Christianity, Waging War

NOT ONLY IS THERE NO "WAR" against Christianity being waged by imiginary satanic liberal secular conspiratorial forces in these United States of Animosity, there is in fact precisely the opposite; a war being waged by Christianity against secular civic society, against science, and against all the other approximately seven hundred and fifty organized religions in the U.S.A. It is a war which has reared its ugly head on several occasions throughout American history, most notably in the 1740s and 1840s, the first and second great religious revivals. Then down the gauntlet was thrown again, around 1980, when the "moral majority", which was famously neither,rose up like a cobra preparing to strike, and smote secular America, science, and common sense. None of these protractd wars waged by the forces of the diabolical biblical god have been successful in accomplishing their objectives; the conversion of the USA into a monolithic Christian nation, with a dominant Christian culture,the precise opposite type of country intended by its founders, as the founders themselves clearly indicated. The current assault on modernity will succeed no better than the other two, thank God. With each forthcoming generation, Christianity is less pupular, as science ad reality start to sink in. Within the next generation the percentage of Americans who self identify as "religious" will have sunk to below fifty percent. By the end of this century, this sinkage will have been complete, the anachronistic Christian monster will lie dormant a the bottom of teh trash bin of history just as surely as the Titanic lies forever still and silent at the bottom of the cold North Sea. The prime promulgators of the current attack of faith over reason are themselves listing, damaged,sinking ships, rudderless, senseless, constrained to anger, violence, and weird symbols which they carry into battle at venues like teh insurrection at the Captiol on January 6, 2021. Their leadershp is corrupt, criminal,and criminally insane, like swarming summer flies maddenedd by the summer heat. They have sealed their doom by selecting the greatest criminally insane criminal leader possible; Donald J; Trump, of multiple felony fame, the instigator of a failed revolution against the United States, stemming from his bizarre, failed attempt to steal the presidency and take over the country violently. Whether or not Trump becomes president in 2025, and installs the Christian natinalist terrorists in power, the whole sordid edifice will crumble, the ship will sink, only somewhat slower. The Speaker of the House flies an American flag upside down, like Supreme Court Justice Alito, in open support of Trump's criminal insurrection. In conservative states, misguided Christian zealots are forcing into law legislation stealing money from public education to fund Christian indoctrination in private schools. Trump,laughably, sells bibles with the American flag and his own craven graven image upon the brown leather cover. The signs are alarming as well as laughable, and, on the surface, seem to indicate a groundswell of impending success. But the structure is hollow, eaten out from within, opposed and hated by the saner American majority. It will inevitably sink and rot on the ocean bottom, while America and the world move on, into a brighter,saner,scientific future, relegating this bizzare episode of religious fanatasicm to where it properly belongs, forgotten. insanity and fanaticism to where it properly belongs,forgotten.

Being Petty, Floating Dung Across the Border, Mooning

NORTH KOREA generously made a contribution to South Korea's recycling and fertilization programs recently. Generously, thoughtfully, the isolated rogue "republic" sent more than one thousand large balloons floating southward over its arch enemy brother nation, all filled with garbage of sundry sorts, and manure. Considering the dire economic circumstances in which the communist nation has been mired for decades, it is a wonder that they can afford to turn lose of its trash and bullshit so freely, "gifting" its sworn ideological enemy with enough recyclable material and fertilizer to nourish acres of farm land, and enough metals and plastic to recycle into fine finished,consumer products to sell on the open capitalistic market... The rigid attitudes concerning the evils of personal proprrty and profit seeking no doubt precluded the rigid share and share alike ideologues from factoring this into the equation. Maybe they'll rethink the situation,and demand their bullshit and trash be returned, under threat of nuclear holocaust. Perhaps if they fire a few missiles into the sea of Japan, the point will be made; we want our bullshit back! No less petty,and every bit as vengeful and imbued with the spirit of payback instant karma, the free market south returned the favor by turning up the sound on its rock concert caliber sound amplification system, and intensified its program of shouting pro profit propaganda into the winds out of the south, trying to convince, as always, the poor impoverished baby starving communists just exactly how wealthy everyone is down south, and just exactly how the miscreant misguided commies might convert, atone, and catch up, by joining the material wealth, freedom, liberty, and corporate hegemmony party. A better idea might be to alternate between Barry Manilow albums and maybe a bit of Iron Maiden or Syd Vicious and the Sex Pistols, just to give the commies a taste of the other side of the coin, to let them know that whereas the free market and Adam Smith corporate capitalism is indeed and remains forever the answer,it does, alas have a few rough edges. An ounce of truth mixed in with capitalistic propaganda never hurt anybody,and makes the company line a bit more believable. The broader question concerns human nature, and the rest of us. Fondly I recall my childhood in the nineteen sixties, an my preoccupation with current events and the news. I recall that during a particularly tense diplomatic period between the Soviet Union (Russia) and Mao Tse Tung's China, (the two were enemies in those days) Russian and Chinese troops amassed along the two superpower's common border, and, refraining from firing actual shots, instead showing their true feelings, maturity and moral charachter by one and all pulling down their pants, turning their backs on the enemy,and "mooning" each other. I was ten or eleven at the time, and my mind raced. Ever the precocious kid, several thoughts occurred to me. Among them: is that the way adults behave? Is this the world into which I am growing up? Is this what mother means when she gets into one of her moods, and accuses somebody of "showing their ass"? Well, sixty years later, I am not sure whether I have improved upon the conclusions I arrived at in the mid nineteen sixties. Some things you learn well enough in childhood to last a lifetime, and require no augmentation. And, in any event, I am reasonably, indeed entirely convinced that I knew the answers to these salient inuiries no later than within a few mintues after the Russian and Chinene soldiers pulled down their pants and blew farts at each other across the troubled border, so very long ago.

The Preventing Of Religious Indoctrination as Punishment

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION occurs when one is prevented, by law or threat of violence or other forms of retribution, from expressing one's own religious beliefs, of from freely practicing one's own religion, not whan one is prevented, by law, social circumstances, or other forms of retribution, from imposing one's religious beliefs on others, contray to the preferences of others. Nothing, no thought or concept more relevant concerning the state of religious culture in the United States, and perhaps around the world, has ever been articulated. Over the last few decades, especially in the late twentieth century and on up until the present day, we have been told, again and again, to the point of redundant exhaustion,that there is an ongoing "war" against the Christian religion in these United States of Animosity. And of coruse, this is a complete lie, a clever but not sufficiently clever appeal to the elite preferred status of victimhood, a status so often sought by those unable to impose their personal agendas upon society and the culture, entirely because of the expressed preferences of both. It is a lie no less insidiously perfidious and pernicious than the even more oft promulgated lie that there is but one true religious faith, and that that faith is the Christian faith. In the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties the great late twentieth century born again moral majority Christian upsurge revival begins, and spreads like cancer or crab grass through American culture. Like previous such urgent upsurges in religion in the mid eighteenth and mid nineteenth centuries in the United States, this one surges, spreads, and boils, but, mercifully, at length, cools and subsides, and all is well again. But debris remains, lies scattered in heaps across the darkened landscape...Time passes,and new generations are born into the great American fun house, generations more able than ever to avoid religious indoctrination of the sort so sadly, so unfairly imposed upon all previous generations. The generation X, the millennials are lsss indoctrinated, less religious by brainwashing than any of those who have gone before, notably the infamous "baby boomers". By the time the third millennium was a decade old, the percentage of Americans who self identified as "Christian" had plummeted dramatically, to the point where it was approaching fifty percent, and declining. The decline continues, as western civilization secularizes, amid the irresistably compelling influence of proven, empirical science, and the reality it reveals, which is entirely contrary to all religious dogma. Thus began the panic among the religious zealot community, and the appeal to victimhood, and the false claim that there exists a "war" on Christianity, escalating in intensity, as ever larger throngs of disenchanted formerly Christian votaries streamed out of the churches all across America's fruited plain. And this is where matters now stand. As it becomes increasingly difficult for zealous religious fanatics to impose their beliefs on others by shoving them down the throats of their victims, all the more virulently and pathetically the religious fascists cry foul. Contrary to their absured lies, there is no war on Christianity, there are no impediments to Christians freely expressing their misguided beliefs. There never has been. There is in reality an encroaching age of reason, in which we the people are breaking free from forced religious indoctrination, casting off the chains of dogmatic religious fascism, and breathing with joy the fresh pure air of freedom from said indoctrination. The frsh air feels good, and those who have long imposed their vile doctrines upon us with impunity, but can no longer so easily do so, have chosen to dwell in the comfortable fantasy that it is they who are the victims, rather than the newly disempowered tyrants that they actually are.

Carbon, Accumulating, Dangerously

CHENISTRY, AN ANCIENT SCIENCE, has advanced much over the past two centuries, and reveals much about the universe we inhabit. It is possible, indeed easy, to measure the exact composition of the Earth's atmosphere, down to the molecular composition and percantage of its constituents. We know that air is composed of slightly more than seventy eight percent nitrogen, about nineteen percent oxygen, and approximately three percent "trace elements", tiny quantities of light atoms of helium, argon, carbon, among others. We know that over the past several million years, the percentage of carbon in the atmosphere has been about two hundred parts per million, a trace element. We also know that since the advent of the industrial revolution, since about seventeen fifty, the perentage has increased to its most recently measured level, which is precisely four hundred twenty six point nine parts per million. This is more atmospheric carbon than at any point in the past several million years, and it is growing steadily, at a prodigious rate, due to our higher than ever level of fossil fuel emissions. Carbon a heavier element than nitrogen and oxygen, absorbs more heat than they, and releases it back into space at night much more slowly. We know that this is unsustainable, that it has already reached catastrophic levels, that is is causing the climate change we are obviously experiencing now. We also know that despite the current movement to fight climate change by changing to "clean" energy technologies, our transition to electric cars, to solar and wind energy, to mmore fuel effcient energy systems of all sotrt,that the rate of increase in carbon emissions is still not slowing, but indeed, continues to increase. Four hundred anf fifty parts per million is at catastrophic level, and we are guaranteed to reach that level within the next decade,no matter what we do. Extreme climate change is "baked" into our future, inevitable, unavoidable, no matter what we do to prevent it. It is too late to prevent it. Extreme heat, extreme weather volatility, more frequent storm and rain events, prolonged droughts, steadily, drastically rising sea levels; these things we are experiencing now, and they will only continue to get worse. Every year the global temperature is greater than the previous year, and that will continue. Our descendants are doomed to live in a difficult to endure global climate environemnt. Their only recourse will be adaptation. Half the world's population lives within a few miles of the ocean. Billions of people will be forced to retreat inland, taking their cities and homes with them. The cost will be astronomical. Atready rising sea levels are causing daily flooding of coastal areas on the east coast of the United States, with regular flooding in the tidweater piedmont conutry. The coastal highway in Miami,florida,becomes submerged in seawater routinely. A sea wall is being built, which will only postpone inevitable disaster. Florida will become a tiny sliver of a peninsula, with only central Florida remaining above water. New York City is experiencing regular flooding in its subway system, which will only get worse. And yet, close to half the American population, mostly consrvatives, refuse to accept this obvious reality, preferring to place head in sand, and to continue their profligate, material, hedonsitic lifestyle, dooming their children and grand children to untold misery.These people are our modern criminals, and they deserve the same fate they are leaving to their hapless descendants.

Needing A New Constitution Part II

WITHIN FIVE YEARS of the implementation of the United States constitution on Spetember 17, 1787, James Madison, its principle authhor, regretted not only its implmentation, but also his ever having had anything to do with it. It simply was not working out well, he surmised. His fundamental assumption underpinning the entire document, that we the people were incapable of governing ourselves,that there needed to be a representative republic, not a direct democracy,and that governance must be derived from the elite one percent, whom Madison arrogantly termed "the better sort", meaning wealthy, educated, landowning white men, men such as himself, and Jefferson, and Washington, was, alas incorrect. The better sort would supposedly look after the interests of the teeming ignorant masses, we, the ninety nine percent, the "lesser sort". Only, it was happening. This was all too evident to Madison, "little black Jemmy", as early as 1792. The better sort were grabbing up all the land, wealth, and power, and sharing none of it. The teeming masses were not only being excluded from power, they were being excluded from representation as well. More than two hundred years on, little if anything has changed. If anything, the intolerabe situation, in which only a tiny fraction of the general population has any real wealth or power, adheres as strongly as ever, if not more so. Only the fact that we the ninety nine percent lesser sort are wholly unaware of and unconcerned about our powerless plight keeps revolution from storming into the streets. Alas, we live in these United States of Plutocracy, in terms of highly concentrated wealth and concentrated power.The ultra wealthy, in a nutshell, have us exactly where they want us, barefoot and ignorant, and that is precisely where they intend to keep us, barring any miraculous, spontaneous awakening by us to our circumstances. The United States of corporate America. Our much beloved and venerated corporate masters. Jefferson knew what Madison knew. He knew that the document the founders had instituted was a good, noble attempt, a remarkable try at what was essentially an impossible task; the invention and sucessful implementation of representative government on the shores of a vast disorganized cultural wasteland. A huge continent, of scattered,disparate folks, trying to govern themselves, if only indirectly. Impossible. He therefore realized that in the future future citizens would have to constantly upgrade, rewrite,replace the founding document with new and improved versions, suited to their changing circumstances. A new constitution every generation, as he put it, to free future Americans from the tyranny of being governed by thieir ancestors, as he put it. Only, it never happened, and still hasn't, despite being desperately overdue. Over the decades, a few tweaks and additions, but nothing really meaningful. We the people now elect Senators. Women vote, or can if they choose. First you couldn't drink alcohol, then you could again. Eighteen year olds vote, or can, if they know they can and want to. And yet, African-Americans are still constitutionally three fifths of a human being, we still regulate muzzle loading muskets, and convicted felons can still ascend to the American presidency. (we may even now be on the verge of enduring that unthinkable circumstance.)...Tear the obsolete thing up, and start over. A brand new national constitution, for the twenty first century, not the eigtheenth. A second amendment which makes sense, dealing with assault rifles, not muskets Excluing convicted criminals from the White House. Something about abortion,maybe? Who knows what a wonderful appropriate born again founding document we could come up with, if we all put our teeming lesser sort minds to it,and gave it a go?

Needing A New Constitution Part I

IN MOST STATES, you cannot pursue a career as a hair stylist if you are a convicted felon. Nor can you teach in public schools, drive a bus for a public school system, nor work as a custodian an many school districts. In most work places all across America's fruited plain, convicted felons are not given even cursory consideration for employment in most jobs, and are not allowed to vote, although that is beginning to change. In nost places, being a convicted felon card marks you for societal unsuitablity as if you were wearing a scarlet letter "A" on your buxom bosom. And yet, in every state, you can be a convicted felone and not only run for president of the United States, you can win election, and serve as president. You can win election and serve as president of the U.S., even if you happen to be in prison during your entire term in office. One might assume that under such circumstances the normal prison menu would be upgraded a bit, and nmight even include two "Twinkies" rather than the standard one. Perhaps an extra slice of bologna, mustard or mayo optional, perhaps even a few extra "Cheetos" for the nation's Chief Executive. An American president serving in a high security penitentiary presumably would not be confined to solitary, even in the event of very bad behavior. The stark concrete ten by twelve prison cell with steel toilet without a door would make a somewhat crowded "Oval Office". The chief executive's desk would stretch from wall to shining cell wall, visiting dignitaries would have to be ushered one at a time into the "office" to see the president, after being searched for contraband or smuggled weapons. Putin, when visiting Trump, would have to be looked over especially carefully. If you are a convicted felon, there is no constitutional prohibition against serving as president of the U.S.A, just as there are no prohibitions to serving as CEO or on the Boards of Directors of many publically owned stock issuing corporations, although you would not be hired to clean the offices. Donald Trump, for instance, might well be excluded from participation as a voting member or managing director of many of hs own private corporations, and will likely lose his voting privilege in his adopted state of Florida, with his new ignominious status a as a convicted felon. His only realistic hope of gainful employment appears to be his application being made to the American people for a position as president of the United States, an application wich, assuming a preponderance of decency, discernment, and moral character among the American electorate, will be declined. We cannot assume, however,any such high standards among the Amerian eletorate.Indeed, me might have to assume precisely the opposite, with Donald Trump the convicted felon poised to make a very serious and strong and perhaps winning showing in the forthcoming presidential election. What's wrong with this picture is as fundamental to the great Amercan experiment as baseball, exploitation of everything that moves, racism, and salacious sex disguised as virtue. What's wrong is that our venerated constitution, held sacred by tradition, is not only wholly inadequate to today's needs, not only needs more than some revision and "tweaking", but needs,indisputably, whole cloth replacement.

Obstructing, And Pretending Not To

THE SENATE MAJORITY LEADER is the very embodiment of an admonition by H.L.Mencken: "The fools would be humorous, were they not in such deadly earnest". If one didn't know bettter, and, in point of fact, one does not know better, one might suspect that the octogenerian well past his prime legislator from the deep white reprobate-replete state of Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, where the grass is blue but the politics a deep shade of blood red has, to put it delicately, lost his marbles, to whatever extent he ever had anything even remotely resembling a full sack thereof. One might recall a few weeks ago back to back instances when the long overdue to retire legislator, standing in front of media personell and allegedly answering questions, suddenlly seemed to take leave not only of his own senses, but of the world generally. Mitch, his perpetual downwrd turned sneer, standing stock still, frozen in time and space and place, unmoving, his face a mask masking...vacuuity. That happened twice, in rapid succession. We speclated on it a bit then moved on. A pair of mini strokes, perchance? Perish the thought. Hell, he's only eight what, one?, in his Republican political prime, making the ancient acting president, (Gore Vidal's description, not mine) the "Gipper" Ronald Reagan, look...well...a bit but not much younger by comparison. Mitch recovered from his twice again trances just in time to promulgate then block at his master's Donald Trump's behest, and scuttle a perfectly ambtious, perfectly acceptable to all bipartisan at the border immigration bill. Yes, first, the always ready to shut down illigeal immigration Republicans push the bill forward, the Democrats hop on the bandwagon,ready to present it to President Biden for approval, when the great orange volcanic eruption reverses their course, like a runawwy horse meeting up with rattle snake, and,poof!, down goes the long awaited effective illigeal immigration solution bill, like Ali planting Frazier on the canvas..Nothing since. All quiet on the southern front, excepting a few thousand more desperate refugees sneaking across the "Great River". In steps our ancient leader, Joe Biden, having lost all patience in his desperation to catch up with Trump and the Republican brown immigrant haters, with an executive solution, a one man show, LIke Trump himself, born again. Now fully awake, out of his entranced state, Mitch blows his top. Too litle, too late, like using a garden hose to extinguish a five alarm fire, growls the downward sneer. The fire fighting metaphor intended perhaps to evoke images of earlier versions of his self, back when the minority leader was majority leader, with some semblance offire still left in his quenching belly. Mitch, like jock itch, scratching a watered down version of a bill he caused to be watered down by using his garden hose to quench it, only because Don the Con wanted his puppet Republicans to save the fun and the honor and the glory for....well, Don the Con, who else? So its anybody's guess as to if and when we the American people will do anything, anyging at all, to secure our own border and organize and identify the immigrants. For nearly two nundreds years, we have done essentially nothing. Whats the hurry now? Surely we can wait a few more minutes or years, while we await the emergence of Mitch McConnell from his current particularly lengthy trance.

Including, Excluding All Religions

THE FACEBOOK POST featured a photo of a group of young children about ten years old, sitting in a circle in a school library. Whether it was photoshopped or whether a group of children was assembled to play act the macabre scene I could not discern, but it doesn't matter. In the center of the circle was a pentagram, the traditional symbol of witchraft, and all the kids were dressed in all black, with hoods. A group of witches, not wiccans. Heads bowed. Tiny faces sombre, scowling, in prayer, worshipping Satan.The caption below said: "If you want religion in schools, does that include all religions?" Good question. It indeed should include all religions, even Satantic worhip, but, quie obviously does not. The Christian religion has a virtual monopoly on access to public civic life in America, and it should not. Tyranny of the majority. According to the constitution, there should be no religion of any sort in publically funded schools, based on the first amendment,the oft abused one which clearly states: "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of any religion, nor preventing the free exercise thereof". Accordingly, there can be and maybe should be free religious expression anywhere and everywere in these United States, of any and all religions, except on government property. As John Adams wrote: "The United Atates is no more a Christian country than an Islamic country". That profound founding principle, while true, is if fact not a reailty; the Christian majority rules the spiritual roost just as surely as the bloods and crips govern the streets of east Los Angeles. Slightly more than sixty percent of the American people self identify as "Christian", of many various shapes, sizes, and denominations. The percentage is declining, rapidly. Within the lifetimes of most living Americans, the Christian flock will have become a minority. Perhaps at that point the American non religious secular majority will feel their power, rise up, and demand actual enforcement of the cherished first amendment. In 1962 the U.sS. Supreme Court (SCOTUS, as we call it today), took the bold step of enforcing the first amendment, removing prayer from American public schools. I can remember my first grade class praying as a formal school function. My second grade class did not. I had no idea why. Now, I do. We were obeying the high court. Conservative evangelical Christian types, who cast themselves as the defenders of the sacred constitution, not so much. Since the 1962 ruling, the religious zealots have been waling and tooth gnashing, proclaiming the imminent or recent downfall ofAmerica, civilaztion, and natural law, all because God has been removed from Amercanpublic schools. It sure didn't take much, just the removal of a few words spoken in ritual union by children. God must be weaker than anyone imagined. Or stronger. Actually, of course, God has gone nowhere.He or she never belonged in the formal activites of public schhols, but has always been safe and sound in the hearts, mnds, and souls of those who freely choose to love and worhip him or her. And the only folks who fail to understand that are the very same confused votaries who most ardently proclaim their personal relationshp with and understanding of Him, or Her.

Believing, Disbelieving, Self Deceiving

ACCORDING TO A REPORT on National Public Radio (NPR), two thirds of Democrats believe in climate change, and one third of Republicans beleive in it. In other words, only one out of three Democrats is engaged in self deception, whereas two out every three Republicans is willfully delusional. As Goethe said: "We are never deceived. We only deceive ourselves". The statistic on Republicans is not at all surprising, and has remained essentially constant for years. This, after all, is the supposedly "political party" which has magically transformed itself into a criminal terrorist organization by virtue of the fact that two thirds of its members believe that Biden or some mysterious as yet unidentified consortium of secret conspirators, perhaps some vague entity they call the "deep state",stole the 2020 presidential election from Trump, and that Trump's response, an attempt to overthrow the government with a well organized preplanned violent insurrection, was and remains justified. The Republicans, since the advent of Trump, has become, essentially, an organization which thrives on self deception. However, the number of Democrats who apparently refuse to accept the reality or climate change, a reality demonstrated every day by weather patterns around the world and in their own backyards, is staggereing, shocking, especially egregious. Only becasue of action taken by the Democratic party has there been and is there today any American resposne to climate change at all, precious little that there is. I for years had been given to understand that nearly ninety percent of registered Democrats were living in reality. Apparently, I have been misled. Apparently, I have misled myself. Statistics on independant American voters were not given, and perhaps do not exist, even though independent voters make up a significant portion of the American electorate, actually constituting the largest single segment of it, with the number of independent voters being greater than the number of registered Republicans, or the number of registered Democrats. Thus, there remains hope, for sanity, although it often seems vanishingly small. Assuming, (and one cannot assume anything) that a substantial protion of independent voters have the intelligence and good sense to acknowledge the reality of human made climate chage, then maybe, just maybe, a large enough marjprity of the American people dwell within the realm of reality to provide sufficient political will to actually begin to do womething to save teh ecosystem soon enough to avert total and complete environmental catatastrophe. Such a catastrophe is looming large, immediately before us, as each summer becomes more extreme in heat, violent weather events more frequent in number, and more extreme in severity. Since independent voters have enough common sense to realize that participation as a member of any political party in America is essentially useless, an exercise in utter futility, perhaps they have enough reason to push us over the edge, as it were, out of our torpid dark denial, and into the realm of reason and reality. Perhaps, but, knowing us, probably not.

Seeing the Stones

START ME UP! For the first time in many years, I am considering the possibility of going to a Rolling Stones concert. There is no hurry, I have plenty of time to make my decision. The immortal greatest rock n roll band in the world will be touring for at least a few more decades, enabling me to pick and choose, all the way to the end of my life.Over the decades I hace seen them several time, in various venues. In St.Louis I got sprayed by Mick, with a fire hose, from on high. Unlike other die hard fans, I do not harbor the illusion that they are "better than ever". Time takes its toll, on all of us. The first time I became aware of Mick and the boys, I was a little kid, and they were in their early twenties. Now I am long retired, and they are in their early eighties, and one of them, the beloved drummer Charlie Watts, has passed on to rock n roll heaven. Ironic, in a sense, that Charlie should have been the first to die. Of them all, he maintained the quietest, least destructve lifestyle, having been content to simply go home to his family after coming off the road, which they seem to have alomst never come off of. The eternally touring Stones. That's the secret behind the band's legendary longevity, their ability to harmonize their disparate personalities without breaking up. They didn't act like they had to spend their entire lives, inluding free time, together, unlike the Beatles. outside the studio, off the road. They still don't. When not recording or touring, they go their separate ways, and are therefore happy to see each other again when reunited for work. That's what doomed the other world's greatest rock band, the Beatles; too much familiarity, which, as we know, breeds contempt.Mick the sex addict, Keith the heroin addict,and never the twain shall meet offstage. Mick's "real name" is "Mike", which is precisely what Keith calls him. This annoys Mick, but, as Keith says, his mate Mike, who he has known since they were fourteen year old blokes strolling the streets of nineteen fifties blue collar London, tells those who ask that if he chooses, Mick is perfectly free to find another lead guitar player. So far he has not. When Mick is dating a women, Keith respectfully calls his bro "Mike". When Mick is dating a man, Keith calls him "Brenda". Again, the lead guitar thing. Keith seems to like and feel confident in his job security. Since Mick, with his avaracious appetite for bi sex, is ever and always dating somebody or other, by the dozens, one wonders how Keith can ever call him anything but "sex god" for very long. Mick has "dated" Leonard Bernstein, Linda Ronstadt, and a veritable bevy of very young pretty things, and another question arises as to whether age is a factor, or whether Jagger ever bothers to verify the formal adulthood of his paramours. The craziest thing Keith ever did was to go to Switzerland for a full and complete all body blood transfusion, all nine pints. When Keith gets clean, he gets clean. Arguably, it is not unreasonable to object to the Rolling Stones on moral grounds, for a wide variety of reasons, and yet somehow,nobody ever seems to. Their music and on stage presence is far too compelling to let small things like personal behavior stand in the way of a good time, and, in any event, stuffy sanctimonious conservative Christian types have split the scene long before ever looking at rolling Stone resumes. The best book about them is Keith Richard's autobiography, "Life", which he wrote with a surprising lack of help. The book begins with a good story. They were driving in their limo early in their careers, through rural Arkansas. They stopped in at a local country diner to grab a bite. Sensing that they didn't fit in, they ate fast, and hit the road,too fast. A public servant with flashing lights pulled them over, as they threw thousands of dollars of valuable drugs of various sorts out the windows. At the station, they called their regional fixer, a Little Rock attorney, who had them out, fast. Outside, in the police parking lot, they were met by five thousand screaming teen agers. Word had gotten out and spread,fast.

Grilling the Good Doctor, Yet Again

EVIDENTLY NOT CONTENT to rest on their dubious laurels and to stand pat with all the numerous ways they have harmed the United States, cruel Republican lawmakers have gone to the deplorable depths of dragging a great American, 83 year old Dr.Anthony Fauci, out of retirement and up to Capitol hill to torture him with inane, insulting, superfluous questions, yet again. They had done this before, during the great pandemic of 2020-2021,in the midst of mass death, death precipated largely by the incompetent anti-Covid policies of Presdent Trump, and by their passive acquiesence to them. They are asking many of the same idiotic questions, making the same idiotic assumptions and accusations, and elicitng the same measured,calm, albeit visibly annoyed responses from the world's foremost authority on global epidemics. Flush with a hateful headful of inane conspiracy theories, the bondheaded far right wing extreists simply cannot get the crazy notion out of their vacuous skulls that the covid virus was engineered and originated by design in some Frankensteinian Chinese laboratory, using funds supplied by the provided very American Centers For Disease Control. Never underestimate the ability of a right wing extremist politician or poorly educated conservative citizen to concoct a crazy conspiracy theory, and to thrust it by force into the media limelight as a cheap means of gaining attention, notoriety, and accolades from the equally benighted conservative science hating community. Dr.Fauci, who to every good citizen is a hero, has been incessantly harassed by the far right wing crazies for years, and the threats and insults continue; to his family, and to himself. He said today what e has said, calmly, and logically, with incredible patience, that there is simply no eivdience that the Covid 19 virus accidentally escaped from a Chinese laboratory, ot that it was deliberately engineered in said lab and released into the world for purposes of deliberate mass human destruction. The smirking Republican pseudo national political leaders, as always disappointed and angry to hear a simple, obvious truth, recoiled from reality once again, turning their arrogant, ignorant noses up at science, sane sense,and an American hero. Recall the lunacy of the response of the Trump adminsitration, fully supported by the millions member minions of the Trump cult, which consisted in reccomendations to ingest bleach, consume medication intended for horses, hydroxychloriquine, and to disdain mask wearing and school and business closings, while the greatest pandemic of the past one hundred years raged across America's fruited plain and the world, killing millions. The "policies" of the Trump adminstration resulted in upwards of one million needless American deaths, and uncounted deaths in other countries as the U.S. became, entirely unnecessarily, a prime spreader of Covid 19. No conservative Republican political hack leader or right wing evangelical Christian extremist ever bothers to mention this conformed fact,but instead denies it, and replaces it with dysfunctional fiction, the usual tactic of the American conservative community, in its seemingly unrelenting crusade to make America safe for sheer, unmitigated insanity.

Gaining Strength Through Crime

THE MORE BLATANTLY EXPOSED TRUMP'S CRIMINALITY, the more suport he retains among his evangelical Christian poorly educated racist white base. His base would prefer immingrants from Norway, not Latin America. The unending allure of the lightly complected. That Trump's primary appeal is to the darkest aspects of American culture, isolationism, racism, homophobia, hateful religious fanaticism, cruel, uncaring neo-liberal economics, is long established, if smugly dismissed by Trump supporters, who prefer an insurrectionist traitor to a decent human being with sound, effective presidential policies. In the fun house that is Trump land, crime becomes virtue when perpetrated by their convicted felon savior, whom they compare favorably to Christ. Both Trump and Christ were persecuted, both were convicted by rigged systems of justice. Christ, of course, turned himself in, acknowledged his own behavior, and actually sought the punishment he received, in order to fulfull the prophecy of long dead futurists. Christ became a hero for defying a system of oppression despised by his followers, but he disapointed them by proclaiming his kingdom to be not of this world, and refused to act as a desired amiitary style liberating hero in this world possbily due to his inability to do so. For, after all, he was only human. He became much more than human, indeed a God, only much later,when he was elected to the position by a council of clerics. Trump too is all too human, and perfectly embodies every reprehensible caracteristic a human being can possibly have. His utter lack of redeeming qualities inspire his cult members with awe, for they see their own dark sides in him,their racism,their greed,their hatred, which they conveniently choose to consider virtuous, and which their newly arrived surrogate Christ enables and justifies. Trump will be tried three more times, and convicted of dozens more felonies, unless he is elected president, steals or the election with a violent insurrection, and becomes the godly dictator his sycophants want, and pardons himself and proclaims himself a saint, to the approval and cheers of his cult. Psychologically, Trump is the very embodiment of Hitler,a mentlally ill self aggrandizing extreme narcissist, appealing to the unrelenting anger of those whose own abilities they falsely believe have been ignored and bypassed in favor of preferantial treatment of undeserving minorities. The nine months that Hitler spent in jail in 1923 only fortified his support among Germany's angry racist malcontents, looking for scape goats and seviors, who esisted in such numbers in downtrodden defeated post World War One Germany as to be able to elect him to high office in 1933. Democracy, such that it is in 2024 plutocratic America, remains a numbers game. The future of demoracy, and of human sanity and decency, will depend largely on whether the Trump cult has sufficient numbers to repeat Hitler's success. The Trump era, like the Hitler era, will end, either in a flaming catastrophe, or at the ballot box. The numbers will decide.

The Uneducated Christian Right, Messaging, Again

HERE WE GO AGAIN. Another message board, another right wing anti-education church, another banal, insipid, inane message. This time it comes from a Lutheran church, from whom one would expect better. One expects such idiotic ignorant drivel from the fundamentalist Pentecostal snake handling tongue wagging school free self ighteous mentally ill zealots, from not from an ostensibly respectable mainstream Protestant denomination. Indeed, from the very denomination which broke the yoke of the monopoly of the tyrannical Catholic church beginning in 1517, when somber, introspective, self effacing, discontented Catholic priest Martin Luther, unable to continue containing himself, burst forth with his ninety five thesis, which he audaciously autographed, and boldly, recklessly nailed to the door of the nearest parish church. That he immediately ran to and sought protection from an archduke who happened to agree with him and his complaints is irrelevant for our purposes here. On the message board of the Prince of Peace Lutheran church in the deep culture free southern region of these United States proclaimed the lunacy: "Sacrifice intellect when contrary to the Word of God. As if intellect ever could be or would be "contrary to the word of God", which, as most educated people understand, is written into the fabric of the universe, inherent in nature, as Einstein said, rather than on the pages of some primitive, barbaric collection of ancient manuscripts, (aka the Holy Bible) which Thomas Paine accurately describes as being more the work of a demon than of God. ("The Age of Reason", a good read). The motivation behind such nonsensical signs is always clear, always the same.The modern intellect, and the universe it reveals,aka reality,stands in stark contrast to the befuddled account of cosmic and planteary reality presented ludicrously as the truth, and laughably idolized and sanctified, wholly anachronistically, by our modern superstition, the Christian faith,aka religion, as Jefferson put it. And this stark contrast, this refutation by observable, provable natural reality of the primitive barbarity that is the Christian religion, motivates its votaries not to change, grow, and improve iteslf, as do science and sensible people, but rather, to cling tenaciosly to obvious error,just as Martin Luther accused, properly, the Catholoc church of doing long ago, in 1517, on the door of an obsucre church in the midst of a prmitve, barbaric cultural and religious wasteland.

Creating, Awaiting Our Nuclear Reckoning

 PUTIN WILL NOT RELENT. He has invested too much in terms of reputation, self esteem, political capital. He has invested too many resources, men and armaments.  He has the aid and support of North Korea and China, and thus, a seemingly unending resupply of armaments and ammunition. He will not negotiate any settlement which does not include permanent Russian possession of the one fifth of the Ukrainian territory now occupied and controlled by Russia. Ukraine and her  European and American allies continue to insist on complete Russian withdrawal from all occupied Ukrainian territory as the only basis for beginning peace talks. Already Putin has conducted "elections" in the conquered region, handing out ballots door to door to the suppressed population, with a strictly limited number of choices on the ballot, and Russian soldiers waiting at the front door with AK47s to collect the ballots. Plus, a fairly high percentage of Ukrainians in the conquered region in the east are already sympathetic to the Russians, and would prefer to live under Russian governance. Putin has issued threats, not so veiled, that he is prepared to use nuclear weapons to achieve his goal, the complete subjugation of Ukraine under Russian hegemony. Since Putin is and has long been a demonstrated tyrant, we've no choice but to take him at his word, habitual liar though he is. The Union of Concerned Scientists has their infamous nuclear countdown clock, and has had it for years, monitoring global politics and expressing its opinion of exactly how close the world is to nuclear disaster. Over the decades the minute hand has crept  closer to darkest midnight, ever creeping closer, then receding a bit, then inching closer and closer yet again. It is always close; currently it is as close as its ever been.  Of the world's nine confirmed nuclear powers, at least five of them either have unstable, belligerent governments, acrimonious relationships with closely located neighbors, and/or serious economic difficulties which their leaders deem can be remedied through aggressive economic, territorial expansion. Almost unanimously the world's leading experts on geo-political politics, nuclear deployment, and human nature are in agreement that it is a virtual miracle that there has been no use of nuclear weapons in anger since the United States invented nuclear warfare against Japan at the end of World War Two. Almost unanimously, they consider a nuclear war of some kind virtually inevitable. Humanity has never invented a weapon which it has not used repeatedly. Pakistan and India are  almost always at the brink of war,  based on territorial disputes and nationalistic religious rivalry, without any resolution in sight. North Korea, incessantly threatening South Korea while firing missile after test missile into the sea off the coast of it ancient enemy Japan, wants to reunite the Korean peninsula under its control. Aggressive Russia and China, with their clearly expansionist aims, are now entangled in an alliance that can bring nothing but threats and harm to us all. And, again, only the United States has ever actually engaged in nuclear warfare, and has a foreign policy which can only be described as "ambitious".  Einstein said that world war four will be fought with rocks. Khrushchev said that in the event of a nuclear war, the living will envy the dead. Both were quite correct. Amid all these boiling global entanglements and animosities and conflicting ambitions, we the United States of America, the world's bastion of freedom, liberty, and  expansionist corporate capitalism, may well be the "sleeper". WE the American people, with our rising fascist America first America alone Trump movement, may well be the straw that stirs the drink of nuclear Armageddon far beyond the brink.

Pervading American Ignorance

 THERE IS PERVASIVE IGNORANCE in America, of the inexcusable kind. Everyone languishes in ignorance of some sort; for ignorance of certain salient facts, there is no justification. According to "The Hartmann Report", only one half of Americans realize that Donald Trump had anything, directly or indirectly, to do with the overturning of Roe v.Wade. In fact he appointed the three Supreme Court justices who made the decision possible, as Trump often brags. One fifth of Americans think that President Biden was partly responsible for it.. More American think that Trump can "fix" the economy, perhaps by further cutting taxes for the wealthy, than believe that Biden can, who has in fact already fixed the economy, with demonstrably effective legislation and economic policy.  And yet, fifty five percent of Americans believe that the economy is shrinking, even though it is growing at the faster rate than at any time since World War Two, and has for three consecutive years. Three-quarters believe that inflation is getting worse, even though during the Biden administration  it has drastically declined, and is now lower than at any time during the Reagan administration. Sixty percent of Americans think that the economy is "bad",because of Biden's mismanagement, when in fact it is  thriving,  because of Biden's excellent management  of it. Unemployment  is at its lowest level in fifty years, although half of all Americans believe that it is at a fifty year high. The disastrous Trump economy has been repaired, by Biden. Only one third of Americans realize that the G.O.P. appointed the conservative SCOTUS majority. Nearly one half thinks that another Biden administration will damage democracy, perhaps believing that a Trump "Reich" , with Trump ruling by decree, as he has expressed a desire to do, will improve and strengthen it. One one third of us the American people can name the three branches of government. Seventy percent of Republicans still believe that the 2020 election was "stolen" from Trump, or pretend to. Only one quarter of Republicans consider climate change to be an existential threat to the United States, despite its  now obvious devastating impact on the entire world, despite the fact that for more than twenty years the U.S.  Department of Defense has listed human made climate change as the single greatest threat to American national security. One half of Americans believe that Social Security will be "gone' by the time they retire, when in fact only a few minor adjustments to the system are necessary to preserve it intact. About one half of Americans, doubtless Trump supporter, conservatives, believe that the mainstream media has mad "too much" out of Trump's attempt to overthrow the American government by violent insurrection,an attempted coup which Trump conceived and orchestrated in detail well in advance of 1-6-21. None of this is surprising, although all of it is shocking. Considering that more than one half of the American people claim to have abducted by aliens beings,or that they an recall past lives, or that vaccines are harmful to people, or that a vast, secretive"deep state" is governing the country, nothing that Americans believe should seem surprising, but only alarming. As Carl Sagan said; considering the number of synapses , axons and dendrites in the human Brian, considering the number of possible electro-chemical chemicals possible in the human cranium, nothing than any human says or does should seem surprising. this, especially since nearly half of all Americans are conservative political extremists, and nearly one quarter of them are zealous evangelical Christians.