Our Pets, Enduring Us Part I

OUR PETS are miserable, according to various studies, says animal ethnicist Jessica Pierce. She made her remarks on an interview on National Public Radio. A vast majority of dogs suffer from one form of anxiety disorder or another, says Pierce. Her findings have been confirmed, allegedly, by earlier studies of animal behavior, particularly dogs and cats living in households. Pierce stated that although she currently has a pet dog, it will be her last. She goes so far as to advocate an end to pet ownership, which, needless to say, has generated considerable controversy, Although a vast majority, as many as eighty percent, of the world's dogs are homeless and roam free, they, the free ranging dogs, are far more satisfied with their lives and surroundings than their peers living in "captivity", animal scientists seem to believe. The same holds for cats, among which the homeless, feral variety greatly outnumber those domesticated. The primary source of their misery is their confinement. In a feral state, dogs tend to gather together in packs, like their wolf cousins and ancestors, while cats, who are essentially solitary animals, also form into loosely knit communities, usually near reliable food sources. The deprivation of community is evident. For that reason, pet owners often care for more than one pet, two or more dogs, two or more cats, or a combination of the two. Food acquisition is the primary source of their discontent. Both species have strong hunting instincts. Cats are especially adept at hunting, and are considered among the world's most efficient hunters. Dogs likewise are good hunters, in groups. The basis of their unhappiness is the deprivation of all opportunities for hunting, which is among their most basic instinctive behaviors. They seem to prefer foraging for their own food to being fed by people. Living in a made for humans environment deprives them of not only their most essential behavior, but of any sense of purpose at all; all living creatures have a purpose; more intelligent species need and have an awareness, a "sense" of purpose". Our precious pets, it would seem, are in effect prisoners trapped within the confinement of the madr for human environments we provide for them. We humans, ever projecting our own emotions on to other creatures, both human and non human, derive perhaps our greatest pleasure from pet "ownership". We tend, quite naturally,tend to mistakenly assume that our pets are as happy with us as we are with them. In the United States alone, more than forty million dogs and forty million cats live with human caregivers. The joy felt by the caretakers is, so it seems, not reciprocal. Everyone knows the grief experienced by people at the death of a beloved pet. Arguably, there is no greater grief among humans. Similarly, numerous anecdotal instances seem to verify that dogs and cats grieve no less when their human companions vanish or die. Most people have seen photographs of dogs lingering at the gravesite of a recently deceased human companion. Maybe they do grieve. Or perhaps what we interpret as grief is in fact a far less extreme emotion. Our ability to interpret behavior is limited, and our ability to read minds is nonexistant. Another consideration is that although the behavior of any household pet can be monitored, measured, and to a certaine xtent interpretated, we can never, by definition, know the state of mind of the same animal had that animal been allowed to live its life in the wild, or free to roam at will in a city. Since no individual, human, dog, or cat, can simultaneously live two divergent lives, direct comparisions are impossible. There are solutions which can mitigate their unhappiness. Dogs can be allowed to chose their own route on walks, can be let of the leash to roam around a little and explore their environment. Cats can be allowed to go outside, or to live both indoors and outdoors, alternating environments, within limits. Rural environemnts appear preferable. One fact remains certain. People want what's best for their beloved animal companions, and, in most instances, are willing to strive to provide it. Most disconcerting is that thought that the best way to accomplish this might be to simply allow them their complete freedom by giving them up.

Killing Snakes

THE LADY who heroically abandoned her running automobile in the middle of a busy intersection to escort an elderly handicapped gentleman across the street, while traffic raged and flowed around them and her idling car, is back at her old tricks. This time, assuming the story is true, she saved herself. Previously she had confined her philanthropy to handing out money to down and out strangers, then, the heroic pedestrian rescue. She decided to take some time off, maybe relax a bit. The place to do that was, as it often is, in the comfort to of her home swimming pool, the one which is pictured with predictable frequency on Facebook. (she never shows us her house, nor herself, but the pool, and her daily lunch, are ever front and center.) But she lives in a part of the country experiencing a prolonged, severe drought, causing her pool to require topping off every few days. Top it off, hop in, and float or swim. Best take a quick peek first; never know what if any critters might have beaten her to the quick dip. She relates that she has been confronted by snakes and 'gators submerged. The drought has changed the dynamics. Animals are drawn more than ever to her pool, chlorine or no chlorine, and every day promises a new adventure in fauna. This time the snake was, so she said, sitting placidly by the pool's edge. That's when the adventure began. This one, according to legend, reared its ulgy head, raised up, like a cobra. It opened its mouth, and showed venom dripping from its teeth, almost as if in the very process of sinking its fangs into a victim. This was the first red flag. Venom dripping, without even a puncture wound to whow for it? Don't they save their venom for their victims? To cut to the chase, she killed it, she said. Had to, she said. There, I disagree. She did not have to kill the snake, cotton mouth water moccasin that it most likely was. Nor did it chase her, as cotton mouths are reputed to do. Actually they don't. They don't chase people, they simply regard people as tall, shadowy objects, pillars, under which they can hide in broad daylight, with which they are neither accustomed nor comfortable. It didn't chase her, so she had time to turn right around and run, lickety split, right abck into her house, which nobody on Facebook has ever seen. Or, for that matter, she had time to settle down with a cocktail, make a few calls, put her alleged house on the market, sell it, move out, and settle into new quarters, one without, one might imagine, a swimming pool. Instead she stood her ground, just like the law says, and killed ths snake. I didn't ask how she accomplished the killing. She didn't say, which raised another red flag. Did she shoot it? No, that would have done damage to her nice pool deck, of which she seems so proud. Strangling would be out of the question. Not worth the trouble and venom. What about a garden tool,and a good slicing, hacking, or beating? She simply didn't say. Why she didn't tell the world precisely how she killed the snake, or what kind of snake it was, only she could say, and she seems intent to spare the details, and take the truth to her grave. That leaves me skeptical, of the details, and of the whole story. Maybe she killed a snake, maybe she didn't. I wish her a good swim, free of snakes and alligators, and, in any event, there's always an elderly man or two to help across a busy street while her car runs out of gas in the intersection.

Protesting

THE TERM "SEMITE" refers to Arab ancestry or ethnicity, to anyone whose ancestors originated within the Arabian peninsula. Therefore, technically, ironically, Arabs and Jews derive from the same ancestry, are closely related, close cousins if you will. Jews, alas, are Arabs. Whereas the phrase "anti-Semitism" is always used to describe anyone hostile to the Jewish faith, it could be construed to refer to all arabs. And although there are people who have a negative attitude to Arabs in general,it is the Judaic religion, not the ethnicity, with which misanthropic folks take issue. And, lest we become confused, anti-Semitic attitudes, which reamin quite extant, as is quickly becoming evident not only in these United States but in Europe and other places in the world, is, overwhelmingly, a product of the Christian faith. It is Christians who tend to promulgate and perpetuate anti-semitism. This too is ironic, in that the Christain faith is an offshoot of Judaism, its holy scriptures inclusive of the Hebrew scriptures. The offshoot, casting off its historical parentage, even while embracing the nation state, Israel, which carries on formally its own Christian cultural roots. A bit schizophrenic, perhaps. Even more ironically, the term "Palestinians", which always is used to refer to people who live in the land area historically called "Palestine", actually references people with Arab ancestry. Hence, Palestinains and Jews are both Semitic, although, again, any use of the term "anti-Semitic"never is used in reference to Palestinains, who by and large embrace the Islamic religion. Two features of the ongoing "pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses all across America's fruited plain, stand out. The first is that the protests are not necessarily "pro-Palestinian": in the sense of supporting Hamas in its current conflict with Israel, nor are they necessarily motivated by anti-Semitism. What the protestors demand is an end to the conflict, a permanent cease fire, and that the Palestinian civilian population be spared from the enroaching genocide being enacted on it by the Israell "defense forces". This seems a reasonable basis upon which to conduct a protest movement. Most of the protestors would most likely be highly supportive of the establishment of a national Palestinian homeland, a true nation-state, with formal bounderies, government, and international recognition. Argaubaly, all this is not only reasonable, but quite in keeping with the traditional, historical position of most of the global community. Secondly, and perhaps more surprising, is that the campus protests are almost exclusively the project of American liberals, "progressives". Perhaps, however, its not so surprising. The political divide in America is such that American conservatives tend in large numbers to be supportive of Israeli aims, including that country's foreign policy objectives, and that progressives tend to be much more amenable to Palestinian concerns, including its supprssion since 1948. Most public protest movements are valid, most advocate for just and admirable causes. Arguably, the current one is no different. And most such movements, at least in the United States, are manifested from within the progressive community. Conservatives, being grounded in tradition, tend not to advocate for the kind of rapid change which underlies most protest movements. Viet Nam, women's suffrage, civil rights, gay rights, among others, provide proof of this. It is the libs who tend to take to the streets. One must always be cautious in generalizing. And although the current campus disruptions are being called "pro- Palestinian", among the generally well intentioned students and professors who are dutifully carrying signs and shouting slogans advocating fair play for Palestine, there are among them, insiputably, anti-Semites. This is to be expected, as inevitable. This proves the point; it is not always the progressives who advocate exclusively for "progress". Interspersed among them, in what one hopes are small numbers, are bigots whose hatred is directed not only against injustice, but, alas, against members of the Jewish faith.

Telling It The Way You Want Them To Hear It

THE LADY, ostensibly, was quite sincere, although at the end of her posted paragraph was her oft used "ha". (Instead of lol). What she related was this: she was stopped at an intersection of a five lane street in the Tampa area. She noticed on the corner, at the crosswalk, a diminuitive elderly gentleman with oxygen tank and walker, looking to get across. Couldn't've weighed more than eighty pounds, said she. She instantly understood that he not only should not cross alone, he shouldn't be alone. She, the hero in waiting, put 'er in park, left it running, (perhaps so any arriving officer might more easily move her car), rushed to the corner, and escorted the man safely across. Like Hussein Bolt, she zipped bask to her luxury SUV (that matters), and before any of the honkies could honk, proceeded on her merry way. She never mentioned whether the intersection had disintegrated into chaos with cars swerving to miss her stationary vehicle. If it had, wouldn't she have told us? Either nobody passing by had a smart phone, or nobody used theirs to call the cops, or nobody wanted to, or nobody wanted to get shot by the apparently crazy lady hero... whichever. Her final sentence on the Facebook post said: "Well, that's my four cents worth. My good deed for the day.. Ha." The "ha", I thought, intended to minimize any impression that she was bragging about her bravery. Most responses to her little narrative were of the "cool deal, way to go" variety, pedestrain stuff. I wanted to do more, in terms of honesty. I had decided that either she was embellishing and exaggerating, outright fabricating, or, equally, likely, just plain crazy. A bonehead move risking chaos and disastrous destruction of vehicles and human life for no reason other than a good look. Look...any chance the gentleman had been through this a few times before, and knew what he was doing? "Were you there?" she asked me, creatively if not brilliantly. "How do you know I wasn't?", I retorted, with equal on the spot ingenuity. "You're in Arkansas", she reminded me. "Oh, that!", said I. And so it went, and so it goes. Well, and then, I should have kept my big fat keyboard shut. No, you don't have to respond to everything, or anything, that people post on Facebook, because, well, peeps'll post damned near anything on Facebook. Usually, my lady friend is content to tell about recent instances in which she handed out money to an apparently hungry poorly dressed person. I never utter a peep about that, bless her heart. At a busy intersection in the Tampa Bay part of Florida there are the usual four corners, correct? Maybe a business, maybe a business being built, fast food, gas. Hell, maybe a private home. Zoning sucks. Definitely, a place to park. If not a parking lot, then a driveway, or an alley, or....Hell, get the hell off the damned busy street, and park your car! If the gentleman of presumed limited mobility and capabilites is as unabled as you presume, he'll still be standing there, on the corner, and you can safely do the escort, without arousing any antipathy or police. If he isn't, he'll be halfway across, and still alive. In the time it took for her and the gentleman to safey cross, anything could have happened, and perhaps did. Did she ask him if he needed assistance? Since then, has she asked any police officers if she did the right thing? What about his pride and dignity? Folks who don't need help often don't want help, and feel affronted at any offers. I think I'll just stick to donating blood.

Keeping Trump Out of Trouble In Court

THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT has throughout its history been accused of political bias, not always without some degree of justification. The current court, by any reasonable standard of measurement, has become more highly politicized than ever before. The right wing extremists of America, in concert with the conservative extremists they elected, have managed to stack the high court with several of their own kind, the kind which gives preference to conservative renderings over equal justice under law. Just this past week while Donald Trump dozed off in a New York courtroom while his attorneys and prosecutors argued over whether the former president has committed financial and election fraud, his other attnorneys stood before SCOTUS, and argued that the president, any president, past, pesent, or future, but especially Trump, should be given absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for any acts he or she might have commited during or after his or her presidency. Alarmingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the six heavily biased conservative sitting justices seemed inclined to favor the argument, while the three moderate to liberal justices clearly maintained that no president is above the law. How can we be sure that no future president, given such broad immunity, will not convert the oval Office into a den of iniquity, a headquarters for criminal activity, inquired justice Elana Kagan? The answer, clearly, is that we cannot. One can almost imagine a future president plotting vengeance against any and all of his or her political opponents,in Nixonian fashion, mapping out strategies including murder, extortion, or bribery, to ensure a desirable outcome for other presidential perfidy, and to lay the groundwork for future nefarious deeds. One of the conservative justices, it may have been Kavanaugh, himself an accused sex offender, suggested that withoud absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, a future prosecutor of the president might use "creative" reasoning to bring false, vendetta based accustaions against the chief executive in a court of law. The esteemed justice did not specify precisely how this might be accomplished, unsurprisingly. He apparently did not know. The answer, of course, is that under such circumstances, the magistrate sitting in judgment of the president would have the option of dismissing the charges summarily, or that the jury would have ample opportunity to essentially do the same, by finding the president or former president not guilty, hastily. There can be no dobut that the Supreme court is tryingg to find a way to provide cover for one of their own ideological compratriots, Donald J. Trump. It is a matter of record that all six of the sitting justices are indeed MAGA trump supporters, although that reality is seldom mentioned. It should have taken this court no longer than fifteen minutes to determine and delare that no president is above the law, and that immunity for presidents alleged to have committed crimes does not and cannot exist. A "liberal" justice pointed out that the framers of the constitution could easily have placed just such an imunity clause in the constitution, but did not. Once again we see that the so called "originalists", the constututinal "literalists", to whom the constutution is a supposedly sacred document on the same leel as theCchristian bibl,e suddenly, "inexplicably" lose their fervor for reading the document as it was written and was in theory intended to be read, when confronted with the potential negation of their own agendas. Aside from the obvious fact that the United States badly needs a new and improved, or at least updated version of the document appropriate for our modern times, it becomes increasingly obvious that the party of law and order, the Republican party, is considerably more concerned with imposing its agenda on the American people by subverting the constitution, structuring their made to order law to meet its own ends, than with upholding the integrity of the law by obeying the founding document it falsely claims to hold so dear.

Monopolizing

IN THE EIGHTEEN EIGHTIES John D. Rockefeller the first, the world's first billionaire, who lived from 1840 to 1938, enjoyed a daily income of approximately one million dollars, in the 1880s. One million, daily, in the nineteenth century. Mr. Rockefeller lived a long and fulfilling life, for he had a lot to live for. He retired at forty, and devoted the rest of his life largely to philanthropic endeavors. Standard Oil of Ohio was the tip of the spear of the industrial revolution in America during the immediate post Civil War era, when swords were beaten into ploughshares, and the United States joined the nations of Europe as engines of economic growth and prosperity. Although many of the inventions which have been wrongly attributed to American inventors, such as the automobile, actually originated in Europe, The United staes can rightfully claim to have invented the assembly line, the forty hour work week, and the five dollar work day. Renowned anti-Semitic racist Henry Ford invaded the American south, and brought cheap labor back to Detroit with him. But Standard Oil, over the decades, became a monopoly, a combination in restraint of trade, which necessitated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1892, and the Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914. Monopolistic corporate capitalism lay in abeyance until well after the post World War Two period. In every primary area of the economy would have been monopolies were kept under control until the 1980s, until a new era of corporate mergers manifested. It seemed as if the anti-trut lawshad been forgotten. As historian Gore Viadl asked: "Didn't there used to be somethig called the "Sherman Anti-Trust law". Whatever happened to it? What happened to it is that it was cast aside and ignored in an era dominated legislatively by pro business neo-liberal Republicans, during the era of Ronald Reagan. The spirit of Rockefeller was reborn in the person of Jeff Bezos, who started selling books on the internet, and rapidly branched out into other consumer products. A newly published book by long time Wall Street Jouranal journalist Dana Mattioli details the rise of Bezos and his Amazon dot com company in a seminal work of great fascination: "The Everything War: Amazon's Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power". Bezos and his corporate managers use every trick in the book to elevate his company to the status of the world's larget online retailer, a worthy opponent of and competitor with mighty Wal Mart. Competitors, online and in real brick and mortar were under priced out of existance. Those competitors included small town American Mainstreet. In 2017 a perceptive and enterprising lady, Linda Khan, published an article in which she detailed Amazon's monopoly status, a status worthy of comparison to Rockefeller's Standard Oil. She later became Chairperson of the Federal Trade Commission, and filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the mega firm, which is ongoing today. Although the ultimate outcome of this litigation remains somewhat in doubt, it seems reasonbale to assume that anti-trust action will in some form, to some degree, take place, and this gargantuan corpoation will be brought down to size,broken into smaller pieces, and that competition in the online marketpalce will be, to at teast some extent be restored. We the consuming masses of the global economy can only hope, for the sake of our pocketbooks.

Reading the Book Banners

A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE recently ran in an election for his local school board, and won. Before he had even been sworn in to office, he was beseiged by demands from parents concerning books they thought needed to be banned or removed from the libraries of the school district. In particular, one especially anti-bibliophilic guardian of children's virtue presented him with a list of about two hundred books which, according to the patron, were indisputably unacceptable in school libraries, and must immmediately be removed or forbidden entrance. On this list were the usual predictable authors and titles: Salinger, Steinbeck, Steinem, Orwell, as well as any and all titles which related to or bore the faintest resemblence to or hint of containing subject matter and material having to do with extant racism, racial equality, socialism, gay and LGBTQ issues and concerns. The usual menu. No child must awaken to being woke. All child left behind, culturally and intellectually. The usual stuff. And, of course, anything pertaining to the numerous and various religions of the world, other than Christianity, prohibited.....Any work discussing the origins and history of the Christian religion from a purely historical, scientific, critical perspective, such as the writings of Bart Ehrman; verboten. All Christian literature must be devotional, not factual. And of course, any book espousing the worth of or assigning any value or truth whatosever to any religion other than the one true religion was unworthy of placement on the bookshelves on the district. Christian dogma in print? No problem, bring it. Heaven forbid that any student should be exposed to the merest hint that there might, just might, be truth, wisdom, and value to any other blasphemous religious faith. Nothing acknowledging racism in modern America. Cooperative, socialized economics? All garbage. Out the window with "To Kill A Mockingibrd", "The Catcher in the Rye", "Native Son", "The Grapes of Wrath (which contains a scathing assessment of American capitalism). The list of the infamous two hundred droned on..and on...My friend, having been forewarned, was ready for the frontal assault, like a tiger waiting in the bushes for its prey. He expressed his appreciation to the myopic parent for her sincere concerns for the intellectual and moral welfare of her child, and all other children of all other parents about whom she was so deeply if ingenuously concerned, and made her an offer. When you have read all of the books on this list, he offered, and are thoroughly convinced of their unsuitability, please annotate them, making note, page number by page number, of precisely the objectionable content. Then, present your findings to me, and I will see what I can do. The lady was quite unhappy. She was, after all, a parent, and, well, they should just take her word for it, and leave it at that. And of course you know what happened next. My friend never heard from the sanctimonious, paranoid parent again. Apparently she had already beseiged other members of the school board with her demands, which had been met with quiet, quite respectful "we'll see what we can do". Her dissatisfaction with my friend's approach inspired her to try the other members again, but when pressed, they all agreed that my friend's proposal seemed fair and reasonable. (In truth, they had been given prior notice by my friend about his strategy, and had been met with smiles and agreement.) Is anyone surprised at this outcome? Nobody should be. People who want to ban books do not tend to read books, including the Bible. The very thought of actually reading, much less opening the cover of a book which is unacceptable a priori is unthinkable. Why waste time reading anything which does not praise Christ or which discusses sinful pursuits, like cultural diversity and inclusion, or sharing wealth and loving in alternative lifestyles, from page one? Consult one's minister, always.... Only good books ever get banned. Only closed, twisted minds ever want to ban books. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Any parent who has chosen to waste her mind and is intent on wasting that of her child should be banned, but never books.

The Minority, Governing

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, it is well known, was never intended by its founders to be be a direct democracy, nor, for that matter, a representative democracy, a republic, although that's what Benjamin Franklin called it. It was intended by its wealthy land owning white male progenitors to be precisely what it has always been and still reamins: a plutocratic oligarchy, governed by an elite class of wealthy, land owning men. James Madison made this clear when he asserted that there were two classes of people in America; the "better sort", meaning men such as himself, and the "lesser sort", meaning the other ninety nine percent. George Washington was elected president by six perecnt of the population, those who were allowed to vote; the elite wealthy minority would represent the interests of the lesser sort majority; the lesser sort; the urban and rural poor, women, people of color, enslaved people, people who had neither wealth nor land. Majority rule would effectively be instituted, but only with the permission of the governing elite. Within five years of September 17, 1787, Madison realized that he and his fellow founders had made a grave error, that the wealthy elite white men in whose hands the government was placed would indeed do no such thing, and would only look after their own interests, to the exclusion of all others. He regretted the constitution he had largely composed. Jefferson had been right after all; in order to establish a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, intended to secure the blessings of life, liberty, and happiness for all Americans, a contitution which actually did this directly would be necessary. But, alas, by then it was too late... Jefferson also famously opined that a revolution would be necessary every generation, to install a new constitution, about every twenty years, appropriate to the changing times. Jefferson said that no people should be governed by their ancestors. He, like Madison, would doubtless be horified that we in the year twenty twenty four are still using the document of 1787. They both knew full well that their constitution was far from perfect, a very flawed document, despite the fact that our modern conservative plutocrats ludicrously claim that it is perfect, and ordained by Almighty God...Fast forward to today, and we see that democracy in America has been greatly expanded. The USA is now a more democratic nation than ever before, after decades of struggle by poor, previously unenfranchised folks. And yet, all is not well in freedom's land. The forces of tyranny, of plutocratic governance, never really went away, and are in fact rearing their ugly heads more powerfully now that at any time since the constitution of 1787, our beloved, ostensibly enlightened document which we still use today. The Republican party is the instrument of their authoritarian aspirations. A fascinating new book by Ari Berman, "Minority Rule: The Right Wing Attack on Democracy - and the Fight To Resist it", brilliantly connects the anti-democratic tendencies of America's founders with the current authoritarian tendencies of the Republican party in the era of Trump. The founders accomplished their objectives by installing an upper legislative body, the Senate, with equal representation among all states, large urban, and diverse, and small, rural, and conservative. Thus the white wealthy minority gained disproportionate representation. Madison wanted a Senate allocated by population, like the House of representatives, but the small states, led by Delaware, threatened to leave the union and to seek admission to some European nation or other unless they, as well as Virginia and Massachussets, were given two United States Senators, chosen of course by state legislators, rather than the people at large. The blackmail worked, as they say, like a charm. Thus the small states gained, and retain to this day, disproportionate representation. The electoral college was intended as yet another defense bulwark against actual rule by the people, actual democracy. Todays' anti-democratic efforts consist in attempts at voter suppression, jerrymandering, which is much more a tactic of the Republican than the Democratic party, and unlimited dark money infused into the electoral system. Today's version of our land owning "better sort" overlords is the billionaire class. Our modern "corporate masters", as Gore Vidal called them, govern us with only their own best interests at heart every bit as much as Madison's land owning "better sort". This is done through both major parties, but especially, by the Republians, the conservatives, the spearhead of the current trend towards authoritarian, undemocratic rule. Ari Berman explains all this, and offers a few cogent suggestions on how we the lesser sort can fight back for democracy, assuming our willingness and desire to do so.

Making the Best of A Bad Situation, PART II

WE ARE CONFRONTED with the reality that we are living on a planet whose life force is ebbing, a dying ecosystem. Where I live, there is a drought ongoing. An April drought had, until recent times, been unthinkable. I recall April of 1990, when it rained everyday throughout the month, also a rarity, but more in keeping with our geography than drought. In recent years we have had at least one prolonged drought every summer, sometimes more, but never in April. You get a foreboding feeling about the coming summer. Many areas have it much worse. Europe, for instance, which is warming at what is apparently twice the rate of the rest of the planet. European heat waves are becoming unendurable. To quote Lenin: "What Is To Be Done"? What we seem to be doing is to resign ourselves to the impending collapse of the ecosystem in the hastening, cascading global warming, and to take comfort that the worst of it will be the inheritance of our descendants, that we ourselves will not have to live to endure it. Small comfort, but, it'll have to do. This attitude of resignation is reflected in climate change books now appearing in print. For example: "Under the Sky We Make: How To Be human In a Warming World", by Kimberly Nichols, Ph.D. The title says it all. This is a well written, incisive work, worthy of scrutiny, conveying the "make do the best we can" approach. Another new title: "Diversifying Power: Why We Need Anti-Racist, Feminist Leadership On Climate and Energy". OK, fair enough. Hell, we'll try anything, or should, according to the author,Jenine Stephens. At first, it seems a bit cryptic, making a connection between climate and energy policy and anti-racism and feminism. And yet, the connection is made well. But, again, the hint of resignation, of trying to change course on our relationship to the enviroment by changing the way we think, act, and govern ourselves, all in the name of dealing with climate change by getting by as best we can, rather than by reversing it entirely, and returning the atmosphere to its intended, natural state. Corporate patriarchy has not and does not work; why not try the nurturing, healing approach? Increasingly, people are becoming aware that no matter what we do, we are destined to experience adverse climatic circumstances in the future. Even if all burning of fossil fuels came to an abrupt end today, the carbon already in the atmosphere, and the effect it is already having and will continue to have, is unavoidable. Climate change, to a large extent, is "baked in" to the equation, as scientists sometimes put it. There are, of course, other perspectives. Oxford scholar Hannah Ritchie recently published a book with a much more positive viewpoint, in which she indicates that real changes are being made, and that the mitigation of future climate change has begun, if belatedly. The plan, an ambitious one, is to phase out internal combustion engines by the year twenty thirty. Indeed, this seems overly optimistic. Maybe it isn't. The reality is that fossil fuels are likely to be a major part of the global economy for as long as the next half century. So, as always, the choice become a personal one. Whether to be resigned, hopeful, or perchance, both. Some experts and authors point out that we as individuals can make a difference, through changing our personal habits, but only if a significant number of us are willing to do so, which is questionable. Meanwhile, we are left to make do as best we can, with what we have. A verse from a poem by Bertolt Brecht comes to mind. "In the earthquakes to come it is to be hoped that I shan't allow bitterness to quench my cigar's glow." As for me, I think I will take that approach.

Making the Best of A Bad Situation, PART I

ON THE NEWS I heard that an international conference is being convened to address the issue of plastic pollution, and to agree upon a treaty to eliminate it. Within my occasionally fertile mind arose a question: precisely how in the world can anybody reasonably expect to "eliminate" plastic pollution by "treaty"? If ever there was a case of "the devil is in the details", surely, this is it. The report further indicated that more plastic has been produced and introduced into the economy and the environment in the past ten years than in all the twentieth century, which would include only the years since World WAr Two, the period during which plastic was invented. This fact unto itself reveals the sheer enormity of the problem. Most forms of plastic require a very long time to degrade into its constituent parts, but, eventually plastic objects break down into micro plastics,tiny particles of the complex carbon molecules of which the stuff is made. Micro plastic particles end up everywhere; in the atmosphere, in the soil, in our bodies...everywhere. This has been measured and verified, repeatedly.Precisely what,then, will be our plan for cleansing the environment of all this carcinogenic mess,in all its widely dispersed glory? Apparently sunflowers, aside from being beautiful, are quite effective in sucking heavy, complex elements, including the heaviest atoms of all, the sort of which atom bombs are made, out of the soil, and metabolizizne them. The exact process by which they accomplish this seeming miracle is beyond my comprehension; is it possible that an atom of uraniaum can be absorbed into a sunflower plant, and broken down into hydrogen atoms and water molecules, for the nourishment of the plant? It sounds impossible,but if it isn't, let's cover the Earth's land mass with sunflower fields forever, wait a few years, and come back to a pristine agricultural system, in which not a trace of radioactivity shows up in our evening meal. Who knows? Maybe the micro plastic particles will have been absorbed and utilized for the health and growth of the magnificent sunflower plant! Then, what to do about the oceans, the atmosphere, and the insides of our beautiful, sexy bodies? The task before us, in a nutshell, seems daunting, impossibly so. It is tempting to resign ourselves to the unsavory reality that, no matter what we do, we are doomed to live out our lives in a world heavily polluted by micro plastic particles. Running trillions of gallons of seawater through filters, cleansing our bodies by ingesting sunflower seeds or plants, filtering the entirety of Earth's atmosphere - seems beyond daunting, indeed, impossible. And yet, we will, if all goes well, soon have a "treaty". A more reasonable assumption is that we are stuck with plastic pollution, on account of its insidious, ubiquitous nature. I recall a young lady who decided to have her breast milk analyzed by a chemistry lab, as she was preparing to give birth, and wanted to ensure the quality of her milk for her soon arriving child. What came back from the lab was a report which included a veritable slew of chemicals in her breast milk, a mixture more befitting a toxic waste site than a woman's milk. It included jet fuel, a few molecules thereof. She lived nowhere near an airport nor jets of any sort,and could not imagine where it came from. Perhaps imaagination isn't needed. Low level reasoning might do the trick. For a long time, especially in recent times, humanity has been making things, moving everything around, throwing things away, putting stuff everywhere. There are more than thirteen hundred officially designated hazardous waste sites in the United States alone. Most Americans live rather close to at least one. Our best bet might be to accept this reality; that we have waited too long, have sinned against nature too much,and are, to an extent, left to live in our own filth. Despite our best efforts, we will never resore this planet to its previous pristine pre- industrial human state. Our only recourse might well be to simply find a way to be happy on our very dirty planet.

Trump, Handling Scandal

DONALD TRUMP is not on trial for anything having to do with sex, or sleeping with women other than his wife, or anything like that, really, although, in a way he is. What he is accused of, unless I misunderstand, are violations of campaign election laws.Falsifying financial statements in order to conceal other crimes. Among these are using campaign donations for things unrelated to the election campaign,like bribing women into silence, and for attempting to mislead the voters, a murky one, it seems to me, since what do politicians do, other than deliberately mislead voters? It all began with the Access Hollywood tape, if you might recall. Trump,on tape. bragging about being a sexual predator. Most of America heard it, and was shocked and horrified, if not particularly surprised. Eventually, of course, Trump turned it all to his advantage, as he so often does. Like he himself said, he could shoot somebody dead on fifth avenue in broad daylight without losing popularity (among his cult supporters). But the incident, which briefly looked like it might derail Trump's fledgling political career before it had fairly begun, spooked Trump. Hence he decided to try to purchase the slience of several of his various paramours at that time, for which he is now on trial. So, a sudden thought came to me, which can be dangerous. The thought was about Trump, and his strategy for dealing with scandal, which can be even more dangerous. Now that twelve jurors have miraculously been chosen, and, seemingly equally miraculously Trump is actually being tried in criminal court - maybe just maybe, I was thinking... he took the wrong aproach. Maybe he should have never made any attempt to silence anybody, including Stormi Daniels. For one thing, he wouldn't be on trial now in criminal court for financial fraud, or bribery, or whatever the charges are, and for another, maybe no damage would have come to Trump's political career because of anything Stormi Daniels or someone else might have said or revealed. What would Stormi have doen, without getting Trump's hundred and fifty grand of bribery money, or whatever it was? Nobody will ever know. Stormi can't talk about it; she's been paid not to. And, even if she did, could we trust her to tell the truth? Suppose she had, instead of getting paid, gone on a talk show tour, announcing to the world her affair with Trump, providing salacious details, the whole works, right in the middle of the 2016 presidential campaign? Would that necessarily have hurt Trump, or his chances of winning the election? Access Hollywood certainly didn't, correct? In retrospect, I am even inclined to suggest that the (in)famous Access Hollywood tape not only failed to damage Trump politically, that it actually helped him, indeed, that it may have helped him win the election, may have even been the difference...this notion sounds far less crazy than it once did. The salacious scandals not only do not appear to deter America's conservative evangelical Christians from supporting and loving Trump as the choice of Jesus for president, but to actually enhance their geniune esteem for him. Somebody suggested to me that revelations by Stormi about Trump's infedility to his wife would have been beyond the tolerance of even the scandal loving evangelical Christians, and that may be true. On the other hand, Donald Trump, usually politically savvy and astute with his finger on the pulse of America, maybe, just maybe, missed out on a golden opportunity.

Dividing, By Race and Faith

IT IS NO SECRET among observant, honest, well informed folks that not only does racism lurk in every nook and cranny in America, but that it is particularly manifest throughout the politically conservative population, deeply embedded within evangelial Christianity, and especially rampant within conservative evangelical Christianity.(In general, conversatism and fundamentalism go hand in hand, although there is a sizeable community of progressive liberal evandsgelical christians in America) In fact, all this has been known for a long time. More than twenty years ago, a team of social researchers, Emerson and Smith, published an illuminating volume on the topic, titled: "Divided By Faith: Evangelical Religion and and Problem of Race in America". This fascinating study is a compilation of thousands of interviews with devout evangelical Christians conducted by telephone, with another several hundred face to face interviews. The original intent was to gain an understanding of the evangelical viewpoint on any number of concerns and issues, and it evolved into a study of race and religion in America as it became evident that the racial concern was paramount in the evangelical community, so much so that when this book was written, at the turn of the millennium, many leaders within the faith were encouraging efforts to bridge the obvious racial divide within the church, a divide which results in two churches, the evangelical white church, and the evangelical American black church. Such efforts have always been, and remain, rhetorical, and minimal. Most notably, most evangelicals, although willing to acknowledge the two separate communities, did not and still do not recognize any actual systemic racial "problem" in society, nor any pattern of behvaior indicating a systemically racist culture. Willfully blind though this may seem, the authors came to realize and point out to the reader that some of the most basic features of evangalical Christianity; individualism, self determination, emphasis on personal relationships and salvation through Christ, tend to foster an attitude about personal and social responsibility which leads to precisely such cultural blindness, and a tendency to see the remedy to all problems as personal repentance, atonement, and salvation. Thus, racism is an individual, personal matter,and society is merely a backdrop for individual choices. Societal trends and sociological studies per se lose importance and immediacy among evangelical minds. Your average conservative evangelical is likely to see no pervasive, systemic racism within his or her own community, but merely, an accumulation of individual, personal choices. The tragdey of this, as the authors conclude, is not that the evangelical community fosters open, blatant racism (it does not), but that it passively, peacefully coexists with it, and does nothing on any organized meaningful level to extinguish or even mitigate it. Like Christianity in general, evangelical Christianity has never been a front and center agent for social progress and change in America. Conservative religion is focused on traditional beliefs and values, rather than change and progress, by its very nature. Society in general, spearheaded by science, is not, however, nearly so mentally moribund as traditional religions. Emerson and Smith conclude that the racial divide in evangelical Christianity, much like that in American society generally, is here to stay for the forseeable future. The lingering racial divide in America will, however, continue to encounter strenuous opposition, even if the church chooses to continue being of no help.

Reckoning With Trump

TODAY IS A TRUE MILESTONE in the seemingly never ending saga of Donald J.Trump, for for the first time in all this seeming chaos, he will have appeared in court as the defendant in a criminal trial. The trial, concerning financial fraud involving Trump uisng campaign donations to bribe a woman into silence, will take no more than a few weeks, and since Trump is guilty as hell, as the facts already presented clearly indicate, should result in a guilty verdict. The witnesses lined up against Trump to testify for the prosecution are among Trump's closest former associates, and they have quite damaging sworn testimony to give. Then comes the sentencing, which might not happen until somewhat later, maybe even after the election. Of the four seperate criminal trials which Trump should, in a just society, be required to and probably will indeed ultimately endure, only this one is likely to take place before the election. If Trump loses the election, which, again, would happen in a just, sane society, then nothing changes; he will go to trial, be tried, and there will be consequences in all four criminal prosecuations he currently faces. Prison time is among those possible. If Trump wins the election, presumably he would appoint an attorney General who would assume office only after agreeing with Trump to dismiss all federal charges against Trump. Presumably, the criminal charges Trump is facing in Georgia will be prosecuted in a timely fashion, whether or not Trump becomes president, and would not stop merely because of his election to high national office. Trump would have no power to truncate that proceeding. In the event that a future President Trump is convicted of election interference and tampering in Georgia, he would presumably either not be sentenced to prison time, or if he were, would not be expected to report to a Georgia state penitentiary while in office. At least, it is somewhat difficult to imagine a caravan of limos and sheriff's police cruisers from Georgia arriving at the White House, expecting the president to accompany them, in handcuffs, back to Georgia, in the back seat of a patrol car, sitting next to a Georgia sheriff's deputy. Maybe they would allow him to text and post as he rides, to keep him quiet... After he leaves office, who knows? Maybe Air Force One would give the outgoing president one...last....ride...to a Georgia prison. Obviously, there is much about this strange, unprecedented state of affairs which defies reason, and much must be guessed at and presumed, or left to speculation. Millions of people who want justice for Trump have little choice other than to content themselves by embracing the various presumed truths about the inevitability of ultimate justice. The arc of history is long, but leans towards justice, what goes around comes around, and so forth. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but, inexorably, they turn. What a long stange journey it has been for America and Donald J.Trump, and the longest, strangest part of it we haven't even reached yet. But we are rapidly approaching it, as the election fo 2024 and the Trump criminal trials loom before us. There is no avoding either. The election will take place, and so will Trump's trials. Their outcomes and consequences will tell us much about ourelves, and about our country.

Understanding Haywire America

IT BEARS REPEATING that academicians and journalists are observing, studying, writing about, and hopefully explaining two distinct but interconected phenomena in contemporary America; the rise of Donald J. Trump and the Trump movement, and the rise of White Christian Nationalism. Journalist Angela Denker wrote: "Red State Christians; Understanding the Voters Who Elected Donald Trump", in which the author interviews a wide variety of Americans, asks pertinant questions, and shares her insights gained on the motivations of Trump supporters. It is evident that Denker does not have an entirely neutral, unbiased attitude and approach towards her subject matter; she does not regard the Trump movement as beneficial to America. She reveals, using direct interviews, that often times people who support Trump are motivated by misconceptions, factual errors, demonstrably incorrect notions of reality. Their mistaken belief that Trump's legal troubles are not of his own making, for example, their willlingness to believe lies, leads them to support bad policies advocated by Trump by ignroing their negative consequences. Whatever you dislike, ignore it, whatever you want to believe, believe it. When the voters support bad policy,the United States takes unwise courses of action, a country gone haywire. A pair of researcher, Gorski and Perry, published an illuminating study of white Christian nationalism in their seminal work; "The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to Democracy". She traces the history of this far right extremist marriage of politics and religion back to its origins, which, understandably, can be shown to date back to the first establishment of European culture in North America. Athough John Locke and the earlist advocates of democracy envisioned a secular democratic state, the spread of democracy in modern western civilization quite predictably engendered a strong, vibrant religious community, which has always included a significant percentage of the population. The most conservative Christian denominations in America, the evangelical denominations, had traditionally not attempted to organize politically, until the "Moral Majority" of the 1970s. As the book's title clearly indicates, the authors consider white Christian nationalism a threat to American democracy. "Domionists" is a term applied to the zealously religious and patriotic community which advocates formally making the United States a "Christian country", Christianity the formal, established religion. The most ardently faithful among these people want to go a huge step further; They seek to replace the American legal system with Biblical law, including the harshness inherent in both the Old and New Testaments. The Christian religion is the exact opposite of a democracy. It is, if anything, an absolute, divine right monarchy. Jesus is the "king", empowered by the will of God. This is nothing other than standard, basic Christian theology. That is perhaps at least peratly why thsoe who are both most fervantly patriotic and the most religious are not concerned about whether the future Christianization of the U.S. be carried out and manitained democratically. Bringing God back to America, (God was evidently once here, in America, but for some reason no longer is, presumably because we the American people somehow expelled him) is of such importance, that it matters not how it is accomplished, so their reasoning goes, as long as it is accomplished. And that, in a nutshell, is percisely why these people and this movement are so dangerous, so undesirable, and, ultimately, so un-American and unpatriotic.

Reining In the Craziness

MY FAVORITE COLLEGE BASKETBALL TEAM as been doing well over the past few years, with the exception of this most recent season, which was somewhat of a disappointment. We had high hopes and a roster full of ostensible talent, but all that didn't translate into wins. Something about "team chemistry". Oh well. That's sports. Better luck next year. Then, suddenly, our basketball coach, a very good coach whom we did not blame for the disappointing year, decided to leave, and take another coachng job at another major university. That was quite a shock to me and all the other fans, because we had no idea that he was even thinking about leaving his good job, which included a four point two million dollar annual salary. Certainly, we wanted him to stay, because we were convinced that he would soon get us back on the winning track. But suddenly he was gone, and we felt "jilted", abandoned....Then came the question of what to do, how to replace him. Meanwhile every player on the team entered the transfer portal, and suddenly, there were no players, none, on our basketball team. None. Zilch. Emptey roster. We had, it seemed, reached bottom. But the story has a happy ending, sort of.A local multi - billionaire, who happesn to be a fellow fan, stepped up, opened up his wallet, and paid the necessary money to lure one of the sport's most respected and accomplished coaches waay form his current job, which he has successfully held for a long time, and to become our new baketball coach. This wonderful gift of our billionaire benefactor also had the generosity to load the basketball program up with millions of dollars to spend, on new basketball players, since, under the new system, money is precisely what it take to build a good college basketball team. Suddenly our school, hall of fame basketball coach in hand, also has enough money to buy any player it wants. Our basketball team should, if all goes well and as expected, become very good, once again, very soon. Hurray for us. Our new hot shot big time basketball coach is going to be paid a veritable king's ransom of a salary, millions of dollars a year, which is what it takes in today's college athletics to hire and keep a good coach. Supply and demand, American style. I'm happy. Everybody's happy. I want my team to win, no matter what it takes or costs. But in the very back of my mind a thought arises, a thought I have had over and over over the decades with regard to superstar athletes, entertainers, and others, concerning American society and who contributes what to it. The thought is: that the new, current economic system in college athletics will not work, is not sustainable, and must be reined in, the craziness changed to a saner system. Another thought is that among the most valuble and therefore important people in our society, in terms of what they contribute to us all, are teachers, particularly first grade teachers. Any person who spends an entire school year on a daily basis, seven to eight hours a day, with twenty eight six year olds, and educates them until they are seven year olds - is invaluable. How can you quantify the value to society, indeed to the world, of someone who is largely, even partly responsible for the successful educating and thus upbringing of dozens of good productive people every year, hundreds, over the course of a career? The answer is, you can't. Hell, I love college basktball, sports, entertainment. I love it when the teams I root for have money, and spend it on better players. But somewhere there has to be a limit, organization, structure. College athletes, superstars or not, used to get books, food, room, board, and an education for their athletic talent. They have long deserved more. Now, suddenly, the superstars can and do get millions of dollars. I only hope that at least a few of them end up becoming teachers, especially first grade teachers, to at least partly earn their keep.