Getting Through Eighth grade, And Life, Somehow

A NEW MOVIE called "Eighth Grade" has a cool soundbite. Daddy and daughter are in the car. The conversation: "can't you at least look at me!"..... "And not look at the road?"...... "OK, obviously I didn't mean that. Go ahead and look at the road. But just don't be quiet and weird while you do it."......"um, sorry"...(editor's note:can we say "hormones?")......When you're in eighth grade, you're thirteen years old, your body is changing in ways you can't act on, your behavior is entirely controlled y surging, complicated new chemicals, and you are becoming uncontrollably concerned with things such as social status, self image, and all associated forms of mental instability universal to early teens. This includes everybody. Every minor event is a major catastrophe. The advice "just relax and enjoy life" is like being advised to change your gait while walking on the moon. I taught eighth grade for one year, during which my hair turned white, then fell out, and my doctor put me on blood pressure meds. For me the stress was nearly as bad as it was for my students. I was soon able to retire, they weren't. And yet, somehow, they survived to enter ninth grade, and even more miraculously, they lived long enough to enter adulthood here in the United States of Anxiety. But by God, while in my class, they learned..something. The summer before I entered eighth grade, the summer of sixty eight, RFK was murdered, race riots burned American cities to the ground, and I figured out that the Viet Nam war was a complete scam. That fall, I got so tired of listening to Hubert Horatio Humphrey insult Nixon, that notwithstanding the fact his insults were actually statements of verifiable fact, I rooted for Nixon to win. All that, plus the cute girls, and the daily struggle to forge ahead into the company of cool kids and placate the bullies by befriending them, as an unrepentant intellectual nerd without the slightest idea how to dress properly, which at that time meant, how to wear plaid bell bottom pants and six inch wide belts with big silver buckles.. I had it tough, but at least I didn't have to deal with Instagram, Twitter Tweet, or Donald Trump, which is quite enough for even the most seasoned veteran of societal navigation. Like then, today's eighth graders live in the best of times, and....well, you know the rest. So, welcome to the club. The secret handshake will be shown later. Newspapers are written on an eighth grade level, and online we all behave like eighth graders, at best. We are, all of us, far less able to control our behavior and the circumstances of our lives than we might wish to believe. These various influences, internally and externally, are our masters, our determinants. Like a great philosopher once said: "We can get what we want, but we cannot will what we want." There was a time in America when suicidal, schizophrenic, or just plain depressed people were considered morally deficient, and told to "just snap out of it." Today, we do a bit better, but perhaps not much better. Today, ten percent of American's are diabetic. At least we don't tell them to "snap out of it."

Contending Against Stupidity

AT THE SENIOR CENTER, the southern sympathizer made himself clear: Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt were the "sorriest" presidents the United States ever had. He omitted mention of Andrew Johnson, Millard Fillmore, or Donald Trump, perhaps because he wasn't familiar with them. I chose not to defend my two presidential heroes. Why bother? I was obviously dealing with someone to whom the ancient adage applies: "against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain." The emancipation of the slaves, and government assistance for the poor were apparently the reasons for the bigot's disdain for Lincoln and Roosevelt. What greater indictment could there possible be? A president who usurped stat's rights, and another who gave handouts to lazy people. This eighty year old bigot had the rigid, feigned dignity of an old time Confederate veteran, a proud man who fought for a noble, lost cause. He continued, thinking his audience sympathetic, which, except for me, it was. "June 19th's coming up", he said. "That's nigger day". I rolled my eyes, but shouldn't have. I looked it up, and sure enough, the old bastard had a point: On June 19th, 1865, it is widely believed among the African-american community that the last slaves were emancipated. Whether this is true, my research did not reveal. its a dubious contention at best. The blacks were never truly emancipated, but were instead reduced to decades of sharecropping servitude, excluded from all aspects of society for a hundred years. First, Jim Crow, then the era of discrimination and institutional segregation, which continues unto this very day. Doubtless my bigot buddy is unaware of all this, and considers the black folk ungrateful for everything white society has given them. To him, Martin Luther King must have been, and must forever remain, a trouble making ingrate. Those people should have had the sense to know their place, and to stay there. Tragically, this old coot isn't alone, but at least he won't live much longer, nor will his kind, if we are fortunate. We had the audacity to draft Muhammed Ali, and expect him to fight in Viet Nam. A man who grew up excluded from white drinking fountains, white only restrooms, and white only everything, who became heavyweight champion of the world. His response was; "Them Viet Cong aint my enemy. You are."

Keeping Kaepernick Out

COLIN KAEPERNICK, the first but not the latest to kneel in protest during the anthem before NFL games, the catalyst of a social upheaval which refuses to die away and instead threatens to shake the very foundations of American society, is going to have his day in court. Huzzah. So declared the arbitrator, who ruled that the talented but unemployed former NFL quarterback has sufficient grounds upon which to pursue his case for collusion against the league and its team owners, who allegedly conspired to withhold employment because of his protest. The arbitrator himself will hear the case, in which Kaepernick, who knelt to protests police brutality against African-Americans, motivated many other players to do the same. This would seem to indicate that he has a case with merit, and a chance to win. The burden of proof is on him, and the standard is high - he must prove beyond any doubt that at least two owners overtly entered into an agreement to keep him out of the league. To have a heart is to hope that Kaepernick wins, and takes the hypocritical owners to the cleaners. To wish otherwise is to have no heart, or to be a billionaire hypocrite. Hypocritical, because the NFL owners do not care one iota whether their employee players are patriotic, respect the anthem, the flag, or whether they protest against racism in America. What they care about is the proverbial bottom line. Actually, nobody in America cares whether somebody stands, kneel, or sits during the national anthem. Various religious groups do not stand, and are not punished for it. What we the American people care about is whether we fuel our self esteem by presenting ourselves to others as patriotic. Oh, ye generation of hypocrites. Boycott the NFL, show off your love of country, like praying in public. What we really care about is being entertained by vicarious violence and excitement. Patriotism, which literally means love of and obedience to the fatherland, corrupts history, in its extreme form. Sieg Heil, and all of that. patriotism is a form of religious fervor, when in extreme form. the more religiously patriotic we perceive ourselves to be, the greater our self esteem, so, why not show it off by turning off the telly when Monday night football comes on? In the midst of all this posturing and posing, kneel a young man who is tired of living in a country which has always been, and remains, deeply racist. he does not disrespect the anthem, nor the flag, nor apple pie. He disrespects a society in which his value is measured by his athletic ability, and the color of his skin, rather than by the content of his character.

Stifling The Opposition

NOT LONG AGO at the University of California, Berkeley, that exalted bastion of free thinking progressivism, an unfortunate, not so free thinking progressive event transpired. Two noted, controversial conservative speakers, Ann Coulter and Milo Yianopoulos, were scheduled to speak, and the mere fact of their impending presentations incited a veritable uproar within the often vociferous student body. If memory serves were cancelled. If they weren't, they were rudely interrupted repeatedly by supposedly open minded progressives. But why? Why rue their appearance at all? Why not instead encourage those with whom one disagrees to openly present their point of view? Exposing error provides the opportunity to discount it. You're right, they're wrong, right? Then why not hear them out, and calmly, respectfully, intellectually dismantle their arguments, and expose their error? Certainly, Ann and Milo are idiots. Quite intelligent actually, but, utterly twisted and corrupt. They offer only nonsensical blather. Ann, for example, once said that the best way to resolve Islamic-Christian disputes would be for all Muslims to convert to Christianity. Fat chance, blondie. Only a mentally ill person could say that, and really believe it. As for Milo, he combines insane ideas with a comedic touch. He's funny and entertaining. What's wrong with that? I seem to recall his making some deplorable racist comments. Again, so what? let them rave on, let them dig their own grave. The alarming trend is that people tend to be fed and to listen only to opinions which conform to their own preexisting prejudices. This is not the way to learn and grow. On conservative talk radio, liberal callers are never put on the air. Limbaugh used to claim that liberal went to the front of the line; he stopped making that claim, because it obviously wasn't true. When did you last read any publication or watch any television program or hear any radio program that presented a variety of viewpoints? its probably been awhile. I used to listen to rush Limbaugh, but I finally lost patience. At least I tried. I might walk across the street to listen to Ann or Milo, but I wouldn't pay any admission, and I might not stay till the bitter end. But at least I wouldn't try to stop them from ranting their rave.

Disabling Treaties

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA has the highest standard in the world of caring for and protecting the rights of people with disabilities, mental and physical. Everyone has seen wheel chair accessible ramps leading into public buildings, preferred parking spaces for physically challenged citizens, special departments in public schools, and much more. Former president George H.W. Bush, himself now confined to a wheel chair,, considered it desirable to encourage such high standards for the entire world by engaging all other countries in a United Nations treaty guaranteeing such standards. He helped negotiate the treaty, and every other nation in the world signed on. Former Vice President Bob dole rolled his wheel chair down the isle of the U.S. Senate in 2012, in support of the agreement. All that was required was approval by the U.S. Senate, and the signature of President Barack Obama. Astonishingly, the treaty was voted down by Senate Republicans. Among all the tragically, disastrously wrong headed positions taken by America's far right, which include denial of climate change, support for neo-liberal supply side economics, and resistance to to formally enacted equal right for the LGBT community and other minorities, is the irrational notion that all international agreements and treaty is entered into by the United States represent a surrender a surrender of sovereignty by America to the world community, and some imaginary "world government". Since Trump became president, he has removed the U.S. from the nuclear weapons agreement with Iran, from the Paris climate change accords, from the trans pacific Trade partnership, and from NAFTA. he has replaced them with - nothing. This he has done with the full support of the conservative community. "Make America great again" in the era of Trump apparently means "make America alone". Ever since the disastrous wars of American aggression began with George Bush's 1991 attack of Iraq,, the United States has lost much of the global respect it had gained since helping defeat NAZI Germany and imperial Japan in World War Two. Now, this trend intensifies as the United States withdraws from the global community, forfeiting its leadership role. To abandon agreements to fight climate change and eliminate nuclear weapons is the behavior of a seriously misguided nation. To promulgated an international agreement, which all other nations sign, to improve the treatment of disabled people, and then abandon the very agreement the U.S. proposed and encouraged others to agree to, is beyond pathological.

Hiding Kavanaugh

SOMETHING IS ROTTEN in the state of the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. His supporters are defending, protecting, and hiding, rather than promoting him. Kavanaugh once worked in the Bush White House, and in that capacity his office generated tens of thousands of documents of various sorts pertaining to his work, which was ostensibly was administrative in nature but actually involved matters of policy. Many of these documents may be related to his opinions and attitudes concerning pertinent legal issues. Trump's executive order prohibiting their release can only mean that they contain material which reflects badly on Kavanaugh's character and judgment, and would be inimicle to hos prospects of being confirmed for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Get a load of the republicans, making like the Democrats have lost their minds and are behaving unreasonably for having the audacity to wonder what these suddenly secretive documents might possibly contain! They compound their strange nefarious behavior by fervently insisting that the material available on Kavanaugh , consisting of his rather lengthy judicial record, is more than adequate, and that the exposure and perusal of any more material would only be a massive waste of time, and would needlessly, indeed tragically delay the confirmation process. Well, what's the harm in wasting time? aren't we Americans the world's leading time wasters? Is't wasting time a grand American tradition in which we fire up the flat screen, grab the remote, ensconce our asses on the couch, and flip from one channel...to another..to another...including the most time wasteful of them all, CSPAN? And why hurry the confirmation process at all? Precipitous action is always unwise, and matters such at this require due deliberation, not undue haste. Recall the Merrick Garland fiasco, the one in which Obama's nominee to the court was not only delayed, but utterly ignored by the Republican Congress, his only crime being that rather than being a right wing extremist, he was a moderate, and thus a perfect choice? Then, the republicans were perfectly content to let the high court totter along with only eight justices for a full year, and the judicial process itself survived, unscathed. are our current crop of G.O.P. legislators fearful that if the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings drag on until after the upcoming midterm elections, the electorate might fill the Senate with progressive Democrats, and spoil the party? Well, like John Adams said to Abigail when the Jefferson people slandered their way to the White House in 1800; "darling, if they want it that badly, let them have it." To those (conservatives) to whom stacking the court with conservative ideologues is more important than achieving a nation of equal justice under law; your time will come. You may succeed in eliminating a woman's right to choose,and in legalizing discrimination against sinners using your religion as an excuse, and you may even manage to bring back Jim Crow. But for all that, you'll experience the consequences, including the unintended ones.

Trying Too Hard To Pray

PERMIT ME TO break an unbreakable rule, and tell you about a dream I had. I'm at the senior center for lunch, as usual. its Thanksgiving, but the crowd is surprisingly sparse. I raise my hand, and remind the dozen or so diners that is time to pray, for they seem to have forgotten. But lunch is served, and after a few bites it occurs to me that we have still not prayed, have skipped a mandatory offering of thanks. So, frantically rushing to save the day, I stand without permission and begin to pray, hastily trying to assemble my thoughts as I rise to my feet, finding it difficult and confusing. But I know what I want to say. I want to tell my personal, pantheistic God that I and we all adore her, and that we at least vaguely comprehend the miraculous beauty of existence, with our weak and transitory understanding. We are grateful for our own lives, and for the awesome wondrous cosmos in which we are placed by your loving, beneficent kindness. I want to say that as we all engage in the ceaseless struggle to improve ourselves, we humbly, gratefully accept whatever guidance we might be fortunate enough to receive. I recall vaguely, as I slept, thinking of Einstein's words: "my religiosity consists in humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself in what little, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality."..there is so much to say, about love, admiration, and wonder, but not to the hateful, psychotic, vain, petty mass murdering biblical God, but to the beautiful God of eternity, whose name is nature, cosmos, and universe. I figure the Pentecostals and Baptist's and fundamentalists'll never know the difference, and if they do, what of it? Even they can learn something new. But I can't speak. I can't get the words out. My voice will simply not work. I start to panic, and the small gathering start to glance at me dubiously. I've had the same dream state scenario before, in which I cannot speak.sublimation of years of people saying "huh?" I real life, I have long acquired the habit of speaking slowly, deliberately, with affected clarity, and to speak more sparingly. years of teaching and the burden of "huh' have driven to to it. When i woke p from this semi nightmare, i was much relieved. maybe in my dreams I express my frustration, just as I and many people dream that we are flying as an expression of our hopes. Soon I may even be able to offer the blessing at the senior center, in real life.

Getting Back Together

UP AND COMING is my forty five year high school class reunion of the class of seventy three, go eagles, valiant, and strong. I loved the ten and twenty year reunions, after that, not so much, as my interest waned, and continues to. Been there, done that. I am interested in my classmates children, but not their grandchildren. By the time their great grand children arrive, I should be dead. A few of my best high school buds have been, I sense, made at me for several years now. Its all about politics, and had to do with Obama, left versus right, that sort of thing. Hell, we haven't even spoken since Trump was elected; if they support him, we're done, for good. they were already dumb enough.(lol) Stay mad at me for more than ten minutes, its a grudge, and I don't do grudges. I laugh at, then ignore them. At our age, you'd think we'd know better, but we don't; we "mature" emotionally some throughout life, but less than we might wish to believe. Life is short, and for us, not much is left, so, why bother? I have at my local senior center noticed that often the old folks do not know better, and in fact frequently know worse. Everyone who knows me like me. Most people who do not know me do not like me, or don't give a rat's ass either way: prejudice of some sordid sort? We are not a culture of like at first sight. Quite the opposite. We are, like Bertolt Brecht said: "mistrustful, lazy, yet in the end content". There are two types of popularity: social status and likability. Social status is the rich, well dressed kid,,, the good looking kid, the hot cheerleader, the stud athlete. Many of us think we want to be, but really do not want to be, of high status. the downside to high status is that nearly as many people despise you as admire and emulate you. That cheerleader is, like, soo totally stuck up. That football player is, like, cocky, even if cute. No matter who the president is, half of Americans hate his guts. Beware high status, what you want is likability popularity. That's the kind that makes you happy. that's the kind I have, and I have always been happy, despite the usual mood swings. High status I've never enjoyed, being a down dresser. My fleeting brush with it was twenty five years ago when I had a public access television show devoted to talking about left wing causes. everybody in my large town knew me; some wished they didn't. it was a weird feeling, being at once admired and despised. At the reunion, i'll be likable, and may the devil take the hindmost. It they turn it into a "Make america great again" rally, I'll slip away, mouth closed. last time I saw any of them, at homecoming, one of them said "God bless the Koch brothers". I nearly hurled. God, what morons. Go Eagles.

Mozart, Making Fun

I AWAKENED at four as usual, to feed the cats. labor Day, no work today. The two males ate, but tHE female did not.She seemed to have awakened from a deep sleep. She finally ate, sleepily. When blissfully I returned to bed, she insisted on laying on top of me. She often does this, but this time she did it insistently, keeping me awakw with her contented purring. On the radio i identified a piece by Mozart which I had never hear d before, a weird piece, discordant, out of key, with a simplistic, stupid melody, as if he had composed on a bad day. Then, as Mandi laying purring on my chest, classical narrator pet Vandegraff explained that Mozart, astonishingly prolific, and that some of his work had been ignored, such as this weird sounding piece just completed. It was brought to life by some musical antiquarian, and recorded by an ensemble assembled for the purpose. Mozart, it seems, was making fun. In his day, just like our own, amateur musicians, good and bad, were ubiquitous. He was making fun of the bad ones, of whom he apparently had grown tired. Then, as now, songwriters and composers were everywhere, some good, some bad. Mozart in this crazy sounding piece was making fun of the third and fourth rate composers who filled Vienna and the rest of Europe. This, musicologists had deduced from his letters and what he was reported to have said to other people, particularly his musical friends like Franz Joseph Hayden. Mozart was, we know, like most geniuses, a complicated character. Fun living, a real party animal, he could also be bitingly cruel and aloof. and his fan base was fickle. In Vienna, and in his hometown of Salzburg, he was in and out of favor like some shifting, whimsical wind. Only in Prague was he uniformly, steadfastly beloved, and he loved Prague back, devoting a symphony to the city. A prophet, but not in his own land., but only away from home. He was quite sensitive to what other people thought, what they said and wrote about his work. So, he responded. Responded by belittling those with less talent than he. God, what an asshole. Heavens, how human he was. The more brilliant people are, the more likely they are to see others as idiots. The more creative, the more likely to cheat, to break the rules, to fail to conform. Mozart deserves credit on all accounts.

Being A Believer

"IT IS BEYOND ME", Goethe said, "how anyone can believe that God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveql itself to us, and if our hearts do not tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we will most certainly not learn this from books, which at best are designed only to give names to our mistakes. Amen to that. The Christian bible has been published in more languages, in more editions, and more translations and versions than any book in history, precisely because it is the most important book in history. Thousands of authors have added to it, subtracted from it, changed it, remade it in their own self interested image, and in toto have so greatly altered the original scriptures in the past fifteen hundred years that our current versions are vastly different from the originals. When Jesus was alive in human form, teh Hebrew scriptures he staunchly defended as the true gospel were even then being changed, and were not yet in complete form. The Council of Nicea assembled the Neew testament by popular vote in 325 A.D.. The clerics chose what to include and what to leave out collectively, by majority rule, and they left out much, left our many gospels. If the Bible is indeed the Word of God, the word of god is then very flexible, very changeable, very malleable, the word of a seemingly fickle god...In extreme western Arkansas, surrounded by heavily forested, rolling hills, is a tiny town named "natural Dam", named after after its local tourist attraction, which has few tourists. The dam itself is a couple hundred feet long, several feet high and thick and appears to be made of large blocks of neatly chiseled rectangular gray granite, carefully stacked. it looks for all the world to be man made, but isn't. The water flows over it, usually in a fast running clear water creek, during times of drought in two or three waterfalls which resemble water coming from a faucet. People did not build this dam, but something or someone intelligent did. Whatever force built the universe built this dam, likely over a very long period of time, without human involvement. Einatein called it "tehhenfinitely superior spirit", and perhaps my favorite of all: "the ancient one". For me, any one of them will do just fine; I'm a believer.

A Longing To Return To Joy

AT THE SENIOR CENTER where I wash dishes and pack Meals On Wheels as a retired teacher, by boss, Amy, a woman young enough to be my daughter, told me that when she began working at the center, she rejoiced in coming to work each day, to a place where she could escape the turmoil of her home life, to a place where she could create value and render service. Then something changed. The joy faded, and she began to dread going to work. Communication turned into constant drama, engendered in the center's kitchen by petty rivalries and disputes. Her joy was gone. She said that she longs for a return to the good old days, to the joy of creativity and service. Her remarks triggered something in me, some vague, undefined sense of empathy. A reminder of something ambient, something in my own life, in my environment. Could it be the country? Have I lived long enough to see a beloved united country torn asunder by internal divisions magnified and widening? Am I longing for a return to my happy childhood? My childhood was the nineteen sixties. The president was murdered when I was in third grade. In the seventh grade America was torn apart by the Viet Nam war protests, by race riots, and by the fight for women's rights. No, that couldn't be it. Has this country ever been truly united, and my soul free from turmoil? Is the nineteen sixties what I want back? How could it be? A line by the poet Theodore Roethke comes to mind: "That place among the rocks; is it a cave, or winding path? The edge is what I have..." I can only reckon that my dear Amy in the kitchen, who could have been my beloved daughter, will keep seeking her peace, that she will rediscover her pathway to value and service. And I can only reckon that, at length, she will once again find her peace and joy. As my for me and my troubled, confused country, we'll keep searching too, keep plugging away, swinging the bat, sorting it all out. And there will come a time, sometime, when all of this turmoil, all of this fear, all of this darkness dividing us, will finally firm up, and coalesce into something beautiful and valuable. Amy will again find her joy, as will our beloved America. As T.S. Eliot said: "I will show you fear in a handful of dust." Or, in the words of Theodore Roethke: "Dark, dark, my light, and darker my desire. My soul, like some heat maddened summer fly, keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I? A fallen man, I climb out of my fear. The mind enters itself, and God the mind, and One is One, free, in the tearing wind."

Why People Voted For Trump.

THERE ARE THREE BASIC, GENERAL REASONS why people voter for Trump, as explained recently by a conservative republican member of the Senate. For and foremost is hatred of Hillary Clinton. After a quarter century front and center, Hillary had become the ultimate Washington insider, and a liberal to boot. Secondly, Trump would certainly appoint conservative to the Supreme Court, who would overturn Roe v. Wade, and make Christianity the official religion of the United States. Third, Trump was seen as an outsider, a new gun slinger, free of Washington incestuous connections, who would shake up the establishment, drain the swamp. Each of these reason sis understandable, but each is entirely bogus, and taken together do not justify a vote for Trump. Like her or not, Hillary Clinton was the most qualified person in American history to run for president, including them all, from George Washington to George Bush. As Casey Stengal use to say: you could look it up. check their respective resumes, all of them, and compare. What other basis of comparison can there objectively be? Being shrill, cold, aloof, arrogant, or female, greedy, and ambitious, or whatever else one might think she is, does not disqualify her. And bear in mind that she has no criminal record, nary a parking ticket nor overdue library book. Again, look it up. Chanting "lock her up" in unison with a ranting demagogue, as a matter of fact, does not constitute due process. Senseless, hateful group ranting is not evidence, indictment, trial, and conviction. With regard to Supreme Court nominees, political ideology, whether liberal or conservative, is not an appropriate qualification for judicial service, although the conservative community seems to have long since forgotten that obvious fact. The appropriate qualification is a long, strong record of having dispensed wisdom and equal justice under law, independently of ideological considerations. Drain the swamp? Trump? Really? Surely you jest. With each passing day he digs it deeper, murkier, replacing the old swamp water with a new, more abundant supply. So long as political offices and policies are purchased by billionaires in America, the swamp shall remain full, regardless of who the president is. So go the reasons for voting for Trump. Reasons not to? The Access Hollywood tape, pathological dishonesty, persistent attacks against the FBI, the Justice Department, the media. Vicious slander of critics. Likely collusion with a foreign power to get elected. Numerous business conflicts of interest. (read Richard Painter). Illegal use of money to influence election outcome. Trade wars with traditional strong allies of the U.S.. Failure to order Putin in person to stop meddling in American politics. Refusal to fight climate change, listed by the Department of Defense as the single greatest to American national security...etc., etc....

Defending The Faith

THE REVEREND ROBERT JEFFERS, the pastor of big shot Baptist church in Dallas, in an appearance on national Public Radio, made clear several points. Christians, he reminded us,believe that faith in the resurrected Christ, who died to atone for our sins and was reborn, is the only way to enter into the kingdom of heaven. By not accepting this, all non Christians, including atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and members of all other non Christian religions assure themselves of being excluded from heaven. Mormonism, he asserted,, is but a cult, not a part of the Christian faith. He made no mention of all the other modern made in American denominations; Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian scientists, Scientologists, and so forth. Presumably, they too are doomed to eternity in the dark, hot regions. The Christian faith, contends the reverend, is under attack and being marginalized in the United States. As evidence, public prayer, once a mainstay in civic life and public schools, has been banished, since 1962. Christian voices are being silenced across freedom's land, supplanted by the scourge of secular humanism, and the diabolical influence of diverse forms of unholy worship. encouragingly, the good reverend acknowledges that the United States was founded legally not as a purely Christian religion, but as a nation of religious freedom, and that the first amendment explicitly prohibits the instituting of any official state religion. Christian messages and symbols in public places, Jeffers asserts, are not a violation of law. The courts tend to differ, as did founders James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. In a letter to Jefferson, the principle author of the Constitution passionately implored that an impenetrable wall be erected between church and state, between sacred and secular. Jefferson, fearful lest the priesthood gain an undue influence over government and civic life, entirely agreed. The distinction that the reverend Jeffers and devout Christians in general is missing is between an alleged attack on their faith, and the actual voluntary secularization of American culture. there is still a church on every street corner in America, unmolested by any government encroachment. Its just that fewer people attend them. In fact, Madison's message about a big terrific wall (Trump wall?) goes largely unheeded; christian symbols, messages, and ceremonies occurred on public property everywhere in the U.S., illegally, without consequence. What the reverend actually objects to, without evidently knowing it, is not some imaginary war on his faith, but rather, the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult, after decades of struggle of freedom from religion, for him and his ilk to shove their personal beliefs down our collective civic minded throats.

Waving Blue

ANDREW GILLUM, the African-American mayor of Tallahassee, Florida, is going to run for governor as a Democrat. If he wins. he will be the first Democratic governor of Florida in a very long time, and the first black governor ever in America. During the primaries, running against more moderate candidates, he was never ahead in the polls, and the fact that he is a Bernie Sanders progressive who pulled off a major upset is not only surprising, but possibly a portent of the forthcoming midterms. If Beto wins in Texas, Cortez in Brooklyn, and Gillum Florida, not to mention a few other left wing progressive candidates,, we'll have ourselves a real blue wave, bigly. it still seems unlikely that these people win win, but all across the fruited plain women and minorities are registering to vote in record numbers, and women, most of whom are Democrats, are running for office in record numbers. A progressive, as a point of fact, is what used to be called a "liberal", but no longer is, because the conservative community ruined the word by slandering it to death, much like they did the word "homosexual", and "black". A blue wave, a massive election of progressives, would raise the minimum wage, revive social spending for the poor, reinstitute progressive taxation by raising taxes on the corporate wealthy, reduce military spending encourage decent treatment for gays, transgenders, and minorities, and maybe, just maybe, rid the country of Trump. if nothing else, we could possibly, at long last, put an end forever to these infamous "bathroom bills", according to which transgender people must use public restrooms of the gender indicated on their birth certificate, which is pernicious right wing nonsense. What better way for sanctimonious, pernicious conservative Christians to punish sin, that to torture those who practice it, eh? had he not been chosen to run with Trump, Mike pence was fixin' to get run out of the great state of Indiana because of a bathroom bill. he promulgated one, as governor, the Indianans rose up in righteous rebellion, as just a a progressive posse honed in on his progressively Pence-ive self to force upon him penance, Trump saved his sanctimonious ass, so to speak. Progressively speaking, former hedge fun manager and current billionaire Tom Steyer has a petition on going, bless his lucrative heart, calling for the impeachment of President prevaricator. In the event of Trump's demise, guess what right wing extremist, bathroom billing Christian conservative assume the presidency? The lesson here is; be careful what you petition for.

Getting things done, the Chinese Way

THE CHINESE KNOW how to get things done. They don't play games. When they decided they needed defending against the Mongol hordes from the north, they built a wall that to this day stands, and can be seen from outer space. it worked, because it was well guarded. Eat your heart out, Donald Trump. When they decided that their population was increasing too rapidly, they limited families to one child per, and drowned an untold number of baby girls, like unwanted kittens. When MacArthur and the American invaders pushed a bit too far north into North Korea, they sent in their own massive army, drove the Yankee imperialist back, and turned the Korean War into a stalemate. They are willing to manipulate their own currency independently of the market, artificially totally abandoning market and international principles, inflating and deflating its value in accordance to their daily requirements, twisting it into bizarre shapes and values. They thus sacrifice economic stability to advance their ever changing agendas. And when they want technological knowledge or intellectual property from foreigners, and the price is too high, they simply steal it.T the Chinese, the end always justifies the means. and now, the coup de grace. For thousands of years Chinese culture has produced a rich variety of splendid art work, from magnificent ceramics pieces and sculpture, to bejeweled furniture, swords and armor inlaid with gold and silver, and an assortment of other forms of beauty. over the centuries, much of it has scattered all over the world, as wealthy individual collectors, institutions, and conquerors, through purchase, plunder, pilfer, or theft, took it far away. Now, they want it back. The cost of reaquiring it above board is prohibitive, even though there are now more billionaires in China than in America, and china is rapidly becoming the world's wealthiest nation. They especially want to snag back the art from their "century of humiliation", the period from the eighteen forties to nineteen forty five during which invaders, including the British Empire, the United States, and japan dominated, raped, exploited, and stole from the sacred kingdom. The century of humiliation ended only with the communist revolution of 1949, the beginning of the rule of Mao. they want their art back, and they are getting it back, one piece at a time. Perhaps you can imagine how. they are doing it like Jesse James. from galleries and museums all over the world, Chinese art is "mysteriously" vanishing Doors are jimmied, locks are picked. Shadowy figures dressed in black with Grouch Marc masks are moving stealthily in the night. Nearby buildings and cars are burning and exploding as a diversionary tactic. Nobody has been caught yet. They'rs good at it. A real life Agatha Christie James Bond scenario. And, truth be told, you sort of have to admire them and root them on, for their creativity, and for their pursuit of the sacred principle of justice, long delayed.