, but I think I'm up to it.

Still Trying To Understand Trumpers

IT IS A QUESTION frequently asked, often analyzed. It has been front and center of American political sociology for nearly a decade, from the time when it first started becoming apparent that a huge perentage of American evangelical Christians support Donald Trump, usually with a fair degree of enthusiasm. The question is, of course, "why"? Why does America's most religious community support such an obviously immoral,criminal politician? The more time which passes, the more data and information we have available concerning their (evangelical Trump supporters) motivations and behavior, and the more talented scholars who join the party, conducting their own research and reaching their own conclusions, the greater our understanding. Their conclusions always seem to have merit. No matter what you choose to believe and say about explaining this phenomenon, there is probably some measure of truth in it. There are many motivations drawing America's most devoutly religious people to Donald Trump. One approach is the historical approach, in which historians take note of the fact that in the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties the conservative evangalical community surged in large numbers into the poitical arena. Organiations like "The Moral Majority" chose political conservatism to go with religious fundamentalism, and supported Ronald Reagan, and many Republicas, leading to Trump. But there is something dfferent and special about Trump, about supporting him, and the reasons why. One scholar in particular, Angela Denker, has spent several years approaching the matter from this point of view, by interviewing numerous individuals, seeking to gain understanding on a personal basis, one voter at a time. One of her best books, "Red State Christian", uses this approach. She does much the same in subsequent books and articles. I like this appraoch, although the historical, sociological approach, in which the behavior of large numbers of people are taken into consideration and general trends are discerned and elucidated, ceratinly is paramount in scholarly importance. But I have learned much merely by talking to individual Trump supporters, because so much of it is undeniably revelatory, and, at times, surprising, alarming, even hair raising. Just the other day I heard on the radio a lady being interviewed, an evangelical Christian, who said she supports Trump partly because he is "honest". It took me awhile to get past that. I'm not sure I have gotten past it. Has she been listening to what he says for the past ten years? Or is it simply that her memory is selective? Yes, on occasion, Trump is honest. Sometimse, almost as if by accident, he tells the truth. However,he is, undeniably, most of the time, if not nearly all the time, extremely dishonest, indeed, pathologically dishonest. Even the msot ardent Trump supporter could probably be convinced that George Washington's army did not capture airports, even though Trump said that it did. She could probably most likely, however, never be led to accept the reality of Trump's big election lie, choosing instead to believe it. Obviously, willful self deception is a significant factor. There are others. My view is that most right wing evangelical Christians are racists and homophobes, whose irrational hatred does not end there, but extends to non Christians and other groups as well, especially liberals. Because one thing above all else is apparent to even the most casual observer; the Trump movement is based largely upon grievance, anger, and hatred.

Remembering That Diamond Ring, Forever

ALL I KNEW WAS, I wanted to make the eclipse a memorable event, as if a total eclipse is insufficiently memorable unto itself. Seven years ago, August 21, 2017,when I watched the last one from my front yard, the year 2024 seemed far, far in the future. Then suddenly, it had arrived. This time I went with a group of people on a drive of about fifty miles, into the totality zone. We drove along a beautiful two lane road, with no other traffic, between rolling hills covered with greening spring trees. Gorgeous mountainous region in the spring. Dogwood trees growing voluntarily along both sides of the deserted highway. We never saw any sign of the supposed millions of people who were flocking to our state to see the total eclipse. We had obviously eluded the mob. The beautiful drive to and from the eclipse totality zone only enhanced the experience. We arrived at a state wilderness reserve, a sort of state park, and other people were already gathered there, a fairly large number, but not a huge crowd. We timed our departure and arrival to coincide with the eclipse. It was a pretty day, with only high wispy sirrus clouds passing in front of the sun, no problem, just as the weatherman had predicted...As we parked and walked away from the tour van, I decided to put on my eclipse glasses, a take a took. The eclipse had begun. There was a large bite out of the sun. I became very excited. "Hey everyone!" I exclaimed. "The eclipse has started! Look!" They ignored me, and kept walking. I became frantic. "Look at the sun with your glasses!", I practically yelled in their faces....Finally, they did. For me the experience lasted over an hour, as the moon slowly, steadily obscured the sun, and it grew darker, and got colder. Several women standing close to me got excited, and started talking, all at once. Meanhwile, they put down their eclipse glasses, which I kept exhorting them to pick up, put back on, and use. "Once in a lifetime experience ladies, once in a damned lifetime!" One lady brought her dog, cute, for sure, but she kept talking about her dog, while the sun vanished....Another lady put her eclipse glasses back on, and proclaimed that she was having a spiritual experience. Good for you, now shut up and just watch the eclipse... As the bite taken out of the sun got bigger, and the temperature kept dropping, and it got darker, the energy level among us humans only increased, and the rapid fire talk kept pace. At the moment of totality, which lasted several minutes but seemd to last one millisecond, you could only see the sun with the naked eye; the eclipse glasses were useless, too dark. The moment of totally evidently lasted about four minutes, but it seemed to me like a millisecond. Of course, in theory, the moment of absolute totality indeed lasts about one millisecond. But the sun never entirely vanishes. It becomes a diamond ring. Only the unaided eye, or a telescope could show it. I used my naked eye, and looked in awe at that diamond ring, the perfect circle around the dark moon, with a flash at about two o'clock, the diamond itself. Light pouring through a mountain pass at the precise point where light meets dark on the lunar surface. The thought that I was looking at the most beautiful diamond ring in the universe I thought was original, for it had been years since I had heard that common description used. A lady next to me said she couldn't see anything. It was none of my business. But I was frantic. I had to say something, do something. "Put down your glasses"! I yelled. "Just look at it with your eyes!" I wanted to rip those damned eclipse glasses from her uncomprehending head.."With your eyes"!...."You're not supposed to do that!", she meekly responded. None of my business, I told myself. "Oh my god its a diamond ring", I kept repeating.... I still could not remember ever having heard anyone describing the moment of totality as a "diamond ring". But when I got home, all over the national news that night, was the same diamond ring metaphor, accompanied by photographs of the eclipse which perfectly matched what I has seen. I was transformed, forever. I still am, and, I hope, shall always so remain. But the lady refused to put her eclipse glasses down, even though they were useless to her. She explained to me that she had been told that the worst time to look at the sun directly was the moment when it was being totally eclipsed....as if there was some black magic, blinding curse to a totally eclipsed sun...no ma'am..during totality, is the best time to look directly at the sun, the only time, and, in fact, you have no choice...I bit back on my frustration, realizing it was useless, I had led the horse to water, the moment was mine to savor...I shall forever remember that diamond ring, it is burned into my mind, like a beautiful ornament of my life. And I shall always feel a sense of accomplishment, for the lady did indeed, finally, at long last, put down her eclipse glasses, just in time...I hope she always remembers it too.

Losing and Regaining Rights

AT FIRST, I WAS A BIT TAKEN ABACK. Then, I started thinking about what she had said. Basically, it was this: Roe V. Wade effects more than pregnant women. It effects everybody. The legal concept of individual bodily autonomy and medical privacy as we currently understand it in the United States today derives from this one Supreme Court decision in 1973. Now, its gone. Now, the government (this is her talking) can, in theory, order everybody to become organ donors, or carry a commputer chip ID implant, or open everyne's medical records for official scrutiny....This lady informing me of all this is intelligent, well informed. But,is she correct in this case? I'm still not sure what I think about all this. I suppose I have always assumed that embedded within "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness",deep down, is the concept of bodily autonomy, and perhaps even medical privacy. I suppose I have always assumed that there exists a large body of case law, common law, telling us to what extent, if any, we as American citizens and private individuals own and control our own bodies,including our medical records and circumstances. I'm just guessing that if you listen to what a Harvard legal scholar says about it all, it turns out that it is a complete morass, essentially, undecided, with layers and layers of legislated laws and court cases involved and underpinning the whole mess. All I can say at this point is that I sure as hell hope I own my own body, although, in truth, I have no idea whether I do. And then my thoughts turn to a potential second Trump administration. It is well known by all that Donald Trump and his MAGA mobsters, if returned to power, have an intense desire to gather more power and assigning it to the president, to make the American presidency a much more powerful office, as if it isn't already. Trump and his sycophants want a federal government put in place entirely based upon its loyalty to Donald Trump and the extremist MAGA agenda. Beyond that,to presidencies of the future after Trump is gone, they have perhaps given less thought. I'm starting to have nightmares and fantasies about reporting to my local Social Security office to have the new federally required compupter chip implanted in my right temple, its transmitter informing the government of my every move and where about, the importance of this being that I am a regisered non member of MAGA, therefore supsicious of being "Un-American" by virtue of being "UN -Trump". You have to keep track of dangerous people like that. All I really know for sure is that this Trump far right extremist Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, after telling the American people that Roe v. Wade is sacred, settled American law. If it can do that, and it obviously can, and will, do anything tyrannical in nature. Isn't bodiy autonomy and medical privacy important enough to include in the constitutional bill of rights? Or,can it be argued that the framers,in their original intent, intended that every American citizen possesses individual bodily autonomy and medical privacy as sacred, inherent, inalienable rights? Maybe we should all just vote on this, and everything else. In our modern era of computers, we should be able to build a true direct democracy in America, where we the people decide all important issues by popular vote, rather than the abstruse, arbitrary, whimsical decisions of a small group of elderly lawyers. But maybe that's just too much to ask for.

Opening the Mind, Devoutly

ITS MY STORY, and I'm stickin' to it. I occurred to me that its been three years now since my local senior center reopened after having been closed for a year during the pandemic. The reopening was slow. Many people, it seemed, were not quite ready to emerge from the sequestered life, hiding at home from Covid 19. Participation in all activities, including the Monday morning gospel singing group, was low. They needed singers, so I joined, without really intending to participate for very long. Maybe just long enough for them to rebuild their numbers. But here it is three years later, and here I am, still singing. I started thinking about quitting a few weeks into it; it didn't take me long to get tired of the gospel songs. Yet, I stayed, because I like to sing, and since I have spent my life singing alone, in the shower, it seemed, and still seems good and healthy for me to spend some time singing with other people, trying to learn how to blend in with a group. A good chace to expand my abilities, learn a new skill. Its been difficult, humbling, but fun. I still don't like the songs, except "How Great Thou Art", but I have gotten used to learning them, I know them better now, and have improved in my singing of them, I hope. Just as I am willing to attend any religious worship service of any religion in order to learn, even though I am not religious, I have the same attitude about singing; I am willing to sing anything, for the experience, and to improve. I like the openmindedness of this attitude, and I like to think of myself as open minded. There are at least four thousand organized religions on the planet; why not learn something about all of them? Why not give them all a chance? This is my main complaint about deeply religious people, and I assume it applies to deeply religious people of any religion, not just the Christian faith. I know for a fact that it applies to devout Christians, because, verily, I have spent my life among them. They are sipmly narrow minded, closed minded, about religions other than their own. I never met a devout Christian who considers it acceptable that other religions exist. To the Christian faithful it is as if the world is temporarily mucking its way through a barbaric era in which many different false religions haunt human society even though the one true religion, Christianity, is now basically available to almost everybody. But ultimately this unfortunate situation will be remedied, so the Christian devout seem to believe, because the message of God and Jesus Christ will finally, some fine day, engulf all the world, as the gospel is brought to the attention of everyone. To me this attitude is dangerous, and flagrantly wrong. To me, it is particularly ironic that the most devout religious people are the most intolerant of other's religions. The most zealously religious are the least able to understand what its like to be zealously religious. My fellow gospel singers probably assume that I share their relgious beliefs, and if they don't, perhaps they wonder why I bother singing gospel music. I could explain, but they would never understand. Its like Louis Armstrong said about jazz; if you have to ask what it is, you'll never know.

Deciding, Democratically

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, the civil war that is happening in America over the abortion issue is unfolding in the proper way, democratically. There are other possibilities, of course, ranging from royal decree to violence in the streets to military enforcement of authoritarian rule. And, as everyone knows, abortion has been a major, indeed huge issue in American society for many decades, one which arguably should be resolved once and for all. That is precisely the situation we had with Roe v. Wade. And, as the decades passed, the more time that went by with legalized abortion, the greater the tendency to assume that it would always be legal. But the dark forces of conservatism never surrendered, and spent fifty years and billions of dollars doggedly working to capture the judicial system sufficiently to allow it, coerce it into overturning Roe, and once again rendering abortion a criminal act in these United States. That holy crusade, to recriminalize all abortion, was partly why Trump was elected. Always available to the highest bidder, Trump came through with three far right wing extremist ideologues which the Republicans forced onto the high court. One fact is quite clear; if the American people vote on it, state by state, abortion will be legal in every state in the union. That is exactly what the pro choice movement is attempting to do, with some degree of success. Abortion rights are now engraved in stone in the state constitutions of Kansas and Ohio, of all places. More states already have or soon will follow suit. Eventually, abortion rights will quite likely be in every state constitution in America, if not the federal one. Whereas the pro choice and pro life movements are pretty evenly split nationally, a definite majority of Americans believe that women should have some choice, within reason, well regulated, and that abortion should not be entirely banned. This is evident in both surveys and ballot initiatives, such as Kansas and Ohio. The pro life right wing, knowing full well that abortion bans cannot be implemented directly democratically, are resorting to legislative action and the court system, which they continue to try to pack, at the state and local level, with as many hard right extremist judges as possible. In florida, for instance, abortion rights will be on the balot in November. Just recently, however, the legislature passed a law banning it in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy. If the electorate in Florida votes to allow legal abortion for a more reasonbable period of time, which it probablly will, then the restrictive Florida law would, one assumes, become moot, null and void. Through many state legislatures in many red states conservative evangelical extremists are trying to ram through the process and into law crazy laws like; when a sperm cell penetrates and impregnates an egg in the ovary,a human being comes into existence. A sperm and egg cell, fully a human being. All those crazy laws will of course be challenged in court, and we must hope that the courts have not become too conservatively crazy to throw the craziness all out. The two sides of our abortion rights civil war are, as one can see, considerably far apart in viewpoint. But there is, as there almost always is, room for compromise, and if nothing else, at least the issue is being decided, for the most part, nonviolently, peacefully, if clumsily, sluggishly, and inefficiently, in the courtroom and at the balllot box, rather than in the streets.

Trump, Threatening

IF YOU HAVE A BRAIN AND DECENT MORALITY, you get tired of Trump's whining, complaining about being the victim, being treated unfairly, you get tired of his lies, tired of his slander, insults, and threats. You get tired of his incoherent, inane gibberish. All of it. The various and numerous judges before whom honest Don Trump is compelled to appear appear to feel the same way, or are at least beginning to, in their never ending quest to be fair arbiters of justice. On more than one occasion gag orders have been issued by judges in Trump's trials, specifically prohibiting the former president from making any comments at all about certain individuals, or situations. It almost seems inevitable that there well be more to come; Trump obviously likes using his many campaign pep rallies to complain about his legal troubles, to blame them all on other people, to play the part of the victim, like the whiny little coward he seemingly is. One of Trump's judges has a daughter who works with the Demoratic party. Trump found out about it, and has been accusing the daughter of being a Trump hating Democrat, and her mother the judge of also being one. The judge gagged him on that particular topic. Good for her. We'll see if it holds...Trump and his lawyers are so desperate in their obvious guilt that among their legal strategies is to gather as much information as possible about all aspects of the various judges' lives, try to find negative material, and us it to slander, defame the various judges, in a pitiful attempt to demonstrate judicial bias. That is the low level to which Trump and his "legal team" are reduced. Trump has already violated gag orders in the past; if he keeps it up, maybe some fine day he will go a bit too far, cross the line, and end up in jail for repeated instances of contempt of court. That, of course, could be a problem. The sight of Trump, wearing an orange jump suit with a long number on it, in cuffs, being escorted to a jail cell might be enough to trigger a right wing extremist MAGA violent nationwide riot. Over the next few months, Trump is going to be making numerous, regular appearances in various state and federal courts of law, and during the proceedings statements are going to be made and rulings handed down which will be very unfavorable to Trump. Meanwhile, he will be out on the campaign trail, running for president by complaining about his legal difficulties, about the imaginary conspiracy against him, whining about being treated so terribly unfairly, as only Donald Trump can whine. And, all across America's fruited plain and the land of liberty, millions of Trump lovers will believe every word, every lie their icon utters, and will, over a period of days, weeks, and months, become terribly riled up, angry, ready to rumble. A very high percentage of Trump supporters believe that the election was stolen from Trump, that a conspiracy to destroy Trump is very real, and that because of all that political violence is justified. Recall when Trumps stood before an angry, well armed mob, and told them to "go to the Capitol and fight like hell". They went to the Capitol, fought like hell, and damned near overthrew the American government, killing nine people in the process. That's who Trump supporters are. That's who evangelical conservatives are. The same folks who took their bibles and assault rifles to the Capitol, tryng to violently overthrow the American government. Over the next few weeks and months, Trump is going to be preparing his mob for more violence.

Trump's Troubles, Roosting

IT BECOMES DIFFICULT and burdensome, keeping track of Donald Trump's legal battles. Limiting it to probable felonies committed, under current indictment for, is bad enough. The judge in Georgia dismissed six, so its down to eighty five from ninety one, at the moment. The prosecutor can refile the dismissed six, but needs to be more specific. In the D.C. insurrection trial, Trump's lawyers argued for dismissal, because its not unconstitutional to lie. The judge disagreed. In the stolen documents trial, Trump's lawyers are arguing that Trump, as president had every right to take them home, and, as president, was and remains immune to prosecution. Again, the judge seems to disagree. Trump has already been hit hard by civil judgments; and his troubles are only now truly beginning. His first criminal trial will start in less than two weeks, the one in New York in which honest don allegedly used money from campaign contributions to pay off a porn star, Stormie Daniels, hush money to cover up an affair. Can you imagine, some sweet little old lady evangelical Christian widow living on Social Security sending her ten dollars to her hero, Donald J. Trump, because he does not kill babies, and he says he loves Jesus, and Jesus says Trump should be president. Only, honest don takes the ten bucks, and hands it over to Stormi, to keep her quiet. Almost certainly there will be much television time for this porn star payment trial. Day in and day out, for several weeks, Trump, front and center, on camera, on trial for white collar financial crimes like fraud, and theft. It bears repeating that stealing top secret documents and hiding them in your home and trying to overthrow the government by inciting a violent mob are both extremely serious crimes, traditionally punishable by death. We in the United States are approaching as seldom before a split in our nation which could result in another civil war. On one side, Donald Trump is a hero a great man who made America great again, and is now being hounded, persecuted, tormented, harassed, and destroyed by his enemies, who include much of the mainstream media. the Democratic party, and Joe Biden, the Deep State, liberals in general, among others. Biden and the Democrats and the liberals stole the election from Trump, and are now stealing the country, and must be stopped, by whatever means necessary, including violence. Trump must be returned to office, to make America great again, and to glorify the wishes of God and Jesus Christ. On the other hand, we have more than half of the country which despises Donald Trump, which sees Trump as a criminal, as a failed, renegade president who tried to be a dictator and still wants to be exactly that, and who is supported vigorously by tens of millions of misguided Americans, who support Trump for the same reasons Germans supported Hitler. As anyone can plainly see, this is indeed quite a dramatic schism, with close to half the population on one side, and close to half on the other. Poor independent "none of the above" folks who dont like either side are sort of left out in the cold, being buffetted about by a societal maelstrom. Trump's troubles are coming home to roost, not only for him, but for the rest of us as well. Somehow, we'll survive it all, athough at present its difficult to see how.

Keeping Racism Alive, Part II

ONCE WE HAVE TAKEN THE PLUNGE, and have made the politically correct decision that we the American people and the United States of America must pay reparations to African-America for two hundred forty six years of slavery, more than one hundred years of Jim Crow segregation, and more years still of lingring racism, the salient question becomes: how do we implement it? How do we go about actually doing this, paying reparations to the entire African-American community, for the so called "Greenwood" race riot, which was actually a deliberate massacre of blacks, not a riot? The devil, as we say, is in the details, is it not? A little more than twelve percent of the American people are black. So obviously, the reparations project will be considerable; conciderably massive, and expensive. Consider the plight of the two one hundred and nine year old African-American ladies in Tulsa, Oklahoma, suing for reparations for the great massacre of 1921,in black Tulsa. They were six years old, the children of prosperous middle class black business owning families, whose lives, undeniably,were changed forever by the burning of their community and the deaths of friends, and family members. Its impossible to say precisely how; but you have to assume, for the sake of logic, that having your community destroyed and your family killed when you are six years old is not helpful, to anyone. Harmful, certainly. If anyone in this country deserves commpensation for being victimized by racism, they do. And yet, for more than one hundred years the great state of Oklahoma has refused to recognize this. Now, at this late date, the state claims that, well, the tragic event was simply to long ago to be concerned with now. Now, the state Supreme Court will rule as to whether the lower court was correct in dismissing the case. It doubtles will so rule. In liberal states, such as New York and California, the idea of general reparations paid to African-Americans is gaining traction and momentum. Not so much in conservative red states, unsurprisingly. Trying to determine the value of every single living African-American's suffering due to racism in monetary terms is completely hypothetical, theoretical, abstract, meaningless, impossible. That seems obvious. Any reparations paid to the African-American community of these United States must be rendered to the community in general, rather than to individuals. For example, a federal bill packaged investing billions of dollars in public parks in black neighborhoods, funds for black public schools, low or free college tuition for black students...It seems certain that the NAACP would know what to do with an infusion of cash earmarked for upgrading of facilities and opportunites for black Americans. At the local, state, and federal level, everyone could get involved, and contribute. Discounts in restaurants for black families. Chamber of Commerice sponsered perks for African-Americans, including support for small local black owned businesses. If you put your mind to it, you can think of a billion ways that we the American people could compensate an entire race of human beings for past abuses, by investing in the success and prosperity of that same community of color today. The only question is whether we have the political will, and the decency, to do it.

Keeping Racism Alive Part I

EMPATHY IS GOOD. And usually, its not easy. I try to do more than merely bash conservatives, I try to understand the conservative viewpoint. When it comes to performing mental gymnastics like brainwashing myself to believe that a presidential election has been stolen, it becomes difficult. But take racism, for example. As near as I can make out, the essential conservative viewpoint about racism in contemporary America is that it no longer exists, or exists only in such small, isolated places and instances as to be largely ignorable. Racism, an outlier in today's America, a relic of a past dead and buried. Liberals, of course, see racism everywhere, here and now. Conservatives seem to believe that the main problem with racism in America today is that the damned liberals keep talking about it. So problematic do conservatives consider liberal harping on racism that in many conservative states, laws have been passed forbidding teaching racism in public schools as a current part of American society, and as a traditional historical reality, because conservatives do not consider such lessons fair, honest, and accurate, but rather, a form of liberal indoctrination. Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, a pair of one hundred and nine (109!) year old African-American women took their case to the state Supreme Court last week, arguing that reparations should be paid to the descendants of the victims of a racist massacre that happened more than one hundred years ago. These two ladies were six year old children when hate filled racists in Tulsa, Oklahoma burned to the ground the prosperous African-Amerian business and residential district of that city in 1921, killing several hundred people. On the one hundreth anniversary of the tragic event, in 2021, another lady was still living who remembered it, but has since died. These two ancient living ladies still remember it quite well; the fires, the burning smell, the screaming, the gunshots, all of it. And they have spent their entire lives in Tulas, working for justice, working for reparations. It is said by some that the way to live a long and healthy life is to live for a purpose, to live for something bigger than yourself. Perhaps, in their enduring decades long legal struggles, these two ladies have done exactly that. Tulsa was strictly segregated in 1921, but not oppressively so. The black community, largely unmolested, evolved in the early twentieth century into a very busy, prosperous business community, though isolated by race, prosperous, happy, and peaceful. It even evoked simmering jealousy among whites, which eventually exploded into violence. In today's Tulsa, the city is still segregated, but the African-American community prosperity of one hundred years ago never returned, was never allowed to return, was lost amid decades of systemic, systematic, white oppression, discrimination, segregataion, racism. Today in Tulsa, the wealth, income, and properly value differences between black Tulsa and white Tulsa are considerable. The racism from the "past" has a very large impact on today's society, obviously. For more than one hundred years prosperous white Tulas has preferred and continues to prefer to ignore the racism of the past and the present, has steadfastly refused to even hear arguments about making amends, seeking racial justice, making restitution, paying reparations. The excuse is that it all happened too long ago, and could not possibly be done fairly. That reasoning, that justification for doing nothing, will most likely never change. It will remain the same while the white conservatives continue to insist, fatuously, that racism no longer exists, and that the past is dead and buried. Meanwhile, there are a couple of one hundred and nine year old ladies who, along with the racism which has accompanied them throughout their entire long lives, are still very much alive.

Downplaying the Bad

I STILL REMEMBR my Trumper friend at the senior center, telling me that in his opinion, all the fuss made about the capitol insurrection was "overblown". Just a little rowdiness, no big deal. I have increasingly come to realize that this is among the prime strategies of Trump supporters, of conservatives and Republicans in general. There are many words for it: understate, downplay, overlook, attenuate, mitigate...It really hit home the other day when an ostensibly halfway intelligent Trump supporter posted: "I am no fan of Trump's antics, but when he was president, he did everything right." Evidently, trying to blackmail the president of Ukraine and alienating our allies is "right". Trying to steal the lost election with a violent insurrection? Mere "antics". I instantly thought, and think,I know what the gentleman meant by the word "antics" relating to Trump. I suspect everybody does, anybody would. All of the blatant lies, insults, threats, lawsuits, attacks, crimes....you know, all that, reduced to a single, half serious descriptor: "antics". In other words, Trump, just being Trump. Just doing his usual antics. No big deal. By bundling all of Trump's proven acts of criminally insane behavior and comments, including his big election lie, attempted insurrection, stolen classfiied coduments, all these seriously treasonous felonies, into a broad, dismissive, category with a harmless name, it all becomes less serious. And Trump, rather than a serious criminal, becomes a "character", at whom we shake our head, maybe share a good laugh about, and move on. Its been more than three years since Trump engineered the whole plan of stealing the presidency from Biden, and overthrowing the government violently, and very nearly succeeded in implementing it. More than three years since Trump stole thousands of top secret documents when he left the presidency, hid them in his home, perhaps sold or gave them to America's enemies, and refused to return them when ordered to do so by the government and law. More than enough time, with fair and impartial justice under law, for Trump to have been indicted, tried,and convicted of treason, insurrection, and espionage, and given the death penalty, execution by firing squad, for example. Arguably, if Donald Trump had been and were being treated justly by the justice system, he would no longer be alive. Instead, he may once again be elected president. Hell, his bust might appear on Mt.Rushmore, with the fab four. Meanwhile his supporters treat all this as if its nothing more than some humorous "antics", overblown by the media, politicized and weaponized by his opponents, enemies, haters. Similarly, the dozens of criminal indictments and impending trials for Trump? All that is nothing but politics, a witch hunt, a political campaign to destroy Trump with false accusations. This has resulted in enabling Trump, and placing us on the precipice of freely electing to the nation's highest office a clearly criminally insane character with a long list of crimes already commited, with more likely to come. Trump's supporters would gladly elect him, and let him grant himself pardons for all alleged crimes. His future crimes as president would also have their approval.

Trump, Selling Bibles

WHEN DONALD TRUMP started selling Bibles, the sarcastic comments started cascading, not surprisingly. It sometimes almost seems as if Trump chooses his words and actions not only to attracct the most possible attention, but to attract the greatest possible scorn and ridicule. It works like a charm. Somebody wondered whether Trump, now that he is selling Bibles, is attending church. I replied: "I hope so, and I hope it helps". I was trying to be sarcastic. What I like about Trump's foray into the social media industry and his bible distributorship is that both are something new for Trump, something other than real estate and luxury resorts. Upon closer inspection, however, Trump has in fact tried his hand in an amazing variety of business ventures. Nearly all have failed. Online I saw a picture of a Holy Bible, a nice large volume encased in a nice looking brown leather cover. There was no caption or sentence saying anything about the Bible, but I assumed, merely from the fact that its picture was there, that it is Trump's bible, or rather, the one he is selling. Still, I'm not sure. When I examined the photo, I was impressed, and not a little amazed. It is a patriotic Bible, combining American patriotism and Christian devotion. A dangerous, deadly combination, if you ask me. Across the lower half is the image of an American flag, old red, white and blue glory, waving, flowing across the Holy Book. Smack in the middle of the brown cover is imprinted the phrase: "God bless the U.S.A." And I believe towards the top it says something like "Holy Bible". Seems like the word "Trump" is on there somewhere, but I may be dreaming. Am I dreaming, or is each sixty dollar copy authographed by Trump himself? Or can you order one with the John Hancock Honest Don scribble, for an extra charge? That would be in keeping with the spirit not only of American celebrity capitalism, but with Trump's money making proclivities, wouldn't it? This is American conservatism in its most monstrous form; that old familiar toxic mix of super religious piety and super proud aggressive patriotism, love of country, and money. God, Jesus Christ, and America, as one. And don't forget guns and money, icons of the right. The is the magic formual that sent out legions of arms bearing Christian land stealing pioneers, determined to either Christianize, Americanize, and make white the native savages, or kill them. The great American Christian captalistic juggernaut, armed to the teeth, with Jesus, guns, and money, taking control of the world, making it safe for Amcerican Chrsitian corporate exploitation and salvation. Goethe, a brilliant eigtheenth and ninetenth century German who seems to have forseen Germany's twentieth century disasters, suggested that the world would be a better place if Germans would scatter to every other country on Earth to live. Maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea for us Americans; a mass American diaspora, in which United Statesians head south, and scatter throughout Latin America, and then to other continents, spreading and attenuating the great American corporate Christian complex, dispersing and blending seamlessly with global culture. Goethe also said that patriotism corrupts history. My country, my religion, both, of course, superior. The fact that Donald Trump is the antithesis of Christian values and virtues does not alter the reality that he is the very embodiment of Christian and American arrogance, greed, and aggression.

Banning the Best Books

THERE HAS BEEN SOME SPECULATION concerning what books in particular are being removed from American public and school libraries most often, in our current frantic far right wing book ban craze. Opinions vary, and reliable, comprehensive statistics are not available, so specualtion is mostly based on anecdotal evidence. Below are some of the most often mentioned titles, and suggested reasons for their removal. All these books have one thing in common; they are of excellent literary quality, with profoundly true messages and themes based on critical examination of society. In essense, the higher the quality of the book, the greater the chance it will be removed from library shelves. Book removal, often called "banning", is a current conservative censorship craze, happening all the "red states". The msot freuently mentioned title of all seems to be Harper Lee's classic "To Kill A Mockingbird". This great novel is being removed because it harshly condemns mainstream white American culture for the racism it has fostered, and fosters. Conservatives hate acknowledging racism..."The Catcher in teh Rye", by J. D. Salinger,uses a sexual theme to describe the anxieties of being a teenager. It was banned when I was in high school, fifty years ago. I read it anyway, as did all my classmates. "Huckleberry Finn" is often "removed", it seems. This is another book which deals a bit too intimately with racism and culture, and may be as repugnant to intolerant liberals as conservatives. "Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is a shocking story related to the holocaust, maybe just a bit too intense and reflective of humanity's dark side for our fragile, sensitive American children. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is an attack on mainstream society, and its values, which reduces nononformists to the status of criminals and mental patients - for failure to conform. "Lord of the Flies", by William Golding, is highly critical of the establishment. "Animal Farm", by Huxley or Orwell, (are they the same author?), same complaint; too negative a view of established societal norms. "The Scarlet Letter", by Nathanial Hawthorne". Well, let's see, now. Is the idea of a young maiden getting pregnant by a priest too shocking for our modern sensitivities? She gets all the blame, poor Hester Prynne, forced to wear a big, red "A" on her chest, signifying "adulterer". The priest, Reverend Dimmesdale, gets off Scot free. You can almost see this being very offensive to modern progressives; maybe once again its the libs who want to throw out this American literaly classic."1984", by George Orwell. I remember when I read this book in 1971 for tenth grade English class, the teacher, a bright young woman, expressed the hope that when the year 1984 finally came and went,and Orwell's novel had not precisely come true, that the world would not reject the book as invalid. It turns oout, she needn't have worried. No unimportant book is being banned, as you have perhaps surmised. To be on the index of forbidden books in American libraries is a great honor, accorded only to the very best books of the highest, most enduring literary quality. "Fahrenheit 451", by Ray Bradbury. This one is easy. People who are banning books do not want to allow a book about how horrible it is to ban and burn books to go unbanned. If you were banning books, would you?

Dealing With, Undoing Damage Already Done

THE GOOD NEWS is that the era of the internal combustion engine seems, at long last, to be coming to an end. Most of the major auto manufacturers globally say that they do not intend to manufacture or sell gas burning cars after the year twenty thirty five. That date is rapidly approachng. Many countires, including India, are committing themselves to having gasoline cars off the roads by that date,and, in the United States, progressive states such as California and New York are following suit. Thousands of electric vehicles are being sold and entering service daily all around the world, and their price is coming down, somewhat. Soon there should be sufficient competition among auto makers to cause the price point fof EVs to be reasonable. New sources of lithium are being discovered, and exploited in a more environmentally friendly fashion that traditional mineral extraction. It tiurns out that the manufacture of lithium ion batteries for EV cars can be accomplished without significant damage to the environment, which defeats an prime argument made by fossil fuel conservatives; that the electric vehicles will actually do more environmental harm in the manufacturing process, than gas burners. Like nearly all other conservative claims, this is proving to simply be untrue. The bad news is that this is all happening too late. Climate change is here to stay, as are more insidious but equally harmful forms of human environmental folly. Consider this: the level of carbon in the Earth's atmosphere is currently at about four hundred and twenty five parts per million. Before human pollution started, it was naturally at about two hundred ppm. We've more than doubled the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. And even if we were to stop burning all carbon emitting fossil fuels tomorrow, which we are certainly not going to, that amount of carbon would remain in the atmosphere for decades, maybe centuries. Humanity is still going to add a significant amount of carbon to the mix, over the next few decades, before we are finished doing so altogether. One hope is that new effecient cost effective technologies of the future will enable us to rapidly clean the existing extra carbon out of the atmosphere. As of now, our efforts are insignificant. The Earth's environemnt, land, air, and water, is generally heavily polluted with harmful human made chemicals that are not found in nature, and are entirely the product of the chemical industry. There are more than ten thousand kinds of PFAS chemicals, artificial compounds with strong flourine and carbon chemical compounds, making them virtually indestructable, used in many forms of manufacturing, which end up in sewage, and also end up, it has recently been discovered, in fertilizer, and thus, in the soil of the world's farm land. These heavy elements end up in the plants, animals, and crops on the farm, and thus inside the human body. The extent of the damage and harm already done in this way, as processed sewage has long been used in agriculture as fertiziler; is just now being studied and learned. The news will not be good. We know of no way to effectively clean up all the plastic which permeates our environment and our bodies.Crops can be grown which draw the polluting chemicals out of the soil, but the plants must be harvested, and disposed of, without returning them back into the ambient environemnt. Land fills will not be adequate. So far, we have no way of doing this. For our own sake, we had better learn, fast.